Ep. 628: MeatEater Radio Live! A Goose Calling Champ, Tapeworm Cysts, and Toxic Sludge

Smell Us. Now, lady, welcome to Meet Eater Trivia Meater Podcast.

Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time on November twenty first, and we're live from Meet Eater HQ and Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newhart, joined today by Jannis Putellus and Corey Hawkins. On today's show, we'll interview the three time world goose calling champion John Walls. Then we have a rought report from Mark Kenyon, followed by one minute fishing with Seth Morris. After that, we'll

Well, yeah, thanks, Spencer. Finally harvested my general Montana bull elk last week.

How many years did that take?

Felt like multiple? But it was a long archery season. I passed up a lot of elk and had a lot of close encounters with my bow as you did as well.

No, you got one last year, didn't you will your bow?

I'm two years in a row filling my general elk tag with a bowl. Yeah nice, but yeah. I went out with a couple of colleagues actually to try and harvest a cow for a non resident colleague of ours who had a cow tag, and all we saw were bulls. So three bulls come up over the hill and I was able to drop one of them that stopped at four hundred.

Yards in a new spot for you.

It's a spot I've hunted before, but it's one of our colleagues secret go to late season elk spots that he was.

Held a few people in the office.

Yeah, we were blindfolded until the sun came up. And then as soon as the sun came up, looking through the snow, I saw three bulls come over the hill and it was pretty hard to say no this late in the season. So filled my freezer.

What was the one that you killed? His size versus the other two?

You know, I didn't get a great look at any of them. It happened so fast they came up over the hill. At first I thought they were other hunters on the skyline. It was just it was dark enough and there was a blizzard happened and snow was blowing sideways, and they were probably five hundred and fifty yards. At one point they saw us, and they actually skirted across the mountain side closer to us, and I shot mine at like four fifteen or something uphill twenty mile an

Jihanny, you should close your ears, you should close years for this. But I recently declared Cory the best elk hunter in the office. You think that's true?

Oh?

We kind of.

Oh look at that face.

Yeah, he didn't agree.

I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to make the guy feel bad. If you gave him that title, then he shouldn't, you know, take wrong with it.

Make a counter argument.

Oh, I don't really want to do this right now.

Because who would you say? Okay, if Corey's won.

What makes him or one B kill themselves?

And to be clear, Corey didn't make this declaration, I know declaration.

Then now you're asking me to tell you why he's not the best one.

Yeah, I am.

I'm gonna pass. I like Corey my buddy.

Okay, well who's who's one? B if Corey's one?

A Oh boy, I haven't thought about this.

Uh.

I think I think we have a lot of good elk hunters.

Okay.

The thing about being a good elk hunter or what can it make you seem? What was going on over here? Folks, you're live? Put your headphones actually here. I never cut to this camera.

I'm gonna cut to Kurn's camera here for your sex so she can explain herself.

There she is.

I was on Instagram looking at our Meat Eater live promo, just working and.

Jimmy's first olt.

Congratulations Jimmy, Yah and Karen bailed out Yanni from having to talk about the best No.

But I'll tell you, I mean, it's just so gray and subjective because what can often seem like someone is a great elk hunter is because they have extreme knowledge about a certain area. Right Like, I know a guy that kills a bowl every single year, and he probably kills that bowl within five hundred yards of the spot he killed the bull the prior year, You know what I mean? Does that make him a great elk hunter. He kills a bowl every year, but does it make

Now my life.

Yeah, and you were successful on one of those outings.

That's right, good point, Corey.

Spencer.

I heard you just harvested a big game animals.

Interesting, you know. Tyler says, congratulations.

Oh, thank you? Tyler wurts uh, thank you?

Yeah?

Who's he saying congratulations to Spencer?

Comma, congrats on the Nebraska mule deer I just killed My biggest was.

That place that happened while you think, Well, that happened while Corey was saying, Hey, I heard you just killed a buck, and there was already a comment I had it.

Tyler probably saw it on Spencer's Instagram and.

Now eleven six I see.

It was a nice buck.

Thank you. That was my biggest mule ever hunting Western Nebraska. I haven't gotten many days of the mule deer rut like that, where it was just like bucks were on their feet all the time. Every group of does very reckless and sometimes like deer hunters can curse the run that it makes things too random, where it puts deer in places you wouldn't expect to see them.

Not for mule deer, though.

Maybe not for mule deer. And I'm not nearly as experienced at hunting muli's as I am whitetail, but there can be a point in the white tail rut where you're like, all the bucks are somewhere else, in a place that they aren't normally found. They're bedded down in a grassy fence row right now with some dough. They're they're sitting in a wide open egg field that was just cut and it just doesn't make sense because it's the rut. This was the best mule deer rut though,

Now, was that the first decent buck you saw? Because You're not much of a passer, and so I'm wondering, like, was it so good that you were, like, you know, I'm gonna let a few of these medium bucks go.

That day, I had seen about fifty deer. I killed that buck probably fifteen minutes into shooting lights.

It was.

It happened quick, and I saw a handful of other bucks. I wouldn't have passed on some bucks that were a little smaller than him, but that that was an easy decision to make. I passed on a few smaller bucks

You want to talk about some lockdown going on. If you live in Bosman, Montana right now, you can drive just about anywhere in this town and find a white tail buck down on a dough.

Give me an example of where you've seen him.

Where. Yeah, pick a golf course in this town. You can see it there. I don't know what's the one on Kegie is a value view?

Oh yeah, that one's like kind of private. That that's a weird golf course.

But I got an invite actually yesterday to go play. And when I get invited in this summer, I'll have you. Yeah, not to play yesterday, but I got the invite yesterday for next summer. But when I go play, I'll be like, hey, can we bring another guy? I'll bring you along. You do that, I would just say, cagy, yeah, just if you just run kegye And if you don't see a buck lockdown on a dough, then your eyes don't work.

Last thing here, Yanni, before we do our first interview, your dad has a correction or something to add about thermals from the thermal discussion we had when he when he.

Called, he was pretty fired up. He's like, you guys almost had it right, oh, And I'm like, okay, well what did we miss? And like I said, this is the reason that I was fussing a pill a little bit when he picked the thermal thing, because I said, well, this is like a three hour show. We can discuss thermals. But my dad said the important part that we miss that might help people understand why this whole thermal thing is working and why it actually does happen on flat ground.

Yeah, you think we covered it now.

I don't know, do you.

Pot is Popayanni listening right now?

You thin no? He's in deer camp in Wisconsin right now, and there's poor service there.

So Popayanni, when you hear this, you let Yanni.

Know if forgot it, if I got it.

Yeah, all right, moving on, joining us on the line. First is the three time World goose Calling Champion John Walls. John just won the Super Bowl of Goose Calling for the third straight year. John, Welcome to the show.

Hey guys, thanks for having man. Really appreciate it.

John. First thing, tell us about the competition. How do you get to the World Championship? How are the callers judged? How do you prep for this thing?

So the World Championship Goose Calling contest is open to any caller. You don't have to you know, be invited, have an inmitation, or win a contest throughout the year to be entered into the world goose. Anybody can show up and blow in it. How it's judged, You got five judges. You have to tell a story to The judges are a questioned, they can't see you. The contest is made up with three rounds and they do the

Each judge will give a caller a score.

Once all five scores are tallied, they'll throw out the highest and the lowest score.

Keep it three in the middle, and those points accumulate through three.

Rounds and at the end of the third round, if you're lucky enough to make it, if you have the most points.

Here the winner. Yeah, pretty, it's pretty cool.

And for the judges, do you think that their ear can pick up on who that caller is? Do you think they know this is John, that's Tim, that's Bob, or does it all sound you know, very different to them.

It depends.

So like for the World Contest, you have judges from all across the country kind of, but there was a few local ones and they've been doing it long enough to where you know, certain callers have certain styles, certain sounds. They can pick up on it as me as a as a competitor. I know, if I was judging the World Goose seventy five percent of the callers while they were doing their warm up, I can tell you who they are.

Wow, which you know it kind of there's a curve all into things.

You deal with a little bit of politics there with judging a little bit, but I mean with social media and just all this content and stuff of you know, people blowing Goose calls, it's become that way.

Unfortunately, I got a question how close do they put the judges from the callers, because my gripe sometimes with some of these contests is if the caller is blowing like towards the audience and the judges are behind them, or if even if they're directly in front of them, versus like I always feel like the judges should be at the back of the room, which is sort of the distance that a goose would hear you're calling from right and adding that more air between their ears and

So that's changed over the years.

The World Goose Call Championships held in a high school auditorium, and you know that auditorium was built for you know, acoustics, sounds, But to me, I swear that stage was built for contest goose callers because it's just absolutely incredible and they're the sound, the echo, just everything about it's awesome.

For the longest time, when you.

Walk out on stage, the judges were sitting behind you, and then up till this year, for about four years the judges were right on the other side of the state, so you're pretty much standing right in front of them.

Obviously they can't see you.

But this year they put the judges in the far back corner of the auditorium. And there's pros and cons to it, but overall, I think it was better. Like you said, you just get a better overall sound. The way the sound echoes off the walls in the room, it's just a little bit better.

But yeah, the judges were in the far back corner of the auditorium this year.

And do you show up there knowing the routine that you're going to do? Note for note and call for call.

I do yup up to my warm up? I mean everything about it. I know every single note of my routine. I know exactly where I need to take my breast, how much of a breath I need to do. I've been doing this for eighteen years, so it's kind of like second nature to me now. But I'm definitely a note for no caller. There's certain callers that are, you know, sequence callers are just just kind of, you know, wing

Phil robertson one set, and it's one of my favorite quotes that that revolves around hunting. He said that a live mallard wouldn't place in a duck calling competition. Can you explain what he meant by that and how calling in a competition is different than calling in the field.

Sure, yeah, he's He's absolutely right too, especially with the duck calling. It definitely has its place in the goose calling world.

Too.

For competition style duck and goose calling, it's not really trying to sound like the real bird.

It's an operating contest.

You know, how well a caller can operate the call, push the call to the limit, you know, have confidence in it, having flow and speed, and just showing your overall you know, ability to do everything you can on a call. But there is contests out there that they're called live contests. They're a little bit shorter in time, and the main goal in those contests are to sound like a live hen mal or a couple of Kennedys.

And do you still get humbled by geese when you go hunting? Or do you fool them every single time?

Now there's days man, well they they'll just fly right by and flip me the bird literally.

All right.

Three straight wins at the World Goose Calling Competition for short read that is something that has never been done before. What do you do next?

Then?

Are you gonna go win a fourth next year?

So I'm officially retired. Part of the World Duck and Goose Calling Championship rules is if you win three, you're retired, So I'm officially done. You know, people have their opinions on that. I think it's pretty cool. It's been that way forever. You know, you shoot for winning three and then you're done. But I'm gonna miss it, you know, obviously. But I am able to blow in the Champion of

Okay, we're gonna be cheering for you. Now, what what makes you better at calling geese than everyone else in this competition?

You know, I don't. I wouldn't say how I'm better.

It's just how I've convinced those judges that, you know, I sounded the best that day.

You know.

It's subjective, opinion based, you know, So it's it's just I try to stand out a little bit more than everybody else. Like I said, the judges are from all different parts of the country, and they're used to hunting different subspecies of geese which sound different. You know, geese are different from all over the world. Even though they're all goose, they're they're a little bit different. So just

John, We got a lot of people in the chat today who were asking for tips. So give us some tips that goose callers of all skill levels could use.

You know, if you're trying to advance, I would definitely try to get one on one, you know, lessons from somebody. There's tons of stuff on social media on you know, people showing you tips and tricks on how to blow a goose call. But you know, listening to a video it helps, but having somebody one on one there that can see what you're doing, give you a little tips.

And tricks right in person is so much better.

And you know, even me, I mean, yeah, I'm the world champion this, you know for the third time, but you know, I'm no better than the next guy.

I'm still learning stuff on a goose call to this day.

You know, different cadences, different notes, different just all sorts of different things. This thing as an instrument, it's like a guitar. You know, there's so many different things you can do. Just try to be as proficient as you can on on a goose call. I mean, you're cheating yourself if you know, you're just kind of hanging out and being mediocre.

You know, Can you play for us an award winning goose calling sequence? Before you do that, explain what we're about to hear.

Yeah, so I'll do. I'll do a little sequence for you. I'll start off kind of going slow. So in the world goose, you're you're telling the judges a story in a in a minute and thirty seconds of a flock of geese off in the distance, you get their attention, The geese come to you, say you or your buddy moves in the blind, the geese flair. You got to call them back and get them back into decoys and you know, get them to the ground. So I'll kind of start off slow, get fast, get slow again.

I'll do an abbreviated part of a routine for you. Real quick, might be might be a little loud.

What wow, beautiful, that's amazing.

That sounds like multiple.

Geese at once. I don't know how you're doing that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

I feel spoiled. We just got an exclusive show, uh from the best goose caller in the world. Congrats again for doing something that's never been done before by winning three straight World goose calling championships on the short read, enjoy your retirement and thanks for joining us.

Appreciate it, guys, Thank you very much. You'll have a good one.

Thanks John.

Thanks John.

People in the chatter as saying that they're gonna take this part of our podcast and just play it outdoors.

That might work.

Make sure that's legal in your state before you do it. That gave me goosebumps.

Wow, I've got a lot of honking for a bonking shout outs in the comments as well.

I was disappointed I wasn't here that day for that tattoo. That was so good.

It's it's great. Every time I see a goose now just walking around town, it's that's the only thing I think of it. It's the only thing I about a thinking for the rest of my life.

Oh, I'm sad I missed it. What episode was that.

Somebody had a tattoo that I don't know if they said they regretted it, but they shared it with us, and it was it was like a crudely drawn, childlike effort at a making a goose. And then it said honking for a bonkin. I don't think you need any context. I think people wanted context, but you don't need any context for that. It's just downright funny, all right. Our next segment is the rot Report.

Well we should find tail run.

I can't believe it's already here.

You shit, du tasu bye, cause your kids, goodbye, decide to desert you.

Wow.

Thank you for that rut rule. The rout report is where Mark Kenyon gives us a white tail hunting forecast for each region. Take it away, Mark.

Hey, guys, Mark Kenyon here from Wired Hunt, coming at you with another whitetail rut report. And as you can see, I am reporting from my home office, and that's because my own personal rut marathon is tailing off, as is the rut for many parts of the country. Now the southern United States is a little bit unique, but for the northern two thirds of the country, we are now coming down off the bell curve of running activity. Over the last two weeks. There's been a lot of seeking,

Is slowing down.

You're not gonna see as much activity as maybe you saw the first week or second week of November, but it is still happening. There are still some doze in estrus. And the key thing here is that the big old bucks know that. So this last week or two, right around Thanksgiving, give or take, is a notorious time to catch a very big, very old buck on his feet doing the zombie walk, just cruising from betting area to

Yanni is heading out on his second run cation into Wisconsin this year. Does that sound right? You think that's what you're gonna see this week when you're out there.

I sure hope. So some of them in Wisconsin I've heard have the attitude of like, man, every minute that goes by, you know, after opening the opening bell of the opener, like your odds just go down, down, down, down down. But I don't really believe in that. And this year we're spending Thanksgiving there in camp, Like my family is joining us next Wednesday. So I'm gonna hunt pretty close to every day of the of Wisconsin's nine day gun deer season. And yeah, I'm looking forward to

I think those pessimistic hunters you're talking about that would be true if you're hunting on public land forty minutes it's from Milwaukee. But if you have a private piece of ground to yourself that is well managed, yeah you can feel optimistic for that whole week of Thanksgiving.

Yeah well, I mean yeah, right next to a big metropolitan area maybe, but there's other public land around. And according to the people I like to listen to, they're like, by Thanksgiving, the dear pretty much a're back.

To normal, we hope. So for your case, thank you. Let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil what's the chand have to say, Yeah, We've.

Got a couple things I just wanted to shout out. First, Joe just had a baby with his wife did and he's also there. He's listening from the hospital.

Congrats Joe, Congrats Joe.

We've got another hospital listener from ant Man says he's listening from the hospital because his spouse just got done getting her gallbladder taken out. So shout out to the husband's out there supporting, supporting their wives, but also not paying attention to them. To listen to media to radio, You're doing great. See Garrett's wondering Spencer, why you strongly favorite deer hunting.

I don't know, it's just like what I'm familiar with. It's what I grew up doing. I also like to solo hunt a lot, and it is daunting to, you know, going out trying to kill an elk when you're by yourself. Deer hunting is also what I love about whitetails is you're hunting the same animal whether you're in Maine or Saskatchewan or Texas. And I like to travel around and hunt, and so I think I think those are my favorite things about deer hunting.

I'm not going to put any of you on the spot to actually do a call, but Jeremiah's wondering what's the best call each of you can do if you have, if you're proud of anything, any skills you have, and you can show them off if you like to.

You don't have to.

Oh, Johanna, you got the far away out call right.

If you can do a spot on weed eat or call, it doesn't help much in the woods.

Uh huh.

I'd like to hear that. What's my best call? I don't know.

Probably Steve always hypes up your far away elk call.

Oh yeah, but that's it's just like a fun.

Yeah, well, I thought, look at doing a spot on weed eater. That's just a fun thing as well.

One time I called in heard though by whistling. It only happened once. I've tried tried it since, but no results. I don't know. Probably an elk or a turkey would be my best call.

I feel like I can do an okay, uh hen turkey call with with just my mouth with no calling.

Yeah that's good.

Yeah, there you go, Corey. You got any uh any calls at your best?

At man?

I feel like just estrous cow calls. I can't do it with just my mouth a diaphragm, and I have called in a pretty sizable bull elk with a blade of grass. Oh, I didn't have any calls on me?

Hell yeah? And then what happened?

It wasn't seasoned yet unfortunately too, so we just watched him walk five years.

That's why he's the best elk hunter in the office.

Chris is asking if you would cut around suspected tapeworm CIS and a deer liver or just pitch it.

I I don't know enough about tapeworm CIS, but yeah, I'm probably not keeping that, you.

Know, that's funny. We just got a text from can I do I have enough time to find it?

You can address it later in the show.

Okay, you can.

You can look for the text now.

Yeah, I'll look for the text now.

Corey and any thoughts getting rid of that thing? Yeah, not risk it.

A lot of Yanni Central content people are asking about getting some fuzz here on if anyone's phone is near the mics.

We're live, folks getting something. I'll try to I'll try to find I'm just on internet. We'll troubleshoot. Great.

Danish I'm guessing is asking if we could get some gear talk segments on radio live. And I'm mainly throwing this out there because we've I think it's a great idea. That idea, Yeah, it's a I don't know if you're aware this, honest, but we've actually talked about maybe doing something like this. We're pitching the show is bringing gear talk stuff back. So is that something you'd be interested in?

Sure?

Yeah, future segment we're gonna have Yanni talking gear.

Quick five minute gear and we will do one more. Mainly, this is going to be a promo. I'm setting you up, be honest, Yannis, what's the hunting fishing, like in Latvia. He's visited family in Lithuania before and they got a few yellow perch. Is there anywhere this person could go Villius Vilius to find some quality Latvia and hunting content.

Oh yeah, Well I've made two episodes about hunting in Latvia which are on meter YouTube channel now, and there's also an upcoming episode. I don't know, it'll probably be out sometime in twenty twenty five where I hunted this past summer. But it was It's great hunting. It's not as difficult, I would say, as most hunting here. I don't know. It's just it's a small place in Critics just don't seem to be able to get away from you. They're allowed to use thermals.

You described it for like it's some gloves off situation. Yeah, Like the goal is.

To kill an animal, yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah I've hunted red deer there and pigs and raccoon, dogs and road deer, which I killed one this summer which was cool, kill a full grown buck that was only fifty pounds. You can do that, Cameron Haynes thing, you know, you throw them on your shoulders and walk out really easily with those little road deer.

Did you do that?

I did.

The other thing I know about hunting in Latvia is that Yanni smoked a cigarette. There was that a celebratory cigarette or was just like it was part of the culture, so you thought you should have one.

So that was my first trip ever there. It was literally my first five hours, maybe three hours of being in Latvia. And so yes, I was celebrating sort of a homecoming in a way, and.

You wanted to smell like Latvian.

We were sitting outside of this, you know, late night Pete's joint, and joined some beers with some friends I hadn't seen in a decade or more, and uh, you know, my crew from meat Eater was there. We're having a great time and some gals next to us are smoking up cigarettes one after another, and I just thought, you know, when in Riga, h have a cigy was it satisfying? No, it was a bad decision. I also told you take me four days to brush that taste out of my mind.

When we went to uh to Venice for the for the Mediat Experiences, Randall was technically on vacation. So the first thing we did on the way to the marina was stop at a store so Randall will get a pack of cigarettes.

I think he told me he smoked too, And then through the rest of the back way.

Content that's vacation behind the sea we need on media radio.

I'm just going to chime in for two things really quickly, Vilious shout out to you my paternal grandfather's Lithuanian. And then also, I want to go back to the tape worm larvas cyst. So a friend of mine, Kristen, shot deer and sent me a photo of you know, it looks gross little white cists like rice looking things in her liver, and she wasn't sure what that was. So I sent a picture to Jim Heffelfinger and he said that the tapeworm larvas cysts are harmless to humans, but

But if you trust the world's best to your biologists, then go ahead and enjoy that liver, but don't let your dog. All right, Moving on, our next segment is one minute fishing.

Do I feel lucky?

We'll do you unk, go ahead, make my cast.

One minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donate to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Seth Morris who's on the Gallatin River in Montana and he's fishing for a donation to Whileyes Unlimited. Seth, Welcome to the show.

How's it going, guys?

Going good? Seth had to go to a river today because all of the still water in Bozeman is now frozen up. Seth, Uh, what's the tactic we're using today to catch a trout?

Well, I got the old trusty spinning rod again. I got a spoon on. It's called a nitty one. I don't hope you can.

See that made in Pennsylvania.

I used to catch a lot of trout in Pennsylvania on this thing, So we're gonna give it a shot. I will admit we have been fishing here for the last twenty minutes and haven't caught anything.

So you're gonna keep doing the same thing, or you're trying something different. For one minute fishing.

I just recently switched up to this made a couple of casts. So okay, well see there's actually risers right now.

I should have but yep, heard that.

Yeah, we see what we can do.

Corey. Uh it's now winter in Montana. You've got rising fish there on the gallats. And what would you be doing if you were trying to catch one of these things?

Oh, tie on a little size twenty blueing olive.

Okay, dry fly, m.

I will say there there has been fly fishermen here the whole time we've been here.

They haven't caught anything.

Oh all right, well, Seth is they're gonna show them up right now. Seth, you're one minute of fishing starts when you make your first cast. Go ahead, all right, let's do it.

They're getting fooled by those risers. You know, there's like ten percent of the fish or eating those bugs on the surface, the other ninety percent or eating the the uh emerging emerging bugs in the water column.

Yeah, they're just seeing the tails go back down. Perhaps maybe you'll hook a big old mountain white fish for something.

Sex snagg it in the tail.

Twenty seconds in one cast down, he's not jerking at all. Looks like he's fishing a little slower water off of.

The main current.

Here, nice little back eddie.

Twenty five seconds to go before you, seth. He's e fishing. He's not like Randall getting his lure hung up in the trees. Ten seconds to go, seth.

That's a good angle. It's tough.

Time is up. No donation today for Walleyes Unlimited.

I didn't have a whole lot of hope.

But we're dry.

Well. Next time we're gonna send Corey out there. He's gonna have his fly rod and he's gonna show you and those other fly fishermen how it's done.

No, I think next time we should punch a few holes in some ice there you go.

I imagine on the mead theater pond there's like what inch and a half of ice right now. So we're gonna have to wait another a couple of weeks.

Probably, Yeah, it'll freeze up quick.

All right. Thank you for joining us, seth.

Uh.

Maybe catch one of those and send us a photo.

We'll do.

Thanks you guys, you made that look way too easy. In Louisiana a couple weeks ago, Yanni, you.

Were you were definitely chumming the water before that, right.

I mean that's we're fishing at a fish cleaning station. Water is constantly chummed.

Uh huh yeah, yeah, That'll probably the only time we have somebody catch like six fish in the one minute fishing segment.

Well, we also had two anglers going after it. But yeah, if there was a place where it was just about guaranteed, that was it.

All right. Our next segment is from Chester Floyd. This is Chetticutt c g T qu you.

E t t E find out. Bud means to me c g t A c you t T take care of.

This week, Chester is answering a listener's question about finders keepers rules in the Alaskan backcountry.

Take it away, chet, Hello, everybody, my name is Chester Floyd and I'm coming at you from a basement in Wisconsin. And this week's Chettikit comes to us from Cooper, and Cooper writes, I've been an Alaskan hunting and fishing guide for twelve years, and I'm generally against do it yourself moose hunts for various reasons. In September of twenty twenty three, a group of three men did a DIY moose hunt

We Cooper's getting.

Tired of moose trip guys saying that they can roll. It's only DIY and float trip guys are always rolling rafts in the river holes.

Super is a hunting who in Flora yet bull ride. Believe it or.

Not, you found those raps and I'll be damn the moose racks still attached. When you're on a moose trip bowl, you better keep the damn thing a float. Oreo by Rite of Tears, handsome guy named Cooper will be drinking.

You're still cold?

Why.

I think it's wonderful that you went in there and got all that inevitable trash off the river. I think if you want to keep that stuff, you shouldn't feel bad. But I'm going to tell you what I would do. I would call that guy or try and contact those fellas and let him know what you got. There's a chance that those guys might say keep some of it. There's a chance they might say they want it all back. Who knows. They were inexperience. They probably shouldn't have been

So, like I said, you want to keep that.

Stuff, I don't think you should feel too bad about it.

They left it there, but I would call him personally.

Thank you Chester a beautiful and clever song from him to recap. We had some DIY moose hunters in Alaska who got in a bad place, had to call for a helicopter rescue. And then it sounds like a year later. Like a year later, a guide went in there and found their gear and moose rack and took some of it with him. Thoughts on that.

I pretty much agree with Chester. But if I was gonna call him and they were like, oh, we'd like our gearbag, I'd be like, Okay, well this is what it's gonna cost you. Otherwise I wouldn't give it back to him.

Corey, you guided some days in your life. What do you think about this?

Yeah, I found a lot of river booty in my time on the rivers, and I give you some examples. Well, let's see, I used to guide in the Bob Martial Wilderness and we would do seven day pack trips and saw a guy lose all his stuff. He slipped on a rock, lost stuff including his rod, and he was like flagging us down like, hey, help me look for my rod. And we never found it that day. But a week later, when we came back in and threw down on the river, we knew that there was going

So yeah, I think in all of those instances that's the right thing to do.

This one's different, though, but again.

Here it's like these boys should have the right thing they should have done is to hire somebody to go back in there and get their junk out of the woods. They just left it.

Well, I think this guy said he came back in August to get him. We don't know when those moose hunters were there, but probably the fall before. Yeah, so he You know, those guys had all summer to either come back themselves or send someone else in there to get it.

Yeah, that's pretty frustrating, little wanton waste too, leaving all that moose meat back there.

Yeah, that was a unique chettiquette, right, And normally the chettiqut questions like what happens if someone sits one hundred yards from me on public land? We're never going to get another one like what we just had.

I do think I would like to add that I don't think that the guy should be too upset or or not. You know, pro DIY moose hunts sure because of events like this. I mean, it's events like this to actually make a DIY moose hunt the adventure that it is, because there is the chance of this happening and you have to go in there and face those hurdles and face those challenges, and you know, some people may not be prepared for it, and they're gonna have

Oh?

Not, everybody's cut out for it.

Sneak sneak peak for an episode that won't be airing for several weeks.

All right, Thank you Cooper, Thank you Chester. Joining us out on the line. Last is author Jared Sullivan, who just released his new book, Valley So Low. It's about the Kingston, Tennessee Fossil Plant disaster, which was the worst coal ash spill in American history. Jared, Welcome to the show.

Hey, y'all, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

First thing, Jared, give us some background on the Kingston fossil Plant.

Yeah, it was.

It was.

It's a huge Colpire power plant built by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is like an cornerstone of the New Deal created by FDR TVA helped lift the South out of poverty during the Great Depression by basically throwing up all these hydroelectric dams than coldpire power plants brought industry here. So over several decades, coal ash is like the what's left over when you're burning cold the electricity. It's like a city sandy gross stuff. It's full of arsenic and

What impacts does that have on soil, water plants, animals.

Oh, it's it's like nasty stuff.

Man.

It's like you wouldn't you don't want any anywhere near you. I found old newspaper dispatches from our local paper here in Nashville or fishermen and back in the sixties complaining that it's killing fish tied to their stringers as there as they're going down the lake and fishing and stuff. Yeah, it's like it's just full gross stuff. So basically what happened after this big mountain of bash collapsed, nine hundred men and women from a cost the country to send

Give us some examples of the fallout for these people who worked to clean up that coal ash man.

I should say a lot of these people were sportsmen, like one worker I followed in particular name. His name is Ansel Clark. He's passed away. He's like a big squirrel hunter. He liked to go a shoot. Squirrell took a twenty two magnum on the Cumberland Plateau here in East Tennessee or in East Tennessee. Within a couple of years,

And why wasn't this a bigger story when it happened. If this was the country's worst coal catastrophe ever, why sixteen years are most of us just hearing about it now?

Yeah? I mean it was not only like the largest, one of the largest coal disasters, one of the one of the largest environmental disasters full stop in the United States, one hundred times larger than Excellent Valide's. This coal last sludge was a billion gallons. It could have filled the Empire State Building four times over. I mean, it was biblical in scope what happened, but it was this happened days before Christmas, two thousand and eight, the New I

It was people.

I think people were just distracted, right, I mean, it just people didn't have their arm, you know, we just weren't falling with that closely. So And also like TVA, they came out and said after this big, after this all the sludge got everywhere, that it was not it didn't pose a threat to the public. So I think the media kind of went, Okay, great, like this isn't this isn't that toxic, We won't worry about it. Well, it turns out that that was not truthful at all.

Man.

And you're a local to that area, Jared, what do you remember in two thousand and eight when this happened about the cold catastrophe.

That's a good question. I grew up in south of Nashville, and I remember watching on the news and there's I would recommend your viewers go listen to pull the helicopter footage from that day. Man, it will stick with you. A billion downs of sludge over three hundred acres. So I remember, I remember watching this footage. I remember TVA people coming on television saying this stuff, Yeah, I can might contain some arsenic, but it's like it's like not

And when viewed through the courtroom store that plays out in the book, do you feel saddened by our country's legal system or was it the opposite and you're encouraged because people like Jim Scott exist.

No, it's pretty I'm pretty like No, it's I was already like pretty sally cynical, but when I started this project, it made me very cynical about the EPA, about their ability to monitor, protect to protect folks from from hazards. The EPA has had a good idea for a long time.

I saw a lot of reviews from people from Tennessee who thanked you for writing this book because it was a story that needed to be told. So I'm want to thank you again for giving a voice to those people who are impacted by the disaster. Valley Solo is available right now wherever books are sold. Jared, thanks for joining us in. Congrats on the book.

Thanks y'all going to see it. Spencer, Thanks Jared.

All right.

Our next segment is Tattoos. I regret.

Hello Darkness, my old friend. I've looked at my tattoo again. It really seemed such a good id when I was drunk last summer and the pizza tattoo says the first ander that will always find more bees.

What the does that mean.

It's a tattoo.

We just need to come up with more segments.

So Phil, that is just amazing.

No, you gotta you just gotta put every single jingle like in one audio record.

That's it.

Phil said he had people complaining about the usual sound that we use for tattoos. I regret so.

Person.

I'm not gonna name him.

Uh huh, Yeah, that was beautiful.

This is his first name start with S and the last name to start with R.

It's very possible.

Today's regrettable tattoo comes from Austin Tarby. If you have a hunting or fishing related tattoo that you regret, email us at radio at the Medeater dot com. All right, Phil has now pulled up the picture of Austin's tattoo. Here is his story. I have a hunting tattoo that I I regret. This tattoo was done on a drunken, irresponsible New Year's Eve. For some reason, my buddy Kyle's parents thought that it would be a great idea to

Here.

I present to you my seagulls or penguins, which were supposed to be cupping ducks. Luckily, this tattoo didn't cost me anything, but it gets a lot of questions.

Wow, where's the placement, guys.

I was describing this beforehand. This is like a very masculine tattoo to get of cupping ducks that you're about to shoot in the face in a very feminine spot like kind of on his hip on the front side, lower than his name like appendixes.

Is that about the spot? Sure? Yeah, between the hip bone and the belly button, leaning towards the hip bone a little bit.

Yeah. And he's got four ducks there that are supposed to be cupping. But as Austin described it, it looks more like penguins or seagulls.

I don't think the tat looks that bad, just the placements, don't.

I mean, there's a lot of negative space that isn't really working, like the one on the top right especially looks like a deformed penguin.

Yeah, it kind of looks like a petroglyph, which you know, like those people. Those people were taking rocks and carving things into other rocks, and.

Close enough that if you didn't know the contacts and someone just showed you that, you would say, hey, it's bad, but it's cupping ducks, right, Sure.

Costume is dignity. Yeah, that's the it's pretty expensive. Kyle is exactly the kind of person who would get a tattoo gun from his parents for Christmas. If I were picking one name, it would be that's totally a Kyle thing to do.

The nice thing about his cupping ducks. I think that he could probably go to another tattoo artist with maybe some better art skills and fix them up a little bit, add the feet dropping down, you know, maybe widen him out a little bit, and maybe add another one to fill in that negative space that Phil was talking about. And I actually don't mind the location. I think when you like hide a tattoo, it's like why did you get one? When it's in a place where it's hidden.

Plays a lot of shirts and skins basketball.

It would be worse if he had it like above his butt crack yah, yeah, on his back.

Yeah.

You girls get butterflies and flowers.

I think if there was a shotgun maybe on the other side of the hip, Oh sure, with some you know, scatterblasting, or.

Even better, below the waistline, there'd be a dude coming up out of a yeah. Yes, this is.

Free advice for you, Austin. So if you know other folks out there in.

The bush, like you would say, yeah, oh no.

If other people have tattoos, they regret. We're just handing out wisdom here on how you can make it better. Yanni had some silver linings and and Corey pointed out before the show that, uh, Santa Claus isn't carrying around a lot of tattoo guns on Christmas Eve. So good good on Kyle for for asking for that that year.

Yeah, unique gift.

But there's some funny comments from the audience. There should be reeds coming up out of the waistline, and Nick says, get appendus and have the doctors remove the.

Oh that's good. Keep it and you can see a picture of this tattoo on YouTube. So if you want to enjoy looking at Kyle's waistline, which she's not Kyle's Austin's waistline with us, you can go over to the meat Eater YouTube channel.

All right.

That brings us to the end of the show. Phil, what do we have from the live chat today?

Yiannis.

This guy Troy has asked multiple times if you specifically are coming to Wisconsin for the whitetail opener on Saturday.

Yes, sir Troy, we'll fly in there tomorrow with my oldest daughter. We'll be getting into camp about eight pm and quickly packing our bags, making lunch and hitting the sack. And we got a thirty minute walk to our stand. So yeah, we'll be there right.

And squirrely, as they say on the internet, username checks out. Canadian Hunter says listening to trivia is great, but sometimes as a Canadian it's hard to answer a lot of the American quot questions. I would love an episode or two of Canadian focused questions. Is that something you would do?

Spencer?

Canadian Hunter, I recently wrote a question for an episode will record in a few weeks. That is all about Canada, so I think you'll get that one right. Another thing is we have crossword puzzles on our website now and I did one that was just for Canada, So Canadian Hunter twenty one, you should go play that Canadian crossword puzzle. But to answer your question about a Canadian episode, probably not going to happen, but I'll throw you little bones every.

Now and then.

Brent Reeves is bragging about some chili he made and disappointed that he couldn't enter it into the contest we had at the office yesterday.

Yeah, we had twelve entries yesterday and our winner was bree I think we had Logan get second and Tresa get third. So I came back to defend my title and it did not happen this year.

Brent on some of your bourbon cornbread with the chili, it would have been delicious.

That could have won it for him.

Luke is asking Giannis, since you're in the process of creating deer habitat, what trees would you recommend planting to balance both longitivity and habitat or longitivity longeitivity of habitat and timeliness of production within your own life longevity, that longrivity.

Boy, I haven't gotten that far along in my deer habitat creation process. Man, But if I had I think just a little bit, I know, and we've certainly talked a little bit about it is I'd probably just go with some fruit trees of some sort and probably some apples and find some apple trees that grow well in my part of Wisconsin.

Yeah, whitetail hunters habitat managers will always talk about plugging the lowest hole in the bucket that is your property. So if your property is lacking fruit trees, then that's probably your answer. If your property is an area that historically has a horns, but you don't have any there right now, plant some oak trees look with at whatever you're lacking. That would be my advice.

Was I saying, longitivity you are?

I didn't even realize I was saying that, Wow, okay, I think it might just keep also little stick with that, see how it works.

I wasn't gonna bring it up, Phil.

Please correct me.

I'd rather have someone correct me on the spot than me look like an idiot for the rest of my life. Let's seego was asking if we're going to do any more Meat Eater.

Movie Clubs because it's been a while.

Yeah. Well, next week we will not be live on Thursday because it's Thanksgiving, but we will still drop an episode of Meat Eater Radio on Thursday at eleven am Mountain Time on YouTube, with the podcast coming the next day. And on that episode there will be the return of

Yeah, and really quick. Unlike the last pre taped episode we did when we were in Louisiana, we couldn't stream that one live. Even though this is going to be pre recorded, we will be streaming it live, so the live chat will be active. It'll be treated like a normal show that's happening currently. So I'm going to try to be in the live chat if i can get away with it.

So I was going to say, if you don't like your family, that would be a good place to hang out.

Well, you know, it'll come to your own conclusion.

I'm going to have a very special guest.

Oh, okay, a very special guests.

Yeah, from the human species.

For the Thanksgiving episode. What could it be?

Bart the Bear? Probably a monkey?

Anything else?

Fell Uh, you know what, I kind of use that as sort of a way to transition to the outro here.

So also, you know, Black Friday is happening right now at Meat Eater. It goes through December second, it's our biggest sale of the year at First Light, FHF. Phelps, Dave Smith, Decoy's Meat Eater. And and this is new for this year, there's a photo contest starting on Monday, November twenty fifth, where people can submit their favorite hunting photos for a chance to win a bunch of sweet gear. So Black Friday sales happening right now.

Go over to I think that's very shirt I'm wearing right now? Is half off?

Half off?

Is that right, Corey?

I believe so it's a discount, But yeah, I believe you're right.

And he got a real compliment from that before we even knew it was it was half off.

It's a slick shirt.

Slick shirts for sale right now for Black Friday. Anything else today, I.

Don't know, No, you want to talk about anything else, you guess feeling.

Big football game in Montana this Saturday. Cat Grizz Go Grizz, right everybody.

Oh no, I'm a Cats fan.

Yeah yeah, I'm from Western Montana. So m hmm, grizz or die baby.

I'll be there.

I'll be there first, drow. I'm gonna storm the field when we win.

Again, are for every game?

Every game I'm there, they win, they storm in the field. Well, I don't start storming of the field, right, It's like the student section that floods out there. And then I'm like, yeah, I'll get in on that. So are you too old for that, Spencer?

No, no, no, no, wonder if you'll be tearing down the goal post and taken downtown.

I've been to three games. Would they storm in the field? I think too? Brawl of the wilds and did they beat SDSU in the playoffs a few years ago? It's fun time.

Yeah. I've never been that into the college football thing. But when we were in for the live tour, we were in Penn State at in State College. I interviewed a couple folks and I really got to experience just the level of fandom and the passion there. One kid told me. He's like, we're gonna win, and when we win, we're gonna storm the field. Then we're gonna pull down the goal post, and then we're gonna carry that goal post downtown.

Yeah.

I'm like, man, I love the passion.

That's what's fun about college football. Best fan in the country.

What happened at that football game?

Ohio State beat them? Yeah, I was born, but it was so fun to see fun game.

Well, Montana, we don't have a professional team, of course, so this college football brawl of the wild is as big as it gets.

Yah.

I'll see you there on Saturday, Corey.

Good day to go hunting too, because a lot of people be watching the football game.

You boys have fun, all right.

That brings this to the end of today's show. We'll see you back here in the same time and place in a week.

Watch Mediata rough cuts.

Bye.