The MeatEater Podcast

Ep. 822: Public Lands and Weird Headlines | MeatEater Radio Live!

75 min
Jan 16, 20264 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

MeatEater Radio Live discusses public lands advocacy with Protect Wyoming PAC founders, explores wildlife conservation challenges including the controversial BLM director nomination, and introduces a new AI-generated dramatic reading segment called MeatEater Theater.

Insights
  • Political action committees focused on state-level elections may be more effective than traditional 501(c)(3) advocacy groups at influencing wildlife and public lands policy
  • Landowner tag privatization represents a significant threat to equitable hunting access and circumvents state wildlife management systems
  • BLM director nominations carry outsized importance for hunters and anglers due to authority over 240-250 million acres of federal public lands
  • Grassroots political engagement at state legislative level has greater direct impact on hunting/fishing access than federal politics
  • Wildlife management should be science-driven rather than politically influenced, according to conservation advocates
Trends
Rise of single-issue political action committees focused on public lands and wildlife conservationIncreasing legislative attempts to privatize or transfer public wildlife resources to private landownersGrowing disconnect between state legislators and hunting/fishing communities in Western statesConservation organizations shifting strategy from advocacy to direct electoral involvementConsolidation of public land management authority in federal agency director positionsGrassroots funding models competing with traditional conservation organization structuresState-level wildlife policy becoming more contentious and politically polarizedYounger outdoor enthusiasts entering political activism for first time
Topics
Public lands conservation and federal land transfer legislationWildlife privatization and transferable landowner tagsPolitical action committee strategy and grassroots fundraisingBLM director nomination and confirmation processState legislative representation of hunting and fishing interestsScientific wildlife management versus political wildlife managementWyoming public lands policy and anti-public lands legislationPronghorn population management and tag allocationLandowner capture of hunting tags and access equityConservation advocacy effectiveness and strategyFederal public lands management authorityVoter education on conservation issuesNonpartisan political engagement by outdoor communities
Companies
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
Conservation organization opposing BLM director nomination and coordinating public pressure campaign
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Conservation organization that Mark Kenyon represents in advocacy and policy discussions
MeatEater
Outdoor media company with new Director of Conservation role focused on public lands and wildlife policy
People
Zach Lentch
Mountain guide and co-founder of Protect Wyoming PAC, advocates for public lands and wildlife conservation
Chris Allen
Co-founder of Protect Wyoming PAC, political action committee focused on public lands and wildlife issues
Mark Kenyon
New Director of Conservation at MeatEater, discusses BLM director nomination and conservation strategy
Steve Pierce
Nominated BLM director with history of supporting public lands transfer and privatization legislation
Ryan Callahan
Former MeatEater Director of Conservation, now CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
Randall Williams
Host of MeatEater Radio Live, based in Bozeman, Montana
Quotes
"We need to get involved in the on the election side of things...our legislators aren't going to represent our interests when we talk to them"
Zach LentchEarly segment
"Most people highly value public lands and public wildlife regardless where you are on the political spectrum...we're not being represented well in Cheyenne by and large"
Zach LentchMid-segment
"The director of the Bureau of Land Management oversees a massive swath of our federal public lands...somewhere between 240 and 250 million acres"
Mark KenyonConservation segment
"Steve Pierce has had a long legacy of saying many things that don't come off too well when it comes to public lands"
Mark KenyonBLM discussion
"We probably can't stop it, but we might be able to frame the conversation around his role in such a way that it can maybe at least put some public pressure on him"
Mark KenyonLate segment
Full Transcript
This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to Meet Eaters 12 and 26 presented by Moltremobile and OnXMaps. 12 of Meet Eaters biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout 2026. These are long form episodes so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my Bated Bear Hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a Bated Bear Hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on Meet Eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Switching to Virgin Media's Lightning Fast Broadband is easy. We'll handle everything for you. That smooth broadband and smooth switching. Smooth like a walrus on the speedboat, powering through open-fueled waters. Yeah, that smooth. Visit virginmedia.com. New customers only. Virgin Fiber areas, restrictions and credit checks apply. No set up fee online only, time to apply. Smell us now lady. Welcome to Meet Eaters trivia's Meet Eaters podcast. Welcome to Meet Eaters radio live. It's 11 a.m. mountain time here in Bozeman, Montana. That's 11 a.m. for our friends and great falls Montana. I'm your host, Randall Williams. Join today by my good friends, Corey Colch. Welcome to Meet Eaters Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. mountain time here in Bozeman, Montana. That's 11 a.m. for our friends and great falls Montana. I'm your host, Randall Williams. Join today by my good friends, Corey Colch. Brody Henderson. Good. As always, Phil Taylor, Master of Ceremonies is behind the board here. We've got a great show for you today. We're going to talk to two fellas who just started a brand new advocacy group for hundreds of anglers and Wyoming. We're going to play a little game called Fake News. We're going to chat with meat eaters brands, Spank and New Director of Conservation, Mark Kenyon. We've got another edition of the Meet Pull. Glad to have you with us. Thanks for joining. Brody Corey, we were just chatting before the show that we don't have a lot to talk about. I suggested Corey talk about his son's broken arm and he seemed reluctant to do so. So I'm just going to put it out there. Yeah, Brody, you've been doing anything fun out there? No, I'm not worried about social services checking in, are you? Oh, no. Who hasn't jumped off of a swing too far? Yeah, Marshall fell off a swing. That's like a classic childhood milestone. Oh, no doubt. Swings or monkey bars or, you know, rope swings. With another kid. Yeah, the Balkans family is on a roll getting injured this year. Oh, I was going to say the Balkans men go hard. We do. We'd go hard in the paint whether we're trying to knock these bees out of trees or jumping on a swing. Was it like a very showy breaking of the arm? Like did he launch himself off the swing? No, I guess he was having a like long distance jumping. Yeah, and then nothing happened there. I don't know who won. Probably not him. He's got he's pretty short. And then he just jumped back on and then I think he fell on his face and his wrist broke his fall. So minor fracture. He'll be fine. Oh, yeah. He'll be all right. I got nothing, Randall. I'm just looking at Wyoming Drods for Mule Deer. Not getting out on the ice. What ice? Yeah. Yeah, I got a pile of points, but my pile isn't quite big enough. Like I'm a couple behind Max points, which is a bad place to be in Wyoming. Yeah, I'm in the same position with the Elk and Antelope in Wyoming. So just need to light those things on fire at some point. Yep. Yeah, I'm in the debacle, at least here in Montana with plenty of points to draw some pretty awesome tags. But I kind of want to just keep accumulating too. The odds are only going to get worse. I continue to try for some of the harder tags. Yeah. I'm like, man, at some point do I just burn it? Life short. I mean, we a couple months from now we could be sitting in this very room. We could be like, yeah, talking about how sweet our tags are. Yep. I did get out, I guess, two weeks ago with Cal for a very last minute waterfowl excursion. So I've just been eating ducks. And I just, there's a recipe in the wild and whole cookbook. Or you just sear them real quick. And there's like an orange, squeeze some oranges, throw some bourbon in the pan and drizzle that over and that. You weren't there for the little waterfowl extra extravaganza we did the other day. No, but I got the leftover ducks. Oh, there are a couple. You got the leftover good ducks. Yeah, I got a couple pintails. I think there was a baggy full of breasts and thighs in the fridge. And I kept it on a Friday afternoon. And we ate those ducks too. People should keep an eye out for the next one, man. It's going to let next little Steve experiment. We eat mergansers. Did you break out the lab coat again? No lab coat. Hopefully his scientific method is better than it was in the ribeye in the sky. Yeah, taste test because we've received a lot of feedback about the gross failures of our science involved in this one. It was just like just seeing what they taste like. Taste that you. Well, with nothing to add to that, Corey, other than your broke, oh, Phil. Huh? And that's a great idea. Phil, how have you been? Oh, fine. I wasn't expecting this random little cut off guard here, but yeah. I've been doing well. Nothing really new to report. I've got a pre-visectomy appointment today. Oh, this is cool. And I was going to ask Mark about, I think Mark's been public about this. I can see him. I can see him cringing in the little box below our main feed. So maybe we can talk about that with our new director of conservation. Boy, let me. I. You said you didn't have much going on. You got it all going on. Oh, that's fun. I think I'm going to have to go out here. Phil's vasectomy. You know, Phil, I had some buddies that all they, I think this was a, I don't know if it's still a thing, but it was a thing where dudes would like schedule their vasectomies, like a circle of friends, like all at the same time. And then they had to have like a little post vasectomy, you know, gathering celebration. Oh, well, yeah. Should I try to rank up some of my guys around here? So you might try to rank up some of my guys around here. Let's do it. Yeah. Find any excuse to throw a party. We can get some good time in on the switches. I'm, that's going to happen regardless. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on that note, joining us first today are Zach Lentch and Chris Allen, the founders of a new advocacy group, Protect Wyoming pack. Zach, Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks guys. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you. So, the details of your new group, can you just introduce ourselves, introduce yourselves to the audience and just tell us where you're coming from and what you guys do? Yeah. My name is Zach Lentch. I live in Cody. I work as a mountain guide. I own a guiding business. And I grew up in Wyoming. I did a fish for as long as I could remember. And just a point of clarification, we're not an advocacy group. We are a political action committee. Yeah. We're doing very different things. We're getting involved in elections and educating voters. But yeah, I got really inspired to get involved in Wyoming state politics last year when we had a lot of anti-public lands and anti-public wildlife legislation introduced in session. And protect Wyoming is the result of that desire to get involved. Yeah. And how did you, you connect with Chris here? So, we, I think we're both coming from a place of, you know, not being involved in politics ever before in our lives and talking to other hunters. And, and outdoors people in Wyoming that knew more about the political process than, than we did. And we were able to connect through usual friends. Gotcha. And Chris, you're coming to us from further east than? Yeah, I'm on the, kind of the north central part of the state and. Claire, my Wyoming just about an hour, so north south of the Montana border. So, little different landscape than Zach's in more prairie country, ranch country out here in. Zach and I just hold similar similar values on. Public land and public wildlife. So, can you, you mentioned, Zach, you mentioned that this is a political action committee protect Wyoming pack. And you mentioned sort of that last year's legislative session was influential and you guys getting this thing off the ground. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to decide on being a pack rather than a, you know, a 501c3. And can you tell us like, what are your core issues? Yeah, great questions. You know, answer your first why a pack as opposed to another advocacy organization. Well, there are a lot of great advocacy organizations for public lands and wildlife in Wyoming. And I think it was eye opening last year to see. How a lot of the advocates advocacy seem to fall flat. With a number of legislators, you know, I went to public town halls where, you know, co sponsors of, for instance, Senate resolution to which would have transferred all federal public lands in the state and Wyoming. With the intent of selling them off. I mean, the public was in up in arms about this. You know, I remember clearly in Cody one town hall where one of the co sponsors of that bill said he didn't care that he was going to introduce the legislation again. If you had the opportunity and he didn't care what the constituents thought. And so it was in that moment really that my eyes open that we need to get involved in the on the election side of things. And so, you know, I think that our legislators aren't going to represent our interests when we when we talk to them. So, political action committee is really organization that's meant to inform the voting public. So it's coming from us, Wyoming nights, no special interest just, you know, outdoors people that want to protect our public lands. So, you know, I think that's what I think is important for the election to say, hey, this is what this person has voted for in the past. This is what they say that their stance on this issue is. And we think you should know that before you go to the ballot box. Yeah, because a lot of your traditional, you know, 501 see three groups. They can talk about what issues are important in an election. And they can't get involved in saying this candidate did this, this candidate is a better choice if you care about public lands. That's correct, right? Correct. Yeah. And we're not just to clarify, we're not coordinating with any party. Yeah. You know, any candidate or their campaign, which is really important for us, you know, we're nonpartisan. And we just want people to be aware of our core issues, which are one public lands and public hands. No questions about that. And to public wildlife, we're really opposed to transferable landowner tags or any privatization of wildlife and Wyoming. And three scientific management of wildlife politicians should not be in charge of wildlife populations. Biologists should be. Yeah, can you talk a little bit about the landowner tag issue? I know there is a proposal or there is a proposal. I haven't really kept up on it, but this is an issue that pops up every now and then in different states. And I wonder if you can talk about what the status is in Wyoming. Yeah, the first attempt was about 10 years ago to make landowner tags transferable. As it is in Wyoming now, you know, if you're a landowner, you have more than 160 acres and you can, you know, prove that you have a lot of wildlife on your land, then you can get a few. And appropriate amount of landowner tags, but you cannot sell those to anyone. There are a lot of opportunities for landowners to make money from hunting indirectly, namely, trespass leases. You know, they can control access for hunters and they can get damage from wildlife, hurting their crops, but again, no tag is transferable. But we've seen legislation 10 years ago and then more recently this last year that would allow landowners to sell those tags off. Can I jump in and ask you a question? Totally. Those landowner tags, would they be good only on that landowner's land? Are they good like unit wide? Someone could buy them and then go hunt on public land or wherever with them. It's for the area. You know, the state of Wyoming, given fish department has issued tags for specific properties, essentially, where there's like an, let's say, an alfalfa field in the middle of the big horn basin. And there's, you know, 400 head of, you know, pronghorn there. They're going to be good for the landowners to be good for the landowners. This is not to do with the image. This is people being able to sell elk licenses for $10,000 or $20,000, whatever. And it completely circumvents the draw system. It doesn't put money in the state system at all. It just, you know, lines the pockets of large landowners who want to sell off all their tags. And we've already seen so much landowner capture. And I heard a pronghorn area in northern Wyoming this fall. And all because we've had a lot of issues with blue tongue. You know, we see produced pronghorn numbers. All the type one tags in that, all the rifle tags in that area are our go to landowners already. I had to get a pipe zero muzzle loader tag in order to have a chance to hunt a male pronghorn. Yeah. So when the tag numbers get shrunk, that, that pool of landowner tags doesn't shrink in proportion. It just eats up more of the pie. Correct. Got you. But, I mean, there's already, you know, that landowner capture of tags is another issue in the current system, which is not perfect. But what we're taking a political stance on is that these tags should not be transferable. And we think it goes across against state law, which says that wildlife is in the position of the people of Wyoming, not in the visual proper. He's actually a title 23 and law in Wyoming right now that says there shouldn't be private ownership of wildlife. So in essence, that's already in law. I just think there's things happening on the state level that there's a certain certain subgroup of people that want to privatize it for profit. So gotcha. And this is a, this is a pack that you said it's nonpartisan. It's going to be grassroots funded. There's obviously a lot of money and politics. What's your strategy for making an impact with grassroots funding and what I assume would be maybe more limited resources than some of the bigger stakeholders out there? Yeah, I mean, we have to be really strategic in how we spend money that we raise. So we don't know which candidates are running until the May filing deadline. So we'll at that point, you know, see what kind of work. Yes, we have and you see what races we can really make an impact in. But generally, statewide races aren't as expensive as federal ones. And so with grassroots funding, we can still make a sizable impact and focus on key legislative races. And hopefully raising up money to get involved in the governor's race because the governor is going to be, it's going to be a very competitive race this year, we believe. Again, we don't know who all is running. But the governor has a lot of say about, you know, public lands and wildlife policy and Wyoming. Gotcha. And I'm going to, I'm going to detour here from the questions that I'd share with you and ask you this. You both mentioned that this is your first sort of foray into politics. If there are people listening to this that don't like what's going on in their state, they're frustrated by what they see in their state legislature. Have you learned anything or have your eyes been open to the reality of getting involved in something like this? Like what advice would you give for people that are in the position that you were, you know, last, last legislative session? I mean, it's eye opening to see the disconnect between what I, you know, would argue it, like most people value in Wyoming, like regardless where you are on the political spectrum, most people highly value public lands and public wildlife. And to see now, you know, paying closer attention to what's happened to legislatures, there's so few sportsmen in the legislature. So few people hunt fish, rock climb, whatever, you know, they, they do not value those activities because they do not do them. And a lot of those people are not even from the state. They're moved here recently and have political ambitions. And so that's been really eye opening to me to see like how we're not being represented well in Cheyenne by and large. And I would encourage people to get involved in any way, right, whether that's simply showing up to town hall, talk into your representatives. First and foremost, learning who your representatives are. A lot of people when they think about politics, they think about politics at the federal level or maybe the governor's race, but they're not thinking about their local representatives. And those folks in Cheyenne or Helena or whatever often have a greater impact on your ability to audition, recreate, then, then, you know, President of the United States does. So educate yourself about what's going on at the state level and the local level and then see, you know, we all have, we're working people. We have limited time and resources and see where, you know, you can make an impact. And we would argue that, you know, supporting, you know, a pack is, is has a direct impact because we can get involved in election and we can show you where we're spending your money and, you know, hopefully Alexa, people who are going to stand up for land wildlife. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. Yeah, I think that's a great deal. So yeah, education is huge. You mentioned the website. Is that the best place for people to go if they want to learn more about protect Wyoming pack? I would say yes. And then we do have a newsletter coming out that people if they want to connect with us, they can connect to the website and then get linked up with the newsletter about what's going on and just stay factual on what's what's happened with the legislators. Well, Chris Zach, we really appreciate you guys joining us and we appreciate what you're doing for for hunters and anglers and Wyoming and setting up an example for folks across the country who want to get involved. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Yep. We got to get some more. I mean, I'm always like. Inspired when I see people just deciding to do something. I'm trying to kick some ass. Yeah, whatever, you know, whatever your commitments are here there like to actually get off your ass and for something that's that's commendable. I hope that they see some success there. Yep. Welcome to Meet Eaters 12 and 26 presented by Mulchrey mobile and on X maps 12 of Meet Eaters biggest and baddest hunts from the last year. Release throughout 2026. These are long form episodes so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my baited bear hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on Meet Eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Our next segment is fake news. Let's play fake news. I'm Pete Tape and Russ Sharp. He's a big balloon walking through light in a UFO. He's keeping some better shot than y'all miss so is that so. This opportunity comes once every few weeks. You can do anything you set your minds to, guys. Except like to tell a call or fly. My two boys would be deeply upset by what you just did to that song. Is that one of the favorites in the house right now? It is amazing. What a cultural touch point that is. I mean, Clay Newcombe knows the words to that. Yeah. Yeah, my oldest went through a phase with that song a couple years ago too. Clay Newcombe was reciting the words to that on the live tour before his alhooding contest. Really? It surprises me. Yeah. I mean, mom spaghetti and everything. No way. I'd say in the grand scheme of the hip hop landscape that is like pretty clean for. For like Clay Newcombe scale. So I can just drop my chair a little bit. No, you're centered in there, bud. Alrighty. Well, you know the rules here. Let me bring them up again so that I can read them to you. Fake news is where I read a series of headlines in which a real one is hiding among three imposter's. Your job is to figure out which one is true. So this is two lies and one truth, not two truth and one line. This is a multiple choice. Got you. Three lies and one. Yeah, we'll start. We'll go one at a time. One headline at a time here. So Phil, can you bring up the first headline? Yes. I'd love to. A three-legged blank has learned to hunt in a completely unexpected way. Is it a grizzly bear, a wolf, a lion, or a man in Tennessee? Well, now there's three-legged bears, wolves, and lions all over the place. But have they learned to hunt in a completely unexpected way? Before we answer this. This is the one I want. Oh yeah, it is. Five years ago. Was it five? I shot a three-legged black bear in Colorado. That was huge. I almost did two years ago and then her little cub came out. Ooh, but I like shanks, so I wasn't going to. So that's going to impact my hand. A three-legged blank has learned to hunt in a completely unexpected way. Now the conceit of this game is that unless you've seen this newspaper article, there's no way to make any sort of an educated guess here. True. I could see it. Multiple three-legged folks coming in from Tennessee. I'm a good. Okay, okay. I got it really hammered down here. Three-legged. Let's go. What kind of lion? I wonder. African lion. Oh. Mufasa. Simba. You deliberately disobeyed me. Well, we've got our answers. Yep. Brody says, see lion. Of course, says B wolf. Let's go. We've got a correct answer through the answer. See lion. Oh, come on. Per new scientist, Jacob, an 11-year-old lion in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, made headlines last year when he and his brother were filmed swimming 1.5 kilometers across the crocodile-filled river. The animal lost a leg in a poacher's snare but has managed to adopt an ambush-style hunting strategy resembling that of leopards. Researchers who were puzzled by Jacob's continued survival made the discovery via drone footage. Did he lose a back leg or a front leg? Phil, pull out that picture. Yeah, I couldn't tell. Because that really impacts things. Back left. Back. I could see it working. Yeah. I could see it working. Yeah, I mean, it was kind of interesting. They're saying that they don't see too many examples of animals adopting completely new strategies. Right. Like that their species doesn't otherwise demonstrate. And so, you know, it raises questions for them in terms of like behavioral adaptation. Yeah. The black bear I shot had lost his front left leg. Oh, and that lion's also missing an eye. I tried to work that in but then I just figured I'd add that. Man, cats are wicked smart. Oh, yeah. Phil, can we have our second headline? So, Brody's up one nothing. Jeez. Generations of bearded vultures stashed humans treasures, including a 650 year old blank in these bird nests. Is it a sandal? Are they collecting these things from corpses? I don't know. Actually, that's an unanswerable question. I know. You'll find out. That would be interesting. Generations of bearded vultures stashed humans treasures, including a 650 year old blank in these birds nest. What choices are, is it a sandal? Is it an urn? Is it a pipe? Or is it a knife? You guys ever come across a vulture nest? Mm-hmm. I came across one. I think it was an Illinois. And it was like on the side of a cliff. I could hear like a light screeching caught my attention. So, I looked in and there was a just bones and hair and poop everywhere. And there was one little small baby vulture in there, like bouncing up and down. I didn't look real. Bones and hair and poop everywhere. Hmm. Sounds like the mud room when I leave my dogs there for a long day. Did you put your answer down yet, Cory? No. I know what I want to put down, but I can't a 650 year old sandal. Yeah, that would be an old sandal. But it also would be an old urn. It's also not really a treasure. No. Ooh. Flip him over, boys. Hold on, I didn't answer yet. Brody's still thinking, he's still thinking based on all of the available information. Not trivia. Brody, what's your answer here? My answer is a pipe. A pipe and Cory says, D, a knife. Where, where, where? The correct answer is a sandal. Come on. That's not a treasure. Perse Masonian magazine. Archaeologists in southern Spain recently recovered more than 200 human artifacts from historical bearded vulture nests in southern Spain. I rewrote that sense and didn't delete southern Spain, so that's where there's a redundancy. One of the most remarkable finds is a 650 year old sandal made from woven twigs and grasses, according to a study published last month in the journal Ecology. This is where it gets interesting. Bearded vultures have been extinct in southern Spain for 70 to 130 years, depending on the specific region. But while the birds have disappeared from the area, their well-preserved nests can still be found there, often tucked into protected hidden spaces in the mountains. I think it came off a corpse. That would be fun. That would be fun. Phil, can we get a third headline, please? Oh, we sure can. Anaconda's tree branches or discarded rope. This is a global fake news segment. Yeah. Bolivian river dolphins sometimes dangle blank in their mouths and scientists don't know why. Is it their offspring? Anacondas, tree branches or discarded rope? I can easily get rid of two of those. Pretty fly for a white guy. Yeah, I was going to say. Man, this background music really makes things tense, Phil. That's the most violent. The most violent mosh pit I ever participated in was in an offspring show. Really? We had big pizzas that they're giving out for free and you'd throw them on the ground. It was like a big banana peel. So you just push like five people into it and it all flipped. Did you emerge from that whole thing bloodied? No, I was unscathed. But there were many good men we lost that day. You got an answer, Cory? Yeah, you know it. Do you know that the leech singer, Dexter Gordon, I think, is his name? Dexter something? He's got like a doctrine chemistry or something. Wow. He's an educated man. The name like that, yeah, you better. That's the best thing we have on this show today. Cory's got an answer. Yeah. Cory says, A, they're offspring, Brody says D discarded rope. The correct answer is Anacondas. Oh, come on. This is... Yeah, I know. It's hard to guess these when you don't have any information. It can't be very big Anacondas. It's almost like it's a flawed game. This one comes from what I think that's what's fun about it. It is fun. It's basically just rolling a die and seeing who comes up with... So this one comes from a ZME science. And I'm just going to read a few sentences from their article because it's written in a very funny way. Imagine the excitement of biologists from the Noel Kempf Mercado Museum of Natural History during one seemingly uneventful day in August 2021. Really building it up. That day they saw not one, but two Bolivian river dolphins with their heads above the river. That was really nothing compared to what they noticed next. Taking out their cameras to snap some quick photos of this extraordinarily rare sighting, the researchers could now see that the two dolphins were holding an Anaconda in their beaks, handling it like it was a plush toy. This was absolutely shocking to members of the teams. It's safe to say something like this had never been witnessed, or at least this is the first time it was documented. Bolivians, Benny Anacondas are apex predators, meaning no one messes with them. Apart from a single case of cannibalism, no one had ever seen Bolivian Anacondas getting killed or eaten by any other wild animal. How did they know that they killed it? They could have just flammed it, floating dead. It was alive when they started. Well, they said they they said they messed with it for like six to eight minutes, picking it up out of the water and then diving down, holding it in their beaks. And they just were like, their assumptions that they were playing with it. Yeah, but that's like well playing with stuff is like well documented behavior from dolphins. Like I've seen dolphins mess with redfish and throw them back and forth. I've seen them kill tarp and just for fun and then leave them. But this is an apex predator, meaning no one messes with them in their ecosystem. Well, Brody squeezed the fun out of that question. But he's still a remarkable game by a score of one to nothing. Don't find it that remarkable, Randall. Congratulations, Brody. Well, let's see, Phil, how's the chat doing today? Oh, it's been a scintillating program so far. It sure has the chat. Not a lot of questions from the chat today. So get those in. Your chances are high. I'm not bad because if they're not questions, that means there's comments. Look at it. Scary numbers. Oh, no, most people are still talking about Phil's bisectomy. My bisectomy, they're asking Randall about beating off a mountain lion, which if you haven't listened to the last episode of the media podcast, check that out. But I want to shout out Brad Weber, who says, Hey, thanks to you and the team for the shout out to our Bunny Hunt degree. Oh, yeah. Brody, it's great. Look, 30 rabbits in a bonus raccoon. That's a good day. I wish we got more of that. I wish we got like, Hey, we're going to this good luck and then a follow up. Yeah, that's great. Then we'd have a better sense of our ability to confer luck on the audience. We could just pivot the idea of the show completely. It could just kind of be like Phil. I've been rethinking the whole thing. Yeah. Well, I think it's grown up. We'll see how that pans out. Free crank asks Brody. Did you see the Pennsylvania Game Commission wants to change hunting season in PA again? They want to possibly move the opening. They have rifled to the week before Thanksgiving. You know, my dad just sent that to me this very morning. And I think it will be like if they made that change, I think it'd be very unpopular to like have Thanksgiving in the middle of the year season. What's the change? They recently changed opening day of rifle season from the Monday after Thanksgiving to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which you would think would have been a popular move, but a lot of people hated it. So I think back in it up a week and sticking a national holiday in the middle of of deer season would be unpopular. That's my thoughts. Thank you, Brody. Yeah. We had a comment from Valencore that was quickly followed up by somebody else. He says, any hot tips or advice on the best way to prepare a garment? And then I don't remember who because someone said watch out for the plague. Because apparently that's a real thing. Yeah, I'm not endorsing this practice, but I would have to guess some sort of a slow cook. Listen, fall off the bone, Marmot gloves. The traditional ways to, and we're going to, you know, we're going to try this for the last cookbook. We did the outdoor cookbook. There are cultures that just like cook them inside their like the hair on and everything. Yeah, try that. But I shot a couple more Marmot marmots. I'd not shoot a couple more minutes. I promise. I shot a couple of Marmot years ago in Colorado. And they were the hardest thing to skin. I have ever tried to skin like covered in greasy fat. Like, you know how squirrels are hard to skin? Hard to get that hide off. And I will never eat another Marmot again. But good luck to you. What if you tried dipping it in the bottle? I think Randall's right. Just like put it in a crock pot for about 36 hours. And maybe with like a buffalo wing preparation. Lots of barbecue shows. I'd mar, please keep us updated. Valencour. Yeah. We got Christie Holmes in the chat saying me and 36 ladies are going smelting tomorrow in Maine. She was on one minute fishing last winter. Yeah. Wish us luck. Yeah. Good luck. Oh, fried smell. That's a lot of good. That's a lot of ladies. I, I assume that's not a typo. Me and 30. I don't think I've ever done anything. Oh, yeah. It's a real social thing. Like, I don't know 36 people. No, 36 people, Brody. Well, we should go there and go smelting with these. I know. That's really fun. Best of luck to you, Christie. Please keep us updated. Yeah. Mogor is in the chat. High Randall will there be a movie review segment in the future. Oh, I know. Chin scratching emoji. It's been a very long time since the last one. Thank you for your answer. Mogor. I would love to do another movie review segment. To be honest, our schedule has been a bit. There's been a lot of uncertainty around who's handling what around the holiday. And we've had a sort of quickly, you know, I'd long story short, we're a little behind the eight ball. But I will get a movie review going here soon. And it's going to, it's going to blow everything else that I've done previously. You should allow the chat to choose the movie review. We get a lot of. I have a question for the chat. Would, do you think Congo, the movie Congo is a good, meat eater movie club movie. It's not really hunting, but there are animals and some of them do die. Most, actually, if you haven't seen the movie, they all die at the end. Oh, geez. Let us know. Well, we wait for those results to file in. We've got a question from Seth. Anyone else mixed organ meats with their ground. I was contemplating doing a one to 10 ratio adding some liver to my burger meat. Would that be a mistake? No. I mean, I've never done it, but it sounds like something that in countries where they make a lot of interesting sausages, it sounds like something. Sure. I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've thrown like heart and with my burger grind before. Yeah. I mean, good way to save and utilize the liver. Eat that heart on its own, though, would be mine. Yeah. That's so good. I mean, I think it's a good way to save the liver. Yeah. Toss it in there. Cool. Do one more before you two. Please. Next guest. This is from Blaine. I've been looking for Teddy Roosevelt documentary to read. I think he means biography, but there are so many to choose from. You guys have any advice on the best one? Randall, if you've... I think the new classic is Douglas Brinkley Wilderness Warrior. There's no one Theodore Rex. That's like a Wilderness Warrior. It's like a brick, man. I think... While Randall's thinking about an actual biography, if you want something a little lighter, that's like a real fun read and has a lot of adventure and craziness in it, read River of Doubt. Oh, yeah. Canvas. It's very cool. It's like post-Teddy's presidency where he's like bumming because he's getting old and he wants to do one last adventure and he goes to look for the source of a river in the Amazon. It's super cool. Yeah. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex. And then I'm sure... What's the name of the guy that writes biographies of everybody? Um... I know exactly who you're talking about. I can't think of his name. Yeah, there's a lot out there. I think the Brinkley Wilderness Warrior really focuses on his conservation legacy. And if that's what gets you interested, I'd check that one out. Yeah. Is everyone called the Rough Riders? I'm just making that up. I'm sure there's a book called The Rough Riders. Google's failing me. The naturalist. Randall, there's no way you have not seen this movie based on the director and the cast, but someone suggested the legacy of a white tail deer hunter, which is a Jody Hill movie. You know what? I really wanted to do that. And I thought it would be fun to get, um, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's a movie about... Is this the one about the guy who has the TV show? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Josh Brolin's in it. Carrie Coon, and I thought it would be very dynamic, right? I thought it would be really funny to do that with Steve and Janus. Yeah. And like ask them about... Oh, sure. The overlap, but they both summarily rejected that out of hand because it's one of those things. They're too close to it to even enjoy it. So that's the whole point. I don't mean to be in a room with Steve getting grouchy again already. I mean, I don't either. But I think you should do. Yeah. You should do that Buffalo Hunter Nicholas Cage movie. Oh, yeah. Steve was kind of... We should do that one. Yeah. And generally, and just like kind of a little bit at one point involved with. Yeah. That was the name of that one. Let's do that. Let's do that one. I forget what it's called. But I've been meaning to... Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to mean and check it out. Which is crossing. Yeah. Yeah, butchers crossing. Well, I think we've got... I think we've got through our question and answer segment here because Mark Kenyon has been waiting very patiently on the line. Yeah, I told him he could leave and come back later and he's watching. It's now 11.40. Oh. I'm looking at our schedule or way behind. I don't know how we did that because we only had two segments. Oh, listen, we always go back. Not again. Next up, we're joined by Mark Kenyon, who recently became Meteor's Director of Conservation. Mark, it's good to see you. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Randall. It's great to be here. It was more painful than anything having to sit here and hear you guys talk about book recommendations and not be able to speak. Yeah. Please chime in. Do you have a favorite TR biography? Well, like Brody said, the iconic one is the wilderness warrior, but it is a huge door stop of a book. A couple lighter reading versions. It'll get you some interesting insight with some adventure along the way. Would be... Leave it as it is by David Guessner. That's an interesting one that pairs the travel narrative with kind of an exploration of Roosevelt and kind of wrestling with his legacy. Then another one is the naturalist. And that takes a look at Roosevelt's conservation legacy and from a slightly more, I mean, as the title would suggest, not as much on the hunting side, but a little bit more about his background as an amateur naturalist, birter, all those different things early on in his life, and then how that kind of came along with him. So those are two easier reading options to consider. Clearly, we should have just pulled you in earlier in this discussion, but I'm glad that I'm glad that our faithful listeners have finally gotten you to weigh in on that. Mark, if folks are paying attention to the news lately, they know that you are the newest meat eater director of conservation. You inherit your position from a worthy man in Ryan Callahan who's moved on to become the CEO at BHA. Can you tell us what it means to be the director of conservation at a company like meat eater? It's a huge honor. It's something that I'm just really, really thankful to get to do. It's the kind of work that I've been dreaming of and working towards for a really long time. I think most people, and meat eater, know me from what brought me in, which was my white tail passion, and of course, wired hunt and all those things. But parallel to all that, I've had this growing desire to find ways that I can make a difference on the conservation side. That's led me to tackle all sorts of side hustle projects, like writing my books about public lands and wildlife and doing increasingly new things within the meat eater world, whether that's founding the working for wildlife tour or representing us with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership at events and all sorts of different things. It's been a long time coming. It worked out really great that Cal was moving on to even bigger and better things and me and him and work together on so much over the last few years that this is a pretty natural thing to step into. I'm just really excited because on fire about it, and there's a great need at the moment too. I'm excited to continue to build off this great conservation foundation that Cal and Steven and really the whole team is built over the years. What are the types of things like maybe not day to day, but week to week sort of what is that role in compass in terms of like who are you talking to? What are you doing? What are you working towards? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of different things that it's going to entail. I think on one hand, there's like the long term strategy, which is thinking about how do we, at meat eater, strategically rally our resources and our voice and our platforms to work towards better conservation outcomes? So, sometimes that's reacting to a bad piece of legislation. How do we educate everyone who's listening to us? How do we inspire and activate people to do something about it? How do we use our funding or our relationships or anything like that to move the needle? On the flip side, then it's thinking about how do we think about conservation storytelling and the content we do and thinking a long ways out where are we needed on that front? And then kind of on a day-to-day basis, it's making sure that we at meat eater are tapped into what's happening, whether it be on the wildlife management side of things or the public land side of things or the million different news bites that are popping up every day. Understanding what's happening, talking to our conservation partners, talking to contacts in Washington, D.C. or in state capitals and figuring out what are the issues that are impacting hunters and anglers and wildlife and wild places? And is ending one of those things something that we should be engaging in, whether that be just with us educating or us doing some other things too? So that's a little bit of what it's going to look like. We'll be doing more content, more news, more education. And then I think what I'm really excited about is finding ways to help not just us at the company but our entire community more actively engage. How do we actually get boots on the ground and do good things for wildlife and wild places? How do we show up in person to make sure that public land stand, public hands? How do we do these things in really concrete ways? I think that's been a trademark of meat eater in many ways and whether it be our content, storytelling, cookbooks. So how do we continue to do that on the conservation front, maybe in bolder ways than we ever have? Well, I know everybody here is excited to have you in that role because it's a great fit and looking forward to seeing what you do there. But we brought you on today to talk about another bit of news and another person who is nominated for a new job here. And it's sort of been flying under the radar. But recently there's been some attention pointed to the administration's nomination of Steve Pierce to direct the Bureau of Land Management. And there's a bit of controversy around it. Can you tell us a little bit about this individual and maybe what's at stake with the nomination? Like what is the BLM director do and who's the guy that might have that job? Yeah, so I'll give you a very short answer to the first part of that. And I'm gonna can dive in further if you want. But the director of the Bureau of Land Management oversees a massive swath of our federal public lands. It's somewhere in the, you know, somewhere between 240 and 250 million acres of our public lands are managed by this person. He gets to spearhead how resource management plans are put into the ground and developed. So what actually happens on this landscape? This person will oversee and approve or rescind the rules that this organization makes. Really important things that dictate, you know, how we manage these landscapes, how we extract resources from them, how we utilize them and allow others to utilize them. So that's for extraction or grazing or recreation or conservation. This is the person that, you know, part of what the BLM has done the past and other land managing agencies is they assess the lands that they manage and they determine if those are appropriate lands for disposal. Even that's something that does happen. That's something that this person could do. So whoever sits in this seat has wide authority over a big chunk of ground that, you know, hunters and anglers really care about. I mean, this is some of our very best pronghorn hunting, mule deer hunting, elk hunting, sage grass habitat, all sorts of grouse habitat. This is big, wide open, beautiful country that a lot of us hold deer. So yeah, this is a pretty important job and there are some red flags right now about Steve Pierce because of, you know, not just one thing you said, I feel like, you know, it's easy these days in the era of cancel culture. If you say one thing wrong, right, it'd be pretty easy to get in big trouble for just saying one thing wrong. Steve Pierce has had a long legacy of saying many things that don't come off too well when it comes to public lands. A lot of statements, a lot of letters, an actual support of legislation in his previous jobs that do not bode well for someone in this position. So he was a congressman from, he was a congressman twice from 2003 to 2009, I believe, and 11 to 19 in the state of New Mexico. And over the course of that time frame, multiple instances where he's spoken about how the federal government should own lands, how federal public land should be sold off, how the land of state should be shrunk. He co-authored a letter to the Speaker of the House back in 2012. I think it was pushing for the sale of public lands. He co-sponsored a bill that would sell public lands. He supported the Jason Chavez 2017 bill that would sell off three some million acres of public lands. And just I could go on and on. There's so many of these examples. So yeah, that is a little bit concerning if somebody who has actively tried to sell off our public lands or actively tried to shrink public lands, if he's now in charge of them. So at the high level, that's why this is raising some eyebrows. Yeah, and I mean, it seems very clear that it's like a fox in the henhouse situation potentially. How have conservation groups reacted to this news? I believe he was nominated at the end of last year and his appointment or his confirmation hearings are still forthcoming. But what's the word on the street right now from folks that care about public lands and fishing wildlife? Yeah, it has been, you know, as you would expect a lot of concern, a lot of people raising the same points that I just did. The fox in the henhouse analogy is perfect. A group of 80 or so environmental and conservation organizations sent a letter to the leader of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee just recently expressing, you know, serious concerns along the lines of what I've just mentioned. So yeah, there's a lot of pushback. My, our good buddy, Cal, he has been selling the alarm at backcountry hunters and anglers. I know he was just in DC recently talking to folks about this as well. So yeah, I think the alarm is being wrong. I think there is reason to, you know, you want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt if he gets the job, but I would like him to do so if that's going to happen with some commitments on the record to not do and to not pursue some of the ideas that he's voiced support for in the past. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. Do you know if there's a, if there's a confirmation hearing scheduled and then, you know, in the meantime, how can people make a difference if they want to weigh in on this? So the hearing has not been announced yet, but it seems like it's imminent. You know, everyone's talking about it happening sometime soon. And I think what we can do about it is, is let our, here's the thing, from everything I understand and from everyone I've talked to, it's very, very unlikely that his approval, his nomination will not be approved. He's likely going to get the job. So then the question is, well, are we wasting our time raising a stink about it? Because he's going to get the job no matter what. So why are we, why are we going to use those resources? And what it seems that the play here seems to be that in this nomination hearing, he has to stand up in front of everyone and answer questions under oath about what his plans are, what his views are, what the direction of this is going to be. And he's going to have to answer for his past statements and actions as well. And so what we as hunters and anglers and people who care about these places can do is, we can ask our senators, especially if they sit on the energy and natural resources committee who will get to, you know, be a part of that, we can ask them to ask these tough questions. We can explain to them why this matters to us in whatever state you live in and why it's important that if Steve Pierce gets this job in this job interview that he's going to effectively be on, you know, he's got to answer for some of these stuff. So BHA has done a really cool and easy thing that for anyone wants to participate in they can, if you go to backcountryhunter's, anglers, Instagram account, there's a link to send in what you think your senators should ask him during this job interview. And he gives you a couple, three, four suggested questions or you can ask your own. But this is just how we would want to press him. What we would like this guy to have to answer to on the record and provide some explanation for us. So things like, you know, what will you do to ensure public lands stay in public hands or aren't sold or transferred? I would love for him to have to answer that question on the record. And hopefully we can get some commitments, some guarantees from him publicly that he won't pursue those things. Same thing goes for many other questions related to how, you know, the BLM will balance conservation with resource extraction. There's a lot of concerns there. So we probably can't stop it, but we might be able to frame the conversation around his role and his taking that role in such a way that it, you know, can maybe at least put some public pressure on him and keep him and keep things from going as bad leaves maybe they could. And maybe he'll turn out great. Maybe the things he said in the past, maybe he feels differently now. I hope so, but we should, we should definitely ask him to speak on that publicly and give us some assurances. Mark, really appreciate you taking the time. Folks can follow you to learn more about this and many other issues. And yeah, we'll keep our eyes on Mr. Pierce. And yeah, looking forward to seeing what you're doing, the new roles. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Hey, feel good. Luckily that was acting me. I had to have two of them. Oh, yeah. That's right. Hopefully I better look at you, Mark. Thank you. I think they'll make a difference. Your marks, 50% over there. Fingers crossed for a pill. Take care, Mark. We'll see you. Thanks, Mark. Seems like an opportunity for a malpractice suit. I don't think it's as rare as you'd like to think. Welcome to Meet Eaters 12 and 26 presented by Moultre mobile and on X Maps. 12 of Meet Eaters biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout 2026. These are long form episodes so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my baited bear hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on Meet Eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Travis Perkins' Stratford has now moved to Lentenstone. We've got everything from timber, bricks and blocks to loads of tools, plant and equipment for hire, along with benchmarks, kitchens and joinery. We keep all your essentials in stock, deliver to site and upgrade trade deals too. Your new Travis Perkins branch is packed with even more products, more space and even better service. So for all your building materials, hire requirements and kitchen needs. Simply head to Travis Perkins and benchmarks on Joseph Ray Road, Lentenstone. Doing what matters for the trade. Anyways, on going to pin the presentation to you now so you can say what I mean. Go to go Han, thanks for introducing me to Kanva, Lafayah. Alright guys, again, where geez we're just running behind time, but that's because we're having so much fun and our next segment is Meet Pull. You sure about that? It's a media to radio live, f**k out! Oh, that's right. We're doing something brand new today for the very first time we've lied to one of the hosts in the studio about what we're doing. We're actually going to play to a segment called Meet Theater. Brody, I'm passing out scripts now. I don't know if you saw the last Meet Theater. I'll explain it just one second. No, I get filled with scripts. Here you go Phil. Oh, thanks Randall, appreciate it. Alright, this is awesome. I heard rumors about this, but... Well, Meet Theater is where we take out stunts. I'll begin again. Meet Theater is where we take outstanding hunting literature and feed it to artificial intelligence, asking the computer to generate a short dramatic script to be performed live by untrained actors. For today's performance, we're revisiting another classic Ernest Hemingway story, the 1952 novella, The Old Man in the Sea. Directors note, I had to ask the AI to revise its original script to include a speaking part for the fish so we had three roles. Yes. Then I asked the AI to make the fish use a lot of profanity, but then I thought better of it and asked the AI to replace those swear words with some tamer 1950s alternatives so that it would all be very realistic. I'm playing Santiago, the fisherman. Brody. I really apologize to everyone for this. This is a fan favorite, Brody. Corey, you're playing Madeline, who's a small boy, so I'd like you to speak in the highest voice you can. And Brody, you're playing the fish. Isn't that exciting? Lucky. Very exciting. Phil, take it away. I'll just buy it my time until you get to me. The setting is Cuba, the 1950s. Santiago is an old fisherman. He has gone 84 days without catching a fish. Manel and a local boy helps him prepare his fishing lines in the early dawn outside his small shack. That's you, Corey. 84 days, Santiago. My father says I must fish in another boat. I know. But you are still the best fisherman. You taught me everything. Your father is right. A boy should be with a lucky boat. Luck is a thing that comes in many forms. Tomorrow you will catch a fish. I can feel it. Perhaps. Tomorrow I will go far out, beyond all the others. I wish I could go with you. But you are with another boat now. But bring me sardines for bait in the morning. And we will speak of baseball. Demagio Street continues. Of course, he is a great man. Even with the bone spur in his heel, he plays. Do you think we are that great, Manel? I think you are. How's that? It's great. Okay. The next morning, before dawn, Santiago went far out to sea. Alone. I am not religious. But I will say ten our fathers and ten Hail Mary's if I can catch a fish. I promise. He feels a pull on the line. There. Something. Not yet. Wait, wait. Suddenly, the line jerks. Ah, a big one. Santiago struggles with the line, trying to pull in his catch. He will not come up too heavy. Too strong. Come up fish, please. Come up. Ah, I will not yield Cuban costs. Then I will stay with you, brother. However long it takes. You are tied to me, old man, as I am tied to you. I pull you north and west away from your home. Confound you for hooking me. Pull me wherever you wish. I will not let go. You stubborn son of a gun. You should just cut the line. I'm stronger than you. Your hands bleed, old man. You cannot rest. Why in tarnation do you not cut this line? Because you are my brother. Because you are the greatest thing I have ever seen. The fish pulled the boat north west for two days and two nights. Santiago held the line and tell his hands blood. He could not eat. He could not sleep. But he would not let go. You suffer, old man. I feel a line cutting into me. And I know you feel it cutting into you. We are both in pain. We are both in pain. Get zoos! Yes, but I was born for this. And you were born for this. Born for this. Dag, Nabbit. Why must you kill me? I have done nothing to you. You are killing me, fish. But you have the right to. Never have I seen anything greater or more beautiful or more calm than you, brother. I do not know if I am worthy to kill such a fish. But I will try. I will show you what a man can do and what a man endures. Crites! Then show me, old man. Show me, gosh darn it. I will not. I will show you what a fish can do. Come up. I am an old man, but I am not defeated. Come up. H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. I have pulled you far from land. I have fought well. You have fought better than any fish I have known. And you old man have fought better than any man I have ever known. Very well, I am coming up. G-Willikers. You have heard this. With one last pull, Santiago brings his catch to the surface. 18 feet, maybe more, a thousand pounds at least. There it is done. It is done. We fought well, you and I. You got it. We fought very well, brother. Now I am tied to your damned boat. You are taking me home. Yes, the boy will see you. Everyone will see you. They will know what we did together. I hope they will, old man. I hope. Santiago had killed the fish. But it was too big to bring into the boat. He lashed it to the side and began the long journey home. But the sharks smelled the blood. No, no. Meko sharks. They come for me, old man. They will destroy what we have done. Galdanged sharks? No, I will fight them. Santiago strikes at the sharks with his ore. Take that in that. Or coming. Barnacles. You cannot stop them all. I will try, brother. I will try. More sharks came. Hope that's the wrong camera. More sharks came. Santiago fought them all with Harpoon, with Knife, with Club, with the tiller. But there were too many. Eat you scavengers. I. I went out too far. I have ruined us both fish. You did not ruin us. Custy sharks. We did what we were meant to do. You fought. I fought. That is enough. Is it enough? It is enough. By the time Santiago reached the harbor in the dark, the sharks had eaten everything. Only the skeleton remained. 18 feet of bones bound to the boat. But the fish's voice had gone silent. Santiago. Ah, Manelent, you are here. I saw the fish, the skeleton. How much did it weigh? I do not know. The sharks ate it. All of it. But everyone has seen it. 15 feet from Knows' tale. Some say 18. It is the greatest fish anyone has ever seen. What they ate it. You beat the fish. That is what matters. Tomorrow. I will fish with you again. My father can say what he wants. I will fish with you. You think so? I know so. Now rest. I will bring you food. Manelent? Yeah. I had a dream. I was dreaming about the lions. The lions on the beach in Africa? Yes. When I was your age, I saw them playing on the shore. Like cats. I dream about them still. The old man fell asleep. And he dreamed of lions on the white beaches of his youth when the world was new. And all things were possible. The end. Audience goes nuts. He did black. Oh man. I was so excited for that. I had forgotten. We are still in this hazy twilight of the studio. I had forgotten that I made Brodie a fish mask. I made Brodie a fish mask and I didn't give it to him. But it is probably for the best because I don't think you can bring your spirit. I think it is. Because it doesn't look like a Marlin. I just googled fish mask and printed the first thing I found. Well, that was a fun new segment called Mediter Fake Out. Slash Meet Theater. I had a great time with it. I hope the audience enjoyed it as well. Brodie, everybody. I can round him a placer Brodie. I understand. He gave it to the studio. And have the whole thing flipped on you and have to perform a play live. That was more fun, I think. It was a lot of fun. Boy, I can't wait to see your revenge. Phil, what's the chat saying about our little production? I haven't been able to look because it's mostly Visectomy Talk. A lot of Visectomy Talk. Seems like people are more interested in Visectomies than our Meet Theater segment. Let's see. This is a masterpiece. I wish that we had given Corey a dry run because I feel in the second and the third act, his voice was dialed. Straight dial. Yeah, practice. Make started off a little choppy, but by the end, it was very convincing. Oh, thank you. What did I just tune into? It was going for a Tommy Pickles. Crap, I zoned out what the heck's going on. These are most of the comments. Thanks, guys, for staying on the line. You know, our viewer count is higher now than it was before we started the second. Oh, man. Let's hope this show never dies. Someone call the students upstairs. That's good. That's good stuff. Okay, we got some questions here. Do you any of you guys keep B's? That's from Sean. No, I hate B's. I'll be honest. I react really poorly to B's things. A friend of mine keeps B's. It seems like an incredibly time-intensive hobby. Or at least he talks about B's more than I'd like him to. But I do enjoy the honey. The honey is very good and honey is expensive. It is. We are actually my youngest kid and I are seriously considering getting a hive this summer. Cool. Because you can do like mail order stuff for that. You just ordered it, shows up your door. Hmm. Bingo, mango. Steve has a buddy up in Alaska. I didn't even know this was a thing. They just do a hive every summer and that's it. Then they do a new hive. Because like I always thought you had to like deal with them over the winter. Maybe send them summer warmer. Whatever. But yeah, I want to give it a try. Yeah, it's not really what you know, but who you know. My wife and I get a giant bucket of honey every year from some farmers and friends of ours. So now that I think about it at one point, I was asked by a co-worker. I had to drive from Spokane to Helena. I was asked to bring B's from one place to the other. And so a guy showed up and put a bunch of B's in my car with me. I had a Honda pilot at the time. And I drove. I drove whatever. Four and a half, five hours just gripping the steering wheel. Yeah, that'd be unsettling. Yeah, it was very unsettling. It seemed like a bad movie. But I will say this. The whole like bear and honey thing is real. Hmm. Um, back when, uh, Yannis and we're guiding live fishing in Colorado, we had a private ranch that we would take out at now. And then in that rancher had bees. And he had to run electric fence around the hives to keep the bears out. Because they would just go in there and tear it up. You know, I was hungry. You live in an area like that, consider that. I was hunting bears one spring outside of Missoula. And it was private down in the bottom on this forest service road that you drive past. And they had a bunch of, a bunch of B hives. And we drove past one time and there were like six skunks. In like walking across the field towards the hives, like walking in between the hives. I'd never seen anything like it. Yeah, but it was just six skunks all out in the middle of the daylight. Just dialed in on those on those B hives. Good point. Uh, this is from Car Sarah, Carlin. I would guess currently listening to you guys while pike fishing in the dark on the Shannon River in Ireland. Oh, thanks for keeping me company. Any pike fishing tips for me. That's amazing. Oh, that's amazing. I don't know. Like pike fishing tips. You got any like live suckers. They really like those. Uh, yeah, be careful when you land one. Get some slime all over your boat or your clothes and keep your fingers away from the teeth and gills. What is strange to me is like, at least in my experience here in the US of A at like night fishing for pike is like not a thing. Like, they're just not known to like feed well at night. Yeah, I mean, maybe we've got it all. I always think of them as a very like visually oriented fish. Yeah, but they're always hunting. Yeah, that's super cool though. Sorry, no great tips for you. Where are we at with the venison hot dog recipe? It's from two FS. We have, we have plans ongoing. Very promising lead. We're just hoping to get the participation of a man who we believe to be the expert in this. So stay tuned. It's definitely happening. It's just a question of uh, Steven or Noah schedule. Is it is the challenge there? Like learning how to like emulsify that stuff? That's that I mean, I that's the key step. But the the object is to make a hot dog that is. Taste the same has the same crunch. You know, the same the same snappiness. Are we talking like a like a. So not like an Oscar, my or weener where there's just like no skin on it. It's going to have is it going to have like a? Yeah, it'll have it'll have a skin on it. It'll have a case, but but like. You know, it's all about that. Hot dog enthusiasts call it a snap. When you break that case. And so, and then again, the emulsification is is really like, there's a lot of people say they make venison hot dogs and then you get it and it's like. A broad a broad with a different spice mix. So we're working towards creating actual like gas station roller dogs out of venison. Yeah, it's exciting. Stay tuned. Matt asks, did I miss the punt gun content or has it not been made yet? We want the punt gun. I don't want to speak for the video team, but look for punt gun stuff in a few months. Yeah, stay tuned. It'll be it is happening. A big release and you won't want to miss it. Mm hmm. Someone's asking for quail recipes or hunting tips. Scrub life. Danny got invited to hunt quail for the first time next Monday. Scrub that. True. Tips like, I mean, it's such such a general question. I mean, I don't know if these guys are hunting with dogs or. Yeah, go hunt where there's some quail would be my tip. And grill. I mean, I always think about little birds like that grilling them whole. Keep the skin on. Take the time to pluck them if they're not shot up. I would say like if you got a group of people you're going to need two per, for wild quail, you're going to need at least two per person. Yeah. Good luck. Keep us posted. Yeah, let's do one more here. This is from Paris. Paris lock. He says he's elk hunting late season. He hears 200 to 300 elk bulls are fighting and bugling. Well, calling do anything or is all about spot and stock intercepts. He's hoping hunting in open country with a muzzle loader. Here of 200. Yeah, I was kind of confused by that. For that late season bugling, that ain't. That's just them talking to each other when they're in this giant herd. Like, you're not going to lure a bull in by Colin. I mean, yeah, they're always fighting. They're always bugling. That's not just a. Rutt thing. Colin might do you something though. I mean. Squeak on a little lost calf call and see if a cow will come in. I don't know if you're either sex. If you got to get close, open country with the muzzle. Yeah, a lot of belly crawling. I'd imagine the best bet spot and stock though. Fills that it? Yeah, are you sure? Unless you want to keep going. No, we're at we're at time. I think we've we've given them a pretty good. We didn't get any reactions on our Academy award-winning efforts. Phil Brody, you got called out specifically. people were not ex I can find some for you. People were saying I didn't know Brody had that heat in him. Bravo. We're not expecting that from Brody. We call that chop. Uh, John says Bravo. I'm weeping Brody really showed up. Yeah. Brody was a just sport. I told Randall before this for the D&D game, you brought it then too. Listen, man, I'm expecting that. I'm game Phil. I love him. Game for whatever. Plus I just like felt for that fish man because he really got boned, you know? Yeah. I I tried to do the most dangerous game. You remember that short story? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a good one. But then I forgot that the guy, you know, there's the guy that hunts the people and then there's the the guy that's going to be hunted. And then there's a third guy. And he's only described as like a big imposing mute character. And so I like an enforcer. Yeah, I didn't think it would be fair. He's like, he makes some, the guy one guy makes some comments like he has his own methods. Right. But he's silent the whole time. So it just didn't turn out well. So I thought just adding the fish to this would work out the best. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get away from Hemingway at some point, but he's really got a rich library. So as always, we appreciate you. We love you. Thanks for tuning in. Corey Brody, appreciate you guys. Phil, you killed it again today. As always, we'll see you here next Thursday, meaty to radio live signing off. Good night. Welcome to meat eaters 12 and 26 presented by Maltry mobile and on X maps. 12 of meat eaters biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout 2026. These are long form episodes so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my baited bear hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on meat eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed human.