Speaker 1: Smell us now, Lady, Welcome to meat Eater Trivia.
Speaker 2: Meat Eater Podcast.
Speaker 3: Welcome to meat Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain
Speaker 3: Time on September the twelfth, and we're live from Meat
Speaker 3: Eater Headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 3: and joined today by our colleagues Seth Morris, senior photographer
Speaker 3: and Max Parter Videographer. On today's show, we'll talk to
Speaker 3: Jake and Riley Debo about trapping and cooking beavers. Then
Speaker 3: we'll have a segment where we put on blindfolds and
Speaker 3: try to guess what kind of wild game Max has
Speaker 3: brought us, followed by one minute fishing at an undisclosed
Speaker 3: location with our colleague Corey Hawkins. And if that ain't enough,
Speaker 3: then we'll have a hot tip off where and after
Speaker 3: that we'll get a tour of doctor Phil Loretzki's Evolutionary
Speaker 3: Genetics Laboratory in Texas. And finally we'll pitch indefensible hunting
Speaker 3: fishing laws that seemed like a good idea but probably aren't. Boys.
Speaker 3: Guess where I was last weekend?
Speaker 4: Well, judging off of your Instagram content, I could take
Speaker 4: a wild guess something to do with squirrels.
Speaker 3: Man. Let me tell you. It was in Springdale, Arkansas,
Speaker 3: the World Championship Squirrel cookoff Reeva Hanson and I went
Speaker 3: down there. My wife Alexis and daughter Bailey came up
Speaker 3: along with about three thousand of our closest friends.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 5: How long has this been going on?
Speaker 3: I think it spent There was some There was some
Speaker 3: time during the COVID dilemma that you know that it
Speaker 3: everything shout they shut it down. But it's been going
Speaker 3: on for several years now and I can't like ten years,
Speaker 3: and I may be they may not even be close,
Speaker 3: but it's been going on long enough that now it's
Speaker 3: more like a family reunion than anything else. And it
Speaker 3: just keeps getting bigger every year.
Speaker 4: That's Fun's what's your favorite thing about that event?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Walk us through like a day. Is it a weekend
Speaker 5: or just one one day?
Speaker 3: It's on Saturday, and I don't know if they got
Speaker 3: the date set for next year, but it's one day.
Speaker 3: It starts at nine in the morning. Teams get there
Speaker 3: at like eight thirty. They have a meeting, and then
Speaker 3: they commenced to cooking at nine and the public is
Speaker 3: welcome at nine o'clock and it goes to five and
Speaker 3: it is just all you can eat squirrel and anything
Speaker 3: else you can imagine during that period that time period,
Speaker 3: and it's just there's kids running around.
Speaker 5: It's pretty nuts.
Speaker 3: Huh oh, it's wild. It's yeah, it's acre nuts.
Speaker 4: How do they get all those squirrels? Just people donating
Speaker 4: them or.
Speaker 3: A lot of folks bring their own with it. There's
Speaker 3: a long list of very regulated criteria of what the
Speaker 3: squirrels have to be, the condition they have to be in,
Speaker 3: all inspected. Everything is good to go. But now they
Speaker 3: will supplast squirrels of folks that don't have them. There
Speaker 3: was a team last year from Alaska, Alaska.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, they're not bringing squirrels.
Speaker 3: They're not bringing squirrels. So they bunch of a bunch
Speaker 3: of squirrel hunters killed a bunch of squirrels and they
Speaker 3: have them there for the squirrel skinning contest and cool
Speaker 3: all that. So they let them have it.
Speaker 4: Man, that sounds like a blast. They gotta make it
Speaker 4: down there one of these years. How many people.
Speaker 5: Is there total? And how many people are like traveling
Speaker 5: from different states?
Speaker 3: Uh, there was folks there a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: from I think New Zealand maybe.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, I didn't know this is such a big
Speaker 5: thing in England.
Speaker 3: I talked to people from all over the US, Man, Oregon, Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: I mean, you just point in any direction you want
Speaker 3: to point from Arkansas and there was folks there from it.
Speaker 3: That's cool, all having a good time.
Speaker 5: Are you going to compete next year? No about Clay.
Speaker 3: You know, he was going to compete in the squirrel
Speaker 3: skinning contest this year and he was He bragged all
Speaker 3: year long. He said, you know, I can take it
Speaker 3: if they let me use my clippers, and they would
Speaker 3: have Dad and gummt. When he got there, he said,
Speaker 3: I forgot my clippers. I want to tell you Clifton
Speaker 3: Jackson is the guy that has won it for the
Speaker 3: I think since God was in junior high school. Clifton
Speaker 3: has been taking the trophy every year. And he had
Speaker 3: some good competition this year, but he smashed it pretty well.
Speaker 4: I think Clay Newcomb should practice all year. Yeah and
Speaker 4: get in there and whoop some button next year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, put his skin squirrel where his mouth is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go, Come on, Clay.
Speaker 3: All right, now onto our first guess joining us on
Speaker 3: the line first are Jake and Riley Debo from New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: They are founders of New England Naturals, or company that
Speaker 3: sells a variety of beaver based products. Jake and Riley
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: How's it going, guys?
Speaker 4: Good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is awesome. Give Jake Riley, y'all give us
Speaker 3: a rundown of what's going on and what you guys
Speaker 3: are doing as far as trapping beavers and how y'all
Speaker 3: use and what y'all do with them.
Speaker 7: Sure, well, right now, it's all prep work, so you know,
Speaker 7: it takes a lot to lead up to get towards
Speaker 7: trapping season. So we're dipping and dying traps and making
Speaker 7: sure everything's tuned up. But come October fifteen, our beaver
Speaker 7: trapping season opens up, and so from then on we
Speaker 7: do take a break duringto your hunting season to dedicate
Speaker 7: our time there, but we'll be chasing beaver's open water
Speaker 7: in through the ice. Of course, we're using the fur
Speaker 7: from them, but we're also harshing a lot of meat.
Speaker 7: So beaver meat makes up about fifty percent of our
Speaker 7: annual meat consumption and that's I don't know why if
Speaker 7: we trap more for fur or food. It's kind of
Speaker 7: hard to parse that out.
Speaker 3: Sometimes, how'd you get? How'd you get? Where did this
Speaker 3: come from? Do y'all come have a background and eating
Speaker 3: wild game and trapping?
Speaker 7: I wouldn't say that we have a background in I
Speaker 7: mean I grew up hunting right so venison your white
Speaker 7: tailed deer kind of classic.
Speaker 3: Table fare.
Speaker 7: As far as beaver, we got into trapping kind of
Speaker 7: together when we first got married, and we.
Speaker 8: Didn't want to waste the meat, and we tried it
Speaker 8: one night in a stir fry, and that just changed
Speaker 8: our entire perception on this meat. And since then we've
Speaker 8: been just trying new recipes, trying new cuts, and just
Speaker 8: getting more and more people comfortable with eating beaver meat.
Speaker 8: Jokes aside, it's a great, great resource.
Speaker 5: If you could compare beaver meat to a different kind
Speaker 5: of meat, what would you compare it to?
Speaker 8: You usually say beef, like a really rich like beef,
Speaker 8: But I compare it to lamb a lot because it's
Speaker 8: really really rich in color. It's a very dark colored meat,
Speaker 8: and it doesn't have a distinctive taste.
Speaker 1: I don't think maybe maybe.
Speaker 8: Closer to beef, but I think when you're looking at it,
Speaker 8: it looks a lot like a lamb.
Speaker 4: What's your guys go to with the beaver meat? Like,
Speaker 4: what are you doing with it?
Speaker 3: Steaks?
Speaker 7: Man steaks are our beaver steaks are something that we
Speaker 7: don't share. I mean those are those are in the
Speaker 7: freezer and those are just for us year round. But
Speaker 7: beaver legs we make a variety different croc pot dishes
Speaker 7: out of, or we used to make beaver grind.
Speaker 6: We actually have some.
Speaker 7: We're going to a family event this weekend where you know,
Speaker 7: we need to bring a dish and so our go
Speaker 7: to the barbecue pulled beaver and the timing of this
Speaker 7: just happened to be that we've got some here that
Speaker 7: we can show you guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would love to I love to see.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's see it on on the in the first
Speaker 7: on the skin and table.
Speaker 5: I can smell it from you what beaver meat.
Speaker 7: Looks like, and it's really it's you wouldn't be able
Speaker 7: to tell the difference between a pulled brisket. I'm gon
Speaker 7: serve this on some Hawaiian buns with a little bit
Speaker 7: of cheese and meet some cool slof you have it
Speaker 7: and it's Uh, it's.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's fantastic. A few years ago, Steve and I
Speaker 4: made a bunch of Italian sausage out of beaver and
Speaker 4: it was fantastic. And yeah, I just need to start
Speaker 4: exploring more with some beaver meat.
Speaker 3: I think about all the years of my brother and
Speaker 3: I've been trapping beavers and all the groceries that we
Speaker 3: wasted just by getting the beavers out and selling the hides.
Speaker 3: That is, because you can tell them look at by
Speaker 3: looking at me that I like to eat.
Speaker 5: Going back to trapping, what's the largest beaver you guys
Speaker 5: have ever ever trapped it?
Speaker 9: Last year?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Connor personal best last year was sixty points six
Speaker 7: pounds and it was a big female.
Speaker 6: So we've been flirting.
Speaker 7: We've had quite a few in that fifty eight fifty nine,
Speaker 7: but we just couldn't break the sixty pounds.
Speaker 6: We finally did this last year.
Speaker 4: That's cool you guys. I've been watching on on Instagram
Speaker 4: and you guys have that tail wall, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's actually right.
Speaker 4: You give us a little sneak peak of that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is where so essentially any beaver that's over
Speaker 7: fifty pounds makes it on the wall.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 7: We'd like to, you know, show it off because you
Speaker 7: can see all these nicks and different kayo fleshing board
Speaker 7: out of the way, all the different you know, wounds
Speaker 7: on these beavers and different sizes, and that the story
Speaker 7: of each beaver.
Speaker 3: So what we're looking at for the folks that they
Speaker 3: can't see, they're not watching, they can't see the video
Speaker 3: is Jake and Riley have made an outline of the
Speaker 3: of the big beaver tails that they've called what what
Speaker 3: what's the requirement to get traced onto the wall?
Speaker 6: Jake, It's got to be over fifty pounds.
Speaker 3: Over fifty pounds and there's a there's like a whole
Speaker 3: wall right there. That's awesome.
Speaker 8: Is gonna make a nice print for like a shirt
Speaker 8: to have a bunch of beaver tails on it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that'd be cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cal hunter.
Speaker 5: Spencer, I'm kind of a rookie to trapping. But is
Speaker 5: there is there a limit on beavers in the trappings?
Speaker 6: Not in this area.
Speaker 7: There regulated by the length of the season, and that
Speaker 7: season is really long, but the majority of the season
Speaker 7: there's ice and so it's hard to catch beavers and
Speaker 7: so kind of buy conditions and length of seasons how
Speaker 7: the fishal wildlife agencies you know, monitor that.
Speaker 6: But we've gotten extremely robust beaver population.
Speaker 5: That's great.
Speaker 6: I'd say we're.
Speaker 7: Kind of saturated as far as habitat goes, and so
Speaker 7: they start popping up in roadside ditches and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: But yeah, so there's there's no limit and there's also
Speaker 7: no shortage of them.
Speaker 3: Very cool.
Speaker 5: I remember last last winter was my first time ever
Speaker 5: experiencing it with Seth and Steven. I just thought it
Speaker 5: was so cool. The bubble lines underneath the ice.
Speaker 4: Yep, learn how to read the sign.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was the coolest part.
Speaker 4: I think how many beavers you guys taking a year
Speaker 4: on average?
Speaker 6: Last year we caught ninety.
Speaker 7: The year prior to that, I think we were in
Speaker 7: the high sixties, and we've kind of been inching.
Speaker 6: Our way up.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 6: We'd like to I'd like to see triple digits next year.
Speaker 3: If you can there you go to shoot for Yeah,
Speaker 3: no doubt. What about you getting your y'all getting ready now?
Speaker 3: Trapping season opens next month if if that's correct, that's right,
Speaker 3: Tell how you what are you doing with your traps
Speaker 3: to get them ready?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So the biggest thing is just you know, So
Speaker 7: this is a brand new body grip trap. So it's silver,
Speaker 7: just fresh metal for those that can't see. And it
Speaker 7: needs a couple of things. First, it needs to trap tags.
Speaker 7: That's an identifying tag that attaches you to it. We
Speaker 7: actually add two inline swivels to our body grips. That's
Speaker 7: not a legal requirement, it's just something we like to do.
Speaker 7: And then we dip them and by dipping or dying,
Speaker 7: it's turning them black. And so I don't know if
Speaker 7: you can see it well, but that's protecting it from
Speaker 7: rust and protecting it just and also you know, helping
Speaker 7: to camouflage it. But you know, these traps are equipment
Speaker 7: that are used outdoors for in rough conditions interacting with animals,
Speaker 7: and they take a beating. So each year before the season,
Speaker 7: we got to go through every single trap and make
Speaker 7: sure it's functioning properly.
Speaker 8: And we're also prepping our bait. We're using the beaver
Speaker 8: caster that we harvested from last year to make the
Speaker 8: bait that we're going to use or the lure that
Speaker 8: we're going to use this year to catch more beavers.
Speaker 5: Interesting, is it a factor fiction? Do you use beaver
Speaker 5: caster or do they use beaver caster in like vanilla
Speaker 5: asterakt or like perfumes and stuff.
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, they do expensive perfumes and vanilla and vanilla extract.
Speaker 8: But I think the vanilla world is moving a little
Speaker 8: towards other sources that are cheaper to use for the
Speaker 8: artificial vanilla smell. But beaver was used for a very
Speaker 8: long time to have that smell.
Speaker 4: H very cool. What else are you guys targeting throughout
Speaker 4: the year.
Speaker 7: So we'll start with raccoons, so we actually are are
Speaker 7: kind of annual thing is raccoons from October fifteen until
Speaker 7: deer season and three weeks of deer hunting, and then
Speaker 7: that usually ends the first couple of days of December,
Speaker 7: and from December until April ten, it'll be mostly beaver,
Speaker 7: but otter muskrat. Right as we messed around muskrat over
Speaker 7: the last couple of years and getting better and better
Speaker 7: at that, a little bit of mink trapped, mostly water critters.
Speaker 4: Cool any no coyotes at all or anything or fox.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean i'd like to get into that.
Speaker 7: I've messed around with canine trapping in the in the past,
Speaker 7: but the reality is best three weeks of kyo trapping
Speaker 7: are the best three weeks of deer tracking here in
Speaker 7: the Northeast.
Speaker 3: Hey tell me that you you caught ninety beavers last year?
Speaker 3: What did you do with the hat?
Speaker 7: So we sent them all out to the tannery, and
Speaker 7: so they're going to be back here, hopefully in the
Speaker 7: next week or two, and then we make them into
Speaker 7: finished products.
Speaker 6: So we also have a fur of your shop. We
Speaker 6: bought a first.
Speaker 7: Sewing machine, and we make mittens and hats, and we
Speaker 7: can make blankets and all sorts of things of that nature.
Speaker 7: So we're we're making final products with the beavers that
Speaker 7: we're catching.
Speaker 5: That's cool, y'all.
Speaker 3: They're using everything on the beaver except the chewing that
Speaker 3: he does. That's awesome.
Speaker 4: That is awesome.
Speaker 5: That is cool.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: One one Valentine's Uh one year on Valentine's Day, I
Speaker 5: got my girlfriend a pair of beaver mittens.
Speaker 4: I bet you like that.
Speaker 3: Yellow making those there in house there, it's your pluf.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 7: Start to finish from catching the beaver to shipping out
Speaker 7: that final package. We're the only ones handling it besides
Speaker 7: the tanning. That's a whole other well.
Speaker 8: And this all started because when we first started trapping
Speaker 8: together the fur market, you weren't getting a lot for
Speaker 8: each pelt, but we were putting in hours and hours
Speaker 8: of work not just trapping, but also scanning and fleshing
Speaker 8: and putting up that fur. So we sold our pelts
Speaker 8: into the market for one year, and then the next
Speaker 8: year we said we got to do something different because
Speaker 8: we put so much work and love into this just
Speaker 8: for a tin o be shipped out for a very
Speaker 8: small price. So that's why we started experiment. Actually, it
Speaker 8: was during the pandemic that we we bought it for
Speaker 8: a sewing machine and just started teaching ourselves because there's
Speaker 8: not a lot of resources online for teaching people how
Speaker 8: to sew fer, which is part of the reason we're
Speaker 8: creating content to try to reduce that barrier to get
Speaker 8: more people involved and comfortable with fur products.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's outstanding and they absolutely have of one of
Speaker 3: the most seth You and I were talking about it earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you guys are running a school on from start to finish,
Speaker 3: prepping for into the finished product of anything to do
Speaker 3: with with trapping and fur and fur. And then it's
Speaker 3: just it's really good. It's it's something that is much
Speaker 3: maligned and it gets it's the low hanging fruit. Is
Speaker 3: when people want to start working anti anything into the
Speaker 3: into the message boards, the trapping is always first. But yep,
Speaker 3: you guys have got to putting a really good face
Speaker 3: on it and uh and explaining the conservation end of it,
Speaker 3: which is so important and it's really good.
Speaker 9: Yeah. On on that note, guys, this is this is
Speaker 9: Phil and the the audio engineer over here. We have
Speaker 9: a question from Nate who is asking, this is kind
Speaker 9: of putting you guys on the spot, but he asks
Speaker 9: his trappers tend to be under fire from animal rights activists,
Speaker 9: what groups can they follow invest in in order to
Speaker 9: help you guys have any sort of conservation groups that
Speaker 9: specifically are beaver or trapping, orient to.
Speaker 7: Start join your local Trappers Association in your state, and
Speaker 7: then join the one in the neighboring state and the
Speaker 7: neighboring state and the National trapp Association for Takers of America.
Speaker 6: They're really on the front line. And beyond that, there's.
Speaker 7: All sorts of great organizations that we're seeing on social
Speaker 7: media right now like CRWM and how for Wildlife. So
Speaker 7: follow along on those social medias, help spread those messages.
Speaker 7: But also, you know, we need our local trapper associations.
Speaker 7: They need money, so they need your you know, donations
Speaker 7: and your annual fees, and they also need numbers. It
Speaker 7: really helps for them to be able to stand up
Speaker 7: at the state House and say, hey, we have you know,
Speaker 7: twenty five hundred trappers behind us that all agree you
Speaker 7: know this bill XYZ whatever it may be, So join
Speaker 7: your local organizations.
Speaker 3: Very good advice, very good advice. All right, where can
Speaker 3: we find you guys online? Where can folks find y'all?
Speaker 7: You can find us that New England Naturals on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube,
Speaker 7: but then you can also find our products on New
Speaker 7: England Naturals dot net.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. Jake and Raley, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: For thanks guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: All right, we are on to the next segment, and
Speaker 3: it's called Mystery Meat.
Speaker 4: Don't know what is this meat?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 10: Is it?
Speaker 1: What time?
Speaker 11: What is this meat?
Speaker 4: Fantastic?
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, Mac, we we haven't done this before. So, uh,
Speaker 5: mystery Meat. I cooked a piece of meat which Seth
Speaker 5: and Bran will blind taste test and then they'll guess
Speaker 5: what kind of meat it is. And uh yeah, so
Speaker 5: put on your blindfolds. You might have to take off
Speaker 5: your glasses there. So yeah, this is going to be
Speaker 5: very interesting and hopefully they like it.
Speaker 4: So uh, hopefully this isn't a trick.
Speaker 5: No, this is not a trick and it's not beaver actually,
Speaker 5: so keep that off the list. I'll just yeah, we'll
Speaker 5: just god do.
Speaker 3: One of these. This is a demonstrating I'm going to
Speaker 3: do all this is this?
Speaker 4: Is this a toothpick? Should not eat the where's my mic?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 4: We go only toothpick?
Speaker 3: Alright, toothick I'm going for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's tender.
Speaker 9: Mm hmm. Okay, what are first impressions here? What are
Speaker 9: we the initial notes? What do we have in the
Speaker 9: in the in the bouquet?
Speaker 4: And texture doesn't seem like an ungulate just my opinion.
Speaker 9: Interesting?
Speaker 5: Interesting, So cooking this, Phil, can we see.
Speaker 9: Some bring up the photos here?
Speaker 5: Sorry, I'm doing right into the mic. So yeah, watching
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 4: This is fantastic.
Speaker 5: There is a picture of the meat on the cutting board.
Speaker 5: And what I did I did a little trimming.
Speaker 3: Armadillo.
Speaker 5: No, yeah, I did a little trimming, just cleaned it
Speaker 5: up a little bit and then I just seasoned it up.
Speaker 5: I call it my Holy Trinity, salt, pepper, and garlic.
Speaker 5: It's pretty easy.
Speaker 4: Someone from down the Bayou.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, then I just threw it on the grill,
Speaker 5: just cooked it both sides.
Speaker 4: And is this something that you got yourself? Max?
Speaker 5: I don't know if I should answer that.
Speaker 3: All right, Okay, just keep thinking. Well, it's it's got
Speaker 3: a It's hard for me to distinguish. It doesn't taste
Speaker 3: like what I would think or what I remember waterfowl
Speaker 3: tasting like, or the texture. But I think that's what
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I think I've got a guess.
Speaker 4: I have a gas based off of just me knowing
Speaker 4: what Max likes to do.
Speaker 9: Okay, before I say, you guys, give your guesses, and
Speaker 9: then before you reveal Max, I'm gonna list off kind
Speaker 9: of what the most popular guess is from the audience here.
Speaker 9: I don't want their I don't want the audience's guesses
Speaker 9: to influence them. So how about we hear from Brent
Speaker 9: and Seth first, and then we'll bring up Yeah, I'm
Speaker 9: all right, Brent, what do you think the mystery meat is?
Speaker 3: I think I think the mystery meat is Canada goose.
Speaker 9: Okay, Seth, what do you think mystery meat is san
Speaker 9: Hill crane. Alright, well, we have people guessing goose Brent
Speaker 9: Brent on the and the audience says goose. Uh sled
Speaker 9: Saint says crane crane. It's a lot of geese and crane.
Speaker 9: Those are the popular answer. Hunter Spencer says, speckle belly.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's diver ducks. I'm not getting a
Speaker 4: fish taste.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, yes, I took my mask off, you did.
Speaker 5: Seth's going to keep his mask on the whole time.
Speaker 9: No, if you give me, if you if you give
Speaker 9: me one sect here, Max, I can I can cue
Speaker 9: up a drum roll. It's gonna be worth it all
Speaker 9: this time. Hold on here, Okay, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 9: a drum roll, and then I would like for you
Speaker 9: to reveal the mystery.
Speaker 3: Meat sounds great?
Speaker 9: Are you ready?
Speaker 3: It's really good?
Speaker 5: Oh, it is Sandhill crane. Seth has had it before.
Speaker 3: I was out just out of town here the other
Speaker 3: day and went out to look at some milk and
Speaker 3: saw some out there, and every you know, everybody always
Speaker 3: describes them as being the rabbie in the sky. That is.
Speaker 3: I would have never guessed that.
Speaker 5: Have you had it before?
Speaker 3: No, that's it.
Speaker 5: That's the first time you can have the rest of that.
Speaker 3: Taking it home. That is man, that's good.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 3: I was always you know, I always think something's over
Speaker 3: exaggerated for years and years and years. I mean all
Speaker 3: the time I was in a guiding business. Folks that
Speaker 3: would hunt with me would say, man, you gotta go
Speaker 3: out and shoot the sand hill cranes Rebbie in the sky.
Speaker 3: And I thought, after all these years, I'm going to
Speaker 3: eventually eat it and go That tastes like spam, which
Speaker 3: is also good.
Speaker 5: No, I mean they're great to eat and they're super
Speaker 5: fun to hunt to. Last September, I drew a tag
Speaker 5: for out here and I ended up shooting a couple
Speaker 5: and yeah, it was a great time. Like watching decoys
Speaker 5: is so cool too. They're such a big animal.
Speaker 3: Now, will they come to goose decoys or you've got
Speaker 3: to have specific decoys.
Speaker 5: Just growing up in North Kota, I never really hunted them,
Speaker 5: but they would come into the goose decoys just as
Speaker 5: long as like they're feeding in that field. But last
Speaker 5: fall I hunted them over sand hill decoys.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're a lot bigger than I thought they were
Speaker 3: seeing them.
Speaker 4: Oh, they're huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah yards.
Speaker 4: You know, I've multiple times been like, oh, there's a
Speaker 4: deer over there and like pull up your ocatars, like, no,
Speaker 4: that's not deer.
Speaker 3: And they also like retrievers. They'll put safety goggles on
Speaker 3: own retrievers.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So last fall when I hunted, I made sure
Speaker 5: they're dead and just ached and then I sent my
Speaker 5: dog after him because I didn't have goggles.
Speaker 9: So yeah, Brent, we have a very direct message from
Speaker 9: an Alexis Reeves saying you're not allowed to bring anything
Speaker 9: else home.
Speaker 3: We're running out of room.
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was fantastic.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now I got another reason to come back. We're
Speaker 3: moving on to the next segment, One minute Fishing.
Speaker 13: Do I feel lucky?
Speaker 3: We'll do.
Speaker 11: You go ahead.
Speaker 8: Make my cast.
Speaker 3: All right. Our next segment is one minute Fishing. It's
Speaker 3: one minute fishing is where we go live to someone
Speaker 3: who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish,
Speaker 3: and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars
Speaker 3: donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is
Speaker 3: colleague Corey Hawkins, who's the content coordinator here at meat Eater.
Speaker 3: If you saw the Buffer Zone episode on it was
Speaker 3: last season's Mediater show, you would have watched him on
Speaker 3: the screen. You're looking good right right now. I wish
Speaker 3: somebody else read this because I want to know the
Speaker 3: body that right now he's on an undisclosed river in
Speaker 3: Montana and he's fishing for a donation to back country
Speaker 3: hunters and anglers. Corey, are you there?
Speaker 11: Hello?
Speaker 3: You look taller.
Speaker 11: Because my feet as the water.
Speaker 3: There you go, all right, man? You looks like you
Speaker 3: got some good weather. Is this on a scale of
Speaker 3: one to ten? Is this where are we at on
Speaker 3: fishing weather? Ten being the best?
Speaker 14: You know, it's been super hot now as of the
Speaker 14: last twenty four hours of strops twenty degrees uh so
Speaker 14: not ideal, but this heavy.
Speaker 11: Overcast could be really good.
Speaker 14: I fished my way down here with a little white
Speaker 14: streamer and wrecked them. But you know what they say,
Speaker 14: went in doubt, nymph them out, So I got a
Speaker 14: little bobber going.
Speaker 5: Now, what's on the end of the bobber?
Speaker 10: I got a couple of little nymphs, got a little
Speaker 10: frenchy tungsten bead. Heead mainly to help my little size
Speaker 10: twenty pheasant tail get down and deep right where I
Speaker 10: need it.
Speaker 3: Well, Corey is he's an experience fly fishing and hunting
Speaker 3: guy too, So really, if you doesn't catch a fish here,
Speaker 3: it's nobody's fault. But Corey's this.
Speaker 4: That's true story. Corey, what's your scale?
Speaker 5: One to ten?
Speaker 11: You know I'd probably give it a nine. Okay, I
Speaker 11: like that, So go big or go home?
Speaker 3: Right? All right? We ready with the clock.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I've got I've got a I've got some music
Speaker 9: that is exactly one minute long. It's fairly epic. So Corey,
Speaker 9: you're gonna have to live up to this orchestration here.
Speaker 9: But when the song is over, that's your one minute
Speaker 9: and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 11: You ready, I'm ready?
Speaker 5: All right, let's see it. Okay, I that's a false cast.
Speaker 5: Oh he's going okay, in there, tight tight loops.
Speaker 3: He's got it in the water, seeing it out set
Speaker 3: the hook.
Speaker 11: I'm hoping you guys can see every move.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, we got you.
Speaker 3: He's casting again and cast is out. He's got it
Speaker 3: right in this scene. Oh, I'm waiting in the back stream.
Speaker 3: But the stripping another cast, another cast, gotta be getting close.
Speaker 3: Come on, Corey, come.
Speaker 5: On, Frenchy. That was a hook set?
Speaker 3: Come on?
Speaker 11: Yeah? What do I got all the time?
Speaker 12: Boy?
Speaker 9: Just gotta wait those songs.
Speaker 11: You're right for three? Two?
Speaker 5: One?
Speaker 3: Okay, awesome? I tay to do. That was a that
Speaker 3: was given it the old college drive. It ever was one?
Speaker 3: Did you catch one?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Well thanks Corey, Uh, drop me a pin before you
Speaker 3: leave there in your top secret place. It was. That
Speaker 3: was a good effort, my man. So yeah, did you
Speaker 3: have a pretty good strike?
Speaker 15: I did?
Speaker 11: Yeah, Bobara went down. Had to have been a fish
Speaker 11: set the hook and he wasn't there.
Speaker 4: Who knows.
Speaker 14: I'm fishing barblous size twenty nymphs, so it's easy to
Speaker 14: hook them.
Speaker 5: It wasn't one of those rock fish, was it.
Speaker 11: I don't think so. Man. If it was, he was
Speaker 11: a big one.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 5: You know what they say, hook sets are free, that's right?
Speaker 11: Yeah all day.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I fished last year with Corey on the Yellowstone
Speaker 3: and me and Chili, and he knows what he's doing,
Speaker 3: so it ain't it Just it ain't that easy. It's
Speaker 3: a lot of you get one minute, you know.
Speaker 5: You're literally on the clock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, literally for sure, thank you, brother, I'll get back
Speaker 3: to work.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you got it, guys, I'll see it you don't catch.
Speaker 4: Some more fish?
Speaker 3: Ah phail, Yes, sir, we got any listener feedback that
Speaker 3: we can we do?
Speaker 9: Yeah, let's take a take a few here. Here's one
Speaker 9: from Mogor. I think I'm not sure how I pronounce
Speaker 9: his name, but he says he'd love to see the
Speaker 9: whole crew after a no shave November. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 9: me too, Max, I just kind of wanted to, like, Seth,
Speaker 9: you've had the mustache for as long as I've known you.
Speaker 9: Have you ever gone like full go tee any sort
Speaker 9: of beard beard action?
Speaker 4: I mean I have in the past, but uh man,
Speaker 4: I haven't. The longest longest I let it go is
Speaker 4: when I spend two weeks in Alaska every summer and
Speaker 4: I don't shave that all the time. But yeah, other
Speaker 4: than that, Yeah.
Speaker 9: Max, this is kind of a this is an incredibly
Speaker 9: open question, but you can kind of tackle all you want.
Speaker 9: But Jacob's wondering what your main strategy hunting ducks in
Speaker 9: southwest Montana is.
Speaker 5: My main strategy is scout, scout, scout, even before the
Speaker 5: hunt start. That's where all my preparation goes into. And
Speaker 5: I typically don't like hunting if there's not going to
Speaker 5: be any birds there.
Speaker 3: Ye, so, but that can go over It can change
Speaker 3: overnight too, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I scout my butt off, and I think
Speaker 5: my wife will say the same thing. I spend more
Speaker 5: time scouting than I do hunting.
Speaker 3: So oh yeah, and watching the whaler.
Speaker 5: Yeah in the weather some too, ye so but yeah,
Speaker 5: scout find some open water. That's that's what I have
Speaker 5: to offer.
Speaker 9: So sounds good. Spencer chimed in when we were talking
Speaker 9: to Jake and Riley and said they are so cool.
Speaker 9: I agree, Oh no, diagree as well. Those two seemed awesome.
Speaker 9: And on that note, this is more for Seth since
Speaker 9: since they had to we had to get Jake and
Speaker 9: Riley had to had to run. But how does one
Speaker 9: get started in in trapping? We have a plethora of
Speaker 9: beavers in the creek we irrigate out of, and the
Speaker 9: old man asked me to manage that. That's a question
Speaker 9: from Brett.
Speaker 4: Well, nowadays you can kind of go to any sporting
Speaker 4: goods store or pick up a couple of traps. First off,
Speaker 4: check your regulations in your state. See what's legal. Different
Speaker 4: states have different regulations for what you can use, what
Speaker 4: you can't use. Jall size that that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: But yeah, just go pick up some traps. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of resources online these days, especially Jake and Riley.
Speaker 4: They have a good Instagram channel where U Instagram page
Speaker 4: where and YouTube and stuff where you can learn a
Speaker 4: lot about trapping. But yeah, if you don't have a
Speaker 4: mentor go online. Try to find as much information about
Speaker 4: as you can and that'll kind of get you pointed
Speaker 4: in the right direction.
Speaker 3: You YouTube university, right, Yeah, Jake always has a premium
Speaker 3: choice and headwear. Anytime I see him.
Speaker 4: On there, you know.
Speaker 5: He's wearing it today too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 9: All right, yeah, I think it's that's good for Q
Speaker 9: and A. Right now, if you guys have anything else
Speaker 9: at the end of the show, please go ahead and
Speaker 9: ask or comment in the chat.
Speaker 3: All right, Next hot tipoff, Hot tip off time. We've
Speaker 3: got too hot tip offs today. Now, after we play
Speaker 3: them both, we're going away in about what we liked
Speaker 3: and who had the hotter tip. Then we're going to
Speaker 3: declare a winner and vote on which one we think
Speaker 3: is better. Phil hit us with that first tip man.
Speaker 15: All right, for my hot tip this week, we're gonna
Speaker 15: talk about a rear rest. A lot of folks take
Speaker 15: a tripod in the woods with them, but they just
Speaker 15: use it for glass. And so how many times have
Speaker 15: you come up over the ridge and there's an elk
Speaker 15: out there and you want you found like a tree
Speaker 15: limb to set your rifle on, or in some cases
Speaker 15: you're hunt an egg. There's a fence post, just something
Speaker 15: to get the front of your rifle on, but you
Speaker 15: still feel wobbly. If you're gonna have a tripod with
Speaker 15: you anyways, you might as well use it as a
Speaker 15: rear rest.
Speaker 11: So what we did.
Speaker 15: Here, this is just like any tree. This is just
Speaker 15: imagine this is a tree limb coming out. You throw
Speaker 15: your bag down or puffy or whatever, you set your
Speaker 15: gun on it. What you're gonna do is you're gonna
Speaker 15: take your tripod. You've already got it with you, you already
Speaker 15: glassed up and elk with it. You're gonna bring it
Speaker 15: in here parallel with the target. The front two legs.
Speaker 15: Your right arm is coming in in the tripod here
Speaker 15: just like this, coming around to my grip. And then
Speaker 15: I'm gonna take my other hand and come in here.
Speaker 15: This is a little lighter caliber, right, this is just
Speaker 15: a six to five creed More, but it works really
Speaker 15: well with bigger calibers. So I think this one's shooting
Speaker 15: like right around twenty nine hundred feet per second with
Speaker 15: our new Sigammo. We came out with them. So you
Speaker 15: get in behind the gun, left hand here, right hand
Speaker 15: on target, and this should be as rock solid as prone.
Speaker 15: You should just frankly, there should be no wabble in
Speaker 15: the crosshairs. Roll the bolt. This target is right at
Speaker 15: about four hundred yards. Wait for the ding.
Speaker 4: Call that the long range cowboy Garrett.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's our colleague Garrett Long who's the last president
Speaker 3: of content here. Immediately that you in the background. That
Speaker 3: was some handsome stranger. Exactly who that guy was, but boy,
Speaker 3: he looked really smart.
Speaker 5: I like that tip. I could have used that last fall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And he showed that to me out there last
Speaker 3: year when we were out there doing some shooting. I
Speaker 3: had never done that before. But they ain't kidding. It's
Speaker 3: rock solid.
Speaker 5: What's the next one?
Speaker 3: Phil?
Speaker 9: The next one is from Hey, it's from Corey Calkins.
Speaker 9: If we just saw failing to catch a fish in
Speaker 9: one minute.
Speaker 3: But he's this is how to catch a fish in
Speaker 3: one minute?
Speaker 5: How to catch a fish?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 9: Here we are, here's Corey.
Speaker 16: I'm Corey Caulkins, and I got a hot tip for you.
Speaker 16: I'm out here scouting for elk just before Montana's archery opener.
Speaker 16: Also trying to get the kinks out. Make sure I'm
Speaker 16: dialed with my gear. And just realize my wind checker
Speaker 16: bottle is totally out. Must have poured it out or
Speaker 16: something last year. So instead of going back to town
Speaker 16: to buy another ten dollars plastic tube of windicator, I'm
Speaker 16: just gonna refill this. I always have some gold on
Speaker 16: or some powder with me, so I'm just gonna use this.
Speaker 16: Pour it onto a piece of paper, piece of cardboard, whatever.
Speaker 3: You got some regulations, catalog.
Speaker 16: It's gonna get a little messy. Ideally you'd have your
Speaker 16: boots underneath here catching your extras.
Speaker 4: That's a little tip right there.
Speaker 5: Two hot tips works great.
Speaker 16: Oh a checker like midday boots are soggy from sweat perspiration.
Speaker 16: You're a crossing creeks.
Speaker 3: Pour a little bit of this onto your footbed. Hot tip.
Speaker 3: Is there nothing that guy can't do?
Speaker 5: It for real, all right, Max, I think I'm going
Speaker 5: with Cory step all right, because.
Speaker 3: Don't tell me yet. Don't tell me why yet, Seth.
Speaker 4: Man, it's a tough one. I'm gonna go with Garretts.
Speaker 3: Though, Okay, you're the I think I'm gonna go with Corey's.
Speaker 3: Tell me why why? You think?
Speaker 5: So before you even get a shot, you got to
Speaker 5: make sure your wins right, right, So that's step one.
Speaker 5: So that's where I'm at.
Speaker 4: Okay, I like Garrett's number one. I just love shooting rifles,
Speaker 4: and I just think a lot of people take some
Speaker 4: sketchy shots leaning off a fence posts and whatnot every year,
Speaker 4: especially like during antelope seasons kind of when I when
Speaker 4: I see it the most. And you know, if they
Speaker 4: just did this little little simple thing here, they would
Speaker 4: have a solid rest and they would either hit their
Speaker 4: animal not wounded, or they won't miss.
Speaker 5: So right, Okay, I'm they're both really good tips.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, then they applied. But the Corey's had
Speaker 3: an extra had an extra little caveat that you could
Speaker 3: use it not only with hunting, but taking care of
Speaker 3: your feet. Yeah, you know, because like they say in
Speaker 3: the Army, you take care of your feet, your feet,
Speaker 3: and take care of.
Speaker 4: You multiple uses big out there in the back country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you're not toting a lot of
Speaker 3: a lot of different stuff. But like Garret when I
Speaker 3: were out there talking the other day, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're if you're rifle hunting, you're probably glassing from something.
Speaker 3: You're probably going to have a tripod out there. So
Speaker 3: if you can't, if you don't have a tripod with you,
Speaker 3: get a stick, get something, you know, and try to
Speaker 3: and try to do it as well as you can.
Speaker 3: Try to do what he was doing there. But I've
Speaker 3: done it and it is it's rock solid for sure.
Speaker 9: We have a Scotty has a question in regard to
Speaker 9: Corey's hot tip, asking if if flower or fish batter
Speaker 9: would work, as they always have fish batter in the
Speaker 9: camp kitchen.
Speaker 4: Mmmm, it might get a little uh flowers, depending on humidity,
Speaker 4: it might get a little kiky in there.
Speaker 9: Yeah. We've got Ray saying that he uses corn.
Speaker 3: Starch corn stars.
Speaker 5: That's a good tip too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's why the gold bonds.
Speaker 5: A lot of people saying Corey on there, Corey, Corey.
Speaker 9: Okay, so really quick, we've got to I'm gonna we're
Speaker 9: gonna try something right here. I don't know how it's
Speaker 9: gonna work out, but we have a surprise call in
Speaker 9: one sick.
Speaker 4: This is live.
Speaker 9: Have some.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna keep eating this crane here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah you should since I was, Since you already
Speaker 3: gave it to me, you should just keep eating.
Speaker 5: It over there, Mac, that's a tender one.
Speaker 3: How BIG's a breast on them? Saniel Crane Canada?
Speaker 5: Goose bigger depends, I feel like, I mean, obviously anything
Speaker 5: there's adults in juveniles, So like, juveniles are probably pretty
Speaker 5: close to your hand, I would say, and then your
Speaker 5: adults can be just slightly bigger than a goose press ruby.
Speaker 3: Having any trouble retrieving them back, I mean for so long.
Speaker 5: They're super long, and like, I mean just they're just
Speaker 5: a big creature.
Speaker 3: So yeah, hopefully through the modern technology we'll be able
Speaker 3: to pull this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3: You can read everything from morse code to smoke signals.
Speaker 5: There's another uh hot tip from a listener. Uh if
Speaker 5: you want deer hunting access in a country, trap beaver.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's a good Yeah, it's a good way
Speaker 4: to get on ranches, Yeah, especially here or.
Speaker 5: Just put your foot in the door.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of livestock, you know, livestock growers
Speaker 4: and stuff out here.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I have troubles with and.
Speaker 5: I've done that before Kyote hunting too, before I asked
Speaker 5: permission for waterfall. It's is like, oh, Kyle, it's here
Speaker 5: for a year or two.
Speaker 3: Hello, So all right, Korean's got somebody?
Speaker 1: Hold on? Now's it?
Speaker 11: Hold on?
Speaker 6: Can I how do I put into a microphone?
Speaker 4: Well, if you just want to hold up to the mic,
Speaker 4: that's what I want.
Speaker 9: I wanted some more, some professionalism in this at this
Speaker 9: media company. But that's okay.
Speaker 4: It's nothing but the best.
Speaker 5: All right, all right, you're on Hello?
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Who is this?
Speaker 4: Who's who's on the phone?
Speaker 2: This is uh Steve.
Speaker 4: Never heard of?
Speaker 5: Why are you talking so quiet?
Speaker 11: Because we're on the We're on our calling now, dude.
Speaker 4: Steve, how's it going so far?
Speaker 3: And we lost him?
Speaker 5: I take it all right?
Speaker 3: We should tell what Steve's doing right now? Steve stays
Speaker 3: out hunting.
Speaker 4: We lost him? Yeah, he's he's up in uh Interior,
Speaker 4: Alaska on a ridge right now.
Speaker 3: Colin moose Awsome. Now that's is I assume the same
Speaker 3: places where he and Clay have been hunting. Yep, same area,
Speaker 3: would assume same area.
Speaker 4: It's a different different spot from where Clay got his,
Speaker 4: but not far.
Speaker 3: Okay, And it's I mean, it's about as remote as
Speaker 3: you get, and it's it's way back don.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, get there by plane, they drop you off.
Speaker 3: It was kind of amazing that we were able to
Speaker 3: get that much out of it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that little television.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 4: You're way in there, but you get a little bit
Speaker 4: of a te and t service.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Well we might get them back in we'll see.
Speaker 9: But until then, we have a we have another guest
Speaker 9: coming in Brent, Okay.
Speaker 3: Joining us on the line next is doctor Phil Loretzki,
Speaker 3: a biologist, geneticist, and a duck DNA researcher with the
Speaker 3: University of Texas at El Passo. He was on episode
Speaker 3: four nine Our Wild Ducks, Really Wild of the Mediater
Speaker 3: podcast with Steve. Professor Phil Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey, how are you.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're good man. Tell us about what you got
Speaker 3: going on at the duck DNA lab.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here we are in uh in the lab
Speaker 1: right here.
Speaker 13: I'm gonna switch over the the camera here if I can,
Speaker 13: I guess I can.
Speaker 1: So we're right here.
Speaker 13: We're gonna kind of showcase to everybody that of what
Speaker 13: we do here. If you're a participant of duck DNA,
Speaker 13: if you're part of the federal or other agencies that
Speaker 13: we work with, this is simply the process that we
Speaker 13: go by, uh to figure out.
Speaker 1: What is it in your unknown meat?
Speaker 13: I guess so if you're a duck DNA participant, you
Speaker 13: might have noticed the same thing right here. Your stuff
Speaker 13: comes in, we take it over over here where Uh.
Speaker 3: Let me stop you there? How are you getting the
Speaker 3: duck DNA. Is this a program that you guys are sponsoring.
Speaker 13: Yeah, that's right, that's right. So we're in our second year.
Speaker 13: I was gonna talk about it a little bit, but yeah, participant.
Speaker 13: We are taking participants right now. It's a program with
Speaker 13: Ducks Unlimited called duck DNA. You can sign up super
Speaker 13: easy on duck dna dot com.
Speaker 1: You can go on it right there.
Speaker 13: You just click on a button apply right now. We've
Speaker 13: got seven hundred of these kits this year to go out.
Speaker 13: It's sort of like a Western Big Game draw. Depending
Speaker 13: on how many people apply. You know, those are your
Speaker 13: chances probably better than drawing for an elk somewhere.
Speaker 3: All right, let me ask you this, Let me ask
Speaker 3: you this. Why does this matter? Why does duck DNA matter?
Speaker 3: I mean, we're not trying to solve crimes here, tell
Speaker 3: me what?
Speaker 13: No, yeah, what we're what we're trying to solve and
Speaker 13: understand our wildlife at the molecular level, sort of the
Speaker 13: foundation right understanding what are we working with. Do we
Speaker 13: have a lack of genetic diversity on this mountain with
Speaker 13: all these sheep versus this mountain? Do we need to
Speaker 13: move individuals? How is it occurring for the ducks. What
Speaker 13: we're trying to figure out is, you know, why are
Speaker 13: certain species moving in areas, What is occurring on the landscape? Why,
Speaker 13: you know, if you're interested in hybrids, where could you
Speaker 13: go to find a hybrid? And part of that is
Speaker 13: really starting to track at the national level, what's happening
Speaker 13: to our mallard populations. If you went and listened to
Speaker 13: that podcast or any other ones I've been on, you know,
Speaker 13: we're starting to build this story where game farm mallards,
Speaker 13: which are a domestic type sort of like your dog
Speaker 13: versus a wolf, are being released and they're interbreeding with
Speaker 13: our wild populations. This is interbreeding is actually causing our
Speaker 13: populations potentially to decline because we now know that they
Speaker 13: have an effect.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, let me tell you. Let me interject something
Speaker 3: right here. Twenty years ago, I was duck hunting in
Speaker 3: the green timber of Arkansas and I killed a banded
Speaker 3: mallard duck with a green leg band from duck farm
Speaker 3: in Maryland. Oh really, yeah, wow, I've still got that
Speaker 3: band on my lanyard. But I smell what you're stepping in.
Speaker 3: Do keep talking?
Speaker 13: Well, that that individual going all the way to Arkansas
Speaker 13: is potentially the problem, because those are the individuals that
Speaker 13: are that are what we're showcasing, making babies that are
Speaker 13: not as fit as a wild wild parent, and those
Speaker 13: proportions are increasing in the Great Lakes region, northeastern area
Speaker 13: of the Atlantic Flyway. In fact, we're starting to see
Speaker 13: that trickle into the prairie potholes and into the Pacific
Speaker 13: Flyway for whatever reason. So we're trying to get the
Speaker 13: hunters out there to be those citizen signs so we
Speaker 13: can monitor this at the national level across the hunting seasons.
Speaker 5: So Doc, this is gonna be the second year. Correct
Speaker 5: this fin that's that's right.
Speaker 13: Okay, we are just about to pick our well, we
Speaker 13: just picked our first cohort. We got seven hundred kids.
Speaker 13: I think we picked one hundred and fifty just now.
Speaker 13: Another one hundred and a couple of weeks and we're
Speaker 13: gonna go from north to southcast hunting seasons start, you know,
Speaker 13: earlier in the north and then they later in the South.
Speaker 5: For sure. What'd you guys learn from last year, like
Speaker 5: anything cool or anything that stuck out?
Speaker 13: Yeah, So a few of the things that we immediately
Speaker 13: learned is that the prevalence of Mallard game farm hybrids
Speaker 13: out there is increasing across the flyways, especially Atlantic and
Speaker 13: the Mississippi in particular, but it is very specific to areas.
Speaker 1: That you are.
Speaker 13: So, for example, in Montana, where you guys are very
Speaker 13: low prevalence, and if I did find a hybrid, it
Speaker 13: was already way back crossed into it was mostly wild, right,
Speaker 13: just a little bit of that game farm in them.
Speaker 13: So we're trying to understand that dynamic across them. The
Speaker 13: other thing that we immediately learned, though not a ton
Speaker 13: of hybrids yet, is the Brewers duck. We actually found
Speaker 13: where the gad brewers duck. If you don't know, is
Speaker 13: that mallard? Yeah, pairing, And we always thought it'd be
Speaker 13: a male mallard with a female gadwele, and we're able
Speaker 13: to figure out that parentage and we found it both ways,
Speaker 13: where it was a male gadwall with a female mallard
Speaker 13: and vice versa with a male mallard with a female gadwell.
Speaker 1: So now we know it actually happens both ways.
Speaker 13: And now we're trying to figure out how often do
Speaker 13: those hot hybrids, those first year hybrids can they make,
Speaker 13: you know? And how how prevalent is that and whether
Speaker 13: it's always with a wild mallard or do game far
Speaker 13: mallards now have a consequence to these other species as
Speaker 13: well well?
Speaker 5: In the drake Gadwell's defense, a female mallard and a
Speaker 5: female gadwall do Look.
Speaker 1: How.
Speaker 3: Did this start? What prompted this study and this investigation
Speaker 3: if you will?
Speaker 13: Yeah, So what prompted this was the findings that my
Speaker 13: lab were starting to come out. Back in twenty nineteen
Speaker 13: we started publishing on the game far mallard problem.
Speaker 1: We first were looking at it as a mallard black duck.
Speaker 13: And then we understood that this was really a problem
Speaker 13: for a wild mallard popular and you know, just having
Speaker 13: a good conversation with folks and Duck's unlimited Mike braid
Speaker 13: doctor Mike Brazier specifically, we sort of started to put
Speaker 13: together this brainchild of asking the question, would hunters be
Speaker 13: interested in being that hunter scientist conservationists out there to
Speaker 13: be able to start, you know, tracking this and other
Speaker 13: other aspects of our wildlife, migratory behaviors and others. Would
Speaker 13: they be interested in in participating? And so far it's
Speaker 13: been overwhelmingly yes, which I'm super excited and happy about.
Speaker 3: Very cool.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 5: I know I participated in this. Okay, studied last year
Speaker 5: and first tell us what you do to participate?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: I signed up?
Speaker 4: But what uh?
Speaker 5: What the study is is you harvest a duck, a mallard,
Speaker 5: and then you cut a sample, like a quarter inch
Speaker 5: sample off their tongue, put in a little test tube,
Speaker 5: send it over to these guys down in Texas, and
Speaker 5: then they'll do all the DNA research and then after
Speaker 5: the fact, a couple of weeks later, they'll send you
Speaker 5: a certificate of what your duck is that you sent in.
Speaker 3: As far as the species and the percentage of.
Speaker 5: Just yeah, the percentage of wild versus game farm or
Speaker 5: if it's a hybrid, if it's like a black duck
Speaker 5: or a Mexican mallard or something like that.
Speaker 3: So and you get that all that stuff is through
Speaker 3: that kit that doctor Fiel's talking to about. Yep.
Speaker 5: So last year a cool thing was my buddy shot
Speaker 5: a bandoned mallard. So we found out where it was from,
Speaker 5: how old it was. But then I cut a little
Speaker 5: piece off and really dug into its background and figured
Speaker 5: out where this mallard came from. And he ended up
Speaker 5: being like seventy five percent wild mallard and then the
Speaker 5: other twenty five percent black ducks.
Speaker 3: So and you killed that here in Montana he did, Yeah,
Speaker 3: okay killed.
Speaker 5: So it is cool, Doctor Field.
Speaker 3: Can you show us around the lab there where where
Speaker 3: you're doing your work and we're going to try to
Speaker 3: describe it. We've got to describe it to the folks
Speaker 3: or if you will, what you're showing us, because there's
Speaker 3: some folks will be listening to this that that can't
Speaker 3: see the video.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 9: And we did a little video test before the show
Speaker 9: today and the video was was crystal clear. It's a
Speaker 9: little clogged right now, it's a little fuzzy, but we
Speaker 9: can still you sound great, and we still get a
Speaker 9: general vibe of the lab fill. So if you just
Speaker 9: want to watch it around, that'd be great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Sure, No, again, you know that little kit that Max
Speaker 13: was talking about, it'd be something like this.
Speaker 1: It comes with some biles, instructions and so forth.
Speaker 13: We've updated that, so those folks that will be lucky
Speaker 13: enough to participate, we'll get the updated version of that soon.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, your samples or any other the samples
Speaker 1: that we're working on.
Speaker 13: Again, we work on waterfowl, but we do whatever the state, federal,
Speaker 13: or private individuals need work done, whether it's on other birds,
Speaker 13: bear whales. We've done just about all of that work.
Speaker 13: And so over here your samples would cut I'm in
Speaker 13: and the first thing we would do we would extract
Speaker 13: the DNA.
Speaker 1: Good. Yeah. Hi, my name is Daniel Wilson. I'm a
Speaker 1: NSF technician working here at Doctor and Rescue's LAMB. So
Speaker 1: here I'm doing the first step of DNA extractions, where
Speaker 1: you separate the DNA from the matter. And this is
Speaker 1: like the most critical step to assessing any living organism stances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that, and then what we do is we walk
Speaker 1: over here.
Speaker 13: We're gonna put it on what's known as a gael
Speaker 13: to see did we get any good duck DNA.
Speaker 1: So hey, y'all, I'm Laura McFarlane. I'm a PHU student
Speaker 1: in Lovetski Lab. And here we're gonna be illuminating a
Speaker 1: gel to see if the DNA shows up and it's
Speaker 1: good for sequencing or not.
Speaker 3: Lawrence from Baton Rouge. They have a terrible football team.
Speaker 13: Oh, it's hard to see, but if you if you
Speaker 13: look in there, we're looking for these nice little bands
Speaker 13: telling us yes, there.
Speaker 1: Is good DNA or no, there is not interesting. And
Speaker 1: now what's gonna happen.
Speaker 13: Is that we'll move that DNA over anything good, uh,
Speaker 13: to our PCR station over here.
Speaker 12: Hi, my name is Kim. I'm an NSF technician also
Speaker 12: working in the rescue lab. Right now, I'm at the
Speaker 12: PCR station where we amplify the DNA so that we
Speaker 12: can properly sequence and analyze its ancestry.
Speaker 3: I thought this was cool.
Speaker 13: Yeah, and then if the way we amplify them, we're
Speaker 13: gonna use those little bad boys right there that they're
Speaker 13: called thermocyclers. They essentially take care of temperature gradients in
Speaker 13: a specific way where we can amplify that DNA Basically,
Speaker 13: you know, who's your daddy kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Uh uh, same exact thing, same exact process.
Speaker 13: And then in the end we're gonna put them into
Speaker 13: long term storage in these minus eighties. So all the
Speaker 13: dut DNA participants, all your DNA is there for future
Speaker 13: generations to work on. I know you guys talks to
Speaker 13: Colossal and Revive and restore folks about biobak. This is
Speaker 13: essentially bio baking the genetic diversity of our waterfowl populations, right,
Speaker 13: so for future use if something terrible happens, we're gonna
Speaker 13: have the genetic diversity of redheads and canvas back and bluing,
Speaker 13: teal cinnamon, teal mallards, gad well everything. So in case
Speaker 13: we got a bioengineer or something, we're gonna have it.
Speaker 13: So again, your samples are not only important today but
Speaker 13: into the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. And then one last.
Speaker 1: One, last station we're gonna is where we actually analyze
Speaker 1: your ancestry, and here's where we clean our DNA sequences.
Speaker 1: So then afterwards we can analyze it and to what
Speaker 1: we got. So yeah, the old A G C T
Speaker 1: craziness over there and there.
Speaker 4: It is confusing that.
Speaker 13: That's what happens in U, that that's that's what happens
Speaker 13: to your DNA. So we once we figure all that out,
Speaker 13: you get a certificate like Max set saying congratulations, you
Speaker 13: harvested a whatever.
Speaker 3: So cool. Can you give me, off the top of
Speaker 3: your head the most unique discovery that you all have
Speaker 3: made in the lab associated with DNA?
Speaker 1: Oh, the most unique? I mean I would say one hybrid?
Speaker 13: Yeah, so we all know that Mallard's can agree with
Speaker 13: just about everything. We did pick up actually a couple now,
Speaker 13: Mallard wood duck. We also picked up Mallard musca v
Speaker 13: out of Florida. Really, those things are so genetically different.
Speaker 13: I didn't expect them to make any babies. Now the
Speaker 13: question is is that baby a mule or is it Bible?
Speaker 13: You know who knows, but we know that that does happen.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 13: The other cool thing is that we now actually have
Speaker 13: some Brewer duck females.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 13: The hardest thing for all of us is to identify
Speaker 13: hybrid females because they look the same, right. So the
Speaker 13: whole question is, oh, are all hybrid's males because females
Speaker 13: are are not vible or not. Now we know for
Speaker 13: sure they're they're out there and so and now we
Speaker 13: have techniques to actually be able to figure that out.
Speaker 3: So cool that is. That's awesome, that's crazy good. Anything
Speaker 3: else for doctor Field, Doctor Field? Anything you want to
Speaker 3: cover in thirty seconds?
Speaker 1: That U thirty seconds?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I just want to say, go tigers.
Speaker 13: Unless you anyways no, uh yeah, No. What I wanted
Speaker 13: to cover is I hope folks can get online really quickly.
Speaker 1: Get on duck dna dot com.
Speaker 13: Put your names in there so we can see, you know,
Speaker 13: participation keep going up. Make sure that this uh, this
Speaker 13: program goes on, uh you know, into the future.
Speaker 1: Folks have the ability to participate.
Speaker 13: We know, we had some folks come in and say, hey,
Speaker 13: my kid wouldn't go out hunting unless you could, you know,
Speaker 13: he she uh could put their duck into duck DNA.
Speaker 1: So we know this is a great recruitment tool.
Speaker 13: It doesn't have to be some you know, cool ducker
Speaker 13: and it could just be your first duck.
Speaker 1: Which is awesome.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I just send us in, send us whatever you
Speaker 13: want and we'll do we'll make it happen to.
Speaker 9: The Oh no, that's okay, we're right at the end.
Speaker 5: There's back, he's back.
Speaker 11: I'm back.
Speaker 4: Hey, video it looks better too.
Speaker 1: I'm in and out. Also, if you're ever interested in
Speaker 1: learning about Waterfoley College, you management, we have an online
Speaker 1: course that we're gonna be teaching.
Speaker 13: You can look at through UTEB that I'll be teaching
Speaker 13: that you can get a certificate or.
Speaker 1: Credit or anything like that. So please look that up.
Speaker 13: But otherwise, yeah, keep participating, and thank you for all
Speaker 13: the hunters that have and will participate. So thank you guys.
Speaker 5: Thanks doctor Phil, thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think our Phil put some links in the
Speaker 5: comments section, and I know you can find out more
Speaker 5: information on Ducks and Limited. There a big partner in this,
Speaker 5: so run over to their website and yeah, so apply
Speaker 5: and like I said, this is a super cool project
Speaker 5: to work on.
Speaker 3: All the folks there in the lab. Thank you all
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 4: Who thanks guys, Thanks guys, thank you see y'all.
Speaker 3: All right, we're on to our next segment, which is
Speaker 3: the enddefensible law. What key were you in? Give me
Speaker 3: an R? All right, this is the indefensible law is
Speaker 3: where we pitch hunting and fishing laws that are indefensible.
Speaker 3: So we'll try to convince each other why it's a
Speaker 3: good idea. Anyway, I'll go first.
Speaker 4: Let's here.
Speaker 3: I got to thinking about it yesterday. I am not
Speaker 3: I know I'm gonna get some hate for this, but
Speaker 3: muscle loaders season, you got muscle loaders and then you
Speaker 3: got in line mussele loading rifle. Now, to me, that's
Speaker 3: not a mussle loader. A mussleloader I looked in the dictionary.
Speaker 3: Musselel loader is something that you load from the same
Speaker 3: end that the bullet comes out of. So my idea
Speaker 3: would be that if it's a if you have a
Speaker 3: mussleloader season, you should be shooting a mussle loader and
Speaker 3: inline rifles don't count.
Speaker 5: Changed my mind, Max, I don't know much about it,
Speaker 5: So you're gonna talk to Seth about that.
Speaker 4: I grew up in a state where flint Lock Hunton
Speaker 4: was king, so I'm there with you.
Speaker 3: And that's a primitive weapon. Primitive now in Arkansas this year,
Speaker 3: in Arkansas this year they included straight walled cartridges in
Speaker 3: the mussloter season, and I thought, well, that's not a mussleloader.
Speaker 3: So what they did was it changed the name to
Speaker 3: alternative weapon. Which that's that's exactly what it is, an
Speaker 3: alternative weapon. That But as far as muzzleloaders go, and
Speaker 3: my brain as small as it is, I picture a
Speaker 3: mussle loader as you pour the powder, the wadden and
Speaker 3: then the bullet and then you either fire a flint
Speaker 3: to ignite the powder or you put a primer cap
Speaker 3: in there one of these. That's that's that's my indefensible
Speaker 3: law right there.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: That's a good one, yeah, Maxie.
Speaker 5: Oh so mine is going to be geared towards hunters
Speaker 5: that use dogs. So before hunting season, obviously you buy
Speaker 5: a license, right, my law is going to be I
Speaker 5: wanted to create a license option so you can buy
Speaker 5: a license for your dog. So you go on the field,
Speaker 5: whether you're up on hunting, duck hunting, square hunting, for you,
Speaker 5: you get a limit.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: But with that, with that second license, your dog also
Speaker 5: gets all the hard work.
Speaker 3: Now, in Arkansas years ago, if you had a hunting dog,
Speaker 3: he had to have a hunting license. Oh so you
Speaker 3: should have a limit to that. That that's going away.
Speaker 3: But my dad would be right here with you right now,
Speaker 3: because he was running like ten or fifteen water dogs
Speaker 3: at a time, you know, chasing coats, and he had
Speaker 3: to have an individual license for each one, so I
Speaker 3: can't get expensive. Yeah, but I see what you mean.
Speaker 5: I mean, they're doing all the hard work, So why
Speaker 5: not read the roard a little bit?
Speaker 4: So what do you think, Seth, Well, I think there's
Speaker 4: gonna be a lot of people in the comments arguing.
Speaker 3: With populationamely a bunch of game warders.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do like the license for the dog idea. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Riley says that.
Speaker 9: What does he say, dog? That's not what I want
Speaker 9: to depress with the god with having a license, I
Speaker 9: feel like people would take advantage of that with like
Speaker 9: ten dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, taking this up so you could take some puppies
Speaker 3: out there dead ducks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe maybe we shouldn't do that. Well, it was
Speaker 5: good thought.
Speaker 3: That's that is defensible there.
Speaker 4: Mine is. Well. A couple was about a month ago.
Speaker 4: I was out fishing and came back to the boat
Speaker 4: ramp to pull my boat out of the water and
Speaker 4: head home, and some guy back down the ramp was
Speaker 4: taking his time slowly got his boat trailer and then
Speaker 4: it's a it's a one lane boat ramp. He decided
Speaker 4: to pull his boat up and stop about halfway up
Speaker 4: and continue to put all his rods away and put
Speaker 4: his make sure his boat was covered. And it should
Speaker 4: be illegal to block a dang boat ramp. A boat
Speaker 4: ramp is there to back down, put your boat in
Speaker 4: or back down.
Speaker 3: Pull your boat out. Yeah, do it quick.
Speaker 4: And there was there's about ten people behind me waiting.
Speaker 3: Oh and this guy is watching now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, he's taking his time.
Speaker 4: He just didn't care.
Speaker 3: I mean, he knows that y'all are there, and he's
Speaker 3: just doing his own.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just doing his own thing. So you should get
Speaker 4: a ticket. You should get fined if you're blocking a
Speaker 4: boat ramp.
Speaker 5: And other fishermen should be able to write those tickets.
Speaker 3: There you go, Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't argue
Speaker 3: with that. That just goes back to you can't legislate manners,
Speaker 3: and you ought to be able to, you know you did.
Speaker 3: You got to look out for everybody else. We're all
Speaker 3: in this thing together. And I'm sorry I didn't see.
Speaker 3: I really wasn't paying attention. So I'll try to be
Speaker 3: faster next time. I thought it looked like, yeah we should.
Speaker 3: Uh did anybody come in with hot tips or or
Speaker 3: indefensible laws in the comments section field.
Speaker 9: I'm not getting any sort of original ones, just some
Speaker 9: some uh West Slope Outdoors says I'm with Seth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Then we've got Michael Hutchison saying that Pennsylvania people shouldn't
Speaker 9: complain about bad drivers.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm just fine. It's New Jersey. That's ralph on drivers.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think you're right funny.
Speaker 3: All right, what about any other listener feedback?
Speaker 4: Let's see here, what do we got?
Speaker 9: Uh? Kuran, we've got more demand for the Werner Bratzler.
Speaker 9: Where's a meat cutting test? They brought in mystery meat?
Speaker 9: Why not test it?
Speaker 4: That's that's a tender one. It would have scored.
Speaker 9: Well yeah, yeah, that would would have been nice. Let's
Speaker 9: see Brian's asking if Max has ever shot a legitimate triple.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's a funny story. Yeah, one time I shot
Speaker 5: a triple and I told all my hunting buddies. I
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, that was a legitimate triple And there's
Speaker 5: just kind of a funny backstory and kind of had
Speaker 5: had to be their moment.
Speaker 4: So yeah, no, one believed you. No one believed me.
Speaker 9: Huh, yeah, we've We've got nick in here with which
Speaker 9: I don't think this is that indefensible Sunday hunting in Pa.
Speaker 4: Oh, that should absolutely be a thing. It's crazy that
Speaker 4: it's not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all about opportunity and and folks have limited opportunities.
Speaker 3: And that's I mean, that's an extra day right there
Speaker 3: that you can get someone who doesn't normally get to
Speaker 3: go hunting or kids to get them in there. Yep,
Speaker 3: so that's yeah.
Speaker 9: West Slope also says that inlines should be allowed during
Speaker 9: a rifle season only.
Speaker 3: I can't argue. I can't. I'm with you, brother, yep. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 3: all right, good deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I think that was a good show, guys.
Speaker 3: A lot of fun, learned a lot of stuff that
Speaker 3: dunk DNA thing and see Jake and Riley up in
Speaker 3: New England. This good stuff, all right. Next week's Meat
Speaker 3: Eater Radio, Giannis, Spencer and Randa will be discussing Project
Speaker 3: Grizzly for the Meat Eater Movie Club. If you want
Speaker 3: to join in on their discussion, you can watch that
Speaker 3: documentary on YouTube for free. That's it for Live Today,
Speaker 3: Thank y'all. So much for joining.
Speaker 4: I'll be here later, folks.