00:00:03 Speaker 1: Smell us now, lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia podcast. 00:00:25 Speaker 2: Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. I'm your host, Brody Henderson, and I'm joined today by Cringe Schneider and Seth Morris. It's eleven o'clock here in Bozeman, uh, and it's nine am out on Prince of Wales Island. We were just talking about going out to the fish shack, so that's what time it is out there. That's that we're headed out there soon. Today we're gonna be talking with Adam Eckley from Pennsylvania Backcountry Hunters and Anglers about Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania. We're gonna talk with Ted Cook from the North American Grouse Partnership about sage grouse and some other small other stuff. And we'll also be sharing a hot tip off and we're gonna do a Crue Top three segment. Before we get to all that stuff, I gotta let you know that it's time for round two of our Moulti trail Cam photo contest. 00:01:17 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:01:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, This one is a little different than the last one, which is like weird funny photos. This time we want your best velvet buck trail cam photos. I've been driving to work lately, and I drive through a couple miles of farm country. You know, there's this one alfalfa field where there's three like really nice velvet white tail bucks right now, and I like a surprised, like how far along they were in like antler development, Three big ones man, and they'll never get shot. They're living where they won't get hunted. But anyway, send us your velvet buck trail cam photos. This time we're doing it different. You need to go to the mediater dot com website and look for trailcam photo contests. We'll have an article up there and you submit through that. And this is all for next week show July thirty first next I'm not even sure I think we got like some some Southerners in here for that show. We feel we did. 00:02:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, we got, we got Clay and Tony is it? 00:02:23 Speaker 3: Oh, we just got I was gonna say, if you got all sellers, you need like a translator in here. 00:02:31 Speaker 2: Some big white tail guys, let's call it. Let's say that big whitetail guys in here next week. 00:02:38 Speaker 3: So we'll we'll see. 00:02:39 Speaker 2: What we get, what comes in for those photos, and we'll select a few of them, and those guys are going to pick a winner and you'll get an awesome package from Moultrie and some of our other partners. 00:02:51 Speaker 5: That sounds like a really nice winning. 00:02:54 Speaker 2: You know, I've never owned a trail cam. 00:02:56 Speaker 5: Really no, well, I'm with you there too, So my wife. 00:03:00 Speaker 2: Wants my wife wants me to get one. Just put next to the bird feeder. 00:03:06 Speaker 3: That'd be fun to watch. 00:03:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:03:07 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:03:09 Speaker 2: Anyway, you guys are back back from Safari and Tanzania. 00:03:15 Speaker 3: Feels like we've been we were gone forever. 00:03:17 Speaker 5: For a lifetime. Back and bitten. How are your a Tetsi fly bites healing up? 00:03:22 Speaker 3: Seth Oh, I'm all good on the tests fly. 00:03:25 Speaker 2: You know, I got to and that you mentioned those things. When I was a kid, there's this thing that like if you got bit by a Tezzi fly, you were just gonna fall over and just be dead. Really, it was like this weird thing like surrounding Tezsi flies. How do you do you say Tetsi or what I've heard? 00:03:45 Speaker 3: I heard both yeah and you both. Yeah. 00:03:48 Speaker 2: I just remember it like, oh my god, you're gonna die if you go there and get bit by a fly. 00:03:53 Speaker 3: Well, we would be most certainly dead. If that was the case, we got bit by one hundred. 00:04:00 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:04:01 Speaker 2: Is it like a painful bite? Yeah, some of them hurts when they get your hurts like afterwards. 00:04:06 Speaker 3: It depends what some of them when they bite you, it's like getting electrocuted for some reason. They make. 00:04:15 Speaker 5: Bigger yeah. Yeah, and they're hard to kill, like they have pretty tough exoskeletons. So we were told to slap and smear, and that's how you kill them against a surface. 00:04:28 Speaker 2: Are they slow enough you can get them? 00:04:30 Speaker 3: No? Apparently this is what Rick Smith was telling me. Apparently when you go to slap them, they can feel the pressure change and they fly. So it was kind of hard to just like smack them. 00:04:42 Speaker 5: Yeah, I have to wait for them to like I found. 00:04:45 Speaker 3: Coming in from the side and like almost grabbing them out of the air when they go to take off. That was like the best way to get them. 00:04:52 Speaker 2: Well, you survived. 00:04:57 Speaker 3: Anti oh Elephant ship burning old Elephant ship. 00:05:03 Speaker 2: In like like insect repellent. 00:05:06 Speaker 3: It was like the best repellent that week. 00:05:08 Speaker 5: The hot tip from. 00:05:11 Speaker 2: Yeah set before you left, Man, you were not too excited to be going on it. You were bombed missing WALLLEYE season all that, But so I got to ask you, like, after spending more than two weeks there, like, what's your opinion now? 00:05:31 Speaker 3: So yeah, overall it was a cool trip. The coolest part was just seeing the culture and and like hanging out with the people there, the trackers and stuff. The whole safari hunting thing is still it's not my cup of tea. Our experience, I will say, was probably different than most people's experience because we so how the safari went there was there's two vehicles. Front one had Steve and the camera dudes and trackers, and then the back vehicle, which Karina and I spent all of our time in, was like the overflow vehicle and around for eleven hours a day just eating dust like. 00:06:11 Speaker 2: You Oh yeah, you guys are in the We didn't. 00:06:13 Speaker 3: See ship because like the front vehicle spooks all the animals before you get there. 00:06:18 Speaker 5: It's just it was so they had a different, different experience what we experienced. So it was you know, anyone, I think probably going on safari at various various countries in Africa would probably have more of a first vehicle experience than our second vehicle experience. But yeah, I mean, at the we were we were in an area the size of Yellowstone National Park, right, and you can't you can't exactly just set off from camp and imagine to get very far and like do spot in stock So it's you know, you close the distance between you and game yep, and looking for tracks and then following tracks. So the methods of different. 00:07:00 Speaker 3: So there was days where like you know, the the front vehicle would be like, oh, we saw this, this, this, this, and this, and we were like, yeah, we saw like some grasshoppers and ye, a couple birds. 00:07:13 Speaker 5: We focused on a praying mantis. We had a lot of fun watching. 00:07:19 Speaker 3: Really. 00:07:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, well do you have any like set Did you have any like like the coolest or most surprising moment or experience, Like would you say it was the culture? Was there something that stuck out for you? 00:07:31 Speaker 3: It was totally the culture. Yeah. We went to a village the one day and gave some meat to a family that one of the guys who worked for Robert Robert Hurd Savaris, he had what sixteen kids. 00:07:44 Speaker 5: Yeah, fourteen or sixteen up there all this thing, and so. 00:07:47 Speaker 3: We went to the local village where they lived and dropped meat off to that family the one day and I was cool. 00:07:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, Karin, I heard there. Or if maybe you guys weren't present when this happened, what I gotta bring it up just because who was involved. There were some run ins with some potentially deadly creatures. H Dirt Myth, who famously like rowed on top of the back of a charging brown bear for a short period of time, also got charged by black Mamba on this trip. 00:08:20 Speaker 5: They they come for him, so we weren't. The one of the deadly snakes that we did see was a puff adder. It's a very slow moving, large fat bush. 00:08:34 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:08:34 Speaker 5: No, it was kind of you know, going across the road and going back into into cover, and we we kept our distance. But that apparently if you do get bitten, like you're you're done. And the black Mamba incident we were not present for. 00:08:50 Speaker 2: We were vehicle, yeah, which is okay, but dirt because those things are like sue aggressive, like they'll chase you. 00:09:02 Speaker 5: Yeah. Just just hearing, just hearing people describe what the behavior tendencies of this snake are. It's terrifying because you don't really think of a snake as being like an attack predator, you know, and so this snake kind of got like it. I guess it was there. They're territorial around their area, so I guess the first truck. You know, it felt threatened by the first truck as it was like crossing the road. And then it apparently turned around and and and stood up and almost got on like the front hood of of the truck, and dirt was I guess sitting on the roof rack and and filming, so that that was the scare there and and then uh, and then the snake turned around apparently and like one of the trackers ran after it. That's that's what you saw, like SELMANI with a with a stick and a machete or was it just the stick? Yeah, he was, he was looking for it. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: No thanks man crazy. Well, I'm sure we'll be getting a lot of good footage from all that stuff at some point. 00:10:17 Speaker 5: Yeah, that will those episodes will probably drop what this winter. 00:10:22 Speaker 3: Right for something? Drop? Yes, two or three episodes. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: S day tuned guys, Well cool, we should probably move on to other stuff. Phil, do we got Adam on the line yet. 00:10:34 Speaker 4: Adam's on the line. Sorry, I thought you're going to queu him up first. 00:10:39 Speaker 2: There he is, I'll quum up. Now we've got Adam Eckley, who is the Pennsylvania b h A chapter chair here with us today, and Adam, man, let's get straight to the big news out of Pennsylvania for for all the people out there who like aren't aware going back many decades. Adam made know the exact time period, but I think it's maybe one hundred years back. Sunday hunting was illegal in Pennsylvania under what's called a blue law, which is like these these laws that were originally implemented to ban certain activities on Sundays to encourage church attendance. There's some other details surrounding blue laws of it. That's like the basic gist of it. And in recent years there's been a big push to legalize Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania. And I think a few years ago they finally got like through state legislators finally approved Sunday hunting for three Sundays each fall. Adam, is that correct? 00:11:51 Speaker 6: That's correct? 00:11:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, And now. 00:11:54 Speaker 2: Finally just a couple of weeks ago, Pennsylvania's governor signed a bill into a lot that allows hunting on all Sundays. And it's a really big win for hunters, especially like working stiffs and school age kids who can only hunt on weekends. So Adam tell us about like the role that BHA played and getting this legislation passed. 00:12:19 Speaker 6: Sure thing, Thanks Brody. 00:12:21 Speaker 7: So the BHA Pennsylvania Chapter we were really the first national level organization to put out a statement on this subject in Pennsylvania. 00:12:31 Speaker 8: So a little history and a little bit of how. 00:12:33 Speaker 6: We kind of we got to where we are. 00:12:35 Speaker 7: Twenty seventeen, the newly formed BJA Pennsylvania Chapter identifies Sunday hunting as our top legislative priority. Twenty eighteen, the chapter releases a statement on Sunday hunting. We had Chapter leaders speak out at a Sunday hunting meeting at the Pennsylvania Game Commission headquarters twenty eighteen. Twenty nineteen, at the Great American Outdoors Show, we have multiple parents of young kids stopped by our booth specifically because of our stance on Sunday hunting. So we realize that this time this is something that's really really important to our members and it's really important to Pennsylvania hunters. My predecessor of State Chair, Don Rank, who now serves on the BHA National Board, personally promised a ten year old kid that we were going to get this done and that kid is probably now eligible for ourn adult license. But here's where we are in it. So twenty nineteen Senate Bill one seven, that was Senator Dan Laughlin's bill passes, which allows three Sundays open to Sunday hunting starting in the twenty twenty and twenty twenty one seasons. So we got a Sunday in archery season at Falls in November, which sort of coincides with the peak of the rut, which is awesome. We got the first Sunday at bear season, which is the second day of the season, so we have a full opening weekend for bear hunting, and also the first Sunday of our regular rifle deer season, so we get our first full weekend of deer hunting in Pennsylvania with a rifle. So I think that that was really the catalyst that kind of got the ball rolling. Then in twenty twenty one, our chapter received the donation which helped pay for a full time lobbyist. My good friend and mentor, John Kline, which are Pennsylvania Chapter now primarily funds on our own, so our chapter leaders really ramp up visits the capital to Garner's support for a lot of different things, but primarily with the goal of pushing Sunday hunting across the goal line. Over this time, our membership responds to numerous calls to action. Legislators received thousands of letters, emails, phone calls, and I think one of the main keys to success here and getting our legislators to understand how important this issue is to hunters was through that correspondence. 00:14:49 Speaker 6: Twenty twenty two. 00:14:51 Speaker 7: We have Representative Mandy Steele out of Alleghany County who arrives in the House. 00:14:54 Speaker 6: And this is where it really gets interesting. 00:14:57 Speaker 7: So Senator Laughlin, he's a lifelong hunter from Northwestern We have Representatives Steel out of Alleghany County, which is for all intents and purposes, Pittsburgh, and she's not even a hunter. At this point, we've got bills coming from from both chambers. We have from the House and from the Senate at this point, and BHA really jumped on board and support a Sunday hunting. Now this is in twenty twenty four. We did have some reservations with some of the language. I personally testified for the House Game and Fisheries Committee last year and expressed both our support. 00:15:28 Speaker 8: But also some of our. 00:15:29 Speaker 6: Concerns in the spring. 00:15:31 Speaker 2: What like what concerns, What was in there that that you were worried about a little bit? 00:15:37 Speaker 7: There was there were some things that were related to some of the things that and I you know, we can get into this as far as the role that farmers and agriculture kind of played in this, But there were some things that from that side of the table that they were looking for, some things some representation on the Game Commission board and things like that that we weren't necessarily really in favor of. And we we we pushed back pretty strong a. 00:15:57 Speaker 2: Build that yep. 00:15:58 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So we were. 00:16:00 Speaker 7: Able to, you know, certainly have lots of conversations with all the different stakeholder groups and we were really arrived at a place where I think everybody could kind of come to the table and agree. So but twenty twenty four, there was a lot of amendments that came into the end. In at the end a lot of those there was just just we weren't quite there yet. So it did fail to pass for both chambers in the last session. 00:16:25 Speaker 2: So before you move on, I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit and then we'll go back just so people are aware, because it's just like so foreign to people like here in Montana or any other state where Sunday hunting's like always been legal. Like, what are some of the things that the opposition is saying, like this is why we shouldn't have Sunday hunting, Because I've heard some of the arguments in the past, and they're like some of them are really like ludicrous. But like, what where are they coming to, these legislators saying this is why we shouldn't have Sunday hunting. 00:17:03 Speaker 6: I've heard all kinds of things. 00:17:05 Speaker 7: I've heard stories of how bad trust passing is going to become by adding one more day to hunt. 00:17:12 Speaker 6: I've heard hunting accidents. 00:17:14 Speaker 7: I've heard that there'll be no white tails left in Pennsylvania if we allow folks to hunt on Sundays. 00:17:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't even sell all the leftover do tags that they have now absolutely. 00:17:25 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, and all of those things have proved to be false. You know, we saw, you know, really no increase in hunting related shooting incidents, you know, with harvest rates were pretty much you know, on on parallel with what neighboring other neighboring states have had. I know, I know some of the things I've seen was like Ohio, Delaware when they introduced Sunday hunting, they saw you know, three or five percent maybe in that first year or two, and then everything kind of stabilized after that. 00:17:50 Speaker 6: They've got plenty of deer. 00:17:51 Speaker 7: I can personally attest to that, at least in Delaware, which I'm hunting extensively. You know, plenty of deer in those states. Certainly when we added those three Sunday in Pennsylvania, lots and lots of white tails left in the woods. So you know, all the all those kind of things that we had heard, really all of those proved to be false. 00:18:10 Speaker 2: Great, So moving on to twenty twenty five, like tell us about this year, Yeah. 00:18:15 Speaker 8: So twenty twenty five was a little bit different. 00:18:18 Speaker 7: So we've got a lot of learnings both, you know, hunting conservation groups, certainly us at BHA. We really understand kind of at this point how this pathway has taken us, and we know what it's going to take to be able to get this thing through the legislature and onto the governor's desk. Representative Steel and Senator Laughlin introduce almost identical bills. I think we all knew, as I said, we all knew what it was going to take to get to this, to this to the Governor's desk, so that language was was already incorporated right out of the gate. We had strong support from BHA, from other hunting conservation groups we had at this point, we had the support of the agricultural community, specifically at the Pennsylvania Farm Z, and we had strong support from the Pennsylvania Game Commission. So Representative Steele's Houspital fourteen thirty one becomes the official vessel for Sunday hunting. It flies through both chambers July ninth, the Governor signs it into the law, which is for me, one of my most honorable moments in my entire hunting career. It's I mean, I can't express the gratitude I have for everybody who worked on this bill and how much this is going to change. I would argue this might be the most significant change to hunting in Pennsylvania in my lifetime and in maybe many lifetimes, oh for sure. 00:19:37 Speaker 2: Like for people that can't wrap their head around it, Like when I was both seth and I grew up hunting in Pennsylvania, and like as a kid, like with school and sports, like hunting time is just like extremely limited. I'm sure it had to be the same way for you. Like in the fall, I was going to practice after school, like maybe I'd get home in time to hunt for an hour before it got dark. You know, if you're if you're in sports and you're doing something on Sunday, or maybe you've got a job or whatever, like not having Sundays. So just like brutal as a kid for me, I'm sure it had to be the same. 00:20:19 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, if you were well, if you were back in those days, right, the right, if you're just a rifle hunter, Yeah, the rifle season started on a Monday, yep. And then which most most got that in Pennsylvania you get that day off for the first two days off, so you got to hunt that and then after that you have two you had two more weekends yep. So basically if you were just a weekend warrior, you had two other days to hunt. 00:20:42 Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's like for ple like people out here in Montana, five weeks of rifle season, you know, it's crazy. 00:20:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a huge win. 00:20:55 Speaker 2: Man, What like what is the uh, Like, what's the vibe from the hunting community? Is it, like I assume everyone's like this pumping and high five in out there? 00:21:08 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:21:09 Speaker 6: Oh for sure. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: For sure. 00:21:10 Speaker 7: I mean I'm sure that there's you know, there might be other opinions out there, but everything that I've seen, everything I've heard is one hundred percent positive. I don't think I'd talked to anyone who isn't completely stoked as soon as this, As soon as it's passing, I'm signed in the law, My phone, my email lit up, my social media, everybody stoked. Pennsylvania hunter has been calling for this change for a long time, and one of the really cool things is to see everybody so engaged. It's awesome to see hunters getting together and agreeing that this is something that we need to affect, this change, and jumping on board and signing those those letters and making those phone calls and just getting engaged and just in conversation about how important this really is for all of us, for opportunity. It's just it's everything has been positive from everyone I've talked to and to actually, I guess to add to that positivity, our game commissioners meet on July twenty eighth. One of the top agenda items there, maybe the top agenda item is to add I think it's total ten more sundays onto the calendar for the twenty twenty five seasons. So if this goes through, which certainly we hope it's going to, from September through December, we're going to have a lot more Sundays to hunt. 00:22:26 Speaker 2: So explain that, because like a lot of people probably saw the headline that the governor signs this into law, but it's like not been implemented yet, right, So it's still like the regulations still have to change, the season dates have to be adjusted, things like that, So like it's not like the board has to decide how this legalizing Sunday hunting is actually implemented. 00:22:52 Speaker 7: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, so the law repeals the ban on Sunday hunting, but it's of course left to our game in commissioners commissioners to make the decisions and to set our seasons in bag limits. So yeah, so they they have to actually approve the changes on what Sundays were going to hunt. So that's that's really what their objective is there. And it also takes sixty days for the law to take effect. So once that sixty days is up, then they can actually put those sundays into place once once it officially becomes law. 00:23:24 Speaker 2: In if that Board of Commissioners were to be like, you know, it's legal now, but we're only going to give you three more, like they're gonna be like there's going to be like a revolt in Pennsylvania. 00:23:36 Speaker 8: Maybe maybe, Yeah, Hunters, hunters want. 00:23:39 Speaker 2: To hunt, right, yeah, yeah, So hopefully they do the right thing and just give you all ten of those sundays, which is which is basically mean you know, all fall, you can go hunt whenever you want. 00:23:51 Speaker 7: Yeah, which would that? That would be awesome. I mean it really means a lot to me personally. Of course, of course I want to be in the woods as much as possible. I have two student athletes at home, so you know, my my weekends are pretty well taken up. You know, fall baseball, we've got soccer, all those kind of things. So yeah, I want to be able to spend as much time in the woods as I can for sure. 00:24:11 Speaker 2: Adam, Before we go, I want to give you a little time to plug BHA's muster in the mountains event that's coming up soon. You want to tell us about that. 00:24:22 Speaker 7: Absolutely absolutely so uh muster in the mountains. This is kind of our you know, kind of East Coast. 00:24:29 Speaker 6: Rendezvous, if you will. 00:24:31 Speaker 7: We have this August first to third this year. It's at west Kill Brewing in west Kill, New York. It's up in the Catskills. It's a beautiful area. You come out, meet BHA Vice President of Operations, Frankie mcburniey Olsen. We've got some great events planned. We've got a three D archery shoot. The New York chapter is representing with some interesting demonstrations. They've got one on saddle hunting. I think they have one that I think is really cool on DIY taxidermy. And the PHA chapter is going to be represented by my good friend Ethan Brininger, who's going to do a flint lock flintlock muzzleloader introduction. I personally hunted flintlocks with Ethan. He's a guy who really knows his stuff. He's a great instructor. I'm sure that that's going to be a fantastic event and you can find details for that at Backcountry hunters dot org. Go to our events page. We have a direct link there for it. 00:25:24 Speaker 2: Great sounds fun, have so you're not able to make it to that one. 00:25:29 Speaker 6: I'm not sure if I'm going to be there. I might be there for part of it. I have planned on Sunday, so we'll see. 00:25:34 Speaker 2: I'm sure there'll be a little partying at night too, So I would say so if you're in that part of the country, go check it out. Thanks a lot, Adam. We may check back with you in a couple of months to see how this Sunday hunting thing is actually implemented. 00:25:51 Speaker 6: Yeah, hey, I would. 00:25:51 Speaker 7: I'd absolutely love the opportunity. I really appreciate you guys having me on. 00:25:55 Speaker 2: All right, thanks a lot. Man, See, thanks, thanks good news, But hopefully it's great news here in a couple of commissioners don't implement that. You remember Joel, my buddy. Oh yeah, he's like those guys. I don't trust him. Like we're just like with some game commission boards or like wildlife boards. Like it's like it's tough with those people these days, man. But hopefully it just ends up being more good news. All right, guys. Uh, next up, we got our we got a top three segment. We do these now and then where we share various top three lists things like favorite game meets favorite whatever, favorite places to fish things like that. 00:26:50 Speaker 3: Good. I'm not letting you get away with it. 00:26:52 Speaker 4: Field. 00:26:52 Speaker 2: There's no pause in there for sounds. 00:26:54 Speaker 5: I didn't see it. I get the light effect in the room. 00:27:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredibly complex. This gets me fired up. My finger on a slider back. 00:27:14 Speaker 2: Thanks Phil, Thanks for sliding that in there. 00:27:16 Speaker 4: It was really important. Everybody loved it, and it wasn't a waste of time at all. 00:27:20 Speaker 2: I forget how we do these? Do we have one person? Do all three? 00:27:24 Speaker 3: Phil? 00:27:24 Speaker 4: Or do we go like you like number three, number three, number three, number two, number two? 00:27:28 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:27:28 Speaker 2: Okay, okay, gotcha, Okay, all right, Krin, We're going like from number three to your favorite Okay, yeah. 00:27:38 Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'm gonna I'm gonna switch this up. My number three is going to be Brody. Was giving me, you know, crap for this earlier because I think my my my scenario here misunderstands maybe what they taste like. But I had put a black tailed jack rabbit in Arizona. 00:28:01 Speaker 2: Well, I was more making fun of you because we got plenty of jack rabbits. 00:28:04 Speaker 3: It's like right here. 00:28:05 Speaker 2: But either way, it's like, you know, it's your choice. 00:28:09 Speaker 5: Yeah, I just the the Sonoran desert atmosphere is like an era. I've only been two once, but really really loved it. They look just fun to get after. 00:28:25 Speaker 2: When you watch one of those things covering ground, it's pretty impressive. 00:28:28 Speaker 3: Oh man, I've been hunting deer in eastern Montana and I would glass up jack rabbit and I watch him just run in a straight line for miles. Oh yeah, Like, what are you doing? 00:28:39 Speaker 5: Like it looks like like the perfect thing if you have I don't know, a d like you're just you know, it's just like a different kind of focus would be required. And also, I I guess I'm mistaken that they probably don't taste like cottontail bunnies. 00:28:56 Speaker 2: Definitely not like a stronger flavor, darker meat, which you know I've eaten them. Not my favorite, not when I got deer elk in the freezer. But sure, I'm sure I'll catch some some hell for saying that. But yeah, but look, man, it doesn't doesn't have to be about me. It's your bucket list, right, seth. What's your what's your number three? 00:29:20 Speaker 3: My number three is? Uh, hunting rios in Oklahoma? 00:29:24 Speaker 2: Why Oklahoma? 00:29:25 Speaker 3: Uh, it's a state I've never been to and I want to get a rio to complete my slam. 00:29:32 Speaker 2: So the nice thing about those rios because I used to hunt them in uh, like southwestern Nebraska. They've got him in Colorado, Toude, but I didn't hunt them much out there. But the cool thing about those rio it's almost bad for those turkeys, right because they lit. It's like open country wide open and then uh like Cottonwood Creek and river Bottom, so like you where the at you know where they're at? Yeah, yeah, and it that was that when I used to hunt him in that kind of country in Nebraska, it was super super fun. 00:30:04 Speaker 3: I was tourn between Oklahoma and and I really want to hunt turkeys in Mississippi one of these days. 00:30:10 Speaker 2: You want to get you want to go on a super hard turkey. 00:30:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I've killed the Easterns before, so I really want to get that reo. 00:30:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. 00:30:19 Speaker 5: What about you, Brody. 00:30:21 Speaker 2: Let's see what? Oh this is? Number three was a tough one for me because I wanted to make it a fishing trip and I really want to go like north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska and fish those she fish. Oh yeah, but if I advise like had to had to choose, it would be to go down to Panama to fish for those giant Kuberra snapper. Like God, this like I'm just like fascinating, And you catch other cool stuff down there, like rooster fish and it's not like blue water offshore fishing, like fishing close to shore and these big rock piles coming out of the ocean and there's jungle and like it's it just seems super cool like that that's like fish and wise, I would probably choose that over sheet fish in Alaska. 00:31:07 Speaker 3: Nice for sure. Yeah, that sounds wicked fun. 00:31:11 Speaker 2: Back to Krin's crazy stuff. 00:31:15 Speaker 5: I love how your your your your guys' bucket list is like kind of grand and you know. 00:31:21 Speaker 2: Oh those Kubert snapper get huge. 00:31:24 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:31:24 Speaker 2: But anyway back to Crine. 00:31:26 Speaker 5: Now my bee ish iguana in Florida. 00:31:30 Speaker 3: Nice, I can expect nothing less. 00:31:33 Speaker 5: Yeah, Like you know, I just I think more of it is about tasting different game species that I haven't tasted before. And then you know that that leads the kind of difference. 00:31:49 Speaker 2: You'd be doing some good work taking those invasive green. 00:31:52 Speaker 5: Warns, right, I mean I've also heard that they're very very tasty. Yeah, probably not a super hard hunt. 00:32:00 Speaker 2: No, but that's what or I've seen on Instagram a couple of times. I don't know if this dude has like a like an actual guide service for shooting iguanas, but he has a bird dog, like a wire hair pointer or something, some some bird dog, and that bird dog goes around in the boat with him and they'll crack and iguana on the bank. That dog rockets out of the boat and grabs brings them back. 00:32:27 Speaker 5: Now that seems more fun that Okay, I've just evolved. 00:32:32 Speaker 2: My I'm a little torn on the iguana thing because when I was in college, I had a ped iguana. 00:32:38 Speaker 5: What was his name or her name, God. 00:32:40 Speaker 2: I can't even remember now, Chuck, that's a great name for her. And he had that iguana had like I had this big chunk of drift I just let him run around in my apartment. But he would always I had this chunk of long drift wood in the corner he'd climb up on and it was right above one of those old radiators, know they like, and that thing would like launch onto that radiator and a couple of times he'd like break an arm or a leg or something, and he'd always heal up eventually, But eventually I had to leave and I could take him with with me. I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this, anyway. I gave him to my buddy to care after this thing, and he just got to the point where he had busted so many legs he couldn't get around anymore. And so my buddy put him in a pete in the middle of winter, put him in a pizza box and threw him in the dumpster, which for where for a reptile isn't a bad way to go. They just get cold and go to sleep. 00:33:43 Speaker 5: I'm gonna say so much hell, but he said, like, you know, he just released into the wild, and I was gonna say. 00:33:51 Speaker 3: He had a good one. I should have eaten him. I guess. 00:33:57 Speaker 2: No waste seth. 00:34:02 Speaker 3: Might be is fishing in Norway. Yeah, it's kind of like the well, the the ocean. Fishing there from what I gather, is kind of like fishing southeast Alaska. But everything just seems so much bigger. 00:34:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, and those field words are that that's cool looking country. 00:34:18 Speaker 3: Oh it looks awesome. Yeah, there's just a big fishing community there. And then interior stuff there's like those Xander and those big ass perch yep. Yeah, it just looks like a fishing paradise over there. 00:34:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, and the people in Norway are like the happiest people in the world. 00:34:33 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it'd be a cool trip. 00:34:37 Speaker 2: Where are we at? 00:34:38 Speaker 5: My second, yeah, your second? 00:34:40 Speaker 3: My second would be. 00:34:41 Speaker 2: Big horn sheep right here in Montana. It's definitely like, definitely a species of big game that I get to see a lot, never get to hunt. I mean, it's just like a lot of people will have big horn on their list, right, so you know, hopefully someday it'll happen. Who knows if it will. I'm gonna keep trying. But like that's that's kind of like the glam species that interests me the most, like once in a like because you know, I got a moose last year, but like big horn cheap are even harder to get tags for. 00:35:18 Speaker 5: Then what's the percentage now? 00:35:21 Speaker 3: Zero? 00:35:21 Speaker 5: Zero? 00:35:22 Speaker 2: Oh, it depends where you're at, but it's like point nothing, yeah, to like one percent. Maybe it's like a high draws hunt. 00:35:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, and here Montana they're cutting tags. 00:35:34 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's problems with them. I mean, there's problems with pneumonia everywhere, but I'm still applying in Colorado, but I got higher hopes for Montana. 00:35:45 Speaker 5: Okay, We're gonna keep our fingers crossed for you Brody someday. 00:35:49 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. I almost I almost like caved and was like, oh, I'm just gonna put my points towards a big horn you tag. But then I had enough points where I'm like, that's just sick. 00:36:00 Speaker 3: Yeah you know what, as we'll keep going. 00:36:02 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, all right, moving on and number one of Karin's crazy bucket list. 00:36:10 Speaker 5: Okay, so for really really going like dream experience, I would love to be on a commercial boat in Japan just seeing what what the fishermen there do to get blue. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: Are you talking about those ones where they just drop it in, flip them over their back drop it in. Have you seen those? 00:36:29 Speaker 3: No? 00:36:30 Speaker 5: I have, just like the biggest I just want to see like big ass fish because tasty fish. Maybe I'm not. 00:36:38 Speaker 2: Sure that the Japanese are the ones doing all the commercial fishing for blue fins. I think they're coming from they get shipped like like here there's blue Fest Coast West Andies okay, and I know like there are other places, but I don't know, Like maybe I'm wrong, but I think like a lot of the blue fin that ends up in pan is coming. Like they overnight this ship, they flash freeze them, send them a sushi markets and then some there's this big bidding process. 00:37:09 Speaker 5: Yeah, right, so those are not coming out of the Pacific waters right there. 00:37:14 Speaker 2: Well, then maybe maybe someone. 00:37:17 Speaker 5: If I'm mistaken there. That's why I had a real number one, My real number one cucumbers and Alasta. 00:37:28 Speaker 2: I want to be at the shack and just watch her in wandering around filling up a wheelbarrow. 00:37:36 Speaker 5: A that'll be me. I'll put on like an eight millimeter suit and just spend the entire afternoon like diving in shallow water. 00:37:46 Speaker 3: I don't even need to dive for them. You will, yeah, you will foul hook them when you're Yeah. 00:37:51 Speaker 2: And there's places where at low tide you can just go pick them up. 00:37:54 Speaker 5: That'll be me. I'll focus on nothing else but wheelbarrows full of sea cucumbers. 00:37:59 Speaker 2: And you can be the like cleaning specialists. That's how you break into the fish cleaning table, Like you have to graduate to it, and you start by cleaning sea keys. 00:38:11 Speaker 5: I'll have fun doing that all. 00:38:12 Speaker 3: Day after that first wheelbarrow that you clean. I am. 00:38:19 Speaker 5: Then I'll start, I'll start the I'll start. The other method of taking care of those is just air drying them, you know, like they like you know, Asian Asian market like dried glass, you know, dried. 00:38:33 Speaker 2: And then do they just rehydrate them and eat. 00:38:35 Speaker 5: Them exactly, and they'll eat the whole the whole thing, you know, the slimy warp bit and all. It's unlikely. Yeah, yeah, they it's not. You're actually just not cleaning them. You're you're you're purging them of you know, the mucky stuff that's inside. 00:38:49 Speaker 3: There's a thing that things do if they sit in the bottom of your boat long enough, they basically turn inside out. It is the grossest thing. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, but they are, man, they're good. 00:39:02 Speaker 2: Bride strips are good for sure. Well that's interesting, Krinn. 00:39:10 Speaker 3: All the stuff. 00:39:13 Speaker 2: I love it. 00:39:13 Speaker 5: I love how my bucket lists are like probably easily accomplished things. Yes, then all go. 00:39:19 Speaker 3: You can fly in to catch a can and walk right from the airport right down to the water's edge and get yourself some qu com. 00:39:28 Speaker 2: Yep, SE's interested in something a little bigger than a c cucumber for his number on. 00:39:35 Speaker 3: My Number one's moose interior Alaska. You know that rich hunt that that we've all done is awesome, love it. But I want to go further north north slope, north of the Arctic tittle, yep, just check out most The biggest reason just because I want to go up there and see that country. I also want to get a moose. 00:39:57 Speaker 2: No that that Ridge top hunt is fun. The place where currently where Steve's currently locked in is like there's not like there's like one spot right yeah, and that stuff like you're sitting there. Once that stuff up on the north slopes more open, classible, hikeable, all that stuff. So I could see that being a super fun hunt. Someday I'll go back and do a float hunt for them. 00:40:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be fun too. I've done the float stuff, which is awesome because you're just looking at a new country every day. 00:40:30 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: But yeah, I just I guess more so, I just want to be on that north slope for sure. Country definitely. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: Number one is could take place same place as your moose hunt. I want to take my boys to do a caribou hunt, not necessarily because it's like this super challenging hunt, like you're probably gonna get one, right, But to be able to watch that migration is like, it's it's one of the coolest things, like just for days, just thousands of caribou rolling by. And granted you got to hit it right to experience that, but it's like the most impressive thing I've ever seen in nature, like by far, just like waves of those things going by day after day. And I don't necessarily care about getting one myself, but yeah, I'd love to take my boys in up for a fly in until Yeah awesome, Yeah, all right, Phil, let's see what the chat say about cucumbers. 00:41:38 Speaker 4: Nothing about cucumbers. Get your comments, and well, Krin's here. But Nathan asks Seth and Krink was what was the best thing you guys ate in Africa? 00:41:49 Speaker 3: And what was the weirdest? Allright, God, it's so weird. Africa has everything. We ate in Africa was just like the best come one thing that stuck out in my mind, it which surprised me was the war hog. 00:42:06 Speaker 5: Tasty. 00:42:08 Speaker 3: It's just I don't know what it was. It wasn't fatty, it was just it was it was very similar to just eating like pork tenderloin without the fat, but just like the sauce they made with that meal, and it was just the whole thing was just phenomenal. 00:42:28 Speaker 5: It was very clean tasting meat. You know, she's like a delicious you know. 00:42:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, something something I heard Steve mentioned in passing the other day. I wasn't involved really in the conversation, but he said, like everything is cooked well done, like they don't do like medium rare there, which was surprised. 00:42:50 Speaker 3: Well, they did. The chefs there did do like the backstraps and stuff. 00:42:54 Speaker 2: Oh they did. 00:42:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, they did it like medium rare. 00:42:59 Speaker 5: But there's a lot of meat that would just yeah, yeah, that's that's I guess the way that folks over there used to eating meat. You know, some of it's like charred on the outside. It's all well done, and that they don't really like meat prepared the way a lot of us. 00:43:18 Speaker 3: I think a lot of the meat that we ate is not how they yeah, right prepared. 00:43:23 Speaker 5: It wasn't exactly, Yeah, it was more you know, maybe how they thought we would like it, slightly Western Eastern, you know, preparations. 00:43:32 Speaker 2: So if you could like have an elk in the freezer or some of that stuff. 00:43:36 Speaker 5: Oh, Seth, what about the rowan anal species. Steve shot this beautiful old bowl, and I think that might have been the oldest of all the four that he harvests. I think they said, what like like at least ten eleven or twelve years old maybe, And I thought that that was the most tender meat. It was sweet, I mean at five times better than elk, like than the best elk of it. 00:44:04 Speaker 3: You know, like a phenomenal tasting antelope here. You know, like it's just most of it's just all tender and taste good. That's like how everything is there. 00:44:15 Speaker 2: That's that's super cool. Yeah yeah, And you know it's great that you guys got to like eat a bunch of stuff. 00:44:22 Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's one. I mean, it's cool that you could share that meat with all the villages and the people there. But it's like it may be nice just to bring all that stuff. 00:44:32 Speaker 5: Yeah, selfishly, to be like spreading you know, Kate buffalo oxtail, Kate buffalo tail stew or. 00:44:41 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we have buffalo oxtail soup. The one night that was good too, all. 00:44:46 Speaker 2: Kinds of like fat and like, yeah, stuff, who's next? 00:44:53 Speaker 3: Phil? 00:44:53 Speaker 4: This question seems silly to me, but I could just be very ignorant. Maybe it's a question about humidity. But since you and seth hunting a lot in the East and the west, Zach asks, should a Western game hunter store hunting clothes similar to Midwestern or Eastern deer hunters as far as scent control is concerned. 00:45:10 Speaker 2: Man, I don't worry about that stuff. 00:45:14 Speaker 3: I store my hunt clothes in a musty basement. 00:45:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely think, like if you're talking spot and stock rifle hunting, there's no reason in the West, there's no reason to be paranoid about, like storing your clothes with a pine bough outside or something like that. 00:45:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I don't do the whole sunk control thing much cool. 00:45:39 Speaker 4: Braiden commented that he hit a deer with this truck at the same time we went live today, so. 00:45:45 Speaker 3: Edible. I don't know, Braiden. 00:45:49 Speaker 4: If you're still watching, go ahead and follow up, but you're probably dealing with something else right now. 00:45:54 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:45:55 Speaker 2: If I don't, I don't know if there are a lot of moose. 00:45:57 Speaker 4: Hunters in this room right now. But Vermont Millennial Homesteaders says, my wife and I both drew a coveted moose tag here in Vermont. I defined my permit to hunt with her as a sub permittee. Any tips on moose hunting with a cow only tag. 00:46:11 Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what kind of country they're in, like if you can glass them, I don't know. If it's the hunts during the rut, I would what I would do is like right now is the time to be out looking for those things, Like I don't know anything about that area and hunting moose in Vermont, so I would be doing a lot of scouting. 00:46:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I know. Some dudes if hunted in Maine and it was kind of like a lot of covering. Yeah, it's probably super company, like covering a lot of roads, like in timber looking for timber cuts. 00:46:48 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, go find them, Luke says Seth. Let's get an update on the Alaska shack. You got it fixed up nicer than the neighbors. 00:46:55 Speaker 3: Are you getting some use out of it? Oh? Yeah, it's fixed up fairly nice at the moment, at least the outside here. In a couple of weeks, we're putting a roof on the back porch, which will be nice. That'll be real nice, YEA I'll be able to hang some wet stuff out there. 00:47:10 Speaker 2: Man, all the UK trade. Seth, You're you're like the high roller in the coke. Now he got a new boat, got a fixed up making Steve look. 00:47:18 Speaker 4: Bad at I'm just trying to make the neighbors jealous. Let's do one more and then we can hit some more. At the end of the show, here Joe says, what's Phil's favorite game He's tried so far? 00:47:28 Speaker 3: This is such a. 00:47:29 Speaker 4: Boring answer, but I have I've got to try a decent amounts. I've worked here like I've had Gator, if had Mountain Lion, all all kinds of stuff. But when when Michael Hunter from Toronto whatever, what's his restaurant's name again, he came in here to shoot some stuff with us, and Brody brought in some elk steak he had and Michael just like with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded. He like he not literally, but he could have done it in his sleep. He pulled out some single burner induction burner and made the most credible steak I've ever had with like this huckleberry. 00:48:02 Speaker 3: Sauce on top. 00:48:03 Speaker 4: I just remember belted in my mouth and I could not believe it, and he just acted like it's just what he does well for a living, which is literally. 00:48:11 Speaker 9: What it was true. 00:48:12 Speaker 2: But partial credit there, Phil. 00:48:15 Speaker 3: It was a great taste in Elk Brody. 00:48:16 Speaker 5: Yeah, can I can I make one live correction Jim Hefflefinger. 00:48:24 Speaker 2: I knew it was coming from Antelope. 00:48:27 Speaker 5: Jack rabbit is the one I want, and he said, we can make that happen when the rabbit populations recover, because it's the hemorrhagic virus that knocked out the populace. 00:48:35 Speaker 2: I thought he was going to contact and not Black. I thought he was going to contact us saying they're the best thing to eat on the planet. 00:48:43 Speaker 3: And I know he eats them, so had Jim's on it. Yeah, thanks for watching, Jim. 00:48:53 Speaker 2: Let's move on to our next interview. 00:48:55 Speaker 3: Let's do it. We got Ted up. Ted's up? 00:48:59 Speaker 2: Okay, next up, we got Ted It's Cook, right, Ted Ted Cook. Ted Cook the executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership. Ted, thanks for joining us today. Before we get started with with the conversation, I want to give the listeners a little background information about why we've got you on the show today. We've been seeing this is like not news, Like we've been seeing declines in sage grouse populations for years and we've talked about it here, you know, we did Immediate or television show that talked a lot about it there. And there's this like iconic species of sage rush prairie like across their range in the Western United States, and they've been struggling, which like maybe it would come as a surprise as like some bird hunters and in places like Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, where you can still go out and hunt them, some people might be surprise that they're like not doing well in places. But with all that said, like about a week ago, some news came out that the sage grouse were officially declared extinct in the state of North Dakota, and it's just really you know, news like that is obviously a huge bummer, but it's also part of this bigger picture concerning what's going on with sage grouse in the last however many years. So ted just to like clarify your bona fides, besides being the executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership, why don't you first like tell us about your experience working within endangered species and then we'll kind of get into to what's going on with sage grouse all over the place. 00:50:54 Speaker 9: Yeah, so thanks for having me on. Before I became the executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership, I worked for thirty years as an endangered species biologist for the US soshom MODELISS Service, including five years working on sage grouse conservations, specifically back on the early twenty teams when we were evaluating whether orless sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. And so from there I went on actually and ended my career in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I worked a lot on lester prairie chickens. And I retired and the board of the Grouse Partnership asked if I wanted to apply to be executive director, and I thought no, And here I am. 00:51:36 Speaker 2: Here you are talking to it's hard to quit. 00:51:38 Speaker 3: It's hard to quit. 00:51:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear you, So you can correct me if I'm wrong here. But like what happened in North Dakota and with other sage grouse populations that are struggling, like the Gunnison sage grouse in Colorado, that's largely related issues surrounding loss of sagebrush prairie to prairie habitats. 00:52:01 Speaker 9: Is that correct, exactly right? 00:52:04 Speaker 3: Yep? 00:52:04 Speaker 9: Say it gets called the scientificitary sage step step is ste ppe step means grass lands, so stage step sage grass land loss of habitat. In fact, brody grasslands including stagebrush step grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world. 00:52:21 Speaker 3: Yep, yep. 00:52:22 Speaker 9: And so this inexorable decline and loss of prairie grouse species, including stage grouse in North Dakota, it's just a part of a much larger long term trend that the North American Grouse Partnership is committed to trying to stop and reverse. 00:52:39 Speaker 2: Can you give folks a sense of like how like how common and how widely distributed sage grouse were at one time compared to where they're at now. 00:52:54 Speaker 9: Sure, Yeah, sage grouse used to well, sage grouse or sage brush obligates, so they have to have sage brush to survive. And pretty much anywhere there were where there was enough sage brush, you'd have sage grouse. And that was across I think at least thirteen Western states historically, but now the range has been reduced by roughly fifty percent, and the population of sage grouse has been reduced by almost three quarters. 00:53:22 Speaker 2: Like, what's the best estimate, Like at a high point, how many do you? Like? 00:53:26 Speaker 3: What's it? 00:53:27 Speaker 2: I know you can't pinpoint it, but how many millions of them were there? 00:53:32 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:53:32 Speaker 9: I don't know, and I know some folks have speculated that. It's really hard to say, Yeah, many millions, Yeah, several million, and now we're down to just a few hundred thousand, gotcha. 00:53:49 Speaker 2: Can you explain were kind of hinted at this earlier, but you can explain why, Like it's not just that sage grouse are on the decline, Like their decline also as implications for other species that use the same habitat as sagegress like pronghorn and mule deer and songs and all other like all hosts of species. So can you kind of touch on that a little bit more? 00:54:16 Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, we all of us hunters know that mule deer have been in decline for a long long time, and there's no accident that they've been in decline along with our grastling habitats. And in some places game managers are getting particularly concerned about the continued loss of mule deer pronghorn. You know, I mean what I like to challenge US hunters to think about is, well, maybe you don't hunt prairie gross very much, but you love mule deer, you love pronghorn. How far away are we from a scientist finding a local population of pronghorns, say, and part of the Southwestern Great Plains, and we end up listing that under the Endeiner Species Act. Keeping in mind, pronghorn are already listed in Arizona and I think maybe even California under the Injured Species Act. So this is not far fetch. All of these other species. Then you've got casts and sparrow and babba links and monarch butterflies and regal fritillary butterflies. Stuff one from me to say, but all of these grassland independent species are declining along with prairie grouse. Now, prairie grouse are a great umbrella species because they require such there are landscape scale species that require such large patches of intact grasslands. And so we're hopeful in the Grouse partnership that if we can conserve prairie grouse populations that we can help conserve mule deer and prong horn and everything else. 00:55:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, the chips will just fall into place. So, like, what are your main goals? Like, what are you guys doing to help sage grouse and those those prairie habitats. 00:55:45 Speaker 9: Yeah, so actually two slightly different prongs there, because one of the I guess, well differences I want how much of a benefit it is with sage rouse is that there's a fair amount of public land that provides good sage grouse habitats. 00:56:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, luckily it didn't all get sold off. 00:56:02 Speaker 9: Yeah, exactly exactly, thanks to a good, good lot of good work by hunters and anglers and others. But even there, even though we have you know, say, you know, eighty percent of the of a patch of habitat is public land, some of the most important habitat, the lower elevation stream bottoms, the deeper soils, the wet meadows are still privately. 00:56:22 Speaker 2: Owned, very common out here in the west. 00:56:26 Speaker 9: Exactly right, and so, but but really with sage rouse, the biggest drive here's a sad fact. Of the whatever fifty forty million acres we have left of sage rouse habitat, we're losing sage brush habitat at the rate of one point three million acres per year. 00:56:46 Speaker 2: And what's happened in there like building houses, like what just like residential, commercial, all kinds of different development. 00:56:52 Speaker 9: Well, yes, all of that is happening. But in a word, it's cheek grass. 00:56:58 Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, cheat grass. 00:57:01 Speaker 9: Now, keep in mind a lot of your listeners may know the name Aldo Leopold in a book that he wrote published in nineteen forty nine called a Sand County Almanac. In that book, Aldo Leopold has a chapter called cheat takes Over where he foresees what is happening to sagebrush ecosystems today. That's how visionary this guy was. 00:57:22 Speaker 2: For people who don't know what we're talking about, explain what cheat grass is and what it's and what it's doing. 00:57:29 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:57:30 Speaker 9: So cheat grass is an invasive annual grass from Asia that was accidentally imported here to North America, and it's taking over in areas like the western like the Great Base in the western half of the range of sage grouse, and even is becoming more of an issue into wyoming in some of the eastern parts of the range. And so cheat grass is fire loving. It's designed to burn frequently sagebrush is not okay, and so the driver for the one point through three million acres of loss I've habit had a year. A lot of people will say it's fire and invasives because they see the fire and they say, well, that's the cause, and it's caused by this invasive species. We hit the North American Gross Partnership. We disagree. It is not fire and invasives. It's invasives and fire, gotcha. And what I mean by that is fire has been a part of stage brosh ecosystems for millennia. The difference is cheak grass. The reason why cheek grass exists is chronic overgrazing. What all the Leopolds said, I'm sorry, chronic soil disturbance. What all the Leopold said is it's overgrazing, which is true back in the days, you know, in the nineteen forties. Remember the Tailored Grazing Act was passed to try to get hold of massive overgrazing on public lands way back when, and that's still a legacy today. But there's other disturbances like atv use and other things. So it's the cheek grass driven by fire and all of these other things that's causing that one point three but the bulk of the one point three million acres per year of stage grouse habitat gotcha. 00:59:01 Speaker 2: Wow, And so that that's your main focus, like like like what what is what does that like mean? 00:59:10 Speaker 3: Though? 00:59:10 Speaker 2: For like is is there like how do. 00:59:13 Speaker 3: You get rid of it? 00:59:14 Speaker 2: And can you get rid of it? 00:59:16 Speaker 9: Yeah? No, you can't. You know, you drive I eighty through central Nevada, that's always going to well, as far as I'm alive, Yeah, you guys do, it's probably always going to look like it does that. You know, these golden stands of grass that look pretty to the untrained eye, but it's all cheap grass. And but at higher elevations, other native grasses and plants can win out. But here's the good news. Most of stage most of grasslands not just for sage gross but greater prairie chickens, less prairie chickens sharp tails are managed as range lands, both public and private land and ranchers don't want cheat grass either, and so with the Grouse Partnership's goal is to empower ranchers to recognize the opera they opportunity they have to avoid chronic soil disturbance through overgrazing, which is less of an issue now, but sites specifically on a lower elevation south facing slope could still be an issue. And so our goal is to work with the people that manage the lands and even own the lands, the ranchers, to empower them to make sure that they're avoiding chronic soil disturbance in the form of overgrazing, and then other things atv use. You know, one of the things, one of the vectors that's sea grass is County road crews blade the side of a gravel road every spring, take up the native plants what comes in behind it cheat grass. They do it in the name of fire breaks along the roads, but then end up providing perfect habitat for cheek grass, the most fire loving of all species, to grow in alongside the road. So there's a lot of opportunities to do better. 01:00:41 Speaker 2: Great, Well, we're gon before. There's not just sage grouse out there, and you guys assume we'rek with other grouse species. So I want to ask you if there's any major conservation issues surrounding other species of grouse, you know, like we've got five species of grouse here in Montana that hunters can go after, and we had a boom year for sharp tails last year. You know, our dusky and rough grouse seem to be doing well, but like back east, in states like Pennsylvania, rough grouse are really struggling. The flip side of that is, I just heard, I think yesterday, that Wisconsin is opening up a hunting season for sharptail grouse after a long period of them being off limits to hunters. You got anything for us about other grouse species? 01:01:36 Speaker 9: Yeah, and so you've just you got it right, Brody. You know, rough grouse back east not doing well because of reforestation of lambs that used to be either open meadow or for rough grouse. What they like is the edge habitant between the meadow and the timber. A lot of people value trees more than grass, and they that anybody trying to cut a tree as a bad person, and so rough growse are in trouble because of that social phenomenon, which is interesting back east, but out west, you know, here's the same thing here where I live here in Idaho. You know, we got great rough grouse habitat and they're doing pretty well. And then for sharpies in Wisconsin, what great news. You know, they feel like they've been doing enough habitat work to rebuild populations enough to offer a few special tags on the sharpiees and that's good, good for them. 01:02:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well great, great having you on. What can people do to help you guys out before you go? 01:02:37 Speaker 9: So, you know, sage grouse this news in North Dakota. I'll tell you interesting story. I was talking to Jesse kolar As, the biologist for North to Go to Game and Fish about this. He said, Ted, you know, the sage grouse blinking out in North Dakota, sadly is something that we've seen coming for some time, right, he said, But what really scares him is that thirty to fifty years from now, sharp tail grouse in North Dakota might be in the same boat. 01:03:02 Speaker 2: For the same reason. I'm assuming, Yes. 01:03:04 Speaker 9: Habitat that's right. Grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and then the world. But it's such a slow burn. It's like boiling the frog, right, I've heard that saying where you throw a frog into hot water jumps out. You're throwing a cold water turn around the heat. It'll die, it won't jump out. So it's like we're in this hot water and it slowly gets hotter every year and we're just not waking up to it. So what the Grouse Partnership really is focused on right now is trying to save lesser prairie chickens, which were recently listed under the Endangered Species Act. Keep in mind that as recently as eleven years ago you could hunt for lesser prairie chickens and today they're listed under the Endangered Species Act. And what we've done is we've reached out to the best landowner, rancher, conservationist heroes we could find in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and we've joined forces with them to pay them fair market value for the ecosystem services they have to provide on their healthy range lands. Services like clean air and water, healthy soil, oils, vegetation, wildlife, habitat, carbon storage. They don't get paid for it. They don't get they get cost share programs, but it doesn't it costs them money out of their pocket to save an endangered species. That's not right. If Americans want to save in dangered species, they should pay for it. And that's what we're trying to do. Eighty four percent of remaining grasslands are privately owned, most of those are range lands. Ranching pays less than any other form of land use. It's no wonder why grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem. Renewable energy, energy transmission, oil and gas, farming, feed loss, even woodland habitats and leasing for hunting can pay more than ranching. And that's why grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world. We want to pay these landowners who want to save lesser prairie chickens and other prairie grass species what it actually costs to keep grasslands in grass well. 01:04:54 Speaker 2: Great, thanks, thanks for all the good good work you're doing, and keep up the good work and maybe we'll check back with you in a few months and see how things are going well. 01:05:04 Speaker 9: Thank you for having me and for asking great questions. Glad to be here. 01:05:08 Speaker 3: Thanks again. Thanks Jed. 01:05:12 Speaker 2: Okay, that one is kind of some sad news there, but you know, you got to pay attention to what's going on. We're gonna lighting things up with a fan tip off and it says to pause for sound here, Phil. 01:05:29 Speaker 10: That's salty, Ya, that's salty. 01:05:39 Speaker 3: I trimmed that one down and made it shorter because even I was like, this is this is too much. 01:05:43 Speaker 2: I love not my favorite one of your one of your your song intros, philm. 01:05:48 Speaker 3: I know we have varieties the Spicy Life. 01:05:51 Speaker 2: I'm just being honest. That's fine, okay if you're not familiar. The Hot Tip Off segment is where two of our listeners go head to head with peating nuggets of hunting and fishing wisdom, and then we decide which one is hotter before we watch these hot tips. If you've got a hot tip, take like one minute. Don't make it longer than a minute, or we'll we'll toss it in the in the trash and send it to radio at the meat eater dot com. As long as it's like some what you feel useful tip that has like something to do with hunting fish in the outdoors, gear whatever, We'll look at anything, as long as it kind of falls under our umbrella and put the subject line hot tip off in there, and and it'll eventually get to where we can take a look at it and you might make it on the show. 01:06:42 Speaker 4: Oh and when really, I don't see it in the script here Brody, but you the live chat will be deciding the winner of this. 01:06:49 Speaker 3: Oh we're not to see you guys or not. 01:06:50 Speaker 4: We're a way in though, Yeah yeah, yeah, Korean Seth and Brody will weigh in. Maybe that will sway your vote, but I will I will open a pole after the video and you guys are going to choose the winner of. 01:07:02 Speaker 3: The high I like to influence the voters. 01:07:04 Speaker 2: Yeah all right, So for today, we're talking fishing with hot tip offs today and we've got David McMurray from Kake Kro Hero that says pronounced Krokro, Georgia and Adam Smith he's from somewhere in America, and they've got a couple of hot fishing tips. So roll the tape, fell. 01:07:31 Speaker 6: Stephen McCurry, Hey meet either. 01:07:37 Speaker 11: This is David McCurry from Caro, Georgia, and my hot tip is using a clam knife to scale brim. As you know, clam knife is pretty dull, so that when you're putting pressure down on these big blue gill to remove the scale, getting cut down through the skin of the meat, which makes a scaling process pretty difficult after that. 01:07:55 Speaker 6: Also, it has a real stiff blade. 01:07:56 Speaker 11: So that when you're pulling against these thick scales on a big blue gill, the blade is not flex so you are able to pop the scales off relatively easy. And then the last thing I like about the clam knife is this rounded point. Once I remove the scales off the main part of the fish's body, I like to point my knife down to get along the edges. 01:08:15 Speaker 6: Of the fins. 01:08:16 Speaker 2: And he's doing a great child with his clam knife. 01:08:21 Speaker 11: As opposed to a regular clean knife. You don't take a chance of stabbing the point down into the fish again, making it difficult to. 01:08:27 Speaker 2: Clean your hands. 01:08:29 Speaker 11: My hot tip using a clam knife to scale a big bluegill. 01:08:33 Speaker 3: Interesting. 01:08:40 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Adam Smith coming out with a fishing tip straight from the lake. I'm out here walking the banks and I'm keeping a few bass, and I've got a great way for harvesting fish while you're walking instead of a changed stringer or a basket where you're having to carry it around, is taking the space in your hands, or you're hanging off of you and your fish are going in and out of the water and getting all beat up. 01:08:59 Speaker 3: Go down to the store pick up for real cheap a backpack, cooler. 01:09:02 Speaker 1: Pack it with three or four or five pounds of ice, and carry your fish around on your back. 01:09:07 Speaker 3: It works great. Mm hmm. The fisher right on you. 01:09:22 Speaker 1: Your hands are free, fish aren't getting beat up, they're staying cool. If it's hot out, It's a great way to keep fish while you're walking around. 01:09:28 Speaker 3: I hope you like the tip. Talk to you later. There you go. I liked them both. 01:09:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, but as a kid who dragged a lot of fish around on a stringer, they're like dying and getting warm, and you know, they look pretty bad by the time you get them home. Yeah, I like the cooler tip. I like the cooler tip too. 01:09:51 Speaker 3: You know, one time when I was a kid, I caught a bunch of trout one time Pennsylvania, and I didn't have a string or anything, but I had one. I was like, you know, like the fishing vest in Pennsylvania. 01:10:04 Speaker 2: It's got the Yeah. 01:10:05 Speaker 3: Well, I threw the trout back there, got home, pulled him out, flayed him up, and then a couple of days later, like I washed it out, thought so at least a couple of days later, I'm like, what in the hell is stinking guys looking around and figured out that I had left a trout. Yeah, so the backpack would would have been a pretty pretty close close poll. Right now, it's neck and next trying to. 01:10:35 Speaker 5: The clam knife technique, I. 01:10:37 Speaker 2: Kind of figured you'd go. Here's why I think it's it's a it's it's it's a good tip, but it's like it falls second from me. It's because like anglers in Wisconsin ain't buying clam knives to scale stuff, you know what I mean, you know they could, but there's a lot of tools you can use. 01:10:57 Speaker 5: The scale right right, Yeah, I mean I think I'm looking at the clam knife in the same way I might like, uh, the back of a butter knife or you know, just like a different just having a different, more blunter edge, you know, tool to do. 01:11:16 Speaker 2: You got enough info yet, philler you need to keep it is neck and neck. 01:11:20 Speaker 3: So if you if you are in the chat and you have not voted, get in there state right. What I like about the clam knife is like I like finding something that's not meant for that thing, using it for that like multip like catfish plyers. Like I think that's a crucial tool to have for a lot of fishing things like I use those to pull bones out of salmon. I use them for flame. It's just like it's not just made for you. 01:11:51 Speaker 2: Might be effecting the outcome here. While Feel is waiting for people to vote, our are our winner today is going to receive a Mediator hat, hoodie and T shirt combo and the T shirt Feel do you got the graphic ready? The T shirt is our new badass gnome T shirt. It's almost archery season, so we made a shirt with anome making a real lifelike three D unicorn archery target. 01:12:26 Speaker 5: Well see like carving it out of a tree stump. 01:12:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, making his own three D target. 01:12:32 Speaker 5: You guys, vote, Come on, folks. 01:12:35 Speaker 2: And I think the shirt comes out tomorrow on the website. Not positive about that, but I think it's tomorrow and they'll probably sell out pretty fast. So if you want one, you're gonna want to hop on the website and get it ordered tomorrow. 01:12:49 Speaker 4: All right, voting is slowed down and wait, someone has pulled ahead. Okay, so we gotta go ahead and the poll and with fifty nine percent of the vote now the winner is Adam with the backpack. 01:13:01 Speaker 2: David, Sorry, man, this is a great hot tip, but Adam wins here. We don't know where Adam is from, but we'll have to we'll have to get in touch with him and contact him about his his. 01:13:14 Speaker 4: Uh keeping his fishing spots secret. Yeah, Casey thinks he's in the witness protection program. I also like that you could throw some cold beers in that cooler. 01:13:22 Speaker 2: Too, totally, man, that's the thing, like keeping that fish cold and like, because it's just like if you're it's like for a short bound angler. It's tough out there, it is. It's not like being a boat where you just like have room for a big cooler full of ice. So I think it's a great tip as long as you're willing to lug the waiter around. 01:13:42 Speaker 3: Yep. 01:13:45 Speaker 2: So that's uh, that's it for that. We got our winner. There are we going back to the chat one more time. 01:13:52 Speaker 4: Chat's pretty light, so but I'll hit a couple here. If you've got something stupid, even incredibly shallow, you have a great chance of being picked. 01:14:02 Speaker 2: I guess we're just not that interesting. 01:14:04 Speaker 4: Well, honestly, More was getting the most questions and the chev people kept asking him about Hungary, what's it like to live there? What kind of stuff is equal that. 01:14:13 Speaker 7: Like? 01:14:13 Speaker 3: A couple of people. 01:14:17 Speaker 4: For our year anniversary, which is coming up in a month, which is crazy to think about it. 01:14:21 Speaker 5: We should ask questions about well. 01:14:25 Speaker 4: We're going to have you on the show soon. Andreas asks Krinn what her favorite Hunt or Hunt adjacent trip has been since she's worked here thus far. 01:14:36 Speaker 5: I think I love the water so much, so I'm gonna have to give it to the Bahamas trip a couple of years ago for Kimmy Werner's show We Were We were there with UH with Cam kirk Connell and Steve for for her first No No. I think it was a third episode of her series, and we did a podcast down there too, So it was it was watching them dive and spear and UH Steve put me on my first UH fish that I was able to spear in very shallow water because I had hard time holding my breath for so long to die. But I would say that being being in the ocean and watching those three pros do what they do, that was probably the most eye opening, exciting, wonderful trip for me. Yeah. 01:15:35 Speaker 4: Cool Nate asks any secret talents from us in the room that we just don't talk about because we're it's not not a part of the four verticals. Do you guys have anything that's not hunting related that you that you pride yourself on? 01:15:48 Speaker 2: Is Karin's weird taxidermy? 01:15:51 Speaker 3: I think. 01:15:54 Speaker 5: I haven't done a thing in a while. I probably need to go back and you know, make some make something squirrels. 01:16:02 Speaker 2: You got any weird talents that we don't know about? 01:16:06 Speaker 3: Not until I can think of off the top of my head. 01:16:09 Speaker 4: That's the thing about working at Meat Eater, Like, aside from me, like the people who are part of the crew, they work here because they're really their their their talent is they put on display here at the company. 01:16:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean i'd. 01:16:20 Speaker 5: Say you guys like are handy as heck. No, I mean like with with building, with fixing stuff. 01:16:31 Speaker 3: Well, you know, like I fixed stuff thanks to YouTube. I'm actually getting ready to rebuild my trolling motor, which is gonna be a project, a project. Yeah. 01:16:41 Speaker 5: I mean a lot of people don't close the gap between like going to YouTube and empowering themselves with the skills will like call someone else. But so I'd say that you guys have that. 01:16:51 Speaker 2: I'm real good at grown cucumbers, Phil like really good at grown cucumbers. 01:16:56 Speaker 5: Would say tomatoes too. 01:16:57 Speaker 2: I think you're oh, yeah, they're coming than Steve's thought about that. Yeah. 01:17:01 Speaker 3: Yeah, is your garden just kicking butt this year? 01:17:06 Speaker 5: Well? Every year? He like brought in great lettuce the other year, and. 01:17:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah it's been it's been a pretty good garden year. 01:17:13 Speaker 5: Green thumb, Brody. 01:17:16 Speaker 3: Let's see. 01:17:18 Speaker 4: There's one about just general Colorado elk archery tips from Andrew. 01:17:27 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:17:27 Speaker 2: I don't know where to start. 01:17:29 Speaker 3: I know, that's the thing I said. I said, even if they were shallow, Brody, I. 01:17:35 Speaker 2: Don't know where to start. 01:17:36 Speaker 3: Walk further than most people. 01:17:40 Speaker 4: Networks any getting into berry season? Do you guys forage berries? 01:17:46 Speaker 3: Oh? And what's your favorite one? I'll tell you a little bit about my berry patch in my backyard this year. 01:17:52 Speaker 2: Did you guys transplant wild ones like Steve did, and you just grew from from it? 01:17:56 Speaker 3: While they came with the house when we bought the place. Yeah, but we've expanded it just by letting them grow. Yeah, but I don't know our berry patches maybe what kind of berries? Raspberries? It's maybe thirty thirty feet long, just like a row of raspberries, and we got probably close to six gallons of berries. Off of them this year. 01:18:23 Speaker 2: That's nice. 01:18:23 Speaker 3: And they're just they just every days. Wow, we pick them every single day. 01:18:28 Speaker 5: How to even keep them in a row? Aren't they like the what do you call them? The seven? 01:18:35 Speaker 3: Yeah? If I just let our yard go for a couple of years, the whole damn thing would be raspberries. But yeah, we just pull them out with the mower and stuff. 01:18:42 Speaker 2: For wild berries, we try to get out. It's coming up on huckleberry season around Tier. That's the main thing around here for sure. In Colorado, we used to do service berries, which are okay, but they're very seedy. They got a lot like a seedy. It's not a pit. They just have a lot of seeds and they're they're good if you cook them down. And like, there's plenty of service berries around here, but compared to huckleberries, I. 01:19:08 Speaker 5: Don't even know what a service berry looks like. 01:19:10 Speaker 2: It is bushy thing. 01:19:13 Speaker 5: Are the actual berries like yellow? 01:19:16 Speaker 2: They look like a blueberry almost? 01:19:18 Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, okay, we're gonna be hitting some some blueberries here, yeah, Prince of Wales, Yeah we'll be. 01:19:25 Speaker 2: There's probably a lot of bears around because we'll be there. 01:19:27 Speaker 3: During Yeah, I'm hoping it's not. It depends. Last year we were like kind of borderlined late for the berries, which we might be too late this year. But I know with those up there, they get pretty wormy they go. So yeah, we pull them and like if you let them soak for a little bit and some water, the worms come out and then you can yeah kind of you know whatever, throw them in some pancake batter. 01:19:50 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Chase says, flip flop flesher, I have a frozen beaver that I sill need to take care of. I've never fleshed one myself. Should I buy a fleshing beam or try to build one? 01:19:59 Speaker 3: If you have, Oh, you can build them pretty easily. My my beam is like a chunk of that log siding that like only one side of it is actually it's like dimensional lover except for one side that's like rounded. So we just took that and and kind of you know, tapered the tip down and then mounted it on a stand. The stands probably the hardest part. Either gotta know how to weld to build a stand, or there's other options. You could you know, mount it to like a big heavy stump or something like that. Do a video tutorial building. Yeah, yeah, I could do that. Mine's a welded metal stand. I've seen them where like guys have mounted them just to like, you know, something heavy that's gonna but. 01:20:44 Speaker 2: You need that thing to get it done. 01:20:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah for the most part. And I've seen some guys where they'll just like throw them over their knee and like flesh them with a knife. That's just some guys are good at John Hayes the taxi derm as he does stuff like do real quick. 01:21:02 Speaker 4: But Master Butcher, says philm my Son got cast as Gaston. Any tips to prep for such a character, I'm guessing referring to Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, and I would say the person I would say, just watch a lot of Andrew Tait videos. 01:21:18 Speaker 3: Uh no, for the love of God, don't don't do that. That was a joke. 01:21:26 Speaker 4: I would say, a character like Gaston who thinks he's the hottest ship in the world but is actually not. When you buck on the stage, you want to project you're the hottest in the world, that have have like a secret character trait where he just he's like afraid of something very silly like mice or spiders. And don't tell anyone, but just kind of think about that when you're on the stage to kind of and and maybe that insecurity pokes through. 01:21:50 Speaker 3: That's that's my tip. 01:21:52 Speaker 5: Hot film. 01:21:55 Speaker 2: It's almost like method acting almost. 01:21:58 Speaker 4: Yeah, and then just yeah, pretend to be asked on for the next three months until you count on stage. 01:22:03 Speaker 3: All right? 01:22:04 Speaker 2: Is that it for today? 01:22:05 Speaker 3: Let's call it let's call it there. 01:22:06 Speaker 2: Okay, it's a long show. 01:22:07 Speaker 3: It's a good one. 01:22:09 Speaker 2: All right, we're almost done. But I got to ask you guys one more favor. Chester's real board out out and with cons and he's got nothing to do, so we need you to send him send in some questions for Chester's Chettiquet series that we do here on the show where he answers various outdoor related ethical conundrums. Do we have Is there a chettiquet email? I should have found this out there? 01:22:36 Speaker 5: There is not the Yeah, they've come in multiple ways, like sometimes to our regular inbox. But let's have them go to radio radio app radio. We'll do that and then just put it chetiquet in the subject line. 01:22:51 Speaker 2: All Right, there you go. That's it for today. Thanks everyone for tuning in, and have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. 01:22:57 Speaker 3: Later folks,