Ep. 813: Stolen Elk and the Best Fishing Lures of All Time | MeatEater Radio (Not) Live!

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Smell us now, lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia mea podcast. Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It’s one thirty pm Mountain time. That’s two thirty for our friends in Santa Claus, Indiana, on Wednesday, December seventeenth, and we’re live from Meet Eater HQ and Bozeman. We are currently at home with friends and family because it is Christmas Day. I’m your host, Spencer, joined today by Corey and Max. On today’s show, we’ll interview David Fabian about having his elk skull stolen by a rancher while hunting public land in Wyoming. Then we’ll have some top three lists, followed by an interview with Mark Kenyan about the best books for whitetail hunters and five. Finally, we’ll answer some listener submitted questions. But first, Cory, my head hurts just looking at you because you have a black eye and a big bandage on your face. That’s not normal. You had to cancel coming into Trivia earlier this week because you said it you got a concussion, and I said, oh no, did it happen while you were skiing? And you said no, no, Yeah, it’s much worse than that long story. Tell folks would happen better or worse.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: Uh, pretty embarrassing, but happy to share it with the world. Got my dog’s frisbee stuck into a tree.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: How high up?

00:01:37
Speaker 2: In a not high maybe ten feet you know, I could almost reach it with a stick. That was plan A. Plan B, naturally, was to throw a rock into the tree right, try and knock it down. Picked up a I don’t know, nine to ten pound rock off the ground.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: How big show me with your hand, like like softball size. Yeah, bigger than a softball.

00:01:57
Speaker 2: Okay, how much to await pounds? You know, just easy enough to get some good velocity throwing it into the tree to knock the frisbee down. I hit the frisbee, but it was stuck in a weird little nest, bounced off the tree, bounced off a limb, and then hit me in the face. Oh gosh, it was headed right for like between my eyes, and I turned my head last second. It got me just under my eye obviously.

00:02:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty brutal.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: Nothing happened at first, but it about twenty minutes later I passed out. So my concussion. It’s been a couple of days staying at home relaxing. Yeah, I couldn’t partake in trivia, which lucky for the other contestants obviously. So yeah, no, feeling a lot better though, thanks for asking.

00:02:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we’re making him host radio despite him saying he’s still a little foggy.

00:02:46
Speaker 3: A little foggy.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: If I pass out, this will be one hell of an episs good content. Yeah, does it stilvers good?

00:02:53
Speaker 2: It’s tight like everything in my right shields. It’s just healing, you know, So no, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Yeah, just my.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, good on you for telling the truth. I lied about that. I’d been like, yeah, I was skiing a quadruple black diamonds, you know.

00:03:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:03:10
Speaker 2: I don’t want that karma to hit me even harder than that rock, did you know?

00:03:14
Speaker 1: So well it got you good, it did, stupid rock.

00:03:17
Speaker 2: But I still need to go back to that tree, get the frisbee, and the frisbee still out there. Yeah, and then I’ll bring home the rock too, and I don’t know, put it on my mantle.

00:03:27
Speaker 1: We have garbs of like eighty miles per hour today. That frisbee might be long gone.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: It was up there, man. Let me tell you. The rock didn’t knock it down and it was a hell of a throw too.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: And now now you get to answer this question all of Christmas hanging out with the family.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: Oh, I can’t wait.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: So you’ve got a version of the story that’s well told at this point. Yep.

00:03:48
Speaker 2: Nope, it’s all good.

00:03:49
Speaker 1: You’re in good spirits about it, So that’s good. Try to be Thanks for coming today and this show was coming out. You’re gonna be on the live show that we record tomorrow is live and so we’re not even going to address it. We’re just gonna tell folks if you want to know what happened to Corey’s face, Ye, you got to tune in next week.

00:04:04
Speaker 2: There hanging all right.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: Joining us on the line first is David Fabian, the editor of Guns and AMMO Special Interest Publications. He had a run in on public land in Wyoming with a rancher earlier this fall that went viral on social media. He’s here to tell us that story. David. Welcome to the show.

00:04:21
Speaker 3: How Ady David Spencer, Hi, guys.

00:04:24
Speaker 1: First thing, tell us about the area you were hunting and how you accessed it.

00:04:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were hunting this this chunk of landlocked public public land that The only way to get there if you don’t have a family connection or deep pockets is to take a helicopter. So we poked our rig and we borded a helicopter and flew about four minutes and set up camping. We could we could look back in the distance maybe four and a half miles. We could see our cars down there. But yeah, can’t walk there.

00:04:56
Speaker 3: M h.

00:04:57
Speaker 1: And it took a few years for you to find a pilot who was willing to fly you into these places? What was that process?

00:05:03
Speaker 5: Like?

00:05:03
Speaker 3: Oh, incredibly frustrating.

00:05:05
Speaker 5: I had this I had this idea that that you know, I want to hunt land, my public land, because it’s got to be the shangri la of oh yeah, public land. And so I finally I finally got the plan together, and and then I called air operator after air operator after air operator, and no one, No one would do it. I think it was my twenty sixth or twenty seventh whoa look opter or plane pilot I spoke to that said yeah, I’d love to do it.

00:05:31
Speaker 1: Okay, you found you found the right guy. I read that at one point you were talking to someone who could drop you in there with a hot air balloon. Correct.

00:05:39
Speaker 5: No, No, I was so desperate to make a hunt happen that I called a hot air balloon manufacturer. Oh and I said, I said, I said, guys, have you ever sold any hot air balloons for DIY hunters?

00:05:51
Speaker 3: And they go, uh no, that’s the first we’ve heard of this.

00:05:55
Speaker 5: And they say, they said to me, you do realize you can’t steer them right, And I did realize and I still do think that it could be done. So maybe next year we’ll be talking about my hot air balloon hunt.

00:06:05
Speaker 1: Uh huh, Yeah, you were desperate. Max, our co host, has a question.

00:06:09
Speaker 6: Yeah, David, what’s Wyoming’s rule about flying and hunting the same day.

00:06:14
Speaker 5: You can do it, no problem if you use it for if you use the aircraft for transportation purposes and not scouting, you’re good to go.

00:06:20
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, Okay, So you get the four minute helicopter ride into your spot. Tell us about the hunt itself, which took place back in November.

00:06:29
Speaker 3: So the hunt itself is very special.

00:06:32
Speaker 5: My buddy had been scheming on getting on this land to hunt for like twenty some years, and he said, if you can get us a helicopter, then we’ll have a great al hunt. Well, we got the helicopter and we had I mean, we had a great elk hunt, but the hunt itself was overshadowed by two things. One obviously we’ll get to, but we also happened to have that amazing Northern lions display.

00:06:56
Speaker 6: On the Oh, that’s awesome.

00:06:58
Speaker 5: After we got a double on nice mature bulls, we went back to camp and it was like a six hour show. And the time lapse of the videographer got on it is just like it gives me goosebumps even telling the story thinking about it.

00:07:11
Speaker 1: Good stuff. So you were, you were processing when one of the bulls, when when the thing happened? Uh and and you said, quote the strangest hunting encounter of your life. That’s how you described in your article on Peterson’s hunting what happened.

00:07:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s nothing that even comes close to this one. I’ve had, I’ve had issues with people like we all had on public land, but but nothing like this. So so my buddy and I we left our camp and hiked to the kill site. When we both killed, we killed two bulls that were probably one hundred and fifty yards apart. So we uh, we hiked back to my ball, and we got there at nine o’clock in the morning, and we’re gonna start packing meat, and the other guys were gonna come meet us as soon as they got done due to filming. So we sit down at my bowl and we look down below, and there walking across his flat is a rancher or another hunt. Sure he’s got a you know, elk handler’s over his shoulder. And so I think myself, huh, you know whatever, we got we got two elk in this place last night. The rancher obviously shot one in there as well. Yeah, they didn’tdn’t think anything of it. And my buddy, he said, I wonder if that’s our other elk, And just then this light bulb goes off my head, like, holy cow, could we really have Could we really be witnessing an elk theft in the process from from a rancher who obviously came on private across private ground. And so I just brought my binoculars.

00:08:33
Speaker 3: He didn’t bring me.

00:08:33
Speaker 5: Left it back camp, but he siddly see binoculars, and so we took my binoculars and looked down there two hundred yards and he recognized the back forks of of the elks as being one that our buddy Ryan shot, and he said, he said, I think that’s our elk, and so I’m thinking, still no way, Like, what are the It’s not even the realm of possibility. So he says, stay here, keep an eye on the brush line because the guy walked in the brush. So so Ben looked at him for I mean, he just had seconds to determine that that could be our or hell. He said, stay here and keep looking down at the at the brush line. So I stayed there, and I expected this this rancher, I’d be him. I expected this rancher would come out and go get a quarter and take the quarter and walk into the brush. It never came out. And so a few minutes later, once once bend and made up to the other kill site, all of a sudden, I hear this voice come booming down and he said he stole our out.

00:09:27
Speaker 3: Go after him. And it’s like, okay. Now that’s where it became the weirdest moment of my hunting, of my hunting career.

00:09:34
Speaker 5: And I mean, it’s one thing to have interactions with people, but it’s a whole different thing when you catch someone stealing your antlers, and they don’t want you there to begin with. I mean, that’s just that’s just a given. But they go to the go to the degree of stealing. You’re stealing from you, and then they’re hiding in brush line. You just caught him like approaching that brush line. I cannot even describe the pangs of fear that went through me, Like I was terrified, but.

00:10:05
Speaker 3: But we had to do it, so fam got there first.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Well, go ahead, No, I was just going to recap you. You’ve now you’ve got three balls down, You’ve you’re working on the meat. You’ve watched this rancher from two hundred yards away walk into the brush with your elk head and then you guys march over there. What’s the conversation like with the rancher.

00:10:25
Speaker 5: Well, my my buddy didn’t vended most of the talking at first, and he was he was obviously really pissed. He wanted the guy to come out. The guy was hiding in there. He wouldn’t come out. He finally he finally came out, and it’s a it’s a seventy year old dude, and I’m just like my mind is blown, Like I can’t even say anything for the first For the first few minutes, probably I was just recording with my with my phone because I knew this was evidence that we’re gonna have to use. Uh and so that is one thing that anyone in this situation, like we’ve got amazing technology and just pulling out your phone and recording.

00:10:57
Speaker 3: Stuff, we’ll really cover your cover your basis. But uh.

00:11:01
Speaker 5: Anyways, the conversation was was was very simple, like why did this happen?

00:11:05
Speaker 3: What? What what purpose did you steal this lkad for? Like, like, what’s going on? And the guy the guy didn’t didn’t answer.

00:11:12
Speaker 5: He did a bunch of a bunch of misdirection, wouldn’t identify himself as a rancher, denied even having the bowl.

00:11:19
Speaker 3: We called him out in all this stuff.

00:11:20
Speaker 5: But ultimately he said the reason was he didn’t he didn’t want us hunting on this outfit.

00:11:25
Speaker 3: That’s what he said.

00:11:26
Speaker 5: This outfit meaning the public land that he’s had sole access to for uh. I guess probably forty five years. So he’s been there.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: And at some point in this process, when you guys are glassing him or walking over there, you you heard a few gunshots? Correct? Where did those play? End of the story.

00:11:43
Speaker 3: I can’t.

00:11:44
Speaker 5: I can’t confirm where those gunshots came from or who did it even but I believe that that rancher shot three times that morning, and I don’t.

00:11:53
Speaker 3: I don’t, I can’t. I can’t understand the logic behind that one.

00:11:57
Speaker 5: But anyways, when when we saw him, uh, he never had a right so I can’t. I can’t confirm it with him nor what he did.

00:12:04
Speaker 3: But I’m guessing.

00:12:05
Speaker 5: I’m guessing he probably did it to to signify like, hey, I got an animal, and then if if someone sees him packing it out, like that’s that’s what happened.

00:12:12
Speaker 3: But that’s that’s just that’s just pure theory. I don’t. I don’t think he did it to scare us or anything.

00:12:16
Speaker 5: Like when you’re when you’re in public plan people people shoot and you know you’re not gonna you can get out of there because another hunter’s in there.

00:12:23
Speaker 1: All right, So at the beginning of the conversation, the rancher is is denying the whole thing, right, But at some point you get him to show you where the skull is. How did that go down? I know he uh.

00:12:34
Speaker 5: I think I think he said to us the first first time was what bowl, and and Ben said the one you just saw, the one we just saw you packed into the brush and so uh and so after after a few minutes of the conversation, uh, Ben goes, you want me, We’ll get the bull, and he goes have at it.

00:12:50
Speaker 3: So Ben walks in there and he looks.

00:12:51
Speaker 5: Down bottom of this little cut and there’s and there’s our buddy Ryan’s l Candler’s. So so not only did he did he take the bull and put it in the brush lamp, but he tossed it down this this ten foot ten foot ditch and and climbed down it was it was it was not easy to get down there, but he climbed down there, and he placed it in a place where you could barely see it. I know when I went to recover the antlers, because I got him out. When I jumped down there, I uh, I looked, and sure enough there was there was fresh boot tracks in there, like he’d actually gone to the effort of hiding them so you could you could barely find it.

00:13:21
Speaker 1: And then weirdly he like offers to help you guys at that point, right, Well, that’s.

00:13:28
Speaker 3: That’s interesting how that worked out.

00:13:29
Speaker 5: Because I was I was relieved that we uh, that we got the elk at back, and I was relieved that we didn’t get shot. Truthfully, that was my biggest fear in the whole thing. But uh, but after we after we after attentions cooled, I realized that, hey, you know, that guy packed this elkhead down, you know, three hundred vertical feet, so three hundred maybe even four hundred vertical feet and at least three hundred yards. So I said, how in the hell are we going to get it back up to the kill site? Like, we got to pack it up now, So what are you gonna do? And I really I thought I thought he was going to say, look, guys, I messed up. You know, instead of instead of taking out there, you can just come out my ranch, go get your cars, take your stuff out.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: That one.

00:14:09
Speaker 3: I was waiting for that because I was thinking, okay, cool, I’d.

00:14:12
Speaker 6: Say, gave us some money on the helicopter, right.

00:14:14
Speaker 3: It would have saved us so much money if you would, if you would have done that. But he didn’t. He never did. He did.

00:14:19
Speaker 5: He did, however, offer to pack it up, so I thought that was that was a little bit.

00:14:23
Speaker 3: Of a redemption on his behalf.

00:14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys get the elk, then back to your camp, you and the rancher go your separate ways. At what point do you contact the authorities? And how did that conversation go.

00:14:35
Speaker 5: As soon as we had service, Yeah, as soon as we had service, we well, we waited for our buddies to get back, and we said, he said, you’d think you think the hunt was a was a cool story, like just wait to you, wait till you see what we but we just witnessed. And so, I mean, our friends were just slack jawed when we told him the story, like they thought they were we were messing with them at first, and we’re like, no, I promise you we were not messing with you. But yeah, so we went h We went back to camp that night and there we had good service. So the phone calls made to the game warden and said, yep, this happened, we’ll be out tomorrow.

00:15:06
Speaker 3: What do we do?

00:15:06
Speaker 5: And the game warden said, uh, please meet me because that’s a that’s a very odd story. And so and so the next day we flew out and met with the game warden and and told them and everyone in law enforcement, everyone period, that here’s the story. They all say the same thing, like, I can’t even I cannot believe that happened.

00:15:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, is that considered like hunting harassment then? Or what did the game wardens actually say?

00:15:30
Speaker 3: That’s that’s a great that’s a great question.

00:15:32
Speaker 5: And I don’t I don’t fully know what what the long term legal outcome is going to be. But but yeah, we we asked the word and the same thing, like like, what’s gonna happen here? And he goes, he goes, most I can do his hunting harassment, but he goes, after seeing the after seeing the videos that we that we made, he said, uh, he said, this goes way beyond that. So I’m gonna I’m gonna grow up in the local sheriff’s office and they’re gonna do investigation and then we’ll our charges to the prosecutor, you know, entirety.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: God, this this has been about month removed from when it happened. The legal process is still playing out at this point, right Yeah.

00:16:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but god, I am I am. I am optimistic because uh, a few weeks ago, I did get a phone call from the from the sheriff’s office and and they actually said like, hey, we’re pursuing this. We’re about to hand this to the prosecutor. So he will he will be he will be punished for what he did. And and that’s good. That’s a good thing because the part that that scares me the most is is not the not the brazen act that that that a lot of these landowners go to uh to deter you from legally accessing it with aircraft. But I worry if this guy gets off with just a slap on the wrist, that it’s gonna it’s gonna put future fly on hunters in danger.

00:16:40
Speaker 3: I mean some ultimately something bad is gonna happen.

00:16:42
Speaker 5: Like it’s one thing to lose nel Ken, but it’d be just a tragedy for someone to lose their life.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: M uh. Now this was not your first fly in hunt. Have you had problems in the past with neighboring landowners?

00:16:55
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:16:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

00:16:56
Speaker 5: See when I when I first started this, I thought to myself, like, yeah, they’re gonna annoyed, But what are they gonna do? It’s not their land, you know, really, what are they gonna do? Well, what I found out now is in their minds it is their land. They don’t have deeded, they don’t have the deeded deeded rights to it. But but they genuinely do feel and this is this is a blanket statement. So I’m just I’m just talking with the people we’ve interacted with. But every single landowner that we’ve had interactions with has been less than less than welcoming.

00:17:27
Speaker 3: And and and some.

00:17:29
Speaker 5: People there’s there’s a there’s a couple that has a massive, a massive ranch that surrounds I mean, I don’t know, maybe thirty thousand total acres.

00:17:38
Speaker 3: Of public landlocked land.

00:17:40
Speaker 5: But but they they’re they’re so extreme that they pester us on the hunts. They find excuses to go in there looking for cows. They they would this lady would take her kids. Like in October, we did a flying deer hunt and my dad and his high school buddy, two seventy five year olds are in there hunting deer and cow elk, and and this lady shows up above their ridge in the middle of nowhere, and she takes her kids for a for a loud walk right above their camp. It’s like, it’s so annoying, but but she took it to she took it two level that that is still surprising me. She told our helicopter pilot. She said that if if I can’t have sole access to that land and you guys keep coming in by helicopter, then I’m going going there and ruin that land, ruin that land so.

00:18:24
Speaker 3: No one can take advantage of someone can use it.

00:18:27
Speaker 1: And you’re just you’re like pretty vulnerable back there in their situations.

00:18:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I never I’ve never been in combat. But it it is like almost like you’re getting dropped off on an island because because yeah, you could leave if you wanted to, but.

00:18:41
Speaker 3: You really can’t, like you’re gonna be trust back trespass to get out of there.

00:18:45
Speaker 5: And the first time I went in, uh, the helicopter, the helicopter landed and gave us a big group briefing, and so we’re sitting around the helicopter and finally, after after thirty minutes of how to avoid getting your head chopped off, we boarded it our flight for the for the first trip in and this and this rancher came around us on this four wheeler and the helicopter wasn’t running yet, but he said, he said, good luck, We’ll be seeing you soon.

00:19:10
Speaker 3: And he said it like such a such a spooky villain kind of way almost like.

00:19:14
Speaker 5: Sorry, I assure you that that first night in there, I was ready for a posse of landowners to come there and try to lynch us from a tree.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. Last question, David, you and I worked together about a decade ago when I was at Peterson Hunting in Illinois. How much do you miss me?

00:19:29
Speaker 3: How much do I miss you?

00:19:30
Speaker 1: Or loaded question me? Well, you can answer both, yeah, how much you miss me? And then tell us how much you miss Peoria on a.

00:19:37
Speaker 3: Scale one to ten. I miss you nine point eight.

00:19:39
Speaker 5: All right, Yes, I really do on a scale one to ten for Peoria.

00:19:44
Speaker 3: I just missed the people. I don’t miss the place at all.

00:19:46
Speaker 1: Okay, so same good answer. Yeah.

00:19:49
Speaker 3: You can read.

00:19:50
Speaker 1: David’s full story about the hunt in his article called a Landowner Stole Our Trophy elk on Peterson Hunning dot com. David, thanks for joining us and telling the story.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: Thanks take care see David’s.

00:20:03
Speaker 1: Yeah wild crazy stuff.

00:20:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I now even know what to do well. And this crazy part is not only to land owners, not all of them, obviously, it’s it’s it’s a few that get a little frustrated with this. But not only do they believe that the land is theirs, but the animals are theirs too. Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on that just is mind blowing me. There’s a dollar amount on each one of those trop And.

00:20:24
Speaker 6: It’s so crazy too because a lot of times when I see like there’s different land for sale and listing, the realtors will advertise like, oh so and so much public land landlocked.

00:20:37
Speaker 1: Yeah right, you know, and I’m.

00:20:38
Speaker 6: Just like, that’s not considered theirs, but.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it’s uh wild timing that they like saw it go down. You know, if they’d have been five minutes behind in the process and didn’t see it happen, who knows how that story would have been different.

00:20:52
Speaker 3: Right, all right.

00:20:55
Speaker 1: Normally at this point in the show we take a break for some listener feedback, but since we’re out live, these are questions that were submitted ahead of time, we’ll hit a few of them now and then a few at the end of the show. The first one is from Ryan Bowlinger Favorite way to cook waterfowl Max.

00:21:13
Speaker 6: If I could every single time, I would cook skin on duck, for sure, But that’s not as an option, especially like early season when they don’t they’re not as fatty. They still have pin feathers. So a lot of times, like duck or goose, just cook it like a steak, trim, trim all the silver skin off, salt, pepper, garlic, turns out awesome, especially like the snow geese, the speckle bellies, even like some of your dabbler ducks. Yeah that’s great, but yeah, I’ve done things like the crock pot barbecue, shredded meat, tacos. Options are really endless. I know Steve’s favorite way is like duck cunfy, which is also really good, but yeah, duck or goose for strown me. I just made some over thanksgaving phenomenal.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: All these recipes on the medeater dot com. I think my best waterfowl I’ve had was when Cal and I were filming part of My Plate when we did the cood episode. We did side by side comparison with a mallard that the skin was left on. We cooked it on hot rill, just like you said with a steak, and it was. It was phenomenal. You would struggle in a Pepsi challenge to identify that that was a mallard versus a piece of beef. It was. It was really great.

00:22:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Steve is doing a comparison with a Merganzer GoldenEye and a.

00:22:33
Speaker 1: Mallard dabbler and a couple of divers. We’ll see how that goes. Corey favorite way to cook waterfowl, Well, I don’t really have much of a duck in this fight.

00:22:43
Speaker 2: I don’t do a lot of waterfowl hunting, but just same exactly, I would say, the same exact way I cook any steak, which is in a hot cast iron pan.

00:22:52
Speaker 1: All right. Next question from Will pallakangis how do you guys wash your marinal wool bass layers. I reached out to the folks at First Light to get an official answer on this because I didn’t want to lead anyone astray. Here’s what they told me. Some companies make cleaners that are specifically for Marina wool products. One of them is Grangers, which First Light really likes. Some of the staff over there and me included just uses dead down wind. And if you aren’t buying a special detergent for your base layers, they say to look for labels that say gentle or mild on them. As far as the washing goes, they say it’s really important to wash on a gentle cycle with cold water. Try to separate different fabrics and colors. For example, you don’t want to put a marinal wool kiln hoodie in washing. It has a heavy coat with velcro, It’s going to get beat up. For drying, they say do a tumble dry or a low dry. Blasting the marina wool in a hot dry or might shrink it. So simply put mild detergent or specialized detergent like Grangers, and then wash and dry at cool temps.

00:23:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, I’m so horrible at this. I just throw everything together and wash it the same, dryads the same. But I do try. If I know I’m doing some renal, well, I’ll like try to keep it on low for drying aspect for sure.

00:24:12
Speaker 1: But yeah, I am so bad at it.

00:24:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, low and slow. Same with down products too, so natural fibers, low lightwash and then either a super light tumble or even just hang it outside. Sure got nice weather hanging in a pine tree.

00:24:26
Speaker 1: Yep, Open air and sunlight can do a lot for your smelly clothes. Okay, Cameron jo seven best piece of hunting gear you use that’s under fifty dollars. I’ll do even one better. I’ll go under one dollar handwarmers and tow warmers. Anyone, anyone you know who hunts her fishes north of the Mason Dixon line, they’ll find a use for some handwarmers and some tow warmers. I think they’re still like ninety eight cents. When I was hunting in Illinois it was single digits. Having those handwarmers and tow warmers was like as important as my coat, you know. And it’s like a five hundred dollars coat versus a one dollar hand warmer. They’ll they’ll really keep you out there longer.

00:25:05
Speaker 6: Do you find your feet? If you do the toe warmers, your feet get too sweaty or too warm, and they get then they get sweaty and then they get cold.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: Mm no, okay. But I’m also not like walking around in them either, right, Like, it’s like, okay, this is where I’m partier by but for the next two hours. So throwing a toe warmer in there. Favorite piece of gear under fifty dollars.

00:25:25
Speaker 6: Max for me. It’s got to be like neck gator or a buff Yeah, actually got.

00:25:33
Speaker 1: One right here.

00:25:34
Speaker 6: This is the Tundra cold weather net gator forty bucks works as a face mask, and it just works as just keeping the wind off the back of your neck.

00:25:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I like them, if you know, even I’m a hunting in September obviously not that heavy of one, but yeah, just the sun and wind.

00:25:53
Speaker 6: I mean, just like something to help conceal your face a little bit and then like if you can, it kills two birds in one stone.

00:25:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, Corey, tell Cameron a favorite piece of hunting gear under fifty.

00:26:04
Speaker 2: Dollars A cheap pair of aftermarket insols. Obviously, go big and get some custom orthotics that could run you one hundred to two hundred dollars.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: What’s your favorite?

00:26:14
Speaker 2: I really like superfeet just because they’re there. I think there may be a little over fifty dollars now, but just google aftermarket insouls and you’ll find some under fifty dollars.

00:26:22
Speaker 6: For sure.

00:26:22
Speaker 2: Anything’s better than the junk that they give you in the boots. I mean, they’ll last you a couple months. But do your feet a favor and get aftermarket insols. Make sure it matches your arch, so you might have to bump up a size to make sure it fits your arch. So if you can go into a bootstore or any sporting good store and try and put your foot on the insol, make sure it lines up with your arch, and then you can cut it to fit into your boot.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, put that on the Christmas list. The cutting is porn. If you get slightly oversized and they start to roll in your in your boot, that’s that’s no good. Next question is from mo Heyeskawa. What is Phil’s favorite ever podcast episode of Meat Eater?

00:27:04
Speaker 4: Thanks mo.

00:27:05
Speaker 7: I don’t know if I have a specific one that sticks out, but I love the the authors that Steve brings in because you know, I can. I don’t connect as much to all the very specific hunting talk, but I love it when Steve specifically like a nautical disaster, which Steve loves. And I also love, you know, from the Edmund Fits to having David Grant talking about the Wager because you can those guys just know their stuff so well and Steve that you can feel Steve’s passion when he’s asking questions. I also love the awkward part of every conversation with an author when Steve tries to get them to talk about the end of the book and they don’t want to, and He’s.

00:27:40
Speaker 4: Like, oh, come on, it’s fun.

00:27:42
Speaker 5: You know.

00:27:42
Speaker 4: It never fails to amuse me.

00:27:44
Speaker 7: And then it’s like, I love the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that we had to travel for. Like I loved going going to Werner Hertzog’s house was a trip. Going to LA with Spencer and Randall and doing the show with Rob Lowe and Sirius or David Chang at the Ringer was fun. Yeah, So those are those are my favorites. I love the authors and the comedians like Bradleyoni was a lot of fund Dana Doute was a lot of fun too.

00:28:08
Speaker 1: All right, Corey’s going to answer this next one from Redbeard fly Fishing. If you were hunting in snow too deep for gators, what kind of pants do you like?

00:28:17
Speaker 2: I’d have to go at the First Light Omen Storm shelter pants. They got the built in splash guard velcro that goes around your boots, plus the bootlace hook like most gators have that keep them down when you’re trudging through the snow, and they’re waterproof. Obviously they’re light full vents knee pads. I mean, I think that’s my favorite thing First Light makes in there.

00:28:38
Speaker 1: What are they again?

00:28:38
Speaker 2: The omen pant?

00:28:40
Speaker 5: Ok?

00:28:41
Speaker 1: So will you wear the gators with those ors ad overkill.

00:28:44
Speaker 2: Man, if it was like melting snow and super sloppy, I’ve done it, certainly, gators than those over the top, but dry snow, no, no need. They’re great for whatever. I use the backcountry skiing too.

00:28:56
Speaker 1: All right, next question, we got two more left in this round. This is from Willie Scoey or will Is Kohe. I’m not sure what is Max’s white whale for waterfowl?

00:29:08
Speaker 6: Oh, that’s a great question.

00:29:09
Speaker 1: I don’t even have a guess. Something from the Arctic Circle or like not even that. Okay, something banded? What what is it? Yeah?

00:29:15
Speaker 6: No, it’s I mean, people might make fun of me and because they probably have many of these, but I’ve never killed, were never harvested, abandoned Drake Mallard really so yeah, it’s gonna be a bandoned Drake Mallard retrieved.

00:29:31
Speaker 1: By my dog.

00:29:32
Speaker 6: Okay, my dog has retrieved like three or four of them, But me personally, I’ve never shot one.

00:29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:29:39
Speaker 6: I’ve shot banded Canada geese, pintail teal, gadwall snow geese, but never abandoned Drake Mallard.

00:29:48
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I’ve only killed like five ducks in my life, and I’ve killed one really really not bragging.

00:29:56
Speaker 1: I’ve killed one banded bird. It was a speckle belly goose. Yeah came in December.

00:30:01
Speaker 6: But yeah, for the amount of mallards that I tend to harvest, I’m just waiting on the day.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: Where on the continent would you go to get that? Because there’s dudes who will, like, they know that this refuge bands this time of year, so if they go there, they can, you know, have higher odds. Where would you try to do it at?

00:30:18
Speaker 6: I mean, I know there’s a lot of banding down in Arkansas in the flooded timber, but I necessarily don’t want to.

00:30:24
Speaker 1: Go somewhere where it’s like you want to be organic.

00:30:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh for sure. Like where we are around Bozman, we see a lot of birds from Alberta, some Sasketchwan birds, and they do a lot of banding up there, a lot of banning projects. And one of these days Ruby’s gonna come back with something shiny on that orange leg. So hopefully it’s this year.

00:30:46
Speaker 1: Maybe all right, last one Wally Bloomer, he says, Phil Destiny too, Star Wars expansion question mark, I don’t know what that means. What’s he asking, Phil?

00:30:56
Speaker 7: Destiny two is a video game as a sequel to the game Destiny. If you can put that together, it’s a it’s a mult it’s a multiplayer online shooter from the same team who made the first three Halo games. So bungeee based out of a bellv. Washington, and so you know, it feels a lot like Halo feels great. No one makes like the their art direction is unparalleled. I put over fifteen hundred hours into this game. But let’s see, Wally Bloomer, I haven’t touched Destiny since the Final Shape, which which for everyone else was the last big expansion downloadable content expansion. But I had I think I said it before I had to quit Cold Turkey. I was just wasting too much, too much time playing that game, and I to be honest, Wally, I didn’t even know that there was a Star Wars tinged expansion until I read this question. That is how checked out. I am from the Destiny community, which didn’t used to be the case. But yeah, it’s a so just for fifteen more seconds of detail. The reason you waste so much time playing these games is because it’s a multi massive, multiplayer online game. So you play with a bunch of people, and it’s like a looter shooter as well, so you’re always trying to make your number go up. You get a gun, and then that gun helps you fight stronger monsters, and then you get an even stronger gun, and that gun helps you fight stronger monsters, and you watch your number tick up, and it’s just that sort of serotonin hip.

00:32:13
Speaker 1: Just learning about the Star Wars make you more interested though, or you still just know not at all.

00:32:17
Speaker 4: No, I’m done, I’m done forever, Wally.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: Sorry, all right, our next segment is Top threes.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: I’m gonna fire this up.

00:32:47
Speaker 4: That was not the right note.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: All right, Each one of us had a different top three list today. Corey, start us out. What is your top three list?

00:32:56
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Well, we’re kind of wrapping up twenty twenty five, not officially yet obviously, but it makes me always kind of reminisced the year. So I’m doing, in no particular order, necessarily my top three outdoor adventures. We’ll see what Phil brings up.

00:33:13
Speaker 1: I can’t wait to see to.

00:33:14
Speaker 4: Get rid of this banner.

00:33:17
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So in April, Corin and I went down to West Texas to hunt add ad and had a successful hunt, harvested you and a ram. But that was like a blur just compared to the the adventure down there Montana. Boy, this is only the second time I’ve hunted in another state. First time I was just guiding, so I hadn’t where was that at Colorado?

00:33:39
Speaker 1: Cool?

00:33:40
Speaker 2: My first season guidance, So this just being invited was phenomenal. And then being able to explore this super rugged, dry, arid country of West Texas. We were staring into Mexico the whole time. It was only in the seventies, but it was so dry that it felt so much hotter.

00:33:56
Speaker 1: Not a cloud in the sky, no shade to get under, no shade.

00:33:59
Speaker 2: The wind was really nasty, especially in that shot there up on the side of a mountain. Got to eat some odd ad fresh over the fire, which was pretty cool.

00:34:09
Speaker 3: Just the whole.

00:34:10
Speaker 2: Experience was awesome.

00:34:11
Speaker 1: Where’s that skull at now hanging in my house?

00:34:13
Speaker 2: As soon as you walk up the.

00:34:14
Speaker 6: Stairs, is that is that a bowl?

00:34:16
Speaker 1: A buck ram? Right? Yeah?

00:34:20
Speaker 6: I was trying to think of another one.

00:34:21
Speaker 2: But yeah, they’re more on the sheep side of things.

00:34:24
Speaker 1: Cool.

00:34:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was good.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: Adventure number three.

00:34:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty awesome adventure. Let’s see number two would have been My wife and son and I did a lot of camp floating. We like to take the driftboat down onto one of our free stone rivers and camp on public land, either on an island or off the off a beach, just off the side of a of a river. Typically we hit the Yellowstone River, which is a nice short drive here from Bozeman, but love to take the boat out for one or two days, one or two nights if possible, and figure out what sort of adventures we can go on. There’s a shot and my kid jumping off the front of the boat, super nonchalant. We either go by ourselves or with another family. But it’s fun. Fish all day, pull into a beach wherever you want.

00:35:08
Speaker 1: Bet you find some aggts in petrified wood.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots lots of petrified wood. I still don’t quite have the eye for it. But even though I have found one of the biggest piece of the biggest bagg I’ve ever seen.

00:35:19
Speaker 6: You’re multitasking in that photo.

00:35:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, there I am rowing the boat with a boat full of gear, firewood, a dog and two kids in the front that were kicking splashing the water. Churning up all the fish. But I didn’t catch anything, but I had to try.

00:35:33
Speaker 6: Isn’t that called the Sandwan shuffle?

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s when they actually kick up the rocks.

00:35:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, so close. So just the family float trips in the summer, looking forward to that again.

00:35:45
Speaker 1: Next, what does the San Juan shuffle?

00:35:47
Speaker 6: It’s basically like you walk and you’re kicking up all this dirt and I do know.

00:35:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, like if you’re fishing a hole, it’s a beneficial thing. Yeah, You’re kicking up a lot of bugs higher up in the stream and they come down and they can chum up the fish if you will. It sometimes works, other times I feel like any movement can cut the fish down to Yeah, So I like that name.

00:36:11
Speaker 1: I Uh, there’s a driving maneuver I refer to as the Chicago sweep. It’s where you cross multiple lanes at once. Say you’re like four lanes and you gotta get from lane one to that’s been there, sure, Yeah, it’s the Chicago sweep. And I wondered one time, I was like, did I come up with that or did I hear someone say it? So I googled Chicago sweep and I couldn’t find it anywhere online, so maybe I made it up. Let’s let’s make it a thing though, that is universe. That’s a Chicago sweep move that you most see, but.

00:36:36
Speaker 6: You remember you might get pulled over doing it.

00:36:38
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, that’s not in Chicago. That’s like, you know, that’s that’s driving up there. Pretty normal Chicago sweep multiple lanes.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: Lanes, all right.

00:36:46
Speaker 1: Number one Corey Adventure of twenty twenty five.

00:36:49
Speaker 2: Number one took my wife and son to my favorite place in the world. And I’m not going to tell anybody where it’s at. It’s right on the edge of a wilderness uh here in Montana, but really cool spot. Took my son and my wife up there, went up this tiny little creek to go look for some fish, and lo and behold we caught a giant west slope cutthroat. Well, oh, my boy caught that, which was really exciting. Just he was finally old enough where I could take him on the journey, which just getting there obviously is very difficult.

00:37:21
Speaker 3: And he caught itentry.

00:37:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you hook it and then hand him the rod? Or he did everything?

00:37:25
Speaker 2: No, he did everything?

00:37:26
Speaker 1: Hell yeah yeah.

00:37:27
Speaker 2: The dogfly yep, Catus. The dog got in the way. Had to wrangle the dog and pull him out of the way. But yeah, super fun, just super remote, hard to get to spot, and I’ve been waiting since the day he was born to take him back there.

00:37:39
Speaker 1: So a fish that big on a dry fly would spook me a little. It had to really spook Marshall.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Didn’t want to You could see it. I want to touch it in the photo. Yeah he’s hesitant, but it’s great. No, super fun. That won’t be the last time up there.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: Good twenty five adventures for Corey. All right, Max, what’s your top three?

00:37:55
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:37:56
Speaker 6: I got top three duck hunting accessories. Yeah, for starters, I’ll start without start with these decoys. I’m a big fan of a jerk rig. A jerk rig consists of a weight mm hmm, a little bungee and a line of decoys. So basically you can imagine I put this weight out, I have this line come all the way back to me, and it’s exactly what I says, you jerk it. It produces water motion. Water motion goes a long ways. I would use this ten times more than I would ever use a spinner. It’s natural, ducks do it. Ducks produce so much water motion that people overlook, and especially if you’re hunting like a pond or something, it’s super important to have some kind of water.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: Only on a calm day. What if they were like, you know, seven mile an hour wind and you had some small waves.

00:38:52
Speaker 6: It helps for sure because a lot of times too, and people will do this in the South to hunting the timber. They’ll just rip on the jerk cord and the splashing sound attracts ducks too, it helps. So yeah, that’s my number one. I bring this with me almost every time I go duck hunt for sure. Number two I think I have a photo.

00:39:16
Speaker 1: Which one is it gonna be?

00:39:17
Speaker 6: Oh game tote. I also brought this with me.

00:39:21
Speaker 1: Too, A beautiful piece of gear.

00:39:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, it’s beautiful piece of gear. It helps you keep your ducks in a row, funny, just easy hang hang the duck by the foot or the head. And a big reason why I like this is in waterfall hunting you’ve got to keep your ducks separate, like you got to claim your ducks, and it helps you keep you keep keeps you legal. So like Corey and I went out, Oh Corey would be this side, I would be this side. So yeah, that’s a thing I bring with me every single time.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: And a picture.

00:39:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, it helps with good photos too. So yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago limited Mallard, so very good. Yeah, just you don’t need it, but I like it.

00:40:08
Speaker 1: What does that one run? You think?

00:40:10
Speaker 6: This one’s probably one hundred bucks.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: It’s going to have for the rest of your life.

00:40:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, it’s custom has Ruby’s name on it.

00:40:18
Speaker 1: Oh very good.

00:40:18
Speaker 6: Yeah. So yeah, once Ruby goes, I’ll retire this one and then get another one for the next dog.

00:40:25
Speaker 1: So all right. Number three waterfowl accessory Number three.

00:40:28
Speaker 6: I kind of touched on this earlier. A neck gator. This one’s from First Light forty bucks. But like I was saying earlier, keeps you warm, keeps the wind off you, and also helps conceal you a little bit. So yeah, every time there’s it’s cold out, I’m wearing this guy. So get a little fleece in this side there. But yeah, that’s my top three.

00:40:53
Speaker 1: And you don’t realize how warm it’s keeping you until you might take it off.

00:40:55
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, oh just just a little wind on the neck is like brutals. Oh that’s my top three.

00:41:02
Speaker 1: All right, I’m going next I’ve got my top three favorite fishing lures of all time. Phil has photos of them. Number three is the Johnson beetle spin.

00:41:12
Speaker 4: Nice.

00:41:12
Speaker 1: This is my favorite lure in the world for catching panfish. My best days of crappie fishing, bluegill fishing, or thanks to a yellow beetle spin just like that one there, easy to cast, rarely get snagged. You can run him in any depth. One of the last remaining lures you can buy that’s under three dollars a piece. Non panfish like them too. I’ve got some good bass on beetlespins. One day in college, while I was fishing from my kayak, I hooked into a giant flathead fishing for bluegill that ate a beetle spin. I think he was probably like twenty pounds. I fought him for like fifteen minutes on my ultra light setup, got him to the edge of the kayak a handful of times. Eventually he broke me off on like my third attempt to grab him, and he broke my heart. It would have been one of my greatest catches of all time. A flathead on a beetlespin from the kayak. Cool anyway, I love the Johnson Beetlespin. So does the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. They named it their number thirteen best lure of all time, but for me, it’s number three, the Johnson beatlespin.

00:42:11
Speaker 6: I’m excited to see what what is two and one?

00:42:13
Speaker 1: Number two is the rapaula shad rap. If I can only fish with one crankbait the rest of my life, it would be a number five shad rap in fire tiger, just like that one there. It’ll catch any game fish fast while I pike. You can size it down for panfish and trout, size it up for musky and stripers. It’s a real do it all lure. You control them. You can cast and retrieve. Good for fishing five to ten feet of water, which is where I find myself most times. Also love the shad raps broken cousin the jointed shad rap Those give even more wobble. They’re not quite as easy to tune as the og shad rap. And I would bet that I own forty or fifty of the jointed shad raps, and the shad raps all on fire two not all on fire tiger. Just wanted to make make sure I bet fire tigers. Is not even top five because that’s what I use so often and lose so often. So it’s my favorite. But I think I have colors I’ve recognized that just should be retired because I’m never gonna grab that purple blue thing or whatever I have, all right. Number one is the strike King KVD sexy Frog. Nothing in fishing brings me greater joy than a top water bass bite. And although I love like the scum frog and the zoom horny toad, my absolute favorite is the KVD sexy frog. Kevin van Dam He’s the greatest bass angler ever. He’s made my favorite lure ever. The sexy frog is totally weedless. You can cast that thing a mile. It has an internal rattle, which not all frogs do, so it has some added sound, great action. You can twitch it, you can do a fast retrieve. They have seventeen colors. Now, I like the classic leopard frog, which is what that pattern is because most places I fish in the North, the most common frog is a leopard frog. And here’s a hot tip. Take a scissors and and cut off like a half inch of that houla skirt legs, and then also add a trailer hook. You’ll get better hook sets that way. Throw it on a calm, cloudy day for best results. That’s the strike King KVD sexy frog my number one favorite lure.

00:44:15
Speaker 6: I feel like I was editing a Tony Peterson episode one time, and I felt like he liked a calm sunny day because it produces like a shadow sure up top.

00:44:27
Speaker 1: I think you talk to ten anglers, I’ll tell you ten different things. I’d like cloud and calm. Then I’ve got a few honorable mentioned. The eagle Claw croppie rig. Croppie rigs get a bad rap for being like the lure you associate with kids and beginner anglers, but that’s stupid. Everyone should embrace the croppy rig. They’re cool. You bathe them with worms or minnows to catch any fish in North America. Fish it under a bobber, fish it on the bottom, doesn’t take any technique at all, and they’re the perfect lure for using while drinking a beer. So that’s a crappy rig. The Mister Twister curly tail they make the o G curly tail grub. You won’t find anyone that’ll tell you it’s like the best soft plastic for bass or walleye or anything. But just like as an all around lure, you can’t beat a mister Twister good for panfish and game fish. Paired with the VMC jighead, that’s my favorite jig head. They’ll catch anything. And then the little Stinker dip bait worms. If you love catching three pound channel cats in slow moving water, which I do, then you can’t beat stink bait. My favorite vessel for Sonny’s stink bait. That’s my favorite stink bait is the little Stinker dipworm. They make it real easy to set the hook with that impregnated treble hook. I’ve caught more catfish I think on that pairing of the little stinkers worms and sunny stinkbait than anything else. Those are my honorable mentions. Very cool, all right, Phil, what’s your top three?

00:45:51
Speaker 2: Okay?

00:45:51
Speaker 7: Well, I ran into some technical difficulties this morning editing a mediater podcast, so I had to pull a Ryan Callahan and just look around my office. So, okay, we have my top three tiki mugs that were in my office.

00:46:02
Speaker 1: How many did you have in there?

00:46:04
Speaker 7: Well, I’ve got like twenty, but I brought that. I brought down five honorable mentions. The first one is this Cohico mug that I got at Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco.

00:46:15
Speaker 2: That’s cool.

00:46:15
Speaker 7: This is the mug that is pictured on the cover of the Smuggler’s Cove Tiki book, which is kind of like the modern day Bible of tiki stuff. And it it got a new matt and glaze and it just it looks real, real pretty. It’s a little little guys covered in like barnacles and old old nets and and some coral and stuff that used it in your office.

00:46:36
Speaker 4: I don’t use these.

00:46:36
Speaker 7: If I sometimes i’ll take I’ll take one home on the weekend if i’m if I feel like making a drink.

00:46:41
Speaker 4: Okay, that’s It’s few and far between.

00:46:42
Speaker 1: Right.

00:46:43
Speaker 7: Number two is this one I actually found at an antique store here in Bozeman, and so it does. It’s not that flashy, but I saw it and I was curious. It’s guy says Harvey’s Lake Tahoe on it.

00:46:52
Speaker 2: Cool.

00:46:53
Speaker 7: So I looked it up and it was an old tiki restaurant, tiki bar that was at the top of a hotel in Aho that was very short lived and apparently wasn’t very good. But the hotel has a lot of history because some guy who was in debt over a million dollars at the casino put a bomb in a copier and uh to try to extort the hotel, and the FBI caught wind and detonated the bomb. Nobody was hurt, but I mean it blew up, like the first three stories of the hotel caused like twenty million dollars in damages.

00:47:25
Speaker 4: And here’s here’s here’s a relic from from there.

00:47:28
Speaker 1: Good stuff.

00:47:29
Speaker 7: And then my favorite was one that I got at a bar called Wusong Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just right outside Harvard Square. And this is you’ve see if you’ve seen the film Spirited Away. Uh, this is the the the Radish spirit who works in the bathhouse. And I just think it’s a great I mean it’s it’s it’s gorgeous, wonderful design. He’s wearing a little kind of like cherry blossom Japanese shirt tiki shirt is his hat comes off cookie and it’s also just a really cool tiki tiki bar as well. It’s got kind of like this pulp comic book theme, like it’s it’s got a hard hard to describe, but it was a nice little a nice little fine there and near it near Harvard.

00:48:07
Speaker 1: Have you drank anything out of that tiki mug once?

00:48:10
Speaker 7: Yeah, most of these tiki mugs I’ve had one drink out of. And then I bring him to my office. Uh and and then sometimes I’ll bring him home for a special occasion.

00:48:17
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought you had a couple of honor.

00:48:19
Speaker 4: I’ll get some honorable mentions here too.

00:48:20
Speaker 7: This one, this one is from Galaxy’s Edge, the Oga’s Cantina in in Disney World and disney Land.

00:48:28
Speaker 4: This is a sort of like classic.

00:48:30
Speaker 7: It tells the story of the Battle of Endor and kind of like a tribal artwork sort of thing, like like as if it were designed by Ewoks. So you know, you got the ats T there C three PO and R two D two are somewhere around here. So’s the Ewoks just absolutely uh you know, doming some Stormtroopers.

00:48:48
Speaker 4: That’s a good one. And then I’ve got this.

00:48:49
Speaker 2: Surprise that didn’t make top three.

00:48:52
Speaker 4: Oh so many to choose from.

00:48:54
Speaker 6: More.

00:48:54
Speaker 7: Yeah, and then I’ve got this one, which looks like an arcade cabinet made out of like drift wood. That’s that was from Funhouse, which is like an old like a video game comedy site that I used to enjoy a lot.

00:49:05
Speaker 3: Very unique.

00:49:06
Speaker 1: Jealous of that collection. That is fun. If you’re not watching this on YouTube, you’re missing out on a real visual treat.

00:49:12
Speaker 4: There, big Tail, there we are. Thank you.

00:49:16
Speaker 1: All right joining us on the line. Last is Wired to Hunt host Mark Kenyon. He’s here with a top five list of his own. Mark, Welcome to the show.

00:49:26
Speaker 8: Hey guys, I’m just kind of in shock of Phil’s collection. There the quite the thing to try to follow up.

00:49:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, good luck, Hark makes Phil Phil real quick. Mark, give us a dear movement update for where you’re at from Michigan these last thirty days of your dough season.

00:49:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:49:43
Speaker 8: Well, we’re coming off of a really great cold and snowy spell for much of the country, really the late season weather that you want. So we’re coming off of this high. Unfortunately at the very end of the year, we’re actually getting the opposite, which is a warm up, which is not as encouraging. Warmer weather coming in here into the Upper Midwest, some rain. We’re going to miss out on the white Christmas they thought we’re going to have, and all that’s probably gonna lead to a little bit slower deer movement than we’ve had over the last couple of weeks during this kind of arctic spell, so not exactly what you want. But with the warmer temperatures, you’re probably going to see deer moving off of the grains like corn or soybeans and moving more towards greener forage, native brows, green food plots, winter wheat fields, that kind of stuff. So super fast update, but that’s what’s coming down the line.

00:50:32
Speaker 1: All right, good info. Now it’s almost the off season, and a great way to keep the fire burning for deer in the off season is by reading. And I don’t know anyone who has read more books about white tails than you. So today I want you to give us your top five list of best books for white tail hunters. Let’s start with number five. What do you have for us? Mark?

00:50:52
Speaker 8: First off, I’d like to say that I plan on using that bio line that I just saw below, Whitetail Enjoyer. That’s gonna be my new title.

00:50:59
Speaker 3: Maybe not expert, but enjoyer pretty accurate.

00:51:04
Speaker 8: Number one or because number five, in your case, will be Mapping Trophy Bucks by Brad Herndon. If you’re watching here, it is This is a foundational text within the whitetail world from like a tactical perspective. This is basically the first, and I think kind of that most established resource on understanding topography and terrain for deer hunting. So how hills and ridges and saddles and points and inside corners of fields and all that kind of stuff can actually lead to deer moving in different kind of ways, and how you can take advantage of that as a hunter.

00:51:39
Speaker 3: And this uses maps.

00:51:40
Speaker 8: It really teaches how to use maps and topography to predict deer movements. So really kind of foundational how to book in the whitetail world.

00:51:48
Speaker 1: It’s got kind of a textbook look to it.

00:51:51
Speaker 8: Yes, yes it does. There’s lots of illustrations you can see, like very helpful actual diagrams and stuff. So if you trying to get better deer hunting, this is like a must have book. It’s hard to find though, I think now is what I’ve heard.

00:52:05
Speaker 1: Okay, that looks like one. If you’re not interested in a whole bunch of text and reading, you could just flip through and enjoy the visuals and learn stuff that way, all right. Number four mark number four.

00:52:15
Speaker 8: This is for those of you who do want to do a lot of reading. And this is not tactical or strategic or how to it all. This is a book called a Hunter’s Heart, Honest Essays on blood Sport. This is a collection of essays edited and collected by David Peterson. This is going to be getting to the why we hunt, not just deer, but anything and how we go about it. So there are just some amazing short essays in this collection that talk about white tails and a whole bunch of other stuff and really gets kind of into that deeper philosophical side of things. One of the best hunting essays of all time, and my opinion, is in here. It’s called The Heart of the Game by Thomas mcguain. It’s a legendary piece, highly highly recommend for all whitetail hunters and hunters of all kinds.

00:53:04
Speaker 1: All right, now to the top three. What do you have for us? Next?

00:53:10
Speaker 8: Next is Whitetail Nation and this is by a guy named Pete Bodo. This is an under the radar book. I don’t think a lot of people know about it. It came out, I don’t know, maybe fifteen twenty years ago, and it’s a really interesting story about this guy’s kind of exploration and journey as he went from kind of being a standard everyday deer hunter to finally trying to kill that first big buck.

00:53:35
Speaker 3: Kind of the thing that you.

00:53:36
Speaker 8: Read about over the whole course of your life is someday getting that big trophy buck. Well, he decided to document that journey as he went from kind of where he was to going to that next level, and all along the way travel across the country, was in hunting in Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Montana, and then through it all really ends up doing a really interesting kind of I don’t know if it’s an analysis, but he he documents the culture of deer hunting. He documents the history of deer hunting, and does it in a really compelling way.

00:54:07
Speaker 3: This is like a real writer.

00:54:08
Speaker 8: He wrote for Gray’s Sporting Journal and The New York Times and all that. So it’s a really well articulated, interesting story that has that kind of narrative nonfiction set of lessons you can learn throughout too. So really good one. Not a lot of people know about this one, but I highly recommend it.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: In a very pretty book mark, you seem like a dust jacket guy, Do you always keep those on your books?

00:54:30
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:54:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I couldn’t.

00:54:33
Speaker 8: My wife removes them. I kind of feel like that’s sacrilege. It’s there’s a lot of time and energy that goes into designing these book covers and packaging the number right, So I would never take that off.

00:54:44
Speaker 1: I get rid of them right away. I feel like I’m reading a book from the library if it has the dust jest on it. Interesting, All right, Number two, Marcus, what do you have?

00:54:53
Speaker 8: Number two?

00:54:54
Speaker 3: This is a tactics book.

00:54:55
Speaker 1: This is a how to.

00:54:56
Speaker 8: This is my favorite how to book. It’s called Whitetail Access, and it’s a funny story. The title and the subtitle, which is how to Hunt top white Tail States Cheaply and Effectively. It’s actually not really that kind of book. It’s a story that I heard from the author that was kind of like, the publishers want to try to make this seem more like a very clear how to book, and so they packaged it with this title that they thought would get people to buy it. But really what it is is a story. It’s the story of Chris Eberhart’s season in which he lived out of his minivan traveling across the country hunting deer di y on the cheap, from Michigan to North Dakota, Missouri, Ohio, maybe somewhere else. But the Eberharts, Chris Eberhart and John Eberhart, his dad, are kind of, you know, og whitetail hunters. They’ve really unfortunately Chris passed away, which is really sad, but his dad is still one of the legends in the whitetail world. That’s taught me and thousands of others a lot about how to effectively hunt white tails and heavily pressured states. And so this story is all about that season. But then throughout it he’s got very detailed notes about how he did what he did, his strategies, his perspectives, his plans. There’s diagrams and maps in here again too, so kind of similar to the other book. You can actually see where his stand setups were and follow along with all the hunts and the tactics. So are really good how to mixed with a story. So that’s why it’s probably my favorite recommendation for people who want to learn but also enjoy the story along the way.

00:56:32
Speaker 1: All right, here’s a recap so far. Number five was mapping white tail Bucks. Number four was a Hunter’s Heart. Number three, Whitetail Nation, number two, Whitetail Access. What is number one?

00:56:44
Speaker 8: It’s kind of cliche. The number one book that all whitetail hunters and every hunter in the world should read is a Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. Probably anyone listening to me or media radio live knows this book, but if not, highly recommend it.

00:56:59
Speaker 3: It is, I think, kind.

00:57:01
Speaker 1: Of like the.

00:57:03
Speaker 8: I don’t know, like the equivalent of the Bible for people who are into hunting and fish and wildlife and conservation anything. It’s like a foundational text. It’s the thing that kind of sums up how we can think about ourselves as stewards, as wildlife managers. There’s great essays in here and thoughts on, you know, how to be a hunter and connect with wildlife, wilderness, the importance of a land ethic. You’ve heard it come up a thousand times from Steve and Doug Dern and so many others, and it’s for good reason. The opening text here, the opening line here is there are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot, And I think that sums it up really well. If you care about wildlife, wild things, this is a book that just has to be on your bookshelf.

00:57:52
Speaker 1: Okay, good stuff, Mark, thank you for the list. I’m going to pick up some of those this off season. I wrote them all down, and good luck on the rest of your season there in Michigan. Thanks for joining us.

00:58:02
Speaker 8: Thanks buddy, Chris, Yeah, Merry Christmas.

00:58:05
Speaker 1: Tell family high right back at you all right. That brings us to the end of the show. We have some more Q and A to ramp this up. Here are some questions listeners submitted last week. First one is from Field of Dreams seven to three one. What types of wine do y’all pair with wild game? I don’t have a great answer for this, but when I’m cooking like a big meal for Thanksgiving or Christmas and it’s got courses in wild game, and my wife is really trying to like put on the ritz, she will go ask chat GPT. She’ll tell it exactly what we’re having in what order, and what the meat is and where it came from, and then that spits out some recommendations. So that’s the best thing I can tell you do. You guys have any thoughts on wine and wild game, red wind.

00:58:54
Speaker 6: I’m not a big red wine or just not a big wine guy in general.

00:58:58
Speaker 2: So I married a Whino. My wife bums wine, whether pairs or not, and she’s got me hooked on Malbex, which is an Argentinian wine, real dark, bold, fruity flavors, which pairs very well with red meat especially, but I’m a big fan of the boxed wine.

00:59:15
Speaker 1: There you go, Phil, any input on wine and.

00:59:20
Speaker 4: Meat, Yeah, I’m not a big I’m not a big wine guy. I’m sorry.

00:59:24
Speaker 1: If you’re interested in beer pairings, we have two articles on the medeater dot com for you. The first one is from chef Justin Townsend how to Pair Beer with wild Game, and then the other one is from Kooby Brown how to Pair Beer with Fish. We can help you out on that front. Again. For wine, I think chat gpt does a really nice job if you tell it exactly what you got going on. Yeah, We’re we’re not wine here, I guess. The next question is c J. Rope Key twenty one. What is the best wild game Phil has eaten since working at Meat Eater.

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Great question.

00:59:59
Speaker 7: I think I’ve talked about this before, but the best bite of wild game I’ve ever had was at the Old Office probably five four years ago. Brody brought in some elk tenderloin, and then Michael Hunter, who’s the chef at Antler in Toronto, Canada, who’s been on the podcast a couple of times and done some stuff with us, he just had a little like induction burner and just like seemingly without even thinking about it, just made it like a Huckleberry demiglaze and cooked this elk just perfectly, and it just like it felt like it melted in my mouth. It was the best tasting me and I’ve ever had mine.

01:00:37
Speaker 1: We did not have much of a kitchen at the ogo.

01:00:40
Speaker 4: Oh no, it was non existent.

01:00:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Jeremiah Donahue says, if you could ask Santa for one piece of outdoor gear, what would it be, Corey.

01:00:53
Speaker 2: Man, I’ve been on the hunt for a good waltint. I’d love a Montana canvas Walton for shooting for the stars here. Hard to fit under the tree, it is, Yeah, well wrapped up maybe twelve by twelve Walton.

01:01:06
Speaker 1: Okay, with with or without a floor? Without without a yeah, Okay, they’re always without a floor from Montana.

01:01:12
Speaker 2: You can get them with floors yep, all right, with frame. Maybe a stove too, since we’re at.

01:01:17
Speaker 6: It, Okay, yeah, tell Santa to look at Facebook marketplace. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of good sure, yep, okay. I was so close to pulling the trigger, but I didn’t.

01:01:25
Speaker 2: I’ll see Santa this weekend.

01:01:27
Speaker 1: He’s listening, Max. What are you asking Santa for?

01:01:30
Speaker 6: Ooh, I got two ideas. More decoys yep, never have enough. Or there’s this duck plucker out there called the fall plucker. Oh yeah, My thumbs are pretty strong, but they get tired a little bit.

01:01:45
Speaker 1: So how many ducks do you think you have to kill a year to justify having one of those? They’re pretty spendy. Put a number on it, like fifty ducks a year, two hundred ducks a year.

01:01:55
Speaker 6: I don’t know, I feel like you know, or like for like guides and outfitters.

01:02:02
Speaker 1: It’d be a no brain.

01:02:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, for like a personal if you got a hunt with a lot of friends, I would probably say, like a couple of hundred, Oh wow, Yeah.

01:02:09
Speaker 1: Do they have any other purpose?

01:02:11
Speaker 5: Like?

01:02:11
Speaker 1: Could could they function with a pheasant? No? No, I mean not in my experience.

01:02:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don’t know, but yeah, those are two things that I would love. Is more decoys or duc Bucker. So, Santa, if you’re listening.

01:02:29
Speaker 1: I’m good on gear, Santa. I just want permissions.

01:02:31
Speaker 2: Just give me land.

01:02:32
Speaker 6: Yeah, that’s another good.

01:02:33
Speaker 1: It’s a lot of land, Santa. That’s that’s all I need.

01:02:35
Speaker 2: That’s really hard to put under the tree.

01:02:38
Speaker 1: Deeds are pretty small call. Next question is from Will Sanchez. He says favorite state for fossil slash rock hunting. Uh, there are great rocks and fossils across the whole continent, but the main thing is being legal. Will, So, b LM has the loosest restrictions when it comes to where you can collect, what you can collect. How you collect this fall is you know, picking up a shovel and digging a hole. So any state that has a lot of BLM land, which is you know, mostly in the West, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, those are my favorite states for fossil and rock hunting, just because you can do it legally. The next one is from Doug Chiasen. Are there any hunting video games? Phil likes?

01:03:23
Speaker 7: The short answer is no, and that’s not because I don’t think they exist. I just haven’t really tried a whole lot. I’ve tried the Hunter Call of the Wild, which I think is probably the biggest one. Maybe people might yell at me for that, but they’ve been making putting out expansion packs for that game for years now. And I played it for like about an hour and a half a year or two ago, and I just couldn’t get into it. Seemed like there are a lot of systems that I just needed to get familiar with, so it was kind of like a steep a steep learning curve. But there is a game coming out called Cast and Chill, which came out on Steam, which is like a PC marketplace, a few months ago, but it’s as of the it’s coming out on the Nintendo Switch to tomorrow, and I put it on just a couple of days ago, and it looks fun. It just seems like a very laid back, kind of gorgeous looking like pixel art fishing game, but it looks pretty dense like you can go to it. There’s a whole ton of fish did different bait to do, different seasons and stuff.

01:04:18
Speaker 4: So I’m excited to try to Maybe I’ll stream it, maybe I’ll stream it.

01:04:21
Speaker 1: He’s going to play it over Christmas break.

01:04:23
Speaker 4: I will.

01:04:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone in a future live chat needs to ask Phil for his review so we can all find out together.

01:04:29
Speaker 7: And let me know if there are any hunting games that I should I should get into. I don’t want anything too realistic, like if it’s kind of like an Arcadi element to it, like that’s more fun than than hardcore realism to me.

01:04:39
Speaker 1: Another video game question for Phil, this is from fro Alex. Ask Phil if he ever played RuneScape back in the day or he still plays.

01:04:49
Speaker 4: I did play RuneScape.

01:04:50
Speaker 7: Speaking of MMOs that we talked about with Destiny, this was a massive multiplayer online so it’s like a big you know, you get on a server and there’s thousands of people that are all in the same playing in the same area, and you can you know, squad up and take on dungeons and fight, you know, go on quests and stuff. RuneScape was on was one of the ogs. I played it a little bit. That was my brother was way more into it than me. My big MMO was It’s called Ragnarok Online, which was a two D pixel art one. But then I also played a World of Warcraft, a lot back.

01:05:23
Speaker 4: I was.

01:05:23
Speaker 7: I was playing Wow from the ground floor like two thousand and four, I right right when it launched.

01:05:28
Speaker 1: Do people still play RuneScape?

01:05:30
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it’s got a very active community.

01:05:32
Speaker 7: I but again, that’s like a blind spot form we be because once you have kids in a job, MMOs aren’t the healthiest thing for you or your family, which is why I stopped playing Destiny.

01:05:43
Speaker 1: Last question today is from Casey Jacobsen twenty three. What’s your plan when out of state deer hunting in previously unexplored areas. I’ll answer that on behalf of deer, and then Max is going to answer about waterfowl and Corey for elk. My plan went hunting in an unexplored place for deer. The first thing I’ll look for is food, and that doesn’t matter if I’m hunting in Idaho in October or Illinois in December, which is you know my spectrum this year. That was my first hunt, my last hunt. That’s the easiest thing I can find on on X, and then when I’m there in person, I can work my way backwards. If this is where the deer are feeding, it’s very easy to you know, put together where they’re probably betting at and traveling to get from point A to point B. So look look for food for me A lot of times that is probably big agriculture. I spend most of my time hunting between the rocky mountains and the Mississippi River, so I care about where the alf alfa is, where the cornfields are, what point in the harvest it is, and if there’s no egg around, what acorn trees there might be. On X does a great job of allowing you to sort by the crop coverage that you can see if was was this field last year? Corn? Was it alfalfa? Was it hey? Was it sorghum? So so starting there thinking about what deer would like in that area, that that’ll give you a big piece of the puzzle. Ma’s answer for waterfowl, well.

01:07:10
Speaker 6: I’m gonna kind of go the opposite of you. My first thing is water, not only the lakes, river streams, but I have a big obsession with keeping up with current weather and rain forecast. So there’s different areas that get a bunch of rain and two months later that rain is still gonna almost be there.

01:07:39
Speaker 1: As in forms of.

01:07:40
Speaker 6: Flooded fields, flooded agriculture, you name it. So there was this spot that I went up to Saskatchewan this last September where they got eight inches of the rain a month ago before. I hunted and I went there, put a pin on the map and I went there and there was just so many dogs.

01:08:00
Speaker 1: And you can diy waterfall in Saskatchewan. Yeah, soun’s a bitches. Need to let deer hunters do. Make you have a guide or a buddy or whatever. Yeah.

01:08:07
Speaker 6: So I went up there and hunted flooded fields for three days and it was just incredible.

01:08:13
Speaker 1: So yeah, look for water.

01:08:16
Speaker 6: And then another big thing too, is like if I if I’m going to a general area, I will go and make a list of landowners names and phone numbers in case there’s ducks there there, in case there’s waterfall there, feeding in their fields or just using their water, because it’s going to be a lot easier to just already have their names and phone numbers already on a list then spending the time looking it up, Oh there’s their house kind of thing. So I do all that stuff and ahead of time.

01:08:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to piggyback off that. Going back to deer, I think it’s really important to have a plan. A. B. C. D E f G. A lot of times I go in thinking that it’s going to happen for me at plan A or B, and it ends up being like my fifth or sixth option where I actually, you know, find the deer that I that I want. I want to hunt all right, Corey previously unexplored areas. When it comes to elk, what are you looking for?

01:09:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, for elk, I mean time, like length, the time of your hunt is everything. So if you can add any time to actually physically scouting. E scouting is great, but you’re never going to know exactly what the country’s like, how long it takes you to get to a spot unless you’re physically on the ground. So if you can add a couple of days, whether it’s like opening day or you got a you know, weekend, even that you’re just hunting a new area, if you can get out there in the summer late fall or early fall late summer and get boots on the ground and physically see the country, you’re going to just have a massive leg up when you’re when you discover elk in that part of the world, and elk are going to be everywhere right like they need the same things deer need and ducks. But then they’re going to be everywhere on top like they’re everywhere and they’re nowhere at the same time. So you can either stick to one spot and hopefully they’ll move in, or keep roaming around. But adding just a day if you can, or a couple of days to your you know, days that you’re committed to hunting is massive, just to see the country, get a feel for it, and then if it, you know, doesn’t work out in your mind as to how good it’s going to be, then you can go to Plan B and move on to the next spot.

01:10:18
Speaker 1: So good advice.

01:10:19
Speaker 2: Add some time, all right.

01:10:20
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of this episode. We have another pre recorded episode of Radio Live next week, but then it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming after that. Thank you for listening, Happy holidays, Merry Christmas. We’ll see you in twenty twenty six. By now,