Ep. 512: The Texas Hog Hunt, Live

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't
predict anything. 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

(00:32):
first light dot com. F I R S T L
I T E dot com. All Right, everybody, but we
got something really special for you. One, we have a
outdoor podcast, meaning our podcast, today's podcast was recorded outdoors.
It's the only podcast you can get where someone gets
a hog in the podcast, So stay tuned for that.

(00:54):
And then there's something even more special at the end
of this very special podcast, because we're gonna be releasing
for free a chapter of me Eater's American history, The
Long Hunters, which covers that little slice of American history
that occurred between seventeen sixty one and seventeen seventy five
when fellas like the famed Daniel Boone were making their

(01:15):
living hunting for white tailed deerskins in the First Far West.
So the chapter we're going to stick in is called
gearing up. It's about the blade tools, firearms, and other
implements employed by the famed Long Hunters. So enjoy the
show and at the end again listen to chapter seven

(01:38):
of Meat Eater's American history The Long Hunters. If you
like it, and you will, then you can head over
to Audible or Apple Books or wherever you get your
books and pick it up. It's an audio original, not
available in print, only available to listen to enjoy. All right, everybody,

(02:00):
welcome to the show. It's a little different because we
have to keep it at a very low volume, which
is gonna make it hard if I get fired up.
You know. The comedian Mitch Hadberg observed that he didn't
like camping because when he got in a fight with
his girlfriend, it was hard to express his anger because

(02:21):
he couldn't slam the door and he had to just
try to zip the tent real hard. It's like, fuck you, this.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Guy like hanging up on smartphone.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Now, yeah, you can't slam it.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, I just can't throw it.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
In the old days, you'd be like, well okay then, mom,
I'm coming home right now. You can't do that anymore now,
And so if I get fired up, you won't know.
The listener won't know, because here's the problem. We're actually
hunting right now. We've done shows ice fishing and you

(02:58):
can talk all you want, but this is a hunting episode.
We're hunting hogs in Texas. You could say, yeah, it's
in Texas. Everything's always open, so you know, when they
say you could probably think of other examples. Chris Gill,

(03:20):
when Boardin's Kitchen Confidential came out, they said, a rare
glimpse into kitchen culture. And I'm trying to think of
other documentaries or whatever books a rare glimpse. You can't
think of any examples. I mean almost any documentary, a
rare glimpse into you know, a rare peak behind the curtain. Yeah,

(03:45):
this is a rare peak into a Texas hog hunt
or deer hunt. Because we're in Texas, we're about the
South Texas as you can get. We're on what you
just do not I'm just looking at levels here you
mess it is, don't pass the cod where's it way?

(04:09):
Oh yeah? Yeah? And Karn, remember that you got it.
This this rare, this rare glimpse into a hog hunt
involves a rifle borrowed rifle that we've determined. Uh, you
can't adjust the scope. No, it's maxed out. It's maxed out.

(04:32):
So you gotta you gotta, you gotta a little high,
a little of the left on close pigs, Oh, sorry,
low and right on close pick it hits high left. Uh.
We're about of South Texas. You can get. The nearest

(04:52):
major town is Brownsville, which is a crossing. There's a
crossing into Matamorris, Mexico. We're closer to Raymondville. We're on
a chunk of Eeteria, which is a very old, very
large ranch that has been you know, Eeteria is portioned

(05:16):
into different owner.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
It says on this chair eighteen fifty eight. Yeah, we're
sitting in the Uteria chairs from eighteen fifty eight.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And I'm I'm buddies with a gentleman that whose family
owns this part of this ranch that we're on. And
we've been down here. This is a third time I've
come down for the White Tail Rut. So it's a big,
big place. A lot of it's a big place. A

(05:50):
lot of Texas properties are managed for deer. This place.
You wouldn't really say that. So there's no feed. They
don't they don't do any kind of feeding. They don't
have any deer feeders out, they don't have any kind
of deer blinds. It's not fenced, ah, but it gets

(06:15):
hunted a bit, but it's just real, you know, they
run cattle on it. But it's a real chill, relaxed,
very cool property. And we've come down here a few
times right before Christmas, which is when the peak rought
down here is going on, and we've had extraordinary success

(06:39):
rattling bucks down here during this week, great success rattling
bucks the week before Christmas. This year, we mix it
up a little bit because we brought down a DSD.
Listeners will know Dave Smith decoys because Dave Smith was
on the podcast. We brought down a DSD deer dy

(07:00):
So it's like a fight postured buck, and over the
course of three days we rattled in over thirty bucks.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
There's a little uh lizard eating some sort of caterpillar
right here on this.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh right there.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
He's no, he's not always different.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Shot up.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I just wanted to meet some sort of caterpillar seasons
probably in I.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Know it's Texas.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Was I saying, sorry, how many bucks you ruddled?

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Oh, rattled in a lot of bucks. But this year
we used this decoy. We actually had two bucks come
in and level the decoy, come in and attack the decoy,
and all those bucks come in virtually probably every one
of those bucks came in and bristled his hair up
and like postured, and whether or not they got nervous
and laughed or whatever, but in some way or another

(07:58):
acknowledged engaged with a decoy, which is pretty fascinating, and
got a coat pigs. And now we're recording the show,
and so we came out to we're out in a
big pasture and we came out to a spot where
we're in like a corner of brush. This is real
brush country. We're in a brushy little corner and some

(08:23):
mesquite looking out over an open pasture. There's a bunch
of cattle out there. There's some horses somewhere around here.
I can't see him right now, and a lot of hogs.
We picked this corner because a lot of hogs come
through this corner. We've noticed, and we got our DSD
buck decoy out there. Even though we're not really actively

(08:45):
buck hunting right now, the pigs are are they rapping
around there about around the corner. Oh shit, So just
to give you a flavor, Seth's gonna go ahead hit
a little rattles. Seth's gonna take a couple actual horns.
So we got a couple. When I'm holding here, our
two horns off a four point buck. So I'm two

(09:09):
horns off of Michigan eight, and we bone sawed the
eye guards brow tis off it to make it more
comfortable gripping and se It's going to do a quick
little rattle session here, just so you can get the
flavor for what's going on. H. Did you bring your

(10:04):
grunt to? No, you don't have the grunt to. No, Okay,
that's the rattle sash, Now, Seth give your formula. How
you think about it.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
I just rattle for a bit like that. Every once
in a while I give a couple of grounds. But typically,
like if they're within earshot, they're they're in like shooting
range within seconds.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah. Like, so as long as you just heard him rattle, Well,
we'll get to an area and we'll creep into an
area and get set up and like park creep into
an area and get set up, and usually I would
see half of the half of the bucks that show
up show up before you've completed. Oh yeah, you're first

(11:00):
rattle session, yep, And they run in and then they like, well,
pump the brakes, maybe forty yards anywhere from ten to
fifty yards from where the noise is, Yeah, to try
to get a read out the situation. It got to
the point where like when Bucks didn't show up, we
were like, what's wrong? Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
It was weird when we had nothing show up.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So I do that.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Depending on the setup, but typically three different times I'll rattle,
I'll have a break for about a minute, and I'll
rattle again. And I would say, I don't know, twenty
five percent of the time, Bucks would come in on
the second one, and then I would take another break

(11:49):
and then rattle for like a third sequence. And I
don't think we ever had Box come in on the
third sequence.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
No, a typical sash. We probably don't sit in twelve minutes. Yeah,
it's like something still might happen, but it's like I'd
rather just go to a new spot.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, that last session yesterday, the third rattle worked, I think.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, oh that was that was the crazy. Yeah, but
okay it did. You're right, but what's funny is one
also came in within seconds. Yeah, you know, that was
just pure chaos. At dusk last night we had a
rattle set. We had our best rattle session at dusk
last night and called in four bucks. Now these are

(12:34):
not big bucks. They're like nice bucks, but they're not
a huge box. We called in four bucks last night
and Seth got one with some stickers on him. So
he was a ten point turned thirteen. Yeah, like a
Michigan ten that had three kickers, a genuine thirteen pointer.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
There's a cold deer, yeah, super cold here.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Then this morning we went out rattled again and I
arrowed one. I errowed the seventh buck that came in
this morning. Yeah, I'm anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's like, it's insane, it's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
How many sets do we have this morning? Was it
this morning? Yeah? Was it four? I'll tell you. I'll
pull up my stats three or four. So here's my stats.
On day one we did nine sets.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Four.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
On day one we did nine sets, We did nine
rattle sessions.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh yeah, there are two bigs right.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
And rattled in seven bucks. On day two we did fourteen.
We were being turned and burned and burned we did
fourteen setups and rattled in sew thirty six. Yeah, we
rattled in twenty one bucks due way better. We were

(13:56):
cranking that day everything from four ki's four keys still
a little basket.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Tends and and changed the strategy as far.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
As got it figured out. I'll talk about that in
one second. Then today we killed a buck on the
seventh setup, which was seven setups, and killed the seventh
buck on the seventh setup seven seven nice today today. Yeah,

(14:29):
we tried a bunch of different ways of going about this. Uh,
this a little strategy talk. If you want to try this,
we would set up together, okay, so the rattle guy
and the bow guy next to each other. The problem
you'd have is is you know animals like you know

(14:50):
when people say with turkeys that when you're calling to
a turkey, that turkey knows what tree you're under. Yeah,
and he knows when he hears it from two hundred
yards away, he knows what tree it is and what
side of that tree you're on. I read a good
line and Little Big Man where a guy was talking
about how good someone is at tracking, and he said,

(15:13):
when he looks at the ground, he can tell what
birds flew overhead, so they know where that noise is
coming from. So when you rattle and the buck comes
busting in, he knows exactly where to look. He knows

(15:33):
exactly where he's looking, and he might see the decoy,
but he's looking from the decoy to where the noises
from the decoy to where his noises. He sees the buck,
the decoy buck, but he also is like, well, where
is the thing that was fighting? So then we started
trying to spread out by a bit. What happened? I

(15:57):
was just a big fat black hawk right our outer cles,
right there, all right there at the tree edge. That's
I don't know. Can you get a shot? I don't know.
Oh you know, you mean the other side of the
thing or our.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Side, our side?

Speaker 1 (16:11):
How many yards he's walking out?

Speaker 5 (16:13):
I'm bad at estimating.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
He's like at the tree line over there here. Let
me give you a range finder. Just poke out and
range him. This place is crawling with pigs right now,
like you wouldn't believe.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
It.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Measure twice. Karn's gonna go get a range on him.
I flipp it the other way. There you go. So
what we eventually hit on was if there's any appreciable wind,
like we would want to go here here. When we

(16:53):
first started doing this, we would always think, Okay, you're
gonna approach the area with the wind in your face,
of course, and then you're gonna rattle like like just
like setting up with a predator call. When you set
with the predtor call, you want to win in your
face and you're looking into the wind or crossways knowing
that that kyote is gonna come and want to get
down wind of you, but you're looking up when because

(17:14):
when he gets down windy, it's gonna be too late.
You're trying to catch him work in his way to
get down wind.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
It's like between one thirty and.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Okay, that's pretty far. I mean for for our iron,
it's pretty far. So get shot them shooting iron so
uh ah. But that so we eventually hit on was

(17:42):
when those bocks come into that what's wrong? Oh right here?
Oh shit, crin, How do I plug my ears? My
eyd bones on easy easy rest Undernea's kate up up
chamber the round chamber of the round she did.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
He's definitely keyed up, but he's not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Oh ship. That's the first time trends ran off.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Are you sure that that might be the first time
there's ever been a big Hunter in podcast?

Speaker 2 (18:25):
That might be that just might be.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
You might have to Did you see what kind of
hits she got on? I couldn't tell.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
He didn't go down. It was a oh, yeah, we
might have to do a little interimation.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, we're at the pause for a se.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Don't ask me. I got no idea what they can
and can't do. That's why this, this shot has been
fun because we've just been seeing so many bucks doing
buck stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah, doing buck stuff, doing doing stuff that you rarely get.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Just oh, second shot. I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, don't.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, that's a second shot. Assuming that's the same pig,
potentially a different pig.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
I'd say it's dead now.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, I think we're probably pretty Probably should send an
email to Phil, yeah, letting them know, Hey, Phil got
to chop about Trucually not much longer here, we're gonna
come back, folks, I tell you chuckle that podcast feel
that it's probably not usable, Like what is al Michael's

(19:47):
Do you know if they can't go to commercial and
there's like a player down or something, they got to
just talk you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (19:55):
Game, So they like start talking about stats and stuff
and whatnot. Yeah, you got any stats on hand? Well
the impressive stats. Oh, here's Steve. Steve's come back. Steve said,
already box old Steve. Here, Steve just picked up a
nice bullet casing here they come.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Sure they have a story, So do we have a
dead pig or what's gonna tell?

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Tell your hunting story, Krent nice Corinne, Yeah, well we'll
get to it. I'm curious about that second shot because
me and Seth we're not ready for it.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
That makes three of us. Every day I vowed to
like start getting real serious about hearing protection. And I'm like,
I'm in the middle of being like, okay, you know,
get a good that's the experience that I that the

(20:50):
other day. I'm giving her like a motivational speech.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Where's the pig there?

Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's it's uh, we just left land for now. Yeah,
we'll go get in a minute. Okay, tell your hunting story,
crin Well we got the first part.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
Move your mic closer, as anyone who's observing on YouTube
could tell that I had just abandoned my seat.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
If you're not watching on YouTube, you should pause this,
and yeah you should.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
You should hit a computer.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Wait till you get home and watch on YouTube. Don't
say that, finish this and then rewatch there you go.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
There It is as I was ranging two or three
different pigs, one just was like way too close and
then I just kinda couldn't.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Help it and I threw a bead.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
I didn't I didn't make the best shot, even though
it was really really close.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
It would have died.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
I mean, it's I guess part of Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
She's far back. We found it standing back in there.
We went in there, dirt, found a little blood, and
we went back in there and was standing there, and
then I was trying to explain Krin where the head
wasn't She apparently already knew I hadn't put my hearing
protection in yet.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
And that second.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Gave me a nice muscle break to the to my
mostly impaired.

Speaker 7 (22:20):
Earlsive I knew, I knew it was a head off
to the.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
I feel like if you if you're at the point
where you're telling Krin like what she needs to be doing,
she already knows.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
She's already she's already doing it. Yeah, I think, Yeah,
I'm going to graduate her in my mind up to
that position and not like I'm not like I'm talking
to my son. Yeah, I learned that real quick the
other day.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
And I was like, all right, when he steps out,
all right, you stepped out enough for her.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
This this is like a pig.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
It's so much nicer the other one.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
I mean, you think I think every time we come
through here, there's pig.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Do you think there? They could more could come through
now after post guarantee.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
It nice so that even though I said, I'm not
like a great uh judge of pigs, you know, I said,
it look like a little bore. It's not big Old South,
but it's like yesterday the one I got, I got
the coveted uh pregnant sow, which is when they get

(23:43):
body fat. Well you don't want one is nursing because
they know that. And that's a stop. That's that feels
like the of the three we've butchered, that feels like
the best one. This one here, that feels to me
like oh yeah, like and feeling it's this is some

(24:04):
lean country here, like I said, there's no there's no
feeders here or anything. It's just lean country. And uh,
the pigs here are just bones. You know, my boy
got a couple one time. Man, they were just hard
to like really get anything off.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
But should we get the shooting iron handy? If we go?
If you're trying to get.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
A second, I'm good on pigs. Do you need? Do
you want?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
You got on pigs green? Yeah, we're good on pigs.
Pigs old, Okay, it's a success.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yeah, now we can do the puck.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Oh yeah, where was I? Where was I talking about? Oh?
Our setups? So this is our findings so far on rattling,
which we've put in a fair bit of attention to
at this point. So let me recap. I got a
little rattled.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yeah, sorry, you still hear that ring?

Speaker 1 (25:01):
No, not that kind of rattle. Well, I was explaining
that we would at a time set up together, but
they were two keyed in, so then we would try
to get a little distance between the rattle and get
a little distance between the rattling and the spot. And
our thinking was our thinking was we were kind of

(25:23):
wanting to look into the wind because you were looking
at areas that you hadn't already put odor to, thinking that,
you know, if the ones that are behind that are
down when aren't coming, so you'd look up, you know,
and we're approaching into the wind too. So we're approaching
into the wind. Imagine we've disturbed what's behind us. We're

(25:43):
now calling to things that we haven't walked through and
to things that haven't gotten our odor. And so we
would set up like that. What we kept finding is
it's thick enough country that they're playing that wind from
a little way out, and they're showing up consistently downwind,

(26:05):
making their kind of like almost like running into a
down wind position. And then they stop. Often they stop
when they see that decoy. They pump the brakes on,
which is good because if you don't have the decoys,
sometimes you find they just run through it, never stop.
So we eventually hit on this idea where the rattler
sets up down wind from the rattler. The rattler sets

(26:30):
up up wind from the decoy. So the rattler is
forty thirty forty would you say, thirty yards twenty.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yards apparently set up, Yeah, theyware from I would say
fifteen yards to thirty.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yards, yep. The rattler is fifteen to thirty yards from
the decoy, and the rattler is the decoys down wind
to the rattler, and then the archer wants to set
up fifteen to thirty down from the decoy, which when
that buck comes in and he's and he's staring at

(27:05):
that When that buck comes in and he's staring at
that location where that rattling is or registers the decoy,
he's in your zone, you know, and it sticks, so
you can't you know, you can't see everything. You kind
of got to pick your lanes. But he's likely to
come in and stop ten yards fifteen yards from where
you're at. What's funny is you'd think, well, what happens

(27:27):
when the buck stops between the archer and the rattler,
which is exactly what we did today. I actually had
to take my shot before I wanted to, because if
he took another step or two, I would have shot
Seth with my bow. Yeah, it would have already be
a bloody arrow. I'm glad you didn't do that. Yeah,

(27:50):
it would have gone through the deer and then into Seth,
which whatever, you know.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
No big deal, a second pass through just would have
went through the guts, all right.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, So but it worked beautifully. I think that that
is the system for rattling in thick country, running, running
and gunning, rattling in thick country. And you know what
it winds up being. It's you know what, it's so
similar to It's so similar to Jason phelps elk hunting strategy.

(28:27):
The way he likes to hunt bulls is hell. If
he finds a bull betted or finds a midday bowl,
he likes to sneak into like where that thing is not,
where that thing can't ignore it, where it can't ignore
a bugle yep. Like he's not going to go three
hundred yards to check out a bugle. He's just not.
He might bugle and return, but he's not gonna get

(28:49):
up and go, and he's not gonna get out of
his bed necessarily and walk. But when when you rip
a bugle fifty yards, he's gonna get up. Yeah, you're
in his face. And for like running and gunning rattling,
all you're really trying, Like what you're doing is you're
standing those bucks up and they're bounding in. I don't

(29:10):
know what they're coming from one hundred yards. It's an
interesting strategy in any situation where if you knew you
had deer, you knew you had a buck betted anywhere, Illinois, Michigan, whatever. Yep.
If you knew you had a buck betted, that you
might approach like that. Get in there with a buddy,

(29:31):
get in there and be like when I rattle, get
ready yeah, because we're in his zone. Yeah, and he
might be like, what in the world's going on?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
You know, it'd be fun to try that in other
places than here, Like then.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
It's not gonna be as good. It's not gonna be
as good as here because there's so many deer and
the buck to do this seems like there's more bucks
than dose. Yeah, there's not.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
It's probably equal, but there's just definitely seen more bucks
and it's like prime time all that.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
But it could, it would be. It would be something
that I would try in other in other situations. You know,
it's something I would try in other situations. Is running,
gun running, gun rattling. I'm gonna trademark that turning burn
rattling turning burn. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
What's also cool being on the ground that close to him,
You know, it's different than being up in a tree.
Being up in a tree is cool too, but there's
just something about being on eye level with them. When
they come in, it's pretty it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
You didn't see every hair that's standing up. Yeah, yeah,
that's That's one of the most surprising things is if
you look at the Dave Smith decoy deer decoy, it's
meant to look like bristled and he it's got a
really interesting texture to it. But when those deer come
in and they see that decoy, it's just like they

(30:53):
can picture a turkey coming in and seeing a strutter decoy.
What's he gonna do? He's gonna yeah, he comes in.
He's like, right, he comes in at first like picture
of Tom coming in where he's like, sure, hope no
one tries to kill me, Sure hope, no one tries
to kill me. And then all of a sudden he
sees a decon and he's like, oh yeah, you know,
forgets everything. Feathers pop out. Like these bucks come in,

(31:16):
they see that decoy and they they go into full strut. Yeah.
Oh it's wild, and they have such a strange They
cock their ears back, they start tipping their head. Two
of them started kicking dirt even works. Two of them
works scrapes or made a scrape. They're like drooling. Yeah,

(31:37):
licking their lips man a lot, and then they like
they look like my kids going into McDonald's.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
They they go from like a normal a normal deer
like walking in so like stop see the decoy.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
And then it's like slow motion all the way in,
all his hair standing out and they shiver it tay
jammed down between their legs like a G string. The
second time I used that, second time I use recently.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, not every day.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
No, I go months of I'll talk about a G string.
And I've had two occasions in the last hour. Was
it related guitar? One of them one just the joke,
the joke, not my joke, but a joke I heard.
I was trying to I was messing with a guitar
and remembered a person a former podcast guests who will
not identify, saying that the only instrument I've learned how

(32:33):
to play was ah and I was telling that, sharing that,
and then use it again. Out his tail tucked in
like a G string, hair puffed out, shaking, head cocked in,
a lot of lip licking, yeah, and coming at it

(32:57):
from all angles. And here's another thing from the surprise,
Like you picture two bucks fighting that they're gonna hit
heads right, Well, if you have a decoy that's stationary,
you see what the buck would prefer to do because
the decoy can't turn to face it. So the buck

(33:18):
kind of gets like, are you really honestly gonna let
me do this? And the buck pulls up alongside both
bucks that attack the decoy because it's not turning to
meet them right in the ribs. Yeah, like he's trying
to stab it. Yeah, he's like, if you're really gonna
let me do this, I'm going to give you all
eight of my times into your rib cage. Is what

(33:40):
both those bucks did. It's like that.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
It's like the buck knows where it needs to hit
the other buck to kill it.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
It's like if you just let the deer do its thing.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
It's like they're like just trying to kill each other. Yeah,
but no buck on his right mind and his right
mind is going to actually let another buck do it.
So you think they always meet head to head, But
he pulls up alongside, and and they pull up alongside,
and they stare and one got his head really close.
But then they when they charge, there's no announcement like

(34:09):
when they snap and go for it. It's out of
the blue.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
I feel like that first one kind of pulled up
and almost looked the decoy in the eye for that
kind of turned and like eyed eye with him and
then went for it.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
I think our decoy eventually started to smell too much
like seth from Carry Carry when they started to get suspicious,
and then we took Uh. A guy that uses the
DSD deer decoys is telling me, when you kill a buck,
take the tarsal glands off that buck and rub it

(34:42):
into your decoy and then just stole the tarsal glands
under the decoy. So we got some buck glands, then
the dog stole them.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
That would have been cool to see that reaction, like
pre rubbing it and post rubbing it.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
More. Yeah, there there was one buck today that would
look like it was going to mix it up with
that decoy. And Uh, my take on his body language
is he was not buying that smell. Yeah, I agree.
He got close and put his nose out and got
his nose maybe three feet from that thing, and his
hair just flattened out. Yeah, and then he walked off

(35:21):
like he lost all his.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, it's it's it's tough to get that thing odorless
just because you're it's like.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
You really got a bear hug it to move around.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's not that easy to carry around just because it's
like a full sized deer decoy. And I would most
of the time just like throw it over my shoulder
because I was also carrying other stuff, rattling antlers and whatnot.
But yeah, I think it if maybe if we had

(35:54):
like some sort of spray to like spray it down
real good, yep, and then rub it down with the
uh with the tarsal glands.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, I think if you took a bottle of rubbing
alcohol and gave it a little rub down and then
tarsal glanded it, it'd be bad ass. Do they bottle
that tarsal glen scent they make? They made sense, yeah,
but I kind of it's just much more bad ass
to rub it with your own deer man.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah, it's a good if you're in a spot where
you can get a doll or you like an earn
a buck state or something, you know, like get the well,
the dolls don't have the tarsal glands though, huh.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
No stinky ones and those bucks. Oh we you know,
we should clarify because you don't come on the show enough.
Chris Gills here, Hi everybody, and Dirts here and Karn
of course, seth. Uh did you notice how many of
those bucks stank? Yeah, like when a buck comes through

(36:50):
and then he leaves, it's his it lingers, Yeah, it
lingers in the air man and that buck that I
had kind of to scare because I thought I was
gonna hit us to smell it. The whole time he
got close, I was like, Bud, you gotta take a bath.
Just a stinky buck. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
I smelled the drop tinme buck that we were after today.
I smelled him real good.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
He was sanky. A lot of different personalities though, yeah,
a lot of different a lot of different responses. It
felt we didn't have enough a huge sample size. But
it felt like bigger bucks were less likely to commit suicide. Yep,
you know makes sense. More likely to check stuff out. Yeah,

(37:32):
more likely to check stuff out, seth. You remember you're
familiar with Saint Anthony to find something right, Okay, check
this story out. So when we just did the live tour,
a guy told me the story that I met at
the live show, and then he emailed the story because
I said, email me that story because it's a great story.
We're talking about what explained Saint Anthony. I had never

(37:53):
heard of this. I honestly don't know what Saint Anthony.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
He's the saying of lost items.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
See, that's what it is.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
I always growing up, if I lost something, my grandmother
would always say, you gotta say, Saint Anthony, say anthy,
police come around. Something's been lost and cannot be found.
And if you say that, it's like a little prayer
type thing.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh mokw something.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
And if you say that, you'll you'll find whatever you're
looking for.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Well, let me back you up on that. This guy
uh long, it's kind of the convoluted story.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
But the.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Quick of it is, they were out checking trail camps
a couple hours from home, lose the truck keys. Oh
so this guy and his body loser truck keys. And
they look and look and look and look for the
truck keys, trying to call someone. And you're proposing to
their buddies that like you, how about you make a

(38:50):
four hour drive.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Oh it's a tough sell.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah. Anyways, they go all the way back to the
where the trail camp was and the tree stand was.
He says, real thick grass and vegetation back and forth.
Can't find it, and he does the the Anthony prayer.
The guy that didn't lose the guy accompanying the guy
that lost his keys, that's who's telling me the story.
He's accompanying his buddy. His buddy's lost his keys. He

(39:16):
does his Saint Anthony prayer. They're looking, and all of
a sudden, the guy's phone rings. The guy that lost
his keys phone rings, so he stops to converse on
the phone, and while he's conversing on the phone, realizes
that there's his keys. Now, who do you think it

(39:40):
was that called the man his buddy Anthony? Exactly? Man,
God is good? Exactly? Oh man, is that? I heard you? Exactly?
And I know hold honor that buddy? Ye something about
oh yeah, something about that. At the end of this episode,

(40:03):
you are going to hear chapter seven for free. You're
gonna hear chapter seven of me Eater's American History, The
Long Hunters.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
I'm very excited about this.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Oh you should be.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Oh, I'm like, from what I've heard, very excited.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
It's perhaps one of the things I used to tell people.
The thing I'm most proud of that I made My
best work was my Buffalo book because I was at
the height of my powers as a writer, because I
didn't have any other thing going on in my life.
That's all I was doing is just for two years,
I just worked on that book. My life was really simple,

(40:43):
no kids, wasn't married. It was just different back then.
A big old bull go out and grab hold of
big old bold that.

Speaker 5 (41:02):
I actually thought that those were the utters.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
That's just one. He's like, he's only got one utter.
So uh so, oh it does got to Yeah, he's
got to know. Damn, he's posting for us. Yeah, so
uh got's a stout looking critter in this thorn country

(41:31):
where so long hunters. Uh. It's pretty. It's really good.
It's really good. I believe it. It's narrated. It's audio only,
so it's not that you people shold understand. It's not
a print book. It's an audio original narrated by myself
and Clay Newcombe, exhaustively researched by doctor Randall.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I'm also excited that you and Clay are narrating it
because when you hear like audiobooks or whatever, and somebody
else is reading it. You talked about that one more
it's like it just kind of it can be a
real good or bad thing for the story.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Here's what we found in working on it is that's
not a close I feel we should get predator call
out and bring it in here. So that's a good point.
That's I wouldn't worry about that yet.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Tell what was I saying?

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Oh uh, you know books, A book that's meant to
that's written to be read, is best read. It's best
that you read it. Something that you're listening to is
just different. So when we made the Long Hunters, like
media's of American history is meant to be presented, it's
meant to be read, it's meant to be it's meant

(42:48):
to be listened to. It was like built specifically to
be listened to, which kind of makes it special. And
we do all the narration on it. It's really good.
So we're gonna put chapter seven, which is called Gearing Up.
It's about the equipment used by the Long Hunters at
the end of this episode to further titillate you and
prompt you to go and wherever you buy your books

(43:14):
and pick your copy up, download your copy for listening.
Cats and Schizophrenia.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
This is not a This wasn't ready for that. That
was not kind of like that gunshot.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
An academic study just came out, I.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
Felt when I saw this article, I really thought it
was meant for Steve's eyeballs.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Cat Are you ready for this? You cat man?

Speaker 2 (43:38):
No? Very far from a cat man?

Speaker 1 (43:40):
You catman?

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Dog man?

Speaker 1 (43:42):
No cat man here I have, Well, my wife has
a cat. You're a cat man. I'm certainly not a
cat man.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
You come around.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, he's a cat man. I don't touch the cat. Well, seth,
you might be curious to hear this, or not curious.
You might be alarmed to hear this. As a cat
what happened? As a cat man, I had a cat
named the cat. We had a cat named Maud when
I was a kid, and Maud had its babies and
my dad's boot and ate them all. Oh, we had
a cat named Fig and I was like, tell the

(44:11):
story that my dad we tamed a stray cat. My
dad tamed it by leaving fish heads out for it,
cleaning fish and leave the heads out. And he loved
this cat. I don't know wise only cat. Well, he
liked that cat mad too, But he brought Fig over
to his buddy who is a hog farmer, and this
hog farmer has castrated thousands of hogs. He bought fig

(44:35):
over so that that guy could castraight fig. And they
put they cut a little hole in a gunny sack,
put fig in that gunnysack and snaked his little berries
out of the hole in that gunny sack. Well, the
cat fought him off. They he's castraight on hundreds of hogs.

(44:55):
Couldn't castraight that cat. That cat got out of there
were just a little nick and his scrub him and
never got fixed because there's no way there. My desk
just spend money on that. If his body couldn't do
it, it wasn't so that cat just like won the battle
and pro creation. And that cat would leave for sometimes
he'd go on like a ten day hiatus. Oh yeah,

(45:17):
and then he'd come right down the stairs come back home.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
I had I had an old barn cat named wild Bill,
and he would do the same thing. He'd go on
like two week walkabouts gone, he'd be gone, he'd come back.
One time I caught him in a foothold by accident
in the fox set.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Oh, I caught my own cat one time.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
I let him out, didn't phase him. He'd still go
on walkabouts with a little limp.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
We caught our own cat, and we caught our own
cat trapping. Was that in a possum set on a
foot trap? Possum set? Caught our own cat in a
possum set. Let him out and he just followed us around.
He's like, what you guys are gonna show up? Let
him out there? He just tag along with the oction.

(46:02):
Uh oh, anyways, listen to this thing. Cat ownership and
schizophrennier related disorders in psychotic like experiences correlate, correlate to
cat ownership. Why it doesn't surprise me? Why you ask?

(46:22):
Because of something that you may have learned about listening
to this very podcast, the Meat Eater podcast. We did
an episode on cat scratch fever. Yeah, because we had
a guy on. Danny Bolton came on. Was that shit
called again?

Speaker 2 (46:40):
That's why pregnant ladies shouldn't clean litter boxes? Right when
they say that if you're pregnant, don't you.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Have a cat cox ol Danny Bolton got toxoplasmosis from
eating raw I can't remember if it was goat or lamb.
It was goat. Goat, raw goat. And so there's a
ton of feral cats in Hawaii, so that cat shit
had somehow gotten on whatever and he ate it. And
toxoplasmosis has been linked to jackals. No, what is it jackals? Oh?

(47:13):
Or is it what's that other wild ass looking dog?
In Africa hyena hyenas Hyenas that have toxoplasmosis are more
likely to be killed by lions. There's risky yet, people
that you're more likely to die in an automobile accident.
If you've had toxoplasmosis. It removes your fear, but it

(47:38):
also apparently removes your ability to not can impact your
psychological state, and toxoplasmosis can link to schizophrenia related outcomes.
So when you hear it, when New Jersey cat ladies
come to mess with you, oh.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
There's a reason why they're by.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
So this is after you're ready through the conclusions. This
is after they recover from it. Our findings support and
association between cat exposure and an increased risk of broadly
defined schizophrenia related disorders. However, the findings related to pl
e as an outcome or mixed. There is need for

(48:23):
more high qualities. Just never mind all that. I like
to stick with the narrative. I don't want to read
all the disclaimers because I want to paint a damning
portrait of cat ownership. It's like mainstream media. But in
all fairness, they say there is a need for more
high quality studies in this field because there's some uncertainty.
But still, do you.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Do you know how cats get like because not every
cat has toxic plasmosis or you don't get so like,
what is it?

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Outdoor cats are more I would imagine that cats that
have more of a chance to interact with cats.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, if you nabbed a cat out of a you know,
right out of the womb and never let it see
another cat, it's probably had a little likelihood of get
in toxle plasmos. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the
book You want to see another herd change? Yeah, I'm
a big fan of the book Life and Death at
the Mouth of the Muscle Shell. Oh love that book.

(49:22):
And in an area that now sits underneath the water
because of an impoundment, but it was a journal of
a guy who spent time at the mouth of the
where the muscleshell flows into the Missouri but like I said,
now it's flooded lays at the bottom of Fort Peck Reservoir.
And I had talked on the podcast before about the
amount of just bloodshed in that book. Well, a guy

(49:44):
read it, and he made a guy an audience member,
read it and built a spreadsheet where he could track
all the killings. Mm hm you want to hear some totals. Yeah,
when you read Life and Death at the Mouse of
the Muscle Shell, you will read about one thousand, four
hundred and seventy four dead wolves s wolf because in

(50:09):
that book, they're always going out and lace and buffalo
carcasses with strychnine yep, wolfing, and they'll be like, we
went to Bob's bait and had twenty four one day.
I can't remember what tribe it was. One day, one
of the planes tribes comes into the fort and they
are mighty pissed because their dogs all got killed. M
oh yeah yeah, and they're like, stop putting that poison out,

(50:31):
killed all their dogs. Four hundred and seventy four wolves,
four hundred and sixty eight analope one hundred and twenty
eight buffalo one hundred and twenty one Indians thirty four whites,
among many other things. That are the deaths of which

(50:53):
are described in Life and Death of the Mouth of
the Muscleshell. So that's the number of deaths that occur
in his time in his journal. Wow, they did. Yeah,
and they'd be like we got onto three and everybody
shot a bunch and couldn't find anything. Yeah, they killed
a lot of ground. Six got to.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
What uh what years does that take place during that journal?

Speaker 1 (51:19):
Uh, he's there in the late in the early eighteen seventies.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
It's something on the Muscleshell is hunting this fall up there,
and it's that kind of like more north of Great Falls.
It's like kind of you know, sage brushy gumbo type landscape,
big old griz print in the bottom of.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
This grizz track. Yeah, hunter, Yeah, show you the picture.
It's kind of freaky, really, Yeah, to be there. He
notices too that some you can tell some stuff about
migrations back then in uh so a real spike and antelope.

(51:59):
There's an in November eighteen seventy one, so one hundred
and three years before I was born. They killed two
hundred and twenty three antelope out of that Fort November. Wow,
I remember that part of the book, and it was
a big deal. Everybody's going up and killing all the antelope.
Thousands of antelope hanging out by the fort. Thank you

(52:19):
Craig for sending that in. Yeah, that's cool. Now here's
another little stats thing, a lot of stats today. We
had our buck Ratland stats. Those stats. This kind of
blew my mind. So there's a deal. In Wisconsin they

(52:40):
have a DNR website the tracks dogs killed by wolves. Okay,
this is this is pretty crazy. So it starts. It
must be when they start being able to have the
running season starting in July eight. So, for instance, July eight,
twenty three, Burnett County, one hunting dog killed seven year

(53:05):
old female blue tick trailing hound. Okay, that's July eight.
July twenty Clark County, one hunting dog killed and one
hunting dog injured. Walker trailing hounds. That was July twenty.
July twenty one, Lincoln County, one hunting dog killed six

(53:28):
year old female redbone trailing hound. The next day, July
twenty two, Bayfield County, two hunting dogs killed a four
year old male walker trailing hound and an eight year
old female red bone trailing hound. Seven days later, Burnett County.

(53:49):
One hunting dog killed five year old male blue tick
trailing hound. Four days later, August third, one hunting dog
killed three year old plot trailing hound. Why are they
getting killed in the summer because it's wolves killing dogs
running bears.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Oh, that's the bare season.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Now. I don't know if this is true, but someone's
pointing out cutting the hazard of cutting your hounds loose
near bait piles that wolves hitting are hinting and frequenting
those bait piles. And you're cutting your hounds loose near
bait piles, and it meant that thing starts cutting out,

(54:32):
baying or trailing. Yeah, those wolves are pounding it so up.
So this thing, I'm looking at tracks up till this thing.
I'm looking at tracks up till December. Okay. Now the
running tally so in Wisconsin in these counties. In Wisconsin,

(54:58):
twenty five bear killed and seven bare hounds injured between
July and October twenty twenty three in northern Wisconsin. Wow, jeez,
and that's something. Yeah, that's that's yeah. That's a number, man,
that's a big number. That's just surprising every couple of
days all and it peaks like in that September October

(55:19):
and then trails off obviously in December, pounding on them
trailing dogs. Dang, I don't even know what I think
about that. Yeah, I don't know. Trying to think of
what I think about that. I can see people saying,

(55:41):
if you like your dog's lot, I wouldn't turn them
out on numbars. And I could see someone saying a
lot of wolves. Yeah, I don't even know if I
want to get back into this thing about the bird
name it now?

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Oh god, I can see a quick tidbit the well,
I'm curious about it now that you mentioned it. What
do you mean now that you mentioned you did this
bird naming thing?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
And did you listen to the show?

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Not this one?

Speaker 1 (56:07):
This one?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Which episode is it?

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Recently?

Speaker 3 (56:11):
You and cal and and I was on your side.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
The Ornithological Society in the US has moved to rename
seventy bird species. Now they will periodically rename a bird.
For instance, as I pointed out, everyone knows there's a
blue grouse, but the Ornithological Society determined that blue grouse
was capturing actually two distinct species of grouse. So there

(56:40):
became out of blue became dusky and sooty. Yeah, makes sense.
Everyone knows that the old squaw duck, that's a derogatory term,
and many people find that term offensive. So the Ornithological
Society came in and surgically took that duck and renamed

(57:05):
the long tail duck. Now they can't tell you what
the hell to call the dog, but it's just their
take on it. It's not you know, they're not like
the God of birds. But the Ornithological Society moved to
form try to formally rename the old squaw to the
long tail, therefore moving it away. Just like I don't know,
seven or eight squaw peaks, seven or eight, I don't know.

(57:28):
Is that probably more squaw creeks right got new names?
And I used to live in Missoula, Montana. One of
the primary peaks you'd see looking mostly west would be
Squaw Peak, and I remember, maybe as in the late
nineties early two thousands, it became Sacagawea Peak. There's a
Squaw Creek near where I live now that became storm Castle,

(57:52):
which seems like something from the Simpsons.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Storm Castle.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
I remember he had storm King was his snowplow.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Oh those plow king, Like he was mister plow, and
then Barney got into it and he was the plow.
He was the competitor at home.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Yeah, like storm Castle. It seems like if you if
you've got one of those really bad realtors, you know
those realtors it does when they do a subdivision and
then name it for what it replaced. So if there
used to be like a bunch of elk meadows, you'd
mow that ship down, pave it over, build a bunch
of houses, and be like, I'm gonna call this subdivision
olk Meadows. I'm gonna call this subdivision cattle Country. So yeah,

(58:37):
storm Castle, which seems like a like a make believe
white castle, like little cheeseburger, like a place that has
a name like we used to hunt an area called
Froze to Death. I'm like, that's a legit name. You
can tell that some that area is Frozen Death, Hanging
Woman Creek. Guess, let me guess storm Castle.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I mean there's no castles your storming.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
I got friends that just can't I got friends that
can't stomach it, and they just and they can't call
it that.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Yeah, uh, where was I.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I felt that this?

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (59:17):
So they now have done the big play and they're like,
no more surgical renaming of things. We're gonna just rename
seventy birds. Any bird named after like any bird named
after a white European, regardless of what that person stood

(59:38):
for or did, gets a new name. And I felt,
and still feel that one it's a publicity grab. Two
it's a lot. It's not surgical. It's just it's blunt.
It's like it just it just reeks to me of

(59:58):
it reeks to me of a pr someone pointed out,
and ornithologists pointed out that where this movement is getting
some resistance is the international ornithology community, who feels that
this is a distinctly American idea.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Yeah, do you have an example of a bird?

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
No, just go listen to the episode, Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
I will, and the listeners should too if they haven't
heard it already. So I like that pitch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I'm sure there's birds out there named after. To give
you an example, the Stellar's J will no longer be according
to these guys, the Stellar's J will cease to be
the Stellar's J. They'll probably like the iridescent purple J.
But when which is great, they should have named it that.
I wish they were named that from the start. Yeah,
but at this point it's there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
They probably named it Stellar's Jake because some dude named
Stellar still last name.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Because these dudes used to run around name and everything
after themselves. Stellar did a j he did a sea lion,
he did an eagle. He doesn't named anything after himself.
Was Was he a bad dude? I don't know. It's
just fallen out of favor now, like no one names
a new bird their own name, But it was the
practice in the eighteen hundreds that was a common practice

(01:01:27):
that you would name that. If you scientifically described a species,
you would name it. Now the rationale I said, I
wasn't going to revisit this whole thing, and here I am.
The rationale is they feel that new birders, new birders
who aren't of who are not of European descent, who
aren't a male of western European descent, that new aspiring

(01:01:53):
birders would be turned off to birding when they saw
this crazy, beautiful purple bird feeding on white mark pine cones,
white marked pine nuts in the rocky mountains, and they
might be like, good gracious, what a gorgeous bird. I'm
so happy to learn about that bird. And they look

(01:02:13):
and be like Stellar's jail jay, I'm getting out of
this birding. I think the I'm done burden. I think
the people that and I don't buy that are.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Behind this and using all this energy to go through
and change the names of seventy some birds just because
they're named after dudes or people. If they took that
energy and put that into preserving habitat for these birds
to live in, we would all be living in a

(01:02:47):
better world.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
That's my two cents on it. I yeah, I just
I was with them, and now I just think it's yeah,
I'm not with them. I do no, no, no, I
understood the surgical, occasional renaming. I just think that, like
the seventy thing, I just felt like felt like a publicity.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
So yeah, if it's named after something that's like offensive
to someone, obviously.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
I think that. I think that's that that was the
premise that there are certain people who might or do find.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Offended just by the fact of offended by the ethnicity
of someone that named a bird.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
That's that's very possible because I don't know for myself
the full you know, seventy that have been that had
been listed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
That's what they're saying. They're saying that not that you're
offended by a specific thing that you'd look and be like,
it's offensive to me that that individual's distant relatives hailed
from Western Europe.

Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
If that's that, that's kind of the definition of reverse
racism in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Yeah, you wanna know more something about birds? Sure? Now,
every boy dreams of being uh making his uh not
every boy, mini boys dream of one day growing up
and being like a trapper commercial you know, hunter commercial

(01:04:15):
fishermen like you make your living out hunt. Yep. Well,
these fellas in Montana got in that business all the
wrong way. Uh. They got into the golden and bald eagle.
Oh I right about this business?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Oh yeah, right, bro, these dudes did some It was
an orchestrated thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Yeah, they were big time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Over a number of years.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Right. Yeah, So they were selling on the black market
at pretty good prices, like surprisingly good prices. Speaking of birds,
Uh to you guys, I don't need I don't want
to give their name. I mean you can find their
name they're in Montana, but you know, I don't want
to get their name. Uh. Three thousand, six hundred is

(01:05:05):
the number that they're indicted on killing for the mark
commercial market three thousand, six hundred golden and bald eagles.
Now social media. I remember one time we were in Missouri, No,
we were in Kentucky and I met a game warden
in the game. We were talking about being out in

(01:05:26):
the field, and I remember he was one of the
first people that ever expressed to me any unease about suppressors.
And he was talking about man that, uh you know,
I was actually talking to new handful of game wardens.
I can't remember which one said what, but one of
these game wardens was saying, I really rely on that
crack of a rifle. He said, I'll be out in

(01:05:49):
my tree stand and off in the distance, and he'd
be like something about that ain't right, and he said
I'll be down out of my tree heading over there
and catching poachers. And so he's like with suppressors, I
worry about losing that tool. And a game ward and said,
I don't need to go into the field anymore. I

(01:06:10):
have Facebook.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
So he gains more time in his tree stand though, yeah,
he can Facebook in his trees.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
So this guy had made This guy had tex so
this is not social media, but he had text messages people. Uh,
he had text message to a guy, you know, like basically,
what are you doing? I'm out here committing felonies?

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, they're texted them but they knew it man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
And another message she said he was out on a
killing spree. They illegally sold the on the black market
the United States and elsewhere. They ran their scheme from
January twenty fifteenth through March twenty twenty one. They sold
wings and tails.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Does it say how they got busted? Was it like
a sting? M?

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
I can't remember now?

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
What are people doing with the wings and tails?

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Just three hundred and fifty bucks a pop? They were
making up to three hundred and fifty dollars. Oh my god,
that's per bird.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
That sounds low, a little low, no knowing a like
committing a felony and you're selling it for three point
fifty with inflate.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Yeah, but you could probably, Yeah, they're probably. I mean
I don't I'd have to spend more time on it.
But I mean if you got on the if you
got on the right deer carcass or two, if if
you sit down and shoot a thousand bucks or the eagles, Yeah,
and all you're doing is like for processing. You're taking

(01:07:47):
the tail, the wings off. It's dude, Uh, that strikes
me as real easy money.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
Well, yeah, he could probably go set a bunch of
legholds around the carcass and have a thousand bucks where
the eagles sitting there egles to check it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
I mean, and I don't want to say I don't
when people taking the wrong way. But if that guy
set up shop Southeast Alaska, Oh, he'd buy a private
plane yep, on.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
A dumpster in southeast Alaska. He didn't even have to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
So from April thirty, twenty twenty through March thirteenth, twenty one,
that's a long time, okay, they sold or offered to
sell the parts of whole birds, the parts or whole
birds from two bald eagles and eleven golden eagles. One

(01:08:48):
of these guys would travel from the state of Washington
out to an Indian reservation in Montana to shoot in
and around a reservation area.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
For whatever reason, I think one of the guys lived
on the reservation.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
He did. In one instance, on March thirteenth, twenty twenty one,
the two men quote returned to a previously killed deer
lure in eagles. All right, So they'd killed deer lure
in eagles facing up to eighteen years behind bars, one
of them eighteen years and one of them facing up

(01:09:27):
to fifteen years behind bars. Good surprise, that's it. Yeah,
but you know what I meant. It would be a
lot worse if they hadn't been delisted.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Do you know what I'm saying? If they had done
it in the seventies, if they had done in the seventies,
it'd be So it's not a federal offense.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
It's probably multiple felonies. Right, It's probably felony to kill it,
and then felony to sell it, and then there's probably
you know, if you're going international, there's probably thousands.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
That's a good question. Are they in federal or not federal?

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
How many felonies? Seems like there's a lot of felonies,
A lot of felonies. When I think of a felony,
I think of a lot more time than that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Yeah, where are they indicted? O? Man depends on a felony.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
A couple of them deer coming in felt like they're
coming into sting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Seemed like yeah, like coming on and be like no
it's federal. So they're in a federal It's it's a
federal deal. You know why it's federal because it'd be
Lazy Act, right, because it'd be federal anyways, because they're
crossing the state lines to commit a crime automatical nation. Well,

(01:10:45):
because of it, seems like you should be federal. Yeah,
well it would be picked up as federal because when
you commit a state wildlife crime, when you cross state
lines to break a state's wildlife law, it becomes federal.
Like if you kidnap someone and drive them across if
you were to kidnap someone in Texas and drive into Oklahoma,
you're now that's a federal charge. It ceases to be

(01:11:09):
state and goes federal. So because of the Lacey Act,
they're moving wildlife parts across state lines and it became
a federal US District court. One of them was a
shooter and one of them was a shipper. One of
them was from the Yeah, one of them lived on

(01:11:30):
the Flathead Indian Reservation. Hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
I wonder if they thought they'd get around it somehow
by being on the reservation.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
I had to read more. If he's a tribal member,
they might have thought they were covered by something and don't.
I don't really know why they're not. Yeah, we'll do
a better job reporting on this next time we're out,
next time we're out hog hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Yeah, I haven't seen any other things come in your ears?

Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
Everyone there like the way. Yeah, and then they're all
they're all out left over there a couple hundred yards.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Recent news story about the schizophrenia, cat ownership and skirts
of schizophrenia we recently covered a we found out. I've
been real interested in people dropping stuff into toilet vaults
and then getting going in there and getting stuck in there,
like National Forest Spots, fishing access site, magnet.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Oh, that's where the most have happened.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
So I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna say to you, Chris.
I'm gonna say, did you listen to the episode where
we had the guys on who rescued someone from a
vault toilet? And you're gonna say, well, no, not that one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
I had not listened to. I don't do a lot
of podcasting, So I got a fresh baby that might
have preceded her though no.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
It did so again, uh uh, there's a there's a
high pro a case of international significance where someone got
stuck in a vault toilet and got rescued. Then later
a woman got stuck in a vault toilet trying to
fetch her watch out of there, and they couldn't figure

(01:13:17):
out how to get her out because they were trying
to take her up through the toilet seat. Oh but
one of the responding officers had listened to the podcast,
so he knew. He's like, hey, I listened to a
podcast about this. You can actually remove the pedestal and
fish the person right out of the hole beneath the pedestal. Oh, yeah,
saved the day. We've saved. I don't know how many liyes?

(01:13:39):
Can I keep expecting presidential commendation? Dude, Metal of Freedom.
Someday I'm gonna be down there at the State of
the Union to dress and like Trump's gonna be like
tonight we're honoring, going to be It's gonna be us

(01:14:02):
about TURNI quits and how to get people out of
vault toilets. So there's then there's like a rash of
these vault toilet tragedies near tragedies. Uh, so we're going
to close because oh, back to this, so we realize
some I don't know who found this guy. There's a

(01:14:24):
guy that sings the news. He takes news stories and
to write songs so you don't have to read the news.
You can just listen to his songs where he covers
the news with piano accompaniments.

Speaker 5 (01:14:39):
Yeah, piano news.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Reads piano news. So he writes the song about the
news story, puts the news story up on social media
on one screen, and the the other half is him
performing his song about the news. So he did the
news on this vault toilet issue. And he says it

(01:15:01):
starts with him saying if I dropped my watch into
some public excretion, I say that's it for me. Dog Uh.
And he has done one and we're gonna close with it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Our license on the very controversial ride On by Christopher
Denny has expired, and KRINN rather than renewing our rather
than forking over our few thousand bucks that it caused
us to have Chris Denny's right on for a year,
we're gonna switch to only using music that our listeners
write and perform.

Speaker 5 (01:15:47):
We've gotten a ton of submissions already.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Chester the Midwester we use some dog dirt and dirt
send one over.

Speaker 5 (01:15:55):
Dirt, and if you're not all musical, you could do
like spoken word poetry too.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
The music is I do like I started listening to
that day, Henry rollins, I take that back, everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
We need the music, so for twenty so for twenty
twenty four, we're only using listener sourced music to close
the show. And we're not going to tell you who's
doing it every time, but every time you'll find it
the show liner notes and we're only telling you who's
doing Knox, We're kicking the whole thing off. This is
the first one right mention this. We commissioned it. We
sent him, Hey, you like singing about the news, why

(01:16:34):
don't you sing about cats and schizophrenia? So he composed
original music. If you don't like to read, you know though,
you already heard the story, so we just talked about it.
Let's just say you hadn't, or you skip that part here.
Now you can hear the news saying to you, oh.

Speaker 5 (01:16:50):
But he riffs off it, and you know Signamese cats
are involved in this.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
Yeah, oh wow, yeah, schizophrenia, Siamese cats. You see what
this is going on? So, uh dig in, We're gonna
go gut Krin's Hog.

Speaker 5 (01:17:06):
And stick around for the chapter Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
And after the song? Yeah, Oh, shoot man, how many
people are we gonna lose because they're gonna hear the
end of music and turn it off and not already
told them about it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Yeah, just stick around, you gotta stick around. The Hunter
thing is gonna be good.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Man. Do Read's Piano music, and then stay tuned for
chapter seven of me Eater's American History, The Long Hunters
seventeen sixty one to seventeen seventy five, and remind you
what comes after seventeen seventy five, The Revolution seventeen seventy six. Yeah,

(01:17:47):
So if you're wondering, like why those age brackets, you
will find out when you listen that. Why what did
Daniel Boone and the boys who kind of deer? Why
did their era end with the Revolution? You don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:18:02):
I have no Chris damn sure don't know what I
found out about him today, But I'm not gonna tell
because I don't know if his mom listens, Does she
listen more than you, because if not, she's not going
to hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
I don't know if she knows what a podcast is.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
She's like, I didn't listen to that episode. Alright, stay
tuned for reads. What's it called? Reads?

Speaker 5 (01:18:30):
Pianos Reads?

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Piano news? Chapter seven, Long Hunters, Thank you guys, got some?
He ain't got a twin thinks now hearing voices, this
can't say to breathe? And who's that other guy in
my house watching me? Maybe I can't do ball?

Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
The last time I think I fought in North am
I going in sade?

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
This really?

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
Is this a fantasy?

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
How come I bought that cat? Now there's me my
hear cat owners saying, I think I'm lost my bad
Based the pony studies, I think they're probably right Saturdays.

Speaker 6 (01:19:21):
If I don't, If I don't, please, I'm gonna need
some pett and balls.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
It's their paint.

Speaker 7 (01:19:27):
Forty five cat came on, thinking, bye, are you okay?

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
The straight jacket's only come in light? Chapter seven? Gearing up.

(01:19:52):
Becoming a successful long hunter required more than steely nerves,
the hunger for adventure, and an intimate knowledge of the land, escape,
and wildlife of the first Far West. Without the right tools,
you were not gonna last long. In seventeen sixty nine,

(01:20:15):
a large party of long hunters, some twenty or more,
assembled in the frontier settlements along the New River in
western Virginia. The men had plans to hunt the Cumberland
River drainage on the far side of the Cumberland Gap.
You'll recognize some of their names, Casper Mansker, the Bledsoe brothers,
and John Baker. Two years earlier, Baker had been on

(01:20:38):
that ill fated trip to New Orleans where his party
boded their hides down the Mississippi, sold them off, and
got robbed of their cash on the way home. Despite
the obvious risks, the call of opportunity prevailed. Setting out
in June, this newly assembled party took the Warriors Path
across the headwaters of the Tennis River, moving through the

(01:21:01):
Cumberland Gap to the Cumberland River. They then traveled downstream
to where Meadow Creek flowed in. That's where they'd set
up their station camp in a spot known as Price's Meadow.
If you're looking for that place today, it's on the
south side of the Cumberland River. You can just look
for a historical marker near Rubbing Bucks Barbecue.

Speaker 9 (01:21:25):
The party broke up into groups of three or four hunters,
and they got after it. Every five weeks, the groups
planned to return to their station camp with their harvests
of hides loaded on their horses. The hunt was successful.
Within a few months, the party hit amassed some five
hundred white tailed deerskins, but one day a group of

(01:21:46):
twenty five Cherokees discovered their camp while the men were
out hunting. The cherokees stole the long hunter's cash and
some of their gunpowder. They also took off with some clothing,
pots and kettles.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
With what little gunpowder the long hunters had left, continuing
to hunt would have been feudle, so Isaac bledsoel rowed
back to the settlements with some of the men to resupply.
Upon their return, the hunt resumed. The men hunted until
April of seventeen seventy, when half the party hauled a

(01:22:21):
pack train of deerskins and furs back east.

Speaker 9 (01:22:26):
Casper Mansker and the remainder of the long hunters stayed behind.
They decided to build two boats and two trapping canoes,
which would have been made from bark sown over a
frame of lashed saplings. They also made use of a
third boat that had been abandoned on site, perhaps by
French hunters or traders. The hunters loaded up their hides

(01:22:49):
and meet and gear, and started to head down river
to the colonial settlement of Natchez on the Mississippi. This
was an incredible journey of hundreds of river miles. The
men would have canoed down the Cumberland River to the Ohio,
down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi
to Natchez. At French Lick, the present day site of Nashville, Tennessee,

(01:23:12):
they saw what was, by all accounts, the largest number
of buffalo and wild game they had ever encountered in
any one place. After killing a few of the animals
and using their hides to cover their open boats, they
continued downriver until they reached the mouth of the Cumberland.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
At this point, the men were dealing with some spoilage
in the bear meat that they'd harvested back in the
Cumberland River country, not surprising given the length of their
journey and this being the warmer months of the year,
so they decided to convert some of the bear meat
into bear greece. To do this, they would have discarded
the lean red meat and retained just the fat. They

(01:23:53):
then simmer the fat in kettles to separate the oil
or grease from the solids. The valuable grease would have
likely been sewn into sacks made of deer, elk, or
buffalo hide. During this process of rendering bear grease, they
get robbed again. A war party at Chickasaws makes off

(01:24:13):
with their guns and ammunition. At this point, you'd be
justified in assuming that this long hunting party would come
to an end. I mean enough bad luck is enough, right,
But it does not come to an end. The Chickasaws
didn't take the white men's oils or furs, so the
hunters continue downstream, and they eventually are able to sell

(01:24:37):
their skins and bear grease in Natches. After the sale,
some of the men commence their journey homeward, but Casper
Mansker stays a while in Natches, likely because he seems
to have gotten sick. Upon recovering, he too sets out
for home, traveling upriver in a boat with John Baker.

(01:24:59):
The two men events actually join up with a party
of horse traders who are heading over land to Georgia.
Mansker and Baker then break off from the horse traders
and cut north through East Tennessee and then finally onto
the New River, likely arriving in late summer or early
autumn after more than a year away from home. Now

(01:25:23):
that is what you would call a long hunt.

Speaker 9 (01:25:27):
There's a lot to take in about that story. One
of the main things that might have surprised you was
the way the Native American hunters took some supplies from
the hunting party that they saw as trespassers, but they
didn't take everything from them. In the following chapter, we'll
be talking about why something like that might happen. But
what we're gonna dive into here is the critical nature

(01:25:49):
of those supplies and equipment used by the long hunters,
from guns and ammunition to knives and hatchets. We're going
to cover the gear that allowed them to do what
they did.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
We'll begin with one of the most iconic pieces of
the long hunter's kit, the Kentucky Rifle, also known as
the Kentucky Long Rifle. Not only is it central to
their adventures, it remains one of the most legendary guns
in American history. The rifles weren't just renowned for their
function and aesthetic. These were the first uniquely American firearms.

(01:26:25):
We're gonna get into some finer details about these guns,
but let's first cover the very basics the long hunters
hunted with flintlock muzzleloading rifles. We'll get to the flintlock
part in a few minutes, but let's first look at
what specifically a muzzleloader is by talking about what it

(01:26:46):
is not. If you look at your standard rifle or
shotgun that you're gonna use for this year's deer or
duck season, you'll see that the shell is loaded into
the breach of the gun, meaning it's loaded into the
end of the barrel that you're standing at, not the
end where the bullet comes out. Well, that's the defining
feature of a muzzleloader. A muzzle loader is loaded from

(01:27:11):
the muzzle end or the front opening of the barrel,
and these guns weren't loaded with complete cartridges that combined
primer gunpowder and a lead projectile in a brass casing. Instead,
the load, or shell as we call it, was assembled
by the hunter inside the barrel. First, a hunter would

(01:27:33):
pour a charge of loose gunpowder down the barrel. They
could measure it out or just take a good guess
and free pour it. Then they'd take the bullet, which
was a simple lead ball, and wrap it in a patch,
a greased piece of fabric or thin leather that cradled
the ball like how a Hershey's kiss is cradled in

(01:27:56):
its wrapping of aluminum foil. That package of ball and
patch would be shoved down the barrel with a ramrod.
It was a pretty tight fit. Now, it's important to
keep in mind that all Kentucky long rifles were muzzleloaders,
but not all muzzleloaders were Kentucky long rifles. And it's

(01:28:17):
also important to note that the long hunters journeying into
Kentucky wouldn't have said they were carrying Kentucky long rifles.
That name didn't take hold until later in the seventeen eighties,
and in fact it was something of a misnomer then,
as the rifles would be more accurately associated with Pennsylvania,

(01:28:39):
where they took on their defining characteristics. You'll actually see
them referred to as Pennsylvania rifles here and there in
the historical record.

Speaker 9 (01:28:50):
So this can all be a bit confusing whether you
call them Kentucky rifles or Pennsylvania rifles. These iconic weapons
derived from a pres that assessor weapon that arrived in
North America with distinctly European roots. That early gun, the Jaeger,
was shaped by a combination of two key design features.

(01:29:12):
One was German and it's called rifling. Now, we mentioned
this word a minute ago, and it's important, as rifling
is where the word rifle comes from. Rifling refers to
the spiral grooves that are cut into the inside or
bore of a rifle's barrel. Historians disagree on how this
innovation came to be, but regardless, rifling is what gives

(01:29:33):
a slug or projectile it's spin.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Just like a good spiral pass with a football.

Speaker 9 (01:29:39):
A spinning projectile is stable in flight and thus much
more accurate. We just explained how a musloading rifle is
loaded with the fully assembled load of powder, patch and
ball crammed down the end of the barrel. Well, the
only thing left to do in order to make that
gun go boom is somehow ignite the gunpowder. That's where

(01:30:00):
the term flintlock comes into play. The flintlock ignition system
was a design tradition that came from the French, or
rather it exploded out of Paris.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):
With much enthusiasm.

Speaker 9 (01:30:12):
This ignition system replaced earlier cruder mechanisms designed for the
same purpose. The flintlock system featured a spring loaded hammer
that was fitted with a small chunk of flint held
in place by a clamp. Pull the rifle's trigger, and
the hammer crashed down on a hinged piece of steel
that flung open to reveal a small pan of gunpowder.

(01:30:35):
In a synchronized bit of wonderment, the flint hitting the
steel created a flash of sparks that landed right into
the now exposed pan of powder, igniting it. The flames
from this ignition would jump through a touch hole in
the side of the barrel and ignite the much bigger
load of gunpowder. Within bang, a rather boom out comes

(01:30:58):
the lead ball spin smooth and fast thanks to the rifling.
As an aside, when you hear somebody say a flash
in the pan to describe something short lived or less
than promised, that's where the same comes from, a little
blast of powder that failed to ignite the main charge.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
When German gunsmiths, the pioneers of rifling, adopted the French flintlock,
the result was this rifle known as a yagger. Now,
for you connoisseurs of yagermeister, that's German for hunter. So
how do we get a uniquely American gun. From this
European lineage, well Yaggers came to North America in the

(01:31:41):
seventeen hundreds with the German immigrants who would settle in
the Lancaster Valley of Pennsylvania. Lancaster became the largest western
town in Colonial America, and as it grew and as
folks migrated from there down through the Shanandoah Valley, those
gunsmithing traditions spread. Now, keep in mind these guns. Back then,

(01:32:04):
these muzzleloaders were entirely handmade. Every spring and screw and
piece of metal, no matter how small, was built by
the hands of an individual gunsmith. There are an infinite
number of little details we could get into about this process,
but here's just one. The barrel started out as flat

(01:32:25):
pieces of metal, basically long flat bars that were actually
hammered into cylinders. The hole in the middle of one
of these cylinders would be smoothed, polished, and rifled. Will
explain that in a minute too, with nothing but crude
hand tools. The making of these rifles was an intricate

(01:32:46):
expression of the finest craftsmanship, and these designs evolved not
in a board room or in the R and D
lab of some company, but in the hands of individual
gunsmiths working on individuals guns informed by the feedback of
individual customers.

Speaker 9 (01:33:06):
Two further innovations took place that would turn the Jaeger
into the Kentucky rifle, and they both happened in the
New World. One was the lengthening of the barrel, which
would typically be forty to forty eight inches long. The
iconic long barrel gave the charge of powder more time
to full ignite, increasing the SHOT's velocity, and the longer

(01:33:28):
trajectory out of the barrel also increased accuracy by stabilizing
the projectile's path. The second innovation that defined the Kentucky
rifle was a shrinking of the bore size, which meant
the gun fired a smaller projectile. European guns at the
time traditionally shot larger projectiles up to seventy five caliber

(01:33:50):
or more, meaning a sphere of lead about three quarters
of an inch wide. For a long hunter in particular,
there was an obvious advantage to the smaller It helped
reduce the amount of powder and lead they needed to
carry with them into the back country.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
Back in those days, they weren't talking in the same
caliber nomenclatures used today. Their common unit of measurement for
bore diameter was how many balls for a particular rifle
could be produced from a single pound of lead, which
would translate roughly to how many deer could be killed
with a single pound of lead. Think of a modern

(01:34:39):
day conversation about fuel economy and cars. Someone might say
my car gets twenty five miles to the gallon of gas. Well,
a long hunter might note that his gun got forty
eight shots to the pound of lead. One source described
Pennsylvania rifles in general as firing quote a ball no
larger than thirty six to the pound, which would be

(01:35:03):
a fifty three caliber meaning a bore diameter of zero
point five to three inches, so just barely over a
half inch wide. For comparison's sake, a roughly forty five
caliber rifle, which was preferred by most long hunters, would
get about forty to forty eight balls per pound of lead.

(01:35:25):
I'll point out that this ball's per pound of lead
measurement is actually where our contemporary shotgun gauge system that
we use today comes from. When you hear a shotgun
described as a twelve gage or twenty gauge that's a
reference to how many lead balls of a particular diameter
you can make out of a pound of lead. Meaning,

(01:35:47):
if you cast twelve spherical lead balls with the diameter
matching the diameter of the barrel of your twelve gage shotgun,
they would add up to one pound. Likewise, if you
divide a single pound of lead into twenty equal spheres,
those spheres would be the bore diameter of your twenty

(01:36:08):
gage shotgun.

Speaker 9 (01:36:10):
The long hunters in their contemporaries thought of rifles and
ammunition in this way balls per pound, because they weren't
carrying the set quantity of round balls or bullets into
the back country. They were casting these projectiles themselves out
of bars of lead. This was the most efficient means
of transporting all of the ammunition they'd need in the

(01:36:31):
first far West. They hauled their lead in bars that
weighed several pounds each. Then to form bullets, they would
cast that lead into round projectiles over a campfire by
pouring molten lead into a cast. Achieving some level of
consistency was important. Bullets needed to be smooth and relatively
clean of creases, seams, and pitting. We can only imagine

(01:36:55):
that casting bullets must have been a frequent activity at
the station camps where the long hunters deposited their skins
and stored their supplies. Stores of lead and melting ladles
which they'd used to melt and pour their lead were
communal gear that was left at camp, but each individual
hunter would have had a bullet cast that matched his
own rifle. Keep in mind these weapons were all handmade

(01:37:18):
by individual gunsmiths, and each had their own unique irregularities
and specifications.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
Another chore required to keep their guns running would have
been napping or shaping flint from fist sized pieces of
suitable rock chirt or obsidian, the same types of rock
that Native Americans used to make arrowheads. This flint, when
struck against steel, was what produced the spark. Although we
don't have any sort of detailed insight on this point

(01:37:48):
through lime and draper or our other sources, we can
only imagine that the long hunters would keep in camp
a store of chirt or other toolstone that they could
shape into flints if they did run out. This was
one supply that would have been relatively easy for them
to source out in the field.

Speaker 9 (01:38:09):
Gunpowder with something else long hunters might have known how
to produce on their own. In a pinch, it could
be made from a concoction of batguano, sulfur, wood, ash,
and the dowsing of their own urine, But all available
evidence suggests they simply purchased powder back in the settlements.
Outside of the most dire circumstances, high quality gunpowder imported

(01:38:32):
from Great Britain and her other colonies was readily available,
and it was cheap, so cheap that domestic manufacture of
gunpowder in the colonies that became the United States was
not economically viable. There were exceptions in periods when trade
was interrupted or when Great Britain was in a state
of war and restricted the supply of gunpowder going outside

(01:38:54):
of its borders, but generally, gunpowder in the colonies came
from overseas and it was abundant. The counts frequently mentioned
that the long hunters set out with large supplies of
lead and powder. They'd transport this powder and store it
in their station camps and larger containers, probably small kegs,
but individual hunters would carry their powder in the field

(01:39:17):
in a powder horn, another essential piece of gear made
from the horn of a cow or buffalo. It would
be fitted with a stopper at the pointy end and
used to pour a charge of powder down the muzzle
of the gun.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
As we saw at the top of this chapter, those supplies,
along with the rifles themselves, were sometimes seized by Native
Americans when they ran into parties of white men hunting
on their land. The long hunter's rifles made an attractive
prize because they were way better than the type of
guns the Soul called trade guns that were in wide

(01:39:53):
circulation among Native people. These trade guns were smooth bore
guns or muskets that were produced use relatively cheaply in
Europe and were frequently traded with the Native Americans by
the colonial deer skin traders in exchange for deer hides.
Smooth bore guns had smooth bores, so none of the

(01:40:13):
rifling or spiraling grooves that gave the Kentucky rifle its
accuracy by forcing bullets to spin as they exited the barrel.
But smooth bore guns could be loaded more quickly, and
again could be produced more cheaply. You could outfit an
army with smooth bore guns for less money, so they

(01:40:35):
were around. But when Native Americans ran into parties of
long hunters on their traditional hunting grounds, they would often
take the opportunity to, let's say, exchange those smooth boar
guns for the long hunter's Kentucky rifles. We'll be hearing
more about this interesting dynamic of theft and trade in

(01:40:55):
the following chapter. There's a lot more to say.

Speaker 9 (01:40:59):
To get back to the elements that comprise the long
hunter's kit. Other than their rifles and necessary paraphernalia, the
cutting tools carried by long hunters with the most essential
pieces of gear they had. Many would have carried what
was then called a clasp or folder knife, what we
would today just call a pocket knife or a jackknife.

(01:41:21):
They also carried larger fixed blade knives, commonly described in
the historic record as butcher knives or sometimes scalping knives,
six to ten inches long. They were used for all
manner of purposes, eating, scanning, fighting, whittling, carving, and yes,
at times, removing human scalps. Most blades were imported from Europe,

(01:41:45):
typically without handles, the owner would fashion and attach their own.
Some surviving examples from this period have handles made from
deer antlers. These would have been in ready supply given
the occupation of the long hunters, and if you hear
of a stag handle knife, that's what they were talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:42:03):
The antler handle.

Speaker 9 (01:42:05):
Modern blade steels are much stronger than what they had
around then, and our knives hold a sharper edge than
could be expected of the blades carried by long hunters.
This meant they would frequently need to sharpen their knives,
quite likely with stones found nearby. A smooth and wet
river cobble would have been an adequate tool to sharpen
the soft steel that was in use back then.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
As ubiquitous as these knives were, a small axe was
just as critical to the long hunter's kit. Some folks
might use the words hatchets, belt axes, and tomahawks interchangeably today,
but to the long hunters there were key distinctions. Long
hunters like Boone would have carried a belt axe. These

(01:42:50):
were hung from the belt or carried on a shoulder
strap and secured beneath the belt. They were smaller than
what you might be picturing, maybe twelve inches or so
overall and weighing less than a pound. The head of
the axe had a squarish appearance. The pole the end
opposite the bit or cutting surface was flat and rectangular,

(01:43:11):
and could be used as a hammer for any number
of tasks. The eye, or the opening in which the
handle was seated, was a tapered, oblong shape. As they
would with a knife. The owner of a belt axe
would commonly need to haft it or put a handle
on it themselves.

Speaker 9 (01:43:31):
These belt axes were different from a round poled, round
eyed trade axe that sleek distinctive profile we would most
commonly call it tomahawk, and from the long axes these
men would have carried on their horses for use in
shelter building or other big projects. We can certainly imagine
that when Casper Mansker and its contingent decided to build

(01:43:52):
canoes for that long ride down river to Natchez, they
would have used belt axes to pill away the sheaves
of elmbark used for the hulls of the boats, for
butchering bison and elk, setting traps, shaping and pounding stakes
for shelter, and any number of other tasks in which
long hunters had to reshape some part of their environment

(01:44:13):
to better suit their needs. The belt axe was indispensable.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
When it came to equipment. Long hunters needed practical, utilitarian
items that served multiple purposes and that they could repair themselves.
They had to shoe horses, do leather work, and build
all manner of items necessary to the hunt, such as canoes, shelters,
and fur and hide handling equipment like fleshing beams and

(01:44:39):
stretching boards. Steel traps cost six to eight dollars a
piece back then, making them one of the most significant
costs of a long hunt. Tuning and repairing traps required
the skill set of a blacksmith, as they often needed
to fabricate trap parts, including pans and triggers. Gunsmithing skills
were ass essential. Boon and likely other long hunters could

(01:45:03):
skillfully restock a rifle, repair and replace parts, nap flints
for the ignition system, and generally troubles you any issues
that arolls with a rifle while on the hunt. Among
the tools they would bring were files, bellows to heat
up the fire for metal working purposes, and what they
called a hand vice.

Speaker 9 (01:45:25):
Also known as a gunsmith's vice or a clockmaker's device.
A hand vice was used to hold small objects being
worked on.

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
Picture a large.

Speaker 9 (01:45:34):
Pair of tweezers with wider jaws, or the type of
pliers you'd use for putting seams in sheet metal. The
jaws were spring loaded and tightened with a wing nut
and screw. Long hunters also traveled with what's called a
screw plate, a plate of iron with different sized threadholes
cut into it, forcing a piece of metal through the

(01:45:56):
holes that would impart an external thread to a screw's surface.
If you've done some basic machining, you're probably familiar with
what it looks like to tap a hole using a
cutting implement to create or clean up internal threads. This
is a bit like the inverse of that process, and
they would have used it to fashion replacement hardware for

(01:46:16):
their rifles or traps. It's remarkable to consider that the
long hunters and other travelers in the back country were
actually fabricating metal parts. Today you might bring along a
multi tool on a long back country hunt. These guys
were bringing along complete miniature workshops alls.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
Which were tools used to punch holes in leather, where
another vital piece of equipment often mentioned in the sources.
These would sometimes fold out from the backside of a
clasp knife. The reason that all was so indispensable is
quite simple. In addition to being metal workers, occasional gunsmiths
and woodworkers. The long hunters were also hobblers, and that's

(01:47:01):
because one item that would have been in constant need
of repair or replacement was their footwear, the moccasins they
fashioned from elk and buffalo hides. You'll recall that these
elk and buffalo hides were thicker and heavier than the
deer skins that were the long hunter's primary target. These
thicker skins made for more durable footwear, but they still

(01:47:24):
required constant maintenance. A pair of moccasins might only take
a long hunter a few hours to make, but repairing
them was probably a task that required near daily attention.
We do know that anyone spending time outdoors in this
time was very much aware of the risks of getting cold.

(01:47:46):
One source describes hunters in the late seventeen hundreds as
apprehensive of rheumatism, a term then used to describe rheumatoid arthritis.
They blamed rheumatism on cold feet and slept in their
half faced shelters with their feet to the fire in
hopes of warming them and drying out their moccasins. It's

(01:48:08):
probably safe to assume that many of them had circulation
issues and numbness from wearing wet moccasins year round, but
every mile in wet moccasins and every cold night was
endured with a single objective in mind.

Speaker 9 (01:48:28):
Henry Skaggs, Daniel Boone, Casper Mansker and their companions weren't
simply equipping themselves to survive the First Far West, although
that in and of itself was not an easy task.
Their tools were all a means to an end. They
had a very specific, labor intensive purpose to their travels,

(01:48:49):
producing deer skins in large volume for the commercial market.
But of course they were not the only hunters on
the landscape of the First Far West.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Steven Rinella

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 512: The Texas Hog Hunt, Live