Ep. 920: News from the Fish Shack - Cornell Bans Butchering, The Alaska Fishing Report, and America’s Youth Speak Out

This is an I Heart Podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hunting season is right around the corner, and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18. You can save up to 40% sight wide, and this year they're rolling out new 24 hour daily deals throughout the sale, so it's worth checking back every day, because those deals are going to change. There are also a few pieces I really like that are on sale for the first time ever, including the 308 pant and navigator hoodie. If you've been waiting to replace some worn out gear, fill a hole in your system where just get ready for the season, now's the time. Head over to firstlight.com and gear up for the season. Welcome to the news show, everybody. This is a field report. This is a special edition of the news show where we're reporting from the field. What is it called in the news like where the guy is out in the field in the field? If there's a picture that it's like a hurricane, and I'm the guy out, being like, it's getting very windy. Yeah, Johnny on the spot. Yeah. I'm like, we're like that guy. We're sitting on Seth's a frame porch in Southeast on an island in Southeast Alaska. Seth was a great neighbor to a point, and wherever at his place, he built his outdoor shower so that my place where I go to take a whiz off my area, my ledge. Now when I take a whiz, I have to look at Seth's, some of his garbage, and his outdoor shower. Yeah. So I'm going to put an outdoor shower where he has to look at my outdoor shower. You guys can wait to each other. Well, is it a, is it, is it been a problem? No. We keep expecting it. Do you think that we're just going to see you taking a leak? Is that, is that, is that, that I'm going to be out there, you know, shaking her off for something. And I'm going to look over there. You're going to be staring at me. Scrubbing his hand, scrubbing your pits, and just, I don't know, you know, here's the, we shower once it's dark for the most part. Oh, you do? Yeah. That's what I like. We haven't, we haven't, I don't think we've done a daytime shower yet. So this show is going to, this news show is going to be a little bit different. We are going to have, we have some news coming in the end. There's some, there's some hot news coming in the end. But we're going to be heavy on the, our news section, because we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about, we're going to do a field report reporting from Alaska. We're efficient. We're going to be talking to some of tomorrow's anglers. Today's youth, they're going to, they're going to come do a quick interview. We've got three of them lined up, young men. All you people that think that the world's going to hell and the kids these days and all that, all your worst fears will be realized when we conduct a series of interviews with like the worst of the worst. We have what a 14 and 2 16s, you have almost 15, yeah, we got basically a 15 and 2 16s, they're going to come on. You're going to realize to just how bad things are when they come on and share their thoughts. It's worse than you think. And then we're going to, we're going to get us some new stuff. We got Grizzly Bear. We got a kind of an interesting deal with Grizzly Bear is up in Canada. We got an interesting thing about shooting drones with TSS in our contingent reporting on TSS. We got some news from Cornell, my new enemies, Cornell University, used to love them, now they're my enemies. Really? Why is that? Well, I'll tell you. And we got a, and then we're going to go to a pre-recorded interview with someone from Ducks Unlimited about a, a botulism, get this, a botulism outbreak, killing thousands of ducks right now, a botulism outbreak, killing thousands of wild ducks here, you know. But for starters, we're going to announcing, here's the, I've been dying to talk about this, we haven't talked about it yet. The Christmas tour, this year's Christmas tour is coming up. This time we're hitting, last year's Christmas tour was down south, it was kind of like the Yankees come down south, you know, like Sherman's March all over again, but you guys wrecked that place. Yeah, we wrecked it, but this is, this is more in the Midwest. So we're going to do, this year's Christmas tour, where you come out, all theater shows, and a night of entertainment, guaranteed laughs, live music, you name it. Monday, December 14th, we're going to be in Grand Rapids, Michigan, okay. That Monroe live, 20 Monroe live, what does that mean? That's a theater. Grand Rapids, Michigan. So very close to where I grew up, that's where I went to regular college, that's why I finished regular college was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tuesday, December 15th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Turner Hall. Wednesday, December 16th, Madison, Wisconsin, Barrymore. I was feeling there's going to be a lot of people that aren't from Madison, they're asking why it was in Madison. I'm not following. That happens a lot. Like the people that come to the show aren't actually from Madison. Like they're coming in from the country to like the big city. I can't believe you had it in Madison, I got to come in to Madison, all these hippies. So come tell me all about that, that's the Barry, that's at the Barrymore, Clay Nukem, Brent Reeves, me, Janice Pritalis in the live tour this year, great show, again live music, guaranteed laughs, lots of prizes, Thursday, December 17th. So December 17th, the Christmas tour, Des Moines, Iowa, at the Val Air Ballroom. Friday, December 18th, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pantages Theater. Then the tour closes the 6th night of the tour, Saturday, December 19th, Fargo, North Dakota, Fargo Theater. >> Is there any like special guests? >> We'll get it all, we'll get it all that later. >> Yeah. >> I'll announce that later. December 14th, Grand Rapids, December 15th, Milwaukee, December 16th, Madison, Wisconsin, December 17th, Des Moines, Iowa, December 18th, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 19th, Fargo, North Dakota, Guaranteed, last lots of prizes, Meeders, Christmas tour. Also, the punt gun that we shot, and made our punt gun video about, we bought it for $20,000,000 from Rock Island, which is a premier auction site for antique firearms and other firearms. We're selling it back, we're selling it at Rock Island. All money goes to conservation, okay? The auction is on August 23rd, it's part of Rock Island's August premier auction. It is a two gauge, two gauge, Holland and Holland punt gun. Features 95% of its original paint, custom engravings. And it works. When we bought it, we didn't know if it works. It works, we shot it six times, we have the shell casings. You can have a functioning gun, and you can watch a video of it working. Very rarely on Rock Island as a punt gun come up, but this is happening, August 23rd. Rock Island is the world's biggest auction house for antique and historic firearms. They sell, for you punt gun enthusiasts out there, they sell less than one punt gun every year. It's a rare this is. This is the only punt gun Rock Island has ever sold that they know for effect works. It's like when dirt when we found out dirt has a narwhal allergy. Many people probably have narwhal allergies, but they don't know, but he has a certified narwhal allergy, now when dirt goes to restaurants and they say any allergies dirt can now say, which I'm jealous of, he can say narwhal. So did he eat narwhal? He ate it and it took him four times to figure out that that's what was getting them. His throat chokes up, he turns bright red, gets all itchy when he eats narwhal. The fourth time we ate a good bit of it and then he finally got it in his head, he's like, I have a narwhal allergy. I know I do now. I didn't know what's been happening, but the four times I've eaten it, I've had an immediate reaction. Huh. Dirt is allergic to narwhal. Interesting. We bought the punt gun for $20,000. Rock Island estimates, estimates, estimates, estimates that it will sell for between 20 and 30 grand. It's a good chunk of change for conservation. Yeah. Should you get a beautiful out there that want to take your turn on the punt gun. If we, if the punt gun goes for less than we bought it, that's a real kick to the nuts for us. Yeah. Because we went and got the trouble. We're giving you a shell casing and the gun works. There's custom made those cases too, right? Yeah. Possum casings. Yeah, they're not cheap either, right? every dollar goes with the meat eater land access initiative. Rock Island is even waving their fees so that even more money goes to conservation. August 23rd, you don't need to be in person to bid. When Spencer, uh, New hearth won it at auction, he won it remotely. Is there, do you know if there's a minimum bid or how they're doing it? No, no. Rock Island auction.com is a great question, but I can't answer it. Check out. It's a lot. Three, three, eight, six. Get your own punt gun. So you're selling one shell with it so they can. We're throwing in a shell so you can bring it to your machine is to have them mock up the shell. And we'll tell you everything we know about shooting it. Shoot's great. Shoot's great. Last little, uh, bit of deal here. The season or, season opener sale. So meat eater season opener sale is live and it's the best time to gear up for your hunt. Buy one, get one free on all meat eater teas and hoodies. 50% off select game bags. Plus get deals on our favorite hunting gear from first light, Phelps game calls, F H F, mul tree, Yeti and more. You can even save on our most popular seasonings and trivia games. Head over to the meat eater store.com to gear up for your hunt season opener sale. Okay. Time for our news. Fish and report. Fish and has been spectacular. Like almost as good as a weather, which is like spectacularly odd. Yeah. Some years are good. Some years are not good. I don't know what it is. It's just been a stellar year for fishing. I, when I come up here, I usually expect it to be half the day's decent, half the day's slow. Like, you know, temper your expectations, but yeah, it's amazing. And mix bag. It's a little bit of everything. Yeah. You know, mix bag. We, um, you know, Kings, King Sam and numbers have been down and there's been a lot of restrictions on King Sam and they must be having pretty good returns and, and, and BC British Columbia. I'm guessing because a couple of years this time of year, it's just closed, closed, no retention on Kings. Um, then it was like you could have one, you could have two, but you, you can, a non-resistant catch couple Kings. It's, it's been pretty predictable. The last fairly predictable, last, what, two, three years. Yeah. I don't know if that's because we figured out how to fish for, I know I know exactly what is it's flutter jigs. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. We shouldn't be talking about this. No, given it away. I'll tell you what doesn't work. Scratch that. Scratch what I said. We used to jig a lot of halibut will let head jigs and grub. What do you, what do you call this? Grub tails. They glow, glow ones. Kings don't hit them. Nope. But Kings like, pinks like flutter jigs. Everything likes flutter jigs. Yeah. Kings hit flutter jigs. Deep. What's that? And deep. Yeah. Real deep. Yeah. That's the weird thing too about Kings is that they're like just ways you don't picture King Sam and is we get some Kings scattered. But you know, we put Kings that are grabbing a flutter jig that's bang in the bottom and 180 feet of water, two out of feet of water. Yeah. Yeah. He's down there, grubbing in the mud, which is not how you picture a King Sam. Yeah. And you can expect, I don't know, a couple of good opportunities today. No. You screwed one up. I screwed one up. Brody's boy. He'll come. He'll be on talking about this in a minute. I'm not going to talk about it. I wasn't in your boat. Well, he'll talk. Well, I brought one up today. It was 27 inches 27 inches. Yeah. There's a minimum 28. Well, I threw a 26 I threw a 26 King back. We got a legal one today. Hayden. Hayden got a legal one today. Yeah. Well, it's a little confusing when you hook them, right? So you're you drop in your bottom fish and for halibut and caught expecting a really set the hook and something that's going to give you some fight and you set the hook and your line just goes slack. Before you know it, you're real in as fast as you can to catch up to it. It's like you're processing it all happening. Yeah. That's a weird thing about King Sam and psychology is like a halibut. He wants nothing to do with that boat. Yep. He wants nothing to do with the surface of the ocean. He wants that bottom back in his mind. He's like, I'm not leaving the bottom. And he's also not going laterally. Like no, he's like, I'm going to stay unless you catch him shallow. Right. Then they freaking run like. Yeah. Self-watering a big one real shallow. And then it took off. Right. Yeah. But normally they stay glued to the bottom. Yeah. But yeah, you're reeling. Nothing's happening. And you're like, what's going on? And then 50 yards from the boat. A King Sam is jumping out of the water. Now, if you want to think of it spatially, picture that you're standing at a urinal. Like looking down. A king wants to be around the hole that the pee drains down. Like he's like, just down. You mean a halibut? A halibut. Yes. A halibut. He wants to be down in there. Yep. And King wants to be up by the handle, the flush handle. The King's the the spray that's coming out and hitting you in the knees. Yeah. Yeah. But why a King Sam is weird that a King Sam thinks the way he does. What does he think? Like you haven't even even if you haven't even put pressure on him yet. No. No. They're up. He just the fact that he has a hook in his lip. Make someone to come up and breach the surface. Yeah. And that's when things are going to go wrong. Yeah. That's what you have to back your drag off, right? Because your drag's tight for a halibut. So the moment you feel like it's a King. Oh, he's got three miles of slack. Yeah. I mean, you're like reeling up as fast as you can trying to back your drag off at the same time. And then yeah, probably the problem with the flutter jigs is that they're heavy. And once they get out of the water with those things, they shake them off. Like, yeah, I was thinking maybe he's gonna knock himself out. Just lay there in the water. There were a few times in years past where we just never took a net with us. So getting those Kings into the ball. Gaffin. I was stressful. Yeah. Because you got to know their legal. And then you got to get a gap in them while they're going. Yeah, you got a lot of them rough gauge them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I learned the thing today that I didn't know. I just heard it. Maybe a rumor. Does it sound like a rumor? I heard today that a friend of a friend. There's a fish called a yellow eye rockfish. You're loud right now. A non-resonant is loud. What? Yeah. This gets so complicated. We've talked about it before, but yeah. Alaska regulates rockfish in sort of not by species, but almost like by classification of rockfish. Kind of where they live. Yeah. So you have plagic rockfish, shelf rockfish, and slope rockfish. And each of those buckets has specimens in the buckets. But there is one rockfish, the yellow eye rockfish that you have to log the catch. If you're a non-resonant. You have to log the catch. You're one a year. I heard today that I didn't know this. And I'm going to be way more diligent about it going forward. I didn't know that it was this quick because we'll come back at night. I don't want to incriminate myself. I didn't know it was immediate. I heard sometimes you just do it, but the app makes it easier when you get used to the app. But I kind of forgot about the app, but the app makes it easier. A guy called a yellow eye, ADFG, who has been watching with binoculars. They waited 13 minutes. Oh, for him to approach his boat and gave him a citation for not logging his yellow eye. Yeah, that's like big game fill out your carcass. Yeah, they treat it like no different. And I just like just ignorance. I'm not doing my work to read the regs carefully. I did not know that it meant like the second you caught it. Yeah, we're always, you know, I'm just like I said, just I'm just admitting the guilt. You know, we'll be like, oh, don't forget. Well, so many of those things in other states are like 24 hours. Yeah. Yeah, like we catch a bobcat. You got 24 hours to report the bobcat. I had no idea you have to immediately like put it in your cooler. I think you're tagging it. Yeah, I wonder if it says it in the regs. Is it, uh, it's probably this, I don't know if it would be just yellow eye. Would it be that way for Ling cod and king, like, King's, yeah, of the rock fish. So sable fish, yep, all the non-resident, like, sable fish, kings, yellow eyes, Ling cod, uh, salmon shark, Ling, Ling cod. Yeah. That's good to know. Logging immediately. That's a, that's a public service announcement for you anglers out there. Log your stuff. I didn't know but I could tell you what going forward. Well, like you said, I'm going to have Johnny log book, man. I'm the log when I hook into them. Yeah. Yeah, they have me. Yeah, with a yellow eye, you kind of can pull your phone. They don't get away much. Yeah. So Kaya, who you'll be hearing from, we're going to do a quick interview with him. Just part of America's terrible youth. Uh, he caught his yellow eye. We're not trying to get his yellow eye. Took him a whole week. Yeah, I want to watch it happen this morning. In my little, my little boy was like, get the gap, get the gap. I'm like, that fish. He can't get away if he wanted to. Fish ain't going nowhere. Yeah. No, you can bring him halfway. way up and he can get off and no eventually go eventually well you know what I've I've seen that happen two times I have two times seen yellow eyes in 300 feet of water come off somewhere on the journey up and I'm not kidding you 10 minutes later whatever there's a yellow I floating there yeah but just he got barrel trauma you got enough barrel trauma before he shook the hook did he came off as much as he'd like to get back down there you can't do it can't do yeah with those things you feel like you get a couple head shakes in the beginning and then it's just like dragging up something yeah heavy and they got they got a good five seconds of fight yeah been her done yeah but you're digging that automatic that automatic release disender thing you're using yeah we had a guy on this here's another hot tip for anglers man we had a guy on from I think he was he was was he nature yeah we had he has a nature conservancy and he brought so it in Alaska and this is true in other places you've been in Alaska if you're fishing if you're fishing I can't think of you're fishing rock fish or there's a potential to catch rock you have to you have to have a descender device with you there's a lot of fish species gliath groupers are one I think and all the rock fish one they don't they don't they don't they can't equalize well so when they do a sudden when they do a sudden pressure change from going from deep to shallow their swim bladder can't regulate like a halibut can like you can take a halibut from 500 feet of water to the surface need to swim back down but a rock fish has the very slowly do it like a scuba diver he has to do a slow ascend so they regulate that you have on board a descender device this guy gave us these pressure sensitive descenders and you can set it 100-200-300 yep and normally you're trying to put this little needle in his lip oh and you're getting all those rock fish have spines oh yeah and you're keeping him longer and he's can't he's not cooperating because he don't know what's going on trying to explain to him it's like listen dude I'm trying to send you back to the bottom the ocean calm down yeah this descender has like a little plier it's like it's the most ingenious it's called the sequelizer it's almost like the jaws on a bogey grip yeah yeah yeah sequelizer it's got the perfect grip for grabbing him you grab his lip and it goes you set it to whatever if you're if you're fishing a hundred around a hundred feet of water set it to a hundred feet go down and it just lets the fish go I watch him on my fish finder the thing is the thing is unbelievable and you'll see the fish you'll keep going yeah you'll you'll see you'll be washed that thing go down it gets you a hundred and all sudden like the fish breaks off you guys breaks right breaks right and goes and like slowly makes his way down man huh yeah we're great yeah I've been using that old old school descender and that's that's a pain yeah but I down bobby pin looking deal I highly recommend the sequelizer descender if your person lives in these areas but think we're discussing as the peacock deal because halibut have all the cache people want to come catch a halibut when you leave in the morning you say we're going for halibut but more and more I'm going for peacock oh we go Pacific hot yeah you're hoping for those big waves of just cod after cod that's so much better that is a eaten fish so much better because you're here to collect food it ain't about like I need a big fight out of that thing it is a eaten it is a eaten fish yeah we had cod their night we had hell last night it's like cod is just a better fish yeah I had a great cod or Pacific cod far superior fish not a big fight you're going to get some some people writing in about that I bet soft mouths you can't you got people you got to uh you can't really set the hook real hard on them no you'll yeah you'll tear them you know soft miles soft bodies annoying to play yep very annoying to play why is that just because it's other bodies doesn't have rigidity like flaying a halibut is elegant yeah flaying a peacock is like you just feel like you never do it the same way it's like a train wreck it's like it's like flaying uh it's like flaying catfish yeah kind of yeah that's true big head um a peacock likes that jig tickling the mud now and then yeah I think he's down there now they don't whack it sometimes it's just you know a little tickle and that's a health fish that's a fried fried fish the finest of all fish uh oh here's another gear report I so the sequilizer is a hell of a piece of equipment yep I bought a ceramic fishing knife because you never have to worry it doesn't get rusty like a flaying knife no it's a serrated looks like a paring knife it's serrated it's ceramic you just leave it on your boat never gets rusty nice well we went to kill official it and the tip broke off and then I drive it over to side of the boat so I don't know guys that goes on Amazon it gives it a bad review one star fell over the side of the boat it's like you're like going to buy a product an Amazon you're reading the reviews and people are giving it bad reviews for stuff like that's nothing to do with the product whatsoever yeah you know um but I think I'm on to something with a ceramic fish knife if you can keep from losing over to side of the boat I have to check it out they say pretty sharp didn't have a long enough I dropped over to side of the boat right off the bat there's an incomplete gear report off to come back for part two of this gear report but if anyone's got a hot tip about that I'd be curious to hear their hot tip meat eater season opener sale is live and if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt now's the time buy one get one free on all meat eater teas and hoodies 50% off select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands first light felps fhf mulchery yeti and more and for after the hunt we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings like backstrap brew campfire crust and backcountry bark or get the six pack to try them all our favorite time of year is right around the corner head over to the meat eater store.com to check out our season opener sale okay you guys you guys ready to bring over our first interview subject yeah we're gonna dig into america's youth who wants to start Hayden come on over brody's boy Hayden's coming over here he is Hayden how Hayden Henderson introduce yourself hi my name is Hayden I'm Brody's kid and tell everybody what you've been doing with your time after school running for a crust country mostly okay yes today we had a situation here's one of the things I want to ask you about yes today we had a situation where you you weren't breaking a lock we're in saltwater you had a king salmon attack your flutter jig and as happens well a couple of things happens I think they swipe at the flutter jig and get hooked or I think sometimes they get lip hooked but when they're rolling around they get the assist hook one of the assist hooks in their tail and then their their lip hooked dislodges and then he's in the tail but either way he came up ass backward yeah he was chill he comes up to the surface nice big king definitely 28 inch king I grabbed the net I go in for a scoop and miss oh fish is gone oh did you know I need to level with me when you run that through your head do you think that gentleman was truck just trying to help or do you feel like do you feel like um like I cost you that fish no it was fighting weird it was fighting like a halibut it didn't burn up to the surface it's pulling down and then you said you just hesitated when it came to the surface and you just paused and was too slow with the net yeah but how have you how did it change our relationship he lost it for you were you thinking like this is a man who's netted many kings he shouldn't be able he should have make a mistake like that or things happen or like I knew he would do that he he wasn't talking bad about you behind your back it must be it must some with you in the Henderson's because I wait this out here that's that's the thing last year I lost a lot of Henderson's fish we got to get some more to go to the point where I think they're like he feels like if he can't have him no one can I don't even go and see the little fishy it'll happen to me if I go on Steve boat Brody's wife for instance yeah wasn't even in right over here yeah Brody's wife nice halibut yeah in her own boat not even not even a partner I climbed a border boat and lost her apple you weren't you weren't super bummed out let me in there let me in there no because I also got that king today yeah so made up for it yeah I worked out and he's been in boat with me a bunch losing fish form screaming at him for doing it wrong. It happens So didn't shake anything up. No. What was the highlight of your your trip your week fishing? It might have been today because today started off kind of slow, but then we went and got three slotling pods. I got my King Sam in So it was a pretty good day. Yeah, your family went from no Legal link code. We should explain that you want to talk about it. Yeah, that's tough regulation tight slot The link on has to be between 30 and 35 inches to keep it. Can I can I You're allowed one a year it was what four or five years ago it's 30 to 45 You know, and they knocked at 30 30 to 40 something and now it's 30 to 35. I'm waiting for it to go 30 to 31 Oh, which we would have had the leak we would have had one the other had one too Yeah, it's a tight slot It's a tight slot 30 35. We had a over we had a overslot fish today We had to under slot fish. Yeah, but Brody did you guys did kind of a miracle thing and hit In one day hit three slot fish. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're click those are they're so cool those fish Yeah, I should clarify you're allowed one over you're technically allowed to link out a year because you're allowed one over 55 But those don't exist. Oh my god if you get one you're looking at a state record The state records 55 inches. Yeah, yeah, they're like world the world might be the world record They're letting you keep a new record. Yeah, it's hard to imagine a 55 inch link. I used to think that we were gonna catch one When they're thirty and they set looked it up I was like, there's got to be a bunch of mouth there and set's like well, it would be I think I said that the world record was 54 Wow, yeah, this is 54 or 55 inches something. Yeah, something. I'm sure they exist, but Interestingly for a while the state record link cut. I don't know about now, but the state record link cut was only from about 7-8 miles from here But remember from the 80s from the 80s state record might be the world. I don't I remember looking at all Like who's gonna beat it? I don't know Yeah, yeah, but some mean cool fish. So tell me out So today you like because it started out a slow bite and then you got on to a hot bite Mm-hmm. You guys you guys brought in a lot of kelp greenling. Yeah. Oh, I love that fish You know big ones too, you know, and then you got a king. You got those lincods custom black rockfish Got some black rock fish. That's the pelagic rockfish Which you're allowed a couple of day if you would a something like that. No, you do imagine coming and fishing again next year Hayden Yeah, let's say there was a track and let's say there's a cross country race And you had to decide What would be more important new there's there's some backstory to this we do the youth hunt together and I'm missing missing it because I have a varsity cross-country race. How do they already know they're gonna have a race that day because they just like schedule This far in advance. Yeah, you couldn't say like well, hey, I got a conflict No, cuz they're like scheduled by each school. I'm not sure which one it is call the principal or something You think that's something that they would look into yeah like what they'd be like hey boys They got the hunts plan or anything. We're trying to plan a cross-country race. I mean, it's Montana I don't think the race is during the youth season, but it was it would be during the trip out to So when you look at those race schedule, it doesn't say for date. It doesn't say youth season But they might be totally meaning they might be totally unaware of the conflict. You got to answer Steve's question though Would you would you skip a week here? For a week here. Yeah, cuz you mean skip a race. Yeah. I this is really only one chance, but I have more opportunities to go get it dear Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Any final things you like dad? No, not really. What do you think is wrong with kids these days? Like why are you guys so terrible? Just look at Jimmy. It's that thing in his hand. Look at you out running cross-country fishin whatever happened to the old kind of kid What did they do they played Pac-Man in Frogger? Anything you'd like to add Hayden? No wish you'd best luck. So you're trying to be varsity you're trying to be varsity Cross-country, which means you're playing up. You're dating up Yeah, our team had seven seniors graduate, which is like a whole varsity roster. So I'm assuming So there might be room for you. Yeah, but you're gonna be at what grade? 10th grade software. Okay Got it and you're looking forward to this opportunity. Okay Now one last question for you This is through the school not through like league or club or something. Yeah, it's the school Cross-country team. Got it. So you got like little jerseys and everything. Yeah Okay, um, do you think you're good enough to play college? No, I Go into college for sports was never planned really. That's not what you're this not what you want out of life No, I don't think so like proficient maybe maybe can go to college for fishing these days. Not how I'll be fishing No, but bass fish. Yeah, I go fish little teeny fish You got a fish teeny fish to go to college for us. Isn't that weird? There's some of the halibut we're catching out here are smaller than Potential the potential that's true. All right. Thanks for joining the man. Thanks for having you know We're gonna bring on our next terrible kid. Who's up James? Come on James Lays and gentlemen stepping up an age. This is what happens. This is what happens to a kid when he hits 16 He wears the sunglasses. They were sunglasses at night Which I recently learned that's from a song James what's been the highlight of your trip? Probably attempting to shoot a salmon in the saltwater because fresh water isn't legal. Mm-hmm Spirit fish is salmon. Spirit fishing salmon. Yeah, well, it would give me you better one because give me give me of something like a rod and real highlight That big link called that kaya hook today who will be coming on soon and that Matthew landed that was over the slot So right now you can keep him 30 to 35 inches and this one was 38. So it was over the slot. I used bigger I I didn't even straighten him out. I just like I held the he wasn't even straight and I held the the I got like a flexible Tate measuring, you know, and I just saw 38 and I'm like he's so crooked. He's 38 So I just knew he wasn't a contender. Yeah, that was the highlight of the trip Do you got a better one? We're not I don't know like kaya caught his yellow. I caught like oh, okay. I caught a slot He'll probably talk about this, but usually when we go fish yellow I because it's a one-year fish. It's kind of like you just drop down and get it when either the weather's really bad or you have 20 minutes to burn I mean and we spent what eight hours? I mean like an incredible amount of time. I guess. The first day I saw him to get my yellow. I in like three minutes later. I had a man. Yeah Jimmy got his yellow. I kind of on accident and we kept being like let's go get kaya's yellow. I just that kid. We'll be hearing from him How do you use a question? I'd like to ask you How do you select because kaya was your guest? Mm-hmm. You brought a guest up to your family place. How did you make your selection? Um well kaya always works really hard because he works in the flagship store in bozeman But before that he's always had an interest in like saltwater fishing because His family never as you know didn't have any sort of interest and like hunting or fishing. Yep And when that started to become a little bit more prevalent when he was friends with me he Started to like saltwater fish and started to get more interested in that so Over the two years that I've known him that just became More and more of a thing. So I thought that he'd be a good person to have up here and try fishing And then how you how you feel about the decision to bring your friend up? I think it was a good idea I think cock at the cove is in his reach. Yeah, yeah, he could be yeah, he could be in the running for cock at the cove Ah Running I guess you're running. Yeah Uh, so your highlights were all around your friend. Yeah Now um, but your other highlight was trying to get the same one to spear gun. Yeah, which is which is difficult very more difficult That would have imagined. Yeah, we've you but you've done it successfully before. Yeah um More in a different creek than that when they're a little bit more packed together and not as spooky But I think because it's a little bit later in the seals event chasing them around um in the water quality is so terrible That just trying to get one in range is a little bit more difficult. Yeah. So one uh just just be clear since we're law dog and like uh You just said in a creek. Can you explain what you mean by the different creek? Um Not in a creek, but outside of the mouth of a creek. There's like with a saltwater um Reaches the freshwater if you go just beyond that to where it's actually legal There's two that are kind of bordering next to each other, but there's two different species of Sam that run there We have pink salmon um that run in the ones the left and then in the ones of the right there's more silvers and pinks, which is a little bit, um, and silver's hold up a little bit better in a freezer. So that's the one that I was trying to get one closer to that time. Yeah. So the regs work that you can't spear a salmon and freshwater. Um, so you need to imagine the contour, the shoreline contours and draw a line where you like imagine that the stream isn't there. So it's a little estuary or mouth or whatever is off limits, but you can be out beyond that line. If you imagine the shoreline contour where the creek flows in, you can be out in the salt out there. But you're sort of targeting fish that are congregating to run. Yeah. You're just getting them because especially if you go while the tide's falling, um, the fish will like be pushed out into, um, the ocean a little bit more and that's where you can try to shoot them then. And what are they doing, Jim, when, when they see you moving around or they, yeah, they don't like it at all. But what kind of gives you an advantage is if you run closer to the bank, those big schools when they're coming at you will split on either side. And because they kind of don't know what's doing, just follow the other fish, like the one in front of them. If you try to cut off the group that's going along like if I was going up, um, like if there was a group of fish to my left, if I were to start swimming that direction, I would cut them off to a shorter area where they'd be pushed up more to the bank and get me a closer shot with the spear gun. Got you. What I do, because you're in shallow, so you can stand up and look for the wakes and swirls, you know, and then cruise down the shoreline trying to find what, but, uh, you guys ever just stay in one spot? Yeah, I've done that. You know, that's the worst. Uh, it's hard. What it's boring is all get out. Yeah, then you can stand up and you're like, I should just swim over that way. What about you? You wouldn't spook him as fast doing that. No, you don't, but no, they, but they know like they know you got it, you know, you move your gun. They kind of recognize because they're getting hounded by seals and sea lions. So they're on high alert, man. You guys need like a gilly suit. What about, uh, we, you know how there's, there's kelp lines, you know, and they'll travel those kelp lines. Just getting in there and ambush. Again, you get in there and you're like, just the greatest idea they've ever had. Anybody's ever had, and then like, comments later, you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go look around. It's just like, yeah, I last, but I had that idea. Right. Last time I got into some weeds held on, like I could say, you're all night. Right. I don't know. Then you just go, but yeah, hunting out in the kelp is a good idea. You know, there's also a lot of interesting stuff there. Like you can find an octopus and grayling. You know, they're down the bottoms of that. A lot of crabs, little rock crabs you see, diving. You know, what else you got any other thing you'd like to add? We're gonna, we're gonna hear, we're gonna hear from your friend Kaya in the second here. Yeah. He plays basketball. Mm-hmm. We'll get, we'll get into that. Well, what do you feel is wrong with today's youth? Why are you guys so terrible? Um, fishing and all that. Yeah. That makes us pretty awful. And then we all have phone addictions. So, but your friends don't work here. I found some working. That's why that's why I like you so much more out here. Um, thanks for coming on. Yeah, James. Appreciate it. Oh, Jimmy, if you want Jimmy, Jimmy likes taking photographs. You can go see some of Jimmy's photographs as you go on Instagram to @JimmyRinella. Is that what it is? Yeah. Jimmy Rinella? Nope. He likes doing nature photographs. I'm kind of trying to copy Seth. Seth's been giving him some pointers. Yeah, you're doing good. Thank you. Yeah. Go check out his photos. Oh, also, for you people that are listening and not watching Jimmy is wearing a USS Jimmy Carter SSN 23 nuclear sub hat. I found that hat beach combing probably 17 years ago. Hold her nice. You want to know story about that hat? Hmm. I has, I don't even like telling the story because it makes me feel sick. I had that hat for years and years and it got real moldy. And I looked at it for a couple of years, I looked at it and I thought I'm going to burn that hat. I don't know why. Just because I was in a real cleanup mood. You ever get a real cleanup mood? Oh, yeah. And I assembled my burn pile and gassed it. Got all my gas on it. Yeah. Hanked it out at last second. No. And I threw the hat on there. It seems like something from a movie. I threw the hat on there, but the eruption, you know when it catches, yeah, shot the hat. Really? Off the burn pile. And then I felt that I was being spoken to by like a division. You got to listen to divine message. You got to listen to Sarah and dip and I looked up at the skies and I said, never will I ever again attempt to dispose of this US as Jimmy Carter hat. Now do you like to think that the captain of that sub like they surfaced? I know exactly why he opened up to the look around his hat blew off. He the captain's sub was down there and he surfaced because he thought some Ruskies, Ruskies, Chinese, North Koreans, bad players, Iranians, and he wanted to get a look. And he said, boy, he's bringing me up because he felt that he feels something wasn't right. And he stuck his hat out there to look out that hatch and the wind took it. And you found it. And then he saw that enemy ship and just got the prop shooters, probably some kind of machine gun mounted on top of that sub and just like, yeah, I can see it. I can see it happening. And now that hats mine. All right, James, thanks for coming on, buddy. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, send over your friend. Our last and final interview with today's youth. So you all know what's coming. Kaya Yeltsin. Yolchin. Say to him? Yolchin. Yolchin. Kaya, your father was not born in America. Nope. Born in Turkey. Okay. And he came to America with not a high level of familiarity with the American sporting traditions. Not at all. Not at all. No such thing is hunting overseas in Turkey. Yeah, but probably a little fishin, though. Not too sure about that. Move your might closer to your pace. Got to be a little bit of fishing just about everywhere. Yeah. So, so however you're. I mean, I know your parents. I'm friendly with your parents. Your parents are great parents. Yeah, they did a great job with you. I love you. You're a great kid. I enjoy every minute. I spend with you. Thank you. How has it been? How have your parents received you becoming being getting into fishing and hunting and all that when it wasn't something that they were super familiar with? I think my mom was more of me pro going out hunting and fishing because her dad was a huge hunter. Like I took his gun over. Get a few rods that were broken, but my dad had none of that no experience of going out hunting and fishing any of that. So he was a little bit skeptical about it. But once I brought home the, you know, deer, you know, fish, all that stuff, it's just been amazing. He's been cooking all of it again into some steaks. So they weren't squeamish at all about eating the wild game or anything. No, my dad's, he, he doesn't, he says he doesn't like doing it himself. So I think he wasn't too mad about me doing it. Yeah. But when Kai got his first deer, his father came over and we got it all processed up. His father came over to check in on the whole situation and find out what was going on. And then, and then they cooked a bunch of deer. Yeah. Yeah. Still got a bunch left. Great. And you anticipate that I like the fish. I think so. Yeah. Move your mic close to your face. Well, you want me as it is like like a finger off. Now you're getting there. You know, what was some of the highlights of your, your, your week fishing? I think catching a lane caught on my first day is probably one of my right off the bat. Yeah. Because I've been told, you know, people take weeks to catch one of those and take a slot limit. Yeah. And then take one day to catch a G L Y in first for you. Yeah. Yep. He pulled it up and that sucker was like 30 in the eighth. Yeah. Right in the slot. Very close. Yeah. Right in the slot. Real in that lane car with Matt today was pretty fun too. Yeah. Big one we have. I go. And that's cool. But, and you know, just hanging out here with everyone meeting everyone. It's been pretty fun. All right, man. You like the food? Yeah. Love it. You like fish? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Oh, tell us about your sporting activities. Are you basketball player? Yeah. I've been through a bunch of different sports. You know, I did soccer, swimming, basketball, you know, all of the above. But I've been focused on basketball. I recently, I did football two years, but then I quit that because duck season's coming. So and you don't, you don't anticipate like you're not trying to be like a college basketball. No, not at all. I don't, I'm not looking for it position. Are you playing? I've been put it all. I'm probably more of a big than a guard though because there's not a lot of big kids in our team. So I have to kind of fill that spot as a tall kid. Yeah. Not really my thing, but, you know, as long as I'm out there, how do I care what I'm doing? And you're going to play again this year? Yeah. Hopefully varsity. Yeah. And then is that like the kind of deal? Like the cliche is that the football player, like the girls, girls like football players. Do you find that to be true as a high schooler? When I was little, I'd watch movies of high schools and I'd see all the jocks and I would think that. But nowadays, it's kind of not really like that. So, so, so women have a place in their heart for [BLANK_AUDIO] basketball player. Um, not so sure about that either, but what do they like these days? Hunters? Fisherman? I mean, they'll go for anyone at this point. Okay. Thanks for coming on the show, Kyle. Take a crab at me. I especially like the part where you had the in-depth thoughts about the girls. All real ladies. But real quick, you guys these days have your own little vernacular. There's, there's a, there's a stage of a relationship. I, this is the main thing I ask these guys about because it's so puzzling to me. A relationship has a stage called talking to. Yeah. Can you explain for people that are older? It's kind of like meeting, when you meet them for the first time and you get to know them, that kind of stage. But what have been the equivalent before they called it talking to? I remember talking to you about this, a ways back. You called it. You guys are seeing someone. Is that what you called it? People you same seeing something and it meant like definitely not like your girlfriend, boyfriend deal, but you were, I was like friends with benefits. Yeah. No, it's like it was like, it was, it was a very early stage. Yeah. That's exactly what talking to is. So you don't ask, you don't, you just, you don't verbalize to a girl that you're talking to her. No, it kind of just happens like you never say like, I would like to be talking. No, no, no, no, you don't ask it. It's kind of just fucking up. He's like, hey, you want to talk? Because hey, I'm talking to you. Yeah. Like I go into someone's, I'm talking to this girl right here. So you, but you get a feeling that you're talking is kind of, you can kind of tell after either the first you hang out if this is going to go. So why not? So it's kind of implied that if it does, that you're talking. Okay. And then, but then the next step, then you would formalize it. Yeah. With a, you know, sign if you want to. Do you, so where do you have a girlfriend who's talking to someone? Yeah, they're, they're a thing. I'm kind of, you got a formal girlfriend. He has a formal girlfriend. Yeah. No, I like her. I told her one day, I would rather these two die than her being inconvenience late until the bell to school. I was dying. I like that girl a lot. She's great. So where, where are you? Are you single? You got a girl? Are you talking to someone? I'm in the early stages. Gotcha. You're talking early talk. See in someone. Well, you, you know, I'm at your early talk right now. So early for stage. No, I'm just, I'm in the talk. But you haven't talked about talking. No, not talked about talk. So if you asked her, which you say I'm talking, to someone. Yeah. How do you know that she knows? That's a great question. That is true. Is she, is she right now somewhere saying she's talking to you? Or would she be like, I'm what? No, I'm not. I'm not sure how that works because I think you ask are we talking? You kind of just hope that they are like, you know, have enough respect to say, like, yeah, I'm not, you don't say I'm talking to someone, but you don't say I've taken either. Do you ever worry? We're not going to go on about this all night. But like, do you ever worry that she doesn't even know you're talking? And here you are talking about talking to her. And she doesn't know that the talk is happening. It could be. But then there's always another girl to talk to you. That's right. Not saying there's a list, but there's always someone to talk to you. We should throw that you're a deep dropper now into your repertoire. Oh, yeah. No, you know where this kid, all the kids, I had four. How many kids around my boat today? Four, no, three, three. My entire deep drop session, they were all three. I mean, from, from before I began to after I quit, they were all asleep in the boat. I woke up and she tied us to your deep drop. Yep. Didn't offer a hand. I was knocked out. No. No. All right. Well, thanks for coming on, Kyle. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. Of course. Meet Eater's season opener sale is live. And if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt, now's the time. By one, get one free on all Meet Eater tees and hoodies. 50% off select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands. First light, Phelps, F H F Maltry, Yeti, and more. And for after the hunt, we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings like backstrap brew campfire crust and backcountry bark or get the six pack to try them all. Our favorite time of year is right around the corner, head over to the MeetEaterStore.com to check out our season opener sale. On to the news, the actual news. Well, this is a little bit of your news because this is something the guy wrote in about TSS. Here's a deal that's interesting. The idea of my wife comes in the house all worked up. Sets checking out something. She comes in the house all worked up because someone's flying a drone over the house. And I was going to shoot the drone, but then it was gone. Someone was saying, if they start making TSS for turkey hunters, they're now is anti drone TSS from European manufacturers, anti drone load. Okay. So a load design. Explain this to me. Explain this. Okay. If you bought a shotgun load for drones, they load it with number seven tungsten. Five shots for a hundred bucks. So it's a box of turkey. It's a tungsten drone. It is 12 gauge tungsten drone, two and three quarter inch casing. Okay. One and a eighth. So a drone round has one and eight ounce tungsten, one and eight ounce of tungsten shot, a turkey load, standard TSS load, one and three quarters ounce. Okay. A turk, a drone round two and three quarter, your standard turkey round three inch. So it's a little shorter, little less shot. Your typical drone round, muzzle velocity, 1329 feet per second, a turkey load, 1200 feet per second, the pellet count on a drone round, 211 pellets on a turkey round, 330. Now why is tungsten better for drones than lead? Probably all the same reasons. Why is faster? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not sure if they fly. Sorry. Holds, you know, have your better penetrator. Drone rounds might at 300 might start looking into drone rounds when things get tough. Yeah. Here's another interesting news bit. So, you know, um, in Canada, Alberta opened up a thing they call this in 2025. They opened this up. This is a very interesting program. They opened up a program called the Wildlife Responder Program where it allows an Alberta resident to apply for an opportunity to respond to problem wildlife issues throughout the province. They opened the program for Elken Grizzlies. So a guy wrote in here who applied for the program, got a call and went out and got a problem grizzly. That would never fly in the United States, man. Yeah. Got a problem. It just went got a problem grizzly. It'd be great if they could do it here, but it would just never fly. It's a great idea. I want it. I'd like to know if they're like escorted by a fishing game official when they're doing it or they just go. I don't believe so, man. I don't believe so. You can apply for a zone. Okay. It's open for Elken Grizzlies. The Alberta's broken into three zones. Applicants apply for a zone. Okay. It's a true lottery draw. But if you're successful applicant, the requires you got to be on 24-hour notice. So that's right now. That would be basically the only opportunity to get a grizzly in Canada. Correct. No, BC banned their grizzly. Oh, it's BC. Okay. I got you. So you get a call that some guys got a problem bear. You got 24 hours to get over there and instead of thinking about the alternative, like what they do in my neighborhood. When there's a problem bear, they send a game warden out and he's got the barrel traps and all that barrel traps and they euthanize them and throw them in a dump. Yeah. If it's a black bear. Yeah, it gives the opportunity to a hunter like a magic comb. Hey, hurry up. Yep. I'm curious. Brody, you made a good point. Like is there a game war that goes out with them? How are they IDing the problem? Grizzly bear? How do they know which ones? I'm sure that the game ward gets involved in the trouble that are actually is a problem. Yeah, it's a lot different than going and shooting and, you know, some elk that are raiding a haystack, you know. Here's another news story. This is a sad, this is one of the news show takes a sad turn. Kornow bans wild game processing in dorms what what a long and sorted story this is so yeah. What I like about the story This is the New York Times what I like about the story is all the quotes from the hunter are pulled from our podcast interview with the hunter Yeah, and it talks about our podcast and in the New York Times article about the situation So some I put this headline up on social media and some jackoff was like There should have never been gloating about it never be an issue if they weren't gloating about it They that's not what made it an issue. No No, that them gloating about it didn't it was the issue long before anybody said a word about it What happened was these two guys at Cornell Went out and we interviewed them one of them they went out bare hunting got a bear they looked at the rules They they thought about going to friends didn't work out. They looked at the rules and realized there's not a rule Like you can you can prepare food in the door and like the dormitory kitchen They went to the dormitory kitchen got all their stuff got a tarp and everything kept it all clean Went to the dormitory kitchen and processed their bear a bunch of students then a bunch of whiny kids Had a little shit fit and they called the cops and they called the university people The the game wardens that didn't do anything wrong. They had them they killed the bear legally they had a permit It's not against the rule to butcher bear at Cornell Nothing happened to him Cornell waited appreciable amount of time and now the new student handbook says no cutting up No processing game animals in the dormitory kitchen The spokesperson for this is what it really gets my go. It's not so much the rule It's not so much the rule. What gets my goat is that the spokesperson said bring it to a processor No The make a make a area for processor. Yeah, I still thinking these kids is American heroes. Yep. Now that's that's too bad Yeah Go to Penn State You know that they'll let you process there I mean, I don't ask they're pretty friendly that stuff at least they used to be yeah, they used to be a comment Here's a comment from the New York Times comment section bear me is exceedingly nasty Only fools are starving people eat bear same with dog same with venison and elk beef pork and chicken make up the holy trinity of meat You don't need to eat any other flesh unless you can't afford one of those three and don't touch me About fish and seafood bears are much better than that yucky stuff as a matter of fact Beans are better than the holy trinity of meats That's a comment not a big meat eater fan So that's all over. I thought about you know, I'm out of the game. Yeah, I already went to school and did all that I'm not going back. Yeah, I was deeply offended Yeah, and I called for a boy. I call for a boycott of Cornell. Not that I would have any impact on anything And it was a joke when I said that but still Yeah, it's too bad, you know, there's a couple of good kids Because for a minute they were the coolest school in the country Yeah, they were the coolest school in the country you're gonna keep using that bird app I'm still gonna use my Maryland app. I still got a friend. I still account the Cornell people among my friends They still make the one the grow like, you know, one of the top five greatest apps that I've ever made Yeah, being like it's like up there with on X, you know Maryland the people who made that app though probably Want to agree with that either? No, while some of the people that made that app I know some people that works on that app are hunters. Yeah Yeah, so Maybe they should be connected and the next bear can be scanned at the Cornell have one mythology. There you go. That's a good deal Okay, from now we're gonna go into we're gonna close the show out we're gonna go and do this is gonna be the last news segment on the show We're gonna do our we're gonna talk about um An avian botulism outbreak that is killing thousands of ducks here's more Okay, right now we're joined by Jeff McCreary who's the director of operations for the western region Of ducks unlimited. Um, we're gonna be talking about something that's going on with with an avian botulism outbreak That is uh killed somewhere around 10,000 ducks This year um and where this is happening is the Klamath basin. Jeff, do you mind explaining to people? Um, what is the Klamath basin and and what does it mean to ducks Yeah, Steve the Klamath basin is one of the most important areas for water fell in North America Is essentially the neck of the hourglass for the Pacific flyway from birds coming from the prairies and Alaska down to california And it serves every part of the life cycle for birds from production migration, wintering and molting And then what is uh or how many how many ducks utilize that area? Is there a way to take a stab at that? Sure, and not as many as there used to in the 1950s they counted three million pentals just on one of the One part of the wildlife refuge is a two-league refuge up there. There's those three million pentals There's not three million pentals alive today on the planet Oh wow, I would say yeah, it's been a big it's been a huge fall from the highest uh way back in last part of the 1900s there but Approximately 75% of all water fell in North America use or in the Pacific flyway sorry use The Klamath basin and the central valley or great salt lake at one point during their life cycle So it's critically important for just a huge number of Pacific flyway population Okay, now what is What is avian botalism like when I think of the word botalism I think of the in the old days if you didn't properly can Vetched like if you were home canning That was your risk that you would screw up a home canning job and and and Kill your family with botalism, but but what is avian botalism? How does it how is it living in the water? It's very similar to the same Bacteria I'm that you will find when you don't can your food right uh, but big avian botalism is bacteria that lives in soils it proliferates in shallow warm water and high temperatures, which is exactly what we're seeing in the two refuges right now Okay, tourism in and of itself doesn't kill birds, but it has a neurotoxin that gets released when the birds and just Let's say larva or grubs that are carrying this bacteria and when the neurotoxin gets to a certain threshold It causes a paralytic effect on these birds So what happens is the bird slowly and sometimes very rapidly start to be paralyzed and their neck starts to droop and they can't hold their neck up And their head falls in the water and they drown so they're not dead Directly from botalism, but the secondary effects of the neurotoxin. Oh no kidding. Okay. Yeah, it's horrible But it's net but it's naturally occurring Absolutely, it's naturally it happens every year in the climate basin It happens all over the inner-mount west We've had massive die-offs in the early 90s and great salt lake. There's a million birds that died there from a botalism outbreak So it's a naturally occurring thing, but in the climate basin it's largely preventable And then it's bad it got bad this year because in yordia alluded to this It got bad this year because water levels are low and the water is hot Absolutely, that's what's going on right now. So everywhere across the west if your listeners are Thinking about what they're going to be doing this fall. It's going to be hot and dry There was almost no snow pack in the west and climate was exactly the same There was very little if any snow pack on the ground great spring rain Lots of great wetlands lots of great productivity from a waterfall perspective But that water is all done. The snow was not releasing the ground water in slow. So We're running out of water And and these that this this approximate 10,000 ducks that died When did this die off? When did you start seeing evidence of this die off? We started seeing this evidence about a month ago or so they started finding the first few birds which is actually about Maybe three weeks earlier than when we typically start seeing dead ducks up there which is about now And as the temperatures are increasing the water levels are dropping the number of birds that we're estimating They're dying each day continues to increase and in some point it's going double Yet 100 last yesterday. You have 300 today. So we're the cumulative estimates about 10,000 maybe possibly more Okay, so this is this is happening. It's still happening. We're not talking about a thing that was going on and We're not talking about old news here And no, it's not and it's it's getting to a point where it's going to be really critical as when you think about exponential growth Uh, doubling again today. I mean we're we're talking A hundred thousand ducklings were produced on these two refuges this year alone And we've got hundreds of thousands of other birds that are migrating into these wetlands and when they They arrive they molt and so you've got a hundred thousand ducklings that can't really fly. You got to come a couple hundred thousand other birds that are losing their flight feathers and can't fly. So they're trapped. Got it. I'm going to start producing botulism. Got it. Explain to me what it requires. There's a remedy or there's a partial remedy or there's a hope of a remedy. Explain what needs to happen here that would solve this problem or help solve this problem. Well, the answer is the one thing that's very hard to get and that's water. And the climate base, and if it's not known for amazing waterfowl, amazing waterfowl hunting, it's known for the water complex that arise between endangered species and agriculture and wildlife. So what you can do is you can get more water. You can get water that's coming out of the lake, it's going to be cooler than what's in the wetlands. It's going to be fresher. You can circulate that water, you can make it deeper to cover the mud flats where the botulism is growing. So the runs will be simple, just add water. The complicated thing is who's water are you going to add and how are you going to do that? Yeah. Yeah. And tell me about that. What is it? How do you do it? Well, there's why this is even a problem is because the west, if for those of us or westerners, we've noticed that over the last 30 years, no pack is getting smaller, it's evaporating quicker. There's essentially a drying trend that's happening in the western United States and the climate is no different than anywhere else. The challenge is that there's demands on water from endangered fish that have a biological opinion to keep water in the upper lake or to run the water in the river. And then the third pot of water that's out there is the agricultural water for that irrigation project. And all three of these pots of water are suffering. However, the climate water uses association and the irrigation districts are working with NGOs are working with tribes and agencies to find a way where we can be creative and get past the conflict that's out there and get on towards collaboration. There's right now everybody's suffering, fish are suffering, ducks are suffering, people are suffering because of the conflict and really the only way out is collaboration and water users are proposing a flow through concept where we would take some of these limited water supplies that are still there, run them through the irrigation project down into the wetlands. Raise the water, speculate the water, cool the water, and then we would pump it back out into the river, you're removing nitrogen, you're removing all the nitrogen and phosphorus loading that's in the water from the upper lake, you're recharging the groundwater and you're helping to save hundreds of thousands of ducks, the local economy, endangered species. It's this amazing idea for collaboration and we just need a little bit of water to do it. And on that formula where you're pulling water out of a reserve system, using it to increase water in the wetland, moving it to the river system where it's going to be beneficial to salmon, as they come up for spawning runs, what does it do for the people that are using that water to irrigate crops? That's the really challenging thing here, and agriculture is suffering, so they're getting about 63% of their promised allotment from the Bureau of Reclamation. And so what they're proposing to do is they're proposing to take this water and use 100% of this water for this flow through concept, for the environment, for the ducks, for the wetlands, to the fish as an example of leadership to change the paradigm from conflict to collaboration. So they're suffering, but they're still willing to do it because in the long run, if we don't help recover these fish that are really dominating how water is driven, we're never going to be able to recover these wetlands. We're never going to be able to stop this botulism cycle and we're not going to be able to have healthy communities and healthy economies. And so water users are really stepping up and taking the leadership approach of doing something different and finding a collaborative solution versus a conflict. What is the entity that represents water users? So you're not going out and striking a deal with every farmer about their water. They must have a collective of sorts. What is that? So they're a clam of water users association. So they represent the primary or all the water districts that are in and associated with the clam of the project. There's three main ones, clam of irrigation district, the Tully Lake irrigation district and the clam of training district are the biggest ones within there and the water users represent them and as well as some other smaller districts. Yeah, so if this water users group is recognizing the dire situation and they're allowing, they're agreeing to in this emergency situation to let water go and let it go for wildlife, what does come of their issue? What does come of the crops? Is there a sacrifice on crop output? I mean, there has to be, right? Yeah, for sure. And there's an allocation that they're given in April by the Bureau of Reclamation about how much water is going to be available this year and so they've already made their planting plan. The crops are planting. Well, we're going into harvest time right now, so essentially they've already made their decisions about how much or how they're going to use the limited water that they have. So this water isn't going to necessarily help directly on the crops that are in the ground and so that's why they're able to, because they've already made, they've already done this sacrifice, they're able to do this type of innovative approach. Let's jump down the road. Like you said, we're looking at long-term trends here, right? This is not an anomaly. Is what's happening this year and the sacrifice you're talking about and the collaboration you're talking about, is it applicable next year or is next year just becomes its own question all over again? Well, you know, there's, that's a great question. When I think about conservation, I think about a couple of things. I think about community and I think about leadership. And to do any kind of conservation of climate-based, it requires essentially everybody. Everything is connected to everything else. The politics, the economy, the social, the natural resources, they're all driven by this drop of water and everything is connected to that. If we don't have broad agreement about a path forward with the entire community, we're never going to change the cycle that we're on. But in order to engage that community, you have to have leadership. Somebody has to be doing something a little bit different in order to inspire others to do something similar again. And that's what's happening this year, is water users is doing something that they've never done before. They're committed to use this water for 100% of these other purposes, not for agriculture. That is leadership and that is studying a model that we want our tribal partners and our agency partners to also emulate, too, next year. Because without those partners, well, healthy agencies and without the tribes agreeing and collaborating on how to make this work, it's not going to be possible. But something has to be different. Something has to be that spark that changes the past and creates a new future and that's what's happening this year and that's what's significant. That's been a really huge focus of Ducks and Limited over the next last six years is that we've really tried to create an environment through extensive relationship building with the agencies, with irrigation users, water users, with the tribes, to create an environment in which this little spark can grow and become a flame and happen. And that's happening this year. That's always the president of the Water Users Association. He's really making a big difference through his leadership bringing this community together to help and support this effort. So let's jump from next year back into this year. Do you feel that this action is going to, like, set up to be successful or make the situation not as dire for Ducks as it would otherwise be? Do you feel that there's going to be some kind of, that there's the potential for like an immediate remedy right now or is that not in the cards for this year? I think there's a media. I think there's an opportunity. I've been, it's a man that's a torturous road. It's been a pretty intense last couple of months working on this. But I think that there's a path, I think that there's water available and I think that there's political will to get that water down to the refuges this year. It's still not too late. And I know water users and the agencies and all the partners have been really working hard on that. And what is going to drive what happens in the future is what happens this year. And the blame that irrigation and agriculture gets a lot is you're just going to take that water for agriculture. We say it's going to the refuges, you're just going to take it. Well, they're saying, no, no. We can prove up. We can show you all the math, we can show you all the records that we are going to do exactly what we say. And that water is going to go for this flow through purpose. And so everybody's kind of watching that when that water comes, that agriculture sticks to what they said they're going to do and demonstrate the model of success that can be relied upon for next year. And that's what's going to help the future. All right, man. I would love to have you. At the end of this season, I would love to have you come back on and give kind of a snapshot of what happened and the sequence of events and how it played out, we'd love to hear more about it. Absolutely. I'm hopeful. Yeah, well, I look forward to hearing more about it. Again, joined by Jeff McCreary, the director of operations for the Western region of Ducks Unlimited talking about the climate base and avian botulism outbreak and the flow through water solution again, Jeff's from Ducks Unlimited has been working on this issue. And Jeff, thanks for explaining everything and man, good luck to you and good luck to the water users and producers and trying to figure out a solution to this issue. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having us on. Thanks, Ben. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the special episode of the news show broadcasting from fish camp in Southeast Alaska tuning next week for the regular normal version of the meat eater podcast, the news show. Thanks for joining. Hunting season is right around the corner and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18, you can save up to 40% sight wide and this year they're rolling out new 24 hour daily deals throughout the sale. So it's worth checking back every day because those deals are going to change. If you've been waiting to replace some worn out gear, fill a hole in your system or just get ready for the season. Now's the time. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.