Smell us. Now, Lady, welcome to meat Eater Trivia. Meat Eater Podcast. Tell me when to start? Phil okay three two.
Go.
Welcome to me Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time on Thursday, March twenty seventh, and we're live from met Eater headquarters in Bozman, Montana. I'm your host, Giannis but tell Us, and I'm joined today by doctor Randall Williams and Brody Henderson, and we're celebrating Turkey Week. I
love these birds so much. I was pushing for Turkey Month, but all the bear hunters here at meat Eater, like Randall and Corey here, thought that a week was enough, citing that they don't even have a bare day yet here at meat Eater. Maybe we didn't need to run that up the chain and see if next week we
can get bare day or bear Week. On today's episode, I'll recap my recent Texas turkey hunt with Jesse Griffiths, converse with Phil doctor Phil Levretzki about his new turkey DNA study, Touch base with Kyle lart Libarger, one of my favorite dudes on the Internet about prairie habitat for turkeys, check in with my loger Wyatt seep in Wisconsin to see how my logging sorry, to see how logging my
place is improving Turkey habitat and filing. We'll rate the top submissions from our Turkey photo contest and pick a winner to receive a first line, first light, tree line, Turkey vest phelps, game calls, and a Moultrie Edge two cell camp. It's an action packed episode, folks, We're gonna be ripping and running here. A couple things right off the top though. Texas Turkey recap up. Honestly, the turkey hunting was just so so mega drought in Texas right now.
It was barely greened up down there. They were flocked up, hammering hard on the roost, landing nothing. I got lucky because the first morning Jesse was like, hey, if they don't, if it doesn't happen right off the roost, they like to come through this little zone. I shot one here last year, you know, might be a good idea to set up there. So of course, once it didn't happen off the roost, Max and I went did a little loop around set up, and like thirty minutes later here
comes the flock. Well was way cool, was hanging out with Jesse Griffiths and his buddy Eli Cairo, who owns Olympia provisions some of the best sausage cured meat, you know, production that I've ever had. Incredible stuff. So if you're and he sells in Whole food So if you're in Whole Foods, look up Olympia Visions you won't be disappointed. But a couple of things that I learned from my little trip down there. One and I think, which hot tip are we doing? We're doing turkey tender hot tip?
Are we doing the uh or the one around biscuits?
Decision?
UI, Well, no, it's too late for that. We're doing biscuits. We're doing biscuits.
Okay, great, So Jesse's got a great hot tip about how to make biscuits easier. But what I learned, and it has changed my biscuit game. Since I've been home now for a week from that trip, I think I've made biscuits three times.
My goodness.
Yes, I now fold my biscuit dough about a dozen times. Oh yeah. And I used to always think that would like sort of overwork it and it would just be too dense. But what you're doing is you end up making these layers every time you fold it, kind of smash it out fold it.
Yeah, get like the Pillsbury ones with the layer.
I'm telling you.
What I like to do with my biscuit dough is I pop the can then I just flop out the little hockey pucks.
I'm kicking you out for that one. Anyways, amazing food, great sausage from Olympia Provisions. And I learned a lot about cooking, and we'll get to more about that when we do Jesse's Hot Tip. But we have a little bit of a spring dilemma to discuss, and I know and we have people here in the room that sit on both sides of this discussion. Bears or turkeys. Random, Where do you sit?
Bear Man? Bear Man?
Why is that you grew up in the Midwest, you grew up in Turkey Country.
There's a sense of adventure and freedom. It's getting out in the mountains in the springtime. I like to hike, I like to glass, like to shoot things with rifles, preferably across canyons, so bear hunting really speaks to me. I also just enjoy watching bears. It's been a couple of years since I've killed one, and just watching a bear do bear stuff on a mountain, see him roll over logs and negotiate terrain and stuff like that, It's just endlessly fascinating to me. So that's my case.
All right, Brody turkeys, you killed a spring bear. Nope, you're a fall bear guy.
They yeah, you get that fat in the fall.
Yeah, I hear you. But you can get you can get some fatty bears in the spring too.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think if I if I had like a go to turkey spot and I picked up the basics, I think I'd take the turkey hunting quite well.
Okay, well, aren't you attempting to get your first turkey this spring? Yeah?
I mean, probably make a day of it. I don't know how committed I am.
But okay, well I'm gonna help you get committed right now. I brought with me a Meteor Phelps three pack. I believe I saw one of these available at bob Wards the other day, so I imagine you can still get him at Shields too. But it's the three pack. It's got the Latvian Eagle call in it, it's got Steve's Jake break and then the other one is called the loud and clear. I believe I'm gonna give you one. I would choose either Steve's Jake break or the loud
and clear. Don't go to the Latvian eagle. That's a little bit more of an advanced call. It's it's just it's a little bit harder to call because the the latex is.
A little bit thicker.
Okay, and so I love the Latvin Eagle. Is still my favorite call. That's why I made it and put it in here.
I thought I'm gonna put that in the wrong way for us.
No, I'm not that last longer.
Now, okay, I'm trying to give you the fastest ever turkey call lesson here. Ever you played football, yes, well, I don't know. Did you play quarterback? No? No, okay, but you heard the quarterback often say hut right, So we're gonna say the same thing right now, just do it without the call you feel how I like? You push the air out of your diaphragm and then your
tongue stops the end of the word. Okay, Now you're just gonna put this diaphragm into the roof of your mouth and say the same exact thing huh huh, But you got to push the air from your diaphragm across it. Come on, you're messing with me.
Now have you used an elk call? Like you never used it?
Rifle man.
This thing is pressed up in the roof of your mouth. Correct with my talk. Don't choke, don't gag. This is this is a thing that happens with folks learning to use diaphragms. For sure. It's uncomfortable and you it can get a little gaggy. Take it out and talk. Oh yeah, take this in out that take the seconds in out. That might help. Goodness, randall, I.
Should make a turt they should make a mouth call with like zin and I.
Didn't think we're actually doing this. I was shared. Oh good. I wanted it to be a surprise pressure up good roof for my mind. Yeah yeah, and just let it sit there and then on it not before at the end the at the end of the hut, it'll your tongue will stick to the top of it. Okay, So what I'm failing. I'm failing. I'm not good at teaching people how a turkey call and a limited amount of time. Let's move on. You need there you go Okay, you're doing that one wrong too. I would actually say for
all beginners, go with the slate. It's hard to mess up a slate. Pot call it. Brodi's got there. All right, let's talk to doctor Phil Lovetski about his uh new wild turkey research. Fill you there, I'm here, all right.
I was just laughing at that whole scenario.
Yeah, well, it's meant to be funny. I'm glad it was entertaining for you. We got Phil here. You might remember Phil from a Meteor podcast episode four hundred and ninety, which was titled Duck DNA Are wild ducks Really Wild? Well, now we're gonna find out if wild turkeys are really wild.
Wild Turkey DNA, which is the title of Phil's project, is the first citizen science project for turkeys ever attempted to joint effort between Phil's lab at the University of Texas at El Paso, doctor Michael Chamberlain's Wild Turkey Lab at the University of Georgia, Ducks Unlimited, n WTF, and others. So Phil, welcome to the show. Quickly remind us remember, you know, we're on a tight schedule here, so you gotta be succainct. What was duck DNA all all about?
And tell me, like the most interesting thing that you've learned from doing that project?
A most interesting. So this is just gonna be about like forty minutes long.
H Yeah.
So duck DNA was this combination between ducks unlimited myself thinking about how can we monitor to the genetic integrity of mallards and other waterfowl and sort of build one of the largest genetic repositories for a group of species. And that's sort of where duck DNA was born on them and where we are in our second year.
We just finished up.
Just to give you a bit of a highlight, we went with seven hundred kits this year as compared to three hundred kids. Still four thousand plus people applied and over two thousand samples analyzed.
Just this year.
We're getting over over two thousand to three thousand, close to three thousand with the two years of data.
It's pretty remarkable.
That's awesome. Congratulations.
Yeah, it's been hugely successful. The hunters love it.
You know that the biggest thing is that it's a direct communication with hunters and they're they're they're learning more and more.
About the bird that they have.
And you know, every time they post something, people can can like pretend to think that they know what they are and then and then they come in say, aha, this is what it.
Is, right all right? So what's the like the top thing? What is the most interesting aha thing that's come from this research?
Actually all the hot I mean one of the things is the monitoring of this whole gain Far mallard issue with with wild mallards and across the board and understanding that. But two of the things were super interesting. We now know that brewers duck, mallard gadwell go both ways, so the male could be a gadwell the female, or the male could be a gadwall the male could be a mallard pintail.
Same thing.
But the other cool thing is we started finding second year hybrids, meaning those hybrids are obviously fertile and making more kids out there, and so we're starting to learn some of the things that was that is very difficult to do so as a single individual in a lifetime, let alone through plumage alone, because they start looking like that parent as they backcross more and more. One of the cool things I think we posted on this I hope.
I'm not jumping the gun. But we got a three species hybrid, a true three species hybrid of all the blue wings. So it was a cinnamon blueing hybrid that bred with a northern shoveler to make a hybrid that this guy harvested in the San Francisco Sacramento area of California.
That was super cool. Didn't see that coming?
Wow, No, I have I wouldn't have either. All right, So now you want to do this for turkeys. What are you hoping to learn with doing wild turkey DNA.
Yeah, we're just expanding on the edible bird Consortium so to speak. So moving into turkeys, this was I have to tell this short story. I got a call by Mike Chamberlain on Super Bowl Sunday and he was like, hey man, there's all these weird heritage birds and things that look kind of weird. Is there any way we could figure out whether they're just domestic birds that people are harvesting, maybe hybrids, maybe they are just wild birds that have super weird plumage. And that is where wild
turkey DNA was born. I was like, that's an interesting question, very similar to what we're asking on duck DNA, and we've set up everything you know DNA's DNA, so you know whatever. Five six weeks later, the partnership between Ducks Unlimited and WTF Mike me and as well as Low Country Game Bird Foundation made it happen for this year.
So this is our pilot year. We'll see how it goes.
But the initial ask is if anybody shoots or harvest a super weird looking or cool looking bird, to just go ahead and get in contact with us through the Wild TURKEYDNA dot com website.
Will send you a kit.
You'll just cut off the tip of the tongue, just like we are doing with duck DNA, send it to us, and we'll start to analyze these turkeys.
In the long term, we're hoping to go.
Across all the subspecies, understanding not only hybridization and whether domestic birds, these heritage birds are a problem for other species the rios, the Miriams, and so forth, but also whether genetic diversity might be an explanation of declining populations.
We already have preliminary data for easterns in South Carolina, Georgia, New York and others that they are large segments of that population are very much looking like second cousins, even half siblings, And that's a real problem when it comes to wildlife. If you don't know, the Florida panther was essentially half sib full CIB, and that was when we started seeing real genetic problems there. And turkeys are trending towards that way, and that's a real problem if that's the case.
And so that's happening because the population, it's almost like a double whammy because the population is getting smaller unless you have just less diversity in that smaller population. That is that the origin, that's the origin.
So if especially for Easterns, if anybody knows the history, most of those Easterns originate from mountains of Pa where they were like remnants, and then they were basically spread out, so they already went through a bottleneck. And then effectively all these birds have smaller and smaller home ranges. They don't necessarily like to cross streets highways, They stay within.
And the longer those birds are, the more the connections are severed, the worst they become genetically because the probability of dad mating with their kid increases and increases and increases. Plus they're lecking system where in essence, a few males contribute every year. So if it's the same brothers constantly with their sisters, it's a problem.
Right.
So those are some of the questions. Habitat is always number one key.
But if you've got a bird that is, you know, starting to have issues in nesting and fecundity, how many eggs actually hatch, then that is a compounding effect.
Right. Oh man, I was hoping for some good news out of you film.
I got a question if there could be some good news in places where there's multiple subspecies of turkeys that are mingling, Like, yeah, like in Nebraska, you could You don't know what you're getting in places, right, That's a great question.
So one of the things that I've always been curious about because I've known about the history of stalking. Right, even in Washington they went and just like Washington, the Sierra Nevadas of California, they basically were like, I don't know what's gonna take here, so let's just throw a miriam Rio in eastern in all these places and see what happens kind of thing. So it would be really cool to get some birds out of those areas to
see like exactly what happened? Did one of them actually take or are they just like a hotchpodge of these three subspecies. The other cool thing will be to go after places that are core habitats known for Rio's and Miriams. Gould easterns Osceola's included, but the only one not oscillated, so we'll go for all the north the north North
American ones. Is to understand, you know, what does that genetic diversity look like versus you know, populations of Miriams on the sky islands of New Mexico or the Rios that are in all these little pockets like you you probably saw in Texas.
So that'll be something really cool.
On top of it all is just understanding something that I did was not keen on until Mike Chamberlain should sort of opened my eyes to it. Is the number of what is known as a heritage bird. Just so everybody knows, a domestic bird is your white bird at costco. A heritage bird is a mix of that domestic with a wild at some point creating a weird looking bird. And so apparently people are putting out these heritage birds to become feral or faralyzed for one reason or another.
And so now the question becomes how widespread is that, like people you know harvesting cool looking birds. Are they just all just weird heritage birds or are they hybrids? Or are they just wild birds with those cool plumages. You know, we'll start to ask the answer those kinds of questions.
All right, Phil, tell everybody how they can participate one more time before you go.
Yeah yeah, So please go to the new, brand new website wild Turkey dna dot com. You can also watch us on Instagram at at wild Turkey DNA or at Loretzky Lab. You can if you harvest something, go ahead and contact through those means and you'll be able to get a free kit. That's what I wanted to also mention. Anybody that gets selected with the everything's completely free, will send it to you, you'll send it back to us.
And that's a product of both National Wildlife Turkey Federation as well as others that have contributed donations to make this free for the hunters.
So I hope the turkey hunters out there are.
Going to get just as excited as the duck hunters for the duck DNA project that we.
Were doing Oh, I can guarantee it Randall gets his first bird.
Put that thing in.
It doesn't matter what kind of colors, white man.
I'm taking my daughter out for her first turkey hunt this year, and I'm definitely what hopefully she gets one, and uh, that thing's going in no matter what it looks like.
Thanks again, Phil, ladies and gentlemen, Doctor Phil Levretzki, you appreciate it, Phil.
Thank you, guys.
Enjoy Thanks Phil. All right Phil the other Phil, Hey, Yeah, I was getting confused there. It can be tricky. It's time for listener feedback. We have any at this point in time, We've got a few.
Just reminded me of everyone, go ahead and get those questions into the live chat. Our first question, though, is from Andrew. He says, what are good points to bring up in a persuasive speech on reintroducing bison to Colorado? This is for school.
Man. Instead of going AI, he's bigger and he'll just write in.
Official intelligence, He'll go with I'm gonna.
Pass this one. I'm gonna pass this one off to Randall.
Sure, it's a tough one. I think you could point out that bison are native and good for the land, good for the land.
I'd tell him to go read some stuff on APR's website.
That's a great point, Brody.
Uh yeah, American Prairie Reserve.
I mean it's tough because they're not really reintroduced anywhere as like a wild species. If you're talking about like an APR style model, I would go to APR and and read about their program. Plus, it's good for bison. The more populations we have, the more genetic diversity we have.
You will run into some pushback on that issue. I'll just let you know, yep.
Yeah, but it's an excellent topic.
I'm guessing he has like he's been asked to write a persuasive speech and he just happens to be choosing this topic, so it'll be it'll be good practice for him.
What else we got, phil Joe asks Giannis, are you running slash training for any races in the near future?
Buddy, We don't have enough time to talk about this today. We need a separate meetings going all about.
How we don't have any time. But I have yet to see any evidence to that. I think we've got all the time in the world.
Oh oh good, well, listen, we just have an all company meeting, and I want this to end in time so that I can get pizza, some pizza in my belt. We're all gonna go get pizza, of course, can join. Literally.
When I drove into the office today, I opened up my calendar and I looked at the timing of the meeting and I was like, one, yeah, oh yeah, we're gonna go get pizza.
We'll be getting pizza at the Bozeman Market in Deli. If you passed through town or if you're a resident here go check them out. Great sandwiches, and I love their pizza.
Let's refocus on the running thing.
Yeah, yep, tip number one pizza for running fuel.
Yeah. Hey, when I ran my fifty mile er last year, I ate a slice of pizza halfway through and it definitely helped me to finish line. Joe, Yes, I am training, I'm running the I've signed up for the Crazy Mountain one hundred this year, and so, yeah, my knees are a little bit sore. I've been getting after it. Did some intervals yesterday five minutes uphill as hard as I could go, then five minutes chill downhill, and did that eight times in a row. I was tired. Afterwards. So, yeah,
that's at the end of July. So I'm feeling like I'm in a really good spot at the moment, and I've still got i don't know, three or four months to kind of keep building on it. Coach says, I have a coach, I have a logger, I have a coach. I got it. I got a sound engineer.
It's great, heavy lies of the Crown.
But she says I could do it right now. She said it would hurt a little bit, but she said I could pull it off right.
What's your Uh, what's your goal?
My goal is thirty hours. Yeah, I haven't said this publicly yet, might as well do it now. Cam Haynes ran it the inaugural year of this race, which was four years ago. I believe he ran it in about thirty four hours. The course was slightly different, so I'm giving him an hour for that. We're gonna be roughly the same age. He might be a little bit older.
So adjusted adjusted for the course change, you're trying to beat Cam Haynes.
I'm trying to beat Cam Haynes's time.
Uh seems reasonable.
If I can do it in thirty hours, I'll solidly do that. But yeah, that's my goal is thirty hours.
If I'm around that weekend, I'll be packing in pizza for you.
Yeah, buddy, that's what I'm talking about. There's some great spots to spectate that race, uh in the crazy mountains? So all right? Are we we had time for one more film? I need to Kyle be honest.
This is probably the fastest we've ever gotten the listener feedback, So like.
What, Yeah, don't we have multiple listener feedback sections. We've got one more at the end. But I mean, we've got we've got time.
I know, I know you want pizza, but the audience deserves a show.
You no listen, I know, but I feel like the pressure to keep this show moving along.
It's all I hear. You're doing a great job. I'll let you know if it starts to drag. We've had a lot of these questions.
Spencer has in commented yet.
That's that's when you.
Know we've got We've had a lot of This is again a blanket question that it could go on forever. But but for some pros, if you had some some
tips for very I mean, Randall's in the room. Maybe Randall's got some questions We've got a lot of questions about first time turkey hunters, Kanye Northeastern interesting name is asking specifically about Miriam's, but we've had several questions about about just this first time turkey hunters in general, like maybe don't overload them with info, but any sort of like like first time tips, what do you got?
Well already gave one. I would say, if you're if you're just starting out with the calling business, get yourself a pot call, a slate mind you. I feel like they are the simplest to use. That's why I started my wife on, Like the second time she watched it in the woods with one.
She makes a lot of different noises with them.
Yeah, she had a conversation with the gobbler the first time she tried it, maybe second time. Other hot tips for beginners, uh, Like with any game, Uh, do the homework and find the game first before you go out there and hunting. I think it's really easy just to walk into the woods and start squawking on a box call and not be anywhere near a turkey.
Yeah, and one I would say that I still have trouble with is uh uh the old adage that you kill turkeys with your ass, not your feet.
Patience one hundred percent.
You know, granted this He was asking about Miriam's and you gotta sometimes you gotta cover ground hunting those but sure, like.
Yeah, like.
Sit down and call and if you get an answer, like, sit there for as long as you can because sometimes it takes them a long time to come in.
Yeah, that's a good tip man. Your butt can kill uh, probably more turkeys than your legs. Again, we all love to run and gon and call them all in. But that's how I killed my bird this year, was by just saying, sitting down and waiting and sometimes you gotta do that depends on what's more important to you, the entertainment factor of calling and seeing the show, meaning when they're stratting, gobbling and all that, or do you just want uh two lobes of a breast, two thighs, two legs,
two wings. Yeah.
You know something that paid off for me that I think we learned from Mike Chamberlain is he told us I shouldn't even tell people this. He told us that like if you if you have a gobbler or gobblers on the roost in the morning they fly down, you don't kill them they like go the wrong way like they always do. Yeah, he told us that those birds will almost always come back to that roost area like late morning, early afternoon, which has gotten me a bird or two.
Oh for sure. We saw it in Texas, Max and I work. We got onto a bird that was gobling hard at like two in the afternoon. He was he was probably two three hundred yards from the roost tree, but he had found he had found a strut zone, or that was his strut zone. He was like in this nice little cove on the rivers, all green. He's in there just hammering, And we got to itin one hundred yards of him, and we couldn't break him. But when he decided to move, he basically went and did
the same thing within one hundred yards the rooster. He was going to spend the rest of the day sitting there gobbling at the roostreet, being like, hey, ladies, come back here roost with me tonight. So yeah, and again that's another way that your butt would kill him, as just by sitting at that roostream.
I can keep going on the other side of the coin. Let's do one more on the other side of the coin. Canadian Hunter asks any spring bear tips from doctor Randa'm guessing for like first timers, Oh, any sort of.
M I need to listen here too.
I would say that you just need to have faith. I think like you can stare at a hillside for a really long time and there's not a bear there, and then all of a sudden, there's a bear there. And I think like, if you're used to glassing, like like serious glassing, it's probably easier. But if you are not a glasser, just have all the patients in the world know that, like, the bears aren't going to be there, right, Well, sometimes they are right when you start looking. I mean
you just got to keep your eyes open. Yeah, and uh, but.
I feel like it's a pretty casual glass, right, It's not like you're having to pound.
You're not gonna you're not going to pick them. Yeah, you're not going to pick out an ear or anything. But like, like you could watch a whole hillside with a ton of little tiny pockets and you look at them all and you're like, there's not a bear here, and then all of a sudden, there's one in that pocket, and you.
Something I've heard a lot about spring bear hunting, have you found it to be true that the evenings are best or just when you find them, you find.
I feel like when you find them, you find them, especially earlier in the season. I mean, I've seen bears, Like I've been out backpacking and like woken up in the morning and seeing two or three bears in the morning, you know, and I like mid afternoon you'll see them a lot of times. It's it's funny because I feel like that's the conventional wisdom, and you hear a lot of people that know a lot of a lot of you know, people that know a lot about bear hunting
will say that. But in my experience, at least, I've it's kind of a crapshoot. It's like the more time you're out there, the more likely you are to see a bear. But I definitely know, like a lot of guys that you know, nap through the afternoon and get out in the early evening.
I definitely feel like this is across many states where I've done spring bear hunting, but it seems like this the evenings have been better. I mean Southeast Alaska. Yeah, there's no doubt about it that those last two three hours are more productive.
Yeah, or the tide.
I mean that's a big one too.
Yeah.
I killed my bear up there at like probably ten in the morning because we're just timing the.
Tide hunt and low tide.
Yeah, because they're coming down on those rocks. But yeah, it's I don't know.
Corey, what do you got to say about spring bear? You love it?
Corey likes to hunt some spring bears.
Uh, it'll be on for the YouTube audience, but not for the podcast audience. So apologies to the podcast. Do you want to get on a different mic or something lame? I mean no, the only ones I have on are the one are the hosts. That's okay, buddy, you didn't know.
Talk with your chest.
Love bear hunting.
Now that I have a kid and it's harder to bear hunt with a kid, Turkey hunt is a lot easier until I'm old and can't pound the mountains anymore.
I'll keep bear hunting when the.
Day comes then I'll get more excited about turkey.
Was that an underhanded insult a turkey hunting?
There?
Sure sounded like it, all right.
I mean I will qualify what I said earlier, like I'm not trying to get up and be glassing at first light. Like I'm not I'm not saying that.
But.
Yeah, exactly, Like there's long evenings. But but I do think like you're not wasting time if you're sitting there, you know, checking spots and yeah, just looking.
Yeah.
I find it to be very casual hunting. Yeah, bring a book, glance up from the book every five to ten minutes Glasser Hill because again, like you said, it's not like you're going to see a part of a bear. Usually all of a sudden you look across the hillside and you're like, holy shit, there's a big old black spot that's walking.
Yeah, exactly, And that's what I mean. I kind of like that about it because you can just sort of get out and watch the birds, like stare off into the distance, kind of stop thinking for about ten to fifteen minutes exactly.
Oh if that happened, buddy, I'd be out out. What better turkeys? I don't know, I like eating bears. You No, not the kind of turkeys I eat.
There ain't a bear nugget in the world that tastes as good as a turkey nugget, dude, right right now.
I followed Jesse's Jesse Griffiths recipe from The Turkey Book For Fried Turkey, I started yesterday when I did a Brian. His Brian has pickle juice, a whole lemon in there, and then the basics, you know, some salt and sugar bay leaves. And then it's been that was for four six hours, and then it's been sitting in buttermilk and hot sauce overnight, and then later tonight I'm gonna dredge those suckers and some seasoned flour. It'll be heavy on
celery seed and black pepper. I'm making some mashed potatoes. I might even do some gravy. I'm gonna do some of those biscuits we talked about. Let's go, baby.
What time is that tonight?
Yeah, it's for my brother in law's belated birthday, so we already have guests. Otherwise i'd have you over for that, but they're coming, all right, Phil, I think it's time to move.
On to cottony Phil. How's the timing looking now?
It's looking perfect.
No, fantastic, tame, We're good.
Good job Brody and uh randall, thank you? All right, We're onto Kyle Libarger. Like I said earlier, man, this guy, I absolutely love his Instagram posts. Are you guys familiar you guys Kyle Like, I don't know. I had never been that interested in native plants, and I guess pretty much mostly native plants is what Kyle talks about. But like when he puts it out there on the old Graham, I'm like, hell, yeah, that's awesome, that's great. And then how how how much of a fighter he is? What's
the word I'm looking for? Not protester, avoc advocate? Yes, for these places that need you know, help, you know no one that they can't. The plants don't get to talk for themselves, so we need people like Kyle out there helping, keeping them, keeping them around for future generations.
Kyle, really quick here, your mic is muted right now. If you want to go ahead and unmute that.
Oh I was just gonna do all the talking for Kyle. Just look at his face.
As my friend says, Uh, I'm not an environmental extremist.
I'm an extreme environmentalist.
Maybe maybe that's a better way to put it, but I honestly am more of a conservationist. And and and uh, those plants I used to be in the same boat. I'd walk up past them and never even notice them or or paid pay any mind to them whatsoever. But when, uh, when I when I was on a property, uh, I guess back in like twenty eighteen that just had a ton of wildlife, and I was like, what what the
heck's going on with this place? And I saw the color man like it just uh a switch went off and and uh it all it all started to make sense. Why why you know that's the that's the habitat. Without that, you don't have wild life.
So that's the switch that went off. Is that you were there, you saw a pile of animals, and then you looked around and you went, oh my gosh, look at look at the habitat.
Of course, yeah you could hear like you could hear like the amount of insects there too, which is which is crazy when you're into place it's got a ton of diversity. There's gonna be a ton of insects and a ton of ton of birds because of that.
Okay, hold on that that that's the perfect segue. You use the word insects. In a recent Instagram post, you said everybody's heard the the uh quote a cattle farmer is really a grass farmer. And then you said, and a turkey hunter should be a you said, managing for insects. But it should be like an insect farmer. So explain explain that for me?
Well, I mean to me, it's it kind of puts it in t more simplistic terms, but it's, you know, that's the foundation if you want, if you want to have great cattle, you have to have great pastures, and you have to have healthy pastures. If you want to have great turkey populations, you need to have a lot of insects because that's that's what the poults are eating.
And you need to have a lot of seeds and a lot.
Of other things as well, like uh, you know in amphibians and and uh salamanders.
Uh down here, that's uh.
When they're when turkeys are scratching around, they're eating a lot of salamanders and snails and things like that.
That you wouldn't even think about.
But uh and uh I this is uh, this is something I guess I observed in one of Cow's posts.
I guess was a couple of years ago.
It may have been a photo he was sharing that somebody sent into him, but he showed a turkey crop that had a bunch of that uh that horsetail read have y'all you know that those like it's a it's called horsetail, that's what I call it. I forget the scientific name, but it's got those little segments.
Yep, you can like pull.
Yeah, it's hollow and uh and it was this turkey crop is like slap full of that stuff. And I just read about how Native Americans used that to like glaze the inside of their pottery because it had like high silica content, and uh, and.
I was just I was like, I wonder if that silica that has to be beneficial for turkeys.
And and of course there's some research that somebody had done about uh feeding, uh, feeding some feed to like domestic turkeys that had higher silicon content having better better survival rates and polls and stuff like that. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Uh, even even plants you wouldn't think of.
Uh.
Oh, you can never you can never really know what all the turkey's gonna need.
But if you just throw the whole buffet at them, they're going to have what they need most of the time.
So yeah, why is it that we don't have You're often talking about prairies and remnants of prairies, and like, tell me why we don't have a lot of the prairies, and and and then again why I guess you've kind of been talking about why they're so beneficial, but specifically about the prairies.
Yeah, I mean the in the southeast here, our prairies were gone before the camera was even invented. Uh So if you want to if you want to like learn about the prairies that used to be here, you have to go way back to these like historic surveys and writings.
You know, I read a lot of surveys that were done in the early eighteen hundreds, uh, you know, and and a lot of times they're they're you know, marking section corners and they can't even find trees close by, and so they're having to use stakes, and so you know, then that tells you that that area used to be a prairie. But all of it in the southeast was turned into cotton fields. Pretty much all of it was, except for the rocky places and the areas that were
too wet. And so now if you if you find a prairie remnant or remnant grassland, it's going to be in those rocky areas or where like a power line goes across a mountain, or like a steep spot where there's not flat ground that you could plant crops on. So it was our dominant ecosystem in the Southeast, and
people find that hard to believe. But that's also including things like long leaf ecosystems, which people think of as forests, but like ninety nine percent of the diversity in a long leaf ecosystem is in the understory, in that grassland that's underneath.
So being long leaf pine crag.
Yeah, yeah, long leaf pine and uh and so we had shortly on savannahs and oak savannahs, okickrey savannahs, but we also had glades and prairies and fins and bogs and just a whole array of ecosystems. And it was just a mosaic, just a mix of those different ecosystems across the Southeast.
Kyle, You've got some pictures or you sent pill some pictures right of some of some habitat work that you guys have been doing. When when these pop up here, can you see those two we walk us through a little bit of what we're looking at and what you would call that habitat type.
Yeah, so that's a glade or a baron. And just like you can see the power line up in the top right hand corner, So that was a power line right of way that that kind of saved this prairie. That line of steeters you see in front of you, that used to be like an impenetrable wall of cedars. And so the only grassland stuff left is what was
right there on the power line. Everything else had turned into a shaded out thicket of cedars, and so you lost all that biodiversity underneath, all that plant diversity.
And uh, and then now we've opened it back up.
You can see you can see there's some openings in those woods now where we had some Mennon night loggers come in and remove some cedars. We reintroduced fire to it, and uh, place is thriving now. So yeah, Oh that's a Nashville bread root, which is pretty uncommon. It's really only found like around Nashville and in a few little spots in Alabama, and it grows on limestone. But you all have I think there's some bread root out west.
They had these huge tubers that was like it was a it was a main food source for for Native Americans.
But that root is that the yellow one.
Uh theroot, it's kind of like it looks like Loopine kind of believes do. But uh, there's a there's one out west that everybody talks about. Uh maybe only in the botanical like the botanist world people, that's the more common one. But this is that same glade man Alabama, larkspur that's only found in Alabama. And this is one of those places where there's just insects everywhere. It's just it's it's incredible. It's like a time capsule.
And then I'm sure the turkeys probably eat the plants, but they're all there there for the for the bugs, right, speak.
Of the devil insects. Yeah.
Yeah, that's my buddy Allen who who bought one of these glades. So we got twenty four acres next door that has a feederaling endangered leaky prairie clover on it.
He bought this population.
I was just trying to there's like twelve hundred acres that came up for sale at once that had that had seven of the eight populations of leaky prairie clover in Alabama. So it it was going to be split up into a million pieces, and I was trying to get everybody I could to buy a population of this and and he ended up with this glade and it's it's an absolute incredible example of a limestone glade.
How many of those populations populations did you guys buy In the end.
There's there's six that are being managed now and two years two years ago, there were none.
None of them were being managed.
And so so that leafy prairie clover that's on there is federally dangered, but there's just like a ton of other rare species that grow there too, So we're conserving a federally endangered plant, but also you know, hundreds of other plant species that are high conservation value. And then the benefits to that is there's a lot of wildlife there. There's still wild quail and you know it's a you
know a great place for hunting and recreating. So not just good for turkeys, Yeah, yeah, it's good for people who like to look at plants too, So right, right, if that has any if that has any value in real estate, it's hard to quantify.
All right, Well, folks, you can find more about what Kyle's doing at well it's up on the screen there if you just listen, it's Kyle Underscore Live Barger and then there's also it's just at Native Habitat project on Instagram too. Is that right?
Yeah?
Yeah, but go check it out. Like I said, even if you're not into uh plants, the native plants ecosystems, after you watch a couple of Kyle's posts, you will be any other questions, boys, you guys have for Kyle.
No, we just got to get you back on One Minute Fishing again. Here.
Hey, hey, I had That's what I was gonna say. Where all left? I have to and this you go to tell sound like a fishing story. But as soon as y'all hung up my first.
Cast, it was within like five seconds I called the biggest crappy of the day.
That's what they all say, Kyle, that's what they all say.
I know you wouldn't believe me.
Hey, well, now that the ice is off, well I'm guessing you didn't have any ice down there in Alabama. But now the ice is off, I'm sure we'll be doing more One Minute fishing. So thanks again for stopping by, Kyle. We'll be in touch.
Yeah, thanks y'all.
Thanks Okay, now we are onto a Turkey Week hot tip run to you by none on there than are. I think he's not our very own, but he's he's part of our family program. Yeah. Jesse Griffiths, chef Jesse Griffiths, owner of Died do Way. Let me know when you got that ready to play? Phil? Well, we have important business to get to. First, is what turn your head and get what's that face?
Don't yeh, that's salty.
Yuh, that's salty, Randal your face there listening to that like a kid in a candy Phil.
That's when did you do that one?
It was a few weeks ago.
It's brilliant.
I appreciate that. Thanks rand Phil.
You know who doesn't like that one is bro Our Brodi and Steve because it's too it's too modern, it's too pop.
Yeah, I think you've done better work.
Yeah is that a uh? I don't agree?
That's what?
Yeah?
At first I was thinking it was like an eighties song, but no, that's just the vibe.
Dude. I got two girls, you know, eleven thirteen year old. I'm all in on pop right now. You know, it's like if you can't beat them, join them kind of a thing, So yeah, bring it.
They call that poptimism. Okay, that that was an actual music journalism movement in like the midtooth.
Sorry, here's Jesse Jesse Griffith.
All right, hop tip making biscuits. You need to get your butter incorporated into your flower.
Use it.
Cheese greater doesn't have to be a broken cheese greater. But this one is broken, but it'll still work. And so you grate your butter into flour, a little bit of salt, some baking powder, and then it's already in the exact size pieces that you need to make the perfect biscuit which goes great with fried turkey.
Hmm, love that guy.
I got my own hot tip here.
Oh please add on today.
These are some beautiful fresh turkey tinted lines from a big old rio that uhot today. And I'm going to remove these tendons from these nice tender loins with the fork. So you get on the pointy and just grip that tendon. Come in with a fork, put the times on either side, grip said tendon and just pull it like this and it'll pull the entire tendon out like that. If you're making stock, this is great edition stock because it's college
and it'll convert over to gelatin. Just save those up your stock and then you have a perfectly tendon free, tended out Brian Dredge and Fry.
Do you still have something to add? I do.
You know?
You're making your morning toast and you realize that all the butter's in the fridge and it's it's too hard to spread. Well, you don't want to tear up that toast, especially using cheap sandwich bread.
Yeah, that's why I was thinking, Man, just leave his butter out on the well.
Sometimes sometimes you use all the counter butter the night before.
Okay, I'm tracking.
So if you find yourself in that situation, you get out of the cheese grater and you grate your butter on your toast. That way, you don't have to just tear up that beautiful wonderbread.
So you were already aware of this, Oh yeah, hot tip. That was hot tip.
Just to show that I already knew that hot tip, which is the best kind of hot tip.
Brody, you're a biscuit maker, right m hm? Or isn't. It's a little bit of a pain in the butt to sit there with like a knife and and or the.
Thing you used to mashed potatoes. Whatever that thing is called.
You know, well, I believe it. That thing what is that? No, but it's not the one you use for mashed potatoes. There's one that actually is meant to cut butter, any flour, pastry cutter, I believe. But anyways, you still got to cut the butter up into pieces and then cut it into the flour. With this method here, it's small enough, thin enough that you don't have to do the cutting part anymore. Like you don't have to do the cutting
into the flower. You can basically just start adding your wet ingredients and start to make me.
What my son does was to just melt the butter in a microwave and then pour it.
No, no, no, that will.
That's like I've done that on my toast before too.
Your butter or any fat that you're using. The other day, I did half butter, half lard. It's got to be cold. If it gets all melty, you're just gonna I don't even know what's gonna happen. Jesse could explain that the other hot tip, I did that yesterday in preparation for making I fried turkey. Holy shit, does that work a lot better than trying to fillet that chunk of silver skin out of there with a knife way faster. Yeah, do you guys have an opinion on which hot tip of I've.
Used that the tenderloin one for a long time.
Oh you already knew that one. Man, Maybe everybody knows.
That I'm gonna go with the butter and the cheese grater.
Yeah, if you want some badass biscuits, I think that's.
Okay. I'm gonna disagree with you guys and think that for Turkey Week. You know, taking the silver skin out of those tender loins with the fork is the better hot tip. But still it's two to one, so Jesse, you're a winner either way. Congratulation, nice tips, thanks for thanks for doing those for me down there in tayhas all right? That brings us too, my lagger love calling, Why at my lagger? Why what's happening? How's it going? Guys?
It's going great. Although you're the one, you're outside under bluebird skies and we're in this stuffy podcast studio. But it looks nice there.
Yeah, man, I have no complaints today, beautiful day, about sixty degrees here tail into wintertime.
That's about all you could ask for.
All right, bring us up to speed. This is a very selfish guest on my part. No one else really cares what why it's doing up here as well.
I will if you ever invite us to go hunting there.
You haven't been invited yet, no, Oh okay, well I'll take care of that right after this show.
Yeah, and the video might be kind of hit or miss with Whitet as he moves through the property, so apologies to the YouTube audience, it might fluctuate a bit.
All right, we'll try to explain everything that we're seeing. But why it's been up there logging my dad Mi's place now for geez, I don't know since about September October of last year. And where are we at right now? Why?
Yeah, this one's been a bit of a process. But I'm gonna flip you around here if I can. It doesn't look like I can, I'll turn around like this. So I don't know what all you guys can see. But right down here we've done kind of a clear cut. This is the area that Yanni's gonna be turning into kind of an oak savannah. And the way that we designed this property was not only for you know, timber management,
but also for wildlife habitat management. You can see down here we kind of left a pocket of white oak trees. They're gonna be left for mass crop and savannah purposes. Yeah, and there's a couple of different goals on this one. You know, there's a small part of the property that's gonna be kind of converted back into an oak savannah. We are managing for an oak forest and then a
young oak forest. And then if you I'm gonna try not to move too fast here, but if you look behind me back here, we did leave kind of a mature stand of residual oak trees. How many acres is there, Yanni?
Yeah, they're ridgetops. Yes, depending on you know, where you demarket, it'd be six to eight acres.
Yeah.
And so what we've done here is we've pretty well impacted the majority of a forty acre parcel, like I said, with the with the intent to convert it back into better habitat and uh, all the benefits that young forests bring.
All right, how is this gonna? How is what we're looking at there? And just for folks that are that can see this, you can see those the thicker forest in the background of that video, that's what that place looked like too, is a closed canopy. Uh, you know, mixed upland oak forests. And now you can see we have uh, we're letting a lot of sunlight hit the ground there. But tell us how that's gonna be beneficial to turkeys.
Yeah, man, Young four is great for a lot of different types of animals, especially in this area. This area used to be really heavily impacted by fire. There was kind of always constant young forest happening, constant regeneration happening. That doesn't happen quite so much anymore.
So.
Species like turkey, the rough grouse, deer, non game species, they all rely on not only mature forest, but also that young forest type. When you're talking about turkey specifically, I mean what we're doing here, as you can see behind me, we've got the mature stand You know, those trees are gonna be left for mass crop producers, They're gonna be left for roosting trees. And then as you transition into this oak savannah, we're gonna have an edge
here that's gonna be great for nesting and brooding. And then when you get out into that clear cut area in the savannah area. Now I'm not a savannah expert, but the interesting thing about converting things back to savannah is you not only get the the use of the trees, but there's also a lot going on on the ground with the forbes and the plants and everything. You're gonna create a lot more insects, a lot more food for the turkeys.
You get an open area like that.
Turkeys love to strut out.
In those open areas, roost up in the trees where they can see something, you know, from that savannah.
Yeah, it's interesting. You sent me some a little publication from I think it was the sixties or maybe even the late fifties yesterday, and it said that at a time was that was like one of Wisconsin, at least in the southern half of Wisconsin, Oak savannahs were one of the dominant landscapes and now it's one of the hardest to find landscapes in Wisconsin. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Savannah or you know, southern Wisconsin was definitely dominated by savannah at one time, mainly because of that fire aspect that we're missing now and with the lack of the fire on the landscape and everything else that's changed that humans have brought, you know, different invasive species and things like that that's kind of gone away, and a lot of that is transitioning into kind of a more more of a maple forest, which is fine, but it's just not what was here before we got here.
Well, I'm planning on bringing back the fire too, so hopefully we can continue, you know, make more savannah. Any questions, Yeah, boys.
Have you seen any turkeys while you're out there?
It's a good question.
You got a little scouter report for your honest here.
Yeah, there's turkeys everywhere. They seem to be a little bit more skitty. They seem to be a little bit they seem to be a little bit more skittish with the logging operation than the deer are. But they're definitely utilizing the areas around here. There's a lot of roosting happening. Right behind me, to the south a little ways, there's some travel corridors they've been using. They're they're curious, they're just not sure about it yet. Since we're still working in here.
Mmm mmmmm, buddy, that's intriguing.
Yeah, about thirty days. I'll be sitting right where Why it's at right there and listening to one of them gobblers. I hope, I.
Hope you put him there.
Yeah, we're working on finishing this project up, so it should settle down just in time for Turkey on for him.
Yeah, why, it's hoping to not be there by the time I get there, But if he is, then yeah, I'm gonna jump in the dozer and work with him.
Why.
Thanks for taking a break from your day man and giving me an update. Hopefully everybody else here enjoyed that as well. Enjoy the nice day. Put on some sunscreen. Don't get burned.
I appreciate you guys having me brody doctor Nall.
Good talking to you. Thanks, thanks, nice meeting you.
Well.
Now what you guys have all been waiting for. The photo contest is exciting. It is exciting. We got We had over two hundred submissions. That's great. Thanks everyone. Yeah, do we have a jingle for We appreciate it. I don't have a ging for this. No, you want to just sing something freestyle, It's okay, something involving Turkey.
It's the photo contest, the most contested photo.
You were singing some some Kelly Clarkson earlier is it since you've been goblin? Oh yeah, I can. That's all I got.
I'm sorry, listen, no, no, we'll work on it. We'll work on We've got twelve months.
Thank you, I mean for just thirty seconds to whip something up. Might have been my best one yet. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good. So we had over two hundred submissions. Appreciate you all doing that. Corey says that we had pregnant wives slash girlfriends with their birds and belly bumps. He didn't think they were that impressive, though. He didn't not share those with us, so we didn't. So if that was one of yours, I'm sorry that did not
make it to the top twenty. But we saw a bunch of cool photos, uh, a lot of kids, kids with parents, kids, dead birds, big smile and faces, which I love. This brings up something that I've been working on. If you want a reminder of how to be in the moment, because you know, we all tell anybody, anybody that's been a parent for more than ten years, as soon as you meet somebody that's got like a newborner, like you can't help yourself but to be like, man, listen, here,
this shit's gonna go by so fast. You have to figure out a way to like relish every moment, stay in the moment, right, It's so hard to do. Recently, I've been I've had to I had to find baby pictures and sort of like show a a album of my oldest daughter from zero to thirteen that they're going
to use in a slideshow for eighth grade graduation. With iPhone and I'm sure with the other phones now you can literally just go to your photos and put in someone's name and then every single picture with that person where most of them pop up. And man, you won't talk about a good way to draw out some tears. Just do that with your kids and then scroll all the way to the bottom and just start scrolling through there.
It draws out some tears, but it's a reminder because you're like, well, damn, don't get to have that moment again when they were all little and young and cuddly. But it reminds you to then hopefully that night at dinner, get off the phone and stay in the moment and you know, be with your kids because it's fleeting, all right. That's all I got to say about that. But uh, yeah,
you can't help yourself, right, Brodie. Yeah, Man, when you're when you get to be our age and you got kids that are past ten.
I mean you're in the same boat. Like my older kid is thirteen now going on, it'll be fourteen early fall, like it's it's sinking in. It's like, holy shit, only a few years left to hang out. I mean we'll hang out obviously, Oh yeahs older, but not like you have been right, So like sad, I'm all about like hunt and fishing with them.
All right. Hopefully I didn't bring anybody down. But as a reminder, stay in the moment with your family and your kids. If you need a way to help yourself do that, just go into your iPhone photos and look at all the pictures of your kids when they were little. Back to the photo contest, we had twenty coury had twenty good ones for us. We narrowed it, narrowed it down to three, and we're gonna now ask the live audience to help us pick who should be one, two, and three.
Yeah, before we look at these pictures for the very first time, we are going to be polling the live chat of the YouTube live audience right now. So after we look at these top three pictures. I will put up a pole between photos number one, two and three, and you are going to decide the winner.
Phil is digging into his toolbox here.
That's right, I already picked the winner. And if you guys don't agree with me, I don't know what we're gonna do. All right, are we ready for this? Yeah? Let's go. Okay, let's bring up photo number one on here. Remember one of the prizes, the winner, the winner, winner. Everybody is a winner here the top three winners, but the winner winner get the first light tree line turkey vest I was wearing one of those when I shot my Texas Rio the other day.
I was wearing this one earlier, which is why all the straps are stretched out.
They get this bad boy too, Yeah, they get a Moultrie or yeah, Moultrie Edge two sell camera I've been using for a couple of years now. I love those cameras. And what else? We got some calls, right, some felps calls. Corey, you're throwing in a bunch of calls. Runner runner up is going to get help me out, Corey? What's runner up? Get more more calls and their choice? Okay? And then and third place gets can't beat that. Everybody's a winner, all right. So the first picture, Phil had it up
there for a second. Let's come back to it. Phil sent in from Jacob Zetterman. It's a pretty picture composed.
Well, pretty gun, pretty gun both unbelievably. Remember remember, friends out there in the audience, you're voting on this, So take a good hard look.
Well you like this one because oh yeah, because of the caption.
Is it in here?
It is?
The caption is in here that came It was in the email that came with this photograph. And Jacob's caption reads, tell Steve switching from flintlock to percussion. It's a little bitch move. Actually, actually Jacob didn't say LB. He just said woos. He said, tell Steve switching from flintlock to percussion is a w's move. There you go, Steve. I hope you're listening and you hear that. You're just gonna be a little baby from here on out with your mutt new muzzle oder. All right, number two.
Mm, Happy Halloween.
This is this is Ed Snell with a fall bird.
Come on, Phil, can you zoom in there?
Like?
I can't know I'll make maybe I can, But What popped out to me when I first saw his picture was, well, a couple of things, Ed, And this is before we read Ed's email. One, he remembered his hearing protection and nothing else.
Yeah. For the For the listeners who don't have the benefit of YouTube, the photo shows a man standing on the little walkway next to his house. He's wearing extra toughs set of a headset of hearing protection and a pair of boxer shorts, and he holds a turkey and he has a shotgun slung over his shoulder.
Is there anything in his left hand? Doesn't look like it. He's just the clenched fists. Okay, he just yeah, he's just excited. Yeah. But even before we uh read Ed's caption, I was like, man, looks like you got a hen and Broy said, well, yeah, look at the pumpkin. It's a It was a fall hunt. Ed's caption read, I woke up to a flock of birds in my yard, grabbed the shotgun and knew I was going to be shooting, so I grabbed ear protection. Two didn't bother with the pants.
Though.
We're giving a lot of weight to the good captions.
Ye, good stories are good.
Hell yeah, all right. Photo number three came in from Austin McDaniel oother good story.
And for our listeners, the photo shows two men behind a bird with a bow, and behind them is a billboard for Cafe risk A.
Yeah.
So if any of you listeners have been to Cafe risk A at exit three seventy four in some unknown state, you're about to figure out a good turkey two seven.
It's not gonna be unknown, because Austin wrote, we killed this bird in Florida two hundred yards from this signe. There you go.
We just did a big spot burn.
Yeah. I apologize for reading that caption, but man, if you're in Florida right now and struggling, uh, there you go, figure out where heasit three seventy four, and I.
Found there on Instagram thirty three plus years of family owned adult diner entertainment.
An adult diner, wow, and then even an adult diner. And then you could just say I'm going to my turkey spot. You know I'll be there all weekend.
Well, let's not digress too much, okay, Phil, how much time do we need to give everybody? Let's give people a couple minutes. I'm gonna put the pull up now.
Folks, democracy and action. Here the voice of the people will speak.
Like I said, I already know who won. You guys disagree. You don't know what a good turkey photo is?
Uh?
Should we do a little listener feedback? Well, listener feedback while the pole. That's a great, great idea, honest, look at that host. Hey, I could also pitch the new television program that that we have coming out today at some point. Absolutely do that right now. Okay you may have heard, you may have not. We've got a new program out. It's gonna be out today at some point. I wish I knew what time. Probably soon. Here it's live. She watched it.
You got something to do.
It's called meat Eater Roasts. Yours truly hosted it. One thousand people have already viewed it, which means they must be digging it. It's uh, it's a little cooking competition show. We we have a little process here within Meat Eater where h colleagues employees submit ideas and there's been a lot of ideas submitted for some sort of cooking competition show. A lot of different versions, but we came up with
this one. Originally, it was supposed to be roast, as in like we're like I was as the host and the judges were just going to be roasting and just cutting down the people that are trying to cook the whole time we've been doing that. But I'd say very lightheartedly, but we basically have two people just normal cooks. Brody has been a contestant, Randall's been a contestants. Yeah, you guys are just normal dudes.
Yeah.
The intro of the show, you say ordinary cooks. It took a little bit of a fence at that.
What kind of a I did not?
What kind of a cook would you describe yourself as?
I like every day better than just sounds cook noted? I like, no, that's a better choice of words.
I agree every day every day cooks and we make them cook against each other limited amount of time, and they don't know what protein chunk of while game they're cooking until I reveal it in front of them in the show. I didn't, right, we didn't cheat on that, right,
you didn't know what you were cooking. Then we have a couple of judges who are mostly a little bit more experienced than the everyday cooks that are doing to cook him and as they cook, the judges help them, roast them, make some jokes, give us some banter, and at the end we judge the dishes, rate them, pick a winner, give some money to conservation because we like
to do that. And uh, I've been loving hosting it because it's really spurred some like, uh, spurred me out of my normal sphere of what I always cook at home when it comes to wild game, like I did Karn's. I don't want to give away too much, but I give I gave away. I cooked what Karn cooked, I've cooked what Spencer cooked.
What about me?
What else?
Well?
Yeah, I I cooked pot roasts often, and so I didn't like, I didn't re I didn't remake, I didn't.
Or a new new outlook on the possibilities with pot roast.
Hm hmm.
Hasn't given too much away here?
All that out anyways, The first episode is live now. It is Brody cooking versus Ryan Callahan and for judges we have Jesse Griffiths and Steven Ronella. And those those boys were harsh. They out of the five episodes we Uh, Jesse.
Was harsh, but he was also helpful. Steve was just harsh.
Yeah, it's funny.
I don't really associate Steve with being judgmental in any way.
Never Uh they but they did what we asked of them, and I think the episode came together nicely.
Oh.
I hope that all of you can watch it. Chat is in the chat. You made our day today. Thank you, Jacob and Austin.
You're really missing out on this opportunity if you're in the chat, show yourselves because right now, uh it is, well, it's the spreads getting wider. But we've got well actually, before we even say anything about the photo contest, uh, let's get a vote from the crew. You guys, Oh yeah, are your Your votes do not matter, but just an opinion, do you guys like number one from Jacob, number two from Ed, or number three from Austin Randall oh Man.
Ed's photo brought a big smile to my face. I like the cafe risk, you know, I.
Like uh you like going to adult boarders.
No no billboards, but uh yeah, Ed's smile really delighted me.
Yeah, I like that pretty picture of that that uh musket in that turkey. That's a great photo. But like I like, I like Ed, He's great man, Like I like, I'd love to be living in that house and see if lock of turkey's in the backyard and job out there and shoot one.
Yeah. Well, I was thinking you're gonna say you'd love to be Ed's neighbor, and then see Ed jump out and shoot.
Myself doing the exact same. It's very related.
One of the one of the members of the chat just suggest that we should get Ed second or third place, so he gets a shirt.
That's that's witty, or you can just go shirtless with the vest. Listen, I'm voing for Ed man. I think you that dude's got balls. All right.
You know, I'm going to give the chat thirty more seconds that I'm ending the poll.
Who are you going for? Phil?
I mean, it's all due respect to Ed. Incredible picture. I like, I like how classing number one is uh, and I like I like the uh the cafe risk billboard in number three. Those are my Those are my two picks.
I tell you what. They're cutting into my pizza time right now. Well, let's go, okay, fifteen more seconds. Fifteen more seconds because it's kind of close. So this these last few seconds could if you can change the something's wrong with you? That would be me weighing or sorry. Ed, I'm sure you're a good guy.
All right, let's give him to five four three two one. I am ending the poll in third place with fifteen percent of the vote. We have photo number three Austin McDaniel the Cafe Riscue billboard.
Congratulations Austin showing up.
There's someone driving to that turkey for third place.
Yeah, and now I'm gonna announce the first place winner.
With forty three percent of the vote. Tight, we have Ed snaw Snell.
Yeah, send us a picture with some clothes on next time, and that makes up with forty percent of the vote.
Jacob, you'r you got second.
He'll get a little coverage out of that. Best.
That'll work very very close, very close, very close.
And thanks for submitting your photo and thanks for being here with us. What a true pleasure.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I have it in me to send in a photo anywhere with in just my boxer shorts. Would you do that to have it publicly displayed for a.
I would, Oh you would for a free best, I come on here and make a buffoon of myself every week. You're honest, I don't know why showing a little skin is such a hang up?
All right, last but not least? Thanks again, ed, last but not least. Uh, we have the meat eater turkey calling contest ongoing, and today it is yours truly versus Tony Peterson. And is Tony just on his pot call again? You've watched his video? I haven't watched it. That's the one he's running both okay.
And the podcast when he said it's for beginners, right.
Oh, right, right now, Tony is ahead fifty seven percent to my forty two percent. Hey, listen, if that's what the people think, that his call sound better, they might. I just feel like I did all mine with the mouth call. Yeah, I like to make it hard. I feel it myself.
I feel like that's in the spirit of the competition. Yeah, get in there and support you honest.
Yeah, and then support us Yankees, whether it's Peterson, myself, who else is left? I don't know? But yeah, plays over there calling calling on the top of a mule. I I don't understand that except that I guess it's just novelty gets uh gets votes. But uh, maybe that'll work. But uh, yeah, I say, let's not claim off of his high horse. Yeah, oh and uh and yeah, it'd be good for a new champion. Anything else to add this week?
Boys, Phil, we got any last minute gems in the chat?
Yeah, I know, Giannis is itching to get some turkeys. You a rapid fire turkey tips? Are you ready for this?
Well?
Actually, first Mogor piped in and said wild turkey and Hungarian is vad puliaka. I hope you didn't tell me to like f my mom or something like that.
Trusting you, Mogor. You seem like a nice guy. Uh.
Number one, rapid fire. What's the best state for public land turkey hunting opportunities?
Next question?
Throw a dart at the map.
Yeah, man, there's turkeys literally in all the states in the lower forty eight, So pick one that has a lot of public land you'll probably get good turkey hunting on public Top three Snacks for a long turkey sit, oh man, pbn J jerkey.
I like to have a little fried chicken in my backpack, which isn't really a snack, but it's good.
Oh yeah, snacks, snacks and food and meals. It's kind of all the same to me when I'm packing my turkey vest, So I like i'd rather have more than less. Who's gonna kill a turkey first? This year? I have killed one?
I think, Yeah, I think you were the first on the crew this year, right might have been.
Oh that's true. We'll have to check those time codes.
Uh.
Any turkey tips for closing the gap.
Mm, be sneakier, stay where you are.
Yeah, just real, real quiet calling. That's what I've found. That is when you think he can't hear you, he can hear you. Decoy or no decoy.
No decoy for me, I've never killed one over a decoy A right, carry them around.
But this is very I know we're trying to do this real fast, Phil, but this is just for if I'm going out personally hunting by myself, I'm gonna go no decoys.
I feel like, if you do it right, you can set up in a spot if the terrain allows, you can set up in a spot where you don't need one.
Oh, and then in the back in the east, it doesn't even have to be terrain, it's vegetation r right. You just have to set it up so that the turkey has to come see you in your range in range right. But again, we hunt western stuff a lot. If you're hunting fields, the decoys can be deadly. And if I'm guiding, whether it's you know, friends, family, kids, whatever, I might be doing that.
Yeah.
And I mean you start talking about super realistic decoys like these, they can definitely like get a turkey in a range when they wouldn't have come otherwise.
Oh yeah, and you get to see the whole show and all that. But I just like to again, I like the challenge of calling one in. I like to make it hard.
Okay, last last one? Is pineapple acceptable on pizza?
Yes?
Hello? Hell yeah? Speaking of which, let's go eat some pizza. Thank you all for listening watching Meat Eater Radio Live this week. Again, just one last reminder, go do the meat eater dot com see what we got going on there. There's all kinds of great content this week. Get you fired up for Turkey season. Hell of a show, Phil, congrats, Ed