The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 940: Janis's Backcountry Mule Deer | 12 in '26

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Janis answers YouTube listener-submitted questions and comments from his 2026 high country mule deer hunt. He covers gear used, tactics, training, preparation and lots more in this companion podcast to the Mountain Muley Honey Hole 12 in '26 film. Watch the film now on MeatEater's YouTube channel. Presented by Can-Am: maker of the best ATVs, SxS, and Utility Vehicles www.can-am.brp.com Connect with MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and then all of a sudden, the dough and that bunch is up on their feet. Like looking over here, I don't know, might be a Kyle over here, maybe there's no gear coming like me on the park, so I can't see it on the phone. What you know, I do know, something about down? I basically like too much, but I wish it's going to be in an hour. Go get it. So, the place is going to day. What you just heard were my post-shot thoughts after sitting on a buck for over two hours.

It seemed like five hours, but maybe it was just two. Welcome to the 12 and 26 podcast. This is a companion show to our 12 and 26 films rolling out this year. Now, if you're just tuning into this now and haven't already seen the new film, which, by the way, I hate calling them films. There's still episodes to me. It is out on the Meat Eater channel. Please hop over there and watch it and smash the old like and subscribe. buttons. There's still more 12 and 26 films coming, so please keep checking back on the

media or YouTube channel. Today I'm here with Garrett Long and Phil the Engineer to address your questions about my mule deer hump. Thank you all for writing in, posting questions on YouTube and on social media. We've curated a handful of the most compelling audience questions. I'm going to do my best to answer them here now. This episode, episode in particular is centered around a solo backcountry mule deer hunt kind of solo um i didn't film it myself so i had uh max barter there with me which was a lot of fun um but it was in the western united states the hunt was remote incredibly demanding physically uh really tested my skills and patience kind of um it wasn't an easy hunt um but it wasn't the hardest hunt i've been on either but again

if you haven't watched it go check it out now and and all of this will make a lot more sense. This time around, let's start with some general comments before getting into the actual questions. Good or bad? We will start with a few more, few of the more critical comments and then move on to what folks seem to enjoy about the film.

And then we'll get into some actual questions from all of you. So, number one, should I read out the guy's handle or the person's handle? You can't if you want to. I don't think they're trying to stay it out of him. It's just a handle. Kurt Thomason, 4620, wrote, Latvian Eagle kidded up like he's a Formula 100.

Guess I'm priced out of this sport too. I wish I could remember exactly what my kit was. I didn't feel like it was too overboard. I feel like I had socks undies, a pair of pants, probably a base layer up top. My undies kind of as my box. bottom base layer and then usually like a second layer

and I think it's my second layer I was wearing the suppressor, the soft shell jacket and then I probably just had a big puffy over that because the weather was really nice. I didn't carry any rain gear. So I don't know, Formula One I guess that means it's like just really, really expensive. I mean, that big down puffy jacket

is an expensive jacket but I think the rest of that kit is probably like 500 bucks i don't know man formula one drivers are pretty sharp like sharp looking yeah yeah you know i didn't have my hair all i probably didn't get a haircut like a formula one guy before this hunt um but um i always tell everybody i try to remind people on the old instagram that one you should just get off instagram and go out hunting and if like buying first like or any other hunting gear is keeping you from hunting because of the price, because you need money for gas or you just need money for food so that you can, you know, just have time to go hunting.

Don't buy the stuff. You don't need it. I mean, literally all you need is some kind of a weapon to go hunting. You don't even need camo. You can, people killed stuff in blue jeans and flannels for a lot of years before we all got super hyped on camo. So, yeah, man, if you're in a spot where you can't do the first light thing, then, yeah, just you can literally wear the clothes that you probably went to work with. Yeah, get out there.

And just get out there and make it happen. Let's see. At Jack Tackle 57 wrote, he must be an angler. Great hunt. Might I suggest a larger caliber rifle? clearly the wind was pushing your bullet that elevation and those conditions a heavy bullet over

160 grains will buck the wind a lot better. It's okay to be overgunned in the Rocky Mountains, especially in by the way, you are a great shooter. Well, thanks, Jack. It's like a compliment sandwich as Steve likes to say, you know.

He's not wrong. A heavier bullet which I think actually in the six-fives a buddy of mine who's a big-time shooter was telling me about like a 175 maybe kind of a custom bullet that he got from somewhere he says over in Sweden that's all they shoot are like the 175s out of a six-five out of the six-fives you know which they've been shooting moose over there with six-fives for well over a hundred years um but uh Yeah, he's not wrong. Bigger bullet would have been less affected by the wind in that condition. And yeah, I guess my response, why I would probably still carry the gun. I was carrying it, probably stick with my 160 grain bullets, is that it's like, man, you do a little bit of shooting, you do a lot of carrying.

So having that short action and just a light set up in that rifle was really nice. Usually once you go to those heavier bullets, you're going to be in a long-action magnum. And I don't know. I guess you could just shoot 308 and have a heavier bullet. Well, yeah, but that wouldn't have gone through the wind as good as your PRC either. You don't?

No. Like, I think that... 180-grainer out of a 308? Well, I don't know what the BCs are, about 308 with 180-grainer. It's going to be slow. Yeah. Right.

But weight is only part of the equation. right so bc is really just how it flies through the wind right and six five prc has been built around very high bc bolts i don't know what you were shooting 140s 156s do you you know they're probably the 140 acubon right right yeah so that's you know arguably a little bit light for that caliber but i think it's easy to say like well heavier is better but man i can tell you generally speaking out of a 308 your wind holds um compared to a 65 PRC are dramatically more. Okay. So I'd had to have

probably a 30 caliber magnum to really make a difference. Yeah. And then you've got to carry that sucker around for a week until you get to make a couple shots. So, yeah, you know,

the other answer is that like, you know, you just, and again, I really thought that wind was pretty much coming straight in my face and I wasn't going to get that drift. But I could have gotten closer,

you know, where it wouldn't matter as much. Okay, at Trash Hunt, interesting handle. He says, meat eater saying spot burning is a thing. Dot dot, LOL, laugh out loud. Is that what that stands for him? Definitely. We can roll this short clip here.

The spot burning thing is real. I'm just going to try not to do it. I'm backpacking in. Limiting factor is batteries for camera. So about three, maybe four nights, what we can do. It's chilly. A little bit of snow on the ground, mid-October. Pretty excited. Yep. Um, yeah, it's a thing and we discuss it, uh, internally a lot here and me eater. You know, I don't, I try to protect my private land in Wisconsin. It's because I don't need visitors there

and the people that I hunt there with, uh, like to go there and just get away and have peace and quiet. So that's kind of why I don't really talk about the county I'm in in Wisconsin when we go there. But in this case, where it's a unit or even a state, you know, all the locals that are mostly hunting there, not somewhere else, you know, they like to keep their spots to themselves. And I can't blame them for that. So we've decided to talk less about, you know, even to the extent of saying not the state where we're at. Because honestly, it's just not that important, right? It's, I think for the viewer, the adventure, the content that they watch,

it's not going to be any less engaging if they don't know which boundaries we were hunting within. Yeah, man, I'm going to challenge that a little bit. I think, you know, we have found, like, imagine you draw a tag in Colorado. and you want to look up El Cunning in Colorado. What do you type in? Right. Colorado El Cunning.

I do think that there is a subset of the audience that, you know, and a lot of the questions were around, like, you know, where they think you might have been. I think there's a large subset of the audience that genuinely does want to know general state of where you're at. a large subset, like more than 25%. Yeah, I think that mostly the people that don't want to know where you're at are the people living in that state. Yeah. You know, so it's a balance for us of like being approachable and everything like that and, and show an opportunity. But, uh, yeah. I think that we, we have, we have historical evidence that it, we have done it to places in the past.

Mm-hmm. The media show. I won't mention which ones, but like I've heard enough where they're like, oh yeah, after you aired that one, things changed around here. You know, took more points to draw my unit or there were more hunting leases all of a sudden in this area. People never knew that we had this opportunity here. And of course, we're like, oh, man, that's a bummer because that's what we're interested in, right? Are these sort of like off the wall opportunities that are neat that you haven't heard about? like we want to go experience them

and we want to share them with the viewers but again the locals live in there that that spotlight's not good yeah so it's a balance man yep it's a thing we're aware of it we're constantly

trying to figure out how to do it right let's see flip side oh okay more comments Robert Watson dash n6 z wrote. Absolutely respect the accountability and humility at the end when he realized his point of impact wasn't where he thought it was due to the fall on the mountain. Other haunting content

creators would have cut that part out and attributed the less than ideal shots to the fall. This is why I'm consistently drawn to meat eater over others. Side note, how he was able to find that super secret backcountry roadless area in Texas is amazing. Thanks, Robert. It took a lot of digging on the old on X, but found it. Yeah, thanks overall, I guess for the nice, nice, nice words there. Yeah, I just feel like it's, for me, like the, the, whatever, the humility and all that is not what I was thinking about, including the checking the rifle zero. It's more like, oh, this is what I'm going to do anyways when I get home because I have to, because, My kid's probably going to shoot that rifle a week later at a deer,

and I need to make sure that it's on. And so it's kind of like, I'm going to do it. I then want to film it and include it so that people just see more of the process. You know, sometimes it's so easy to gloss over that or like, you know, the things that happen around camp, you know, between the times that you're actually out chasing out, whether it's cookings, you know, how you're sleeping, you know, whatever it is. It's just kind of, I don't know, it adds to it, right? When you see more of it.

Dalton unguided. Nice. Hardcore. Cold October. Elk and deer season. Cross. Awesome country that looks like it would hold giant deer. 30 dough to one buck ratio.

Reeks of blank state. Ha ha. So, yeah, Dalton just wanted to try to figure out what state I was hunting in. Most of the questions were about what state were. There's a lot of that. Yeah, I didn't look. I try not to, unless I have to. What we're talking about doing is making a, Phil, we really have to do this.

Garrett Long is like our head of, one, what is your title again now? You're not head of content. You're the VP of. SVP of content. SvP of content. Which only matters when the chief of content isn't in the room. Yeah, but like I feel like, people are nice to me. I appreciate it.

But like, Randall, they really get after him in the comments. Like, don't say nice things. And Randall and I've been thinking it'd be fun just to find all of the worst comments and read them and then like talk smack about them. I think that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. See, Phil, you're already laughing. I mean, it would be a very fun video, but it would also encourage people to comment on things in bad faith, just trying to get, trying to get selected. for this.

That's true. Well, we weren't down that we're doing it. So just like the people that are trolls already, they would be the ones whose comments we were reading. Yeah, yeah.

And we would docks the commenters and then make fun of them and their lives and their appearance of course as well, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah, okay.

All right. So that's the night. That's all for the just straight up comments. Appreciate it. We appreciate you guys watching and interacting. It's great. So with that, let's get into some of the more direct questions from the audience.

Garrett, what you got? Yeah, man. So there was actually a lot of questions just about gear in general. Blaine ciphers 3406, which it's hard to imagine there's that many Blaine ciphers. But he asked, what's the rifle set up, scope caliber, silencer? Are there any just highlights you want to hit there? a litany of questions about the comments about

caliber and and that's one of those things where I should have just addressed it in the episode because people always always wonder and and I'm pulling up

the scope so that I don't mess up any of the numbers scope-wise is the SIG Whiskey 6 3 to 18 by 44 first folks plane.

Range finder, probably one of the most important parts of that whole thing. Because now with like the, you know, BDX app, we do enough shooting of these rifles. We true them, range them. What's the word I'm looking for? Not true them, but you kind of check and make sure that the ballistics that the range finder is given you is actually it. True. all right it is true um but man it's so slick when you can just range something at 400 yards

to think is roughly what that shot was and then it says that right to you in the range finder like yeah you need to go up uh 2.5 or 3.0 whatever it was um just gives you a lot of confidence in making that shot and knowing that you're going to hold that on it's going to hit pretty much dead on as long as you you know execute a nice shot but uh that was the uh uh Sig Cross Sawtooth, right? In a PR, in a 6-5 PRC. I did have a

I guess semi-custom barrel put on there. It's a short 18-inch carbon fiber from proof. And you know, the shortness

of the barrel, it definitely takes away from the velocity, but man, does it make it easy to run a suppressor on there. And man, I just love shooting with a persp- I love shooting with a suppressor these days.

So I give up a little bit of velocity to, you know, to be able to run it quiet and reduce that recoil a bunch. So it's a very nice, you know, easy, compact rifle to pack around. What else? Well, on the, on the,

you never actually said, what range finder you had. Oh, just the, I believe it's the kilo 8. Oh, the 8K, yeah. 8K, yeah. And then the meat eater suppressor that's built by a silencer central. Nice, you know, compact. How long is that thing, six inches?

Right under six. It's like five and three quarter or something like that. does the trick especially for that smaller caliber it's a you know seems like it's the perfect combo and then like I said earlier 140 grain

nozzle acubon loaded uh sig loads those up um yeah I can't complain like that all those sig crosses shoot inch or better

uh for me just with those factory ammo from Sig um and what's even more important, I think, at times is that the deviation of the velocities

is like, you know more about this than I do, but I feel like we find a lot of times with the SIG ammo, it's been like less than 10 feet a second. And you're telling me, I think, at one point that average for a lot of factory ammo is going to be more like 20 to 30 feet per second. Yeah. And that, like, folks, like

at 400 yards, it makes a big difference on your point of impact. when, you know, your bullets not going the same speed as the last bullet you shot or the next bullet you're going to shoot. So, yeah, that's pretty much it for the rifle setup. Yeah. Galliver, silencer.

And I think on that, so another question we got by at 306, Vic ZK-O-5, he asked about, it seems that you're a fan of, of silencers on your high country hunts and he's just curious for your reasoning. He says he has speculation, but he'd appreciate you to outline kind of why you like to use them. Man, I like them on any kind of hunt. High country, low country, back country, front country.

Man, you just don't have to take that extra step of, you know, throwing in ear protection. and it's kind of got built in, you know, recoil suppression. You know, it's not quite as much as a break. But, golly, I don't ever want to shoot a gun with a break on it ever if I don't have to. I just got my hearing tested again recently because we got some new hearing protection. And so when you go in to get the molds, they also do some testing. And then my left ear is so bad that they're actually starting the conversation of, putting in a hearing aid in my left ear.

As a right-handed shooter, that's the ear that is kind of pointed towards the muzzle more. And I feel like for the last 10 to, you know, definitely 15, maybe even come on 20 years, like I've been pretty good about like always at the range, you know, and even have them and just a pair of those, a lot of times I wear those Howard Light. It's like a neck band that has the two foamy's on it

and just can stick those in real fast. I need to take a shot. But all that being said, man, I did enough damage as a youngster that I'm looking at a hearing aid. So, yeah, I don't know. I just don't see a reason not to. I mean, they're so light these days. I think carrying that extra little bit away is totally worthwhile. Yeah, I mean, I'm 35 and they say I need a hearing aid in my left year.

There you go. either put on muffs or get a suppressor. All right, man, shifting gears a little bit. Another question we got wrote in. His name is Garrett, actually, so he's got to be a pretty smart dude. He asked, when hunting for mule deer, what are some of the best tips for e-scouting? Hmm. Good question.

I think like all any animal You know they need water food cover So even with mule deer You got to be looking for that I think defining out You know you can always call the biologist or the warden And find out sort of what elevation these deer like to hang at In whatever unit you're hunting

Depending on the time of year and then go to the e-map and, you know, find those elevations and find country that looks good. I mean, for me, for mule deer hunting, I haven't done too much desert mule deer hunting. It's mostly been, I don't know. I mean, we still live, we live in the western high country, you know, arid desert. But I find the feed, I guess. And with e-scouting, you know, you can have to find the aspect, meaning like which, direction is the hill pointing to find the feed that the deer need um yeah cover next to food

with water nearby um trying to think what else in in particular um you know spots where too many people can't get to too easily i think that's a good uh tip for hunt on mule deer but honestly it's like this unit that i was in there wasn't a lot of of country that didn't have some deer um you know some a little bit less than others uh but i think that man you just kind of have to put your boots on the ground and go and look at it um yeah sorry i don't have too much more for that uh but yeah i found zones that just didn't have too many roads didn't have too many trails and you know

places where the deer can feed and not get messed with yeah it reminds me old Randy Newberg said one time that there's a lot more deer habitat than there are deer and he's kind of getting

that like you just got to go look at a point like you can do a lot of prep but at a point you just kind of go look this record is on. Miley is having a moment, new name, new album, and two exclusive shows. So IHart Radio is sending you to experience it all life at the Hollywood Pole. Lights, hotel, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Listen to IHard new music for 10 minutes a day on the IHart Radio app and click enter. Every day you listen is another chance to win.

Stream Miley's new album, Base Persuades, today. 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. 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. And on that note a little bit, and Phil will play a clip here. But another really good question, man, that I've actually thought about is from

Kurt's World, at Kurtzworld, and he said, with backcountry hunting, do you need to worry about scent if you're camping and near your glassing spot? Man, on a, on a, any, I guess, backcountry hunt, I try not to camp too close

to whatever I'm hunting or wherever I think, you know, the spot that I think the animals are going to be. And like in that spot, sure, there was probably deer on the ridge that I camped on. I mean, you're going to have to give and take a little bit. But, you know, with hiking, sweating as much as I do, you know, when you're going up and down mountains, I mean, I don't do any kind of scent control for those types of hunts.

I usually just feel like when I'm, you know, going to find a deer by glassing, it's going to be far enough away where no matter what the wind's doing, they're probably not going to pick me off by cent. Once I start making a stalk, you know, then I'm going to start worrying about what the wind's doing. But again, I feel like

most times, you know, four, 500 yards, you can get with these animals with the wind on your back and they're not really going to spook, you know? I'm going to roll this clip really here. Yeah, yeah. I did not achieve my goal of one mule deer

before dark, but that's not going to determine. I'm camp right on top of a great glassing knob and I'll be back on the glass at first light. Yeah, so you were fine glass like glassing from camp just because you had that buffer where you had you were kind of past that four or 500 yard. So yeah. And again, like I said, there's probably animals on the ridge I was on, but you can't, I mean, you just can't always go where there's zero animal, you know. And so another question, um, you know, You remained optimistic in the video. But after glassing for half a day,

this made me kind of realize that maybe I have a patience issue. Were you like second guessing yourself at all that night when you were sitting up your tent? No. No, I just feel like one afternoon just without a deer. Yeah, you got to give it more time. And honestly, it's like, And when you know you're in deer country, you've got to just give it more time.

And I always remind myself, like, I'm only looking for one. And maybe it's that kind of a spot where there aren't a lot of other deer that a single big buck or maybe with a couple of those, that's where you're going to find them. Because when there's less deer, and if you're in good deer habitat, that's more food, more cover, more all of that for the deer that are in that area. And, you know, hopefully you're, you think the big buck's going to be going to be in there but no i mean but i did move after

whatever it was two and a half three days when it just seemed like i wasn't seeing enough and it was mostly i was saying more hunters than deer um but yeah honestly like i could have had more patience and probably just like stuck to it and stayed in there and eventually turned up a buck in that spot I think so because you've got to trust it you know if you're in a good spot you know it's deer country you've seen some does around

and again that time of year late October those deer are starting to move you know those deer have a little bit of migration that they do and so you know any morning you could wake up and there's a whole new batch of deer in your zone yeah I mean the rut can bring anything in too. I do.

So stick with the camp theme. Another question that came in was how does all the clothing you wear play into your sleeping bag and or rating? Meaning do you put on all your gear at night and then get into a lighter bag or do you just always bring the warmest bag

possible? I don't bring the warmest bag possible but I also do not put on all my gear to sleep at night. I kind of have that in the back of my head as like, oh, if something really changes in the weather and it gets cold, like I have that option. But I've found that when I wear too many clothes,

like I just have a harder time regulating and I end up sort of sweating. And then once you sweat, you got to, you know, you're going to get evaporative cooling and you're going to get colder. So I like to, you know, I've definitely done like a pair of pants. know in a base layer for sure or maybe my long johns on the bottom and the base layer up top

i feel like when i get too much over that it just gets too warm in there and i sweat and then that's a bad bad bad gig so in my mind though i do think about like in the worst case scenario let's just say they're they're calling for you know lows in the upper 20s low 30s but you're like oh i'm gonna be up on the mountain so maybe it could drop to 15 one night right like Like in that scenario, can I survive? I always ask that question to myself. Like, in the worst case scenario, when I'm out there, like, can I make it through the night by, like,

I had a big puffy down jacket. Instead of wearing it, I could actually just, like, lay it over my bag and add some insulation. So I more think about it this way, where I'll bring less clothes knowing that I have a sleeping bag, that if there's like a really cold evening or cold morning, I could use that bag, wrap it around me, do some glassing, wrap it around me while I'm preparing food or whatever, because it's going to be probably a very short period of time in the day when it is that cold.

It's going to come up, it's going to warm me up. Or at night, it's like, well, you're going to eat, and then you're getting it in your bag to go to sleep. So you really only have, like, these short periods when it's going to be really cold, you kind of have to endure before you're going to be fine again. Yep, yep, that makes sense. and then Ryan Scott Ray rode in and said how far from a main road did you have to go to find this spot?

There was a lot of questions similar to this because it did have such a backcountry vibe you know in the week we got the on it like the e-scouting question as well like is there kind of a level where you just know you need to get away from from a main road or is it no no I don't think so I think it's more

finding a spot where the spots that are overlooked because these days it's like buddy of mine like many years ago who's in Colorado you said it's like he's like everybody that comes here now is like a little mini cam haines he's like we were 10 miles in covered up in guys and it's like sometimes that hurts people because they're like oh the farther I get the better it's going to be and sure there's some truth to that because you are cutting out people the farther you get. But it's like how many people does it take to make a place busy, right? Sure.

I mean, if there's two or three groups hunting the same basin, it feels real busy. So I think it's more about just finding the spots that are like are overlooked. And sometimes those can be close to the road. They can be close to town even because people are just driving by them all the time. if there's not easy access you know you have to maybe go around some private land to get in there or you got to paddle a canoe across the reservoir to get in there or there's no trail and so you're like right off the bat you just got to go up some ridge with no trail i don't know um yeah so i didn't have to go far from and when they say main road i don't know exactly what they're asking

know, if that's pavement or just something you can drive. But honestly, I think that that pack out, where we finally killed the buck, was definitely less than two miles. Like, it wasn't too, too bad. Yeah. So you brought it up, but we had a couple of questions come in, and then before you answer up, I'll let Phil play the clip. But a couple of questions came in about, you know,

first spot doesn't work out. You go to the second trailhead. but you just immediately get off the trail and start bushwhacking it. Let's play the clip here, Phil. Instead of walking up the trail, I decide to cross a creek and pushwack towards a ridge with no trail. Having never been here, I picked the most jungle-like willow thicket in the county to go through.

Buddy, it's deep. You don't want to just fall in here. Well, I can pull. Half of it. Yeah, when I pull planted, just jump the creek, the pole, like, this pointy end, stuck between some rocks, and it literally pulled it right out of the upper part of the shaft and never to be seen again. This looks like fun. That's open.

85 yards. Talk about some country to get turning around in. There's a creek to our left, maybe. I feel like we cross that f***er a bunch. I just fucking don't know how to get around it. Do you want to try to go around it? It was thick. You can tell by my vocabulary, I'm a bit frustrated.

But maybe this is what it takes to get away from the crowd. If it wasn't for Anex, I'd still be beaten the brush. Yeah, so, I mean, it looks like you had to work harder, but is that kind of a common strategy of yours where you'll roll into a trail? head and just be like, everybody's going this way because that's where the trail goes. I'm going this other way. I mean, you know how it is.

I mean, some trails, you know, they zigzag. What's the other term for that? Switchback. Switchbacks, thanks, Phil. See, Phil said he's going to have nothing to add to the conversation. Got switchback. Nailed it. That could be a good trivia question, actually. Hold on, folks.

I think it's been one. Really? Yeah. Dang. And kind of recently. Dang it. I got to host an episode in a week. Sorry.

No, that's all good. Never know. But yeah, you never know, like, the trail's going to take you to some place, whether it's some ridge, and it might be a great ridge to go hunt or a great overlook to go hunt. But just the spot, when I was done looking at Onyx that night, I was like, okay, where I want to go is like, it almost paralleled the trail. but it was up the ridge instead of going up the gut. And so eventually when I was on the ridge,

I was probably, I was glassing across the trail itself. But the trail just didn't go up that ridge. I needed to get high so I could glass, right? Mm-hmm. And I just hadn't scouted it. I mean, I pulled in the night before. It was dark and it's like, or almost dark, and we just didn't have enough time to really find, like, where to go exactly.

When I walked out that evening in dusk, I didn't have to go through that jungle. I literally just went like 100 yards, you know, whatever it was, farther west and like went around all of that and made a very easy creek crossing and I was out, you know? Yeah. So it's like a, I don't know if it's like a strategy. I just like picked a spot and to get to that spot. That's what I had to go through. Yeah. Yeah.

Makes sense. And then, you know, speaking of the physicality. you know at the beginning you said you know yeah it was kind of hard um but but there were a lot of questions about getting prepared for something like this can you speak to that in terms of you know really was this a pretty arduous hunt and then you know how do you get yourself ready for even if you weren't as far back as maybe what it looked like it certainly looks steep right even just your cross country or your cross canyon to get to that buck after went down. Were you feeling the miles on this one a little bit?

Yeah, I didn't have a ton of time to hunt. So I think we ended up killing the buck on like day five. So it's probably not quite long enough to really start getting worn down. Too bad. I was definitely a little tired. And, you know, a big part of what makes this one more physical. is that if you're going to be, you know, sleeping out of your backpack, carrying your shelter, carrying your sleeping bag, carrying your food, all that stuff,

you know, it's not much, but it adds, you know, depending on how light your gear is, 10 to 20 pounds to your backpack. And all of a sudden, every step just is a lot harder. So I definitely, I try to go to the gym once, definitely, maybe twice a week when I'm in town and it's called the mountain project it's in bozeman and their their motto sort of like they train the uphill athlete so people that like to go up and down the mountains around here whether it's on skis bikes uh their own two feet running hiking whatever it is they have us do things it's going to make you know going uphill easier um so there's it's like every day is

leg day in there uh i was in there this morning and uh I did a bunch of squats. I think what else we did. Like, I think it was like three different kinds of squats. It was like back squats, sumo squats and some other ones. So like on my legs are going to be worn out tomorrow from that workout. But like there's no better feeling when on day three, and this is what I tell people. It's like everybody has it in them to do it on day one.

But doing it on day three and four and five gets harder if you haven't done some kind of training. for it. And your training should look like what it's going to be like in the field. Like all of us go out for a hunt that's three days or five days or maybe seven days. So you need to be able to do it one day after another, after another after another after just one or two days, be like, oh my God, I need to take a half day off, right? If you only have five, that's, is that 20%? Yeah, that's 20% of your, no, 100%. hunt would only be 10% on a five-day hunt. Anyways, 10% still a lot.

You don't want to give it up. One afternoon. Yeah. Took off a whole day, be 20%. Yep. So, yeah. And so, like, how best to do it? I mean, if it is literally, like,

like, going to be a backcountry mule deer hunt in the mountains is, yes, make every day leg day. You know, make sure your butt and your quads and your, calves are strong and make sure that you have some kind of endurance and that doesn't mean that you have to do 20 miles at once but the kind of endurance that lets you go five days in a row no prison bods yeah i don't think you need a prison bod another um my main elk hunting mentor Ethan used to always say uh legs and lungs legs and lungs you know that's what gets stuff killed in the mountains and I still believe that, you know,

if you have legs and lungs, you're going to be able to get it done. Yeah, and so another person, I don't know, the Ivy B, Lill Slim, wrote in and said, I hunt the hardwoods for White Tail and wonder, what's the difference hunting mealed deer out west? Hmm.

Um, bigger country. And that end of itself, I think, makes most of the differences. I mean, we could get into the nuanced differences of how mule deer act versus white-tailed deer act and maybe what they eat. I mean, a lot of places where we hunt out west, we have both species. The mule deer are usually, like, down in the riparian areas. I mean, my house is an example of this. Like, where our house sits, like, if you look down the hill, you're more likely to see a white-tailed deer. If you look up the hill, you're more likely to see a mule deer.

you know the brows is probably pretty similar uh like actually hunting like hardwoods it's like yeah in the hardwoods that i hunt in wisconsin it's like max distance is going to be 200 yards and you don't see those kind of sight lines very often where you can actually see 200 yards although my little oak savannah project bucks that trend um but like in the hardwoods yeah you're You're a lot of times trying to kill stuff at 50 yards and under. And mule deer hunting out west, it can happen close range. Like you bump something as you're walking somewhere. But again, most people that I know and hunt like the way I do for mule deer

are going to glass something up at, you know, out to a mile and then make a play to get to within rifle range. And the range is going to be probably dictated. I had to go through this on this hunt on the stock. There was another ridge that would have been a lot faster to get to, but it was going to bump me out to like 600 plus. And it actually wasn't as later looking at it. It wasn't as direct like a look on the hillside that they were on. So I'm glad I went to the other one.

But just like the topography itself dictated how far the shop was going to be. You know, I got as close as I could be without getting on the hill with them, which at that point, you're sort of like going to walk in there and then just hope to get a shot when you jump them. And the closest I could get was right there at 400 yards. So shot distances, big difference. And yeah, there's a lot of ways to hunt, a lot of ways to hunt white tails in the hardwoods, you know, whether you're, you know, sitting, slipping around. There is all that. And, you know, you could do that with mule deer too. But most of them, us feel it's more efficient to glass, a lot of country, find a deer, and then make a move.

All right. Well, before the next question, Phil, I'll have you play this next clip here. I got his location marked on On X. Trying to make the approach now. If I can get the ridge posing him, I should be 4 to 500 yards. 660. I have another ridge that's right between me and the buck right now. the shot's going to push it out closer to 600 and I just don't know if I'm comfortable

on the ridge puts me just over 400 the closer shot plus this ridge is at 600 from the deer it's awfully thick I just don't know what my shooting laying off the ridge is going to be where the other one I know um yeah so so question there you know you've been looking for your deer you find him uh when you find your your target animal um and you know like that that that close clock is ticking. How much time do you spend watching behavior, bedding them down, getting a lay of the land versus just, man, we got to cut distance now? Well, you can tell from that clip, I was in a hurry. I was in a rush to cut the distance and get on them. And I think we had,

I say we, because Max was there too, I had found that buck. It's probably getting on in the morning, you know, I don't know, 8, 39, 930, something like that. And so those deer bedded down pretty soon after we found them. And as soon as that happens, it's like, okay, do the best you can to actually mark that spot on the map with Onex, right? Figure that out. Then figure out, you know, what's going to be the best approach, what's going to be the best place to try to get a shot on them from if they stay there and then go. Had they stayed on their, you know, had they stayed on their feet and kept feeding longer, I probably would have stayed and kept on watching them. I mean, there's two clocks ticking. One is the one where they're just going to like walk out of

your life, right? They go behind some ridge. You can't see them anymore. They, you know, go up the drainage and leave it. You can't see them anymore. There's the other one where it's like, it's public land. Someone else might be seeing them or someone else is walking down the ridge that they're on and all of a sudden they bump them. Like, you don't know. Um, So it's, you know, it's a balance, but I definitely don't, you know, I'd rather be laying there at 400 yards getting bored waiting from to stand up than like, you know, dilly dally my way over there and then get there and they're not there anymore. So, I mean, like the less pressure, I can remember Randy Ulmer telling me, if you don't know who Randy is like, you know, one of the greatest Western bullhunt. ever. And he was talking about watching deer and big bulls for days and watching what they do, where they walk, where they sleep, where they're feeding, how they get between the two areas,

until he felt like, okay, I know exactly where I'm going to go and that bull, and he's an archer. So he's like, I'm going to go right there and that bull is going to walk by me at, you know, less than 50 yards and I'll kill him, right? But, uh, you know, that's, you know, in a scenario where he felt like someone else wasn't going to come in there and bump him out of there, you know. So, so then when you're cutting the distance like that, you get to the ridgeline that you're, you want to be at, obviously you had to do quite a lot of vert. Is there a point where you start pacing yourself a little bit thinking about heart rate and nerves before you kind of crest that ridge or settle by. behind your gun? For sure, I mean, especially if they're up on their feet

or looking like they're gonna get up on their feet. I mean, they were bedded the whole time we made the approach and slipped in there. So I didn't really have to think about that because at that point it seemed like I had a lot of time and I could easily just slip in and my heart rate had already dropped not thinking about it. But I can tell you just like from

recently being on an elk hunt where I was chasing elk around every single day. I thought about that a lot as I was like getting in there and you're realizing that like, okay, this might happen. I might get a shot. Start, you know, controlling your heart rate and either moving slower or just some deep breaths because you're, you know, you're getting anxious and excited about, you know, the proximity of elk and just trying to calm myself down. But for that buck, didn't really have to think about. it because he was just bedded. So we were able to slip into that 400 yards without having to drop the heart rate. The music you love.

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to sign up. No purchase necessary. Get all your rules at the meat eater store. All right. This next question comes with another clip that came from IG on why not shoot your deer when it's bedded. But Phil, let's play that. He's behind that tree. ...howars to do the stalk and then get in here and get all situated. So my rifle's pretty much pointed at him within a few yards.

They were all bedded and a few of the dogs are standing now. So the name of the game now is just, wait, I'm not a huge fan of shooting embedded. It certainly can be done, but it's harder to tell where exactly the vitals are. I'm just going to sit here, just trying to stay comfortable, keep classing them. Hopefully he'll stand up sooner than later. Pretty buck. Yeah, well, two things with that particular deer is, like, one, he was beheaded, or sorry, he was bedded directly behind that tree top.

So I would have had to change positions to maybe to even get an angle, you know, to him. And he was bedded in a little bit of that buck brush or tobacco brush, they call it. So I wasn't even really looking at that opportunity because I felt like that stuff kind of might have been in the way. But mostly it's just because like when a deer or an elk or whatever beds down, it's like not only are they sort of compressing their body and their, you know, legs, you know, get into, you know, kind of a funnier position and their shoulders roll back

or forward or depending on how their legs are. But it's not like they just go from standing perfectly broadside and they go straight down onto their belly. Right? I mean, they might do that. But a lot of times they're sort of canted over a little bit, right?

And their belly is showing and so they're more like almost laying partially on their side. And so yeah, you can still sort of visualize where exactly the bullets path should be, but it just gets a little bit trickier. And again, in that situation,

like, had you been at 100 yards? I probably would have just shot one right in there, right? Because it's like, there's just less chance of messing something up, right? I can, like, pinpoint it in there at 100 yards. Sure. Like, if you want, you can shoot them in the ear at 100 yards. At 400 yards.

It's like I want as big of a target as possible and like know exactly what I'm shooting at. And the best opportunity for that is going to come when he's standing and broadside. So yeah, that's why not shoot a deer while he's bedded. And again, there really was an opportunity on this one. But even if he was like wide out in the open, it just is, I feel like the target's smaller. The angles of the target are more difficult to understand. so yeah makes sense man um well another there were quite a few questions in general about kind of wind and everything you you might have answered this a little bit off the top

um but as you were laying there on that hillside were you were you talking to max at all about you know the feeling that there could be a a little bit of a wind going cross canyon um between you and that deer before shooting was it man we We talked about it a lot. It's just like it literally felt like it was coming straight on at us. And straight on or straight from us to the deer, you know, you shouldn't get much, you know, left to right deviation. But as we can see, there was some. Yeah, because I guess that's like a one M-O-A wind, right?

400 yards. It was about four inches, maybe five inches. Yeah. I can't remember now. But it doesn't take much, man. No, it doesn't. You know, I mean, that mule deer is, you know, a little bit bigger than a white tail, not much. So, you know, honestly, they're, you know, they've got like, what, probably a 10-inch circle, roughly, for vitals.

And, yeah, you can clearly see in the video that both my shots, I can't remember now, which I think they go right. Because I think the first shot he's facing left, and I hit him a little back, and then he turns, he's facing the other. the direction and ended up hitting him in the neck um yeah we can actually play that clip now yeah it's i mean that's why i had to go and check that zero man because it like we had all it so we had two hours plus to like set up the shooting position so i was extremely comfortable we had moved all the rocks out of the way like everything was just solid as could be um and then to sort of miss like that right a little bit it was like, what? What's going on here?

You know? And so we had definitely discussed the wind a bunch, but like every time we're sitting there feeling it, it just felt like it was just coming right at us. And again, it's kind of like, it's tricky because that's, that's a canyon for you, right? And so maybe it was right there at the muzzle, but then, you know, 20 or 30 yards out from that, it was blown left or right, you know? So yeah, we just, we just couldn't really feel it that it was, it was going to push,

push that much left to right. Yeah, it's crazy how much it can move, man. And you, you are one of the more, I'd say this if you weren't here. You're one of the more methodical shooters

I've been around to. And I think it just goes to show that those cross-canion shots can be really tricky because so much is happening between you and the animal, but it just doesn't make, make sense sometimes.

But Buck is down. I mean, I mean, the good thing is, is that you stayed on scope. You had good follow-up shot. What's going through your... Speaking of that, let's just make another comment on... I didn't even think about this for the suppressor. It's like staying on scope, staying on target for follow-up shots,

seeing what your shots are doing. Like, at 400 yards with that setup with the... I'm going to attribute this to the suppressor. But, like, I was watching my bullets hit him. and man that is huge intel because what if it was like you know what if both them hit way low and i'm like okay obviously like my dope is wrong right well if you know they both hit low it's like okay well make the adjustment to hit 10 inches higher and shoot again right but if you're if your gun is bucking so much that you're losing that sight picture and you don't know where you're

hitting then um that's when stuff gets western because you're like, oh my gosh, and I've waited all, I've put all this, you know, into this. Now I have my opportunity. It's not going my way. And you can get rattled really easily. And the next thing you know,

you burn up all 10 rounds of ammo that you brought with you and he's still walking around on the hillside. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, um, it's a debate right now in comp shooting, um,

suppressors versus breaks, right? Because a lot of, being able to track your bullet going through the air, right, has to do with whether or not you're reacting to the concussion that a break can cause. Right. So you were talking about recoil management

and a break does a little bit better job, but your ability to keep your eyes open and watch that thing go through the air, man, the suppressor, you can't beat it. And you're not really, when you flint, you know, and I don't mean flinch when pulling the trigger, but when you flinch on recoil, you're not really reacting to you have the recoil of the gun.

it's a 6-5 PRC, right? I think it's, yeah, I think it's more the sound and the concussion. It's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a really good point. I mean, I think that's why my girls are good shooters is because they've never shot a gun that scares them. They've never had to deal with that.

Maybe a little bit on like shooting a 20-gauge shotgun, but like with rifles, yeah, they're as calm as can be because they're not like, they're not scared of the recoil or the bang, the concussion, or whatever it might be. That's great. Um, so buck is down. Uh, what's going through your mind immediately post shot?

Uh, pumped. Uh, you know, we were close enough, uh, in those mountains of town that, and it was early enough in the afternoon where once that buck was down, we started figuring out, you know, what was going to take to hike over to him, uh, butcher him, you know, film all of it and then hike him out that we would probably, be able to have pizza and beer, you know. We'd be like pushing it. Like we're going to come in right at closing time,

but more than likely, instead of eating another rehydrated meal, we're going to be eating, you know, pizza and beer. Did you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Slept in a hotel.

All right. In a bed with sheets. Which is, you know, I think it's funny because, like, you always think about you that you really want that. but honestly, like, it's a better story, and it's in the end, it ends up probably being more fun

to go back to camp, eat whatever you got. Maybe we had some beers there or not, I don't know, but you make a fire, you celebrate there. And that's honestly probably a better, like story to tell later than you're like,

well, yeah, and we just rushed out of there and made it to a hotel and pizza and beer, you know, because we're all so soft that that's, that's what we need, you know. But yeah, just like, just pumped, you know, when it, when it happens and it all, it all comes through. You want to, you want to get over there, get your hands on him.

And, you know, it was, even though it was early, it was late enough that, and it turned out the so that we got to the truck, maybe, I don't know, 30 minutes after dark. And I don't know, hiking around those mountains off trail, it's, it's always nicer to do that in the daylight. Yeah, and he was on pretty steep hillside. how long does it take for you to break down a mule deer you know you made you had max there was was he helping at that process much or yeah he helped yeah um i always figure for a bull elk it's about two hours um you know so for a mule deer it's honestly probably not that much faster yeah it's smaller but you sort of still have all the same parts that you have to deal with so i don't know 90 minutes to two hours to get him excuse me to get him actually in game bags

and, you know, in the pack. So, yeah, not too bad, you know. And it all takes longer when we're filming. That's what really adds time is that you can't rush through it. You know, you've got to give the camera operator time to get the shots that they want to get. Sure. Any idea how much your pack weighed once you got loaded up? Oh, man.

Max helped, you know, pack some meat out too. It wasn't too, too bad. if I just had to throw a number out there, 70. Very manageable, you know, like enough that you like feel the strain on your hips a little bit and your knees a little bit, you know, when you're coming off of a steep hillside. But, you know, I packed the track and pulls around everywhere, although I only had one that was in working order for that pack out. But, yeah, I mean, just enough that you know. like you're carrying a pack and you know the hips are going to hurt a little bit

when you get to the bottom but definitely not 100 pounds I think once I get to 100 I'm strongly considering like making 250s versus one 100 I just know too many people that have backs that are gonna probably be a problem for the rest of their lives

and a lot of it came from and maybe wasn't packing meat maybe it was from you know shoveling too big and heaviest snow at one time or whatever it was but like I don't want that problem in my life until I die like I want to have a good strong back and so I got no problem going back twice yeah yeah saving my back um uh I thought a pretty thoughtful question um Derek the fancy caveman wrote uh can you do a deep dive on putting the food in the dead deer's mouth. Oh. Sure.

I can't remember exactly where I picked that up. It was definitely at the original elk camp that I guided at in Colorado. Man, I wish I could remember who exactly brought that to my attention. But I think at the time when I learned about it, I think I was looking for a way to, you know, maybe respect the animal a little bit or like in europe a big thing is they you know they put you always see the the boughs of you know usually it's like a spruce branch or something on the animal and if you watch

the latvia episodes you'll see that a lot of it is like to cover up the wound like there in europe at least where i've been in europe it's like a sign of disrespect to like take pictures of the wound like they want that animal to look you know as much as it was when it was alive not really recreating it being alive but just like that wound is somehow disrespectful to show it so they cover that up and again I don't know where I picked it up from

but it was just sort of like a hey if you're like sort of moving on from this world that where we're at now and you're going to you know where dead deer go to deer heaven like here's a little snack for the road ahead. I think no matter what you do,

I think the real thing that you get out of it and that it does for everybody is that it just slows everything down for a second and makes you think about it and whether it lets you just look around a little bit and appreciate the country you're in or just say thanks for the animal for being there or thanks to the big game biologists

that do all the work to have those animals there whatever it is, just, I always, I regret it when we kill something and then we rush out of that situation as fast as we can. Someone's like, okay, go get the can ham and you're going to chop it up and blah, blah, blah, blah, we'll have pizza and beer in no time, right? It's like, there's no reason to rush out of there. Like, enjoy it, you know? Like, soak it in. You're going to be gone from that place. You may never go back to that same ridge, you know, look around. Um, and I think the that's now I realize that that's kind of what that does is by just taking a moment to you know think about that as it just it just kind of slows everything down a little bit and

you get to just get a little bit more add a little bit more to the experience that's great that does it for for questions anything you'd want to you want to finalize here Oh man get out there and go hunting that's all figure out a way to do it and yeah don't let having to buy expensive gear keep you from doing it and don't let stupid internet keep you from doing it like instagram quit scrolling and uh figure out a way to buy a pair of boots and a gun so you can get out there and go hunting that's great but you got one last clip yeah there there's one One last clip, I think it's just, man, it's a good headspace that I think we should all be in.

This is a surprise. I don't know what Phil's going to play now. I was just thinking about how heavy my pack was starting to feel. Oh. Shoulders getting a little sore. Hips are feeling it. Still got a couple miles to go to the truck. But then I thought, man, how lucky am I?

How lucky are we that we get to just do this for fun and we have this opportunity? for everybody and enjoy the public lands and these hunting opportunities. And all the things to be grateful for when we get to do this, not just the public lands, you know, your family that lets you go and do this. An employer in my case, it pays me to go do this and have a great time. And the wildlife managers and make sure that we have these abundant populations of game that we get to hunt. There's going to be a lot of people all forget to say thank you.

to say thank you too but instead of complaining about how heavy the pack feels it's better just to think about how grateful i am that uh i even have the opportunity to have a heavy pack like this thanks for watching we'll see you next time slippery almost went down hard there in my old age garrant losing my balance a little bit yeah that's uh you know that is a good headspin to be in to, you know, always remember how fortunate we all are. I've tried to bring that around to tell me what you think about this. I've been doing some announcing I was telling you about the varsity volleyball games here at Bozeman High.

And it seems like for some reason people have quit singing the national anthem. Instead, we just listen to like a recording or we listen to if there's a singer that comes to sing it. We listen to them sing it, which in some cases I agree. in that case, maybe it's better just to listen. But, like, I feel like growing up, we always sang the national anthem. Yeah.

And so, and I feel like it's kind of in the same headspace. It's like, when you sing the national anthem, you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. Like, we're all Americans, and we're sort of like, you're, it takes a second to be like, oh, yeah, even though we all don't always think the same way and things aren't going, you know, the way we think they should be going or whatever.

it's like we should still all appreciate being Americans and getting to live in this country because it's pretty sweet compared to a lot of other places where you could be in situations you could be in. And so I think singing that national anthem is a good way to remind us of all of that. And same thing there. When you're out hunting,

the haunting sucks and you're not seeing them, it's like, man, just like think about how like it's pretty awesome. Because again, like, I can compare it to Europe. Like, in Latvia at least, like, They don't have, like, even, even, it's probably not even 2% of, like, sort of the vastness of what we have, especially in the Rocky Mountains.

And I would even say in a lot of places back in the east where they have large tracks of national forests where you can literally walk for miles. Like, it's not a thing that yet. Sure. To go walk for miles. And it's something that we have, we should all appreciate and remember, you know, that it's a real privilege. Yeah, man, it's a good reminder for all of us.

There's always something to bitch about, right? But life is pretty good on the side. And you're right. We always did sing along to the national anthem. Yeah, so I'm trying to bring it back. I asked him to sing along when I did announce a game on Saturday. Did they? I heard a little bit of it.

A lot of people are going to be coming back because it's going to be the same parents coming back to see the same, you know, players. And so I'm hoping it's gonna catch on. I'm hoping, because like, honestly, like, I looked at the words beforehand. I'm like, I know it pretty good, but I should like brush up a little bit, right?

Yeah. Because it's a lot easier to sing when you're like very, like, you know what the words are. And it's easy to forget the lyrics sometimes. Like, do you think you could sing it right now? Yeah. Every single word, no problem. Yeah, I think so, man.

Like, but, you know, I went to a one-room schoolhouse where, you know, that's how we would start a lot of our day was raising the flag and staying there. I think, you know, when I don't sing it now, we're way off topic, but, you know, not all of us have like a singing voice like Phil, you know. I know, I know. You might be getting judged by the, you know, the little ladies standing next to you. But that's fine.

Like, we're all in it together. And, you know, there's great singers, there's bad ones. And then there's everybody in between, you know. And it doesn't really. matter how it sounds i think it's just like the you know it's like a show of community sure i'm sure there's a hunting parallel there yeah well i think it's just about being grateful for what we have yeah that's great thank you all for listening and watching if you went to youtube to watch this and uh hopefully you like the video and um yeah i just got done filming an elk hunt that uh will probably be a

All kinds of action that you'll be able to watch next year. What is that it? That's it. Nothing else from you, Phil. I think we're good to sign off. Y'all keep it real. Go hunting. 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 Meat Eater. Both seasons are open, box 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, you 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. This is an IHeart podcast.

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