Smell us now, lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia Podcast.
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain time. That's neon o'clock for our friends in Oaker River, Manitoba on Thursday, June fifth, and we're live for Met Eater Hqan Boseman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Jannis and Randall. On today's show, we'll recap Yanni's bear hunt and Randall's turkey hunt. Then we'll interview owen Bach Huber
about Project Rattlecam. After that, Meat Eater Movie Club, we'll review its strangest film yet, followed by a fishy hot tip off, and finally, Kayak angler Christine Fisher will join us for some one minute fishing redemption. But first, before we hear about this successful bear hunt and successful turkey hunt, I have a listener feedback prompt for those folks who are joining us live. All your questions today give him to Phil. Let's let's make every Phil's gonna answer everything
Phil doesn't know about this. Ask Phil like the hardest video game level he's ever played? Is, what his favorite cover song is? What his first card was? Phil is always getting all kinds of questions. But but he doesn't want to throw himself into the spotlight.
Is uncomfortable.
He ignores those questions that people send. But today we're gonna make him address those questions. So just direct your questions at Phil. He's gonna answer them. This is gonna be phil feedback.
All right for this Thursday, Let's do it.
Okay, he's he's mildly on board.
I can't wait.
I'm also excited. All right, let's talk about the bear hunt Yanni, big old dead bear in Manitoba. How to go down?
H the actual kill? How'd that go down?
You want to hear the story however you'd like.
There's a lot to tell. Okay, let's see some photos that will help. That will help me.
Yeah, jog the old memory.
Along we baited. Oh wow, that's Craig McCarthy of North Mountain Adventures seeing his wife Melanie. They run a great outfit. Hi demand though, if you want to book a bear hunt, you can't get in there until twenty twenty nine. I found out.
Twenty twenty nine. Geez man, are are resident tags guaranteed in Manitoba?
Yes, okay, yeah, so they can hunt as much as they want.
Have you been planning this trip since twenty twenty one.
No, their demand has just increased with a little bit of day with a little meat eater exposure, but a little bit. But they've also just been crushing it, doing a good job. Like I said, it's a great outfit.
It's the quintessential family run outfit. Like you are your stay in a cabin, but when you go have a meal, you're in their house having meals with their kids, who are both lovely, full on and they wouldn't feel bad if I called them like this, but their kids are getting to grow up, barrel and it made me sort of like rethink what I'm doing with my kids. They got a creek running through the backyard. The girl rolls in with like three creek chubs on a line, all
muddy and dirty. What are you doing? I'm gonna do with those? I'm gonna chop them up and cheap feed them to the chickens.
You know, maybe that was your bear bait.
No baar bait was as you can see in those barrels, oats and corn doused with used fryer oil and then sometimes a few extra sweets. Dainties. They call him up there in that part of the world.
Yanni is showing us a photo that looks like he's hunting in a zoo. There are two black bears ten yards behind a side by side who are waiting for the baits to be deployed.
Yes, and I have videos, but side by side that canm is parked exactly where it is, and I'm leaning against it where Craig's standing there, and one of those two bears in that picture are eating from the top of the barrel, licking the grease off, like from me to you. So baiting really works, And what's cool about it is that, you know, because not everybody wants to be like, oh it's so easy, Well, there's a lot
of work that goes into it. You know, you got to bait them up first, get them excited about it. They only start baiting, interestingly enough, about two weeks before season starts, so it's not a year round thing. It's not a long baiting season. It's just a couple of weeks. But the cool part about the baiting is is that you really get to watch bear behavior which is super neat like spot sock hunting. You're never gonna sit there and get to hear all the little nuanced noises that
they make. They have these very like Star Wars Wookie like sort of many growls that but it almost sounds like when they go into hyperspace and you get that kind of sound right when they're flying those bears, when another bear is approaching and getting getting a little too close, you just hear this.
Like.
Is that how they sound?
Phil, I'm sure in one of the trilogies it probably sounds something like that. That's not the first sound I would make, but you know.
Well, maybe it's not. Maybe it's not hyper space, maybe it's some other sort of that.
It sounds kind of like, yeah, tractor beam or when the Millennium Falcon is breaking down and it kind of.
Goes Wookie adjacent.
Yeah, oh yeah, that's it. Yeah, when they're whatever is powering the Millennium Falcon is like sort of powering down and they're like hitting the butts and knock and stuff.
There fills index of movie sound effects over there. You could hear Yanni's impression and knew exactly what it was.
All right, what else we got?
So?
Yeah, bear baiting was cool. It works good. You get to check them out. We hung beavers. Beavers, for whatever reason, are so attractive. Oh yeah, that's the one there where you can see my butt. That's the one where I'm super close to him.
Yeah, we're watching Yanni and a bear look at each other from how far? Like ten steps?
Not even like I could have reached out three yards.
Okay, you got long arms. Is there anything else that bothers their bait piles?
Not too much. I was surprised that there wasn't more stuff coming in, like you'd see a few bears, maybe a squirrel would roll through. But yeah, and the pictures didn't really you know, we weren't catching skunks and other stuff, but the beaver. He said, he'll have deer carcasses, bear carcasses, and the bears are indifferent, but beaver carcass. They won't even look at that barrel full of corn oats, friar oil, doughnuts, croissants.
They love the beaver. Craig thinks it's because it's one of the first foods available in the spring, and they're taught that that, you know, by mom. They go to a beaver run and just sit there and you know, catch catch beavers. So the first night at beaver was just hung on a tree ten feet up. First bear comes in, runs up there, gets it, runs off. You listen to them eat it for the next couple of
hours in the bush fifty yards away. So I'm like, well, we got hang this beaver better, right for more entertainment. So one night we did sort of like a like a high linele you like tie off a horse too, and had it in the middle, but they really had no way to get to it, and they must have known that because they kind of were like, yeah, we'd look at it, smell it, we're not messing with the Next night we did it more of like how you hang food. We just throw it over a limb and
it was maybe four feet out. That got their attention way more. They were like, oh, they could like touch the rope and then they could see that it was attached to the beaver. But still the first two gave it like two minutes and we're like, we're gonna go to the barrel, and he eats the stuff in the barrel.
Third bear comes in, he's like, screw the barrel. Spends an hour trying to figure out how to get that beaver down up the tree, down the tree, going to the next tree over up that tree, walking out on the limb, like, came over to our tree, came up halfway up our tree and was like, dude, I'm getting frustrated over here. Get that beaver down. Went back down.
Eventually grabs there's a video of this, grabs that yellow rope that the beaver's hanging by with his teeth, then gets it in his claws, goes to the base of the tree, lets it go, and the beaver sort of you know, it's been pulled up and it slides down stops. Now. I don't know if he knew that or she that if you did that enough time, something would give. But basically he did that five times in a row, and
eventually the little noose that we had around the beaver popped. Yeah, at that point we were rooting for him because an hour into it, I'm like, man, I should just go down there and cut that thing down for that guy. He deserves to get that beaver.
What was the movement like almost exclusively morning and evening or are they were also rolling in at one pm?
They're according to the moul trees all day long, but the mature bores, it's a it's an hour of power thing. Last hour I shooting light ended the day that I killed my bear, and I think at ten twenty and I killed my bear at ten oh six. Damn yeah, I know, definitely the latest animal I've ever killed, I think, unless I miss forgetting something in Alaska. You know Alaska, you could kind of hunt that lad too. But it was cool because we had seen a bunch of bears.
It's getting late in the day, be at that point that was the most we had seen. I think we've seen saw two cubs, the four one hundred and fifty pounders that are like this guy that's in the video.
Now you can and see the video that Yanni is referencing on the med Eater podcast YouTube channel. Check out the episode's media to Radio Live.
And then we saw like a lanky six footer but he just wasn't thick. And then it was cool is we could just barely see out to this field that was had just been dis maybe so it's just dirt, and you could see bears every now and then, and then eventually they'd kind of show up at the bait. So you see like Mama and she was this real pretty cinnamon and she had I think this one was the one with three cubs. She had like a black cub,
a cinnamon cub, and a blonde cub. And but like, with fifteen minutes of light left, I look out there, I'm like, man, that joker looks like he's got a little more girth to him, you know. And sure enough, when he got to the edge of the meadow where he's maybe sixty seventy yards from the bait, everybody at the bait scatters, cubs are going up trees, everybody's getting
out of there. This dude that finally had the beaver, he moves off like another fifty yards and this when this big sucker rolls in, and it was like the woods just went quiet, like he just rolled in. He was the man. But still then with such little bear experience for me, I looked back at Max. I'm like, is that the one I'm supposed to shoot? You know?
Like I didn't. I mean, ends up being a almost four hundred pounder seven a square seven and a half feet, had a twenty and three quarter inch skulls is that boot and Crockett twenty one? Yeah, so he's real close.
There, So you need to find a more generous measure, maybe.
Yeah, there it is. There's cracking out with the bear at the recovery and it was great. He only went like fifty yards. I'm guessing he was not alive more than thirty seconds. Shot him a six hundred grain arrow that was tipped with a two hundred grain iron wheel single bevel. Yeah, good shot, right through both both lungs.
Is that your first bear with a bow?
First bear ever? Oh? Yeah, first bear ever? Well, I killed one in my yard at mngus that had treed, but I don't really count that as it wasn't a hunted bear.
You know, you said that you asked Max if this was the one you were supposed to shoot. I assume then that they had like a rollodex of what bears existed in this set of woods.
Well, you have trailcam photos and videos right, sort of what's been showing up lately. But the thing was we were pretty late into May when we were actually there into June, and so the ruts definitely heating up, and so he's like, yeah, look man, like there's a sour round, there's gonna be boars rolling in. So there are these two and there was one that had a little white patch and there was the other one, which is the
one that I had killed off his bait. But he's like there could be a giant chocolate.
But they didn't have names. No liketron, no no jokers.
That was what Yanni called him.
They outfit pretty close to the boundary of a national park and it's I can't remember the acreage of the national park, but it's huge. And so they sort of have this, you know, sanctuary right next to him. And so they have this a constant replenishment of bears. So you really don't know who's going to show up.
What's what's their program in the far the guiding deer hunters as well.
A little bit of deer, mostly moose. I actually might go up and do an exploratory caribou hunt with him this I haven't decided that yet. I invited Clay. He was very excited, but it doesn't the dates don't work well.
I guess that on the back from Randall means nothing. That he just gave you a minute ago.
We can discuss Randal.
I think we have a great on camera dynamic.
Y yeah, I agree, I agree, it could be a good time. Exploratory means that another outfit that runs up there, has switched his business basically to all eco tourism. But he has the lodging and the equipment everything set up four caribou hunts, but he just doesn't want to do the hunting anymore. He's got just the same amount of money in eco tourism and doesn't have to deal with
skin and critters and you know. And uh so he's basically said to Craig like, hey, if you want to run it out of here, you can just give me a you know, cut off the top. And so Craig doesn't know anything about it. He needs pictures, he needs images. He's sure it's a good hunt. And I'm like, oh, well I could be here your guinea pig, you know.
Yeah, then maybe take Spencer and Randall with you. It's gone, we.
Could do already. We've already ditched me eat.
Roast reducts, battle north of the border.
We'll go.
We'll kill the thing and then cook it. Thank you.
Yeah, that look like a lot of fun. Oh it's a great, great trip. Man, We really got the whole Manitoba experience. Got killed on day three. We had two more days, so we got to go fishing for a half day, cooked an awesome bear meal. You know all this stuff about bears, whether you like them or not. And I'm in the same boat of being often being like, do I really want to kill a bear?
Oh?
They're kind of cuddly. Oh they're more curious or smarter than these other animals that we hunt or whatever. But as soon as I get to eating one, I'm like, oh, I should kill a bear every year, because like, we just did an overnight Brian and then slow roasted it the next day, and then like ninety minutes you go to baste it and it's got an inch of pan juice and there's just besides maybe a hog. But I don't care what fat cow elk you shoot. You're not going to get an inch of pan juice in your
roasting pan. No certain that animal or deer or care or whatever, you know what I mean. And I'm pumped.
Man.
I brought home a I brought home probably well over one hundred pounds of bear meal.
Okay, now you're gonna have a big old bear rug in your house in the office.
I haven't decided yet, man, I got a quote twenty five hundred for six footer and it goes up from there. So the seven footer, I don't even know holy what it's gonna be, but that's what. Yeah, that's what the going rate is right now. And h so I might just get her tanned.
Okay, seems like a lot, I know.
I mean that's half of another bear hunt to go on, you know, yeah, wow. But it's also like, well, when's the next time you're gonna kill a seven plus foot black bear? Nine? I don't have to draw. Yeah, you just got to get a spot before we move.
On here about Randall's turkey ONNT you said you wanted to talk about an argument you and Max, Yeah, toast versus.
Yeah, viewers can help us out too with this. So one morning, Eli Harris, whose new videographer Forrest Force on this strip, did a great job. He makes Max and I, uh, some tote in the whole breakfast, which is just when you take a piece of toast, cut out of a hole in the middle, crack an egg in it, fr it up. Max pours maple seers all over his and then proceeds to tell me that it's pretty much like French toast, and I'm like, you have kind of some of the ingredients are the same.
Half of them.
Yeah, but it's not French toast. It doesn't taste like French toast.
You don't make it like French toast.
Well, you frieday in a pan. That part is similar.
Is it closer to French toast or toast and a fried egg?
I would say toast and a fried egg. Even if you put maple syrup on toast and a fried egg, I would still say it's closer to toast and a fried egg.
It's very clearly a gimmicky way to make a toast and a fried egg. French toast.
It feels like it's for a child, Like that's what you'd cook for your eleven year old. To get outside about cereal hope.
See, I really enjoy a toad in the hole because I use a lot of I'm not saying a lot of a lot of butter, so that toast is just like extra crispy buttery. Anyways, Max is like it's pretty much French toast. Eli is like adding his French toast. You know what.
I wouldn't argue with either one of you. I felt like, no, I think you could have syrup on it. Not that wouldn't be offensive to me.
It's not offensive I'm just saying it's not French toast.
Not French tos.
Agree with you there, Yeah, not at all.
There's got to be some other weird regional names for that food that I'm not aware of.
The egg and the yeah and yeah, a French term.
I know, egg in a basket, bull's eye quote whatever, croaked to toast. What do the viewers say? Not even close to nest.
One of them says, is what it's called egg in a basket?
Okay, Yeah, looks like you got a quote on a on a rug. They're honest.
Someone, someone's gonna lower the price for you.
Oh yeah, tell any good tax numbers. They're big meat eater fans. D m me tell us about the the Cory's got a big bear rug too. We'll send.
And maybe a turkey customer tell us about this dead turkey.
Well, we didn't, Max and I didn't get into any arguments about breakfast food on our hunt. We actually didn't eat breakfast until after the turkey was dead because it got shot at shooting light.
Essentially, it's amazing you two shot your animals, probably like six hours apart or something like that, but one of you in the morning, one of you in the evening.
Yeah, yeah, and.
No, Max.
Max took me out. We found a We went to a property hees got permission on. We started, climbed up to a little ridge and drank some beers and gobbled and the turkeys gobbled back, and then we glassed one up. Then we found another one and we never saw him, but we went back and that night Max said, I had to make the decision about whether or not I wanted to go to the one that we didn't see or the one we saw.
Huh.
And so we played a quick game of chance and the one that we saw. And you know, I can't really do justice to this hunt, So Phil, I spent about nine minutes yesterday using the movie maker feature on my iPhone and would you just play play that? I think it my first turkey hunt. Max took me hunting with that one.
Oh you cut out the part of you running at the bird there. I like that, Thank you, sir. Thanks, it's Max crying in the background.
Three three, first gobbler, look.
At that sunrise.
Dude, what a great day.
Very nice.
You know what that reminds me of is when like on Sesame Street, they'll have kids like I went to the fact the candy factory we got to watch them make chok plan. There's just a bunch of b roll. Yeah, I was gonna.
I was adding this stuff to the drive, and when I was like manipulating the files on my phone trying to send them places, it was like, do you want to open this in iMovie?
And I was like, what the hell?
Yes, I would like, but I literally couldn't figure out how to change the text on the title or how to get rid of it.
It's not very just thought it was a really funny joke, but no.
I don't think you did justice to how you determine which turkey were going After.
We we flipped an empty es in canu in the in the truck as we drove onto the property, and it landed heads up or heads down, heads up, which was the ridgebird. Wow, bottom of the can was the house bird. So yeah, we hiked into where this thing was and about we didn't hear any gobbles, And ten minutes before shooting light, Max said he was going to start calling, you know, in fifteen minutes or so, So he's going to call just after shooting light to let
the bird come down. Then right after he said that the bird started gobbling. So Max waited a little while longer till it was shooting light and started talking back to it, and it came right in and Max coached me through it. And I don't know if you could hear it in that in that little cinematic treat, but Max actually just goes get him and that's when I shot. Okay, So I didn't realize he was filming me, but he
he sort of was coach. He's like, he's like, I just followed the sound with your gun barrel, so when it pops up, you don't have to move to get him. And so I shifted the barrel over slightly to where I last I heard it. And then there's a big fan in my face and then the fan goes away and this head comes up and they had turned sideways and then Max.
Goes shoot him and I gave it to him, great adle movie. Clay Nwcombe come in and he said that was a film.
Yeah, yeah, that's a that was a project.
I doubt that's the real Clay nuke on this spy just some dude signed in Clay Nukee.
No.
I hope it is Clay because he's been having a conversation with Brent, and Brent thinks it's class.
I will say that the hardest part of making that was figuring out how to do the voiceover feature, because then when it has you record the voiceover, you can't listen to the audio, so you end up talking over the things you want to hear. So I probably did five takes on that, which was maybe four and a half minutes of the eight to nine minutes I spent making it.
You nailed it, Now, what happened to the you were gonna Last time I saw you, you patterned a ten gage that you were going to use.
Yeah, but remember that that trigger didn't work.
No, you didn't remember that. I took trigger too heavy or too light or.
A double trigger, and one of them just doesn't reset. And I've gotten it to get fixed. I took it right back away. I took it right back from the shop, took it straight to the two seven seven shooting experiment. Cracked off one barrel. We were all impressed, and then I went to crack off the other one and just did the thing where you shoot a gun and you're anticipating the recoil and you just squirm. So it's fixed now, apparently, but I have yet to pick it up, so next year.
We'll get the next Are you are you going to go turkey hunting again? Did you have that much fun? Yeah?
I had a great time. I mean it was just like a fun morning.
You know.
I didn't suffer for it.
I didn't.
I didn't dream about it. But it was very fun to see someone who knows what they're doing, just like work a property and then work a bird. So I learned a lot and I see the appeal of it. We've eaten two meals out of it so far. We did a little Katsu chicken style turkey bowl and then we did.
Two comments I want a highlight. One of them is Clay Newcombe says, this is the Clay Newcombe, which is exactly what an imposter.
Yeah, I was going to say someone and then and then he also said a Kern spell too hard. Yeah, that's exactly what someone who wasn't Clay would say to make us think that they were.
And then someone else said, Randall Spielberg.
Randall Ford Coppola, that was another one.
There you go, first bear hunt story or excuse me, first dead bear story, first dead turkey story.
Yeah, well done, boy, a couple.
First, Hey, thanks all right. Moving on.
Joining us on the line now is Owen back Huber, a grad student from California Polytechnic State University. He's here to talk about Project Rattlecam. Owen, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. Owen.
First thing, tell us what Project rattlecam is.
Yeah, So, Project Rattlecam is a partnership between cal Poly and Dicketson College run by my advisor Emily Taylor and our partner Scott bo Back, and we use cameras to study snake behavior. So this actually started by using trail cameras at battlesnake dens to get a sense of what they were doing throughout the year. But they do so many cool behaviors right that we can't really capture that
with just still images. And so that's where we're using live streaming cameras now to broadcast these dens live to YouTube so that we can study them as well as share them with the public.
And what sorts of things can scientists learn from this twenty four to seven monitoring.
Yeah, so, as I'm sure that you know, just the presence of a researcher near an animal can have an impact on their behavior, and so a lot of our perceptions of what snakes are like and what they do are impacted by them responding to us right to see a snake. They might sit still trying to hope that you ignore them and move away. They might act defensively, and so what I'm studying is the social behaviors and
communication between the snakes. So we actually see that battlesnakes have friends, they have individuals that they prefer to spend time with, and they seem to have communication too. So they do this really cool head twitching behavior where they kind of bob their heads at each other as they approach, and we're trying to figure out what that's all about, what they're saying.
To each other.
Okay, you have more intimate knowledge about rattle snakes and maybe anyone else. So walk us through the average day in the life of a rattlesnake that lives in Colorado, which is the live cam that you guys have available right now.
Yeah, so.
These sites that we're watching are dens in that there are places where the snakes are hibernating throughout the winter, but now that we're getting into summer, it's turning into a rookery. So the snakes that we're watching right now are actually pregnant females who are going to stay here for the entire summer until they give birth later in the year. And right about now it is starting to hit the rocks. Things are warming up, so they're going to start to emerge in these rocks and basking the
sun to warm up their internal temperature. And the really cool thing is that these snakes, because they're not leaving the dam, they don't have access to any standing water, and so whenever it rains, they're really thirsty. They come out and they flatten themselves out like a saucer, and they'll actually drink the water off of their backs. So sometimes too, we'll see predators come through, like magpies trying to eat the baby rattlesnakes, and so there can be a lot of drama that ensues with.
You then tell us about some of the names the personality traits that these rattlesnakes have, and do rattlesnakes ever show up that you're not familiar.
With all the time. So there are dozens, if not hundreds of adult battlesnakes that are using the site, and so it's impossible for me to keep track of all of them. And just imagine when each female gets worth to eight pups in August, right, that number increases by an order of magnitude. So it's really hard to know who's all there. But the ones that we see the
most often are actually named by YouTube viewers. So if someone's watching and they see a snake a couple of times and they take screenshots, they can submit them to us and get naming rights to that snake.
And so some of them.
There's one who's a really charismatic male named Thor, and he's been sticking around. He's really desperate to find a mate. We see him courting a lot of females. He's even courted a couple of males, but we've never observed successful copulation.
Okay.
And some of the things too, are named after people's moms and dogs, and so they have really cute names to sometimes noodle names, you know, lasagna and ramen. So it's kind of a really fun thing. And you're seeing right now all these snakes kind of slithering out checking out each other. I can actually see that that's Thor in the bottom right there, because he has kind of
a roopy lip. He was bitten in the face by an ant and ever since he was in there, the venom must have caused lip paralysis or something, so he's got kind of this droopy lip still. Okay, Yeah, it's pretty amazing. You can see some of those babies in there hanging out with him as well.
You told us that Thor is charismatic, but it's because he is so desperate to mate with the other snakes. I'm amused by that description. What's the camera setup? Like case hunters, we're really familiar with trail cameras, but I assume the technology used now is way beyond that.
Yeah, so you're seeing the camera right now. It is a axis security camera that is powered by two eight foot solar panels, and then we have a big battery bank that's.
Up there as well.
And so because this is totally off grid, we have to use cellular streaming to get that to YouTube, and so it's quite the operation to get that all up and running. And we're actually just about to publish a paper on the whole setup, because before this we were kind of working on our own with how we were going to figure this out, and so we had a really great team of engineers here at cal Poly we're able to put this together for us.
And has your team had any close calls with snakes while setting up these cameras.
You know, as a snake biologist, I wouldn't characterize them as such. So you know there are snakes, quite a few of them there. When we go to set up the camera. We went earlier in the year when few of them would be out. Some of the snakes were still out right and kind of doing their things, but
usually they try to get away from us. We always make sure that we're wearing high boots right, so that if we accidentally did stuff on u snake and and see it, that would provide us some level of protection. And also you got to kind of make sure what you set down. So I went there last summer, and you know, if you set down your backpack, I was warned that a rattle snake might decide to make its home right underneath there, and sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
One of them decided to coil up, and so we just kind of moved the backpack gently and carefully and got that out of the way.
You mentioned magpies, but what other animals show up on these cameras near the dens.
Yeah, a lot of animals that your viewers might be familiar with.
So we've seen.
Long shelled weasels, and there's a whole lot of wildlife that we could see. But two really exciting ones that we saw this past year were an elk came up and actually put its face right in the camera and checked it out, and then we saw a porcupine two on the camera. So it's kind of a window into all of the nature that you could see in this area.
Tell us about some of the highlights. What are the best moments that your team is captured so far.
Yeah, Well, one of the amazing things is that we can watch the snakes at night, and so that's when we saw those other animals. But also it's a lot of times when the snakes are getting birth, and so last year we got to watch two pregnant females give birth live to their pups on camera and zoom right in see the snakes pop their head out of their amniotic sac for the first time. You can see the placentas.
It's all like right there in really high definition, and we can look so close at the snakes even that we can see bugs, and you might not think that bugs are that interesting, but we noticed these mosquito looking things kind of dancing on the snakes, and we didn't
know what they were. But when we contacted an entomologist who studied flies, he told us that they were these psychoded flies that were actually looked like they were recording females so that the female the male flies don't eat, but the females feed on blood, and so that the males were doing like a dance trying to lure the female flies to mate with them on the battlesnakes, which you know, there's no fly cameras, right, So but if we can zoom in really well on this, it's providing
a window to other people who are just it in totally different things too.
Yeah, and tell folks how they can support this work and how they can watch the rattlecam.
Yeah.
So you can learn more about us at battlecam dot org. And there we have a donate page where you can support our education programs and research and it also links right live to our YouTube. So project rattlecam is is the name of our YouTube channel where you can go and watch anytime.
Yeah, and I checked in four or five times this week and preparing for the interview. Every time I open it up there were rattlesnakes on the camera. I was very impressed. It's it's twenty four to seven action on those live cams.
It's pretty amazing. We had a camera set up in California, and the densities of snakes here just aren't the same. You know, we might see one to day or something like that, but this is a really impressive site where yeah, basically you can always see a snake.
Yeah.
And it feels more intimate too, because when I go look at like a live bald eagle cam, there's fifty thousand people watching. When I look at your rattlesnake camera, there's like twenty five people watching. So we need more shine on the rattlesnakes. Turn off the bald eagle cams, go check out these rookeries that they have a live look at. Thanks for joining us, and thanks for creating a special way for people to interact with wildlife.
Thanks so much. It's my pleasure.
Randall. I saw you making a lot of faces over here.
Not a big snake guy, yeah, not a big snake guy. Serpents. Give me the hebgb's I'm sure there's other folks out there that feel similarly.
Me too.
I get a cold shiver anytime I see when it can be the most harmless small snake. I was just mushroom hung a week ago, came across four of them. Every time I just like sends a chill from my ankle.
To my back.
Yeah, I hate it, hate it, hate it.
All right, we're having the show anything to him though, you know, I'm very excited for this. I get plenty of exposure. That's not the answer.
Good touches something in my deep caveman brain.
We're gonna get some listener feedback. I'm very excited about this because it's all for Phil.
Phil.
What do we got?
Oh boy?
Uh?
First one, let's see, let's starts. It's warm, warm people up here. I think I had one there.
Let's Fill's favorite band? Someone asked, Oh, yeah, my favorite band.
It's pretty close between Radiohead and an indie folk band from Portland called The Decembris. I love them dearly. Colin Malloy is a Montana native. The lead singer is also an author, and their songs are nerdy literary storytelling set to as music.
How many times have you seen Radiohead Live.
Radio had only once. They don't come here very often. I saw them on the n Rainbows tour in eight and it was incredible. I've seen I've seen The Decembrist probably a dozen times though, because they around the West Coast and and Montana.
All right, Phil, give us some more.
Phil, Let's see this is specifically for this one guy. I'm sure have you played Expedition thirty three yet? If so, what do we think? The answer is? Yes, I beat it. It rules my game of the year so far.
Wow. Phil.
Kingdom Hearts Guy. For those of you who don't know, Kingdom Hearts is a Japanese action RPG game that melds that was like a multiversal project that mixed the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney IP. It seemed insane at the time. I was obsessed with this game.
Aren't they unlike the twentieth edition?
Now?
Yeah, there's been many spinoffs, each one more insane and preposterous than than the last season.
It's still on.
There's commercials for during the NBA playoffs.
I don't think so. I don't know what they have commercials for.
Lebron does a commercial? Okay, game on a phone.
I was.
I was so obsessed with this game. It came out on my seventh grade picture day. I brought the I brought the case to my school and asked if I could hold it up in my school picture and they said no, and I will devastate it. Phil, I hyped you for GTA six, pretty hyped. I really enjoy the GTA games and I but I never get into online. I play the campaign, the story mode, I have a great time. It's it's a blast, a lot of fun, and then I put it away.
These are great. Give us some more films.
Okay, uh, quick hitters love it?
Oh boy?
I think I saw one that was like death Row Meal. I might have not started that one. But death Row Meal simple just a really good fish and chips with a tartar sauce and malt and malt vinegar and a multi beer, uh preferably. But I'm I'm really not picky. I had I'm not pick pit picky with who fish at all?
Who does good fish and chips? And Bozeman?
Oh, I mean, not not a lot. I'd say, like the Bocus is solid. I don't know if you guys have any of any tis the Boccus is like my number one go to in in Bozeman.
Is it goot Lawn? Is that the German like their fish and chip?
I haven't had it, but I love the idea of having it there because that you can get the big german German steins of beer. There's a couple more, Phil, What game are you playing right now? I just played Death Stranding in anticipation of Death Stranding two coming out
later this month. But also I was telling the boys in here before we started, I have an unboxed Nintendo switch to upstairs in my office and we can just turn the whole Q and A session into an unboxing video if you guys want to, Uh, let's let's let's let's call it there.
If he was going to have to share his switch to with those Torp children he has, what was your answer, Phil? No?
They they all they got their own switches for Christmas, and part of that was so when the Switch two came out it could be mostly mine.
Yeah, good parenting advice there from Phil.
Yeah.
And I'll do one one actual question for meat eater fans, And because the honest is here, Odie the Good Shepherd asks, how's mingus doing? And how's this training coming along? Kind regards on the other side of the pond out of Rotterdam in another ONLD.
That's a hell of a port. Yeah, a lot of traffic.
Yeah, what do they mostly move through there?
Whatever? Just shipping.
Okay, Mingus is doing it, doing great. Uh, he's kind of trained up. My main mentor says that Mingus is as much of a lion dog as he's ever going to be, and he's not going to get any better. But he's great right now. He does his thing. So yeah, we're we're having fun. Season's over, so we're you know, Mingus is waiting for December first.
At this point, how long will he be at the mountain top of his like best? I don't know lion hunting. Did they start to go downhill at some point? I suppose their physical fitness?
Yeah, But I think that the you know, the older the dogs get, maybe they get more efficient, Maybe it gets you know, smarter about how they run tracks. I thing, this doesn't seem to be a real genius, So I don't know if that's gonna happen with him. But I don't know. He's only four now. I guess there'll be five this fall, So I imagine he's got at least that many more good years in his prime.
All right, moving on, Our next segment is Meat Eater Movie Club. This week we're reviewing the twenty twenty two comedy Hundreds of Beavers.
I've just passed out a few scripts. Your lines are highlighted, Corey, if you'll begin.
Oh okay, Oh hold on, Corey, I gotta turn your mic on here.
They did not know about this was that you were you were intentionally leaving this at this very moment.
Yeah, this is why I was so concerned that the printer was working for me earlier. Perfect. So Corey, Yeah, your lines are highlighted.
Am I on?
Phil, You're on.
And also, for those of you wondering this, these other man sitting at the table, is he's Jake. He's gonna be He's our newest addition to the podcast team. He's gonna be doing some stuff for Radio Live after they're starting at the end of the month. So Hi, Hi Jake. Anyway, Corey, go ahead.
The setting is the podcast studio Meat Eater, Headquarters, Bozeman, Montana.
It's eleven one eight.
No, no, you're supposed to read it as if it's before the show. Just read it as written.
Jesus, A lot of work put into this.
It's ten twenty eight am on Thursday, June fifth, thirty two minutes before the recording of Meat Eater Radio Live Episode forty one.
Hey, good morning Randall, Good morning Phil the Engineer. Do you have all your jingles lined up for the show?
Yes?
All set on that front. Are you ready for me to eater Movie Club today? I think the whole movie club segment has played out. My monologues just get longer and longer. The tone has gotten darker and darker. The references are just too obscure. I think the jokes run it course, it's tired, and my heart's just not in it anymore. Well, at least we've got a great film to discuss today, right. I saw that the movie you've selected for this week as a score of ninety seven
percent on Rotten Tomatoes. What's it called, hundreds of Beavers?
Yes, that's exactly right, hundreds of Beavers twenty twenty two, directed by Mike Cheslick and starring Ryland Bricks and Coal Tews. And yeah, I was a little surprised by that Rotten Tomatoes score, as well as the critical acclaim I saw online.
Why so, Well, I just I'm not even sure what to make of the film. It was about trapping right loosely.
Well, no, it is in the same way that Space Jam is about basketball, or maybe just a little less than that. There's a man who begins as a drunkard, something to do with apples. It's also very cold out, and he catches some fish with his fingers, and then he spends much of the film getting hurt while trying to catch critters of all kinds and increasingly elaborate traps and schemes. Half the time his plans backfire spectacular but
large men in furry like beaver costumes are killed and skinned. Yes, and the plot does involve the accumulation of bodies of dead beaver men. But then the beavers hold a Soviet style show trial for the lead character before attempting to skin him and make a coat out of him. And there's a weird rocket ship at the end. It's partially animated. There's sort of a weird video game like quality to the whole thing. Ah, maybe it is more like Space Jam than I thought. And the whole thing's in black
and white. It's just a lot of weird stuff.
I don't know.
The chat might be disappointed with this segment today, but at least it's not because they had to sit through yet another heavy handed film analysis in Migrating Monotone delivery.
Oh man, wow, yikes, were there any highlights?
Well, the thing that immediately comes to mind is the sound design. Absolutely fantastic. Lots of rattles and crashes and whistles and bonks. Brought me right back to the golden age of Tinseltown. Above and beyond that, I guess I just admire the commitment of the whole vision.
The commitment to what exactly it's a comedy right, Well.
Yeah, I suppose it is, but it's not that simple. It's more like a chaotic, avant garde comedic experiment that defies the conventions of mainstream filmmaking in the twenty first century. Yet at the same time, it's clearly in conversation with a variety of cinematic touch points. It's got Slapstick's sensibility, like three Stooges and Merry Melodies. We see traces of the stop motion aesthetics of South Park and tonally, there's
a little bit of bert Ives Christmas specials. On top of that, the dramatic arc of the film is basically just a simplified version of the best eight and a half minutes of Home Alone. That is, the first Home Alone, the one where mccullay Culkin's character is actually alone at home and not at the Plaza Hotel in New York
City of course. Yeah, and throughout the whole film, the main character just grunts and makes faces surrounded by actors and animal costumes that are eerily reminiscent of the rabbit
figure in Donnie Darko. I also have to point out, only because it bothered me so much, that there's a brief nod in one scene to that terrible dogs playing poker, painting soft and displayed in suburban wreck rooms in American casual dining chains with friendly atmospheres, like, for example, Applebee's, TGI Fridays, Oh Charlie's and Chili's, or Benigans, But that's a more obscure reference because there aren't many Benigans around
in these days since the parent company, Metromedia Restaurant Group, was forced into an involuntary Chapter seven bankruptcy in two thousand and eight. According to Benigans, dot Com. Only six full service, free standing locations remain open in the US WOW, two in Texas, two and Iowa, one in North Dakota, and one in Illinois.
Although don't quote me.
On that because I don't know if those are corporate locations or if that's inclusive of franchises. Regardless, it's a striking number, considering at one point there were more than one hundred and fifty corporate Benegans locations.
My goodness, that's interesting to learn about how few Benegans there are in the United States. I guess I'd noticed that their footprint had shrunk considerably since I was younger, but I didn't quite know the backstory.
Yeah, but a growing part of the business now is a derivative quick serve, fast casual concept, Benigan's on the Fly that's geared more towards high traffic locations like food courts, airports, arenas university campuses. They offer fresh, innovative selections, as well as some customer favorites from the traditional Benigans menu, including the Monte Cristo and the Turkey Tools spencer your laughing stop stop.
I appreciate that information on Benegans on the Fly, which I hadn't heard of until just now.
Looking to the future, the company has plans to expand its already strong international presence, which includes multiple locations throughout Central America, as well as two in ball Rain two and Guitar two in Dubai, and curiously four in Cyprus. Coming soon, there's a location in Pakistan two. These are all full service locations, by the way, just like the original Betigans. God damn it, I got sad tracked last night prepping for this show by reading about the resurrection
of the Betgans. Brandon, I'm falling into the same trap again. We can't get distracted, Phil, We've got to figure out this movie club segment. Anyway, Back to the topic at hand, Hundreds of Beavers also includes these surreal sequences where reality just bends bends.
How picture this.
A wet piece of firewood is actually a log shaped pillow, so our hero is able to wring it out like a sponge. Or the fur trader spits his chaw of tobacco towards a spittoon, and then the plug just curves wildly through the air so it never lands in the intended receptacle until the very end, symbolizing the resolution of the conflict at the heart of the film. The physical universe of hundreds of beavers makes no sense, but somehow it works with its own hallucinogenic logic.
And this goes on for how long?
Well, I figured it would go on for about five minutes, but it seems like it's going longer than that. No, I mean the movie, oh, of course, an hour and forty eight minutes. I checked my phone a lot, actually, mostly reading about Bennigan's thinking we are surely near the end. But no, the movie just kept going. More encounters with people in animal suits, more elaborate failures, more falling in the snow, more rolling in the snow, more grunting, and more yelling.
Do you think Spencer and Giannis enjoyed it?
That's doubtful. I think it's too far out and left field creatively, speaking for Spencer's taste, and you're honess, Well, I know he appreciates good filmmaking and has a very open minded sensibility, but I'm not sure even he can make sense of whatever this is trying to be shit.
Sounds like movie Club might be a pretty tough segment. I'm pretty sure Spencer's got ten or fifteen minutes dedicated to it in the rerun of the show. The show will be recording in less than an hour.
Don't worry, we can fill it out somehow. Too bad, we can't include all of that good information about Bennigans. That's fun pre show banter, but not exactly what the radio live audience is tuning in for totally. The thing is, I can't shake the feeling that there's something profoundly lovable about the madness of this film, Like you've got to admire an unshaking conviction to an absurd premise. You just come up with something completely bonkers and take it all.
The way, so you respect it even if you don't fully get it.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Actually, I just love stuff that is genuine in its weirdness. There's no cynicism, there's no winking at the camera. There's just a bold, unadulterated fever dream of a concept that doesn't shy away from the gaze of the critic.
Well, what will you say on air? We're going live at eleven.
I wasn't quite it's sure before this conversation, Phil, but it's becoming clear and clear as we talk. There's an interesting tension here. On the one hand, put yourselves in the shoes of the makers of this film. You are truly inspired by a creative concept, so over the top, so wrapped up in its own bizarre vision, that you've
just got to run with it, and you can't half asset. Sure, sometimes it might leave yours wondering what the hell was that, But there's something joyful and beautiful in the deliberate insanity of it all.
Yeah, I get that.
On the other hand, if you're so committed to producing something in keeping with your own comedic sensibilities, damn the viewer, you run the risk of losing the audience's attention, maybe even earning its resentment. And point is, at that point, you're just doing it for your own amusement, completely for your own amusement. And here's the big question. Is that type of content just masturbatory, self indulgent on the part of the artist film or is it a truer expression of creative integrity that.
Well, geez, that's actually not a bad angle for movie club, assuming you're still talking about the film.
Precisely, my friend, precisely.
End scene, Wow, fade to black, Thank you, audience goes nuts.
Yes they are. I gotta catch my breath. I didn't have to read anything.
Oh man. I actually liked this movie more than I made it seem. I started working on this about halfway through when I wasn't sure when to make of it. But at the end of it it won me over. But I thought this was such a good bit that I couldn't let it go.
Randall, I am glad you didn't. That was spectacular broken.
Thank you so much, Broke.
I told you someone was gonna cry in this building today.
Randall correctly predicted someone would cry, and I have laughing tears.
Thanks to Mogor for a very strange film.
Yeah. I don't know how we had not heard about this film.
Well, it's very new.
It was.
It was only released and the two the star and the director wrote it and they released it at a film festival and then they I guess a studio attempted to distribute it and they just wanted it to go to like streaming platforms, and it.
Didn't even make it to streaming I think until like twenty twenty four.
Yeah, or something like that.
Yeah, I thought this movie was a lot of fun. I think like Randall said in his in his commentary, it's a little long in the tooth, but percent man, so many creative gags like it was. I couldn't believe just how much stuff was unexpected or genuinely funny. I'd say that the jokes worked more than they didn't for me, which is, you know, key to a good comedy.
Yeah, things I like, the music was great. To make any movie on one hundred and fifty thousand dollars budget in twenty twenty two is wildly impressive, so it felt like it far exceeded that. It also felt like an Adult Swim bumper from two thousand and six. And that's a compliment because the weird on those bumpers. If you're familiar, you know what I'm talking about. It's kind of limitless. Phil, I imagine you were really no idea. I'm lost. Y, you're a little old for that, Phil, explain.
Oh yeah, I mean it's kind of hard to explain. But Adult Swim had kind of shorter programming, so they would fill the just fill the space between shows with these kind of like short films and and just stuff that varied wildly. I think I think they just hired different crazy creative people to make just these these weird bumpers, like like Spencer said, this movie felt like one.
Of those to me, But you know, drug Out over two hours, which I think was too long. Yeah, we're in agreement there.
I had a line initially in my review where I said, and I did have to cut quite a bit out of this really.
Yeah.
I had a line in my review where I said, it seems like something I should watch and hold my attention for about five to ten minutes on the internet, and maybe ten to fifteen minutes if I was drinking. Yeah, but like that's that's sort of it. But I liked that they were just like, we're going to make a two hour movie.
This, Yeah, and this this felt like something that AI could not make, and that's refreshing in a world that feels like it's being swallowed by AI in this medium.
Uh.
The movie got a real laugh for me around minute one hundred, when the daughter gets on a stripper pool that was unexpected, which most things in this movie are. And then shortly after that a word gets bleeped, which was also wildly amusing because there's no dialogue in the movie, so a bleep felt genuinely out of nowhere. I think bleeps are always funny. You could you could serve me a bleep in any show or movie and I'm gonna laugh at it. But I got a real, real giggle
when that happened. Yeah, Yanni, did you watch this with anyone? You recording the idea of watching with your daughters and I don't. I don't know if you went through with it or not.
I did, but we started a little late last night, which means two things. One, we couldn't finish it. Kids had to get to bed for school, and I fell asleep for many parts of the first half. Been a long day, short night the night before Little Sauna. You know, I wasn't It wasn't. It wasn't really like, I wasn't set up to make it through a movie. But I kept waking up at giggles. So every time I wake up, I'm like, oh, I can't be too.
Your giggles are your daughter's giggles.
So my daughters are giggling at these, at the jokes that you know are slap you know, slapstick funny. I did finish. I probably watched maybe seventy minutes of it this morning, so I got to pick it up at the important part. You know, I got the gist of ith it. You guys are, We're all saying the same thing, but you have to give it almost thirty minutes just to sort of be like, oh, okay, I get it.
I'm immersed in.
I'm in now, because at first you're just like, wait a minute, what I thought.
The first thirty minutes could have been a five minute set up. Sure, and then it just begins with him.
Well, you could truncate the whole movie.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, the movie should be twenty five minutes. Yeah, but I mean the Beaver, the Man, the Giant Man made out of Beaver's great The Beaver Show Trial was fantastic. The I also liked when she's skinning the animals, like she is a legit little kit there of big curved, fleshing knives and stuff like that. And then the one I think it's the raccoon that she skins, she begins, I think she does something to its head, but then
she takes the arm and like breaks the joint. I thought that was hilarious.
This was filmed in Wisconsin and Michigan, I think so. I assumed they're from that part.
Of the world.
Yeah, so they like have some familiarity.
Yeah.
I mean it didn't seem subject like, it.
Seemed like people that knew what they were talking about.
I was gonna say, like, they don't give up on the slapstick. Like just when you think like they can't come up with something, you're like, oh, he just sneezed and this giant snot thing turned into an icicle and then killed something and the caster.
The castor mounds and stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, but they also don't give up on keeping like the trapping aspect legitimate. Yeah, Like like the scene where he's I think he first gets his the leg holds and he's like chucking him out on the ice and he chucks it one time and it's not proper and then it's upside down and he has to do it three times to you know, do it properly. You could have just as easily, Yeah, chucked it out once and the trap could have caught any animal right, no
matter how it came out there. But they were like, oh no, it has to flow out to this fake beaver right side up because otherwise, you know, the viewers are going to get mad that the trap caught this fake Beaver. Yeah, when the trap was upside down, I know.
There's like there's like attention to detailing it that I was won over by the end of it. I still if I had a director's cut, shave about sixty one minutes off it. Yeah, but uh yeah, you got to appreciate just going for it.
A couple other things I liked is they obviously did their own stunts, and there's at one point where he's like pushing a wooden box and then he falls into the wooden box and he gets out, he falls into it again and he nailed that part like that that was done really well. I also liked the idea of the Beaver dam is like a damn that is run by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Yeah, matter, a massive hydroelectric damn.
Things I didn't like, Yeah too long. I checked my phone a lot, and I was like, it's got to be about over and it wasn't. The other thing this isn't necessarily something I didn't like about the movie maybe just like the indie movie industry, is that this movie was showered with awards and I'm like, really, yeah, this was worthy of being nominated. I don't know, like fifty
times and winning twenty times. This could not have been one of the greatest things that humans produced in cinema in twenty twenty two, even in the niche indie scene. I was like mildly turned off by that. When I saw afterwards, I was like, I can't believe that people felt like this was one of the best things from that year.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like the movie didn't affect me in any way. I went through it, I walked away and I was like, that's what I watched for an hour, and yeah, I don't know.
I think I was marveling at the creativity more than more than anything, because I think I think that was unparalleled.
Yeah, yeah, I respect it. I respect it. I mean a strange, strange concept.
But is there is there a message?
I think their message was just like, look at the limitless weird that we can do two hours, and we can we can revive a form of comedy that has been lost with audio because it was it was like three stooges.
I had another line in here, and it was basically just uh, this was more an experiment to see if they could do this, like incorporate these different elements, like what if we did this, What if we did this? And then they just made the whole film without asking if it was something they should actually do.
This is like a classic hero's journey.
I also I cut another line out.
I had an arc.
The parent company, the parent.
Company for Bennegan's also owned Ponderosa Steakhouse, which explains where Pondero's a steakhouse, or as we called it when we used to go there for the lunch buffet.
Sweet Lady p did you love Bennigans? I've been to one, not really I.
Remember going to one. There's a South Park episode where Butters really wants to go to Bennigan's. But I was I was doing the thing about the dogs playing poker, and I was trying to come up with another, like few casual chains, and I saw Benigan's and I was like, what the hell happened to Bennigan's.
Now we know?
And now we know, and it does seem like there's a very committed couple in Texas who now own it. There's been some restructuring and they're committed to restoring the brand, which is cool because I think it's a real legacy brand in the world of American restaurants.
I'd never heard of it.
Told I don't know that I've ever been in the same city as one.
Well, next time you go to the Middle East man, he'll be surrounded by him.
My big takeaway this would be the perfect movie if you're a stoner college kid to watch on a Thursday night. I wouldn't wouldn't cancel weekend plans. I don't think this is uh, you know, something you dedicate a Friday or Saturday too. But if you're a stoner college kid, do what stoner college kids do and then put this on tonight and you'll have like a wonderful two hours.
Yeah, I think.
Yeah, anything else.
That's all I got. Uh, thanks again to Moor. I feel like the segment ran too long and I played a role in that, so I apologize.
I really enjoyed it.
Spencer, Can I suggest a switch around.
We're gonna skip ahead to one minute Fishing. Yeah, all right. Our next segment is one minute Fishing.
Do I feel lucky?
We'll do you dunk, go ahead, make my cast.
One minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donation to a conservation group. This week, our anger is Christine Fisher, who you'll remember from last week's episode. She's on Chickamauga Lake in Tennessee and fishing for a donation to the first Wisconsin Chapter of Muskies, Inc. Christine, Welcome to the show.
Hey guys, how's it going?
Doing good?
Last week Christine you joined us. You were in Oklahoma pre fishing for the twenty twenty five bass Master Kayak Series at Lake ten Killer. There were one hundred and thirty seven anglers in the field. Tell folks how you did well, y'all.
I don't know if it was not meted or what, but I ended up taking the big w my first best master win and it was the first win by a female and bess master of history.
Hell yeah, first place. Nice to congratulations Christine. First place among one hundred and thirty seven anglers. That's awesome. Now explain how a bass master.
How many other females Christine were in this tournament?
I think this one was one of our highest attended for females, and I think there were six of all.
Out of one hundred and thirty seven.
That's great.
Explain how a bass Master Kayak Series tournament is set up and maybe different from other tournaments because the first thing that jumps out to me when I look at the results is that a fish's value is measured by length instead of weight.
No lost connection issues with Christine.
Be a length.
We have certified measuring boards that we use malasaf flows, and then we have a unique identifier. It has to be in the picture for every single one of our fish, so they're GPS time damped. We have a first pass in the last cast, and it's a pretty it's a pretty techy little setup how they do it, and I love it because there are you know, this has been around for ten years, and early on there were a lot of people that tried to kind of keat the system by various ways, and it's dang near impossible.
To do that now, is awesome.
Give me an example of how people would try to cheat the system.
So we had a guy, I mean two, So we had a guy about six seven years ago that was cutting boards in half and then kind of bulling him together so his fish looked like they were too more than they were.
It was absolutely insane.
There's been a couple of people that would take as sharpie and try to mark up fish to where they had different marks on them, but they are the same fish, and then make the.
Tail, you know, not hit a quarter inch.
But now the app has people look for the same fish because every pitch has very unique markings and lateral lines, so they can't get away with that. And then we had a guy in Texas actually that was cutting tails and kept the tail of a fish in his pocket and would lay it over this is a long time ago, would lay it over the fish and put his hand over it so you couldn't the tail looked like it was like this long. Uh.
That was in a local tournament, so it was a little.
Local ones aren't as as rigid is I would think the big national ones are, but we've we've learned a lot in the last decade.
That's amazing. Every time I think tournament anglers can't cheat, they figure out a new way to cheat. So I'm very amused to hear that, now how far our tournament kayak angler's traveling in a day.
You know, honestly, this is going to surprise a lot of people because it's anywhere you know, you'll have people that will stick within a mile, but I've covered it up to fifteen to twenty.
Miles in one day.
That's crazy.
I would say the average is probably five to seven.
Man, what's your top speed if you just got to get from point A to point B? What's your top speed in that thing?
About six and a half. Very uh, A lot slower than my ranger goes.
No.
Uh.
Now, Lake ten Killer offers small mouth and large mouth, and the upper portion lake is very different from the lower portion lake. So anglers have a lot of different ways that they can find success or failure and approaches. Fishery tell us about your winning strategy.
Well, you know my strategy. I really wanted to fish for points. You know, we we have an Angler of the Year series, not if you for the championship. And I only get to fish three and I didn't get a drop event, so I was just going to go, you know. I went and caught some some giant small mouth down south, had a really good pattern, kind of cut a four and a half pounds small mouth, a couple three pounds small mouth, you know, a really good
fish from LA. But they were fairly obvious offshore spots, and I knew with the big boat tournament and one hundred and thirty seven kayakanglers. I actually did not touch my what I would call my a my best water. One time during the tournament, I went to an area that I didn't I thought was going to get very overlooked, had some quality fish.
I had to work a lot harder for him.
And there were only four people at my ramp, so I thought I made a huge mistake that day I got there, But it ended up working out fishing less pressure of water, and uh it was cool because I got to lock a big swim.
Bay in my hands basically bull days and did a little bit of.
Late slipping on some steeper banks lead back to the creeks on the on the first day as well.
But fishing that that overlooked water.
Was ste That's great. I read you say that your two biggest fish of the tournament did not get in the boat. What happened there?
Well, anytime, and if you got any listeners that are swim bait people, you know in your swim bay fish and sometimes they just don't make it to the boat. And I had on three casts my first cast down this little spot at the Alful Creek jumped off about a three and a half pound small mouth. Two casts later, I jumped off for a large mouth that would have
been big bass to the tournament. It was just over five pounds, and the cameraman was on me, so he has a segment of photos from start to finish, and it was agonizing.
I had to kind of relive that. You know, in those tournaments, you think you lose one of those big fish and you're just like, well, you know that that was the one that was the one.
I knew that I needed to probably get this thing done so that, you know, it's really tough to stay in it mentally after jumping off to big fish, But you know what, when it's your time, it's your time, and I guess that was my time to get it done.
Anyway.
Yeah, now before we do one minute fishing today, tell folks what happened after our one minute fishing segment ended last week.
Well, I caught three white bass in a row.
I swear it was y'all's music, Like that was a tense minute of my life, like if we all get inya or something just a little bit more too, because I was freaking out with that minute. I caught three fish in a row after that, so I was. I felt pretty discouraged.
Damn. All right. Well, I have a question though, Spencer, before we go there, Christine, if you keep on winning and keep getting these big checks and you all of a sudden you have enough money to buy one of those big fancy boats, are you gonna switch from kayak angling to just regular angling out of a fancy bass boat or I'm asking what's the draw for kayak angling and do you would you switch over to regular boat fishing.
Well, I actually did make this switch last year. I have a Ranger Alpha two away and I'm fishing in the most competitive boat rail and in the country. The bast Master opens, so I do do that, and I fished to this year, and I fish a couple women's only boat tournaments. I won my first one earlier this year just to kind of learn it, because honestly, the boat was pretty intimidating for me.
But you know, I'll always be a kayak angler. I always will.
I'm doing the boat thing to hopefully inspire more women to get into fishing out of the boat, But I'm a kayak angler because it just fosters such a deeper, more intimate experience on the water for right, next to the water.
It's quiet.
I can get back in these creeks and these things where the boats can't get and it's a lot more affordable. You know, when I was twenty one years old, I wasn't buying a sixty seventy thousand dollars boat. I couldn't afford it. I was working three jobs. So I got into kayak fishing because for me, you know, I just that was successible for me.
All Right, tell us about the body of water you're on today, what you're fishing for, and how you're doing it.
Well.
I started the morning at a little pond, and I told y'all I had bluegill on every single cast, but I had no service, so I ended up low up and falling down the lake Chipamaga. I do have some experience here, but it's the midsummer. It's pretty sandy. I have one little stretch of rip rap right now that I got here. In my first three casts in a row, again, I say you have a picture. I caught a decent small mouth. I caught a large mouth and on a
spotted bass. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that on the cast of this, but I feel like it's my best bet and it's worth too in the time that I had. It's a little paddle tail right down that rip rap.
And see what we can do.
All right, Well, you're one minute of fishing starts when you make that first cast. Christine is now I don't know if she's gonna stand up today or not. Christine, how how often are you standing when you're fishing out of your kayak?
Probably ninety percent of the time. But I'm gonna sit just because y'all will I don't think you'll.
Be able to see me.
Okay, and tell us about the rip rap that you're tossing this swim bay at.
Well, there's actually a little spring that comes in right here and it's it's way. Well, I was in the shade about a.
Half an hour ago, so my movie review went wrong, went too long.
That's really really big.
Okay, we're gonna see I'm getting ready to make that first cast already.
We're ready go for it.
Okay, here we go.
She's made her first cast. She just told us that she caught three already in this spot.
Tell me when I'm that thirty seconds.
Okay, you're ten seconds in.
Well, hopefully with that big win under a belt. The music doesn't affect her as much as it did last week.
Huh, it is dead calm out there today in Tennessee. You are thirty seconds down.
She's furiously paddling and reeling, switching spots a little bit.
She's backing up off the location. Twenty seconds to go. She just made her third cast. She seems like she only finds a little part of this area productive because she wheels a few times. Many brings it in ten seconds. She just made her final casts five seconds. Come on, Christine, Oh didn't happen today. That's it for your one minute.
I have a feeling, though, we'll have you back on because the competitive spirit is clearly there.
Yeah, Christine, you take this more serious than any of our other anglers. Oh if only ever two minute fishing and twelve minutes large mouth just thirty seconds too late. Is that a large mouth or a spotted bass?
Well, that's actually a little baby large mouth.
Little baby large mouth.
Oh you didn't have to fall very far.
I'm not okay right now.
One minute.
It's just it's a lot of pressure. In the history of this segment, I think we've had three or four successful anglers. So it's tough and.
You're welcome back anytime.
That's right, Okay, before we go, any other sign of the mythical ten killer lake octopus. You didn't see anything strange on your sonar. Nothing tried grabbing your kayak while you were out there.
Held on, I didn't hear that last little farm, was it?
It was not important.
Thank you for joining us, Christine. We'll have you back on one minute fishing some other time.
Bye, no, thank you.
We have one segment left. I think we're just gonna punt on it though until our next episode.
Yeah, a little bit prep.
It'll want to be saved for then. That means we're at the end of the show. We're gonna do some final fhill feedback. What do you do for Phil?
The viewers are chopping at the bit to hear some of this, Phil, it's your favorite classic playing D and D. I think Sorcerers are a lot of fun.
Let's see.
Dan the outdoor Man. Favorite TV drink. I think he meant tiki drink. I've said it before, it's the Navy grog. As classic favorite song is singing karaoke, The most fun song, most fun time I've had singing at karaoke was the Dixie Chicks now the Chicks Goodbye Earl. I thought that one does it well? It was really fun. Let's see
what kind of preamp interface do you use it? Those s M seven bees We got a fat head, you know, providing a little extra extra boost and then it goes into an Alan and he c Q twelve T digital mixer. Question for Phil do you actually have to work to come up with ideas for segment drops or does the stuff just come to you naturally? I mean, I want to say it just comes to me naturally, but it's mostly because I'm lazy. I think of like the first
idea I have, and it's usually like good enough. I think a couple of times I've made like the last call, like ooh, this song would be better, So I'll do that. Phil, you be the theater stage again soon this Christmas at the Ellen Theater and both in Montana. I'll be playing Bob Cratchit and a Christmas Carol, So come on down and uh, I'm I'm looking forward to because my son will also be in the show.
So that'll be a little fun.
Do we know what part he has?
You do not yet know? I think he's too old for tiny tim and so that's he was really hoping for it, but I had to, you know, talk him down. I'll be there, Phil, favorite film of all time? Fill us in for those listeners. He spelled everything with the pH This is not the greatest film of all time, but it is my favorite film of all time, and that is the Tom Hanks directed nineteen ninety six movie
That Thing You Do. I love that movie. I think it's near perfect, and even the stuff it isn't perfect, I love so much.
Randa, what do you think of that movie?
It's been a long while. I remember enjoying it when it came out. I was ten at the time. But original score? Am I right?
Film?
I think? Well, it's most known for its original song, which which is just like a perfect pop song written by one of the guys from Fountains of Wayne. Also, I mean just like it's fixed power power song.
But yeah, what else you got? Phil? A couple more?
I'll do one more, I'll do two more. Why is why Phil and Clay not made a collab? It's from Mittias. Clay and I have made multiple collabs. One of them is the Bear Grease podcast one which I no longer work on but but Clan and I it's I mean, it's mostly Clay's show, but I I I helped him out with kind of like the format and what to do with it. And our other collab was that we
were in a band together. We opened the Meat Eater Life tom So if you if you, I don't think there's video, official video that exists of that performance.
Did that have a name to be there?
Your band?
We didn't have a name. No, we should. We should retroactively give ourselves a name. Last one Phil ah the Red dead Red MGE from live stream. It is happening. It's just it's probably happening in the fall. We're kind of trying to lock down our goals for the Land Access Initiative for the year and make sure that when we do do some sort of fundraiser, you guys will all know exactly where your money's going and you'll feel good about donating to a good cause.
Well done, very very entertained by the the phil questions, were it again sometime? Thank you Annie, Thank you Randall. See everyone back here next week, same time, same place.
Thanks for m
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