The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 939: Fat Buck, Wet Buck, and The Strangest Bad Public Land Idea

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Randall Williams and the MeatEater Crew discuss: putting a baseball stadium in a national park; a very fat buck; a grizzly bear stealing an elk; Steve and Rob Sand discuss his very wet buck; Bryan Burrough shared about his new podcast Gunfighters; and more! Check out Gunfighters 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.

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infamous. Davis Tutt staggered forward, shouted, boys, I'm killed, and keeled over dead. Listen to gunfighters, starting on September 15th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the news show, folks. We've got a great show for you today. We've got one of the strangest bad public land ideas in recent memory. We've got a big old fat, fat buck that one of you listeners killed in Minnesota. We've got a story about some hunter harassment justice in Alaska, and we've got a pre-recorded interview from Steve with Iowa gubernator-candidate and meat eater podcast guest Rob Sand. In our script here, that is described as an interview pertaining to a big wet buck, but because I haven't seen the interview, I don't know what that means yet. But first, Brody's got a story from us out of Wyoming about an Elkhunter who got cited and then unsighted for a grizzly bear stealing his carcass. Yep. We're going to have a little roundtable discussion about this one.

So Ron Niziolek, I think I'm pronouncing that close anyway, experienced bow hunter from Cody Wyoming on September 19th. He was hunting with his- Last year. Yeah, last year. He was hunting with his buddy Adam Miles, northwestern Wyoming. like very high density of grizzlies. He's hunting in a spot. He's hunted before, so he knew the deal there. Late afternoon, he shoots a bull. Who at the picture, Phil?

Nice bull. Nice bull. Shoots that bull. It's late in the afternoon. So they watch it walk off and bed down about 100 yards away. But by this time, it's like very close to getting dark, and they don't want to mess with cutting it up. and, you know, potentially run into a grizzly at night.

So they just leave it and then they come back in at first light with pistols drawn. And they find the bull dead right where it was laying. Only it was partially consumed by a grizzly bite marks, guts were ripped out, bear poop all over the place. So Niziolek was concerned about potentially contaminated meat and the possibility of bear returning, which is very legitimate. Like, that bear was probably close by. You know, you guys ran into a similar situation in Alaska a while back.

I think his concerns were warranted. So they decided against skinning and quartering it. They photograph the bull, cut off its head, punch his elk tag, and just left the carcass. And on the way out, he warned other hunters and cowboys tending cattle. in the area about the carcass, you know, in case a grizzly came back. But he didn't report the incident to Wyoming fishing game. So little time passes.

And a Wyoming game warden Jordan Jordan winner investigated the carcass after receiving some tips from other hunters that, you know, saw a headless elk carcass and, you know, rightly so called it in. Thanksgiving, so almost two months later, the winter interviews Niziolek, confiscated as elk skull, antlers and cell phone as potential evidence. I'm assuming in a poaching, you know,

investigation. And February 26th, Wyoming Game of Fish issues Nizioleuk to misdemeanor citations. Wasting a game animal, taking parts from a wasted big game animal, $450 and $900, or no, $450 each, $900 combined. Niziolla contests both citations rather than paying the fine. So it's going to court at this point.

August of this year, the case goes before a jury in Park County. And prosecutors argued that Wyoming law requires It's a wanton waste law, typical, retrieve all edible portions of the animal quarters, backstraps, tenderloins. The game warden testified that Niziolek should have packed out the meat regardless of suspected contamination, and then figured out later if it was edible or not. Niziolec says, spending 90 minutes processing a bare-claimed carcass posed an unreasonable safety risk. And his attorney also raised concerns about Game and Fish providing requested interview recordings, only a day and a half before the trial. In the end, the verdict finds Nizziolik not guilty of both charges and his skull and antlers are returned. Some interesting points that came out of this.

Wyoming Game of Fish's own hunting in bear country educational video warns hunters against attempting to drive a bear away from a carcass as claimed. And Nizio argues he was following this advice. Also cited concerns about contamination from the grizzly saliva, urine feces,

and recalled an earlier warning from a game warden against salvaging bear-fed meat. He acknowledged that in hindsight, he should have contacted like Game and Fish like immediately about what happened. But he hopes this case prompts

clear agency guidance regarding situations like this. This case does not change anything as far as it acquitted Nizziolic but it doesn't change anything about Wyoming's meat salvage regulations.

So Um, you know, my thoughts here that, yes, he should have called it in, but like, he shouldn't have gotten cited. Their own regular, their own educational video warns hunters not to do that. So he's kind of following the advice he should. But do you feel like he did everything he could the day he shot the bowl? Well, that's, that's the thing. You know, they could have certainly packed it out. I don't think it's unreasonable to leave an elk overnight in grizzly bear country if it's dark. You know, why you're increasing the chances that there's going to be a bear on it.

Sure. But like, you know, yeah, maybe they could have said you should have cut it up. You should have got it out of there. But they were also waiting for that elk to die. Like they couldn't have gone in and killed it at night, right? It was still alive when they left. I don't know I mean I think if they if it's partially

you have an arrow in it and you're waiting for it to die can you go in there after shooting hours and fling more arrows I don't know what the answer is I would that's a gray area so like if you don't know you can't go do it

as someone who hunts in grizzly country I would be very leery of shooting an elk at last light knowing if I'm not going to get it out that night Sure, it wasn't at last light. It was, you know, still late afternoon.

You know, it, it took, it didn't die right away. So, like, choices were made. Um, but I, I think to me, the issue here is that the game warden that cited him is, like, kind of contradicting what Wyoming Game and Fish's own advice is. And that's a problem. Yeah. Like there needs to be like consistency there. Yeah, I think once the bear had claimed the carcass, yeah, I agree with you completely.

The question is, and again, the details aren't in the story, but the question is like the events leading up to that, did they take the proper? But what details aren't in the story? They were waiting for the animal to die. And they can't like, like, that happens. So like, were they watching it literally at 100 yards? and its head was up and it got dark. Yes. They watched it bed down.

Yeah, I got that part. But then did they watch it until dark? Yeah. They waited. They felt like they did not want to risk field dressing it at night. Anyway, it's a common... Well, no, they wouldn't know that they could even field dress it if the thing's alive.

It's a very common practice to leave an animal overnight. Like, for... unguarded? I don't think so at all. I've never heard of that. Like, unless you're, like,

completely sure that it's... Wait a minute. If you shoot a white tail at night, at last light, and you're not sure if it's, if it's dead or not, you're...

Well, then it's a common practice. But, like, if he's dead, then you don't do that. But you wouldn't know if he's dead. Right.

Exactly. Which I'm saying is that I'm not getting the... Mark, what do you think? I see what both of you are saying. I think like if it were me in this situation based on what we're hearing, I would wait for as long as I possibly could to see if this thing actually dies. And if it actually is dead,

then I think you're faced with this dilemma, which is do you, can I take care of this thing as fast as possible before things get dicey? Or do I risk the diciness in the morning? And I guess you guys have more experience hunting grisly country than I do, but probably dealing with the dicing. dicingness in the morning is a safer bet. Yeah, and the thing was like out in the open, you know, you could see it from a long ways away. You can see where it died. Yeah. So,

you know. Yeah, I guess my, my other thought here is like there should be, I don't know if you want to make it a requirement or not, but like I do think reporting that to fish and game, when you have a bear on a carcass, not only just to absolve yourself of any sort of legal issues, but it's also a safety issue. Like if you're near a trailhead and you leave a carcass, like I know, um, I know of a case where somebody, I know we got the animal out, but the gut pile was right nearby and he called, he called just to say, hey, there's a gut pile in this area, which is near a hiking. Yeah. And then he actually got cited. Oh, really? Yeah. For leaving. He got cited for leaving bear attractant near near trail um and monta fish parks and wildlife will put up notices like

yeah exactly you know exactly so like i don't blame the investigator for thing that there's something fishy when someone calls in an elk missing ahead sure yeah and the they never got a call about a bear taking the carcass like there's things that could have been done to lead to a different outcome but i also don't think this guy was like up to no good or anything you know and it does talk a little bit in the it's just a sticky situation yeah it does talk a little bit in the article about how this like in this area like it's not uncommon for this thing to happen so i think that might be his justification um for this thing and you know the bears are certainly not that scared of people and they're just going to roll in and grab that elk regardless um yeah i'm not saying the guy didn't do anything wrong but

I feel like there needs to be some consistency between what the game warden's doing and what the state is saying. Well, I also think like some clarity could be needed, not just in Montana, but elsewhere, if it's not already there, around, you know, the wanton waste issue after consumption by another animal. Like at what point are you clear of that? If a bear or a lion or coyote comes in and eats half the animal, are you required to take the little scraps and hope it's okay? Right. I haven't read anything that's super clear about that before. No. I'd like to know if the whole contamination thing, like are you basically then at this point just worried that there's bacteria that comes from the bear's saliva and mouth and claws?

sorts of stuff. Feses. Yeah, they lay down on those things, yeah. Roll around on them. Yeah. I don't think that'd be good for you. Just saying. Yeah, I've always thought like the, you know, it's typically defined as edible portion. of certain body parts.

And it does make sense that they don't want to line out each and every possible scenario. But I do think like your best judgment. And then I've, you know, like if I've shot something and there's a chunk of meat that's just totally like not worth carrying out, like not, obviously not like a whole quarter, but like part of the bloodshot and I'm going to carve it off, I'll take pictures of what I leave behind. Really smart.

Yeah. in case anybody, if you get to the trailhead and someone's like, looks like you, like quartered that thing a little thin, you know, like, top shelf to do something like that. I'm like, no, here's, here's what the carcass looked like. Here's the part that is not with what I would ordinarily pack out. And here's why. Yeah, I've seen people leave whole front shoulders. Yeah, that were, because they say they're shot up. Yeah. Which could get you in trouble. Yeah, I always think like it's, everybody has a phone on them. Everybody, if you, like, if you're doing the right thing and you have reasons for what you're doing. You're, doing and you're within the, like, within the law, I just don't want to leave any questions as to what happened. Rannel's a smart guy. Better safe than sorry. Don't want to end up and... There you go, folks.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what we think about that. Well, thank you, Brody. This was a story that, like, definitely is someone who hunts and grizzly bear country. It makes you revisit your thinking on all these things and how you approach it. But now to on to our news. And ladies and gentlemen, in the event that you're watching on YouTube, you may have noticed that there is, in fact, a fifth member of our broadcast team today.

We're joined here by Brian Burrow. I'm told that that's Burra. You know, that is the way the family pronounces it. But if you say Burra, nobody knows how to pronounce it. So when we're introducing ourselves, we'll say burrow. Okay. Well, you're on your home turf now at this point, so we'll call it Burra. And I feel like your family now. Yeah, yeah, part of the meat eater family.

Gunfighters with Brian Burr is out now. This is our newest podcast. It's on the history podcast feed that was formerly the American West. Brian, this is not your first time in the studio here. You were on the main meat eater podcast. Last summer came in and talked with Stephen and all y'all guys. Yeah, yeah. So give folks a taste of what they, this podcast is all about the gunfighters. The, this is a nonfiction historical narrative, really the first narrative history of what I call the gunfighter era, which is a period from 1865 when the first kind of nationally known gunfight

was widely reported until the end of it, which I put an arbitrary date on, but I feel like it's it's right to end the era in 1901 when Butch and Sundance got on a freighter in Brooklyn and headed down to South America. At that point, all the major gunfighter figures from Wild Bill Hickok to Billy the Kid to Wyatt Earp, they pretty much moved on in one way or the other. And so I wanted to tell the story of that 35-year period in one single story. And it's a lot of fun. Yeah.

So this, so you published a book last year by the same name. And then this podcast is sort of an adaptation and expansion of that material for... Exactly. I came on and we have a book. all talked about it. And I know my sales numbers certainly went up and I gather y'all's numbers looked a little bit better. So Stephen reached out at some point and said, hey, could we turn this into a conversational podcast where we tell the stories, the accurate stories of history in a fun way? And that's, we are in the process of making those. I'm in Montana this week doing

10 of them. And we've got two already out. I think maybe the third one came out this week. They come out so fast you lose count and there'll be 26 in all and we're tremendously excited about it yeah so it's very it's similar sort of in the format to what dan was doing with the american west and that a lot of that was adaptations of things that he'd written previously and it's a biweekly i think that's correct if it's every other week it's it's every week it is every week it is oh my goodness i know well i really too bad we can't go back and change that but it's every week 26 episodes, video on YouTube and Apple Podcasts. And the video is unlike anything that we've done here at Meat Eater, if you want to tell.

Let me tell you this is unlike anything I'd done before. I was very happy coming in and being the elderly voice of an author on a podcast. And now suddenly I'm looking up and there's photos flying around and illustrations and some of you guys doing voiceover talent. And then every now and then you see this kind of old guy on camera. It's like much more akin to television than it is to a podcast if that's what turns you on. I mean, I'm really enjoying it. Yeah.

No, it's been fun to sort of watch from the outside. I think we've all dipped our toes a little bit in the voice acting realm. But check it out. I think there are three episodes. I look this morning. I think there's three episodes out now. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcast by searching gunfighters. Again, check out the video on YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

Um, do, can we talk about your next project or should we keep that hush, hush? We can do anything you want to, Randall. I, I really like this. So now we have to. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Um, so after the gunfighters, you were just telling us that you have a new project on your horizon. I'd like to give a little tease of that.

Well, gunfighters, you know, I, I was in New York for 30, 35 years. And I came back out to Texas where I grew up and I decided to write about gun fighters. And I thought, no, it's the 21st century. I'm writing kind of humorous, if you will, about gun violence. What could go wrong? It is a very funny book. And then the book comes out. And I can't say it became a thing, but let's just say the reception was very generous.

And so the publisher turned around to me a week after I turned it in and they said, we love what you did with gunfighters. We love that you've kept it conversational and fun and accessible for people who maybe don't love thick history books. How would you feel about doing this for pirates? Yes. And I've been, I've read everything about pirates since I was 11th, since I discovered. And by pirates, I don't mean global all pirates. I mean what we call the golden era of piracy, which is 1650 to 1725.

So it's essentially every pirate you've ever heard of. Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Henry Morgan. And I'm telling it, in the spirit of the gunfighter, I'm telling it is a single story. set over 75 years with the true stories of a lot of pirates you've heard of and a lot that you have it. And I mean, it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on doing stuff like this. I mean, they actually pay me to do this. I mean, I'd be reading this stuff anyway. Oh, yeah. And so now all I'm doing is turning around and telling them, you know, in a conversational way is a story. And it's just, it's fun. I'm still stunned 50 years after I started doing this,

they still pay me to do it. Yeah, well, I'm, I'm tremendously excited for the pirate book. I'm excited for gunfighters as well. The next time I come in, Randall, you'll have to tell me what to call it, because all my friends are giving me these awful titles like, arg and, you know, you may be. That's good. I'm just telling you.

I've got to come up with something credible and respectful. Yeah, yeah. The podcast version of the pirate book with Randall being a pirate voice actor, I think that will be spectacular. We've got to figure out how to fit pirates into the, the four verticals, but I think we can do that. I think we can make a case somehow. Well, Brian, we are thrilled to have you join the meat eater family here, and everybody's enjoying the gunfighters, and it's great to have you back in the studio. Four-time New York Times bestselling author,

Ryan Burrow, The Gunfighters, it's out now. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts and check out video on YouTube and Apple Podcasts. Thanks for having me. It's a good pleasure. Yanni, it's Whitetail. Are you ready? Yep, ready. Yonnie, it's White Tail Week. he did. Yanni, it's White Tail Week here at Meat Eater. Tell us all about that. That's right, Randall White Tail Week. Wow. Look at that. I'm here for it. Well, I did that for Mark, for all you guys, you guys know, most of you know, I think. Yeah, because you've been telling everybody. I'm now announcing some volleyball games over at Bozeman High School. That's awesome. I'm very jealous. Having a great time with it. Yeah. Bring the hype. The guy ahead of me, I have extremely

big shoes to fill. The guy ahead of me was so good that Montana State University stole him. And he's now announcing over there. Yeah. So yeah, this guy supposedly like could sing the national anthem by himself like that's, you know, into the mic in front of a crowd. I'm like, yeah, that part of that toe area of the shoe, I'm not going to fill, but maybe calling the game, I can do well. It's good retirement plan for you. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a It's a lot of fun. I hope that the kids that I'm announcing for it, that they get a kick out of it. Maybe next year you can announce the Fish Eater Classic. Ooh. Okay. I could be there for that. All right. September 28th to October 4th is White Tail Week here.

This is meant to just get everybody fired up for whitetail season, which I am now. Now that I've got a whole month's worth of elk hunting out of the way, I am extremely excited just to go and read some sign and climb into a tree and just. sit there and not have to hike up and down 2,000 feet every morning and evening. I got a Kansas not coming up with my good buddy and colleague Brent Reeves, which is going to be extremely fun. And I actually, this is an older video of him. This buck is so reliable. Pull this up now.

What's that? Do you want me to pull it up right now? Yeah, please. This buck is so reliable. I think I'm going to have to call him steady eddy. Oh, my goodness. Is that a little drop? Yeah, it is.

No, I think it's... Oh, no. I think it's velvet. Oh. I thought there was a little tiny thing sticking off that. Very soon after he peeled his velvet. But this is, like I said, it's an older video, but is the best one where he just like stops, you know, full frame, picks his head up so you can get a real good look at him.

But he's almost on like a daily pattern by that camera. Well, when you first got this picture, Yanni, you texted me and you said, is this a day one shooter in Kansas? Yeah. And we had a little discussion, but that was, you know, a month ago. Yeah. Where do you stand on it now?

Do you think that's still a day one shooter? Yeah. Yeah. It can be easy for me to get like too big for my britches sometimes in this sense where I'm like, well, I'm going to hold out for this and for that. Then I'm thinking like,

no, I haven't even killed a buck like close to that caliber. So why on earth would I pass them just because I'm hanging in a tree in Kansas? Amen. You can still sit in the tree. tree for the rest of the trip. It's not the same, Randall, you know that. The highlight of Whitetail Week is the ultimate White Tale giveaway, which is headlined by a guided hunt with Jordan Bud and Mark Canyon. This is something you can't buy, folks. I wish I could win this,

because after my Wisconsin hunt last year, which just went live on YouTube, and I appreciate everybody that's already watched, I'm just filled with gratitude that so many people would watch me not kill a deer. But hopefully it was entertaining for you. But after you see that, you'll say, yeah, Yanni needs, could use some help from Mark. And you think as a colleague of his, I would get, like, more, you know, tips and sometimes spent with Mark, you know, becoming a better white-tailed deer hunter. So I don't know.

Maybe I just need to plan a hunt with him. You know, I actually invited you to come hunt with me last year. I did? Stood me up at the last minute. At the last minute? Yeah, we had the tailgate tour together. I was like, hey, after the tailgate, yeah, you did. Let's go deer hunting together.

We're going to go to Michigan. I was going to take you to my deer camp. Oh, instead I went to my deer camp. Because you wanted to spray weeds. You are 100% right. I'm sorry about that. Work had to get done. So yeah, you can win a hunt with Jordan Budd and Mark Canyon on Jordan's place over there in Nebraska.

Sounds like an awesome time. On top of that, other prizes included in the giveaway. A Matthews Bo, a tethered saddle, a meat. The company meat, M-E-A-T, Grinder, which also grinds me. A grill a smoker, sig binoculars, whisper light, sorry, this one is a tongue twitters for me. First Lights, whispered down. Was there an old product that used to be called Whisper Light? MSR Whisper Light stove.

Yeah, that's at the stove. I was just using that still. Crispy Boots, and last but certainly not least, non-X membership. There's so much stuff. Like I said, it's the ultimate giveaway. Keep an eye out on all the meat eater channels this week to get you fired up for deer season and head to the meat eater store

to sign up for the ultimate white tail giveaway. Mark, you want to add anything to my little promo here? I would just say, I had to do a bunch of videos about this so I happen to have all this very top of mind, but more than $23,000 worth of prizes. So you listed a lot of great stuff, but there's just so much more. I was adding that up in my mind knowing that I'm ineligible for 20 years.

Price package. So it's pretty sweet, but a key thing to remember is that you don't need to buy anything to enter. It's free to enter the giveaway. But if you do happen to go on first letter to the mediator store or anything and you need something right now and you purchase, you know, a new jacket or game bags or whatever, you get extra entries into the giveaway this week. Like 2x or something significant. So if there was something you needed, this is a good time to do it because you're just going to get that many more opportunities to win all this other free stuff. Tell me about this hunt. So I don't know a whole lot.

These kinds of things just kind of come out of nowhere, as you know, Randall. But what I do know is that Jordan's got an incredible place there, up in the north-ish, northwest-ish part of the state. I love hunting Nebraska. I've hunted out there three or four times for White Tails. Really cool mix of wide open vista so you can see a lot, but then good thick cover along the river bottom. So especially, you know, late November, you know, you're going to get a lot. lot of deer cruising, these tight funnels. You're going to see a lot of deer.

There should be great activity. I think this is a muzzleloader hunt is what I recall hearing. So you're going to be able reach out there and touch one if you want. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. Even though that muzzleloader hunt, if it is, is December early in Nebraska. Brody, I think you've hunted that. They're always rutting.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a great, great time to be there. I love that season. Very excited about it. So, yeah, sign up. Let's go hunting. Hunting with a crew,

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It's Steve Ronella here and it is Whitetail Week at Meat Eater. That's right. The most anticipated week of the year. White Tail Week at Me Eater. Both seasons are open, bucks are making rubs and all week we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in America. We're also running the ultimate White Tail giveaway. The sort of the premier part of this package is you win a hunt with Mark Canyon and Jordan Budd at Jordan Budd's family ranch in Nebraska where I have hunted. Jordan is cool as hell.

Her family's ranch is cool as hell. It is great hunting. You're going to have a blast. Plus, get gear, free gear from over 20 brands. So keep an eye on meat eater channels all week and head to the meat eater store to sign up. No purchase necessary. Get all your rules at the meat eater store. Now on to your news.

Still sticking with that one, huh? Yeah, Steve's gone. And honestly, I'm kind of just getting, I'm kind of planting my feet now. It's not really. I like it, Phil. I like it. Was that a pigeon? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, it was a pigeon delivering a piece of mail, you know? I get it. As pigeons do. It's not really a hitter. It doesn't hit hard like when Phil sings. It makes me think that I'm going out to my chicken pen to chase the pigeons away. I didn't say this last week when Steve was bitching about it. But after months of radio live and my drops getting progressively more involved and frankly

obnoxious, I, for the news. show, I wanted them to just be in and out. Quick, quick hitters that don't distract from what we're doing here. And this pigeon drop has sparked more distraction and side conversation that any of my radio live drops have. So I think

I just made a grave miscalculation. Don't stand your ground. We'll get used to it, Phil. Since it's White Tail Week, we've got a couple stories from our listeners about, you guessed it, the most popular game animal in the whole damn country, the White Tail Deer. First, we've got

Brody with an email about a huge buck out of Minnesota. This is a wonderful story. This is great. Pull up that first picture, Phil, so people can gock at that thing while I'm reading. Do you want to tell me now what makes this story wonderful after you tell us about it? After you, I tell you. I just think it's a great story. The email's great.

This is from Max in Minnesota. We got this email on September 21st. I shot this buck yesterday. evening at 20 yards, just 30 minutes from Minneapolis. With an hour and a half left of shooting light left, I climbed into the sand and saw this buck at 7.30. Made a perfect shot, and he didn't go more than 60 yards. When I walked up and finally saw him on the ground, my excitement faded and panic started engulfing my mind because I didn't know how I was going to move it by myself. I could only drag it five feet at a time when I typically can get 20 to 30 yards, pulling the buck by the antler.

I assumed it was somehow a loss of strength due to aging or something dumb like that. Like I feel you. I wrestled the buck into the tractor after gutting it and got it on ice. My good buddy stopped by to help me today and we truly didn't know how big it was until two of us couldn't lift it off the ground using a pulley and rope. With its butt still touching the ground, we saw 260 on the scale and we knew we were in different territory. after hooking up the rope to the tractor and lifting it that way it hit 329.48 and that's what the tenderloins cut out the photo of the buck with the tractor there it is is the best way to see the size the antlers look small in the tractor photo because of the enormous body size i truly wish i took a picture of the rope swing we made to get this thing off the ground because it obviously looks sketchy just showing a picture of the scale got that that picture phil but I do have witnesses that would vouch for every detail.

It's an unbelievable animal and I'm beyond lucky to see something like this. I mean, how can you not like that story, Yonis? It's just a great story. What's your favorite part of this, Yanni? I have my notes. About the story itself. Everything. I mean, it's interesting.

I mean, it's a giant body deer. That's interesting to me. I don't know. otherwise I was kind of like oh okay he shot a really big heavy buck I mean that is really I thought you had something you were excited about I almost can't I have a hard time believing it

not that I question his validity but that's just unbelievable 329 gutted and without the tenderloins that's insane I mean a really big buck is 200 pounds I believe every word I believe it not saying I don't believe it but it's just wild oh it's crazy one thing I love is the photo with the tractor

Phil if you'll indulge me, the blood and the John Deere green and the grass. Oh, yeah. It's just a very striking, striking image. That bright red lung blood there? Yep. Where's the red? That's right.

Mark's like, color blood. Is that thing to sleep in there? I'm not really colorblind. The blood is where it should be, Mark. I'll just say the blood is where it should be. I can see that red. My second favorite part of this is any time I'm picking up here.

It was 329-48, and with its butt still touching the ground, they got 260 on the scale, so that's what, like 70 pounds? I'm feeling like I need to start weighing myself with my butt still touching the ground. There's all sorts of great secrets. I also like the idea of you can't trust the scale

without a picture of the full context. Maybe I'll just start weighing myself and snapping photos. There you go. Sure. There's just one foot on the scale. Yeah, this is fabulous. This is fabulous. that this guy wrote in to just tell us about a heavy-ass deer yeah it's a great white tail week story great job max um another white tail uh white tail uh white tail email for uh janis and and mark will probably

jump in here too you want to go ahead and read that yonis yeah sure ben geals wrote in good morning i have a correction for the news show episode 926 at the opening of the show yonis was talking about clearing buckthorne steve then said that nothing wants to eat it and the others agreed. This is not true. Both deer and rabbits eat the bark and shoots of Buckthorn. I came about this knowledge

while pheasant hunting in central Minnesota late in the season during a hard winter. I found a bunch of spots in the snow that looked like someone spilled blue gatorade. But there was rabbit and deer shit

in the same spots. So after some research, it turns out that the bark of buckthor contains a phytal chemical called emodin. The emodin ends up in the urine and turns blue when hit by and or

I didn't quite understand that sunlight, but let's just say when it's hit by sunlight, it turns blue. While it isn't a preferred food source, Buckthorn absolutely gets eaten by both deer and rabbits in the winter when other food sources are scarce. I think that was a trivia question at some point. Really?

What color is the urine of an animal that's been eating Buckthorn? I must not have been in that episode. I do remember something about this. And sure enough, Brody, did you editorialize that and write, sure, shit, he's right, and here's a picture to prove it. Who found the picture? Where did you find that? Just looked it up online.

There's a bunch of them. It does look like blue Gatorade. What's crazy is I have hunted around buckthorn so much in my life. I've never once seen Blue Piss. Well, here's the deal. I think, like, if he's correcting us on saying that nothing eats it, yes. but I think we were saying like nothing wants to eat it

and I think we're also correct in saying that generally vegetables like it's not quite like kids or kids or Randall not wanting to eat vegetables but I texted Matt Ross from the NDA he said

generally anything with glossy leaves has low palatibility ratings for deer the glossy surface is a defense mechanism against herbivores among other things causing low digestible doesn't mean they won't eat it. If it's all there is, they will. For example, rhododendrons have glossy leaves and can be hammered, especially in the winter.

Buckthorn Forge nutrition value is fairly poor, too. One of the reasons it out-competes native regent, like when you're trying to regenerate native plants, is because it's not selected as a browse. So I think for us, like, when we're just like generally saying that, like, nothing wants to eat it, It's it got very low wildlife value. I feel like that's a true statement. And I'm going to stick by that. I'm going to continue killing it because it is the scourge of the, of the, you know,

Midwest and other areas. And it's like, sure, in extreme scenarios, when there's nothing else left because, you know, because there's too much buckthorn and nothing else can live, yeah, the animals are like, well, I have to eat this. And my piss is going to turn blue, dang it. Yeah, on the, on the back. 40 project we did back in the day. I don't know if you recall that from our squirrel hunting adventures, Janus.

Oh, yeah. But that was one of the major issues on that property was just rampant buckthorn. And so multiple wildlife habitat specialists that came out to look at that place with me, that was one of the first things that says, you got to get rid of that. Very low wildlife value, very aggressive. And yeah. So interesting to point out, but I think, like you said, generally what you mentioned holds true. Yeah, do you able to get a handle on it?

Definitely not entirely. We tackled pockets of it. I think if we still had that property, it'd be a project we would still be doing today. And I actually think that the National Deer Association, which took it over, they have continued to do that work in the years since. Yeah. I'm actually now embarking on a project with the NRCS, and they're going to help me with my glossy buckthorn because it's going to be years of work. It's nice to have the help. And then you'll never see any more blue raspberry snow cones on the ground.

Yeah, I'm, I mean, as cool as that is, I'm hoping to never see blue piss. They need to rename that plant. Like, Buckthorne's not a good name for it. No, it's, yeah, somehow, just blue piss thorn. I'd be interested in the story of how it got that name. You know? I believe because there's something segments into like, like it splits and it makes it looks like a buck horns.

I can't remember if it's the way that the leaf splits or something on it splits and makes it look like a little buck dorn on it. That'll lead to another correction. Probably. Future episode. Thank you, Ben. Now on to the news. Gosh, do we have time for Phil to explain that sound bit or no?

It's been done before the audience has heard out. I'll talk to you after the show. Okay, thanks, Phil. I'm first up here. This is just a quick story. but this was first reported in the Juno Empire by Jeffrey Kennett. There was a woman, Janet E. Lopez, who was charged in Juneau District Court last week, I believe, with three counts of obstructing or hindering lawful hunting.

The incident in question happened on June 18th along Glacier Highway. None of this has been proven in court yet, so these are all allegations. But according to court documents, there are three archery hunters, about 300 yards off the road. They're making a stalk on a black bear. when Ms. Lopez stopped to ask them what was going on. They told her they were bear hunting. And so she drove up and down the road honking her horn, eventually spooking the bear off.

Those guys ended up calling it a day because she kept honking her horn. And eventually the state troopers looked into it or wildlife troopers looked into it. And she told them she likes to watch the local bears and has even named them. So, you know, if she has that relationship, understandable that she would not want to be.

want to see one killed by the roadside. She was charged with three counts of obstructing or hindering lawful hunting, one charge for each of the three hunters whose hunts were impacted by her actions. Wow. So always nice to see the process and the law working. Sometimes it goes the way of the hunter. Well, I think it's good to note here that most everybody listening to this. Yeah.

It is not going to be going, oh, I better not honk at wildlife when there's hunters. around trying to spook the game. But it's good to know if something like this happens that you have a lot of power and it's your right to be hunting and that you should engage with local law enforcement, game war, and whoever and report this kind of behavior

because it is completely illegal. In all states, you cannot harass. You cannot harass hunters. The thing that struck me most about this whole story is if there's one place in the United States, where you would think you would probably not have to deal with hunter harassment. It would be Alaska. I mean, every, like, you know, everybody's putting some kind of game meat in their freezer or fish in their freedom, whatever.

It's just, it's just weird, but, you know. Yeah, my reaction to this story was I wish we had more laws like this. Pretending to watching things on phones without headphones. having phone calls on speaker phone. Amen. Behavior and movie theaters. Why don't we just have general laws interfering with my daily? That's a joke, by the way.

I'm not a big, big gov guy. Big Gov over-reach guy. I had something somewhat similar to this happen to me. Really? Yeah. When I was like 16, 15, 16. I bowhunted behind my parents' house where we lived.

We had three and a half acres of land, and I would go and bow hunt for white tails in the mornings and evenings after school. And on one particular day, I got back from the hunt, and my sister said, did you see anything? I said, no. She's like, yes, because I went down there and had been spraying perfume. She didn't want me shooting deer,

and so unbeknownst to me, she was going and spraying perfume throughout. my hunting grounds. I hope you called her in. I don't think I knew you had a sister until just now. No? No. Yeah, I've got sister. It's because she screwed up his wife at odds. Does she not hunt? He doesn't talk to her anymore because he called the game war. Yeah, never once since. She's in jail. She does not hunt. Oh. Yeah. Can't say that I've that I've run into anything like that. Yeah, I can't. I don't think I've had any kind of hunter harassment. I mean, other than not hunting and then saying that I'm, I've run into anything. I don't think that I've run into I'm a hunter and then being harassed a little bit.

You know, when I was, when I was flying to Austria, I didn't talk to the people next to me on the plane until we were, had landed and we're pulling our shit out of the overhead bins, you know? And then all of a sudden they became interested in talk to me. I was in the same mindset that I had maintained throughout the flight, but she was like asking me what I was doing. And for whatever reason, I actually didn't lie. I said, yeah, I'm here.

I'm visiting friends and I'm hunting. And I told them all about it. And she goes, well, that all sounds fantastic, except for the hunting part. And then I just shrunk back down into my seat. I thought, why didn't I just lie to her, you know, any event? Sometimes those lead to great conversations, though. Sometimes, sometimes. Yeah, and if you had more time, had you guys struck it up mid-flight at midnight, you know,

and you both had to get up to go pee or something, then by the time you landed, she might have been pro-hunting. Yeah, that's true, missed opportunity. One more regret that I'll carry with me. Speaking of government overreach, Randall, there was a proposal that the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission rejected that would have required hunters and trappers to carry bear spray in bear country. Proponents, including bear ecologist Mike Bader, argued the mandate would improve public safety and reduce defensive grizzly bear deaths, noting 30 grizzly deaths and 251 conflicts this year. opponents and commissioners criticize the proposals an unnecessary government mandate

noted that existing public education and training efforts are already effective. Critics also argued the petition unfairly targeted hunters and trappers while ignored other public land users and despite the rejection, organizers plan to continue advocating for the bearers-braider requirements

to enhance the safety. Who's got thoughts on that one? I think the main point as unfairly targeting hunters and trappers. To me, that's the big thing. Yeah, and I don't know that this year's 30 grizzly deaths and 251 total conflicts have to do with encounters on the trail or in the woods.

Bears do not have a lot to eat right now, and there's a lot of bears getting into town and garbage. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I also just think any sort of mandatory like you have to carry bear spray like well tell me what you don't archery hunt but what do you do during I carry I carry bear spray and a handgun

okay what do you do both both if I were if you're gonna make if you're worried about like a hunter an archery hunter encountering a grizzly and then turning to his sidearm instead of his bear spray if you make him carry bear spray he's still going to go to the side right right like

Yeah. They have to be willing, people have to be educated and willing participants in something like that for it to work. So just strapping a can on your chest isn't going to change outcomes on the ground. No, not at all. And yeah, like, if they're going to do this, it's like, share, anybody that goes out onto public lands. Right. During grizzly bear season should be carrying bear spray. Right. And how would you even begin to police? Oh, yeah. You know. No, it's like, it's a bummer. to even have to kind of think this, but you can't help to be like, oh, are they like a little bit trying to be anti-hunting here? They might not even be trying to be anti-hunting,

but they might have an anti-hunter bias, right? So they're looking at what's going on. They're saying, well, it's the hunters who are doing this and causing these problems because they're unnecessarily creating conflict being out there doing their thing.

Turrets, hunters like killing grizzly bears without actually killing grizzly bear. You know what I mean? Yeah. But, I mean, to Barandall's point, you know, in Montana up here, something like 50, 60 grizzlies get killed every year. And most are not hunter conflict. Most are, you know, wildlife service.

Chicken coop, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, cars, the whole nine yards. Yeah, better time and resources would be better spent addressing those sorts of conflicts. Yeah. I mean, education, right? I mean, there's a good amount of that, but certainly let's spend the money on more of that. Yeah, or they could spend this time and effort to squash this idea. coming out of Washington, D.C.

Man, what a segue. I had a better one. Oh, okay. You could still go with it. Let's try it again. Yeah. What do you got, Randy? I sort of lost my wheels.

They were, I was going to say, speaking of misguided to something, something, something, but we're already past it. Oh, that was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Bravo. Nice try, Randall. So one of the craziest stories of a several year period of pretty crazy public and related stories.

I saw this come across my news feed this past weekend. Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the Major League Baseball League contacted the Trump administration about hosting an MLB game at a national park. And then, as recently as just this past week, an agency official was at Grand Teton National Park, scouting it for possible occasions to build a baseball venue of some kind to possibly host a game. So according to this article, National Park Service Deputy Director Frank lands, visited the park in recent days, and looked at three different possible locations for a baseball park within the park's boundaries. And the idea here, at least from the MLB, is that they're

trying to have more of these kind of themed special games and special locations. I'm all for that. The Field of Dreams Park. The Field of Dreams won in Iowa. Which was supposed to be temporary, but then they made it a permanent. I was a big fan of the college basketball games on the aircraft carriers. Michigan State did that. Yeah, yeah. North Carolina. Michigan State. That was the game. You know, it's way cheaper as like bubbleheads of anime characters. That's the, that's the theming I can give back.

Not really a draw there, Phil. Dang. Okay. Yeah, maybe in your world. So, so yeah, this news dropped on Saturday. In the subsequent days, there's been all kinds of outcry from, you know, national parks, advocates, conservationists, uh, tourists there in the park. A number of journalists went in the park and asked people that were hiking, you know,

the Jenny Lake Trail or different things about that. Of course. My first gut reaction was this seems just, I don't know, abhorrent to consider like just this absolutely stunning natural landscape. The titans are just one of the most incredible vistas we have in our national park system. And then to put a baseball stadium there would just be like building a baseball stadium in a cathedral, something like that. So when I first saw that. be cool. I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

I do want to fact check a little here, though, because we all saw this pop up on social media. We saw these articles. And it must be noted that the White House issued a statement that clarifies, at least their position on this, which is that, you know, they confirmed that the MLB did send a request asking about this possibility, but it did say that this is not a presidential directive, nor is it being directed by the White House. it's also not being driven by the Department of the Interior.

Therefore, this is not a White House or administration priority. They clarified that there have been no decisions made. The Park Service has not granted any permits. And that if the MLB wants to go on site visits of national parks, that's their prerogative. But they are denying that there has been any active scouting done by the administration itself. But there is this deputy director who has gone and visited three sites. at Grand Teton. Supposedly in like their statement,

this is like, it was coincidence that he was there visiting these places at the same time. I, yeah, I mean, I think what's, what's not said in that statement is the most glaring part of it. They're saying, we didn't come up with this idea. The White House isn't pushing this idea. The interior isn't pushing this idea, and it's not a priority for us.

They didn't say this will not happen. Yeah, exactly. In a sane world, whoever, MLB reached out to about this idea would have shut it down at this point and said, I'll save you the embarrassment. Like, I'm not going to bring this to my superiors. But obviously, they are not at the point yet where they can say this is out of the question. There are plenty of places they could build a stadium. Oh. It doesn't need to be in Grand Teton National Park. Especially in that valley. If you want those views, there's plenty of flat ranches where the building would probably be easy.

and you'd still have the view of the teetons. Yeah. Let's not. Let's not get any ideas. Yeah. The thing that strikes me is, and look, man,

like I'm a baseball fan. Like my kid plays baseball. Three weeks ago, we were in Seattle and went and saw two games. I feel like the MLB should like read the room a little bit better. And like, the amount of money that would be spent to build this stadium,

like, what else could they do? with that money. They could, I don't know, donate it to like youth baseball programs around the country or something like that. Our talent funnel for

US-born players. Anyway, can you imagine the blowback the MLB would get if something like this went through in a national park setting like that? I mean, it would just be all. I also just think it speaks to like the gulf in this country between people who get

the public lands issue and people who don't. Yeah. Um, and also, you know, misconceptions about what the national parks are. Yeah, it's like, right. Like they're not like they're sure there are, there are national parks that are like a parking lot and you go up and you look at something and it's like a historic site or whatever. But that is not. Yeah. No.

And that like the throw away culture idea of this like we're going to have a game in a national park. It's like you're going to build a stadium for one game. And yes, maybe they'd come back. for additional games, but it's just like, use your head. Do it on the moon. Yeah. Yeah.

That would be something spectacular. Phil, are you in on moonball? Think how far that ball would go. You could hit a home run from the moon to the earth. Yeah, we won't even have to do steroids anymore. It'll still be exciting to watch. It'll be better than the McGuire Sosa Glory Days. We're solving all the world's problems right here, folks.

Well, keep us updated on that, Mark. Yeah, we'll do. Hopefully there's hopefully no more updates. Hopefully this thing dies. I know. I hope it dies with. a whimper and we just never hear anything about it again. Yeah, fingers crossed. It's wild.

With that, we are on to Steve's interview with Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand about a big wet buck. Thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you next week. Most of us aren't scouting or working on our property as often as we'd like. We've got jobs, families, and a limited number of days in the tree each fall. So the work you do now matters. On X hunt, put your trail camera photos on your map. Dials in wind and weather for the exact spot you're hunting. And there's a powerful deer movement forecast rooted in data from trail camera images. So when you do get out there, you've already got a plan.

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that of someone close to you, visit connectsonterio.ca. It's Steve Ronella here and it is White Tail Week at Meat Eater. That's right. The most anticipated week of the year. White Tail Week at Meat Eater. Both seasons are open, bucks are making rubs and all week we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in America. We're also running the ultimate White Tail giveaway.

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Get all your rules at the meat eater store. Okay, I'm on right now with Rob Sand. Now, if you're in Iowa, you know exactly who Rob Sand is. If you're outside of Iowa and you're thinking to yourself, why do I know that name? You might remember him because. he's a he's a he's many things but one of those many things is iwas state auditor but the most important thing about rob san from my perspective is that he's probably the only i'm going to go out on the limb and say he is the only suburban archery deer hunter running for governor right now i mean

i'm not like an expert on the subject but i would have heard if there were more And yeah, Rob's saying is Iowa State Auditor running for governor in Iowa. Even if you hadn't heard, even if you hadn't heard, I bet I would have heard. You would have heard because someone would have said to you, hey, man, you know how like you're running for governor and you're a suburban deer hunter? Well, Bill over in whatever state. He is too. On episode 809, Rob came on. I've been reading about Rob in the newspapers.

And when I would read about Rob Stan, the newspapers, it would often include his love of the hunt. So I took an interest in him. He came on episode 809. And he told a great story about a deer called the 209. Guess how big that deer was? And how he got it through like a suburban hunting program. And in the end of the episode, he shared with me that he was trying to, he was fixing to get it, shoulder mounted in a way where it would look like it was wet. because he was wet when he got it.

And I thought this was the worst idea in the world. Phil, can you pull up the mount? Phil's going to pull up an image of the mount. As you can see, I did not do that. Are you happy with it? It looks great. I'm so happy with it. It looks great.

I did not make it look wet. It was wet as three wet things when I shot it, but it looks great just the way it is. Because I was... And you know, these days, you think you know if somebody wants to hear the story they can listen to a podcast on it it's not like they need to look at it and be like oh it must have been raining out but what i was suggesting to you is that when you wanted it to look wet just take a wet rag and wetting it up a little bit and you can tell i had a guy i had a guy reach out on instagram and he had he he sent me some kind of a beeswax product oh where he was he was kind of he was kind of like i've done this before it looks cool here's what it looks like and i gotta be honest

like the antlers that he because he's a shed he was a shed hunter and so he would he had this beesbacked product that he would put on the sheds to make them look kind of wet oh yeah it's alive in the back i really couldn't tell the difference yeah i really couldn't really i couldn't tell much of the difference i mean if you're looking at this picture of this mount right now oh you're seeing you know some some shiny bone that might maybe could be wet but i kind of at the end of the day was like you know I don't think it's going to look that much different. And one thing I know is it looks good if I do it the way I always do it, and I don't want to screw it up.

So I got into your head, you're saying, and you took my instructions and did not make them. I like people. I welcome people in. I like here in other people's opinions. That's part of this entire campaign for governors. Maybe we should all work together. Where is the 209? I want to talk about this campaign deal and what that's all like.

But where's the 209 hanging? If anybody wants to come to what I like to call the public sector Cabellas, That's room 111 of the Iowa Capitol building. It is in the state auditor's office right there. If you are in Iowaan, you can come. If you're not an Iowaan, but you happen to be in Des Moines, you can come. You can check it out. It's in there with the other mounts that I've taken with my bow over the years.

A buffalo, three bucks that measure between, no, sorry, four bucks that measure between 153 and 159. And then a few assorted smaller ones that are all at least 125. and then the man and then the man the 209 and the big boy yeah that's right so when you came on the show

you were you were in a position and like I said I got introduced to you because people would send me articles about you and it would point out I knew you know you were a state auditor

and you were politically involved but it would be articles and these people that wrote these articles would always it'd be like urban journalists and they would write about this Rob Sand character

and his like you're like that you had like your family had you know you had like agricultural connections from working jobs and you were a kid you were a hunter and so people would be like oh i bet steve would like this guy and um and i had you on and i did and at the time you you hadn't gone through your primary yet so walk walk us through how that all went and where things stand right now because i keep reading about you still and people like your your campaign is working yeah you know We didn't end up having a primary on the ballot. There was a gal that was running who had said, you know, I'm running two. And she didn't end up getting on the ballot. And so it was just me. You were the only name on there. Only name. I think, yeah, it was the only name on there.

Okay. And then the campaign, yeah, it wasn't really a contest, you know, at the end of the day. And then the campaign, you know, a big piece of it to me is I, I always go everywhere and I talk to everybody. And so we did 100 public town halls last year. We had finished them by the time I talked to you. We're like 90. We have like number 94 tonight.

We're taping this on a Monday. We got one in Ames tonight. So we got like six more of those. We'll do plenty of other events. But Steve, when we do these events, we have people come into the room, raise their hand for what party they're in and ask them to applaud their neighbors

that are in the other political parties. And we ask them to sing America the Beautiful together to prove that Democrats and Republicans can work together. And when we get to the Q&A part, I always make a point of handing the microphone to somebody who raised their hand to say they're a Republican. To be clear, I'm a Democrat. And so by handing the microphone to somebody who said they were Republican,

I can demonstrate with my actions, not just my words, how serious I am about the idea that we should work together. And sometimes they're like, I didn't really bring any questions. And other times they asked me, you know, maybe something of a gotcha question. They were there as someone who's a little antagonistic. That's okay. But the point of this to me is to be like, this is real democracy. Like we should be getting in the same room.

We should be talking to each other. We should be focusing on the areas. We agree. And what I've been saying lately is left wing, right wing, same bird. Mm-hmm. You know, like we just, we know that it makes more sense. to work together. We know that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. And if you're willing to work with each other, then every once in a while you say, okay, broken clock is right twice a day. You have a

fair point. Let's add what you're doing to what we want to do and do something we all think is going to do better than what we're doing right now. That's just common sense stuff. And I think people are hungry for common sense these days. You know, you, so you're running for this office as an outspoken outdoors, when you don't shy away from being an outdoors. And you don't view it like a, you don't, you don't feel like being a deficit or something you ought to hide for fear that people are going to disapprove. And I think part of part of that, because you're so open about what your interests are, a part of your campaign is wetlands, wetlands conditions, the conditions of wetlands in Iowa. Tell me about that.

So Iowa's got a water quality crisis tied to that, connected to that is the fact that we're last year, number one, this year number two, and cancer growth. Like we have too much nitrate in our water. We've got other issues in our water. And we also are 49th for public land, Steve, 49th. And that does. I had a guy asked me a much. Yeah.

So I looked it up. I had a guy asked me, he's like, is that include state, local and federal? And I said, good question. I looked it up. Yes, it does. We have almost the least public land of any state. And think about this for a second. We've got a big water quality problem.

we got we're 49th for public land we got people who leave the state for outdoor recreation opportunities call me crazy if we did a massive wetlands restoration we could fix all three of those problems with the same solution right because nothing filters water better than nature's water filter that's just the truth if you want to clean your water up you ought to put it in a wetland and i like to say there's four and a half fs for things you can do with a wetland you can take a field trip you can foul hunt you can float you can fish and you can photograph photograph i call half and half yeah that's that's fair and yeah and like this is this is basically you just drew a circle with those four and a halfs that includes pretty much everybody i'm

who doesn't want to do one of those things you might want to you might want to photograph the duck before i shoot it but you know the more wetlands we have across the state the cleaner water we're going to have and then fewer people are going to leave we're not going to offer them mountains if they want the mountains are going to come out to bozeman or they're going to go out to colorado but if we want to offer them a stream where you can see the bottom of it where it's fun to just stand there and catch crawdabs the way I did when I was a kid or better trout fishing or better fishing in lakes too you know we can get there we can get cleaner water we just got to put a little effort into it I think a lot of people view and and if they have this view I'm not critical

of it but they would say how you can't make a wetland it just is right what does it mean to create wetlands. Like I think in people's heads, you're like, God makes wetlands. Man doesn't make wetlands. What does that mean? I mean, to me, obviously there's a different level where

to some folks, the idea of wilderness and something that is truly pure and just is, is kind of like their highest end. And I love that idea. We're not going to have that here. Iowa is one of the most terraformed places on the planet, meaning

mankind in Iowa as much as anywhere else has said, I'm going to take this land and make it this. But you can make it back into a wetland, right? I mean, at the end of the day, what we're talking about is taking some of the lowest pieces of land, some of the most saturated pieces of land. And instead of running crops on them, like actually do the restoration work, remove the tile from that wetland area, and put in place, like, like the right soils, the right plants to make it be what it used to be. If it wanted to be a wetland, if there's a place in the geography that wants to be a wetland,

then take it and make it so that it can be a wetland again. So it's rather than wetland creation, what we're talking about is wetland, wetland restoration. That's right. That's right. And you just mentioned how. you have a very low percentage of public land. Right.

What does it look like to do wetland restoration in a landscape where there's very little public land? This has to involve, I'm guessing this has to involve a plan of incentivizing landowners to allow, in some cases, you know, small portions, large portions of agricultural production. production areas to be restored to wetlands. So what I want to do, first of all, you've got to take a watershed approach. Because if you're, if you're aiming to clean up water, if you just do a scattershot thing, one size doesn't fit all. And you want to have an area, I mean, you know science, you want to have an area that you tested and then an area that you didn't.

So that five, 10 years later, you can say, look, now the water's cleaner over here because we did all this work. Let's expand that program and do it over there. and that helps you measure the impact of what you're doing, which to me helps the public understand that you're treating them right. You're taking care of their tax dollars. You're cleaning up their water. You're giving them more fun places to play.

What I specifically, what I want to do is basically a reverse auction. So I have the state, say, put out a form that just says, hey, landowners in Iowa, give us the GPS coordinates on your plot. tell us the lowest price per acre that you will take. And then once we collect all those effectively bids, but it's bids to sell, not bids to buy. You collect all those bids, and then you overlay that on a GIS map

so that you're looking at what are our most targeted areas, which of these places that have been offered to us give us the most bang for the buck and go from there. So at the end of the day, and you got to, again, this is going to have to be within particular watersheds to start because I want to be able to, I want to be five years down the road and be able to point at it and say, hey, look, look at how much better we're doing here. Look at how much better we're doing there in these two watersheds that we started with.

Let's keep going. Yeah. I think what I think is. That way it's voluntary, which I think is important. Yeah. What I was going to point out is like a lot of conservation projects that I applaud would wind up be in situations of willing seller, willing buyer. So I think a lot of people here, oh, agricultural lands, that must mean they're coming with eminent

domain and taking people's farms. But in this case, you're often looking at places that probably have low output are probably variable in production because there's always the risk of flooding anyways and places where someone could pull it out of their holdings and know that it's not turning into a strip mall. It's not turning into something next to them that they don't want, but it's getting reverted to an area that's probably going to add value to. to surrounding landscapes.

It's going to add wildlife quality to surrounding landscapes and you create a situation where a bunch of people win. And you know how this works. I mean, if you're in a small town that happens to have good hunting nearby, your restaurants and your hotel are just going to be that much busier because of it. And so if we see that kind of restoration where people are like,

hey, there's this big new wetland in north central Iowa. You know, yeah, that's going to be good in that area. And you might be a hotel that's 30 miles away or a restaurant that's 30 miles away. That's just a 30-minute drive in Iowa, you know? So you still might be benefiting from that too. The other piece of it is we've got this state program. You know, one of the issues with CRP nationally is you don't really allow grazing on it.

But there's a lot of compatibility with grazing and with wildlife. And so we've got a state program called the Working Lands Program. Yeah. where again, it's designed to take some of that lower CSR. CSR is core and suitability rating, but it's lower CSR land. Maybe it's a steep grade, and so it's highly erodable. Again, maybe it's just sort of wetter, or maybe it's right along the river. But the Working Lands Program helps folks take that land that's more highly erodable

and turn it into grazing land. So you do, you know, a short grass prairie. Great. If you're grazing on short grass prairie, you're going to have more habitat. Maybe it's pheasant instead of ducks. But that's still beneficial for folks, no matter what it is they want to do. It still helps clean up our water and still helps growers and producers with profitability. Because you're not telling them like we are with CRP, like, well, you can't do anything with.

Yeah, it gives people the middle step. and for for listeners that talk about we're talking about the CRP Conservation Reserve program which critics would say oh it's paying farmers not to do nothing but what what it does is it creates a economic incentive and maybe that's even too strong a word but it makes it financially viable for landowners to put areas of their property on hold and let the soils rebuild and create wildlife habitat where it's not such an economic hit to them to enroll it. People don't get rich off CRP. But in some cases, it's like a more flexible system would get more people to be able to participate in conservation and still run working properties. And like you're saying, Grace Cabot? Yeah. Yeah, and especially right now, you know, we've got so many people out there who are really hurt.

Farm income has gone down about 50% on average. And the other piece of this is what I'd love to do, is, you know, if you're saying, oh, well, this is only a small acreage, well, put a few cattle out there. I want us to do more support for local and regional food systems. So if you've just got a small head of cattle, or if you want to, I don't know what you want to graze out there, but even if it's a smaller amount, you're not going to have enough to have do a commercial slaughter. You do local slaughtering at a locker and sell it to local school districts. That helps keep that money here locally, helps reinforce local rural economy.

and that helps everybody win too. When you're out there, I'm guessing you've got to talk about all kinds of stuff that is really on people's minds. And it doesn't really, not that it doesn't interest us here, but it's just outside of our focus on the show. But I'm sure you're out there talking about gas prices and grocery prices and all this kind of stuff because you've got to be. But when you go out and you're doing your town hall meetings and you're talking to constituents,

how much interest, how much tolerance is there for discussion? about conservation issues. Like when you start talking about wetlands, do people tune out? When you start talking about CRP, do they tune out? Or are I in Iowa? Interested. In Iowa right now, this is a hot topic and people really like our plan. You know, I've got people who are on the ag side and people who are on the conservation

side and people who are just on the hunting side. And then just people who don't do any of those things, but they want better water quality. All of them are like, this is a good idea. you've got a good plan. And it's partially because we got this water quality crisis. You know, we have a lot of beach closures that are state parks every year. So I want to fix this stuff. And so do other people.

So it's actually what I said. It's not just duck hunters that are thinking about this. Correct. Correct. And so actually when I do my town halls and I say, I want to have the biggest wetlands restoration that anyone has ever seen, sometimes we get applause on that. You know, people are, people really want to see improvement in water quality. And to me, the number one way to do that.

that gets people excited is more wetlands yeah um so when's the election what date this year i should know this i should know this too november 3rd i think november 3rd so like first so first tuesday after the first monday whatever that is okay so your your poll your you're i know you don't pay attention to this people do you're polling well your view is that you're going to be out there laying making your case you don't care what the polls say and that's not what you hear you here to talk about. You're polling well. Let's say, let's just say, the voters of Iowa send you to the governor's office on November 3rd. What is your, what is the day that you have to report to work? The day I would switch jobs, uh, I think is the 14th of January. Oh, I know it's in January.

I know I get two months to like, you know, take a nap. So yeah, that's what I'm getting at. I get the rut. I get the rut, Steve. That's what I'm getting that. You want to get the rut. Yeah. On November 2nd, it's too late. I don't know. The morning of November 3rd, it's too late. Like, what's done is done.

So you could feasibly hunt. You could feasibly deer hunt this year. What's that? Oh, yeah, no, I'll be out there. I'll be out there after the 3rd. But you have a point. I could go out on election day. And, you know, what's kind of the die is cast at that point.

I don't know if I'll do that. I'll probably be a little bit too E&C, but that'd be pretty cool to fill a tag on the same day. You'd be calling your wife from the stand, being like, hey, did I win? Yeah. Yeah, I actually, so funny story, I ran for re-election as state auditor in 22,

and it was super tight. And the guy that I was running against didn't, we knew we were going to win. We knew we had a big enough lead that even in a recount, it's like, okay, buddy, you got a lot of space, you got to make up here. So we were pretty comfortable. and I found out that I won when I was field dressing a buck when a reporter called me to be like,

hey, your opponent conceded. He's like, where are you right now? What are you doing? I'm like, I'm in Madison County field dressing a nice buck. You should have seen the space in the oak leaves that I put that arrow through. Like he came in probably, and this is a tree I've said in many times. It's a great spot. but I never actually

had taken a buck out of it before. He came in and the wind was just right and he's heading towards me and he kind of looks around a little bit and I'm like I'm shooting this buck if I get a shot. And he pauses dead straight on,

not quartering towards, just dead on. It's probably 25 yards away. I can't, he stands there for a while. I can't tell if he's going to turn and go or keep coming. but I'm ready

and he ends up kind of doing I guess like a receiver you'd say like a button hook you know kind of comes in a little bit further and does a full turnaround and I just had this one little window and I gave

a little bleat and got him to pause right in that window it just poked that arrow right through and then you won the election a couple minutes later and then I won the election and he took off

and he went down he only he i mean didn't go 20 but he went down in a pine grove where the dirt was so soft i didn't actually hear him hit the ground yeah and so i stayed in that tree i'm i'm not patient i've had problems in the past where i'm too excited and i get down too early i stayed in that tree plenty long and then it was just surprised to see like oh he's right here but i didn't i didn't he actually like hit the ground and plowed like his his antler was actually a little bit under the dirt like something from the cartoons man when the bulls charging or something yeah yes yeah yes yeah that was a fun day and then uh i kind of talked to you about this before we started recording but you you you're enjoying this you're enjoying this process you like getting out

and talking to people yeah i mean there's downsides um but i like i like people in general i really like i like talking to people that i've never met before i'm a curious person i like to ask them about themselves. And, you know, when we go to town halls, the fun part to me is answering people's questions and also hearing them tell stories. One of the things I'm proposing in this race is actually we require elected officials to do truly public town halls. You get two weeks advance notice. You got to tell people, this is the date, this is the time, let everybody in that's behaving themselves. You know, it's got to be mixed political company and ask and answer non-pre-screened questions, real questions.

And so we get these rooms together. It's usually 40% of the room isn't a Democrat. And people get to be heard by their neighbors. It's not just by me. And I think that's just a good thing to do, win or lose. I'm proud to be doing it the way that I, I think I can look back at this win or lose and say, you know what? We did it the right way.

I'll tell you what, where I'm sitting right now, man, just as an American. anyone that is honestly talking about turning down the hatred and turning down the vitriol and turning down the divisiveness has my ear. I appreciate that. It's just it's got to happen. It's got to happen. So I appreciate you talking about that. Definitely appreciate you talking about wetlands. And I love talking about bucks.

your mount looks great. I'll be watching what happens and I want to thank you again for taking the time to come talk to us, man. Well, thanks for having me back. Ladies and gentlemen,

you're hearing from Rob Sand State Auditor in Iowa and currently running for the governorship in Iowa and on November 3rd we'll find out

what's going to happen there. And on November 4th, we'll wait for a deer report. They'll probably be quiet, but I'll be out there. All right, man, thanks so much for coming by and check it back in. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, Steve.

It's Steve Ronella here, and it is Whitetail Week at Meat Eater. That's right, the most anticipated week of the year. Whitetail Week at Me Eater. Both seasons are open, bucks are making rubs, and all week we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in America. We're also running the ultimate whitetail giveaway, The sort of the premier part of this package is you win a hunt with Mark Canyon and Jordan Budd at Jordan Budd's family ranch in Nebraska where I have hunted. Jordan is cool as hell.

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