Ep. 840: Polar Bear Jail and an Olympic Cheesemonger | 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's Meet Eater podcast.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Meet Eater's Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's also 11 a.m. for our friends in Poplar, Montana.

On Thursday, February 26th, and we're live from Meet Eater HQ and Boseman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Randall and Seth, as well as the Poplar Middle School from Port Peck Reservation in Northeast Montana.

They are here to see how a media company works. You can see them live.

“We're live our YouTube channel right now.”

You guys are really nervous, right? You guys should wave to our viewers. No. OK. So we told them they couldn't cost live on air. So they got all their costing out right before we went live.

And I'll do some more later. It was shocking to be frank. All right. On today's show, we'll interview Sergeant Ian Van Ness about Canada's polar bear jail.

After that, we have a hot tip off about PVC rod holders and finding lost arrows followed by a review of the legacy of a white tail deer hunter for Meet Eater Movie Club.

And finally, we'll interview Amelia Delbaro

about winning gold at the cheesemonger Olympics. But first, we have a few programming notes. Our first video of Meet Eater's 12 and 26 is live on the Meet Eater YouTube channel right now. Yanis goes on his first baited bear hunt

and encounters more bears than you can shake and arrow at. It's a one hour film that's presented by maltree and on X. You can see it on our YouTube channel right now. Phil, you have some details about another podcast coming out that accompanies it out.

Yeah, that's right. Yanis is going to be doing a Q&A and field in questions about that episode.

“So if you want to watch the episode and either shoot”

Yanis and DMs, I think we're pulling questions in the comment section of that video as well. So if you have any burning questions for Yanis about the hunter, his experiences there, get him in. That's going to be dropping next Tuesday, which is the full,

no, what is the third? The third, the third. March third. Check that out. The third.

March third. I've got a little camera over it from Phil. He's only got a little camera. I don't think I don't cut this off. Steven knows.

Steven did the corner. He's leading the tour for these students. So he's tucked himself where you can't see him.

But he is here and they're joining us for our second

the last episode of Media to Radio Live. Next week is the finale and Seth won't be joining us. - Yep. - This is my last episode ever of Media to Radio Live. My wife is going to have a kid next Thursday.

- Whoo. - Yeah. Congratulations. Not very good planning on your partner. To put it during the Media Radio Live.

- Well, you know, it wasn't supposed to be, but one thing we'll do another, the little dude does not want to turn his head down. - Also, that means we got to do a C-section was not--

- So keep your head up. - And I'm hopeful that if everything goes well and we have a happy mother and happy child that we can do a live cut into the hospital. - Yeah.

- With Seth. - Maybe for our very last-- - Our very last rut report. - Maybe he's actually coming out early in the morning. We're scheduled here.

- Oh, yeah, you probably still make it in. - So, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You know, Seth, some cultures believe in reincarnation.

You know, like the Pope dies and then Cardi B has a baby. And it's like, welcome back to Pope. The same day that Media Radio Live dies, your son is going to be born. - Oh, yeah.

- Maybe, maybe it's a-- I'm going to call that baby a little Media Radio Live for the rest of its life. - All right. - And you can do it.

- Boy, I don't have a rough goal, man. - No, I don't. - Virgil, Virgil. Virgil, this is his name. - Virgil.

- I'm going to call it radio. - Okay. - Like, like, keep a good engineer. You guys exactly like that. There's nothing you can do about it.

- This is all Spencer. He's going to call you radio. He'll be the only person that calls you radio. - Yeah. - Just loud and loud.

- But we're all thinking of it. - That'd be an interesting child. The food comes down to his Media Radio Live reincarnated.

- A lot of bad segments.

- For our finale, we have something very special planned,

Randall, Phil some folks in and what's going to happen next Thursday.

“- Yeah, I think everybody here is eagerly awaiting”

the Media Radio Live Grand Finale Live Extravaganza. - Yeah. - Well, I mean, you know, with mixed emotions, of course. But I just want to give everybody a shout out. I alluded to this earlier, heads up that we,

we will be going long next week. Spencer and Phil and I are aiming for about six plus hours in the studio. - That's not a joke. - That's not a joke.

We have guest hosts lined up. All of your favorite radio live co-hosts will be joining us during various segments. We're going to try to hit every single segment we've ever done.

We have literally, literally, every single segment. So even the ones that we did just did once, we'll try to hit those if we can remember how they go and if we have got a jingle for them. We've got some special messages from celebrities.

That will be playing on air, a music video, a music video. - Videos, videos. Phil, yeah, I mean, there's a lot to look forward to. - And because it's six hours, we're not expecting everyone to sit down and watch the whole thing,

though you're more than welcome to, and I encourage it. But it's one of those things you can kind of tune in for a while, take a break, come back later.

“- Yeah, I think it'll be best be viewed in parts.”

- Yeah. - In segments. - You'll only, the, it won't work for the younger folks listening, but I think the only real point of comparison would be the Jerry Lewis Telephone.

- Yeah. - Yeah, it is. - Yeah, it is. - We're not raising any talking about our children. - Yeah.

- Maybe we should raise money for some, we're gonna, we're gonna burn through a lot of hot tip-offs. - So empty in the clip. - We've been swapped with hot tip-offs in the past two weeks, after someone badmouthed the recent round of submission.

So we've been swapped with some good ones. We're gonna hit those hard. It's gonna be a lot of fun. - We're gonna play some games. - Play some games with audience participation.

- That's right, we'll talk to the chat all day, so be in our weight room, we'll answer your questions every hour. This is the podcast version of if your parents want you to not smoke cigarettes when you're a kid.

To be like, oh, you like that, huh? Well, how about you smoke a whole pack of meat? (laughing) That's what we're doing. We know some of you are going to miss this.

- Yeah, not more meaty to radial level. - However, this, you won't want any more. - Yeah, we're gonna make sure that you're sick to your stomach. - You may exhaust it.

- You might throw up. (laughing) - No, I'm excited, there's still a lot of work left to put that thing together, but we're excited.

“And I think there's gonna be some fun surprises”

along the way, and really it's a celebration of what we all share together. - Coming to you for the next time. - That's a community one week. - Yeah.

- There's gonna be a movie club for that when do we know what movie it'll be yet? - Yes, we'll be reviewing the film of Congo. - How did you land out Congo? - It's one of my favorite movies.

It involves not necessarily hunting, but there's camping, there's outdoor adventure, there's wild animals, and a bunch of animals do get killed by lasers. - So, it's all the criteria.

- Based on a Michael's writing novel

that I read last year for the first time actually.

- Did you love it? - Yeah, and it's actually, the adaptation is remarkably faithful. - I hear fantastic things about the Jurassic Park book. - Yeah.

- Have you read that? - Yes. - Yes, and Congo came out the year after Jurassic Park. So it was like, let's take the momentum of Jurassic Park and carried into a new universe.

It's a classic, especially knowing what we know now about satellite communications and technology. This is made one that was just like a fanciful idea. And it plays a big role in the plot. So, yeah, big ape guys, we all know.

And so I'm melding my two primary interests, bad movies and great apes. And we're gonna review Congo. So, I didn't look up where you can view it, but I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix.

I own it. - Okay. - So, of course, yeah. - Just as I own the novel. And yeah, that'll be a lot of fun.

That'll be a lot of fun. So we're gonna, that one's just gonna be, yeah, I think, probably the most demented radio club or movie club on radio live we've ever had.

So, except for maybe today, today. - February 5th is the finale again. Probably a six plus hour episode. Hop in the Meadier YouTube channel that day. And you'll get to participate in our finale.

- Yeah, so if you've got a doctor's appointment that afternoon, like two or three PM, you're gonna want to cancel that one too, because that will actually be a conflict. - Yeah.

- So, Colin's plan of work. - Yep. - Dude, you gotta do. - All right, let's get on with the show.

Joining us to be a line first.

- Do we do want to say, say goodbye to the popular release? - Thank you. - Joining us. - Thank you, joining us.

- Do we let studies class play an important role? - Anybody want to give a quick shout out to your friends or family?

- Uh-oh. - They forgot all the names. - Step up. - Name a friend. - Give a shout out to my cousin Kendall.

- Shout out to Kendall. - Go to Kendall. - All right, we did it. Shout out Kendall and Nicholas. - You're gonna have a safe good morning and look over there.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's hear this. - Do you wanna watch that? - Say it in the microphone. - Do you wanna see it? - Say it in the microphone.

- Do you wanna watch that? - Do you wanna watch that? - I don't do that, I don't. - Are you gonna say Randall's a loser in the code? (laughing)

- Randall's a mess kid. (laughing) - We did it. - Thank you for joining us. - I've got a lot of angry emails and DMs over the years,

but I've never seen it express quite that way.

- Thank you. (laughing) - Enjoy the rest of the day. We'll see you guys around the awe. - Thanks for visiting guys.

- Thanks, you guys. - Oh, oh. - Oh. - All right, you're winning us. - Got me bad.

- Joining us on the line first is Sergeant Ian Van Nest. He's a Manitoba conservation officer in the polar bear capital of the world. Ian, welcome to the show. - Hey, guys, super pumped to be here.

- Oh, we're excited to have you there. - Now, you live and work in a place that has as many humans as it does polar bears. There are about 800 of each in Churchill. What is your role there?

- Oh, so I'm Sergeant Conservation Officer up here in Churchill, Manitoba. So, I'm in charge of the polar bear alert program. One of a kind program in the world. It's basically an apex predator management program.

And what we do is we are solely there to make sure that people can coexist with these giant critters. - Okay, what is it about that area

“that creates such a dense population of polar bears?”

- Yeah, Churchill, again, polar bear capital of the world. It's got to be the habitat. You've got the ring seal out on the Hudson Bay there. That's the primary food staple for polar bears. And not to mention, too, that there's also

the largest dining area in the world, what pass national park, just to the southeast of Churchill. So, Churchill is essentially in a migratory path

of these bears, and it's quite incredible

'cause we have 800 plus people living right in their path. So, thanks to our program, we're able to keep people safe and also the bear safe and prevent any problems from happening. - How common are mollings? - Well, again, thanks to that polar bear alert program,

it's not very common. Like you mentioned, they're back in 2013, we did have a molly. But that was our last molly. So, quite proud to say that do our program,

we've been able to stop and prevent a lot of these tragedies from happening.

“- Can you explain what the polar bear alert program is?”

How does that tell people that they need to be on alert for a polar bear? - Yeah, it's an 8x predator co-management program where the province will identify, so the province, I say, is Matatoba,

I'm an employee of Matatoba, so basically what we're doing

is we're identifying any bears that are potentially a problem whether they're food conditioned or that they're aggressive in any way. And we will do proactive measures like setting up bear traps and preventing some of these bears

from hanging around. And it's the bears that are hanging around town that are essentially problematic because then they become comfortable around humans. And we all know wildlife right there unpredictable.

So anytime you get these dangerous critters hanging around town, it's usually a recipe for a dangerous situation. So, we'll either utilize proactive things like our bear traps. We might have to dark these bears using wildlife

and mobilization tactics, whether we're darting them from helicopters or from the ground, other things we'll be doing is just simply what we do is hazing tactics. And hazing is essentially just using a loud sound

and making it uncomfortable or unpleasant for that bear and letting that bear know that it's not okay to hang out in town. So 99% of the time, this is what we're doing, we're utilizing a shotgun, we're gonna be firing cracker shells,

towards the bear and steering them in a specific direction to get them out of town and away.

“- What's the closest that you've come to being attacked?”

- Oh, there's been lots of times, I gotta take a one. I mean, it's a thrilling job.

and that no other person has ever experienced

and tell you do this job. So my comfort level with these creatures are a lot different than the average person,

“but there has been a few times, whoa, you know what?”

You gotta be a little more careful there. Like you're only 15 feet away from this thing and it's given you the side eye, and once you see the whites of those eyeballs, it's like holy smokes, okay, a little close,

but I swear those bears, they can read you and they feel your energy and they also know that you've got something that's a long stick called a boom stick and they know that that thing might hurt them.

So it's like they're smart enough to know hey. So I mean, I've been 15 feet away from these things and given me the side eye and we have our salt protocols where we've got somebody with lethal force in case we need to use it, but most of the time,

I've walked up 10, 15 feet up to a bear like that, 800 pound, 1,000 pound meal and give it a dart so we can make it go to sleep. And that's the key part is getting it safely down, get to sleep so we can get it in the facility.

And what kind of boom stick do you carry for the protection against these polar bears? - Yeah, great question, you know, I've got a bunch. I'm using a 12 gauge with slugs mostly because I can also fire my cracker shell,

which is a non-lethal ammunition, but also I can quickly switch to a slug. In case I need to use that. The other thing we just recently got is a Daniel Defense DD5 and it's in that 308 cartridge.

“320 around magazine, so red dot site and know what?”

I think that is a very accurate and incredible weapon to use for defense against these creatures. So I've got that in my arsenal as well as a 9 millimeter on my side. So that's also comforting in no case,

one of them's on top of me or something and I gotta get in close quarters with this thing. So load it to the teeth and then you said that they've been 15 feet from you, in those situations, have you ever drawn a gun ready to use lethal force?

- Yeah, lots, I mean, if I'm in that close, I'm drawn and ready with lethal force. And you know what?

Knock on what I have never had to use it and kill a bear

in the situation like that. So again, it's a lot of reading the animal and they're smart and they can feel your energy. So staying calm is I think a big part of it too. - Okay, now if the polar bears aren't running around

biting people all the time, tell us what kind of problems they do create.

“- Yeah, I mean, it's pretty rare for them to bite people”

but they can't, right? That risk is there and it's a real risk and they're very dangerous and we're in their territory. So basically a lot of what we're doing is preventing that situation from happening

and the key thing of preventing that is stopping habituation. We have a lot of restaurants in town, people are careless with their garbage. So a lot of the inexperienced bears that are not great.

They're their jaws on some garbage. So we're out doing proactive measures such as removing those attractance and trying to keep them away from that because as soon as they get that taste of garbage,

they ain't leaving and they're gonna hang around there and tell the sea ice forms again and they go back to hunting seals. So you know, we got to haze them out of there and sometimes you might have to shoot them

with a rubber slug if the loud noise ain't working and just getting them moving along and stop that food conditioning from happening. Go ahead, go ahead, yeah. Oh, I was just gonna say that like the problems

that mainly arise as the food conditioning getting it to human food sources and because once they get that taste of human food source they're not gonna leave and then that's when we have to intervene.

There will be a bear that's hanging out for a weekend town and you know, someone will open up their doorstep and walk out their porch and there's a thousand-pound poor bear sitting beside them. Well, that's happened many times

and I've got videos sent to me at this happening and so we respond right away. We got an emergency line in town so I got that phone beside my bed and they can call it and it wakes me up

and I'm out the door with my shotgun and I'm gonna scare that thing away but it's a lot of proactive, the problems

that they're getting into is that basically

getting into human sources of food. How often are you getting those calls

too close? Yeah, like, you know, in bear season

“which is starting now from August to December”

so when there's no ice on the Hudson Bay, those bears are all on land and that's when they're causing problems or the potential for them to cause problems. Once that ice is formed, they don't care about our town,

they don't care about Churchill or being on land or humans, all they care about is seals. So during the bear season,

August to December, basically what's happening

is they're getting hungry and I need to find some food. So then we're gonna be getting calls five, 10 calls a night and it's like, you're not sleeping. So you're up all night, my phone beside my bed,

go with the other call, go home, try and put an hour phone goes again. And yeah, so I don't sleep in bear season. And if there is a problematic bear, you guys sometimes send that bear

to the polar bear jail. Tell us about that facility. Yeah, the polar holding facility again, it's a world renowned,

“there's no other place like it in the world.”

So there's 28 holding cells in there. And so only bears that are problematic end up in there. I'd say 99% of bears were able to get through town and get 'em away and they don't come back. It's that 1% that they're just causing problems

and they're not going away. So then I gotta go and dark them, put 'em to sleep and then we'll transport 'em to put them in a trap or we could just use it. We have what's called a bear board.

It's basically a stretcher for a polar bear. And the bear is sleeping, goes on the stretcher back of my truck and I bring 'em inside the facility. And they stay there for 30 days. So it's kind of marries a little bit of deterrence

with separating them from people so that they don't hurt people. And 30 days, they don't get fed because again, we don't want them to introduce some to human food sources.

So they're already in a state of hibernation

“and their bodies adapted to living off fat”

off their food stores when they were hunting seal all winter. So basically they're in there and they're like, "Oh, this sucks, you know what?" I'm not doing this again. (laughing)

I'm never coming back here again.

- Say a bear is thrown in jail for a month. Walk us through what happens. From the time they're locked up to the time they're set free. - Yeah, so bears hang around town. It's been there for a week.

Like geez, we can't get this thing. We can't scare it away. So I end up darting it a lot of times, I gotta use a helicopter to see get them. So you're darting on a helicopter.

You get them down and then we transport them on the stretcher, get them inside. They go inside an individual cell. But before we do that, we give them a number. So they have a number that identifies them as an individual.

So then I can go back at a database and look, oh yeah, I dealt with this one before. And so then it's a repeat offender, right? And so this is how we better manage these bears. And so yeah, we get them a lip tattoo.

So there's gonna be a corresponding number on their lip and their ear, they get a take. And so this way when they're, I'm in the field again, I got deal to same bear. I can easily identify them again.

And yes, I do have a reoffender list about 20 bears long. (audience laughs) And this is the way we can tell if they're just, they have it in their behavior.

And again, a lot of times these bears are like humans. Some of them are just bad actors. And they just wind up in this facility over and over again. It's true and I just can't believe it sometimes. But anyways, yeah, it's still 30 days.

They're not getting any food, they do get water. They stay in there. And then we're going to put them down again to sleep after the 30 days. We're gonna load them on the stretcher, get them,

and make sure that we've got all the data off them that we need to. Bears will also be weighed, so we know how much weight they lost inside the facility. And because they do loosable to believe it or not,

three to four pounds a day. And actually this is kind of similar in the wild. They do as well, it must be nice.

Yeah, they're, it's quite amazing.

Yeah, I wish I could lose that much weight. But anyways, they are in a credible speed. And it's just amazing how they've adapted the live. - Here's a dumb question. How pissed are they when they're locked up?

- Oh, so mad, yeah. (laughing) - Like they, they'll pound those bars

like they'll bow, the bars are just solid steel. And concrete cylinder block cells.

So we've never had one escape other than we did actually

have a little cub escape one time. But they got through the trough, where we feed them, or where we give them water, sorry. So it's so part of me that we don't feed them, but we give them water, and they got through that trough.

So now we've got a special insert that goes in there so that the little cubs can't squeeze through the trough. (laughing) - Oh, yeah, and it's in there powerful.

They hiss at, yeah, they give you the side eye. They got a really mean deep grow. There's a, oh, like it's pretty hairy sounding. - Good. - And you can, yeah, it's, you can hear it.

So there's nothing else, like it, like I've never experienced anything else like that, but, yeah, incredible.

“- What's the most bears you've ever had locked up at once?”

You said you have 28 holding facilities. Do you ever get to max capacity? - Yes, we have done that.

And back, back in the day when it first started in the 1980s,

they filled that, that's those cells over and over again. And it was a rotating door revolving door now. I put 20 in a season, so a fraction of that. We're not handling them as much anymore. And that's because we've changed our tactics,

we don't wanna have to handle them. Unless we absolutely have to. So, I tough on crap on average. - Like it. (laughing)

Back in the '80s, they put a lot of bears through there. - In the '26, we're a little more selective on the bears. We put in there, and on average, I'd say we'd probably put 20 per year in there. All right, so walk us through the process

of what happens when you go to let them go. - Yeah, so once we get all the data off them, wait, they're length, they're girth.

“Make sure we got their numbers, what male female,”

are they pregnant, stuff like that? You gotta watch, you gotta pay attention to stuff like that. Then, we're gonna put 'em in a cargo net and basically helicopter and sling them out to their habitat to the north.

We put 'em to the north because these bears are naturally migrating from east to west and then north again. So, we wanna follow their natural migration. And essentially, yeah, we get them in the cargo nets

and put them in a remote area to the north away from people. That's essentially all it is. - And if folks wanna come visit Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world,

what advice do you have for them? - Well, come check out the polar bear holding facility 'cause there's no other place like it in the world. (laughs) You might even be able to hear the loud girl

if you put your ear closer to the door and listen. And ask some questions about the polar bear alert program, Google it. Check it out, not a lot of people actually know about it and it's a success story.

It's protecting humans and protecting bears. And come to Churchill and just it's a polar bear capital of the world. There's no other place where you can easily access basically while they're viewing areas where it's very likely you're gonna see a polar bear.

So, book through a guide though. Allations guide is your way to go. There are restrictions on how to view bears and so the guys don't know how to do that. And you don't 'cause you don't wanna get yourself

in a bad situation. I've seen people five feet away from these things. I think it's the zoo and it's just,

it's so incredible how fast they can move

and add people just sometimes don't realize they get caught in the moment. All this magnificent creature and yet they're only five to 10 feet away from the thing, it's just, it's not ideal, but again, go through a guide and they'll keep you safe.

So, have you gotten any emergency calls while doing this interview? - No, so luckily right now, those bears are out on the sea ice in there. They're gonna be there to probably June July and ring seal.

That's their primary diet and so I get to rest right now. - Okay, good for you. Thanks for joining us Ian. Stay safe out there. - Yeah, thanks guys, been a pleasure.

- Yeah, thank you. - Thank you. I noticed you boys perk up when he talked about what he carries for protection.

“Did anything surprise you about what he has on him?”

- Oh, I mean shotgun, I feel like it's pretty run of the mill protection weapon for bears but the day of the fence. - 308. - Yeah, did that make sense?

- Okay. - Yeah, I mean, I assume they're just trying to put one in the central nervous system. So, probably a bullet to be accurate.

- Pack a smoke from Steve.

(laughing) - Poplar middle school brought gifts to the meat eater office. One of them was tobacco. - It's a traditional, it's a traditional, gifting, you know, culture of gifting.

So, tobacco's one of the gifts and what do you say? - Steve just arrived. - Steve just gifted me a heart pack a marble, smooth originals. - I thought Steve said they were,

- The red, too, the gold. - The gold, yeah, it's a gold pack. - Yeah, yeah. - These, I mean, don't, don't do that. Don't smoke cigarettes. - But we could bust him out when baby radio is born.

- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughing)

“That's how we're celebrating. (laughing)”

- Yeah, I love that guy.

- That was one of the best in his research.

- Spencer's on Spencer's side. - Throwing heat all the way to the end with his guest recruitment. - And yeah, man, we're probably the only Americans that guy's gonna talk to for the next year that we'll mention the hockey.

- Yeah, I don't worry that the chat has been on it. - Yeah, so, hopefully he doesn't look back and feel bad about that silver medal because the chat was really poking him. - That was for that hole in him.

- Man, that guy was great. - That was a great interview. - That was Spencer, that just... - Who wanna thought Bear Prison? - Bear Prison.

- For 30 days. - I wanna go. - In 20 reoffenders, they've been doing this since the 80s,

so that's pretty incredible.

That's like that successful.

“I keep in these bears out of the way of humans.”

- Mm, that was great. Gosh. - Welcome to Meet Eater's 12 and 26 presented by multimobile and on-ex 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. All right, our next segment is Hot Tip Off. ♪ It's your TTI VIA ♪ ♪ Let's all do a hot tip off ♪

♪ It's your TTI VIA ♪ ♪ Let's all do a hot tip off ♪ Hot Tip Off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. And after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter.

This week, it's Dalton Becard versus Marshall Loftis and they're competing for a $100 Meet Eater's Store Gift Card. Take it away, Phil. Marshall Loftis.

Hey, guys, Marshall here and I have an extremely simple tip for finding your arrows. I know most your listeners probably don't actually ever miss but I do, so I had to come up with a creative solution. Number one, I use IVIs, rap, some veins, nothing new there.

But number two, I utilize a UV or black light flashlight. These are like 10, 15 bucks on Amazon. So, anytime you shoot, don't know where your arrow goes, it goes into something like this. This is kind of standard what you see.

Here's one of my arrows. You know, it gets buried in the grass, it gets buried in the leaves. It's very difficult to find, but I actually utilize this to find the arrows in the dark.

So I'm back at that same area, but in the dark here, obviously, I have my black light flashlight on. I'm gonna walk up to that general area of where the arrow is and we'll see if it'll show up on here.

Boom, there you can see it. Oh, it's wild, it looks like a...

“What's up with the bed light out there in the dark?”

This makes finding your arrows a thousand times easier and saves you a lot of money on having to buy new arrows. Dalton Bishard! Hello, meat eater. I got a hot pet here for you and a great project

to do with your kids if you've got them. This is my homemade jaw jacker. As my buddy likes to call it, the ghetto jacker. I just built this out of inch and a half PVC pipe. You could build it with a block of wood

and a pipe angled in the back of it to hold the rod. The main thing is this trigger mechanism, which you just gotta do a hook and I built this out of a paint can handle.

You could use a coat hanger or whatever you really got laying around, I used the zip tie here to connect it to the rod, ran it through an eyelet and you just run your line up through the hook end of it. I'm gonna fish grab that.

That's up nice.

Can fit a couple of them in a bucket.

“I keep these feet to where they can just come off.”

So you can fit a couple in a bucket. And surely beat the $60 price tag. All right, those are our two hot tips. The chat is going to decide who the winner is of the $100 meter store gift card.

Phil is going to give you a couple minutes to vote. - Poles live. - All right, Seth, which one do you like? Dalton's a hot tip about the PVC jaw jacker or marshals of the UV light arrowfinder?

- Well, I don't know, Pixie's, and I don't wanna call anyone out, but the error one has been done before. - On this show. - On this show.

- Oh, no. - Well, I just get a better memory than me because I have no recollection. - I did not know. - Sorry, you began that by saying,

you don't mean to call anybody out?

- No, okay, which one do you like better? - Was that Phil, was that you Phil? - No, no. - Okay, sorry, I don't mean to call anyone out. - I don't mean to call anyone out.

- Guys, no, let's just go back to the thing. - Okay, the ice fishing one for me. - Okay. - The homemade jaw jacker? - The jaw jackers aren't, they're not cheap.

- $60, he said. - Yeah, so the homemade stuff is fantastic, and I didn't mention it, or I did mention it. I didn't notice he had buddy JC, and so the background on the television.

- I wonder if it was him, but I couldn't identify just from that quick shot, but Seth has his ice fishing eyes on. - You know, it was Jack. - I like that one.

- All right, Seth is voting for the PVC jaw jack

or Randall, what do you think?

The UV light arrow finder from Marshall or the jaw jack or from Dalton. - I mean, to be these two tips and body, some of the finest traditions of tipping. One is just getting some device that's useful

for one thing and applying it to another, as we remember from the air compressor blowing out the brains of the deer skull. - Mm-hmm. - And the other is just going to Ace Hardware

and buying a bunch of shit and building your own little device. So I appreciate both of them in different ways, but, man, I do like that homemade. I mean, anytime you can just make a mess of PVC,

I was a big potato cannon kid. (laughing) We made a battery gun one time that just shot AA batteries and we were punching holes and plywood with it. - Oh, okay.

- We moved on from the hairspray to dry ice and water. We should do that for a mediator video. I don't know how it applies to what this company does, but Randall making a potato cannon. - The nice thing about the hairspray though

is if you want a launch in this endearing round of some sort, you know, you have that ignition source from the hairspray, but yeah. I'm gonna vote for the jaw jacker. - Okay, that's two votes for the jaw jack.

- That was a long-winded answer, sorry. - Yeah, both of these again, like many hot tips, it's about how to save some money. One is you're gonna recover more air, it's the other is you don't have to buy a $60 jogger.

- Yes. - I'm going to vote for the UV light arrow finder.

“You should go watch this video on our podcast YouTube channel”

because that thing lit up like somebody turned on a light switch on the back of that arrow was so easy to find. Here's the other thing. I love having a UV light with me when I go camping. There's like, I don't know, probably 20 things

that just stay in my camping kit. That no matter what kind of camping I'm doing, they're coming with me. One of them is a UV light. That I look for UV, I look for rocks

that show up under UV light. So if you've got that with you, turn that on at night, you can recover some very cool rocks. You'll find other uses for that UV light. That's only like 15 bucks from Amazon,

besides just recovering arrows. - Yeah, it's make me think I should attach arrow fletchings to my car keys in my earbuds. That'll be good. Phil, what does it chat think?

- It's been a pretty decisive lead this entire time, so I'm gonna go ahead and end the poll and with 64% of the vote, the winner is Marshal with the black light. - Oh, all right, oh, he didn't win the last time,

so he won this time. - That's a real dark horse. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Get it? - Marshal, a good one, Randall.

He gets a $100, medium of a gift card. Next week for the finale, we are just going to empty the clip for all of the hot tips that we have left. - Indeed, indeed.

All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, let's chat after say. - Let's see here, as it's from '80s.

“He says, Randall, are you going turkey hunting this spring?”

Or was last year a one and done and you're back to bears forever? - Um, no, I'd like to, I enjoy eating wild turkey, so I'd like to shoot another turkey or two. It's just a question of getting on someone's dance card.

Max Barta is a busy guy. - Busy guy in the spring, I was talking to Cal last night and we were discussing a little turkey family camp.

So that's, that's in the cards as well,

“but definitely going to go out and look for some Bruins.”

I already have one of those trips on my calendar. - Question for Seth from Coda. What's your go-to razor for a clean shade? - I do have a mustache, but find it hard to keep up with a clean cut like you.

Razor's giving me razor burn on my neck and jawline. - Well, you need the jawline first. That's my problem with, with trimming facial hairs. I don't have anything like what Seth has there. - Um, I, the ones I buy from the store are often different.

I look at price more than that. - Yeah, yeah. - I look at price more than the actual razor itself. Few blades is good, although I recently was given one of those pro-frazers that's made in Belgrade.

It's like a machined, all machined, aluminum razor. - Okay. - Has that one blade? Replaceable? - Um, it's, it works great.

- Yeah. - It's like a razor that you'll just have for the rest of your life. - Okay. - So.

- And then after shave or something like that? - No. - No, as I was leaning into this.

- No, I don't, I always use an after shave.

I use the shaving cream. I use it's like a, they call it like a shhh. It's like one of those healthy kinds. - It's not edge. - Best kept mustache in the company.

What else you got, Phil? - Question for King randomel himself. If you only had to choose one of the rest of his life, would it be dogs or brats? - Oh, I think I know.

- Man, it's probably dogs. - Yeah. - I agree. - Just for the emotional factor. I just don't get the same feelings

for meeting a brat at a ball game. But I do find brats. I find myself cooking brats more at home, and I feel like it's a more versatile tube meat. But yeah, I can't make a cheese cone with a brat.

- Phil, let's do a couple more.

“And then after that, I think we put movie club”

at the end of the show. - I have to be because our next guest is waiting, so we'll be that last year. - It's a great idea. - Who knows how long they'll take?

Any of the crew from Valenco are hopeful for a sheep or goat tag this year? Has put in for, yes, every year. - Yeah, not hopeful though. - hopeful and putting in are two different things.

- Well, yeah, I probably will have a sheep tag just an unlimited sheep tag. - Oh, it changed that this year, I saw. - Yeah, yeah, I just, whatever. - Okay.

Randall's gonna be the sheep hunter. - Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see my calendars lining so that I might be able to get out there for the unit that I wanna get out there.

- Let's do one more Phil. - Sure, I'm gonna be selfish with this one. Phil, how's cast and chill treating you? That was the low five vision game that I've been talking about.

- I have it, so I just got myself a better monitor for my, the room where I stream and I stream. - Oh! - But tomorrow's a big day. Because their Nintendo is,

and Game Freak are releasing Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green for the Nintendo Switch only picking that up. But more importantly for my streaming purposes, Resident Evil 9 comes out tomorrow. - Wow, I have a big fat baby.

And so I'm thinking about, I've, here's the scariest one so far. - Oh, yeah. - I'm thinking about streaming it. If you guys want to watch that.

- I do. - It's like I'm taking a sick day, too. - When did the original Resident Evil come out? - Oh, like 1998 or something like that? - Did you play that one?

- No, I didn't. I've only been starting, I've been dipping my toe into horror stuff over the last couple of years, but over the last year I've played a Resident Evil to four, seven, and I'm almost done with eight.

And I've been really enjoying that. The writing is, is God awful, the plot makes no sense, but that's kind of part of the charm. - So you don't like the films then I assume. - The films are bad.

Like if you took the dialogue and plot from the games where it's kind of can't be in fun and when you put it into a movie format, it just doesn't translate. - So how do I tune into this filetailer life?

- Oh, oh God. That's a great, that's a great question. I'll put, I don't think it's a self-promotion because I make no money off of this. In fact, I think I lose money with the equipment

that I've bought, but I'll put my YouTube handle up here 'cause it's stupid and non-sensical. I'll spill it out here. - So this is good programming. - Maybe Phil will tell us on his Instagram story,

how we can watch it. - Sure, so that's my YouTube handle. And by Twitch handle, Phil will bust your sword. Phil, it's my name, Phil will bust her with a pH

“because that's what people call me in high school.”

Buster Sword as we all know is the iconic sword that clouds drive wheels in Final Fantasy VII. So it's a, it's a Port Manto of kind. - I'm sure next guest head is spinning. - Good stick.

- We've gone from shaving products to goat and sheep tags to Phil Buster Sword. - So all you've been doing that for at this Friday or Saturday. - So okay, tune in for, you can watch me pee my pants.

- You never know what you're gonna do.

- Yeah, they got, yep. - Let's go to our last interview. Joining us on the line next is Amelia Delbaro,

She's here to educate us on pairing cheeses with wild game.

Amelia, welcome to the show. - Hey, thanks so much for having me on the show. Super stoked to be here in chat cheese.

“- Great, first thing, what are the cheesemonger Olympics?”

- I am happy to explain. So the Mundial Differmage, which is the cheesemonger Olympics, it happens every two years in France and champion cheesemongers from all over the world, compete against each other in this like grueling eight hour day

of cheesemonger challenges with the goal of being crowned the world's best cheesemonger for that year. So the challenges span everything from general knowledge, written tests to blind tasting, pairing challenges, cheese sculpture, a one square meter themed absolutely massive

cheese display made with like 100 mystery cheeses that they just put down in crates behind you. So it was obviously very difficult, but it is also as much about like stamina and time management as it was about cheesemonger skill and technique.

- Okay, I wanna be there. What's the most difficult part of the competition? - I would say that all of the challenges were equally difficult in terms of execution and preparation, but for me personally, truthfully,

the hardest part of the entire experience was just finding the guts to show up. I have like crazy imposter syndrome. So I actually did a lot of work with my therapist in the months leading up to the competition to help manage that

so that I could like show up, be fully present, and just do my best. And I actually think that aspect of the preparation is super important to talk about openly because I know a lot of people struggle with this.

- And then you went there in one the gold medal. Congratulations for that. Tell us about your background.

“How does one become such an accomplished cheesemonger?”

- So I actually have a degree in Italian. I went to college for Italian studies. And after that I was working, a kind of a corporate job. I'm just managing a cooking school.

It was a cooking school in educational space. So I was seeing a lot of these classes and events that were happening, everything from like, obviously, cheese tastings to butchering demonstrations,

to pizza making, pasta making, dinners, things like that. So there's a lot of really cool stuff

that I was experiencing for the first time.

And then after a couple of years of managing that particular space, I decided I wanted to kind of make a switch and learn a craft. Hopefully, probably one of the things

that I had witnessed in the school. And I also had a little bit of a run-in, let's call it, with an animal rights group. And that kind of changed the trajectory of my career. So I decided I really wanted to learn butchery.

That's what I was gonna focus on. But at the time, I was like a little 23-year-old girl with no knife skills. So nobody was gonna hire me for a butcher job, obviously. So I was advised to take a job at a cheese counter

for a few months, learn how to handle knives, and then try to make that transfer. Obviously, I ended up loving cheese so much that it won. And I pursued the career in cheese quite successfully. I might add.

But I did actually stay at the counter part time while I was doing a butcher apprenticeship for a while. It ended up being a really fun combination because I was managing a cheese counter in Brooklyn during the pandemic, and there was a nose-to-tail butcher

in the same grocery store. So during the pandemic, I was able to kind of like pop over there when they needed some help and like make sausages, trim pork chops, that kind of thing. So since then, I have been the cheese manager

and buyer of that grocery store. I'm currently the sales and marketing manager for Firmaticum. We are the country's premier importer of cheesepaper, packaging, tools, all the professional quality items

“that you need to run a cheese department.”

And that is a really cool role that allows me to do a lot of travel and educate both cheesemongers and consumers alike about how to properly take care of cheese and taste cheese and just sharing the love and encouraging enthusiasm for cheese.

- Okay.

You were the first American to win gold

at the cheesemonger Olympics, congrats for that. There were 14 countries represented at last year's competition. What kind of reputation does America have when it comes to cheeses and cheesemongers?

- So obviously the United States does not have a great reputation globally when it comes to cheese and like all other food. - And because of American cheese. - I'm actually gonna talk about that.

- Okay. - Like some of that is completely justified, but we actually do have a pretty thriving cheese culture here pun intended. There is a lot of misconception about the term

of American cheese and what that means. And when you say that, most people think of the like, plasticate orange slices,

But when I think of American cheese,

“I think about all of the amazing cheese producers”

that we have all across the country

in every state who are making absolutely incredible cheese

every single day. They're winning awards. They are focusing on regenerative agriculture. They're giving back to their communities. And I like to say good American cheese is everywhere

for those with eyes to see. So being able to show up at this competition and represent the United States in my own way and be able to prove on the world stage that American cheese mongers are skilled

and talented and creative was just amazing. And especially to be surrounded by so many other wonderfully talented cheese mongers just being inspired by them and being able to learn from them. We left France with a lot of new friends.

I am happy to say. - That's great. Our audience eats a lot of wild games. So we want your advice on how to pair cheeses with different wild food.

Let's start with medicine. Please give us some recommendations on what cheeses pair well with deer meat.

- First of all, I love medicine.

But with these types of unconventional pairings, let's say, instead of focusing on the pairings exclusively, I try to think about who would be eating these things and how they would be prepared and what those people might have access to.

So in the cheese industry, we have this saying

“that's what grows together goes together.”

And that basically means that products from the same region will likely be a good pairing. So for Venison, I'm thinking like brazed Venison, roasted meat, stew, regu, things that would likely be found in like a mountain region, like the Alps of Italy

or Switzerland, things like that. So that automatically takes me over to like a funky oniony mountain cheese, like grier or Fontina, something that really melts well. But on the other side of things, specifically smoky blue,

which is a really cool blue cheese made by Rogue Creamer in Oregon, I think would pair really well with that. - Okay, Randall is shaking his head in agreement. What about fair hogs? - I love this question.

I got so excited. I immediately was like, this reminds me of Qingyale, which is Italian wild boar regu from Tuscany, specifically. Makes me want to do a little bit of like graded parmigiano regiano on top, give it a little bit of a salt cake,

a little mommy, or specifically a Tuscan pecorino. - Okay, how about small game, like squirrels and rabbits? - I'm gonna be really honest, I didn't know that you could eat squirrel, but rabbit is one of my grandfather's favorite foods.

I have this distinct memory of special ordering, a whole rabbit to bring to their house and cook for him. So we did that, we did a rabbit regu with some tomatoes and fresh handmade pasta. So I'm gonna go with pecorino Romano for this one

“'cause that's what my grandparents always”

have in their fridge for putting on top of pasta. - All right, let's talk about cheese pairings with fish, let's start with fish to have a white flesh, like a walleye or percher cropy. What cheese is pair well with them?

- Cheese and fish is a hot topic. A lot of people think that like eating cheese with fish is kind of sacrilege, but I think that there's definitely a right way to do it. I'm gonna say pecorino Romano again,

that is just kind of a go-to when it comes to fish, that it has this really beautiful, like brineiness, this saltiness that goes well with a lot of fish dishes. - How about fish that have some color in their meat, like a trout or salmon?

- Mm, for this, I'm thinking like smoked trout, smoked salmon, I'm gonna go pecorino fiora sardo, which is specifically a smoked pecorino. It's a little bit drier. I think that that might be nice with a more oily fish.

- Okay, final one, what cheese is pair well with wild mushrooms, like marals, shantrails, and blitz? - Yum, immediately umami, I wanna go for a new mommy bomb here. One of my favorite dishes to make is a mushroom risotto with some melted to letgeo.

Letgeo is a kind of stinky, washed-rine cheese from northern Italy. I think that that pairs really well with those mushrooms, but also if we're like, you know, on the umami train, we can do something with truffle,

and I know that truffle to lengeo is a thing that exists. So if you can find it, I think that that would be wonderful. - Last question, I assume that boutique rosers and market to the best places defined really good selection of cheeses, but what about the chain options?

When it comes to places like Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe, it's Crogers, Elbertons. Who has the best cheeses? - That's a good question, I get that a lot. So of course, like a dedicated cheeshop

or a specialty cheese counter is my first recommendation,

but I know that not everyone has the access, physically or financially to, you know, frequent those places. And like, while my job is partially to promote these,

it's also part of my job to just encourage people

to eat cheese in general.

“So whatever cheeses that you choose to enjoy,”

no matter where they come from, I'm just happy that you're eating it, because what I like to say is that cheeses for everyone and everyone deserves to enjoy it, I can't personally speak to the selection of cheeses

and everyone's local grocery store, but I can encourage you to branch out, try something new, and just most importantly, keep cheese on your table, physically and metaphorically. - Okay, and our chat has two things

that they want your take on. One is cheese curds and the other is Velvita. Please tell us what you think of cheese curds and Velvita. - I love them, I love both of those things. I love a fried cheese curd,

I love a fresh cheese curd, very squeaky, I love a flavored cheese curd. Velvita, I am told, is like, one of the best cheeses to make macaroni and cheese with. I personally, I didn't grow up with it.

I am a Cooper Sharp early. I live in Philly, absolutely love Cooper Sharp, but my partner loves Velvita. So a lot of those cheeses are chemically designed to melt beautifully.

They're specifically meant for that, and that's what they do.

“So that's why I say that they have a place in a time,”

and I would say that mac and cheese is the place in time for that, so. - Okay, thanks for your time and wisdom, Amelia, I'm congrats again on winning gold at the cheese Olympics.

- Oh my God. - They're making a miracle. - 'Cause I want to show it. - Hell yeah. - Flashing her gold medal.

- You're making a half day, she's next. - Oh wow, it's great. - That's awesome. - Thank you, thank you so much. - Thank you.

- Thank you. - Wow. - Seth was nodding his head about the Velvita and mac and cheese. - Yeah, it does make good cheese for mac and cheese.

- I haven't had Velvita though, and who, long time. - Yeah, I think of childhood. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I heard a lot of names and cheeses are not familiar but I need to go back and listen to this.

- We had Boon Dog on the chat saying his girlfriend

“is the cheesemonger at Smith's here in Boseman,”

and that this lady is just here. - Oh, it's amazing. - Nice. - So Amelia's still here to hear that. - That's amazing.

- Good good, I saw another person say that she could lead Wisconsin into battle. - Yeah, that would work. - Welcome to Meet Eater's 12 and 26 presented by multimobile and ONX maps.

12 of Meet Eater's biggest and baddest haunts 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. - All right, for our last segment of the day, we have the Meet Eater Movie Club.

This week we're reviewing the 2018 comedy, the legacy of a white tailed deer hunter. - Coincidentally enough, there's a conversation about American versus other cheeses in this film. - There is, yeah, I'm sure it's right.

I watched it last time, I was like, oh, we got to bring that up tomorrow. - Boy, I haven't heard that jingle in a while. Thank you, film. - Oh yeah.

- Should I begin? - Happy to play. (clears throat) On February 15th, 2009, I fell in love with a man. I was home from my first year at college.

I was at a friend's house across the room. I caught a glimpse of a face unlike any I'd seen before. I heard his voice and I was transfixed. He told me in no uncertain terms that he had a mind for victory in an arm like an effin' cannon.

His name was Kenny Powers, the malogested protagonist of the HBO series Eastbound and Down. In the years that followed, I came to know and to love many other characters

in the Danny McBride Jody Hill universe who resemble Kenny Powers. These men are not villains. They're not even precisely fools. Each is simply a man who has confused his own success

in one domain of life for mastery in all domains. The inevitable consequence of this mindset is an existence punctuated by eruptions of frustration at the world around him. The expected results of his actions

never quite align with his delusions of grandeur.

These are men undone by their own mythologies. Josh Prowin, Josh Bullon plays just such a man in the 2018 Netflix original, the legacy of a white-tailed deer hunter. Despite the provocative opening sentence of this review,

what follows is not a celebration of my favorite comedic catalog. This is Meteor Movie Club, where a focus has always remains laser focused on the film at hand.

Yes. But I thought it was too good of a cold open so I kept it in there. And that detail explains the lack of a decent transition at this point in the review.

(laughs)

Man loves hunting, man ignores sun,

“man attempts to force sun to love hunting, sun declines.”

Josh Prowin stars as Buck Ferguson, the host of a successful hunting video series, who takes his estranged sun into the wilderness to shoot his first deer. A ritual Buck believes will forge the bond

their fractured relationship has lacked. Jaden predictably would rather be elsewhere. Buck Ferguson wants his sun to want a deer. And beneath that he wants his sun to want him. To see his father, not a man, his mother divorced,

not a stranger who shows up with camera equipment and a bumbling sidekick, but a living repository of masculine wisdom. This is, of course, not how children work. Children are not vessels waiting to be filled

with their father's hobbies. Listen up, Seth. They're already full of their own desires, most of which involve guitar practice and texting their girlfriends.

Here's another spot where I could have come up

with a better transition. In 1956, the sociologist Irving Goughman published the presentation of self in everyday life. In which he argued that human social interaction

“is essentially theatrical, that we're all at times,”

performing versions of ourselves for audiences we have consciously or unconsciously assembled. Goughman did not mean this point cynically. The performance he suggested is not a distortion of the self, but an expression of it.

We become in some meaningful sense what we repeatedly enact. The costume becomes the skin. Buck Ferguson does not merely hunt. He films himself hunting.

Every descent into the wilderness is simultaneously a descent into the role of Buck Ferguson, legendary outdoorsmen, as mediated through the lens of Don, a role masterfully inhabited by Danny McBride.

The film's sharpest, excuse me. This is the film's sharpest and most underexplored insight. The camera does not actually capture authenticity. It replaces it. The moment Buck raises his rifle, he is no longer a man

in the woods. He is a man in the woods being watched, which is an entirely different psychological condition. One that forecloses the very intimacy with nature and with his son that Buck so desperately desires.

This is a, I apologize. This is going on longer than I thought. - No, we all expected this. - There is a cruelty to this arrangement that the film only partially acknowledges.

Buck wants to give him, Buck wants to give his son something real. A memory, a tradition, a moment of shared significance. But he has invited a camera to witness it, which means he has already converted the moment from experience into content.

The deer, if shot, will not be a private communion between father and son. It will be episode 47 of Buck Feaver. The memory will be archived before it is even formed. This is not, it should be noted

in a fliction unique to men named Buck Ferguson. We live now in a civilization that has developed an extraordinary and insatiable appetite for the documentation of its own significant moments.

Births, deaths, proposals, first steps, last words. All of it fed into the great digital ma. Transforming from experience into artifact from felt into filmed. It is widely acknowledged

that writing restructures consciousness. One shutters to contemplate what the selfie lens on an iPhone camera has done to it. Or I might add, a set of three cameras on tripods used to live stream a podcast

every Thursday during which occasionally a man reviews films. It is not lost on your reviewer that this segment is itself a performance during which Randall Williams movie critic is as much a constructed identity as Buck Ferguson

outdoorsmen. The difference, perhaps, is one of self-awareness.

Buck never quite grasps that the camera has replaced

the experience he was chasing, whereas I know that I'm full of shit. A meaningful conclusion to this review was hard to come up with. (coughs)

- Okay, Randall, you're a really good writer. I just want to throw that out there. - Thanks guys. Someone says here in the chat that Randall writes well. - Oh, thank you. - Randall writes so well.

- Thank you. - Yeah. - Yeah, Irving Goffman, that was the text that I read and probably my worst series of classes in college is terrible.

And I skipped two of them to watch some of my favorite teams lose an NCAA championship games that you're. - Okay. - Both of Florida, if I recall. - You must have been a good student

if missing two classes, wasn't it? - No, no, I missed more than that. But two of them were specifically to watch Ohio-based sports teams lose in college. - Got it.

- Okay. - Hopefully it depends. - Guys, I think if you go to this film, wanting to see a great hunting film, you're missing the point.

(laughing) - Yeah.

“- I think that the, you know, like nobody will watch”

is Ricky Bobby, tell the digginites and says, that's not how sports cars were, right? Nobody watches, so throw away the weird camo, the CGI deer, all that stuff. I enjoyed this film.

Not as much as I enjoy the rest of this catalog, but I thought it, it, I mean, the reviews I read were terrible.

- 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, I think I saw another IMDB

had it like 2.8 out of 10 stars.

“So not a well-received straight-to-streaming.”

- I think that's fair. - Yeah, I would agree with that. - Yeah. - And if you see the title, what's wrong? - No, just, you guys didn't, you guys didn't enjoy it.

- No, I'm glad I got to watch it. I imagine there's someone in my life, I would have needed to have turned this on. But if you're like, if you see the title and you're like, this is a movie for deer hunters,

that would be incorrect. It's not, and like Danny McBride's catalog, you wouldn't watch righteous gemstones if you attended a mega church in the south. Like, it's just not for you.

- Yes. - And this film isn't really for someone who really loves the outdoors.

- Although there's a lot of stuff in there

that you wouldn't pick up on if you didn't live in this space. - I'm sure. - When he wrecks the ATV and he's like, now I have to pay for that.

- Yeah. - It's great. When he says the air mattress, he's like, he's like, they send me this, you know, like to test this out.

And he just reads like the product description to his son. Like, it's very in conversation with the real, and in Jody Hill and Danny McBride broke group in North Carolina, like really inundated in this culture.

“And so I think they bring a lot of affection for it”

while also, you know, taking it a little bit. - Yeah. I liked that while he is talking about getting the air mattress for free, you have a well placed Ozark Trail logo on the tent.

And my wife and I disagreed on, if Ozark Trail paid for that placement or not, I said there's no way that Ozark Trail has that budget to do that. And then also the tent was like, just kind of loose

and sloppy, like they wouldn't be satisfied with seeing their tent like that. But you could see it in, you know, feel either way. They're like, oh, he's talking about a sponsorship thing, while there's a sponsorship thing happening

on this movie. It was like breaking the fourth wall in a way. - Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I have a hard time coming into this and judging it on its merits because there's so many elements

of a classic Danny McBride product in it. There's the lackey. McBride plays essentially Steve E. Janowski from Eastbound and down. He's the man who wants to be the great man,

who really cares nothing about his welfare. And in fact, he suffers disfigurement for that man. - Several times. - Several times, saying inappropriate things to children. When he describes parkour as gymnastics,

I couldn't help but think of the classic line. I'm not trying to be the best at exercising to describe a triathlon. He has like a very precise understanding of behaviors that make characters look like losers,

like when the stepdad is riding the hoverboard. - Right. - And then the guy taking pleasure in secretly sabotaging one of his rivals when he's deleting the pictures off the phone.

Like these are classic Kenny Powers motifs. - You think if someone loved Kenny Powers, they would love this. - I mean, I don't wanna go overboard here. I wouldn't say that I loved it.

I enjoyed it. I don't know that I'll watch it again. I won't revisit it, but given the state of comedy movies. And I guess this is 2018. - So sort of coming out of the tail end of that era,

but I don't know.

I enjoyed watching something that had never seen before

and it kind of tickled my tickled the right notes for me. - There's certain times when we're making a piece of content at media. And you know when you're doing it like, this is really good or this kind of sucks.

We like didn't hit our marks. I'm certain they knew when they were making this movie that they were making a movie that was gonna get 25% on Ron Tomatoes. - Yeah.

- I'm sure that they felt it, and we're very aware. And that probably was a little freeing for them. - Yeah. - That would be great. - This is just a steaming pile we've made.

- Oh yeah.

“- And that's okay, because that's what it is.”

- Yeah, I don't think it's a good movie, but it's very watchable mostly because of Berlin and Danny McBride. I think they're just very compelling fun actors to watch. And it does have like Randall said, most of the hallmarks of a McBride like Jodie Hill thing,

which is like a guy who wears his fragile ego, just like all plastered, right? - And Berlin is all over his body. - Berlin's great. - Yeah.

- There's just like the moments where he's like not on camera and he's like quietly sad or desperate. He, the other thing I enjoyed was ending with a climatic like white water negotiating the rapids. How many movies have ended with that?

I'd like to think that they didn't know how to end the movie and they were just like, let's just do like that. - We got you after the rap scene. - Yeah, I know this thing I enjoyed was that,

We're like, it didn't matter the size of the backpack they had. In piece of gear could have come out of that thing at any time. And the guitar, I did enjoy like the Vio, mid-sequence in the film he talks about. He has like the Vio where he's like buck Ferguson goes,

always gets his deer and that was dead on.

- Yeah, those videos are great. I specifically flagged the soundtrack of those hunting videos, which is very man-hime steamroller. He's jangli-synth stuff, but it fits so well. That was a really inspired decision.

- I saw the man-hime steamroller in Boseman a couple years ago.

“- Yeah, I remember you tell me about that.”

- And then they played Convoy while they were there, even though there was a Christmas show, they said they can't do a show without playing. - Sure, you got to do the hit. - I've got some questions for you guys,

'cause I'm not really, I'm new to this whole world, but just some vernacular. Have you ever before shooting an animal said, refer to shooting it as punching a time card? - No, no.

- Okay, I don't know. One of my favorite lines too is I'm gonna honor this deer by splitting its dang eye brows. - Yeah, if you ever said that. - Yeah.

- I don't like that. I was just wondering if those were common phrases, I'm just not privy too. - Okay, one was that people will joke about other people saying catch a deer,

and I personally never heard someone say catch a deer.

And so it feels like it's like being overplayed that someone who's out of the loop would say catch a deer, but they say multiple times in this movie. - Yeah, they make, I mean, they make like hats that are say catch and deer, you know, it's like a joke.

- Seth walks this movie back during COVID. Seth, what did you think of it then? - Uh, well, I don't remember a whole lot of it. But it was one of those mood, like when you guys said you were gonna review them, review this movie,

I was like, I'm not gonna watch it again. Like I feel like it's fair. I feel like what I've seen and remember is like enough to get through this segment of the show. I just didn't wanna spend any more time watching it again,

'cause what I remember was that it was, it had its funny moments, but overall it was, you know, I'm with the folks on Rotten Tomatoes. - Yeah, Seth had observed that it was like watching Jackie Bushman before trade and movie,

and I said, well actually, it's about Roger Reglin, that too Josh Brulland's character was based on. So if you're a fan of Roger Reglin,

“then maybe you need to watch this movie.”

- It did have one of my favorite sort of tropes of a dynamic ride project, which was genuine emotional sweetness that's punctuated by something like horribly explicit. (laughing)

When he's telling the story to the sun about his girlfriend, he's like, "I got this girlfriend. "Did you know she's a registered nurse and a mechanic?" (laughing) And so I told her that I had a broken truck

and a heart condition, and she liked that. You know, it was like a genuinely sweet moment, and he's like, "And check these out." And he pulls out the cuckold full of right pictures. - Yeah, I apologize to anybody that watched this.

I didn't realize that scene was in there. I'd never seen this. - It was great. He's got one where he's got his foot with the missing toe. He's like, "See that?"

That's my foot. - The missing toe is so good. - I don't know how much more we want to, I like that the kid's playing redemption song, and the dad, the dad compliments it. And he's like, "I didn't understand any of the lyrics,

"but it sounded good."

“The dad not knowing that his son has been playing guitar”

for two years is great. And then my last note is one of my favorite all-time lines from a film, oh, from this film. - Yes, okay, whatever he wants to mind too. - When he begins to tell the story to the kid

of him splitting up with the kid's mom, and he goes, "It started at oh nine." DVD sales were down. - Slightly. (laughing)

And then proceeds to say that he had to, he had to prevent the kid's mom from going to the mall. After that, that was great. - Sorry if we heard some static on this stream here, I don't know where it's coming from,

but it doesn't sound like cell phone stuff.

I've never heard this sound before.

So it's probably a good thing to show his ending. - Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to throw out a couple of lines that I really enjoyed when Berlin finds him with the pictures. And he kind of yelling at the kid,

even though it's not his fault at all. And he says, "I'm not a kid anymore." He says, "You are a kid when it comes to newness and sexual relations." (laughing)

- That was a good one. - I did, I did love newness. - There's one where he's talking to his girlfriend on the phone, and it's clear that there's some, like the kid is the 12 year old kid.

And he says, "You know, he's something about "how his girlfriend is hanging out with another boy "and that he found that peculiar "and there's some silence on the other line." And he goes, "I know life's peculiar.

"I'm the one who taught you that." (laughing) And then when he shoots Don, you see like an explosion of blood and Josh Brolin goes, "Shit, it's Don!"

(laughing) Those are those, some of my favorites. - Not strong, Muslim control in this movie.

It's like the reception down. And then he brings it back up. That was great, that was great. But it wasn't gonna be on camera.

“- I bet this looked very familiar to you a big buck”

on her voice, because that's like how the deer looked the seeded on her. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - Was it though they just pulled them

from a big buck on her video game? - Yeah, I liked how bad the deer looked.

- Oh, and they're always around,

like they're always in the most picturesque. - They're always at the water. - At the waterfall. - Yeah. - It was like they found a beautiful place

and they're like, "We know that buck will be here." - It's great. - That's how it works. All right, again, our last episode next week with the movie club topic being Congo Randall's

favorite movie. - That's one of 'em. - It's a top 10. - Top 10, favorite. - Yeah, for show.

All right, Phil, let's get some final feedback from the chat. - This is from Chase. Phil, you gotta ask Randall a little to his trivia beat down. - Who's Steve?

- Oh, yeah. - Sometimes you just don't have it. - Verman. - Tough time. - Verman killed me.

That question, I will say that question

“is an experience that I haven't had before”

in the room where Steve was just talking and talking. And there was nothing that could happen in my head. I just blew up. It's like playoff. It's like game six, hardened, you know?

- Man in the arena. - Yeah. - Yeah, I don't know. Like, it's fun to have competition sometimes. So we'll be back.

- Sometimes. - Without you got Phil. - Uh, throw this one to Seth if you got some to say. It's from Sarah what's a good steal head fishing tip. Midwestern are fishing off the Great Lakes.

And I'm new to the method. So any tip would be appreciated. - Oh, I'm not the right person now.

I've never caught a steal.

I've never steal head fish before. - I've never touched one in my life. - Not a big trout guy. - Oh, that sounded kind of angry. - Sorry, Sarah.

- Find a way out. - Find a buddy. - Find a buddy. - I just like warm water stuff. - YouTube, go to YouTube, type in steal head fishing.

- That's a great, like-- - Message chest or fluid. - There you go. - I'm on Instagram. - A couple of shots out here.

I thought this was fun. This is from Tyler. If any listeners of the, or of the mediator squad are ever in Southern Indiana, check out Old Homestead Distilling Company at Patoka Lake.

We are sportsman friendly and out, and they have outlets to charge boat batteries. - Oh, that's fantastic. - That's good. - Love that.

- And then, Jay Seuss is asking for a shout out from Randall for his daughter who's probably one of his biggest, little fans. - Shout out to your daughter. - Or her.

Looks like it might be a woman in the picture there. - Shout out to your daughter, Jay Seuss, 2145. I don't know what it is that she sees in me, but it's good to have that support out there. - What else you got, Phil?

- I don't think I play to a young crowd. Maybe I do.

I've always thought I skewed older.

- What do you think, what do you think and Randall demographic is? - I don't know. Guys, watch, he's been down a lot. - History buffs, maybe.

- What would he walk out of a gas station with? - He goes in there for beer and snacks. - Roller dog. Roller dog. - Okay, what else?

- Cooler ranch Doritos. - Cooler? - Yeah, didn't they change the more cool, they're not cool ranch, am I right? It's all cooler and not, not show cheesier.

Didn't they change all that? - Yeah, it used to be not show cheesier

“and I think cooler ranch, but then they can.”

- I made them all simplified, I guess everyone was using saying cooler ranch anyway. I might be wrong. - They made them all comparative. Oh, no, maybe they did go back to cool ranch.

- Okay, real random one, I think. - Yeah, so a random walks into a gas station. - Yeah, a random one would know that. He gets a roller hot dog. - I feel like a fool.

- Cooler ranch. - Comes to the south. - Yeah, what else is he? - I'll press the cut button. Couple of, couple, rude dogs.

- Yeah, some bruskies. - Yeah, maybe some night crawlers. - Yeah, and he can't friendly stay. - And he's got weird, he's got something weird that he's thinking about.

- Maybe a, maybe some zin. - Yeah, he's not going home to like a traditional, I feel like he's not going home to like a traditional, like, you know, like happy families sitting around the dinner table. I feel like he's kind of a loose cannon.

- And the cigarettes are speaking to him, but he doesn't listen. - Usually, sometimes he listens. (laughing) - They listen to more, but if he's not buying them,

it's like he never smoked them. (laughing) - Favorite smoked trout recipes or techniques? From Lane? - I like them gifted to me.

I like the, I like the, I like turning into smoked trout dip. - Yeah. - Anybody will even if they're like, I don't enjoy fish.

They can enjoy a smoked fish dip. - Yep. - Got 'em totally shaken by the Doritos thing. I always thought that was like a fun nugget that I had in my head.

- No, man. - Sorry. - Last one, Joe's ending. - Oh, I don't even have a happy last one. - That's okay, that's all right.

- We will be back for the finale next week.

lots of stuff happening every segment.

You could imagine it's gonna be fine. - And this, please join us. - This is me signing out for good. - Oh, Seth.

“- Well, you're gonna call in and deliver the happy”

- That's true. - That's true, yeah. - Of the baby radio. - That's true.

- Did you know that internationally,

they're called cool American Doritos? - I like that. - I like that. - That's way cooler.

“- So it was cooler from 1995 to 2005, 2006.”

So in the heyday of my Doritos assumption. - There's your flavor text in the future. - All right, we'll see you back here. - One last time, next week, same time in place by now. (upbeat music)

- Welcome to Meet Eater's 12 and 26, presented by Multimobile 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. - This is an eye-harp podcast, guaranteed human.