Ep. 857: Turkey Season Changes, the Death Valley Super Bloom, and Bad Poachers

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast — Ep. 857: Turkey Season Changes, the Death Valley Super Bloom, and Bad Poachers

Host: Steven Rinella & Crew
Release Date: April 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The MeatEater Podcast is a classic "news show" roundtable, where host Steven Rinella and his regular crew (Max Barda, Nate Mason, Spencer Newhart, Brody Henderson, and others) dive deep into current stories and debates from the outdoors world. Major topics include: wild (and sometimes hilarious) spearfishing adventures, spring turkey season updates and regulation changes, the fascinating Death Valley super bloom, a creative TSS (Tungsten Super Shot) cost-benefit analysis, poaching busts in North Dakota, quirky food experiments (deer testicle jerky!), and a contemporary look at North American moose taxonomy. The episode is filled with humor, friendly ribbing, informative discussion, and a few notable corrections.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Moray Eel and Grouper Spearfishing Adventure

[01:44–08:48]

• Steve recounts a Bahamas spearfishing trip with families and legendary spearfisherman Cameron Kirkconnell.
• The epic “hole hunting” for grouper: tracking, wrestling, and trying to extricate a 30-lb black grouper from intricate coral caves.
• Dramatic encounter with a massive moray eel trying to claim the wounded grouper, nearly resulting in injury.
• Lessons about the dangers of eels, spearfishing methods, and how wounded fish can attract underwater chaos.
• Quote: “That eel just keeps coming and coming, and...he knows that troubles are brewing. They're like sharks.” (Steven, 05:00)

2. Biking and Fly Fishing in Yellowstone

[08:48–11:51]

• Spencer’s attempt at a spring bike-fishing adventure in Yellowstone thwarted by seasonal closures and early runoff.
• The park only has 5% of waters open to angling this time of year, aimed at protecting native spawners.
• Despite no fishing success, quirky wildlife observations (bison, elk, coyote, muskrat) and a muskrat “floating the current” with finesse.
• Quote: “The fishing was so bad that it was just a bike trip.” (Spencer, 10:27)

3. Turkey Season Updates, Gear, and Contests

[12:00–16:33]

• Spring turkey season (“Turkey Week”) hype, featuring gear recommendations and a high-value store giveaway.
• Exclusive turkey call reviews, with Steve’s “low-pressure cut” for novice callers.
• Discussion of a photo contest for odd-colored “smoke phase” turkeys, supporting Dr. Chamberlain’s wild turkey genetics research.
• Quote: “My cut is meant for dudes who just want to make good turkey sounds. And they're not like going to be out of competition…” (Steven, 13:55)

4. On Campus Wildlife & Duck Hen Houses

[18:27–24:18]

• At the MeatEater office’s pond, Max proposes installing duck “hen houses” to improve mallard nesting success—citing 60% greater survivability for ducklings.
• Educational discussion on revolutionary waterfowl nesting technology, its impact, and tips for aspiring duck raisers.

5. Letters from Listeners & Lambs Named After Crew

[41:01–43:08]

• Heartwarming, handwritten letter from 12-year-old listener Easton, complete with hunting stories and the revelation that his 4H show lambs are named “Steve and Brody.”
• Encouragement for the community to support young outdoor enthusiasts.

6. Fundraising Success for Alaska Hunting Raffles

[43:26–45:18]

• Update on record-breaking fundraising for Alaska goat and bison hunting raffles—accessible, big-money conservation tools.

7. Corrections Segment: "Kickers for Nitpickers"

[25:41–40:57]

• Humorous, competitive review of listener-submitted corrections, focusing especially on TSS (Tungsten Super Shot) shotgun ammunition.
  • Misstatements about tungsten’s density and heat resistance.
  • Clarifications on chronic wasting disease (CWD) resistance in deer.
  • The difference between law/regulation around Colorado’s fur ban.
• Highlight: “Osmium super shot” jokingly pitched as denser than TSS, with robust debates about how precise corrections really need to be.
• Quote: “If it was 2x as Brody claimed, it would be the densest naturally occurring material on earth...But it's not.” (Steven, 32:28)

8. Food Experiment: Eating Dried Deer Testicle Jerky

[46:07–50:06]

• Segment where the crew samples listener-sent deer testicle jerky alongside “normal” jerky. Reviews range from “off-putting finish” to “not the worst I’ve had,” to outright disgust.
• Quote: “I wouldn’t need to eat that ever again.” (Spencer, 48:38)

9. Spring Turkey Season Changes — Montana’s New 10-Day Rule

[52:03–59:16]

• Montana’s new Senate Bill 514 gives residents a 10-day head start on hunting upland game birds (including turkeys and pheasants) on public and special-access private lands.
• Contextualized as part of a West-wide trend to balance growing resident demand with outfitter economics and nonresident opportunities, all while protecting agency funding.
• Discussion on how residents feel versus nonresidents, and speculation if such regulations could escalate to big game in the future.
• Quote: “Nonresident licenses keep the lights on at the fish and game agency.” (Steven, 57:05)

10. TSS Price Explosion and the "TSS Test” Website

[61:08–75:21]

• With TSS shells skyrocketing (due to military tungsten demand and global shortages), Nate and Phil create the “TSS Test,” a tongue-in-cheek website to see if spending $17 per shot is really justified for the “common man.”
• Interactive walkthrough: input your hunt scenario and see if TSS is worth it (often...it’s not!).
• Quote: “Can I justify buying TSS for 15, 17, 20 bucks a shell?...I polled a number of seasoned turkey hunters from across the US and basically asked, what's the average range at which a turkey presents the shot to you?” (Phil, 64:06)

11. Death Valley Super Bloom

[76:45–82:49]

• Spencer breaks down the rare Super Bloom event in Death Valley (2026)—aesthetic, ecological, and evolutionary significance.
• Explains that super blooms occur every ~10 years following wet winters, with seeds lying dormant beneath salty soils in the interim. The bloom echoes “predator swamping” strategies, overwhelming pollinators just as mass nesting overwhelms predators.
• Quote: “It's the lowest, driest and hottest place on the continent. But thanks to a rare, perfect storm of conditions, you get this explosion of wildflowers.” (Spencer, 77:38)

12. North Dakota Bad Poachers: The DeFoe Brothers

[82:51–88:04]

• Nate reports on the recent bust of Tatum and Tyler DeFoe: law enforcement found 30+ deer remains, three bull elk, and a moose with antlers in a North Dakota home. No big game licenses found for the animals.
• Side discussion of poaching, the difficulty of enforcement, and the difference between “deadheads” found naturally and illegal take.
• Quote: “I think this article, when it says elk heads, I think it's like a mounted taxidermy, not a European mount deadhead.” (Nate, 85:47)

13. Moose Taxonomy — Shiras Moose Under the Microscope

[88:04–97:53]

• Steven shares new scientific findings: the Shiras moose (formerly considered a distinct subspecies) is now understood to be an ecological (not genetic) variant, with size and appearance shaped mostly by habitat and nutrition—not isolation during glaciation.
• Explains wider implications for understanding taxonomy of North American big game and how evolving genetics is reshaping old assumptions.
• Quote: “All you’re seeing is...distinct habitat and nutrition...all these different moose, Yukon, Canada, Shiras, when you look at them, you see the differences, but they’re not genetically distinct.” (Steven, 91:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Moray Eel Tale: "That eel just keeps coming and coming...He knows that troubles are brewing." — Steven, [05:00]
• Turkey Call Wisdom: “My cut is meant for dudes who just want to make good turkey sounds.” — Steven, [13:55]
• Hunting Regulation Reality: “Nonresident licenses keep the lights on at the fish and game agency.” — Steven, [57:05]
• On Eating Testicle Jerky: “I wouldn’t need to eat that ever again.” — Spencer, [48:38]
• TSS Economics: “Can I justify buying TSS for 15, 17, 20 bucks a shell?...I polled a number of seasoned turkey hunters…” — Phil, [64:06]
• Super Bloom as Predator Swamp: “The Death Valley super bloom only happens about every 10 years...it’s similar to predator swamping.” — Spencer, [77:54]
• Moose Revelation: “All you’re seeing is...distinct habitat and nutrition.” — Steven, [91:59]

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Segment Timestamps

• Moray Eel Story: [01:44–08:48]
• Yellowstone Bike/Fish Trip: [08:54–11:51]
• Turkey Season Gear, Contests: [12:00–16:33]
• Pond/Hen House Project: [18:27–24:18]
• Corrections/Kickers for Nitpickers: [25:41–40:57]
• Listener Letter & Lambs: [41:01–43:08]
• Alaska Raffle Update: [43:26–45:18]
• Deer Nut Jerky Tasting: [46:07–50:06]
• Montana 10-Day Turkey Rule: [52:03–59:16]
• TSS Test Site Demo: [61:08–75:21]
• Death Valley Super Bloom: [76:45–82:49]
• ND Poaching Bust: [82:51–88:04]
• Moose Genetics: [88:04–97:53]

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, irreverent, humorous.
• Deep knowledge mixed with friendly debate and teasing.
• Accessible and inviting for both hardcore hunters and curious newcomers.

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Final Thoughts

Whether you’re prepping for turkey season, pondering rare fish-eel conflicts, visiting Death Valley, or following evolving wildlife science, this episode delivers the usual combination of practical wisdom, entertainment, and natural wonder that defines The MeatEater Podcast. Regular reminders of why a grounded, curious approach to the outdoors remains so rewarding.

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Transcript

[Steven Rinella]

This is an iheart podcast.

[Max Barda]

Guaranteed human ahoy, turkey hunters. Turkey week is on now at the meat eater store to help you get ready this spring, we've rounded up some of our favorite gear for chasing gobblers. From Miriam's out west to hard goblin easterns. We've got brand new meat eater logo wear and seasonings. Turkey calls from Phelps, camo from First Light, decoys from DSD power packs and accessories from FHF gear and a whole lot more. Select products are up to 20% off. From the field to the kitchen, everything you need this spring is all in one place. We've also teamed up with First Light to create the ultimate spring turkey giveaway worth over $13,000. From now until Sunday, you get double entries for every $25 spent. The that's 20 entries for every $25 spent at the Meater store dot com. Check it out now through April 5th at store theme eater dot com.

[Steven Rinella]

Welcome to the news show. On this week's show we got an

[Max Barda]

interesting tale about a big ass.

[Steven Rinella]

More a eel. Spencer Newharth can't ride a bike and fish at the same time.

[Max Barda]

Testicle jerky news. Our shirus moose going away, but not

[Steven Rinella]

in the way you think. Poachers get serious in North Dakota and Max gets serious about reporting on those poachers. Spencer Newhart stops to tell the flowers. Get it?

[Brody Henderson]

We'll see if we get it.

[Steven Rinella]

Nate Mason has a report on TSS and more. But first, the moray eel.

[Nate Mason]

Let's hear it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, this is the R news. Listen to this. We were down in the we went to the Bahamas for spring break, folks who watched the show. We filmed the episode some time ago with Cameron Kirkconnell and Cameron Kirkconnell. If you're such a listener that you listen to our close calls story stories, the close call series. There's a close calls where a guy, spear fisherman, shoots another spear fisherman in the fin who's passed out, he's blacked out. Shallow water blackout and he's sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Cameron Konnell is able to get close enough to him. He's on his way up and he sees his buddy sinking, dying. And he shoots him in the fin with a spear gun. And then they were able to hoist him up and they resuscitate him and save his life. Wow. We're with him and his family, my family, his family in the Bahamas spearfishing. And we were primarily hole hunting. Like you go down there, you just kind of go over the reefs. You kick or drift in the current over the reefs. And now and then you'll catch a hogfish out doing his business. But you spook a lot of groupers. And when you spook a grouper, you just follow them. And that grouper is going to move and move and he'll go into a hole, but he won't like it. And he'll leave the hole, he'll try another hole. He'll go into a hole and a little grouper will come out of the hole. Then he'll come out of the hole and eventually you follow him, follow him, follow him and he'll find a hole and they'll hold up and you hover over the hole until you're like he's in that hole. And then you start hole hunting them. And it could turn into. Chasing them into a hole is one thing, Killing them is a whole other thing. And then getting them back out of the hole is a whole other thing. So it, it turns into like a real. It could turn into a real fist fight. So my kid goes down, we get a big black grouper in a hole. My kid goes down and it was a 30 pound grouper. My kid goes down and like glances it in the head, but doesn't. Like wings in the head, but doesn't even hurt it. Cam's kid goes down and gets at the tail. It's fighting around and all of a sudden and I go down to try to get it out, but the spear shaft has pulled free the grouper's tail. The grouper comes out of that hole and goes into a new hole. Cam's down with his flashlight trying to look around and find them in this new. It's like some of these things are like Tora Bora. I don't know if you remember back to the war in Afghanistan. They're like the Tora Bora cave complex. You're appreciating.

[Phil]

Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Nate Mason's appreciating. Oh. Joined today by Max Barda, Nate Mason. Cring neiders here. Spencer Newhart, Brody Henderson. So he's down looking around with his light and I see he's like looking into one hole and it's this Tora Bora complex. And some of these holes have chimneys in them. And you could sometimes you get them into a hole and you'll sometimes peer into a chimney and locate them. He's got his head and his. He's to his waist in a hole. Looking around is 30ft of water. So I'm on the surface and I

[Max Barda]

see a more eel.

[Steven Rinella]

The likes of which, I mean, like, this eel just keeps coming and coming and coming, and he. Because he knows that troubles are brewing. They're like sharks. Like, he knows a big one, though. Yeah, he knows what's up.

[Nate Mason]

How big you think?

[Steven Rinella]

How big? Yeah, probably six feet long. Big around is your big around as your thigh. I mean, like, enough of a one. He comes, and also he enters the same. Not the same entrance that cams in, but another entrance to the same hole. My boy dives down to alert him, because they'll bite you. And as my boy is descending to alert him, Cam's coming up. But I can tell by his body language, he doesn't know he didn't encounter the eel. He's coming up casually. Okay. He comes up casually, like, oh, my God, dude, I thought you're gonna get bit in the face.

[Max Barda]

That big eel went into the cave complex. He have it?

[Steven Rinella]

I don't know. I'm just hanging around. Like, I don't. You know, this guy's the master. He's, you know, one of. One of the. Like, this is gonna sound like. Like he's among the top handful of spear fishermen that there are. Okay. So he's like, oh, he's in the hole. And he says, that grouper's coming out, and we're just hovering there. And a while later, here comes a crab out of that hole that doesn't like being in that hole. And my boy goes down and gets the crab. And we wait a while and wait a while, and sure enough, that here comes that grouper out, substantially more wounded, like, was getting mauled. Was getting mauled in the hole by the eel.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Wow.

[Steven Rinella]

And he's not in a good. He's not in a good place.

[Brody Henderson]

So that thing was just down there taking chunks out of him.

[Spencer Newhart]

You know what we need after getting shot twice.

[Steven Rinella]

So then we went down and shot. Then we went and shot the grouper for real. Then he went into another hole.

[Spencer Newhart]

Wow.

[Steven Rinella]

And then I was able to wrestle him out of that hole, but he was not camp just Cam set. Just, like, instantly, he's like, oh, he's coming out. You know how you got, like, bird dogs? Yeah.

[Phil]

You need, like, grouper eels?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Phil]

Train them.

[Steven Rinella]

That's a good idea. If you had an eel in your pocket and that grouper goes into that network, and you just. Sick boy.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Garrett Humphrey]

You can't. You can you spear a moray eel? I don't know. I've seen.

[Steven Rinella]

I've talked to people that have done it. You got your hands full when you do that. I've been told.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

I can't even imagine what it would be like to have Cam said in a. In an extreme situation. Because Bahamas is pole spear only. You can't use a spear gun. So it's all pole spears. But they have slip tips on them like a harpoon head, a detachable head. He said if you had to and you were protecting yourself, you might. But you're just probably just gonna forget about your spear. Like you're not gonna get it.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And this thing, I mean. No. I've been bit by those suckers. They hurt, man.

[Spencer Newhart]

How'd the grouper taste?

[Steven Rinella]

No, I didn't eat that particular grouper, but I think. Brody, did you eat a bit of grouper flay that was kind of missing a chunk on the tail?

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. The mauled in.

[Brody Henderson]

You could see where it was messed up.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You enjoyed it?

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, yes.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Spencer Newhart]

That thing had the like dark cutter equivalent end of life.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't think that works on fish.

[Spencer Newhart]

Wildly stress. Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Because all fish die like stressed out.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I don't think that words reel them or not. Sure. But he had. Yeah, he had a good. We.

[Max Barda]

We.

[Steven Rinella]

We messed with that fish for probably 45 minutes. Damn.

[Spencer Newhart]

What an adventure though.

[Steven Rinella]

They turned into some wrestling matches, man. All right. You did. You did a bicycle trip, Spencer?

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah, I've been. I've been working on planning this for like a month. Just getting my. My gear ready for it. I was going to bike and fly fish at the same time. The fly fishing was no good though. I was in Yellowstone national park this time of year. 95% of their water is closed to angling.

[Steven Rinella]

So why is that?

[Nate Mason]

Spawning purposes or not?

[Spencer Newhart]

I think to protect some native spawners. Just to like in general give fish a break down there. I don't think it's uncommon. Even in like Montana on non national park.

[Steven Rinella]

What is. Is there like an opening day or something?

[Spencer Newhart]

There is an opening day. Yep. That comes around in May, I think for most of the water. But other parts have different openers. Anyway, only like 5% of water is open right now, so I was going to bike into there as well as like probably 80% of their roads are closed as well.

[Steven Rinella]

Did Mrs. New Harsh come with you?

[Spencer Newhart]

No, no.

[Steven Rinella]

Solo.

[Spencer Newhart]

Me and. Me and a buddy from town here was fixing to bike and fly.

[Steven Rinella]

I never got a.

[Spencer Newhart]

You don't like.

[Steven Rinella]

I like to say no. I like to be able to say

[Spencer Newhart]

he would take his ebike next time. Next time.

[Steven Rinella]

I like to be able to say no.

[Spencer Newhart]

So I. I biked in, started fishing. The fishing was no good. Runoff has started a little early this year. That like 5% of water that I could fish. It was just too dirty, too turbid. Couldn't. Couldn't turn up any fish. Had one.

[Steven Rinella]

So when you pitched this segment, I think Brody pitched it on your behalf.

[Spencer Newhart]

Well, it was.

[Steven Rinella]

It was in anticipation of all the fish you were going to catch.

[Spencer Newhart]

Oh, yeah, man, it was going to be good. I was gonna get.

[Steven Rinella]

So it was gonna be lights out. Yeah.

[Spencer Newhart]

I was gonna be so distracted with fishing that it was just gonna be a fishing trip. It wasn't gonna be anymore. The other thing happened, the fishing was so bad that it was just a bike trip. So I ended up biking 48 miles.

[Nate Mason]

Oh, really?

[Spencer Newhart]

On this weekend, you know, probably spent four hours fishing with no fish caught.

[Steven Rinella]

Not a nibble.

[Spencer Newhart]

There was a nibble. I had a trout offer at a streamer. Had him on for probably 1 1/2 seconds and he was gone.

[Nate Mason]

Long distance release.

[Spencer Newhart]

Long distance release.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Spencer Newhart]

Couldn't. Couldn't even identify.

[Steven Rinella]

Did you see anything crazy?

[Spencer Newhart]

Crazy? No. Bison. I mean, what you'd expect to see in Yellowstone.

[Brody Henderson]

No. No dead critters laying in.

[Spencer Newhart]

River critter.

[Brody Henderson]

Bears on top of.

[Spencer Newhart]

No, I was ready for bears, though. They had bears show up earlier this year. Five days sooner.

[Steven Rinella]

My neighbor just had one in his garbage. Couldn't believe it already.

[Spencer Newhart]

Bison, elk, coyote, muskrat. Just some standard yellow.

[Steven Rinella]

Saw some scratch. Did you?

[Spencer Newhart]

One, one. We got a good view of him because I was on a bridge looking down, and I never seen them do this before, but at one point he spent probably like 30 seconds. He just gave himself to the current and floated down the current. And he looked like he was totally careless. And then he dove under.

[Nate Mason]

After that, I heard the river, the

[Brody Henderson]

trappings real good in national.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, no, we hit hard. We do great. I bet you do.

[Brody Henderson]

We have a story coming up on something about that.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, we stack them up down there, man. It's weird because no one else hits it.

[Spencer Newhart]

It's a good.

[Steven Rinella]

We never figure out what's going on the season. You almost feel like you're doing something wrong.

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. All right, Spencer, tell us about the hunt giveaway, man. Well, is that your job? Is that my job?

[Brody Henderson]

You.

[Spencer Newhart]

You do that one.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, okay.

[Spencer Newhart]

I'll cover the next one.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, that's right. All right. Right now, Turkey week. Turkey week is on now at the meat eater store. So help you get ready. This spring, we've rounded up some of our favorite gear for Chasing gobblers. Whether you chasing them Miriams or them. Them hard goblin easterns. I heard one ripped the other day from my house in Eastern.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, I told you they were going and then we had bad weather and they just look sad and like. There's nothing worse looking than a wet. Sorry looking.

[Steven Rinella]

Just, you know, before anyone gets excited about coming and hunting by my house, I'll save you the hassle. It's not a hunting area. Yeah, but it does get town. It gets like town birds. Yeah.

[Spencer Newhart]

Town bears too.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Because town bears, town birds. Anyways, I'm out there, nice, perfectly nice morning. And up the hill, up the hill there. And I call my neighbor. I'm like, sons of are gobbling early.

[Brody Henderson]

Did you call back to that bird at all?

[Steven Rinella]

No, I ran in to call my neighbor. I don't know why. I'm like, they're gobbling early.

[Max Barda]

Damn it.

[Steven Rinella]

He's like, we gotta go quicker. And then it snowed.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And I'm like, this is gonna knock the gobble right out.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep, yep.

[Nate Mason]

There's a good amount of birds up there. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. What was I saying?

[Nate Mason]

Oh.

[Steven Rinella]

Turkey week. We've got brand new meat eater logo wear. Logo wear and seasonings. Turkey calls from Phelps, game calls. I'm holding the. The prime cuts pack right here. Signature Yanni. So it's. It's clay from top to bottom. It's Steve signature cut, which isn't in there because mine's right here, the Yanni in the clay. So from bottom to top, it's best caller, second best caller, worst caller.

[Spencer Newhart]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

That's the way to think about it. But think about it like this. My cut is meant for dudes who just want to make good turkey sounds. And they're not like going to be out of competition because it's just an

[Max Barda]

easy low pressure cut.

[Steven Rinella]

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, it's a low pressure cut.

[Brody Henderson]

Did they stop making the Jake break?

[Steven Rinella]

I don't know if they still. That was a little. That's a low pressure cut too. It's like, it's like easy. It's easy. My cut makes it easy to, to. To be. Not to. To be a novice diaphragm caller and get where you're making some sounds because you don't have to have so much and you don't have. It's just an easy to use call.

[Spencer Newhart]

Phil Robertson always said that a live mallard would not win a duck calling contest. So that's what.

[Steven Rinella]

You sure, Steve?

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah, he's not looking to win a Turkey calling contest.

[Steven Rinella]

No, I kill. I kill a lot of turkeys, but I would never win a turkey calling contest. Sure. But I. But I think of the calling as being like a part of a whole bunch of other parts.

[Nate Mason]

I want to ask to try it out, but I know where it's been.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Where was I? Camel from First Light. Decoys from Dave Smith. Decoys, packs and accessories from FH F gear and a whole lot more. Up to 20% off right now. Okay. Also, First Light has the ultimate spring turkey giveaway going on. It's worth over 13,000 bucks from now until Sunday, April 5th. Is that Easter?

[Unknown Guest 1]

It is.

[Steven Rinella]

It's, like, early this year, isn't it?

[Unknown Guest 2]

Very early.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. You get double entries for every $25 spent. So 20 entries for every. Does that make sense? You get double entries for every 2010 PER.

[Brody Henderson]

Now it's 20 PER.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, you get a whole bunch of entries when you buy stuff.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And part of the turkey hunt giveaway is you win a hunt. So you can win a hunt and all the gear to go hunting at this deal. Check it out now through April 5th at store the meat eater dot com. Over to you, Spencer.

[Spencer Newhart]

There's another giveaway on the Meat eater dot com. This is a photo contest regarding uncommon turkey colors. The article is called Odd Turkey Plum Plumage Photo Contest, where you can enter a picture of the rare turkeys that you've seen or killed. This is supporting the work that Dr. Mike Chamberlain is doing with the Wild Turkey Lab to do research on wild turkey DNA, genetic diversity, inbreeding potential, gene flow, and hybridization. The Wild Turkey Lab wants you to send genetic samples of your turkey's tongue. But our turkey plumage contest is just for photos. You can go enter them on our website. And there are only two entries so far. You have until April six to enter the contest.

[Brody Henderson]

Pretty good odds.

[Spencer Newhart]

There's three top prizes because you got

[Steven Rinella]

to shoot a weird colored turkey or

[Spencer Newhart]

see one or see one. There's three prizes. We're giving away all sorts of really good gear. So if you. If you have a photo of a cool turkey you've killed or seen, you should go enter it now. If I was entering it, here's what I would submit. This was a turkey I saw in 2014. I was leaving work, heading to class, and this was at a go kart track that this turkey was hanging around.

[Steven Rinella]

I turned domestic vibe to it.

[Spencer Newhart]

Well, so this area has some colonies that are known for their large turkey populations. So this could have been one that had, like, crossed with a domestic or what do you mean colonies like a hutterite colony? They raise a lot of domestic turkeys.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Spencer Newhart]

So, guys, we'll talk about. If you want to kill a smoke phase turkey, you go hunt near the colony.

[Steven Rinella]

This is a good question for Chamberlain. When I. People are always sending me these. So far, two people this spring have sent me the smoked turkey smoke phase.

[Spencer Newhart]

It's the most common of the uncommon plumage.

[Steven Rinella]

What I see when I'm seeing that and I'm open to corrections, and you might win yourself a prize. What I see when I'm seeing that is domestic introgression. Sure. There he goes again.

[Brody Henderson]

Whatever you say, Steve Spencer.

[Steven Rinella]

It hit me last night. When you're telling Spencer stuff, he'll sometimes say, sure. And I was like, there's something about it. And Brody says, it's the same thing as going, whatever you say, buddy.

[Spencer Newhart]

I'm just trying to be a good, active listener, tell you that I'm here.

[Steven Rinella]

And I was like, that's it, Brody. Hit it.

[Brody Henderson]

It's.

[Steven Rinella]

It's whatever you say. Sure, sure. Yeah. Whatever you say. Sometimes it's honest. Sometimes it's like, whatever you say, buddy.

[Spencer Newhart]

So go after that contest themed eater.com show Steve all of your smoke face turkeys.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. And I'll say to you, yeah, looks like domestic intro aggression, but there's got to be something to it. And I'm sure we'll ask Chamberlain. We'll ask Mike Chamberlain if we need to. Max came to me the other day and said, hey. Well, first off, we have a pond. We have. Our office has a pond.

[Nate Mason]

You have a couple ponds?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, we're on a little. It's like a. I don't even call

[Garrett Humphrey]

it like a business park.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, business.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. We're like in a campus. There's a. There's a. There's a little ditch that comes through it, and there's a couple dredged out ponds. And Brody estimates the trout population at four.

[Brody Henderson]

Four to five.

[Nate Mason]

Not many.

[Steven Rinella]

Brody believes there to be four to five trout. And one muskrat is in our pond. Last night, there was two geese in it.

[Garrett Humphrey]

We should start tagging the fish on that north pond. Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

Dead coon in there. There's two geese. There's a pair of mallards.

[Brody Henderson]

It's like a bonafide farm pond.

[Steven Rinella]

It is.

[Spencer Newhart]

There's no garbage because we cleaned it out.

[Steven Rinella]

No, there's a new piece of garbage. I was looking. At first I thought it was something floating dead, and I realized it's new garbage. We got to do a new cleanup because there's new garbage in the pond. It keeps moving back and forth from side to side. Max said, hey, who do I gotta ask to put a nesting box on the pond? And I said, I don't know, but yes. So talk about that, Max.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. So we're trying to raise some ducks this year. This spring, delta waterfall came up with these houses. They're called hen houses, where it's just a wire cylinder basically on a pole over the water. And the reason why they came up with these.

[Steven Rinella]

That's a t post, right?

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Nate Mason]

And the reason why they came up with these was due to habitat change and predator increases, Nest success dropped. And so they thought, oh, why don't we put something above the water that these nest predators can't get to? And so they came up with this hen house back in, like, the 1990s. I think they've been around for like, 35 years.

[Steven Rinella]

That's that old design.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Because you have to be like a crack commando raccoon to get yourself up that t post.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. I mean, it would be like. Would be like a squirrel climbing up a bird feeder almost, but it's like a really skinny pole. Yeah.

[Spencer Newhart]

In water.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, in water. And so these were designed specifically for malards.

[Steven Rinella]

Is that right?

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

What makes them that way?

[Nate Mason]

I guess I don't have an answer

[Steven Rinella]

for that, but it fits what they like.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. So con, like, people think that mallard's nest, like, or ducks nest in water, but they actually nest away from the water. And then they hatch their ducklings and walk to the water. But these hen houses put them right over the water. So those ducklings, the first thing they do, they're right in the water. They don't have no traveling to do. No predators can get them. And so I think I researched some stats here, and 60% higher in a hen house than just a regular old nest. Survivability, I mean, yeah, Successful nest. So, yeah, a hen can start using one of these and have a 12. 12 times better odds as rather than nesting in just the ground.

[Steven Rinella]

No kidding.

[Brody Henderson]

Has anyone been poking around back there?

[Nate Mason]

I look every single morning.

[Spencer Newhart]

What are the odds? You think a blackbird just makes a nest in there instead?

[Nate Mason]

That's a great question.

[Max Barda]

I hope.

[Nate Mason]

I hope it doesn't. I'll shoot it out of there.

[Steven Rinella]

I haven't seen any red wing blackbirds down there.

[Brody Henderson]

I've seen Canada geese nested in elevated platform.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, that's something. Phone poles.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. But yeah, this is just like a wire cylinder. And so, like, it's a Perfect size for a duck to get in there. And that's it.

[Brody Henderson]

Just gotta fill it up with nesting material.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, it's already filled with straw, grass. And that's another thing, too. Mallards don't bring any kind of nest material to their nest.

[Steven Rinella]

Are you serious?

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. So like a robin or like a bald eagle, they'll go around collecting sticks and, like, build a nest. A mallard will just, like, sit there and, like, peck around and like, you

[Max Barda]

know, I guess like, not because I was saying, I. I stumble into him hunting morels.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I never thought about that.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

They don't bring.

[Steven Rinella]

They're not supplementing it. It's just in a little dish in the leaves.

[Nate Mason]

Yep. So, yeah, I'm hoping we can raise a. Some ducklings and be great if that.

[Steven Rinella]

The first thing we'll see is we'll see a duck sitting on top of

[Nate Mason]

that thing in it.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm thinking we'll see one standing on it. That's gonna be in my mind the day it happens is going to be. Someone's gonna see one standing on it.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't know why.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

My little mind movie. That's what happens.

[Garrett Humphrey]

We should set up a trail cam.

[Nate Mason]

Well, no, I've. Well, we could do that, but if a head mallard ness in there, I'm gonna be sitting there with the camera for a couple hours each day and just wait for those ducklings to come out of there. Because I think it would be just an epic shot of ducklings just popping out.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. We could push them out.

[Nate Mason]

You know, he could do that, swim

[Brody Henderson]

out there and give that thing a shake.

[Spencer Newhart]

Do you envision a local or a migrator?

[Nate Mason]

Probably a local for sure.

[Spencer Newhart]

Okay.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

There's like a group. I mean, I wouldn't say a group, but there's probably like five to six pairs on our ponds right now. And so I'm hoping one of those hops in there.

[Steven Rinella]

So that's great.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, I can't wait.

[Spencer Newhart]

Steve's got the best.

[Brody Henderson]

Making more ducks, Max. That's great.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. And people can [e-mail] to find out more about these hen houses. And there's different programs where you can donate some money and I'll actually, like, get hen houses.

[Steven Rinella]

See, that's. I was telling you I want a couple. I know. Just wrong and put mine.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, well, I. I know a guy. Yeah. My buddy, Garrett Humphrey, who helps out with the local chapter here in Bozeman. He's got a pile of them, so.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. I'd like to do that.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, we'll get you where to put them.

[Max Barda]

All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this.

[Steven Rinella]

Man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the

[Max Barda]

ultimate spring turkey giveaway. And it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Benelli, a one thousand dollar gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027 Rio Grande Turkey hunt in the Texas hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF Gear, and the Meat Eater Store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light Contest [e-mail] Fill out the entry form in your end. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13, 2026.

[Steven Rinella]

So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight.

[Max Barda]

Gobble, gobble.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, it's time for corrections.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Oh, corrections.

[Steven Rinella]

Late on that one.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Corrections.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, corrections today. The winner of today's corrections wins a set of Toba's boots. I'm holding one up right here, but you can pick whatever ones you want. These may be Ms. S.E.S been out on paternity leave.

[Nate Mason]

What size are those?

[Spencer Newhart]

10 and a half.

[Steven Rinella]

10 and a half?

[Spencer Newhart]

No, I'm just guessing.

[Steven Rinella]

Seth's been out on paternity league. But he. He wears a. He wears a square toe. Every time I touch this, I feel like I'm touching Seth's foot. You can pick what you want. Telling you what though, dude. Just the leather smells like brand new leather. Go pick out any to cove as you want if you win the corrections. Now, we had to do something a little bit different, so. Oh, Nate Mason's here. Nate Mason came up with this joke a little late, but he came up with it.

[Phil]

Better late than never.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Kickers for nitpickers.

[Spencer Newhart]

Perfect.

[Steven Rinella]

The most genius thing I'd heard all week. Kickers for nitpickers. But here's the deal. So many corrections came in about TSS Brody's. Did you do TSS Report Lot of People fired up about tss. And don't worry, because we're going to talk a lot about TSS today in the news segment here. So we're going to do a quick showdown of when you. In order to win the boots, there's three corrections. But we're doing, like, a deal this week where there's. We gotta do a competition to enter the competition. So very quickly, three tss. The winner of this goes to the finals.

[Phil]

Little March Madness.

[Steven Rinella]

Like golf?

[Phil]

No, it's like March Madness.

[Brody Henderson]

I'm telling you what, this next round here, this first TSS round of corrections, these are some nitpickers, man.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Okay, so for a. For a spot in the finals, TSS correction 1. My name is Ian.

[Max Barda]

And up.

[Steven Rinella]

Where's my glass? And I'm from upstate New York. While listening to episode 853, and you were talking about TSS ammo, and we're not totally sure on when they were introduced. And again, a clarification, an omission. A. A. That's corrections.

[Brody Henderson]

Sure.

[Steven Rinella]

He says 2018, Federal Premium became the first large manufacturer to produce TSS. Great. 2018. Thank you, TSS. Two slight correction to the claim, I believe was Brody's claim that tungsten is very heat resistant. Well, he goes that the corrector says tungsten is actually the most heat resistant

[Brody Henderson]

pure metal, which is also very,

[Steven Rinella]

very, very. It is a huge difference. If I'm friends. Let's say I'm friends with the tallest man on Earth. And he comes in and I go, this is my buddy. He's very tall, right? And someone's like, well, he's the tallest man on Earth.

[Brody Henderson]

I think they're the same. It's just.

[Steven Rinella]

No, it's different. I would say, here's my buddy. He's the tallest man on Earth.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

It's just different.

[Unknown Guest 1]

There are a lot more men than there are kinds of metal.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. The melting is going to get a correction. The melting. Get this. Get. Just close your eyes and picture this. The melting point is 6192 Fahrenheit. 700 degrees higher.

[Nate Mason]

Wow.

[Brody Henderson]

What's the temperature of the sun?

[Steven Rinella]

A lot. It's. I'd go so far to say it's the hottest thing.

[Spencer Newhart]

Very hot degrees.

[Brody Henderson]

It wouldn't survive the sun.

[Steven Rinella]

That's why it's used as an electrode when TIG welding, which was introduced in the 1940s. He goes on to say, very heat resistant. Huh.

[Brody Henderson]

It actually says very heat resistant is not an incorrect claim.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, that's what it says.

[Garrett Humphrey]

But it doesn't do the metal justice.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, so Brody underselling tungsten.

[Brody Henderson]

Oh yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

TSS number three.

[Brody Henderson]

Next. I oversell it,

[Steven Rinella]

bro. TSS number three. He. He starts out. I appreciate this. He starts out, says I don't have the cred. The credentials to offer this correction. He says in fact, I'm horrible at science related subjects. But that just goes to show that any person can do good.

[Brody Henderson]

Regular Joe.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. But Brody can't do good.

[Brody Henderson]

No.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. This guy says I have a 40 year. Why does that matter?

[Garrett Humphrey]

Like a cousin who's maybe.

[Brody Henderson]

Maybe he's very young and he's trying to establish bona fides because his cousin is older.

[Spencer Newhart]

Well, he's going to tell you about a Christmas thing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, his cousin's 40. I don't care.

[Max Barda]

You know what?

[Steven Rinella]

It could be that he's like we've been cousins so long. You know, I don't think that's it. Okay, he's got a 40 year old cousin that asked for. He. This cousin asked for Christmas. Oh, I get it now. What kind of 40 year old guy asked for. Christ.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Something a 6 year old would ask.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, that's why it's goofy. His goofy 40 year old cousin requested a one by one inch piece of tungsten. This guy says it is heavy. He says it's so heavy they talk about that it like it has its own gravitational pull. Which it does. But he's not a science guy. Yes, you're right. That is gravity pulling on your cube. He goes down with his correction. When Brody last week said that TSS is twice as dense as lead, I kept thinking there's no way I would like that. That's true.

[Brody Henderson]

Because I think I said about twice.

[Steven Rinella]

But maybe you said twice because he says there's no way. Because I've held a 2.2 pound cube of tungsten and in fact Brody was wrong. Tungsten isn't twice as heavy. It's one point time. 1.7 times as dense.

[Brody Henderson]

In math, that's a long ways. I guess.

[Steven Rinella]

He says, I know this is splitting hairs, but if it was 2x then it would be the debt. Here's where rubber hits the road.

[Brody Henderson]

This is where it gets mean.

[Steven Rinella]

No, if it was 2x as Brody claimed, it would be the densest naturally occurring material on earth.

[Brody Henderson]

Why can't we have some of this stuff?

[Steven Rinella]

But it's not. It's. That is held by osmium which is 1.99 times as dense as lead. So not only was Brody wrong when he said two times, but the thing that's more Dense than it still isn't. Two times.

[Brody Henderson]

That's right.

[Nate Mason]

He was very.

[Brody Henderson]

But you know what?

[Spencer Newhart]

I.

[Steven Rinella]

Very wrong. But this person pitches the idea of osmium super shot.

[Brody Henderson]

Exactly.

[Phil]

Oss.

[Steven Rinella]

Oss. I don't know what osmium is going for these days, but I've never heard of it, which makes me think it's not.

[Phil]

I've got a correction for his correction, though.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, can you hold it? Because there's a problem. These guys aren't even in corrections. Who do we vote for to advance to the finals? We have Brody being wrong about Brody being wrong about not knowing when it came out. We have Brody being wrong about how hot you got to get it to melt.

[Brody Henderson]

I like the. Yeah, the last one gets.

[Steven Rinella]

And we have Brody being wrong about how dense it is.

[Nate Mason]

Oss, baby.

[Brody Henderson]

I like the last one because Oss.

[Steven Rinella]

Clear win. Okay, so he's into the final.

[Unknown Guest 1]

I. I like his. I like his flavor text at the end about osmium, too.

[Steven Rinella]

No, he did a really good job. Yeah, and he's the guy that's not a science guy. Okay, so he's in the finals. So that is correction number one. Osmium.

[Brody Henderson]

He's gonna have to give one of his boots to his cousin, though.

[Steven Rinella]

Who knows? Maybe they. I don't know. Maybe they only have one.

[Spencer Newhart]

I don't know.

[Steven Rinella]

Kudos.

[Unknown Guest 2]

Weird.

[Steven Rinella]

Kind of. I don't know.

[Brody Henderson]

Same size foot. They can just.

[Steven Rinella]

I was watching a movie the other night, and it was. And it was mostly cast with just non actors. Okay. A phenomenal movie. And there's. One of the main characters is missing an arm, and one of the main characters is missing a leg. And I was thinking to myself, that's such an interesting call. And then I read that they didn't use professional actors. They just cast it from people that they saw and introduced themselves to and cast the movie that way.

[Spencer Newhart]

You don't want to tell us what it's called?

[Garrett Humphrey]

French movie.

[Steven Rinella]

It's. It's a lot of French, a lot of Spanish. It's a dude trying to find his daughter who is vanished into the. Into the Moroccan desert rave scene. And it has mega Mad Max overtones and gets very stressful Netflix or. No, I. I bought it on. It's. I've been. Every day. I. I check to see if it was available. Kind of became available. I bought it for a lot of money on Apple on, you know, the itunes store, whatever they call that nowadays. The Apple Store. Y go on Apple tv. Okay, Brody's going to offer a correction.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay, here we go.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, that's right. Apple tv.

[Brody Henderson]

Hopefully you guys were listening a couple weeks back when we talked about the Colorado fur ban. We've got a correction from Jeff. I don't have his last name, but we'll. We'll figure it out if we need to. Okay. I just listened to the news podcast where you talked about the Colorado fur ban petition voted on by the CPW Commission. During that bit, Steve remarked that nuisance beavers and other furbearers taken for nuisance reasons will now be left to rot with no fur taken. That's actually not true. That's the insane part of this story that's not being told. And honestly, I'm not sure if it should be told. I'll let you be the judge.

[Steven Rinella]

I like this because he's saying I messed up, but it's because it's so insane that it's excusable that I messed up. Well, I don't know if it lets me off. Yeah, it lets me off the hook.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay. When the commission adopts a regulation banning the sale of wild animal furs in Colorado, it will only apply to furbearers taken recreationally. Statutes are already in place that state furbearers taken for damage or agricultural purposes can be retained or sold by those taken.

[Steven Rinella]

Those that have.

[Brody Henderson]

Those that have taken. The statue statutes trump regulations. This is in both Title 33 and Title 35 of the Colorado Revived Statutes, yada yada. It is an enforce unenforceable law. And the commission was told as much by CT CPW law enforcement. As soon as a bobcat is sealed, there's no way to know if it was harvested recreationally or through damage purposes. This is the part that makes me uncomfortable with those for the ban. I don't want them to know this loophole. Oh, there's any. There isn't any way to find out if any furbearer was taken for damage purposes. You can still harvest furbearers recreationally. And nothing says you can't sell them in another state either. This whole thing is ridiculous. And the commission shamed CPW in this ridiculous process.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, he gives a little thanks to Brody. Read that part, Brody. Makes you look great.

[Brody Henderson]

Brody, I can tell you that CPW is as frustrated with this as you are, which is.

[Steven Rinella]

Good job, Brody. That's correction number two. So, to recap, we got osmium super shot. Brody screwed up on the fur band.

[Brody Henderson]

No, you did.

[Garrett Humphrey]

No, but it's okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Here's the last one. This is. This is a good one. This is an important one on the most Recent news podcast Bear Newcomb mentioned that Oklahoma was working toward approving the release of captive deer that are. And bear use this word, that are immune to CWD into the wild. I. I wish I would have caught that. I didn't catch that very rightfully. The guy says the correct term would be resistant. Okay. Even though that is still in question. And he talks about how we ourselves covered that. Episode 766 in the podcast titled the Truth about Chronic Wasting Disease. Okay, so according to the National Deer association, deer that carry the 9.6ss genotype

[Max Barda]

could experience a longer incubation period prior

[Steven Rinella]

to perishing to the disease. But this does not prevent them from getting it. So resistant or delayed, but not known to be immune. Okay, so there's the three things.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, the.

[Steven Rinella]

The gotcha. Brody being wrong on Tungsten, me being understandably mistaken on the Colorado fur ban, or Bear Newcomb not choosing his words carefully on chronic wasting disease.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, this is a tough one, man. Give bear break.

[Steven Rinella]

Good. This is for the new pair of Jacob's boots.

[Brody Henderson]

Let's go around the table, Max.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no, you don't vote like that. Oh, come on.

[Brody Henderson]

I want to build up tension.

[Steven Rinella]

Tungsten.

[Nate Mason]

Tungsten.

[Brody Henderson]

I gotta vote for.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, decided that quickly. Wow. Oh, home it. Phil, what'd you vote for?

[Unknown Guest 1]

I was gonna vote for number two.

[Phil]

Same.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, so you didn't vote T. Oh, it's not decided. I'm sorry. Tungsten 4. Oh, it's decided.

[Garrett Humphrey]

You guys gave 4v3.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, just. I'm just out of curiosity. What were you going to vote for number two?

[Spencer Newhart]

I do cwd.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, well, you guys lost.

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Steven Rinella]

So the tungsten guy, not only did he win the playoffs, he won twice. Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Wow.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Chris Lund.

[Phil]

But he did have a mistake.

[Garrett Humphrey]

We will reach out to you.

[Phil]

His cube dimension should be one inch by one inch by one inch.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Oh, yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Well, take that, Chris.

[Unknown Guest 1]

If it's a cube, then it's implied by only just say a one inch

[Phil]

cube, not a one inch by one.

[Steven Rinella]

So Chris, you know, just check it out. Yeah, let's send him some.

[Phil]

Send him one. And then he has to decide.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, we might have to like scuff him. Like scuff him up a little bit or something.

[Nate Mason]

Breaking those bits.

[Steven Rinella]

Gotta scuff him up. That's a great point. Yeah. One inch cube. That covers it in his face.

[Brody Henderson]

He did say he doesn't have. He lacks credentials, so. Come on.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, is.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Is redundancy, you know, is that something we need to correct? You know?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Covering his base. Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

If someone wrote in and he says, hey, I got a correction about redundancy, I'd let it slip in there. He might win some boots. I don't know.

[Phil]

Great.

[Steven Rinella]

All right, Brody, audience emails. Brody, kid wrote in about some lambs.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, this is great because it's not an email, it's actually a handwritten lad letter. So I love this kid already. We just got this today. It's breaking news. Okay, here we go. Hello, my name is Easton Sutter. I'm 12 years old and I am a sixth grader at Fort Recovery Junior High and Fort Recovery, Ohio. This kid writes a great letter. Fort Recovery is a small rural farm town in the middle of nowhere that nobody has ever heard of.

[Steven Rinella]

I like. He really sets the scene.

[Brody Henderson]

I love hunting, fishing and pretty much anything in nature. This past year I went turkey, rabbit and deer hunting with my dad. This past deer season, I shot my first buck. My favorite part of hunting is spending one on one time with my dad. When you ride in the car, the first thing we typically do is turn on the meat eater podcast or trivia. But sadly we have not gotten to try Meat Eater Turtle. There you go, Spencer. He hasn't tried your wordle Turtle.

[Spencer Newhart]

He's a word.

[Brody Henderson]

My dad is really good at trivia and would make a great addition to the meat eater crew.

[Nate Mason]

Nice.

[Brody Henderson]

Love that. I am an active member. This is where it gets real good. I'm an active member of 4H and this year my project. For my project I have to show. I have two show lambs. Their names are Steve and Brody. There was a third named Yanni, but it had a bummed leg and was sent to the chop house.

[Steven Rinella]

Sounds about right. Sounds about right.

[Brody Henderson]

I wanted to know if you would like to bid on my lamb. So if you guys want to figure that out the audience, you could bid on his lambs. The money I will make will go into future college expenses and if you are interested, I enclose the information to do so. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you. Here's to lots more car rides with Meat Eater on the radio.

[Steven Rinella]

So does he ship those lambs the lamb meat to us?

[Brody Henderson]

I'm not sure. We'll have to get in touch with him. He used snail mail so we're going to have to figure it out.

[Steven Rinella]

Huh. Hope someone buys the land.

[Brody Henderson]

Easton Sutter, if you're listening to us, send us an email so we can we can figure some stuff out for you.

[Steven Rinella]

Someone I know offered to my they have a bunch of pasture and they offered to my daughter that she could raise a cow on there. So she's telling everybody she's gonna start raising cattle for money. I'm like, let's look into this little bit. There's a couple complicating factors here we need to consider.

[Brody Henderson]

Raise one named Yani for the chop house.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. I just thought it. Here. Here's another one. Oh, this just an update. Remember, if you guys listen to the show, you remember we were really pushing that mountain goat raffle in Alaska, man, that came in. That was a great fundraiser for the organization. They raised. You guys, really, you guys did two things. Everyone that. That came in to support, and we. We drove a bunch of support there. You did two things. You helped them raise a bunch of money, and you also shot your odds to all to hell on. On the m. On the Alaska mountain goat Raffle, they raised $110,795,000 says the far and away the most money raised with an Alaska goat tag.

[Spencer Newhart]

Damn.

[Steven Rinella]

They're real happy with all that. Now, I noticed that I have not gotten my tag in the mail, and it might be because, I don't know, I'm no statistician, but these odds are rough. On top of this, the Delta Junction bison tag. Get this. 213 grand. Four hundred and forty thousand dollars.

[Nate Mason]

Unreal.

[Steven Rinella]

That's. That's what I like to see, is I like to see those raffles.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. Because that's getting up into governor's tag money there.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Because you got this whole. We've talked about 100 times on the podcast. You got the governor's tags where they auction it to the highest bidder, and it brings a lot of money for stuff, but it's just like, like Joe Blow Working dude is not in the running on a governor's tag, and it puts the conservation groups in a pickle. You could do a raffle and have anybody have a chance to win, but you're not going to raise much money. You do a governor's tag and you have, like, a handful of billionaires have a chance to win, and it's a bunch of money. So to see these really successful, like, really successful raffles is cool because, like, anybody can participate. Everybody's got a chance to win, and then you still get a nice price tag toward conservation work.

[Nate Mason]

What was the price for putting in for the raffle?

[Steven Rinella]

Can't remember.

[Brody Henderson]

About 25 bucks.

[Steven Rinella]

I bought an undisclosed dollar amount worth of entries.

[Nate Mason]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Not that I didn't. I didn't.

[Nate Mason]

You didn't go crazy.

[Steven Rinella]

I'll disclose about 100 bucks worth of entries. Yeah, about 100 bucks. Oh, Brody.

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, yeah, it's turkey week. I covered this a little bit in the first part of this in radio live, I think, a while back. But I'll. I'll start over and cover both parts.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, no, no, we didn't eat the. Damn it. Where's the part where we eat the jerky?

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah, I missed that.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay, you want to start over?

[Unknown Guest 1]

Oh, wait.

[Nate Mason]

Audience.

[Steven Rinella]

No, I don't know what happened to it. So remember we were talking on the news show about making jerky out of nuts? Deer nuts. Okay. He sent us the nuts and I was saying, don't poison us. He said, the guy wrote in one

[Max Barda]

grown man to another, sending you a

[Steven Rinella]

dry deer nut is one of the weirdest things I have done. Now my wife told me to send you some of that dried heart.

[Max Barda]

Unfortunately for you, I have eaten the heart.

[Steven Rinella]

It was excellent.

[Max Barda]

You are one of the few hunters that.

[Steven Rinella]

He said some nice stuff. He fought fire up here and he

[Max Barda]

goes on the jerky. I dry, smoke and preserve meat as

[Steven Rinella]

folks has for generations before me. In my neck of the woods, the

[Max Barda]

Caddo and Comanche tribes dried strips of

[Steven Rinella]

meat that sustained them throughout the year. So here's the nut. So he's got one nut says normal non nut jerky contains no nuts. You guys try that.

[Spencer Newhart]

Okay, this is just meat.

[Steven Rinella]

And then here's the dried testicle. This is deer nut jerky. He wrote a note too, saying that it's. He didn't poison us. Not because of. It was like technically hard. He says he's not that kind of guy.

[Spencer Newhart]

Ah, it'd be easy to pull off

[Steven Rinella]

though, if he was saying like, if you wanted to poison us, he would have. But he's just that. That kind of guy. So here's the nut. This is the. This is a dried nut.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Are you expecting it has that texture? Because when it's

[Brody Henderson]

carve me off a hunk of that or does it break?

[Garrett Humphrey]

Does it just taste like smoked teriyaki flavor?

[Spencer Newhart]

It looks the same as the rest

[Steven Rinella]

of the jerky, which, like, ain't like jerky.

[Garrett Humphrey]

But nuts are nuts. Who else wants much whiter than you can give dispenser?

[Steven Rinella]

It's off putting finish.

[Nate Mason]

See you, Spencer.

[Spencer Newhart]

Off putting finish.

[Garrett Humphrey]

This jerky is tough as.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm surprised at a nut dog treat. I'm surprised the testicle dries up like that, to be honest with you.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Right.

[Nate Mason]

You didn't slice it at all.

[Steven Rinella]

That's very pasty.

[Max Barda]

Very pasty.

[Nate Mason]

Finish you don't think he sliced it?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, it's sliced. Okay.

[Brody Henderson]

And that. That.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Oh, it smells like whatever you want

[Brody Henderson]

to call that on the outside. It's not very good.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Max, want to split?

[Steven Rinella]

Well, no, I don't think it's, like,

[Brody Henderson]

as bad as you guys are saying.

[Unknown Guest 1]

No.

[Garrett Humphrey]

You gotta try this.

[Steven Rinella]

No.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Okay, Just cut that in half and give me.

[Spencer Newhart]

I. I wouldn't need to eat that ever again.

[Steven Rinella]

Here's how I like to think of bad foods.

[Brody Henderson]

I'm not offended.

[Steven Rinella]

Here's a measure of bad foods.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Thank you.

[Steven Rinella]

My wife recently bought these salted dried. I don't know why she bought them. Salted dried prunes. And I was like, my God, that's bad. When I ate one. But then I put left at my truck.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Sorry.

[Steven Rinella]

And a few times I drove around and I'd eat one, and I'd think to myself, my God, that's bad.

[Brody Henderson]

But you kept eating them.

[Steven Rinella]

And I eventually threw it away. If he sent me a sack of those nuts, oh, I would probably another time eat one and be like, my God, that's bad.

[Nate Mason]

Oh, cringe.

[Brody Henderson]

Spitting it out.

[Garrett Humphrey]

And, like, I eat a lot of.

[Brody Henderson]

Really? Corinne?

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't like your big talk. You didn't need to clean your plate.

[Garrett Humphrey]

That's disgusting. Oh, God.

[Brody Henderson]

It's a little chewy.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, I quite like it. I know. I did not say I like it.

[Brody Henderson]

I just don't think it's, like, the worst thing I've ever had.

[Max Barda]

Then eat it.

[Nate Mason]

I like it.

[Spencer Newhart]

I know how good, like, a deer testicle can taste, and it's, like, a. Like, a very pleasant thing to eat. And this was not that, like, outer mem.

[Brody Henderson]

This, like, skin membrane. It's got.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Guys don't do that at home. Not worth it.

[Steven Rinella]

Boy.

[Spencer Newhart]

But that's a satisfying result. Now, I know that, like, I don't. You're gonna do that.

[Nate Mason]

You're not jerky.

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

You guys are a bunch of babies.

[Garrett Humphrey]

I'd rather smell that casters and castor oil than eat that.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Max Barda]

All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going

[Steven Rinella]

to want to hear this, man, I'm

[Max Barda]

telling you, I'm fired up.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, anyway, right now we're running the

[Max Barda]

ultimate spring turkey giveaway, and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun From Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027. Rio Grande Turkey hunt in the Texas Hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to

[Steven Rinella]

you by Bird Dog.

[Max Barda]

And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls FHF gear in the meat Eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light Contest [e-mail] Fill out the entry form in your end. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13, 2026.

[Steven Rinella]

So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight.

[Max Barda]

Gobble, gobble.

[Steven Rinella]

Remember on the We Are the World video they use those little things to protect their microphones?

[Spencer Newhart]

No, I don't remember that.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, Phil, don't pull that up, but can you pull the guy up all riled up about going turkey hunting?

[Unknown Guest 1]

If you. I need a link. I don't even know what to search for.

[Nate Mason]

I'll send it to you.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

All right, bro, to do your thing now, folks, listening at home here, this is. You're gonna. Don't think that this is just. Don't think that this is just local news for us, right? Because this is like a management strategy you should be aware of.

[Spencer Newhart]

That's what I was thinking.

[Brody Henderson]

A trend that's happening more and more.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, this is a trend that's happening

[Brody Henderson]

regarding non resident hunters. Last year, Montana Senate Bill 514 was passed and we like, somehow it went like under the radar for a while, at least for me.

[Steven Rinella]

I never heard hiding her hair about it.

[Brody Henderson]

But then I caught on to it because I hunt pheasants.

[Steven Rinella]

Can I interrupt one second? Yeah, you want to wrong with that jerky? You know, when you're eating jerky normally you chew it a while and you wind up with kind of like a cud.

[Spencer Newhart]

Mm.

[Steven Rinella]

You're chewing, chewing, chewing that nut jerky and all of a sudden it's a paste. Yeah, go on.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Is that still in your mouth?

[Brody Henderson]

Okay, so Senate Bill 514, it grants resident upland bird hunters a 10 day head start over non residents. Now the reason I again I caught this was about. It's a. Regarding pheasant season, but other, other upland birds, sharp tail grouse, Hungarian partridge, stuff like that. I think that season for pheasants anyway starts early October. Now non resident hunters have to wait 10 days before they can hunt Them on public land or on like private land that has public access programs like block management and Montana.

[Steven Rinella]

But they're not jumping the season earlier. It's just your non residents lose 10 days.

[Brody Henderson]

Exactly. And if those non resident hunters have access to private, private good to go hunt. What I didn't realize is that because Montana categorizes turkeys as upland game birds, this rule also applies to spring turkey season. So spring turkey opens April 15th in Montana. Non residents can't start hunting them on public or, or private with public access till April 25th. H. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And then weirdly, and this kind of pisses me off, they exempted mountain grass.

[Brody Henderson]

They did.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't get it.

[Brody Henderson]

The only thing I can think of is there's a bunch of non resident archery hunters, elk hunters out there that are sticking grouse for.

[Steven Rinella]

That's not why.

[Brody Henderson]

I don't know.

[Spencer Newhart]

I had the same shot as Brody.

[Brody Henderson]

There's just no, there's a very little pressure on those mountain birds.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't like it. I think they should have all or none. Yeah. I don't think like.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, either way. So. So this is like, you know, it's a pretty big change and it I think follows a trend of mostly western states doing what they can to limit the impact of non resident hunting pressure and doing something where they can like present a regulation saying we're trying to alleviate this pressure that you guys are talking about. You've seen it. Colorado went away from over the counter archery elk tags. Montana cut a number of non resident mule deer tags. Wyoming has lowered their cap on all non resident tags. So it's just like this trend that has happened. I think it's going to continue next.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. More like you have a growing number of residents as more people leave cities, leave high tax areas. So you've growing numbers of residents in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and then, and then like the, the, the. The pie needs to be cut up differently.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. And I honestly like as far as pheasant season, like it's nice to be out there the first few days when you're shooting young of the year dumb birds. Right. But it's a three month season. You're not losing that much as a non resident turkeys in Montana. There's some years weather wise where you can't hunt the first or don't want to hunt the first week of the season anyway.

[Nate Mason]

And like all the birds are hent up anyway. So it's like so not a big deal.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh man.

[Nate Mason]

What I. I personally think that the first like 15 days of the season, there's a lot of birds, a lot of times that are henned up.

[Brody Henderson]

I was referring more to like snowstorms and like that, but yeah, okay. Either way, there you go.

[Steven Rinella]

I have thoughts. This is one of those deals where you got. I, I try to like. So it's my state. Right. Where I live.

[Brody Henderson]

So you like it.

[Steven Rinella]

So, so, so to myself, I'm going like, sweet dude.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Stick it to him.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

But so just acknowledging that truth.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

I, I feel obligated to point out a couple details or point out a couple minor counter points just to, just to open it all to be fair, where you get into trouble. Even though I like this, I like this because this is, you know, helps helps me out. Where you get the trouble is non resident licenses. Keeps the lights on at the Fish and Game agency.

[Brody Henderson]

Listen, that's why I think you're seeing it with pheasants and turkeys and not elk. Like they're not going to push rifle elk season back 10 days. You'll never see that.

[Steven Rinella]

They might, but that's what, that's what keeps the lights on.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And it could be that the, that the agency is sitting there saying what people really want and it would be enormous. Like if you. Let's say you did a state. Let's say you did a vote in a state referendum. Any state. I don't care. You did Montana, Colorado, any state. Wisconsin. You did a state vote and said, hey, should non residents have to wait 10 days to start deer hunting with a rifle? It would pass everywhere. The agency is going to be like, but hold on a minute. Because all of our funding comes from non resident. You guys are all hunting deer for 30 bucks. These guys are paying 300 bucks to hunt.

[Brody Henderson]

Well, and there's also the outfitters to consider. You'd shrink their season, you know, that's

[Steven Rinella]

who would be pissed.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, you're right. So it's like, it's like you can kind of scratch the itch.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

A little bit. And maybe it's like you're scratching the itch a little bit where you're not going to hurt the agency's funding model.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

The other thing is I look at it like from this perspective because I jump, I hunt all over the place. You know, I jump from state, state and hunt. So here I'm going like, let's say like I go to. We hunt the kitty season. We have the youth season. Wisconsin. Every year, if someone said, all of a sudden they says it's a two day youth season and someone Comes and says, hey, the first day of Wisconsin's youth season is resident only. I would say, oh man.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

What? And I'd be all bummed out.

[Brody Henderson]

But you'd still go.

[Steven Rinella]

I wouldn't have. What could I do about. It's not in my state. I would feel like it was someone else deciding something and I was not part of the decision making process. I'd be bummed. So I get it that people are bummed, but at the same time, when, just to be like totally upfront and honest, when I saw this, I'm like, that's cool. Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. I mean, I'm not crying because there's

[Steven Rinella]

a self serving element to everything.

[Brody Henderson]

Like, look, I think they would do as much of this as they could if they thought they could get away with. But there's a ceiling to it. Like you said, they can only go so far with it.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. The real losers in anything like this, the real losers are. And if you take this state, the real losers, it's Washington and Minnesota because those dudes hunt this state hard.

[Brody Henderson]

Hard. Yep.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Okay, I've got that video if you want to watch it. Steve.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, yeah, this is great. I like this guy. Check this out. This is just right now.

[Nate Mason]

He said this, I think yesterday.

[Steven Rinella]

Listen to this guy.

[Texas Longhorns Coach]

We'll kill a turkey in the morning.

[Steven Rinella]

Can someone say who. Can someone that knows about sports say who he is?

[Phil]

Isn't that the.

[Nate Mason]

I thought it was women's. Yeah. Texas Longhorns, coach.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, okay. Texas Longhorns.

[Nate Mason]

And they, they just advanced to the Final Four.

[Steven Rinella]

He's got a fishing net around his neck.

[Nate Mason]

No, that's basketball.

[Steven Rinella]

That was a joke. A sports joke.

[Nate Mason]

I was making sure. I was making sure you knew what it was.

[Steven Rinella]

He's got a basketball hoop around his neck. They just won.

[Texas Longhorns Coach]

Turkey in the morning. I'll be in the office by 10 o' clock and I'll be in the film, watching film, getting ready. And then the second thing is I'm gonna leave for Phoenix tomorrow. Just being honest, that's going to happen. I've earned that right to be in the woods for a couple hours in the morning calling a turkey and then we'll get ready for whoever's, you know, whatever's going to happen after that. But I watch film tonight. Absolutely. All the way home. I watch it till I can't stay awake tonight, just like I've done here for four or five straight nights. But I'm going to treat myself in the morning to it might not even take longer than 30 minutes if I can Call that dude off the roost. After that, I'll be in the office, and I'll be getting ready for. For ucla.

[Steven Rinella]

Amen.

[Spencer Newhart]

Beautiful.

[Steven Rinella]

And hope he has a good hunt. He got one.

[Nate Mason]

I found out. Yeah, I had to, like, Google it, but on Twitter, he posted a photo of. He got one the next morning.

[Phil]

He was so into thinking about turkeys,

[Steven Rinella]

he couldn't remember who they were playing the next day. At the beginning of that interview. Okay, I was talking to Nate Mason the other day. He's joining us right now. He was out patterning his shotgun, innocently, unaware of the turkey of the TSS explosion. Price explosion.

[Phil]

Vaguely.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Mu.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, you know, you don't need to be a great student of the news to know that there's a lot of ordinance getting blown up right now around the world. People drop bombs all over the place. The military uses a lot of tungsten in ordinance. In. In munitions. They are. There's a tungsten shortage. This kind of ties into us duking it out with China about certain rare minerals, metals. I have a guy came to me. I don't want to say my source. I could be wrong. A guy that's in the ammo business texted me that he heard from the major ammo manufacturer that tss, as. As. As an ammo. Tss, Turkey loads, TSS is done. He says it's all going to the government, and it's time to figure out your next bullet.

[Brody Henderson]

What was it your next shot?

[Steven Rinella]

I don't know. Osmium super shot. Tongue. TSS is over. I'm explaining this to Nate Mason, and I'm. We're talking about that. A TSS round is about six times more expensive than what he uses. And he said, Is it six times better? And I said, no, maybe it's like 1.4 times better. And it inspired him to go on and make his own website. Yep. The TSS test dot com.

[Phil]

You can go there right now.

[Steven Rinella]

He's parked on that domain for one year for a dollar.

[Phil]

Cost me a buck. It cost me 118 shell.

[Steven Rinella]

Did you expense that dollar?

[Phil]

No.

[Steven Rinella]

You ate it.

[Phil]

I'm planning on monetizing this, making a bunch of money off it. Enough to buy tss, maybe. Here's the deal. A couple disclaimers. Well, this is the common man's guide to tss. I think we're making a lot of hay out of TSS when most people don't even. They're not.

[Steven Rinella]

It's not even in my social. Sir, let me tell you something in my social saying.

[Phil]

You're not the common.

[Steven Rinella]

Everyone in my social circle shoots tss.

[Phil]

Right. So this is my second disclaimer. Let me, let me. I have never hunted a turkey in my life and I'm not a data scientist.

[Steven Rinella]

But you are a common man.

[Brody Henderson]

Apparently.

[Phil]

I'm very much common man. This is ripe for corrections. So get sharpen your pencils.

[Steven Rinella]

Nitpickers.

[Phil]

But I think it makes me uniquely qualified to take an objective view of TSS or the lack thereof.

[Steven Rinella]

So Phil, has TSS for the common man pulled up? Yep.

[Phil]

You go to the TSS test.com

[Spencer Newhart]

and

[Nate Mason]

this was a lot of teas.

[Steven Rinella]

A lot of teas.

[Phil]

Yeah, I'm a big alliterative guy.

[Steven Rinella]

It's high tea.

[Phil]

And it's answering the question, can I justify buying TSS for 15, 17, 20 bucks a shell? Everyone's got different situations, variables, hunts, ethics, setups. And so I polled a number of seasoned turkey hunters from across the US and basically asked, what's the average range at which a turkey presents the shot to you? Because that's what really matters.

[Steven Rinella]

And I thought about this answer long and hard. And Yanni. I put it to Yanni. Long and hard. See?

[Phil]

But I also thought about that because I think you're hunting primo spots.

[Steven Rinella]

Dude has nothing. So.

[Phil]

No, I'm just saying I want people to understand.

[Steven Rinella]

Again, you're not a data guy or you're a data guy, you're not a turkey guy.

[Phil]

I'm neither.

[Steven Rinella]

This is a working draft of a website v1.

[Brody Henderson]

And you also probably can't argue with experienced turkey hunters over what they're seeing since you're not.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, agreed. I turkey hunt a lot of places.

[Phil]

Right.

[Max Barda]

I don't, I don't want to remind

[Steven Rinella]

you that I'm a two time super. What's the slam when you got World Slam.

[Brody Henderson]

No.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, Grand Slam two time. No way more than Grand World.

[Brody Henderson]

World includes the Mexican.

[Steven Rinella]

What's the one that doesn't include the oscillated super two times super slam holder.

[Phil]

See, I don't even know what those are. That's how little I know.

[Steven Rinella]

What I'm saying is, when I give you turkey data, turkey dope, it's from all over, buddy.

[Phil]

Yup, but all those data points are from Steve's shoes.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, go on.

[Phil]

So in light of that, I factored in a bunch of variables and you can go on here and put in your situation, whether it's the cagey ness of your turkeys, the species you're hunting.

[Steven Rinella]

Quick.

[Nate Mason]

Hold on, hold on. Before I get corrected, Grand Slam is Eastern Rio Mariam Osceola Royal Slam.

[Max Barda]

That shouldn't be a thing.

[Nate Mason]

It's all for entry level. Yeah. The royal slam is the grand Slam plus the Goulds. And then the world Slam is the royal Slam plus the oscillated.

[Steven Rinella]

So two time royal holder.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. The US super slams. All 49 states. Or sorry, all 49 states. That has turkeys.

[Steven Rinella]

You know what bottlenecks me on that is I only got two. I only got two Goulds.

[Nate Mason]

Two more than a lot of people.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, but I mean, that's what's bottlenecking me on not being a three time.

[Brody Henderson]

You ought to start on that 49 thing.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no, not interested. I want to get back to Nate's thing.

[Nate Mason]

Sorry.

[Phil]

All right.

[Steven Rinella]

No, that was great because you would have got corrected.

[Nate Mason]

Oh, yeah.

[Phil]

So, dude, I think you just pull that sucker up and go through it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, so you go to TSS for the common man. Nate Mason's thing. It's a working draft. He's trying to help you find out if it's right for you. You click find my shell. Who's a.

[Nate Mason]

Who's going to be our hunter?

[Spencer Newhart]

Max.

[Steven Rinella]

Max.

[Nate Mason]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Max. Is your hunting spot actually allow for a 45 yard shot? Great question.

[Nate Mason]

No.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, you can't see that far.

[Nate Mason]

I'm. I'm in the trees. I'm in the timber.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, okay.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Boom.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, you don't need it funny, Skip. It's already done. Skip the tss.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, back up.

[Garrett Humphrey]

You can sell that stash. You got like make pretty penny on it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, let's. Let's start over. Max, let's. Let's change your story. Let's say you're hunting an area that's like, not terribly timbered.

[Nate Mason]

For the record, I'm just putting myself in spots that I'm not shooting past 45.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, like. Like woods hunting. Like. Or like you're not shooting.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, but like even like out here in Montana, I'm not setting up 100 yards from a rise. Like, I'm setting up close to that rise. That turkey's coming up. Boom.

[Brody Henderson]

In your face.

[Steven Rinella]

Yes, but I. I know. Just for the sake of the poor guy's website, he says, hell yeah, he is. Okay. Does your Turkey trip cost $1,000 or more?

[Nate Mason]

I would hope not. Let's say no.

[Steven Rinella]

Does not.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Phil. Oh, wow. It's getting intense now.

[Phil]

Yeah, dude.

[Steven Rinella]

Now your situation. Species Max. Miriam's.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. We're doing Miriam's using a decoy. No, no, you don't use a decoy.

[Nate Mason]

Depends on the situation.

[Brody Henderson]

Okay.

[Nate Mason]

But this, there's a lot of depends, right?

[Steven Rinella]

Well, it's for by trip. This trip is not. Yeah. Okay, now, how would you rate the caginess of the turkeys where you hunt, Max?

[Nate Mason]

I would give them. Oh, it's negative five to five.

[Steven Rinella]

That's the eight butterballs. Meaning domestics.

[Nate Mason]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Or old public land rope draggers.

[Brody Henderson]

Don't do the thing where people say Miriams are stupid.

[Phil]

That's factored into the species.

[Nate Mason]

Give it a two.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Holy cow.

[Phil]

Two.

[Steven Rinella]

Two.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Oh, growing up.

[Steven Rinella]

So can you change that to old public land rope draggers?

[Phil]

Yeah, I'll take those notes. Yeah, me too.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Calling skill.

[Nate Mason]

I would say don't call.

[Steven Rinella]

And then you're Preston Pittman.

[Brody Henderson]

Don't sell yourself short here.

[Steven Rinella]

Max out one. Oh, you're better now. Slightly above average. I would say give it a 1 5. No, because he's like really good at falling. Every. Okay, average killable gobblers per day. If you hunted a day and had

[Max Barda]

one come through in range, you know, how many would you expect?

[Steven Rinella]

Like, let me give you, for instance, when we go to hunt youth turkey, okay. If, if we're hunting hard, I would

[Max Barda]

say, not that we're going to get

[Steven Rinella]

it, not that the kids are going to shoot, but like I would expect in a day we're going to have a burden range.

[Nate Mason]

You would lay eyes on a bird.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, I'd be like 70 yards. I was shooting. Like I would, you know, or whatever.

[Nate Mason]

However you look at it, just.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, like you should have had it. You should have had it. You messed up.

[Phil]

Defined by as within 70 yards.

[Steven Rinella]

He had a hand behind him so you couldn't shoot. He, like his head came through a clearing and you weren't ready. Your kid didn't see it in time. Whatever. Killable turkeys.

[Nate Mason]

See, this is so you can do

[Brody Henderson]

points on the yardage thing and just

[Steven Rinella]

say because you got one.

[Brody Henderson]

Two.

[Steven Rinella]

If he hunts hard, he should have. He should have a turkey in range.

[Nate Mason]

Yes, I go. I would say that. Yes. I was thinking about more, but it

[Steven Rinella]

was how many days you have to hunt?

[Nate Mason]

3 days on weekend Warrior.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, he's going to do a three day hunt. Now, your generic old school shell. No, tss. Your generic shell. What, what's, what's max range for you?

[Nate Mason]

I'm not shooting past 40.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, 40. Okay. This one here's where I get confused.

[Phil]

This is like a mid range, like a medium middle.

[Steven Rinella]

Like that was like a can.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Like a Kent shell.

[Phil]

Sure.

[Brody Henderson]

Premium lead.

[Phil]

Premium lead. Copper plated.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Yeah. So now you got now you got some. You got some long. You got some long beard. What is beard?

[Phil]

XR.

[Steven Rinella]

XR. Are you still pushing past 40?

[Nate Mason]

See, I feel like this all depends. What gauge are you shooting?

[Phil]

We'll do this for your setup.

[Nate Mason]

For my setup. 12 gauge. You could push it out to 40. I don't like.

[Steven Rinella]

What was your other. That was so you don't push it out to 50. Okay, he's out to 50 now. Now what's the biggest poke you're gonna take with tss? Biggest Pokemon. Like when you got to get a rest. That kind of shot.

[Nate Mason]

Oh, my gosh.

[Steven Rinella]

I. I'll answer for him.

[Nate Mason]

No, me personally, I'm not shooting past 40. I don't care what kind of shell I'm shooting.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, so then he. Okay, then take his 50 back to 40 and put TSS at 40.

[Unknown Guest 1]

I think we know what the answer is going to be.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, it's like the worst guy.

[Nate Mason]

I know.

[Phil]

We already answered it off the rip.

[Steven Rinella]

I know, but he's the worst guy in the world to. To like try to get.

[Nate Mason]

I was trying to tell you that.

[Phil]

This is why right away.

[Steven Rinella]

I know, but you know what you're not doing? You're not like you're. You're like. You're not staying true to who I am. No, I know you're trying to stay true to who you are.

[Phil]

Just go 4056.

[Steven Rinella]

You're not just bullshitting Survey. But still. Let's see if he had.

[Nate Mason]

Never mind.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, let me, let me, let me override him. Just.

[Unknown Guest 1]

It's just to push the limit, Steve.

[Steven Rinella]

And max is like 40 with my old whispering in his ear. He's like 40 with my old man's copper plated force.

[Nate Mason]

Shoot it. He's in range. Shoot it.

[Steven Rinella]

Long Beard XR. I'd stretch it to 40. 50 TSS. I'm gonna reach out to 60. Survey says.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Oh, wow. Graphs.

[Nate Mason]

This is awesome, Nate.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Oh, the long beard XR is the best bang for your buck or equivalent.

[Steven Rinella]

You don't need tss.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Right.

[Phil]

There you go.

[Brody Henderson]

I'll take it all. Give it to me, because I ain't stopping to shooting that stuff until I run out of it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, the last bit. Well, I told you to check your numbers on shells. Yep.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Cost per additional point.

[Phil]

So what you're looking at is you're getting a bell curve of where you're going to get a shot. It might walk up to 10, it might hang up at 60, but on average they're going to be about 40 yards. And so you can get that done with the. The medium middle of the road. Copper.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. And what costs are you dealing with here? Because you took like a little.

[Phil]

Yeah. So you scroll down, you'll look at the assumptions and we can make these variable, but generics are going to cost you about a buck fifty. Your middle of the road, two hundred fifty. Your TSS is going to cost you seventeen dollars a show today.

[Steven Rinella]

Today. I thought it'd be higher than that by now probably. You know, that takes the fun out of shooting donut.

[Phil]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And you're 17 bucks exactly. I just don't. You know, the.

[Brody Henderson]

Is worth 20 bucks to me, man.

[Steven Rinella]

I know, but don't you feel like just ripping a couple extra shots at the paper?

[Nate Mason]

I do.

[Steven Rinella]

Yanni Chimani. He says he. When he's. When he's patterning out, he's patterning out on old schoolers and then he double checks out or birdshot.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, I just use cheap game target loads.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Hit the URL again.

[Phil]

The TSS test dot com.

[Steven Rinella]

And what is your pathway toward monetizing this test?

[Phil]

I haven't figured that out yet.

[Steven Rinella]

How many site visits have you had?

[Phil]

I don't know how to read that data.

[Steven Rinella]

I bought that sucker and shipped it. I'm afraid that you'll have three site visits and they all came from the same same address.

[Nate Mason]

I like the bottom. Yeah, there's like bottom. It's almost like in quotes, but it's like a Mediator Laboratories resource.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no, it's great. He really took great touch. He put more into branding than he put into thinking.

[Brody Henderson]

You know, you might get an offer from Big Lead to buy this website.

[Steven Rinella]

Big Lead.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah, they might.

[Steven Rinella]

They got like, yeah, he's in the pocket of Big Red. Okay, so we covered turkey season updates. We covered the TSS purchase guide. Again, please, listeners, go to the TSS test.com and find out if TSS is right for you.

[Max Barda]

All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going

[Steven Rinella]

to want to hear this, man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the

[Max Barda]

ultimate spring turkey giveaway. And it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun From Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027 Rio Grande Turkey hunt in the Texas Hill country for you and two of your buddies or family

[Steven Rinella]

members brought to you by Bird dog.

[Max Barda]

And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light. Phelps game calls FHF gear in the meat eater store. The the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light Contest [e-mail] Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13, 2026.

[Steven Rinella]

So you got all that day, but it ends right before midnight.

[Max Barda]

Gobble, gobble.

[Steven Rinella]

Over to Spencer.

[Spencer Newhart]

I'm gonna talk about Death Valley National Park. Death Valley. It's the biggest national park in the lower 48. It's located about two hours west of Las Vegas in east central California. Part of the park spills over into Nevada, but not much of it. When you think of like Death Valley, you're thinking of the California portion. It's the lowest, driest and hottest place on the continent in all of North America. One part of the park sits at 282ft below sea level. It averages less than 2 inches of precipitation every year. And actually in 1929 and 1953, there was no precipitation at all recorded. It currently holds the world record for the hottest temperature ever recorded when it reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913. So now you know all about the. The what Death Valley looks like and feels like.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, I'll tell you one thing you didn't mention that I always liked. Water doesn't leave there just a basin. Yeah, because it's a below sea. Yeah, it's a dead end.

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah, I think it's. It's like the remnants of an old lake that used to be 7, 000ft deep.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, really?

[Spencer Newhart]

Now what's left there is kidding me is Death Valley. Now, despite this intense heat and lack of rain, stuff still grows there. They have mesquite trees, prickly pear cactus, bitterroot, whole bunch of succulents and cacti. Then there's a number of wildflowers. Now, most of these wildflowers only show up during a super bloom. The Death Valley super bloom only happens about every 10 years. The last time it happened was in 2016. Prior to that, there was one in 2005 and 1998. They require perfect conditions. Most notably, you need a wet fall and winter. And it's precipitation washes the salt off of the wildflower seeds and wakes them up after they lay dormant for a decade.

[Steven Rinella]

No kidding.

[Spencer Newhart]

The seeds are salted, and that precipitation will take the salt away and it signals, you know, to the seeds. Okay, time to go.

[Nate Mason]

You can almost see, like, the path that the water takes.

[Spencer Newhart]

Yeah. We're looking at pictures right now. You can see them on YouTube.

[Brody Henderson]

How long from moisture to this?

[Spencer Newhart]

Well, these, these pictures. The super bloom can vary. We'll get to it in a second. But like, when I was there in 2023, I was there in mid March. Flowers did not start blooming until late March. That year. They had, they had an above average bloom. It was not a super bloom.

[Steven Rinella]

Were you trying to hit the bloom?

[Spencer Newhart]

I knew it would be a good time to be. It wasn't like the point of the whole trip.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Spencer Newhart]

But it was like a factor in being there in mid March. Yeah, the, the perfect conditions. Mostly it's just a wet fall and winter. There are about 20 of these wildflowers that participate in the super bloom. They have a short growing window. When they do show up now, it's similar to predator swamping. Explain what that is, Steve. Predator swamping?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, it's a reproductive strategy that humans interpret as, let's say you have a large nesting colony of birds. If they all lay their eggs at the same time, the local predator population doesn't have a chance of getting them all. They'll kind of work the edges of the colony, but they'll never get them all. Whereas if those birds spread their nesting out over a month, you would just have a month of sporadic predation. So predator swamping, like when, when elk all tend to hit the ground. Elk, fawns all hit the ground in the same day.

[Spencer Newhart]

Calves.

[Brody Henderson]

Calves are going to get corrected.

[Steven Rinella]

Elk, they'll hit the ground the same day. Some are going to live. If they all hit the ground over the course of six weeks, it could be they all get killed. Yeah, right. Predator swamp. You're overwhelming predators.

[Spencer Newhart]

That would be like a mammal version of that. I think other, you know, animals will participate as well. The super bloom does a similar thing. It overwhelms the landscape because by blooming simultaneously, they'll guaranteed to attract a lot of pollinators, butterflies, moths, bees, hummingbirds that otherwise aren't going to show up in Death Valley and visit this desert. Now, here's why I'm talking about this. Today, 2026 is a super bloom year. And this was predicted going back to September because they got a big rainfall. Then it was followed by two and a half More inches of rain between November and January. That's. That's exactly what you want for a super bloom. I found a blog post from a Death Valley guide on November 14, 2025, where he said, quote, I don't recall a setup quite this favorable in the last 15 years. And that guide was right. The super bloom started in mid February. It's expected to last into May. It likely.

[Brody Henderson]

That's what I was going to ask you. So it lasts a while. It lasts not like a week.

[Spencer Newhart]

And they're all gone once the flowers are up. The biggest thing is heat and wind. Those are the enemies of like a lasting super bloom. Now this one probably peaked a couple weeks ago because they had some really intense wind and heat. It knocked down a lot of those wildflowers, but there's still plenty to see. And it also varies by elevation. So obviously the lowest elevation places come into super bloom first, followed by the mid and higher elevations and the. The higher elevation or where the super bloom will last into early summer. Now, if you live in the area, you can go check it out. I visited Death Valley in 2023. Like I said, it's one of my favorite parks. It's one of the only parks that has year round dispersed camping. It's got the best stargazing I've ever experienced. It's. It's super remote, so make sure you fill up on gas first and you have a good spare tire. And take a trip to the racetrack playa. You'll see the sailing stones that move on their own. And then of course, this year, you'll get the rare super bloom that's happening.

[Steven Rinella]

Excellent job.

[Spencer Newhart]

Thank you.

[Steven Rinella]

They need to build no website for that. Did you know?

[Spencer Newhart]

No.

[Steven Rinella]

Excellent job. It's beautiful.

[Spencer Newhart]

Hottest, driest, lowest place on earth. And all those pretty flowers.

[Steven Rinella]

Not on earth.

[Spencer Newhart]

I'm sorry.

[Steven Rinella]

Good, good.

[Spencer Newhart]

Altima North America.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Inside of Santiago. Somewhere around there. The driest place on earth. Like the Alps.

[Brody Henderson]

Chile.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, Chile. Driest place on earth.

[Spencer Newhart]

Can't even like that. Must be less than an inch of precipitation here.

[Nate Mason]

Wow.

[Steven Rinella]

No rain.

[Spencer Newhart]

Disgusting.

[Steven Rinella]

All right, Max, over to you. North Dakota poachers.

[Nate Mason]

All right, so you know how the 1880s had Jesse James and Frank James?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Well, 2026 has Tatum and Tyler Defoe. Oh, going to my home state of North Dakota.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Bad dude.

[Nate Mason]

Watford City, North Dakota, which is in the northwest part of the state, I would say. The remains of over 30 deer, three bull, elk, and even a moose with antlers were found by law enforcement at the residence of a Watford City man who is now under arrest and currently being held at the Southwest Multi County Correction center in Dickinson, North Dakota.

[Steven Rinella]

Where in the hell is he getting the moose?

[Nate Mason]

I do not know. There's moose in North Dakota, but he

[Steven Rinella]

took it home with them. At least the head.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, this. Yeah, I understand this article didn't really say how they got it. It was just like that.

[Phil]

It's there.

[Steven Rinella]

He's got it on his place.

[Nate Mason]

Yep. So back in December 2024, the residents of Tatum, Tayden and Tyler Defoe was being searched by law enforcement on a different warrant. Law enforcement happened to see some untagged heads there, and they notified a local game warrant.

[Brody Henderson]

Seems like a lot of poachers get nailed via unrelated charges.

[Nate Mason]

And then a new search by the North Dakota Game and Fish that lasted about six hours. And then the warden removed the following from the residents. 34 sets of antlers and heads of whitetail and mule deer. Two elkheads with antlers. So a bull elk, one moose with antlers. So bull moose and multiple bags of meat and a bobcat rug. North Dakota game warrens reached out to surrounding states to see, like, hey, you guys have any licenses? Take guess.

[Brody Henderson]

Montana.

[Spencer Newhart]

No.

[Nate Mason]

No licenses found.

[Brody Henderson]

Oh, but didn't they have charges in Montana?

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Meaning they can't. You can't explain it away by like,

[Max Barda]

oh, I've been hunting all over.

[Steven Rinella]

Hell, yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

I thought they were connected to some stuff in Montana, but maybe not.

[Nate Mason]

No. In the article I read, the warden reached out to both Montana and South Dakota to verify zero big game licenses were found.

[Phil]

What's stopping them from just saying they're a bunch of deadheads.

[Nate Mason]

Great question.

[Steven Rinella]

Because I.

[Phil]

My buddy brought up this question because he was running around the new hunter who doesn't know anything about anything. And he was like, I don't want to take this deadhead because I don't have a salvage tag for it. And so I thought I called Montana fwp And they're like, yeah, you don't need a salvage tag.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah, but maybe it depends on what state it's in. You know, if it looks like a head.

[Brody Henderson]

I also think it's like if for some reason a police officer or game warden is on your property and they see a deadhead or two deadheads versus finding 30.

[Unknown Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Phil]

But I found five this year. I got all sorts of deadheads all over the place.

[Nate Mason]

So I think this article, when it says elkheads, I think it's like a mounted taxidermy. You know, it's. It's not a European mounted.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Deadhead. So, yeah. Going back to this, the maximum penalty for a Single Class A Mr. Meteor under North Dakota law is 360 days in prison, $3,000 fine, or both. The youngest, youngest of the two, Tayden, was initially charged with 15 separate Class A misdemeanor charges.

[Steven Rinella]

Wow.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah. He's currently being held in Dickinson, North Dakota. I didn't really find much about his older brother, Tyler Defoe. It's. The article just said he was. Had nearly identical charges stemming from the same incident.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Nate Mason]

But that was it. I don't know if he's in jail or what's happening. So did they like.

[Brody Henderson]

Did they tie any of those heads to like known poaching cases they were trying to solve or is that.

[Nate Mason]

I didn't. This article is very bleak.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

So. And I think it's important to note both defoes are considered into. Considered innocent until proven guilty. So we'll find out. I'll circle back on this in a couple weeks and see what happens.

[Steven Rinella]

I know that's a lot of charges, man.

[Nate Mason]

Yeah, I know. They had a couple of court dates here coming up.

[Spencer Newhart]

So western North Dakota doesn't produce a lot of bull, elk and moose. So that like, you know. Yeah,

[Nate Mason]

yeah, I know there's like bad light like in the badlands in western North Dakota. There's lots of elk. But yeah. Having two of those, I think it's like a once in a lifetime tag.

[Steven Rinella]

But I wouldn't be. I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't know. But I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that those weren't local.

[Garrett Humphrey]

Yeah.

[Nate Mason]

Like hopping.

[Steven Rinella]

That's why. That's why they're talking about calling other states.

[Nate Mason]

Yes. And. Well, once you cross state line, doesn't it turn into a whole other lazy act violation?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Then it's a federal crime.

[Nate Mason]

But yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I think that's kind of what piqued my curiosity about it is that, you know, not to say that they don't, but those are animals not mostly associated there. And the fact that they're calling other states leads you to believe that that's what they're curious about.

[Brody Henderson]

For sure.

[Nate Mason]

So we'll find out.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Okay. Lastly, I just got. So I just recently got a. A moose harvest report. Okay. Looking at moose harvest statistics for here. Yeah. But it. Within this report that I got, I got this other really interesting thing about moose. Moose in general on our continent. So Canada, United States of America, the moose population in a way that they used to understand moose In a way that they, the, the evolving understanding of how moose came to be. Now I'll just do a little trivia. What do you, what do you got? What moose do we have here?

[Brody Henderson]

Shirus. And up in northern we have Canadian. Canadian.

[Steven Rinella]

Canada, yeah.

[Brody Henderson]

Or skit whatever they call them. Saskatchewan.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. So you have, in moose taxonomy, they recognize, you have the Yukon moose, which is the biggest, then the Canadian moose, then you have the Shirus moose. And then I think there's another one they call out east, like the eastern. And maybe is there a Labrador too?

[Brody Henderson]

Newfoundland or Labrador, something like that.

[Steven Rinella]

So these, they have these different moose, these different moose branches in, in moose taxonomy they used to do this a lot. For instance, there used to be, I don't know, they used to recognize a

[Brody Henderson]

dozen caribou, seven different kinds of elk or something like that.

[Steven Rinella]

Seven kinds of elk, dozen caribou. And they used to think that these things were genetically different. Think about this. The Mexican gray wolf and then the wolf, the regular gray wolf. Okay, so we have these different genetic distinctions. And what you're doing is you, when they look at the genome of the species, you usually are, are one when it's valid. Okay, like take, let's start with this example. What I'm trying to say, take black tail deer and mule deer. Black tail deer and mule deer are regarded as legitimately different. They're like that is a legitimate subspecies. And what, what makes it that way is they can see evidence that there was a, a serious distinct genetic barrier. Meaning there was a time when black tail deer were not able to interbreed. They were, they were physically separated from mule deer at a time. Now they're not. Now they bleed into each other. Like I pointed this out before, there's places like in California, if a deer is standing on the west side of i5, it's a black tail deer. If it's standing on the east side of i5, it's a mule deer. But when you look at them genetically, you can tell that these two things were different and they were separated. What was separating them in all these cases in North America it was, what was separating them was like old glaciation. So you had glacial barriers that cut animal populations in chunks. And so areas where we have these like legitimate subspecies, it was because they were separated. When you look at caribou, they had like, I don't know what, a dozen caribou running around. They now think that there are two legitimate caribou subspecies. Barren ground. Barren ground were north of the glaciers. Woodland survived south of the Glaciers, the glaciers go away, everything melts. They can intermingle, but they're still like those are legitimate subspecies. For a long time people thought that the Shirus moose was a subspecies. And there was this idea that it had found refuge south of the great ice sheets and evolved on its own. And these other moose evolved to the north. And I was even unaware this thinking was changing. But they're doing more and more genetic work and it's like all these different moose, Yukon, Canada, Shirus, what you, when you look at them and you see the differences, all you're seeing is, is habitat, like distinct habitat and nutrition.

[Brody Henderson]

And what's the, what is it the thing north to south or south.

[Steven Rinella]

Bergsman's principle. That could play a role too, body size. So like in Bergsman's principle, we've Talked about this 100 times, like Bergsman's principle. If you look at a mammals range, the largest specimens are on the north end of the range. The smallest specimens are on the south end of the range, which fits. So look at all the stuff like antler configuration of a Shirus moose. A Shirushirus moose doesn't have different antler configuration, it's just smaller. And they wound up doing this thing. I'm looking at this map and it served fossils in North America over 15,000 years. And it's crazy because like over 15,000 years you have. I'm looking at this map where it's showing caribou fossils coming out of Nebraska.

[Brody Henderson]

Well, oh, I was doing some research for the book where they found caribou. Tennessee, Alabama, like way down out.

[Steven Rinella]

But this is over 15,000 years. So I got caribou fossils over in South Carolina, North Carolina, caribou fossils in Nebraska, deer fossils, southern Florida, just everywhere. Okay. Elk fossils down into Mexico. There is no older than 15,000 year moose fossil. The southernmost, the southernmost over 15,000 year old moose fossil found to date sits at the Alaska Yukon border.

[Brody Henderson]

So north of the glaciers. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Other stuff was down.

[Brody Henderson]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, and in this map there's this huge band across central Canada where there's no fossil, no fossils from over the time because nothing was there. So you had stuff that was north of it and stuff that was south of it. What you had north of it you had elk, you had moose, you had caribou. South of it you had deer, you had caribou, you had elk, no moose.

[Brody Henderson]

That's why.

[Steven Rinella]

And so they, they're saying that like all moose, all moose at the end of the Ice Age came out of Beringia, spread south and there's never been a point when. And you did not have genetic barriers. They've always just been like, you would start in one place and you'd travel and there'd be moose and you'd slowly realize they look different.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. Over time they just adapted to that habitat, nutrition, habitat.

[Steven Rinella]

And they also. This, this paper also talks a lot about density. That like density is impacting size.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

High density, small size.

[Brody Henderson]

What's wild is they were moving down here at the same time humans were.

[Steven Rinella]

That's the crazy part.

[Brody Henderson]

Timeline.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, that, that's, that's kind of like. It would be that if you always imagine going back, like you want to go back to the Pleistocene, to the Clovis Age, you could be like the first humans that came down out of Beringia and hit the American Great Plains. They might have done that faster than

[Max Barda]

they might have been in a moose free environment.

[Steven Rinella]

And then one day it'd be like, wow, there's moose showing up.

[Brody Henderson]

What's that thing?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Max Barda]

Because the moose came at the same time as humans.

[Brody Henderson]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

I think it's fascinating. The map is cool. Yeah. Yeah. There were no deer the most. No, this is what's crazy too. The most northern deer fossils over 15,000 years have come out of like the, the Prince of Wales island area.

[Brody Henderson]

So black tails.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. On the coast. On the coast. Probably ice free. Yep. You had some blacktails on the coast. And then it's like you didn't have northern deer and you didn't have southern moose.

[Brody Henderson]

That's super cool.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. It's just a kind of a changing perspective of why. Why is a shyness. Because when they look at a Shirus moose, they're like his antlers are smaller, his coat is different colored. There's these other head measurements that are different and you're like, oh, they must have been different.

[Brody Henderson]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

But it's like, it's just how the species was reflected, how the landscape change the species, how the species adapted to the landscape. Right.

[Brody Henderson]

It'd be interesting to see what other species will. They'll look at and try and follow that same trend, you know?

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Spencer Newhart]

For size reference, the Boone and Crockett minimum score for a shirus moose is 140. For a Canada moose is 185. There you go, 45 inch difference. And then for a Yukon moose, it's 210. So this is like a Canada and Yukon are closer in minimum size in Canada.

[Brody Henderson]

Boone and Crockett score is kind of weird. Doing vision with moose like spread wise, I would say like a Shirus good bulls like 40 inches wide.

[Spencer Newhart]

If you look at the all time record, the world record for a Canada is 242. For a shirus is 205.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm going to make people dig this up themselves. I don't want to tell them but there is a unit in Montana where the average 50 inches, the five year average is a 49 inch width. And you look at most of the units, the five year average is down in the upper 30s.

[Brody Henderson]

Yeah. Decent shire hot unit. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And you know what's funny? People know this because it's a low draw odd unit. People figured it out.

[Spencer Newhart]

Everything is 0.01% chance.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no, no. Not true.

[Spencer Newhart]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Not true. Thanks for listening to the new show.

[Brody Henderson]

I know some that are.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, thanks everybody.

[Unknown Guest 2]

When you flew out the window and into the sunset, I thought I would never stop screaming. I thought I would never stop screaming your name. But I ran out of breath so I took in some more and I started screaming even louder. The screaming goes on for hours and days. So if you and I love this forever, then I'll probably be screaming that I'm trying to be cool here. But inside I'm screaming.

[Nate Mason]

Ra.

[Max Barda]

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[Steven Rinella]

is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.