Ep. 486: Steve Finally Gets a Giant Moose

Steven Rinella talks to Clay Newcomb, Dirt Myth, and Seth Morris. 

Topics discussed: At long last it’s here–watch MeatEater’s Season 12 now; our new “Complain About Dirt Myth Hotline’; audience edits on Steve’s saying about beans; Dirt and Clay; come out for MeatEater’s Live Tour kicking off in December 2023; write us and send your photo to [e-mail] with ‘TRAIL CAM MYSTERIES’ in the subject line; Clay’s “skill” at detecting American black panther prints; the Dirty Dozen 2024 calendar; Steve’s elk in the Yellowstone National Park buffer zone; the unanswerable riddle of why a raccoon and squirrel would run up the same tree; prioritizing opportunity over quality; how everyone beats Steve at ping pong; the 16.5 species that Steve, Kimi, and Cam speared in the Bahamas episode; the epic wetsuit black bear hunt; calling a moose in from two miles away; how a moose grunt sounds like the noise you make when you get a nut tap in the brush; the Champagne Supernova bull; and more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
You can't predict anything.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every
hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light
dot com, f I R S T L I T
E dot com. I'm gonna have Krin set up a

(00:41):
complaint hotline where people could complain about dirt myth.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh whoa, let me tell you why.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's be a short list.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Man, we.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
What what?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
What do you doing? What do you got going on
with the chest?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so our plan? A year ago, a year ago
to almost to the to the t we recorded an
episode traveling down the highway in Alaska in a van.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Mm hmm, great.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Episode, great episode.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, a lot of energy, Yeah, a lot of energy.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Great episode, little road trip. Very successful. I know this
is a very successful episode. Some people say the most
successful episode. Really podcast, I'm trying to make it seem
like you know, I'm really kind of like trying to
build up so people get extra mad at Dirt. The
plan was, we're gonna do that the same thing, the

(01:43):
second annual, same stretch of highway, same time of year show.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Uh well we.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Get just getting ready to do it, and now a
little complication. The meantime is now we launched these episodes.
These episodes are available on YouTube video.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
An old Dirt can't do myth, it's never been men
says that it can't be done.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It can be done with what we got going on?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
What do you button into?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
This forces the senator record straight.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I've been watching driving scenes since Strange Brew.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
With a lot of gear behind that scene.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
There's a driving scene in Strange Brew. I've been watching
driving scenes since I was a little kid.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Scooby Doo cartoon man.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, okay, never mind that example, Hazard Dukes of Hazzard.
I've been watching driving scenes my whole life. Somehow, Dirt
says they can't be made.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Not in our set, not with the equipment that we have.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
So we're stuck filming. Not that I have any problem
with this. We're in a little bunk house.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Pretty cool mm hmm. Airplanes fly around.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Static.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
We're gonna make We're gonna make do a lot of
listeners know that the reason you're not getting served up
another phenomenal mediator podcast, Van Life, episode Part two is
because of dirt.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
You'd get carsick if you watch that episode, it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Would be a little bouncy.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't think that's fair because I don't.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Mean if we told people where we're at, like the
general vicinity of the planet Earth, we're in eastern Alaska. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
No, I just think that it's not fair to blame
that on dirt, that this podcast isn't happening in a
vein because of him.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
But what do you think the problem.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
Is, Well, there's a lot more that would have to
go into it to be able to film that. Yeah,
there would have to be special camera rigs set up and.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Send your complaints to h.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
H okay, a lot of feedback. You were you there?
You know you weren't there. We interviewed the esteemed historian
Elliott West.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
No there. It was a great episode.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
On that episode, I debuted an old saying I came
up with I'm trying to like get an old saying going,
like I made one up. Well, I made up saying.
It's new, but it's like an old saying. And it
was what prompted it was like, if you tell your
kids to go out and pick the pole beans.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
And they you'd be like, well, how many do I pick?
I might pick all of them, put them all.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
They'll come in and be like I picked them all,
and you go out there and look and they didn't
get them all. No way, Or you'd say someone's like
I'll go pick strawberries. I'm like, pick them all and
they go dig around on the strawberry bad and then
you go, look, they didn't get them all.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
So my old saying I came up with is a
fresh set of eyes will.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Always find more beans. And I'm like trying to get
it going. I'll use that people don't like it, I'll
prostalyze that what people just the family.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
People wrote in. My wife doesn't like it. She thinks stupid.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
That's important.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Phil says, it's got no like, it doesn't roll off
the tongue.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
I mean it could be helpful though, because a lot
of human life is spent looking for lost stuff. I
mean a fair I'd say twenty percent of life. People
wrote in with some edits.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah Saint Anthony, remember we talked about this, say that St.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Anthony deal stuff at camp.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, it's dirt knows this. Yeah, Saint Anthony, say Anthony,
police come around, something's been lost and cannot be found.
And then at a bam and say that while you're
looking for something, you find it.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, and that's a that's a that's a Catholic saying.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
And Clay mentioned that he goes right to the big
he goes straight to the bottle.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, he cuts, he circumvents, he goes around, cuts around
the middleman.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, that's right. Some edits came in. It's getting better.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
So what I'll say is it has applicability and find
And somebody even pointed out for sure, like even be
encounters has ability in finance, like like you're looking for
your deductions, you know, look at tax time you're.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Looking for it's always But what about that new wall
that you bought, You carry you work stuff in that wall.
That's a business expense.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Count that beans, so fresh set of eyes will always
find more beans. I thought it had a lot of
broad He thought it had applicability in glassing. Someone's like, no,
a glass that whole hillside, nothing up there and away right,
So Edits came in a new view gathers more beans. No, No,

(06:41):
a second look invested brings more beans digested.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I like clever, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
A fresh set of eyes will always find the prize.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
No bean mentioned.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
New eyes find new beans.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Too, boring.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
A fresh set of eyes, we'll see where the beans lie.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Or my buddy Matt DROs wrote in he said, also,
this is a text message I got. I appreciated the
relatability of your made up old saying about relooking for beans.
Whether it's beans, pickles, by which I think he means cucumbers,
morel's or whatever. One highly tuned in individual can always

(07:33):
find more, even after someone just quote picked them all.
Maybe the saying should be a fresh set of eyes
yields more of the prize.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's preaking. I think there should be Jack and the
beanstalk somewhere in there. That's not gonna work there, that's
a magic bean man.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
A couple announcements and clear you're gonna be here for
some of this. We have a live tour coming up. Uh,
this is gonna be great fun. Clay's gonna hit something,
but he's gonna be out wolf trapping for some of it.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Me and Dirt, Oh, you and dirt gonna be wolf
trapping me and dirt. We're like mud and clay. Dirt
and mud, dirt and clay. You get kind of dry clay,
kind of loamy.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, better for some plants to grow in. Yep.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Clay's working on a Bear Grease road show about uh,
he's he's profiling a wolf trapper. He's he's working on
a Bear Grease road show about a wolf trapper. So
he's gonna miss some of the live tour dates. Our
live tour is gonna begin on December sixth.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
I really would appreciate people really coming out, so uh
the Laughing Eagle.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Petels will be there for all the show. We're still
putting everything together. He'll be there for the shows. Spencer
Newhars can be there because all the shows are going
to have a local trivia component to them. Lot's going
on a bunch of other people joining friends, special friends,
special guests every night. Wednesday, December sixth, first show of

(09:13):
the tour. We're gonna be at the Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Let's go Denver.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
December seventh, anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Let's go KC.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Foley Theater, Kansas City. We're gonna take a night off
on December eighth. I've got to find something fun to.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Do that night.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
December ninth, Saturday, December ninth, Davenport, Iowa. You're about an
hour from Cedar Rapids in about two and a half
hours from Chicago Capital Theater. December tenth, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Home
field advantage for Yanni. I didn't grow up far from there.

(09:55):
My wife's from there. Yanni's from there. Kalamazoo State Theater.
We've done that place before, as has Bob Dylan.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Who got more views us.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, we sold way more albums. December eleventh, my daughter's birthday.
Royal Oak, Michigan, SO Greater Detroit Area, Royal Oak Music Theater,
twelfth taking off. I canna find something fun to do.
December thirteenth, Cleveland, Ohio at the Agora. December fourteenth, mon Hall, PA,

(10:30):
SO the Greater Pittsburgh area, Carnegie Homestead, Carnegie of Homestead
Music Hall. Friday, December fifteenth, Glenside, PA, Greater Philadelphia area area,
Keswick Theater.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Meeting your live show. Nice.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's gonna be big man laughs. Trivia prize winning funny stuff.
Another thing we're working on this this week. Need this
is a listener we we this is listener help. I've
been thinking about doing We've been thinking about starting a
thing that'd be a part of the show, which would

(11:11):
be a dissection of trailcam mysteries, because we get a
lot of these where people send in trail camp.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Phones, like what the hell is that? Is that a
mountain lion?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Sam squatch? Ones too, pray yep?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Is that a sasquatch? Is that a mountain lion? Why
is that Buck? What's wrong with his eye? I recently
got one where Bucks at one of that that there's
a weird virus that deer get like it's like a
like a part of the herpes complex that makes their
eyes get all this growth over them. So someone sent
that in, right, or someone might send in is that
a bobcat? Or it's like they're like, is that an

(11:44):
old naked hippie whatever, And you can't tell what's going on?

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Just Clay Nukeles picking the beans out there, fresh.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Out of us.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
So what we need are we need your We need
your trail cam mysteries. And here's the thing, here's the
brand promise. When you send us a trail cam mystery
if winds up being like biological in nature or whatever
like this herpes complex, deal that blind's deer or cactus bucks,
whatever crazy stuff from your trail camp or what is

(12:18):
that is that a mountain lion? Questions we will get
We will go through our contacts of many biologists and
experts and ecologists, disease specialists, whatever hippie experts, naked hippie experts.
We will get you the answer. Then we will post

(12:42):
We will post your photo with the feedback and we
will cover it and discuss the photo on the podcast
to get you a great answer of of like like
whatever it.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Is from the experts.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
With everyone just you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, I what kicked us off is the other day
I had a great trail camphoto from my otter cam
where I couldn't tell if it was a beaver's butt
or an odds butt mm hmm, And it sparked a
little bit of a spirit debate about whether that's the
butt of an otter or the butt of a beaver.
So that got me thinking that this would be a
great service and I would have submitted my own photo

(13:22):
to expert panel, which I did because I just through
professionally I know a lot of great people.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Oh yeah, so I sent it to a guy.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
That has handled thousands and thousands of beavers and hundreds
of otters and ask them, well, whose butt that was?

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right?

Speaker 1 (13:34):
We will be able to provide this service for listeners
who have crazy trail camphotos. All you need to do
is go to send it. Send your trail camphoto. Just
put the title like crazy trail camphoto or whatever and
send it to the met Eater podcast at the meaeater
dot com. The meat Eater podcast at the meeater dot
com also complaints about dirt can go there as well. Hey, so,

(13:59):
do like complaint dirt in the subject line or if
it's trail cam just trail camlet me let me.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
I could probably be of help. I'm not an expert
at a whole of many things, but I am the
world's expert, the best in the world. I'll debate anybody
on this fact at identifying American black panther trail camera photos.
You send me a feeline that you suspect is an
American black panther, I will and you'll take it to you.

(14:32):
You'll take it to your father. Yeah, Well, I mean
I have people, but I get them all the time.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
As we're talking about this, I had a couple of
trail cam photos come in on the cell camera as
we're talking. No, it's pretty straightforward. It's a white tailed
dough and a cow elk in the field together.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
God nice.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
So that's a service that we're going to provide. And
when when your thing gets selected, you know, we'll even
send you some kind of present. I'm gonna regret saying that, say,
some kind of president. If your think gets selected, we'll
post a photo, we will get expert testimony, and we
will have an actual debate and explanation.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Of the photo.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
And if you watch on YouTube, we'll just have the
photo up if you listen, you just go on social
media to view the photo and weigh in and what
the hell you're looking at? It's called I think we
should call it the what in the hell is this thing?
From my trail cam?

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Simple? Yeah, everyone wins in this something like that.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Y'all didn't get the punchline to my black panther deal.
There are no black panthers in America. So the answer
is always why did I buy that believer hat?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
That's not what Gary Nucer says.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Believe them? Why do we sell a black panther believer
hack just I mean half of this country believes in them,
and my dad's like the president.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
I once read we've talked about this, but I once
read or someone said, a black panther is a wet panther. M.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
What do you think about that? It's a wet mount line.
I mean, I hear you they could be. It's definitely
make them darker. You don't think that that's always no, No,
I think people are seeing uh, they're seeing black house cats.
They're seeing labrador mix breed dogs like flashing in front

(16:23):
of their camera and like a streaky photo that makes
his tail look a little longer than it is. M.
They're seeing usually it is off scale feline house cats
that that just it looks big in the in the picture,
but it's actually not big.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Or if you hear one that you think as a panther.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
See people don't you know the vocalizations of the mountain lions. Sure,
they vocalize, but so do bobcats, and so I think
a lot of people mistake the bark of a gray
fox for some top of big cat.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
God.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
I mean, gray foxes make a kind of a harrowing.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Mhm.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
You do that a little louder. It's kind of like that.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Drink. It sounds like throwing up.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's like a it's too much thunderwater. Filter it out.
It's kind of a it's an odd sound you wouldn't
expect coming from a little gray fox. I think people
think that's a panther screen.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, they want to believe it it's a panther.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
They want to believe this is a this is an announcement, Rich,
This is a where you're in an announcement, Rich bunk house.
Right now, A new Dirty dozen calendar for twenty twenty
four has been on sale at the Medior store. Go
get one hour, Get five now.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Cow. So we do calendars.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Years ago we did fucked up old Your stands great calendar,
I mean fucked up old t acid ermy phenomenal calendar.
But this year it's just so happened that and this
is gonna tie somewhere and talk about now it just
so happened, that just so happens that you got how
many months are in a year, Clay twelve twelve?

Speaker 3 (18:14):
OKAYU hold that in.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
The back of your head and try to stay with you.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Twelve months in a year. We are just now releasing
season twelve of Meat Eater. Twelve years. You've been doing it, Steve, and.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
The way we do it is a season winds up
be in a year's worth of episodes. It could be
you know, it could be in the old days, we
might have done sixteen, we might do six whatever, but
we do It's like a season is a year's worth
of episodes. We we vacated our theme. I wanted to
do fucked up old fish, cleaning stations in boats and.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Just people.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Fucked up on individuals.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
But the whole franchise is on hold because of the
fortuitous like the serendipitous deal that twelve seasons aligns with
the twelve months of the year. So we've made a
very memorable calendar, a wonderful.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Gift where each month is a year, so it's each month.
January is all behind the scenes photos, good times and
laughings is all. January' is all behind the scenes followsome season.
Want to meet it her? Sweet Guess what February is?

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Dirt Valentine's Day?

Speaker 1 (19:37):
No second season, it's all it's all behind the scenes
photos from the second season. So you'll see so many
of your favorite like memorable characters from over the years.
Dirt's in the calendar, Clay's in the calendar, Cess in
the calendar, Joe Rogan's in the calendar, Kevin Murphy's in

(19:58):
the calendar.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
I saw the calendar and there was a lot of
scowling Steve photos. Yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
There's like a lot of like this, a lot of Steve.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Camera lot this Parkins back. Yeah, like Parkins back to.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
You know, we didn't put it there as any of
my hospitalization photos that came out of the show in the.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Hospital that could be its own calendar.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
I should have thought of that to put some of
that in there. So it goes back to when Yanni.
So the calendar goes back so far in time that
you'll see when Yanni was working for us but didn't
realize he was getting paid. That's big. We hired Yanni
to carry a backpack on a sheep hunt. He thought

(20:44):
he was just going to hang out, and then someone
gave him his tax paperwork at the end of it
and he's like, what's this say so you can get paid? Oh,
I saw we were dicking around. Then went on to
produce dozens of episodes, probably more than anybody.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, that's so cool, man.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
So the calendar covers a great span of time. That's
a really fun calendar. So check that one out, Dirty dozen.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Calendar.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Sweet.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
A lot of set photos in there, probably, Yeah, a
lot of set photos.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
From season eight yeah eight ford m hm my photos
lot was.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
Taking pictures when you're wiping your mom's nose.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
That's right close close, So check that out. Uh. A
lot of dirts photos in there, Oh.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Dirts cut photos in there. So here here's the other
thing about this whole deal. So if you're listening to
this right now, this all ties together. If you're listening
right now, our latest season of Meat Eater, season twelve
is out. It launched on October twelfth on the meat
eating website so themeter dot com and on the media

(22:03):
to YouTube channel.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Wait a minute, Season twelve is where on our own website,
what date? October twelve? Okay, got it?

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Oh, it's would be good.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, man, it's gonna be good.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
So if you're listening right now, it's out right now,
October twelve, meter website, on the media to YouTube channel,
And it is like I said, some days long time.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Ago, we would make sixteen. How many we got this year,
we did six six wait October twelve, Yeah, October. If
you're listening and it's past October.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Twelve, then you can go watch it right now.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Right now. We're rolling out a episode a week. Okay,
so for six weeks starting October teven. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
So I drew this crazy elk tag of Montana called
the Buffer Zone.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
I missed that one that center.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, you went in November, November and you're hunting, like
right on the edge of the park.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
They give up five tags a year and you get
this little ship and chunk of ground not very big.
You got a hunt on and it's right on the
edge of the park and you're catching elk migrating.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Out of the park.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
M You know, everybody thinks of migrations is going south
in the winter, but they're actually my in this place.
They're migrating like northward, just elevation change, right. So we
got that coming out. We got another phenomenal where we
took our buddy Kevin Murphy to Michigan Cottontail Rabbit Bonanza

(24:00):
with rabid eagles, Squirrel Bonanza with squirrel dogs, a raccoon
that the dog's tree, a squirrel try to try to
picture this get by a dog under this tree.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
I did that dog dog squirrel at that exact moment. Yeah,
he was firing up.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Man and I had poison ivy and I took a
bunch of Ben and drill.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Wasn't really thinking.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
About it, and I thought I was aging, Like, uh, you're.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Blaming it on a I thought I would like I
was in a time of capsule poisoning.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
A squirrel got hung up in the tree and I
tried to climb up the tree. I couldn't got to
the tree, and I thought I was like, I thought
I was dying of old age. And then it occurred
to me that he Ben and drill mid day, and
it even affected my vision.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
I was so hopped up on ben and drill. You
should have taken away my firearm.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
You're still plinking them squirrels though.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, because well that's was your heart rate down. It
makes you a good shot. But when it comes to
squirrels retrieving, So we had a squirrel. You'll see this
happen in this episode. The odds of this are so
infinitesticly small. Where the dog trees a squirrel, the squirrel

(25:19):
runs up a tree and stops comes to rest. Was
it eighteen twenty inches.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah, that's the coon happened to be in the tree
this daytime. Yeah, the squirrel passed the coon up and
plasters himself against the tree. So there's a scroll in
a raccoon twenty inches apart.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
He got double tap on that one, which.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Drew our attention to both the raccoon and the squirrel.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
I think that raccoon was on the ground when we
set the dogs loose, and he really caught him by
accident in an area, because.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Why would the squirrel be up that tree too?

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Well, No, no, I think the raccoon when we got
out and set the dogs and they started barking whatever
that if you if you recollect the tree that that
raccoon was in, no raccoon would ever be in.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
I think.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
But why would a raccoon and a squirrel go up?

Speaker 4 (26:12):
No, I think the raccoon heard us from a distance
and was like, I'm gonna get up a tree. This
is the only option I have at the moment.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
There's a lot of trees in there.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, but that was there was not a lot of
big trees there, and it just it just so happens
that the squirrel ran up the same tree.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
It was.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Let me tell you, I'm a long time doing it,
since your mama was still wipping your nose. This is
the unanswerable riddle. Your mom wiped Dirt's nose, got way back,
unanswerable riddle. Anyway, you're stepping into the declare that no
one's gonna know. It was the sequence what anybody was thinking.

(26:53):
Just you have to do exit interviews. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, if you looked.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
At the tree that the raccoon was in, you'd be like,
no way, a raccoon is gonna climb in that tree
just to sleep for the day.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
No, it actually sounded like the start of a good joke.
Raccoon and a squirrel in the same tree. Four guys
walk up to the tree. One guy says, look at
the coon. The other guy says, look at the squirrel.
The other guy says, that dog. Just who gets to
shoot the squirrel? Yeah, the dog got so excited a

(27:26):
bit Dirt. Yeah, it was what to do with himself?

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, he was wound up. Man. So Kevin Murphy didn't
even know him. He's the small game guru guru Clay.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, but Kevin mur SAIDs he's had it happen before,
which I'm like a slightly incredulous sob no disrespect. Uh,
so that one revisit something you're saying what I like
what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Okay, it was a little.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Wasn't a hemlock?

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Was it a hemlock? I don't remember exactly. It was
a clump of trees.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, why did yeah like if it was that that
because that was not where a.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Coon had just lay up for the day.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
No, because he'd lay.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Up where he could just get on a big old
limb way up high.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah, Hey, guys, could it be could it be that
there was a concentrated food source there that the coon
and the squirrel were hammering together. No, and then because
that squirrel went a long ways to get there. Really
so just maybe totally coincidential.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
I think that it was one of the few conifers,
and they knew that that confert offered some protection. But
it's hard to picture that these two unrelated creatures, of
all the trees and all the woods, that these two creatures,
unless they were hanging out, would have not only gone

(28:45):
up the same tree, but would have gone up the
same tree the saint to the same height and sat there.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
One of the great mysteries.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
But you got him and lined up there and retrieved
them or the coon.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
One of them fell out and one of them didn't
fall out.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
I think the squirrel fell out. Go watch the episode
and see what.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Oh yeah, that's right into the Meteor podcast at the
meter dot com. Yeah, we'll take any explanations. We'll just
take them as fact. Idaho mule deer, we don't kill
the giant.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Well.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
I was on fire with tag draws. I did draw
anything this.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Year, and cool tags used them last year.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
But I was on fire with tag draws last year.
I drew I drew a your.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Take down in Idaho and got just a stomper if
you want to see.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
It was just one of those deals.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
It's almost like misleading and this happens on them, like
we have a lot of episodes or nothing happens, you
get skunked.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Whatever, not many that would it happens.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
It happens, And they had a lot of episodes where
it's kind of normal hunting or you got to grind
it out.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Just one of those, just one of those like.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Just I don't know, there's just good stars aligned.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, just like everything like just box you could go
do that and I've seen this happen because we've had
some great hunts. Then your buddies go back and they
do it again and again and again and it's never
like that again. Or I've got spots we hit every
year and you're always chasing. Ten years ago, it was
just something with just a ton of bucks man and
then really good intel, really good intel.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
On both those well, no, on one.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
It was like I had some friends that had hit
this area hard for archery and I had great They
were like, we saw a lot of action here, like,
don't bother looking there.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So you kind of reduce this huge.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Area down into a little area because they're like, yeah,
I don't waste your time. Don't waste your time now
up there, I would definitely spend some time. And if
not there, I'll go spend some time over there. But right,
so you go into it like really armed and man,
we had a good time and I had more fun
than anybody.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, like eighty plus bigger that was it, tutor there,
smaller that one eight, smaller, ninety six four waller three
smaller yeah really one three two, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Changes.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, I dried it in the bucket of water, so
it should still be the same. Yeah, but stick in there,
aged in the bucket of water.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
So I don't think anything changed. That's in there. Your
biggest mulder?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Uh no, No, for real? Was the Idaho?

Speaker 4 (31:38):
I like, I'm like, he's in the club.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Did you kill a Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Was that Idaho?

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Years ago?

Speaker 2 (31:46):
He's in that book? The was it big Bucks of
Idaho or something?

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Great box of great mual to your box of Idaho?

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Really that buck will probably be in the calendar, I imagine.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
No, it's not. Really, there's not a lot of big
old there's not a lot of grip and grins.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
The the Idaho buck is on the cover of this
Slash season season twelve. Now oh that new Yeah, yeah,
the old, the over two hundred one is not in there.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
You know what's the funny thing about? Like I've hunt
a mulder and you know I've hunt a mildier in
Montana for over twenty years. Yeah, over twenty years.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Well, Ce's mama was still cess.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Mom will still wipe my nose. And when I started hunting, okay,
and have covered a lot of ground and just hunted
a lot of like a ton of public land milder. Yeah,

(32:53):
in Montana twenty years worth. But when you go look
at my like my wall where I have my like
big stuff collection, listen to this, not one of those
boxes from Montana. Really it's like you look like I
just looked, look look look like a decade whatever.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
And you go to some of these other states to
the south, you know, Gangbusters, other directions, and you're like, oh,
there's like more big Bucks than I ever saw. Here's
the hunting.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's just the toll, the toll of having like of
having these long six week rifle seasons that run through
the rut that it's just you just aren't making you know,

(33:46):
they're not the state is not prioritizing. I'm not critical.
I'm not criticizing for this. They're not prioritizing.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
They're prioritizing opportunity, opportunity over quality. But it's just amazing
that you can go you know, you saw Colorado, Idaho,
New Mexico and it's like, oh, there's the MULEI I've
always wondered where they all are.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, they're here.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah, Like what happens when you don't just gun for
him so hard?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
But with that being said, there are some running around
in yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
For sure, but which I mean it's not like you
can take an empirical approach to it and just go
look at Boon and Crockett entries.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
M you know, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
I mean they're they're there. They are there.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
But like on public ground, I haven't killed a I've
never killed I don't think I've ever killed a muley
buck on private ground. I've never killed a bull elk
on private ground.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
I have a buddy that killed a two hundred inch
mule deer buck in Montana on block management.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
I would count that as public But it's just.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
One of those things where right time it was the rut. Yep,
he probably moved off a piece of he made, he
made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yep. Yeah, suicide, so it can happen.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
So, speaking of the lie shows, remember early I was
plugging our live shows coming up. Uh years ago, me
and Yanni were at a live show.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
I keep seeing action out that window.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
I'm looking for horns.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
We were at a live show years ago, and it
was funny because we were at a live show, I
believe in Idaho.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
We did a live show and or somewhere kn't me aware,
and a dude named Richard Martinez came up and he
said to me and Yani, you should come hunt turkeys
in the Everglades mm hmm with me, and he.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Gave me a book. He brought me a gift and
gave me a book about the Everglades. And I started.
At that time, me and Yanni started applying for state
gaming areas and it took years for us to draw
the state game area tag. I feel we were pretty
consistent about our application.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
Oh I bet you guys were so ben should we
drew because we wanted to both have it.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
So we were like party app right, and we party
apped and eventually drew our Everglades turkey tags and got
to hook up with this dude, Richard Martinez, passionate about
who's a very good turkey hunter, really serious outdoorsman and

(36:18):
what's funny about this hanging out with this guy? We
got a whole episode. This is one of the just
to return back. This is one of the season twelve
episodes where we go, I see all the turkeys with
our buddy down there in Florida. How cool it was,
But it just so happened through some other work stuff.
I spent a bunch of time in Florida and this
is not the knock, but like there's a lot of people,

(36:39):
like it's pretty common. This is gonna really piss a
bunch of people off, and people that aren't pissed are
gonna wonder why this would.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Piss people off. But there will be some pissed people.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
There are states where you where you hear a lot
of unhappiness from hunters and anglers. You know, there's just
like states that generate a lot of resentment.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
On how it's managed or yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Management success rates whatever. There are just there there are
states where there are states where you just get.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
We're a lot of unhappy both hold the smokes is
Florida on them. I couldn't believe.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
It, Yeah, which is kind of surprising.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Yeah, like some states you go there and you know,
like here, here's the thing to that. And this is
the point I make oftentimes everywhere you go into a
country and I've been and I've been able to you know,
I've been. I've had the great fortune over my career
as a writer and doing TV and other other enterprises
I've been involved in. I've been able to just to
go everywhere, right I've been, I've been able to. I

(37:49):
haven't hunted. I mean, I've been to all the states.
I've hunted and fished in most of them, and I
just get to meet and talk to a lot of people.
And the thing that I've always marveled at and puzzled
over was that everywhere you go, you'll you'll hear two stories,
versions of two narratives. And these narratives could come from

(38:11):
people who are next door neighbors.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
There's there's this, there's.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Narrative, A narrative A is uh, all the good spots
are gone. Everything got you know, outsiders came in, the
outer staters ruined it. The wolves ruined it, the coyotes

(38:36):
ruined it, fish and game ruined it.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Hopeless.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
It's like, I don't even go anymore. I lost my spot.
Uh you name it? Okay? And then next door.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Everywhere you go, next door not always next door, but
I mean like in the same universe.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
The same is is you can't even scratch the surface.
Ye I can't wait to get out of bed in
the morning.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
That was rich.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
You can't do it all.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
The question is which one are you seth So he's
a can't scratch the surface. Yeah, So this is ours
just been like a thing of mine. And it's funny
because here's this dude that we hang out with, who
like is just a can't scratch the surface guy.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Man.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
But dude, he scouts hard. Yeah, he like if he's
not hunting, he's looking.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
For hunting spot. Might like scouting more than he.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Works his ass off.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
But he just like in a place that's in a place,
and he hunts a lot of areas in a place
where it's like just it just generates a lot of
you know, they got it. They got so many cougars
now and deer population as you're down. But here's a
guy just consistently consistently deer on public land, turkeys on
public land, working his butt off, can't scratch the surface,

(40:10):
can't get to.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
It all kind of guy. Yep, I liked hanging out
at a.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Little hard worker behind the scenes of that Florida trip.
Off topic, ping pong, I smoked you.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Oh we had a ping pong table, that's right, everybody
eating everyone. That was kind of a weird deal, man, like,
and you were shook up about it.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Well, here's why I was coming in hot, because it
was like we had just got our kids. This little
net you stretch out across your kitchen table. Yeah, so
for nights, dude.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Every night we ate dinner, we cleared the table, we
stretched that net out and just played ping.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
He came in there and thinking he was Joe ping pong,
so I washooked.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
I was pretty hot.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
And I also felt because I was playing on a
slightly smaller kitchen table table row and I've been in
the table is one of those ones that looks like
it was cut from one huge tree, so it's got
curvy edges. So if I was kicking my kids butts
on that thing, I thought I was gonna come in
and whoop you guys then at ping pong, because I'm
like beating my eight year old, beating my ten year old,

(41:19):
sometimes beating my thirteen year old. So I came in
there like just ready to mop you guys up, man,
and just everybody beat my ass, dude. And I was
coming in fresh off the home table. But a thing
I hadn't figured, man, is like this is an outdoor
ping pong table.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Wash. Those are susceptible the wind drift yep and the
sun direction there was everybody was subject to the same
wind drift yep. But man, just everybody, yann dude, you
just beat my butt. Yeah, Oh, yeah, he's good. He
got like you just seem he looks like a dude
to be good at ping pong.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
There.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, I got my ass kicked at ping pong bad
every night.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
So when you're watching that episode and you've seen me
having a good time turkey hunting, I want you to
picture me just getting my ass kicked at ping pong
that night.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
And taking it out and Osio this baby. You were
the first tag out. That was a good trip, man,
what a cool space.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
I was second to tag out Dirt. I was gonna
ask you, when did you start filming for.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Me eater twenty fifteen?

Speaker 3 (42:27):
So what season was that? Like? Season four or five?
I thought you you were in early dye.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
That was early yeah, briy four season four?

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Maybe so you filmed four through twelve.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'd have to look, but yeah, fourth or fifth season.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Sometimes he'll get off on other stupid projects.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Might racle this, it's not won't can't.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, get he's an international player. Many continents have you
filmed on dirt? Count North America, North America, South America?

Speaker 2 (42:58):
It's like twenty two, twenty three countries continents? Yeah, countries
is yeah, a little over twenty you.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Filmed in twenty countries. Yeah, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
My favorite is America. Yeah hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Oh yeah, brother, I've said this cold sey Tis. But
we're in Alaska right now. It reminds me of it.
One time a TV executive said, I don't want to
say where, but a TV executive said to me, the
only other country our viewers are interested in is Alaska.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
That's a fair kind of look.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
You're so there's that episode that it was a really
Oh you were on this one too, dirt.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
I think I only missed those two bad.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Yeah, Spearfish and Bahamas. Oh yeah, what like you can
swim too?

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Oh yeah there it's like a little otter shark bait's.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Perfect camera man slicking the water. Oh yeah, dirts. If
you got bad country camera man.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Well, backcountry hiking hauling. He was hauling moose meat.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Ah, you guys, come on.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
He was hauling, no doubt, one hundred and twenty pound pounds,
ridiculously stomping me carrying probably a eighty five pounds.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah you've been butchering you guys.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Be a sturdy little feller.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
He is.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Sturdy little feller.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Bahamas was a sweet that blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Uh when guy was caught in that episode, he was
trying to keep count. I think he came in that
we had sixteen and a half species.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Wow, Hue. That was because one of those.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Fish came in just half of it.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
Sharks.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
The sharks were gnarly on that one.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yeah, but uh man, some lot like nice groupers speared.
A lot of nice groupers had just look at the window, Steve, Oh, oh,
nice moves. We're looking at the window at a guy
putting a big moosehreck in the back of a truck.
Good for Wow, seem bigger.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Sixteen and a half? Yeah, is that counting the deep
drop stuff? Oh?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, so we had Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
So we were with Kimmy Kimmy Werner and then Cameron
kirk Connell. Cameron kirk Connell. We for those of you
who've listened to our show, our Campfire Stories series. So
one of one of the things we make, because we
make this thing called Campfire Stories. So we did me
eater Campfire Stories. It's an audiobook. It's an audio original.

(45:38):
It's not an audiobook. It's an audio original. It's like
very edited storytelling from disparate voices. And if you haven't
heard it, you should definitely check it out. And we
had volume one Close Calls, and then Volume two was
narrow Misses and more close Calls. We have volume three
coming up, which is Discoveries, so people find in crazy stuff, bodies, money, whatever.

(46:04):
It's like crazy Discoveries. Beans, bodies means yeah, I'm gonna
do a whole episode on me finding more pole beans
after my kids have picked them all, after they've picked
them all, I would go and pick fifty more.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
And uh.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
But in Close Calls, Cameron kirk Connell, we even ran it.
People will says, you know this because when we were
promoting meters campfire stories, close Calls, we promoted it with
our Cameron kirk connell story. So Cameron kirk connell grew
up in Florida but spends a ton of time in
the Bahamas, and he tells a story about when he
was a tarpain guide. It's if you listen back in

(46:41):
episode you'll find it. He was a tarpain guy but
went spearfishing one day and they were chasing after a
Couberra snapper and Cameron kirk Connell's dive partner had a blackout.
So Cameron kirk connell is down deep his dive partner
was supposed to be on the surface or taking turns
watching each other, but the I almost seen something from
the surface and went after it. So Cameron kirk Connell's

(47:05):
down deep and here comes the guy sinking in a
sort of like upright Chriss cross apple sauce formally.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Known as Indian style legs.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, they don't call it that anymore. When you go
to school. My kids they don't even know what that is.
They think it's criss cross apple sauce. Oh, how you
say so Chris Cross apple sauce. And he's sinking, passed out,
and Camra kirk Connell's gonna shoot him because he's on
air and he's on his way up, and so he's like,
he's at least gonna try to shoot him with the

(47:40):
spear shaft.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
So he can drag him back to the surface and
shoot him in the calf.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, but the body's spinning, so he's already down on
his way up, and he has to go crossways to
get to him, and there's no way he's gonna drag
him up.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
They're both gonna die.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
He spins, and then his only shot is to shoot
him in the in the five, but he's afraid if
he shoots him in the thigh is going to bleed
to death. So he lowers down and shoots him in
the fin with his spear gun. Long shot too. There's
guy's on the boat. So he gets up to the surface.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
He's like Polo.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
And they drag this dude up and resuscitate him. He tells,
is just an insane story, he tells.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
So that's how he and I became friends. He's he's
a guide, he's got it all over the world fishing,
and he's he's like, he's he's a boat captain. He's whatever,
like boat class, you know, like they do like Merchant Marine, right, Well, yeah,
but they do. You know, you're a captain for whatever tonnages.
He's a captain any class, super dial. So he could

(48:51):
drive my ARC sixteen sixty. That's what I'm trying to say, Wow,
what about the bigger could maybe my canoe, my CEA
ARC sixteen sixty.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Let him go, baby, he's got.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Or you know, the Princess Ocean Liners, Titanic, No.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Man watching you guys dive that stuff was so you
want to talk.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
About a good diver. And then Kimmy Warner is a
phenomenal die. It's like a show where you watch me
get my ass kicked.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
By Oh you were crushing.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah, well I was doing good. I was new as
good as those guys. Those guys are good, man, those
guys are good in the water.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
That recovery has only been recent. Right after that the
hurricanes and eighteen or something in Bahamas yep'.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Then then there's more, lastly.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Alaska with Doctor Randall and Clay nukembe Oh Black Bears
epic and that is the epic wet suit.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Black Bear hunt. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I
didn't seen it. I didn't show it to you.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
I don't know why I didn't show it to you.
Usually i'll show it to people.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
You've never showed me a single episode of on before
it came out. Maybe I'll say sometimes I show it
to people. I show it to anyone to ask. I'm
trying not to be a pain. Johanni.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
He always wants to see. He always got comments.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
I didn't know that was an option.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Oh yeah, Yan, get right in there, mm hm. Because
he'd be like, hey, but what about remember that time
we did X. I'll be like, I forgot about that.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Man, I dig around and find stuff that we had
forgotten about. I've got middle notes like an elephant. Really.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Oh well, that's good to keep mind because Yanni would
quite off be like, dude, why why didn't they use
the stuff about.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
The whatever or whatever. I'm just making that and then
we'll dig in there and find it. Mhm. Is there
still time on the he's done.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
So when we're working on an episode, what we do
is like we film, we come back, and first someone
goes to and scours it for everything usable we do
produce or know which lays it out. I'll often have
some stuff I'll talk about like well, like this is
the sort of the main thing we're after and this
is all what I'm interested in.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Then it'll go to us called a rough cut.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
We'll get the rough cut and it'll have like scratch
VO and then I'll start writing v O yeah, and
we'll do like general like well this is kind of
boring and that should be moved around, it's not really
understand what about the owl right, that kind of stuff,
and then it'll go to fine and then usually have fine.
I would show it to Yanni if he's in it

(51:34):
or whoever. Then from Fine, it goes to picklock, and
then from picklock it goes to sound and sound.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
And color color correction.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
I think you and then you don't want to dig
back into it. Everybody gets riled up. Yeah, sure, just.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Get one point back about the Bahamas. All the beautiful
underwater filming was not me. That was just.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Kimmy Werner's husband us from Turkowski Paring parent James Paron, James,
those are just some little river riders.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
To those when they'd get the guns they were smoking,
they could shoot too, dude. Legendary underwater.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Yeah, very good underwater cinematographers. Wherever you call him underwater
camera guys about to call.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Them that works.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, the very habit man Season twelve access.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Can be good.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
October twelfth job.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
That's when it starts. There's there's pumping it up.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Man, this fancy cops from the scene. X.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
So, Clay, give us a quick give us a quick
wrap up what we've been doing, Clay. So, we've been
in we're we are currently in Alaska. We've been on
our moose hunt, our annual an old moose hunt, and uh,
this year we were on a different ridge than last year.
And we I've never honted the same ridge top twice,

(53:11):
so we came to a new ridge. And this kind
of hunting, you fly in there's a small airstrip that
you're able to land super cubs. You camp close to
the airstrip and you you can only kill a moose
as close as you can get the moose tot them

(53:31):
back up to the airstrip. We planned this hunt for
nine days and planned the hunt so that it ended
in the latter part of the season, because the closer
you get deeper you get into September, the better the
moose right's going to be guaranteed really anywhere. And so
we started our hunt on September the tenth.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I believe the eleventh.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Yeah, And and what we say all last year, what
we hear from people, what Steve's experience, This is my
second moose hunt, so clearly I'm an expert now is
that just every day you see the rut pick up
more and more. And it's a calling game, so you
don't have a lot of mobility like in elk hunting.
You you you can, you're moving around, you're calling. You

(54:20):
might see elk two drainage is over and you figure
out how to get over there. This is not that
you you pretty much have a stationary place that you're
calling from and you're you're calling kind of long term calling.
The way I think about it is there's a lot
of calling that you get an immediate response, and you
know if you're calling with successful ye within seconds or

(54:43):
minute when you're calling some ducks, calling ducks for seconds, calling.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
Elk, call a turkey and gobbles back.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is more like you're just
feeding seeding calls into the into the this very vast land.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
And if I want to point out, if you don't
call them, you ain't gonna get them.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
I mean it could happen, but it's like it would
not be a reliable strategy. You're just gonna wait and
one's gonna.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
Walk by it.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
So we're hunting this like rolling rolling hills, big bigger mountains,
and so what you can see is probably only forty
percent of what is actually there. I mean, you know,
rolling off into these big drops the other right, or
your call is going down into this draw that you

(55:33):
can't see what's going on down there. And so we
got into this spot the first day. Is this about
the pace you want the story to go, great job. Okay,
So we get in here the first day and the
clouds parted. We had a little bit of cloud cover,
I'm pretty sure. The first day. Got in there late

(55:54):
in the morning, and within thirty minutes we saw a
bull within about two miles of where we're sitting. This
The landscape is willow flats, spruce drawls and patches and
just tundra, and so some of it you can't see
real well, but some of it you can. Where we
were sitting, we could see a big saddle between two ridges,

(56:15):
and we could but we could also see miles and
miles away on these like high alpine tundra e mountains
that if we saw a moose there, it really meant
nothing to us other than just it was fun to
see him. I mean, we were spotting moose five miles away.
So the first the first morning, within thirty minutes, we
saw a moose two miles away, which is semi in

(56:37):
play because potentially that moose could hear us and we
could call him and maybe two days later he'd show
up in our draw.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
We called one. We called one from two miles one
day and he came in in about it over about
the course of about an hour it passed. Yeah, and
some could have even been we debate it was a
minimum of two miles minutes.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
And they can hear and you can always tell when
they can hear you, because you you have a we
have a we've got a new call that we're prototyping
from Phelps and you moose call and you can see
the movie. They always they'll turn and look at you
and just stare if they hear you, you know, and
you two satellite dishes just be like, yeah, yeah, they'll sit,

(57:27):
they'll lock up, just and spend minutes without moving, staring.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Right in the right direction with them big old satellite
years out Yeah, with their horns.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
So you can tell, like if one's way out there,
you call and you watch him and you're like, he
can hear us, and then you you measure your calling
from that.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
How much he cares is who knows, but you'll know
like absolutely he hears you.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
A lot of times you'll call and you'll see him
like start raking a bush. Like they'll kind of be
like that excites me, not gonna come over there, but
I'm gonna rake this one. You come here, and we're
doing three types of calling, cow calls, bull grunts, and raking.
So actually taking Steve was using the scapula of a

(58:09):
bull moose from another year, and scraping on the trees.
And these are basically the three communication mechanisms. Day one,
we see a bull way off. Later that afternoon we
spot seth spots two bulls we believe five miles away.
First day, three bulls. Second day we roll in. We're
sitting in the same spot. We have this. We have

(58:32):
a in our where we're hunting is a again a
saddle between two ridges, and we can probably see out
eight or nine hundred yards in this saddle, two big
draws coming up from either side. And second day, I
believe it was like ten or eleven in the morning,
we see a good bull come into our saddle. We

(58:54):
had no knowledge that he was really around. He just
appeared in our saddle.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Had been calling all morning.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
We've been called all more so possibly he was coming
to our calls. He appears, We start calling to him
more aggressively, try to get him in close. He'll he
came into like six hundred and seventy five yards, locked
up in a spruce patch, grunded down. Well, no, you
left that was pretty prime. I'm just okay. Grunting, yeah,
crash and brush. Yeah, we thought it was on give

(59:22):
us a moose grunt yeah yeah, yeah, you know, like
you're walking through the woods and you get a little
your little nut tap from the brush on it. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's that's good. So this was day two and this

(59:50):
is we believe a mid fifties bull. So in the
in the world of big moose hunting, like American moose
are gonna be smaller. You're gonna hear guys in Montana, Idaho,
you know, fifty inch plus moose in those places is
going to be pretty big Shyrish moves. And then the
Canadian mood. It's going to be smaller in the yuk
in the Alaska Big Alaska Yukon moose, which would also

(01:00:12):
be in in the Yukon. British Columbia. Yeah, I don't
think it's I don't think it's British Columbia. British Southern
British Columbia is Canada moose. Yeah, I want to say
the upper part of BC is probably Yukon. But I
don't know, I don't know, but but but a good

(01:00:33):
shooter moose is going to be in the fifty inch range.
Fifty inch plus top end would be like seventy inches.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Very few people oftentimes the regulations go that. So, like
in the state of Alaska, they'll tweak moose regulations. Different
units will have different open dates, different units have different
closed dates, and you'll quite often see it's pretty typical
that a moose has to be fifty inch tip, so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
A fifty inch spread, and or.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
They'll specify how many browtinns it needs on one side,
so he might be in an area that has a
it's a three what they would call a three browtying unit,
meaning if one of his sides has three brow times
is legal. You could be in a four browtying unit
where if one besides his four brow times, he's legal.
But he could have zero brow times and be fifty

(01:01:27):
or he could have no paddles but have four brow times.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
So it's either work right and this bull would have
was plenty legal in both ways. Yeah, he had a
lot of browtimes, was well over fifty inches wide, and
we felt like we were going to kill him. On
day two, he betted down. We messed with him for
several hours. He was within seven hundred yards for several hours.

(01:01:51):
He betted down three different times. But the more we
called to him, the more he hung around, the less
he was interested, and he fades off into the willow brush,
going away from us two o'clock that afternoon. That was
the last action we had on day two. We go
into day three, we see nothing but a cow moose.
We sit on that hill for twelve hours. So the

(01:02:12):
sequence of our hunt is is that these are long
days up here right now, twelve hour days, and we
wake up when the sun starts, you know, when the
sky starts to get light, have some coffee, have a
little breakfast, head out when you can see good, get
on the side of the mountain and literally be there
to sit there for twelve hours.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
If you really you could sit till seven thirty. But
you could still probably shoot till eight thirty. But at
a point you just gotta be like, at a point,
you've been there twelve hours.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Yeah, that's a long set. And so it's a long
set when you're not seeing anything. So that that third
day we didn't even see the far off bulls. So
sometimes you're just entertained by watching through the glass these
bulls way off and thinking the other day is day.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
Three, we saw the BlackBerry we're ripping through.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Yeah, I think so, Yeah, that was like the only
thing we saw that day. I think.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Yeah, we did see one black bear. We had a
black bear tag, but couldn't it just we just saw
a flash of a black bear? Yeah, Day four, So
that was a tough day. We all said that that
was a tough day. And the other thing about this
hunt is that the temperatures seem like they're reasonable. You know,
let's say mid twenties to mid forties to mid forties,

(01:03:25):
and it's like that's not that cold. But man, when
you're out there for ten days constantly battling that, and
when in high humidity, we were freezing to death. We
were just sitting to so damn windy and you're just
sitting yep. So it's a real struggle to just stay warm,
even with good gear and like all the gear you need.

(01:03:47):
We were making a little fire.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
You can do it, like you can really get layered
up and be good, but it's just you're just not
doing anything to generate any warmth.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, like I said, ten twelve hours, so yeah, yeah,
but you know, but we talked about how much this
this type of hunting is so different than many other hunts.
It's a it's a unique hunt and you got to
be in the right state of mind to sit in
the same place for potentially nine or ten days, for

(01:04:15):
twelve hours a day and not be validated by not
seeing game.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Yeah, and a lot of whitetail hunters will say, oh,
that's easy. I do that all the time in November.
It's just different. I mean, I've done lots of all
day sits for white tails. It's different.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Yeah, So day day four we didn't see anything either,
did we our neighborhood I saw, I saw a glimpse
of the same, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
The same saying those long bulls, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Yeah, I picked the day four we saw the bulls
that were five miles away or one bull five miles
away and a cow close. So that's two tough days
and and it's it's taxing mentally, and uh, we're you know,
it is fun when you're with a group of guys,
though you're all talking the whole day and eating snacks,
whispering and and we we were all all of us

(01:05:03):
were calling, and so we we named. Everybody has a
little different tone and frequency and vibe with their moose call.
We decided that Dirt probably had the best cow moose call,
Seth was clearly the best bullgrunner. I'll take it, and uh,

(01:05:24):
and so on day five comes around and it's just
a game of odds.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
I like a hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
That's just a game of odds. I can sit somewhere
for a long time. I'll sit there and I like
it when that's what you're working against. Yep, Like it
doesn't take a total lot of skill to just sit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
There tacity just for days. Yeah, what did you guys say?
It's like there's physical suffrage, and there's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
There's two there's two ways of suffer hunting. Yep, there's more,
but like like just general stuff that's physically taxing yep.
You know it's like getting up and pounding it out
and pounding it out and hiking back up out of
the mountain, hiking back up the top of the mountain,
hiking through the swamp, whatever the hell it is. And
then there's just like the mental like, yeah, sitting and

(01:06:10):
you're looking at such a like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Being like like a friend of mine who does it,
He's like it's trusting the process that there are these
things they're called moose, and they are going to get
into the rut and they're gonna start moving, and they're
gonna be receptive to calling, and you need to be
there calling and they're gonna hear it and they're gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Come, and it might not happen till the last day.
Having for ten days, one of the one of the
boys that's seen us when we landed today saw that
other that other moose had. Oh that's what they look like.
They've been out right ten days not even seen a moose. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
Yeah. Anyway, so day five comes, we go to our spot.
We it's like you you feel like it's gonna happen,
but you never feel like it's gonna happen today. Yeah,
you know, you're like, I know, I just feel like
we're gonna kill a moose. We're doing the right stuff,
but it probably won't happen today. That's the way I

(01:07:06):
always feel.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
It's hard to happen, it's hard to picture it happening. Yeah. Yeah,
But we did see a cow in that same zone
that we had seen that bull on day two, which
was yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Yeah, we had a cow in our in our in
our saddle that was kind of in our zone. You know,
within eight hundred yards of us, saw a cow and
and again the moose. Shrut's picking up, and we we
know that's happening, not because of what we're seeing, but
just because we know it is happening. And about ten o'clock,
day five, Seth looks in a direction that we weren't

(01:07:40):
focused on a lot of attention. Well, he moved.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Mm.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
He had been glassing for four days. From one spot.
He moved like six feet.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
He moved down slope to a spot he'd never before
sat in.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Yeah, had a feeling.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
He moved down slope ever so slightly. And the minute
he got there, that's say to him, seeing a move
he said, he said, I got a bull and the
spruce and this bull was would we say it was
a mile away? At least I think it was a mile.
I'll tell you how far it was away it was.

(01:08:17):
It was, it was close to a mile. Maybe I
would have said three quarters.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Of it was.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Okay, this is like ten o'clock, right ten o'clock in
the morning. And what we learned is on this landscape
there's let's just say there's three things going on. Tundra, willows,
and spruce, that's all there is, and that's part of Alaska,
and we man the bulls just stick.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
It's like a willow aspen birch mix.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Yeah, yeah, you're right, aspen birch.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
It all looks very similar, assiduous hardwood.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
It's brushy, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
And there's small The least of those is the spruce.
Where we're at, there's a little drawls of spruce. And
anyway Seth sees a bull sees satellite paddles. And what
you're looking for when you're glassing for these moose is
not you're not looking for moose. You're looking for paddles.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Yeah, they're white, big white.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Big white paddles out but it takes you a while
to understand the scale of what one looks like. The
first one you see every year, you're like, oh, oh,
that's what they look like from a mile and a half.
And they're always smaller than you think. But when I
see the one, when I saw the ones you found Seth,
five miles away, they were bigger than I thought they
would be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I thought the same.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
But when the bull was in our saddle six hundred
yards away, he was way smaller than I thought. He
would be. It's like this game of scale, like trying
to figure out what they look like. So he sees one.
We rip a cow call and man, he slams our direction.

(01:09:56):
We know he hears this. He locks in on us.
Now all four of us looking trying to find the bull,
and we're like, oh, we see him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
There he is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
He's looking at us, and then directly we see him
moving our way. And that's always a good sign when
you get a quick response. He just kind of moving
our direction. But we're not too fired up. He comes
around the point of this kind of on the spine
of this little ridge.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
It's a mile away mile sorry mile, Yeah, nevermind, I
can't tell.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Okay, in and out with the vegetation.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Oh yeah, you can't see him the whole you can't
see him. So so but he but he's coming our
We see him like fifty yards from where he was,
and he's coming our way, and we get excited hit
him again with a call. And you're always trying to
understand how much calling do we need because we felt
like we might have overcalled the bull that was real
close to us the other day, and so you're like, what,

(01:10:46):
what does this bull want.

Speaker 4 (01:10:47):
To hear, you're like feeling him out.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
And so we noticed that every time that I called,
he would start moving before the he got to the
point where he would stop. I would call, he would
start moving towards me before I even finished the call. Yep,
And that tells you he likes it. And so we
called a lot and just kind of trying to guide

(01:11:11):
him in. And then he got into the thick aspen
willow brush and we could just see bits and pieces
of him, and the sequence from him coming to the
spruce to coming within three hundred yards was probably I
would say a forty minute ordeal thirty thirty plus, and
were seeing bits and pieces of him. And at first,

(01:11:34):
Steve Vnellas, I remember you said you didn't get the
vibe that he was a real big bull. I said,
he's not a seventy incher. Okay, okay, we can review
the footage. I just remember, this isn't this isn't bad.
I'm just saying, this is what you're going through. I'm
trying to describe when you first see it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Well, let me tell you why. Okay, I was doing Okay,
here's where I screwed up. Early on, I was doing
a comparison of looking at the fronts and the paddles. Mmm,
that'll get that'll get you on this And when you
see this particular animal, you will understand why.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
Because you're like, well, what.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Why is his why why is he why does that
at his fronts? Yeah, which led me to have just
it just threw it was throwing me off. Then later
I was starting to get auch. Once I saw the
extent of it, I was starting to get a much
different vibe. But early on I was just I wasn't like,
it didn't look like sheets. It didn't look like half

(01:12:45):
sheets supply would come in.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Through the woods. Yeah. So when need to wrapt this
up in five minutes, don't don't don't spoil the end.
So the bulls coming in were we're trying to we
know it's a shooter. It just looks like from the
from the man I've learned with moose, when I see paddles,

(01:13:07):
no matter what distance, I'm like, it's a monster. I'm
just just like yeah. But I when the first second
I saw this moose, all that registered on my mind
was I was like, golly, that's a lot of paddle.
It just looked it was just the volume of paddle
was big, and man, the closer he got, the bigger

(01:13:29):
he got, and pretty soon we're getting we're all getting
really good looks at him, and and he's just big,
huge fronts and you're you're looking for brow times on
these bulls, and you know you're you're happy if you
see one with four brow tons on each side. Bulls
got ten brow times on both sides. Just super Nova,

(01:13:50):
I think that's its name. And loving your call, yeah, yeah,
And we're we're constantly trying to decide how much to call.
Every time we call. He's moving, so we keep giving
him what he wants, and he's not coming directly to us.
He's swinging around trying to get down win, which is
what they typically do. And but he I mean, we

(01:14:10):
got him because he's got a cross through a man.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
I like everything I'm here, and I like everything I'm hearing,
but I just like to get a little sniff before
I just I don't want to go barging there without
a little sniff yep, Like I want to get a
lay of the lane, like who's.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
Up there or what's going on? Is it a bull?

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Yeah? Sniff sniff's yeah. So but we got to wrap
this up quick. He doesn't desperately want to get down win,
but he wants to get down with Yeah, and we
feel like every time we call it, he's just pulling
a little bit tighter to us. I don't know if
that was true.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
But we were calling a lot and you'll see this
on the one day this will come out and you'll
get to watch it. And man, I mean it was
that forty minute sequence was as good of a hunt
as there is on planet Earth. I mean, for real,
just watching him come, the excitement of trying to gauge

(01:15:10):
how big he is. Is he gonna come?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Is he not?

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
We've been here, we worked so hard to get here.
This is a crazy place. We're cold, we're tired where
and here he comes and then he's big, and I mean,
it's just it was. It was exciting. One of the
last things we witnessed him do.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
As he went to thrash in a tree and for
some reason stuck his horn down in the ground like
a spade shovel and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Flaw threw up a cloud of soil.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
And kept walking. Yeah, like they ain't nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
Is he still out there? Is he still out there?
Or is he in the van? Stay tuned? Is that
the way we're gonna leave it. We're gonna leave it
like this.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Oh my gosh, was that a miser hit or you
don't know?

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
And one more yeah, stay tuned. Nice ri On.

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
Seal Bran shine like silver in the sun, right right
on alone.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Sweet.

Speaker 5 (01:16:58):
We don't beat this day horse to death, so taking
a new one and ride away. We're done beat this
damn horse today, So take a new one and ride on.

(01:17:25):
H