Ep. 692: MeatEater Radio Live! A Southern Uprising, Brent's Elk Savior, and a Turkey Serenade

Summary

Episode Summary: The MeatEater Podcast – Ep. 692: MeatEater Radio Live! A Southern Uprising, Brent's Elk Savior, and a Turkey Serenade

Release Date: April 18, 2025

In Episode 692 of The MeatEater Podcast, host Steven Rinella joins forces with longtime collaborators Brent Reeves, Clay Newcomb, and Mark Kenyon for a vibrant and multifaceted live show from the MeatEater headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This episode, titled "MeatEater Radio Live! A Southern Uprising, Brent's Elk Savior, and a Turkey Serenade," weaves together engaging segments, insightful discussions, and entertaining interactions that exemplify the podcast’s commitment to outdoor adventure, conservation, and community.

---

1. Live Show Kickoff and Hosts' Updates

The show begins promptly at [01:12], with Clay Newcomb welcoming listeners to the live broadcast. Hosts Brent Reeves, Clay Newcomb, and Mark Kenyon introduce themselves and outline the episode's agenda:

• A musical turkey track by Reed Bargainer (aka Reed's Piano News)
• Listener-submitted hot tip-offs with prizes
• One Minute Fishing segment in collaboration with Trout Unlimited
• A Show and Tell segment featuring memorable outdoor items from each host

Notable Quote:

Brent Reeves [01:19]: "Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia."
(01:30)

---

2. Musical Interlude: Reed’s Turkey Serenade

At [01:36], Reed Bargainer joins the show, providing a delightful and newsworthy turkey serenade. His unique talent for turning news into catchy tunes adds a refreshing and humorous twist to the episode.

Notable Interaction:

Brent Reeves [02:00]: "Yeah, awesome. I just love that."
(02:00)

---

3. Listener Submitted Hot Tip Off

The Hot Tip Off segment at [25:09] invites listeners Cy Sneed and Drew Henry to compete for exciting prizes, including Bear Grease and The Country Life merchandise. Drew Henry shares a practical tip for packaging hunted game using produce bags, emphasizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Notable Quotes:

Drew Henry [26:19]: "Give it a rip. Count your steaks out, throw them in there. It's really nice."
(26:19)

Brent Reeves [27:41]: "I love that."
(27:41)

After a lively debate and voting poll, listener Cy Sneed’s tip wins overwhelmingly, reflecting the community’s preference for practical and straightforward solutions.

---

4. One Minute Fishing with Trout Unlimited: Featuring Tanner Belknap

The One Minute Fishing segment kicks off at [39:44], featuring Tanner Belknap from Trout Unlimited. Host Clay Newcomb interviews Tanner about his work in the Salt River watershed, highlighting critical conservation efforts aimed at restoring habitats and improving stream flows.

Notable Discussion:

Tanner Belknap [42:26]: "The Salt river is a really special spot within the Snake River headwaters. It has the most fish per mile of anywhere up here, as well as the biggest fish."
(42:26)

Brent Reeves expresses deep appreciation for the Salt River region and the conservation work being undertaken, emphasizing the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems for native fish populations.

Fishing Attempt: During the segment, Tanner attempts to catch a trout within one minute. Although unsuccessful, the detailed description of his technique and the scenic backdrop provide a captivating glimpse into fly fishing challenges and rewards.

Notable Quote:

Brent Reeves [44:16]: "I love this region over there. I spend my summers out there, and a large part of my best moments in life have been out there."
(44:16)

---

5. Show and Tell: Sharing Memorable Outdoor Items

In the Show and Tell segment starting at [51:59], each host presents a significant outdoor-related item:

• Brent Reeves shares a fly that caught his first tarpon, detailing the exhilarating experience and the intricate connection between fly fishing and bow hunting.

  Notable Quote:

  Brent Reeves [53:16]: "This is the closest connection I've seen from fishing to bow hunting. It was like sitting in a tree stand day after day, and finally, the stars aligned."
  (53:16)

• Mark Kenyon recounts his first elk kill in 2011, showcasing an elk fang and describing a dramatic encounter that underscores the unpredictability and intensity of big game hunting.

  Notable Quote:

  Mark Kenyon [65:40]: "This is the shot. It was the shot that brought this stone point into use."
  (65:40)

• Clay Newcomb presents an elk fang from his first and only elk kill, sharing a captivating story about maintaining composure during a tense hunting moment.

---

6. Additional Segments and Guest Interactions

Throughout the episode, interactions with guest Reed Bargainer add depth and humor. The hosts engage in playful banter, discuss upcoming projects, and highlight community contributions, such as Mark Kenyon’s new film on bear conservation.

Notable Quote:

Mark Kenyon [58:18]: "This is really compelling. We’re in hot pursuit of a great book on the American black bear."
(58:18)

The episode also features a humorous grocery store turkey incident video at [19:22], where a turkey wreaks havoc in an Indiana store, showcasing the lighter side of wildlife encounters.

---

7. Conclusion and Final Remarks

As the show wraps up, the hosts encourage listeners to support conservation efforts, participate in upcoming contests, and stay tuned for future episodes. Brent Reeves commits a personal donation to Trout Unlimited, demonstrating the community-driven spirit of the podcast.

Notable Quote:

Brent Reeves [50:17]: "I love what you guys are doing because those Snake River and Yellowstone cutthroat trout are absolute gems of the natural world."
(44:46)

The episode closes with the hosts expressing gratitude to Reed Bargainer and teasing future content, maintaining an engaging and community-focused atmosphere until the very end.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Conservation Efforts: Highlighted through interviews and segments with Trout Unlimited and Mark Kenyon’s film projects.
• Community Engagement: Active participation through Hot Tip Off and Listener Q&A segments.
• Personal Stories: Hosts share memorable hunting and fishing experiences, fostering a relatable and authentic connection with listeners.
• Entertainment Value: Balanced with humor, music, and interactive segments, making the episode both informative and enjoyable.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

1. Brent Reeves [26:19]: "Give it a rip. Count your steaks out, throw them in there. It's really nice."
2. Tanner Belknap [42:26]: "The Salt river is a really special spot within the Snake River headwaters."
3. Brent Reeves [53:16]: "This is the closest connection I've seen from fishing to bow hunting."
4. Mark Kenyon [65:40]: "This is the shot that brought this stone point into use."
5. Brent Reeves [44:46]: "I love this region over there. I spend my summers out there."

This episode exemplifies The MeatEater Podcast's dedication to exploring the outdoors with passion, humor, and a commitment to conservation, making it a must-listen for outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers alike.

Transcript

[Steve Rinella]

Hey, folks, Steve Rinella here. Spring it is coming on hard and first Lights kicking off a sale you don't want to miss. Right now, you can save big on the same field gear we trust, from base layers to outerwear and everything in between. Whether you like to spend time covering serious miles in the mountains, or whether you like to perch up on a ridgeline and glass and glass and glass, or you like to post up in a tree, stand down in the thickets, well, now is the time to reload your kit without breaking the bank. But don't drag your feet. This sale will not stick around for long. Head to first light.com and gear up before it's gone. That's F I R S T l I t e.com.

[Phil Taylor]

Smell us now, lady.

[Brent Reeves]

Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia.

[Steve Rinella]

Meat Eater Podcast.

[Clay Newcomb]

Welcome to Meat Eater radio live. It's 11:00am Mountain Time. That's 12:00 for our friends back in.

[Mark Kenyon]

Arkansas, the real time of the world.

[Clay Newcomb]

On Thursday, April 17th. And we're live from the Meat Eater headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. Snowy Bozeman, Montana.

[Brent Reeves]

We're your host, Brent Reeves, Clay Newcomb and Mark Kenyon.

[Clay Newcomb]

On today's show, we're going to be serenaded by a newsworthy turkey track by My buddy, Mr. Reed Bargainier, also known as Reed's Piano News. After that, we have two listeners submitted hot tip offs that the winner, the winner of that's going to receive some new bear grease and this country life.

[Brent Reeves]

Merch, which looks very nice, by the way.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, awesome. I just love that. Followed by that, we're going to do the one minute fishing with our friends at Trout Unlimited. And finally, we have each of us have brought a memorable item that we're going to share for show and Tell.

[Mark Kenyon]

Show and tell.

[Brent Reeves]

Can I just say I am more excited for that than anything else today.

[Clay Newcomb]

Really.

[Brent Reeves]

I so badly want to show and tell you my story.

[Clay Newcomb]

Can't wait.

[Brent Reeves]

Can't wait. It was one of the best things.

[Mark Kenyon]

That'D be really good because expectations are sky high. I will tell you what expectations of minor Sky High is Reed's song.

[Brent Reeves]

Yes, that will be good.

[Mark Kenyon]

I cannot wait for Reed's song.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know, we got.

[Mark Kenyon]

And I'm very surprised they didn't ask me to play live music.

[Brent Reeves]

I am not.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'm not.

[Brent Reeves]

I'm not surprised that I got to.

[Reed Bargainer]

Stick up for my bandmate over there.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, I'm not going to put up with this now.

[Mark Kenyon]

If me and Phil, we could take the house down.

[Clay Newcomb]

If they hadn't had Phil, I'm a podcaster. If they hadn't had Phil playing the harmonica like a solo every week, why would they have you up here singing?

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, there's got to be like a taco shell for the taco, a bun for the hot dog.

[Brent Reeves]

So you are the taco shell, I'm the taco shell.

[Reed Bargainer]

I'm the ground meat and the lettuce.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, there's a lot directions we shouldn't go on this one. Let's move on.

[Clay Newcomb]

I mean, let's tell them what kind of what we've been doing this week. Tell them what we. What you were doing with Johnny.

[Mark Kenyon]

So yesterday we were. We came to Bozeman yesterday and we were shooting guns. We were testing out several theories of the way that guns perform. I mean, can we tell exactly what we did?

[Clay Newcomb]

I think we can.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. So the. Yesterday we tested the idea of the brush gun. So everybody in the, in the south, anyway, I don't know, maybe out west it's not as big a deal because there's not as much brush. But in the south, there's a lot of brush. A lot of brush, Corey. And people talk about brush guns like a specific caliber or bullet style that's able to shoot through brush. So we did some. Some testing all day long, shooting through brush. What. What did you do?

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, man, I had the. The worst and the best job ever. But we did a segment on losing zero off your scope, and we abused a Sig rifle and scope out there. It was.

[Brent Reeves]

I love this idea.

[Clay Newcomb]

It was sad. It was sad to do it, but we learned a lot. I think people are going to find it really interesting, especially the way we finally knocked it. Now, do you want to tell us all Zero?

[Brent Reeves]

You can't give away what happened.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'll tell you. I'll tell you.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, the people that listen to me to live should be rewarded.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you this. I'll tell you. We dropped it. We held it. We dropped it at knee, knee height. We dropped it holding it straight out like this. And I'm holding my hands for the folks that they're not watching us. Right out in front of me, Straight out in front of me, dropped it on the scope. And then we would check the zero. And the final thing we did involved a case, a gun case and a truck and 80 miles an hour. And I'm going to leave it at that. You're going to have to watch it. It is wild.

[Brent Reeves]

Now, what I wish you had done, which I Understand you didn't was test my worst nightmare, which has always been getting up into my tree stand and then somehow the gun falling down to the ground from the top, you know, from 20ft up in a tree.

[Clay Newcomb]

Right.

[Brent Reeves]

That would have been an interesting one to see.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, maybe we'll see. Give us another.

[Mark Kenyon]

That would have been a good test. Another good test would be to be up in the tree stand, have your gun up there, you fall out of the tree stand and then crawl back still on.

[Clay Newcomb]

Hey, Johnny. Put strapped it on the back on his backpack and then fell down the hill on. So it was.

[Mark Kenyon]

That worked pretty good.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. No stunt man. He does all his own stunts.

[Brent Reeves]

So also today we get to. Or I get to judge you two cooking in media to roasts, which I'm very excited about, because two things are going for me on this one. Number one, I love to eat, so I get to eat your food.

[Mark Kenyon]

Y.

[Brent Reeves]

Number two, I love giving you a hard time. Especially you, Cliff. I do love giving you.

[Mark Kenyon]

I serve this for Mark. Mark is my best friend. I treat him like a brother.

[Brent Reeves]

That's right there.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's the friend I get is ridicule. You will get to. You will get to judge us cooking.

[Brent Reeves]

Yes, I will. And I will not bring up that dead mule you tried to sell to your one buddy. His other best friend.

[Clay Newcomb]

His used to be best friend. Meat eater Roast. The newest episode of that dropped today, and it's got Corinne Schneider and Maggie Hudlow, who's the editorial chief. Corinne's obviously the. The grand poopa of producers here and podcast producers. And you can see that on the YouTube channel.

[Reed Bargainer]

We've got a comment from one Alexis Reeves. She's in the chat. She says Clay puts mushrooms in his chili. So he's out.

[Mark Kenyon]

He's out on Alexis Reeves. Dark on it. She got me.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's my gal.

[Mark Kenyon]

How do you come back from that?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, let me give y'all a little context of that. That Clay did a video social media. He's cooking chili in his house, and Alexis is watching, sitting on the couch. And he takes a double handful of mushrooms and drops him in his chili. And she looked at me. He's like, we can no longer be friends with Clay.

[Mark Kenyon]

I said, I took of all the things I've done in my life. I took more heat for the mushrooms and chili from my wife, from my kids, from Alexis.

[Clay Newcomb]

She won't leave. That was like three years ago.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, gosh, Brent. It was ten years ago.

[Clay Newcomb]

Really?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Well, I can't wait to see what comes out of the show today.

[Clay Newcomb]

We're doing meat eater trivia too.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Friday.

[Brent Reeves]

Yes. Tomorrow.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tomorrow.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

And what about some fly fishing? You and Corey went out fly fishing?

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, Clay, someday you'll. You'll understand.

[Clay Newcomb]

He'll grow up.

[Mark Kenyon]

Clay doesn't. Well, yeah, damn it, you're right.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tell me about Yalls trip.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, we. We went fishing yesterday. It was one of those trips where we thought we might get pounded with rain and the possibility of winter weather. Incoming. But we decided to go for it anyways. Did a really nice float, I don't know, five, six miles. And it wasn't happening, but we had a great time.

[Mark Kenyon]

So you didn't, you didn't catch any fish?

[Brent Reeves]

Moved a couple. Alex our. Our, our grand poobah of social media, as Brent might call him. He caught one and that was it right out of the gate. Yeah, that's the problem though is that, you know, if somebody catches a fish immediately upon starting the trip, that's either, you know, a great sign or a very bad sign or the last one. And that ended up being the case.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

But good to be in the water.

[Clay Newcomb]

I've got a podcast coming out tomorrow that's going to feature our musical guest today. I went hunting with Reed in Alabama and got to hunt on some really cool ancestral land. Met some great people, some friends, longtime family friends of Reed and his father. And got to meet his father, Dr. Paul Bargainer. He's a.

[Mark Kenyon]

He work on your teeth.

[Clay Newcomb]

He did not. Yeah, he pulled this one out and I brought it with me. We got to hang out with. With Reed's oldest son, Barnes, too. Great kid. I left him with a turkey call and man, he was. He was sounding good when I left. I hope, I hope his mama hadn't hid it from him by now.

[Mark Kenyon]

But hey, we had.

[Clay Newcomb]

What you got going?

[Mark Kenyon]

We, we had a podcast drop yesterday on Bear Grease that I'm really excited about. It's called Confessions of a Former Outlaw. And it's. Every now and then you. You run into somebody with a particular story. That's really great. I mean, if I could find 26 Johnny Johnson's to interview every other week for the Bear Grease documentary style episode, I mean, Joe Rogan would be begging to come on my podcast. It's a really unique podcast and it's, it's. The title says quite a bit the, the guy, the guy was a, was a, was a turkey outlaw and you ought to go listen to it. And interestingly, it's also being played on the meat eater feed today, as I understand It. So it's called Confessions of a Former Outlaw. And it's. It's a human story. I mean, it's a story about this guy's life, a living man from Oklahoma, south, south, east, southeast Oklahoma. And it's pretty powerful story. Got some hooks and some shockers and some.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, normally when you tell me, like, have you listened to it yet? I'm like, no. And then you'll give me a brief synopsis of what's going on, and then I'll listen to it for the. For the render. But yesterday, and you said, have you listened to it yet? Or day four yesterday said, have you listened to it yet? And I said, no, not yet. And you said, I'm not telling you nothing else. You just got to hear it. I listened to it this morning. It's. It's really good. Really good.

[Mark Kenyon]

So check that out.

[Clay Newcomb]

Marcus, you got something just dropped recently. Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

So a day, two days ago, my latest film hit the Meat Eater YouTube channel, which is one I'm pretty excited about because it's. It came from the surprising news that I read, like, four years ago, I think, when I came across this article from the Alaska Fishing game saying that there might be mule deer and whitetails showing up in Alaska for the first time ever. So I read that article immediately. I thought, that is fascinating. Yeah, why is that happening? How is that happening? And how can I get there and, like, learn more about this myself? So four or five years ago, when I first saw that, I pitched meteater on going and doing a podcast series all about this. I wanted to go up there, spend a bunch of time, interview people, meet people, do all this stuff, and it didn't go anywhere. But for the last few years, I've kind of kept on bugging people by, hey, we got a little. Yeah, squeaky wheel. I want to learn more about if this is happening and what it means and what's going on. And long story short, finally it came together, and I wasn't. You know, I originally wanted to go and try to go on, like, a Sasquatch hunt. You know, like, go and try to find this mysterious, possible first whitetail in Alaska and actually roam that area, walking around and interview the. The people who've claimed to have seen them. And when we. We started kind of going down that road, and because of various logistical challenges, we couldn't do that. But what it led to was like, all right, let's go there and see what is there currently. Learn more about blacktail deer, the native deer species. Learn more about this area. Southeast Alaska. Spend some time with some native Alaskans or I mean, residents of Alaska.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Who have seen some of these critters and. And get a sense of what's happened and then talk to Alaska fishing game. You learn about.

[Clay Newcomb]

You learn some stuff.

[Brent Reeves]

I did.

[Clay Newcomb]

Surprising stuff.

[Brent Reeves]

Really interesting stuff. Just about how much is changing in Alaska. And I think being from the lower 48, when I think about Alaska, I don't know about you guys, but when I think about Alaska, it still feels like this untouched, pristine. Oh, yeah. Like it's still how it used to be there. But then when I started asking questions to folks who've lived there their whole lives, they're talking about all these things that have changed just in their lifetime. New critters showing up in new places, all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, very eye opening. And then the experience itself, just getting to go into this terrain, you hike up into the alpine, see black tail deer for the first time, beat an area that's. That's loaded with brown bears that definitely had.

[Mark Kenyon]

You're on Admiralty island, where.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

They call that the fortress of the bears.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Really the highest densities of brown bears in the world. And. Yeah. So it was very pretty accurate.

[Clay Newcomb]

You think?

[Reed Bargainer]

Ted, in the chat is asking, how many bears did you encounter? If you have a number.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, we didn't encounter any.

[Reed Bargainer]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

They were around us, were sign of them all over the place, and it was so funny. Like, going into the trip, that's on your mind a lot. Like, how do we. Everything you did, you were taking to account. All right. How do we mitigate any possible risks with bears? Where are we going to camp? How are we going to get there? How. How do we approach the hunt plan? You know, what about when we get a deer down? All those things. And then, of course, it was. There was nothing to worry about. I mean, there was things to worry, but nothing panned out.

[Clay Newcomb]

But you prepared. You were prepared.

[Brent Reeves]

We were prepared, yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

It was a great film, Mark.

[Brent Reeves]

Thank you.

[Clay Newcomb]

Absolutely.

[Mark Kenyon]

I see somebody up there saying. Talking about the. The whole thing with Giannis, about, do we make films or do we make episodes? Mark, Kenya makes films. It was really good.

[Brent Reeves]

Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it.

[Mark Kenyon]

I liked it a lot.

[Brent Reeves]

It was. It was. It was a fun one to work on.

[Mark Kenyon]

You know, I almost hate to say this, but talking about. In your film, you talked about. Okay, I won't. Sorry, go ahead. No, in your film, you talked about how the. The temperature in Alaska has changed more than the lower 48.

[Brent Reeves]

Yep.

[Mark Kenyon]

Like, you know, there's, like these Glaciers melting and stuff. I think in our lifetime, we'll see as the. As the temperature becomes more mild in Alaska, potentially more people going up there because it's been a barrier to entry. Just how harsh the winners have been.

[Brent Reeves]

I think that's quite likely, man.

[Clay Newcomb]

It's. It's snowing outside right now, and I'm worried that we ain't got enough bread and milk. We're going to. We're not going to make you.

[Mark Kenyon]

Are you send your girl to school today? Did you call her and be like, no, sweetie, it's snowing and Bozeman. You can't go to school. Cabot, Arkansas Free Day.

[Clay Newcomb]

I don't talk like that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Are you sure?

[Clay Newcomb]

I'm gonna talk to a guy that does talk like that. He'll have a different accent when we talk to him today. And that is my buddy, Reed Bargainer. He is a returning Radio Live guest and he's also known as at Reeds Piano News on Instagram. That's how I met him.

[Brent Reeves]

You know what's funny is I've always thought his name was Reed Spiano.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, I probably did, too.

[Brent Reeves]

I just kind of looked at that really quickly and never really thought about Bargaineer.

[Mark Kenyon]

Like a hybrid between an auctioneer and a bargain shopper.

[Clay Newcomb]

That is lame. I wouldn't imagine.

[Corey Calkins]

I think it's a low grade of French, if I had to guess.

[Clay Newcomb]

Reed, welcome, buddy.

[Corey Calkins]

Thanks, man. Glad to be here. And Clay and Phil, I don't.

[Mark Kenyon]

If.

[Corey Calkins]

If y'all want to lay down some taco shell on this, I've got no.

[Brent Reeves]

No issue with that at all.

[Reed Bargainer]

Harmonica's all up there. Lay down some tacos.

[Brent Reeves]

That's amazing.

[Clay Newcomb]

Reed. Just last week, I was with Reed down in Alabama and hunting on his. His family land. And I did. Like I said, the podcast that's coming out tomorrow is. Is all about that. But, man, what a treat there was. We stayed in a. In a. In an old home place. It was built in 1902. And on the. In the foyer, when you walk in the front door on this big front porch, there is a signed land grant document from President James Monroe. It was dated 1822. Is that right? 18.

[Mark Kenyon]

I was thinking he was dead.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, 1822 on February 1st. Actual. That actual document is in there. And so there's so much history with. With his friends, families that own that land, and then Reed's family that owns the land that we. That we hunted on. It was. That was great, man.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's cool.

[Corey Calkins]

No, we had a good time. As much fun as you can have without killing a bird. In my opinion.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yes, the cat's out of the bag. But the. That turkey. That turkey that we tried to kill is Steel Goblin. Matter of fact, you heard him this morning, didn't you?

[Corey Calkins]

I did, yeah. Clay, I listened to your podcast on the way down.

[Clay Newcomb]

It's a.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's for sure.

[Corey Calkins]

Yeah, it's. It's fantastic. But, yeah, we. I mean, in my head, it's like. And I feel like I'm gonna get a reputation as just a guy that likes to. Likes to go hang out with his buddies in the woods way early in the morning in the spring.

[Brent Reeves]

Could be worse, because I haven't been.

[Corey Calkins]

Doing a lot of bird. There could be worse things, but got to kill a bird at some point. Otherwise, you're just. You're just hanging out.

[Brent Reeves]

Now, I got a question about Reed, and that's. Sorry, but. But Brent.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

I know some people who are very musical. Musically inclined.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Who do that thing where they kind of sing everything that they're doing or what they're saying to you. It's like, hey, will you get that ketchup? You know, that kind of thing. Does Reed do that?

[Clay Newcomb]

No. And I don't know anybody that does that.

[Brent Reeves]

You don't know anybody that does that?

[Clay Newcomb]

No. I would run.

[Brent Reeves]

Clay would do that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Misty. Misty. My wife says that my mother Juju. My sweet mother juju. When she is asking an awkward question, she sings it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Really?

[Mark Kenyon]

She's like, that dress is a little t. She's like. She's like, you know, like, the food got a little cold.

[Brent Reeves]

I'm sorry.

[Reed Bargainer]

I do that. I do that when I really. I can feel the urge to yell at my kids, but I can't. So I'll be like, you really need to clean your room now, because I'm.

[Brent Reeves]

Getting a little frustrated.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, I should probably try that instead.

[Brent Reeves]

Of rock Tyler and Casey from the Element that a lot.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

They're always singing what's going on in their lives, so. Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

There you go.

[Brent Reeves]

Pretty interesting.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's insane. All right. Speaking of insanity, there was something that happened in the grocery store. Phil, can you play that video?

[Reed Bargainer]

Oh, yeah. Let's see. It might be a little loud, but I can't control the volume. Here we go.

[Clay Newcomb]

All right.

[Tanner Belknap]

Very large turkey that just went in the store.

[Brent Reeves]

Officers in Indiana found themselves dealing with a particularly tough customer. A turkey entered a Martin store in St. Joseph county and proceeded to knock over merchandise and chase customers. After some deliberation, a brave officer grabbed the large turkey off the shelf safely Escorting him out of the store and back into the wild.

[Clay Newcomb]

Now, man, that puts a. That, that puts a whole new spin on the frozen food aisle right there.

[Mark Kenyon]

I'm impressed.

[Clay Newcomb]

When the turkeys are crying.

[Mark Kenyon]

That sucker by the spurs mean he did it. He did it, man.

[Corey Calkins]

He ain't scared.

[Clay Newcomb]

I saw that video in the. There's a. Somebody says in the video, whoever's filming says, watch out for those talons.

[Mark Kenyon]

Talons.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

So frozen.

[Mark Kenyon]

You know what I'd have done? I'd have gone over by the frozen milk and hunkered down and.

[Brent Reeves]

Frozen milk. Did you guys have frozen milk in our frozen section?

[Mark Kenyon]

Not frozen milk. I think you know what I meant.

[Brent Reeves]

I. I really don't.

[Mark Kenyon]

The dairy section. The frozen. Yeah, to me is what I'm trying to say. Rather than go in on him and. And, and. And erect that predator or that flight response, I would have tried to get him on the. On the issues of love.

[Clay Newcomb]

Sometimes you should just be quiet. All right. From that incident, Reed has been inspired for this next musical number. Take it away. Yeah.

[Corey Calkins]

All right. We'll do it. By the way, it's so much more normal singing this to a group of three guys than just Phil Taylor.

[Brent Reeves]

I felt.

[Reed Bargainer]

I felt very special and taken care of yesterday. Read during.

[Corey Calkins]

Yeah, this is maybe Brent. We were just looking in the wrong places.

[Clay Newcomb]

So here we go.

[Brent Reeves]

Three days with Brent Reeves.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, he's a turkey calling fiend.

[Corey Calkins]

He left Alabama without a shred of turkey meat.

[Clay Newcomb]

Maybe it wasn't the woods. Not the mid morning fields that we.

[Corey Calkins]

Should have been in. Trying to sound like hussy hens.

[Brent Reeves]

We should have just stayed at the Walmart.

[Corey Calkins]

The one there in Greenville.

[Mark Kenyon]

I bet the.

[Clay Newcomb]

The turkey was just checking out the frozen section.

[Mark Kenyon]

Pizzas.

[Brent Reeves]

We all not have looked at fig Newtons for so long.

[Clay Newcomb]

We'd have a grocery store long beard.

[Mark Kenyon]

Been on the wall. Reese Piano. Reese Pian.

[Brent Reeves]

Give me.

[Clay Newcomb]

Give me estimated time of your. How long it took you to write that little diddy?

[Corey Calkins]

That one. Anytime. I can work hussy into a song.

[Reed Bargainer]

Pretty quick, you know.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, man, that's awesome. Okay, brother. Well, what's. What's next for you? H.

[Corey Calkins]

You know, lots of kids, baseball and trying to figure out a time to get them back out to the woods.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay. Good deal.

[Corey Calkins]

We're around, man. Well, thank you for coming again. I had a blast.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah. We got to get John David out there and get Barnes. And I hope you, daddy Paul, you hope you all just smash them, but I know turkey seasons still running down there. So I might be free to come back.

[Mark Kenyon]

So Mike Clay now.

[Clay Newcomb]

Clay's busy. Hey, I want everyone to go. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you being here and y'all.

[Brent Reeves]

All right.

[Clay Newcomb]

See you guys, y'all. You can check Reed stuff out at. At Reed's Piano News on Instagram.

[Mark Kenyon]

Reed ought to have a million followers.

[Clay Newcomb]

He should have.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, when I first started hearing him, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go to this Instagram page, and it's gonna be a dude with a million followers.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, it's like. I mean, it's grown exponentially, I think, since he's been on the. On the show here, but he's on his way. It's stuff that's really good almost.

[Mark Kenyon]

Not every day, but multiple times per week. He sings the news. I mean, that's what he does if something fights it up.

[Clay Newcomb]

You know something. You got a good news story. He's. He's going.

[Mark Kenyon]

And his songs are often more complex than that. Multiverse. Great choruses. I mean, he's no Phil Taylor Clay Nukem, but.

[Reed Bargainer]

Oh, yeah, of course not.

[Clay Newcomb]

I tell you what that dude is. Is. Is the. The humor hides how good of a piano player he is.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh.

[Clay Newcomb]

I mean, you got to kind of take second stage. He's. He's really good.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, I. I can see that.

[Steve Rinella]

Hey, folks, Steve R. Here. Spring it is coming on hard and first lights kicking off a sale you don't want to miss. Right now, you can save big on the same field gear we trust, from base layers to outerwear and everything in between. Whether you like to spend time covering serious miles in the mountains, or whether you like to perch up on a ridge line and glass and glass and glass, or you like to post up in a tree, stand down in the thickets. Well, now is the time to reload your kit without breaking the bank. But don't drag your feet. This sale will not stick around for long. Head to first light.com and gear up before it's gone. That's F I R-S-T L I T E dot com.

[Clay Newcomb]

All right, we ready for our next segment? Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

What do we got?

[Clay Newcomb]

Our next segment is called Hot Tip Off.

[Reed Bargainer]

H O T T I B off. Turn your head and give cough. Don't you stop. There aren't many words that rhyme with it.

[Brent Reeves]

Off. I like this. Thanks, Mark.

[Clay Newcomb]

Is this new?

[Brent Reeves]

Huh?

[Reed Bargainer]

What's that? We've done it a few times.

[Clay Newcomb]

Wow, Phil, that is outstanding.

[Reed Bargainer]

It's a word for it.

[Clay Newcomb]

All right, Hot Tip off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. After we hear each tip, we'll declare which one we think is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one minute video on your phone and email it to radioemateater.com with the subject line hot tip off. This week, our competitors are Cy Sneed and Drew Henry. And they're competing for some of our new bear grease and this country life logo warehouse.

[Mark Kenyon]

Those can't be real names, folks.

[Clay Newcomb]

In the chat, please chime in. All right, let's hear the hot tips.

[Phil Taylor]

Drew Henry.

[Johnny Johnson]

Hey, what's up? Welcome to a hot tip. My name is Drew and I'm working on some whitetail from this fall. I'm at the point right now where I'm ready to start packaging. I like to use freezer paper and I used to like to use plastic wrap. But my hot tip is for you to go down to your grocery store, talk to your local produce clerk and have them sell you a roll of produce bags. This one I've had for about three years. As you can see, it's getting down there. It served me well. I just bought this one recently. I think it cost me 12, 15 bucks. They're not going to know exactly what to price it at, but they'll figure it out for you anyway. Produce bags are simple. Just like you're buying some broccoli at the store. Give it a rip. Count your steaks out, throw them in there. It's really nice. You can give it a good squeeze and get all that air out of there. Give it a spin. Tie it off. Once you got everything bagged, you're ready to start wrapping. When you go to thaw this out to eat it later, you're not going to have a big mess in your fridge. There's your hot tip.

[Brent Reeves]

That's pretty good. I like that.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's almost like being vacuum sealed.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah. Hey there, meat eater radio live, this is size neat coming at you with a hot tip off. You got your freezer here. It's full of meat. Hopefully your wife says, hey, why don't you run out there and grab something out of the freezer for dinner? So what do you want?

[Clay Newcomb]

She says, I don't know.

[Brent Reeves]

What do you want?

[Clay Newcomb]

I don't really care.

[Brent Reeves]

It's up to you. What do we have in the freezer? I'm not sure. Well, here's how, you know, get you a little whiteboard like this magnetic. It was like four bucks. I have on here my moose, my elk, salmon, blah, blah, blah. So I can run out here and I can Say, hey, we have 21 pounds of ground moose meat out here. What do you say we make something with that? She says, hey, sounds good. Makes your wife happy, makes your life better. And if you hoard back straps like me, you kind of can check it every time you walk by. It's a little bit like checking the stock market.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. Wow. Feel good things.

[Mark Kenyon]

This guy's a showman.

[Brent Reeves]

So anyway, get you one of those.

[Clay Newcomb]

Enjoy it. Your life will be better. You heard it here first. Okay.

[Brent Reeves]

I do like keeping track of stuff like that.

[Clay Newcomb]

That is.

[Mark Kenyon]

You would spreadsheet it. I was like, man, that's a lot of calculating.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, here, I think is full. Brent, if anybody here needs something to keep them organized, it would be you.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, when you're just. When you got so much meat, so many deer, so many turkeys, so many elk, so many moose. I've never killed milk. So many.

[Brent Reeves]

I've seen the back seat of Clay Newcomb's truck during hunting season, and this is the thing that I've never seen before, and it still hurts my soul. I once opened the back door of his truck, and he has loose climbing sticks just thrown all over the place in there. They're not even strapped together.

[Clay Newcomb]

You wonder about is my. You wonder if my tetanus shot is up to date before you get in the back of this.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, you better listen. I can't argue what the man says is true.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay. But I'm going to tell you what my vote is right now. Okay. And it's size need. I love that. I like that.

[Reed Bargainer]

We have a poll open in the chat right now, and guess what? You guys are going to be selecting the winner. You all in the live chat, so.

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, so it doesn't even matter.

[Reed Bargainer]

Get your votes in. You know, you're just providing color commentary. Mark, I'm sorry to take away power for you.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, you know, I. I've got a side. Was a showman, appreciated the passion. I admire the organization. I think it's a bit unrealistic. It's kind of like seeing, like, some celebrity talking about something that you're like, dude, live in the real world. Yeah, great, man.

[Reed Bargainer]

We have an allegation on the tv. I don't know if you want to go with Drew.

[Brent Reeves]

You can't.

[Clay Newcomb]

My wife.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yes, Alexis.

[Clay Newcomb]

We weren't talking. We weren't talking about my truck. We were talking about Clay.

[Reed Bargainer]

For the audio listeners, Alexis is claiming that Brent's truck is also awful.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, just for that, I think, though.

[Brent Reeves]

To add on to what you're saying, Clay, I love his idea that keeping track of everything. But to get that done, it takes a lot of upfront work because you've gotta count everything. You've got to update your chart every time you add something new. So that's adding, you know, more. More work to your schedule.

[Mark Kenyon]

Right.

[Brent Reeves]

While the first guy Drew, his little baggie idea saves you time because that's going to be faster than cutting all these individual pieces of plastic wrap and wrapping them up individually and trying to make sure I'm always not cutting it long enough.

[Clay Newcomb]

This is what I heard Mark Kenyon say. I'm lazy.

[Mark Kenyon]

Efficiency, Anything but lazy.

[Clay Newcomb]

I liked. I have a vacuum time management. I have a vacuum sealer. So I'll. I vacuum seal all my stuff, which is what, more or less what Drew was doing.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. When he was doing it, I actually thought you could probably suck almost all the air out of that.

[Clay Newcomb]

There's still. There's still plenty in there. But. But I have one, so. I mean, the organ and I vacuum seal it. It's all pretty uniform. And I can. I can put it in there like a grocery store pretty much. So. But the. The idea on the. On the list and of everything, I like that.

[Mark Kenyon]

You know, I think maybe Drew's, Though, his expectations of people's ability to do something out of the. Out of the norm is maybe higher. Like, Drew probably has a lot of people skills, is able to go find someone in the produce section, haggle with them, get something that's not for sale. That takes a special man to do that. So hat tip to Drew also maybe on the side of unrealistic, too.

[Brent Reeves]

I'm gonna.

[Reed Bargainer]

I'm gonna end the poll here in about 10 seconds, so get those. Get those last. Last second votes in. If you want my votes for Drew.

[Brent Reeves]

I like them both, but I'm voting for Drew.

[Clay Newcomb]

Mark's got. We got. Drew's got one for Mark. Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Clay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Clay, if you had to pick Drew, I'm going with. I'm going with. Sigh.

[Reed Bargainer]

Well, the winner of the poll is. Psy sneed 70 over 70% of the vote. So he kind of cleaned up there.

[Clay Newcomb]

I know my audience.

[Mark Kenyon]

Bunch of dreamers out there.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Reed Bargainer]

Congrats, Psy.

[Mark Kenyon]

Good job. Sigh. It's a great tip.

[Brent Reeves]

Good job.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, let's see. Snot side needs to holler at Phil. Are you Corey?

[Brent Reeves]

I'll reach out to him.

[Clay Newcomb]

Corey, you going to reach out to him? Corey, reach out to you and get all your stuff squared away on all your plunder that you just won. How about some More listener feedback. That does not have someone named Alexis Reese. No, she can just call on her anytime. Unless it's disparaging remarks about.

[Reed Bargainer]

Sure. Only glowing things about Brent.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yes.

[Reed Bargainer]

Let's see here.

[Mark Kenyon]

Thank you, Alexis.

[Reed Bargainer]

This is from Michael. Question for Clay or Mark Tips on getting started in the writing world.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, wow.

[Reed Bargainer]

This is kind of a big, big question here, but how did you guys get curious about reading?

[Brent Reeves]

People know what you're doing a little bit.

[Mark Kenyon]

Mark's writing a book.

[Brent Reeves]

Writing another book right now. Yeah. First book has been out for like five years now. That Wild Country. Do they know what you're doing, Clay?

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, Mark is a writer. Mark is a published author. Incredible book, that Wild country. And he's writing the second one, so. Mark, take it away.

[Brent Reeves]

Okay, so the very fast answer to that question would be getting started in the writing world. First you just gotta do it. So don't wait until someone gives you a contract or a deal or a public publication opportunity. Just start writing more and more. Flex that muscle. Exercise that muscle. Get good. Number two, publish, publish, publish on your own. So use whatever platform you have, whether it's substack or a blog or little things on your Instagram, whatever. You got to put stuff out there into the world so that eventually opportunities for people to read your work, give you feedback and or give you opportunities arise. So practice, practice, practice. Put it out there, put it out there, put it out there. And then network. Talk to every single person that you possibly could who might, you know, have a connection with some kind of publication someday. Build those relationships. And slowly, if you do those three things over and over and over again for years, opportunities arise. And when those opportunities are present themselves, you have worked enough in all these years behind the scenes, getting good enough at your craft that you can meet the moment.

[Clay Newcomb]

Ernest Hemingway wrote naked. So there's always that.

[Brent Reeves]

Do you guys, don't.

[Clay Newcomb]

Moving on. Have we got another one up there?

[Reed Bargainer]

Yeah, this guy's submitted this question three times, so he's, he's chopping up the bit to get an answer, and I don't know what he's talking about. Maybe you guys do. Question for Clay. Will you ever do a bear grease podcast on the Treeing Feist breed of squirrel dogs? Is there something unique or special about a Tree Feist?

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, Phil, that's ridiculous question. Yes, there is something very special. Oh, that, that's the kind of squirrel dogs that I hunt. And it probably would be a great bear Grease podcast. No, plans to do one. I, I, I am planning to have a, A A feist man on the bear render soon. A real deal guy over in Arkansas that raises a lot of squirrel dogs. But they're, they're. Yeah, it's a really fun little, little breed of dog. That's what my dogs are, my squirrel dogs.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, they're cool dogs.

[Clay Newcomb]

They are good.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yep.

[Reed Bargainer]

Cool. Question from coach Bauman, Clay or Brandt. Curious on your take on why dove hunting is so popular, but you don't hear much about pigeons. Just curious why pigeon isn't considered a game bird.

[Clay Newcomb]

I don't know anything about pigeons or what they even taste like. And I'll eat about anything. I can get hemmed up and get skimped. But dove hunting in the south is a social event more than anything.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, isn't a pigeon an invasive bird?

[Clay Newcomb]

I don't know.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, we wouldn't have pigeons. I mean, like there might be some pigeons like living under the bridge somewhere.

[Clay Newcomb]

Folks eat them.

[Brent Reeves]

Steve has.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, I think doves are a native game bird. So to answer your question, I mean, it's a native game game bird that lives in the wild, very broadly distributed across the country, versus an invasive bird. Yeah, that's my quite.

[Clay Newcomb]

Morning. We have morning doves. Those are invasive too. In.

[Brent Reeves]

So the common pigeon is also known as a rock dove and they are native to southern Europe, North Africa and western Asia. Now in Steve's first book, he writes quite extensively about pigeons and eating little baby pigeons.

[Clay Newcomb]

Really?

[Brent Reeves]

Pigeon squabs, I think.

[Clay Newcomb]

I've never seen a business.

[Brent Reeves]

It was big in Europe, I think in France that was the.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah, squab. Yeah. But I've never seen that. You ever seen a. Like a runt just flying around someone? I saw that somewhere. All the pigeons you see or look like they're all the same size. You never seen a juvenile one? They grow quick. What's up with that?

[Mark Kenyon]

Let's move on.

[Clay Newcomb]

I got lots of questions about that.

[Reed Bargainer]

This is more of a chediquet question, but con man is asking. He says he's going hunting with two of his brothers on Sunday. He's yet to kill a long beard. Only Jake's. How do I go about asking to get the first shot on a tom when I'm taking them?

[Clay Newcomb]

Be like Clay and be quick on the trigger.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Don't ask, just beg for forgiveness.

[Reed Bargainer]

There you go.

[Brent Reeves]

I feel like if I was your brother, though, that should just be like the good, the right thing to do. You would hope.

[Reed Bargainer]

You'd think so.

[Clay Newcomb]

It's turkey season, Mark.

[Brent Reeves]

That's ruthless. Down south, it's different. Yeah. Sorry.

[Clay Newcomb]

My brother. My brother used to. He would. Was listening for a turkey that wasn't there. I took a. A mounted turkey foot and I knew where he was listening, but he wouldn't tell me. And I made tracks in the mud in this off the ditch bank where he was stopping and listening. And I asked him, I said, are you hearing any turkeys? He said, man, were you listening? He said, I ain't gonna tell you. He said, but there is sign everywhere. But I ain't heard one yet. And I'm like, well, just hang in there, buddy. He'll be there. Now that kept him off of my spot.

[Brent Reeves]

You really did that too.

[Mark Kenyon]

Brett said that with his brother. They shared everything except turkeys.

[Clay Newcomb]

No turkeys. It's every man for yourself.

[Reed Bargainer]

Then we'll do one more and then we'll. We'll move along here. Cadison is asking. I think he was the one who also piped in with the films versus episode debate. He asked and he went through slash December archery elk tips. He drew his first elk tag in a primo unit outside of the rut.

[Brent Reeves]

He asked on the wrong epis. You got the wrong guys here for that one.

[Mark Kenyon]

Killed. You've probably killed.

[Brent Reeves]

I've killed one elk.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. Clay's never killed no.

[Clay Newcomb]

Cor the guy to ask for that.

[Reed Bargainer]

Oh, well. Corey. Corey, you can get on mic. I can cut to your camera. It's a little. I'm kind of embarrassed how sloppy it looks over here, but there you are.

[Brent Reeves]

Archery. I mean, they're going to be in there. I don't know what state you're planning on hunting, but they'll be in their winter range by then. Bulls will be all bachelored up together, typically out in the sunshine in the morning and bedding on a south face somewhere that's not too snowy. So do a lot of glass and look for tracks. Fresh sign and. Yeah, good luck. It's hard to stock elk in the snow with a bow. Are there, Archer, Seasons open in December around here, not around here. I'm trying to think where that would be. Washington, perhaps? All right.

[Clay Newcomb]

I don't know. Drop us a. Drop us a pin, Cadison. We won't tell anybody on the chat live. All right. Is that good, Phil? We're good on that.

[Reed Bargainer]

We'll tackle a few more questions at the end of the show. So if you have any more questions for Brent, Clay or Mark, who knows when they will be back on radio live. Get them in.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, we'll get fired asap. All right, on to our next segment. Which is One Minute Fishing.

[Brent Reeves]

I am excited for this.

[Clay Newcomb]

Well, do you, punk?

[Reed Bargainer]

Go ahead, make my cast.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's you, isn't it, Phil? That is outstanding.

[Reed Bargainer]

Appreciate it.

[Clay Newcomb]

One Minute Fishing.

[Reed Bargainer]

Channel. Channel my inner eastwood gravel.

[Clay Newcomb]

One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing, and they have a one minute to catch a fish. If they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. And for the whole month of April, or April, as we call it, in Arkansas, our friends at Trout Unlimited are joining us for one minute. Oh, wait a minute. Let me read this again. And for the whole month. Oh, I got it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Education.

[Clay Newcomb]

I figured it out. For the whole month of April, Trout Unlimited is joining us for the One Minute Fishing episode.

[Mark Kenyon]

Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Who wrote this? Corey? Nope.

[Brent Reeves]

Spencer.

[Clay Newcomb]

Spencer figured Unlimited. This week, our angler is Tanner Belknap. Tanner is on a spring creek near the Salt river somewhere on the border of Wyoming and Idaho, and he's fishing for a donation to Trout Unlimited. Tanner, welcome to the show.

[Mark Kenyon]

Let's go, Tanner.

[Tanner Belknap]

Thanks.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tell us about yourself, man. What. What. What's your claim to fame? What do you do for a living?

[Tanner Belknap]

I don't really have any claims to fame, but grew up in Alabama and Ohio. Been fishing and hunting since I was old enough to walk. Grew up fishing out in Colorado every summer and fished some rivers that try to limit it saves by fighting for minimum stream flows. So since I was a little kid, I kind of thought of TU employees as superheroes. And in Ohio, through middle school and high school, I volunteered with Trout Unlimited and Project Healing Waters. Just hundreds of hours, and moved out west for college at Oregon State. Ended up working as an engineer for about a year and a half or so, and then saw this job opportunity with Trout Unlimited pop up. And that's what I've been doing ever since. Also on the Wyoming BHA board right when all the corner crossing stuff started. So that's been pretty cool as well.

[Clay Newcomb]

Awesome. Man, you busy as a cat in the sandbox. We. We asked y'all to highlight some important watersheds across the country for this segment. Now, tell us about the Salt river watershed.

[Mark Kenyon]

Was that a duck?

[Reed Bargainer]

No. We're getting a little bit of an echo feedback there, Clay did sound like a duck, though.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tell us about. Tell us about the Salt river watershed.

[Tanner Belknap]

Yeah, Wyoming is a really special place because we drain into the Mississippi river, the Colorado river, the Bear river, as well as the Snake River. The Salt river is part of the Snake river headwaters here. Really unique. It's a place where Cutthroat trout still dominate the main stem. Can you guys hear me all right over the wind?

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

Oh, yeah.

[Tanner Belknap]

Okay. Cutthroat trout still dominate the main stem of the rivers here, which doesn't really exist anywhere else in the Rockies. Usually they're isolated, the small tributaries. And the Salt river is a really unique spot within the Snake river headwaters. It has the most fish per mile of anywhere up here, as well as the biggest fish. It has a ton of spring creeks and sloughs and really good groundwater influence that helps keep temps low in the summer and warm in the winter. So it's really productive. The river is highly degraded. If you spend a lot of time on western trout streams, you'll see it when you're floating it. Of the 10 major tributaries, five of them are fully dewatered every year. About 10 miles of the river itself are fully dewatered every year. There's extensive bank erosion and sedimentation issues. There's a large scale removal of willows and riparian vegetation back in the early to mid-1900s. And that plus grazing and other things have just led to a very over widened river. That's. The pools are a lot shallower with less cover than they would have naturally. And the riffles, when they get over widened, you get a lot of sediment deposition in the gravels. So you get a lot lower macro invertebrate productivity and less spotting habitat. So a lot of the work we're doing is to address those issues.

[Clay Newcomb]

Awesome, man.

[Brent Reeves]

I gotta jump in.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, get in there.

[Brent Reeves]

I just gotta say that I love this region over there. I spend my summers out there, and a large part of my best moments in life have been out there. And I'm so appreciative of the stuff you guys are doing because those Snake river and Yellowstone cutthroat trout in that region are absolute gems of the natural world. Those rivers are so special and. And, yeah, they need. They need our attention. So. So thank you, Tanner. And I also gotta say, are you going to the Bull Moose Saloon tonight? Because that place up there is one of my favorites.

[Tanner Belknap]

Well, I. I live about two blocks away from the Bull Moose. I don't think I'll be in there tonight.

[Clay Newcomb]

Everybody got a chair date with his name on it in there.

[Brent Reeves]

That's a great spot.

[Tanner Belknap]

Yeah. Next time you're here, I'd be happy to put you on some big fish.

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, count me in.

[Clay Newcomb]

Don't say things you don't mean. I mean, it's all right. Let's talk about what we're fishing for today. Tanner, what are you targeting today?

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, we haven't even fished yet.

[Clay Newcomb]

No.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, we gotta fish.

[Clay Newcomb]

And how. And what are you going to do? What are you fishing for? And how you going to do it?

[Tanner Belknap]

So I'm fishing for native Snake river cutthroat, potentially a brown trout, and there might even be a white fish in here, but really, whatever will bite. Been out here for about an hour and a half and had two bites, so.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, wow.

[Clay Newcomb]

I just saw a bull shark right behind you.

[Mark Kenyon]

Odds are stuck against you, Tanner.

[Brent Reeves]

You can do it.

[Tanner Belknap]

Yeah, but we. We the best pool for this, so I haven't even cast it in there yet, so there's. There's a chance.

[Brent Reeves]

All right, See how the drama.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, I want you to. I want you to take your time, but hurry up. Every chance you get. And as soon as that fly hits the water, we're gonna start the timer.

[Brent Reeves]

Come on. You got the stander.

[Mark Kenyon]

Pull a big old flathead out of there.

[Brent Reeves]

Please don't pull a flathead out of there.

[Clay Newcomb]

What if he needs to stretch before he starts?

[Mark Kenyon]

Is he. Is he fly fishing?

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, I think he's.

[Clay Newcomb]

He's running a trot line.

[Brent Reeves]

That's.

[Mark Kenyon]

Is that. Is that a hoop net?

[Clay Newcomb]

Tell me what you got.

[Tanner Belknap]

Got a. We got a triple rig here just to maximize the odds. We got a Pat's rubber legs to an egg to a Duracell.

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, yeah. Love the Duracell out there.

[Tanner Belknap]

Just put the.

[Brent Reeves]

Here we go, Ravac.

[Clay Newcomb]

Here we go. False cast.

[Brent Reeves]

Nice technique.

[Mark Kenyon]

Come on, baby.

[Brent Reeves]

Manage that line.

[Mark Kenyon]

Come on, baby. Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

What's going on? What he's doing here? He's just got this. This nice little. I don't know, the opposite bank. You can see there's some moving water. There's a faster current. He's trying to move his fly through there while maintenance, maintaining a What's called a drag free drift with his three flies. So he's going to be flipping the fly line up so that the drift of his fly matches the speed of the current. So he's going to be casting and then flipping the line. Flipping the line. Flipping the line as it comes down towards him, while also simultaneously using his left hand to pull in any slack line so he maintains contact with that fly. Any second now, and we're gonna have a big old, beautiful snake brother cutthroat trout. And I will be so excited. Come on, Tanner.

[Clay Newcomb]

Time's up.

[Reed Bargainer]

Unfortunately, that's the time right there.

[Clay Newcomb]

Dang.

[Mark Kenyon]

That was the most passion description of fly fishing I've ever heard. In my life.

[Clay Newcomb]

That was like, you should be at Augusta.

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, I love it.

[Clay Newcomb]

That was awesome.

[Mark Kenyon]

Almost cried.

[Tanner Belknap]

The downside of a triple rig is sometimes you hook all.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's me, brother. Yeah, that's me. With a single rig right there.

[Brent Reeves]

That'll happen.

[Tanner Belknap]

I don't think the heavy back wind helped me out very much.

[Clay Newcomb]

I'm sure it didn't.

[Brent Reeves]

It was a failing attempt.

[Clay Newcomb]

You're also doing that in front of 4 million people right now that are watching.

[Brent Reeves]

At least. You did great, Tanner.

[Mark Kenyon]

Good job, Tanner.

[Clay Newcomb]

Give me, give me, give me your pitches for what's going on for Trout Unlimited. You got any local events or some stuff that we need to be aware of?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Tanner Belknap]

You mind if I mention some of the project works we. Work we've done here?

[Clay Newcomb]

Absolutely.

[Tanner Belknap]

Yeah. So in the Salt river watershed, I just started a little under three years ago, but our work here started a bit before then. We've done about seven miles of full scale habitat restoration work on Ten Cup Creek, one mile on Swift Creek, about a third of a mile on the Salt River. We've replaced or retrofitted three different fish passage barriers on the Salt River. And then for upcoming projects, we have about three and a half miles of full scale habitat restoration on the Salt river coming up in the next year and a half. We're just working on raising all the funds to implement that work. Then we're working on some aquifer recharge programs and some other things to try to boost flows in some of those dewatered streams and improve stream flows in the river.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tell me about. Okay, let's tell the folks where, if they want to support you, where they going to find you? Where do they. Where can they join your organization and. And all that stuff.

[Tanner Belknap]

Yeah, you can join Trout Unlimited. Just Google it. And that, that helps us a lot, especially with some of the uncertainty we've had in funding recently. Just having a strong membership really helps us out. Then the Star Valley chapter, we're actually holding an online sweep stakes right now for a Wyoming Commissioner license. So a Wyoming Commissioner license. Whoever wins it gets to choose between any deer, elk or pronghorn tag in the state of Wyoming. I sent you guys the link for that. So that's the first prize. The second place prize is a real nice Tika 270 with a Swarovski scope. And the third place prize is a nice pair of binos. But if you guys can help spread the word on that. We're trying to raise upwards of $40,000 and we're about 700 right now.

[Clay Newcomb]

So wait, let's get it in there.

[Brent Reeves]

He didn't win the 500 donation to Trout Unlimited because he didn't catch a fish, but I'll personally donate 200 bucks as soon as we end this episode right now. I don't make Clay Nuken money, so I can't do the full 500, but I'll fund at least 200 of donations right after this to support what you.

[Mark Kenyon]

Did with your wife before you do this.

[Brent Reeves]

I did. I'll hear for I like it. I'll hear about later. Wow.

[Mark Kenyon]

Big money.

[Clay Newcomb]

Tanner, thank you so much, man. We appreciate the effort, and especially the effort, what you guys are doing, that whole organization, it's absolutely. You're doing some great work, and we appreciate it. And Mark's $200 poor because of you. Also, fourth place in that contest gets to fish with hand grenades. Thanks, Tanner.

[Reed Bargainer]

Wow.

[Tanner Belknap]

Thank you.

[Brent Reeves]

Thanks, Tanner.

[Mark Kenyon]

See you, Tanner.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay. Is this a new segment we got going here? This new?

[Brent Reeves]

No, it's not.

[Reed Bargainer]

It's been a while since we've done it, but it is not new now.

[Brent Reeves]

Do you not watch?

[Clay Newcomb]

I do watch, but I have a short memory. Your name. I'm looking forward to this. I know Mark is really looking forward to it. It's called show and Tell.

[Brent Reeves]

Phil's really into the 80s. He's always. He's always ripping on 80s songs.

[Mark Kenyon]

Is that you?

[Reed Bargainer]

What else did you expect? Sorry, the first half got cut off. I know.

[Mark Kenyon]

Very mixed signals from Giannis about our.

[Clay Newcomb]

Friends is telling us he's number that we're number one. Okay, here's what we did. Each of us brought in an outdoor related item that we want to talk about. This is exactly like the elementary school version of show and Tell. Remember the eight years you were in elementary school?

[Mark Kenyon]

I remember the first thing I ever brought to show and Tell.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, well, let's see what y'all brought, Clay.

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, you got the in in second grade.

[Clay Newcomb]

We had.

[Mark Kenyon]

Third grade, I think was the first real show and tell I had. And I remember I brought my dad the biggest buck Gary Newcomb believer Newcomb ever killed. He had it sawn off, and I brought it to school. So dang proud of it. Carry my dad's buck in, but that's pretty cool, folks. Mark, do you want to go first? I would like for you to go first or. I mean, I'm trying to give you the best slot. You think the best slot is the last. I'll let you go.

[Brent Reeves]

No, I'll take it now because we're running out of Time.

[Mark Kenyon]

Okay.

[Brent Reeves]

And I won't get to gloat man moment in years. Right now I have with me to show and tell a fly that caught my very first tarpon ever. So you just heard me do play by play on someone's fly fishing. So you can tell I love fly fishing. Yeah, well, tarpon are a saltwater species that I've dreamed of for many, many years and attempted to catch on fly rod for a handful of years now and finally, about two weeks ago, finally got done. So this little purple and black streamer tail. No, but I don't know what the deer look like by you, but it is jig. Yes, I understand what you're saying.

[Clay Newcomb]

Anyways, grown folks are talking, Clay.

[Mark Kenyon]

Come on. I mean, I would call that a bucktail jig. I bet money that's bucktail.

[Phil Taylor]

I don't think it is.

[Clay Newcomb]

We got a picture.

[Phil Taylor]

They die.

[Brent Reeves]

But yeah, so. So to make a long story short, this fly caught my very first tarpon ever, which was a baby tarpon. That one's not the baby. The smaller fish was the baby.

[Mark Kenyon]

Look at that mark.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah. Caught that one off the dock of a rental home. There were these little schools of fish coming through and my kids were out there watching and saw one moving through and was able to cast out in front of it enough and strip, strip, strip. Stripped it in. And that little guy. Not little. I mean, it's two foot long. Yeah, that was awesome. And then the next day I was able to go out with a buddy on a skiff and fish for adults. And I caught my first real tarpon, which is that sucker right there on a fly. It's like big game hunting. Tarpon fishing with a fly rod is the. The closest connection I've seen from fishing to bow hunting. It was like sitting in a tree stand day after day after day. And then a Boone and Crockett buck comes in at 20 yards and you have just seconds. I mean, we. You, you're out there hunting for fish. You're out in these flats. You're spending hours and hours searching for a fish like this. Because you don't just blindly cast. You're waiting until you see one of these charges and then this six foot torpedo comes in at you. You see it. You have two and a half seconds to assess where that fish is going, how fast it's going to go there. You have to then immediately lay out a perfect shot. They don't even call it a cast. It's a shot. I've got one shot to get that fly just in front of that fish at just the right time and then immediately begin retrieving at just the right cadence and pace. And I did that over and over for days and days and days over the last handful of years. And finally two weeks ago, the stars aligned. And that, you know, I don't know, almost five foot long fish finally took my fly. You set that hook and you feel this connection with your left hand directly. There's no rod in between me and the fish. There's no reel in between the story. There is a. This is.

[Phil Taylor]

Yeah, you got plenty of time. There's no time limit.

[Brent Reeves]

My fly line is in my left hand, and then it comes tight into the bony mouth that. Like a bowling ball mouth on the other side. And you feel that. It feels like you're connected.

[Mark Kenyon]

Do you not have a fishing pole?

[Brent Reeves]

Well, you do, but the fishing pole is pointed directly at that fish. So in the moment at the set. So I'm. I cast out, that rod goes underneath my armpit, and then I have to use both hands to grab the line and then slowly retrieve it like this. So if people could. If you're not watching, I'm using two hands while holding my rod in my armpit and retrieving slowly but steadily this fly and this monstrous fish comes out. You know, I saw him in Casto, and he comes and he's following it. So it's like a shark following a little baby fish. And then all of a sudden, you see this mouth just open up like a bowling ball and then spins. And then I feel this just. It's like if you're holding a leash to a rottweiler. And all of a sudden he sees a squirrel. And that squirrel, he's lunges and immediately feel like this electricity go through your entire body. And it blew my mind. And for 20 plus minutes, I was, you know, one on one with that fish. How far.

[Clay Newcomb]

How far was the cast? How far was the shot when he's 20 foot?

[Brent Reeves]

Something like that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, right. Are you compelled to memorialize this fish with a replica?

[Brent Reeves]

No, but I will cherish that photo in that memory.

[Mark Kenyon]

You don't want a replica hanging in your house.

[Brent Reeves]

I don't think my wife would allow it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Mark, you $200 for trout?

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, I do. I do love them, but I've got too many deer mounts. No, mounts are not allowed in my house anymore unless it's 170 plus or like somehow astronomical. Okay.

[Clay Newcomb]

Mark does not speak for the rest of us. By the way.

[Phil Taylor]

What do you reckon that fish weighs, Mark?

[Brent Reeves]

We thought it was like 75 some pounds, something like that. Jake thought that in Florida. Yep. This is down in Florida.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

And I will be tarpon fishing every year that I possibly can make it down there. Oh, my goodness. I know.

[Clay Newcomb]

You catch and release them, right?

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, release. And I literally. You can't even take a fish like that out of the water. So I had to hop into the water with it to.

[Phil Taylor]

You can.

[Brent Reeves]

It's illegal to take a fish that's over 40 pounds, I think in Florida out of the water.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

And so hop in there with it and, you know, was able to snap a couple photos and hold this fish.

[Mark Kenyon]

Mark's kind of hog and show and tell.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah. It should stop.

[Reed Bargainer]

But before we get off the topic of fishing, Spencer wants you all to commit to doing a one minute fishing for this sometime in the near future.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah, count me in.

[Phil Taylor]

Hey, they usually have cute names for these flies. Do you know the name of this fly?

[Brent Reeves]

I don't know the name of this fly. I think it's just a tarpon streamer.

[Mark Kenyon]

I think it's tarpon jig.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's what it looks like.

[Brent Reeves]

We use purple.

[Phil Taylor]

I think it's too soft to be bucktail.

[Brent Reeves]

I don't think so.

[Phil Taylor]

I think bucktail is a little more coarse.

[Mark Kenyon]

I think that's. Well, that's synthetic, Mark. This isn't even genuine.

[Clay Newcomb]

You cheated.

[Brent Reeves]

I don't care what it is. It works.

[Mark Kenyon]

No, it was a great. That was, that's a great fish passion story.

[Brent Reeves]

I loved it.

[Mark Kenyon]

I, I, I have no doubt that that's like, compelling. How much time do we have, Art? Do. Are we on a timeline?

[Clay Newcomb]

No.

[Mark Kenyon]

We got no timeline.

[Brent Reeves]

No. I thought you were gonna cut us off at one hour. Nope. All right.

[Mark Kenyon]

Sweet. Okay, well, this shows more of my story than.

[Brent Reeves]

In that case, I'll stop. Okay. No good.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's compelling.

[Clay Newcomb]

That's good, brother.

[Mark Kenyon]

So I would say my story really is comparable in a way to Mark's in that it was a kind of a longtime idea that came to fruition. Two years ago, I killed a bear in Arkansas with Stone Point. And so in archery, you know, you can, you can take archery to the extreme of going like, super primitive. And I had, I, I wanted to, to, because of the limitations of the equipment, I wanted to shoot a bear off the ground at five yards. And the only way I could figure out how to do that was to dig basically a ground pit. So what we call the bear pit. So we went in and dug a deep hole. And basically it helped with some scent control when the wind's Right. And. And I shot this bear three yards. I believe in natural scent control. Mark.

[Brent Reeves]

Okay.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Clay Newcomb]

He rolls around the dirt.

[Mark Kenyon]

But this point, that brought this stone point, because this, this is a fulsome point which a Folsom point is a, a, a, a. It's in. It's. Folsom points were found in Folsom, New Mexico, discovered inside a bone pile of bison Antiquis. We did a whole series on it by a man named George McJunkin was the one who found the. The bison pit. But Folsom points are the. Are the most beautiful and arguably the most difficult stone points in the world to make. And so that, you know, there's a lot of mystery around why they made stone points because you got to have very high quality material, and just the napping process is incredibly difficult. There's a 40, 50, 40 to 50% failure rate with, with fluting the sides. So if you look, the sides at this point are completely flat. They're ultra thin. And so there's a lot of mystery around the Folsom people and why they did this. And I could talk about it for.

[Phil Taylor]

Hours, tell you why they did it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Why do you think they did it? Yeah, buddy. Penetration.

[Phil Taylor]

Skinnier. Broadhead is going to penetrate better than.

[Mark Kenyon]

A. I mean, that's a. That's a very simplified answer.

[Phil Taylor]

Thank you.

[Mark Kenyon]

That, that is. Is partly right, but there were. There were bigger. There had to be more reasons than that for the difficulty they went through. But this actual Folsom point is a. Is a what we call a replica. Like a Folsom man didn't make this, right. 11, 700 years ago, a man named Tony Soares in California made him. And he is arguably the. The most skilled man on the planet at making Folsom points. There's. There's a collection of people that can make them. A lot of flint nappers can make them, but Tony Suarez is one of the best in the world. And the biggest question about Folsom is how did they make them? And so Tony made this one for me. There's a film on The Meat Eater YouTube channel of me killing a bear out of the pit with this point. And. But I will tell you this. Tony has a. He made these points for me. Like, I watched him make them. And he has a method that he would not allow us to film that is like. Like his proprietary way to make a fulsome point and pass that on before he dies. I hope. I mean, I hadn't talked. We're not that good of friends. I mean, Like, I don't really talk to him about D and stuff, but. But he's, he's a great guy, so maybe he doesn't like to share. Well, it's like a trade secret. It's like if you. It's his business. Like he.

[Phil Taylor]

Oh, he sells those.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, he does. I mean it's, he does a lot of other stuff, but he, he sells like high end Folsom points. You can buy them from him. And, and so it's, it's like a trade secret that he developed. But what he showed me was a jig that he made that he flutes these sides. So very cool.

[Brent Reeves]

Now that some points attached to what, nine inches of an arrow shaft.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. So this is where it broke off. Yeah. This was the, the era that shot the bear with. And, and I got about like 11 inches of penetration. The bear fell within sight. The bear actually you can see it roll on camera. Just barely.

[Brent Reeves]

Did that go through the shoulder blade?

[Mark Kenyon]

It. It didn't go through the shoulder blade. It. The. I mean, it did not go through the scapula. No, it did not. It just barely missed the scapula. But it was a. It was the shot, wasn't. It was. It was a good. It. It did good. But I kind of short stroked the bow when I shot it. He was so close.

[Clay Newcomb]

He's in a hurry. Wasn't you?

[Mark Kenyon]

I was in a hurry, yeah. And bear nuke and my son killed a bear out of the bear pit this year. There's a film on Meteor YouTube channel about that. A film.

[Phil Taylor]

Have you guys been nominated for any film awards for these films?

[Mark Kenyon]

Not yet. Not yet.

[Phil Taylor]

Not yet.

[Mark Kenyon]

Me and Mark make films, though.

[Phil Taylor]

Did you see Mark, also a filmmaker?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Brent Reeves]

Yes. Yes.

[Reed Bargainer]

Wisconsin outdoorsman. Had a great idea to get the official answer. I just started a poll. Films or episodes? Please get your opinion in.

[Brent Reeves]

Look, a show would. Would entail episodic content and we don't make episodic content anymore. At least us.

[Mark Kenyon]

I mean, when there was like hunting with Yanni, you know, you know, whatever they called it, that was all you.

[Phil Taylor]

Gotta do is just take away the title of the grouping of your episodes and they become films, is what you're saying.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yes, Yanni. It's just like so many things in life, you know, it's like you're either a turkey hunter or you're a turkey hunter.

[Reed Bargainer]

It's a tight hole. Tight poll.

[Mark Kenyon]

Get your votes in and so you.

[Reed Bargainer]

Can, you can make a difference.

[Mark Kenyon]

Is that what me and Mark do is an art?

[Brent Reeves]

But what Giannis does, I mean by his own proclamation.

[Mark Kenyon]

I'm not saying. I think Yanni makes art, baby. I think Yanni makes films, baby.

[Clay Newcomb]

Art.

[Mark Kenyon]

He's. He's the one that's arguing with me.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay, are you all done? If y'all not gonna fight your stone.

[Phil Taylor]

Point, we're going on one last question.

[Clay Newcomb]

Okay.

[Phil Taylor]

Has Barry Newcomb tried to make these yet?

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, yeah. Well, not false and points. He can nap, though. He can. He can make a functional point.

[Phil Taylor]

I've seen him napping.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Phil Taylor]

I'm a good napper, too, but not that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, not that kind of napping.

[Clay Newcomb]

All right, here we go. This is mine right here. And this is, as I so eloquently spoke to my friend Corey Calkins about it. He said, what you bringing for show and tell? And I said, an elk fang. And he said, is that anything like an elk ivory? I'm like, yeah, or that. You can call it that, too. But this is. This is exactly what this is. And this was from my first one and only elk that I killed in 2011. And there is a crazy story about how all that came down. First, I'm going to show you the video, and I'm going to tell you what's going on.

[Mark Kenyon]

We get the video.

[Clay Newcomb]

This is the video. Not a film from 2011.

[Mark Kenyon]

This is not a film.

[Clay Newcomb]

Listen.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, this is good.

[Brent Reeves]

Did you ever score this bull?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yep. He was 2 inches off Pope and Young.

[Tanner Belknap]

Friendly.

[Clay Newcomb]

Listen, listen, listen. Can you pause it right there? Now, did y'all hear that click? That audible click? Did you hear that?

[Phil Taylor]

Oh, no, I just heard the bugle.

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, he. He, like half. He like, three quarter bugled and then got spooked by something.

[Clay Newcomb]

For the folks that can't. They can't see this. This. This bull's walked into a watering hole. And from where he's at right there, he is 19 yards away from me broadside. And I had.

[Phil Taylor]

There was a blind.

[Clay Newcomb]

No, we're in the window open. They got a couple of bushes in front of us. We're on a real steep grade. And the cameraman, the guy that's filming, is sitting right to my front. The way he just had to sit angled in front of me instead of behind me because of where we were. And when that elk walked up there and was drinking, and when they started bugling, my guy, the guy I was hunting with, said, when he starts bugling, go ahead and. And pull back. Said, lots of times they won't see you. Now, whether or not that's true or not, I don't know. I Was in a pretty good spot, but he said, he's going to be occupied, so get your bow back. Well, I was holding that bow and I was holding the arrow onto the arrow wrist with my left hand. I had my index finger over the top of that arrow, and I pulled that bow back so fast, I pulled the string out of the nock. So the arrow was just sitting the.

[Mark Kenyon]

Knock out of the arrow?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, yeah. And no, I just pulled the string out of the knock. The arrow was intact. And I turned loose with my finger because I went crazy and lost my mind and thought that would help. And that arrow, that audible click you hear is that arrow falling off and hitting the riser. And it's hung in my. In the arrow rest. And if you can turn the audio up loud, you can hear me say, talk to the cameraman who can't see it because he's partially in front of me and looking at the camera. I can't shoot him. And he's like, why not? I said, my arrow come off my string. He says, put it back on. I said, I can't. He said, why not? And he turned and looked, and he saw me at full draw with a blank and that arrow hanging off. And he reached and grabbed that arrow with his left hand and stuck it back on there while he's filming.

[Brent Reeves]

And that bull just stared at you.

[Clay Newcomb]

And you're going to watch what happens. Another bull saved us. Oh, wow.

[Mark Kenyon]

Okay, so we've gone back.

[Clay Newcomb]

Listen for the click.

[Reed Bargainer]

I went back a few seconds.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah. Oh, now I'm holding. I'm at full draw. Holding a blank right there.

[Brent Reeves]

Their ears don't pull.

[Clay Newcomb]

That bull saved my hunt right there.

[Mark Kenyon]

Because he took his attention.

[Clay Newcomb]

Took his attention.

[Brent Reeves]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, it did. Oh, man. He fully gave.

[Clay Newcomb]

Now he starting. This is when. When the ERA thing's going on because you see my camera guy's not following. Following the bull now. Bam. He's right there. Now we're talking. How far is he? Is he 45?

[Phil Taylor]

25.

[Brent Reeves]

Now he's like 30 something.

[Clay Newcomb]

He's like 40 right there. But I had measured. I had ranged a stick up there at 50 yards. And you'll see it right there.

[Phil Taylor]

Yep. That stick was 50.

[Brent Reeves]

Huh?

[Mark Kenyon]

Did you mouth stop bleed at him?

[Clay Newcomb]

Yep. Oh, that'll do. Was he was at 50 yards.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, let's see. Brent Reeves in 2011.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, look at that. Beardless.

[Brent Reeves]

Oh, my goodness.

[Clay Newcomb]

All about to lose my mind.

[Phil Taylor]

He was holding his breath the entire time. Looks like.

[Mark Kenyon]

Just start.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, there he is. That was 70 yards from. From Where I was sitting, man.

[Brent Reeves]

Awesome. Incredible.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, it was great. He. That era hit left, hit liver, left lung. And you could have not more center punched his heart than that era did.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's a heck of a shot.

[Brent Reeves]

Beautiful.

[Clay Newcomb]

It was. It was fun. A crazy deal, crazy experience. When I'm ready to do again sometime. All right, boys, do one more quick.

[Reed Bargainer]

Round of feedback here.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Reed Bargainer]

Yeah. Sounds good. Let's see here. Mark, I can't speak to this. Maybe you can. Kevin says, have you been up north near Gaylord and seen the forest devastation? How do you think this will impact deer hunting?

[Brent Reeves]

Sorry, I've not been up there.

[Reed Bargainer]

Okay.

[Phil Taylor]

What is he talking about? Those storms that come through must be.

[Brent Reeves]

Must be.

[Phil Taylor]

Well, I'll answer for Mark, Kevin. I think it's going to be great for the deer hunt. It's going to make it thick and woolly in there.

[Mark Kenyon]

And disturbance.

[Phil Taylor]

Disturbance is always a good thing. So don't look at it. It looks bad to your eyes, which is why you're calling it devastation. But in all honesty, it's probably going to be great for not just Mother Nature.

[Mark Kenyon]

Calls it a Tuesday.

[Phil Taylor]

That's right.

[Reed Bargainer]

Chase asks. He says, clay Brent, my buddy, is on day three of getting his butt whooped in the land between the lakes. Kentucky. Any tips on how to bag one of those south deep woods thunder chickens?

[Clay Newcomb]

Man, you gotta hang on from. From that latitude. I've been talking to folks. Clay's been talking to folks. They. The hands are starting to get away from them up there. So just. If he's on turkeys, just hang in there with him. Eventually you gonna catch one by all day.

[Mark Kenyon]

I think guys, if they go out and they don't hear birds and they're like, man, it's not that, you know, they're not really doing it.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, if you can hunt all day.

[Mark Kenyon]

I think it is there. I think it is there. I mean, I heard some guys killing birds late in the evening that didn't gobble in the morning.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, me and Reed got on one the other day at 10:20 in the morning. Normally you hear a Turkey gobble at 10:20. He's going, he's going to get to ride in the truck. It didn't happen because of the hand situation, but I would just say you just got to hang in there.

[Reed Bargainer]

Cool. Lane says, phil, you got to address the dude wipes conspiracy in the Q and A portion. If you guys don't know. People think that I sound like the guy who sings the dude wipes jingle. That's. That interrupts all of these shows every single week, I legally cannot say. I will say that when I want to feel a little more fresh down there, I only reach for one product. What product is that? I can't say. Dude, wipes. Send meat eater some money, maybe a sponsorship, and I will be able to say, clay, how's your book coming along? When can we get a sneak peek?

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, man, the book. We're in hot pursuit of a great book on the American black bear. I mean, we're like in the heart of it and. But it's still. It's still a ways out. I mean, as far as a sneak peek, I'm going to be dropping a few nuggets here and there. But, yeah, thanks for asking.

[Clay Newcomb]

No official timeline yet?

[Mark Kenyon]

No. Well, no. Yeah, it's on the nuggets. That's right. Yeah, it's coming along good, though.

[Phil Taylor]

We got a little nugget last night.

[Mark Kenyon]

At dinner was very interesting about put Mark to sleep.

[Brent Reeves]

No.

[Clay Newcomb]

Come on. Somebody asked him about the wash it all.

[Brent Reeves]

No.

[Mark Kenyon]

I'll be glad to. Be glad to know. Recount that.

[Clay Newcomb]

No, no. What's next, Phil?

[Reed Bargainer]

I'll field this one for Jordan Sellers because we've had a few questions about his awesome hunting cold case episode that we dropped earlier. There are no concrete plans, but we loved it. Listeners seem to love it. It was really well done. So I can almost guarantee that there will be some in the future. We just do not know when. But I'll just like send Jordan your love on Instagram or something.

[Clay Newcomb]

Yeah, I'd like to add that I had very little to do with that. Jordan did that from the ground up and did an absolute excellent job. It was really, really good. Research was awesome. The way he presented it was good. And I was. I was really proud of how that turned out.

[Reed Bargainer]

A question for Mark from Keith. Last year, I snort wheezed in three mature bucks. None gave me a good shot opportunity. I'm considering getting a decoy. Should I go with a buck or doe?

[Brent Reeves]

Personally, I'd go with a buck. I think in that kind of case where you're having success getting bucks interested in the snort wheeze, that means there's a lot of competition in the area. Those bucks are riled up. They want to take on their competition and they just need to see, you know, just like turkey hunt, they need that final thing to get them to commit into shooting range. And a buck would likely be the thing that would do that. I think in most cases, a buck decoy is the better option and it's a lot of fun watching a buck come into a buck decoy. Circling in all bristled up and ornery ears laid back. Yeah, hard to beat that.

[Reed Bargainer]

Favorite off season outdoor activities? Besides fishing, is there any other hobbies?

[Clay Newcomb]

Riding mules, macrame, A coon hunt year round. Dance dad proud. Dance dad. I do that a lot this time of year as a matter of fact.

[Brent Reeves]

Camping, hiking, backpacking, that's our thing.

[Reed Bargainer]

Cool. You know what? I think that was a pretty good show. What do you guys think?

[Clay Newcomb]

Awesome. Hey, Mark, Claybo, Yanni, thanks for trespassing. Phil, Corey, this was a good deal, a good time and I appreciate everybody watching. Y'all be tuned in next week when somebody will be hosting that won't be nearly as handsome as me and probably good times.

[Steve Rinella]

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