Ep. 849: Fur Bans, Gonad Jerky, and Connor “Bass Head” Hellebuyck

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast – Ep. 849: Fur Bans, Gonad Jerky, and Connor “Bass Head” Hellebuyck

Date: March 17, 2026
Host: Steven Rinella
Notable Guests: Connor Hellebuyck (Olympic hockey goalie), Mark Kenyon, Brody Henderson, Yannis Patelis, Randall Williams, William Spencer Newhart, Phil Monahan

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Overview

This episode of The MeatEater Podcast brings together the regular crew for a rollicking, news-packed session covering major outdoor world headlines with signature humor and an irreverent, curious tone. The show dives into Colorado's controversial fur ban, oddball wildlife laws, the economics of public land, jerky made from gonads, listener corrections, and features an entertaining and insightful segment with Olympic gold medal-winning hockey goalie (and diehard angler) Connor Hellebuyck, a.k.a. “Bass Head.” Throughout, the hosts riff on hunting, fishing, conservation policy, wild foods, and offbeat natural history, offering plenty of laughs and quotable moments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. News Roundup & Announcements

(04:04–16:47)

• Mark Kenyon’s New Role & Podcast

  • Mark becomes Director of Conservation at MeatEater and announces a new podcast, Future Wild with Mark Kenyon, letting him explore topics beyond whitetail deer, blending hunting, fishing, and conservation with a future-focused lens.

    "It's giving me a chance to talk to people and about topics that I've long been fascinated by and do in my spare time, but haven't been able to have a platform to talk about it publicly." – Mark Kenyon (06:42)

• Auction House of Oddities Returns

  • The group plans a new round of MeatEater’s unique auction featuring everything from a classic family truck ("a shitty old truck full of great gear") to a three-hour Honda outboard, Yanni's leftover barn boards, and possibly even their famous punt gun.
  • Items will be a mix of local pickup and shipped lots, with some delivery possibilities by Randall for "within how many miles."
  • The truck comes with a personal touch: Mark hand-delivers it stuffed with gear.

• Kimmy Werner’s Cookbook

  • Longtime friend and renowned seafood chef, Kimmy Werner, releases "Kimmy’s Kitchen: An Ocean Woman’s Guide to Wild Home Cooking." Steve and crew highly recommend the book.

2. Listener Corrections Segment

(13:27–21:07)

• A highlight of each show: listeners write in to correct factual errors for a chance to win a free pair of boots.
• This week’s contenders:
  1. Difference between porterhouse and T-bone steaks (and Steve’s ignorance thereof).
  2. No pass required for entry at Mount Rushmore—admission is free, only parking costs.
  3. The correct spelling of "roseate Spoonbill."
• The group playfully debates which is most important, with the porterhouse correction ultimately winning the boots.

  "All porterhouses are T-bones, but not all T-bones are porterhouse." – Reader email, paraphrased by Steve (15:09)

3. Odd Wildlife Laws: Churchyards, Turkey Tips, and Hunting

(21:12–25:30)

• Mississippi’s Odd Law: No hunting within a quarter-mile of a church during services on Sunday, with fines from $25–$100.

• The tradition of finding turkeys near old churches or cemeteries is discussed, with hosts swapping personal stories and philosophical musings on how landscape, wildlife, and human habits intersect.

  "There's a turkey near there. An old church has a turkey." – Quoting Lake Pickle's southern turkey tip (22:11)

• Gonad Jerky: Listener makes deer nut (gonad) jerky alongside heart jerky—firefighters refuse to eat the heart when packed together, even the "tough guys."

4. Tech & Bird Hunting: Ebird and Finding Ducks

(30:35–33:17)

• Discussion on hunters using Ebird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s bird-watching app, to track duck and goose locations for waterfowl hunting.

  "This kid isn't very smart, but he nailed it with this one." – Steve (31:50)

5. Historical Curio: Aquatic Mammals as “Fasting Fish”

(34:46–37:21)

• Revisiting the quirky Catholic dispensation allowing muskrat and beaver as Lenten “fish” fare.

  • Listener gets written bishop approval (with a 2026 expiration!) to eat beaver for Lent.
  • Phil shares background: 1780s French Catholic missionaries in Michigan, hard winters, and eventual ecclesiastical permission to eat muskrats.

  "Although this practice is not customary within this diocese, the dispensation is granted..." – Letter from listener’s bishop (36:21)

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Featured Interview: Connor “Bass Head” Hellebuyck

(39:20–50:11)

• Olympic Gold and the Joy of Hockey

  • Connor reflects on the overwhelming sense of national unity after the US won gold versus Canada.
  • On returning to the US: "Every place, you let one little USA chant out and this, the whole place was a rubber." (42:00)

• The Fishing Goalkeeper

  • Connor, known among teammates as “Bass Head,” puts fish (especially bass) on every goalie mask.
  • He integrates fishing into the grueling hockey season—carrying a travel rod, bank fishing on off days, and maximizing time afield during the offseason in Michigan and Winnipeg.

    "I have a little travel rod and a little backpack to throw gear in. Any chance I get post practice or get an off day, I just throw the backpack on and go find a spot." (44:20)

  • “Home water” is Michigan’s small lakes and Lake St. Clair.

• Bass vs. Smallmouth: The Great Debate

  • Connor sides with smallmouth (citing size/quantity in Michigan) but enjoys both species.
  • On eating bass: Only once, as a kid—considers himself a "sport fish" purist now.

• Future Fishing Plans

  • As the playoff race heats up, his next goal is to squeeze in some ice fishing or lake fishing in Dallas on an April off-day.

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In-Depth Policy & Wild News

Colorado’s Fur Ban Controversy

(57:35–68:04)

• Background:

  • Proposed statewide ban on the sale, barter, or trade of wild animal fur/fur products, driven by an animal rights petitioner affiliated with the Center for Biological Diversity.
  • Fur-bearing species affected include beaver, fox, bobcat, martin, muskrat, etc.
  • Does not ban hunting or trapping, but undercuts trapping by making pelts worthless.

• Industry Implications:

  • Would devastate fly tying, cowboy hat/felt making, taxidermy, and traditional uses.
  • Inconsistencies: Beaver pelts can be used for high-end hats if unrecognizable, but selling a beaver pelt hat as is would be illegal.

  “So asinine…If you just sew it into a hat—illegal. If you make felt, it’s OK.” – Steve (62:41)

• Public Backlash & Process:

  • Colorado Parks & Wildlife Commission advanced the rule despite heavy public opposition and no biological justification.
  • Impacted stakeholders encouraged to speak up at the next commission meeting in Grand Junction (May 2026).

  “This is not serious work. Instead, they’ve got to be dealing with this BS.” – Yanni (65:31)

• Broader Concerns:

  • Colorado’s population shifts and urbanization have transformed the state’s outdoor politics.

Federal vs. State Management: The Red Snapper Wars

(68:33–76:06)

• Upcoming transfer of red snapper management in the Atlantic from feds (Dept. of Commerce/NOAA) to states (NC, SC, GA, FL), following successful Gulf state models.
• States can now respond with refined, real-time creel and harvest data, leading to longer, more flexible seasons.

  "It's taking the big unwieldy federal marine fisheries apparatus and handing it to the state so that the states can get better data and make better decisions for the resource and for anglers." – Randall (71:42)

• Adaptive management praised for reflecting actual fishing pressure and conditions.

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Wildlife Volunteering & Citizen Science

Iowa’s Frog and Toad Survey

(77:17–87:51)

• Iowa needs volunteers to help census frogs and toads by ear (calls) throughout the spring/summer (especially in Ida, Henry, Wright counties).

  • Fun segment: Crew attempts to identify classic frog/toad calls (bullfrog, spring peeper, American toad, leopard frog) with goofy banter.
  • Motivational pitch: "This would be a great date night." – Phil (78:50)

• Relevance: Amphibian populations are declining sharply—citizen science data is vital for conservation.

Herpetology at Home: A Frog Named Sprout

(87:25–89:19)

• Phil recounts adopting a Pacific chorus frog that stowed away in a Lowe’s potted plant. His efforts to “sex” the frog using vocalization—spoiler: it’s a female.

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Health & Field Hazards

Seal Finger: Occupational Hazard for Marine Mammal Hunters

(89:31–95:38)

• Yanni explains “seal finger,” a serious infection acquired from cuts/bites/contamination from seals (now also seen in bear hunters). Historically, it often led to amputation.
  • Only recently properly diagnosed—responds only to doxycycline.
  • Alaska: Nitrile or cut-proof gloves recommended for those handling marine mammals.
  • Discussion of how odd ailments in outdoor professions can go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Another rich guy out there with another pair of boots. Thanks, Tocova’s.” – Steve (21:13), after the corrections segment.
• “If you can find an old church, the kind that has a cemetery out back…there is a turkey near there. An old church has a turkey.” – Quoting Lake Pickle (22:11)
• “If I just read up more on economics, I’d be much happier to see us run out of wild places and clean water. It’s just that I’m dumb about the money.” – Steve (97:15), responding to Secretary of the Interior’s comments on land use and financial literacy.
• “You gotta take your state back, dude.” – Steve, on Colorado’s wildlife politics (67:50)
• “Dude, that's a low yield animal right there, man.” – Steve on bullfrog gigging (85:47)
• “Back in the day, seal hunters...were extremely scared of it because the way to get rid of seal finger...they would say, cut it off.” – Yanni (90:45)

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Timestamps – Quick Reference for Major Topics

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | | ------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- | | News, Mark Kenyon “Future Wild” podcast tease | 04:04–07:59 | | Auction House of Oddities & Kimmy Werner's cookbook plug | 09:27–13:27 | | Listener Corrections (porterhouse, Rushmore, spoonbill) | 13:27–21:07 | | Turkey tips, churchyard law, gonad jerky story | 21:12–27:30 | | Ebird & waterfowl, tech in scouting | 30:35–33:17 | | Muskrat/beaver OK for Lent (church letter) | 34:46–37:21 | | Connor Hellebuyck interview (Olympic gold, fishing life) | 39:20–50:11 | | Fur Ban in Colorado: policy breakdown & implications | 57:35–68:04 | | Red Snapper state/federal management changes | 68:33–76:06 | | Iowa Frog & Toad Survey, frog call game, citizen science | 77:17–87:51 | | Seal finger / field infections | 89:31–95:38 | | Bobcat pelt prices, policy news, NC land access campaign | 95:58–103:44 | | Wrap-up, critique of segment dynamics | 103:56–106:00 |

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Additional Highlights

• Bobcat Boom: Record-breaking prices for prime pelts; recent auction saw a top price of $3,500.
• Save Tucker Town: North Carolina recreational lands at risk of being lost; land trusts and MeatEater plan involvement.
• Seal finger wisdom: High occupational hazard yet little-known; proper antibiotics crucial.

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Final Thoughts & Tone

This episode captures MeatEater at its best—blending deep outdoor knowledge, policy insight, and camaraderie with humor and a little irreverence. Listeners hear not just about conservation and hunting/fishing issues, but about quirky cultural phenomena, odd laws, snackable natural history, and the realities of living close to nature. The segment with Connor Hellebuyck stands out as both patriotic and delightfully geeky, merging the world of elite sport with hardcore fishing nerd outs.

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For more information, check out The MeatEater Podcast archives or specific state/province resources on conservation and wildlife news.

Transcript

[Steve Rinella]

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[Phil Monahan]

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[Steve Rinella]

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[Mark Kenyon]

Well, there's a lot of news on my end. Started this new gig at Meat Eater, moving from just being like the. The resident whitetail guy is what everyone referred me to. And now director of conservation. So I've got some cool new projects coming out because of that. One of which I guess I can tease now, is a new podcast. Awesome. Which I'm excited about. That'll be dropping late April. Ish. And I first pitched this as Mark Kenyon Unleashed. Just like forever, I've had a kind of a box around me that's like, you got to live in the whitetail world, which I love, which is a big part of me. But then there's this other whole other half of my life.

[Steve Rinella]

Unfenced.

[Mark Kenyon]

Okay, I like that. I like that. But yeah, Unleashed. Unfenced it in pass the muster of all of our smarter folks here in the company. But more, more, seriously, what's it called now? Future Wild with Mark Kenyon.

[Brody Henderson]

I don't mind.

[Steve Rinella]

Unleashed or Unfenced. Unfenced sounds a little weird.

[Randall]

I think it's too late for that.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's too, too late and too broad.

[Steve Rinella]

You dropped.

[Mark Kenyon]

There's already a thing with that.

[Phil Monahan]

What else could he call it?

[Steve Rinella]

I mean, like, your antlers fell off.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, okay. But it's not about antlers. That's the thing is I'm trying to get away from antlers they've dropped off. Okay.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm a little faster, Mark, and I still second. Pass.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, thanks.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Man.

[Mark Kenyon]

So Future Wild is going to be my place to talk about all things beyond just whitetails, but really it's like at the intersection of hunting, fishing, wildlife and wild places, but with a view towards the future. So if I'm talking to a biologist about tarpon, it's going to be what's the future hold for them? Ultimately, if we're digging into something about mule deer, it'll be exploring what's. What's next or what can we do or what does this mean for next year, next decade. So, yeah, really excited about it. It's giving me a chance to get to talk to a lot of the people and about topics that I've long been fascinated by and do in my spare time, but haven't been able to, you know, have a platform to talk about it publicly.

[Steve Rinella]

I like that idea about going into the future. Be like if you had instead of telling old drinking stories, you telling drinking stories about that you'd like to have happen, you know?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, that's the hope is lots of drinking stories.

[Steve Rinella]

No, that's a good idea. What is the future of.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. And so it's gotten me. It's given me the opportunity to, you know, have a reason to read all the books that I already read.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Give me an excuse.

[Steve Rinella]

Makes you feel like you're not being lazy when you're reading books.

[Mark Kenyon]

Exactly.

[Yanni]

Paid to do it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Get paid to read the books I already want to read.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Gives me excuse to get to reach out and talk to people that I've long wanted to talk to. So we've got three or four episodes in the can already and. And some really interesting ones coming down the pipe.

[Steve Rinella]

What do you give me the tease the subjects for me.

[Mark Kenyon]

So the first handful. Yeah, there's going to be a conversation with. That goes deep into caribou right now. Oh, in the future. What's going on with them?

[Steve Rinella]

That's interesting.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. There's one that explores habitat fragmentation and island beat biogeography. And really what's happening is more and more large landscapes become metaphorically islands.

[Steve Rinella]

Can I make a prediction? Yeah, that gets worse.

[Mark Kenyon]

Spoiler.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

So that one's. That one's going to be interesting. There is going to be one that's exploring the interesting, kind of sometimes oppositional, but in the future, hopefully more times than not, parallel movements of the outdoor recreation community and the hunt fish community in advocating for public lands and the future of all those things. That's one. There's another one in that one.

[Steve Rinella]

Can I make a prediction?

[Yanni]

Can I ask about the Future of that one.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Yanni]

Or in that one, do you figure out if the backpackers are going to start paying a tax to help out?

[Mark Kenyon]

We're definitely going to help pay. We haven't recorded that one yet, but we're going to be asked.

[Steve Rinella]

The backpack. Backpack tax, dude.

[Mark Kenyon]

Because the backpack taxes, mount Bike tax. The whole thing in Oregon is an interesting example of kind of an end around on that.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh.

[Mark Kenyon]

If you're familiar with that right now.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Carl, Malcolm has. Is. Has become very interested in these alternate funding mechanisms for state fishing game agencies. Missouri had the. Some kind of.

[Randall]

I can't remember what sales.

[Steve Rinella]

Another state had a 18 of 1. Yep. Was it Minnesota?

[Mark Kenyon]

I'm not sure.

[Steve Rinella]

Maybe it was Minnesota. I can't remember. Some state did like a. Like a small percentage of a penny of the sales tax. And that state now is doing acquisitions off that money. They're doing land acquisitions off that money.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. And in Oregon it's just like basically a lodging tax that they're just increasing a tiny bit and that's going to be significant dollars. So yeah. Get to explore stuff like that. That. That I always follow, I'm really interested in. It's super relevant to the stuff I'll be doing on the conservation side here. Meteater. And so this will be a place to talk about it and. Yeah, very excited about that. So that's. That's a big one. One other piece of news if I. If I've got another second. A lot of new projects coming down the pipe with the, you know, in the conservation lane here. But one of those that I want to bring up to the top is that auction house will be opening up again this year.

[Steve Rinella]

The auction house of Odyssey.

[Mark Kenyon]

The auction house. It's been a minute.

[Steve Rinella]

Been a long time out.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know what happened there, but we got some doozies. Dude. Cut these a couple.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, yeah, please.

[Steve Rinella]

So if you were. If you remember back to our show, Das Boat.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

The last season of Dos Boat featured a boat. I don't even know what. I can't remember what it was, but it had a 150 horsepower Honda on it, which has got like three hours on it. So if you're in the market for a 150honda with. With eight hours or three, that's gonna be in the auction house of oddities.

[Yanni]

I think we should auction off the boat itself too.

[Steve Rinella]

We just need to get it out here. I just had the engine shipped out here just to keep an eye on it.

[Randall]

I'll go get it.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

The boat would be cool to have that too.

[Steve Rinella]

All right. Oh, here's another thing. In the auction house of oddities, we bought my dad's truck when my dad died a lot. My dad died like shortly after the terror attacks, the 911 attacks. That's how I remember when people ask me when he died, I was like, it was about around then he died. Then he had a truck at that time. That truck wound up going to my buddy Matt Drost. Matt Drost drove it all over. He. He just hauled a couple dead deer home in that truck. We just bought it from him. And we're going to auction off my old man's truck, which I've slept in the front of the back of.

[Brody Henderson]

You got.

[Steve Rinella]

I got all kinds of hunting pictures.

[Brody Henderson]

Describe the truck.

[Steve Rinella]

150.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

Are you going to bid on it?

[Steve Rinella]

No.

[Mark Kenyon]

You don't?

[Steve Rinella]

Maybe. What year when my. When the neighbor down the road. One time the neighbor down the road died and his boat went into the auction house of oddities. I fished out of that boat all through growing up.

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, and, and so I'll add a little bit more tentatively. We're thinking on top of giving away the shitty old truck. That's right.

[Steve Rinella]

It's gonna be a lot better. We're gonna pack. It's gonna be a shitty truck full of good gear.

[Yanni]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

We're gonna load the shitty truck full of a bunch of great hunting gear and then I'm gonna hand deliver it and maybe make Yanni or somebody come with me drive across the country, bring it to you. That's right.

[Steve Rinella]

I forgot about that detail. We're gonna. We're gonna literally stuff the back. Yeah. It'll be stuffed with a shitty truck full of great gear or something like that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, it's gonna be a good one.

[Steve Rinella]

We gotta get rid of our punt gun somehow.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Yanni]

You done with that thing?

[Steve Rinella]

We always were planning on getting being done with it. I don't know if it'll go into the auction house of oddities or go into the big gun auction, but that'll be in there. We just built a new studio and bought a bunch of barn board from Yanni's neighbor. But we got a bunch left over. All that great barn board. Some 16 footers that'll be in the auction house. Can we sign it?

[Mark Kenyon]

Can you sign them, Yanni?

[Yanni]

Sign what?

[Mark Kenyon]

The barn board has nothing.

[Steve Rinella]

You don't even know about this. It just happened.

[Yanni]

I could use a few planks, you know, if you just. If I can just siphon off a

[Steve Rinella]

couple to put your bid Some of

[Phil Monahan]

this stuff sounds like local pickup only. Are we shipping it all?

[Steve Rinella]

I just got the motor. Will ship to you. The lumber is pickup only. I'm not shipping 16 foot barn board.

[Randall]

I just got a 16 foot trailer.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, Randall's been delivered. We'll give you a deal like you're within how many miles. Rand will bring you the barnboard.

[Yanni]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And then he.

[Randall]

I'd love to do that.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Okay.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, last thing on.

[Connor Hellebuck]

On.

[Steve Rinella]

On our news, our. Our dear friend podcast guest video collaborator Kimmy Werner has her new book out. Kimmy's Kitchen a Cookbook. Kimmy is a. Is. Is a phenomenal, phenomenal seafood chef cook. She's a great person. She's a dear friend to our family. She's a dear friend to many friends of mine. It's a gorgeous book. You can see here on the COVID with a. With a goat fish on the end of a three prong. Beautiful book, beautiful person, great recipes. Anyone interested in fish and seafood cooking and other things, Here it is. An ocean woman's guide to wild home cooking. Good luck to Kimmy. I hope the book's a big success. Please, please, please. Check out Kimmy's new book, Kimmy's Kitchen. Corrections.

[Yanni]

Corrections.

[Steve Rinella]

Corrections.

[Yanni]

Nailed it.

[Phil Monahan]

Phil was ready.

[Steve Rinella]

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This is where you correct us. And when you catch us being wrong about something, you win free boots. That's how serious we are at the new show to know when we screwed up. Okay? So the winner of today's correction of the week gets a free pair of to cova's boots.

[Connor Hellebuck]

If.

[Steve Rinella]

If you win today, that's what you get. Correction number one. About porter houses.

[Yanni]

Why the hesitation?

[Steve Rinella]

Because I did some dramatic embarrassment about this one. Embarrassing to me. The writer in says this. Good morning. I was listening to episode 798tis the season to be hunting and nearly drove off the road when Steve confessed he doesn't know what a porter porterhouse is. I said, he quotes me. I said, I know it's a good thing to order, but what the hell is a porterhouse? He said, I was being honest.

[Brody Henderson]

I couldn't have told you either because

[Steve Rinella]

it's not a hunting thing. Hunting dudes don't talk about porterhouse.

[Phil Monahan]

Doesn't seem like a correction.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, it's not. It seems like we're already veering away from corrections.

[Steve Rinella]

No, dude, listen. It's a wide. It's a big umbrella, okay? You could even be wrong by omission and win the corrections contest. I might vote for this guy. So he says he first, he tries to establish his. His bonafides. He grew up in butcher shops. Even the tea. Then he turns it into an insult. So he establishes his bona fides by saying he grew up working in butcher shops. And then twists the dagger by saying even the guys sweeping the floor knew what a. What a porterhouse was.

[Phil Monahan]

Damn.

[Steve Rinella]

Apparently, it's this. A big tenderloin is a porterhouse. A small tenderloin is a T bone. A porterhouse must have a Tenderloin at least 1.25 inches across, measured from the bone to the widest point of the fillet. As you move backward along the short loin, the tenderloin thickens, which is why the porter houses come from the rear end of that section. All porterhouses are T bones, but not all T bones are porterhouse.

[Brody Henderson]

That's good info.

[Steve Rinella]

He goes into, then to continue again that he can't believe I didn't know this. He ends on that note in writing. That's called bringing her back around.

[Brody Henderson]

What's a T bone without a bone? A ribeye.

[Mark Kenyon]

You just.

[Brody Henderson]

We're gonna get another question.

[Yanni]

No, I think it's a filet.

[Steve Rinella]

Raise your hand and tell me, who in here.

[Yanni]

Filet mignon.

[Steve Rinella]

Who in here. Who in here knew that?

[Randall]

The only thing I know about porterhouses is that they used to call the Porterhasset Outback Steakhouse the Melbourne, and it was usually the most expensive thing on the menu.

[Yanni]

No, I was going to say that you shouldn't be embarrassed because all of. Unless you came up in the beef industry somehow and. Or just whatever. You grew up in Kansas City and you went to a big steakhouse once a week where they had these kind of things. We've all just been processing wild game, and we don't use this terminology, but

[Steve Rinella]

everybody knows you're long Tongani because you used to run the grill at Toscanini's.

[Yanni]

Okay.

[Steve Rinella]

You didn't pick this up there?

[Yanni]

No.

[Steve Rinella]

You're not even a floor sweeper at this butcher shop.

[Brody Henderson]

No, I also think it's, like, generational. Like, people back in the day would have known because they went to a.

[Steve Rinella]

My kids aren't like. I'll take.

[Brody Henderson]

No, I'm just saying, like, people used to go to butcher shops. You know what I mean?

[Yanni]

That's true.

[Steve Rinella]

Correction number two, Mount Rushmore. The writer in says this. Hey, all on your podcast, Neanderthal Love. When was that? Why is it called the new show?

[Randall]

Well, the episode was called Neanderthal Love. Something, something, something, something.

[Phil Monahan]

He's doing some editorializing here.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, man, you can't follow everything that goes on around here. On your podcast, Neanderthal Love. It was discussed that the America the Beautiful pass could be used to grant free access into Mount Rushmore, Spencer Newhart's home state. No pass is needed for entry into Mount Rushmore. It's free.

[Phil Monahan]

Randall said it.

[Randall]

I'd like to. I'd like to.

[Steve Rinella]

Real slap to the nuts for Spencer.

[Randall]

A correction. I think I just implied that you could use it there. Yeah, it was suggested.

[Steve Rinella]

I can't believe Spencer wasn't all over it. You know, big South Dakota guy.

[Phil Monahan]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Tattoos.

[Mark Kenyon]

Did you go there when you lived there? Was that a thing?

[Phil Monahan]

I think I had been there once or twice, yeah. Ever. And both, like, you know, when I was a kid, so.

[Steve Rinella]

Correction number three. Another slap to the nuts for me. Spoon Bill. Pronunciation. Good morning. The writer in says I have a correction from the first episode of the news show. When talking about the national park passes, Steve referred to the spoon bill as a roseated spoon bill. However, the correct name is a roseate Spoon Bill.

[Randall]

That segment was chock full of errors.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, who's gonna win the boots? Correction number one, Porterhouse ignorance.

[Yanni]

Are we voting right now?

[Steve Rinella]

Well, I'll do the rundown.

[Brody Henderson]

These are tough, man.

[Steve Rinella]

Correction number one, free boots. These are all nitpickers. Some nitpicker is walking away with free boots. Correction number one, Porterhouse ignorance. Correction number two, Rushmore. Correction number three, Spoon Bill. I know what I'm voting.

[Yanni]

Me too.

[Steve Rinella]

We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 votes.

[Yanni]

That includes you, Phil.

[Randall]

That's great.

[Steve Rinella]

The engineers in there. Porterhouse, show of hands, please. Good Lord.

[Yanni]

Done.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, that's stupid.

[Connor Hellebuck]

I just.

[Mark Kenyon]

I like the fact that he was so insulting about it.

[Randall]

His heart's in it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You like the approach?

[Mark Kenyon]

I like the approach, yeah.

[Yanni]

And honestly, I'm a little bummed that you just didn't read it word for word because I felt like it was a well written piece.

[Steve Rinella]

You made it longer. Oh, by shortening it, I made it longer.

[Phil Monahan]

Correction.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, maybe. Here's why.

[Yanni]

I think good info and I gotta chuckle out of it.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Randall]

Steve, who voted for.

[Steve Rinella]

I'll tell you who, and I'll tell you why. Rushmore. Because here is a thing where some dude pictures some little kid sitting there. He's got no money.

[Yanni]

Oh, you're looking out for the little family.

[Steve Rinella]

His family's broken and he's like, all fixing to go to Rushmore.

[Randall]

Yeah, okay.

[Steve Rinella]

But then, you know, as he does, he's listening to the news show, you know, Every week. He likes that show.

[Randall]

Yeah, of course.

[Steve Rinella]

And all of a sudden he's like, guess we're not going.

[Randall]

But then he heard the correction. He's like, I guess I just gotta pay for parking and I'll be fine.

[Steve Rinella]

We're back on. We're going to Rushmore. It is free. Picture that kid and you're giving. And he could be showing up there in some brand new damn boots.

[Mark Kenyon]

I don't think it's happening.

[Steve Rinella]

But no, Mr. Porterhouse, who's obviously right, right. I'm doing a money symbol with my hand, who's obviously pretty well taken care of if he's down there ordering porterhouses every time he turns around.

[Yanni]

Congrats to the Porterhouse.

[Steve Rinella]

So, yeah, another rich guy. Another rich guy out there with another pair of boots.

[Mark Kenyon]

Congrats, Morgan.

[Steve Rinella]

Thank God. That's just what the world needed. Another rich guy, new boots. Thanks to Covis. On to your news. This isn't even that big of a deal, but I like it. Earlier, I think a year ago. A year ago. Coming up, the Great Lake Pickle was on the show, and he was sharing a hot turkey tip that I think is mostly applicable to the American South. But I can think of examples in the north where it's true. Lake Pickle was explaining if you're hunting in the south and you're hunting in a new area, cold rolling into a new area, he's like, if you can find an old church, the kind that has a cemetery out back was even better. Doesn't need it. But if it has it out back, it's better. There is a turkey near there. An old church has a turkey. He told us this on the show, and he had a lot of examples to back it up.

[Mark Kenyon]

He must have explained why.

[Steve Rinella]

Pictures. When you're driving around in a rural area, where do they put the old church?

[Phil Monahan]

Maybe on a hill where the turkeys live.

[Steve Rinella]

Right where the turkeys live. It's just a freak. It's a freak deal. But he could back it up. He could back it up. Well, he sends me a. He sends me a piece of legislation from Mississippi that he was unaware of. And the fact that Mississippi even thought to have this. Just give me a second here. Keep talking, Brody.

[Brody Henderson]

This legislation has to do with hunting within a quarter mile radius of a church.

[Steve Rinella]

Steve will find the exact details. Yeah, just keep. Keep them interested.

[Brody Henderson]

I think this is the kind of law that is like, I got it. Women can't wear pants.

[Mark Kenyon]

No, no, no.

[Steve Rinella]

It's a worse law than that.

[Brody Henderson]

It's worse.

[Steve Rinella]

You Ready for the law.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

It's got a code and all that. Like, you know, like, all the. How they do the codes. Section 4, 9, 7, 6 1, blah, blah, blah. Here's the rule. This is the actual Mississippi law. If any person shall hunt within 14 mile of any church on Sunday while services are being held, he shall, on conviction, be fined not less than $25 nor more than $100.

[Brody Henderson]

How?

[Phil Monahan]

When.

[Brody Henderson]

When's it from?

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know. But you know what it's meant to prevent sitting. Say you're sitting there in the old service and also pow.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Out back. Yeah.

[Randall]

This is one of those.

[Steve Rinella]

A dude would be like, dude, I'm out of here. But then all of a sudden, his wife's like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Yanni]

§ what's interesting about it, 50 bucks.

[Randall]

It doesn't specify shooting. It specifies hunting.

[Steve Rinella]

Can't even try.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

But then Lake Pickle sent me a thing from Onyx. He sent me a screenshot from Onx, proving to me that when he's hunting by a church that's in service, he's a half mile away. But, yeah, I think it's to prevent dudes from running out of church.

[Brody Henderson]

I got a lot of, like, what if you owned land 100 yards from that church and you were hunting on your land?

[Steve Rinella]

Dude, I would have a real word. Or I'd just be like. In addition to all the other junk you spend money hunting on, hunting turkeys, there's also. Every year, you have somewhere between a fine of somewhere between 25. You write that in your budget. Yeah, it's like a turkey tag, 12 bucks. But then I got the fine, you know, which. Which averages out somewhere around 50, 60 bucks.

[Mark Kenyon]

You know, it's funny, though, this whole turkey thing around old churches we have. I've had a number of friends that have found shed antlers in old cemeteries or adjacent to them. So whenever they're driving around, they always eyeball the old cemeteries in nearby land.

[Steve Rinella]

Dude, I could think of it just sitting here right now. I could think of multiple examples, even in El Norte, Spanish for the north.

[Brody Henderson]

Wasn't there something that happened, like, in the last couple of years where a dude got in trouble for killing a gobbler in a cemetery? Remember we talked about that?

[Steve Rinella]

Y probably bushwhacked it right from behind a big old stone. I remember that.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Hell of a way to do it.

[Steve Rinella]

And I remember I couldn't get mad at him.

[Brody Henderson]

No. Because you're driving by that cemetery and seeing that thing strutting around for A week. I understand eventually your will just breaks.

[Steve Rinella]

There's. We're going to talk about some dudes in the news today who I'm like, you should be in trouble. But I understand. A guy wrote in, he's making goad jerky. He's making deer nut jerky and heart jerky. He put his deer nut jerky and his heart jerky in the same bag. And people wouldn't eat the heart jerky because it was next to his deer nut jerky.

[Yanni]

Not just people. Not just any people.

[Mark Kenyon]

Firemen, wildland firefighters. Pretty tough dudes.

[Yanni]

Real tough guys.

[Steve Rinella]

That's true. I didn't even think to include that detail. Tough guys.

[Yanni]

That's why we're here.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Even tough guys won't eat his nut jerky. Hard workers, if you promise not to poison it, I will eat your nut jerky on air. If you send it to us, I will.

[Yanni]

I'm surprised that it came out good.

[Steve Rinella]

Is that really what you would do with it if you had a bunch of poison? You know what I'm saying?

[Mark Kenyon]

There's a better ROI on that poison than.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, like, you know the thing where kids are like that they're gonna get drugs. Trick or treat. Candy. Like, picture. You're like a bad drug addict. I feel like you just hang on to the drugs.

[Phil Monahan]

Expensive.

[Randall]

Plus, like, if I wanted to poison you through the mail, I'd just send anthrax to the office. Like, there's easier ways of, like, waiting until he says nut jerky.

[Steve Rinella]

He'd be like, someone could back out

[Brody Henderson]

of eating the jerky. If you just touch the envelope, it's all over.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. That's why I'm going to eat his jerky, because I don't think it's going to be poison.

[Brody Henderson]

This brings up the great American jerky contest. We ever gone back to that thing?

[Steve Rinella]

No. Whatever happened to that?

[Phil Monahan]

The suit said we can't do it because someone's going to poison us.

[Steve Rinella]

When this guy. What's his name? The nut jerky. Sam Samuel. Listen, buddy, district forester, listen, you send me that nut jerky, I'm going to eat it right here on there. And I'll tell you what I think about it.

[Randall]

It looks good

[Mark Kenyon]

at least. Doesn't look bad.

[Phil Monahan]

At Tractor Supply, they know the days are getting longer, warmer, and it's time to get back outside. Whether you're working the land, heading to the woods, or getting back out on the water, Tractor supply has new gear ready for the spring ahead. From new UTVs and zero turn mowers to truck accessories, tools and workwear. Your life outdoors starts at tractor supply this spring.

[Steve Rinella]

You've heard About T mobile 5G home Internet, mostly for how easy it is to set up and then the value that you get. But there's some more big news you should know about. They now have the fastest 5G home Internet speeds. That's right, T Mobile now has the fastest 5G home Internet, according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. That makes backing up photos from your latest hunt, streaming a new documentary, or pulling up a wild game recipe super quick. And yeah, it's a great value backed by a solid five year price guarantee. And setting it up is still as easy as it gets. You just plug it in and go. So if you want the fastest 5G home Internet with a simple setup at a great price with savings that stick around, Get T Mobile 5G Home Internet. Head over to T mobile.com homeinternet to check availability. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed Test intelligence Data over the second half of 2025. All rights reserved. Man, I'm telling you what When I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly Auto Parts here in my hometown of Bozeman, Montana. Love those guys. Always nice, always helpful. They are in the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam, need your battery tested, windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fix or a quick service. They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Last time I was in there it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all, friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit O'ReillyAuto.com me eater that's O'ReillyAuto.com meater guy wrote in about this. He was talking to his daughter's boyfriend the other day. That is a weird sentence. I have a daughter who's 13. Yanni has daughters right in that same bracket. Someday me and Yanni will Be telling will be running around saying, I was talking to my daughter's boyfriend the other

[Connor Hellebuck]

day

[Yanni]

right before I beat the shit out.

[Steve Rinella]

I was telling him how I'm about to punch him.

[Randall]

And somebody at some point in the distant past was saying that about you guys.

[Yanni]

Oh, definitely.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I was talking to my daughter's boyfriend one day, the Steve guy. He tells me, hopefully it'll go on like this.

[Yanni]

When he says, the kid, 19, loves waterfowl hunting.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. So I'd be like, you picked a great little boyfriend there, daughter. I told my daughter pick her boyfriend out for her. I was talking to my daughter's boyfriend the other day. This is the writer in Kid loves waterfowl hunting. From the start of the season till the end. He is hunting. Love this guy Morehouse. May maybe, oh, he's too old for my daughter. So he starts telling me where all the ducks have been reported in the area. I had no idea where he was getting this info, so I asked. He tells me there is a handy app called Ebird, which I have. This is from. So just for listeners. This is from Cornell. Birders will report the birds in the area and track what birds they see on what body of body of water are in a field. He then uses that info to either set up on public water or ask permission if it's private.

[Phil Monahan]

This next line.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, this kid isn't very smart, but he nailed it with this one.

[Mark Kenyon]

I laughed out loud in the plane when I read that.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I've done this. Years ago, we were going to go to Nevada in the Ruby Mountains to try to hunt Himalayan snowcocks. And one day I realized that people report all the snow they see on Ebird. And I was like, I can't believe these people are reporting it. Likewise. We were one time staying in a hut in New Zealand, hunting a public hut in New Zealand. And there's a journal in the journal, guys, like, so weird. We saw some shammy from the hut across the river which we had no idea about and wound up getting one of them. Okay. But I don't know if the waterfowl, it changes so fast. I don't know how true that is, you know?

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, I mean, but this is up to date.

[Yanni]

Up to date info.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, but are enough people saying, hey, I just saw some. I just, you know, I just saw a big bunch of honkers out in Old Lady McGinns Field. Like, like, is it like quick enough that you'd get on it?

[Yanni]

Dude, the birders are serious.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, I think it's legit info.

[Yanni]

They're not just out there like going, I like honkers. No, they're like writing it, putting this information into their lists and their apps

[Steve Rinella]

and yeah, if you were, if you had moved to a new area, if you were col rolling, I don't know, I'm just a little skeptical.

[Mark Kenyon]

I'd be looking at Ebird and I'd be looking for churches. That's what I'd be doing.

[Randall]

Old cemeteries.

[Phil Monahan]

I also think this 19 year old has found like a game within a game that he enjoys playing. Now it's more fun for him to go kill ducks that he learned about via Ebird from the next door lady who's an earnest birder.

[Randall]

Oh, totally. If I ever killed a bear that someone had reported on all trails, that would be a highlight accomplishment for me.

[Phil Monahan]

People do that. They talk about the bears they see, they talk about the elk they see.

[Brody Henderson]

The funny thing is is if you then check back in on the app

[Steve Rinella]

and be like, got him. Bear was still there.

[Phil Monahan]

You could have an up close picture of it.

[Steve Rinella]

Thanks, bro. He's in the back of my truck right now if you'd like to report him. Again, beavers is fish as background here for listeners. I was talking about in the old days, in the old fur trade era of the like, they're into colonial time. The Catholics would sometimes have a hard time accessing fish in the, in like new world situations. And they want. And, and, and at some point Randall was going to dig into this. At some point they got permission. They're like, hey, when we're trying to observe the Lenten meal, we don't have access to fish, but we have aquatic rodents and they live in the water. And it was said like they were given a special dispensation back in the old days that you'd be like, okay. The church says in the situation you're in, if you can't get fish, have an aquatic mammal.

[Phil Monahan]

It was about 250 years ago in Detroit where that happened.

[Steve Rinella]

Job. Where'd you find that?

[Phil Monahan]

I wrote about it when we did the Pardon My Plate episode for Muskrat.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, perfect. Did I tell you about it and that's why you wrote about it.

[Phil Monahan]

No, no, no.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, come on, don't be embarrassed. So this guy, how am I going to do this here? So there's a guy that writes in, he doesn't want us to use his name or anything. He says he does a lot of beaver trapping. Now. He. Okay. He writes, I put my spectacles on here in January 29, 2026. Well, I don't know when he wrote it. Shouldn't have brought it up. He writes to the suits at the church. What do you call them in this. In his denomination?

[Randall]

The padre.

[Mark Kenyon]

The cloaks.

[Steve Rinella]

He writes to his padre? No, he writes to the bishop, the big suits. He's a Catholic. And he writes to his bishop saying, hey, man, I'm a big beaver trapper. Can I eat my beavers for the Lenten meal? His bishop. And this guy's got a stamp, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Blank. Okay. He writes him a special letter back saying, go on ahead. Eat your beavers for your Lenten meal. And he ends his letter. This. This Dispensation. The letters. January 29, 2026. The letter says, from his bishop. His bishop writes him this. Although this practice is not customary within these. Within this diocese, the dispensation is granted with the understanding that the penitential character of the Fridays of Lent will continue to be faithfully observed through appropriate acts of prayer, self denial and charity. This dispensation applies only to the consumption of muskrat and beaver and does not otherwise dispense from the church's discipline regarding Lenten observance. It is granted for the Fridays of Lent in the year 2026 and is not to be presumed beyond this scope or duration.

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, it's interesting that it's, like stuck at two of these. Expiration date on it.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

He has to ask again in 2027.

[Steve Rinella]

Really stuck to him in the end.

[Connor Hellebuck]

That's a lot.

[Steve Rinella]

That's great, though.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

For more background, it was the 1780s. They were French Catholic missionaries. They had a few hard winters consecutively. It got to the point where they were starving and eating chopped hay. And that was when they made the determination that you can eat muskrats, which were plentiful. Where they were living in southern Michigan still.

[Mark Kenyon]

Are we all.

[Steve Rinella]

Why were they eating chopped hay? Because they had Muscats.

[Phil Monahan]

Because it wasn't legal yet for them to.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, just on. On a certain day, they had to resort to chopped hay.

[Phil Monahan]

Yes. Like that. That was what got them to make it okay for them to eat muskrats.

[Steve Rinella]

But. Are you following me?

[Phil Monahan]

They didn't have any other food.

[Steve Rinella]

I got it. But if you came up to, let's say, like, have you ever fasted for 24 hours? Yeah, okay, I have. It's not that big of a deal. I don't start eating chopped hay if I'm fasting for 25.

[Randall]

There was a large. There was a broader issue, I think, with food supply you said it was

[Brody Henderson]

a tough winter, right?

[Phil Monahan]

Yeah, I know they were struggling to have.

[Steve Rinella]

But how many days during Lent? I smell a fresh pair of boots for someone during Lent. How many days do you have to only eat fish? I thought it was only Fridays during the Lenten period.

[Randall]

The problem is not that they just can't get fish, that they're starving.

[Steve Rinella]

More generally, they were probably the muskrats any day they wanted. Except for the Fridays during Lent.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Steve Rinella]

Sounds like someone needs to do a little fact check.

[Phil Monahan]

Did. Please do.

[Steve Rinella]

I met you.

[Phil Monahan]

We know I'm going to win the boots. I'm going to start making things that I can correct, and then I'll write in the correction.

[Steve Rinella]

That's a good idea.

[Phil Monahan]

And win the boots. Although, you guys,

[Steve Rinella]

we just hook you up with some boots.

[Phil Monahan]

Yeah, you'll need to vote for me.

[Randall]

Just get a P.O.

[Brody Henderson]

box in the boots and then put them in the auction house od.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, everybody. Joined now by Olympic gold medalist Connor Helbuk, who was the goalie during the Olympic gold medal game there against the damn Canadians, who must have blocked, like. I don't know, I heard something crazy. You could probably tell us, like, it's like 42 shots or something all of a sudden. And. And. And you didn't get the.

[Randall]

You didn't.

[Steve Rinella]

You, of course, didn't get the winning goal, but you carried the game, man.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Thanks. Yeah, I. I did help on that goal, though. I got an assist.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, Pretty rare for a goalie to get that.

[Randall]

That's amazing.

[Steve Rinella]

I want to tell you. I want to first admit something to you. It's. It's a running joke in my family. It's a running joke among my friends that I'm the dumbest guy in the world about sports. But I have you. You could ask my kids this. I periodically make my kids watch the 1980s, like, Miracle on Ice incident, and I teach it to them as sort of a moment, a defining moment in American history. So because of that, like, I. I like Olympic hockey matters to me, and I happen to be travel on your guys day, on your big win day. I was traveling with our colleague Max Barda, who is like, all in, way in on hockey. And so I got to live the game next to him. We wound up in that. We were traveling, so he wound up in the Delta lounge, and tension in the Delta lounge was high when you guys won. People erupted in the Delta lounge. I mean, went nuts in the Delta Lounge. Max is running around in his jersey. His jersey. That was the goalie when we beat the Soviets, like, that dude's name is on the back of his jersey in the airport. Guys are coming up to hug Max, high fiving him. It was like the funnest sort of thing that, that, like, just to be by Max and through all that. And we watched it and it was like, honest to God, like, it was like at that moment in the Delta Lounge, it was like emotional, dude. And it was amazing to watch. And I, and I said, and then my buddy Tommy Edson, who I like a lot, text me, like in the minutes after, and he's like, this guy has a largemouth bass on his helmet. And he's like, you need to talk to this guy. And so here we are.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah, I think I, I, we didn't really feel how much it brought the country together until we stepped foot back in America. And then it was just, it was insane. Everywhere we went, every place, you let one little USA chant out and this, the whole place was a rubber. So it was so much fun. I mean, the last, the 70, the immediate 72 hours after we won. I mean, I can count the hours of sleep on one hand.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Just the feel from the people around was just incredible. I mean, we were supposed to land in New York and we ended up switching to Miami within, I don't know, four hours before the flight. And it took that four hours for everyone to know exactly what we're doing the entire day before we had our itinerary. So that was pretty cool. And I think the best thing I could have done is throw a bask on my mask. I mean, I put a fish on every single mask, but I like to try to keep it with bass because I love bass fishing, but I mix in trout, walleye, pike. Must be, you know, change it up. I've had a lot of mass over the years, but putting the mask on there is just absolutely blown up. My biggest passion of bass fishing.

[Steve Rinella]

That's great when you. So I got a friend that plays major league baseball and man, that is a not efficient, friendly. That is not efficient, friendly enterprise. What is your, like, what's your off season look like? Like, when are you guys like really free to fish?

[Connor Hellebuck]

So our last regular season game is roughly April 18, so mid April. If you make playoffs and go on for another two months to the end of the final, so mid June. But that's only two teams for the most part. The fishing season is mid April to say mid September, and fishing season kind of ends end of August. But if you don't make playoffs, you have Mid April, all the way to mid September.

[Steve Rinella]

I've asked my buddy in baseball this because hit for him, it's whether season's gonna end and what kind of hunting he's going to be able to do in October or not.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And I. This, I'll talk about a guy named Pete Alonzo. And I asked him, do you ever hope you don't make playoffs so you can hunt more? And he said, that is not a hope.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah, well, you know, I have it. I have it set up pretty good where I mean, we play a lot of the southern teams. And I have a little travel rod and a little backpack to throw gear in. And any chance I get post practice or get an off day, I just throw the backpack on and go find a spot.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, is that right?

[Connor Hellebuck]

Or something like that?

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Connor Hellebuck]

I go off the bank or get a guide if I have a full day off. If not, I'll just, I'll just hike around and, and walk around the lake and try to catch a fish here and there. But Winnipeg is pretty good for fishing and hunting. I got. We have all of October, we'll start in September. The, the geese hunting up here. The bird hunting is incredible, huh? They come in because they come in by the thousands, like you're. I've limited out within 45 minutes with 10 guys, which is crazy. But the deer hunting is shortly after that. So we go, we go for fishing season, get here for the hockey season, and then we have hunting season, which starts with birds, then goes to box, and then the ice freeze is over and then we have world class walleye ice fishing. So, I mean, it's just one thing after the next. Got it. It's really fun. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So of all the places you've lived and considering where you grew up, what do you regard as, like, when you think of home water, you know, like the sort of, like for you, the emotional center of your fishing life is where, like, what's home water?

[Connor Hellebuck]

So home home home water or like.

[Yanni]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Like, would you imagine yourself like, on the, like the place that means the most to you? What is that place? What body of water?

[Connor Hellebuck]

So, I mean, all the. We have in Michigan a ton of small lakes, especially in Oakland County. That's where I grew up and that's where I still live in the summer. So I would say any of those lakes, I know I'm like the back of my hand, but from like a more broad spectrum, I would consider Lake Sinclair. My homeowner.

[Mark Kenyon]

Got it.

[Connor Hellebuck]

I'm better on the smaller lakes, but I'm Also pretty good on the big lake, too. And the big lake is if someone's coming in to go fishing, you take them to the big lake.

[Steve Rinella]

So if you had to go smallmouth bass, largemouth bass. Where you at on that smallmouth bass?

[Connor Hellebuck]

You're going straight to Lake Sinclair. Okay, Catch. I mean, you can catch six pounders in there, but for the most part, you're catching 20, 25 pound bags. But that's your five bass limit.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, what I meant was, if you had to pick between small mouths. Oh, in large mouths, like, you're a large mouth guy, would you say, yeah,

[Connor Hellebuck]

no, I'd say I'm probably a smallmouth guy. But, you know, it's crazy. You ask someone that's been fishing smallmouth for 10 years and be like, oh, I want to go catch largemouth right now. And then vice versa. You kind of. You ask the largemouth guys, hey, what do you want to go catch? Like, oh, I would love to catch a smallmouth. So, you know, for me, I think I can do both. But I think smallmouth, just based on the size and the quantity that we have them in Michigan, I'd probably say I'm a smallmouth guy.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, then I got a personal question for you. If you had to take a stab, how many largemouth bass have you fried and eaten in your life?

[Connor Hellebuck]

I have eaten one. When I was a kid, we didn't know. We didn't know that it's a sport fish, and we wanted to try it when we were younger and my parents made it. The second we got a little more into fishing, we realized, oh, you don't really eat these things. These are. These are for the sport. So it very much frowned upon in my life, in my world, to.

[Steve Rinella]

Really?

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yes.

[Steve Rinella]

I got a buddy who was a. He was an amateur pro. Like, that's a contradiction. Amateur pro bass. Is that the right way you put it? Either way, he's an amateur competitive bass angler, and I was fishing with him, and I learned that this guy, his whole life has been doing this. He had never eaten a bass.

[Yanni]

You're talking about.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I made him eat one.

[Yanni]

No, you actually made me make him eat one.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, sorry.

[Connor Hellebuck]

I mean, they're okay, but if you can just go in that same body of water and catch walleye, like, walleye's gonna taste way better.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, understood.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Plenty of walleye.

[Steve Rinella]

So right now, what? Right now? Tell me where you're at right now, and with your season and everything, what will be the net? Like what fishing trip? What's your next Fishing trip you got planned, like what will be the next outing you do?

[Connor Hellebuck]

Well, I'm debating right now. We're, right now we're fighting for a playoff spot and the schedule is just insane after the Olympics. It's every other day. So finding time is pretty difficult. But we're debating on our next off day, trying to sneak out, go ice fishing or if that doesn't work out. April 1st I got an off day in Dallas. I'm trying to talk them into flying in early so I can take a guide out. But if that's not the case, I'll just have someone pick me up and we'll just go beat the bank with, with the travel rod.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. Man, I bet you you have some guys from Dallas listen to the show, probably hitting you up with fishing spots, man.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Honestly, they probably will. And let's keep those secrets.

[Steve Rinella]

All right, Connor, thanks so much for joining on, man. Thank you for the win. It really was like, it was such a fun day, dude. And it was. People were so happy and just seeing everybody in the airport and, and see my buddy Max so happy. Everybody felt good. I was in such a good mood. I got home, my kids thought something was wrong with me. I made him watch highlights from the 1980s games. So I was like, this will, you'll help. You'll understand why your dad's so emotional that we just won another gold medal in hockey. So that's great, man. Thank you so much for joining. Have a good fishing trip in Dallas, buddy.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Thanks. No problem. Glad to be here.

[Yanni]

Thanks, Connor.

[Randall]

Thank you.

[Connor Hellebuck]

No problem, guys.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, on to our next story. Two California men charged. This is breaking news. Two California men charged for shattering a two hundred thousand dollar mammoth tusk at a museum. They were at the ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum in Branson, Missouri. There's a big mammoth skeleton with big tusks. 200 pound tusks. One of these guys apparently, and I understand gets up on his buddy's shoulders because he wants to get a picture or something of him hanging from that tusk and shattered it. They're like got arrested. When I say I understand when I'm in a museum, all I can think about is touching everything and getting stuff out.

[Randall]

Getting stuff out.

[Steve Rinella]

Like who doesn't want to. Randall me were in a museum and they had a teepee. You couldn't go into it. What did we talk about that we wanted to do?

[Randall]

Oh, like two hours after we'd left that museum, you're still talking about how you wanted to climb inside of the teepee. Just to see how it felt.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. So I'm saying when I'm at a museum, I'm like, sure like to get that out and have a look. I sure like to fiddle with that. Right, I understand. But the difference between me and these gentlemen,

[Yanni]

they weren't f fiddling with it. They were going to try to do a.

[Steve Rinella]

He was trying to hang from it. Todd as a veto and Brett Howard.

[Mark Kenyon]

What an embarrassing way to have to have your mug shot.

[Steve Rinella]

Embarrassing. I mean such a one laughs of judgment.

[Mark Kenyon]

Do you think they were drunk?

[Randall]

Yeah, I was going to say their faces look a little puffy here.

[Steve Rinella]

That's just the look you get when you're arrested. Maybe because most people that are arrested are drunk.

[Randall]

There's a strong correlation.

[Steve Rinella]

What I'm saying, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to like justify. I'm saying I walk through museums. The main thing I'm thinking about is ways in which I wish I could have allowed to violate the museum's rules. Right.

[Randall]

But then there's another part of your brain that's saying, do you think if I did that there would be consequences?

[Steve Rinella]

Yes. But I'm like do, do I wish I could just, just have at it in the museum? Yes.

[Yanni]

So they broke a two hundred thousand dollar tusk.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. What do you think tried to hang from it and shattered a 200 pound mammoth tusk?

[Mark Kenyon]

It's a good question though, Yanni.

[Steve Rinella]

What was the question even?

[Yanni]

How much? What do you think the punishment should be?

[Steve Rinella]

It's going to be reparations that they'll never be able to afford. Probably he'll just have to live the rest of his life knowing that he owes that museum a ton of money or something.

[Brody Henderson]

No, I should have to like sweep up that museum for the rest of his life.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, you want to know something nuts? My brother Danny, they were out doing their work. He works in Alaska, He's a salmon biologist. They were out doing their work. I'm not gonna tell you even kind of where he was. I don't actually know where he was. He says way up there's a giant cut bank. And he said hanging out of that cut bank is a big mammoth tusk. They didn't even touch it.

[Brody Henderson]

Well, he can't legally touch it.

[Steve Rinella]

No, not just him, you can't. Yeah, but I mean, how many guys would have been like, well, let's just go touch it.

[Brody Henderson]

So wait, Alaska, go hang on and get a picture.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know. I'm guessing they maybe. I don't, I don't know. I know that he couldn't. It was federal land and he said the way it was positioned, you'd have had to rig up, you'd have had to bush rig a ladder, it was so high up a cut bank. But he said just hanging out of the cut bank.

[Mark Kenyon]

So the proper steps would be like you would have to contact the managing agency and inform them of this for them to collect it or document it or something.

[Steve Rinella]

You're not under an obligation to do it.

[Randall]

Yeah, but there's rules about like fossils over. I mean, Spencer probably knows this more than there's rules about fossils over a certain size, I think. And, and I don't know, maybe he

[Steve Rinella]

did, I mean, maybe he did report it, but he didn't touch it and he wasn't allowed to touch it. And he said if he wanted to touch it, it would have been a real project because he said it was way up a cut bank.

[Brody Henderson]

Next rainstorm, it might just disappear.

[Steve Rinella]

No, for sure it'll get cut.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. All those ones people find in the riverbeds are obviously eroding.

[Phil Monahan]

Out at Tractor Supply. They know the days are getting longer, warmer, and it's time to get back outside. Whether you're working the land, heading to the woods or getting back out on the water, Tractor Supply has ready for the spring ahead. From new UTVs and zero turn mowers to truck accessories, tools and workwear, your life outdoors starts at Tractor Supply this spring.

[Steve Rinella]

You've heard About T mobile 5G home Internet, mostly for how easy it is to set up and then the value that you get. Well, there's some more big news you should know about. They now have the fastest 5G home Internet speeds. That's right. T Mobile now has the fastest 5G home Internet. According to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. That makes backing up photos from your latest hunt, streaming a new documentary or pulling up a wild game recipe super quick. And yeah, it's a great value backed by a solid five year price guarantee. And setting it up is still as easy as it gets. You just plug it in and go. So if you want the fastest 5G home Internet with a simple setup at a great price, with savings that stick around, Get T Mobile 5G Home Internet. Head over to t-mobile.com home Internet to check availability, price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed Test intelligence Data over the second half of 2025. All rights reserved. Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'reilly Auto Parts here in my hometown of Bozem, Montana. Love those guys. Always nice, always helpful. They are in the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam, need your battery tested, windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fix or a quick service. They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all, friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit O'ReillyAuto.com me eater that's O'ReillyAuto.com me Eater Brody the Long the Long Overdue Fur Sales Band report from Brody.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep. Colorado Fur Band. I'm sure a lot of people have heard about this, but I'll give like background then, like, what's going on? What could happen in the future? They tried this thing in the city of Denver a few years ago, four or five years ago, I think it was to ban the sale of fur products in the city of Denver. Then it went away and now it came back. So what the deal is, it's a proposed statewide rule to prohibit the commercial sale, barter or trade of wild animal fur or fur products in Colorado, the state of Colorado. So, like typical species like, like fur bear species like beaver, fox, bobcat, martin, muskrat, stuff like that, but not beaver. Beavers in there.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, when you get to the really dumb part, yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Anyway, the proposal doesn't ban trapping or hunting, but, you know, obviously it's going to undermine the economic viability of certain businesses in Colorado. You might be wondering who started this and how it happened. And it's weird because this isn't like the cat hunting thing that happened last year in Colorado, which was a ballot measure. Under Colorado law, citizens can petition the state wildlife rulemaking body to like just create or change regulations. So you could like go to the wildlife commission in Colorado and be like, I think I should be able to shoot two mule deer bucks a year and Then they'd say yay or nay. You know, have a, have a process that, that would go through. This particular proposal was submitted by a citizen named Samantha Miller who works for the wildlife advocacy advocacy group. That's a good, good way to describe it, I guess. Center for Biological Diversity, which we talked about last week. One of those groups that gives themselves a serious name, you know, but they're actually like an animal rights activist group.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, they're the worst. Well, not the worst, but among them.

[Brody Henderson]

And Samantha Miller was also the person who is largely in charge of, of the cats aren't trophies thing that, that went, didn't go through in Colorado last year. So we, we already talked about like re. Restrict all commercial fur sales. Like how it reached the commission. And like this is almost a story of like a rogue wildlife commission as much as anything else because on March 4th. So a little over a week ago, Colorado Parks and Wildlife voted. The commission voted 6 to 4 to advance a citizen petition that would ban the commercial sale of wild animal fur. Apparently this, this like process was very chaotic. A lot of people didn't really know what they were voting on. It seems like there's a lot of confusion and anger and disgust. Like in the meeting there were several hundred people there from the public, hunters, anglers, trappers that oppose this measure. CPW is new director. She like came out and said we do not believe that this is a good thing to do. There's no biological justified justification for doing so.

[Mark Kenyon]

And that was said before the meeting. Oh yeah, before the voting, before.

[Steve Rinella]

So because they pointed out there's no, there is no population level impact.

[Brody Henderson]

Right. So after hours of public comment and debate, they, The Commission votes 6 to 4 to go forward with it. If you want to look up the names of those commissioners, you can. They're. They're tied closely to, they're appointed by Governor Polis. They're. They're tied closely to. Polis is tied closely to some animal rights measures. These people are as well. And they kind of just did their own thing, which is, which is sad. So if this thing goes through, the, the impacts to businesses. Like a big one would be the fly fishing, like retail business. Fly tying. Like you walk into a fly shop, you'll see an entire wall of fly tying materials. And a lot of those have fur in them. Fur, hair from muskrats, beavers, rabbits.

[Steve Rinella]

A lot of them carry the name of it.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, for sure. Some other stuff would be apparel. Cowboy hats would be another.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, but that's what's so stupid about this Go ahead. What's so stupid about it is when you make. When you make a cowboy hat. Yep. Like a high quality beaver wool felt cowboy hat. You take a beaver pelt, you throw away the leather, you throw away the guard hair, and you take the underfurt and compress it into felt. They're saying, well, that's okay because that's cowboy hats. But if you took a beaver pelt.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You can sell that cowboy hat. You can throw away the leather, throw away the guard hairs, make it unrecognizable.

[Brody Henderson]

Cool.

[Steve Rinella]

But should you take the beaver pelt and just sew it into a hat?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Not cool.

[Brody Henderson]

Exactly.

[Steve Rinella]

That's illegal.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

And then there's like, so asinine.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. And that kind of gets to like supply chain issues. A lot of taxidermy projects would also be affected by this thing. So it's. It could impact a lot. A lot of different areas.

[Steve Rinella]

And they can't figure out how to write the. The problem now is they can't figure out how to write the rule.

[Brody Henderson]

No.

[Steve Rinella]

It's so chaotic and full of contradictions.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. So, like, what happens next is, bottom line is it's not lie yet. It's in the rule development. The vote. What it did was move it forward into the like, rule development and public comment stage. So the wildlife commission has to have another vote before the ban takes effect. So that's going to happen. Then Colorado Parks and Wildlife would have to like, draft proposed rules, which they'd also have to debate on what the rules would actually be. If there'd be any exceptions in the rules. Like they might carve out an exception for fly tying materials or something like that.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, yeah, yeah, they'll carve out exceptions. So they want to be that there's all this stuff is cool to use fur for. Unless it's like visibly fur.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

On a person's body. Like, you know what the indigenous people that lived in Colorado traditionally wore? That would be illegal.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Now if you want to run around like a dude rancher in a cowboy hat, you're a. Okay.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. Buckskin pants, like, probably not.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. You're totally fine. Because you. Because you know why? Because you threw the hair away.

[Phil Monahan]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

It wouldn't be a fur product. So it is like, then you could sell that.

[Brody Henderson]

It's, you know, it's just another. Another attempt to make our life more difficult.

[Steve Rinella]

Dude, that guy like that. It's not just Jared, like Jared Pole is termed out. It's not even just him. It's his husband.

[Brody Henderson]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Who's like A big animal, right?

[Brody Henderson]

Exactly. Exactly. But these people are appointed by Polis. They've done. They've gone kind of rogue on things before. This is another example that hopefully when Polis turns out, we'll get a new wildlife commission in there that is going to be friendlier to hunters and anglers and. And people like us. The timeline for this is next meeting is in May of 2026. So we'll know more in a couple months, and they'll have to vote and adopt, modify, or reject it.

[Connor Hellebuck]

It.

[Brody Henderson]

So we'll see what happens.

[Yanni]

What makes me mad is that think about what's not getting done that could be getting done, and that would be positive for wildlife.

[Brody Henderson]

This is not serious work.

[Yanni]

Instead, they got to be dealing with this bs.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

Brody, am I right that the public can show up for this next meeting? It's May 4th or 5th.

[Brody Henderson]

I don't have the exact date. Just says May 20th, 26th in Grand Junction. So, yeah, for any of those commission meetings, the public is. Can always show up.

[Steve Rinella]

Can I hit you with another added little deal here? That. That's kind of like what makes this infuriating. Years ago, like, many, many years ago, back in the mid-90s, I think early 90s, late 90s, Colorado effectively, like, banned trapping on public land. So you used to have, like, regulated trapping. What they then did is like, what do you do about all the guys that have depredation issues? They have or have, like, problem beavers problem, whatever. So they make the system by which a private landowner can go be like, hey, I got a beaver problem.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Then they're like, oh, okay. Then it's no holds barred. No. No seasons, no equipment restrictions, whatever. Okay, then you can go get them. Now they're saying, but you have to throw the hide in the trash, because currently, if someone has a beaver issue and they bring in a trapper to do it, the trapper can take the product and sell it. Yeah. And it could be used for all manner of things, including cowboy hat. This is like, no, no, you got to throw it in the garbage. Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

It's crazy.

[Steve Rinella]

You can't sell it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

But like, it's like that stuff like in. In. Remember in Australia, they have all those, like, kangaroo depredation things. And then one day they go like, oh, and also, you got to leave it to rot.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

If you get it, you got to leave it to rot. You can't touch it.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Yanni]

The.

[Brody Henderson]

And. And like, I'd love to say this is just a bunch of. And it's not gonna go through but, but man, these days you just don't know in Colorado what could happen.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. How could that place of like. Well, I know how it happened. Yeah. How could a state like, of such. I mean, like John Denver, dude.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep. John Denver.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Biggest elk herd in the country.

[Steve Rinella]

I know someone said like it was like the minute, the minute more people lived in Fort Collins and Denver, then it did the rest of the state. Boom.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Like that's when you know.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Rocky Mountain.

[Brody Henderson]

So normally in my beloved state of Colorado, I'm all about it. But this.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, dude, listen, man, I love the place. Love the place, love the people. This is not about that. Just about. You got to take your state back, dude.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep. Good lord.

[Brody Henderson]

So we'll check back in in May and see. See what's going on with it.

[Steve Rinella]

Maybe someday down the road, instead of crazy left wing people, we'll be bitching about crazy right wing people running Colorado into the ground.

[Brody Henderson]

I don't think so.

[Yanni]

Like, it would go the way of Utah right now.

[Steve Rinella]

Just whatever. Yeah. Like it'll be like all of a sudden it's like. Yeah. You get a state where. I don't know, it's just, it's just, it's just the seesaw, but I don't know if it'll ever swing. Yeah, it's the swing. The swing kills me. Yep. All right, Randall, you got some good news for us.

[Randall]

Bit of good news, actually.

[Steve Rinella]

This is great news.

[Randall]

Yeah. So the, the Commerce Department manages fisheries in Federal waters like 3, I guess it's some like 3 miles offshore or something like that. And they are poised to cede management authority to the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida when it comes to red snapper.

[Steve Rinella]

How did they lose. Is this in your report? How did they lose management?

[Randall]

Well, I think, I mean, I think Commerce and like Noah have managed these historically since like Magnus Stevenson.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Also way ago.

[Randall]

Yeah. But. And I think like the reauthorization of Magnus Stevenson put. And I could be botching this, but I think it became like more rigid quotas and sort of season setting on harvest the red snapper. And so what's going to happen, I guess under the federal system, the short version is that they're managing with like very broad strokes because they don't have the, the very detailed like recreational angler catch. I mean, so much of marine fisheries just comes down to data.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Randall]

And so they would. These states would end up with a very short season, like only a day, two days, three days, something like that.

[Brody Henderson]

Real small limits too.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Randall]

And and so essentially the states want authority to manage it with more data. They're going to take some elements of like the federal management structure and some of the information that is good on that side, but supplement it with sort of like the equivalent of creel surveys

[Steve Rinella]

and a more fine tuned picture what's happening in the moment.

[Randall]

Yeah. And, and the result of that is that we're going to have, we, the, the hunting and fishing community, they're gonna have longer seasons. So like in Florida I think they're talking about a 39 day season. The Carolinas are looking like at a 60 day season.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay, can I have a question? Where the feds, like the feds were managing like under the assumption that there wasn't a lot of them and we shouldn't be taking a lot of them in the states are like there's actually a lot more of these things than, or is that not.

[Randall]

No, I think it was more, I think it was more that they just, I mean they didn't really know how many people were actually fishing for them. So like that's one of the change. So, so the bigger context is that this has already happened in the Gulf. Yeah, yeah. And so the South Atlantic states are sort of going to move to what's happening in the Gulf and that's been very successful. And part of the reason for that is that they're, they're keeping track of who's actually fishing for snapper. So they're, they're, I don't know if you'd call it a permit but like endorsements for snapper fishing. So they know, okay, all these guys that are buying saltwater licenses, this chunk of them are fishing for speckled trout and they're targeting inshore species and only this sliver of them is, are targeting red snapper and grouper and things like that. So, so essentially with more refined data they have a better sense of what the pressure on the resources.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Randall]

And they, you know, in some states, I think Louisiana, like they, some of them do weekly email updates and phone calls to people with the Snapper endorsement. Some states, I think Alabama, Mississippi, like they actually know how many are being caught because there's only a certain number of, of boat launches that people go out of Snapper. So it's, it's taking like the big unwieldy federal marine fisheries apparatus and, and handing it to the state so that the states can get better data and make better decisions for the resource and for anglers.

[Steve Rinella]

Cashier, an anecdote please. I've fished, I've fished A number of years, recently, a number of years in a row. Spearfishing for red snapper in Louisiana. And what's been surprising to me down there is like that adaptive management strategy, how fluid it is. Meaning when I was a kid growing up like in Michigan, you could spend your entire lifetime fishing under a management structure being that, you know, whatever the season starts this day, it ends this day, the bag limit is this many, the minimum weight, the minimum length is this. And decades go by.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

And it's just how it is.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right, Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Fish in Louisiana, it's like constantly being adjusted as the red snapper season. And like copia to be like there's like a vest. There's a changing vessel limit, there's changing opening day and closing day, there's changing closed days. As you realize that they're looking at these data sets and they're like opening, closing, opening, closing and playing it like it an, like an instrument.

[Brody Henderson]

It's like that in Washington too, isn't it? For a lot of stuff?

[Steve Rinella]

Well, yeah, it could, I'm not saying it's not. It could be. I just. That was an example that stuck to me. Like man, this is not like, this is like very up to date like what's going on and how are we like manipulating harvest And I'm sure there's

[Randall]

100 and it's similar to what they do with salmon like in Alaska.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Randall]

You know, like they, they have data and they're tracking pressure on the resource. But yeah, the, like the, the federal system is based on long term trends and an absence of real like find data. And so by giving it to the states, like they're going to be intercepting people at boat launches and like keeping track of how many days this week did you fish, how many fish did you get? And so I think everybody thinks it's a win win. There's probably some objections from the like Ocean Conservancy crowd who'd rather see like a more like tightly regulated marine fishery.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Randall]

And like they just don't really want like an open access fishery. I mean that's sort of the general speaking very generally. That's sort of what that crowd would like. But.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, it's the states, it's like this, it's the states to pull it off or not.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I mean, you know, if they run, if they, if they screw it up and they get too aggressive on harvest and they run them into the ground.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

There's very low incentive to do that because once you do that you're going to wind up Right back where you started.

[Randall]

Yeah. And I, I, I mean based on what I was told, I, I talked to a former colleague at TRCP this morning to just explain this all to me.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, man.

[Randall]

Randall doing like actual, oh, he's a good guy. I just like, I like to go in on the phone with him. Yeah, Chris Macaluso, good guy. And he, he was saying like, man, what's happening in the golf is great. It's great. And it's going to be a huge win for these states if this goes through. And I think most of the evidence points in the right direction here. So Florida, I think if this goes through, Florida would open Memorial Day weekend and they would have like a 39 day season and then maybe after that some weekends here and there. So CMAC was telling me that with a one or two day season, if the weather's not right, you know, people kind of want to go out there anyway. And this way anglers can pick their days and it sort of distributes the pressure more widely. And yeah, just a bit of bright news in landscape of Colorado fur bands and all this other junk.

[Steve Rinella]

Thank you for sharing.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

Spencer, I'm going to circle back to the muskrat thing first. This is from the Roman Catholic Church. The Lenten season has been observed from the onset of the church, although there have been inconsistencies with duration and practices. It goes on to talk about how different churches at different eras had different rules. And sometimes they had a fasting where you lived like a vegan. Sometimes they had a version where you could have a snack after 3pm Sometimes they had worship. Only Sundays are when you could eat meat. So whatever was going on with this Detroit parish that had resorted to eating hay, you'd imagine that their rules were that you couldn't eat meat for a certain amount of time, obviously long period, but you could eat fish. So that's, that's how that comes into play for them. I'm sure we already got 10 correction emails.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, you know what? I'm going to hit Randall with and get me a set of them boots. He said hunters and anglers will see longer seasons.

[Randall]

Did I say that or did I say we meaning the hunting and angling community?

[Brody Henderson]

Maybe he said hunters who are anglers, size 11.

[Phil Monahan]

Maybe Randall can correct your correction. I've got news from the Hawkeye State. Listen up, Iwegians. The Iowa DNR needs your help. They are seeking volunteers right now who will go listen for frog and toad calls this spring and summer. This is a survey they've been doing since 1991. Basically, what happens is volunteers drive around at night and they listen for amphibian vocalizations near wet areas. They then submit their findings via email to the dnr, and they ask that each volunteer spends about eight hours in total between April and July listening for frog and toad calls.

[Steve Rinella]

Hmm.

[Phil Monahan]

These surveys take place in rural and urban areas, so don't think that if you live in Des Moines or Sioux City that you're of no help. That they would love you to volunteer in 20. In 2020, five volunteers surveyed 900 different wetlands. The DNR said that they were thrilled with everyone's participation, but that there are three counties in 2026 that are most in need of volunteers. These three counties have not had a frog or toad or toad survey in years.

[Steve Rinella]

Come on.

[Phil Monahan]

Those are Ida, Henry, and Wright. So if you're in Ida Henry or Wright county, you're exactly who they want.

[Steve Rinella]

Load up the kids.

[Randall]

Your country needs you.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

They need an ebird app for amphibians.

[Phil Monahan]

I. I imagine that has to, like, be something they could make tomorrow.

[Steve Rinella]

The nice thing is I bugged him about that when I was at Cornell meeting with the people that developed the. Developed Merlin. I was like, you put all kinds of stuff in there.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep. Nice thing about this. You could go do some night fishing while you're.

[Phil Monahan]

I mean, listen, I. I would. I would. This is something I would say as a joke, but I mean it. Very earnest this time. This would be a great date night, right?

[Steve Rinella]

It would be, man.

[Phil Monahan]

Get a bottle Song drive response.

[Steve Rinella]

Hey, baby, I'll sing We go down to that big old swamp Bottle of wine what's the bullfrog?

[Brody Henderson]

Jug of rum Juggerum.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's a great. It's a great filter for your potential girlfriend or whatever.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right.

[Mark Kenyon]

If she's willing to do that. All right.

[Phil Monahan]

Skill to have to just be able to, you know, that's a good life skill that anybody could benefit from.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't think it would be a first date. No.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Maybe a blind date, and then that'd be a good blind date. But if you were dating, like, someone you kind of knew.

[Phil Monahan]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know. From the coffee shop, I could see that.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

But a blind date?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You don't want to.

[Randall]

That's not a thing up to the frog survey.

[Steve Rinella]

I know. Because you'd be like, no, no, no, no. Here's what happens, man. We're gonna go way out in that swamp.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, I guess that's a good point.

[Randall]

And close your eyes and listen.

[Phil Monahan]

Eventually this would become a euphemism. No one's gonna go, we're gonna go survey frogs tonight.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, yeah. If my like boy said he was going out to survey frogs, I mean. No, you're not.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, that's, that's like the hillbilly version.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

At Tractor Supply, they know the days are getting longer, warmer, and it's time to get back outside. Whether you're working the land, heading to the woods or getting back out on the water, Tractor Supply has new gear ready for the spring ahead. From new UTVs and zero turn mowers to truck accessories, tools and workwear, your life outdoors starts at Tractor Supply this spring.

[Steve Rinella]

You've heard about t mobile 5G home Internet. Mostly for how easy it is to set up and then the value that you get. But there's some more big news you should know about. They now have the fastest 5G home Internet speeds. That's right. T Mobile now has the fastest 5G home Internet. According to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. That makes backing up photos from your latest hunt, streaming a new documentary or pulling up a wild game recipe super quick. And yeah, it's a great value backed by a solid five year price guarantee. And setting it up is still as easy as it gets. You just plug it in and go. So if you want the fastest 5G home Internet with a simple setup at a great price, with savings that stick around, Get T Mobile 5G Home Internet. Head over to t-mobile.com home Internet to check availability, price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on OOKLA Speed Test intelligence Data over the second half of 2025. All rights reserved. Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly Auto Parts here in my hometown of Bozeman, Montana. Love those guys. Always nice, always helpful. They are in the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam, need your battery tested, windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fix, or a quick service. They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable helpful and best of all, friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit O'ReillyAuto.com me eater. That's O'ReillyAuto.com meater Now there are 16

[Phil Monahan]

different frogs and toads you'll be listening for if you're in Iowa. To learn how to identify these calls, you attend a virtual or in person workshop. Every workshop is currently full, besides the last one that takes place on April 13 in Okoboji. Now, why this is relevant, how many species? Sixteen.

[Steve Rinella]

I would not have guessed that.

[Phil Monahan]

Sixteen.

[Steve Rinella]

I would have said half as many.

[Phil Monahan]

Why it's relevant A recent USGS study predicts that in 20 years, amphibians will be gone from half of the places where they currently live. So this is a cool opportunity to do some citizen science. Help Iowa gather data on amphibians which are really sensitive to habitat loss, invasive species, pollution. But I want to test you guys now. I want to see how well you can do without any training at all. I'm going to tell you, hit me with the bullfrog. I'm going to point around three of the most common frog and toad calls, not only in Iowa, but in North America. You guys are going to guess what they are. So, Phil, play the first one for us.

[Randall]

That's a frog.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Got it. Spring peep.

[Phil Monahan]

If you know, I'll tell you. There's a spring peeper in the background. But that's not the forward call that you're hearing.

[Steve Rinella]

That's what I was talking about. There he is.

[Phil Monahan]

There are spring peepers. Like I said, that's not the forward.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know that guy.

[Brody Henderson]

A green frog.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, I was gonna guess.

[Steve Rinella]

Green frog. Sounds like a banjo.

[Phil Monahan]

No.

[Yanni]

Tree frog?

[Mark Kenyon]

No.

[Randall]

Is it a toad?

[Steve Rinella]

It is.

[Phil Monahan]

It's an American toad.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it.

[Phil Monahan]

That was an American toad.

[Steve Rinella]

Good job.

[Phil Monahan]

Here's how their call is described. High pitched trill that lasts about 15 seconds. Sounds like a sharp elongated cry.

[Steve Rinella]

Picture of the damn times.

[Phil Monahan]

Described as sounding like the bleat of a sheep. Now we're going to play it again. You can watch it make the call this time so you can see the American road. Spencer's on it.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh,

[Brody Henderson]

I remember those things.

[Steve Rinella]

I think I've stepped on those in my work.

[Brody Henderson]

In the spring when it would rain,

[Randall]

his throat looks like the nut jerky that that guy makes.

[Steve Rinella]

It looks a lot like that.

[Phil Monahan]

So that is the American.

[Yanni]

And that's one of those animals, like when you hear the sound and you see the animal, you don't put the two together.

[Mark Kenyon]

No, not at all.

[Steve Rinella]

All right, let's go on to number two.

[Phil Monahan]

Number two. Play it, Phil,

[Steve Rinella]

My old buddy. Yeah, like to eat him.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. You could find some good gigging spots taking this project, too.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Phil Monahan]

That.

[Brody Henderson]

That is a.

[Phil Monahan]

An American bullfrog. Their call is described as a deep and loud call. A sequence that sounds like it's saying juggle rum. Juggle rum.

[Steve Rinella]

Because you didn't get him really kicking ass on that little clip you had.

[Phil Monahan]

It resembles the moo of cattle, which is why they're called bullfrogs. Show us the clip again, Phil.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, yeah. Old Mr. Yellow Throat. The man with the yellow throat.

[Randall]

They're cool.

[Brody Henderson]

I used to catch those things with a fly.

[Steve Rinella]

Y. That's a. That's a low yield animal right there, man.

[Phil Monahan]

Yeah, Jug. All right, you guys got one out of two. Let's see. How you doing?

[Steve Rinella]

I think I'm about done, unfortunately. Play it on me.

[Randall]

Is that another toad?

[Mark Kenyon]

Grand frog.

[Phil Monahan]

Not a green frog, Tree frog? No, it is a leopard, specifically.

[Steve Rinella]

Dude, I just threw the house's name in front specifically.

[Phil Monahan]

That's a northern leopard frog. Their call is described as a deep, rattling snore that lasts two to three seconds, followed by a chuckling sound, like a heavy creaking door slowly open. Opening. Also sounds like two balloons being rubbed together.

[Steve Rinella]

Dude, that's great.

[Phil Monahan]

Play it again, Phil. Play it again, Phil.

[Mark Kenyon]

Man, I should have got these, right, because my son. Oh, sorry.

[Phil Monahan]

Damn. Mark. We're watching leopard.

[Randall]

I was gonna say you can talk now.

[Steve Rinella]

I think we got it.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. Come on, Spencer. He's up. My son's preschool had a frog night where they would take you out and we would review the sounds of all the frogs and then peruse this nature reserve that the school was on and try to identify and find the frogs by sound and cook them up. We didn't do that part.

[Phil Monahan]

For more information, go to Iowa dnr.gov or just Google the Iowa Frog and Toad Survey.

[Steve Rinella]

Hit me with the counties again where they need your help.

[Phil Monahan]

Ida, Henry and Wright. Ida, Henry and Wright.

[Steve Rinella]

Hey, grab your gigs.

[Phil Monahan]

This. This story is extra close to home for me because I own a frog and I, in an attempt to sex it, I played vocalizations in my house to see if it would call back. Because for frogs and toads, the vast, vast majority of calling that you hear is done by males. Females usually don't participate and So I have sexed my frog as a female because it's never participated in my calling sequences.

[Brody Henderson]

Didn't you end up with that thing like. Like by mistake?

[Phil Monahan]

Yes. My wife, this was two February's ago, February 2024, bought a rubber tree at Lowe's that she brought home. She was replanting it in our garage, and out of the roots came this frog that was like, I'm not kidding you, this big at the time. And so she called me, panicked, I think I was at the office here, and she said, what do I do? I'm like, well, I could. I could take care of it or we could keep it.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, and.

[Phil Monahan]

And she elected to keep it. And I've been a very good frog dad ever since.

[Randall]

I could take care of it or

[Steve Rinella]

I could take care of it.

[Brody Henderson]

You figured out if it's an illegal species to have?

[Phil Monahan]

No, it. It is. It is a Pacific chorus frog.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Here's.

[Phil Monahan]

Here is how I've determined that this frog came into our possession with no evidence at all. It's a Pacific chorus frog, also known as a Pacific tree frog. Their range stretches from, like, south Alaska to Northern California, but sort of the core of it, even a little bit, A little bit in very northwest Montana. The core of their range is Oregon. Oregon is the number one producer of Christmas trees in the country. Lowe's sells a lot of Christmas trees. I think this frog came in on a Christmas tree, bailed from that Christmas tree, crawled into the rubber tree that my wife bought two months later, and that's how it got home.

[Steve Rinella]

Man, if we could get that son bitch on the podcast, oh yeah, that'd be the best thing in the world.

[Phil Monahan]

It's a happy little frog. Phil's got a video of it. This is my. My Pacific chorus frog that lives in my living room room now. Oh, we can hear another podcast.

[Steve Rinella]

You're listening to something else.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Uhhuh.

[Phil Monahan]

Name is Sprout. It's.

[Steve Rinella]

That's great.

[Phil Monahan]

It's a female.

[Brody Henderson]

Back in the old days, I used to try to catch a large mouth.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Great segment. Yanni seal fingers. Very quick.

[Yanni]

Unbelievably good segment there. Had. It was fun.

[Randall]

This is the second episode in a row where the segment after me has received high praise.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's not us, it's you.

[Steve Rinella]

I just want to point that out. Yeah, that's a good point.

[Randall]

Once it goes around the horn and everybody's gotten praise except for me, that's when I'll take it to heart.

[Yanni]

I'm reporting on a thing called seal finger. The State of Alaska Section of epidemiology defines it as a finger infection associated with bites, cuts or scratches contaminated by the mouths, blood or blubber of certain marine mammals. The reason we're talking about it is because last fall, a young man that was skinning an Alaska brown bear contracted it. Not something new. It's been around for a long time, but I think it's been misdiagnosed. They didn't know a lot about it until just over, like, the last 10 to 15 years. Back in the day, seal hunters, coastal fishermen, everybody was extremely scared of it because the. The way to get rid of seal finger.

[Connor Hellebuck]

What?

[Steve Rinella]

Really?

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Like, it's coming for you.

[Yanni]

It's coming for you. Like, you're just gonna end up, like, it's gonna be stiff and plump for a while, and eventually they're gonna say, cut it off.

[Steve Rinella]

It's gonna spread. It's like gangrene.

[Mark Kenyon]

Man, that does not look good.

[Yanni]

Yeah. Oh, that's right. Here we go. We got some pictures of it.

[Brody Henderson]

You know what I keep thinking about is when we were at your shack last year and Heather brought them.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep.

[Brody Henderson]

Like, man handling those.

[Yanni]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Gotcha.

[Yanni]

Yeah. It's problematic because it's. When you first get it, it just. This is. I think these are case. The pictures are showing cases that have gone on for a while and become more extreme versions of the symptoms. Because in the beginning, it's going to be a scratch that has some inflammation, basically. Right. Or a cut with some inflammation. And so you go to the doctor and they're like, okay, here's some antibiotics, topical or whatever. Everything that I read about, people that got messed up about it was just this. They would leave and then 10 days later be like, oh, my God.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Yanni]

The. The young man that got it from the bear, he actually came back. Camera was two weeks, or he had a bunch of trips to the hospital, but at one point has like a fever and like an increased heart rate from. Can basically get into your bones and start like. Like making like this, like, very rapid arthritis come about. So the. The antibody that does. Antibiotic that does do it is doxycycline. So the most common people that actually get it now are people that like scuba divers, people that work in zoos, that mess with marine animals that could get bitten or whatever. And if that happens, say, at a zoo, I forget which zoo it was, but they basically said if you get bit there, you get handed a letter. So when you go to the hospital, they know how to deal with it and be like, don't Give them the regular antibiotics because it ain't gonna do nothing. Like, you need to make sure you're giving these antibiotics.

[Steve Rinella]

You ever see. I think I got my wallet.

[Brody Henderson]

I got a question for you on a Stafford. Steve asks this important question.

[Yanni]

It's like a magic trick or what?

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, man. It's like this card. Oh, you keep it in your wallet by your id. They gave it to me at a, they gave it to me at the, at Cornell. And it says like, hey, heads up, man. This guy's into all kinds of weird stuff.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, you're like a high risk individual.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, man.

[Mark Kenyon]

Wow.

[Steve Rinella]

It's like if you, if you fiddle around hunting and stuff all the time or whatever or doing like what you're talking about. It says, take note, check in for all the weird stuff. Well, you probably have it gave that to you.

[Mark Kenyon]

How do we get our hands on those?

[Yanni]

You probably have instances where had you had this card previously, it would have helped. Right.

[Steve Rinella]

I've had to go in and tell a guy I had a thing and he had never heard of it. And he wrote it down and left the room for a while.

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, Yanis. Yeah, the bear. Do they think that it's always been in bears or bears pick it up for meat and rotten seals?

[Yanni]

The latter, yeah. Oh, coastal brown bears scavenging, you know, hard to say exactly. The, the hunter did say that his knife had come in contact with the bear's mouth and teeth prior to him getting the cut. But again, I mean he skinned the entire animal. So it's hard to say exactly where, what, what, how.

[Steve Rinella]

What's interesting about these kind of, these, this ailment and things like tick borne infections is the, the delay.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Is long enough where I bet oftentimes people will not put it together.

[Yanni]

No, I don't think there's a delay.

[Steve Rinella]

You said obviously it could be 10 days.

[Yanni]

Well, I, I think that you're getting symptoms immediately.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, you do?

[Yanni]

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. Like you're getting this pain and the swelling, but, but it's going to start doing worse things as it goes.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, but it could probably be mistaken for just like, oh, it's just scratch that.

[Yanni]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then it gets problematic because it's been, it's been misdiagnosed or the wrong antibiotics been given to it. Now I called Heather deville who lives in a marine environment, talks to a lot of people that, you know, mess around with these animals. She herself, I think last year killed like 125 sea otters. She has not like, doesn't know anybody has no first or secondhand experience. And when she went around and asked a few people about it, they're like,

[Connor Hellebuck]

never heard of it.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, okay.

[Yanni]

So it doesn't sound like it's very common.

[Steve Rinella]

That's why you come here to get the relevant news.

[Yanni]

Yeah. You know, State of Alaska recommends wearing nitrile gloves and maybe even cut proof gloves if you're going to be, you know, dealing with, with, you know, seals, sea lions, otters, that sort of thing. But yeah, because like you said, you'd mess around with a bunch of crazy stuff. There's chances that you, you could end up with some crazy speaking. It's not common.

[Steve Rinella]

Great job, Yanni.

[Brody Henderson]

Speaking of messing with stuff, are you okay if I read this to the, to the.

[Steve Rinella]

No, because we're low on time.

[Phil Monahan]

Did you get before or after Covid that card?

[Steve Rinella]

After or before? I don't know.

[Randall]

I think it'd be better if it's a punch card like at a coffee shop. So when you get all that weird, they just.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's pretty good.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. I was gonna do a big report on record setting cat prices, but in the interest of time, I'm not going to. However, if you happen to be catching yourself near, you know, messing around on YouTube, I invite you to go watch our video called Steve and Seth Get Rich off Bobcats in there. We go to a bobcat sale. At that sale, we cover what we got for some cats and what my buddy Mercer got from some cats. What we didn't mention in there is that the top cat at that auction went for 2, $800. Then the next auction a week later in Idaho, a cat went for. Drum roll please. Oh, I wasn't ready for this. 3,500 bucks.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Noise again.

[Steve Rinella]

3,500 bucks. On to Mark Kenyon.

[Mark Kenyon]

All right, I've got two pieces of news. In the interest of time, I'll try to keep it pretty brief, but a little bit of controversy in the Internet related to some comments from our Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum at a blackrock summit about infrastructure. He answered a question and insinuated in this response that those who are concerned about protecting our public lands and worried about resource extraction on them that they are not financially literate.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, that's the problem. Yeah. So if I just read up more on economics, I would, I would be much happier to see us run out of wild places and clean water. It's just that I'm dumb about the money.

[Mark Kenyon]

Exactly. That, that's, that's why. Been a little bit Unhappy about that one, but I think it's great that he brought this up because it gives us a very, very good excuse to talk about the incredible financial implications of outdoor recreation and conservation of our public lands. A report just came out last week that showed that the outdoor recreation economy is now driving a record $1.3 trillion of economic impact. $1.3 trillion of economic Impact. Much of that obviously depends on federal public lands.

[Steve Rinella]

Did you see me get uncomfortable for a minute?

[Mark Kenyon]

I did, but let me know when

[Connor Hellebuck]

you hear me out.

[Steve Rinella]

Want to know why?

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yep.

[Mark Kenyon]

Hear me out. Take it back to last fall. Another study came out that looked at what they can tie directly to federal public lands, and that was $128 billion a year directly tied to outdoor recreation on federal public lands alone. That's $315 million of economic impact a day. From the ripple effects, the trickle out effect of outdoor recreation of all types of. What does that acre? That's a great question. I'm not good at that in math. So if you look at that compared to the other, the other ways that we make money or that there's economic impact from our public lands, it's interesting. Obviously resource extraction on our multiple use public lands is important. There's strong value there, like the Secretary was speaking about. But if you look at the GDP contribution of outdoor recreation, 2.4% of the entire US GDP tied to outdoor recreation, that is more than double gas and oil. That's more than mining. Mining's contribution is 1.5%. Oil and gas, a 0.9% contribution to the entire GDP of the United States. So very, very high.

[Yanni]

But if we drilled more on those public lands, we can make that number go up.

[Steve Rinella]

That's why, that's why I, that's why I don't like, I, I, I appreciate what you're saying, but if someone came to me and said, hey, I did some math, your kids are actually costing you money.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, I would be like, well, get them sons of out of here. It's like some things are bigger than that. So I understand when people do it. But if you came to me and said, oh, you know, we ran the numbers, public lands, clean air, clean water, all that stuff is costly. I'd be like, cool, I don't care. Yep. So it's like, I get it, but I also, you know what I mean? I don't, I don't want to like engage. I don't, I don't necessarily feel like engaging in the financial conversation of it because if someone proved the opposite it wouldn't change my opinion. So I feel like it's disingenuous to act like that's why I'm interested in wilderness.

[Mark Kenyon]

Well, I think the key is that you bring that as just one part of the conversation. Like, hey, here's this. And then there's also. What about the ecosystem services of those landscapes, like what they are providing that I should have found this. But there is some data they've been trying to actually quantify what the economic value is that clean air provides. Like if we had to filter the air, the equivalent that our trees do, or if we had to clean water instead of, you know, the forest filtering through that or whatever it might be, what would that cost us to replace that with technology?

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Mark Kenyon]

It's insane.

[Yanni]

And it has to be a part of the rebuttal to someone saying, right, you're financially.

[Brody Henderson]

It has to be that because those people aren't interested in the social value of those lands.

[Steve Rinella]

I understand, I understand, I understand. I'm just sharing privately here.

[Mark Kenyon]

I'm with you. I'm 100. I'm 100 with you.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm private. I'm sharing privately. Why that makes me nervous.

[Mark Kenyon]

So I hate to do this too, but we got to talk money one more time, please. This is a little bit of. And you could look at this as bad news like some of the other things we've talked about or good depends on, I guess, if you're glass half full or half empty guy. But there is a situation, a threat slash opportunity in central North Carolina that is worth getting on people's radar. There is a reservoir on the Yadkin River. It's called the Tucker Town Reservoir. And on either side of that reservoir there has historically been a bunch of public land lands open to the public to hunt and fish. These have been privately owned lands by Alcoa and they leased that to the North Carolina Fish and Wildlife Service to keep that open to the public. Recently they've decided they can no longer do that. They are selling these lands, putting them on the open market and going to be putting them up for sale. So right now that's 4,000 acres of historically open to the public hunting and fishing land that could potentially be sold off and be taken out of public access.

[Steve Rinella]

That's the half empty part.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's the half empty part. The half full part is that there has been a really strong push by local land trust and a number of other partners now looking to try to build a campaign of interest not just in North Carolina, but across the country to buy These lands and then donate them to the state to be public land officially and in perpetuity. And so starting to get some interest and some steam. You can go to trlt.org or just, just Google save Tucker Town. Tucker Town is the campaign kind of name around this. It's very interesting. I think it was a great opportunity here for the public to jump in and make a difference here. And I can tease for you that we, meat eater and our partners, Onx are brainstorming and spitballing and working on a way to help out as well. So stay tuned on that front. But I'm looking at this as a glass half full because I think we can make a difference.

[Yanni]

I bet you there's a few turkeys.

[Mark Kenyon]

Oh, yeah, there's turkeys, there's bass.

[Steve Rinella]

God, I hope there's no church right there. I mean, not real close.

[Randall]

I've talked to these. I've talked to the Three Rivers Land Trust before and it's just. It sounds like a really great group. And they have a huge hunting program, like a hunting access program through private landowners. And so, yeah, like, like, I'm glad that we're getting behind it because I know that they, they follow our stuff and, and they're working great for hunters and anglers.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yep. So it's a good one. We'll have more on that on our front here soon. But in the meantime, check it out. Donate. It's a good cause.

[Steve Rinella]

Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Canyon. Thanks for coming by, Mark. Hell of a segment. Sorry, Randall. I mean, you know, I like that segment.

[Randall]

I've lost my fastball, guys.

[Steve Rinella]

Fast, thorough. Wonderful segment.

[Brody Henderson]

You got any tips for Randall before we go?

[Steve Rinella]

Go later in the show?

[Randall]

I think. A little more polished too, I think.

[Steve Rinella]

I think it might be a sequencing thing.

[Randall]

Did you like Yannis?

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Great job.

[Randall]

And the fur band too.

[Steve Rinella]

I could have seen. I could have used a little more passion.

[Brody Henderson]

Well, I got delayed so long.

[Steve Rinella]

Table beaten.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Little table beating.

[Randall]

I took notes on everybody else. So maybe next. Maybe next week.

[Steve Rinella]

Randall has. Notes are like passion.

[Randall]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Table beating. Go later.

[Randall]

I mean, I can't argue with any of that.

[Brody Henderson]

Shake your fist.

[Steve Rinella]

Let's don't change anything. Just try going later once and see if you get.

[Randall]

We just tune the variable people figure out what the special sauce is.

[Steve Rinella]

Because if you go later and no one says anything, they were like, it wasn't that.

[Randall]

I just can't wait for the angry DMS on Instagram this week. Tell me to just disappear and I'll

[Brody Henderson]

make sure you're like, you Know, it

[Steve Rinella]

could be good, too. Were you. Were you more assigned these, or did you more bring.

[Phil Monahan]

He didn't pick his passion topic.

[Steve Rinella]

Like, I didn't.

[Brody Henderson]

Randall hasn't jumped in with, like. I want that one.

[Steve Rinella]

See Spencer over here.

[Yanni]

You seem to come up with your own news.

[Randall]

I've been distracted.

[Phil Monahan]

I'm doing the herpetology department over here.

[Mark Kenyon]

That's your beat?

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Spencer's kind of like he's bringing his own news.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm not reporting on stuff I didn't. I'm reporting on my own news.

[Randall]

Maybe I'll do that stuff that catches my eye.

[Steve Rinella]

Or we just keep giving Randall duds that you don't like.

[Randall]

I thought Neanderthals was going to be great. I thought that would kill, you know,

[Yanni]

I mean, especially when you had an AI image of yourself as a Neanderthal.

[Randall]

Yeah, because if you.

[Steve Rinella]

I know, but it was too quick. I wasn't paying attention. If it was later when I started waking up, I've been like, that's a hell of a segment, Randall.

[Randall]

I need to aim name for, like, the 11:45, 12:30 tapings.

[Yanni]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

We'll take Steve's blood levels and measure the. The peaks and valleys.

[Randall]

It'd be good.

[Steve Rinella]

All right.

[Yanni]

Another reminder. Check out Kimmy's book. I was flipping through it. There's. There's a lot of. Also venison and. And red meat recipes in here. It's not only seafood. Not that you said it was.

[Mark Kenyon]

I know, but.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I was.

[Mark Kenyon]

Yeah. Okay.

[Steve Rinella]

Good job.

[Yanni]

But there's a lot of good stuff in here.

[Connor Hellebuck]

I'm gonna.

[Steve Rinella]

He nailed another.

[Yanni]

I'm gonna get one.

[Phil Monahan]

He's getting greedy.

[Connor Hellebuck]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Once again. Let me. Let me see that book. Let's just finish big. Let's finish big on Kimmy's book. Once again, Kimmy's Kitchen An Ocean Woman's Guide to Wild Home Cooking by Kimmy Werner. Kimmy's Kitchen a cookbook. Check her out. Check her out. When you flew out the window into

[Yanni]

the sunset, I thought I would never stop screaming.

[Steve Rinella]

I thought I would never stop screaming your name. But I ran out of breath, so I took in some more, and I started to scream even louder. Hey. As outdoorsmen, we always spend a lot of time thinking about how we interact with the land, how we care for the land. But then yard care, like your lawn care, defaults to chemical heavy routines. The tree. Every yard the same. Well, Sunday offers a different model. They begin by understanding your soil and local climate, then build a customized yard plan designed specifically for your environment. Their products rely on nutrient dense ingredients like seaweed, molasses and iron rather than harsh synthetic chemicals. Everything arrives at your door and connects to a hose, simplifying what has traditionally been a complicated trial and error process. It's a more targeted, more thoughtful approach to caring for the space just outside your home. Less guesswork, less excess. Fewer unnecessary treatments. If you're curious what your yard actually needs and prefer a smarter way to support it, Sunday makes that process remarkably straightforward. Go to getsunday.com to get your free custom yard analysis. That's getsunday.com Man, I'm telling you what, When I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly Auto Parts here in my hometown of Bozeman, Montana. Love those guys. Always nice, always helpful. They are in the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam. Need your battery tested, windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or a quick service? They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all, friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit O'ReillyAuto.com me eater that's O'ReillyAuto.com meater when you're in the backcountry, don't forget your own backcountry. Keep it pristine and confidently clean by bringing along Wet Wet Extra Large Dude Wipes. Just like your truck gets muddy out in the wild soaking your butt, you'd never clean your vehicle with dry paper towels, so why would you clean your butt with dry toilet paper? Wetter cleans better, so ditch the itch and switch from TP to Wet Extra Large Dude Wipes. Dude Wipes it is the best clean. Pants down. They're available at Amazon. That's where I usually order mine from, but you get them at Walmart Nationwide. Fantastic product. Proud to be doing ads for these boys at Dude Wipes. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.