Ep. 884: The Invention of Archery, Patagonia Sues a Drag Queen, and Will Oregon Ban Hunting?

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast Ep. 884: The Invention of Archery, Patagonia Sues a Drag Queen, and Will Oregon Ban Hunting?

Date: June 2, 2026
Host: Steven Rinella
Guests & Regulars: Brody, Spencer, Corinne, Randall, Matt Naron (archaeologist)

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Episode Overview

In this lively and wide-ranging episode, the MeatEater crew, led by Steven Rinella, tackles a grab bag of oddball outdoor headlines, deep conservation news, hilarious family stories, and a detailed archaeological interview about the origins of the bow and arrow. Highlights include: a new study on ancient archery, the controversy over a possible Oregon hunting ban, a quirky trademark suit between Patagonia and a drag performer, wild turkey attacks on seniors, a string of new West Virginia fishing records, and growing PFAS chemical contamination in Montana's fish.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Cold Open & Wildlife Stories

[00:02 – 05:45]

• Bear Cub Distress Calls (ad)
• Rogue Turkeys and the Mouse Escape: Steven and the crew share a humorous family saga about a pet mouse repeatedly escaping, highlighting the sometimes comical realities of coexisting with wildlife.
  • "If there's no body, it's very hard to prosecute." – Steve [04:36]

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2. Turkey Hunt Sweepstakes & Entry Details

[05:45 – 10:38]

• Annual Turkey Hunt Giveaway—entry details, change from elk hunt to turkey hunt for greater accessibility and fundraising.
• Notable Quotes:
  • "So hillbillies and rednecks can come." – Steve [07:34]
  • "We tripled the amount of money we raised by going raffle." – Steve [07:36]

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3. America's 250th Anniversary & Centennial Talk

[10:38 – 14:02]

• Discussion about “semiquincentennial” and the tradition of celebrating America’s milestones.
  • "The term for a 250th anniversary is a semiquincentennial." – Randall [12:57]

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4. Punt Gun Auction & Conservation Fundraiser

[14:05 – 17:56]

• Update on a massive “punt gun” the crew bought, tested, and is now auctioning off for conservation.
• Auctioning off hats that have been shot (literally) by the punt gun.
  • "You pay more for the more holes." – Steve [15:06]
  • "Rock Island is waiving all fees. Every dollar goes to the MeatEater Initiative." – Spencer [16:54]

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5. Archaeological Deep Dive: The Invention of the Bow and Arrow

[21:39 – 32:55]

Interview with Dr. Matt Naron, Archaeologist

[22:35 – 32:55]

• Main Research Finding:
  • Exchange from atlatl (spear throwers) to bow and arrow in North America occurred 1400 years ago.
  • Used a statistical technique (optimal linear estimation) with radiocarbon dates of preserved bow/atlatl parts.
  • “We found that they crossed over exactly at 1400 years ago.” – Matt Naron [24:51]
• Convergent Evolution of Archery:
  • Bow and arrow independently invented in South Africa (74k years ago), Europe, Sri Lanka, and North America.
  • "We often have this view...that things are getting better and better, but species and technologies come and go. There is no progression to evolution." – Matt Naron [30:22]
• Stone Point/Arrowhead Misconceptions: Smaller points tend to appear after archery arrived, but correlation is imperfect.
• Potential Geographic Origin:
  • Evidence is best in the dry West; could have arrived earlier in East, but poor preservation makes it impossible to say.
  • Possible lost, reinvented technology.

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6. Wild Turkey Attacks: Urban Wildlife & Media Illiteracy

[32:55 – 39:03]

• Recent story: Town turkeys attack a California senior citizen. The group demystifies turkey “ambushes” (media often misuses the term).
  • "For the turkeys to have ambushed her, they would need to have gone out ahead of her, laid in wait... Like, please try to understand what an ambush is." – Steve [35:20]
• How to Defend Against Turkeys:
  • Advice such as garbage bags, umbrellas, and hosing them down; discussion of Audubon Society articles and flowcharts.

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7. Oregon Hunting Ban? Examining the “PEACE Act” Initiative

[39:03 – 47:14]

• The “PEACE Act” seeks to ban all hunting, fishing, ranching, and animal use in Oregon by removing exemptions in animal cruelty laws. Engineered by David Mickelson.
  • "It's an ad for vegan diet right there, man." – Steve [41:09]
• Political Realities:
  • “It's unlikely to be voted into law”—Oregon has big ag, hunting, and ranching constituencies.
  • AI betting markets put odds of passing at only 20%.
• Underlying Motives:
  • Sometimes ballot initiatives are a publicity stunt to influence long-term attitudes.
  • "The point for PETA is not to make progress. The point for PETA is to perpetuate PETA by making the news." – Steve [46:20]
• Would You Break the Law?:
  • Crew jokes about turning vigilante poacher if such a broad ban ever passed.
  • “If this happened in my state, I feel like I would become a vigilante hunter.” – Steve [44:41]

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8. Lead in Wild Game: New York Food Bank Legislation

[48:38 – 52:16]

• New bill: Ban on donating wild game meat potentially contaminated by lead to food banks.
  • Only Minnesota screens donated wild game meat for lead fragments.
• Debate: Is there evidence wild game leads to elevated blood lead levels compared to urban environmental exposure? Unclear, more study needed.

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9. Youth Hunting Rights Restored in Erie County, NY

[54:25 – 58:12]

• After a veto by the county executive blocking supervised youth hunting, the legislature overrode the veto (bipartisan).
  • "That's what I like to hear, man. Splitting them Dems off." – Steve [55:46]
• Discussion on the confusion of county-by-county hunting regulations.

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10. A Flurry of WV Fishing Records—And Hatchery Ethics

[58:27 – 73:00]

• West Virginia set 5 new fish records in 2 months:
  1. Golden Rainbow Trout (Palomino): Most likely a just-stocked hatchery fish.
  2. Tiger Trout: Hybrid from hatcheries, not wild.
  3. Chain Pickerel: Legit private pond record, possibly less “fake.”
  4. Redhorse Sucker: Native, wild, significant record.
  5. Blue Catfish (71 lb): Tracked using sonar, reflection of better tech, cleaner rivers, and stocking.
• Spicy internal debate over validity and “value” of records set by recently stocked or hybrid/hatchery fish.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • "I just don't think it's news." – Steve [67:10]
  • "The next one's gonna be like a new record Chuck E. Cheese Bermuda trout." – Steve [64:14]

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11. PFAS (Forever Chemicals) in Montana's Wild Fish

[73:05 – 84:19]

• Montana DEQ found extremely high PFAS levels in fish samples (up to thousands of parts per trillion vs. the drinking water standard of 4 ppt).
• Advisories include “avoid” or “limit” recommendations for several water bodies and fish species.
  • "If you eat one walleye that size out of Fort Peck, that's 5400 parts per trillion." – Corinne [77:27]
• Discussion of PFAS "forever chemicals," health risks, and their environmental persistence.
• Panelists express mixed willingness to heed consumption advisories (“I’m not stopping eating them fish.” – Steve [79:39])

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12. Trademark Throwdown: Patagonia vs. Patty Gonia

[91:36 – 108:44]

• Background: Patagonia (the gear company) sues drag queen climate activist "Patty Gonia" over using a similar name in merchandise.
• Trademark Details:
  • Patagonia’s issue: Merch sales by Patty Gonia could create brand confusion.
  • "The question...is, does it cause brand confusion?" – Steve [98:57]
  • Patty Gonia’s defense: Name is a play on the region of Patagonia, not the company.
• Both sides have their rationale—navigating the line between parody, homage, and infringement.
• Podcast Room Consensus: They understand Patagonia the company's legal imperatives, but all hosts "root for Patty."
  • "I know they're right. But I'm rooting for the other person." – Steve [107:44]
  • "They probably need to punt and just make Patty, like, a spokesperson." – Spencer [107:54]
• Sidebar: Recounts famous "South Butt" vs. North Face trademark spat.

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Notable Quotes

• “We often think...technology is just progressing, but species and technologies come and go.” – Matt Naron [30:22]
• “This is the real news, man. Ain’t no Strait of Hormuz over here.” – Steve [111:40]
• “Every spring, West Virginia DNR stocks 50,000 golden rainbow trout, also known as banana trout or palomino trout.” – Spencer [60:05]
• “If this happened in my state, I feel like I would become a vigilante hunter.” – Steve [44:41]
• “They're proposing things they know are a dead end because then the press...will talk about it.” – Steve [46:32]
• “For the turkeys to have ambushed her, they would need to have gone out ahead of her, laid in wait…please try to understand what an ambush is.” – Steve [35:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Time Range | Highlight | |---|---|---| | Cold Open & Mouse Saga | 00:02–05:45 | Escape-artist mouse, wildlife laws | | Turkey Hunt Sweepstakes | 05:45–10:38 | Changes in event for inclusivity | | U.S. Centennial/Celebrations | 10:38–14:02 | “Semi-quincentennial” explained | | Punt Gun Auction | 14:05–17:56 | Giant historic gun, conservation | | Archery Invention Interview | 21:39–32:55 | When and where archery arose | | Wild Turkey Attacks | 32:55–39:03 | Urban wildlife, media language miscues | | Oregon Hunting Ban | 39:03–47:14 | Initiative scope and (im)prospects | | Lead in Game Donation | 48:38–52:16 | New York/food banks/safety debate | | Youth Hunter Law Veto | 54:25–58:12 | Erie County drama on youth hunting | | Five WV Fishing Records | 58:27–73:00 | Ethics of hatchery records, wildness/value | | PFAS in Fish | 73:05–84:19 | Montana study: widespread contamination, advisories | | Trademark: Patagonia v Patty | 91:36–108:44 | Parody, legal dilemmas, branding culture | | Show Wrap | 110:56–end | Reflections, subscribe/follow reminders |

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• Humor + Hard News: This episode blends campfire humor and good-natured teasing with real, sometimes sobering conservation and cultural issues.
• Science & Politics: The intersection of technological, legal, and societal changes—from ancient bows to PFAS-laced fish and ballot initiatives—shows how dynamic wildlife and outdoors policy is.
• Trademark Talk: The Patagonia vs. Patty Gonia debate is a microcosm for how companies, culture, and parody interact in the digital age.
• Archery Origins: A major archaeological finding—the bow/arrow transition 1,400 years ago in North America—reminds us that even ancient technologies can be subject to reinvention and loss.
• Fishy Record-keeping: Not all new “records” are created equal; the podcast questions what makes a fish (or a hunting story) truly memorable or meaningful.

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Recommended For:
Anyone interested in hunting, fishing, conservation, archaeology, and outdoor culture—especially those who appreciate honest, unfiltered conversation and a deep-dive approach to nature news.

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Subscribe:
Catch this and more on the MeatEater Podcast channel, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

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“This is the real news, man. Not a bunch of fake news.” – Steve [111:47]

Transcript

[Steven Rinella]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Steve]

Guaranteed Human. Check out Phelps new bear cub distress call. Springtime is the right time to use a bear cub in distress sound when bear hunting. Male bears will kill cubs in order to get females to cycle into another breeding opportunity. And the sound of a cub in distress also signals to other male bears that a meal is close and even a possible mate. A bear cub in distress will also get the attention of a female bear to come and investigate to defend a cub dragging any male suitors she has in tow, not to mention a Cuban. Distress will also call other predators in as they're looking for an easy meal too. Get your own bear cub in distress @Phelps game calls dot com. Welcome to the news show, ladies and gentlemen. Today we've got news about a gang of rogue turkeys who beat up a nice old lady. Oregon voters will get to consider a bill to ban all hunting, fishing, ranching and rodeoing. Pushed by a dude who looks like Moby on a diet. We got an interview about archaeological findings around who invented the bow and arrow. And when Spencer Newharth shatters a number of fishing records. Seth is slowly killing himself eating fish full of pfas chemicals. And Patagonia sues, of all things, a drag queen. But first, I'm up. The mouse is gone.

[Corinne]

Oh, what happened?

[Steve]

Got away. But it's like a complicated story because first the mouse, my boy, comes in the room. I don't know when that kid goes to bed. The high school kid comes into our room, wakes me and my wife up at 2 in the morning to say, the mouse got away. But I found it. And I said, did you put a lid on it so it doesn't get out again? He says, yes. The next day, I wake up and there's no lid on it. And I said, why'd you say that you put a lid on it? He said, because what I meant was, it doesn't need a lid. Oh, sure. What he meant was, it doesn't need a lid, you know? And I'm like, katie, do you remember him saying, like, in the middle of the night that he put a lid on it? She says, he absolutely said he put a lid on it. He says it doesn't need a lid is why he said that. He says it crawled out on a stick, but he found it.

[Corinne]

He woke you up in the middle of the night to tell you that it got away.

[Steve]

That's what was so fishy about it. Yeah, but it was true. Because in the morning he goes back like, I don't get why I Don't know why he woke us up to tell us that. He woke us up. Tell us a non news item.

[Corinne]

Sounds.

[Steve]

I know, very.

[Randall]

But still, it made its way to the new show.

[Steve]

Yeah, very fishy. So he says, there was a stick in there. Someone put a stick in there. So it mimicked its real environment, like your real life environs, you know. And he said, well, I took the stick out. Then my wife goes and gets a basket full of laundry in the laundry room. Screams bloody murder because the mouse has got out and found its way and is living in the laundry basket. We find it again and catch it. This little boy, who was his mom, a neighbor boy, his mom was with my wife when they found the mouse. He made a hardware cloth box with a lid for the mouse.

[Randall]

Nice.

[Steve]

Since there's no aquarium lid, we put it in the hardware cloth, like, made out of, like, you know, wire mesh to store it in there. But my wife at this point is done with this mouse getting away, so she's like, store the mouse outside in the box with the lid. I had originally nixed this box because I said, that mouse will fit through the hardware cloth. But I said, put it in there because it's got a lid and put it outside. And they're like, but I thought you said it'd crawl through the hardware cloth. I'm like, well, I think it's big enough now where it won't. But it did. But where it gets complicated is my wife was mad that I brought that thing down here because she's like, it's illegal to have wildlife. So you're going to get in trouble for talking about that stupid thing on the podcast. And I said, you're going to get in trouble because you brought it home. But now it's gone anyway. And now it looks like I let it go to avoid the law, because if they raid the house, like, I listen to blood trails. If there's no body, it's very hard to prosecute.

[Corinne]

Sure.

[Steve]

So now there's no mouse. Anyways. So, like, when they raid the house, I'm like, dude, there's no mouse here. Look all you want. Well, it's here somewhere.

[Brody]

You had to have been secretly happy that that thing got free.

[Steve]

Oh, yeah, we were both happy again, but I legit didn't let it go.

[Corinne]

So is it in the house somewhere?

[Steve]

No, it's outside the house.

[Brody]

Wonder if he'll come back to visit you guys now and then, like that pigeon did.

[Steven Rinella]

Do you think he's, like, grown enough or. She's grown Enough to make it.

[Steve]

I've told my kids, I think it's fine because it's the right time of

[Spencer]

year and if it could escape on its own, like two or three times,

[Steve]

yeah, it's got a bad desire.

[Brody]

You got any bad neighbors that let their house cats roam around?

[Steve]

There's one. There's one cat. I think his name's Mitzi or something like that. Dude, no bell on that thing. Yeah, Mitzi and Meble. Mabel's gone, so if the cops are coming, don't even waste your time. I can't find the mouse if I wanted to. Habeas corpus. There's no body. Listen to blood trails. There's no bodies. There's no. You can't do nothing about it. We got our.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh.

[Steve]

Oh, yeah. Our annual turkey hunt giveaway sweepstakes. Just we're. I like it because when this sweepstakes goes live every year, it's just about the time of year we just did it. Last year's turkey hunt sweepstakes giveaway winners. We just hunted with them. Both of them got their birds. They both got their birds. On day one every year, Giannis and I team up with TRCP and we do our turkey hunt giveaway, all expense paid. Three night, two day turkey hunt. The. The webpage says Colorado, but we bounce around. We don't like to lock ourselves in on where we hunt. This last year, we hunted in Northern Illinois. Phenomenal hunt. So ignore that. That'll change. They have to put a value on it, and they say it's worth 9,000 bucks. I think it's worth $100,000. All your expense paid. We pay your travel, we pay your food. We have. My buddy, Chef Andy, came and cooked this year. He's cooked in the past. So we bring in a chef. We take care of your lodging, your airfare, your turkey tags. You hunt with me and Yanni. Three nights, two days. All the money we cover personally, we cover all the expenses. So the full raffle sweepstakes money goes straight to trcp. We don't pull expenses out. That goes to trcp, okay? It's live now to go win. We've been doing this for years. We've got a stack of. We've got a stack of happy customers.

[Brody]

Didn't it start out as an elk hunt and change to a turkey hunt?

[Steve]

That's funny you bring that up. It started out as an elk hunt. That was an auction. So that meant that every year it'd be like an orthodontist or some such. Then we're like let's switch it so that any kind of guy can win.

[Brody]

Right.

[Steve]

Just so hillbillies and rednecks can come.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

So that's what we did. And it raised more money. We, like tripled the amount of money we raised by going raffle.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, man, I'm too much of a hillbilly to ever win something like that, think again.

[Spencer]

And if you got a baby due in the spring and you consider the like, well, maybe the timing doesn't work. You can still do it anyway and Steve will have a make. Good for you.

[Steve]

Spencer, speaking from experience, last year's winner didn't hunt. Last year's winner wins and then gets his wife pregnant like three months later.

[Randall]

Tails. Oldest time.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So all of a sudden his wife's due date is like turkey season. So he sends his brother in laws who tag out. Then I felt bad for him. So then I had him and his dad come for dinner. And Spencer came over to help entertain. Oh. So we flew them into town.

[Brody]

This is.

[Steve]

We're not gonna make a habit out of that.

[Spencer]

If you win, don't go get pregnant.

[Steve]

If you win, get a box of prophylaxis.

[Randall]

Family plan accordingly.

[Steve]

Yeah. If you get a family. If you win, get a family planning plan together. I don't care how you do it. Yeah. That's for another show. That's for calling mommy.

[Brody]

So how did Spencer entertain them? Like songs.

[Spencer]

I was doing cartwheels.

[Steve]

Oh, he's a great entertainer. Spencer's my kind of. Spencer's my kind of guy for stuff like that. Because what Spencer does. Oh, wow. Do you want to know what. You know what Spencer does?

[Randall]

He asks a lot of questions.

[Steve]

Yeah. Very thoughtful questions. He's not there to talk about himself. Yeah, he's very. He'd ask questions on the fly. Like if you thought for a week about what you might ask.

[Spencer]

Well, maybe I thought for a week about what I might ask.

[Randall]

Did you notice how I noticed that about you?

[Steve]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He asked great questions.

[Randall]

He's a natural host.

[Spencer]

Thank you.

[Steve]

It's just me.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Steve]

I can just, like, I could sit there and when he has a question, I'm like, that's such a good question. I'm looking forward to the answer.

[Randall]

And if you only listen to the podcast. Podcast. You might think that he just asks trivia questions. But in fact, he's very personable.

[Steve]

Yeah. Ask people about themselves. It's a great characteristic. TRCP.org summer meat eater summer sweepstakes again. All expense three night, two day hunt with me and Yanni. We have made some exceptions when we've had a hunter not get us bird we've done. I don't want to make a habit of that. We already got next year's spot lined up. It's the same spot from this year in. The place is sweet. It's a good turkey hunt.

[Brody]

That's where they strut on the railroad tracks.

[Randall]

If you need some extra entertainers, he can ask questions.

[Steve]

So it goes like. You get like 10 entries for 25. Whatever.

[Randall]

Just do it.

[Steve]

Yeah. Get in there. Win this son of a. We'll show you turkey hunt and some good food. What else we got? Is that it?

[Brody]

No, you got your T shirt.

[Steve]

Oh, we gotta. You know, all this, all this hoopla. America's 250th anniversary. I get it. I'm more of a 100, 200, 300 guy. Yeah.

[Corinne]

Here, here.

[Steve]

Like I was around. I was three.

[Randall]

Two.

[Steve]

Something like that. Two at the bicentennial. But the problem with only doing centennial celebrations is you're gonna have people just flat out. Yeah.

[Brody]

Including our current president.

[Steve]

Yeah. Well, no. Well, he hit the bicentennial.

[Brody]

I know, but he's like. The 250 is closely linked to his.

[Steve]

Yeah. I don't want to dog on it. I get it. But I just like, I would never. If I was left to myself, I would never think to. If I saw that the 300 was coming up, I would plan huge stuff. Yeah.

[Brody]

Big part.

[Steve]

I would never have thought to myself. 250 is. You know. But the. The nice thing about splitting the 50s is most people that live a normal life expectancy will hit a celebration. You could like I hit one at two. I won't hit the next one.

[Brody]

Nope.

[Randall]

I mean, we.

[Corinne]

We. Right.

[Steve]

So maybe how like you might not ever hit one?

[Randall]

No. Probably not.

[Steve]

If they didn't do the 50. Right. Right.

[Randall]

I was born in 86.

[Steve]

So like, you could live a fairly okay life.

[Randall]

Yeah. I mean, it's not gonna be great.

[Spencer]

Yeah.

[Steve]

It'd be a little bit disappointing. Yeah. Sydney would get remarried. Yeah. Well, I was looking forward to that day. She'd get a second chance. Now you could feasibly without it being a tragedy. Sure. Never get. Yeah. A celebration perfectly.

[Randall]

How everybody say he lived till 89.

[Steve]

Oh, is that how you be?

[Randall]

Well, 90. I could live till 89 and miss it. Right.

[Steve]

Okay. So you're not going to see one.

[Randall]

No.

[Steve]

That's why you got to do the 50s.

[Randall]

I mean, I'm.

[Steve]

Because of Randall.

[Brody]

They don't have like the cool centennial name, though.

[Steve]

They do. If I may, what is it called?

[Randall]

I was gonna say Everybody knows that 150 is a sesquicentennial.

[Steve]

Well, that's what that means.

[Randall]

Yeah. The term for a 250th anniversary is a semi quincentennial.

[Matt Naron]

Nice.

[Steven Rinella]

Everyone get your semi.

[Randall]

Sounds like.

[Steve]

I believe that's why they're going with the 250. Yeah, we're gonna.

[Brody]

That should have gone on the T shirt, man.

[Randall]

Semi quincentennial.

[Steve]

Yeah. Why is it.

[Randall]

That's a great. That's a great trivia.

[Steve]

Anyways, we launched a shirt in Randall's honor because this is his best chance to see a centennial. Chance to have a good celebration. It says America. It's got a buffalo on it says land of the free 1776. Get your own.

[Corinne]

What does it say about free jerky there?

[Brody]

Yeah, I think you might get free

[Corinne]

jerky with the T shirt or if you spend over a certain amount or something.

[Spencer]

America.

[Brody]

Some 250 year old jerky.

[Steve]

I don't see nothing about jerky. It says it up there, the top left.

[Corinne]

This is just a screenshot from the website.

[Steve]

Oh. Huh. There could be something to do with free jerky. Yeah, I don't want.

[Randall]

That's enticing.

[Corinne]

Don't say anything official

[Steve]

guy has the etiquette question.

[Spencer]

Hold on, hold on.

[Steve]

Sorry.

[Spencer]

Punch gun.

[Steve]

Was that deliberate?

[Brody]

Now you got to explain not missing the exit.

[Spencer]

Steve scolded me for not speaking up last week to talk about the punt gun. And then he blew past the punt gun exit again on this episode, we bought a punt gun in 2022. We've been messing around with it for a while. We shot it earlier this year. Now there's some important news to share around that. In late June here, we're going to have the video that comes out on our YouTube channel of me and Steve shooting the punt gun. And then in early or mid July, the meat eater auction house of oddities is going to go live. And we are going to be selling some hats that were shot by the punt gun at the auction house. And then in late August, those hats

[Steve]

say this hat was shot by a

[Spencer]

punt gun and it was actually shot by a punt gun.

[Steve]

And there's going to be three categories. There's barely shot, pretty shot, and really shot.

[Spencer]

Yes. So a barely shot Higher.

[Steve]

The more holes. This is the weird part. You pay more for the more holes. Sure. But it all goes to. It all goes to conservation.

[Corinne]

It's like jeans. These Days.

[Steve]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brody]

What'd you guys do with the shell casings?

[Spencer]

We have some.

[Steve]

Spencer stole one for his own.

[Brody]

Should auction those off.

[Spencer]

They may go in the auction house we sent one of them to. I'll explain this now. In late August, we are selling the punt gun again. It will be 8-21-22 or 23. We don't know the exact date yet. This will be done through Rock Island Auction at their summer premier auction. Rock Island Auction. They're like the world's leading auction house for antique, collectible, historic firearms. That's where we bought the punt gun.

[Steve]

And remember, we had Will Primos on about selling that collection, that collection series of shotguns he has. That was Rock Island.

[Spencer]

If a really valuable gun comes up for sale, say it's like, worth north of, you know, $20,000, there's a good chance it's going through Rock Island. That's where our punt gun came from. That too. It's now going to be sold through. We paid $20,000 for it. The folks at the auction house hope that it goes for more than that this time around. Their estimate is 20 to 30,000. Punt guns don't come up for sale real often. We bought ours in 2022. That same auction, there was one other punt gun. Prior to that, they had sold one in 2021 and then 2016. So less than one a year for punt guns coming up for sale.

[Steve]

Ours is a Holland and Holland punt

[Spencer]

gun manufactured in London and it's from the late 1800s. It's four years older than the very state we're sitting in right now. That's how old that damn pumpkin is.

[Steve]

And the nice thing about this, when we got it, if someone said, does it work? We would have had to say, I don't know.

[Spencer]

In fact, we asked that question and they said, we don't know.

[Steve]

Now, when you buy it and someone says, does it work? You'd be like, does it work?

[Corinne]

Check out this hat.

[Spencer]

It worked six times. So we're going to sell that through Rock island auction 8-21-23. Every dollar that that punt gun sells for is going into the meat eater initiative. So it's going to a good cause. And Rock island, they're doing us a huge favor. They're waiving all fees that are normally associated with selling a gun through them. So we appreciate Rock island for their help in making this happen. We'll announce these dates when they get closer. But late June video, mid July auction house, late August, the punt gun will be sold.

[Steve]

So those of you out there the big pile of scratch orthodontists.

[Corinne]

Yep.

[Steve]

Get that punt gun and if you do buy it, you want the wall mount brackets. Spencer was too lazy to take them off the wall. Let me know, I'll send them over. Barton fabrication made them rockisland auction.com a guy had a chedicate question but you got to resend the question because the way you have it, you're going to hurt people's feelings.

[Randall]

Yes.

[Steve]

Like he way over described. Way over described. You'd have to this is the the guy talking about the skull guy and the skull lady resend. They're going to know exactly who you're talking about and then you're going to have no school people Leland. No skull people. We got a thing that's going to we're going to have Yanni address where a guy's talking about basically he's saying don't throw out the baby with the bath water on drones.

[Randall]

Drone recovery.

[Steve]

Drone recovery. He's got a spirited argument about why drone recovery is great and you shouldn't make it so you can't use drones to find wounded animals just because people are going to then also use it to poach. But we'll let Yanni talk about that. A guy wrote in to say we were, we were talking about data center on the north slope. We're talking about the oil fields around Prudhoe Bay, how they don't, they don't pipe out natural liquefied natural gas often natural gas being a byproduct of oil extraction. He says they truck it down daily down to Fairbanks and trucks. So there is that. There is a commercial liquefied natural gas output coming off there. That correction stands. Iconic summer moments deserve an iconic drink. It is Mountain Dew and American Original. From their beginnings in the foothills of Tennessee to the biggest fourth of July yet, the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew is the perfect companion to your American summer adventures. No matter where you go or who you are with, bring Mountain Dew to amplify your celebration. When I was in college, Dew was the daytime beverage of choice for all things summer. Rope swings into the river, jumping off bridges into the river, tubing the river, fishing the river, riding snowboards down the Lake Michigan sand dunes right out into the waves and shooting off fireworks at night. You name it, we were powered by Dew. It's been tasting great since 48. That's right. Two brothers created Mountain Dew in the foothills of Tennessee back in 1948. The refreshing citrus kick is perfect for summer and 4th of July at the Grill on the beach or right in the living room. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew in American original. Tasting great since 48. Look for American Dew limited time packaging or find it in stores near you@mountain Dew.com that is Mountain Dew.com hunting demands preparation, persistence and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear First Light. This isn't about hype. It's about no compromise gear. Built to perform, built to last. Whether it's their industry leading merino wool keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements, First Light is built to help you go farther and stay longer. Designed by hunters for hunters with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses, just gear you can count on. Head to first light.com that's F I R S T L I T.com now an interview with our favorite archaeologist, Matt and Aaron. So Matt's been on the show before, if you remember when we did our thing, when, when we did a research, we participated in a research project where we butchered a bison using stone tools. Met's been on the show talking about a lot of his archaeological work. When someone sends me or anyone I know a photo of a rock they found and they're wondering if it was, if it's a tool, a human made tool, we always send the picture to Meton. Meton always says it's not.

[Corinne]

Yeah, I do this all the time.

[Steve]

Yep. He's like a professional ball buster. Like professional good times ruiner.

[Matt Naron]

Sorry,

[Steve]

I'll be like, look at this crazy ax I found. He's like, that looks like a rock. Not always the bird expertise. Yep. Yep. Sometimes he will point out that he, he's. This is what makes him a great. Sometimes he'll point out he can't tell from that picture and sometimes he'll point out that that does look like worked stone. So it's not that he just says no just to. Just to be mean, but he puts people in their place. And I always say when I get a picture of something someone found, I always say, hang on a minute. So if I ever say that to you, and you're one of my friends, what I'm doing is I'm sending the picture to Met for him to vet. Okay, Met. And please tell us about the paper you just published.

[Matt Naron]

Yeah. So myself and some of my closest colleagues, a guy named Briggs Buchanan at University of Tulsa and Rob Walker at Missouri and Marcus Hamilton down in Texas, we wanted to know when the bow and arrow was adopted in Prehistoric North America. And this is the question that a lot of archaeologists have struggled with for a pretty long time. And it's a tricky question because usually, like, the components of a bow and arrow don't preserve, right, because it's wood and sinew and stuff. So for a really long time, archaeologists have been using stone points to try to figure out the weapon that that stone point went on to. But that's really problematic because you can have little tiny points on arrows, atlatl, darts. You can even have tiny points on spears, like thrusting spears. And you can have large points on all of those different weapon systems. So you can't use the stone point to figure out the rest of the weapon. And so Dave Meltzer, who's been on the podcast several times, he said to me a couple years ago, he's like, why don't you figure this out? So I start to think about it, and there's a statistical technique called optimal linear estimation. And we don't need to get into the details of that technique because it's pretty boring. But, you know, if you, like, hit a baseball and if you only have, like, 30% of that baseball's trajectory and, you know, the velocity of the baseball, you can make a pretty good prediction of where that baseball is going to land, kind of what optimal linear estimation does, except we can do it with data and radiocarbon dates. And so what my colleagues and I did was we actually went through the literature, and we actually have something like 50 preserved components of bows and arrows from really dry caves and bows and arrows that, like, melt out of the ice and stuff like that. And we have 86 preserved components from the atlatl or spear thrower and dart, also from dry caves, and just random occurrences where these things preserve. And because we can date those wooden components, we have radiocarbon dates on all 136 of those rare archaeological specimens. And so what we did was we applied this technique and we went backwards in time with the bow and arrow, and we went forwards in time with the atlatl and dart, and we found that they crossed over exactly at 1400 years ago. So that's when the bow and arrow transition from the atlatl and dart occurred in western North America.

[Steve]

Do you. I've often said this. I should have checked with a guy like you before I said it. I've often told people, and I don't even know where I read this, that. That the bow and arrow was perhaps invented. I don't know where I got this number seven times when I say that what am I saying, so what you're

[Matt Naron]

talking about is the, the principle of convergent evolution. And, and we see that all the time in the biological world, right? Insects, birds and bats all can fly, but they're not related to each other. They independently evolved the ability to fly. And so we see that with the bow and arrow. Right. The bow and arrow was invented, we think in South Africa about 74,000 years ago. It was invented again in Central Europe about 54,000 years ago, Sri Lanka 48,000 years ago, again in Europe 11,000 years ago. And what we've shown in this latest paper, it was reinvented once again in North America just 1400 years ago. Yeah, so like, I mean, this is because humans are smart and they have similar issues that they need to solve, problems they need to solve, and so they'll come up with similar solutions. And so at various points in time, people invented the bow and arrow to tackle whatever problem they were facing.

[Steve]

Now that you have that date and you look at the types of stone points that you see from different dated sites, does it, does it illuminate anything that you didn't notice before? Meaning, did you sort of rediscover a correlation between an arrow, like in what, what is commonly called like an Indian arrowhead, between an arrowhead size and, and what it might have been used for? Like, did you see a shrinking of arrowhead size around 1400 years ago, now that you, that you have an identified point to look at?

[Matt Naron]

Yeah, there's general trends where points will get smaller after that point and then like, you know, five or six hundred years after that 1400 year old marker, like the points get real small.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Matt Naron]

So you can be confident. If you find like a really tiny point, you're probably dealing with the bow and arrow, but again, probably. Right. I mean, the, the past doesn't really preserve that well. And so archaeologists should always kind of buffer what they say with, you know, qualifiers.

[Steve]

Do you think there's any chance in identifying what part of like where this thing sprung up geographic, more specifically?

[Matt Naron]

Oh, now that's a really good question. Right. Because we focused our analysis on this at lateral to bow transition in western North America.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Matt Naron]

And that's where stuff preserves either in super dry caves like in the southwest, or if it's melting out of like ice. Right.

[Steve]

Yep.

[Matt Naron]

What our research doesn't speak to is, was the bow invented in western North America or was it invented somewhere else, maybe somewhere in the east, and then it came to western North America 1400 years ago? We have no idea. And that's A tough question because just stuff does not preserve in the eastern woodlands that. Well, it's too much seasonality, too much moisture, and just organic materials just get decimated.

[Steve]

So you wouldn't be shocked if you, if you heard. And I appreciate what you're saying, like, we don't know.

[Matt Naron]

Yeah.

[Steve]

But you wouldn't be shocked if it would be that. That maybe a thousand years earlier it was being used on the Atlantic coast. Say, it might have, like, who knows, it might have taken that long to get to the western US the bow.

[Matt Naron]

That is certainly a possibility. I think the other thing to keep in mind too is it's also possible that the bow and arrow was used a lot earlier, say by Paleo Indians, and then for some reason it was lost, went extinct, and then 9, 10,000 years later was reinvented 1400 years ago. I think what this research really speaks to is the fact that, like, you know, we often think that we're getting better and better and better with our technology. And we often have this view of whether it's biological or cultural or technological evolution, that things are getting better and better and better, but species and technologies come and go. They go extinct all the time and they get reinvented. There is no progression to evolution. And so people will come up with the best solution given the context that they're in.

[Steve]

Got it. What else you're working on? What's. What can we expect from your, from your office, your lab next?

[Matt Naron]

Yeah, well, we got some pretty big projects that should be coming out next month, I think. I can't talk about those right now just because they're under embargo, but you guys will be the first ones to know. When I, when they come out, give

[Steve]

me a little teaser, like, tell me that, Tell me how many years ago.

[Matt Naron]

We're talking about 13, 000 years.

[Steve]

Clovis.

[Matt Naron]

We have two big. We got. We got two big papers on. On Clovis hunting and different aspects of Clovis hunting.

[Steve]

You better not be trying to come and giving us more of that hogwash about how they weren't killing mammoths left and right.

[Matt Naron]

No, no, no.

[Steve]

That they didn't wake up every day and kill a mammoth. I don't want to hear about it.

[Matt Naron]

All right, we'll have a chat about that. Yeah, so we got some Clogus stuff coming out.

[Steve]

We.

[Matt Naron]

We were in Oman in November.

[Steve]

Oh, really?

[Matt Naron]

Yeah, yeah, because we've been working there for the last few years. We have a hypothesis that we published. It was last year, and that got quite a bit of News on a new hypothesis for the origin of, well, all technology.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Matt Naron]

And so. And that has to do with basically people using naturally sharp rocks to process game and carcasses. And so really, you can tie the origin of technology and the fact that we're looking on iPhones and this screen right now to the fact that people needed to cut meat.

[Steve]

Got it.

[Matt Naron]

That started everything. And so we were there in November. That was. I love going to Oman. It's an awesome place. Yeah, we got projects in Kenya that we're probably gonna go to next year, and just lots of experiments and shooting stuff and.

[Steve]

Good. Keep. Keep us posted on the new Clovis work again. Matt Naron is a professor at Kent State University, where he directs the Experimental Archaeology department. He and his colleagues, including our friend and former podcast guest, David Meltzer, have both. What am I trying to say? Both been on. Yeah, whatever. You get the point.

[Matt Naron]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Department. Thank you very much for joining, and we always look forward to anything you can come and tell us about ancient hunters. So appreciate you joining.

[Matt Naron]

Hey, thanks.

[Steve]

Okay. Wild turkeys ambush. California senior citizen, but they don't ambush. This story was sent to us. Brody, can you. Can you give the basic gist here or aren't you that familiar?

[Brody]

Well, I mean, I can give the basic gist in California. Like, recently, an. An elderly woman in the. The San Francisco area was out walking and got attacked by a couple turkeys.

[Steve]

Town turkeys.

[Brody]

Yeah, urban tur. And that's like. Like that segment of the wild turkey population has grown pretty fast. Like, they're. They're pretty common in suburbia and. And even, like, urban areas.

[Steve]

But she is bruised and.

[Brody]

Yeah, you got those pictures of her, Phil?

[Spencer]

Oh, I'll.

[Corinne]

I'll pull them up here. Brody, I thought you were talking about the other turkey graphic you sent me. I'll pull them up.

[Steve]

Oh, we'll pull that up in a minute. Turkey graphics going on here. That's French.

[Randall]

It's a good problem.

[Brody]

Yeah, she. She. She had some injuries to her face and fell and. And I did a little research while we were getting this whole thing together this morning, and that's actually one of the most common injuries when wild turkeys ambush people.

[Steve]

Well, that. See, that's why I wanted to cover the story, but then Brody did additional research. Can I cover my bit first? Yeah, yeah, if. Okay. There's two main. Yeah, I was gonna complain about another thing. I was gonna say, like, two main complaints I have in life, but I'm gonna skip the other one. Journalists need to better understand what an ambush is, they. I was gonna find 100 examples of journalists not understanding an ambush. They're like, these turkeys. They use the word. Here's the. The poor woman was beat up by the turkeys. These turkeys came up behind her and attacked her. And the journalist says they ambushed her. It's not an ambush. Journalists never know what an ambush is.

[Corinne]

Right.

[Steve]

For the turkeys to have ambushed her, they would have need to gone out ahead of her, lie in wait, laid in wait, or waited outside her door concealed. Laying in wait. Like, my message to America's journalists is, please try to understand what an ambush.

[Randall]

There has to be some element of concealment.

[Steve]

Yeah. I was reading a story they ambushed. So there's like, some police parked in the car and they're attacked by a person. And they said, he ambushed him. It's like, no, he didn't. He walked up on him. She was not ambushed. No, she was attacked. There's ambushing, bushwhacking. Brody was pointing out a guy using the term shanghaiing. I don't know what that means. But, like, you could shanghai a turkey. But, like, she's not. She was attacked. She wasn't ambushed. You could ambush and then attack.

[Brody]

An attack is like, there's levels of attack. Right. There's like, grizzly bear attacks and there's turkey attacks.

[Steve]

If I like, I would be more comfortable saying that these turkeys bushwhacker.

[Brody]

Right.

[Steve]

Because to bushwhack a turkey is to kill it without calling it in. To ditch. Crawl on it.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Or he'll crawl, whatever. To, like, put the creep on a turkey is bushwhacking it. So it'd be more like they came in blind on her and bushwhacked her.

[Brody]

They didn't ambush her, but her injuries were from falling. And that's typical of wild turkey attacks, where an elderly person ends up falling while they're being attacked.

[Steve]

Yeah. There was a turkey that kept attacking the elderly in a wildlife officer wanted to catch it. They had to dress up like an old lady and act like an old lady.

[Brody]

Is that right?

[Steve]

To lure the attack.

[Spencer]

That's ambushing the turkey.

[Brody]

Like, they were profiling their victim.

[Steve]

No, that's Trojan horse in it. They're like. Then they stranglehold the wildlife official, dressed up like an old lady, pretended to be an old lady to lure the attack, and then they threw it into a stranglehold.

[Brody]

It's like holding on to a live wild turkey. It's hard enough when they're wounded a bit after you shoot them yeah. You got to hold on to their road.

[Steve]

Sure, man. Yeah.

[Brody]

Phil, do you got the how to survive a wild turkey attack?

[Steve]

Yeah. Brody found this.

[Brody]

This is. This is.

[Randall]

I gotta.

[Brody]

There's a quote here about someone actually made this.

[Steve]

This is better than Spencer's garden chart.

[Spencer]

It is.

[Brody]

Umbrellas.

[Randall]

There's a lot of blinking animations.

[Brody]

We saw tips, like umbrellas. Carrying a garbage bag around and unfolding that garbage bag and, like, waving it at the turkeys.

[Steve]

Huh.

[Brody]

So don't back down.

[Steve]

Carrying a big garden hose with you can help.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

If it's hooked up.

[Brody]

How to feed a bully turkey. Don't back down.

[Steve]

Who put this. How to defeat a bully turkey.

[Brody]

That's the funny thing. These are two different articles in the Audubon Society.

[Randall]

Phil.

[Steve]

What is it? What does it say?

[Randall]

There's umbrella question mark, and there's two words above that.

[Steve]

Like, it's like.

[Corinne]

Like this umbrella.

[Randall]

Oh, I see.

[Spencer]

Flowchart.

[Steve]

It's telling you not to wave your hands.

[Corinne]

But it also looks mostly empty.

[Steve]

But this is.

[Corinne]

This is what it looked like on the website, though.

[Steven Rinella]

Create stuff.

[Brody]

Like, I think some stuff missing. It didn't, but you get the picture.

[Steve]

Why is the turkey on the bottom talking?

[Randall]

I see.

[Steve]

I see that.

[Spencer]

Call an officer.

[Randall]

I feel like that box. I feel like that box on the left side in the middle should say, do you have anything with you?

[Spencer]

Right.

[Steve]

Yeah, but it's not.

[Brody]

Some of our. It didn't download the right way.

[Steve]

Yeah, that's a bad job. But, yeah, it's saying, like, if you don't have a shotgun, it's saying spray it with water. Hose it down. Shake a bag at it.

[Brody]

But that's the thing.

[Steve]

Wave an umbrella at it.

[Brody]

You can only do so much to these things, right, because they're. They're wild animals. So you can't. Your hands are kind of tied as far as, like, what you can do to fight them off.

[Steve]

Yeah. Don't gobble at it.

[Steven Rinella]

Here's a question. What if you just like. You're like, boo, and you run at it.

[Steve]

I think that'd work. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't gobble at it. Wouldn't hand call at it.

[Corinne]

If you go boo, it'll probably gobble at you.

[Brody]

Don't run up to it with a jank decoy.

[Steve]

It's a real problem, these town turkeys.

[Brody]

Okay, we're going to Oregon now. In the news a lot lately has been this Oregon hunting ban petition. A lot of the headlines that I feel like have been kind of Misleading because it's like saying they have, they have enough signatures to ban hunting in Oregon, which is not the, not the case. So we're going to go through the whole thing. The Oregon Peace act, which is People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions.

[Steve]

I think they started with knowing what they wanted the acronym to be.

[Brody]

Yeah. And then, and then figuring it out.

[Steve]

Reverse engineer because you wind up. You can always tell when someone does that because they wind up with something real clunky.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions because they wanted to be able to call it peace.

[Randall]

But I feel like if you're in the acronym business, that's, that's not a bad strategy.

[Brody]

It's like when Congress came up with a genius act, which, which is.

[Steve]

Yeah. You know, they knew what they wanted to call it at first. Then they had to think of a bunch words that would make that okay.

[Brody]

So the Peace act would remove many exemptions in Oregon's animal cruelty laws that currently allow hunting, fishing, trapping, livestock production and slaughter and other animal use practices. So basically it would, it would outlaw all of that stuff. And supporters say the proposal would exist than the same legal protections currently given to pets. You know, you can see where this is going. It's. It's very, a very extreme thing. And it was kind of engineered by this guy, David Mickelson. We, we got our, our photo of David. Dude, would you like to.

[Steve]

That's an ad for vegan diet right there, man.

[Brody]

Yeah, so. So David kind of kind of is at. This is spearheading this thing.

[Steve]

That's a. That is a rugged lifestyle.

[Brody]

Yeah. It doesn't look like he's got a lot of energy to run this thing. But, but anyway, they got the signatures. I think it was 120,000 signatures. They needed 117,000 to get this thing on the ballot. Little background on Mickelson. His background in psychology, public health. He said activism was in. His activism was influenced by witnesses witnessing pigs being killed in slaughterhouses. And he has tried earlier versions of this. This same thing in Oregon. He acknowledges the. The initiative is unlikely to pass and has described it as part of a longer term effort to change public attitudes around human use of animals. They want to change the system. Killing animals is a choice. He says we can make 100% of that food from crops if we chose to do so. So obviously this is like very broad in scope. It's not just a hunting issue.

[Steve]

It'll never pass.

[Brody]

No, we'll get to that. We'll see. See what the odds are. Obviously, hunters like groups like the Organs, Hunters Association, Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey foundation, on and on and on with these hunting groups are opposed to this, but it's a lot bigger than hunters. The Oregon Farm bureau, ranching groups, etc. Argue that, you know, it would just completely change, fundamentally change their way of life for the worse. Senator Christine Drazan, Oregon Republican gubernatorial candidate, says it's an all out assault on Oregonian's way of life that would expose farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, breeders and animal owners to criminal liability. So if the measure reaches voters, which is likely to happen, it's likely to get on the ballot. It's unlikely to be voted into law. Oregon has more than 330,000 licensed hunters, 500,000 licensed anglers, 70,000 farms and ranches involved in livestock production. Cattle, sheep, dairy, goats, poultry, hogs, roughly 1.25 million cattle and calves and 525,000 beef cows. This is where it gets good. 3.4 million registered voters in Oregon. 170,000 to maybe 270,000 of those voters identify as either vegetarian or vegan.

[Steve]

Hmm.

[Brody]

5 to 8% of the state's voting age population. So not looking good for it to pass. I asked I what the odds are of making the ballot. 85 to 95% at the ballot, 80% chance it fails. 20% it passes. Now that's AI so, but that's pulling

[Steve]

from like poly market data.

[Brody]

Yeah. Political betting market. And 20 is, you know, it's not nothing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Steve]

You know, this brings up a question I've always pondered, is I'm a law and order guy. Right. I'm not. I'm like a lawbreaker. And I was raised up law breaking but gave up on it. If this happened in my state, I feel like I would become a vigilante hunter.

[Brody]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Steve]

Like, I wouldn't flat out.

[Corinne]

Right.

[Steve]

I wouldn't flat out quit. I would become a vigilante angler.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

Jimmy, I wouldn't. Like, I'm not gonna quit.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Do you know what I'm saying? I'd just be like, well, I guess I'm a poacher now.

[Brody]

Yep, exactly.

[Corinne]

It would be like if you're, if you're. A hunter, instead of like getting all your stuff in during a season, you'd be like, I'm getting low. It's time to go get a dough.

[Steve]

Yeah. Just because I'm just like, I'm not gonna abide. I'm like, it's gone too far. I don't trust this system anymore. And now I'm just on my own.

[Steven Rinella]

Or. Or would you leave the state?

[Steve]

No, because I'm. I'm not gonna say it because these people from this neck of the woods, they're always hunting. They don't stick close to home. Leaving the state is like Washington and Minnesota, dudes. One goes one direction, one goes the other direction. Guess where they land.

[Brody]

Leaving the state is like when someone from Hollywood's like, I'm moving to France.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Brody]

You know you're giving up.

[Steve]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brody]

The weird thing about this, though, is how broad it is compared to a lot of these ballot measures that pop up. Like the cat hunting thing in Colorado, which is like, they usually like, it's really specific, which I think gives these things a better chance of passing. But yes, this is like. This is like being done for a stunt. Yeah, yeah, He's.

[Steve]

He's doing the. The PETA thing. Yeah, PETA. The point for PETA is not to have. Not to make progress. The point for PETA is to perpetuate PETA by making the news.

[Brody]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve]

So they propose things they know are a dead end. Because then the press, like, how we're doing right now, we'll talk about it.

[Matt Naron]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And then they'll be like the news story. Like, anytime PETA makes news, it's the news saying, what will they think of next? Yeah. This is ridiculous. And they're like, ha. Sweet. We did it. We're in the news. So we're falling for that little Moby looking dude. Yeah, we're falling for his.

[Brody]

Playing into his hands.

[Steve]

We're playing right into his hands.

[Randall]

And the other thing too, about these, these stunts is like they're gathering signatures so they could go to a farmer's market and just tell people, would you like to sign this to put the ballot measure in place?

[Brody]

They're gonna be very vague about what.

[Randall]

Yeah, like, you can say, you can say it's to end, like lab testing on animals, or you could say it's this or that, you know, and.

[Steve]

But if they're at the farmer's market, the farmers are gonna kick ass.

[Randall]

Well, I'm just thinking of, like, where

[Steve]

do you go when you try.

[Brody]

There's probably vegan farmer markets in Portland, baseball game.

[Randall]

But I don't think they've had much luck outside of

[Spencer]

there. But it did.

[Brody]

What Randall's saying did get me thinking, like, we should do some, like, man on the street reporting at Whole Foods or wherever. When we find out one of these things is going on, like, send someone.

[Steve]

Oh, that'd be good.

[Brody]

You Know, like, ask some people some questions.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Corinne]

Anyway, Spencer asked good questions.

[Brody]

That's what's going on in Oregon.

[Steve]

He'll be real thoughtful here.

[Corinne]

I, I, I unanimated that flowchart, so it filled in all the text.

[Steven Rinella]

Turkey flowchart.

[Steve]

Guys, I'm over it. If you turkey attacks, you strangle anymore, but tag it. But the, the point, one thing I was bringing up is you better make sure it's attacking you because it's not. You'd be harassing wildlife.

[Brody]

Well, that's what I'm saying.

[Steve]

You can't walk up to wildlife.

[Brody]

When I said this, there's only so much you can do. Like you can't kill them. Right.

[Steve]

Unless, like, well, if it's risk, like I guess if that poor old lady had killed that turkey, no one's going to prosecute her. Sure. It's not like she like, stole a mouse from the wild and detained it.

[Brody]

You can't lay out poison for him.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. Speaking of bans, here's some news from my home state of New York. Senate Bill S9473 was recently proposed. So we're not sure if it's gonna go through or not, but it's called the Lead Free Game Donation act. And if it gets, if it goes through, then it would be a prohibition on donating lead shot while game meat to food pantries. So actually, this surprised me. New York, if this were to go through, New York would be the second state after only Minnesota to ensure that lead potentially contaminated meat wouldn't be donated to food banks and pantries. So let's play a little game. How much wild game do you think is donated per year to food banks across the country?

[Steve]

Across the country? I have no idea.

[Spencer]

£20,000?

[Brody]

Oh, no.

[Steve]

Way more than that.

[Spencer]

A million.

[Brody]

A million?

[Spencer]

Yeah. What is it?

[Steven Rinella]

So apparently recently, last year, it was 1100 tons of wild harvested game meat.

[Brody]

Zeros on that.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. 1000. 1 1. Yeah.

[Steve]

What they're missing here is no one's been able to demonstrate, no one's been able to demonstrate a correlation between lead poisoning and consumption of wild game. It's a completely open question.

[Steven Rinella]

I thought they have. There was, there was one, there was one study that I saw. It was like some individuals were consuming lead shot while gay meat and their lead. The lead levels in their blood were X and then they transitioned to consuming non lead shot game meat and the blood levels decreased.

[Steve]

I want to see that. Well, I mean, I remember the one they did where they like took hunters and urban dwellers and the urban Dwellers had higher lead from environmental lead contamination than the hunters have. So I think it's what you're supposed to do. Fill out a question like you're going to ask people, what'd you shoot it with?

[Steven Rinella]

So. So we'll go, I'm going to just let me see. So, for example, in Minnesota, you, if you are a hunter who's donating meat, you actually have to get your meat processed by a Minnesota Department of Ag registered meat processing plant. And they will in fact, X ray the meat for lead fragments. So in New York, I think that they would probably transition to something similar. And then. But these are that Minnesota is the only state that has this. So in California, for example, for hunting of any kind, you can't use lead ammo. So there isn't a worry there. And then there are two other states that have rules around warning labels. So that would be Iowa and South Dakota. At food banks, if they're distributing meat while gay meat. On the bag it says not tested for lead. And there's a lead warning to pregnant women and children. All other states, it's just there's nothing in place against this. So in any case, this bill, lawmakers expect it to be reintroduced and pursued in 2027. It's gone through a couple of committees. They don't think it'll come up again this year, but next year we'll look out for it.

[Steve]

Man, the thing I don't get about it a little bit is how am I still alive?

[Steven Rinella]

Have we ever tested your. Have we tested your blood flood levels? Has anyone?

[Steve]

I feel like I have had that done. I don't know. Yeah, I should test my kids, too. They should be dead or dead. Iconic summer moments deserve an iconic drink. It is Mountain Dew and American Original. From their beginnings in the foothills of Tennessee to the biggest fourth of July yet, the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew is the perfect companion to your American summer adventures. No matter where you go or who you are with, bring Mountain Dew to amplify your celebration. When I was in college, Dew was the daytime beverage of choice for all things summer. Rope swings into the river, jumping off bridges into the river, tube in the river, fishing the river, riding snowboards down the Lake Michigan sand dunes right out into the waves and shooting off fireworks at night. You name it, we were powered by Dew. It's been tasting great since 48. That's right. Two brothers created Mountain Dew in the foothills of Tennessee back in 1948. The refreshing citrus kick is perfect for summer. And Fourth of July at the Grill on the beach or right in the living room. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew in American Original. Tasting great since 48. Look for American Dew limited time packaging or find it in stores near you@mountain Dew.com that is Mountain Dew.com hunting demands preparation, persistence and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear First Light. This isn't about hype. It's about no compromise gear. Built to perform, built to last. Whether it's their industry leading merino wool keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements, First Light is built to help you go farther and stay longer. Designed by hunters for hunters with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses, just gear you can count on. Head to firstlight.com that's F I R S T L I T E.com One

[Steven Rinella]

more quick bit out of New York. This is positive news for the hunting community. We, we almost reported about this the other week and then, and then a veto got overturned. So in the county, in Erie county, which is western New York, where the capital Buffalo is, There was a proposal to veto a youth hunting law that exists in the state, which is that youth teenagers can use a crossbow, a rifle, a shotgun or a muzzleloading firearm to hunt if supervised. And a county executive went against this. So last week it was like, oh my gosh, you know, teens and youth in Erie county can't hunt supervise with these means. But then the county legislator actually overrode the county executive's veto and adopted the youth hunting law. So it was 8 to 3. There were three Democrats who upheld the veto and two Democrats joined six Republicans to override the veto.

[Steve]

That's what I like to hear, man. Splitting them Dems off.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep, they're split.

[Steve]

That's good.

[Steven Rinella]

And so now youth 12 and up, I think it's 12 to 15 or 12 to 16 can use those, those crossbow, rifle, shotgun and muzzle loader to, to hunt deer.

[Brody]

It's a. How, how can a county like decide they're not going to follow a statewide hunting law?

[Steve]

How's that a county issue?

[Brody]

Yeah, very strange.

[Steve]

Imagine they did that and you like lived in that county and in all the other counties. You can do it in your county. You can't do it.

[Brody]

It's just weird, man.

[Steve]

I don't want to get into this vigilant. I want to push this vigilante. I'm not gonna, I wouldn't vigilante.

[Randall]

That the legislature quote from the guy. The legislature has an opportunity to Override my veto. And they may do that. And if they do it, that's their constitutional right. But if they do that and a child dies in the future, my conscience will be clean.

[Steve]

He knows he's in the wrong. He knows he regretted it probably pretty quick. And then he had to do like a little deal like that to try to make it smooth it over.

[Steven Rinella]

And this law has existed since 2021, and there have been no reported hunting related shooting incidents, violations or license revocations. But I think this county exec and others will look at incidents across the country and say what if?

[Randall]

Yeah. So I see here to the question of the county, it looks like the state Department of Environmental, blah, blah, blah. They, they said 12 to 13 year olds can hunt with firearm or crossbow in counties that have passed local legislation. So they sort of like empowered counties to opt into this pilot program.

[Steve]

Wow. They're making it a county by county issue. That's some confusing game laws, man. Yes, county by county.

[Steven Rinella]

Because you already think about, do you have to be a, a resident of the county?

[Steve]

It'd be worried. I'm sure it'd be where you are, but I mean, come on, man, you go to locate. Hey, what county you in, buddy? I don't know. My dad.

[Randall]

And what if, what if you have a property that spans county lines?

[Steve]

Can you shoot? I don't. That's what I'm saying. That's where it gets. So that's where it gets. Such horseshit.

[Randall]

Your stand is in county X.

[Steve]

There are many, many problems about 100

[Randall]

yards away in county Y.

[Steve]

That's stupid. You should really not do game laws by the county. By county. I mean, something that's fundamental is like what age can you hunt, with what weapon? Yeah. Should not be a county by county issue. Anyhow, Spencer's been out fishing.

[Spencer]

All right, some fishing news. West Virginia has produced five new state record fish in the last two months. Let's talk about them.

[Randall]

Goodness gracious.

[Spencer]

First one, April 2nd.

[Steve]

Good Lord.

[Spencer]

15 year old hunter Rohr catches a 28 inch 11.84 pound golden rainbow trout on the south.

[Steve]

It's like a make believe fish's tail.

[Randall]

I was gonna say they love that.

[Brody]

We call them palominos.

[Corinne]

Yeah, we call them palominos back there.

[Brody]

People love those. I don't get it, but they're very easy to find in a stream.

[Corinne]

I used to spend hours trying to catch those things.

[Steve]

It's like a hive. Is it, is it fertile or not fertile?

[Spencer]

Let me tell you about it. Okay, so every spring, are you Going

[Steve]

to include what's wrong with that fish? It's sick.

[Spencer]

Well, I don't know what's up with its tail. My guess that's from being in the

[Brody]

raceway and rubbing up against cement and.

[Corinne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Spencer]

Oh, yeah, that's.

[Brody]

That's what we called broodstock.

[Spencer]

So that fish, what everybody calls brood stock.

[Steve]

Let Spencer do his little news report, but I think he's embarrassed he didn't realize that. That something's wrong with that fish.

[Brody]

Yeah. From living his whole life.

[Spencer]

Every spring, during an event called the west that the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources refers to as Gold Rush, they release golden rainbow trout across the state. This year, they stocked 50,000 of them in 69 different lakes and streams. Now, these are not to be confused with the California golden trout, which is a native species to the Sierra Nevadas. Some consider those California golden trout to be their own species. Some say it's a subspecies of the coastal rainbow. Either way, that is not this fish. These are West Virginia golden rainbow trout, also known as palomino trout or banana trout. They were made at a West Virginia hatchery.

[Steve]

So can you zoom in on my

[Spencer]

fingers back in the 1950s.

[Corinne]

They're not on camera.

[Spencer]

The first stocking being in 1962. And they were created after a regular rainbow trout was born with a mutation that gave it gold coloring. They then took that trout's offspring and produced and continued to breed them to create the founding population of palomino trout that we know today. Now, this angler caught this fish on day three of Gold Rush. He was using eggs from a steelhead that he caught out of a stream near Lake Erie. The 15 year old said the fight lasted two minutes and that the fish was, quote, too fat to jump. It broke the old record. Broke the old record by more than two pounds. The angler said that they filleted the fish after the record was tasty.

[Steve]

Man, why does it taste like fish pellets?

[Randall]

Yeah, it was missing half its motor there, too.

[Spencer]

Here's the weirdest part of the whole story that we've already addressed. Golden rainbow trout. They don't reproduce after they're stocked. The bright color makes them an easy target for predators. And they also very, very rarely survive the hottest parts of the summer in West Virginia. Here's a quote from a fish biologist about palomino trout that are stocked in West Virginia's northern neighbor, Pennsylvania. Quote, it would be highly unexpected to find a golden rainbow trout surviving as a holdover into the next year. So this state record was most likely stocked three days Prior by West Virginia.

[Steve]

That's what I'm saying. That's why you even talking about it.

[Spencer]

Because it's good fodder to talk about West Virginia stalking a state record that some 15 year old catches three days later.

[Steve]

Remember that guy that killed that 1100 pound hog or something?

[Spencer]

Hogzilla.

[Steve]

And then that dude's like, I just sold him that hog. It's. I got pictures of it in my truck.

[Brody]

I'll tell you what these things were good for is finding the other fish. Because these things can't. So you find one, you're like, ooh.

[Steve]

There's a only interesting thing about this image is that man has a very good belt.

[Spencer]

Okay?

[Steve]

I used to wear that belt. You can rap. You could raffle off that belt. The way that cam works, you can clip a carabiner onto that point. I have that belt. My kid wears mine now.

[Spencer]

I, I reached out to the West Virginia DNR for their take. Did this fish defy the odds and survive a previous stocking or did they release days prior? I know, but I want to hear them say it. I want to hear the West Virginia DNR somebody reporting. Yeah, we just let it off of a truck three days prior. That would satisfy me. So I reached out to them, have not heard back yet.

[Steve]

Oh God. I got excited for a minute.

[Brody]

I don't think you're going to hear back from them.

[Spencer]

That was state record number one. Here's state record number two, Donnie Workman.

[Steve]

There we go.

[Brody]

Another man made.

[Spencer]

Nicholas county sets a new state record record for a tiger trout at Summit Lake.

[Steve]

You got to stop.

[Spencer]

Another make believe 32 pounds fish. Let me tell you about him.

[Corinne]

It's a make believe guy.

[Spencer]

Donnie was using meal worms and orange salmon eggs. He caught the fish on 8lb test. West Virginia keeps records for length and weight and Donnie's fish now holds both of those. Weighed half a pound more than the old record which was caught in 2025. It measured half an inch longer than the old record which was caught less than a month earlier. All three of those state record tiger trout were caught from three different bodies of water, which is pretty unique. But similar to the banana trout, the tiger trout is largely a synthetic fish that's made by crossing a female brown with a male brook. There is some.

[Steve]

I like how he's got it tied up with his bootlegs though.

[Brody]

Man, he doesn't need a stringer.

[Steven Rinella]

Fishing for 80 years.

[Brody]

You know, I figured out that Spencer loves these man made fish because he used to work in fish hatcheries.

[Spencer]

Now There is some natural reproduction in the wild, but the vast majority of tiger trout come from a hatchery. West Virginia did some stocking in the 1960s and 80s, and then they restarted the program in 2019. So this rush of tiger trout records is not really surprising.

[Steve]

So the next one's gonna be like a new record. Chuck E. Cheese. Bermuda trout.

[Brody]

Did. Did Donnie eat that thing, or is it bound.

[Spencer]

Donnie ate that.

[Steve]

Oh, God.

[Spencer]

Y. Dude. We're looking at pictures of these state record fish now, and Donnie is someone who I refer to as a paid actor because he looks like a fella who would be catching the state record tiger trout in West Virginia.

[Steve]

Is the next thing a real fish?

[Spencer]

State record number three was a chain pickerel.

[Steve]

Oh, there we go.

[Spencer]

Gets a little fake here in a second. Matt bourne caught a 28 incher on April 21. He was fishing a private pond in Preston County. The fish beat the old record by less than a quarter of an inch, which was a record that he set in 2019.

[Steve]

What's fake about that?

[Spencer]

The previous record came from the same pond. Well, he has a private pond that's obviously growing giant chain pickerel. So it's. It's not fake, but, you know, it's

[Steve]

like, that's a lot better than other fish.

[Spencer]

It's. You know, that's a native. Same private pond.

[Steve]

He's got his tied up, too.

[Spencer]

Chain pickerel in 2019.

[Brody]

I don't know how familiar you are with chain pickerel, but that's a freaking giant.

[Steve]

That's a disappointing fish to fish for because you never get a big one.

[Brody]

No.

[Spencer]

And Matt was using a homemade spinner that he created the night before, so that's way cool.

[Steve]

That's cool.

[Spencer]

He's fishing from a kayak, and he said the battle lasted 10 minutes with the pickerel towing him around the pond, which again, pickerel don't grow all that big. So that is a walk.

[Corinne]

10 minutes.

[Brody]

What.

[Corinne]

What's he using for tackle?

[Steve]

He had a 10 minute tussle. He had a tussle with that fish that pulled him around a pond.

[Spencer]

I imagine he was using some ultralight

[Steve]

tackle, pulled him around the pond.

[Spencer]

That's what he said.

[Corinne]

If I caught that thing, it would be about three seconds.

[Spencer]

He plans to get the fish around the pond, plans to get the fish mounted and will display it with his previous record that is also mounted.

[Steve]

Oh, so he killed the previous record. So that's not the previous record a year later?

[Spencer]

No, he. Well, the previous record is from 2019. So I don't think this is the 2019.

[Brody]

That does look like.

[Steve]

For a minute, I thought you were suggesting that he keeps catching this fish. No, keeps breaking its own record.

[Spencer]

But I bet the next state record is also swimming around that.

[Steve]

But I don't think you can blame the dude because it's a private pond.

[Spencer]

I'm not blaming him. I'm just saying if you were disappointed those other guys with the fish, hatchery fish, you're not going to love the private pond.

[Corinne]

I'm jealous. His pond.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Corinne]

Look at that.

[Steve]

Spencer likes the wrong people.

[Randall]

But I also think if the DNR is dumping fish somewhere and you go out and catch one and you're like a public access guy, you're just showing

[Steve]

up to the river, you hating those

[Spencer]

people, you hating Brody and Seth.

[Steve]

No, no, no, no, no. You're mixing up what I hate. I don't. I don't think if. If the state has a hatchery and they have brood stock and they take some diseased tailless fish and, like, throw it out into a creek and a dude catches it, that's fine. I just don't think it's news.

[Spencer]

I think.

[Brody]

State record, man.

[Spencer]

It's a state record. I think if it's forever enshrined.

[Brody]

The fifth state record in West Virginia angling history.

[Spencer]

A fourth state record was a red horse sucker caught by in Fayette county. It weighed six and a half pounds, measured 25 and a half inches. He caught that on May 7th. Just like the tiger trout, this fish now holds the length and weight record in West Virginia. One pound heavier and one inch longer than the old record, which was caught in 2025. The angler was using corn when he caught that.

[Randall]

Yeah, I like the guys in the background taking pictures.

[Steve]

Not the wrong thing, something else.

[Randall]

They have a state record right on the sucker right there.

[Steve]

Talk about, like, hiding in plain sight. Yeah, they. They're taking scenics, not realizing that what they're actually looking at out the corner of their left eye is a state record rough fish.

[Spencer]

And he was fishing at Kanawa Falls, so maybe that's what that. That fella in the red shirt, because

[Steve]

that's a legit fish in a legit location. That's a fish that's. That's a fish of a lifetime.

[Spencer]

Although they often get lumped in with carp, red horse, or a sucker that's native to central and eastern North America. As the name implies, they have red fins that get especially colorful during the spawn. Now, here's the most interesting thing about red horse. They're actually the fish on the trivia logo that we have. That is a red impressive fish right there.

[Brody]

Grind them up into sucker balls.

[Spencer]

Zach Roper.

[Steve]

Congratulations.

[Brody]

Mountain it or eating it?

[Spencer]

Didn't get those details.

[Steve]

Yeah, don't. Everything looks.

[Brody]

Never see stuffed suckers.

[Spencer]

All right, fifth state record. And this is the biggest one is for blue catfish.

[Steve]

There you go.

[Spencer]

It was set on May 9th by Michael Ramey. Now, it weighed 71 pounds and made measured 50 inches long, man. Michael was on the Ohio river in Jackson County. He was using cut bait on 100 pound tests. He was targeting giant cat. It beat the old record by one and a half pounds, but it was an inch short of the length record. So this fish just holds the weight record. Length record was set in 2025 and the weight record in 2023. So both of those were modern records that he was competing for. Michael was fishing in a catfish tournament that day. It was a five fish limit, and this was the only fish that Michael's boat caught, and it gave them second place. So that one singular fish got them second place in a five trout.

[Steve]

Dude, I mean, he's. He's throwing in 100. You know, he's. He's targeting big boys, and that's it. He's not dropping crawlers off the back of that boat.

[Randall]

Florida just certified a new record blue catfish, too, like a week or two ago.

[Steve]

Man, that is. That is a. That is a 20lb good time to

[Brody]

be 20lbs heavier than in the inches. It is long.

[Steve]

It's crazy.

[Spencer]

That's true. This blue cat was caught on May 9th. It's the second heaviest fish ever caught in West Virginia, second only to the state record grass carp, which was caught in 2005. That weighed 71 pounds, 71.69 pounds. So just half a pound bigger than West Virginia's new record blue cat. Michael's fish was released. So it's still out there somewhere in the Ohio River. Now, why. Why West Virginia is, like, suddenly producing all these records? The DNR had some statements about, you know, what these factors are. One is they say the state's water quality is the best it's been in decades, thanks to actions by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Technology. Also playing a role like Seth talked about last week with billfish. It's never been easier to locate big fish with sonar. And then finally, and this is probably the biggest one of them, it's that this fish stocking programs.

[Corinne]

None of those fish were.

[Steve]

None of those fish were located with electronics.

[Spencer]

This one was.

[Steve]

Yeah, he Found out electronics.

[Spencer]

So the best example of all three of these, the water quality, technology and stocking programs, is the blue catfish. The Ohio river is significantly, significantly cleaner now than it was 50 years ago. The species was reintroduced to portions of the Ohio river in the mid 2000s. So this onslaught of blue cat records in West Virginia is because those stocked fish are now reaching like record book sizes. And also this catfish was found with sonar.

[Steve]

No. How do you know that?

[Spencer]

What kind of son said that in the Outdoor Life just didn't give specifics, but it said that they were going by this zone and marked this spot and then fish for this fish.

[Corinne]

Really?

[Spencer]

So technology almost more impressive than shitlocking in hatchery.

[Steve]

Weirdly.

[Corinne]

What finding them on like.

[Steve]

Yeah, that you'd find a big. That you'd find a big record cat and then target it. I think I hear that and I'm like, that demonstrates angling prowess in a way. To me personally. It does that him shit. Locking into it would not.

[Brody]

But it also is kind of like having a live update on a trail camera and going up there.

[Steve]

But he let it go anyway. Yeah, Catch that sucker next year with a big red horse, 100 pounder.

[Corinne]

Yeah, it's like, it's like finding the right whitetail and then targeting it. Yeah, you'd be impressed.

[Steve]

Yeah, that's a hell of fish, man.

[Spencer]

Five new records.

[Brody]

You worked your way up to the good ones.

[Steve]

Yeah, he put him in order. He put him in order.

[Spencer]

This guy, he's also. He's a paid actor as well. For a dude who would catch a hunter.

[Steve]

Big, huge cat.

[Randall]

That guy looks like a blast.

[Spencer]

The guy who's trying to do the Oregon anti hunting legislation, He's a paid actor. He looks just like a vegan activist. Matt Narran, he. He's a paid actor. He looks just like a really cool anthropologist.

[Steve]

This dude looks like Bill Burr if Bill Burr ate that catfish.

[Corinne]

Yeah, that's good.

[Steve]

That's good.

[Corinne]

Unfortunately, all those fish are filled with PFAS chemicals.

[Steve]

Real buzz kill. Real buzz kill from Seth.

[Corinne]

A recent study released by the Montana Department Environmental Quality shows high levels of PFAS chemicals in fish flesh across the state of Montana.

[Steve]

Huh.

[Corinne]

So some of you might not know what you know. A lot of people know what PFAS chemicals are, but some of you might not know if you're living under a rock these days. PFAS are large group of man made forever chemicals used since the 1940s to make products resistant to heat, water, grease and stains. Be faster. Often referred to as forever chemicals because they do not readily break down in the environment or the human body. They have been widely used in nonstick cookware, stain resistant fabrics, firefighting foams and numerous industrial products. Research say PFAS exposure has been linked to health issues such as several different types of cancers like kidney and testicular cancer, immune system dysfunction, developmental effects in children, and a ton of other health problems. So the study. The. The. So the Department of Environmental Quality in Montana, they looked at several different bodies of water across Montana, 13 different ones. And in fact, the study found that fish tissue samples collected in 2023 contained significant concentrations of PFAS chemicals. At least one type of PFAS was presented or was present in 78% of samples submitted.

[Steve]

Oh, man.

[Corinne]

Of 40 PFAS chemicals the lab tested for the type of. Or the type that appeared most frequently was. Bear with me here. Per Fluoro, because. Per.

[Steve]

Fluorofonic acid. Yeah, that's fos.

[Corinne]

Yeah. Commonly found. Where am I here? Yeah. So that chemical is commonly found in the firefighting foam used at airports and military bases, which is interesting because what, they dump a lot of fire retardant around these parts during the summer.

[Steve]

Yeah. Because these are fish out of the Yellowstone.

[Corinne]

So.

[Steve]

Which is an undammed river and doesn't flow through any kind of industrial landscape.

[Corinne]

Yep.

[Steve]

It's just, it's like purely like atmospheric contamination.

[Corinne]

So in late 2024, scientists at the.

[Steve]

Oh, no, no. Because I guess if you. If Pensby caught them below billings or not.

[Corinne]

Yeah, we'll get to that here.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Corinne]

In 2024, scientists at Montana DQ had completed their analysis and drafted fish consumption advisory warnings for residents to limit or avoid eating fish from several popular waterways. However, for some weird reason, those advisories didn't make it to the public until recently in 2026.

[Brody]

And that's completely separate from like existing consumption advisors that you can find on FWP's website for anybody.

[Corinne]

So let's get into the details here. An acceptable PFAS level in drinking water is 4 parts per trillion.

[Steve]

Okay.

[Corinne]

Okay. That's what's acceptable for drinking water.

[Steve]

Four parts per trillion.

[Corinne]

Now, Phil, go back to number one there. Sure. So this is. This is. I'm looking. This is a chart for Fort Peck. If you look all the way to the right.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Corinne]

What. What that. So like for example, the Northern pike, for 26 to 30 inches that they, they tested, they found 3.5. That. That boils down to 3,500 parts per trillion.

[Steve]

Oh, really?

[Brody]

Thousand times.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, my God.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Brody]

Thousand times the exception.

[Corinne]

So if you look at a walleye. 2226 inches. 5400 parts per trillion. So if you eat one walleye that size out of four peck.

[Brody]

You're eating a lot of them that size out of Fort Peck

[Corinne]

number two.

[Steve]

Thought I was already dead from the lead.

[Corinne]

Yeah, you think that's crazy. Look at this one. East Gallatin River. Whoa. A 10 to 14 inch rainbow trout. Holy 18. 100 parts per trillion.

[Steve]

Wow.

[Randall]

But that's fluoro telomere carboxylic acid.

[Corinne]

Yeah. It's still bad.

[Steve]

My goodness.

[Steven Rinella]

Holy.

[Corinne]

Go to the next one, Phil.

[Steven Rinella]

Right.

[Steve]

I'm just looking forward to all humans being gone. And then millions of years go by and the planet's cool again. Man, this is the.

[Corinne]

This is the.

[Steve]

These forever chemicals. That's the whole problem, though. They'll still be there. Yeah, like dinosaurs running back around again. And it'll be like. They'll be all contaminated.

[Steven Rinella]

No, it'll be the bots.

[Corinne]

So as you can see with these numbers, it's like off the charts insane.

[Spencer]

I imagine this isn't exclusive to Montana. No, Montana is dealing with it.

[Corinne]

Yeah, I'll get to that. But you're. You're correct.

[Steve]

It was an inciting incident to the story.

[Corinne]

DQ scientists recommend stringent interim fish consumption advisories based on updated guidance from the. The US Environmental Protection Protection Agency. The proposed advisories included avoid recommendations for several fish species.

[Randall]

For most of it.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, that. Yeah. That's like. Just don't eat anything.

[Corinne]

Yeah. The most severe recommendations involve Ford Pack Reservoir.

[Steve]

So depending on the waterway. Just for listeners, we got like. I'm looking at avoids. Avoids on North Ease, avoids on Wally Dogs, voids on blue suckers. These are voids on browns. Avoids on mountain whities.

[Corinne]

Yeah. And these are for different bodies of water.

[Steve]

Voids on smallmouth. I'm just kind of giving a general. There's an avoid on yellow perch Channel cats.

[Brody]

It's interesting that that Fort Peck has all those voids and like. Because that's like the downstream terminus of.

[Steve]

Well, if you.

[Brody]

If you look at like everything ends up there.

[Corinne]

If you look at Canyon Ferry, it's not that bad.

[Brody]

Right.

[Corinne]

But as you go down the line, it gets worse.

[Steve]

Yeah, like that whole vigilante deal. I was telling you this when you first brought this up to me. I said ignore it. I'm not stopping. I don't care if you told me that those fish had hand grenades in them. I'm not stopping eating them.

[Brody]

So you have a different attitude about this than you do cwd.

[Steve]

Yes, yes, I know this Won't be. I know that. That won't be what kills me.

[Corinne]

I know that CWD won't be the thing that kills you either.

[Steve]

No, no. I'll die of a heart attack later

[Brody]

that was caused by pfas.

[Randall]

Tree branch will fall on you.

[Corinne]

Oh, yeah. The risks of PFAS chemicals are still very abstract compared to cwd.

[Brody]

Seth's got more. But, like, this stuff is like. There's been game agencies around the country that are saying, like, don't eat ducks from this area. Don't eat deer.

[Steve]

Listen, I know you're saying they're wrong. Don't eat. You know what? I hope no one eats it.

[Brody]

I don't care.

[Steve]

Me personally, I'm not going to stop eating fish because of this. Because there's like a quality of life issue. I'm not. We're all going to end up looking like that guy. The guy from earlier.

[Brody]

The moment he will. Sickly and pale and.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Brody]

Eating potatoes.

[Steve]

If.

[Randall]

If I end up looking like that guy, people are going to come to me and say, man, you've really done some lifestyle changes. That you look great.

[Steve]

You look like you could use a channel catfish or something.

[Randall]

Discovered discipline.

[Corinne]

So Montana's final recommendations are significantly less restrictive. Steve, you like to hear this?

[Steve]

Oh, good.

[Corinne]

The nose proposed by deq. Go to.

[Steve]

I just can't stop.

[Corinne]

This is. This is just a snapshot of Montana's current recommendations, and it's easy to understand. Well, there's. There's a key here that was. Yeah, there's a key here.

[Steve]

You have to look.

[Corinne]

But anyway, like the. Obviously the circles with the X's or the. The do not consume.

[Steve]

So give me an example of what they're saying. Don't eat.

[Corinne]

All right, so let's. For Fort Peck, they're saying a walleye for women and children. That's 22 to 26 inches. Women and children shouldn't eat that.

[Steve]

Huh.

[Spencer]

What does the two mean for like a 26.

[Steve]

Oh, my wife doesn't find. I think that's per month.

[Corinne]

Yeah. Meals per month.

[Steve]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't send.

[Corinne]

And then the. The little fish. The fish icon is a safe to eat.

[Brody]

I mean, generally, it's like the bigger the fish, the less you eat of them.

[Corinne]

Same.

[Brody]

Like

[Steve]

the takeaway is. Is that. The takeaway is that we're. We're ruining the planet. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. There's plastic in everything.

[Corinne]

Yeah. Montana is not alone when it comes to PFAS chemicals.

[Steve]

Not ruining it, but degrading it significantly.

[Corinne]

Yeah. This is a nationwide issue.

[Steve]

We're not even in the hot zone research indicates.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steve]

This is when the Great Lakes are bad.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Corinne]

EPA has found PFAS and freshwater fish on these.

[Steve]

These 3M wild that in Nevada they found no PFAS and fresh water because they found no fresh water in Nevada. No joke. Looking in Nevada. In Nevada is the only state I'm looking at that doesn't have a PFAS

[Brody]

dot on it because they haven't tested for it.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Corinne]

There's even black dots there in the South. There's even stuff in Alaska.

[Steve]

Yeah. But then just for people, not. They're listening, not looking. There's. It's just like dots kind of parts per billion in composite samples and real. You know, most. The country is very sporadic. The Mississippi's got boku dots and the Great Lakes all the way out. The St. Lawrence Seaway has beaucoup dots.

[Corinne]

Yep.

[Randall]

I mean the other, the other part of this story too is that the Montana research was all done. That report was finalized three years ago.

[Corinne]

And yeah, 24.

[Randall]

They just released it to the public.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Big kind of.

[Steve]

Well, they also just had, you know, like PFAS stuff because California banned it. So all companies are moving away from pfas because everybody's just moving away pfas. So waterproofing on jackets is going to go downhill and hopefully fish quality will go up. But they're forever chemical, so they're never going to go away. Just got to keep eating them fish. That's not my recommendation.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, pay attention to what you cook in. If you have a nonstick pan that's coated, you're just.

[Corinne]

Yeah. Teflon's a big one.

[Steven Rinella]

Licking PFAS up.

[Brody]

I think that hot grease just fries it right out of those.

[Corinne]

That's just science. Yeah.

[Steve]

Tell that. Be like that guy that. Remember that. Remember that legislator that said about cwd? He's like, just cook it to die.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Steve]

And someone's like, you have to cook it to 900 temperature. No, it's like. Like 1300 degrees or something like that.

[Corinne]

One thing I read when doing this research on this is the. That data centers are. The water cycling through data centers is releasing a shitload of PFAS chemicals.

[Steve]

Really?

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Randall]

I had a lot of people reach out to me about data centers because they love them.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Randall]

No, people that are building, building them, working them, things of that nature.

[Steven Rinella]

We got a ton of emails. Thank you, everybody. I gotta go through them.

[Steve]

I got a good. I got a good. I got a good guest I'm flirting with on that subject matter. Not flirt That's a terrible word. No, it's chatting, chatting. A journalist, she's doing a book on the whole subject.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, you're up.

[Steve]

Are you done? That's a great segment.

[Corinne]

Yeah, that's it.

[Steve]

Are you going to curtail your fish eating?

[Brody]

That's what I was going to ask.

[Corinne]

I have, I haven't honestly eaten a lot of fish in Montana in the last. Ever since I got mercury poisoning. A lot of these fish are a lot of like that study showed a lot of stuff, real high mercury as well.

[Steve]

You're not eating the fish because of the mercury.

[Corinne]

I just eat all the fit. I. All my fish consumption is just Alaska stuff for the most part.

[Steve]

Huh.

[Randall]

Didn't you also poison yourself with Alaska fish at some point?

[Corinne]

No.

[Steve]

Hawaii fish.

[Corinne]

That was Hawaii fish. Golf, goldfish,

[Steve]

they should be, you know, people got a, they'll put a map up and put a thumbtack. Everywhere they've been.

[Randall]

That's exactly.

[Steve]

That's gonna do a thumbtack. Everywhere has been poisoned by fish.

[Brody]

You know what DEQ should do? They should be sa not. Don't worry about the fish. They should be sampling the anglers for pfas.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Hunting demands preparation, persistence and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear First Light. This isn't about hype, it's about no compromise gear built to perform, built to last. Whether it's their industry leading merino wool keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements, First Light is built to help you go farther and stay longer. Designed by hunters, for hunters with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses, just gear you can count on. Head to first light.com that's F I R S T L I T E.com I always tell my favorite story about my dad's buddy that I grew up with, one of my fishing mentors, Ron Spring, because he had eaten so much Great Lakes fish his whole life. He was a commercial bait fisherman. So his for a living he caught bait and then lived off fish. My dad fished them all the time. They used. He used to go for these routine cognitive tests to test him for all of his exposure to Great Lakes fish. And the punchline of the joke, and I always tell this punchline, the punchline of the joke is he was telling me about he. He would go to MSU in Lansing, Michigan periodically. I can't remember if it was every six months or every year. And they would give him a list of stuff to remember. They would. He's telling me that he go. He'd say, they're like, ron, you need to go to the store and get milk, eggs, Mountain Dew. Right, whatever. Tell him a bunch of things he's supposed to get at the store. Then he said they'd wait a minute, and they'd go, what are you supposed to get at the store? And I remember he said to me, steve, I wouldn't have remembered that list if I never ate a piece of fish in my whole life. And. And, you know. So they were looking into this back then.

[Brody]

Yep. Yep.

[Steve]

He lived to be a very old man.

[Spencer]

There you go.

[Steve]

I sold him a huge snapping turtle one time, and he knew this other dude.

[Brody]

Back in your days of illegal stuff?

[Steve]

Well, no, no, because. No, because you could get a commercial.

[Brody]

Oh, there was. Yeah.

[Steve]

Commercial turtle back then. Yeah. I later went to profile him. He was in. He was old. He was an old man, and I was communicating with him and that. Because I wanted to profile him, I wanted to go out and spend time with him. I was pitching it when I was. This is when I was writing for Outside magazine, and I was like, I want to do a profile of, like, a bait fisherman. So he, like, collects. He would go out himself and collect leeches, wigglers, crawlers, shiners, sucker minnows. Like, he would be the guy that sold all the live bait.

[Randall]

Honest work.

[Steve]

Yeah. A buddy has even started a live bait vending thing that didn't take off a vending machine to buy live bait.

[Brody]

Did he sell himself or sell to bait shops?

[Steve]

He had springs outdoors, so he had springs. Sorry. Spring sporting goods. But even after spring sporting goods ended, he still supplied bait. That's just his. His business, his whole life. Leeches, wigglers, everything. And I wanted to profile him in his 80s. I think he was in his late 70s or 80s, because I'm like, at this point, you know, and he said, I have spent my life developing my methods. I view it as proprietary, and I don't want to show anybody.

[Corinne]

Dang. Went to the grave.

[Steve]

What's that?

[Brody]

He was not worried about a legacy.

[Randall]

He didn't want anybody to put him out of business. And his.

[Steve]

I've been. I was at his place, and he had women that would tie. He had women that would do piece work tying spawn sacks, where you take that mesh that use that weddings to put mints and peanuts in.

[Brody]

That's what they caught, that golden, beautiful

[Steve]

golden trout on spawn.

[Brody]

That's what Spencer said.

[Steve]

He put like, three. Three salmon eggs, like three chinook eggs a couple Little foam balls so it's buoyant and. And tie it off. He would have women doing piece work tying spawn sacks. And then he put those in those little plastic tubs they sell flies in. You buy flies and you could go and buy like six spawn sacks tied by Ron Spring.

[Brody]

Yep.

[Steve]

I just. The last story about. Last story about Ron Spring. When I was a little kid. This is terrible. I was fishing with my old man, I was a little kid, and we found on the ice a big northern pike someone had just left laying outside the hole just fro, you know, fish looks when it's been laying there frozen stiff. It was frozen stiff. My dad picks it up and throws it to me because it's frozen rock solid. He throws it to me and I catch it. He goes, you caught that pike. Now, I told Ron Spring I was probably like five or six. I told Ron Spring I caught a 28 inch pike.

[Brody]

You felt bad?

[Steve]

Felt so bad. I called him back and told him I lied.

[Corinne]

Wow.

[Steve]

I felt so crooked.

[Corinne]

Well, it's an honest man.

[Steve]

Patagonia is suing a drag queen named Patagonia. Does this individual go by him or her? Do you know? Did you read this?

[Brody]

They, I think. No, I thought I saw that.

[Steve]

I'm just gonna say Patagonia. There's a drag. I can't believe you could say drag queen and not get in trouble. Doesn't it seem like a thing you wouldn't be able to say anymore, but they use it. Drag queen.

[Corinne]

Oh, yeah, that's totally fine.

[Steve]

Yeah. But there's some things you. This drag queen is Patty going. Now, according to Patty, she heard they

[Spencer]

them when in drag, she goes by she. And when not in drag, Win Wiley identifies as a gay man who uses he him.

[Brody]

There you go.

[Steve]

I'm gonna. In character.

[Brody]

Yes.

[Steve]

In. In drag, there's a.

[Corinne]

There's a.

[Steve]

There's a dragon. There's a climate activist, nature environmental activist right here. Patty Gonia. Patty. She claims that the whole thing started when she was out hiking and brought some high heels. And you know, the craziest part is that she has Seth's mustache. Look at this. Yeah. She was out hiking in high heels. Put on her high heels for a photograph. Not Seth's hair.

[Randall]

No. I wish I said I should have never cut my hair.

[Matt Naron]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So she was out on a hike. She was out on a hike and took a picture of. Brought high heels, Got to the top of some hill, took a picture of her in high heels and dubbed and created a Persona, a drag queen Persona. Patty Gonia she claims that it was not in reference to the clothing company Patagonia. She claims it was in reference to the Argentinian and Chilean the region which is the southern portions of Argentina. Argentina and Chile. Chilean, Patagonia, Argentinian Patagonia, the south tip of South America. I just saw today where Patagonia made a video saying that was the inspiration the region. But she has a she. She sells clothing under Patagonia. So Patagonia or Pataguchi? Patagonia. She should just call herself Patty Gucci and it'll be like a double joke. Gucci, yeah.

[Randall]

They got money.

[Corinne]

You think that mustache is fake?

[Steve]

No, no, I think it's legit. I think it's real. Anyways, Patagonia's in a real bind here. It's a true. I call this a feel good story because it makes me. It makes me laugh. And I call it a heartwarming story because it warms my heart. I just think it's very funny. I've been enjoying this story for two days since it came out. It puts Patagonia in a real bind. But it harkens back to, if you remember the dispute between North Faith. There was a dispute a long time ago between North Face and South.

[Corinne]

But.

[Steve]

Phil, can you pull up North Face and South? But. Okay.

[Spencer]

Oh, I'm not familiar.

[Steve]

So this is 20 years ago.

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steve]

North Face came out. A guy inverted the North Face logo and came out with a clothing line called the South Butt. That's really a kid from Missouri and his dad did this. He was like a student. They come up with self, but North Face is like, hey, South Butt, you gotta quit. He says, give me a million bucks and I'll quit. Well, then South Butt took off. And I'll say, it's not for sale anymore. So then they come to some kind of undisclosed settlement where he'll stop selling South Butt clothes, signs the settlement, and then quickly launches the butt face. Do you got that one?

[Corinne]

Oh, no, I cannot.

[Steve]

Quickly launches the butt face as. Like a. As like a total fu. To the North Face. And then he's found in violation of the deal. Then they're like, okay, enough, enough. So he's like, okay, I'll quit the south, but I'm switching to the Butt face.

[Randall]

He had to pay 65 grand.

[Steve]

Yeah. For butt face.

[Spencer]

And then.

[Steve]

Yeah, there it is. So then he's like, okay, I'll call it the Butt face. Because they had never stopped climbing. So he's like, never stop smiling. The butt face. Totally funny. He loses and he's done so here we are. Now, Patagonia is, is going toe to toe with Pata Patty Gonia. All right? The first thing I thought when I heard this, and I've been around, I've been around this, this issue, the pet, the, the copyright thing. I've been around a fair bit over the years. The first thing I thought was, how is it applicable when there is a place called Patagonia? Like, why can't you say no? I mean, the place, it doesn't work. And if you want to think about why that doesn't work, it's like, let's say I start a online, I start a website that sells everything you could ever possibly want. And I say, I'm going to call it Amazon. And they're like, well, you can't, because there's already one of those called Amazon. I'd be like, oh, no, no. I mean, the jungle like it. For all the reasons you can imagine, it doesn't work to do that. All right? What Patagonia is pressing is like that to stop. They want Patty Gonia to stop selling merch. But there's a lot of fan art. So Patty Gonio, go on and show fan art that uses the, not, not just the name, but the Patagonia logo. And this has been done before. There was a gun company that took like an AR and made it look like the pad with the multicolored iconic mountainscape thing. So Patty is saying, okay, I'll stop using or showing the Patagonia logo, but you got to lay off on me calling myself Patty Gonia. That's the deal they're trying to strike. Okay? Patagonia claims that Patagonia has known about her for eight years, but they're cherry picking this political moment, this particular political moment to make their attack. Okay, the question when you get into this kind of stuff is, does it cause, to a layman, does it cause brand confusion? I watched one lawyer speaking about it, and the lawyer was saying, brand confusion would be, you tell your baby boomer grandma, I want a Patagonia T shirt. Now, could this hypothetical baby boomer grandma search that up and wind up accidentally getting a Patty Gonia T shirt? That would be like, you've caused brand confusion in the comment section to this lawyer breaking this down. There was one person that said, and I think they're lying. He said, my parents are boomers. They've never heard of the clothing company Patagonia, but they know about Patagonia. Come on.

[Corinne]

Yeah, that's a stretch.

[Steve]

Another story online, another person said, I am a Boomer and I can tell the difference between a clothing brand and a drag queen. So you have conflicting things about boomers. We should have brought one in and said, how confused are you by all this interesting little wrinkle here about trademark use? And this is the part that I've had a lot of exposure to. When you trademark something, you're trademarking the use of the name for a purpose. I was trying to think this morning of an example and I thought of an example. But first I'll say that for 33 years, Patagonia's held. They, they have, they held. Have held for 33 years that they have exclusive on selling clothes under Patagonia. Let's say there's a prominent, you know, like down on the Madison river, there's Blacks Ford, okay? There's a well known Ford from historic times. Like, that was a reliable, good, safe place to cross the Madison Blacks Ford. That's where you would cross. Let's say I open a restaurant at Blacks Ford and I call it the Ford, okay? And I'm saying I'm opening a restaurant at the Ford called the Ford Ford Motor Company. That's not their probably, I'm using example, but probably not their business because I'm opening a restaurant called the Ford at the Ford. But let's say I later go, man, I've developed a truck which is great for crossing the Ford. Okay? I'm going to call it the Ford. All of a sudden now you are in. Ford is coming after you now. Because now you're causing brand confusion. Your truck, the Ford, which you claim has nothing to do with Ford, it has to do with the Ford at the river. A judge is going to be like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, you're creating brand confusion about Ford as a motor vehicle.

[Randall]

If you're, if you're a person who can create a successful restaurant venture in and around Bozeman and you can invent a motor vehicle, you'll be just fine without that name. Yes, you're an impressive enough Bridger something.

[Steve]

Impressive, impressive person.

[Randall]

Bridger Motors.

[Steve]

Yeah. So you go and get. So if you're establishing a brand, if you're establishing a brand, you don't know where the brand is going. That's why it's always a good idea to not use a word that's blocked up. Like, let's say you're looking at a brand name and it happens to be there's a kayak company with that name. And you're like, well, I want to call my restaurant that. But then you Realize that they have secured apparel, they've secured a multitude of water sports and you're later like, well, I'm just going to be a restaurant. Well, what if you decide you're going to sell hoodies? Like, you always got to be careful. You're going to be, I'm going to sell my favorite knife. Well, there's already a knife company using that name. So you always got to be careful about like where all it's been used. In Patagonia's situation, this puts them because their audience, Patagonia's audience is bifurcated finance dudes like those vests a lot and they like those black fleeces a lot. There's a, there's an understandable story about why finance guys love Patagonia because there used to be some very exclusive event and they'd give out like a, like a vest. But if you didn't get invited to the vest to the event, you just go get it anyways. Because then it looked like you'd been to the event and now it just is that they wear Patagonia vests.

[Spencer]

They don't know why they're wearing them.

[Steve]

No. But there's a history too that you can understand. And it's bifurcated too. So they have this kind of like right ish, right leaning thing. Like how many investors have you ever met with a Patagonia jacket? They all have one. And then there's like a left leaning element, like a real like Ann Arbor, Madison, Patagonia type that are diametrically opposed.

[Brody]

Hiker, biker.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Brody]

Fly fisher.

[Steve]

So here Patagonia is kind of like in this position of going after what would almost be sort of like a symbolic height of the left leaning aspect of tolerance and things that would come from their community.

[Brody]

Yeah. And Patagonia's ethos is not right wing finance guys. Patagonia's kind of ethos is.

[Steve]

Yeah, they take that money. Yeah, they take that money and use it for environmental causes that would ultimately be at odds with the people make giving them all the money by buying all the vests. This is very unscientific. It's just like observational.

[Spencer]

Yeah. If there was like a woke business spectrum that range from like Trump Mobile to Starbucks, like Patagonia is in the Starbucks category. Yeah, very far.

[Steve]

Starbucks is always duking it out with you unions. Now they've kind of lost their like leftiness.

[Spencer]

Point is they're like on, on this spectrum. They're very far left.

[Steve]

Yeah. Way woke. That's a good way of putting it. Way woke and now they're attacking, like, the fringe woke side of woke. But here's why. They're in a pickle. If you don't enforce your copyright, it counts against you in future copyright infringement things. Part of having a copyright is it is enforced because if someone goes, if I say I'm going to name some, I'm going to come up and say, I'm going to name an aftershave and I'm calling it Burma Shave. Well, in the 20s, there was Burma Shave. It's not around anymore. So if Burma Shave has gone lax and has not enforced burma shave for 100 years. Right.

[Randall]

Is that with an E or a U?

[Steve]

B, U, R, M, A dash Shave. And they became famous because they would put these sequential billboards up that would have a message, a rhyming message. So I was reminded of this recently because the tourism board in Arizona is putting out Burma Shave posters even though the product isn't around anymore. Just like a nostalgia thing. Poor example. But what I'm saying is, if Patagonia doesn't go after Patagonia and then an AR company uses it, it's hard for them to go after the AR company because it'd be like, but you don't enforce your trademark. You allow all these other people to do it, but now you're starting to saying you're going to all of a sudden enforce it with this person. So you have to be diligent. That's why they're in a bind. And now Patty Gonia has made a video saying, stop the suit. She's very articulate. She says, don't take this out on the employees at Patagonia. It's not their problem. Don't be hostile. Be respectful. I'll stop using the logo, but they need to stop the lawsuit about me using Patty Gonia. I don't know where I stand on the whole thing.

[Spencer]

Patagonia is suing for $1 plus legal fees. And then the quote is, we wish we didn't have to do this.

[Steve]

I wish I didn't have to do everything at work.

[Brody]

The company said the settlement. The company said the settlement will require Patagonia to withdraw all trademark applications. Stop using Patagonia's logos, stop selling and promoting apparel and other products as Patagonia.

[Steve]

I don't know who I'm rooting for. I think, like, I feel like I'm rooting. I feel like I'm rooting for Patty. Who are you rooting for?

[Spencer]

Spencer, I hope. Let's go, Patty.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Randall]

I wish I didn't have to do

[Steve]

this, but you have to. Here you are. Right. Who are you rooting for? I don't want, like, don't give me some lawyer bs. Just give me, like, in your deep down heart of hearts, who you're rooting for. I.

[Brody]

Come on, Randall, who you rooting for?

[Randall]

Patty.

[Steve]

Corinne.

[Steven Rinella]

Patty. But I understand the trademark thing.

[Steve]

Dude, I totally understand it. I totally understand. I'm just saying, like, who for the future. I know, but at a point, you've been around so long, right. You just become, like, the cultural. It's like you're. You're like the cultural fabric. And there's gonna be. After you've been around so long and have been, like, so ubiquitous and, like, in such a part of the American dialogue that someone would be able to not, like, goof on it a little bit.

[Randall]

Yeah, I always stand up for parody.

[Steve]

You know, it's like you're kind of, like, goofing on it. You're goofing on a thing that's just very, like, I don't think this is going to hurt their business.

[Brody]

That's the thing. It's like, is Patagonia, the company, really going to, like, take a financial hit here?

[Steve]

But that's not what it's about.

[Brody]

I know, but I also feel like they've demonstrated they're looking out for their own trademark.

[Steve]

Yeah.

[Brody]

You know what I mean?

[Steve]

I know they're right. I know they're right. But I'm rooting for the other person.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So am I. Patty going, I wouldn't do anything different if I was in their shoes.

[Spencer]

They probably need to punt and just make Patty, like, a spokesperson at this.

[Steve]

Because what they've done. Because what they've done now, that's why in my notes, I have up top, puts them in a real bind. By which I mean a real pickle. And part of the pickle is that this went from being, oh, I went to look and see if I could get some. Not that I want some, but just see if I could get Patty going. Your merch. Guess what? Sold out. You know what I'm saying?

[Spencer]

Scarcity.

[Steve]

It's like one of those deals where Careful what you talk about.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Careful what you talk about. Because they. All of a sudden, I was. I've never heard of this thing.

[Randall]

The. The.

[Steve]

Like. I've never heard of the. The brand Patagonia or the individual Patagonia.

[Spencer]

And now Streisand.

[Steve]

The whole world knows about it. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Steve]

So you got to be a little bit careful of what you're yapping About.

[Randall]

And. And my. My understanding was that they had somewhat of a friendly relationship until.

[Steve]

Well, I know it was like. It was very loosey goosey. And this lawyer I was looking at was dismissive. It was something to do with, like, hiding of flask.

[Brody]

Yeah.

[Randall]

I'll admit I didn't dig into this one as deeply as I would if I were doing a real hard hitting.

[Spencer]

Can we get Patty on the show Investigators?

[Steve]

That'd be great.

[Spencer]

Ask Patty some of these questions.

[Steve]

Yeah, we should have Patty going to come on the show. She might have to go by a different name while she's here, depending how the lawsuit goes. Yeah, we had Aon Chouinard on before. We should have Patty gon, like, fair and balanced.

[Corinne]

Should have them all together. Be a debate, I guess. He's not involved.

[Spencer]

That'd be an ambush set.

[Steve]

That'd be an ambush. It'd be an ambush if you didn't tell.

[Randall]

Depends if we're hiding.

[Steve]

I wish that it was a long time ago and we could have done our story about north face and south buttons. That's just flat out.

[Spencer]

It's a shame we can't talk.

[Steve]

That's flat out funny. This is different. The thing that impressed me the most is when I went and watched Patty Gonia's video explaining the whole situation. I was impressed by the clarity and articulation of the issue. I was impressed. I was impressed. As a presenter, I was impressed.

[Spencer]

Like, speaking of trademarks, how do we do the Bambi thing without getting in trouble?

[Brody]

Because public domain. Right, Because.

[Steve]

Because certain things after 75 years go public domain.

[Spencer]

I didn't know if that, like Mickey Mouse, I feel like, came up in public domain.

[Steve]

There's a little bit. There's a roll of the dice.

[Corinne]

The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey. Yeah.

[Steve]

When we did our Bambi, we did our Bambi shirt and I think that it had gone public. Sometimes you roll the dice.

[Spencer]

Yes.

[Steve]

We did a. We did a Metallica thing that the lawyers warned us against. We did a Guns and Roses thing the lawyers warned us against. Bambi is. I think Bambi is now public domain. We did an Elmer Fudd. Maybe we rolled the dice on that. Maybe we'll get like a Get yelled at by Disney. I don't know. Know who owns Warner Brothers, I think. Seems like he'd be his own man, don't it?

[Corinne]

Yeah.

[Steve]

Elmer Foot. Like, I'll never sell out.

[Randall]

He's catching. He's catching tiger trout in West Virginia.

[Steve]

He's like, you'll never buy me. You ask people anyhow. All Right. Thanks for joining the news show. Listen, if you like the news show. Where is this little thing? My call to action.

[Corinne]

Subscribe to the YouTube channel, subscribe to

[Steve]

the Me Eater podcast. Sorry. Oh yeah, subscribe to the Meat Eater podcast YouTube channel. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, what have you, just click follow and you'll keep up on all the news, all the important news and then

[Spencer]

give us five stars.

[Steve]

And give it five stars. This is the real news, man. Ain't no straight of Hormuz over here. This is the real straight.

[Brody]

Someone catches a big man made trap, we're on it.

[Steve]

This is where you get the news that matters, man. Not a bunch of fake news. Thanks for listening. Summer is messy in its own way. Sand, sweat, snacks, water, gear. And you don't want anything slowing you down. WeatherTech is built for it, giving you the freedom to go all in for floor liners, cargo liner and seat protectors. Keep up with your summer adventures. I we literally I have WeatherTech in all of our vehicles. American made, built to last, easy to clean. If you're going to go all out this summer, you need WeatherTech. Visit weathertech.com today. Hunting demands preparation, persistence and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear First Light. This isn't about hype. It's about no compromise. Gear built to perform, built to last. Whether it's their industry leading merino wool keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable outerwear shrugging off the elements, First Light is built to help you go farther and stay longer. Designed by hunters for hunters with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses, just gear you can count on. Head to firstlight.com that's F I R S T L I T E.com this

[Steven Rinella]

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[Steve]

Guaranteed human.