00:00:02 Speaker 1: From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan, you've got mail. One of the easiest ways to open up one seventh of Maryland's public lands would be to get their archaic blue laws that prevents Sunday hunting repealed. Closing Sundays to hunting should be a violation of americans constitutional rights. I work my ass off five days a week for and crap benefits. I'm a talented welder and fabricator. It's just the nature of the beast. I'm lucky to get off for two days during the weekend. The fact that Americans are robbed of one of the two days that present an overwhelming majority of the US population with the best, most viable options for long term hunting success and enjoyment is effing bs. I got into hunting late, about six years ago, fell in love with it, and dove all in. Six years later, I have all but succumbed to the fact that it's just not set up to be a viable pastime for working Americans. I can go on and on for hours, but the fact is allowing Sunday hunting would absolutely be a positive for the entirety of the hunting community. It's insane that it's not allowed federally or at least on private land, but it should be on public land too. Sorry. I know it's not really a land access initiative thing, but I think it's valid. This week, we're talking a lot about access and land access initiative, what's going on legislatively, and so much more. But first I'm gonna tell you about what's going on in my week, and I'll tell you Old Chester and I, who goes by the handle musky chat on the Instagram, went out after some early season Wally. It's been cold and snowy here in Montana, and the water tamps were about thirty four degrees. I have generally poor luck when it comes to early season walleye, and I may just enjoy making fun of you serious walleye anglers more than catching walleye, but I still want to catch them when I go out. Anyway. It was super cold, no other boats on the lake, which is not typically indicative of good walleye action. Seems to me that walleye anglers, despite their eight tho dollars worth a boat and gear, if not more, tend to stick together on the water as if they could sink at any moment, and need to be within spitting distance of another equally fancy boat in order to be saved. Anyway, we were out all by our lonesomes, and we managed to put two whole walleye in the boat. Each one could have been eaten by a healthy lake cascade perch. Then old check it's a hit, and gently reels in a walleye. I will soon forget. The fish hugged the murky depths of the twelve feet we picked it up. Yeah, I wouldn't really say it was running, but I will say it didn't immediately come to the surface. The fish held out just long enough for rest guess we'd snagged a carp or a big spawned up rainbow trout. Then she surfaced about fifteen feet off the back of the boat, shining gold with a bright white fin tip, and we said collectively, Holy crap. Chet step back with rod bowed. I moved forward with his busted neat, which was far too small. We got our nose into the net just as the hook slipped her beak, and the biggest walleye we may ever see was suspended in the vacuum of the boat wake. Laying in the net, I knelt, slid a finger behind her gill play, and without any heroic actions on her part, hoisted her to the shaky need while I obsessed Musky Chap a k a. Chester Floyd. You could see that Midwest adrenaline course through his veins. Chet put her in the live well, which was amazing because she made the other two whalley in there look like bait in the box, or just like totally different species of fish. I grabbed my trusty Stanley measuring tape out of my bag, and that fish went thirty three and a half inches long with one inches of girth, A true fish of a lifetime. If we'd only had a scale in the boat, it would also be the new catch and release state record. I'm confident of that. That is, you know, if we'd had a scale. The Continuing Adventures of Chester, the investor comes up a boat. That's it come off? How's that for a fish story? Huh? Ended up taking three while I home to the freezer to boot and other news you have got to get on the Meat Eater auction house of bodities. It is coming to a close very soon after you here this podcast. Bid on some outstanding gear. My buddy Old Timey Hockey has a pile of official Bower hockey gear and he'll record for you a custom message for yourself or a friend in that's something. I have a final rise bird vest and custom dog human first aid kit and a set of my steel pruning shears. On there there are bows, rifles and even a pheasant foot head scratcher that old Snorticus and our own Karin Schneider, producer of the Meat Eator podcast, collaborated on. And remember all cash goes to the Meat Eater Land Access Initiative. Moving on, and I decided to start you off with a bit of good news. The Minum acquisition here in northeast Oregon. Phase one was completed in two thousand twenty one and added forty hundred acres of public lands to the already existing and beautiful Minum River Wildlife Area. Phase two is the acquisition of another eleven thousand acres, slated to be dated to the public sometime in two thousand twenty three. The reason This is so significant for public land users in Oregon is that it will bridge a current gap from the Eagle Cap Wilderness south to the confluence of the Minum and Wallawa Rivers north. This area is home to Rocky Mountain elk, black bear, mule deer, white tailed deer, Rocky Mountain sheep, turkey, and grouse. It's an amazing thing that the Oregon Department of Fishing Wildlife is working on in conjunction with Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and I think it deserves a light to be shed on it, which is a great example of what we're trying to do with Land Access Initiative CASH. It could go into a collaborative effort with folks like R M, E, F O, d f W pick an acronym really as long as it provides more hunting and fishing access. Now, I'm gonna give you some examples of what folks are writing in with which are good examples of necessary access projects in their area. Listen up. This is the first Atlanta City park that plans to provide access to the Chattahoochee River downstream of the paces Mill National Park is inaccessible to anyone without a jetboat due to impassable water at the water treatment plan. About two miles below the ramp. Below the water treatment plant are miles and miles of beautiful river that passes some of Atlanta's growing West Side neighborhoods, six Flags, and areas that were heavily populated with Native Americans Currently, that's a good pun for you. The only way to access this section of river is with a boat via the downstream ramp and Fairburn about a forty five minute boat ride for an average boat, and unless the river is running high, the boat needs to have a jet motor. This would access some stretches to non jetboats and also would open up easy access to the stretch of river for kayakers. The location was recently announced to have been purchased by the City of Atlanta and will be made into a public park long term. The plan is for it to have river access, but there is currently no mention of a boat ramp there. You have it if you're in the Atlanta area, right to your city officials and tell them about this need and why it's important to you. Next up, the Displaines River is one of the best fisheries in Illinois, as well as Duck hunting opportunities. I have gone to the d NR to put a boat launch in Romeoville, but no progress made. There is only one boat launch in burr Ridge that is privately owned and can be shut down at any time. This river is long and needs more access. The Romeoville spot is a perfect halfway point from bur Ridge to Jolliet and would open a lot of opportunities for all walks of life. If you're in Illinois, right your d n R, right your local elected officials, get yourself a boat launch next up. Because it is right in my backyard, so to speak. It would be awesome to have a spot close to the house to get the kids out in nature. This is a state natural preserve that has been closed down ever since I moved to Virginia Beach back in two thousand eighteen. All the website says is closed due to lack of funding and closed due to criminal acts or something or another. On another page, this is about three thousand acres. Something smells fishy about it. I'm going to call the number on the website and get some more info. If you're in Virginia Beach and know of this nature preserve, about three thousand acres that's been closed since two thousand and eighteen. Get on the horn and do something about it. Unit ten in Arizona is about one point four million acres and has been home to at least elk and antelope that have made the Boone and Crockett record books. Since some fairly recent private land ownership changes, the public squares of the Checkerboard land have become landlocked, as well as huge portions pass these checkerboard lands. It is a great unit with lots of tags that ends up being cut into at least a tenth of its size. Pressure the accessible regions is immense, and these same regions are not the finer portions of the unit. So if you're in Arizona, start writing letters, making phone calls, and seeing what you can do to get some ease months through the checkerboard into that big beautiful public land. Moving on. Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area is one of the last public marsh and upland woods areas left in Cape May County. Hunting is already restricted to just about one month per year, and now there is a proposed project that will completely destroy the existing natural habitat and create paths for birders exclusively being surrounded by salt marsh on three sides. Having a freshwater marsh to waterfowl hunt without a boat is extremely valuable. Losing this space for outdoorsman would only further hamper the growth of hunting and harm future preservation efforts elsewhere in the state. If you know of Higby Beach Wildlife Management Area in Cape May County, get on the horn and see what you can do to save your hunting. Hamlin Lake is right up the road from where my husband and I live. Our family still is closed by. My husband grew up in the area being able to access this lake and property as a kid, and we would love to bring the grand kids there. There is a waterfall that Cootney County owns coming out of the lake that people ice climb but legally don't have access. With the growing population in the area, another close to town public access would be very valuable. It's an absolute shame to the community that this lake is all locked up. Manhattan is surrounded by water and there's not a single place to put in even a kayak. A new boat launch would positively benefit an enormous amount of people with access to recreation and nature. Recently a bridge was closed. If you were to cross that bridge, you can access trails and thousands of acres of public land. It used to belong to the federal government. The bridge is owned by private owners. Now they don't allow people to access it. The bridge is only fifty feet long. That fifty foot bridge prevents access from a public road to public trails. On the other side, a large cattle ranch has landlocked much of the public land here. Access to the public land they cut off is in my backyard, but I simply cannot reach it. This access site matters to me because it would allow more members of my community to access the Columbia River in nearby Slews. My idea is a public kayak launch that is a safe and easy access point away from motor boat access. There is plenty of public and city owned land in the area where this could go in. We only have one public boat launch that is overcrowded with people in traffic, especially when springers are running. I have fished and swam in this water for thirty years, with my family fishing there for decades before that. Only within the past couple of years has access been completely removed. Twenty years ago, there were a County road that led to a small bridge crossing the waterway, which had space to launch a small boat by hand. This road has long since been sold to property owners. The opposite end of the waterway had a public boat ramp, but the property was sold and closed. A public right of way at the very end of the waterway allowed for enough space to launch smaller boats, but has now been fenced off. As a prior portion of the Trinity River that was damned to prevent flooding, this area technically meets the criteria for navigable water in Texas two or three. Landowners shouldn't have the power to deny access to generations of outdoor enthusiasts. The DuPage River is one of the best small mouth fisheries in the Midwest. The problem is there are a lot of homes that border it. They own the river bed, but are fighting so fishermen cannot float over it. They say it is still private property even though it's just the river bed they own. They are trying to get the Partment of Natural Resources to close the river permanently to public use. The Mazon River is, in my opinion, the most scenic river in Illinois. It is known for its rich fossil minds that contribute to museums all over the world. Though it is marked as non navigable, I beg to differ. I have traversed it by kayak, as have many people. Of these common people, many have been harassed and even arrested. This water is considered private ground, not just the shoreline. The small mouth fishing is legendary. Since COVID people have been in an uproar over the plethora of unnavigable rivers in Illinois, which restrict water access to common people. I think the Mazon is the biggest tragedy within that issue. This specifically pertains to kayak access, as the Mason only allows non motorized craft for anyone with ownership. As it is, I am speaking to the state at a hearing on the thirty one of March. Your help would mean the world to many outdoorsmen around Chicago. That's just a taste of the over three hundred submissions that we've gotten so far. I'm going through them as best as I can. What you need to take away right now is these submissions are coming in from all across the United States. They do affect you. They affect your kids, your ability to roam and just breathe free air in America. Okay, that's what I believe. We're gonna do some great stuff with Meat Eaters Land Access Initiative by finding ways to provide more access to hunting and fishing. We need your help both in providing more submissions and by providing funds, especially once we put the bull's eye on our next project. Yeah, moving on to the legislative updates. Legislative sessions are wrapping up in most states, and I wanted to circle back on three bills we've mentioned earlier this year. In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly just signed a bill that would create a lifetime hunting and fishing license for kids. Parents, guardians, or other adults will be able to purchase a three hundred dollar lifetime combo license for kids five and under or a five hundred dollar lifetime license for six and seven year old. The policy will sunset in two thousand thirty two. As we discussed back in episode one fifty, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks supposed the measure, apparently because a three hundred dollar lifetime license would result in less funding than annual combo licenses. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and by a seventy three vote margin in the House. From a funding perspective, I guess you have to hope that the little tykes ever get serious about their hunting and angling. They get a couple of seasons in and decide it's not for them, which is hard to root for. So instead, just hope that their folks are able to explain what a great deal they set them up with and how they should look for opportunities to pay forward on their good fortunes. I know I'm a sucker for the voluntary fees and donations that are mixed in with license purchases and tag applications these days. Next up, Mississippi bow hunters will have an opportunity this September to go after velvet bucks. Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill on April fourteen that instructs the Mississippi Commission on Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to establish a three to five day velvet bow hunting hunting season at some point between September ten and September twenty. Only bucks that meet antler criteria for the respective Deer Management Unit can be harvested, but the season will be open on both private and state land. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and only received two nay votes in the House. Over in Washington, d C. The U. S. Congress recently approved the most important public land bill since the Great American Outdoors Act. The map Land Act just passed the U. S. Senate by unanimous consent and is headed to President Joe Biden's desk. You can read more in Katie Hill's article on the Meat Eater or dot com. But the map Land Act would require federal Land management agencies to digitize their public land data. This would make information on trails, easements, and property lines accessible on digital maps like on x, which could significantly increase our ability to legally access public land. For example, digitized Eastman's could tell hunters, anglers, and other public land users about previously unknown legal routes to sections of public land. To my knowledge, President Biden hasn't said whether he supports the bill, but given the massive bipartisan support the map Land Act has received, eved I'd say the odds are in favor. Great opportunity to call your elected officials and thank them for supporting great legislation. The map, the map, moving on and back to the fishing desk. In a way, the aquarium trade has a demand for new and unusual, and instead of finding it in the wild, scientists genetically modified fish to glow neon. Of course, these fish happened to escape into the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil. According to a recent paper in the journal Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment, zebrafish with genes spliced into their DNA from naturally glowing species such as jellyfish have escaped pet breeding facilities in Brazil and are now reproducing in the wild. I know what you're thinking. Shouldn't Jurassic Park be required reading for people in these facilities? Nature finds a way a team. The transgenic glowing zebra fish have become extremely popular with aquarium owners, and one strain even goes by the trademark name Glowfish that's glow without the W. Transgenic means any species with a genome modified with DNA from another species that can happen artificially as with the zebrafish, or naturally, as with the deloid Rhoda furs we covered back in episode one fourteen, who take DNA from the algae they eat and incorporate it into their own genome, which is extremely cool. Brazilian biologists are very concerned that the glowing zebra fish seem to be reproducing quickly and competing with native fish for insects. However, I'm not totally concerned, as we fishermen spend a lot of extra money on baits that glow, so what I'd kind of expect these fish to get gobbled up super fast, But I guess we'll find out if we fell for the hype of a glow in the dark marketing scheme, if these living versions of the banjo minnow survived very long. Which makes me think, and stay with me here, what if we spliced a bit of jellyfish DNA into a few pythons and released them into the Florida night. Maybe once he could see these pythons glowing in the dark, hunters would stand some chance of finding them and controlling their numbers. And considering how many pythons are likely out there, you could probably be able to see the Everglades glowing from space. And that's something. Moving on to the reverse extinction desk. In October of last year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared that twenty three species of birds, muscles, bats, and fish had gone extinct. One of those species, the ivory build woodpecker, had been on the endangered species list since nineteen sixty seven, but hadn't been officially seen since nine. The keyword here is officially. Lots of people claim to have seen one since four, but lots of people also claimed to have seen black mountain lions in Arkansas, Elvis and walmart sasquatch, even myself, and bars that I've never even frequented. You can't trust them, is what I'm saying. The ivory build woodpecker suffered from deforestation and over hunting in the eighteen hundreds, and only very small numbers survived into the twentieth century, lacking enough hard evidence that any individuals existed. In two thousand twenty one, the US Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the ivory build woodpecker had indeed gone extinct, but that may not be the end of the story. In a new research paper that has yet to be peer reviewed, a team of biologists claimed to have documented photographic evidence that ivory build woodpeckers still live like feathery c i a agents with a taste for gumbo in an undisclosed location in Louisiana. A nine year search from two thousand twelve to two thousand twenty one yielded photographs and videos that the team collected using trail cameras and a drone. Researchers also claim to have seen and heard the bird on numerous occasions, though they do not submit those sightings as official evidence in their paper. You can see the photos for yourself by following the link in the episode description. But to my eyes, they're not as conclusive as I would have hoped, despite how far photographic technology has come in the last few years. The photos are grainy and appear to be shot from a long distance. If you've ever struggled to see the points on a bucks rack and poor quality trail cam footage, you can imagine the experience right. To help me decipher these photos, I reached out to the papers lead researcher, Dr Steven C. Latta. I asked him why his team believes they captured ivory build woodpeckers and not the similar looking but much more common pileated woodpecker. Dr. Latta told me that there are a few important points about these photos. First, even though it's hard to tell. The photos do show the ivory build woodpeckers distinctive white saddle that forms when the bird's wings are closed against its back. You can also see the bird's long neck and foot placement, which, according to Dr Latta, are distinctive of the ivory build woodpecker as opposed to the piliated Latta also pointed out that the photos clearly show a group of three woodpeckers foraging together. Affiliated woodpeckers rarely forage even in pairs, and are fierce defenders of their territory. The fact that the team captured three large woodpeckers foraging on the same tree strongly suggests that the birds are ivory build. The ivory build woodpecker saga goes to show just how difficult, if not impossible, it can be to prove beyond a doubt that a species has gone extinct. The world is a big place, and despite the illusion that humans control it, there are just too many places for a little bird, or a mouse or a lizard to hide. Latta and his team offer a few explanations as to why the ivory build woodpecker has been so tough to track down. The researchers point out that the species occupies some of the most difficult to reach mature bottom line forest habitat in the US. The birds live within a large home range up to four miles in diameter, and eat insects from dead and dying trees that do not last for long periods of time. These factors help explain why the birds aren't often seen at the same place twice and why scientists have such a difficult time finding them on purpose. And if you believe in imprinted behavior being passed down, the ivory bills were hunted persistently. The intensity in which they were hunted actually increased when it was known that their numbers were dwindling and the birds were likely to go extinct. The scarcity of the bird drove demand. Only the best and most persistent hunters could get close to them. If they do in fact exist in this Louisiana swamp. These birds are the descendants of birds that became so wary of humans and so good at avoiding them that they were in fact believed to be extinct. So the next time you're wandering through the bottom lands of Louisiana, keep your eyes and ears peeled. Here's what you're listening for. That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, if you're sick and tired of staring at those broken limbs and tangled branches out your back door, go to www. Dot steel Dealers dot com and find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're gonna get you set up with what you need, not send you home with what you don't. As per usual, tell me what I'm doing right, what I'm getting wrong, and most importantly, what's going on in your neck of the woods. By riding into a s k C a L. That's asked cal at the Meat Eater dot com. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week. M M.