Ep. 328: Test My Meat

Jessice got his lab quote on We Now as promised, we have taken as promised the previous episodes, we have taken possession of and we didn't get an industry deal on this expensive yeah, our very first piece of meat lab equipment. Did they even cut us a deal? Cran, Well, they cut us a deal? Oh wow? Seriously? Alright, so we still got thousands sunk into this, but I'm gonna give him a shot. Cut us deal from g R Electric Manufacturing Company. We have the g R one? Do

we have that? And what one do we have? Chester that one right there that you're looking at, but the one fifty two? Ah? Or do we have both? I think that. I think that it's both the same like machine, but the Warner Bratzler this mechanism here where it actually shears. Oh that's I think so, but I'm you know, I'm not on that. Okay. So here we're running the what's that, Sean,

You sound real qualified? Yeah, exactly. Hey, we're running the g R and the Warner Bradsler shearing machine exclusively distributed by Tall Grass Solutions, Inc. Out Of Manhattan, Kansas. And what this is is when someone comes and tells you I shot a I shot a bucket. It was so tough, my white you the dog wouldn't right you. Uh, we can now put a numeric value to to wild game toughness. Call him out on it. Chester the tester has been so he's back at full circle. Yep, that was That

was your first nickname, right, it was? So he went from Chester the Testerster was first. Well, I gotta tell your story with a quick second. Kimmy Warriners here, Jimmy, you know how tonight we were supposed to eat um at the Timber Bar and Big Timber. But we're not going anymore. We're gonna eat at my house. One day, I barely knew Chester and me and Chester driving down the road with my kids and we're going we're out beaver trapping and we're going to get a bite to

eat at the Timber Bar. It's called the Timber Bar, right. It's next to the Grand Hotel in Big Timber, So it is the Timber Bar. Yeah, it's got a great neon sign, barely New Chester. And I'd order taken to calling them Chester the Molester, So I would say, well, everybody does, right, just do you? You don't like the story. It's a funny story, it's a great story. The nickname really you know your store because mom doesn't like it. Listen, this is the last time I'm gonna tell the story. Okay,

tell the story. Yeah, tell it fire away, Steve, I'm saying to him, well, everybody probably calls you that, right, like I just saw. I thought every Chester on the planet went by that name. He says, well, no, it actually never really happens. So we walk into the Timber Bar. Outcomes the chef who wants to say hi. Mid fifties mid fifties woman. Yeah, probably she comes out and say hi. I say, we like do our greetings? I say, oh,

these are my kids, is my friend Chester. Imagine like a nice Midwestern type looking but in the rocky, but in the northern rock She she do just as well in the Midwest. I say, this is my friend Chester, and what does she say? Chester? She says Chester the molester. Chester, like seconds after he told me no one calls him that. Then I knew he was lying. I've only heard that one other time and from a jud So we go background, ma'am.

Then he became Chester the Investor when he got heavy into bid coin sold his bitcoin and became Chester the Divester. Then he became Chester the Midwester, which is a favorite of mine. Now back to cheddar ch. Now back to Chester the tester, because he has learned how to run our wild game. It's our meat, tenderness, cheerful. He was also a Chester that um, no, he was investor, and now he was Midwestern Uncle Chester. It was investor, divester,

Uncle chesty. Okay, it was brad Leoni named him because Brad was I was. I was telling I was inviting Brad to to pal paid Chester's packs. And when he this is after Chester was had spent his whole life rowing a boat. He was a professional fishing guide. So he had to roll that damn boat all day and he was saying how his pecks were getting depleted after leaving that business, so I quit the quit the rowing and lost aspects and started a lab here back to

chest of the testing. Now he's back to chest of the test. The Warner brass or Sheer machine. What we're gonna do this is gonna be an ongoing project like we already have in the lineup. We have odd Dad, which is universally regarded as like the toughest game meat. Not doing it right now, but everybody that has an audient, I'll tell you how tough it is. So we're gonna do an odd Ad. I tried elk at my house, okay, but we're gonna do it again here for everybody, for

everybody to listen to. We have a feral bull in the lineup. Yeah, collected by one Cody Ferrying out of New Mexico, and listeners can just send in how should they do it? You know, we always making up those email addresses that we got like fuck up old taxes, Jermy at the meat eater dot com. Yeah, we could do like test my meat. Okay at the meat eater someone better. Okay, can you take a note to tell the those guys that make that email address for test

my meat. Okay, send an email. We'll make sure it's you can we make sure this is real by the time. Okay, there's a neat it doesn't it? Okay, as you're listening to this, this email address exists. Test my meat. I feel so bad for Corey. Test my meat at the meteor dot com. Please make it legal. Oh no, no, here, let's do this. And what is the normal email address meat eater at like meat eater at the meat eater

dot that's the normal thing. Okay, let's not make a new email address the subject line, subject line, subject line in all caps, test my meat. That way, Corey will see it and he'll know to instantly forward it to Chester. Are you Are you going to be able to manage this? No, as I can guarantee you know, I mean to a certain extent. Yeah, okay, not during the tournament season, Steve,

not during the tour. But you send an email says test my meat, and then you make a pitch and Chester will weigh at scientific merit with his backward hat on, with his backward hat on as he'll put his goggles on and read your email, and he will weigh the scientific merit of the meat, and he will decide whether he'll accept a sample. If he accepts a sample you fired off in the mail, Chester, have we and you'll get your own custom reading. You'll get your own custom reading.

So when people say, when you say this meat is this buck was so tough? In fact, it was a five point two, have we set a scientific sort of have we decided what scale is tough? What scale is tender? Chester? Because he read all the manual. Okay, all right, so we had that. I'm handing it over to Chester, now, Jester explained the machine. Sure, So, um, it's a sheer

force test and you basically core out. Would you take a little core sample out of whatever you want to test, Whether that's a peep, which will that's a marshmallow peep? Save that? Yeah? Save that? Just do it, do it your own way. But people know what to explain what you mean by a peep? Yeah, not one of your friends. No, No, this is a little easter This is a little easter bunny that if anybody had easter baskets growing up, your mother would put some little yellow or purple Easter bunny

marshmallows in there. YEA a kind of didn't know. It's sparkly wild berry peeps. Sparkly wild berry um. They're really really good toasted like a toasted marshmallow. Just a little tip for everybody. Uh. But so we're gonna test the peep and it should be pretty tender on this tenderness scale, which is an international scale. Yeah, and we're doing we're doing some simple things that everyone is very familiar with, just to set to help set the scale correct. And

it's in kims. So let's say we test out this peep and it ends up being around a two that is tender. Let's say we tested this peep and it ended up being around a four that is acceptable. Let's say we tested it out and it ended up being a six, that'd be one tough peep. Here's my here's a question about the scale, because you're I feel like you're doing there's two things happening with with how you're

treating the scale. On one hand, it's like you're you're you're assigning an objective number to meet tenderness um, which is which I applaud. But then for them to say that a four to three is acceptable. Then you've entered into subjectivity. So they're taking an objective scale but interpreting

it subjectively, which is annoying to me. Well, in grading meat, I think they do that, Like if they're testing a way Goo beef steak and they get a four, they're like, you know, that's that's accepted, Like we can still send this out, right, Yeah, I'm with you, Like the market will. It's like the market will accept the market will accept it.

It feels somewhat. That feels that's feels somewhat it's subjective, but it's also relative, like and I think that's what's important about it is that it's relative to other carcasses of the same species. So you're testing a bunch of beef next to each other and and sort of grading it against one another. So it's your lot, what's that?

It's your lot? So yeah, four cattle that come in on the same truck from the same place, then I could see testing one, right, But it's still we're dealing with individual animals here for sure, And I think that's what we're I mean, I will see, but I think we're gonna see like drastic differences between same species individual animals, and the peep isn't technically a species. The peeple Like, I think we're gonna have a fairly universal reading regardless

of what color peep we actually run. This chess is gonna quarter the peep out. Okay, uh, now explain one, explain one more thing you. Here's the part that I didn't recall because I watched people do this in the lab with a with a breed. They were breeding wag ou cattle with limousine cattle, and they were testing the carcass attributes. I remember them cutting a little plugs out, correct, But I forgot that. You then go and uh stick

the plug in the machine. I thought it was measuring the forest required to cut out a plug, but the plug is just preparing the sample. Correct. Um. Do you want me to get into that talkers, Yeah, I think you should walk us through doing a peep before we get into some what we're gonna do today, because we're trying to milk this out because it was so expensive. If we if this machine was like we'd probably use it this today and never talk about it again because

it was so damn expensive. We gotta do this. We're gonna milk it out and slowly test up so later when we look at the machine, we won't be like else stupid. Yeah right, so we're just gonna get rolling today. Yeah. So let's this, This little peep doesn't have muscle fibers. If he did, we want to make sure we're taking up as accurate of course samples as we can, so they're all very uniform and similar. But it does not

matter that much with this guy. For this meat, for example, you want to be taking the course a core sample in parallel with the grain, so when you're you stick it in the machine, you're sharing it perpendicular across the grains,

so you get an even tests. So so you're cut you the machine is like, yeah, it'd be like if you're slicing a roast up and your nice passing through your probably when you slice the roast up, your knife is passing through cross grain correct ye, And a lot of the times when you bite into it you potentially be biting cross grains. So that's why they have it like that. Um. Another key thing to factor in when we're doing these tests, as you have to cook the

meat evenly. Let's say we had an elk sitting there and we had an antelope sitting there. You want to make sure you're between them. You want to make sure the center of that meat is cooked the same or else you're not going to have an accurate test. And then you have to let it sit in the fridge overnight and kind of let things settle and harden up, and then take your core samples. You'll get a better

core sample that way. So when you when you folks out there start sending uh meat to Chester, um, we will be do it. We'll do this exact procedure. If you accept the sample, you'll like, couldn't do a certain temperature, let a chill overnight, right, and it'll be it'll line up with the same treatment every piece of meat, correct, any signed, any science stuff. You want to make sure you're doing everything the same way, or else you're gonna

get really varying results. You know. That's what I always say, Hey, what's cross grain on a peep? That's what he's saying. He's were just just to set the just to give people a because everybody has had a peep, so we can't do that. But we're gonna give people, for instance, a peep is blank, and then we can march from there and start testing once we have like a we're just trying to establish a baseline with people off a universally recognized substance. So I'm gonna cut cut this peep

up here, and it's like Easter coming up. I'm not gonna use is the core sample? Can I interrupt you real quick? I'm in a bit of hot water. Ah, Wisconsin kind of screwed me because they made youth Turkey season on Easter. I didn't check to I just like made the trip for my kids, like with minus their mom, and then it was pointed out to me that it was easter. Yep, hot water. I can get a lot of people pointed out to get a very nice way. I've heard it doing a lot of work. Well, should

we go for it. I'm not going to use the core sample for this, just because I don't want to. I don't want to get it all to do the meat. So we'll just use the knife here, just just cutting the man. If you thought people were miffed that we did a whole thing on flint and napping without being able to see what we were talking about, that same crowd is going to be miffed about this Chesters slicing up the peep It's stuck to his glove. It's stuck to his lab coat because he's got his goggles on. Yeah,

this is getting more and more scientific. About a minute, he's cut the core. Can you can I see the cord? Can you hit me the court? I want to describe the cord to people. This thing is sticky, so I'm afraid it's gonna affect the results. Yep, just give us bad reading. If it doesn't work, we'll clean it up with some rubbing alcohol. That's a lab type thing. I was looking for it, and then we'll go on to the whitebread. So the core that he's Chester has looks

like a shotgun choke. It's got the textured and textured like a shotgun choke. But it's just a cylinder, a sharp cylinder, and I think that's about a centimeter right. Once you say cal cut a centimeter plug. Yeah, your machine on, it's on. It's ready to roll. There's this emergency shut off buttons. Okay, if things go to hell. If things go to hell, Chester is gonna punch that

emergency shut off button. Chester. I don't want to panick you, but your knife is kind of in the way of that emergency shut off, so we could end up with another accident. You're gonna just discussed workers complement a moment again. You're already gonna be in some dire situation and then go to hit that and then gash your hand further on your knife. Okay, so it's loaded up. Chester will

now hit Wow, that is a real serious emergency shut off. Breath, Okay, hit the do we want to take a few peep core sample tests so we get a mean no, no, I see Now that was the most scientific thing I've heard all Day's gonna throw the switch? He threw the switch. It's sheering what this thing runs at a hell of a pace. If you blinked, you'd be able to wait and then still see it. So that is point five

six ms. So if people know a peep, if you're trying to describe to someone, Let's say you're trying to describe to an alien who's never had a peep and you'd say to him, yeah, it's real. Uh well, let me just tell you it's a point five six jester. How scientific is it to eat the sample as you're doing the test. I've done that because that's what that's what he's come on. You ever been in a lab, That's what you do when you're done testing a material. Okay,

so peep is point five six Chester. Do you think we should move on to the bread or just go right into a prong horn? Oh? I want to see white bread. I think we try bread. The bread will cleaned some of that peep out of the just a quick well, no, here's a quick tip for people. I've been doing it lately and it works phenomenally. Well. You know when you're grinding. When you're grinding uh burger m,

you get done and there's always that right. Then you go to clean it and you always have that handful that then like the next morning whatever, make a patty. You know, you don't know what to do with it, right because it came out in the end, uh or like stuff and sausage into casings, you always get that

little bit of bulk stick some old bread there. The fire down the whole and it pushes out what's left, and then when you clean it, you just got some old bread in there instead of having like more ground meat. You gotta deal with yep. What do you think about that? What do you put in there. But what's that said? What are you putting there to get the old bread out? Piece of meat? Then you got yourself a couple more eggs. And some people don't realize it, but that's where the

sandwich came from. The sandwich something. The sandwich was invented. You need your core? Thank you? All right? Okay, Chester's now taking a core sample out of a hunk of Joe blow. Now when I said get bread, I was pictured you can like white bread. You know. The problem is I just realized you can't get a core off it. You have to get it pretty sliced. You have to go to the wonderbread factory. And right before they don't

do it. Yeah, isn't it hard to picture? It's almost like it's it's like it's like made slice yeah, cartoon yeah, and spits out slices exactly. I can promise you the people at the Wonderbread factory would be like they would hit the emergency stopped button if you said, don't slice it. See, you know what it's like. He predicted the problem that we were about to have. Now we guys, for the record, we have bread stuck in our course. Cutter. It's this isn't made for bread when you're when you guys are

making uh sausage and you're running through the stuffer. Uh, how do you get the final meat out of the tube? Plastic wrap? What do you mean? You take like a three ft long piece of wrap and you put it down and the auger will pull it and it pushes it through, pushes the rest of it through like on a grinder or in the stuffer. It creates a little ball and it pushes it out. I don't understand. I don't know how to better describe. I do something that I wouldn't do in front of anybody, Okay, where I

blow it through. Yeah, that's what chest I trying to do with that. So but explain what you're talking about. So we take a piece of like like your box of plastic wrap you have, we're talking using this stuff exactly. So we un crank it, you know, back up to the top, and then we put a ball of plastic wrap, like you just pull plastic wrap off the you know, off the dispenser, and hours are pretty big, you know, so it's like maybe wide, so it's twice as wide

as a home piece of plast crap. And we'll pull like a three ft chunk, slice it off and throw it kind of ball it up and throw it in the stuffer. And when you crank it down, because it's plastic wrap, it changes its shape and it will extrude that last bit of me. Yes, and we do it with the grinder too. So well when you're grinding me, why you not knowingly because we've covered this like three years ago, almost not understood. Then either sausage suffer even

if it's empty. I mean, if it's empty, there's nothing to get out of it, Steve, because the two yes, yes, because there's a pressure chamber is empty. Yeah. Yeah, they're the air pressure behind it's gonna push it out. It's right there, hot. Yeah, on your grinder. You gotta be yeah, you gotta be on your game. Yeah, because you'll get a little tiny chunks of plasts. Well, so with the grinder,

we we pull the front and pull the blade. So we pulled the blade, eat off and then put it put the thing back on and then run plastic wrap through it and the auger grabs it and pushes the rest of that meat out and same deal. Like mostly it's air pushing exactly, It's just air pushing it out. Yeah, okay, we're gonna check back in with chest with the tester. We now have a ferry. Oh you got a course sample the loafer briery. Not great looking course sample. Oh no,

what are you talking about. It's like it it looks like a piece of like a goose dropping. Yeah exactly. I mean it doesn't squishing it and making it more dense like that, that'll affect the results. Man, well ship fill down there. It's like, here comes Phil with his logic. Listen, I got season my science class. I passed. Oh even so, you know if you went and bought a really low quality one dollar loaf, okay, so this is a loaf of what the what would they call that? They're not

calling it French? Are they calling it her French bread? Okay, but at one dollar loaf of French bread at Walmart, it is twice as tender as a peep. Now, I just want to point out that we're testing the interior. We're testing the bread guts. We're not testing the exterior, which, by the way, is generally what people associate with the toughness of bread is the crust of the bread, not talk about the bread. You don't You don't hear people talk about artists and bread, how it's hard to chew

and stuff like that. Yeah, I guess yeah, like a Sheboygan hard rolls. I think a very regionally specific piece of bread. That's what I had in mind. So the scene, the scene is now set, and we're ready to just concentrate now extrictly on game meat for the red for the rest of the life of this machine. Eight. Just so you know, you've all had a loaf of French bread before. A loaf of French bread comes in at point to seven. Toughness, A peep comes in at point five,

six or eight, I think toughness. So we're not documenting these numbers. We can scratch that down because someone scratch that Phil, What are you doing down there looking for a pen? I got it. I feel like it should be like in a document now exactly. We need a spreadsheet because you know what, whoever can said, should we whoever sends in the Chester the toughest piece of meat wins a prize. Oh boy, And don't get creative and send in like your homemade jerky. By the way, like,

don't because we can't do we can't do exactly. You gotta send in the hole muscle roasts. Yeah, or or we should do like whoever sends in like a specific animal, like the most tender white tail. We'll give a prize for the most tender meat that comes in and a prize for the toughest meat that comes in. What about a trophy? Are we a petrophy? It's gonna be raised on a farm of my bad? Yeah, well no, we just got It's gotta be an honesty system, you know,

because you gotta submit. You gotta pitch Chester on your meat when you say test my meat. Good picture of the animal would be nice. It would be interesting to test farm raised game animal versus truly wild ones. At some point you just uh, you know, like go out to Uncle Jeffson whack bambi in the alfalfa field versus you're trying to do that to win the prize. Well, I think just all these comparisons, right, once we build up our data, this is gonna be oh right, I

think that's a great one. White tail home range of probably like a mile born in May, killed in October, lived on Uncle Jeff's alf alfa field. Probably never was more than a hundred yards away from Yeah, from this author the hedge. Yeah, what's he score? Yeah? Blueing teal that hatches in July gets shot in September. That I can't we got. I really am looking forward to doing some duck. Were we at now? Chest? You're ready to pull a corps? You guys ready for the official first test? Here?

We've been ready? Yeah? What what is it? So? This is antelope? Steve gave it to me yesterday, pronghorn. It was a medium buck. Did you run it for five miles? Him? Okay, not know what hit him? He was eating and me and my boy bushewa acting from a haystack. I had no idea what was coming zero and didn't take a step. That's good context. I can tell you this to yards. Never took a step, didn't know what was coming a medium sized box. So definitely a few years old. Uh,

opening day. His life was gone before the retoil recoil settled on your shoulder. Opening day? What was the day? Like, what's the you know the date? August whenever the held Montana's Antlope opener was last year? No? No, it's October of opening of general fire open opening of opening day of Antalope firearm, and we're gonna put down there that

it was drizzling, and we got to be clear. This is a prong horn, which is a goat antalope, not like a true antelope, because we're probably gonna test some of those American prong horn commonly known and still known by all Western regulations I believe as the antelope an capra americana. Al Right there, you gotta thank you. So that's this, that's the kind of science I've been waiting for all This is a loin. So what we want to do is typically you know, or all the time.

I know. I said it's a lab, but it's also still a podcast. Okay, So the muscle grain is going to be running long wise long ways here on this. So we're gonna cut out one inch little cuts here, and then we'll take a core sample running parallel with the grain, got it, And we'll do six of them, and we're gonna test all six and who's gonna be right in these? And then we'll come up with the average. And that's how tender this guy will be. Are you measuring your one inch cut? Uh? No, just jester, I'm

gonna say that. We'll do three do three. Yeah, because when I was watching those people do the waygoo limousine cow cross breed, they were doing three. Okay, he's slice kind of get a slice that, Chester, I don't know. It's give me a little thin slice. Why you cut that? It's maybe hungry? Just pretty salt on there yet, I have a little put a little salt. We have salt on it. We're gonna talk about that. That changes right now for you Chester. Do you wait? There is salt

on it? No salt, no salt. Okay, so what we got because we're only doing three, we only need to make one of these cuts. But this muscle grain is running kind of this way. So I'm going to take course samples out of this being bam and booms. Exactly is it normal to be able to wipe your hands on your lap coat? That's what it's there for. Jesse, you need a little poker to get your cores. Well, he has a lollipop stick that seems to make a legit poker. It's like true to the true to diameter,

so it shoves it out real nicely. Nice. Hey, this is an important question. What kind of meat is this? Backstrap? Otherwise known as loin specifically short loins. Do you know when I was a kid, we didn't like we had we called it, we called the backstraps. There was inside and outside tender loins, was the Norman Clay true and

my when I was a kid in Michigan. Right, that's very confusing, the inside tender loins and the and then people would call the the loins, the tenderloins, the outside tenderloins. They still have that issue with um with pork loin, like people consistently referring to it like as outside tenderloin. Like that's how you end up with the tender loin sandwich that's actually made out of a pork loin as

opposed to a tenderloin. In my opinion, that's the only way to eat a tender loin, Like, I'd rather have it smashed and fried. Right, there's like a pork chop, John, Yeah, I mean there's no no real flavor there. There's not enough fat. And if I'm eating a pig, I want fat. Yeah, there can be fat, but unfortunately that's well that's a whole separate lab based podcast. We discussed the fat content levels of various and assorted wr Next Machine, Yeah, seventy dollars. Yeah.

You know, we were doing this house of oddities to to secure some land access, but now we're just gonna use it to secure some m Okay. Chester is loading in a piece of American pronghorn backstrap off a medium sized buck bush whacked from a haystack. Never knew what hit him. Two point seven I'm guessing, Oh that is tender. That is some tender. One three three one market down as one point three three. My elk was two point five point three three dang no one point three Yeah,

that's what I'm saying. One point three three. That's the first test, first ever test, one point three three. And we're doing six tests. This is gonna do three off this and you're supposed to do six, but I watched them do three. We're gonna do three an average, and then we'll log it. And and uh, Sean had interesting that if a good scientific experiment about toughness go ahead. About the geese, Oh yeah, it'd be great to have banded birds. If someone would send in like a you know,

a confirmed banded bird. I can't imagine there would be anything more tough than like a fifteen year old Canada goose and you know it's fifteen years old. Then we can run that through there. You might win, you might win the trophy number yeah, oh, test number two here it goes. What So that was the one because that was the one that was towards the outside. Let let me explain it to people. So you know, when you cook a chunk of meat, right, the inside is more

red or pink, the outside is more cooked. When Chester ran his cores, he had one core veer over into the cooked into the roast, so to speak, and that piece scored a what two two point two six, two point to six, whereas the very rare middle scored a one point three three. Right, wouldn't I mean, do they give you like a method to how you're supposed to

cook this? When I watched them doing it the lab, they were doing it on these little electric grills with these real fancy probes, these temperature probes, and them real specific about it, and they had lab coats. So should we not like back back this thing and suvia, Yeah, that's what I was thinking, that, like that would be the most consistent way to tell. But if that's not what they but because they don't say the jama octopus t what what they say is it's a temperature thing.

If you can get the middle part of that meat, like if it were an antelope and elk the same And then let's say like this one I wrapped, seared the outside, wrapped it in tinfoil, let it rast through it in the fridge overnight. Um. But if I were doing the elk, I would have got the exact same temperature. I think SUV gotta be the way to go on this because we could put a thermo couple through the bag into the meat and actually check the core temperature

during cooking. Yeah, and then you can run a whole bunch of samples when they start pouring in. So now we gotta get that. We gotta get serious vacuum steeler, a thermo couple, Thermo couple, what I'm talking about for that is like a we got a here goes one four seven. So that was again more of the middle there one point four seven the average sean one second, We'll do one more. This was the outside, more of the outside. He can't stop. I'd be curious. What if

you put your finger in net hole and turn that on? Uh, you can try what would take to sheer? What what it would take to sheer your finger. Well, let's see Steve, how tough finger? Not that tough? And then we just test each other's fingers to see if there's any variation. He's bagging it up and he's loading number four in. He's addicted man Chester, Chester are supposed is gonna be like just Warner Braxler's coming between us? Who is this Warner bras? Learn why you spending so much time with him?

That was like a little bit towards the outside of one eight six sean? Okay, So the official score of a medium buck American prong horn, not run around ragan, not hauled around in someone's truck for three weeks while shows everybody how big it is. One point seven three is one point seven three. Cow's like, I want the most tender part of my meat gone, please, Cow's holding up a chunk of it with a hole cut through it. How is it? Yeah? Very but yeah, And just so

people know, empirically very tender? What was it score? Again? One point seven three was the average? Okay? And when and I'll bet one point seven three is uh low score would be regarded commercially as tender. And when you eat it, you would say to someone, my god, that's tender. Yep, that's nice. Agreed? Was it tender? Mm hmm? Okay, you guys got your mouth. So when's uh so, when's the Warner Braxler Part one? Met eater at the me eater dot com is that the website is that the general

Email me eater at the meat eater dot com. Send in your pitch test You got your pitch to Chester, subject line, subject line all caps, test my meat? You say, like, what you got? Why do you think it's interesting? Why do you think it's a contender for most tender or toughest meat out there? And we will determine that, will report back with what the prizes Steve should we ask

them to send that kind of relative information. We're looking for hunting conditions, general thought on age of the animal size, that kind of stuff. Yeah, and if it's accepted, we might have more questions. And if it's accepted, we might even have to do Phil's favorite thing, squad cast you in to witness the testing of your meat. Test my meat with Chester the tester. Oh, it's going into Instagram bio now, Chester the Tester. Oh yeah, Chester is gonna wind up with a show on like A and EA

or called test my Meat Chester. Just imagine which scientific journals we're gonna be able to publish this data and down the road you're doing Chester. We're gonna move on to other subjects right now. But I want to close this segment out by saying that you're probably doing um science that no one's done before. No one has. When this is said and done, we'll have tested a wider array of game meets from around the world and that no one no one's ever There's no way anybody's ever

done this. I better read a few more books about this. Yeah, I can almost guarantee. I don't know if you're gonna find any books about this. None of the other to resident on them while they were doing the test clients. I actually did some some research on anywhere we can get Chester an unpaid internship somewhere that does this. You know what we will do for it's critical that it be unpaid, doesn't Sully his opinion? We will. I don't want to do that. That sounds like to complicated, but

we will do is. We'll get his lab coat embroidered. Those are basically parallels and a big dragon on the back just because we need you need to come up with your own formula though, just to ensure that you're doing everything the exact same and then your own note taking as well. The reason why I we're just doing one piece. But I would imagine because we already did this. Let's say we get an elkin or that, um, what is that wild beef that you got in New Mexico.

I'm I'm going to cook it the same way as I did this. Yeah, keep it consistent, and so it's all consistent. And I got a Matt Damon groove with that. Somehow you look like Matt Damon Now I don't know what show with his backward hat and goggles. Yeah, I think the su VI is the best way to get it consistent. Listen, now, I got a bunch of armchair I'm just people chest to do your thing, buddy. Yeah, Sean, who's doing the test over here? Yeah? All right, we're gonna move on. But I got one, I know I

had one. I got another last thing to add him. Here's why Sue vied might Here's why they might be right. Because when we when we jam octopus tentacle in there, right, you could also put that in the su vied for

at whatever town. Yeah, you can do it all at the exact same time and then just snake the octopus tentacle in there and pull it until it's tight and then but then again like octopus, the way we would cook it, or the way like Kimmy would cook it or Kevin, they tenderized the heck out of it before you'd eat it. So would I would I beat the heck out of it like Kimmy does on on rocks before I or Sean will make a separate document. Here's how we do it. He's gonna make a separate it's

a separate research. It's gonna be that document is gonna be called octopus various ways. Put one right out of the ocean. Have can you beat one with rocks? Boil the piss out of one right, and it will be like like that's a whole different publication. Yeah, I think I think that's that's like a lifetime worth of work. And I think you can skip that. You can do you can do a little bit of research, come up with the mean temperature and duration of cook for octopus.

So you're hitting right in the middle, and I think that would be plenty. Yeah, And you Ken just jammed the tentacle in there, because then you're testing surface tension as well. Mm hmm, oh, follow jamming it in there. You don't want to jam it in yeah, because well, the the outside of the octopus has a membrane on it. That's substantially we're gonna. We're gonna for this publication called Um Octopus Various Ways Eight Ways to Cook an Octopus. Yeah.

I think we should peel the outer skin out and then have Kimmy come out and she'll have to count how many times she hit it with a rock and just describe the general attributes of said rock. Do we cut the tentacles off and then we start doing the different things with a single octopus? Okay, one octopus checking eight ways? Got it? This thing is gonna be too much fun. Moving on, Thank you, Jester. We will get that embroidered for you, buddy. Thank you. All right, everybody

moving on, a couple of announcements. So Outdoor Kids in an Inside World the book we got a pre order special we have. It's kind of hard to explain this. This gets in a little bit of how the sausage is made. When we did the book, Brody, we worked on this whole thing. Those this this giant what are you calling you add something on the end of a book.

I forgot dendem depend No, not in dependix addendum. We had a giant addendum, uh, which was like recommendations, instructions, insights about how to I mean everything about kids in the outdoors, right, like like a great set of clothing like gray all per this clothing that will if you have it for your kid, it will cover you for

like of outdoor excursions with your kids. Stuff about kids, gears, sleeping bags, all kinds of resources like different states about how to get your kid, like what you need to do to for light fishing license purposes, how to get like a great little set starter fishing kit. We built this whole thing, and we're gonna jam it into the end of the book. And I think that will I don't want to say that because I'll kind of ruin the incentive. Future versions of the book might include this,

but not now. It's not in the hardcover which launches on May three. But if you preorder Outdoor Kids in an Inside World prior to the launch date on May three, so you got one more week to do this, you will receive in the additional fifty page digital free resource guide. Not digital free, it's digital. The fifty page digital resource Guide for free chock full of additional recommendations and insights.

They'll be emailed straight to you, so you're gonna you know, you're just gonna give you the thing in digital form because it's not going into the book because it's just too much info. But it's like meticulously crafted info. Head to the mediator dot com to find the announcement, which guides you to the page where you can enter your purchase information and register for free for the guide to then be emailed to you. Another announcement, First Lights Omen

Rainwear is is available. This is I'm gonna keep this brief because we have a lot of stuff to cover. I was a big fan of First Light's foundry line. I thought that was like one of the greatest things ever happened to hunting duds. Um. The Omen rainware is unbelievable, unbelievable rainwear. I spent a lot of time at this fall. I took an a doll sheep on, spent a week trodging around the rain and wet snow and uh Prince Wales Island. Use it checking traps off my snow and

be on the winter. Very durable and just like impeccably designed. I think it's it's I'm not kid might say it is the best rainwear I've ever had on my body. The Omen Rainwear line out now. Cal tell them about n w t F Turkey Trek surely, Stephen uh So, National Wild Turkey Federation. If you're a spring loving Turkey hunter, you got a lot to thank these folks for the volunteers,

the biologists, the whole organization. And coming soon we're gonna be updating everybody on our you know, turkey season, and we'd like you to do the same by using the hashtag Turkey track and becoming a member of National Wild Turkey Federation. If you do, If you go sign up, you're gonna be eligible for some sweet prizes. But that's not why you should do it. If you do it for that, you're just kind of a freeloader. So tell me again how they do how they sign up? Uh?

You sign up by becoming yeah you you You become eligible for the prizes by signing up for a one year membership at National Wild Turkey Federation. Got you, got you and all of us who are going to be out in the Turkey woods this this very near spring, are gonna be talking about this and directing folks where to go during this like campaign time, which will be

the end of April. Yeah, and if you love to hunt wild turkeys, you owe a debt of gratitude to the National Wild Turkey Federation, who, like I don't want to downplay contributions of state agencies and all kinds of other individuals, but the driving this is a fair state. Would you say this is a fair statement work hand in hand too. They're people kiss away from being same on a lot of these efforts. The n WTF in large measure drove the recovery of the American turkey with

many partners funding expertise. If you look, if you like the hunt turkeys, you owe data gratitude to National Ball Turkey Federation. Uh COVID was hard on them because they traditionally do a lot of events. They raise a lot of money doing events, and when events got shut down it was hard on n w t F. It's kind of hard on their model. So all the support you can give there. I spent a month hunting turkeys every year or more and uh, you know, on and off right,

but phenomenal organization. Become a member. They put money on the ground. Ah, great, great organization. The head of n WTF, Becky Humphries, has been on the show once or twice twice. She's great. Lend a hand all right. Another announcement, Kevin Ken Yeah, uh lab quote on yes, very serious, tybody about saber Tooth. So, Sabretooth is, uh is a new show that we're making. Um Chester has got his saber Tooth sticker on his on his computer. It looks good.

That was quick. Yeah, it's quick. We like to turn around quick. Here, Steve, I just got mine. I didn't even decide what to do with mine. It's going on your computer. I already picked it out. Um, Sabretooth is

our new show. The idea behind saber Tooth has been it's actually today is a perfect day for this because for years I have listened to Chef Friends, to just Layman's Two Hunters tell me that the value of wild protein of wild animals is below that of farm raised They're not as good, you know, quote unquote, they're just not so good. Like if you want really great meat, you know it's prime beef. It's stuff like that, and I've just for years disagreed and said, no, I don't

think that's true. I think it's just that you guys don't understand what to do with it. I don't think you understand the possibilities. And I referenced back years, like you know, professional chefs in Europe, people like Paul Bocus, the person who literally has had three Michelin stars longer than anyone in the world. We'll pull farm raised duck from his menu and put wild ducks on during the

season because he thinks they're better. And so my argument has been that it's all in the eyes of the beholder, and more importantly, it's in the eyes of the people doing it. And so we decided to create this show Saber Tooth, really to kind of fill out what feels like the obligation of Meter, which is to help people see this entire experience of hunting and angling from the start to the finish. And that doesn't mean that it ends when the animals down or when you know, when

the fishes in the boat. It's that next part is oftentimes for a lot of people, the hardest, and so Sabretooth of the show designed around hunting and fishing, but then we take it one step further and we really show you just how far, um, just how far it

can be taken, you know. Culinarily, In the first episode, we're hunting hogs in my home state of Farrell hogs in my home state of Georgia, and then we bring them back to my restaurant, Gun Show, and we put together a thirteen course tasting menu using Farrell hogs, large mouth bass, white tailed deer. Yeah, man, gotta we have a really big pond on this exact same property, and so we caught a ton of large mouth, Like I said,

we've got white tail. Um, we got some really cool stuff and we just really throw down in this first episode, and then subsequent episodes kind of change around, you know, and the next one, h Jesse Griffith and I are gonna be working with um um scimitar horned orcs in Texas with Daniel Pruett. Did you know that cal and I got the cuddle with Did you get the caddle with it? I didn't want to bud him. There are you and Korean cuddled a baby scimitar horned orcs? What

a calf? Bamberger Ranch preserve in Texas. They are doing a captive breeding program to supplement a reintroduction effort in Chad in Africa and the Sahara of the scimitar horned orcs. A female had just dropped a calf cow, but Kyle had just dropped a calf and man, uh, they don't want you to pick that thing up. They had to pull up to it like picture, you pull up right alongside it with a truck and then open the door.

So you've created like where you normally stand to like try to take a whiz on the side of the road and no one seeing what you're doing, right, And and snagged the little calf up into the truck that way, So basically the same method you would use to abduct a child. You had to snatch him up van on the side, pop the door up and take a whizz. Don't have kind of same technology. Uh. And then we got We took it into the back of the pickup,

caddled it. Um. When you say cuddled, I think it's heart was racing, But I read it as a call. I read it as a cuddle. I think he read it as I think he read it that the calf it was it was a bowl Calf. I think he read it as um a near death experience for sure, and Crane kind of got like after she got second snuggle. It was interesting though, because I didn't like the didn't have the crazy eyes, no of like ultra fear and panic. I think picked it up a week later, it might

look a little different. There's a little out of it

that's pretty cute. I mean, so, actually, I'm glad you brought that up, because in that second episode we really are kind of going down that path of explaining we chose Simitar horned works on purpose because there is a really interesting story about the fact that there are a lot of people who are like they have no business being in Texas and that that's probably true, but at this point there's a really huge opportunity for reintroducing something

into its native range that would otherwise be extinct. Yeah, we get we got into that. It was kind of like they're nowhere right right, exactly exactly. But yeah, So for folks who are fans of you guys run a Warner Brassler on that song, we haven't, but I'm gonna bring some in. That one's gonna be on my list because I think that's one of the most tender that I've ever had. Well, we'll find out. We're gonna see, We're gonna see if it's better than American antelope. Did

you save some backstrap tons? I not tons, but we have some yet enough for those little cores? Oh for sure. Yeah, I probably got a one ounce piece that we can core out so perfect, since that seems to be all we need for it perfect. But yeah, so for folks who are fans of a you know, our meat eater show, who are who are in it to watch hunting, you still get that in Saber Tooth. But then we just take it and we kind of go a different direction with it and really explore how great this stuff is.

And my goal if if we do this show right, people are going to get a lot more excited about learning how to be better cooks and to uh focus on what they can do with these animals once they have them. You're gonna do us another favorite and and uh clear up some things we've argued about a handful of times about brianing, Okay, what do you want to do this? Yeah, let's do it. Man, Well, I had

a thing I can't here who else fighting with you. No, No, you just said to me we were discussing mountain goats, and you said, don't tell me that brianing doesn't work. And I said, it's not that it doesn't work, it's just that it does something that I think people don't understand what it's actually doing. So you take a chunk of Okay, it's St. Patty's Day. St. Patty's Day. Are we gonna go corn beef brine? I mean that's okay, let's use corn beef because something very different happens with

corn beef. Tell me more. Okay, all right, turn it. Let's let's start this from the very beginning. So with brining, brianing is for everybody. I'm sure you all know. It's the idea of creating a water and salt based solution that you're gonna put some sort of meat in with the overall goal, right of making something that's juicier. Is that correct? Is that what people would generally think to do. I think that people would say that it's more tender

and june. All right, So there is. It is both of those things technically, but it does it in a way that's sort of somewhat misleading. So here's what happens, Like most of muscle fiber is made up of something called myofibral. Myofibral um is what allows us to store water inside meat. So an animal itself has a basic salinity level of about seven percent Mike natural really, yeah, and fish and meat have almost identical salinity levels, believe

it or not. Um. When we introduce a brine, we're attempting to increase that level in order to do two things. One is to create an osmotic reaction where the fibers, the myofibral actually holds or encapsulates moisture, in this case water. The other is to tenderize it. And the tenderization actually takes place because the salt disrupts the natural chemical bonds of the protein and so they can't do their normal tightening up thing the way that they would normally, and

so it appears more tender to you. I don't think it actually if we ran it in this I don't think it will actually be more tender, but it will appear and seem more tender while you're eating it. That John, that's the third we're gonna try it. We're gonna see. I Actually I don't know if that publication is can

be called. I don't know that that test, honestly, Steve, I don't know if anybody ever has tested empirically to see if it is it more tender, But it is acknowledged scientifically that it will seem more tender because the muscle fibers can't fight back with the salt concentration. I cannot wait to take a hunk of dear meat, throw half of it in a brine, half of it not, and then have Chester goggle up and run them buggers

through there. All right. So but here's where, here's where the train comes off the tracks, is that salt does all those things that I just said. It causes that as modic reaction because there's a there's an imbalance of the natural salinity of the meat to the salt water concentration, and so what happens is that it triggers the meat to sort of expel it's moisture and then to bring it back in at a new, a new salinity level. Because what wants to happen cellularly is that it wants

the outside and the inside to be the same. And so that's how you get the water into it, and the myo fibral basically open up and they hold just water. And that's the key point to this is that what you're tasting in the extra juiciness is literally just water. And so that's why when you Brian something and you put a bunch of stuff in it to try to make the Brian taste better, you only taste it on

the outside because that stuff can't penetrate with you. I've I've had that explained, and I think you and I discussed this about when you see Brian recipes and they're like, add you know, a half bay leaf, Yeah, don't really really right, don't do that. You'd be better off to create some sort of seasoning mix something outside what you're saying, Like, if you wanted to have like those acts, put them

on it, but put them on it right. Put don't trust that it's gonna soak up some right like residue on the outside where you can just apply it at the ratio you like. Right, salt and sugar are really the only two things that are of any value inside of Brian salt sugar water, and you really don't need to make it any more complicated than that. Um salt in a c l um can can you can you can? I bet yept on one of the things you mentioned, you might, uh we can maybe even look this up.

You say an animal is has a salinity level? Yeah, do you know any saliny like like a Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Do you know what that is? I'm just curious, like what, like what they're talking about when they say that, what? How what the volume of salinity and processed food is? Yeah? Like, what'd you say? An animal is running around on the hoof? About seven percent is what they believe in seven percent

parts per million kind of thing. So and so so anyhow, so we got this Brian, and there's been a lot of studies in this. You know, Cooke's Illustrated published a Brian recipe that ends up being about a fifteen percent solidity, and they said that their test proved that that was the best. The University of Georgia, which has one of the best meat science schools in the country and actually

has literally an expert on brining. Her published recommendation is that it should be about half of that, about seven point eight percent. They have a brining expert. Yeah, believe it or not, you g a go dogs. Um so anyhow, how that would be such a better job to explain to people. Yeah, what do you do? Let me tell you? Yeah, you fan of corn beef. So then all right, let's flash forward to corn beef. Because this process with the salt just keeps going, but at a tipping point it

starts to do the exact opposite thing. So salt, once you reach a salt concentration or a salinity level really north of in my opinion, some people say it's north of twenty. I've seen numbers as high as from a brine solution that what will end up happening is that correct. So what will end up happening is that the exact opposite will take place. The salt chemically when it breaks apart in A and C L, so you have sodium

and chlorine so or chloride. So those two things can bond to the they can bond to the chemical elements of the meat itself and more importantly, the water in the meat. And so what they end up doing is that they then break the cellular structure of the meat itself and draw the water back out of it. And so that's how with corned beef, the corning you've actually dried that meat out, it is not as juicy. There is less moisture inside the muscle fiber than there would

have been if that concentration of salt was lowered. A great way to witness that uh dry brining fish correct. So my boy this winter caught a big trout through the ice and he wanted to smoke it, and we made up a salt sugar salt brown sugar, and I had him pack it in there. I'm paraphrasing, but when he opened the fridge the next day and opened it up, he said something to the effect of holy shit, because

that had turned to liquid. Yeah, And I was like, that's all the that's all the liquid those in your fish. And he ended up with something totally saturated and turned all that salt and sugar into a And then if you took that salt level higher, that's how now you're into the world of like gravlocks and nova and stuff like that, where you've actually pulled moisture out. So then

that goes into the world of preservatives. And like why as salt a preservative Because salt concentration at a certain level will actually pull the water out of bacteria and it will kill the bacteria, So it basically will starve the bacteria of the necessary water that it needs, and the bacteria will die because of it. That's what's happening. I knew it was happening, but I know that that's

what's happened. That's what's happening. And it's interesting that people knew something was going on for thousands of years, but maybe not quite what right. And then you know, people, I'm sure we'll go, but wait, but you have a lot of salt in other so it's not all bacteria. Things like lactic lactic bacteria like what you expect in sauer kraut, for example, like fermented foods um, they're not affected by losing that moisture content. They can still stay alive.

And those are bacteria that are good for us. So that's how you can select for the one. So the ones that the ones that are harmful to us need a certain water content and they can be killed by salt. Kevin, with you explaining all this stuff, I now understand why you're such a good cook. I thought you gonna say, you now understand why you got that lab coat? Yeah, exactly.

A goose Brian this year for you know, trying to make corned beef, and it was by far and away the most simple Brian I've ever used, and and the best by far, and it just came out like perfect beef. Like it was a candidate Canada geese that Sean and I shot in North Dakota and I three goose bress in a week, you know, proving my my theory. And and then I was like, Okay, I know I'm gonna get a bunch of geese in December, and then I

never did, and I'm freaking heartbroken. And you know, people, this is like a miss piece of misinformation, um because people talk about preservatives and buying food without preservatives, you know, and they think that when you go buy a can of organic tomatoes that means they don't have preservatives, like they still have it. The preservative is salt or it's sugar, where it's both of those things, and so the idea

that they somehow are lacking preservatives is completely false. They just aren't using modern you know, modern food production uses a blend of a lot of different ones that attack very specific bacterial growth. So the reason this is in

there is that addresses this bacteria. And so that's why you might see a laundry list of them because they're going for long as shelf life possible, obviously, and a lot of bacteria is anaerobic, so sealing it up doesn't make any difference, and sometimes, in fact, it makes it worse. What does the sugar do. So the sugar because of its chemical compounds, so it does a couple of things. So the sugar in it. Um. Sugar is also a liquifier,

so it does the same thing that salt does. It will pull moisture out and those cells will try to achieve that same balance. The real reason you put sugar in a brine is to affect its overall flavor. Like it just makes it taste better, but it also does accomplish some of that osmotic reaction. You also will increase

surface caramelization and a handful of other things. But um, at the end of the day, most scientists will tell you that the main reason that we put them in there is because we think they taste better at the end of the day, Like we're doing a lot of this for our personal as Steve was talking about with the Werner Bratzler, like you know, and they set the you know, we said Okay, this is this is what it's is acceptably tender, and you're like, that's not scientific,

that's just our opinion. Well, this also goes from science into opinion at some point where we think in our opinion that it's better this way. And it's the same as the scientists will argue with you that it isn't juice here or it doesn't increase, like there's no more juices in the meat, that's just water. And we would say, yeah, but the extra water like conveys the extra salt and seasoning and everything else, and it tastes better. Like at

the end of the day, we just think it tastes better. Well, it's like the is uh, you know, fancy chef types that are like, oh, you have to clarify your stock now, and I'm like, no, yeah, I want the clouds and the stuff in there. It tastes better. But yeah, but the clarifying stock, I think it was just like it is cosmetic, right, Oh, it has to be so your

consummates are clear and that all right. Well that one that's in a whole other we're gonna have to say that you Sawn's Duck Report will have Kevin's Kevin's consummat Kevin's consummate conclusions, Kevin Salt report. Watch this transition. You know how the Warner Bradsler Sheer machine is a machine. Sure so is your phone. And on your phone and on your phone if you live in Wyoming, you can now download a new mobile app that acts road kill.

It's more complicated that. Why don't we just joined the twenty nine others. It's so surprising to me that there are now thirty states where it's not or it is not a criminal act to eat an animal that a car hit in front of you. Interesting kill eating road kill. We grew up. I mean no, I would say all the time, like I would say most years. At some point we claimed some portion of Michigan. You claim some portion of a deer, you had to call the police and tell them you could bring it home. The cops

that come out and give you a permit, whatever. It's just the thing you could do. Some guy in front of you clips the deer in the head and keep it for a long time. You weren't allowed to do that in Montana. And I always wanted to go to court. I wanted to do like a civil disobedience thing. And go to court and be like, yes, your honor um, I ate a piece of a deer that someone's car ran over. Guilty, throw the book guilty right, just to see what he'd end up saying. But then they made

it illegal. Wyoming just do the same thing. So now thirty states that will allow people to collect road kill for food in certain circumstances. It's at warn't point now here in Alaska. It's long been a think, but only that they have a waiting list in Alaska. You can get on a list what Fairbanks Anchorage. You get on the list, someone hits some moose, go down the list, our calling phone numbers because hundreds of pounds. I like that.

I actually ate road kill moose in Alaska. I stayed with a family who was on the list and they got a whole high and quarter. It was big. Yeah, And think about the moose too. It's like they're so big that even if you clocked let's let's say you clocked the back half of it, there's still two hundred pounds of it laying in the front half of it, you know. But Wyoming has this thing now, so you can download a mobile app. It allows you to claim

road kill. But then also it collects the data to help highway offish and biologists decide where to put signs that warrnt of animal crossings on roads. It could even have who knows, some kind of long term implications for um wild they've crossings. State Wildlife and highway officials rolled out the app, which they're saying possibly the first of its kind in the US, which I read. I read to mean they don't know of any others, but didn't spend that much time looking. Yeah, probably say to say

the first of its kind. They don't want to overam it. They don't want to overstep. They're being modest. Possibly the first of its kind in the US. This winner when they joined the thirty year or so states that allow people to collect road kill for food. So it's a department transportation app you can quickly claim accidentally killed deer, elk, moose, wild bison, and wild turkey after documenting the animal and

reviewing the rules for collecting road kill to eat. Another thing is there's some rules around it, like they don't want you out in the dark along certain highways. They don't want you out in the dark on construction zones. Right, So there's something kind of walhed you through it a gripe I have with Montana's road kill law. Once you touch everything, you gotta take everything, okay, guts and all. You can't gourmet butcher on the side of the road,

which is like the normal thing, right right right. If if some guy in front of you hit a deer in the head, you might just strip out the backstraps. You can't. You can't gut it, the whole steve. What's the law if somebody hit a buck, you take the whole thing, the whole animal, the whole thing. Unfortunately happens. If you want to get you can't get it taxed me though, could you? It doesn't know, it doesn't come

across you having like a tag issue. It's not yours like you claim the animal and then highway patrol or Montana Fishing Game validates that for you. Right in Montana. That's how I wish he was here to explain it. I had a friend that had been watched and in this in Montana, was watching a big white tail on a trail camera and they found it dead. Here's how

the story went. They found it dead, but it's like fifty yards off the road, Okay, He's like, obviously got hit by car, dragged itself into the woods and died. He wanted the antlers called, and I couldn't get it sorted out in the state took it away. So does the animal still like? But what about the whole road kill thing? Right, That's what I'm saying. It was too

far along. It's like, I don't know if you're gonna do like a knee crops you on a dried up carcass found out in the woods and tell me that it's whatever, But we don't know that that's what happened to it. So it isn't the distance from the road. It was the time from death. This wasn't fresh. It is funny like in November peak deer rut in Montana. I mean you see a lot of decapitated road kill. Yeah yeah, Georgia as well. You know, like you go down the road and you're like, that must have been

a buck doesn't have a head anymore. Uh. One time I was my buddy Julian and I had heard of like tagged out. I can't hember what it was. I was just sleeping on the couch and he left in the dark to go deer hunting, but then got back in the dark. I should tell the story because never mind, well we'd all been drinking. So what I was gonna tell is the story of an individual that wasn't his name. His name was definitely not Julia. I was screwed up

about that part. But anyways, came back very quickly before it was even light out with the deer because he picked up a hit one tagged to hit one a road kill, and he thought, oh, that's good enough for me. Yeah, he's like back to bed, but I can't remember his name. Oh if Chester has the app up the road, yeah, you can just like say I hit a badger. You can, I don't know. You can line are animals slept from?

Or you just type in animals. Yeah, So it's as report a road kill and then you click on that and there's antelope, bighorn, sheep, black bear, coyote, deer, elk, grizzly bear, moose, mountain goat, mountain lion, wild bison, wild turkey, and wolf. Those are the options. I feel like if you were reporting a bison that would already be reported by the giant NASCAR accident, it was still right there. Yeah, and there's like a little map that pops up. I

haven't found any fresh road kills. I've been we have people been getting in there, man, look at that, but passionately. So this is through the Wyoming Department of Transportation. So like this has the icy roads and all that, but I got it all clouded up with a bunch of

stuff no one cares about. But also part of the part of the point of the app is so that people can see where there are an increased number of collisions, and that people know where to put up Whatever state agency, maybe it's the Department of Transportation, I don't know, or not the Department of Transportation, whatever state agency in Wyoming would put signs up on the side of the road to say, like animal crossing, you know, be careful. Or maybe maybe you can draw the pin on where there's

a police officer staked out checking speeds or whatever. Maybe that too. I think there's another called that. It's called ways quick correction. I have to make a correction as well, when you get a chance. Is it about what you just said? I realized that I said seven percent to you when I meant to say point seven percent point seven. I didn't know enough about what we're talking about. But I don't want some like scientists calling in and being

like he's wrong. Point seven not seven? Is it natural salinity? Which is why a briand of seven creates the ideal scenario. Cran do you want to do your own crack? Sure? Okay, Crens got hit a crack. She screwed something not real bad. Yeah, big screw up, Yeah, huge screw up. No. I I thought that the South Dakota UM bounty for youth trappers, the youth season was in its first year, so that was my bad. This was this will actually be the

fourth year. UM. Many folks from South Dakota wrote in about that, but a couple of folks pointed out that the reason why the bounty cap is at at a five nine. Yeah, we we were like, why can't a kid just poured the coles to it make a ton of money they caught them off at is for tax purposes.

I guess you can probably go up to just under six hundred, uh, in which case you'd be issued a six hundred is like the cut off minimum for where you'd beat issued a T. They don't want to kids, Yeah, well, and hold on, it's not just kids, the early part of this first month. That's we're kind of covering, is that to let the kids get a crack at it first.

You know the thing that because I listened to you guys talk about it, and obviously I live there and see it, um Sean was all the people writing it emils. It's been a busy week. You drive by plenty of skunks and raccoons on the side of the road with their tailbone and tail gone. Really, yeah, man, you should have said, uh, you should have said, uh, you just said, hey, you know how we were just talking about roadkill. We'll get this and transition transition. Yeah, well you guys already

rolled in lay up transition, lay up. That he missed. I'm sorry to learning. Learning opportunity found right there the school, Sean, quit writing angry emails and when you could be learning on I was thinking, I was thinking about your your learning opportunity for public speaking last night with young uh young Mr James too. That was good. Yeah he went he yeah, took a real he almost went a little overboard in the end there. I mean, my hats off to him. I opened up, opened up, Uh, Jimmy, I

allowed it. I invited him to do like a greeting over the dinner table, you know when you say like like thank you all to come. There was nothing overboard about that. That was just beautiful. It was good. He poured the coals to it. Chester. How's that? How's that chocolate covered peep treating you? The dudes eating the evidence? That is, No, we didn't. We didn't decapitate that one. No course sample, that's actual bird. It's a marshmall funny

with sugar on it. Is it better than the regular peeple? More flavorful? Oh yeah, for sure. Purchased with mediator Amax. But like I but like I said, Kevin, you toast these with the sugar on the outside caramelizes it if you like a toast and marshmallows. Right, we should have run We should you guys to take the advanced chef talk like if there's a room with a restaurant. But I needed a good idea to say, hypothetically, if only we'd run a Graham cracker behind that peep instead of

a piece of bread. We've been two thirds of the way too. Smore, Kenny Warner, what's been going on? Tell me something about yourself? I don't know yet. That you don't know yet. Um, I feel like I have been spending way too much time listening to songs about excavators because you have to have a child. I was like, I'm sitting here trying to think of one song about

the next guy. Even earlier, when I was like, Oh, Chester, don't they call you THET I was thinking investigator because it rhymes with excavator, and I have all these excavator songs in my head. Your boys in that era were like machinery, earth moving equipment, anything, any yeah, heavy equipment, he corrects me. And he's only two, but he'll tell me, like, no,

it's a front loader. So yeah, he want he wants to if he could pick his career right now, would be earth mover, he thinks so, and then whenever he gets a chance to like write in one, he just gets so nervous that he puts both his hands in his mouth and freaks out, like that's how excited he gets. Eat Yeah, yeah, yeah, neighbor, he keeps one of those parks in his backyard all the time, and that would

make his day. Think about that? Would he would? He does he like any kind of machinery type stuff, any kind of contraptions he does. He likes forklifts. I mean, I'm just gonna say all the words he's saying to me every day. But a fork, cliff, pop cat, front loader, Yeah, big trucks, car carriers, foreman's busting my hump mom ye oh man, over time, dude. That reminds you. You know we told we told the Dirty Dan joke. That reminds me of another Dirty Dan joke. No, we didn't sell

so creeped out. The whole thing is bleeped out. I thought it just bleeped out the bad words we hear. We hear you say rats, big baby, I want to hear the other dirty Dames. So good. It has to do with contractors. His experience is hanging out with some contractors. We're gonna tell no other than that. Um, I'm just I'm happy to be here. You hung out with Kevin and film with I got to hang out and cook some octopus with Kevin yesterday and that was amazing, subjectively tender.

We haven't run it through the Warner Bratler yet, but we feel like it was social. So good. That's the name of my new album. And uh and you're gonna You're gonna be working on a spear fishing series. I am. I didn't know we were allowed to talk about that. Don't say too much. We could say it's still totally in the works. Nothing has been filmed yet, but we've got a lot of good ideas for this for part series of spear fishing that will be on Meat Eaters YouTube.

That's gonna be exciting, I hope. So. Yeah, I think so people like watching spear fishing stuff. It's fascinating. I mean it's like taking someone to another planet, like you literally are leaving the world that you know and being able to be the eyes for people who don't get to get down there and see it and and maybe won't and maybe won't. Yeah, so I really like it.

I think it's fascinating no matter what. But um, it's been it's been really nice to see that so many people who don't even live by the ocean, how fascinating it is for them to Yeah. Sure, uh And then you did like an early was it was it your first duck hunt? Oh? Absolutely? Sean here, Yeah, famous for you might know him from Sean's Duck Report. Yeah, duck hunting is something I mean I don't I never knew

a lot about it. I just really liked the idea of going out and getting a duck or a goose, And I didn't know there's a big difference between those two. But when you start throwing in buggers down the old Bratsler, then we'll see the difference. But growing up in Hawaii, it's just um, apparently we're the only state that doesn't

have duck hunting. So yeah, Hawaii is the only state without a waterfowl season because Hawai does get birds that migrate down like pintails and stuff even and they don't want to like persuade those birds to not migrate to why because it's such a because we're the most isolated land mass on the on it. So they're afraid that if there's pressure put on them, they'll just be like, oh,

we'll find somewhere else to go. Is that gonna you're not gonna like, you're not gonna use that to fulfill that little tidbit right there to fulfill your contract obligations about Shawn's dark report, Are you no, no, because you could have milked the whole one out of that. Okay, I don't want you to now claim it as like check it off your list, but just the heads up. Yeah, that would have been good. Done the whole dock report well and be done for the month. Or maybe I'll

write an article on that. That's great, that'd be a good one. Yeah, it's pretty interesting that it's so the whole Hawaii chain is a duck refuge pretty much. I had no idea, And so it's as fascinating to me as the ocean for someone who hasn't seen the ocean, because you don't go out and shoot a duck or a goose and eat it. And that's the only things that like I read about in little, you know, fairy tale books and stuff. So the whole idea of bringing a duck home and putting it on the table just

seemed literally out of this world to me. And then caw came to visit um when when you guys all came down to go spear fishing, and he brought me some mallards and gave me very so fat and gave me very specific instructions on how to cook it. I'm not screwed up, not to screw it up. Cow's always tell me not to screw it up, and so and I didn't. And it was literally one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, and so that just elevated my infatuation with the idea of being able to get

my own bird so much. Can we back up on the Hawaii thing from it? Is that prohibition on duck hunting so ingrained that people just don't even what's going on you're digging around with people just don't even think about he's so ingrained that did it? Like for let me gear, for instance, in Michigan, you could not hunt doves because of some if you low but everybody around you can hunt dubs, So people would not a day goes by. That's an exaggeration, not a month goes by.

Someone does a bit about not being able to hunt dubs. No, it's not. I wouldn't say it's the same at all. And I think it's because we are so isolated and that it's not like we're just looking over our shoulders and there's a state right next to us hunting ducks. You know, it's like we're on our own. We're in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere, and so I don't think we have that comparison. I

don't even think it's a thought in most people's heads. Like, I didn't know that we were the only state that didn't have duck hunting until Sean told me that. I just knew that I've never seen somebody bring home a duck, you know, you know, uh, I was in one of the times I was in South America on on on a river trip down there. There's birds, like every kind

of bird all overplace all the time. It's just like birds, birds, birds, you know, um and the Amberanians like they know what they are, but there's only certain like ones that look very grouse like that they're interested in. And they have to sort of catch all phrase for edible birds. They know them individually, but sort of the same way we'd say, like game bird, they have a word. Well, one day,

it's kind of seemed very out of place. You're in the jungle, but here comes a duct it looks like I don't know what it was, but it looks like a hand mold lands on the side of the river out in front of us in the jungle, and I thought, for a second, I aren't these boys if that's sort of in there game bird on their game bird radar. And as that bird landed, the bows that came out of the bottom of that boat. I was like, Okay, they're onto it, don't don't need me to help. Very

short lived thought. You were like, so I'm gonna talk about the continuation. Sean gave you an invite, Okay, cool. Yeah, So basically, well you gave me the invite, Steve, because I started talking about how I always wanted to, you know,

bring home a duck, and so then you invited. You introduced me to Sean and no, no, I love the idea of getting someone introduced to it to even see what it's about, because for me, the knowledge goes like so advanced on some things that to back it up to square one of like okay, we want the wind at our back. Okay, that's a duck. That was a huge thing. I was like, is that a duck. He's like, Nope,

that's a that's a turn. That's a seagull. And like I like, I, hands down am the most green person that Sean ever took the biggest newbie ever, Like I never even shot a shotgun before. I was like intimidated by it at first, and he would say, like start talking about the different parts of it. I had no idea what he was talking about. Um, it was all. It was all so new to me. It was like such it was first of all, such a privilege to just like kind of come in and have someone like

Sean be there to show me the ropes. But like it was just I was I was in awe of it all, like the fact that I know they're called blinds, but we got to like build a fort in the wilderness. That was so cool. Like like Sean was like, yeah, go get those you know, dead old um tumbleweeds. I'm like tumble one on cartoons. Like it was all like

I was giddy. I was just like, oh my gosh, and like home decor, like make this a pretty little fort and yeah, and I asked him a lot of questions where I just saw like his face kind of going into shock and realized that he had to really back it up with, Um how fundamental we had to go to teach me about duck hunting. But I loved every second of it. Yeah, that was definitely the exciting part. When you would text me about me and Kimmy going duck hunting. Was I mean, I didn't realize quite how

basic I'd get with it. Um, you know, like the night before we're talking about hen and Drake's I'm like, okay, wait no, so that's male female, you know, like stuff like that, which is it's it's fun to get to that level. It was, it was that was the exciting part. I never wore waiters before in my life, and I remember how small my boots were, and I had to pull them on b all your plaers every day. We had to use like a her boot size was for what her actual foot size would be right, but not

with big heavy socks on. And then she was you know, she was wearing stocking foot and so she had to use like a monkey wrench to like jack the boot would know what happened her. After that, I said, Steve, a picture of me plucking off my bonails. All the tonils fell off. You don't want us. You might be right now naked, hairless kittens or something. I don't even know. I sent Cali video to d think just like I mean,

like just the tonail. Like in that video there's Buddy's little commentary going, okay that from the boot that is just another in excruciating page. I was just really happy to be there, so I wasn't complaining, how the heck did you handle that? Had I had the h from I had. I lost a few of them one time, just from walking down a steep hill and like a long walk, and I could feel it. Yeah, and then and then I don't want it wasn't a month later

a couple of them came off. Yeah, that's just another evolution in the in the suffering that we were, absolute suffering. That was. It's a good way to keep a kid happy. I took my tonail off for my nephew like that. Oh yeah, I just couldn't. He was like running circles around the chair. I couldn't quite grasp at all. Like it's kind of weird. I had his song cales. Tonails were always coming up. Yeah, buddy kept saying, ill, I

want to hold it, complainting emotions. You guys hunted a place that a lot of people don't um regard as a big duck hunt state. And remember what our buddy Carl Malcolm was down there for years for work, and he would get into a little ducks now and then in New Mexico. And I remember always being surprised by that, because you know, you form these um everybody does it like you formed his impressions of places. You don't think that a lot of like people I guess where I

grew up. I don't think of New Mexico as having right big now alpine right ski areas. You just imagined it being like a bunch of desert and you think it's like sand and cas for whatever the hell reason, right, Yeah, And likewise, you don't think of it as you know, a place that Leopold was doing wetlands research, and you know,

you don't think about all the riparian areas. And um, I remember being shocked to learn that the mountain men would work down into New Mexico quite frequently beaver trapping, yeah, and I'm like, how could that be true? And there ice fishing the ice fish. Yeah, it was my decision to go there. Um you know that. And Kimmy Frankly was supposed to be on a different hunt originally then this hunt, and my whole original idea was to get heard of the salt Lake and experience all the variety

of salt Lake. But uh, you know, with me catching COVID and a few other things going on, like didn't work out scheduling wise, and uh, I was like you know what, we can still make this work if we go to New Mexico. And where we went in New Mexico it was a place I'd never been, which is a lot of the kind of the you know, it's not the entire premise by any means of duck lore, but we like to go places that are figuring it out right, go figure out ducks on our own, not

just taking necessarily the shoe in thing. And so I was going in blind as a bat on this. But we decided, you know, on a place and we were staying in a town called Truth or Consequences, my favorite town name of all time. Yeah, they like it was the game ship, right, tell that story a goofy deal. I think they should go back and change it back. I don't know. I like the name, now tell the story. Yeah, I think we actually finally gave it. It's like credibility.

But we'll get into that. So. Yeah, Truth or Truth or Consequences was originally named Hot Springs and then probably

the thirtieth Hot Springs and America problem. Yeah, and the I think the mayor back in nineteen fifty or something changed the name to Truth or Consequences after a game show a radio game show that he liked, and so try to lure No, it's like the game show was gonna go record an episode, right and whatever town would name themselves that, and the town voted to name themselves that, and in that game show host would go there like every year for the rest of his life. And it's

just so it's disappointing with a name that bad. Sean when when he first picked me up, he's like, man, I thought this name was so badass. And oh yeah, I thought some heavy covered wagon ship went down there, man, you know what I mean. He's like, I thought, you know, cowboys were taken out to the desert and given the chance to tell their truth or if not, there left there to die and people cannibalizing each other. I don't know what I thought. I was like, Oh, a name

like that, your mind can go wherever you want. To know. It's a game show. Yeah, no, it's a little lackluster, but uh so, yeah, that's where we went and like started Kimmy off right, like throwing her into the fire of learning how to duck hunt. You know, we we had no local contacts, We had no one there like teaching us about the area. We just started driving around,

showing up at water and scouting ducks. And the first night we went out scouting, or the first day, I should say, the amount of ducks we've found in this one spot was just staggering. I mean one of those spots where I'm giddy with laughter and I'm good, yeah, yep, And you know, Max is going bananas with the long lens film and NonStop, just stoked, and we're like, you know, this is about as good as you can ask for it to be. And I even remarked to Kimmy, this

just seems too good to be true. I'm not gonna get my hopes up. And oh I know where this is going. So yeah. The next morning we so what we had found where we were there was there's this little island on this west side of this lake, and we were kind of pulled up on this island watching

these birds. And there was birds all around us out east of us, towards the main big water of the lake, wrapping around north of us and and settling on this west bank to our to the west island, and um, with what the wind was setting up to be, we decided we were instead of setting on this island, we were gonna set on this west bank, and that was kind of our game plan for the morning, which proved to be maybe the worst decoy set up I've ever

set in my life. One of those ones where like when the sun comes up and the birds are flying and you realize, like just how bad you screwed the pooch and you're like not in the spot. It's like they like it a hundred yards that way. They hate where we're sitting. And um, but I mean there are so many birds that it just like that wasn't like the end all be all by means and Kimmy, I don't know how far how far into the hunt were we.

I mean I think it was it was when the the sun I had just come up, not that long ago. It was pretty early on in the day. Because that day it did end up being pretty slow, Like we saw a lot of birds off in the distance, but as far as any coming and landing in our decoys, it didn't really happen. But in the morning it did, and um, some teals flew by and I and I just remember like the intensity, like you just being like

there it does kill him. And and I missed. I missed the first one that flew by, and then a little while later another one came and I was able to nail that one and get my my first duck. Yeah. On her second shot at a duck, ever kills a duck, which was just impressive, you know, because it's I can remember my first duck took a box and a half of shells before. Yeah, but you probably like schooled up and um from spearfish, and you're schooled up and how to like track and track and lead, right, I would

hope that the instinct is there. Um, But I was just I was over the moon surprise and just so ecstatic. Oh my gosh, we're both like that weird moment of where you're giggling with happiness but also like on the edge of teers, you know, just because you're so stoked about the moment. And uh, I think we shot three ducks at more. It was pretty slow, but we like at least kind of got that out of the way. It was pretty slow, and then when the sun came up it was directly in our face too, and the

east side of the lake, um was smashing ducks. There was a bunch of hunters over there, and my goodness, like the shots coming from over there, and so we were kind of in this moment of oh, there's that local knowledge, right, like they knew something we didn't know. We saw all these birds over here, but they're shooting them,

they're banging them over there and UH. Anyway, so we picked up and get back to the to the boat ramp and UH rangers there and he's just moving the dock and Max gets out of the boat to go get the truck and it's like a long walk back to the truck and he offers Max a ride and Max jumps in with him to get a ride back to the truck. And on their drive back, UM, he asked Max where where we hunted? Max goes the west side. Wait, no,

the east side. And that was the extent of the conversation, and then they just like talked about other things and Max even brought that up when he came down back to us. Was like, I was like, what do you guys talk about? He's like, Oh, he just asked where we hunted and whatever else. I said, well, you know, you tell him we were over on that west side. He's like yeah, I couldn't remember, you know, I've I was like screwed up on where we were, so I

got turned around. I said, both, which is just like just one of those things that like it's the damnedest thing. Um Anyway, So so that afternoon we went back out and checked out that spot and um or like that island with the wind situation is going to be the spot to be. We need to be out on that island.

And so the next morning that's what we did, and we had like this just there's like a nice little nook in this rock to put a boat in, and like, you know, nice little flat spot to put a blind on, and you're just like, oh, this is this is perfect. You know. It was really nice, even as someone who doesn't know anything about duck hunting, like everything about that set up just felt perfect. And right when the sun came up, like ducks just started flying in everywhere. It was.

It was action. It was amazing and um it was just like turned up a hundred times from the day before. And I kind of felt a lot more confident now because I already hadn't the first monkey off my back and I just started shooting and birds were just dropping and it was just the most amazing day ever. I just like when Sean told me to do something. I did it and it worked and it um and Kimmy

was crushing it, like I'm truth is she's just smoking birds. Meanwhile, her toes or tone over and uh yeah, I mean she shoots like this, this drake pintail, that eight inch brig, you know, big beautiful winter pintail, and it's just like something dreams were made of how the hunt worked out, and you're getting singles and pairs and I don't even know what a what a stud or what a trophy is.

All I know is that I just shot, like shaking and being like oh my god, Like I'm like, this isn't really stoked on how you couldn't have wrote it up any better for me? It was cool to see a variety of birds too, you know. The day before it was three teals that we shot, and on this day we're talking like pintails. We saw hand mallard, we saw widgeons. I shot you know, drake widgeon and peels and all kinds of things. Goad while I think, yeah,

like it was. It was the best education and the most glorious feeling of victory, like we're just on and uh like that that hunt was wonderful. It was just perfect. And after that hunt, we head back to camp and we're talking about, you know, how awesome this is all going. And this is the best episode of my host season already. It's in the bag. Let's go do a plucking scene, you know, like we're we're we're good and um, so that's what we want to do. Want to do a

plucking scene. Yeah, that afternoon we went and we were going to go just you know, pluck our birds and and honestly get some time lapse as a sunset stuff

like that. And we drove because my truck was just stuffed full of you know, every thing, and hooked up to the boat and we're like, yeah, we'll just jump in the rental which is two wheel drive, and not to throw him under the bus, but Max is driving and we go down to the we go down to this sandy sand bar area and for whatever reason, he just pulls off like the packed you know, to track and sinks that sucker right up to the frame in real deep sand. And we tried digging it out for

an hour. We tried a lot of stuff. We tried going around getting me woods, having to get under the tires, we tried rocks, we tried to try to dig the frame. I was texting cal what do we do? And eventually we get to the point of Max goes to walk up to like the closest house, which because he felt so bad because he knew that yeah, his driving did that. So so we're trying to call a tow truck by now.

But I think Max just like was not going to accept that, like financial defeat, and so he's like, no, I'm gonna set off on foot and go knock door to door and I'm going to find us, you know, some help. And and Max gets to this house where he finds a guy that's I don't even know how to. Max was like on speaker phone and like knocking the door to door, and then he starts getting distracted and be like, wow, this one house has all this waterfall and gear in it and and no one's home, but man,

this gear shots. Keep keep knocking, keep walking. Hold like he's casing the place in the yard to be best friends. Yes, no, that is what he is. That is exactly how Max is thinking about that. You know, he's thinking of it like hey, duck kinnor we should all be buddies. But then then he gets to this one house and this guy opens the door and says, are you the FBI

or c I A and Max I say neither. He said, then come on in and have a beer, man, And apparently the guy's wife is playing the drums and you can hear the drums in the background, and Max is trying to give his pitch of like, you know, we just got stuck in the sand down there. Do you think you can help us out? And he's like, I'm retired, That's what I live for. Hold on, let me find some more gummies and find my keys. Yes and so,

and Max is on speakers this is all happening. But I've been calling tow truck and now we end up in this situation where this guy is coming with his truck and the tow trucks already on the way. I'm like, Max, if the guy is, you know, having gummies, like, probably don't need him to come pull us out, you know, And uh, He's like, I don't know. He really he said, I'm coming down. He really wants to help. A quick note, Uh, we should run a go me through there through the

it's going to turn into full time job here. But apparently while the guy was looking for his keys, this um, this big black, mysterious truck that we've been seeing around for days, Like yeah, like that, they're heavy. I don't know anything about tires and duck trucks, but all I know is these guys were like frothing over some truck envy every time we saw this truck somewhere. And even when we first got stuck, Max was like, well, what if we found the guy with the black truck, you know?

And and that black truck pulled up to that house while the guy was looking for his keys did not live there, but just wanted to introduce himself and say, hey, I'm gonna be your neighbor for a while and that, yeah, yeah, this is a weird trip. And and Max was like, oh my god, it's the guy in the black truck. And so he went up to him, and Max is talking to the gummy bong lady, still playing pulls the truck guy yes to introduce himself to the gummy bongle Yes,

is there? Yes, And while they're going to get the truck that they wished they had looking for the keys for his truck. Then then the cool truck pull it up, and Max was just like, you know, hey, like gave him the same pitch. And then so he showed up and he brings a friend. Yeah, which so yeah, the black truck was the pitch. Are you like just help us friendly? You know, just witness trying to do a transaction.

He's just trying to get help. I don't know if he had a compensation pack okay in return for helping us. And so the like older gentleman in this in this big black truck has a friend with him and he's the guy that lives in the house with all the duck hunting stuff. And anyway, they agree they come down to help. So now we've got two trucks that come down, one gummy guy and the other um the black truck,

and we got a great big yeah. So they get out to hook up and like we're laying out kind of how to get this thing out safely and easily. And the guy in the the two guys in the truck get out and the one guy comes over to introduce himself and Max is like just kind of staring at him a little bit, like looking at him, like

he recognizes him. And he comes over and introduces himself, and uh, instantly, both Max and I are like, holy shit, Like this is a guy that Max is known for years since he was probably and used to work with, and um, you know he's this guy isn't just like a running the middle guy that you like run into every now and then as a buddy from town. This guy used to be like a really big name in waterfowl hunt and purposely took a step back and like got like went radio silent. No one knows where he

is anymore, got out of the industry. Are we not saying his name? Okay? Oh yeah, because he does not and I don't. I don't know that country, so I don't know his name. But I will just say that it was willful forced into taking getting out of the industry. No, he didn't, Yeah, it was willful. Yeah, he wanted to just disappear, I guess. But but Shine and Bath, we're just like, you don't understand who this is, Like this guy is a legend, you know, like he was the man.

And the fact that he's the one here with the black truck that we've been seeing around like and he's here to save us, Like this is amazing. Yeah, and so you know, it's kind of just one of those just weird serendipity moments. You're like, this doesn't make sense, how this is all shaken out. So anyway, he gets us pulled out and we're going to leave and he pulls into his place, Um, and I I stopped by their quick and I'm like, I gotta go, you know,

say thanks one more time. He absolutely saved our can and uh walk over. We start chatting. He goes, so, where'd you guys hunt today? I said, oh, we hunted over on the We hunted over on that island. And he goes, uh, you know you can't hunt there, right, And my heart sank. I can imagine. I'm like, what do you mean you can't hunt there? There's no signs, there's no there's nothing on you know, on X there's

no signs at the boat ramp. Nothing. He's like, yeah, there isn't like you're not going to see signs or anything, but you you can't hunt there according to according to the state park that manages this this lake. And I'm just like, I'm begging him for any kind of information, right, I'm like, you gotta mad apper anything. He's like no, I'm like well it's not on their website, you know. He's like, no, it's not, like but you can't hunt there. And so then I'm like, you know, ship Max, come

on out here, Like what is it? What is it ten o'clock at night? Nine? It's probably nine o'clock. And I stayed in the truck when they jumped out to say thanks without it's just cold, and I'm like, man, they really love this guy, Like they just say we should really get home, like this is a long thank you, you know. But then they got back in the truck

and the energy was just very, very different. We went from on a high to these episodes in the bag this is the best thing ever, like to just like, gut, we just did everything wrong. And when you told me that, like, oh man, like I can't even to process that feeling of having a day that just felt so special, you know.

I mean that's what it was, is that we're all just like enjoying it and celebrating it and just um, every single bird that we shot it just like it was something that I spelt like the most sentimental victorious moment ever. And then to experience it together was so great, and I was just like living off of this fresh, fresh buzz and and then to be told that what we did was illegal was the most depressing, tainting feeling.

And just I just I just want I did. I didn't want that to be true, Like my brain just didn't want that to be true. I just wanted to find a way where that wasn't true. UM, because I just that was a reality I wasn't quite ready to accept and we had no The other real hard part about it was that I'm pouring over stuff on my computer just trying to find like any way to confirm this, and you know, the state park is closed and there's no phone number for them, and there's no way to

figure out how to get ahold of them. And eventually, honestly, looking through some um like emergency information I found on a forum somewhere, you know, recognize that like who you're supposed to call to get ahold of the state park is you're supposed to call the county dispatch, like you're calling nine one one pretty much, um. And we know we can't do that until the next morning pretty much because they're not accessible. They're not available the like the

rangers aren't. UM. I had I had texted Cal earlier, just when our car was stuck, and I sent him a picture, and so right when I was calling into bed, he texted me back, put the floor mats under the tires for attraction. And I just wrote back, I'm like, um, we're not stuck, but we have bigger problems than that. And I actually told, you know, call what had happened.

And he said to me, like where your exact text, I think was honesty is the best policy, um, and you need to like, you know, call, call and turn yourself in. And I just, man, like, I just felt like a freaking fugitive, you know, Like I I just

couldn't even believe that I was reading those words. And so of go to sleep like on those words, like you know, and like, oh, we're gonna have to like and not and not having like because at that moment, like all you want is that like release of getting it off your chest, right, and it's like it's you know, eleven o'clock at night. There's literally nothing we can do right now. And it was just awful. It was awful. And so we went into the next morning with kind

of two things hanging over our head. One that we now know all the footage we've shot so far can't be used, and even if it could be used, it would be wrong of us to use it. And because we're hunting somewhere we couldn't be and I should I should add a clarification on that. The spot that we were hunting is just not open to hunting. It's not

a refuge or anything like that. Um, we didn't know what the ramifications were at the time, right, Like, we have no clue what's going to happen ultimately when we do get ahold of the rangers and talk to them about it, Like if you're gonna get coughed and stuffed, right, That's what I was thinking. But so we have that hanging over our head. But we also have this, you know, production matter hanging over our head. And so and I do regret this as a as a producer, for sure.

Is you know, the in the morning, like my game plan is, okay, well, let's just start from scratch. Let's start like we never hunted the last two days, because that footage will never see the light of day anyway, and start from ground zero. And I wish I hadn't done that. But Sean just felt so bad because we had these you know, these days of shooting and producing and you're spending someone's production budget, Like that's a lot of pressure when you're the producer of something and it's

all on your shoulders. And then to find out we had absolutely nothing usable and not only were we just wasting time not getting a show done, but we're doing things that were illegal. Like that's a lot to hold on your shoulders. And so he instantly went into solution mode of like, how do we save this episode? Can You're gonna have to pretend like this is your first bird all over again? And none of that felt right

to any of us. And so now we're filming and I'm like, we had to do a whole intro again, we're not actors or actresses, Like, it just sucked big time. And again, it still wasn't even um. The offices weren't open,

so we hadn't even turned ourselves in yet. So you just feel like a big And I'm on the phone with Steve just like trying to find a way to extend, you know, extend our shoots so we can at least have something to come from that we're there and still waiting to hear back from a game Warden or a ranger. And I was just so excited to eat my ducks and now I'm like, they're not even mine. And that was probably one of the most heartbreaking things, was just

like tears. This is like my dream, you know, and now I just had this whole variety of pack of birds that like when when you get your prey, there's some sort of emotional connection that happens, just like this attachment, like where it becomes a part of you, and like, all of a sudden is just like those aren't even mine, you know, Like do I even will I even get to eat them? What's going to happen to them? Are

they going to go to waste? That was one thing that just kept going through my head, like not only did you kill them in a place you weren't supposed to, but now what's going to happen to these birds? And so we're sitting on the east side where we know we can hunt, where all these guys have been shooting the heck out of birds, and now all of a sudden, the realization hits us, like the reason they were shooting the heck out of birds, it's because we were pushing

all the birds out of the spot. Right, and so now we're sitting there waiting for a call back from from the ranger. And now we're sitting there waiting for a call back from the ranger, and it's crickets. We don't like, we don't have a duck anywhere. We didn't see one single all day. You really got to just sit in that blind alone with your feelings. It was miserable. And they're called forts kiming and we and we finally do get called sad for it that day, we finally

do get a call from the from the ranger. And when I mean, we're talking an anvil off my shoulders because he's like, man, that happens all the time out here. We actually even changed some of the the layout of where can be hunted this year because of the drought. Um, like, no,

you can't hunt there. I'm glad you called and told us that you hunted there, like, thank you for reporting, but nobody else called you in which, you know, looking back on it, I wonder why they're all like happy we were over and uh, you know, it's just one of those moments of did he right then and there? Say, well you're called that's it. First you have to call a dispatch and he's wanted to talk to a ranger, but in order to even talk to a ranger, you

had to tell it dispatch everything that we did. And they're like, oh, okay, you know, and they have to call you, don't give you the number for the ranger, and then they range your call it back and and and he's like, you know, when we do ticket for it, you know, eight six dollar like state park violation, which is like, thank goodness, but no ticket. What do you tell you to do with your ducks? Just keep just

keep Yeah, you know, it really was honesty. Yeah, and it's a it's a rule of that place, but it's not like it's a it's not like you're on a federal refuge or something like that. And uh So at that moment kind of we have like at least the comfort of knowing like that's kinda in the wind. But we've had this awful hunt this morning. We're like, okay, we gotta get the hell out of here, Like we gotta get somewhere else that isn't a cloud hanging over

And so we left him. He said, man, truth or consequences, Yeah, there you go, dude. But and so we we had told our truth and we thought we had you know, that was our consequence. But little dude, we know the suffering was yet to come and the desert itself was going to give us our real consequences. Yeah, like that was only our drama was just getting I feel like I'm reading a Larry McMurtry, which I don't remember where this lands in the Lonesome Dove series, but man, so

I know that, dude, Yeah, I know that think and feeling. Um, it's the worst. It was like, you know what it is, man, There's like a moral component exactly makes it like if someone if if you drive, let's say you're in a seventy mile hour zone and you'd go buy eighty five in a in a police car pulls out with the lights on, you are like damn it. But it's not like a morally sickening feeling. Right, It's like you just wish you weren't going fast, right, It's not like a

judgment has been made on your soul. Yeah, you're ashamed of yourself. Oh my god. Yeah. When cal just wrote that to me, like honesty is the best policy and turn yourself and I just felt like a little kid, like being sent to the principal's office, like not wanting to go. I was just like, I wish you didn't tell me that, you know, like I wish you just said, oh,

that's okay, can here something. I don't know exactly, but but I will say that when Sean made that call, like before we even knew what the consequences would or would not be, because we had to wait for a call back, But when he made that call, regardless of whether we're all going to go be behind bars, we all felt a hundred times better just from making it. And that was neat to me because I was dreading

that moment. I was absolutely that now we're going to say it out loud, and this sickening feeling of shame that I am feeling is going to be all the more real. It was the opposite. When you made that call, I just felt every part of us lightly and just to know that, Okay, no matter what, we're not holding this thing, and we're not holding it in the dark,

which is like the intuitive thing I think too. You know, as a human to feel when you screw up is to feel like hiding and and honesty is the best policy. In the minute that you made that call, even though I didn't know what's going to happen, we all felt a lot better. Yeah, and we you know, in the moment, we thought like, after having talked to him, we kind of thought the consequences, at least legally like weren't there.

We still saw it as like consequences from a production standpoint of how the hell are we going to get an episode? Like, but now it's like, it feels like the consequences aren't so dire now after talking to him, and then it's like, hold on the Desert does have some consequences for you, Like, you guys aren't getting away that I told that damn story in it bratslor. You wanna talk about a tender story, that tough story, I can't tell it's tougher tender. And so the next morning

take a core out of that story. Next morning we kill some ducks at a new place. Yeah. So the next morning we go to a new place and it wasn't your seasoned duck hunt. Yep, by this why she's calling them blind? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, always before it's to me. But we go to this other spot and you know, there was some action, which was way better than not seeing a single duck the day before. But I will say I could not shoot to save my life.

And I think it's because I had so much hesitation now over pulling that trigger, because I had gotten into my groove like in a couple of days before, and I had had this amazing experience and whatever, and then that whole thing just got like no, actually you didn't. You were just messing up, and you really screwed up and you did something bad. And so it's crazy the next day trying to pull trigger, like I was hesitating

like crazy, and I was screwing up everything. Um, and Sean wasn't shooting good either, Like we both were just sucking. I got one one bird. If this hadn't been if you guys weren't filming this, this feels like this would have been the time when you just go, look, we just gotta call it like this is man like, we like it's best that we just shut this thing down

and walk away. And I've said it a ton of time since then, Um, just talking about this hunt and talking about Kimmy, is that hunt and this whole experience put me through the wringer. And I've been through some tough waterfowl hunts and some stuff where it's like mm hm, this makes you not want to do it quite so bad.

And then to put a camera crew through it, and to put a brand new duck hunter through it, and Kimmy kept sticking it out, and you know, that morning we had shot some ducks, and then that that afternoon we go scout and we're still kind of playing with like how many days left we even have to produce something here, and we're like, okay, the next day, so what would now be our second day at this new spot, We're like, we have to hunt all day because we gotta, like,

we gotta get something going on here. And that's like a after how many days we've been there at this point. We've been there for six days at that point. Really really sorry, that's a hard proposition, you know, it's a hard like it's hard on everybody when you're like, okay, three am, wake up call tomorrow and we're hunting till dark. And but that's what we did, and we didn't shoot eight damn duck. No. We didn't see a single duck though,

And we're in the same lake, different side. We're on the west side now instead of the east on this new body of water, and uh, yeah, so you can hunt the west side of this new body of water. And we're on the west side hunting and we don't see a thing, don't have it even a prayer when we sit all day, and some like fishermen come screw us up a little bit and like some guys are setting fishing hundred yards from our decoys set and we're just like, they're like, I don't know what they're doing here.

There's no catch or break. And at this point we do know that we only have one day left of hunting. One morning that was a really junk day because we only had one morning left and we just spent a whole day and all of our energy for nothing, just zero. Yeah. So we pack up that day after a long, hard day of saying nothing, and we're on our first trip across, headed back to the boat ramp and that fuel tank

runs out, which is like nothing abnormal. You know, you have to fuel tanks and go to switch tanks and the boat and start like, for whatever reason, I kept saying that it's flooded. It has to be flooded. Somebody squeeze the ball too much, you know, like it has to be because it was right when we switched the gas tank. It would just have to be a fuel thing. And there must have been something like a slow drain

on that battery or whatever the heck. It was like that sucker wouldn't start, and the wind switches and pushes us all the way across the lake to the opposite end where from where the boat ramp is. It's dark, like it's blackout where it's now black. We realize it's not a fuel problem. It's a dead battery. We don't have a spare battery. Were adrift on a cold lake and it's dark, and we're nine miles from a boat

ramp um and no polls start on that thing. No, no, yeah, And uh so we land on the shore and and we get ahold, get ahold of the park ranger because we now know to call county dispatch again your favorite. They get a park ranger dispatch to come get us, and he calls me and he's like, hey, I'm gonna go grab my boat quick. I'll be right there, you know, give me a half hour. And he comes running across the lake and for whatever reason, it must have been like looking at a compass or who knows, like, I

don't know what he was looking at. You don't know anything. We just saw a red light zooming across from the boat ramp going the wrong way, and then it looked like it was on land, so we're like, maybe that was a car. And he calls me after I don't know fifteen minutes and he's like, a I ran aground and I'm stuck stuck. He's like, and I'm like, well, if you know, if four of us walk over there and push the boat, like, can we get it unstuck.

He's like, no, it's on it's on the shore. He's like, we're not even gonna worry about my boat tonight, but now I need to be rescued and then be rescued. He calls another park ranger from from turns out the place where we had already talked to the park rangers. By the time we get back to our new airbnb, like it's about I think it's like at least one thirty in the morning, and we have to wake up in an hour and a half in order to get

back out there again. And like this is after a day of just being like beat down, like and I just remember telling myself like Okay, I'm gonna set my alarm, but if that alarm buzzes and my body says, hell no, I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna call it because it feels like everything and its power is trying to just like not make me a duck hunter. And I'm not gonna like do something stupid with a gun tomorrow because I'm too tired, and you know, it's just thinking all

these things. And instead I woke up like half an hour early, came out to the living room Shawns. They're all dressed up waiting, the boys jump in and it's like we all just like went out for this next day. And I remember that whole drive, we kept saying, like, I know we're going to hit a wall, like we're

so tired, but we don't feel it. We're just jacked up off of absolute catastrophe at this point, you know, you get like a high and energy from it, and we're just like, we're gonna hit a wall sometime, but it's not now. Let's just keep going. And we got to the spot that day and for the first time in our whole whatever it was nine days there, the weather forecast was right, the wind was in the right direction.

Like everything you started feeling good. The decoys looked great, and before the sun was even up, there were ducks landing in them and everything, like the momentum just started getting better and better. And we never hit a wall. We just like we started doing things with this flow and this sense of purpose because we had been through the wringer. We survived it together. Not one single person complained this was our last day and we just knew, like it is go time. It was and it was

do it now or don't do it all. There was something really surreal about showing back up to that lake when we had just been there a few hours before, you know, a drift with the moon up, and but it was neat. It was like I felt like we finally earned our place. There is what I felt like. To me. It's like, okay, I know this place. I was just curled up trying to sleep in these blind covers here, you know, and let's do this. And the birds came in and and it was a great day.

They didn't stop coming. The religion. We're just there and I mean we've been seeing them there, right, we knew they were there, but just getting on them was the trick and we you know, it kind of got into one of those like spot out on a spot moments of where this is where you got to be and we were on it, and we went from thinking we would never get an episode out of this and that I had lost any capability as a producer to like we put like, we put our nose down and got

it done and Kimmy shot great. I shot great, like Widgeon perfectly fluttering in the sun over the decoys. After we shot our limits, ages still were coming like it was just it was a good day all over again. But um, but one that it really felt like we had to cut. We can't de terms with it. We earned it, you know. It wasn't unlike the Island feeling

too good to be true like now. It was like, boy, we worked for this one introspections ms Ree got humbled exactly, and we got a duck hunting story that I don't want to experience again, but I will never forget. I mean you couldn't. Yeah, you gotta everybody's like bad thing of the season and one night. Yeah, yeah, this is like more than a duck hunting story, man, this is like a fable that we're gonna have to tell some people learned lifeless to go down to the town council.

I think we should keep truth or consequence, right, We just need to change why you got to up? You guys got any we can carve exactly? Well? Glad he came out of it. Yeah, good lord, Marks, But when did? When did the adrenaline wear off? And you guys definitely all hit a wall because you know that, But for me, it didn't like I finally got my duck hunting dream back, like after struggling and suffering. And there's something about suffering that will make you appreciate that dream so much more.

And and we were done duck hunting. And then and then Sean and I were just like, now let's drive to hatch and go get some green chilies. Like we were just we were on a high. Yeah you know, Sean, I spend night in jail, did you do? Tell I haven't gone. I'll tell you a part of it. I'll tell you the whole story Sunday, I'll tell you part of it. I had. We bought a bottle of mad Dog.

All great stories. My buddy Fits, I don't remember this, my buddy Fits says, I was drinking that mad dog and said, I'll be out of control in about forty five minutes. He said that's about one. God, he said, its about forty five minutes later you drop off in a police car. We're youngsters. Everybody ended on a cautionary tale. No where you're hunting. You know, Sean, you have a duck report coming up about influenza. Yep, tease it titilated.

We are seeing an unprecedented outbreak in avian influenza that's never been seen in North America, nothing even close, um, and it's actually poured over from poultry back into wild birds. And it's something to be worried about. Stay tuned for that ship, ladies and gentlemen. We gotta get him on soon to tell that Krin. Make a note your notebook about that. Alright, guys, Sean Weaver, Kevin Glaspie, Kimmy Werner, we're gonna kick your asses and trivia. Thanks everyone,