Ep. 917: Out-of-Towners Take Over The News: Murder, Pronghorn, Helicopters, and More!

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So ditch the itch and switch from TP to wet extra large dude wipes. Dude wipes. It is the best clean pants down. They're available at Amazon. That's where I usually order mine from. But you can get them at Walmart nationwide. Fantastic product. Proud to be doing ads for these boys at Dude Wipes. When you're miles deep. In the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back. Your boots aren't gear you think about. They're what you depend on. That's why Western hunters trust Zamberland. And man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamberlands. They are so comfortable and just well built and feel great in the hills. Family owned and handcrafted in Italy through three generations. Zamberland boots combine nearly a century of boot making expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit game. They're comfortable, supportive, resole-able and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamberland's perfected their craft to ensure your success. Head to ZamberlandUSA.com for handcrafted boots for every season. ZamberlandUSA.com. You're going to love getting your feet into a set of these. Welcome to the news show today. We've got Tony. Tony waging war on wake boats. Jordan recounting how a backwoods hermit was charged with murder. Maggie educating us on antelope migration corridors. Brent wants Arkansas hikers to pay their fair share. Mark is covering unprecedented fish enclosures across the West. And more. But first, our news. Our news. So satisfying, Phil. I like that. Really working your magic with that sounder. We've got all my favorite out-of-town people here today. That's my news. We've got Tony Peterson, Maggie Hudlow, Mark Kenyon, Nate Mason, not an out-of-town person. Jordan Sillers and Brent Reeves. Once a summer, we have them come to Bozeman for a thing we call the Hootenanny. We hang out with our favorite folks, our favorite brands, and spend a few days together. My two favorite things that I saw this week that I think is noteworthy for us. For our audience. The first one was the Can-Am EV ATV. They had talked about this ahead of time. They're like, yeah, it's really quiet. It's actually silent. It's like, okay, yeah, it's silent. Okay. Silent ATV. It was literally silent. That thing didn't make any noise. I feel like all the hunters there, like, really were trying to find the noise that that thing would make. And it just didn't make any at all. That'll be a game changer, I think, for some hunters across the country. I didn't know an ATV could be that quiet. It's as loud as a bicycle, I would say. That is pretty sweet. So many of us have seen the electric bikes blow up in the whitetail world. But I feel like when you have that added capacity of an ATV, that's pretty slick. Wildly cool. Didn't think it was possible. Everybody I was standing beside said, oh, turkey season. You could cover some ground with that. All right. More of our news. We got Jordan Sillers updating us on the Blood Trails miniseries. Jordan. Yes. So first, Blood Trails miniseries is out. All three episodes. It's called Paradise Prison. It's about hunters and gun owners who were caught in Turks and Caicos, which is a Caribbean archipelago. They were caught with ammunition in their luggage. This came out really in 2024. It really was. It went viral, partly because they were threatening them with pretty serious prison time. There's a mandatory minimum 12 years in prison for this mistake that a lot of people, like a lot of hunters, if you travel to hunt, if you go to the range a lot, this is something you worry about and you try not to do. But it's, you know, it can happen. And these guys were were under some pretty serious threats. And so the the miniseries covers some things, a lot of things that didn't. They didn't come out at the time because these guys were on the island. They didn't want to say everything that was happening because they were worried about retaliation. And so now they can kind of share the full story. And it's pretty wild. You know, our audience is probably vaguely aware of this story to some extent because we covered it in the past. Yeah, we talked to them at the time. Yeah, we had an article. Steve talked to them briefly. Yeah. So that miniseries is out right now. The first time I ever flew on my own in college, I was very anxious. About like following all the laws. Like, what if I have one ounce too much toothpaste? They're going to throw me in jail, right? Yeah. Everything went fine going through TSA. The guy behind me who I worked with at the time had a bullet in his backpack. He didn't get on the plane that day, but it made me feel a lot better. Yeah. About my preparedness for flying. One of the women who was caught and jailed, she was actually handcuffed to a chair for four days because they didn't have a facility for her. TSA caught her lotion. In Florida, but not the bullets in her bag. Oh, wow. And they threw the lotion away and let her on the plane. Dude, I made it through one time. I was going to a bear hunt in Quebec, and I had a knife, a metal decoy stake, and turkey loads, shotgun shells in my bag. And TSA pulled me aside. They're like, man, you got a lot of stuff in here. And I'm like, yeah, you got me. And then when I got to my destination, they never grabbed the shotgun shells. So they pulled the decoy stake in my knife. And they just let me through with turkey loads. Terrorist Tony. That's why they call him that. How many episodes, Jordan? There's three episodes in the miniseries. Okay. Yep. They're all out now. Great. So go listen to them. Maggie Haldol, what's your news? What do you got going on? Oh, I got a couple exciting things coming up in August. My niece is five years old, and we're taking her on her first backpacking trip. And she just came up to me last night, and she said, Aunt Maggie, I'm so excited to go backpacking. I've never been on a backpacking trip before. So we're taking her up in the winds. We'll see how it goes. She's been practicing this summer. She's been hiking. We're not going very far, but a good first experience for her. Mark Kenyon, any advice for taking a young child on a backpacking trip? You have some experience with this, right? Yeah, for sure. We've been taking our boys out a long time. And I was going to ask, how many nights, how many miles? We're only going in about five miles, and it's going to be two or three nights, depending on how things go. We're flexible. Yeah. But it's a very easy trail. One of the first big, not big, but one of the first backpacking trips we did with our kids was in the winds, up into one of the areas that you and I were just talking about earlier. I won't mention it. We don't want to spot burn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about. But yeah, bring gummy bears or some kind of easy access incentive throughout the whole trip. So that whenever they're kind of hitting that slowdown period or starting to complain, you can be like, hey, five more gummy bears. Or if we can make it to that big rock, you get a gummy bear. That's the same thing Dave Gardner does for me when we're hiking. So, yeah, lots of snacks. Find ways to add, like, games and stories throughout. Like, story time is like a cheat code when hiking with our kids. If you can just get a story going, sometimes they just want to hear, like, real-life stories. Other times, like last night, I took the kids for a run, and they just wanted me to make up a story. So then we'll kind of do a joint storytelling exercise where I'll start, and then they'll throw in, like, colorful details. Like, actually, Dad, he's not riding a horse. How about he's riding a robot cheetah? And then you just kind of go with it. And so if you can do that, that will get you through those long, kind of slogging miles on the backpacking trip. And then, yeah, I mean, just for me, it was an expectation reset when it came to camping and hiking. The kids just went from realizing what I want to do and how far I want to go and what my goals are. That has to just go out the window. If it was going to be three miles, but instead we're going to go one mile, but the kids are having a blast, that's a win. And I know they're not your kids. It's not your child. So it's maybe a little different. Maybe you just kick her in the tail and say, get going. I'll have the candy in my pocket. I'm a diabetic, so I got that locked down. And my mom was a school teacher for years. So she's, you know. You know, she's got the activities, I'm sure, already planned. It's so fun to see them out there learning to love life. these things and experience them you're gonna have a blast oh i'm very excited here's how ignorant i am to this whole thing you're not going to carry a five-year-old are you no no not at all so a five-year-old is going to be hiking on on her own our kids probably gosh once they're past two it's really not fun carrying them okay so yeah one thing i learned was that i should have gone longer distances when they were younger because when you can carry them you can actually cover a lot of ground so we could have done like eight ten mile hikes when they were riding on my back but we kind of moderated early because there's like that worry like oh gosh i've got a newborn infant and if we're seven miles back in the back country and something goes wrong you know we'll want to get out but i i could have done it this was uh this was where nate's first backpacking trip was and he walked in there when he was two okay if that gives you any idea what my sweetheart's like he's spent a lot of time in those mountains yeah i I've got to throw one more story about a trip with these kids into the same mountain range that you're going into we did this backpacking trip i alluded to earlier so it's at the time colt was probably two or three and then ever would have been four or five so it must have been he must have been five or six somewhere in that ballpark but either way we went in there and we told my you know my parents and my in-laws our itinerary like hey we're gonna be going in on this day we should be out three days or four days later you know if we're back by dinner so you should be able to get a hold of us so this was like a part of a broader like 10 or 11 day camping backpacking trip some car camping some in the back country and our plans changed i told my parents my wife forgot to tell hers so we go into the backpacking trip because the plans changed we ended up being in there a day and a half longer than we were expecting so as we are hiking back coming out someone you know says hey how you guys doing we're like oh we're great he's like are you guys from michigan we're like yeah he's like i could just smell it on you yeah are you like are you guys are you guys okay like are you guys okay i'm like yeah we're fine like there's people looking for it like what oh no and then we keep walking and then another person says hey are you folks from michigan i'm like uh yes he's like yeah the sheriff's looking for you guys and then all of a sudden it dawned on me i'm like kylie did you tell your mom about the change in itinerary she's like i didn't so then i had to try to get a garment in reach message out to my wife's mom while i decided i was going to carry the kids to go as fast as we could my wife was going to sprint back to the truck as fast as she could to try to call off a search and rescue so we're not having to pay for a helicopter bill or something yeah comforting to know that people are looking for you though yes if you go 36 hours too long yeah it was just long enough to get them over the edge they called someone in so there was no helicopter there's no major search and rescue yeah but there was someone out there starting yeah what else you got going on maggie oh uh the the other thing i have going on that i'm excited about is i'm helping out with this uh more than gatherers um it's it's uh an experience that's over two weekends put on by wild wyoming wildlife federation um and it's a way for women to get their hunter's ed certification um but it's more than that they you know they get really into rifle handling um like actual hunting skills um how to break down an animal how to cook an animal um so it's it's more of an immersive experience than just taking a hunter's ed class getting the cert um and it's it's women only which is cool i did um i did a duck hunting clinic at venery out of montana that is sort of a similar thing at teller wildlife refuge and it was really cool because i wanted to get into duck hunting i'd done it a couple times but i didn't really have like the tools or the confidence to go out by myself um so one weekend just sort of helped me build up my skill set so i would i felt able to go out by myself which is a pretty cool thing to be able to do so i'm happy to be a part of that and i'm really excited more and i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that so i'm really excited to be a part of that brett reeves what you got going on uh well we just launched uh the bear camp uh 12 and 26. uh i don't know mark's in here but clay's not are we feeling is this a film or a video film film a film feature film it's it's it's been out now for a little bit and god it's not the it's not the regular old bear camp there's some twists and turns in it really and what part of the world was this bear this was in arkansas uh it's it's one we do every year and have been doing for quite a while now and uh it was in a different part of arkansas we usually hunt kind of down where clay's from and this one was in a different kind of north more northern part and i just kind of a different zone there and actually had ted koppel in camp there for a couple of days as part of another thing that's our cbs sunday morning deal that's already come out so that was that was a little different having having ted there but uh uh lake pickle was there and the regular old lucum family and and myself and we just it was a good time it's good film got some good good lessons in there video is out on our youtube channel uh the podcast that talks about that video is also on our podcast network uh brent was telling me a story yesterday about i think it was the first time clay had ever gone on a bear trip together in saskatchewan you had a long boat ride yep uh i i loved it so much i want you to tell the audience about what happened at the end of this 55 mile boat ride 50 is five and a half hours in a boat in a john boat across wallaston lake it was absolutely treacherous i thought there's no way i'm living through this and clay was in a boat ahead of me and as they got on the dock probably 30 minutes before we got there and when we got there i mean the water there's everything is soaked water's a third full of the boat's a third full of water and we slide up to the bank and to the little dock that they had constructed there and he's standing at the end and he grabs my hand pulls me out of the boat and i looked at him and i said nobody knows where the love of god goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours and his eyes bugged out of his head and he said did you just make that up i should have said yes yeah yeah brent actually wrote the wreck of the edmund as we all know that was the ghost rider for gordon tony peterson what you got going on you know i have a new fishing project dropping here in a couple days i hope i have my fingers and toes crossed that this still happens uh but a couple years ago i had pitched a fishing series sort of based on my style of public land bow hunting which is my favorite thing to do is just show up somewhere new figure it out and make something happen in a really short amount of time and so we ended up partnering with onyx fish to take that sort of mentality to the water and pick a challenge that was kind of outside of my wheelhouse on a lot of them go to a new lake catch a trophy walleye in a couple days you know figure out the whole thing and those we so we film five episodes you know five target species basically five different states and uh those will start dropping here in a couple days like i said and it was just a really it was the most fun i've had in a fishing project so far so i hope people like it because i think it's pretty cool on our youtube channel yep okay i can't wait to see that i remember you and i riffing on that over pancakes yeah like a summer or two ago and it just seems such a great idea so the fact that it's actually happening is it's pretty sweet man it was you know the challenge with fishing is how do you make it interesting right like a lot of the fishing content coverage is tournaments because there's built-in drama but the old school bill dance style doesn't fly anymore you know people need a little bit more at stake and that one you know it just it just put me in a position to like truly have to figure something out in real time not get into like you know i don't know i don't know i don't know get any information ahead of time other than you know whatever little e-scouting i could do and it's i think they turned out really cool we caught a ton of fish i've said this probably a dozen times on our airwaves that tony peterson is the best public land white tail bow hunter uh that i've ever met that i know um and that uh we're gonna see if that now applies to fishing or not well i appreciate that buddy i think it helped me a little bit the pressure's on because uh last time somebody talked big about tony at the the mediator sporting clay shoot this last week everyone thought that tony was gonna win that competition except tony how'd that competition go mark uh you know for me great oh because i did not come in last place which was my only goal not coming in last yeah uh it was it was otherwise pretty fun me and tony had a really good time once we got past the live filming portion yeah the live filming portion was the only part we were kind of like uptight and then after that we just had a good time and although tony kind of did spiral and i just stayed at my low level actually no i went like this and dropped off a cliff and mark started at the bottom of the valley and climbed his way to the top it was actually fun we've live streamed uh like a two-hour sporting clays competition for my outdoor tv uh we were all paired up with somebody but we were competing on our own my partner uh was yannis and i i was doing considerably better than yannis um like almost doubling his score uh to the point where i was like son of a gun i might win this thing turned out yannis got last uh so yanni is not a good representation of how the crew was doing i was just in the middle of the pack but i was like oh man yanni if this is how yanni's doing i'm gonna get first place that did not at least you got to live with some hope for a while yeah yeah for too long uh mark canyon what's up with you uh well big news outside of work is that uh i moved to montana i'm no longer an out-of-towner spencer okay i mean i'm kind of out of town i'm like i'm an hour away so i'm not gonna be here as much as you said but uh but i'm sort of local now which is exciting can still smell the michigan on him though yeah it's fresh it's been like just a little over a week but so far so good congratulations we're all very excited thank you have you around here more yeah gonna be a new trivia competitor in the room more often now come in we need uh we need some more competition for nate and brody and randall and steve yep well so we made mark move to montana just just to spice those things up but yeah it's been an adventure you know i feel like the last six months have been nothing but chaos trying to you know find places sell places figure out where to go we're still you know we a number of different locations we're considering so trying to weigh all the benefits and then making the final decision should we move should we not move it's been a thing we've talked about for like a decade and um just finally realized with the kids growing up so fast if we want them to to grow up out here and have these opportunities in this community we better do it how about learning how much stuff you had that you didn't realize you had yeah crazy when i got that store more building i had my move my office from upstairs in the house to out there my studio and guy says man i got a dump trailer if you need it i'm like dump trailer dude i'm gonna haul off like three sacks of garbage or three sacks of stuff i don't use and long story short i used the dump trailer that's what we had to use to get all the stuff that i didn't realize i had good opportunity to cleanse yourself so uh so speaking so brent speaking of you and speaking of my move um one of the great benefits of moving out here is that now i can go for runs right from my house out like into some beautiful stuff where previously we were on a paved road lots of traffic was no fun running from home but now we can just like take off be in beautiful country on a dirt road so i got home last night from all these meetings we've been talking about and i pull in the driveway and both my sons run out the door and they're like dad dad dad can we go for a run and i was like sure that's not a thing that they're typically asking to do but they want to go for like a trail run with dad it's 8 30 at 9 or whatever it is i'm like okay let's do it so throw in the running gear we were talking they're asking me about the trip what i was doing with you guys and i'm asking them about what they were doing and uh they brought up the fact that while we were at one of these meetings a couple days ago i was facetiming with them and then brent and janice walked up and started talking to the boys on the cell phone and uh and my young son i bring him yeah what'd you think about brent he's like yeah you know he's really funny i'm like yeah he is he's like everett my eight-year-old he says i used to think that was just a random old guy that hung out around the meeting room i'm like no he works here both things can be true so i got a good chuckle out of that brent you're you're so much more than that that's funny what other updates you got for us mark uh the only other thing is uh you know my new podcast series we kind of teased it months ago when i was in here last it's now out there in the world it's called future wild we're seven episodes in that's on our new meat eater conservation feed we used to be you know cal's cal's podcast is still there but now it's my podcast as well and these are more deep dive um interviews into the world of hunting and fishing and conservation some different kind of angles on things we've had some different types of guests than maybe we typically hear from that's been refreshing and fun for me and hopefully for the audience too we've talked to people like avanchanar the founder of patagonia talking about his kind of way to simplify his outdoor experiences and how that might apply to conservation uh we've talked to a famous climber about how the outdoor recreation community and the hunting and fishing community might be able to you know work together more often to to protect public lands and things like that our most recent episode just came out with a renowned caribou biologist from alaska talking about what's going on with caribou populations across the world which a lot of folks don't seem to be paying attention to but it's it's very important to start paying attention to so it's been fun hopefully people have been enjoying it it's on you know the meteor podcast youtube podcast network and all the other places new episodes every other week correct every other week yep what day of the week thursday every other thursday you can listen to future wild all right our last bit of our news this week is an update from steve we have a video here i have yet to see it all i know is he has a new fish cooking method take it away phil yeah everybody here's a news flash for you we're on a 40-foot vessel called sweet caroline uh mid throbin what's this bay called throbisher bay throbisher bay nunavut we're with a man named tommy whittle who comes from a long line of fishermen and he's making dinner what do you call it corn fish he's corning fish for dinner we're on the deck of the boat he's got a big ass fish tub he's got cod and he's got char and he's laying down a layer of salt in the bottom there like fish salt rock salt like coarse salt this is for dinner tonight so he's got a sprinkling of salt on the bottom he's got three cod blades two char blades now he's putting salt on top of it his father-in-law says all of his food is too salty but he doesn't understand so he's sprinkling salt down there okay so you're gonna let him sit like that how long uh three hours three hours yeah his i saw at the time his father on the phone his father says he has people from all over people from new york u.s they come up they eat this they say it's the best fish they ever had yep so he sprinkles salt all over you're gonna let it sit three hours three hours then we're gonna rinse it off we'll boil it with some potatoes in the pot for 20 minutes they're suffering corn fish corn fish corn fish tonight we're trying different we're gonna do cod and char so yep so they also make salt fish for salt cod but this is just corn fish for tonight three hours with a sprinkling of salt rinse it off right and then you make like a broth cook your potatoes stick it in there just put it in a pot put enough water to bury the potatoes and the fish boil it for 20 minutes good to go we'll come back later and tell you how we like it there you go okay for you people that can't see this because you just listened we're uh fixing to have a shot of whiskey which is which is part of the the fish cooking cheers everyone great trip cheers the speaker is supposed to be okay it's a return to our news flash it's a it's four hours later the fish was salt what you don't agree no the fish was salt the fish was salted in in what we call rock salt fisherman's salt a light dusting the flame light dusting sat for three hours pulled it out he rinsed it in salt water he cut up potatoes he put the potatoes in a pot the fish in the pot that's it the potatoes the fish fresh water in there covered it boiled it for how long ah about 20 22 minutes the easiest best fish recipe definitely very good this is a new recipe that's what that's why this is news because this is a new recipe do you like it oh it's super good it's amazing it's amazing oh it's super good it's amazing yeah warren wonderful david e love it i would eat it again he was asking where to buy that salt and then they're telling me i can make it jadward oh that was delicious another news item is we just watched the polar bear climbing around on the hill for a while which is which was the first polar bear i ever laid eyes on so i'm happy about that and then shortly thereafter a caribou you know what you've seen a bunch of and i almost cut my leg off and the chef saved my life thanks guys you can see that video on the meat eater podcast youtube channel go watch this episode uh traveling with an amount of salt in their boat that you'd think they're going to like de-ice a home depot parking lot that was a i wonder if they get them out how big a part and if it's part of the permanent part of the recipe that you drink whiskey before you eat that mandatory if they got steve to take a shot it must be an important part it must be pretty important i don't make boiled fish taste good we have a blast every summer fishing swimming camping out shooting bows sitting around the fire last weekend we were floating the creek and then doing some metal detecting and we found what i believe to be a very old horseshoe it's all the best and if you're looking for the perfect companion to your summer adventures try the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew from its beginnings in the foothills of tennessee invented by two brothers back in 1948 mountain dew has been a constant and they've got proud american roots it's an american original of citrusy goodness you can celebrate summer and america's 250th birthday with mountain dew whether you're at the grill on the beach or right in your living room sipping on a mountain dew is a great way to start a damn good time enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew an american original tasting great since 48 look for mountain dew in stores near you at mountain dew.com that's mountain dew.com when you're in the back country don't forget your own back country keep it pristine and confidently clean by bringing along wet extra large dude wipes i'm glad to be doing dude wipe ads because i buy dude wipes anyways i've been a long time dude wipe i'm a dude wipe dude all the time just like your truck gets muddy out in the wild soaking your butt you'd never clean your vehicle with dry paper towels so why would you clean your butt with dry toilet paper wetter cleans better so ditch the itch and switch from tp to wet extra large dude wipe like going on a 10-day moose hunt i just bring a pack along not only that so they're extra large okay if you're a little baby you get little baby wipes if you're a man you get extra large dude wipes and when you're out in nature it's going to inevitably call so make sure you bring along wet dude wipes and three adventure sizes like day hike single wipes 18 pack weekend wipers or you know for long trips you got a 48 count pack and it's not just that like when you're out camping just sleep like you're out camping just sleep like you're out camping just sleep like you're sleeping in a sleeping bag let's say you're gone for 10 days whatever i'm using just to clean up at night like you know scrub the old pit scrub your arms if it's all dusty just kind of get your neck and everything cleaned up i love having them with me dude wipes it is the best clean pants down they're available at amazon that's where i usually order mine from it's on amazon but you get them at walmart nationwide fantastic product proud to be doing ads for these boys at dude wipes when you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back your boots aren't going to be the same as when you're in the mountains and carrying everything you need aren't gear you think about they're what you depend on that's why western hunters trust zamberland man i'm telling you i've been running around in some zamberlands they are so comfortable and just well built and feel great in the hills family owned and handcrafted in italy through three generations zamberland boots combine nearly a century of boot making expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit game and terrain they're comfortable supportive and built for the long haul from rocky desert to steep shale slopes zamberlands perfected their craft to ensure your success head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season zamberlandusa.com you're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these all right up next is your news your news is brought to you by banish suppressors all right we have two listener emails we are reading today this first one is from the meat eater trivia question legend leland hart he sends me more emails i think than any other trivia listener he says howdy meat eater podcast crew should i feel bad for making jerky out of backstrap is that a worthy purpose for such high quality cuts as the loin should i slice with reckless abandon or save the precious backstrap backstrap for more elevated purposes i think this is an easy one don't turn that thing into jerky what's the rest of the room think i like using the bottom round like when i'm cutting up uh the hind quarter i just take the bottom round and slice that and vacuum seal it into strips and then when summertime comes around thaw that out and make jerky yeah don't use the backstrap no i think in the midwest whitetail world where some people are taking a lot of deer it's a little bit more common like i've got a buddy who regularly is killing five six seven deer a year and so he's like yeah i'm gonna dedicate some of that backstrap to some primo jerky and he loves it he was we were just talking about this on a group text the other day um you know if you've got the supply of why not diversify yeah you can kill like i don't know five or six deer i only kill one or two a year in arkansas and i know folks that will put a whole deer into either sausage and half and half sausage and half sausage and half sausage and half sausage and jerk i think it's too precious those those backstraps there's not enough of them there's not enough pieces of meat on a deer that are just like the perfect shape the perfect size um for all the the more fun traditional preparations of backstrap it even feels a little sinful to like throw a backstrap in the grind which i've seen people talk about if you're you know really trying to impress the mother-in-law with a venison burger uh you know maybe you throw half a backstrap in the grind even that seems kind of wrong uh well that's why we live in america it's that's right that's right uh so some of the room says you can uh others say no jordan what do you think i i think if the backstrap is just so easy to get out of there like you might as well just slice it up and make it into steaks like i don't i don't really see why you you do jerky um but i i'm like brand i also only kill a couple deer maybe maybe two so it's precious to me any other thoughts for leland there's better cuts out there bud right there you go those whole back straps on the grill man jerky at all all right nate mason's got this next email yeah we had an email about a wag bag getting a listener out of a ticket this is from donovan hey media crew never thought i'd say this but a wag bag and for those of you don't know that is a bag that you poop into so you can pack your feces out of the back country a wag bag got me out of a ticket earlier this year my girlfriend and i were backpacking through a canyon in grand staircase escalante region in utah it was a three-day trip and i was like oh my god i'm gonna trip and on the second day we ran into a ranger on the trail who asked for our overnight permits when we got to the trailhead they had run out of permit slips so we just wrote our names and information on a piece of paper and dropped in the box by the time we ran into the ranger there really wasn't any way to prove it as he looked over our packs he noticed the two wag bags hanging off the back he said that anyone who cared enough to pack those in was helping take care of the land thanked us for doing our part and sent us on our way without a ticket man that's a good story love you guys ever get out of a ticket for being good citizens although you might have been in a sketchy situation well i got out of a ticket not because i was being a good citizen in the hunting world but because somebody felt bad about my bad fortune in the hunting world so to make a long story short i had hit a buck and spent three days trying to find him and couldn't recover him this was down in ohio so i remember leaving after that three days of searching just soul crushed and i was late i was driving home from southern ohio up to michigan it was like 11 o'clock at night the whole drive home i was festering on it just upset about thinking and i'm on some back country road almost home now almost to the michigan border and all of a sudden i see lights behind me and i got pulled over for speeding i was like i don't know i don't know what it was those ohio cops dude so so i must have been going decently over the speed limit and he pulls me over and asked me how fast i was going if i knew how fast i was going i was like honestly i'm not sure i'm kind of in my head right now and he looks in the back and he sees like camo just hunting gear in the backseat of my truck he's like oh you've been hunting i'm like yeah i have just can't just come back from a hunt down in southern ohio and he's like you get one and i kind of gave him a short version of the story like no but i got a shot at one you know three days ago and blah blah blah and i've been searching for him non-stop ever since haven't been able to recover him it's it's been it's been a rough couple days and he's like man i've been there too you just be careful going the rest of the way home and no ticket for that day wow was he state was he highway patrol yeah oh those those guys got me good yeah yeah man this guy was this guy's nice nice good on him this guy i can give you a story from the other side of that oh i can i can remember the time and this was probably 25 years ago but i was working radar coming down the highway and it was five minutes till 10 on a saturday night i meet this car doing 90 though the lights on they pull over and i walk up to it and it's in a rural part of uh of the county and across the field you can see uh there's a dirt road you go on up the highway and turn off but across this field you can see a nightlight at a house so i walk up to the car and they roll the window down and this it's a young girl and she is sobbing and i said i need to see your driver's license and i can hear crying i said are you okay she says yes sir but i'm going to be late and my mama told me if i'm not home by 10 i'm going to be grounded and i said well how far do you got to go she said that nightlight right there that's my house i said well five minutes you're not going to be late but you're driving too fast let me see your driver's license she starts boohooing she's gonna make me late i said no just let me see your license she hands me her license i said well i'll tell you what i think you can make it home in time but you today's my birthday it was not my birthday you sing me happy birthday and i'll let you go and she said really i I said, "Yeah." She said, "Okay, happy birthday to you." I said, "No, no, no." you to sing it like patsy klein was singing to me i want you to make me feel it and buddy did she ever she said happy birthday it was the best where is this going so i gave her the license back i said okay now you go home you'll be home before your curfew but leave earlier and go home i don't want you driving fast she drives on i hear that's the end of the story or so i would think two weeks later i get a call at the office this lady gets on the phone that secretary says hey brent there's a call for you just let's get us on the phone she says brent this is so-and-so i'm like yeah hey how are you doing she said was your birthday last week i'm like no why she said well my daughter stopped got stopped for speeding and she came in the door telling this this story and i said there's i went i went to school and she said there's only one person that would have done that it had to be you yeah it was me but i didn't want to you write the girl a ticket you know and her mom and dad's gonna have to pay it so i thought you know if i give her a lasting impression of something that it would be good and so i guess it was you're a good cop bro okay yeah yeah it's a good cop now if i'd have been in ohio she's straight moral of the story i guess uh pick up your poop um and sing happy birthday to the cops and drive the speed limit in ohio and uh tell him you hit a deer recently and you're trying to find even if it's like june be like officer i'm just trying to find this buck and recover him yeah all right next up we have the news first up we've got nate mason uh covering a cabela's helicopter pilot oh yeah uh you all may have seen the story about a helicopter assisted cabela's run in wisconsin on august 1st 2026 but what you haven't heard is the story of the man behind the yoke dennis pipping a cabela's car using my permission seeking super sleuthing skills i got on the horn with dennis and you know like a lot of the headlines they highlighted he's a senior citizen and he wanted to skip traffic and and the vibe that i thought they were kind of trying to portray him as was like maybe an eccentric millionaire or this confused old man or something like that um that couldn't be further from the truth i'm not familiar with the story yeah he took a helicopter to a cabela's yes he landed a helicopter in a cabela's park and he took a helicopter to a cabela's park and he took a helicopter to a cabela's park and parking lot to as we found out to do his pre-season hunting grocery run okay um dennis is a blue-collar concrete man with a love for big old white tail bucks and before we get into the specifics of that august 1st run i wanted to figure out where the journey to a cabela's hlz or helicopter landing zone uh begins and so 1984 dennis started flying he got his vfr visual flight rating purely out of love for the game he's looking at planes his whole life and he's like i really want to do that so he bootstrapped the hours got his initial rating and he soon graduated he just he just kept rolling he felt limited by vfr so he got an instrument rating then he got his multi-engine and eventually got his commercial and that was because he took up a neighbor who happened to have an engineering firm and that neighbor said i need you to fly my engineers around to the various job sites and so he did that at the same time dennis is growing his commercial concrete business uh pipping concrete which specializes in manure storage and methane storage and he's been doing that for a long time and he's been doing that for digesters, among other large-scale ag-focused concrete products. In a process I don't fully understand, farmers use these, especially dairy farmers, use these facilities to either create fertilizer or biogas. The scale of these projects is what I want to comment on. These manure tanks start at a million gallons and have gone up all the way to 30 million. Those 30 million tanks are 516 feet across and 20 feet tall. For reference, an Olympic swimming pool has about 660,000 gallons. So that's 44 full pools, Olympic swimming pools of manure. It's about a week's worth of water in Bozeman. Or recently, a data center in Fayetteville, Georgia, owned by Quality Technology Services, consumed 30 million gallons of unmetered and unpaid-for water during construction. And so that gives you the scale of these manure plants. Going back to Dennis's business, as it expanded, he pulled the old Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, and purchased a jet to manage his business activities. That worked for a while, but the preponderance of his jobs are in the Midwest. So he swapped that for a helicopter, a Robinson R-44 Raven, which you can see in the articles. This brings us to Saturday, August 1st, 2026. As it turns out, Dennis is a big whitetail guy. He's got a great chunk of property in Fond du Lac and he's also got an 80-acre parcel in Buffalo County. He's running a few cell cams on both. He's got some deer he's keeping tabs on. And so Dennis invites his neighbor to knock out their pre-season shopping list down at Cabela's. They hop in the old Robinson. He hops in the old Robinson, flies to his neighbor's house. His neighbor hops in, and then he proceeds on to Cabela's. Landing there, before he lands, he takes all the necessary precautions. He reconnoiters the HLZ, brings her down. They run in, they grab their batteries, their cameras, whatever else, and they check out. They pass a cop as they're checking out. They're loading up the helicopter and that cop comes back out extremely politely, really respectfully. He says, I'm responding to a drone incident. I think this is what, this is a very large drone, but I think this is what I'm responding to. And he asked, do you have a license for this thing? At which point, Dennis produces his license as well as his, as the permits and the regulations that cover all this. And basically, if you're a helicopter pilot and you're following all the other laws and regulations, you can land pretty much anywhere you want as long as you're not providing or posing a hazard to people or property on the surface. And so he explained that to the police officer. Police officer said, sweet, thanks. Have a great day and sent him on his way. And so the next day, he takes all his groceries he got, flies up to Buffalo County and sets up his new cameras. According to Dennis, he put this camera in a spot that he never hunts and he would never think of, but his wife told him you should throw this camera here and got a picture of sweet butt. So if you can pull that picture up, Phil, yeah, that's, that's a, look at that split G2, man. That's a big one. Give me, give me a score on that, Tony. From that, I know it's tough. Picture was taken two days ago, August 4th. I mean, one sixties, right? Yeah, at least, at least. Yeah, man. So that's a, that's the result of his whole trip is a picture of that, that big old butt. Yeah. You want to kill a one sixties. You just got a helicopter. Yeah. I think me and Tony's chances are significantly plummeted than if that's what's required. That's so rotated. He, uh, following this trip, you know, a few days later, he starts getting Facebook notes, calls from people like me and whatnot. And he wanted to make sure everything was copacetic with Cabela's. And so he calls the store manager and the store manager says, please come anytime. You're a loyal customer. All his business cards, like his, his company cards are Cabela's cards. So he can just shop at Cabela's. Cabela's for free on all the points. Um, but, uh, they, they, well, he wanted to make it very clear. The Richmond, Wisconsin Cabela's welcomes all modes of transportation to their store. And so Dennis is going to keep on going. Um, he wanted to communicate his gratitude to law enforcement, the Cabela staff and the community for their respect and support of his aeronautical adventures. And he said, it's no different than rolling up to a gas station in a snowmobile or pulling up to a restaurant and a boat. And we would all like to see more acceptance of the vertically inclined methods of transportation. Yeah. Finally, uh, Dennis offered a discount to any member of the audience in need of manure storage or other agricultural concrete work. So if you're a meat eater audience member who needs them, just, uh, hit up Pipping Concrete. He's national. Dennis being a concrete man makes me think of how, uh, Vegas like has all kinds of conventions going on any giving day. Um, I used to go to SHOT Show about every year. I think I've been there three or four times since this again happens in Las Vegas. Uh, and SHOT Show is the world's largest gun convention. It just like kind of takes over the city for a week. Uh, but there's still other things that are happening in Vegas. Um, I imagine Tony knows where I'm going with this. The three big shows in Vegas while SHOT Show is going on is SHOT Show. Uh, there is the concrete show. So you got all the concrete folks. And the third one is the porn awards are happening all at the same time. And so Vegas has like this really wild, uh, a lot of crazy ingredients. Get dropped into Vegas for this one week, every January, uh, the porn award, the, the gun convention and the concrete people. And you try to kind of suss out like, who's this, you know, Nate Mason over here. Does he look like he's concrete guns or porn? You know, the guys flying in first class, it's the concrete guys. Yeah. Yeah. There was one instance where I was at a blackjack table, uh, just making small talk. And this dude sitting next to me, he's like, Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm trying to figure out like what he was doing here. Uh, he owned a strip club in Atlanta. So he was there for the porn awards and SHOT Show. He was, he was doing a two while he was there. Yeah. Good for him. He had to run some tight security at his, uh, gentlemen's club there in Georgia. Wow. They call that. Don't worry. I'll bleep that out. Now we're over to Tony Peterson to talk about wake boats. So first off, I would just like to say, like Nate Mason, I actually appreciate the Ohio law enforcement officers. I spoke too soon to my Ohio, actually all law enforcement officers. And if we should ever meet, anywhere i hope you guys remember that i tony peterson support you while nate mason does not i only have a bone to pick with highway patrol you guys have a cool logo but i should just drive slower what you should do is be quiet all right so this is this is an issue that's sort of near and dear to my heart living in minnesota fishing a lot of lakes fishing over in wisconsin the uh the court case that i ran across that put me on this sort of uh on this trajectory with this story is based in wisconsin but this is happening all over which i'll get into but wake boats are becoming a big thing and for people don't know most recreational watercraft are designed to either minimize wake or at least not amplify it not the case with wake boats now these boats cost on average 65 grand to over 300 grand which is bonkers for a boat on a on a lake right or we would think so anyway maybe not the helicopter to cabela's crowd but why are they so expensive so these boats have a couple features that drive me nuts one is a premium audio system yeah i figured that's where you were man that's where half the budget goes on a wake boat if you don't if you've never been around one of these suckers when they're when they're cranking some music and know how that sound carries across the water that's not what i'm going to talk about what kind of music do they like traditionally not the kind of music i like okay well a lot of hip-hop give me an example of like a playlist you would hear a lot of hip-hop a lot of bro country uh a lot of stuff that you might not necessarily want to have blasted in your face when you're fishing with the kids or whatever these boats are expensive for another reason they have ballast systems so they can draw in water and change the weight of the boat so some of them can draw anywhere from that's what they're doing yeah i had no idea so they can draw in anywhere from 2000 to 5000 pounds of water which changes everything they also have these things called surf tabs on the back which work with that different weight to create custom waves essentially depending on how fast you're going you can create waves out the right side the left side big waves little waves but they're they're meant to make waves wake boats they burn a lot of fuel they make a lot of waves and they don't make a lot of recreational boaters happy so this is kind of the route of where i'm going with this issue there's the pro wake pro pro wake boat crowd and then there's the anti-wake boat crowd and now they're meeting in the court systems okay and you're gonna see this a whole lot i think the pro wake boat crowd you know they say we are licensing our boats we are being legal we are buying a legal product and using it in a legal way on the water they argue that they're being discriminated against constitutional rights are being infringed the whole thing the other side says you know these boats which account for it will at least in wisconsin from my research accounted for about four percent of sales in 2025 out of all boats the other side says you know if you're if you're fishing if you're a kayaker which kayak fishing is super popular right now if you're a stand-up paddle boarder essentially if you're not a wake boat person and you're using the lake boat you're not a wake boat person and you're using the lake boat water this is impacting you in somehow right like if you're just just imagine being out there in a kayak and having four foot rollers hit you all day long there's that component there is also the component of the ecosystems of our lakes and this is this is a big one we haven't so this is kind of one of those things you see this with forward-facing sonar and some of these other issues that are really hot right now there was no reason to do any scientific research on whether wake boats were impacting lakeshore habitat fish ecosystems because we didn't have them before now we have them so this research is starting to kick in university of minnesota doing a study on this bunch of different methods to try to figure out how is it impacting vegetation how is it impacting you know sediment levels in the water and how long that takes to settle because that has impacts on all kinds of things in fisheries and what they found was no surprise that this is happening now to be negatively right to be as objective as i can be in this issue uh every boat that you operate in shallow water can have this and have an impact to some extent right it's a scale issue so long story short some of the recommendations coming out of this research and coming out of these you know kind of i don't know if they would call themselves anti-wake boat but definitely concerned more about the fisheries and are suggesting you know they should be operated in at least 20 feet of water give those waves a little time to dissipate before they hit shore keep them at least 600 feet off of shore that study that the u of m did used a bunch of different cameras a bunch of different ways to measure it it's a scientific study it's not just anecdotal stuff and you're going to see a heck of a lot more of that what you also have as a component of this which we understand on our side of things is the amount of money that fishing generates and so if you look at wisconsin it's estimated that fishing contributes about 2.3 billion dollars in revenue every year and supports well over 20 000 jobs so when you talk about you know a very small contingency compared to the overall population using wake boats loving wake boats feeling that they're just they're doing their thing and it's not impacting anybody you have to have you have to factor that in how it's affecting this this huge revenue generator and this isn't just a wisconsin specific thing right you can you can find this in a lot of states wisconsin for example sells 1.2 million to 1.4 million fishing licenses a year in minnesota i think it's 1.1 or something it's big business right so you're starting to see regulations come into place but they tend to be like city ordinances we haven't seen anything obviously at a federal level you're starting to see some stuff show up at a state level uh but but so far it's mostly been city ordinances right we have a blast every summer fishing swimming camping out shooting bows sitting around the fire last weekend we were floating the creek and then doing some metal detecting and we found what i believe to be a very old horseshoe it's all the best and if you're looking for the perfect companion to your summer adventures try the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew from its beginnings in the foothills of tennessee invented by two brothers back in 1948 mountain dew has been a constant and they've got proud of it american roots it's an american original of citrusy goodness you can celebrate summer and america's 250th birthday with mountain dew whether you're at the grill on the beach or right in your living room sipping on a mountain dew 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their constitutional rights were being infringed i just saw uh last week that a federal judge as it worked its way up through the court system a federal judge tossed it because he said you haven't proven any damage yet which is where it gets a little bit weird with this stuff because even though a sydney a city can slap an ordinance on a body of water and say you can't do this you can do this whatever there's no enforcement and so there was actually no real damage suffered by them but when you start going down this rabbit hole of wake boats and you start seeing these court cases popping up there i found some in minnesota there's several in wisconsin there's at least 59 uh communities in wisconsin at the when i was researching this that have slapped some kind of ordinance on against wake boats or limiting them this is going to be a thing that's coming state level i would assume within the next couple years especially as you see a lot more of this research on this fisheries coming out yeah the the footage that you see from the cameras they have underwater it's really revealing uh like what that can do to a fish you'll see a bluegill you know sitting in 10 feet of water who the the wake boat comes over uh and they just like get pushed out of the camera frame and then they fight their way back and then the second wave comes and they get pushed out again uh in a place like wisconsin minnesota that's loaded with uh warm water species they spawn in very shallow water um it's it's easy to envision how that could affect a fish's bed that's up in you know knee-deep water uh if these wake boats are driving by you know a dozen times a day right so we just we just did a project up on lake of the woods on the canadian side and when you're on that when you're in that lake it's rusty crayfish everywhere and rusty crayfish came from the ohio river basin in the 1960s at some point dropped into this lake somebody's bait bucket or whatever they have taken over knocked out the native crayfish and what rusty crayfish do is is literally alter their habitat by snipping vegetation and so the the diversity of species in their game species game fish species to target has changed you don't find large mouth really uh the smallies are blowing up the walleyes are blowing up and so you start thinking about that and go yeah that's a that's a multi-decade thing but it was it was of the impact on the vegetation in the lake now you look at this like you said and you watch vegetation getting uprooted you watch the sediment level not settling and changing that'll change water temperature that'll change which kind of species can live in that band of the water column it's it's not going away yeah the water clarity that's uh also really meaningful you'll see you know after the wake boat comes over the water goes from clear to just you know covered in sediment right and that's something that's not going to take a decade to find out it's going pretty quick right and you think about you know if you're a lakeshore owner you know you see a lot of work to mitigate lakeshore loss right because it's just going to start peeling back up your yard and you think about you think about throwing throwing those rollers all day long and you'll see you'll see arguments against it like well a bass boat which is what i own that throws a weight too it's like it certainly does but i don't go out and drive for six hours a day circle in a circle you know what i mean so this is this is a unique situation you're also not going just up and down hot rodden by the shore to show off to all the girls well no i do that i should have known what do you do when these wake boards go past you and you're fishing have you ever chased them down give them what for well no i haven't and i don't i mean it it's a tough situation right because they are doing they're being legal you know like they're doing their thing you know it it personally drives absolutely nuts but it's like i'm also kind of a freedom guy you know but if that's why i like i like this study by the u of m and i hope there's a bunch more out there coming because if you can just demonstrate that listen this is not good for the fishery i'm like okay regulate it you know yeah what are what are the ways that this is being handled like what do these ordinances look like what are some options for like kind of living together and like coexisting without damaging are they just outlawed like straight up banning no no and that's the thing too that's that's part of the reason why that case got tossed because it wasn't like they couldn't use them yeah so it's distance to shore time of you know amount of time in the day because you'll see this uh you know with with jet skis right like some lakes a lot of places they can only be used to like sunset and they're off the water yeah um so we already have precedent for this yeah but it's like you know you're talking a city ordinance with no enforcement versus a state regulation and so it's it's a little muddy but it's in it's very individualized you know there's nothing that's i i didn't find anything that was like flat out we're banning these like you just can't use them pull them yeah uh but i'm sure that they're worried that that's coming it looks like it would be maybe restrictive to bodies of water certain sizes or something you know once you get below a certain acreage of surface water right and and it is and it's also you know if you if you have a town on a lake in the midwest upper midwest you're not going to be able to use them because they're not going to be able to use them probably a fair amount of the tax revenue is tied to recreating on that lake that's not you know wake boats yeah you know so it's there's there's a lot of financial incentives in there too yeah this this is something that you see talked about across the country but i feel like minnesota and wisconsin specifically are sort of the the tip of the spear on this so far that that seems like it's where there's a real collision of lake life between the people who like to fish and the people who like to you know fish and the people who like to you know fish and the people you know uh be pulled behind a boat or or you know ride a wakeboard behind a boat yeah i and i don't even think i think that what we know we're so used to kind of defaulting to the fishing side of things but there are you know we we spend a lot of time on lakes in minnesota there are a lot of people who like to get up and go for a nice paddleboard you know paddle across the bay or whatever and it's interesting to me because it might be a time when we would pair up with people who generally aren't right yeah it makes me think too about that being that far north don't you have it like a limited window when you would be out there swimming for sure for sure as opposed to being well and that's that's part of the problem too is you know you have maybe four months a year where the water temp is right for everybody to be out so there's all these competing you know recreational opportunities yeah more to come i imagine this conversation will be very different uh you know next year five years from now maggie how though what's going on with pronghorn migration corridors well this isn't the newest news but uh i was i was involved with this so we're going to talk about it today great uh so on june 26 uh wyoming governor mark gordon officially designated the first antelope migration corridor in the nation which is pretty big news um it's over two million i think that's right yeah two million acres um and this has been in the works for years uh so the part of the process i was in was a working group it was sort of like the final review of this um but it's backed on 20 years of data collection that the game and fish have done um so i was in what was the governor appointed local working group so i live in pinedale wyoming that's in sublet county it consisted of commissioners from sublet teton lincoln sweetwater counties i think that's all of them um and then various stakeholder groups so i was representing wildlife conservation and hunting there were also representatives for industry ag motorized wreck um so we had like a lot of different opinions uh you know different different looks on how we should be approaching this um so what we were tasked with doing was looking at this 150 page um biological risk assessment compiled from the game and fish and so what they had done at this point was identified the corridor from all this data that they collected um and so it was broken down into originally 10 segments um that got whittled down by the time we were reviewing it to eight segments um so it was our job to like look this over see if the corridor provided too many participants and then we were able to get to the bottom of it and we were able to get to the bottom of it and we were able to get to the bottom of it and we were able to get to the bottom of it protections not enough what other recommendations we would give um so we met with representatives from counties people like planning and zoning oil and gas reps a lot of wildlife biologists uh took some time for public comments every month um so this was like a six-month process that we we were meeting and going over all these details um so the actual designation what this does in doesn't do i'll go over um i think it's important to recognize that private land is included in that two million acres but it's not really impacted by designation um there's nothing that like private landowners can or can't do because of this if anything there's a benefit um they're more likely to get funding dollars to do things like habitat improvements or fencing improvements on their they're more likely to get um the funding dollars for that now so the corridor itself is broken down into low medium and high use areas And then there's stopovers and bottlenecks. And the way the protections are distributed within the corridor are dependent off of that. So, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Like, low and medium use areas have the least amount of protections because the way the GPS collar data, you know, they're seeing the least amount of migrations happening in these areas. But there's still enough to determine that, yes, this is where the animals are using this area for migration. So it's the way that the wording is phrased is like surface disturbances. And what that means is like new developments, drilling a gas well, drilling a mine, setting up a solar facility. So if you're doing any of these things on public lands, you have to go through a process. You have to speak with the BLM. You have to speak. You have to speak with the game and fish. So this sets up sort of the conversation that these industries have to have with game and fish and BLM in order to develop these areas. So low and medium use surface disturbances can occur, but human presence is limited during migration periods. And each segment of the corridor has a window of time during spring and fall migrations. That's sort of. Determines when these human present times, if that makes sense. So it's sort of it gives a buffer period of like, OK, this is when people should not be in this area. So it's the same, but a little bit more intense for high use areas. So high use areas, it's defined as surface disturbances shall not disturb the functionality of the corridor. So a high use area you can develop there. As long as it's not impinging on how antelope migrate through that area. So the difference between that bottlenecks, bottlenecks are where the protections really come into play, and that's where the corridor has been funneled down to this small area where there's a lot of antelope moving through a very small window. So an example of this down by Rock Springs, there was a bottleneck. And. And so there is a cliff on one side, a highway on the other side, and things got pushed through really fast. There is a solar plant that was put in the middle between the cliff and the highway. So the antelope have nowhere to go, nowhere to move through there except for the highway. So back in twenty two, twenty three, we had this really severe winter. We also had pneumonia. We had really, really crazy animal die offs. I mean, there were. There were just herds of animals that laid down and died on the side of the roads. It was it was devastating for our populations. So this was one of those areas, these bottlenecks where they recognize that, OK, we have to keep these open, because if not, that's where you're going to see piles of animals on the side of the highway if we don't keep this open. So bottlenecks only make up seventy five hundred acres of public lands within this corridor. And that's where there are no surface disturbances allowed and no human presence during migration. So the bottlenecks are really where the most protections come into play within the corridor. And so it's really not a super strong legal like it's not law in Wyoming. It's guidelines for development. It provides opportunities for conservation dollars and it it opens the potential for more. Protections for pronghorns and more years to come. And, you know, when we were asked to apply to this group, we were asked to consider the Teddy Roosevelt quote, conservation means development as much as it means protection. And I think what this corridor designation does is a pretty reasonable balance between those two things. You know, we need development to support our communities. It pays for some conservation efforts like we can't exist in a world without development. So we need to be able to do it in responsible ways while still being mindful of our other natural resources like wildlife. So this designation isn't saying we can't develop. It's only saying that in those very fragile bottleneck areas. So I'm I'm really proud that we got this pass through to designation. I really you know. Our antelope populations have been bouncing back and it's it's good to see it's promising to see. And I hope this opens up more money for more fencing work and more habitat change. And, you know, hopefully maybe one day some good karma for me so I can draw an antelope tag. Do you think that like the private ranchers who live along this area, are they aware of this new recommendation or if they were listening right now, this would be news to them? No, I think they're aware of it. I think, you know, we had ag representatives there and I think there's a big push for ranchers to change to wildlife fencing, friendly fencing in our area. Which would look like what? So for pronghorn, it means moving the bottom wire up because they tend to go under. The issue is that 22, 23 winter, we had an abnormal amount of snow at lower elevations. So the fences were buried. Mm hmm. So there's, you know, there's this push for new research to figure out what can fencing look like in the winters when they can't get under it. Um, there's lay down fencing, there's, um, areas where we have gates that we can open. Um, so it's, there's, there's more opportunities to research sort of how we can work with ranchers. Um, because I mean, we have a ton of public land where we live, but there's also a ton of private land. I don't live around a lot of people. Uh, I like it. That way. But, uh, it's, you know, private land. It's, it's very, it's just as important for wildlife as it, as public land is. I think something worth noting on this one too. And, and first off kudos, Maggie, thank you so much for being a part of this program. We're being on that working group. That's amazing. Um, you know, this is a pretty renowned migration route, right? It's, it's, it's branded very nicely, the path of the pronghorn, but this is the longest known land animal migration route in the lower 48 States. So these pronghorn are going from around grand Teton national park, 150 to 200 miles all the way down past where Maggie lives in Pinedale into that green river Valley. So that's a substantial distance, pretty amazing wildlife feet. That's still happening in the lower 48. Uh, but you know, there's a lot of change and you can speak to this much better than me, but with, with the gas field in Pinedale, with the growth of the community, there's a lot of fragmentation of that habitat now, right? There's a lot of development now that is making. These protections so much more important. So this is like very important at a crucial time as that area that they used to pass through that they depend on is changing rapidly. Yeah. And I forgot to speak to this, but we've already had the mule deer migration corridor established in the area. Um, we've have things like winter range areas, um, acknowledged that sort of restrict access. Um, we also, you know, this benefits more than just pronghorn there's studies. Out that show sage-grouse and pronghorn have a lot of the similar habitats. Um, so this is sort of, I see this having a ripple effect that this is going to impact positively more than just one species. Um, you know, it's, it's helping our whole sagebrush ecosystem, um, because it is, it's a huge amount of land and it's, I, I mean, looking at how things have changed it, it's. impossible to ignore the changes you know with development but it is what it is that that's sort of there's no way around it so I think the more we can have conversations like this and set up for success with you know responsible development so we're being mindful about like how we can do this without putting a solar plant you know and in a place that is going to be a pinch point where animals are moving I think the the better we will be going forward. Aunt Maggie and that's how I'm going to refer to you from now on is Aunt Maggie. Has there been a lot of or any substantial pushback on any of the things? There was some I mean we went back and forth a lot there was a point during the process where I thought people didn't want it to be designated because they thought well this isn't doing anything this is just going to cause troubles for me you know trying to get permits to drill a gas station. Well so we had a lot of pushback but I think you know I think people realize if they want to drill if they want to mine if they want to you know set up a data center in this place that we live we we care a lot about other resources there too so they're going to have to come to terms with that so you know they pushed we pushed back we came to an agreement and and there are we we put out I mean it's a multi-page document of recommendations of things going forward because we heard things like well you know the BLM doesn't always listen to what's written in the mule deer migration court or recommendations and there's disconnect between them and the game and fish so you know we put out that there should be an mou and and nothing that we wrote was necessarily like a legally like defined thing it was just like hey we think that the governor's office should do this um so it'll be interesting to see where it goes from here but just getting to the point of designation as something that's worth celebrating good stuff maggie we have a blast every summer fishing swimming camping out shooting bows sitting around the fire last weekend we were floating the creek and then doing some metal detecting and we found what i believe to be a very old horseshoe it's all the best and if you're looking for the perfect companion to your summer adventures try the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew from its beginnings in the foothills of tennessee invented by two brothers back in nineteen forty-eight mountain dew has been a constant and they've got proud american roots it's an american original of citrusy goodness you can celebrate summer and america's 250th birthday with mountain dew whether you're at the grill on the beach or right in your living room sipping on a mountain dew is a great way to start a damn good time enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew an american original tasting great since 48 look for mountain dew in stores near you at mountain dew dot com that's mountain dew dot com when you're in the back country don't forget your own back country keep it pristine and confidently clean by bringing along wet extra large dude wipes i'm i'm glad to be doing dude wipe ads because i buy dude wipes anyways i've been a long time dude wipe i'm a dude wipe dude all the time just like your truck gets muddy out in the wild soaking your butt you'd never clean your vehicle with dry paper towels so why would you clean your butt with dry toilet paper wetter cleans better so ditch the itch and switch from tp to wet extra large dude wipes love them like going on a 10-day moose hunt i just bring a pack along not only that so they're extra large okay if you're a little baby you get little baby wipes if you're a man you get extra large dude wipes and when you're out in nature it's going to inevitably call so make sure you bring along wet dude wipes in three adventure sizes like day hike single wipes 18 pack weekend wipers or you know for long trips you got a 48 count pack and it's not just that like when you're out camping just sleeping in a sleeping bag let's say you're gone for 10 days whatever i use them just to clean up at night like you know scrub the old pit scrub your arms if it's all dusty just kind of get your neck and everything cleaned up i love having them with me dude wipes it is the best clean pants down they're available at amazon that's where i usually order mine from it's on amazon but you get them at walmart nationwide fantastic product proud to be doing ads for these boys at dude wipes when you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back your boots aren't gear you think about they're what you depend on that's why western hunters trust zamberland man i'm telling you i've been running around in some zamberlands they are so comfortable and just well built and feel great in the hills family owned and handcrafted in italy through three generations zamberland boots combine nearly a century of boot making expertise with premium materials and nearly a century of boot making experience with new innovations for any pursuit game and terrain they're comfortable supportive resoluble and built for the long haul from rocky desert to steep shale slopes zamberlands perfected their craft to ensure your success head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season zamberlandusa.com you're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these all right now we have jordan sillers bringing some blood trails flavor to the douche show what do you got jordan that's right um so this is a story that i've been paying attention to for a little over a year and i hope to cover it in greater detail in a blood trails episode but as you'll see now is just not quite the right time for it so um ian eccles was a 46 year old turkey hunter who went missing in uh kitty uh kitties kit to kittitas kittitas county washington um and so this happened back in 2020 and um so like i said i've i've been tracking it for about a year now but there was recently a major update just last month which we'll get to in a minute i also spoke with one of the game wardens who was involved in this case um so you're going to get some information here which is why you listen to the meter news podcast that you're not going to get anywhere else um so to to give a little bit of backstory here eevee in was last seen uh on may 17th 2020 and the plan was to he was going to go turkey hunting with his buddy but he was going to go up um and camp by himself the night before and then meet up the next morning um this is near uh the town of liberty in washington it's kind of a mix of there's a big national forest there there's also some some state land um his buddy goes up the next morning and he doesn't find ian um he's not where he was supposed to be camping and so he goes hunting but he's kind of increasingly concerned this is ian's friend uh and so he calls ian's other friends they come up to look for ian because they're like they're concerned it's not like they think maybe you know he's he went to a different campsite or maybe he got lost in the woods and like he needs help we need to go find him so they're looking for him and they're not super concerned until they see ian's car it was a toyota fj cruiser but someone else is driving it someone that they don't recognize and the back windshield of the car was broken and like gone and they knew it was ian's car because the driver was wearing ian's hat and they recognized his hat and so they flag him down they're like hey like where's ian and the guy just drives off and so at this point like we're pretty concerned so the sheriff's office gets involved um it becomes a you know a manhunt basically not only for ian but also for this guy that was driving ian's car um and so about a week later they find ian's car it had been abandoned and what they find inside is not promising um there was blood everywhere it was it looked like there'd been some kind of fight the back windshield it appeared had been shot out um rather than you know broken in some other way and so along with all that stuff they find ian's id so they know it's his car but they also find the id of someone else um this guy's name is jorge oma uh alcantara gonzalez and alcantara was kind of a known criminal in the area um he he hung out like in the woods um and he was implicated in another vehicle theft of a an elderly woman who was found dead inside her house he had her car um at one point and it's unclear what his involvement is there he's also linked to like robberies of like cabins in the area things like that so they're looking for this guy um three days later a warden sees a guy carrying a shotgun in the area and he doesn't know who it is but like at this point all the hunters had been like you need you guys need to be out of this area they cleared the area of hunters because they're looking for you know a murder suspect um this has been a week now yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's been about a week uh maybe a little bit more he sees this guy carrying a shotgun he's like hey you need to stop and talk to me the guy drops the shotgun runs into the woods it's ian shotgun they think it's it's alcantara so they know he's like out there um just like hiding out in the woods um and so you know at this point like the manhunt is huge the game warden i spoke with said one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the state tons of agencies involved like the warden service the sheriff's office the the the warden i spoke with really emphasized like the danger of this hunt and you can kind of imagine like you're a game warden looking for this guy you're walking through the woods you don't know whether he's like behind a tree looking at you from a ridge like he's clearly armed he's you know dangerous he knows how to survive in the woods and so it's a very dangerous operation for these guys like looking for alcantara um his family was pretty cooperative and they sort of explained like yeah he goes up there and like lives in the woods all summer you know he forages he poaches he you know probably steals from cabins to just like survive so he just like lives up there so and it's a giant area like it's extremely difficult to like find like search through every nook and cranny um they got close a few times the game warden said they they found um fresh human feces that they had reason to believe were his uh and so they you know with any amount of evidence that we know he's close um they dispatched like plain clothes wardens to just like act as hikers right and so if they run into him he won't just run away um so they did that they said uh they set out trail cams hoping to you know hoping to spot him somewhere but this is like he he said it was kind of like a siege strategy because it's such a big area you're not going to like find him wherever he's hiding out you're just going to kind of keep the pressure on until something happens right and so something did happen uh 23 days into the search so now we're into june of 2020. um someone calls from a cabin and says hey i see someone in my neighbor's cabin but i know they're not supposed to be home and so they think okay this is a pretty good i think they had reason to believe he was in that area so the the warden i spoke with went up there with three other two other guys so there's only three of them up there and like in this type of situation you would want more guys right you would want more people to like get this guy out of this cabin because they know he's armed but they also know he slipped away several times they like need to find him so they go up there um sure enough they see him inside he's like making food in the kitchen they see a gun next to him and they you know i imagine the the conversation maybe brand you can speak to this was like do we wait for other people to show up or do we just go in and they decided to just go in so they approached the house they yelled like hey come out with your hands up um i imagine like if he'd grab him and he'd be like hey come out with your hands up and he'd be like hey come out with your hands up and he'd be like hey come out with your hands up and he'd be like hey come out with his gun it would have ended much differently but he didn't he came out of the house he was arrested kind of without incident um good yeah so it it ended well in that sense um it the story gets a little confusing at this point so this happened all the way back in 2020 this guy is clearly suspected in a murder but everyone was kind of confused because he wasn't charged with murder he was charged with eight other felonies for stealing the car stealing guns um and he pleaded guilty and went to prison so everyone's like like what's going on this guy's clearly implicated he's been named but not charged what we've since found out is that the strategy was we're going to charge him with these felonies we're going to get him you know off the street or out of the woods right where he can't hurt anyone get him in prison and then build the murder case against him so this is the big update that happened just last month his release date was approaching for those other felonies he was charged with murder um and you know the case is pretty convincing they have the forensic evidence from the car um there was they have gps evidence linking him to the area they have a apparently they have gopro footage of him like using ian's tent and like his stuff the like three days after ian went missing um who's gopro i'm not sure actually it could have been ian's uh i i imagine it was um but at the same time like and i and this is all speculation right i don't i don't know exactly all the evidence they have because they haven't released all of it um the defense could argue like hey this guy just found ian like he just wandered in found ian ian was dead he got scared he um you know put ian's body somewhere stole all his stuff he didn't have anything to see why they took all that time to build this case yeah abuse of a corpse is a lot different than right it is um fine well and that's that's the the thing that's like the kind of you know besides ian's death the most tragic part of this story is that they still haven't found ian damn um and so you can also imagine again pure speculation you can imagine some kind of plea deal where he tells them where he left ian he gets closure for the eccles family um as part of the case part of some kind of plea agreement but who knows who knows you know whether that'll happen so you know if if you live in this area of washington state i know his family uh you know ever before hunting season every year does some media like hey please be on the lookout for our you know our brother our son um because he's still up there somewhere and no one knows where yeah so brent how common is that that like you would know without a doubt that this person did this crime specifically a murder we just like can't get the courts to you know agree with us yeah it's the without a doubt thing it has to be without a doubt yeah you know and then it's i've seen that i've seen that similarly happen before where you you've got a lead pipe cinch conviction on something that you're gonna get them to confess to or that you they don't have to confess that you can get them to sign yeah i'll do you know six years or whatever and then you know we build the case from that so i knew where he was going with that when they didn't charge him with murder to begin with yeah well they don't have the facts yet and you're going to do that once you know you take somebody and they're found not guilty you didn't have all your ducks in a row then you know your sol to do it again it ain't going to happen yeah jordan what's it going to take to uh make this into a full episode do we need a conviction yeah so at this point in the case no one's talking because the the guy's been charged but not convicted and so prosecutors are you know are never going to talk to me and then they also tell the family hey don't talk to the media because and i get it and i'm not like it's fine um because they don't want to mess up the case they don't want to mess up the prosecution by releasing some kind of information um and so that's really what i need to do a blood trails episode is you know access to people who can tell me what happened um and right now that access just isn't there so i'm waiting for you know the the trial to happen okay we'll be on the lookout for that yep all right brent has an update uh around hikers in arkansas what do you got bro right man it this is the first of its kind in arkansas that i'm familiar with and it has caused a bit of a the social media blow up but uh why on wildlife management areas which is areas in arkansas that are completely owned by the arkansas by the state by the game and fish commission lakes and ground which i think makes up like 12 of the total public land in arkansas is state owned and managed by the state to access that now to paddle a boat hike bird watch or non-hunting or non-fishing activity just to be there you're going to have to buy a ten dollar and fifty cent permit and it has it went into effect july the first and man all my social i get messages all the time about so um can't believe there's such big money grabbed by the game and fish all they're wanting to do is to buy a boat and do is is make extra money so they can waste it on something else and but i said when it first started i i started trying to keep an open mind about what was going on what was happening so i started talking to other hunters and then i eventually started talking to the administration of the game of fish a good friend of mine is a deputy director and i absolutely see it you know the trend has been like in out west i think you guys are probably more familiar with this type of permit access permit than we are like you gotta buy a pretty expensive permit to drive through yellowstone and you're not i mean that's that was a new one to me when my first trip out here i thought let's go to yellowstone okay well first thing you got to do is get a permit not like oh to drive on the highway you got to be kidding so it's it's a reflection of that that is the use change has or the usage has changed over the last few decades where there are more people who are going there that are not just hunting and fishing so it's a bigger impact on the area and with a bigger impact on the area it's going to cost more to regulate it upkeep and that kind of stuff so i think this this regulation for this permit is an absolute got a counter to person counter to see how many folks are actually using the land because you know you can they got a formula to use by how many game boards check fishing license and hunting license and the surveys that they send out for who's who's using this piece of property and they can kind of get a idea of the impact they're going to have on that but no idea about folks that are not hunting and fishing there the caveats to the the permit is if you're under 16 if you're 15 and under you don't have to have a permit the game and fish can sanction activities to do it like uh you know 4-h or ffa or or academic groups going out there to study if you have a fishing license or a hunting license you're exempt from it so it's obviously a uh to me you know try to figure out how many folks are doing it and in the there will be uh penalties for it if you don't have it but it was implemented in july the first and there's they've got a grace period to where they can get the word out and people can can realize you know if i'm i'm going out there to watch redbirds i've got to have this permit before i go and the interesting thing that i that i saw was when they did this they did this survey uh back in february went from february the 19th to march the 6th of this year they put that survey out to all license holders of anything in in arkansas they got 8477 responses to the wma permit question that specific question support for it was at 41.5 percent opposition to it was 24.7 percent and 33.8 percent had no opinion hmm like they didn't care there, but it kind of goes back to the social media thing. social media ain't very social because the majority of things that i see on there is negative for it and it was you know almost half of the people that were supported do they have a guess as to what kind of revenue this will drive i they didn't they don't and i think that's part of it they really have no idea how many people are going out there but with that revenue if it's if it is you know significant it's only going to improve i think i think it's a good thing and i think everybody should pay their way i'm i'm paying my way to go out there so let me ask you this because the the most common devil's advocate here for our side is you know we buy hunting and fishing licenses like crazy we support the management for fisheries wildlife uh you know in a disproportionate way generally in a lot of states right when you so like a backpack tax or whatever this hiker tax on the surface it's like yeah we let somebody else pitch in if they're going to be you know recreating out there but at the same time do we want to give up a spot at the table do we want to give up any level of you know power we might have in the decision-making process because of how we like to use it and so there's it's kind of a double-edged sword right like we want more people to pay but if these groups start pitching in yep they have a seat at the table you know and they might not like us shooting deer well that ship sailed though like they already have a seat at that table so they might as well be paying for it like more and more and more of those other interest groups are having more influence well that's true and so all right regardless of what we may want this idea that claiming that forever we're the only ones that pay for it is going to give a sole right to dictate how things are managed that's just not holding up anymore definitely won't be in five or ten years well another part of that i liked it is you know if you're you're buying a permit for this one of 12 places there in in the state of arkansas that that the game of fish owns that money is federally law it's a federal law that money goes back to that specific spot so well that part that's good and this is ten dollars a year right not yeah ten dollars and fifty cents ten dollars fifty cents i mean like we have we have things like conservation stamps that are you know through game and fish that it's like you have to have one with your hunting tag if you use game fish lands like you have to have one yeah that won't buy a state duck stamp there's things like that but i i mean if you're gonna use you know like a pit toilet or whatever toilet paper ain't free you know road maintenance ain't free right you can't there's no such thing as free lunch so i think if you're gonna bitch about a ten dollar fifty cent a year you you can maybe go deal with your own stuff thanks what that what you're saying that brings ptsd to me when i see like in minnesota when they're like we haven't raised the fish license price in 17 years and we want to raise it a buck and people lose their minds yeah yeah yeah there's always like an immediate shock to the system but it only takes a few years and it's uh just very normalized and you're just like yeah it's the ten dollar thing you pay to go enjoy public lands if you want to watch birds or uh use the pit toilets that they offer yeah well you utah tried this like pretty recently and the the backlash was so severe they like forget it they they abandoned the effort it's crazy so well i'm i'm gonna be for it so we send the hate mail to spencer okay uh and then i'll tell you to send it to mark who has our last story of the day about some historic fishing closures across the western part of our united states what do you got mark yeah well since we're you know we've been talking for a while we'll try not to belabor this too much uh but the headline here is that high water temperatures across much of the west have been leading to catching really bad fish and they've been catching really bad fish and they've been catching really bad fish and they've been catching really bad fish and they've been catching fishing closures that are at you know kind of all-time highs now there this is something that over the last decade plus you know anybody who spends time especially trout fishing out in these western states has gotten used to seeing this it's happening uh more and more and more seemingly though every year and just recently some some relatively attention-grabbing new updates of that have have popped up most notably your home state of wyoming has implemented the first voluntary closure is what they call it for catch and release fishing closures and they've been for catch and release fishing closures and they've been for catch and release fishing closures and they've been fishing on the renowned snake river so this is iconic water that runs from yellowstone national park through grand teton national park to the state border this is kind of like the jewel of wyoming of fly fishing imaginations and now from noon to sunrise they're asking anglers to stay away they're asking anglers not to be out there catching these fish because of the fact that these high water temperatures which lead to lower oxygen levels as well as the fact that put high stress on these fish and this is happening not just on the snake but also many of the other major rivers in wyoming it is impacting the green river the north platte river the new fork river the big horn river and actually there's a full closure now on a segment of the big horn river which is another huge draw huge tourist draw to wyoming um then if you move on down you've got similar hoot owl restrictions across almost every major trout fishing river destination in montana i think it is 24 rivers at least 24 rivers now have hoot owl restrictions which is what they call yeah explain that because that was a new term for me yep so hoot owl is simply something similar to what wyoming put into place in montana that means from 2 p.m on they're asking and this is not so much a voluntary closure but an actual more enforceable closure on montana rivers hoot owl means after two o'clock catching catch and release fishing is a no-no um so that's 24 rivers and that's a new term for me yep so hoot owl is simply something similar to what wyoming put into place in montana that means from 2 p.m on they're asking and this is not so much a voluntary closure but an actual more enforceable closure on montana rivers hoot owl means after two o'clock catching catch and release fishing is a no-no um so that's 24 rivers at least 1200 miles of river is covered by that in the state of montana now most of them are like very notable bodies of water oh yeah beaverhead yellowstone big hole bitterroot gallatin missouri i mean creme de la creme of what trout anglers are traveling to montana to go experience now half the day you can't experience them uh in colorado at least 19 rivers now have similar restrictions something like 635 river miles impacted and state officials are calling that unprecedented so that's something they've never experienced to that degree in colorado and as of last week the entire yellowstone national park the entirety of all the rivers and streams in yellowstone national park are under the same kind of thing so if you care about cold water fish and fishing for them these days it is getting more and more unlikely that you will get to experience it the way maybe you could have 10 years ago or 15 years ago during parts of the year um and so here's you know what's happening here i mentioned that the higher water temperatures right you've got historic historically low winter snow packs in the winter like what we had this past year across much of the west you've got these record heat waves you have this mega drought that's been going on two decades relatively consistently across large parts of the west all of this is leading to you know stream flows going down sooner in the year river temperatures going up higher than they used to and staying high uh all of that is just not going to happen in the next few years good for a species that is relatively fragile and needs that cold water. And when you add on the stress of fishing, a catch and release type situation, you're taking a possibly already physiologically stressed fish and then adding in that physical exertion, it makes survival rates plummet. So the recommendation from Trout Unlimited and by most state agencies now is that once you reach a 68 degree water temperature to give them a break, that's when severe stress and real concerns around survival rate hits. So 68 degrees and higher, folks are saying, hey, let's get out of there. Let's leave the trout be. When you're getting above like 72 degrees, that's when we're reaching like lethal thresholds for these fish. When that happens consistently, a whole bunch of bodily functions start going down the drain for trout. Each different trout subspecies, species a little bit different. So rainbow trout and brown trout handle the warmer water temperatures better than, say, cutthroat trout. So, you know, for the native western trout, cutthroat, there's a bunch of subspecies, but they really need that really good cold water. They are on decline and have been struggling for all sorts of reasons, including the introduced species of brown trout and rainbow trout outcompeting them. So now with these warmer water temperatures, that's increasing that challenge even more so because the browns are going to do a little bit better. The cutthroat are going to do a little bit better. They're going to struggle more so. And so you're going to have this competition threat continue to kind of build as well. So you've got a lot of different things layering on top of us here that are going to impact those native trout of the West and really a lot of anglers, a lot of people that care about this resource, a lot of, you know, businesses and fly guides and, you know, shops and hotels and all of this, you know, that ride on top of this ecosystem and these species. So it's something that's, you know, as someone who's been a part-time resident for a long time, I've been out here for a decade plus. I've been seeing more and more and realizing, oh, wow, the way I experience this place is changing. And I'm sure, you know, Maggie, you've been seeing it living here your whole life, how that has become seemingly just a part of what it means to fish in the West is that, hey, August is a crapshoot. August might not be a thing anymore for big parts of the year. They're just not creek fishing in August. It's pretty much what it comes down to. Are Wyoming. Are Wyoming's closures voluntary? They're not even like, you have to be off the water? To this point, they're not making them legally enforceable, but they're like this very strongly worded suggestion. And they're saying if anglers will follow this and we're asking that they do so, then we won't be forced to go further but this is like that step this is the final warning before they have to do something further the the antelope corridor recommendation uh fishing when it's hot out recommendation wyoming doesn't like being told what to do really are you stubborn maggie depends okay when i need to be yeah are you gonna be fishing out there though no no good no it's not that it's the fishing also doesn't get it's not that good when it's that hot uh they're lethargic they're not that fun to fight um i might be on the lakes trolling for some big lakers because that water stays pretty pretty consistent we don't really get above 70 um and the lakers are pretty low so when it gets a little warm we go to the lakes then we go to the mountains and there's there's still cold water around but i think that's a great point though is is like making sure that people know about the alternatives like if we're reaching those higher water temperatures yeah give the trout a break in those rivers where you have that but there are alternatives the lakes you know high alpine tributaries uh you know switching to warm water species chasing some bass chasing you know something like that in these reservoirs um this is you know we don't want to love these things to death we gotta if it means we sacrifice a little bit of time a little bit of that experience i think that's certainly better for the long term uh two other things to consider when you're in that zone approaching the 68 degree kind of line they do ask you know if you are still going to catch and release between like 65 to 68 degrees you know try to make sure that those fights with the fish are as short as possible so don't baby them for 15 minutes to make sure you don't break off a fish like get that guy and use a heavier tippet um don't take all these pictures and have like a five minute photo shoot with a fish get these fish in fast get them back in the water fast give them the best chance for survival i think if you do that another thing i talked with a with a guide down in idaho a friend of mine mike dawkins about this and he said you know just remember like as we are moving into this world of warmer water temperatures increasingly stressed trout you know numbers don't have to be the thing like so many people want to chase catching tons and tons of trout let's maybe focus more on the experience let's catch five trout in a way that's really exciting to us and then enjoy the rest of the float or let's go do something different where you can still enjoy that fly fishing or that trout fishing however you like to do it but we don't need to pound every single possible fish because there's more and more people trying to do this the conditions are getting more and more difficult for the fish so we're all going to have to give a little to keep this around for the long term yeah maybe time for those uh trout anglers to just start thinking about hunting season it's only a month away it's getting a bit of time thinking about it all right that's the end of today's episode uh next week though steve is back and for the first time he's going to be doing a news show from the fish shack so tune in to see how uh fun or weird or bad that goes all right see you back here then bye now holy smokes i've been running around in some zamberland boots i've been running around in my god are they comfortable damn out of the box ready to wear i can't believe i haven't done it before and the hunting tradition right has always been about knowledge and skills handed down from one generation to the next whether it's field memories with your parents or sharing the experience of a first hunt with your own kids that shared connection is something the family at zamberland boots truly understands since its founding back in 1929 three generations of zamberland family boot makers have refined their craft in the mountains of 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