Ep. 762: EHD Reports and Competitive Birding | MeatEater Radio Live!

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Ryan Callaghan, and Seth Morris speak with competitive birder Owen Reiser, talk gear in preparation for the fall season, soak in nostalgia for Throwback Thursday, and chat with Kip Adams of the National Deer Association about all things EHD.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time.
That's ten am for our friends in Fort Bragg, California,
on Thursday, September eleventh, and we're live for Met Eater,
HQ and Bozeman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by
Callen Seth. On today's show, we'll interview Owen Riser about
spending a year as a competitive burder. After that we'll

(00:47):
have gear talk. Then we'll look at old hunting and
fishing pictures for Throwback Thursday. And finally, Kip Adams from
the National Dear Association will join us to give an
EHD report for every region. Now, we've got a few
plugs to get to before we move on with the show.
Meet Eater is heading south for the holidays. We are
thrilled to announce Meat Eater Live, the Christmas Tour coming

(01:09):
to you this December. We have stops in Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas,
and Austin. Come hang with Steve Giannis, Clay Randall and
Brent for a night of laughs, trivia, prizes and stories
from the outdoors. Go to the medeater dot com slash
tour to sign up for pre sale access, which starts
September twenty third. That will give you a chance to

(01:32):
buy tickets before they officially go on sale to the public.
That's Medeater, the medeater dot Com slash Tour. We can't
wait to see you there. Also the med Eater Tailgate
Tour presented by Dometic Rolls. On this Saturday, me and
Jesse Griffiths will be hanging out at the Longhorns game
in Austin. Next Saturday, it's me Mark Kenyon and Chester

(01:52):
and Garrett Long. We'll be at the Wisconsin Badgers game
in Madison. The week after that. You'll catch Seth and
Brody at Penns Date. And finally, Yannis and Garrett had
to Notre Dame on October fourth. Come hang with us,
Come stump us with some trivia, tell us hunting stories,
eat our food. We'll have a good time tailgating. Cal

(02:13):
and Seth. What have you boys been up too lately?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Oh? So much? Been digging deep in the freezer. I
have many many projects going on simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Give me an update.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Been breaking in new strings for the bow and throwing
darts and things are things are looking really good on
the archery.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Front, very specific hunt you're prepping for.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, brown bear in Alaska here at the end of
the month. And then I everywhere I look, there's just
things that needs to be straightened up and done so
I can have an efficient and good hunting season.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
So I stuck my head in the freezer and I
was like, Oh, there's this bag of grind staring me
in the face that I haven't turned into burger yet.
And it had a hole in the bag, of course.
So I threw that in a box to take home.

(03:16):
And then basically underneath that, I was like, what what
is this bag? Because I have like a nice freezer
that's all visually appealing and organized, and then.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I have the vertical freezer right yeah, next the one
and then has one yes, and then the chest freezer
is like bulk yet to be refined, so like big
roast shanks, quarters sometimes whole birds, the big sacks.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Like grind them things that I'm gonna get to later on.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, that's the freezer you put like a gun case
on top of so no one is tempted to open
it up and look in there. Yeah, because the vertical freezer,
that's the that's the company for that.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
That's one that makes you look like you know what
you're doing and are respectful. So I'm like, what is
in this bag in the vertical freezer, in the nice freezer?
And it was these turkey carcasses that I realized that
I didn't turn into stock because I ran out of
jars during stock making season at the end of turkey season.

(04:19):
So I threw those in the box. And then I
got to looking around some more and there's all this
like random couple years collection of hearts, antelope and deer
and elk carts, so I threw those in the box.
And then a bunch of tongues, so I threw those
in the box. And then there's this big package a
goose bress that also had a hole in it, and

(04:44):
that went in the box. That one in the box.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Now what the box is the deep freezing No, the
box is.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
The thing that was that was going to go in
the truck and then come back and then I was
going to start processing. So that literally this morning, I've
been going to bed at like eleven o'clock, waken up
at four thirty five, getting all this stuff done, so
I have the pressure cooker going finishing off the last.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Jarring right now? Yeah, okay, uh, well.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
It turned it off to come over here. Sure it'd
be crazy spencerling.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
And then you could have been doing it in the kitchen,
you know, ten steps away.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, I should have. And then I had one slow
cooker with the goose bress in it. I was like,
I'm gonna make like barbecue sandwiches out of goose breast,
which turns out awesome, but I didn't label these things properly,
and there were a big thing of corned goose brass,
so I had like onions and all sorts of stuff
in the slow cooker. And then I got to looking

(05:42):
at them and I'm like, oh, this is beautiful corn beef,
which you know, so it's still gonna be as a
good taste and sandwich. But then I'm like, God, you
just never learn. And then I had another slow cooker
with all the tongues in it, and I trimmed up
all the hearts and I put that in with the
grind and then ground all that stuff and made out
of that. We got all that packaged up and then

(06:03):
back in the nice vertical freezer, and then just the
list is endless.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Pre Fall going pre fall is stressful. I'm a better
hunter if things are taken care of at home, in
the yard, in the freezer. Yeah, I don't have to
think about those things. Then, yeah, I'm trying to kill
it exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
I'm at the point where I just burn all this
stuff in town down, give it away, uh huh, destroy
it yep. And then I'm just the dog and I
head off. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's now occurring to me as I look at your
two handsome faces. We have too many mustaches on this show.
We've hit our quota. We've hit our quota of mustaches. Phil,
you cannot grow a mustache.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
You don't have to worry about that.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Okay, it's gonna get real weird if we go four
for four and mustaches in this studio. All right, moving on.
Joining us on the line first is Owen Riser, the
director of Listers. A Glimpse into Extreme bird watching documentary
is available on YouTube right now. Owen, welcome to the show, fellas.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Thanks for having me. I dug out my public landowner
shirt for you boys.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
All right in listeners, you and your brother spend a
year as competitive bird watchers explain what that is and
more specifically, what it means to go for a big year.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, so we heard about this group of people that
try to list as many bird species as they can
in one calendar year and that's called a big year.
And we thought, you know, we didn't know anything about
the culture birdwatching. You know, we're big out like fans
of the outdoors and stuff, but we never messed with birdwatching.
And we were like, you know, we should try that,

(07:43):
we should learn about extreme birdwatching by becoming birdwatchers. And
that's what we did, and it was right. You know,
we made fun of them a little bit, but it's
a great hobby and we enjoyed the hell out of it.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Before you tried doing this, What was your experience with birdwatching?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Exactly?

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Zero?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
It was, It was zero experience. We knew a handful
of birds, like, you know, the card and all the
bald eagle, the you know, the junior varsity birds. We
knew all those, but certainly didn't know what a rose
throated but card was any of those, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
So competitive birding can be a very expensive hobby, which
you guys learn in the documentary but you try to
do it as cheap as possible. Tell us about some
of the ways you saved money while traveling across the
country looking for rare birds.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, my brother and I are i'd say, experienced dirt bags,
so we knew how to live out of a car
and eat rice and beans and tuna and all that
kind of stuff. But yeah, most people doing a big year,
we found out they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
to look at little birds, which is, you know, insane,
but we get it now, we understand. And yeah, we

(08:58):
slept in a minivan, spent the whole year on public land, basically,
with the exception of forty two nights at cracker barrels
across the h the only the only place you can
bang on free Knight's rest when you when you need
to be near a city or if there was a
rare bird report, like you know, and in an area

(09:19):
that didn't have public land. So that's kind of that's
kind of how we saved money.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Oh wow, What was the process like for sleeping in
a cracker barrel parking lot? Do you go in and
talk to the store manager? Do you call them ahead
of time? Or is it just known that that's cool
to do.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
You know, that's kind of a rookie move going in
and asking the manager. We found out that's kind of
a rookie move. You just kind of pull out back
and you don't even have to eat in the restaurant,
and you shouldn't eat in the restaurant. Let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Now, you played Newcome one time and watched him just
devour h Cracker barrel, specifically the Gritts. I was blown away.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
All the grits. We saw somebody, uh maybe their last
moments in their life in a Cracker Real parking lot.
They evacuated the entire restaurant and they pulled somebody out
on a stretcher and Quinton. As a line in the movie,
it says, from the Grits to the gallows because it's
a it's a war zone in there.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
What adventure during this journey you learn about some of
the bird watching drama, tell us about stringing and more
specifically Swallowgate.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, so it's probably similar in like hunting and fishing.
You know, people want that record or you know they
want that like I don't know, do you guys know
better than me? But like they put weights and fish
and stuff, right, is that?

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah. Yeah. So so in birding, it's called stringing, and
it's basically the whole thing is built on an honor system, right,
but you know it's like, you know, there's cheeters out there,
and so stringing is basically stringing along these rare bird
sidings where you know, you say you saw the and
you didn't, or you exaggerate that you saw the bird
and you put it on this bird software called e

(11:05):
bird and uh, there's a famous incident from like a
decade ago called Swallowgate where a guy thought he or
he said he saw a bird called a violet green
swallow and it would have been a state record for
North Carolina, and a bunch of birders in the area
got skeptical of him. They dug in, they found out
where his location was on the date he said he

(11:26):
saw the bird, and it was uh, they somehow found
his location, and then then they dug him to the
metadata on the photo and they found out it was like, uh,
you know, didn't match the date he said it was at.
And then they went to a bunch of natural history
museums and matched the feather molt the specific feather molt
on this this bird, and they were like, no, at

(11:48):
this time of year, it should have more white on
this specific type of feather on the back of it,
and like it's crazy. So they nabbed the guy and
he's kind of blacklisted from the community. So in the movie,
I interviewed the guy and I got his perspective, and uh,
I kind of believe I kind of believe that he
really saw the bird. He said he just faked the
photo and he was like a young kid at the time,

(12:10):
but he explained it. I kind of I'm kind of one.
I know, I know, I love it.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
I love it. Uh.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
At some point, you guys find out that there is
a rare bird email chain and it leads to a
lot of new sightings. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, so, uh, about probably two or three months into
the year, we found out we were missing out on
a lot because there's something called a uh the rare
bird e bird Alert thing, and so we went on
there and our numbers went up after that for sure,
and uh, you check this email thing and a bunch
of nerds basically just send out where they're seeing all
these uh, you know, rare birds. We saw one there.

(12:49):
We got one report of something called a cattle tyrant
and it was in uh Corpus Christie, I think, yeah,
Corpus Christi And uh, they tell you, they just tell
you the location of the bird. Drive there, you look
at it, you go nice, and you put it on
your fancy little list and you're good to go. All right.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
What's your favorite bird that you found in the big year?

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Mine is the I like the common birds. I'm I'm
not a rare bird. I like the common nighthawk. Big
fan of that one. Quentin is a big fan of
the road runner standard, you.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Know, okay, And what what was the rarest bird you
guys saw?

Speaker 3 (13:29):
There was one. There's one called a gray collared bicard.
It was like the first time and you'd been seen
in the country. It's it's one of those it's like
right on the border at Texas in the US, so
it like flies flies from Mexico or yeah, from Mexico
to the US. Flies from Mexico. And then you can
count it on your big, fancy little list, and then
you know if it's if it's like one hundred yards south,

(13:50):
you can't count it. It's kind of one of those deals,
but yet on a super rare.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
And what's the weirdest place that you guys checked a
bird off the list?

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
We amped right outside of a women's prison in New
Mexico some uh you know, some bad ladies in there,
and uh we uh we we woke up in the
morning and saw our the first time we'd ever seen
something called a Clark's grebe and uh, I'll never look
at one of those the same again that they're out
in the pond, just kind of right outside the prison there.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Uh, a few times you guys had sightings that were
actually rejected. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah. Again, they say it's an honor system, but we
should have got a lot of emails that were saying,
you know, this wasn't the bird you saw because we
were so new at it, right, and uh, they're pretty
quick to take those away. Yeah, it's an honor system,
you know.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, you called them, we got the bird cops, right.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, they're the bird cops. They're a vicious group out there.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Did you side with them or were you like there right?

Speaker 3 (14:53):
No, yeah, no, they're definitely right. Obviously we didn't.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Know what we were doing, yeh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay,
So your sightings are tracked on the app E bird,
and that's who makes the leaderboard. I saw that e
bird had over one point one million users last year.
Tell us how many birds you saw and where you
ranked among those million competitors.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Yeah, so we saw five hundred and seventy nine species
of bird. And if you'd say that at the bar,
it's not a great pickup by nobody really cares. But
the record is now seven hundred and fifty eight. And
so they saw, you know, two hundred. I don't know
how to do math, but that's like a lot more
than we saw. And yeah, it's crazy. There's the fact

(15:36):
that there's people out there that saw that many more
than us. It's it's a passionate group.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
And where did that five hundred sum get you on
the leaderboard?

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Oh, that would be twenty third in the in the
United States?

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Twenty third. That is very impressive. Now, if someone want
a trophy for that, there we go. If someone wanted
to get into birding but doesn't know where to start,
what advice would you give.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Them, I'd say, get the Merlin app It's great. The
Merlin apps so good. It's like helps for beginners. And
and then I would say just leave like the bucket
hat and the basket at home. You don't really need that.
The binoculars in the Marlin app.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, very good. Uh Listers. A Glimpse into Extreme bird
Watching is available right now for free on YouTube. It's
a really fun documentary. Everyone should go watch it. Oh
and congrats on your big year and thanks for joining us.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Thanks guys.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
You guys are all keeping up business opportunity out there too.
If you're not finding gals at the bar with your
bird list, you build the bar and they will come.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
That's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, for free, Thank you. That was awesome.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
In the documentary, they also discover they get an old
birding book and it's got all these bird hotlines you
can call, and they call like fifty of the numbers,
only one is still working and it's in Ohio.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
And they learn after they're talking to the person on
this rare bird hotline who's giving them an update on
where to find some rare birds, that it's an Amish hotline,
which hit close to home because we know that our
podcasts are all available on an Amish hotline as well,
So shout out to the Amish folks. Who are dialing
into some phone number and learning about where the rare

(17:15):
birds are and listening to cal of the Wild.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
It's citizen science. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
It's super cool.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Great.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, any birding interest from you too.

Speaker 5 (17:25):
Well, I like to keep track of some of them
birding websites. If I'm trying to figure out where birds
that I would like to on our.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
They do pop. That's a dirty, dirty little secret out there. Yeah.
Mark Kenyon and I we put the full on sneak
on some birds in the lasket when we were up
there in the Arctic Circle with the Merlin app, Mark
with his Merlin app fully extended, trying to get a
bird call to identify some birds that. I mean, that

(17:55):
was very fun.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
Yeah, lost a camera feed here. I don't know what happened.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
And that app.

Speaker 6 (18:02):
You can keep talking every everybody can hear you, they
just can't see you.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
I just busted it out the other day because we
had this this group of hawks that got really friendly
with our backyard. They were like tearing squirrels and stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Open hawks.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Well that I was like, oh, it's a sharp shinned hawk.
And I'm like, oh no, it's a rough legged hawk.
And then finally I was like, oh, I got to
redownload the Marlin app and it's a Swainson's hawk okay,
and they were they were super cool. Yeah, I kind
of moved on.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
My interest in verting is I don't like not knowing
what I'm looking at. If I'm like out in nature
deer hunting and see some bird I'm not familiar with,
it's annoying if I don't know, like the name of
that thing. Yeah, I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
It's also fun though, to like in the duck blind.
You know, people will be like, oh and I and
I just say bop b op, bird of prey.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Bop that that it's the message across we don't shoot
those right exactly.

Speaker 5 (19:03):
That Merlin app is one of my favorite things ever.
In the springtime, when I'm turkey hunting, I'll just turn
that thing on and set it down next to me.
Is like the woods come alive and just like all
the different birds that pop out, Like just seeing how
many different birds I can get that is.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. The audio part is really amazing because for whatever
reason in my brain, it's gonna be like it's gonna
identify one bird, but it's all the noises. Yeah, which
is yeah, it's awesome. It's great.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Owen and his brother they try to trick the app
and like use a flute to play a bird call,
and they successfully do it. In one instance they're able
to replicate I don't remember what the bird is, but
they do it well enough to make Merlin think that
they are that bird.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Oh great, minds think alike. I tried to do that.

Speaker 5 (19:48):
And then we were in Alaska one time bear hunt
with Clay Nukem, and we were trying to get him
to trick the.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Old bard out. Oh it worked, yeah, yeah, he was
able to trick it. Cool.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, yeah, I could give him a ribbon.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah. I thought I had it right, the right shrill
for the Swainson's hawk, and you know it didn't work again.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Owen's documentary is called Listers. It's available on YouTube right now.
All right, our next segment is gear Talk.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Let's talk about gear.

Speaker 6 (20:23):
Let's talk about let's talk about boots.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
In behind those cano patterns with John.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
D Let's talk about year. Let's knock about gear.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
For gear Talk, each of us has a gear review
for you today. Seth start us off, all right, the.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Piece of gear I'm talking about today? Is this right here?
Ski goggles.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
It's something that probably a lot of hunters don't think
about carrying with them.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, you're not a skier, are you.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
I've never skied before and I probably never will.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Not a snowboarder. Not a snowboarder.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
God, that's that's a long time to go without skiing
for living in the Mountain West, the Inner Mountain West. Yeah,
it's just I just do other things. Well, yeah, I
hear you. We were talking before the show started about
things that you end up having to do them as
an adult.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I think at a certain points that it like
becomes a thing like I'm not a skier, I'm just
never going to ski, and so like, yeah, I'm just
like more incentive to not go skiing.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
Oh, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, I'm
never gonna I'm never gonna invest in. Like I could
go buy a bunch of like rapple alures or something.
I'd rather do that than than buy skis whatever.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
So why do you ski goggles investment?

Speaker 5 (21:43):
How's your portfolio? I just got a bunch of still
in the box, So, uh, ski goggles. I use them
a lot of times in the winter, Like if there's
snow on the ground when I'm hunting and it's blowing snow.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yeah, I'm tracking on that for sure.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
Eastern Montana when it's super windy, no snow on the ground,
and you're just I one time was walking with the
wind at my back on a real windy day and
I was just in a bunch of dusty type ground
and like, let's catch you get like an eddy in
front of your face and you're just eating dust all day.
So yeah, ski goggles for that. And then anytime you're

(22:25):
on a skiff in colder weather or or rainy weather.
There's a picture on here Phil of me and a
skiff in Alaska wearing these same ski goggles. It was
it was raining, you know, ten minutes before this photo
was taken. We were on a blacktail on up in Alaska.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Keeping your forehead warm.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, just just I wear them all the time.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
It's like, listen to Bubba Gump talk about shrimp over there, Yep,
ski goggles. Cow, where do you stand on ski goggles
for dogs when they're when they're hunting?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Boy, I I think they can be a good idea.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
To snort every wear them.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
No, you know, these seasons vary so much for us
when we were like really getting after it, the amount
of doctoring of her eyeballs that was going on every
day was pretty intense there for a while, and I
was like, I am gonna get this dog doggles as
as some call them.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
And and is that are those made for dogs or
you just use like Seth's pair.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
No, there's a couple of companies out there, you know.
And because it like started in the tactical world and
then of course became hip. You know, those tactical things
become so hip that we have to have them. But
and then, like you know, folks who use dogs for
crane hunts, it's good eye pro for them because cranes
can lash out at dogs eyeballs. But yeah, once you

(23:57):
get late in the season and your dog's been around
and hard through like sorgum and really abrasive grasses, they
lose all the hair around their eyeballs and then uh,
and their cheekbones and stuff start looking real, real tough,
and they just get a lot of seeds and dust and.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
You're hunting around cat tails and those things explode.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, exactly. So it's not it's not like I don't
look at it and be likeugh, poser, like there's there's
a there's a legit use case and yeah, I mean
yeah yeah, it's not like your Weekend Warrior type of thing,

(24:41):
like dogs handle that stuff just fine.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
You approve? Yeah, all right, cat, what are you reviewing
for gear talk?

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, I had a couple of directions.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Deciding as he rifles through his blue jeans pockets right now,
we'll see what he's gonna pull out. Now he's looking
on the ground there it is his keys, his hoodie. No,
he's reaching past that.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
To find something economical.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Okay, he set set his sunglasses. What do we got
in Calsh.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Phelps predator call? So I you know all my f
HF binal harnesses, of which I have three now orange,
one camel one another camel one, one set up for archery,
one set up for rifle. You know, I either have
a external read cow elk call or a predator call,

(25:42):
and they're they either one has year round applications because
you can use that external read cow call as a
predator call. But it's also good at just like stopping deer,
you know, like a pretty good ratio. If you bump something,
it'll stop and take a look, and you can do
the same thing with a predator call. Predator call, you
get like one shot at it, because if you refound

(26:04):
it too much, you can just blow all the deer
out of the country.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Give me an example of what it would sound like
if you were trying to stop a deer right now.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Oh, I just go.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Okay, that works, and yeah it can work.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
But then for for bringing in the critters, I suggest
like crying like a baby, like in your brain. This
is how I do all my calling. I have like
the conversation in my head. Motivation, you could call it.
But I am like a baby human child left out

(26:43):
on the prairie, exposed to the elements that'll that'll get Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, I hunted with some very good predator hunters when
I worked at Peterson's Hunting magazine. And this is a
decade ago, and it was around the time when I
feel like e callers had hit their peak, like everyone
either had one or was about to get one. Uh,
and they had now flipped it to the other way
where they were like mouth calls are now the way

(27:15):
to go, because every coyote in the country has heard
that e call. Sequence of a dyeing jack rabbit or
the tweety bird whatever. So they liked the variety you
can give yourself with a mouth call.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yep, I mean the variety in all things. I used
to just archery all count and used to be every
everything to me. For you know, in between live dogs
and that dead dog time, you get real obsessed with
the things that you're not normally doing when you have
good dogs. And I would buy I would often replace

(27:51):
my cow calls, but I would buy one brand new
cow call that I had never used before, just betting
on the fact that it's gonna have some pitch tone
that I wasn't currently in my repertoire and nobody else
was using. So like I used like a big woods
wise cal call that I found in some bargain bin someplace.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
You felt like that didn't sound like much else that
dudes were blowing on.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Absolutely, yeah, yep was totally different.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, all right for gear talk today, I am reviewing
gas cans. I haven't owned a good gas can in
my adult life. The only good gas cans I've ever
used were pre two thousand and nine gas cans, which
is when the new EPA regulations went into effect and
I was trying to recently explain to someone that old
gas cans are something that sons are going to fight

(28:42):
over in the will someday, just because they were such
superior products, huh, like fifteen years ago. So here is
my plea to the audience. If you know about a
good gas can, email Radio at the mediater dot com
with the subject line gas can. I'm going to compile
your recommendations and then i will share them on the
next episode that I host in two weeks. There has

(29:03):
to be a good gas can on the market. Uh.
If you know what that is, please email me so
I can share that with everyone. Uh, and then we're
not going to be pissed off anymore when we have
to like fill the snowblower or the boat or the
side by side uh with gas. Again, that's Radio at
the meadeater dot com, subject line gas can. Do either
of you boys have a good gas can recommendation?

Speaker 5 (29:24):
Well, my little hot tip is you buy a gas
can and they all come with the freaking BS safety.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
That's which I'm two thousand and nine problems.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
I've never spelt spilt more gas in my life. Agree
until they switched.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
To that system.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, it's so true that that thing it like either
wants to give you all the gas or none of
the gas.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
Yeah, but you can go to like a hardware store
or something and buy like or go on Amazon or
whatever and buy like aftermarket gas can nozzles that are
just like, doesn't have all the bs.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Maybe that's the hot tip.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah for whatever he's in. The high volume cans never work.
But I have a low volume you know, it's like
a half gallon four that I just towed around for
the generator. When I throw it in the in the
camper and that's got the weird like no drip plunger.

(30:19):
Oh you know, you hook it on the edge and yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, and that thing works great until it
sticks on occasion and then you're just like I had
this happened the other day.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
Yeah, I had some gas in the gas can that
I was like, if it's probably gonna sit here for
a while, so I'm just gonna dump it in my truck.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
That way it gets used and I'm frightened to put
gas in my truck with any of my gas.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
Half of it went down the side of my truck
and made a big old puddle on the sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, someone listening though they know about what the best
gas can is. Maybe it's like twenty of.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
You guess Vermont millennial homesteaders is suggesting stends no spill,
that can build up some pressure when you first open.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Okay again radio at the meat eater dot com subject
line gas can.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
It makes you feel like you're kind of dying a
tragic gasoline fight accident.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yes. If I was running for president, this is something
I'd campaign on as old gas cans, and I think
that issue alone would win me a few states.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Oh, I guarantee what people want.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
People want a good gas can.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah. And then you can be like, and what's the
deal with these new six pack holders? Can't we go
back to the old.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
That'd give me a couple more states? All right, let's
take a break for some listener feedback. Phill, what's the
chat have to say?

Speaker 6 (31:34):
The Titus asks, Hey, Cal, have you ever chucker hunted
in Montana? Or heard of anyone doing it?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh? Yeah, chucker are listed as a game bird in
the state of Montana. Have you ever done it? No?

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Little devil birds?

Speaker 6 (31:53):
All right, Nate is asking for a good venison breakfast
sausage recipe. Last attempt was a seventy five twenty five
mix with some pre made country sausage.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Nate, we have a recipe on our website. It's literally
called the only breakfast sausage recipe that You'll ever need.
It's from Danielle Pruitt. Go check that out and make
that your starting base, and then if you want to
make adjustments from there, Like it needs more fenel, needs
a little more spice. I think try to start with
that recipe and see where that gets you. Seth cal

(32:22):
I think that's great.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
I like sage is like the only ingredient and breakfast
sausage that like, like I want in my breakfast sausage.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
Yeah, I've I've made breakfast sausage a couple of times
and just never turned out like I wanted it to.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Danielle Pruitt's recipe, the only Venison breakfast sausage recipe you need.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Danielle is is just very very pro like she tests
everything and you know, she's like again professional, Yeah, very good.

Speaker 6 (32:53):
Yeah, Kegan, this is a question for Seth, I'd say,
asks what battery slash tricks does the crew use to
keep camera equipment charged throughout long hunts.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
Uh, carry a lot of batteries. Yeah, there's not a
whole lot you can do out there as far as charging.
I mean some it depends some spots. Like if we
get flown in somewhere and we have like a plane
we can haul year, we'll like drop a generator at
a spot, and like we've done that in Alaska where
we can like after a couple of days, come back

(33:23):
and charge.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
But it's just like on a on a long hunt
when you don't have any.

Speaker 5 (33:31):
Access to charging stuff, you just got to carry a
bunch of batteries.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
The cold obviously messes with your batteries. Does the heat
mess with your batteries as well? Well?

Speaker 1 (33:40):
They know I've never had heat.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
I've had heat mess with cameras, just overheating cameras, but
not batteries.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
I just feel like my cell phone doesn't like to
charge if it's too hot. Yeah, it wasn't sure if
your your camera had similar issues.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
I've never run into that. No, there were all these
rechargeable batteries. They all just slowly degenerate over time. So
even if you're stockpiling fresh batteries, if you're on day seven, eight, whatever,
you pop that thing in and it's gonna be twenty

(34:14):
under what they say it should be, right, don't you think? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (34:17):
Yeah, so yeah, And like you said, if it's cold,
it's just a whole different story.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Phil, Let's do one more uh sure thing.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
Brad asks, what's the most disappointing loss of meat you've
had due to spoilage or a broken freezer?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Mm hmmmm Uh.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
For me, it was I killed the deer a few
years ago in Wyoming that had CWD. So that wasn't
spoilage or a broken freezer. But like I had gotten
all the boneless meat home, it was ready to uh
to get like put away nicely in the freezer and
be eaten and processed. And then well yeah, when the
CWD came back positive, uh, it just went into a landfill.

(34:57):
No one in the office was interested in giving it
to their dogs. I don't. I don't blame them. So
that was that was a bummer to lose a deer
to CWD. What do you guys got, I'm trying.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
I never lost a freezer, knock on wood. I lost
a Yeah, I mean, the most disappointing by far and away.
I was gonna this just a funny story. Popped in
my head when we were like very very poor dirt
bag college kids. I was like guiding and building houses
and going to school and and my mom gave me

(35:33):
like a five bone rib roast for it must have
been my birthday, so a prime rib, beef fatty beef,
prime rib. And somebody unplugged the freezer, probably to do
something stupid, and never plugged it back in. And I

(35:54):
had antelope in there too, and that that was just
like a horrible gut punch at that time in life.
And I called Montana Fish Wildlife in Parks and was like, Hey,
I'm gonna dump a bunch of game meat and landfill
wanted to let you know about that, and they're like, oh, okay,

(36:14):
and they recorded it, so I would get dinged with
wanton waste and guys like, so, You're just gonna toss
the whole freezer. I was like, no, no, I'm cleaning
it out, and yeah it was, but it was gross.
It was like five inches of blood in the bottom
of that thing, stinky blood. And then I lost a
bowl elk in New Mexico a handful of years ago.

(36:34):
It was the only time I've personally had at that
point It was the only time I personally had had
a elk tag in New Mexico and made what turned
out to be a good shot on this bowl, but
I was so convinced it was a bad shot. I
kind of talked myself out of really proper really following

(37:01):
this thing up, even though I'd done ninety five percent
of the work. And it was it was a horrific
loss of the meat, and just challenged to myself of like,
you know better, you always do better. Why'd you stop
this time? It was horrible?

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Was there any meat recovered?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Zero? Yeah? I mean it was like one hundred degree
New Mexico hunt and yeah, man, I mean I basically
processed that whole thing like going something on here is
going to be good, and it was just wasn't just
all sour? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
A few years back, I was hunting Nebraska for white
tails and shot a buck with my bow and I
ended up getting one lung in liver, but it like
ran off into the scornfield, and I waited a couple hours,
and then after the morning hunt went in there ended
up jumping that buck. He was still alive and it

(38:06):
ran into the corn more and and I was like,
I'm gonna wait till just back out, wait till the
next day. Went back in there the next morning, and
I went and sat in the tree stand that morning
just to see what happened, you know, what was going on,

(38:27):
and then got down. I was with some buddies too,
So after the morning hunt, got down and started looking
for this buck. And I noticed like some bald eagles
and crows sitting in this tree along the cornfield. Like
made a mental note of that. And that morning I
had heard coyotes yepping over in that area too, and
I walked over there and just found the buck and

(38:51):
it was like devoured by kyo, pooped on and devoured yep,
like in twenty four hours, just completely devoured. What we
got some neck meat, a little bit of backstrap off
of it, but no fun.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, all right, Moving on. Our next segment is Throwback Thursday.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Go back on a Thursday month.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
Take me back in nineteen seventy four, go back, I
can't believe it.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Break old s.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Throwback Thursdays where we look at old hunting and fishing
pictures of the crew cow start us off?

Speaker 1 (39:33):
What picture?

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Did?

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Phil said? Okay, here we go, just way back in
my youth. Look at that how long? Look at that
well still well, you can see the male pattern baldness,
but it was still still rocking some hair. This would
have been probably two thousand and nine, two thousand, yeah,

(39:55):
right in there, two thousand and nine.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I bet gas were still good.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Back gas cans were still good. This is in the
Bob Marshall. That's the cabin at Cabin Creek. And we
were in there hunting grizzly bears for a combined grizzly
bear study. And those are two old now dead dogs,
Scout and Fish, the big Fish and Scout real good dogs.

(40:23):
And we we got charged by a grizzly bear on
this one. And this was like a light charge, like
we were both very startled to see each other. And
he bailed off the hill and probably stopped at like
the fifty yard mark and then spun and bailed. But
giant grizzly bear.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
How many bears have you been charged by in your life?

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Three?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Was this number one?

Speaker 1 (40:48):
This was number two?

Speaker 6 (40:50):
Hello, Kinn calls me for Krinn. This show has been
going on for over a year at the same time,
the same day of the week, and Krinn has been idea.
So it's Karin I love you, figure out the schedule.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
She wants to participate and maybe answer Phil and she's
got Maybe she's just.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Excited because of that handsome dude up there on the
It was but the cool deal. So we did the
rest of our big, huge loop that day and then
came back at the end of the you know, in
the waning hours of the night, and the cabin and

(41:32):
the outhouse and everything had been rubbed by I can
only assume that bear because that would make it more powerful.
But so I had big grisk scratches down the doors
and then uh you could we were pulling hair off
the logs and stuff.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
But I was subjective to get in there, you think.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I think his objective was to be like, I wasn't
that scared. I swear to God and this is my
area because I mean it was early spring. You can't
tell by that photo, but you know it was like
we were the only people in there. All the all
the passes were all snowed over and stuff. It was
pretty spectacular, very good failure.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Up next for throwback there is they would.

Speaker 6 (42:16):
Geez, okay, here we go. This was tough for me.
I was just telling Spencer, my mom is in Europe,
and I texted her to send me pictures because.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I do not have any.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
So this is That is Mount Adams in Washington State.
This is Taclac Lake in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest
between the mounta Saint Helens and Mount Adams. This is
kind of our go to camping spot growing up. I
think this is probably two thousand and five. If I
had to say, there's me on the right there looking good,

(42:51):
Wait which one are you? And then the mariners hat. Yeah,
me's just I mean obviously gorgeous view of the mountain.
And then we do some fishing here and there's my
gene shorts and my Star.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Wars give us a fishing report.

Speaker 6 (43:06):
Well that's that was my next point. If you see
in all of these pictures it's just me with a rod.
I actually don't have any fish in my hands.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Why is that?

Speaker 6 (43:13):
I couldn't tell you. You know, you can you can
do the investigating yourself.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Huh.

Speaker 6 (43:18):
But yeah, this is These are the only pictures I
think I have of me fishing at all growing up.
So you didn't stick with it, Phil, I didn't stick
with it. I I enjoyed it, uh plenty. But you
know camping was time for me to to hike and canoe.
I didn't I didn't really want to touch the icky
fish that was my.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I got to say age very well, Phil, Oh that's
yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And do you appear to be holding the fishing rod
the right way? Which I just witnessed some folks in
Northern California, Northern California this last weekend not even having
that step right, spinning reel up.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yes, oh yeah, you hate to see.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
It, which we also had folks sending us I don't know,
probably a year or two ago in a sporting good
store printable ad that someone was holding a fishing rod
wrong in the Oh sad.

Speaker 6 (44:06):
But yeah, I think they I think they stocked that
that lake with rainbows. But there's some some cut throat
in there as well. And I know this because I
just looked it up on the Scanania County, Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife website.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Good, now we know Phil's street cred for fishing it.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
It's not non existent.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
All right, I'm gonna go next. This is me probably
like nineteen ninety five, nineteen ninety six, three or four
years old, and I am at Merriweather Marine in Yankton,
South Dakota. Meriweather Marine is a boat shop and one
time they had a motor that they were working on
where they found a bowl snake wrapped around the prop.

(44:47):
And that snake's name was Bumpy. The thing had had
a messed up skeleton, it couldn't move correctly. I don't
think they felt good about releasing it again, so they
kept this snake as a pet, and whenever we were
in yank I would go, uh, see the thing and
hang out with uh with Bumpy.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
The ironic thing is is I hate snakes now. I
don't know what happened between this moment and that moment
where I could like happily handle a bull snake. And
now if I am walking out in the woods mushroom
hunting and I see one ten feet away slithering away
from me who's clearly scared, I will just get shivers
up and down my whole box. I can't explain it.

(45:27):
It makes me feel the worst. One that I like,
I'm scared, and then two that I don't like that
I feel scared over a dang snake who doesn't want
anything to do with me. Yes, but back then I
was all about it. I was. I was a big
fan of Bumpy, so we'd.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Go hct A multiple ranges.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's totally unreasonable, but I did not
possess that fear at that moment.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, that's that's a good memory, man, that's Americannor.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I'm not gonna ey whether marine make.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
The same comment I made about Phil, but the I
get the same like mammalian reflex. You know, I'm danger
about a snake. Yeah, but then I'm like, I'm gonna
catch it or I think that's built in.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, I would. I would like to be interested in
them enough to like pick one up and really mess
with the thing before letting it go, because I have
that instinct with frogs and salamanders, like totally love handling
them and encountering them. Not snakes though. All right, Phil,
or excuse me, Seth, Seth, you are last. What do
you got for throwback Thursday?

Speaker 5 (46:40):
Oh? Let's see, we have three generations of morses here.
This is on my grand my grandfather on the left
called used to call them pops.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
He's no longer with us, but doing a little catch
and release. Yeah, you know, this is how you're supposed
to hold a trout by the gills.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
But now this is up in Maine.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
My grand grandparents, they were school teachers and in the
summertime when they were off, they would they would be
camp counselors up in Maine.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Nice.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
So they ended up buying a place up there, and
I spent most of my childhood going to Maine every summer.
And uh yeah, it's kind of where I like learned
how to drive a boat. That that boat, that little
lund on the right there was like the first boat
I ever drove, and learned how to you know, handle
myself in a boat, and learned how to fish.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And why would be nice to have ski goggles? Yeah exactly,
I'll give us a fishing report for that lake.

Speaker 5 (47:41):
So this lake, it's it's a small lake. They call
them ponds up there, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Shilo pond, that's the main, right, But that thing ain't
a pond. Oh yeah, I mean like it traditionally someone
looking at me like, that's a dang lake.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:55):
Yeah. This is the Belgrade Lakes region in Maine, and
and uh this was it's I would love I've never
fished this this lake with electronics, like it was purely visual,
like go to spots where you can see rocks, catch
small mouth. Go to spots where you can see weeds,
catch large mouth fish, structure fish like flip docks. Go

(48:18):
out in deep water and just sink a worm and
float for hours until you finally hit the school of
of white perch. You know, like that's the kind of
fishing we did. Very simple, and I haven't fished in years,
but it'd be fun to go back with like electronics
and just see like what's going Like what what was
what was I missing back then? You know, it's where

(48:42):
I cut my teeth on bass fishing. And we used
to May used to fish just all day out there,
just hours.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
I like pops rock in the action slacks. Oh yeah good.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
The gray New Balance sneakers was you know made in Maine.
It was like every every old timer in Maine had
a New Balanced.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Very authentic. Joining us on the line last is Kip Adams,
the chief conservation officer at the National Deer Association. Kip
is here to give us an EHD report for deer
in each region. Kip, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Hey, thanks for having me, Spencer, good to see you guys.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Good to see.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
First thing, Kip explain what EHD is.

Speaker 7 (49:27):
EHD stands for epizootic hemorrhagic disease.

Speaker 4 (49:30):
It's a viral disease of deer.

Speaker 7 (49:32):
It's it's probably the most common disease that the white
tails get. There's a few other deer species and some
livestock species that can get it as well, But from
a hundred standpoint, it's typically a disease we think of
late summer when you start finding dead deer near water sources.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, what are what are some of the signs that
we can look for to determine that a deer died
from EHD or maybe something else.

Speaker 7 (49:55):
Yeah, Since it is a virus and it is a
hemorrhaging disease, we often can see you know, like red
puffy eyes, thick tongue, all the roomen can get all
messed up from a hundred standpoint, though, basically, these are
the deer that because they have fever, they end up
near water sources, so we find them dead and ponds
and ditches and cricks and the likes.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Why is it that some years in regions have a
lot of EHD while others don't.

Speaker 7 (50:23):
Well, it's because the virus is carried by nseums. You know,
those little biting midges that drive us crazy. In the
summer years of drought, sees deer get sucked into these
water sources. And that's also years where we often have
a lot of the vector the midges that are their
carrying this. So when we have a drought we have
dry areas, deer get in and around these areas makes

(50:46):
it much easier for the midges who carry the disease
or you know, to bite a deer that has it
and then share that with another deer. So basically, deer
are congregated in areas that make it perfect for the
nseums to bite them and then transfer it from deer
to deer.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Is there anything that landowners can do to protect herds
from ehd.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Well not a lot.

Speaker 7 (51:06):
The perfect breeding grounds for these midges are the muddy
areas around dried up water sources. So in areas where
we have a lot of rain and water sources are full,
we don't tend to see a bad hemorrhagic disease years.
But because of the droughts and deer are congregated, then
you have more of those exposed mudflats that makes it
way worse. So from a landowner end, in many cases,

(51:29):
there's not a lot that they can do unless they
have access to management of some of these areas. And
think of you know, like cattle ranchers, cattle ranchers that
let cattle into ponds. Those are terrible areas in bad
hemorrhagic disease years because of all the mud that's right
in and around them and the cattle disturbing that in
large part those spencer There's not a whole lot that

(51:51):
we can do to stop this. We can react if
you find a bunch of dead deer, you know that
year may be reducing antly less harvest if nests necessary,
But as far as specific things we can do to
try to safeguard against the disease, there's really nothing we
can do.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Okay, let's go region by region to talk about EHD
reports in twenty twenty five, starting with the Northeast.

Speaker 7 (52:13):
What have you heard there, Well, there's at least five
states in the Northeast that have confirmed presents so far.
And basically this is worse in years where you have
a really wet spring followed by droughts. So droughts are
bad for this anyway, but they're even worse if you
start that off with a really wet spring because that

(52:34):
allows more of the noseums to breed. So the Northeast,
it was extremely wet in April and May then has
had almost no rain since. So the kind of the
mid Atlantic region Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and New
York have thus confirmed it.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
And it's pretty early for like this is.

Speaker 7 (52:54):
At the beginning of the hemorrhagic disease season and we're
seeing a bunch of it already in the Northeast, So
are still really dry. It's set up to be a
really really bad year for this here in the Northeast.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
But that's not like, don't go to Pennsylvania thing, right,
that can just be localized in certain areas of the state.

Speaker 7 (53:13):
Yeah, you're exactly right, cal And the thing with hemorrhagic diseases,
first of all, not all deer that get the disease
die from it. Some will live, and if they live,
they develop antibodies against it. The ones that die, that
tends to be very localized. So like I'm in northern Pennsylvania,
fortunately there has been no disease in my area. However,

(53:34):
you know, twenty miles down the road it can hit
and people can lose a bunch of deer. So you're right,
it is very specific, very localized where deer get hit
hard by.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
It and just nasty too, Like if you're on site
when this is happening, it is really brutal.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Kid you had mentioned, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. Nope,
Sara Spencer, you mentioned that not every deer dies who
gets EHD. If you were to kill a survivor, how
could you confirm that that deer maybe once had EHD
but lived through it.

Speaker 7 (54:07):
One of the symptoms are they get sloughing of the hoves.
So the incubation period is very short, like five to
nine days. So if the deer's going to die from
it this year, it's going to be done. You're not
you're not going to be shooting in you know, bow
or rifle season. But if you do shoot a deer
this hont In season and you look at the hoves
and you can see like growth interruptions or what looks

(54:28):
like the hooves are sloughing off, that's a sure sign
that that deer had the disease, survived it and then
continued to live, you know, and start to grow again.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Wow, And to be clear that that deer is still
safe to eat, right, kid.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
Yes, it is yep, absolutely, Okay.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
What are we looking at for EHD in the South this.

Speaker 4 (54:45):
Year, Well, it's ah.

Speaker 7 (54:48):
We see six states so far to south that have
confirmed it be in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
And the South has had this disease forever. And I vividly.

Speaker 7 (55:00):
Remember when I was doing my undergraduate work at Penn State.
You know, we got to hemorrhagic disease. The professor said,
this is a disease a deer in the southeast moving.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
On, and then that was it.

Speaker 7 (55:10):
That is very different today it is today, this disease
is all across the US, it's up into Canada. Basically
it's warmer, so the midges just live in a lot
of places they didn't used to so, but the Southeast
has had it the longest, so those deer are more
used to it. And basically they have it everywhere in

(55:31):
the Southeast every year. But those deer are not hit
very hard, so usually not many of those deer die.
In the Northeast, where our deer are more naive, it
kills a snot out of them. But the southeast sixth
states so far, probably is not going to be nearly
as bad there as other parts of the country, partly
just because they've they've.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
Been exposed to it for so long, they're just more
used to it.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Moving to the Midwest, I've seen the most EHD reports
out of Ohio this year. What are you hearing from
there and the rest of the region?

Speaker 7 (56:00):
Five states in the Midwest so far have confirmed it.
That's Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri. And of those
you are so far, it has been the worst. In Ohio.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of dead deer in
Ohio all throughout the state. The southeast part of Ohio
has been hit worse than anywhere else, kind of right

(56:21):
across the border from West Virginia and not all that
far from Pennsylvania. But that region of the country has
been hit far harder, so farther than any place else.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Finally, what do we have for EHD in the West?

Speaker 7 (56:35):
Two states so far, Idaho and Washington have both confirmed it.
The West typically doesn't get that bad of heemorrhagic disease.
Fingers crossed it'll be that way again this year because,
in addition to whitetails, mill deer can get it. Elk
can get it, although elk are less susceptible to it,
but pronghorn and big horn sheep can also get it.
So because of that, you know, the West is especially

(56:57):
sensitive to the disease. But thus far it's been pretty
light out there, and hopefully first frost comes in a
hurry that ends the midges, that ends the disease season.
So the first frost can't come quickly enough.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Last thing, Kip on a science front, is there anything
encouraging you can tell us about how biologists are working
to reduce EHD in America's favorite game animal.

Speaker 7 (57:20):
Well, there's a lot of resources looking at doing a
better job predicting, you know, when it's going to be bad.
Because it's a virus, there's really nothing that we can
do to protect deer against it, but there's definitely some
ways you know, that we can at least predict if
we think it's going to be bad. Hence when I
mentioned earlier, you know it's worse and drought years, and
especially worse if it's preceded by a wet spring. So

(57:43):
there's a lot of disease folks just taking a look
at all those factors, trying to combine them just to
be able to help predict a little more for.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
For hunters across the US.

Speaker 7 (57:52):
I'm trying to understand if they're likely to have a
bad hemorrhagic disease year.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
All right, Kip, thanks for fighting for deer, Thanks for
the EHD reports, Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Thanks see you guys, good luck this season.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
You boys run across many EHD deaths in your day.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Handful. Yeah yeah, I mean the what Kip was saying
there about, you know, drought years, and then we would
see it also when you get like a little just
a little bit of reign in August and the those
midges would just explode. And I had a way back

(58:31):
when I used to we never guided archery deer or
or antelope. But so I would take that time to
go set up our outfitting camp in eastern Montana and
all all the stuff out there, clean everything up, and
it was amazing because I'd be the only person archery
hunting deer. And one year there's this bachelor group of

(58:53):
eight mule deer bucks that I kept sneaking in on
and definitely flung a couple of arrows. Never never connected,
but you know, had all this time to work these deer,
and eventually there were six and then five and then zero,
and every single one of those deer died.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
All of them, damn, like while you were trying to
kill one.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yes, uh yeah, And and those are the years like
where you can just smell the death, uh and the hay,
you know, hay was still still high, that last cutting
hadn't come off yet, and yeah, I mean just just gross. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Kip had talked about how it's especially bad if you
have wet spring, dry summer. Similarly, it can be really
bad if you have a wet year followed by a
dry year. In southeastern South Dakota in twenty eleven, we
had record breaking rainfall. The Missouri River was like the
highest it had been in hundreds of years as far
as back as they could look. And then twenty twelve
was an extreme drought. So we had an extremely wet

(59:54):
followed by extremely dry and I personally found probably twenty
dead deer that summer that died from EHD. And what
I'll always remember is the smell cow just just brutal,
And you could like follow your nose right to where
dead deer would be and we could be catfishing on
the Gym River in you know, August, and you would

(01:00:14):
know that, like somewhere within a mile and a half
here there are three or four dead deer from EHD
right now. Yeah, and you'll just like never forget that
overpowering like stench of death. And now when I'm outside,
it's like very easy to confirm, like, oh, something died
over there a few weeks ago. Because of that twenty twelve,

(01:00:36):
you're finding all those EHD dead deer.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Ye folks who would travel around with the with their saws,
alls and and yeah, just pulling deer heads off. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:00:49):
A couple of years ago, my wife shot a mule
deer out in East Montana that the hooves were sloughing.
Was that, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't I don't you know,
I think they're related.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah, that it was actis bucken ahead domestic hoofs yep,
cool buck real cool bock. I to the part of
South Dakota I was hunting in that twenty twelve. They
responded appropriately and cut back tags an enormous amount, and
it sucked. But then I personally had a theory that
we were gonna come out of this and be in

(01:01:19):
like this golden age of white tail hunting for that area,
because these deer were not being bothered for years. If
there was like a one and a half year old
to two and a half year old that survived, EHD
and then all of a sudden the tag count in
that county went from one thousand to fifty. Those bucks
just lived for a couple of years not knowing what
it was like to be hunted or bothered. So I

(01:01:39):
really really enjoyed. That kept me going like, oh man,
this sucks and the deer a guy. But there's gonna
be some dumb deer after this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Yeah. Yeah. Randall Williams said that on his trip through
Ohio he saw like yard signs saying stop the deer
hunt was a EHD.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Yeah, Yeah, it's hard to argue with those folks.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
I got some cell cameras out in Pennsylvania right now,
and there's some bucks that were running around that I
haven't seen for a while, so hard to say what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
They could still be there, but yeah, hopefully it's not
that all right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
That brings us to the end of this week's show, Phil,
let's get some final feedback from the chat.

Speaker 6 (01:02:21):
Sure thing last call for questions. This is from Nate.
He says, I am a bad cook? Or am I
a bad cook? Or are some birds just impossible to
get the skin crispy even among the same species.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Cal, what do you get?

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Yeah? Cal, very hard. I mean you have to dry
the heck out of that bird, So score the little
fatty bits just just enough to like scratch the skin
and allow that moisture to come out. Reb a little
salt on there, and then hang that thing up in
front of a window or even a fan, and like

(01:02:58):
get it to death. Cicade a little bit, and that's
your best shot. There's some other I was I never
followed up with them. I was talking to a food scientist,
super nice dude out of Oklahoma, and we were debating
about baking soda as this hack for getting dry skin

(01:03:21):
on birds, which is sometimes used with like big turkeys
and stuff. And there's some food science in there. I'll
dig that up and we'll maybe write an article or
something on it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
But we were singing the praises of Danielle prove it earlier.
She has an article on our website at the medeater
dot com how to get perfectly crispy skin on game
birds in about eight hundred words. There she gives you
all the details you need to know, as far as
how long to dry it, how much salt to apply
if you want to do a wet Brian instead, if
you're going to throw this thing in the oven and

(01:03:53):
cast iron skillet, what the temperature should be. So again,
go check out Danielle's article how to get perfectly crispy
skin on game birds.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
But if you're talking like a quail, a dove, hungarian partridge,
even sharp tail grouse, all those birds are great in
the defat Friar. Yeah, and that's Ginn's crispy.

Speaker 6 (01:04:14):
What else, Scott Phil, First, this is from a different Nate,
He says, Spencer. My kids just picked up their forty third,
forty fourth, forty fifth, forty six, and forty seventh junior
Ranger Badgess last week, and they also found two fossils
at bad lands and got a special patch for that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Good. That's awesome, That's that's good parenting. That's that's fun
for them. I bet they appreciate it now and they're
gonna appreciate it in the future for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:04:40):
Ethan asked Cal thanks for mentioning the fond situation I
sent to you on Cal of the Wild. What sources
should I send people to about CWD other than Uncle Ted?
Thanks a bunch before you jump in, I will say
in about a week and a half, I believe you've
got a pretty all encompassing podcast that Cal is actually
a part of with the Turkey doc Mike Chamberlain, but

(01:05:01):
also his one of his buddies, Mark Ruter, who studies
like free ranging disease pathology or it teaches it at
the College of Vet Medicine at the University of Georgia.
So that's a pretty wide ranging conversation that Steve has
with them. But Cal, if you have anything else, I would.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Wait for this podcast to come out because it's got
the most up to date information on CWD and it's
uh if you're interested in it, it is. It is
a very good podcast. It it's a it's going to
be a great source for for people to be up
to date the nuts and bolts of of CWD Right

(01:05:41):
now is you need to uh turn in your information
lymph nodes, report deer that you find that you think
may have died from CWD. The push is to manage
like hyper local for CWD. So if you have let's

(01:06:05):
say you have CWD case here in bos Angelus, the
entire state isn't going to start reducing deer numbers. And
in fact that now because they're trying to figure out
where each county, each region, each CWD zone is on

(01:06:28):
the scale of CWD, on the growth scale that they
can plot very effectively. Now there may be instances where
that data says, don't harvest dose. We need to help
the population rebound. On the other side of the scale,

(01:06:51):
it could be harvest more deer, especially the bucks. Don't
let them go because we're going to try to knock
it down and get c CWD to stabilize at ideally
a lower prevalence rate.

Speaker 6 (01:07:07):
So do what they tell you to do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Don't be transporting things all over the place and disposing
of spinal columns and brain buckets in places where deer
can come in contact with them. Take them to a landfill,
find your local Doug Durham with the good deer dumpster
and get those things taken care of properly and turn

(01:07:30):
in your lymph nodes. Help build this base for good
effective scientific management.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
And our last guest, Kip Adams. He's from the National
Deer Association. They do a great job of having common
sense takes on things like this while still balancing the science.
So go check out what NDA has to say on stuff.
They'll also do a nice job of explaining things in
layman's terms, so Ethan's buddy could come away from that
have a better understanding.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Of yep, for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:08:02):
Mogor wants to know what each of your longest hunts
in the back country was, like the longest stretch of
time you were off the grid.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Cality gun.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Oh, it just makes me cry thinking about the good
old days and many many trips in that like probably
sub fifteen day range, but between ten and fifteen days,
like lots of those trips. And you know, guiding is

(01:08:34):
a little bit different where you like you stay back
back there and then the clients kind of rotate in
and out, so a couple of months here and there.
But as like good solid I am hunting backpack trip,
I would say, on average like thirteen days.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
I don't have any real impressive backcountry status like cow
my longest deer hunts though, where I'm just like car camping,
sleeping in a tent Kansas. I think I went for
eight days, probably like six years ago. In Wyoming, I
think four years ago I had eight days sleeping in
my tent trying to kill a deer, and both of
those I killed my deer. The Wyoming one, I pushed

(01:09:18):
my deadline like an extra day, like I'm gonna stay
one more day, and then I killed one that morning.
So it was very, very satisfying ending for me. Nic Seth, Yeah,
I got.

Speaker 5 (01:09:28):
I think ten days is my longest, but several, you know,
eight nine, ten day up in Alaska. Mostly mostly those
are the longer trips.

Speaker 6 (01:09:38):
So Phil, let's do two more, all right? This is
from Kyle and a different comment. He says that he's
a proud randomble and then apologizes to me for that
as if I'm not also a proud rand So Kyle,
I'm on your team. But I'm saying he's starting his
fall turkey hunt. This is coming Monday, and he tips
on fall versus spring turkeys, says he has a stand
decoy and calls but not sure what he should folk

(01:10:00):
on hens and Tom's are allowed in Michigan. You guys
do a lot of fall turkey.

Speaker 5 (01:10:05):
Any advice I used to back in the day and
back in when I was living in Pennsylvania. We used
to do it, but we always would just find them
and try and break them up and call them back in.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
I've killed two fall turkeys in my life. Both times
it was just opportunistic that was deer hunting. Knew there
maybe be some turkeys nearby, spotted them, got my shotgun,
went and killed one. I don't have any good strategy
for you, though, Kyle cal I.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
Think my maybe been one of my first turkeys ever,
if not the first bearded hand in the fall. I
got her right in the back of the head and
she was running away from its perfect. Yeah. You know,
fall turkeys would be targets opportunity that white meat's so
scarce in the freezer. Oh yeah, It's like it's real

(01:10:51):
hard to pass them up if you have a have
a tag for one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Just a lot of eyeballs. That time of year, they're
gonna they're gonna be in some bigger flocks. So I
did to make a shot where they're running away in
the back of the head.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Yeah, there's a lot of running involved in the fall
turkey from what I've seen.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
We have an article on our website just called Fall
Turkey hunting Tips from Tony Peterson. Tony's one of the
best dang turkey hunters I know, so I'd trust the
words that he can offer you in that article.

Speaker 6 (01:11:19):
One more, Phil Chase is going to Lake Erie next
weekend for a four hour trip two to six pm seth.
Should he target walleye perch or bass?

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Mmm? You got. If you're going to Erie, you gotta
catch walleye.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Yeah, there's big ones there. Yeah, catch them Walleye. Yeah.
That Eerie fishing that we did too, like the dragon
Rapola Rapola's around was just shockingly automatic, very productive.

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Yeah, and yeah, that's like historically Eerie is like a
trolling lake, but now a lack of structure, right, Yeah,
and but yeah, there are a lot of refishing. Well,
there's a lot of like suspended fish in Erie. But
these days, with forward facing sonar, I think that's kind

(01:12:12):
of starting to shift where people are casting to them
more than trolling these days. Maybe not more then, but
they're starting to do more of that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
On Erie. We did a big wind drift day a
friend of mine and I have this several years ago
and just you know, leaded jig heads and like you know,
goofy looking plastics and just tapping the bottom on the
wind drift. And it was very fun because you were

(01:12:42):
just constantly picking up something between a catfish, drum, walleye bass. Yeah,
it was great. Well, there you go. Do that, then
you'll catch all kinds of different stuff. That sounds fun,
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Well, last reminder the Meat Eater Christmas Tour happening this December.
Go to the meadeater dot com La tour for those
details and pre sale access. And while you're there, check
out the tailgate tour. We got four stops left. We'd
love to hang out with you guys. See you guys
talk hatton fish and everything else. All right, See you
back your same time place next week. By now,