Ep. 331: Getting Skunked at The Navel

to talk about Mong culture. Did you get the shirt made Mong dudes or trouble it's in progress? Okay, Yeah Yang was on top, and I, uh, I thought I was given Yeah the the gift of all gifts by inviting him. I didn't tell Doug and Doug Doug didn't know until he listened to the show that I invited Yah and his daughter Michaela to come for Youth Turkey Season at Doug's place. Did you feel insulted when I did that? Or not insulted? Out of the loop, No,

it was. It was actually pretty funny because I started getting text messages from friends who listened to the podcasts podcasts sooner than I did saying, so, I guess you're gonna have some extra turkey hunters next year. And what am I talking about? What are you talking about? And then I get a text from you, going, hey, have you listened to the podcast? Yeah? I don't know. Well I kind of invited a guy. I was like, oh, well,

that's nice that you. I was actually flattered that you felt comfortable enough to invite somebody, especially for that season. And uh, and it was fine. Now, but I wasn't insulted by it at all. You're not annoyed, No, he said to me once. Um I was about of course, it was about my farming, and because we were doing something, we were filming or something, and I was like, oh, hey, by the way, I got a couple of friends coming in. You hell, you invite whoever the hell you want. It's

your damn farm, So what sort of that extension? And no, I was. I was happy that you did it. It was cool. And here we are Youth Turkey. Another Youth

Turkey season coming gone skunked skunked. Well. Last year, on the first day of Youth Turkey Season, we called in like without really trying that hard, six long beards, six rope draggers, two youth hunters tagged out by two o'clock in the or three o'clock in the after nothing left to do but burn ditch the spring and burn ditch and dry do my favorite activity, which is drive around with dog and have him tell uh stories of interactions with people. But how many hours did your daughter spending

the Turkey blind here? I want to say it's about eighteen or nineteen hours in two days. In two days, Yeah, it was nine for sure the first day and it was about the exact same. The difference in well they were burning ditch and T shirts last year, it's snowed last night this year. Yeah, the birds are just not fired up. But I have photographic evidence of there are being plenty of birds around and you being in the same area where the birds were, but just not at

the same time. Yeah, so I'll I'll detail this out. Um, We me and my older boy go out for the daybreak thing. We go out to a blind at a place called the Navel where or the other day we logged the first Like every I got a backup. If you imagine the Earth as a beach ball, dugs of all the whole planet, the place where you would blow air into that beach ball is located on Doug's farm. Huh. Or if the Earth was in its in its infancy, being formed inside its mother's womb, this is on Doug's farm.

That's like the Earth is a baby on Doug's farmers where the Umbilicus attaches. That's why it's called the navel. I never thought about it like that. Everything everything passes through the name everything passes through the navel. I'm sitting there with my boy there day we're like sitting there looking at a field in hardwoods, and here comes running by. Running by is a river otter, like through Doug's field as a river otter. He was drawn by some mysterious

magnetism to run through the navel. Sitting there last night, here comes two dogs. Those dogs nuts right through the navel there. They are a mystery to me. Where if you hit a deer with a bow and you track it, it will pass through the navel. It's so you can save yourself a lot of time. Just go to the navel and pick up the blood trail there. That's like everything passes through there. It's the it's the beginning of the Earth. It's where when they breathe life into the earth.

That's where they breathed it. Didn't you see a mink in that same area? I saw at the navel trying to drag a squirrel out of a hole in the tree. I mean, that wasn't really the navel, but it was within a hundred yards of the navel, So yeah, maybe that's I'm my little ways from the navel, but not far from the navel, just up the hill from it. So in the belly area, you want to hear some screaming, But what was weird. It was the mink screaming. You know,

they got a very shrill. The mink was trying to fight his way into a squirrel hole, and there was a squirrel trying to defend its territory, and the mink was freaking out. Yeah. Anyhow, so me and my older boy go out to the navel in the morning and there's a bird roosted behind us. And my little boy was like adamant that we come get him at breakfast, Come get him at breakfast. So we sit there till seven thirty and I'm thinking he's gonna be up, and dog's gonna want to go out with my daughter and

and I'm better go get Matthew. So we leave and Dog's got a camera at the navel. We leave, and at nine, this long beard shows up at the navel on Dog's camera, so Doug gets the camera. He hits the photographs every twelve hours. Every twelve hours. Yeah, So we go back out and we call before going to the navel. We called down into the navel and he returns. He gobbles and return million times. We work them nothing. Eventually shuts up moves off, so we sneak into the

blind at the navel set up. Pretty soon, Matthew is very concerned about how he needs to go have lunch with Duck's daughter eleanor and one and you can tell you just one. He thinks that there's people back here playing having opening like Easter presence. I don't know, but he's just committed that he's got to get back. He's got to get back. So I'm like, oh my god. So we leave and then at noon we leave, like

at noon, that long beard standing as the navel. Me and Jimmy go back out, circle around and call an area, just hammering another thousand times from the navel, working as close we can, can't budge him and he eventure his drifts off. Wait. It really was maddening. And then over here behind the barn, up on that point up there where you guys started out, uh or you went up there one other time and in the same thing you left there, and later that day there were turkeys there.

Our CEO, Dan Chumbler, met your ceo. He's going to turkey hunt up friend of mine's place the spring. And I said, I'm gonna tell you something that you won't do. But if you did it, you will kill a turkey. But no one does it, and everyone knows it's true, but no one can bring themselves to do it. I said, I will show you two spots where if you lean against a tree and stay there for the three days that you'll be hunting, you will kill a rope dragger.

But you won't be able to do it because there'll be some birds you gotta go after and you'll leave and then you won't be there when it comes. But there's a loan. There's you'll like this dog alone oak out in the middle of a field, and every day multiple gobblers have to go by that oak. I don't know why. And there's another place which is like a pass a passageway between two paradisees, and every day, multiple times, long beards walk through there. But no one could, No

one will just sit there. I can't do it. Yeah, well, because I'm sitting there. And yesterday afternoon, uh, when Rosie and I went and Matthew went with us and she goes and Doug. I don't want to just go sit in a blind. I want to walk and call. And it's like she's got the gene nine years old, eight years old, sitting for socks. She likes to running gun. Yeah, yeah, it's a eight years old right, alright? Seated next? We didn't we didn't Probably Pat, Pat Durkin's here, thank you.

You know what's always confused? Before we turn the machine on. You were saying something that caught my attention. Where Pat Dirk and Doug durn there's room for confusion there. But you said you just found a book, a deer hunting book written by someone named Doug Durkin. Yeah. Someone, some guy follows me Instagram sent me. Uh um, just a little note saying are you are you really had that

Douglas Durkin. Maybe dogs related to him. There's so many derivatives of Durkin, and there's Dirk again like the g Then there's we always thought me there's something that Durkin and Duran but during German, right right, So it's not your German. I'm German. I'm half German. Well, when I was saying all that bad stuff by you guys, I though, so I Doug, I don't love you. Read much about late thirties before? Why people left outline found that book.

Some hasn't come yet. I'm looking forward to reading it. Oh he's sending you the book. No, I looked it up on Amazon phone. Yeah, Doug Durkin. It's like if you and Doug had a baby and that baby growth to write a book about hunting, maybe maybe we should update it and you and I can and yeah it should be with a forward by Doug DRN and Pat dirt Sex. Seated next to Pat Durkin is my son. James is just gonna join us for a minute here now, Jimmy, I'm gonna listen. I told you no smart ass comments.

You gotta shine because here's the thing that you need to be. I've told you this before. Remember how I don't like you, like we don't want you on social media because you might screw up and it comes back to haunt you later. Right, You've told me that many times. So keeping in mind that you're now possibly you're making your first this is your this is true. This is the first trackable thing you will ever do in your life.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Meaning something you say now will forever be someone will always be able to locate this. And this is the first thing you've ever done like that except when we were ice fishing. I was on that. Oh sorry, did I tell you all this before that? No? Okay, I'm gonna ask you some questions. I want you to give me very specific answers with no smart assery. Okay, tell people how you have war

paint on your face and how you made that war paint. Um. So, we have a like a Mr. Heater, little buddy like heater that we had in our um turkey blind and I got really bored when the action slowed down for a little bit um and just took a stick and stead of whittling the tip um and stuck it in that heat or flame until it was like had embers on it. And then I scraped that off in and my dad war paint. You reinvented the pencil excep charcoal. Uh.

What was I gonna ask you next? Oh, explain the set of circumstances that happened the first time we started dogs, little buddy heater up Um. There was a mouse in a mouse, A mother mouse had made a nest inside of it, and I remember asking you is it supposed to be smoking? Well, first the mouse, what happened with the mouse? Ran come booking out of there? And I tried to light it, and then it starts smoking like holy hell. Then we cleaned it out and had it here.

Here's my next question. You're doing good so far. Do you prefer hunting turkeys from a blind or doing what we call running and gunning? Like running and gunning? Why do you think that is? Um? Because I feel like there's more action. I feel like if you call one of the blind, it's just a lot of sitting, and then when you're running and gunning, you're up in the woods listening and moving around, and it seems just a little more active and more enjoyable. Here's my next question

for you. You feel that you're somehow undergunned having a pump action shotgun, and you feel that you need to have an auto loader. Can you explain that to people? Um? So, it's it's not so much with turkeys, but when I duck hunt, it seems to be that like Harrison, our neighbor who has a semi automatic shotgun, he can, um like just shoot get many more shots off. It's more or less it seems to be. Seems to I don't know.

It just kind of outperformed me with a pump because if I have a bad adrenaline rush, I forget to reload. So then I'm thinking from watching you thinking that it's just another show littled in and then I can just shoot again. Okay, if you had this your last question, less you got anything you want to add or dugger Pat? Or yeah, I might have a question for you. If you had to rate your father's ability to hear gobbles relative to your ability to hear gobbles? What would you

say out of what? No? Relative to yours? Oh? Um, decent for your age? Yeah, because Pat, he's got hearing. It's can you set those like gobble mode for listening to try and it doesn't make every a difference? Really? Yeah, I can I can hear better, I can hear him better, but still compared to like, yeah, yesterday and day before, he's picking out distant gobblers. I never heard my favorite one of my favorite hunting stories, And Jimmy, you can help me tell the story. We're sitting at the navel

last year, late morning and what happened. Um So my dad did like the first we sat down, and I, like always do is beg my dad to call just to see if we'll get a response from anything. And I say, what what do I as you say, why, I'm not doing it yet? Um letting things quiet down? Yeah, where we walked in there and might have spooked some things out of the area. He's letting things mellow. Yeah. And I'm like, Dad, call, call and he's like, okay, fine and does one. I'm like, there's a gobble and

he's like, no, there's not. I'm like, there is a gobble and he calls again and it the turkey gobbles again, and then there's it's followed by two more and I keep saying like, there's a turkey there. I can hear it gobbling, and my dad like just keeps telling me no, no. At this point, it's getting closer, talking about there's no turkey. He said, there's like no turkey, um and he calls again and he's like, is that a gobble. I'm like, yes, that's what I've been telling you for like five minutes.

And next thing we know, there's three turkeys, three big turkeys, running in and they all fan out. And I think the coolest thing I saw with those turkeys is when the front one put its fan out and the other two put their fans out, and the turkey turn around and looked at him, and they put their fans back in and just walked behind them. And he had a shot, and he wouldn't shooting because he's waiting for them. He's waiting for the boss Tom. Yeah, and then he got

the boss Tom. Well, you got a question for him. You can take a couple more questions. I'm done with you. How good is your dad compared to you? I'm picking the direct coming from better. He's better, I'm better. You're better. Once I hear it, I know where it is. Yeah, it's when he hears it. But when it's far off,

I seem to be better. That might also be because when it's super far off, I seem to be the only one who can hear it, so it's hard to argue with them, right, Jimmy, you told us after dinner last night that if you you could hunt one species the rest of your life, it would be turkey. Why

is that um? Because I feel like with turkeys, it's kind of like they're just kind of wild in an unimaginable way where it's like they're never you never see a turkey just laying down in the brush, Like you never see one hidden or trying to get like out of being a turkey. Like they're just always on the move.

They're always feeding, They're always like at night when there's I just learned this yesterday, they incubate their eggs all night and that's how a lot of turkeys, a lot of female turkeys die And it's like because they gotta lay on the they got, they can't go in their

roost tree. So it's like it just kind of goes to show how like there just they're so strong in a way where it's like they know what they have a very good mindset on like what needs to happen and when it needs to happen, and what's the right time for breeding, and if they're supposed to come into a call like when you're hunting turkeys, it's not like you go out there and just see one. It's kind of like you have to almost trick the turkey and

manipulate them into coming into your call. It's right, it's good. Like you haven't said anything that's going to keep you out of getting into college or anything. All right, well, let me ask you a question and see if we can get that to that point. So you said that you preferred running and gunning to sitting in a blind.

Which have you had more success with? Um? Equal the equal, But I'd say the one that I definitely had more fun with was running and gunning because that was like we saw two snapping turtles breeding, and then it was like we just got to see a lot more than Yeah, we're walking along, we're actually working in on a turkey and I see a turtle. It's a big snapper, And I tell Jimmy, here, I'll show you how to sneak up and grab a turtle. And when I jacked that

turkle turtle out of there, what what was he doing? Oh? There was a male and a female. They were breeding, locked and embraced. Yeah, Chloeake and the Chloeacle Kiss they call that put their chloeacas together awesome, like that, can we keep it? And he's like, we don't have something to kill it with? And because you're you suggested that we what shoot it with my shotgun? And I said, what will that do to the turkey situation? And we got going on right now? Really mess it up? So

what did that happen? Wait a minute, that was running in gun. That was running in gun, and so things are more apt to happen. But yeah, you know you saw a river rotter when you were sitting in a blind, not not we weren't holding by the tail well fair enough? So how many? Uh so? Then how many turkeys have you have you harvested? To we're in Texas. Last year was his first year turkey hunt and he got to last year and he got one here, one here, and one at home. And then this year he's this year,

he's having a horrible year. I'm having a really bad year. When we were in Texas, we like I just couldn't get up on turkeys. And pretty soon there's like, I look ut the my dad points out to I told your sisters up to bat. Sister gets first shot. It's not fair, um, completely fair and she got one yeah, um, which happened to be a bigger tan m hm um. So two turkeys so far and you got one in a blind and one running and gunna um. But we

were in Texas. My dad pointed out two gobblers and I you want to talk about running and gunning, listen to this hunting story. This is the craziest hunting story him, Jimmy said, here, can you just keep asking what happens when you try to tear off against your dad yelling at you not to do it? Um? So let me, let me, let me just set scene real quick, just because we're driving along going out to hunt, and come

around the corner and here's a gobbler standing there. So this vehicle and has no doors, right, it's open top, no doors. It's just like a chopped off subourbon. He's outdoor. I'm like no, but he grabs his gun and hustles off into the bushes. And what did you turn up in the bushes? So I took anyone with my shotgun and had a great shaw of the turkey's head and pull a trigger. My safety was on. Then I turned my safety off and bust the move through the bush's

fall and my safety gets turned back on. So now this this is what they teach you and Hunter's safety. I'm hustling after this turkey and I'm like sweating, and I get up here and this turkey is stuck in a bush like it cannot move completely friar patch and got hung up. So I take aim of this turkey and my safety is on once again. This turkey turns, runs back towards me and starts flying and is gone. And this happened twice. This happened twice when my safety

no like a different, a whole different incident. Screaming, My lungs off to kick his ass bag to the car. But while he's screaming. One of the times I didn't shoot because my dad was screaming at me where I thought he'd be mad. I was where as you could have come walking on it. They're going, what are you yelling about? Holding the turkey up? Oh you're good, thanks, sure me here all right. Doug and I were talking earlier.

See that we like the way. We like the way you talk to your kids like I'm annoyed you you're direct, Oh speaking of I read you a little bit of this Doug James like, I hate video games. I don't like them none, but James like has been lobbying aggressive. I love this to get an Xbox. His mom kind of like, I don't really understand. I had to check with someone who knows about this stuff. His mom thinks it's all right because you don't like you're not meeting

strangers online. It's true or not true. I don't know. I don't know. It's it's possible. I think you can. You can play with people all across the world. Depend there like there must be something. Unless she doesn't know what she's talking about. She feels like that it's all right. I don't know either way. Our lawyer who represents our company, I asked him to draft up a contract, a real official looking contract to govern his use. It's so funny

to govern his use. And I sent him my point my deal points, and so he sends his contract over like it's long. So I'm in the terms of Youth Section three dot two dot one. James Rennett will secure the prior consent from the Guardians before any all use of the Xbox, which consent maybe withheld for any reason, including,

but not limited to, no reason at all. Three to two, James Rennet will not introduced any new games to the Xbox without securing the prior consent from the guardians before any use, which consent may be withheld for any reason, including, but not limited to, no reason at all. Three to three.

The use of the Xbox will not supersede or interfere with James Ronella's obligations to the family Ronella, which includes requested chores, daily routines, school obligations, room cleaning, outdoor sports activities, family gatherings, family interactions, pet care and maintenance, and general good behavior that goes on and on six pages. And he's like he wants to see He was asking about getting it and having comments, and I told him, not only is it non negotiable, but it's an exploding offer,

meaning he signs or else. The whole conversation just ends. Your kid's going to be a lawyer studying documents. One more deal point. There should be no complaining, squabbling, nagging, crying, fighting, hitting, punching, or wrestling with any siblings or any other youth that is related to the use of the Xbox. Violation of this requirement may result in additional adverse consequences to James Ronnella beyond the inability to use the Xbox. No, I'm gonna frame this son a bit and hang it above

that thing. He won't even he's not even gonna turn. It's just like, you know what, too much trouble. That's great. Huh oh seeing that, Seeing that kid reminds me if you haven't bought it by it. Outdoor Kids in an Inside World is available now. New book about getting your family, getting your kids and family outdoors and getting them radically engage with nature. Outdoor Kids in an Inside World my book,

my latest book. Get now. Oh, since we're sitting at the Durn Farm right now, in case you didn't already catch it, you all have to go watch season three A Call in the Field, which is out we're talking about Ryan O. Call Callahan, one of those episodes of film right here with old Bubbly Doug on the during family farm that details of white tail hunt here and shows all about dougs conservation efforts to tests and monitor

c w D in the area. Ocall also spears fish and hunts rice ducks and other episodes, So go check him out. Educating you all on YouTube. Go to the Meat Eaters YouTube channel subscribe check that out. Also, this also related to Dugs Farm. The first episode of Yanni's show, Janni the Labban Lover who tell us his show on the Hunt is out now. One episode was film doing what we're just doing, hunting turkeys on the during farm.

Yanni also goes for black bears with Clay, hunts elk with Jason Phelips, and Dirt Durham does his first ever self filmed episode pursuing White Tales in Michigan, and he hunts turkeys with our friend Roue Map. We're launching a giveaway an association with the new series ahead of the meat Eater dot com to sign up for a chance to win a custom curated gear package hand picked by Yanni himself for your own hunting needs. Uh oh, check this out. I didn't think this is possible in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission just found dog did. Did the transition throw you? It's about turkeys? Okay? He speaking of turkeys a twelve and a half year old wild hen man. That seems ancient. Because here's the thing, man like, this isn't always true, but I've checked us with two turkey biologists. I heard this, I verified with two Turkey biolog just and it's like, here's the thing you can safely say, and we've said it many times on the show. Of

the eggs that hit the ground. Now there's just running averages, okay, average, there's all kinds of exceptions, but average on average. So, uh, they'll lay about a dozen eggs. Of the eggs to hit the ground, seventy percent won't hatch. Mhm. Of the eggs that hatch, seventy percent won't see their first birthday. Of those that see their first birthday, seventy percent won't

see their second birthday. Just very round numbers. Yeah, they get a twelve and a half year old hen previously captured and tagged as an adult in two thousand twelve clear Field County. Yeah, that's crazy. So they've been tracking her for a decade. They just threw a GPS track around her now, unbelievable, Like she must just always make the right decision right, go right or go left left, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, or would be interesting, No,

but more about her life history? Is she I would like, is she somehow infertile? Mhm? Huh it is never never ground nested I like, I don't know, Like has she really success like she has survived incubating nests eleven times? Question spending the night on the ground as Clay Nucom's relative set never fall in love with the ground nesting bird? You know, yeah, unbelievable. Another oddball thing, totally different. Have you guys seen this? They're trying This is in Michigan.

They're trying to find out what is up with this deer. There's some photographs that emerged where a white tailed dough was missing both of her rear hooves. Explain what that looks like, because it's just leg like white, dry, white leg bones emerging out of her from below her knee. So she's walking on the just a white, a clean pier like leg bones, six inches of leg bone, no hooves, and she's both of them like done in a hospital, like both of them exactly the same. And she lived

like that and walked around on those bones. You know, it's kind of like a corn dog. It's like corn dog legs right there, just the wood part of the sticks are just sticking out, no hoove, no nothing, just walking on that. I was like it. It's so there's pictures of her alive and pictures of her dead showed up in a bulletin board called Michigan Outdoorsman in two thousand thirteen. It was at that time had been taken several years earlier. No location or other details. Who did

this come from? Heffl Finger. Hefle fingers trying to find out. They don't know the age of the deer or how long it it was out. And about that way, Heffelfinger reached out the Chad Stewart at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and he asked their recently retired pathologist who had been in that job over forty years. I never saw her her to that animal, that particular, never saw

her to what is up with that deer? He didn't know, went and searched the archives from two thousand twelve to two thousand fifteen, so around the time these pictures emerged, no evidence of that deer coming through the lab of someone being like, how did this deer live walking around? It would be like if you had imagine that someone caught your foot off at the ankle, stripped the muscle and flesh up halfway up your calf, and then got a trail camp picture of you, and they actually have

pictures of this thing walking around. If Doug went to two his camera set out at the navel, I bet that deer comes through there. Dogs like, oh here, I got a picture it lost its feet at the navel. Yeah, hev the figures dying to know about this deer. So if you know about the deer and holy cow with a bizarre picture, I'm skeptical that it could have lasted long that way. But it's two. And look at that picture of it, the trail camp picture of it. Yeah, God,

what do you mean something? There's something. There's something I'm not getting. It's a doctored image. Something I don't know. I have no idea. It doesn't look like one. No, no, it doesn't. I saw it. Okay. And here's the thing about it is like helfl Finger. I mean, we got a song about helfle Finger. He's not dummy. Oh no,

that's that's the thing coming from Jim. But I'm wondering if Jim's looking into it, like, yeah, trying to down You would always say skepticism is the chastity of the intellect. I wrote that down Kran found a great Uh. We always we always like to cover in Wildlife news misleading wildlife news headlines. This is the best one. So there's a famous bull elk that lives in Rocky Mountain National Park. Okay,

somehow this bull elk has three nicknames. He's nicknamed Cahuna, which is mildly not he see, uh that being Hawaiian for chief. He's nicknamed Bruno, and he's nicknamed this is by the hunters who have seen him big thirds. So yeah, most part people are like, I don't understand big thirds. I'm gonna name him Kahuna. I'm guessing he had big thirds. Uh. He lives and dies in Rocky Mountain National Park. There's some photographers that have tracked him over the years. He

goes smith. They said he seemed to have gotten injured during the rut, came out of the winner looking wasted, very thin, weak. They find his body and it's covered in mountain lion tracks and scavenged. He had already shed one antler, so he's only got one antler left. Apparently someone hauled off then hauled off the skull and some park goer I just couldn't resist the temptation. How is this reported? Newsweeks take a guess. At the headline, Doug, I can't even begin to well here it is from

the Tech and Science desk. No less, famous elk beheaded in Rocky Mountains. Oh my god, the remains will return to the earth. Famous elk beheaded in rocky Mountains just doesn't end the garbage. But what these people do, though, that I don't get, is the letdowns day inspire the letdowns, the disappointments. Because I would see that headline, I'm like, holy ship, that's what happened to me. That's what happened to me. Yeah, And then you're like, oh, that's what happened.

Well you, I think years ago, I remember you saying one time, and I really made me kind of rethink how I look at non hunters. I tend to give them the benefit of doubt. You made a great point one time. How why would this matter to them? They don't hunt, They have no connection to hunter, So how can you expect them to know all these nuances that we will argue about, and we'll fight about. They don't know the main topic, and we're arguing the nuances, and

but then this comes along. You think, all right, though, come on, you're going away beyond even objective fact here with that kind of headline, that kind of storytelling. Yeah, not a hell. What to say about it? We'll keep talking about it. Another interesting that I've been seeing a lot lately is someone, a photographer who found it before its head, before it was beheaded, said that he felt humbled touching it's antler. I don't understand that. I have

no idea either. Ye would you mind pulling up real quick what it means to be humbled? Well, I mean I would assume that it's you know, whether it was that the antler is from from such a large animal at the antlers are are large, or it takes a lot of energy himself. I don't know. Maybe this guy has just got some psychological I'm not down. I'm just I'm just curious what, like what it actually happens when you get I mean, I know, but I don't know.

I just want to hear, like from the straight from the the dictionary, when you're humbled, you're like putting your place um or at least made the meet made to feel like hmm, brought down the earth little bit. Yeah, lower someone in dignity or importance. There's a dictionary definition. So he touched the antler and felt his dignity lower and his self importance lowered. That's a horn hunter right there. That's an antler. I think if I was trying to

solve this mystery, I would check that gentleman's garage. A person of interest in court, the judge, the lawyer, Like, is it true that you felt humbled by that antler? Are you sure you were? Odd? Oh, here's a good story for you, Dog, you'll appreciate this. I wish, like I wish this was always concerns me. When you say that that, I'm gonna be well, I stole that, Joe. I'm not using it right. But that's Brian can and joke.

Oh yeah, Let's say Callen's gonna tell you like the most Like, Let's say Callen's gonna tell you a story about like the worst sex offender. He'll say, He'll be like, dog, you'll appreciate this. Tell about something. You'll appreciate this, Doug. So there's a guy. So Karne Likens is too. When you but ar keeps playing with an online you liken it to an online love scam. But I haven't. I haven't had a love scam, have you? I have not?

But you haven't shown up for a date that turned out to be no. But it's like you'll hear about these instances of people who meet others online, so you don't know if they're a real person or not. But there have been, you know, for years, these scams where you know someone who I don't even want to call them desperate. It doesn't have to be desperate. You're interacting with someone over email who you imagine to be the

person who they say they are in these emails. Maybe you think you've seen proof that they exist because they've sent you photos, which doesn't necessarily mean anything, and there's a there's a whole sob story, and they entice you into sending money somewhere over Western Union, over whatever it is. So when I read this, uh, that's exactly what I

what I thought about. Someone took that the you know, most famously, it's like a guy in Nigeria has all of the King's money and if you could just send him three hundred bucks, he'd be able to bring all the king's money to you. Right, this is a guy who took this. This is like I always love this because it's so specific. Somehow this guy starts island hunting leases in Ohio that don't exist, huh for big money,

for money, he's selling five thousand dollar leases. He sells the lease to guy, and the guy goes over there to start scouting, and the landowner comes down being like, what's going on? Because haven't you heard we just lease this place? Guy's like you what? I am interested? So then they get Yeah, they catch the guy. They get him showing up to collect his money. Like the fishing game gets involved and he's got like wire fraud and all that. Did US Fishing Wildlife Service get involved in this?

I suppose we went across the lines, didn't you. I think US Fishing Wildlife Service even got involved. OHIL Department and Natural Resources Division of Wildlife was involved, involved in search warrants and social media. They did it in connection with US Fish and Wildlife Service because it was wire fraud outside the state. Yeah, and US Fish and Wildlife Service. Uh, it's kind of credit to them. They took a real

serious uh huh. So protecting sustainable hunting of America's wildlife resources is bedrock to our mission in the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said Assistant Director Edward Grace from their Office of Law Enforcement, investigating those who pray on individuals attempting to hunt lawfully by defrauding them is our trusted responsibility to the American people. Here's where it gets, uh here, here's where. Here's where. So he's guilty. The guy played guilty.

His name's Knox, played guilty to wire fraud. He's scheduled to be sentenced maximum penalty, which ye get like you know what he'll get like a day, the maximum penalty twenty years key manage of the judge actually did that years? Not shipping either, did they did they talk about how much money he defrauded people of Uh? Yeah, at least fifty nine of the individuals he was he interacted with sent initial payments to this defendant totally over thirty four

thousand dollars. You know. And the other question that comes to mind, I mean, the criminal mind generally is not a real sharp one. How can you see that? Okay? In this case? How did this guy not think he was gonna How did he think he was going to get away with this eventually? I guess he went on for a while, But how did you think you were not going to like his business? Like criminal business plan? Yeah? And here's how I'm confused when the people show up

to police. I mean, I guess if you're sending money then yeah, it just seems like a it's gonna catch up with you eventually. Oh, check this out. They found this sweet knife in what country was it now? In Norway, way up hind the alpine area in the mountains. They found an old caribou like a caribou hunter's knife around with all kinds of other well, reindeer there because it's Europe, with other like reindeer hunting equipment, like they'd build these sort of like drive lines. And he had a birch

burrel handle. It was metal like they had metal technology, metal knife, big long tang inside runs the whole length built around a birch burrel handle laying on the rock like some something bitch left there last week. Beautiful, I mean rusted, but like beautiful, I mean not even that much rust, just like a little bit. It could have been, you know, your old knife, they say, in that area because just because of how like it's like dry high

country stuff. Just they got all kinds of arrows and around that long you look at be like, oh, look an arrow melting out of the ice and stuff. We got knife. Isn't that crazy? Yeah? Who hasn't done that? Left a knife behind? And that's by a gut pile out in the world. Oh yeah, And this article gets

into something interesting that. Um, around that time years ago, the Vikings began to establish trade networks for caribou hides and in goods, and they can and then when they go and look at like genetic stuff, they can see that the population start to bottle neck out. Huh, like they were over hunting. Once they developed like good trade networks, they started to pouring the coals to them and they see that they really started to reduce the numbers significantly.

Contemporaneous with them establishing markets, which is very similar to the you know what happened to the market bison? Everything clicking lawn and then someone wants to give you a couple for the hide, talking him down? All right, Yeah, so what I'll give people an update on? Yeah yang this? Since do you want to tell people? Where are you gonna be next Wednesday? Next Wednesday? Isn't it next Wednesday? Um?

Are we are we turkey hunting next Wednesday? Yeah? No, I thought you're gonna be in the land at eating it. Oh yeah, well it's it's actually in two days Wednesday, you'll have yeah, you'll have already eating at Kevin Glaspie's. Yeah, I'm actually going home and packing up and then heading out tomorrow at six am. Awesome. Yeah, So what's going on in hunting Land? Have you had? You didn't have any You guys don't have any success here at the during place. Wasn't able to produce for you. Yeah, but

but all is not lost. You know, we um got McHale out there and we heard tons of gobbling and saw a ton of turkeys, and so I think that's totally worth the trip. Was this her first turkey hunt if you count us walking out a few days ago because the seasons already started in Minnesota. So we we went out for a running gun style um um on Wednesday evening after school and then you know, we got

ready to come here. So officially it's it's her first time out, like sitting in a blind for a long time, she must have really liked it to almost got the same attorney as Steve. That part was no non negotiable, and she was She was getting um contentious with Pat and I a little bit because she wanted to stay here with the kids. You know, She's like, could we just go for thirty minutes? They can't, they can't, can't be you got a pretty good turkey hunter to do.

But that was if you said, if she in thirty minutes, we'll be back here within an hour. You know, so it could happen. And then, uh what happened last year's season? Last year's season did a did a ton of hunting. Um I missed an any pointer? Uh be a shotgun? Um I texted you about it, but you gave me no sympathies. Uh So, so missed one an opening day and of the rifle season, and then didn't see one

after that. And then my brother and I went out a few times, and my buddy went out a few times down in Rochester, and um, we went out one day it was the u h last day of the archery season and then the next day would have been the c W D hunt. So I was sitting in a tree with my bowl and it was getting cold

and used like sub ten degrees or something like that. Um, I was fugiating with my gloves and you know, this tiny spike came by and I didn't have I didn't have a chance of shoot and so that was that. And then the next day was the cdw D hunt and we we didn't see any that came by. So so that was it. That's like what Yanni always says, Yep, so close, but I feel like I feel like we're

getting closer. And um, but you know it's still you know, time most bent, how old you know time like you you got twenty more years deer hunt ahead at least, dug still kicking. Yeah. Well, my my only my only slight regret is I started late, right and so um yeah, but looking forward to it. Yeah, that's good. Your seasons are much shorter. The archery season is September, September all the way to end of December. And then you got the rifle mixed in there. You know. Um, I bought

a bunch of more firearms since we last met. Well, I was telling these guys the you know, Minnesota split into the north and southeast, so we ended up hunting or I'd end up hunting with my brother and my buddies, just mostly in the south of the couple of days after I missed that buck, you know, I was with the regular twelve gauge shotgun with you know the smooth

barrel and you have to have the rifle slug right. Well, two days later I went and bought an actual both action slug gun shotgun sel so I could use it pretty much anywhere in the state. Yeah, when you get your first year, I think we all have a party. Yeah, the first year party. You'll you'll be the first one to know. Doug Aston must have been a Friday or so. How many guns you have now done? Because you're talking putting this gun buying spree, he said, I think he

said ten. Then Doug as froll what are they? And he started going to his list and Duck says, that's only six? Are four? And I think the thing he kind of stumped you. Yeah, we got up to eight. Yeah, it was was a but it's it really is ten if you count the handguns. You know, I do have to handguns. And then I I do have a muzzloader. Now you know, I he shot it yet. But right after the muzzleloader season, um, my brother and I like, well, I think if we want to keep hunting a lot,

we we need to get into this muzzleloader action. So him and I went and bought two muzzleloaders, and you know it's got the you know, the pellets, um you know, I guess they call it the inline muzzleloader. I learned all about it this year for the first time. We should muzzleload hunt together sometimes. I just started doing that. So it's like we're getting we're new at it together.

It sounds great. With one. You gotta um a promising hunt plan put together for this Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean, you know, got right after the Turkey season. You know, we're probably gonna you know, I think the one thing I've been learning throughout this process is you got to do a lot more scouting. So we done did a ton of scouting before the Turkey season, and then as soon as this Turkey season ends, you know, it's gonna go back into you know, archery mode and

scouting mode for the for the summer. So yeah, so it's gonna be archery, you know, rifle and then muzzleloader. Yeah, and then you know, whatever the c w D hunts are will be typically have two at the end of middle December and December. If when when you get one and I'm saying when when you get a deer, do you imagine you'll do all mong preparations or do you think you'll do like Joe Blow American preparations, Well, the

Mong preparations are really just soup. And so, which which is another thing is my brother and I said that, you know, want one day when you can get this group to there, will we'll coop. We'll cook up this we if you literally translated, it's poop soup, right, which is which is which is basically every like just everything in this big pot. It's what kind of soup soup? It's I mean it's I mean literally everything but the kitchen sink pretty much. I mean, you clean, you clean

out the you know you're talking the stomach. You know, you're talking everything from the deer from the deer. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeptcom intrigued. Yeah, I mean it's it's really just I mean, there's nothing special to it. It's just um, you know, typically we don't throw away anything, right and so and that's you guys. You guys people are more connected to the days of want than our people. Yes, I have been softened and spoiled by opulence. Yeah. So if you know, and I grew up in you know,

in the Twin Cities. When we have our you know, cultural rituals usually typically go onto you butcher a pig or um a cow to basically you're offering that up to the ancestors or to do the ceremony, like if you have a newborn, you know everybody, You invite everybody and they tie strings on their hands. It's it's actually a thaie ceremony um in origin. But um. You typically butcher cow or pig and you invite the whole community

or your family. And that's one of the things that they do is they take they save everything, including um, including the skin, and they they they use it all in whatever type of dishes that they're cooking for the day. And this big pot of stew is usually you know, one of the main things because it could feed a lot of people. It's got stomaching, it's got it's got everything. Yeah, anything you can imagine goes in there, except for the heart. Dude, did you did you? Did you listen Doug? I gotta

revisit something. Did you listen to the episode when he was on when you talked about the clan of mung that can't eat heart? I vaguely recall it. Well, let's we're gonna do a game at chicken. No, what's it called nut chicken? Telephone? If I get this straight. And by the way, audience, that's episode two seventy seven driving Squirrels with the Mom, which was should have been called mong dudes, you trouble. So so I'm gonna get this straight. There's a legend or a story where there's a and

it's it's a curse. Actually it's a curse. There is a one of these events is occurring and they put the heart of a what uh, Kyle, they needed that to just tell a damn story. I mean, I know the gist of it, but I just want you to retell the story. Okay. So they're they're cooking this big pot and in that pot is the heart of um. You know, depending on who tells the story, you know,

it's it's usually a cow. Right. When it came time to come take the heart to go and do whatever they needed to do with with the heart, they couldn't find it in the pot, in the pot anywhere, looked high and low, couldn't find it. So they they looked in the pot, couldn't find it. So they blamed it on this young boy or kid um or or a young man or a young kid and long story. Should they used his heart. Ah, so they you know, ended up killing him. Used that used his heart for this

because you have to because they had to contract. So so but you had there were some details about that boy. Yeah, so um you know apparently he that boy young man had a like a mental disability and so um he because he was essentially easy to blame because he couldn't defend himself. Um, so they used his heart and blamed it on him. When everything was said and done, Uh, and they're cleaning out the pot, they find the cows hearts stuck at the bottom of the pot. And it

was there all along. Oh so then this kind of cover up ensues, right and one of the relatives or I can't remember it was. It was a woman. It was it was a woman because it was a woman who laid the curve on the men. So you know, her curse was that from this day forth, all you men, you ever eat a heart, you're gonna go blind and so and and that curse affects certain subclans of the I'm a Yang, so it affects certain subclans of the Yang. So you can't eat heart. I can't eat heart. Wow,

and you don't think heart and you honor that I do. Yeah, that's one of the first things you learned growing up um And yeah, so I was sharing I was sharing this last time. Was two things you learned growing up is you know, you can't eat heart as as a um as a male member of the family, and you can't marry somebody with the same last name, regardless of subclan. So huh, I think that poop soup is gonna be great. Yeah, yep.

I like your attention to detail and the level of of of of detail that and that you're able to delve into these stories really well. I just find it fascinating.

So what are you doing the Saturday before? Thanks? Well, you know, it's it's it's interesting you ask that because you know my you know, my wife, her her family obviously isn't effect affected by the curse, right, but you you kinda hear, you know, when you go to family again, and you kind of hear, oh, you know, we got the sudden low over the candy arts, so you guys kind to watch out for that, you know. So, uh, they do kind of It's kind of like this known thing.

People take it seriously. Yeah, but they yeah, they do. They do take it seriously. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's kind of one of those kind of funny things, but not so funny things. Wherever you go, you know, just

have to do it the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Well, but by that, I mean when you I guess what I was thinking it was in general, when you cook stuff or when you um and when you get large gatherings, you know, you just kind of it's just the known thing that you watch out what you put in the you know, all the dishes or to not putting you hearten her. Yeah, yeah, because you have members that are affected by that. So that has to do with Thanksgiving.

I'm talking about the Saturday before Thanksgiving something. I think you're getting an invite? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Doug's not getting to the point. Saturday before Thanksgiving is opening day of the gun deer season here in Wisconsin where we can shoot bucks and it's a nine day It's a nine day season, all right. I love to have you come and join us. That'd be great, Doug. I mean I don't have anything planned. If you did,

you just clear that. I will say this about that though. Um, we don't eat any deer before we get it tested for c WD, so you can't. We won't eat you know, fresh venicine from that particularly weekend. So I eat the old deer. You got eat the old deer. So usually there will be something that'll be summ around, but not the whole poop soup thing. Well, I'll make it if you want some, Well, maybe we can make it out

of something else. Oh, you guys work out the details, Doug. Yes, well, first off, I thought you have a comment about kids and organized sports. Yeah, I do have several. Um, well, but it was has been giving the most interesting Yeah. Well, the interesting thing is listening to you and you and Katie going back and forth and knowing and loving both of you, and knowing and loving your kids. Um, I agree with I agree with her about the skiing thing,

that the kids getting the opportunity to go skiing. I understand why how it affects things with you and then you were sounded like there was some rub about organized sports and whatnot. Um, I don't like commit I don't want to commit myself to doing all that stuff for a bunch of weekends in a row. Yeah, and rather come to like Ducks place even if it was. Yeah. So, I mean, so I played sports all through school. I went to college, played basketball, I taught high school. I

was a high school coach. Um my daughter didn't play. She played volleyball for a little while, you know, kind of gave up on it wasn't something that I was that I pushed her towards, kind of gave her the opportunity if she wanted to do it, and U the thing that I even though, even though she's five eleven, she had a pretty bad ankle injury and she's just like, I'm gonna quick playing sports. And I was like, that's fine.

Um So all of those that background sports and then I build and manage athletic fields for part of my living. Um so it seems and I had pretty good experiences as an athlete and and and all of that, but I also have a wrecked knee, a wrecked ankle, um all kinds of sports injuries that um, had I do to do my life over, I would have gotten more. I think I would have liked to have gotten more interested in life lifelong sports, which skiing is one of the things that I really like. But I understand is

like I'm trying to it lays waste to people. Oh yeah, I know, I I know people got hurt really bad. But lifelong sports is sort of and that's what I like about your approaches. Let's do lifelong sports. Um and uh So, even though I have had all this experience in sports and a lot of positive moves makes, I've also seen the ugly side of like parental involvement with sports.

I mean, embarrassing moments with people with their kids. And because I've been around it, and I mean I had parents confront me when I was a coach about their kids not playing enough and you know, and all of that, and um so I kind of admire the discussion that you and Katie have been having about it. And boy, I'll tell you, hang around with your kids. They aren't suffering from any you know, lack of opportunity for various things. And um so, yeah, you guys keep working that out.

All right, Let's let's move on to the next thing I gotta talked about. Um, you were you have a right to speak about this because when when when we had Uncle Ted on the show, Ted Nugent, he and I talked about you a fair bit in the context of c w D and you had I'm normally not interested in retorts, but but you you you felt that it came down to factual issues. Yeah. Sure, so this is this is be filed under correction, not a retort. Well,

I appreciate that. And yeah, people reach out to me anytime I mentioned on the podcast, Yeah, someone called you. What they say, watch out, don't mess a Nugent fat boy or something I told you about. Oh, it's just something. You beat that person's ass. Can you imagine if you got the fight? Whoever? That was when Uh, when I was on the Rogun podcast and I referred to Nugent as the guitar player. Um, I got messages from a guy who said, I'll come to Casanova and kick your ass.

And I said, that's why I sit with my back to the wall. Can I see bastards like you coming? I was. I was more confrontational in those days. I have since mellowed. And uh. And that was really interesting after that is Joe is texting me after that podcast and he's texting with Nugent at the same time, and I said, oh, if you're texting with him, can you ask him if he felt disrespected by that comment? Because It was the only thing that I actually had planned

to say. If I'm going to listen to if I want to learn kick ass Detroit guitar licks, I'll listen to Ted Nugent. If I want to learn about chronic wasting disease and epidemiology, I'll listen to people like my co guest here, Brian Richards. And I asked, you don't ask him? He goes, no, he thought it was a great line. Well like, okay, well something that Ted NuGen and I agree on, so you know that was pretty cool. Um and so yeah, somebody called wow, I mean the

fat boy thing. I was like, yeah, I know I could lose a few pounds, but um oh, I don't know who that is, but you would beat his ass. I had a pinched nerve my shoulder, and I wanted day I'm telling my kids like trying to dude. When Doug was like I I made Doug cross a little bit. You realize he could just crush the bones on his shoulder, like you could have driven his thumb out my armpit. I wasn't even pressing higher. Can I tell you a

real quick story about Doug strength. We were loading up deer into my truck last fall from his milk shed down here and for me to haul deer into my truck first get in on tailgate and then got crawled into the truck and pull them all the way in. Doug stood behind the tailgate, picked these these are adult deer, picked him up like flower sackson him the truck but barely bending over. Just yeah, and my best days are

behind me too. So you know, I'm not saying like, um, I'm not saying dog's gonna go like run down to town and back or something like that, but just in terms of like just uh, moments of power, you should come over to let that guy run. Unless that guy runs, Doug is gonna be a Actually, I think you and I've had a conversation before that guy and Doug in this room right here and shut door and locked it. That dude is not gonna be alive. But that's not true.

I would sit down and have a reasonable conversation with him and asked him about his points, and then I would make my points and by the time it was all over with, we would be singing kumbaya. And that didn't work. If that didn't work, uh, so, like if you punch Doug. It doesn't matter. Hey, Doug ever done?

M m A no, No. Around here, we don't call it, you know, UFC or an ask kicking contest the other the first time I went to UFC, I'm like watching and I'm going, that's an ask kicking contest where I'm from anyway. Uh okay, So see w D. Yeah, Karna, I we're talking about this earlier, and I said, you know, you need a title, a title for the c w D sections because it's really kind of getting, you know, so I think we should call it eat the Burger. Yeah.

So you're not here to tell You're not here to try to say that Stranglehold wasn't a work of genius. You're here to talk about c w D. Yeah, Yeah, No. I I as a stranglehold the hell of a song, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna yeah anyway, Um, they eat the burger part. First of all, there's a difference between saying yeah, I'd eat the burger and being confronted with it. I know, but I want to carry the burger around, but I feel it here. Here's here's where you you can't you can't take it from here.

State the stairs where you're your own worst enemy. Uh. I want to get a bunch of c w D burger to bring to present to people who say that they want to eat c w D burger. Should be a new show in the Mediator Network. Part of c w people. The c w D enforcers would These are the people who like, you're supposed to do this with your knife and burn your house down after you have the deer in there. They would be pissed if I had a little pelican box full of the burger and

I moved around with it. Yeah, you couldn't take even though you got deer one and all over. Holy hell with c do you pining to put it in like radioactive? You see? This is the exaggeration that immediately happens. But you're right, you can't transport it state the state. Well that's not true. You can take meat state the state. It's it's uh and you find out when it's if it's CWD positive, it's it's up to you. And so I could legally carry the CWD meat. So and and

that's a point that that I want to make. I'm not saying people shouldn't eat UH CWD positive meat. I'm saying, go ahead and make that decision, make it for yourself. But you're you're but that's not even what I wanted to talk about. So you're saying that you don't buy it. I buy it that people would eat positive, asked Uncle Ted MotorCity Madman. If I had a c w D burger made with ten c W depositive animals ground into a burger, would you eat the burger? He said, I

would eat the burger too. Dougie here Bubbles is saying he's not buying. Yeah, I'm saying, there's no what I think I can. I say one thing and I'll this is not my show, but you need to do with your test though. Let's put a picture above the animal, what the animal came from, and you show a picture of like the typical buck to get shot that like I've killed that had tested positis, seemed to would be depositive,

looks healthy. You show some the pictures of deer CDBD later in the disease when they're getting wasted, down, their drooling, their heads rolling around. Put that picture on there, say would you eat meat off this deer? There's a whole different absolutely right, And in fact that's where the you better watch what you say about nugent fatso or whatever

that guy said to me where that came from. I posted a video after that podcast of a deer that was brought in by my friend down the road, UM, that he pulled into his hunting spot, and here's this emaciated buck who had already dropped his antler's land there next to their field road jaking. You've seen the video and uh. And I posted that back up and said, I guess I should have kept some of this and turned it into hamburger. I understand some people would be

interested in eating it. I got a lot of comments about it. I was like, well that was pretty yeah, and so you know that's when you became fat boy. Yeah. Well, and you know again, I could stand loose some weight, so I don't I'll take it. Um. Yeah, that video is something. But that's that is absolutely so that what Pat saying is, that's exactly That's exactly the point. And

making that choice for yourself is one thing. Making that choice unknowingly serving it to other people, And I would even encourage people to think long and hard about it before they would serve it to their kids. UM, explain why though because of the long trajectory of UH disease like a christ failed the yakubs variant um and the effect that it can have on people. UM even Ted admitted that scrape ees in sheep is probably the origin

of it, and it transferred to whitetail deer. Theoretically that we know mad cow disease transferred from UH UH cattle to human beings. It's called a transferable sponge offforn en cephalopath The transferable is in the name so um out of a preponderance of caution and risk reduction, that is why I would do it. And in that long arc

of time, I wouldn't feed. I mean I even sent you guys an email about the venison that we were going to have here, right, I mean it was a it was a fawn or a year of the year UM that had tested not c w D, not detected. I just felt in in UH being a truthful and conscious person to let you know this is the case, this is what this means. And he both said, you know, we'll eat what you eat, but I wouldn't. I don't want to make that decision for at least for your kids.

So and that's I mean I'm not being hysterical here or anything. I think just being a decent person. So, UM, some of the other issues that I have with what with Ted Nugent said. One of the things that he said, I made notes, and I rarely make notes before I come out of your podcast. So one of the reasons you'd have trouble find and tended deer with CWD. We've had twelve on this farm. Um, And just for perspective,

how how many acres uhres? And so we've had twelve and that's over a five year period of time that have tested positive. And as you fairly represented on that podcast, we were testing deer once they started letting us do that, and now we get every deer tested and we went from no c w D positive to c w D positive UM having CWD positive deer. This past year we had of the deer killed on the farm, which by the way, was forty deer, which was a record number of deer on this farm. UM, six out of ten

bucks antler bucks tested positive. So our anecdotal evidence follows the data that testing shows. UM. Anyway, and we've had sick looking deer on the farm that we've not been able to shoot but we've had them on camera in the middle of the summer when they shouldn't be looking sick. Like some of the deer right now look unhealthy. I mean even something that we've seen as we've been out and about. But it's spring of the year and you know winter weekends and spring kills and so you know,

dear don't do real well. Sometimes you can just see them out there just eating like crazy right now because they're they're building back up their reserves. So there's that. Another one was the vitality of the herd, and uh, there actually are four studies out there and you can look them up. I put put them. I sent them

to you Karnt and they could be put in. The show notes that the Boone and Crockett Club, fairly reputable organization, UM did articles summarizing them that showed where populations were affected by h chronic wasting to see in four different areas. UM. So there's that that, I mean, it's actually population levels

are being affected. But then also, UM, what we've seen or what's really been seeing south of us is that the age structure of the herd is being uh affected, so that there are a lot of deer still south of us. But what's happening is the older deer dying off and the herd is trending younger and so over time. That is a particular concern to people who UM like the hunt big giant bucks. UM Here in Richmond County,

we're still killing big giant bucks. In Iowa County, they're still uh killing them, but they're killing fewer of them. UM Here in Richmond, northern especially northern Richmond County. UM, with our our prevalence level still be being pretty low, we're not seeing that that issue yet. But this past year, UM, we killed my friendship killed the five and a half year old buck and tested positive. And you know, I'm

sorry to say that. I think that deer was already showing the the UH signs, not physically but mentally, just by the way he was acting. Seeing him pre rut um standing in the yard like not concerned about anything. Five year old buck, it's usually pretty uh, pretty um wary. UM. So there are four studies we put that there UM at CWD ground zero, there's a still killing you know, some big old bucks, but sixty there are bucks are

testing positive. I also sent that to you. UM. One of the other things that Ted said was that CWD peaked in Wisconsin, southwest Wisconsin eight years ago. Well wrong, Exactly the opice happened in two thousand and fourteen, which

would have been eight years ago according to my calculations. UH. If exactly the opposite happened, we we incorporated the dear Trustee report at that period of time where we quit, we may took a more passive approach to chronic wasting disease, and we backed off on herd control and population control UM or at least the tools like earn a buck and longer seasons. And what we saw was a almost you know, straight up um increase in the UH in

the number of CWD positives and the prevalence. So it was exactly the opposite of what he said that you know that CWD in our area, in this area of southwest Wisconsin UM changed quite a bit. UM. What else that? Okay? Do you contest that when they've done control, they've never they've never effectively done anything to control, like when they do the big shootouts and try to kill them all, that it doesn't have any impact on spread? Do I are there? Is that? Have you? Do you contest that point?

I'm glad. I'm glad that Pat's here because we can talk about this. Wisconsin gave up due to political pressure. We were controlling the disease. Is part of what I'm what I'm saying is that through herd reduction through opportunity um, we were controlling population, not just for disease control, by the way, but for also for habitat and ecosystem benefits.

And when we stopped doing that, having extended seasons like the first time you came here, we were hunting during February um uh, and we had earn a buck that was effectively controlling population and actually increasing UM. At least my bow hunter friends were saying they were seeing a lot more big bucks on their feet during those periods of time. That once we abandoned that, that the control was working. And once we abandoned that, that's when the

disease is taken off. Yeah. Yeah, they started compromising, backing off and stuff. The sud back off yet more, lost a lot of funding from the legislature because it's so much political pressure that den are lost a lot of I can't remember what the percentages were. There was a big drop off and testing and control. They no longer allowed them to go out and do targeted harvesting. Where you going at areas where you know you have CWD

pound that area pretty hard. They were showing a pretty prett consistently that when they targeted an area, their number of percentage of deer shot with CTBT would go up compared to what the hunters are shooting. So when they could target it, say that, say that again, Yeah, targeted harvesting DANA were going They call it sharpshooting, but it's basically DN our employees operating at night with spotlights over a bait pile typically to try to thin the disease, right,

they would target those areas. You know, they're smart people. They have logistical people that can look at percentages that what do they call it the Bayesian principles of statistical analysis, And they could figure out these areas that we're probably the highest incident areas and target them. So when they went and shot those areas, they shoot up markedly, number, markedly more sed depositive about the hunters in general were shooting during the regular season, so it was effective. What

do they attribute that to? Understand? Just that they were able to go in and target just one little area rather than hunters are more spread out with them. So yeah, so they're focused. Efforts were turning up. We're killing more diseased animals than just people. And while and while all that was going on the first ten years, eight ten years of our problem here, they were you see the numbers on those graphs, it's kind of stayed down around

two percent two percent. That's starting around two thousand eleven, two thousand nine, two thousand nine. Statistically, you could look at and see it was changing. Because it is a slow progressing disease. It's not like it's gonna you know, touch off right from the start. But but in ten years though, and they started backing off, there's numbers started climbing. Then they that's a classic wildlife disease term or um

um problem. It starts us going up like a big, big uphill climb, just right up, especially among the older box year link box even but but even the dolls down in areas like this, they're seeing thirty percent of infection rates, you know, Southa here. So it's getting worse. But you know, these these folks who thought that the first ten years, because things weren't going up, everything's fine,

that we're overblowing the UM. The concern was basically because we were controlling, you know, and as soon as you backed off, the problems started. And what I would add to that is if you go to Illinois and especially northern Illinois, Northern Illinois which is just shof of southern Wisconsin. UM, they have had controlled targeting construption down there on a continuing basis, and they have controlled the disease down there.

They've controlled their percentages. That's what Montana is doing in the breakout areas, and they're using hunters to do it too, but they're they're going after him hard, Yeah, in areas where they see the disease bring up, just to try to like drop numbers. Yeah. It's been really interesting because I've heard from the one ranch manager out there and alarming, alarming numbers. And to me out there, it would be even more of a concern because I've never hunted in Montana.

But um, it seems to me on the on the hierarchy of big game that white tailed deer kind of the bottom of the of the hierarchy, white tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, um, all which can be affected by c w D, but the white tailed deer are in isolated areas, mostly in the river bottoms for at least according to the well. I mean there's yeah, in a general way, so in the in the inner montane areas there in the valleys. Yeah, so there's an opportunity

there to control them. I had a long conversation with this guy about it and uh to be able to control both the number of deer, because he has some of the same concerns I do, you know, damage to the ecosystem, damage to plants that are and trees and that they're trying to grow and they're trying to do good things in these river bottoms. Um uh, so you

know those are those are the biggest things. I mean, there was, They're a handful of other things that you know, the sort of the conspiracy and uh the conspiracy theories about it, and the deflection that I listened to in that discussion that you know, the subject got changed pretty um uh pretty quickly, and I I just want to

defend UH biologists and the people in the science. I can't think of any good reason that nine nine point nine of biologists in this country would be concerned about uh C W d R would be a part of a conspiracy to to spread this um or. But what is the conspiracy? Well, because I think that like here, uh, if you look at the discussion you're referring to, and I'm not trying to take you the task I'm saying, if you look at the discussion referred to, Ted said, c w D is a thing. It's a disease. Right

at a time. There are people who questioned like that, like they questioned, it's the reality like that, it's not. They're like, there's there's no whole thing called that, right, it was it was a hoax. It's not what he said, It is a disease. Um He feels that it's a disease. Control efforts aren't warranted and aren't practical and aren't effective, and it'll sort of natur will sort itself out and

I'd eat it if it's in fact it or not. Now, if there's other people that have that, they feel there's a conspiracy at play, and I know people who do, I don't know them person I know it is. What do they feel the conspiracy is the Uh? Well, Ted said, some of this stuff, the insurance companies, the you know, anti hunters, that there's all those are the kinds of reasons to discourage that it discourages people from hunting. M hmm. And that would that could be a part of it.

The insurance companies would be like, yeah, it's serious, we should kill all the deers. No they don't claim Yeah, who knows. It's because like they're like, man, imagine the money we'd say, not needing to pay all these dear collisions cases. If we could build up this disease hoax that would inspire wildlife managers to kill those I can. I can tell you this. I have spoken to the uh our county biologists here and that that was asked

to come down and receive something. And and then uh the guy who invited me that their regional director said hey, could you say a few words. And I look out on this group of I don't know forty or so biologists and they all are looking at me like, oh, here comes the c w D guy. Like these people didn't get into wildlife biology to spend the biggest part of their career on chronic wasting disease. There's no motivation

for them to do that. There was, um, you know, the idea that is the bureaucracy doing it all those folks are a part of the bureaucracy, and I just I just want to push um. UM. I just want to push back on that UM. And so I just will always remember that group of biologists looking at me, and I said, you know, I guess the last thing you guys want to talk about today is c w D. So I'm not going to talk about it. And so we talked about some of the other I talked about

some of the other thing. UM. I do want to say though, that he and I agree on a few things, and one of them is that the under harvesting of deer can lead to an increase in chronic wasting disease. And that's absolutely the case. He talked about that a little bit. I was like, right on, Ted, you got that, UM, and so I agree with that. UM. The fact that he wanted a hundred tags so that he and his family can shoot those deer, I guess I have a

little suggestion for him. That's maybe bringing some other people to shoot some of those deer, because quite honestly, I did that one year. I shot seven deer and taught to myself, I'm only going to use three of these. I'm a deer exterminator at this point. And I, UM, as you rightly said in that thing that you know, I love and admire these animals, I think as much

as anybody. And I took that opportunity to then start inviting other people in uh to hunt so that they could have that experience and um, so they could learn about the conservation of the white tail, the other kind tradition of this property. And and that's one of the things that we've started to do. If you got to take guess how many people have hunted? How many people in two thousand twenty one hunted the Durham family farm. Can you believe that that's a lot? Jeez? Forty yeah, yeah,

and it's fun. I mean part of what hunting. You let forty people hunt your fun? Yeah. Can you only imagine a spirit right here? Can you only imagine if that that attitude was infectious? I will say this about that. Yeah yeah, So of those forty four actually, and I'm happy to say this, he invited a person for every ten acres. Yeah. Um, the opportunity opportunity. Hunting opportunity is really important. But let me say this, I have UM, I don't bow hunt. As as we've talked about before

the day. Tell me bow hunting this for people who don't have enough to do. That's like such a that's like such a farmer mentality. Man means growing up just when he's like growing up when people were running like you know, I grew up around like a lot of small dairy operations like you know, and um the farmers man like they like knew about hunting and understood why you wanted to hunting. But just like you at that time late eighties, early nine is you could not find

a farmer that hunted. It's weird or that the old So the guys that were like man, the old guys at that time, now they're kids hunting with a vengeance. Something happened generated But like the family patriarchs okay, who are coming out of like the real practical era. Those guys did not well around here, which was similar you know, small dairy farms and lots of them. The Saturday before Thanksgiving is opening day of gun season. Lots and lots

of gun hunters. Everybody gun hunted, and you've been here for open gion. Even in these years, it sounds like it feels like Christmas sounds like a war. I think is what you said. And oh, yeah, you can't count the gun shots on opening morning. Yeah, and uh, well, Pat wrote an article about it, like a shot a second statistic. Pat well back in two thousand that Wisconsin was killing a deer every second during during during the

gun season. If you were to take all the numbers, it most have happened the first two days, especially the first day. First day when you went and I cultually how many hours written that typical hun day. How many seconds then were and it was all those combined nine days than just did the multiplication, thought, and we're killing a deer second. Some years were killing one point three deer per second, some years are killing point seven deer per second. But that's why I read Pat Durkin's articles

because it's kinma you don't get anywhere else. You know, I don't want to name names, but I was surprised to hear that. Uh. I was surprised to hear of a regional outdoor authority finds you two divisive pat statistics like that? What was devisive? Right? I mean I love that kind of stuff. Pat does not need to accentuate the titles. It was articles down a little bit. So that was one of the changes that I saw over time, right.

And I remember talking with Mark Kenyon about this, is like he's like, yeah, there's this farmer that I know, lets me hunt his place. And he's just like he's just like talk to me for a little bit and then I go hunting. But it's seems like every year. That's what it is, um, because he doesn't you know, my it doesn't have time. It's for people who don't have enough to do. Um. And that's kind of where

that all came from. When I was a kid that you didn't go and gun hunting was the thing that we got to do that in November because he kind of got the farm stuff done. Um. When I was melking cows here as a as a young man. UM, my deer hunting clothes were my barn clothes with an orange zip up over the top of it. Well read because I'm so old that we used to wear red too. But um, and boy, it was the best cover since

there ever was smelling like a dairy kyle going out there. Um. And but seeing a deer was you know, it was unusual. It was unusual is the wrong word. But um, you know, seeing four or five deer on opening day was like, wow, we did really well. And seeing one with an antler, I was like whoaly moly um. And so that's changed.

And but you know, growing up, deer hunting was we would I mean, you know, there was a dairy farm there, there was a dairy farm up there, there's dairy farm over the here, all of these and they all had kids and they all had to get fed, right, and so deer drives were you know, a part of it too. By the afternoon of the second day of the gun season, the woods were getting shook up. I mean, if you didn't have a gun, you had a pot and a stick to walk through the woods and drive deer out.

That's you know, it's so so there was this sort of this group mentality of hunting and and that certainly has changed. And the other thing is, you know, big giant bucks and the value of of um perceived or reel of big giant bucks are a part of it too, man.

And I've been down that road, you know, I mean, you know, we were doing all of that kind of stuff and UM and all kind of came to a head when I just got tired of um managing people and like there, well, that one was, you know, big enough for whatever I was telling you the story earlier, the night before opening day, I'd sit here on my laptop and click through, Well, let's let that one go. He could use another year. And my had to just

sit back there and go shooter. Every buck that had an antler on it, he would say was a shooter. Didn't matter if that was three inches a shooter. UM and so um in what we're doing, what I'm doing here with inviting people in, and I do want to point this out. There's a lot of different ways that people are able to access private land, and one of them that's become pretty big around here is through leasing it.

And UM, I leased this farm for twelve days to four guys for bow hunting because I don't I don't do it. UM. And they are or when they started five years ago, they were predominantly trophy hunters. I want, we want to come and kill a big giant buck. Now they have, um all killed a big giant buck here. But they've also all learned about chronic wasting disease. They've

all learned about herd control. And they come here and they have days like we're having, or weekends like we're having where it's is this outing for them as a family. They it's a family, but they all live in different parts of the country. So they come here and here's the place where they come and stay. And of course I entertain them with my wild stories of of whatever.

But um and uh. And after that, literally the day after those guys leave, I have friends who are coming in and hunting, and and and Jack, who's the head of that group. It's like, I want to get this clear. So we're paying X amount of dollars to come here and hunt, and we're happy to do it because they get first crack at them, right. I mean, they get to choose what days are going to hunt. But we're leaving tomorrow and other people are coming in. They're not

paying anything. I just want to settle that in my mind. And I'm like, yeah, but you know what they are doing. This is the question that I will I'll ask anyone who gets the opportunity to hunt here, what is your contribution to conservation? What are you doing for conservation? Um and uh. In some cases that can get you know, can get pretty complicated. But one of the fellas that hunt with me here now UM has volunteered for the Wisconsin Conservation Congress. UM. He's actually now the b h

A R three coordinator for the state of Wisconsin. UM and so those are the kinds of contributions that that he makes. And he gets the opportunity to hunt this place, and he also happens to come here and help with whatever I need, you know, help with UM and uh, you know, people get invited here. It's sort of like uh, pets of season ticket holder of the green Bay package, but it's sort of like getting green Bay packer tickets

season tickets. There's this really long list people ask every year. Obviously, I can't let everyone who UM would like to come hunt here hunt here, but I do maintain a list, and every year a couple of people, you know, get the opportunity to come here and hunt. And so I share this place UM with people based on their willingness

to make a contribution to conservation. And now we've started this idea called sharing the Land, which we're pitching to landowners to have that same mentality of well, let's share this place UM and and because going forward, that's the kind of thing that is going to benefit conservation, it's going to benefit the animals that are part of it, and it's going to benefit the land that it's that's happening on, Doug, can you talk about sharing the land

a bit? So yeah, yeah, yeah, layoff details, man, all right, well I'll lay out the details of sharing the land. So Um, as I said, I sort of had this uh revelation epiphany whatever about how I having. Allowing people to hunt here has always been a part of of our our tradition, but how you make those decisions is sort of where it came up. Um Ela Leopold Um.

About the same time he bought the shack and the farm, you know, the famous thing where he wrote San Connie Almanac, UM started working with a group of farmers down in this area called Riley, where he and his buddies would go out there and make improvements to a property, conservation

improvements to a property. And UM, in return they made that they did the work of the they brought material in, uh improve the habitat, and in return they got uh actually exclusive access to that or uh I don't mean exclusive like no one else could hunt it, but they they got permission to hunt that property. Seemed like a really good idea. UM. Eventually, UM died off one because Leopold died, but to a little thing called World War two was in there. And and then really in those days,

access wasn't really a problem. He literally could knock on doors around here and people allow access. UM. And so you know, a few years ago I started thinking about that more and how UM the experience that as I've had of of well, who how do I decide who gets to hunt here? And this thing came the idea of, UM, what's your contribution to conservation? So we've now formed up. There's a website called Sharing the Land dot com and we're, uh,

it's in its infancy. UM. COVID kind of got in the way of of doing some of the some of the things, but UM, there's a group of people that hunt this property. And we're using this to prove the concept that we have an agreement in place. UM. We want people to UM put together a conservation resume. If you go on Sharing the Land dot com, you can find a conservation resume builder there UM where you explain who you are UM as a someone who's interested in

conservation and hunting. The landowners in tune, in turn, are also filling up, filling out a thing called a cooperating land profile, and in there they say, here are the here's here's my place, here are some of the things I need help with, UM, and here's what I have that I can offer in return. So it sort of takes away that door knocking thing UM. That or letters sending, because honestly, I get letters and I look at them and they get added to the list. UM. But it's

it's it's a little more cohesive that way. And right now we're working on getting UM a number of landowners in southwest Wisconsin. Looks like we'll have six by the end of the year. UM. We're working with some folks in northeast Iowa who are really interested in it UM and UM hopefully some in South Dakota. UM. And the ideas that we're knocking down those barriers between lando ns and access seekers. And in both cases, people are sort

of presenting themselves as they are. Is that big chore list you got on that chalkboard in the mud room, there is that the chore list for the people. That's yes, that is a part of it. And most of that stuff is pretty straightforward. We need limbs taken off of my pine trees up there, um, there's some Justice centeral general clean up around here. You know the kids help me, your kids, you know they are in their keep. They

came out here and help me with the mushroom. Like like timberstand improvement, standing projects, ye, timberstand improvement, Invasive species control um uh man, there's little carpentry projects if you have that kind of skills. One of my guys at him UM has come out here and done uh masonry work on the on the barn. He's a mason by trade. He's like, well, okay, I can fix that, can talk point those rocks that you know, the wild foundation for

you and stuff. Well, what a great thing. I mean, we're concerned about the about the barn being here another hundred years. And he's like to take care of that for you and that you know that those are the kinds of things and you know you can walk around here. Hell, you can walk around and make a list of another

ten or fifteen things. Um. The other part of it is this, I've been talking to some of the groups that offer conservation training, right, so like the Elder Leopold Foundation, the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association, u u W Extension UM and UH one of the things that they offer these landowner days where landowners go and learn about their land and the invasive species control, timberstand improvement and all of that.

And you go to those things and it's just all landowners and they're like, yeah, well who do I, Who

do I get to do this work? And so what our plan is to do is to encourage access seekers to also go to those things and learn about conservation practices, to learn about timberstand improvement, to learn about invasive species can roll um and then be able to offer those very specific things to a landowner in exchange for the opportunity to to access their property not just for hunting, but for foraging and help to go out for a walk or you know, for skiing, for camping and those

sort of things. So you know, there's plenty of opportunity out there to lease property or to do uh, you know, a pay for play but um and I know how that works. And even some of the voluntary public access programs and that sort of thing, well you know how that works. The landowner gets paid by the government to open their land up for access. Um. Some of them have some habitat improvement to it. But the people who are accessing aren't doing that. They're probably paying money to

uh or they're being paid to do habitat improvements. So then they have to get somebody to do that work. And they're they're they're hiring somebody. So you know, with the with the paper play thing, we know what the landowners getting out of it, and we know what the access seekers getting out of it. But my question is what's the land getting out of that? So let's tie all those things together. So, um, the people who get invited here are one thing. People who get to continue

to come back here. Um. And there's it's a there's a relationship develops, right, there's a trust that develops and um uh and this is a way of doing you know, of helping people develop that in a very specific way without as much uh as much unknown about it. Um you know you know how Yeah, I was gonna come home this year. Yeah. Do you think that we could have him go up in the bunk area and try to find all my kids socks? Put on the list.

Let me put that on the find Steve's kids ship and mail to the great thing about having a list like that is when you take get to take a line and put it through it. You know, That's one of the things about lists is just like you know, crossing stuff off of the list, because there's nothing worse than having a list that nothing ever gets marked off. And so what's really cool is this past year I invited um, uh several you know, a bunch of new people um to come and and uh and hunt and

and folks, I know I got. I mean, I literally have a list of over a hundred and fifty people who have asked for permission to hunt here. Um And as I said, they come up. Oh yeah, I mean I know, I keep track of it. It's I just get if you're writing them down. It doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I mean, I just I just feel that UM thing. And you know why, I mean, people reach out to me. I try to answer people who reach out to me. And it's because I reached out to a guy once

twelve thirteen years ago and he wrote me back. So that's you know, sort of carries forward. But I've been you know, that's how me and dog became buddies. Email, right, he wrote me, Yeah, yeah, he reached back out and I didn't get many him. I thought it was because

it was you know, so heartfelt and touching. Uh it was one but uh yeah, and he you know, and we had this exchange and then my favorite email I ever got from Steves when I said, uh, well, this has been really great because we were like pen pals there for several months, you know, or email pals, and um, I would answer quickly and it would take him a while to get back to me, but um. And then I said, wow, this has been great. Um, if you ever want to deer hunt in southwest Wisconsin, I'd welcome

you at the farm. And the response was really question mark when question and we figured it out I picked up at the airport on New Year's Day in two thousand and ten. Yeah, so I mean really born, you know, get some credit for this whole thing too, sort of born from that year before I had invited pad out A because he and I had been arguing, So are you know ours is based on this, uh my admiration

for your writing. And in the case of Pat, I actually really had always admired his articles too, but then he got something wrong and that's when I decided to write to him and I corrected him and and I said, you know, I never thought about it like that, and then we ended up getting together. So to me, it's it's interesting. I'm always interested in people who are interesting,

and Yeah, is certainly one of those people. When I listened to your podcast and growing up in the period of time that I did, and knowing what what happened in Southeast Asia and with your people and then what you went through to get here, and and you know, just your sort of cheeriness and and telling your story and it was just it was wonderful and I was like, I want to meet that guy at Steve Golls. I

think I could arrange that. Yeah, it's fantastic so that you know, you can go on sharing the lot and dot com and take a look at what we're doing and understand that two is our year of of you know, continuing to build UM. Landowners. I would say that are the harder group to reach, although it's been really gratifying.

We were hoping to, you know, have like you know, one and ten persons who reached out to us be a landowner, and it's been more like yeah, yeah, And what's been really cool is like consulting Forrester that works for me. When he got the email about inviting him out here because he happens to be a private landowner

to come to our kickoff party. He called me and he said, Hey, our chapter of Wisconsin woodland Owners Associations had a couple of bad years of getting together because of covid um and we haven't really had an event. Could I invite more people from our chapter? And I'm like, yes,

I just need to know if they're coming. And then the other part of it is he said, I have all kinds of ants, a number of clients I should say not all kinds of number of clients who don't hunt, but who need these kinds of things done on on their property. So if you're someone who's looking for access on a property, um, you know, bone up on your

conservation skills. You know, learn what invasive species are and how to control them, and learn about things like timber stand improvement and um, you know, if you learn some carpentering around here, you can learn how to build gates that open and clothes on their own Steve satisfaction, um and uh, you know, just there's just a ton of things to do and and there's a lot of information out there for it. But we want to become a central place for that. Doug your great American. Well, that's

nice of you to say. I mean that, well, I I know you do. Doug Blush, it's great American. Well, great Casanopian doing what I can with what I've got, not Cassanova kas That sounds so exotic, doesn't so people that want I think probably, I don't know at this point, you probably don't need a bunch more dudes calling you who want to do the work you need you need, uh, landowners, if you've got property, what's too small? I think that's really up to them. Um, you know, yeah, forty or

an eighty or something like that. You got a forty and you wanna you know, you're not interrupt, You don't need the you're not looking for, like the couple thousand bucks or whatever. You got stuff you want done to the land. You look out there and you're like, sound a bit calls weeds? Yeah, or man would be sweet as someone could go and thin that out. Or I've

always wanted to plan a whatever the list landowners. It's so interesting to me because I've done land management consulting and contracting for so long, and I've I've worked with a lot of land new landowners and after about their first year, the first that it seems like the most common thing they say is man owning a piece of properties a lot of work, and like, well, would you like to get a little help with that, here's how you do that. And there's plenty of that going there's

a lot of that going on out there. I mean, I think, but this gives the template for people who haven't spent their whole life immersed in it. That's exactly right, that's exactly right. Um. And you can get like, if you're open to having your place hunted, you'd like to have some projects, some conservation projects done on your place or whatever. And that's the kind of human interaction relationship

that is more appealing to you. You can find ways to get paired up with people at it, individuals who have laid out their credentials, and you can have a sort of negotiated Um, they'll partici, they'll work on the land with your goals in mine in exchange to do a little hunt. Yeah, and access it in any way, um and whatever you agree with. And every landowner can decide how much for how little of that that they're

they're willing to to do. But it's important for landowners to also be thoughtful and fair about it, you know. M hmm. So thanks for letting me talk about that. But it's been my theme, you know, sharing the land dot com at this point, it is a dot com, yeah, not dot org, right, sharing the land dot com. Shoot dug a note, get get out of some dude is on that list. It's just like some of bitch that's gotten sucked off by yeah yang Yeah. I mean I'm

telling you this. There is not there's no unionization of decision, just that. It's just not the next guy moves up. It's like completely at my whim. I will say sorry, but all right, thanks a lot, uh, thank you, Patrick Durgan, thank you. You've got good articles coming up for me either, always good. Tell me the next me with the next thing. Um, let's see the next one. I just turned in one last week on and you can sell pan fish in Vermont that you can sell pan fish flats. You can

send pan fish flas. It's on the meat eater dot com right now. How did that come into play? Were there folks who wanted to make a living off that? Or what's is this like the first game, you know, the first fish that you can sell. It's the only state in the country that we know of. I think there might be one little spot Tennessee where during the

spring they can sell cropp ease cropy flights. But Vermont it's basically they go to bait shops bringing bringing the fish they don't want and drop off the meat and drop or drop off the fish and that's you know, it's been going on for forever. Basically in the article, I gotta go check it out. But what what's the pound of wild caught blue gill flas? Oh god, these days?

Um think showed that the article that showed I showed in the article that the one fish if you can do it, if you can catch it and sell it in Vermont, the fish to do it, it's croppy. That one is way more expensive than gets a lot more money than than like um salmon does. Basically, Jill, last year, what was funny as hell is? Uh speaking crop eas and turkeys and Doug made me think of this. The kids tagged out so quick on youth season. Let me

go up to the pond up there. Yeah, and we caught a couple of croppies and Austin not hook into like I don't even know what dragging the boat around huge fish, and I'm just a tussling inviting. The kids are all excited. You know what comes up? Snag a

big snapper by the tails. Wow. I mean, I'm like, I don't know what the last thing I was like that someone like throw some you know, eighty pound flathead and the ducks pond unbeknownst to him, Like it just didn't make any sense what this thing was between river otters and make and not the big snapper. Dude, it was so funny, man, Okay, so tell me so the other one. Yeah, that the article Steve that's got no writing about. In Vermont from March through you're allowed to

shoot northern pike and quite a few other fish. You know, they call him cullfish with a with a firearm. So guys will sit out and he's flooded uning areas and it goes back into their history, the Revolutionary War period basically. And it's not many people doing it, but they slip in trees, some just weighed around, and you can shoot him with any gun you want, muzzleloader, handgun, caliber SI rigby if you want to, or whether it be I mean, dude, my kid, this would be like the thing that he

found most interesting all the planet. Yeah, what's funny. I would satisfy like everything he's interested in, But shooting guns and the whole thing about what it takes because they don't shoot the fish. They don't aim to shoot in the head or in the in the vitals. They shoot off the side underneath it the concussion. So I got into the whole thing about what, why, why, or why vibration through water is so deadly. So I got a

little bit of that in the article too. Good man, this story starts making great, but it's just it's just mentioned your kiddle. What's fascinating about they've been thinking now that they've tried, and the more time to kill the season off out in Vermont, you know, the fishing game department the season and they don't like it. They don't They just would like it to be done with because it's just it's just shoot sends They think it sends

the wrong message. You know, you're shooting in the water, and you teach everyone don't shoot in the water, while here you're shooting in the water. But I would think the message it would send is that that you can shoot fish in the water. Like I feel that that's the message, the wrong message, for the message that you can shoot fish in the water. But it was what

I found. I think, um, I think that many love the article with this whole point was that for for decades or you know, for many decades, they kept thinking this is not die out. You know, back when they first read about when I first found articles about from the nineteen seventies and early eighties, they're talking about the current generation when they age out, this will go with them. They think it's a dying activity. Well, here we are

fifty years later, and now I'm the old guys. Might people my age of the old guys doing it, but they're what they're finding is that there's a young kids. What they need to do is find out about it. Any kid in America with the gun and said, oh, if you feel like it and you want to wander around out there in the light at night, you see a fish, go ahead and shoot it. Yeah, and then the kid. So it's basically a few kids doing it, and then then they then they kind of go away

for a long time. Then late in life becomes a thing like well my grandfather could do this, his grandfather could do it. We're gonna keep doing it and it becomes a rights issue. And this one guy I talked to, an interviewed for the article, pointed out that so, you know, in recent decades we've had a big, big movement in

our country. I have a constitutional right to hunt and fish in Wisconsin, the constitutional right the hunt, whatever state it might be, he says, Vermont put that in their constitution in like seventeen ninety whenever it was they formed the state constitution, and in Vermont it was a right to hunting fish was part of their constitution. So anytime you mess with that, now you're messing with your history. And it gets real contentious when they try to get

rid of rid of anything. So good for them. Great story, that's great, alright. Check out Durgan's articles the Meat dot Com, check out Yeah Yang, he'll be hearing a gun show and Dougs Farm. Yeah thanks everybody. Yeah,