Speaker 1: This is me et podcasting in you shirtless severely bitten
Speaker 1: in my case underwear listening. He can't predict anything, Okay,
Speaker 1: quick a couple of things. Lots of dudes, Brody, take
Speaker 1: a stay at how many dudes have written in to
Speaker 1: tell us about guy eat squirrel brains. Doesn't Why do
Speaker 1: people like that story so much? I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: not even I mean, obviously it's a thing eating them,
Speaker 1: but people get such a little chub. It's like people
Speaker 1: love it. Wildlife related disease death. Yeah, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's an unconventional meal. And he got his come up,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he got where he had coming. We knew
Speaker 1: it was going to happen eventually. Yeah, but you're also
Speaker 1: Stephen Ronnella, the meat eater, the guy who eats all
Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff. So they think they're just assuming
Speaker 1: that you're out there munch now and on squirrel brands.
Speaker 1: I don't like brains, man. Do you know you know
Speaker 1: that what's that what's that place in Zola that has
Speaker 1: the brain dish brains and eggs. Yeah, you go to
Speaker 1: the ox brains and eggs and and and it's like
Speaker 1: a big thing when you live there and you get
Speaker 1: all drunk at night, and then the bar's closed and
Speaker 1: you go to the ox and you try to get
Speaker 1: your body from out of town to buy brains and eggs.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, if you order them, they're slogan is,
Speaker 1: if you order them, you need them. I've never liked like.
Speaker 1: It's like, I do not enjoy eating the brains of anything.
Speaker 1: I'm eating cow. I'm eating a handful of different I
Speaker 1: don't I don't like it. I don't like it, don't
Speaker 1: eat it. Kevin Murphy, World's greatest small game hunter, doesn't
Speaker 1: go near squirrel brains because, um, he grew up eating them.
Speaker 1: Did he eat him when we were around? His dog? Damn,
Speaker 1: sure eats them. Dog likes him. Um, he doesn't need them,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't know because it doesn't if there is
Speaker 1: a risk, it doesn't warrant it. So it turns out
Speaker 1: here's the story that everybody's all hot and bothered about.
Speaker 1: It turns out that a guy, um, some time ago,
Speaker 1: not like recently, years ago, a guy in Rochester, New York,
Speaker 1: gets the human variant of mad cow disease, which is
Speaker 1: pronounced our our guests, Steve Kendra will pronounce it for us,
Speaker 1: I've forgotten already. Kraig Felt Jakob, Yes, right, something like that,
Speaker 1: Kreid's Felt Yakob disease um, which is, like I said,
Speaker 1: the human variant of mad cow disease. And it turns
Speaker 1: out that in his history, um, he you know, he
Speaker 1: had been a squirrel hunter, and in his history he
Speaker 1: had had enjoyed eating some squirrel brains. So it becomes
Speaker 1: this sort of like internet sensation, how he absolutely died
Speaker 1: from eating squirrel brains. But now people are pointing out
Speaker 1: that every year in New York, twenty people die from
Speaker 1: variations of this disease about on average, I think it's
Speaker 1: about one and one million people die from variations of
Speaker 1: this disease. And there's no direct reason to believe that
Speaker 1: that's what caused the thing. It was just it was
Speaker 1: a habit he had and he happened to die from it.
Speaker 1: But now doctors at that worked on this case are
Speaker 1: clarifying that there's no evidence that the man died as
Speaker 1: a result of anything he ate. But it just sounds cool.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying that. I'm not saying to
Speaker 1: run out and eats squirrel brains. It's just like funny
Speaker 1: the way like people kind of fall in love with
Speaker 1: the narrative. Correlations versis causation, people fall in love with
Speaker 1: the narrative. And holy ship to people emailing about that
Speaker 1: given like a heads up, heads up, man um guy
Speaker 1: wrote in it, make got anything to say about that? Guys?
Speaker 1: Why why are you guys interested in this interesting? Diana
Speaker 1: squirrel brains ain't interesting. No, it's like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: come in contact with them unless I myself make that
Speaker 1: situation happen. It's just not something, Yeah, Steve might serve
Speaker 1: them to you. Hey, I recently had my genetic test.
Speaker 1: I got a freebee where you get your genetic lineage test,
Speaker 1: and I can't bring myself to open up the part
Speaker 1: about the diseases I'm probably gonna get. Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to watch account. I was surprised by some stuff
Speaker 1: man I used. I was like dead sure that I
Speaker 1: was Italian, like like that that Sicilian. And it turned
Speaker 1: out that there's also that that that that I have
Speaker 1: some North African ancestry, which probably no doubt came from
Speaker 1: because that's a short little boat ride. No doubt came
Speaker 1: from the Sicilian end. But anyways, I did this thing
Speaker 1: that was surprised to me. They're part of that surprised
Speaker 1: me is that there's like a thing where it's like,
Speaker 1: here's the problems you you might have because you're genetics, right,
Speaker 1: but you gotta watch a counseling video before you can
Speaker 1: open the file. And I don't have it in me
Speaker 1: to do it. That just says, Hey, this is not
Speaker 1: a predetermined thing, don't I might have This is something
Speaker 1: to watch out for. And I don't even want to know.
Speaker 1: I want to all be a surprise. So why twenty
Speaker 1: three and me? Aren't there like a bunch of those services.
Speaker 1: There's one more credible than the other. Don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It wouldn't the thing you're going to die from. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's got looking at the same things, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what if they I don't know. I gotta look. They
Speaker 1: might have found something out. No, they don't do it
Speaker 1: like medical testing. Myself, I can't bring myself to open it. Yanni,
Speaker 1: are you cool on scroll brains? Like? Not not feeling interested? Not? Uh?
Speaker 1: We put your mic up to your top. Li Guy
Speaker 1: wrote in we're talking about whether Missouri is in the South,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying I keep talking about this. Has anyone
Speaker 1: here familiar with the with the the a thing that
Speaker 1: was written some years ago called equine Gothic and it
Speaker 1: has to do with um. That's very difficult. Like the
Speaker 1: scholars of the American South who discussed Southern literature have
Speaker 1: often had a very difficult time just defining, like what
Speaker 1: is Southern literature, what is the literally the literary the
Speaker 1: literature of the American South? And why are some writers
Speaker 1: from the South not considered Southern writers like Truman Capodi
Speaker 1: um from the Deep born in the Deep South, but
Speaker 1: it is not regarded as a Southern writer. His work
Speaker 1: isn't regarded as Southern literature. But then you look at
Speaker 1: um someone like William Faulkner, obviously a Southern writer, Larry
Speaker 1: Brown obviously a Southern writer. And this scholar that this
Speaker 1: thing called equine Gothic, and he found that the real
Speaker 1: test isn't like is the person from the South. Do
Speaker 1: they have a masculine voice, do they identify with Southern issues?
Speaker 1: Do they have a reverence for history? Is their literatre?
Speaker 1: Is their literature body like imbued with religious thinking and
Speaker 1: all these other markers of Southern literature. He came out
Speaker 1: and said like, if the writer's work features dead mules,
Speaker 1: it's Southern literature and goes in and every person that
Speaker 1: we regard as being a Southern writer, um has a
Speaker 1: lot of dead mules, And so his thing is like,
Speaker 1: is there a dead mule in it? If there is,
Speaker 1: it's Southern literature. And McCarthy, who's kind of you know, South,
Speaker 1: But then also Southwest has so many dead mules, and
Speaker 1: like Carmen McCarthy's work is so littered with dead mules
Speaker 1: that he should be regarded as a Southern writer. But
Speaker 1: we're talking about the South. And I was saying, in
Speaker 1: my mind, in the South, is it like does it
Speaker 1: have an armadillo? And so I thought, Missouri, in my view,
Speaker 1: is the South because there's a lot of snakes, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that bites you. And I got
Speaker 1: scared by an armadillo well in Missouri. And the guy
Speaker 1: wrote in and he said, Um, Missouri is a Midwest state.
Speaker 1: Here's how I know. Missourians refer to coke as pop.
Speaker 1: If Missouri was in the South, they would say coke
Speaker 1: to refer to all forms of carbonated beverages except beer.
Speaker 1: I was born in the South and lived in Missouri
Speaker 1: for a while, so I'm an expert. So he wanted
Speaker 1: to put that to bed. Another thing, a lot of
Speaker 1: people wrote in about that. I want to clarify. People
Speaker 1: are like people who watched the New Mediator season on
Speaker 1: Netflix watched our fog Neck Island episodes and they're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: why does this not include the material? Um? Why does
Speaker 1: this not include the bear attack that became the meat
Speaker 1: tree one into podcast episodes? The answer is, we didn't
Speaker 1: film it, and the mantra is if it didn't happen
Speaker 1: on camera, didn't happen. Um, there's no filming of it.
Speaker 1: We try to get different ways to like work it in,
Speaker 1: but it just isn't like substantiated. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: work to like talk in the episode. It doesn't work
Speaker 1: to like talk about how it happened because it just
Speaker 1: seems bullshitty. It's not a story you could have told
Speaker 1: quickly either. No, we even talked about bringing in having
Speaker 1: someone animated, talked about it, but it just winds up
Speaker 1: being there's just different ways to tell different stories. And
Speaker 1: also it involved the crew. Um. And in TV land,
Speaker 1: did they did you study Lauren? Did you study TV making?
Speaker 1: Camera making? What do you guys call it? How when
Speaker 1: I went to schools of video television production, do they
Speaker 1: talk about the fourth wall? Did you? I didn't learn
Speaker 1: about the fourth wall until much, much later. That's interesting
Speaker 1: that you didn't. They didn't teach you that in school,
Speaker 1: you know? And TV. I don't recall that conversation, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and TV and film is a concept of the fourth one.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're watching a sitcom. You guys, you guys
Speaker 1: having a private conversation right now, I missed that day.
Speaker 1: We're just up. You were interrupting, you guys. Seemed like
Speaker 1: you were going into a private deal. Okay, go ahead
Speaker 1: and share with everyone. We're done now. I just wonder
Speaker 1: to just see what sulemental thing. Oh, you're expressing disbelief
Speaker 1: that he doesn't know what the fourth wall. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, you might have just been kayaking that
Speaker 1: day when they just when they covered that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: because you were a big school skipper, failed on class.
Speaker 1: Uh the fourth wall. Let's say you're watching a sitcom
Speaker 1: and you're you the viewer at home or watching the
Speaker 1: sitcom you're watching, You're seeing three rooms of the You're
Speaker 1: seeing three walls right of the home because the fourth
Speaker 1: wall of a room. Yeah, imagine like the living room
Speaker 1: and then they walk into the kitchen and you never
Speaker 1: see the wall that you're the viewers looking from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that wall is missing because that wall is cameras and crew,
Speaker 1: director and lights. Right, so and TV is this thing
Speaker 1: like breaking the fourth wall? Breaking the fourth wall would
Speaker 1: be revealing, revealing the fact that there's a thing being made, like,
Speaker 1: you know, exposing the making of something we on occasion
Speaker 1: on the show. I don't think we have any cases
Speaker 1: in season seven of breaking the fourth wall. We do
Speaker 1: it very judiciously, right, Yeah, only when it really really
Speaker 1: it would like it would be a great part of
Speaker 1: the story. You know, the story needs it, you know,
Speaker 1: to keep moving forward. You know, the first time the
Speaker 1: Lavine Eagle ever stepped foot, No, the second time second
Speaker 1: sheot you ever stepped foot into the woods with us.
Speaker 1: You broke the fourth wall by spotting up a grizzy
Speaker 1: bearry that was coming into camp um. So that's like
Speaker 1: the breaking of the fourth wall. If someone had happened
Speaker 1: to be rolling a camera when we got attacked by
Speaker 1: the bear, that would have been a wonderful opportunity to
Speaker 1: break the fourth wall and have to be part of
Speaker 1: the show, even if we had had audio of it,
Speaker 1: but it's just didn't it wasn't there, didn't work. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that breaking the fourth wall happens in
Speaker 1: hunting production quite a bit. Oftentimes there's no fourth wall
Speaker 1: or the fourth wall, there's part of the disregarded. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lot of productions just disregard the rule about the fourth wall,
Speaker 1: and the camera person even becomes a character. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't like that. It's about it's like it's it winds
Speaker 1: up being really postmodern where it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's in a negative way, a
Speaker 1: lot of hunting shows are very post modern and that
Speaker 1: it's a hunting show about making a hunting show, right,
Speaker 1: which has postmodern which in school we learn to call
Speaker 1: it pomo, which has postmodern elements. What do you think
Speaker 1: about all that? Cal I mean, I just think of
Speaker 1: all those brave pioneers in the hunting production world out
Speaker 1: there that are out to do that, that are pomo
Speaker 1: without knowing it. Because I don't have a problem with it, man,
Speaker 1: But it's just like a way, like a decision that
Speaker 1: we made about like a certain reverence for the fourth wall,
Speaker 1: and that was in their pitch too outdoor Sportsman's group
Speaker 1: that they're doing a pomo show. Yep, now grasp this.
Speaker 1: It's circular. Um, you guys can care if I keep
Speaker 1: going on some of these clarifications. Western Nebraska. A lunch
Speaker 1: guy like a lunch lady, who's not a lunch lady.
Speaker 1: He's a lunch man. The guy in charge of a
Speaker 1: lunch program at a school fixes up some ground meat
Speaker 1: and it's beef, but he cuts in some kangaroo meat
Speaker 1: that he bought from his regular purveyor at Cisco, like
Speaker 1: the giant Cisco truck. When I used to wash dishes
Speaker 1: at a summer camp near my home when I was
Speaker 1: thirteam that summer camps food all came from Cisco. Cisco
Speaker 1: sells kangaroo meat, kangaroo meats, inspected kangaroo meat. He buys some,
Speaker 1: cuts it in with beef and makes some ground meat.
Speaker 1: Word gets out around school he's been cutting in kangaroo
Speaker 1: meat with beef. His explanation is it's a good lean cut.
Speaker 1: Why not? Um, So people say, like, oh, like kangaroo
Speaker 1: meat made me sick, which people think is not not true.
Speaker 1: Isn't like the idea of it and the guy gets
Speaker 1: fired from buying kangaroo me from the damn supplier. Then
Speaker 1: I'm sure he didn't even it's not even his choice
Speaker 1: who he uses. No, you can buy anything from Cisco.
Speaker 1: They distribute alligator, They distribute all sorts of crazy stuff
Speaker 1: or stuff that most folks would consider crazy. And this
Speaker 1: guy was just picking from a catalog basically, and he
Speaker 1: said serious and he said kangaroo me. I'll grind it
Speaker 1: up and with the kids, probably sticking within his budget
Speaker 1: and being responsible with it other than have him on
Speaker 1: the show. Meanwhile, the basketball team has been screaming dunking
Speaker 1: from a free throw line. These kids are good. Where
Speaker 1: the kids learn to jump. I'd like to taste kangaroo.
Speaker 1: I've had it. I can't know what happened. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: like something I was doing through work and someone sent
Speaker 1: me a big box, not a big box with sampler box.
Speaker 1: It had like, um, yeah, meet kangaroo meat, all domestic stuff.
Speaker 1: Though you know, I don't know the kangaroo. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they were and how I don't I don't
Speaker 1: remember I had ostrich in it. Did they raise kangaroo
Speaker 1: in the States, I don't think so. I guess they
Speaker 1: bring in Red'd be smart for us to find out
Speaker 1: more about stuff like this before we talk about it.
Speaker 1: We usually don't make that bad of a mistake. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have brought it up interesting. I mean we could
Speaker 1: pull up just pull up the Cisco menu online. I
Speaker 1: mean Cisco tracks delivered a everywhere everywhere you know some
Speaker 1: episodes ago. Be honest, we're in the middle of a conversation.
Speaker 1: I tasked you with finding some real zing or some twain.
Speaker 1: You never came through on it. Oh no, I had
Speaker 1: him pulled up. We just never had a chance to
Speaker 1: come back through. Well, I'm gonna give you another chance here. Please,
Speaker 1: Can you find out where the kangaroo meat comes from?
Speaker 1: Real quick? Yeah? Um, but I don't want to know that.
Speaker 1: If I was in his position, and I've been serving
Speaker 1: probably chicken and beef for as long as I've had
Speaker 1: that job, and I kind of I would call it
Speaker 1: a wild hair to be like, it's a real dude,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to normalize it. It's a wild hair.
Speaker 1: Look at that does' here? Okay? Look, and I'm totally
Speaker 1: cool cutting it in. But I think I would have
Speaker 1: been like, hey, heads up, what do you guys think, yeah,
Speaker 1: full disclosure. It's a deviation from the norm certainly. And
Speaker 1: I don't know the guy. That's why I like, if
Speaker 1: use my neighbor and I had a better grip on him,
Speaker 1: I might be like, like, for instance, let's say my
Speaker 1: brother ran a lunch hot lunch program and it turns
Speaker 1: out that he's putting in cutting in kangaroo with the beef.
Speaker 1: I would think he's not being clever, he's not being tricky,
Speaker 1: he's not being cute, see resentful. It's just in his head.
Speaker 1: He looked it's like, wow, I can get that for
Speaker 1: that price. And I'm just I think that he would
Speaker 1: have done it, and it wouldn't occurred to him to
Speaker 1: tell anybody about it. This is a guy who micro
Speaker 1: raves dear trim and tupperware containers and put salt on
Speaker 1: it needs it. I mean, think of the attitude. I'm
Speaker 1: not calling this uh cafeteria fellow chef, but think of
Speaker 1: the attitudes and most chefs right there, like this is
Speaker 1: my space. I control this, I control what's going on.
Speaker 1: I orchestrate what's going on here. It may not even
Speaker 1: occurred to this guy in any way to have to
Speaker 1: ask anybody about anything that's his domain, right or or
Speaker 1: since we don't know him, maybe he's a total smartass
Speaker 1: and he's real like on the edge, kind of wants
Speaker 1: to quit. Yeah, smoking heaters behind school, right next to
Speaker 1: the no tobacco on school property sign. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about him. And if that was the case,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, dude, you did it because you thought
Speaker 1: it would be funny. Um, okay, you know, you know.
Speaker 1: Why don't you want you just to just to come
Speaker 1: full circle on it. Why don't you bring up a
Speaker 1: couple of zingers from Mark Twain, Sam Clemens, um, moving
Speaker 1: on down a couple of things. Uh. A friend of
Speaker 1: mine shared with me an interesting academic peace about some linguists.
Speaker 1: Who are you guess from here? With the Maori, I'm
Speaker 1: like mutilating the name a little bit from New Zealand.
Speaker 1: So the indigenous people of New Zealand, um, and they
Speaker 1: were looking at So they drove, Like when the indigenous
Speaker 1: New Zealand or is the Maori, arrived in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: they drove. There was a I think it was like
Speaker 1: a family of birds. But these things called MOA's, these
Speaker 1: giant flightless birds, um, they drove. They overhunted him and
Speaker 1: drove them to extinction. And linguists are looking at the
Speaker 1: Maori language and art and other things, and we're looking
Speaker 1: at like did they what was their comprehension of the
Speaker 1: extinction that they were causing? And the language is littered
Speaker 1: with references to the vanishing and then gone moa. It
Speaker 1: was a cognizant so they saw it coming. It was
Speaker 1: a cognizant thing. And then later when Europeans arrived and
Speaker 1: introduced disease and exploitation warfare and started really killing them
Speaker 1: off the mare, we would say we will be gone
Speaker 1: like the moa. So that yeah, So it was like
Speaker 1: because you wonder like when when the you know, all
Speaker 1: these you know, wooly mammoth's going extinct, giant ground slaws
Speaker 1: going extinct contemporaneous with the rival the arrival of the
Speaker 1: first Americans who came across the bearing Land Bridge, and
Speaker 1: you wonder did what was their thought process? Like how
Speaker 1: do they look at what was happening? Were they aware
Speaker 1: of it? Or did eventually be like you know what,
Speaker 1: I haven't in a long time. But there was people
Speaker 1: who saw some at some point and then never saw
Speaker 1: them or saw him again. So what was their awareness
Speaker 1: of it. But you don't even have to go that
Speaker 1: for I mean, just think of the buffalo hunters that
Speaker 1: we talked about all the time, right, there were definitely
Speaker 1: people who were like, we are driving these animals to extinction.
Speaker 1: We're watching it firsthand. And then there's the dudes in
Speaker 1: Miles City being like just waiting on that northern herd
Speaker 1: to come down. Horn today talked about haven't seen in
Speaker 1: twenty five years, but it's coming. Yeah. When Hornday came
Speaker 1: out to try to collect one of the last couple
Speaker 1: living ones for for the Smithsonian, he talked about that
Speaker 1: there's people in Miles City who were still just biding
Speaker 1: their time, waiting for the next waiting for the next
Speaker 1: big push to come from the north, which never showed up.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's interesting. Uh. Couple more little tidbits.
Speaker 1: Some researchers in New Hampshire and Maine. We're looking at
Speaker 1: you know, moose or dying from tick are diseases. They
Speaker 1: looked at a dead mouse, how many ticks around it?
Speaker 1: Forty seven thousand ticks, Which is a cute story, but
Speaker 1: it's got nothing to do with it. It's the wolves
Speaker 1: that are killing them, Steve, Wolves aren't even there. The
Speaker 1: ticks just slow them down a little bit. Uh seven
Speaker 1: thousand ticks man, and estimated two d and fifty or
Speaker 1: so chickerbtes that I had forty seven thousand ticks. The
Speaker 1: bear meat that UH got that made us sick, they
Speaker 1: gave us trick on nosis when they tested it at
Speaker 1: a lab and in Atlanta, Georgia, had I think eight
Speaker 1: hundred sixty or something like that trick annella larva per
Speaker 1: Graham and it while not coming out to that that
Speaker 1: meat has close to a half million I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact number, but I remember this, and I did
Speaker 1: the math on it. Close to a half million larva
Speaker 1: per pound of bearing me. If you're eating an effective
Speaker 1: piece of bearing me, that's how much is in there.
Speaker 1: Moving on, a guy rolled in and this is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting point. No, this is another comment because we
Speaker 1: just put our like I said, our Sea the seventh
Speaker 1: season the met Eats up as a Netflix original right now,
Speaker 1: and so we've been getting a lot of email people
Speaker 1: right in and the guy rolled in and he's like,
Speaker 1: I kind of get it. You probably have time to
Speaker 1: get into this. But it weren't talking about with the
Speaker 1: forty mile Caribou Herd and the forty mile We have
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes that focus on the forty mile
Speaker 1: heard of cariboun it lasta called the forty Mile Herd,
Speaker 1: and he feels like we did a real disservice to
Speaker 1: the discussion by not bringing up the degree to which
Speaker 1: aerial wolf control lead to the recovery of that caribou
Speaker 1: heard and how um, how kicking ask the forty mile
Speaker 1: Heard is today? And it's interesting because this is just
Speaker 1: another thing about show business. We talked about that a
Speaker 1: whole bunch just didn't make the cut. You got twenty
Speaker 1: two minutes. We didn't see or hear a little fun
Speaker 1: that No, and I wanted to point out to him,
Speaker 1: they can't aerial We were actually in a spot that
Speaker 1: they don't aerial gun. They can't aerial gun. And it's
Speaker 1: still you said, how many thousands get nailed by wolves
Speaker 1: out of that herd, like four thousand and get eaten
Speaker 1: by wolves? Yeah, brown bears kill a bunch, Wolves kill
Speaker 1: a bunch. They kill way more than people kill. But
Speaker 1: when the forty mile Heard was really whittled back like
Speaker 1: in the lowest of the lower time, um, it was
Speaker 1: aerial wolf gunning, that it alleviated a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: on that herd gave him a chance to come back
Speaker 1: because what happened, but it happened otherwise. But he just
Speaker 1: felt that it was like a missed opportunity to clarify
Speaker 1: a point because you everyone, um uh, it just comes
Speaker 1: up now and then like aerial wolf gunning is like
Speaker 1: controversial and every people felt that, Like Sarah Palin's like
Speaker 1: literally like that she was literally upshooting wolves out of helicopters.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a just like now and
Speaker 1: then the popular culture kind of grabs onto these little
Speaker 1: tidbits that they don't really understand well and run with them. Lastly,
Speaker 1: before we getting what we're here to talk about, Steve,
Speaker 1: you got your calls ready because when I come out,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about something else. And then I come
Speaker 1: out of this. I want you to be ready to
Speaker 1: rip some calls, some seeker calls. Do you want to
Speaker 1: do the butle I can. It's not gonna blow your
Speaker 1: listeners ears out, but stand by if we're not ready yet.
Speaker 1: All right, I want to tease people with what's coming.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, like this is like an apology to a
Speaker 1: bunch of people about something I messed up, and I
Speaker 1: feel really shitty about it. Uh. We usually never talk
Speaker 1: in great detail about locations of anything, and I did
Speaker 1: a hunt in southeast Washington and we talked in great
Speaker 1: detail about locations and it was a really bad judgment
Speaker 1: call on my part, and I want to apologize anyone
Speaker 1: who's offended by it. And it was like a shitty
Speaker 1: thing of me to do. I don't want to I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you why I did it, and I don't
Speaker 1: want you to think that I don't want people to
Speaker 1: think that I'm justifying what I did. I'm saying that
Speaker 1: it was wrong and I really regret it, and it's
Speaker 1: not a mistake I will ever make again. It was wrong,
Speaker 1: but I want to just clear, like to tell you
Speaker 1: where my head was. I think it's like helpful to
Speaker 1: understand where it's coming from, not offered as a justification.
Speaker 1: I felt that that I was hunting on a tag
Speaker 1: that's very difficult to draw. Okay, even to get an
Speaker 1: archery permit here takes six to ten years. So thinking there,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like it doesn't really become like someone's spot, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like you go there every year and do
Speaker 1: something it's like now, and then you're given a you
Speaker 1: know a person might expect to once or twice in
Speaker 1: a lifetime, get to go here and hunt. Um. And
Speaker 1: also then remember, people that can draw the tag is limited.
Speaker 1: It's tightly limited ten to fourteen people. So whether or
Speaker 1: not people know about it or not isn't gonna have
Speaker 1: any bearing on the competition load because the competition load
Speaker 1: is dictated by the number of tags. Now that gets
Speaker 1: a little bit more complicated, and I'll explain where I'm
Speaker 1: wrong on that too, but that was in my mind,
Speaker 1: and my mind was it's limited by the availability of tags.
Speaker 1: Only ten to fourteen people can hunt it anyway, so
Speaker 1: you don't need to worry about sending a bunch of
Speaker 1: people to a place that's over the counter, which I
Speaker 1: would really never do. And you can only draw every
Speaker 1: like you know, you drawed every ten years, so um,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's your like annual honey hoole. And
Speaker 1: so for those reasons, Um, because we never talked about
Speaker 1: specificity of a spot. For the those reasons, I kind
Speaker 1: of had in my head that it was okay to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Another thing that influenced my thinking is
Speaker 1: it's a pretty small unit. Most of the unit, or
Speaker 1: the bulk of the unit, majority of the unit is
Speaker 1: privately held. The publicly held peace is basically like just
Speaker 1: a single drainage or you know, kind of a drains
Speaker 1: with a fork in it. Um, there's the most there's
Speaker 1: a lot of places you can stand and look at
Speaker 1: the whole entire unit from one spot. Um. Yes, forty
Speaker 1: basically forty square miles of country that you can look
Speaker 1: over one spot. It's very easily understood. Um. And I
Speaker 1: just thought that it wasn't really having any real bearing
Speaker 1: on things. The herd moves around a lot in there.
Speaker 1: I just didn't seem to matter what what you know,
Speaker 1: where I'm going with this, Johnnie, I want to prepare
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Yeah, I'm preparing a counter thought, okay, and Kay,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to prepare your thoughts, BROLDI, if you
Speaker 1: have thoughts on this, you can prepare them as well.
Speaker 1: That was my thinking. What I didn't consider is this.
Speaker 1: I didn't consider the fact that there are people who
Speaker 1: apply for the unit and they've come to enjoy a
Speaker 1: certain percentage chance of getting it into by talking about
Speaker 1: it and promoting it, you would dilute their chances, so
Speaker 1: that makes it wrong. Um, And it was just wrong
Speaker 1: because friends of friends and people I encountered were generous
Speaker 1: enough to tell me about it, and maybe they won't
Speaker 1: draw the tag next year, but maybe their body will
Speaker 1: draw the tag next year. And I screwed their body
Speaker 1: over by talking about it. It was just wrong. I
Speaker 1: feel like shit about it. I think about it every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because that unit falls in a spot
Speaker 1: where like it's popular enough to have a you know,
Speaker 1: low percentage of drawing it. It's not popular enough that
Speaker 1: like everybody just knows it to be like the Unit
Speaker 1: of Washington, Because if he drew a unit ten or
Speaker 1: nine in Arizona and we went down there for an
Speaker 1: arch real hunt, but sure as hell would have pretty
Speaker 1: much the same experience. Talk to people on the ground
Speaker 1: that hunt it and get info. But it's so popular
Speaker 1: already that like we I don't think us talking about
Speaker 1: are going to decrease the odds farther right, Like we
Speaker 1: just wouldn't have that effect. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: can't say if that's actually gonna happen. People might feel
Speaker 1: that that's gonna happen, that all sudd there's gonna be
Speaker 1: this influx of you know, applications to that unit. Maybe,
Speaker 1: But so I don't know if you should actually feel
Speaker 1: that bad. Do you feel bad? No? Why do people
Speaker 1: get mad at me and not you? I don't know,
Speaker 1: because you do most of the talking. Kel. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean when we first talked about this, I thought it
Speaker 1: was more of like a once in a lifetime unit.
Speaker 1: According to some guys that I talked to, they do
Speaker 1: feel it's a once in a lifetime unit. Um, like
Speaker 1: with just the creep of odds, like you're just not
Speaker 1: gonna draw this thing twice in that case, like Bridget
Speaker 1: Noon in our office right now, she has a true
Speaker 1: once lifetime tag. Moose tag and Idaho both literally cannot
Speaker 1: draw it again. If you're successful, you cannot draw it again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and well that's interesting. So if you the same thing
Speaker 1: for all those tropy species, if you draw a bighorn
Speaker 1: and don't not you tag, you get to keep going correct.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Um. Well, if that's a good I'd love
Speaker 1: to have that argument with you, because I think that
Speaker 1: would fall in a grouping of regulations that could possibly
Speaker 1: force folks into making poor decisions out in the field.
Speaker 1: But to the immediate question, she hasn't once a lifetime
Speaker 1: tag and people are crawling out of the woodwork to
Speaker 1: help her. Her phone's ringing off the hook with hey,
Speaker 1: I just saw a moose over here. Hey, I just
Speaker 1: saw a moose over here. How does that not fall
Speaker 1: into electronic communications? This is this is the thing we got.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting? How that is legally in Idaho? Though
Speaker 1: electronic community two communications are convey the whereabout which I
Speaker 1: despise but should be not. Um, how much help do
Speaker 1: you need out there? Like? At what point are you
Speaker 1: just not hunting? I feel like good woodsmanship skills are
Speaker 1: falling off the table every day. But um, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a good point of like, hey, it's once lifetime tag.
Speaker 1: Other people who have been successful in the same unit
Speaker 1: are free flowing with information. You know it's all dated information,
Speaker 1: of course, but they're like, yes, this time, this spot
Speaker 1: went up here, glass from here, called from here, drove
Speaker 1: this road every single day, all that stuff, and it's
Speaker 1: based off the fact that they're never gonna hunt it again.
Speaker 1: So in those situations, man, help people out. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna hurt you at all. But you know what, it's
Speaker 1: not like, um, I feel it's wrong even if I
Speaker 1: knew that I didn't harm someone like I've harmed someone's chance.
Speaker 1: It's just like it was like it was like and
Speaker 1: it wasn't even something I thought about. It just happened
Speaker 1: very fast, and it's just really it was one of
Speaker 1: my it's one of my biggest like it's one of
Speaker 1: my biggest like professional regrets doing that because we have
Speaker 1: a policy of not doing it, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: I've made a snap decision. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: anyone is mad at me about it, is gonna stop
Speaker 1: being mad at me about it because I'm apologized. No,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. They're just gonna dig in deeper. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: sure would. But you know if, on the other hand, too,
Speaker 1: like if you feel like giving out really solid information
Speaker 1: could somehow deprive somebody of their experience with this golden
Speaker 1: ticket in their hand, that might be a way of
Speaker 1: looking at it. It's not really the way I look
Speaker 1: at it. But I think you just made yourself a scapegoat,
Speaker 1: is all. Because there's a way to check it. See
Speaker 1: how many applications they get for that unit in the
Speaker 1: coming years following the podcast. But the video, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: how do you know that everything else remained constant points
Speaker 1: are constantly going up. And I like, I sympathize with
Speaker 1: some of these people because like I'm a big game
Speaker 1: hunter and I'm aware of like certain units and certain
Speaker 1: regions in Western States that are known for certain species.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about that unit beforehand. You know,
Speaker 1: I've never heard about it. But non residents don't like
Speaker 1: if you go like a service like hunting fool to
Speaker 1: do non resident tag applications, they recommend against, they recommend against,
Speaker 1: and don't even do Washington applications for so hostile and
Speaker 1: hot Washington, so hostile nons. I'm just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta sympathize with the guy who's like I have.
Speaker 1: I am sympathized. I'm telling them saying that I messed up,
Speaker 1: and then I'm deeply sorry and I really regretted and
Speaker 1: a stupid thing to do, and it was anything to do.
Speaker 1: Do you guys think and this is something I've done,
Speaker 1: do you guys think it would so on the pure
Speaker 1: meat harvesting side of things, I think that the rule
Speaker 1: of don't drive past one to get one is a
Speaker 1: really good rule. And I know my first year in Idaho.
Speaker 1: I was like, I am gonna hunt within fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: of the office because I know there's elk within fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of the office, and just gave away a spot. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: for the greater good, I hope, so do you. I've
Speaker 1: often thought, should residents of a county have a better
Speaker 1: chance like written into the system so far away from
Speaker 1: what we're talking about right now. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about opportunity. No, I don't think it
Speaker 1: should be by county. No, No, No, Alaska does a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff like that. Well, there's certain there's certain
Speaker 1: zip codes or that are regarded as rural subsistence and
Speaker 1: you have different regulations, but it's a different system up there.
Speaker 1: But no, I don't think it should be that you
Speaker 1: have to factor in a person zip code to figure
Speaker 1: out what chances they have A draw a tag in
Speaker 1: a certain state could be right for I think it'd
Speaker 1: be right for exploitation, and I think it would be
Speaker 1: just like a like add regulatory complexities and they just
Speaker 1: do it at the state level. Steve, So, there's a
Speaker 1: contingent of folks in Maryland here who share similar sentiments
Speaker 1: about you spot burning, not just you. But Outdoor Life recently,
Speaker 1: UH published a little thing on exotic game and where
Speaker 1: you can hunt, so they put Secretar and Del Marva there.
Speaker 1: So there's this concern that the about that I don't
Speaker 1: care about that. I'll never apologize about that, apologize about
Speaker 1: telling Americans about a wild game resource that's available. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I support that that you're allowed nine of a year. No,
Speaker 1: there's arguments about that too, about whether it's too liberal
Speaker 1: or whatnot. But you know, the state has a goal
Speaker 1: of sort of containing the population within its current sort
Speaker 1: of distribution. They would have liked to have seen it
Speaker 1: contained within southern Dorchester, but it's since expanded into western
Speaker 1: Wakamico County across the Nanticoke River, and it's creeping outwards slowly.
Speaker 1: The Secret Deer does a great transition, by the way,
Speaker 1: real good transition. Uh. Would you mind ripping? Um? Would
Speaker 1: you mind ripping a seekist egg? Hall? Liking it there?
Speaker 1: And that sound right now it is permeating the air
Speaker 1: here about ringing through the marshy silence. Yes, it's an
Speaker 1: awesome sound to hear. Walk us through real quick, um,
Speaker 1: the real quick and you've done before walks through the
Speaker 1: real quick history of how how sica sica or what
Speaker 1: what was it. It's like a sick of sika deer
Speaker 1: came to be living here abouts. Well, best of my knowledge,
Speaker 1: there was a gentleman that owned the island of the
Speaker 1: mouth the chop Tank River. I visited the island the
Speaker 1: other day, which is kind of gone. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of the chest Big Bay islands are disappearing before our
Speaker 1: very eyes. Um. But they were introduced there and they
Speaker 1: escaped the island made the mainland, and uh that established
Speaker 1: the population that's grown since they do. He had a
Speaker 1: half dozen of them, and there's now an estimated I
Speaker 1: think that DNA rnists makes the heard between ten and
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand. It's pretty hard to census because the cover
Speaker 1: they live in is just ridiculously thick. As you've seen
Speaker 1: this week, imagine trying to count those buggers. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, they do very well. And the especially in
Speaker 1: the marshy and and sort of backwater habitats of southern
Speaker 1: Dorchester County, which is home to the Blackwater National Wildlife
Speaker 1: Refuge Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area, tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: acres of of sort of brackish water to saltwater marshes
Speaker 1: uh interspersed with mostly pine but some hardwood mixed in
Speaker 1: upland habitats, and they do really well in that habitat,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, kind of marginal habitat for white
Speaker 1: tailed deer as far as forage quality and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. So they've kind of supplanted white tails as
Speaker 1: the dominant herbivore or ungulate in southern Dorchester County. As
Speaker 1: you move northern into the more northern parts of the
Speaker 1: county where you get more agriculture, you will get mixed
Speaker 1: species herds, but with both white tails and sca. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Southern Dorchester locals referred to it as Sekaville, and they're
Speaker 1: like people like really like to draw the distinction around
Speaker 1: here between east side of Chespeake Bay and the west
Speaker 1: side of Chespeake Bay. Like the west side Chespike Bays
Speaker 1: all assholes. East side of Chespeake Bay is like salt
Speaker 1: of the earth. Salt of the earth. Great people give
Speaker 1: you the shirt off your back, and the secret deer
Speaker 1: only live with the great people. Correct, they do not
Speaker 1: live with the assholes. Right, They're only on the east shore,
Speaker 1: eastern shore. If you technical about it, Yeah, I got you, Um,
Speaker 1: and it's all accrued over the last hundred years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think their popularity really has only taken off
Speaker 1: and probably the last ten to twenty years where sort
Speaker 1: of you know, the word has gotten out and they're
Speaker 1: good eating, they're abundant or fun to hunt. So it's really, uh,
Speaker 1: it's driven least prices. It's just it's driven sort of
Speaker 1: public use. So are public lands here in the eastern
Speaker 1: Shore of Maryland. It's been become quite popular and so
Speaker 1: there's a contingent of people that think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna overwhelmed the resource. It's too limited, it's too unique.
Speaker 1: It should be protected and valued more by restricting the
Speaker 1: number of tags that are given out, that by introducing
Speaker 1: some form of competition for nonresidents to to obtain those
Speaker 1: permits and all that. Yeah, well it's a non native
Speaker 1: though in the minute, Yeah, it's always really tricky with
Speaker 1: to what degree do you coddle, you coddle and encourage
Speaker 1: the expansion of a non native species that almost certainly
Speaker 1: has to come at some cost to native fauna. Any
Speaker 1: over abundant ungula, even our native white tails, can have
Speaker 1: deleterious ecological impacts when they hit numbers that are you know,
Speaker 1: look at any suburban area where hunting doesn't effectively suppress
Speaker 1: that population. You'll see massive destruction of undergrowth and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. They are no different. You know, they
Speaker 1: just happened not to be native, so you know that
Speaker 1: that's not thought to be as as uh damaging is
Speaker 1: like nutrient were or you know, zebra muscles that have
Speaker 1: these you know, catastrophic changes to the environment. But certainly,
Speaker 1: if you look hard enough, I'm sure you can find
Speaker 1: the negative impacts that at least overabundant population. But they
Speaker 1: certainly seem at home here and they've really taken to it,
Speaker 1: and they've become ingrained in the local culture and considered
Speaker 1: by most sort of a naturalized citizen of the Eastern Shore.
Speaker 1: Did you know that there was a plan um a
Speaker 1: long time ago, a hundred over a hundred years ago
Speaker 1: now to introduce hippopotamuses into Louisiana. They thought they wanted
Speaker 1: to introduce them as a meat source and into control
Speaker 1: water hyacinth. Had they done it, Had they done it,
Speaker 1: you now wouldn't think it was weird buying now, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think it was weird to see a hippo in Louisia,
Speaker 1: in the Bayou Country, and I feel now it's like
Speaker 1: these deer seems like totally unweird and at home, I
Speaker 1: have to admit, you know, they seem like it like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise you. It's not like zebras running around.
Speaker 1: It's because someone told me, like, oh, no, it's just
Speaker 1: this native species deer. I like that makes sense. Hippost
Speaker 1: kill a lot of people, though, that'd be like introducing
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear. No, they're way worse than grizzlies and
Speaker 1: wolves into the Deep South, right, like hundreds of people
Speaker 1: you're dying from hippo's seriously, Well, yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: it would be a little different. I think the weirdness
Speaker 1: would still be, like, why did we introduce this aquatic killer?
Speaker 1: Yeah it's I'm not it's not apples and apples. It's
Speaker 1: not happening that. But I'm saying, like, over time they
Speaker 1: become like the sika deer that they call now folks
Speaker 1: around here calls sick of deer. But it's just it's
Speaker 1: too confusing to me because we already have a sitka
Speaker 1: black tail sit cub blacktail, and so a sick of deer.
Speaker 1: I just say sikus so I can keep my head
Speaker 1: straight and the heads straight with those around me. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel that it like, uh, it doesn't
Speaker 1: take long for the animal to become woven into the
Speaker 1: cultural fabric. Guys drive around here with decals on their
Speaker 1: window that's say marsh ghost snakeheads too. There. There's like
Speaker 1: a snakehead culture here too, that's established in five years,
Speaker 1: snakehead fishing culture, snakehead guys, snakehead contest, snakehead tackle. You
Speaker 1: guys really grab on Asian stuff. They like Asian species exactly,
Speaker 1: and yet are one all you can eat buffet and
Speaker 1: Cambridge closed a couple of years ago. Sad to see that.
Speaker 1: Go can use apples with the call behind. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot everybody knows the words stagged, but I feel like
Speaker 1: some good percents people probably don't. Really is that the
Speaker 1: gender opposite term. The gender opposite term for stag is
Speaker 1: hind same way bull cow buck, dough. Yeah, it's hind
Speaker 1: with a d boor sal stag. Hind our Buck already
Speaker 1: said that you can always tell new Seeka hunters because
Speaker 1: they call him sitka deer and they call him hinds
Speaker 1: h I n e s behind, which they're not. They're
Speaker 1: hinds with a D. And the stagg and hind thing
Speaker 1: probably came from British culture. Yeah, yeah, because they've been
Speaker 1: introduced there as well. Okay, rip out of rip out
Speaker 1: of hind call The similarities between these sons of bitches
Speaker 1: and um elk Antler structure kind of the the the
Speaker 1: main on the stag, the breeding behavior, their demeanor, demeanor
Speaker 1: when they stand out there, they look I mean impressive,
Speaker 1: the buglan, the cow calling, all the crazy vocalizations, the
Speaker 1: fact that they come to the calls verty olk like
Speaker 1: very fun. Nothing like hunting milk with their elk like
Speaker 1: little critters. The stags got little ivories like bull elk.
Speaker 1: You checking out little tiny things. You don't want to
Speaker 1: get on the ground with these things. You're honest And
Speaker 1: I found out you're honest. Knew you. Let me find
Speaker 1: out for myself. Are you in the marsh because they'll
Speaker 1: charge you you get too close or they'll just vanish.
Speaker 1: You just can't see the things. Yeah, like three and
Speaker 1: a half feet tall. What is the hind? What is
Speaker 1: the hindway? The average probably dresses at pounds somewhere there.
Speaker 1: You might get a monster behind the dresses sixty less
Speaker 1: than a bull elks hind quarter. She weighs less than
Speaker 1: a Yeah, definitely weighs less than the bull elks hind quarter. Stags,
Speaker 1: she weighs less in the bullouks hind quarter. I've seen
Speaker 1: stags as biggest one ten one fifteen dress come in
Speaker 1: through the check station at Blackwater when I used to
Speaker 1: work down there. But it uh, it's the average is
Speaker 1: generally eight five maybe ninety pounds for a mature stag.
Speaker 1: It's a true monster that HiT's plus one. Yeah, Dinky, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, man, you want to talking about you
Speaker 1: having a good segue. You want to talk about a
Speaker 1: real bad segue? Is this? I forgot to talk about
Speaker 1: the blue crab in real quick, right, And the reason
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the blue crab real quick
Speaker 1: because that we talked about it before we did it,
Speaker 1: before we hunted deer. Right, So fact check me on this,
Speaker 1: don't have you fact check me on some on some
Speaker 1: other stuff about Sika deer. But if you're a resident here,
Speaker 1: you can go out and get a license, a separate
Speaker 1: license to run a blue crab trot line. Correct, Yep,
Speaker 1: it's called a recreational crabbing license, and what allows you
Speaker 1: to do is take a twelve allows you to run
Speaker 1: a twelve hundred foot trot line. There's no hooks. It's
Speaker 1: like this twet of line and you just tie a
Speaker 1: little slip knot loops all along it and put in
Speaker 1: two two and a half inches of chicken neck in
Speaker 1: each loop. So you have this twelve hundred foot thing
Speaker 1: right the length of four football fields, and every five
Speaker 1: ft is a two inch chunk of chicken neck tied
Speaker 1: onto the line. And you go out to a likely
Speaker 1: spot and we went out to a submerged creek channel,
Speaker 1: so the surrounding stuffs like one or two ft deep,
Speaker 1: but then there's this the submerged creek channel that's six
Speaker 1: ft deep, and on one end of the twelve hund
Speaker 1: foot line. You gotta weight like an anchor and coming
Speaker 1: up as a booty to mark the anchor. And so
Speaker 1: you set it. You set the anchor, and then you
Speaker 1: lay out this feet of chicken necks and pull the
Speaker 1: line tight and set that anchor, and you wait a
Speaker 1: coult minutes and go down to the other end where
Speaker 1: you began setting, and you grab the line that has
Speaker 1: the chicken necks on it, and the boat has you
Speaker 1: just like hook a little arm out on the side
Speaker 1: of your boat. So just imagine, like imagine that you
Speaker 1: hung your arm out over the gun of the boat,
Speaker 1: and you drape the trot line up over your arm
Speaker 1: and then slowly motor along so that it's anchored on
Speaker 1: each end, but you're lifting apart up up to the
Speaker 1: water surface and just cruising along. Can I ask you
Speaker 1: a question? So there's no silk time. It's like, by
Speaker 1: the time you get the line laid out, your turn,
Speaker 1: don't let it, so it's time to check it. The
Speaker 1: minute you get laid out, let's go back to where
Speaker 1: you started. Drape it up over the arm, and then
Speaker 1: motor that ft and you're going along slowly. It's just
Speaker 1: raising it up, and the chicken necks are coming up,
Speaker 1: going don't, don't, don't over your arm, and the blue
Speaker 1: crabs hang on so tenaciously that they're gonna hang onto
Speaker 1: that chicken neck. Most of them hang onto that chicken neck,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna hang onto it until they get to
Speaker 1: the air the last second. Yea, if it's sunny out,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to drop off. On a cloudy day,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to hang on. So you got your
Speaker 1: guy driving the boat, and then you got your guy
Speaker 1: with a wire mesh net, the same kind of wire
Speaker 1: mesh you used for smelt dipping, where you can really
Speaker 1: grease it through the water quick. There's no drag, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like chicken wire basket on a net on the net,
Speaker 1: and you stay in there and as you see the
Speaker 1: crabs rise up, you get your net down and you
Speaker 1: get the line because the crabs hanging off the bait,
Speaker 1: so your your net needs to come in and kind
Speaker 1: of grab the line at the top of the net,
Speaker 1: and then you basically use the net to knock the
Speaker 1: crab off the line into the net, and you whip
Speaker 1: them up and put them into a bushel basket. And
Speaker 1: it took us seven passes one, two, five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: like no wait time, just down, back, down, back, down back.
Speaker 1: It took us seven passes to fill up a bushel
Speaker 1: basket with blue crabs. How many a bushel do you think?
Speaker 1: It varies a lot many. And they say because this
Speaker 1: is big blue crab country and there's a commercial industry
Speaker 1: and everything for blue crabs that there's like it's a
Speaker 1: unit of measure so bag limit is volume bag limit.
Speaker 1: It's like shrimp right in Alaska. Volume bag limit, not
Speaker 1: number bag limit. And it could be it could vary greatly,
Speaker 1: but it should be that. I think if you have
Speaker 1: a bushel basket there's forty pounds, I think it needs
Speaker 1: to be right at least forty pounds are in that
Speaker 1: bushel basket something like. They're not entirely sure there's a
Speaker 1: weight component. It's a volume thing. But industry standard is that.
Speaker 1: My understanding is the industry standard is it should include
Speaker 1: it should include a certain weight and alive route luke
Speaker 1: crab eyed guests would weigh half a pound, right something
Speaker 1: like that? Yeah, yeah, probably. So there's over a hundred
Speaker 1: of them. And and the thing about these blue crabs
Speaker 1: are as, it was explained to me that they're like
Speaker 1: the population demographics flucture fluctuate a lot according to salinity.
Speaker 1: So there are areas you can go they have far
Speaker 1: fewer blue crabs but tend to be bigger, and there's
Speaker 1: areas you can go that have hordes of them that
Speaker 1: tend to be dinks. And the guy we were with
Speaker 1: was explained that this is a salinity level and location.
Speaker 1: He feels kind of hits that sweet spot between good
Speaker 1: size and abundance. Yeah. In North Carolina, when we go
Speaker 1: down to Jennifer's families camp on Topslow Island, that camp
Speaker 1: is a lot closer to the inlets, higher salinity, and
Speaker 1: we've feel like we get bigger blue crabs, and the
Speaker 1: once we get her parents house, which is farther away
Speaker 1: from the chew inlets, big mambo jombos. Another thing I
Speaker 1: learned is that soft shell crab like during the summer,
Speaker 1: like blue crabs, grow fast, and during the summer, they
Speaker 1: mold every month. I don't know if every crab molts
Speaker 1: every month or if they have to hit like a
Speaker 1: certain size, but there's always like an age class that's molting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And females have a terminal mold. Females will do at
Speaker 1: some point they stop molding and the male will continue
Speaker 1: to mold. Correct. When you see soft shell crabs on
Speaker 1: a menu. And here's the part that I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: When you see soft shell crabs on the menu, it's
Speaker 1: not that the dude's out crabbing and catches a soft
Speaker 1: shell and throws him in a separate bucket. You take
Speaker 1: crabs and retain them and keep checking them. What they're
Speaker 1: looking for is peelers, crabs that have started the process.
Speaker 1: You can tell there's a different coloration in the backfin.
Speaker 1: So you can hold that up to the light and
Speaker 1: you can see this little sort of pinkish ring, and
Speaker 1: that's a peeler. That's a crab that's approaching the mall.
Speaker 1: And they'll take those and they'll put them in these
Speaker 1: shedding houses and they'll keep them in these big troughs
Speaker 1: with with sort of flowing water going over and they'll
Speaker 1: check them hourly um through the night because it usually
Speaker 1: takes place at night, and usually the vast majority molt
Speaker 1: during the full moon, and so it's an all night thing.
Speaker 1: They're checking them all night long. And as soon as
Speaker 1: they they yeah, as soon as they shed out, they
Speaker 1: get them out of the water. You have to get
Speaker 1: them out of the water immediately, because as soon as
Speaker 1: they shed what they do is they puff up with
Speaker 1: water to expand that new shell and it gets bigger
Speaker 1: than their current body size. And then they grow into
Speaker 1: that so very quickly that uh, that softest baby's bottomed
Speaker 1: skin crab we'll turn into what they call a paper crab,
Speaker 1: where it gets kind of crinkly it's still softish, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of crinkly. And we had one of those yet,
Speaker 1: one of those, like the the top of it was
Speaker 1: when they fried, it was like lifted off the Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when they're pulling them out of traps, are off
Speaker 1: of a trot line, are they looking at him and saying, pop, peeler,
Speaker 1: regular crab, regular crab, crab peeler. So they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I think they might be doing some sorting. So most
Speaker 1: of the commercial guys are not doing They're not handling
Speaker 1: each crab individually like Steve Bois. Within that they're they's
Speaker 1: got a like a big basket that that line runs
Speaker 1: up through and then but someone, at some point, someone's
Speaker 1: got a Yeah, and if you know what you're looking for,
Speaker 1: it's it's plain as day. I've always had a little
Speaker 1: bit of trouble trying to figure out what it's the
Speaker 1: difference between a peeler and a regular hard shell crab.
Speaker 1: Guy can't retain females, and on a dungey, I have
Speaker 1: to look at the bottom carapists to tell a male
Speaker 1: from a female. But on these the females have red
Speaker 1: claw tips. Yeah, and I don't want a gender stereotype.
Speaker 1: But people say, you see that red thing, and as
Speaker 1: females have their nail polish on, and I'd get so
Speaker 1: good and my little John, I learned not to even
Speaker 1: net those ones and just just to kind of brush
Speaker 1: them off the line and let them go. But the
Speaker 1: commercial guys are allowed to keep its interesting. Um, you
Speaker 1: can keep them in North Carolina, but we choose not
Speaker 1: to because you guys are conservation is thinking that they're
Speaker 1: going to make more. Yeah, that's another good thing to
Speaker 1: bring up. A male crab is a jimmy and a
Speaker 1: female as a what a sock double? Okay, isn't there
Speaker 1: multiple kinds of sucks? There's uh, what do they call him?
Speaker 1: A sally? As an immature? That's right, so they have
Speaker 1: more of a triangular shaped apron, and once they hit maturity,
Speaker 1: the soock has a big sort of rounded apron. It
Speaker 1: was good to learn about the molding thing because that
Speaker 1: was the thing I've always curious about when we trapped Dungeoness.
Speaker 1: Crabs is now and then you get one who's still
Speaker 1: got a soft ast shell, not like he's on the
Speaker 1: way out, but it's his new shell. And we'll throw
Speaker 1: those back because you open them and there's like no
Speaker 1: meat in there, right, And I now realize it's because
Speaker 1: he just got a bigger shell that he hasn't filled
Speaker 1: out yet. So now I've learned, instead of bringing home
Speaker 1: and go open it up and it's full of like
Speaker 1: watery emaciated stuff, we just ditch them. But I never
Speaker 1: knew like quite what I was looking at, like why
Speaker 1: it was that way he had like gotten himself. It's
Speaker 1: like when you're buying shoes for your kid. You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna buy your shoes that fit dead on
Speaker 1: nuts because you're gonna tomorrow they won't fit anyone and
Speaker 1: make you struggle through the big ones for a few months.
Speaker 1: Then you'll fit them and then move one. Okay, fact
Speaker 1: check anything else on crabs. So we covered it pretty good, Oh,
Speaker 1: soft shell crabes. A way to clean it. You kind
Speaker 1: of open it up and get the gills out, get
Speaker 1: the guts out, put it kind of back together again,
Speaker 1: and then fry it. Did you realize that, Colt, No,
Speaker 1: I thought they just fried the whole thing. Cut the
Speaker 1: face off, cut the apron off, and then you lift
Speaker 1: the sex organs yep, lift up the points and you
Speaker 1: clear those dead man's fingers. They call them the lungs
Speaker 1: out on each side. Some people go as far as
Speaker 1: to clean out the mustard and the guts and fatten
Speaker 1: the like. I think it adds a particular place, So
Speaker 1: I'm not a big mustard guy personal. Okay. One one
Speaker 1: question though, is uh, when they're harvesting these things out
Speaker 1: of the mold house the sloughing house, Um, are they
Speaker 1: just like throwing them in the freezer. Yeah, it depends
Speaker 1: on what their market is. That they do freeze some
Speaker 1: that some gets sold fresh, you know, right away to
Speaker 1: local markets. But they just keep them out of the
Speaker 1: water to stop the molten. Yeah. I think they'll put
Speaker 1: them on eye those crab balls. Yesterday that place had
Speaker 1: sawshells for sale. Yeah. Did you catch the price? Nope,
Speaker 1: don't ask. I'm jealous of the crab balls. Dude, crabballs.
Speaker 1: Good you by a half dozen or a dozen? Me
Speaker 1: and Steve Eats threw down on a half dozen, and
Speaker 1: Steve said here has made it back to the house here, Yeah, Steve, no,
Speaker 1: we ate him. Steve said hereabout and crab country. You
Speaker 1: can't get away with pulling that long John Silver's bullshit
Speaker 1: and putting in all the fillers. He says, a crab
Speaker 1: ball is crab like people. People are intolerant of you
Speaker 1: making like a little crab flavored hush puppies, and the
Speaker 1: crab cakes like in the Rocky Mountain States are a
Speaker 1: little lacking. You know a lot of times it's soft
Speaker 1: bread crumb, yeah, yeah, with a little nugget in there. No,
Speaker 1: these crab balls are crab, not cutting it with kangaroo
Speaker 1: or anything. They don't cut. They don't cut any they
Speaker 1: don't cut any room eating there, man Um Calum was
Speaker 1: one other thing. I don't know if you you weren't
Speaker 1: out with us, you don't those crabs have two packers.
Speaker 1: Oh yep, yep, you knew that. Yeah, Keith like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Trevor Um pointed that one out kind of
Speaker 1: as a as a you know, don't you wish type
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, it's a little bit disturbing. I don't
Speaker 1: wish that I had to at some level. It's like
Speaker 1: it's intriguing to me, and I considered it, but in
Speaker 1: the end no, because I feel that it would be
Speaker 1: one of those things that you might view as being
Speaker 1: initially advantageous, only to find that it doesn't in fact,
Speaker 1: what in the world. But I tell tell the Matthews
Speaker 1: story because I think that pertains to this very well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so well, like I feel that it would be one
Speaker 1: of those things that you might initially think was a
Speaker 1: great advantage. But there's a thing called sexual selection in
Speaker 1: this world where there are like attributes, like people think.
Speaker 1: Give you an example, people think the antlers, Okay, the
Speaker 1: antlers on the elk are are not like driven by
Speaker 1: like natural selection of like competitive advantage, but are a
Speaker 1: thing of sexual selection. Meaning that a bull, let's say
Speaker 1: a deer, puts on a huge set of antlers. It
Speaker 1: comes at a cost, right, because he needs to put
Speaker 1: nutrients into producing those antlers. It's extra weight he needs
Speaker 1: to carry around. Um, the the extra weight he's carry
Speaker 1: around these, he needs to take in more calories to
Speaker 1: tote it around. Um, he can't slick through the brushes nice.
Speaker 1: All these kind of things. But the sexual advantages that
Speaker 1: females view those antlers as a sign of fitness, and
Speaker 1: you might think, like, oh, he needs these big antlers
Speaker 1: to fight. But the more important component might be that
Speaker 1: a female associates good antler growth with health, and she
Speaker 1: wants to have sex with that buck Yeah, you'll hear
Speaker 1: people say antlers are for fighting off wolves and things
Speaker 1: like that, all to get the late it's a sexual display.
Speaker 1: That's not Let me just my point. Please, if you
Speaker 1: don't mine, and then then I'm gonna open it up
Speaker 1: to you. But I haven't gotten to where I'm going
Speaker 1: with this. Uh what was I saying? Oh yeah, Turkey
Speaker 1: on a strutting Tom, it's all sexual display. He doesn't
Speaker 1: like advantage to him to do. That's just he's gonna
Speaker 1: luring ladies. It comes at a cost, point being you
Speaker 1: might think that having dual peckers is like awesome, but
Speaker 1: it could be that that is not a good sexual
Speaker 1: display and in fact pushes possible mates away, like they
Speaker 1: just can't get on board with it. Having one cause
Speaker 1: is enough problems. Yeah, go ahead, I'm hoping the floor
Speaker 1: up to be honest. Now, that's all I just wanted
Speaker 1: to arrive at that point. Oh, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: the antlers aren't we There was just that paper that
Speaker 1: was published. I thought we all passed around about the
Speaker 1: how they're talking about the antlers on the Boilk and
Speaker 1: Yellowstone and that having those big antlers came at a
Speaker 1: cost because it took more energy to produce such a
Speaker 1: big anlers, so it might have produced it might have
Speaker 1: brought in more ladies, but the bigger antlers weren't, to say,
Speaker 1: better in defending themselves from the wolves. So there there's
Speaker 1: actually some what's that called like nature deciding which way
Speaker 1: it's gonna go, selection towards smaller antlers because it didn't
Speaker 1: cost so much energy. It made them better, more agile
Speaker 1: to fight off the wolves. Yeah, but you agree that
Speaker 1: people think dear have antlers just for fighting, and they
Speaker 1: don't often realize that there's things in the animal world
Speaker 1: about sexual display and definitely things in the human world
Speaker 1: about sexual display. Yeah, it's probably, but I wonder too
Speaker 1: about what do we really know the thought process that
Speaker 1: a female deer is going through well, and she decides
Speaker 1: to who she's gonna allow to breed her, because you know,
Speaker 1: you hear all the time about while the herd bulls
Speaker 1: off to his hair um, all the satellite bulls are
Speaker 1: kind of slipping in and breeding cows behind them. So
Speaker 1: if they're allowing that to happen, they kind of blows
Speaker 1: that whole theory. And QD m Aid not a whack
Speaker 1: just released a study last year that says almost the
Speaker 1: same thing, where it's like, if that for good horn
Speaker 1: is at the right place at the right time, it
Speaker 1: will absolutely breathe that though she will allow it, yeah,
Speaker 1: just because it's it's a timing thing. But to jump
Speaker 1: back to the two pecker thing, right, So, when you're
Speaker 1: busting up these crabs, you ripped like for um uh yanni.
Speaker 1: You were saying that a lot of times, you guys,
Speaker 1: you guys will pre clean and then steam. Um. So
Speaker 1: you ripped the carapace off and you you're looking at
Speaker 1: a ideally a perfectly symmetrical animal right there, right, So
Speaker 1: you got a knuckle consisting of how many legs five
Speaker 1: legs on the side, and so is the female set
Speaker 1: up the exact same way where there's a reproductive organ
Speaker 1: on each side. Oh that's a good question. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she's symmetrical in her reproductive organs. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that makes sense, right, Yeah, I just just had that
Speaker 1: thought when we were checking out the two packers. I
Speaker 1: can't answer that if they have dual like what their
Speaker 1: ovary structure is and whatnot, and if they have what
Speaker 1: their cloaca or event is that they have two or
Speaker 1: one side. I think no expert on blue crabs. But
Speaker 1: a female that's bread they call her sponge crab, and
Speaker 1: she houses, she releases all those eggs onto these little
Speaker 1: filaments under her apron, and her apron will sort of
Speaker 1: bulge out and there will be this cloud of eggs.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that the fertilization is external. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're like breeding there. I think the males
Speaker 1: are inserting their pin I into that cloud of eggs,
Speaker 1: and just like fishif that's how my kid found out
Speaker 1: about uh, human love making because we're looking at we're
Speaker 1: cleaning perch, and we're looking over cleaning salmon, and I'm
Speaker 1: showing them the eggs and the sperm, and I'm explaining
Speaker 1: how the female lets the eggs out in the in
Speaker 1: the red and the male puts his seed in there
Speaker 1: and fertilized the eggs and it happens externally. And he
Speaker 1: got to wondering, since a mommy person has the baby
Speaker 1: inside of her, how in the world do you deliver
Speaker 1: the sperm? And he later was explaining to his nanny.
Speaker 1: We overheard him saying, and my mommy did that three times?
Speaker 1: Um uh yeah, can you zap us with the Mark
Speaker 1: Twain quote. Now, yeah, well I got a bunch of them.
Speaker 1: Here's what your favorite. The one I always remember and
Speaker 1: just so I can get it just right that I like.
Speaker 1: And I try to uh most to come back to you. No,
Speaker 1: and uh I try to do this myself, not so
Speaker 1: much that I want like you to abide by this quote,
Speaker 1: but I try to keep it in my mind. But
Speaker 1: it's out. It is better to keep your mouth closed
Speaker 1: and let people think you are a fool than to
Speaker 1: open it and remove all doubts. Another one. Whenever you
Speaker 1: find yourself on the side of majority, it is time
Speaker 1: to pause and reflect. Here's another one. It is not
Speaker 1: the size of the dog in the fight. It's the
Speaker 1: fighting the dog. Can't depend on your eyes when your
Speaker 1: imagination is out of focus. Well, that's a good hunting one. Actually,
Speaker 1: it is a good one. Courage is resistance to fear,
Speaker 1: mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain, I
Speaker 1: think that cannot depend on your eyes when you're imagine
Speaker 1: ation is out of focus may relate to your bow
Speaker 1: hunting conundrum, and it relates to anyone who ever thinks
Speaker 1: they saw a bigfoot. Fact check me on this dave
Speaker 1: back to seekadeer the way Maryland manages seek a deer
Speaker 1: and all, dear, I think, is this that you have
Speaker 1: bag limits that relate to the weapon restriction. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that very well that you have. The state recognizes
Speaker 1: three weapons distinctions correct archery, which includes cross bowls, correct
Speaker 1: mosle loader, and general firearm general firearms. Some counties are
Speaker 1: shotgun only, some allow centerfire rifles. You're in an area
Speaker 1: that allows centerfire rifles, so you're allowed three Sika deer
Speaker 1: per weapon. Right. Each season has its own bag limit
Speaker 1: two or a total of three normal more than one
Speaker 1: stag correct, so you could shoot three highs or one
Speaker 1: stagging two higns. And we came down for the final
Speaker 1: days of the archery season Early archery, Final days of
Speaker 1: early archery, and gave it are all for three days.
Speaker 1: I was the only one that loosed an arrow ineffectively,
Speaker 1: but I loosed the narrow um And you guys are
Speaker 1: trying to hunt with traditionally. I kind of like take
Speaker 1: offense that calling it traditional archery because it's like a
Speaker 1: really like non traditional elements that like what do you
Speaker 1: guys call it? Bow would not be because carbon like
Speaker 1: a carbon fiber long bow. Yeah, there's carbon fiber sandwiched
Speaker 1: in between real wood and carbon fiber and carbon fiber arrows.
Speaker 1: Nothing real traditional about it. Yeah, but it's like it's
Speaker 1: like modern longbow and you have a modern No, you
Speaker 1: kind of an old timey recurve bowl. It's modern. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got fiberglass. It's a bear production bow, so from
Speaker 1: the olden days. Though, if it's a vintage bow, I
Speaker 1: think that bos probably hearkens back to the old times
Speaker 1: for a long time, and back then you didn't buy
Speaker 1: a new bow every year. He's had the same damn
Speaker 1: bow for forever until compounds came. I shoot him till
Speaker 1: they break. Did I get anyone? Yeah? Oddly enough, you
Speaker 1: do not eat a new bow every year. I once
Speaker 1: heard a gay explaining to a first time I want
Speaker 1: want to be first time archer that if you call
Speaker 1: yourself a serious bow hunter, you buy a brand new
Speaker 1: bow every year. And I talked to myself, My God,
Speaker 1: the power of marketing. I'll talk quickly. I'm gonna touch
Speaker 1: on my closest close encounter with my boat, and I
Speaker 1: like you guys to quickly touching your closest close encounter
Speaker 1: my closest close encounter. I see one of these little
Speaker 1: seka deer come through, coming across the open marsh. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of like stuff here that's just impenetrable ten
Speaker 1: ft high frag mighty's grass, and there's like some areas
Speaker 1: that are other kinds of impenetrable lower plants. Then you
Speaker 1: get lucky now and then here and there, and it's
Speaker 1: just like an ankle high marsh. And then you can
Speaker 1: see what the hell is going on. And I see
Speaker 1: this lone stag crossing a big stretch of ankle high marsh,
Speaker 1: and his line of travel is gonna like bring him
Speaker 1: to where his closest point would be like a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards. I decided to call at it and
Speaker 1: use what like Steve had called in one this is
Speaker 1: gonna be I'm gonna steal part of your storage you
Speaker 1: had called in one I think it was the day before,
Speaker 1: using a combination of hind the calls in a stag bugle.
Speaker 1: So I zapped him with the ken drop combo, which
Speaker 1: we'll call it. And he's sure enough to just much
Speaker 1: to my surprise, turns and starts heading in my direction
Speaker 1: and then vanishes into the frag Mighty's and I'm like
Speaker 1: sitting there wondering. I'm standing up ready, and you have
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on because you can't see anything.
Speaker 1: And then you hear like the water his feet coming
Speaker 1: through the marsh, and all of a sudden, he pops
Speaker 1: out in the one and the worst possible area to
Speaker 1: pop out, where it's just all these little dead pine trees,
Speaker 1: like a little dead lob lollies. Yeah, yeah, probably like
Speaker 1: a bigger round like thick as your thigh, a bunch
Speaker 1: of dead ones. And he just comes right out in there,
Speaker 1: and he's like, there's no possible shot opportunity. Already got
Speaker 1: my bow back, and he's like his rib cage is
Speaker 1: blocked by trees. Rib cage is blocked by a tree,
Speaker 1: His rib cage is blocked by a bush. And I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: this is never gonna happen. I can't hold my bow
Speaker 1: bag forever. And he's just gonna pass underneath me and
Speaker 1: be gone. And all of a sudden, here like stops
Speaker 1: in the opening and there's his rib cage exposed the
Speaker 1: eighteen yards and I'd like I had fallen out of
Speaker 1: my like what you need to do to make this happen,
Speaker 1: and I had fallen into my I can't believe this
Speaker 1: is happening, Like I can't believe this isn't gonna work out,
Speaker 1: And and in there forgot about the part about aiming
Speaker 1: and everything and just sail it over, not sail it over,
Speaker 1: slip it over his back. You aimed where you were,
Speaker 1: where you're thinking, until you stopped being stopped thinking. And
Speaker 1: I had a tree. I had ranged a bunch of trees,
Speaker 1: and I had I had my like thirty yard tree,
Speaker 1: and he popped out at the thirty yard tree, and
Speaker 1: in my head was like the thirty yard pin. And
Speaker 1: I'm analyzed and I'm running processing so many other little
Speaker 1: bits of information during this time. I never adjust. So
Speaker 1: I'm already a little high because he's now eighteen yards
Speaker 1: and I got my I'm still looking at my thirty
Speaker 1: yard red pin. And then the other thing is in reviewing,
Speaker 1: like I have the great luxury being able to review
Speaker 1: footage and to see what happened. And ridge ponder was
Speaker 1: on the deer and you can go frame to frame,
Speaker 1: and there's a frame where you can you catch the
Speaker 1: fletching of the arrow crossing the tree trunk, and that
Speaker 1: deer is already dropped four or five inches in the arrow.
Speaker 1: He's not ducking well. I mean, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: reacting to the sound. He's loading up to spring away.
Speaker 1: So when people say he ducked the arrow, he's not
Speaker 1: like arrow coming, he's loading up to go. If you
Speaker 1: watch a deer takeoff and slow motion, they go down down,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, he's already doing his Like I'm
Speaker 1: getting out of town, and cal brought up A good
Speaker 1: point is like, and this is something you'll never know.
Speaker 1: If I hadn't Stagg called, and I had just Hind called,
Speaker 1: would he have come in with a different attitude and
Speaker 1: not so high strung? And I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know either, but from a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: Elk Woods, I would say yes. It would be like
Speaker 1: if let's see youre walking, had he even turned, he
Speaker 1: might not have come in at all. He may not
Speaker 1: have come in at all. Let's say you're walking on
Speaker 1: the road and you hear someone scream out. A woman
Speaker 1: scream out hell, hell, okay, you're coming in with one
Speaker 1: attitude and she says, help, help, there's a madman with
Speaker 1: a gun in here. You're coming in with a different attitude.
Speaker 1: Still coming, Well, yeah, some people wouldn't, but you're still coming.
Speaker 1: You're just coming in with a different attitude. So for
Speaker 1: me being like me, me and me right right, He's like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm coming, but I got my head on the flat.
Speaker 1: I'm coming in hot, I'm coming in nervous, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, just missed them, you know, miss them. And
Speaker 1: then all the like trouble, just the mental problems, which
Speaker 1: I'm still struggling with. I'm more made up for it,
Speaker 1: I'll point out later, but um uh yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: like difficult. Man. You practice and practice and practice, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to um when you're practicing. It's like it's
Speaker 1: just as different than the things that happen in real life.
Speaker 1: Things happen in real life, all these other things enter in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's there's no no substitute for experience in the wood.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like you need to go out new yard.
Speaker 1: When you're new yard shooting your bowl at targets, you
Speaker 1: almost need to have to hire people just to come
Speaker 1: and do weird stuff. Yeah, like I'm gonna shoot my
Speaker 1: bowl and at some point during the suiting session, I
Speaker 1: want you to sneak up and slap me with a
Speaker 1: stick and learn how to shoot, knowing that in any minute,
Speaker 1: southing like like to learn how to shoot, knowing that
Speaker 1: there's unexpected things, like when you're shooting in the yard,
Speaker 1: you're like, you range it, it's not you know, you can't.
Speaker 1: It's hard to replicate. You could even replicate a target
Speaker 1: that keeps moving behind stuff somehow. Like when we were
Speaker 1: little kids, we strung the wirire between two trees and
Speaker 1: would hang rabbit targets on loops that you'd mount to
Speaker 1: the wire, and then one guy's job was to stand
Speaker 1: off to the side and pull the rope real fast.
Speaker 1: And so we would stand on our porch and shoot
Speaker 1: long bowls and re curves and everything else at the
Speaker 1: rabbit as it zinged across the yard. But you got
Speaker 1: to know that trajectory, and it wasn't you weren't nervous,
Speaker 1: you weren't lustful for the rabbit. Yeah you gotta. Then
Speaker 1: you got a factor in the lustfulness how badly you
Speaker 1: want to damn dear. But see, it takes me a
Speaker 1: few days of frustration to build up that lustfulness, to
Speaker 1: have that desire to complete the job. When I heard
Speaker 1: his footsteps coming through the water. I wasn't at all
Speaker 1: jacked up. I wasn't jacked up. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, I'm so like nonchalant right now.
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna kill this thing. Was my first thought.
Speaker 1: And I had my mantra in my visions of grandeur.
Speaker 1: Not like that. Not cockiness. That sounded pretty cocky. No,
Speaker 1: I was aware of my mantra, my shooting mantra. I
Speaker 1: was like, you have your shooting mantra. This is not
Speaker 1: a big deal. He's coming, You're gonna get him. And
Speaker 1: then he popped out, and I'm like, why did you
Speaker 1: have to pop out there? And then everything fell a partner.
Speaker 1: I lost track of my mantra, but you still wanted
Speaker 1: him real bad. I wanted him bad. Mark kenyon Um
Speaker 1: was just introducing me to his mantra, which he um
Speaker 1: he does his mantra every time he shoots his bow.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a hunting mantra. He has a shooting mantra,
Speaker 1: which he will not shoot an arrow without doing the
Speaker 1: mantra because he's building it into his shot cycle that
Speaker 1: he verbalizes every part of it every time. It cannot
Speaker 1: shoot without verbalizing it you can't have, Like, I gotta
Speaker 1: switch because my current system is my hunting mantra, which
Speaker 1: I don't do every time I shoot my boat. He's like,
Speaker 1: I want to get my head to where I cannot
Speaker 1: shoot that bow without completing my thing, almost like reverse
Speaker 1: target panic. He can't let the arrow go until you've
Speaker 1: accomplished those step wise progressions. His thing is like I
Speaker 1: don't remember the exact words. His thing is basically like hover,
Speaker 1: like hover the pen. Then there's like this sort of
Speaker 1: thing like you're on it, and then there's this thing
Speaker 1: here we go. And every time he shoots his bow
Speaker 1: he does it to train himself. And here we go
Speaker 1: is that he begins tightening his shoulder blades. And if
Speaker 1: you get a snapshot window and you don't have time
Speaker 1: to get through it, you don't take the shot. You
Speaker 1: don't let's go. Let the year o go because there's
Speaker 1: your opportunity. A shout at that very highly regarded pistol
Speaker 1: instructor one day and his mantra is slack out and
Speaker 1: he takes the slack out of the trigger site. He
Speaker 1: needs to get a trigger job done on his gun.
Speaker 1: Squeeze this you can't talk to this guy about anything
Speaker 1: because he's like shooting rocks out of the air and stuff.
Speaker 1: He uh, he swears, and he's like by my man
Speaker 1: type of shooter, and he swears that he's going through
Speaker 1: his head every single time his finger engages that trigger.
Speaker 1: Slack out, site squeeze, slack out slit site squee Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing it, man, I'm doing I'm I'm taking like
Speaker 1: I talked. I was on the phone Mark Kenny for
Speaker 1: a long time talk about this, and I'm gonna start.
Speaker 1: Let me start trying to do it. Was it here
Speaker 1: late at night after you missed that buck, midday after
Speaker 1: I missed the buck? I think the next day, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. Man, I'm gonna start. I'm gonna change. Well,
Speaker 1: you need to embrace the fact that archery is a
Speaker 1: fun thing that allows you to start hunting earlier. It
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be the love of your life. But
Speaker 1: like for me, when muzzleloader season came around here and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I do not like the fact
Speaker 1: that I did not finish the job with the bow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm willing to pick up a muzzleloader because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I want to take this
Speaker 1: meat home because it's awesome. Yeah, you got your weapon goal,
Speaker 1: and you got your trip goal, trip goal, bring some
Speaker 1: meat home. Because I was relieved that Steve managed to
Speaker 1: do well so that I could borrow his muzzleloader for
Speaker 1: a short time. Not that I did anything with it,
Speaker 1: but just had it. But you know, extend the range,
Speaker 1: and just so much can go wrong when you're bow hunting,
Speaker 1: and no matter how big a stag is that I
Speaker 1: might shoot with a rifle or a muzzleloader, there's always
Speaker 1: this less sense of fulfillment that like, God, dang, I
Speaker 1: would I wish I could have gotten that one with
Speaker 1: my bow, talking about the one you almost got, our netting,
Speaker 1: you almost get it, talked about your clothes and connery
Speaker 1: you have with your bowl. Yeah. So we were frankly
Speaker 1: just kind of scouting out a spot that I wanted
Speaker 1: to see if it would it was ready for muzzleloader season,
Speaker 1: and what kind of activity there was. So we we
Speaker 1: popped out to this little island. Yeah, which is an island?
Speaker 1: I like that though, the island of trees. So an
Speaker 1: island of trees out in the marsh. Just you hear
Speaker 1: about you, guys, It's called an island and so suspected
Speaker 1: that there's some activity there. Uh. There's sort of two
Speaker 1: little islands of trees, uh, one of which is mostly
Speaker 1: dead Timber Island, Yeah, exactly. Um, And so I gave
Speaker 1: a couple of calls. I think I had the stag call,
Speaker 1: didn't I, Lauren? And then I had some cow calls.
Speaker 1: And just within a couple of minutes of blowing the
Speaker 1: stag call, uh, I see some movement. Uh. And we'd
Speaker 1: already seen a couple does I think, hadn't we? There
Speaker 1: was movement out there, and so here comes this stag
Speaker 1: out of the brush on Eagle Island. It's just about
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty yards away from us at that point,
Speaker 1: and you're on the foot on the ground, on the
Speaker 1: foot on the ground. Uh. Sort of hunkered up a
Speaker 1: couple against a couple of dead trees, and I switched
Speaker 1: to the cow call, and I just started doing a
Speaker 1: couple of mused so he could sort of hone in
Speaker 1: on us, and Uh, sure enough he started making his way,
Speaker 1: and he picked his way on a route of higher marsh.
Speaker 1: And cat's always exciting to see them coming get him
Speaker 1: closer and closer, and those antlers just sometimes it's all
Speaker 1: you can see as the antlers sticking above the vegetation
Speaker 1: here here and come in, and and boy, he keeps coming.
Speaker 1: He's looking in our direction, and he keeps coming. And
Speaker 1: I've had plenty of sort of aborted approaches to not
Speaker 1: get too excited until they hit that sort of fifty
Speaker 1: yard line, and then all of a sudden it starts
Speaker 1: feeling real, you know, And sure enough he keeps coming
Speaker 1: in and coming in. He finally enters into the little
Speaker 1: island of trees we're at, and he's amidst all the
Speaker 1: dead timber, probably thirty forty yards away from us, and
Speaker 1: then he begins this game of sort of zig zagging,
Speaker 1: and I'm pinned up against these dead trees, and I,
Speaker 1: depending on which way he goes, I might have to
Speaker 1: like get my arrow up and around one of the
Speaker 1: trunks that I'm standing way too close to. And he's,
Speaker 1: you know, first the zigs left, on the zig's right,
Speaker 1: and back and forth, and finally he decides he's can
Speaker 1: I commit to going into the sort of interior of
Speaker 1: this little island of trees? And it just got way
Speaker 1: too brushy. But I think at one point he was
Speaker 1: he was within my comfort zone. Twenty yards or so.
Speaker 1: I would have flung an arrow if he'd stepped clear,
Speaker 1: for sure, But it just wasn't meant to be. And
Speaker 1: he got in there, he knew there was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a deer there. He's looking around. And when they
Speaker 1: get there, once they make their mind up that okay,
Speaker 1: there's not a deer here. There's no amount of calling
Speaker 1: it's gonna bring them back, they just sort of turn
Speaker 1: around and go and and he marched off back to
Speaker 1: Eagle Nest Island and and he was out of our lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I called the one that came to forty three yards
Speaker 1: and then stood there waving his nose in the air,
Speaker 1: being like, I hear her, but she's just not here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if she was here, I would smell her, I
Speaker 1: feel like, I think. But just too lazy to like
Speaker 1: lug something around out there and place it and what not.
Speaker 1: Calling with a eco I think would be like really deadly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got that. Yeah, I got a strong yes on that.
Speaker 1: For you'd be laying by some rolls. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: small decoy to hide behind, though, especially for me, I
Speaker 1: can't leave no one. Someone probably is onto that, but
Speaker 1: I'm surprised no one's out of that if you're not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I actually have a decoy. It's, you know, made
Speaker 1: of this plastic corrugated cardboard kind of stuff. It's cut
Speaker 1: out of a spike and it folds up into three pieces.
Speaker 1: But it's it's just another thing to carry out there.
Speaker 1: And I haven't been real motivated to to really test
Speaker 1: it out, but I probably should try it one at
Speaker 1: these times. Well, we got a friend who thinks they're immoral.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, decoys in general, not duck decoys, turkey decoys.
Speaker 1: What did he say? He says he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: go to hell, so he won't use one. Well, a
Speaker 1: friend of mine's wife thinks that it's immoral to use
Speaker 1: trickery to lura animal into range. And people have been
Speaker 1: doing that time trickery, so calling would be out. The
Speaker 1: only archery opportunity I had. Um, it was the very
Speaker 1: first morning. We were sitting over acorns on the ground.
Speaker 1: We're in, Uh what type of tree were we in?
Speaker 1: We're in an oak tree. Yanni think so Um and
Speaker 1: Janna sny are both look in one direction and then
Speaker 1: y'all just goes, oh, cap the other side of the tree. Ah.
Speaker 1: Two o'clock, there's dough, turned around and kill it. And
Speaker 1: oh and I turned around and this dough that was
Speaker 1: just like shockingly small to me and it was still
Speaker 1: a little bit of gray light in my memory anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: and she's severely quartered away kind of through this gap
Speaker 1: and she was just there for a blink of an
Speaker 1: eye and and gone. And that was the only did
Speaker 1: you get your bowl back? No, not even close. No,
Speaker 1: I had narrow knocked just because I started out that way. Um,
Speaker 1: but that was it. However, if you know it's a new,
Speaker 1: totally new species, you had a leg up on me
Speaker 1: because you've been here once before. But had I, like
Speaker 1: I feel if I had the knowledge just that I
Speaker 1: gained in this one week at the beginning of the week,
Speaker 1: the archery game would have been a different story. Helpful
Speaker 1: knowing what you now know. Yes, yeah, so I mean,
Speaker 1: but I have absolutely no regrets from this trip. This
Speaker 1: was phenomenal. I had like similar my previous experience hunting
Speaker 1: here was very similar. I did two days, the last
Speaker 1: two days of early archery, kind of got my feet
Speaker 1: wet and then UM came in with the mall's loader
Speaker 1: and it just there's a certain cockiness to having that muzzleloader.
Speaker 1: Tell me about it. It's just different, man, it is.
Speaker 1: It's just different. You made it more difficult with your
Speaker 1: muzzleloader because you didn't bring a scope. That was Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not. Believe me. If I going forward, I
Speaker 1: mean it didn't end up hurting you at all, I
Speaker 1: would I would have a uh I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: i'd have scope, but I would definitely have different iron sights,
Speaker 1: and I would have my own muzzleloader that I have
Speaker 1: got myself more familiar with, purely for uh shot placement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in confidence. Yeah, man, Open Day muss loader season. I'm
Speaker 1: right back in the same tree where I'd missed my shot.
Speaker 1: You mean Steve's Island. I'm in Steve's Island, Steve's tree
Speaker 1: on Steve's Island, Ronella, Steve's tree on Ronelle Island. And
Speaker 1: early morning I let a hind walk through because I
Speaker 1: was hoping here to be a stag behind her. There's
Speaker 1: no stag behind her. Then a while later, here comes
Speaker 1: the hind greasing across from the eagle's nest, headed straight
Speaker 1: toward me. She gets like fifty yards in front of me.
Speaker 1: Oh yo, hey, and get her just lands right in
Speaker 1: the trail stone dead. Then sit there singing along the
Speaker 1: wait now and step a stag shows up, and about
Speaker 1: eight nine minutes later, sure enough, here comes one knows
Speaker 1: the ground following her down. He gets to the same spot.
Speaker 1: I say hey, and he lands four ft off her tail,
Speaker 1: still in the trail. There's two of them. Then you
Speaker 1: need to get out of my seat. It's amazing. There's
Speaker 1: a certain cockiness that comes the muscle. I will tell you,
Speaker 1: standing or sitting in the in that tripod blind like
Speaker 1: totally man made blind, sticking out of the marsh, there
Speaker 1: was a certain feeling of like laziness to it, just
Speaker 1: like I couldn't there's no like I just had this
Speaker 1: like almost a feeling like sitting on the toilet, like
Speaker 1: just like nah, And you're honest. And I were definitely
Speaker 1: crammed in there, you know, But then getting in the
Speaker 1: climbing stand or just being in any of the other stands,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was way more of an active participant.
Speaker 1: You looked like compromised up in that thing. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I was just like, man, I feel I think I
Speaker 1: told you. I was like, man, I feel like a
Speaker 1: sword dick sticking out here that spoke to me sticking
Speaker 1: out like you had done the work of probably played
Speaker 1: the hard word. It took the place that stand. You
Speaker 1: have different feelings, sup climb up in some other dudes
Speaker 1: tripod stand. It's the only thing out there, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's a good view out there, though. It's a
Speaker 1: heck of a view. Yeah, no, it's a gorgeous a
Speaker 1: great way to learn about the critter man. We haven't
Speaker 1: even talked about the wide array of vocalizations. Unbelievable. The
Speaker 1: first that I sat out because I have been sitting
Speaker 1: in the woods where we can't see anything beyond archery range,
Speaker 1: Like you're in the thickets, you know, and you're not
Speaker 1: seeing all the stuff that doesn't matter. Anything you see
Speaker 1: like matters right now, right because they're close when you're
Speaker 1: in the woods or in you know, in the brush.
Speaker 1: But then you get out in the open mars and
Speaker 1: you've seen a lot of stuff that doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: with your bow, matters with your muzzleloader. But you get
Speaker 1: to just observe their movements. And some of the things
Speaker 1: that struck me most is one how aggressive the stags
Speaker 1: are to the hinds, like mean gang pileing them. Three
Speaker 1: of them on one like because the ratios are like
Speaker 1: there's a really high stagged hind rat show and they
Speaker 1: get on some of them and just chase them, chase
Speaker 1: the chasing three of them on them relentless, and how
Speaker 1: much they mess with each other. They're like little bullies, man.
Speaker 1: They're like the dudes and like little guys like the
Speaker 1: dudes in high school that run the wrestling team. Man.
Speaker 1: So they remind me of like always like messing with
Speaker 1: each other and fighting and punch each other and zapping
Speaker 1: each other's nuts and stuff, just like you know, like
Speaker 1: those kind of dudes, like high school wrastler guys. Man.
Speaker 1: When we opened them up, there's a lot of sores
Speaker 1: on those. Yeah, Steve Stagg had some slightly infected wounds.
Speaker 1: Same with the wrestling guys in high school. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're always just like in each other's business and headlocking
Speaker 1: each other and giving each other noggies and just whatever, man,
Speaker 1: just like messing with each other, pulling each other's underwear,
Speaker 1: just like you know, ringworm and rug burn. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: that's these little stags remind me, man, because they're like
Speaker 1: they're just these little I think that's pretty a little
Speaker 1: ship and things that are just so like jacked up
Speaker 1: and like mean to the ladies and meeting each other.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's totally antropomorphism. But oh yeah, I have
Speaker 1: no problem shooting a stag because it's just deserve this way.
Speaker 1: And I feel a little guilty every time I shoot
Speaker 1: a hid. I mean, you know, if I'm really looking
Speaker 1: for the meat, I'll take one. But nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, I'll just let them walk. They just look
Speaker 1: so peaceful out there, and you know, I know, and
Speaker 1: I had some. I had a female come through, you know,
Speaker 1: a high end come through with a faun. What do
Speaker 1: you say for faun? Do you say fun when you
Speaker 1: talking about stags and hid? We usually do. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that it was a more appropriate that's in line
Speaker 1: with stagging hid, but we just say fun either way.
Speaker 1: I had one of those. I was sitting there with
Speaker 1: my boat and had some of those come through close
Speaker 1: and um, like on a white tails, I wouldn't hesitate
Speaker 1: to break up though, right to the pairing, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, it's like it's proven that
Speaker 1: if you shoot the dough, you know the fawn's weaned,
Speaker 1: it's old enough to survive or vice versa, right, and
Speaker 1: there's like management objectives and whatever. Oh that garbage doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me. Watching the hind and her fawn come across
Speaker 1: the marsh, at first, I was like, oh, she's gonna
Speaker 1: come right too, And after calling minutes, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that. I just gonna hope of
Speaker 1: the steak. A lot of them get a pass from
Speaker 1: me because of the stay comes and those spawns were small.
Speaker 1: I've seen them come through the check station at black
Speaker 1: Water and they'll dress out some of them thirteen fifteen pounds,
Speaker 1: And at that point it's like, is it worth killing
Speaker 1: an animal for the five pounds of animal? Meet? You
Speaker 1: might n I don't know you killed? Yeah, that's like
Speaker 1: big as they get, you know, I'm with you. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it once I saw I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it, right had I definitely like had
Speaker 1: like real reservations. When they're bugling and they ripped three
Speaker 1: in a row, like do you feel that some more?
Speaker 1: That's a stag that's like really worked up, as opposed
Speaker 1: to one that just rings off one randomly three packs
Speaker 1: or single. They do some singles three packs or more.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, And I think all the
Speaker 1: stags bugle to an extent, it's not just the dominant ones.
Speaker 1: I always like envisioned, you know, Oh it's a big six.
Speaker 1: If it's really ripping out bugles, it's got to be
Speaker 1: a big, mature stag. And I had one that I
Speaker 1: called in, actually got it on video on my phone.
Speaker 1: I killed a nice one the night before, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to, Like I was hunting on the refuge,
Speaker 1: and the previous one had been on public state land,
Speaker 1: so separate bag limits within applied, so I could have
Speaker 1: taken this one. But it was not real big. It
Speaker 1: was a spike, a tall spike, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to use my black water tag on stag, so
Speaker 1: I just grabbed the phone and filmed them to keep
Speaker 1: the bow from leaping into my hand. And uh, he
Speaker 1: comes all the way across the marsh, I'd call him in,
Speaker 1: and he got within twenty yards of my stand and
Speaker 1: was just milling around, and all of a sudden, he
Speaker 1: ripped out a bugle that was like blood curtain, and
Speaker 1: I had it all on video. I've been trying to
Speaker 1: catch that on either audio or video for the years.
Speaker 1: I've been hunting him. I always just get like the
Speaker 1: last two or one and a half of that three pack.
Speaker 1: But this guy just went off and he sounded as
Speaker 1: big and bad as any stag I've ever heard. And
Speaker 1: you know, he was a fairly young young stag, so
Speaker 1: I think they all call like that. But you can't
Speaker 1: judge a stagged by his bugle and they make a yeah,
Speaker 1: it stops as a real high pitch kind of turns
Speaker 1: into this sort of growny moaning kind of sound. The
Speaker 1: kiwi's calling that the heehaw, which if he kind of
Speaker 1: stretch that out, it sounds kind of like that. And uh,
Speaker 1: that seems to be the ice. Usually when I see
Speaker 1: that happening or imagine it happening, Uh, it seems like
Speaker 1: it's a dough who's tending a stag tending a dough. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know, a frustration sort of sound. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you'll hear also just right right, And then
Speaker 1: you will sometimes hear him just growl like and they
Speaker 1: lay their antlers on their back, and that's usually when
Speaker 1: they're encountering another stag and tell him like, get out, buddy,
Speaker 1: this is my spot. We watched one come up to
Speaker 1: two that we're fighting, and I couldn't hear him because
Speaker 1: too far away, but I was watching through my knocks.
Speaker 1: Two were fighting, and he was doing that posture where
Speaker 1: he tips his head back and lays his antlers across
Speaker 1: his back and kind of waves his head. We're just
Speaker 1: kind of crazy looking, right movement should clarify the antler
Speaker 1: configuration and what six point is back sleeping. They're like
Speaker 1: little elk candlers, kind of miniature candlers. They're like more
Speaker 1: similar to elk cant they got the forward brow times
Speaker 1: that hook, and then your typical one. Your typical one
Speaker 1: has forward brow times that hook, and then like straight
Speaker 1: back main beams that will have a fork on them. Right,
Speaker 1: so that if he's like doing his normal normal walking posture,
Speaker 1: like head forward, normal walking posture, his antlers are kind
Speaker 1: of like his main beams are kind of like aimed
Speaker 1: back at it was like a forty five degree angle, yeah,
Speaker 1: like brushed back. And then you'll see some that have
Speaker 1: you know, they'll have like short brows and a little
Speaker 1: slight split, and as they get nicer, they get like
Speaker 1: a hooked and a deep fort. But then you can
Speaker 1: also get them like you killed a seven point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very rarely you'll get one that either on one or
Speaker 1: both sides. It will have a little sticker point off
Speaker 1: the back of the main bean, and it'll be a
Speaker 1: seven or eight point. Those are rarely more than an
Speaker 1: inch or so long, But I would say maybe one
Speaker 1: or two eight pointers get killed a year. Uh if
Speaker 1: that it's funny how much you see those antlers coming
Speaker 1: through the brush. Oh man, they stick out like it's
Speaker 1: like two chopsticks coming through them, coming through the brothers.
Speaker 1: Because the total height is only, uh what twelve inches
Speaker 1: savage big ones twelves of fourteen fifteen inches? True? You
Speaker 1: know monster trophies might get sixteen inches tall, and of
Speaker 1: course you'll hear guys, Oh I don't want to like
Speaker 1: play two inches? Yeah right, show me that stag and
Speaker 1: I'll believe it. But otherwise, um, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of the spikes at the sort of bigger spikes will
Speaker 1: be nine ten inch spikes. But god, they look big
Speaker 1: when you see them out there. You know, they look
Speaker 1: like the Hertford buck man or whatever that thing. It's
Speaker 1: like when you see one out in the open marsh,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing next to it to compare it to it.
Speaker 1: Looks like a man eater because they're so like, like
Speaker 1: I said, like high school wrestlers. Man, it's like the
Speaker 1: next get it seems like half their body wrestlers, right,
Speaker 1: there's some of my dearest friends are high school wrestlers,
Speaker 1: Craig Christians and John Malcolm. Yeah, man, all kinds of
Speaker 1: They're dark. The pretty easy to spot on the marsh,
Speaker 1: which I realized was last year I hunted the woods
Speaker 1: a lot more and they blend in on that that
Speaker 1: pine the dark ones. Difference between the stags. The stags
Speaker 1: are chocolate dark chocolate like black, and the hind's got
Speaker 1: that reddish color. But they all it's the only deer
Speaker 1: that keeps its spots its whole life. And they're faint,
Speaker 1: but right down either side of their either side of
Speaker 1: their spine, and then a little on their rump, they
Speaker 1: keep their spots. They get pretty faint, but it's cool,
Speaker 1: sort of disappear when they're really running because they're rolling
Speaker 1: around and making wallows and their pelt gets all nasty dirty.
Speaker 1: You'll stay them up. Yeah, And so you can't really
Speaker 1: see the spots on some of the stags. But later
Speaker 1: in the season, when they stopped running and they're not
Speaker 1: making the wallows as much. Their spots will start to
Speaker 1: be a little more apparent as well. And man, do
Speaker 1: those things get a ruddy smell? The meats great, they
Speaker 1: don't get like a ruddy taste. No, We last night
Speaker 1: took a um. We last night took a bad ham
Speaker 1: off a stag and just I caught a bunch of
Speaker 1: holes in it, fill it full of garlic and put
Speaker 1: a rub on it, and we just cooked the thing
Speaker 1: in a tragg or pellet grill for a few hours.
Speaker 1: It's just like, no at all taste of that. But man,
Speaker 1: you smell that little bogger and it smells like if
Speaker 1: you piste in a jar and cap that jar up
Speaker 1: nice and tight, put it out in the sun for
Speaker 1: a few days with a little in there, and then
Speaker 1: pour debt piss on you. That's what it smells like like.
Speaker 1: After carrying them over my shoulders out of the marsh,
Speaker 1: it smells like I had pissed myself. Yeah, you forgot
Speaker 1: to put your range like I pissed myself a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago. Yeah, that was kind of regretting giving
Speaker 1: you a ride back to the house. No, it was bad, man,
Speaker 1: it was bad. It's real bad. You guys were talking
Speaker 1: about how old these these deer get. That's pretty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the deal, what's the age class? Steve can speak
Speaker 1: to it, he knows them. Yeah, they've done a lot
Speaker 1: of tagging studies over the years and in the Blackwater region,
Speaker 1: and they've documented hynes over twenty years old, you know,
Speaker 1: hynes that were tagged as adults and were covered, you know,
Speaker 1: a decade or more later. Are the stags? Is it
Speaker 1: kind of like a typical you know, like a six
Speaker 1: seven year old stags ancient? Like, they don't last, that's
Speaker 1: I think. Certainly their lifespan is shorter, but because because
Speaker 1: of hunting and because the just the hard aggression they
Speaker 1: showed towards each other. But yeah, I should mentioned the
Speaker 1: one I killed last year had just lost his eye.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking like a little bit. His eyeball was
Speaker 1: completely demolished and punctured recently by an antler. Time. And
Speaker 1: then tell the story about the one that the guy
Speaker 1: that you killed it was missing the time. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I I killed that that seven point that I killed,
Speaker 1: h I noticed was missing probably close to an inch
Speaker 1: inch and a half of the tip of one antler
Speaker 1: and I shortly after I killed that one, one of
Speaker 1: my friends on the club, uh killed a real nice
Speaker 1: mature six pointer. And when he took it to the taxidermists,
Speaker 1: they were keeping it out and they found a piece
Speaker 1: of bone about inch and a half long antler stuck
Speaker 1: in its neck, like right behind the skull. And and
Speaker 1: uh so he kept it and pried it over and
Speaker 1: we matched it up in it. It was a perfect
Speaker 1: match to that. And from the one night shot, did
Speaker 1: you glue it back on there? No? He kept it.
Speaker 1: He kept it. He kept it. Yeah, what's this trophy?
Speaker 1: Did you ask it? I'm not gonna call. Actually you
Speaker 1: know that that is Steve Kendrew's antler point man really
Speaker 1: has a little necklace man or place at someplace independently.
Speaker 1: Make your wife are wondering? Um too generally? Two too bad?
Speaker 1: Because she was like a one she ran one. You
Speaker 1: can make her sweet earring. I made my wife turkey
Speaker 1: spur earrings that she wears. H you're like when you
Speaker 1: set that little mount that you set of crystal in
Speaker 1: like people who are into crystals have like a little
Speaker 1: mount and you like put a crystal in there and
Speaker 1: pinched the mount. I had a jeweler take those type
Speaker 1: of mounts, and I saw it off Turkey spurs, big
Speaker 1: nice pointy turkey spurs, saw them off and had him
Speaker 1: set the spurs in those mounts. And now and then,
Speaker 1: when the occasions right, she will wear her turkey spur earrings. Interesting,
Speaker 1: which I like a whole bunch um. No one. The
Speaker 1: only people to know what that is are people who
Speaker 1: you'd figure would know what that is, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an insider thing, right. Something else has popped in
Speaker 1: my head. I can't think it. Well. I was gonna
Speaker 1: le mention. We covered the vocalizations, which our many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like to give a shout out to the guy
Speaker 1: that makes that bugle call because it's h he can't
Speaker 1: sell them many. Yeah. I've got mixed feelings on helping
Speaker 1: the market to them, because I don't want everyone and
Speaker 1: their brother to have one of these things. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to turn in one of those calls
Speaker 1: where everybody has the same call and it stops working.
Speaker 1: The hoochie Mama of SCA calls it his hands down
Speaker 1: the best. Yeah, I mean it catches that sort of
Speaker 1: low growly sound that it's arts and ends with and
Speaker 1: it's like it's real subtle. Yeah, it's real subtle. But
Speaker 1: to me it it's part of the authenticity of the call.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've listened to many of your podcast
Speaker 1: whe talked about turkeys and the game animals really need
Speaker 1: it to sound perfect to trigger the sort of response
Speaker 1: you're looking for and probably not. But for me, just
Speaker 1: the confidence of coming as close to the real thing
Speaker 1: as I can as part of what I personally need
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable calling to feel comfortable. Yeah, and this call,
Speaker 1: I think just nails it. Um. It's called the Nordic
Speaker 1: Ska and it's made by a guy I met out
Speaker 1: of Sweden. Oh, he's got a whole line of predator
Speaker 1: calls and stuff like that. So it uh, definitely. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't go in the woods in October without it
Speaker 1: around my neck. How when does the ruts start? And
Speaker 1: like how long does it last? It's basically the whole
Speaker 1: month of October. Or I would say, you know, if
Speaker 1: I were to pick two weeks to hunt out of
Speaker 1: the entire season, it would be starting with Columbus Day
Speaker 1: for the next two weeks. Uh, that sort of middle
Speaker 1: two weeks, second and third weeks of October probably will
Speaker 1: encompass the peak of the rut, but they'll start late
Speaker 1: September early October, but they don't really get cranked up
Speaker 1: until about Columbus Day, it seems, and it's over by Halloween. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Generally he'll get little pulses of activity, and I've I've
Speaker 1: seen stags chasing hines in November and even into December.
Speaker 1: But these calls in those later seasons, I do, they
Speaker 1: don't seem to be as responsive to them though, especially
Speaker 1: the stag calls. The cow calls. You know you can
Speaker 1: stop one with it? Or what can you tell the
Speaker 1: story about the flood and the sekid box that were
Speaker 1: tied together. Back in two thousand two, we had Hurricane
Speaker 1: Isabel came through and there was a tremendous storm surge
Speaker 1: that flooded out most of southern Dorchester County and it
Speaker 1: pushed a bunch of flotsam, just debreathe, all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff way up into the woods and marshes and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And I had taken a friend of mine on this
Speaker 1: property that I had lived on in southern Dorchester creep O, Maryland,
Speaker 1: um and I had to go. I had to leave
Speaker 1: him on his own for a couple of hours midday,
Speaker 1: and when I came back, he said, hey, man, I
Speaker 1: found two dead stags that someone tied together. So that's weird,
Speaker 1: and show me. So we went and we walked over
Speaker 1: to where he'd found them, and indeed it was two
Speaker 1: real nice, mature six point stags that had gotten tangled
Speaker 1: up in a length of crab booy line. Probably I
Speaker 1: don't know, if you stretched it all out, it's probably
Speaker 1: fifty or sixty ft of yeah, and it and the
Speaker 1: one stag that had you know when when they wallow
Speaker 1: and they spa and you know, make little rubs on trees,
Speaker 1: they just whipped their heads all around and he must
Speaker 1: have loop this rope up somehow, and then the way
Speaker 1: to the buoy it just kind of kept swinging around
Speaker 1: and it just perfect like figure eight around us. And
Speaker 1: so this big wad of rope hanging around his antlers
Speaker 1: at the base of it, and then a long loop
Speaker 1: had formed at one point, and he got in a
Speaker 1: tussle with this other stag, and that loop got around
Speaker 1: the other stags antler and twisted up to the point
Speaker 1: where it couldn't free itself, and he could see it
Speaker 1: that also like tangled up in greenbrier and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff had been a big struggle, and both of you,
Speaker 1: they were still laying where they had met their death.
Speaker 1: They were telling that no one had touched him. I
Speaker 1: mean they were still tied up with the brush and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to cut away all the greenbrier that there
Speaker 1: was twisted up rope and everything. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: completely just a freak of nature kind of thing. The
Speaker 1: only thing humans had to do with it was the
Speaker 1: fact that we were the originator or the rope and buoy.
Speaker 1: So this this one stag had a crab buoy hanging
Speaker 1: right on his forehead, and and another dead stag with
Speaker 1: about three foot loop and you and you kept those
Speaker 1: schools and kept tied up. Yeah, I boiled them out
Speaker 1: and clean them up just as they were. I haven't
Speaker 1: separated them or anything. And when you get your antler
Speaker 1: point back from that dude, you can make just a
Speaker 1: little display man of like the booie one his body
Speaker 1: that he's tied up to the little point. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: other stag, it would be like a nice little you'll
Speaker 1: be able to have people come over and they'll you'll
Speaker 1: catch them looking at that little display and you see
Speaker 1: that stag wars see that. Let me tell you right,
Speaker 1: but right now I can't tell that story because that
Speaker 1: guy stole your thing. I don't begrudging. It was in
Speaker 1: his deer. So no, I think if the police, if
Speaker 1: the police came out the police to say that's the
Speaker 1: blind is that doesn't blind to you as long as
Speaker 1: the other guy who's stuck in his deer, that's the police,
Speaker 1: and say yeah, now if you called the ethicist, hey,
Speaker 1: you might get a different answer. Yeah, but where do
Speaker 1: you stand on folks that they shoot a bull or
Speaker 1: a buck and it's missing, you know, a prominent time, okay,
Speaker 1: and then they have all the tax drms recreated that
Speaker 1: For me, I'm like that that's not right. So I
Speaker 1: think that that is, that's not the same thing at all.
Speaker 1: How is it not the same thing? Because it's just
Speaker 1: not the same it's just not the same thing. We're
Speaker 1: not asking him to put it back on his buck
Speaker 1: and then display it as in like here is my
Speaker 1: grand seven point. We're asking to display because it's an
Speaker 1: interesting story, like next to the because you'd be able
Speaker 1: to say, see that, right, I would if it was mine.
Speaker 1: I believe that I would tie it off with a
Speaker 1: little piece of string hanging there, and people will be like,
Speaker 1: what happened here? And he'd like, well, funny you ask,
Speaker 1: and then I'd tell him the story, but the same
Speaker 1: story though. No, no one's going to ask him why
Speaker 1: he's got a little hunk of antler. What if it's
Speaker 1: hanging from a string off of his buck? People like,
Speaker 1: why would you're off that buck? Yeah, well let me
Speaker 1: tell you that. And my good friend Steve can drop
Speaker 1: if you had a regular buck and you hung off
Speaker 1: a little chunk of antler off him, and people were
Speaker 1: analyzed them. They couldn't see a broken time. They might
Speaker 1: be like, hey, what gives over here on the display shelf,
Speaker 1: at which point you'll be able to say, well, let
Speaker 1: me tell you. Yeah, and you have to tell the
Speaker 1: whole story, Ryan, Yeah, And then at the end they'd
Speaker 1: be liked antler point back to give him that antler point, bro,
Speaker 1: And then maybe he's got a follow up story about Steve.
Speaker 1: I heard a story. I heard a story about some guys.
Speaker 1: This is out at the This is some dudes who
Speaker 1: were hunting out at that ranch we've talked about before
Speaker 1: called the High Lonesome, which is like a controversial ranch
Speaker 1: because of some public land issues. But uh, they had
Speaker 1: had a client out who was pursuing this this bull
Speaker 1: elk that had this giant club formation. Okay, the bulls
Speaker 1: carrying the club when the client hits it with an arrow.
Speaker 1: By the time they blood trail and recovered, the club's
Speaker 1: not there anymore. And this guy, I guess was very
Speaker 1: very interested in then finding that club. I could never
Speaker 1: find it. I wonder if he had one bill. That's nothing, man,
Speaker 1: I was just at the Wild Sheep Foundation and they
Speaker 1: got the world like, there's a new world record big horn.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, shouldn't count time a little kid in
Speaker 1: Montana just shot a giant that they say might be
Speaker 1: a new world record. Really think, Oh, shouldn't say six eighty?
Speaker 1: People are gonna find out that that's a famous big
Speaker 1: horn unit as a joke, all the big big horns
Speaker 1: come out of six unless it was like a youth
Speaker 1: world record, but younger. I don't know. A kid in
Speaker 1: Montana just shot one that I think might be a
Speaker 1: new world record. It wasn't. My kid wasn't. No. Oh,
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say, Okay, so two problems. There's the problem.
Speaker 1: I meant to address. I'm gonna address the problem that
Speaker 1: comes up in the in the addressing of that problem,
Speaker 1: the problem I wanted to address was the replica. Okay,
Speaker 1: which is fine, But here's the main thing. There's a
Speaker 1: new world record big horn. Because there's there's this big
Speaker 1: there's this big gas lake. Flathead Lake's twenty it's a
Speaker 1: natural lake, twenty miles long, some miles wide, big gas Lake.
Speaker 1: Out in the middle of this big lake is a
Speaker 1: thing called wild Horse Island. And at one point in
Speaker 1: time it was supposed to be a utopia. Like a
Speaker 1: guy owned wild Horse Island and he was gonna have
Speaker 1: like an economist, a sociologist, like he's gonna bring out
Speaker 1: all these experts and create this utopia where they would
Speaker 1: solve all of the world's problems on this little island,
Speaker 1: as utopias are want to do. It failed. It just
Speaker 1: became like regular people's have places out there. But there's
Speaker 1: also some public property out there, and some old orchards
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff. And at some point
Speaker 1: in time, a bunch of big horns got put out there,
Speaker 1: and it's been pretty valuable over the years because they
Speaker 1: have you is the big horns from Wild Horse Island
Speaker 1: two help do repopulations of of other areas to bring
Speaker 1: in genetic diversities. You grab one from big Horn. At times,
Speaker 1: they've taken big horns from other locations and brought them
Speaker 1: out and put him on wild Horse Island to help
Speaker 1: the genetic diversity on wild Horse isund So it's just
Speaker 1: like important little part of big hornness. But there's no
Speaker 1: predation to speak of. There's absolutely no hunting, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of like because it's out on an island that
Speaker 1: kind of functions in my mind as a sort of zoo.
Speaker 1: I've been out there and you can pretty much walk
Speaker 1: up and grab the big horns, right, they're kind of
Speaker 1: like their team. Yeah, because there's a lot of recreation
Speaker 1: on that island. There's a lot of hikers, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they like I remember standing out there in wild Horse
Speaker 1: Island one time and I was counting how many times
Speaker 1: one was gonna hit the Ponderosa pine. I remember, I
Speaker 1: think he hit it seventy two times in a row
Speaker 1: or something. Bam bam bam. God. Yeah, and he hit
Speaker 1: it that many times in a row. And you can
Speaker 1: tell he did it a lot because he'd kind of
Speaker 1: like caused his big indent on this ponderosa getting his
Speaker 1: hundred in for the day. So yeah, he's in the
Speaker 1: Hundle club. So sounds kind of like bow hunting for
Speaker 1: secret here stranging your head against something. So one of
Speaker 1: these dies and it's a new world record, and it
Speaker 1: feels like it feels to me like saying the new
Speaker 1: world record came out of the Cincinnati Zoo. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an odd way to track record book animals. Like, well,
Speaker 1: you guys know that the argument is that those records
Speaker 1: are set up for the animal. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: but I don't like it. I don't like it. I
Speaker 1: hope the kid. I hope this kid has a new
Speaker 1: world from a like native habitat, right, it's like native habitat,
Speaker 1: wild living out there getting chewed on by wild animals.
Speaker 1: I just hope, I hope, I hope this rumor is correct.
Speaker 1: But so you know, but again you're looking at like
Speaker 1: what can happen, Like what is the greatest size one
Speaker 1: of these can achieve? And I accept that it's the
Speaker 1: biggest one, but just it's a bummer to me that
Speaker 1: came from like a little zoo island. And now I'm
Speaker 1: being a little bit I'm trivializing it and being a
Speaker 1: little bit reductive. But that's just my initial take on right,
Speaker 1: because you're right, it is important because that is a
Speaker 1: herd of big horns that hasn't been subjected to any disease.
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about replicas as far as well,
Speaker 1: I walk in and there it is, and holy ship,
Speaker 1: is that thing big man? Like you know, I've looked
Speaker 1: at like I'm not like a big horn expert, but
Speaker 1: I looked at the bay number of big horns over
Speaker 1: the years. This thing is like you look at it
Speaker 1: and you're like, my god, I have never seen anything
Speaker 1: like that. It is just gargangein But and it's a replica,
Speaker 1: not the same body. And they cast those horns, and
Speaker 1: that's like a big thing in the sheep world. Like
Speaker 1: our friend Jay, who's a sheep guide, when he gets
Speaker 1: a client on a big ram, he he guides like
Speaker 1: Governor's Auction, Governor's tag type dudes. When they get a
Speaker 1: big ram, he'll get a replica made to have a
Speaker 1: replica of the horns, Like they cast the horns and
Speaker 1: make a replica. It's a common thing for the client
Speaker 1: to do as a part of the tip of the
Speaker 1: thing a guy. He's already got three thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: do it. So did you find anything? Honest? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it was actually killed last fall October. It's still not
Speaker 1: It still has to go through some more scoring, you know,
Speaker 1: by being secs. You know, has to go through a
Speaker 1: couple of panels to be certified or not. But anyways,
Speaker 1: it's eight inches shy of that big one from uh
Speaker 1: eight inches. You're not gonna make that up. No, you're
Speaker 1: not going to make that up. But what it is
Speaker 1: is that it's a it ties the world record hunter
Speaker 1: killed sheep. It's like a twelve year old kid, right you.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not even a kid. I don't know, Brody.
Speaker 1: I just heard it. And to your credit, you did
Speaker 1: ask him to look it up. As my kids say,
Speaker 1: type it up, fact checking, trust, but verifying. Boys, it's
Speaker 1: trying to do some closing statements. I'm sorry, but it's
Speaker 1: come to that time. We have to leave in an
Speaker 1: hour for the airport. I don't have any I'm good. No,
Speaker 1: I got one, my boy. The other day, I was
Speaker 1: looking at speaking of packers, my boy, I just heard
Speaker 1: about this. UM was looking at a horse and he says, man,
Speaker 1: that horse has a poop that just won't come out,
Speaker 1: and uh, someone pointed out to him that that's, in
Speaker 1: fact not a poop that won't come out, this is
Speaker 1: reproductive organ and he was saying, I'm glad I don't
Speaker 1: need to carry one around like that. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: got a small one. So it's good to have that perspective.
Speaker 1: To be thankful for what you got. That's my closing thought.
Speaker 1: Be thankful for what you got, ladies and gentlemen to
Speaker 1: one whatever. Lauren, thanks Caam for having me. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of contribution there, but uh, it sure
Speaker 1: was fun coming out here and shooting sick a deer,
Speaker 1: not only from the tree stand, but to get to
Speaker 1: experience it from the ground, and it's awesome. You know.
Speaker 1: I think you're concluding thought should be you should stay
Speaker 1: hied to the dude in New Zealand. Yeah, I hate
Speaker 1: Ben Brown. Thanks for being a fan and listening, and
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Didn't heard us all the way from Montana.
Speaker 1: Amen um. In the spirit of Steve's apology for the
Speaker 1: the Washington elcount, I'd issued like a semi fair warning,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you're thinking about coming out here
Speaker 1: to hunt these things which you should do. Um, just
Speaker 1: know that it's like not a slam dunk, Like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be way different, way different hunt than what I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are expecting. They're gonna be
Speaker 1: hard to find and like hard to scout. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good. You probably had to come do but you
Speaker 1: might need to come do it a few times to
Speaker 1: get a dial. Yeah. Since we've kind of talked about
Speaker 1: where they live, if you're gonna come here, just be prepared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like showing up somewhere to go squirrel hunting
Speaker 1: or something. You have to figure it out a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I want to come and do it for sure.
Speaker 1: You're fired up. Man, They're cool. Cool. I wish they
Speaker 1: were native man. Yeah, we discussion like what we're talking
Speaker 1: Cal and I were talking about that a little bit,
Speaker 1: like when do is there a point at which something
Speaker 1: becomes honorary native? Yeah, honorary native. If there is, I
Speaker 1: feel that they've achieved because, like I said, they've woven
Speaker 1: themselves into the cultural fabric of the East Shore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with humans, all you have to do is be born there.
Speaker 1: I know, well not even I mean, you could be
Speaker 1: you could be born there, but um naturalized, Yeah, naturalized,
Speaker 1: good stuff. Brody. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, Brody Henderson, take
Speaker 1: it easy, Stephen. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to
Speaker 1: work with you guys this week. You know, it was
Speaker 1: it was exciting to see how the sausage is made,
Speaker 1: so to speak, for a meat Eater episode. We've read
Speaker 1: Ups and Sinclair's The Jungle how the sausages made. I
Speaker 1: think I was supposed to one of the books I
Speaker 1: skipped in high school that I was supposed to read,
Speaker 1: or don't remember at least, but now it was. It
Speaker 1: was great to work with you guys, and it was, frankly,
Speaker 1: it was it was fun to see a couple real
Speaker 1: experienced consummate hunters put back on the early stages of
Speaker 1: the learning curve. You know, the enthusiasm I saw in
Speaker 1: you guys coming back seeing something new and trying to
Speaker 1: suss out how these animals work and what makes them
Speaker 1: tick and how to be successful. It was cool for
Speaker 1: me to see that because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks assume that you guys are so good at what
Speaker 1: you do that it becomes sort of blase after a while.
Speaker 1: And I got to see firsthand that sort of enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and appreciation for the resource and respect for the animals
Speaker 1: that that you guys have. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: makes met Eater so special. Uh is that really shines
Speaker 1: through and the products the podcast, the show that you do,
Speaker 1: and you know, working with the guys behind the scene.
Speaker 1: My shadow for the week here, Lauren, was was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Um. I was not successful in taking
Speaker 1: a deer, but you you you put yourself in a
Speaker 1: position where you're sucking high and tit the whole time
Speaker 1: giving us the cherry spots. There's a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: I wanted you let us, let us go with all
Speaker 1: the hotspots and you go up and just figure something
Speaker 1: out to not getting our way. Yeah, I was you.
Speaker 1: I've been like boys, I've just found it. They really
Speaker 1: like it. Right here by the truck. I'll go back
Speaker 1: into the marsh. Don't forget the bugs. B No. I
Speaker 1: definitely wanted to see you be successful and I think
Speaker 1: he got some great footage and be looking forward to
Speaker 1: whenever it comes out in the airs. And then my
Speaker 1: final final concluder is to my friend Johan who has
Speaker 1: the other piece of the antler. You don't need to
Speaker 1: send it back to anybody. You've got my blessing to
Speaker 1: keep it. Um. But I know he's a pretty avid listener,
Speaker 1: so I don't hear about it. It'll probably be mad
Speaker 1: that I didn't contact him and tell him to come
Speaker 1: down and meet you while you're here. So Okale, thanks
Speaker 1: a ton. We've been talking about this for a long
Speaker 1: long time, and I gotta say I just exceeded expectations.
Speaker 1: How did you guys meet? Anyway? I was working, literally,
Speaker 1: I was three months in, three or four months into
Speaker 1: working at First Light at two thousand twelve, doing sales marketing,
Speaker 1: customer service, a little bit of product um and uh,
Speaker 1: Steve got a hold of me um and Cerosfully I
Speaker 1: called the bitch about a ripping Mike conn Ops and
Speaker 1: he did me right, And you guys struck up a
Speaker 1: little friendship. And he was like, yeah, seek a deer
Speaker 1: in a longbow and I bet you don't even know
Speaker 1: what that is. And so and then the more I
Speaker 1: got into it, I was like, oh my god, you
Speaker 1: can call them like you can? You know, you can
Speaker 1: use calls, which is something I love. Um doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if it's ducks or elk or whatever. Um, turkeys and
Speaker 1: just something that I hadn't heard of. Tons of public
Speaker 1: ground that taste really good. Um. And it just and
Speaker 1: I just as we've discussed, I just finished uh chess
Speaker 1: Peak Mitchener's chess Peak like the year before, and uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like he does a great job in this
Speaker 1: area because the story of the chess Peak Bay is
Speaker 1: just this constant change because of well now like saltwater encroachment. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know it's it's um erosion, right, And I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the coolest things that I kind
Speaker 1: of came to. And this really is my concluder is Um,
Speaker 1: you have so many things that have changed in this
Speaker 1: area and gone away, all these islands that have fallen
Speaker 1: in into the water and a road subsumed by water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't fall into the water. I want to make
Speaker 1: that clarify that I'm gonna disagree. Um, they blew away, right, Steve,
Speaker 1: What's that the islands washed away? They got as soon
Speaker 1: as they got covered by water at some point eroded
Speaker 1: the trees. Anyway, go on account. Yeah, I'm following you. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you have this species, although it is an
Speaker 1: invasive species, which I'm totally on the other side of.
Speaker 1: On every other argument that is now like finding new
Speaker 1: life and growth in an area where a lot of
Speaker 1: things are going away in a compromised ecosystem, which I
Speaker 1: was just blown away by. And man, it seems like
Speaker 1: a really good thing. And I'm really interested to see
Speaker 1: what biologists kind of pop out after after I listening
Speaker 1: to this as to what the other side is, because
Speaker 1: I know there's another side out there. They have to
Speaker 1: be competing against something. There's a Telvin show my kids
Speaker 1: are watching which I which I despise, called Animal Mechanicals.
Speaker 1: It's where all it's like this. I viewed as this
Speaker 1: this dystopian universe where it's a post wildlife world where
Speaker 1: the animals are mechanical, all the all the trees and plants,
Speaker 1: everything is artificial and mechanical. But it's meant to be
Speaker 1: cool and they do cool things. But when you watch it,
Speaker 1: it's like this, that's yeah, it's a dystopian post wildlife world.
Speaker 1: And so as you have this ecosystem here where there's
Speaker 1: it's the dominant plants, it's a non native grass, an
Speaker 1: invasive non native grass trees that were planted rising ocean
Speaker 1: levels that are encroaching on and destroying vegetation, a non
Speaker 1: native deer that is thriving in this environment, it winds
Speaker 1: up being like on the surface, you'd come and be like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is amazing, But on the other hand, you look
Speaker 1: and it's like emblematic of a lot of problems that
Speaker 1: we have with a lot of wildlife problems that we have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be I'm sure he is right now,
Speaker 1: a major major conversation and the homogenizing effect of non
Speaker 1: native wildlife, nonnative flora and fauna, and it's got a
Speaker 1: culture around it and an economy around it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's fascinating stuff. We're adaptive in our tastes.
Speaker 1: You gotta wonder how many white tales we would have
Speaker 1: seen in there in a week if there were no
Speaker 1: secret deer the way more we did not that an
Speaker 1: anti right, I'm just a question, yea, Janie, Janie poodless Um,
Speaker 1: great time this week. Thanks Steve again, appreciate you hosting us.
Speaker 1: We stay in Steve's uh you know, may to plug
Speaker 1: your A and B come down here and Church Creek
Speaker 1: and staying Steve spot. What it's a sweet little spot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna want to come down and Steve's gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't, I'm all booked up. He's gonna be like, who,
Speaker 1: just let me know when you're coming. Now, I'm rolling
Speaker 1: my eyes now if you can't hear me, my eyes
Speaker 1: are rolling in my head. Um, I was gonna give
Speaker 1: you some I was gonna plug your Airbnb, Steve. No,
Speaker 1: I make sure to protect some days for for when
Speaker 1: I'm planning a hunt, and if I know you guys
Speaker 1: are coming, they'll be there's long and available. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: there's a long season. It opens up September six that
Speaker 1: runs through the end of uh January. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've got this house that I used to live here
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, um, when I worked on the New
Speaker 1: Trio project, and now that I'm over on the Western
Speaker 1: Shore and one of those people, those people right, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that you're a chicken necker. I Uh, my
Speaker 1: wife and I decided to put the us up on
Speaker 1: Airbnb after we were unsuccessful in selling it, and lo
Speaker 1: and behold, it's been pretty popular through the summer months. Um.
Speaker 1: We try to keep the price raisable and for a
Speaker 1: group of guys that come in, it's much cheaper than
Speaker 1: a hotel and you've got all the amenities at home,
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know it's it doesn't get the
Speaker 1: use during the hunting season that it does. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: it starts to taper off in September, October, November, December, January.
Speaker 1: But uh did have an interesting case where we got
Speaker 1: an inquiry about a booking from someone in upstate New York.
Speaker 1: It turned out to live in the community right next
Speaker 1: to where I grew up. And uh, they come down
Speaker 1: in January for seven they booked for a ten day
Speaker 1: hunt this year coming up. So but yeah, it's available.
Speaker 1: It's called the Church Creek Getaway. If you go on
Speaker 1: Airbnb and look at at Cambridge, Maryland area man Church
Speaker 1: Creek Away. Too much information, Man, next day we'll be
Speaker 1: talking about where to buy them crabball. I was gonna
Speaker 1: give you a hot tip though on uh to get
Speaker 1: yourself prepared for the moment of truth with your bow.
Speaker 1: There's a way to practice for them. A couple of
Speaker 1: things I've done is you can enter tournaments and if
Speaker 1: you're in a competition sort of a setting, there's you know,
Speaker 1: stress or that you induce. You know that that setting
Speaker 1: induces on you, understand. I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: That's only gets the same thing. But go ahead, No,
Speaker 1: it's not the same thing at all, But you get us.
Speaker 1: There's a stress that you when you're at home just
Speaker 1: flinging arrows that you can't replicate, right, And if you
Speaker 1: got a bunch of mugs like nah, like that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, Yeah, that helps a little bit. What you
Speaker 1: can do at home with a bunch of mugs is
Speaker 1: put some wagers on the line, but some money on
Speaker 1: the line. Yeah, but that that's not Yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the effort, man, but I don't think this is like,
Speaker 1: this is the same thing. You don't have to tell
Speaker 1: me if I'm right or wrong. I'm giving you a
Speaker 1: hot tip as a way to get better at your shooting.
Speaker 1: In that moment of truth, it's sort of deal with stress.
Speaker 1: If you's there's a large sum of money, you are
Speaker 1: going to force yourself to focus and to block out
Speaker 1: everything else, and you're not gonna allow yourself to go
Speaker 1: from oh I got this thing too, because you're like, no,
Speaker 1: there's a hundred and I need to take a second longer,
Speaker 1: exhale and squeeze. Yeah, that's true. Because even when we
Speaker 1: have rock thrown contest. I pay a lot more attention
Speaker 1: once we've got money on a rock thrown contest. Totally,
Speaker 1: I can see it, but it's still Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: really hard to replicate man. Yeah, there's no way to
Speaker 1: replicate it. It's just things that we can do to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's better than nothing, better than nothing, better
Speaker 1: than nothing. Okay, I think that's everything, Like folks stops
Speaker 1: Amber d