The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 853: Turkeys Break the Internet, Tungsten Ammo Gets Expensive, and Black Bear Politics Flare

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater crew discuss: Clay’s “12 in ‘26” Utah mountain lion hunt; the Bear Grease YouTube channel; our Spring Turkey Giveaway; how to pronounce “Neanderthal”; correcting Steve on the Open Fields Doctrine; how a U. of Michigan Wolverines player may actually fish more than he plays basketball; Tony experiences WI’s turkey tag system meltdown; the price of tungsten and TSS skyrocket; what’s behind proposed changes to black bear seasons in OK, WA, and AZ?; AK bottom trawling; professional golfer Rory McElroy is fueled by elk; and more.  Outro credit: "The Screaming Song" written by George Alan Sparhawk 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, it's Clay Newcomb here from Bear Greece, and I want to tell you about my new 12-26 film presented by Maltry and Onyx. These are 12 of meat eaters' biggest and baddest hunts from the last year that are going to be released through 2026. These are long-form episodes, or what I call films,

so you're going to get more of what you love. My film will take us into the deep and cold, rugged, country of southwest Utah on a lion hunt with hounds, where we traveled over 80 miles and five days on mules. But the best part, I'm hunting with the legendary lion hunting family, the meekums, but also one of the country's top mulemen, Ty Evans. This is about mules and lions. This is the kind of place where winter hangs on tight and every track in the snow tells a story. If you've ever wondered what it's like to pursue a mountain line in big country on muleback, then this is the episode for you. Check it out now on the Meteeter YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more

12 and 26 in the coming months. Ahoy! And welcome to the news show. This week we're covering skyrocketing costs on souped-up tungsten turkey ammo. We're covering turkey hunters in Wisconsin crashed the internet or at least a tiny part of it. We're covering. A famous golfer chooses fake elk meat for the Masters, and Spencer thinks that's cool. We're covering Black Bear News from Oklahoma, Arizona, and Washington. We're going to talk about as bottom trawling destroying Alaska's fisheries.

We're going to maybe get to how Montana politics is getting juicy. as a smoke jumper and a gun control influencer wage primary bids for a U.S. congressional seat and more. Jam packed. There can't be more. It's so much. We might cut some of it.

For starters, getting fired up for spring turkey season. You're going to want to hear this. Right now, we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway. It's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including a turkey. a turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole other pile of gear from other partner brands.

One lucky winner is going to receive a Spring 27 Rio Grande turkey hunt in the Texas Hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members. So a three-pack of you all goes hunting brought to you by Bird Dog. The more you spend during the give-up, away at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF, gear in the meat eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. I hope I win. I think you're ineligible.

People will be like thinking it's rigged. Getting entered is easy. Say it, okay? Head over to Firstlight contest page at firstlight.com. So go to firstlight.com, find the contest page. Fill out the entry form. Then you're in. For every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries.

One winner will be selected to win the whole. whole kit and caboodle, the whole entire prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, April 13, Year of Our Lord, 2026, 1159 p.m. Mountain time. They even included daylight. Daylight save us. So if you, midnight.

Get them in by midnight, April 13th. 10 entries for an additional 25. Is that good? That's pretty good. Feels good to me. I wonder how the odds compare to that. Oh, did you check your Alaska Goat tag? Did you win?

No. No, I don't know about that. I didn't draw it in a normal draw, but I don't know about the raffle draw yet. I didn't draw the normal draw. Yeah, because that closed. Are we giving away boots right now? Yes, we still are. All right, we're giving away.

You need to introduce everyone? Oh, I'm sorry, my bad. I just keep it my note. No, no, terrible oversight on my part. Join today by Tony Peterson, Big Buck Killer. Randall Williams, Big Ape guy. Bear Newcomb's here. You bet.

Spencer Newhart. And, of course, Brody Henderson. We're going to start out with your news and jumping down on corrections, Phil. Corrections. Corrections. Okay, first one comes. And here's the thing. The first one comes from Haffle Finger,

And Hefflefinger doesn't know this yet. Jim Hefflefinger doesn't know this yet. But we have disqualified him from winning the boots. Is this the same guy as last week? No, it's just he's a friend of the show. And he's always right. Yeah, Yonnelly once brought up, he's like said to Hefflefinger says, has Steve ever talked about hiring you?

And he said, why buy the cow? You get the milk for free. Hefflefinger rolled in with a correction. But we're eliminating him. him from the running because he's a known person who's been on the show, so it wouldn't be fair if he won the Toccova's boots. But here's Heffelfinger's correction.

On a previous episode, Neanderthal, love, we were talking about whether or not, if you want to sound Johnny big time, you go Neanderthal. If you want to sound like some Dollerd, you say Neanderthal. I was saying that. Something to that effect. Hefflefinger wrote him,

The TH, TH, and Neanderthal, was part of the original spelling and used in the scientific name in the 1800s, H. Homo Neanderthalensis. Science values stability over willy-nilly updates. Later, the German language was modernized and reformed, and they dropped the H. But it was already in such popular use. in English that it remains more correct to use the in English and in scientific writings. It is more correct to drop the H in German language and when talking about the location of the first Neanderthal fossils found in a valley named after something or another, Neanderthal.

So that means the tall, tall means valley and German. So the Neander Valley. I'm confused by this a little bit. So am I because I don't know whether he's saying he's talking about spelling or pronunciation here. He's saying that the crowds I get that part changed it but for themselves but it was already in such usage here that Americans didn't need to change it. I know but I think it was always an American mispronunciation because in German T-H-A-L is tall. So you're throwing the correction back at. I'm just throwing another wrinkle into the story here. I've thought about it long and hard.

I'm going back to Neanderthal, which is where I came from. Tall sounds pretentious. That's why I did it. I did it to sound pretentious. You wouldn't say you're an enthusiast of Neanderthals. A Neanderthal entoozists. I like that. I like that. Yeah, Neanderthal enthusiast.

I'd be like, he has a speech about it. Yeah. That's just from like the UP. Yeah. Okay, here's another one. I think this one's, is this eligible or ineligible? No, this is eligible. The rest of them are eligible.

Okay. So now we're in the contest. Bear, if you're not familiar, we're going to read corrections. You vote on what's the best correction. Okay. And then you get a pair of these. And the winner of the best correction gets a pair of,

he picks out whatever he wants. She, we haven't had a woman win yet. Hold the boots up. This is just an example of what you could select. One of many. Brand spikety new Tocobovas boots Spencer put your nose to that boot

And take deep whiff No one's had these on yet What do you smell? No no not that part Oh The inside Tell me what you smell when you smell at Quality leather

Yeah Smells like leather Through and through Here's a correction For Janus During episode 847 Neanderthal love Well the

Okay The episode was titled Neanderthal Love Mieldier Eradication And Mink Eyelaceus Anyways Yanni was doing a report about the Catalina Island mule deer debate and how they may be moving forward with a plan to eradicate

or attempt to eradicate mule deer off of Catalina Island where they are not native but where they're in looking sight of where they are native. Brody asked Janus, this is the corrector writing him. Brody asked Janus what the Catalina Island Conservancy plans to do with the deer after they kill him. Janus replied, there's no plan for it. Well, here's the correction.

The Catalina Island Conservancy has on their website that they will, quote, provide the meat to the California Condor recovery program, where they will lay the carcasses

in remote hills to allow them to decompose naturally and get eaten by condors. That sounds a lot like. doing nothing with them. That's like if you got busted, let's say you got busted by fishing game for like

wine waste. Like you killed a deer and you left it and they're like, hey, you know, you're in trouble, you can't do that. You'd be like, oh no, you don't understand. You don't understand. I'm feeding nature. I'm feeding magpies. Yep. This is magpie conservation. I placed in a strategic spot where magpies

will find them. So that's what they say. And it is like such a little it's like it's cynical. You know, like, No, no, no, we're not wasting them. California condors will consume them. Sure, they're going to have a mighty square meal when for a brief period of time, they're not planning on laying it out over time. For a brief period of time, they will have hundreds of meal to your carcasses to choose from.

Okay, a lot of corrections about the open field doctrine. That was a great correction, by the way. A lot of corrections about the open field doctrine. Some of them came in like very adversarial to me, about how dumb I am and everything. Okay. We heard from many folks across the country. This was a hot.

This generated a lot. We had lawyers right in. We had law enforcement guys right in. We had a fellow Montana over at the Sheriff's Department and Stillwater County wrote in. So to all you folks, thanks for writing in about the open field doctrine. We selected one because it kind of laid things out the most cleanly, the cleanest. So apologies to those of you who wrote in, but you're not in the running for the brand spikitty new boots. The correction goes like this.

Good morning. Hoy to you. I just listened to episode 848. Now here's where he lays out as credentials, which is a tip to people doing corrections. Get the credentials. I am a retired FBI agent and currently teach constitutional. criminal procedure at the FBI Academy. So there he's like laying it out, dude.

Don't mess with me. Who's going to argue with him? Then he goes on to say, I have to take exception with whoever explained the open fields doctrine to Steve. I like this approach. He's tactful. It's not a compliment sandwich. It's like something else.

He's like, oh no, is that your fault? You were misled. He might teach interrogation techniques as well. This is a great like yeah it's like yeah I don't hey I'm not attacking you bro I'm attacking whoever told you the dumb thing you think

it's also an out you could listen that's just what someone told me it was explained to me by an idiot and here I am an innocent victim of like this idiot idiocy so he's taking exception as he

should to who told me about it which sort of assumes that they told me wrong. Maybe that I didn't twist it up my head. But he says this. Okay, here's it. Here it is. I'm laying it out for you.

In the 1987 Supreme Court decision, United States versus done. The court defined open fields as different from the curtilage. I've never heard that word. As different from the curtilage of one's home. Yeah, now I've got to back up. He didn't do a great job explaining this. What we were talking about was this. An area of land around a house.

What we were talking about is we were speaking about this thing where if a game ward, let's say you're on your private property and a game warrant has reason to believe there's poaching taking place on that property. Like he's hearing a bunch of gunshots in a duck marsh, private property. It's 30 minutes before shooting lightning, you're used to hearing, boom, bo bo bo bo bo bo, bo, bo, bo, bo. He can go in there without a search warrant and find out what's going on. It's like the open fields doctrine. I was saying that it was a tool of game wardens.

All the correctors are like, this is not, this is not particular to game ward. It might be utilized by game wardens, but not particularly. They have powers that law enforcement, other law enforcement. Yeah, I was at that they had powers that other people didn't have. And it goes back to this whole thing where they were like working moonshiners. They were working moonshiners and seized some moonshine from a moonshiner. And that's what led to this thing, that the moonshiner was out. the open fields and not in his home when he got searched.

Something to that effect. Right in a correction about that. This guy says, in the 1987 Supreme Court decision, United States versus Dunn, the court defined open fields as different from the curtilage, Brody. An area around one's house. Of one's home, which involves the activities associated with the living space. Law enforcement officers, not just game wardens, can enter people. private property on open fields without a warrant.

Traditionally, game wardens have had even greater scope to enter outbuildings and even dwellings in search of evidence of game violations. Many states have curtailed those powers. But generally, the open field doctrine is explained and done, the open field doctrine as explained and done applies to all law enforcement officers. In that case, a DEA agent, along with a Houston Harris County deputy, enter the defendant's property to look through a woman, to look through the windows of a barn about 100 yards behind the main dwelling. The court ruled this entry onto the property was not a Fourth Amendment violation because open fields are not protected

as part of the person's houses, papers, and effects which are covered by the Fourth Amendment. He goes on. Obviously, with all constitutional law, there are nuances. And all states can grant greater protections than the U.S. Constitution, but not lesser protections. Not trying to be nitpicky, but I've taught this area of the law for the last 16 years and have 29, see he's going back around to double up on his credentials. You missed the highlight of this email. Please go ahead. He did this with text to type,

and you missed the typo that in discussing the open fields doctrine. The lawn enforcement officers. I skipped that out of respect for him. Yeah, that should be what they call the HOA. It's a great. It's a great. I don't know if that's a pun. I skipped it out of respect for Todd. Oh.

I loved that. I scared that out of respect. I still respect Todd, but I thought that was too good to gloss over. Okay, so to review, we've only had two. We need three. Hell, we didn't. Heffle fingers. Heffle fingers not in the run.

You guys cut too many. We don't have internet, so I can't stick something else back in. We can just do one of the next ones. Well, I'm doing the Gomer. Number three. Oh, okay. Perfect. So this person, you track him, Bear?

I'm tracking. This person who wrote. goed in, didn't even write it really in as a correction, but more like as a clarification. So now you're in the running. Yeah, but corrections, clarifications are in my book pointing out something that was omitted. It's like error by omission counts. Clarifications count. Great for him.

See, this is both a clarification and a correction. Yeah, got it. Well, good for this guy. He might get a pair of words. We're talking about Gomer-Bull and Semination. And this goes back to a conversation I have. my dear friend Kevin Murphy, who is describing to me his ranch work as a child and how they had a bull whose penis was reoriented to come out the wrong direction. When cows were coming into heat, they would take this bull and put a big ink blotter on his neck.

He would go out and try to mount ripe cows and then ink blot them. Then rancher comes out, notices an ink blot on a cow, runs out, artificially inseminates it. So it was a way of identifying a cow coming into heat. Dragon? Uh-huh. Okay. Then we talked about that a bunch. And we've had other corrections about it.

This guy wants to clarify, and they dubbed these things, Gomer Boles. This one guy calls him a Gomer Boles. Stephen Crew, I teach a cattle artificial insemination course with the University of Idaho. Again, comes in, hard, lays out his credentials. You had a cowboy writing about Gomer Boles, which were a common way to check for standing heat and cattle. However,

Gomer bulls are not extremely common in today's world. The cowboy talked about a lottery ticket style scratcher, which is common use. However, it does not have to be a bull riding those females. They ride each other. You got young children nearby. Cover their ears. That's a natural world.

No, I'm joking. In a pen or pasture, they ride each other. Other females will scratch. So, okay, they put a patch on the cows. Other females are trying to ride each other. The females will scratch off the patch and show the artificial insemination technician that the cow is in heat and ready to be inseminated. See, this is a little surprise me. I've seen, I didn't know, like, I've seen plenty of that go on in my day, but I didn't know that they were queuing in

the cow being in heat. I just thought it was just general, whatever. Another common practice is to use hormones that stop or start an ovulation cycle to time them so a majority of animals understanding heat at the same time. I'm familiar with that. I think they call them heat sinking.

You're familiar with heat sinking missiles. This is heat sinking. Artificial insemination is a great tool for genetic improvement in cattle and other species, as well as removing some dangers and additional expenses, expense of having bulls on a farmer ranch. Oh, tough competition. Let me review in my head.

So to remind everybody voting, Openfield's Doctrine, Catalina, and Gomer Bulls. Catalina, how many votes for you? How many voters you got today? One, two, three, four, eight. Eight votes. Catalina. right me open fields

well that's like unanimous tremendous tremendous respect for law enforcement every hand went up sorry gober yeah you go well you know why because that's got teeth dude yeah right a lot of people and god bless them people writing in with the math questions

that's all great keep them coming but that's got real teeth right there and i i not to take anything away from gober bowl and It's fascinating. Yeah, it's very interesting. But yeah, thanks Todd. We'll get in touch. And you can choose your own pair of Toccova's boots.

Yep. A lawman with some new boots. Yeah. I like that. Hopefully he's going to shotgun those new boots and get his holsters out and go down to Main Street. Can I add one more thing to Hepplefingers email? Please. 2016 Discovery article covered it if it should be Neanderthal or Neanderthal.

Oh. They determined both are fine. But they likened it to if you say Neanderthal, that's like calling Paris, Paris, Paris instead. Oh, no. That's what you sound like that. Oh, so you're walking around with that label. Ugh. That settles it.

That settles it. That settles it. Terrible. Or just commit and start calling it Peri. Oh, yeah. You've got to get the throw the, hugh in there. No, I'm going back to Neanderthal bad, dude. I'm just ashamed, man.

You're not a Paris kind of gentleman. We had a previous episode where we were goofing on a guy. So a guy wrote in talking about his daughter's boyfriend. And he's saying that normally he's kind of a numbschool, but he had a good idea about using e-bird, like a birding app where people share their bird sightings, using e-bird to scout ducks. And he says, like, normally this kid's a numbschool,

but that's a good idea. Well, the kid heard that, and he wrote in. He's like, I think that's me. Oh, no. I was just telling my girlfriend's dad about this. Yeah. And he knows that the girlfriend's dad listens to the show. Right.

There's going to be a conversation that happens between those two. Now, he points out, he goes, he was under the assumption that the discussions he was having with his future father-in-law would be kept under wraps. but now that the secret is out and his father-in-law, future father-in-law, whatever, didn't respect the privacy of the conversation anyways,

he wants to clarify something. I was pointing out that I don't think that that scouting tool is going to be as quick as ducks. You know, like, like geese hit a field. There's no, I mean,

if geese are in a field in the evening, you know, there's, that's where you want to be in the morning, but there's no, like, guarantee, you know,

I mean, it's like, So I'm like, by the time you like build up a bunch of hosers driving by, being like, oh, I saw a goose. You know, that you're not going to hunt off that. Old info. Yeah. But a gobbler strutton in a field, dude? Yeah.

Well, that's legit. A gobbler strutton field is like he's somewhere around there, man. Especially like old church, old cemetery nearby. He's there. So I was like it doesn't really work. And he writes in, this is a damn correction. He goes, um, he brings. up how I question the up-to-dateness of the material.

And he says, I'm not sure if Steve is aware of a handy e-bird of a handy e-bird tool called alerts. You can request on e-birds' website to be notified as often as hourly of sightings of birds. So good. These alerts can be personalized. There are ways to set the alerts up to notify you of species. of particular interest. I'm often doing homework, he says. You can't be that bad of a kid.

Driving around, I don't know what that means. I know what it meant for me back in the day. And he'll get alerts. He'll get notifications alerting him to where he should go find a species or a bunch of species that I'm looking for. Okay. Alerts. I could see setting, like,

sending it to like strutton gobbers jumping in the truck hourly alerts big ass strutting gobbler within a quarter mile of public lane if there's a drop-down menu it can be like like wandering hands you'd be like no I don't really care about that this could set up big strutters you'd be like that's what I want to know about

this can set up some awkward moments because like when a hunter and a birder arrive at the same spot the same time based off and a later you're like you know But couldn't you also see hunters being like, I'm going to report strutting goblers, 20 minutes away from where I hunt, and they are thick. Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

I wouldn't have thought you'd outsmarted to me because you'd have been like, if you knew I was doing it, you'd have been like just show you'd have strutters everywhere, but where there was a strutter. Right. Yeah. Right. Then each user would have to have their own sort of review rubric that, so people could rate their sightings.

Verified strutters. Yeah. You'd have to pose as like an old. Lady Birder. Right. See, here's another piece of feedback that, like, is, this guy's getting kind of screwed up a set of boots. But when we were talking about Neanderthals, I was talking about a book I was reading. And in the book I was reading, I was talking about how this anthropologist was looking at the suite of injuries they find on Neanderthal skeletons.

And how at some point in time, a physician who worked on bull riders often in his community, said, Man, it seems like the sweets of injuries we see on Neanderthal skeletons reminds me of the kind of injuries I see on bull riders. And it led to this idea that they had this like confrontational hunting strategy and they were getting wounded by their prey like how bull riders get wounded by bulls. He says that that idea was an idea. But as people have done more and more research on it and looked into it, they're finding that it's really, it's really not and it has fallen out of favor. The rodeo rider interpretation, he says, is largely fallen out of favor.

More research has shown that the trauma patterns used to support the hypothesis are not unique to dangerous hunting scenarios. It can also be explained by other factors, including interpersonal violence. As a result, many researchers, including one of the original proponents, now consider the confrontational hunting explanation to be under supported. Our colleague Alex Tilney wrote me or told me over the phone. He was reading that same paper because he got interested in it. And he said, you could also argue that they have a suite of injuries similar to people

who have been in golf cart accidents. Which leads one to believe they were golfing. Here's a, this one's not even kind of a correction, but we'll get it. We got to get moving on. We're going to get into this. I didn't know about this. This guy's writing him. He's talking back to our screw room episode.

So during World War I, I'm going to try to make this quick as possible. Back during World War I, America was supplying horses to the English. Okay. We were breeding horses and sent up because that was a war still fought on, you know, to some extent, fought on horseback. The crowds sent over an infectious disease spy. to plant diseases in America to give anthrax and other disease. This guy got caught and ran, got away. He died in the Spanish flu epidemic.

He came here and was swabbing American horses with anthrax trying to kill the horses before they could join the World War I war effort. Dang. Wow. And he died of the flu. It's kind of fitting. He fled. They never caught him.

fled and wound up dying from the Spanish flu. Sucker. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. If you're tired or lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this. Man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up.

Well, anyway, right now, we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Bonelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2007 Rio Grande Turkey Hunt in the Texas Hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members. Brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF gear, and the Me Eaters store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package.

Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form in your inn. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2000, 26.

So you got all day that day. But it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Over to Randall. Yeah. Now Phil's going to play a little segment here in honor of March Madness. This was an interview I wanted to do on radio live, but as we all know, it's dead now.

And it's been dead for seven. several weeks. So we just pre-recorded this interview with Will Cheddar of the University of Michigan basketball team. Play the tape, Phil. Welcome to the Meat Eater News Sports Desk. I'm your host, Randall Williams. Join today by Will Cheddar, Power Forward for the University of Michigan men's basketball team and winner of Meat Eater Trivia Episode 130. Will, congrats on a great season so far, 31 and 3 and 3 going to the tournament as a number one seed, 191 in the conference, Big 10 champs. And with two dominant wins last week, the Wolverines

are in the Sweet 16 facing off against Alabama this Friday. When was the last time you went fishing, and how was it? I was actually out last night. Went out to this little inland lake about 20 minutes from campus and got

into the first small mouth of the year. So it was pretty good to be back out on the boat, back out on the lake after such a good weekend. And is coach aware that you're fishing in between tournament games? Oh yeah, he's well aware. Good.

He knows that's my pressure release. Perfect. Yeah, so we're all good there. Will, I want to go back to late January. Your 8371 victory on the road against Michigan State, huge win against the number 11 team in the country. Your in-state rivals and a program with a lot of pedigree. Two days later, you posted a photo of you pulling a bluegill out of the ice.

What were they biting on that day? Oh, man. Oh, yeah. Okay, so that was funny thing about that. I was supposed to go salmon fishing at this harbor up on Lake Huron. And my spot had frozen over. I was so pissed. So on the way back, we hit Lake St. Clair, just went into the canals and just hammered bluegills. I think we were just tipping jigs, like little tungsten jigs with with waxies. Amazing. Yeah. Now, you got a talented squad up there, some potential NBA draft picks.

If you could only fish for one species for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? Oh, my. I'd probably have to say smallmouth bass, just, you know, with, you know, how hard they fight. They're fun to catch. Now, you guys have had some big changes during time in Ann Arbor. Coach Dusty May took over in March of 24. You've had a lot of roster turnover. Now in Coach May's second season,

you guys are on your way to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row. Do you keep your own boat on campus? Yeah, it's in my garage at our house. Nice, nice. Last question here, Will. You guys have a tough matchup on Friday against the number four seed Crimson Tide. They're a high-tempo, offensive-minded team

with some of the nation's highest three-point shooting volume and efficiency. When was the last time you ate a fish that you caught? Two weeks. I didn't catch that one. Man, I'd probably say October was the last time. Preseason. I had a fish. Yeah, that was preseason.

That was Lake St. Clair Wallaz. I think that's probably the last time. My buddy caught some wall eyes when we went on the Detroit River a few weeks ago. but I can't lie, I didn't catch them, but I ate them. Very nice. Well, Will, thanks for taking the time during a busy week. Best of you luck to you guys moving forward in the tournament. Appreciate it, man.

That was a great segment, hey guys? Would have killed on live. Shout out to Will, though. He's a, I know he's a fan of the show, and he fishes probably harder than anybody in college sports. So it's great to. Hardest fishermen in college sports. I would feel very confident in saying that.

Okay. So someone said us this, this is kind of a funny thing. I got a laugh out of this. Tony's going to explain it. I got a laugh out of this. Phil, you got your little thing that makes the bleeps? I can do it in post. Yeah.

Yeah. So, well, first off, Tony, can you explain how, can you explain what's going? We'll read the letter. Sure. Can you explain? Can you give the background on this? This is out of Wisconsin. So Wisconsin's turkey take system is, they,

They have a draw, the deadlines like December 10th every year. Get into it. And as you can imagine, people are trying to draw early season tag. So Wisconsin has six seasons, seven zones throughout the state. And the highest demand seasons are the first couple. Yeah. Because everybody wants to hunt first, right? So people apply for those.

And generally, those get soaked up in the lottery. But Wisconsin has a quota system per zone, per season, that they will sell one per day after a certain point in March. So this year was March... Even if the pool... If there are tags left. Okay. So if you apply for a season, season A,

and then it gets all filled up, they don't then sell them online. No. It's only... So these are all leftovers. So... But people count on it because Wisconsin has... I mean, depending on the zone, right?

Southern part of the state, tons of tags. move farther north, fewer tags, right? So one zone this year, Zone 6 didn't have any leftover tags. So you couldn't for any season. Nope. Is there a point system, Tony, or is it just lottery? Yeah. So there is a point system, but you can kind of count on getting tags in a lot of places.

Yeah. You know, it might not be the season you want. So what happens is every year in March, they'll have a date and they go, okay, Zone 1 licenses go on sale at 10 a.m. on March 16th. Okay. March 17th at 10 a.m., zone two, right on down the line to whatever's left. And then once they've gone through this first phase where it's just that day is dedicated to that zone. Got it. Then they're all first come, first serve, and you can buy one a day till they're gone.

So as you can imagine, there's a lot of competition for those takes. Because people are trying to buy the earliest tags they can generally, or if, you know, The kids are going to be off of school and you want to hunt with them. You're trying to get that weekend or however that falls for you. Yeah. So this is a system where you can show up 15 minutes before the 10 a.m. launch and get in line and you're waiting there in a virtual queue. And then at 10 o'clock, they assign you a spot. Okay.

And so you might be fifth in line. And it's not how, it's not tied to how long you were on the phone. Nope. Nope. So you can be there eight hours early. It doesn't matter. You can only get into the virtual queue 15 minutes early. Okay.

Right. So in, and I know you're going to go into this, but in the interest of journalistic integrity. Oh, to do whatever you want. I have to say that I was involved in this. Okay. And so was Patrick Durkin, our mutual friend. So was Bubbly Doug. Right.

So I, it worked out in the end, but I went through this, what we're going to get into. But that is, that's the gist of the system. That's how it works. I want to just a little added color here because this is help explain a thing to me is like take take Doug where Doug lives right Doug will usually say and I'm understanding it better now he usually say there will be D season there's you he'd be like there's always some D seasons right meaning whatever by that means A B C get consumed in the draw but then there's but then there's some D so you might be on the lottery you're not hoping to score a A you're in the queue waiting to get a D. Just trying to get something. Because that's what's there.

That's what's there. Right. So you got to imagine, like a lot of Midwestern states, you're talking a mid-April opener that goes through the end of May. Yep. And so if you look at where Doug lives, I would assume Doug is in zone one, which has a ton of tags. So the highest priority one will be the first season that's available after the lottery, which will often, you can count on D season, right?

No, no. And if you wanted to hunt later than that, you can count on the seasons after. that and you could end up having multiple tags if you want. So it's it's actually a really cool system because you can kind of if you if you have the opportunity, you can hunt a couple different weeks or you know, I mean, you can you can plan around that. But this style, their style of running a whole ton of turkey seasons that are all one week long or roughly one week long.

That's an odd system. It is. It is. Yeah. So you like, instead of being like, oh, it's turkey season, I'm going to hunt for six weeks. It's like no, you're going to hunt a week. It's like Colorado big game season. Yeah, Colorado's big game season. Like you're like the first season, second season, third season, fourth season. Right. And it's, so I'm, I'm less sensitive to it because Minnesota has gone through. We've, we've way liberalized at home. But when I started turkey hunting, you had a draw season and you had five days and it was half days. So you can hunt until noon.

Yep. And then they started expanding it. And eventually. we could hunt till 3.30 and then we could hunt until sunset and eventually they sold a season long archery license. So you could get the six weeks. So this is, you know, I don't know where this originated from, but I would assume that this system is old and it comes from when they didn't have very many turkeys. Yeah. Because that's where ours, you know, came from. So. Might be an aspect of spreading pressure out too there. It definitely is that. Sure, man. It definitely is. Because if not everybody is all going to hunt the opener. Right. Or the bulk of people are going to hunt the opener.

Right. And if you're a non-resident, you're just about never going to hunt those early seasons. So was this deal here that happened? Was it really that different than normal? Well, do you want to get into that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I want to get it. Should I read the thing?

Yeah, you should. So someone read like a frustrated user. Your system sucks. Waded in line. Was 3,800 in line? I live in zone two and you gave me a permit for zone seven. Then I waited for the bonus, waited all the way to my number and your thing bailed out on me. You inbred piece is a, I'm not even going to say it.

Mother f***. There were no periods or commas in that comment. Not Donald. Well, Donald, not happy. Right. Not Donald Trump No Same number

Got a different Can we pull up the DNR's response? I noticed the DNR replied to that Oh they replied to it? No I can't I can't bring it up on screens Oh that's right

Sorry I didn't mean to Thanks Randall I'm scrolling through the comments now I can't find Don's post So Don's miffed Fired up Ain't winning Don back I can tell you that I was too

Oh you were okay So I got into that virtual queue And I have added pressure because I need to get myself a tag and then I need to try to get in and get my daughter's tags. So I have to log in, get in line, log in. And so I'm stressing. I get in the line or they assign me my spot. I have four people ahead of me, which made me feel like when you get a really early boat drawn in a tournament and you're like, nobody's going to be on my starting spot. This is smooth sailing.

So I get in, go to buy my tag, simple. And then it won't process my payment. And you know you're on the ticking clock because they're funneling through a bunch of people. And this is before they had issued a, hey, we were having technical difficulties to stick around, you know, the spinning wheel, death or whatever. And so I'm like, okay, they're going to boot me out. I tried to buy it 5,000 times, but I'm like, I don't want to refresh or go back because I'll lose my spot. Yeah, yeah.

And I had, you know, one of the four people ahead of me, you know. And you know thousands of people are in line. You feel the weight of all those people? I felt a lot of weight there. And so then the system kicks me out. And so I have a little dad anger, temper tantrum that you get sometimes when you got to build an exercise bike or something, you know, fix the garage door. So then I have to get back in. You know, they issue the statement that it's not working.

They're running through a technical payment processing glitch. I get, I'm waiting to get back in. waiting for them to start letting us queue up. And I checked my email just randomly. And it had a receipt from the Wisconsin DNR. Oh. And so I'm like, okay, did I get my license? And then I looked at my, like, see if there's anything pending on my credit card.

And there was. So I'm like, my payment somehow must have gotten through, even though I didn't know it and it didn't show me. I didn't have the receipt on the actual go wild site. but I got to wait in line anyway because I got to get my daughters in there they finally open it up I get back in there are I can't remember what place I was interesting that you put yourself in front of your daughters I noticed that too well here here's why I hunt with a buddy of mine down there and I knew that I would be

able to probably get one of my daughter's tags if not both of them but I'm like I got to take one of them for sure. So we're going to hunt together kind of thing and we're going to hunt with him. So I'm like, I knew we would get the tags probably. Did that make any sense to you? I wasn't anticipating this. Okay. Like, I'm like, I'm going to get in.

But yeah, generally like, yeah. Right. Tony first. Right. So I get kicked back in. I got like 11,000 people in front of me. And I'm like, this has been like an hour and a half deal. it goes by fairly quick,

finally get in there, buy one of my daughters a tag, and I'm like, I wonder if this will let me just use this window. And I got back in, got the other one tags, so I'm a fairly good father, I guess.

Not as good as I thought I was when I started this story. Anyway, people start losing their shit. Like you start seeing this out there, right? And so, Corinne asked me to look into this for this, because we knew this Donald fella was pretty ticked off.

And I know, even though I'm a Minnesota resident, I hunt Wisconsin all the time, I own land over there. I know the general vibe toward the DNR. Like there's, Wisconsin hunters are not shy about speaking out against the DNR. So I dig into this and I find an article by Pat in where he has, he had the same experience. And wrote about it. He did write about it.

And in Pat's article, he referred to this, this problem with their system as a thundering herd problem in the IT world, which I love as a name, right? Everybody runs to the same spot. You know, system crashes. And so in his reporting, Pat said that this thundering herd problem, which shuts down the system for a while, has happened in Wisconsin three times in 18 years. And when I read that, I was like, man, I kind of remember going through. through this at some other point. Uh, so it's, it has definitely happened before. Um, but this Donald fellow blaming the Wisconsin DNR and people getting super pissed,

you know, we know, because of what we do with this, with this company, sometimes you contract out services. Yeah. Right. So the Wisconsin DNR doesn't really run that service. You know, it is, it is contract. It's not like a game warden sitting there, right? Right.

Building, right. Right. Yeah. Sweat pouring down. Right. What it reminded me of, you know, back in the day of being, being primarily an outdoor writer, which was my gig for a long time. And a lot of people in here have done that.

You know how it is where you send something in and maybe it's supposed to be 2,000 words and you send it in at 2,200 or, you know, they sell an ad and they got to cut it down by 300 words. And that's where a lot of typos in the magazines came from was, you know, that last minute edit where you're like, we got to get this down to 1,500 words to fit. and you'd see some continuity issue in there somewhere, and then people would call you out as the writer and be like, you suck, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, I didn't have it.

You don't even know grammar. Right, right. So I feel like the Wisconsin DNR has been blamed in a way that maybe they shouldn't be. And so I dug into that a little more because I understand why people were so pissed off, because I was having gone through it. But we have had all kinds of thundering herd problems in the outdoors. So I don't know if anybody had to buy or tried to buy a Idaho tag. That's famous for it.

That was, I think 22, Idaho had a day long system crash. Pennsylvania had this happen with antlerless tags in 2023. And so it's not, this is just a thing that happens with technology. And then I, so then I was like, well, where else does this happen? Ariana Grande in 2025, it's six million people try to buy a presale. ticket event crashed the whole thing. Oasis reunion tour. Same deal.

Really? The reunion tour. Right. Right. ACDC in 2024 at 35,000 people rushed the digital door. Thunderstruck. Those aren't the kind of fans you want to get mad. Right. Recent Super Bowl's, NBA

finals, video game releases, Comic Con events, Harvard University commencement access. What? Had it, apparently. They can keep that. House of the Mouse. While Disney World has had this happen, too.

So, this is a, thank you. This is a problem that just happens. Now, the one thing that I didn't encounter in any of the 22 minutes I did researching this was this. You did a phenomenal job.

Was the situation where, where Donald said, where Donald said that he had, had tried to get a I think he said zone two tag and ended up with zone seven or something no I didn't see that anywhere and I even went to like I almost wonder if Donald didn't maybe make a mistake well so you would think that but in the system you really shouldn't be able to because when you when you get in on the specific day there's a drop down you know it's like zone one tag and then a drop down for the season yeah and it doesn't let you go so it wasn't

his fault but and so I went to like this the state page the Wisconsin state page on both site. You know, I went to some forums to just see if there were other people bishing about that kind of thing. And I didn't find it anywhere else. So that one is like a little bit of a mystery on what happened there. I found the Wisconsin DNR's response on Facebook to Donald. And then Donald replied to them again. Did they make amends? Well, Randall and I will do some role playing for you here. I will be the Wisconsin DNR. Randall is going to be Donald. So Wisconsin DNR says, hi Donald. We are aware of the issue and our with our technology provider to resolve it.

Fuck you. No. Yes. Just simple, fuck you. That dude needs to just have his license yanked, man. Really? Oh yeah, he's got his full name on Facebook. That's what he said?

Yeah, no, I'm looking at it right here. Maybe a... God loves the hug turkeys. Yeah, really quick this episode airs tomorrow so they don't have a lot of time to go through and bleep stuff out. So we can just try to keep this to a minimum. He might be a guy who is going to go get a turkey with a lot of... with a license or not. Sorry, Phil.

With the full context, I regret doing what I just did. Thank you, Tony. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. If you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week.

Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms and the IHeart Radio app. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this. Man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, Right now, we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway, and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes,

including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring, 2,27 Rio Grande Turkey Hunt in the Texas Hill Country for you and two of your buddies or family members. brought to you by Bird Dog.

And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF gear in the Me Eaters store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form in your inn. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the first.

whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2002, 6. So you got all day that day. But it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Over to Brody.

Tungsten, like, speaking of turkeys. Yeah, speaking of Turkey. Did you interview Max Barna's party report? I did. I'll get to that. This is a big deal. So if you're not aware of your turkey hunter and you're not aware, that TSS ammo is extremely expensive if you can even get your hands on it these days.

And some people might not be aware of why that is. And there's a global tungsten shortage, mostly driven by China's dominance in kind of like owning the tungsten mining field. But there's also like export restrictions, tariffs and rising military, like global. geopolitical conflicts, wars, if you will. So in the last year or so, the price of like raw tungsten is up 500%. Darned in one year. Yeah.

That's a really good return on the best one. It's likely a multi-year supply deficit. Supplies are nearly exhausted, I said. And like production can't like recover or ramp up. There's just no way. and competition for the resources increasing. And then this stuff has a self-perpetuating quality because the minute I learned about this, what did I do?

Same thing I did. Same thing I did. It was like the 22 ammo crisis. Yep. All my life I'd always bought like a little box of 22 shells. The minute there was an ammo crisis, I'm like, I need three bricks. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I went out of the garage. How many of these things do I got? How many of these things do I need to buy? The reason Tungsten is like highly coveted materials, it's very dense, very hard, very heat resistant. And it's like beyond Turkey ammo, it's used in defense and military systems, aerospace, electronics, industrial applications. And so the main drivers of the supply problem is China, who kind of controls 80% of the global supply. and terrorists on Chinese tungsten are up 2 to 300% in the last year or so. And so exports have dropped to nearly zero in the last year.

And on top of the China thing, we got wars going on in Ukraine, now a new one in Iran. And tungsten's used in Iran. Iran. Iran. Iran. Iran. Tungson's used in armor piercing rounds, missiles, and other. Hmm. High performance munitions. We're just going to have to go back to shooting turkeys the old way up close. Depleted uranium.

We'll get to that, man. And this is something I didn't consider is tungsten that's used in warfare is permanently removed from the global supply, right? So it can't be like, once you shoot it is gone. Yeah. And supply chains are shifting towards military allocation first, like industry, turkey hunting. And that's all, like, way down the line. Hold on, turkey hunting's way down the line. Sadly.

Sadly. But the Department of Treasury is like, well, let's get the turkey hunters taking care of. And then we'll move on to munitions. And it's kind of, Tungsten's been defined as a critically strategic mineral. Really? Yep. So now we get to the TSS stuff. So most everyone probably knows what it is.

But if you're not familiar, Tungsten super shot, which is mostly used by turkey hunters and, like, really rich waterfowlers will use it too you ever use that stuff tungson i use bismuth for turp for waterfowl um but that's rich guy anyway though yeah yeah that's your rich so tsss is 95% tungson tungson's twice as dense as lead about little little less um but what that means is a tiny number nine tsss pellet weighs the same as a number five lead pellet so in a shell a shotgun shell you get way more pellets per shell carrying way more energy over longer distances. And it's like, like, it's made a huge difference in turkey hunting.

Like, I personally can say it's like, the biggest change in turkey hunting that I've seen in my life has been TSS ammo, as far as, like, killing turkeys. Yeah, you're killing turkeys with pellets the size of coarse ground black pepper. Yeah, dude. And even at 60 yards, like, if you're steady and you're drawing a bead on a gobbler, like, he's already, you know he's already dead. Like, he ain't walking away.

What would the, how does it change the effective range compared to? I mean, you might get lucky shooting lead number fives and kill one at 60 yards because you get one pellet in his head. But you have a dense pattern. Yeah. Right. Well, and you have twice as many pellets. Like, I'm not uncomfortable shooting at a gobbler at 60 yards. Right.

But listen, dude, if I, like, I'll go back to the old, I don't care. We're going to get to that, man. So last year, 40 to 60 bucks for a box of 12 or 20 gauge TSS. This year you're looking at 80 to 100, in some cases up to 200. I got it before that happened. Yeah. So now manufacturers are questioning, like, is the average hunter going to pay 20 to 30 bucks a shell? And the thing is, it's like prices are going to stay high or they're going to keep going up.

Inventory is shrinking. and it's just, the price is just going to keep climbing. So like the days of like semi affordable TSS loads that like might be a thing of the past. Like this is not a blip. You're not feeling like this is a blip. No, because it's like the supply is years behind. Like one, I saw a quote from one custom turkey manufacturer, turkey ammo manufacturer, Salt Creek custom ammo. I bought from them before.

Says TSS is dead. Really? Yeah. And so if this happens, man, it's like not only the ammo thing, but like I hunt turkeys with a 20 gauge. My kids have killed them with a 410. Guys are hunting them with 28 gauges now. So like these small boar shotguns. Yeah, the 410 as a turkey gun became a turkey gun because of TSS.

And it could just be like useless now. Yeah, my kids killed their first turkey shooting four tens. Yep. With TSS. But even 12 gauge hunts. hunters, like you said, are probably going to have to switch back to some kind of lead shot and just get better at bringing turkeys in close, if this is the case. Or better at ditch crawling. When was TSS introduced to the turkey world?

Like, how long has it lasted? I started to hunt with Tunks in probably, like, in 2012 to 14, but that wasn't this TSS stuff. They were using, like, I remember having, like, a blend of five, six, seven. Like third degrees had some tungsten. Yeah. That's good. I still got a little stash of that. But full on tungsten, I don't know, like eight years ago, six, eight years.

Yeah. When you started being able to just like buy, you know, when all the guys I hang out was started shooting number nine tungsten, it wasn't that many years. No. So Brody, as a fan of tungsten, like I am too, when I started using it, my daughter's killed turkeys with a 4-10 game changer. My daughter's actually shot nine times with TSS in one hour of, turkey hunting one time. Which was probably the rough

about that soon. And I had to strangle the only bird we got. Wow. Now I know you only want to buy one of them turkey tags. I can tell you one thing.

In that blind, I was swearing worse than Donald was when he couldn't get his tag. Oh my God. It is a problem. When you're ammo, when your turkey ammo,

the shell, not the box, the shell costs more to turkey tag. Right. That's a problem. Well, right. And when you're digging

in your backpack for another box of ammo in the first hour of a hunt and there's tears in the blind rough stuff and for people that aren't familiar a box of tsf ammo is five shots right it's not right no but and max tell the max barter part of this max hit the jackpot me and him were down in nevada and phallon nevada where no one hunts that's i'm convinced that's why he they got turks but they yeah they got a few we were in fallon nevada i was in the hotel room max wanted into some sporting goods store and walks out of there with five no eight boxes of four 10 tsss he paid 30 bucks a piece for it so that would have been that's less than that's less than that that was half that at that time I go yeah that's half off and I look at I'm like that's more than half off at

that moment and then tungsten exploded and he said he's going to sell me back a box but max is like I don't even need this stuff I'm just buying it because he's horrid yeah that contributes to the problem. Um, so does this change the calculus? Cause when people look at expensive turkey shells, like you mentioned if you're going to go waterfall hunting, you're like, it's a different thing. Yeah. Mismuth, whatever.

You're going to just burn through some money, right? But the justification for those super expensive shells was they performed so well. Well, I never mind it for turkeys. Yeah. Yeah. You're only going to shoot a couple times. It's just what's ever in people's head, dude. Someone tells you it's like, you know, and you, I don't know, you just kind of, you get

like used to stuff. I'm going back to shooting as well. I'm going. I saw have some of my dad's turkey animal. Right. Right. I mean, we killed tons of turkey. Yeah, but you forget so quickly, man.

Like, it's just people get to shoot them with like number five copper plated. You ever have, uh, with those little nines, you ever have somebody shoot like the breast. Oh, yeah, you got to. Yeah, you got to make sure. You can frost your teeth all the hell. Um, thank you, Brody. You get you anymore? Well, I got one little thing.

It's an add on to this. All right. About, about Trump's tariffs. It's, this is not just a. TSS thing. The prices of other ammunition are also on the rise because ammo production kind of is also like a global thing. Nitrocellulose, a gunpowder ingredient, is sourced internationally.

And U.S. tariffs on imports are increasing the cost of raw materials and finish ammo. As an example, ammo companies, it's like a thin margin so they can't absorb these tariffs. So ammo manufacturers are reporting a 15% price increase over since 2024. And an example is bulk 9mm has gone from 23 cents around in mid-2020. So less than a year to 35 cents around right now. So yeah, that's almost like a third.

Actually, 50% increase. It's a war on shooters. So there you go. The top 12-gauge TSS round at Bass Pro right now is $19 a shell. And the 410 ammo is all about half price of the 12 gauge. Dude, that'll make it. You know what's going to lead to as people not shooting his mate Jakes, man? He's the thing.

Not me. I mean, like, I don't know, dude. Like 20 bucks? We'll be back in the glory days. It's not going to affect me. I'll still shoot them. Right. Me too.

Over to Baranukum for some Oklahoma Bear News. Yeah. Did I earlier say Arkansas? You did. You did say Arkansas. You know what? I'm going to redo the whole beginning. People listening now?

Won't know what I'm talking about. Wow. Well, so House Bill 4128 is a new bill proposition in Oklahoma. And basically what they're proposing is an extension of the Oklahoma bear season by two weeks earlier. So if you bait bears in the southeast, you know that is a huge difference because baiting success is entirely dependent on when the acreage drop. Okay. It's historic acres. Okay.

I'm following. The season has historically started on October 1st. They wanted to bump it up to September 15th. So usually it starts after the acorn drop. They're wanting to bump it a full two weeks before the acorn drop. When they're more susceptible to bait. Right, right. Because your father has told me, he's like, it doesn't matter what you're using for bait.

Once they can get acorns, they're out of there. They want acorns. Yeah. More than donuts. Yeah. And then they want to bump the bear. quota up by 300%. And

the truth is that Oklahoma could afford to take a few more bears. The bear population is doing really well, but it is just super abrupt and super aggressive. And what's happening is the House Representative Scott Fetgatter, he's the

one pushing the bill. And if you watch some of the meetings and the hearings, he's talking, he brings his own evidence for how much how many bears can be taken out. All his evidence is from Kentucky, the state of Kentucky, which has three or four different states pouring bear populations.

That's where he's pulling his management data from. Right. Whereas Oklahoma has one, and that's Arkansas. And so it's, if you, in the meetings, I watched a clip right before this where he was talking about all of his evidence that he's gathered for why they should push the season up. And the issue is, is this, there's a whole, there's a whole, this guy shouldn't be the one who's doing the science to manage the bear population. It needs to be the gaming fish commissions and the wildlife department.

And so it's just like the bill itself isn't a massive deal. Like I think if the bill goes through a bunch of bears get killed. Like we just won't kill as many bears and they'll have to adjust from there. But what it's doing is it's setting the precedent for legislators to be able to to make laws based on self-interest and... Yeah. Like the agency is like our research, our modeling shows that this is... And I should clarify this.

If you have an agency that's a good steward and a good pro-hunting agency, and the agency is like, this is what we're comfortable with. And then a lawmaker goes, we should be killing a bunch more based on my own home research job. so I'm going to usurp you, you eggheads at the agency, and here's my proposal. Yeah. And the crazy thing is, is that the bear commissioner or the bear coordinator just got approved to do a two-year study on the bear population. And in two years, we'll have really scientifically based numbers on what the harvest can be. You mentioned earlier, like, they could probably afford to shoot a few more, but it's not a big population.

No, and they can't afford to shoot 300% more. That's for sure. Are you saying the season would go from two weeks long to how long? It would open two weeks earlier. Okay. So, and that's when all the bears are killed is in that first week, usually. And, yeah, so it's just lack of science. What is his motivation?

Like, here's a quote from him, this representative. What's his name? Fat Gatter. Here's a quote from him. we look at bears as cute, cuddly little animals that we can sleep at night with. But the reality of it is, they're very dangerous. This really is what, but is that like, but what is his motivation? That's the, is he a big hunter?

The question. He's a deer breeder. And so this is where it kind of gets interesting is he's a deer breeder. And I think a lot of people would be familiar with the CWD bill that is about to get pushed where essentially private landowners can can buy deer that are captive bred deer that are perceivably immune to c wd yeah and then release them into the wild um which that's a whole another conversation but so he's a deer breeder and there's here's word on the street this is kind of some speculation so i don't i don't want to say this as fact but this is word on the street

okay there's a there's a there's a another deer you're a rumor this is a rumor just say it's a rumor it's a rumor there in oklahoma much. And he is the one who originally, or not originally, but he's pushing really hard for the bear bill. Okay. And for the CWD bill. But Fetgatter, I mean, it would make no sense for Fet Gatter to put his name on the CWD bill because he's a deer breeder. Got it. Um, but this other guy, rumor is they're really good friends. And this other guy hates bears because they're eating his fons and they're, they're getting on his property. Okay. He has a property that is surrounding it on three or four sides national forest, which if you if you got a property surrounded by

National Forest in Southeast Oklahoma, there's going to be a bunch of bears. Okay. And so he's pushing for the CWD bill and the bear bill really hard. And so my question too was also like what's what's the motivation behind it? Yeah. And I've not gotten a concrete answer, but the my personal speculation would would be to think that he's just a deer hunter who doesn't like the bears killing the deer or it's under that impression that bears are just wiping out the deer population or he's a bear hunter and he realizes that if he had two weeks earlier hunting he'd have a better bear season yeah it's true that's that's another another thought but he also like the you know he would have it would benefit him massively to be able to sell captive

deer as well yeah and i wonder if he's not just like a deer hunter who wants the Oklahoma genetics maybe to be influence, to have better genetics in Oklahoma or, you know, it seems like his mind is only on the deer, not the bear. So what's your, like, what's your take on the bear deal? You think it's too much harvest?

I think it's too much harvest. And I think it just needs to be slower. I mean, like, the season might could afford to be bumped two weeks up. But to do that all in one year and then to bump the quota up by 300% is, uh, is just way too fast to be doing something like that. And I just don't think that a House representative needs to be doing the research and needs to be pushing for a bill like that.

That needs to be done inside of the Wildlife Department. You'd advocate for a more incremental approach coming from the biologists. And a more scientific approach. And what this bill is is it's just a broader representation of what's happening all across the country. Just lack of science-based management. And there's just a lot of politics and opinions getting mixed in with what. wildlife regulations. It's a theme.

It's a theme. People get frustrated with the state agencies and they find workarounds, ballot initiatives, whatever. Yeah. Randall's going to touch on a few bear hunting issues too. Thank you. Yeah. Quick update from Washington.

They released a game management plan, which is like a doc, it's a long, very long document that provides recommendations to the Game and Fish Commission. And we know in Washington that there have been issues with individuals associated with the commission being antagonistic towards hunting and fishing. So there's no concrete changes yet as far as I'm aware. But as part of this game management plan, there's a sentence in it where it describes like the other sort of wildlife values associated with bears. And it makes mention of potentially delaying the fall bear season until after Labor Day.

because as we all know, Labor Day is a good weekend for wildlife viewers to go out and look at bears. And so they want to avoid folks, you know, out there with their binoculars in their picnic baskets.

Watching bears. Watching bears get shot. Like, it's, I guess this came up in some sort of earlier policy debate and it had gone away. And then it's sort of mysteriously, this language mysteriously

resurfaced in the game management plan. And it seems to have caught the attention of sportsmen's groups after this game management plan was published. But I know there's a lot of folks worked up about it. And not only just like out of self-interest, but it sort of poses hunters as antagonistic towards other public land users, you know. And anyone who's familiar with that area, sorry, with that area, like bear hunting in that state. this is this is make-believe land that there's conflict between these like wildlife viewers and bear hunters is make-believe right and so most units I guess um open currently August 1st or August 15th and so if you were to push that back after Labor Day

that's basically cutting a month off the season and it is early season yeah it is it starts early but um also I think like the context of them losing the spring bear hunt not all that long ago is still there are fresh wounds about that and yeah i'm not when i when i bring up that it's the early season yeah yeah yeah i'm not saying that like i'm not saying they should change it i'm just saying if if it was otherwise if it was if it was always otherwise always a month later people would never look and be like what what gives why is your bear season so late because that's kind of like bear season right like they have a very early early fall bear season.

Yeah, and I was reading some commentary on this. And there was a guy who made a great point. And he said, he said, I'm like a total backpacker, public land user, uh, what you would call like an REI type. Yeah. And he said, I'm also hunter. And he said, when I'm a hiker and I run into hunters on the trail, we engage and have a positive like discussion and sort of like build that bridge.

And he said, when I'm hunting, I run. into other hikers on the trail and it's a good opportunity for us to like build that again build the bridge between those two communities and so he's like just the idea that we would try to separate out hunters from other public land users even if that's not the intention he's like i just think in the long run so i thought that was a great point um be it just something to keep an eye on i don't know when their season setting takes place or when if uh there will be like action taken on this suggestion, but it's out there now. There's a lot of similarities here between like the Wildlife Commission in Colorado and the Wildlife Commission in Washington.

Yeah, right. And it stings having lost the spring bear season and then you're going to lose a month on fall. I mean, that's a real, that's a kick to the nut. Yeah. Yeah. So that's some, obviously, like something to keep your eye on, some disheartening news. And then at the same time in Arizona, there's a bill. to redefine

mountain lions and bears as predatory animals so they would get lumped in with foxes, skunks, coyotes, and bobcats. Mountain lions and bears? Yes. But these are game animals. Right, right.

And I mean, I don't really understand. I guess there was a version of the bill earlier that included wolves in that as well. but currently like it just means that they would be like non-game animals right but they got a ESA protection right now well that's so that that's I think why it was cut out

like the wolves were cut out of the bill yeah the Mexican Great Wolf in Arizona has ESA protection yeah and I should have reached out to half a finger because they'll probably have a lot of thoughts to clear up my so this is coming from this is definitely coming from people who are who are concerned about predation yeah on deer and elk yeah that's that's that's and they want fewer predators on the landscape and they think the pathway to get there is just to deregulate mountain lions and black bears into like coyotes yeah um treat them like vermin yeah so

i mean that like in a lot of states that's what they were up until the mid 20th century early 20th century and they're reclassified as game animals and that's done well for all these species right like it's been key to their recovery in a lot of places so yeah i don't like you know that what's funny about all this stuff man all the stuff we're getting into is like um you know bear talking about well they want to make a bear season bigger right and you look it down you're like oh that's kind of problematic so then someone is like hey we want to make a bear season shorter and you're left going like well that seems kind of problem problem because what you're always trying to weigh out when you look at this is you're trying to lay out like what are the motivations right what are the motivations of what people are driving at and what happens when you take things to extreme so like the juxtaposition between the Washington move hey we're going to shorten bear season you look like well you're motivated because you want to kill the whole thing like the person that wants to do that doesn't want anyone to hunt any bears right and then you go down to arizona like what's motivating that the person that wants to do that doesn't want any bears right yeah and so you're trying to like look at like who's got peer intentions aligned with like long-term wildlife management and long-term interests the hunters and so you can wind up being the agencies of those people yeah yeah yeah like and so you look you'd be like but i'm saying like someone dropping in from another plan it might be like well hamut why is it a problem

that they're like making a season bigger, but it's also a problem that someone else is making a season shorter, like which is right. It's like which is right is who has in mind what goal are they pursuing? Yeah. And I think like I was up at the Capitol, his last January when there was a mule deer bill in the in the committee being heard about basically making it so that FWP

couldn't shut down mule deer buck hunting during the rut if they were units that had low populations and the bill never went anywhere but one of the committee members kind of stood up and grandstanded and said um you know how am i supposed to go back home to my district and tell these people that unelected bureaucrats are making decisions about their fish and wildlife and i was just like that's how it's supposed to work i was like that's exactly how it's supposed to work um so i don't know like i i kind of wish in some instances that These unelected bureaucrats running the Supreme Court. Yeah.

Like, like, state legislators, I feel like are particularly susceptible to doing this and, like, stepping in front of the agency and trying to make season-setting decisions or quoted decisions. Well, you can curry in favor with your constituents pretty quick on a, like, a much tighter level that betterly. But in the big picture health of, like, this whole system that we benefit from, it's not a, it's not a good thing. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. for time from the NFL. I've had a lot of my mind and now got my own show.

If you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms and the IHeart Radio app. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this. Man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now, we're running the ultimate

spring turkey giveaway, and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Bonelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2007 Rio Grande Turkey Hunt in the Texas Hill Country for you and two of your buddies or family members.

Brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF gear in the Meat Eater store, the more entries you'll. earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered as easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form in your inn. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries.

One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2020. Six. So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Here's one. This is one, I've been wanting to talk about this, because this is a major issue.

I want to spend more time on in the future. This is a way of tipping it off. And I'd like to find a great guest for the interview show, just to come in and do a podcast interview about the issue of bottom trawling. I've got to explain this whole thing, but the bottom trawling industry, particularly in international waters, in Alaska, which has become, like, the subject of trawling has become a very contentious issue in recent years as we're seeing collapses and declines in certain fish stocks. Okay. When we say, when someone says bottom trawling,

another term they use for it is like a dragger, dragging, okay? These bottom trawlers or draggers are usually targeting large schools of high volume, low-quality fish like pop. for instance. They got nets that they got nets the size of football fields. And the nets are weighted. So when you call them draggers is because they literally, this net system is heavily weighted and is literally dragged along the bottom to where

it like scrapes up crabs and stuff. You can do a real quick search on YouTube. Just type in bottom trawling video and you'll see what these things do. It's pretty like eye opening. It, like if you've been out raking your garden or something, it rakes the ocean floor. So people have long looked at what are the detriments of all that of like habitat destruction from dragging these nets and also the bycatch in this industry hits some some pretty crazy levels. So annually, it's estimated that annually draggers are discarding about 141 million pounds of bycatch. Okay.

King salmon, chum salmon halibut, even killer whales. Okay. On the Yukon right now. So think about like this. Like, let's let's talk about King salmon and halibut. King salmon are in bad, bad shape. Okay. There's been a King Sam, like indigenous people have been fishing King Salmon on the Yukon river for 10,000 years.

Right now, you can't keep a king salmon on the Yukon. You haven't been able to for a while. You cannot keep a king salmon on the Yukon. The draggers, and they have absorbed. observers on board counting bycatch. These are not guesses. The draggers are killing more kings as bycatch than make it to the upper Yukon. Wow.

There's a site you can go on. I was on the site earlier today. There's a site you can go on and you can track by date the bycatch from the dragging industry, the bottom trawling industry. Okay. This year, so 2026, as of my, If you go on this thing, they got data up to March 7. Up to March 7, 2026, the draggers off the Alaska shorelines, they've killed 1.3 million pounds of halibut. Most years, they're scratching off 3.5 to 4.5 million pounds of halibut.

I got a question. And they, let me finish this point on that. And that's not counting the ones that are what's called deck-sorted, where halibut are removed and thrown back in. and some people estimate that 50% of those dies, so that number isn't even totally there. They'll hit in a year, they're going to hit 35,000 kings, okay? So far this year, just in 2026,

10,800 kings as of a month ago, 10,800 kings, and you can't keep a king on the Yukon. Go ahead. Those bottom trawlers are not set up to keep and use that. catch. Like,

like, they can't pull a king out and say, we're going to send this to market or a big halbit or whatever. No, this stuff, this stuff gets, now I one time had burger and a beer with a bottom trawler.

In Seattle, Washington, where the bottom trawling industry is like, like, he's like a friend of a friend. He's probably pissed to me right at this very second. He was talking about, he was making a point to me,

talking about the guys that work on the boat, that when they come off the boat, They have pallets of fish to bring home. For personal use. Yeah. And I don't even know if that's loud or not. Palettes of fish. Sable fish.

But this stuff is getting kicked off. Okay. But there's a poll that's out. And a really good pollster builds questions that aren't leading. I don't know what the questions are. I don't know how valid the polling data is, but there's some polling data suggesting that 74% of Alaskans opposed bottom trawling. What happened recently, there's this open letter where 5,000 Alaskans wrote an open letter to Representative Nick Beggich,

who apparently had campaigned on reining in the bottom trawlers. But since the election hasn't, in their mind, I don't know about the extent of this, and this letter's mind hasn't made good on the promise to rein in bottom trawlers. I was reading a quote from a guy. Like, part of the reluctance of regulating bottom trawling or outright banning bottom trawling is people are like, yes, these fisheries are imperiled and collapsing, but we don't know all the causes. and since we don't know all the causes, we shouldn't address any of the causes.

And I was reading this guy's comment, he's like, let's say you got a little kid and he's got five McNuggets, and all of a sudden he's got no McNuggets left. He gets five a day, but there's none. He learns that someone's throwing two in the garbage. He doesn't know where the other three are going, but there's two going in the garbage.

Should he be like, well, I'm going to hold off on talking to the guy that's throwing two in the trash while I figure out what's happening to the other three, or do you go like, okay, immediately let's let's stop the two in the trash and then we'll find out more about these other three but that's that that's that's the logic they have so if you read about this online you'll find these like pro bottom trawling opeds which are from the industry they have their own lobbying wing and they do the classic thing where they're like it's out-of-state billionaires

out-of-state billionaires pushing to ban bottom trawling. But the bottom trawling industry is by and large from Seattle. The 5,000 letters that went into Nick Beggard's were Alaskans. The people that bitched to me about it, I don't know out-of-staters that know about this. The people that come to me and talk to me about the bottom trawling problem are commercial fishermen, long-liners, charter captains in Alaska talking to me about the bottom trawling problem. I'm not hearing it from out-of-state billionaires. Yep. American Seafoods is one of the biggest bottom trawling companies.

They're out of Seattle. But it's this classic. Oh, yeah, these out-of-touch billionaires. It's like, are you telling me there's a bunch of out-of-touch billionaires talking about bottom trawling? Oh, yeah. What would be their game? They wouldn't know. Right.

I'm sure they talk about pandas and stuff, but then I have talking about this. Anyhow. That's a great update, Steve. Thank you. I do think if I had to crystal ball this, if I had to, and it's like, it's like I respect it. The people that want to keep that fishery going, they're defending their jobs, they're defending their livelihoods, they're defending their industry, they're defending their family. I understand it. But you are just, we are seeing, culturally, we are seeing that these fisheries are in decline.

They're going down. It doesn't look good. if I crystal ball it, I think that this is going to wind up being when I crystal ball it, I think in years coming, this is going to wind up being more regulated and potentially phased out. Yeah, because I mean, right now it's just like, it's not even, they're killing other commercial fishermen. It's not like a sport fisherman. That's why I'm crystal balling it the way I am. Yeah.

I'm crystal balling the way I am because this has become divisive within the commercial industry. Yeah. So it's not the commercial industry co-operable. Willessing yeah right in like in defending their own it's other other people yeah the pot industry not pot like weed but like pot fishery yep industry long lining industry they're like dude you're making a problem yeah you know or do you Spencer uh the master's golf tournament tees off very soon it'll be in augusta georgia on april 9th it's the most prestigious golf tournament in the world on the line is a 4.2 million dollar the green jacket, an honorary membership at Augusta National Golf Club, and the winner gets to pick the menu for the Masters Champions Dinner the following year.

Keep back up. Yeah. They win a membership? An honorary membership. It's the hardest golf course to be a member at in the world. But I would think those dudes that all be members. No. It's not good enough to just be rich and good at golf to be a member.

It takes more than that. More than that even, yeah. It's one of the rare things in life. It takes more than that. This is like the second major time we're ever going to be covering golf on this show. I hope Brian Harmon wins this year, but go on. Yeah. So that happens April 9th.

And the winner gets to pick the menu for the Masters Champions Dinner the following year. The Masters Champions Dinner, it's an exclusive meal for past winners and the club chairman. Yeah, it's the oldest, whitest group you've ever seen. No, we're seeing a photo. Those of you watching on YouTube, get the pleasure. of this very stunning This photo was from a year when Tiger did not attend

because of one of his injuries. So it's for past winners and the club chairman. About 30 some people attend this. Do you remember the dude that made the really racist comment about Tiger Woods when Tiger Woods won the Masters?

I think there were many dude to made comments. Yeah. About this. It was about the dinner. Oh, we'll get to that later on here. About 30 people attend

this dinner each year. Not only does the previous winner set the menu, but he also pays for it. So you're footing the bill for winning a pick. Rory McElroy, he won the Masters in 2025 and his menu

for this year was just announced. For the main course, you get to choose between a filet mignon and the seared salmon. The first course is yellowfin tuna carpaccio with fograh. And for appetizers, he has peach and ricotta flatbread,

bacon wrapped dates, which were inspired by his mom's recipe, rock shrimp tempura, and grilled elk sliders. Those grilled elk sliders will have caramelized onion jam with roasted garlic aoli. And although that last choice... You like this whole

thing. Yeah, yeah. It's surprised people. This has been covered by the Today Show. It's been covered by BBC. It's not elk. Every year leading up to the Masters, there's like a handful of storylines that emerge. And this is one of them. You mean, when you say it's been covered, it's like they're picking the elk thing out of them.

They're like, you won't believe what Rory McElroy is serving at this year's master's dinner. But I heard that you think it's cool. I think it's of interest. No, I heard you thought it was cool. Yeah, I think it's cool. I think the masters are cool.

I think Rory is cool. I think it's cool that he picked Wild Game. It's not wild game. It's not wild game. It's Farmed Game. That he picked Venison. It's a farm animal. I understand that.

I heard he said that Wild Game propelled him to victory. If I hung out in brothels, if I hung out in cat houses, and I've won the championship, would I be like, love? You might. Love delivered me to this championship. You might be. Like, wait, wait, but like, thousands of hunters. Let's let the men finish.

Eat thousands of pounds of wild games. They don't go into Masters. All this whole show, I've only been here to share my beautiful. Like, all the people eating real Wild Game. And this guy's like, Wild Game fueled my run to the Masters. It's far. Of course it's far. Maybe he's been eaten while game.

If one of the biggest sporting events in the world has headlines dealing with venison, that's not of interest to you. It's not making it wild. It's an interest, but I don't like it. That's not making wild elk or the places wild elk live more valuable. It's farm animals. It's still a headline. I don't understand.

Wait, how do we know? I heard that you thought it was cool. I think Rory's cool. I think the masters are cool. I think it's cool that he picked Benisyssey. It'd still be news that you thought it was dumb. Sure. Do you got more news?

Oh, yeah. I got a lot of you. Randall has it feel about having the heat on you this week. I just said it was interesting. Rory said he knew. that he was putting venison on the menu as soon as he won. Last May, he did an interview with the Today Show. They asked him what he thought he would be serving at the 2026 dinner.

This was this quote that you guys have been referring to. Quote, I've been into wild game recently. So venison, elk, stuff like that, that sort of stuff fueled this run is what he says. Sort of. That's about the right word choice. To make the champion. Now, fast forward to this year, he did put venison on the menu. He said he considered making it the main course, but decided to make it an appetizer instead

because he worried that not everyone loves venison as much as him. Huh Where's he from? Is he American? He's Northern Irish. He's from Ireland. Is he maybe going to be serving up their red deer from over there? I was going to say.

I would assume it's like New Zealand, you know, Benison that was raised behind a fence. Well, why did you write down elk? Because it says elk. Oh. You don't write that menu? No, I didn't.

I didn't make that. It's not the first time elk meat is then on the menu. Spencer used AI to create this. Beautiful menu. In 2004, Mike Weir, the only Canadian to ever win the Masters, got to pick the dinner. He served elk, wild boar, sock-eye salmon, and Arctic char. And while Rory has a big list of hand-picked wines on the menu this year, Mike Weir only did Canadian beers with his wild name.

That guy might have been using the real stuff. Sounds like it. Oh, yeah, because he was cleaning out of his freezer. How many guys is it eating there? 30. 30-some, yeah. If you're just making sliders, dude, he could get some real. You know what?

We'll send it. If he's listening, I'll send you the Elk Me. We'll give you the wild game for the next Masters. I'll give you enough for 30 sliders. Just send us Rory back on his phone number. We'll talk to Brian Harmon. Brian Harmon will give you all the venison you want. Real meat.

Real outdoor wild meat. Wouldn't take that much. I hope Brian Harmon beats this guy's button. Is Brian Harmon in this golf tournament? He'll be there. That's right. I hope you win. I don't text him now.

And then next year when they come out of the menu, it's going to say real. Sliders. This dinner has been a tradition. since the 1950s. Here's some of the most notable things ever put on the menu. 1998, a 21-year-old Tiger Woods was setting the menu after

his first Masters win. He was the youngest champion ever. He served cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries, and milkshakes. He was ridiculed for his choice, and the next time he won in 2002, he instead served a porterhouse steak and sushi. When reflecting on his...

When reflecting on his 1998 menu, Tiger said, quote, I just went with what I like. I wasn't trying to be fancy or anything like that. 1989, Scottish golfer Sandy Lyle was setting the menu. He horrified his peers by choosing Hagus. If you're not familiar. That's a savory pudding made of sheep organs that's then cooked inside of a sheep's stomach.

It was reportedly one of the most rejected items ever served at the Massachusetts champion. I don't think he would have been allowed to do real Hagus because that was served in Augustine. So you wouldn't be able to have the lung. And then 2022, Hedeki Matsuyama puts together the most expensive Masters Champions dinner ever. It was made to resemble a Michelin dining experience in Tokyo. The menu featured a full spread of sushi and sashimi for appetizers, miso glazed black cod for the first course, a wagu wagu rib eye for the main course, and Japanese strawberry shortcake for dessert.

The meal was estimated It costs $220 per person, which is $40 more than the next Most expensive menu. At that dinner? That's it. I would think it'd be a lot more now. Dude, that's what I'd want to go to a day.

If I'm a little bit of a sucker, I'm having... We're thinking in 2026 menu prices. In 2022. $220 live like a king. They're just sourcing the ingredients at that point. They're not paying the weight staff and the chefs. Right. I hope Brian Harmon wins, dude.

I went to the masters a few years ago and Brian was walking and I had said, I was explaining to the people I was with how he's a big turkey hunter. And I'm like, I'm going to do a turkey call and see if you notice this.

He must have been 100 yards away. Did he show you the real turkey call? No, just with my mouth. That's pretty good. Did he turn around? Oh. He snapped his head around and looked. And he never identified.

I don't think where that turkey call was coming from. But it was like, it was a moment in his day, walking around and he heard a turkey. Was that before or after he came on the podcast? That was afterwards. All right. I want to text him and tell him to listen to this tomorrow.

I can see there being some big gobblers around that golf course. The Masters has some lore around like there's not even birds there. You know, you want to see a squirrel. Well, yeah, it's just like that manicured. Every blade of grass is thought of. Do you remember what is that little scandal that they were? Pumping bird noises. They were pumping in bird noises and then some birder was like,

that bird doesn't live around there. They got busted through pumping and fake bird noises. He was watching on TV and he heard a bird that's not present in Kentucky or wherever they're golfing at. Yeah, that was right. He's like, dude, that bird is not there. That's a fake bird noise. Another good news for Cornell's Merlin.

We have a master's inspired recipe on the meat eater.com. It's chef Lucas leaves fish sliders with pimento cheese. Pimento cheese sandwiches have been famously served at the master's since the 1940s. This is Lucas's take on that, which includes croppy and a slaw.

That was a hell of report. Thank you. God, I was a doozy. I'm passionate. I realized I liked the last. And he had to fight for it too. Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. I was fighting for my last. That's what makes a good report. There's channels that have mastered this thing, you know? Like the news is all meant to make you mad. And that's Spencer's style. You know, he has news that makes you mad. I don't think

I don't think that was this goal Just because you're really He told me I was being grumpy Dude that was a great news section Yeah golly Sliders Elk and croppy sliders

Good them both in All right everybody thanks for joining See you next week No wait Oh sorry oh yeah We can do that ass You just ruined everything Don't hang up just yet

we've been talking hopefully you've heard about we've talked about our 12 and 26 video program so 12 we're doing like every month we got a big you know almost hour long premiere video coming out

it's called 12 and 26 so if you're not too sharp I'll help you explain it there are 12 months in 2026 each of those months will be allocated a premier long form video project This month is Clay Newcomb's Utah Mountain Lion Hunt.

Also, bear, tell them about Bear Grease YouTube. Yeah, well, we jumped started a YouTube channel. It's now the Bear Grease YouTube channel. I've been running it for about a month now, a little over a month, and we've got a little bit of a different style content than what you're seeing. Tilbilly stuff. Yeah. You can call it that.

You know what's funny? It's real low brows. I did a video on falconry and the falconers that I went with. They were like, when is Steve going to cover falconry? Did you know about this? Yeah, I know all about this. So anyway, that's what I mean. Different style content coming out of the very much.

That's not Hillbilly. That's Dungeons and Dragons. I've spent a little bit of time around Falconers last year and I 100% see what you mean. We're the ones you were with D&D types? They were legit. Okay. Well, no, I'm not saying you're illegitimate if you're D&D. It's just different pathways.

Right, right, right, right. Well, they were, they're like woodsmen. I'll put it like that. They're woodsmen. Yeah. But I see what you mean like 60% of, he's not like a D&D guy. Right, right.

60% of falcons are, I would say, are exactly like that. Did you measure that scientifically? No, just kind of observing. But anyway, we've got. So that's not Hillbilly. Yeah. That's not Hillbillie. It's just cool.

Yeah. And, yeah, so we've got the YouTube channel going. We've got a video coming on Friday, so by the time this airs, that'll be tomorrow. There's a video coming tomorrow where we hog hunt with Dale Brisby and Evan Felker. Oh, great. On mules and horses. Did you go on that? Yeah.

Did you have fun? Oh, yeah. Evan's a good guy. Yeah, he is. He is. But anyway, Bear Grease YouTube channel. Go check it out. All right.

Thanks, guys. See you next week. When you flew out the window and into the sunset, I thought I would never stop screaming. I thought or stopped screaming. So I'm some more, and I start, the screaming goes on, then I'm trying to side. Hunting demands preparation, persistence, and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear first light. This isn't about hype.

It's about no compromise gear. Built to perform, built to last, whether it's their industry leading merino wool, keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements. First light is built to help you go farther and stay long. designed by hunters, four hunters, with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses. Just gear you can count on.

Head to firstlight.com. That's f-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. This is an I-Hart podcast. Guaranteed human.