Ep. 813: Stolen Elk and the Best Fishing Lures of All Time | MeatEater Radio (Not) Live!

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, if you're in or around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you live for hunting season, you need to swing by the meat eater store in Milwaukee. We're stocked wall to wall with the gear we actually use in the field. First light FHF gear, Phelps game calls and more. You'll find us at the corners of Brookfield. Whether you're gearing up for the season, dialing in a setup, or just want to talk shop with people who love to hunt. This is your place. That's the meat eater store, Milwaukee at the corners of Brookfield. Stop in, get dialed and get after it. Smell us now, lady. Welcome to meat eater trivia. Me eat your podcast. Yeah. Welcome to meat eater radio live. It's 1 30 p.m. Mountain time. That's two 30 for our friends in Santa Claus, Indiana on Wednesday, December 17th. And we're live from meat eater HQ in Bozeman. We are currently at home with friends and family because it is Christmas day. I'm your host Spencer joined today by Corey and Max on today's show. We'll interview David Fabian about having his elk skull stolen by a rancher while hunting public land in Wyoming. Then we'll have some top three lists followed by an interview with Mark Kenyon about the best books for whitetail hunters. And finally we'll answer some listener submitted questions. But first, Corey, my head hurts just looking at you because you have a black eye and a big bandage on your face. That's not normal. You had to cancel coming into trivia earlier this week because you said you got a concussion and I said, oh, no, did it happen while you were skiing? And you said, no, no, it's much worse than that. Long story. Tell folks what happened. Better or worse. Pretty embarrassing, but happy to share it with the world. Got my dog's frisbee stuck into a tree. And how high up in a tree? Not high, maybe 10 feet. You know, I could almost reach it with a stick. That was plan A, plan B naturally was to throw a rock into the tree. Right. Just try and knock it down, picked up a, I don't know, nine, 10 pound rock off the ground. How big? Show me with your hand. Like softball size. Yeah, bigger than softball. OK, I want you to wait. Probably 10 pounds. OK. You know, just easy enough to get some good velocity throwing it into the tree to knock the frisbee down. I hit the frisbee, but it was stuck in a weird little nest. Hey, bounced off the tree, bounced off a limb and then hit me in the face. Gosh, it was headed right for like between my eyes. And I turned my head last second. It got me just under my eye, obviously. Yeah, pretty brutal. Nothing happened at first, but it about 20 minutes later, I passed out. So my percussion. It's been a couple of days staying at home, relaxing. Yeah, I couldn't partake in trivia, which lucky for the other contestants, obviously. So, yeah, no, feeling a lot better, though. Thanks for asking. Yeah, well, we're making him host radio, despite him saying he's still a little foggy, little foggy. If I pass out, this will be one hell of an episode. Good content. Yeah. Does it still hurt? It's good. It's tight like everything in my right cheek is just sense. Just healing, you know. So no, it doesn't hurt anymore. Yeah, just my pride. Yeah. Well, good on you for telling the truth. I lied about that. I've been like, yeah, I was skiing a quadruple black diamond. Took a ski pole, blazers or something. You know, yeah, I don't want that karma to hit me even harder than that rock did, you know. So well, it got you good. It did. Well, stupid rock. But I still need to go back to that tree, get the frisbee. And I'm going to bring the frisbee still out there. Yeah. And then I'll bring home the rock, too. And I don't know, put it on my mantle. We have got some like 80 miles per hour today. That frisbee might be long gone. It was up there, man. Let me tell you, the rock didn't knock it down. And it was a hell of a throw, too. And now now you get to answer this question all of Christmas. Hanging out with the family. Oh, I can't wait. So you've got a version of the story that's well told at this point. Yep. Nope. It's all good. You're in good spirits about it. So it's good. Try to be. Thanks for coming today. And this show was coming out. You're going to be on the live show that we record tomorrow that is live. And so we're not even going to address it. We're just going to tell folks if you want to know what happened to Corey's face. Yeah, you got to tune in next week. There you go. That's hanging. All right. Joining us on the line first is David Fabian, the editor of Guns and Ammo Special Interest Publications. He had a run in on public land in Wyoming with a rancher earlier this fall that went viral on social media. He's here to tell us that story. David, welcome to the show. How are you, David? Hi, sir. Hi, guys. First thing, tell us about the area you were hunting and how you accessed it. Yeah, we were hunting this this chunk of landlocked public public land that on the way to get there, if you don't have a family connection or deep pockets is to is to take a helicopter. So we walked our rig and we boarded a helicopter and flew about four minutes and set up camp and we could we could look back in the distance. Maybe four and a half miles. We could see our cars down there, but yeah, can't walk there. And it took a few years for you to find a pilot who was willing to fly you into these places. What was that process like? Oh, incredibly frustrating. I had this I had this idea that says, you know, I want to land my public land because it's got to be the Shangri-La of oh, yeah, public land. And so I finally I finally got the plan together. And and then I called air operator after air operator after air operator. And no one no one would do it. I think it was my my 26 or 27. Whoa. Look after or plane pilot I spoke to that said, yeah, I'd love to do it. OK, you found you found the right guy. I read that at one point you were talking to someone who could drop you in there with a hot air balloon, correct? No, no, I was so desperate to make a hunt happen that I called a hot air balloon manufacturer. Oh, I said, I said, I said, guys, have you ever sold any hot air balloons for DIY hunters? And they go, no, that's the first we've heard of this. And they say they said to me, you do realize you can't steer the right. And I did realize I still do think that it could be done. So maybe maybe next year, we'll be talking about my hot air balloon hunt. Yeah, you were desperate. Max, our co-host has a question. Yeah, David, what's Wyoming's rule about flying and hunting the same day? You can do it. No problem. If you use it for if you use the aircraft for transportation purposes and not scouting, you're good to go. OK, cool. OK, so you get the four minute helicopter ride into your spot. Tell us about the hunt itself, which took place back in November. So the hunt itself was very special. It my body had been scheming on getting on this land to hunt for like 20 some years. And he said, if you can get us a helicopter, then it will have a great elk hunt. Well, we got the helicopter and we had, I mean, we had a great elk hunt. But but the hunt itself was was overshadowed by by two things. One, obviously, we'll get to. But we also happened to have that amazing northern lights display on all that's awesome. After we after we got a double on on nice mature bulls, we went to went back to camp and it was like a six hour show. And the time lapse of the videographer got on is just like it gives me goosebumps, even telling the story, thinking about it. Good stuff. So you were you were processing when one of the bulls when when the thing happened and you said, quote, the strangest hunting encounter of your life. That's how you described in your article on Peter, since hunting what happened? Yeah, I mean, there's there's nothing that even comes close to this one. I've had I've had issues with people like we all had on public land, but but nothing like this. So so my buddy and I, we left our camp and hide to the kill site. When we both killed, we killed two bulls that were probably 150 yards apart. So we we hiked back to my my bull and we got there at nine o'clock in the morning. And we're going to start packing meat and the other guys were going to come eat us as soon as they got done. Do it's filming. So we sit down at my bull and we look down below and there walking across his flat is is a rancher or another hunter. He's got a elk angler over his shoulder. And so I think to myself, huh, you know, whatever, we got we got two elk in this place last night, the rancher obviously shot one in there as well. Yeah, didn't even think anything of it. And my buddy, he said, I wonder if that's our other elk. And just then this light bulb goes off my head like, holy cow, could we really have could we really be witnessing an elk theft in the process from from a rancher who obviously came on private across private ground. And so I just brought my binoculars. He didn't bring me left it back camp. But but he's only seen binoculars. And so he took my binoculars and looked down there 200 yards and he recognized the back forks of of the elk as being one that our buddy Ryan shot, and he said, he said, I think that's our elk. And so I'm thinking still no way. Like, what are the it's not even the realm of possibility. So he says, stay here and keep an eye on the brush line, because I got walked into brush. So so Ben looked at him for me. He just had seconds to determine that that could be our elk. He said, stay here and keep looking down at the at the brush line. So I stayed there and I expected this this rancher that be him. I expected this rancher would come out and go get a quarter and take the quarter and walk into the brush. It never came out. And so a few minutes later, once once Ben and made up to the other kill site, all of a sudden I hear this voice come booming down and he said, he stole our elk go after him. And it's like, OK, now that's where it became the weirdest moment of my hunting of my hunting career. And I mean, it's one thing to have interactions with people, but it's a whole different thing when you catch someone stealing. Your antlers and they don't want you there to begin with. I mean, that's just that's just a given. But they go to the go to the degree of stealing your stealing from you. And then they're hiding in brush line use column. Like approaching that brush line, I cannot even describe the the pangs of fear that went through me. Like I was terrified, but but we had to do it. So then got there first. I'll go ahead. No, I was just going to recap. You've now you've got three bowls down. You you're working on the meat. You've watched this rancher from 200 yards away. Walk into the brush with your elk head and then you guys march over there. What's the conversation like with the rancher? Well, my my buddy didn't bend in most of the talking at first. And he was he was obviously really pissed. He wanted the guy to come out. The guy was hiding in there. He wouldn't come out. He finally he finally came out and it's a 70 year old dude. And I'm just like, my mind is blown. Like I can't even say anything for the first for the first few minutes, probably I was just recording with my with my phone because I knew this was evidence that we're going to have to use. And so that is one thing that anyone in this situation, like we've got amazing technology and just pulling out your phone and and recording stuff will really cover your cover your bases. But anyways, the conversation was was was very simple. Like why did this happen? What what what purpose did you steal this elk head for? Like what's going on? And the guy the guy didn't didn't answer. He did a bunch of a bunch of misdirection. Wouldn't identify himself as a rancher. Denied even having the bull. We called him out and all of a stuff. But but ultimately he said the reason was he didn't he didn't want us hunting on this outfit. That's what he said. This outfit, meaning the public land that he's had sole access to for, I guess, probably 45 years that he's been there. And at some point in this process, when you guys are glancing him or walking over there, you you heard a few gunshots, correct? Where do those play into the story? Like I can't I can't confirm where those gunshots came from or who did it even. But I believe that that rancher shot three times that morning. And I don't I don't I can't I can't understand the the logic behind that one. But anyways, when we saw him, he never had a rifle. So I can't I can't confirm it was him nor nor what he did. But I'm guessing I'm guessing he probably did it to to signify like, hey, I got an animal and then if someone sees him packing it out, like that's that's what happened. But that's that's just that's just pure theory. I don't I don't think he did it to scare us or anything. Like when you're when you're on public land, people people shoot. And you know, you're not going to get out of there because another hunter's in there. All right. So at the beginning of the conversation, the rancher is denying the whole thing, right? But at some point you get him to show you where the skull is. How did that go down? I know he I think I think he said to us the first first time was a what bull. And Ben said, the one you just saw, the one we just saw you pack into the brush. And so and so after after a few minutes of conversation, then goes, you want me to get the bull? And he goes, have at it. So Ben walks in there and he looks down the bottom of this little cut. And there's and there's our buddy, Ryan's L. Cantler's. So so not only did he did he take the bull and put it in the brush line, but he tossed it down this this 10 foot 10 foot ditch and and climbed down. It was it was it was not easy to get down there. But he climbed down there and he placed it in a place where you could barely see it. I know when I went to recover the antlers, because I got him out when I jump down there, I I looked and sure enough, there was there was fresh boot tracks in there. Like he'd actually gone to the effort of hiding them so you could you could barely find it. And then weirdly, he like offers to help you guys at that point, right? Well, that's that's interesting how that worked out because I was I was relieved that we that we got the back and I was relieved that we didn't get shot truthfully. That was my biggest fear in the whole thing. But but after we after we after tensions cooled, I realized that, hey, you know, that guy packed this elk head down, you know, 300 vertical feet. So 300, maybe even 400 vertical feet and at least 300 yards. So I said, how in the hell are we going to get it back up to the kill site? Like we got to pack it up now. So what are you going to do? And I really I thought I thought he was going to say, look, guys, I messed up, you know, instead of instead of taking out there, you can just come out my ranch, go get your cars, take yourself out that one. I was waiting for that because I said, OK, cool. I saved some money on the helicopter ride. Oh, it would have saved us so much money if you would if you had done that. But he didn't. He never did. He did. He did however, offer to pack it up. So I thought that was that was a little bit of a redemption on his behalf. Yeah. So you guys get the elk then back to your camp, you and the rancher go your separate ways. At what point do you contact the authorities and how did that conversation go? As soon as we had service, yeah, as soon as we had service, we well, we waited for our buddies to get back and we said, you said, you think you think the hunt was a was a cool story, like just wait to you wait till you see what we what we just witnessed. And so, I mean, our friends were just slack jawed when we told them the story. Like they thought they were that we were messing with them at first. And we're like, no, I promise you, we're not messing with you. But yeah, so we went we went back to camp that night. And there we had good service. So the phone calls made to the game warden and said, yep, this happened. We'll be out tomorrow. What do we do? And the game warden said, please meet me because that's a that's a very odd story. And so until the next day, we flew out and met with the game warden and and told them and everyone in law enforcement, everyone, period, that here's a story. They all say the same thing like, I can't even I cannot believe that happened. Yeah. Is that considered like hunting harassment then? Or what did the game wardens actually say? That's that's a great that's a great question. And I don't I don't fully know what what the long term legal outcomes going to be. But but yeah, we we asked the warden the same thing like, like, what's going to happen here? And he goes because most I can do is hunter harassment. But he goes after seeing the after seeing the videos that we that we made. He said he said this goes way beyond that. So I'm going to I'm going to open the local sheriff's office and they're going to do an investigation. And then we'll we'll put our charges to the prosecutor, you know, entirety. God, this this has been about a month removed from when it happened. The legal process is still playing out at this point, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I am I am I am optimistic because a few weeks ago, I did get a phone call from the from the sheriff's office and they actually said like, hey, we're pursuing this. We're about to hand this to the prosecutor. So he will he will be he will be punished for what he did. And and that's good. That's a good thing. Because the part that scares me the most is it's not the not the brazen act that that that a lot of these landowners go to to deter you from legally accessing it with aircraft. But I worry if this guy gets off with just a slap on the wrist, that it's going to it's going to put future flying hunters in danger. I mean, some ultimately something bad is going to happen. Like it's one thing to lose an elk head, but it'd be just a tragedy for someone to lose their life. Now, this was not your first flying hunt. Have you had problems in the past with neighboring landowners? Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, when I when I first started this, I thought to myself, like, yeah, they're going to be annoyed, but what are they going to do? It's not their land. You know, what really where they can do? Well, what I found out now is in their minds, it is their land. They don't have deeded. They don't have the deeded deeded rights to it, but but they genuinely do feel. And this is this is a blanket statement. So I'm just I'm just talking with the the people we've interacted with. But every single landowner that we've had interactions with has been less than less than welcoming. And and and some people there's there's a there's a couple that has a massive a massive ranch that surrounds, I mean, I don't know, maybe 30,000 total acres of public landlocked land. But but they they're so extreme that they pester us on the hunts. They find excuses to go in there looking for cows. They they would this lady would take her kids like in October, we did a flying deer hunt. And my dad and his high school buddy, two 75 year olds are in there hunting deer and cow elk. And and this lady shows up above their ridge middle of nowhere. And she takes her kids for a for a loud walk right above their camp. It's like, it's so annoying. But but she took it to she took it to level that that is still surprised me. She told our helicopter pilot, she said that if if I can't have sole access to that land and you guys keep coming in by helicopter, then I'm going to go in there and ruin that land, ruin that land. So no one can take advantage of this. No one can use it. Wow. That's great. And you're just you're like pretty vulnerable back there in in those situations. Yeah. Yeah. I never I've never been in combat. But it it is like almost like you're getting dropped off on an island because because yeah, you could leave if you wanted to. But you really can't like you're going to be trespassing. You got to trespassing to get out of there. And the first time I went in. The helicopter the helicopter landed and gave us a big group briefing. And so we're sitting around the helicopter. And finally, after after 30 minutes of of how to avoid getting your head chopped off, we we boarded our flight for the for the first trip in. And this in this rancher came around us on this four wheeler and the helicopter wasn't running yet. But he said he said good luck. We'll be seeing you soon. And he said it like such a such a spooky villain kind of way. Almost like a threat. I assure you that that first night in there. I was ready for a posse of landowners to come there and try to lynch us from a tree. Yeah. Last question, David, you and I worked together about a decade ago when I was at Peterson's hunting in Illinois. How much do you miss me? How much do I miss you or? Yeah, loaded question. Me. Well, you can answer both. Yeah. How much do you miss me? And then tell us how much you miss Peoria on a scale one to ten. I miss you 9.8. All right. Yes. I really do on a scale one to ten for Peoria. I just miss the people. I don't miss the place at all. OK. Same. Yeah. Good answer. Yeah. You can read David's full story about the hunt in his article called a landowner stole our trophy elk on PetersonTunning.com. David, thanks for joining us and telling the story. Thanks, guys. Take care. See you, David. See you. Man, wild. Crazy stuff. Yeah. I don't even know what to do. And the crazy part is not only to landowners, not all of them, obviously, it's a few that get a little frustrated with this, but not only do they believe that the land is theirs, but that animals are theirs, too. There's a lot of that going on that just is mind blowing me. There's a dollar amount on each one of those trophy animals. It's so crazy, too, because a lot of times when I see like there's different land for sale and listing, the realtors will advertise like, oh, so and so much public land landlocked. Yeah. Right. You know, and I'm just like, that's not considered theirs, but. Yeah. And it's a wild timing that they like saw it go down. You know, if they'd have been five minutes behind in the process and didn't see it happen. Who knows how that story would have been different. Right. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this, man, I'm telling you, I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from SIG, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027 Rio Grande turkey hunt in the Texas hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps game calls, FHF gear in the meat eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at First Light.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2026. So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble. Attention. Attention, rail travelers, platform paces, window gazers, and arm rest negotiators. Have you heard? The big rail fare freeze is here. Railfares have been frozen across England until March 2027 on standard class tickets, including off-peak, anytime, and season tickets. For more information, visit nationalrail.co.uk slash fares-freeze. Teasing season exclusions apply. All right, normally at this point in the show, we take a break for some listener feedback. But since we're not live, these are questions that were submitted ahead of time. We'll hit a few of them now and then a few at the end of the show. The first one is from Ryan Bolinger. Favorite way to cook waterfowl, Max. If I could, every single time, I would cook skin on duck, for sure. But that's now as an option, especially early season when they're not as fatty. They still have pin feathers. So a lot of times, duck or goose, just cook it like a steak. Trim it, trim all the silver skin off. Salt, pepper, garlic. Turns out awesome. Especially the snow geese, the speckled bellies, even some of your dabbler ducks. Yeah, it's great. But yeah, I've done things like the crock pot, barbecued shredded meat, tacos. Options are really endless. I know Steve's favorite way is duck confit, which is also really good. But yeah, duck or goose pastrami, I just made some over Thanksgiving. Phenomenal. All these recipes on theme-deeder.com. I think my best waterfowl I've had was when Cal and I were filming Pardon My Plate when we did the Koot episode, we did a side-by-side comparison with a mallard that the skin was left on. We cooked it on a hot grill, just like you said, with a steak. And it was phenomenal. You would struggle in a Pepsi challenge to identify that that was a mallard versus a piece of beef. It was really great. Yeah, I think Steve is doing a comparison with a Merganzer, GoldenEye, and a Mallard. Here, coming on. A dabbler and a couple divers. We'll see how that goes. Corey, favorite way to cook waterfowl. Well, I don't really have much of a duck in this fight. I don't do a lot of waterfowl hunting, but just the same exact way I cook any steak, which is in a cast iron pan. All right, next question from Will Palachangas. How do you guys wash your merino wool base layers? I reached out to the folks at First Light to get an official answer on this, because I didn't want to lead anyone astray. Here's what they told me. Some companies make cleaners that are specifically for merino wool products. One of them is Graingers, which First Light really likes. Some of the staff over there, me included, just uses dead downwind. And if you aren't buying a special detergent for your base layers, they say to look for labels that say gentle or mild on them. As far as the washing goes, they say it's really important to wash on a gentle cycle with cold water. Try to separate different fabrics and colors. For example, you don't want to put a merino wool kiln hoodie in wash. It has a heavy coat with Velcro. It's going to get beat up for drying. They say do a tumble dry or a low dry blasting the merino wool in a hot dryer might shrink it. So simply put, mild detergent or specialized detergent like Graingers, and then wash and dry at cool temps. Yeah, I'm so horrible at this. I just throw everything together and wash it the same, dry it the same. But I do try, if I know I'm doing some merino wool, I'll try to keep it on low for the drying aspect, for sure. But yeah, I'm so bad at it. Yeah, low and slow. Same with down products too. So natural fibers, low light wash, and then either a super light tumble or even just hang it outside. If you've got nice weather, hang it in a pine tree. Yep, open air and sunlight can do a lot for your smelly clothes. Okay, Cameron J-07 best piece of hunting gear you use that's under $50. I'll do even one better. I'll go under $1. What? Hand warmers and toe warmers. Anyone you know who hunts or fishes north of the Mason Dixon line, they'll find a use for some hand warmers and some toe warmers. I think they're still like 98 cents. When I was hunting in Illinois, it was single digits. Having those hand warmers and toe warmers was like as important as my coat. And it's like a $500 coat versus a $1 hand warmer. They'll really keep you out there longer. Do you find your feet, if you do the toe warmers, your feet get too sweaty or too warm, and then they get sweaty and then they get cold? No, but I'm also not walking around in them either. Right? Like it's like, okay, this is where I'm parking my butt for the next two hours. So I'm throwing a toe warmer in there. Favorite piece of gear under $50 max. For me, it's got to be like a neck gaiter or a buff. Yeah, I actually got one right here. This is the Tundra Cold Weather neck gaiter, $40. It works as a face mask and it just works as just keeping the wind off the back of your neck. I love it. I like them, even I'm hunting in September, obviously not that heavy of one, but yeah, just the sun and wind. I mean, just like something to help conceal your face a little bit, and then like if you can, it kills two birds one stone. So yeah, that's my favorite piece of hunting gear under $50. A cheap pair of aftermarket insoles. Obviously you can go big and get some custom orthotics that could run you $100 to $200. What's your favorite? I really like Superfeet, just because they're there. I think they're maybe a little over $50 now, but just Google aftermarket insoles, and you'll find some under $50 for sure. Anything's better than the junk that they give you in the boots. I mean, they'll last you a couple months, but do your feet a favor and get aftermarket insoles. Make sure it matches your arch. So you might have to bump up a size to make sure it fits your arch. So if you can, go into a boot store or any sporting a good store and try and put your foot on the insole. Make sure it lines up with your arch, and then you can cut it to fit into your boot. I'm gonna put that on my Christmas list. The cutting is porn. If you get slightly oversized and they start to roll in your boots, that's no good. Next question is from Moe, Hey Scowa. What is Phil's favorite ever podcast episode of Mead Eater? Oh, thanks, Moe. I don't know if I have a specific one that sticks out, but I love the authors that Steve brings in, because I don't connect as much to all the very specific hunting talk, but I love it when Steve specifically like a nautical disaster, which Steve loves. And I also love, you know, from the Edmund Fitz to having David Grand talking about the wager, because you can, those guys just know their stuff so well. And Steve, you can feel Steve's passion when he's asking questions. I also love the awkward part of every conversation with an author when Steve tries to get them to talk about the end of the book and they don't want to. And he's like, oh, come on. It's fine. You know, it never fails to amuse me. And then it's like, I love the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that we had to travel for. I loved going to Werner Herzog's house, was a trip, going to LA with Spencer and Randall, and doing the show with Rob Lowe at Sirius or David Chang at the Ringer was fun. Yeah. So those are my favorites. I love the authors and the comedians. Like Brad Leone was a lot of fun. Dan Adute was a lot of fun too. All right. Corey's going to answer this next one from Redbeard Fly Fishing. If you were hunting in snow too deep for gators, what kind of pants do you like? I'd have to go with the first light Omen Storm Shelter pants. They got the built in splash guard Velcro that goes around your boots plus the boot lace hook like most gators have that keep them down when you're trudging through the snow and they're waterproof, obviously, they're light, full vents, knee pads. I mean, I think that's my favorite thing first light makes. And they're actually what are they again? The Omen pant. Okay. Storm Shelter. So will you wear the gators with those or is that overkill? Man, if it was like melting snow and super sloppy, I've done it. Certainly gators, then those over the top, but dry snow. No, no need. They're great for whatever. I use them backcountry skiing too. All right. Next question. We got two more left in this round. This is from Willie Scowey or Will is Kohi. I'm not sure. What is Max's white whale for waterfowl? Ooh, that's a great question. I don't even have a guess. Something from the Arctic Circle or like. Not even that. Okay. Something banded. What is it? Yeah. No. It's, I mean, people might make fun of me and because they probably have many of these, but I've never killed or never harvested a banded Drake Mallard. Oh, really? So yeah, it's going to be a banded Drake Mallard retrieved by my dog. Okay. My dog has retrieved like three or four of them, but me personally, I've never shot one. Yeah. I've shot banded Canada geese, Pintail, Teal, Gadwall, Snow geese, but never a banded Drake Mallard. Oh, okay. I've only killed like five ducks in my life and I've killed one. Really? Really? Oh my goodness. Not bragging. I've killed one banded bird. It was a speckle belly goose. Yeah. Canine, a pair in December. But yeah, for the amount of mallards that I tend to harvest, I'm just waiting on the day. Where on the continent would you go to get that? Because there's dudes who will like, they know that this refuge bans this time of year, so if they go there, they can have higher odds. Where would you try to do it at? I mean, I know there's a lot of banded down in Arkansas, like in the flooded timber, but I necessarily don't want to go somewhere where it's like... You want to be organic. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Where we are around Bozeman, we see a lot of birds from Alberta, some scatch-won birds, and they do a lot of banding up there, a lot of banding projects. And one of these days, Ruby's going to come back with something shiny on that orange leg. So hopefully it's this year, maybe. All right, last one. Wally Bloomer, he says, Phil, Destiny 2 Star Wars expansion question mark. I don't know what that means. What's he asking, Phil? Destiny 2 is a video game that is a sequel to the game Destiny. If you can put that together. It's a multiplayer online shooter from the same team who made the first three Halo games, so a bungee based out of Bellevue, Washington. And so it feels a lot like Halo. It feels great. No one makes... Like their art direction is unparalleled. I put over 1,500 hours into this game. But let's see, Wally Bloomer, I haven't touched Destiny since the final shape, which for everyone else was the last big expansion, downloadable content expansion. I think I said it before, I had to quit at Cold Turkey. I was just wasting too much time playing that game. To be honest, Wally, I didn't even know that there was a Star Wars tinged expansion until I read this question. That is how checked out I am from the Destiny community, which didn't used to be the case. Okay. Yeah, so just 15 more seconds of detail. The reason you waste so much time playing these games is because it's a massive multiplayer online game, so you play with a bunch of people and it's like a looter shooter as well. So you're always trying to make your number go up. You get a gun and then that gun helps you fight stronger monsters, and then you get an even stronger gun and that gun helps you fight stronger monsters. And you watch your number tick up and it's just that sort of serotonin hit. Okay. Just learning about the Star Wars make you more interested though, or you still just know. Not at all. No, I'm done. I'm done forever, Wally. Sorry. All right. Our next segment is Top 3s. Oh, I'm going to fire this up now. Top 3s. That was not the right note. All right, each one of us has a different Top 3 list today. Corey, start us out. What is your Top 3 list? Oh boy. Well, we're kind of wrapping up 2025, not officially yet obviously, but it makes me always kind of reminisce the year. So I'm doing my, in no particular order necessarily, my Top 3 outdoor adventures from 2025. All right. Let's see what Phil brings up first. I can't wait to see this. Let me get rid of this banner. Okay. Yeah. So in April, Corinne and I went down to West Texas to hunt Audad and had a successful hunt, harvested a U and a Ram, but that was like a blur just compared to the adventure down there, Montana boy. This is only the second time I've hunted in another state. The first time I was just guiding. So I hadn't killed him. Where was that at? Colorado. Okay. Cool. My first season guiding. So this just being invited was phenomenal and then being able to explore this super rugged, dry arid country of West Texas. We were staring into Mexico the whole time. It was only in the 70s, but it was so dry. And it felt so much hotter. Not a cloud in the sky. No shade to get under. No shade. The wind was really nasty, especially in that shot there up on the side of a mountain. Got to eat some Audad fresh over the fire, which was pretty cool. Just the whole experience was awesome. Where's that skull at now? Hanging in my house as soon as you walk upstairs. Is that a bowl, a buck? Ram. Ram. Okay. I was trying to think of another one. Yeah. They're more on the sheep side of things. Cool. Yeah. So that was good adventure. Yeah. Pretty awesome adventure. Let's see. Number two would have been my wife and son and I did a lot of camp floating. We like to take the drift boat down onto one of our freestone rivers and camp on public land, either on an island or off the off a beach, just off the side of a of a river. Typically we hit the Yellowstone River, which is a nice short drive here from Bozeman. But love to take the boat out for one or two days, one or two nights if possible, and figure out what sort of adventures we can go on. There's a shot of my kid jumping off the front of the boat. Super nonchalant. We either go by ourselves or with another family, but it's fun. Fish all day, pull into a beach wherever you want. I bet you find some agates in petrified wood. Yeah. Doing that. Lots of petrified wood. Nice. Still don't quite have the eye for it, but even though I have found one of the biggest pieces. The biggest agate I've ever seen. You're multitasking in that photo. Yeah, there I am rowing the boat with a boat full of gear, firewood, a dog, and two kids in the front. They were kicking, splashing the water, churning up all the fish, but I didn't catch anything, but I had to try. Isn't that called the San Juan Shuffle? Yeah, that's when they actually kick up the rock. Okay. Yeah, yeah, so close. Okay. So just the family float trips in the summer. Looking forward to that again next year. What is the San Juan Shuffle? It's basically like you walk and you're kicking up all this dirt and I don't know. Yeah, like if you're fishing a whole. It's a beneficial thing. Yeah, you're kicking up a lot of bugs higher up in the stream and they come down and they chum up the fish, if you will. It sometimes works. Other times I feel like any movement can put the fish down too. Yeah, spooks them. Yeah, so. I like that name. There's a driving maneuver I refer to as the Chicago Sweep. It's where you cross multiple lanes at once. Say you're like four lanes and you got to get from lane one to lane three. Sure, that's illegal. Sure, yeah, it's the Chicago Sweep. And I wondered one time, I was like, did I come up with that or did I hear someone say it? So I Googled Chicago Sweep and I couldn't find it anywhere online. So maybe I made it up. Let's let's make it a thing though. That is a good idea. Universe. That's a Chicago Sweep move. For the boas. But remember, you might get pulled over doing it. Sure. Yeah, one lane at a time. That's not in Chicago. That's like, you know, that's driving up there. Pretty normal. Chicago Sweep. Four lanes at once. Four or five lanes. All right. Number one, Corey, adventure of 2025. Number one, took my wife and son to my favorite place in the world. And I'm not going to tell anybody where it's at. It's right on the edge of a wilderness here in Montana. But really cool spot. Took my son and my wife up there, went up this tiny little creek to go look for some fish. And lo and behold, we caught a giant West Slope cutthroat while my boy caught that, which was really exciting. Just he was finally old enough where I could take him on the journey, which just getting there, obviously, is very difficult. And he caught it. Yeah. Did you hook it and then hand him the rod or he did everything? No, he did everything. Hell yeah. Yeah, the dog fly. Yep. Catus. That's cool. The dog got in the way, had to wrangle the dog and pull him out of the way. But yeah, super fun. Just super remote, hard to get to spot. And I've been waiting since the day he was born to take him back there. So. A fish that big on a dry fly would spook me a little. It had to really spook Marshall. Yeah. He didn't want to touch. You could see. Yeah. He didn't want to touch in the photo. Yeah, he's hesitant. But that's great. No, super fun. That won't be the last time up there. Good 2025 adventures for Cory. All right, Max. What's your top three? Oh, I got top three duck hunting accessories. For starters, I'll start with these decoys. I'm a big fan of a jerk rig. OK. A jerk rig consists of a weight. Mm-hmm. A little bungee and a line of decoys. So basically, you can imagine I put this weight out. I have this line come all the way back to me. And it's exactly what it says. You jerk it. It produces water motion. Mm-hmm. Water motion goes the long ways. I would use this 10 times more than I would ever use a spinner. It's natural. Ducks do it. Ducks produce so much water motion that people overlook. And especially if you're hunting like a pond or something, it's super important to have some kind of water motion. Only on a calm day? What if they were like, you know, seven mile an hour wind and you had some small waves? It helps, for sure. Because a lot of times, too, and people will do this in the South too, hunting the timber, they'll just rip on the jerk cord. And the splashing sound attracts ducks, too. It helps. So yeah, that's my number one. I bring this with me almost every time I go duck hunting, for sure. Number two, I think I have a photo. Which one is it going to be? Oh, game tote. I also brought this with me, too. Beautiful piece of gear. Yeah, it's a beautiful piece of gear. It helps you keep your ducks on the row. Good one, Max. It's just easy. Hang the duck by the foot or the head. And a big reason why I like this is in waterfall hunting, you've got to keep your ducks separate. Like, you've got to claim your ducks and it helps you keep you legal. So like, Cory and I went out, oh, Cory would be this side, I would be this side. So yeah, that's a thing I bring with me every single time. And it also helps. It's a nice picture. Yeah, it helps with good photos, too. So yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago. A little bit of mallard, so. Very good. Yeah, just you don't need it, but I like it. What does that one run, you think? This one's probably $100. It's a custom. It's the one you're going to have for the rest of your life. Yeah, it's custom. It has Ruby's name on it. Oh, very good. Yeah. So yeah, once Ruby goes, I'll retire this one and then get another one for the next dog. So. All right, number three, waterfowl accessory. Number three, I kind of touched on this earlier. A net gator. This one's from First Light. 40 bucks, but like I was saying earlier, keeps you warm, keeps the wind off you, and also helps conceal you a little bit. So yeah, every time it's cold out, I'm wearing this guy. So get a little fleece in this side there, but yeah, that's my top three. And you don't realize how warm it's keeping you until you might take it off. Oh yeah, I mean, just a little wind on the neck is brutal, so. That's my top three. All right, I'm going next. I've got my top three favorite fishing lures of all time. Phil has photos of them. Number three is the Johnson beetle spin. Nice. This is my favorite lure in the world for catching panfish. My best days of crappie fishing, bluegill fishing, are thanks to a yellow beetle spin, just like that one there. Easy to cast, rarely gets snagged. You can run them at any depth. One of the last remaining lures you can buy that's under three dollars a piece. Non-panfish like them too. I've caught some good bass on beetle spins. One day in college while I was fishing from my kayak, I hooked into a giant flathead fishing for bluegill that ate a beetle spin. I think it was probably like 20 pounds. I fought him for like 15 minutes on my ultra light setup, got him to the edge of the kayak a handful of times. Eventually he broke me off on like my third attempt to grab him. And he broke my heart. It would have been one of my greatest catches of all time. Flathead on a beetle spin from the kayak. That's cool. Anyway, I love the Johnson beetle spin. So does the freshwater fishing hall of fame. They named it their number 13 best lure of all time. But for me, it's number three, the Johnson beetle spin. I'm excited to see what is two and one. Number two is the Rapala shad wrap. If I could only fish with one crankbait the rest of my life, it would be a number five shad wrap in Fire Tiger, just like that one there. It'll catch any game fish, bass, walleye pike. You can size it down for pan fish and trout, size it up for musky and stripers. It's a real do it all lure. You control them. You can cast and retrieve. Good for fishing five to 10 feet of water, which is where I find myself most times. Also love the shad wraps, Broken Cousin, the jointed shad wrap. Those give you even more wobble. They're not quite as easy to tune as the OG shad wrap. I would bet that I own 40 or 50 of the jointed shad wraps and the shad wraps. Not all in Fire Tiger. Not all in Fire Tiger. Just wanted to make sure. I bet Fire Tiger is not even top five, because that's what I use so often and lose so often. It's my favorite, but I think I have colors I've recognized that just should be retired because I'm never going to grab that purple, blue thing or whatever I have. All right. Number one is the Strike King KVD Sexy Frog. Nothing in fishing brings me greater joy than a top water bass bite. Although I love the scum frog and the zoom horny toad, my absolute favorite is the KVD Sexy Frog. Kevin Van Damme, he's the greatest bass angler ever. He's made my favorite lure ever. The Sexy Frog is totally weedless. You can cast that thing a mile. It has an internal rattle, which not all frogs do. So it has some added sound. Great action. You can twitch it. You can do a fast retrieve. They have 17 colors. Now I like the classic leopard frog, which is what that pattern is, because most places I fish in the north, the most common frog is a leopard frog. Here's a hot tip. Take a scissors and cut off like a half inch that hula skirt legs, and then also add a trailer hook. You'll get better hook sets that way. Throw it on a calm, cloudy day for best results. That's the Strike King KVD Sexy Frog, my number one favorite lure. I feel like I was editing a Tony Peterson episode one time, and I felt like he liked a calm, sunny day, because it produces a shadow up top. I think you talk to 10 anglers that tell you 10 different things. I like cloud and calm. Then I've got a few honorable mentions. The Eagle Claw Cropy Rig. Cropy rigs get a bad rap for being the lure you associate with kids and beginner anglers, but that's stupid. Everyone should embrace the Cropy Rig. They're cool. You bait them with worms or minnows to catch any fish in North America. Fish it under a bob or fish it on the bottom. Doesn't take any technique at all. And they're the perfect lure for using while drinking a beer. So that's the Cropy Rig. The Mr. Twister Curly Tail. They make the OG Curly Tail Grub. You won't find anyone that'll tell you it's the best soft plastic for bass or walleye or anything, but just like as an all-around lure, you can't beat a Mr. Twister. Good for pan fish and game fish. Pair to the BMC jighead. That's my favorite jighead. They'll catch anything. And then the Little Stinker Dip Bait Worms. If you love catching three-pound channel cats in slow-moving water, which I do, then you can't beat stink bait. My favorite vessel for Sonny's Stinkbait. That's my favorite stink bait, is the Little Stinker Dip Worm. They make it real easy to set the hook with that impregnated treble hook. I've caught more catfish, I think, on that pairing of the Little Stinkers Worms and Sonny's Stinkbait than anything else. Those are my honorable mentions. Very cool. All right, Phil, what's your top three? Okay, well, I ran into some technical difficulties this morning editing a meteor podcast, so I had to pull a Ryan Callahan and just look around my office. So we have my top three Tiki Mugs that were in my office. How many did you have in there? Well, I've got like 20, but I brought down five for some honorable mentions. The first one is this Cujico mug that I got at Smugglers Cove in San Francisco. This is the mug that is pictured on the cover of the Smugglers Cove Tiki book, which is kind of like the modern day Bible of Tiki stuff. And it's got a new matte glaze and it just looks real pretty. It's a little guys covered in like barnacles and old nets and some coral and stuff. That is a big Tiki mug. I don't use these. If I sometimes I'll take one home on the weekend, if I feel like making a Tiki drug, but it's few and far between. Number two is this one I actually found at an antique store here in Bozeman. And so it's not that flashy, but I saw it and I was curious. It says Harvey's Lake Tahoe on it. So I looked it up and it was an old Tiki restaurant, Tiki Bar, that was at the top of a hotel in Tahoe that was very short lived and apparently wasn't very good. But the hotel has a lot of history because some guy who was in debt over a million dollars at the casino put a bomb in a copier and to try to extort the hotel. And the FBI caught wind and detonated the bomb. Nobody was hurt, but I mean, it blew up like the first three stories of the hotel caused like $20 million in damages. That's good lore. And here's a relic from there. Good stuff. And then my favorite was one that I got at a bar called Woosong Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just right outside of Harvard Square. And this is, if you've seen the film Spirited Away, this is the radish spirit who works in the bath house. And I just think it's a great, I mean, it's gorgeous, wonderful design. He's wearing a little kind of like cherry blossom Japanese shirt, Tiki shirt. It's his hat comes off. Oh, like a cookie jar. And it's also just a really cool Tiki Bar as well. It's got kind of like this pulp comic book theme. It's kind of hard to describe. But it was a nice little find there near and near Harvard. Have you drank anything out of that Tiki mug? Once. Yeah. Most of these Tiki mugs I've had one drink out of and then I bring them to my office. And then sometimes I'll bring them home for a special occasion. Okay. I thought you had a couple honorable mentions. Yeah, I got some honorable mentions here too. This one is from here. This one is from Galaxy's Edge, the Ogis Cantina in Disney World and Disneyland. This is sort of like... Classic. It tells the story of the Battle of Endor and kind of like a tribal artwork sort of thing. Like as if it were designed by Ewoks. So, you know, you've got the ATST there, C3PO and R2D2 are somewhere around here. So the Ewoks just absolutely, you know, doming some stormtroopers. That's a good one. That's the surprise that didn't make top three. Oh, there's so many to choose from. Yeah. And then I've got this one, which is looks like an arcade cabinet made out of like driftwood. That's that was from Fun House, which is like an old video game comedy site that I used to enjoy a lot. Very unique. Jealous of that collection. Yeah. That is fun. If you're not watching this on YouTube, you're missing out on a real visual treat there. Big tell. There we are. Thank you. All right, everybody. If you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this. Man, I'm Tony. I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from SIG, a shotgun from Benelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light and a whole big pile of gear from other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive a spring 2027 Rio Grande turkey hunt in the Texas hill country for you and two of your buddies or family members brought to you by Bird Dog. And during the giveaway, the more you spend at First Light, Phelps Game Calls, FHF gear, and the Me-Eater store, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the First Light contest page at FirstLight.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every 25 bucks you spend, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the whole damn prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2026. So you got all day that day, but it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble. All right, joining us on the line last is wired hunt host Mark Kenyon. He's here with a top five list of his own. Mark, welcome to the show. Hey guys, I'm just kind of in shock of Phil's collection there. Quite the thing to try to follow up. Good luck, Mark. Mark makes Phil feel. Real quick, Mark, give us a deer movement update for where you're at for Michigan these last 30 days of your doe season. Yeah, well, we're coming off of a really great cold and snowy spell for much of the country. Really, the late season weather that you want. So we're all we're coming off of this hive. Unfortunately, at the very end of the year, we're actually getting the opposite, which is a warm-up, which is not as encouraging. We have warmer weather coming in here into the upper Midwest, some rain. We're going to miss out on the white Christmas that I thought we're going to have and all that's probably going to lead to a little bit slower deer movement than we've had over the last couple weeks during this kind of Arctic spell. So not exactly what you want, but with the warmer temperatures, you're probably going to see deer moving off of the grains like corn or soybeans and moving more towards greener forage, native browse, green food plots, winter wheat fields, that kind of stuff. So super fast update, but that's what's coming down the line. All right, good info. Now, it's almost the off season and a great way to keep the fire burning for deer in the off season is by reading and I don't know anyone who has read more books about whitetails than you. So today, I want you to give us your top five list of best books for whitetail hunters. Let's start with number five. What do you have for us, Mark? First off, I'd like to say that I plan on using that bio line that I just saw below whitetail enjoyer. That's going to be my new title, maybe. Not expert, but enjoy your enjoyer. Pretty accurate. Number one, or because number five in your case will be Mapping Trophy Bucks by Brad Herndon. You're watching. Here it is. This is a foundational text within the whitetail world from like a tactical perspective. This is basically the first and I think kind of the most established resource on understanding topography and terrain for deer hunting. So how hills and ridges and saddles and points and inside corners of fields and all that kind of stuff can actually lead to deer moving in different kind of ways and how you can take advantage of that as a hunter. And this uses maps. It really teaches how to use maps and topography to predict deer movement. So really kind of foundational how to book in the whitetail world. It's got kind of a textbook look to it. Yes, yes, it does. There's lots of illustrations. You can see like very helpful actual diagrams and stuff. So if you're trying to get better at deer hunting, this is like a must have book. It's hard to find, though. I think now is whatever. Okay, that looks like one. If you're not interested in a whole bunch of text and reading, you can just flip through and enjoy the visuals and learn stuff that way. All right, number four, Mark. Number four, this is for those of you who do want to do a lot of reading. And this is not tactical or strategic or how to at all. This is a book called A Hunter's Heart, Honest Essays on Bloodsport. This is a collection of essays edited and collected by David Peterson. This is going to be getting to the why we hunt, not just deer, but anything and how we go about it. So there are just some amazing short essays in this collection that talk about white tails and a whole bunch of other stuff and really gets kind of into that deeper, you know, philosophical side of things. One of the best hunting essays of all time, in my opinion, is in here. It's called The Heart of the Game by Thomas McGuane. It's a legendary piece. Highly, highly recommend for all white tail hunters and hunters of all kinds. All right, we are now to the top three. What do you have for us next? Next is Whitetail Nation. And this is by a guy named Pete Boto. This is an under the radar book. I don't think a lot of people know about it. It came out, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 years ago. And it's a really interesting story about this guy's kind of exploration and journeys. He went from kind of being a standard, everyday deer hunter to finally trying to kill that first big buck. Kind of the thing that you read about over the whole course of your life is someday getting that big trophy buck. Well, he decided to document that journey as he went from kind of where he was to going to that next level. And all along the way, travel across the country was in hunting in Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Montana, and then through it all really ends up doing a really interesting kind of, I don't know if it's an analysis, but he documents the culture of deer hunting. He documents the history of deer hunting. And does it in a really compelling way. This is like a real writer. He wrote for Gray's Sporting Journal and The New York Times and all that. So it's a really well articulated, interesting story that has that kind of narrative nonfiction set of lessons you can learn throughout too. So really good one. Not a lot of people know about this one, but I highly recommend it. And a very pretty book. Mark, you seem like a dust jacket guy. Do you always keep those on your books? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Okay. I couldn't, my wife removes them. I kind of feel like that sacrilege. It's, there's a lot of time and energy that goes into designing these book covers and packaging them, right? So I would never take that off. I get rid of them right away. I feel like I'm reading a book from the library if it has the dust jacket on it. Interesting. All right. Number two, Marcus, what do you have? Number two, this is a tactics book. This is a how to. This is my favorite how to book. It's called Whitetail Access. And it's a funny story. The title and the subtitle, which is how to hunt top whitetail states cheaply and effectively. It's actually not really that kind of book. It's a story that I heard from the author that was kind of like the publishers want to try to make this seem more like a very clear how to book. And so they packaged it with this title that they thought would get people to buy it. But really what it is, is a story. It's the story of Chris Eberhardt's season in which he lived out of his minivan traveling across the country, hunting deer DIY on the cheap from Michigan to North Dakota, Missouri, Ohio, maybe somewhere else. But the Eberhardts, Chris Eberhardt and Johnny Eberhardt, his dad are kind of, you know, OG whitetail hunters. They've really, unfortunately, Chris passed away, which is, which is really sad. But his dad is still one of the legends in the whitetail world that's taught me and thousands of others a lot about how to effectively hunt whitetails and heavily pressured states. And so this story is all about that season, but then throughout it, he's got very detailed notes about how he did what he did, his strategies, his perspectives, his plans. There's diagrams and maps in here again too. So kind of similar to the other book, you can actually see where his stand setups were and follow along with all the hunts and the tactics. So a really good how to mixed with a story. So that's why it's probably my favorite recommendation for people who want to learn, but also enjoy the story along the way. All right. Here's a recap so far. Number five was mapping whitetail bucks. Number four was a hunter's heart. Number three, whitetail nation. Number two, whitetail access. What is number one? It's kind of cliche. The number one book that all whitetail hunters and every hunter in the world should read is a Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. Probably anyone listening to Meteor or Meteor Radio Live knows this book, but if not highly recommend it. It is, I think, kind of like the equivalent of the Bible for people who are into hunting and fish and wildlife and conservation. It's like a foundational text. It's the thing that kind of sums up how we can think about ourselves as stewards, as wildlife managers. There's great essays in here and thoughts on how to be a hunter and connect with wildlife wilderness, the importance of a land ethic. You've heard it come up a thousand times from Steve and Doug Dern and so many others, and it's for good reason. The opening text here, the opening line here is there are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot. I think that sums it up really well. If you care about wildlife and wild things, this is a book that just has to be on your bookshelf. Okay, good stuff, Mark. Thank you for the list. I'm going to pick up some of those this off season. I wrote them all down. Good luck on the rest of your season there in Michigan. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, buddy. Merry Christmas, Mark. Yeah, Merry Christmas. You guys too. Tell the family hi. I'll be back at you. All right. That brings us to the end of the show. We have some more Q&A to wrap this up. Here are some questions listeners submitted last week. First one is from Field of Dreams 731. What types of wine do y'all pair with wild game? I don't have a great answer for this, but when I'm cooking like a big meal for Thanksgiving or Christmas and it's got courses in wild game, and my wife is really trying to like put on the Ritz, she will go ask chat GPT. She'll tell it exactly what we're having, in what order, and what the meat is, and where it came from. And then that spits out some recommendations. So that's the best thing I can tell you. Do you guys have any thoughts on wine and wild game? Red wine? Or white wine? I'm not a big red wine or just not a big wine guy in general. I married a whinoe. My wife loves wine, whether it pairs or not. And she's got me hooked on Malbecs, which is an Argentinian wine, real dark, bold, fruity flavors, which pairs very well with... Red meat especially. But I'm a big fan of the boxed wine. There you go. Oh, you slap me a little. We slap you a little. Fill any input on wine and meat. Yeah, I'm not a big wine guy. Sorry. If you're interested in beer pairings, we have two articles on themedeter.com for you. The first one is from Chef Justin Townsend, How to Pair Beer with Wild Game. And then the other one is from Kubey Brown, How to Pair Beer with Fish. We can help you out on that front. Again, for wine, I think chat GPT does a really nice job. If you tell it exactly what you got going on. Yeah, we're not wine people here, I guess. The next question is CJRopekey21, What is the best wild game Phil has eaten since working at Medeter? Great question. I think I've talked about this before, but the best bite of wild game I've ever had was at the old office probably five, four years ago. Brody brought in some elk, tenderloin, and then Michael Hunter, who's the chef. At Antler in Toronto, Canada, who's been on the podcast a couple of times and done some stuff with us. He just had a little induction burner and just seemingly without even thinking about it, just made a huckleberry demi-glaze and cooked this elk just perfectly. And it felt like it melted in my mouth. It was the best tasting meat I've ever had in my life. We did not have much of a kitchen at the OG office. Oh, no, it was non-existent. Jeremiah Donahue says, If you could ask Santa for one piece of outdoor gear, what would it be? Corey? Man, I've been on the hunt for a good wall tent. I'd love a Montana canvas wall tent. We're shooting for the stars here. Hard to fit under the tree. It is, yeah. Well, wrapped up maybe. 12 by 12 wall tent. Okay. With or without a floor? Without. Without a floor. Yeah, no floor. They're always without a floor from Montana. You can get them with floors. Yep. All right. With frame. Maybe a stove too, since we're at it. Okay, yeah. Tell Santa to look at Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. I've seen a lot of good deals out there. Oh, sure. Yep. Okay, I was so close to pulling the trigger, but I didn't. I'll see Santa this weekend. He's listening. Max, what are you asking Santa for? Oh, I got two ideas. More decoys? Yep. Can never have enough. Or there's this duck plucker out there called the fall plucker. Oh. Yeah, my thumbs are pretty strong, but they get tired a little bit. So. How many ducks do you think you have to kill a year to justify having one of those? They're pretty spendy. To be honest with you. Put a number on it, like 50 ducks a year, 200 ducks a year. I don't know. I feel like in order for guides and outfitters, it would be a no brainer. Yeah. For like a personal, if you got to hunt with a lot of friends, I would probably say like a couple hundred. Oh, wow. Yeah. Do they have any other purpose? Like, could they function with a pheasant? No. No. I mean, not in my experience. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, those are two things that I would love is more decoys or a duck plucker. So Santa, if you're listening. Oh, you're always listening. I'm good on gear, Santa. I just want permissions. Just give me land. Yeah, that's another good one. Just a lot of land, Santa. That's all I need. That's really hard to put under the tree. Deeds are pretty small. Well, true. They could fit. Yeah. That's true. Her phone call. Next question is from Will Sanchez. He says, favorite state for fossil slash rock hunting. There are great rocks and fossils across the whole continent, but the main thing is being legal, Will. So BLM has the loosest restrictions when it comes to where you can collect, what you can collect, how you collect as far as picking up a shovel and digging a hole. So any state that has a lot of BLM land, which is mostly in the West, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, those are my favorite states for fossil and rock hunting, just because you can do it legally. The next one is from Doug Chiesen. Are there any hunting video games Phil likes? The short answer is no. And that's not because I don't think they exist. I just haven't really tried a whole lot. I've tried the Hunter Call of the Wild, which I think is probably the biggest one. Maybe people might yell at me for that, but they've been making, putting out expansion packs for that game for years now. And I played it for like about an hour and a half a year or two ago, and I just couldn't get into it. It seemed like there were a lot of systems that I just needed to get familiar with. So it was kind of like a steep learning curve, but there is a game coming out called Cast and Chill, which came out on Steam, which is like a PC marketplace a few months ago. As of the recording, it's coming out on the Nintendo Switch too, tomorrow. And I put it on my wishlist just a couple of days ago, and it looks fun. It just seems like a very laid back, kind of gorgeous looking, like pixel art fishing game, but it looks pretty dense. Like you can go to it. There's a whole ton of fish to catch. Did different bait to do, different seasons and stuff. So I'm excited to try it. Maybe I'll stream it. Maybe I'll stream it. He's going to play that over Christmas break. I will. Someone in a future live chat needs to ask Phil for his review. So we can all find out together. And let me know if there are any hunting games that I should get into. I don't want anything too realistic. Like if it's kind of like an arcadey element to it, that's more fun than hardcore realism to me. Another video game question for Phil. This is from froalex. Ask Phil if he ever played RuneScape back in the day, or if he still plays. I did play RuneScape speaking of MMOs that we talked about with Destiny. This is a massive multiplayer online. So it's like a big, you know, you get on a server and there's thousands of people that are all in the same playing in the same area. And you can, you know, squat up and take on dungeons and fight, you know, go on quests and stuff. RuneScape was one of the, was one of the OGs. I played it a little bit. That was my, my brother was way more into it than me. My big MMO was called Ragnarok online, which was a 2D pixel art one. But then I also played World of Warcraft a lot back. I was playing WoW from the ground floor, like 2004, right when it launched. Do people still play RuneScape? Oh yeah, it's got a very active community. But again, that's like a blind spot for me because once you have kids and a job, MMOs aren't the healthiest thing for you or your family, which is why I stopped playing Destiny. Last question today is from Casey Jacobson, 23. What's your plan when out of state deer hunting in previously unexplored areas? I'll answer that on behalf of deer. And then Max is going to answer about waterfowl and quarry for elk. My plan when hunting in an unexplored place for deer, the first thing I'll look for is food. And that doesn't matter if I'm hunting in Idaho in October or Illinois in December, which is, you know, what my spectrum this year, that was my first hunt, my last hunt. That's the easiest thing I can find on ONX. And then when I'm there in person, I can work my way backwards. This is where the deer are feeding. It's very easy to put together where they're probably betting at and traveling to get from point A to point B. So look for food. For me, a lot of times that is probably big agriculture. I spend most of my time hunting between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. So I care about where the alfalfa is, where the corn fields are, what point in the harvest it is. And if there's no egg around, what acorn trees there might be, ONX does a great job of allowing you to sort by the crop coverage that you can see if was this field last year corn. Was it alfalfa? Was it hay? Was it sorghum? Starting there, thinking about what deer would like in that area, that'll give you a big piece of the puzzle. That's great. Max, answer for waterfowl. Well, I'm going to kind of go the opposite of you. My first thing is water. Okay. Not only the lakes, rivers, streams, but I have a big obsession with keeping up with current weather and rain forecast. So there's different areas that get a bunch of rain. And two months later, that rain is still going to almost be there as in forms of flooded fields, flooded agriculture, you name it. So there's this spot that I went up to Saskatchewan this last September where they got eight inches of rain a month ago before I hunted. And I went there, put a pin on the map and I went there and there was just so many docks. And you can DIY waterfowl into Saskatchewan. The sons of bitches need to let deer hunters do that. They make you have a guide or a buddy or whatever. Yeah. So I went up there and hunted flooded fields for three days and it was just incredible. So yeah, look for water. And then another big thing too is like, if I'm going to a general area, I will go and make a list of landowners names and phone numbers in case there's docks there. There you go. Or case there's waterfowl there feeding in their fields or just using their water because it's going to be a lot easier to just already have their names and phone numbers already on a list than spending the time looking it up. Oh, there's their house kind of thing. So I do all that stuff ahead of time. Yeah. I think to piggyback off that, going back to deer, I think it's really important to have a plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A lot of times I go in thinking that it's going to happen for me at plan A or B and it ends up being like my fifth or sixth option where I actually find the deer that I want to hunt. All right, Corey, previously unexplored areas when it comes to elk, what are you looking for? Yeah, for elk, I mean time, like length of time of your hunt is everything. So if you can add any time to actually physically scouting, e-scouting is great, but you're never going to know exactly what the country's like, how long it takes you to get to a spot unless you're physically on the ground. So if you can add a couple of days, whether it's like opening day or you got a, you know, weekend even that you're just hunting a new area, if you can get out there in the summer late fall or early fall, late summer, and get boots on the ground and physically see the country, you're going to just have a massive leg up when you discover elk in that part of the world. And elk are going to be everywhere, right? Like they need the same things deer need and ducks, but then they're going to be everywhere on top, like they're everywhere and they're nowhere at the same time. So you can either stick to one spot and hopefully they'll move in or keep roaming around, but adding just a day, if you can, or a couple days to your, you know, days that you're committed to hunting is massive just to see the country, get a feel for it. And then if it, you know, doesn't work out in your mind as to how good it's going to be, then you can go to plan B and move on to the next spot. So good advice. Add some time. All right, that brings us to the end of this episode. We have another pre-recorded episode of Radio Live next week, but then it's back to our regularly scheduled programming after that. Thank you for listening. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone. We'll see you in 2026. Bye now. 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 marino 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 is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.