Smell off now, lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia mea podcast.
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time on Thursday January thirtieth. That's not right. It is Thursday, February sixth Who were Thursday January thirtieth. Steve will still be in Old Mexico.
And you're not reading a script. No, this is not script.
It's good because Steve refused to read that portion in last week's episode, so just covering up his tracks. As I said, we are live. If you can't tell by that live error. I'm your host, Randall Williams, and I'm joined today by Seth Morris and Jannis to tell us. And we also have the pleasure of having Ryan Callahan join us for a little bit in today's episode. We've got a great show for you today. We're going to go all in on our recent Mexico cous deer trip.
We've got a little show and tell planned with our bucks or whatever Giannis brought to share. We're going to talk to Phil Kramer, a guide with more than seventeen years of experience hunting cou's deer in Mexico. We're going to chat with friend of the program and Meat Eater contributor Jim Heffelfinger, who literally wrote the book on deer of the Southwest. And we're going to play a delightful
little game called two Truths and a Lie. But before we get started, if anyone out there in the audience has questions for Jim or Phil, we have two experts that'll be joining us today, so you can get any of the questions you want answered about KU's deer cous deer hunting. Uh, just add him into the chat and we'll try to get those guys to answer them. And Yeah, looking forward to talking with those gentlemen who we just saw, you know, less than a week ago.
Yeah, we were eating Sonora and hot dogs with them.
Oh man, I think I had three.
In the in total and our total time down there. Yeah, I think I had three and one sitting.
Well we we I think we each started with two and then got a third.
Yeah, I guess we only went to one dog place. We missed it on the way down.
Cal insisted on tacos on the way down, which was not a mistake, but it also wasn't hot dog.
Oh I got a tripe burrito. Can't find those up here in Bozeman.
Yeah, and that one guy got tattoos all over his face and neck.
Yeah exactly.
It was an interesting crowd.
Yeah, Jim hooked us up, I feel like with our new favorite Mexican joint in Tucson. Oh place, well you never went to Alguero Canelo, but that was kind of hard standby. Yeah, and it's good. But we talked to a couple of police officers that came into our new favorite. What was it called La Cardietta, I don't remember, however, you say cart in Spanish is the name of this place, I think.
Or something Carreta del ra. There you go, we'll get gym on it.
But yeah, I like their dogs better. And then we had that tasty little taco that was like two small flower tortillas with a poblano chili I believe splayed out across both of them, some carnea sada and then melted cheese on top of that. Very simple four ingredients, and then you'd have to cut the poblano in half and you get two little mini tacos. I think I like that better than the dog.
That's the best Sonarian dog I've had.
Yeah, it was very tasty. Thank you to our friends at Carreta del Rora.
Uh oh, before we get started, some exciting announcements to get to uh you can pre order The Mountain Men audiobook Mediaters American History The Mountain Men eighteen oh six eighteen forty pre order now.
It is released on Tuesday of this coming week, so Tuesday, February eleventh. So if you pre order it now, it will just download automatically and show up wherever you get your audio books the morning of its release. And yeah, it's like eleven twelve bucks. I think it's a great deal. You're gonna get your money's worth on content.
How do you feel about the new new project.
I'm happy with it. I think it's great. It's uh. You know, there's like no shortage of wild Mountain Men stories, and we tried to cover as many as we could.
Would would you mind just promoting the book as if you were an old mountain man in the same parlance and verbiage.
Oh man, You know, for all the research that I did, I didn't work on a character.
You've read a good jillion journal entries, though, so you can kind of.
Guess, Hey, come on down and get the old Mountain Man audiobook. I'm hungry, I'm tired before the spring, before the spring thaw. It'll it'll keep you occupied in your winter quarters before we go out and chase Bieber again in the spring. Don't you know. That's just my Wisconsin. And we also thank you.
Thank the expert, so I can't argue with it.
Yeah, we're also going on a little mountain Men tour. Steve and I are heading out on the road and we will be here in Bozeman at MSU on February eleventh. We'll be at the University of Montana in Missoula on February twentieth, and we will be at the University of Wyoming and Laramie on the twenty sixth of February. That is the only evening where there are still seats left. The other two are sold out. So if you got your seats reserved, we look forward to seeing you and
talking mountain men and talking history. And if you're in the greater Laramie area where you feel like making a little road trip, you can still go on the.
Me's not far from Denver.
Oh no, no, we're actually flying into Denver. Yeah, avoid that long drive down.
So my little sister pick you up. That'd be rightly plastic seats in the back of the cop car. It's kind of fun.
Oh, that would be the longest ride I've Yeah, probably the longest ride I've ever taken in the back of a cop car.
What I like about it is I was very excited to make eye contact with other motorists. You know, during Denver traffic doesn't happen. Nobody looks at you. Oh, but it's a fun game. Maybe weren't making enough of a scene. Yeah, we got like a hundred seats left in Wyoming. I think we we have like a space that holds eleven hundred, and we got one hundred left. So if you like make an old drive and learning about the mountain men, come on out and see us.
Y're honest. I understand you have a announcement you like to make.
Yeah. I just saw that too, and I wasn't quite prepared. But it's a bummer to have to give this announcement. But it's in regards to the seven hunters that were on that flight going to d C last week that crashed and they lost their lives. They came they were on their way home from foul planes which cal myself, you didn't make it to one digit. No, Matt, Max Grant, Clay did a trip. Steve was going to missed one.
But yeah, we did our three media experiences over there, and uh yeah, seven of their hunters were on their way home and unfortunately lost their lives. So our thoughts prayers go out to everybody involved and associated with them. But if you'd like to help out the families that are very affected by losing these seven men, there's a couple of ways you can help out. There's a a GoFundMe page that is I think the title is help Southern Maryland Families after Flight five three four to two crash.
They've already raised This is awesome. They've raised two hundred and almost one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. Their goal was two hundred thousand dollars, so awesome. Thank you for everybody's donated so far. If you wish to help them out, you can. And there's another way you can help them out. There's a all inclusive three day goose hunt at Foul Planes that they're putting on. Southern Oak Kennels is involved. I believe you get some puppy training along with this.
They've sold nine hundred and seventy of the tickets. There's nine days still remaining to buy tickets. It's like a raffle deal, I'm guessing. So if you wish to help out these families, there's a couple of great ways to do that. And thoughts go out to everybody over there at Foul Planes and everybody else affected.
With that and cal It seems we also have announcements from you, Oh, you have some fun events coming.
I'm coming real quick. If anybody's planning on heading over, or if you're not planning on heading over, but you're in that big Nashville area during the National Wild Turkey Federation get together, we are going to host, in conjunction with NWTF Friday Night, a big series of giveaways. It's like an after party to the big banquet that they have. This one, I think is forty bucks to get in the door, raffing off a bunch of really great prize packages of first light and guns and all sorts of
good things. The Isbel Brothers are going to be there playing music. Spencer Newhart and Clay Newcomb are gonna put together and you know, Johannis and I will help too, some live trivia for everybody. We're gonna help MC And one of the big draws is if you've never got a Gould's Turkey, you can put your name in the hat for Gould's Turkey Hunt. Same with Miriam's easterns Rios, you know, so it can help you complete your Turkey Slam. And all you got to do is show up and
help another super awesome habitat organization n WTF. So you get a membership with that, of course, and we'll be there helping, you know, grease the economic wheels of conservation. So you don't have to be a member to show up, but you should show show up and become a member, and you can win a bunch of stuff.
I'm going just so dan Isabelle shows me a picture of his giant buck and I get to hear the story of that giant b get killed in Kansas. So if you're there, he might tell you that.
So if you're not in turkeys, there's also.
There's that I was supposed to be playing music. I want to point out that when we did that episode of Luke Coolm's promo Horn Hunting, they were both there and uh Reid sang a little bit for me, like separately from the group, and I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then when I pressed him on it to do it more, he didn't really want to sing more in front of the bigger group. I didn't really understand why what.
Did he sing to you?
Just I don't know one of his songs that he he it was not a love song. I don't believe. It was just a country song, but beautiful voice. And so I'm really happy to see that he's back in the back in the you know, in the saddle, in the saddle and the gonna do some sing and play some music for us.
So in your average country songs like three and a half four minutes at this point, I think I think a lot of them are actually getting shorter than that. So if you want to have the buck conversation, you're gonna have to be like, yeah, hey man, I heard you heard heard about a big buck. And then they're gonna play a song and you're gonna have to think about the next part of that story for two and a half three and a half minutes, but it can be done, good.
Good drop, and then the night after the big party.
Yeah, if you can't make it to Nashville to hang out, but you're in the Salt Lake City area, you can come hang out at.
Party for public Lands. Utah BHA is doing the heavy lifting on this one. They're kicking butt. They got a bunch of brands together, a bunch of folks that are gonna show up to the beer Bar Saturday night, Salt Lake City. This is in conjunction with MDF. They've been in the loop the whole way. Doors are open to all nonprofits and it's just a celebration of public lands.
We're gonna give away a bunch of stuff to help keep you in the door, and there's gonna be some ways that you can throw some cash at the support of public lands. But it's really important to get everybody together, show a big, broad coalition of folks that know that federally managed lands are public lands and those are the ones that are open to everybody to go out and explore. Hunt fish, recreate super important to us, and we want you to show up Saturday night at the beer Bar.
You can track down the event through back huntry Hunters and anglers and pre register to make sure that you have a ticket to get in the door.
So does it cost anything to get in?
Doesn't cost anything to get in, But we are going to hit maximum capacity on the venue, so you can ensure the fact that you can get in by registering early. And then we are also going to allow some pre registration at the First Light Booth at West Stern Hunt Expo as well. Jannis and I and a bunch of the First Light crew, you're going to be down there. We're coming in a little late, but look for that big First Light booth, Phelps Booth, f HF Booth, Dave
Smith Decoy Booth at the Western Hunt ex Bow. I'll get your point in the right direction.
Yep. Come show me a picture of your big buck. Tell me, tell me, bigs, dear buck, make it, make it real quick. Sure if you killed the couz, I'd love to see it.
Speaking of photos of kous deer buck, Phil bo Yes, I think it's time for show and tell.
Show and tell you say please Manie the show out.
Mane Shot.
Oh you're missing out, cal Man show.
Spencer Prada Rock What else did you expect.
Do?
Did you do the light thing before? No, that's new, that's really Honice. I'm just trying stuff over here. Some some of it will stick, some won't.
But you know, I think we I think we keep the pulsing light show.
Great sounds. That was nice, nice touch.
Well, we've got some photos. As we've mentioned, we just got back from Mexico last week. We've got some photos to share with the gang.
That's pre haircut.
The pre haircut brought in the sides a little bit. Actually this photo was inspiration for the haircut based on the comments I received. That's the buck I shot on day day four. Maybe you've been down there day four, day five, something like that.
We they kind of all run together, tell me about it.
But yeah, this we got like Jannis and I were actually trying to get me to shoot another buck earlier that morning, and he dove over a ridge and then this buck was chasing a dough on the same hillside
a little ways down. So we rallied up and met up with Seth and Cad who's one of the guides down there, and uh, this buck and a smaller buck we're chasing a dough, just kind of going crazy all over the hillside and they went down into a bottom and then popped up to something yeah two fifty, and he paused for just a second, maybe to catch his breath or collect his thoughts, because he was having a rather active morning. And I shot him, and.
You put an end to all that I did.
I did, but that was great. I was super excited to just be able to go down there on like forty eight hours notice. And then I wanted to shoot a buck that looked like a coups deer buck, and that's the buck I found. And then the other funny twist of this was there was a bigger buck on that hill, macho grande, and we were trying to get Seth to shoot him, but he never popped back up.
But there was a moment in time when Cad and I were retrieving that buck where we heard Yannis say on the radio, Seth, why don't you get behind the gun? And Kate and I sprint to the nearest little creek bottom and hid behind some big rocks until the coast was clear. So we even had a little bit of adventure after I'd pulled the trigger. Yeah, but yeah, just a really nice morning. I was happy to do it with all my friends there. I think that was the
only buck I was present for the shooting of. Well, you had.
Two others that literally slipped out of being your buck. Yeah by just seconds.
Yeah, yeah. The maybe the morning before, yeah, the morning before we seth and Giannis turned up a buck that was just cruising down a hill, and by the time I got there and got set up on him, he had walked down to the bottom and was coming up our side. So I did a little hike around the other side, tried to turn him up, but never saw
him again. And then we made a big hike over to the agave patch and there was a buck over there, maybe a couple bucks, and they never turned up, but I did have a dough almost step on me.
Oh right, that was exciting.
I wish we had that on video, but yeah, we we were waiting for these deer to step out, and I'm laying down behind the gun and Giannis is messing with his backpack and something just passes right in front of my face, and I thought maybe his seat, like his foam seat pad blew away or something blew out of his backpack, And then I thought because it's windy, and then I thought a foam seat blowing away wouldn't spray gravel on my face and gun and I looked
up and there was a dough. She had literally stepped between me and the bush that was maybe six feet away. And that's probably the closest I've ever come to having a deer step on me.
It was close.
But then we did have multiple days of twenty to thirty mile an hour sustained winds.
Oh yeah, yeah, it was brutal.
And Cal had a couple other close encounters with deer just wandering up the up to his glassing point.
Oh yeah, yeah, I did have a buck and dough just kind of leisurely walk within under ten yards, which was always fun.
Yeah.
I thought it was my glass and partner Pete walking around and I finally looked and no, it was too deer.
It was deer.
Yeah, cute little deer. Lots of stories, lots of fun. Yeah, here's a picture of your buck. Col what's you tell us about that guy?
Uh?
So we spotted this guy the first after It was like that. Not technically what we would have typically said is like the hunt day, obviously you get all the hunting in that you can. But we went out, made sure our rifles were sighted in and shot a bunch of rocks and paper, which is super fun. And then we split off to just kind of casually look for deer and Seth and I ended up sprinting off of
one mountain and doing a nice jog. I turned to Seth at one point and I said, because he was running behind me picking up all the stuff that was falling off off of me, which is nice to have that back up. And I said, We're just going to keep up this pace as long as gravity allows.
As soon as we hit the uphill, went to a walk.
We went to a walk. Yeah, but made it up onto the same slope that the buck was on just in time to see him get kind of set up, and he slipped behind a tree and we were ready to smoke him as soon as he stepped out of the bush that he went behind. And he never stepped out from behind the bush.
So Scou's deer do all the time? Yeah, Yeah, I disappeared.
They have like this reputation as like being very hard to see the gray ghosts, the gray ghost and I was surprised as the first time because your hunter, you know, like we're spotting a lot of them. I was sort of thinking we'd get there and just be grinding and out trying to find a deer. We found a lot of deer, but man, a lot of the deer that were interesting would just step behind something and he'd never see them again for the rest of the week.
I think that was the last light low light situations. It's shocking how they can be standing on a relatively wide open hillside in the open and just totally be invisible to the to the naked eye at distance especially so yeah. Anyway, we stayed with this little ball of rut activity for the next day and a half and could not turn this dude up, but it was still
just kind of the place to be. And eventually we had not seen a deer all morning, and pretty close to one o'clock in the afternoon, one dough stepped out, and it was right before it was about to hike off and go check out another spot. And sat back down, stared at the dough, looked all around forever, nothing came out, and then finally that dude rolled out, and uh yeah, great buck. Nice carries all the mass all the way through and nice heavy book.
One of his sides, the picture doesn't really capture it, but one of his sides, the the main beam just ends in like a broom handle. Like it flattens out, which is kind of neat, and it's yeah, like from the top, it just looks like the end of a hot dog. It's just there's no point to it. It's just round and round and thick.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, So that was that was super awesome. Uh and that pea shooter. There is the short action saw Tooth, which is a new build for sig sour.
And uh man, sweet shooting gun.
Very cool.
I'm gonna be honest with everybody, like we're not hiking our butts off like we typically do on a hunts. You got to get someplace high and see a ton of country, kind of get math to work on your sides in the in the cow's deer arena, So there's a lot of sitting and those guns are incredible shooting platforms, and all of us had lots of wind to deal with and it's just so nice. Bipod on that saw tooth is just a rock solid hure.
I'm jealous of yours. Mine was shooting good, but yours is pretty much punching the same hole at one hundred yards is pretty sweet.
Yeah, and yeah, not with a ton of bags and stuff, right, Like, I feel like you could if you really solidified that position, it might be doing just a smidge better.
Here we have a photo of Seth's buck.
What is that weird photo?
Well, Phil, you.
Click to the artist.
That's any photo?
Yeah, yeah, picture boy.
Yeah, So my I don't know how many days into the trip it was when I killed mine the.
Day after my day after years.
So whatever nonspecific answer I gave for that, just add one.
And Randall's buck plus one.
So this so we're pretty sure that you guys saw this buck the day before, but got a quick little glamp glimpse of it and it disappeared, like who's deer do? Next morning, I found myself looking at the same hillside and yeah, it just happened to pick this buck up on the hillside. He kind of rolled over the ridge with a smaller buck, and then he betted down in the wide open and I was like, oh, this is perfect, Just gonna go down there. I was like eight hundred
in some yards at this point. I was like, I'm just gonna run down there and kill him. Well, I go down there and can't find him. He's like, Kay, our one guy that we're with, he was watching him the whole time while I I was like making a move on him, and he's like, hey, he's still still there, but where like where I was, you just couldn't see him on the hillside. So I kind of moved around and ended up like getting on this little knob at the base of the hill and just sitting there waiting
for him to move. And then he did get up and move, and then Caid lost him, and we just like lost this buck, and I was kind of getting ready to just give up and go look for a different buck because I thought he like just got out of there without a scene, and Cad ended up finding him again. And it turns out that I had ended up about one hundred and twenty yards from this buck,
not knowing it. So I actually had to pick all my stuff up and like very quietly backtrack and go from about one hundred and twenty yards to three hundred yards where I ended up shooting him, just so I coud get a shot at him because where I was sitting I couldn't see him. So yeah, it was kind of a bit of a screen amble to get there, set up on a tripod, and uh, the Restless History shot him at three hundred and ten yards.
Lovely, lovely. Yeah, we got some some photos here from seth Oh.
Yeah, it's Randall putting his boots on in Mooying.
I Uh.
The photos I shared here were not much of the hunt, just because we were kind of playing with a bunch of unreleased SIG products that I had a bunch of photos of, so I couldn't really.
Share those yet.
By the fireplace, Yeah, it's just just kind of our environment down there, what we experienced some some quite a few of those authentic Mexican food.
We've had a few questions about the taste difference between cows deer and white tail up here. Is there any anything noticeable there.
I've been eating cows deer NonStop since since we've gotten back, and it's fantastic. Just I mean, so you're aware a lot of cowboys on the ranch, uh, and they absolutely love the this meat.
Uh.
It's highly sought after, so we typically do give some meat away. We ate a whole ham while we were down there, which is great. And then yeah, I took the loins tender loins and and parted out the front shoulders and took those home and then gave give the rest to the to the kaby eros on the place, and Uh, it's good, it's really good. I think it's very tender. Uh, super awesome.
There.
I got a little tub of front leg curry down there that is fantastic and eating you know, several little backstraped steaks and they're they're awesome, really good, really good. Is it distinct from the rest of your North American white tails? I think you're gonna have, like like, these are non GMO white tails, right, They're not getting anywhere near corn, soybeans, et cetera. So I think there's gonna be a different flavor to to this deer versus like your your Iowa corn patch deer.
And we have a question for Yannis. Let me see if I can find it here. Okay, this is from Attack the d Point, he says. So I heard that Yanni's eight eleven burritos one day on the Mexico trip. Is this true?
Yes? Am, I even gotten to twelve the next day.
Uh.
They're small burritos, though, they're not like the one burrito you buy for ten dollars for lunch and it fills you up. These are depending on bite size, you know, three to four bite burritos.
Would you say I made some made you made?
You made some greeno of burritos. So did I. So that day that I set this record that stands at that ranch. I think for breakfast, I had two or three big gringo breakfast burritos. Then I had five.
For lunch, I.
Think I had eight. Oh, I had my four, plus I brought four more from the guy that wasn't eating his burritos. But I get you away to you right, yeah? Yeah, So what does that bring me up to? That's nine? And I think I had two or three at dinner.
Yeah, and then you had a you had just one. You had a dessert burrito too, yeah.
Straight, yeah, that's how I like my dessert.
Down there, all the meals, all the meals were the exact same except for the protein. Like breakfast and dinner and lunch were tortillas, uh, tortillas, free hols, cheese, some hot sauce or salsa, and then a big pot of either eggs or bo or. I think there's beef one night, there's pork one night.
I mean it was in Sonora. No matter what, there's going to be a pot of free holdays at every meal and it's the.
Same pot of free holdays. It just gets added to throughout the week. Delicio, very delicio.
So the refried beans I like to point out too, it's more like gravy consistency. Well here, I feel like you get refried beans on your plate and it's it's a lot drier, there's more consistent, more like a mashed potato. Yeah.
Yeah, you can eat it with a fork.
You could down there. Those beans you can't eat with a fork. You have to have a spoon.
Yeah, fantastic, Phil. We got a couple of the other thing we did on this trip was Jannie, you're testing some some materials on some breeches. I didn't get that video, but we have some other we have that I couldn't find it, But we do have some other videos here of some oh yeah, yeah, sure, product testing and promo.
Yeah, I mean in the spirit of the Super Bowl coming up. You know one thing everyone talks about the commercials. Yeah, and First Light actually commissioned you guys to shoot some stuff just for I think they're gonna do a big ad blitz inspired. Yeah, let's take a look at these here.
Can you render your.
Can you rein gear? Do this?
Can I do this omen storm shelter.
Huh.
Yep, that was a good That was a good use of money from First Lights. There's a few more we didn't get paid.
I'll give that one like a five. Okay, how about this one?
Need some tough brush busting pants, but you don't want to lose all your mobility saw buck pants by First Light Yep, okay, we're improving.
Who directed that one?
We need a warm hat that will also protect your dough when you're moving through brush. Ah whatever hat this is.
Okay?
And then this one is is uh. Shows sort of the adaptability of some of the First Light line here do you want to look good on the streets but still need to be active? First Light throughweight pants. Wow, that was a trip back from the old McDonald's there first stop once we hit free soil mm hmm.
Yeah, that's a mediator tradition. When you get back to America, we like to go to make to the Golden Arches to celebrate freedom. The first First Light doesn't know that we made those.
No, No, I'm sure you'll thrilled.
Now my phone ring watch out for those. When you're watching the Super Bowl. You might be able to vote on your favorite. Phil like the High Kick, one of the best that really shows off you're Oh, I like the Urban parkour.
Yeah, I wish we'd gotten the first one when we're going to McDonald's and I fell off that wall and did a somersault unintentionally.
We've got We've got a bunch of people saying who Randa looks like in those videos. We've got John Wilkes booth. That's a good one.
I've got three words for you there, six semper taranna.
They're all.
We've got. You know, Doc from Back to the Future. I think we've heard that one before. Dwight, Dwight shrewd. I think that's kind of rude.
M hm vibes, though not appearance, just vibes.
His hair looks like Bill, Bill Murray and Kingpin.
We've got but that fella and that fella says I got to get those pants.
So yeah, it works.
Success.
You're welcome first light.
Oh that's good stuff. That's good stuff. Do we have anything else to share from our trip or should we move on to our guest?
I will say, you know you've heard the buzz. We've all heard the buzz about the sig Zulu six binoculars. The image stabilized this trip like hands down made it made me a believer of that binocular. It blew the first five out of seven days. I'd say, what average the wind. The wind blew, not the binocular, twenty twenty miles an hour with gusts well into the thirties all
day long. It wasn't until the last two days where we had like a nice sonor in morning where it was quiet and just and just clear and you could get sun burned. The rest of the days it was just honking. And those imag stabilized binoculars mean the difference between that and non on a tripod now not just hand holding, but on a tripod regular bindo is still shaking the you know, the image is shaky. You're trying to find a deer that's eighty to one hundred pounds,
very hard. Image stabilized seth, huge difference.
We heard coyotes yup in one day and Seth freehand with the image stabilized binoculars, like, oh there they are and he's like, no, no, no way out in that flat and I ranged them at almost sixteen hundred yards.
Yep, that was what the twelves.
Yeah, pretty impressive.
Yeah, yeah, I ain't A twelve are my favorite?
These were, I you know, even though it was windy, these fifteens, this is why I spotted my buck with this exact pair. But these on a tripod, we're just phenomenal.
Yeah, those little thing Yeah yeah.
All right, I think we've got a guest waiting for us.
Let's talk some more Mexico. Oh yeah, good, good friend, Phil Kramer. Phil, welcome to the show. How are you?
I'm good, gentlemen, how about yourselves?
Oh well great, Well, we're a little sad that we're not in Mexico hunting anymore, but we're slowly making our way back to reality.
You go through that little depression when you first get home.
Yes, especially since it's been snowing NonStop since we've gotten home.
So those little deer i'd be able to see is the top of the racks right now in Bo's angelus here?
Yeah, so, Phil, we just had the pleasure of spending a little over a week with you down south of the border. But could you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do and what your experience is.
Absolutely, but I must say I almost didn't recognize you Rojo Grande with a haircut.
Oh thank you. You're the first person to mention it. Everybody else has just sort of brushed it off. I was really excited to abue the new do here. But thank you, Phil, I appreciate that.
You bet you bet well. Guys, my name's Phil Kramer. I live in Arizona, born and raised here, moved off to a couple of different states throughout school and my career. I grew up on the back of my dad in a backpack run a trap line and that kind of instilled a love for the outdoors and I've never been able to shake it, and God willing, I'll have it till the day I die. So with that being said,
I've always been in the outdoors. I've always hunted. I've always found any excuse I could to get outside, and that has kind of led me to Jay Scout Outdoors and gold S Turkey Hut. And that was a combination of timing with Jay looking to expand the business and grow it, as well as me making a full time
career change. Prior to that, I worked in the drilling industry, which fortunately left enough time for me to be in the outdoors and chasing my passion when I wasn't on a drill rig, so everything kind of worked together, and now it's full time. I spend the majority of my time down in Mexico looking at ranches, scouting new ranches, going to some of our existing ranches, and making sure
everything's good there. And then as I got to do with you gentlemen, I get the guide and that's when the real fun happens, is getting to interact with you guys and seeing what we can put on the ground and battling the winds when it happens.
Yes, we did our fair share of that over the past week or so. I don't know if you guys have questions, but this was a first time trip to Mexico for me and my first time hunting out of the country. I wonder if you have just like a few thoughts on for those who have never done this.
What if people need to know about Mexico and what sort of what can they expect, because I think there's a for I've talked to a lot of people since I got back and said, oh man, that's always been a bucket list trip for me, but it's a little intimidating to leave the country and go hunting in a place where you don't speak the language. So can you just share a little bit about that, you bet?
And I think the first thing to remember is any time you leave the country, you know, make sure you have your passport, make sure you do your research, make sure you're going with a trusted outfitter and or person that knows the ins and outs of where you're going. A lot of people are intimidated, and there's a lot of stuff in the news that makes people think it's not safe. However, this is my seventeenth year doing it.
I think it's jays twenty eighth or twenty ninth year, and we're very fortunate that we've never had a bad experience. We can say. There's a lot of things to that, and the main thing is is we do our research, We work with the local people, we make sure that all of our PaperWorks in order, we work with licensed Mexican outfitters to make sure that everything we're doing is above board. We're not traveling to spots that are unsafe,
and we're doing everything right. So my first and foremost advice to anyone looking into doing a trip like this is make sure you go with a repudle outfitter, do your research, get references. If they can't provide references, then it's probably a red flag. But don't be afraid to go because, as you guys saw, and most of you guys have been down there quite a bit, it's a
trip of a lifetime. I mean, you get to experience true Mexican culture, true authentic food, and best of all, when you're out on those hills most of the time, your phones don't ring, it you don't have cell service, and you get back to the way life should be.
Amen. How would you compare this year's deer season? You're you're back at home in Arizona. How would you compare this year's dear season to those you've experienced previously in terms of bucks and weather and all that. What are your takeaways from your twenty twenty five season.
As you guys witness first hand, the weather was horrendous. Normally you'll get a day or two of winds that will gus twenty thirty miles an hour. For whatever reason, this year, especially during your trip, the wind did not let up. It never blew itself out at night. Every morning we're agreeded with just a blast of air right
in your face, and that made it difficult. As you guys mentioned, you're looking for a little animal and anytime you have that wind, everything around you's moving, your optics are moving, and it makes it difficult. The other thing is cous dear or cows dear, depending on how you say it is they're small animal and they hate the wind. It dolls their senses. It makes it harder for them to smell, predators to hear, so they don't move near
as much. And with the drought that we've been having for the last two years and it made it double tough. We were very fortunate. We were able to dig out some really good bucks and a lot of our hunters had experienced great success. And all I can say is we're looking forward to some rain and some good moisture and God willing the weather cooperating a little bit. But one thing about it is, no matter what the weather is, we can't do anything about it. Just go down and
hunt hard. And we're very fortunate that we have good properties, good genetics, and we can scratch out some good dear.
Love it. Yeah, I mean, despite the weather, we were out there in the dark in the morning and hunting till dark in the evening, which is I think always the mark of a great trip.
That one windy day, I think it was the second to last day, or might have been the last day. We watched that dough just standing there in the sun for an hour and a half and not move. Yeah, it's just when it's windy and cold like that, those things you can just tell you just look at them and they're like I just don't want to do anything.
And not a lot of body fat on them to keep them warm.
Yeah.
Phil, we got a question for you, and I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but yes, you do. You know you talked about references from clients and how important those are to check out. I was wondering if you could provide some references for the four Mediat crew members who had the pleasure of joining you. If you just have a couple of words, you know, reviewing your experience, you know, whatever comes to mind. We're all here, we're all listening, we're all trying to improve as hunters.
So why does Pete from SIG sour get a free out. He's not here to defend himself.
I mean, we can talk whatever we want about Pete. That's right, you got a word or two.
No, I don't, but I thought, you know if Phil did.
Yeah, Phil, what do you say? I can take any order that you'd like to please.
Well, i'll tell you what, Randal, I'll start with Rojo Grande aka wonder Boy. You know there's a lot of names we got for you, but it was an absolute pleasure. I was greatly surprised you told me first time coups hunter. I go, oh boy, he's not gonna see it deer. And I tell you what, Randall, you did very good. I was very impressed with your glass and ability. Not only that. You know, as I well as I do.
A lot of times we'll spot something and then trying to walk someone else in on that same animal, so you know you're looking at the same spot can be very difficult. But you and I, for whatever reason, seemed to click on that we were able to find the deer, get each other in the same perspective, and evaluate the deer. So, Randall, I gotta give you props man that that was impressive.
I appreciate that it always seeks a dare two to like you get your lingo on the same page. You know what somebody calls a knob and what somebody calls you know this or that? So yeah, I feel like we became simpatico is that in our in our glassing?
Uh?
Lingo, you bet? You bet?
And Seth is just calm, like I had to ask him two or three times, Seth, you okay.
You.
Never heard anything just in the game, you know, yeah, just quiet, like just going with the flow. And I was like, oh, that's still here. I never knew he was around until it was go time and time to shoot. So uh, really enjoyable, aw awesome, awesome, awesome. I didn't get to hunt much with col but we talked a lot on the radio because normally we were not on the same page. We could not figure out where each other was looking. I didn't know there were two mountains
at one time. But as a pleasure, we got to spent a lot of time together in camp and I learned a lot, very interesting in a wealth of knowledge that I never knew existed. There was a lot of fun. Uh and then Yannie, I mean, we we hunted together just about it day because we're the only stubborn fools that doesn't think one hundred and five inch bucks a big enough buck. So we got to spend a lot of time together, a lot of laughs, a lot of knowledge,
going back and forth. He constantly proved me wrong on things that I thought I knew was a holy grail, to the point where videos he's like, Phil, you were wrong.
Again.
Well, you know you're talking about how it's so important to have the same nomenclature right when you're out there hunting, because you are communicating with each other through radios to be like, hey, are you looking at this century plant or this akat or whatever, and so it's very important to know which ones. And we had I had I think last year a couple of years ago, through that picture of this app figured out which ones were the century plants. Well, it turns out it's the ones that
we also call a gave. It's one of the same. It's just that every whatever, seventy five or one hundred years, they shoot out that stock and it has the flowers and all that. And then Phil was like, yeah, but it's all that purple one that has the skinnier leaves. I'm like, oh, okay, that's great. I'm glad I learned that. And then the next day I'm walking around, I'm like, well, hold on, that one with the fat leaves also has
a stock coming out of it. So yeah, but again it's I'm not trying to prove anybody right or wrong, but it's just so that all of us can be on the same page next time. And you're like, yeah, you see that sentry plant. Yeah, that's where that buck is.
Yeah.
Word of advice for first time Kuzdiar hunters. If you don't know anything about plants, there aren't a whole lot of other landmarks out there to like direct people in a lot of those hillsides are pretty.
Yeah, you gotta know your sphoring floor.
Yeah, they're very uniform. And so it's like below the yucku, above the red oak, there's a dead juniper, and then there's a dead oak. And it's just like, unless you're dialed in on what you're looking at, you're gonna be your head's gonna be spinning.
Yeah, you spend a lot of time down there trying to tell people landmarks that like will walk someone into a deer, And when everything looks the same, it's tough to do that.
Yeah, unless you're saying, like there's three there's three yukas. Two of them are a little higher. The third ones offset a little bit to the right. Below that is a red oak, you know, And it's just like you got to be able to recognize that stuff and not scratch your head because otherwise everybody else can be looking at that deer and you're gonna be looking at the wrong mountain. Sometimes you end up looking at the wrong mountain anyway, right cow.
And working really hard at it.
I'm guessing that people folks are wondering too, why we all went and guided this year with you know, Jay Scott's crew and Phil and Kate, And if you are, I'll try to explain it quickly. The logistics of going to do it, d I y. You have to have your own bring down your own truck, own trailer, owned side by side. Steve and I have hunted down there with outside by sides. It's doable. I don't know if you've ever done one with that side by side with us, Yeah, yeah,
you've done one. Two. A lot of hiking. You're just not covering the amount of ground that you wish you could be covering, So there's just much less it's less efficient hunting. In years past we've paid people to drive, you know, trucks and side by sides from Montana. We've had friends come from Colorado and bring side by sides to make it easier to cover all those logistics and it you know, for those of you that haven't experienced
the other you won't know. But for me, being the guy that's usually worried about all that, it was really nice just to land in Arizona, meet up with these guys, and boom across the border. You know, next thing you know, we're sighting our rifles and then we're hunting, you know, And they took care of all that that aside. It was awesome for me to go to hang out with a couple of real coups deer guides for a week.
It was a real confidence booster for me to know that, yes, they definitely did glass up more deer than I did, but not by the ratio that I thought they would. So I'm feeling like I'm ready to go coups deer hunting again, and I'm confident that I can find a couple here.
Yeah.
No, it was a great trip, and I think like part of it too, is just having someone with the amount of experience that Phil does telling you what what cous do you like, what they don't like, what you've seen him do, I mean, and like predicting what they're going to do, which is something that like, even if you've been down there a couple of times, you don't have that depth of knowledge.
So well and just sheer eyes on the mountain, you know, guys helping your glass because a lot of times you'll get up on your glassing point and it's almost overwhelming. And when you can share that with other people that you know are putting in the work and they're able to find animals, it helps a lot. But one thing I was going to say on the little review there,
I will say, honest doesn't quit. I mean on the last night till I was like it's dark, we're done you Honest was like, I think I got five more minutes left. No quit. It was just a great time.
Yeah. I like to hunt, and you know, so I like to hunt right until the end.
Make sure you're on the same page with identification of the plant. So we did a little I don't know, show and tell basically as you say, when we were on there and getting ready to cite the guns in it's like Okay, this is juniper. That's a red oat. Yeah, that's a central plant. That's a yuka, that's a mesquite, that's an ocatillo. So that way, when it came down to the nitty gritty, when it was time to find
some deer, we were all on the same page. And I think that went a long way through the week we spent together.
Yeah, no, it's great.
And uh, I gotta say, like, even when your butt cheeked a butt cheek on the mountain, you cannot take your eyeballs off a deer. So oh yeah, even if it's a whisper not over radio to the person next to you, like, you have got to walk them in. And sometimes the deer that you're seeing it's because it is only because they moved, and it takes a long time for the person right next to you in the exact same spot to stare at that spot and be like, oh, yep, that weird shadow line is part of a deer's butt
cheek laying down underneath and behind whatever. So that communication can get really frustrating. So once you lock in, it's an incredible benefit.
Yep. For sure, Phil really appreciate your time and really appreciate your hospitality last week. I know I speak for all of us when we had a tremendous experience, and I hope we can hunt again very soon.
Yeah, but before Phil goes, are there any listener questions or questions?
Also, Phil, I want you to talk about the Google hunt that you're donating for NWTF.
Absolutely absolutely so. As I mentioned, also director of operations for Gould's Turkey Hunt, and we run a approximately two hundred and fifty UH hunters down through Mexico and Sonora and Chihua wherever year after chasing the Gold's turkey. So what we did is actually were approached and donated a Goulds turkey hunt that you'll get to come down and hunt with us either in Sonora or Chihuahua and hopefully
knocked out Gould's turkey. It off your bucket list and go one step further to your Royal Slam or World Slam, whichever it might be.
Yeah, and you honest, we did have one question for Phil that someone actually someone else in the chat already answered, and I'm assuming Danach or someone asked what the Boon and Crockett minimum was for Cow's deer, and Lance answered one hundred inch for typical, one five for non typical. If that's that's accurate, Phil, I don't know if you're if you if you know or not?
Oh, I'm sure not.
I believe it's one ten actually for a typical. But honestly, there's some deer that we kill that just score doesn't do justice. You know, we we try not. We use score as a descriptive tool, right because that's what everyone wants to get and gives us a good tool to actually measure. However, there's some deer that we kill that score just doesn't do justice. Even though it might be one sixteen, that buck should be one hundred and thirty
just depending on where the mass measurements lie. And you know, the blading just like Col's buck out at the end of the beams, I mean broomstick and just didn't get credit for it except for the one measurement. So I believe it's one ten though for book minimum.
Fantastic, Well Phil, again, pleasure seeing you, and maybe we'll run into each other at the Hunt Expo next week.
Well, Jan I'll definitely be at the NWTF, so anyone out there can look us up. I'm sure I'll run into Janni and Cal out there, and I'm not sure about the hunt expo, but if we can get out there, definitely look forward to running into you guys.
And your hunt is being auctioned Saturday night or Friday.
Night, Saturday night at at the Dinner, Yes, sir?
Cool?
Yeah, so I think I think you can bid on those online as well. So if you want to go on a Killer Gould Turkey hunt and support an awesome habitat organization, check check that one out.
All right, thank you Phil, Thanks Phil, good to se appreciate it. Uh Phil, should we take listener feedback now? Or should we? Uh?
Should we? We've done a.
Couple, I'll fire off a couple and then we'll move on to Jim, who's being very very.
Very patient with us.
Yes, thank you, Jim Finger.
Jim's got nothing better to do.
Devin asked, Hey, Seth, how's it going? Just curious who ended up with that sweet Alluma craft boat. You and Chester did the Walleye fishing tour in if you if you remember.
Oh yeah, I still have it. Who ended up with it?
Uh?
Yeah?
Still use it all summer long. Love that boat. Put a lot of fish in that boat. Yeah, I'm gonna use it again this summer right.
On Leland is asking Randall, did you come across any mountain women in your research.
That's a good question. So during the air of the mountain men question, there weren't a ton of uh, like Euro American women who came out with the trapping brigades. But interestingly enough, a lot of mountain men married into tribes and had relationships with indigenous women, and that was like a huge part of mountain men culture. Like a very significant percentage of all mountain men marriages were two Indigenous women, and I think Bridger was married to three
different Indigenous women. So in the book, we have a chapter about of all the different facets of mountain men tribal relations, and in that chapter we do get into sort of the unique history of mountain men marrying Native women. And we also have a segment of the wife of a missionary who attended rendezvous and was horrified at the behavior that she witnessed. So, yeah, look forward to that.
Great a question for Seth, how did you find your place in Alaska? Was it a Zillo thing or just word of mouth?
I was up at Steve's place one summer just for vacation and it's right next door to his and there was a for sale sign on the front porch.
Good old fashioned way, Yeah, yeah, hippie homebrew.
This is kind of a general question, but it's dumping in Wisconsin. He says, while he's stuck inside, what's the best way to get out and start prepping shooting lanes during the winter? Anything to do during the spring. I mean, he's just asking about prepping shooting lines during every season of the year. But you can if there's any think you can get a head start on when it's during the winter. I don't know if you guys have any.
General winter land management principles for a Wisconsin landowner. I think we have someone who could speak to that.
Is he asking specifically about shooting lanes.
I mean this I was directing this at at U Janni's just about when Yeah, Randall summed it up, well, what.
Are you doing? What are you doing with your proble? What are you thinking about right now? With your with your response?
Man, what am I not thinking about? But I mean, I guess to answer the shooting lane question, I mean, I don't think it'd be really much different in any season other than your leave. You know, coverage might be different. So the winter is a great time to do it because it's gonna it looks most like what it looks like in November now versus you know once that you get new leaves coming out. But yeah, just get out there with a chainsaw man and go to town.
Uh.
But you know, if I could get to with constant any time I wanted to, I'd probably be thinking about maybe doing some frost seeding if there was anything. You know, I'm getting ready to do a big like native grass and for restoration, and we'll be applying it through just frost seeding, which is basically means that you're going to add it when there is some snow on the ground and then let the freeze thaw cycle bring those seeds into the ground versus trying to plant them. There's that
you know, herbicide. There's probably not much it's really gonna do well because the folier applications won't work because there is no foliage and I don't think that the plants are really still sedessing, so they're not really going to bring in much herb beside. So that's probably out. But TSI timber stand improvement, which is basically walking through the woods with a chainsaw and knocking down trees that you have deemed that aren't you know, worthwhile for the wildlife
in your area. Uh, that's probably that's like an every day of the year thing.
Yeah, well, this time of year puts a lot of buds on the ground for deer to like.
That's right, if you need to knock down some trees.
Homework Hebrew, they are.
All right, let's get Jim have hefflefinger in here. How about that?
Let's do please.
Jay, guys, thank you for your patience.
Jim probably has a thought on what you might do this time of the year in Wisconsin for to improve.
Dear, I'm going to be there in a couple of weeks. In My suggestion is spotted Calum bloody murrays and find it a nice.
Tab for some deep thinking.
Yeah yeah, right, for thinking about what you might do with your land. Yeah, I have I have your randall. If you're interested in Gools turkey restoration Southeastern area, I want to go to Jay Scott's podcast and find the podcast where I talked about bringing Gools turkeys back to the US from restoring the populations.
Excellent, there you go, Excellent, there you go. Uh, Jim as a first time Cou's deer hunter. Uh, speaking for myself, you know, this is an animal that you hear a lot about and for someone living in the in the Northern Rockies, it's kind of this far away exotic creature. Can you just tell, uh, tell our listeners a little bit about COO's deer. Uh, like the differences between whitetail and Cou's deer, and maybe what how KU's deer are doing little State of the India.
Jim, real quick before you do that. Coos or cows. We've heard it both ways so far. Now Jim's Jim's the main I know.
I know. That's why I talked.
I have I have an article I wonder if you can link that in the show notes where I talk in detail about the subspecies is named after Elliott Cows, really naturalist and army surgeon, and that was his name, and it was named after him. So it's it's Cow's dere. There's no doubt that it's Cow's deer. Elliott in a footnote and one of you is a bird guy and one of his bird Maggot, one of his bird articles.
He wrote a footnote and said my name is pronounced cow z. I mean he actually tells us himself how it was pronounced, so there's no question how I was pronouncing. I try not to be at a denunciation nazi, and I don't correct anybody, but you know that's how it's pronounced, So that's how I pronounce it.
Do you feel like cows is gaining any traction whatsoever in your neck of the woods.
I would say there's probably an increase in one percent in the last decade the people using cows instead of coups.
Okay somewhere that's it counts as forward movement. Yeah.
In fact, what I'm surprised at is the residence that people dig their heels in and they get angry about how you pronounced the deer, and I'm just pointing out the correct way. You can say it any way you want.
Well, Jim, what so if you're explaining to someone what the no matter what you call it, what these things are?
Uh?
What are some of your main takeaways as far as uh, differentiating a coups deer cow's deer from your average white tail.
So there are subspecies of white tail deer, They're not some different kind of white tail they're just like there's there're about thirty eight subspecies of white tail in North and South America. They're just another one. But they are different. And we'll look in a minute. Here's a South Texas white tail, much bigger, of course, and if we put a cow's white tail next to it, you can see the difference. Not okay, not really, not really, here's here's a So there's a comparison of the skulls of a
cow's white tail versus the Texas white tail. So think about this. This isn't even just a big borealis Minnesota, Wisconsin whitetail. This is from South Texas. So just like another kind of a Southwestern white tail, but dramatically dramatically different in.
But you found a real nice cows deer skull to show off.
Yes, this is about one hundred and seven. So you were talking about minimum score. It is one hundred and ten, so that doesn't make it. But that's pretty close to minimum Crockett score. And in a couple of years of each other. I mean, they're they're not dramatically different in age, so it's a valid comparison, especially of skull because they're they're adult adult. There phil If you can put that map up, let's look at where cows deer are distributed
in the southwest. Just the map from my book Deer to the Southwest, and that red is colored what we call cow's whitetail distribution. So you can see that it doesn't touch any other kinds of white tails out species on the west or the north. There's no white tails in northern Arizona, and northern New Mexico doesn't touch any white tails on the east because of the Chuahuan Desert.
It's a big grassland and there's not really white tails out there until you get over into the Carbon Mountain white tail in West Texas and then the Texas white tail, and so there's a physical separation on three sides. Now, if you go south into Mexico, the cow's white tail just blends into all those other smaller white tails. In South Texas. There's a whole bunch of Mexican subspecies of white tail. None of them are scientifically valid or scientifically
supported by real physical differences or genetic differences. When you look at the genetics of all those Mexican sub species, they just kind of overlap in a kind of a scattering and we did early on about fifteen years ago. I worked with funding from Bonaicrocket Club, worked with some geneticists that I know and I've worked with for a while.
I collected with some friends a bunch of white tail samples from eastern white tail, from cow's whitetail in the US and also in Mexico, and we had geneticis apply a whole bunch of different genetic markers and fine tune a set of markers that really divided animals that are known cow's whitetail deer from animals that are known not cow's whitetail deer eastern white tail, and those came from Canada and from Wisconsin and from all kinds of different
places that were not cow's white tail deer and phil If you put that scatter diagram, you can see what we came up with with a test. So those blue the blue squares are cow's white tail deer clustering in one neat little cluster. The white is a whole diversity of different white tailed deer from eastern North America that are not cow's whitetail deer. We had one deer. Then this is the value of the test. That someone comes
up with a deer. And in this case, the guy's last name was Lay and he had this deer from the attic and his grandfather said he shot it in southern Arizona. And so he says, if this is really a cow's white tailed deer, this is the new world record cow's whitetail deer. So that's an example of us applying this genetic test. Taking that unknown deer that someone says as a cow's white tail deer, running it through the genetic markers, you can see it lands right in
the middle of regular eastern white tails. So the Bundaicrocket and the Pope and Young Club are using that genetic test we developed a long time ago to keep the record book categories clean and separate and make sure nobody's got a brand new world record white tail that's really not a role record, cow's whitetail that's really not a cow's white tail, and sneak one ofs. And so we can use genetics now to keep those record categories separately.
So they do different genetically, mostly because they're physically separate from other white tails everywhere except when you go south into Mexico.
Jim I see. We had a question in the comments section about obviously CWD is a big concern for your average white tailed deer hunter. Are there any known instances of KU's deer being affected by CWD and sort of what's the prognosis there. Do you think it's a risk spreading down into that environment.
Arizona has not detected CWD, and we've been testing really intensively, and we're testing to the on the eastern border of Arizona because that borders New Mexico, which has some positive deer. We're testing on the north and the northeast because of Colorado and Utah having positive deer. We have not detected it. It's not really being tested that much in Mexico, but there hasn't been There hasn't been any evidence of it in Mexico, So the answer and in southern New Mexico,
I don't. I think it's all mul there that they've had some positives in south central New Mexico. So I think the answer is no, Cow's whitetail deer has not been hasn't been detected, And maybe the geographic separation and the lack of people driving back and forth with Cow's white deal and trailers might help kind of isolate that a little bit.
M pill any other questions there in the chat we can throw a jim Yeah.
Sure. We had a couple Marty's asking do the coastal cows in Mexico show any differences from the rest of the population. I don't know what differences he's referring to, but if you have any.
Insight, probably talking well, he must be talking about the western border, the western coast of Mexico, by the Gulf of Mexico there the Sea Cortes, And no, there's genetically cow's whitetail are pretty genetically distinct until you go down and we did sample a lot of white tailed in Mexico until you get down into Mexico and then it just starts getting a blend of genetics. They're not so
distinct there because they don't have that physical separation. And it's unique that in Sonora and Sineloa even you have these little white tails that are probably Cal's white tail living really in some really low desert country, whereas in Arizona, New Mexico that would be mule their habitat. But in Sonora, for some reason, we've got white tails really low down into the desert all the way out to the Zeo Cortes.
But they're not different. Those white tails in the state of Mixing state of Sonora, which is southwest of Sonora, and along the southwest of Sonora in the state of Sineloa, those have been designated as a different subspecies. But that's one of those deals where there really isn't any physical differences or genetic differences that anybody has determined to be real differences.
Gotcha. Other listener questions Phil a couple.
However, we're getting a few Zach's asking what the typical home range radius and elevation is for cal He says he's seen them from fifteen hundred feet all the way up to five thousand in Arizona.
Yeah, you certainly can see him in those The probably the most of that distribution though, is going to be from three thousand feet up to about six about seven thousand feet. Once you get seven thousand feet, you start getting more into the open ponders of pine forest, which
isn't as good as that mid elevation with shrubs. And a friend of mine did his master's degree a long time ago in southeastern Arizona and found that the distribution of the shrubs is what really governed the distribution of white tails, and that was highest in that four thousand and five thousand and six thousand foot elevation range. It seems like there was another part of that question. Did I miss something besides elevation? Oh?
Home, homerangeh about radius?
So we don't talk so much in terms of radius, but some of the work we did in southern Arizona showed that it's about a square mile. This country so rugged from an aerial and white tails being white tails a lot of places, about a square mile is what they'll spend most of their time in.
What about during the rut, Jim, do you know how far they're traveling?
I don't know, but because we haven't done a lot of like GPS colors attract some of that stuff in Arizona, but they definitely will move. They're not staying in their square mile at that time. And so when you're out there, you're seeing a lot of bucks on the move and they're not necessarily in the home rangeury using the rest of the year they're out, they're out just looking for for doughs that are close to asters.
Yep, Jim, did you get out and hunt coups yourself.
This year, I didn't. I hunted meal there. See when I when I did my master's degree in South Texas, my my research was on trophy white tails in South Texas and kyle predation after the rut. With trophy white tails, because those bucks are at close to a one to one buck to dough ratio old age structure, there's a lot of competition for doughs, a lot of fighting, and those bucks will lose twenty twenty five percent of their body weight during rut in South Texas because of that, Afterwards,
they're all worn out. They just want to find someplace and hang out and recover. And also you've got dense kyote populations in South Texas, so we were finding packs of coyotes almost acting like wolves ecologically taking down these post rut mature bucks, where normally you wouldn't think of a coyote taking down a mature buck, but it was
a unique circumstance, so we knew that was happening. So my research focused on could you control kyotes on part of the ranch and have so many mature bucks that you saved from kyle predation that you would have more bucks to hunt, and the answer in the end was no. The answer was we saved a few bucks from Kyle predation, but in the grand scheme of things, population wise, ranch wise, it wasn't worth all the money and effort you put into controlling coyotes. You didn't get that much benefit in
terms of number of bucks that you saved. So that's to say those those buck to dough ratios after the rut or during the rut in South Texas are different than you see in a lot of places in the West. Although we were going to talk about the status of
cow's whitetail and Arizona and it's it's surprisingly well. Our harvests and survey data shows a pretty good steady increase for the last ten years overall in hunt success, the hunt successive hunters we try to manage in Arizona for in terms of hunt success, we try to manage between fifteen and twenty five percent of the hunters being successful, and statewide it was forty six percent hunt success.
Oh wow.
Buck to door ratios we try to manage between twenty and thirty bucks per hundred dos, so twenty per hundred dozs is one to five ratio the thirty bucks per hundred dos is about a one to three ratio, and our average is twenty five bucks per hundred dough state wide last year. That's a one to four buck to dough ratio in mostly public land hunting. It's controlled with a lottery style draw, so we control the harvest that way, but not a bad buck to door ratio for public
lands in the West. For col's white tailed deer.
Is that forty six percent success ray? Is that a spike from previous years? And if so, what do you think that's attributed to.
It's the end of an increasing trend. And then also important point is we have a couple alternative management units in Arizona where we manage for more mature buck h structure, higher buck to dough ratio, lower hundred densities, and so those are much harder to get drawn, but when you do get drawn, you've got a better experience and a
chance to shoot a more mature buck. And that statewide total includes a handful of those units that run higher, So that's not the average of some of the places outside of those alternative funds, and that's at the end of kind of an increasing trend, so not really I guess it may be a spike, but it's definitely an increasing trend of hunt success for the last five to ten years.
Really gotcha? Guys, have any other questions for Jim here? Jim, I think we were running over time here. I apologize we didn't get you sooner, but before we go, I did want to thank you for a few months ago you sent me an email about Sonor and hot dogs and received a wonderful recommendation, and then we had the we had the privilege of joining you for a lunch
at Carreta del Rojo, Aurora. Still not good on my Spanish despite my immersion experience last week, but you you not only did you recommend these dogs, you bought me one or several, and so I did want to publicly just thank you for a wonderful lunch and a tremendous experience talking all things deer and hot dogs with you.
For those that don't know what a Sonoran hot dog is, can you describe it?
How about we let the local expert describe it. Because there's so many ingredients, I'm afraid I might leave one out.
Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of diversity. Yeah, it was I recommended the best place in two to get snore and hot dogs, and by happenstance, I live a mile away, so I was able to scoop down and join you all. But it comes in a larger kind of a football shaped bund normally that's cut on the top, not a regular hot dog bun. The hot dog is usually wrapped in bacon, and then the bacon is fried
so it's crispy on the hot dog. And then there's pinto beans, there's mayonnaise, there's mustard, onions, and then usually served with a couple of peppers. I think that's probably the basis, but then you can have cherizo and cheese and all kinds of things added to that, but pretty delicious.
I did manage to snap a picture of the schematic for Lockeratus. It's jalapeno sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, grilled onion, bacon, tomato, hot dog, beans, steam bun. I thought the grilled bun was one of the hallmarks of the snore in hot dog, but that's not correct. That's an extra.
Yeah. Steam steam bun is what I consider the more typical. It's steamed so it's warm and a little softer.
That was a huge upgrade in the world of snoring hot dogs.
So thanks Jim, Thank you, Jim, appreciate it. Thanks Jim.
All right, Phil, we're a little over time here, but I wonder.
Are you guys okay, I mean, yeah, wherever time? I don't still have a segment left.
Corey crossed that one out. I think we're gonna keep that one.
We can rip through it quickly if we haven't fought you guys.
Busy.
Yeah, let's mean. I see to have to get some lunch in me before whatever is happening at one. Oh, sure, this will be fast.
I think, do you have a jingle? I do have a You should have led with that. We wouldn't have even questioned skipping the segment.
Okay, let's hit it. Well, do do you want to say the name of the segment first?
This segment is two truths and a Lie. Fun said to truth a lie?
Do you think can ballunt lie.
To truth and a lie?
You know, Calvi must be really having a great time because before the show started he said he told you he was going to give you five minutes of his time, and here we are an hour.
He's a company so.
Much so that he didn't even prepare for this.
He's a company man through.
Having a great time. But I was also told like, these are the things that you're here for, and we didn't. We didn't get to them, so I was we never confused. Well one of the things was supposed to be two three percent a lie.
Oh okay, great, that's what Corey.
For this fun new segment, We're going to go around the room and each tell two doesn't mean lord, each tell two truths and a lie about ourselves Meat Eater Edition, while the other two hosts try and figure out which one is a lie. And this we we have a twist. It's gonna be the other three hosts because Cal is still here. Be honest, Would you like to lead us sidon?
Sure, kim Mine. It's very simple. I didn't have anything prepared an hour ago or two hours ago, and Corey gave me this idea. Is just to give you guys some scores of some animals that I've killed. Figure out which one is true, which two are true, and which one is a lie. So my biggest white tailed buck scores one hundred and thirty seven inches. My biggest bull elk scores three hundred seventeen inches. And my biggest mule deer buck scores one hundred ninety five inches. Which one is a lie?
The elk, Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on the elk.
I'm gonna say the mule deer.
These boys are correct. My biggest bull elk is around three hundred five inches. I have killed a one hundred and thirty seven inch white tail in Nebraska with our buddy Brody Henderson. I almost felt bad for a quick moment when I shot that buck, but it was one of those instances that someone had to do some shooting. This shooting and my biggest mule deer buck I actually killed with our buddy Callian here and it scores roughly one ninety five.
That was the most excited I've ever seen, honesty. After he pulled the trigger.
Fantastic.
He was sprinting erratically across the mountain side.
I like to make sure they're dead cal but it was.
Without properly knowing where the buck ended up. He was that excited. He was like off this side of the mountain and over there and just like bird dogging around. It was cute as a button. Back back when we were all younger.
He had extra points, you know. It was one of those kind of deals where like you look at him and you go, Cale's like, what do you think about this one? And all I saw was a couple kickers, And I'm like, oh, yeah.
Cal, do you have two truths and a lie prepared for us? Should I move on to Seth? No?
I can whip one out, all right. I do have to say that the other there's a good quote. There's like it was a one dough or two does on this slope, and it's like, you know, a good mule deer hunter would just keep staring at these dos and that buck's gonna show up eventually. Did So that was cool. Okay.
I have.
Bagged over time, a black bear, a mountain lion, and uh, you know, a white tail.
So we need to pick one of those animals that you haven't bagged.
YEP.
I feel like because of our conversation yesterday, I know the answer. I'm gonna say, mountain lion.
I'm gonna say lying me too.
Corey is not even talking. Yeah, I haven't killed them, been on quite a few huntsome.
Are you packing a lion tag this year in your pocket?
Yeah?
I always always buy them.
Well, Seth, all right, I've killed one book animal, meaning it scored enough to hit the record books. I poked a cow ouc in the butt with my gun barrel, and I killed a turkey in my crocs.
It's not the turkey and the crocs.
Hold on the when you poke the cow this I'm assuming she was still alive.
Yeah, yeah, real live, wild out there hunting. Poked a cow in the ass.
I'm gonna say number one, even though I don't remember what that is.
You think that he has or has not killed a book animal.
I think he hasn't killed a book animal because he's from Pennsylvania. No, because I think the the croc thing is true and the poking cow with the gun barrel is oddly specific. But he could just be really good at this game.
Uh huh. I agree with you about the turkey, the croc turkey in the crocs. Oh body, has he killed a book animal? I think I would know about that if you did, so. I'm going to go with say that Seth has not killed a Boon and crocket book animal.
Yeah, I mean, Pope and young antelope is pretty darned achievable, But I don't think he shot an antelope with your bill have you. Yeah, we'll go with the book book critter.
Yeah, you're right. Unfortunately, Yeah, you're right. That's pretty cool that you've poked a cow in the butt. Yeah.
This past hunt season, I was doing it was an opening day a rifle and had a cow elk come running past me and I just gave a little poke and the asses went by so it didn't run me over.
And you were dressed as a cow elk at the time.
Yeah, it smelled like one too. Yeah. I was gonna ask if you did it in a little bit of a motion of self defense, and it sounds like it that was the case.
Yeah, I just like it was just did it to keep it moving, you know. I thought it was just gonna stomp me in the dirt.
But yeah, well, Randall, I'm doing a little improv because I feel like some of my clues. In fact, I know that cow knows one of my clues is false, that it's.
True, it's true.
Something to go with. Uh, shot a deer with my pants at my ankles, caught a fish on a jug, or shot a deer with a pistol.
I'm gonna go with the pistol. That's a lie.
Yeah, I caught a fish with the jug is just not very fun.
So what would be the point that it's from Ohio?
So well, unless he's trying to fool you, that's the point.
Yeah, but there's no money on the line.
What was the first one?
Shooting a deer with my pants at my ankles and underwear?
Well, from our little our time spent together in Mexico, I know that Randall is often in that position. So that's that's a high probability that you've done that. I'm gonna go with the pistol.
Pistol.
I'm gonna go with pistol.
Well, it's catching a fish on a jug, son of my gun. Yeah, yeah, shot my first deer with my pants around my ankles.
Okay, and tell us about the deer that you shot with a pistol.
See, I started with that as a lie, but then I remembered I had shot a deer with a pistol because I left I I shot it and it was still alive, and I walked out to go drag it back to the truck and it was still alive. So I shot with a pistol.
That doesn't count. Shooting a deer with a pistol.
All right, two lies and the truth. And I was to go with eating iguana, but Cal fed me that iguana. So yeah, sorry, gang, I guess I screwed that game up.
No, it was good. You said my.
One truth didn't count?
Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's a great line.
It's a great I should a deer with a pistol before too, but it was after hitting it with my pickup truck.
Oh so would that? That probably wouldn't count either.
For those of you listening, if you have access to a bunch of iguana tails and hind quarters super Bowls coming up, they make pretty awesome buffalo wings.
Yes, oh hey, well that was one of the questions I was going to ask, asked, what's your favorite super Bowl snacks to make with game meat?
I enjoyed the iguana that same super Bowl. You also made a giant chicken wing out of an elkshank. Yeah, a buffalo chicken wing out of an elk shank.
Which is quite tasty, real tasty, classic like red hot. Yeah, like a Frank's red hot wing. So I soon vied the leg to where it was edible. Didn't have any Franks red hot? No yet, No, and then drop the whole thing in the deep fat friar, get her all crispy, and then you know, tumble it around with some butter and some franks. Red hot.
Sounds good.
It was real tasty. I'm a classic Nacho's guy. Like to get a big, big package of Elk burger, little the taco seasoning from the store as cheap as you can find it and spread out a big mess of tortilla chips, little sour cream, cheese, hot sauce, crap please palpinos.
Yeah, what do you do for cheese? Oh?
Just Western family fiesta blend like it? Why is it a large quantity?
Why is it that the cheapest taco seasoning packets tastes the best.
Food science MSG Yeah, I think it's just a mesogy.
I'll accept those answers. I'm a rotel dip guy. Oh yeah, you know, so I do a little you know, nice thing about when you buy that giant chunk of alvida that gets me three through through through three Super bowls. Wow, it doesn't go bad. It's expensive stuff, you know, those bricks of food that don't go bad ever. But yeah, a little alveda can of rotel and then you know whatever, half pound pounds of also taco seasoned ground meat, and yeah, lovely. Yeah.
I like to eat enough of that until it gives me a little bit of a tummy ache.
Now are you are you dipping like a free dough in there or a standard tortilla chip.
Or what usually tortilla chips? Lovely if I have them. Squirrel hot legs are are always good. And then just your typical jalapeno popper with whatever I've done it with, doves, ducks, anything, yeah, anything lovely, white tail, backstrap whatever, yep, COO's dear backstrap.
Phil, what do you got for us here?
Well, just first, Brian says, he goes gator nuggets, so those are pretty good.
Nuggets of any kind are welcome.
Yeah, deer and dove poppers what Chase, Chase likes pheasant nuggets for Phil's kids last time we had to get together.
That's right, were a big hit.
Those are tasty.
Yeah, let's do one's wrap it up here. This is the longest episode of radio so far.
But I don't know.
Really quick. Multiple questions about the gaming stream for conservation. I've been given pretty much. I've been given a green light. It's happening. I'm very excited, but I also don't want a half asset, so TBD on the date. I want to make sure that we can. Even though I want to bullshit and play video games, I also want to raise a lot of money. Do you have a bead on the game Red Dead Redemption two? Okay, yes you can. You can do all kinds of cowboys stuff and hunt
hunt animals in all kinds of ways. So nice, go fishing right.
Skunk ape customs, Yes, I really want to know what he's customing.
It's with a K, so it could be anything. Anyway, let's call it.
That was great, Let's call it.
Thanks for tuning.
Thanks for tuning everybody. This is delightful. We'll see you next week. Oh oh, before we wrap up, it is Steve's birthday next week, so we're going to have a very special birthday celebration for Steve live on Media Radio Live. You're not going to want to miss it. Steve's hosting. There might be some cake, there might be some singing. There might be a gift exchange. Probably not the gifts though.
Okay on that note, Sorry really quick, I'm stretching out this show. At the very top of the show, Randall first of all, what do you mind sharing what date your birthday is?
October third?
Okay, Spencer's an sob because he wished you a happy birthday at the beginning of the show and everyone was saying happy birthday to you.
Randall, everybody knows it's October third, everybody does. Yeah, it's the same day that the first Peanuts cartoon was published, and it's one of the you know, landmark days when the Berlin walks it came crashing.
All right, well that'll do it for today's episode.
Thank you for turning in