Speaker 1: This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't
Speaker 1: predict anything. The meat Eater Podcast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands,
Speaker 1: or scouting for el First Light has performance apparel to
Speaker 1: support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at
Speaker 1: first light dot com. F I R S T L
Speaker 1: I T E dot com. All Right, everybody, but we
Speaker 1: got something really special for you. One, we have a
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast, meaning our podcast, today's podcast was recorded outdoors.
Speaker 1: It's the only podcast you can get where someone gets
Speaker 1: a hog in the podcast, So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1: And then there's something even more special at the end
Speaker 1: of this very special podcast, because we're gonna be releasing
Speaker 1: for free a chapter of me Eater's American history, The
Speaker 1: Long Hunters, which covers that little slice of American history
Speaker 1: that occurred between seventeen sixty one and seventeen seventy five
Speaker 1: when fellas like the famed Daniel Boone were making their
Speaker 1: living hunting for white tailed deerskins in the First Far West.
Speaker 1: So the chapter we're going to stick in is called
Speaker 1: gearing up. It's about the blade tools, firearms, and other
Speaker 1: implements employed by the famed Long Hunters. So enjoy the
Speaker 1: show and at the end again listen to chapter seven
Speaker 1: of Meat Eater's American history The Long Hunters. If you
Speaker 1: like it, and you will, then you can head over
Speaker 1: to Audible or Apple Books or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: books and pick it up. It's an audio original, not
Speaker 1: available in print, only available to listen to enjoy. All right, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. It's a little different because we
Speaker 1: have to keep it at a very low volume, which
Speaker 1: is gonna make it hard if I get fired up.
Speaker 1: You know. The comedian Mitch Hadberg observed that he didn't
Speaker 1: like camping because when he got in a fight with
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, it was hard to express his anger because
Speaker 1: he couldn't slam the door and he had to just
Speaker 1: try to zip the tent real hard. It's like, fuck you, this.
Speaker 2: Guy like hanging up on smartphone.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, you can't slam it.
Speaker 2: No, I just can't throw it.
Speaker 1: In the old days, you'd be like, well okay then, mom,
Speaker 1: I'm coming home right now. You can't do that anymore now,
Speaker 1: And so if I get fired up, you won't know.
Speaker 1: The listener won't know, because here's the problem. We're actually
Speaker 1: hunting right now. We've done shows ice fishing and you
Speaker 1: can talk all you want, but this is a hunting episode.
Speaker 1: We're hunting hogs in Texas. You could say, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in Texas. Everything's always open, so you know, when they
Speaker 1: say you could probably think of other examples. Chris Gill,
Speaker 1: when Boardin's Kitchen Confidential came out, they said, a rare
Speaker 1: glimpse into kitchen culture. And I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: other documentaries or whatever books a rare glimpse. You can't
Speaker 1: think of any examples. I mean almost any documentary, a
Speaker 1: rare glimpse into you know, a rare peak behind the curtain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a rare peak into a Texas hog hunt
Speaker 1: or deer hunt. Because we're in Texas, we're about the
Speaker 1: South Texas as you can get. We're on what you
Speaker 1: just do not I'm just looking at levels here you
Speaker 1: mess it is, don't pass the cod where's it way?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah? Yeah? And Karn, remember that you got it.
Speaker 1: This this rare, this rare glimpse into a hog hunt
Speaker 1: involves a rifle borrowed rifle that we've determined. Uh, you
Speaker 1: can't adjust the scope. No, it's maxed out. It's maxed out.
Speaker 1: So you gotta you gotta, you gotta a little high,
Speaker 1: a little of the left on close pigs, Oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: low and right on close pick it hits high left. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're about of South Texas. You can get. The nearest
Speaker 1: major town is Brownsville, which is a crossing. There's a
Speaker 1: crossing into Matamorris, Mexico. We're closer to Raymondville. We're on
Speaker 1: a chunk of Eeteria, which is a very old, very
Speaker 1: large ranch that has been you know, Eeteria is portioned
Speaker 1: into different owner.
Speaker 3: It says on this chair eighteen fifty eight. Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: sitting in the Uteria chairs from eighteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm buddies with a gentleman that whose family
Speaker 1: owns this part of this ranch that we're on. And
Speaker 1: we've been down here. This is a third time I've
Speaker 1: come down for the White Tail Rut. So it's a big,
Speaker 1: big place. A lot of it's a big place. A
Speaker 1: lot of Texas properties are managed for deer. This place.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't really say that. So there's no feed. They
Speaker 1: don't they don't do any kind of feeding. They don't
Speaker 1: have any deer feeders out, they don't have any kind
Speaker 1: of deer blinds. It's not fenced, ah, but it gets
Speaker 1: hunted a bit, but it's just real, you know, they
Speaker 1: run cattle on it. But it's a real chill, relaxed,
Speaker 1: very cool property. And we've come down here a few
Speaker 1: times right before Christmas, which is when the peak rought
Speaker 1: down here is going on, and we've had extraordinary success
Speaker 1: rattling bucks down here during this week, great success rattling
Speaker 1: bucks the week before Christmas. This year, we mix it
Speaker 1: up a little bit because we brought down a DSD.
Speaker 1: Listeners will know Dave Smith decoys because Dave Smith was
Speaker 1: on the podcast. We brought down a DSD deer dy
Speaker 1: So it's like a fight postured buck, and over the
Speaker 1: course of three days we rattled in over thirty bucks.
Speaker 3: There's a little uh lizard eating some sort of caterpillar
Speaker 3: right here on this.
Speaker 1: Oh right there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He's no, he's not always different.
Speaker 2: Shot up.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to meet some sort of caterpillar seasons
Speaker 3: probably in I.
Speaker 1: Know it's Texas.
Speaker 3: Was I saying, sorry, how many bucks you ruddled?
Speaker 1: Oh, rattled in a lot of bucks. But this year
Speaker 1: we used this decoy. We actually had two bucks come
Speaker 1: in and level the decoy, come in and attack the decoy,
Speaker 1: and all those bucks come in virtually probably every one
Speaker 1: of those bucks came in and bristled his hair up
Speaker 1: and like postured, and whether or not they got nervous
Speaker 1: and laughed or whatever, but in some way or another
Speaker 1: acknowledged engaged with a decoy, which is pretty fascinating, and
Speaker 1: got a coat pigs. And now we're recording the show,
Speaker 1: and so we came out to we're out in a
Speaker 1: big pasture and we came out to a spot where
Speaker 1: we're in like a corner of brush. This is real
Speaker 1: brush country. We're in a brushy little corner and some
Speaker 1: mesquite looking out over an open pasture. There's a bunch
Speaker 1: of cattle out there. There's some horses somewhere around here.
Speaker 1: I can't see him right now, and a lot of hogs.
Speaker 1: We picked this corner because a lot of hogs come
Speaker 1: through this corner. We've noticed, and we got our DSD
Speaker 1: buck decoy out there. Even though we're not really actively
Speaker 1: buck hunting right now, the pigs are are they rapping
Speaker 1: around there about around the corner. Oh shit, So just
Speaker 1: to give you a flavor, Seth's gonna go ahead hit
Speaker 1: a little rattles. Seth's gonna take a couple actual horns.
Speaker 1: So we got a couple. When I'm holding here, our
Speaker 1: two horns off a four point buck. So I'm two
Speaker 1: horns off of Michigan eight, and we bone sawed the
Speaker 1: eye guards brow tis off it to make it more
Speaker 1: comfortable gripping and se It's going to do a quick
Speaker 1: little rattle session here, just so you can get the
Speaker 1: flavor for what's going on. H. Did you bring your
Speaker 1: grunt to? No, you don't have the grunt to. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the rattle sash, Now, Seth give your formula. How
Speaker 1: you think about it.
Speaker 3: I just rattle for a bit like that. Every once
Speaker 3: in a while I give a couple of grounds. But typically,
Speaker 3: like if they're within earshot, they're they're in like shooting
Speaker 3: range within seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, so as long as you just heard him rattle, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to an area and we'll creep into an
Speaker 1: area and get set up and like park creep into
Speaker 1: an area and get set up, and usually I would
Speaker 1: see half of the half of the bucks that show
Speaker 1: up show up before you've completed. Oh yeah, you're first
Speaker 1: rattle session, yep, And they run in and then they like, well,
Speaker 1: pump the brakes, maybe forty yards anywhere from ten to
Speaker 1: fifty yards from where the noise is, Yeah, to try
Speaker 1: to get a read out the situation. It got to
Speaker 1: the point where like when Bucks didn't show up, we
Speaker 1: were like, what's wrong? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was weird when we had nothing show up.
Speaker 1: So I do that.
Speaker 3: Depending on the setup, but typically three different times I'll rattle,
Speaker 3: I'll have a break for about a minute, and I'll
Speaker 3: rattle again. And I would say, I don't know, twenty
Speaker 3: five percent of the time, Bucks would come in on
Speaker 3: the second one, and then I would take another break
Speaker 3: and then rattle for like a third sequence. And I
Speaker 3: don't think we ever had Box come in on the
Speaker 3: third sequence.
Speaker 1: No, a typical sash. We probably don't sit in twelve minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like something still might happen, but it's like I'd
Speaker 1: rather just go to a new spot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that last session yesterday, the third rattle worked, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that was that was the crazy. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: okay it did. You're right, but what's funny is one
Speaker 1: also came in within seconds. Yeah, you know, that was
Speaker 1: just pure chaos. At dusk last night we had a
Speaker 1: rattle set. We had our best rattle session at dusk
Speaker 1: last night and called in four bucks. Now these are
Speaker 1: not big bucks. They're like nice bucks, but they're not
Speaker 1: a huge box. We called in four bucks last night
Speaker 1: and Seth got one with some stickers on him. So
Speaker 1: he was a ten point turned thirteen. Yeah, like a
Speaker 1: Michigan ten that had three kickers, a genuine thirteen pointer.
Speaker 2: There's a cold deer, yeah, super cold here.
Speaker 1: Then this morning we went out rattled again and I
Speaker 1: arrowed one. I errowed the seventh buck that came in
Speaker 1: this morning. Yeah, I'm anywhere else.
Speaker 2: That's like, it's insane, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1: How many sets do we have this morning? Was it
Speaker 1: this morning? Yeah? Was it four? I'll tell you. I'll
Speaker 1: pull up my stats three or four. So here's my stats.
Speaker 1: On day one we did nine sets.
Speaker 3: Four.
Speaker 1: On day one we did nine sets, We did nine
Speaker 1: rattle sessions.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there are two bigs right.
Speaker 1: And rattled in seven bucks. On day two we did fourteen.
Speaker 1: We were being turned and burned and burned we did
Speaker 1: fourteen setups and rattled in sew thirty six. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: rattled in twenty one bucks due way better. We were
Speaker 1: cranking that day everything from four ki's four keys still
Speaker 1: a little basket.
Speaker 3: Tends and and changed the strategy as far.
Speaker 1: As got it figured out. I'll talk about that in
Speaker 1: one second. Then today we killed a buck on the
Speaker 1: seventh setup, which was seven setups, and killed the seventh
Speaker 1: buck on the seventh setup seven seven nice today today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we tried a bunch of different ways of going about this. Uh,
Speaker 1: this a little strategy talk. If you want to try this,
Speaker 1: we would set up together, okay, so the rattle guy
Speaker 1: and the bow guy next to each other. The problem
Speaker 1: you'd have is is you know animals like you know
Speaker 1: when people say with turkeys that when you're calling to
Speaker 1: a turkey, that turkey knows what tree you're under. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he knows when he hears it from two hundred
Speaker 1: yards away, he knows what tree it is and what
Speaker 1: side of that tree you're on. I read a good
Speaker 1: line and Little Big Man where a guy was talking
Speaker 1: about how good someone is at tracking, and he said,
Speaker 1: when he looks at the ground, he can tell what
Speaker 1: birds flew overhead, so they know where that noise is
Speaker 1: coming from. So when you rattle and the buck comes
Speaker 1: busting in, he knows exactly where to look. He knows
Speaker 1: exactly where he's looking, and he might see the decoy,
Speaker 1: but he's looking from the decoy to where the noises
Speaker 1: from the decoy to where his noises. He sees the buck,
Speaker 1: the decoy buck, but he also is like, well, where
Speaker 1: is the thing that was fighting? So then we started
Speaker 1: trying to spread out by a bit. What happened? I
Speaker 1: was just a big fat black hawk right our outer cles,
Speaker 1: right there, all right there at the tree edge. That's
Speaker 1: I don't know. Can you get a shot? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, you mean the other side of the
Speaker 1: thing or our.
Speaker 2: Side, our side?
Speaker 1: How many yards he's walking out?
Speaker 5: I'm bad at estimating.
Speaker 1: He's like at the tree line over there here. Let
Speaker 1: me give you a range finder. Just poke out and
Speaker 1: range him. This place is crawling with pigs right now,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 1: Measure twice. Karn's gonna go get a range on him.
Speaker 1: I flipp it the other way. There you go. So
Speaker 1: what we eventually hit on was if there's any appreciable wind,
Speaker 1: like we would want to go here here. When we
Speaker 1: first started doing this, we would always think, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: gonna approach the area with the wind in your face,
Speaker 1: of course, and then you're gonna rattle like like just
Speaker 1: like setting up with a predator call. When you set
Speaker 1: with the predtor call, you want to win in your
Speaker 1: face and you're looking into the wind or crossways knowing
Speaker 1: that that kyote is gonna come and want to get
Speaker 1: down wind of you, but you're looking up when because
Speaker 1: when he gets down windy, it's gonna be too late.
Speaker 1: You're trying to catch him work in his way to
Speaker 1: get down wind.
Speaker 5: It's like between one thirty and.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's pretty far. I mean for for our iron,
Speaker 1: it's pretty far. So get shot them shooting iron so
Speaker 1: uh ah. But that so we eventually hit on was
Speaker 1: when those bocks come into that what's wrong? Oh right here?
Speaker 1: Oh shit, crin, How do I plug my ears? My
Speaker 1: eyd bones on easy easy rest Undernea's kate up up
Speaker 1: chamber the round chamber of the round she did.
Speaker 2: He's definitely keyed up, but he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh ship. That's the first time trends ran off.
Speaker 3: Are you sure that that might be the first time
Speaker 3: there's ever been a big Hunter in podcast?
Speaker 2: That might be that just might be.
Speaker 1: You might have to Did you see what kind of
Speaker 1: hits she got on? I couldn't tell.
Speaker 2: He didn't go down. It was a oh, yeah, we
Speaker 2: might have to do a little interimation.
Speaker 1: All right, we're at the pause for a se.
Speaker 2: Don't ask me. I got no idea what they can
Speaker 2: and can't do. That's why this, this shot has been
Speaker 2: fun because we've just been seeing so many bucks doing
Speaker 2: buck stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, doing buck stuff, doing doing stuff that you rarely get.
Speaker 2: Just oh, second shot. I wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a second shot. Assuming that's the same pig,
Speaker 2: potentially a different pig.
Speaker 1: I'd say it's dead now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're probably pretty Probably should send an
Speaker 2: email to Phil, yeah, letting them know, Hey, Phil got
Speaker 2: to chop about Trucually not much longer here, we're gonna
Speaker 2: come back, folks, I tell you chuckle that podcast feel
Speaker 2: that it's probably not usable, Like what is al Michael's
Speaker 2: Do you know if they can't go to commercial and
Speaker 2: there's like a player down or something, they got to
Speaker 2: just talk you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Game, So they like start talking about stats and stuff
Speaker 6: and whatnot. Yeah, you got any stats on hand? Well
Speaker 6: the impressive stats. Oh, here's Steve. Steve's come back. Steve said,
Speaker 6: already box old Steve. Here, Steve just picked up a
Speaker 6: nice bullet casing here they come.
Speaker 1: Sure they have a story, So do we have a
Speaker 1: dead pig or what's gonna tell?
Speaker 2: Tell your hunting story, Krent nice Corinne, Yeah, well we'll
Speaker 2: get to it. I'm curious about that second shot because
Speaker 2: me and Seth we're not ready for it.
Speaker 1: That makes three of us. Every day I vowed to
Speaker 1: like start getting real serious about hearing protection. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of being like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: get a good that's the experience that I that the
Speaker 1: other day. I'm giving her like a motivational speech.
Speaker 2: Where's the pig there?
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, we just left land for now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll go get in a minute. Okay, tell your hunting story,
Speaker 1: crin Well we got the first part.
Speaker 5: Move your mic closer, as anyone who's observing on YouTube
Speaker 5: could tell that I had just abandoned my seat.
Speaker 3: If you're not watching on YouTube, you should pause this,
Speaker 3: and yeah you should.
Speaker 2: You should hit a computer.
Speaker 1: Wait till you get home and watch on YouTube. Don't
Speaker 1: say that, finish this and then rewatch there you go.
Speaker 5: There It is as I was ranging two or three
Speaker 5: different pigs, one just was like way too close and
Speaker 5: then I just kinda couldn't.
Speaker 1: Help it and I threw a bead.
Speaker 5: I didn't I didn't make the best shot, even though
Speaker 5: it was really really close.
Speaker 1: It would have died.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's I guess part of Yeah.
Speaker 1: She's far back. We found it standing back in there.
Speaker 1: We went in there, dirt, found a little blood, and
Speaker 1: we went back in there and was standing there, and
Speaker 1: then I was trying to explain Krin where the head
Speaker 1: wasn't She apparently already knew I hadn't put my hearing
Speaker 1: protection in yet.
Speaker 2: And that second.
Speaker 1: Gave me a nice muscle break to the to my
Speaker 1: mostly impaired.
Speaker 7: Earlsive I knew, I knew it was a head off
Speaker 7: to the.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you if you're at the point
Speaker 3: where you're telling Krin like what she needs to be doing,
Speaker 3: she already knows.
Speaker 1: She's already she's already doing it. Yeah, I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to graduate her in my mind up to
Speaker 1: that position and not like I'm not like I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my son. Yeah, I learned that real quick the
Speaker 1: other day.
Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, when he steps out,
Speaker 3: all right, you stepped out enough for her.
Speaker 1: This this is like a pig.
Speaker 5: It's so much nicer the other one.
Speaker 3: I mean, you think I think every time we come
Speaker 3: through here, there's pig.
Speaker 2: Do you think there? They could more could come through
Speaker 2: now after post guarantee.
Speaker 1: It nice so that even though I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: like a great uh judge of pigs, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: it look like a little bore. It's not big Old South,
Speaker 1: but it's like yesterday the one I got, I got
Speaker 1: the coveted uh pregnant sow, which is when they get
Speaker 1: body fat. Well you don't want one is nursing because
Speaker 1: they know that. And that's a stop. That's that feels
Speaker 1: like the of the three we've butchered, that feels like
Speaker 1: the best one. This one here, that feels to me
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, like and feeling it's this is some
Speaker 1: lean country here, like I said, there's no there's no
Speaker 1: feeders here or anything. It's just lean country. And uh,
Speaker 1: the pigs here are just bones. You know, my boy
Speaker 1: got a couple one time. Man, they were just hard
Speaker 1: to like really get anything off.
Speaker 2: But should we get the shooting iron handy? If we go?
Speaker 2: If you're trying to get.
Speaker 1: A second, I'm good on pigs. Do you need? Do
Speaker 1: you want?
Speaker 2: I'm good.
Speaker 1: You got on pigs green? Yeah, we're good on pigs.
Speaker 1: Pigs old, Okay, it's a success.
Speaker 5: Yeah, now we can do the puck.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, where was I? Where was I talking about? Oh?
Speaker 1: Our setups? So this is our findings so far on rattling,
Speaker 1: which we've put in a fair bit of attention to
Speaker 1: at this point. So let me recap. I got a
Speaker 1: little rattled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sorry, you still hear that ring?
Speaker 1: No, not that kind of rattle. Well, I was explaining
Speaker 1: that we would at a time set up together, but
Speaker 1: they were two keyed in, so then we would try
Speaker 1: to get a little distance between the rattle and get
Speaker 1: a little distance between the rattling and the spot. And
Speaker 1: our thinking was our thinking was we were kind of
Speaker 1: wanting to look into the wind because you were looking
Speaker 1: at areas that you hadn't already put odor to, thinking that,
Speaker 1: you know, if the ones that are behind that are
Speaker 1: down when aren't coming, so you'd look up, you know,
Speaker 1: and we're approaching into the wind too. So we're approaching
Speaker 1: into the wind. Imagine we've disturbed what's behind us. We're
Speaker 1: now calling to things that we haven't walked through and
Speaker 1: to things that haven't gotten our odor. And so we
Speaker 1: would set up like that. What we kept finding is
Speaker 1: it's thick enough country that they're playing that wind from
Speaker 1: a little way out, and they're showing up consistently downwind,
Speaker 1: making their kind of like almost like running into a
Speaker 1: down wind position. And then they stop. Often they stop
Speaker 1: when they see that decoy. They pump the brakes on,
Speaker 1: which is good because if you don't have the decoys,
Speaker 1: sometimes you find they just run through it, never stop.
Speaker 1: So we eventually hit on this idea where the rattler
Speaker 1: sets up down wind from the rattler. The rattler sets
Speaker 1: up up wind from the decoy. So the rattler is
Speaker 1: forty thirty forty would you say, thirty yards twenty.
Speaker 3: Yards apparently set up, Yeah, theyware from I would say
Speaker 3: fifteen yards to thirty.
Speaker 1: Yards, yep. The rattler is fifteen to thirty yards from
Speaker 1: the decoy, and the rattler is the decoys down wind
Speaker 1: to the rattler, and then the archer wants to set
Speaker 1: up fifteen to thirty down from the decoy, which when
Speaker 1: that buck comes in and he's and he's staring at
Speaker 1: that When that buck comes in and he's staring at
Speaker 1: that location where that rattling is or registers the decoy,
Speaker 1: he's in your zone, you know, and it sticks, so
Speaker 1: you can't you know, you can't see everything. You kind
Speaker 1: of got to pick your lanes. But he's likely to
Speaker 1: come in and stop ten yards fifteen yards from where
Speaker 1: you're at. What's funny is you'd think, well, what happens
Speaker 1: when the buck stops between the archer and the rattler,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what we did today. I actually had
Speaker 1: to take my shot before I wanted to, because if
Speaker 1: he took another step or two, I would have shot
Speaker 1: Seth with my bow. Yeah, it would have already be
Speaker 1: a bloody arrow. I'm glad you didn't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have gone through the deer and then into Seth,
Speaker 1: which whatever, you know.
Speaker 3: No big deal, a second pass through just would have
Speaker 3: went through the guts, all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So but it worked beautifully. I think that that
Speaker 1: is the system for rattling in thick country, running, running
Speaker 1: and gunning, rattling in thick country. And you know what
Speaker 1: it winds up being. It's you know what, it's so
Speaker 1: similar to It's so similar to Jason phelps elk hunting strategy.
Speaker 1: The way he likes to hunt bulls is hell. If
Speaker 1: he finds a bull betted or finds a midday bowl,
Speaker 1: he likes to sneak into like where that thing is not,
Speaker 1: where that thing can't ignore it, where it can't ignore
Speaker 1: a bugle yep. Like he's not going to go three
Speaker 1: hundred yards to check out a bugle. He's just not.
Speaker 1: He might bugle and return, but he's not gonna get
Speaker 1: up and go, and he's not gonna get out of
Speaker 1: his bed necessarily and walk. But when when you rip
Speaker 1: a bugle fifty yards, he's gonna get up. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: in his face. And for like running and gunning rattling,
Speaker 1: all you're really trying, Like what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: standing those bucks up and they're bounding in. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're coming from one hundred yards. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting strategy in any situation where if you knew you
Speaker 1: had deer, you knew you had a buck betted anywhere, Illinois, Michigan, whatever. Yep.
Speaker 1: If you knew you had a buck betted, that you
Speaker 1: might approach like that. Get in there with a buddy,
Speaker 1: get in there and be like when I rattle, get
Speaker 1: ready yeah, because we're in his zone. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: might be like, what in the world's going on?
Speaker 3: You know, it'd be fun to try that in other
Speaker 3: places than here, Like then.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be as good. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: as good as here because there's so many deer and
Speaker 1: the buck to do this seems like there's more bucks
Speaker 1: than dose. Yeah, there's not.
Speaker 3: It's probably equal, but there's just definitely seen more bucks
Speaker 3: and it's like prime time all that.
Speaker 1: But it could, it would be. It would be something
Speaker 1: that I would try in other in other situations. You know,
Speaker 1: it's something I would try in other situations. Is running,
Speaker 1: gun running, gun rattling. I'm gonna trademark that turning burn
Speaker 1: rattling turning burn. Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's also cool being on the ground that close to him,
Speaker 2: You know, it's different than being up in a tree.
Speaker 2: Being up in a tree is cool too, but there's
Speaker 2: just something about being on eye level with them. When
Speaker 2: they come in, it's pretty it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: You didn't see every hair that's standing up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's That's one of the most surprising things is if
Speaker 1: you look at the Dave Smith decoy deer decoy, it's
Speaker 1: meant to look like bristled and he it's got a
Speaker 1: really interesting texture to it. But when those deer come
Speaker 1: in and they see that decoy, it's just like they
Speaker 1: can picture a turkey coming in and seeing a strutter decoy.
Speaker 1: What's he gonna do? He's gonna yeah, he comes in.
Speaker 1: He's like, right, he comes in at first like picture
Speaker 1: of Tom coming in where he's like, sure, hope no
Speaker 1: one tries to kill me, Sure hope, no one tries
Speaker 1: to kill me. And then all of a sudden he
Speaker 1: sees a decon and he's like, oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: forgets everything. Feathers pop out. Like these bucks come in,
Speaker 1: they see that decoy and they they go into full strut. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh it's wild, and they have such a strange They
Speaker 1: cock their ears back, they start tipping their head. Two
Speaker 1: of them started kicking dirt even works. Two of them
Speaker 1: works scrapes or made a scrape. They're like drooling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: licking their lips man a lot, and then they like
Speaker 1: they look like my kids going into McDonald's.
Speaker 3: They they go from like a normal a normal deer
Speaker 3: like walking in so like stop see the decoy.
Speaker 1: And then it's like slow motion all the way in,
Speaker 1: all his hair standing out and they shiver it tay
Speaker 1: jammed down between their legs like a G string. The
Speaker 1: second time I used that, second time I use recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not every day.
Speaker 1: No, I go months of I'll talk about a G string.
Speaker 1: And I've had two occasions in the last hour. Was
Speaker 1: it related guitar? One of them one just the joke,
Speaker 1: the joke, not my joke, but a joke I heard.
Speaker 1: I was trying to I was messing with a guitar
Speaker 1: and remembered a person a former podcast guests who will
Speaker 1: not identify, saying that the only instrument I've learned how
Speaker 1: to play was ah and I was telling that, sharing that,
Speaker 1: and then use it again. Out his tail tucked in
Speaker 1: like a G string, hair puffed out, shaking, head cocked in,
Speaker 1: a lot of lip licking, yeah, and coming at it
Speaker 1: from all angles. And here's another thing from the surprise,
Speaker 1: Like you picture two bucks fighting that they're gonna hit
Speaker 1: heads right, Well, if you have a decoy that's stationary,
Speaker 1: you see what the buck would prefer to do because
Speaker 1: the decoy can't turn to face it. So the buck
Speaker 1: kind of gets like, are you really honestly gonna let
Speaker 1: me do this? And the buck pulls up alongside both
Speaker 1: bucks that attack the decoy because it's not turning to
Speaker 1: meet them right in the ribs. Yeah, like he's trying
Speaker 1: to stab it. Yeah, he's like, if you're really gonna
Speaker 1: let me do this, I'm going to give you all
Speaker 1: eight of my times into your rib cage. Is what
Speaker 1: both those bucks did. It's like that.
Speaker 3: It's like the buck knows where it needs to hit
Speaker 3: the other buck to kill it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: It's like if you just let the deer do its thing.
Speaker 1: It's like they're like just trying to kill each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no buck on his right mind and his right
Speaker 1: mind is going to actually let another buck do it.
Speaker 1: So you think they always meet head to head, But
Speaker 1: he pulls up alongside, and and they pull up alongside,
Speaker 1: and they stare and one got his head really close.
Speaker 1: But then they when they charge, there's no announcement like
Speaker 1: when they snap and go for it. It's out of
Speaker 1: the blue.
Speaker 2: I feel like that first one kind of pulled up
Speaker 2: and almost looked the decoy in the eye for that
Speaker 2: kind of turned and like eyed eye with him and
Speaker 2: then went for it.
Speaker 1: I think our decoy eventually started to smell too much
Speaker 1: like seth from Carry Carry when they started to get suspicious,
Speaker 1: and then we took Uh. A guy that uses the
Speaker 1: DSD deer decoys is telling me, when you kill a buck,
Speaker 1: take the tarsal glands off that buck and rub it
Speaker 1: into your decoy and then just stole the tarsal glands
Speaker 1: under the decoy. So we got some buck glands, then
Speaker 1: the dog stole them.
Speaker 2: That would have been cool to see that reaction, like
Speaker 2: pre rubbing it and post rubbing it.
Speaker 1: More. Yeah, there there was one buck today that would
Speaker 1: look like it was going to mix it up with
Speaker 1: that decoy. And Uh, my take on his body language
Speaker 1: is he was not buying that smell. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: He got close and put his nose out and got
Speaker 1: his nose maybe three feet from that thing, and his
Speaker 1: hair just flattened out. Yeah, and then he walked off
Speaker 1: like he lost all his.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's tough to get that thing odorless
Speaker 3: just because you're it's like.
Speaker 2: You really got a bear hug it to move around.
Speaker 3: It's not that easy to carry around just because it's
Speaker 3: like a full sized deer decoy. And I would most
Speaker 3: of the time just like throw it over my shoulder
Speaker 3: because I was also carrying other stuff, rattling antlers and whatnot.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it if maybe if we had
Speaker 3: like some sort of spray to like spray it down
Speaker 3: real good, yep, and then rub it down with the
Speaker 3: uh with the tarsal glands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if you took a bottle of rubbing
Speaker 1: alcohol and gave it a little rub down and then
Speaker 1: tarsal glanded it, it'd be bad ass. Do they bottle
Speaker 1: that tarsal glen scent they make? They made sense, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I kind of it's just much more bad ass
Speaker 1: to rub it with your own deer man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good if you're in a spot where
Speaker 2: you can get a doll or you like an earn
Speaker 2: a buck state or something, you know, like get the well,
Speaker 2: the dolls don't have the tarsal glands though, huh.
Speaker 1: No stinky ones and those bucks. Oh we you know,
Speaker 1: we should clarify because you don't come on the show enough.
Speaker 1: Chris Gills here, Hi everybody, and Dirts here and Karn
Speaker 1: of course, seth. Uh did you notice how many of
Speaker 1: those bucks stank? Yeah, like when a buck comes through
Speaker 1: and then he leaves, it's his it lingers, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: lingers in the air man and that buck that I
Speaker 1: had kind of to scare because I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna hit us to smell it. The whole time he
Speaker 1: got close, I was like, Bud, you gotta take a bath.
Speaker 1: Just a stinky buck. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I smelled the drop tinme buck that we were after today.
Speaker 3: I smelled him real good.
Speaker 1: He was sanky. A lot of different personalities though, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of different a lot of different responses. It
Speaker 1: felt we didn't have enough a huge sample size. But
Speaker 1: it felt like bigger bucks were less likely to commit suicide. Yep,
Speaker 1: you know makes sense. More likely to check stuff out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: more likely to check stuff out, seth. You remember you're
Speaker 1: familiar with Saint Anthony to find something right, Okay, check
Speaker 1: this story out. So when we just did the live tour,
Speaker 1: a guy told me the story that I met at
Speaker 1: the live show, and then he emailed the story because
Speaker 1: I said, email me that story because it's a great story.
Speaker 1: We're talking about what explained Saint Anthony. I had never
Speaker 1: heard of this. I honestly don't know what Saint Anthony.
Speaker 4: He's the saying of lost items.
Speaker 1: See, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: I always growing up, if I lost something, my grandmother
Speaker 3: would always say, you gotta say, Saint Anthony, say anthy,
Speaker 3: police come around. Something's been lost and cannot be found.
Speaker 3: And if you say that, it's like a little prayer
Speaker 3: type thing.
Speaker 1: Oh mokw something.
Speaker 3: And if you say that, you'll you'll find whatever you're
Speaker 3: looking for.
Speaker 1: Well, let me back you up on that. This guy
Speaker 1: uh long, it's kind of the convoluted story.
Speaker 3: But the.
Speaker 1: Quick of it is, they were out checking trail camps
Speaker 1: a couple hours from home, lose the truck keys. Oh
Speaker 1: so this guy and his body loser truck keys. And
Speaker 1: they look and look and look and look for the
Speaker 1: truck keys, trying to call someone. And you're proposing to
Speaker 1: their buddies that like you, how about you make a
Speaker 1: four hour drive.
Speaker 2: Oh it's a tough sell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyways, they go all the way back to the
Speaker 1: where the trail camp was and the tree stand was.
Speaker 1: He says, real thick grass and vegetation back and forth.
Speaker 1: Can't find it, and he does the the Anthony prayer.
Speaker 1: The guy that didn't lose the guy accompanying the guy
Speaker 1: that lost his keys, that's who's telling me the story.
Speaker 1: He's accompanying his buddy. His buddy's lost his keys. He
Speaker 1: does his Saint Anthony prayer. They're looking, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the guy's phone rings. The guy that lost
Speaker 1: his keys phone rings, so he stops to converse on
Speaker 1: the phone, and while he's conversing on the phone, realizes
Speaker 1: that there's his keys. Now, who do you think it
Speaker 1: was that called the man his buddy Anthony? Exactly? Man,
Speaker 1: God is good? Exactly? Oh man, is that? I heard you? Exactly?
Speaker 1: And I know hold honor that buddy? Ye something about
Speaker 1: oh yeah, something about that. At the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: you are going to hear chapter seven for free. You're
Speaker 1: gonna hear chapter seven of me Eater's American History, The
Speaker 1: Long Hunters.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1: Oh you should be.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm like, from what I've heard, very excited.
Speaker 1: It's perhaps one of the things I used to tell people.
Speaker 1: The thing I'm most proud of that I made My
Speaker 1: best work was my Buffalo book because I was at
Speaker 1: the height of my powers as a writer, because I
Speaker 1: didn't have any other thing going on in my life.
Speaker 1: That's all I was doing is just for two years,
Speaker 1: I just worked on that book. My life was really simple,
Speaker 1: no kids, wasn't married. It was just different back then.
Speaker 1: A big old bull go out and grab hold of
Speaker 1: big old bold that.
Speaker 5: I actually thought that those were the utters.
Speaker 1: That's just one. He's like, he's only got one utter.
Speaker 1: So uh so, oh it does got to Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: got to know. Damn, he's posting for us. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: uh got's a stout looking critter in this thorn country
Speaker 1: where so long hunters. Uh. It's pretty. It's really good.
Speaker 1: It's really good. I believe it. It's narrated. It's audio only,
Speaker 1: so it's not that you people shold understand. It's not
Speaker 1: a print book. It's an audio original narrated by myself
Speaker 1: and Clay Newcombe, exhaustively researched by doctor Randall.
Speaker 2: I'm also excited that you and Clay are narrating it
Speaker 2: because when you hear like audiobooks or whatever, and somebody
Speaker 2: else is reading it. You talked about that one more
Speaker 2: it's like it just kind of it can be a
Speaker 2: real good or bad thing for the story.
Speaker 1: Here's what we found in working on it is that's
Speaker 1: not a close I feel we should get predator call
Speaker 1: out and bring it in here. So that's a good point.
Speaker 1: That's I wouldn't worry about that yet.
Speaker 2: Tell what was I saying?
Speaker 1: Oh uh, you know books, A book that's meant to
Speaker 1: that's written to be read, is best read. It's best
Speaker 1: that you read it. Something that you're listening to is
Speaker 1: just different. So when we made the Long Hunters, like
Speaker 1: media's of American history is meant to be presented, it's
Speaker 1: meant to be read, it's meant to be it's meant
Speaker 1: to be listened to. It was like built specifically to
Speaker 1: be listened to, which kind of makes it special. And
Speaker 1: we do all the narration on it. It's really good.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna put chapter seven, which is called Gearing Up.
Speaker 1: It's about the equipment used by the Long Hunters at
Speaker 1: the end of this episode to further titillate you and
Speaker 1: prompt you to go and wherever you buy your books
Speaker 1: and pick your copy up, download your copy for listening.
Speaker 1: Cats and Schizophrenia.
Speaker 2: This is not a This wasn't ready for that. That
Speaker 2: was not kind of like that gunshot.
Speaker 1: An academic study just came out, I.
Speaker 5: Felt when I saw this article, I really thought it
Speaker 5: was meant for Steve's eyeballs.
Speaker 1: Cat Are you ready for this? You cat man?
Speaker 2: No? Very far from a cat man?
Speaker 1: You catman?
Speaker 2: Dog man?
Speaker 1: No cat man here I have, Well, my wife has
Speaker 1: a cat. You're a cat man. I'm certainly not a
Speaker 1: cat man.
Speaker 2: You come around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a cat man. I don't touch the cat. Well, seth,
Speaker 1: you might be curious to hear this, or not curious.
Speaker 1: You might be alarmed to hear this. As a cat
Speaker 1: what happened? As a cat man, I had a cat
Speaker 1: named the cat. We had a cat named Maud when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and Maud had its babies and
Speaker 1: my dad's boot and ate them all. Oh, we had
Speaker 1: a cat named Fig and I was like, tell the
Speaker 1: story that my dad we tamed a stray cat. My
Speaker 1: dad tamed it by leaving fish heads out for it,
Speaker 1: cleaning fish and leave the heads out. And he loved
Speaker 1: this cat. I don't know wise only cat. Well, he
Speaker 1: liked that cat mad too, But he brought Fig over
Speaker 1: to his buddy who is a hog farmer, and this
Speaker 1: hog farmer has castrated thousands of hogs. He bought fig
Speaker 1: over so that that guy could castraight fig. And they
Speaker 1: put they cut a little hole in a gunny sack,
Speaker 1: put fig in that gunnysack and snaked his little berries
Speaker 1: out of the hole in that gunny sack. Well, the
Speaker 1: cat fought him off. They he's castraight on hundreds of hogs.
Speaker 1: Couldn't castraight that cat. That cat got out of there
Speaker 1: were just a little nick and his scrub him and
Speaker 1: never got fixed because there's no way there. My desk
Speaker 1: just spend money on that. If his body couldn't do
Speaker 1: it, it wasn't so that cat just like won the battle
Speaker 1: and pro creation. And that cat would leave for sometimes
Speaker 1: he'd go on like a ten day hiatus. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he'd come right down the stairs come back home.
Speaker 3: I had I had an old barn cat named wild Bill,
Speaker 3: and he would do the same thing. He'd go on
Speaker 3: like two week walkabouts gone, he'd be gone, he'd come back.
Speaker 3: One time I caught him in a foothold by accident
Speaker 3: in the fox set.
Speaker 1: Oh, I caught my own cat one time.
Speaker 3: I let him out, didn't phase him. He'd still go
Speaker 3: on walkabouts with a little limp.
Speaker 1: We caught our own cat, and we caught our own
Speaker 1: cat trapping. Was that in a possum set on a
Speaker 1: foot trap? Possum set? Caught our own cat in a
Speaker 1: possum set. Let him out and he just followed us around.
Speaker 1: He's like, what you guys are gonna show up? Let
Speaker 1: him out there? He just tag along with the oction.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, anyways, listen to this thing. Cat ownership and
Speaker 1: schizophrennier related disorders in psychotic like experiences correlate, correlate to
Speaker 1: cat ownership. Why it doesn't surprise me? Why you ask?
Speaker 1: Because of something that you may have learned about listening
Speaker 1: to this very podcast, the Meat Eater podcast. We did
Speaker 1: an episode on cat scratch fever. Yeah, because we had
Speaker 1: a guy on. Danny Bolton came on. Was that shit
Speaker 1: called again?
Speaker 2: That's why pregnant ladies shouldn't clean litter boxes? Right when
Speaker 2: they say that if you're pregnant, don't you.
Speaker 1: Have a cat cox ol Danny Bolton got toxoplasmosis from
Speaker 1: eating raw I can't remember if it was goat or lamb.
Speaker 1: It was goat. Goat, raw goat. And so there's a
Speaker 1: ton of feral cats in Hawaii, so that cat shit
Speaker 1: had somehow gotten on whatever and he ate it. And
Speaker 1: toxoplasmosis has been linked to jackals. No, what is it jackals? Oh?
Speaker 1: Or is it what's that other wild ass looking dog?
Speaker 1: In Africa hyena hyenas Hyenas that have toxoplasmosis are more
Speaker 1: likely to be killed by lions. There's risky yet, people
Speaker 1: that you're more likely to die in an automobile accident.
Speaker 1: If you've had toxoplasmosis. It removes your fear, but it
Speaker 1: also apparently removes your ability to not can impact your
Speaker 1: psychological state, and toxoplasmosis can link to schizophrenia related outcomes.
Speaker 1: So when you hear it, when New Jersey cat ladies
Speaker 1: come to mess with you, oh.
Speaker 2: There's a reason why they're by.
Speaker 1: So this is after you're ready through the conclusions. This
Speaker 1: is after they recover from it. Our findings support and
Speaker 1: association between cat exposure and an increased risk of broadly
Speaker 1: defined schizophrenia related disorders. However, the findings related to pl
Speaker 1: e as an outcome or mixed. There is need for
Speaker 1: more high qualities. Just never mind all that. I like
Speaker 1: to stick with the narrative. I don't want to read
Speaker 1: all the disclaimers because I want to paint a damning
Speaker 1: portrait of cat ownership. It's like mainstream media. But in
Speaker 1: all fairness, they say there is a need for more
Speaker 1: high quality studies in this field because there's some uncertainty.
Speaker 1: But still, do you.
Speaker 2: Do you know how cats get like because not every
Speaker 2: cat has toxic plasmosis or you don't get so like,
Speaker 2: what is it?
Speaker 1: Outdoor cats are more I would imagine that cats that
Speaker 1: have more of a chance to interact with cats.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you nabbed a cat out of a you know,
Speaker 1: right out of the womb and never let it see
Speaker 1: another cat, it's probably had a little likelihood of get
Speaker 1: in toxle plasmos. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the
Speaker 1: book You want to see another herd change? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of the book Life and Death at
Speaker 1: the Mouth of the Muscle Shell. Oh love that book.
Speaker 1: And in an area that now sits underneath the water
Speaker 1: because of an impoundment, but it was a journal of
Speaker 1: a guy who spent time at the mouth of the
Speaker 1: where the muscleshell flows into the Missouri but like I said,
Speaker 1: now it's flooded lays at the bottom of Fort Peck Reservoir.
Speaker 1: And I had talked on the podcast before about the
Speaker 1: amount of just bloodshed in that book. Well, a guy
Speaker 1: read it, and he made a guy an audience member,
Speaker 1: read it and built a spreadsheet where he could track
Speaker 1: all the killings. Mm hm you want to hear some totals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you read Life and Death at the Mouse of
Speaker 1: the Muscle Shell, you will read about one thousand, four
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four dead wolves s wolf because in
Speaker 1: that book, they're always going out and lace and buffalo
Speaker 1: carcasses with strychnine yep, wolfing, and they'll be like, we
Speaker 1: went to Bob's bait and had twenty four one day.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what tribe it was. One day, one
Speaker 1: of the planes tribes comes into the fort and they
Speaker 1: are mighty pissed because their dogs all got killed. M
Speaker 1: oh yeah yeah, and they're like, stop putting that poison out,
Speaker 1: killed all their dogs. Four hundred and seventy four wolves,
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty eight analope one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: eight buffalo one hundred and twenty one Indians thirty four whites,
Speaker 1: among many other things. That are the deaths of which
Speaker 1: are described in Life and Death of the Mouth of
Speaker 1: the Muscleshell. So that's the number of deaths that occur
Speaker 1: in his time in his journal. Wow, they did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like we got onto three and everybody
Speaker 1: shot a bunch and couldn't find anything. Yeah, they killed
Speaker 1: a lot of ground. Six got to.
Speaker 2: What uh what years does that take place during that journal?
Speaker 1: Uh, he's there in the late in the early eighteen seventies.
Speaker 4: It's something on the Muscleshell is hunting this fall up there,
Speaker 4: and it's that kind of like more north of Great Falls.
Speaker 4: It's like kind of you know, sage brushy gumbo type landscape,
Speaker 4: big old griz print in the bottom of.
Speaker 1: This grizz track. Yeah, hunter, Yeah, show you the picture.
Speaker 1: It's kind of freaky, really, Yeah, to be there. He
Speaker 1: notices too that some you can tell some stuff about
Speaker 1: migrations back then in uh so a real spike and antelope.
Speaker 1: There's an in November eighteen seventy one, so one hundred
Speaker 1: and three years before I was born. They killed two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three antelope out of that Fort November. Wow,
Speaker 1: I remember that part of the book, and it was
Speaker 1: a big deal. Everybody's going up and killing all the antelope.
Speaker 1: Thousands of antelope hanging out by the fort. Thank you
Speaker 1: Craig for sending that in. Yeah, that's cool. Now here's
Speaker 1: another little stats thing, a lot of stats today. We
Speaker 1: had our buck Ratland stats. Those stats. This kind of
Speaker 1: blew my mind. So there's a deal. In Wisconsin they
Speaker 1: have a DNR website the tracks dogs killed by wolves. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is pretty crazy. So it starts. It
Speaker 1: must be when they start being able to have the
Speaker 1: running season starting in July eight. So, for instance, July eight,
Speaker 1: twenty three, Burnett County, one hunting dog killed seven year
Speaker 1: old female blue tick trailing hound. Okay, that's July eight.
Speaker 1: July twenty Clark County, one hunting dog killed and one
Speaker 1: hunting dog injured. Walker trailing hounds. That was July twenty.
Speaker 1: July twenty one, Lincoln County, one hunting dog killed six
Speaker 1: year old female redbone trailing hound. The next day, July
Speaker 1: twenty two, Bayfield County, two hunting dogs killed a four
Speaker 1: year old male walker trailing hound and an eight year
Speaker 1: old female red bone trailing hound. Seven days later, Burnett County.
Speaker 1: One hunting dog killed five year old male blue tick
Speaker 1: trailing hound. Four days later, August third, one hunting dog
Speaker 1: killed three year old plot trailing hound. Why are they
Speaker 1: getting killed in the summer because it's wolves killing dogs
Speaker 1: running bears.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the bare season.
Speaker 1: Now. I don't know if this is true, but someone's
Speaker 1: pointing out cutting the hazard of cutting your hounds loose
Speaker 1: near bait piles that wolves hitting are hinting and frequenting
Speaker 1: those bait piles. And you're cutting your hounds loose near
Speaker 1: bait piles, and it meant that thing starts cutting out,
Speaker 1: baying or trailing. Yeah, those wolves are pounding it so up.
Speaker 1: So this thing, I'm looking at tracks up till this thing.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at tracks up till December. Okay. Now the
Speaker 1: running tally so in Wisconsin in these counties. In Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: twenty five bear killed and seven bare hounds injured between
Speaker 1: July and October twenty twenty three in northern Wisconsin. Wow, jeez,
Speaker 1: and that's something. Yeah, that's that's yeah. That's a number, man,
Speaker 1: that's a big number. That's just surprising every couple of
Speaker 1: days all and it peaks like in that September October
Speaker 1: and then trails off obviously in December, pounding on them
Speaker 1: trailing dogs. Dang, I don't even know what I think
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, I don't know. Trying to think of
Speaker 1: what I think about that. I can see people saying,
Speaker 1: if you like your dog's lot, I wouldn't turn them
Speaker 1: out on numbars. And I could see someone saying a
Speaker 1: lot of wolves. Yeah, I don't even know if I
Speaker 1: want to get back into this thing about the bird
Speaker 1: name it now?
Speaker 2: Oh god, I can see a quick tidbit the well,
Speaker 2: I'm curious about it now that you mentioned it. What
Speaker 2: do you mean now that you mentioned you did this
Speaker 2: bird naming thing?
Speaker 1: And did you listen to the show?
Speaker 2: Not this one?
Speaker 1: This one?
Speaker 2: Which episode is it?
Speaker 1: Recently?
Speaker 3: You and cal and and I was on your side.
Speaker 1: The Ornithological Society in the US has moved to rename
Speaker 1: seventy bird species. Now they will periodically rename a bird.
Speaker 1: For instance, as I pointed out, everyone knows there's a
Speaker 1: blue grouse, but the Ornithological Society determined that blue grouse
Speaker 1: was capturing actually two distinct species of grouse. So there
Speaker 1: became out of blue became dusky and sooty. Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that the old squaw duck, that's a derogatory term,
Speaker 1: and many people find that term offensive. So the Ornithological
Speaker 1: Society came in and surgically took that duck and renamed
Speaker 1: the long tail duck. Now they can't tell you what
Speaker 1: the hell to call the dog, but it's just their
Speaker 1: take on it. It's not you know, they're not like
Speaker 1: the God of birds. But the Ornithological Society moved to
Speaker 1: form try to formally rename the old squaw to the
Speaker 1: long tail, therefore moving it away. Just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: seven or eight squaw peaks, seven or eight, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is that probably more squaw creeks right got new names?
Speaker 1: And I used to live in Missoula, Montana. One of
Speaker 1: the primary peaks you'd see looking mostly west would be
Speaker 1: Squaw Peak, and I remember, maybe as in the late
Speaker 1: nineties early two thousands, it became Sacagawea Peak. There's a
Speaker 1: Squaw Creek near where I live now that became storm Castle,
Speaker 1: which seems like something from the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: Storm Castle.
Speaker 1: I remember he had storm King was his snowplow.
Speaker 2: Oh those plow king, Like he was mister plow, and
Speaker 2: then Barney got into it and he was the plow.
Speaker 2: He was the competitor at home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like storm Castle. It seems like if you if
Speaker 1: you've got one of those really bad realtors, you know
Speaker 1: those realtors it does when they do a subdivision and
Speaker 1: then name it for what it replaced. So if there
Speaker 1: used to be like a bunch of elk meadows, you'd
Speaker 1: mow that ship down, pave it over, build a bunch
Speaker 1: of houses, and be like, I'm gonna call this subdivision
Speaker 1: olk Meadows. I'm gonna call this subdivision cattle Country. So yeah,
Speaker 1: storm Castle, which seems like a like a make believe
Speaker 1: white castle, like little cheeseburger, like a place that has
Speaker 1: a name like we used to hunt an area called
Speaker 1: Froze to Death. I'm like, that's a legit name. You
Speaker 1: can tell that some that area is Frozen Death, Hanging
Speaker 1: Woman Creek. Guess, let me guess storm Castle.
Speaker 2: I mean there's no castles your storming.
Speaker 1: I got friends that just can't I got friends that
Speaker 1: can't stomach it, and they just and they can't call
Speaker 1: it that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, where was I.
Speaker 1: I felt that this?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: So they now have done the big play and they're like,
Speaker 1: no more surgical renaming of things. We're gonna just rename
Speaker 1: seventy birds. Any bird named after like any bird named
Speaker 1: after a white European, regardless of what that person stood
Speaker 1: for or did, gets a new name. And I felt,
Speaker 1: and still feel that one it's a publicity grab. Two
Speaker 1: it's a lot. It's not surgical. It's just it's blunt.
Speaker 1: It's like it just it just reeks to me of
Speaker 1: it reeks to me of a pr someone pointed out,
Speaker 1: and ornithologists pointed out that where this movement is getting
Speaker 1: some resistance is the international ornithology community, who feels that
Speaker 1: this is a distinctly American idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have an example of a bird?
Speaker 1: No, just go listen to the episode, Chris.
Speaker 2: I will, and the listeners should too if they haven't
Speaker 2: heard it already. So I like that pitch.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's birds out there named after. To give
Speaker 1: you an example, the Stellar's J will no longer be according
Speaker 1: to these guys, the Stellar's J will cease to be
Speaker 1: the Stellar's J. They'll probably like the iridescent purple J.
Speaker 1: But when which is great, they should have named it that.
Speaker 1: I wish they were named that from the start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at this point it's there.
Speaker 3: They probably named it Stellar's Jake because some dude named
Speaker 3: Stellar still last name.
Speaker 1: Because these dudes used to run around name and everything
Speaker 1: after themselves. Stellar did a j he did a sea lion,
Speaker 1: he did an eagle. He doesn't named anything after himself.
Speaker 1: Was Was he a bad dude? I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: just fallen out of favor now, like no one names
Speaker 1: a new bird their own name, But it was the
Speaker 1: practice in the eighteen hundreds that was a common practice
Speaker 1: that you would name that. If you scientifically described a species,
Speaker 1: you would name it. Now the rationale I said, I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to revisit this whole thing, and here I am.
Speaker 1: The rationale is they feel that new birders, new birders
Speaker 1: who aren't of who are not of European descent, who
Speaker 1: aren't a male of western European descent, that new aspiring
Speaker 1: birders would be turned off to birding when they saw
Speaker 1: this crazy, beautiful purple bird feeding on white mark pine cones,
Speaker 1: white marked pine nuts in the rocky mountains, and they
Speaker 1: might be like, good gracious, what a gorgeous bird. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to learn about that bird. And they look
Speaker 1: and be like Stellar's jail jay, I'm getting out of
Speaker 1: this birding. I think the I'm done burden. I think
Speaker 1: the people that and I don't buy that are.
Speaker 3: Behind this and using all this energy to go through
Speaker 3: and change the names of seventy some birds just because
Speaker 3: they're named after dudes or people. If they took that
Speaker 3: energy and put that into preserving habitat for these birds
Speaker 3: to live in, we would all be living in a
Speaker 3: better world.
Speaker 1: That's my two cents on it. I yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I was with them, and now I just think it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not with them. I do no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: understood the surgical, occasional renaming. I just think that, like
Speaker 1: the seventy thing, I just felt like felt like a publicity.
Speaker 3: So yeah, if it's named after something that's like offensive
Speaker 3: to someone, obviously.
Speaker 5: I think that. I think that's that that was the
Speaker 5: premise that there are certain people who might or do find.
Speaker 1: Offended just by the fact of offended by the ethnicity
Speaker 1: of someone that named a bird.
Speaker 5: That's that's very possible because I don't know for myself
Speaker 5: the full you know, seventy that have been that had
Speaker 5: been listed.
Speaker 1: That's what they're saying. They're saying that not that you're
Speaker 1: offended by a specific thing that you'd look and be like,
Speaker 1: it's offensive to me that that individual's distant relatives hailed
Speaker 1: from Western Europe.
Speaker 5: If that's that, that's kind of the definition of reverse
Speaker 5: racism in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you wanna know more something about birds? Sure? Now,
Speaker 1: every boy dreams of being uh making his uh not
Speaker 1: every boy, mini boys dream of one day growing up
Speaker 1: and being like a trapper commercial you know, hunter commercial
Speaker 1: fishermen like you make your living out hunt. Yep. Well,
Speaker 1: these fellas in Montana got in that business all the
Speaker 1: wrong way. Uh. They got into the golden and bald eagle.
Speaker 1: Oh I right about this business?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, bro, these dudes did some It was
Speaker 2: an orchestrated thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were big time.
Speaker 2: Over a number of years.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, So they were selling on the black market
Speaker 1: at pretty good prices, like surprisingly good prices. Speaking of birds,
Speaker 1: Uh to you guys, I don't need I don't want
Speaker 1: to give their name. I mean you can find their
Speaker 1: name they're in Montana, but you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get their name. Uh. Three thousand, six hundred is
Speaker 1: the number that they're indicted on killing for the mark
Speaker 1: commercial market three thousand, six hundred golden and bald eagles.
Speaker 1: Now social media. I remember one time we were in Missouri, No,
Speaker 1: we were in Kentucky and I met a game warden
Speaker 1: in the game. We were talking about being out in
Speaker 1: the field, and I remember he was one of the
Speaker 1: first people that ever expressed to me any unease about suppressors.
Speaker 1: And he was talking about man that, uh you know,
Speaker 1: I was actually talking to new handful of game wardens.
Speaker 1: I can't remember which one said what, but one of
Speaker 1: these game wardens was saying, I really rely on that
Speaker 1: crack of a rifle. He said, I'll be out in
Speaker 1: my tree stand and off in the distance, and he'd
Speaker 1: be like something about that ain't right, and he said
Speaker 1: I'll be down out of my tree heading over there
Speaker 1: and catching poachers. And so he's like with suppressors, I
Speaker 1: worry about losing that tool. And a game ward and said,
Speaker 1: I don't need to go into the field anymore. I
Speaker 1: have Facebook.
Speaker 3: So he gains more time in his tree stand though, yeah,
Speaker 3: he can Facebook in his trees.
Speaker 1: So this guy had made This guy had tex so
Speaker 1: this is not social media, but he had text messages people. Uh,
Speaker 1: he had text message to a guy, you know, like basically,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I'm out here committing felonies?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, they're texted them but they knew it man.
Speaker 1: And another message she said he was out on a
Speaker 1: killing spree. They illegally sold the on the black market
Speaker 1: the United States and elsewhere. They ran their scheme from
Speaker 1: January twenty fifteenth through March twenty twenty one. They sold
Speaker 1: wings and tails.
Speaker 2: Does it say how they got busted? Was it like
Speaker 2: a sting? M?
Speaker 1: I can't remember now?
Speaker 3: What are people doing with the wings and tails?
Speaker 1: Just three hundred and fifty bucks a pop? They were
Speaker 1: making up to three hundred and fifty dollars. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's per bird.
Speaker 2: That sounds low, a little low, no knowing a like
Speaker 2: committing a felony and you're selling it for three point
Speaker 2: fifty with inflate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you could probably, Yeah, they're probably. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't I'd have to spend more time on it.
Speaker 1: But I mean if you got on the if you
Speaker 1: got on the right deer carcass or two, if if
Speaker 1: you sit down and shoot a thousand bucks or the eagles, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and all you're doing is like for processing. You're taking
Speaker 1: the tail, the wings off. It's dude, Uh, that strikes
Speaker 1: me as real easy money.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he could probably go set a bunch of
Speaker 3: legholds around the carcass and have a thousand bucks where
Speaker 3: the eagles sitting there egles to check it, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I don't want to say I don't
Speaker 1: when people taking the wrong way. But if that guy
Speaker 1: set up shop Southeast Alaska, Oh, he'd buy a private
Speaker 1: plane yep, on.
Speaker 2: A dumpster in southeast Alaska. He didn't even have to.
Speaker 1: So from April thirty, twenty twenty through March thirteenth, twenty one,
Speaker 1: that's a long time, okay, they sold or offered to
Speaker 1: sell the parts of whole birds, the parts or whole
Speaker 1: birds from two bald eagles and eleven golden eagles. One
Speaker 1: of these guys would travel from the state of Washington
Speaker 1: out to an Indian reservation in Montana to shoot in
Speaker 1: and around a reservation area.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason, I think one of the guys lived
Speaker 2: on the reservation.
Speaker 1: He did. In one instance, on March thirteenth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the two men quote returned to a previously killed deer
Speaker 1: lure in eagles. All right, So they'd killed deer lure
Speaker 1: in eagles facing up to eighteen years behind bars, one
Speaker 1: of them eighteen years and one of them facing up
Speaker 1: to fifteen years behind bars. Good surprise, that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know what I meant. It would be a
Speaker 1: lot worse if they hadn't been delisted.
Speaker 2: Because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying? If they had done
Speaker 1: it in the seventies, if they had done in the seventies,
Speaker 1: it'd be So it's not a federal offense.
Speaker 2: It's probably multiple felonies. Right, It's probably felony to kill it,
Speaker 2: and then felony to sell it, and then there's probably
Speaker 2: you know, if you're going international, there's probably thousands.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Are they in federal or not federal?
Speaker 3: How many felonies? Seems like there's a lot of felonies,
Speaker 3: A lot of felonies. When I think of a felony,
Speaker 3: I think of a lot more time than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where are they indicted? O? Man depends on a felony.
Speaker 4: A couple of them deer coming in felt like they're
Speaker 4: coming into sting.
Speaker 1: Seemed like yeah, like coming on and be like no
Speaker 1: it's federal. So they're in a federal It's it's a
Speaker 1: federal deal. You know why it's federal because it'd be
Speaker 1: Lazy Act, right, because it'd be federal anyways, because they're
Speaker 1: crossing the state lines to commit a crime automatical nation. Well,
Speaker 1: because of it, seems like you should be federal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it would be picked up as federal because when
Speaker 1: you commit a state wildlife crime, when you cross state
Speaker 1: lines to break a state's wildlife law, it becomes federal.
Speaker 1: Like if you kidnap someone and drive them across if
Speaker 1: you were to kidnap someone in Texas and drive into Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: you're now that's a federal charge. It ceases to be
Speaker 1: state and goes federal. So because of the Lacey Act,
Speaker 1: they're moving wildlife parts across state lines and it became
Speaker 1: a federal US District court. One of them was a
Speaker 1: shooter and one of them was a shipper. One of
Speaker 1: them was from the Yeah, one of them lived on
Speaker 1: the Flathead Indian Reservation. Hmm.
Speaker 3: I wonder if they thought they'd get around it somehow
Speaker 3: by being on the reservation.
Speaker 1: I had to read more. If he's a tribal member,
Speaker 1: they might have thought they were covered by something and don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really know why they're not. Yeah, we'll do
Speaker 1: a better job reporting on this next time we're out,
Speaker 1: next time we're out hog hunting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen any other things come in your ears?
Speaker 5: Everyone there like the way. Yeah, and then they're all
Speaker 5: they're all out left over there a couple hundred yards.
Speaker 1: Recent news story about the schizophrenia, cat ownership and skirts
Speaker 1: of schizophrenia we recently covered a we found out. I've
Speaker 1: been real interested in people dropping stuff into toilet vaults
Speaker 1: and then getting going in there and getting stuck in there,
Speaker 1: like National Forest Spots, fishing access site, magnet.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's where the most have happened.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna say to you, Chris.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, did you listen to the episode where
Speaker 1: we had the guys on who rescued someone from a
Speaker 1: vault toilet? And you're gonna say, well, no, not that one.
Speaker 2: I had not listened to. I don't do a lot
Speaker 2: of podcasting, So I got a fresh baby that might
Speaker 2: have preceded her though no.
Speaker 1: It did so again, uh uh, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: high pro a case of international significance where someone got
Speaker 1: stuck in a vault toilet and got rescued. Then later
Speaker 1: a woman got stuck in a vault toilet trying to
Speaker 1: fetch her watch out of there, and they couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out how to get her out because they were trying
Speaker 1: to take her up through the toilet seat. Oh but
Speaker 1: one of the responding officers had listened to the podcast,
Speaker 1: so he knew. He's like, hey, I listened to a
Speaker 1: podcast about this. You can actually remove the pedestal and
Speaker 1: fish the person right out of the hole beneath the pedestal. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: saved the day. We've saved. I don't know how many liyes?
Speaker 1: Can I keep expecting presidential commendation? Dude, Metal of Freedom.
Speaker 1: Someday I'm gonna be down there at the State of
Speaker 1: the Union to dress and like Trump's gonna be like
Speaker 1: tonight we're honoring, going to be It's gonna be us
Speaker 1: about TURNI quits and how to get people out of
Speaker 1: vault toilets. So there's then there's like a rash of
Speaker 1: these vault toilet tragedies near tragedies. Uh, so we're going
Speaker 1: to close because oh, back to this, so we realize
Speaker 1: some I don't know who found this guy. There's a
Speaker 1: guy that sings the news. He takes news stories and
Speaker 1: to write songs so you don't have to read the news.
Speaker 1: You can just listen to his songs where he covers
Speaker 1: the news with piano accompaniments.
Speaker 5: Yeah, piano news.
Speaker 1: Reads piano news. So he writes the song about the
Speaker 1: news story, puts the news story up on social media
Speaker 1: on one screen, and the the other half is him
Speaker 1: performing his song about the news. So he did the
Speaker 1: news on this vault toilet issue. And he says it
Speaker 1: starts with him saying if I dropped my watch into
Speaker 1: some public excretion, I say that's it for me. Dog Uh.
Speaker 1: And he has done one and we're gonna close with it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Our license on the very controversial ride On by Christopher
Speaker 1: Denny has expired, and KRINN rather than renewing our rather
Speaker 1: than forking over our few thousand bucks that it caused
Speaker 1: us to have Chris Denny's right on for a year,
Speaker 1: we're gonna switch to only using music that our listeners
Speaker 1: write and perform.
Speaker 5: We've gotten a ton of submissions already.
Speaker 1: Chester the Midwester we use some dog dirt and dirt
Speaker 1: send one over.
Speaker 5: Dirt, and if you're not all musical, you could do
Speaker 5: like spoken word poetry too.
Speaker 2: The music is I do like I started listening to
Speaker 2: that day, Henry rollins, I take that back, everybody.
Speaker 1: We need the music, so for twenty so for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, we're only using listener sourced music to close
Speaker 1: the show. And we're not going to tell you who's
Speaker 1: doing it every time, but every time you'll find it
Speaker 1: the show liner notes and we're only telling you who's
Speaker 1: doing Knox, We're kicking the whole thing off. This is
Speaker 1: the first one right mention this. We commissioned it. We
Speaker 1: sent him, Hey, you like singing about the news, why
Speaker 1: don't you sing about cats and schizophrenia? So he composed
Speaker 1: original music. If you don't like to read, you know though,
Speaker 1: you already heard the story, so we just talked about it.
Speaker 1: Let's just say you hadn't, or you skip that part here.
Speaker 1: Now you can hear the news saying to you, oh.
Speaker 5: But he riffs off it, and you know Signamese cats
Speaker 5: are involved in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wow, yeah, schizophrenia, Siamese cats. You see what
Speaker 1: this is going on? So, uh dig in, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go gut Krin's Hog.
Speaker 5: And stick around for the chapter Oh.
Speaker 1: And after the song? Yeah, Oh, shoot man, how many
Speaker 1: people are we gonna lose because they're gonna hear the
Speaker 1: end of music and turn it off and not already
Speaker 1: told them about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just stick around, you gotta stick around. The Hunter
Speaker 2: thing is gonna be good.
Speaker 1: Man. Do Read's Piano music, and then stay tuned for
Speaker 1: chapter seven of me Eater's American History, The Long Hunters
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty one to seventeen seventy five, and remind you
Speaker 1: what comes after seventeen seventy five, The Revolution seventeen seventy six. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering, like why those age brackets, you
Speaker 1: will find out when you listen that. Why what did
Speaker 1: Daniel Boone and the boys who kind of deer? Why
Speaker 1: did their era end with the Revolution? You don't know.
Speaker 8: I have no Chris damn sure don't know what I
Speaker 8: found out about him today, But I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 8: because I don't know if his mom listens, Does she
Speaker 8: listen more than you, because if not, she's not going
Speaker 8: to hear it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if she knows what a podcast is.
Speaker 1: She's like, I didn't listen to that episode. Alright, stay
Speaker 1: tuned for reads. What's it called? Reads?
Speaker 5: Pianos Reads?
Speaker 1: Piano news? Chapter seven, Long Hunters, Thank you guys, got some?
Speaker 1: He ain't got a twin thinks now hearing voices, this
Speaker 1: can't say to breathe? And who's that other guy in
Speaker 1: my house watching me? Maybe I can't do ball?
Speaker 6: The last time I think I fought in North am
Speaker 6: I going in sade?
Speaker 1: This really?
Speaker 4: Is this a fantasy?
Speaker 1: How come I bought that cat? Now there's me my
Speaker 1: hear cat owners saying, I think I'm lost my bad
Speaker 1: Based the pony studies, I think they're probably right Saturdays.
Speaker 6: If I don't, If I don't, please, I'm gonna need
Speaker 6: some pett and balls.
Speaker 3: It's their paint.
Speaker 7: Forty five cat came on, thinking, bye, are you okay?
Speaker 1: The straight jacket's only come in light? Chapter seven? Gearing up.
Speaker 1: Becoming a successful long hunter required more than steely nerves,
Speaker 1: the hunger for adventure, and an intimate knowledge of the land, escape,
Speaker 1: and wildlife of the first Far West. Without the right tools,
Speaker 1: you were not gonna last long. In seventeen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: a large party of long hunters, some twenty or more,
Speaker 1: assembled in the frontier settlements along the New River in
Speaker 1: western Virginia. The men had plans to hunt the Cumberland
Speaker 1: River drainage on the far side of the Cumberland Gap.
Speaker 1: You'll recognize some of their names, Casper Mansker, the Bledsoe brothers,
Speaker 1: and John Baker. Two years earlier, Baker had been on
Speaker 1: that ill fated trip to New Orleans where his party
Speaker 1: boded their hides down the Mississippi, sold them off, and
Speaker 1: got robbed of their cash on the way home. Despite
Speaker 1: the obvious risks, the call of opportunity prevailed. Setting out
Speaker 1: in June, this newly assembled party took the Warriors Path
Speaker 1: across the headwaters of the Tennis River, moving through the
Speaker 1: Cumberland Gap to the Cumberland River. They then traveled downstream
Speaker 1: to where Meadow Creek flowed in. That's where they'd set
Speaker 1: up their station camp in a spot known as Price's Meadow.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for that place today, it's on the
Speaker 1: south side of the Cumberland River. You can just look
Speaker 1: for a historical marker near Rubbing Bucks Barbecue.
Speaker 9: The party broke up into groups of three or four hunters,
Speaker 9: and they got after it. Every five weeks, the groups
Speaker 9: planned to return to their station camp with their harvests
Speaker 9: of hides loaded on their horses. The hunt was successful.
Speaker 9: Within a few months, the party hit amassed some five
Speaker 9: hundred white tailed deerskins, but one day a group of
Speaker 9: twenty five Cherokees discovered their camp while the men were
Speaker 9: out hunting. The cherokees stole the long hunter's cash and
Speaker 9: some of their gunpowder. They also took off with some clothing,
Speaker 9: pots and kettles.
Speaker 1: With what little gunpowder the long hunters had left, continuing
Speaker 1: to hunt would have been feudle, so Isaac bledsoel rowed
Speaker 1: back to the settlements with some of the men to resupply.
Speaker 1: Upon their return, the hunt resumed. The men hunted until
Speaker 1: April of seventeen seventy, when half the party hauled a
Speaker 1: pack train of deerskins and furs back east.
Speaker 9: Casper Mansker and the remainder of the long hunters stayed behind.
Speaker 9: They decided to build two boats and two trapping canoes,
Speaker 9: which would have been made from bark sown over a
Speaker 9: frame of lashed saplings. They also made use of a
Speaker 9: third boat that had been abandoned on site, perhaps by
Speaker 9: French hunters or traders. The hunters loaded up their hides
Speaker 9: and meet and gear, and started to head down river
Speaker 9: to the colonial settlement of Natchez on the Mississippi. This
Speaker 9: was an incredible journey of hundreds of river miles. The
Speaker 9: men would have canoed down the Cumberland River to the Ohio,
Speaker 9: down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi
Speaker 9: to Natchez. At French Lick, the present day site of Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 9: they saw what was, by all accounts, the largest number
Speaker 9: of buffalo and wild game they had ever encountered in
Speaker 9: any one place. After killing a few of the animals
Speaker 9: and using their hides to cover their open boats, they
Speaker 9: continued downriver until they reached the mouth of the Cumberland.
Speaker 1: At this point, the men were dealing with some spoilage
Speaker 1: in the bear meat that they'd harvested back in the
Speaker 1: Cumberland River country, not surprising given the length of their
Speaker 1: journey and this being the warmer months of the year,
Speaker 1: so they decided to convert some of the bear meat
Speaker 1: into bear greece. To do this, they would have discarded
Speaker 1: the lean red meat and retained just the fat. They
Speaker 1: then simmer the fat in kettles to separate the oil
Speaker 1: or grease from the solids. The valuable grease would have
Speaker 1: likely been sewn into sacks made of deer, elk, or
Speaker 1: buffalo hide. During this process of rendering bear grease, they
Speaker 1: get robbed again. A war party at Chickasaws makes off
Speaker 1: with their guns and ammunition. At this point, you'd be
Speaker 1: justified in assuming that this long hunting party would come
Speaker 1: to an end. I mean enough bad luck is enough, right,
Speaker 1: But it does not come to an end. The Chickasaws
Speaker 1: didn't take the white men's oils or furs, so the
Speaker 1: hunters continue downstream, and they eventually are able to sell
Speaker 1: their skins and bear grease in Natches. After the sale,
Speaker 1: some of the men commence their journey homeward, but Casper
Speaker 1: Mansker stays a while in Natches, likely because he seems
Speaker 1: to have gotten sick. Upon recovering, he too sets out
Speaker 1: for home, traveling upriver in a boat with John Baker.
Speaker 1: The two men events actually join up with a party
Speaker 1: of horse traders who are heading over land to Georgia.
Speaker 1: Mansker and Baker then break off from the horse traders
Speaker 1: and cut north through East Tennessee and then finally onto
Speaker 1: the New River, likely arriving in late summer or early
Speaker 1: autumn after more than a year away from home. Now
Speaker 1: that is what you would call a long hunt.
Speaker 9: There's a lot to take in about that story. One
Speaker 9: of the main things that might have surprised you was
Speaker 9: the way the Native American hunters took some supplies from
Speaker 9: the hunting party that they saw as trespassers, but they
Speaker 9: didn't take everything from them. In the following chapter, we'll
Speaker 9: be talking about why something like that might happen. But
Speaker 9: what we're gonna dive into here is the critical nature
Speaker 9: of those supplies and equipment used by the long hunters,
Speaker 9: from guns and ammunition to knives and hatchets. We're going
Speaker 9: to cover the gear that allowed them to do what
Speaker 9: they did.
Speaker 1: We'll begin with one of the most iconic pieces of
Speaker 1: the long hunter's kit, the Kentucky Rifle, also known as
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Long Rifle. Not only is it central to
Speaker 1: their adventures, it remains one of the most legendary guns
Speaker 1: in American history. The rifles weren't just renowned for their
Speaker 1: function and aesthetic. These were the first uniquely American firearms.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into some finer details about these guns,
Speaker 1: but let's first cover the very basics the long hunters
Speaker 1: hunted with flintlock muzzleloading rifles. We'll get to the flintlock
Speaker 1: part in a few minutes, but let's first look at
Speaker 1: what specifically a muzzleloader is by talking about what it
Speaker 1: is not. If you look at your standard rifle or
Speaker 1: shotgun that you're gonna use for this year's deer or
Speaker 1: duck season, you'll see that the shell is loaded into
Speaker 1: the breach of the gun, meaning it's loaded into the
Speaker 1: end of the barrel that you're standing at, not the
Speaker 1: end where the bullet comes out. Well, that's the defining
Speaker 1: feature of a muzzleloader. A muzzle loader is loaded from
Speaker 1: the muzzle end or the front opening of the barrel,
Speaker 1: and these guns weren't loaded with complete cartridges that combined
Speaker 1: primer gunpowder and a lead projectile in a brass casing. Instead,
Speaker 1: the load, or shell as we call it, was assembled
Speaker 1: by the hunter inside the barrel. First, a hunter would
Speaker 1: pour a charge of loose gunpowder down the barrel. They
Speaker 1: could measure it out or just take a good guess
Speaker 1: and free pour it. Then they'd take the bullet, which
Speaker 1: was a simple lead ball, and wrap it in a patch,
Speaker 1: a greased piece of fabric or thin leather that cradled
Speaker 1: the ball like how a Hershey's kiss is cradled in
Speaker 1: its wrapping of aluminum foil. That package of ball and
Speaker 1: patch would be shoved down the barrel with a ramrod.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty tight fit. Now, it's important to
Speaker 1: keep in mind that all Kentucky long rifles were muzzleloaders,
Speaker 1: but not all muzzleloaders were Kentucky long rifles. And it's
Speaker 1: also important to note that the long hunters journeying into
Speaker 1: Kentucky wouldn't have said they were carrying Kentucky long rifles.
Speaker 1: That name didn't take hold until later in the seventeen eighties,
Speaker 1: and in fact it was something of a misnomer then,
Speaker 1: as the rifles would be more accurately associated with Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: where they took on their defining characteristics. You'll actually see
Speaker 1: them referred to as Pennsylvania rifles here and there in
Speaker 1: the historical record.
Speaker 9: So this can all be a bit confusing whether you
Speaker 9: call them Kentucky rifles or Pennsylvania rifles. These iconic weapons
Speaker 9: derived from a pres that assessor weapon that arrived in
Speaker 9: North America with distinctly European roots. That early gun, the Jaeger,
Speaker 9: was shaped by a combination of two key design features.
Speaker 9: One was German and it's called rifling. Now, we mentioned
Speaker 9: this word a minute ago, and it's important, as rifling
Speaker 9: is where the word rifle comes from. Rifling refers to
Speaker 9: the spiral grooves that are cut into the inside or
Speaker 9: bore of a rifle's barrel. Historians disagree on how this
Speaker 9: innovation came to be, but regardless, rifling is what gives
Speaker 9: a slug or projectile it's spin.
Speaker 1: Just like a good spiral pass with a football.
Speaker 9: A spinning projectile is stable in flight and thus much
Speaker 9: more accurate. We just explained how a musloading rifle is
Speaker 9: loaded with the fully assembled load of powder, patch and
Speaker 9: ball crammed down the end of the barrel. Well, the
Speaker 9: only thing left to do in order to make that
Speaker 9: gun go boom is somehow ignite the gunpowder. That's where
Speaker 9: the term flintlock comes into play. The flintlock ignition system
Speaker 9: was a design tradition that came from the French, or
Speaker 9: rather it exploded out of Paris.
Speaker 2: With much enthusiasm.
Speaker 9: This ignition system replaced earlier cruder mechanisms designed for the
Speaker 9: same purpose. The flintlock system featured a spring loaded hammer
Speaker 9: that was fitted with a small chunk of flint held
Speaker 9: in place by a clamp. Pull the rifle's trigger, and
Speaker 9: the hammer crashed down on a hinged piece of steel
Speaker 9: that flung open to reveal a small pan of gunpowder.
Speaker 9: In a synchronized bit of wonderment, the flint hitting the
Speaker 9: steel created a flash of sparks that landed right into
Speaker 9: the now exposed pan of powder, igniting it. The flames
Speaker 9: from this ignition would jump through a touch hole in
Speaker 9: the side of the barrel and ignite the much bigger
Speaker 9: load of gunpowder. Within bang, a rather boom out comes
Speaker 9: the lead ball spin smooth and fast thanks to the rifling.
Speaker 9: As an aside, when you hear somebody say a flash
Speaker 9: in the pan to describe something short lived or less
Speaker 9: than promised, that's where the same comes from, a little
Speaker 9: blast of powder that failed to ignite the main charge.
Speaker 1: When German gunsmiths, the pioneers of rifling, adopted the French flintlock,
Speaker 1: the result was this rifle known as a yagger. Now,
Speaker 1: for you connoisseurs of yagermeister, that's German for hunter. So
Speaker 1: how do we get a uniquely American gun. From this
Speaker 1: European lineage, well Yaggers came to North America in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds with the German immigrants who would settle in
Speaker 1: the Lancaster Valley of Pennsylvania. Lancaster became the largest western
Speaker 1: town in Colonial America, and as it grew and as
Speaker 1: folks migrated from there down through the Shanandoah Valley, those
Speaker 1: gunsmithing traditions spread. Now, keep in mind these guns. Back then,
Speaker 1: these muzzleloaders were entirely handmade. Every spring and screw and
Speaker 1: piece of metal, no matter how small, was built by
Speaker 1: the hands of an individual gunsmith. There are an infinite
Speaker 1: number of little details we could get into about this process,
Speaker 1: but here's just one. The barrel started out as flat
Speaker 1: pieces of metal, basically long flat bars that were actually
Speaker 1: hammered into cylinders. The hole in the middle of one
Speaker 1: of these cylinders would be smoothed, polished, and rifled. Will
Speaker 1: explain that in a minute too, with nothing but crude
Speaker 1: hand tools. The making of these rifles was an intricate
Speaker 1: expression of the finest craftsmanship, and these designs evolved not
Speaker 1: in a board room or in the R and D
Speaker 1: lab of some company, but in the hands of individual
Speaker 1: gunsmiths working on individuals guns informed by the feedback of
Speaker 1: individual customers.
Speaker 9: Two further innovations took place that would turn the Jaeger
Speaker 9: into the Kentucky rifle, and they both happened in the
Speaker 9: New World. One was the lengthening of the barrel, which
Speaker 9: would typically be forty to forty eight inches long. The
Speaker 9: iconic long barrel gave the charge of powder more time
Speaker 9: to full ignite, increasing the SHOT's velocity, and the longer
Speaker 9: trajectory out of the barrel also increased accuracy by stabilizing
Speaker 9: the projectile's path. The second innovation that defined the Kentucky
Speaker 9: rifle was a shrinking of the bore size, which meant
Speaker 9: the gun fired a smaller projectile. European guns at the
Speaker 9: time traditionally shot larger projectiles up to seventy five caliber
Speaker 9: or more, meaning a sphere of lead about three quarters
Speaker 9: of an inch wide. For a long hunter in particular,
Speaker 9: there was an obvious advantage to the smaller It helped
Speaker 9: reduce the amount of powder and lead they needed to
Speaker 9: carry with them into the back country.
Speaker 1: Back in those days, they weren't talking in the same
Speaker 1: caliber nomenclatures used today. Their common unit of measurement for
Speaker 1: bore diameter was how many balls for a particular rifle
Speaker 1: could be produced from a single pound of lead, which
Speaker 1: would translate roughly to how many deer could be killed
Speaker 1: with a single pound of lead. Think of a modern
Speaker 1: day conversation about fuel economy and cars. Someone might say
Speaker 1: my car gets twenty five miles to the gallon of gas. Well,
Speaker 1: a long hunter might note that his gun got forty
Speaker 1: eight shots to the pound of lead. One source described
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania rifles in general as firing quote a ball no
Speaker 1: larger than thirty six to the pound, which would be
Speaker 1: a fifty three caliber meaning a bore diameter of zero
Speaker 1: point five to three inches, so just barely over a
Speaker 1: half inch wide. For comparison's sake, a roughly forty five
Speaker 1: caliber rifle, which was preferred by most long hunters, would
Speaker 1: get about forty to forty eight balls per pound of lead.
Speaker 1: I'll point out that this ball's per pound of lead
Speaker 1: measurement is actually where our contemporary shotgun gauge system that
Speaker 1: we use today comes from. When you hear a shotgun
Speaker 1: described as a twelve gage or twenty gauge that's a
Speaker 1: reference to how many lead balls of a particular diameter
Speaker 1: you can make out of a pound of lead. Meaning,
Speaker 1: if you cast twelve spherical lead balls with the diameter
Speaker 1: matching the diameter of the barrel of your twelve gage shotgun,
Speaker 1: they would add up to one pound. Likewise, if you
Speaker 1: divide a single pound of lead into twenty equal spheres,
Speaker 1: those spheres would be the bore diameter of your twenty
Speaker 1: gage shotgun.
Speaker 9: The long hunters in their contemporaries thought of rifles and
Speaker 9: ammunition in this way balls per pound, because they weren't
Speaker 9: carrying the set quantity of round balls or bullets into
Speaker 9: the back country. They were casting these projectiles themselves out
Speaker 9: of bars of lead. This was the most efficient means
Speaker 9: of transporting all of the ammunition they'd need in the
Speaker 9: first far West. They hauled their lead in bars that
Speaker 9: weighed several pounds each. Then to form bullets, they would
Speaker 9: cast that lead into round projectiles over a campfire by
Speaker 9: pouring molten lead into a cast. Achieving some level of
Speaker 9: consistency was important. Bullets needed to be smooth and relatively
Speaker 9: clean of creases, seams, and pitting. We can only imagine
Speaker 9: that casting bullets must have been a frequent activity at
Speaker 9: the station camps where the long hunters deposited their skins
Speaker 9: and stored their supplies. Stores of lead and melting ladles
Speaker 9: which they'd used to melt and pour their lead were
Speaker 9: communal gear that was left at camp, but each individual
Speaker 9: hunter would have had a bullet cast that matched his
Speaker 9: own rifle. Keep in mind these weapons were all handmade
Speaker 9: by individual gunsmiths, and each had their own unique irregularities
Speaker 9: and specifications.
Speaker 1: Another chore required to keep their guns running would have
Speaker 1: been napping or shaping flint from fist sized pieces of
Speaker 1: suitable rock chirt or obsidian, the same types of rock
Speaker 1: that Native Americans used to make arrowheads. This flint, when
Speaker 1: struck against steel, was what produced the spark. Although we
Speaker 1: don't have any sort of detailed insight on this point
Speaker 1: through lime and draper or our other sources, we can
Speaker 1: only imagine that the long hunters would keep in camp
Speaker 1: a store of chirt or other toolstone that they could
Speaker 1: shape into flints if they did run out. This was
Speaker 1: one supply that would have been relatively easy for them
Speaker 1: to source out in the field.
Speaker 9: Gunpowder with something else long hunters might have known how
Speaker 9: to produce on their own. In a pinch, it could
Speaker 9: be made from a concoction of batguano, sulfur, wood, ash,
Speaker 9: and the dowsing of their own urine, But all available
Speaker 9: evidence suggests they simply purchased powder back in the settlements.
Speaker 9: Outside of the most dire circumstances, high quality gunpowder imported
Speaker 9: from Great Britain and her other colonies was readily available,
Speaker 9: and it was cheap, so cheap that domestic manufacture of
Speaker 9: gunpowder in the colonies that became the United States was
Speaker 9: not economically viable. There were exceptions in periods when trade
Speaker 9: was interrupted or when Great Britain was in a state
Speaker 9: of war and restricted the supply of gunpowder going outside
Speaker 9: of its borders, but generally, gunpowder in the colonies came
Speaker 9: from overseas and it was abundant. The counts frequently mentioned
Speaker 9: that the long hunters set out with large supplies of
Speaker 9: lead and powder. They'd transport this powder and store it
Speaker 9: in their station camps and larger containers, probably small kegs,
Speaker 9: but individual hunters would carry their powder in the field
Speaker 9: in a powder horn, another essential piece of gear made
Speaker 9: from the horn of a cow or buffalo. It would
Speaker 9: be fitted with a stopper at the pointy end and
Speaker 9: used to pour a charge of powder down the muzzle
Speaker 9: of the gun.
Speaker 1: As we saw at the top of this chapter, those supplies,
Speaker 1: along with the rifles themselves, were sometimes seized by Native
Speaker 1: Americans when they ran into parties of white men hunting
Speaker 1: on their land. The long hunter's rifles made an attractive
Speaker 1: prize because they were way better than the type of
Speaker 1: guns the Soul called trade guns that were in wide
Speaker 1: circulation among Native people. These trade guns were smooth bore
Speaker 1: guns or muskets that were produced use relatively cheaply in
Speaker 1: Europe and were frequently traded with the Native Americans by
Speaker 1: the colonial deer skin traders in exchange for deer hides.
Speaker 1: Smooth bore guns had smooth bores, so none of the
Speaker 1: rifling or spiraling grooves that gave the Kentucky rifle its
Speaker 1: accuracy by forcing bullets to spin as they exited the barrel.
Speaker 1: But smooth bore guns could be loaded more quickly, and
Speaker 1: again could be produced more cheaply. You could outfit an
Speaker 1: army with smooth bore guns for less money, so they
Speaker 1: were around. But when Native Americans ran into parties of
Speaker 1: long hunters on their traditional hunting grounds, they would often
Speaker 1: take the opportunity to, let's say, exchange those smooth boar
Speaker 1: guns for the long hunter's Kentucky rifles. We'll be hearing
Speaker 1: more about this interesting dynamic of theft and trade in
Speaker 1: the following chapter. There's a lot more to say.
Speaker 9: To get back to the elements that comprise the long
Speaker 9: hunter's kit. Other than their rifles and necessary paraphernalia, the
Speaker 9: cutting tools carried by long hunters with the most essential
Speaker 9: pieces of gear they had. Many would have carried what
Speaker 9: was then called a clasp or folder knife, what we
Speaker 9: would today just call a pocket knife or a jackknife.
Speaker 9: They also carried larger fixed blade knives, commonly described in
Speaker 9: the historic record as butcher knives or sometimes scalping knives,
Speaker 9: six to ten inches long. They were used for all
Speaker 9: manner of purposes, eating, scanning, fighting, whittling, carving, and yes,
Speaker 9: at times, removing human scalps. Most blades were imported from Europe,
Speaker 9: typically without handles, the owner would fashion and attach their own.
Speaker 9: Some surviving examples from this period have handles made from
Speaker 9: deer antlers. These would have been in ready supply given
Speaker 9: the occupation of the long hunters, and if you hear
Speaker 9: of a stag handle knife, that's what they were talking about.
Speaker 1: The antler handle.
Speaker 9: Modern blade steels are much stronger than what they had
Speaker 9: around then, and our knives hold a sharper edge than
Speaker 9: could be expected of the blades carried by long hunters.
Speaker 9: This meant they would frequently need to sharpen their knives,
Speaker 9: quite likely with stones found nearby. A smooth and wet
Speaker 9: river cobble would have been an adequate tool to sharpen
Speaker 9: the soft steel that was in use back then.
Speaker 1: As ubiquitous as these knives were, a small axe was
Speaker 1: just as critical to the long hunter's kit. Some folks
Speaker 1: might use the words hatchets, belt axes, and tomahawks interchangeably today,
Speaker 1: but to the long hunters there were key distinctions. Long
Speaker 1: hunters like Boone would have carried a belt axe. These
Speaker 1: were hung from the belt or carried on a shoulder
Speaker 1: strap and secured beneath the belt. They were smaller than
Speaker 1: what you might be picturing, maybe twelve inches or so
Speaker 1: overall and weighing less than a pound. The head of
Speaker 1: the axe had a squarish appearance. The pole the end
Speaker 1: opposite the bit or cutting surface was flat and rectangular,
Speaker 1: and could be used as a hammer for any number
Speaker 1: of tasks. The eye, or the opening in which the
Speaker 1: handle was seated, was a tapered, oblong shape. As they
Speaker 1: would with a knife. The owner of a belt axe
Speaker 1: would commonly need to haft it or put a handle
Speaker 1: on it themselves.
Speaker 9: These belt axes were different from a round poled, round
Speaker 9: eyed trade axe that sleek distinctive profile we would most
Speaker 9: commonly call it tomahawk, and from the long axes these
Speaker 9: men would have carried on their horses for use in
Speaker 9: shelter building or other big projects. We can certainly imagine
Speaker 9: that when Casper Mansker and its contingent decided to build
Speaker 9: canoes for that long ride down river to Natchez, they
Speaker 9: would have used belt axes to pill away the sheaves
Speaker 9: of elmbark used for the hulls of the boats, for
Speaker 9: butchering bison and elk, setting traps, shaping and pounding stakes
Speaker 9: for shelter, and any number of other tasks in which
Speaker 9: long hunters had to reshape some part of their environment
Speaker 9: to better suit their needs. The belt axe was indispensable.
Speaker 1: When it came to equipment. Long hunters needed practical, utilitarian
Speaker 1: items that served multiple purposes and that they could repair themselves.
Speaker 1: They had to shoe horses, do leather work, and build
Speaker 1: all manner of items necessary to the hunt, such as canoes, shelters,
Speaker 1: and fur and hide handling equipment like fleshing beams and
Speaker 1: stretching boards. Steel traps cost six to eight dollars a
Speaker 1: piece back then, making them one of the most significant
Speaker 1: costs of a long hunt. Tuning and repairing traps required
Speaker 1: the skill set of a blacksmith, as they often needed
Speaker 1: to fabricate trap parts, including pans and triggers. Gunsmithing skills
Speaker 1: were ass essential. Boon and likely other long hunters could
Speaker 1: skillfully restock a rifle, repair and replace parts, nap flints
Speaker 1: for the ignition system, and generally troubles you any issues
Speaker 1: that arolls with a rifle while on the hunt. Among
Speaker 1: the tools they would bring were files, bellows to heat
Speaker 1: up the fire for metal working purposes, and what they
Speaker 1: called a hand vice.
Speaker 9: Also known as a gunsmith's vice or a clockmaker's device.
Speaker 9: A hand vice was used to hold small objects being
Speaker 9: worked on.
Speaker 1: Picture a large.
Speaker 9: Pair of tweezers with wider jaws, or the type of
Speaker 9: pliers you'd use for putting seams in sheet metal. The
Speaker 9: jaws were spring loaded and tightened with a wing nut
Speaker 9: and screw. Long hunters also traveled with what's called a
Speaker 9: screw plate, a plate of iron with different sized threadholes
Speaker 9: cut into it, forcing a piece of metal through the
Speaker 9: holes that would impart an external thread to a screw's surface.
Speaker 9: If you've done some basic machining, you're probably familiar with
Speaker 9: what it looks like to tap a hole using a
Speaker 9: cutting implement to create or clean up internal threads. This
Speaker 9: is a bit like the inverse of that process, and
Speaker 9: they would have used it to fashion replacement hardware for
Speaker 9: their rifles or traps. It's remarkable to consider that the
Speaker 9: long hunters and other travelers in the back country were
Speaker 9: actually fabricating metal parts. Today you might bring along a
Speaker 9: multi tool on a long back country hunt. These guys
Speaker 9: were bringing along complete miniature workshops alls.
Speaker 1: Which were tools used to punch holes in leather, where
Speaker 1: another vital piece of equipment often mentioned in the sources.
Speaker 1: These would sometimes fold out from the backside of a
Speaker 1: clasp knife. The reason that all was so indispensable is
Speaker 1: quite simple. In addition to being metal workers, occasional gunsmiths
Speaker 1: and woodworkers. The long hunters were also hobblers, and that's
Speaker 1: because one item that would have been in constant need
Speaker 1: of repair or replacement was their footwear, the moccasins they
Speaker 1: fashioned from elk and buffalo hides. You'll recall that these
Speaker 1: elk and buffalo hides were thicker and heavier than the
Speaker 1: deer skins that were the long hunter's primary target. These
Speaker 1: thicker skins made for more durable footwear, but they still
Speaker 1: required constant maintenance. A pair of moccasins might only take
Speaker 1: a long hunter a few hours to make, but repairing
Speaker 1: them was probably a task that required near daily attention.
Speaker 1: We do know that anyone spending time outdoors in this
Speaker 1: time was very much aware of the risks of getting cold.
Speaker 1: One source describes hunters in the late seventeen hundreds as
Speaker 1: apprehensive of rheumatism, a term then used to describe rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 1: They blamed rheumatism on cold feet and slept in their
Speaker 1: half faced shelters with their feet to the fire in
Speaker 1: hopes of warming them and drying out their moccasins. It's
Speaker 1: probably safe to assume that many of them had circulation
Speaker 1: issues and numbness from wearing wet moccasins year round, but
Speaker 1: every mile in wet moccasins and every cold night was
Speaker 1: endured with a single objective in mind.
Speaker 9: Henry Skaggs, Daniel Boone, Casper Mansker and their companions weren't
Speaker 9: simply equipping themselves to survive the First Far West, although
Speaker 9: that in and of itself was not an easy task.
Speaker 9: Their tools were all a means to an end. They
Speaker 9: had a very specific, labor intensive purpose to their travels,
Speaker 9: producing deer skins in large volume for the commercial market.
Speaker 9: But of course they were not the only hunters on
Speaker 9: the landscape of the First Far West.