Ep. 842: "12 in '26" - Jani's Hunt for a Manitoba Giant

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. The bait thing is very contentious. Even for me personally, like when you watch this on television, it looks almost too easy.

And I've watched YouTube videos of this and been like, "Is that really hunting? "Is it easier than sand spot stock on 100%?" But one of the cool things that you get from baited hunt like this is you get to be very particular

about the animal you hunt. You don't have to make a judgment call on the size and the sex at 300 yards or 500 yards or even 100 yards. Here you get to do it at 10 yards, 12 yards. And so it's much easier to pick out to mature male.

Not a shoot of salad cobs. I don't know, it'll be interesting. I need to put some time in and just get a feel for all of it until I can really even have an opinion about it. At this point, it's all new to me.

What you just heard there were my room in nations

from the first afternoon evening of my Manitoba Bare Hunt.

Where I'm sort of trying to figure out what in the world is going on. Welcome to 12 and 26 podcast. I should say welcome to the 12 and 26 podcast. This is the campaign and show to our 12 and 26 hunting fish films rolling out this year. What are the fish films

“Cory? I only know 12 hunting films. Is there some fish in?”

Well, we know there's some fish in the behind the scenes on your Manitoba Bare Hunt. There is. There's any front and center fish. Who wrote this script? Not me. Ha ha, current. Anyway, we're going to do this for all of the 12 and 26 episodes, films, things that are coming

out this year, which if you haven't heard, we're doing hour long.

Just hour long versions of what we always do, or we're going to drop one

a month and a long side that we're just going to have other things like articles and podcasts like this one, where the host of the show will answer your questions from the internet, whether it's YouTube or Instagram, and then just sort of give you a little bit more background

when we're context to the things that we do. So, if you're turning into the show right now and haven't seen by Manitoba Bare Hunt, go and watch that and then this podcast will make more sense to you. And you know what the next one is, Cory coming up in March, I guess, the next 12 and 26? Well, it all has to do with

our post-production team getting it out on time, uh-huh, depending on which

“one, but I believe it stars Clay Newcomb. I think we're trying to balance”

out which location in which pursuit. He's got a couple of them this year. He does. Yeah, maybe some more bare hunting. Maybe, maybe Mr. Beargrease, that would make sense. We'll see, we'll see. All right, today I'm here with Cory, who you've already heard from, and fill the engine near to address your questions about my Manitoba

Black bare Hunt. And, uh, want to thank you for writing in and giving us some questions so we can, uh, make this bonus content here, um, Cory and Corinne took a bunch of time to curate, uh, these questions. If there was, you know, 10 of the same question or 10 versions of the same question, we definitely chose those. So we're trying to answer the, uh,

the most, the most requested questions. Um, let's see, up top, we'd like to address the controversy drama and disagreement inspired by a baited bare hunt. And, um, again, you guys all major voices clear on both sides of this issue. Let's see. Should I tell, should I say the names of who, uh,

right? I'm sorry, guys, but this is not hunting. I should probably be careful about

editorializing with my voice, huh, Phil. Yeah, maybe you could be,

“it could be very easy to do that. You, yeah, maybe, I don't know if you want to say,”

like, quote, unquote anything like that. Yeah, but that, because these are the anti, uh, uh, baited. You mean editorializing with like the tone of your voice? Yeah. Yeah. You know what, sound like, like, Steve did, did it. Yeah. Yeah. Because these are, these are the folks that are not down with the baiting. I'm sorry, guys, but this is not hunting. This is just killing,

even if there is a exploitive ton of bears in Manitoba in parentheses, heart my Canada, and if you're only taking mature boards, there is no stalking and no actual hunting. Is this right up there with animals caged, then released for killing? I don't think so, but come on, guys, you're better than this, and I still love

“me either at Christopher. Oh, dash K to I says, if you can't hunt it fairly, don't”

hunt it all. Actually, this is not hunting. It's just killing the easy way,

disgusting. Here's at moosey 1961. I will never understand why any good

hunter has to bait an animal into kill. They are not real hunters, get exploitive out there and track and hunt. Now on the flip side at struggle bus operator, kind of like that handle, right? It's population control. Anybody who wants a challenge in quotes can find one elsewhere, but baiting can be a part of wildlife management. At my French bulldog in me says, incredible watch and representation of how ethical hunting

doesn't end with legal bait and plenty of bears, just a different look at hunting. At powder nits states, I dislike the up-beaty mentality that hunting is only big-time spot and stalk hunting. At some random gamer, some random gamer, 1260, thank you. I was going somewhere else with that, but they're right. There's literally evidence in the animal world of other species using bait to hunt. Birds using bait to attract fish into striking

distance, for example. Turtles with tongues literally shaped like a worm to lure fish into their mouths, and yet there's still some grown men who think hunting has to be difficult. At the Little Spoon 1982 says, as a fisherman, I see nothing wrong with baiting your catch, seems like gatekeeping to me to shit on people who bait animals for hunting. So, if somebody asks you now, what do you think about baiting bears? What would you take

be, yawning, that's Karin, asking this question? Oh no, Corey, maybe you were spoken. Nice to see your name. Hi, I didn't want to interrupt you. You were rolling. That's all right. We'll get this dialed by the end of it. That's perfect. So, not before. I've been thinking a lot about the whole baiting thing. Especially since the episode came out and the condiments came out, it just, you know, I've had almost a year to be thinking about this,

and there's a lot to say about it. Number one, I'll say this. I am still a very inexperienced like bait hunter. I only have those three days. Well, that's not true. I've, like I said, I've done

“it. I think I've done two days or feeders in Texas for pigs and deer. So, it's still very,”

very small amount of experience. You're a big spot in stock guy. Well, or sit in a tree for anything. I mean, I do all kinds of hunting. A lot. But I just don't have a lot of experience doing baited hunts. And I say that, not as a way to get out of answering the question, but because I've often find myself because I, what I get to do and going to try different kinds of hunting

all the time is that a lot of times the first, even second time, of when you're on a hunt.

It doesn't matter if it's guided or not. I'm a stranger to the landscape. I'm a stranger to the animal that if it's a new animal, then I'm hunting. Right? So, I'm just, I'm still like in the introductory stage. I'm still learning. I'm still building a relationship, both with the landscape and the animal. And so, it happened to me in Latvia, right? Where we went there to hunt and I had this great stack kind of presented to me. But it was literally two hours into the first morning of the hunt.

I'm kind of like, just there being kind of casual. Like, I don't know. This looks like it's pretty easy.

oh, you need to get this thing killed now because this is your opportunity, right? And so,

“same thing with these bears with a with a with a with a baited hunt. I think going back and doing it”

a second and third time, I might actually be more excited. I have more buck fever

in the moment on the second or third time I kill a bear over bait that I did the first time. Because again, you're just it's so new. You don't even, I don't even know to be excited yet, right? Because you're just kind of like, oh, this is easy. But as I saw in my hunt, it's like, the mature board, he only showed up on day three. And maybe he wasn't going to show up, right? So it's not again, that's my experience. Um, but I don't know. We're going to continue coming back to like,

probably what I think about baiting bears. There's a bunch of questions related to that. I don't mean there's anything wrong with it. The thing that was caused me the most sort of thought and sort of friction in my head has been, well, if that's okay, how come I'm not

“really okay with baiting deer. Hence a question we received via Instagram. Was that a question?”

Yeah. We have the same outlook on baiting bears as you would baiting light tail. Yeah. And that one has, I think the word is consternation. Um, it, it's just giving me a a lot of time to think about it. Because where we are in Wisconsin, you're not supposed to bait.

But there's some bait in the goes and on, sure. And it definitely, Steve has always said talking about bait

that anytime the bait sort of changes the animal's natural movement patterns, he doesn't really like it. Well, obviously with these bears, it's changing where they are. It's concentrating them big time, right? And we talked about the reasons why to do it, right? It's like, it's all kind of there in that intro of that episode. It's like, you get to see a lot of bears, you get to observe bears and then you get to pick which bear you're going to kill. Which spot it's not cloning. As you

“know a lot of times, it's like, you're like, oh, I think it's a big bear. There's something black,”

like I'm going to shoot it and I'm going to kill it. Oh, yeah. Spot and stock bear hunting. I mean, unless it's South Cubs or if it's like obviously a small bear you're seeing, it's like pretty hard to pass up an opportunity of just seeing. Yeah. Because you've been grinding. It's hard, right? Yeah. So I think that, and as you can see in the comments, a lot of people don't like it because it's too easy. And to that, I feel like I have a great answer. It's like, if you're sitting in a

blind on a food plot, I'm not even a food plot. Let's just say it's a corn field or any field where deer are going to come out like an hour before dark and then you're going to shoot one. That's by no means any harder than what I did, right? Yeah. Like, you know they're coming to that food source. You've set up on that food source in an ambush location. So sure, maybe you didn't dump the corn

out in the field, a farmer grew it or whatever, but it's kind of basically the same thing, right?

But you did a fantastic job in this episode, Manitoba Blackbear, it sent the scene as to what goes into the bait and how much work that entails, you know? Yeah, I'm in money, a lot of energy. For sure, for sure. But I'm going to say like, it's, I think that people see it and they're just like, oh, it's too easy. You're just there and you shoot it. And as the hunter on a guided hunt, yeah, we went and I helped Craig do a little bit, but yeah, I'm not putting in the effort.

They, he is, right, to get the bears to be coming to that bait. So that feeling that you get from a hard earned opportunity, whether it's hiking the mountains for elk for a week or for multiple years to get a shot at one, and then you get one sort of that elation, I'm probably not going to get that from shooting a bear over bait, right? But what I do want to say is that just because it's easier, I don't think that should necessarily take away from the experience. Just like,

set your expectations, right? Like, you're not going to have that big moment and just like, tears are going to come bursting out because you just put in five crazy days of work, right? This is way more casual, whatever. But it is what it is, and it shouldn't take away from it. There's

doing that, that you don't get to experience grinding the mountains for five days, you know?

So again, I just don't think that we should look at it as, it's, it's, um, that it's exclusive of one another that just because one version of hunting is easier, that it's not proper hunting, or not ethical hunting, or not the right kind of hunting. It's just different. So cool. Let's

“watch his next clip, which I think he's kind of set up the kind of environment that you're in.”

It feels ready for us to move on folks. Two hours northwest of Winnipeg and we're still very much in Southern Manitoba. This central Canadian province runs 760 miles north of south. The outfit sits just north of riding Mount National Park and just west of Lake Manitoba to the south are the great plains and to the north the beginnings of the boreal forest. This part of Manitoba is an even mix of forest and agriculture.

Aspen and bur oak dominate the woods and the fields are mostly canola, wheat and soybeans. This makes for unbelievable bear habitat. Manitoba is estimated to hold 30 to 40,000 black bears. Man, something about black bear hunting, yani, and forest fires and smoke when we went hunting in ours. Oh, that's right. In Montana we had somehow had to deal with forest fires in May. Didn't expect that and it affected our hunt. But yeah, you could see it's a little smokey

in that clip there and pretty thick. We actually ran into hunters traveling on that hunt that had gone farther north and had to be evacuated and didn't even get to go black bear hunting. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so it's a thing. So after we watched and heard that were you hunting

“McCarthy's property in Manitoba and can you describe the layout of that habitat?”

So we were not hunting the McCarthy's place. We were hunting either public land that he has the right to baton or private land where he has an agreement with the land owner to have a bait site. As far as what it looks like, I mean, you saw it there in the clip. If you're only listening, it is a very even mix of woods and ag. It's kind of what you would you expect in a lot of parts of the Midwest. Where the ag hasn't gone completely nuts on

and where they're not ag and farm and from ditch to ditch. But here there are still a lot of woods left between the fields. And yeah, it was to, I was surprised to see, I was, like I said in the

description there in the video, it's Aspen and Oak trees, which I've never seen that mix anywhere else.

I mean, we have big tooth Aspen down on Wisconsin, but not these populist tremoloides, like the ones that we have out west here. The ones that are white, real white barked and, you know, you get the great colors in the fall and they shimmer in the wind. That's the same Aspen that's there. So it's a really cool mix. And I bet you in the fall, it's just absolutely gorgeous. I mean, Oak trees and Aspen. And it's got to be killer. Yeah, colors, the foliage would be popping.

Yeah. That's a lot of bears, obviously, that you've got to witness daily out there. And then, obviously, Manitoba massive province. But just a section you were in, you had a lot of bear encounters. So there must be plenty of places for them to to rest and recover and hide out assume and during the day. So just looking at that photo we're looking at from that clip. It's a good mix. A lot of habitat for them to hide in and then plenty of farm field. Farm fields to feed in. Yeah, the best of both

worlds, everything a bear wants. And then you were there in June, right? So it's probably early farm in season, assuming nothing's like standing too tall yet. No, no. No, we saw farmers actually planting, planting fields, prepping for the season. Yeah. So did you pick those dates that you

“hunted on Manitoba that week? No. I think the season ends second week of June or after the second”

week of June. So pretty much runs all in May and then two weeks into June. He usually a lot of times doesn't hunt into June. But because this is kind of last minute, he got a spot for me. Come on

the back end of everybody else hunting. He felt like it's good and bad. The basically the far

that you get into June, the hides are going to be more rubbed except for the big boards. He said

hides longer. It might be because they're more focused on running. So that's kind of peak

“running at activity is that June time period. And so because they're, you know, looking for”

cells, they're not sitting around rubbing their hides off. I was going to ask that. Did you witness any rotten action? I mean, the big board that came in, I mean, probably any board that was sort of, you know, middle size, middle age to bigger or older is coming there because they know there is going to be cells at that bait. There's going to be more than one cell and there's going to be more than one board, you know, coming around, right? So, um, by the one saying that we didn't actually

see any sort of board chasing a south activity. No, not specifically. Coming in is kind of a win-win form. It might find some food. Well, they will find some food, maybe they'll find a lady too. Yeah,

“that probably they probably do that and undercover in the thick oaks and asspins. Maybe I don't know.”

I don't know. I would. Welcome to Meet Eaters 12 and 26 presented by multi-mobile and on X maps. 12 of Meet Eaters' biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout

2026. These are long form episodes, so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my

baited bear hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on Meet Eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Let's see, change in topics. We had a few questions come in about bear bait ingredients. Some on an Instagram asked, what kind of bait is

used and how does it affect the flavor of the meat and fat of the bears? We've got a clip here

from the film which could help answer that. I just put a bit of oats and then I'll top it off with

some corn. At the start of the season, I usually just use oats. Just oats and the grease. How do you get your hands on enough grease for this? I got some ends with a few restaurants and they just hold it all the way. Use fryer oil. Use fryer oil, yeah. And then I put an ounce or two of Northwood's bear products in it. Some expired stuff. They eat anything that's soap and fryer oil. You think they eat a less if it was just plain bread?

Well, if it's got green, they're fussy. If it's like rotting like that, they won't eat it. No kidding unless you soak it. They don't eat fish because they're not raised on it like they are in BC and stuff, right? Those salmon runs and they just need meat. If the meat goes or rotten, they don't like it, but some of them will beaver. Something about beaver is right. If you're only listening again, we were at the bait barrel and after putting in the corn

and oats that were soaked in the fryer oil. We added some outdated bread that was moldy.

“So that's why we were talking about the mold, but he said if you soak it in some grease,”

then they're more apt to get after it. Our ingredients included oats, corn, grease, bear liwer, birthday cake and beaver meat. The most interesting part about it was that there is some tactics involved with baiting. Early on, when he's doing this sort of pre-baiting to set the stations up before he's got hunters coming in, it's only the oats and they're soaked. And the reason he does that is because the oats don't fill the bears up. They just go right

through the bears. They kind of just poop them right out and it's very evident when you're at the bait site because it was like a 20 yard radius where it's almost like a just a smear of bear poop of oats that are just they're still whole. Like there's not breaking them down. They're not getting nutrients out of them. So they fill up. They leave. They come right back. So he feels like that helps them come back. And then as it gets time to hunt them, he starts adding the corn and adding

other things to sort of sweeten the pot a little bit and hopefully make that one, you know,

beaver meat they are. The first night it was just hung basically where they could get to it very easily.

And the first bear that came in got the beaver out of the tree went off 50 yards and you could hear much on it. Other bears were coming in. They could smell that he was over there or she was over there chewing on that beaver meat. They would go over there. They tucile, you know, get a chunk or whatever. And once it was all gone, the bear started hitting the bait barrel. But that beaver meat is number one for whatever reason. And I even asked Craig about like, how come you just want to use

roadkill? Like there's moose around, there's elk around, there's deer around and he's like man they're not into it. Wow, not into it. But that sweet beaver meat is a lot of it. His theory

is that it's one of the first of easy available foods for them in the in the spring. And the

south and teach those cups basically sit on a beaver run and hunt them easily. And so they sort of grow up, you know, with a taste for it. Yeah, like we were saying, they don't like fish, which is

“surprising to me because it's just a stinky old fish, you think would just reatthe anything, right?”

But if they're not used to it, if they're not growing up on it as a beaver. And I would imagine they're like anything, if you just kept giving it to them, kept giving it to them, that some would start to eat it slowly and then, you know, maybe they develop a taste for it, but anyways. So people want to know, if like that change the flavor of the meat or the fat. Again, he only baits him for about eight weeks total. Maybe that's enough time to change the

flavor of bear meat. But again, it's mostly corn and oats. There's like some oil on there. There's a little bit of the pastries in the sweet stuff. Or take it. Yeah, I just don't think it's quite enough. The only time that we've experienced that is with the Prince of Wales Island bears

that literally are eating fish or seafood year round. Like they're always scavenging on the beach,

as whether it's they're eating muscles or they got salmon coming up the creeks and eating those. Whatever it might be, that bear meat. Steve one time gave me a chunk and said, close your eyes and eat this. And when I ate it, it was a smoked chunk of bear. But when you ate it, you thought you were eating salmon jerky because it just tasted like a salmon. That sounds pretty good. Yeah, it actually wasn't bad at all. It wasn't like it was rotten salmon. It was just smoke. It was a more of a smoke salmon

flavor than a smoked red meat flavor. So yeah, I don't think it changes it. Change it at all. So did you notice any different taste? You did that. What was the recipe that you cooked up up there at their, no, they're camp. Did you notice any of putting taste in the neighbor? No, the fat that you've been eating on. No, the fat is completely what makes bear grease so great is that

“it's odorless and flavorless. I mean, I just, I think that if you did a blind taste sess and you”

had, I don't know, olive oil and avocado oil and whatever, grape seed oil, bear would land, bear grease would land in the oils that are just the the most flavorless and odorless. I think I feel like olive oil, I could probably pick out of trying to think of one of the other ones that's like just very, very bland. But yeah, there's just no flavor to it. It's great. That is from YouTube at UA289-4 asks, isn't it bad to feed the bears on that stuff?

I wonder if they were all health. Yeah, the health of the bears. Again, if it was a year-round program, it would not be good for the bears. Everything in moderation, you know, we did hit this

“in a meat eater podcast where there was some sort of study being done. I think maybe even North”

Carolina they, excuse me, outlawed some types of bait because literally the bears there were getting tooth decay and tooth rot. Interesting. But again, I'm assuming it was like a year-round program or just a lot of it, you know, bears aren't brushing their teeth and it was, you know, it was affecting the bear. So, yeah, again, too much of it probably not good. Follow up question. Someone asked,

that. They do not have like a higher prevalence of bears in garbage cans or at people's houses than

“anywhere else where there's bear human interface. You know, I think they want to see bears are off the”

bait once a season ends. Again, there's just so much food and that habitat between eight corns from those oak trees and then all of the stuff that they're growing. Canola, corn, soy beans, sorghum, you name it. It's all there. At those bears, or just have a lot of food at their disposal. Fonds, calves, moose, deer. Yeah, I'm sure at some point, you know, when there's, when there's the, when it's falling season, I'm sure they snack on a few beavers. Yeah, and beavers.

Well, okay, moving on from baiting. Mm-hmm. A few folks asked if you could detail your archery set up. Your bow and arrow set up. Mm-hmm. Where were you shooting? Uh, that was a Matthews lift exit at 70 pounds. Um, you know, my draw length is just shy 30 inches. I shoot a, about a 30 inch arrow. Maybe my arrow's 29 and a half. Um, I'm shooting the rip TKOs with the 200 grain head on them. There's a weighted insert as well. I think my total

arrow weight is right around 500 grains for that set up. Um, yeah, anything else you want to know about my bow and arrow set up? No, that was pretty good. I don't think we're going to single-bevel

“broadheads. My iron will. That's what I shot through it. And, um, yeah, got a nice pass through”

and the bear died 50 yards later. You know, less than 30 seconds. We heard the death moan. Yeah, I remember if you covered it in the film or not, but where did you hit them? Did you hit the middle just forward of middle of middle like you? You know, you just can't we we've replayed it, which is often fun to do when you video haunts, as you can replay and see exactly where you hit. But the lights fading just enough that arrows moving just fast enough that you, it's, it's hard

to tell exactly where it is because the bear, you know, shrugs just a little bit as the arrows going in there. Um, it was hard to find the middle of the middle? Sure. Because your site picture is just full of black hair and it's low light and there's no shoulder crease. There's no ribs that you can, you know, see, um, there's no other coloration that you can kind of work off of. You know, like a pronghorn animal. I mean, it literally gives you a spot to aim on

its side, whether it's like a right hand, you know, right corner of white coming up into, it's vitals and literally if you pull a put a bullet on that corner, it's money. Yeah, an all black bear does not have that. And so you can actually see me in the video sort of, like, moving my pins around going up and down. I kind of come out of my peep a couple of times just because I really wanted to be sure, you know, and try to get it into that middle of the middle spot. Um, but uh,

yeah, we, we did a little net crop scene and, um, hit going right through the lungs. Beautiful. Yeah, how far did you go? Maybe 50 yards. Okay, there's some thick stuff, but easy blood trail. Even with all that fur, that could be, that could be tough to blood trail bear.

Yeah, you know, like any animal people are always like, oh, I don't know there's no blood

right off the bat. I don't think that there is blood right off the bat. Not the kind of blood that you really want to see. I mean, sometimes you see it when you get a muscle wound and you get some muscle blood like spurting right off the bat. But really when you go through the vitals, um, that stuff just doesn't start bleeding, you know, you basically have to fill up that cavity for it to start coming out the edges, right, or the motion to start sloshing it out of

there. Yeah, and with a bear, it has to, it mobs it up like a sponge before it actually hits the ground. Sure, bears can be very good. Or, you know, if you've gotten the lungs good or, you know, one of those big arteries where it's going to cause the blood to be coming out of the face, right? That still takes time and animals go so far, so fast that people are like,

oh, they have blood, the first 50 yards. Well, you know what, that's not a issue for me. If I don't

“have blood, the first 50 yards, um, it's just like, it's just not a thing that I think about.”

And usually, if you made the right hit and there's a bunch of blood, it's like the animals their dead at 50 yards. So yeah, um, yeah, not a thing. I'm too worried about I was curious. You weren't using illuminated knocks. I was. You were. Oh, yeah, excuse me.

bars are going to be at last light. Yeah. So much, be able to see, especially if you're filming,

“look back at it. Sure. See where you hit it. But see, at CJJ98 asks, doesn't safety say to use a”

gear harness and pulley to get your bow rifle crossbow into the stand with you yet Janis climbed up with it in his hand. Mm-hmm. We have to say about that. Um, so yes, I knew this would be a thing. The

first night I wore a, um, a saddle. And I was tethered in the second two nights. I did not. So

these stands were what I would consider a low stand. 10 feet. Mm-hmm. Maybe your butts 12 feet off the ground. Like you're just not that high. Um, you don't have to be that high, right, just like a little bit. Um, and it's probably more for to be able just to see and get the right angle over foliage and stuff more than trying to hide. You know, like with deer hunting, we're trying to get 20 feet up all the time because it's like part of the hide. Um, so,

yeah, it was a huge stand. It was a two person stand. It had a the bar around it. Yes,

could it be bad if you still fall 8 feet or 10 feet off of a ladder? 100 percent. Um,

it, uh, just in that moment, I felt very safe that I could make it that short distance. Now, it wasn't that high off the ground that, that it, uh, I could deal with it safely. You know, and the second and the third night, once I was in the stand, I wasn't, I wasn't strapped in. Again, big wide platform. I was only, you know, my feet were like 8 or 10 feet off the ground. Um,

“I don't know enough for that seven foot barrier to grab your foot if you want to do. Oh, yeah,”

for sure, for sure. But, uh, yeah. So 100 percent kids when you're climbing up into those

stands, you should always use a, uh, a rope to pull up your rifle or your bow. Um, like when I'm

in Wisconsin, I always do that. It's probably impossible with the way I climb up into a tree, probably be impossible to go up with the bow in my hand. But, um, yeah, that's the way you want to do it. Again, it was literally like three steps for me and just seems so short that, uh, I wasn't worried about it. Well, thanks for explaining. We have another clip of the film to show and we'll explain what we're seeing here. Phil, take it away. So for those who couldn't see what was going on on the first

day of your hunt, we see Craig, your outfit, or standing feet away from the bait drum and feet away

“from two bears before he leaves it to you. A bunch of folks wrote and asked, and what the heck?”

What's going on? Why are those bears so close to the guy and not getting spooked? They almost look tame. Can you explain this scene, Yoni? Mm-hmm. And you can see on my Instagram too, there was other videos you can check out Craig's, excuse me, this LaCroy is really given me some, uh, some gas in my chest. Uh, there's other videos out there where that same day, we're messing around, we're setting up camera gear and whatever, and behind our backs, there's bears already coming to the

baits. We've already prepped the bait. And at one point, I try to just sneak alongside the K&M, and I get within, yeah, two or three feet. To where I could reach out and smack him in the face, if I wanted to, right? It's a young bear. So I was talking to Craig about that this morning. And he's like, he's like, look, you got to look at it that here's this food source. They're interested in it. There's a bunch of bears in the area. Those young bear, it's a competition. Those young bears

are pretty much like, if I want to get it in some of this, I got to be here first. Sure. And so like, there's certainly a custom to the sound of the buggy coming in. It's like a dinner bell probably. Oh, 100%. And so they're there, and they want to get first crack at it, right? And um, their balls get off to where they're like, yeah, other things, whatever, K&M, humans, I'll take my chances because I want to get some of these calories. So yes, it's like, it's again,

it does make it, it gives it this like, oh, they're like, they're tame. Well, they're tame when they're young and they're hungry. And as they get older and they start to dominate, they start to not be quite so bold in during daylight hours. Like they've had weeks where the big boars only show up in

Yeah, outsmarted them somehow. Well, there's other scenes of bears getting really close to you. I was curious once that K&M leaves where those bears acknowledge you three,

they're two cameraman and yourself in the tree. Yeah. And that's a weird thing when you've never

been there to get used to that because they sort of like come in and then they glance up, but then they just go back to what they're doing. So they're very aware of your presence. Again, I just think that it's like this bay is here. They want those calories. They're will there that risk reward. They're willing to do the risk for the reward. Again, for whatever reason, the big bore is not doing that that much. So they know that the threat is there. And like

we're still, when we're setting up on those baits, we're still thinking about where are the where is the bore going to come from? What's the win doing? Because the win was set up just right for when that bore came in that he did not smell us. Like it was a kind of a crosswind. And so how do you like looped the crosswind? He would have smelled us but he came in on the trail.

And he just, he just never cut my wind. It could have been a totally different thing.

How do you, you know, looped around and gotten our wind? I don't know what the result would have been. So that bear never knew we were there. The bore. So while we have some clips showing just how close some of these bears got to you.

“Such good climbers. Looks like he's kind of taking his time to. Is that right underneath you?”

Yeah, he's kind of coming up the side where there's no ladder. Those are max and speed. You could see them on the other side of the tree. Oh, now they're bear coming from the field. Yeah, this one, you can see it's, that's a cub that was had come in with that with the sound, which you can see underneath Eli there. A big cinnamon bear is a sound and she had a black cub and a blonde cub. And I'm not worried at all about that little cub. Like that dude,

you know, you can pop him in the nose and you're, and you're probably going to turn him the other direction. But if that's sound thinks that there's danger in that tree because you just pop

your, you know, cub, that's the problem is that like you piss off that sound. Because that sound

is not that much smaller than than the bore that I ended up killing. She's a tank. Yeah, being color. Yeah. So yeah, we didn't have anything like that happen in our tree. It just happened to be that when that sound sent those cubs up the tree that that one shows that one that

“Eli was in. Okay, that's what was happening. They were retreating from that bore coming. Yes, exactly.”

Exactly. And that happened a lot like every single night. There'd be a sound there with cubs. They're doing their thing. And then a lot of times even before we saw the other bear, the sound makes some grunt, some noise, some movement. And those cubs would just be, you know, 30 feet up a tree in a, in a heartbeat because the bore's coming in. So what would mom do? She hanging out kind of at the base of the tree. If she had to, she, she sort of charged at those other bears and

run them off. But yeah, I think she was out of all of the bears we saw in three days. She would have done that to every single bear except the one that I killed. Oh, really? Yeah. If she would have charged him, but there would have been a little battle royale on our hands. Yeah. Those look like yearling cubs. Those were definitely not yearling. Those were probably second year cubs. Those were pretty good. There's the second night. You'll see it. There's a lot of clips on it

on the episode. But the second night, those are probably more like yearling cubs. Like one year

“old, not like born that year in the, in the, in the den, but one year old. I think those were probably”

two year old and getting ready because those were like decent size. I mean, when that one's next to Eli, it doesn't look that much smaller than Eli. No. Oh, interesting. You know, so coming on 200 pound bear, you know, I doubt that's a yearling. They're eating good. They are eating good. Hard to say,

and on X maps. 12 of meat eaters biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout

“2026. These are long-form episodes. So you get more of what you love. The first one up is my”

baited bear hunt in Manitoba. If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on meat eater's YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. Let's see another

question from at relaxing drives 6075. I've never hunted bears before, but I'm confused about how

you all get away with moving and talking so much and not spooking the bears. Can you please comment on this? I understand that bears see very well, but they get face to face with the cubs in the tree and seem to be unbothered. Are they aware you are there and just don't fear you? 100%. 100%. They just haven't. I think they do fear it, but again, it's that risk of water for that bait. And again, we're not out there doing jumping jacks and hooting and hollering. Like,

we're doing some talking. It's very quiet. I think that if you climb down out of the tree, you're going to run the bears out of there. If you start yelling and talking in a normal voice, you're going to probably run the bears out of there. I don't know. We didn't test that because I think that the whole goal is that you're trying to like minimize your presence so that the bore who is sketched out about the situation so that you can fool him into coming it.

“Well, let's see and you have moved as one thing, but do you think you must have had pretty decent wind”

when they were all hanging around there? Did they not really mind that? Is it cheap? It just

it depended. But yeah, you're standing never set up up wind of that bait. Sure. It's a long time.

Yeah. Well, that would be the wrong version. So it's set up in a way so that most of the predominant winds of the area are going to be not blowing right at the bait. So yeah, I think if they were, again, because they don't see that great. This fellow seems to think that they do or this person, but bears, right? You're a pinging. Not the best vision. You can't fool their nose, but yeah, they're a little question what they see till they smell it or even hear it. They'll look at you for

a while, but if they smell it, you may not ever get a chance to see them. Yeah, it's over. Normally.

“Let's see. Here's another question. What signs do you look for to tell a bore from a sal on camera?”

Definitely is a stockier front end, especially those with those younger bears. I don't know if it's impossible, but I don't think I could tell. But as those bears get older, the bore's have just a more shoulders on them. And then they almost start to walk. And you can definitely see what the bear that I shoot. When he comes in, there's a little bit of a swagger. His front toes are pointed inward, almost a little bit. And just the body shape, the sal seems to be

rounder. I guess if that makes sense, they're hair shaped. Yeah, definitely rounder in the butt. Yeah, rounder in the butt. Yeah. Other than that, it's basically the cub thing. It's not easy. No, nice when you get some time to look at them. Oh, yeah. But in spotting socks, especially around here out west, it's hard to get enough time. First of all, to be able to tell the difference. But yeah, make sure the cubs is the biggest

giveaway, like you said. But that bore was obvious, like you said, coming in hot swagger and own in joint. Let's see. Moving on, we want to flash another clip from the film, which shows just how smart black bears are. Yeah, so this one, we hung that, basically like you'd hang some food in the back country, in bear country, looped it over a limb, had it hanging down, and then had tied it off there on that tree that, uh, where we had that

multi camera never, never even looks at the barrel. He goes straight to the not so easy to get

beaver carcass and never gives up. He climbs every tree in the vicinity multiple times.

he gets what he wants. Oh, there's something about that beaver meat that a barrel full of use

is. Sorry, all right, our video playing service is having some issues, but that was basically the

end of the clip. Yeah, we got it. Um, just trial. Yeah, that's a very, uh, a bridged version.

“That bear, yeah, I think that bear knew that we had put the, I don't, I don't want to say that”

you knew that we put that beaver carcass there. But I think that he knew that somehow we were associated with it the same way that he kind of knew that yellow rope was associated with it because he came over because you got the whole thing happens there in a span of a minute or two, but that actually lasted closer to an hour. Wow. And that bear came and climbed our tree multiple times and he definitely had a, a little bit of a huff and a puff and an attitude to him

about it when he was coming up that tree as a kind of, you know, and again, it's a little bit of anthropomorphization here, but you're thinking that the bear is like, hey, you guys have something to do with that thing. Like, I need to come up here and maybe if I do something with you guys, that'll make the, you know, the beaver carcass fall out of the tree. I don't know. But like I said,

he went up every single tree and just messed around, messed around, messed around until finally,

you know, he gets a hold of that rope and then he sees that when he's holding onto the rope, the carcass is moving and he just kept messing with that rope until the carcass fell down. Clay, in his new book, he dives into, I haven't read this part of Clay told me all about it. About how black bears are like, it's proven. It's study that they are the most curious animals. And like, like, they're, they're able to do more problem-solving than any other wild animal on

our continent, right? So this is a, like, a prime example of that bear being like, oh, I want that. I'm going to figure out how to get it as opposed to just being like, oh, it's out of reach. Hmm, I'll go and eat the stuff out of the barrel. Does it trip? And again, that was worth the price of admission. Was, this is go there and watch that bear problem-solve that.

“And was that bear able to devour that whole beaver did somebody else come in?”

Uh, he ran off with it eventually and then other bears would, you know, go into the woods where he was and you'd hear some growling and some, you know, I couldn't see what was going on. But again, like, they love that meat and I'm sure someone else got a little, little bits and pieces of it. Hmm, well, smart little bugger. Hmm, he's an interesting coat too. He's kind of trying to become up either cinnamon or blonde. Well, he had that or he's rubbed out hard to say.

Yeah, I could have rubbed that outer coat off. Let's see, where are we at here? We talked about how they love the beaver meat over the sugar in the baits. Yep. Uh, you did eventually get a chance at the target bore and made a pass through shot. Your reflections on sight picture and taking the shot were interesting.

Since you've never been that close, up close and personal with a bear. Sure.

And we kind of covered that. It's just like it's a big black target and your sight picture. Had he been at 30 yards, it'd be easier to pick the middle of the middle. Because you can just your sight picture, you can see the entire bear.

“But when he's at 12 yards, as I think far the shot was, like, you can't see the top,”

when you're looking at through your peak, you can't see the top of the bear or the bottom of the bear. You can just see black. And so it was just a little bit of a challenge to find the middle of the middle. Yeah, we got a clip here, if you. Hmm, that's good. What do you think about that? Looks good now. Looks like a good one. I'd say. You know, there's some bubbles in there. Oh, yeah. Oh, here.

It was tough because, you know, it's getting a little bit dark and you're so close to them. Yep. That like your whole sight pictures just black bear. Right? So I came off of like three different times going okay. There's his leg. Okay. There's his, you know, bottom of the bear. There's the top of the bear. Yeah. Okay. There's the middle. Yeah. And there's the middle of the middle.

Um, let's move on to the next one, Corey. Yeah, YouTube question from @regularguy-j4l asks, on his question, if the bear was wounded, did you have a backup weapon? And can you even have one in Manitoba? A pistol is what he's referring to. Yeah. I don't know the answer as far as can you have one of Manitoba. I don't think I could travel up there with a pistol. I'm not sure I didn't look into it.

be something that he normally do and he normally does have a believe a shotgun.

I can't remember if it was that or a lever action. Some kind of a small handy maneuverable weapon that he can pump off some rounds if needed, you know. And he usually does pack that, but he had forgotten it. He did feel confident with my report on, you know, that we had thought we made a good shot. We heard the death moment. We heard him crash not far away. Like he felt like we're going to walk in there and find it. But normally he said when he is tracking, he does have a weapon.

“But I was, I was not carrying one. How long did you guys wait after your shot?”

I mean, we really only waited because, well, one, you're making a television piece of television.

So, you know, the camera guy's got to wrap their stuff up and, you know, we're trying to shoot stuff and make sure we got it all covered. And then I forget how far away Craig was, but it took him, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes to get there, maybe. And so, yeah, not that long. Yeah. 30 minutes. Oh, that helps to be patient. Let him expire. Just make sure. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Okay, we want to show the bore you got. Phil. Wow. Yeah, he's a tank. Look at that.

He's a beast. Look at that animal, huh? That's a mature bore right there.

“Just the one we're looking for. You got him. Wow. Look at that big horse.”

Oh, yeah. That's a big bear. Go ahead. Look at the head on him. That's soccer stick. He's awesome. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, Craig. Yes, sir. Love that bloody handshake. What a giant, giant beast. Yeah, people asked if that was my biggest one. Well, that's my only bear. That's true.

I killed one of the Mingus trade in our backyard once. That was, I don't know, 75 pound bear. He was eating our chickens. I'm going to call the warden. He's like, look, you can kill him. Or I'm going to have to come and kill him. If you kill him, you can put the meat in your freezer.

So I chose that route. So this is the first one that I went on a hunt and got.

Um, yeah, I'm stoked. It's a big bear. Got a top of that one. Yeah. I mean, he's got a, we think we, I texted Craig, if you remember,

“what we, we green scored him, uh, 19 and change is what he thought on this, on the skull, which, I think”

20 inches is like minute, but when a cry got minimum, 21 is all time. And we, he thinks he's squared around seven and a half feet. Um, so yeah, big, big old giant bear. I mean, I'm stoked on it. It's bears are kind of nice. It's kind of like a turkey in a way where any mature bear, just like any mature Tom, you know, Tom has become a little mature sooner than a bear. But they're all nice. Because they're all like big and fat and got a big skull. I'm in like, I don't care if it's an 18 inch

skull or 21 in skull. I don't think that's ever going to be a thing for me. Or if the hide is six feet versus seven and a half feet, um, like I was just happy with the experience. Now that I have a skull in a hide at home, I'm like, probably not going to go try to kill another bear to have another skull and more hides. We just don't have things to do with them these days. Like my hide is based laying on the in the middle of our living room, which is fun. Mingus has been taken a lot of

naps on it. Oh, good. I laid down on it a little bit. I have a dream or vision where once I moved my wood stove to a place where you can actually right now it's like in the entry area, which I understand why the guy did it, but I prefer if it was like an corner of the house where you can sit in a comfortable chair in front of it, watch the fire. I like to have that hide laid out in front of it there. We're not going to have my hound dog sleeping on it. I could kick my feet up on the hound dog. It's on

my the bear hide. You know, I'm not going to try to preserve this hide by any means. Like I'm going

just hang it up on the wall just to be just to be able to look at it. Um, that being said, I don't need more hides. I don't need more skulls. What I do need more of is bear me. Oh, amen. The more I eat it, the more I like it and it's just such a nice change of pace from all of the super lean venison, you know, whether it's elk deer, pronghorn, mousse, whatever. All that stuff just gets to just kind of be the same after a while. And it's nice to have some meat. It's got some fat in it. So,

I'm going to 100% going to keep hunting bears. But primarily for the meat. Yeah, that's a good change up. And here in Montana, in a lot of places, seasonally, you can add to your freezer in the spring. People feel obligated. I think to do stuff with hides and skulls, especially with bears.

“I mean, in some places, you have to pack it out. But honestly, for me, it's not, that's not what”

I'm into bear hunting for. I want the meat and the fat. Like we're almost out of all of the, I know someone asked, um, well, we can just go to the next question. Well, yeah, let's bring this one up at max straight six, two, three, five asks. What are your thoughts on scoring bears? I think we've established that. Is there a better way to identify trophy status or doesn't even matter? Skull size is very difficult to assess even some pumpkin heads don't score as well as you'd

expect as much of the appearances can be soft tissue. I'm guessing yours went around 20 inches. A great example of what our province has to offer must be a local man of Tobin. But yeah, good point. I mean, if you mentioned that skull was under 20, I harvested a bear

“last spring that sounds like we need to clarify this might have a little bit bigger of a”

skull, but he did not go as long or as squared as your bear. So he'd had a big wide skull, which

probably helped that score. Growing up, we just worried about net length. Like you were always looking

for a seven foot bear, which is pretty rare to find in Montana. I know of a few, but they're hard to find. That's an old bear. It doesn't always mean it's an old bear either, just a big, long bear. So you know, good genes on the hoof or on the paws, they say scoring a bear in the field as far as boon and crock and poking young is very difficult. You'll know if he's got a big old noggin on him, but most people that I know look for the length knows to tail as far as what establishes

a big bear in the size of a bear, whether you could brag about to your friends or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to continue to try to kill bears and just kill ones that aren't the size of a black lab. Someone asked, or maybe this was just Coriask and how much the bear weighed and how much rendered fat that I get off him, the bear was 388 pounds because I had to travel with all of it back from Manitoba to Montana and, you know, airplanes and all that.

I got surprisingly more meat in fat back than I thought I would. I filled up, I don't know, three yeti soft sides and I still had, I felt like the majority of a bear left because I had, you know, hide and skull and so we had enough time because we killed on day three and didn't

leave until day six or seven that we processed, well, rough processed, basically just got the meat

into ziplocks and we were able to freeze most of it and so I actually then just put it into big

“heavy duty garbage bags and just literally filled a duffle bag. I think up to a hundred pounds and we”

just paid the extra fee on shipping that bag. So I had an amazing amount of meat in fact coming home with me plus hide and skull. But in the end, when I rendered that fat down, I ended up with about two gallons. I think I probably could have gotten at least another gallon maybe too. I mean, we weren't being like super picky about it when we were breaking it down again because I knew I just had limited space to get it home. But yeah, it was two gallons super stoked on it. I've been

giving away too much of it and I'm only down to like two pines now and some sort of starting to savor it a little bit. But I like sharing it because people are like, no way, really bear oil.

I'm like, "Yeah, check it out." And they're like, "Man, it's just so pure. You would never know

that you're eating bear oil." Two gallons is an insane amount compared to some of the bears that I've taken the fat off here in Montana. Have you talked to Clay about the two gallon mark? Is that a lot for down south too? Man, I just think a lot of it, like that bear, he ended up winning

easily been 488, if not 550, because they're just, and that's pretty much all fat. I'm sure

“these gaining some muscle too, but they're just putting on fat. So, I think a lot of it just depends”

on what status state you catch them. I know I got to kill the giant bear, like a solid six and a half foot or here in Montana, and he killed it on the last day of rifle season, which is late November. And Man, he said that they actually spent more time packing fat than meat. Wow. Like, there was like in just like weight, weight wise, there was more weight in the fat than there was in the meat. And I forget, that was like six gallons, I think, that he got. Like, I almost didn't believe him.

And when he started describing sort of how he said that the fat just sort of, there was a layer. There just went all the way right down to his paws, and then it sort of stopped right where his paw was, but from here, just jotted out and you could just like jiggle the fat all the way up his arms and just all just covering his entire body. So, I just depends on, you know, what he's been eating and what time of year it is because that's, you know, right before he goes to hibernate,

that's when that bear is going to have the most fat on him. Well, let's see, we know what you're doing with the hide, Manga is sleeping on it right now. So, last question, which a ton of folks asked, do you plan on doing this hunt again? 100% no doubt. Like I said, with any hunt,

I say it's a lot of times to Steve going to Mexico for Tuesday. I like going the first year to a new

ranch because you get to experience a completely new ranch. You don't know anything about it. It's just 100% mystery adventure. It's great. You spend a week there. The next year, I'm excited to go back because I have some relationship with that landscape. I'm like, okay, don't need to go to that high point. That one wasn't good. When he just spent time here here and here because those were the best glassing knots, right? That's where the action was and sort of that gets me excited. And then

the third year, you kind of have it, I don't want to say dial, but you got a pretty good idea of what the program is. By the fourth year, I'm like, man, let's go to start this process over again,

“because I just don't want to keep doing the same thing over. I think when you look at it with a”

baited black bear hunt, it's the same thing. Sure, I went there and experienced it, but it was only three days. Yeah, it was successful. But like, I want to still, there's more there that I did not get to experience yet, right? And again, I think the next time a giant board comes in, I will recognize that giant board probably sooner and my heart rate might actually be spiking more than it did on on this trip. The one that I would like to do that I think would be fun is that instead of being

up in the tree is doing it down on the ground and just being even that much more intimate with the bears, and just being at eye level with them and just seeing how that plays out. Just again for something different, you know, maybe tie a beaver carcass around your neck. That I'm not going to do. No, no, not going to do that. I'm not going to knock up any caster sent on my boots, nothing like that.

“But yeah, I think building like a little ground blind and just setting up downwind.”

I think that'd be the way to do it because as close as you are, 10 feet up in a tree, 10 yards away. If you were on the ground at seven yards, it'd be that much closer. It'd be cool. So I'll see. Yeah, we've actually booked some spots with Craig for 20... Come on, I was 27 or 28. So yeah, not a hunt. I need to do every single year, but if you're like, hey, let's go up there and uh, hunt a beta bear, kill a beta bear. Come home with some meat. I'm 100% in for every other year.

What about you? You've never done a beta black bear hunt. I imagine. No, I haven't never had the

opportunity. We neighbor a state that allows beta bear hunting in Idaho, not every unit, but some units. I would totally try it. I'd love to get that close to see that many bears. Yeah, what's interesting about the baiting is a lot of states regulate it much differently, because of course, as soon as I came back from a man at Tolbot, I might call my friends and Wisconsin saying, hey, if you tried beaver meat, because that's the thing, right? And Wisconsin, you can't

use any kind of meat product. Oh, really? Not. Yeah, restrictions. Yeah, you can't use any kind of a metal, like fabricated can either. The bait has to basically be in a, most people will use a

going to go do it, make sure you know your state's regulations for sure. But yeah, 100% want to go

back, man. It was a great time. The more carcass these were great people. So awesome camaraderie, awesome time and camp. And yeah, just a fun hunt. Okay. Yeah, baiting bears. Don't knock it till you try it.

“No, I'd like to share it with more people. I think that's Craig mentioned this too. It's like a”

great animal for people to get their like first bow kill, right? There's just a lot of opportunities.

You know, maybe your goal isn't a giant one. Maybe your goal. You go up there and you're just like, oh, I just want to kill an animal with my bow. Well, the shots are nice and close. Lots of opportunities. There you go. Great meat. Another, another good reason to, you know, to do a baited black bear hunt. Well, any other topics you want to discuss? No, wish I would have brought my skull and if we could emit, you could have measured it for me and told me if I had a boon or not, but well, maybe we'll

have to make a little video. We can do that next time. But yeah, thank you guys all for tuning in.

“And remember, in about a month or so, we'll have, I think one of Clay's episodes will come out”

or it will be one of Clay's films. Excuse me, Clay. One of Clay's films will come out and you'll be able to punch in your comments on YouTube and Instagram and he will do roughly the same thing. But maybe he'll have bear or brint asked the questions instead of quarry because I'll probably do it down in Arkansas. So thanks again for watching. And yeah, tune in next month for another addition of meat eaters 12 and 26.

“Welcome to meat eaters 12 and 26 presented by multi-mobile and on-ex maps. 12 of meat eaters”

biggest and baddest hunts from the last year released throughout 2026. These are long-form

episodes, so you get more of what you love. The first one up is my baited bear hunt in Manitoba.

If you've ever wondered what a baited bear hunt is like, you'll love this episode. My favorite part was watching a younger bear spend an hour trying to figure out how to get a creatively hung beaver carcass down from a tree. Check it out now on meat eaters YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more 12 and 26 in the coming months. This isn't I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.