Ep. 307: Talking About Things That Are Not Sexy to Talk About

your phone on. This is safe, Doug. This is safe. Dog a lot of trouble, especially if he cuts off his fingers off in a farm accident, like, yeah, he's looking, He's already got a named up. If Doug had an app that he could just turn his phone on, right, turned like the voice recorder on, and it would just fact check everything everybody told him for him anyways, and

then do alerts when he found a problem. So that way Doug could like maintain eye contact with people he's talking to and not be busy typing everything you tell him into his phone to find out but what you said isn't actually true. Yeah, right, he's fact checking you. I'll still part of the conversation. Yeah, I'll be like, oh, you know acorns, you know they as see as they sure they drop around you know October second, Well, actually you know if you look October one's peak, acorn dropped there.

We had an argument about how many discussion I should say about how many acorns and oak tree drops when Steve was at the place one time, and um, I don't know, it was widely varying. I said ten thousand, he said a thousand or something like that, and we were trying to find it on Google as I do and as I'm as I'm talking right, And at that moment a friend of mine calls and I said, well, this guy I'll know, and Steve goes, okay, this is

the Whatever he says is the answer. And I think he said a thousand, and he's I'm no longer friends with that guy. I feel like that's conversation to have with Clay. I'm taking my I'm taking my kids to Dug Durn's the spring, and um, a lot of enthusiasm about ditch burning because they got to burn ditches. It dugs and they're like anything that's on fire and imagine

if fired it's three yards long. It's like there's like for a kid, there's you know nothing because at the problem with every fire is in their mind, every fire is not long enough. But here's a fire that runs way down the road with a crook in the middle of it too that you possibly where you can get you can get burnt, and two soakers just to keep the excitement alive. This past spring, I ended up moving the fire across the road and damn near burning pine

trees down Yeah. I was gett a little stressed out. The pine duff caught on fire. So the next thing you know, we had a hose down there and Jimmy was getting fire instructions from Steve. I felt like put a little helmet on him. They were like, okay, dial nine one and put your finger on the one. All right. So Doug's obviously here, Sean Weavers here, Krian Spencing, New Hearts way down in the corner. Spencer's gonna hit us with another little Google fact before we proceed. Phil, who

looked like a skater a minute ago. But you took that skater hat off. This is this is the hat I wear when um my hair looks like shit. Oh yeah, warm Springs production hat. That's right. Cute little bang sticking out of their T shirt. Thanks man, Ritchie, Ritchie one, tell tell me what you want Richie. And were you surprised when he won? Uh? Yeah, no I was. I was very surprised that nothing like that ever happens to me. Mum, I'm the podcast winner of the trip you giveaway. So

so how did how did we know? How did like meat Eater notify you that you want the thing and we're coming to play trivia? Well, that was really bad about checking my email that week that I won and I almost missed out on it. We they almost moved down to the next person moved on. That's that. That's actually really strict. I believe it. It has to be right when I've been involved in t RCP giveaways. Um,

there's sort of like the set thing. It's like there's this set cadence in which you notify especially and then you have to like bump along and you can't. I'll spare everybody, But anyways, you probably probably did get lucky, very lucky because the one year colleagues actually found my numbers somewhere and Karin called me out of the blue,

so she had it broke some kind of law. Maybe I don't know what you guys laws are on that, but yeah, like the sweep Steaks people sweep like the sleep Steaks version of the A T F At what age do you decide if you're Ritchie with a Y or Richie with an I E? What do you what do you use? So you do R I C H Y. Yeah, since I learned how to write my name Tucson, Arizona, Arizona. If you had to put your trivia skills on a sliding scale at one to ten, where would you land?

It depends on the day of the week. Someday you're pretty hot, Sundays I'm hot, Somedays I'm not. Spencer hit him with a sample trivia. A sample sample trivia. Here's my favorite trivia question. We use it all the time. Okay, okay, Well, let me think of a good one name for me. M h okay. I've got a good one, but I don't want to burn it because I gave it the Spencer and it will be a good one. Oh, here's a good one. This is watch this segue pronounced this

word for me? Oh, cow's cups? Which version you want see? He already wont answer. The answer was the correct answer was depends. I had me a brand new sticker from Jim Heffelfinger's also here and Ross Comperman from First Lights here, my esteemed colleague. Great to be here, Uh, Jim Heffelfinger. UM, I don't want to say you and dog are my favorite people, but you're up there, up there. Um brought me a sticker that says here here, here's the problem

with the sticker. Okay, yeah, no, I'm gonna read it like this. It's a sticker with a picture of Elliott cous Elliott cows. Okay, cows, just like Okay, this guy believed in levitation. He was kind of a crackpot. He was kind of a cracker. He was like he had some hits, a brilliant people are Yeah, he had some hits and some misses. Uh pronounced his name cows cows. And now there's a spirited debate whether you say a

cus deer or a cow's deer. I would say there's not much debate, everybody, because I always earned to Um. I didn't know that these things existed until I became a subscriber to Western Hunter magazine, published by Chris Denham Denham and Chris Denham told me that he'll say who's till the day he dies, and he doesn't care what anybody says. So I just said a lot of people

like that. I adopted that, but half a finger actually wrote you wrote like an academic paper, no magazine article being Yeah, I'll be in the next issue of that. It was in a while, ife views and he goes into all the details. Okay, go ahead, hit me with it. Talk me into it, because I'm not gonna switch, but talk me into it. Yeah, And that's the issue I didn't tell the good part of the sticker. The good part of the sticker says, it says who's white tail deer?

No it doesn't. It says who's white tail dear? Butcher the deer, not the name. Before you go, before you talk, I'm gonna point something out you. When you write white tailed deer, you do white hyphen tailed. When we do books and our books go to the final copy edit person, like the real crackpot copy editors, they always do that. They always change it to that, and I always set it said it meaning I always reject the correction and

I make it say white tail. So you're wrong on a couple counts on that one sticker sticker and you've got two errors. Let me tell you something. Are you familiar with um? Like? Uh? When it comes to English language use, there's sort of like two dictionaries, right, there's two types descriptive in prescriptive no meaning, one seeks to describe how the language is used, and one seeks to advise on how to use the language. I to be

more descriptive. And when I see a deer, like let's Sam's sitting there in a place that has mule deer and white tails, and someone says, okay, do I say, oh, no, that's a white tailed deer. I don't. I'll go that's the white tail. I say white tail. But when I write it, you know, the correct way to write it is white tailed deer. So when you write it it has to be As a biologist, it has to be white tailed deer. But in the magazine, I say white tails.

When I'm sitting braocular, I say white tails. Okay, taught me to tell me why it's cows. And I'll never bring it up for the rest of my life. But I won't I won't switch. That'll never bring it up for the rest of my life. It's just pretty simple. His name was pronounced cows. How did everybody? Did he tell you his name? And he did? Actually, yes, yes,

so late was he levitating? He was? He wrote a book called Kyle check Lists of Birds in North America, and one of those birds has a subspecies name that's cows named after him. And he has a footnote that says, here's how my family name is pronounced ceow z. So he, in his own words, in his own publication, tells everybody how to pronounce his name. So there's really no there's no question how it's supposed to be pronounced. There's a

big question of how people choose to pronounce it. I then you choose to pronounced any way they want, but they should recognize what's correct. What is it? I don't know how you come back from that. Yeah, that's hard to come back to it. I mean, elliot, come back like you come back with a sentence like this. Me and Ross are going coos. You're hunting in January. That reminds me of the white tailed versus white tail reminds

me of one. Damn So if your car doesn't start in the morning, are you someone that says, my damn car didn't start, or my damned car didn't start. I've had this debate with several people. I fall into the ladder like it was, you'll put the d on there. It was damned that's why it didn't start. On the switch, I will switch that. I don't know. Right there, I go, Spencer hits with your quick little factor, not little, a little factoid, your little punt gun factoid? What that? I

don't believe, But I kind of think. I don't think Sean and I came to an agreement because I can't find anything definitive. The only thing I can find is on You're not gonna accept this Wikipedia. No, no, no, listen man, h no, I'm not. I'm not. When you're if you're at a like an actual if you're writing for um um, when you go through the fact check process that a magazine, they won't accept Wikipedia. But is

there a is there a footnote like source? Yeah? But then I can't find anything within that source that backs up with the Spencers trying to tell me that in eighteen sixty they had already banned the punt gun. I feel like it was a rolling band that like some states were out lying, and then at one point it's like, uh,

everybody said no to it. This sentence again, you're not gonna accept it from Wikipedia, tis in the United States to practice depleted there, this practice depleted stocks of wild waterfowl. By the eighteen sixties, most states had banned the practice. Lacy Act of nineteen Hunter banned the transport of wild game across state lines in the practice of marketing. Market hunting was outlied outlawed by a series of federal laws

in nineteen eighteen. I don't feel like that's satisfied, Trivia voice, Dude, you they're just still not buying it, because, like I can sit here right here, there's a nineteen fourteen listing of the punt gun owners in suth Quhana Flats. There's like a punt guns Association, punt gun enthusiasts. You know, when I was researching the punt gun, they still have like wildlife officers in India that will confiscate like two or three a year from people that are out killing

waterfowl with them. Man, I think that we should and I'll okay this right here and now I think we gotta get it. We gotta start getting in on those sites where you can buy a punt gun and get a punt gun, start messing around with it out in the field. Yeah, that we should get a punt gun. Let's do that and some real cheap, beat up old decoys Facebook Marketplace or something. See how big a spread we can hit clay pigeons. I don't know that works. I would love to get a punt gun and start

having become like a punt gun enthusiast. Do you think your kids would be more into the fire or the punt gun. Oh, if we got a big ditch fire going and then we're gonna shot the punt gun down into the fire, we don't have to choose, they would like Yeah, they would be very into that. I want in on this. That sounds awesome. Rosby shoved my kids out of the way, and we can we can get this punk gun like an LLC. Get about twenty of us, right, and everyone pitches in a couple of hundred bucks. We

got a punk gun all of a sudden. No, I just think that, well, I think that that that our company will just buy the punt gun. There you go, that's good. Can you start bidding on punt guns for us? I will do some real research because I feel like you're being for real. Oh, I'm dead serious. I don't know. I'm gonna put the mic down now and start typing. So I thought Steve was joking about this lazy boy you're sitting in Spencer for months. It turns out he wasn't.

So I would say just go ahead. If we had a punt gun, I would become a punt gun enthusiast. Yeah for sure. Uh that's a great segue. And u um, another edition of Shaun's Duck Report. Now, Sean, I gotta warn you you get to talking about science E stuff. M Yeah, you gotta health finger sitting here. That's fair. So normally when someone talks about something science E. A couple days later I get an email being actually so

he's just gonna be able to live do it? Dogs already typing out he started started and dogs already typing this one. Well, I actually wanted to talk about two different waterfoul things because one is like constant email thing we get or you know, messages on Instagram whatever else. Right, breast first one this year, I mean the first one that was so bad it was unquestionably inedible during the

Youth Duck season. Yeah, what do you mean, I mean inedible because it messes with you because it's not inedible. That's the conversation I want to have about this. It's this. If it was like a thing that was happening to me all the time, I'd get over it. Okay, I'm raising a family now. I picked my battles night. We had ducks and duck hearts. Pretty impressive. Why I what I do is I take um bear fat or pork fat, and I simmer the duck hearts in the at for a long time, just in the bubbles. Then I put

them on a skewer and put him on a hot grill. Okay, I make my kids eat them. Do they like them or do they object? No, they end up liking them. But I'm like, eat that. Then you have the other stuff. Okay, do they know what it is, Steve, Oh yeah, it's got it's got a hole in it, so yeah, that's where his blood comes in and out. Um. But if I don't want to do like, I don't want to do the I didn't want to serve that. There's been one we we believe in the like everybody's got it.

We don't cook special stuff like everybody eats everybody eats. There's been one time we had something made out of older deer's liver and my daughter's crying about it. She didn't like it, and um, I was like, I don't care, and then my wife. If my wife goes rosy, you don't need to eat that. But yeah, it would just cause a lot of trouble if i'd but because we were all looking at it, and if I served it, it would have set me back and then like I

would have lost credibility. So here's where here's the point I bring up that I feel like doesn't ever get discussed. The only time I ever noticed rice breast personally is if I've breasted a bird. But if you're plucking your birds, you're never looking past the skin. So you're probably a lot of rice breasted birds. This is you're doing a microaggression. Yeah, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. You ever hunt you do you ever hunt youth duck season? Yes?

And I know you're not plucking them. Then I there, they got all the pin feathers. They got all the pin feathers, of course, and there's no fat and the skin is too thin. My entire point is that the the discussion around the messages I get around like should I eat a rice breasted birds? Only because so rice breast is uh sarco cystus. It's pretty much ciss in the breasts of the duck that look like rice. Hence the rice breast. Is it all posters? It is it posters?

A little worms. They're technically assist created by whatever the parasite is. That's it's not actual worms. It's just a cyst created by the parasite and minor infection. Oh and it looks, I mean, it looks ridiculous. It gets and for whatever reason, it seems like birds you shoot early in the year, you know, shovelers off the local ship ponds. Tends to be like the duck you find with it.

It's not pleasant to look at it all. If I give if, if if I gave you a Pepsi challenge of the most rice breasted duck on the planet, m in a non do you feel that you'd be able to pick out the rice breast? Oh? No, I don't. Like, I don't know you've been eating them. I've never not eating them. Yes, the double negative, because because like it's a mess, it's a point for me is like that.

I'm sure I've eaten dozens of rice breast birds when they're plucked, but you so why not eat them when they're breasted because I feel like, let me ask you, yess no question, a tournament to tacos so you don't have to look at it. Have you ever found one so bad that you discarded it? I probably have when I was younger, not anytime recently. So your your hypothesis is because you know or probability wise, you've probably ingested this several times without knowing it and nothing bad ostensibly

happened to you. That is perfectly fine. I mean, it's it's like unanimous that it's doesn't affect it doesn't hurt humans in any way. It just grows to look at cook it, like let's just say you smoke a sarcrocystic duck breast or you you know, grill it or you like, can you actually look at the cooked meat and see that there is a difference and is there a textural difference when you're you definitely see it, but I haven't noticed it like texture wise. But you have a picture

here that that's an extreme case. That's an extreme case. That's what I had this. That's what we had this youth season. One duck had it? Really Now call Hint mentioned to me that he mentioned to be something to the effective. I'm not surprised because it's been such a warm fall. Does that make any sense to you? I have no clue. I don't know enough about it. I don't think Jim, I don't either, have ever never heard that relationship. We'll give it go go on? Are Is

that all you're gonna say about that? That's all I wanted to talk about. What that was? Just raised that point that nothing's gonna happen to you. It's just it's unsightly. But there's no thing that says you're gonna wind up with a deadly parasite. Now. Now, yeah, jack rabbits in southern Arizona have have taper rom larva, and that it's not the kind of tape f rom they can affect human. So you can technically, as long as you cook a

good you can eat it, and we do. If there's a few tape room here and there, we still keep all the meat. But sometimes you get one that's just loaded, and that one we let the kyot tab. Do you know, hum, I have a new doctor, the world's greatest doctor. Her name is Katie m Yanni's doctor too. I just found out. Yeah, she's so tight lipped. She is. She's so tight lipped. She didn't tell me she was Yanni's doctor. Well I don't. I think there's some laws about that. Well, she sticks

to him. I found out from Yanni was his doctor because I'm down there breaking a thing. I'm down there telling her about me and Yanni and the trickonosis situation. And she's not like, oh, yeah, that's my patient. He told me that too. She played totally dumb. But now sarr In they and he's like, that's my doctor. I told her about that, so impress. Anyways, she's getting this

whole thing rolling too. She's helping us pursue this biopsy in state in state m HM, to get the deep muscle biopsy and our biceps to find those little larva's in there. I have some more info for you about that. Well, I need to connect you with my uh doctor. She'll probably play dumb with you. Is the is it um is her last initial in the second half of the alphabet. You can say her name, do it again, Oh that's your doctor. Yeah, world's greatest doctor. Uh okay, go launch on. Okay.

So the like the waterfowl topic I wanted to really talk about today was specific to this year, which is the crazy weather we've been having and how it affects waterfowl specifically, like um, two things, one being the drought that's been pervasive across the country, especially the west. Um, and to just how mild it's been. But first and foremost was last winter, well last fall winter and into the spring was about as dry as you could ever ask for in the Dakotas and Saskatchewan, which is where

most the continents waterfowl nest um prairie pothole region. North Dakota was down on their pond counts in May. Are you serious? Yeah? Sixty seven percent below the long term average, which you can only imagine how many fewer ducks at least you've gotta be kidding. Pond countdown, poncomp meeting someone counting baby do like no so um, sorry, not the actual counting of ducks, but the physical ponds like spots

for them nest on reduction. And yeah, so if there was a hundred times last year, now there's twenty or whatever. No ship So we don't know that that will correlate. I mean, we obvious obviously it's not good, But you don't know that that means necessarily a reduction in ducks

because there could be some buffering of some sort. But we know it, I mean, we know there's the relationship of that it hurts the duck population in addition to that, which um, luckily we have like long term harvest data and like adaptive management, but we also like don't we didn't have counts from Canada because of COVID, so we're kind of a little blind right now on like what

the duck duck population might be with this drought. To go like a little more into how severe the drought was, Bismarck, North Dakota recorded their third driest year on record, only preceded by dust bowl years, which I mean, that's that's pretty extreme. Well, anyway, what all this comes back to is like we know, just based on the pond counts and the water situation, that we have less ducks going

into fall this year. We don't know exactly what that number looks like because we didn't get a waterfowl count, but we had less ducks going into the fall. And then in addition to that, we have like undeniable warming. We have just so much warmer falls. Last fall November was the warmest November on record ever. Um this November was the seventh warmest November on record in the United States, and it was also like the eighth driest was the average war like averaged out to be the warmest Norman's

November on record. Yeah, and so what this like, what this eventually leads to is just this later shift in the waterfowl migration. And you have and there's several factors that I'll discuss as I like keep coming on, because there's it's a very complicated issue. It's beyond just whether it's beyond just drought. It has to do with agriculture,

it has to do with urbanization. Like, there's so many factors, but one of them that this year is so undeniable is like the weather, the climate has changed and the ducks are moving south later. And there's a lot of frustrated people so far this season. For sure, it's been a hard duck season for a lot of people. You pointed out that Minnesota just had their um first recorded December tornado. Yeah, I mean talking about tornadoes in Minnesota.

What was December wild mm hmm, yeah. I was in South Texas last week for my son's graduation to get a PhD in wildlife. We went down there to see him walk shout out to Levi ninety degrees for the commencement December, and it just like leaves water, you know, the waterfowl hunters in the North, Like the data shows that there duck hunting success doesn't necessarily get affected by weather changes because inevitably, like hunters in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin,

they already have the birds. The birds are nesting there or like they're the birds never don't come that far south. They always at least get that far. But um, there's quite a bit of data and and like a correlation of the the lower the pond counts and the warmer the year, like just obviously I mean anecdotally but also scientifically makes sense. The South struggles they don't kill as many ducks, didn't you last wasn't last year one of

the highest? Um, I guess I would call it pond counts, But there was a lot of water in the Dakotas as two years ago. And we're going through some just wild fluctuations, flood drought, flood drought. And it's because it was only I would I would say it was probably four or five years ago we were at the highest duck count ever. Oh really, and then now we're on a real slide. Highest duck count or highest pond duck count just five years. The reason we don't have duck

counts the last two years is COVID. Hey, guy, I put in a request for the next first songs for the next John's Duck Report or whenever sometime in the future, can you do a duck report on age demographics? Oh of duck hunters or no, no, no, I don't care about that. Of the ducks. Ducks. Maybe age demographic of ducks old asked ducks, We shot a duck or not a duck? Sorry, but you throw this into it water like age demographics on waterfowl. Okay, uh. Did you hear

about when we called in a sandhill? We had a sandhill crane. It was banded seventeen years prior in Fairbanks, Alaska. We killed in Texas. Yeah, that's so crazy. My exaggerating. I think that No, no, no, that's not exaggerating. I think it was seventeen, when I was guiding snow goose hunce, we had an eighteen year old snow goose that was banded as an adult. Yeah, this was banded as an adult. And you know it's funny. I had been to where

it was banded. I like when that happens. We Uh, we shot a duck in Oklahoma that was banded where I live in South Dakota, Oklahoma, to kill a duck that was where we were. Uh. Any harvest data coming in on ducks from this year? Is it a low duck? Is it a low duck here? Is it a good duck here? It's it's a bad duck here. I mean, I haven't seen any actual harvest data, but I can't imagine it's going to be good. It was five years ago,

a good duck here. Yeah, we're on a we're just in general, on a downhill trend of like overall hunter success anyway. And that's kind of what I want to discuss in future duct reports, is all the different factors that are affecting that really, because it's not just as simple as like there's less ducks and it's too warm.

It's it gets way more complicated than that. When you start talking about like crop distribution and even stuff like um power plants and industrial plants and urbanization, like all that is affecting. But I'll I can't get all into it. We'll be here for hours. But there's there's a lot of factors leading to lower hunter success on ducks. But

then you look at like sandhill cranes, snow geese, geese. Yeah, like speckle bellies are booming right now, speckle bellies are I think anecdotally, I think twenty years from now, we'll be looking at speckle bellies the same way we look at snow geese now of like just unbelievable population growth. But ducks are not in the same not in the same ballpark at all. And it really comes back to that prairie poptle region. I mean, that is it. It's

up to the continents nesting ducks. So if the Dakotas in Saskatchewan are in a drought, you just don't have ducks. Got m hm. I feel like a lot of folks will listen to what Sean just said and be like, I fucking told you this year sucks. Yeah, it's not us ducks. There's a like there's a certain element to it for sure, that like it's just, um, it's cyclical, just like any population of animals, and ducks are probably

even more so than a lot of animals. You can't change what the jet stream is doing, or you know, what rain does or what snow does. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's an interesting point because I feel like with big game animals, we have a tendency to blame it on our own behavior to some degree predator management. Yeah, And with waterfowl, it's more of this mystique of like, I don't get it, but I'm not seeing as many ducks. I don't know if it's me. I don't know if

it's the blind I'm hunting in. I don't know if it's you know, but he's calling. But it happening this year, and we can't blame it on ourselves as easily, so it becomes less. Yeah, less are well, And I think, um, you know, we could end up with a snowy winner and by next spring be back into the you know, back into the game, like have all all sorts of ponds. It's that's all it is. You guys just gotta deal with it, get used to it, find ways to be

successful anyway. Yeah, and and just like be willing to adjust the conditions and go different places or like you know, not sit on the same pond every day expecting that like you know that all of a sudden, the ducks are just gonna appear, Like sometimes you're just gonna have to go out and search for those like yeah, okay, there's gonna be fewer ducks, but you still gotta just,

like anything, you gotta go find them. Remember the late nineties when everyone was you know, all of a sudden, you can hunt geese and like we're all getting like bit by mosquitoes hunting geese in the late summer. Is that still going on? Yeah? South Dakota and North Dakota still have an August goose season because then you get like in the in the East, like that goose flyaway is kind of screwed right now. Yeah, they're they're down there, I think one a day. But then like golf course

golf course geese in the Midwest. What's the difference between those two things? Like you could do that now or you can make that a show. And that's that's uh. I think that comes back to the urbanization conversation that we got there, they're like a winner. Yeah, like to some level, Like well, of course Canada geese have one with urbanization, but also somewhat mallards, right, maybe not population wide, but like mallards have definitely adapted to urbanization way better

than any other duck. Friends of mine and Fairbanks were saying that they've got mallards on the university on the campus an Anchorage and Fairbanks they got mallards that have found a way to overwinter. Yeah, that's great. And he said they just get fat and lazy and overwinter in these sort of like populated areas with bubblers and stuff, you know. And he said, and then he's ducks show up in the spring, migrators and it's some like haggard mail that's been like starving to death flying back home.

And he said, those big fat ones come up and be like I'll take it. I'll take her from your boys like that has been biding their time. You know. Yeah, this is this is definitely uh like put a tab on this because we're gonna keep talking about this. There's there's some interesting studies and just conversations around the urbanization stuff, so we'll cover that another time, for sure, got it, Okay, Ross, you ready, let's do it. I think so. Yeah, so

you run the program at First Light. You're a duck enthusiast. Yeah, I appreciate that. Earlier I was saying that Ross is a big time duck hunter, and Ross contested to say he's a long time duck hunter. Yeah. I mean at one point, uh, Steve and I and I think Dan had a conversation about the intersection of passion and talent and how this sometimes there isn't said intersection. I feel like that's my case. Like I'm a passionate water fowler. I don't know that I'm particularly talented at it, but

I've been doing it a long time. Definitely probably spent more time in the duck blind than any other pursuit that I have. Uh so it's spent a lot of time sitting so he Uh but First Light is coming out with the waterfowl line, are you kind of like in your hair, like yes, finally, dude. Yeah, So it's a long long time coming. I mean we've been talking about it as far as I know for at least

eight years. Uh. Waterfowl has always been like the denominator in the office that we just haven't gone after even though like everybody does it more people we always do this kind of nerdy math, but we definitely spend more time collectively water fowling across the office and any other individual pursuit. So it's always been there, I mean shift,

I've met Cal well before our first light. So back in the day, right like when you used to go to your waterfowl zone and put in the boat launch and you knew everybody there because people weren't doing it yet, and it was like a community. And he knew he saw so, and so was rig and you're like, oh, he's here, and you knew where he hunted and stuff. So my buddy Robbie's out there and I motor up to him because I know what blind he's going to

be in. And this was probably two thousand two, um, And I motor up there and Robbie is sitting in the blind and he's got this kid with him with a big gas video camera and he's like, yeah, I'm you know, I'm gonna make some DVDs or something and and this is my friend Ran from Montana. He's out here filming and I remember this. I can't remember like where my keys are right now, but I remember Cal had you know, like the bomber hat on. And I mean I don't know exactly how old Cal is. I

don't think anybody does. But he was like born with that mustache, right yeah, Like I think he was twelve, and he had a pretty thick room going there. No, I just remember this, and um, you know, I think I was let's see, roughly twenty two, so Cal was approximately you know, he's in high school, was my guess, are right around there? Uh, And that's how we met, like and then we didn't see each other for whatever another eight years or something until I went to First Light. Um,

and Cal was the only employee at that point. I was second employee. So there's always been this like backstory. I actually used to waterfowl with Scott, one of the founders, and Kent and the other founder well before as the first light, before first Light was around, and then we

started hiring people. And the cool thing about waterfowl is as we'd hire people from, whether it was Inner Mountain West or Maryland, waterfowl is a denominator, right, like you're not speaking the language of white tail versus Western everybody. Waterfowl goose hunted duck hunted whatever. Um So point being, it's been in our blood for a long time. We've talked about it a long time, and yeah, to your question,

I am definitely really excited to finally get there. I feel like we've been penciling at out and noodling on it for eight years and we finally get to bring it to the table. So pretty excited. Tell people right now what tyfa means. Oh boy, that's gonna be one of the ones that people like. Yeah, tyfa is a great word. Yeah, it's the genus that like cattail belongs to. So all of that sort of marshy uh foliage falls under that sort of cattle or under that category or genus.

I guess you buy that helpful finger to clarify, Yeah, yeah, has gollish well to clarify, type is the name of our new waterfowl pattern. I was good, I was getting there. That'll leave that all. Yeah, well sorry, yeah, a salid question, but yeah, it kind of encompasses that full marshy atmosphere that we developed this pattern to use specifically for. But yeah,

so decides it being in our DNA. The other thing that we are looking at for the last eight years, we're like, man, what a lot of people don't know unless they happen to have tried it, is that you know, our our foundation for our system is Marino. Marino for water fowling is the best goddamn thing to every amazing.

I mean, when you drop your motion decoy wing into the water and you've got to go shoulder deep in there and you pull your arm out, and you have the property Marino that's warm when wet, and then you go home and maybe you know you're hanging out and you forget to dry it. The fact that Marino doesn't stink, it just all comes together and there's properties and all that.

So that was kind of a no brainer. UM. And then we've spent the last several years developing specific fabric packages for waterfowl UM and then really dork ing out on a lot of the features that would make our product UM smarter and more usable and more friendly so that you'd use it and you'd be like, man, I can't believe nobody's thought about this feature before now, which, to be fair and to be transparent, I feel like our foul has long been a forgotten category, and particularly

an apparel. I could say that probably across the board relative to let's say Western big game. I mean, you've seen so much innovation in there over the last twenty years,

and for a variety of reasons. A lot of it was driven from mountaineering technology that people would bother borrow and then apply to that's good man, and you saw that, and you know, they always had like mountain hunting gear, always had something to chase which was exactly exactly right, and it was very easy for folks to say, hey, that's working really well in mountaineering, let's apply that hunting, figure out how to put a pattern on it, you know,

all that sort of stuff. But for whatever reason, probably by virtue of you know, honestly, water fowls a smaller market, I think it was neglected for a really long time, when in fact it's one of the most like from a durability standpoint, it's certainly one of the most demanding pursuits that we take place. And I mean people view waiters, let's be honest, is disposable like if if you can get if you're if you're a core water fowler, and you can get a year out of one without having

to warrante it or repair it. You're pretty psyched. You just don't expect water fowlers don't expect things to last. And we looked at that as you know, like, I don't know, the market was the manufacturers are neglecting that market, and we wanted to make stuff that was like brickshit house tough, smart, and using the same level of innovation that we've seen in the Western big game in White Tail over the last you know, ten to twenty years

and you gotta stay dry. Yeah, you know that's such It's yeah, it seems so simple, but to have something that's light enough to functionally wear and not too bulky and thick to where you can actually still shoulder shotgun and be functional while also like you gotta be dry. When would when when does your average mug be able to go out and be like, oh I can buy it. Well, the product will come to we'll get inventory of it next summer in probably like June July type time, and

that's when we'll have available for purchase. In the meantime, uh, we're gonna start rolling stuff out, some previews and and showing what the individual product looks like between now and then and really get into you know, all the stuff that we think makes it um the best water voiling product in the market. I don't want to, I don't want to mess your story, but you also are stumbling upon the greatest ice fishing line of apparel, and you

did point that out. I'm not gonna deg that, Like what the what you already calling these is, uh, you know, ice fishing another neglected market. There you go, Yeah, well I was gonna say that, Like on the pattern front, That's probably the thing I'm like, I was most excited about when I first got to start screwing around with this stuff was that, over and over, the problem I've

had with products for for years is too dark. Like when you're out in the marsh and you look at guys from a distance, you typically notice they're a black blob, like they are darker than you don't realize how light that fall dried right other vegetation is, and you know, you that's a thing in waterfowl hunting is like cover up any black holes, right and you're blind, Like you want grass hanging over the top to cover that like black hole in the blind or even on a boat,

like you don't want a dark motor on the back showing so you go put a motor cover on it. Like that dark black blob, whether in a field or in a marsh, is like always a problem and it's

always what the birds pick out. And usually camo is just too dark and at least for the marsh environment, for a cornfield environment, because everyone's always trying to create a pattern or a camo that like can ride the line right of like oh you can wear this in the timber of Arkansas or the buckbrush in Missouri, or then a cornfield in South Dakota. It's like, well, because they're very different, those are very different environments. And Tyfa

is light. It's like a light color. Some people would um like maybe in the South might think it's too dark in their environment, and they might be right. But as far as like if you hunt anything grassy, anything marshy, anything agriculture at all, like it looks so good and it's an area where it's just not a debatable point, like it's indisputably benefit camel, Like the right camels indisputably beneficial when you're hunting ducks, that's like they see ship.

If there's anything I noticed this year, like me and Janice Rana hunt in Nebraska, and I was he was kind of like on the edge of the cat tails, a little tucked in, but they were like pretty light, thin cat tails. And I was out picking up a bird looking back at him eighty yards and I was like tickled pink that he was just not he was not dark. He was the same. You know, it wasn't all blacked out. I'm happy to hear that, because over the last handful of years, we probably went through fifteen

iterations and it kept getting lighter and lighter. You know, we'd have people folks like Sean, and we'd have guides and all this stuff we secretly showed to them and they're like lighter, lighter, lighter, And it landed where it did with that recognition that I think people have a tendency, to Sean's point, to try and find a happy medium, and with waterfowl that doesn't work. I mean, you've got

to be pretty specific. I think, out of all of our pursuits, arguably waterfowl and turkey are probably the most discriminate, and so we really tried to make something that was intentionally specific to this environment as opposed to something that could operate in a multitude of of environments. All right, so this has you titilated. Uh, go to the meat eater dot com slash waterfowl and sign up and you stay abreast of all things water file related at meat

eater again meat eater dot com slash waterfowl. Here's the thing Kren and I were fixing to talk about, but we're gonna I'm just gonna do it real quick. The spring bear hunt in Washington. We've covered this. Everybody in

the planet the time about this. Yeah, I don't know, yeah, everything mean, North Korea is kind of a black hole, dude, Like, I don't really know coming out what's coming out of North of Korea on this, but most people in the world are talking about this Washington, They're they're spring black bear season. So like, on hold, it came down to this commission vote, and you know where you think of

a fishing game commission. You think of a fishing game commission as being like people who are like predisposed to be supportive of hunting and supportive of use of natural responsible use of natural resources. Washington ain't okay. It's like they've got their governor and you know, I don't know, they've had a lot of like very very left wing governors for a very long time that have have packed the commission full of people who not only are antagonistic.

They got people on the commission not only antagonist to hunting, but like outspoken criticisms of the North American model of wildlife conservation. I mean, they had a freaking zookeeper on there who just resigned like a zoo. Like when I think of a fishing game commissioner, the last thing that pops in my mind as a zookeeper. He's like, well, what we like to do is we keep in a locate, right, uh, that nothing bad can happen to him. Um, this guy resigned,

But here's what happened in Washington. Try to do this as quickly as possible. They're supposed to have nine commissioners, like the Supreme Court. Why do you have nine Supreme Court justices in case they don't agree, they all vote, and just what happens that you're gonna have like the right way? They got eight. I don't know. The government want to point the ninth one that the ninth one is supposed to come from the east part of the state.

People in the east part of the eastern part of Washington tend to be hunt fish friendly right more culturally like that, people from the west part of the state tend to tend to be I'm speaking tremendous generalizations here. There's a greater likelihood they're gonna be antagonistic too, like hunting and the like the Cascade Mountain Range kind of split there. Uh, they haven't gotten their commissioners, so they

got these eight people. They get that. It comes to a vote whether they have the spring bear season, and it falls like four to four vote and instead of it being a tie, and that means the bear hunt goes on for whatever reason, it's a tie, but the bear hunt doesn't go on. Another commissioner resigns. He resigns because he's like in the commissioner doghouse somehow the zookeeper. Um he uh. So now they got seven and now

they've got seven commissioners. They got to get all the commissioners appointed and then they got to rehash this thing out. The tricky part is the Phishing Game Agency. When the biologist from the Fishing Game Agency come forward to like, bears are doing great in Washington, UM, very strong population. We recommend having the limited draw bear hunt as usual. That was their recommendation from a biological perspective, and some

of these commissioners like, it's social not biological. There's like a social antagonism to this, and that's the argument they're not even debating anymore, like whether it's a sustainable resource. Uh, oddly no, I shouldn't say fortuitously. There's a thing where you can let the where they like invite input. Washington's Fishing Game Commission invites input. You're not being like a weird internet troll like they invite input. There's a thing

called contact the Phish and Wildlife Commission. Go to my instagram, scroll back to December twenty and you'll see a picture of me doing a grip and grin with a bear in there. There's like a link and it's a link to how you give the old what for to the commission. It's a fill it's a form you fill out and they're like sensitive, they look at the form. They're sensitive.

They want to hear from people. So if you like live in particularly if you live at Washington, if you hunt Washington, um let him know how you're feeling about this. They got a form for you. So like going to like my like bio, go to like at Stephen Ronella scroll back to you see a dead bear, go to the Lincoln bio and then fill out a thing letting the Commission know where are your head's at on the

bear hunt. Think about all that, Doug. I think that it's interesting that we have sort of the opposite um at least politically situation in Wisconsin, and that we have a natural Resources board that's also wanted by the governor. But we have one of the board members whose term ended in April of last year, who has refused to leave the board until the Senate confirms his replacement, which, of course the governor put in nominated right away. And

it's a uh. He was appointed by our previous governor who happened to be a Republican, and our current governor as a Democrat, and our Senate is controlled by the Republicans, so they're just essentially this guy says, well, I'm not leaving the board until there's until the new nominee is uh confirmed, but they and they won't confirm them. So we have this squatter. It's I mean, and it has has a huge effect. You think these guys are all talking together to make a plan. Oh without a doubt,

without a doubt. UM. Durkin has written about it extensively. UM. And it is affecting UM well, our wolf management, UM, it's affecting our deer management UM. And it's just to me, it's in both of these cases. It's UH. It's unsettling that politics are playing such a heavy role in how

our natural resources are managed. You're talking about the North American model of conservation, science based management UM in Wisconsin UM is also being ignored, but it's being ignored by the other side because there's a contingent who wants to have you know, early, let's have wolf's wolf hunts early

and often. And the d n R is saying a different thing about wolves, not that we shouldn't have wolf hunt, not that we shouldn't be managing or anything like that, but UM, but but that we we need to have a better plan. And and you know this UH law was passed again by the legislature and signed by the previous governor that says, if there's a wolf hunting is allowed, we need to have a wolf hunt during this period

of time. So last year we rushed one and I think you guys talked about the ship show that our wolf hunt became and it was because of this rushing um forward. Um, I don't have the answer for I don't and I'm not in wolf country and I don't apply for a wolf tag just because it's not something that I'm um uh particularly interested in hunting. But I certainly agree that they should be hunted um and managed.

But how that's done is so important, and um, I'm running quite honestly, as we talked about chronic wasting disease and endured management, we're running the same thing there. So it's interesting that we have the same problem in two states, but they seem to be coming from different political standpoints. And that's that's why, that's why I'm a proponent of creating a third political party. Well, I'm with you, When or when are we going to do that? Right now?

That's happening. Yeah, I think it's just I think it's just rehashed Roosevelt's bull Moose Party. I like it. I like it a lot. That's a good idea. Halflefinger take this one on for me, Jim, which is that it's called health Finger's people know what I'm talking about. You have an unusual last name, that's true, But Jim halflefinger. Take this one on for me. The theory that this is a fan favorite. Rattlesnakes don't rattle anymore because people killed all the ones at rattle. Yeah, that's a that's

a common thing people see that general. No, No, you never heard that. I mean I've heard that. You've heard I've heard it. Yeah, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Cal float Cal floated this one right. Yeah. It was inspired by his dog and like about killed by rattlesnake, the bit it at the base of the ear. I actually had. I got a brand new a little yellow lap puppy and we had to run in with a venomous creature. But two days after she was home

as an eight week old puppy. She was molding something and I came up and I said, what's drop it? What he got there? And she flicks off of her tongue. Black widdle, A big black widow spider pops out on the ground and it wasn't moving, but it was fresh. She had picked it up and killed it. Did you get her? No? We washed her and somehow she did not get bit. So yellow lab seemed to have a

propensity to get into venomous creatures. But but we did talk about the you talked about the snake selection thing about killing rattling rattle snakes, but we can just recap it basically, in order for something like that, you're talking about forcing evolution, kind of an artificial evolution, where you select these animals that have a higher propensity to rat rattle, animals that are quick to rattle, a little more sensitive to rattle. And so you first of all have to

have snakes have to have that being genetically programmed. So you have to have some snakes that they get this gene from their parents that they're a little more sensitive to rattle. You have to have that kind of genetic connection or you can't make any kind of genetic changes by selecting some or not selecting others. And so we don't really know whether there's some genetic sensitivity to rattle

gene or not. But even if we assume there is, then you've got to have people out there affecting a majority of the population, taking a high proportion a disproportionate number of these animals that are there are more sensitive

to rattle and something comes near him. So you've got to have this selection to select those up disproportionately, and you've got over the top of this, you've got all of these other environmental factors that have something to do have a lot to do with whether rattles take rattles or not. You know, what's the ambient temperature. If it's really cold, they're probably not gonna rattle, if it's if it's really warm, they'll be a little quicker to rattle. Maybe how how close you got to them, how big

and imposing you look. Maybe this rattles nake got almost stepped on by a cow three times in the weekend. He just piste off because here's someone else walking at him. You know, what's your trajectory towards him, Whether he feels like he's well hidden. All of that stuff has a lot to do with how threatened the snake feels and whether it's gonna rattle or not. And some idea that it has some genetic component from its parents about whether sensitive to rattle or not. Um just doesn't make a

lot of sense. There's too many other environmental factors that are coming into play for any kind of wide scale selection to actually change how quickly rattlesnakes rattle. In the one thing you pointed out too, and I think I mentioned this is Um, when you look at people who do large scale rattlesnake killing, they're not walking around listening for rattles. Yeah, they're not walking around, and then some really sensitive rattlesnake rattles and then they go kill that.

So that's what you would need for that kind of selection. They're going in and going into dens, and they're they're doing all kinds of others, sometimes destructive things to get rattlesnakes out, but it has nothing to do with how sensitive that snake is to rattle or not. So you can't you can't exert that kind of selection, even in those really intensive rattlesnake round up kind of situations. So next time someone says that, you say, shut up, that's

what I should have just said. As a public biologist says generally what I use on the all Right, we're gonna hit a bunch of uh, we're gonna get a bunch of deer stuff with uh with with Jim and Dug, and I'll point out that you know, Gym's from Arizona, Dugs in Wisconsin. Um, but they both are like very on top of the deer situation. So there's these two aren't like uh coming from but not like they don't work together, different necks of the woods, all that kind

of stuff. But in my mind I was bracketted. I wanted them to come on together because they're the people that I email with the most about deer and often quite different things about deer. But we're gonna cover little ground. Who wants to Oh, let me hit you with this one, because we're gonna talk about COVID. Really, I don't want to spend a ton time in COVID and deer, all this stuff about I want to get your opinion on it.

A lot of stuff about deer and COVID. Hoh to me, it just seems like such a I don't know, Okay, how much on the sliding scale of into ten each of you, Jim and Doug, on a sliding scale one to ten, how much do you agree with this statement, the dear COVID thing. This is me talking the dear COVID thing is a non issue. What is ten? What is one? In ten? On the scale? One is um strong disagreement, Ten is strong agreement. I would probably fall

into seven. Doug. I'm confused as to what the scale is again, Yeah, okay, because I'm guessing Jim and I agree about that. I say the COVID dear thing. I feel like the COVID dear thing is a non issue. Strongly disagree is the one. Strongly agree is a ten? Is that what you the way you went at Yeah, I went I went closer to ten. I mostly agree with that. I think it's something that's just being that's being blown out because it's kind of a popular thing

that gets a lot of clicks click bait. But but there is there is an element that we should not completely dismiss it. That's right, that's right, and that's yeah. So it's hard for me to put uh, so I'll go with like a five because it's noncommittal, right like you guys like dear COVID tweakers And here's why and here's why. Um, at least from what I learned, and Jim and I have some folks that we talked to

in common about it, and as you guys have them overlap. Yeah, yeah, we know some of the same people talking to some of the same wildlife people. UM that it is a reservoir and if one of the things that it it does, is that it sort of tells me that, uh and maybe tells the conclusion that I came to talking with various people is that's so it's there, And so covid um, like chronic wasting disease, is something that we're going to have to live with understanding. But I think they found

it in seventy animal species. Don't love it's that many? Do you say seventies? Somebody google that ship talking. You can't talk how many animal species that they found covid in. I mean tigers, lions, minx um, bogs. And here's my take on here. I'm gonna tell you this, and I want to I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm not a health professional. Let me do that. I just think that it's like hesitate even say this because people getting all kinds of trouble for saying and stuff like this.

I don't think we're getting out of this one. I think it's the new norm. I think it's the new norm. So let me go there a director there, I agree. I do think it is. I think it's uh, you know, it's another example of zoonic disease that we have to pay attention to. But UM, you know, it's sort of like um with COVID. I mean we're you know, as we were flushing the toilets with our feet and all this other stuff, and I mean just after after a while, it's like, Okay, I want to get on with my life.

Thanks for the information. I will take the precautions that I think are necessary. Um, I'll talk to professionals about it and make my decisions from there. But I'm getting on in my life. Yeah. What worries of wildlife health professionals is that make domestic mink caught it from their

keepers from humans. So mink caught it from humans. Um, there's evidence that the virus circulated for a couple of months in the mink population mutated a little bit like it does, And there was a human that had COVID nineteen and it had one of the strains that had mutated in the mink population, and it had infected the human and the human got COVID. So it's some people are worried that with a huge reservoir like deer, it could mutate into such a form that would be no

more virulent if it went back into humans. There's no evidence that COVID has ever jumped from deer back into human There's no evidence that the deer has ever been phased by it. There's no evidence that the deer has ever had That's one thing that's important too. The virus is called sarros Kobe two. The virus that causes COVID nineteen. COVID nineteen is the disease, and sarros Kobe two is

the virus. So deer have been shown to have been exposed to the virus, and they've elevated antibody showing they're exposed to it. No deer has ever been documented to actually have any kind of sickness, to actually have the COVID ninteen sickness. I feel like I'm being a little glib, so I want to I want to articulate my perspective a little bit more thoroughly. Uh. I don't think we're I don't think we're gonna defeat COVID. I don't think we're gonna constrain it. I don't think we're gonna limit

any of the spreads of any of the variants. I think that it's gonna be We're gonna have new variants coming out of the human population all the time in a couple of years. I think we're gonna look at a lot of stuff we did and we'll be like, oh, yeah, maybe we delayed something, but probably not, or maybe maybe we delayed something. That's just the reality now. And it gave us a minute to get boned up on medications and stuff. But it's circulating in a bunch of animals.

It's circulating in a bunch of people across five or what what six continents. Um. I don't think that it's like a ship now, dear, got it. This will never end, Like I just I feel it's like a I feel it's a non factor. But we got a nice letter from a funeral director and he was pointing out and he's like he's like, hey, if you deer listen, I've been dealing So there's like a lot of information out there for people that are deer hunt. Now they're like when you go when you go to got a deer,

you gotta have your LATEX clubs, you got have a knife. Well, now they're like, you gotta have your COVID mask. This guy wrote in says, listen, I've been dealing with COVID deceased people and here's what we do, and we have a hundred success success rate and staying healthy. He admits processing a deer is not the same as processing the human, but these tips could still be used. He suggests this

when butchering in the field. I don't don't think they used that word in the funeral when butchering in the field. When my father died. My father died late at night, and um, I was the last person. I watched him take his last breath. And I remember the funeral people quickly showed up. And they showed up, um in their suits and the long black wool coats, and they were there fast, say yeah, my dad died. It was very very like Danny. Guys got here quick, dressed up like that.

He's just like land in bed with that stuff on. Uh what was I getting at? Oh? Moved to it, he says. He. Here's the here's what morticians are doing around COVID deceased. When butchering in the field. Moved to an open area with lots of air circulation. Stand up wind of the deer. Do not compress the chest of the animal. When rolling the animal over, stand away from the head, tape the mouth closed and plugged the nostrils, starts paying the pit you're doing it, always wear gloves

in a mask. Here's a tip. When we removing the lungs, do not squeeze. Bury them once removed. After field dressing his complete place the deer in cold, isolated storage for forty eight hours before continuing on. I've had no experience consuming an animal of this state. That's good to hear. I would consult further experts on this topic. So there you have it from a real pro. I love it.

Here's can I give you no go ahead? Doug? I was just gonna say, I gotta thank this guy for writing this because it's like, how are you gonna make this ship sound interesting? Man? And that does? It really does. Oh listen, man, we got like the best audience in the world. We get great, great photos, great feedback. Someone

go ahead. The other thing, thank you. The other thing I would say is um as a lot of folks know, I have a CDB detesting kiosk on our far more people drop off carried away by a tornado, got tipped by the tornado, get carried away. It's only a few yards down the field, but Doug's out to own his wife's a picture of his upside down kiosk off. It's like I leave and ship happens um uh. And in our kiosk um I opened up um I have as I have to open up bags and make sure the

PaperWorks right and stuff. And several of the deer they all came from the same place that the moms were tape shot on him. And I was like, that's interesting. I hadn't. I hadn't. I hadn't read that as a recommendation, and I didn't notice that there was anything plugging the nostrils. But they did have notes on the like this is Shawn's buck or you know, Joe's dough or whatever, So maybe that was why they did it. I know the guy, so I'm gonna have to ask him about it. I'm

only mentioned in this somehow. My wife has these little snowmen Christmas ornaments that are made out of tamps come. So my boys are like, what is that? It sounds like a Karan Art project. My wife gives him the full gives my boys the full rundown, you know, for like what that's all about. And then, uh, either way, that'd be a great nostril plug, perfect size, right, maybe a little big for some carry those people comeback carry tampons a lot for bullet bullet wounds, pass through bullet

wounds through an arm, and they shove a tampon through it. Yea. And if the pandemic ends, makes snowman out of him. That's like a thing in wrestling, is like wrestlers go get bloody noses and shove tamp Remember the movie Strange Brew He gets a bloody nose and court and the bailiff gives him a bullet to plug his nose with. Then someone cracks a joke and the bullet flies out

and goes off. It's a good movie. Here here a listener wrote in about this, This guy's kind of licking his lips at this whole COVID thing because he's like, man, if dear lose their sense of smell hunting, it's good change. You're gonna change the whole game. Man, I'm going to change the whole game. That's a good point, all right. P f A S and dear, What the hell is the p f A? P f A. This is an emerging thing that that I didn't know much about until

I started looking into it. But they're just chemicals that don't degrade. They kind of accumulate in the environment forever chemicals, right, they like a little little little sort of like public what the hell, what the hell? How did I describe it? It's kind of the the gnome do you were? That's not rute acute name, Yeah, because something you find in the media all the time, because they like to pick those.

But they came around the nineteen fifties and they put them in flame retardant stuff and water um water resistant, um chemicals, all kinds of plastics, probably Clark Riswold's nonnutritive cereal garners and those kind of things. But it's ubiquitous in the environment. And and now they're starting to find out that they don't degrade until they're they're accumulating, and

tissues are accumulating and detected and blood. And so we had had the one report in Maine this year of the local municipality advising people not to eat deer from this one local specific that was coming from a local municipality. Yeah, not to eat deer either, and so um so we um. Brian Richards sent me a link from a year ago that was in Marinette, Michigan. Marinette Michigan, Marionett, Wisconsin right on the side um. And that was a year ago, and they were they were advising people not to eat

the livers of deer. So they were saying that in the heart tissue and the muscle tissue um the levels were undetectable or very low and not a problem. But in the livers because the livers and the kidneys are organs that that filter the blood and they filtered toxics, toxins out of the blood, and so it was accumulating in the liver and they're telling people not to eat

the liver. So what were they seeing? Do you know, because a handful of people from Maine sent us this this this warning that came out, what were they looking at? Do you know, like what were they seeing specifically? Were they seeing were they actually seeing like really elevated counts in venice theoretical? Yeah, I don't know the specifics, whether they like like a year previous in Wisconsin where they tested heart tissue, muscle tissue, and liver tissue and found

that there are different levels in the main situation. I don't know what they tested and when, what was sparking their concern, Whether it was just in the blood or the muscles. Do you feel that? Uh, guess something to say. But the difference is in Maine they're saying don't eat the meat, don't eat the deer out of a very specific, very specific area. In Wisconsin it was and they actually they specifically said don't worry about eating heart tissue and

muscle tissue in Wisconsin. That I clarified earlier that I'm not a health care professional. Yeah, nor am I. I would like to clarify that. I would. I have a way that I assess things, and I go like, would I really die from this? Like? Will this be the thing I die from? And this is not to advise anyone, but I just put in that situation, I'll probably like, man, am I really gonna like? Is this gonna be the

thing that kills me? Eating this deer? And I'd be like, in my mind, I would be like, that's not gonna do it. Yeah, this is gonna be heart disease. Those p F phase and I've heard them called p fast. I don't know if that's what the cool kids use or if that's just what one person was using incorrectly,

but they've been linked to higher cholesterol. They've been linked to kidney testicular cancer, been linked to lower birth weight, changes in liver enzymes, UM, high blood pressure, and in children a decrease reaction to vaccinations in getting their endi body levels up. So there's some medical connections with UM

having these high levels of that in the blood. Most of those studies that were done in areas that where the people had really high levels, not just kind of baseline levels, but also the CDC and some other sources say of people in the United States have measurable p f P fast out of the gate in their blood. Just an environmental level. But if you look at this area in Maine, are they advising don't don't eat vegetables from vegetable gardens in this area? Are they advising or

does that not work that way? Are they advising don't eat livestock products from this area? I haven't heard that, but yeah, that's interesting. I'm not sure, but UM, I know this specific area in Maine. Um it was Fairfield was once used in a pulp paper manufacturing uh and yep, and the bioats was spread on farm fields for years. So I don't I haven't seen anything else to UM, I guess prove what this person has said. But he said that the kind of word on the street is

at local dairy farmers. Look at that right now. Wow, man, this is one of the guys that Roller needs his man. Their family has been hunting, he said his for forty years. They've been hunting. The property smack dab in the middle of this zone if you look at it like a

county map falls in Fairfield. He's one of his. Really safety I hate to give it, yeah, I don't want to give advice, man, but you know, I remember one time I had a garden and I just for I wanted to send a soil sample into a unit the local like you know, you have the land grant universities that have like an egg extension thing, and they came back with very high elevated levels of lead in the garden soil, right and like really high. I remember one

was like X was high or something already. And um, I pondered that for a day or two and then went on a garden is that for you? Is that from your shooting raccoons in the garden leads? No, you know what. I was curious how that happened? And uh, and I spoke to Coup people and they're saying that, um that they the thing they were looking at most

there was the years of leaded gasoline. So being in a you know, being an area just close proximity to where there was a lot of a lot of combustion of leaded gas and for a lot of the yeah, it falls out of that exhaust. And you might have an area where I don't know, man, or you like idole detractor, Your people are idoling their tractor for seventy years outside the whatever barn you could have like uh

from the years of letted gas. Like I said, Man, it like shook me up, and that just kind of went on the My needer reaction is to not worry about the p fest But but disease professionals will tell you if if your missalities issuing a don't eat kind of advisory, you probably would be smart to follow up. Where my brain goes with that is like the every boat ramp having a mercury advisory. You know, like that's commonplace everywhere is mercury advisors don't eat too much fish.

But I don't personally know anyone that's ever ran into mercury poisoning problem. I tell you, funny story about man. Go ahead, do you has something to say? Though? Uh? Yeah, the thing that can serns me. And if someone who's in that area with right in, I'd like to follow up this. Being a kid who grew up with a dairy farm, he said that the word is the local dairy farmers have killed off their stock as well. And my question is one, did that happen? Our questions are one,

did that happen? And too? If so, why because in um in the livestock world, if there's a disease issue and they're a handful of them, that the Department of Bagga culture requires you to destroy your hurt. And I'm wondering if this was something that was required or if they're just saying it was a mess or I can't imagine if it's true or not. Well, right, that's what I'm asking. Is it true? If so? You know so, skepticism is the chastity. I'm with you, Uh you so?

My dad when my dad's main fishing buddies when I was a kid, as his dude Ron and Ron was also a commercial bait fisherman, so he made his living catching live bait and selling live He had his own bait shop, but then he distributed live bait to other bait shops, and the dude fished all the time and

lived off fish, lived off freshwater fish. And they were scouring around the University of Michigan was scouring around for old dudes like him that have been eating fish their whole life out of the Great Lakes, and they would send him and he would periodically go down to University of Michigan to do these mercury tests, and part of it would be these memory quizzes, and they'd say to him like, Okay, you gotta go to the grocery store and get you know, milk, eggs, bread, black pepper, olive oil,

and lettuce. And then he had to sit there for a minute and they'd say what do I get the grocery store? And in describing these tests to me, he said to me, uh, man, I wouldn't have been able to remember that if I never ate fish at all. Uh uh. We had another thing, cad mealman liver. I don't know, like I'm not downplaying cadmium the liver. I don't know. I'm just you guys want to talk more about stuff that's hiding deer, Not really, I mean cadmium

can cause some some health issues. It's probably a local I mean it's it's probably a local thing, and you could probably find a lot of these little situations where there's some kind of contamination and it gets concentrated in the liver. New Hampshire Fishing Game advises against eating deer liver because of p fast. Same thing we just talked about and cadmium. M All right, here's a neard disease. And we've covered this a little bit, but just why

I get get a little um. I got a question for each of you around the h D um episodic hemorrhagic disease. E h D seems to be like I've never heard any suggestion that there's any effect on humans, but it's now damn effective on deer. And uh, you know, you can have an e h D outbreak that you're you're commonly here of fifty sevent five percent of a deer herd getting carried off by e h D. Uh.

We had had a we were having a discussion about HD recently and someone mentioned that it's that it's always fatal deer and and got some feedback that's in fact not the case. So go ahead and talk about that. Yeah, they may have been thinking about CWD, which we talked about is always fatal. But e h D actually a large percentage of the deer population survives the h D every year, even when you get those big die offs

like that. But the ones that survived get antibody levels and that makes them immune to it for a year or two, so you generally don't get e h D

die offs in consecutive years. You'll get up, you'll get it like especially a dry summer, a real drought summer, and you'll get a really bad h D year, and you'll you'll lose a lot of them in late summer, and then the next year, all the ones that survived have antibody levels and so the next year you won't have any HD problem no matter what, because they're all pretty well protected with with the immunity to that. Here's this, This seems like a paradox. Maybe you explained us to

me e h D. This isn't the paradox. But this I'll get to the paradox a minute, Like e h D is spread from deer to dear by a biting midge ka like a bite the same way you might get humans might get malaria, right, like mosquito goes to one person and they move and infectious is not animal animal. But from that person to the next, why is drought bad? It seems like wet year would make more midge because it's like an aquatic thing, Like a wet year would

make more midges out on the landscape. And then some people say, well, it's because it concentrates. I think that's it. That's what I've always heard. It's the concentration you have. You have fewer water sources, you probably have fewer midges, but you have all of the deer and all of images all in the same location, and you can get

that circulation, that concentration. Now, what what I had always heard is that the like real enemy pursuit guy, Yeah, the real enemy of deer hunters when it comes to the the h d S if you have a very wet year followed by a very dry year, because what really like gives it was midgies home and and boost their populations and makes white tail come in contact with them

his long mud lines. So if you have like a super wet spring or a super wet and then a super dry summer or a super dry that's when you get these long mud lines where you get a lot of those biting midges at Yeah, they we found in Arizona. Actually they've documented that those little midges kulicity is very pennis can actually reproduce in the wetness of cactus a little bit of moisture like that. Let me hate you

with this one. I have a question for Jim, and that is um is it seems as though e h D has been more of a southern Yeah, issue one, but and now it's it's it's more northern Great Plains. Yeah. Yeah, Well, and I mean it's reported um anecdotally by hunters in Wisconsin. But um uh, But but but why is that? Why is there cut off? Just I mean with the with

the midge. I think it's I think it's a climate factor with with midges, and just where midge populations are, those kind of midge populations are, and you get too far north and you just don't have those kind of

vector populations. And there they did Mississippi State University one time brought deer from Michigan down to Mississippi and they actually brought Mississippi deer and putting in depends in Michigan, and they found that the northern deer brought down to Mississippi had a very high mortality rate from information because northern deer didn't have antibodies or previous exposure at least

two those strains. And there's two different types of h D. And there's about seven different zero types of blue tongue virus, which is another closely related emorrhagic disease. But when people know the blue tongue and e h D synonymously, that's not correct. That's not correct. Their different diseases. They just have kind of the same clinical symptoms. They're both emorrhagic diseases. They both spread by midges. Yes, and then the blue tongue is normally kind of a sheep pronghorn, antelope or

should I just say antelope. We got one, I would go American something that was mad with I've switched. I've switched to prom I didn't get that worked up about the States fish and Game regulations have not they have. We have the Arizona Antelope Foundation. But the blue tongue is kind of an antelope cheap thing, and the e h D is more of a deer cow thing. For

some reason, it separates that way. I got a question talk about one more thing on e h D. This person's game where someone wrote in their game ward and was saying that deformed hooves. You buy that. Yeah, absolutely, the hooves. When they get the h D and survive it, their hooves will slough off and they'll have a crack a line across those hoops. So you can in the fall just look at hunter harvested deer that comes through and you'll see some like stress lines and cracks on

the hooves, and that's evidence that they had. Another interesting thing is too, is the hemorrhagic disease causes the hemorrhaging of all the tissues, including the testicles, and the bucks that have a lot of hemorrhaging and the testicles during the antler development period can produce cactus bucks. So so there's a veterinarian Karen Fox, who led some research that that documented not but what very clear that e h D was producing some cactus bucks. And everything he brings

is great. You like Jim, he just liked my testical stories. Yeah, this guy says too. When he had a dough they had the different He sent a picture of the deformed hops with that crack in a curvature to him. He said, when I processed her, the meat was very dark and had a foul odor. Yeah, I read that. That's unusual. If the animals like viremic and hemorrhaging, I can absolutely see.

But if it's an animal that survived, maybe it just still had some of those lingering effects of all that hemorrhaging. I don't know. You know, um, he brought up a thing. You know, you hear people say the dogs wouldn't even eat it. You know what was interesting is I was cleaning a coyote skull. I'd snared the coyote and was

cleaning the skull up the other day. And usually when I do that, like with that clean beaver skulls or muskrat skulls, whatever, my dog like she knows the minute she can smell that simmer and pot like she knows what's coming. She would not eat that. Uh, you're gonna think I'm crazy, And I'll tell you this. She would not eat that Kylee head pickings. Okay, but it's sat in her bowl long enough. I'm not. I got eyewitnesses

she ate. She drank the broth, but wouldn't eat the chunks, but she drank the broth out of the bowl and I'm not kidney man. Five minutes later, walked over by the kitchen table and puked. Wow, it's not a dog eat dog girl. Yeah, it was the weirdest thing. Dude, That dog never pukes. That dog eats you can eat. You wouldn't believe what that dog neat. Never pukes? Did she eat duck tongue? I put duck tongue in front of you pex space and he just guaranteed you know what.

You know what a favorite snack is for the fur handler stew Miller, what his dog likes is, uh, the back feet on beavers. That's like a It's like a preferred chew toy for his dog and it gets days out of a beaver's back foot. Doug quickly h d H question for you if it's a widely held conviction. Did slowing the spread the uh? That's slowing the spread of C w D often involves lowering deer numbers? Yes, right, that like you'll like, contagion rates will fall if there's

less dear having less contact. It's a widely held conviction in fact um in many states when there's a c w D outbreak. One of the first steps you take is it try to go into the hot zone reduced numbers to reduce spread and to and to make it the animals be less incentivized to strike off and do long journeys to find areas that aren't so crowded. Have

you heard anyone is this? Is this a belief that anyone expresses that had you ever heard name, would be like e h D giving a real wallop to a deer population could be beneficial to really dramatically lowering a deer population, thereby perhaps slowing c w D spread. As anyone ever said this before, Am I the only person

that ever like kicked around that correlation. Very uh smart man that I talked with this stuff about a lot um has has said that I mean, um, I summed it up in that e h D could do the work that UM hunters are not UM and because the h D is correct me if I'm wrong, Jim is uh, it's indiscriminate. It's going to kill across the across the population, so big giant bucks down to funds UM, which is

part of what we need to do too. It's interesting because UM, some some hunters in my area and people that I know and anyway and know and and and and know them to be good people. UM have said, Oh, I at d h D in my place this year, if we found six UH deer around a little pond by and and that's been it's like wildfire through the local community. And I wonder if a part of that, I mean, I'm I don't question that he found six

dead deer around his pond. I And and so then they're saying, well, it's h D. And I was like, well, okay, did the biologists come out and confirm that? And as I understand, you have to do that pretty quickly if you're going to catch the virus and all of that, so like seventy two hours or something like that. UM

and so of course that they didn't. UM. I also know a couple of people who are spreading that to be very concerned about the UH policies UM and and and ideas that I'm working on to reduce deer population. They might be incentivized c h D. It's not c w D. Well that no, no, no, no, that UM, Well, we don't need to reduce the dear hold because h D is doing it for us, is doing it for you. Yeah, we'll get into some stats about c w D in your area in a minute here. Okay, you know what

I was gonna mention Spen. You know, Spencer is like, um, I love Spencer. I want to say, well, I would become one of my favorite people. I wouldn't like the abows you. Spencer tries to Uh. Spencer tries to suppress information about c w D because he believes it's not sexy. Spencer believes that people are tired of hearing about it. Well, he tries to suppress it. He's right that it isn't isn't sexy. I think that what Spencer is trying to

do is to keep things interesting and uh. And I think that's a healthy discussion about I think it's a healthy discussion. It's like, how much of this um should we be talking about? I can tell you this. Remember those commercials when you were a kid that said ignore your teeth and they'll go away. Remember that? Come on, you'll remember him? Right? No? No, I like it? Oh well I remember that. Maybe it's because where I grew up anyway, you know, ignore c w D and it

won't go away. I'm turning that, you know, I think in bumper stickers. So that's good, yeah, you know, but the problem, I like the the problem with that slogan is, um, you're asking a lot of people because you're trying to get them to remember some ship that I don't remember. Right, keep working on you'll you'll call it a good one. Oh no, Doug already has it. Listen. I don't know if you guys know this. It's not ours, it's just our turn. Like Doug made that up. Nice, but he

didn't make that up. I'm telling you, man, Spencer, you're good on Google. Google that I've done it. You go try to find I challenge you any other reference. You type that ship into Google. It's it's like a dug during festival for pages and pages and pages, and then you get to the end of the dug during stuff, it's a black hole. There's nothing, there's nothing. When Doug, like, Doug made that up? And did you make up pay for what give the give the rallying by time and

pay for science? Did you make that up? Ye? Well yeah, I not heard it before. But that's what you know. Sort of the c w D thing, my my attitude about chronic wasting diseases that by for science and um, I mean that that encompasses an awful lot, doesn't it. I mean, let's slow the spread. Let's um let's um uh reduce prevalence in areas where exists, um let's preserve deer hunting in those areas. I'm Spencer has an open invitation to come to the farm and and deer hunt

with me. And part of the reasons is that I'm just gonna like Lacey w D on him the whole time but set them up with But Cal was just there and Cal's like, you know, at some point, I mean, we had our CWD discussions and everything, but He's like, at some point you just deer on, Like yeah, I mean it's not like we're wandering around like c w D. You know, it's but you know, and so UM, I mean, at the end of the day, we've it's been around long enough by us, UM and I can talk about

what's happened on our farm in our area. But that that, you know, it's it's sort of that new norm. Get used to it. I've got the information, I know what I'm supposed to do here. The things that we can do. I involved politically and um you know, as an activist about us not doing what we should be doing. Um, and uh, that's what concerns me more than anything. And that's like following the science. Well, let's follow the science, and the science says we need to be doing a

better job of demographic control population control. Um. And we're not in Wisconsin, and we're really good. I mean, you can go into the Wisconsin d n R c w D webs website and go to c w D and dear Metrics and all of this, and we've got great information on there, and I applaud our Department Natural Resources for that. But what we don't do is a very

good job. We don't at all of of doing anything to control it, mostly because it's not science, it's politics, which goes back to that discussion we were having earlier. You get mad at me a little bit, and I remember you got one of the times you got one of the times you got most mad at me, as I had expressed to you know, I had expressed, and you wrote me real mean email, like it's actually kind

of like a mean email. I was piste off and I had said I had said something to the effect of if I wasn't worried about potential transmission to humans down the road, that that that this thing would mutate

and spread the humans or spread the livestock. No, I didn't even bring up livestock humans that that my obsession with concerned about c w D. I didn't put it quite this way, but would fall like like if God came down and said, listen, bro, no human will ever get c w D. I would feel my concerns would be alleviated. And Doug sent me big old oh my, you got personal in it. It's like a metal email me and um a side note, Pat Durkin has told me that I need to get a speaking of developing apps,

that it makes your text message sound nicer. Know that I need to get an app that once I start typing ship like that, that it will not allow me to send it until my blood pressure goes down and I have a chance to review it. Dog even had

like a threat to me. He's like basically like really, no, you're not that you're gonna come beat me up or anything, But it was like a threat like, um, one, you know, one sentence like that can destroy decades of We're can well, I think that's he's gonna down he get the hook that app up to your mouth. Uh, Jim Uh, I want to get back to just some stuff about Wisconsin.

Um and they like, I want to talk about seed with with Jim's gonna talk about a new outbreak, like a new state added to the long list of states and now have c w d Um this will speak to Ross Ross being from Idaho. Jim's gonna talk about that. And then and Doug, I want to get like kind of anecdotal and local and talk about like in your neck of the woods, what's going on, Like like, how is deer hunting just getting different? And I think it's gonna be like an alarm but let him do the

Idaho deal. But but collect your thoughts sort of. Deer hunton is just different now man, And and I think that this difference is going to become more widespread over time, and there's gonna be a lot of help, a lot more stories like Doug story from the last couple of deer seasons in Wisconsin. But it hit us first like Idaho, Like how's this happen all of a sudden someone in

Idholes like, holy ship, this year's got CWD. Yeah, CWD spreading, you know, increasing in prevalence where it is, and prevalence is a percent of the animals in the population that is positive, and it and it's spreading, and Idaho just joined the CWD club, being the seven state with the

CWD positive. What was interesting about Idaho is it was found on the western side of the state and there's no CDWD yet in Washington in those states to the west, but there's CWD crowding in on three sides from Wyoming and Utah and Montana coming in from the east side. So it's really interesting that this first incident was two bucks that were harvested in October this year in on the west side of the state there night, So it's

all over. I mean, I think it's gotta be. There's gonna be a lot of filling in the hole, filling in the gap, and that might be what's going on here because they just developed a new CWD plan for the state in one and part of that was we're gonna test the Panhandle in the northern tip every year, and we're gonna test two unit it's over on the eastern border every year because that's where we expected to come from. And then there's three other units in the

rest of the state they're going to rotate. And and so the first year they tested this one unit that was going to rotate, like it just kind of thrown in like a fluke. Yeah, And so they just started testing there and and they found it. And the fact that it's on the west side of the state, I would expect them to be filling in the blanks once they start sam playing a little more. I've never got your perspect on you know what I was saying about the human in faction risk? Do you uh, where do

you fall on it? Personally, I've never killed a deer that was CT depositives, so I've never had to make the decision. Um. I think about four decades of people in the Northern Rockies eating CW depositive deer and it's never jumped the human barrier into humans. That gives me a lot of comfort. Um. But the CDC and and UM World Health Organization recommend that nothing that's been positive with prions enter the human food chain. And the CDC recommends you you throw the deer out, And so I

know those are recommendations. Are guys a little jumpie though? I feel I think it's a personal decision. I I would probably not have any qualms eating one myself. It was positive because of four decades of pretty high incidents in Wyoming, Colorado, and nobody's gotten sick. But if you've got little kids around the table, got a wife, maybe a pregnant wife, it's kind of a different conversation, and

it's a personal decision. I agree, and I talked about this more often than I wanted to, and certainly more than Spencer wants me to. But um, it is a personal decision. And what I've been finding is um that people who are gonna eat it anyway don't get their dear tested um. And so that's a little troubling in that, yeah, you've got I would never I I have killed a

CW depositive deer um. Actually the one that I killed, a friend of mine took it um and uh he ended up eating it, and uh I already had you know, Freeze was the first one that I that was positive. But anyway, I personally am am not. I have chosen not to, although even though we have are having positive deer on the farm, none of them are ones that I have um um butchered and kept for myself, which is also a behavior thing. That we can talk about.

But um, I'm keeping younger dear um ones that are that I used to think were less likely to to have the disease. Um. Uh but yeah, I mean, don't you know, if you want to, it's a personal decision to do it, But don't make that decision for somebody else, and don't make it that decision for children. I just I mean, is it an abundance of caution or is it just being a good person. I think it's a little of both. You know, lay lay out a little

bit about what, like just what you're seeing. I mean, because you're you mentioned that you describe yourself as an activista, like, uh, you're not an academic. Um, you're interested in CWD because you've lived c w D now for twenty years on a place, Like you've lived c w D for twenty years on a place that's been in your family for

a century. So like you you're sort of like living it in real time, meaning like when you look out the window or drive around on your property, it's a thing that and it's become And I don't want to say like yeah, like you're not obsessed with it, But I don't know, man, what was the last time you went a day without saying c w D well in the fall, not very often. I can't, I could, I

couldn't even tell you. But you know, it's interesting because I wrote an article a couple of articles for for Meat Eater, and they're out there and you can check them out. And UM. Part of his why one of was why every hunter And in fact, I said why everyone should be concerned about c w D UM from all the way from the animal rights or animal welfare people down to big giant buck uh, trophy hunters. UM. And then what we can do about it? Um? And I I have seen the change, and I'll be perfectly

honest with you when CBD. Firstly, first, you know, I was discovered in Wisconsin. Had the dn R knocked on my door and said, we gotta kill every day in the area. UM, and your farm is right in the middle of that area, so let's get started. I had. I've been skeptical, you know, And yeah, I mean that's what they wanted to do in the eradication zone and they and they tried real hard to do that. And I started having questions like, well, why is it here,

Why is it here? Why is this the hot zone, and I don't think we've ever really gotten that the answer to that question. Wisconsin, There's been a lot of speculation and there have been a few people that I know and mostly trust, who have you know who anecdotally I've talked about some of the things that went on down there, and I guess I don't want to get too deep into that. The weeds on that. I don't I understand what you're saying right now, like why how did it start? And how did it start in the

Mount Horrible area? Um that why was it first discovered there? The reason you know, this is a farm analogy. If you see one rat, you got a hundred of them. And there they found they saw a sick deer and tested it for c w D and then realized and then they had been doing surveillance for a while, and surveillance testing is a really interesting thing, um to me. Um. And then they found that it was a little more widespread,

but the prevalence was really low. I mean, do you remember what those gus where it was, you know, like in the single digit percentages, um. Um. But what's been interesting to me about living with it asking that question is, um, what we've discovered up until four years ago. Uh, we had no um positives. And we've been testing what was recommended the during the in our area and the during

family farm. We hadn't had a positive. And we were testing every deer that they would allow us to test, and they were skewing it towards older deer, which to the minds of the biologists, were the ones that were most apt to have it. We started having four years ago when we started, which was about the time I quit doing buck management and all of that, um you know, uh retired to Sombrero when all those all those things. Um uh Can I tell people what that means? You

you were running like on on your family farm. You guys are running a program of like trying to grow big bucks. Yeah, we were doing like let let let bucks walk and let them grow up big Yeah, and shooting does the whole time. Though. Oh yeah, we've we've always, I mean for the last twenty five years. Really we've been, um,

we've been dough killers. Um uh. And remember that I when I grew up, when when I first started hunting in Wisconsin, four four hunters had to get together in August by their license tear a little tag off, write their name on it, their number, sent it in with some money to the DNR and apply for one dough tag, party permit, party permitter. Remember you had the badges said you were on your arm and things kind of, but you got to kill you got to kill one dough

with that. Now when Mike Tony with every buck tag, you get four dough takes. So that's in fifty years. This is my fiftieth year of hunting. Um that uh, that's how much it switched, you know, in terms of population and management and stuff like that. It's just it's

an important thing. When people say, oh, I'm concerned about how few deer we have, am like, well, you should have been around and nineteen seventy one, um and uh so um what we ended up finding then when we got our first positive it was a two and a half year old buck and in four years were supposed to let walk. Yeah, but we already but I I had, oh yeah, I had already said that those all bets

are off on that shoot. Whatever dear is gonna make you happy, And you know, I just I got tired of well, I mean you remember we had a little incident where managing people gets to be a pain in the button. Somebody was offended that I said something about our program um on the on on the podcast, and uh, anyway, I just like, you know there for a lot of reasons, and of them being I don't want to manage people anymore. I just want to hunt deer and want people to

be happy. And oh, by the way, we have a situation here where we need to be more aware of what's what's going on. So that's uh in younger dear behavior. And Jim's gonna just tell me to shut up when it's time for me to shut up. Younger deer tend to be the ones that travel friends from their home range.

So when we first started getting positive geer four years ago, our five first five year were a year and a half old buck Um, a two and a half to two and a half year old bucks, a year and a half old Dough, and a three year old dough.

Those were our first five in four years. And those are aged by people who are actually aging dear, not guys looking at like it's yeah, you know, that's no, no, no, no, that's being aged with the you know, the tooth charts at the CWD testation um and so that kind of told me and at the same time, and that in those twenty deer, at the same time, we were killing five and a half year old Bucks and four and a half year old Bucks and sick year old dose and so our our dear quote unquote, um on are

the ones that we're sort of our core deer. We didn't we're not CWD positive. Interesting, but they but the year links that were dispersing into your area, we're bringing it. So, I mean that's what I anecdotally, and I guess the biologists are agreeing with me now um or they agreed with me. I'm agreeing with what the My anecdotal evidence follows the what the what they're what they're saying. Um So, in four years and twenty deer, we had five positive.

This year we've received hit me that again, I didn't catch it undred and twenty deer over a four year period of time that you tested. Yeah, we had every year. We once we could test every year. We have tested every year. I mean even you were there the last time. Yeah, just fun to make sure that. I just wanted to catch the span of time in the number. Yeah. So

we average about that. We have been averaging about thirty deer harvested a year um on our four and then the you know, surrounding property they also have, I'll be able to hunt. Um. So, uh five deer out of a hundred twenties, somebody can do. The man that you host a hell of a lot of hunters. Yeah. Generally over thirty people deer hunt our place every year, um um.

And we are at deer right now, and we have another we have bow hunting, you know, late season bow hunting, and we also have the holiday hunt antler less hunt coming up. Yet you get there, well, we will hit thirty. I mean I was, you know, people ask me what's your number, and I was like, don't stop shooting? Um And And honestly, I have eleven trail cameras out and they all come to a there's a cell set up, and they all come to one. And I get that. And we have killed twenty nine geer on our farm.

And you cannot tell the difference on the cell cameras the rate of photos coming in. Yeah, the rate of photos coming in. And I mean sure that buck isn't shown up anymore because dad. But uh so, anyway, so five deer in four years a hundred and twenty over four year period of time, so one or two a year, you know, not really uh, um, so four percent four point five percent or something like that, which I'm like, let's keep it at that, which is sort of what

our management strategy has been this year. We've killed twenty nine deer. We're still waiting to rest from the results for ten, but so nineteen deer, six of them have been positive. And all of the good bucks we killed, um, a five and a half year old ten pointer, just like buck of a lifetime thing. And I, um just broke my heart to find out. And but I wondered about that here because I took I think I sent you the pictures of my note. I posted him on Instagram.

This guy's like standing in front of me, you know, let me pose here in front of the sign for you, and then walked out. I mean he was it seemed like, I mean, yes, rut behavior, except there wasn't a door around, you know. And um, and so he ended up being harvested by a friend of mine. And then um, all of our so all of our bow bucks, which were two and a half, three and a half and five you're five and a half year old buck um tested positive, and UM, we've had UM another buck test positive and

two doors and one was a I'm sorry. Both of those were three year old. Were aged at three years old. So, UM, I feel a little bit like we're losing the battle. And part of part of that is UM, because the population is still really high. Give me right now, UM, what is a what's the current c w D denier? What are they what's the c w D denier saying right now? They're not saying it's not a thing anymore. They've given up on that. And they're not saying that

prevalence the level off at two they've given up on that. Well, I'm not sure that. UM. The person who said that has you know the um uh James Croll who uh said that when he was predicted a level off at Wisconsin. Pat Jerkins got him on tape saying it so UM, and and you know that we should take a more passive approach to c w D in Wisconsin when he was our our dear trustee. So would he still I mean, he's a he's a you know, he's from the science community.

Would he still say that it hasn't passed two percent? Um? I know there was some questioning of how the data is Uh. If you don't like the data, you start questioning how the data is gathered. M So I haven't heard from him. I haven't heard from James Cole recently, so I'm not sure what it stands. The last thing that I read that he said, UM was that well c w D is UH again to downplay it. It's just a problem in four counties in Wisconsin. How would

you like to be the counties around those four counties. UM, Currently in our county, UM prevalence is different than percentage of deer tested, So prevalences as Jim described it before. But because we don't require testing, it's completely voluntary and was in Wisconsin and it sort of makes sense, right. UM. Yeah, I can't picture. I can't picture getting on board with mandatory testing except for surveillance areas where they're trying to

figure out what's going on around here, like Idaho. Right now, they just mandatory. Yeah, they just added a bunch of tags and you have to get them tested because that's the purpose. You know. I do want to walk something back, because when you kill a black bear, you damn your mandatory bring it down. When you get a river outer you bring it down. Yeah, Bobcats has to be tagged now, right,

there's mandatory testing on stuff. And there was every mountain goat like in this state, every mountain goat, every big orange sheet biet, they're they're tagged and tested. You have to bring it for a visual inspection. So I'm just saying I at first, when you said like mandatory blank, I was like, well, that's unprecedented. But then I quickly realized that it's hardly unprecedented because there's tons of ship you gotta bring down. Yeah, it's like you know, well

would probably be unprecedented in that volume. Yeah, sure, ye. Well, and so in a in an area, And I've had discussions with the biologists about this, and I think Jim would agree. And if he doesn't, again tell me to shut up and correct me. But um, in an area where you know that c w D already persists, um, mandatory testing doesn't necessarily make any sense because you already know what persists there. And if you're getting enough tests

from voluntary testing too to understand how it's spreading, good enough. Yeah, if you're getting enough, But if you get like a couple of new positives in the new area. You want to know what's going on, because like I think it was Arkansas that got their first positive and they went in and tested and they were like ten already that that the prevalence rate was so high that it was obvious that had been there a long time. Yeah, Tennessee had the same experience. There has been people on the

other side, like the people who are not alarmed. I should stop out of out of respect, I should stop saying like c w D deniers. Let me think of another way to put it. People who are not alarmed. Okay, what what I call? I don't with hell CWD deniers, those not alarmed. There has to be an argument. There has been an argument that they're saying, dude, it's just been here. It's like it's all over, you've been eating it. They have it. We still got a lot of deer, right,

humans haven't caught it. I think that's what they're saying. Yeah, and uh right, and uh yeah. There is that evolution from uh uh it's it's it's fake. It's a hoax too, it's always better. Yeah, it's right, No, No, it really is. I mean it's like and you can't do anything about it. Well, I can tell you this. This is the first year where we've we've got sick deer on our cameras. Um

and it's heartbreaking when you get that. UM. I posted on my Instagram page a video from the dough Derby the event that we had UM from fifteen miles south of US where Phella pulls into his hunting on a farm field and here's this buckleing and the weeds and it's had already dropped its antlers. It was emaciated and just laying there shaking and six seconds long and I'll break your heart. Um. Uh, there are fawn's testing positive

for CWD. So if you're a big giant buck guy, and prevalence is so high that flawns are testing positive, um, a buck fawn is going to die from that disease in two years, if he doesn't die from a bullet. Uh. So the days of big giant bucks are going to become more difficult. That said, because this guy is gonna write in UM, Richland County, we are still killing big giant bucks. That's the like we talked, I I hit you up with that idea. Here here I am, I'm

just a Joe blow sitting there right now. Being like, man, how worried should be about this? And and you're like, it's okay, it's indisputable that c WD is always fatal. Okay, it kills him. It kills him in what two years? So here you are, you're like in a hot zone. You've been dealing with c w D for how many years? Well twenty, I mean south of US, so you're still shooting big bucks. And I'm just saying like, like here I am, so I'm this guy, and I'm saying to

you like, Okay, Doug, that's all great and fine. You've had c w D around for that long, you've got this huge prevalence. But a guy just got a once in a lifetime buck on your place. So what really, if I'm not worried about catching it, what's the problem. It's not a problem on my place now. But I can take you to a property south of US about fifteen miles where they weren't killing big giant bucks anymore.

They were finding them dead in the woods. And what they change their attitude and said, well, we're just gonna become deer hunters again, and and they test every deer and um, so they feel like they feel like they've crossed that threshold where they don't have deer getting to be five years old. Jim, Yeah, it's it's bounded. It's gonna change. It's bound to change. When when you get an animal that contracts it and it's only gonna live for two years, you're not gonna have a lot of

mature bucks out there. You're gonna run out. Are we seeing that happen in places? From your perspective? I don't know. Personally, you know, you'd have to go to the Northern Rockies, um, like Wyoming in Colorado is the place where the prevalence in the game management unit, And I'm just not familiar enough to know whether they're seeing changes in age, structure

and things. I don't know. But when you get problems would be like the first thing that I think that like, like that would be the thing that that people would be more not the second most interesting part of this. The first most interesting part is disease transmission. To my view, the second most interesting part is, like, is this the end of Big Giant Box? I feel like someone will be looking at like Boone and Crockett entries coming out of these c w D zones. If you've got thirty

of the males. One thing too, that a lot of people don't talk about it when we talk about prevalence rates throughout the Western meal deer prevalence rate is defined by those wildlife disease experts as the percent of the males older than one year that are positive. Very specific. Yeah, and and so females have a lower prevalence rate. Um. But but you have you have to arrive at some kind of definition, so you're not adding a bunch of

does in one state and not another state. So so they've defined prevalence rate and keep it consistent throughout the West as just being bucks older than a year, males older than a year, and that's prevalence rate. And so when you've got problems, right, you're just not gonna get bucks that are living to six, seven, eight years old. You're gonna do very few of them because at any given time, one fifth of bucks over one year of age. Yeah,

and so and then it's also driven by population. But you can go on to the risk to the cw D page of Wisconsin d n are and there's some prevalence studies that are going on in southeastern Richland County. We're in northeastern Ridgmond County and go into southeastern Riskon County and see what the trends are there. And those are the areas where anecdotally it supports exactly the same thing that the anecdotes are. It's higher prevalence in older bucks.

And anecdotally, we're not running out a deer because we're really good at growing deer. You know, birth and deer and are part of you know what. It's like, It's just it's shango live if you're a deer. We've got all these groceries in the spring and summer and fall, um in the winter not so much, but um so we're producing a lot of deer. And that's one of the things that the what did we call them, the CWD skeptics, I thought they were going to uh. I thought all the deer were gonna be dead by now.

It's like, yeah, I thought the prevalence was gonna level off at two percent. You know what the hell you want to talk about here? I mean, don't don't throw that ship at me. Let's take a look at what what is really happening. And um uh positive funds and and Jim could talk about this too. I'm sure about you know, as a as a faun getting CWD from a positive doe in utero or is that you know, happening after and why there's some really interesting I just

haven't been down that rabbit hole too far. I have talked to a couple of biologists about it. But I think I saw a report recently of some research that I think it's still in progress, that they found the mouthform preon in fetal tissue not even born yet it's got CD. So what I'm trying, what I'm trying to do with with with my here's where I'm coming from with it. And again you can read that article. I

I like killing big giant bucks. I am not a guy who wants to go out and kill every deer just because every deer, you know, is possible, because we can just let's just kill every deer to control this disease. I want a healthy dear herd. I think we need to be talking about healthy deer management UM as opposed to you know, big big giant buck management, the other thing that's happening in our area. We got so deep into um the big giant buck management. They're not rare anymore.

I mean, oh yeah, nice hunter and six deer we killed two over here. I mean it's it's I mean, it's true. There's still just giants being killed. A giant was killed by a neighbor, you know, the same thing. One seventy class buck c w D not detected, you know, four year old buck. So there's some of that too. It's sort of like you would talk one time about COVID and I was like, well, not one one of those things that Steve like said I latched on, or it says that that I latched onto, and that was

you said, boy COVID. The thing that freaks me out about it is how sort of how it affects every thing's differently, people differently, and some people get really sick and some people hardly get sick at all. And this is almost the same sort of thing. But as prevalence goes up, we're gonna have less of that we have. I what I preach to people is it's the deer

herd is going to be smaller in our area. And you know what, we can either be the ones driving that and have a nice age structure and a nice um, you know, a nice balanced herd um with a lower prevalence or we can let c w D do it, and yeah, we can have all kinds of your and they're gonna be young ones. We're going to be positive. Then no, not too h all right, Jim, I'm gonna eat me some quick hitters, because see we got the problem. Richie's over here dying. He's ready play me the trivia.

Did you know right over there? Ah? Yeah, no, I'm doing great and this is fascinating sitting here and watch this and good deal. So hang there, Jim's gonna do a bunch of quick hitters. We're gonna time you on how quick you can handle all these times. Okay, Ready, guy rode in with a doe and antler dope which has got like three it's a full on, that's all you call it. It's got like double brow times hard

antler like a nice buck. But it's a dope. That's an unusual that's a really unusual case, that one that was sent in there. I've been getting these reports for forever, and the confusion is there's a whole bunch of different conditions that can make a buck actually look like a female when you when you kill, when you kill a deer that's got antlers, you open the legs up, and it doesn't look like you don't find a male genitalia.

That's that's obvious. Until here, I'm talking about testicles against Spencer. Pay attention. There's he's like, now he's getting sexy in here. There's a condition called hypoconatle bucks, which which their testicles are actually in the scrotum, but their size of a p. So if you want to insult your your your camp mates,

just call them hypogonadle. But they don't have the kind of testosterone and so they they don't develop as they're developing young, they don't develop the full male external gentitlia to look hormal. And so when you when someone open the legs, it looks like a female, and they immediately declare it as an antler do they go on? But it's really not. It's just a malformed buck. There's also crypt orchid males, which the testicles don't they never descend

into the scrotum. They stay in the body cavity, en cased in fat, and that throws people off. And and so you look and there's no scrotum, there's no testicles, and and sometimes even the penis can look like it's in a fold like almost almost different, almost like a female, and so that that throws people off there too. But in that case, the testicles are in the body and they're producing testosterone and so they get hard antler and everything else. So this is a lot of those like

uh dope bucks. Sometimes they're called pseudo hermaphrodites because I mean it's like people are and then people are writing to you being like it's a it's a dough, yep. And then and then you say, well, what kind of genitalia would it looked like, Well, I don't know, we got it, and you know, there's no proof. So a lot of cases you don't know what's going on. But so this picture here, you can't really tell. Well, I

I think I can, right, that's the picture. Yeah, there's there's there are cases where you have antler does and that can happen from uh an injury to the skull. There's a certain region the temporal bone on the skull that's real sensitive to you of the bones injured at a certain time of the year, it can produce even in the dough, it can produce an odd antler coming out of the skull plate because dose produced testosterone in an adrenal gland too, so they produce a little bit

a testosterone, and antler development is not dependent on testosterone. Actually, antlers grow at a low point of testosterone during the year. They grow their antlers in velvet, and then you get close to rut, testosterone levels come up. The rising testosterone levels then dry the velvet, they shed the velvet, and then they go through rut. And after the rut, testosterone drops precipitously and that's what triggers then the shedding of antlers dropping off. So the antlers are growing during a

period of low testosterone. So in certain cases, if a dough has a tumor on her ovary and it messes up the hormone system or she gets an injury in the skull, she can actually produce antlers. And there's cases where does have antlers that are actually reproductive and then they're reproducing and have a fall, and but in almost every single one of those cases, the dough stay in velvet because they don't have that dramatic increase in t

stosterone to dry the velvet and shed the antlers. So they'll stay in velvet through the winter and and even hang onto their antlers and not chet them because they don't have the testoina. But what's unusual about this is that that was a hard antler in that picture from Missouri and I and I wrote to the game warden who contacted the hunter out in the field. She sent me some more pictures and in one of the pictures

you can almost see it. You can clearly see it doesn't have a scrotum, doesn't have a penis that has four nipples. But males have four nipples too. In dear, a hunter called me one time said he shot at antler dough because they had four nipples. And I said, look inside your shirt right now, tell me what you see? Four nipples? Four nipples. Yeah. But but in that particular picture, I think I can almost see it what looks like a volva uh, kind of on the edge of the picture.

I think that might be a legitimate heart antler dough, which is extremely rare. But these odd things happened. She could have something strange with her ovaries that's producing enough to stops for him to do that. Okay, right for next one. Alyssa from Michigan wrote in She's got a picture of a buck with cow spots. She's calling it so pawpaw Michigan buck with cow spots. We call it piebald um. It's like not quite like being albino. You can clarify that. And there's people saying that, man, you

got to shoot those deer because they got health problems. Yeah, there's some truth to that. You don't need to shoot those deer. There's there's actually that piebald condition is something that shows up here and there especially made it. You can't shoot those deer. A lot of it's state by states. Some states you can't shoot a white deer, you can't

shoot a piebald deer. So it depends on that. But that pipebald condition is a recessive genetic condition and comes along with um deformed spine like scoliosism, deformed poves, bode leg short legs, short nose, short jaw um. Sometimes internal organs are are not formed correctly, and so there's other genetic problems with those piebald deer. But some deer, some dear die right away because of the problems when their fones.

Some deer don't have too many of those other problems, and they'll live to adulthood and you'll have a you'll have a buck, mature buck that looks like Doug's favorite beer, the Spotted Kyle from New Glarious Brewery. You've got these brown and white patches and they're always random. There's no two that are like they're just random on them and they could be sextually viable. Yeah, definitely. So is it a lot? So is it like, um, when they make

it illegal to get one to shoot one? Is that kind of just It's just it's like it's like an aesthetic thing, like people want to see them. It's aesthetics. It's it's not a common enough thing that it's gonna be more common, um if you preserve them, and so many of them are dying because of the other issues

like that. It's it's just purely a social thing. It's not gonna affect any you Ready for the last one, deer with fangs from the elk Ivories Deer with fangs people right in all time, they got like a deer with some crazy teeth going on. Yeah, white tailed mealder do not normally have upper canine teeth, but in rare cases that we get a throwback from evolution. And and I say that because back in the Mile scene, the

early dino deer or the early primitive deer. Generally most of those had fangs and and some of the early ones just had fangs, and then Antler's kind of developed and we showed up in the fossil record, and as we got more and more fangs older in the fossil records, there's some of some antlerless animals that are in the deer family, depending on when you start the deer family with big tufts like that, and the tusts probably served the same purpose as antlers as display um, probably mostly

as display maybe as fighting intimidation of of rivals um. But then as antler's development got more elaborate throughout deer evolution, those fangs got smaller and smaller, and now we still have over half of the forty species in the deer family that have upper can nine teeth. And when you get when you talk, when you hear someone talk about elk ivory, like I'm having a necklace made for my wife, um um that has elk ivory incorporated in it. That

is a vestigial tuss, that's a deer fang. Sure, that's just one. Elk are one of the species that retain those upper upper can nines. What's interesting bottom is that how wiggly they are. Sometimes they're loose, sometimes they are firm in the in the socket there. But you think about um like a primitive deer probably looks a lot like a munth check with small lantler's up on big

stalks and then um canines. But but with what's interesting about the white tail and muld are not normally having canines is species that do have big canines, like the Chinese water deer has big tusks, and underneath on the lower lip, underneath that fang is a black spot black fur that kind of accentuates that white kid and it just it kind of it kind of shows it off.

But what's interesting if you look at a deer amount of a white tailor meal there and they also have that black labial spot on the lower on the right where that canine would be. And so the question is did they lose their canines and most individuals and still retain that black labial spot. Is that what that black label spots for? Because what else is it for? And you look at some other tut animals and you see that black spot, that's pretty interesting. It might be this

evolutionary throwback from from Tino deer. Are there any other primitive characteristics? I thought that I've seen that some of the canine deer will often have like a very black defined line above their eyes, like a black eyebrow. That was one individual deer from from Louisiana. There was a deer that had in Florida, maybe it was I think Louisiana. Was it Louisiana, That's what was in my head. But it had pretty big canine tusks, and then it had a strange black tap on the forehead and so that

was um. Lindsay Thomas Rod from from National Deer Association wrote an article about that and talk to me about that, and he talked a lot in that article about that being um, the black markings and the canines all being primitive characteristics. But no one, you know, no one really knows what the fur look like back in the Miocene. But I had an illustrator for a for a Melder book that's coming up illustrate some of these extinct deer species, and I actually had him illustrate one of them with

that black v from that individual. And let's go Indiana. Richie, do you feel like Jim's gonna kick the sh out everybody at trivia. Yes, if it's a deer, if you want to win, man, i'd have your sights on beating Jim. That's I'm kind of working on my angle over here. Is there a high prevalence of der questions? Um? I don't think so good. We're gonna get right into it. This is kicking off, I tell you is it? Kick Off is some hot meat eat or trivia action hosted

by Spencer new Heart. So right, this is trivia you're not going to get from Jeopardy or Trivial pers Okay, my racer, I'm gonna think that's not in there. You got sleeves, there's the next drab sleeves are even black? Okay, I'm I'm ready to go get Eddy. This is trivia you're not going to get from Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit or any bar night trivia. These are born out of meat eaters four verticals and made just for our metetor audience. Steve, what are our four verticals? I'm gonna stop doing this

because I think that it's stupid. I don't they don't fit. I think this makes it special. When you have a question that go ahead, they don't fit. Yeah, you can say, like, like our what we're interested here at this here we're well our interests hunting, fishing, wild foods, wildlife conservation. But when it comes to trivia and you ask him out man question, it doesn't. I'll ask someone else that question. From now on, there is it's listen, dude, it's outdoor trivia.

But it's like it's like specific to meet either. Okay, then rebranded, but there's a when we come out with the actual game that you can buy. It's gonna have a Pioneers and Explorers categories. Okay, when you go to our website, you're not gonna go to a drop down menu that says Pioneers and Explorers on it. Technically under our conservation tab is where you'll find Okay, So the worst hide hunter okay, the worst hide hunter okay, j Wright more would live under conservation. The man who claims

to have killed ten thousand buffalo. Yeah, when we cover a poacher that goes under wildlife management, which lives under conservation. Okay, all right, let's start. There is a prize. Media will donate what hundred dollars to the conservation organization The winners choosing. We've played four times so far. Brody has one twice, Steve has won once, and Clay has won once. All right, we have some housekeeping. I have a punt gun update. This is a quote from the Boon and Crocket Club.

Not yet a quote from the Boone and Crocket Club. Many states had outlawed the use of punt guns by the eighteen sixties, but it wasn't working. At the turn of the twentieth century, federal law was desperately needed, not just for waterfowl, but all of the nation's wildlife. Also. I found three punt guns for sale in online auctions right now. They range from four thousand dollars to eight thousand dollars and from six ft long to ten feet long.

One sellers selling point said that his buddy shoulder fired the gun and broke his collar bone, So he'd recommend you mounted on something if you shoot it again. It's to hear man from a lot of heat behind that. Uh. Now, for today's trivia, we have a stacked room. We have Jim, who knows everything about everything, Doug who also knows everything about everything, and then else we have Richie. He'll find out that's right, Richie is representing all meat eater listeners.

So a lot of pressure, Richie. I don't know that everybody's gonna vote for me to represent that. Well that's that's how this works. You represent them all, Richie. A lot of pressure Phil playing music. Look, I need to know what I stand to win everything? How's that had just tend to win everything? Alright? Question one, and like every time we play, this is multiple choice. For the first question, the topic is fishing. This first great question comes to us via Cody aust Hout and rich Relehan.

If you have a question you think is right for media to trivia, you can send it to Trivia at the media dot Com. The question is which of the following trout is not actually a trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, golden trout, or brown trout? Which of the following trout is not actually a trout, Rainbow, brooke, golden, or brown. Steve has a question. No, I'm justlating. I already got the answer. Okay, we have a confidence. Steve Jim is e racing the ringer is uh? Questionable? On the first question,

does everybody have an answer? Can you repeat the which of the following trout is not actually a trout rainbow brooke golden or brown. Rainbow Brooke golden or brown. Alright, go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Krin saying golden, Doug saying rainbow, Steve saying brook, Jim saying golden, Ross saying golden, Richie saying golden, Phil saying brooke, and Sean saying golden. The correct answer is brook trout and Steve got it correct. Brook Trotter technically members of Phil got

it right. I added a fishing podcast every week that's just paying off brook Trotter technically members of the char family. Many historians consider them the most targeted fish in America up until the late eighteen hundreds. That's when brook trout were displaced by stockings of brown trout and rainbow trout across much of their range. Well filler down, you can fill around the board. Topic to the topic is cooking.

According to section three nineteen of the Department of Eggs Code of Federal Regulations, for something to legally be called an Italian sausage, it needs to have salt, pepper, and one other spice. What is that third spice? This is a legal definition of an Italian sausage. It needs to have salt, pepper and one other spice. I want you to tell me that third spice. Feeling good about this one? I have no clue feeling very good about this one.

Does everybody have an answer? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin saying Fennel, Doug with no answer, Jim saying Fennel, Ross saying Reguano, Ritchie saying sage, Phil saying Paprika, and Sean without an answer. The correct answer is Fennel. What did you have? Phil? I put Pepa or Star Annie, so Fennel or star. Listen man, I'm like barely Italian. I got an Italian name, but I'm like talking about Sicilian.

I did the I did the whole thing. I'm Italian, two percent North African, then a whole bunch of West Western European. Yeah, but he talks about it like he's from the Other rules include that the final product cannot have more than thirty five percent fat or three percent water if the sausage has been smoked, cooked, and cured. Those words must be used in the product name in the same size font as the words Italian sausage, can you whoever wrote fennel, can you raise your hand really quick,

Karin Steed? Right. What makes that way more embarrassing for me is that my brother cooked fennel sausage ravioli the other night. I so should have known that there's a sausage that we've been making that we got from the cookbook that our buddy Steve Kendrawt has and meg Nanni is MiG Yanni's like standard sausage. Now it's salt like dear meat and fat, right, ye, salt, black pepper. Final, it's Italian the best. It's like so simple and so good.

Everyone eats. It's like holy ship. It's like, dude, that's three things. It is phenomenal plus Question three, the topic is big Game. What state has the largest population of prong horn antelope? What state has the largest population of prong horn antalope? We have some quick answers in the room. Does everybody have an answer? Not? Phil? Phil? Now do us go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Korean saying Wyoming, Wyoming, Wyoming, Wyoming, Wyoming, Wyoming, Phil saying Arizona.

The correct answer is Wyoming. Wyoming has a commanding lead on the rest of the Mars. Such a promising start with that bird trout ship. Wyoming has a commanding lead in the rest of America, with about four hundred thousand antelope within its borders. Montana is second at one hundred and twenty five thousand, Colorado third at seventy thousand in New Mexico and South Dakota share fourth place at about a really comfortable lead. Man and their numbers, like any

state's animal numbers, fluctuate a lot. I think it was like a decade ago they were at five hundred thousand, So they dominate the rest of the country. When it comes to goats. Question for the topic is biology. Oh, this is a jimmure pressure. I'll blow it sec Yeah. Yeah, what do you got? We had to write in from a biologist saying, can we please stop calling pronghorns pronghorn? Antelone tell what we're going on? Yeah, the topic again

is biologies. Is question for this chief vein of the thigh supplies oxygenated blood from the heart to the lower extremities. This chief vein of the thigh supplies oxygenated blood from the heart to the lower extremities. Again, a confident room Karin is even dancing in her chair. She feels so good about her answer. Can you repeat that again? Yes? Who Jim? If you could repeat it? Okay? Are you

fact checking me? Now? Uh? This chief vein of the thigh supplies oxygenated blood from the heart to the lower extremities. I love if I got it. Everybody was saying, make Jim feel better and classify this under physiology. I am blaking so hard right now, it's ridiculous. M hm. Do we need a second it? We're good. I know I'm wrong,

Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karine saying for moral artery, for moral artery, for moral artery, Jim saying vena Kava, Ross saying for moral Richie with no answer, Phil saying for morial and but he's taking to get a point for writing apheal. Mean, that's that's my bad. Correct answer is for moral artery. But I really I've never seen it written. Now, I don't people saying federal and I thought it was aphemeral. That's an art, that's

an artery that goes away. Yeah, thank you, Steve. I'm gonna protest that one though, because the vein can't be an artery. Artery can't be a vein. That's why I thought, what blood vessel? I thought of the world. Dude, I think that you got to throw that out, Spencer. I think Spencer gets a negative score. Man, you have to throw it out. I should get plus two. Then, yeah, you gotta throw it out. That was tripped me up to. I'm seeing places that call it a vein, but not like, uh,

not educated places. So you you may have me there. Okay, I would give Jim the correct answer. I think Jim would have got it if not throwing it up, but what was everybody would have got it, Jim. Let's just do the honesty thing. You would have gotten it. Yeah. I was thinking for more and then I said, repeat that, oh vein, I can't think of a van. Here's the thing here. But here, here's where you're not thinking it through.

He said, supplies blood too. Yeah, so you should have been like, you should have recognized that there was a contradiction, if you're such a Joe smarty pants, I did. That's why I wanted to repeat it. Contradiction. You got a vein supplying and he's never played before, so he might not feel comfortable. Yeah, yeah, I know that Spencer is in fact fallible. I feel bad about the question. I would give Jim credit because he would know better than

get Jim credit. But I think everybody was every ephemeral. Yeah, Femeral's no, I'm not gonna argue with you unless see Sean Karen, Doug Steve. In Leonard Lee rust seventy eight book The Deer of North America, he estimates that a white tail shot in the famoral arder will only survive about eighty do one hundred and twenty seconds before it runs out of oxygen in its brain and bloodstream. I can tell you that you think faster or slower man

mile man hit one. When I was a little kid, we found it a mile and a half away, but hit nicked right. It's different. He we got there, he didn't have any of the stuff. And remember he took the only thing he had. I can't remember how his word like he had found his arrows somewhere along the way and UH had to use like it took a had to gut it. He didn't have his knife or anything. Remember him taking a one of those rocky mountain broadheads apart and gutting it with one of the single little

blades the entire deer. Gutted the entire deer. Wow, I mean, what do you mean how do you got partial part of a deer? I don't know if he just like opened it up and then carry it on with something like use his hands from there or something. No, he did, like he took it apart. And remember him gotting the deer with that little that little wedge of a razor blade. Yeah. I think hog dresses where you leave everything north of the diaphragm. Yeah, they cut. There's the Scots called like

like they got a word for it. It's like the diaphragm down, grutching or glotching, diaphragm down, like gut it, gut it, diaphragm down, and they called like whatever the hell. Okay, we are on the question five. The topic is natural history. This next great question comes to us via Mark David Bradford. If you have a question you think is right for media trivia, send it to Trivia at the mediator dot com. Merryweather Lewis brought a dog along for the Core Discovery expedition.

It's the only animal to come eat the entire three year journey journey. I need you to either give me the dog's name or tell me it's breed. I don't even know you had a damn dog. There are there's a sad STATU saw somewhere that there are more statues of the dog than there was uh of York. Yes, marywether Lewis brought a dog along for the Core of Discovery expedition. It's the only animal to complete the entire three year journey. I need you to either get I

should know the name too, but I can't think. I have no name of the I just had an illustrator illustrate that scene of them killing the first mule. Here it was a dog in it. Okay, great, yep. I had to describe to the illustrator what kind of dog to draw afterwards. I had that dog when they were starving over Low Low Pass and no one thought to eat it. They thought about it. They ate over two dogs on the expedition, but they never ate this dog.

No ship. Yeah, I had no idea about this dog. Jim, tell me about the color that they painted the dog. When we're done with this, I want to visit that. Does everybody have an answer? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin saying a new Foundland. We have Doug saying an American mix, Ak and Matt, Steve saying a blue tiger, blue tick, Jim saying in Newfoundland, Ross saying a wolfhound, Richie saying a hound, uh, Phil saying in Newfoundland,

and Shawn saying a bloodhound. The correct answer is it was a Newfoundland named Semen. How do you guys not know this that I've got? That's right? A new Fie? How how do you spell that name? S E A M A N. Now, Steve, watch how this little tidbit ties the game together. On May fourteen, eighteen o five, Lewis and Clark had to perform surgery on an artery and Siemen's hind leg that was severed by beaver bite.

My favorite Lewis and Clark, Francis Hunter speculates they would have used a three dollar and fifty cent tourniquet that they purchase from a pharmacy in Philadelphia to stop the bleeding. According to journal entry, Semen never went into shock and made a full recovery ten days later, tagged by a beaver taxed by a how coome That guy never comes on the podcast. Remember I said we should do that

grinds getting there. I have a random question about three and fifty cent turn kids that adjusted for inflation, because that seems crazy. It identified it as an axle Turni kid, which I couldn't find anything about that online, so it must be something real special. Now I I'd seen it. Argued about what color Semen was and it said it said that in modern depictions of Semen, he's often black,

because that's what a lot of modern Newfoundland's are. But if you look at the oldest paintings of Semen, he was often like white with brown spots or black spots. So what color is the Newfoundland in your book? Ours was black? I think something a little, but it was it was black. Did you get that one ross? No, I don't think anyone got an other. Jim. And one

more thing. If you want to be well prepared for emergencies in the field, like Lewis and Clark, meat Eater is now selling a meat Eater Hunter Series acute trauma care Kit. It is everything you'd want in a trauma care kit, including a tourniquet, trauma shears, splint bandages, gauze and more. Is the cost three dollars and cents something like that. Roughly we are halfway through trivia. Looking at

the leaderboard. We have Steve and Jim and Karin with four and then the rest of the crowd with roughly two. It's a barn burner. Question six. The topic is conservation. What state has the most game wardens? What state has the most game wardens? Oh? Man, this one, I'm making a wild here I can rationalize my wild ass. Guess what state has the most game wardens? Does everybody have

an answer? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin saying Texas, Doug st Pennsylvania, Steve saying Missouri, Jim saying Texas, Ross Sant Pennsylvania, Richie saying Arizona, Phil sat Colorado, and Shawn Sant Texas. The correct answer is Texas. Texas has the most at four sixty, followed by New York at four hundred, North Carolina at three seventy, and California

at three fifty. Ironically, despite North Carolina having the third most game wards in the country, as we discussed on a previous game of trivia, they ranked dead last in game warden salary. Can I say why I went Missouri? Please? No, it doesn't matter. He said, he was an educated guest. Let's let's hear the back they got that. They got that license plate tax, you know, the hell's pay for consation. So I thought maybe they were so flushed with money

that we're able to stock up. But New York was second. Second. Wow, think about I was debating between Texas, Florida, and California just because of population. Question seventy topic is gear. What is the most purchased center fire rifle ammunition in America? What is the most purchased centerfire rifle ammunition in America? We're talking caliber here, correct? I feel like there's some Yeah, let's now, buddy, huh, you know this one. Everybody has

an answer. It looks like go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin saying three o A, Doug saying thirty odds six, Steve saying to twenty three, Jim saying thirty odds six, Ross saying thirty odds six, Richie saying thirty odds six, Phil without an answer, and Sean saying the two three The correct answer is the two three. Remington that I was worried. The nuanced comes from our friends at Federal Premium as well as a number of other sources.

The top five most sold rounds are two twenty three Remingtons, three O A Winchester, thirty odd six Springfield, thirty thirty Winchester, and to seventy Winchesters. So that's that's an order, that's in order. Y'all gave pretty relevant answers to twenty three dominates, so along with three O eight because it's also popular among blinkers. Yeah, that's that's so obvious. Once I saw Shawn's board. Question eight, the topic is biology. This next

great question comes to us via Paul Province. If you think you have a questions right for Media Trivia, send it to Trivia at the media dot com. An animal most active at dawn and dusk is crepuscular. An animal most active at nighttime is nocturnal, and an animal most active at daytime is blank. An animal most active at don and dusk is crepuscular, most active at night is nocturnal,

and an animal most active at daytime is blank. Quick writing, but it did look like it didn't look like confident writing. Everybody have an answer, Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin saying, perky ha ha, Doug saying sonny uh, Steve saying diurnal, Jim saying diurnal, Ross saying awake, Richie saying diurnal. He gets diurnal. We have Phil saying not a vampire, and Sean saying diurnal. The correct answer is diurnal humans and motion Steve, Sean, Richie m humans and

most other primates are considered diurnal. But this puts us in the minority when you zoom out a bit, because only about mammals also sleep at night. Me and gimber Neck connect. We have two questions left, and looking at the literal leaderboard, we have Steve and Jim with six right each, and then Sean and Krin with five right each, and the rest of us are the most of us are going to google. Question nine. The topic is public land. What federal agency has the most acres of public land?

What federal agency has the most acres of public land? Now I would not accept Department of Interior. I'm looking for an agency within the Department of the Interior. Mm hmmm, damn. And then right, everybody have an answer? Steve, do you yeah? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Krin saying uh blm. So you're saying BLM, Doug saying US Forestry, Steve saying b LM, Jim saying b LM, Ross saying b LM, Richie saying National Parks, Phil saying b LM,

and Shawn saying b LM. The correct answer is BLM. BLM has two hundred forty eight million acres, which is ten percent of all the land in the country. That's followed by the Forest Service at one hundred and ninety three million acres, US Fish and Wildlife Service at eighty nine million acres, and Park Service at eighty four million acres. I want to say that I wanted it to be forestry.

We are onto our last question and we have Steve and Jim tied with seven and Seawan and Karin tied with six, so we could potentially have a four way tied for first place. The topic is fishing. If someone says they caught a limit of copper bellies, what popular game fish are they referring to? If someone says they caught a limit of copper bellies, what popular game fish are they referring to? A lot of pressure for four of you, Steve, Jim, Sean and Karin Karann are you nervous, Jim,

are you nervous? Very nervous. I'm not a fish squeezer. I'm gonna lose because of brook trout in this question? Does everybody have an answer? Um, you're gonna come on, bet just you better write something down because you're playing the first place. Here, go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Karin with no answer, Doug saying carp Steve saying blue gill saying pumpkin seed. Steve says we call them rust bellies. Ross saying bass. Richie with no answer,

Phil saying smallmouth. That's a good answer, Phil, It's not right. It's a good answer. Sean saying yellow perch. The correct answer is bluegill. Don't they hybridized with pumpkin seeds? That's close, Jim. I don't think I'm gonna give it to you, though, they're not saying. They were given this name because of the vibrant orange and yellow coloration you find on a bluegill's belly, which is most vibrant on males during the spawn.

The copper belly moniker is most popular in the South, but according to Encyclopedia Britannica, other common nicknames from bluegill include blue sunfish, sunny sun perch, copper heads, bream brim and roach clowns called big old russ bellies. That's good too. I like that. Steve Winds meat Eater trivia donation. Have we donation. We're still sitting at a hunter box, still at a hondo. I think we should increase it. My donation.

I would like my one their dollars to go to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which I'll point out is very serious about paying for the science on c w D. That's good, Rich, thanks for playing, Thanks for having me. Oh one other thing too, because we talked about this a little bit in the past. Jim, can you give us a heads up on your boys progress from having been pretty banged up in a car wreck. Yeah. I think my son Cody was in a head on collision.

I'm back in early October. Both broken legs, badly shuttered arm. But he's got a positive attitude and he's he's going to rehab. He's now walking with with a walker and when he pulls it together, he's gonna go see Luke holmbs. Yes, he is, absolutely. Yeah. Right after the accident, they were they were planning to go to Luke Holms and and we weren't able to go. And then through Steve Um, we're gonna we're gonna be able to let him go.

When he gets better, what he's able to, he'll be able to go back and shotgun a beer with him. Oh yeah, but you know what, I bet it won't be as fast, speaking from experience, all right, by thanks for joining anything, I am I missing anything. No, have a good year. Making New Year's resolution. I don't know what should it be. I got one. I just came up in mind. I didn't thought about that before. What's that? Keep on keeping one man ALR everybody. Thanks