00:00:04 Speaker 1: Welcome to the news show. We've got deer reports from the crew members who are not doing the news show this week, but are in fact hunting in cool places all over this great country. We're going to share a couple of hunt stories ourselves. We've got an update from Ryan Cal Callahan on illegal off-road vehicle use. We've got a new segment, a little AMA with yours truly from the podcast inbox. But first, our headliner. 00:00:30 Speaker 2: Oh, meeting a news headliner. It's a read, but you've got to stay. 00:00:38 Speaker 1: Oh, I love it so far. 00:00:39 Speaker 3: That was excellent. 00:00:39 Speaker 1: Steve hates that one. It might be the most visceral reaction Steve's ever had to an audio drop. Yeah. 00:00:45 Speaker 2: But we already decided that the ones that Steve doesn't like are the best ones. 00:00:48 Speaker 4: The people love them. 00:00:49 Speaker 3: In Montana, the big bus carrier is Beachliner, right? And so on our football trips, we'd be like, oh, Beachliner. Which was a carryover from past generations when, you know, what is that? That's Jefferson Airplane, right? 00:01:05 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:01:05 Speaker 3: Steve Miller Band. No, Steve Miller Band. Sorry. 00:01:07 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:01:09 Speaker 1: Well, our headliner today, unfortunately, is not good news for our audience here. If you've been listening to the news show, we've been covering this over the past few months. Proposition 83 in Colorado, which would guarantee a constitutional right to hunt and fish to residents of Colorado. It appears has failed at the ballot box. We are reporting now this morning, the day after Election Day, and the latest numbers that I was able to find were no was 55% to yes is 44, 45-ish percent. And I think looking at like 76% of the votes are in, but it seems like folks have called it. It was unsuccessful. I've seen Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, who are leading the charge on that front, have acknowledged that the amendment did not pass, but disappointing, disheartening. I think probably in a future episode, we'll dive into this a little deeper, but Brody, if you have thoughts as a former Coloradan. 00:02:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the political landscape in Colorado has changed a lot in the last, let's say, decade, maybe even longer. It's gotten more and more going more and more in this direction of like kind of unfriendly to hunting. Um, so it's not a gigantic surprise. Um, they had an uphill battle from the start because, because it was an amendment to the constitution, it requires 55% of the vote, which these days is a lot, right? Like a 51. 00:02:53 Speaker 6: To 49. 00:02:53 Speaker 1: It needed like a 10 point victory. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:02:55 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:02:56 Speaker 2: And instead it lost by 10 points, which is probably related to this larger blue wave that we saw come through last night. And, and some, some are still being decided this morning, but it's like part of this kind of national trend. So yeah, disappointing. A quote from Dan Gates at, at Colorado Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management that I saw was Colorado hunters and anglers didn't lose anything. 00:03:28 Speaker 7: Right. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: But they didn't they didn't gain what we wanted them to gain. So, you know, it's not this doesn't mean that hunting is going to become over overnight. It's going to become illegal. The thing that that is not going to happen is what this would have done is kind of given a buffer against things like the cats aren't trophy ballot measure that got defeated. Those things are going to happen in Colorado again. 00:03:57 Speaker 1: It's inevitable. 00:03:58 Speaker 2: And this measure would have offered some protection against that. Another quote that I'd like to read you, just so you're staying on your toes. This really caught my eye. This was from a proponent, a supporter of not passing this amendment, like not having a constitutional right to hunt and fish in Colorado. This comes from Eric Washburn. He is the president of a group called, this is very interesting, a president of a group called Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation. Sounds great, doesn't it? But it really caught my eye once I read his quote. He said, voters' rejection of Amendment 83 speaks to how much Colorado cares about wildlife. As a big game hunter, I am exceptionally proud of Coloradans for establishing an ethical system of hunting in our state, Washburn said, adding that he was even more proud of my fellow Coloradans for rejecting this ballot measure. that caught my eye. So I real quick did a little, little Googling and this group is, is backed by animal welfare, animal rights, anti-trapping, anti-trophy organizations. It is, it is not a group for hunters and anglers. It just has a name that suggests that's the case. And I think we've, we've, run into this guy before. 00:05:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, Steve talked about him last time we covered this. In his resume, he'll talk about being some sort of founding member of TRCP, which is dubious at best. But TRCP itself has come out in favor of Proposition 83. So the guy's not on your side. 00:06:01 Speaker 5: Right. 00:06:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, too, one takeaway from this, I don't believe, I would be shocked if this precluded sportsmen in Colorado from trying this again. And in a different election cycle when there's better turnout on one side versus the other, like in an election year when there's huge conservative turnout, huge rural turnout, like you could very well swing it the other way. And it seems like over the past few years, Colorado's hunters have had to, you know, lead campaign after campaign to defend themselves against a barrage. 00:06:41 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:06:42 Speaker 1: Like ballot box, wildlife legislation, all that stuff. So, you know, hopefully this is just one bump in the road that leads to a bigger, bigger victory down the road. 00:06:52 Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't seem like it has to be because the history of these things in Colorado is unfortunately like a fantastic example, right? Like every campaign, the winning side and the losing side learns a lot and they have to evolve, for the next one. 00:07:07 Speaker 8: Yeah. 00:07:07 Speaker 3: Um, you know, it was really interesting during this one, how much time was spent chasing like these non sequitur response campaigns to, Oh my God, if this passes, then this will happen. Right. 00:07:24 Speaker 7: Right. 00:07:24 Speaker 3: Right. And it was masterfully done. to dilute the vote and cause confusion. And I think like the gap and the numbers that you read say it, where it's like, there's plenty of people in Colorado who are like, boy, I don't know enough about this one to even vote. Even put pen to paper. And those counterpoints, if you call them that, were as simple as, well, it won't allow Fish and Game to make adjustments on regulations. 00:07:54 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:07:55 Speaker 3: Right. Which was completely unfounded. 00:07:56 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:07:57 Speaker 2: And this Washburn guy made the argument that Amendment 83 could overturn past voter approved restrictions on, you know, trapping and bear baiting and things like there's a lot of like disingenuous language surrounding this thing. So hopefully, like like you guys said, they get another chance at it down the road. 00:08:20 Speaker 4: Man. 00:08:21 Speaker 3: Just another reason why we need independent fishing games in every single state. 00:08:26 Speaker 1: Yep. I also think, you know, when you, when you're like, we're talking about a statewide election, right. And, um, I don't know what the current numbers are in Colorado, but this thing hinges on non hunters. 00:08:40 Speaker 4: Yes. 00:08:41 Speaker 1: And so again, it's always just man, tell your story to people who don't live in your world, be a good ambassador for our community. And, um, Put yourself out there because if all we're doing is hanging out on hunting message boards and- It ain't going to work. Yeah. I mean, you got to get out there and you got to get the general public, educate them. It's tough. It's an uphill battle, but it's something that. 00:09:05 Speaker 2: We just need to do. Well, I mean, hunting is still generally well approved of nationwide, right? So if you paint non-hunters, all non-hunters as the enemy, you're shooting yourself. 00:09:17 Speaker 1: In the foot. Yeah. Need a big tent. Anything else on Colorado? All right, Phil, we're on to our news. 00:09:26 Speaker 3: Our news. 00:09:30 Speaker 1: Now, as I alluded to in the intro here, the office is empty. 00:09:36 Speaker 2: It's been that way for a while. 00:09:39 Speaker 3: It has. 00:09:40 Speaker 1: This is a particularly egregious week. Not just the office, but our satellite offices in Arkansas. And elsewhere, it seems like everybody's out there hunting as. 00:09:50 Speaker 2: They well should be. Trivia office empty. 00:09:52 Speaker 1: Trivia office, yes. The head trivia man is gone. But we've managed to recruit them to participate in some way in today's news show by giving us an update on what they're seeing in the deer woods. And we're going to kick this off by heading far to our northwest, to southeast Alaska, where Steve and Seth And the Meat Eater crew, they are doing a black-tailed deer hunt. So, Phil, roll that. 00:10:22 Speaker 4: Roll that clip. 00:10:23 Speaker 6: Okay, here's the first week of November update from southeast Alaska. 00:10:27 Speaker 9: It's a very nice day today. 00:10:30 Speaker 4: Just rain. 00:10:32 Speaker 10: But today's a nice day. 00:10:36 Speaker 9: Today's a nice day. It's just rain. 00:10:38 Speaker 3: I'm afraid of the bad days. 00:10:39 Speaker 11: And in the next few days, they're calling for somewhere between one and two inches of rain each day. 00:10:46 Speaker 9: Plus gusts of 60 knots. You know what they say, if you don't, if you can't tie knots, tie lots. 00:10:54 Speaker 11: 60 knots, that's a lot of knots. 00:10:58 Speaker 9: But we've been, no antlers. We hunted a day and. 00:11:02 Speaker 1: A half now. 00:11:03 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:11:05 Speaker 3: No bucks. 00:11:06 Speaker 9: Saw probably a half dozen does yesterday, maybe more. 00:11:11 Speaker 2: But that's what the bucks are after, and it's that time of the year. 00:11:15 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:11:16 Speaker 9: Half a dozen does yesterday. Called in a doe today. 00:11:21 Speaker 11: Bumped an undetermined deer. 00:11:29 Speaker 9: Stood a couple does up. Got bad weather coming for. 00:11:35 Speaker 1: Two days of terrible weather. 00:11:37 Speaker 9: Like maybe unhuntable weather. 00:11:41 Speaker 6: And then it's going to supposedly get a little better, but not great. 00:11:46 Speaker 9: We'll find something. Got anything to add to that, Seth? I don't know how many of these reports. 00:11:51 Speaker 6: You guys got, but I'm guessing some other reports or hopefully people got better reports. 00:11:55 Speaker 11: Like I said, we hunted yesterday evening and today it's early afternoon. 00:12:00 Speaker 9: So we haven't been pouring the coals too bad. And I'm only sweating it because I think we're going to lose 200 days, like I was saying. That makes me start to sweat. 00:12:11 Speaker 10: The positive thing is the last time we did this hunt was four years ago or so. 00:12:15 Speaker 9: Yeah, I can do it about once every four or five years. 00:12:17 Speaker 10: We've seen more deer in the last, well, we saw more deer yesterday. 00:12:21 Speaker 9: Than we did that entire hunt. 00:12:23 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:12:23 Speaker 9: So things are looking up. 00:12:27 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:12:28 Speaker 9: You can't tell what's going on. 00:12:31 Speaker 6: We're hunting black-tailed deer in southeast Alaska, which is a weathery time of year to be up here. It usually seems every time I do this, it's like a weather issue. 00:12:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. What's fun is likely somewhere on the box of that camp stove, it says, do not use as a heating source. 00:12:50 Speaker 9: We don't count that as rain. 00:12:53 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:12:53 Speaker 9: It's just like fog. 00:12:54 Speaker 11: Becomes a problem. And you might be wondering what we're doing right now. You might be thinking, those boys ain't hunting at all. This is lunch break. 00:13:01 Speaker 6: That's why we're here. We're fixing the pack up and getting going. We stop for lunch about 1 o'clock. And we're going to get up and racing out here in the winter. 00:13:09 Speaker 8: Yeah. 00:13:10 Speaker 9: We got a long descent. 00:13:13 Speaker 11: We climbed up about 800 feet through the rainforest, and now. 00:13:23 Speaker 4: We're going down. 00:13:24 Speaker 2: You okay? Yeah. That's the report from Southeast Alaska. Cal, you've been up there. I've been up there for this thing. It always sounds like, oh, man, they're going to be rutting and running around on the beaches, and we're going to call them into our lap. it's like doesn't seem like that's the way it works maybe it's later like that later i don't know. 00:13:46 Speaker 3: Well no the people with those stories are the ones who live there full-time right and they're like oh today's a nice day yep i'm gonna yeah it's a hunt that's like not for the faint of heart um you wear rain gear all the time but you're still soaked because you're wearing rain. 00:14:03 Speaker 1: Gear all the time heavy he had heavy slicker pants on and extra tufts yes. 00:14:09 Speaker 2: Um And hiking around, like you kind of got to wear the extra tufts. But then when you start climbing around in those things, it's like, God, I hope I don't break my ankle. 00:14:17 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:14:17 Speaker 3: I put my hunting insoles in my extra tufts and that's the way to do it for sure. It's the only gives you a little more traction. The mental part too is like, if you didn't know anything about Alaska, Southeast Alaska, the ocean, it would be very different. but for folks who have spent time up there fishing, you have to, any day that isn't a good hunting day and you're out there hunting just for the extreme off chance that something good happens, you have to reconcile every step with like, this would be like another bucket of spot prawn tails. This would be, however many Dungeness crab. Exactly. Yeah. 00:15:05 Speaker 2: Cause those, those little Sitka black tails, they're tiny, man. So like, it's like one halibut, nice 50 pound halibut versus, you know, but it's cool. You're hunting in the rainforest. It's such a different hunt. 00:15:20 Speaker 1: So. Yeah. 00:15:21 Speaker 3: And then you turn the 50 pound halibut into 10 Dungeness crabs. And then, you know, it is a funny, funny deal. 00:15:29 Speaker 8: Yep. Yeah. 00:15:30 Speaker 1: And, and, Clearly they have plenty of fuel for that stove. 00:15:33 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:15:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. Because it's just ripping. Anything else on Southeast? 00:15:41 Speaker 2: I think we'll get an update here in a couple of days. 00:15:43 Speaker 1: Phil, roll that second update from Spencer Newharth, hunting mule. 00:15:48 Speaker 8: Deer in Montana. 00:15:48 Speaker 9: All right, news boys. 00:15:49 Speaker 8: I am on day three of my mule deer hunt here in Montana. The rut report is that the rut is not happening yet. I have not seen really any rutting activity yet. I think the most indicative thing is my hunt that I had last night. I was hunting the edge of a wheat field, and I had a group of 13 does come into the field, and then I had a group of 11 does, and then I had a group of five does. 00:16:14 Speaker 1: Not a single buck with them. Not a single buck showed up. 00:16:17 Speaker 8: I think if it were like three or four days from now, definitely a week from now, there would be multiple bucks out there harassing them. 00:16:24 Speaker 1: But on November 2nd, it was just not happening. 00:16:29 Speaker 3: But I did. 00:16:31 Speaker 10: Just kill this. 00:16:32 Speaker 8: Look at there. 00:16:34 Speaker 9: A western whitetail. 00:16:37 Speaker 8: I am in a spot where I've never seen a whitetail before. I've never seen a doe here. I've never seen a spike. I didn't know they lived in this place. And I shot him right over here in this draw. He was standing in there making a scrape. 00:16:49 Speaker 9: He's got this area just littered with rubs. 00:16:53 Speaker 3: That'll teach him, Spencer. Good job. 00:16:55 Speaker 9: Just a classic, mature western whitetail. 00:16:59 Speaker 8: Four by four. 00:17:00 Speaker 9: He's thick. He's got double split brows. 00:17:06 Speaker 1: I love these deer. 00:17:08 Speaker 8: Thank goodness that we got these. So I got something I can kill while the muley bucks aren't participating in the rut yet. 00:17:16 Speaker 3: Well, I was going to say, the whitetail kid hunting edges a wheat field. That's my rut report. 00:17:22 Speaker 2: You know, yeah, those whitetails can just show up anywhere, you know, just anywhere. Especially this time of year. 00:17:31 Speaker 3: This is just solid pre-rut activity. In my mind, it's pre-rut time for both still. 00:17:39 Speaker 2: I don't doubt for one bit that there was no mule deer activity going on where Spencer was. I just had a buddy in town that came up for a mule deer hunt. We had a much different experience. Every group of does we saw had a buck or two with them. Some of those bucks were following does. My buddy got like a nice three by three buck, pretty nice one. And that buck was with four does. He was like with them, with them. Not just like hanging out by them. He was like, that was his group of does. 00:18:15 Speaker 3: Tending, he was tending. 00:18:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, so these reports are all great and interesting and fun. 00:18:21 Speaker 1: They are very interesting and fun. 00:18:23 Speaker 4: Yes. 00:18:25 Speaker 2: But you kind of got, when you have like location specific rut reports, you kind of got to take them with a grain of salt because the other side of the mountains or the next river drainage over or whatever, like things could just be dead where you're at, but you go over there and things are on fire. 00:18:42 Speaker 3: Well, even I've certainly have it. I'm sure you have too, where it's like the rut activity is in the morning, right? Like it's cold. They're puffed up. And they just decide to do it. 00:18:54 Speaker 4: Yep. 00:18:55 Speaker 3: And that can happen in the middle of October sometimes. 00:18:57 Speaker 6: Yep. 00:18:58 Speaker 3: So I think there's just all these little cycles and, and obviously when you're talking about a group of animals, the bell curve is very real where you have a little intro tail where you could have some anomaly does start to produce the right pheromones. 00:19:17 Speaker 4: Yep. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: And then you hit the bulk of the belly. And then on that, exit you have these little anomalies popping up too which people call well it's the second rut or the third rut or whatever but. 00:19:30 Speaker 2: Or there's 30 does out in a whitetail and a great big giant old buck gets a burr up his ass it's like you know what i'm gonna go over there and see what's going on yeah it goes over there and maybe he stays maybe he doesn't. 00:19:43 Speaker 4: I think the most impressive thing is i was soliciting these videos last week spencer said i'll have a dead buck for you. 00:19:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, Spencer gets it done, man. He doesn't screw around. I like that, the way he hunts, man. 00:19:55 Speaker 1: That must have been public land he was on, right? I think he's got some. 00:20:00 Speaker 2: Just joking. 00:20:00 Speaker 1: Spencer's the master of the... You can be that confident when you're the master of the deer permissions. 00:20:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, his letter writing games. 00:20:07 Speaker 3: I mean. 00:20:08 Speaker 4: Very impressive. 00:20:09 Speaker 1: I know people, like I have friends of friends whose families have received letters from Spencer Newharth. 00:20:16 Speaker 4: I was sending out trapping letters and Steve sends me a picture of my letter and he said, you're on this property because I'm on this property. 00:20:29 Speaker 2: Randall, you didn't need to get permission for your bull. 00:20:33 Speaker 9: No, I didn't. 00:20:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was lucky enough to kill a bull on saturday um i hunted the opener with cory and we were uh snuggled up under a tarp yeah we had a miscommunication about who was bringing the tent so we got to our camp spot after hiking in two and a half miles and we're pulling stuff out of our packs and i said i said we agreed that you'd bring the tent right and he said i can't tell if you're joking and i said i'm not and he said But even if you were joking, you'd still say you weren't joking to make the joke funnier, right? And I said, no, I don't have a tent here. He didn't have a tent either, but I had a tarp, a little backup tarp. 00:21:16 Speaker 2: Kind of like the thing those guys were using. 00:21:18 Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. So we rode out a little bit of weather in the tarp. We got close, but the elk went the wrong way. We had a bull that was, we just needed him to step out in the open on the public side. He stepped out in the open on the private side. But then I went out on Friday afternoon and spent the afternoon glassing, just just glassing as much country as I could and found a bull slightly before dark. And actually, it was funny when I was looking at him. This this vehicle came up the road and pulled up right next to me, like five feet away from me, and they said, hey, you don't mind if we. if we share the glassing knob for a minute and glass with you, do you? And I said, no, no, not at all. Thinking that they'd then drive away, you know, and set up 30 yards away. They just put it in park. Like they could have reached out of their window and touched the can-am. And they just sat there with the engine running, glassing, you know. And there was a bull out there. Meanwhile, I have this bull, so I just turn my spotter to look at another mountain. I'm doing everything I can to not look at the bull. But every now and then taking a casual glance back around and they took off at some point. 00:22:36 Speaker 2: Never saw them. 00:22:37 Speaker 4: No. 00:22:37 Speaker 1: And I also, there was a, there was a vehicle at the trailhead to go up this drainage. And it's like, when I saw, like, I was thinking about hiking in there anyway, but I saw a vehicle at the trailhead and I said, I don't want to, you know, hike in on top of these folks because just the landscape, the way that it is. If there's someone in there, you're going to run into them. So I was waiting for them to shoot the bull, and I just watched that bull until dark, and I didn't hear a gunshot, and I watched him go into the timber, and then I drove up to the trailhead. The vehicle that was there previously was gone, so I parked the Can-Am, and I slept in the Can-Am at the trailhead because I wanted to make sure that I was the first person hiking in in the morning. 00:23:21 Speaker 2: When you say slept in the Can-Am, you're not saying, like, In the bed, like in the back? 00:23:25 Speaker 1: No, no, it's a two-seater. I guess technically a three-seater. It's like one bench and a little bed in the back. And I dropped the steering wheel as low as it would go, and I covered it with jackets and things. And then I put my feet up on that. I leaned back against the passenger door. 00:23:44 Speaker 3: That sounds horrible. 00:23:46 Speaker 4: That's terrible. 00:23:46 Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it again. I had a conversation with myself in which I said, you know, people sleep on planes all the time. How could this possibly be worse than a plane? It was, um, I did sleep. I did sleep several times, um, and then woke up in the morning and, uh, got up the hill, got up to where I wanted to be. I knew I'd be looking right at where this bull had come out the night before. And sure enough, like 15 minutes after shooting light, he, I, I saw one elk kind of starting to go into the timber, and then I saw him behind it. It was just the night before he had had a smaller bull with him, and that same morning it was the same two bulls, so then I shot him. 00:24:29 Speaker 2: Did you shoot him with a great big giant Randall gun? 00:24:33 Speaker 3: No, I didn't. 00:24:33 Speaker 1: No? 6.5 PRC. Oh, there you go. And, yeah, called Sidney, called some buddies, and called Alex Zimmer. Uh, for as long as we've had a meat eater flagship store, my wildest dream has been to interfere with its staffing by having the store boys. Three years ago, I walked into the store and there was all these strapping young lads in their twenties. And I thought, I bet they could carry out parts of elk. So sure enough, uh, Alec, Alec was supposed to work. I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm about to head into the store. And I said, do you have backup? Cause I don't. And so, yeah, I had a crew of four come down and meet me and I got the ball quartered up. So they hiked up and we got them out of there quickly before the grizzly bears came and had lunch. And yeah, when we were sitting at lunch, I realized between Sydney, Alec was the newcomer, but between Sydney and my two other buddies, collectively, they've had, I think, 10 or 11 tours of duty on five trips. different bowls of mine over the years. 00:25:43 Speaker 2: So you're spreading out some meat to that crew well not really i. 00:25:48 Speaker 1: Was just thinking about how grateful i was it was kind of you know it's it's like it's pretty fun when you get you know people people are they come out to do something that's just objectively unpleasant and like um i've killed a couple bowls solo and it's like miserable cutting them apart solo and then these people come up the hill and they're all smiling and high-fiving and hugging and. 00:26:10 Speaker 2: Uh And you suggest they take the hindquarters? 00:26:15 Speaker 1: No, I took a hind. I took a hind and the head. But yeah, it was real civilized. Sydney only carried out, I think, the backstraps, loins, and some trim. 00:26:26 Speaker 2: Nice. 00:26:26 Speaker 1: You know, so she got out of it easy. But yeah, it's just good to, you feel really lucky whenever I kill a bull elk, I'm still like, it's just, wow, I'm living out my wildest dreams here. And then good people come to help you and it's just man i have like a warm and fuzzy my cup runneth over moment whenever that happens. 00:26:47 Speaker 2: Now you got time to hunt the mule deer rut. 00:26:49 Speaker 1: That's exactly right that's exactly right once we get through this damn news. 00:26:53 Speaker 3: Show smoking tennis shoe out the door you know i was at a public glassing knob uh years ago just an after work thing right um And for all you kids out there, why, why go home and watch TV when you can. 00:27:09 Speaker 1: Go watch a mountain man. 00:27:11 Speaker 3: And, uh, I'd literally never been there before. I just knew people did it. And so I drove up there, was sitting there glassing around, you know, saw a couple of does here and there and, and, but really nothing compelling. And, uh, it was a Friday and I was like, you know, still like, where the hell am I going to hunt tomorrow? Uh, this isn't it. And, same deal. There's like two other trucks eventually roll up and sitting there, sitting there, sitting there. And just about dark, dark. Cause I was like, Oh, other people are here. I wonder if this guy comes over and he goes, so, uh, did you see him? And I was like, well, I guess I know where I'm hunting in the morning. So, but I have always thought. 00:28:04 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:28:05 Speaker 3: Of doing that to somebody else just for fun oh yeah like not seeing anything and being like so that's good. 00:28:12 Speaker 1: You saw those three. 00:28:14 Speaker 3: Big bulls did you did you see them they. 00:28:16 Speaker 1: Looked real comfortable i think one of them had a broken leg he'll be there. 00:28:18 Speaker 9: In the morning. 00:28:21 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah i. 00:28:22 Speaker 3: Gotta watch kids in the morning. 00:28:26 Speaker 1: No it's a fun it's a fun time of year it's a very fun time of year nate You've also been up to some fun. 00:28:32 Speaker 3: Yep. 00:28:33 Speaker 4: I shot a buck pretty early, mid-September with a bow. So to deal with my crippling depression, not hunting the rut, I'm running Steve's trap line while he's in Alaska. Business is booming. So we preset everything on Saturday. Sunday, the season opened. Checked traps on Monday. Day one, got a beaver, a mink, and a raccoon. Beaver was in a foothold trap on the bank den. 00:28:58 Speaker 2: That's a little beaver. 00:28:59 Speaker 4: Yeah, he's a little guy. 00:28:59 Speaker 3: I was going to say that as a very small raccoon. 00:29:02 Speaker 4: Hey, actually, that's a pretty big mink. So maybe it's throwing it off. 00:29:07 Speaker 1: And a huge cutting board. 00:29:09 Speaker 4: That is a giant cutting board. Got a mink in a pocket set and then a raccoon and coon cuff. This picture is at Steve's Bat Cave, not my kitchen counter. So hopefully no diseases were transmitted there. And then day two, we went out and got two beavers, one in a foothold, an MB750 on a caster set, and one in a 330 in a little travel corridor. Got that coon in the pocket set that got the mink the day before, and a muskrat in another 330 on a little feeding slot. So, learned a lot. 00:29:41 Speaker 1: This is your first foray into trapping. 00:29:44 Speaker 4: First time. 00:29:45 Speaker 2: He's Steve's latest. 00:29:47 Speaker 4: Minion. 00:29:48 Speaker 2: Latest absentee trapping assistant. Latest in a long line. 00:29:53 Speaker 1: How long ago did Steve... sort of nudge you and say, hey, have you ever thought about getting certified as a trapper? 00:29:59 Speaker 4: Six months when those certification courses were popping up. So I did it, and I'll tell you, it's so fun. It is like a, I've never really fished, so I don't know. It's like a treasure hunt mixed with chess, mixed with something else that's real fun. But it's so much work. I don't know with this little one at home. I don't know if trapping's in the cards for the next year or so. But till then. 00:30:26 Speaker 1: Well, just keep an eye on Steve's travel schedule. 00:30:28 Speaker 2: Save any of them beaver hams or raccoon hams? 00:30:31 Speaker 4: No, he wanted them all for bait. 00:30:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:30:34 Speaker 4: So I screwed up some of the skinning there. 00:30:38 Speaker 1: We do need some muskrats for a culinary experiment. 00:30:44 Speaker 4: Both that muskrat and mink are full. They're both in the freezer. 00:30:47 Speaker 1: Perfect. 00:30:48 Speaker 4: So if you're thinking about it. 00:30:50 Speaker 10: Man, it's fun. 00:30:51 Speaker 4: It's so fun. But you got to have a lot of time. A lot of time. 00:30:55 Speaker 1: Or people that work for you. 00:30:57 Speaker 4: Yes, or minions like myself. Yep, yep. One of those two. 00:31:01 Speaker 3: Muskrat's a pretty often eaten game. What's the interesting experiment there? 00:31:09 Speaker 1: Well, if you haven't seen, if you haven't listened to our new audio book, Meat Eaters American History of the Alaskans, we tell the story of a man named Curtis who just boiled muskrats for an hour, head down in the pot, flipped them over, Another half an hour. 00:31:25 Speaker 2: In unskinned. 00:31:27 Speaker 1: Mixed in some, no skin. 00:31:28 Speaker 3: Skin. 00:31:28 Speaker 1: Mixed in some flour. And then just did like a biscuits and gravy. 00:31:32 Speaker 7: Gravy, yeah. 00:31:33 Speaker 1: For, that was, that was three days of meals. Was 10 muskrats. 00:31:37 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:31:37 Speaker 3: That's like Never Cry Wolf. Or the, what's the. Yeah, that's the one. Where they eat the mice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:31:44 Speaker 2: It's Never Cry Wolf. 00:31:45 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:31:45 Speaker 3: That's a great one. 00:31:46 Speaker 4: I think my biggest takeaway is those minks are pungent. 00:31:50 Speaker 3: Hmm. Shockingly. 00:31:52 Speaker 4: Lovely. Yeah. Yep. 00:31:54 Speaker 1: Phil, how about we get a variation on the deer report, and we'll head out to western Kentucky for a small game report with the one and only Mr. Kevin Murphy. 00:32:06 Speaker 5: Shorty. 00:32:08 Speaker 1: I also thought this was interesting how it began with him just calling his dog for a while. 00:32:13 Speaker 3: We can scrub ahead. 00:32:15 Speaker 2: No, you know what you're getting when it's Kevin Murphy. And it's not going to be a linear narrative. 00:32:22 Speaker 7: Kevin Murphy with... Good news from the world of small game hunting. Shorty and I are out in the Clarks River bottom. We got our number two squirrel. It's been pretty tough today. 00:32:36 Speaker 1: Wind's blowing. 00:32:37 Speaker 7: It's going to get up to 33 mile an hour gust today. 00:32:41 Speaker 1: It's sunny. 00:32:42 Speaker 7: Still got about 80% foliage on the tree, so that makes it difficult hunting. Shorty had this squirrel treed. He's got another one over there. But, uh, Took me a while to find him up there with the wind blowing. Usually the tail gives away, but there's so much leaf cover, it's hard to see him whipping. 00:33:01 Speaker 1: Around out there. I looked and looked for him, and. 00:33:04 Speaker 7: Finally I was about to give up, and then he showed himself. And then I made a, I think maybe a pretty decent shot on him. Offhanded with my Taxel 22, so he's the second squirrel. 00:33:20 Speaker 3: That we've got for the morning. 00:33:23 Speaker 4: Maybe we'll get a couple more. 00:33:24 Speaker 7: I'm just kind of out exploring. It's not really an ideal day to be squirrel hunting, but I'm off from work today, so I go out and prowl around, look for some swamp rabbit sign. That's one of the best things a first can do is just go hunting when they can, and that way you get to pay more attention to maybe the trees. 00:33:45 Speaker 2: Here's a willow oak. 00:33:47 Speaker 7: Right here, that's a typical hardwood bottom tree that you see down here. It has the pinnate leaves and they look kind of like a willow tree. That's not a very fine specimen. It's been shaded out and stunted. But it looks like we're going to have a good rabbit season this year. 00:34:07 Speaker 2: We had a really. 00:34:09 Speaker 7: Dry springtime, so that gave the rabbits a chance to multiply, but we went into a really wet summertime, but I think they got a good start. 00:34:22 Speaker 3: Rabbits don't mate when it's wet. 00:34:24 Speaker 7: I watched six or seven run out of a soybean field the other day. A friend of mine wanted me to go muzzleload hunt with him. I just thought, well, I'll go over there and sit in a ground blind with him, and we just watch and see what's going on, and it was very unique to see seven cottontails run out of a soybean field. So, I'm using the Taxel 22 semi-automatic. A lot of people, their shotguns this time of year, I pretty much try to stay with rifle. 00:34:55 Speaker 3: I'm a rifleman. 00:34:58 Speaker 7: Not that I won't use a shotgun, but when I'm squirrel hunting, one thing that I've got too is a suppressor. And another tip, if you don't have a suppressor and you've got young kids, you don't have to have the tax stamp anymore. 00:35:12 Speaker 1: So. 00:35:13 Speaker 7: go and get you a suppressor. And you can just buy it like a farm. You don't have to do the big paperwork and all that. But down here in the Clarks River bottoms, 12,000 acres of hardwood made, developed mainly for migratory songbirds. And we see a lot of them. Of course, they're all gone south pretty much now for the winter. 00:35:37 Speaker 2: I know that they trapped one bird. 00:35:39 Speaker 7: It's been a few years back. 00:35:41 Speaker 1: They caught him like three times. 00:35:43 Speaker 7: He was probably going down to Central America, Costa Rica, somewhere in that neighborhood. But this is a very unique place. 00:35:51 Speaker 3: Flora and fauna, full of swamp. 00:35:53 Speaker 7: Rabbits, deer, raccoon, a few turkeys, some waterfowl. So if you get a chance, get out and get in the woods. It sure will make you feel better if you're having a bad day. 00:36:06 Speaker 2: That's good advice. 00:36:08 Speaker 3: Here's all the good news I have from. 00:36:11 Speaker 12: the world of. 00:36:12 Speaker 3: Small game hunting. Well, just the hunt when you can advice. I mean, that's not a perfect day. You're going to end up waiting a long time. 00:36:21 Speaker 1: What a philosopher. If you enjoy the poetic musings of Kevin Murphy, check out Meat Eaters season 14 out now. The first episode features Kevin and Seth. Steve takes them bobcat and small game bobcat trapping or hunting and small game hunting. In Texas. Kevin is a fan favorite. 00:36:45 Speaker 4: He's great. 00:36:45 Speaker 1: For good reason. For good reason. All right. And it's time for our news. Your news. It's time for your news, Phil. 00:36:56 Speaker 4: Ask Kevin. 00:36:57 Speaker 3: I played it. You were talking over it, Randall. 00:36:58 Speaker 4: It's fine. 00:36:59 Speaker 1: Sorry. 00:36:59 Speaker 4: No, I was just. 00:37:00 Speaker 3: I'm just letting you know so we can move the show along. And I think, guys, this show is going pretty good. 00:37:04 Speaker 1: And this is your news. Presented by Banish. As Kevin just said. It's never been easier to get a can. And boy, howdy, are they nice. Speaking as someone who shot their bull with a can, and then yesterday took someone out for a cow elk hunt who had a muzzle break. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: Were you ready for it? 00:37:27 Speaker 10: I was. 00:37:27 Speaker 1: I brought ears for everybody. But still, just like a little slap in the face every time that gun went off. 00:37:37 Speaker 4: We're going to do a quick Ask Me Anything segment. In this case, for Randall, after our full-length episode with Steve, we had some listeners write in with questions for various members of the crew. And so if you have a member or a question for a member of the crew, write in to The Meat Eater Podcast at TheMeatEater.com. In this case, we're going to ask Spencer. 00:37:58 Speaker 3: I'm sorry. 00:37:59 Speaker 4: We're going to ask Randall a couple questions. Spencer's deer hunting. Spencer's deer hunting. Spencer Ryan, the person who wrote in, asks. 00:38:08 Speaker 2: So all kinds of... Spencer, there's Ryan. 00:38:11 Speaker 4: I know. 00:38:13 Speaker 9: Let's run it back. 00:38:14 Speaker 4: We're interviewing Randall. Spencer Ryan is a listener who wrote in. And he says, Randall, as a fellow gun enthusiast, I use a Ruger Carbine. 44 mag on our deer drives. But this year I have switched to a new Marlin Big Loop. 45- 70. What's your preferred weapon for deer drives? 00:38:35 Speaker 1: I've never participated in a deer drive, so I can't speak to that. 00:38:38 Speaker 4: Really? 00:38:39 Speaker 2: You guys didn't do them in Ohio? 00:38:41 Speaker 4: You were talking about all the buckshot you got. 00:38:43 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I just have a ton of buckshot for my 10 gauge, which is probably what I'd use. But when I got that 10 gauge, I got like a case of ammo, like slugs, a lot of tungsten. Lucky guy. But in any event, I think the Marlin 45-70, I have killed deer with one. In fact, I killed three or four of my first few deer. with a Marlin 4570 down in the great state of Kentucky. But what intrigued me most about this question is his mention of the Ruger 44 Magnum carbine. If you're not familiar with it, it's a semi-automatic 44 Magnum. It looks just like the classic 10-22 with the barrel band and everything. I had one briefly. I sold it before I shot it. It had a cracked forend, and I didn't want to get into that. I sold it to a guy in December of 2020, I believe. But what I really wanted to do... Phil, if you'll play that picture. When I was working on my dissertation... I was going through some old issues of Field and Stream, and I found perhaps what is my favorite advertisement of all time. If you're a listener, you're going to want to go on YouTube and see this. It is a full-page ad from, I believe, an issue of Field and Stream in the 1960s. And it depicts a man who sort of looks like, what's the, NYPD Blue? Do you know who I'm, he looks like a, you know who I'm talking about, that actor? In any event, there's a burly man with a shirt unbuttoned all the way to his navel. And he's holding a Ruger 44 Magnum carbine. 00:40:24 Speaker 3: Is that a telegraph? Yes. That's amazing. 00:40:28 Speaker 1: And next to him is a silverback gorilla that he's killed with the 44 Magnum carbine and it's hung by its wrists like a hostage. 00:40:36 Speaker 2: It kind of looks like that gorilla is cheering for him. 00:40:39 Speaker 1: It does. The gorilla's mouth is open in sort of a grotesque expression. And then at the top of the image is a reproduction of a telegraph and it reads as oh where where did it go oh i can read it you. 00:40:57 Speaker 3: Got it this is awesome frank delano returning today after 25 day safari in gabon commissioned by los angeles county museum to collect rare lowland gorilla stop he claims it was his toughest hunt stop After weak tracking, succeeded in killing 450 to 500 pound lone gorilla. Estimated 50 to 80 years old. Stop. Delano is only American to have killed this type animal. Stop. Terrifying cry. Traveled in canoe to gorilla country with excellent trackers. stocked animal in swamps and rainforest up to chest, stop. Oh, you skipped one line that I think is great. Gorilla, very dangerous and intelligent, stop. Fast as leopard, stop. Strong as 14 men, stop. Now, we'll have to find the scientific formula that transfers gorilla strength into man strength. I assume it's something like horsepower. 00:42:06 Speaker 1: I like the idea too, that someone's like, it's as fast as leopard. And you're like, well, I have no idea how fast a gorilla is, but I have a very clear sense of how fast a leopard is. 00:42:15 Speaker 3: His trophies exhibited in Peabody Museum, stop Yale University, stop San Antonio, stop Texas Children's Museums, South Carolina and Los Angeles County Museum. 00:42:26 Speaker 1: But Cal, again, you skipped over the critical line here. Used 44 Magnum carb, Ruger 44 Magnum carbine, stop. 00:42:33 Speaker 3: So stocked animal in swamps and rainforest up to chest. 00:42:38 Speaker 1: And, and then at the bottom, at the bottom of the, uh, at the bottom of the ad, it says the Ruger 44 Magnum carbine is generally regarded as the world's finest firearm for hunting and thick cover. And it says the standard model with open sites is $ 108. Uh, I have been, I've been texting this photo whenever Something sort of tickles my brain. I've been texting this to friends over the years. It's just so bizarre. And I didn't know that I was going to show it today, but then I was reading that letter and I thought, hey, here's how I can finally tie in this Ruger ad to the news show. 00:43:17 Speaker 3: It's kind of like in high school when you legitimately thought there was part of your brain that's like, I am a hero now for killing this deer and coming home. or killing this bull and coming home. And this is the way this reads. It's like, thank God for Frank Delano. 00:43:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, so Spencer Ryan, I don't have great deer hunt, deer drive weapon advice, but Frank Delano trusted that 44 Magnum carbine when he chased a gorilla that's as strong as 14 men. So it should do just fine for your local whitetails. 00:43:55 Speaker 4: Too bad we can't take that to Nantucket. 00:43:59 Speaker 3: I think that is a great listener challenge. Nate, I'm sorry, this is unsolicited, but give us your best hunting story in, what is that? Eight lines of Western Union telegraph style. 00:44:12 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is a great segment. 00:44:15 Speaker 4: Write in The Meat Eater podcast at themeateater.com with your best hunting story. Eight lines. 00:44:22 Speaker 2: Subject line telegraph. 00:44:23 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:44:25 Speaker 4: And we'll read them out. Yep. 00:44:26 Speaker 3: Diesel fuel, $ 8 a gallon. Stop. Hunted very close to home. Stop. 00:44:37 Speaker 5: All right. 00:44:38 Speaker 4: On to the next question. This comes in from Evan. I really enjoyed your segment on hunting in Austria from episode 923. What would you bring from the Austrian hunting European culture to the U.S. 00:44:51 Speaker 1: Man, this one is tough because I can't say that I am You know, if you came, if you were foreign and you came over here to hunt for 10 days, your impression of hunting in America would in large part depend on who you went hunting with. Be like, oh man, hunting in America is awesome. You backpack into these vast wilderness areas and they're full of game. 00:45:16 Speaker 3: And our guide, Corey, was very knowledgeable. 00:45:18 Speaker 1: And our guide, Corey, is very knowledgeable. He's a great voice actor. Or you could end up somewhere where you know, you're sitting in a box blind and shooting deer over a pile of corn, or you end up, you know, like, I don't want to generalize. So at first, I just want to preface this by saying my experience was very specific. I was hunting with two guys who were phenomenal and their families were just phenomenal hosts. And I bring the people here for sure. I do think it's the licensing aspect of it is pretty cool. Like, There's obviously a double-edged sword. In Austria, you have to do a lot of hunter ed to get your license. It's a much higher barrier to entry. So on the whole, your average hunter is much more knowledgeable about conservation and about tracking and about recovering game and about the laws and all that stuff. And that's really appealing to me. On the other hand, it keeps people out of hunting. So I don't know that there's like a perfect... Middle ground. The really interesting thing is fishing is similar. So like the guys I was hunting with, they're like, man, someday I'd love to get a fishing license. 00:46:32 Speaker 4: Me too. 00:46:32 Speaker 1: And I'm like, here in the US, they're practically begging you to just go buy a fishing license even if you have no intention of fishing, right? But there he's like, yeah, I need to set aside some time, go through all the coursework and everything to get my fishing license. So I don't know. what would I bring? 00:46:52 Speaker 3: Um, what about the varieties of dark beer? 00:46:58 Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. 00:46:59 Speaker 1: I mean the beer and the culture, I mean, it was. 00:47:01 Speaker 2: It was alcohol and hunting. It's a good mix. 00:47:03 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:47:04 Speaker 3: Hey, after a nice long hunt, warming up next to the fire, having, I mean, we have no good dark beer in America anymore. 00:47:15 Speaker 2: What about this though? Randall, you took game, that freshly killed game into a restaurant and said, cook this for me. 00:47:23 Speaker 1: That was very cool. That was very cool. You know, another thing about it was, at least the guys I was hunting with and other people we encountered, it was kind of like the Kevin Murphy attitude. It was like, you go out and you're hunting, and you might end up with a big buck or a little buck or whatever, but you're out in the field hunting, You know, you call the deer in, you make a good shot. And regardless of how big that deer was, at least in my experience, and you show it to people or whatever, you know, people ask you how your hunt was like, it was very focused on the experience and just being out there. And I feel like those guys, again, it's like anecdotal, but those guys were just so very appreciative of the opportunity to be out in the field. And they're also very aware that, you know, not everybody over there has that opportunity. There's just a lot of gratitude involved in it that, you know, like it's easy, especially around here. You're like looking at people who aren't in the office and they're out hunting, you know, and who got a big buck and who got a big buck there and who's got what tags or whatever. And there I, the impression I got from my very limited experience was, it's just like. 00:48:42 Speaker 2: They don't take it for granted. 00:48:44 Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's like Kevin Murphy, like any day you can go out and hunt. It's just fantastic. Yeah. So. 00:48:52 Speaker 4: I like the idea of always having a dog with you when you're deer hunting. 00:48:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was cool too. That was cool too. And like a real, a real boost of confidence. We didn't have any situations where we needed to track anything, obviously, but like to just have a tracking dog there with you. Because that's obviously like the worst case scenario in your mind is you run up to where you hit a deer and you're scratching your head. Um, so yeah, there's a lot, man. There's a lot. And I'm excited to have that. Those episodes come together. 00:49:25 Speaker 4: That's great. 00:49:25 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:49:27 Speaker 4: Third one. If Phil, you can pull up the photo. 00:49:29 Speaker 1: This is great. 00:49:31 Speaker 4: It is a few weeks back. We, we went back and forth on doctor's notes and this is one we sent out to Alonzo. Not a question, but just a thank you for sending a doctor's note. And this is a photo of Alonzo on the right, handing our signed doctor's note by Dr. Randall and honorary Dr. Steve to his trigonometry professor. 00:49:51 Speaker 1: Hopefully there's more people out there doing this. I mean, it delights me to no end that Alonzo actually took our fake doctor's note and gave it to someone else. with a position of authority. 00:50:03 Speaker 3: Well, it's a real doctor. 00:50:05 Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah. 00:50:05 Speaker 4: I mean, if. 00:50:07 Speaker 3: Medical doctor? No. 00:50:09 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:50:10 Speaker 1: He's handing it to a professor. So if anybody's going to... If anybody's going to respect the credentials, it should be this guy. 00:50:16 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:50:17 Speaker 1: But he does look skeptical. He's holding his eyeglasses as if to apply an additional degree of skepticism to this. But Alonzo has a big shit-eating grin on his face and a big thumbs up, so... This is wonderful. This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing, Alonzo. 00:50:34 Speaker 4: All right. If you have any questions for a member of the crew or a telegraph-ready hunting story, write in to The Meat Eater Podcast at TheMeatEater.com. Thanks, Randall. 00:50:47 Speaker 1: Thank you, Nate. Now on to the news. Now, Giannis... It's very applicable here to be talking about this on the news show because he's hunting a newsworthy buck and he's going to give us a twofer. His results in Kansas and his outlook, his preview for his upcoming Wisconsin hunt. 00:51:16 Speaker 3: There's a great millennial pause from Giannis here, so I'll just let that play. 00:51:22 Speaker 2: Good morning, gentlemen. 00:51:26 Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on today. 00:51:28 Speaker 1: Sounds like he's addressing the nation. 00:51:29 Speaker 10: We're reporting to you from Kansas, but I'm going to give you two states for the price of one today. I've just spent 10 days in Kansas hunting with my bow, trying to kill a buck that would land somewhere between. 00:51:44 Speaker 9: Two of these. 00:51:44 Speaker 4: A large buck and a very large buck. 00:51:46 Speaker 9: I've got trail cam pictures of him. Unfortunately, all the pictures of. 00:51:50 Speaker 10: Him have been at nighttime. 00:51:52 Speaker 3: The highs here have. 00:51:54 Speaker 10: Been between 70 and 80 degrees, and we've had little to no daylight activity. Rhett and I hunted for nine of these days and I think we counted nine deer total that we saw from the stand and seven of those nine days we sat dawn to dusk. So we put the effort in but it has just been slow and that's what we saw, that's what the cameras were seeing I spoke with an outfitter a couple days ago. 00:52:24 Speaker 3: Put the effort in. Required to sit in the spot. 00:52:27 Speaker 10: Last week of October here in Kansas was the worst hunting he's seen that week in his entire career as an outfitter. So that's how it goes sometimes. It got cool today. It was rainy, but I did see a small forking horn on his feet at 3 p.m., and we had a probably two- or three-year-old buck on a camera around 530, which is half an hour before dark. So I've got one day left tomorrow. I'm hoping to make something happen. Now, this is how you get two states for the price of one. My cameras in Wisconsin, which I've probably got two dozen, literally, Moultrie trail cameras set up in Wisconsin. They have been blowing up the last week. I've been running cameras up there for five years now. And I would say that this is the best camera activity I've ever seen in a single week in Wisconsin. Um, it was cool the last week of October and I mean, they were just going bananas every day. Um, daylight activity. Um, I've already had a bowl, a dough, yeah, excuse me. I've already had a buck locked down on a dough for an entire day. They, daylighted on the same camera three different times that was two days ago um so that must have been maybe the first of november. 00:53:57 Speaker 3: It's whitetail and go there. 00:53:59 Speaker 10: Daylighted yeah they make up right now it's a little bit rainy but uh i'm heading there on thursday because friday the high is going to be 45 and it's going to be clear and cold and again i'm expecting good hunting then and the good hunting to continue so um yeah that's my report um From Kansas and Wisconsin. I've got the seat equity put in here in Kansas. I just needed to pay its dividends now. 00:54:31 Speaker 3: Thanks, guys. See, that's the problem with going to places where they don't allow you to walk around. It's like all the tools at your disposal are picking a tree and sitting there all day. 00:54:47 Speaker 2: Versus Finding the sign where they are. 00:54:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, and being like, I'm running low on time. I need to start doing some still hunting and change things up. 00:55:00 Speaker 1: Giannis looks worn out. 00:55:01 Speaker 4: Well, if you pull up that picture, Phil, there's a reason they sat nine days in there. That's that buck they've been hunting. 00:55:08 Speaker 2: And that's a feeder back there? 00:55:12 Speaker 4: Big old feeder. Kansas Moby feeder. 00:55:14 Speaker 8: 3.52 a.m. 00:55:18 Speaker 4: Not daylight. 00:55:19 Speaker 1: Not daylight. Boy, that's a tanker. Yeah, I'm a little worried about Giannis. He seems like he's a bit run down. Hasn't been shaving. 00:55:27 Speaker 4: A little bit. 00:55:30 Speaker 1: Hopefully Wisconsin's kind to him. 00:55:32 Speaker 4: Yeah, spoiler, he didn't kill that buck. 00:55:35 Speaker 2: I think he'll be okay. 00:55:37 Speaker 1: All right. Now for the moment everyone's been waiting for. Ryan Cal Callaghan. 00:55:46 Speaker 3: Oh, well, that's quite the buildup. 00:55:46 Speaker 1: You have something to get off your chest. 00:55:49 Speaker 3: I mean, this is just a public service announcement. So we've covered ad nauseum Executive Order 14408, removing unnecessary and counterproductive restrictions on access to federal lands, which directly targets travel management plans, like how we designate roads and trails for what type of travel, anything from foot and hoof to... in this case, fixed-wing aircraft and everything in between. That executive order did what a lot of executive orders have done here in the last two years, which is make big statements, and then if you get down to the fine print, it says nothing changes as long as there's a travel management plan in place. That is the law of the land. Where you can go, when, and with what. We've certainly talked about this before, but there is an increase in illegal, true off-road, off-trail, cross-country travel activity, as well as destruction of signage and gates on our public lands across the Forest Service system. So I went out and dug up some photos right here in. 00:57:10 Speaker 3: Uh, our surrounding national for us of illegal activity, uh, that we're talking about. Phil, do you have some pictures up here? Just buzz through them real quick. So, uh, here is a seasonal closure on a road and somebody, uh, rammed through this gate and broke it. And this is a gate that we all pay for. And, uh, the seasonal closure, the travel management plan here that has this seasonal closure. Um, that is something that we all participated in as a public process as well. 00:57:40 Speaker 2: Um, and there's often very good reasons for these seasonal closures, like, you know, protecting elk calving grounds or whatever it might be. 00:57:50 Speaker 3: Let's just pretend we're a bunch of hunters listening to this show. Right. 00:57:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:57:54 Speaker 3: Um, these are your friends. 00:57:56 Speaker 4: Yep. 00:57:57 Speaker 3: Like the reason that you can come up to these areas and consistently see elk, uh, and have that feeling of opportunity is is because of the travel management plan. Next one, Phil. This is a user created road, and this is really important because also right now, the public comment period has ended for this, but the USDA has said that we're gonna revise the travel management rule. And the travel management rule addresses a bunch of things, but it essentially sets the guard rails for how we create travel. 00:58:37 Speaker 2: Does it address these lazy asses here? 00:58:39 Speaker 3: Uh, so this is a user created road. This is illegal off road use. Um, this one is another seasonal closure. Uh, and you can also see the sign here that says, uh, 50 inches or less, uh, which is another type of restriction, uh, but you can see the dates here. Like this is a closed road with fresh tracks on it. So illegal motorized use. And that previous one, the user created road, one of the things that the USDA has said is they wanna look at all of these roads, every single road, versus just the legal roads that exist on maps all of these user-created roads and add all of them to the inventory. And one of the hard things is we don't have the personnel, the staff, or the cash to maintain these roads as is. And I can get into the numbers of that too. 00:59:49 Speaker 2: And no longer have the staff to enforce illegal off-roadings. 00:59:53 Speaker 3: Well, and that's where we as users need to help out here. So this is another example here of you have a legal trail, a designated trail, and you have a bunch of knuckleheads right here. You can see them not using the designated route and has created this very braided trail And what this does, right, is it spreads noxious weeds, invasive grasses outside of the single trail zone. It creates all these routes that funnels runoff and creates more erosion, less feed for our public land grazers, less feed for public wildlife and visually extremely unappealing. 01:00:45 Speaker 5: Right. 01:00:47 Speaker 3: This is another simpler version of the same thing. Illegal trail cutting. This will also channelize that runoff, create erosion, diminish feed, spread noxious weeds. And this person just couldn't stomach staying on the trail, even though they're on a motorized vehicle, to just follow the trail. 01:01:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, you see this often when there's a switchback and they just cut the switchback. 01:01:14 Speaker 3: Yep. Um, I'm not sure if we have any thing else. Yeah. So, um, big thing here is it is hunting season. These pictures are taken during hunting season and everybody out there is going to assume hunters are out here breaking the laws and breaking the rules. And, uh, we need to understand that there are travel management rules in place. Those travel management rules, um, are what keep public wildlife on public lands during hunting season. Um, all of the available science, which happens to be paid for in large part by hunters say where, uh, motorized things go and how many of them go there and how fast directly correlates to how long public wildlife stay in areas. 01:02:06 Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 01:02:07 Speaker 3: Um, and that's kind of the simplest way I can put it. I can rattle off a bunch of, um, you know, a bunch of the study names, uh, of which there are many. Um, and, uh, in this travel management rule revision, um, there's a bunch of fun things. And just for, you know, popular culture sake, uh, if you have not seen the season 29 premiere of South Park, titled South American Biker Gangs. They do a phenomenal job of tackling one of the interesting things in the travel management rule revision, which is expanded use of e-bikes, specifically class one e-bikes. And our good friends over there at South Park, who I'm sure are, you know, licensed hunters and anglers, tackle one of the big issues with class whatever e-bikes, which is there is no regulatory body out there that says this bike is a class whatever and there's no way to enforce that. 01:03:15 Speaker 2: So meaning it hasn't been decided if they're motorized vehicles. 01:03:18 Speaker 3: Or not well that's a whole separate issue that's a separate thing yep but the class one class two class three was supposed to essentially say how fast something can go right um or that something goes and um So, you know, one of the things that we've been discussing with the USDA is like, hey, before you expand use for class whatever e-bikes, you should be aware that the manufacturers haven't decided what a class one e-bike is. The writing groups haven't decided where the class one e-bike is. And right now you can have something that's called the class one e-bike that goes 30 miles an hour. And that's just, you know, one in a long list of, things that we need to be aware of because it will directly correlate to the opportunity that we have regarding hunting and angling on our public lands um and that's a big deal to me so uh and i don't like this that it even exists i don't think it should exist but we at backcountry hunters and anglers have an illegal motorized use program uh we offer you. 01:04:28 Speaker 1: Should clarify that you have an Illegal motorized use reporting program. Yeah. Yeah. 01:04:35 Speaker 2: Not a how to. 01:04:37 Speaker 3: Everybody knows how to. 01:04:40 Speaker 1: We have a poaching program. 01:04:41 Speaker 3: But basically, if you provide the information that leads to a citation of illegal motorized use on our public lands, we'll kick you a $ 500 reward. And the reason that I don't want this, don't like it, and don't want it to exist, is it shouldn't. We love our public lands. They're full of amazing adventures and opportunities and our system of rules and regulations allow for those opportunities. And we need to be stewards of these resources if we want those opportunities to be repeatable and something that we can count on and pass on, of course, to the next generation. So you can go to backcountryhunters.org and look at that motorized, that illegal motorized uh, uh, reward program. How would you say it? Randall? 01:05:35 Speaker 4: You say it. 01:05:36 Speaker 1: I would, I would just not call it an E an illegal motorized use program. 01:05:41 Speaker 2: It's kind of like a tip poaching tips. 01:05:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. Like that's what it is. 01:05:45 Speaker 1: Tip line versus just like a poaching tip. 01:05:48 Speaker 2: Um, can I add something here? 01:05:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it. 01:05:51 Speaker 4: It's important. 01:05:51 Speaker 2: Um, We're not like, you're not attacking legal off-road use in any way, shape or form, right? 01:05:58 Speaker 3: Like- In fact, if this would be protecting legal off-road use. 01:06:03 Speaker 2: Exactly. 01:06:04 Speaker 1: Well, let's also clarify something. Like for the most part, when we're talking about off-road vehicles, we're talking about using off-road vehicles on, that's just what they're called, but you're using them on roads or established routes, right? 01:06:16 Speaker 3: So if you go to any of the off-road groups- Yeah. they define off road as anything off of pavement tires off of pavement. 01:06:25 Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you're just driving wherever you want. 01:06:28 Speaker 3: Correct. 01:06:28 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:06:29 Speaker 1: And if it's an. 01:06:30 Speaker 2: Open road to trucks, four wheelers, whatever. 01:06:34 Speaker 3: You are an off-roader. 01:06:35 Speaker 2: Like you're an off-roader, but you're, you're allowed to be there. 01:06:39 Speaker 12: Yes. 01:06:40 Speaker 2: Um, and we're not in any way attacking that practice at all. Hunters use that practice all the time. Um, It's just the bad eggs that leave those legal routes. 01:06:52 Speaker 1: It's like poaching and hunting, right? Just because you use an off-road vehicle doesn't mean you're tearing up trails. But there's an assumption that when people see torn up, newly established roads where there shouldn't be roads and all that stuff, it's like the blame gets lumped on one party. And I think... I'm always surprised when I talk to folks. It's obviously... it's obviously like can be confusing. It's a complicated process, but I'm surprised how many hunters out there are not as familiar as they should be with travel management plans, right? Like people need to educate themselves on where they can go and when, and with what type of vehicle. 01:07:36 Speaker 3: And just like our example right there, you have a trail head that's properly posted. It's got the seasonal closures and there's not a turnstile and a gate and all these things. A, it costs the American taxpayers way more money. B, it's restrictive to the legal users of that trail during that time system, right? It is like, these are our public lands and there's like this idea that we're responsible enough humans to go out there and steward them ourselves. And that's a great example. It's like, Here is the law. Just follow it. 01:08:15 Speaker 1: And I think it's easy for some people. They get to a place where they're not supposed to drive past it, but they see that physically they can. And they're like, oh, go another two miles down this road. It's going to save me some time. It's going to save me some heavy pack-out heartache. 01:08:34 Speaker 3: Sure. 01:08:35 Speaker 1: But it's the same as following the game laws. You've got to follow the rules no matter who's watching because... Ultimately, the consequences for everybody. 01:08:44 Speaker 2: And I think it's important, and Cal kind of got to this earlier, this isn't all on hunters, right? Like, people might assume it is, but man, if I was a betting man, a hunter didn't drive through that gate. blow through that gate would be my guess. I can't say that for sure, but I'll bet you it wasn't a hunter. 01:09:05 Speaker 3: Oh man, gates are good friends. 01:09:08 Speaker 5: Yeah. 01:09:09 Speaker 3: Good friends to hunters. And the reason is this, 88 million acres of Forest Service land outside of Capitol W Wilderness, is within a half a mile of a motorized road. And that does not include the motorized trails. 01:09:29 Speaker 4: Right. 01:09:30 Speaker 3: Within half a mile of a motorized road. There's 259,000 miles of motorized roads on Forest Service land. Idaho, about 20,011 miles. Montana, 19,038. New Mexico, 11,810. Utah, 10,231. These are full-size vehicle roads. 15,695 miles of full-size vehicle road in Colorado's U.S. Forest Service system. And then again, you know, all like Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, if you are a member of which I am, We have all paid for all of these studies that show the direct correlation of how and why and when elk move on our public lands in relation to motorized travel. And that's how a lot of these travel management plans were built in part. Elk responses to humans in a densely eroded area. Elk responses to trail-based recreation on public forests. Effects of road management on movement and survival of Roosevelt elk. Identifying migration corridors of mule deer threatened by highway development. The list goes on and on and on. And it's like... It's very hard at the end of the season to survey hunters out there on the landscape and say... would you like to see more access to the areas that you were hunting in terms of full-size vehicles? And the response is just not going to be yes. 01:11:29 Speaker 2: Right. 01:11:31 Speaker 1: So big takeaway, follow the rules. Tell your buddies to follow the rules. If you see something, say something and earn yourself a little cash on the side. A little side hustle reporting off illegal off-road vehicles. 01:11:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, put some more cash in that fuel tank. 01:11:52 Speaker 8: All righty. 01:11:53 Speaker 1: We've got yet another deer report. Deer report number five coming to us from Missouri. It's the one and only Mr. Brent Reeves. 01:12:04 Speaker 12: I just got into central Missouri yesterday evening. I left Yanni up in Kansas to hunt yesterday afternoon, and today I didn't give you. 01:12:13 Speaker 9: The report on what we saw up there. 01:12:16 Speaker 1: Nothing. 01:12:16 Speaker 12: But I got down here, a lot of rain this morning. I haven't even been out to make a set yet. Rutten activity here from all reports is starting to pick up, but still. 01:12:28 Speaker 8: It is warm. 01:12:30 Speaker 12: And for the love of humanity, can we not get a cold front? Now, this rain, I'm in a patch of not rain right now. 01:12:38 Speaker 2: It's holding off. 01:12:39 Speaker 12: There'll be another one come through mid-morning, and I'm fixing to get out, get a set, put up. I brought old Dave Smith decoy with me. Yanni and I had a little success with that, had some interaction with a couple of bucks that we rattled in in Kansas, but I'm gonna try that here. I haven't had a camera out, so I'm actually going into this place blind, but it's a place that I've hunted before and was this close to getting a good one last year who's still walking around out there. So I'll be bow hunting from a saddle, Central Missouri. Hopefully I won't get rained on this afternoon, but I'm looking forward to getting in, getting out there after holding a camera for eight days with Yanni. It's nice to be holding a boat for the rest of this week here in Missouri. 01:13:33 Speaker 1: Hopefully we can get it done, but. 01:13:35 Speaker 12: Temperatures are supposed to start creeping downward, which is going to be good, hopefully, but You know, the deer, they can't fight that genetic code. They've got to get out there and do their thing. And the only way to catch them doing it is to be in the tree when they are. 01:13:51 Speaker 9: So good luck to everybody. 01:13:52 Speaker 12: That is your rut report for Brent here in central Missouri. 01:13:58 Speaker 4: Y'all ever hunted over a decoy, a deer decoy? 01:14:01 Speaker 3: Negative. 01:14:02 Speaker 4: It's so fun. When it works, it's so fun. 01:14:05 Speaker 1: I want to put one in. in the backyard to try to draw some bucks off the neighbors. I, I lied. 01:14:10 Speaker 3: So we had some, the old outfitter I worked for, he was a master of garage sales in the summer. Right. And he got the, um, the cloth, like the old Montana decoy cloth, uh, white tail deer decoys. And I used to go out and set our camp up and get everything cleaned up during archery season. Um, and would, hunt the mornings and evenings, right? It was amazing time of life. And I was, I dug this whitetail decoy out and, and put it out and, uh, came to the conclusion that it smelled so strongly of the old outfitters nicotine that it was largely, uh, an any animal deterrent. 01:15:05 Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. 01:15:05 Speaker 3: But that was my experience hunting. 01:15:08 Speaker 1: Like you'd put that thing out there in the fifties and sixties, man. 01:15:12 Speaker 3: Cause they won't. Yeah. 01:15:13 Speaker 1: Cause in the fifties and sixties, it seemed like everybody lit cigarettes were a buck attracting. 01:15:17 Speaker 9: Yeah. 01:15:17 Speaker 8: Yeah. 01:15:18 Speaker 3: But yeah. So the, the deer would see this thing in the, in the field and then they'd swing around to the down wind side of it. And they'd be like, Oh, that smelled, smells like, uh, what the hell was it? Prince, Prince, uh, No, he rolled his own cigarettes. 01:15:37 Speaker 1: Prince Albert? 01:15:38 Speaker 3: Prince Albert, I guess. 01:15:39 Speaker 1: Prince Albert in a can? 01:15:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Yep. 01:15:44 Speaker 4: We were using that, one of those hollow ones. It's a packing in that morning. You just like, you touch a tree and it sounded like a snare drum. And I was thinking to myself, there's no way this is going to work. And so we both set up on it, kind of, you know, we kind of had the cone of death. And we had three, but we almost doubled up. When I shot mine, it crashed maybe 40 yards away. And that brought in another buck who thought that it was our decoy messing around. He just didn't give my buddy a shot. That was the most fun day of deer hunt I've ever had. Heck yeah. 01:16:20 Speaker 3: Good to see that interaction. 01:16:23 Speaker 1: And we've got one final deer report for you here. Mark Kenyon, who just wrapped up his North Michigan archery hunt. Phil, roll that tape. 01:16:35 Speaker 5: Hey guys, coming to you, uh, on my way back from my rut hunt in Northern Michigan, chasing white tails with my bow. And, uh, you know, the conditions I was experiencing from a deer activity perspective were ramping up more and more does. 01:16:53 Speaker 4: Beginning to come into heat. 01:16:56 Speaker 5: So the rut was definitely starting to ramp up. I was seeing a lot of bucks cruising and some chasing happening. But the weather conditions were not ideal. 01:17:06 Speaker 4: We had kind of. 01:17:08 Speaker 5: Mid 60s for the highs on much of that trip, which especially in northern Michigan is not what you want this time of the year. And now as you can maybe hear and see in the window behind me, rain too, which. 01:17:21 Speaker 4: Definitely, you know, adds some challenges to it. 01:17:24 Speaker 5: But all that said, you know, saw a lot of good stuff, had. 01:17:27 Speaker 1: A lot of great encounters. 01:17:28 Speaker 5: And my big takeaway, my lesson learned, or I guess thing that this trip has left me thinking about. 01:17:34 Speaker 3: He looks like he's been hunting that night a lot. 01:17:37 Speaker 4: Beyond just that activity that I was seeing. 01:17:39 Speaker 5: Starting to ramp up and that should continue to ramp up over the next, you know, seven to 10 days. It was this idea of balance and, you know, making good decisions in the moment, which during the rut is especially hard because during the rut, We've got really high expectations and maybe we're putting pressure on ourselves because this is supposed to be the Super Bowl of the whitetail season. This is when it's supposed to happen. So you put some extra pressure on yourself. And then also in the moment, deer action, deer encounters, all of that is happening fast. Many times there's chasing or there's a buck all of a sudden showing up or there's a fight or there's all these different things that you know, during the rut just seemed to happen on steroids and happened, you know, kind of fast forward. 01:18:25 Speaker 1: And I experienced that. 01:18:26 Speaker 5: I had a really, really close call with the number one buck I was after, this one big, heavy bodied, mature buck that was just a terrific buck from Northern Michigan. He came in and did exactly what I wanted him to do in this setup. And in this area I was hunting, it's big woods, swampy terrain. This is not like your standard Midwest farm ground where there's Very clear funnel. and small pinch points and stuff like that. 01:18:53 Speaker 4: This is all cover. 01:18:55 Speaker 5: And so the only kind of concentration of deer movement for the rut that I could find in this area was where a bunch of different cover types come together. And so when you have those edges that creates a line of movement. So I had a bunch of different edges all coming together in one spot, a swamp, an old clear cut, a hemlock, which is like kind of evergreen tree stand and a cut pipeline. All of this came together in this one spot. So there's all these lines of movement all converging. And so that's where I was hunting. And this buck, I was, I was hoping he would do what I had seen the sign tell me he was doing and what my trail camera photos were showing me he was doing at times. which is coming down that pipeline, coming down one of those edges. 01:19:35 Speaker 1: And he did that. 01:19:37 Speaker 5: The downside was that he came through an area where I did not. 01:19:43 Speaker 4: Have a shooting lane. 01:19:44 Speaker 5: I had a spot where maybe I could have forced a shot and one other spot where maybe I could have forced a shot. 01:19:48 Speaker 1: A little bit of heartbreak coming to us from a rainy truck stop. 01:19:52 Speaker 4: That's hard, man. 01:19:53 Speaker 2: A lot of hunters excited about that rut, but it seems like it's letting them down a little bit. 01:19:59 Speaker 3: Well, the problem is it's so early. 01:20:01 Speaker 4: Yes. 01:20:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. 01:20:02 Speaker 5: It's early. 01:20:03 Speaker 3: Picking dates, right, is hard. 01:20:05 Speaker 5: Yep. 01:20:06 Speaker 4: But it looks like we got some cold weather coming in. 01:20:09 Speaker 3: Is that true? I keep looking at 10-day forecasts. 01:20:12 Speaker 1: I'm like, oh. 01:20:12 Speaker 4: I'm always skeptical of 10-day forecasts, but a boy can dream. 01:20:17 Speaker 2: You're talking about here? 01:20:19 Speaker 4: No, across the north. 01:20:22 Speaker 1: Well, let's hope so. 01:20:25 Speaker 4: Either way. They're going to be chasing. 01:20:27 Speaker 2: You know what they say, when it's the rut, you just got to be out there all day. Anything can happen. 01:20:31 Speaker 1: Well, it's, I mean, it's hunting season. 01:20:33 Speaker 3: And remember, strap yourself to a tree. 01:20:36 Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm going to follow, uh, I'm going to follow Kevin Murphy's advice here. 01:20:44 Speaker 3: Hunt when you can. 01:20:45 Speaker 1: Hunt when you can. 01:20:46 Speaker 7: Yes. 01:20:46 Speaker 1: It's hunting season. Uh, You know, obviously we can't hunt when we're sitting here hosting the new show, but I'm going to hunt when I can, and I'm going to make the most of. 01:20:55 Speaker 2: The next couple weeks. Weather, moon, all that stuff be damned. 01:20:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, if you wait for the ideal conditions, you might sit out a couple seasons. 01:21:03 Speaker 3: Neck strength and ability to regulate body temperature of a five-month-old child. Don't let that be a deterrent. 01:21:13 Speaker 1: All righty. Well, guys, this was fun. Listeners, Viewers on YouTube, thanks for tuning in. This was yet another episode of the news show. We'll see you here next week. 01:21:26 Speaker 4: Good night.