Ep. 837: This Episode is Called "It's the Third-to-Last Episode" | MeatEater Radio Live!

Welcome to Meet Eater's 12 and 26

“presented by Multi-Mobile and On-X Maps.”

12 of Meet Eater's 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 Eater's YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. [MUSIC PLAYING] Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia, the Meet Eater podcast.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Get to the start. Sorry about that folks. Phil started the timer late, so now it's 1101. So my entire script is off.

Be getting with the very first sense. Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's 1101 a.m. Mountain Time. Hi, you're such a-- Sorry Phil, I had to throw somebody on the bus.

That's fine, it's my fault. On Thursday, 2.1926, we usually write that out. And we're live for Meet Eater HQ and Boseman, Montana. I'm your host, Randall Williams. Join today by my dear friends and trusted colleagues,

Janice Patelis, and Sethre Morris. Good morning. Sethre, that's new.

I've never heard that before.

It just came out. We've got a great show for you today.

“First, we're going to talk to Scott Heidebrink”

from American Prairie about the most high-profile Buffalo related news story and recent headlines. We're going to have a little old-fashioned show and tell-sash. We're going to talk to Clay and Bear Newcomb about some exciting

developments in the Bear Greece universe. We've got-- I reused the word excited. We've got some exciting announcements coming at the end of the show. But mostly, we'll just enjoy time spent in the company of friends and savor our time with you, loyal, radio-live audience.

Welcome. Seth, Janice, how are you boys doing today? Fantastic. Yeah, I'm doing great now that you set us up for the next hour of that way.

Just getting to hang out or buddies. I mean, that's what it's all about. Shoot the bull, right? That's casting, as we call on the biz, just pod casting. Just pod?

Yeah.

Cold here in Boseman today.

Oh, what a show. To the system. It's morning when I went out to start my truck. Yeah. It was so cold.

My radio wouldn't work. Glad it started. Oh, you have some electrical problems? Apparently. Jeez.

Yeah. That thing really has been a lemon, huh? It has been. Yep. Sorry for you.

Well, thankfully, Ford doesn't sponsor this program. Seth, how's your weekend? Where I got it, did. We can's great. I did a lot of hiking around this weekend, which I don't usually

do. Very nice. Which was nice, just to get out. Yeah, it's kind of, it's like a weird, this winter's been weird. And I've said this a bunch of times before, but there's like bad ice everywhere.

But not, like, really open water, so the fishing program has been, you know. It's your Jones. Yeah, yeah. I'm Jones. Yeah.

But consuming a lot of fishing content. You have. Yeah.

“That's why me is morning about some some updates in the bass fishing world.”

Oh, yeah. Well, that's not an update. That's just like a, it was just a fun little tidbit. For those of us who don't follow, it was quite an update. Shock, really.

I think you're going to have to give us some info now. You guys brought this up. Well, yeah. I was showing Randall Lucas Black, he's an actor. You know this guy, Phil?

Never heard of him. He was on. Yeah. Fast and furious. That's why I haven't played.

Yeah. I'm looking about right now. Anyway. He was in the skulls. He's like a professional.

That's Joshua Chairman. Angler now. Really? Yeah. Good for him.

Nice fishing right now on a tournament. Oh, he's on an NCIS show. Yeah, NCIS. Yeah. He's in fast.

He was. Don't give a drift. It's interesting. Yeah. Well, I thought that was fascinating.

Yeah. Randall, what's, we're not that interesting. What's going on with you? Tell us something interesting. Well, I thought you were going to tell us a little bit about your weekend last week

and you were with all the... Oh, that was. Down in WTF. Yeah, a little bit of FOMO. You had FOMO?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I had FOMO. Yeah. From the turkey convention?

Yeah. That's one of my favorite things ever. Turkey's turkey on. Yeah. It's just, it's a lot.

Man, it's a big place with a lot of people.

We helped MC host the Grand Slam after party on Friday night and helped raise a bunch

“of money for an NWTF, sell some raffle tickets that went good.”

We told some stories, plays some trivia, had a Houdale contest, which, you know, you would think your NWTF, like it would just be. No problem to find just 20 of them that sound just like a damn owl. Mm-hmm. Really?

That. I don't know if we're just, somehow we're still looking in the wrong places, or we're not getting the word out. That. Or, it's only clan I that actually appreciate someone that can actually do a good

voice owl call. Well, I just feel like, in the past, we feel like we've heard good owl, you know, it's

always the last place where we heard some good ones, or last year, we heard some good ones.

And maybe we're just- But you hear a couple, three good ones, and then we had that at the convention too. But again, we were thinking that like, oh my god, it's going to be very tough to vet this crowd to get native them to get come on stage because we're going to have 50 good ones. Yeah.

Wasn't the case. The next day, we hung out on the booth for about six hours, and actually wasn't too bad. And that's my favorite part, because you just talked to fans coming through and it's good to get the one on one feedback, you know, and hear what they appreciate about what we do. Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I got this fancy hat here. Looks good. Thanks. It's a turkey feather. Mm-hmm.

Fascinating. Turkey feather.

First, like, into BTF colab with, I can't remember how much the proceeds go to NWTF, but a bunch.

“So if you want to support Turkey, and you like the hat, there you go.”

Very cool. And sets wearing a custom-made hat. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Show it to the camera.

Would you please? Can't buy it anywhere. You can't wear that one, turn it on and watch it show off for me money, and I can sell it to you. It's a good one. You can't buy it.

Red men, tournament trail, bass fishing, tournament patch on it. Old school. Yeah. There is no red men anymore. No.

It's America's best. But back in the day, Red men use the sponsor. Oh, that's fishing. They changed the the the the the name. Yeah.

They changed it to. Yeah. Oh, understandably. Yeah. Understandably.

Mm-hmm. Well, Yannis, since he asked about my weekend, I'll tell you a little bit about my weekend. You did that before I asked you about your weekend. On Thursday, Steve and I went to Cody, and we went to the Cody Farms Museum, shout out to Danny and Emma there, gave us a little tour, saw some super cool stuff.

They run the joint. Danny is the curator of the Farms collection, and then Emma is from their marketing team. And we got to hold guns, one of which was owned by Livery and Johnson, the inspiration for Jeremiah Johnson, and then the other one. The provenance is a little more cloudy, but allegedly belonged to one jedsmith.

Mm-hmm. So some real mountain man heavy hitters there. That place is so impressive. I was there last winter. Oh, I think it's cool.

They said they had 6,000 firearms in the collection, or on display one of the two. Wow. And at the. I was going to say that more. They have drawers.

You can just pull out drawers full of guns. Yeah. Um, and my favorite part was they have, when you walk in, they have, because it's it's made, the museum is geared both towards weirdos like myself and towards just general, you know, tourists who don't have experience with guns.

So it explains like bolt action, pump action, whatever else. And there's a bolt action that is the most probably one of the most cycle of bolt actions in the world. It's literally falling apart because it's probably got a million cycles on it from every

“kid that walks in there and does it 30 times as fast they can?”

You know, pretty weird to see what happens when you just wear one of those things out. That's cool. Afterwards, Stephen, I gave a talk about the mountain man at the the Cody culture club invited us down and one Jim Zumbo was an attendance local local Jim Zumbo lovely man. It's nice to meet a living legend.

And then I went to the hun expo in Salt Lake again, got to see a lot of the, the folks

there that tune in and it's always nice to meet people that appreciate the weird stuff

that I do and that we do together, shout out to Cade, loyal, meaty to radio, live listener with whom my share day, multid beverage. Hmm. Wonderful. Listen.

Oh, I think he is. I'm guessing he is. Good guy. Good guy. Competitive rim fire shooter.

Which interests me to no end. Hmm. I've been doing some competitive shooting lately.

I think last week. Excuse me. Shoot. What? Bo's narrows.

Oh, yeah.

“I'm shooting my first ever league and I encourage everybody, like the worst part about it is”

realizing how much fun it is and then realizing that I haven't done it for the last 40

years. Like I should have been. Maybe or maybe not. I'd be a better shooter. I don't know.

Video games. I've definitely missed out on a lot of fun. Yeah. You know? And, but no, it's also fun to shoot well and I didn't know how well I was shooting.

But my body, Jeremy, you know, I love Jeremy. But we've been, there's a little bit of a gentleman scoring going on a little bit. And so where the eight ring and the insert outline are oftentimes can be kind of blurry. Sometimes if it's a really big insert, it's very clear. But other times it's closed and sometimes if it's just in the insert, we were like,

oh, yeah, it's an eight outside of the insert. It's a five. Well, no, you got to be within the eight ring or touch in the eight ring to get an eight. So I felt like I don't really care because I'm just like I'm there to have fun, stretch to string, keep my bow muscles active.

Well, as soon as you see your name on the leaderboard and you're like top 10, then there's going to be scrutiny. Right. And so you can't be like, oh, yeah, we have this gentleman scoring and I, you know, what I mean, so I called the shop and I said, look, you guys got to knock off 15 points off

my square because I think on average, we've probably at least been doing that once around, no, with pure honest scoring last night, I still shot my best round ever, nicely done. So I'm stoked. And like I said, I encourage everybody to do an archery league man, it's just super fun.

Stretching the string is what does that like burn in some powder in the archery world? I guess, I don't know where I came up with that. I like it. Yeah.

But I've never heard that before.

“You should make a t-shirt. This is stretched string. I'm going to think about that for”

a day or two, but yeah, I love it. He love it. Okay. Very markable. You done?

We done? I mean, I can talk about it. No, no, no, our tree club forever. No, let's talk to, let's talk to my friends Scott here. Yeah, I'm interested to hear about what Scott has to say about the American Prairie.

Our first guest today is Scott Heidebrink, director of landscape stewardship at American Prairie. Scott. Show. Hey, thanks for having me.

Appreciate it. Scott, some of our listeners may have seen a story about a recent federal land management decision involving American Prairie. Can you give us the basics? Who American Prairie is?

What you're trying to do and why you've been in the news lately? Sure. Yeah. We're a nonprofit organization with a goal of seeing a fully functioning ecosystem Prairie ecosystem here in Montana.

So that's kind of three pillars for us land wildlife and people. So focusing on habitat, the animals that use the habitat and the people that come to see or utilize those animals on the landscape. And yeah, like he said, why we've been in the news is that the Bureau of Land Management and Secretary of the Interior have changed or made a proposed decision to cancel our

bison grazing leases, which have been in place for some of them for 20 years and to convert them back to cattle leases. So that's the short story there. Got you. For those who are unfamiliar with how this stuff works, can you explain what it means to have

a BLM grazing lease and how these leases factor into your bison program?

“Because that's what you guys are really known for in a lot of ways.”

I think when people think American Prairie, they think bison. Yeah, sure. So with with the BLM here in the west where you have these public lands, they're they're often interspersed with private lands and how the grazing system was set up is that when you purchase a piece of deeded property, you have the opportunity to have grazing privileges

on neighboring allotments or on these federal lands.

And so when you purchase these properties, you have the first shot at leasing those lands.

And so when we buy property at American Prairie, we also retain those leases that go with them. And that's integral into our bison program about two thirds of our acres that we have bison on our BLM acres.

in 2005 to the 940 that we have right now.

Gotcha.

“And just so you've got 940 now, I'm kind of skipping ahead a little bit.”

But you guys also have cattle grazing on American Prairie lands. Can you give folks, because you hear a lot of times like they want to replace all the cattle with buffalo that's sort of what some of the critics would say about your organization. Can you give us some of the statistics about cattle versus buffalo on your property or on your lease as well?

Yeah, we have, so in addition to the two properties that I've bisoned on, we have 36 lessies across the other over 500,000 acres that we managed that we have about 8200 cattle right now that are grazing on these other allotments that we don't have bisoned on. Gotcha. So bisoner just to a fraction of the overall grazing that happens on American Prairie.

Right. Yeah, we can figure roughly like 10% of the land base and 10% of the animals. Gotcha. Now, the BLM's justification for revoking these leases centers on the argument that bison aren't livestock because they're not managed for production and those are the words that

they are using. How do you explain that legal interpretation and does it accurately reflect how you guys think of that bison herd? No, it does not accurately reflect that.

So yeah, we have always been classified as livestock in Montana.

That's the only classification we have for bison. And so over the past 20 years that we've owned bison, we've been operating under the Taylor grazing act at no point.

“Has anyone told us we were not in compliance with the act?”

And so, you know, when I look at our herd, we do manage differently. We manage, you know, for even our natural sex ratios and natural herd demographics and things like that, where we are a little different, but at the end of the day, we are still running in operation where we are producing animals on the landscape. We've produced about 20, what we've grown 21, 100 bison out of American ferry over our first

20 years and 48% of those animals were either field harvested or shipped to other herds for genetics or to grow or supplement other herds. So, although we do it a little differently and our management is a little different, you know, we are producing, we are shipping out animals, we are harvesting those animals. And I would like to point out just as sort of a, for my own sake, as a bit of a brag, I

have one of those animals in my freezer, thanks to my wife's opportunity a couple of years ago. And yep, we killed that on BLM land on one of your leases. So that's to give folks a picture of what this looks like in the field, like we were on BLM ground on on X when we shot that buffalo.

And Scott, there are other, there are other people grazing bison on BLM lands across the west. The BLM is acknowledged in 2022 that Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming. They all have federally administered leases where bison graze. How can you reconcile that or how can they reconcile that with its current position regarding the American prairie?

“Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things there, we're looking, you know, the facts that”

are being used to make this proposed decision are not based on what's actually happening on the ground. They're based on a few very vague or old quotes or documents that are being used to define our management, and so with that, I think, you know, I've been grazing bison for 10 years

now, we don't, we have never been told that we were not in compliance with this.

And so it's kind of out of left field for us, and we feel like we're being targeted here for our specific management, even though we are producing something on the landscape here, which is all those bison, and so I think the BLM is making an effort to not impact others, but at the end of the day, it is targeting us for our different kind of management. Yeah, and I think we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that there is controversy

that bubbles up whenever American prairies mentioned. Your organization has critics that argue that it's a threat to the livelihood of ranching

We already heard that your operation is mostly grazing cattle on lands and leases, but I'm

wondering how you guys respond to those critics in terms of your relationship to the communities around American prairie. Yeah, so I'm from a rural community, I totally get the fear of somebody new coming in a big landowner, changes, things like that, and I'm really empathetic to that. I understand all of that, and I would ask people to look at the facts and actually what's

happening on the ground out there, with the 8200 cattle, with the 30-some lessees, we have a wild-life friendly land management program for private landowners with 21 participants

“in it, and so, you know, at the end of the day, I think there is that fear component,”

but in practice, we're working with a lot of people on the landscape that have lived

there for a really long time, and I think there are a lot of other factors outside of American

prairie that are really impacting the ranching community like the demographics of the region or policy changes at the federal level, things like that that are really hurting the ranching economy and the ranching community. Yeah, Scott, at this point, I think we can assume, you've mentioned this is a proposed decision. Can you tell us a little bit about the next steps?

I assume that there's going to be a challenge to this in the courts, and I've seen that some other groups have spoken up on American prairies, but how can you tell us a little bit about what the road looks like ahead of you? Yeah, so we're in this protest period right now, well, the protest period has ended, all

the protests have been turned over, and essentially what that means is that interested

parties are making arguments as to why this is a valid decision or a not valid decision, and so yeah, like you said, American prairies, we submitted our own protest because it's directly impacts us, but then groups like Western watersheds, projects, talk of fund, the coalition of large tribes, defenders of wildlife have also emitted protests against this proposed decision, and so at the end of the day, we'll, the BLM will analyze all these

protests, and they will make a final decision, whether that's to keep the current proposed decision or something else, or to go back to the old permit with the bison, there's a wide range of options there. At the end of the day, this is likely, there's two paths after the protest period, which are either federal court or administrative court, and we don't know what route it's going

to take it, and so either way, it will likely head one of those routes, though. Gotcha, and I mentioned earlier when we, when I was lucky enough to go on my wife's buffalo hunt, we ended up harvesting that animal on BLM ground, would, would your inability

“to graze buffalo on BLM, impact public hunting opportunities?”

Because you guys offer 20 some harvest opportunities for the public each year, is that going to be effective at all? This goes through. Yeah, likely, we'll be affected as of right now, we're moving forward as normal operations until we know what the BLM's decision is.

One said is made, you know, the bison, two thirds of the acres that the bison around are federal land, and so if we have to remove those bison, we have to move them to other properties or ship them to other herds, things like that, and so that that will likely impact the harvest program. So like you said, 20 to 30 opportunities a year right now, that would likely be reduced

or eliminated for a period of time until we're through all the steps we need to take with the courts. Gotcha. Well, Scott, we're going to keep a close eye on this. Thanks for coming on the show, and hopefully I'll see you soon at a fence bull or something

like that somewhere out on the prairie. Yeah, sounds good, thanks for having me guys. All right. Thank God. Thanks, Scott.

That's a good dude right there.

“I need to remember to put in for that tag, I always forget.”

Oh, the coolest, the coolest, one of the coolest things I've ever done in terms of just being on a wild landscape, only people hunting it, just wild animals, they're, you know, they don't, they might technically be livestock, but they don't act like it. They're a spooky. Oh, yeah.

It's like antelope hunting the week after season opener. Hmm.

Super cool. That's an super cool. Welcome to Meet Eater's 12 and 26 presented by Multimobile and on XMaps, 12 of Meet Eater's 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 Eater's YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months.

Our next segment is Show and Tell. Meet Eater's 12 and 26 in the coming months.

“Let's start with you what did you bring to show the classroom today?”

I brought a white tail buck and this buck, the story behind it goes, it was Thanksgiving day and no, it wasn't Thanksgiving day, it was a day before Thanksgiving. So I hadn't killed a deer yet, and this is 2022. 21. Oh, 2021, I haven't written around the back.

I was driving to I'd planned to go to a deer hunting spot and just stay there through Thanksgiving for like a, you know, till the end of the season basically. And on my way there, I left super early in the morning, it was just cracking daylight. I'm in my, in my car heading to the spot and I just happen to see this guy cross the road in front of me.

And did the old pull up on next real quick, see if there's any public around, sure enough. He like dropped down in a drainage that led right to a piece of stake ground. So I drove up there, parked my vehicle, got down in that drainage where across the state ground sat there and waited for probably, I don't 30, 40 minutes and here you come, he popped out.

Yeah. And then I killed him. Nicely done. What's shooting with? Uh, 65 creep more.

Shoot. Yeah, I'll do it. Yep. Just 40 times. 425 yards.

Beautiful. Oh, it's a nice buck. Yeah. I kind of mopped through him in the truck. Stop and got a case, bush light, and then went to my friends for Thanksgiving.

Beautiful. We celebrated this buck. I like that he's broken. Yeah. Fighter.

Oh, yeah. Got some girls.

“What have been a big score if he still had those points, you know what I mean?”

Yeah. Yeah, if he's grown it, could you imagine if he's grown the other year? Yeah, I got it. What do you think? 2-year-old is 3-year-old.

Probably 3. 3-year-old. Yeah. That's a very typical Montana buck. That reminds me of my idea for a hunting program that I host called Could Have Been A Booner,

where I shoot 2-3-year-old animals with a lot of potential. Sound most of my falls work out. Yep. I'm not wrong with that. No, no, no.

I love it. I can't help myself. Y'all need, do you want to go last? I don't care. It's up to you.

Why don't you go? Why don't you go? You want me to go? Okay. I brought in two things.

One is this here, Skull. Hmm. Spooky. You guys getting a good? Oh, yeah.

It's the bear skull.

It's the second bear skull.

“The first bear, everybody asks, is your first bear?”

It kind of really is because it's the first bear at hunting. We had a problem bear in my yard. I tried to hold this story a couple of years ago. And Mingus treat him. He was eating our chickens.

Mingus treat him. And I was on the phone with the warden and he was like, "Well, you can either shoot him right now out of the tree." Or I can come and they're all shooting out of the tree. You're out to get him.

But once he's been eating chickens, he's not going to quit eating chicken. Yeah. They're just the best of how it is. Since then, we've gotten a super grizzly bear proof fence. Yeah.

I've touched it. And I'm telling you, you don't want to touch our electric fence. So we haven't had any chicken problems since then. So I shot a little baby bear out of a tree one time.

But this is the first ratchet hunt.

I went to Manitoba last spring and did my first ever baited black bear hunt with Craig and Mel McCarthy of Northwest Mount Adventures. And I think on the third evening, classic hunt doesn't matter

Mm-hmm. We hunt one spot. That day, we get pictures of like two or three good bears at another bait spot. And we decide to switch locations. So we go to another location, sure enough.

No big bear show up there.

And at the first spot, this phone shows up.

Mm-hmm. So the third night, we go back. And he showed up right at last light again. What was cool? A couple things.

You're going to be able to see this.

“I think next Tuesday, we dropped my Manitoba bear episode.”

Mm-hmm. It's a couple cool things about this hunt. It's like, you're so close to these bears. We're like, one afternoon sitting on a baited hunt. You get to see more bear activity and observe more bears than you would

in a decade of doing spot stock hunting in Montana. You know what I mean? At least in my experience. So just all the interactions amongst the bears, the crazy sounds that they make.

And then like, their ability to figure stuff out. Like, they love a beaver carcass. Mm-hmm. For whatever reason, we don't actually know. Craig's got a theory that their mothers teach them that in the spring.

That's your first way to get you to meet is sit on a little beaver run.

Sure. And snag a beaver. And you go, yeah, right, whatever. We had barrels full of oats and corn.

“Soaked and used fryer oil with a few pastries”

or birthday sheet cakes on top, whatever. Mm-hmm. If there was a beaver carcass hanging there, the bears were like, we're going to get that thing before we mess around with whatever's in that barrel. And they can smell it all.

You know what I mean? The bait is doped up with all kinds of fancy smelling stuff. But they love that beaver carcass. Yeah. And so like the first day, we hung it way too easy to grab.

And they just, like, the first bear goes in there.

Takes it down out of the tree and he goes off into the bush. And you can hear him chewing on it for the next hour. You know? Other bear might go over there and try to take it from them or whatever. So I'm like, well, we don't want that.

We want to see it. So we started hanging it. We did like a high line and then hung it off the middle. But that one didn't work too good because it was almost just too difficult. Like they were like, look and try to figure it out.

And maybe it was just the bears, like the individual bears themselves. Because the third night we did it. We hung one kind of like you'd hang a bag of food. Sling it over a branch and then tie it off. Just one bear comes in and he's determined.

And he spends an hour. He'd like climbed every single tree you could climb in the vicinity. And just as like thinking, thinking, thinking, looking going out on these little limbs. And I can't go out there. It comes back.

And he finally figures out that that yellow rope. When he touches it, the beaver moves, right? So then he starts putting the rope in his mouth and climbing down the tree and the beaver is going up. And he gets down in the bottom and he let it go. And again, I don't know if the bear knows that, oh, if I do this enough times,

there's going to be enough sort of force that something's going to give. And this beaver is going to drop out of the sky. But whoop. Oh, can't have an accident. That eventually that happens.

And the beaver just like are a little nod or whatever the news hit hold. Beaver hit the ground and he got it. So it's just like cool to see bears doing bear things and how like. Clay's got a new book coming out.

“I think about a year out about the American bear.”

And they according to the research placed on bears are like the most sort of adaptable, curious animal out there. Like they're the ones that will sort of see something and more human like, right? We're like, hey, I need to know more. I've been dolphins bigger than that out.

Like dolphins are pretty cool. Very sexual. Yeah, so this big old boy, the cool thing about this bear when he finally came in, is that there's a lot of noises around a bait pile or bait, you know, a bait site, I guess, right? There's just like, I mean, at times there was a half a dozen bears.

And there, you know, there's a lot of interactions and anytime there's a sal with cubs, anytime another bear comes around the sal makes the cubs run up the trees, right? So it's just like this constant grunting and stuff running through the brush, chasing each other, cubs going up and down trees. When this dude got to probably 75, 80 yards of the bait,

it was like the woods went silent, like the bomb. Mom, the sal had moved these couple cubs off of the bait and they were like at the base of a tree. I don't know if they climbed yet, maybe they climbed a little ways. But it was almost like the bird's quit chirping and it just like all you could hear was a little stream trickling down behind me that was behind us.

toes are kind of pointed in a little bit and start sniffing around.

“But again, limited experience for me, I'm like, is that the one?”

I think it's the one. I've been saying to myself that that sal was a really good size good looking bear. And if she had been in there by herself and no cubs, I've probably been like, oh, I would shoot that bear. And this bear came in and he was, you know, another whatever, 30% bigger than her.

So I'm like, okay, it's got to be the right bear. Should have brought in a picture of him. So anyways, yeah, I got my first real bear skull here. And then when I'm, I'm excited about the skull.

I mean, skulls are always fun, but check this out.

This, this is that bear's hide. And I can't remember exactly. I think we squared him like close to eight feet. Um, Craig, I wish you were listening. You can, you could call, you could write in and say,

but I mean, it's just a giant huge bear. And I'm going to use this as an actual rug at my house. Go ahead and flip it back on there, so I'm not going to put it on the wall. I'm going to put it on the floor. Our fireplace is kind of in the wrong spot right now.

So it's probably not going to be in the fireplace. So eventually when I move my wood stove to a cozy little area, I'll do that. But for now, I'm going to have it like in front of the couch. So you put your feet on it and let my dog lay on it.

Because I want to use it, you know? Like, it's a comfortable thing to put your feet on and don't be warm. It'll be cool. Yeah, I've reached that point with a lot of animal parts that I'm just like, I don't know.

I'm going to hang on to this for 20 years in a box somewhere. Yeah, just a rug at it. Yeah, like Sydney's Sydney's bison robe sits on the couch. The dogs love it. Right.

Now you get to interact with it every day. Right. You might as well use it.

You can always go get it.

Well, maybe not always. But for right now, you can go get another bear hide or another bison robe. Yeah. If you get lucky to draw that hunt. And same thing with these.

These are like fun to look at the skulls.

“But honestly, I'm going to do more bear hunts.”

I'm going to do more spotting stalk hunts. I'm going to do more baited bear hunts. The number one reason. I mean, besides the adventure and enjoying a hunt. But as far as something to take home, it's bear meat and bear grease.

Yeah. Like, I love eating bears. Hmm. When you're just like the last 20 years, I felt like all I've been eating is super lean. Venice of different types and to have a like a freezer full bear meat.

It's awesome. Love it. So there you go. It's my show and tell.

And before we later, we'll explain a bit more about your film.

Yes. And we have some exciting announcements at the very end of this. So stay tuned. But it's coming out next week. I'm sick.

Yeah. I believe on Tuesday the 24th. Cool. Well, I brought in a. I brought in the lion high.

No, it's been here the whole time. It's been sitting in my office. It's actually I didn't bring it in. You brought it down. I brought it down.

Oh, yeah. Let me feel the claws. Oh, you're talking about it. Yeah. I just think this is one of the cooler.

One of the cooler things I have.

“It's a time I killed a number of years ago.”

When I was living in Missoula. And it's just a wild wild animal to like, yeah. Look at the claws. Look at the pads on its feet. I had it hanging in my garage for a while while I was putting it in it.

And just like messing with like it's just an animal that you're not going to get up close and personal with unless it's sedated or unless it's moved on to the next world. Or unless it's mulling you unless it's mulling you. Yeah, but speaking of delicious things the eat my God. Yeah. Great.

If I could put a deer. If I the option of putting a deer in the freezer or a lion in the freezer every year, it would probably be the lion. Really. Just for variety. Yeah.

I mean, I'd still be hopefully killing elk and things like that. Yeah. You have some kind of Venice. Yeah. We had a lot of pulled like barbecue sandwiches.

Our favorite thing was making Passellet with it. Like a Mexican stew where you ordinarily get a big like pork shoulder and chop that up. But just a super cool animal is cool hunt. The only animal I've hunted with hounds. Mm-hmm.

And that was. Did you do it with our buddy Pete? Yeah. Pete and then another another his buddies. And yeah, we, you know, rode the sleds up and down for service roads.

So we've got a track and then went back out all the dogs. Chase them downhill, treat, they actually, the dogs split up. One of them got on another cat's track and treat that cat.

And by the time we did that, the other dogs had this one treat. And so then we hiked back up to the road, back up above the road. And then shot him with 12 gauge or sorry, 20 gauge slug. Mm-hmm.

“Which was, I figured the best thing I had for like a 30 yard shot.”

Yeah. And just super cool, but yeah, like again, the whole process. And the meat and the freezer was really the highlight for me. Like Sydney was kind of like, this is what you're doing. And then we got it in the freezer and she was like,

I would like you to do that more. So that's good. That's all I feel like that's the optimum outcome for any hunt. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a very well-managed species, especially in our state of Montana. And I mean, there's not enough lions for everybody to have one in their freezer every year. Mm-hmm.

But a lot of quotas are never met.

Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the whole other thing that the quotas in our state are a little bit controversial right now. But like, if you wanted to try it, there's opportunities out there. Mm-hmm. You know, and if you wanted to be a person like myself with the hound that wanted to put one in the freezer every single year.

Like, I don't see why not. If for some reason, someone had an allergy to cat meat. I don't know if that exists or not. And they ended up getting one and said, hey, does anyone want this? I would be knocking down their door to get it.

Yeah. Happy to take it. Yeah. For sure. I'm going tomorrow.

We've got some snow finally. I'm going to go out and about to dress warm. Maybe I'll get my keep moving. Well, you know what I'm going to be wearing.

“Is I'm going to be wearing this thermo grid marino top?”

Mm-hmm. Right against my skin underneath my soft shell. That'll be my kit tomorrow. Great piece for active excellent. Excellent.

Home in tomorrow's a weekday, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Some days, I guess, I want for a work, Randall.

You knew that. Oh, yeah. Just, just, you know. Just occasionally. Phil, what's the chat saying?

What is the chat? What's the chat? How are they, they hang it in there? Oh, god. Great raises.

And the chat. Well, he probably wants to, he hasn't got enough of the newcomers. Yeah, he heard he heard a play around that and he came in here to roast him. I'm sure. But before we get there, let's see.

Valencour asks when radio live ends and it drops to the new segments. Well, those people recorded in a live setting with questions, comments from the YouTube chat. No, Valencour. They will, it will not be a live show. No, but, but we recognize that this is a, a fun dynamic.

So I don't, we don't have any concrete plans, but we will do occasionally live. I don't think we will end in this. Randall and I are in the midst of planning a live tour. We don't know where it's going to happen. Oh, my goodness.

In the United States. But so if you want more live Randall, then just stay tuned and figure out where we're going to do the next live to anything can happen. Anything. When you're doing it live. Yeah.

Phil, what do you got? This is a part, two part question from cranky's verse. Part one. Recently, Tanson Baron Elkides, the bear hides turned out fine. The Elkides is pretty stiff after tanning.

Brush on, tanning, breaking and oiling part two.

When breaking, it more after drying the Elkides cracks on the first side.

And he thoughts or tips on rehydration. Water salt bath, question mark. Would re-tanding be necessary after rehydrating. Oh, clue. I know nothing about that.

You guys are, we're pros in here. No, you need to, you need to call. Call the taxiderms. Call our buddy, John. Joan Hayes.

Yeah. Yes, sorry. We can't help you. The image with this listener's profiles. Interesting.

Looks like a wizard. Mm-hmm. Looks like a D&D NPC to me. Mm-hmm. Ad Rock.

He's here. Tomorrow, the Elaska Draw Hunt lottery results come out for 2027. Have any of the gang applied for anything? He's hoping to score a black bear tag from my Prince of Wales. Oh, me too.

You and me both, buddy. Me and Randall are trying to get Prince of Wales tags. I drew one. He has one in pocket. Yeah, so I'm going to be hunting there this spring.

With our forthcoming guests, both clay and bear. So I didn't apply it. I don't know if there's had it. I plan to apply for anything in Alaska. I put in for that.

I put in for a real real low odds. Moose hunt and then I put in for muskocks because I figure why not? Why not? Let the tag got smile upon my fate.

On that note, our guy Leeland Hart just drew his very first Elk tag.

Shout out, Leeland. He's going out this year, congrats Leeland. But I saw her first.

“That's what he said in a follow-up comment.”

It's going to be his first Elk Hunt. I saw in the meeting to radio live inbox that Makala, Leeland's daughter, whom we wished good luck on her first.

Yeah. Was successful. Yes.

Inshooting a halvelina out of a squadron of halvelinas.

Sweet. Which was the term he used.

“And I believe that if that's the technically appropriate term, I love it.”

That'd be a good trivia. Phil, hit me. You guys are very duck-y people in here. Are you? Not super, but what is it?

It's just that someone's just here. No, but I'm confident. No, but I'm confident. A duck or do you say the Jack Minor Band or no, anyone who has? I don't know what that means.

I don't know Jack Minor Band. I know what a band is. I don't know what a Jack Minor Band. I looked it up. It's a big thing.

There's a sanctuary in Canada apparently that.

Oh, you was banded a Jack Minor. Yeah. If you gave or something. They're kind of unique in certain ways. But we can just go past this.

Let's see. Here we go. Mogor is asking about the new studio. How are things coming along? Well, Mogor.

You listen closely. Yeah, exactly. You can probably hear on yourself. I hate doing that. So I will not.

But.

“There are a lot of progress is being made in the new studio.”

And in the last week, it's gone from being kind of a cavernous dusty space to nearly complete. So I would show pictures, but I kind of just want you guys to be surprised. It looks pretty good. And I'm excited about it. So that's the update on the new studio.

You'll probably see that in the next month or two on content. Next question from Will. When is Phil going to appear on Rose? Will Will go to the Meet Eater YouTube channel right now and hit that refresh button. Right now.

The Scotch egg showed us the Scotch egg skirmish. Oh, my good. The drink is Corey and Rick. They are the can the the the the the the the. Cooked that.

Trot show today. 40 to 10 minutes ago. Hosted hosted by Janice Patelus hosted by a call and judged by Randall Williams in myself. I have not watched it yet. So I don't know how that's cut out.

But I'm sure they cut out a lot. I'm sure they cut out at least a couple rounds of drinks. We need some views. Go check it out. Phil filled did a little pop up Tiki bar session unrelated to the the dish of the day.

I thought it worked really well. Cool fusion of our passions. Yeah, you should watch it. Tell your friends about it. Mm, like and subscribe.

Smash that like button. Smash that. Share it with everyone. Boy, I. Phil, I want to get more of these questions.

But I am I'm worried that we've kept clay and bear waiting too long. Oh, that's fine.

We move to our second patient.

I go back and I could put a question. So if you ask to question, I will go back and look for one. And if you haven't yet, ask a question. Welcome to meat eaters 12 and 26 presented by multi mobile and on X maps. 12 of meat 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 meat eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Next up on the line, we've got clay and bear newcom live from the great state of Arkansas. Hello, how are you fellas doing this?

Good to see you. Clay, did you get a haircut? Yeah, oh my goodness. Yeah, it's pretty sad from grown man like me to have hair like this. No, it's very handsome.

You look good. I was hoping we'd keep this rock and roll party going for a while, but someone had to be an adult in the room and chop it off. Luckily we got bear here. That's right, carrying on the family legacy. No bear also got too much hair cut off I heard.

Really? Yeah. Wow, what has gotten into you guys?

“It's like some tough weather down there or something or something in the air?”

You know, I couldn't handle the pressure everywhere I went. All people wanted to talk about was my hair and I'm like, hey, my eyes are down here, guys. I know the feeling, I know the feeling Clay. Well, we're having you guys on. You have some exciting news to share with the media to your audience here regarding development in the bear grease universe as we like to call it.

Can you tell us what's going on in your neck of the woods? Yeah, so bear and I have started a number one, we've kick started a new bear grease YouTube channel. And I'll let bear talk about it a little bit more in terms of content, but I'll describe it for you. If you've been following along with us for very long, you would have known that I used to run and operate bear hunting magazine.

And we built that channel for eight years, there was a lot of bear hunting.

“There's about 70 or 80 videos on there, all kind of stuff.”

I mean, just all kind of stuff. And bear nukeum is actually on there quite a bit as a little kid. And, but when I came to work for media, we quit posting to that bear hunting magazine YouTube channel. It just lay there dormant. This year, just in the last two weeks, we've cranked it back up.

We've changed the name to the bear grease YouTube channel. And we're, we're lighting the fire again. And bear nukeum is going to be the primary host. And bear tell them kind of what, what we're going to be putting on there. Yeah, well, it's a different, it's a different style content, a little more informal content. Just capturing some of the adventures that I'm going on as well as some of the bow builds and other DIY stuff that I do a lot.

So what you'll see is a little more informal content. It'll be weekly videos. And yeah, we've got, we've got a lot of good videos coming out soon. And we've also started up a bear grease Instagram channel. So we were posting almost daily on the bear grease Instagram channel. Real bear grease is what it's held. And so yeah, it really is exciting. It's been a ton of fun so far.

“No, are we going to see Brett Reeves, is it the usual cast of characters on these platforms?”

That's a great question. Like I said, it's mainly, at this point, you know, it's mainly bear. I, I want to get Brett on here. He's just busy down there with that Koen dog is well next week. We're, Brett and I are going on a on a Koen hunt that has a little bit of a twist to it. That will be on the bear grease YouTube channel.

Yeah, nice. No, that's, that's the teaser. Is it just a twist? You can't give us anything else bear? It's a typical Koen hunt. I'll put it like that. Got to stay tuned, Johnny. That's, that's the show biz.

I guess so. Clay, are you, are you able to share anything about your, your little writing project there? Yeah, man. I know you just had a big deadline. So I want to congratulate you.

Thank you so much. Yeah, two weeks ago, February 7, about roughly two weeks ago. We turned into manuscript for my black bear book. It's currently dialed American bear. I'm going to come out spring of 27.

Randall, you'll appreciate this. It was a 105,000 words, the manuscript way. That'll do it.

And just never been more excited for anything that I've done in terms of career and everything.

I just feel like it's kind of a, for me, it's just a defining piece of work. And regardless of, if anybody ever even reads it, I'm, it will be excited that it's in existence. And so spring of 27. Yeah.

It's time lines on these, you know, book projects are just ridiculous. Mm-hmm. But it, it is what it is.

“I think next, I think you were trying to sell that book back when you and I were bear hunting on Prince of Wales three years ago, maybe.”

Yeah, we got the contract two and a half years ago. Well, it'd be three years in August. Yeah. And so we've been working on it for two and a half years. And the last year was kind of a fever pace of work.

Mm-hmm. And there's more work to be done once they get their hands on it and look at it. But the bulk of the work is done. Yeah, you're done pouring your soul into it and bleeding for it. That's right.

There's never, nobody's ever written a bear book like this.

I mean, I'm not saying that it's, there's just, there's academic people that understand the, history of wildlife trade and all this. There's people that understand biology. There's people that understand Native American culture and ceremonialism around animals.

And there would be books and information and all of those sectors.

“But this is kind of a combination of all these things.”

Are there any pictures in this book, Clay? I hope so. You know, is that still up for debate? Yeah, that's up to a higher power. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I mean, I would hope there's pictures, but it's, it, if it is, it would be minimal. You know, that's just kind of the way books work. I don't, you know, it's like books are big into words out here. Okay.

Lots of work. Makes sense. I just, you know, for me, a little pictures go a long way. You know, when I flip through and I see a couple pictures that, you know, I get engaged. I get it.

Give us a little tidbit. I mean, you've, you've shared a lot of little tidbits with us about like what you learned about black bears that you didn't know before you got on this project with something cool you learned about bears. So you didn't know a year ago. That's a good question. It's, it's so, so big.

I mean, you know, the bakery soil trade as Randall is just an, a national expert on, on the deer hyd trade and the buffalo market hunting and all that stuff. There's a whole giant story about bear grease and bear market hunting. And, um, and we tell that story though, that's not the entire book. And, you know, basically the Mississippi River in between the Appalachian mountains and the Great Plains would have just been a bear grease highway, especially in the latter half of the 1700s

and into the early 1800s, just a ton of bear grease coming down, coming down that river and native Americans heavily involved in, in the bear grease oil trade. What were people doing, what were people doing with bear grease back then?

Well, there was a period of time when animal fat oils were essential to human life.

I mean, they were cooking with it. They were frying with it. They were, they were using it as dressings for salads.

“That's what a lot of first contact European salt, um, Native Americans doing in the east was using it on greens.”

You're kidding! No, they, they, they, they saw the first account of the word bear grease in the historical literature was July 5th, 1540, Hernando de Soto's scribe named Elva. He said he was, he was in, what is now eastern Tennessee, and they came up on a tribe and they said they noted that they stored large quantities of what they called bear grease in gourds, and they said that the Native Americans

and no one had themselves with it daily, and they were like using like copious amounts of bear oil on their skin. And that's what Native Americans were doing. The bear oil market trade, they were, they were using it for food,

but they were also using it for fuel, the first streetlights ever in the world were in New Orleans, okay?

So just think of the world as being run by firelight, basically no, no artificial light, no electricity. And New Orleans was such a rough town that these rich neighborhoods said, man, we got to have some lights at night on the street. So these criminals can't just run around, and so they put oil burning lamps hung out on a little post, and they were using pelican oil, bear grease, and whale oil in, in those. And it may not have been the first in the world, the first in North America, the first streetlights in America burned some bear oil.

And this is cool.

“There isn't it for making soap candles, candles were essential for light.”

I mean, it's like a light bulb. I mean, like everybody had them, everybody used them, everybody ran through them and needed more. And you mix, you know, we make, you can make a candle today or soap, but you know, using oil animal fat oil as the beginning of it, you know, as the foundation of it. So those are the things that they were doing. That right there is a reason I come to what I come to bear grease for.

Yeah. Thank you, Clay. Yeah, that was great. Well, guys, lots of exciting stuff on your end of things. I think we've kept you a little too long. It's, it's new now where we are.

Yeah, it's the bear grease YouTube channel and real bear grease on Instagram. And we've got weekly videos every Wednesday on the YouTube channel. Awesome, guys. Well, you guys are a couple of, we're lucky to know you guys, because you have a lot of unique adventures and perspectives on things. Clay excited for the book fair excited for the YouTube action. I'll be particularly excited to figure out what's so wild about this raccoon hunt.

It's just dreams and good to see you guys as always.

Sweet Steve boys, it's twisty. I'm assuming it's, uh, coon hunting naked. All right, we'll have to see. Toon in, toon in. Take care. Oh, I think just make Clay what's left of Clay's hair stands straight up on it with that.

All right, before we, before we get back to listener feedback, we do have a couple of exciting announcements. One is that, uh, meteor movie club will be returning on next week's episode. And we'll be reviewing by popular demand legacy of a white-tailed deer hunter. Hmm. It's available on Netflix and, uh, it's a movie I've held off on watching.

Uh, until we were able to tackle it on radio live. Is that the moment with Brolin? Yep. Okay. Yeah.

And, uh, it's an interesting film. Yeah.

That's a good way to describe it.

Well, I hope I haven't seen film. I hope I haven't steered us wrong. It was one of the most highly requested films in the radio live in Bobbi. Well, that is because everybody is awaiting how you will tackle it, how you will dissect it.

“And I'm very, I'll rewatch it just to hear what you have to say about it.”

Because yeah, you're going to have to think about it. I'm coming into it with a blank slate. Have you watched it yet? Nope. Nope.

Maybe this was a big mistake. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. Because if I'm, unless I'm mistaken, it's the same crew that that was behind, um, eastbound and down. Yeah.

And the righteous gemstones and foot-fist way. Mm-hmm. So if you like Danny McBride and that sensibility. Which I do very much. Yes.

Um, another note on, on radio live here. Uh, the week after that, we will be doing the meteor radio live grand finale live. Extravaganza. Um, it's going to be very, I don't want to give too much away. It's going to be very long.

So just schedule your day accordingly. It's going to be a unique episode. If you have a doctor's appointment. Say two or three hours after we start. Uh, as long as it's not an urgent condition.

Well, I'd say condition even then still way the pros and cons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, just depends on how much you enjoy radio live. There will be another announcement for movie clubs. So stay tuned on that because we will have one final movie club. And boy, it's, I'm salivating. I'm real excited for the old radio live grand finale live.

Extravaganza. Um, so we're looking forward to spending a whole bunch of time with you guys.

“You should post on the on the Instagram, a picture of your whiteboard right now.”

That was done. Did it already did that. Yep. Right before the show this morning. See, Randall's Instagram stories.

Yeah, check it out for some teases. Uh, to expect. Yeah, it's all censored. It's all censored. It's mostly redacted.

Yeah. Which just like. It's like. It's like the political. Yeah.

And then. And then you honest, why don't you tell us a little bit more about what folks can expect with your bare hunt and the future. Yeah. YouTube.

So on me, YouTube this year. Twenty twenty six. We've got a. I don't know if you call it a project or just. It's really just a different way of of approaching our our publishing of of the our sort of

finest more interesting adventures from the last year that were. Um, plan to be and turned out to be good for a longer form. Uh, adventure, longer form episodes. So they're going to be an hour long.

And uh, we basically picked 12 of the best from the last year.

And we're going to air them roughly one a month for the rest of them. Um, of the year in twenty twenty six. The first one that airs Tuesday is going to be my. Uh, minute to a bear hunt.

“Um, I think that, uh, my care boot adventure, man.”

So it was also going to be one of them. Uh, marks working on a wolf. Uh, documentary that's going to be one of these episodes. Uh, cow had a grizzly bear episode. Yeah.

If you've been following along with the crew over the past year, you might be able to guess.

Sort of what turned into these long form pieces that are called twelve and twenty six.

Twelve and twenty six. Yeah. That's that's the naming convention here. Yeah. So I would show the slick little graphic.

I don't know if I'm allowed to you. Oh, do it. I don't even know where to find it. Well, it might be in my email somewhere, but yeah, that it's kick and off next week. Everybody here's super excited.

Yeah. And a lot of work on our production team and and the editors and all that stuff to do these longer form pieces, but that's what. This is a great time to request this. I don't know if we'll do this for every episode, but we're going to try it for the,

the this upcoming bear episode. And this, these are the right people to ask because they're so good at, uh, you know, being part of the, uh, live audience here. Yeah, putting comments and ask questions about the episode. Uh, in the comments section on the YouTube channel underneath the video.

And then we're going to aggregate our favorites. And then a week after releases, we're going to record.

“I think it's going to be Corey Colkan's and I, he's going to ask the questions.”

I'm going to answer him. And we're going to record a video of me answering all of your questions regarding. The bear hunt. Love it.

And then, uh, by post that on YouTube.

Nice. Please do that. That'll, a little blurry because I had to take a screenshot. But I think it's slick. Oh, that's a tough. Fine work by Phil. Yeah, fine.

Yeah, Phil. This is really good. I'm sure this is the way that the company would like everyone to see. Yeah. Well, what I was trying to tell quickly, you brought this up. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That was pretty faster. Not the quality. I heard Spencer is going, man. If you just asked me ahead of time.

But no, no, no, no. When I'm really tired and uh, everything just starts looking a little blurry. Yeah, is that because you're tired or? Yeah, we're over served. We're over served.

Yeah. By myself. Um, yep. 12 and 26. That's super exciting.

I am, uh, I'm pumped to see all these because it's been a lot of cool. You guys actually did a lot of cool stuff last year. Yeah.

Everybody's always asking for longer 20 minutes form stuff.

Okay, 20 minutes is hard to capture the ups and downs of a like a real adventure hunt. Yeah. Now where you can really let it breathe. Hmm, which is nice. I prefer that that length.

Why do two? I do two. Phil, what about you? Uh, I agree. Yeah.

She'll doesn't consume hunting media. It's all I watch. What do you talk about? Ever since I started working here. Yeah.

Dropped all my other interests. He makes it. Yeah. That's awesome. 12 and 26.

Keep your eyes peeled. Next week for that barrier video. Again, legacy of a white-tailed deer hunter on Netflix, media or movie club. Next week. Media or radio live.

Grand finale live. Extravagenza. Two weeks from today.

“And, uh, Phil, what do we have for comments in the chat here?”

We've got a few more. Um, people get some more questions in. My tummy's rum one. So, oh, we can just stop this. No, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. She's not trying to wondering what the, uh, what these excitement level is for paddlefish fishing this spring. Hmm. You know, I forgot.

I forgot to put in for the tags. I don't have it. Yeah, I didn't either. I forgot to put in for the tag. I hear really good things.

Uh, I would love to try it at some point. Um, should put in next year and try to make a. I'm not going to go off and do snag and release. Oh, yeah, yeah. I want to.

I want to. I want to kill tag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I've gotten the snag and release tag before and just didn't have the. Uh, the heart. I hope you have a paddlefish. Uh, tag this spring. Chaser.

I'm strong. Five, four, zero, six. Good luck to you. Flip, flop, flesher. This is from Chase.

He asks, where do you keep getting the head gear? The vintage Iowa hat was sweet. But I think the camel red man hat is even better. Uh, I'm my buddy made me the diala hat. And I made the red man hat.

So, if you got, you know, if you want cool stuff. Sometimes you go to make it yourself. Set this choppin at the bit. Sorry. Go ahead, Johnny.

Oh, I was going to say now that patches on hats are cool. Everybody kind of wishes they hadn't thrown out all those patches that came through their lives in the last 20 years. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Some cool patches out there.

Kevin Foody asks about the buck hunter video. Oh, great question. Kevin. I'm about halfway done. If I get it in time for the meat eater radio live grand finale live.

We live extra vegans alive. We will air it there. If it's not quite done or not where I wanted to be. Because I, you know, I want to put a little bit of time. You might have a teaser at least.

Oh, we will definitely have, we can put a little teaser up. But it will be in the month of March. I will make that very loose promise. It will be in the spring sometime 100%. I, I showed a chunk of it to a friend last weekend.

“And he said, I think this is the best thing that you've ever done.”

That's a, let's look not set expectations that high. But it should be pretty good. No, no.

It did it. It's not me. I'm just fills vessel.

It's a good way to put it.

Let's go ahead. Okay.

“Everyone's mad at me because I'm not choosing this piece.”

This Pennsylvania questions. Everyone keeps, by the way. I mean, mostly Seth Jones is asking, "When do you guys come into PA?" Preferably the East Coast PA.

Coast PA. When I draw one of those elk tags, yeah. I'll come to PA. That won't be Eastern PA, but don't have any PA trips scheduled. But we see you Seth Jones 1410.

Yeah. I mean, I'll be back for, you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving or something. Mm-hmm. See the fan, but not maybe related to introduce the fan to that. The baby Verge.

Baby Verge. Yeah. Fascinating.

It's asking about immediate radio live.

Extravaganza finale live merch, which we didn't even think about. Oh, we're fools.

“Yeah, we could probably crank something that real quick.”

Yeah. I'll grab some construction paper. Yeah. Pat chat. We could make old school looking patches.

Yeah. We should have like an eye was there. T-shirt. Oh. I watched it.

I did find this a segment. They could just say I watched it. Maybe when we have a final, when we have a final run time for the whole thing. We'll just print that on a T-shirt. Yeah.

And we have no way of knowing if you actually watched it live. And we would still take your money. So if you didn't watch it live and still want to buy the I watched it live, merch feel free. Uh, stolen value.

But that's fine by me. The money's in merchandising. That's merchandising. That's merchandising. Let's call it a day boys.

Are you serious? There's nothing else in there, huh? It's got it. Okay, Randall's just saying he's hungry. Maybe he was one good one, Phil.

Ha. Quick. I get it. Ha. Yeah, what happened to Brett Reeves?

We never got to Brett. He just came in and chatted up the audience took off. Do you know from a mogor at all today? Oh, yeah. Mogor asked several questions.

Yeah, but did I get to see them? Oh, no, we did. Yeah, that's right. I remember a roger's question now. Gosh, maybe I am.

People want patch. Maybe I'm dragging this on. Yeah. This is red. All right.

“Don't you get just watching the live chat feed and silence?”

Yep. Thanks for doing this for us, Phil. Yeah. Time to sign off, Randall. Thanks for watching.

Folks. I tried to give you guys a clean out and you just butchered it. Yeah.

In the first time in meteor radio lives history, one of the co-hosts has told the host to end it.

So will you be there? Thank you. Good luck. We love you. Good night.

I'm not going to forget the outro this time. Thank you. Welcome to Meet Eaters 12 and 26 presented by Multi-Mobile and ONX 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 creative hopefully 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. This is an eye-heart podcast. Guaranteed human.