Ep. 762: EHD Reports and Competitive Birding | MeatEater Radio Live!

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast – Episode 762: EHD Reports and Competitive Birding | MeatEater Radio Live!
September 12, 2025
Host: Spencer (with Cal, Seth, and guests Owen Reiser, Kip Adams)
[Listen on MeatEater Podcast Network]

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Overview of the Episode

This lively live episode brings MeatEater Radio to listeners with a focus on two major outdoor topics: competitive birding (the “Big Year”) and a region-by-region update on the concerning EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) impacts on America’s deer herds. Hosted by Spencer and co-hosted by Cal and Seth at MeatEater HQ, the show balances in-depth discussion and expert interviews with their signature humor, throwbacks, outdoor gear reviews, and audience Q&A.

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Main Segments and Highlights

1. Catch-Up and Prefall Prep (04:03–08:20)
   • Cal details his pre-season freezer clean-out and game processing marathon in preparation for an Alaska brown bear hunt, sharing anecdotes about the state of his wild game reserves.
   • The hosts riff about the ideal way to organize a hunter’s freezer, labeling woes, and pre-hunt stress.
   • Spencer jokes about everyone sporting mustaches in the studio.

     "We’ve hit our quota of mustaches on this show." – Spencer (08:20)

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2. Interview: Owen Reiser on Competitive Birding and Listers Documentary (08:33–18:13)
   Owen Reiser, director of Listers: A Glimpse into Extreme Bird Watching, shares insights from his year-long “Big Year” adventure with his brother.

   Key Topics:

   • What’s a Big Year?: Owen explains the premise of listing as many bird species as possible nationally in one calendar year—an intense endeavor usually dominated by obsessives with substantial resources.

     “Most people doing a Big Year—they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to look at little birds, which is, you know, insane. But we get it now.” – Owen (10:21)

   • Dirtbag Approach: Owen and his brother did it on a shoestring—camping in a minivan, living on public land, and crashing in Cracker Barrel lots 42 nights.
   • Birding Subculture & Drama:
     • Stringing: Falsely claiming rare bird sightings.
     • Swallow Gate: Notorious case of faked sighting, complete with forensic photo evidence, leading to blacklist and controversy.

     “There’s cheaters out there...they say you saw the bird and you didn't, or you exaggerate...built on honor system, right?” – Owen (13:01)

   • Bird Alerts & Tech: Discovery of eBird rare alerts, the rise in numbers, and use of the Merlin app for identification.
   • Favorite and Weirdest Sightings:
     • Favorite bird: Common nighthawk (“not a rare bird guy”).
     • Most unusual bird: Gray-collared becard near the Mexico border.
     • Oddest locale: Birding outside a women’s prison in New Mexico.
   • Bird Cops: Sightings get rejected by “the bird cops” (the eBird review community), especially for beginners.
   • Their Tally: 579 species—scoring 23rd place in the nation among 1.1 million eBird users.
   • Advice for Beginners:

     “Get the Merlin app...leave the bucket hat and vest at home.” – Owen (17:44)

   • Closing: Call-out to the Amish rare bird hotline—a surprising relic of grassroots birding.

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3. Birding Chat & App Tricks (18:30–22:00)
   • The hosts swap stories about the Merlin app, using it to ID birds by sound (including personal attempts to trick the app with human-made calls).
   • Cal: “I just busted it out the other day because we had this group of hawks...they were like tearing squirrels and stuff open.” (19:50)
   • Seth: “That Merlin app is one of my favorite things ever. In spring when I'm turkey hunting, I'll just turn it on and see how many birds I can ID.” (20:50)
   • Discussion of the surprisingly robust community, citizen science aspect, and integrating birding into hunting.

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4. Gear Talk (24:16–34:51)
   The team offers practical reviews:
   • Seth: Ski goggles—defense against blowing snow, dust, rain, and as essential gear for rough, cold, or windy environments (not just for skiers).
   • Cal: Phelps predator call (and elk cow calls)—demonstrates stopping and predator calls, and the importance of “variety in all things” when calling deer or predators.
   • Spencer: Gas cans—lamenting post-2009 regulations, crowd-sources recommendations for reliable cans.

     “If I was running for president, old gas cans would be my campaign. I think that issue alone would win me a few states.” – Spencer (35:06)

   • Lively sidebar on using “doggles” for bird dogs and battle scars from abrasive hunting cover.

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5. Listener Q&A
   • Covers topics like chukar hunting in Montana, best venison breakfast sausage recipes, battery management for filming hunts, and most disappointing meat losses (CWD, freezer failure, predator strikes).
   • “The most disappointing by far—a prime rib roast and antelope lost in a college-kid’s unplugged freezer.” – Cal (39:10)
   • Pro tips on breakfast sausage (“Sage is the only ingredient that has to be there.” – Seth, 36:30), and maximizing battery life out in the field.

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6. Throwback Thursday (43:02–52:00)
   Each host shares a photo and story from their outdoors past:
   • Cal: Memories of guiding, bear encounters, and dogs deep in the Bob Marshall wilderness.
   • Phil: Family fishing and camping on Taklak Lake—“I didn’t want to touch the icky fish.”
   • Spencer: Childhood encounters with snakes, now a confessed ophidiophobe.
   • Seth: Three generations on a Maine bass lake—growing up with action slacks, New Balance shoes, and classic catch-and-release.

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7. EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) Update with Kip Adams (54:53–63:49)
   In-depth, region-by-region update from National Deer Association’s Chief Conservation Officer.

   EHD 101:

   • Most common deer viral disease, transmitted by midges (no-see-ums), symptoms include fever and death near water, red eyes, swollen tongues, etc.
   • “When you start finding dead deer near water, that’s EHD season.” – Kip Adams (55:15)
   • Drought years with wet springs are especially dangerous: wet conditions boost midge populations, drought concentrates deer and vectors together.

   By Region:

   • Northeast: Record-early outbreaks, “set up to be a really, really bad year.” (58:53)
   • South: Endemic, deer more habituated, thus lower mortality despite annual outbreaks.
   • Midwest: Hundreds of deer dead in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri—“worst so far in Ohio.” (61:48)
   • West: Idaho, Washington with confirmed cases, but typically less severe (mule deer, elk, pronghorn, bighorn also susceptible).
   • Aftermath: Surviving deer may show sloughing or growth interruptions in hooves; deer that recover are edible.

   What Can Hunters/Landowners Do?

   • Not much prevention is possible except management response. Recommendations: reduce antlerless harvest after severe local die-offs, “react not prevent.” (57:55)

   Science Outlook:

   • Research focuses on prediction models (drought, rainfall patterns) rather than a cure or vaccine.

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8. Follow-up EHD Discussion
   The hosts share personal stories of encountering EHD die-offs, scent memories, and impacts on local deer populations.

   “I personally found probably 20 dead deer that summer...the smell—just brutal.” – Spencer (66:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Birding Culture:

  “We slept in a minivan, spent the whole year on public land, with the exception of 42 nights at Cracker Barrels...”
  — Owen Reiser (10:21)

• On Birding Cheating:

  “They dug into the metadata on the photo...matched the feather molt...they nab the guy, and he's kind of blacklisted.”
  — Owen Reiser, on Swallow Gate (13:00)

• On Gear Frustrations:

  “If I was running for president, old gas cans would be my campaign. I think that issue alone would win me a few states.”
  — Spencer (35:06)

• On Deer Disease:

  “Because of the droughts, deer are congregated...makes it way worse...the perfect breeding ground for these midges...”
  — Kip Adams (56:11)

• On Managing EHD:

  “There’s really nothing we can do to protect deer against it...”
  — Kip Adams (63:08)

• On Meat Loss Heartbreak:

  “...the most disappointing by far...a five bone rib roast...somebody unplugged the freezer—horrible gut punch.”
  — Cal (39:10)

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Resource Recommendations

• Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Bird Watching (YouTube)
• Merlin Bird ID app (official recommendation for new birders)
• Danielle Prewitt’s “Only Venison Breakfast Sausage Recipe You’ll Ever Need” (MeatEater.com)
• MeatEater.com: How to Get Perfectly Crispy Skin on Game Birds (Danielle Prewitt)
• Fall Turkey Hunting Tips by Tony Peterson (MeatEater.com)
• National Deer Association: EHD information, CWD updates

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Audience Tips and Q&A

• Keeping Camera Batteries Alive: Carry many spares; generators for basecamp charging.
• Backcountry Hunt Duration: Most hosts’ record is around 10–15 days, guided or solo.
• Gas Cans: Modern models are problematic; many prefer aftermarket replacement spouts or pre-2009 designs.
• Fall Turkey: “Find flock, break them up, call back in”; check Tony Peterson’s hunting tips.
• Lake Erie Fishing: Walleye is the classic target; both trolling and jigging are productive.

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Closing Notes

• The MeatEater Christmas Tour and Tailgate Tour continue—details at themeateater.com/tour.
• In-depth CWD science episode is forthcoming, featuring Cal and top biologists.
• For more recipes, game care, and outdoors wisdom, visit MeatEater.com

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Episode Takeaway:
This episode is a blend of entertaining stories and hard-hitting wildlife disease updates—a must-listen for anyone who cherishes wildlife and time in the field. Whether you’re prepping for hunting season, curious about competitive birding, looking to outwit EHD’s impacts, or just want advice on gear that works, this episode is packed with firsthand expertise, community insights, and a good dose of fun.

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Transcript

[Cal]

This is an iHeart podcast on Fox One.

[Seth]

You can stream your favorite news, sports.

[Spencer]

And entertainment live all in one app.

[Seth]

It's raw and unfiltered.

[Cal]

This is the best thing ever.

[Spencer]

Watch breaking news as it breaks.

[Kip Adams]

Breaking Tonight, we're following two major stories.

[Seth]

And catch history in the making.

[Spencer]

Debate drama Touchdown. It's all here, baby.

[Seth]

Fox1 we live streaming now.

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[Steve Giannis]

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[Cal]

Smell us now lady.

[Spencer]

Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia.

[Steve Giannis]

Meat Eater Podcast.

[Spencer]

Welcome to Meat Eater radio live. It's 11am Mountain Time. That's 10am for our friends in Fort Bragg, California on Thursday, September 11th. And we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host Spencer, joined today by call. And Seth, on today's show, we'll interview Owen Reiser about spending a year as a competitive birder. After that we'll have gear talk. Then we'll look at old hunting and fishing pictures for Throwback Thursday. And finally, Kip Adams from the National Deer association will join us to give an EHD report for every region. Now we got a few plugs to get to before we move on with the show. Meat Eater is heading south for the holidays. We are thrilled to announce Meat Eater Live, the Christmas tour coming to you this December. We have stops in Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas and Austin. Come hang with Steve Giannis, Clay, Randall and Brent for a night of laughs, trivia, prizes and stories from the outdoors. Go to theme eater.com tour to sign up for pre sale access, which starts September 23rd. That will give you a chance to buy tickets before they officially go on sale to the public. That's meat eater, the Meater.com Tour. We can't wait to see you there. Also, the Meat Eater Tailgate Tour, presented by Dometic Rolls. On this Saturday, me and Jesse Griffiths will be hanging out at the Longhorns game in Austin. Next Saturday. It's me, Mark Kenyon and Chester and Garrett Long. We'll be at the Wisconsin Badgers game in Madison the week after that. You'll catch Seth and Brody at Penn State. And finally, Giannis and Garrett head to Notre Dame on October 4th. Come hang with us. Come stump us with some trivia. Tell us hunting stories. Eat our food. We'll have a good time tailgating. Cal and Seth, what have you boys been up to lately?

[Cal]

Oh, so much. Been digging deep in the freezer. I have many, many projects going on simultaneously.

[Spencer]

Give me an update.

[Cal]

Been breaking in new strings for the bow and throwing darts. And things are. Things are looking really good on the archery front.

[Spencer]

Specific hunt you're prepping for?

[Cal]

Yeah. Brown bear in Alaska here at the end of the month. And then I. Everywhere I look, there's just things that needs to be straightened up and done so I can have a efficient and good hunting season.

[Spencer]

Yes.

[Cal]

So I stuck my head in the freezer and I was like, oh, there's this bag of Grind staring me in the face that I haven't turned into burger yet. And it had a hole in the bag, of course. So I threw that in a box to take home. And then basically underneath that, I was like, what is this bag? Because I have, like, a nice freezer that's all visually appealing and organized same.

[Spencer]

And then I have the vertical freezer, right? Yeah, that's the one.

[Cal]

And then I have the one shelf company. Yes. And then the chest freezer is like, bulk, yet to be refined. So like big roast shanks, quarters, sometimes whole birds. The big sacks like Grind and things that I'm going to get to later on.

[Spencer]

Yeah, that's the freezer you put like a gun case on top of so no one is tempted to open it up and look in there.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

Because the vertical freezer. That's the. That's the company.

[Cal]

Yeah, that. That's one that makes you look like you know what you're doing and are respectful. So I'm like, what is in this bag? In the vertical freezer? In the nice freezer. And it was these turkey carcasses that I realized that I didn't turn into stock because I ran out of Jars during stock making season at the end of turkey season. So I threw those in the box and then I got to looking around some more and there's all this like random couple years collection of hearts, antelope and deer and L carts. So I threw those in the box and then a bunch of tongues. So I threw those in the box and then I. There's this big package of goose breasts that also had a hole in it.

[Seth]

And that went in the box.

[Cal]

That went in the box.

[Spencer]

Now what? The box is the. The deep freeze?

[Cal]

No, the box is the thing that I was. That was going to go in the truck and then come and then I was going to start processing. So literally this morning I've been going to bed at like 11 o' clock and waking up at 4:35 getting all this stuff done. So I have the pressure cooker going, finishing off the last jarring right now. Yeah. Okay, well, I turned it off to come over here.

[Spencer]

Sure.

[Cal]

That'd be crazy.

[Spencer]

Spencer, she's clarifying.

[Cal]

And then you could have been doing.

[Spencer]

It in the kitchen, you know, 10 steps away.

[Cal]

Yeah, I should have. And then I had one slow cooker with the goose breaths in it. I was like, I'm going to make like barbecue sandwiches out of goose breasts, which turns out awesome. But I didn't label these things properly. And they were a big thing of corned goose breasts. So I had like onions and all sorts of stuff in the slow cooker and then I got to looking at them and I'm like, oh, this is beautiful corned beef. Which, you know, so it's still gonna be a good tasting sandwich. But then I'm like, God, you just never learn. And then I had another slow cooker with all the tongues in it and I trimmed up all the hearts and I put that in with the grind and then ground all that stuff and made burgers out of that and got all that packaged up and then back in the nice vertical freezer. And the gist of the list is endless. It just keeps going.

[Spencer]

Prefall is stressful. I'm a better hunter if. If things are taken care of at home, in the yard, in the freezer, I don't have to think about those things. Then. Yeah, I'm trying to kill a demon.

[Cal]

Exactly. I'm at the point where I just burn all this stuff in town down, give it away, destroy it.

[Spencer]

Yep.

[Cal]

And then just the dog and I head off.

[Seth]

Yeah, there you go.

[Spencer]

It's now occurring to me as I look at your two handsome faces. We have too many mustaches. On this show, we've hit our quota. We've hit our quota of mustaches. Phil, you cannot grow a mustache.

[Seth]

You don't have to worry about that, Spencer, okay?

[Spencer]

It's going to get real weird if, if we go 4 for 4 on mustaches in this studio. All right, moving on. Joining us on the line first is Owen Reiser, the director of Listers A Glimpse into Extreme Bird Watching. That documentary is available on YouTube right now. Owen. Welcome to the show.

[Owen Reiser]

Fellas. Thanks for having me. I dug out my public landowner shirt for you boys.

[Seth]

Love it.

[Spencer]

All right, enlisters, you and your brother spend a year as competitive bird watchers. Explain what that is and more specifically, what it means to go for a Big Year.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, so we heard about this group of people that try to list as many bird species as they can and in one calendar year, and that's called a Big Year. And we thought, you know, we didn't know anything about the culture bird watching. You know, we're big out, like fans of the outdoors and stuff, but we never mess with bird watching. And we were like, you know, we should try that. We should learn about extreme bird watching by becoming bird watchers. And that's what we did. And it was, it was right. You know, we made fun of them a little bit, but it's, it's a great hobby and we, we enjoyed the hell out of it.

[Spencer]

Before you try doing this, what was your experience with bird watching exactly?

[Owen Reiser]

Zero. It was, it was zero experience. We, we knew a handful of birds like, you know, the cardinal, the bald eagle, the, you know, the junior varsity birds. We knew all those, but certainly didn't know what a rose throated but card was, any of those, you know what I mean?

[Spencer]

So competitive birding can be a very expensive hobby which you guys learn in the documentary. But you try do it as cheap as possible. Tell us about some of the ways you saved money while traveling across the country looking for rare birds.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, my brother and I are, I'd say, experienced dirt bags. So we knew how to live out of a car and, and eat rice and beans and tuna and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, most people doing a Big Year, we found out they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to, to look at little birds, which is, you know, insane. But we, we get it now. We understand. And yeah, we slept in a minivan, spent the whole year on public land, basically, with the exception of 42 nights at Cracker barrels across the country. The only, it's the only place you can bang on a free Night's rest when you. When you need to be near a city or if there was a rare bird report, like, you know, in. In an area that didn't have public land. So that's kind of. That's kind of how we save money.

[Cal]

Wow.

[Spencer]

What was the process like for sleeping in a Cracker Barrel parking lot? Do you go in and talk to the store manager? Do you call them ahead of time? Or is it just known that that's cool to do?

[Owen Reiser]

You know, that's kind of a rookie move, going in and asking the. The manager. We found out that's kind of a rookie move. You just kind of pull out back and you don't even have to eat in the restaurant. And you shouldn't eat in the restaurant. Let's be honest now.

[Cal]

I sat down with Clay Newcomb one time and watched him just devour Cracker Barrel, specifically the grits. I was blown away.

[Owen Reiser]

All the grits. We saw somebody, maybe their last moments in their life in a Cracker real parking lot.

[Cal]

They.

[Owen Reiser]

They evacuated the entire restaurant and they pulled somebody out on a stretcher. And Quentin has a line in the movie, it says, from the grits to the gallows, because it's. It's a war zone in there.

[Spencer]

What an adventure, this journey. You learn about some of the bird watching drama. Tell us about stringing and more specifically, Swallow Gate.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, so it's probably similar in, like, hunting and fishing. You know, people want that record or, you know, they want that, like, I don't know, you guys know better than me. But, like, they put weights and fish and stuff. Right? Is that.

[Cal]

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happen. Yeah.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah. So. So in birding, it's called stringing, and it's basically the whole thing's built on an honor system. Right. But, you know, it's like, you know, there's cheaters out there. And so stringing is basically stringing along these rare bird sightings where, you know, you say you saw the bird and you didn't, or you exaggerate that you saw the bird and you put it on this bird software called Ebird. And there's a famous incident from like a decade ago called Swallow Gate where a guy thought he or he said he saw a bird called a violet green swallow, and it would have been a state record for North Carolina. And a bunch of birders in the area got skeptical of him. They dug in. They found out where his location was on the date he said he saw the bird, and it was. They somehow found his location, and then they dug into the metadata on the photo, and they found out it was like, you know, didn't match the date he said it was at. And then they went to a bunch of natural history museums and match the feather molt, the specific feather molt on this. This bird. And they were like, no, at this time of year, it should have more white on this specific type of feather on the back of it. And, like, it's crazy. So they nab the guy, and he's kind of blacklisted from the community. So in the movie, I interviewed the guy, and I got his perspective, and I kind of. I kind of believe that he. He really saw the bird. He said he just faked the photo, and he was like a young kid at the time, but he explained it. I kind of. I'm kind of on his side now. I know, I know.

[Cal]

I love it. I love it.

[Spencer]

At some point, you guys find out that there is a rare bird email chain, and it leads to a lot of new sightings. Tell us about that.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, so about probably two or three months into the year, we found out we were missing out on a lot because there's something called a. The rare bird ebird alert thing. And so we went on there, and our numbers went up after that for sure. And you check this email thing, and a bunch of nerds basically just send out where they're seeing all these, you know, rare birds. And we saw one. We got one report of something called a cattle tyrant, and it was in Corpus Christi, I think. Yeah, Corpus Christi. And they tell. They just tell you the location of the bird. You just drive there, you look at it, you go nice, and you put it on your fancy little list, and you're good to go.

[Spencer]

All right, what's your favorite bird that you found in the Big Year?

[Owen Reiser]

Mine is the. I like the common birds. I'm not. I'm not a rare bird guy. I like the common nighthawk. Big fan of that one. Quentin is a big fan of the roadrunner standard, you know.

[Spencer]

Okay, and what was the rarest bird you guys saw?

[Owen Reiser]

There was one. There's one called a gray collared Picard. It was like, the first time it had been seen in the country. It's one of those. It's like right on the border of Texas in the US So it, like, flies. Flies from Mexico or. Yeah, from Mexico to the US Flies from Mexico. And then you can count it on your big, fancy little list. And then, you know, if it's. If it's like 100 yards south, you can't count It. It's kind of one of those deals, but the other one was super rare.

[Spencer]

And what's the weirdest place that you guys checked a bird off the list?

[Owen Reiser]

We camped right outside of a women's prison in New Mexico. Some, you know, some bad ladies in there. And we. We. We woke up in the morning and saw our, uh. The first time we'd ever seen something called a Clark's Grebe. And, uh, I'll never look at one of those the same again. They're out in the pond, just kind of right outside the prison there.

[Spencer]

Uh, a few times, you guys had sightings that were actually rejected. Tell us about that.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, again, they say it's an honor system, but we should have got a lot of emails that were saying, you know, this wasn't the bird you saw, because we were so new at it.

[Cal]

Right.

[Owen Reiser]

And they're pretty quick to take those away, but, you know, it's an honor system, you know?

[Spencer]

Yeah, you call them.

[Owen Reiser]

We got some.

[Spencer]

The bird cops, right?

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, they're the bird cops. They're a vicious group out there.

[Cal]

Did you side with them, or were you like, oh, they're right?

[Owen Reiser]

No, yeah, no, they're definitely right. Obviously, we didn't know what we were doing.

[Cal]

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Owen Reiser]

No, yeah, yeah.

[Spencer]

Okay. So your sightings are tracked on the app Ebird, and that's who makes the leaderboard. I saw that ebird had over 1.1 million users last year. Tell us how many birds you saw and where you ranked among those million competitors.

[Owen Reiser]

Yeah, so we saw 579 species of bird. And if you'd say that at the bar, it's not a great pickup line. Nobody really cares, but the record is now 758. And so they saw, you know, 200. I don't know how to do math, but that's, like, a lot more than we saw. And, yeah, it's crazy. There's the fact that there's people out there that saw that many more than us. It's. It's a passionate group.

[Spencer]

And where did that 500 some get you on the leaderboard?

[Owen Reiser]

Oh, that would be 23rd in the. In the United States.

[Spencer]

23Rd. That. That is very impressive.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

Now, if someone make a trophy for that. There we go. If someone wanted to get into birding but doesn't know where to start, what advice would you give them?

[Owen Reiser]

I'd say get the Merlin app. It's great. The Merlin app's so good. It's, like, helps for beginners, and. And then I would say just Leave like the bucket hat and the vest at home. You don't really need that. You're good with the. The binoculars in the Merlin app.

[Spencer]

Okay. Very good. Listers. A glimpse into extreme bird watching is available right now for free on YouTube. It's a really fun documentary. Everyone should go watch it. Owen, congrats on your big year and thanks for joining us.

[Owen Reiser]

Thanks, guys. You guys rule. Keep it up.

[Cal]

Business opportunity out there too. If you're not finding gals at the bar with your bird list, you build the bar and they will come.

[Owen Reiser]

Hey, that's a good idea.

[Cal]

Yeah, that's free before free. Thank you. That was awesome.

[Owen Reiser]

See you boys.

[Spencer]

In the documentary, they also discover they get an old birding book and it's got all these bird hotlines you can call and they call like 50 of the numbers. Only one is still working and it's in Ohio. And they learn after they're talking to the person on this rare bird hotline who's giving them an update on where to find some rare birds, that it's an Amish hotline. Which hit close to home because we know that our podcasts are all available on an Amish hotline as well. So shout out to the the Amish folks who are dialing into some phone number and learning about where the rare birds are and listening to Cal of the Wild.

[Cal]

It's citizen science. It's awesome.

[Spencer]

It's great.

[Cal]

It's super cool. Yeah.

[Spencer]

Any birding interest from you too?

[Seth]

Well, I like to keep track of some of them birding websites. If I'm trying to figure out where birds that I would like to are, they do pop.

[Cal]

That's a dirty, dirty little secret out there. Yeah. Mark Kenyon and I, we put the full on sneak on some birds in Alaska when we were up there in the Arctic Circle with the Merlin app. Mark with his Merlin app fully extended, trying to get a bird call to identify some birds that. I mean, that was very fun.

[Spencer]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Phil]

Camera feed here. I don't know what happened.

[Cal]

And the Merlin app, you can keep talking every.

[Phil]

Everybody can hear you. They just can't see you.

[Cal]

I just busted it out the other day because we had this, this group of hawks that got really friendly with our backyard. They were like tearing squirrels and stuff open on well that I was like, oh, it's a sharp shinned hawk. And I'm like, oh no, it's a rough legged hawk. And then finally I was like, oh, I got to redownload the Merlin app. And it's a Swainson's Hawk.

[Spencer]

Okay.

[Cal]

And they were. They were super cool. Yeah. They kind of moved on.

[Spencer]

My interest in birding is I don't like not knowing what I'm looking at. If I'm, like, out in nature deer hunting and see some bird I'm not familiar with, it's annoying if I don't know, like, the name of that thing.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

I don't like that.

[Cal]

It's also fun, though, to, like, in the duck blind, you know, people be like, oh, and I. And I just say, bop, bop, bird of prey.

[Spencer]

Okay.

[Cal]

Bop.

[Spencer]

That. That gets the message across. We don't shoot those.

[Cal]

Right. Exactly.

[Seth]

The. That Merlin app is one of my favorite things ever.

[Spencer]

So impressive.

[Seth]

In the springtime when I'm turkey hunting, I'll just turn that thing on and set it down next to me as, like, the woods come alive. And just, like, all the different birds that pop. I like just seeing how many different birds I can get on.

[Cal]

That is. Yeah. The audio part is really amazing because for whatever reason in my brain, it's gonna be like it's gonna identify one bird, but it's all the noises. Yeah. Which is. Yeah, it's awesome. It's great.

[Spencer]

Owen and his brother, they try to trick the app and, like, use a flute to play a bird call, and they successfully do it. In one instance, they're able to replicate. I don't remember what the bird is, but they. They do it well enough to make Merlin think that they are that bird.

[Cal]

Oh, great minds think alike. I tried to do that and didn't.

[Seth]

We were in Alaska one time, bear hunting with Clay Newcomb, and we were trying to get him to trick the. The old bard out. It worked. Yeah, he was able to trick it.

[Cal]

Cool.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Heck, yeah.

[Spencer]

Give him a ribbon.

[Cal]

Yep. Thought I had it right. The right shrill for the Swainson's hawk, and it no.

[Seth]

Didn't work.

[Cal]

Nope.

[Spencer]

Again, Owen's documentary is called Listers. It's available on YouTube right now. If your day start with a fishing rod and end with a tree stand. You know, life out here isn't easy, and your gear needs to hold up through it all. That's why tractor supply is the destination for everything you need for life out here. Work boots that last feed that keeps your animals strong and fencing supplies to protect what matters most. Best part, they treat you like a neighbor. Because out here, you probably are. Visit tractorsupply.com or swing by your local store.

[Steve Giannis]

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[Cal]

My.

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[Spencer]

All right, our next segment is gear talk.

[Phil]

Let's talk about gear, baby. Let's talk about scopes and beats. Let's talk about boots and vinyl scanner patterns with yon leak. Let's talk about gear.

[Cal]

Let's talk about gear.

[Spencer]

For gear talk, each of us has a gear review for Seth. Start us off.

[Seth]

All right, the piece of gear I'm talking about today is this right here. Ski goggles. It's something that probably a lot of hunters don't think about carrying with them.

[Spencer]

No. You're not a skier, are you?

[Seth]

I've never skied before and I. I probably never will.

[Spencer]

Not a snowboarder.

[Seth]

Not a snowboarder.

[Cal]

God, that's. That's a long time to go without skiing. For living in the mountain west. The inner mountain West.

[Seth]

Yeah, it's just. I just do other things.

[Cal]

Well, yeah, I hear you. We were talking before the show started about things that you end up having to do.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Cal]

As an adult.

[Spencer]

And I think at a certain point, Seth, it like becomes a thing. Like I'm not A skier. I'm just never going to ski. And so, like, yeah, I'm just, like, more incentive to not go skiing.

[Cal]

Oh.

[Seth]

I'm, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna invest in, like, I could go buy a bunch of, like, Rapple Allures or something. I'd rather do that than buy skis. Whatever.

[Spencer]

So why do you. Ski goggles.

[Seth]

Ski Goggles Investment.

[Cal]

How's your portfolio, Seth? Great. I just got some Rapala lures, a.

[Seth]

Bunch of DT10s, a lot of shad.

[Spencer]

Wraps still in the box.

[Seth]

So. Ski goggles, I use them a lot of times in the winter. Like if there's snow on the ground when I'm hunting and it's blowing snow.

[Cal]

Yeah, I'm tracking on that for sure.

[Seth]

Eastern Montana, when it's super windy, no snow on the ground, and you're just. I one time was walking with the wind at my back on a real windy day, and I was just in a bunch of dusty type ground and, like, it's catching. You get like an eddie in front of your face and you're just eating dust all day. So, yeah, ski goggles for that. And then any time you're on a skiff in colder weather or, or rainy weather, there's a picture on here, Phil, of me in a skiff in Alaska wearing these same ski goggles. It was raining, you know, 10 minutes before this photo was taken. We were on a blacktail hunt up in Alaska.

[Spencer]

Keeping your forehead warm?

[Seth]

Yeah, just, just. I wear them all the time.

[Spencer]

It's like listening to Bubba Gump talk about shrimp over there.

[Seth]

Yep. Ski goggles.

[Spencer]

Cal, where do you stand on ski goggles for dogs when they're, when they're hunting?

[Cal]

Boy, I, I, I think they can.

[Spencer]

Be a good idea to snort everywhere then.

[Cal]

No, you know, these seasons vary so much for us. When we were, like, really getting after it, the amount of doctoring of her eyeballs that was going on every day was pretty intense there for a while. And I was like, I am going to get this dog doggles, as, as some call them.

[Spencer]

And, and is that, are those made for dogs or do you just use, like, Seth's pair?

[Cal]

No, there's a couple of companies out there, you know, and because it, like, started in the tactical world and then of course became hip, you know, those tactical things become so hip that we have to have them. But, and then, like, you know, folks who use dogs for crane hunts, it's good. I pro for them because cranes can lash out at dogs eyeballs. But yeah, once you get late in the season and your dog's been running hard through, like, sorghum and really abrasive grasses, they lose all the hair around their eyeballs and then. And their cheekbones and stuff start looking real, real tough. Yeah. And they just get a lot of seeds and dust.

[Spencer]

And if you're hunting around cattails and those things explode.

[Cal]

Yeah, exactly. So it's not. It's not like I don't look at it and be like, oh, poser. Like, yeah, there's. There's a. There's a legit use case. And. Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. It's not like your weekend warrior type of thing. Like, dogs handle that stuff just fine.

[Spencer]

You approve?

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

All right, Cal, what are you reviewing for gear talk?

[Cal]

Well, I had a couple of directions. It's gonna go.

[Spencer]

He's reaching in his pockets, deciding as he rifles through his blue jeans pockets right now. Let's see what he's gonna pull out. Did we lose it? Now he's looking on the ground. There it is.

[Cal]

His keys.

[Spencer]

Nope. His hoodie. No, he's reaching past that.

[Cal]

I wanted to find something economical.

[Spencer]

Okay. He set his sunglasses aside. It's not those. What do we got in Cal's hoodie?

[Cal]

Can talk, buddy. Oh, Phelps. Predator call. So I in all my FHF bino harnesses, of which I have three now, orange, one, camo one, another camo one. One set up for archery, one set up for rifle. You know, I either have a external reed cow, elk call, or a predator call. And they're either one has year round applications because you can use that external read Cal call as a predator call. But it's also good at just like stopping deer, you know, like a pretty good ratio. If you bump something, it'll stop and take a look. And you can do the same thing with the predator call. Predator call. You get like one shot at it, because if you refund it too much, you can just blow all the deer out of the country.

[Spencer]

Give me an example of what it would sound like if you were trying to stop a deer right now. Oh, I just go, okay, that works.

[Cal]

And yeah, it can work. But then for bringing in the critters, I suggest, like, crying like a baby in your brain. This is how I do all my calling. I have, like, the conversation in my head. Motivation, you could call it. But I am like a baby human child left out on the prairie, exposed to the elements.

[Seth]

That'll. That'll get.

[Cal]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Spencer]

I hunted with some very good Predator hunters when I worked at Peterson's hunting magazine and this was a decade ago and it was around the time when I feel like e callers had hit their peak. Like everyone either had one or was about to get one and they had now flipped it to the other way where they were like mouth calls are now the way to go. Because every coyote in the country has heard that e call sequence of a dying jackrabbit or the tweety bird, whatever. So they liked the variety you can give yourself with a mouth call.

[Cal]

Yep. I mean variety in. In all things. I used to just archery elk hunting used to be every everything to me for, you know, in between live dogs that dead dog time. You get real obsessed with the things that you're not normally doing when you have good dogs. And I would buy, I would often replace my my cow calls, but I would buy one brand new calcol that I had never used before, just betting on the fact that it's going to have some pitch tone that I wasn't currently in my repertoire and nobody else was using. So like I used a, like a big woods wise cow call that I found in some bargain bin someplace.

[Spencer]

You felt like that didn't sound like much else that dudes were blowing on.

[Cal]

Absolutely. Yeah. Y. Yeah, it was totally different. Yep.

[Spencer]

All right. For gear talk today, I am reviewing gas cans. I haven't owned a good gas can in my adult life. The only good gas cans I've ever used were pre 2009 gas cans, which is when the new EPA regulations went into effect. And I was trying to recently explain to someone that old gas cans are something that sons are going to fight over in the will someday just because they were, they were such superior products like 15 years ago. So here is my plea to the audience. If you know about a good gas can, email radio@the mediator.com with the subject line gas can. I'm going to compile your recommendations and then I will share them on the next episode that I host in two weeks. There has to be a good gas can on the market. If you know what that is, please email me so I can share that with everyone. And then we're not going to be pissed off anymore when we have to like fill the snowblower or the boat or the side by side with gas. Again, that's radiomedeater.com subject line gas can. Do either of you boys have a good gas can recommendation?

[Seth]

Well, my, my little hot tip is you buy a gas can and they all come with the frickin BS safety.

[Spencer]

That's the 2009 problem.

[Seth]

I've never spilled more gas in my life.

[Spencer]

Agree.

[Seth]

Until they switch to that system.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

It's so true that that thing, it like either wants to give you all the gas or none of the gas.

[Seth]

Yeah. But you can go to like a hardware store or something and buy like. Or go on Amazon or whatever and buy like aftermarket gas can nozzles that are just like. Doesn't have all the bs.

[Spencer]

Maybe that's the hot tip. Yeah.

[Cal]

For whatever reason, the high volume cans never work. But I have a low volume. You know, it's like a half gallon for that. I just tote around for the generator when I throw it in the. In the camper. And that's got the weird, like, no drip plunger deal. You know, you hook it on the edge and.

[Spencer]

Yeah.

[Seth]

Oh, yeah.

[Cal]

And that thing works great until it sticks on occasion. And then you're just like, I had.

[Seth]

This happen the other day.

[Spencer]

Yeah.

[Seth]

I had some. Some gas in the gas can that I was like, if it's probably gonna sit here for a while, so I'm just gonna dump it in my truck. That way it gets used to.

[Spencer]

And I'm frightened to put gas in my truck with any of my gas.

[Seth]

Half of it went down the side of my truck and made a big old puddle on the sidewalk.

[Cal]

Yep.

[Spencer]

Someone listening though, they know about what the best gas can is. Maybe it's like 20 of you Vermont.

[Phil]

Millennial homesteaders is suggesting stens. No spill, but can build up some pressure when you first open.

[Spencer]

Okay, again, radio at the meat eater.com subject line, Gas Can.

[Cal]

If you feel like you're going to die in a tragic gasoline fight accident.

[Spencer]

Yes. If I was running for president, that's something I'd campaign on. Is old gas cans. And I think that issue alone would win me a few states.

[Cal]

Oh, I guarantee people want.

[Spencer]

People want a good gas can.

[Cal]

Yeah. And then you could be like, and what's the deal with these new six pack holders? Can't we go back to the old that?

[Spencer]

Give me a couple more states alone. All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say?

[Phil]

Titus asks, hey, California, have you ever chukar hunted in Montana or heard of anyone doing it?

[Cal]

Yeah, Chukar are listed as a game bird in the state of Montana.

[Phil]

Have you ever done it?

[Cal]

No.

[Spencer]

Little devil birds.

[Phil]

All right, Nate is asking for a good venison breakfast sausage recipe. Last Attempt was a 7525 mix with some pre made country sausage.

[Spencer]

Nate. We have a recipe on our website. It's literally called the only breakfast sausage recipe that you'll ever need. It's from Danielle Pruitt. Go check that out and, and make that your starting base. And then if. If you want to make adjustments from there, like, it needs more fennel, needs a little more spice. I. I think try to start with that recipe and see where that gets you. Seth.

[Cal]

Cal, I think that's great. I. I like. Sage is like, the only ingredient in breakfast sausage that, like, ha. Like, I want in my breakfast sausage.

[Seth]

Yeah, I've made breakfast sausage a couple times and just never turned out like I wanted it to.

[Spencer]

Danielle Pruitt's recipe, the only venison breakfast sausage recipe you need.

[Cal]

Danielle is just very, very pro. Like, she tests everything and, you know, she's again, professional. Like, very good. Yeah.

[Phil]

Keegan, this is a question for Seth. I'd say, asks, what battery tricks does the crew use to keep camera equipment charged throughout long hunts?

[Seth]

Carry a lot of batteries. There's not a whole lot you can do out there as far as charging. I mean, some. It depends. Some spots, like, if we get flown in somewhere and we have, like, a plane where we can call gear, we'll like, drop a generator at a spot. And like, we've done that in Alaska where we can, like, after a couple days, come back and charge. But it's just like on a. On a long hunt, when you don't have any access to charging stuff. You just got to carry a bunch of batteries.

[Spencer]

The cold obviously messes with your batteries. Does the heat mess with your batteries as well?

[Cal]

Well, they.

[Seth]

No, I've never had heat. I've had heat. Mess with cameras. Just overheating cameras, but not batteries.

[Spencer]

I just feel like my cell phone doesn't like to charge if it's too hot.

[Cal]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Spencer]

I wasn't sure if your. Your camera had similar issues.

[Seth]

I've never run into that.

[Cal]

No, I. All these rechargeable batteries, they. They all just slowly degenerate over time. So even if you're stockpiling fresh batteries, if you're on day seven, eight, whatever, you pop that thing in and it's going to be 20% under what you think it should be. Right? Don't you think?

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Yeah. So, yeah.

[Seth]

And like you said, if it's cold, it's just a whole different story.

[Spencer]

Phil, let's do one more.

[Phil]

Sure thing. Brad asks, what's the most disappointing loss of meat you've had due to spoilage or a broken freezer?

[Spencer]

For me, it was. I. I killed the deer a few years ago in Wyoming that had cwd. So that wasn't spoilage or broken freezer, but like, I had gotten all the boneless meat home. It was ready to, to get like, put away nicely in the freezer and be eaten and processed. And then, yeah, when the CWD came back positive, it just went into a landfill. No one in the office was interested in giving it to their dogs. I don't, I don't blame them. So that was, that was a bummer to. To lose a deer to cwd. What do you guys got?

[Seth]

I never lost a freezer. Knock on wood.

[Cal]

I lost a. Yeah, I mean, the most disappointing by far and away, I was gonna. This just a funny story popped in my head when we were like very, very poor, dirtbag college kids. I was like guiding and building houses and going to school and, and my mom gave me like a five bone rib roast for. It. Must have been my birthday. So a prime rib, beef, fatty beef, prime rib. And somebody unplugged the freezer probably to do something stupid and never plugged it back in. And, and I had antelope in there too. And that, that was just like a horrible gut punch. At that time in life. I called Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and was like, hey, I'm gonna dump a bunch of game meat in the landfill. Wanted to let you know about that. And they're like, oh, okay. And. And they recorded it so I wouldn't get dinged with wanting waste. And guys like, so you're just gonna toss the whole freezer? I was like, no, no, I'm cleaning it out. And yeah, it was, but it was gross. It was like five inches of blood in the bottom of that thing. Stanky blood. And then I, I lost a bull elk in New Mexico a handful of years ago. It was the only time I've personally had, at that point, was the only time I personally had had a elk tag in New Mexico and made what turned out to be a good shot on this bull. But I was so convinced it was a bad shot, I kind of talked myself out of really properly following this thing up. Even though I had. I'd done 95% of the work. And it was, it was a horrific loss of, of the meat and just challenge to myself of like, you know better, you always do better. Why'd you stop this time? It was horrible.

[Spencer]

Was there any meat recovered?

[Cal]

Zero.

[Spencer]

Damn.

[Cal]

Yeah. I mean, it was like 100° New Mexico Hunt. And, and yeah, man. I mean, I basically process that whole thing, like going something on here is going to be good. And it was just, wasn't just all sour. Yeah.

[Seth]

A few years back, I was hunting in Nebraska for whitetails and shot a buck with my bow. And I ended up getting one lung in Liverpool, but it like ran off into the scorn field and I waited a couple hours and then after the morning hunt went in there, ended up jumping that buck, he was still alive. And it ran into the corn more and, and I was like, I'm gonna wait till, just back out, wait till the next day, went back in, in there the next morning.

[Phil]

And.

[Seth]

I, I went and sat in the tree stand that morning just to see what happened, you know, what was going on. And then got down. I was with some buddies too. So after the morning hunt got down and, and started looking for this buck. And I noticed like some bald eagles and crows sitting in this tree along the cornfield. I like made a mental note of that. And that morning I'd heard coyotes yipping over in that area too. And I walked over there and just found the buck and it was like devoured by coyotes.

[Cal]

Pooped on and devoured.

[Seth]

Yep. Yeah, like in 24 hours, just completely devoured. Well, we got some neck meat, a little bit of back strap off of.

[Spencer]

It, but no fun.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

All right, moving on. Our next segment is Throwback Thursday. Throw back on a Thursday morning. Take me Back to in 1974. Throw back. I can't believe it. Throwback Thursday is where we look at old hunting and fishing pictures of the crew. Cal, start us off.

[Cal]

What picture did Phil send? Okay, there we go. This is way back in my youth. Look at that.

[Spencer]

How long?

[Cal]

Look at that. Well, still, well, you can see the male pattern, baldness, but it's still, still rock and some hair. This would have been probably 2009. 2000. Yeah, right in there. 2009. I bet back when gas cans were still good, back gas cans were still good. This is in the Bob Marshall. That's the cabin at Cabin Creek. And we were in there hunting grizzly bears for a combined grizzly bear study. And those are two old now dead dogs, Scout and Fish, the big fish and Scout, real good dogs. And we, we got charged by a grizzly bear on this one. And this was like a light charge. Like we were both very startled to see each other. And he bailed off the hill and probably stopped at like the 50 yard mark and then spun and bailed. But giant grizzly bear.

[Spencer]

How many bears have you been charged by in your life? Three Was this number one?

[Cal]

This was number two. Hello.

[Phil]

I love it when Corinne calls me.

[Cal]

She.

[Phil]

Corinne, this show has been going on for over a year at the same time, the same day of the week, and Corinne has no idea.

[Spencer]

She.

[Phil]

So it's Corinne, I love you. Figure out the schedule.

[Spencer]

She wants to participate. And Throwback Thursday, maybe answer Phil and see what she's got.

[Cal]

Maybe she's just excited because of that handsome dude up there on the screen. See who it was. But the cool deal. So we did the rest of our big, huge loop that day and then came back at the. The end of the. You know, in the waning hours of the night. And the cabin and the outhouse and everything had been rubbed by. I can only assume that bear.

[Spencer]

Right.

[Cal]

Because that would make it more powerful. But. So I had big grizz scratches down the doors, and then you could. We were pulling hair off the logs and. And stuff.

[Spencer]

But I was his objective to get in there, you think?

[Cal]

I think his objective was to be like, I wasn't that scared, swear to God. And this is my area because, I mean, it was early spring. You can't tell by that photo, but, you know, it was like we were the only people in there. All the. All the passes were all snowed over and stuff. It was pretty spectacular.

[Spencer]

Very good failure. Up next for Throwback Thursday. What do you got?

[Phil]

Geez.

[Cal]

Okay, here we go.

[Phil]

This was tough for me. I was just telling Spencer my mom is in Europe. I texted her to send me pictures because I do not have any. So this is. That is Mount Adams in Washington state. This is Taklak Lake in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

[Cal]

Oh, very cool.

[Phil]

Between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. This is kind of our go to camping spot growing up. I think this is probably 2005, if.

[Cal]

I had to say.

[Phil]

There's me on the right there. Looking good.

[Cal]

Wait, which one are you in?

[Phil]

The mariner's hat? Yeah, I mean, just. I mean, obviously, gorgeous view of the mountain. And then we do some fishing here. There's me and my jean shorts and my Star wars shirt.

[Spencer]

Give us a fishing report.

[Phil]

Well, that was my next point. If you see in all of these pictures, it's just me with a rod, I actually don't have any fish in my hands. Why is that? I couldn't tell you. You can do the investigating yourself. But yeah, these are the only pictures I think I have of me fishing at all growing up.

[Seth]

Okay, so you didn't stick with it, Phil?

[Phil]

I didn't stick with it. I. I enjoyed it plenty but you know, camping was time for me to, to hike and canoe. I didn't, I didn't really want to touch the icky fish. That was my.

[Cal]

I gotta say, you age very well, Phil.

[Phil]

Oh, that's so.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

And you appear to be holding the fishing rod the right way, which I just witnessed some folks in Northern California. Northern California this last weekend not even having that step right.

[Seth]

Oh, spinning reel up.

[Spencer]

Yes.

[Seth]

Oh, yeah, you hate to see it.

[Spencer]

Which we also had folks sending us, I don't know, probably a year or two ago in a sporting goods store, printable ad that someone was holding a fishing rod wrong.

[Seth]

Oh, God.

[Spencer]

Very.

[Phil]

But yeah, I think they. I think they stock that, that lake with. With rainbows. But there's some, some cutthroat in there as well. And I know this because I just looked it up on the Skamania County, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website.

[Spencer]

Good. Now we know Phil's street cred for.

[Cal]

That's right.

[Phil]

Fishing like it's not non. Existent.

[Spencer]

All right, I'm going to go next. This is me probably like 1995, 1996. Three or four years old, and I am at Merriweather Marine in Yankton, South Dakota. Merriweather Marine is a boat shop. And one time they had a motor that they were working on where they found a bull snake wrapped around the prop. And that snake's name was Bumpy. The thing had had a messed up skeleton. It couldn't move correctly. I don't think they felt good about releasing it again. So they kept this snake as a pet. And whenever we were in Yankton, I would go see the thing and hang out with. With Bumpy. The. The ironic thing is, is I hate snakes now. I don't know what happened between this moment and that moment where I could like happily handle a bull snake. And now if I am walking out in the woods mushroom hunting and I see one 10ft away, slithering away from me, who's clearly scared, I will just get shivers up and down my whole body. I can't.

[Seth]

I'm not a big snake either.

[Spencer]

Explain. Makes me feel the worst. One, that I like, I'm scared. And then two, that I. I don't like that I feel scared over a dang snake who doesn't want anything to do with me.

[Cal]

Big old brain, opposable thumbs.

[Spencer]

Y. But back then I was all about it. I was. I was a big fan of Bumpy.

[Cal]

So we'd go eyesight that's effective at multiple ranges.

[Spencer]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's totally Unreasonable. But I did not possess that fear at that moment.

[Cal]

Yeah, that's. That's a good memory, man. That's Americana right there. I like it.

[Spencer]

Like, I'm not going to Merryweather Marine.

[Cal]

Make the same comment I made about Phil, but please don't. The. I get the same, like, mammalian reflex, you know, I'm like, oh, danger about a snake. Yep. But then I'm like, I'm gonna catch it or check it out.

[Seth]

Built in.

[Spencer]

Yeah, yeah, I would. I would like to be interested in them enough to, like, pick one up and really mess with the thing before letting it go. Because I have that instinct with frogs and salamanders. Like, totally love handling them and encountering them. Not snakes, though. All right, Phil. Or excuse me, Seth. Seth, you are last. What do you got for Throwback Thursday?

[Seth]

Oh, let's see. We have three generations of Morris's here.

[Spencer]

Oh, very nice.

[Seth]

This is on my grand. My grandfather on the left used to call him Pops. He's no longer with us, but doing.

[Cal]

A little catch and release.

[Seth]

Yeah, you know, my. This is how you're supposed to hold a trout by the gills.

[Spencer]

Huh?

[Seth]

But no, this is up in Maine. My grandparents, they were school teachers, and in the summertime when they were off, they would. They would be camp counselors up in Maine.

[Cal]

Oh, nice.

[Seth]

So they ended up buying a place up there, and I spent most of my childhood going to Maine every summer.

[Cal]

Very cool.

[Seth]

And, yeah, it's kind of where I, like, learned how to drive a boat. That. That boat, that little London on the right there was like the first boat I ever drove and learned how to, you know, handle myself in a boat and learned how to fish and why.

[Spencer]

It would be nice to have ski goggles.

[Seth]

Yeah, exactly.

[Spencer]

Give us a fishing report for that lake.

[Seth]

So this lake, it's a small lake. They call them ponds up there.

[Spencer]

So, yeah, Shiloh Pond, that's Maine. Right? But that thing ain't a pond. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, traditionally, someone looking to be like, that's a dang lake. It's big.

[Cal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth]

This is the Belgrade Lakes region in Maine. And this is.

[Cal]

It's.

[Seth]

I would love. I've never fished this. This lake with electronics. Like, we. It was purely visual. Like, go to spots where you could see rocks, catch smallmouth, go to spots where you could see weeds, catch largemouth fish. Structure fish, like flip docks, go out in deep water and just sink a worm and float for hours until you finally hit the school of. Of white perch. You know, like, that's the kind of fishing we did. Very simple and I haven't fished it in years. But it'd be fun to go back with, like, electronics and just see like, what's going, like, what, what was, what was I missing back then, you know? But yeah, that's where I cut my teeth on bass fishing. And we used to. I managed to fish just all day out there, just hours.

[Spencer]

Very good.

[Cal]

I like Pops. Rocking the action slacks.

[Seth]

Oh, yeah.

[Cal]

Oh, that's a good.

[Seth]

The gray New Balance sneakers was, oh, you know, classic. Made in Maine. It was like every, every old timer in Maine had a pair of New Balance sneakers.

[Cal]

Yep.

[Spencer]

Very authentic. If your days start with a fishing rod and end with a tree stand, you know, life out here isn't easy and your gear needs to hold up through it all. That's why tractor supply is the destination for everything you need for life out here. Work boots, that last feed that keeps your animals strong, and fencing supplies to protect what matters most. Best part, they treat you like a neighbor. Because out here, you probably are. Visit tractorsupply.com or swing by your local store.

[Seth]

You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.

[Steve Giannis]

Hey, this is Steve, and I am proud to announce that Meat Eater is headed south for the holidays. Announcing Meat Eater Live, the Christmas tour, which kicks off in December across six southeastern cities. Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas and Austin. Join myself, Giannis Putelis, also known as Jani Chimani or the Latvian lover. Clay Newcomb, Brent Reeves, and Dr. Randall Williams for a night of laughs, trivia, free prizes, news and opinion from across the worlds of hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and wild foods. Meat Eater Live is the best possible Christmas gift for any outdoorsman or woman in your life. Sign [e-mail] tour and you'll get pre sale access to buy tickets on September 22, days before they go on sale to the public. We can't wait to see y' all down south.

[Spencer]

Joining us on the line last is Kip Adams, the Chief conservation officer at the National Deer Association. Kip is here to give us an EHD report for deer in each region. Kip, welcome to the show.

[Kip Adams]

Hey, thanks for having me, Spencer. Good to see you guys.

[Cal]

Good to see you.

[Seth]

See you too, Kip.

[Spencer]

First thing, Kip, explain what EHD is.

[Kip Adams]

EHD stands for epizootic hemorrhagic disease. It's a viral disease of deer. It's probably the most common disease that whitetails get. There's a few other deer species and some livestock species that can get it as well. But from a hunter standpoint is typically a disease. We think of late summer when you start finding dead deer near water sources.

[Spencer]

Yeah. What are some of the signs that we can look for to determine that a deer died from EHD or maybe something else?

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Kip Adams]

Since it is a virus and it is a hemorrhaging disease, we often can see, you know, like red puffy eyes, thick tongue, the alt. The rumen can get all messed up. From a hunter standpoint though, basically these are the deer that because they have fever they end up near water sources. So we find them dead in ponds and ditches and creeks and the likes.

[Spencer]

Why is it that some years and regions have a lot of EHD while others don't?

[Kip Adams]

Well, it's because the virus is carried by no seems, you know, those little biting midges that drive us crazy in the summer years of drought sees deer get sucked into these water sources. And that's also years where we often have a lot of the vector, the midges that are there carrying this. So when we have a drought, we have dry areas, deer get in and around these areas makes it much easier for the midges who carry the disease and or you know, to bite a deer that has it and then share that with another deer. So basically deer are congregated in areas that make it perfect for the noseums to bite them and then transfer it from deer to deer.

[Spencer]

Is there anything that landowners can do to protect herds from ehd?

[Kip Adams]

Well, not a lot. The perfect breeding grounds for these midges are the muddy areas around dried up water sources. So in areas where we have a lot of rain and water sources are full, we don't tend to see a bad hemorrhagic disease years. But because of the droughts and deer are congregated, then you have more of those exposed mud flats that makes it way worse. So from a landowner end in many cases there's not a lot that they can do unless they have access to management of some of these areas. And think of, you know, like cattle ranchers. Cattle ranchers that let cattle into ponds. Those are terrible areas in bad hemorrhagic disease years because of all the mud that's right in and around them and the cattle disturbing that. In large part though, Spencer, there's not a whole lot that we can do to stop this. We can react if you find a bunch of dead deer, you know, that year, maybe reduce an antlerless harvest if necessary. But as far as specific things we can do to try to safeguard against the disease, there's really nothing we can do.

[Spencer]

Okay, let's go region by region to talk about EHD reports in 2025, starting with the Northeast. What have you heard there?

[Kip Adams]

Well, there's at least five states in the Northeast that have confirmed presence so far. And basically this is worse in years where you have a really wet spring followed by droughts. So droughts are bad for this anyway, but they're even worse if you start that off with a really wet spring because that allows more of the no see them to breed. So the Northeast, it was extremely wet in April and May. Then it's had almost no rain since. So the kind of the mid Atlantic region, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and New York have thus confirmed it. And it's pretty early for lake. This is at the beginning of the hemorrhagic disease season and we're seeing a bunch of it already in the Northeast. So things are still really dry. It's set up to be a really, really bad year for this here in the Northeast.

[Cal]

But that's not like, don't go to Pennsylvania thing, right? That can just be localized in certain areas of the state.

[Kip Adams]

Yeah, you're exactly right, Cal. And the thing with hemorrhagic diseases, first of all, not all deer that get the disease die from it. Some will live. And if they live, they develop antibodies against it. The ones that die, they tend to be very localized. So like I'm in northern Pennsylvania. Fortunately, there has been no disease in my area. However, you know, 20 miles down the road, it can hit and people can lose a bunch of deer. So you're right. It is very specific, very localized, where.

[Cal]

Deer get hit hard by them and just nasty too. Like if you're on site when this is happening, it is really brutal.

[Spencer]

Kid, you had mentioned. Sorry, go ahead.

[Kip Adams]

No, sorry.

[Spencer]

Spencer, you mentioned that not every deer dies who gets ehd. If you were to kill a survivor, how could you confirm that that deer maybe once had EHD but lived through it?

[Kip Adams]

One of the symptoms are they get sloughing of the hooves. So the incubation period is very short, like five to nine days. So if a deer is going to die from it this year, it's going to be done. You're not, you're not going to be shooting it in, you know, bow or rifle Season. But if you do shoot a deer this hunting season and you look at the hooves and you can see, like, growth interruptions or where it looks like the hooves are sloughing off, that's a sure sign that that deer had the disease, survived it, and then continued to live, you know, and start to grow again.

[Cal]

Wow.

[Spencer]

And to be clear that that deer is still safe to eat, right, Kip?

[Kip Adams]

Yes, it is.

[Spencer]

Yep.

[Kip Adams]

Absolutely.

[Spencer]

Okay, what are we looking at for EHD in the south this year?

[Kip Adams]

Well, it's. We see six states so far in the south that have confirmed it. I mean, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. And the south has had this disease forever. And I vividly remember when I was doing my undergraduate work at Penn State, you know, we got to hemorrhagic disease. The professor said, this is a disease of deer in the Southeast moving on. And that was it. That's the lesson that is very different. Today. It is. Today this disease is all across the US it's up into Canada, basically. It's warmer. So the midges just live in a lot of places they didn't used to. So. But the Southeast has had it the longest, so those deer are more used to it. And basically they have it everywhere in the Southeast every year. But those deer are not hit very hard. So usually not many of those deer die in the Northeast, where our deer are more naive. It kills the snot out of them. But the Southeast, six states so far, probably is not going to be nearly as bad there as other parts of the country, partly just because they've been exposed to it for so long.

[Spencer]

They're just more used to it moving to the Midwest. I've seen the most EHD reports out of Ohio this year. What are you hearing from there and the rest of the region?

[Kip Adams]

Five states in the Midwest so far have confirmed it. That's Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri. And of those, you are right. So far, it has been the worst in Ohio. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of dead deer in Ohio all throughout the state. The Southeast part of Ohio has been hit worse than anywhere else. Kind of right across the border from West Virginia, and not all that far from Pennsylvania, but that region of the country has been hit far harder so far than any place else.

[Spencer]

Finally, what do we have for EHD in the West?

[Kip Adams]

Two states so far, Idaho and Washington, have both confirmed it. The west typically doesn't get that bad of hemorrhagic disease. Fingers crossed it'll be that way again this year. Because in addition to whitetails, mule deer can get it, elk can get it, although elk are less susceptible to it. But pronghorn and bighorn sheep can also get it. So because of that, you know, the west is especially sensitive to the disease, but thus far, it's been pretty light out there, and hopefully first frost comes in a hurry. That ends the midges, that ends the disease season. So the first frost can't come quickly enough.

[Spencer]

Last thing, Kip, on a science front, is there anything encouraging you can tell us about how biologists are working to reduce EHD in America's favorite game animal?

[Kip Adams]

Well, there's. There's a lot of research just looking at doing a better job predicting, you know, when. When it's going to be bad because it's a virus. There's really nothing that we can do to. To protect deer against it. But there's definitely some ways, you know, that we can at least predict if we think it's going to be bad. Hence when I mentioned earlier, you know, it's worse in drought years and especially worse if it's preceded by a wet spring. So there's a lot of disease. Folks just taking a look at all those factors, trying to combine them just to be able to help predict a little more for hunters across the US and trying to understand if they're likely to have a bad hemorrhagic disease year.

[Spencer]

All right, Kip, thanks for fighting for deer. Thanks for the EHD reports, and thanks for joining us.

[Cal]

Thanks.

[Kip Adams]

All right, great to see you guys. Good luck this season.

[Cal]

Thanks.

[Seth]

You too.

[Spencer]

You boys run across many EHD deaths in your day?

[Seth]

Handful. Yeah.

[Cal]

Yeah. I mean, the. What Kip was saying there about, you know, drought years, and then we would see it also when you get like a little. Just a little bit of rain in August and the. Those midges would just explode. And I had a way back when I used to. We never guided archery deer or antelope, but so I would take that time to go set up our outfitting camp in eastern Montana and haul all the stuff out there, clean everything up. And it was amazing because I'd be the only person archery hunting deer. And one year there was this bachelor group, eight mule deer bucks that I kept sneaking in on and. And definitely flung a couple arrows. Never, never connected. But, you know, had all this time to work these deer, and eventually there were six, and then five and then zero. And every single one of those deer died.

[Seth]

All of them.

[Spencer]

Damn. Like, while you were trying to kill one.

[Cal]

Yes. Yep. And. And those are the years, like, where you can just smell the death oh, and the hay, you know, hey, was still. Still high. That last cutting hadn't come off yet and. Yeah. I mean, just. Just gross.

[Spencer]

Yeah. Kip had talked about how it's especially bad if you have wet spring, dry summer. Similarly, it can be really bad if you have a wet year followed by a dry year. In southeastern South Dakota in 2011, we had record breaking rainfall. The Missouri river was like the highest it had been in hundreds of years or as far as back as they could look. And then 2012 was an extreme drought. So we had an extremely wet followed by extremely dry. And I personally found probably 20 dead deer that, that summer that died from EHD. And what I'll always remember is the smell cow. Just, just brutal. And you could like follow your nose right to where dead deer would be. And we could be catfishing on the Jim river in, you know, August. And you would know that like somewhere within a mile and a half here there are three or four dead deer from EHD right now.

[Cal]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

And you'll just like never forget that overpowering, like, stench of death. And now when I'm outside, it's like very easy to confirm, like, oh, something died over there a few weeks ago because of that 2012 year finding all those EHD dead deer.

[Cal]

Yeah. I know folks who would travel around with the, with their sawzalls. Yeah. Just pulling deer heads off. Yeah.

[Seth]

A couple years ago, my wife shot a mule deer out in eastern Montana that the, the hooves were sloughing.

[Spencer]

Was that the cactus buck?

[Seth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cal]

I don't, I don't.

[Spencer]

You know, I think they're related. Yeah. That it was cactus buck and it had the, the messed up hooves.

[Seth]

Yep.

[Spencer]

Cool buck.

[Seth]

Real cool buck.

[Spencer]

I. To the part of South Dakota I was haunting in that 2012, they responded appropriately and cut back tags an enormous amount. And it sucked. But then I, I personally had a theory that we were going to come out of this and be in like this golden age of whitetail hunting for that area because these deer were not being bothered for years. If there was like a one and a half year old, a two and a half year old that survived ehd and then all of a sudden, the tag count in that county went from a thousand to fifty. Those bucks just lived for a couple of years not knowing what it was like to be hunted or bothered. So I, I really, really enjoyed that. That kept me going like, oh man, this sucks. And the deer gone.

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

But there's going to be some dumb deer after this.

[Cal]

Yeah. Yeah. Randall Williams said that on his Trip through Ohio. He saw like yard signs saying stop the deer hunt because of ehd.

[Spencer]

Yeah, yeah, it's hard to argue with those folks.

[Seth]

Yeah, I got. I have some cell cameras out in Pennsylvania right now, and there's some bucks that were running around that I haven't seen for a while. So hard to say what happened. They could still be there, but, yeah, hopefully it's not that.

[Spencer]

All right, that brings us to the end of this week's show. Phil, let's get some final feedback from the chat.

[Phil]

Sure thing. Last call for questions. This is from Nate. He says, I am a bad cook. Or am I a bad cook? Or are some birds just impossible to get the skin crispy even among the same species?

[Spencer]

Cal, what do you got?

[Cal]

Yeah, Cal, very hard. I mean, you have to dry the heck out of that bird. So score the little fatty bits just, just enough to, like, scratch the skin and allow that moisture to come out. Rub a little salt on there and then hang that thing up in front of a window or even a fan and, and like get it to desiccate a little bit. And that's your. That's your best shot. There's some other. I was, I never followed up with him. I was talking to a food scientist, super nice dude out of Oklahoma, and we were debating about baking soda as this hack for getting dry skin on birds, which is sometimes used with like big turkeys and stuff. And there's some food science in there. I'll dig that up and we'll maybe write an article or something on it.

[Spencer]

But we were singing the praises of Danielle Pruitt earlier. She has an article on our website themeeder.com how to get perfectly crispy skin on game birds. In about 800 words there, she gives you all the details you need to know as far as how long to dry it, how much salt to apply. If you want to do a wet brine instead. If you want to. If you're going to throw this thing in the oven in a cast iron skillet, what the temperature should be. So again, go check out Danielle's article, how to get perfectly crispy skin on game birds.

[Cal]

But if you're talking like a quail, a dove, Hungarian partridge, even sharp tail grouse, all those birds are great in the deep fat fryer. Yeah. And that skin is crispy.

[Spencer]

What else you got, Phil?

[Phil]

First, this is from a different Nate. He says, spencer, my kids just picked up their 43rd, 44th, 45th, 46th and 47th Junior Ranger badges last week, and they also found two fossils at Badlands and got a special patch for that.

[Spencer]

Good on you, Nate. That's awesome. That's good parenting. That's fun for them. I bet they appreciate it now and they're gonna appreciate it in the future for sure.

[Phil]

Ethan asks Cal, thanks for mentioning the fawn situation I sent to you on Call of the Wild. What sources should I send people to about CWD other than Uncle Ted? Thanks a bunch. Before you jump in, Kyle, I will say in about a week and a half I believe you've got a pretty all encompassing podcast that Cal is actually a part of with the turkey doc Mike Chamberlain, but also one of his buddies, Mark Ruder, who studies like free ranging disease pathology, teaches it at the College of Vet Medicine at the University of Georgia. So that's a pretty wide ranging conversation that Steve has with them. But Cal, if you have anything else.

[Cal]

I would wait for this podcast to come out because it's got the most up to date information on CWD and it's if you're interested in it, it is, it is a very good podcast. It, it's a, it's going to be a great source for for people to be up to date. The the nuts and bolts of of CWD right now is you need to turn in your information lymph nodes report deer that you find that you think may have died from cwd. The the push is to manage like hyperlocal for cwd. So if you have let's say you have CWD case here in in Bos Angeles. The entire state isn't going to start reducing deer numbers and in fact that now because they're trying to figure out where each county, each region, each CWD zone is on the scale of CWD on the growth scale that that they can plot very effectively. Now there may be instances where that data says don't harvest does we need to help the population rebound. On the other side of the scale it could be harvest more deer, especially the box. Don't let them go because we're going to try to knock it down and get CWD to stabilize at ideally a lower prevalence rate. So do what they tell you to do. Don't be transporting things all over the place and disposing of spinal columns and and brain buckets in places where deer can come in contact with them, take them to a landfill, find your local Doug Duran with the good deer dumpster and get those things taken care of properly and turn in your your lymph nodes help build this base for good effective scientific management.

[Spencer]

And our last guest, Kip Adams, he. He's from the National Deer Association. They do a great job of having common sense takes on things like this while still balancing the science. So go check out what NDA has to say on stuff. They'll also do a nice job of explaining things and layman's terms. So Ethan's buddy could come away from that, have a better understanding of cwd.

[Cal]

Yep, for sure.

[Phil]

Moore wants to know what each of your longest hunts in the back country was like. The longest stretch of time you were off the grid.

[Spencer]

H cow, what do you got?

[Cal]

Oh, it just makes me cry thinking about the good old days and many, many trips in that like probably sub 15 day range, but between 10 and 15 days, like lots of those trips. And you know, guiding's a little bit different where you like, you stay back, back there and then the clients kind of rotate in and out. So a couple of months here and there, but as like good solid. I am hunting, backpack trip. I would say on average like 13 days.

[Spencer]

I don't have any real impressive backcountry stats like Cal. My longest deer hunts though, where I'm just like car camping, sleeping in a tent. Kansas, I think I went for eight days probably like six years ago. In Wyoming, I think four years ago I had eight days sleeping in my tent trying to kill a deer. And both of those I killed my deer, the Wyoming one. I pushed my deadline, like an extra day, like I'm gonna stay one more day. And then I killed one that morning. So it was very, very satisfying ending for me.

[Cal]

Nice, Seth.

[Seth]

Yeah, I got, I think 10 days is my longest but several, you know, eight, nine, 10 day up in Alaska. Mostly. Mostly those are the longer trips.

[Spencer]

So Phil, let's do two more.

[Phil]

All right. This is from Kyle. In a different comment. He says that he's a proud random ole and then apologizes to me for that as if I'm not also a proud randomal. So Kyle, I'm on your team. He's starting his fall turkey hunt this coming Monday and he tips on fall versus spring turkeys. He has a stand decoy and calls, but not sure what he should focus on. Hens and toms are allowed in Michigan. You guys do a lot of fall turkey.

[Spencer]

Any advice?

[Seth]

I used to. Back in the day, back in when I was living in Pennsylvania, we used to do it but we always would just find them and try and break them up and call them back in.

[Spencer]

Yeah, I've killed two fall turkeys in my life. Both times it was just opportunistic. I was deer Hunting. Knew there'd maybe be some turkeys nearby. Spotted them, got my shotgun, went and killed one. I don't have any good strategy for you though, Kyle.

[Cal]

Cal, I think my may have been one of my first turkeys ever. If not the first bearded hen in the fall. Got her right in the back of the head as she was running away from me. That's perfect. Yeah. You know, fall turkeys would be targets of opportunity that white meat's so scarce in the freezer.

[Seth]

Oh yeah.

[Cal]

That it's like, it's real hard to pass them up if you have a, have a tag for one.

[Spencer]

Just a lot of eyeballs that time of year. They're gonna, they're gonna be in some bigger flocks. Um, so be ready to make a shot where they're running away in the back of the head.

[Cal]

Yeah, there's a lot of running involved in the fall turkey.

[Spencer]

We, we have an article on our website just called Fall turkey hunting tips from Tony Peterson. Tony's one of the best dang turkey hunters I know. So I trust the words that he can offer you in that article. One more.

[Phil]

Phil Chase is going to Lake Erie next weekend for a four hour trip. 2 to 6pm Seth, should he target walleye, perch or bass?

[Seth]

You got. If you're going to Erie, you got to catch walleye.

[Spencer]

I like that.

[Seth]

Yeah, there's big ones there. Yeah. Catch some walleye.

[Cal]

Yeah, that eerie fishing that we did too, like the dragon Rapala. Rapalas around was just shockingly automatic.

[Seth]

Very productive. Yeah. And yeah, that's like historically eerie. Is like a trolling lake but now.

[Cal]

Lack of structure. Right?

[Seth]

Yeah.

[Spencer]

And, but yeah, a lot of reef fishing Erie.

[Seth]

Well, there's a lot of like suspended fish in Erie. But these days with forward facing sonar, I think that's kind of starting to shift where people are cast into them more than trolling these days. Maybe not more than, but they're starting to do more of that. On the Erie.

[Cal]

We did a big wind drift day, a friend of mine and I this several years ago and just you know, leaded jig heads and like, you know, goofy looking plastics and just tap in the bottom on the wind drift. And it was very fun because you were just constantly picking up something between like catfish, drum, walleye, bass. Yeah, it was great.

[Seth]

Well, there you go. Do that then you'll catch all kinds of different stuff. That sounds fun.

[Spencer]

All right, one last reminder. The Meat Eater Christmas tour happening this December. Go to themeater.com tour for those details and pre sale access. And while you're there, check out the tailgate tour. We got four stops left. We'd love to hang out with you guys. See you guys. Talk haunting fish and everything else. All right, See you back here. Same time place next week. Bye now.

[Steve Giannis]

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