The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 862: Moose Hunting in North Dakota, Catfish Regs, and A Bigfoot Family

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater crew discuss: Randall and Phil's film from BuckFest and The Big Buck Hunter Championship; Jordan Sillar's Blood Trails, Season 2 drops; a Land Access Initiative update; Etsy bans fur; how birding improves your brain health; South Dakota becomes the first state to remove suppressors from the list of controlled weapons; Pennsylvania changes to blue and flathead catfish regulations; Bigfoot sightings in Ohio; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, 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. Welcome to the news show on today's show. We're covering the ins and outs of Buckfest, which is the National Big Buck Hunter Championship. We're going to talk about how South Dakota is going all in on suppressors. Etsy, like the place where you buy stuff, is the devil incarnate. Pennsylvania tweaks their catfish regulations in an interesting way.

Spencer Newhart reports on Bigfoot's as though there's anything to say other than, that's dumb. But first, and more, but first, Randall on Buckfest. Well, yeah. last fall, as

radio live listeners might know, Phil and I went to Nashville, Tennessee, to the national championship of Big Buck Hunter, which is the arcade game that everyone knows and loves where you have a little pump-action gun

and shoot the bucks and bowls and rams as they run across the screen. And so Phil and I went down there and Phil has produced, I think, an award-winning, or at least award worthy. I should say award worthy. Like maybe it'll get nominated.

Yeah. Yeah. A nomination worthy. Phil produced a film of our exploits down there. And it's a pretty crazy event. They have over 100 contestants from around the world. There's $125,000 in prize money. And so you have to qualify for the main competition,

but they also have an amateur open. And the folks there were kind enough to, slot me into the amateur open. So I tried my hand at this and you'll be able to see how that goes. But you got your ass kicked. I don't want to spoil the video. Did you get a feel for the percentage of actual hunters

in that competition pool? Yeah. That's also covered in the video. That's covered in the video. I mean, it is, it is funny because there's, like, people wearing T-shirts from their hometown bar in Saskatchewan. like camo t-shirts and on the image of the back there's a deer with a crosshair on its head

and you're like these these people are hunting you know um i mean there's people from all over there's people from like new york city live in brooklyn and play at their little bar but there's a lot of people that you know are like hardcore wisconsin minnesota types yep but is it mostly like drinkers are they drinkers there's a lot of drinking involved yeah like it's because it's like bar people yeah it's bar people yeah it's bar people It's bar people. And we get into that. We talk to the owner or sorry, we talked to the founder, the inventor of Big Buck Hunter. Uh-huh. Um, and so that is he loaded?

So he'd make a lot of money off making it. I can't. I wasn't pocket watching the whole time, but I think he's doing well. Uh, he also invented the original Terminator arcade game. If you ever seen like the little oozys and the little pinto mounts and they shoot him at the screen. So this guy's invented probably a lot of the arcade games that you've seen in your life with that. And you, you were, you were, hanging out with him. Yeah, we got a little time with him before, I think before the final championship, which was tremendously exciting. When I was watching the video, you play in the video game, I saw a lot of things that would be illegal. Yes.

Like, you guys are shooting at salmon and stuff. It's not representative of us. I was going to ask if you express Steve's grave ethical concerns surrounding this game. That's the whole video, actually. Yeah. No, I wanted to be a talking head in that video. about all the wildlife violations I saw. The one question I did ask him, I don't know if this made it into the final cut,

is I had wondered whether animal rights activists had protested this arcade game. That is in the final cut, yes. Because... Do they protest it? He said they don't. I protest it. Listen, my body, Jimmy Dorn, when he used to have his piece joint. Yeah.

I'd take my kids down there and I would forbid my kids for playing big buck on her. And just to screw with me, he'd give them a roll of quarters. And then they'd play it and he would do it just to make me mad. Well, check out the video this Sunday. I like Jimmy's style. No, I can't support it, man. Shooting fish and all that. You're also shooting zombies at some point?

Shooting way too much of everything. Yeah. It's the funniest thing you guys will ever see. You're taking shots. You shouldn't be taken. Yeah, if you're someone out there that's like, I really don't like meat eaters serious hunting and fishing videos

this might be the one for you another problem I have with the video yeah people look dumb playing that game come on with that little toy gone and they're like these are my people you're talking about it's not like a lot of noises it just doesn't look like it's just not a great look

okay in the second iteration of this video you know in a month or so we'll have Steve screen and screen commentary They are like using it. It is like a sawed off pump action shotgun.

It's like a pump that never runs out. Yeah. Yeah. I think the most telling thing that it's not for hunters is that they hold this one in like late October. Right? Yeah, that's the tough. That is one tough thing. You wouldn't attract a lot of.

The next one is in Milwaukee. Oh, really? You're going to go? Are you done? It's just it lines up real, unfortunately, with the Montana general season. Got it. But you got your ass kicked or you can't say yet what happened. I think you've won all the prize money, I would have heard about it.

If you won all the prize money, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair. Here's why I think you should go watch it. I believe this is probably the first Phil Taylor joint. Oh, yeah. Phil Taylor, shot it, edited it. I am just a, I'm an empty vessel for Phil to pour his creative talents into. No, that's not the. The powers that be were kind enough to let Randall and I get on a plane and go to Nashville.

We had no plan. We're just like, let's just shoot stuff and we'll put it together later. And I think what we made is pretty fun. And I will say the big buck hunter, we should point this out, the big buck hunter people invited us out there. They put us up. They treated us like royalty. George, Dave Snipes, they really took care of us and we had a blast. So, I mean, if you're in the Milwaukee area and you have the slightest interest in, I don't know, drinking, big buck hunter, just like seeing people have.

having a really good time. You should check this out in October. I thought you said Minneapolis. He said Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Yeah. You could go to the Meteeter store and then go to Big Buckfest. Phil,

did you find some camaraderie with like fellow gamers? Are they not in your circle of, uh, I mean, there, there is kind of, there's a kind of a wall that separates, uh,

arcade gamers with, with home, with home gamers. It's not really the same kind of like like, like gun stuff, joystick stuff. It's a little bit different. Like totally different kinds of dorks. That's right.

Different breed. But I wasn't sure. It's like not all dorks get long. I wanted to make sure that Phil enjoyed his time in Nashville. So we did go to the same tiki bar two nights in a row. That's right. Yeah. What a win.

I got my film. That didn't make it. That didn't make the final. Resources there. April 19. I'm going to have to review these spent expense reports. It's like, yeah. Why around?

midnight where it's just like a flurry of $21 purchases at a teaky bar. What the hell's a scorpion bowling? Why did you order eight of them? Scorpions, wildlife. Navy grogs. All right, blog trail, season two is out. Yep, it's about to be out on Thursday, April 16th is when the first episode

drops, hosted by our friend and colleague Jordan Sillers. It's our network's outdoor true crime show. This first episode without saying too much is actually pretty gruesome and happened outside of Helena, Montana, where a hunter disappeared back in 2011,

and his remains were later found in two separate sites. So that's the first of a number of episodes that will be dropping, and please follow Blood Trails, wherever you listen to your podcast, and you can watch the video episodes on the Meteor podcast YouTube channel. So please subscribe to that.

Okay, we've got an update from Mark Kenyon on the launch of our brand new 2006 land access initiative, what you're going to hear about right now. This is a real good one. Take it away, Mark. All right. Mark Kenyon here with an update on Meteor's 2026 land access initiative project.

We are kicking this latest round off here on April 14, on a really cool deal that we're doing with Anex. So here's what's going to happen. There is a big chunk of land out in central North Carolina surrounding something called the Tucker Town Reservoir. This is about 4,000 acres that have been privately owned, but historically open to public access.

This has been great deer hunting ground, people have been waterfowl hunting, turkey hunting, getting access to the reservoir and fishing. Unfortunately, the landowner of this 4,000 or so acres of land, of land has put this ground up for sale to the highest bidder. Alcoa owns this. They are now going to be taken bids, taken offers on this land.

That would mean 4,000-ish acres of land, no longer publicly accessible, no longer open to hunting or fishing. So there's this organization there in the state called the Three Rivers Land Trust that has now started a campaign to try to raise funds, buy some of these lands, and transfer that ownership to the state of North Carolina

so that it can become officially public land and be accessible for public hunting and fishing forever. That is a pretty awesome idea. That's something that I'm really excited about. That's something that Mediator is excited about, that Anex is excited about. And so we've been brainstorming about, you know, how can we help?

How can we make this possible? And here's what we've landed on. We have landed on helping out with a 30-day fundraising campaign for this, project in which we each mediator and onyx are going to provide up to one hundred thousand dollars in matching funds so what that means is that for every dollar that a participant donates we will be able to donate a match dollar to that up to two hundred thousand dollars so we could if you think

about this if you donate a dollar mediator donates a dollar and onyx donates a dollar you're tripling your impact if you want to participate and help keep the Tuckertown game lands public and accessible it's it's super exciting it's it's a great opportunity i think to make this idea of keeping public lands public tangible right so many of these public land issues seem like they're happening far away or outside of our control well here is an opportunity to do something real that can make a real on the ground impact and we don't need to wait for the government we don't need to wait for a law. We don't need to lobby against a bad bill. We can just put our money where our mouth is and try to keep this land public. So that's what we're going to do at Meadeter.

That's what Onyx is going to do. And that's what we're hoping that everybody listening can do as well. We're going to be running this campaign from April 14th through May 14th. And you can learn more about it or actually donate and be a part of this by going over to the Save Tucker Town campaign website you can find that by going to trlt.org slash save dash tuckertown or just google it or go to the mediator website you'll see all the details there but we are thrilled about this we're excited it's 30 days we're matching up to 200,000 dollars that's mediator and onyx plus all of you guys listening we can do this together we can help get some of these parcels made public again keep hunting angling out there on the landscape

and keep it public. All right, man, great news from Mark. We're excited about this one. It's a great fundraising campaign. Again, partnering with On X and Three Rivers Land Trust. Remember, April 14th through May 14th, we're going to match up to 200,000 bucks. So let's make as much of an impact as we possibly can. And also, I've been bugging Mark Kenyon,

who's not like responding to my prods of getting the auction house, the oddities fired back. up because we're like way overloaded with auction house of oddities items like a brand spanking new virtually brand spanking new Honda 150 horsepower outboard I wish my boat would hold that thing I'd take a bunch of barn board outboards barn boards yep we got all kinds of the job I was looking at something my garage you're down and sell on the auction house guns Corey was talking about cleaning out the storage unit and he found a canoe or a kayak in there a kayak going to be in there Dude, we're going to have so much stuff that auction house.

I just thought of something really good the other day. Well, I think I might put some of my own guns in it. I might retire from ice fishing and do all my ice fishing stuff. Sell to someone more north. Yes. Yeah, we're not. Who'd have thought? We could live this close to the Canadian border and not be north enough for ice fishing anymore.

Oh, speaking of ice fishing, I got a favorite ask. Because of a writing project I'm working on, I need to know from people out there who fish Lake Champlain, like, Is the bite hot? I'm talking hard water, preferably. Is the bite hot? I need to go out there and look around at some things. And when I'm out there, I want to hit the hard water bite. What do you think you're going to catch?

Perch? I don't know. You mean now or in the future? In the future. Not now. It's melted off down. No, next winter. I'm looking for a guy, I'm looking for a guy, gal, whoever, who likes to hit the hard water,

who wants to tape me out and show me the best of Champlain. And while we're there, I'm going to tell him a story that'll curb. their hair about why I'm there. So right in, folks. Looking for Champy. Right? What's that mean?

It's crypted. Nothing. That's their version of Blackness. No, that's not what I'm doing there. No, it's way better than that. Even if that was real. This would still trump that. If I could go there and tell them two things,

I could say, here's thing one. I found that thing. It's dead on the beach. There's a pleaser sword. Yeah, I was dead on the beach. I can show you right now. or I can tell you the story that I'm going to tell you. Okay.

They would be better off taking my story. That's good. Not my story. But you don't want to alienate these folks. Maybe they're invested in regional lore. I'll feel them out. Corrections. Corrections.

Okay, the winner of this week's correction in the week will get a Moltery Edge 3 Pro Trail camera plus the one year subscription. You know, I'm thinking, you know, I was just talking about auctioning guns off. I'm thinking about giving a gun. I'm like, give a gun out of my personal stash one of these weeks. Just out of the blue. Damn. I'm going to give a gun for my personal stash to the corrections winner.

We're going to have a billion. Then they got to make sure they don't have a restraining order, so I'm going to send it through an FFL, not mailing it to them. Yeah. Maybe there's a correction of the year. That's like Steve's gun. No, it's just going to be a random rule. Let me come up with a treasure. I feel like we're going to take out a little left-handed correction week.

Man, a lot of corrections about our recent hot dog. Our hot dog, I was going to call the expose. It wasn't an expose episode. It would have been better, though, if you marketed it that way. Well, he didn't want to expose. I kept being like, what's the nastiest thing you've ever seen him throw into a hot dog at a hot dog factory? He's like, it's all lies. Wow.

And I prod it. I said, if it wasn't lies, could you tell me? You worked that angle pretty hard. He says, I would tell you if it was a lie. So we had one correction from Cody Sanders in Alabama. Colonel Sanders. Cody. Oh, sorry.

He says, John mentioned the white gooey stuff that comes out of fish when you cook or smoke. It is fat, but it is actually not. It is called albumin, which is a protein found in fish. Albumin is a water-soluble protein naturally found in fish muscle. You'll usually see more of it when the fish is cooked too hot or too fast.

Or with lean fish like salmon or cod, it can also happen if the fish wasn't brined or rested beforehand. Did he just say lean? That's what I've got I want to get to this after. Oh, this guy needs a correction. He's right back in his face. Yep. Best way I found a deal with his face is like he's like

spiking a volleyball but doesn't realize I'm spiking it back. Yeah, he's messed up bad already. Yeah, it's a volleyball turn. But he's right about that that gooey stuff. Yeah, he's right about that, but lean fish like salmon or cod. would be like me saying

trying to think trying to give him time here black things like the two colors on a panda black things like that mountain goat and that black bear like snow or what about

like lean meat like fat or venous like pig or venison white things like mountain goats and black bears that's the equivalent of what he's saying go on randle the best way i've found to deal with it is just Smoking it low and slow.

A saltwater brine for 10 to 15 minutes helps in keeping temps around 160 to 180 does too. Even then you might still see albumin. You can control it, not completely eliminate it, but it's safe to eat. Appreciate everything y'all do. Love the show. Colonel Sanders, thanks, buddy. That's a good one. I like it.

You screwed up a little bit. That's cool. Are we going to address his screw up? We just did. We just did. I don't feel like we explained it well. It's a good one, though. God is William Sandman.

is fatty. Cod's lean, salmon's fatty. So him's saying lean fish like salmon or cod, it's like the fatties damn fish out there. And I don't think you're going to see a lot of albumin. You know what it could be? He could be fished and spawned out chums. He's fishing spawned out chums. The kind that are going the wrong way down

the river. They're not really swimming. They've got drifts on zombies. They wrap around your legs when you're waiting in. Yeah, it's kind of like, you're going the wrong way. Yeah, actually he's all like half dead. Okay.

Okay, another one. We got to put TSS to rest. All right. TSS to rest. It'll be the last time. I'm an attorney. This is a gentleman, Mike. I'm an attorney and not a particularly elite attorney.

And failing to disclose a material fact to a tribunal, a mission, constitutes an act of dishonesty. And could subject an attorney to discipline by the state bar in the jurisdiction where the attorney practices and or subject. and malfeasant to sanctions. Now, this is not Steve's fault because Curran is responsible for production content. Ooh. Boom. I like that. Smack in the face.

After listening to the various podcasts recently about TSS, I did my duty and ran to my local sports store to see what was in stock for TSS so I could buy up everything they had and hoard it as instructed. Knowing I live in a state where I'm more likely to draw an elk tag than a turkey tag, it seems, there might be some TSS on the shelf and maybe at a decent price. Imagine my surprise when not only did I find a bunch of shotgun shells

labeled TSS, but the mug of this familiar fellow smiling at me. See the picture below. On a pack third degree. This guy doesn't understand the... No. So to the audience,

what this gentleman has in hand are two boxes of federal... Third degree. Meat eater. ammo with Steve's face on it. He's got some three and a half inchers and some three inches and 12 gauge. He says, I don't recall any discussion on the podcast about us mentioning TSS or

that we sponsor TSS or federal. It seems like a material omission. Yeah, sure. It's a good point. But this isn't made anymore. This is a long time ago. And it's only got like a small dose of TSS. Got a small dose TSS. I'm surprised you even found some because that was from a long time. time ago. I was fired from the cover. It's got a logo. It's like a old twelter. We retired that logo probably four years ago. It's good ammo though. He can probably put it on eBay and get much more than it's being sold for, which is like 2799.

Yeah, write federal letters say, I want Steve back on that ammo. This guy offers bring me some. Like, I'll meet him at the exit on 990. You can give me some of this stuff. So yes, we did not mention I and talking about TSS like picture that I was trying to play a shrewd that would have been shrewd like let's say I had some kind of financial interest in selling TSS

and I'm like TSS alert hoard it now right right and then he and then I'm like selling all this TSS but I have nothing to gain from that TSS no I have nothing to gain from that TSS but still great correction on blood trails the stories don't end

when the hunt is over They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce,

and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another correction number three. So this guy says, while listening to episode 857, I was especially intrigued when Steve discussed the map showing the locations of the oldest known servid fossils. He mentioned that no moose fossils older than 15,000 years have been found south of the Alaska-Ucon line, which immediately caught my attention. He thought it sounded surprising. He did a little digging, pun intended.

He says, in the course of my search, I came across a fascinating find from the 1970s, a stag moose specimen. Stag moose specimen. Discovered in a gravel pit near Jesper Park in Polk County, Iowa. Approximately 30,000 years old. He's like, what do you make of that? Well, it's not a moose. Different critter.

Different critter. So I don't know what to make of that. Different critter. But still, good point now. I don't think it's going to win. I think the winner is here. A lot of guys right. We picked, we just picked, we randomly picked one.

We're talking about smoke phase wild turkey. So when you see a light colored wild turkey. I was saying on the show, someone was showing some pictures. I don't know what we're talking about. And two of my friends, unrelated, have recently sent. me pictures of smoke phase turkeys. I said when I see a smoke phase turkey, I see domestic turkey genetic introgression, meaning when someone sends me that picture, the first thing in my mind is there's some domestic

turkeys around there and they've been getting it on, mixing it up, making love with wild turkeys, throwing these light colored offspring. Okay. Guy writes in and says, I recently heard. on Lake Pickles podcast, an interview with Dr. Mike Chamberlain. Okay. And he says, Dr. Chamberlain points out on the Backwoods University podcast, that's what Lake Pickles show is called. On our network.

That he himself used to have similar thoughts. The important word there being that the wild turkey doc, Dr. Chamberlain, says he used to have similar thoughts. but has been shocked that turkeys can be 100% wild and have these odd color phases. He states that DNA testing confirms there are multiple paths to which a turkey can display the smoke phase in other unique color phases, including one that does not involve a domestic or heritage cross. Furthermore, Tom Glines, a former NWTF Regional Director, said in 2011 that the partially white or smoke-phase turkeys occur naturally. Other sources estimate that 1% of turkeys display or carry the recessive smoke-phase gene. They're coming from a feller name, Joey.

Final correction. this kind of blows my mind this might win but I think not up to me now basically it's this oh yeah go ahead um who wrote the title for this one good moose hunting

yeah yeah yeah um stagg moose damn sorry good stag moose hunting i like this way this guy starts out no bona fides to start with not long ago i would have been in the same boat as the news crew thinking there are very few moose

in northcote i'm not sure exactly what we said last episode but I was I expressed surprise about there being moose or I screwed up and said oh no you know what I said that poacher had a dead moose oh and I said he must have got that from somewhere else I got you hardly enough to hold the season for three weeks ago I was shocking I was surprisingly shocked to read that North Dakota has a very generous moose season and issues more tags than I expected especially compared to Texas where I live while in Kingsville Texas to watch our collegiate son pitch for the Kingsville Texas, Kingsville, Texas, A&M, Havilinos. What a flex that is.

Yeah, that's a good. What a, like, out of nowhere. Maybe he's just very proud, proud of dad. But they do have a good mascot. The Havillina says pretty sweet. I like this guy. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. To my pleasant surprise, I read a small article about North Dakota and their big game

harvesting reports. The details were unbelievable enough that I took a picture. Yada, yada, yada. Here are the moot 25 moose harvest numbers According to the North Dakota fishing game 292 moose tags issues 281 hunters I'm not sure how that Yeah I don't get that

Um 245 animals harvested 147 bulls and 98 cows They got so many moose to killing a hunter cows Yeah What's up with the 292 tags and 281 hunters Like some dudes must have dropped Some dudes drew and didn't hunt Didn't hunt

Because it's not like they're not finding people who want those tags. Dudes drew and didn't hunt. So they got moose coming out of their ears. He validated this with his brother who lives in North Dakota. And those are not shy-riss moose like we were talking about a couple weeks ago. I think they're Canadians. Is that right?

I think so, yeah. And those things are coming into Montana now. Oh. So like northeastern Montana has a growing population of these. Yeah, there's a line that you can draw up coming down from the Canadian border in central Montana and it kind of cuts along the Missouri River country and then down southeast and that's the dividing line for Canadian Shires and you'll see those Corrine of Bonata fields out there I'm learning all kinds of stuff all right to recap

let's go right into voting no need to recap we got TSS the five the put the TSS to rest no albumin no how do you say it L Bumumon Albumin are you sure you put the emphasis on that syllable I'm sure we'll hear if I don't okay El Buman. There's a trail cam on the line. TSS, Moose fossils, smoke phase Turks,

moose in North Dakota. Oh, huh, well, we weren't voting yet. I was just doing a review. Oh, okay. You said no need to review. I know that changed my mind. Oh, okay. Thanks for passing that info. Albumin.

Oh, sorry. No votes. Shaked him. TSS. No votes. No votes. Moose fossils. No votes.

Uh-oh. Smokeface Turks. Right here. One vote on Smokeface Turks. He pays attention. Clarifying that North Dakotans are awash and moose. Yeah, they're overrun by them. Big time winner.

Okay. Just got himself a Moultrie Trail camera. Got himself a one-year subscription. So he can put it up and catch some of them moose. Well, he's in Texas. He sends it to his brother. Legendary Texas resident moose hunter. He can put it up and get pictures of his kid playing baseball.

Havilinas. Yeah, he can just put it on the, The post on the edge of the baseball court. All right. Get his kitten air swinging away. We're going to get 300,000 corrections about baseball court. Etiquette question. Okay, I'll do this one.

Etyquate question about turkey hunting. I have a family debate. Do we got a picture for this one? I don't think, you know what? I think let's never mind that it's pure white. Okay. Let's never mind that she shot her neighbors. It doesn't matter anyway.

It doesn't matter. She shot her neighbor's pet turkey. I have a family debate. I would like some outside input on. I'm an avid turkey hunter and have gotten my calling down to the point where I can reliably harvest a bird every year. Good for him. Good for you. Yeah.

I recently started dating someone and she's a very avid hunter but had never gone after turkeys. We decided to give it a shot last Saturday and she harvested her first bird. Got that picture. What's there? And she did it? Got it in the head. Nice work. Central Texas.

That's his new girlfriend? Yeah. Only thing is, this was no normal Jake as pictured. You can see that sucker's pretty white. My figuring was this was an opportunity of a lifetime. Therefore, I told my girlfriend to take the shot. Our issue is that we have an... Spencer, move your cursor, I can't read.

Our issue is that we have an unspoken no-jake policy on my family's property between myself, father, and brother. This is in central Texas. It's unspoken. well it must have been spoken at some point i was going to say it seems like they're speaking about it now yeah yeah i think it officially just became a spoken policy i've been ribbed very aggressively over the past two days for harvesting that bird however it is my understanding that the odds of a jake making it to the next year are low to begin with even lower when they stick out like that i'm standing by my decision and of looking for vindication since we likely would have never seen that bird again also

looking to brag that her first Berg was that unique anyway input is appreciated. My input is I don't like, the only time I got anything against shooting Jakes is when it's illegal to shoot him. That's a good damn girlfriend he's got. It's a great turkey.

I don't care. Especially with first time hunters. In this walking away photo, I would think this is a swan. Yeah. It's not a shot that turkey. I'm all four. I 100% like any, unless they make,

it illegal because they're trying to curb harvest. If it's legal, if your state fishing game agency says you're allowed to shoot a Jake, shoot a Jake. Yep. If it makes you happy, go for it. You know, it's not it's not this, you can't like bring morality or something or ethics into the idea of shooting a good to eat turkey. And I don't even think you need to worry about like always probably not going to be around next year. It's just like it's a good to eat turkey. Yep. The fishing game agency has established it. They got the numbers to, to, to shoot Jake. Shoot Jake. Especially you with your brand new damn girlfriend and a white one walks by. Yep.

Dad and brother are jealous. Yeah. They probably don't have a new girlfriend. They probably got some old girlfriend. If you guys are listening, you should send a DNA sample that sucker to the people we were talking about earlier at the Turkey DNA project. You'll find out if it's wild, albino, if it's got some, what did you say, domestic introgression?

Well, email. There you go. Introgression. Randall, tax dollars for conservation. All right. This email comes to us, well, I'll get to that. In a recent episode, Steve briefly said, I'm paraphrasing here, didn't some state increase their taxes by some tiny amount,

and it's making shitloads of money for conservation? God, it sounds like an idiot when you read it like that. Do I really sound like that? No, no. You say it faster. It rolls off the tongue. Didn't some state increase their tax by some tiny amount? comments make shitloads of money for conservation.

I think he's referring to Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Constitutional Amendment of 2008, which increased our sales taxed by 3 eighths of 1%. That money over $2 billion since 2008 all goes back to various conservation measures, but of particular interest to the meat eater crowd, this funding has helped purchase over 300,000 acres of public land as well as habitat work on hundreds of thousands more.

If I was giving one piece of advice to sportsmen, conservationists, and public land lovers, mimic what is happening in Minnesota because going because going in on X every other week going on on X. Let me hit that line here. Yeah, please. Because going on X every other week and seeing a new place to hunt fish and recreate in your home

state is amazing. Yeah, you nailed it. Longtime listener, love the show, love the news split. Thanks, Sabine. And Sabine is the Minnesota State coordinator for Fezzi. forever. That's great. And Carl Malcolm has been talking about, because Carl Malcolm was telling me over dinner recently, like about a tale of two states, the funding mechanism in Wisconsin being so stressed, and the funding mechanism in Minnesota being so effective, that Minnesota is going around

buying new public land for its residents. Meanwhile, Wisconsin's suffering on funding. And so Carl talking about the need to get creative around funding wildlife agencies. And they've done a good job. Missouri's done a good job. Yeah, and you can go to, I looked this up after I read this email. You can go to the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation website, and they have a whole page explaining conservation sales tax in different states and how different states have done it

and how well it's working and all that stuff. Like they have a whole overview of the subject. So it's kind of interesting to see the different models out there. I'd like to see a five cents on the dollar sales tax all goes toward, all goes five cents on a dollar. Would people vote for that? Five cents on a dollar sales tax and it all goes to conservation. That'd be a narrow.

That wouldn't win. No. But no one would be mad at you. You wouldn't have to do it for very long. They did $2 billion since 2008. If you did $5 out of a dollar, you just got to put up for it with like, five years. Yeah, five years.

Don't go back to normal. No taxes. Because then you'd have a, what do you, call it when you have a big pot of money, like universities and stuff, an endowment. You build an endowment. If you buy stuff from Etsy, quit. That's right. Sons of bitches.

That's right. This is from the past week. Etsy, as of August 11th, so a couple months out from now, what is it? Four months out. They will ban the sale of all animal fur, regardless of age or origin, as part. part of its quote unquote ongoing biodiversity efforts. Oh my God.

And so they've clarified that biodiversity. They're talking about the fur of animals killed primarily for their peltz. It does not include taxidermy or byproduct materials such as leather, sheepskin, wool, or mohair. And it includes stuff like the age and origin context is, I mean, like, basically it means if you have a fur coat from the 1920s, you can't sell it on Etsy.

But you can do taxidermy? Even though that animal's been dead for 100 years. I guess there's, there's an organization called Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade. And it's a campaign, the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade that's made up of a bunch of grassroots groups. And they've been protesting against

Etsy, including a, quote, high-profile disruption of a live presentation by the CEO of Etsy at a Morgan Stanley event in San Francisco. So this is a win for the coalition to abolish the fur trade. And they've been working on a bunch of different companies lately, including Condi Nass. I don't know how they were, how well they were involved in these, but there's a bunch of companies like Condi Nass, Mark Jacobs, things like New York Fashion Week that are getting rid of fur. Man, this has got me excited about starting an Etsy-esque fur. I don't think you should have, I think you should have kept that on the download. Bleep that out, Phil.

Whatever, man. Whatever. Pennsylvania, catfish regs. They're proposing to change them. This was interesting to me because of, of how it's how it's going to be playing out like on one side of Pennsylvania versus the other. Presently in the state of Pennsylvania,

catfish are listed similarly to panfish in the regs. You can have a, you can catch and keep 50 a day with no size limit. And it's not like... Can you imagine 50 big catfish piled up in the boat? And I don't think they're delineating between channel catfish, flatheads, blues. It's just catfish, right?

Like in their mind, catfish or catfish? Yep. So a new proposed regulation that would go into place next year for the Ohio River Basin in Pennsylvania, which is almost the entire western half of Pennsylvania. It's aiming to protect native blue and flathead catfish populations in the Ohio River drainage in Pennsylvania. And they're pretty, it's a pretty huge change for blue catfish, they would go catch and release only. and for flatheads it would go to four fish daily with only one over 35 inches. So it's a big, big change. And-

I want to pause in that for a minute. I just want to reiterate what you just said. That's a big change. Yeah. To go from, we don't distinguish species. Yep. And you're allowed 50 a day. Yep.

To no retention on blues. On blues. So like one day you can catch 50 blues. The next day, zero. Yeah. And they describe these fisheries in western Pennsylvania as like emerging fisheries, which is not really, I don't think an accurate way to describe it. It's more like recovering fisheries because they're native to that drainage and they're starting to come back. Pennsylvania has a stocking program now to create a self-sustaining blue cat population in the Ohio River drainage.

So big changes. And a couple of quotes is both the blues and flatheads are only native to the Ohio River Basin and Pennsylvania. They're not native to Lake Erie drainage, the Delaware or the Potomac. And the goal of the Blue Catfish restoration program is, again, to establish a naturally reproducing population. The species was extirpated from the area in the early 1900s because of pollution. and as water quality has been restored, they've kind of, both flatheads and blues have kind of started coming back on their own. I mean, you can catch these things like in downtown Pittsburgh right next to Three River Stadium.

Well, hold on, I got a question here. Yep. Why? Oh, flatheads are saying not native to, because flats are, there's flats in the Great Lakes. They're saying they're not native to them. They're not native to the Ohio River drainage, but not those drainage, other drainage. Yeah, because Great Lakes have flats. Yeah.

But this is very interesting in the case of Pennsylvania and other places like Virginia, West Virginia, in that area, Maryland, Chesapeake Bay, because you drive a couple hundred miles, not even that far, one side, basically like the eastern continental divide in the Appalachian Mountains, like you go over that from west to east, and you're now in a part of Pennsylvania where blues and flatheads are considered invasives, and they're doing a lot of damage. to native fisheries in like the Susquehander River drainage. They're a big problem in Chesapeake Bay now for native fish. So it's like one side of the state, they're trying to bring them back and you can't keep them.

The other side of the state, they're invasive and they want them gone. It's kind of crazy. I'm all for it on one condition. I'm all for it on if they feel that if they see good recovery. Yeah. And they see numbers come up. They'll adjust. That they'll adjust to be like, okay, you can keep a blue a day.

whatever. But I agree. I agree that like that kind of like loosey-goosey management of lumping three very different fish together under one umbrella and then making a 50 fish thing. Because if some guy gets on kind of like a weird bite

during the spawn. Yeah. And pulls off 20-30 blues. Yeah. I mean, holy cow, man. Especially like big spawning size of fish, you know. Not that I wouldn't want to be there for that bite. But, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

You can thank my dad for that story. He sent it to me. Thank you, Brody's dad. Thank you, Brody's dad. He fought a little bighorn. He's not that old. But some of Brody's relatives fought a little bighorn. They're not talking.

They're buried deep. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. was a fool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors,

where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods.

Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. For all those birders out there, you guys are ahead, potentially ahead of this anti-aging game that everyone seems to care about so much. A new study that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that birding can actually help brain health over time. And one of the leading scientists said mitigate age-related decline. More research is needed, but here we go. So the neuroscientist Eric Wing and his co-authors with their study, they reveal that parts of the brains of expert burders are denser than those of novice burders when matched in age, gender, and education level.

They use, the neuroscientists use MRI measures to study brain function. And the density of brain structures in real time, they found that changes to structural brain organization in several regions. sorry, they found changes to structural brain organization in several regions that are involved in attention and perception. They looked at how the brain regions responded when people memorize and identified birds. And some regions with structural differences also showed higher brain activities when these expert birders were looking at unfamiliar birds. and that required more attention to subtle patterns of the birds. And in novices, they didn't see this increase. So they know that larger numbers of people need to be studied over a period of time.

So that would be a longitudinal study. But so far what they've found, that leads them to believe that there is a benefit to being an expert birder. There you have it. So here, hear this. If you're dumb, try bird. I want to be part of the study because I told Corinne earlier that when I'm observing birds, it's generally like a very high stress, not a relaxing. Like when I'm looking at a turkey, I'm not like, my brain's not growing. It's shrinking because of their high stress cortisol levels. Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah. But you know, when I do do this, so I do like, when I'm trying to tell, when I'm trying to think if I just heard a gobble. Yeah. That's interesting to me.

But then I feel like I'm slipping. Like I'm losing my hearing. I'm getting old. But it could be that me trying to like do that little math in my head. Yep. Was that a gobble? How far away was he? I could be getting smarter.

Yeah. But I'll buy that. I'll buy that. Because you know what? It also like ties into like this very ancient. I'm going to get a little fuzzy here. But I mean, you know, we're like constructed to interact. Like our bodies, our physical, our physical cells.

are constructed to like interact with a wild landscape. And identify. And yeah, to pay it like to be at a state of like heightened attention paying to what's going on around you because that's how you survive or don't survive, you know, like listening, looking. So the fact that there's some part of your brain or anatomy that flourishes and wildlife viewing and wondering about wildlife,

that's not surprising to me. It was a little fuzzy. No, I think that I think that was crystal clear. Someone's going to put that in quotes and send it back to me. What did he say? I'd crochet it into a little pillow

and put it on my couch. Love lives here. Who's handling this? I can do this quickly. This is a fast one. Can you within this explain to me how this isn't federal? Isn't this a federal thing?

Go on. What I understood, it was just a quick news blurb about South Dakota being the very first state to remove suppressors from the list of controlled weapons. So this was, right now it's April. So just at the end of last month, the governor of South Dakota, Larry Rodin, signed SB2. So that deregulates suppressors at the state level because it removes suppressors from the definition of a quote, controlled weapon. You know, I see, I understand now. They're getting out ahead of it. Yes, they are.

Yes. Because the feds really need to, the feds really need to do this. I wonder if controlled weapons means that at some point, like, no background check, you're just going to be able to walk into a store and be like, oh, if it's not controlled at all. Yeah. Because right now it's more controlled than a gun. Yeah.

Like, it's more controlled than a gun. Yeah. It's like, you can buy a gun anywhere, but you just can't make it quiet. Yeah. Like, it's like, no, it's okay. have a gun. We just don't want the gun to be quiet. We want to make sure it hurts your ears. Hearing safe. Let's not say quiet. Let's say hearing safe.

Hearing safe. We don't want to give the impression that these are silencers. It is, to me, I think someday there will be a class action lawsuit, and I'm going to be in it. A class action lawsuit where deaf dudes, dudes is going deaf like me, sue not guns. We sue the government. Can you take the government? Could you do, class action lawsuit against the government. Sure. A class action lawsuit where people with hearing damage come

together to sue the government for having made it so hard to make your gun safe level, safe audible levels. This would be a great way to spend the summer. Yeah. I mean, I don't...

You do think about like, I always think it makes the most sense when we put it in the context of public health. It's like when you think of all of us that are going to be old people someday. Oh, dude. You know, like, I lay down at night. The tinnitus is like,

yeah, like, like the, it's just, it's such like a cost sink in health care for hearing loss. The cost sink. And this is part of it. You want to run the class action suit? Sure. I'll line it up.

We got that attorney's email. The guy bought the TSS. Maybe when he's here giving Brody is TSS, we can. Here's the main way I look at the suppressor question. Let's just say guns were naturally the noise they are when you put a suppressor on them. Like the physics that governed the world were different. Right.

Or we had a different gun. I don't know what that. Whatever. For some weird reason, unexplicable reason, guns were the loudness they are unsuppressed that they are when there's a suppressor on. This is a great thought experiment. Would the government say, you have to be loud. have to put a thing on there to make it louder because we want it to be loud break them all or would they just be cool with that level of loudness yeah that's an interesting thought

experiment i feel it i don't think i've heard that that's fine that's just how loud they are it doesn't really hurt your ears and we're okay with that some chemist out there might be working on low low volume powder. Okay, Spencer. I think it's also worth pointing out in that last story. South Dakota, Sioux Falls, is home to Silencer Central. So kind of a nod

to, you know, one of their more prominent businesses. All right, this week, I'm going to talk about Bigfoot. Last month, there was a string of encounters that got the Bigfoot community. Very exciting. Oh, wow. And happening in a place that you might not expect.

Northeast Ohio. In a five-day span around Portage County, there were seven Bigfoot sightings with four of those happening on the same damn day. That was March 9th. Portage County, it's located on the eastern edge of Cleveland and Akron. Has 160,000 people. About 60% of them live in urban areas, 40% in rural areas. Randall is our token, Ohio, and he's familiar with the area. He'll tell you more about it.

Yeah, he's taking the story over? Well, he's just going to explain to you. I want to set. I want to set the stage for you. At first I was very excited when I sort of began to orient myself to Portage County because I thought I can mention Maurice Claret or Jim Tressel. I thought I could mention... These are dudes from high school? Youngstown, the boys of Youngstown, Ohio, if you just dig into the soul there, you find pure football excellence.

In Akron, the home of LeBron James. Then I realized they... All very important details. They fall outside of Portage County. You know what you're doing? He's doing that thing. There's a word for it. It's a rhetorical device.

It's a rhetorical device where you say something by saying how you're not going to say it. Yeah. Yeah. I did find out that Portage County... People go like, not to mention, and then you mention it all. Right. Clark Gable went to high school in Portage County briefly. Oh, wow.

Okay. And then also Marvin Chester Stone, as we all know, the inventor of the modern drinking straw. That's our way of it's a good background. The turtle, the sea turtle blood on that man's hands. If you'll indulge me just for one moment. He's got to scroll down in the Wikipedia page. As I was digging into this place, I thought to myself, what other notable people are from Youngstown, Ohio?

Who could be there? Because the list of football excellence just goes on forever. So I ended up on a page called Dog Sports. which is the University of Georgia football. So I found this. Thomas Bop, an amateur astronomer noteworthy for discovering

the Hale Bop comet. Did you know what that's where? Some dudes killed themselves over that comet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were wearing, what, purple Nikes? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and at the time,

Good bunch. Bob was employed as a construction's material, he was employed at a construction materials company and actually made the discovery using a telescope he borrowed from someone else. Wow. Wow, that guy's got to be pissed. Fascinating.

stuff. Like the guy that owns it. Yeah. Think of how bummed he is. If he'd just been looking through his own telescope, he'd have named it. That'd be like me borrowing a rifle from Steve and shooting the world record Mulder's rifle. Yeah. So with that, I feel like I've pretty well grounded our audience

in Portage County. Because at first, I was like, yeah, who cares? I don't know anything about that area. But now I really invest it. But again, Youngstown is outside of Portage County. It's just to the east. It's good table setting for the rest of this story. Now I get where we're at, man. I won't even get into Mount Union football.

Now, these sightings are gathered by the Bigfoot Society who interviews every single witness. And then I read their accounts and I'm going to tell you about some of my favorite ones from this string of seven sightings. March 9th, 8 p.m. Route 303, west of Streetsboro near Tinkers Creek. This is, you know, what these people were seeing as they drove this road. A mother and daughter driving westbound When they spot a six and a half foot figure Walking in the roadway They cautiously drive around it

Getting as close as three feet away from the big foot The squatch then ducks into the woods And the motorists decide not to turn around To investigate out of fear of what they just saw I'd have grabbed about a ball so hard dude I'd still be holding it man I gotta ask but maybe we'll get there Spencer Is there any visual evidence from the

No no of course not after the Bigfoot went away. I understand, but it's not in there. I've got a Google Street view of this road. Just like Randall Spencer is trying to put us in a time and place. Three feet would have been prime photo opportunity. Yeah, that thing would be like standing on the white line and, you know, you're where that X is in your lane. He's real close.

So they drive around. A lot of chem trails that day. Mm. I bet. At first one, look at that. There's six chem trails. Now, they describe it as being lean. It's all weed smoke.

Yeah. Yeah, they should drug test these people. That should be part of the interview witness statement. They described it as being lean with tightly grouped facial features. It was all brown with facial hair that was lighter color than the body hair. It had long legs and long arms. And they described it having a stilt-like gait. So there you go.

Now here's some commentary from the Bigfoot Society regarding their interview with the witnesses. Here's the quote, The proximity of this siting, three feet, and the corroboration between a mother and her 18-year-old daughter make this an elite level report. The description of a six and a half foot lean brown subject matches another siting from the same evening suggesting this may be a juvenile or sub-adult traveling the same corridor. Here's where they always go. They always go where they like try to legitimize it with like sub-adults. How many miles does that path cover? Did you like?

Oh, like from each sighting? Because you said it was on the same day, right? Yeah, there were a number of them in the same day. This next one I'm going to talk about. This happened 20 miles east of that siding. Oh my God. Same day. So the bitch is moving.

March 9th, noon o'clock. It's right. He's rotten. at the Headwaters trail near Garrettsville. Oh, is that him up on the right? I don't think that's a trash can. The trash can. That's him.

Jacob Taylor and an anonymous secondary witness. So Jacob Taylor, he was willing to put his first and last name out there. Other witness, no. He says, I'm going to be anonymous. They see an eight to ten foot tall figure on a trail. Yeah. They said it had extremely broad shoulders with arms extending well below human proportions. It also had a stilt-like gate, which is language we heard from the last sighting as well.

It had a strong musky odor and made a deep grunt-like. They were close enough to smell it. Now, why would it has a stilt-like gate? Don't they think that it's a person with stilts? What does the stilt-like gate mean? That's just how a big... Have you ever seen someone on stilts out of a circus? They don't bend their knees.

So this one was eight to ten feet. This one must be an adult. Yeah, yeah. This is a full-blown. We're talking about a family. Sasquatch. Now, the end of the end. encounter lasted about 15 seconds before the Bigfoot retreated into the brush.

Here's my favorite detail of all these Ohio sightings. They said the ground literally shook when Sasquatch ran away. Oh my God. So that seismic footsteps, that damn thing, like a T-Rex. All right, the next day, March 10th, 4 a.m. At a home on the edge of Newton Falls, Ohio. This is about- How are you getting the amazing photos?

Like, what are you typing in? Google Street View. Are you familiar? You're using that, yeah, but what do you, you're using, are you using lat lawn or just pulling up addresses? Well, so the, the Bigfoot Society, they drop a pin for where these sightings happen, and then I go to Google Street View, and I found the closest street I could get to. But you're pulling addresses up. Yes. Okay.

This is, you know, within like a few hundred yards. I thought it got more sophisticated, where you were able to pull up lat lawns and not addresses. That looks like a good turkey hunt spot there. Also, also, you just sat there. This spring with a shotgun, you're getting a bird. Or a big foot. 100% of a big foot. Now, a homeowner lets out their German shepherd to go to the bathroom.

The canine gets to the edge of the property and turns extremely aggressive and starts lunging and barking. That's when our witness spots it. An eight to 10 foot tall figure that has significant mass. That was their quote. The dog then runs back into the house and begins uncontrollably shaking. The big foot runs away and is heard crashing through the broad. Our anonymous witness says the Sasquatch was quote non-stealthy

Hmm Non-stealthy for that one now here's here's the least stealthy thing about these bigfoot sightings in northeast Ohio Four of the seven sightings were in broad daylight A fifth sighting was right after sunset so it got me wondering as you suggested Steve is this the result of the big foot rut Could it be you know what it might be remember a dude in in Montana got himself a big foot suit and jumped out in front of a car to scare the people in the car, but they hit them and killed them. There's like a certain hazard to doing these shenanigans at night. Like, it's just, you're more likely to draw gunfire and stuff like that night.

Instead of broad daylight. Yeah, it's like you're just like less likely to get shot. Yeah. No, I think it could be the bigfoot rut. Maybe there was a she squatch coming into estrus that week. Or was it the March 3rd full moon that got these big foots on their feet in daylight? as we talked about with deer biologists in the past, you know,

there's a lot of lore. What were the dates? It was like March 5th to the 10th. Oh, so Mercury was in retrograde. Oh, you're right. Yeah. I forgot. I didn't consider that.

Now, I used to do a series on our website called Ask a Squatcher where I interviewed Bigfoot experts and asked them some really basic questions, like, is Bigfoot dangerous? What's the best evidence that Bigfoot exists? What does Bigfoot eat? One of the questions I asked was, why have Bigfoot sightings decrease? And in that article, I pointed out that Bigfoot encounter surged in the early 2000s, but they've gone way down since 2009.

And I wanted to get their take on this. I interviewed folks like Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Ronnie LeBlanc, Matt Moneymaker, you probably don't know those names, but that'd be like if I said, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. And you probably know those names. It's just like that. It's just like that, yeah. My favorite response, though, was from Jeremiah Byron, the founder of the Bigfoot Society.

Here's his quote, the Bigfoot population. is not dying out. So don't, if you, in case you thought that was it, it's not. But there are less sightings because we as a culture are not going out in the woods anymore. It's as simple as that. Bigfoot is not going to show up in your Instagram DMs. You'll only see him while out exploring state forests or national parks. When's the last time we took time to do that?

It's probably been a while since Bigfoot has seen a human either. Oh, my God. I like that, though. Remember I said there's never anything other to say than. I've added a lot to this story. No, no, you did a great job. His point, though, because the Bigfoot people are going to need to have a reckoning with trail camps. Sure.

But it was suggested to me that they're on, that Bigfoot's are on a dimension that isn't, that isn't, that isn't big, trail camps aren't able to capture the, them. Yeah. Well, Jeremiah says the drop in Bigfoot sightings, it's a negative, you know, it's actually a reflection of how Americans have a weaker relationship with the outdoor. And he's not totally wrong. Here's a graph showing the Bigfoot sightings by year. As you can see, it was pretty consistent trend. But then there was that spike in 2020, which of course when COVID hit, we all know how that impacted fishing license sales and campground reservations. So in 2020, Bigfoot had a had a little renaissance.

I like that he's using his esoteric interest to encourage people to spend time outside. Yeah, Bigfoot. Now, I reached out to my cast. Is that Esoteric? You think it's esoteric? I don't know. Esoteric. I always said esoteric.

Yes,oteric. Oh, God. I don't know. The corrections are going to get me. I reached out to my cast of Bigfoot experts to get their take on the Ohio sightings. Haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm hoping we learned that it was the rod or the full moon or Mercury and Metro grade. I'll give you guys an update in a future episode when we find out if it's now Bigfoot post-Rut in Northeast Ohio. All right, ladies gentlemen. No, that was great.

I thought it was good. Listen, we had a I'm not goofing on it because remember we had a Bigfoot person on. Yeah, she'd do it again. She wasn't though. She was a reporter on Bigfoot. So it's not like I'm above it.

I like the story. I was bringing some candy to the episode. You guys provided a lot of vegetables. And then here I come, you know, with a bucket full of dessert. Lava candy. I liked it. I'm interested.

Alamoid. Oh, did you bring your foot? No, I haven't brought my foot. Spencer has a Bigfoot's foot. Steve wants it in the new studio. Yeah. It's in my office. You paid good money for that.

You could have just brought it downstairs for this. Well, it's just too close to it. It only costs him 40 bucks. You can get your own. What do you mean? I've got a cast of the most famous Bigfoot in the world. Oh, of the imprint. Patterson Gimlin.

Were you telling me that you regretted buying it? No, zero regret. I thought I would regret it and I never did. Hasn't, hasn't hit me yet. That's always a good feeling when you're conducting a transaction. I'm probably going to regret this. And it never, it never gets you. No, it's, it's been one of my best purchases I've made, yeah.

Do you think it was a cast off a cast, or do you think it actually touched the cast? There's a number of folks who own a cast, and so I don't think I got my cast off of the cast. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a third-hand cast. Yeah, it's like, it's like quite removed. Like, you're not going to find, like, a hair in your cast or something that was. Have you ever tried to, like, join a Bigfoot hunting party? No. No? No, I haven't.

You should. I'm into it all. I love it. But again, I've said this a thousand times. I don't believe in Bigfoot. Oh, you know what? I found out recently that it startled me. This is the end of the show, ladies gentlemen, but I found out recently that the writer, Peter Matheson, okay? So was a Bigfoot enthusiast. Okay. So when he was working on the Snow Leopard in the Himalphalpherson, okay. So when he was working on the Himalaya. He's working on the snow leopard. He got interested in some of the people he was with were hip to the Yeti. The Yeties. And that sent him down like a path. And he became something of a bigfoot enthusiast and even toyed with the idea about doing a book. Oh. So here's this like highly esteemed member of like the American literati. Prize winning.

author was sucked in. We were robbed of that book, was sucked in. Yeah. I'm with him. I, you know, a few of my favorite things, mushrooms and rocks like that community, rock hounds, mushroom hunters, they love Bigfoot. Like that's, that Venn diagram is just one circle of, you know, people who like Bigfoot rocks and mushrooms. So I just get a lot of exposure from that.

You're like in the crossfire. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I can't avoid it. Oh, quick last note before we're done. So we were doing our meat eater time machine. Every month we're dropping teas and hoodies with historic themes. Right now, coming up here, we got the Pittman-Robertson Act hoodie.

So you can show off your conservation history, knowledge, when you're running around and your genuine Pittman-Robertson Act funding conservation since what year was that? 1937. says Pittman Robertson, funding conservation since 1937, part of the Meat Eater Time Machine series. We also got Custer's Last Stand coming up, Battle of the Greasy Grass. We did Clovis, Buffalo jumps, Custer's last stand, Fred Bears, Rules of Bowhunting, all kinds of stops on American history, including this one. Am I supposed to say something more about this? No.

No. Head to the Meteor's store. And while you're at your computer here, follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe, please, on the Meat Eater podcast YouTube channel. Thanks for joining. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a full of blood.

Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.