Ep. 255: Never Pass Up on the First Day What You'd Be Happy to Have on the Last

there was a draint in my home township. Do they have townships where you live, Clay Now, I was I was gonna make a comment about that that I'm not. I don't understand townships, Spencer. Do you come from township country? I own many a plot books where uh play of the time I was like seventeen years old. I feel like I knew every township I was in without looking at one. Yeah. So a township is six by six miles. Very common. Yeah, very common in the Midwest to have townships.

And then there's a small amount of government is run out of the township. So most townships you look at be like thirty six So it's thirty six square miles. One of those square miles is State School trust land, you know, and that's is how it works. So uh, are we had our township had a drain commissioner. I understand now the drain commissioner there is very The drain commissioner in my home township, which is Dalton Township, is very uh a controversial sort of or maybe the county commissioner.

Either way, you have a drain commissioner. The drain commissioner would hire me two get problem beavers out of the drain system. M hm. One time I was working this beaver and it was in the summertime and UH shot at it sank and I went and told him, I said, man, you know, I can't really present it to you because it sank. And he paid me my bucks. Anyways, you think about that, that's that's honorable. I'd say that's like

a hat tip to the trapper kind of honorable. I ain't that guy's name, uh Merle, His name was Merle, not Haggard. Do you think he'd give the money to you an hour? I'd be pretty shocked. Here is alive right now, so no, um no, he just know way that do is a live still nice guy. So uh, I don't off you guys are reading the New York Times recently. If you see a wolf article in the New York Times, you can virtually guarantee that it will be uh something about just how nice wolves are? You know?

In the New York Times. There's an article in the New York Times. It's kind of a collision of two things. I'm super interested in because the article that the name of the articles is using wolves as first responders against the deadly brain disease, and it's saying it's talking about how, um, these researchers are in Yellowstone are taking a look at

whether wolves because they have a magical ability. You know, everyone who's watched um Never cry Wolf knows that they have an uncanny magical ability to sniff out disease and kill diseased animals. Uh that wolves and all that will take to stop c w D is wolves, because they'll go and eat all the c w D positive deer. And so they're they're studying this in Yellowstone. Our article goes on and on. You know, I'll give him this, like I'll give him this. I think it's interesting to watch.

Um if you could ever I have to ask my brother if you could do this, because this is kind of like that he sort of specializes in like designing studies and statistics and stuff like that. But if you could ever see, like does the spread of chronic wasting disease which is a deer and elk it's like a dear family version for you folks at home. It's a deer, it's a servet. So dear elk moves care, you know, right, taeli ammule deer. Right, it's the scrapy or mad cow

disease version. It's a deer nelt version of that of scrape or mad cow disease. Um, it's a transmissible sponge ofform encephalopathy and it's spreading very rapidly all around the country. Um, it's main spread. This is a I'm gonna tell you a controversial statement right now. CAP is not listening, no, because no, it's the big spreads that have happened around. Honest, gonna come out and say this. Uh, the captive servit industry, the captive deer industry has done a mighty lot, done

a mighty lot to help c w D get spread around. Uh, even a bunch of money. They just see now, I'm way off on the off on the wolf thing. Let me lay out this c w D deal a little bit. First, c w D there's no evidence that it passes to humans, Like, no humans gotten it. They even had this group of people.

They have a group of like a hundred and some people that all eight c w D unknowingly eight c w D infected meet at some kind of fundraiser and then I don't remember the bulk of them all voluntarily submitted themselves for annual testing and none of them have gotten it. Tens of thousands of of American hunters have eaten c w D positive meat, never jumped. Seth, don't even care, do you, set Tell him, Seth, tell them how little you care about eating it. I don't care

at all. Let me ask you this, Seth. If I made Let's say I I went to Doug's house and I got a bunch of the I went to the wherever they do the testing, and I said, I want a bunch of those positive deer brains, okay, And I made a burger in which I took ten c w D positive deer yep and ground up their meat and put some of the brain in there and put some of the spinal column tissue in there and made a burger? Would you eat that burger? Well, don't. I don't eat

the brains and spinal column anyway. Okay, let's say I'll eat the burger. Really. Yeah. See that's how I test the c w D deny or are U s c w D deny or you just don't think it's gonna jump to humans? No, I I believe in c NEED one thousand. Accept that it's a disease and it's spreading around, but you don't take precautions to not spread it around. And you know, I don't deny that at all, But when it comes to human health, like you're not worried

that you're gonna be the dude that gets it. No, there seems to be like a direct correlation between how many people you're feeding in your family and like how serious he takes c w D. Absolutely, I just how big is your family? I mean me and my girlfriend that So, who's probably who's emerging as the best wildlife artist in America? Tell tell everybody her name Johnson, Tell him her ka Ray Johns is a better check to make sure that's right emerging? Did you hear what I'm saying.

Clay emerging as probably America's greatest wildlife artist. I've seen some of your stuff. It's cool, it's cool stuff. I have a prong horn picture of hers hanging up in my house. K Ray Artworks dot com. Spell it for everybody, kay r a e Artworks dot Com. Yep, check it out. That's girlfriend. Uh anyway, Seth Seth like the burger. That's how I test whether someone that's like people that say c w DS nobody deal. I need to get a

badge these burgers. So when I when someone says I don't know, I'm not worried about c w D, I can fry him up one of my c w D burgers. If they eat it, then I'm like, dude, I believe everything you say, or I believe that you believe everything you say. If they pause, then I'm like, we got a problem. Yeah, I want to get back. We're in a CWD zone here in Arkansas. Yeah. And I was just gonna say, I'm I'm in some ways with Seth

like I'm not that worried about it. And that is displayed to me because I have not had my dear tested, which I'm I do, and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But we've been eating deer from this region for twenty years. I mean, my kids have grown up with it. So my point is is that if we if we start, I mean, we've already had it pretesting. I mean, that's the thing. So I'm gonna start making a habit of

getting deer tested. But we never have, you know, uh, Bubbly Doug during he gets ear tat and when people say that, like if if you were to say to two, Doug, I don't care about c w D because I'm not worried about catching c w D. Doug feels you're missing the point, right, because as prevalence goes up, um, it's always fatal. Like you don't know, dear survive c w D. As prevalence goes up, you're gonna have population wide impacts.

And he feels some people can test this. Doug feels it's beginning to happen, and you're gonna see that in these areas that have seventy five you know, and climbing um infection rates that you're gonna get to where you're gonna see population crashes dying from c w D and Also, you're not going to have old mature bucks because deer don't live long enough. Because I killed the CDBD positive dear this year, do you it? No? Man? Well, at the time, I offered it up to anybody on the

editorial team, um, and nobody took it. I was even offering it to people for like them to feed their dogs with, and nobody took it. Um to feed a dog. Yeah, I I offered it to Yanni and it was a hard no. He wouldn't feed it to his dog. Yanni also brought up a good point that if he would feed it to his dog and ignored the potential health thing, his dog would then go shut it out in his yard and be spreading CWD all over his property. Um, which I can respect that stance. Yeah, that's a good point.

You know what's funny about this article? Back back to the article here, So it's like this article where it's you know, you know, tomorrow there'll be an article like wolves actually helped bring more rainbows. You know, if we had more wolves, we have more rainbows. Um. They're never just like a large while canine in their eyes a magical creature. And uh so they're doing this thing, and I am interested to see, like, like I'd be interested to see if c w D spread slows in places

that have high wolf densities. Um. This thing goes on and on like saying like this could be a reason why we should reintroduce more wolves around the country because they'll sniff out the c w D. And they finally give a fishing game guy. They give um chief of the Wildlife Division of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. They give him like at the end of the article, they throw him a bone and give him a quote. He expresses doubts that wolves would prevent chronic waste and disease.

He says, wolves help remove sick animals, but animals don't get visibly ill for about two years, so they are carriers and spreaders, but they don't get the symptoms. And to counter this, they go on and say, um that uh. The the miss Brandle who's involved with this research goes on to say that, um that these magical wolves, she doesn't used magical. Said the wolves made detective disease long

before it becomes apparent to people. Mm hmm. Through smell like a cancer dog dogs that dear smells like it's got c w D. I'm automatically thinking about the welfare of the wolves. Man. I mean, we won't feel it. We won't feed this stuff to our kids, but we're will feed it to these uh majestic wolves. You see what I'm saying, Like, no concern for the wolves here. Yeah, but wolves always get like I listen to I go, I like wolves. I like seeing wolves. I like seeing

wolves tracks. I like wolves. I like to see wolves get restored. But it's like to also be like realistic about it and not do all the hyperbolic bs that people do to like to to proselytize wolves. And that's hard for people like they have a phenomenal marketing engine behind them. Uh, how's that? Is that good? That article feels an awful out like the one that the New York Times ran in about letting mountain lions eat the feral horses and that'll be the solution to the problem.

Do you remember that? Yeah? And did you ever hear Carl Malcolm uh tear that we try to get that right around the podcast. He wouldn't come on the podcast. Carl wrote a Carl wrote a scathing critique of that article. Um, who's he's a professional biologist. You know, he wrote a scathing critique of that article, but the Times didn't publish

it because their rebuttals are generally very short. And Carl had all these statistics to point out areas where some of the highest mountain lion densities overlap with some of the highest wild horse densities, and also laid out a lot about how mountain lions used the landscape um in a way that wouldn't it all be benef official to killing off horses, Like where they hunt, where they occupy, isn't where horses go. It was just an assinine, an

assinine article, um. And the writer wouldn't even stand by it to come on the show and talk about it. It was just it was a joke. Guy died of it was an article floating around right now. This guy they they've had this body for a long time. So there's there's this dude that was alive one thousand to one thousand four years ago, UM in the desert southwest.

He died a constipation. Mhm, jeez. That's terrible. And it seems as though as they're looking at his his diet that uh, he had for months been someone had been for months feeding him grasshoppers with the legs torn off. He ate mainly grasshoppers and the painful months prior to his death. Now, why why do you say someone was feeding him? Well, it goes on to say that he was in such bad shape. He had what's called a

mega colon. There's a he had a parasite trip pana soma cruzy, which I've never heard of, had blocked up the man's gastro intestinal system so as cold and swelled to six times normal size. It's a condition called mega colon. So the guy can't digest food properly, and he was becoming malnourished. They think that he would have been so bad by looking at his body that he probably couldn't

even walk or eat on his own. He was in that bad of shape, and then for the last two or three months of his life, someone was feeding him or he was feeding on legless grasshoppers, like the squishy part. I wonder what, I wonder why? I don't know. They found this guy back in seven and a rock shelter along the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers in South Texas. You can't say that. You can't say Rio Grande River. Do you know that because you're saying River Grande River.

Oh yeah, yeah, I got you. I just saw I just let me bathe phrase that the Rio Grande. I'm just gonna say the Rio grand and Pacos River. So this dude was was living. Was he like living in a town somewhere just out in the bush. We mean a town somewhere. Oh, we said, like like a pueblo or something. They they found him like in a rock shelter. Yeah, So he was like a primitive fellow. Two point six pounds of feces in a vast the amount of food

remains that were never processed. That's not that much feces. No, I never go on a scale, but I'm not like blown away by that. Do you ever a weigh at spencer? No, He's shaking his head. No, no, No, I feel like I feel like wrestlers do that. I had had a guy one time tell me that he said, you'd be surprised what you'd eat when you're hungry. And he told he said that statement after he told the story of riding a train from somewhere in New Mexico to San Antonio,

Texas in a box car that he jumped in. He he rode the entire way for three days. The train didn't stop when he got to San Antonio, Texas. He was sixteen years old. He'd run away from home and he jumped out of the box car and went and found in a dumpster some molded biscuits and raw bacon, and he ate him. I worked with this guy. He was like in his sixties. This was twenty years ago and at the time he's in his sixties. And he looked at me and he said, Clay, you'd be surprised

what you'd eat if you're hungry. And I believed him that. I don't think so I take that back about um Seth said, wrestlers probably know how much it weighs. And I guess when I was in high school wrestling, I wasn't eating a bunch. But before ways, if you'd go go to the bathroom, you could usually if you had a a nice, good crap, you could usually lose about a pound. So that's what wrestlers do. Yeah, that's interesting. Just try and get get all everything out when you

can before you hop on this skated. Uh. Well, what's interesting about how much it goes on to say, like how much pressure this guy had going on there's a thing um a final list, which is a plant part, and usually a final list can pass through a humans digestive track on scathed. But the final lists and this guy's digestive track or split open and crushed, which points to an incredible pressure that was exerted on a microscopic

level in this guy's intestinal system. This is gonna be detailed in the forthcoming book called the Handbook of Mummy Studies. And if you think I'll not be buying the Handbook of Mummy Studies, you are wrong. That sounds very painful. Uh. Speaking of painful, did you guys hear about Seth almost getting uh attacked by a wild weasel this morning? He's lucky to be alive. Tell what happens, Seth Um, we identified a culvert pipe that would be good for trapping weasels.

And I dumped down over the bank and in the dark, in the dark, I reached down in the culvert pipe and to put a trap box, a weasel box with with a trap in it, And Uh, I heard something growled at me and Seth Seth won't make okay, tell the story. I don't. I do not think I can accurately mimic the sound because it sounded bigger than a weasel. Um, he's he cried, he cried like a little baby. That that's false. What what types of weasels? That's like long

tail weasel? Yeah, long tail is that that was in a culvert. So it's like it was like it was like growing in probably a fourteen inch sixteen inch colvert. I mean that would make it sound really loud. Yeah, here's the thing. He just keeps talking about this, this horrific growl. I knew. I ran down there with a flash, like I thought we might have a bobcat. That's what

I thought. I thought, by the way, And I went down there and shined light in there, and we went to the other end and it was just a little teeny weasel come out the other end. And then we spent an hour try Seth won't say what the sound sounded like because I I can't even begin to miss and we've tried every like her, No, it's like we're a weasel growl Like well, I don't know how to

mimic that. He won't he will not do the thing like it wasn't like it wasn't like it was like no, no, it's it was like, to try to explain it, it was like a very like soft, quiet growl. But it startled you. But yeah, because I could tell how startled he was because when I went down there, the weaselbox is just kind of thrown down into pipe. He didn't even properly place it. There's a YouTube video that says sound of weasel, and it's a weasel in a cage

making a growl. Oh, keep playing that for us real quick. I'm trying here. Is that what you heard? Said? That's not what I heard. It's not very loud, guys. Oh, there it is there it is. It's like a chuckle. Is that what you heard? That the coock? That part sounds a little familiar, that's what's scared. But it didn't. It didn't sound like it was like ok it was like it was like two of those okay, But it was in a damn culvert. I would like to bring

up that that's some good weasel trapping. That's some d good weasel trapping. Set of weasel trap. Stick your hand in a hole and there's already a weasel there. In fact, Yeah, the sign reading that went into this that we identified such a hot low coal that he was actually in the culvert, and then we shine too. You couldn't see all the way through, so I ran up in over the road and down the other embankment and couldn't find

the exit track. Then I realized that weasel was so scared of Seth that when he come out the other end of the culver, he must clear snow before his feet hit the ground. Here's a great question, though, Steve. Here's a trapping question. And this is gonna show the heart of the trapper, and and I don't know which way it is gonna go. Would you have killed the weasel in the culvert if he wasn't in a trap? Oh? I thought we had a bobcat, and that bobcat would

have been in trouble. Okay, because it's like when you're coon hunting with dogs, like we'll we'll see a coon in a tree and not kill it because our dogs didn't tree it. We'll walk past the training thing. And I'm not worried about training up Seth. I'm not gonna like spoil Seth by by getting a weasel that he didn't tree up. Uh. So she hasn't been she has

been approved yet, but by made his selection of Interior Secretary. Um, if you if you're hunting fish or if you like to if you're just generally like to be outdoors, I don't care. If you're a skier, biker, hiker, definitely, if you're hunter and angler, Probably the most influential person in the country for you, particularly if you live in the Western US, probably the most influential person in your life, whether you know it or not, is the Interior Secretary.

So the secretary of the Interior um outside of like the egg Secretary, who under Trump was Sonny Perdue, who overseas like U. S. D A, you know, Forest Service lands, the Interior Secretary is like BLM, refugees, National Parks, all these land management you know, all though these land management agencies sit under this Interior Secretary, and they kind of set the tone for what goes on in this country around and management on public lands, federal public lands highly influential.

When Trump came in, he initially appointed Zinky Ryan Zinky from Montana, who had been a Navy seal. He ran into a lot of ethics troubles and left and was replaced by a guy named Bernhardt and Bernhardt Trump so he Bernhard almost did four years from Trump. Bernhard did a lot of great stuff. He did a lot of annoying stuff, but he had a lot of good stuff. And it was very good on access, so very good on opening up lands the hunting and fishing that that

previously weren't. It was good on migration corridors. Was good on some management issues like overturning some Obama air rules that restricted Alaska's ability to use certain management practices on refuge lands. There was a real slap in the face two the state of Alaska. Um, they did a lot of goods. He did a lot of good stuff. He did a lot of bad stuff. They had this energy dominance.

The Trump administration had this you know energy dominance plan, right, Um, and it and their their m O for the history of Trump's term was to really try to up energy extraction on public lands. UM. I'm not a I'm not a big fan of just coming out and saying that you just want to maximize output and not talk about how you want to do it in a responsible, gradual way. Uh. But Biden just did his pick, and I was really

hoping that he was gonna pick. Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, and I know there's all kinds of reasons, all kinds of political stuff, but he was my He was my Like I would have been very very happy because here you would have had an avid hunter, avid angler, Um, great conservation ethic, extremely knowledgeable about the landscape ape out there. Um, his head's on straight, he like knows what stuff matters for hunters and anglers. You couldn't have done better than Heinrich,

who's a senator from New Mexico. And it was rumored that he was going to get the NOD or you know, there's a lot of people pushing for him to get the NOD, but it went to subject to approval, went to Deb Hayland from New Mexico, the first Native American two get appointed as Interior Secretary. So that that that that's that's a big win for Native Americans here. Um, I am like trying to be optimistic here. I'm I'm

worried about a couple of things that would happen. Uh. I'm worried that under Biden and under Halan, that we might do too much renewable energy stuff on public lands. Um, these solar arrays and wind farms are we can't just turn the landscape into a solar farm. It's very destructive the wildlife habitat. Uh. And so this kind of like I feel that there's gonna be this like knee jerk push into doing put creating like industrial landscapes out on our public lands of solar arrays. It's you know, that

stuff can be catastrophic to wildlife. So I'm a little afraid of that. There's a couple of other things I'm afraid of, but maybe I'll be pleased in the end. You guys got any thoughts on this? Mhmm, you ought too. I think so it should just take that solar energy and make everyone get the elon Musk's U solar energy on the roofs of everyone's houses instead of out on the environment. Yeah, that comes to complications too, but I'd

rather that. Yeah. Um, watching massive mounts of grassland and massive mounts of you know, open country converged into wind farms. They're so noisy too. Where I grew up, we had a bunch of them, and um, the only thing they were good for it was obviously the energy they're creating. But you could check the wind real easy when you're gonna go hunt and see which way they were pointed, No, that's a good point. There's enough. See, that's that's always

look at the bright side. There's a there's a three thousand acre solar solar farm that's proposed to go in right next to my family's Honing property and Pennsylvania is that right, But it's not public, but it is like some of the best elk cabitat you'll find in the state. And it's there's a shipload of elk on it. Because that I've seen the big wind the big wind turbans out west, the solar farms I'm less I know less

about just because I haven't seen them. I mean, are these some massive like like him saying that a three thousand acre solar farm, that's news to me. I didn't know we had them that big. So that would effectively, I mean, they would fence these things so that it would impede movement of wildlife. Yeah, it's like it's an it's an industrial it winds up being an industrial landscape. They basically they basically um blanket the landscape. Yeah, and

then you have all you know roads. I mean, it's just like it's like it's like it's it's an industrial development project. And so and I and the little bit I've not a little bit. The fair bit of reevening I've done on Hayland is that that's like a higher priority.

Other people speculated a high priority could be UM trying to seed lands bad two tribes, which is you know, as an enormous minefield, UM and I and and would be highly controversial and may distract Like that conversation may distract from some of the things that I would view as high priority that we're likely to get taken care of. But we'll see, hopefully we'll all be real pleased. We had a conversation recently about castration bands. I found a coyote ship with a castration band in it. Was I

telling you about this spencer you talked about on the podcast. Yeah, I found a coyote ship. I was hunting anilop my kids and found a coyote ship with a with a castration band. Is you can take a lamb and I remember this kid named Paul Anderson do it to his dog when I was growing up. Um, you take this little rubber band and wrap it around his scroll, and the causes the scroll to fall off. Do you ever have that done to you? Seth no, I tried to

avoid that kind of stuff. A guy wrote in a rancher from um southeastern Montana, and he wrote in he said, people use those castration bands to dock sheep tails. So you notice like now and then you'll see, you know, lambs aren't supposed to have like lambs are born with a big, long, damn tail, but everybody cuts the tail off him. And he was saying that you really cut lambs off tails. You prevent dung build up in maggot infestation on the lamb's backside, so that tail builds up

and lamb feces flies land on there. It's badford the lamb. So what they do is they put that castration band around the tail and it cuts off circulation. The tails falls off. He's saying that heat thinks this kyote ship they had a castration band in it. He said. Quote odds are the lamb had lost his tail in a pasture somewhere and the kyote found himself a little lamb tail jerky laying on the ground and a everything including the band. We see it in our ranch dogs scat

all the time. Seth Price, still running a hotmail address, really think of that I don't know that's the thing anymore. Clay tell us about this Canadian Links that just did this this kind of cool thing. Yeah, you know, Steve, this actually took place a while back. It just resurfaced in the media. But oh, there's all time many still. A story center producer a story about a guy who outfitter, who had gotten so much wild had so many wildly violation that he had what's called the global He had

like a global forfeiture of hunting privileges. And she wrote back, She's like, you know, this was nineteen years ago. Are you sure you want me to put this in the show. I'm like, oh, sorry, well, hey, this is worthy, Steve. This uh, this is the longest documented travel of the links in in biological history. And obviously you know how many links in the history of the planet have been have been monitored. But basically, so the big story is is that in the early two thousands, there were two

hundred and eighteen links, one source says. Another source said ninety links transplanted from Canada into the high country of Colorado. So basically they were trying to restore the links population in Colorado, so they were catching them up in Canada, where there's a bunch of links bringing them down in the Colorado where there were no links. And you haven't

know what year links got Endangered Species Act protections. Yes, uh, Canadian links were listed about the US Fish and Wildlife Service has threatened in the contiguous US and two thousands, so they're not on the Endangered Species list. I was understand it. They're on the threatened list, but still they're on the s A list has threatened, that's right. So the only the only US state that you can harvest and hunt links is Alaska. But in Canada they're thick,

you know, they're they're doing very well. And um I read an interesting statute Steve that you'll appreciate. So at the peak of the fur trade, the modern fur trade, in the early nineteen eighties, they were exporting about thirty five thousand links pelts out of Alaska and Canada, and obviously today that's much less just because of supply demand, you know. But that's off top, that's off the topic here. This so this links and he's got a science name,

you know, b C O three m O two. They dropped him off in Colorado when he was two years old, and he lived in Colorado for four years and then he just just he settled right in. Man, the amount of surveillance they do on these cats is kind of creepy. Man. They knew how many sires of kittens this cat had, uh, how many sets of kittens this cat had sired and said it's sired two letters of kittens, one in two thousand five, one in two thousand. So he was getting

some play in Colorado. He was and lived there four years. It must have been like a marital dispute that pushed him out. I don't know, but he left in two thousand seven. He went missing, and so the biologists just felt like it was just a loss, you know, like all these radio colored animals that they're tracking all over the place, bears lines like collars just go dead. You

know that it's just the it happens. It happens here in Arkansas with our bears a lot, just randomly, something goes wrong, collar goes dead, animal disappears off the data points of these biologists and um. But in two thousand and ten, Steve, a trapper in nordag Alberta catches a big lynx with a with a collar on it, and uh, the cat was already dead in the trap, or he would have he would have he would have released it,

he said. But anyway, he gets the number off the collar, calls the number, and the in the people are just amazed. And the cat had traveled about twelve hundred miles and the cat was nine years old at the time and went trick to Alberta. Okay, it was caught in British Columbia. It went to Alberta, so it didn't it didn't quite make it home. Um, but it it just went north for and there's no you know, these things are so mysterious because we just don't know why it did it.

We we don't know why. But the the travel was you know, obviously the cats crossing major interstate highways. I mean, there's all kind of hazards that this cat would have had to have gone through. So traveled north through the bulk of because he started out in southern Colorado, right San Juan Mountains. Yeahs through Colorado presumably like I don't know, swung through Utah, western Wyoming, traveled through Idaho or Montana, and then made his way were ass into Canada. Yeah. Yeah.

These so these cats, Steve typically have a home range of twelve to eighty three miles. That's what the the the website, the wells, it was the FED website. Um, it was really specific. But so you know, the males have bigger home ranges, the females are gonna have smaller home ranges. So you know they're known to travel. You know, links most of his diet, his snowshoe hairs. They're highly specific. I did a little research on why. How are they different than bobcats. You know, they look a lot like

a bobcat and it it mainly has. They can be slightly larger than bobcat, but they're super specialized. That's pretty much what makes them different. You know, bobcats live all across the US. I mean they're very widely distributed. Links are highly specialized for hunting snowshoe hairs and snow and then the boarder typically the well. Now they're in the boreal forest, but at one time they were in all

the highlands of North America. As I understand it, So I have a big, a big gass foot and bigger tough. I was talking about this on the show with a handful of times, but um, I've only laid eyes on one links man, and it was just and they have a face that kind of looks like a human baby in a weird way. Man, you're wild looking. I guess if you want to preorder the Handbook of Mummy Studies Guests with that Bad Boys coming in at it's free

delivery on prime hard cover, there's four hundred forty nine cents. Oddly, the paperback is six hundred nine dollars and cents to pre order it. Why would it be that expensive? I don't know, but I hope these good people are listening and send me one of these damn books. That's crazy. And then mum is the mountain lion that recently made

a long trip. Uh that was more recent, Yeah, that was so there was a young lion collared in New Mexico February the twelve, in kind of like northwest New Mexico and uh he he was documented to have traveled five hundred and fifty eight miles and stead in the Mason Verda National Park. So that's that's like, that's not standard mountain lion protocol, but that's like not terribly uncommon. I mean, pretty cool, no doubt, oh yeah, but just like amazing that they can move around and avoid trouble.

M hm. You know all those highways. Yeah, passing through towns, crossing highways and not starving to death. Steve, we have so too. Three years ago, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission changed the title of one of our biologists from the bar biologists to the large carnivore biologists because we had enough legitimate mountain lion sightings in the state that it deemed a biologist to be over mountain lions in Arkansas.

We're super fascinating. And I talked of the guy the other day for a podcast, and basically he thinks we're getting mountain lions on these big treks, these big journeys, like they're they're coming down the Missouri River coming into Arkansas, and they'll will have just like a spasm of lyon sightings that span like all of you know, I mean

like counties. You know, like there's a lie there, there's a line there, there's a line there, and it's the same lion and he's on this big walk about and they leave though there there's they have yet to document a lion that is a breeding populations of lions here. But every year we have lions and so He speculates that it's this it's this edge of lyon habitat where

the males are dispersing deep. And he said, as soon as a female decides to live here, then we'll start getting, you know, males that come and stay like because they're basically looking for mates and looking for terry tory. They're not male is not gonna come in and inhabited place that doesn't have a female. Was this point historically it

was the most widely distributed large mammal in the Western hemisphere. Yeah, down to the southern tip of Patagonia, right all through South America, Central America, up into Canada coast to coast. Here in the US, it was everywhere. It's really had this little population hang on in Florida and then just get wiped out in the Eastern US and then just very slowly but gradually coming back. You think, you know, how they like they seem to be doing um fairly

well in like California where it's heavily populated. They're eating house cats and dogs and ship like that. Do you think eventually the they'll slowly start populating like the Eastern States where it's where it's like like they've they're gonna like kind of learned to live amongst humans. Oh yeah, I mean you're definitely. I don't know how many generations it will take, but I think that you'll have I mean, at this moment, like we're having like expanding you know,

mountain lions are expanding range. Black bears are actively right now expanding range. So I think definitely, I don't know what it would be. I don't know if like my kids kids will be surprised to hear that once upon a time it was unusual to have a mountain lion like in Ohio, um because it's just like it's one thing to pass through. But like they gotta have enough

room to not get in that much trouble. But the fact that they're able to um do well, not do well, but to to live in huge population centers in California. But then you have like a lot of topography, steep brushy country they can still hide. They've got to have a ton of deer, they've got you know, elk, they've got to have some type of ungula. You know. Cultural

tolerance will be the main thing. I think in the East, just like how many people, how how many lions will people put up with which I think the tolerance would be left in the eastern part of the US would be less than the cultural tolerance in the West for large predators. Yeah. I mean there's celebrities around California, man, I mean, and like around the population hubs in California

population centers there. Uh. One of the one of the I think probably an now standing question on it is how well they can do in an agricultural landscape too, where so much of the ground is tilled and open um. I don't know, man, but they're they're definitely expanding out. You know. Years ago now, California banned mountain lion hunting. First they went after houndsman, then they just banned it all together. It's kind of like the playbook there is,

you like, like it's the Death Back thousand cuts playbook. Uh. They were looking at this dispersal study. They thought that because California had no lion hunting, they were expecting to see lions like sort of flowing out of California. And they did this. They were looking at this study of like dispersal and it was funny because uh, Nevada, which still has like a thriving lion hunting culture, Nevada actually has lions that they're producing that are dispersing westward into California.

Like they're still creating them and kicking them out. That's wild. Yeah, it's good stuff man. Uh. And in the early two thousands, I was trying to do a magazine story for Outside. I could never get him to assign me the story, but I kept wanting to do a story about, um, these guys and like, you know anywhere like North Carolina, Tennessee, like the local crazy guy that would see a mountain lion. Yeah, and everybody's like, you're crazy, you don't know what you're

talking about. Um, And I was kind of and I was a little bit ahead of my time because this guy even started this thing called like the Eastern Puma Research Center or something like that because he had run into one on a road hunting turkeys, I think, and it haunted him. Every thought he's a nut job. And then ten years later they're getting hit that one gets hit on the road in Connecticut. Yeah, a wild born

one in Pennsylvania. I mean, like I always heard like everyone knew someone that either seen one or like had a track that they found in like cast or. It was just like you know it was. It was. There was always stories of people seeing mountain lions and people having like I haven't seen him, but like heard of people who had like has pictures of mount lines that they had killed because they were like killing the chickens

or something that kind of ship. You know, This dude in my home state wrote this book, Beast of Never Category odd. I think it was what the book was called, but it was about him getting all obsessed with mountain lions in Michigan, which wanted him not being bullshit. Yeah, they just moved. Yeah. Well, I mean, like this dude right here northing. It's not even like that big of a deal. Dude, five six miles man, Yeah, a freaking links. How far that links? There was a documented lion that

went from the Dakotas to Connecticut in the last ten years. Yeah, I think they think he swung around up through Uh. I think they think that that dude swung around up through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, dropped down from Canada into the East. That's like one guess of how he might have gone. I heard he got on a FedEx cargo plane chasing chickens and got out on the other side. Okay, so Spencer,

you were right. Spencer sent me a thing where he's like, I bet you A hundred people sent you this, and they had tell, tell talk about what it was that the hundred people have sent me. Spencer recently this week out of Kentucky and elk antler turned off that looks very old and carved into it, says d boone Um. And then it has the year seventeen and the story goes this, this antler was found in the late eighteen hundreds and was passed through some generations and has now

wound up with the r M E f um. And there's all this excitement around it on Facebook, for example, Rocky Mountain Foundation. On Facebook, for example, it's been liked four thousand times, commented on seven hundred times, and shared five thousand times because people are excited that this antler um, which came from the species of elk that is now extinct,

turned up in Kentucky. It's not a species of elk, Spencer subspecies if not not prop No, no, okay, I don't buy Okay, go on, here's the thing, I I said, do you see them like, I'm sure this has crossed your inbox? So I don't want to get into the subspecies thing. But I'll point this out, at the time you had elk just from one end of the country to the other, there wasn't like unique population groups. They probably all intermingled. But but sure, that's fine. A geneticist

would would not agree with that. Well, I'm gonna tell you what the Facebook post said and why I said that. It says resource private land biologists Joe lace Field the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation funded the Carbon fourteen dating of the antler and it was traced back to the extinct subspecies of eastern elk. The carbon fourteen test dated the elk to have died in the range of the years

between seventeen thirty and eighteen o six. I would like, here, here's there a thing I would like to see that report, because having done some C fourteen submissions, they usually give you these things in like sigmas. Okay, they they give you these things where it's like percentage, like these like percentage likelihoods, and it'll go like thirty three p sixt likelihood. I would like to see is the report included there no, no,

the that's that's the best evidence they give. And then they end the thing by saying, there's no way to prove that Boone inscribed the antler, but the evidence says it is likely. Okay, is not a legitimate I mean like we're we're saying that this is a legitimate news report. Yes, well, we're saying that they there is an elk Antler that's undisputed. It has D. Boon written on it, that's undisputed. They submitted it for C fourteen dating radio carbon dating. That's undisputed.

It came back with that date range. But I would just be curious to see what probability they abscribed to the accuracy of that date range. Can I Can I jump in here a minute? Top police radio carbon? Yes, okay, that's pretty fascinating, man boy. Yeah, oh yeah, No, No, no, it is. It is, And I'm not even saying that it's not. D. Boon's Daniel Boone. Boone would have been during that time from eighteen o six eighteen thirty. He

didn't he die in the eighteen twenties. Steve in Missouri. Uh, someone could pull that up, teens, pull it up, seth, See how fast you know what I would type in? Seth? I would type in um Daniel Boone Whearing. When did Daniel Boone die Well, He died in Missouri. Boon first arrived in in Tucky in seventeen sixty nine and settled with his family at Boonsboro in seventeen seventy and again this through the Revolution. This antler was dated between seventeen

thirty and eighteen o six. The Earth, Boys and Girls is bombarded by cosmic rays from the sun. Okay, mm hmmm uh. The thing that is produced by the bombardment of these cosmic rays is a radioactive substance called C fourteen. You tracking spencer, you're fact checking. It's taken up by plants. Anything that is alive that eats plants or eats things

that have eaten plants accumulates C fourteen. C fourteen stops accumulating in these organisms when they die, So you stop consuming plants, you stop consuming things that consume plants, and you stop your intake of C fourteen that is building up in your bones. C fourteen has an known half life, So if you take a bone and you can look at the rate of decay of the C fourteen in it,

you can tell how long ago the things stopped being alive. Now, once they started testing atomic weapons, so from anything that was alive like C four team won't work any like, you can't radio carbon anything that was alive from the nineteen fifties on, because then like atmospheric radioactive substances are so prevalent that our our systems are all out of whack. Like if you checked us, you wouldn't be able to

do you wouldn't be able to radio carbon. Date I remains in the future because we were alive for all that radioactive material that's in the atmosphere now from a testing atomic bombs, detonating atomic bombs and whatnot, So it doesn't work anymore. Then there's it comes into this thing called dendro chronology where the rate at which these cosmic rays but barred the atmosphere fluctuates through time. It's not constant.

So what they're able to do is take, for instance, tree rings from old trees, and they're able to count back. Like if you cut a tree down right now, and I can count back. Let's say I find some three year old tree. I can be like, okay, I just cut the tree down, and I can look and I'd

be like, this ring was laid down. I know three years ago, because I've counted from the core right to get to where this ring was laid down, and then you can look in that ring at the Sea fourteen that was laid down in that ring that year, and you can get an idea of the relative bombardment of of these rays, and that's what helps you calibrated out.

But it's like imprecise. When I had my buffalo skull done, I came in with a sixty six percent probability that it died within a couple of dead cads of seventeen seventy. So I would just like to look at the report.

We'll go on Spencer. Well, maybe like the best reason to be skeptical is because there have been trees in like Kentucky and Tennessee that were these landmarks at one point where Daniel Boone supposedly carved his name in there and like left a cute little note like one of them was like d Boone killed a bar on tree year seven year, seventeen sixty And a number of these like trees exists in that area. But there's there's like a lot disputing like, well, actually he spelled his name correctly,

but in this tree it was spelled incorrectly. There are other receipts of him writing Bear correctly, but in this tree again, like this is extra folksy. How he spelled

his name wrong, spelled Bear wrong, etcetera. Um. So there's just like it seems like some pride in that area of having Daniel Boone are to facts and you know, going all the way back to the eighteen hundreds when these trees were you know, cut down and like put on display and stuff like that, and it feels a lot like, Uh, I'm from South Dakota, but I consider myself like an honorary Minnesotan um. And they have the Kensington run still in there. Are you guys familiar with that?

Like the the giant piece of rock late in the earth that came up in the roots of a tree where some vikings had inscribed in this rock that like through the Great Lakes and stuff. Um. But of historians say, no, that's that's a lie. But this popped up, you know, hundreds of years ago. Because they have like this great ah, like they take a lot of pride in in Daniel Boone, or people in Minnesota take a lot of pride in vikings beating Christopher Columbus to America. That's what it feels like.

I can't remember if it was in Robert Morgan's Boone biography or the fair Riger biography, one of these Boom biographies.

In the end, he talks about um all of the alleged artifacts, that there was a cottage industry of writing boon on stuff, and that you could fill ten houses with all the stuff that supposedly came out of Boone's house and guns that have boon on him and hatches that have It was like because he was a celebrity his own era, you know, he was like he was like famous while he was alive, and so I don't know, man, it's like modern social media, like people writing stuff in

trees like back in the eight hundreds, it's like making a Facebook post. Or Albert Morgan, who you were referring to you is going to be a guest on Kentucky Outdoors Media UM to talk about the pose it Boone Antler. What's his take on the Antler? We don't know. He hasn't been on yet, but he's done some other He hasn't done any other interviews about this Antler. The Antler came up on December three days ago. So this is all fresh. I'll put it to you this way. If

God came down, Let's say Chester. Let's say Chester came over, and Chester said, I know, because somehow I've had contact with an omniscient being, I know the answer, this is Boone's antler or not? Like I know through magical abilities, I know the true answer. And he said to me, I'm gonna give you. You have to take a guess Boone's antler not Boone's antler. If you get it wrong, I'm gonna shoot you in the head. Okay, So here I am. I have to get it right. Is it

Boone's antler or not? I'll be shot dead if I get the answer wrong. You know what I would say, I'd say not Boone's aniler. Put in that situation the Boone artifact thing is is funny that you bring up. We're publishing an article on the meat eat or dot com today called the Guns of wyatt Earp, looking at like, what guns did the cinematic wyatt Earp carry? What guns did the dime novel wha earb carry? And what guns

did the real life while wyatt Earp carry? The reality is that nobody really knows um and There's been guns sold many times at auction that claimed to be wide ARBs, but everyone would dispute it um and and nobody really knows. So that that feels very much like this Daniel Boone thing. So you don't actually know if he carried a cold peacemaker. You're gonna have to read the read the article to get an idea of what what people think he actually carried.

In the history of the cinematic and the now bold version of wider stuff, Spencer, what would you do if Chester held the gun to your head? You say, not Boone's antler. I'd say that bone. You're gonna be living to tell a notre tale, To tell a tale, what are the odds that would be Boone's and not just like a newcomon there or Ranella or some or Morris anything like that. How did this one antler from an extinct not subspecies of ELCV Daniel Boone's subscripture signature on it?

You think it's old. I think it was a phony from a long time ago. If I had to guess, I don't really know. I mean, who the hell am I don't know? Does it look like it's been drammled in there that Yeah, that was what I thought, And surely they tested this, But I mean, like you could find it. It wouldn't be that big a deal to find an elk candler from the early eighteen hundreds and then drimble into it and maybe leave it in the mud for five years and then pull it out. I'll

be clear. I think a dude scrap said in their long as time ago. That's what I think. Uh, Spencer, you you had provided a you had provided a recommendation of a transition, a segue to another topic of conversation. But I don't want to steal your transition. So do you want to do your own transition? No, you do it. You'll you'll probably do it better. You're such a fan. Okay, Um, you know how Spencer was just talking about Daniel Boone. Well we're gonna talk about Boone and Crockett Club for

a minute. How is that? That was a great Yeah, our podcast guest Jim Heffelfinger sent us in this article, Um, and I think that he might have been kind of responding to when we had him on and we were talking about, uh, when we had the Boone and Crockett Club people from the Booing Crockett Club on and we're talking about like how things like Boone and Crockett Club. And see when people talk about like a deer having a shot at one sixty white tail, right, you're talking

about like a measurement system. There's a way to do you measure bear skulls is the way you measure dear antlers. Um. And there's like record books, so if you shoot a big buck you measure You're go like wow, this box a white tail and you send it off and they put in their record books and um. There's this article the heffle Finger sent us that that spencer will break down a little bit about criticisms of that system, like is it really helpful because it's kind of become like

like Boone and Crockett Club. The score has become like a so it's a social thing. It's like a way to brag up whatever. But they like they but they point out that it had like a scientific foundation and this heffel Finger sent us this article that kind of lays into this a little bit. And the criticism would be that if if you are trying to track a population of critters, how is it helpful to only look

at the biggest ones. If there's a minute mom size to get in, what are you really learning that minimum size being? For like, I think a typical white tail is one sixty and non typical is I don't know, one seventy or one eight. Um are are you really actually like learning trends about the health of populations or not? So if you're only interested in the big ones, yes, well, because the big ones are the indicators of a healthy population of animals. Did y'all know I'm a boon an

official boone Crocket score? No? I didn't know that. So this is this. I love this topic because on the surface it does seem it's easy to buy what this guy's saying. But it's a little bit deeper than that. To understand it. In that you gotta go back to originally when this system was built. It was built before much of our modern science, and the way to understand the health of systems. An indicator was the number of

older mature males. So basically they quantified the a number that's that said this is a mature, healthy species and so UH typical Boon and crockert act. The reason BOODH Crocket UH awards and gives preference to symmetry. Is because symmetry typically indicates health. That's I I know that argument, but that is bs well, but it's it's actually not uh the back in the day, back in the day, if a big but that throws a little sticker out his right antler, you know, you don't look at and

be like, oh, something must be wrong with them. Well now now it's not talking about that though. And again you gotta think this, this was this system was designed in the you know, a hundred years ago. What it is talking about is when you have an animal that's stressed, you get massive amounts of dissymmetry. I mean, like, you know, the back right leg is messed up, the right antler is going to be messed up up left opposite, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

with the front leg. If the front right leg is messed up, then the front right antler is messed up with the leg it's the opposite, yes, And and hey the other thing. And I love it that this came up and just stop me because I could take the next hour and talk about this. And I'm not a big score guy, Like I'm not gonna go like I have no goals to like kill Boone Crockett animals. But I mean, like I would just assume kill a hundred forty deer on the mountain over here. That I love

is go to Canada and kill one. You know what I'm saying. I mean, like, I don't. I'm not a score guy, but I think there's relevance to it because of its historical precedence and at the time, actually trophy hunting quote unquote like and that meaning targeting an animal because the size of its head gear is actually what helps save North American hunting. Because the brown is Down

philosophy was the way it went. We we're coming out of an era of market hunting, going into an era when all these guys were saying, Nah, don't you know, we gotta leave the females and young, we gotta leave the juvenile males. I'll tell you what I'll do. Let's make let's let's make a number. Let's make a scoring system that rewards killing an older mature mail. And let's make that culturally cool to kill an older mature mail.

And it totally took the pressure off of females and young and juvenile males and put it on older mature species, which you've already contributed to the gene pool, and which are the best animals from a conservation standpoint to take out, especially in a vulnerable herd. So like, you gotta think about it that way. And now you know, a hundred and twenty five years later, the Boonoo Crockett Club is doing the main focus of the organization is not their

record keeping. They still keep records, but the main focus of their their thrust is conservation efforts and dissemination of information. And they're funding a whole bunch of stuff. You know. They just have this niche that they work in. And so, man, when people give BC a bad rap, I got the man, I'm not I'll kick your I'm not giving BC a bad rap. No, no, no, not you, Steve. I know you would. I know you're not. Really, I'm not saying you.

I'm just saying people because people do. And it's because they don't know. They couldn't tell you what I just told you. You know, it's super embarrassing to me, Clay. I spent my whole life saying my old man was a score because he was like, dude, I know he scored for Pope and young, But I always said he was a scorer for commemorative Bucks of Michigan, Boone and

Crockett and Pope and young. But then the dudes that Boone and crock had told me, your old man wasn't a score because they went and looked in the database and his old his name wasn't in there, so he was lying or I didn't remember right, But he was a score because everybody, I've all few grown up people would bring their gear over to have a score them. Yeah. And originally the scoring of deer was was like very rudimentary. It was like spread and length of time and that

was it. But then in nineteen fifties we got the model that we now know today. We're on like a five by five buck, you would have twenty measurements or

something like that. Um, So, you know, I think the main thing to think about too, like to just say this is like solid rational thinking that takes into account the last hundred years of what's happened in American North American conservation is that a scoring system turned the hunting culture from a market hunting culture into a conservation hunting culture by putting emphasis on older mature males. I think it's that simple and That's why we had tipped to

it today. That's why we say, oh man, he killed a buono crocket buck. Guys say that and they have no idea what they're saying. I mean, people say it all the time and and and it's it's like, heck, yeah, I'm glad somebody stepped up to the plate and changed

us from a bunch of market hunting fools. So the criticism of that decay would be like in, and he's not hacking on BC, That's right, I understand the criticism would be there like in it's not useful, like there there are other ways that we could uh measure the health of a population of critters, And so they we

and we do. That's right, And so hefl Finger and Taylor Lashar, who has written for the Meat Eater dot com very recently, they looked at Pope and Young Dallas, Safari Club and Boone and Crockett tracked the trends over time, and they wanted to see if they all basically agreed with each other on like the trend of the or

of deer um. And if they did agree with each other, then you could see why this is relevant and why this information would be helpful if they didn't agree with with each other, Say you had the you know, Boone Crockett club was really high in the fifties and now it's really low. For like, the score of critters and Pope and Young was really low in the fifties and now it's really high. Then then you could argue that

these criticisms, um like are legit. What they noticed, though, is that all three clubs agree with each other on the trend of the score of antlers from like the fifties up until now, meaning that this is relevant. You can like assess something based off of only looking at the top one per cent of critters only because they all agree that that was my understanding from a criticism,

that's a criticism. No, No, he is saying that because Pope and Young has the same trend as d C I, and because d C I has the same trend as Boone and Crockett, that you could actually look at these numbers and like make some informed decisions by only looking at the biggest things that have the biggest antlers and the biggest horns. I wish I would have read this thing myself, because I'm telling you that's what it says oh my god. But okay, think about places where where

they are not big deer. Let's just take white tails that we're all familiar with, Like, there's not a lot of Boone and Crockett deer coming out of Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and it's it's because are populations of deer for the habitat are are sometimes overpopulated. Um, you know, like big deer coming out of the Midwest, or we probably have some of the healthiest deer herds in the country minus c W D. But man, here's why Spencer didn't read

the article right. Think about it like this. Let's say I said, I'm gonna find a way to measure the health of humans by measuring their thumbs. And I'm like, what I do is I measure the length of their thumb. Then I measure around the big knuckle, and that thumb gets a score. And this is how I'm gonna track how well humans are doing. Is are they making big people with big thumbs. At the same time, Chester here says, you know, I'm gonna attract how well humans are doing

by measuring thumbs. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna measure the length of the thumb, and then the circumference of the thickest part of that thumb, regardless of where it sits. And Seth then says, yeah, I'm gonna check the well being of humans by measuring thumbs. I'm gonna measure the length of the thumb. Plus I'm gonna take four circumferences off the thumb and the thickness of the nail, and the thickness of the nail. He's gonna

measure the thickest of the nail too. So here we have Buona Crock, I'm boone Crock, Club Chester so far club Seth is poping. Okay, we're all measuring thumbs a little different, but we're all measuring thumbs. But they do. They do have difference, very minute different. That's why I'm trying to make these thumb measurements minutely different. If later someone said, oh, what his Ronella's thing about measuring these

stupid thumbs to see how well people are doing? Um, let's test whether it's appropriate to see what Chester and Seth thumb measurements are like. And Chester and Seth are like. Oh yeah, bro, um, I've noticed the same thing with my thumb measurements. That doesn't tell you anything. Well, I mean, there's a lot this this analogy. I'm not sure it flies because it's actually it's actually a perfect analogy. We don't know that human thumb length has any correlation to

human health. We do know antler development. We did know that antler development, which is directly related to animal health, is is massively correlated. Hey here, I think this could help solve some of this debate. I want to make up quick bet with you, Clay. Okay, I'll bet you five dollars that Spencer is not doing a good job of telling us what the article is about. Can I read you a few sentences from the article? Let me make my bet first. I mean, who's deciding if he's

done this? I'll bet you a dollar then, okay, alright, Spencer, prove that you're reading the article right. This is from the article. If trends in horn and antler size were being influenced by a minimum entry score biased, then we would expect that different record different records programs with different minimum size requests that hard story about the direction and

the strength of trends. For example, the strength of trends in the horns and antlers recorded by the Boone and Crockett Club with a higher minimum should be less than the trends in the poping young records with a lower requirement from well, you didn't tell me that part? What what part did I leave out about the minimums and all that? Yeah, I said that the minimums that there's like check or cash. No, because here's the thing, here's the thing. Just because he understood it doesn't mean that

he delivered it properly. I've been working with this guy for a little while, and I'll tell you if there's one thing that Spencer new heart is, it is it is like correct in you know, Okay, he he's on his game. So he was, Yes, I'm changing my complaint. He understood it well, but in explaining it to me now he left out the part that would have made me understand. Now here's here's my Now it's making total sense.

And they saw the trends were the exact same. See, I knew if Hefflefinger sent it over, it had to have been reasonable. That's why that's why I thought you were messing it up. My gripe with the Boone and Crocket Club is not the Boone and crock Club's fault. It is when people hold up states like Wisconsin and say that they are the big buck king because they have more Boone and Crockett and Pulping Young records than anybody.

But I am sure that they do not kill two or three times as many giant deer as a state like Texas. It's just that the culture prioritizes entering them in places like Wisconsin. Yeah, and then in Texas. You gotta remember if it's high fence that they won't know, they'll still accept it in some other not Boon and Crockett. Well, no, they do, but they also don't they keep track of

road kills and stuff and some other sort of thing. Well, so Boone Crockett Club keeps track of all animals despite method of kill, and they even keep records of pickups because again it's a biological record. So it doesn't matter if a hunter kills it or not. Spencer, you can't get in the like, you can't sort of be honored if it's a high fenced deer. Texas doesn't have to be Texas in this argument either, it can be any state.

Wisconsin does not kill twice as many big giant bucks as Kansas, despite them having twice as many entries in the books. Yeah, you think so dudes in Wisconsin have a higher proclivity or have there's a greater chance that some bugg in Wisconsin is gonna register his buck through BNC. Think. I think that's because all the buck pools at the bars could be because the score their deer to win the stuff, to win the money. You know, I buy that.

I think you're I think you're sort of onto something there. But you're also talking about hunter numbers when you're talking about Wisconsin and Kansas. I mean, like incredibly more hunters in Wisconsin than Kansas. But I think your points well taken, And I don't think the Boone Crockett Boone Crockett Club is trying to say that this is an infallible biological record. You know, at the time it was created, it was

the best we had. It was innovative in it. It worked to turn a market hunting culture into a conservation culture where we said we're going to we're gonna give value to older mature males and a species. So that's a good thing. But what you're saying, Spencer is is right there. There could be holes inside of it, But that doesn't mean that it's totally invalid. You know, in Boone and crock it's not saying that. You know, certainly every deer that net Boone and Croc nets Boone and

Crockett is not being scored, that's for sure. But but ah, I think it. I think it has I think it has good historical precedents. One thing I will say is that the net score is what people get tripped up on as they say, that's not relevant. And that's where you take the symmetrical difference from one side and deducted from the other. They're in the animal is penalized in the scoring system, and people are like, that's not relevant.

And you know, I think I think Boone and Crockett they can't change the way they score animals because they've been scoring animals for a hundred and twenty years. Do you understand that. It's like right here, yeah, So, I mean I think all those guys would say, yeah, there there may be a better way to actually evaluate the size of a white tailed dear rac but we're not gonna do it because we can't because they would invalidate

all the scores behind it. You know. So I think when you look at it, like the idea that the Boone and Crockett Club is just a bunch of ego driven guys wanting to see you as the biggest buck. It's just not true. I mean, it's just really not I mean, I and we know these guys, Steve, you know a lot of these guys, and I mean they're their conservation minded hunters just like us that you know, very few, very few guys are chasing scores. That's my thoughts.

That's fine, that's good. Well are you gonna debate me on Oh? I don't know, we can. I don't know. I just kind of feel like I feel like it's it's like leading to something, man like, it's gonna lead to us going toe to toe on something. Oh I don't know. Okay, you didn't have it. I thought you had a specific Oh no, no no, oh now I'm disappointed. I just want to swear off on something, man so real quick, speaking of watch this segue, Spencer speaking of

deer having um big old antlers. Uh. I magine if they had big old tusks take it away, seth, And they used to that was good over good. They don't anymore. But some dear it's rare. Some dear still have fangs or K nine's and the month Jack. Yeah, there's there's still species of deer out there that have them. Yeah, his name. One of them is the month Remy shot one month. Where are they from? Keep talking anyway, there's a South Asia, there's Asia. He's got little tusks, yeah,

great big tuscans. Um. There's a podcast listener that that wrote in and sent a picture of a deer he shot in South Texas, um that had canines. Um, And so I started looking in a deer with K nine's and UM found an article written by Kip Adams back in two thousand sixteen where he cited a lot of people in here. Um. But basically, uh K nine is like an evolutionary throwback to ancestral deer that had big

K nine's big fangs. Um, and that's what like elk ivory. Yeah, because the vestigial tusk like it used to have a tusk out doesn't. Yeah, which do you think you think like thousand years from now they'll eventually just be gone? You think they'll evolve away from that? I don't think a thousand years is ten thousand million. I don't know I think it's headed towards the going away. Yeah, they

just don't need them. It's headed towards going away. Um. But there was interesting studies done, um, you know, across the US, and it kind of seems as if like really like depending on the region, it's more prevalent than other places. For instance, UM, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula there was they looked at a hundred and sixty six deer and found that four of those deer, which is two points, we had k nines. Um. They looked deer in the Lower Peninsula, they looked at a hundred thirty four which

one of them had K nine which is point zero seven. UM. In Florida they looked at deer. Four of those had K nine's four. So I don't know, could be that deer in in certain areas they're still holding onto that ancient ancestral trade. Yeah. We had a guy right in I remember this dude right and in. But another dude wrote in recently and he had shot a fanged a

tusked buck. I think it was in Florida that had this crazy facial matt marking, like it had like this mask on its face black and they were saying that that was sort of like this this you know, this like this recessive gene that had been triggered in that deer for whatever reason. Louisiana was it Louisiana a crazy looking like face mask similar to other deer forms. It

had a black y on its face. At the top of the y started it like its pedicles, and then it met like like where its eyes are, and then that why the bottom of it continued all the way down to its nose. And that was the marketing. Jim Heffinger was quoted an article about that deer saying, yeah, that's just like a throwback um piece of genetics that made it into this deer. In he also talked about

the black markings on their face. If you look at a white tails lower jaw, can you picture white tails lower jaw where it has that black ring like right behind its nose. That is where the fangs would have stuck out in a white tail, and it'd be black there to make them show better other deer and show them how big and impressive their fangs are. So you see that black ring along the bottom jaw. I like that, man. One last thing, when I touch on real quick, another

dude wrote in tell this story south Yep. So there's another dude that that rode in. He's from Um, Southeast New Hampshire, and he wrote in about a buck. He thought it was a buck, a buck that he killed um in southeast New Hampshire. He said it was in an area that has very high hunter density, a lot of pressure. Um. He shot at November nine and it

was with three other doughs. It was four deer altogether, and he thought it was weird when the deer came through that the buck was the first of the four. So the buck was leading the dos, which but it wasn't a buck. It wasn't a buck. You would think November nine that the buck would be in the back, but it wasn't a buck. He shoots this deer. Oh, I got what he's saying. It was unusual because yeah, the buck would always be following the dos. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. Let me let me plug an article

real quick. Pat Jrking is publishing an article in the media dot com in January that talks about why the bucks and bulls are always last when they're walking out at night and you're waiting to kill him. Why are they always last ones I already know. I have have to read that one. I don't really know. Um. Anyway, So this this guy, he shoots his deer and it it goes a short distance and falls, and he calls a buddy to have him help him, and why he's waiting

for his buddy goes down and looks like for first blood. Um. And while he's doing that, he noticed a a spike comes around and by a grunting and all hot and bother, because can you do that grunt even though you can't do the squeal of or the roar of a weasel? Yeah right, all right, all right, um. Anyway, he comes all he comes by, all hot and bothered. The close distance finally sees him, spooks off, and the guy here's

body shows up. They started tracking the deer and uh, same buck comes through again grunting and sees him again spooks off. So on you know one of these deer, I think they assumed that it was the one that d shot um, even though it was carrying round antlers. Um. So they they took they took this deer to get aged, and the biologists just recently got back to him and said it was seventeen years old that is unbelievable. Transgendered

dear go in too estras though I don't know. I mean it's it had all the female organs, That's what That's what I was gonna say. I'm I'm not sold on the idea that antler dough would be fertile. I don't know. I mean maybe only maybe it didn't throw antlers every year. And the guy that wrote it wrote transgender, but spelled it d e e er like a little joke transgender transgender. Um, I wonder, and I honestly wondered.

This does the but if she comes into heat, she comes into estras and the and the buck goes the breeder. Does the bucket thrown off? Is there? Does the buck register like something's not right when it sees the antlers? Or does it just like he he smells what he needs to smell and that's all he cares about. I think it from like a year behavior standpoint, a buck would see the visual queue of antlers from a long distance, and he might come in to investigate, thinking he's about

to get in a fight. Once he got closer and actually engaged the attention of the dough that had antlers, that dough would begin to send body signals that she wasn't a buck, and he would then that would then override the visual que that this is a buck because of antlers. I don't care what you got on your head. Yeah here for I think I think that smell just just trumps everything. Yeah, that time of year, that's all they're thinking about. No judgment. Just curious, man, Yeah, just curious.

Someone's gonna fill up our inbox with like a trail camp photo of a buck mounting another buck. It's happened, for sure. Uh. Now we're gonna start getting pictures of that. Yeah. And then uh when when you're separating Kyle's in their calves, and and and when they're coming into you know, uh, never mind, there's situations where out of it, there's situations where cows mount cows, steers jumping on each other all the time. So the stuff goes on. Now, Clay, I'm

gonna see you very soon. We're gonna go deer hunting. You can't decide if you're gonna bring your bow or your gun. You don't need to decide right now. I want to tell you something I do not believe and bringing both. I think it's wrong. I don't believe in bringing both. If you're a bow hunter, then be a damn bow hunter. Don't come and be like I'm gonna try with my bow and then switch to my gun because I'm a bowl hunter only up to the point

where I might get afraid that I won't be successful. Okay, can I it's immoral. I would like to refer to my lawyer, Spencer me heart, and I would also like to say that I am not like fighting for this position, but you've been hitting that. You hinted to me, Oh, I've been bringing both and I will not hunt with you. Well, what Spencer, I'm gonna let Spencer talk first, he's itching to go. I I was fighting for Clay to bring both.

Me like take your both for a few days. Third day rival, I think one of the worst sayings in hunting. And it's something that I heard on the outdoor channel when I was probably like twelve or thirteen years old, and uh it it like ruined me for a period of time. And it was this outdoor show that I was watching where the woman was at some big buck outfitter and I don't recall. I can take a guess, doesn't matter. I could take a guess, but it wouldn't

be fair to them if I was wrong. They were at like some outfitter in Iowa or Kansas, and it was the last day of the hunt, and like a hunter and twenty inch probably three and a half year old white tail buck walks by and they choose to pass, and then uh they cut to the interview and the woman says, now, you never shoot something on the last day that you wouldn't shoot on the first, and that I was like, oh, like, that's that's good advice, right,

Like that's good advice. That she stole that from Yanni and messed it all up. So so I I take a lot of issue with that saying. And you're saying a version of that that, Like I you're saying that, like you cannot go into a haunt and move the goalpost. You can't go into hunt and be like, I'm gonna kill a hunter and fifty inch buck and then on the second to last day you're like, well, of course, of course, and then then a hunter and buck walks,

but kill that instead. How is that okay? How is that different than what you're telling I just think showing up with all kinds of weapons that you have like in your head sort of teared out as like best case you know, I'd be like, well, I'm really trying to get one with my bow now. Failing that, I'm gonna try to get with my rifle. Failing that, I will try to get on with my truck. It's just like I just like, just make up your mind. Man,

isn't here, Here's here's the nick of your mind. What when you when you say that what you are prioritizing in your hedgemon of of ideas is that the method of kill is most important. And I used to know you are, but can I used to be I I steve you're This is touching on some deep rooted issues inside of me because I grew up with such a strict bow hunting, in such a strict bow hunting world that like, I mean, we we didn't have guns. We

we we bow hunted. And as I became an adult, I feel like, and I still all loved bow hunt, That's like my default thing to do, but I kind of just became okay with using a gun, and so I kind of and and obviously I still love to bow hunt, but so I look at it more from a the macro hunt picture like I would like to go where we're going and take a good white tail deer. I would prefer to do it with a bow. I don't know what I'm against, don't I don't know what

I'm up against. But Steve, I want to say too, I'm on your team on this. I like what you said that that I was like, yeah, I like that. I mean, I like the idea of not switching. I don't like to switch. I've switched before, and I've brought a bow and I've brought a rifle or a bow and a shotgun. It just never seems to work out for me that well because I'm not I like the commitment at least when for me it's just it hasn't worked out that well. It's like bring the bowl, stick

with it, or bring the situation too. Is we have a very short time period, you know, we we don't have a lot of time to get this done. But so I'm on your team, Steve. But it's like a hard never do that philosophy, you know, I got I think we give I think we've got to give some

grace to me. That's like some version of what that woman said on the outdoor channel, and that was a mantra that it went buy for a while that I would like to go back and retroactively kick my own ass for like passing on deer, because I was like, you know what, you never shoot a deer in the last day that you wouldn't shoot on the first. It's

saying there, there, it goes both ways. Are day ever pass up on the first day what you'd be happy to have on the last I'm telling you what this woman said on the outdoor channel that caused me to pass on many deer in the future, that I would I wish I could go back and does deer because I would have been happier in the moment shooting that younger buck than not shooting it. And then just like having that matra rolling around in my head, like you don't shoot a buck on the last day, you wouldn't

shot them the first. That's not good, dear management. I'll have the last word. Uh No, that's different. That's all Clay. I don't care what in the world you bring down there. You just bring one of them. No, I actually have your rifle on bringing it, so you either decide either way. I'm bringing to the rifle. Yeah. I like the archery idea though. Oh yeah, I think that's what you should do. Man, we'll have a hell of a lot of fun. Let's

do it. The cool part about that this one is gonna be peak rot um rattling is gonna be very effective. And the interaction you're gonna have at close distances by rattling bucks in is gonna be pretty sweet. And we're on like private land in Texas that barely no one gets the hunt on. It could be really good. It could be really good. I think it's gonna be. If it was anything like last year when we were there, when Steve was hunting Neil Guy last year, yeah, I'd

be like, oh, look at Zebra. It was. It was insanely good and we weren't hunting white Tail's. Well, I've got a decoy. I picked up a decoy today, a real mobile decoy that we can just pop out real quick. It's a pop up decoy, double sided, pop up decoy, Montana decoy. So man, we'll pop that thing out. We'll just have to be pretty strategic with our setup because you're gonna be rattling for me, Steve, right, yeahs are unifairy bit about too much rattling and not enough randoling.

We'll get it all sorted Outcoy. I don't know if our friendship is gonna hold up, but we'll get it sorted out. Oh man, Alright, guys see you, guys see sa