Ep. 660: MeatEater Radio Live! Coues Deer, "Cowz" Deer, and Two Truths and a Lie

Summary

Episode Summary: Ep. 660: MeatEater Radio Live! Coues Deer, "Cowz" Deer, and Two Truths and a Lie

Host and Guests:

• Randall Williams (Host)
• Seth Morris (Co-host)
• Giannis Putellis (Co-host)
• Ryan Callahan (Guest)
• Phil Kramer (Hunting Guide)
• Jim Heffelfinger (Hunting Expert)

Release Date: February 7, 2025

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1. Introduction and Opening Remarks

The episode kicks off with Randall Williams welcoming listeners to "MeatEater Radio Live" at [02:44]. Alongside Seth Morris and Giannis Putellis, Randall sets the stage for a dynamic discussion focused on their recent hunting expedition for Coues (also known as "Cowz") Deer in Mexico. They tease a variety of segments including show and tell, expert interviews, and a game of Two Truths and a Lie.

2. Discussing the Recent Mexico Coues Deer Trip

The hosts delve into their recent hunting trip down south, sharing anecdotes and experiences from the rugged terrains of Mexico. At [04:40], Randall mentions, “We're going all in on our recent Mexico Coues deer trip,” highlighting the intensive and adventurous nature of the expedition.

Notable Quotes:

• Cal: “[04:43] And you're not reading a script.”
• Randall: “[03:23] We’re live if you can’t tell by that live error.”

3. Show and Tell: Sharing Deer Bucks

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the hosts showcasing photos and stories of the deer they encountered. At [17:15], Seth Morris introduces their “show and tell” segment, sharing images and recounting thrilling moments from the hunt.

Notable Quotes:

• Randall: “[19:01] I did, but that was great. I was super excited to just be able to go down there on like 48 hours notice.”
• Giannis: “[25:17] The peashooter there is the short action sawtooth, which is a new build for Sig Sauer.”

4. Promotions and Announcements

Throughout the episode, there are several promotional segments interwoven with the main content:

• Book Promotion: At [07:02], Randall promotes "Meat Eaters American History: The Mountain Men 1806-1840," detailing its exploration of the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and the lives of legendary mountain men.
• Upcoming Events: The hosts announce upcoming tours and speaking engagements, including dates at MSU Bozeman, University of Montana Missoula, and University of Wyoming Laramie ([08:03]).

Notable Quotes:

• Randall: “[06:15] It was a great dog. Very tasty. Thank you to our friends at Carreta Delrora.”

5. Somber Announcement: Flight Crash Involving Hunters

At [09:32], Cal delivers a heartfelt announcement regarding the tragic crash of Flight 5342, which claimed the lives of seven hunters, including friends from the MeatEater community. He shares information on how listeners can support the affected families through a GoFundMe page and a sponsored goose hunt event.

Notable Quotes:

• Cal: “[10:02] Seven of their hunters were on their way home and unfortunately lost their lives. So our thoughts, prayers go out to everybody involved.”

6. Upcoming Events: NWTF and Public Lands Party

Giannis announces a series of giveaways and afterparty events in conjunction with the National Wild Turkey Federation ([12:09]). They also promote a celebration for public lands in Utah, emphasizing conservation efforts and community engagement.

Notable Quotes:

• Giannis: “[13:31] We’re going to host in conjunction with NWTF Friday night a big series of giveaways.”

7. Hunting Stories and Experiences

The hosts share detailed hunting stories, including close encounters and successful shots:

• Randall recounts the story of shooting a buck chasing a doe on [18:16].
• Ryan shares a tense moment when a doe almost stepped on him at [20:40].
• Giannis discusses the challenges of spotting Coues Deer in dense winds at [23:59].

Notable Quotes:

• Randall: “[19:03] I did, but that was great. I was super excited to just be able to go down there on like 48 hours notice.”
• Ryan: “[20:40] ...there was a doe. She had literally stepped between me and the bush that was maybe six feet away.”

8. Product Promotions: First Light and Sonoran Hot Dogs

The hosts discuss product testing and promotional materials commissioned by First Light ([36:25]). Additionally, they highlight the delicious Sonoran hot dogs they enjoyed during their trip, providing a cultural taste of their hunting expedition.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim: “[80:22] ...the hot dog is usually wrapped in bacon and then the bacon is fried so it’s crispy on the hot dog.”
• Cal: “[35:51] Yes.”

9. Guest Segment: Phil Kramer

Phil Kramer joins the show to discuss his extensive experience hunting Coues Deer in Mexico. He offers valuable insights for first-time international hunters, emphasizing the importance of reputable outfitters and thorough preparation ([41:46]).

Notable Quotes:

• Phil: “[42:04] ...all of our paperwork’s in order, we work with licensed Mexican outfitters to make sure that everything we’re doing is above board.”

10. Discussion on Coues Deer vs. Whitetail Deer

Jim Heffelfinger joins to elucidate the differences between Coues (Cowz) Deer and typical whitetail deer, addressing genetic distinctions and subspecies variations ([66:11]).

Notable Quotes:

• Jim: “[66:49] There's no doubt that it's cows deer. Elliot. In a footnote in one of, he was a bird guy in one of his bird articles, he wrote a footnote and said my name is pronounced C O, W, Z.”

11. Listener Questions and Answers

Listeners engage with the hosts and guests through questions about Coues Deer, hunting strategies, habitat management, and more. Phil and Jim provide expert answers, enhancing the educational value of the episode ([73:18]).

Notable Quotes:

• Randall: “[74:31] ...What are some of your main takeaways as far as differentiating Akuz deer or cow's deer from your average whitetail?”
• Jim: “[72:13]... the answer is no cows white tailed deer has not been detected.”

12. Two Truths and a Lie Game

The episode features a fun and engaging game of Two Truths and a Lie among the hosts, bringing humor and camaraderie to the show ([82:31]).

Notable Quotes:

• Cal: “[83:18] ...Which two are true and which one is a lie.”
• Giannis: “[83:19] ...I have bagged, over time, a black bear, a mountain lion, and, you know, a white tail.”

13. Closing Remarks and Final Announcements

As the episode winds down, the hosts recap key moments, thank their guest Phil Kramer, and tease upcoming content, including Steve Rinella’s birthday celebration ([94:58]). They also mention a special segment promoting DraftKings Sportsbook towards the end ([96:28]).

Notable Quotes:

• Randall: “[94:53] Thanks for tuning in, everybody. This is delightful. We'll see you next week.”

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• Randall Williams (Various):

  • “[19:03] I did, but that was great. I was super excited to just be able to go down there on like 48 hours notice.”
  • “[21:08] We have a couple other close encounters with deer just wandering up to his glassing point.”
  • “[71:54] ...we can't do anything about it. Just go down and hunt hard.”

• Cal:

  • “[04:43] And you're not reading a script.”
  • “[22:00] What is that weird photo?”
  • “[84:18] Ryan.”

• Phil Kramer:

  • “[42:04] ...all of our paperwork’s in order, we work with licensed Mexican outfitters to make sure that everything we’re doing is above board.”

• Jim Heffelfinger:

  • “[66:49] There's no doubt that it's cows deer. Elliot...”

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Conclusion

Episode 660 of "The MeatEater Podcast" offers an immersive dive into the world of Coues Deer hunting in Mexico, enriched by firsthand accounts, expert insights, and engaging interactions among the hosts and guests. From thrilling hunting stories and practical advice for international hunters to cultural highlights like Sonoran hot dogs and lively games, this episode is a comprehensive guide for hunting enthusiasts and nature lovers alike. The inclusion of somber moments and community support initiatives underscores the show's commitment to both adventure and responsibility.

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For those interested in further details, including purchasing the promoted audiobook or supporting the Flight 5342 families, refer to the show notes for links and additional information.

Transcript

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[Stephen Rinella]

Hey American history buffs, Hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition, titled the Mountain Men 1806-1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellas like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith and John Colter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the west represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times, violent conditions. We explain what started the Mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as as our previous volume about the white tailed deer skin trade, which is titled the Long Hunters 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806-1840 by me, Stephen Rannoa.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Smell us now, lady.

[Cal]

Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia Meat Eater.

[Randall Williams]

Podcast welcome to Meat Eater radio live. It's 11am Mountain Time on Thursday, January 30th. That's not right. It is Thursday, February 6th. If it were Thursday, January 30th. I'd still be in old Mexico.

[Cal]

And you're not reading a script.

[Seth Morris]

No, this isn't scripted off the dome.

[Randall Williams]

It's good because Steve refused to read that portion in last week's episode, so just covering up his tracks. As I said, we are live if you can't tell by that live error. I'm your host, Randall Williams, and I'm joined today by Seth Morris and Giannis Putellis. And we also have the pleasure of having Ryan Callahan join us for a little bit on today's episode. We've got a great show for you today. We're going to go all in on our recent Mexico coos deer trip. We've got a little show and tell plan with our bucks or whatever Giannis brought to share. We're going to talk to Phil Kramer, a guide with more than 17 years of experience hunting coos deer in Mexico. We're going to chat with friend of the program and meat eater contributor Jim Heffelfinger, who literally wrote the book on deer of the Southwest. And we're going to play a delightful little game called Two Truths and a Lie. But before we get started, if anyone out there in the audience has questions for Jim or Phil, we have two experts that'll be joining us today. So you can get any of the questions you want answered about coosdeer Kuzdeer hunting, just add them into the chat and we'll try to get those guys to answer them. And yeah, looking forward to talking with those gentlemen who we just saw, you know, less than a week ago.

[Cal]

Yeah, we were eating Sonoran hot dogs with them.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, man, I think I had three.

[Cal]

And the in total and our total time down there. Yeah, I think I had three in one sitting.

[Randall Williams]

Well, we, we, I think we each started with two and then got a third.

[Cal]

Yeah, I guess we only went to one dog place. Yeah, we missed it on the way down.

[Randall Williams]

Cal insisted on tacos on the way down, which was not a mistake, but it also wasn't a hot dog.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Oh, I got a tripe burrito. Can't find those up here in Bozeman.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. And that one guy got tattoos all over his face and neck.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, exactly.

[Randall Williams]

It was an interesting crowd.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Win, win.

[Cal]

Yeah. Jim hooked us up, I feel like, with our new favorite Mexican joint in Tucson.

[Ryan Callahan]

Oh, that place was.

[Cal]

Well, you never went to El Guero Canelo, but that was kind of our standby.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Cal]

And it's good. But we talked to a couple police officers that came into our new favorite. What was it called La Carrieta.

[Ryan Callahan]

I don't remember.

[Cal]

However you say cart in Spanish is the name of this place, I think.

[Randall Williams]

Del Rojo or something. Rora Delroa.

[Cal]

There you go.

[Randall Williams]

We'll get Jim on it.

[Cal]

But yeah, I like their dogs better. And then we had that tasty little taco that was like two small flour tortillas with a poblano chili, I believe, splayed out across both of them, some carne asada and then melted cheese on top of that. Very simple, four ingredients. And then you'd have to cut the poblano in half and you get two little mini tacos. I think I like that better than the dog.

[Giannis Puttelis]

That's the best Sonoran dog I've had.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, it was a great dog. Very tasty. Thank you to our friends at Carreta Delrora. Oh, oh. Before we get started, some exciting announcements to get to. You can pre order the Mountain Men audiobook, Meat Eaters American History the Mountain Men, 1806-1840. Pre order now. It is released on Tuesday of this coming week, so Tuesday, February 11th. So if you pre order it now, it will just download automatically and show up wherever you get your audiobooks the morning of its release. And yeah, it's like 1112 bucks. I think it's a great deal. You're going to get your money's worth on content.

[Cal]

How do you feel about the new project?

[Randall Williams]

I'm happy with it. I think it's great. There's no shortage of wild mountain men stories, and we tried to cover as many as we could.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Would you mind just promoting the book as if you were an old mountain man in the same parlance and verbiage?

[Randall Williams]

Oh, man. For all the research that I did, I didn't work on a character.

[Giannis Puttelis]

You've read a gajillion journal entries, though, so you can kind of guess.

[Randall Williams]

Hey, come on down and get the old Mountain man audiobook. I'm hungry.

[Cal]

I'm tired.

[Ryan Callahan]

Before the spring thaw.

[Randall Williams]

Before the spring thaw. It'll keep you occupied in your winter quarters before we go out and chase beaver again in the spring. Don't you know that's just more Wisconsin. And we also thank you.

[Giannis Puttelis]

You are the expert, so I can't argue with that. Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

We're also going on a little mountain men tour. Steve and I are heading out on the road and we will be here in Bozeman at MSU on February 11th. We'll be at the University of Montana in Missoula on February 20th. And we will be at the University of Wyoming in Laramie on the 26th of February. That is the only evening where there are still seats left. The other two are sold out. So if you got your seats reserved, we look forward to seeing you and talking mountain men and talking history. And if you're in the greater Laramie area or you feel like making a little road trip, you can still go on the meet.

[Cal]

Yeah, it's not far from Denver.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, no, no, we're actually flying into Denver. Yeah, Avoid that long drive down so.

[Giannis Puttelis]

My little sister pick you up.

[Randall Williams]

That'd be lovely.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Plastic seats in the back of the cop car. It's kind of fun.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, that would be the longest ride of. Yeah, probably the longest ride I've ever taken in the back of a cop car.

[Giannis Puttelis]

What I like about it is I was very excited to make eye contact with other motorists. You know, during Denver, traffic doesn't happen. Nobody looks at you. Oh, but it's a fun game.

[Randall Williams]

Maybe you weren't making enough of a scene. Yeah, we got, like 100 seats left in Wyoming. I think we. We have, like, a space that holds 1100 and we got 100 left. So if you like making a little drive and learning about the mountain men, come on out and see us. Giannis, I understand you have announcement you'd like to make.

[Cal]

Yeah, I just saw that too, and I wasn't quite prepared. But it's a bummer to have to give this announcement, but it's in regards to the seven hunters that were on that flight going to D.C. last week that crashed and that lost their lives. They came. They were on their way home from foul planes, which Cal myself. You didn't make it to one, did you?

[Ryan Callahan]

No.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Max fell in there. Max was there.

[Cal]

Brent Clay did a trip. Steve was going to. Missed one. But, yeah, we did our three meteor experiences over there. And yeah, seven of their hunters were on their way home and unfortunately lost their lives. So our thoughts, prayers go out to everybody involved and associated with them. But if you'd like to help out the families that are very affected by losing these seven men, there's a couple ways you can help out. There's a. A GoFundMe page that is. I think the title is Help Southern Maryland families after Flight 5342 crash. They've already raised. This is awesome. They've raised 200 and almost $218,000. Their goal was $200,000. So awesome. Thank you for everybody that's donated so far. If you wish to help them out, you can. And there's Another way you can help them out. There's a all inclusive 3 day goose hunt at Foul Plains that they're putting on. Southern Oak Kennels is involved. I believe you get some puppy training along with this. They've sold 970 of the tickets. There's nine days still remaining to buy tickets. It's like a raffle deal, I'm guessing. So if you wish to help out these families, there's a couple great ways to do that. Again, thoughts go out to everybody over there at Foul Plains and everybody else affected with that.

[Randall Williams]

And Cal, it seems we also have announcements from you. Oh yeah, some fun events coming up.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Coming real quick. If anybody's planning on heading over or if you're not planning on heading over, but you're in the that big Nashville area. During the National Wild Turkey Federation get together, we are going to host in conjunction with NWTF Friday night a big series of of giveaways. It's like an afterparty to the big banquet that they have. This one I think is 40 bucks to get in the door ralphing off a bunch of really great prize packages of first light and guns and all sorts of good things. The Isbel brothers are going to be there playing music. Spencer Newharth and Clay Newcomb are going to put together and you know, Giannis and I'll help to some live trivia for everybody. We're going to help mc and one of the big draws is if you've never got a Goulds turkey, you can put your name in the hat for Gould's turkey hunt. Same with Miriam's Easterns Rios, you know, so it can help you complete your turkey slam. And all you got to do is show up and, and help another super awesome habitat organization, nwtf. So you get a membership with that, of course and we'll be there helping, you know, grease the economic wheels of conservation. So you don't have to be a member to show up, but you should show up and become a member and you can win a bunch of stuff.

[Cal]

I'm going just so Dan Isabel shows me a picture of his giant buck and I get to hear the story of that giant buck he killed in Kansas. There you go. So if you're there, he might tell you that story.

[Randall Williams]

So if you're not into turkeys, there's.

[Cal]

Also there's that boys be playing music. I want to point out that when we did that episode with Luke Combs pronghorn hunting, they were both there and Reed sang a little bit for me, like separately from the group and I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then when I pressed him on it to do it more, he didn't really want to sing more in front of the bigger group. I didn't really understand why.

[Randall Williams]

What did he sing to you?

[Seth Morris]

Just.

[Cal]

I don't know. One of his songs that he. He. Not. It wasn't a love song. I don't believe it was just country song, but beautiful voice. And so I'm really happy to see that he's back in the. Back in the. You know, in the saddle. In the saddle and gonna do some singing and playing some music for us, so.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And your average country song's like three and a half, four minutes at this point. I think. I think a lot of them are actually getting shorter than that. So if you want to have the buck conversation, you're gonna have to be like, yeah, hey, man, I heard. You heard. Heard about a big buck. And then they're gonna play a song, and you're gonna have to think about the next part of that story for two and a half, three and a half minutes. But it can be done. Good, good draw.

[Randall Williams]

And then the night after the big party.

[Cal]

Yeah, if you can't make it to Nashville to hang out, but you're in the Salt Lake City area, you can.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Come hang out at Party for Public Lands Utah. BHA is doing the heavy lifting on this one. They're kicking butt. They got a bunch of brands together, bunch of folks that are going to show up to the beer bar Saturday night, Salt Lake City. This is in conjunction with mdf. They've been in the loop the whole way. Doors are open to all nonprofits, and it's just a celebration of public lands. We're going to give away a bunch of stuff to help get you in the door, and there's going to be some ways that you can throw some cash at the support of public lands. But it's really important to get everybody together. Show a big, broad coalition of folks that know that federally managed lands are public lands, and those are the ones that are open to everybody to go out and explore, hunt fish, recreate. Super important to us. And we want you to show up Saturday night at the beer bar. You can track down the event through backcountry hunters and anglers and pre register to make sure that you have a ticket to get in the door.

[Cal]

So does it cost anything to get in?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Doesn't cost anything to get in, but we are going to hit maximum capacity on the venue so you can ensure the fact that you can get in by Registering early. And then we are also going to allow some pre registration at the first light booth at Western Hunt Expo as well. Giannis and I and a bunch of the first light crew are going to be down there. We're coming in a little late, but look for that big first light booth. Phelps booth, FHF booth. Dave Smith, decoy booth at the Western Hunt Expo. We'll get you pointed in the right direction.

[Cal]

Yep. Come show me a picture of your big buck. Tell me. Tell me a story.

[Randall Williams]

Who's dear buck?

[Cal]

Make it. Make it real quick. Sure, if you kill the koozie, I'd love to see it.

[Randall Williams]

Speaking of photos of coos, Dear Buck, Phil Bucks. Yes. I think it's time for show and tell.

[Seth Morris]

Show and tell, you say?

[Randall Williams]

Please, me need a show and tell.

[Seth Morris]

Me to show. Heads down. Whoa.

[Cal]

Oh, you're missing out, gal.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Seth Morris]

Spencer brought a rock. What else did you expect?

[Randall Williams]

Did you do the light thing before?

[Seth Morris]

No, that's new.

[Randall Williams]

That's really.

[Seth Morris]

I'm just trying stuff over here. Some of it will stick, some won't, but, you know, I think we keep.

[Randall Williams]

I think we keep the pulsing light show great.

[Seth Morris]

Sounds good.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, that was nice. Nice touch.

[Randall Williams]

Well, we've got some photos. As we've mentioned, we just got back from Mexico last week. We've got some photos to share with the gang.

[Cal]

That's pre haircut there.

[Randall Williams]

Pre haircut. Broaden the sides a little bit. Actually, this photo was inspiration for the haircut based on the comments I received. That's the buck I shot on day. Day four, maybe of being down there. Day four, day five, something like that.

[Ryan Callahan]

They kind of all run together.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, tell me about it. But, yeah, this we got like Giannis and I were actually trying to get me to shoot another buck earlier that morning, and he dove over a ridge. And then this buck was chasing a doe on the same hillside a little ways down. So we rallied up and met up with Seth and Cade, who's one of the guides down there. And this buck and a smaller buck were chasing a doe, just kind of going crazy all over the hillside. And they went down into a bottom and then popped up two something two, 250. And he paused for just a second maybe to catch his breath or collect his thoughts because he was having a rather active morning. And I shot him.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And you put an end to all that?

[Randall Williams]

I did, I did, but that was great. I was super excited to just be able to go down there on like 48 hours notice. And then I wanted to shoot a buck that looked Like a coosdeer buck. And that's the buck I found that looks like one. And then the other funny twist to this was there was a bigger buck on that hill, Macho Grande. And we were trying to get Seth to shoot him, but he never popped back up. But there was a moment in time when Cade and I were retrieving that buck, where we. We heard Giannis say on the radio, seth, why don't you get behind the gun? And Kade and I sprinted to the nearest little creek bottom and hid behind some big rocks until the coast was clear. So we even had a little bit of adventure after I'd pulled the trigger.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

But. Yeah, just. Just a really nice morning. I was happy to do it with all my friends there. I think that was the only buck I was present for the shooting of.

[Cal]

Well, you had two others that literally slipped out of being your buck by just seconds.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, yeah. The. Maybe the morning before. Yeah, the morning before, we, Seth and Giannis, turned up a buck that was just cruising down a hill. And by the time I got there and got set up on him, he had walked down to the bottom and was coming up our side. So I did a little hike around the other side, tried to turn him up, but never saw him again. And then we made a big hike over to the agave patch, and there was a buck over there, maybe a couple bucks, and they never turned up. But I did have a doe almost step on me.

[Cal]

Oh, right. That was exciting.

[Randall Williams]

I wish we had that on video. But, yeah, we were waiting for these deer to step out, and I'm laying down behind the gun, and Giannis is messing with his backpack, and something just passes right in front of my face. And I thought maybe his seat, like his foam seat pad blew away or something blew out of his backpack. And then I thought, because it was windy. And then I thought a foam seat blowing away wouldn't spray gravel on my face and gun. And I looked up, and there was a doe. She had literally stepped between me and the bush that was maybe six feet away. And. And that's probably the closest I've ever come to having a deer step on me.

[Ryan Callahan]

It was close.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And we did have Multiple days of 20 to 30 mile an hour sustained winds.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

It was brutal.

[Randall Williams]

And Cal had a couple other close encounters with deer just wandering up the. Up to his glassing point.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I did have a buck and doe just kind of leisurely walk within under 10 yards, which was always fun. Yeah, I thought it was my glass. And partner, Pete Walking around. And I finally looked and no, it was two deer.

[Ryan Callahan]

It was deer.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Cute little deer.

[Randall Williams]

Lots of stories, lots of fun. Here's a picture of your buck, Cal. Why don't you tell us about that guy?

[Giannis Puttelis]

So we spotted this guy the first after. It was not technically. What we would have typically said is like the hunt day. Obviously you get all the hunting in that you can. But we went out, made sure our rifles were sighted in and shot a bunch of rocks and paper, which is super fun. And then we split off to just kind of casually look for deer. And Seth and I ended up sprinting off of one mountain and doing a nice jog. I turned to Seth at one point and I said because he was running behind me, picking up all the stuff that was falling off off of me. Which is nice to have that back up. And I said, we're just going to keep up this pace as long as gravity allows.

[Ryan Callahan]

As soon as we hit the uphill.

[Cal]

Went to a walk.

[Giannis Puttelis]

We went to a walk. Yeah. But made it up onto the same slope that the buck was on just in time to see him get kind of set up. And he slipped behind a tree. And we were ready to smoke him as soon as he stepped out of the bush that he went behind. And he never stepped out from behind the bush.

[Ryan Callahan]

So as coos deer do all the time.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

I was disappear.

[Randall Williams]

They have like this reputation as like being very hard to see the gray ghost. The gray ghost. And I was surprised as the first time Kuzdeer hunter. You know, like we were spotting a lot of them. I was sort of thinking we'd get there and just be grinding it out trying to find a deer. We found a lot of deer. But, man, a lot of the deer that were interesting would just step behind something and he'd never see them again for the rest of the week. I thought that was the last light.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Low light situations.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

They. It's shocking how they can be standing on a relatively wide open hillside in the open.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And just totally be invisible to the. To the naked eye at distance especially. So, yeah. Anyway, we stayed with this little ball or rut activity for the next day and a half and could not turn this dude up. But it was still just kind of the place to be. And eventually he. We had not seen a deer all morning. And pretty close to 1:00 in the afternoon, one doe stepped out and it was right before it was about to hike off and go check out another spot. And sat back down, stared at the doe, looked all around forever Nothing came out. And then finally that dude rolled out and. Yeah. Great buck. Nice. Carries all the mass all the way through. And.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. Nice, heavy buck.

[Randall Williams]

One of his sides, the picture doesn't really capture it, but one of his sides. The main beam just ends in like a broom handle.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Like, it flattens out, which is kind of neat.

[Cal]

And it's.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. Like, from the top, it just looks like the end of a hot dog. It's just. There's no point to it. It's just round and round and thick.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yep.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

So that was. That was super awesome. And that peashooter there is the short action sawtooth, which is a new build for Sig Sauer and.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. Sweet, sweet shooting gun.

[Randall Williams]

Very cool.

[Giannis Puttelis]

I'm going to be honest with everybody. Like, we're not hiking our butts off like we typically do on a ton of hunts. You got to get someplace high and see a ton of country. Kind of get math to work on your sides in the. In the cow's deer arena. So there's a lot of sitting and those guns are incredible shooting platforms. And all of us had lots of wind to deal with, and it's just so nice. Bipod on that sawtooth is just a rock solid here.

[Cal]

I'm jealous of yours. Mine was shooting good, but yours is pretty much punching the same hole at 100 yards, which is pretty sweet.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And, yeah, not with a ton of bags and stuff. Right. Like, I feel like you could. If you really solidified that position, it might be doing just a smidge better.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Stephen Rinella]

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[Stephen Rinella]

Hey, American history buffs. Hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History. This edition titled The Mountain Men 1806-1840. We tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith and John Colter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the west represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white tailed deer skin trade, which is titled the Long Hunters 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History the Mountain Men 1806-1840 by me, Stephen Ranella.

[Randall Williams]

Here we have a. A photo of Seth's buck.

[Cal]

What is that weird photo?

[Randall Williams]

Well Phil, why don't you click to the right.

[Giannis Puttelis]

That's how an artist.

[Ryan Callahan]

That's an artsy photo. Yeah, yeah, picture boy. Yeah. So my, I don't know how many days into the trip it was when I killed mine the day after mine, day after years.

[Randall Williams]

So whatever non specific answer I gave for that, just add one and you'll.

[Ryan Callahan]

Know when Seth killed his Randall's buck plus one. So this. So we're pretty sure that you guys saw this buck the day before, but got a quick little glamp glimpse of it and it disappeared like who's deer do? Next morning I found myself looking at the same hillside and yeah, just happened to pick this buck up on the hillside. He kind of rolled over the ridge with a smaller buck. Um, and then he bedded down in the wide open. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. Just gonna go down there. I was like 800 and some yards at this point, I was like, I'm just gonna run down there and kill him. Well, I go down there and can't find him. He's like k. Our one guy that we were with, he was watching him the whole time while I was like making a move on him. And he's like, yeah, he's still, still there. But we're like where I was. You just couldn't see him on the hillside. So I kind of moved around and ended up like getting on this little knob at the base of the hill and just sitting there waiting for him to, to move. And then he did get up and moved and then Cade lost him and we just like lost this buck. And I was kind of getting ready to just give up and go look for a different buck because I thought he like just got out of there without us seeing. And Cade ended up finding them again. And it turns out that I had ended up about 120 yards from this buck, not knowing it. So I actually had to pick all my stuff up and like very quietly backtrack and go from about 120 yards to 300 yards where I ended up shooting them just so I could get a shot at him. Cause we're where I was sitting, I couldn't see him. So yeah, it was kind of a bit of a scramble to get there. Set up on a tripod and the rest was history. Shot him at 310 yards.

[Randall Williams]

Lovely. Lovely. Yeah, we got some, some photos here from Seth.

[Ryan Callahan]

Oh yeah, there's Randall putting his boots on in the morning. I. The photos I shared here were not much of the hunt just because we were kind of playing with a bunch of unreleased SIG products that I had a bunch of photos of, so I couldn't really share those yet, but.

[Randall Williams]

Fireplace.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, it's just, just kind of our environment down there. What we experience some, some quite a few of those authentic Mexican food.

[Seth Morris]

We've had a few questions about the taste difference between cow's deer and whitetail up here. Is there any, anything noticeable there?

[Giannis Puttelis]

I've been eating cow's deer non stop since, since we've gotten back and it's fantastic. Just, I mean, so you're aware a lot of cowboys on the ranch and they absolutely love this meat. It's highly sought after. So we typically do give some meat away. We ate a whole ham while we were down there. Chili, Colorado, Colorado, which is great. And then yeah, I, I took the loins, tenderloins and, and parted out the front shoulders and took those home. And then Gave. Gave the rest to. The rest to the caballeros on the place. And it's good. It's really good. I think it's very tender. Super awesome there. I got a little tub of front leg curry down there that is fantastic. And eaten, you know, several little backstrap steaks. And they're. They're awesome. Really good. Really good. Is it distinct from the rest of your North American whitetails? I think you're gonna have, like. Like these are non GMO whitetails. Right? Like, they're not getting anywhere near corn, soybeans, etc. So I think there's gonna be a different flavor to. To this deer versus, like, your. Your Iowa corn patch deer.

[Seth Morris]

And we have a question for Giannis. Let me see if I can find it here. Okay. This is from Attack the. The D point, he says. So I heard that Giannis ate 11 burritos one day on the Mexico trip. Is this true?

[Cal]

Yes. I might even gotten a 12 the next day. They're small burritos, though. They're not like the one burrito you buy for $10 for lunch, and it fills you up. These are depending on bite size, you know. Three to four bite burritos, would you say?

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, the lunch burritos are. I mean, I made some. I made real units.

[Cal]

You made some gringo burritos. So did I. So that day that I set this record that now stands at that ranch, I think for breakfast, I had two or three big gringo breakfast burritos.

[Randall Williams]

Then I had five for lunch?

[Cal]

No, I think I had eight because I had my four. Plus I brought four more from the guy that wasn't eating his burritos. But I gave one of his away to you, right?

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Yeah. So what does that bring me up to? That's nine. And I think I had two or three at dinner.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. And then you had a. You had just one. You had a dessert burrito, too?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, straight frijoles.

[Randall Williams]

Frijoles, yeah.

[Cal]

That's how I like my dessert down there.

[Randall Williams]

But all the meals. All the meals were the exact same, except for the protein. Like, breakfast and dinner and lunch were tortillas. Tortillas, frijoles, queso, some cheese, some hot sauce or salsa, and then a big pot of either eggs or chorizo. Chorizo or. I think there was beef one night. There's pork one night. I mean, it was like, in Sonora.

[Giannis Puttelis]

No matter what, there's going to be a pot of frijoles at every meal.

[Randall Williams]

And it's Sonora, and it's the same pot of Frijoles. It just gets added to throughout the week.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Delicioso.

[Randall Williams]

Very delicioso.

[Cal]

They're refried beans. I like to point out, too, it's more like gravy consistency right here. I feel like you get refried beans on your plate, and it's. It's a lot drier. There's more consistency.

[Ryan Callahan]

More like a mashed potato.

[I]

Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

You can eat it with a fork.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

You could.

[Cal]

We're down there. Those beans, you can't eat with a fork. You have to have a spoon.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. Fantastic. Phil. We got a couple. The other thing we did on this trip was, Giannis, you're testing some. Some materials on some britches. I didn't get that video.

[Cal]

True that.

[Randall Williams]

But we have some other.

[Cal]

Do you have that or you don't?

[Randall Williams]

I couldn't find it. But we do have some other videos here of some.

[Seth Morris]

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

[Randall Williams]

Product testing and promo. Yeah.

[Seth Morris]

I mean, in the spirit of the super bowl coming up, you know, one thing everyone talks about are the commercials.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Seth Morris]

And First Light actually commissioned you guys to shoot some stuff just for. I think they're gonna do a big ad blitz.

[Randall Williams]

Seth and I were inspired.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Seth Morris]

Let's take a look at these here.

[Randall Williams]

Can your reindeer. Can your rain gear do this? Can it do this? Omen storm shelter, huh? Yep.

[Seth Morris]

That was a good. That was a good use of money from First Light. There's a few more.

[Randall Williams]

We didn't get paid much for these.

[Cal]

I'll give that one, like, a five out of ten.

[Seth Morris]

Okay. How about this one?

[Randall Williams]

Need some tough brush busting pants, but you don't want to lose all your mobility. Saw Buck Pants by First Light. Yep. Okay. We're improving our craft here.

[Cal]

Who directed that one? You need a warm hat that will.

[Randall Williams]

Also protect your dome when you're moving.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Through brush.

[Randall Williams]

Whatever hat this is.

[Seth Morris]

Okay.

[Randall Williams]

And then this one is. Is shows sort of the adaptability of some of the First Light line here. Do you want to look good on the streets but still need to be active? First light's 308 pants.

[Seth Morris]

Wow.

[Randall Williams]

That was the trip back from the old McDonald's there. First stop once we hit free soil.

[Cal]

Yeah. That's a meat eater tradition. When you get back to America, we like to go to make. To the Golden Arches to celebrate freedom. Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

First Light doesn't know that we made those.

[Randall Williams]

No.

[Ryan Callahan]

But I'm sure you'll see those.

[Randall Williams]

I'm sure they're thrilled. Now my phone's ringing.

[Cal]

Watch out for those. When you're watching this super bowl, you might Be able to vote on your favorite. I like the high kick one the best. That really shows off you're at.

[Ryan Callahan]

I like the urban parkour.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, I wish we'd gotten the first one when we're going to McDonald's and I fell off that wall and did a somersault unintentionally.

[Seth Morris]

We've got. We've got a bunch of people saying who Randall looks like in those videos. We've got John Wilkes Booth. That's a good one.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, I've got three words for you there. Six. Semper tyrannis. There you are.

[Seth Morris]

Bringing it back. We've got, you know, doc from Back to the Future. I think we've heard that one before. Dwight. Dwight Schrute. I think that's kind of rude vibes, though.

[Randall Williams]

Not appearance, just vibes.

[Seth Morris]

His hair looks like Bill Murray and Kingpin. We've got.

[Giannis Puttelis]

But that fella, that fella says, I got to get those pants. So.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, there it is.

[Cal]

Yeah, it works.

[Seth Morris]

Success. You're welcome. First light.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. Do we have anything else to share from our trip or should we move on to our guest?

[Cal]

I will say, you know, you've heard the buzz. We've all heard the buzz about the SIG Zulu 6 binoculars. The image stabilized this trip, like, hands down, made it made me a believer of that binocular. It blew the first five out of seven days. I'd say what average?

[Giannis Puttelis]

The wind. The wind blew, not the binocular.

[Cal]

20, 20 miles an hour with gusts well into the 30s all day long. It wasn't until the last two days where we had like a nice soaring morning where it was quiet and just. And just clear and you could get sunburned. The rest of the days, it was just honking. And those image stabilized binoculars mean the difference between that and non on a tripod. Now, not just hand holding, but on a tripod. Regular binos still shaking the. You know, the image is shaky. You're trying to find a deer that's 80 to 100 pounds, very hard.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Image stabilized. Seth, huge difference.

[Giannis Puttelis]

We heard coyotes yipping one day and Seth Freehand with the image stabilized binoculars, like, oh, there they are.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And he's like, no, no, no way out in that flat. And I arranged them at almost 1600 yards.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, that was with the 12s.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Pretty impressive.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Stephen Rinella]

Yeah.

[Cal]

I think the 12s are my favorite.

[Ryan Callahan]

These, These were.

[Cal]

I.

[Ryan Callahan]

You know, even though it was windy, these 15s, this is what I spotted my buck with this Exact pair. But these on a tripod were just phenomenal for.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

Finding those little things.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Seth Morris]

All right. I think we've got a guest waiting for us.

[Randall Williams]

Let's talk some more. Mexico.

[Cal]

Oh, yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Good.

[Cal]

We're not done.

[Randall Williams]

Good friend, Phil Kramer. Phil, welcome to the show. How are you?

[I]

I'm good. Gentlemen, how about yourselves?

[Ryan Callahan]

Oh, great.

[Randall Williams]

Well, we're a little sad that we're not in Mexico hunting anymore, but we're slowly making our way back to reality.

[I]

You go through that little depression when you first get home.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yes.

[Ryan Callahan]

Especially since it's been snowing nonstop since we've gotten home.

[Giannis Puttelis]

So those little deer, all you'd be able to see is the top of their racks right now in Bos Angeles here.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

So, Phil, we just had the pleasure of spending a little over a week with you down south of the border, but could you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do and what your experience is?

[I]

Absolutely. But I must say, I almost didn't recognize you. Rojo Grande with a haircut.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, thank you. You're the first person to mention it. You're the first person. Everybody else has just sort of brushed it off. I was really excited to debut the new do here. But thank you, Phil. I appreciate that.

[I]

You bet, you bet. Well, guys, my name is Phil Kramer. Live in Arizona, born and raised here, Moved off to a couple different states throughout school and my career. I grew up on the back of my dad in a backpack running trap line. And that kind of instilled a love for the outdoors. And I've never been able to shake it. And God willing, I'll have it till the day I die. So with that being said, I've always been in the outdoors. I've always hunted. I've always found any excuse I could to get outside. And that has kind of led me to J. Scott Outdoors and Gould's Turkey Hunt. And that was a combination of timing with Jay looking to expand the business and grow it, as well as me making a full time career change. Prior to that, I worked in the drilling industry, which fortunately left enough time for me to be in the outdoors and chasing my passion when I wasn't on a drill rig. So everything kind of worked together and now it's full time. I spend the majority of my time down in Mexico looking at ranches, scouting new ranches, going to some of our existing ranches and making sure everything's good there. And then as I got to do with you gentlemen, I get to guide. And that's when the real fun happens is getting to interact with you guys and seeing what we can put on the ground and battling the winds when it happens.

[Randall Williams]

Yes, we did our fair share of that over the past week or so. I don't know if you guys have questions, but this was a first time trip to Mexico for me and my first time hunting out of the country. I wonder if you have just like a few thoughts on. For those who have never done this, what do people need to know about Mexico and what can they expect? Because I think there's. I've talked to a lot of people since I got back and said, oh man, that's always been a bucket list trip for me. But it's a little intimidating to leave the country and go hunting in a place where you don't speak the language. So could you just share a little bit about that?

[I]

You bet. And I think the first thing to remember is anytime you leave the country, you know, make sure you have your passport, make sure you do your research, make sure you're going with a trusted outfitter and or person that knows the ins and outs of where you're going. A lot of people are intimidated and there's a lot of stuff in the news that makes people think it's not safe. However, this is my 17th year doing it. I think it's Jay's 28th or 29th year and we're very fortunate that we've never had a bad experience. We can say there's a lot of things to that. And the main thing is as we do our research, we work with the local people, we make sure that all of our paperwork's in order, we work with licensed Mexican outfitters to make sure that everything we're doing is above board. We're not traveling to spots that are unsafe, and we're doing everything right. So my first and foremost advice to anyone looking into doing a trip like this is make sure you go with a reputable outfitter, do your research, get references. If they can't provide references, then that's probably a red flag. But don't be afraid to go because as you guys saw, and most of you guys have been down there quite a bit, it's a trip of a lifetime. I mean, you get to experience true Mexican culture, true authentic food, and best of all, when you're out on those hills, most of the time your phone's not ringing, you don't have cell service, and you get back to the way life should be.

[Randall Williams]

Amen. How would you compare this year's deer season? You're you're back at home in Arizona, how would you compare this year's deer season to those you've experienced previously in terms of bucks and weather and all that? What are your takeaways from your 2025 season?

[I]

As you guys witnessed firsthand, the weather was horrendous. Normally, you'll get a day or two of winds that you know will gust 20, 30 miles an hour. For whatever reason, this year, especially during your trip, the wind did not let up. It never blew itself out at night. Every morning, we were greeted with just a blast of air right in your face. And that made it difficult. As you guys mentioned, you're looking for a little animal, and anytime you have that wind, everything around you is moving. Your optics are moving, and it makes it difficult. The other thing is coos. Deer or cows, Deer, depending on how you say it is. They're a small animal, and they hate the wind. It dulls their senses. It makes it harder for them to smell predators, to hear, so they don't move near as much. And with the drought that we've been having for the last two years, and it made it double tough, we were very fortunate. We were able to dig out some really good bucks, and a lot of our hunters had experienced great success. And all I can say is we're looking forward to some rain and some good moisture and, God willing, the weather cooperating a little bit. But one thing about it is, no matter what the weather is, we can't do anything about it. Just go down and hunt hard and. And we're very fortunate that we have good properties, good genetics, and we can scratch out some good deer.

[Randall Williams]

Love it. Yeah, we. I mean, despite the weather, we were out there in the dark in the morning and hunting till dark in the evening, which is, I think, always the mark of a. A great trip.

[Seth Morris]

That.

[Ryan Callahan]

That one windy day, I think it was the second to last day, or might have been the last day. We watch that doe just stand there in the sun for an hour and a half and not move. Yeah, it's just when it's windy and cold like that, those things, you. You can just tell. You just look at them, they're like.

[Randall Williams]

They'Re off their game.

[Ryan Callahan]

They're like, I just don't want to do anything.

[Randall Williams]

And not a lot of body fat on them to keep them warm.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Phil, we got a question for you. And I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but.

[Cal]

Yes, you do.

[Randall Williams]

You know, you talked about references from clients and how important those are to check out I was wondering if you could provide some references for the 4 Meat Eater crew members who had the pleasure of joining you. If you just have a couple words, you know, reviewing your experience, you know, whatever comes to mind. We're all here. We're all listening. We're all trying to improve as hunters.

[Cal]

So why does Pete from Sig Sauer get a free out? Because he's not here to defend himself.

[Randall Williams]

I mean, we can talk whatever we want about Pete.

[Cal]

That's right.

[Randall Williams]

You got a word or two?

[Cal]

No, I don't. But I thought, you know, if Phil did.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, Phil, what do you say? Take them in any order that you'd like to, please.

[I]

Well, I'll tell you what, Randall. I'll start with Rojo Grande, AKA Wonder Boy. You know, there's a lot of names we got for you, but it was an absolute pleasure. I was greatly surprised you told me. First time coos hunter. I go, oh, boy, he's not gonna see a deer. And I tell you what, Randall, you did very good. I was very impressed with your glass and ability. Not only that, you know, as I. Well, as I do, a lot of times we'll spot something and then trying to walk someone else in on that same animal so, you know, you're looking at the same spot can be very difficult. But you and I, for whatever reason, seem to click on that. We were able to find the deer, get each other on the same perspective, and evaluate the deer. So, Randall, I gotta give you props, man, that. That was impressive.

[Randall Williams]

I appreciate that. It always takes a day or two to, like, get your. Get your lingo on the same page. You know, what somebody calls a knob and what somebody calls a, you know, this or that. So, yeah, I feel like we became simpatico. Is that Spanish in our. In our glassing lingo?

[I]

You bet. You bet. And Seth is just calm. Like, I had to ask him two or three times. Seth, you okay?

[Cal]

I never heard anything.

[Ryan Callahan]

Just in the game, you know.

[I]

Yeah, just quiet, like, just going with the flow. And I was like, oh, Seth's still here. Never knew he was around until it was go time and time to shoot. So really enjoyable. Oh, awesome, awesome, awesome. I didn't get to hunt much with Cal, but we talked a lot on the radio because normally we were not on the same page. We could not figure out where each other was looking. Didn't know there were two mountains at one time. But as a pleasure, we got to spend a lot of time together in camp, and I learned a lot. Very interesting. And a wealth of knowledge that I never knew existed. It was a lot of fun. And then yawning. I mean, we. We hunted together just about every day because we're the only stubborn fools that doesn't think 105 inch bucks a big enough buck. So we got to spend a lot of time together. A lot of laughs, a lot of knowledge going back and forth. He constantly proved me wrong on things that I thought I knew was a holy grail, to the point where me videos. He's like, phil, you were wrong.

[Cal]

Well, you know, you're talking about how it's so important to have the same nomenclature, right. When you're out there hunting because you are communicating with each other through radios to be like, hey, are you looking at this century plant or this akati or whatever? And so it's very important to know which ones. And we had, I had, I think last year, a couple years ago, through that picture of this app, figured out which ones were the century plants. Well, it turns out it's the ones that we also call agave. It's one of the same. It's just that every, whatever, 75 or 100 years, they shoot out that stalk and it has the flowers and all that. And then Phil was like, yeah, but it's only that purple one that has the skinnier leaves. I'm like, oh, okay, that's great. I'm glad I learned that. And then the next day, I'm walking around, I'm like, well, hold on. That one with the fat leaves also has a stalk coming out of it. So. Yeah, but again, it's. I'm not trying to prove anybody right or wrong, but it's just so that all of us can be on the same page next time. And you're like, yeah, you see that century plant?

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

That's where that buck is.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. Word of advice for first time kooz deer hunters. If you don't know anything about plants, there aren't a whole lot of other landmarks out there to, like, direct people in. A lot of those hillsides are pretty.

[Cal]

Yeah. You gotta know your flora.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. They're very uniform. And so it's like below the yucca, above the red oak, there's a dead juniper, and then there's a dead oak. And it's just like, unless you're dialed in on what you're looking at, you're gonna be. Your head's gonna be spinning.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

You spend a lot of time down there trying to tell people landmarks that, like, will walk someone into a deer. And when everything looks the same, it's Tough to do that.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. Unless you're saying like there's three, there's three yuccas. Two of them are a little higher. The third one's offset a little bit to the right. Below that is a red oak, you know, and it's just like you gotta be able to recognize that stuff and not scratch your head. Cause otherwise everybody else is gonna be looking at that deer and you're gonna be looking at the wrong mountain. Sometimes you end up looking at the wrong mountain anyway. Right. California.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And working really hard at it.

[Cal]

I'm guessing that people, folks are wondering too why we all went guided this year with, you know, J. Scott's crew and Phil and Kate and. And if you are, I'll try to explain it quickly. The, the logistics of going to do it diy. You have to have your own, bring down your own truck, own trailer, own side by side stack. Steve and I have hunted down there without side by sides. It's doable. I don't know if you've ever done one without a side by side with us. Yeah, you've done one too. A lot of hiking, you're just not covering the amount of ground that you wish you could be covering. So it's just much less, it's less efficient hunting. In years past we've paid people to drive, you know, trucks and side by sides from Montana, we've had friends come from Colorado and bring side by sides to make it easier to cover all those logistics. And you know, for those of you that haven't experienced the other, you wouldn't know. But for me, being the guy that's usually worried about all that, it was really nice just to land in Arizona, meet up with these guys and boom, across the border, you know, next thing you know we're sighting in our rifles and then we're hunting, you know, and they took care of all that. That aside, it was awesome for me to go to hang out with a couple real coos deer guides for a week. It was a real confidence booster for me to know that yes, they definitely did glass up more deer than I did, but not by the ratio that I thought they would. So I'm feeling like I'm ready to go coos deer hunting again and I'm confident that I can find a couple deer.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, no, it was a great trip. And I think like part of it too is just having someone with the amount of experience that Phil does. Telling you what, what coups do you like? What they don't like what you've seen them do. I mean and like, predicting what they're gonna do, which is something that, like, even if you've been down there a couple times, you don't have that depth of knowledge.

[Cal]

No.

[I]

Well, and just sheer eyes on the mountain, you know, guys helping you glass. Because a lot of times you'll get up on your glass and point and it's almost overwhelming. And when you can share that with other people that, you know, put. Putting in the work and they're able to find animals, it helps a lot. But one thing I was going to say on the little review there, I will say Giannis doesn't quit. I mean, on the last night till I was like, it's dark, we're done. Giannis was like, I think I got five more minutes left. No quit. It was just a great time. But for.

[Cal]

Yeah, I like to hunt and, you know, so I like to hunt right until the end, if possible.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Sure.

[I]

You're on the same page with identification of the plants. So we did a little, I don't know, show and tell, basically, as you say, when we were on there and getting ready to sight the guns ends like, okay, this is juniper. That's a red oak.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[I]

That's a central plant. That's a yucca. That's mesquite. That's an ocotillo. So that way, when it came down to the. The nitty gritty, when it was time to find some deer, we were all on the same page. And I think that went a long way through the week we spent together.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, no, it's great.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And I gotta say, like, even when you're butt cheek to butt cheek on the mountain, like, you cannot take your eyeballs off a deer. So.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, yeah.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Like, even if it's a whisper, not over a radio to the person next to you, like, you have got to walk them in. And sometimes the deer that you're seeing, it's because it is only because they moved. And it takes a long time for the person right next to you in the exact same spot to stare at that spot and be like, oh, yep, that weird shadow line is part of a deer's butt cheek laying down underneath and behind, whatever. So that communication can get really frustrating. So once you lock in, it's an incredible benefit.

[Randall Williams]

Yep. For sure. Phil, really appreciate your time and really appreciate your. Your hospitality last week. I know I speak for all of us when we had a tremendous experience and I hope we can hunt again very soon.

[Cal]

Yeah. But before Phil goes, are there any listener questions or viewer questions?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Also, Phil, I want you to talk about the Gould hunt that you're donating for nwtf.

[I]

Absolutely. Absolutely. So as I mentioned, also director of operations for Gould's turkey hunt and we run approximately 200 to 250 hunters down through Mexico and Sonora and Chihuahua every year after chasing the Goulds turkey. So what we did is actually we're approached and donated a Goulds turkey hunt that you'll get to come down and hunt with us either in Sonora or Chihuahua and hopefully knock that Gould's turkey off your bucket list and go one step further to your Royal slam or World slam, whichever it might be.

[Seth Morris]

Yeah. And Giannis, we did have one question for Phil that someone, actually someone else in the chat already answered and I'm assuming it's an accurate. Someone asked what the Boone and Crockett minimum was for cows deer and Lance answered 100 inch for typical, 105 for non typical. If that's, that's accurate. Phil, I don't know if you're. If you, if you know or not, but.

[Randall Williams]

Oh, I'm sure he knows.

[I]

I believe it's 110actually for typical. But honestly there's some deer that we kill that just Score doesn't do justice. You know, we. We try not. We use score as a descriptive tool. Right. Because that's what everyone wants to get and, and it's. It gives us a good tool to actually measure. However, there's some deer that we kill that score just doesn't do justice. Even though it might be 116, that buck should be 130. Just depending on where the mass measurements lie and you know, the blading. Just like cow's buck out at the end of the beams. I mean broomstick. And just didn't get credit for it except for the one measurement. So I believe it's 110 though for book minimum.

[Randall Williams]

Fantastic. Well, Phil, again, pleasure seeing you. And maybe we'll run into each other at the hunt Expo next week.

[I]

Well, Jay and I'll definitely be at the nwtf so anyone out there can look us up. I'm sure I'll run into Yanni and Cal out there. And I'm not sure about the hunt Expo, but if we can get out there. Definitely look forward to running into you guys.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And your hunt is being auctioned Saturday night or Friday night.

[I]

Saturday night at. At the dinner. Yes sir.

[Cal]

Cool.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, so I think, I think you can bid on those online as well. So if you want to go on a killer Goulds turkey hunt and support an awesome habitat organization. Check. Check that one out.

[Randall Williams]

Alrighty. Thank you, Phil.

[Ryan Callahan]

Thanks, Phil.

[Randall Williams]

Good to see you.

[I]

Appreciate it.

[Randall Williams]

Phil. Should we take listener feedback now or should we.

[Seth Morris]

We've done a couple. I'll fire off a couple and then we'll move on to Jim, who's being very, very patient.

[Randall Williams]

Very patient with us.

[Seth Morris]

Yes. Thank you, Jim Heffelfinger.

[Cal]

Jim's got nothing better to do?

[Seth Morris]

Devin asks, hey, Seth, how's it going?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Just curious.

[Seth Morris]

Who ended up with that sweet Alumacraft boat you and Chester did the walleye fishing tour in, if you remember.

[Ryan Callahan]

Oh yeah, I still have it. That's who ended up with it.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

Still use it all summer long. Love that boat. Put a lot of fish in that boat. Yeah. Going to use it again this summer.

[Seth Morris]

Right on. Leland is asking Randall, did you come across any mountain women in your research?

[Randall Williams]

That's a good question. So during the era of the mountain men, there weren't a ton of like Euro American women who came out with the trapping brigades. But interestingly enough, a lot of mountain men married into tribes and had relationships with indigenous women. And that was like a huge part of mountain men culture. Like a very significant percentage of all mountain men marriages were to indigenous women. And I think Bridger was married to three different indigenous women. So in the book we have a chapter about sort of all the different facets of mountain men tribal relations. And in that chapter we do get into sort of the unique history of mountain men marrying native women. And we also have a segment of the wife of a missionary who attended rendezvous and was horrified at the behavior that she witnessed. So, yeah, look forward to that.

[Seth Morris]

Great question for Seth. How did you find your place in Alaska? Was it a Zillow thing or just word of mouth?

[Ryan Callahan]

I was up at Steve's place one summer just for vacation and it's right next door to his and there was a for sale sign on the front porch.

[Randall Williams]

Good old fashioned way.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yep.

[Seth Morris]

Yeah. Hippie homebrew. This is kind of a general question, but it's, it's dumping in Wisconsin. He says while he's stuck inside, what's the best way to get out and start prepping shooting lanes during the winter? Anything to do during the spring? I mean, he's just asking about prepping shoe lanes during every season of the year. But you can, if there's anything you can get a head start on when it's during the winter. I don't know if you guys have.

[Randall Williams]

Any general winter land management principles for Wisconsin landowner. I think we have someone who could speak to that.

[Cal]

Is he asking specifically about shooting lanes?

[Seth Morris]

I Mean, this. I was directing this at you, Giannis, just about when. Yeah, Randall summed it up.

[Randall Williams]

Well, what are you doing. What are you doing with your pro. What are you thinking about right now with your.

[Stephen Rinella]

With your Wisconsin man?

[Cal]

What am I not thinking about? But I mean, I guess to answer the shooting lane question, I mean, I don't think it'd be really much different in any season other than your leaf, you know, coverage might be different. So winter is a great time to do it because it's going to. It looks most like what it looks like in November now versus, you know, once that you get new leaves coming out. But yeah, just get out there with a chainsaw, man, and go to town. But, you know, if I could get to Wisconsin anytime I wanted to, I'd probably be thinking about maybe doing some frost seeding if there was anything. You know, I'm getting ready to do a big like native grass and for restoration. And we'll be applying it through just frost seeding, which is basically means that you're going to add it when there is some snow on the ground and then let the freeze thaw cycle bring those seeds into the ground versus trying to plant them. There's that, you know, herbicide. There's probably not much that's really going to do well because the foliar applications won't work because there is no foliage. And I don't think that the plants are really still senescing, so they're not really going to bring in much herbicide. So that's probably out. But TSI timber stand improvement, which is basically walking through the woods with a chainsaw and knocking down trees that you have deemed that aren't, you know, worthwhile for the wildlife in your area. That's probably. That's like a every day of the year thing.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. Well, this time of year it puts a lot of buds on the ground for deer to eat.

[Cal]

That's right.

[Ryan Callahan]

Which the deer like.

[Cal]

That's right.

[Ryan Callahan]

Knock, knock. If you need to knock down some trees, you got your homework, Hebrew.

[Seth Morris]

There you are. All right, let's get Jim Heffelfinger in here. How about that?

[Randall Williams]

Let's do it, please, Jim, thank you for your patience.

[Cal]

Jim probably has a thought on what you might do at this time of year in Wisconsin for to improve deer habitat.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I do. I'm going to be there in a couple of weeks and my suggestion is spotted cow and Bloody Marys and find a nice tavern.

[Giannis Puttelis]

For some deep thinking.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

We're thinking about what you might want to do with your land? Yeah, I have, I have your segue, Randall. If you're interested in goose turkey restoration southeastern Arizona, go to Jay Scott's podcast and find the podcast where I talked about bringing ghouls turkeys back to the US and restoring those populations.

[I]

Excellent.

[Ryan Callahan]

There you go.

[Randall Williams]

Excellent. There you go. Jim, as a first time coos deer hunter, speaking for myself, you know, this is an animal that you hear a lot about and for someone living in the, in the northern Rockies, it's kind of this far away exotic creature. Can you just tell, tell our listeners a little bit about coos deer, like the differences between whitetail and coos deer and maybe what how coos deer are doing little State of the Union.

[Ryan Callahan]

Jim, real quick before you do that. Coos are cows. We've heard it both ways so far.

[Seth Morris]

Oh, Jim's, Jim's the, the main mascot.

[Cal]

Oh, I, I know, I know.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

That's why this on the podcast I have, I have an article, I wonder if you can link that in the show notes where I talk in detail about the subspecies named after Elliot cows early naturalist and army surgeon. And that was his name and it was named after him. So it's, it's cows deer. There's no doubt that it's cows deer. Elliot. In a footnote in one of, he was a bird guy in one of his bird mag, one of his bird articles, he wrote a footnote and said my name is pronounced C O, W, Z. I mean he actually tells us himself how it's pronounced. So there's no question how it's pronounced. I try not to be an enunciation Nazi and, and I don't correct anybody, but you know, that's how it's pronounced. So that's how I pronounce it.

[Cal]

Do you feel like cows is gaining any traction whatsoever in your neck of the woods?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I would say there's probably an increase in 1% in the last decade that people using cows instead of coos.

[Cal]

Okay.

[Randall Williams]

We'Re getting somewhere.

[Cal]

That's it counts as forward movement.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

In fact, what I'm surprised at is the residents. The people dig their heels in and they get angry about how you pronounce the deer. And I'm just pointing out the correct way. You can say it any way you want.

[Randall Williams]

Well, Jim, what. So if you're explaining to someone what the, no matter what you call it, what these things are, what are some of your main takeaways as far as differentiating Akuz deer or cow's deer from your average whitetail?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

So there are Subspecies of whitetail deer. They're, they're not some different kind of whitetail. They're just like there's, there's about 38 subspecies of whitetail in north and South America, and they're just another one. But they are different. And we'll look in a minute. Here's a South Texas whitetail, much bigger, of course, and if we put a cow's white tail next to it, you can see the difference. Okay, not really. Not really. Here's, here's a. So there's a comparison of the skulls of a cow's white tail versus a Texas whitetail. So think about this. This isn't even just a big borealis. Minnesota, Wisconsin whitetail. This is from South Texas.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

So just like another kind of a southwestern whitetail, but dramatically, dramatically different in.

[Giannis Puttelis]

But you found a real nice cow's deer skull to show off.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yes, that was, this is about 107. So you were talking about minimum score. It is 110. So that doesn't make it. But that's pretty close to minimum Boone Crockett score. Yeah, a couple years of each other. I mean, they're, they're not dramatically different in age. So it's a valid comparison, especially of skull because they're, they're adult. Adult deer. Phil, if you can put that map up, let's look at where cows, deer are distributed in, in the Southwest. This is a map from my book Deer of the Southwest. And that red is colored what we call cow's whitetail distribution. So you, you can see that it, it doesn't touch any other kinds of whitetail soap species on the west or the north. There's no whitetails in northern Arizona and northern New Mexico. It doesn't touch any whitetails on the east because the Chihuahuan Desert's a big grassland and there's not really whitetails out there until you get over into the Carmen Mountain whitetail in West Texas and then the Texas whitetail. And so there's a physical separation on three sides. Now if you go south into Mexico, the cow's whitetail just blends into all those other smaller whitetails in South Texas. There's a whole bunch of Mexican subspecies of whitetail. None of them are scientifically valid or scientifically supported by real physical differences or genetic differences. When you look at the genetics of all those Mexican subspecies, they just kind of overlap in kind of a scattering. And we did early on, about 15 years ago, I worked with funding from Buna Crockett Club, worked with some geneticists that I know, and I've worked with for a while I collected with some friends a bunch of whitetail samples from eastern whitetail from cow's whitetail in the US and also in Mexico. And we had geneticists apply a whole bunch of different genetic markers and, and fine tune a set of markers that really divided animals that are known cows, white tailed deer from animals that are known, not cows, whitetail deer, eastern whitetail. And those came from Canada and from Wisconsin and from all kinds of different places that were not cows, whitetail deer. And Phil, if you put that scatter diagram up, you can see what we came up with with a test of those blue. The blue squares are cows white tailed deer clustering in one neat little cluster. The white is a whole diversity of different white tailed deer from eastern North America that are not cows, white tail deer. We had one deer then this is the value of the test that someone comes up with a deer. And in this case the guy's last name was Lei and he had this deer from the attic and his grandfather said he shot it in southern Arizona. And so he, he says if this is really a cow's white tailed deer, this is the new world record cow's white tailed deer. So it's an example of us applying this genetic test, taking that unknown deer that someone says is a cow's whitetail deer, running it through the genetic markers. You can see it lands right in the middle of regular eastern whitetails. So the Buna Crockett and the Pope and Young Club are using that genetic test we developed a long time ago to keep the record book categories clean and separate, to make sure nobody's got a brand new world record whitetail. That's really not a world record cow's whitetail. That's really not a cow's white tail. And sneak one of those in. So we can use genetics now to keep those record categories separately. So they do, they do different genetically mostly because they're physically separate from other whitetails everywhere except when you go south into Mexico.

[Randall Williams]

Jim, I see we had a question in the comments section about obviously CWD is a big concern for your average whitetail deer hunter. Are there any known instances of coos deer being affected by CWD and sort of what's the prognosis there? Do you think it's a risk spreading down into that environment?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Arizona has not detected CWD and we've been testing really intensively and we're testing to the on the eastern border of Arizona because that borders New Mexico, which has some positive deer. We're Testing on the north and the Northeast because of Colorado and Utah having positive deer, we have not detected it. It's not really being tested that much in Mexico, but there hasn't been, there hasn't been any evidence of it in Mexico. So the answer and in, in southern New Mexico, I don't, I think it's all mule deer that they've had some positives in, in south central New Mexico. So I think the answer is no cow's white tailed deer has not been, hasn't been detected. And maybe the geographic separation and the lack of people driving back and forth with cows, white teal and trailers might help kind of isolate that a little bit.

[Randall Williams]

Phil, any other questions there in the chat we can throw at Jim?

[Seth Morris]

Yeah, sure, we had a couple. Marty's asking do the coastal cows in Mexico show any differences from the rest of the population? I don't know what differences he's referring to, but if you have any insight, probably talk.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Well, he must be talking about the western border, the western coast of Mexico by, by the Gulf of Mexico there, the Sea of Cortez and, and no, there's genetically cows, whitetail are pretty genetically distinct until you go down and we did sample a lot of whitetail in Mexico. Until you get down into Mexico and then it just starts getting a blend of genetics. They're not so distinct there because they don't have that physical separation. And it's unique that in Sonora and, and Sinaloa, even you have these little whitetails that are probably cow's whitetail living really in some really low desert country. Whereas in Arizona, New Mexico, that would be mule deer habitat. But in, in Sonora, for some reason we've got whitetails really low down into the desert all the way out to the Sea of Cortez. But they're not different, those whitetails in the state of Mexican state of Sonora, which is southwest of Sonora, and along the southwest of Sonora in the state of Sinaloa, those have been designated as a different subspecies. But that's one of those deals where there really isn't any physical differences or genetic differences that anybody has determined to be real differences.

[Randall Williams]

Gotcha. Other listener questions Phil I see a couple, yeah, we're getting a few.

[Seth Morris]

Zach's asking what the typical home range, radius and elevation is for cows. He says he's seen them from 1500ft all the way up to 5000 in Arizona.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, you certainly can see them in those. Probably the most of that distribution though is going to be from 3,000ft up to about six, about 7,000ft. Once you get 7,000ft, you start getting more into the open ponderosa pine forest, which isn't as good as that mid elevation with shrubs. And a friend of mine did his master's degree a long time ago in southeastern Arizona and found that the distribution of the shrubs is what really governed the distribution of whitetails. And that was highest in that 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 foot elevation range. Seems like there's another part of that question. Did I miss something besides elevation? Oh, home range. Yeah. Radius. So we don't talk so much in terms of radius, but some of the work we did in southern Arizona showed that it's about a square mile. This country's so rugged from an aerial view and whitetails being whitetails a lot of places, about a square mile is what they'll spend most of their time in.

[Ryan Callahan]

What about during the rut, Jim? Do you know how far they're traveling?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I, I don't know, but because we haven't done a lot of like GPS collars attract some of that stuff in Arizona, but they definitely will move. They're not staying in their square mile at that time. And so when you're out there, you're seeing a lot of bucks on the move and they're not necessarily in the home ranger using. The rest of the year they're out. They're out just looking for, for does that are close to estrus.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yep.

[Randall Williams]

Jim, did you get out and hunt coups yourself this year?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I didn't. I hunted mule deer the when I, when I did my master's degree in South Texas. My, my research was on trophy whitetails in South Texas and Kyle predation after the rut with trophy whitetails because those bucks are at like close to a one to one buck to dough ratio old age structure. There's a lot of competition for does a lot of fighting. And those bucks will lose 20, 25 of their body weight during rut in south Texas because of that. So afterwards they're all worn out. They just want to find some place and hang out and recover. And also you've got dense coyote populations in south Texas. So we were finding packs of coyotes almost acting like wolves ecologically taking down these post rut mature bucks. Whereas normally you wouldn't think of a coyote taking out a mature buck. But it was a unique circumstance, so we knew that was happening. So my research focused on could you control coyotes on part of the ranch and have so many mature bucks that you saved from coyote predation that you would have more bucks to hunt? And the answer in the end was no. The answer was we saved a few bucks from coyote predation, but in the grand scheme of things, population wise, ranch wise, it wasn't worth all the money and effort you put into controlling coyotes. You didn't get that much benefit in terms of number of bucks that you saved. So that, that's to say those buck to dough ratios after the rut or during the rut in south Texas are different than you see in a lot of places in the West. Although we're going to talk about the status of cows, whitetail and Arizona, and it's, it's surprisingly well. Our, our harvest and survey data shows a pretty good steady increase for the last 10 years overall in hunt success. The hunt success of hunters we try to manage in Arizona. For, for, in, in terms of hunt success, we try to manage between 15 and 25% of the hunters being successful. And statewide it was 46 hunt success.

[Randall Williams]

Oh wow, wow.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

It's impressive ratios. We try to manage between 20 and 30 bucks per hundred does. So 20 per 100 does is one to five ratio. The 30 bucks per hundred does is about a one to three ratio. And, and our average is 25 bucks per 100 does statewide last year. That's a one to four buck to dough ratio. In mostly public land hunting, it's controlled with a lottery style draw. So we control the harvest that way. But not a bad buck to doe ratio for public lands in the West.

[Cal]

For cows, white tailed deer, is that 46% success rate? Is that a spike from previous years? And if so, what do you think that's attributed to?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

It's the end of an increasing trend. And then also an important point is we have a couple alternative management units in Arizona where we manage for more mature buck age structure, higher buck to doe ratio, lower hunter densities, and so those are much harder to get drawn. But when you do get drawn, you've got a better experience and a chance to shoot a more mature buck. And that statewide total includes a handful of those units that run run higher. So that's not the average of some of the places outside of those alternative hunts. And that's at the end of kind of an increasing trend. So it's not really, I guess it may be a spike, but it's definitely an increasing trend of hunt success for the last five to ten years. Really.

[Randall Williams]

Gotcha. Guys have any other questions for Jim here? Jim, I think we're running over time here. I apologize we didn't get you sooner, but before we go, I did want to thank you For a few months ago, you sent me an email about Sonoran hot dogs and received a wonderful recommendation. And then we had the privilege of joining you for lunch at La Carreta del Rojo, Aurora. Still not good on my Spanish despite my immersion experience last week. But not only did you recommend these dogs, you bought me one or several. And so I did want to publicly just thank you for a wonderful lunch and a tremendous experience talking all things deer and hot dogs with you.

[Cal]

For. For those that don't know what a Sonoran hot dog is. Can you describe it?

[Randall Williams]

How about we let the local expert describe it? Because there's so many ingredients, I'm afraid I might leave one out.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of diversity. Yeah, it was. I recommended the best place in Tucson to get snoring hot dogs and. And by happenstance, I live a mile away, so I was able to scoot down and join you all. But it comes in a. A larger kind of a football shaped bun. Normally that's cut on. On the top, not a regular hot dog bun. The hot dog is usually wrapped in bacon and then the bacon is fried so it's crispy on the hot dog. And then there's pinto beans, there's mayonnaise, there's mustard, onions, and then usually served with a couple peppers. I think that's probably the. The basis. But then you can have chorizo and cheese and all kinds of things added to that. But pretty delicious.

[Giannis Puttelis]

I did manage to snap a picture of the. The schematic for La Correrata. Yeah, that's right. It's jalapeno sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, grilled onion, bacon, tomato, hot dog, beans, steamed bun. I thought the grilled bun was one of the. The hallmarks of the Sonoran hot dog, but that's not correct. That's an extra.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah. Steam steamed bun is. Is what I consider the more typical come it's steamed so it's warm and a little softer.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Oh, that was a huge upgrade in the world of snoring hot dogs. So.

[Cal]

Thanks, Jim.

[Randall Williams]

Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it.

[Ryan Callahan]

Thanks, Jim.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

All right. You bet.

[Ryan Callahan]

See ya.

[Randall Williams]

Phil. We're a little over time here, but I wonder, are you guys okay?

[Seth Morris]

I mean. Yeah, wherever time.

[Randall Williams]

I don't know.

[Seth Morris]

We still have a segment left.

[Randall Williams]

Corey crossed that one out. I think we're going to keep that one in the.

[Cal]

We can rip through it quickly if we. Having fun.

[Seth Morris]

Are you guys busy?

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, let's.

[Cal]

Well, I mean, I just need to have to get some lunch in me before whatever is happening. At one.

[Seth Morris]

Oh, sure. This will be fast, I think, right?

[Randall Williams]

Do you have a jingle?

[Seth Morris]

I do have a jingle.

[Randall Williams]

You should have led with that. We wouldn't have even questioned skipping the segment.

[Seth Morris]

Okay, let's hit it. Well, do you want to say the name of the segment first?

[Randall Williams]

The segment is Two Truths and a Lie.

[Seth Morris]

Am I being up front or is this Two truth and a lie? Do you think I am pulling this out of my ass? Two Truths and a lie.

[Cal]

You know, Cal must be really having a great time because before the show started, he said he told you he was going to give you five minutes of his time. And here we are, an hour.

[Randall Williams]

He's a company man.

[Cal]

It's into it.

[Ryan Callahan]

So much so he didn't even prepare for this.

[Randall Williams]

He's a company man through having a great time.

[Giannis Puttelis]

But I was also told, like, these are the things that you're here for. And we didn't. We didn't get to them.

[Cal]

So I was. We never got confused ever.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Well, one of the things was supposed to be two, three and a lie.

[Cal]

Oh, okay, great.

[Giannis Puttelis]

That's what Corey told me.

[Cal]

Well, let's go. You. Are you.

[Randall Williams]

For this fun new segment, we're going to go around the room and each tell two.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Doesn't mean I prepare each tell two.

[Randall Williams]

Truths and a lie about ourselves. Meat Eater Edition. While the other two hosts try and figure out which one is a lie. And this week we have a twist. It's going to be the other three hosts because Cal is still here. Giannis, would you like to lead us out?

[Cal]

I sure can. Mine are. It's very simple. I didn't have anything prepared an hour ago or two hours ago, and Corey gave me. This idea is just to give you guys some scores of some animals that I've killed and figure out which one is true.

[Seth Morris]

Ooh.

[Cal]

Which two are true and which one is a lie. So my biggest white tailed buck scores 137 inches. My biggest bull elk scores 317 inches. And my biggest mule deer buck scores 195 inches. Which one is a lie?

[Ryan Callahan]

The elk.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on the elk.

[Randall Williams]

I'm gonna say the mule deer.

[Cal]

These boys are correct. My biggest bull elk is around 305 inches. I have killed a 137 inch whitetail in Nebraska with our buddy Brody Henderson. I almost felt bad for a quick moment when I shot that buck, but it's one of those instances. Someone had to do some shooting. And my biggest mule deer buck I actually killed with our buddy Callahan here. And it scores roughly 195.

[Giannis Puttelis]

That was the most excited I've ever seen Giannis be after he pulled the trigger.

[Randall Williams]

Fantastic.

[Giannis Puttelis]

He was sprinting erratically across the mountainside.

[Cal]

I like to make sure they're dead, Cal.

[Giannis Puttelis]

But it was without properly knowing where the buck ended up. He was that excited. He was, like, off this side of the mountain and over there and just, like, bird dogging around. It was cute as a button. Back. Back when we were all younger, he had extra points.

[Cal]

You know, it was one of those kind of deals where, like, you look at him and you go. Kyle's like, what do you think about this one? And all I saw was a couple kickers. And I'm like, oh, yeah, buddy.

[Randall Williams]

Cal, do you have two truths and a lie prepared for us, or should I move on to Seth?

[Giannis Puttelis]

No, I can whip one out.

[Randall Williams]

All right.

[Giannis Puttelis]

I do have to say that the other. There's a good quote. There's like, it was a one doe or two does on this slope. And I was like, you know, a good mule deer hunter would just keep staring at these does, and that buck's gonna show up eventually. He did, so that was cool. Okay. I have bagged, over time, a black bear, a mountain lion, and, you know, a white tail.

[Cal]

So we had to pick one of those animals that you haven't bagged.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yep.

[Cal]

I feel like because of our conversation yesterday, I know the answer.

[Ryan Callahan]

I'm gonna say mountain lion.

[Randall Williams]

I'm gonna say lion.

[Cal]

Me, too.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Corey's not even talking. It's lion. Lion, yeah. Haven't killed him out. Been on quite a few hunts. Two troops and alive.

[Cal]

Are you packing a lion tag this year in your pocket?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, I always, always buy them.

[Cal]

Oh, yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Well, Seth, all right.

[Ryan Callahan]

I have killed one book animal, meaning it scored enough to hit the record books. I poked a cow elk in the butt with my gun barrel, and I killed a turkey in my crocs.

[Randall Williams]

It's not the turkey in the crocs.

[Cal]

Hold on. The. When you poke the cow, this. I'm assuming she was still alive.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. Real live wild out there hunting. Poked a cow in the ass.

[Randall Williams]

I'm going to say number one, even though I don't remember what that is.

[Cal]

You think that he has or has not killed a book animal?

[Randall Williams]

I think he hasn't killed a book animal.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Because he's from Pennsylvania?

[Randall Williams]

No, because I think the croc thing is true. And the poking cow with the gun barrel is oddly specific. But he could just be really good at this game.

[Cal]

I agree with you about the turkey. The crochet turkey in the crocs. Oh, buddy. Has he killed a book animal? I think I would know about that if you did. So I'm going to go with say that Seth has not killed a. A Boone and Crocket book animal.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, I mean, pope and young antelope's pretty darn achievable, but I don't think you shot an antelope with your bow, have you? No. Yeah, we'll go with the. The book. Book critter. Yeah, you're right.

[Cal]

Unfortunately.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, you're right.

[Cal]

That's pretty cool that you've poked a cow in the butt.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. This past hunt season, I was doing. It was opening day of rifle and had a cow elk come running past me and I just gave a little poke in the asses went by so it didn't run me over.

[Giannis Puttelis]

And you were dressed as a cow elk at the time?

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah. Smelled like one, too.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

I was gonna ask if you did it in a little bit of emotion of self defense, and it sounds like that was the case.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, I just, like, just did it to keep it moving, you know. I thought it was just gonna stomp me in the dirt, but. Yeah.

[Randall Williams]

Well, Randall, I'm doing a little improv because I feel like some of my clues. In fact, I know that Cal knows one of my clues is false. Or it's true. It's true. So I'm going to go with shot a deer with my pants at my ankles, Caught a fish on a jug, or shot a deer with a pistol.

[Ryan Callahan]

I'm gonna go with the pistol. That's a lie.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah. Caught a fish with a jug is just not very fun. So what would be the point of lying to people about that?

[Ryan Callahan]

He's from Ohio, so.

[Cal]

Well, unless he's trying to fool you. That's the point.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, but there's no money on the line.

[Cal]

What was the first one?

[Randall Williams]

Shooting a deer with my pants at my ankles and underwear.

[Cal]

Well, from our little. Our time spent together in Mexico, I know that Randall is often in the field in that position, so that's a high probability that you've done that. I'm gonna go with the pistol.

[Seth Morris]

Chet's never saying pistol.

[Cal]

I'm gonna go with pistol.

[Randall Williams]

Well, it's catching a fish on a jug.

[Cal]

Son of a gun.

[Randall Williams]

Yep, yep, yep. Shot my first deer with my pants around my ankles.

[Cal]

Okay, and tell us about the deer that you shot with a pistol.

[Randall Williams]

See, I started with that as a lie, but then I remembered I had shot a deer with a pistol because I'd Shot it and it was still alive. And I walked out to go drag it back to the truck, and it was still alive, so I shot it with a pistol.

[Cal]

That doesn't count shooting a deer with a pistol.

[Randall Williams]

All right. Two lies and a truth. And I was gonna go with eating iguana, but Cal fed me that iguana, so. Yeah, sorry, gang. I guess I screwed that game up.

[Cal]

No, it was good. It's still fun.

[Randall Williams]

You said my one truth didn't count.

[Cal]

Yeah, I think.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah.

[Cal]

It's a gray line. It's a great. I shot.

[Ryan Callahan]

I shot a deer with a pistol before, too, but it was after hitting it with my pickup truck.

[Randall Williams]

Oh.

[Ryan Callahan]

So would that. That probably wouldn't count either.

[Giannis Puttelis]

For those of you listening, if you have access to a bunch of iguana tails and hindquarters, Super Bowl's coming up, and they make pretty awesome buffalo wings.

[Randall Williams]

Yes.

[Seth Morris]

Oh, hey. Well, that was one of the questions I was going to ask. What's your favorite super bowl snacks to make with game meat?

[Randall Williams]

I enjoyed the iguana that same Super Bowl. You also made a giant chicken wing out of an elk shank. Yeah, a buffalo chicken wing out of an elk shank, which is quite tasty.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Real tasty.

[Cal]

Classic. Like Red Hot?

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah, like a Frank's Red Hot wing. So I sous vide the leg to where it was edible.

[Cal]

Didn't have any Frank's Red Hot yet in it.

[Giannis Puttelis]

No. And then drop the whole thing in the deep fat fryer, get her all crispy, and then, you know, tumble it around with some butter and some Frank's Red Hot.

[Ryan Callahan]

Sounds good.

[Randall Williams]

That was real tasty. I'm a classic nachos guy. Like to get a big, big package of elk burger, little the taco seasoning from the store, as cheap as you can find it, and spread out a big mess of tortilla chips, little sour cream cheese, hot sauce.

[Giannis Puttelis]

It's a crowd.

[Ryan Callahan]

Please.

[Randall Williams]

Jalapenos. Yeah.

[Cal]

What do you do for cheese?

[Randall Williams]

Oh, just Western family Fiesta blend.

[Cal]

I like it.

[Randall Williams]

Why is it a large quantity?

[Cal]

Why is it that the cheapest taco seasoning packets tastes the best?

[Randall Williams]

Food science.

[Ryan Callahan]

Msg.

[Randall Williams]

Yeah, I think it's just msg.

[Cal]

I'll accept those answers. I'm a rotel dip guy. Oh.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yeah.

[Cal]

You know, so I do a little. You know the nice thing about when you buy that giant chunk of Velveeta that gets me three through three Super Bowls.

[Randall Williams]

Wow.

[Cal]

It doesn't go bad. It's expensive stuff. You know, those bricks of food that don't Go bad ever. But yeah, a little Velveeta can of Rotel and then, you know, whatever. Half pound, pound of also taco seasoned ground meat and lovely. Yeah, I like to eat enough of that until it gives me a little bit of a tummy ache.

[Randall Williams]

Now are you. Are you dipping like a frito in there or a standard tortilla chip or what?

[Cal]

Usually tortilla chips.

[Ryan Callahan]

Lovely if I have them. Squirrel hot legs are always good. And then just your typical jalapeno popper with whatever. I've done it with doves, ducks.

[Giannis Puttelis]

You could pop anything.

[Ryan Callahan]

Yeah, anything.

[Randall Williams]

Lovely.

[Ryan Callahan]

Whitetail back strap, whatever.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Yep.

[Ryan Callahan]

Kuzdeer backstrap.

[Randall Williams]

Phil, what do you got for us here?

[Seth Morris]

Well, just first Brian says he. He goes gator nuggets. Oh, so those are pretty good.

[Randall Williams]

Nuggets of any kind are welcome.

[Seth Morris]

Yeah, deer and dove poppers. What Chase Chase likes.

[Giannis Puttelis]

We did pheasant nuggets for Phil's kids last time we had to get together.

[Seth Morris]

That's right. Those are a big hit.

[Randall Williams]

Those are tasty.

[Seth Morris]

Yeah. Let's do one. Just wrap it up here. This is the longest episode of radio so far, boys.

[Randall Williams]

Nice work.

[Ryan Callahan]

We beat Steve.

[Randall Williams]

Nice work. I don't know.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Really quick.

[Seth Morris]

Multiple questions about the. The gaming stream for conservation. I've been given pretty much I've been given a green light. It's happening. I'm very excited. But I also don't want to half ass it, so TBD on the date. I want to make sure that we can. Even though I want to bullshit and play video games, I also want to raise a lot of money.

[Giannis Puttelis]

Do you have a BD on the game Red Dead Redemption 2? Okay.

[Seth Morris]

Yes, you can. You can do all kinds of cowboy stuff and hunt. Hunt animals in all kinds of ways. So go fishing.

[Randall Williams]

Sweet Skunk ape customs. Yes, I really want to know what. What he's customing.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I don't know.

[Seth Morris]

It's with a K, so it could be anything. Anyway, let's call it. That was great.

[Randall Williams]

Let's call it.

[Cal]

Thanks for tuning in.

[Randall Williams]

Thanks for tuning in, everybody. This is delightful. We'll see you next week.

[Seth Morris]

Later. Oh, oh.

[Randall Williams]

Before we wrap up, it is Steve's birthday next week. So we're going to have a very special birthday celebration for Steve live on Media Radio Live. You're not gonna wanna miss it. Steve's hosting. There might be some cake, there might be some singing, There might be a gift exchange. Probably not the gifts though.

[Seth Morris]

Okay, on that note, sorry, really quick. I'm stretching out this show at the very top of the show. Randall, first of all, do you mind sharing what date your birthday is?

[Randall Williams]

October 3rd.

[Seth Morris]

Okay. Spencer's an S.O.B. cause he wished you a happy birthday at the beginning of the show, and everyone was saying, happy birthday to you.

[Randall Williams]

Randall, Everybody knows it's October 3rd.

[Seth Morris]

Everybody does?

[Randall Williams]

Yeah. It's the same day that the first Peanuts cartoon was published. And it's one of the, you know, landmark days when the Berlin Walls, it came crashing.

[Seth Morris]

All right, well, that'll do it for today's episode. Mediator Radio live.

[Randall Williams]

Thank you for tuning in.

[Stephen Rinella]

This ain't the little itty bitty, teeny tiny bowl. This is the.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

The.

[Stephen Rinella]

The big old bowl. The Super Bowl 59. Get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of Super Bowl 59. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use Code Me Eater. That's Code Me Eater for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings sportsbook. The crown is yours.

[Unknown]

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[Stephen Rinella]

Hey, American history buffs. Hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition, titled the Mountain Men 1806-1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the west represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and, at times, violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interact with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white tailed deer skin trade, which is titled the Long Hunters, 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain man edition about the beaver skin trademark is available for pre order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History the Mountain Men, 1806-1840 by me, Stephen Rinella.