Ep. 801: Extinct Elk, Meat Processing, and the Latest News | MeatEater Radio Live!

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast – Ep. 801: Extinct Elk, Meat Processing, and the Latest News | MeatEater Radio Live!

Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Brody Anderson (for Steven Rinella)
Guests: Jim Heffelfinger, Anna Borgman
Panel: Giannis (Yannis), Randall, Phil

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Episode Overview

This live episode of MeatEater Radio explores the intersections of hunting, conservation biology, and wild food through three main lenses:

• The science and myths around extinct elk subspecies and the current research on Miriam’s elk
• Best practices and common pitfalls of wild game meat processing
• A robust open-floor news segment with listener Q&A and practical hunting hacks

The tone throughout is conversational, humorous, and rich with down-to-earth stories and technical info that empowers hunters and outdoor enthusiasts.

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Main Segments & Key Discussion Points

1. Post-Season Blues and Winter Plans

[02:26–05:58]

• The crew shares their melancholy now that big game season has ended, discussing plans for lion hunting, ice fishing trips, and general coping strategies during the winter lull.
• Miscellaneous banter about Montana weather changes, snow conditions for tracking, and a planned pike spearing trip.
  • “I got the mega post-big game season blues.” – Giannis [03:23]

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2. Interview: Jim Heffelfinger on Extinct Elk and Subspecies

[05:58–26:09]

Elk Taxonomy and Subspecies Debate

• Jim introduces the "lumpers vs. splitters" dilemma in wildlife science—whether biologists favor clumping similar animals or dividing them into discreet subspecies.

  • “Lumpers focus on similarities...splitters focus on differences and want to split these animals up into a whole bunch of different categories.” – Jim Heffelfinger [07:47]

• The current consensus: only Roosevelt and Tule elk are genetically unique; Rocky Mountain, Manitoba, and Eastern elk are probably not meaningfully different.

History and Genetics of Miriam’s Elk

• Miriam’s elk, historically from AZ and NM, is extinct—gone by 1906, replaced by introduced Yellowstone elk.
• Jim's project: working with geneticists to test if Miriam’s elk justified subspecies status using DNA from recently-rediscovered museum specimens (now 13, up from 3).
  • “We now have identified 13 Miriam elk specimens. Instead of three, we have genetic samples from all 13.” – Jim Heffelfinger [15:10]
• Much discussion on whether reintroduced elk are ecologically out of place or if such distinctions even matter—most evidence suggests they are functionally the same.

Conservation, Management, and Local Color

• Fun historical aside: C. Hart Merriam, the namesake for Miriam’s elk, named 71 species, had family ties to Vernon Bailey (who described Eastern elk), and once drove Teddy Roosevelt around.
• Jim defers offering a verdict, but casts doubt that the differences between extinct and current elk are significant beyond environmental adaptation.
  • “It’s hard to envision how just those elk in Arizona and New Mexico were substantially different.” – Jim Heffelfinger [20:09]

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3. News Roundup: Accidents, Regulations, & Wolves

[28:49–44:31]

A. Hunting Accidents & Firearm Safety [29:02]

• Randall comments on a recent spike in accidental hunter deaths, often during loading or unloading firearms.
  • Emphasis on constant vigilance, especially outside the range: “That stuff only happens when you aren’t constantly challenging yourself—did I unload this, did I see them unload this?” – Randall [30:15]
• Giannis stresses a no-tolerance policy as a guide; sometimes you must stop hunting with unsafe partners.

B. Idaho Over-the-Counter Tag System Overhaul [34:33]

• Idaho’s non-resident tag sales move from a virtual queue to a lottery application (Dec. 5–15).
  • $160–$185 non-refundable license required; simplifies access and levels the field.
  • “This just makes… the playing field for people…levels the playing field for people.” – Randall [38:45]
• Emphasize on resident hunter experience and overall hunt quality.

C. Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Update [39:43]

• Colorado struggling to source wolves for its reintroduction, as neighboring states and now federal regulation prevent Canadian imports.
• Budget vastly exceeded, with rancher compensation funds depleted.
  • “Some lawmakers in Colorado are calling the situation out of control.” – Brody [43:30]
• Overall, the reintroduction program may stall—political and logistical barriers ahead.

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4. Listener Q&A & Hot Tips

[44:31–83:43]

• Practical OnX Hunt app hacks (rangefinder, route snapping, camera filtering).
• Mountain lions near schools (generally not lockdown-worthy in the West); audience shares unusual trophy/skull stories (e.g., turkey skulls, beaver skulls).
• Playful banter about stage fright, MeatEater tour prep, and who should be “Randall Claus.”

Hot Tip Off—Listener Competition

[72:04–83:30]

• Caden Bonner (NE): Makes an impromptu predator call with a Little Debbie snack wrapper.
• Dak Cash (AR): Teaches a traditional green-branch squirrel stringer method for hands-free carrying.
  • Audience votes Dak the winner (53%) for his charm and practicality.

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5. Interview: Anna Borgman, Wild Game Butcher at Chaos Farms

[54:14–72:00]

Her Setup & Ethos

• Anna and her partner run a local, small-batch wild game processing business with a custom, mobile cooler-trailer—delivering high quality through careful handling.
  • “We do fewer than 100 [game animals] for sure...but it’s a lot of animals.” – Anna Borgman [56:12]

Field Best Practices for Hunters

• Take hooves off before packing—“extra weight and more hair and bacteria in the bag.”
  • “Take those hooves off...more hair, whatever was on that animal’s hoof...” – Anna Borgman [57:43]
• Keep meat as clean as possible—trash bags or clean ground cloths help; avoid dumping small, loose pieces into the game bag.
• Always remove the windpipe to prevent bacterial growth and heat retention in neck meat.
• Gutless method is fine for most cases, especially roadkill or backcountry scenarios.

Pitfalls and Refusals

• She refuses “filthy” or spoiled game and charges a cleaning fee when needed.
• Heat, poor planning, and failing to check with processors before drop-off can ruin an animal.

For New DIY Processors

• Don’t overthink it: “You can’t really mess it up… everything can be turned into burger or sausage.” [63:55]
• Sharp knife and honing steel are essential; she rarely needs full re-sharpening if she hones regularly.
• Main variable affecting meat loss is caliber/bullet placement—not copper vs. lead.

Most Often Overlooked Cuts

• Neck roasts, cheek meat (“elks have big cheeks, worth pulling”), tough cuts for braising.
• Hearts, tongues, and (if in good shape) livers.
  • “The more you play with it and the more you hunt, the more you’ve got options of what to cook.” – Anna Borgman [71:20]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Wildlife Taxonomy:
  “Merriam actually designated 84 different brown bear and grizzly bear species—not even subspecies.” – Jim Heffelfinger [07:55]

• On Safety:
  “It’s kind of fun to tell stories…but it’s very serious business whenever you have loaded guns around.” – Randall [31:40]

• On Regulations:
  “Idaho...they really cap their non-resident numbers...so it gives their residents...a quality hunt.” – Giannis [38:51]

• On Meat Processing:
  “Don’t overthink it…everything’s edible as long as it’s clean.” – Anna Borgman [63:55]

• On Adaptability:
  “You can’t really mess it up…everything can be turned into burger or sausage.” – Anna Borgman [63:55]

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Time-Stamped Key Segments

• Big Game Blues, Winter Plans: [02:26–05:58]
• Jim Heffelfinger (Elk & Subspecies Biology): [05:58–26:09]
• News Roundup (Accidental Deaths, Idaho Tags, Wolf Update): [28:49–44:31]
• Listener Q&A & Trivia: [44:31–83:43]
• Anna Borgman (Meat Processing): [54:14–72:00]
• Hot Tip Off: [72:04–83:30]

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The Episode’s Takeaway

This episode is a crash course in patience, adaptability, and scientific humility, set against the backdrop of life in the heart of hunting country. You’ll leave with practical field tips, perspective on North America's complex wildlife heritage, and a hint of the camaraderie and debate at the pulse of hunting culture.

For More:

• Follow Jim Heffelfinger’s ongoing research on southwestern elk genetics.
• Seek out Anna Borgman’s butchering demos on Instagram for smart game handling tips.
• Tune in for lively discussions, live shows, and new episodes of MeatEater’s "Roasts" on YouTube.

Transcript

[Brody Anderson]

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[Brody Anderson]

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[Jim Heffelfinger]

Take the guesswork out of your warning.

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[Brody Anderson]

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[Randall]

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[Giannis]

Riley.

[Brody Anderson]

Auto Parts.

[Giannis]

Smell us now, lady.

[Randall]

Welcome to meat eater trivia meat eater podcast.

[Brody Anderson]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio live. As always, it's 11am on Thursday here at Meat Eater HQ in wintry Bozeman, Montana.

It's 8am in Maui where it's currently about 75 degrees, which sounds pretty nice. Be nice to be out there hunting pigs and access deer and shorts and a T shirt. But anyway, I'm your host Brody. I'm joined today by Giannis and Randall. You know these guys. Today we're going to talk to our favorite local wild game butcher, Anna Borgman. And we're also going to going to chat with our friend Jim Heffelfinger about lumper splitters and extinct elk. And we've got a news roundup for you and another round of hot tip offs from our listeners.

[Randall]

So.

[Brody Anderson]

So we're going to get right into it and have some fun today before we get into the first interview. Big game season is over. It's kind of, kind of sad.

[Giannis]

Oh, I got the mega post big game season blues going right now.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of, kind of sad but I mean there's still hunting to be done. What do you got, what do you guys got planned for the next.

[Giannis]

You guys get the blues too?

[Randall]

Big blues. Big blues right now.

Yeah, I don't really have any plans at the moment.

[Brody Anderson]

No.

[Randall]

Trying to figure out what tags I'm going to apply for. Got the calendar for 2026.

[Brody Anderson]

Will get into that.

[Randall]

Looking at later dates and points and all that stuff.

[Giannis]

Yeah, Mountain line season's open.

[Brody Anderson]

That's right.

[Giannis]

Yeah. I've already had a couple days out there. Found some tracks but they were going into private so we didn't cut loose on them.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, we're getting some snow now which is good for you too.

[Giannis]

Oh yeah, it's nice. Makes it life easy. You mentioned Maui and how nice to be there. Are you already sick of the cold? We're not even, dude. Barely.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, I, I get, I get sick of the real cold stuff easy.

[Giannis]

You think you're going to turn into a snowbird?

[Brody Anderson]

No, but I eventually I might turn into like a mid south bird. Like if I moved I want to be somewhere where there was seasons and it snowed once in a while so I'm not there yet.

[Giannis]

Like a, like a Missouri.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

I don't know. Maybe I'll buy some land from Clay and move in down there.

[Giannis]

Ooh, Arkansas.

[Randall]

Yeah. For whatever reason this cold snap hit pretty badly.

[Brody Anderson]

Well, that's because it was so warm.

[Randall]

50 degrees all November and then one day it's just like 10 degrees and blowing snow. And then we were, I was taking the. Taking Yanni's trailer back to his house and we got two pickups stuck and a trailer stuck at his house.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Randall]

Geez man.

[Brody Anderson]

Get that plow truck out.

[Giannis]

Well we did.

[Brody Anderson]

Well we did because.

[Randall]

Because he needed to pull me out with the plow truck.

[Brody Anderson]

One nice thing about the cold is I think we're gonna hopefully get some, some early spearing ice. And I'm tentatively planning a spear and trip with the boys for pike and hopefully like work some pheasant hunting into that too.

[Randall]

Tuscany or where?

[Brody Anderson]

No, no. Oh, oh, Montana baby.

[Randall]

Gotcha big pike here. Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

So that'll be fun over Christmas break. Hopefully it stays cold enough and we'll get. Get some good ice.

[Giannis]

Call me if you go. I'd like to go do that.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. Are you gonna be around over break?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yep.

[Brody Anderson]

All right.

[Randall]

Can I go too?

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, man.

[Randall]

Perfect.

[Brody Anderson]

You got a spear?

[Giannis]

I don't have a spear.

[Brody Anderson]

Grab one out of Steve's car.

[Randall]

I was just thinking about.

[Giannis]

I got a bunch of decoys.

[Randall]

Yeah, I just like to watch.

[Brody Anderson]

And we should take a whole posse out there, man. It's fun.

[Randall]

Empty a few cans and bottles, put.

[Brody Anderson]

Some tip ups out.

[Randall]

Oh, nice. Yeah, that would be super fun.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep. All right, enough talking about our fun. We got to get into the serious stuff and move on to our first guest, Jim Heffelfinger. Many of you guys have seen or listened to him on the podcast, so hopefully you know him. But we got Jim up yet or did he disappear on us?

[Phil]

Oh, he's still here, but he's not in yet. Let's bring him in.

[Brody Anderson]

Jerry, is Jim for people aren't familiar with you, just quickly introduce yourself and let, let us know what you do and then we'll get into the nitty gritty.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, I've been, I'm a wildlife science coordinator for Arizona Game and Fish Department. I've been with the department for 33 years. And probably most of my focus there has been big game management, Western big game. I chair a western North America mule deer working group, and then also involved in Mexican wolf recovery last 15 years.

[Brody Anderson]

Nice. But you also do some work with elk, which we're going to talk about today.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Interesting things.

[Brody Anderson]

The reason, the big reason I wanted to have you on today is because you're doing some pretty cool work with Miriam's elk. And if you're, if you're not familiar with Miriam's elk, it's jump in and correct me wherever I screw up, Jim. But Miriam's elk are an extinct subspecies of elk. And Jim's doing some work trying to figure out, like, were they different than other elk? Like, do they deserve the subspecies designation, all that stuff. So we're going to talk about that. But before we get to that, we gotta talk about lumpers and splitters. So, Jim, can you real quick explain, like, the two basic schools of thought.

That biologists kind of fall into when it comes time for someone like yourself to, like, identify and classify wildlife species and subspecies?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's, you know, we've got to classify animals as species, and then when we start classifying animals as subspecies, things get a little sketchy. And so there's this concept of lumpers and splitters and people fall into one category or the other or somewhere in between. And it basically, at the, at the most basic level is the, the lumpers are focusing on similarities between animals. Like they might look at all elk and just say, you know, they're basically elk. They differ a little bit in the east and the west and, but they're all just elk. So they're all one kind of animal. Other people focus on differences and they might say, well, this one's a little darker, this one has antlers that tend to crown a little bit more and these have like smaller antlers. And so those are like the splitters that want to split these animals up into a whole bunch of different categories. We'll talk about. Miriam Duck was named after Sea Heart Miriam. Miriam actually designated 84 different brown bear and grizzly bear species, not even subspecies.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, that's, that's what I was going to get at. Like, I tend myself to like, kind of lean towards the, the lumper school of thought because the splitters can get out of control. I think at one point there's like, I'm just throwing a number out there, but Steve and I are working on a book right now and it comes up there where there was like over a hundred different subspecies of Canada Goose at one point, which is kind of ridiculous. But there's good reasons for splitting too, when it, when it comes to managing species on like a regional or more local level. Like having subspecies can allow for, for better management of those animals.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Sometimes it'll focus on animals, but pure taxonomous, though we don't split animals just so that there's some conservation focus on that animal attacks are pure science of are those animals really different? And then if they're different, then we, we should probably be doing some different conservation.

[Brody Anderson]

Right? Right. Okay, so let's talk elk and have you run through the, the generally accepted subspecies of elk in North America, both living and extinct. And we' map that you're going to explain isn't quite accurate, but hopefully it can help people visualize where these different elk subspecies live now or lived before they went extinct.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, sure. I sent you that map and I said this is wrong because it's not 100% right, but it's the closest representation of just generally these different subspecies that people have been recognizing over and over again. The eastern elk people hear about east of the Mississippi, those things disappeared so quick that science didn't really catch up and document many specimens. They weren't studied physically, so we don't know a lot about whether they differed in the East. But the Manitoba elk in the middle of the continent in Rocky Mountain elk, they don't. All the genetic work that's been done, they don't separate out genetically as different subspecies. And I suspect if we had the same kind of data for eastern elk, you'd see eastern Manitoba and Rocky Mountain really just the same thing.

[Brody Anderson]

And when you say like this is, this map is like, like original range, like obviously there's not Manitoba and elk running around in Kansas right now.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, you cut out there for a second. But that there's no geographic barriers that would have like isolated those three individual animals, those species.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep. So what's that a total of six, six subspecies we've got.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Right. So those are three in the continental and then the Roosevelt and the Tule elk. A lot of different genetic analysis have separ those out. So genetically they will break out as separate subspecies.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

And we don't know because they were isolated. And so in that isolation they created some genetic differences and they're a little bit different. We don't know if that, how far those differences, how far they were isolated. Go back in time, like if you went back 400, 300 years, they may have been all the same. And it's really human influence isolating those populations. We don't, don't really know that. Bottom line is Roosevelt and Thule will break out genetically. Rocky Mountain, Manitoba and what little we know about eastern really don't break out separately.

[Brody Anderson]

Go ahead, Jim, could you.

[Randall]

This is Randall, when you say that Manitoba elk don't break out genetically compared to like a Rocky Mountain elk, can you describe some, I assume then the difference that has been identified in the past to use to make that distinction is just a physical visual characteristic.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah.

[Randall]

Can you describe what that, what that is?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yes. The physical descriptions that people use to describe the different subspecies, they're oftentimes like they shot an elk or they shot two elk and they said these look kind of darker. And so they drew a big polygon on the map and they said this is the eastern elk. They gave it a subspecies name and they said this is a new subspecies. And in most cases those soap species are described separately based on a couple little general characteristics. They would not hold up to modern day kind of scientific thinking at all.

[Brody Anderson]

What about, what about Roosevelt versus Rocky Mountain? Like you can look at those to someone who's looked at a lot of elk. You can look at like a mature Roosevelt bull and a mature Rocky Mountain bull and there's like obvious physical differences, right?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yep, absolutely. Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Bigger body on the Roosevelt. Smaller, heavier antlers on the Roosevelt Y.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

More tendency to crown out on. On Roosevelt. You're right. Physically you can tell. And so it's interesting then that genetically those break out too. So it kind of supports that.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Being a little smaller. Duly Elk as a population were bottlenecked. It got down to a very small number of individuals and now they've recovered somewhat. So some of those genetic differences might just be that they had a lot of inbreeding when they were a small population and then. But, but those physically too look different than Roosevelt and a big Rocky Mountain.

[Brody Anderson]

So the two that are considered extinct are the Easterns, which I think we're sitter gone by like 1880. The last ones might have been Pennsylvania. I read you'd probably know better than me. And then there's these Mariam's elk which, which are southwestern elk from Arizona did that. Were they in, in any other like of the contiguous United States or just Arizona, Arizona and New Mexico?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, and here's where the map is wrong. A textbook came out called Elka North America actually and it showed these long two fingers of distribution going into Mexico. But there's no evidence of that. Someone published a paper and they looked at all the archaeological digs and they found no evidence of elk in Mexico. So that that's in error. They were really the Miriam's elk was described as being central and northern Arizona and New Mexico.

[Brody Anderson]

Okay, so let's focus on them since that's what you're working on.

Tell us like what you're trying to do and then, then we'll get into like if you can like way I know your work isn't done yet.

But are you trying to figure out like if they're like if they warrant a subspecies designation or like what is the work you're doing with Miriam's elk?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

And part of that is not just a gee whiz thing. Part of that is some people will complain and say, well you know, the Miriam's elk we had in the Southwest were very different ecologically. And now you brought elk from Yellowstone in to replace them and, and they're different, like more damaging ecologically, which is there's no evidence. Right. It's, it's. So part of it is this complaint that you've got different elk here. And that remains to be seen because if you, if you notice on that map northern and central Arizona and New Mexico butts right up against southern Colorado and southern Utah. And there's in Arizona there's a thing we call the Grand Canyon, which is A really big ditch that runs across there. So there's some separation there, but there's a connection all through southern Colorado into northern New Mexico. And so there's a question about were those really different? Because there were only three Miriam duck specimens that were saved for science in museums. So the last couple decades scientists have been talking about just three specimens of Miriam duck. So let's look at those unknown Miriam duck specimens. And there was only three when we started. We spent, I spent a week in Smithsonian, spent time in the American Museum twice. We combed every elk specimen in there. We went to Chicago museum, went to UC Berkeley, looked at elk specimens. We now have identified 13 Miriam elk specimens. Instead of three, we have genetic samples from all 13 of those Miriam Delk specimens.

[Brody Anderson]

Can I stop you for one second? When were they gone from Arizona?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Right. So they're gone in 1906, the last record in Arizona. And about the same time in New Mexico. We brought Yellowstone elk in in 1913 through 1928. Basically the first onslaught. About the same as what was happening in Pennsylvania with eastern elk.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

They were bringing Yellowstone elk about the same time in the nineteen teens. And so we only had a gap from 1906 to 1913 where the old elk died out and the new elk were brought in from Yellowstone. So there's always been a question, did some of the original Miriam's elk, were they down in the bottom of canyon and they, they made it through that 10 years or so and now interbred with the Yellowstone elk and maybe Arizona elk are big because they've got genetics from the Miriam duck. There's a lot of talk about that.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

So that's an interesting side part of it. So we've got these, we got 13 samples instead of three. Extract the DNA, we send in DNA from not only those hundred year old Miriam elk samples, but 100 year old Colorado samples and 100 year old Yellowstone national park samples. So we were comparing apples to apples because genetics could change through time. But we're comparing elk at that time 100 years ago. And we sent in 50 samples and we got usable DNA from 48 of those 50 samples. Which is amazing when you're talking about 100 year old shed antler.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

That we've got DNA out of. So that was really the first step is what samples are available, can we get DNA out of it? And now we're, we're not complete. There's a PhD student, Kenzie, who's doing this for her PhD and, and she's only a year into a four year PhD. So we certainly don't have results, but we've got really promising extraction to DNA. We've got some good quantities of DNA to play with. And now analyzing whether there's any differences between Miriam Belkin and other.

[Brody Anderson]

So you're still waiting on results is basically, it's kind of surprising to me that they, you know, a species that was haunted and just like, considered extinct in 1906, like, just barely over 100 years ago that you had that much trouble finding samples. Like, you think there'd be old racks hanging in barns and, and like bones popping. Like, it's. You think there'd be some around. Right, right.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

And I, and I get those emails. But if you're, if you're doing science and you're analyzing differences between Miriam's elk and other elk, you can't use some antler that someone had in the barn that said was Miriam duck. So we've got to make that clean break of known Miriam Delk in museums. But it will also be interesting if we find a difference between Miriam's elk genetically and other elk. We can use that as a diagnostic tool to test some of those interesting antlers that are.

[Brody Anderson]

So, yeah, I wanted to pin you down and get a verdict from you, but that's not going to happen, obviously.

[Giannis]

Well, I got to pin him down. Question, why is this worthy of your time?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Oh, not, like I said, not only the interesting part, but we need to have some information to inform these criticisms that you've got the wrong elk here. You know, you've got this giant Yellowstone elk elk, and it's destroying the aspen, destroying the forest. And then also it's also of great interest to our stakeholders and people that are interested in this. Do we have any Miriam Duck genes in today's Arizona elk? A lot of people forever that have been talking about that, like, constant chatter, and it just, on that alone will be pretty fascinating to have an answer for that.

[Brody Anderson]

Are you able to put out, like, an opinion yet? Like, were they different? Like, do you personally think you're just like, wait, he's a science man. I know, but you always got to ask. You got to try and get him to say something.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's not the way science works. So we'll see.

[Randall]

But, but we're the mainstream media here, Jim. We need to pin you down before the results are in.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

No, I don't. But I don't mind. I don't mind highlighting the fact that we've got elk in Colorado that come right down to the northern New Mexico border, and you had elk all through northern New Mexico, it's hard to envision how just those elk in Arizona and New Mexico were substantially different.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I mean, what. The Grand Canyon over by Arizona could be seen as a barrier, but you've got what seems like continuous habitat, so it's hard to vision how somehow they broke out to be really different in Arizona.

[Brody Anderson]

There's, like, environmental factors involved, too. Like, why. Why are Roosevelt else significantly different than Rocky Mountain elk? Like, I would assume it's. It's partially driven by the environment. They live, like, very thick, dark forests, so they don't need these huge antlers to display from a long distance. Like, what are. What are the reasons there, do you think?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, certainly when you have different ecological conditions, and that's a great example, because you have, like, rainforest, and so you have animals that tend to get darker in thick forests, and animals out in the open plains, like a Rocky Mountain now, tend to be more lighter and more cream. Like, that happens with a lot of different animals. And also open plains animals are more visual, so their rump patches sometimes are more vibrant, more white, more contrasting. Antlers are larger because they're more visible animals. If you're a Roosevelt elk sneaking around the coastal rainforest, there's not a lot of visual cues that people are using, and so their antlers can be smaller and darker, and the body's darker. And that's just an adaptation of local conditions.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. So, I mean, with that in mind, it's hard to imagine Miriam's being that much different from Rocky Mountain elk. You know, it's.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Right.

[Randall]

Ecological habitat, nutrition is the same.

[Giannis]

Yeah. And I think you see on the eastern. Well, the elk that occupy the eastern range of elk now, like, their antlers, when they're small, they look similar to ours, but, like, as they get bigger, they get very crowned out and they look very different. Like, the bulls in Pennsylvania look very different than our bulls here.

[Brody Anderson]

Part of that might just be because they're not getting hunted as much. They live longer. They got easier winners. You know, I don't know. We're getting off on a tangent, but I want to talk to you, Jim, about what Giannis brought up, which is all these very successful elk reintroductions that have taken place around the country. Like, when I was a kid, like, seeing an elk in Pennsylvania was, like, a big deal. It was like a very small reintroduced herd, and now they've got a whole bunch of them. Like, you can watch these elk on. On live cams in Pennsylvania, like, during the rut like, we've got these places where they congregate and you can just watch them on your computer. And the same, those same reintroductions have happened in a few southeastern states and in the upper Midwest. And the interesting thing is, like, these are all, like, this is former habitat of eastern elk, the eastern elk subspecies, which you said we don't really know a lot about, and how much different they might have been. I guess my question is, it's like.

Like how, how, like.

These subspecies categorizations, like, if you can just plug a Rocky Mountain out into Pennsylvania or the, you know, the Smoky. Great Smoky Mountain national park, like, how valuable are these subspecies distinctions? If you can just like, put it out from Yellowstone in, into one of these very different environments and they just, they thrive. They. They do just fine.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

And, you know, we see that with turkeys certainly too, with the turkey subspecies. But just because something a different subspecies doesn't mean it's like, not going to do really well in a different environment. But it does have local genetic adaptations and physical adaptations to that environment. So you can't. And then also, you think about Rocky Mountain, Manitoba and eastern elk were probably the same. So when you're moving those animals, they probably aren't much different than what was there originally, even. Even Mary and Duck, potentially. But if you could take a Roosevelt elk, put it in Pennsylvania, and they would probably do okay, but they're not adapted to that environment, so there might be some underlying genetic things that make it harder for them to thrive.

[Brody Anderson]

Cool. Well, you got to keep us posted on what you find out. I guess you got three more years of work you're looking at on this stuff.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yep, that's right. And there's other people doing a majority of the work. I did a lot of the sampling and the beginning of it. Now the geneticists are sitting at the genetics lab bench doing most of the work. One interesting thing is that Sea Hart Miriam, who Miriam's elk is named after. Yeah, he. He's the one who named Roosevelt elk after Theodore Roosevelt. And there's a letter that's on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and it's Theodore Roosevelt writing back on the Department of Navy letterhead thanking SE Hart Miriam for naming that elk after him.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Randall]

Wow.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit through email. Miriam's. How many, how many species does that guy have his name attached to?

[Anna Borgman]

He.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

He named 71 species, but not with his own name. He has about 12 species that have his name on it.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

One interesting factoid too, is that Vernon Bailey used to work for Sea Heart Miriam as a mammalogist. Vernon Bailey then married Miriam's sister. And Vernon Bailey is the guy who described eastern elk for science.

[Brody Anderson]

Huh.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

So a lot of the same famous people running in the same circles. Yeah, as you can see by that picture with sea hart, Miriam driving Teddy Roosevelt around.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, for sure.

[Giannis]

Jim, are you hoping to one day attach your name to a new subspecies heffelf finger eye?

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I was hoping a deer species heffle finger eye would be nice.

[Randall]

Yeah, we'll keep our eyes out for one of those running around. We'll let you know.

[Brody Anderson]

All right, Jim, we're going to let you go have fun at that big Boone and Crockett conference you're at right now. And we'll talk. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Jim. Yep, the.

Interesting stuff I want Jim to.

[Randall]

You know, it sounds like there's some. Some people in Arizona who are upset about all these big giant bulls walking around and they want some smaller elk like Jim to make those connections for us. Sure, I'd be happy to help them with that problem.

[Giannis]

Well, unfortunately, I think it's probably people that just don't want hunting in general.

[Brody Anderson]

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[Brody Anderson]

Let's move on to a news roundup. I assign these guys a little homework to find some interesting news stuff that you guys should know about. I think we've got Randall first. Randall, what are you going to fill people in on?

[Randall]

Yeah, this is not a very fun or exciting news topic, but do it anyway. I feel like this, this season I've probably seen more news stories than in years past about accidental hunter deaths from, from gunshot wounds. The most recent one I saw was in Pennsylvania, which just opened like last week.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Randall]

Guy was shot in a deer drive. There's another one in, in Texas. And then there's two. One's actually very close to home here in Montana and another one in Idaho. And those actually involved law enforcement officers on their time off. And those two cases and the one that I saw in Texas, the circumstances were very similar. It was getting in and out of a vehicle and casing and uncasing firearms. And it's just a good reminder, I guess, to always.

Keep safety at front of mind. And no one ever thinks they're gonna be that person involved in an accident like that. And you know, we, before the, before we started recording here, we're all saying we've been in situations where someone had a loaded gun that they thought was unloaded and.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Randall]

And you know, that stuff only happens when you, when you aren't constantly challenging yourself. Like, did I unload this you know, did I see them unload this? And. And it's just always got to be front of mind.

[Phil]

So.

[Randall]

Yeah, I don't know that I've got much else there. I the one thing I will say, I in pulling these stories together, and someone had sent me one of these earlier in the year. There are fundraisers for the families of the two law enforcement.

Officers who died. One was a.

Law enforcement officer from California who died in a hunt in Idaho, I think in October. And his name is Nathan Kass, K A A S and there's. If you go to helpahero.com, there's a fundraiser for his wife and kids. And then.

Guy named Michael Floor. Who is he? I believe he was a sheriff's deputy with Gallatin county here in Montana. And there's a GoFundMe for Michael Floor. F L O H R so, you know, this time of year it's, we all look forward to it and then when it's gone, we're all sad, you know, but. And it's kind of fun to tell stories and do all that, but it's very serious business whenever you have loaded guns around. So just seeing all these in the headlines, I felt compelled to bring it up.

[Brody Anderson]

It's interesting. I doubt that there's been more this year on average than in the past, you know, accidental, like involving hunters, accidental shooting deaths. And I would also guess that in the same period of time there were way more accidental shooting deaths among non hunters that didn't make the news. But these things tend to, to hit the headlines for, for whatever reason. But it is just a great reminder just to like, always be safe.

[Giannis]

Yeah. And sometimes you got to get up in people's faces about it because people like to act like it's not, not a big deal. And as a guide, you learn very quickly that like, it's a, there's no, it's a no strike policy.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Giannis]

I mean, you just don't put up with any of it. And if you have someone in your group that continues to do it, you need to quit hunting with them.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Giannis]

Because it's just a matter of time till they make a mistake.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Randall]

And it's, it's easy to keep all that stuff in mind when you're at the range and you're taking your time and, and it's, you're very methodical and how you approach it. But when you're hunting, you know, you're cold, you're tired, there's animals moving quickly. You might.

Wear yourself out to the point that you're no longer thinking straight. And you just gotta always double check and triple check. And that's like. Even with. When I'm hunting with my wife, I'll ask her, like, did you unload it? And she'll hand it. She'll say yes and hand it to me, and I'll stick my finger up in the. In the chamber, you know, just because.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

And I think you're just begging for trouble. If you're the kind of hunter who's like, it's hard not to be, but, like, maybe you're driving from spot to spot, or maybe you're even road hunting. We're like, oh, I gotta be ready. Yeah, I'm in the truck, but I gotta be ready. Like, having a. Like, not even having one of the pipe, having a clip in the rifle, whatever it might be. Like, I. I don't think you can be thinking about, like, what happens if a buck pops out right next to the road kind of thing or.

[Randall]

Right.

[Brody Anderson]

Stuff like that.

[Giannis]

Oh, it's killing me. This fall in Wisconsin, I was climbing trees a bunch and going up in a saddle. I would have to pull my rifle up, you know, with the string.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Giannis]

And of course, I wanted it to be unloaded when I was doing that, because you're literally pointing it up. Well, I guess you could pull it up button first either way. But, yeah, you don't want it to be loaded. But the stink. The bad part is, is that when you're in that tree and it's, you know, 30 minutes before daylight and it's super quiet, and then you got a rack one, you know. Oh, God, it almost made me want to, like, pull a loaded gun up the tree, but which I never did. But, like, I just. I learned to actually. I would take extra clothes so I could, like, cover the whole action with a jacket and then slowly just slide one in there and try to make it as quiet as I could.

[Randall]

Yeah. No shortcuts.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep. Yes. What do you. What do you got going?

[Giannis]

Big news out of Idaho. I think it's big news. You know, a lot of us live here in Montana, and people that live all over this country like to hunt in Idaho. You don't really want to go hunt there if you're into, like, elk and deer, because the wolves have eaten most of them. But if you want to give it a shot, they're going to make it a little bit easier. A lot of us complained.

In years past. This has all happened in probably the last 10 years, because 10 years ago, I hunted Idaho and I was literally able to buy a deer license at the gas station with like five days left in the season. And when I bought it, the guy offered me a second one that is no longer the case. The last, whatever, you know, five to 10 years you've had to either go in and stand in line or stand in a digital line, like a queue.

[Brody Anderson]

Stand in line in Idaho?

[Giannis]

Yeah, in Idaho. Or get online and stand in a digital queue. And they gave you a number and you know that's kind of the order that you would be. You'd get to try to buy a license. And it was a mess. It was hard. I think there's a lot of people gaming. The system took forever and they had.

[Randall]

More technology errors than we do on this program.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Giannis]

Mm. It was not, it was not pretty bad.

[Brody Anderson]

The way it worked is you were assigned like if you were gonna do this online thing, you were assigned a random number for a position in line.

[Giannis]

Yeah. So like, like last year I tried it and I think I had five devices open.

[Anna Borgman]

Right.

[Giannis]

Like I had my wife's phone, my phone, couple computers, maybe even like my daughter's iPad or something.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Right.

[Giannis]

The lowest number I had was 7,000 something. Wasn't going to get a tag or at least not one of the tags I wanted. So now they've listened to the complaints and they're changing it. It's, it's going to be just a straight up application process. Very short application period, which I was surprised about. December 5th to the 15th. It's actually opens tomorrow. You have 10 days to, to do it. You have to buy a hunting license to apply. The hunting license is non refundable. The way I look at it when I do that is just that, you know, you're chipping in on conservation.

[Brody Anderson]

Sure.

[Giannis]

Because there's a good chance you're not going to get the tag. You're not going to get that. I think it's like 160.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. It's not nothing.

[Randall]

It's in the upper half of the 1002s.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah.

[Randall]

You know, 185 maybe.

[Brody Anderson]

I think there will be people that are like, nah, you know, I'm not that committed. But the people who are committed will pay it. It's something other states do. So, you know, it's something to think about. You're like, you could end up not getting a tag and you're still in for whatever, 150, 200 bucks.

[Giannis]

And this is just for general season. Like regular old. What used to be, you know, what you'd call an over the counter attack. This is not for their, what they call their controlled hunts. And so if you're like looking to apply for a special unit for a big buck in a special date range, this is not it. This is just for like the general season.

[Brody Anderson]

You still have to pick like a unit though, right? Units, species, all that stuff.

[Giannis]

Non residents have to have to pick a unit. But it's for like the general season.

I think, I think it's going to be good. Hopefully it'll, there'll be less stress and there's no stress.

[Brody Anderson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no, it's a total lottery. Right. Like there's no, they're not going to have a preference point system, anything like that. It's just going to be a pure lottery.

[Randall]

Yeah, yeah. Idaho doesn't have points for anything.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Giannis]

Which I like. Yeah, I like. I mean you could, if you're an unlucky person, you could go your entire life and never draw a tag there.

You know, it is what it is. I like this system better than what like Colorado's got going.

[Randall]

Yeah. And, and I think like the new, you know, more and more things are going to a draw and like that's a bummer. But the way that it was working before it, if you could fly to Idaho and spend money on a hotel room, you know, you were going to get it. Or, or if you had an outfitter who would wait in line for you, you'd get it. So this just makes the, the.

[Giannis]

Playing fields a little.

[Randall]

It makes, it levels the playing field for people and yeah, like you said, I think it takes a lot of stress out of it.

[Giannis]

Yeah. What else I like about Idaho, and I'll leave it at this, is that they, they really. I forget what the numbers were, but they cap. They're non resident numbers and it's not that high. It's like, like 10 to 15k per species per, you know, deer and, and elk. And so it's that way. They're going to, they're, they're going to give their residents and the few non residents that get to hunt there, they're going to give them a quality hunt. And I would much rather have that every couple, three years than go and have a crowded hunt every year.

[Randall]

Oh yeah, for sure. But don't go hunt there because of the wolves and the bears.

[Giannis]

Yeah. I mean like I said last time I was there, it didn't seem like there were many wolves or, or many elk or, or deer left because of, of the wolves and lions eating them all. But it's up to you.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, Give it a try if you're feeling adventurous.

[Giannis]

Speaking of wolves.

[Brody Anderson]

Been a while since we've done a Colorado Wolf Day update and there's. There's been some, some action down there, so I thought I'd give you guys a little update. They started their reintroduction, famously started their reintroduction program couple of years ago after a ballot box initiative has been going on for a little while now. There's currently about 30 in the state of Colorado, 30 wolves, and those were sourced from Oregon and Canada or those part of those 30 are offspring of those reintroduced wolves. Over the last couple years, at least a dozen have died from various causes, including being lethal, lethally removed for livestock predation.

The state's got a goal of reintroducing at least another 20 with a, with an end goal of establishing a population of 200.

But the thing is, it's like they're running out of options. They found themselves in a position that, where they're running out of options to find places to get wolves. The ones they got from Oregon ended up being livestock killers.

The ones they got from British Columbia, I think, have maybe also been. Some of them have been involved in some of that livestock predation. But either way, like the Colorado wants more wolves. It's to be determined whether they're going to get more wolves. Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, they've always refused to give wolves to Colorado, largely for political reasons.

And recently the US Fish and Wildlife Service mandated that Colorado has to source its wolves from the northern Rockies in the United States, meaning no wolves from Canada, no wolves from Alaska. So now they're getting pinched by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Then they turn to Washington recently.

And Washington declined because they feel like they, they can't afford to take wolves out of Washington and risk. Risk the population they have, reducing the population they have there. Oregon also declined to provide, to provide more wolves to Colorado. So, like, two states that were kind of like politically aligned with Colorado just bailed and said, no, we're not giving them to you. And those are really Colorado's last best options to get wolves. I don't think they'll be able to get them like Great Lakes wolves from Wisconsin or Minnesota. So it's kind of, we're kind of in a holding pattern to see if this reintroduction is going to continue.

There are other. They could go to some Native American reservations that might be willing to provide wolves. They tried that at one point. It didn't work out. So it'll be interesting to see if this Reintroduction program continues. It's under the. There are people who are very unhappy with the money aspect of this. In Colorado, The. The projection was 800,000 per year cost to the state to. That the voters agreed to last year. The program went wildly. It's consistently went over budget. Last year went wildly over budget. 3.5 million not. And that doesn't include a budget of several hundred thousand dollars to reimburse ranchers for lost livestock, which they drained. They completely drained that. That fund to reimburse ranchers.

And some lawmakers in Colorado are calling the situation out of control. Governor Polis has been forced to cut the budget, and lawmakers are forbidding Colorado Parks and Wildlife from using remaining general fund dollars to acquire more wolves. So, like, they might be at a point where they're kind of treading water for a while.

[Giannis]

You think Idaho would give them some wolves since they're so overrun with. They don't even have any elk and deer left.

[Randall]

But, yeah, it's funny, I was thinking politically, yeah, it's.

Folks don't want to see wolves spread like folks in Montana. Idaho don't want to be part of, like, sending wolves to Colorado. But on the other hand, getting wolves out of Montana and Idaho.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, but it'd only be 10 or 15 of them. So, you know, they can make that up pretty quick. But yeah, there's your Colorado update. There's still wolves there. We'll see. We'll see how it works out with them getting towards that goal of 200 wolves. But right now it's not. Not happening.

[Giannis]

Oh, it's going to be a major smudge, I feel like, on Polis's tenure.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Giannis]

You know, the way he handled the whole situation where like, they kind of.

[Brody Anderson]

Inserted himself into an issue.

[Phil]

He didn't.

[Giannis]

Yeah, they had wolves coming.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Giannis]

It was happening all on its own. And he, like, they, he, whatever, had to make a big deal out of it, and it's just. Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. And his wildlife commission played a big role, like appoint appointees Played a big role in it, too, which, like, makes me think that some part of me thinks that those, those wildlife commission people should be voted in, not appointed in.

[Giannis]

Yeah, I agree.

[Brody Anderson]

Okay. Phil, what's the chat doing right now?

[Phil]

Sure.

[Randall]

Really quick.

[Phil]

I saw several of you had some questions for Jim during his segment. I emailed him and told him to go back and check those out if he feels obliged. And he absolutely does not need to. But.

I did let him know that those questions are there, so maybe you'll.

[Randall]

Get a little thanks for that Phil.

[Phil]

DM from the conservation ringer himself. Let's see here. First off, fishing fanatics. Nothing like sitting in the stand listening to meat eater radio live. Thank you. And then Nate, he's in the chat almost every week. Got his first ever buck on Sunday. 146 and a half inches 12 pointer. And his first thought was Thursday can't come soon enough. So I can tell the live chat and the crew holy moly.

[Giannis]

That's a pig.

[Randall]

Yeah, all downhill from here.

[Giannis]

Yeah it's going to be. That's a high bar.

[Phil]

No free ads but free hot tips. Justin says I just upgraded my on it's on X subscription and have been doing a bit of playing around. What are your favorite features that are lesser known if you guys use any lesser known Onx features.

[Brody Anderson]

I like, like, like to plan stocks like figuring out yardage and things like that. I forget like the you can range finder. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

[Randall]

And other other manufacturers do that as well. But you can link your range finder to the.

[Brody Anderson]

That's a sweet like if you find a bedded buck that you know you're going to be out of sight of for a while like marking that spot and planning your stock.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

It's.

[Brody Anderson]

That's a good fit feature.

[Giannis]

I've been using the now it's integrated with the Multri cameras and so it. It's like an automatic filter just to go if you want to see just pictures from one camera where the Multri app that takes a few more steps but on Onx you can literally just click on the icon and see only the pictures from that camera which is pretty slick.

[Brody Anderson]

That's real nice. That's real nice.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I.

[Randall]

The one thing that I've been. I wanted them to improve for a while and then I think in the past two years they, they added it. But the snap to feature when you're like putting a route when you're building a route and you can actually snap it on trails right. And, and roads. So I know exactly, you know how far it is before I want to bust off the trail and climb ridge or something like that. Because before you're always using just the linear like line which is like which.

[Giannis]

Always shorter than what it is.

[Randall]

Yeah, exactly. And so I yeah I build basically whenever I'm thinking about what I want to do the next day as far as like a hike. I'll build it out in Onyx and get an idea of mileage and elevation change and all that.

[Brody Anderson]

The 3D thing is good for that too. Because like you can look at the topo but it doesn't tell you how steep. Like you're only getting so much information. So to be able to look at that slope and be like, okay, that's going to take some more time than I thought. Like, that's cool.

[Phil]

Let's see. This is a question from Cord. He says, how often do your western schools go on lockdown for dangerous animals in the area? He said that he had a mountain lion stroll through a neighborhood and they went into a two hour shelter in place. He says, does that seem like an overreaction? Have your kids schools ever gone into some sort of like lockdown because of a bear or anything like that?

[Giannis]

No, I think they had a bear actually walk through Bozeman High a couple years ago.

[Brody Anderson]

Wasn't there a grizzly that showed up over in, by the elementary school in Bear Canyon a few years ago?

[Giannis]

Yeah, nothing changed though.

[Randall]

Yeah, I don't think there was a, there was like a pair of mountain lions in Missoula that was hanging out at a bus stop and they, they closed the bus stop.

[Phil]

Probably smart.

[Randall]

I remember that because it was right by my buddy's house.

But yeah, other than that I don't.

[Brody Anderson]

Think it's like, yeah, sure, like we've got more large predators out west, but I don't think it's like it happens.

[Giannis]

It's not like we got Bengal tigers out here.

[Brody Anderson]

Like I think there's probably schools that have been shut down back east because a coyote ran through the playground. You know what I mean?

[Randall]

I remember when I was living in Chicago watching like a live newsfeed of a, of a lion running through a neighborhood and there was like a helicopter following. You know, it was like the O.J. chase. And it ran through. I believe they, they might have even killed it like on a school playground. But it definitely ran through a skill, a school playground. But that was one of my favorite moments from my time there.

[Brody Anderson]

But also in northern Minnesota, mountain lion's probably something they're just not real familiar with and they might just, you know, been, been overreacting a little bit maybe, but they're probably don't see him too often.

[Phil]

We've got Leland who's been really hot on the trivia questions lately. He's been getting a lot of questions in there. He asked the strangest animal you guys have Euromounted. He's having some squirrels done.

If you have had anything strange.

[Giannis]

I did a turkey skull once. Very proud of that. The little stuff is fun, you know, turkey skulls and I have A bobcat skull. Well, Steve's got, like the whole collection of weasel. We got.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, we have a rack. We have a rack. One raccoon. We have a beaver skull. Beaver skull is real cool. They got some.

[Randall]

Oh, yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Burly, solid skulls, man. Stuff like that.

[Randall]

Yeah, I wanted to. I realized too late that I should have kept the skull from my sandhill crane this year.

[Brody Anderson]

That would be cool. Yeah. Yeah.

[Randall]

And I realized that while I was taking the legs off and I had little drumsticks that were, you know, 14 inches long, really quick.

[Phil]

Mogor says, Phil, did you and Randall knock back a beer and hot dog after that last disinformation blunder? You're going to have to be more specific.

[Randall]

No, that was. That was when you told me the wrong thing about our radio live from last week. Do you remember when you gave me the wrong information about whether or not.

[Brody Anderson]

Oh.

[Phil]

Oh, yeah. Then we had a fake argument and I asked if you want to get a beer. You said no, but you want to get a beer after this?

[Randall]

Yeah, we will do that after this. Sounds good, but I don't argue. Just so you know, the argument was not fake on my end.

[Phil]

Well, then, good to know, I guess.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Geez.

[Phil]

All right, Phil, we've got a few.

[Brody Anderson]

More, but yeah, let these guys know because it's going to have to be a kind of a quick turnaround on Phil's part, which makes, like, life difficult. But we're doing a hot tip off and we're doing. Phil, we're going to do the. The listener voting thing. Right?

[Giannis]

I've got.

[Phil]

I'm prepped and ready to go, so.

[Brody Anderson]

Be prepared as you're listening to, like, vote on the hot tips that are coming up a little later. But we can, we can do some more. We can move on.

[Phil]

Phil, we'll do another round at the end of the show.

[Randall]

Okay, Great call, Phil.

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[Brody Anderson]

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[Randall]

Fascinating.

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[Brody Anderson]

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Excludes Massachusetts.

[Randall]

Hey, if you want to leave your.

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[Brody Anderson]

All right, our next guest is Anna Borgman. She co owns Chaos Farms, a butchering and meat processing business that serves the community and small farms here in southwestern Montana. She's been on the podcast at least a couple times.

[Phil]

She's been on radio and she's been on the main meteor.

[Giannis]

So she judged an episode of roast.

[Brody Anderson]

There you go. So you guys may have seen trivia.

[Randall]

I believe if I'm not mistaken, she.

[Phil]

Came out to karaoke once.

[Brody Anderson]

There you go. She's like basically a meat eater employee.

Anyway, she, she's also butchered and pro processed a bunch of animals for the crew when we're too busy to do it on our own. She did. She did ten fifty pound game bags of moose meat for me last year and I can say she did a very outstanding job. So Anna, welcome to the show. Oh you did. You went in there great. She's stand standing among the me.

[Anna Borgman]

You can hear me all right?

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, we can hear you. General rifle season just ended a few days ago here in Montana, but I imagine and by looks of it, I'm right You're still pretty busy.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah, I. It kind of seems like people hit it hard the last weekend, so.

[Brody Anderson]

Got cold.

[Anna Borgman]

We got a lot of calls. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we got a lot of calls and we were running around like crazy picking up. We pick stuff up for people and we drop it off.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Anna Borgman]

Back at, you know, the office or your house or whatever. So we were running around like crazy. We've got quite a few elk in here right now. A little bit packed, so.

[Brody Anderson]

Nice. How many deer nelk do you think you do in a season?

[Anna Borgman]

Oh, geez.

It's just the two of us. It's just my boyfriend and I and we kind of take on our own animals, you know, like, I'll say yes to whatever I have time for. And he says yes to whatever he has time for.

[Giannis]

Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

This isn't a situation where people can just roll up and drop something off to you. Like a lot of meat processors. Processors.

[Anna Borgman]

Right. Like this cooler is. I bought a utility trailer and we just put in, you know, foam insulation and built out a cooler. So it's. It's pretty small. We pack it, but we do. I don't know, fewer than 100 for sure, but I, I should keep track. But it's a lot of animals, but.

[Randall]

More in a, in a season than most people will do in their. In their lifetime.

[Brody Anderson]

Sure, definitely.

[Anna Borgman]

Absolutely.

[Brody Anderson]

But that, that kind of gets to where I'm going. Going with this is you're not one of those, like, mega meat processors, processors that are doing hundreds and hundreds of animals a year, which, like, allows you to like, operate with a much higher level level of care and quality, I would say, than. I'm not bagging on meat processors and processors in general. But like, the more they do, it's possible that the quality level is going to go down if they're cranking out hundreds and hundreds of animals. So as someone who's working with the goal of, like, doing this in small batches and putting out a really high quality product, I want to get into first. What you'd lay out as, like, best practices for hunters before they even make the call to you. And then the most common mistakes people make out in the field before they even call. Call you.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah, I'd say best practices. I'm kind of the hill that I will die on right now is take those hooves off. We get a lot of stuff that has hooves on it. And I totally, you know, I get it to an extent that you're trying to get it out of there, and it's easier to Stick it in a game bag with that hoof on. But if you're packing stuff out, A, it's extra weight and B, if you've just done a good job, you know, skinning it and keeping it clean, you're kind of screwing it up at the end there by adding more height into the bag, more hair, whatever was on that animal's hoof, whatever it was. And then by the time we get it, you know, it's just, it's a little more work for us and we can't, I mean, you can see these quarters hanging back here. Like we can't hang it with a hoof on. It's so close to the ceiling up there. So. And it's really easy to take off. I just put up a video on my Instagram, I think yesterday of how to take off.

[Brody Anderson]

You're talking like basically the shin, like the whole lower leg.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you just run your hand up and that first joint that you feel, there's a little bit, little ridge in there. You just get your knife in there and it should, I mean, you can kind of hit it from underneath and it'll just crack off.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep, yep.

[Anna Borgman]

And you won't cut the Achilles 10.

[Brody Anderson]

Anything else that's, that's helpful or people should be doing to like, make sure they, they're gonna have some like, high quality meat once it's in the freezer.

[Anna Borgman]

Keeping stuff as clean as possible. Obviously that helps out our whole, you know, us processing, but it also, it's gonna, you're gonna get more meat back because we don't have to trim as much off.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

And then I'd say, I know Yanni and I have talked about this reasoning. Right. But just at least getting that wind pipe out of there because that thing carries so much bacteria and it'll hold on to heat too. And so if you can pull that out of there, you're gonna get neck meat. You're gonna, things are just gonna stay cleaner. So.

We do get.

[Brody Anderson]

You got any opinions on gutting versus gutless method?

[Anna Borgman]

No, not really. I mean, if you can get as much meat as possible off of the gutless method, that's fine. I, I, I tend to pick up a lot of roadkill. We live on a highway, you know, I go, I am on it all the time. So I see when stuff gets hit and I'll pick it up. So I end up doing a lot of gutless methods processing because those things are usually a little exploded and I don't see a problem with it. You Know if you can, if you can gut it, that's great and get the whole thing out. Obviously you're going to get a little bit more meat off that. But no, I have no problem with the gutless method at all.

[Brody Anderson]

Gotcha. Okay.

What are like the, the most common mistakes people are making out there?

[Anna Borgman]

I think.

You know, not, not planning ahead to keep things clean. And I don't. If you want to throw even a trash bag in your, in your pack and just lay it down, it's going to weigh nothing and you're going to have a place to put that meat on. When you're pulling off quarters or whatever, you can put it on the hide, but the hide's often dirty. You know, I run into that problem too. It's, it's hard to keep things super clean as far as bringing stuff to us. When you're putting stuff into game bags, don't try to keep things in as big like the biggest chunks possible.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, right.

[Anna Borgman]

Because when I open a game bag and there's a bunch of little pieces that fall out, there's not a lot I can do. I can't trim that. And if it's already a little bit dirty, it's going to go in the trash. Unfortunately.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. If you're trim that. If you're on a like a big backcountry hunt miles in, it's tempting to, to debone those quarters. But if you're taking it to someone like Anna, it's like not the best thing for her to work on.

[Anna Borgman]

So something if you can debone it and keep it, you know, big chunks. Yeah, yeah, all good. But it's the little, you know, I'll dump out and it'll be like little.

[Brody Anderson]

Quarter size mystery chunks.

[Anna Borgman]

Not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[Giannis]

And how fast can you do an elk? Not wrapped but just just skinned, broken down into and you know, roast steaks and maybe a pile of grind.

[Anna Borgman]

That's a good question. I mean I'd say two hours, maybe Two hours probably. Yeah. I don't usually. I mean I'm either like skinning it and hanging it or it's already quarter and then I'm gonna go cut it. But you know, like I used to, I got into this from working at a shop and I worked on the kill floor and I would skin and got 30 sheep in a day, sometimes 20 before lunch. So I can skin and. Got pretty fast. Yeah, it's just cutting. It'll take a little bit longer, but. Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Are there anything. You probably have a pretty good clientele that knows what they're doing. But are there some things that might cause you to like just to refuse working on an animal or like a set of quarters or whatever?

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah. I've learned my lesson as far as like checking in game bags before I take stuff, especially if it's from people I don't know.

Last year I got the dirtiest stuff I've ever seen. Like you would have thought they tied it to the back of their truck and just drug it through the dirt to bring it out. But. And I didn't realize that until after the fact. So I did charge them. I'll charge a dirty fee, you know, if there's not. If I don't see it beforehand. And then like during archery season we'll have people call and they didn't really have a plan. And there's been, you know, an antelope that's been in the hot garage for two days and, and it's like, I'm not going to take that on because the meat's going to be spoiled.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

It's not worth putting, you know, our business at risk.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

To give you something that, that might make you sick or isn't going to taste very good.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

So I think having a plan beforehand, whether it's, you know, that you're going to get out and you're going to call a few people, see if they have openings and you know, if they don't, you, you're, if you have a last minute plan, you can at least do it. But don't let it hang to the point that it rocks. That drives me.

[Brody Anderson]

If you were given advice to someone who's just getting into processing their own animal, like what would you tell them? Like as far as what they need to know or what equipment they absolutely.

Should get themselves.

[Anna Borgman]

Just don't overthink it. You know, you really can't mess it up. You might not get the cut that you want because you accidentally cut through it or whatever. But everything can be at least turned into burger or sausage. So don't stress too hard about it. Watch some YouTube videos. There's some really good videos out there that will show breakdown and seam butchering is, is pretty easy. I mean you can, you can see, you know, like inside round sirloin tip. You can see it on there.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Anna Borgman]

And yeah, but you don't have to go crazy with it. Don't stress yourself out. Everything's edible as long as it's clean. As far as tools to have, honestly, a sharp knife is about all you need. When I'm doing Game processing. That's all I use. And I don't. Jesse and I were just talking about this. He makes knives and he has the ability to, you know, sharpen stuff with his. His grinder. We don't. We really don't sharpen our knives. And for as much as we use them, you'd think that we'd be sharpening them. But we use. I have it here. This is my savior. It's a honing steel.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

And that's all I use. And like, you know, in the summer, I butcher chickens and I'll do over 300 chickens a day. And I. That's all I'll use. And I won't even sharpen it at the end of the day. So I think for people, I think knives become sort of a stressor.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

I don't know how to sharpen it. I don't know what, you know, what knife to get. You can get a bitcoin ax or you can spend money on a knife, but as long as you've got it, like I would say honing steel is really all you need. Learn how to use it and.

[Giannis]

But I think the key. It'll save you the key and. Right. Is that you're using that honing steel constantly through the day and you don't let that blade get to the point where you can't bring it back. Or do you feel like you can actually sharpen a blade that's like completely dull? Can you bring it back just with that steel or at that point, do you have to grind it a little bit?

[Anna Borgman]

At that point, you need to grind it a little bit because that steel, what it's doing, there's burrs on the edge of that knife. And as you're cutting, they're going to fold over. And this honing steel is just lining the burrs up again so it'll start to feel like it's dull. It's not. It's just those burrs are out of line. And so you hone it back into a line and it'll be sharp again. But if you've got something that is past the point of, you know, the whole edges rolled over or whatever, you're going to have to use a stone or a grinder grinding belt.

[Brody Anderson]

I got one more for you, and I want to get your opinion.

There's like, people choose, you know, lead bullets or copper bullets, solid bullets, like, for various reasons. But from, from, from your perspective as someone who's cutting up meat all the time, what would you choose? Would you choose like a lead Bullet or a solid copper bullet. As far as, like, getting, getting good meat.

[Anna Borgman]

You know, I've, I've thought about this a lot and I feel like this, the copper versus lead, it's so complicated.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

You know, it'd be an interesting experiment to sort of ask people as they drop stuff off, what they used.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Anna Borgman]

I mean, I will find stuff sometimes. Like, I, last year, you know, I pulled a couple of copper bullets out of an elk shank. I don't really know what was going on there, but. So I will find stuff. I'll find, you know, something in the ribs or in the, if it, if something gets stuck in a shoulder blade or whatever. But it kind of runs the gamut. I mean, I find all kinds of stuff and I really think, like, my understanding and my, my feeling on this is just, it depends on the caliber you're using. It depends on how far you think you're going to be shooting and sort of your confidence in even recovering an animal. Right. Because in my mind, it's like the whole, the lead thing is like, if you're not sure that that animal is going to go down, then that's really where you hit some issues. And like, you know, we do mobile slaughter when we're not doing game process, we're doing mobile solder and we use lead, but, and we're using.38 special or.

Trying to think what else we have. Right now I think we're just using.38 special right now. But that's lead. But we also just can pull it out of the skull at the back of the neck. We know where that's going.

[Brody Anderson]

So can you, but can you look at, can you look at a front quarter on an elk or a deer that's that was shot in the shoulder and be like, oh, I know what that was like. Do you see more damage from one or the other or.

[Anna Borgman]

I don't think I noticed so much. As far as copper or lead. I notice caliber.

[Brody Anderson]

Oh, really?

[Anna Borgman]

Like, yeah, like, well, you know, I, there's a, I picked up a deer from a kid the other day and he's like, oh, I shot all the way through it. I shot it with the.243. And then another kid that had shot was 300 win. I blew up both shoulders and I don't, I don't know if they were copper lead. I didn't ask them. Yeah, it's like, man, you can tell. You can for sure tell caliber, I'd say. But yeah, I don't know. I, I, you mentioning that makes me want to ask next season and sort of like, take a survey.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, yeah. You guys got anything for. You look like you're falling asleep over there. Geez.

[Randall]

No, I was just thinking about how I didn't. I meant to defrost some steaks this morning from the elk you dropped off yesterday, and I realized I failed to do that. So I'm gonna have to run home and get the sous vide fired up probably.

[Brody Anderson]

That's okay. That works.

[Anna Borgman]

That was fun cutting your elk. Cause we have a. We've got this old band saw that makes game processing pretty fun because I can do, you know, like, blade in shoulder rows. I can do osso buco really easily.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Anna Borgman]

Cut short ribs if someone brings out ribs.

[Randall]

Yeah, yeah, Anna did.

[Anna Borgman]

For people like to cook.

[Randall]

Yeah, Anna did Sid the bison that my wife shot last year. And. And we got ribs and we got tomahawk steaks and we got ossobuco bones. And then we got just like long cut marrow bones out of the whole thing.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep. Speaking of that kind of stuff, Anna.

Ribs and. And osso buco and stuff.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

What.

[Brody Anderson]

What. What do you most often see, like that. That gets tossed or left on the carcass that hunters should be keeping? What, like, obviously they're, you know, wanting waste loss where they have to keep certain stuff, but what do you see getting left behind? And it could even be like, organs.

[Anna Borgman]

I'm a big fan of the tougher cuts. So, like neck meat. I like doing the sort of low and slow cooking. Neck roasts are awesome. I also understand that people don't want to be cooking with the spinal cord in there and you're worried about and stuff, but if you bone out that neck, that's really nice to me. I also on elk, because I do this on beef all the time. You can pull the cheeks out. And cheek me is one of my favorite. It is so good. And elk have at least big enough cheeks. Worth it. Deer might be a little, like, silver dollar size, but. Yeah, you just throw those in a Dutch oven and cook them.

[Brody Anderson]

Oh, I'm gonna have to try that for sure.

[Anna Borgman]

They're so good. Yeah. And you know, tongues. People pull out tongues a lot. Hearts, I like seeing that. And then livers, if they're good. I'm a big liver fan. I know plenty of people aren't, which is fair. But. Yeah, I don't know. I. I think the more you play with it and the more you hunt, the more you've got, you know, options of what to cook. And it's really fun to get Creative with it because it does. It can get a little boring after a while, you know, just cooking backstraps and burger.

[Brody Anderson]

All right, you guys got anything else, or. We want to move on.

[Giannis]

We're good. Thanks, Anna.

[Randall]

Thank you, Anna.

[Brody Anderson]

All right, get to work.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

[Brody Anderson]

You got a lot.

[Anna Borgman]

I will. I've got a lot to do.

[Brody Anderson]

Thanks again.

[Anna Borgman]

Yeah. Thanks, guys.

[Randall]

See ya.

[Brody Anderson]

All right, Hot Tip off time.

[Randall]

Oh, geez.

[Brody Anderson]

Are you ready?

[Randall]

No. We need to play the jingle.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I.

[Anna Borgman]

This.

[Phil]

I'm tired of this jingle, guys.

[Brody Anderson]

Okay. Phil's tired of it, but we're gonna play it anyway.

Let's all do a.

I'm kind of tired of it too, Phil.

[Randall]

No, it's so good.

[Phil]

There's just some. There's some segments we do a lot because they're good segments, like Hot Tip off, and we hear that jingle all the time, and it doesn't help that it's one of the more poppy, I'd say annoying, grading jingles.

[Brody Anderson]

I think you're right.

[Phil]

We got to bring back. We got to bring back tattoos.

[Randall]

I regret Brody is thoroughly annoyed right now.

[Brody Anderson]

I love all of Phil's songs except for that one. I hate it.

[Phil]

Got to kill the segment then. Sorry, guys.

[Brody Anderson]

Hot Tip off, where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. And after we hear each tip.

We'Ll chat about who we think should win. But the audience is going to decide who does win. If you got a hot tip yourself, take a one minute ish video and email it to radio themediator.com. and. And you might get. You might get your hot tip into the show and win something. We do have a prize today.

[Giannis]

Oh, yeah. I was gonna ask, is there something that they're winning or is this just for fun?

[Randall]

Oh, my goodness gracious.

[Giannis]

Backpack.

[Brody Anderson]

What's this thing called again, Giannis?

[Giannis]

Oh, I know you're gonna ask me that. It's the transfer light.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, we got, like. It's like Santa's toy bag, man. We got stuff in there. We got assigned copy of the meat eater calendar there, which you guys should go buy if you don't have one, because we kick back some money to bha. It's a great, like, stocking stuffer.

[Giannis]

Buy some for your friends, family.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, exactly. It's not expensive, man.

[Randall]

Anybody who loves trucks or the F word, they'll get a kick out of it.

[Brody Anderson]

Exactly. And also in there was a rattle bag. This is a. That's the Phelps. Smashing Clash. I like that.

So there you go. Got some stuff for whitetail hunters.

[Randall]

Man, that's a hell of a. Hell of a haul.

[Brody Anderson]

I think you could use this bag for other stuff. I mean, I. I like. You could throw. I'd use it for bird hunting. I'd put it in my boat and shove some stuff in there. It's not just for whitetails. So there we go. There's our prize.

Let's see here. Who do we got?

[Giannis]

Let's see the hot tips. Caden and Dak.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah. Caden Bonner and Dak Cash. So make sure you're throwing your vote in, and we'll figure out who the winner is. Phil, you ready to roll them?

[Phil]

Let's do it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Kaden Bonner.

[Randall]

This is good.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

I'm already.

[Giannis]

Hello, my name is Kaden and I am from Nebraska.

[Brody Anderson]

This last weekend, we were out for Nebraska rifle season and heard a bunch of coyotes. And so we were trying to figure.

[Giannis]

Out how to call them in and make a predator call.

[Brody Anderson]

So pulled out a Little Debbie out of my backpack, which most hunters should have, and came up with how to make predator call.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Like that.

[Giannis]

And then just pull.

[Brody Anderson]

Tight.

[Giannis]

Improvising.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

Like, that definitely would work. And that is how you make a.

[Giannis]

Predator call out of a Little Debbie wrapper.

[Brody Anderson]

There we go.

[Giannis]

There's Deck Cash.

[Brody Anderson]

Hey, meat eater crew. Got a hot tip for you. Mostly for small game hunters, especially squirrels. If you don't like packing your squirrels out in a game bag or a vest, all you gotta do, cut your little green limb about like this, Sharpen one end.

Grab the squirrel by the back leg, grip those two side toes off.

Sometimes harder than others.

You can use your knife if you want to.

Once you rip those toes, stick the stick in between tendons in the bones, you got a squirrel carrier. It's like a fishing stringer. And if you don't, if you get tired of carrying it, you can stick it in your belt loop.

[Randall]

This is the whole system. I love it.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep. Nice early man tool there. Like so. That part I like a lot. Hands free. If you want to make a squirrel come out and look at you, you can flick the tail. Thanks, guys. Dat Cash from Arkansas. Clay Nickums area. Randall, who you like?

[Randall]

Oh, I like. I mean.

Kaden won me over at first because of his commitment to Little Debbie snack products.

I think that was an oatmeal cream pie.

[Phil]

One of the finest that Little Debbie offers.

[Randall]

I used to house those things, by.

[Giannis]

The way, the ocp. Yeah, yeah, we get him says.

[Randall]

But, man, I'm just. Dak charmed me with his accent, with his innovative squirrel handling techniques. And just the Versatility of that whole tip.

[Giannis]

Jonas, I'll have to agree. I mean, it's very. What do you call it when you just, like, come up with something on the spot?

[Phil]

Improvising.

[Giannis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kate. Cat. How do you say his name? Caden.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Caden.

[Giannis]

Caden. Improvised.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Great.

[Giannis]

Yeah. And you made it happen. I wish you would have told us if they actually called something in with it.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah, I mean, both of these guys improvise. Great.

[Giannis]

Yeah, they're good hot tips.

[Randall]

But, you know, and the thing is, is if I were out deer hunting and I heard some coyotes, I would think.

Damn, I don't have a predator call. I wouldn't think, what can I do to make a predator call?

[Brody Anderson]

Definitely it's close.

[Randall]

Like, I like that mindset.

[Brody Anderson]

I like the idea of just building something on the spot, too. Like, you don't always gotta go, you know, buy something. You can just make it right there. It's cool, you know, so I'm leaning towards Dak, but it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what the audience thinks.

[Phil]

Phil, I say one of the. One of our listeners was in a runaway lead, and the poll is tightening quickly. So your votes matter. Get in there.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Yeah, I'll.

[Phil]

We'll give it another 30 seconds or so.

[Brody Anderson]

You got any other comments we can hit while we're. You're tallying votes?

[Phil]

Oh, sure. Let's see here. Cliff is wondering, serious question. Are we going to see Randall Claus this year?

[Brody Anderson]

Just wait. Tbd.

[Randall]

Tbd. But.

[Phil]

Gotta watch it.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

You just.

[Randall]

The thing is, you gotta believe he doesn't come unless you believe.

[Brody Anderson]

It's like the Polar Express.

[Giannis]

But I feel like you and Brent are kind of battling for. Santa Claus writes around.

[Brody Anderson]

Well, Brent's a Southerner. He can't win.

[Randall]

Yeah, but he's got the.

[Phil]

Well, that's. Both of you guys are going to be on that live tour.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Phil]

Have you guys had, like, you know, a rock, paper, scissors Rochambeau? Who's going to be taking.

[Giannis]

Brent's doing.

[Randall]

Brent's doing it. I tried to. I tried to insert myself, but I didn't want to be like, I'd like to be Santa. I didn't want to put myself on that. I just said, you know, if you need someone to wear costume the whole time, I'll do that.

[Brody Anderson]

Maybe he could be Father Christmas and you'd be like, his apprentice.

[Randall]

Yeah. Or we could be different regional variations on Santa. Like, I would be. I would be Chris Kringle or some sort of Germanic.

[Brody Anderson]

Right.

[Giannis]

Well, we have a lot of shows to do. He Might get tired and need a break.

[Randall]

Yeah. He is older. He's my tire out.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Stay tuned for Randall Claus.

[Phil]

Well, man, I. It's hard for me to. I'm going to give them another 30 seconds because it's so close.

[Brody Anderson]

Let's do one more.

[Randall]

Yeah, we should see 334 votes in there, guys.

[Phil]

Okay. If you guys could sacrifice Steve to the hunting gods in return for any tag species or location, what would it be? This is from Evan.

[Giannis]

I'd probably go on some super expensive stone sheep hunt. Some crazy mountains.

[Brody Anderson]

All sheep. Stone sheep.

[Randall]

Yeah. I think if. I mean, I'd love a mountain goat hunt, but given the. Given that we're sacrificing Steve for this, I feel like you sort of owe it to Steve to go for the big high dollar hunt.

[Giannis]

Yeah.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Giannis]

Maybe you go do a Cape buffalo.

[Randall]

Do a Marco Polo hunt.

[Brody Anderson]

Man, I take a. I know it's Steve, but I take it just a bighorn hunt right here in Montana.

[Randall]

Oh, yeah. That question would be pretty cool.

[Phil]

This is wild. It is flipping back and forth every two or three seconds.

[Giannis]

I can't.

[Brody Anderson]

We can't declare a winner. Then we're just gonna have them both the prize.

[Phil]

But over 200 people who are watching this right now have not voted. Can we.

[Randall]

Can we set a timer?

[Phil]

Should I set a timer? 60 more seconds. We have to. We have to end it at some point.

[Giannis]

All right.

[Brody Anderson]

One more comment, we'll come back and declare a winner.

[Giannis]

Yeah, my teeth are about to float.

[Phil]

All right, hold on.

[Brody Anderson]

Says to pee.

[Phil]

Setting the timer here.

[Randall]

Oh, I see.

[Brody Anderson]

I thought you bring a key bottle into the studio.

[Randall]

I thought that was like a comment about it being malnourished.

[Phil]

Do we have any muzzle loader equipment people with muzzleloader experience at the table here? Okay. Brian Lammers is asking what muzzleloader powder bullet combo have you found to be most accurate?

[Brody Anderson]

If he's talking about inline muzzleloaders, which I have much more experience with.

Like you can't go wrong like with a TC muzzle loader in line. Blackhorn. It's just like the regular blackhorn black powder. There might even be synthetic black powder.

And I use.

I think it's federals copper bullets. And I've done real well with that combination.

[Randall]

And it probably depends a lot on the state that you're in and what they're right.

[Brody Anderson]

They got different. Different rules for sure. But like I don't a lot of muzzle. The inline muzzle loaders these days are set up for Magnum loads of 150 grains I've found that I've gotten way better accuracy results by not going with, like, you can choose what load you use. You don't have to use 150 grains of powder. And I've always done way better with about 100 grains accuracy wise. And I shot a Shirus cow moose with that setup, and it went right through both of her shoulders. So there you go.

[Phil]

Okay. I let it run. And the person who started off in the lead also ended up winning our winner with 53% of the vote at the end of the poll.

[Brody Anderson]

That's not even close in a presidential election, Phil.

[Phil]

No, but it was 50. 50 going back and forth for a while. So. So. So this guy's fan stepped up. And that person is Dak with the squirrel holder.

[Randall]

Squirrel man Dak. Congratulations.

[Brody Anderson]

He doesn't need that squirrel holder anymore. He can shove them all in this bag.

[Giannis]

That's right.

[Phil]

Congrats, stack.

[Brody Anderson]

There you go.

[Randall]

Beautiful work, everybody.

[Brody Anderson]

You did it.

[Phil]

We'll have our producer Jake, reach out to you.

[Brody Anderson]

Yep.

[Phil]

Who is. Who's actually in the room today from Missoula. He's in Bozeman. I. I don't. Do I have his camera on? I do have his camera on. Say hi, Jake.

[Brody Anderson]

There he is.

All right, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Before we go.

We'Ve got some. We've got some great new gifty stuff in the store. We've got some new gnome. Gnome logo. Where we got some. Some of our spices up there now. Spice mixes. That bayou boil, I can tell you, is very good. I've used it a couple times on some fish, and it's great.

Live tour, guys. What do you got to say about that?

[Randall]

Getting excited. Getting real excited.

[Brody Anderson]

Some of those venues are getting close to selling out, so people need to buy their tickets.

[Randall]

Yeah. Last I saw that, it's like 80% sold out, which is.

Compared to prior years.

[Brody Anderson]

Like, one of the venues is already sold.

[Randall]

Fayetteville. Yeah.

[Brody Anderson]

Clay.

[Phil]

Clay's crew came out in force.

[Giannis]

Clay's family.

[Brody Anderson]

Yeah.

[Randall]

Clay's extended kids.

[Brody Anderson]

Mountain family.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Phil]

They came down from the hills.

[Randall]

They're very supportive.

[Giannis]

Yeah, it's always fun to go do. Do these things, you know, it's a. It's a marathon, but we'll have a good time.

[Brody Anderson]

You guys do one more question.

[Phil]

Moses from Mogor, he. He was setting us up for this question for Randall and Yanni. Sorry, Brody, but he's. He's asking, how nervous do you guys get before a tour?

[Randall]

It's good. From Mogur, even if it's at the Very end.

[Giannis]

I don't know.

[Brody Anderson]

I feel like Mogar's starting to have a little too much influence on this show.

[Phil]

Nope.

[Randall]

Nope.

[Phil]

How dare you?

[Randall]

That's Harris.

[Phil]

He's been nothing but supportive and kind.

[Randall]

I'll say this, Mogor. Last year I was very, very nervous before the first show. And then it was like a drug and I couldn't get enough of it. Just the. The life of a showman.

[Brody Anderson]

Sure those weren't the beers you had before the show?

[Randall]

Could have been a few of those. But just going out there having fun.

And I'm a worrier. I get stressed out about things, I get anxious. But God, it's like a drug just being on the stage with the hot spotlight on you, the microphone in your hand and they're just eating from the. They're just eating from your palm. Oh, nothing better. Working on some great material. I need to workshop it at a couple stand up nights this week, but we should be good to go.

[Giannis]

Nice. I need to work on my material too. I feel like I've got a decent amount of stories, but. Yeah, I haven't actually recited it yet. But yeah, we've been doing it so long now, Mogore, that it's just. You just realize that, I don't know, people in the audience are more. They're more nervous than you are. Right.

[Brody Anderson]

So, Giannis, what do we got going on with roasts?

[Giannis]

Oh, yeah, New episode dropped maybe already on meter YouTube channel. It's best burger episode. Brody Anderson faces off with Nate Mason from FHF Gear.

[Randall]

Oh, good guy.

[Giannis]

Good guy. Great guy.

[Phil]

It is. It was live as of an hour ago, so it's up.

[Giannis]

So go watch it and tell us what you think in the comments. And if you have any ideas for meat eater roasts, drop in the comments too. Love to. Love to hear ideas on how to make that show better. Thanks for watching.

[Brody Anderson]

All right, signing off. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks, Bill.

[Randall]

Let's get beers.

[Phil]

Oh, no, wait, I forgot. I almost ended the stream.

[Randall]

So cool. If the outro had played right as.

[Giannis]

Soon as I said that, I tried.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Brody Anderson]

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names.

[Giannis]

Football is back.

[Brody Anderson]

That means it's tailgate time.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And this season the only meat I'm.

[Brody Anderson]

Going to grill is Deets and Watson. I'm loving the Black Angus Deets dogs. They're flavor packed and you can tell they are made with the highest quality ingredients. Sundays just got a whole lot better. Visit deetsandwatson.com the right way to learn.

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