Ep. 637: MeatEater Radio Live! The Doe Derby, Fishing Crappie, and Riding Buffalo

Welcome to MeatEater Radio Live! Join Steve Rinella and the rest of the crew as they go LIVE from MeatEater HQ every Thursday at 11am MT! They’ll have segments, call-in guests, and real-time interaction with the audience. You can watch the stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel, or catch the audio version of the show on Fridays.

Today's episode is hosted by Randall Williams, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, and Phil Taylor. 

Guests: "Bubbly" Doug Duren, Pat Durkin, and Kyle Lybarger of the Native Habitat Project.

Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Smell us Now, Lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia mea podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain
Time on Thursday, December twelfth, and we are here live
for medi to HQ and Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host,
Randa Williams, and I'm joined today by Brody Henderson and
Ryan cal Callahan. Did I get that right?

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Nailed it?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
On today's show, We're gonna talk to our good friends Bubbly,
Doug Duran and Pat Durkin. We're gonna dig into the
photo archives for another throwback Thursday. We're gonna know We're
going to North Alabama for One Minute Fishing. We'll discuss
our top three wild game and fish species for the table.
And we're doing another highly anticipated installment of the Meat

(01:07):
Eater Movie Club where we will be reviewing the nineteen
seventy eight film Buffalo Rider. Before we get into all that,
I've got an important announcement. There are only a few
more days left to be sure that any last minute
orders from the Meat Eater First Light, FHF, Phelps and
DSD stores arrive on time for Christmas. And in fact,

(01:27):
a Little Birdie by the name of Corey Calkins told
me that our twenty twenty five fucked up old shitters calendars.
That's the fed up old shitters calendars. We'll be back
in stock tomorrow, December thirteenth, so get them before they
are all gone, or before a twenty twenty five calendar
is irrelevant. Brody cal It's great to see you both.

(01:49):
How are we doing today.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I don't know that calendars go irrelevant because I think
most folks are just ad them for the photos at
this point.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, And you often walk into our garage and see
a calendar from twenty six years ago.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, but that's usually you know, big Bucks or pin
up gals.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Not I was going to say, the older they are,
the more lud baby.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
If it's a good enough shit or it could stand
the test of time, exactly.

Speaker 5 (02:14):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Joining us on the line first today are friends of
the program, Doug Durhan and Pat Dirkin, who are joining
us on day one of Doug's Doe Derby in Wisconsin. Gentlemen,
welcome to the show. It's great to see you both.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
Visible.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I see, So what is what's going on with the
Doe Derby there? Doug can you tell us what the
Casanovia doe derby is?

Speaker 6 (02:44):
Well, the uh, we're started to take your time.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Doug, I'm sorry said take your time.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
Is this thing on?

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, you know it's the same. You don't have the
whole show.

Speaker 7 (02:59):
So we started the dough derby a few years ago
as a part of the forty antler list hunt. And
the idea is that we're encouraging people to reduce the
population by taking antler this deer, most of which will
be does of course.

Speaker 6 (03:13):
And then the other thing is.

Speaker 7 (03:14):
That we're getting them encouraging to get them tested for
CWD if they bring their harvested dough like to in
a trailer over or in our buggy over here that
we got the fine cut the head off submitted for
CWD testing. Inside this thing will be a couple of
tickets that they'll fill out. And through the support of

(03:36):
generous sponsors like like meat Eater and Vortex and can
Am and and but there's a whole list, we have
a bunch of prizes that we give away, so's we're
incentivizing people to h to harvest and get tested for CWD.

Speaker 6 (03:52):
And then the other thing that we do is we.

Speaker 7 (03:53):
Have this party here on Saturday evening with my tall
friend Pat Durkin will be a part of that. And Uh,
it's just a place where hunters gather and we you know,
tell deer stories and kind of some of the old
school stuff that and I used to enjoy a lot
more when we were kids.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Does Pat have all the prizes in those pockets.

Speaker 6 (04:13):
On his bed? Like?

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I feel like we do a whole segment just going
through Pat's pockets.

Speaker 8 (04:24):
Said, I'm kind of kind of surprised you guys haven't
pointed out that for once in my life, I'm standing
taller than Doug.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
I figured it was just the angle of the camera,
or is there? Ah? Yeah, very nice. Well how's how's
the hunting been?

Speaker 8 (04:46):
I mean, I got this idea by watching the NFL
one year in a pregame. I walked down the field
and saw Bob Costa sending a box. That's not a
bad idea, so I figured stand. I used to Doug,
I looked like a little kid, So I thought today
we'll change things up a little bit and make him
look up at me.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
So what is the the deer count? And have you
gotten any testing back yet?

Speaker 5 (05:13):
Doug?

Speaker 9 (05:15):
Uh?

Speaker 7 (05:16):
Yeah, we're up to depending on just on the farm
and you know, the properties that I have here, we're
at about twenty five. Unfortunately, the later ones that we
got later in the season, we haven't gotten back yet.
But the unfortunate part is the ones that we got
early in this season, including a nice four year old

(05:37):
buck that I got tested positive. Brock who's holding the
camera here right now, shot a a antlerless buck and
a and it was a year and a half old
I think, and and a two and a half year
old dough and they both tested positive. My nephew Sam
shot a three and a half year old buck and
an older dough when.

Speaker 6 (05:57):
They tested positive. So we have five.

Speaker 7 (06:01):
That have tested positive out of eleven that we've gotten
back so far.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
All right, all right, and then.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Are those your only dough derby submissions the ones in
the canyon there or turned in?

Speaker 7 (06:18):
Well, we've got uh. This year, we've expanded, so we
have five different kiosks like this where people can happen,
and the people who are running those kiosks are bringing
the tickets up and it's been really fun because they
people are more you know, it's just more opportunity and
getting more people involved, and I haven't countered them all

(06:40):
up yet, but it looks like we're well over two
hundred and fifty so far.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Wow wow, very cool.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
And this is just open to anyone who wants to
participate in the area, is that correct, right?

Speaker 7 (06:52):
Anybody who can legally transport a deer, because there's just
all these CWD regulations that we're not going to talk
about unless you really want to. But the CWD regulations
you have to kind of be adjacent, and of course
everybody is sort of adjacent now because of the way
the disease has expanded.

Speaker 6 (07:11):
So folks can bring they can bring the head, they
can bring the whole carcascent if they want to. Some
people have just brought the limph notes and you know,
who's gonna lie about something like that.

Speaker 7 (07:22):
So, uh, it's been it's been gratifying to see this grow.
I mean, cal you were here the first year and
we had I don't know, you know, less than one
hundred submissions, I think around fifty, and now we're you know,
we're approaching three hundred, so we're excited about that.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well that's the way these things have to start, you know,
because then everybody who participates win something in the raffle
and word word spent spreads really fast. The other thing
that meat processor that you have up the road. I mean,
Mark Kenyan and I were going to come back just
for the dough Derby, just so I can make have

(08:02):
those guys make more brought worst.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
That brought Worst is unbelievaba.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
I'll testify. I did get to enjoy some of that
brought Worst and it is spectacular.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, well that's great.

Speaker 7 (08:13):
We're actually enjoying some of those this weekend as well
as a part of our as a part of the party.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So yeah, do you have any idea how many folks
are going to be in attendance at the party.

Speaker 7 (08:26):
I would stay somewhere between fifty and one hundred. You
don't have to be present to win, but I will
tell anybody who's who's in the area who might come
to the party. Saturday evening will start at about five
until about eight, that we will have door prizes this
year for only for the people who actually.

Speaker 6 (08:44):
Come to the party.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Very nice.

Speaker 6 (08:46):
Along with the.

Speaker 7 (08:48):
We have a Savage access rifle with a word Tech
scope and a Chris Crafted, a Chris Crafted custom sling,
got a big can Am branded YETI cooler seed from
my friends at Hoxy Native Seed Camp. Chef has given
us as they have in previous years. Are really nice

(09:09):
to burner stove. Our friends at Deck sent us one
of their cases to give away some really great prizes.
Binoculars from Vortex, a full set of meat Eater books,
all signed by Steve. And so those are some of
the prizes for the first drawing. And then we'll have

(09:33):
a virtual drawing the first week of January when the entire.

Speaker 6 (09:40):
Season is over with. We have a this four day.

Speaker 7 (09:42):
Season and then bow hunting continues and then there's a
holiday hunt. So between December fourteenth, hey, between holidays, right
December fourteenth to January first, there's also another twenty.

Speaker 6 (09:58):
That's why I have Dirk and here. It keeps me.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, how much up for the festivities tonight?

Speaker 6 (10:07):
We have a pretty good pile over there.

Speaker 7 (10:09):
We'll be all right, you know, nobody's gonna get nobody's
gonna get cold.

Speaker 6 (10:13):
We'll be able to see the fire from a ways away.

Speaker 7 (10:17):
So you know, it's we have it's it's I think
we have brought back some of that enjoyment that people
have of getting together. They don't mind standing out in
the cold, and that's why we have a big fire
right and people have really enjoyed coming to that. The
participation has grown in the dough derby, and you know,

(10:39):
there's a lot of discussion about what CWD is doing,
what populations are doing, areas where people are worried that
their population is being not they're not just seeing sick
beer and killing sick deer, but their population a decline.
That's uh pretty hard to point it in other directions

(11:03):
other than chronic wasting disease.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, and you've created a safe place, if you will,
for all these big tough folks to come together and
talk about killing does which is something that's very important,
and what they're going to do with the meat, and
then have thoughtful discussions on CWD and and what they're
going to do with all the cool stuff they want.

(11:27):
You're doing the Lord's work.

Speaker 7 (11:28):
Doug Well, and it's great to see we're doing what
we can where we're at with what we've got.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
And it's great to see that you have the support
of a bunch of different great brands in the industry
behind this all.

Speaker 6 (11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (11:42):
It really has been and it's not been, uh, incredibly
difficult to get people to step forward. We've had people
come First Light came forward and gave us the five
hundred dollars gift certific you.

Speaker 6 (11:54):
Know for first Light. What a great you know, what
a great thing that is.

Speaker 7 (11:58):
And it's really uh, it's been great to see that support.

Speaker 6 (12:04):
And here we are, sunning standing in front.

Speaker 7 (12:06):
Of the kiosk where we where if people do the
when they come in and do the reporting and whatnot,
I don't.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
Think they're not.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
It's the opposite of a live well.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
And you're not on the dough board yet.

Speaker 6 (12:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (12:25):
I got to on the on the board so far,
and I tried to impress Doug you know that I
actually know how to remove the lymph nodes. So that's
my contribution is in there, just in a little bag.

Speaker 6 (12:36):
They look suspiciously like consoles.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Now, is there any sign of our dear friend Chester
Floyd at this gathering?

Speaker 6 (12:47):
He will be here on Saturday, Yeah, for the for
the party. He's bringing his.

Speaker 7 (12:51):
Son and he said, I'd like to hunt, but I'll
have a two year old with me. I said, I
think I got a spot for you. I'll put him
up there in that office. I got up on the ridge,
you know.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, one of Pat's pockets. I was gonna say, you
might save that, uh, save that milk crate for Chester
if we if we end up going back to you,
very good. Well, guys, it's great to see you, and uh,
congratulations on pulling together another great event. And best of

(13:21):
luck to you in the woods out there.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
Thanks you guys, all right, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Couple couple solid folks there. Oh yeah, it is time
for Throwback Thursday, where we dig into the photo archives
and take a trip down memory lane with some of
the crew.

Speaker 9 (13:42):
Go back on a Thursday, Mon, Stephen Brody, take me
back to nineteen seventy four. Did I mentioned Stephen Brody?

Speaker 6 (13:57):
Our old as?

Speaker 5 (14:03):
I love it?

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh, that's delightful, Phil, Thank you, really good.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
That's really good Phil.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh the memories, the memories, the pictures here.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, let's get those pictures up.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
I was personally shocked that people had digitized memories. I
thought that was the whole point of like going back
and finding the polaroids.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well, the new memories.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Look at that cute dog. What's that dog?

Speaker 2 (14:31):
That dog? That dog is named Jack also known as
Jack Bishkins. He in that photo. God, he must have
been maybe two years old. He lived to the ripe
old age of seventeen. Whoa, and he turned into quite
an asshole in.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Speaking of being old though, Like you can tell that
Randall is not old because this picture doesn't look old.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
It's like like high quality. You know that you're mentioned.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, this is this is the early day of digital cameras.
I don't know how old I am in that photo.
Maybe nineteen twenty. That's my first buck, first white tailed
deer buck. I'm sitting there in Kentucky and I got
that I were sitting in the bed of black Thunder.

(15:18):
It's a nineteen ninety seven Ford Ranger with an orange
racing stripe on the side of it. Just just a
you know, great memory with a good dog, good firearm.
That is a Marlin Model eighteen ninety five g guide
gun chambered in forty five seventy oh wild. Yeah, I
believe I was shooting a Remington cor locked the four

(15:41):
h five grand soft point and.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, effective range of about one hundred yards.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah. Actually this buck I shot him, he was he
was actually locked up with a smaller.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Buck and made that smaller bucks day.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I brought an end to their exciting fest.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
What did that smaller buck do after you shot the
big one.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
It's all it's all a blur. It's all a blur.
But I shot him out of a homemade little crotch
seat made out of some leftover planks of wood and.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Two by fours, right as in the crotch of the tree.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Crouched the tree. Indeed, and then the following year I
shot another ten point out of that same crotch with
that same rifle. So some of my early formative memories
there still got the rifle. I don't great big mistake
on my part.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
When I first looked at this, I thought, you're there
is a cemetery as the back dry That's.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
What I thought, excited to hear.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
No, it's an old Uh. It's an old well pump
with like a crank handle at the Lewis family farm. Oh,
here's another one. This is me in maybe two thousand
and ten eleven with a couple of berbot at the
end of a long summer working in the last where
I have obviously lost my mind.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Do they call him Burbot in Alaska? Or was there
were there any other names for him?

Speaker 10 (17:09):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (17:09):
The guys I was with called him Burbot.

Speaker 5 (17:12):
I think some people call him cusk up there.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Oh yeah, I read that.

Speaker 5 (17:16):
I think so they got so many different names.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yes, these are just on set lines and we ran
around in the dark checking lines and then came back
and had a big old.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
Cus or loss.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
I forget what Herbert fry on my last night up there.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
So that's me and my amish beard.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, I should bring that back.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's a strapping young fellow.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
That's the first iteration of the first light suspenders col.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Wool pants, wool union suit. That's a full one piece
union suit underneath, and then wool sweater. Yeah classic yep.
And if if the suspenders were turned the right way out,
they have little skiers on them, but they are no
more because they lost their elasticity a long time ago.

(18:07):
But that's that's my first elk ever.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Right there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
How old were you in that photo?

Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was high school, probably a sophomore year.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I would think he grew up.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
In Montana, right, yep. Did they not have an orange
law back then?

Speaker 3 (18:30):
They did?

Speaker 1 (18:31):
So this this, this is like a manufactured photo.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
I got a lot of people take the orange off
for the photo.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, which I don't. Is never something like I've made
a point of But I was out with my hunting
mentor my my outfitter buddy, the guy learned everything from
and my dad and we and we were it was like,
you know, a paid hunt. So there were clients in camp,

(18:58):
which was also like a father son and uh it
was just rainy, crappy, very typical western Montana weather, dreary.
Not a lot happened, and we hiked tired all week
and nothing was happening. And as we were packing up
at the end of that week, the outfitter was like, Pard,

(19:22):
we got this. Why don't you take one more walk?
And so I did, and was in Hunter's orange and
had a totally different rifle than what's pictured here. If
you look close as a left handed seven mmg you know,
and you may may know that I would have nothing

(19:44):
to do with the seven mm.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Right or left handed. And uh.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, walked walked in and looked down into this cut
and there was a cow and a calf feeding there
and it.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Was all by myself.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
First, OULC was like, oh my god, this is really happening,
and tried to talk myself out of it and all
the things and lay down and actually made a Texas
heart shot on this cow as she was going out
of sight, so shot her right at the base of
the spine, and that bullet went in, kicked off her

(20:22):
spine and went down through her heart and outer chest.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Textbook.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, didn't didn't hit a stitch of meat. It was
like the most crazy shot ever. But you know, as
you know, really just a kid cow had a calf.
I was like, oh my god, somebody else could get
this this calf. And so I ran back to camp
and I was able to take the other father and

(20:48):
son in there, and they shot. The son of the
two shot the calf, and so they got to go
home with some meat. And Yeah, it was a you know, know,
a conflicting young man experience, right of like cow and
a calf and all, you know, but first elk, Yeah,

(21:11):
and then and then they were like, you got to
get a picture of that thing.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
That's an antelope.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Another mustacheless photo, we do. I did see someone in
the chat.

Speaker 10 (21:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
There was some question about when you started growing at
your mustache, and then some question about when you started
losing your hair. So because of the hat in the
previous photos, so here clearly you do have a full
healthy head.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, I rocked a lot of hair. But you know,
I think it was always on the way out.

Speaker 6 (21:38):
It was.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
It was fleeting, but I made up for it in
the volume that I could grow around the deep pits.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I don't even know remember what happened here with this antelope.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
But that's Ruger M. Seventy seven and eighty all.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
That I had. That rifle, it's a good rifle.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
It is a good rifle. Yeah. That paddle stock, yes
it did. Yeah, did I tell yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, the you know, the full weatherized stainless steel. Yeah,
I cannot remember. I think my dad must have killed
this buck. I was guiding at this point and Dad
came out to camp.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
So I was guiding for the.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Old outfitter and uh yeah, Dad, Dad, that's how that's
those Those are the photos we used to take back then.
Primary focus was on getting things gutted fast. And that
is still my biggest white tail buck to day.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
This is.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Other than antelope. This is the only shoulder mount animal
that I have. And Randall has actually got to see
this shoulder mount in person because it's hanging in my
buddy's cabin in Augusta.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's impressive.

Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yep, oh, there you is.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
I only sent phill one picture. I didn't know we
were supposed to send multiples in. But anyway, that's me
when I was probably I was probably ten or eleven.
That's northwestern Pennsylvania on Elk Creek, which is a Lake
Erie tributary. And back when, back when I was that age,
those lake Erie streams used to get They used to

(23:24):
have an artificial man made run of cohos chanook and steelhead,
so you get all three in the streams in the
fall for.

Speaker 5 (23:33):
A short period of time.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Anyway, when it started raining in the fall, and that's
me working over a steelhead with a with a zeb
coo reel, probably a zebco rod reel combo.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
Yeah, I landed that thing and I was like the
first big fish I ever landed.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
It looks like you have overboots on.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
I do like what they call us, think galoshes, no waiters.

Speaker 5 (23:59):
My dad was cheap skate back then.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
So yeah, it's like you go in as deep as
those boots and no deeper area.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
You're getting wet.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
But they're like those streams are weird because they're all
shale bottom streams, so it's like a lot of it
shallow and then there's like one deep because so you.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Could, so they'll run up and sit in that bucket.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah. Man, I've always loved that picture
because I'm really reefing on that fish and I landed it.
It's good times back then.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, and whoever colorized it after the fact from the
original black and white a really nice job. I had
to get one of those in.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
Oh yeah, Well that's.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
It for Throwback Thursday. Our next segment is One Minute Fishing.
Do I feel lucky?

Speaker 5 (24:49):
We'll do.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
You go ahead, make my cast. One Minute Fishing is
where we go live to someone who's fishing and they
have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful,
we'll make a five hundred dollars donation to a conservation group.
This week, our angler is Kyle Liibarger, who's at Wheeler

(25:11):
Lake on the Tennessee River in Alabama fishing for crappie.
Kyle is the founder of the Native Habitat Project, and
today he is fishing for a donation to Conservation Fisheries, Inc.
A Knoxville, Tennessee based nonprofit dedicated to conserving the unique
aquatic ecosystems of the Southeast. Kyle, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 9 (25:32):
How's it going.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
We're doing very well, sir. Welcome to One Minute Fishing.
Have you been fishing? Have you pre fished this spot
this morning?

Speaker 11 (25:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (25:43):
I have a called about eight or nine keeper crappie
and probably twenty twenty five in total this morning, so promised.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
This sounds like a very promising start. We've been on
a bit of a dry spell here, and I think
that's understating it. So were eager to have someone in
the hot seat there who knows what they're doing. Well.

Speaker 10 (26:05):
This pile, it's a tree top and this thing every
time I come up to it and I catch one
of my first casts usually, so I'm I have a
mess with it in like two hours. I'm hoping hoping
there's some crappy on it.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
So oh that's dedication. I love it. What's your h now?
What's your rig there? What are you fishing with today?

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (26:24):
I got all. I just got a little spinning reel.
It's a fluger and a finwick rod and uh I
got live minutes.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, live minos, you said, yeah, yeah, so it's kind
of cheating.

Speaker 10 (26:38):
Yeah, Well, you know, I have petfish at home in
my pond behind my house, and so if I really
wanted to cheat, I could.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, yeah, this seems like a good earnest effort. It
looks like you're out there, uh, getting after it. So well,
your timer and your one minute will begin whenever you
make your first cast, So whenever you're ready, Kyle, take
a shot, all right.

Speaker 10 (27:04):
Let's try.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
And the timer is going.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Is it on a jighead?

Speaker 10 (27:15):
I have a little split shot about six or eight
inches up, so that's the way, and just free lining it. Yeah, yeah,
sometimes I'll use a bobber, but I use a free line.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's like a beautiful piece of water there.

Speaker 10 (27:33):
Yeah, this is Flint Creek. So we we manage a
little grassland at the boat ramp here, but the state
lets us manage.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
But twenty seconds twenty seconds on the clock here.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
Pressure's on.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
M would not want to be you right now.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Ten seconds left here, five seconds.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Time.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
I think you just got to go with a ripping
hook set just to see.

Speaker 10 (28:11):
Oh oh look does that count?

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Oh god?

Speaker 2 (28:18):
The old stickfish.

Speaker 10 (28:20):
I mean, there is a fish on it.

Speaker 11 (28:21):
But there he's got a point. It's no arguing with that.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, Kyle, I think next time we need to get
you out there for your first cast of the day.
It sounds like you have a pretty good track record
when you first get in there.

Speaker 10 (28:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's a you know, I think you'll need
to change it to like, you know, ninety seconds or something.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
We'll we'll put that one past Steve, But he seems
pretty firmly committed to this bit.

Speaker 10 (28:45):
So how many of you, how many have caught in
sixty seconds so far?

Speaker 11 (28:51):
Pat Dirkin did, But that was I mean, that was
a special circumstance.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, maybe we should have a meeting about this offline
and rethink the segment. But Kyle, I think you've raised
some very valid points here.

Speaker 5 (29:05):
I'm just trying to make myself feel better.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
So well, we appreciate you, uh getting out on the
water for us and uh showing us your your spot
there and good luck with the rest of your day. Yeah,
I appreciate y'all.

Speaker 10 (29:19):
Give me a chance so I have a good one.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
All right, we'll see again here.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
I did, like I got a call.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I saw one comment in there where somebody's asking for
current fishing conditions on Henry's Lake, Idaho.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
I love that.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, that's that's what That's just the kind of community
we need, just.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Throwing it out into the universe.

Speaker 11 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, who knows what the show will become in
a year.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
It could just be you know, oh yeah, just a
live fishing report exactly. Yeah, uh, Phil, Why don't we
take a little break here, get some listener feedback. What's
happening in the chat?

Speaker 11 (29:53):
Let's do it.

Speaker 9 (29:55):
Let's start off with a with a breezy one. I
don't I don't know if how people decorate their homes
for Christmas? If if anybody but Aaron's asking who at
meat Eater has the most festive house?

Speaker 3 (30:06):
I know, Phil, put up lights?

Speaker 6 (30:08):
I do.

Speaker 9 (30:08):
I've got a very basic icicle lights set up with
a wreath on the door, nothing fancy. I've also got
a one story house, so I can't go too crazy.
But yeah, do you guys decorate the exterior of your
homes or the.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
Entry of lights on our porch?

Speaker 4 (30:21):
We're definitely like in our neighborhood where like the lame
House screach house.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah yeah, Phil, are you gonna play coy? Are you
gonna let people know you've seen the inside of my house?

Speaker 11 (30:32):
Well, Randall, I happen to know that you have quite
a tree. We do.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
We do have a big home.

Speaker 11 (30:38):
You too, it's very impressive.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
I'd rather have the lame house from the outside, but
if you come in, there's gonna be a cold beer
and something good to eat.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Well, it's not one or the other. You can have
it all.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Col not with the timeline I have.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Have you seen Cal's garage. He doesn't have any room
for distorre. Yeah, like ornaments in the season.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Might need to hang some new shelves from the ceiling there.

Speaker 9 (31:04):
I'm actually I'm curious, you know the answer to this question.
Eric is asking the longest you've gone without punching a tag.
He says this is his second year in a row.
Have you guys had this speaking of dry spells.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
M Oh yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
I've definitely definitely been there.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
I don't have enough self restraint to not punch tags.
It's been a while since I haven't killed anything. I
will say I went my first six or seven years
of elk hunting without shooting an elk, and I was
on a little streak there, seven years in a row

(31:41):
with bulls, and this year it.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Came to you were way ahead of the odds, So
you can't be too unhappy about.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I'm pretty unhappy, Brodie. Actually, I figure I don't have
that many good elk cunning years left, you know with
my so I just I'm like when am I hurting,
I'll never get to eight.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
You're already planning, like for your physical just debilitation to
the point where you can.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Keep after it. Eric, I mean, ill straighten itself out.
But the thing is is, like, man, there are there
are no days of failure in the woods. Like if
you're out there, if you're not killing, you're still learning
a lot more than somebody who's not out there.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Oh yeah, and I will say too a couple of
those Like I can think of one bowl in particular.
We're about to pack up, and we said, before we
take the tpee down, let's just go for a little walk.
You know, we're out here, we might as well put
another fifteen minutes in. And I shot that bowl like
fifteen yards outside of the tepe. I got out there,

(32:43):
put my backpack on, took it off, and shot that thing.
It was just across the canyon. So it can happen
at any time, discouraged.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
The more tags you have, the better your chances are.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
That's true. We're pretty spoiled here. Yeah, you got all
kinds of seasons to hunt.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Yeah, it's a.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Little different, like when you live in a state where
you might may only have a chance at Like a dear.

Speaker 9 (33:07):
Uh Tyler is asking a question for cal Phil Can
you ask Cal why no conservation organization right now is
dedicated to pronghorn? He could be incorrect. I don't know,
so I'm coming to you cal Well.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
I mean there's there's a ton of overlap in that space,
as with with everything. Habitat is is king habitat and connectivity,
and so you have like a bunch of groups working
on a new bill that would incentivize the preservation, conservation

(33:41):
and re establishment of grassland ecosystems in North America, which
we're losing at an incredibly alarming rate. Everybody should be
very concerned about this. They may announce the monarch butterfly
being put on the endangered species list, that is like,
if we can save the monarch butterfly, we're going to

(34:02):
be kicking ask for pronghorn.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
So there.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
I know there's some folks interested in starting up a
antelope prong horn specific organization, but don't feel like that
work isn't being done.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
So yeah, I like I do believe there is a
group that has recently incorporated and they're kind of bootstrapping
it and looking for funders. Yeah, and but I don't
know that much about it currently.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
I mean MDF, Mule Deer Foundation, Sage Grouse Initiative, like
there's antelope are benefiting, like Cal said, from the work
of other organizations.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
So I mean even like RMEF, like Migration Corridor Protection,
you know, yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:52):
That migration initiative that focuses on that ho back to
red desert migration, like the antelope use that migration corridor.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
So but I will say, anaalope a cool critters, incredibly
cool tasty critters, and there are.

Speaker 5 (35:09):
Definitely places where their numbers.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah are and very fun to hunt, and so I
you know, it would be great if a prong horned
specific group could take off and.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, or or if some of these other orgs were
willing to like really get some dedicated funding in that space,
because there is some really unbelievable inconsistency on on how
those animals are managed at the state level, But there
are some federal and state dollars available for like animal

(35:44):
friendly fencing that that definitely need more help to.

Speaker 9 (35:50):
So well, Jared is asking he has a neighbor who
raises breeder bucks and does how will that affect his hunting?
He can see the high fence from his blind. Do
you have any theory res or firsthand experience with this?

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I got some.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
We used guide on a ranch in Colorado and the
neighboring ranch was a high fence elk operation, and all
the bugling that would come off that high fence place
could could be helpful on the on the other side
of the fence.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I would think if a bunch of those dose are
going into Astris and they're you know, essentially chained up
at the neighbor's place, that yeah, that's some good scent attraction.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
But you might want to going back to Doug and Pat.
You also might want to look into the whole c
w H get.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Your dear tested.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, hopefully there's an exterior fence around the internior fence
and uh, you know, ways of preventing any nose to
nose contact because those operations are inevitably a CWD HOTS
on the map.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
I would be interested to learn what your experiences are.
Jareded with that, because I think it would be just
sort of a novel scenario to watch play out during
the rut.

Speaker 9 (37:13):
Yeah, cool, and we'll do one more for this little
segment here, Fantastic John is asking how he can convince
his girlfriend to allow him to put a shoulder mount
in the bedroom.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
Good luck as it were for me.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, pick your battles, I think.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Are we talking like a prong horned shoulder mount or
moose moose sick point bull elk?

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Right?

Speaker 5 (37:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (37:37):
How tall are your ceiling?

Speaker 2 (37:38):
How big is the bedroom? How important is it for
you to put a shoulder mount in the bedroom. I
feel like I have pretty free reign of the house
when it comes to stacking skulls and you know, bear rugs.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
Now, eventually that might end.

Speaker 4 (37:54):
Though we reached a satur Yeah there's a point, we're
at the saturation point.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
But I've never it's it's never really uh come to
a point where I felt compelled to hang on in
the bed.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
There's too many unanswered questions here, like is this the
only thing this guy would have in his house or
does he already have a bunch?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yes, the bedroom the only place without a shoulder mountain.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Plus, if you guys are still boyfriend girlfriend, just do it.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
Yeah, you'll find out if you're gonna get married her.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
And that's our segment of Cal's relationship advice, just test boundaries. Alrighty,
now it's time for another round of Top three.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
Wow Phil hitting the high notes there.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
That was incredible. I will say for a little behind
the scenes look at how things go here. I was
in this studio bright and early, and Phil came in
and he said, can you please leave? I need to
record a drop And I said sure. I said, would
you like me to put a do not disturb sign
on the door, to which he replied, yes, This might

(39:22):
be the most embarrassing thing I've ever done. I know,
I think you're perfectly I mean, you didn't have time
to auto tune that.

Speaker 9 (39:30):
No, that song, really it really shows you the limits
of your singing abilities.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
That's go straight from the pipes. I'd take that as
a that gets my stamp of approval, Phil, Great, Thank
you boy. Thursday is my favorite. This week we'll be
ranking our preferred species of fish and game for the table,
or talking the critters that you're reaching for if they're
in the freezer. Brody will start with you. What's your

(39:54):
number three choice?

Speaker 5 (39:56):
Am I doing all three or just my third choice?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Let's go and row. Let's go your third, cows third,
my third, your second cow sick in my second, Okay,
and then we'll continue that pattern.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
But I am going to say that I think that
this is one of those like tough and almost kind
of meaningless ranking systems because I like all kinds of
wild fishing game and it's kind of.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Like based on the time of year.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
Like I don't have any wild turkey brass in my
freezer right now, so like if I had some, that
would be my favorite thing to eat.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
I'm just just.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Putting I was gonna I was going to expect that
from cow.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
Yeah, Like it totally changes you disagree with.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
The press, Yeah, I think I think in the spirit
of this of this segment, if it's in the freezer
and you think I have X, Y or Z freezer,
like what what which one are you most commonly going
to reach for?

Speaker 4 (40:54):
It's well, I don't know that it's a common thing either, right,
It's like it might be you only have a little
bit of it.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Exactly, Brody, what's your number three choice?

Speaker 4 (41:03):
I'm saying, it's like there's a lot to think about here, Randall,
I'll say king salmon, because I only got a little
bit of that stuff left right now. And it's like,
if you've had the different kinds of Pacific salmon, there's
like no question that nocean cock king is the best
of them, batty, delicious, No man, King's got kings. King's

(41:26):
like bigger and better and it's a cooler fish.

Speaker 5 (41:31):
Everything about it.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
It's good. Col what's your number three?

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Elk?

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Care to elaborate on the reason behind your choice.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Elk is a fine meat, but I don't find elk
to be very flavorful at this point in my life.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
There's a lot of variability too, man, Like you shoot
an old cow, you.

Speaker 5 (41:57):
Might break a tooth on that thing, or it could
be super could be super tender.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
That cow in the in the picture you literally pulled
her ivories out what was left of them with your fingers,
like they fell out super old cow and she was
delicious yep. But like I have a bowl in the
freezer right now, and the tenderline was like, this is

(42:24):
going to take a while.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
Yeah, I feel like the safest bet is to shoot
a young raghorn bull because then you know it's not old.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yeah, Like, yeah, timing as early as possible or as
late as possible.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, Well, I went for elk as well, and the
reasons for that are versatility and quantity. There's there's a
lot of especially with all that ground and sausage, there's
a lot you can do with it, and so it's
kind of just our go to and it's also our
go to because there's a lot of it for every
elk you kill. Mm hmm, yep, Brody, what's your number

(42:59):
two here?

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Oh, I'd I'd probably go with some white meat game
bird like blue grouse.

Speaker 5 (43:05):
Well, i'd go with wild.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
Turkey just because you get more of it. I don't know, know,
I'm going with blue grouse. It's better than wild turkey.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Blue grouse is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
What are you doing with that?

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Typically all different kinds of stuff, man, like you can't beat.
Just like I like to save the legs from all
my game birds and then do something with those. But
like the breast from a blue grouse pounded out, just
battered and fried on a sandwich.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's hard to beat.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, yep, col number two, I say mule deer. So
I'm yeah, I'd like I really for whatever reason, don't
find uh, you know, even trying to kill big old bucks,

(43:54):
like I don't find them.

Speaker 10 (43:57):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Chewy, and they have more flavor than elk, So I'd
prefer mule deer over elk.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Big mule deer, all right.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
That are living the life of mule deer, a good
life far away from agriculture.

Speaker 6 (44:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I went with salmon for my number two, and I
couldn't decide between sakkai or king, so I just went
with the generic salmon. But I like sake if it's
just going on the grill, but I feel like king
is more maybe a little more firstile, like for a
chowder you have all that extra.

Speaker 5 (44:31):
Fat and slicing it up and eating it raw.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
But yeah, I love it. I love having a big
pile of salmon in the freezer. And for your number
one selection, Brody.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
Well, I got a shitload of moose in the freezer
right now, so that's my favorite.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
But actually like it. I think out of.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
The different servid species, moose has like and this is
going to sound weird, some people be like, no way,
but I think it's like it has a beefier flavor
than other deer species. It's like noticeable and it's like
you you take a bite of that stuff and it's like, yeah,

(45:10):
that's that's like good, good meat and yeah, so I'm
glad I got a lot of it right now.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, you'll be enjoying that one for a while.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Ducks, Mallard Ducks or you know Mallard Wigeon, Gadwall fat tails.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yeah, something with fat. Yep.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, like that is my Are you familiar with this
like girl dinner phenomenon that? Oh yeah, you know that's
my girl dinner.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Like I so cal call and snored on the couch. Yeah,
with a rom com on.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
It'll eat a hole with it. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
So throat on the grill with a big fireball that
maybe comes close to burning down your friends on the
fourth of July.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yep, yep, that type of duck's bread to sop up
that fat with Yeah, salt, fat, protein, medium, rare blood
all around.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Like that speaks speaks to a person.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Hard to beat.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I was surprised. Uh. My number one choice is antelope.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
Man.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
If I get an antelope in the freezer or in
some years multiple analope in the freezer, that stuff just
goes so quickly because it's simple, you know, seer it,
cook it, rare salt, and you don't need much else
because it's just got so much flavor on its own.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
So I thought I thought this was going to be
uh more of a boring segment because it would be
on the same page. But I like that we got
a little bit of variety here.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Well, yeah, I do side with Brody. Here is like,
you know, some seasons of plenty in one protein department
mm hmm. Like I mean, last two years ago, I
had two big chunks of blue fin tuna mm hmm,
and like, yeah, holy shit, man, I.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Thought there was another way to approach this, where it
was what's one wildfish or game species that's been in
your freezer once that you'd like to see back in there.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, I'd like Musko's loin is I think unique and
really really fantastic, like big.

Speaker 5 (47:21):
Horn sheep battie delicious yep.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Hard to acquire, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Hard to acquire. Yeah, I'd go with mountain lion.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Mountain Lion's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
If I could shoot a mountain lion every year instead
of a deer, I'd probably do that just for variety.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, variety is the key man. You
can get sick of anything, Like you to have the
best elk in the world, but if you're eating it
every day, you're gonna get sick of it eventually.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Like you had a long stretch of being up to
my ears and elk meat and not hunting elk for
a few seasons, I haven't been like missing elk in
the freezer, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
M Well, thanks for playing along, gents, will come up
with a more compelling clearcut prompt for our next top
three segment.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yeah, always room to improve, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Our next segment is meat Eater movie Club.

Speaker 9 (48:20):
Oh love what you did there, Phil, It's a menadrie.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
The nineteen seventy eight or perhaps nineteen seventy six. I
found a few discrepancies in various sources for when this
film was released. The nineteen seven eight film Buffalo Rider,
directed by John Fabian, Dick Robinson, and George Loris, stars
stuntman Rick Gwynn as Jake Buffalo Jones, a frontiersman who

(48:50):
tames an American bison and uses it as his primary
mode of transportation while battling both natural elements and human adversaries.
The film's plot follows Jones, the writer, and his companion
Sampson the Buffalo, through a series of increasingly outlandish adventures
across the frontier. Their primary antagonist is the ruthless market

(49:13):
hunter Frank Nesbitt, who the narrator tells us quote loves
the killing, and his unsavory gang of hide skinners, Ralph
Pearson ted Claiborne, who serve as the film's central villains.
While most peculiar to a contemporary audience, Buffalo Riter's unconventional construction,
a rough cobbling together of pre existing wildlife footage, stage scenes,

(49:35):
buffalo riding stunts, and excessive narration, is representative of the
low budget exploitation filmmaking of the nineteen seventies. This genre
emphasized shocking violence, lurid sexuality, and unusual spectacle to draw
audiences away from the production values and narrative coherence of
mainstream Hollywood cinema. Beyond a simple representative example of this

(50:00):
particular style, however, Buffalo Writer serves as a rich text
that emerged from and reflected the speci the specific historical
conditions of its creation. Its chaotic, almost anarchic production reflects,
no doubt unintentionally, America's fractured cultural landscape in the nineteen seventies.
This was an era of profound disillusionment in American life.

(50:23):
The Watergate scandal had shattered public faith in authority and
established institutions, the Vietnam War had ended in humiliation, and
economic stagflation was eroding middle class stability. In nineteen seventy nine,
only one year after the release of Buffalo Writer, President
Carter would deliver his famous Crisis of Confidence speech, diagnosing

(50:43):
a nation that had lost its sense of purpose and
direction in many respects. The confusing structure and seemingly arbitrary
narrative choices of Buffalo Writer embody the fraying coherence that
Americans in the late nineteen seventies saw all around them.
Perhaps most obviously, the film's technical shortcomings. Its rough editing

(51:03):
and consistent tone, and apparent lack of quality control reflect
the decade's material constraints. Likewise, the prevalent drug culture of
the decade might help explain some of the film's more
bizarre creative decisions. The inexplicable genre hopping between wildlife documentary
and Western adventure, the replacement of dialogue with unceasing descriptive narration,

(51:24):
and sequences like the Buffalo in a Saloon shootout suggest
a production process operating on its own might I suggest,
chemically altered logic, Perhaps most poignantly, much like the nascent
environmental movement of the nineteen seventies, which struggled to reconcile
ecological concern with embedded cultural practices and market forces, Buffalo

(51:46):
Riders environmental message, while sincere, is undermined by its own contradictions.
Just as the villainized hide hunters within it, the narrative
exploit wildlife for profit, the filmmakers themselves commodify animal violence
for monetized entertainment value. As the film's catchy theme song
rolls over the end credits, the viewer can't help but
wrestle with an unresolvable tension between our heroes guiding ethos

(52:10):
and the commercial imperatives of artistic production in capitalist society.
Viewed through this lens, Buffalo Rider becomes more than just
a badly made movie. It serves as an inadvertent cultural
artifact capturing the disorientation of American life in the late
nineteen seventies. It's very incoherence tells us something about a
moment when American society itself seemed to be coming a

(52:32):
part at the seams, when the old certainties of post
war prosperity and progress were dissolving, and new truths had
yet to emerge. I give it a ten out of ten,
and for your viewing pleasure, I am pleased to share
one of the YouTube clips that gave this film something
of a renaissance in recent years. We're going to watch
a brief excerpt from episode two of Guy on a

(52:56):
Buffalo by the band Jomo and the Possum Posse out
of Austin in Texas. Please Phil take it away.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
One day, the guy on the buffalo hopped off.

Speaker 5 (53:07):
To stretch his legs, walk in the bill.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Hey wants to send the weeds. It's a baby, awesome
and put it in a saddle, hopped on, hoped.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
It up the hill and across the blame drying across
the river. Not gonna happen, man riding on a buffalo
member or keep the baby up floating with your.

Speaker 11 (53:28):
Guy out the buffalo. Gotta find your friends.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
She's barish, guya love, Hey, you want this baby?

Speaker 3 (53:38):
She put then a doch you guy.

Speaker 5 (53:42):
You're welcome. Lady.

Speaker 11 (53:44):
Gotta bull it on on of my.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Guy on a full loop. One day the guy on
the buffalo walked off.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
It is so good.

Speaker 5 (53:59):
No, no better than the movie in Fast.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Well.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
The thing is is, this is how the movie is narrated.
It's like and now he's doing this and this and this.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
That's what's striking to me.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Got you're straight out and got my back.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Okay, this scene where he shows the scars on his back,
it's like, well, understand that, get.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Out of here. So there's the animal violence. Yeah, multiple
times in this show.

Speaker 5 (54:41):
Thank you, Phil.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Definitely get kicked by a buffalo.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Thank you Phil. So I do have a bit of
research that I'm tickled to share with you, uh as
a bit of a prelude to our discussion. I found
an article, uh that was published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company.
Is mister Gwyn who plays Jake Jones is now Burton.

Speaker 6 (55:00):
So.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
The film was filmed in Utah and Oregon and the
lead actor, Rick Guinn, was working for a company that
supplied animals for film productions. He was in Missouri to
purchase some mules and someone offered to sell him a
buffalo as well. He decided to try to tame it
so that he could ride it, and he was successful
in doing so, and then some filmmakers saw him do

(55:21):
that and said, do you want to star in a
movie about a man who rides a buffalo? So that's
how we got this film. Many many of the scenes
were unscripted, and they simply captured what happens when a
man is on top of a buffalo. According to Gwinn quote,
there's still a wild animal, and they feel a little different.
They're a little more stubborn and not as smart as
a horse. It seems his fall off Samson in the

(55:42):
film was in fact a real fall that resulted in injuries.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
To questioning that.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
My favorite detail, the mountain lion attack in the film,
was in fact a mountain lion attack. The lion was
being filmed on the same property for a different production
when it escaped the production ran onto the set of
Buffalo Rider and attacked mister gwyn.

Speaker 5 (56:05):
But it wasn't a wild mountain lion.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
I mean it attacked him. It was being filmed for
like a nature show, and so it it attacked him.
The cameras just happened to be rolling as he was
filming a hunting scene. According to Gwynn quote, I had
to kind of fight him off. It was a life
or death situation. I kind of had to do something
real quick. We had lots of shots like that that

(56:29):
were just built in the movie that were accidents. Just
changed the script a little bit and continued on.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
But that mountain lion obviously didn't have full Yeah, but
when they showed his injuries, those were real injuries.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, but they were like they were and.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
That was a real lion.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Had been a real lion, yeah, there, a fully intact
lion injuries would have been.

Speaker 5 (56:48):
The fact that they escaped production.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Yeah. The fact that you guys are not listen, I
think it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
You're not enthralled by the idea that that lion attack
was totally listen.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
I have to point something else out here. The fact
that that buffalo comes out of Missouri is very telling
because you can tell that that thing has a lot
of beef Caligi.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yes, So just general thoughts on
the film.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
It's a beefalow.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
It held my attention for less time than your review
of the film did and then went back to cleaning guns.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Oh, I think you're crazy, man. Listen. I would watch.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
This over Escanaba in the moonlight. Yeah, nine out of ten. Absolutely.
I loved the You know if you're you know, old
enough to remember like the old the big Long run
a Disney movies. Yeah, right, yeah, this is like right
in that genre. And then yeah, it has all this
like very gratuitous like you know, Nature document What was

(57:50):
that guy's name who Grizzly the nature guy who they
found out like a lot of the animals in the
Nature documents his name.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Uh anyways, yeah, I know you'd be like synonymous with
nature for a long time. But anyway, yeah, I mean
in just crazy departures.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
And Bandit the Raccoon.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
To me, it's it's hilarious because there's like some filmmaking
one oh one right where it's like, well, if you're
going to talk about it, you have to show it. Yeah,
and it's be like so then he got on the
track and it looked like that of a mule track,
and it's like, oh, there's Jake on the track.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Except I liked the part in the film where they
mentioned a character who never appears on the stream. He's
like he talked to the sheriff and the sheriff said
it was okay.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
So he went on, Oh, there's a lot of filling
in of gaps with the narration because otherwise.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
There would just be no story and it's just constant narration,
which is what are There.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Is a saying in showbiz, you know, it's it's show,
don't tell, and they took that axiom and flipped it
on its head and it's like, we're actually just going
to tell you things that are happening that you won't
see happen.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, the scenery was great, was great, strongest part of
the movie. There's wildlife so well that the actors weren't
going to carry any part of this that it's like
just lean on the scenery, the narration, and the animals.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Oh the line, the line delivery was insane.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
What I want to know is like the people who
made this movie was it made? Were they serious about
like this is like a movie or were they just
fucking around?

Speaker 5 (59:36):
I believe they.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I believe there were.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
There's a messing around came before it was an actual
movie and then somebody was like, yeah, we're gonna pay
for this.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
Oh God.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
There was a quote from uh Rick Gwynn that it
was essentially just like meant to be a fun, silly
family wildlife movie with a bit of adventure. So I
don't think it was like done as a parody, right,
but yeah, I mean, like it's just like a fever dream.

(01:00:07):
Like at one point they go with the racket. They
follow the raccoon, and the lion tries to drown it,
but then the lion is in the cold deep water
and it can't drown it. So the raccoon gets away
and then rides an ice rides a ice flow. Yeah,
rides an ice flow down the river, thinks.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Long and hard before he comes near that river again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah. On the next scene, phenomenal the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
The Pioneer lady, her acting, I mean, they they make
the decision to stick with her long. You can see
her like emotional wind up to her line, but they
show all of that. I mean, it's it's really amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
It's like it seems like so weird and such an
outlier now fifty years later or whatever, but really it's
not that unusual.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
For the seventies. They made a lot of weird movies.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Go back and watch easy. You're like Rancho Deluxe, Rancho DELX.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
The raccoon scene in this film reminded me of the
like ten minute sex scene in the middle of Rancho Deluxe,
And you're like, why did they do this. Were they
just filming time? It didn't need to be in this movie.
But Sydney had a theory that the raccoon was important
because when Buffalo Jones returned the infant to the ranch,

(01:01:29):
you know that the raccoon would have to nurse the
baby to health because they made a big point to
say that it was a female raccoon to everyone's surprise.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Yeah, that was the big reveal, and he got.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Cobbler and Stu or something. I mean, it was just.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah, I would watch this folks at home. Yeah, I mean,
this is going to surprise you. It's great. Like there's
a lot of stuff that you're probably numbing your mind
with on Netflix.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Check this one out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
And I will say the beginning of it, when they're
out lining the historical context is pretty solid.

Speaker 5 (01:02:04):
I was gonna ask you, like historically or the man? Right?
So how accurate is what they were?

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I mean, Buffalo Jones is a real person who's life
in no way movie the.

Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
Whole thing was depicted.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Well, I thought it was for the.

Speaker 5 (01:02:19):
Conflict in the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Well they they I mean, these guys had one pack
animal and they were hide hunters, so they wouldn't have
gotten very far, you know, typically I think they would
have operated with a few wagons. But the way that
they hunted them, like when he's talking about shooting the
lead cow and then shooting the whole herd. I mean
a lot of that stuff is straight out of like
the sources that you read, right, and the stand hunting

(01:02:44):
like going up and getting you know, sneaking up on herd,
getting down prone. He even had the shooting sticks at
one point, Like that's something.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
That they did some some solid research and laying out
the cartridges.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Yeah, that all seemed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
And the guys like when the guys like the narrator
like then they got the sharps, the big fifty sharps
and they were shooting him. I forget he I think
he said like to six fifty. Yeah, I don't know
how how you know accurate that is. But from the
beginning of it, I was like, man, if this is
like a documentary or something produced for high schoolers, like

(01:03:18):
this would be pretty informed.

Speaker 11 (01:03:19):
That's exactly what it reminded me of.

Speaker 9 (01:03:21):
Like I'm just old enough to remember, like the substitute
teacher comes in and rents out like an old VHS
from the av department and puts it on and like mister.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Jones has a fever, and so I'm gonna just play
this film for you to continue our lesson on the
West and the destruction of the Bison.

Speaker 6 (01:03:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
I said this earlier, but I do think Steve would
take issue with with demonizing the buffalo hunters. Oh yeah,
I like, which is not an uncommon thing in movies, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Sure, and I did like that they were just like
basically thirteen year olds who got into wrestling matches at
the drop of a hat. But the one the one
guy did have a conscience. He did say at some point, uh,
he killed the woman. Oh, shoot, you didn't have to
do that. And then he says killing women ain't good.

(01:04:12):
So killing women ain't no good. That comes from Ralph.
So I mean they did have there were there was
some depth to those characters, but the main hunter, rather
than his skinners, seemed to be sort of an unredeemable figure.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
When they first focus, you know, nobody gets to jump
on Frank Nesbit. Yeah, some line like that, and then
the narrators like Frank Nesbit told everybody about a guy
riding a buffalo, and then it's like in the saloon,
he's like there's.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
A guy riding a buffalo.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
And then he goes up to the bar and he's like,
there's a guy riding a buffalo.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
We saw him two days from here.

Speaker 6 (01:04:50):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
There's also these nuggets in there that you wonder, like
where they going to do something else? Because the camera
when he when he rides the buffalo into the saloon,
the camera makes a point to show you that it
knocks over the stove, and we were just waiting for
the saloon to go up in flames, you know, and
and and then there was really no point.

Speaker 5 (01:05:10):
For the camera. Too much plot for this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Yeah, there's also a point where I do wonder if
it was a stuffed buffalo head that knocks over the
card table in that scene, because it was just a
weird cutaway. Also odd like frank Nesbit and the boys
are are bad people and Buffalo Jones concentrates of the

(01:05:35):
gunfight on the auxiliary character and frank Nesbitt never gets
a shot off.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Yeah, And I was like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Well, okay, it also seems.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
It was the only fly I found in the well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
I think my favorite part of the film was that
they ordered Gin and Tonics, a classic frontier drink. Give
me that watch, we're getting a couple of gin and tonics.
And then the fact that they had sort of a
dual ending where they filmed the saloon shootout and then
they're like, you know, it shouldn't end here. Why don't
we just have one of these guys.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Not be here? My dad told it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
And then the buffalo can kill him.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Yeah. But then, man, the chase scene at the end
goes like.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
It's phenomenal, It's great.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
I would watch this again.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
It takes that mule a little while to get going though,
Like the first two minutes of the chase, the mule
just seems.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
To interesting deal there too. Where'd the mule come?

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Did they steal the mule from the wagon train? I guess,
but no, no saddle.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
Yeah, I think you're asking too many questions.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
I thought it was very strange that they didn't take
the wagon itself, because the primary their primary motivation in
all this was just logistics. They wanted to be able
to transport more hides, and so they killed his family
and then they leave the wagon there. But like the
reason that they first tangle up with buffalo Jones because

(01:07:01):
he looks at the buffalo and he says, boy, that
could carry a lot of stuff. Let's kill that guy
and take his take his mode of transportation.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Yeah, And the whole time the costumes, I just kept
thinking I was watching like a Jethrow Toll documentary. It
was just like it was like, ye, if you tamed
back the fringe just a little bit and added like
a feather in the hair, were at Woodstock all of
a sudden.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Well no, I mean yeah, they're in easy Writer. Yeah right,
I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
That's Hie seventy one that much different from the eighteen seventies.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Right, yeah, Like no, I mean the fashion was po wore.

Speaker 5 (01:07:36):
The same kind of shit. It all, it all comes
there dirty, like yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
The I thought that Buffalo Jones really had a very
striking resemblance to like nineteen seventies, you know, portrayals of Jesus.
The long hair, the beard, and he's just always sort
of has his contemplative look on his face. There was
a lot to unpack here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
There was there a real buffalo being shot, yes, and
definitely real dogs being kicked, and definitely a real mountain
lion getting punched in the face.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Yeah, that first buffalo that gets shot in the neck. Yeah,
I read somewhere someone claimed that they had trained them to.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
Fall when that's rubber bullets, but yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (01:08:21):
That's I have interesting to find out when Hollywood really
started cracking down on that stuff, because like animals got.

Speaker 5 (01:08:32):
Shot and like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
Stampede scenes, like somebody's breaking the legs.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Yeah, a lot of horses get killed in Hollywood. Boy,
thanks for indulging me and taking an hour and twenty
eight minutes of your time to review that film, because
that just tickled me to death.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
Oh again, I'd watched that over asking abb in the Moonlight.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
And thanks to our audience for the recommendation that one
did come to our inbox as a as a suggested
film for discussions, So thanks very much for that. It
was just a real pleasure, Phil. I think that's about
time for today. But do we have any more items
from the chat that you like?

Speaker 9 (01:09:13):
Sure you've got a few, not not a whole lot.
Came in and John's just asking a general bow question.
What bo's did you guys use this year, if any,
and are you excited for any new ones?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
A six milimeter creed more.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
I got a rob Lee bow out of Texas new
re curve that is absolutely bad ass.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
It's the first new bow I've had in a long time,
really really awesome, awesome bow, and I'm not looking for
another one.

Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
Yeah, I can't add anything to that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Great.

Speaker 9 (01:09:53):
Mountain Bucks is asking if you've ever eaten Bobcat and
what's better, Mountain Lion or Bobcat.

Speaker 6 (01:09:59):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
I've had Mountain Lion tacos a couple of times.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
And yeah, I mean it's it's good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
I don't I don't think I'm eating Bobcat.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
I have. It's very similar. Yeah, I think you can.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
You get the right line, You're gonna it's gonna be
a little fattier.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah, and then you just have more to work with,
you know, like those loins and stuff on. These animals
have a lot more sinew, and so yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
You probably get more meat off of what like a
wild turkey gobbler then you'd get off of a Bobcat.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Yeah probably, Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:10:35):
Yeah, Cal, what's your beer of choice?

Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
You know?

Speaker 9 (01:10:42):
Some typos in this in this question, So I'm kind
of just making an assumption that that's what you're.

Speaker 11 (01:10:46):
Asking, kind of like you don't like beer or lights
of your.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
Choice right now?

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
There always used to be like all these good seasonal
dark beers that come out around Christmas time and for
whatever reason, and here in bos Angelus, you know, cultural Mecca,
you can't get any of them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
So that's the only part of the War on Christmas
that's succeeding.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Yeah, Phil found jubile Ale and that's good stuff. Nincossi
had I think it's Nincosi had Slayer.

Speaker 9 (01:11:16):
Oh yeah, So Nincosi used to distribute to southwest Montana
and then there was some some some distribution of war
happening and and uh, someone pissed someone off, and then
they stopped distributing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Nincossia was a Slayer was good? Yeah, yeah, So I like,
I like both ends of the spectrum. Love Rainier when
it's hot, and uh, you know, you just want to refreshing,
very light, generic logger. But other than that, it's got

(01:11:51):
to have some some flavor, like a really good pilsner
or get into the dark beers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Got a six pack of the Bavic super Pills.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
That's a Bombic super Pills. Yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:12:03):
And then just for the freaks out there, another plug
for the meat Eater Dungeons and dragon session. I'm saying
this on record. It will happen in twenty twenty five.
I don't know if you will ever see it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
It might not be official.

Speaker 11 (01:12:16):
No, it will not be official.

Speaker 9 (01:12:17):
It will be It will probably be me in the
Spencer's kitchen, hopefully Randall's there and a couple other people.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
When you asked me to join your dungeon or whatever
it's called, I did say yes, you did. I preface
that with the caveat that I don't know what I'm doing,
but I'm I'm down.

Speaker 9 (01:12:33):
Yeah, And if if any of you know any sort
of outdoor like hunting, animal tracking centered one shots, let
me know, because I'm probably not gonna write my own
m because I'm lazy and not that good.

Speaker 11 (01:12:45):
So hit me up.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
I'm going to ask you to explain one shots for
me once we sign off here.

Speaker 11 (01:12:50):
Yes, sounds good.

Speaker 9 (01:12:51):
Uh, and yeah, I think that's all we got for questions. Well,
we're already we're alread running a little long here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Yeah, it was a meaty episode. Before we go, I
would like to make a couple of quick announcements. We
are in fact going to do a great American venison
jerky competition, and we will have more details for you
in the new year. In the meantime, start perfecting your
venison jerky recipes. And thanks to everyone who already emailed
us about their jerky. The inbox has been overwhelmed with

(01:13:19):
interest from prospective contestants and we appreciate your enthusiasm. Also,
as we mentioned last week, we will be pre recording
episodes for the holiday break and we would like to
address listener questions. So if you have a burning hunting
and fishing question that you'd like the crew to answer,
send it along to Radio at the meat Eater dot com.

(01:13:40):
That's Radio at the meat Eater dot com and looking
forward to recording that episode. It should be a fun,
fun little hour of discussion. With that, I'll just remind
you to get those holiday orders in quickly so your
gifts arrive in time for Christmas. Keep an eye out
for our restock of the fucked Up old shitters calonder

(01:14:00):
and we'll sign off from Bozeman, Montana. Thank you for
joining us.

Speaker 5 (01:14:05):
Happy holidays,