00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me et podcasting in you shirtless severely bitten in my case underwear listening. He can't predict anything, Okay, quick a couple of things. Lots of dudes, Brody, take a stay at how many dudes have written in to tell us about guy eat squirrel brains. Doesn't Why do people like that story so much? I don't know. It's not even I mean, obviously it's a thing eating them, but people get such a little chub. It's like people love it. Wildlife related disease death. Yeah, and it's like, oh, it's an unconventional meal. And he got his come up, and yeah, he got where he had coming. We knew it was going to happen eventually. Yeah, but you're also Stephen Ronnella, the meat eater, the guy who eats all sorts of crazy stuff. So they think they're just assuming that you're out there munch now and on squirrel brands. I don't like brains, man. Do you know you know that what's that what's that place in Zola that has the brain dish brains and eggs. Yeah, you go to the ox brains and eggs and and and it's like a big thing when you live there and you get all drunk at night, and then the bar's closed and you go to the ox and you try to get your body from out of town to buy brains and eggs. And the thing is, if you order them, they're slogan is, if you order them, you need them. I've never liked like. It's like, I do not enjoy eating the brains of anything. I'm eating cow. I'm eating a handful of different I don't I don't like it. I don't like it, don't eat it. Kevin Murphy, World's greatest small game hunter, doesn't go near squirrel brains because, um, he grew up eating them. Did he eat him when we were around? His dog? Damn, sure eats them. Dog likes him. Um, he doesn't need them, and he doesn't know because it doesn't if there is a risk, it doesn't warrant it. So it turns out here's the story that everybody's all hot and bothered about. It turns out that a guy, um, some time ago, not like recently, years ago, a guy in Rochester, New York, gets the human variant of mad cow disease, which is pronounced our our guests, Steve Kendra will pronounce it for us, I've forgotten already. Kraig Felt Jakob, Yes, right, something like that, Kreid's Felt Yakob disease um, which is, like I said, the human variant of mad cow disease. And it turns out that in his history, um, he you know, he had been a squirrel hunter, and in his history he had had enjoyed eating some squirrel brains. So it becomes this sort of like internet sensation, how he absolutely died from eating squirrel brains. But now people are pointing out that every year in New York, twenty people die from variations of this disease about on average, I think it's about one and one million people die from variations of this disease. And there's no direct reason to believe that that's what caused the thing. It was just it was a habit he had and he happened to die from it. But now doctors at that worked on this case are clarifying that there's no evidence that the man died as a result of anything he ate. But it just sounds cool. And I'm not even saying that. I'm not saying to run out and eats squirrel brains. It's just like funny the way like people kind of fall in love with the narrative. Correlations versis causation, people fall in love with the narrative. And holy ship to people emailing about that given like a heads up, heads up, man um guy wrote in it, make got anything to say about that? Guys? Why why are you guys interested in this interesting? Diana squirrel brains ain't interesting. No, it's like I'm not gonna come in contact with them unless I myself make that situation happen. It's just not something, Yeah, Steve might serve them to you. Hey, I recently had my genetic test. I got a freebee where you get your genetic lineage test, and I can't bring myself to open up the part about the diseases I'm probably gonna get. Oh yeah, you have to watch account. I was surprised by some stuff man I used. I was like dead sure that I was Italian, like like that that Sicilian. And it turned out that there's also that that that that I have some North African ancestry, which probably no doubt came from because that's a short little boat ride. No doubt came from the Sicilian end. But anyways, I did this thing that was surprised to me. They're part of that surprised me is that there's like a thing where it's like, here's the problems you you might have because you're genetics, right, but you gotta watch a counseling video before you can open the file. And I don't have it in me to do it. That just says, Hey, this is not a predetermined thing, don't I might have This is something to watch out for. And I don't even want to know. I want to all be a surprise. So why twenty three and me? Aren't there like a bunch of those services. There's one more credible than the other. Don't know. I don't know. It wouldn't the thing you're going to die from. Like, I mean, everyone's got looking at the same things, right, Yeah, what if they I don't know. I gotta look. They might have found something out. No, they don't do it like medical testing. Myself, I can't bring myself to open it. Yanni, are you cool on scroll brains? Like? Not not feeling interested? Not? Uh? We put your mic up to your top. Li Guy wrote in we're talking about whether Missouri is in the South, and I'm saying I keep talking about this. Has anyone here familiar with the with the the a thing that was written some years ago called equine Gothic and it has to do with um. That's very difficult. Like the scholars of the American South who discussed Southern literature have often had a very difficult time just defining, like what is Southern literature, what is the literally the literary the literature of the American South? And why are some writers from the South not considered Southern writers like Truman Capodi um from the Deep born in the Deep South, but it is not regarded as a Southern writer. His work isn't regarded as Southern literature. But then you look at um someone like William Faulkner, obviously a Southern writer, Larry Brown obviously a Southern writer. And this scholar that this thing called equine Gothic, and he found that the real test isn't like is the person from the South. Do they have a masculine voice, do they identify with Southern issues? Do they have a reverence for history? Is their literatre? Is their literature body like imbued with religious thinking and all these other markers of Southern literature. He came out and said like, if the writer's work features dead mules, it's Southern literature and goes in and every person that we regard as being a Southern writer, um has a lot of dead mules, And so his thing is like, is there a dead mule in it? If there is, it's Southern literature. And McCarthy, who's kind of you know, South, But then also Southwest has so many dead mules, and like Carmen McCarthy's work is so littered with dead mules that he should be regarded as a Southern writer. But we're talking about the South. And I was saying, in my mind, in the South, is it like does it have an armadillo? And so I thought, Missouri, in my view, is the South because there's a lot of snakes, there's a lot of stuff that bites you. And I got scared by an armadillo well in Missouri. And the guy wrote in and he said, Um, Missouri is a Midwest state. Here's how I know. Missourians refer to coke as pop. If Missouri was in the South, they would say coke to refer to all forms of carbonated beverages except beer. I was born in the South and lived in Missouri for a while, so I'm an expert. So he wanted to put that to bed. Another thing, a lot of people wrote in about that. I want to clarify. People are like people who watched the New Mediator season on Netflix watched our fog Neck Island episodes and they're like, whoa, why does this not include the material? Um? Why does this not include the bear attack that became the meat tree one into podcast episodes? The answer is, we didn't film it, and the mantra is if it didn't happen on camera, didn't happen. Um, there's no filming of it. We try to get different ways to like work it in, but it just isn't like substantiated. You know, it doesn't work to like talk in the episode. It doesn't work to like talk about how it happened because it just seems bullshitty. It's not a story you could have told quickly either. No, we even talked about bringing in having someone animated, talked about it, but it just winds up being there's just different ways to tell different stories. And also it involved the crew. Um. And in TV land, did they did you study Lauren? Did you study TV making? Camera making? What do you guys call it? How when I went to schools of video television production, do they talk about the fourth wall? Did you? I didn't learn about the fourth wall until much, much later. That's interesting that you didn't. They didn't teach you that in school, you know? And TV. I don't recall that conversation, but yeah, and TV and film is a concept of the fourth one. Let's say you're watching a sitcom. You guys, you guys having a private conversation right now, I missed that day. We're just up. You were interrupting, you guys. Seemed like you were going into a private deal. Okay, go ahead and share with everyone. We're done now. I just wonder to just see what sulemental thing. Oh, you're expressing disbelief that he doesn't know what the fourth wall. And I was thinking, well, you might have just been kayaking that day when they just when they covered that. Oh yeah, because you were a big school skipper, failed on class. Uh the fourth wall. Let's say you're watching a sitcom and you're you the viewer at home or watching the sitcom you're watching, You're seeing three rooms of the You're seeing three walls right of the home because the fourth wall of a room. Yeah, imagine like the living room and then they walk into the kitchen and you never see the wall that you're the viewers looking from. Yeah, that wall is missing because that wall is cameras and crew, director and lights. Right, so and TV is this thing like breaking the fourth wall? Breaking the fourth wall would be revealing, revealing the fact that there's a thing being made, like, you know, exposing the making of something we on occasion on the show. I don't think we have any cases in season seven of breaking the fourth wall. We do it very judiciously, right, Yeah, only when it really really it would like it would be a great part of the story. You know, the story needs it, you know, to keep moving forward. You know, the first time the Lavine Eagle ever stepped foot, No, the second time second sheot you ever stepped foot into the woods with us. You broke the fourth wall by spotting up a grizzy bearry that was coming into camp um. So that's like the breaking of the fourth wall. If someone had happened to be rolling a camera when we got attacked by the bear, that would have been a wonderful opportunity to break the fourth wall and have to be part of the show, even if we had had audio of it, but it's just didn't it wasn't there, didn't work. It seems to me that breaking the fourth wall happens in hunting production quite a bit. Oftentimes there's no fourth wall or the fourth wall, there's part of the disregarded. Yeah, lot of productions just disregard the rule about the fourth wall, and the camera person even becomes a character. Yeah. I don't like that. It's about it's like it's it winds up being really postmodern where it's like a lot of and I'm not saying it's in a negative way, a lot of hunting shows are very post modern and that it's a hunting show about making a hunting show, right, which has postmodern which in school we learn to call it pomo, which has postmodern elements. What do you think about all that? Cal I mean, I just think of all those brave pioneers in the hunting production world out there that are out to do that, that are pomo without knowing it. Because I don't have a problem with it, man, But it's just like a way, like a decision that we made about like a certain reverence for the fourth wall, and that was in their pitch too outdoor Sportsman's group that they're doing a pomo show. Yep, now grasp this. It's circular. Um, you guys can care if I keep going on some of these clarifications. Western Nebraska. A lunch guy like a lunch lady, who's not a lunch lady. He's a lunch man. The guy in charge of a lunch program at a school fixes up some ground meat and it's beef, but he cuts in some kangaroo meat that he bought from his regular purveyor at Cisco, like the giant Cisco truck. When I used to wash dishes at a summer camp near my home when I was thirteam that summer camps food all came from Cisco. Cisco sells kangaroo meat, kangaroo meats, inspected kangaroo meat. He buys some, cuts it in with beef and makes some ground meat. Word gets out around school he's been cutting in kangaroo meat with beef. His explanation is it's a good lean cut. Why not? Um, So people say, like, oh, like kangaroo meat made me sick, which people think is not not true. Isn't like the idea of it and the guy gets fired from buying kangaroo me from the damn supplier. Then I'm sure he didn't even it's not even his choice who he uses. No, you can buy anything from Cisco. They distribute alligator, They distribute all sorts of crazy stuff or stuff that most folks would consider crazy. And this guy was just picking from a catalog basically, and he said serious and he said kangaroo me. I'll grind it up and with the kids, probably sticking within his budget and being responsible with it other than have him on the show. Meanwhile, the basketball team has been screaming dunking from a free throw line. These kids are good. Where the kids learn to jump. I'd like to taste kangaroo. I've had it. I can't know what happened. Sometimes sometimes like something I was doing through work and someone sent me a big box, not a big box with sampler box. It had like, um, yeah, meet kangaroo meat, all domestic stuff. Though you know, I don't know the kangaroo. I don't know how they were and how I don't I don't remember I had ostrich in it. Did they raise kangaroo in the States, I don't think so. I guess they bring in Red'd be smart for us to find out more about stuff like this before we talk about it. We usually don't make that bad of a mistake. I shouldn't have brought it up interesting. I mean we could pull up just pull up the Cisco menu online. I mean Cisco tracks delivered a everywhere everywhere you know some episodes ago. Be honest, we're in the middle of a conversation. I tasked you with finding some real zing or some twain. You never came through on it. Oh no, I had him pulled up. We just never had a chance to come back through. Well, I'm gonna give you another chance here. Please, Can you find out where the kangaroo meat comes from? Real quick? Yeah? Um, but I don't want to know that. If I was in his position, and I've been serving probably chicken and beef for as long as I've had that job, and I kind of I would call it a wild hair to be like, it's a real dude, I'm not trying to normalize it. It's a wild hair. Look at that does' here? Okay? Look, and I'm totally cool cutting it in. But I think I would have been like, hey, heads up, what do you guys think, yeah, full disclosure. It's a deviation from the norm certainly. And I don't know the guy. That's why I like, if use my neighbor and I had a better grip on him, I might be like, like, for instance, let's say my brother ran a lunch hot lunch program and it turns out that he's putting in cutting in kangaroo with the beef. I would think he's not being clever, he's not being tricky, he's not being cute, see resentful. It's just in his head. He looked it's like, wow, I can get that for that price. And I'm just I think that he would have done it, and it wouldn't occurred to him to tell anybody about it. This is a guy who micro raves dear trim and tupperware containers and put salt on it needs it. I mean, think of the attitude. I'm not calling this uh cafeteria fellow chef, but think of the attitudes and most chefs right there, like this is my space. I control this, I control what's going on. I orchestrate what's going on here. It may not even occurred to this guy in any way to have to ask anybody about anything that's his domain, right or or since we don't know him, maybe he's a total smartass and he's real like on the edge, kind of wants to quit. Yeah, smoking heaters behind school, right next to the no tobacco on school property sign. Yeah, I don't know anything about him. And if that was the case, they'd be like, dude, you did it because you thought it would be funny. Um, okay, you know, you know. Why don't you want you just to just to come full circle on it. Why don't you bring up a couple of zingers from Mark Twain, Sam Clemens, um, moving on down a couple of things. Uh. A friend of mine shared with me an interesting academic peace about some linguists. Who are you guess from here? With the Maori, I'm like mutilating the name a little bit from New Zealand. So the indigenous people of New Zealand, um, and they were looking at So they drove, Like when the indigenous New Zealand or is the Maori, arrived in New Zealand, they drove. There was a I think it was like a family of birds. But these things called MOA's, these giant flightless birds, um, they drove. They overhunted him and drove them to extinction. And linguists are looking at the Maori language and art and other things, and we're looking at like did they what was their comprehension of the extinction that they were causing? And the language is littered with references to the vanishing and then gone moa. It was a cognizant so they saw it coming. It was a cognizant thing. And then later when Europeans arrived and introduced disease and exploitation warfare and started really killing them off the mare, we would say we will be gone like the moa. So that yeah, So it was like because you wonder like when when the you know, all these you know, wooly mammoth's going extinct, giant ground slaws going extinct contemporaneous with the rival the arrival of the first Americans who came across the bearing Land Bridge, and you wonder did what was their thought process? Like how do they look at what was happening? Were they aware of it? Or did eventually be like you know what, I haven't in a long time. But there was people who saw some at some point and then never saw them or saw him again. So what was their awareness of it. But you don't even have to go that for I mean, just think of the buffalo hunters that we talked about all the time, right, there were definitely people who were like, we are driving these animals to extinction. We're watching it firsthand. And then there's the dudes in Miles City being like just waiting on that northern herd to come down. Horn today talked about haven't seen in twenty five years, but it's coming. Yeah. When Hornday came out to try to collect one of the last couple living ones for for the Smithsonian, he talked about that there's people in Miles City who were still just biding their time, waiting for the next waiting for the next big push to come from the north, which never showed up. So yeah, it's it's interesting. Uh. Couple more little tidbits. Some researchers in New Hampshire and Maine. We're looking at you know, moose or dying from tick are diseases. They looked at a dead mouse, how many ticks around it? Forty seven thousand ticks, Which is a cute story, but it's got nothing to do with it. It's the wolves that are killing them, Steve, Wolves aren't even there. The ticks just slow them down a little bit. Uh seven thousand ticks man, and estimated two d and fifty or so chickerbtes that I had forty seven thousand ticks. The bear meat that UH got that made us sick, they gave us trick on nosis when they tested it at a lab and in Atlanta, Georgia, had I think eight hundred sixty or something like that trick annella larva per Graham and it while not coming out to that that meat has close to a half million I can't remember the exact number, but I remember this, and I did the math on it. Close to a half million larva per pound of bearing me. If you're eating an effective piece of bearing me, that's how much is in there. Moving on, a guy rolled in and this is kind of interesting point. No, this is another comment because we just put our like I said, our Sea the seventh season the met Eats up as a Netflix original right now, and so we've been getting a lot of email people right in and the guy rolled in and he's like, I kind of get it. You probably have time to get into this. But it weren't talking about with the forty mile Caribou Herd and the forty mile We have a couple of episodes that focus on the forty mile heard of cariboun it lasta called the forty Mile Herd, and he feels like we did a real disservice to the discussion by not bringing up the degree to which aerial wolf control lead to the recovery of that caribou heard and how um, how kicking ask the forty mile Heard is today? And it's interesting because this is just another thing about show business. We talked about that a whole bunch just didn't make the cut. You got twenty two minutes. We didn't see or hear a little fun that No, and I wanted to point out to him, they can't aerial We were actually in a spot that they don't aerial gun. They can't aerial gun. And it's still you said, how many thousands get nailed by wolves out of that herd, like four thousand and get eaten by wolves? Yeah, brown bears kill a bunch, Wolves kill a bunch. They kill way more than people kill. But when the forty mile Heard was really whittled back like in the lowest of the lower time, um, it was aerial wolf gunning, that it alleviated a lot of pressure on that herd gave him a chance to come back because what happened, but it happened otherwise. But he just felt that it was like a missed opportunity to clarify a point because you everyone, um uh, it just comes up now and then like aerial wolf gunning is like controversial and every people felt that, Like Sarah Palin's like literally like that she was literally upshooting wolves out of helicopters. It was kind of like a just like now and then the popular culture kind of grabs onto these little tidbits that they don't really understand well and run with them. Lastly, before we getting what we're here to talk about, Steve, you got your calls ready because when I come out, I'm gonna talk about something else. And then I come out of this. I want you to be ready to rip some calls, some seeker calls. Do you want to do the butle I can. It's not gonna blow your listeners ears out, but stand by if we're not ready yet. All right, I want to tease people with what's coming. Um yeah, like this is like an apology to a bunch of people about something I messed up, and I feel really shitty about it. Uh. We usually never talk in great detail about locations of anything, and I did a hunt in southeast Washington and we talked in great detail about locations and it was a really bad judgment call on my part, and I want to apologize anyone who's offended by it. And it was like a shitty thing of me to do. I don't want to I'm gonna tell you why I did it, and I don't want you to think that I don't want people to think that I'm justifying what I did. I'm saying that it was wrong and I really regret it, and it's not a mistake I will ever make again. It was wrong, but I want to just clear, like to tell you where my head was. I think it's like helpful to understand where it's coming from, not offered as a justification. I felt that that I was hunting on a tag that's very difficult to draw. Okay, even to get an archery permit here takes six to ten years. So thinking there, I'm thinking like it doesn't really become like someone's spot, right, It's not like you go there every year and do something it's like now, and then you're given a you know a person might expect to once or twice in a lifetime, get to go here and hunt. Um. And also then remember, people that can draw the tag is limited. It's tightly limited ten to fourteen people. So whether or not people know about it or not isn't gonna have any bearing on the competition load because the competition load is dictated by the number of tags. Now that gets a little bit more complicated, and I'll explain where I'm wrong on that too, but that was in my mind, and my mind was it's limited by the availability of tags. Only ten to fourteen people can hunt it anyway, so you don't need to worry about sending a bunch of people to a place that's over the counter, which I would really never do. And you can only draw every like you know, you drawed every ten years, so um, it's not like it's your like annual honey hoole. And so for those reasons, Um, because we never talked about specificity of a spot. For the those reasons, I kind of had in my head that it was okay to talk about it. Another thing that influenced my thinking is it's a pretty small unit. Most of the unit, or the bulk of the unit, majority of the unit is privately held. The publicly held peace is basically like just a single drainage or you know, kind of a drains with a fork in it. Um, there's the most there's a lot of places you can stand and look at the whole entire unit from one spot. Um. Yes, forty basically forty square miles of country that you can look over one spot. It's very easily understood. Um. And I just thought that it wasn't really having any real bearing on things. The herd moves around a lot in there. I just didn't seem to matter what what you know, where I'm going with this, Johnnie, I want to prepare your thoughts. Yeah, I'm preparing a counter thought, okay, and Kay, I'd like you to prepare your thoughts, BROLDI, if you have thoughts on this, you can prepare them as well. That was my thinking. What I didn't consider is this. I didn't consider the fact that there are people who apply for the unit and they've come to enjoy a certain percentage chance of getting it into by talking about it and promoting it, you would dilute their chances, so that makes it wrong. Um, And it was just wrong because friends of friends and people I encountered were generous enough to tell me about it, and maybe they won't draw the tag next year, but maybe their body will draw the tag next year. And I screwed their body over by talking about it. It was just wrong. I feel like shit about it. I think about it every day. Yeah, it's really interesting because that unit falls in a spot where like it's popular enough to have a you know, low percentage of drawing it. It's not popular enough that like everybody just knows it to be like the Unit of Washington, Because if he drew a unit ten or nine in Arizona and we went down there for an arch real hunt, but sure as hell would have pretty much the same experience. Talk to people on the ground that hunt it and get info. But it's so popular already that like we I don't think us talking about are going to decrease the odds farther right, Like we just wouldn't have that effect. So I don't know. I can't say if that's actually gonna happen. People might feel that that's gonna happen, that all sudd there's gonna be this influx of you know, applications to that unit. Maybe, But so I don't know if you should actually feel that bad. Do you feel bad? No? Why do people get mad at me and not you? I don't know, because you do most of the talking. Kel. Yeah. I mean when we first talked about this, I thought it was more of like a once in a lifetime unit. According to some guys that I talked to, they do feel it's a once in a lifetime unit. Um, like with just the creep of odds, like you're just not gonna draw this thing twice in that case, like Bridget Noon in our office right now, she has a true once lifetime tag. Moose tag and Idaho both literally cannot draw it again. If you're successful, you cannot draw it again. Yeah, and well that's interesting. So if you the same thing for all those tropy species, if you draw a bighorn and don't not you tag, you get to keep going correct. That's interesting. Um. Well, if that's a good I'd love to have that argument with you, because I think that would fall in a grouping of regulations that could possibly force folks into making poor decisions out in the field. But to the immediate question, she hasn't once a lifetime tag and people are crawling out of the woodwork to help her. Her phone's ringing off the hook with hey, I just saw a moose over here. Hey, I just saw a moose over here. How does that not fall into electronic communications? This is this is the thing we got. That's very interesting? How that is legally in Idaho? Though electronic community two communications are convey the whereabout which I despise but should be not. Um, how much help do you need out there? Like? At what point are you just not hunting? I feel like good woodsmanship skills are falling off the table every day. But um, there's a there's a good point of like, hey, it's once lifetime tag. Other people who have been successful in the same unit are free flowing with information. You know it's all dated information, of course, but they're like, yes, this time, this spot went up here, glass from here, called from here, drove this road every single day, all that stuff, and it's based off the fact that they're never gonna hunt it again. So in those situations, man, help people out. It's not gonna hurt you at all. But you know what, it's not like, um, I feel it's wrong even if I knew that I didn't harm someone like I've harmed someone's chance. It's just like it was like it was like and it wasn't even something I thought about. It just happened very fast, and it's just really it was one of my it's one of my biggest like it's one of my biggest like professional regrets doing that because we have a policy of not doing it, and for some reason, I've made a snap decision. And I don't think that anyone is mad at me about it, is gonna stop being mad at me about it because I'm apologized. No, absolutely not. They're just gonna dig in deeper. Yeah, I sure would. But you know if, on the other hand, too, like if you feel like giving out really solid information could somehow deprive somebody of their experience with this golden ticket in their hand, that might be a way of looking at it. It's not really the way I look at it. But I think you just made yourself a scapegoat, is all. Because there's a way to check it. See how many applications they get for that unit in the coming years following the podcast. But the video, Yeah, but how do you know that everything else remained constant points are constantly going up. And I like, I sympathize with some of these people because like I'm a big game hunter and I'm aware of like certain units and certain regions in Western States that are known for certain species. I didn't know anything about that unit beforehand. You know, I've never heard about it. But non residents don't like if you go like a service like hunting fool to do non resident tag applications, they recommend against, they recommend against, and don't even do Washington applications for so hostile and hot Washington, so hostile nons. I'm just saying, you know, you gotta sympathize with the guy who's like I have. I am sympathized. I'm telling them saying that I messed up, and then I'm deeply sorry and I really regretted and a stupid thing to do, and it was anything to do. Do you guys think and this is something I've done, do you guys think it would so on the pure meat harvesting side of things, I think that the rule of don't drive past one to get one is a really good rule. And I know my first year in Idaho. I was like, I am gonna hunt within fifteen minutes of the office because I know there's elk within fifteen minutes of the office, and just gave away a spot. Yeah. Um, for the greater good, I hope, so do you. I've often thought, should residents of a county have a better chance like written into the system so far away from what we're talking about right now. I don't think so, because we're talking about opportunity. No, I don't think it should be by county. No, No, No, Alaska does a lot of stuff like that. Well, there's certain there's certain zip codes or that are regarded as rural subsistence and you have different regulations, but it's a different system up there. But no, I don't think it should be that you have to factor in a person zip code to figure out what chances they have A draw a tag in a certain state could be right for I think it'd be right for exploitation, and I think it would be just like a like add regulatory complexities and they just do it at the state level. Steve, So, there's a contingent of folks in Maryland here who share similar sentiments about you spot burning, not just you. But Outdoor Life recently, UH published a little thing on exotic game and where you can hunt, so they put Secretar and Del Marva there. So there's this concern that the about that I don't care about that. I'll never apologize about that, apologize about telling Americans about a wild game resource that's available. Absolutely, I support that that you're allowed nine of a year. No, there's arguments about that too, about whether it's too liberal or whatnot. But you know, the state has a goal of sort of containing the population within its current sort of distribution. They would have liked to have seen it contained within southern Dorchester, but it's since expanded into western Wakamico County across the Nanticoke River, and it's creeping outwards slowly. The Secret Deer does a great transition, by the way, real good transition. Uh. Would you mind ripping? Um? Would you mind ripping a seekist egg? Hall? Liking it there? And that sound right now it is permeating the air here about ringing through the marshy silence. Yes, it's an awesome sound to hear. Walk us through real quick, um, the real quick and you've done before walks through the real quick history of how how sica sica or what what was it. It's like a sick of sika deer came to be living here abouts. Well, best of my knowledge, there was a gentleman that owned the island of the mouth the chop Tank River. I visited the island the other day, which is kind of gone. Yeah, a lot of the chest Big Bay islands are disappearing before our very eyes. Um. But they were introduced there and they escaped the island made the mainland, and uh that established the population that's grown since they do. He had a half dozen of them, and there's now an estimated I think that DNA rnists makes the heard between ten and fifteen thousand. It's pretty hard to census because the cover they live in is just ridiculously thick. As you've seen this week, imagine trying to count those buggers. Um. So you know, they do very well. And the especially in the marshy and and sort of backwater habitats of southern Dorchester County, which is home to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area, tens of thousands of acres of of sort of brackish water to saltwater marshes uh interspersed with mostly pine but some hardwood mixed in upland habitats, and they do really well in that habitat, which is, you know, kind of marginal habitat for white tailed deer as far as forage quality and that sort of thing. So they've kind of supplanted white tails as the dominant herbivore or ungulate in southern Dorchester County. As you move northern into the more northern parts of the county where you get more agriculture, you will get mixed species herds, but with both white tails and sca. But yeah, Southern Dorchester locals referred to it as Sekaville, and they're like people like really like to draw the distinction around here between east side of Chespeake Bay and the west side of Chespeake Bay. Like the west side Chespike Bays all assholes. East side of Chespeake Bay is like salt of the earth. Salt of the earth. Great people give you the shirt off your back, and the secret deer only live with the great people. Correct, they do not live with the assholes. Right, They're only on the east shore, eastern shore. If you technical about it, Yeah, I got you, Um, and it's all accrued over the last hundred years. Yeah, and I think their popularity really has only taken off and probably the last ten to twenty years where sort of you know, the word has gotten out and they're good eating, they're abundant or fun to hunt. So it's really, uh, it's driven least prices. It's just it's driven sort of public use. So are public lands here in the eastern Shore of Maryland. It's been become quite popular and so there's a contingent of people that think that, you know, it's gonna overwhelmed the resource. It's too limited, it's too unique. It should be protected and valued more by restricting the number of tags that are given out, that by introducing some form of competition for nonresidents to to obtain those permits and all that. Yeah, well it's a non native though in the minute, Yeah, it's always really tricky with to what degree do you coddle, you coddle and encourage the expansion of a non native species that almost certainly has to come at some cost to native fauna. Any over abundant ungula, even our native white tails, can have deleterious ecological impacts when they hit numbers that are you know, look at any suburban area where hunting doesn't effectively suppress that population. You'll see massive destruction of undergrowth and that sort of thing. They are no different. You know, they just happened not to be native, so you know that that's not thought to be as as uh damaging is like nutrient were or you know, zebra muscles that have these you know, catastrophic changes to the environment. But certainly, if you look hard enough, I'm sure you can find the negative impacts that at least overabundant population. But they certainly seem at home here and they've really taken to it, and they've become ingrained in the local culture and considered by most sort of a naturalized citizen of the Eastern Shore. Did you know that there was a plan um a long time ago, a hundred over a hundred years ago now to introduce hippopotamuses into Louisiana. They thought they wanted to introduce them as a meat source and into control water hyacinth. Had they done it, Had they done it, you now wouldn't think it was weird buying now, you wouldn't think it was weird to see a hippo in Louisia, in the Bayou Country, and I feel now it's like these deer seems like totally unweird and at home, I have to admit, you know, they seem like it like it wouldn't surprise you. It's not like zebras running around. It's because someone told me, like, oh, no, it's just this native species deer. I like that makes sense. Hippost kill a lot of people, though, that'd be like introducing a grizzly bear. No, they're way worse than grizzlies and wolves into the Deep South, right, like hundreds of people you're dying from hippo's seriously, Well, yeah, so I think it would be a little different. I think the weirdness would still be, like, why did we introduce this aquatic killer? Yeah it's I'm not it's not apples and apples. It's not happening that. But I'm saying, like, over time they become like the sika deer that they call now folks around here calls sick of deer. But it's just it's too confusing to me because we already have a sitka black tail sit cub blacktail, and so a sick of deer. I just say sikus so I can keep my head straight and the heads straight with those around me. Um. But yeah, I feel that it like, uh, it doesn't take long for the animal to become woven into the cultural fabric. Guys drive around here with decals on their window that's say marsh ghost snakeheads too. There. There's like a snakehead culture here too, that's established in five years, snakehead fishing culture, snakehead guys, snakehead contest, snakehead tackle. You guys really grab on Asian stuff. They like Asian species exactly, and yet are one all you can eat buffet and Cambridge closed a couple of years ago. Sad to see that. Go can use apples with the call behind. Yeah, a lot everybody knows the words stagged, but I feel like some good percents people probably don't. Really is that the gender opposite term. The gender opposite term for stag is hind same way bull cow buck, dough. Yeah, it's hind with a d boor sal stag. Hind our Buck already said that you can always tell new Seeka hunters because they call him sitka deer and they call him hinds h I n e s behind, which they're not. They're hinds with a D. And the stagg and hind thing probably came from British culture. Yeah, yeah, because they've been introduced there as well. Okay, rip out of rip out of hind call The similarities between these sons of bitches and um elk Antler structure kind of the the the main on the stag, the breeding behavior, their demeanor, demeanor when they stand out there, they look I mean impressive, the buglan, the cow calling, all the crazy vocalizations, the fact that they come to the calls verty olk like very fun. Nothing like hunting milk with their elk like little critters. The stags got little ivories like bull elk. You checking out little tiny things. You don't want to get on the ground with these things. You're honest And I found out you're honest. Knew you. Let me find out for myself. Are you in the marsh because they'll charge you you get too close or they'll just vanish. You just can't see the things. Yeah, like three and a half feet tall. What is the hind? What is the hindway? The average probably dresses at pounds somewhere there. You might get a monster behind the dresses sixty less than a bull elks hind quarter. She weighs less than a Yeah, definitely weighs less than the bull elks hind quarter. Stags, she weighs less in the bullouks hind quarter. I've seen stags as biggest one ten one fifteen dress come in through the check station at Blackwater when I used to work down there. But it uh, it's the average is generally eight five maybe ninety pounds for a mature stag. It's a true monster that HiT's plus one. Yeah, Dinky, Well, you know what, man, you want to talking about you having a good segue. You want to talk about a real bad segue? Is this? I forgot to talk about the blue crab in real quick, right, And the reason I want to talk about the blue crab real quick because that we talked about it before we did it, before we hunted deer. Right, So fact check me on this, don't have you fact check me on some on some other stuff about Sika deer. But if you're a resident here, you can go out and get a license, a separate license to run a blue crab trot line. Correct, Yep, it's called a recreational crabbing license, and what allows you to do is take a twelve allows you to run a twelve hundred foot trot line. There's no hooks. It's like this twet of line and you just tie a little slip knot loops all along it and put in two two and a half inches of chicken neck in each loop. So you have this twelve hundred foot thing right the length of four football fields, and every five ft is a two inch chunk of chicken neck tied onto the line. And you go out to a likely spot and we went out to a submerged creek channel, so the surrounding stuffs like one or two ft deep, but then there's this the submerged creek channel that's six ft deep, and on one end of the twelve hund foot line. You gotta weight like an anchor and coming up as a booty to mark the anchor. And so you set it. You set the anchor, and then you lay out this feet of chicken necks and pull the line tight and set that anchor, and you wait a coult minutes and go down to the other end where you began setting, and you grab the line that has the chicken necks on it, and the boat has you just like hook a little arm out on the side of your boat. So just imagine, like imagine that you hung your arm out over the gun of the boat, and you drape the trot line up over your arm and then slowly motor along so that it's anchored on each end, but you're lifting apart up up to the water surface and just cruising along. Can I ask you a question? So there's no silk time. It's like, by the time you get the line laid out, your turn, don't let it, so it's time to check it. The minute you get laid out, let's go back to where you started. Drape it up over the arm, and then motor that ft and you're going along slowly. It's just raising it up, and the chicken necks are coming up, going don't, don't, don't over your arm, and the blue crabs hang on so tenaciously that they're gonna hang onto that chicken neck. Most of them hang onto that chicken neck, and they're gonna hang onto it until they get to the air the last second. Yea, if it's sunny out, they're more likely to drop off. On a cloudy day, they're more likely to hang on. So you got your guy driving the boat, and then you got your guy with a wire mesh net, the same kind of wire mesh you used for smelt dipping, where you can really grease it through the water quick. There's no drag, you know. It's like chicken wire basket on a net on the net, and you stay in there and as you see the crabs rise up, you get your net down and you get the line because the crabs hanging off the bait, so your your net needs to come in and kind of grab the line at the top of the net, and then you basically use the net to knock the crab off the line into the net, and you whip them up and put them into a bushel basket. And it took us seven passes one, two, five, six, seven, like no wait time, just down, back, down, back, down back. It took us seven passes to fill up a bushel basket with blue crabs. How many a bushel do you think? It varies a lot many. And they say because this is big blue crab country and there's a commercial industry and everything for blue crabs that there's like it's a unit of measure so bag limit is volume bag limit. It's like shrimp right in Alaska. Volume bag limit, not number bag limit. And it could be it could vary greatly, but it should be that. I think if you have a bushel basket there's forty pounds, I think it needs to be right at least forty pounds are in that bushel basket something like. They're not entirely sure there's a weight component. It's a volume thing. But industry standard is that. My understanding is the industry standard is it should include it should include a certain weight and alive route luke crab eyed guests would weigh half a pound, right something like that? Yeah, yeah, probably. So there's over a hundred of them. And and the thing about these blue crabs are as, it was explained to me that they're like the population demographics flucture fluctuate a lot according to salinity. So there are areas you can go they have far fewer blue crabs but tend to be bigger, and there's areas you can go that have hordes of them that tend to be dinks. And the guy we were with was explained that this is a salinity level and location. He feels kind of hits that sweet spot between good size and abundance. Yeah. In North Carolina, when we go down to Jennifer's families camp on Topslow Island, that camp is a lot closer to the inlets, higher salinity, and we've feel like we get bigger blue crabs, and the once we get her parents house, which is farther away from the chew inlets, big mambo jombos. Another thing I learned is that soft shell crab like during the summer, like blue crabs, grow fast, and during the summer, they mold every month. I don't know if every crab molts every month or if they have to hit like a certain size, but there's always like an age class that's molting. Yeah, And females have a terminal mold. Females will do at some point they stop molding and the male will continue to mold. Correct. When you see soft shell crabs on a menu. And here's the part that I didn't realize. When you see soft shell crabs on the menu, it's not that the dude's out crabbing and catches a soft shell and throws him in a separate bucket. You take crabs and retain them and keep checking them. What they're looking for is peelers, crabs that have started the process. You can tell there's a different coloration in the backfin. So you can hold that up to the light and you can see this little sort of pinkish ring, and that's a peeler. That's a crab that's approaching the mall. And they'll take those and they'll put them in these shedding houses and they'll keep them in these big troughs with with sort of flowing water going over and they'll check them hourly um through the night because it usually takes place at night, and usually the vast majority molt during the full moon, and so it's an all night thing. They're checking them all night long. And as soon as they they yeah, as soon as they shed out, they get them out of the water. You have to get them out of the water immediately, because as soon as they shed what they do is they puff up with water to expand that new shell and it gets bigger than their current body size. And then they grow into that so very quickly that uh, that softest baby's bottomed skin crab we'll turn into what they call a paper crab, where it gets kind of crinkly it's still softish, but it's kind of crinkly. And we had one of those yet, one of those, like the the top of it was when they fried, it was like lifted off the Yeah. So when they're pulling them out of traps, are off of a trot line, are they looking at him and saying, pop, peeler, regular crab, regular crab, crab peeler. So they're like, well, I think they might be doing some sorting. So most of the commercial guys are not doing They're not handling each crab individually like Steve Bois. Within that they're they's got a like a big basket that that line runs up through and then but someone, at some point, someone's got a Yeah, and if you know what you're looking for, it's it's plain as day. I've always had a little bit of trouble trying to figure out what it's the difference between a peeler and a regular hard shell crab. Guy can't retain females, and on a dungey, I have to look at the bottom carapists to tell a male from a female. But on these the females have red claw tips. Yeah, and I don't want a gender stereotype. But people say, you see that red thing, and as females have their nail polish on, and I'd get so good and my little John, I learned not to even net those ones and just just to kind of brush them off the line and let them go. But the commercial guys are allowed to keep its interesting. Um, you can keep them in North Carolina, but we choose not to because you guys are conservation is thinking that they're going to make more. Yeah, that's another good thing to bring up. A male crab is a jimmy and a female as a what a sock double? Okay, isn't there multiple kinds of sucks? There's uh, what do they call him? A sally? As an immature? That's right, so they have more of a triangular shaped apron, and once they hit maturity, the soock has a big sort of rounded apron. It was good to learn about the molding thing because that was the thing I've always curious about when we trapped Dungeoness. Crabs is now and then you get one who's still got a soft ast shell, not like he's on the way out, but it's his new shell. And we'll throw those back because you open them and there's like no meat in there, right, And I now realize it's because he just got a bigger shell that he hasn't filled out yet. So now I've learned, instead of bringing home and go open it up and it's full of like watery emaciated stuff, we just ditch them. But I never knew like quite what I was looking at, like why it was that way he had like gotten himself. It's like when you're buying shoes for your kid. You're like, I'm not gonna buy your shoes that fit dead on nuts because you're gonna tomorrow they won't fit anyone and make you struggle through the big ones for a few months. Then you'll fit them and then move one. Okay, fact check anything else on crabs. So we covered it pretty good, Oh, soft shell crabes. A way to clean it. You kind of open it up and get the gills out, get the guts out, put it kind of back together again, and then fry it. Did you realize that, Colt, No, I thought they just fried the whole thing. Cut the face off, cut the apron off, and then you lift the sex organs yep, lift up the points and you clear those dead man's fingers. They call them the lungs out on each side. Some people go as far as to clean out the mustard and the guts and fatten the like. I think it adds a particular place, So I'm not a big mustard guy personal. Okay. One one question though, is uh, when they're harvesting these things out of the mold house the sloughing house, Um, are they just like throwing them in the freezer. Yeah, it depends on what their market is. That they do freeze some that some gets sold fresh, you know, right away to local markets. But they just keep them out of the water to stop the molten. Yeah. I think they'll put them on eye those crab balls. Yesterday that place had sawshells for sale. Yeah. Did you catch the price? Nope, don't ask. I'm jealous of the crab balls. Dude, crabballs. Good you by a half dozen or a dozen? Me and Steve Eats threw down on a half dozen, and Steve said here has made it back to the house here, Yeah, Steve, no, we ate him. Steve said hereabout and crab country. You can't get away with pulling that long John Silver's bullshit and putting in all the fillers. He says, a crab ball is crab like people. People are intolerant of you making like a little crab flavored hush puppies, and the crab cakes like in the Rocky Mountain States are a little lacking. You know a lot of times it's soft bread crumb, yeah, yeah, with a little nugget in there. No, these crab balls are crab, not cutting it with kangaroo or anything. They don't cut. They don't cut any they don't cut any room eating there, man Um Calum was one other thing. I don't know if you you weren't out with us, you don't those crabs have two packers. Oh yep, yep, you knew that. Yeah, Keith like that. I'm sorry. Trevor Um pointed that one out kind of as a as a you know, don't you wish type of thing. Yeah, it's a little bit disturbing. I don't wish that I had to at some level. It's like it's intriguing to me, and I considered it, but in the end no, because I feel that it would be one of those things that you might view as being initially advantageous, only to find that it doesn't in fact, what in the world. But I tell tell the Matthews story because I think that pertains to this very well. Yeah, so well, like I feel that it would be one of those things that you might initially think was a great advantage. But there's a thing called sexual selection in this world where there are like attributes, like people think. Give you an example, people think the antlers, Okay, the antlers on the elk are are not like driven by like natural selection of like competitive advantage, but are a thing of sexual selection. Meaning that a bull, let's say a deer, puts on a huge set of antlers. It comes at a cost, right, because he needs to put nutrients into producing those antlers. It's extra weight he needs to carry around. Um, the the extra weight he's carry around these, he needs to take in more calories to tote it around. Um, he can't slick through the brushes nice. All these kind of things. But the sexual advantages that females view those antlers as a sign of fitness, and you might think, like, oh, he needs these big antlers to fight. But the more important component might be that a female associates good antler growth with health, and she wants to have sex with that buck Yeah, you'll hear people say antlers are for fighting off wolves and things like that, all to get the late it's a sexual display. That's not Let me just my point. Please, if you don't mine, and then then I'm gonna open it up to you. But I haven't gotten to where I'm going with this. Uh what was I saying? Oh yeah, Turkey on a strutting Tom, it's all sexual display. He doesn't like advantage to him to do. That's just he's gonna luring ladies. It comes at a cost, point being you might think that having dual peckers is like awesome, but it could be that that is not a good sexual display and in fact pushes possible mates away, like they just can't get on board with it. Having one cause is enough problems. Yeah, go ahead, I'm hoping the floor up to be honest. Now, that's all I just wanted to arrive at that point. Oh, I'm just saying that the antlers aren't we There was just that paper that was published. I thought we all passed around about the how they're talking about the antlers on the Boilk and Yellowstone and that having those big antlers came at a cost because it took more energy to produce such a big anlers, so it might have produced it might have brought in more ladies, but the bigger antlers weren't, to say, better in defending themselves from the wolves. So there there's actually some what's that called like nature deciding which way it's gonna go, selection towards smaller antlers because it didn't cost so much energy. It made them better, more agile to fight off the wolves. Yeah, but you agree that people think dear have antlers just for fighting, and they don't often realize that there's things in the animal world about sexual display and definitely things in the human world about sexual display. Yeah, it's probably, but I wonder too about what do we really know the thought process that a female deer is going through well, and she decides to who she's gonna allow to breed her, because you know, you hear all the time about while the herd bulls off to his hair um, all the satellite bulls are kind of slipping in and breeding cows behind them. So if they're allowing that to happen, they kind of blows that whole theory. And QD m Aid not a whack just released a study last year that says almost the same thing, where it's like, if that for good horn is at the right place at the right time, it will absolutely breathe that though she will allow it, yeah, just because it's it's a timing thing. But to jump back to the two pecker thing, right, So, when you're busting up these crabs, you ripped like for um uh yanni. You were saying that a lot of times, you guys, you guys will pre clean and then steam. Um. So you ripped the carapace off and you you're looking at a ideally a perfectly symmetrical animal right there, right, So you got a knuckle consisting of how many legs five legs on the side, and so is the female set up the exact same way where there's a reproductive organ on each side. Oh that's a good question. I don't know if she's symmetrical in her reproductive organs. Yeah, because that makes sense, right, Yeah, I just just had that thought when we were checking out the two packers. I can't answer that if they have dual like what their ovary structure is and whatnot, and if they have what their cloaca or event is that they have two or one side. I think no expert on blue crabs. But a female that's bread they call her sponge crab, and she houses, she releases all those eggs onto these little filaments under her apron, and her apron will sort of bulge out and there will be this cloud of eggs. And I think that's that the fertilization is external. I don't think they're like breeding there. I think the males are inserting their pin I into that cloud of eggs, and just like fishif that's how my kid found out about uh, human love making because we're looking at we're cleaning perch, and we're looking over cleaning salmon, and I'm showing them the eggs and the sperm, and I'm explaining how the female lets the eggs out in the in the red and the male puts his seed in there and fertilized the eggs and it happens externally. And he got to wondering, since a mommy person has the baby inside of her, how in the world do you deliver the sperm? And he later was explaining to his nanny. We overheard him saying, and my mommy did that three times? Um uh yeah, can you zap us with the Mark Twain quote. Now, yeah, well I got a bunch of them. Here's what your favorite. The one I always remember and just so I can get it just right that I like. And I try to uh most to come back to you. No, and uh I try to do this myself, not so much that I want like you to abide by this quote, but I try to keep it in my mind. But it's out. It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubts. Another one. Whenever you find yourself on the side of majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Here's another one. It is not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the fighting the dog. Can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. Well, that's a good hunting one. Actually, it is a good one. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain, I think that cannot depend on your eyes when you're imagine ation is out of focus may relate to your bow hunting conundrum, and it relates to anyone who ever thinks they saw a bigfoot. Fact check me on this dave back to seekadeer the way Maryland manages seek a deer and all, dear, I think, is this that you have bag limits that relate to the weapon restriction. I'm not saying that very well that you have. The state recognizes three weapons distinctions correct archery, which includes cross bowls, correct mosle loader, and general firearm general firearms. Some counties are shotgun only, some allow centerfire rifles. You're in an area that allows centerfire rifles, so you're allowed three Sika deer per weapon. Right. Each season has its own bag limit two or a total of three normal more than one stag correct, so you could shoot three highs or one stagging two higns. And we came down for the final days of the archery season Early archery, Final days of early archery, and gave it are all for three days. I was the only one that loosed an arrow ineffectively, but I loosed the narrow um And you guys are trying to hunt with traditionally. I kind of like take offense that calling it traditional archery because it's like a really like non traditional elements that like what do you guys call it? Bow would not be because carbon like a carbon fiber long bow. Yeah, there's carbon fiber sandwiched in between real wood and carbon fiber and carbon fiber arrows. Nothing real traditional about it. Yeah, but it's like it's like modern longbow and you have a modern No, you kind of an old timey recurve bowl. It's modern. I mean, it's got fiberglass. It's a bear production bow, so from the olden days. Though, if it's a vintage bow, I think that bos probably hearkens back to the old times for a long time, and back then you didn't buy a new bow every year. He's had the same damn bow for forever until compounds came. I shoot him till they break. Did I get anyone? Yeah? Oddly enough, you do not eat a new bow every year. I once heard a gay explaining to a first time I want want to be first time archer that if you call yourself a serious bow hunter, you buy a brand new bow every year. And I talked to myself, My God, the power of marketing. I'll talk quickly. I'm gonna touch on my closest close encounter with my boat, and I like you guys to quickly touching your closest close encounter my closest close encounter. I see one of these little seka deer come through, coming across the open marsh. There's a lot of like stuff here that's just impenetrable ten ft high frag mighty's grass, and there's like some areas that are other kinds of impenetrable lower plants. Then you get lucky now and then here and there, and it's just like an ankle high marsh. And then you can see what the hell is going on. And I see this lone stag crossing a big stretch of ankle high marsh, and his line of travel is gonna like bring him to where his closest point would be like a hundred and fifty yards. I decided to call at it and use what like Steve had called in one this is gonna be I'm gonna steal part of your storage you had called in one I think it was the day before, using a combination of hind the calls in a stag bugle. So I zapped him with the ken drop combo, which we'll call it. And he's sure enough to just much to my surprise, turns and starts heading in my direction and then vanishes into the frag Mighty's and I'm like sitting there wondering. I'm standing up ready, and you have no idea what's going on because you can't see anything. And then you hear like the water his feet coming through the marsh, and all of a sudden, he pops out in the one and the worst possible area to pop out, where it's just all these little dead pine trees, like a little dead lob lollies. Yeah, yeah, probably like a bigger round like thick as your thigh, a bunch of dead ones. And he just comes right out in there, and he's like, there's no possible shot opportunity. Already got my bow back, and he's like his rib cage is blocked by trees. Rib cage is blocked by a tree, His rib cage is blocked by a bush. And I'm thinking, man, this is never gonna happen. I can't hold my bow bag forever. And he's just gonna pass underneath me and be gone. And all of a sudden, here like stops in the opening and there's his rib cage exposed the eighteen yards and I'd like I had fallen out of my like what you need to do to make this happen, and I had fallen into my I can't believe this is happening, Like I can't believe this isn't gonna work out, And and in there forgot about the part about aiming and everything and just sail it over, not sail it over, slip it over his back. You aimed where you were, where you're thinking, until you stopped being stopped thinking. And I had a tree. I had ranged a bunch of trees, and I had I had my like thirty yard tree, and he popped out at the thirty yard tree, and in my head was like the thirty yard pin. And I'm analyzed and I'm running processing so many other little bits of information during this time. I never adjust. So I'm already a little high because he's now eighteen yards and I got my I'm still looking at my thirty yard red pin. And then the other thing is in reviewing, like I have the great luxury being able to review footage and to see what happened. And ridge ponder was on the deer and you can go frame to frame, and there's a frame where you can you catch the fletching of the arrow crossing the tree trunk, and that deer is already dropped four or five inches in the arrow. He's not ducking well. I mean, you know what I'm saying, reacting to the sound. He's loading up to spring away. So when people say he ducked the arrow, he's not like arrow coming, he's loading up to go. If you watch a deer takeoff and slow motion, they go down down, and then they're like, he's already doing his Like I'm getting out of town, and cal brought up A good point is like, and this is something you'll never know. If I hadn't Stagg called, and I had just Hind called, would he have come in with a different attitude and not so high strung? And I don't know. I don't know either, but from a lot of time in the Elk Woods, I would say yes. It would be like if let's see youre walking, had he even turned, he might not have come in at all. He may not have come in at all. Let's say you're walking on the road and you hear someone scream out. A woman scream out hell, hell, okay, you're coming in with one attitude and she says, help, help, there's a madman with a gun in here. You're coming in with a different attitude. Still coming, Well, yeah, some people wouldn't, but you're still coming. You're just coming in with a different attitude. So for me being like me, me and me right right, He's like, man, I'm coming, but I got my head on the flat. I'm coming in hot, I'm coming in nervous, so I don't know, just missed them, you know, miss them. And then all the like trouble, just the mental problems, which I'm still struggling with. I'm more made up for it, I'll point out later, but um uh yeah, it's really like difficult. Man. You practice and practice and practice, but it's hard to um when you're practicing. It's like it's just as different than the things that happen in real life. Things happen in real life, all these other things enter in. Yeah, that's there's no no substitute for experience in the wood. And it's almost like you need to go out new yard. When you're new yard shooting your bowl at targets, you almost need to have to hire people just to come and do weird stuff. Yeah, like I'm gonna shoot my bowl and at some point during the suiting session, I want you to sneak up and slap me with a stick and learn how to shoot, knowing that in any minute, southing like like to learn how to shoot, knowing that there's unexpected things, like when you're shooting in the yard, you're like, you range it, it's not you know, you can't. It's hard to replicate. You could even replicate a target that keeps moving behind stuff somehow. Like when we were little kids, we strung the wirire between two trees and would hang rabbit targets on loops that you'd mount to the wire, and then one guy's job was to stand off to the side and pull the rope real fast. And so we would stand on our porch and shoot long bowls and re curves and everything else at the rabbit as it zinged across the yard. But you got to know that trajectory, and it wasn't you weren't nervous, you weren't lustful for the rabbit. Yeah you gotta. Then you got a factor in the lustfulness how badly you want to damn dear. But see, it takes me a few days of frustration to build up that lustfulness, to have that desire to complete the job. When I heard his footsteps coming through the water. I wasn't at all jacked up. I wasn't jacked up. A matter of fact, I was like, Wow, I'm so like nonchalant right now. I'm probably gonna kill this thing. Was my first thought. And I had my mantra in my visions of grandeur. Not like that. Not cockiness. That sounded pretty cocky. No, I was aware of my mantra, my shooting mantra. I was like, you have your shooting mantra. This is not a big deal. He's coming, You're gonna get him. And then he popped out, and I'm like, why did you have to pop out there? And then everything fell a partner. I lost track of my mantra, but you still wanted him real bad. I wanted him bad. Mark kenyon Um was just introducing me to his mantra, which he um he does his mantra every time he shoots his bow. He doesn't have a hunting mantra. He has a shooting mantra, which he will not shoot an arrow without doing the mantra because he's building it into his shot cycle that he verbalizes every part of it every time. It cannot shoot without verbalizing it you can't have, Like, I gotta switch because my current system is my hunting mantra, which I don't do every time I shoot my boat. He's like, I want to get my head to where I cannot shoot that bow without completing my thing, almost like reverse target panic. He can't let the arrow go until you've accomplished those step wise progressions. His thing is like I don't remember the exact words. His thing is basically like hover, like hover the pen. Then there's like this sort of thing like you're on it, and then there's this thing here we go. And every time he shoots his bow he does it to train himself. And here we go is that he begins tightening his shoulder blades. And if you get a snapshot window and you don't have time to get through it, you don't take the shot. You don't let's go. Let the year o go because there's your opportunity. A shout at that very highly regarded pistol instructor one day and his mantra is slack out and he takes the slack out of the trigger site. He needs to get a trigger job done on his gun. Squeeze this you can't talk to this guy about anything because he's like shooting rocks out of the air and stuff. He uh, he swears, and he's like by my man type of shooter, and he swears that he's going through his head every single time his finger engages that trigger. Slack out, site squeeze, slack out slit site squee Yeah, I'm doing it, man, I'm doing I'm I'm taking like I talked. I was on the phone Mark Kenny for a long time talk about this, and I'm gonna start. Let me start trying to do it. Was it here late at night after you missed that buck, midday after I missed the buck? I think the next day, Wow, I'm gonna do it. Man, I'm gonna start. I'm gonna change. Well, you need to embrace the fact that archery is a fun thing that allows you to start hunting earlier. It doesn't need to be the love of your life. But like for me, when muzzleloader season came around here and I was like, man, I do not like the fact that I did not finish the job with the bow. Yeah, but I'm willing to pick up a muzzleloader because at the end of the day, I want to take this meat home because it's awesome. Yeah, you got your weapon goal, and you got your trip goal, trip goal, bring some meat home. Because I was relieved that Steve managed to do well so that I could borrow his muzzleloader for a short time. Not that I did anything with it, but just had it. But you know, extend the range, and just so much can go wrong when you're bow hunting, and no matter how big a stag is that I might shoot with a rifle or a muzzleloader, there's always this less sense of fulfillment that like, God, dang, I would I wish I could have gotten that one with my bow, talking about the one you almost got, our netting, you almost get it, talked about your clothes and connery you have with your bowl. Yeah. So we were frankly just kind of scouting out a spot that I wanted to see if it would it was ready for muzzleloader season, and what kind of activity there was. So we we popped out to this little island. Yeah, which is an island? I like that though, the island of trees. So an island of trees out in the marsh. Just you hear about you, guys, It's called an island and so suspected that there's some activity there. Uh. There's sort of two little islands of trees, uh, one of which is mostly dead Timber Island, Yeah, exactly. Um, And so I gave a couple of calls. I think I had the stag call, didn't I, Lauren? And then I had some cow calls. And just within a couple of minutes of blowing the stag call, uh, I see some movement. Uh. And we'd already seen a couple does I think, hadn't we? There was movement out there, and so here comes this stag out of the brush on Eagle Island. It's just about a hundred and thirty yards away from us at that point, and you're on the foot on the ground, on the foot on the ground. Uh. Sort of hunkered up a couple against a couple of dead trees, and I switched to the cow call, and I just started doing a couple of mused so he could sort of hone in on us, and Uh, sure enough he started making his way, and he picked his way on a route of higher marsh. And cat's always exciting to see them coming get him closer and closer, and those antlers just sometimes it's all you can see as the antlers sticking above the vegetation here here and come in, and and boy, he keeps coming. He's looking in our direction, and he keeps coming. And I've had plenty of sort of aborted approaches to not get too excited until they hit that sort of fifty yard line, and then all of a sudden it starts feeling real, you know, And sure enough he keeps coming in and coming in. He finally enters into the little island of trees we're at, and he's amidst all the dead timber, probably thirty forty yards away from us, and then he begins this game of sort of zig zagging, and I'm pinned up against these dead trees, and I, depending on which way he goes, I might have to like get my arrow up and around one of the trunks that I'm standing way too close to. And he's, you know, first the zigs left, on the zig's right, and back and forth, and finally he decides he's can I commit to going into the sort of interior of this little island of trees? And it just got way too brushy. But I think at one point he was he was within my comfort zone. Twenty yards or so. I would have flung an arrow if he'd stepped clear, for sure, But it just wasn't meant to be. And he got in there, he knew there was supposed to be a deer there. He's looking around. And when they get there, once they make their mind up that okay, there's not a deer here. There's no amount of calling it's gonna bring them back, they just sort of turn around and go and and he marched off back to Eagle Nest Island and and he was out of our lives. Yeah. I called the one that came to forty three yards and then stood there waving his nose in the air, being like, I hear her, but she's just not here. Yeah, because if she was here, I would smell her, I feel like, I think. But just too lazy to like lug something around out there and place it and what not. Calling with a eco I think would be like really deadly. Yeah, I got that. Yeah, I got a strong yes on that. For you'd be laying by some rolls. Yeah, it's a small decoy to hide behind, though, especially for me, I can't leave no one. Someone probably is onto that, but I'm surprised no one's out of that if you're not. Yeah, there's I actually have a decoy. It's, you know, made of this plastic corrugated cardboard kind of stuff. It's cut out of a spike and it folds up into three pieces. But it's it's just another thing to carry out there. And I haven't been real motivated to to really test it out, but I probably should try it one at these times. Well, we got a friend who thinks they're immoral. Oh yeah, decoys in general, not duck decoys, turkey decoys. What did he say? He says he doesn't want to go to hell, so he won't use one. Well, a friend of mine's wife thinks that it's immoral to use trickery to lura animal into range. And people have been doing that time trickery, so calling would be out. The only archery opportunity I had. Um, it was the very first morning. We were sitting over acorns on the ground. We're in, Uh what type of tree were we in? We're in an oak tree. Yanni think so Um and Janna sny are both look in one direction and then y'all just goes, oh, cap the other side of the tree. Ah. Two o'clock, there's dough, turned around and kill it. And oh and I turned around and this dough that was just like shockingly small to me and it was still a little bit of gray light in my memory anyway. Um, and she's severely quartered away kind of through this gap and she was just there for a blink of an eye and and gone. And that was the only did you get your bowl back? No, not even close. No, I had narrow knocked just because I started out that way. Um, but that was it. However, if you know it's a new, totally new species, you had a leg up on me because you've been here once before. But had I, like I feel if I had the knowledge just that I gained in this one week at the beginning of the week, the archery game would have been a different story. Helpful knowing what you now know. Yes, yeah, so I mean, but I have absolutely no regrets from this trip. This was phenomenal. I had like similar my previous experience hunting here was very similar. I did two days, the last two days of early archery, kind of got my feet wet and then UM came in with the mall's loader and it just there's a certain cockiness to having that muzzleloader. Tell me about it. It's just different, man, it is. It's just different. You made it more difficult with your muzzleloader because you didn't bring a scope. That was Yeah, that was not. Believe me. If I going forward, I mean it didn't end up hurting you at all, I would I would have a uh I'm not sure if i'd have scope, but I would definitely have different iron sights, and I would have my own muzzleloader that I have got myself more familiar with, purely for uh shot placement. Yeah, in confidence. Yeah, man, Open Day muss loader season. I'm right back in the same tree where I'd missed my shot. You mean Steve's Island. I'm in Steve's Island, Steve's tree on Steve's Island, Ronella, Steve's tree on Ronelle Island. And early morning I let a hind walk through because I was hoping here to be a stag behind her. There's no stag behind her. Then a while later, here comes the hind greasing across from the eagle's nest, headed straight toward me. She gets like fifty yards in front of me. Oh yo, hey, and get her just lands right in the trail stone dead. Then sit there singing along the wait now and step a stag shows up, and about eight nine minutes later, sure enough, here comes one knows the ground following her down. He gets to the same spot. I say hey, and he lands four ft off her tail, still in the trail. There's two of them. Then you need to get out of my seat. It's amazing. There's a certain cockiness that comes the muscle. I will tell you, standing or sitting in the in that tripod blind like totally man made blind, sticking out of the marsh, there was a certain feeling of like laziness to it, just like I couldn't there's no like I just had this like almost a feeling like sitting on the toilet, like just like nah, And you're honest. And I were definitely crammed in there, you know, But then getting in the climbing stand or just being in any of the other stands, I felt like I was way more of an active participant. You looked like compromised up in that thing. Yeah, And I was just like, man, I feel I think I told you. I was like, man, I feel like a sword dick sticking out here that spoke to me sticking out like you had done the work of probably played the hard word. It took the place that stand. You have different feelings, sup climb up in some other dudes tripod stand. It's the only thing out there, you know. It's it's a good view out there, though. It's a heck of a view. Yeah, no, it's a gorgeous a great way to learn about the critter man. We haven't even talked about the wide array of vocalizations. Unbelievable. The first that I sat out because I have been sitting in the woods where we can't see anything beyond archery range, Like you're in the thickets, you know, and you're not seeing all the stuff that doesn't matter. Anything you see like matters right now, right because they're close when you're in the woods or in you know, in the brush. But then you get out in the open mars and you've seen a lot of stuff that doesn't really matter with your bow, matters with your muzzleloader. But you get to just observe their movements. And some of the things that struck me most is one how aggressive the stags are to the hinds, like mean gang pileing them. Three of them on one like because the ratios are like there's a really high stagged hind rat show and they get on some of them and just chase them, chase the chasing three of them on them relentless, and how much they mess with each other. They're like little bullies, man. They're like the dudes and like little guys like the dudes in high school that run the wrestling team. Man. So they remind me of like always like messing with each other and fighting and punch each other and zapping each other's nuts and stuff, just like you know, like those kind of dudes, like high school wrastler guys. Man. When we opened them up, there's a lot of sores on those. Yeah, Steve Stagg had some slightly infected wounds. Same with the wrestling guys in high school. Yeah, they're they're always just like in each other's business and headlocking each other and giving each other noggies and just whatever, man, just like messing with each other, pulling each other's underwear, just like you know, ringworm and rug burn. Yeah, just that's these little stags remind me, man, because they're like they're just these little I think that's pretty a little ship and things that are just so like jacked up and like mean to the ladies and meeting each other. It's funny. It's totally antropomorphism. But oh yeah, I have no problem shooting a stag because it's just deserve this way. And I feel a little guilty every time I shoot a hid. I mean, you know, if I'm really looking for the meat, I'll take one. But nine times out of ten, I'll just let them walk. They just look so peaceful out there, and you know, I know, and I had some. I had a female come through, you know, a high end come through with a faun. What do you say for faun? Do you say fun when you talking about stags and hid? We usually do. I'm not sure that it was a more appropriate that's in line with stagging hid, but we just say fun either way. I had one of those. I was sitting there with my boat and had some of those come through close and um, like on a white tails, I wouldn't hesitate to break up though, right to the pairing, and I'd be like, oh, you know, it's like it's proven that if you shoot the dough, you know the fawn's weaned, it's old enough to survive or vice versa, right, and there's like management objectives and whatever. Oh that garbage doesn't bother me. Watching the hind and her fawn come across the marsh, at first, I was like, oh, she's gonna come right too, And after calling minutes, I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. I just gonna hope of the steak. A lot of them get a pass from me because of the stay comes and those spawns were small. I've seen them come through the check station at black Water and they'll dress out some of them thirteen fifteen pounds, And at that point it's like, is it worth killing an animal for the five pounds of animal? Meet? You might n I don't know you killed? Yeah, that's like big as they get, you know, I'm with you. I didn't want to do it once I saw I didn't want to do it, right had I definitely like had like real reservations. When they're bugling and they ripped three in a row, like do you feel that some more? That's a stag that's like really worked up, as opposed to one that just rings off one randomly three packs or single. They do some singles three packs or more. I don't know, you know, And I think all the stags bugle to an extent, it's not just the dominant ones. I always like envisioned, you know, Oh it's a big six. If it's really ripping out bugles, it's got to be a big, mature stag. And I had one that I called in, actually got it on video on my phone. I killed a nice one the night before, and I didn't want to, Like I was hunting on the refuge, and the previous one had been on public state land, so separate bag limits within applied, so I could have taken this one. But it was not real big. It was a spike, a tall spike, and I just didn't want to use my black water tag on stag, so I just grabbed the phone and filmed them to keep the bow from leaping into my hand. And uh, he comes all the way across the marsh, I'd call him in, and he got within twenty yards of my stand and was just milling around, and all of a sudden, he ripped out a bugle that was like blood curtain, and I had it all on video. I've been trying to catch that on either audio or video for the years. I've been hunting him. I always just get like the last two or one and a half of that three pack. But this guy just went off and he sounded as big and bad as any stag I've ever heard. And you know, he was a fairly young young stag, so I think they all call like that. But you can't judge a stagged by his bugle and they make a yeah, it stops as a real high pitch kind of turns into this sort of growny moaning kind of sound. The kiwi's calling that the heehaw, which if he kind of stretch that out, it sounds kind of like that. And uh, that seems to be the ice. Usually when I see that happening or imagine it happening, Uh, it seems like it's a dough who's tending a stag tending a dough. Yeah. Um, it's like, I don't know, a frustration sort of sound. Um. And then you'll hear also just right right, And then you will sometimes hear him just growl like and they lay their antlers on their back, and that's usually when they're encountering another stag and tell him like, get out, buddy, this is my spot. We watched one come up to two that we're fighting, and I couldn't hear him because too far away, but I was watching through my knocks. Two were fighting, and he was doing that posture where he tips his head back and lays his antlers across his back and kind of waves his head. We're just kind of crazy looking, right movement should clarify the antler configuration and what six point is back sleeping. They're like little elk candlers, kind of miniature candlers. They're like more similar to elk cant they got the forward brow times that hook, and then your typical one. Your typical one has forward brow times that hook, and then like straight back main beams that will have a fork on them. Right, so that if he's like doing his normal normal walking posture, like head forward, normal walking posture, his antlers are kind of like his main beams are kind of like aimed back at it was like a forty five degree angle, yeah, like brushed back. And then you'll see some that have you know, they'll have like short brows and a little slight split, and as they get nicer, they get like a hooked and a deep fort. But then you can also get them like you killed a seven point. Yeah, very rarely you'll get one that either on one or both sides. It will have a little sticker point off the back of the main bean, and it'll be a seven or eight point. Those are rarely more than an inch or so long, But I would say maybe one or two eight pointers get killed a year. Uh if that it's funny how much you see those antlers coming through the brush. Oh man, they stick out like it's like two chopsticks coming through them, coming through the brothers. Because the total height is only, uh what twelve inches savage big ones twelves of fourteen fifteen inches? True? You know monster trophies might get sixteen inches tall, and of course you'll hear guys, Oh I don't want to like play two inches? Yeah right, show me that stag and I'll believe it. But otherwise, um, you know a lot of the spikes at the sort of bigger spikes will be nine ten inch spikes. But god, they look big when you see them out there. You know, they look like the Hertford buck man or whatever that thing. It's like when you see one out in the open marsh, but there's nothing next to it to compare it to it. Looks like a man eater because they're so like, like I said, like high school wrestlers. Man, it's like the next get it seems like half their body wrestlers, right, there's some of my dearest friends are high school wrestlers, Craig Christians and John Malcolm. Yeah, man, all kinds of They're dark. The pretty easy to spot on the marsh, which I realized was last year I hunted the woods a lot more and they blend in on that that pine the dark ones. Difference between the stags. The stags are chocolate dark chocolate like black, and the hind's got that reddish color. But they all it's the only deer that keeps its spots its whole life. And they're faint, but right down either side of their either side of their spine, and then a little on their rump, they keep their spots. They get pretty faint, but it's cool, sort of disappear when they're really running because they're rolling around and making wallows and their pelt gets all nasty dirty. You'll stay them up. Yeah, And so you can't really see the spots on some of the stags. But later in the season, when they stopped running and they're not making the wallows as much. Their spots will start to be a little more apparent as well. And man, do those things get a ruddy smell? The meats great, they don't get like a ruddy taste. No, We last night took a um. We last night took a bad ham off a stag and just I caught a bunch of holes in it, fill it full of garlic and put a rub on it, and we just cooked the thing in a tragg or pellet grill for a few hours. It's just like, no at all taste of that. But man, you smell that little bogger and it smells like if you piste in a jar and cap that jar up nice and tight, put it out in the sun for a few days with a little in there, and then pour debt piss on you. That's what it smells like like. After carrying them over my shoulders out of the marsh, it smells like I had pissed myself. Yeah, you forgot to put your range like I pissed myself a couple of days ago. Yeah, that was kind of regretting giving you a ride back to the house. No, it was bad, man, it was bad. It's real bad. You guys were talking about how old these these deer get. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, what's the deal, what's the age class? Steve can speak to it, he knows them. Yeah, they've done a lot of tagging studies over the years and in the Blackwater region, and they've documented hynes over twenty years old, you know, hynes that were tagged as adults and were covered, you know, a decade or more later. Are the stags? Is it kind of like a typical you know, like a six seven year old stags ancient? Like, they don't last, that's I think. Certainly their lifespan is shorter, but because because of hunting and because the just the hard aggression they showed towards each other. But yeah, I should mentioned the one I killed last year had just lost his eye. I'm not talking like a little bit. His eyeball was completely demolished and punctured recently by an antler. Time. And then tell the story about the one that the guy that you killed it was missing the time. Yeah, so I I killed that that seven point that I killed, h I noticed was missing probably close to an inch inch and a half of the tip of one antler and I shortly after I killed that one, one of my friends on the club, uh killed a real nice mature six pointer. And when he took it to the taxidermists, they were keeping it out and they found a piece of bone about inch and a half long antler stuck in its neck, like right behind the skull. And and uh so he kept it and pried it over and we matched it up in it. It was a perfect match to that. And from the one night shot, did you glue it back on there? No? He kept it. He kept it. He kept it. Yeah, what's this trophy? Did you ask it? I'm not gonna call. Actually you know that that is Steve Kendrew's antler point man really has a little necklace man or place at someplace independently. Make your wife are wondering? Um too generally? Two too bad? Because she was like a one she ran one. You can make her sweet earring. I made my wife turkey spur earrings that she wears. H you're like when you set that little mount that you set of crystal in like people who are into crystals have like a little mount and you like put a crystal in there and pinched the mount. I had a jeweler take those type of mounts, and I saw it off Turkey spurs, big nice pointy turkey spurs, saw them off and had him set the spurs in those mounts. And now and then, when the occasions right, she will wear her turkey spur earrings. Interesting, which I like a whole bunch um. No one. The only people to know what that is are people who you'd figure would know what that is, you know. Yeah, it's an insider thing, right. Something else has popped in my head. I can't think it. Well. I was gonna le mention. We covered the vocalizations, which our many. Yeah, I'd like to give a shout out to the guy that makes that bugle call because it's h he can't sell them many. Yeah. I've got mixed feelings on helping the market to them, because I don't want everyone and their brother to have one of these things. But yeah, you don't want to turn in one of those calls where everybody has the same call and it stops working. The hoochie Mama of SCA calls it his hands down the best. Yeah, I mean it catches that sort of low growly sound that it's arts and ends with and it's like it's real subtle. Yeah, it's real subtle. But to me it it's part of the authenticity of the call. And you know, I've listened to many of your podcast whe talked about turkeys and the game animals really need it to sound perfect to trigger the sort of response you're looking for and probably not. But for me, just the confidence of coming as close to the real thing as I can as part of what I personally need to feel comfortable calling to feel comfortable. Yeah, and this call, I think just nails it. Um. It's called the Nordic Ska and it's made by a guy I met out of Sweden. Oh, he's got a whole line of predator calls and stuff like that. So it uh, definitely. Uh. I don't go in the woods in October without it around my neck. How when does the ruts start? And like how long does it last? It's basically the whole month of October. Or I would say, you know, if I were to pick two weeks to hunt out of the entire season, it would be starting with Columbus Day for the next two weeks. Uh, that sort of middle two weeks, second and third weeks of October probably will encompass the peak of the rut, but they'll start late September early October, but they don't really get cranked up until about Columbus Day, it seems, and it's over by Halloween. Yeah. Generally he'll get little pulses of activity, and I've I've seen stags chasing hines in November and even into December. But these calls in those later seasons, I do, they don't seem to be as responsive to them though, especially the stag calls. The cow calls. You know you can stop one with it? Or what can you tell the story about the flood and the sekid box that were tied together. Back in two thousand two, we had Hurricane Isabel came through and there was a tremendous storm surge that flooded out most of southern Dorchester County and it pushed a bunch of flotsam, just debreathe, all kinds of stuff way up into the woods and marshes and whatnot. And I had taken a friend of mine on this property that I had lived on in southern Dorchester creep O, Maryland, um and I had to go. I had to leave him on his own for a couple of hours midday, and when I came back, he said, hey, man, I found two dead stags that someone tied together. So that's weird, and show me. So we went and we walked over to where he'd found them, and indeed it was two real nice, mature six point stags that had gotten tangled up in a length of crab booy line. Probably I don't know, if you stretched it all out, it's probably fifty or sixty ft of yeah, and it and the one stag that had you know when when they wallow and they spa and you know, make little rubs on trees, they just whipped their heads all around and he must have loop this rope up somehow, and then the way to the buoy it just kind of kept swinging around and it just perfect like figure eight around us. And so this big wad of rope hanging around his antlers at the base of it, and then a long loop had formed at one point, and he got in a tussle with this other stag, and that loop got around the other stags antler and twisted up to the point where it couldn't free itself, and he could see it that also like tangled up in greenbrier and all kinds of stuff had been a big struggle, and both of you, they were still laying where they had met their death. They were telling that no one had touched him. I mean they were still tied up with the brush and stuff. Yeah, I had to cut away all the greenbrier that there was twisted up rope and everything. So yeah, it was completely just a freak of nature kind of thing. The only thing humans had to do with it was the fact that we were the originator or the rope and buoy. So this this one stag had a crab buoy hanging right on his forehead, and and another dead stag with about three foot loop and you and you kept those schools and kept tied up. Yeah, I boiled them out and clean them up just as they were. I haven't separated them or anything. And when you get your antler point back from that dude, you can make just a little display man of like the booie one his body that he's tied up to the little point. Yeah, the other stag, it would be like a nice little you'll be able to have people come over and they'll you'll catch them looking at that little display and you see that stag wars see that. Let me tell you right, but right now I can't tell that story because that guy stole your thing. I don't begrudging. It was in his deer. So no, I think if the police, if the police came out the police to say that's the blind is that doesn't blind to you as long as the other guy who's stuck in his deer, that's the police, and say yeah, now if you called the ethicist, hey, you might get a different answer. Yeah, but where do you stand on folks that they shoot a bull or a buck and it's missing, you know, a prominent time, okay, and then they have all the tax drms recreated that For me, I'm like that that's not right. So I think that that is, that's not the same thing at all. How is it not the same thing? Because it's just not the same it's just not the same thing. We're not asking him to put it back on his buck and then display it as in like here is my grand seven point. We're asking to display because it's an interesting story, like next to the because you'd be able to say, see that, right, I would if it was mine. I believe that I would tie it off with a little piece of string hanging there, and people will be like, what happened here? And he'd like, well, funny you ask, and then I'd tell him the story, but the same story though. No, no one's going to ask him why he's got a little hunk of antler. What if it's hanging from a string off of his buck? People like, why would you're off that buck? Yeah, well let me tell you that. And my good friend Steve can drop if you had a regular buck and you hung off a little chunk of antler off him, and people were analyzed them. They couldn't see a broken time. They might be like, hey, what gives over here on the display shelf, at which point you'll be able to say, well, let me tell you. Yeah, and you have to tell the whole story, Ryan, Yeah, And then at the end they'd be liked antler point back to give him that antler point, bro, And then maybe he's got a follow up story about Steve. I heard a story. I heard a story about some guys. This is out at the This is some dudes who were hunting out at that ranch we've talked about before called the High Lonesome, which is like a controversial ranch because of some public land issues. But uh, they had had a client out who was pursuing this this bull elk that had this giant club formation. Okay, the bulls carrying the club when the client hits it with an arrow. By the time they blood trail and recovered, the club's not there anymore. And this guy, I guess was very very interested in then finding that club. I could never find it. I wonder if he had one bill. That's nothing, man, I was just at the Wild Sheep Foundation and they got the world like, there's a new world record big horn. In my opinion, shouldn't count time a little kid in Montana just shot a giant that they say might be a new world record. Really think, Oh, shouldn't say six eighty? People are gonna find out that that's a famous big horn unit as a joke, all the big big horns come out of six unless it was like a youth world record, but younger. I don't know. A kid in Montana just shot one that I think might be a new world record. It wasn't. My kid wasn't. No. Oh, what I'm gonna say, Okay, so two problems. There's the problem. I meant to address. I'm gonna address the problem that comes up in the in the addressing of that problem, the problem I wanted to address was the replica. Okay, which is fine, But here's the main thing. There's a new world record big horn. Because there's there's this big there's this big gas lake. Flathead Lake's twenty it's a natural lake, twenty miles long, some miles wide, big gas Lake. Out in the middle of this big lake is a thing called wild Horse Island. And at one point in time it was supposed to be a utopia. Like a guy owned wild Horse Island and he was gonna have like an economist, a sociologist, like he's gonna bring out all these experts and create this utopia where they would solve all of the world's problems on this little island, as utopias are want to do. It failed. It just became like regular people's have places out there. But there's also some public property out there, and some old orchards and all this kind of stuff. And at some point in time, a bunch of big horns got put out there, and it's been pretty valuable over the years because they have you is the big horns from Wild Horse Island two help do repopulations of of other areas to bring in genetic diversities. You grab one from big Horn. At times, they've taken big horns from other locations and brought them out and put him on wild Horse Island to help the genetic diversity on wild Horse isund So it's just like important little part of big hornness. But there's no predation to speak of. There's absolutely no hunting, and it's kind of like because it's out on an island that kind of functions in my mind as a sort of zoo. I've been out there and you can pretty much walk up and grab the big horns, right, they're kind of like their team. Yeah, because there's a lot of recreation on that island. There's a lot of hikers, and yeah, they like I remember standing out there in wild Horse Island one time and I was counting how many times one was gonna hit the Ponderosa pine. I remember, I think he hit it seventy two times in a row or something. Bam bam bam. God. Yeah, and he hit it that many times in a row. And you can tell he did it a lot because he'd kind of like caused his big indent on this ponderosa getting his hundred in for the day. So yeah, he's in the Hundle club. So sounds kind of like bow hunting for secret here stranging your head against something. So one of these dies and it's a new world record, and it feels like it feels to me like saying the new world record came out of the Cincinnati Zoo. Yeah, it's an odd way to track record book animals. Like, well, you guys know that the argument is that those records are set up for the animal. I know, I know, but I don't like it. I don't like it. I hope the kid. I hope this kid has a new world from a like native habitat, right, it's like native habitat, wild living out there getting chewed on by wild animals. I just hope, I hope, I hope this rumor is correct. But so you know, but again you're looking at like what can happen, Like what is the greatest size one of these can achieve? And I accept that it's the biggest one, but just it's a bummer to me that came from like a little zoo island. And now I'm being a little bit I'm trivializing it and being a little bit reductive. But that's just my initial take on right, because you're right, it is important because that is a herd of big horns that hasn't been subjected to any disease. So what we're talking about replicas as far as well, I walk in and there it is, and holy ship, is that thing big man? Like you know, I've looked at like I'm not like a big horn expert, but I looked at the bay number of big horns over the years. This thing is like you look at it and you're like, my god, I have never seen anything like that. It is just gargangein But and it's a replica, not the same body. And they cast those horns, and that's like a big thing in the sheep world. Like our friend Jay, who's a sheep guide, when he gets a client on a big ram, he he guides like Governor's Auction, Governor's tag type dudes. When they get a big ram, he'll get a replica made to have a replica of the horns, Like they cast the horns and make a replica. It's a common thing for the client to do as a part of the tip of the thing a guy. He's already got three thousand dollars and do it. So did you find anything? Honest? Yeah, so it was actually killed last fall October. It's still not It still has to go through some more scoring, you know, by being secs. You know, has to go through a couple of panels to be certified or not. But anyways, it's eight inches shy of that big one from uh eight inches. You're not gonna make that up. No, you're not going to make that up. But what it is is that it's a it ties the world record hunter killed sheep. It's like a twelve year old kid, right you. Oh no, not even a kid. I don't know, Brody. I just heard it. And to your credit, you did ask him to look it up. As my kids say, type it up, fact checking, trust, but verifying. Boys, it's trying to do some closing statements. I'm sorry, but it's come to that time. We have to leave in an hour for the airport. I don't have any I'm good. No, I got one, my boy. The other day, I was looking at speaking of packers, my boy, I just heard about this. UM was looking at a horse and he says, man, that horse has a poop that just won't come out, and uh, someone pointed out to him that that's, in fact not a poop that won't come out, this is reproductive organ and he was saying, I'm glad I don't need to carry one around like that. I'm glad I got a small one. So it's good to have that perspective. To be thankful for what you got. That's my closing thought. Be thankful for what you got, ladies and gentlemen to one whatever. Lauren, thanks Caam for having me. I didn't have a lot of contribution there, but uh, it sure was fun coming out here and shooting sick a deer, not only from the tree stand, but to get to experience it from the ground, and it's awesome. You know. I think you're concluding thought should be you should stay hied to the dude in New Zealand. Yeah, I hate Ben Brown. Thanks for being a fan and listening, and that's pretty cool. Didn't heard us all the way from Montana. Amen um. In the spirit of Steve's apology for the the Washington elcount, I'd issued like a semi fair warning, you know, like if you're thinking about coming out here to hunt these things which you should do. Um, just know that it's like not a slam dunk, Like it's gonna be way different, way different hunt than what I think a lot of people are expecting. They're gonna be hard to find and like hard to scout. And yeah, it's good. You probably had to come do but you might need to come do it a few times to get a dial. Yeah. Since we've kind of talked about where they live, if you're gonna come here, just be prepared. Yeah, it's not like showing up somewhere to go squirrel hunting or something. You have to figure it out a little bit. But I want to come and do it for sure. You're fired up. Man, They're cool. Cool. I wish they were native man. Yeah, we discussion like what we're talking Cal and I were talking about that a little bit, like when do is there a point at which something becomes honorary native? Yeah, honorary native. If there is, I feel that they've achieved because, like I said, they've woven themselves into the cultural fabric of the East Shore. Yeah, with humans, all you have to do is be born there. I know, well not even I mean, you could be you could be born there, but um naturalized, Yeah, naturalized, good stuff. Brody. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, Brody Henderson, take it easy, Stephen. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to work with you guys this week. You know, it was it was exciting to see how the sausage is made, so to speak, for a meat Eater episode. We've read Ups and Sinclair's The Jungle how the sausages made. I think I was supposed to one of the books I skipped in high school that I was supposed to read, or don't remember at least, but now it was. It was great to work with you guys, and it was, frankly, it was it was fun to see a couple real experienced consummate hunters put back on the early stages of the learning curve. You know, the enthusiasm I saw in you guys coming back seeing something new and trying to suss out how these animals work and what makes them tick and how to be successful. It was cool for me to see that because I think a lot of folks assume that you guys are so good at what you do that it becomes sort of blase after a while. And I got to see firsthand that sort of enthusiasm and appreciation for the resource and respect for the animals that that you guys have. And I think that's what makes met Eater so special. Uh is that really shines through and the products the podcast, the show that you do, and you know, working with the guys behind the scene. My shadow for the week here, Lauren, was was a lot of fun. Um. I was not successful in taking a deer, but you you you put yourself in a position where you're sucking high and tit the whole time giving us the cherry spots. There's a little bit of that. I wanted you let us, let us go with all the hotspots and you go up and just figure something out to not getting our way. Yeah, I was you. I've been like boys, I've just found it. They really like it. Right here by the truck. I'll go back into the marsh. Don't forget the bugs. B No. I definitely wanted to see you be successful and I think he got some great footage and be looking forward to whenever it comes out in the airs. And then my final final concluder is to my friend Johan who has the other piece of the antler. You don't need to send it back to anybody. You've got my blessing to keep it. Um. But I know he's a pretty avid listener, so I don't hear about it. It'll probably be mad that I didn't contact him and tell him to come down and meet you while you're here. So Okale, thanks a ton. We've been talking about this for a long long time, and I gotta say I just exceeded expectations. How did you guys meet? Anyway? I was working, literally, I was three months in, three or four months into working at First Light at two thousand twelve, doing sales marketing, customer service, a little bit of product um and uh, Steve got a hold of me um and Cerosfully I called the bitch about a ripping Mike conn Ops and he did me right, And you guys struck up a little friendship. And he was like, yeah, seek a deer in a longbow and I bet you don't even know what that is. And so and then the more I got into it, I was like, oh my god, you can call them like you can? You know, you can use calls, which is something I love. Um doesn't matter if it's ducks or elk or whatever. Um, turkeys and just something that I hadn't heard of. Tons of public ground that taste really good. Um. And it just and I just as we've discussed, I just finished uh chess Peak Mitchener's chess Peak like the year before, and uh, I feel like he does a great job in this area because the story of the chess Peak Bay is just this constant change because of well now like saltwater encroachment. Um. And you know it's it's um erosion, right, And I think that's one of the coolest things that I kind of came to. And this really is my concluder is Um, you have so many things that have changed in this area and gone away, all these islands that have fallen in into the water and a road subsumed by water. Yeah, they didn't fall into the water. I want to make that clarify that I'm gonna disagree. Um, they blew away, right, Steve, What's that the islands washed away? They got as soon as they got covered by water at some point eroded the trees. Anyway, go on account. Yeah, I'm following you. Um. And then you have this species, although it is an invasive species, which I'm totally on the other side of. On every other argument that is now like finding new life and growth in an area where a lot of things are going away in a compromised ecosystem, which I was just blown away by. And man, it seems like a really good thing. And I'm really interested to see what biologists kind of pop out after after I listening to this as to what the other side is, because I know there's another side out there. They have to be competing against something. There's a Telvin show my kids are watching which I which I despise, called Animal Mechanicals. It's where all it's like this. I viewed as this this dystopian universe where it's a post wildlife world where the animals are mechanical, all the all the trees and plants, everything is artificial and mechanical. But it's meant to be cool and they do cool things. But when you watch it, it's like this, that's yeah, it's a dystopian post wildlife world. And so as you have this ecosystem here where there's it's the dominant plants, it's a non native grass, an invasive non native grass trees that were planted rising ocean levels that are encroaching on and destroying vegetation, a non native deer that is thriving in this environment, it winds up being like on the surface, you'd come and be like, wow, this is amazing, But on the other hand, you look and it's like emblematic of a lot of problems that we have with a lot of wildlife problems that we have. Yeah, and it's gonna be I'm sure he is right now, a major major conversation and the homogenizing effect of non native wildlife, nonnative flora and fauna, and it's got a culture around it and an economy around it. And yeah, I mean it's it's fascinating stuff. We're adaptive in our tastes. You gotta wonder how many white tales we would have seen in there in a week if there were no secret deer the way more we did not that an anti right, I'm just a question, yea, Janie, Janie poodless Um, great time this week. Thanks Steve again, appreciate you hosting us. We stay in Steve's uh you know, may to plug your A and B come down here and Church Creek and staying Steve spot. What it's a sweet little spot. We're gonna want to come down and Steve's gonna be like, oh, I can't, I'm all booked up. He's gonna be like, who, just let me know when you're coming. Now, I'm rolling my eyes now if you can't hear me, my eyes are rolling in my head. Um, I was gonna give you some I was gonna plug your Airbnb, Steve. No, I make sure to protect some days for for when I'm planning a hunt, and if I know you guys are coming, they'll be there's long and available. Yeah, but there's a long season. It opens up September six that runs through the end of uh January. And you know, we've got this house that I used to live here Monday through Friday, um, when I worked on the New Trio project, and now that I'm over on the Western Shore and one of those people, those people right, uh, you know that you're a chicken necker. I Uh, my wife and I decided to put the us up on Airbnb after we were unsuccessful in selling it, and lo and behold, it's been pretty popular through the summer months. Um. We try to keep the price raisable and for a group of guys that come in, it's much cheaper than a hotel and you've got all the amenities at home, and and uh, you know it's it doesn't get the use during the hunting season that it does. Uh. You know, it starts to taper off in September, October, November, December, January. But uh did have an interesting case where we got an inquiry about a booking from someone in upstate New York. It turned out to live in the community right next to where I grew up. And uh, they come down in January for seven they booked for a ten day hunt this year coming up. So but yeah, it's available. It's called the Church Creek Getaway. If you go on Airbnb and look at at Cambridge, Maryland area man Church Creek Away. Too much information, Man, next day we'll be talking about where to buy them crabball. I was gonna give you a hot tip though on uh to get yourself prepared for the moment of truth with your bow. There's a way to practice for them. A couple of things I've done is you can enter tournaments and if you're in a competition sort of a setting, there's you know, stress or that you induce. You know that that setting induces on you, understand. I don't think that's a good idea. That's only gets the same thing. But go ahead, No, it's not the same thing at all, But you get us. There's a stress that you when you're at home just flinging arrows that you can't replicate, right, And if you got a bunch of mugs like nah, like that kind of stuff, Yeah, that helps a little bit. What you can do at home with a bunch of mugs is put some wagers on the line, but some money on the line. Yeah, but that that's not Yeah, I appreciate the effort, man, but I don't think this is like, this is the same thing. You don't have to tell me if I'm right or wrong. I'm giving you a hot tip as a way to get better at your shooting. In that moment of truth, it's sort of deal with stress. If you's there's a large sum of money, you are going to force yourself to focus and to block out everything else, and you're not gonna allow yourself to go from oh I got this thing too, because you're like, no, there's a hundred and I need to take a second longer, exhale and squeeze. Yeah, that's true. Because even when we have rock thrown contest. I pay a lot more attention once we've got money on a rock thrown contest. Totally, I can see it, but it's still Yeah, it's just really hard to replicate man. Yeah, there's no way to replicate it. It's just things that we can do to uh, you know, it's better than nothing, better than nothing, better than nothing. Okay, I think that's everything, Like folks stops Amber d

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