Ep. 710: MeatEater Radio Live! Noodle the Morel Dog and Kayak Bassing

Smell us Now, lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia Metter podcast.

Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time. That's one pm for our friends in Simpsonville, Kentucky on Thursday May twenty ninth, and we're live for Mediater HQ and Bozeman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Cal and Brody. On today's show, we'll talk to Ellen and her mushroom hunting dog, Noodle. Then we'll find out how much Cal and Brody know about their fellow outdoorsman with

Garden's in, I mean it's early right.

Mm hm. What's going to be different this year? Brody?

We do something different every year. I let the boys pick. We're doing some corn this year, which will be new for us.

Okay, that was of interest to them.

Yeah, that's what they wanted.

What you leave behind to I just like.

Buying the six dollars, like six for three dollars, you know, pack of corn at the grocery store. Okay, but yeah, standard stuff, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, pole beans, lots of herbs, just standard stuff.

Feeling optimistic this year?

Oh yeah, man, I grow an awesome garden everythore.

It doesn't like just go to hell when you leave for a week to go fishing at Fort Pack or something.

No, no, I just water the shit out of it and then put malts down and it's good, like as long as it's later. If you did that this time of year, you'd beat trouble. But in August.

It's cal Give us a garden update. How are things looking.

We had a real serious talk, the lady and I and and came to the conclusion that it's just not worth doing a garden this year.

Oh okay, because of lots.

Of overlapping travel like nobody and you know, it's just not a high producer anyway with our setup. So we have garlic and onions. Okay, yeah, but I my mom is if anybody needs a sweet little farm outside of the Billings, Montana area. The folks are selling out ninety acres irrigated right outside of Shepherd. It's a sweet spot. Kill geese there all the time.

How many trees around this property?

Trees?

Yeah, tree stands, well, a bunch of cottonwoods okay, yeah yeah.

Uh and would they fit it with a tree stand fit in one of them? Oh yeah, okay yeah.

And you you would attract wildlife because it is like zero habitat anywhere around there because it is just wall the wall farming good sales. But yeah, great spot. And if it wasn't just weren't so many people, I'd might be buying that thing. Anyway. She's got a tremendous garden, always has.

And comes with the farm, comes with the farm.

And now it's it's pretty funny because it's just like all the volunteer stuff that's coming up. And so we picked cilantro and let us and uh hit the asparagus patch. And this is where the conflict comes in. Well, we're pulling asparagus right because I'm like, yeah, you guys aren't place is gonna sell okay, and pulling asparagus, and my Mom's like, what the hell are you doing? You gotta cut that off beneath the soil line.

Or it won't grow back, okay.

And I was kind of like, well, you guys are leaving, what's the anyway? But then hop on a plane, go to Wisconsin, see bubbly Doug. And out there at the Durham farm they have a tremendous asparagus patch. And I notice that Doug's lovely wife, Trish aka Trish the Dish as I like to call her, who else nobody. I'm trying to establish it though, And I mean, she is such a sweet person that I just try to make sure that that Doug knows that as well, and he does.

I just saw a Facebook argument about this, like last week about the same thing. Someone was mad at their neighbor for stealing from their ditch asparagus patch and doing it the wrong way. Well, not only were they thiefing it, but also those mf ors were doing it the wrong way by not taking it down to the soil. It seemed like in the comments, folks were mostly on their side saying you have to take it off below the soil, and then there were other people saying it doesn't matter.

Yeah, I mean there's foraging etiquette rules, right that we should all live by. Hmmm, because if done properly, it's going to be their year after year after year.

You hear the same thing said with moral mushrooms. Yeah, that like you're supposed to cut instead of pull. That one is totally false.

Yeah, all the stumps in the ground, you can.

Pull those things right out of the ground. That's like plucking an apple off of a tree. You're not you're just taking the apple. Even if you pull the whole thing out, you're not taking the whole tree away. They're all that my celium underneath is still going to produce a mushroom if it wants to the next year. That little stump is going to help or hurt anything.

Yeah, but they they'll grow in clumps, right, So I've like gone back and picked the same spot. Sure, during that like that same like week long period of real fruit harvest, right, and have seeing plenty of mushrooms growing up next to stumps. But I know, I know, you're right.

Yeah, it's just it's hard to break that. Yeah, it's also a little cleaner if you if you take the whole thing off, like if you if you pull it out of the ground, you're gonna get get in yeah, like five to ten percent more mushroom. But you may trim that off at home anyway.

Yeah, and then in the bag that dirty stumps rolling around, Sure, and it's getting in the gills of the mushrooms, and it's just more clean.

Plus you can look at it two ways. Either you are letting other folks know, because I'll come across someone else's morale stumps, which or damn it, they beat me here.

It's like coming across a giant surface poop with tons of white flagging all over the place, or a.

Big gut pile.

Yeah, exactly, fresh boot tracks that come in from some uh huh, you're the only truck at the trailhead. Yeah, snow on the ground to set the scene. Hell of a blizzard the night before, like everything's right. You're the first person there.

One set of tracks, and you're like, that whole spot's blown.

And for whatever reason, somebody hiked over the hill from a different angle and you cut boot tracks about it mile in yep, and you're just like, so.

When I find those stumps, someone else has bested me. They've got me there, But now I know there were morales there. Yeah, so they're leaving me a little bit of information.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like people who have to put a trail camera up everywhere.

Speaking of foraging, let's get to our first interview. Joining us on the line now is Ellen and her mushroom hunting dog, Noodle. Ellen and Noodle, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having us.

First thing, Ellen tell us about Noodle. How old is she? What kind of dog is she? Where'd you get her?

So?

Noodle is four and a half years old. I got her. Actually, it was a long story of kind of fate how I ended up with her, but I ultimately picked her up at a children's rodeo in northern California.

She's a half lab half.

Border colleague, as far as I know, from an unwanted litter.

Okay, and we can see Noodle. Noodle is with Ellen right now for the interview. You should go watch this episode. You'll get to see the dog we're talking about. Plus Phil Phil has some photos of Noodle forging. Now, how have you ever met another mushroom hunting dog in your life?

You know?

I've spoken to a couple people online who are maybe training or trying to. And I actually used to live in Italy where a lot of people use truffle dogs. So I was inspired by that, Oh you want your ball, huh? And so that did inspire me. But I haven't met anybody in person yet. I'd love to meet up with somebody else who has a mushroom dog though.

Okay, and how long has Noodle had this special talent?

So I taught her about three years ago. She was a little over a year old when I first saw her first MOREL season.

And tell us about the training process for teaching Noodle to find mushrooms.

Yeah, so there's a lot of info out there on kind of proper scent training protocol. I'll just say I didn't do any of that. I just kind of winged it out in the woods.

One day.

I pointed to a Morrell and I just said, where's the mushroom? She sniffed it. I immediately threw a stick for her, because she is with dogs, she's just absolutely fetched crazy. She will die trying to get that ball. So I threw a stick for her. I called her back to the same morele, pointed at it through the stick again. Then I went to a third morel and she really, within fifteen minutes had just cracked the code.

That's my labrador brain right there.

Now.

What was the most challenging part of teaching Noodle to find mushrooms?

You know, honestly, it was surprisingly easy. But I'd say at the beginning it was a little hard to get her to differentiate, okay, which mushrooms are good, which mushrooms are bad.

But she did.

I mean she figured it out quickly. It's like, if she sniffed the wrong kind of mushroom, I'm like, no, that's not a mushroom. You don't get a stick. So she figured it out fast.

Now, in most videos I see Noodle finding morale mushrooms. What are the other good mushrooms that she'll help you find.

So she has about seven varieties. We do morels. We taught her Chantrell's afterwards, then matsutake. We do Porcini handicaps. She taught herself, which was pretty annoying because Russia. She saw me collecting them and then she was like, I want to get in on this and started trampling them. But we also do black trumpets.

If I didn't say that one, Okay, it sounds like Noodle has taught herself this skill for the most part. Now, how does she alert you when she finds a good mushroom?

You know that position that dogs get in when they're waiting for you to throw the ball and they're kind of crouched down just at attention. She just crouches by the mushroom and gets that alert look on her face. And if I don't see it, I'll often say show me, and then she taps it with her nose, and if I really she thinks I'm being a total idiot and I really can't see it, he smacks it with her pot.

Occasionally she knocks them out of the ground completely.

That's awesome, extra helpful. Now you said the reward is throwing a stick or a ball, that's what you do. Every time she finds a good mushroom.

Yeah, if it's a good one. If it's a little nasty, I say, ah, that's nasty, find another. Or if she's really found a cluster and she's going from mushroom to mushroom, I say, all right, you have to just lay down and wait for me to collect all of these and then you'll get your reward.

That's great. Now morel's are not toxic for dogs. Does Noodle ever get to eat them or express any interest in eating them?

Well, I will actually clarify that a bit, because while morals are not toxic, they're actually toxic raw and there was even a poisoning that included some deaths in the last few years, I believe in Montana. That's kind of highly debated in the mushroom world. But they are toxic raw for both humans and dogs. So always cook your morales super thoroughly. You basically can't overcook them, but don't eat them raw. I you know, she'll occasionally bite them

Yeah, what has been Noodle's best ever day of forage?

Gosh? I mean, that's a tough one. Every time she finds every time I train her in a new species. So I would say the second second species I taught her in was Chantrell's and it actually took her a lot longer than the morals. We went up to Mendocino and there's just it's such a rich diversity of fungal activity. There were so many mushrooms everywhere, so she was getting distracted. But when she finally pinpointed like, okay, these are the ones that she wants, doesn't want any of these other ones.

It was great.

So that was a highlight for sure, that is great.

How is the moral season Ben for you so far this year in northern California.

Yeah, it's been pretty hit or miss. I'd say we got hot, we don't. We didn't have great snowpack in the sierra this season. It dried up a little quickly. So my lower elevation spot's like three thousand and that range. The mid range really dried up fast, and then now we're having some I'm not having a bad season in the higher elevation.

Okay, good. Good for you guys, Good for Noodle. If folks want to follow along with you in Noodle's mushroom hunting adventures, how can they do so.

We've got an Instagram page. It's really good Noodle and I've got a lot of videos of her running around in the woods getting up to adventures together. And we do have TikTok as well. Same name. Not as active there though.

One of my favorite follows on social media is Ellen and Noodle. Thank you guys for joining us. Please tell Noodle she's a good girl and we're very impressed with her foraging skills.

Thanks so much for having us.

Thank you. That's sweet. Cal I love snort snort. It's a great dog. I'd rather have a mushroom hunting dog. I think that's good.

Good hunting dog can hunt anything, that's right.

Okay, I'd like to see you teach Snort. It sounds like if the dog is into it, there's not a lot to do.

And I mean, yeah, it's the prey drive plus the praise drive.

What kind of praise does snork it when she's being a good girl A lot of hunt?

Well, you know, like she doesn't want to be I give her praise?

Uh huh.

Really, she wants food at the end of the day. But man, during a hunt, you can't hardly touch her.

Her praise, her praise is just fine.

And a bird right her alone?

Oh she wants that bird so bad.

Yeah, yeah, all right. Our next segment is meat Pole.

Say if Sully and meat fool is to take my pole, Welcome to meat lady. I got a game something.

Meat Pole is a test of how much you know about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed five hundred meat Eater listeners about the outdoors. Your job is to predict their answers. There are three questions. Whoever is closest to the correct answer between Callen Brody gets a point, and whoever gets two points will be the winner. Also, the chat should play along because Phil is going to watch your answers and give a shout out to whoever is close.

I'm not fall what if we both get two points.

There's only three questions, so that won't happen. One of you is gonna get a point each question, and that's how we're gonna settle this thing, all right. Question one, what percentage of meat eater listeners have washed their pickup in the last month. We're supposed to write this, write down and answer hide your answer. That's right. What percentage of med eater listeners have washed their pickup in the

I am not a good via washer, never ever, ever have been.

Okay, that doesn't surprise me, but.

Part of my Memorial Day clean up was vacuuming out the truck and with the dog hair in the sand and all this stuff, and then I did what I wasn't intending to wash the truck, but I needed to spray out the floor mats because they were real nightly, and so I did end up posing off the truck.

I bet I go through a car wash four or five times a year, not that often. I'm conscious of it if I go on a hunt where I think I'm gonna end up asking for permission, Oh yeah, because when I go knock on someone's door and if I had just like a filthy, dirty, muddy pickup, they're gonna be thinking, this guy wants to drive through my field, that's gonna be a big no. Because one of the first things if I do get permission they'll say is just don't drive anywhere, don't drive through any gates, don't

No, it's not yet, I mean, but there's also like the noxious weed side of things, right, Like vehicles are a huge vector for spreading bad things.

Yeah, and that stuff like you're driving around, say out in eastern Montana and the gumbo and that stuff gets glued to the bottom of your truck. You gotta get rid of it. Yeah.

Hey, Phil, do you have any bet of music to play while we uh, while we do this?

Nothing original?

Oh that's okay. Do you boys have an answer for what percentage of media do listeners have washed their pick up in the last month? Go ahead and reveal your answers.

The one came out, okay, all right, so go ahead.

Brody says seventy one percent. Cal says forty one percent. The correct answer is thirty point five percent. So Cal gets that first point. Thirty point five percent of media do listeners have washed.

Their dirt bags? Not washing their stuff in.

The last month. One study showed that the average person washes their car thirteen times a year. That same study showed that seventy nine percent of people go to a car wash versus twenty one percent of people who wash their car at home. But when it comes to the interior, the average person cleans the inside of their car once a year.

Whoah, I just paid my boys to detail my truck.

Oh are they are are they can I hire them to?

Well, how much you want to?

Would you charge that?

The charity of the job is going to be based on how much you're willing to pay it.

Would you pay them?

I was a little underwhelmed and I had to up the ant is.

About fifty bucks?

They split fifty Okay?

Did it?

Did it seem like a fifty dollars job? Do you?

Yeah? It was worth it to me. I didn't want to spend a couple hours doing that.

Uh, Montana Hunter said twenty eight.

Oh, well done, Montana Hunter, you were two percentage points off. All right? Question two? What percentage of meat eater listeners have ever bitten into a BBI? What percentage of meat either listeners?

You're talking like any kind of pellet, like not a bebe? Like a bb gun? Yeah, any kind of pellet, not gun pellet, But it does like.

Break you phil That That ups? That makes is so much better what we're doing here. What percentage of meat eater listeners have ever bitten into a bb cal? How many bebes in your lifetime? I'm gonna guess like five or six.

Oh, buddy, I got a two cracked teeth in my face a year.

Oh, Yeah, how many what's the number?

Oh, twenty I I I was gonna say thirty, but I thought that sounded dramatic. But it's definitely higher than twenty.

Do you think you've gotten better or worse in your lifetime about cleaning bebies out of stelf?

Well, technology is a mother scratcher. Number nine tongues down.

Yeah, holy cow, dude buried like oh, in the bottom of a thigh or a breast. Yeah, like you can't find that's probably swallowed. Yeah, several of them. Yeah, without knowing that.

How about you, brody, how many bebes have you been into?

Dozens? Like, and I mean like there's degrees of biting too. It's like, oh I feel it and I just spit it out, no big deal, and there's like wham, you come down on it with both molars. That's rough.

Yeah, I'm at single digits, but it's because one, like the last experience was really bad where I'm like, I'm never gonna let that happen again. I'm gonna clean these things so thorough, or I'm gonna cut the meat so thin. A bb is never gonna make it onto my dinner plate.

Yeah, they just find a way in there.

Man.

Yeah, when you get the one that we're like it, there's like a mammalian spinal reflex that happens.

Yeah, it's almost like it's like as shocking as a bad electric shot. Yeah you know, Oh yeah, it goes all the way down your Spine's a meal.

So what percentage of meat eater listeners have ever bitten into a bb You boys, ready, sure, yep, go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Brody saying eighty eight percent, Cal says sixty three percent. One of you is within three points of the correct answer. The correct answer is sixty five point nine percent. Cow is on fire man of people here, eighty percent of Americans over the age of forty have had at least one cracked or fractured

I think.

You overestimated how many bird hunters we have.

I think that's the.

Yeah, But ducks, pheasants, turkeys, I mean they're all birds. Yeah, I know, it's just like I'm a little disappointed.

Question three, we have.

The broke three gunners saying sixty seven, So good job.

Damn one percentage point off. Here's question three. We'll see if cal can get the clean sweep and make Brody run around the off is naked, as is tradition when you get skunked naked? What percentage of meat eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer right now?

Oh, I can tell you, what do you do?

What?

What you got leach in the garden?

Got some crawlers and leeches?

How are you going to spend those?

What do you mean spend them?

Like we're going to use fishing currency. What are you gonna do with them?

Catch a bunch of walleye? Hope, maybe some perch.

What percentage of meat eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer right now? I have some deer liver that you're marked, uh for some catfish on the Yellowstone River later this summer, So I've got some in my freezer. How about you Cal? Any bait in your home right now? Staying cold?

You already asked the question, but I feel like old meat it doesn't qualify for this question or shouldn't.

Oh, I think folks would know if they put it in their freezer for the purpose of catching a fish. They probably answered, honestly, what percentage of meat eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer? Right now? Okay, boys, ready, go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying thirty eight and Brody's saying fifty. It's a clean sweep for Cal. The correct answer is thirty four zero point nine percent. Cal dominated today very close on every one

Phil Ti Sonar people, will you take that Spencer Newheart soundclip? That might be the nicest thing he ever says about man memorialize that someplace.

American spend one point five billion dollars on live bait and natural bait each year. That's fifty percent more than they spend on lures and flies and twenty percent less than they spend on boat fuel. Bait accounts for about thirteen percent of all phishing related expenses.

Ryan Carl since in thirty four point five damn.

Point four percentage points off. Thirty five percent of people who are listening to this show have bait in their fridge or freezer right now?

All right?

Moving on, Our next segment is one minute Fishing chousing bait. We'll do you. I'll find out in a second.

Go ahead, make my casts.

Bread in a ringer here?

Didn't you we were trying to. One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Christine Fisher aka Midwest fisher Gal on Instagram. She's on ten Killer Lake in Oklahoma and fishing for a donation to the first Wisconsin Chapter of Muskie's Ink. Christine, Welcome to the show.

Hey guys, how's it going.

We're doing good. Christine is pre fishing for a tournament today, so tell us about the tournament that you'll be competing in.

So I am practicing for the bass Master Kayak Open here on Lake Tenchio and Oklahoma. I think it's the third open of the year. I've only fished here one time before.

We had a.

Championship here last year. Different time of year, but this lake is gorgeous, has big small mouth, large mouth. I've had a pretty good bite going with the fish. The lake is about seven ft flooded. The fish are kind of spread out their post spawn, so bine stars few and far between. But when you can get them to eat, they're pretty pretty good sized.

Okay, tell us about your kayak setup that you got there.

I'm fishing out of a Hobie Pro Angler fourteen three sixty.

I'm keating. I got a little motor on the back.

Because you know, we get lazy in our old age. I have two low ranch grafts up front. I've got about fifteen rods with me right now. I've got a few different patterns going and trying to just break down this lake. I didn't get a ton of don't get a ton of practice.

On this one. But yeah, it's a pretty good setup. I love it. It's comfortable. I can stand up.

I usually stand and fish and use these two little foot pedals right here for control steering, so I can set my motor on you a mile and a half an hour stand up, use punched in power fish and run a patterns.

It's pretty effective for me.

Amazing little boat. Now, Christine is fished in one hundred and seventy one kayak bass tournaments. She's placed in the top ten and sixty of them and took first place in ten of them. So Christine, give some advice to folks listening who want to catch more fish from a kayak.

So the best advice I can give you got to get out there and do it first and foremost kayaks are great because it forces you to kind of really learn an area.

So I always advocate for kayak fishing.

But I always tell people fish your confidence, fish your strength.

If you hear the doc talk that people.

Are crushing them on a crank a on a square bill, and you don't necessarily love throwing a square bill, you're not gonna catch those fitsch. So I always tell people when it's tournament time, when it comes down to putting fish in the boat, you need to fish your strength no matter where you're at, Just try to find water that suits your strength.

And because at the end.

Of the day, fish and how you like to fish, that makes it a lot more fun too.

Good advice. Now for the one minute of fishing. What kind of area are you in and what kind of blue or are you throwing?

Well?

So, like I said, my my big small mouth and large amount bai is few and far between. So I came out to this little little island out here in the middle of the lake, and I found some scattered bait.

Then there's some white bass. Actually caught two of them while you guys were talking.

So I'm just I really wanna Yeah, I want to be able to catch just a fish here. So I've got a little little paddle tail swim bait and there's a scattered bait, and there's some white bass kind of cruising in the area.

I don't know if I can do it in a minute, but I'm.

Gonna try, Okay, and standing or sitting.

I'm gonna sit because if I stand and I'm setting you guys down on my kayak, ninety percent sure my phone a goal in the water. So we don't want to donate at the drink. I've done that a lot, not today.

That's right.

Is it intimidating to know that all of your tournament experience is culminating right now and meat eater one minute fishing, I'm gonna lie.

I usually don't cave under pressure, but I'm feeling the pressure on this one. You guys, I want I want the Wisconsin Musky guys to get get a little donation.

Because I fish.

Musky's up there all the time, and I know, I mean, this is more important than we win in this tournament.

Honestly, in my opinion, I love.

That attitude for you.

All Right, Christine, your one minute of fishing starts as soon as you make your first cast.

Okay, okay, let's see.

Pick your spot.

All right, she's made cast. Got an interesting perspective here. I've never watched someone fish from the bottom of feet before.

Don't don't put this on feet finder, Christine.

You're fifteen seconds in doing a little paddle tail. There's some overcast today. Conditions look good, maybe a slight breeze.

Yeah, I like it.

Thirty seconds to go, she's gonna make another cast.

Got time for another cast.

I love it.

That's some crucial mental game right there that you keep playing it.

Verdian recast twenty seconds ago.

Christine, my heart's beating.

Ten seconds left. Need one white bass.

Oh they just came after this.

Oh, she had a bite right at the end. Your one minute is up. Tell us what happened there, Christine.

Man, I had a little group of them right there, and yeah, I didn't catch them.

They came after it.

But like I said, I've caught two here in the last couple of minutes. I think, I think, I I think they got smart to what I was doing.

Okay, they knew you were now on the show and not just pre fishing for the show.

Sang thanks.

I've probably just thrown that I've been catching these big small mouth on a big seven inch swim bait and under skipping in her docks and around some what a cover.

I probably just should have rolled the that I got.

One last question, Christine. Ten Killer Lake is known for a mythical freshwater octopus. Have you seen any evidence of the freshwater octopus this week?

No?

But I think isn't a unagi? Is an octopus? Isn't that Japanese unagi? That's one of my favorite, like shashimi things. So if I do find okay, let you guys know how that takes.

But I'd love to know. Not seeing any okay, the ten Killer octopus continues to be elusive. All right, Thank you for joining us.

Christine.

Good luck in the tournament this week.

Thank you, thank you.

Have you ever seen a kayak like that?

Man intense, like an arms race of kayaking?

Like all thanks, it's yeah, it's impressive. I mean there's guys that are like doing offshore blue water fishing in those things big time. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah.

All right, we're halfway through the show. Let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say?

Uh?

Yeah, Leland our guys, says cal What are you looking forward to most about BHA Rendezvous?

Oh?

Yeah, we got rendezvous coming up starting. I'm gonna be there all week. But it's June like fourteen, fifteen sixteen and Missoula, Montana.

Yep.

Great people, fantastic people. We got a bunch of stuff to recap. We gotta keep folks motivated on public lands. We got corner crossing cases is getting revived at this point. I kind of feel like we should be thanking iron bar holdings because they just keep it. Yeah, because now it's going to the highest court in the land, which means corner crossing is going to be legal everywhere for certain and it's gonna be on their dime, which is great.

What's kind of the general temperature on that right now? Are people optimistic that they're going to side with the hunters and public land users?

Well, you know, politics shouldn't come into play and stuff like this, right, Like a judge is supposed to be impartial. But I think that is the idea is that they're going to lean way more conservative and they're going to somehow turn it into a private property rights thing, where I mean, it just is not right. It's like you're

Yeah, that's the thing is, like the Supreme Court has to find a good reason to not agree with the decisions that were already made. Yeah.

I think there's a high likelihood that the Supreme Court is going to be like, this is not worth our time or the taxpayer's time to review this. We defer to the lower court.

So you expect there to be some chatter about that at the bha Rendez vis Yeah.

I mean we'll have some panels on all the policy stuff, and that's a huge reason that people show up. Me say like here, you get to follow your cash in person, right, become a member. This is what you're paying for, this is what we're working on. Here's all the issues that we're working across in North America. Plus there's really good food and just it's it's a refreshing kind of refill your cup type of experience. It's not draining like some of these events that we all put together are so.

And Missoula's a good place to be in the summer.

Zula's a great place to be in the summer.

What else you got?

Phil H. Spencer.

I don't know if you watched the show last week, but there was some debate about if they prefer the free Wheel and Yanni show or the professional, you know show that that you run. We've got a lot of people asking for for random for hunting stories, for meandering hunting stories, anything new you haven't shared yet.

I'm just trying to balance the shows out. You know, if we sat around and I don't want us to just talk about hunting stories every week. So I'm trying to be the ying to Yanni's yen.

And I think I think that's good. I think I think it should be a different show, different flavor based on.

Who's host is.

I'll tell you this, Yanni is back in one of the host chairs next week. He's on a hunt right now. Some ex so expect some hunting stories then. But in the meantime, Cal Brody anything to share.

No, man, hunting season's over for me for a while. It's fishing season now, garden season.

Yeah.

On that note, Sebastian says, two days left of turkey hunting in New York, running gun or sitting Wait.

Go find them, Sebastian, New York's a big.

State, Like, gotta know a little more.

I mean, if you're already on birds, I would say sit and wait, especially this time here and things just are slowed down. Yeah, if you can get them to talk to you one time, I'm like, Okay, they know we're here. It's kind of like the best best move you can make.

So but this late in the year, there's probably a lot of vegetation for you to be uh sneak sneaking around in what.

Else you got For another one from Sebastian, any update on the venison beef jerky contest.

Oh yeah, kind of. It's probably not gonna happen, Sebastian. The suits here at Meat Eater said we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't invite folks to send us food that we're then going to eat, because someone's gonna get poisoned and then we're gonna wind up in a lawsuit. So I think we're maybe working on a pivot. I pounded the table hard for us to do this. The idea being that we're gonna, you know, bring in thirty venison jerkeys

Russell says he's going out for Idaho Spring Bear June thirteenth to fourteenth, a little later than usual. Should I not use the distress call? Or yeah? Should I not use the distress call? Or stay with it? He says he always spots and stocks, but this lady's looking for a cruising boar cal Man.

Yeah, that.

Believe me.

I don't plug stuff just to plug stuff, but that phelps fawn and distress call. And you just make it sound like in your mind you want to crying human infant.

Like sick and dying human infant.

Yeah yeah, and you gotta have that.

Do you have that in your mind as you're hitting that call, and you are not going to see like a crazy amount of action, but it weeds out smaller bears. So you're either going to get a big sal or very confident and should be large.

Bore happening right in your face too.

Yeah yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I'm not afraid to scream on that thing.

Love it.

Find yourself a sick baby Russell.

All right, one one more quick one? Cody can film make a new drop for the trivia tiebreaker question. I think you're a You're a plant from Spencer Cody because he's also asked for that, and I think I've got I've got some spare time in the next couple of weeks, I'll try to knock one out.

Okay, yea. The people are looking forward to it now. He's made a promise on air so it's going to happen, all right. Moving on, joining us on the line, last is brock Wall, the founder of the newly formed North American Pronghorn Foundation. Brock Welcome to the show, thy.

Guys, Thanks for thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah, we are too. Then, the North American Pronghorn Foundation is the only conservation group that's dedicated to antelope. Tell us about how and why it was formed.

Sure.

Yeah.

At first, I would like to say too that there are a couple of state based conservation groups dedicated to pronghorn in Arizona and South Dakota or the two that I know of, but we are indeed the only nationwide one that is focused on pronghorn throughout North America the entire continent. So I just wanted to make sure that those those state based groups get some some love there. But we really got started on Randy Newberg's Hunt talk form. There was just kind of a conversation that took place.

And what are the current initiatives of the North American Pronghorn Foundation.

Well, right now, you know, we're still new, so we're just just over a month old. We went live on April twenty first here of this year, and so so far the things that we've been focused on are trying to get some policy comments out there in for some BLM style for some migration corridor designations, and then we're also working on trying to set up a fencing project

Data shows that prong horn populations are down about twenty percent across the entire continent over the last few years. Talk to us about what the greatest challenges they're facing is and why that might be.

Yeah, there's a few things that pronghorn are really struggling with, and one is winters, obviously, and I think, you know, you probably wouldn't be correct to say that, well, there's not much we're going to be able to do about winters, and that's true. However, you know, it's when we highlight the fact that winters are increasing mortality. There's a couple of variables there that I think are really important to point out as to what is making those winters, you know,

Now, I saw that your first policy action was to support the removal of feral horses from Blm Land in Wyoming. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so I know this can be a controversial issue and We certainly don't want to be insensitive to the folks that are really big horse fans. I mean, we have nothing against horses. My uh, I grew up with horses. My mom was was really big into horses, and so I'm used to being around them. But you know, it's pretty hard to deny and there's a lot of you know, published peer reviewed research that supports this idea that you know, wild horses or feral horses can be really hard on

Brock.

I just spoke with the rancher in California who's got a native population a pronghorn on his ranch, not huttable, but he's going to join us at field Table this year at Rendezvous, so you got to meet up with him and talk. He's actually has a fencing business where he goes through and does some of that mitigation work for wildlife passage.

Very cool. Yeah, I'd love to meet him.

Yeah, Brock. I also read you say that Wyoming has some of the best infrastructure in place for antelope and some other states need to catch up. What does that mean exactly?

Well, I don't want to make that sound like you know, the other states aren't doing or pulling their weight. I think part of what we're observing here is just the fact that Wyoming is sparsely populated, which gives them a little bit of advantage when they're trying to deal with some of this stuff in terms of wildlife and habitat. But you know, they really have devoted a lot of resources.

Last thing, how can listeners support the North American prong Horn Foundation.

Right now? You can go to our website which is pronghorns dot org, so that's pronghorns with an S dot org and that is our website. You can buy memberships there. You can go to our merch store and order T shirts and hats, things of that nature. And then we also have an Instagram which is napp Official so napf Underscore Official, and then you can look us up on

Again, that is Pronghorns dot org. Brock, thanks for joining us, and thanks for sticking up for anelope.

Thanks for having me. Guys appreciate it.

Cal It's been too long for us to not have a prong horn federation or foundation at a national level.

Yeah, I mean for such a crazy, iconic, unique native species, like truly native, it's really wild. Once you understand how pronghorn are managed differently state to state, or you could say not managed at all state to state, it's like a giant loophole. So putting some more more focus getting

Again, that's longhorns dot org. Consider joining the North American Pronghorn Foundation. All right, last thing for today is the Hot tip Off.

Turn your head and give what's that face?

I don't have any hot tip's salty.

Hot tip off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice, and after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one minute video on your phone and email it to Radio at the medeater dot com with the subject line hot Tip Off. This week it's Matt Short versus Ben Hunter, and they're competing for a copy of Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars paperback edition as well as an m k C Flat

Are you guys even voting or is it the.

Listeners vote?

But this is like very identity politics.

Maybe Steve can sway their vote.

I think I thought we were weighing in, Corey.

Everybody can weigh in in.

But I'm the judge, right If I'm not, I mean, am I to say or not to say?

Listen? What do we think?

I'm a parent? Too?

Man?

I got rights.

We're gonna let the chat decide, Like that's my truth. We're gonna let the chat decide. Those of folks are gonna before we go.

Both of the people that are competing, get a copy.

Not just okay.

The real prize is the second right here that they're gonna give to their kid, and so their kid can remember.

Tell your kid cut towards your body.

Uh huh. So, Steve, you're gonna need to watch the screen behind you. Phil, Phil is gonna play these hot tip offs. Take it away, Phil. Benjamin Hunter. Wow, my name is.

Benjamin Hunter, and he has a hot tip taking kids fishing.

Make your own moors.

Go to the thrift store and buy some cheap spoons from the silver aisle. Then go home and cut off the handles with a hacksaw. File off the sharp edges, and droll hole about an eighth of an inch from each in. Now that you have should look something like this. Now attach a split ring to each end and put a trouble hook at the bottom. Tie it off to your line and go fishing. Not only can this be an effective lure, but it is also fun to catch fish on a lure you've made, it's.

Gonna be hard to beat that the other one.

Well. Matt Short, Hey, what's up meat? Eat to crew. My name is Matt Short from Firestone, Colorado, and he is a hot tip every parent knows that the success of their outing with kids is dependent on keeping them fed, warm and dry. But nothing will end your family fishing trip, day, hike, upland hunt faster than a bathroom emergency gone wrong. I can't even count on my two hands how many times my own kid's inability to judge when their next valve

Steve thinking a tie.

You only got one knife, man, we're gonna have to find another one. I'll give him one of my personal knives out of my personal box and knife.

You're gonna pick Matt poop bag over the little kid who's making his own fishing lue.

Well, I like the kid because he's cute. Yeah, the whole thing's cute. It's just cute. And I'll get out the whole thing making lures. The fact that the kid presented, well, yeah, I love everything about it.

Okay, that's good.

I mean it's all good.

Normally, what would have happened Normally I would watch and out belittle one of them.

I mean I would be like that. But they're they're so strong.

You're in a good mood today.

No, And they have noy components, right, the material is so strong, uh huh.

And and notice the guy with the poop bag. He's also getting into cleanup. He's not like, hey, scrabs the toilet paper because then you just leave it behind. He's bagging it up when it happens in an inopportune location. There's no way that I can in good conscience.

That's why the Chad is going to vote. Oh, Phil, is the chad voting?

I'm voting for the kid.

I didn't put up an official poll. I can if we've got like, uh yeah, give a minute, I'm going.

To bring on personal knife for my personal stash.

Wow, and who Benjamin?

This new one's yours?

Sure that's the kid?

Right?

Yeah?

Yeah, I don't wouldn't it be more special for the kid to have Steve Ranella's knife though, Oh there you go.

He could sign it.

I don't care. I'm just not picking between the two.

I would vote for the kid because he's a kid. Because he's a kid.

Yeah yeah, but that's identity politics.

Brody, Brody, who you voting?

I'd vote for the kid because I'm not down on the other one. You can always dig a hole. And honestly, man, I don't know how many times that's actually happened to me with my kids, what.

Like a total like, oh my god, Brody just makes me eat a bag of cheese curds. It's we're gonna fish all day, eat the sack of curd's.

Not like something that's happened to me enough times to.

Like, well, if I came down, listen, did I come down?

Here?

Are we whistling Dixie?

Or?

Am I the judge?

Oh?

You can be the judge, it's all you.

I'm gonna send him a private personal knife the kid. The kid gets the nice, fancy new knife. I'm gonna send the guy. I'm gonna send him something for my personal stash.

Uncle, cal what do you think? Who would you pick?

Man? I I like them both a lot. They're super prepared, and if I had to pick one, I like the recycling and the packing in packing out stuff too.

He's not swayed by the kid being a kid. Today's kids are tomorrow's enemies.

Oh that's what they say.

Yeah, I have a run.

I'd like to shove that kid down when I see like, why camp because it's easier now when he gets big?

Why camp?

The community and forest parenting?

Now?

Granted, I think that, like if everyone had the same attitude about the poop thing, like adults are bigger culprits and kids, I think.

Yeah, bigger poops, like the kid. I love kids, I mean I got most of them. Yeah, I mean like most of the time. I like like, I like like, I like the idea of them, I like mine most of the time.

Love them.

He did a great job, presents well all right materials.

After thirty seconds left of him, I.

Just can't disrespect the dude. So let the kid win. Let him win. He wins. But I'm sending the guy a little something from the private stash, and he gets a book.

Anyway, There's there's a good reason I'm not a dad, but it's hard for me to fathom pick it up. A kid's poop out in nature. Oh no, thank you.

I got a story interesting, not mine.

Listen, after you change a few diapers, I'm not either. You get poop under your fingernails and it's like a big deal.

Do I really only have thirty thirty?

He was.

Tell quick story.

So one time when I was in high school, we got a job where there's a guy building a loghouse and he bought there's this old farmer, old man Burns, and he had a big red pine plantation, and he bought all these red pines from mister Burns who one time on his farm. This is a little side story, a bullet killed a kid on his farm.

One time. Wow, yeah, bull killed a kid on his farm.

Like stopped on him.

So before my time, this is a deep past. He was a pumpkin farmer. I used to go and help him load the pumpkins and drive him down because he's hold him to the local grocery stores. Anyhow, this guy buys these red pines from him, but he needs him cut and hauled out and stuck in a field. So

One hundred.

Trees five bucks a tree. Well, we get done, and we had popped a hole as well as Brian filled tires. We'd hit a stump and put a big hole in the Brian filled tire. We get all done with the job and he informs us, hey, we're even. Oh no, we're even because it costs so much to buy a new tractor tire.

How old are you?

High school? We go home and tell our dad and that is just not acceptable to our dad.

Our dad gets him on the phone and say, here's what's gonna happen with this five hundred dollars. And then my dad says to us, he's waiting with your five hundred dollars at the job site. So we go to the job site and he's got to go his five hundred bucks. But you know what, the main thing, our main takeaway was he happened to be there with his grandson, and his grandson had just shad his pants, and as we show up, he's trying to clean up the grandson.

Oh you got him, he had a clean up.

Yeah, like ha ha ha. Right now, I've done that myself. I don't know how many times.

Oh so you you had something coming to you then, But I just felt like a punishment worse than losing five hundred bucks would be to clean up with child's feet. And then then I had kids, and then we just eat it now like it that you're just drowning in it. You're drowning in it, man, not anymore.

You were telling me how great kids are.

With you.

You were just telling me how great kids are.

For a while, and you just it's just everywhere, It's on everything, wiping on your pants.

Oh yeah, nouro virus every other week.

Now, I love that kid though. That was great. Thanks for having me down.

With seventy two percent of the vote, Ben, the kid wins landslide.

But we had a lot of.

People in the chat basically agreeing with Steve saying that the poop bags probably a more practical helpful tip, but the kid kicks ass.

So yeah.

Well as the guy who had to filter through about a dozen entries for this, well, thank you everybody, but this was tough.

Next time, we can't. We should mix kids and adults. We should do kids an adults, kids against each other, yes, yeah, yeah, Survival of the Fittest, Lord of the Flies, and.

Then eventually you could see if there's a bracket system where the kid could out compete.

The adult kids, put the kids against each other.

Well on, Ben, Well done, Matt, thanks for sending those in. Steve, you got time to stick around for the chat.

Sure, okay, I've having a time of my life.

Oh okay, great, Phil, what questions you got? This is the end of the show. We'll answer a few questions and Steve is gonna stay around to.

Yeah, if you have any questions for Steve, get him in there right now. You don't have a lot of time. I would say, let's see uh Leland our guy once again. Favorite way to prepare rainbow trout and Steve. If you've got something, Oh, you know, it's a lot of fun.

There's a there's a dish called it's in French, will be blue trout truth all blue, truthdall one where you you drop them, it's gotta be real fresh and brand new. It's gotta still have its nice color. And you make this this heavily vinegard like poaching liquid.

And for whatever reason, I don't understand the chemistry of it when you when.

You drop that brand new fresh trout and like the French will do it where they'll drop they'll they'll like stun the trout and do it. You gotta do it that fast, and the trout turns blue. I'm not kidding you, it turns blue electric blue. Okay, if it's like some old trout has been tied to a string out in the creek, you know it's not gonna do it. But it's got that one in the smoker ye truth doll blue is a lot of fun just to just to watch the thing happen.

It's like a traditional like gut them, leave the head on stuff there, tummy with lemon and herbs, and it just makes fun, just looks nice. Yeah, cal brody, anything.

Down tinfoil packets. I mean, leland of your program, You're you're running a bunch of volunteers out there. I have an assembly line with tinfoil.

Packets like yep, lemon, slices of lemon, A lot of butter, a lot of butter.

My dad used to They used to talk about wrapping them and leaves and then packing them in mud and cooking them.

Oh that's cool.

Yeah, I'd like to try that sometimes.

Fill else.

Trey asks, Well, first, he says, I love having bears on my land, but they're starting to tear feeders down. What can I do to keep them around but not have them tear things up?

Remove your feeds?

Oh?

Is he talking about deer feeders?

He's talking about trying to feed deer be my guest.

Well, I don't know if you're gonna dissuade him from that man? No way too, because you ever see that time they took that dead deer and electrified.

It orizzy bears like.

Fives likedow just like eventually he just gets the deer.

Yeah, eventually it just gets angry enough to where he's like, I'm just gonna take it.

He starts unplugging stuff. Yeah.

I think if you love having them on your land, you're just gonna have to learn to coexist with them. If you got deer feeders out, what.

Else you got?

Phil uh Mogor asks Steve, when was the last time you went on a hunt? Uh without cameras?

Or last week?

Yeah?

I think people think that you are constantly being followed by by cinematographers, But you go, you're you're out there all the time.

Yeah, mostly I mean out with my kids so a ton, but generally with my kids. But we just got back from hunting.

How'd that go? Great?

My boy got his first bear?

How many more bears died on that hunt?

Our party had three?

Okay?

Well yeah, our little group had three, but we weren't all together. I was there for two of them. I was present for two when I was three hundred yards. Everything went well, Oh yeah, a great time bade You.

Guys saw some some bear love making on that trip, didn't.

We killed two boars that I was there for one, not for the other one. That that we watched the a boar breed us out for twenty minutes.

I'm not kidding you.

You think people thick like like I'm saying twenty minutes, like meaning it was seven, but I'm saying twenty we watched a boar breed us out twenty minutes.

Did the twenty minutes end when the boar was shot?

Or no, I don't know why he walked away and started feeding?

Okay, and you don't know why he walked away?

No, I mean I since I don't know why he walked away. But they would like like.

It was I don't know, I haven't watched enough, Like the first one they watched, the sow was receptive. In this case, it was hard to tell like what level of receptivity there and what level of sort of like just so there's like a lot of display and a lot of foreplay well like like fitting, I don't know, like fitness, Yeah, like you're like testing fitness. You're like she's like sussing out the cape whatever. A lot of like theatrics there were sometimes like our our My initial

Then eventually I'm like, oh no, it's like a mating ritual.

Surprised it was that ambiguous that it because they were through there was they were obscured.

You can just see like a lot of black, like you know, you know. But but once we got clear, I mean we were like we were we were sixty yards.

Your comment about like perceived time versus actual time, Yeah, I ran a little experiment during Turkey season, and because you're always like, you're like, all this major saga is playing out, and and how you know, we got to allocate the right amount of time to this and when to move, and went out to move. So when I struck the bird, I hit the timer on my phone smart yep. And then and then we have this huge saga like no calling and not responding and what the

Man, and it felt like way exactly.

It's so painful.

You're getting ready to walk somewhere else, go go get the truck, not somewhere.

They Let's do a couple more before we close this out.

Yeah, sure thing.

Uh.

Nick says question for Steve, and he plans to do some upland hunting in the near future. And I would rephrase that by saying, Steve, what do you have against upland hunting?

Does hunt blue grouse count Yeah?

Yeah, absolutely, Okay, boy, we can't.

We did some camping this past weekend and those blue grause were doing their thing. Oh yeah, everywhere, man. But I was trying to get my boys to sneak up on them. And that noise is so like you think you know right where they are. You go there and then you're like.

He's over there.

Go over there, and you're like he's over there.

You just feel the noise.

Yep, he's struggling with this four wheeler again.

Yeah, yeah, we're a When I was with my little boy Matthew, there we were in a cool spot where you could hear blues and roughed at the same time.

Yeah, we had, and I was like, it's like, no, he's doing that with his wings. Yep, he's doing that with his mouth.

You know.

Yeah. I like hunt blue grosse a lot.

Let's do one more, Phil, Sure there was a favorite summer lure for large mouth It's from Bradley.

We're in Montana. That's a tough on crawl.

Yeah, favorite if the if it or top water friendly conditions. There is nothing more exciting and freshwater fishing than watching a large mouth, uh just explode on a frog. So can I give something that's my favorite?

I give one from nineteen eighty five. Please.

Back when I was a boy.

When I was a boy, the thing that we most coveted in life was like you get those pre rigged be a purple crawler, well the orange spot and the three hooks, the three hooks on it, and it had a snelled loot like you know, and you'd see them in the bait shop for like seventy nine cents.

Dude, that was the lure.

That was the lure man we called you must still make a crawlers, you go. So Bradley favorite again would be something anything top water. But if you just want to catch bass, throw a spinner bait or a that's like fil Like Steve said, all right, that's the end of this show. Next week, The Meat Eater Movie Club returns with hundreds of beavers. You can stream it on twov, Pluto TV, Amazon Prime, Free V, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. We'll see you guys back here, same time and place next week. Thank you.