Ep. 685: MeatEater Radio Live! A Cottonwood King, B&C Javelina, and a Sizable Meat Poll

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris touch on their turkey trips, get the skinny on a fat cottonwood from the University of Nebraska's Justin Evertson, play 1-Minute Fishing with Tyler Coleman of Trout Unlimited, climb the latest Meat Poll, and talk Boone and Crockett javelina with Jim Heffelfinger.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Smell us.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Now, welcome to Meet Eater Trivia podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time.
That's noon o'clock for our friends in Forest City, Iowa
on Thursday, April third, and we'd live for Meet Eater
HQ and BOS of Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newarth,
joined today by Jannis Putellis and Seth Morris. On today's show,
we'll interview Justin Everettson about the new world record cottonwood tree,

(00:48):
followed by one minute fishing with our friends at Trout Unlimited.
After that we'll find out how much Giannis and Seth
know about their fellow outdoorsman with a game of meat poll.
And finally we'll talk to Jim Heffelfinger about the addition
of a new species to the Boone and Crockett record books.
Now I shouted out Forest City, Iowa. There that's where
I went on my bachelor party. Back in the day,
they had a music festival. I think it still goes on.

(01:11):
It's like a three day music festival. That's what I
did for my bachelor party.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
What kind of music?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's primarily country, so like the headliners when I went
Alan Jackson, Big and Rich Thomas Rhett one of the
surprising bands there. Phil You'll like this. I think was
lit because it was right around when they decided to
drop a country album. They were one hit pop punk
wonder from the nineties, and then I don't know, like

(01:36):
ten years ago, they're like, hey, maybe we'd try country music.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Was it good?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Was there country music?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Good country album?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
No? So like at a music festival there'll be like
an A stage, B stage of C stage. They didn't
get on the B stage. I think they were a
C stage act. Gotcha, Yeah, Jehanny, what did you do
for your was that seventeen twenty seventeen? I think, yeah,
what did you do for your bachelor party?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
What party was in two thousand? We?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Uh, we had some troubles with the bachelor party. Not
the kind of troubles you're thinking about and see where
you're going. I wasn't really going to go conventional bachelor party.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
But what would be conventional?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, these days it seems like you go to Nashville
and walk around and get drunk and you know, see
some hear some music, eat some barbecue, and I don't know,
you know, you probably hit on gals you could be
not supposed to be, that's my guess.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
We we got married at my wife's parents' house, which
is in Morehead City, North Carolina, and great fishing there,
and so we thought we would go fishing, and so
we uh sort of got a you know, a little
poll about who wanted to go. I think we had
two or three boats booked. I want to say the

(02:52):
one boat was Miss Stacy.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is that a boat I should know about?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
No, No, I just.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Want to give those guys a shout out if they're
still if there's still, you know, twenty some years later.
But the day we were gonna do it, we get
a call from the captain and he's like, man, I
don't do this often, but unless you guys are some
just seagoing mariners sons of bitches, you guys don't want
to go today.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
It's gonna be rough. And we're like, you're right, I like,
I like, the only person to pib be fine would
be my wife.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
That was another way we weren't going to go traditional
is it was going to be just like a group
kind of a party thing, you know. And so I
had cousins, friends, a lot of people in town, and uh,
he's like, all right, good call. I'm like, well, let's
try to do it afterwards in a couple of days
after the wedding, excuse me. And sure enough, that night
that we canceled, we end up at a bar doing

(03:50):
some traditional okay type stuff. It's just a bunch of
people hanging out, playing pool and drinking and uh. We
run into a mate that was gonna be on one
of those charter boats and he's like, man, everybody canceled,
but me and a couple of the captains went out.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Holy shit, we crushed them.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Of course, you know. He's like, he's like, man, it
was so bad. He's like, almost got sick crush. What
mostly dolphin?

Speaker 5 (04:16):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
If I remember, I don't know what else they caused?
Mostly dolphin.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
But we had a smaller group, just one boat go
out on the misstacy, like two or three days after
the wedding, people that were still in town. And we
did pretty good too, you know, enough to have you know,
everybody went home with a small cooler full of dolphin.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Seth, what'd you do on your bachelor party?

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I didn't really have a bachelor party.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, there was like a kind of a low key
party in your house.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, there was. There was.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
It was like a yeah chess he was making beer,
brought Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Just like a little get together in the evening. I
don't even remember exactly when it was, but it wasn't
like some like, you know, monumental bachelor party.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I remember standing around your Walleye boat a lot though. Yeah,
we should throw you a bachelor party. I'm down, man, Phil.
What did you do for your bachelor party?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Absolutely nothing?

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, okay, we got two bachelors. You boys. Come up
with a squad theme for your the Seth and Phil
bachelor party.

Speaker 6 (05:12):
Yeah, I would love to see where that ven diagram crosses.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
I'll go to a tiki bar, Phil.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, whileye fishing by day, tiki barring by way.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
It sounds like a pretty fun day. Sounds like a
country song.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
A bad one, like an Alan Jackson country song. Him
and Jimmy, Jimmy.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
It just depends on who writes it, you know. Maybe
throw that Brown band they like that genre, Throw that
bone to the Isabel Brothers.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
They might be made.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Seth, you just got home from right you were in
Florida and Texas. Florida and Texas, I mean Turkey's died
on those trips.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Two in Florida, me and my wife, and then uh
three died in Texas. Steve got two and uh we're
down there with Luke Combs and Ego one.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
So you pulled the true bigger once. I pulled the
trigger once.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
How was Florida? What were you hunting? Easterns or Osciola Oola?

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yep, Florida was amazing. We got an invite from a
guy that commissioned Kelsey to do some artwork for him
back in the day, and uh, he's been inviting us
to go down there for years and we finally took
him up on the offer.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
What kind of artwork?

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Uh, just uh dog portraits. So yeah, we went down
there and he's part owner of this like awesome hunting
club and the the property is just like totally set
up for epic hunting and full of turkeys. And yeah,
we we ended up Kelsey end up missing a turkey

(06:42):
on the first morning, and then that that evening, Uh
called two in and we.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Doubled up first Acola for you.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
How did that compare to the rest of the subspecies
that you've killed?

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, they don't gobble much. They got a lot on
the trick on the limb, but they fly down and
shut up, and that was It's like not my favorite
style of turkey hunting where you just got to sit
there forever and wait for him, but still super cool.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Like are they notorious for long spurs?

Speaker 1 (07:12):
You sent them?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
And did you like take notice of that or did
you look like any other birds?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Kelsey's were inch and a half, oh man, and mine
were inch in a quarter and razors too, Yeah, razor sharp.
They'll mess you up if you're not care if.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
They were big.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
They're super cool birds. Yeah, and just how much though
they're kind of screw Mine was seventeen, Kelsey's was twenty one.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Twenty one, that's a half. It's like a corn fed turkey.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, it was a big one. I was surprised.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, okay, but have you cooked anything yet with these
Aussie older birds any different?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
We did some schnitzel two nights ago, but no, it
was just like normal schnitzel.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Okay, seth on the board first. Then I think you
probably killed the turkey before Yanni this year, right, maybe
the first in the crew.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
It might be maybe day was it? Uh that get
to square it away. Let's see mark the title at
stake here. Uh, what it was like two weeks ago?

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Two weeks ago. That was way before Johanni, No, it.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Was before you went to I think it was before
you went to Texas. I killed mine on the fifteenth
of March.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh, we'll do some date check.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Oh you know what, you might be earlier than us,
because I think we were seventeenth through the twenty. First,
all right, you're rooting for Soeth.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I was rooting for Seth. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Sorry, Seth's Spencer.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
All right, let's get on with the show. Joining us
on the line first is Justin Everettson, the green infrastructure
coordinator from the University of Nebraska. He's here to talk
about the new world record cottonwood that hails from the
Cornhusker state. Justin, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 (08:47):
Yeah, hi guys, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
First thing, tell us about Nebraska's relationship with cottonwood trees.

Speaker 7 (08:55):
Well, yeah, you can probably imagine Nebraska doesn't have a
lot of trees, or it didn't that settlement, about three
percent forested, were mostly a prairie state, but the cottonwood
was a prominent tree growing across Nebraska even at the
time of settlement. It was a tree that would grow
anywhere there was a little moisture, especially on streams or

(09:16):
low wet areas, and it was highly revered by both
the native populations out here and the early pioneers. So
it was kind of Nebraska's favorite or most common tree.
Since the time of settlement. That's changed quite a bit
with the advent of agriculture out here, and we don't

(09:36):
see as many cottonwoods as we used to have, but
it is our state tree. It's the state tree of Nebraska,
I think also Kansas and Wyoming. And part of that
has to do with the fact that we lost a
lot of our American elm trees which used to be
our state tree, that was from a disease in the
sixties and seventies, so we just said, hey, how about

(09:57):
our good old native cottonwood.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
I like it. Now. This year it was announced that
a cottonwood there is the new national Champion Tree. How
did that come to be? And who keeps track of
these records?

Speaker 7 (10:09):
Yeah? Well, I don't want to speak for every state,
but most states have a Champion Tree program, and here
in Nebraskas with the Nebraska Forest Service, and I've been
assigned to it here for the last several years. So
we try to get out and document the biggest major
trees in our state, for our most prominent trees. And
you'd be surprised, even here in Nebraska, where we were

(10:32):
pretty much treeless, we can grow pretty big trees out
here and also on the Great Plains. So we try
to keep track of our champion trees, the most common ones.
And then there's a national Champion Tree program too, and
anybody could look that up, the National Register of Big Trees,
And we tried to align our standards with those standards
because for about the last twenty five or thirty years,

(10:55):
the largest cottonwood, eastern cottonwood, has been measured or found
in Nebraska, so we want to align ourselves with those standards.
This particular tree actually grows up near Ericson in our
sand Hills region north of Lincoln and Grand Island, So
you wouldn't think you'd have a big tree out there,

(11:16):
but the cottonwood loves wet ground even in the sand Hills,
and survey crew out there doing some survey work for
the local conservation Lake area nearby happened upon this tree
and they said, hey, let's let the Nebraska for Service
know about it. They did, We went out and confirmed
the measurement, and then we submitted it to the National

(11:38):
Champion Tree program and it became Kosher as the National
Champion Tree just this last summer.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
And tell us about the measurements that this tree has
and the scoring system that you put together for these trees.

Speaker 7 (11:54):
Yeah, you bet that picture you see right there. The
guy who happened upon the tree is made during it,
Dana General, and he's measuring it. And it turned out
to be thirty seven point two feet in circumference. So
if you can imagine, that would probably be six or
seven of us big guys trying to hold hands to
get around that tree. That's how big the trunk is.

(12:15):
It's not super tall. It's only eighty five feet tall.
Cottonwoods out here don't get super tall when they grow
in the open, you know, because they can get wide spreading.
But the tree does reach out about one hundred and
twenty feet or so. The tree was nominated at just
the right time because our former national champion and state

(12:35):
champion was dethroned. Because we had to remeasure it to
keep in line with the national standards, and so we
were looking for a new tree. This came along at
the right time.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
And you can see the pictures of this tree on
our YouTube channel right now if you go watch this episode. Now.
Has this tree been on people's radar as a potential
national champion?

Speaker 7 (12:57):
No, we were all surprised that it was out there.
It's interesting when you see these trees from a distance,
they're not very impressive, these cottonwoods that grow across Nebraska.
There's probably ten or fifteen in our database that are
over thirty feet in circumference, and you don't really notice
them from a difference. But when you get up close
to them, maybe one hundred yards away or so, you go, oh,

(13:20):
that's a big tree. And that's kind of what happened here.
They were on the side of the lake that doesn't
get a lot of foot traffic, so it had escaped
notice for a lot of years. And to be quite
honest with you, I'm a big tree hunter. I'm not
a game I'm a big tree hunter. And we don't
even see the biggest of our trees as often as
you might think.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
So how old do you think this tree is?

Speaker 7 (13:43):
Yeah, cottonwoods grow fast here, so they're not nearly as
old as we might think they are. For as big
as they are, we would guess. We guessed on this
tree maybe one hundred and twenty years old or so,
going back to historical photographs of the adjacent lakes. So
they grow fast and then they kind of die young. Now,
one hundred and twenty years is a good age, isn't it.

(14:05):
But compared to an oak that size, an oak that
size would be five to six hundred years old.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
My goodness. Now, what is it about that tree's home
that allowed it to grow to such enormous proportions.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
Yeah, cottonwood's like a wet spot. And this particular spot
is a former creek side a natural stream flow through
the sand hills, and then they converted part of that
area to a lake about one hundred years ago, and
that cottonwood was just in the right spot to stay
with a moist root zone all its life to this point.

(14:41):
Plus there's not a lot of activity around it. They
don't farm right up to it, people don't drive over
the root system or anything like that. So it's been
able to just kind of do its own thing for
over one hundred years now, which is really what we need.
One issue we're running into Nebraska. With our agriculture the
way we do agriculture now, there is so big equipment

(15:03):
and we use a lot of herbicides. It is impacting
a lot of our native trees and this tree, thankfully
doesn't have a lot of that agriculture happening right around it.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Hey, justin this is the honest here. I would think
that the number one threat to a tree like that
would be a beaver. Yeah, yeah, I mean, just you know,
I floated by thousands of cottonwoods in my days as
a fly fishing god in Colorado, and it seemed like
the number one thing that would take down some of
these giants would be a beaver. But I guess that, like,

(15:38):
are there near beavers nearby? Is that something that you
guys would worry about and maybe protect that tree from
if they were, if they were found in the area.

Speaker 7 (15:46):
Yeah, that's a really good point, to be quite honest
with you. We don't see the beaver. This tree got
big enough that it must have escaped the beavers. But
we see beavers chewing on trees right around it, and
so this tree must be big enough that they don't
want to try to tackle it. But boy, do we
see beaver damage on our young trees, especially cottonwoods and

(16:07):
willows and anything that grows across the creek. I was
just out creaking the other day, and while the beavers
can do quick damage on things. So if any of
you are looking for a beaver hunt, come on out
and help us.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Justin Seth here, what about lightning strikes? Has that tree
ever been struck by lightning? Is there any signs of that?

Speaker 7 (16:26):
Or yeah, thankfully no, we couldn't see anything in it.
The trees that get big out here on the plains, right,
they are a lightning rod. Yeah, you know, so there's
a lot that has to happen right in this tree's life,
escaping predation and lightning and all of that to survive

(16:47):
to this point. But you'd be surprised. These big old
cottonwoods are all over the plains Kansas and Nebraska, South Dakota,
even out in your part of the world. They transition
into a sub species called the we have the Eastern cottonwood.
The subspecies is the plains cottonwoods out in Wyoming and Montana,
and I think that subspecies national champion is actually out

(17:10):
in Montana somewhere just about as big as this tree.
So it's just neat to see that across the plains,
these cottonwoods can grow big and old, and boy, the
Native Americans revered them as the tree of life. They
used them in most of their sundance ceremonies. Another fun
fact is that bees are native bees, and our honey
bees used the resin of the buds of these trees

(17:33):
or this time of year, they're gathering it to build
their hives and they have antimicrobial possibilities there and so
that's kind of a main ingredient in the balm of Gilead,
and early settlers used that as kind of a antimicrobial
salve for different things. So, yeah, the cottonwood, Wow, it's

(17:54):
a tree of the plains and we're happy it's out here.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
So at this age and size, what kind of threats
exist for that tree?

Speaker 7 (18:02):
Yeah, you've named them there for sure that I would
say lightning. Yeah, here's another sad fact of the big
trees here in Nebraska our Champion Tree program. Once a
big tree gets to that status, it's life maybe about
up because when they get that big, you know, they're
running out of steam. A lot of times, especially at cottonwood,

(18:23):
they grow fast and they kind of die young. But
if we maybe squeak out another thirty years on this tree,
that would be pretty good. The second biggest cottonwood we
had growing in Nebraska did suffer from both wind damage
and a lightning strike a few years ago and now
it is gone. So yep, maybe we shouldn't designate it

(18:45):
as a champion. It might be due for succumbing one
of these days.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
If someone thinks they know about a bigger cottonwood or
any tree that's of record book proportions, what should they do.

Speaker 7 (18:58):
Yeah, it depends on the state you're in. Most states
do have a Champion Tree program and they're happy to
and it's often with the state Forest agency or their
university system. So you can that's where I would start. Now,
you can take that tree to the National Champion Tree Registered.
They have a portal that you can log in as

(19:19):
a visitor and nominated. Anybody can do that nominated tree.
So that's the I don't have the website, but it's
the National Champion Tree Program. Log in there and you'll
find it. Poke around in their people too. You'll be
amazed at some of the grand and fantastic trees that
grow across this country. One of the most spectacular trees

(19:40):
is actually the Rio Grand Cottonwood. I think the National
Champion is down in Arizona. You wouldn't believe how big
around that thing is. So it's fun to just get
out and see these trees.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Thanks for joining us, Justin. Congrats on the National Champion tree.
Nebraska should be proud.

Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, thanks, guys. I really appreciate the time today.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Have a good one.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Thanks Justin. Hey, that was a good one, Spencer. How'd
you find die Justin?

Speaker 1 (20:05):
I enjoyed that.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
When I saw the news of Nebraska dethroning. I don't
remember what the last day was Wyoming. Maybe he might
have said it. It was so they found this tree
in the summer. It was measured late summer, and then
I think again measured earlier this year. So it was
confirmed in March that that was the new National Champion tree.
When I saw that, I thought, we have to have

(20:27):
somebody on the show to talk about that, because I
didn't know that record books existed just for trees. And
it makes me really interested in that whole world.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh yeah, like you couldn't really get me to go
look at big rocks with you, But if you're like, hey, Annie,
let's go look at a giant oak tree that I
know about, I would go for sure. It reminds me
in Latvia. There was a book at this apartment that
we were staying at called like Latvia's one hundred Dish

(20:55):
was wls is what they call it. Dish means like
mighty was Walz's. Oh, And so it was like Latvia
as a hundred biggest oaks the country is only the
size of West Virginia, so it's not a giant place,
but it had literally coordinates and directions to get to
like the one hundred biggest, coolest oaks across the country.
A lot of them are on public or on private land.

(21:15):
But I guess they don't quote me on this, but
I'm pretty sure that you can, you know, go knock
on a door and say, hey, can I go, you know,
check out the tree because a lot of those big giants. Yeah,
even way back in the day, they were revered and
so they were capped not cut down, and they've you know,
only gotten bigger.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
So it's pretty cool. The stat I would love to
know is how many turkeys roosted in that tree over
its lifespan?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, one hundred and twenty five years. That thing was
born in nineteen hundred. Then the tree seen everything there
something special too when you see a big old tree,
and I think cottonwood specifically to outdoorsmen from like our
part of the world, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, it's like
kind of the tree that you associate a lot of
time spent outdoors with.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
So good for Nebraska. Happy they got the record, all right?
Moving on, our next segment is One Minute Fishing Life.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Feel lucky?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Will do you bunk? Go ahead, make my cast.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone
who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish.
If they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donation
to a conservation group and for the whole month of April,
our friends at Trot Unlimited or joining us for one
Minute Fishing. This week, our angler is Tyler Coleman, the
Lower Bear River Project manager at TU. Today he's on

(22:37):
the Bear River basin in Utah and fishing for a
donation to Trout Unlimited. Tyler, welcome to the show.

Speaker 8 (22:44):
Thanks thanks for trapping us on, and thank you for
doing this for Trout Unlimited. It's awesome to even raise
awareness if we don't catch fish. Really appreciate you guys
doing this.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
We're excited a lot of pressure on you, Tyler as
the first TU guest of the month. Now we ask
Trout Unlimited to highlight some important one sheds across the
country for this segment. So first thing tell us about
the Bear River base and its greatest threats.

Speaker 8 (23:08):
So a lot of our work focuses on habitat fragmentation
having service. To do this, I had to do something
in town. It's a good example. You can see right
behind me that the hydro station. A lot of our issues.
We have migratory cutthroat trout and these fish need to
move from downstream up into the headwaters a spawn. So
our job at TU is primarily focused on reconnecting those

(23:30):
tributary streams and areas that those fish can migrate.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
And what are some things that TU has done to
help this.

Speaker 8 (23:36):
Fishery specifically here we've done we created actually barriers on
one of the streams with partners to provide habitat for
just cutthroat trout. They removed all the non native fish
and then put cutthroat back in above the barriers, and
now that population can have an area where it's only

(23:57):
cut throat and they can migrate downstream and kind of
be a horse population for the mainsteam Logan River in.

Speaker 7 (24:03):
The area and the Bear River.

Speaker 8 (24:04):
We've done a lot of diversion, dam replacements and screening
to project fish from going one way down the canals
and ended up in a ditch somewhere. And we've done
some barrier removals, dam removals, fish ladders, a whole lot
of just reconnecting the streams from the tributaries to the
main stem.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
Good on to you. Now, let's talk about the fishing.
What are you targeting today and how are you doing it?

Speaker 8 (24:28):
So, going back to the connectivity issue is there's no
cutthroat trout that you're really gonna find out here. I
used to guide this exact same spot years ago, and
I've only caught one cutthroat trout over the four years
that i'd bring people here to fish. We've got non
native fish such as stock, rainbow trout, brown trout, and
there are the native Mountain whitefish that you find in here.

(24:49):
What I'm targeting today is anything that will eat this
fly and get to you five hundred bucks.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Okay, we like that, Tyler. Is there any competition on
the river today? Are you the only one there?

Speaker 8 (24:59):
There's two guys right there spin fishing, and there's a
couple of people fly fishing downstream. So I got to
a spot to hold it. Didn't think I would need
to on a day like this, but the sunshiny midges
are popping off. So we got got one rainbow in
the under my belt right before we answered the call.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Just check it. Wait there, we'll see what we can find.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Another one rainbow? And how many casts was it to
get that one rainbow?

Speaker 4 (25:21):
Too many?

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Too many? So you're not optimistic about catching a fish
in one minute, then, is that what you're saying.

Speaker 8 (25:29):
I'm always optimistic.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Okay, okay, well, Tyler, you're one minute of fishing starts
as soon as you make that first cast. Go at
it all right, let me get out there. Tyler is
now waiting into the stream. This looks like the perfect
place to pick up a white fish or a rainbow.
And he's made his first cast.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh yeah, he's already high stick. He's drifting. Yeah, I'm surprised.
The beautiful hole, like that beautiful sunny day. No one
else is out there.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, Tyler, you're fifteen seconds in. There's gotta be fish
stacked out third, don't you.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Think you would think so?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, it's hard to say if that's a did he
say if it was a tail water or just a
spill away?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
I don't remember that, te Dale. But I think the
most important thing is he's in town, so this is
looks like a pretty accessible area. Tyler, you have twenty
seconds left. He's just made another cast upstream. This may
be his last drift. Oh oh, I don't think he
has it?

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Does yet? He does have one? No? No, no, dang.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
It, Tyler, You're one minute of fishing is up? Can
you can you hear us? Tyler?

Speaker 7 (26:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Tell did you have a hook set there? What happened?
What was that? Did you have a hook set there?

Speaker 1 (26:57):
I think here's a rock? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:01):
There you go. Just lie to us next time, all right, Tyler? Well,
no five hundred dollars donation to TU this week, but
we're gonna try again next episode.

Speaker 8 (27:10):
Thank you for joining us, Yeah, thank you for having
us and help raising awareness for what trot On Limited does.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Hell yeah, I have a good one, Tyler.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Thanks Tyler, thanks Tyler.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
All right, let's take a b I would.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Have liked to have known what flies fly or flies
he was drifting?

Speaker 3 (27:26):
M what do you think he was?

Speaker 2 (27:31):
He said midges were popping, So I'm guessing, you know,
probably some kind of a bigger attractor nymph up top
and then uh, midge trailing it in the back. But
you know there's a thousands of midge patterns.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I want to know. If them boys spin fishing, we're
catching it.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
We'll come back to them later for one minute fishing
the spin fish.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
You know, we might have to switch this segment up
to maybe two minutes or five minutes fishing.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Well, if that happens, then the suits at Meat Eater
you're going to be sending me an email like, hey, uh,
we can't be giving away all that money every episode.
So one minute. I think we've had three successful anglers
and it makes it extra special when it does happen. Yeah, Johanny,
you were one of them. You were one of the
successful angle right, you were jumping that water down in Louisiana.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, Oh that was fishing in a barrel for sure.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
That could have been ten second fishing. That's all right,
let's take a break for some listener feedback, Phil, what's
the chat have to say?

Speaker 6 (28:26):
We've got Leland writing in asking question for Spencer, when
can we expect more meat eater kids and why the
long delays breaks an episode drops. So I'll pipe in
first as the part of the podcast team. That show,
despite its relatively short runtime, does take a lot of
teamwork and resources around here. We've got Steve having to

(28:47):
write a script for his bit, Spencer writing trivia for kids.
You know, Corinn and crew working on Guess that Critter.
Even though it's kind of like a short, bite sized show,
it is a lot of work and it's a labor
of love. But also we don't really want to like
I almost use kind of like a very dirty term.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that, but we
don't wanna.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now it's stuck in my head. It's good to space.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
The show's out is what I'm just what I'm trying
to get to, and kind of event ties them as
seasons get get people excited, because I think if that
were a weekly show, I think people will be excited
about it for a while and then it might get
kind of it might get kind of dull.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
So yeah, but a lot of scheduling, a lot of
a lot of people involved to put it together. Our
plan right now, and this could change, is to drop
two seasons of Meat Eater Kids each year, one in
the summer kind of right when kids get out of school,
and then the other around Christmas break, so it spreads
them out about six months from each other. Expect that
next one, Leland, sometime between like Memorial Day and fourth

(29:48):
of July. We're gonna have five new episodes for.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
The beginning of June.

Speaker 6 (29:51):
I can I think I can officially say June is
the next season of Meat Eater Kids, So keep an
eye out for that.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
There you go, tell little Leland, more Meat Eater Kids
is on the.

Speaker 6 (29:59):
Way, Mike Seth, You're getting a lot of questions from
a lot of different people. Michael asks, what is a
good camera for beginners for photography?

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Oh, you know, one of the first cameras I well,
was the second camera I ever had, was a Sony
A sixty three hundred. It's like a crop censor mirrorless
camera made by Sony, and it's reasonably priced and good
quality photos. It's not quite like a professional camera, but

(30:31):
it's like something worth getting to like start with and
see if you want to stick with it and see
if you like it. And then that north or south
of a thousand bucks, I think it's probably north, but
it's probably pretty close to that. I don't know what
they are these days.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I haven't looked at camera prices in a while, but
I feel like that's one of those things that prices
are probably coming down.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Like Seth, you and I are the right age that
we remember when flash drives came out and fill you
as well, And there was a moment where like a
flash drive was like eighty dollars, yeah, to get a
one gigabyte flash drive.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
Oh, I mean gigs. That's that's being generous. Several megabytes yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
And then at some point everyone could make them. The
technology got to a point where it was far easier
to create a super high quality flash drive. I think
that's kind of happening with cameras. Yeah, I bet like
it's better now than it's ever been to get a
good camera for photography. What about other tips you got
for Michael.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, Well a tip would just be learning the camera
real well and shoot a lot of photos with it
and then you'll figure out if you like it, and
if you like it, you know, just upgrade your gear
from there.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Go do you shoot with now a seven or five?

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Which is like a kind of the top of the line,
not necessary for someone just getting into it.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
That's why I says pictures look so good and he's
also very talented.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Thanks Spencer, What else you got phil from Adam? Is
there any contention between Giannis and Steve being that Janis
want a bear tag on Prince of Wales and Steve
continues to lose out.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, Steve is not losing out. He has other friends
and family that have drawn that tag. I believe one
or maybe two kids have drawn the same year that
I have for twenty six. So yeah, these days when
our kids have a tag, no one's losing out.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Twenty six is gonna be a big year for bear
hunting up there. Yeah, my dad drew for twenty six
up there too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
I'm gonna go out it Clay Newcombe style. I'm bringing
my wet suit and my bowl.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Are you being serious?

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Oh? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (32:39):
What time of year will be going? What month may?

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Probably? Yeah, like the week before. Oh, it's gonna be great.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, you have a gun picked out for your dad,
Seth to take on that hunt.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
He'll probably bring one of his. Yeah, probably the old
thirty hot six or something.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
There you go.

Speaker 6 (32:55):
Yeah, a couple of trapping questions for Seth. Oh boy,
I've been trying to catch a fox or coyot for
weeks now using a dirt hole set with a lure.
A few times the traps have been trigged, triggered, but
with no catches. Any idea of what I might be
doing wrong?

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well, A lot of times when that happens, it's because
the fox or coyote is smelling the trap, so there
might be some scent contamination there. A lot of times
when they they'll they'll smell the trap in the ground
and dig it up and it triggers. It. Hard to
exactly say you know what's going on there, but that
happens often. So cool.

Speaker 6 (33:33):
And to follow that one up, do you ever use
the old Johnny Thorpe no leg hole beaver skinning method?
Those are a bunch of words. I have no idea
what they mean. Try it out and it makes a
really nice clean beaver hide, perfect for making garments.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Have you heard of this steth No? I know, I
know Johnny Thorpe. But I can't say that I know
the no leg hole method. I'll have to check that out.
Ben Anderson Outdoors. Let's see, this is kind of an
interesting one. Maybe Brad asks what is the line between

(34:03):
helping an animal and distress and letting nature take its course?
I e.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
Fond traps in ice or something like that. M you
guys have any opinions on that?

Speaker 3 (34:12):
I would say, no, what's legal? Brad? In that situation,
your best bad is probably to track down a game
warden and just use your judgment. If your gut tells
you that you should put that thing out of its misery,
then that's probably what you should do. I don't know
that I've been in that situation a lot. There was
like I hit a dough with my pickup one time,

(34:32):
had to cut its throat. Like putting animals out of
their misery encounter.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
That's not exactly what Brad asked, right, He's asking about
just helping an animal and distress versus letting it continue
to be distressed. Have you ever had that happen where
you had to go I'm gonna do air quotes for
save because I lean on the side of kind of
letting nature do its things.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I was deer hunting in eastern Montana one time and
I saw an owl you know, barbed wire fence that
was still alive, and so I went and cut the fence.
I couldn't get a hold of the landowner at that time,
but I made the call that was gonna try to
help it. So I got a wire cutter out of
my pickup, cut the fence, put it in a tote,

(35:16):
track down the right people to give that too. There's
like a raptor association had to go, like do a
handoff to someone else an hour away. They took that raptor,
they got it to a rehab facility. It died a
week later. So it was it was disappointing that that
was the outcome, but encouraging that like that exists for
animals in that exact situation. So I did my best

(35:40):
at that time. I sacrificed some hunting to make that happen.
And then, weirdly, because I had to go way out
of my way to do this handoff, on my way back,
I saw some deer entering a guy's field. Got to
hold the landowner, got permission. A half hour later, I
killed a big old four by four, So it was
it was the nature did me right on that hunt? Yeah,

(36:02):
you guys ever help or kill an animal that was
in distress?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Ah? Yeah, I did the same thing with hitting a
deer with my truck one time.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
How'd you kill it?

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Twenty two? Yeah? I don't know. I feel like if
it's like a man man made issue, sure it's I
don't know in my mind, it might not be the
right thing or legal thing to do, but I don't know. Yeah,
it's just watching a deer struggle along the road, you know,

(36:33):
Oh for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
But now if a young fawn is getting taken down
by a pack of coyotes.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Let it go. Yeah, let it go. If it's nature,
let nature do its thing. Name of the game.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
To put a bowl on that story. I did get
a hold of the rancher later on whose fence I cut,
told him what happened. It's like, hey, I'll go back
and fix it, and he's like, nope, don't worry about it.
Thanks for telling me. Uh, good on you for doing
the right thing. So it all worked out except for
the owl, all right. Moving on, our next segment is
meat Pole.

Speaker 6 (37:04):
Say if Sully and Meatball is a take Welcome to Meady,
I got a game something.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Wow, that's great, Phil.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Meat Pole is a test of how much you know
about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed five hundred
Meat Eater listeners about the outdoors. Your job is to
predict their answers. There are three questions. Whoever is closest
to the correct answer between Yiannis and Seth gets a point.
Whoever gets two points will be the winner, and everyone
in the chat should play along as well, because Phil

(37:38):
is going to watch your answers and then give a
shout out to whoever is closest.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
I feel like I'm a good, good, above average trivia player.
Quite the opposite here with meat poll.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
You're not an average Joey Yanni. You're too disconnected from
these five hundred listeners we're talking to. Maybe that's what
we learned. Could be Let's see how you do on
today's questions. The first one is what percentage of meat
Eater listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the
point where they were scared.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
This is so subjective because they have to be humble
enough to admit.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
I'll admit I got lost to the point where I
was scared before. Have you boys had that happen to you?

Speaker 8 (38:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yeah, I mean between the ages of twelve and forty seven.
Has it happened once?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yes? Yeah, twice? Yes.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Okay, Well apply that logic to the folks who were
answering this question. What percentage of meat eater listeners have
gotten lost in the woods to the point where they
were scared? What was the worst that you ever got
lost and scared?

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yanni?

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Oh jeez, it's probably you know. My dad and I
had quite the moment the other day. We just didn't
via text.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
The other day.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, a couple days.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Ago, I was thinking about a podcast idea I have,
and that got me to thinking that I'd never really
properly thanked my dad for taking me hunting as a
young you know. So I just shot him a text
saying thanks, and he replied with, Hey, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Sorry I yelled at you some of those times, you.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Know, so like and that one time that I'm pretty
sure he's probably thinking of, like in this on our
current property.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Wasn't scific about what the time was?

Speaker 2 (39:25):
No, No, but I know that this is the I mean,
there's probably some other times, but you know, we both
just went into the woods basically, and we had prep
stands the day before whatever, and we're in the dark.
He goes on to his spot and it was one
of those things where he kind of dropped me off
and I was just gonna walk right fifty yards and
right to my tree.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Well like an hour later, I'm.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Just stumbling around in the oak leaves, crunching around my
flashlight going everywhere and out of the just pitch black
quiet and still, you know, pre dawn nightness. I just
I can't remember the exact exploitives in the sense it
was basically yelling just sit down and way for it
to yell light. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

(40:07):
And of course when I got light, I could see
my trees stand.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
A little lost and a little scared that time. Yeah,
the most scared I ever got was I was in college.
I was mushroom hunting along the Missouri River and it
was getting dark and it was just like a totally
monotonous forest of every tree looked the same, the ground
was totally flat, and at some point I didn't know
where I was or how to get back to the

(40:32):
road and my pickup. And this was before on X
was there, as before cell signal had so much coverage,
but I could get out a phone call if I
needed to. And so my plan was, once I was
lost for like a good hour, I was gonna call
one of my buddies, have him drive like an hour
to the road because he would know where I was at,
and then have him honk the horn. And I thought
that would guide me out of the woods. Luckily, right

(40:54):
before I got to that point, I made it out okay,
And it wasn't that serious, but I was concerned enough
where I was coming up with ideas of how to
get out of there.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
And you were like, you're like right around twenty Yeah,
I was.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
I was probably a freshman or sophomore college.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah. I got lost one time coon hunting when I
was in high school.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
I think it was a high school at night at night,
had like a mag light and that's it. And uh, I,
by accident, after several hours, by accially stumbled into my house.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Is that where you left from?

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Was your house?

Speaker 3 (41:26):
No, that's good. Okay, you were a little scared, I imagine.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I don't if I was scared not, but probably I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
All right, Yanni and Seth have their answer for one percentage.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
The room there online, and their numbers are a lot
lower than mine.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
So what percentage of listeners have gotten lost in the
woods to the point where they were scared? Go ahead
and reveal your answers. We have Yanni saying eighty seven percent,
and we have Seth saying eleven percent. The correct answer
is third eventy nine point one percent. I think that
means Seth gets that first point, but honestly, neither one

(42:06):
of you boys were very close. According to one study,
it's estimated that over four thousand, six hundred people get
lost in the woods each year. That's thirteen people per day.
Hikers make up forty eight percent of people lost in
the woods, with the most common demographics being men age
twenty to twenty five and men age fifty to sixty.
The three most common reasons people get lost is because

(42:29):
they got off a trail, failed to have a good plan,
and miscalculated time or distance. Phil, who was the closest
in the chat, to thirty nine point one.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Oh, we had Lane with the thirty eight and Devin
with thirty eight as well.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Well done Devin and Lane. Here's question two. What percentage
of meat eater listeners would give up hunt it or
excuse me, would give up fishing for a year in
exchange for their dream boat. What percentage of meat eater
listeners would give up fishing for a year in exchange
for their dream boat? Seth described for me your dream boat.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
You know, my dream boat's not that crazy. It's just
a simple, like twenty foot tiller aluminum tiller boat.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, I think mine would be uh
pretty pretty attainable as well. Would be like like a
seventeen foot long deep V yeah, with like a nice
open floor plane.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Like a one pro guide like tiller boat. Guys aren't
thinking this through. What do you mean like you could
have any if you were to give up fishing. It's
just saying you could have any boat of your dreams.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
I know, but that the boat that I have the
most used for would be that one deep V seventeen foot.
I'd probably have a steering count.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
But you've maybe never even been on an eighty foot catamarans?

Speaker 3 (43:44):
What on earth am I going to do with that boat? Yanni?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Well, you want me to list off the things that
you could do on and off that.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Boat for me?

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yes? Go ahead?

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Oh, you mean like live like here in Bozeman. Yes,
you can put it out on Canyon Ferry and have great,
big parties on it.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Okay, maybe not my dream you know, go and dive and.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
What's your dream boat? Then? Since being Set, I.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Would I would have had to think about it a
little bit. I don't, but it wouldn't be no, you
know whatever. Fifty thousand dollars boat you guys are talking
A landing craft would also be nice for up in
the last time. See starting to think a little bit.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
So what percentage of listeners would give up fishing for
a year in exchange for their dream boat? Seth, would
you do it?

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah? I probably would, Yeah, Josh, of course, yeah I
would do it too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Well there's some data for you boys. You know us
raise Okay, yeah, but they didn't work. For the last question,
all three of us have been lost and scared in
the woods.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
I guess that's a good point. You guys have an answer. Yeah,
go ahead and reveal your answers. Okay, we have Yanni
saying eighty seven, little Set saying eighty percent, and you
boys are in the right neighborhood this time. The correct
answer is seventy five point one, giving se and the victory.

(45:02):
According to one study, the quintessential boat owner in America
is as described they are a suburban white man age
fifty four with an above average income. But that same
study shows a shift since COVID towards boat owners who
are younger and more diverse. Phil who was the closest in.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
The chat, and Cody with seventy five point.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
One percent off. Well done, Cody, all right. Question three,
We're gonna see if Seth can shut out Yanni make
him go streaking around the building as is tradition when
you get skunked. What percentage of meat eater listeners think
they're a better hunter than their dad? Yanni, who just

(45:42):
had some very honest conversations with his dad about thanking
him for hunting, And then Poppiannis apologized for yelling at Yanni,
do you think you're a better hunter than Papa?

Speaker 4 (45:53):
Yanni?

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yes, and he would agree, He would tell you that.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
All right, Seth, how about you?

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, yeah, he would agree with too, Yeah, me too,
you too.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
There's some more data for you guys.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
You know that the data data has not been helping
this game. Cory, what about you?

Speaker 7 (46:10):
Oh yeah, way better?

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Better hunter, better fishermen, better golfer.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
But I M there you go, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Again, what percentage of meat eater listeners think they're a
better hunter than their dad? Wow, the chat is good.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Stoke.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
You guys are participating to this level. You're keeping feel
busy over there.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, yeah, lots of numbers.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
At what percentage of listeners think they're a better hunter
than their dad? Are you boys ready?

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yep?

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Yanni saying
seventy six percent, seth is saying ninety seven. There's no
shut out. The correct answer is seventy seven. Was one
point five percent percentage points off of the correct answer. Now,

(47:01):
this is a bit surprising since previous pulling of our
audience showed that only forty two percent of listeners think
they're a better angler than the average angler, but an
overwhelming amount of listeners say they're a better hunter than
their dad. So either our audience is far more confident
in their hunting skills than fishing skills, or most of

(47:22):
them think their dad is a poor outdoorsman. Big, big discrepancy.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
I would point it to the the availability of information that,
like the average average son versus the average dad at
this point in time had coming up because again I
didn't my dad got me into it, took me hunting.
But I would say that, you know, the large majority
of within my head about hunting did not come from him.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
The the hurdles to get into hunting or whatever thing
you like, mushroom hunting, rock hunting, fishing, it's never been
easier because of all the information of it, bailable online
and podcast like this one.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
All right, we had John Torres with seventy seven.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Seventy seven, Well done, John dang near nailed it, all right.
Last thing for today. Joining us on the line last
is Jim Heffelfinger, the Wildlife Science coordinator from the Arizona
Game and Fish Department. He's here to talk to us
about the addition of have Alina to the Boone and
Crocket record book. Jim, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Good to be here. Jim.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Are you a better hunter than your dad?

Speaker 4 (48:32):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (48:33):
I think so because I taught him when he was
in his sixties.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
Oh okay, that's an easy one for you to an Then,
all right, Jim, what was the motivation for getting have
Alina added to the Boone and Crocket Record Book.

Speaker 5 (48:44):
Well, what is not to like about these cool things?
I mean, they're just little wild pigs that live in
the desert.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Hold on, hold on, they're pigs.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
No, No, I was going to I was gonna get
to that. Okay, so we call him pigs just as
a nickname.

Speaker 5 (49:01):
But coming from South Texas, that was confusing to me
because we had pigs and then we had these. It
are not pigs. So habilina are not in the pig family,
the suadey. They're in their own family, which is a
peckory family, which is Teasu a day. And some people
make a big deal out of them not being pigs,
and they're really not because they're not in the pig family,
but they're in a very closely related, kind of branched

(49:22):
off little family, So I don't.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
Make a big deal out of it. But they're they're
very different.

Speaker 5 (49:26):
And the reason they're different is the peckres, which is
a habilina, is a colored pecory and there's three kinds
of peckers. The other ones that are in Southern Mexico
and South America. The peckers are a new world animal.
They eve alve the North America and South America. The pigs,
the real pig family is an old World animal that
was then brought over here, and so's that's the difference.
We had Peckery's in the place is seen running all

(49:47):
over North America. They all went extinct and then the
colored pecory reinvaded North America really in the last last
thousand years.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
So the motivation for getting them added to the record book,
it's just because what's not to love about a little
bit exactly.

Speaker 5 (50:01):
They're just they're really cool animals. They're a hook big
game animal. Arizona's been managing them as game animals since
nineteen twenty nine. Texas and New Mexico has been managing
them as game animals since the nineteen thirties. And like
Arizona has a lottery style draw you have to apply
and get a permit to have Helena's got twenty six
thousand permits available and increasing trends in popularity in Arizona

(50:27):
and New Mexico. They're managed sustainably in sustainable populations in
all three states. And I just it's how they've escaped
the bundicracket record book for one hundred years, is the
real question.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah, And it was announced in December that Boone and
Crocket would start tracking have Alina Records after a unanimous vote.
What was the process like in getting them on board?

Speaker 5 (50:49):
Yeah, interesting story is I have an old Manila file
folder from twenty years ago that says Havelena big Boonicrockett category.
And I became a professional member of Bunda Rocket started
going to meetings and meetings of Bundercrockett people, and I
asked them that question, why is Hevelena not on the
in the record books? And I just got kind of

(51:09):
a collective shoulder shrug, like I don't know. And I
was really passionate about making that happening, but there there's
no there was no like momentum. I just kind of
ran out of I wouldn't get any traction anywhere with anybody,
and so I started raising a family and doing my job.
And it was last year that Nicole Tapman from New
Mexico Game and Fish called me and said, hey, would
you write a letter to support putting Heavilena as a

(51:31):
new record book category?

Speaker 4 (51:32):
And I said write a letter. I'm clearing my calendar.
I mean, let's get the work.

Speaker 5 (51:37):
Let's let's start working on this. And so we We
enlisted a couple of people from Mexico who have an
interest in this, three people from Texas, Nicole from New Mexico,
me from Arizona, and we all came together as a
team and we wrote this proposal that was presented to
the Buonicrockett Records Committee. Nicole's a member of the Records Committee.
I'm kind of a recent member of the Records Committee

(51:59):
and have a little asterisk by my name because I'm
not an official measurer. But we were in the Records
book committee meetings and we put together. First of all,
we just put together some rudimentary information. We brought them,
brought that to the Records Committee, and we said, we'd
like to do this, there's good reason to do it.
What we'd like from you is just to invite us
to come back with a full proposal.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
And they did that.

Speaker 5 (52:20):
They were interested enough, they said let's see what you got.
So we spent six months or so and we came
back with a full proposal and some of the old
some of the members of the Records Committee that have
been there for decades, said they have never seen a
more research and well put together proposal, and it was
just really an overwhelming success. Everybody saw the information we

(52:40):
brought to Baron and agreed that it was a pretty
good idea. So they proved it in December, and now
we're in the phase of implementing, kind of rolling it
out and getting it set up.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Well, you must have done a good job because again
it was unanimously approved by Boone and Crockett. Now let's
talk about scoring them. What measurements are taken on a
have Alina, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
It's going to be We want to keep things simple.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
We don't want something different for this kind of animal,
so it's just length plus width like we do for
bears and mountain lions. And you can see you in
the background there as the Arizona record book. So Arizona's
had a record book since nineteen seventy and keeping track
of length plus width of the skull. Texas has had
record books since twenty ten. New Mexico just uses sci

(53:24):
of scoring. They don't have their state record book, so
we have a huge body of information to guide us
in how to measure them and what the minimum score
might be. The one quirk was that all of those
Arizona records, if you can see in the picture the
incisors hang out a little bit farther than the skull

(53:46):
bone itself. Wind Crockett always includes the teeth with lines
and bears. The historical Arizona haling of records did not
include those incisors, just the skull itself. And so we
had to look at the historical records, and we looked
at a whole bunch of Alina skulls and saw that
the teeth add about one sixteenth or one eighth, and

(54:06):
so we had to just kind of add that little
bit to the score to get an idea of what
a minimum score might be for avelna.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
So how many entries are in that Arizona book, Jim.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
About seven hundred in the Arizona Book. And the minimum
score it started out, this is the nineteen seventies book.
It started out with the minimum score. And this is
all species. This is our state record book started out
with a minimum score of like thirteen and something. It's
been fourteen. This is our current book of all species.
It's been fourteen inches for a long time. And so

(54:40):
there's seven So there's seven hundred in there, which some
of our grandfather but they're above fourteen. New Mexico's had
using the sci they use for like fourteen in one
sixteenth and Texas had a lower one to thirteen and
and ten sixteenth. But to give you an idea of
the range of those since we have this information, the

(55:02):
largest have alina on record in any of those states
is fifteen and seven sixteens. That gives you a good
idea what pretty much maximum is, or at least what
the goal is to be. And there's twenty one have
alina that have been measured that are over fifteen inches.
That gives you lets you kind of frame what that
looks like. Seven hundred over fourteen inches and only twenty

(55:24):
one over fifteen inches?

Speaker 3 (55:25):
And what's the minimum score going to be for Boonakrockett?
Was there any disagreement on that number?

Speaker 5 (55:31):
Not disagreement, just a lot of discussion, and that's not
finalized yet, so they're talking about that now. But having
all of this data set for a new animal is
so valuable because we can look at that and we
could even do some little diagrams to say, well, if
it's set at this limit, how many can we expect?

Speaker 4 (55:48):
Can we expect a lot? You know, over that amount?
So it gives us that kind of basis information.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
But one important thing is we don't take all those
records out of Texas and Arizona and throw them into
Boone Crockett record book. Every skull will have to be
measured by a Bondicrocket official measure, and so obviously all
of those won't be in the Boondicrocket record But anybody
it's got a big skull laying around, they can measure
it themselves with length length plus with and just see

(56:14):
where they are in relation to some of these numbers
we're talking about. And then when this goes live, find
an official measure if you think it's close and can
get it measured, So any any skull people have can
be brought in, just like now, if you find an
old Cole's whitetail and grapasatic, you can enter it.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Do you have any advice for hunters on how they
can best field, judge a booner, have a lina.

Speaker 5 (56:37):
That's not easy, it's not even it's not even really
possible to tell male from female unless you get a
little side shot and you see like a penis sheath.
But as far as size or any other characteristics, you
can't even tell the sex, And so telling skull size
isn't always going to be body size. An animal that
grows up the first couple of years with not much nutrition.

(56:57):
So there's my dad that with his haavelna eighty nine
years old, he killed a meal there at ninety the
next year and he's ninety one now. So the thing
with the skull measurement is that the big skull has
to start with good nutrition the first year. So an
animal doesn't have good nutrition for the first couple of
years and then has gets into an aag field and
gets a real fat body, it may not have a

(57:19):
big skull. So I think what's going to be important
is an animal it grows up mother has good nutrition.
That animal has good nutrition year one, two, three, four,
and I think that skull is going to come along
with that nutrition. So it's gonna be hard to judge.
It's gonna be hard to feel judge an animal. But
it's a fun thing because havevelina are so fun to hunt,
and it's a fun thing to have this little extra
thing that you can go check and see.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
If you've got a book pig.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Now, Jim, what are some things you predict that we'll
learn about have alina Once these records are compiled. Is
there gonna be some decade or a year that produced
an unusual amount of records. Will we realize that there's
a subspecies we didn't know about and is like some
county in Texas or Arizona sub going to be thought
of as the Buffalo County of whitetails for Havelina.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
I don't think we'll find a different subspecies because we
have enough measurements now to kind of compare that. But
the Boondicrocket record books were originally designed not so people
could brag about the big animal they killed, but to
document North America's big game animals.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
And so this is just in line with.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
The original purpose of these record books is to start
documenting some of his biological information for Haveilina, and so
we may be able to look at geographic differences. I
don't think we're going to see annual differences like we
do and antlers that are grown every year because of
what I just talked about with skulls needing that nutrition there.
But we may find areas like if you look at
a soil map and compare that to Boonicrocket whitetail entries,

(58:44):
you see a correlation with thick fertile soils like Buffalo County,
Wisconsin and whole Mississippi River Valley. I think we may
see something like that, although with Haveilina, we might find
that Havelina's Buffalo County or the one county where all
the big trophies come from might be a county in
Texas that has the highest deensity of feeders or something feeding.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
It's probably not going.

Speaker 5 (59:06):
To be like in the middle of the son Orange
Desert where they're they're eating a pretty fair fruits and
digging for roots and things like that.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Well, that's a good prediction. I think you're going to
be right there. Jim, Well, thank you for joining us
today and thanks for fighting on behalf of the have Alina.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
I'm happy to you. They're awesome.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Have a good one, Thanks Jan Thanks Jim too.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Have you killed?

Speaker 3 (59:28):
How many Helena? Have you killed?

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Exactly one?

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Okay? Have you ever measured it?

Speaker 1 (59:33):
I have it my will tonight. Yeah?

Speaker 4 (59:34):
Do it?

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Do you have calipers at home or are you gonna
use a tape measure?

Speaker 1 (59:38):
I do have calipers, Okay, I believe in my reloading kit.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
You let us know what that thing is going to score. Yeah,
then maybe tell tell Jim what it is so he
can fight for the the minimum to be right at
that number.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
There you go, all right.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
That brings us to the end of this week's show. Phil.
Let's get some final feedback from the chat.

Speaker 6 (59:58):
Yeah, last call for question for the crew only got
a few so far, so get those rolling in zeb
zooms asks who in the office is the best with
their bow?

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
I bet it is whoever shoots the most, which is
maybe Yannis.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I don't know who the best is with their bow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I'll say you, who would you say?

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
If not you?

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I don't know Corey. Who else shoots hunts with their bow?
Bunch Logan Logan? Yeah, Logan like last year killed two
or three big games with his bow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Maybe we'll find out in the future, but we'll say
Logan and janis right now best with their bow.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Cool Jordan. Question for Phil favorite tiki cocktail?

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Can I guess have at it my tie?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Incorrect? That's one.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
How about like like a fruit punch with rum rum punch?

Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
Uh, it's the same as Richard Nixon's. It's called the
Navy grog. It's it's described there's several different ways to
make it, but it's uh, it's one of the few
big teiky drinks. It's like kind of grapefruit forward, so
it's you know, strong rum, more straw, different kind of
strong rum. All spice dram which is like basically what
it sounds like. It's kind of like an all spice

(01:01:10):
really like warming spice syrup. I guess it's more of
a liqueur and lime juice and a bunch of other
stuff in there, but it's strong. It's well balanced though, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
She said there's some grapefruit in there. It's really easy
to make. Yeah, yeah, fresh grapefruit juice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
What would be the silver and bronze medalists for top
tiki cocktail men.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
Well, as far as classics go, Planters Punch, that's a
really easy one to make. It's very simple. And then
you know my ties up there as well, they all
kind of I mean, we went to false Idol and
sand in San Diego's Punts here and I could tell
you were kind of underwhelmed by the classic tiaki drinks
because a lot of them kind of taste the same.
It's like a lot of lime, a lot of rum,

(01:01:51):
and then some it's the other stuff that sets the
drinks apart. But I mean every tiki bar in America
has like their own sort of house menu. They they
get wild and just, and that's where you can find
some some good hidden gems. But as far as classicsco
it's the it's the Navy grog underwhelm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
But I'd say, like a bad tiki drink is still
a good cocktail. But the what's what's it called the
navy one?

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Navy grog?

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Navy grog. That's what we're gonna drink at you and
Seth's bachelor party.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
How much lime juice would you have to add to
a rum and coke to turn it into a tiki drink?

Speaker 6 (01:02:25):
Well, got to get the coke out of their first
No coke, no coke, No, I mean more fruit. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's there, there is man.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
What is there that?

Speaker 6 (01:02:36):
Yeah, that's that's that's a tiki adjacent drink, Like a
lot of those kind of Cuban those Cuban inspired drinks are.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
You know, rum tiaka drinks draw a lot of inspiration
from from from that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
If you don't want to call it a rum and coke, Yanni,
if you wanted to have like an upscale name. You'd
call it a Cuba libre.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Which is just a ramen coke with a lime wedge.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, yeah, sque what else we got from the chat?

Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
You know, I was I was about my tiki drinks.
So I haven't been reading the chat. So if you
guys want to make some small.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Talco, try about your live stream in there.

Speaker 6 (01:03:06):
Oh yeah, the Red Dead live stream. I'm it's it's
going to happen very in in the next few months.
Most likely. I'm in the midst of planning it, making graphics,
making overlays. I don't want it to be just me
playing video games because that sucks. So I'm trying to
make it fun and for even people who don't care
about video games.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You should have a little tiki bar during your live stream. Oh,
just just sip on drinks the light bulb.

Speaker 6 (01:03:31):
Just that's incredible, incredible suggestion. So that's absolutely happening.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Random Doctor Randall has been very active in the chat
room today, like he's not working and just chatting in
the chat.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Don't discourage that, Yannie. We want the crew members to
be in the chat.

Speaker 6 (01:03:49):
You know, here's here's the here's what I'm going to
say about Randall. The reason I'm not addressing his his
very ecstatic tiki drink comments is because I'm pretty sure
I misled Randall about the drink that Phil Spector drink
that night. I don't believe it was a Navy grog. Randall,
I think it was a zombie, and I apologize over
the last few months. If you've told that story to
your friends, you gotta call him back. Tell it not

(01:04:09):
the Navy grog. It was the zombie that Phil Spector
drank before he murdered his girlfriend. Okay, sorry, Randall called
us liars earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
It was at eleven. I don't know chat's Marcus. Sometimes
you don't know what they're referring to.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Eleven forty two. We'd have probably been playing meat pole
at that time. So one of the three of us, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Wait, Randall.

Speaker 6 (01:04:33):
Randall says he told he just pulled that from Wikipedia,
So maybe it was the Navy grog. There's a lot
of tiki layer out there, guys. You can get lost
in it. And that's that's that's where we will end.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
The tiki talk.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Okay, what else you got through? Anything else from the chat?

Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
I don't know what this means, but Taylor as Spencer.
Have you ever found any uper Light rock hounding?

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
I have not found youber Light. The Great Lakes region
is largely unexplored for me when it comes to rock counting,
But there are a lot of aspirational foss jams rocks
over there that I would love to uh get on
someday and uper Light at the top of the list.
I have traded some people for you per Light, so
I have you per Light in my collection, but none

(01:05:11):
that I have found yet.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
What about lever rights?

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
That's I heard that joke for the first time from
Max Bart.

Speaker 5 (01:05:19):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
So you said, did you find any lever Light?

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
You do it to set? This is something Max, Have
you found any lever rights? Right?

Speaker 7 (01:05:31):
Rock?

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Kind of rock right there?

Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
Rand He was referring to people lying about being scared
or lost time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Yeah, Randall's time to update that YouTube chat room picture, buddy,
Why is that? It's just doesn't look like Randall?

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Really like Randall? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
Anything else from the chatville.

Speaker 6 (01:05:53):
Someone asked favorite way to cook turkey legs and thighs.
Since you know it's still turkey season, it hasn't been started.
I feel like when Turkey Week is over at meat eater.
It just I mean, as somebody who doesn't hunt turkeys,
I just feel like the season's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Over, so it honestly should be Turkey month. Hey, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Hey, you're the second guy to say that in this
room in the last seven days, maybe eight days.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Did you say that too last week? There?

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
But I got a hot tip from I got a
bunch of hot tips about cooking down in Texas last
or two weeks ago. And another one was that instead
of doing the uh slow cooker with your legs and thighs,
do the brazing pot. What's the what I'm looking for? No, no, no, no,

(01:06:42):
like like the one you put it like a cat. Yeah,
use a Dutch of him. I did that a couple
of nights ago, and just the difference is very demonstrable,
like like way more tender. It actually took less time
of liquid needed, you know, about the same amount I

(01:07:04):
actually left I was. I didn't fully cover all my
the I did all drumsticks in this batch. I had
two or three of them that were like at least
half sticking out. They didn't dry out. So somehow that
seal was just somehow better than in the slow cooker.
And uh, yeah, I mean, I usually give my drumsticks
like eight hours, I would say in the slow cooker,

(01:07:25):
and this was done in like five because I kept
I kept checking them. And the hardest part about it
is to get your oven tempt set just right so
you're not ripping too hard, but you're.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Still just rolling a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
And I was fluctuating a bunch and I ended at
two forty was where my oven need to be set
just to get that just nice slow roll. And uh yeah,
I was, like I said, Jesse had told me to
do this and it paid dividends.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Yeah, with any any turkey legs, you're probably looking in
like three very important things low, slow, and liquid and evan.
To answer your question about favorite ways cooking, go to
the mediater dot com. At our recipes page, you can
sort by ingredients so you can see all the turkey
recipes there with just a click of the button. And
people can leave reviews on our recipes so you can

(01:08:15):
see what other visitors to the website have liked or disliked.
You'll see how many reviews there are, how many stars
it's gotten. You'll find all kinds of good recipes over there.
Seth anything to add about cooking turkey legs.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
No, I just yeah, it's got to be low and slow.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Well, let's let's do yeah one last place.

Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
Yeah, one last from a guy named Garrett Long. Sounds
like a dumb name. Plus two to who in the office?
Who would win the most dangerous game? Who would hunt
to the most dangerous game?

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
The best.

Speaker 8 (01:08:48):
Mean?

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
I don't know, Yeah, I don't know what that means either.
But who do you think would be able to hunt people.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
The most dangerous game?

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Who would win? So the most is gameing quotes is
a thing that you all know about.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
But I that I think that implies that we're hunting humans.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Probably are folks that have actually done it. Okay, that's
gonna be dark this question, Garrett, why would you ask.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Folks are veterans in the office?

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Are you happy with that answer, Garrett Long? Okay, that's
going to bring us to the end of the show.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Folks, you guys back next are the show? Sorry,