The MeatEater PodcastEp. 625: MeatEater Radio Live! Whitetail Photography and a Monkey Escape with Steve, Spencer, and Janis
Welcome to MeatEater Radio Live! Join Steve Rinella and the rest of the crew as they go LIVE from MeatEater HQ every Thursday at 11am MT! They’ll have segments, call-in guests, and real-time interaction with the audience. You can watch the stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel, or catch the audio version of the show on Fridays.
Today's episode is hosted by Spencer Neuharth, Steve Rinella, Janis Putelis, and Phil Taylor.
Guests: Renown whitetail photographer Matt Hansen and journalist Mitchell Black with the Post and Courier.
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Now, lady, welcome to Meet Eater Trivia MEA podcast.
Whea, Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time on November fourteenth, and we're live from Meet Eater HQ and Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer new Arth, joined today by Steve Ranella and Giannis Putellis. On today's show, we're interviewing the world's greatest white tailed deer photographer Matt Hanson. Then we've got a migration report from Flying vs Matt McCormick, followed by one minute fishing with doctor Randall Williams. After that, we'll look at old hunting and fishing pictures for a new segment called Throwback Thursday. And finally we'll interview a journalist about how forty three monkeys escaped a South Carolina research facility. But first that is more about, go ahead, what do you got a few things?
The white child? Dear photographer. I don't view it. It's not gonna be an interview. It's gonna be a criticism, okay by one of our three hosts. Yes, you're not going to interview about how they escape. It's kind of more about like what about how they escaped? Sure, because like you have to interview the monkeys.
How would you phrase it?
Then? What do you think the interviews, We're going to talk to him about the escape of a bunch of monkeys, not how did they escape? I think that if you have one of the monkeys coming on and we're like, we're gonna talk to the monkey about how he escaped, I think that's interesting.
Well, maybe our journalist has talked to one of these monkeys, because I've heard that they've captured some by now.
Oh well, okay, I had another problem with something you said. But go on, Oh you go on?
What else? Eh?
No, No, I'm just glad to be here.
It seems like Yanni, the first thing tell us about your Wisconsin whitetail hunt. See is this all right to interest you?
No? No, okay, do you know what happened? Talk to me?
Do you? How do you know what happened?
That's like, what more is there to say? Fixtures speak for themselves.
I hear you.
You know, there's a point in the fall to where you get to the point like early on or I'm like, man, I want to hear everybody's hunting story, you know, detailed by detail, and then as it wears on when someone has killed one, I'm like, good, awesome deer, and then let's move on and where are you at now? And then I'm still I'm still pretty keen on listening to stories.
Somebody said to me last week. They said, the meat eater like group chat must be popping off right now, like everyone's like the rut's doing this. I just saw this. My trail cams are blowing up. I said, no, in fact, it's not. There was a group chat, but then Yanni just started texting me on the side because we were the only ones who were engaging.
Yeah, I was a little offended by those fun by those guys. You know I when I use the F word on them, you know it's it's in. It's an endearment, but.
The effort being offended offended?
No, oh, it starts with f U and then ends an E R S. But Yanni stopped at about the f U in there.
Oh yeah, I started. It was basically the group from one week in November. So if you go back and watch that, you can see who I'm talking about. But I texted all of them and was kind of like starting the rut, white tail rut group chat now and dead silence from everybody besides Spencer.
And after a.
Couple of back and forth, I'm like, well, I guess we're chocking, and yeah, I like.
When I get into a group text, I liked, I'll look, but I don't want. I don't I don't engage. I look, but I don't add to it.
But that's your You're a bad You're a bad member then of the group chat. No, not a desirable person to have in the group chat at that point.
My neighborhood has a group chat, and it's most like it'd be like, oh, there's a bear over there, like there's two moose fighting in the yard, or like we saw potential pervert drive through, stuff like that. And one day I was gonna send one out because my kids pigeons went to live somewhere else. We don't know where they went to live in and I was gonna two and I was going to send out a note saying, if you see these pigeons, let me know. But then I didn't, and I said, I'll sit at the dinner table. I said, this will be the first time I've ever engaged with the neighborhood.
Group chat that seemed worthy of a text.
And my kids teased me about it, and then I changed my mind didn't do it.
I think that sort of group chat that's acceptable behavior because it's not a group of friends, it's a grand on a grander scale, it's an entire neighborhood, and there's probably thirty people, maybe forty people.
Yeah, quite a few.
Anyways, I would call it a little bit shunned that no one else wanted to. I mean, we know that everybody else is hunting deer and that they didn't want to participate AnyWho.
I shouldn't have to find out on Instagram that Mark Kenyan killed a buck.
He should be That's what I'm talking about right there, That's exactly what I'm talking about. You'll know, buddy, when I'm off Instagram. You'll know immediately if you're in my circle or not, because you either will be getting.
Texts hey, how's the rout going?
Or you won't be. You didn't send me anything. I got a little group text with two people about my beaver cam.
We'll start a new one. You know, Chester needs to be in it because I was.
Gonna happen in this show.
No, no, I'll tell you this. We set aside like you got five to go, all right. Really, I had a feeling this would happen. I know.
I started hunting. November fourth was my first day. The area that I was hunting minutes the area that I was hunting. This is a there's been a trend now where the weather forecast is a quarter inch of rain for the entire day and then thirty six hours later someone's like, oh did you hear it rained three.
Inches in so and so County? Well that's what I had.
So it got so bad the second day that I actually pulled out of the stand at noon because I was afraid that my camera was just going to get.
Water logged and you know, shit the bed.
Okay, So day three, good wind. I sit on a high ridge for the morning hunt.
No deer.
I moved down to food for the evening. No deer come by me. I see food out or deer come out in the bag fields, but nothing. I wouldn't call it like a deer sighting because it wasn't in my little bubble, right. It wasn't like oh I might get a shot.
It was like some deer.
Yeah.
Exactly, Day four, the wind is just right for the Oak flat. Like, I'm gonna go sit the oak flat first thing in the morning. Pretty good buck. I sent you a picture of the buck and you're like, that's not a shooter. I'm like, well, what you don't know is that he's got a nice frame. But like he has got one long time it's like five inches long, and everything else is these little nubs.
So here's a good photo of him.
Yeah, and I tell you what that morning, because it had we had so much rain, he comes walking across the oak flat and those dark antlers are all wet and the sun's just kind of punching through a little bit. It's getting enough angle, and so those antlers are glistening. And you know, we all say, oh, we like to pass on these deer.
But in all.
Honesty, if you even hesitate on that white tailed deer, I don't here it's a dough or a buck.
You hesitate and this you know, it sound.
Like you're sitting there going, well, let me break out the pros and cons of this buck. You hesitate, you passed that buck, because that's kind of what happened.
I was like, yeah, I don't know. I'm like, oh, that opportunity's gone.
You say, quick cut him off where I have like ten seconds, You got two minutes. Oh it's really yeah, save me ten seconds.
And uh so he comes through first, A seven point comes through maybe like two hours later. At that point, I'm thinking, man, if I can get like up buck to come through every two hours today, no seven, Yeah, I'm gonna have a hell of the day. Well, the next two deer does, but they do come in on like the every two hour schedule. And then the fifth year is a dough She comes.
Through at about three point thirty.
And you know, I figured out a way to kind of get through the all day grind of the white tail rut.
There's yourself something huh you look at your cel phone. There is that.
I try not to because the oak flat, the farthest spot I can range is eighty six yards. So when deer shows up, by the time you actually see it, he's probably at seventy five or seventy and they're they're walking, they're coming.
Don't have time to text.
I gotta go into your group chat, and so I try not to do that.
But you can always tell yourself something, right, It's like there's the morning, Oh, the morning's exciting. Oh then there's the midday. Well that's when the big bucks are on their feet, cruising because the dose are betted, and that's when the big buck's going to come through. And then you get to three and you're like, oh, now it's the prime time until five until dark, right, Sure, so Dough comes in at three point thirty. She's not supposed to go behind me, because I've got this wall of cut maples thrown down that is supposed to deter any deer to get behind me and downwind of me. Yes, she takes a split second look at it and just weaves right into there, and I'm like, son of a bitch, you know, like she hesitated, but not long enough to change her mind.
You know.
So I had my bone hand. I was gonna shoot her, no opportunity. I was gonna shoot her because I'm just into shooting deer. So I'm uh, you know.
I thought you were big buck hunting.
Sorry, well I was, but I was also dough hunting helps him big buck hunt. M hm.
And uh so forty five minutes later, I mean, picture perfect. What I love about seeing these white tails and those Midwestern deciduous woods. The first thing that material materializes is that white set of antlers, right, because their body just blends in like part of the the it's the tapestry, you know, of the ground and the trees, and so it's like all of a sudden, there's this rack. And then two steps later, sort of like the ghost of the body you know, shows up and like this buck. I'm like, oh yeah, like shooter, I'm on it. He's on the trail of the dough and I'm thinking, oh, he's going to do the same thing. Like my little wall that I've done here is not going to stop him. So I swing around the tree, get the camera pointed at him. He comes into my shooting lane. I'm at full drop. I give him the map. But I gave him a map. He didn't hear me. If anybody's still out hunting there, if you're going to give him the old map to stop them, do it loud. If you're gonna do it at a three or four, do it at like a nine or ten. I don't think they're going to jump out of their skin and run the other way just because you give him a loud map. So he goes through my shooting lane and I'm like oh, well that's it. Well, he gets to my little.
Wall imaginal line.
Yeah, he gets there and he's like huh, takes two steps back, takes it right, and then comes right, and then takes it comes right underneath my stand at ten yards. Unfortunately, I was already at full draw, so I couldn't swing the camera and stay on him. So I'm pretty sure he walked out a frame for the shop. But uh ten yards, Uh scapula rib on the way in, rib on the way out pass through. I ranged the spot where he's standing at ten where I shot him when I washed him where he fell over. I ranged him on the ground at forty nine yards.
Oh, oh, wonderful.
Read the script beautiful.
Uh oh, just so I want you know, because I'm trying to sell you on this little scheme. Me and poverty Pad are working out.
You don't have to sell me.
Well, listen, I'm sending out two mole trees. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna and I'll give you the log in. Okay, he's gonna send that's.
A group text i'd like to get.
So we're sending out a couple of mole trees out there, isn't yeah, well so I just happened to have two sitting on my work bench. Yeah, I was saying, you can have those. We're gonna send them out. I can add more to it. I'll give you the log in and we're gonna find out what all is what I'm in.
I think I know what's there, and it's a big white tail.
The only reason I'm inviting you is to make him jealous.
Oh good, so you're already telling me I'm out.
Yeah, damn good because poverty Pat was kind of running this, uh this whole idea by me too.
What Yeah, oh you know, I didn't want to tell you this.
It is kind of like his deal, So maybe you're out. Spencer.
He a live show to me, and I was kind of poking around then, like, oh, what where's this property at? How many acres? And how many where are the cattle at on this property? I think we put the full court meter prass on.
This next we figure it out off air, but not listening because he's gonna probably he might take all this the wrong way. Yeah, I'm gonna be I don't If I wind up being out, I'm gonna be pissed.
Speaking of picture perfect whitetail scenes like Yanni had. Our next guest is the world's greatest whitetail dear photographer Matt Hanson. If you don't know his name, you certainly know his work, which has been used across the hunting industry. Matt, Welcome to the show.
Hey, what's up, guys?
How's going good?
Matt? Tell us where you're standing today, not in the office.
Nice soggy Midwestern day. And then one of my honey holes. Uh well, he used to be a honey hole. One buck wandered in October twenty fourth, So I guess one buck's better than none.
Okay, one of your honey holes. Now, tell us about the kinds of places that you take these wonderful pictures. Is it private ground, state parks, national park, city parks, like, like, what's what's your favorite spots to get these great photos?
Yes, all the above. Right now, I'm in a metro area, so it's more like a city park surrounded by neighborhoods. And I have three or four of these kind of spots. And then I also do the national parks. I have some state parks and then some wildlife refuges.
Okay, Steve the floors you will so well you want me to tell them? Yeah?
Yeah, hold on, but first, Matt, are you are you hunting with the camera today or with a bow.
Camera? Okay, do you hunt? Do you hunt with a bow or hunt with anything weapons? Yep? I do.
I shot a meal deer in a prong horn last month in Wyoming, but I normally do like one hunt every two years. I haven't killed the white tail in probably four years.
Huh. Now, Steve had some thoughts about where some of these photos.
Yeah, I want to hear this criticis.
Well, what I was sharing with the boys here, and you know, if you're doing food photography, the food needs to the food needs to be edible. Okay, like in the old days, if you were, like if you're advertising place settings, I think you can get away with the food not being edible. But if it's food photography, the food's edible. So on a food shoot, you might they used to like take a turkey and they would literally varnish a turkey right now that yet it has to be food. Has I feel that it should be illegal? Like I think if you're putting a deer a photo of a deer in a hunting context meaning on a hunting magazine, hunting website, that should be a huntable deer. I don't think it's fair, okay to put a not huntable deer in a hunting publication. I think it should be illegal.
Okay, all right, I hear that.
Yeah, what so, like what percentage of white tails that you photograph are not hauntable.
Because you're getting people excited and it's not true.
Yeah, well it's just like all the alk photos you see, so you gotta talk to the al photographer.
That should be illegal too, Matt, tell folks where they've seen your pictures before, just.
Generally all about hunting magazines. Currently I have Peterson's Hunting cover and then North American White Tail cover. I think I have a spread and bow Hunter, and then all the hunting companies as well, Cabella's Bass Pro. You guys, Spencer has been very good to me for the website doing. I think it's over two hundred articles now.
Some it is so and how how many how many covers have you had in your life magazines?
It's well over one hundred now. I've been doing this for about ten years. It really took traction five years ago, so probably about eighty in the past five years.
And how is that good run?
How has the white tail photography business changed over the last decade then?
Is it?
Is it getting harder to make a living doing this?
Yes, but obviously with the everything changing to online makes something's difficult. But I'm going to go positive here and say the concentration on big rackx has lessened in the past decade, and that's really helped me because about half my covers are one hundred and forty inch year or smaller, and ten twenty years ago I would have barely sold any of those. So that's a huge positive in the hunting industry. And I think you guys have a lot of blame or credit to that because meat eater obviously you shoot big animals when you see them, but you're not completely picky every time you go out, which has been a huge help for me because I I'd much rather a decent, mature buck in a gorgeous scene than just a giant buck in a really messy scene.
Steve, you feel a little bad now for criticizing him, Yeah, a little bit.
But the wheels that are turning into my head is, let's say, like, how much goodwill would you get if a publication or an online thing said, you know what, bro, all of our dear, all of our wildlife photography is huntable game.
I thought you were gonna go a different direction, say like Field and Streams should put a spike on their cover.
No, no, no, no, I don't care what they do.
Okay, Matt, tell us tell us about your favorite tell us about your favorite photo of all time that you've ever taken in this last decade of white tailed deer photography.
Okay, there's a lot of them, but the one that comes to mind is probably my most well known one. It's just a really nice buck with a huge vapor class out in a snowy setting, which was actually I looked up the excess exit data it was November fourteenth, so today in twenty eighteen, let's.
See you, Phil.
It's not prep Steve.
Oh, that's called BAP. Yeah, bad at producing.
Okay, so your favorite photo? How big was that white tail that you took?
Was? Was he a giant or standard?
Yes, he's pretty big. He's in the one fifties, I would say.
Okay, it's the vapor cloud that's his bread. Yes, yes, so.
Backlit, really cold morning and he's right on the edge of the clearing, so I was in the woods. He was right on the edge of the woods, and I was shooting back towards the field.
Phil is gonna work on photo.
I got a question while we're waiting on that. Yeah, what, Matt, what is there like a behavior, a dear behavior that you think that you've noticed over the years of doing this with the camera that maybe most white tail deer hunters don't know about or aren't like privy to something that you've seen because of your just the amount of hours you've spent with these deer and.
Bosses, and I feel a lot of hunters don't get up close and personal with the snortweeze and it's pretty intimidating and pretty awesome.
Hmm Yeah, snort wheeze.
If you don't know that, Wow, that's like the most aggressive vocalization that a whitetail has in his role ofdex. That's telling another white tail I'm gonna whoop your ass right now if you come over here. And that's that's what a snort wheeze is. Yep, Matt. Have you ever been photographing a deer that ends up getting shot?
Yes, a lot on this property.
Actually, oh, so.
This used to be.
Really twenty We had some really good bucks and we're down to one now. So they come and go as they please, and unfortunately, well I hunt also, so it's not completely unfortunately. But if you just ask for permission, I think Michigan is one hundred and fifty yards. I don't know what other states in the Midwest are, but if you get written permission from neighbors at one hundred and fifty yards, you can both hunt that animal. And these deer are coming and going almost every day, so a lot get wiped out. And then also a fun little thing, Me and my buddy surprised our parents down at a Texas hunt, so we showed up the day before, total surprise, and I actually photographed the buck that my dad shot the following day, so that's kind of cool. So he has the live and field kill shot in his office now, which is pretty that's good.
But have you ever been Oh okay, Phil now has Matt's favorite photo of all time on the screen.
Yeah, it looks like that deer eat squirrels. Man. Uh huh.
When people say that a big buck for the cover of outdoor magazines, that's what they're talking about Matt. Where has that photo been used before?
That was on the cover of Quality White Tails. So actually that afternoon I went to a Chick fil A and immediately sent it to Lindsay and he was like, yep, so that was on the following cover. Yeah, it's normally it doesn't happen that quickly because you shoot like this year, I'm going to be selling for next fall. But this was just a perfect thing that worked out. November fourteenth, there's still time for the Winner issue to come out, and it was just meant to be.
Yeah, that buck is worthy of an outdoor magazine. Matt, good luck with the rest of your photo taking and you're hunting this fall. You can see Matt's work on our website. Any magazine rack you look at in a gas station or grocery store, if you see your beautiful picture of a white tail, there's a decent chance that that belongs to Matt Hanson.
Got Phil's tearing it up. Now look at all this photos. He's tearing it a new one over there.
Now, Ryan says, which doesn't mean what you're thinking.
It means wonderful at producing says Ryan.
Uh and uh.
If you are part of our YouTube audience, you can see the full pictures.
Oh I like that one too.
Good job, Phil, all right, have a good day in the woods, Phil, all right. Our next segment is the Migration Report.
When you can sun food and the cham sassle, then you suffer.
Alright, Chrishan is the West? What do you boys like that? I couldn't understand what it said.
Now.
The Migration Report is where Matt McCormick gives a waterfowl hunting forecast for each flyway.
Take it away, Matt.
Hey guys, I'm Matt McCormick with Flying V and welcome to the meat Eater Migration Report from November fourteenth, twenty twenty four. I'm reporting, do you live from the gorge here in southwest Montana? And we are witnessing significant shifts in the waterfowl migration as we move deeper into November.
Let's dive right.
In here in the Pacific Flyway. We have mega cold weather on the way. We're talking like single digits up in Alberta. This cold snap will absolutely freeze up the small holding water up in Alberta and should push some of those birds from the Peace River area, hopefully all the way down into the States.
The Pacific Northwest.
Is already seeing a big influx of wigeon on the front end of this storm.
And although overall goose numbers are.
Down over here in the Pacific Flyway, reports are showing good movement into all the staging areas across the flyway. Here in Montana, we are experiencing a steady flow of ducks arriving daily over the last few weeks, but we're all ready for a little bit colder weather. In the Central Flyway, cold fronts and north winds have picked up the pace of the migration. There are still a pile of birds balled up right there at the Canadian US border, but South Dakota does still hold a large concentration of both ducks and geese. The front end of that migration is pushing all the way down into Kansas and Oklahoma, and I know those guys down in Oklahoma are just beating them up right now on that leading edge. As temperatures continue to drop over the next few weeks, hunters can expect increased activity and fresh.
Arrivals all along the flyways.
So if you guys are wondering if you should go hunting, now is the time It's been a little bit of an unusual year for everybody in the Mississippi Flyway, with ten being above average, but the migration is still progressing steadily. Recent rains have improved habitat conditions, setting the stage for prime duck hunting opportunities, and the geese aren't all that far behind. Hunters in Minnesota can look forward to those big migration days that everyone has been waiting for. They're on their way boards, So call up your bodies, load up the guns, get in the pit, and go hunting because they're coming. Lastly, in the Atlantic Flyway, migration activity is gradually increasing, much like the other parts of the country. Colder temperatures and improved habitat conditions are expected to drive movement in the upcoming weeks. Hunters along the eastern seaboards should keep a close eye on weather patterns, as they'll play a really big role in the timing and the volume of the incoming birds. I know that there's a bunch of birds up in the Saint Lawrence regions. Still they will push down into you guys here shortly. That's it for this week's migration report. Whether you're hunting sheet water in the Pacific Northwest, or gearing up for some big MiG days in the Mississippi Flyway. The upcoming weather patterns are setting the stage for some killer hunting ahead. This is gonna be exciting, guys. November is here. We're all looking forward to the cooler weather. Stay tuned for more updates and good luck out there.
Back to you guys, hot damn, oh good damn. Phil. You know what you ought to do? Man, I would rig it up where when he's doing that, it's got one of those weatherman things in the background.
M that sounds like a lot of money and work.
And yeah, he points and it's like all kinds of graphics and like arrows, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, that sounds incredible. I'd love to see it.
That's how I would rigged out.
Steve. I've seen some news lately about the geese arriving at Freeze Out Lake in Montana. That's a place I've heard you talk.
We used to do it every year.
What's your relationship with that lake?
Oh? We go hunt snow geese. Uh huh, and we call the hotline. This is pre internet. The Internet wasn't as souped up as it is now. I liked it better back then. I was telling someone their day right in this room. The main thing I like about the internet is you can watch the world's greatest hockey goals of all time in slow motion.
That's your favorite thing.
There's so much more going on than you'd think is going on. That's a good use of the Internet. But I preferred it when you would call the hotline and they would estimate they'd be like eight thousand snows, twenty thousand snows, twenty five thousand snows, and then you drop everything freezer.
This hotline still exists.
I don't know, man, I think it's all I think it's all online not stupid.
Now, are you impressed by like the trickery of the shooter or the reaction of the goalie, or when you're watching these slow mo hockey shots.
The puck handling is unlike? Yeah. And the thing is, me and Randall were talking about this prior to this, maybe two guys knew what happened mmmmm, the like maybe two people knew what exactly happened on that goal. Sure, meaning when you're coming in and like the pucks like between your feet and you and you like backhand. No one knows. None of the spectators know. No one knows. Also, they're aware that the pucks in the net, but they never knew what the guy did. He has to go to the grave knowing what he did, and no one knows what he did.
Well, now you make it to the grave because the next day on Sports Center they showed it.
In slow mode.
I mean back in the old days.
Uh that okay, that brings me joy, that those highlights.
Bring you joy. My daughter's a hockey player.
Okay, all right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil. What's the chat have to say?
Oh, a lot of stuff. First of all, golden arrows wondering, honest, why are you wearing a letterman's jacket? You want to talk about what you're wearing there? You know I always.
Wanted a letter letterman's jacket when I was in high school. Did either of you ever?
It was a big j on it.
I had the letter, but I never went through with it and got the jacket.
You think our school even had those.
I got a letter too for running cross country, huh, But I didn't get the jacket either.
Here I got a band.
No, this was just sitting on my desk, and yeah, I tried it on. I thought, and I thought, man, if it's really nice, So I decided to wear it for the show today.
Steve was trying to talk a lot of it so he could have it.
That's right, Stormy Chromer Steve.
One of my favorite Yannie stories of all time is he had a blaze orange Stormy Chromer hat and he had it so long that it faded so much, and eventually a game board and told him that it was his last year with that hat?
Was it your last year? Indeed? Well, yeah, guys, get not that orange.
He goes, you can hunt this year, but next year I might have a new hat.
Yea. So not a letter not a letterman's jacket.
No, it's a Stormy Chromer meat eater or collab. You can find it on the website. I bet you can find it on the Stormy Chromer website too. It's got like a little quilting on the inside.
If you can't afford that.
Bullshitter's calendar.
But how did you have to say it for the folks that don't like the naughty language.
Oh yeah, for Clay, I sent Clay. I made up a Clay nucome cover or its dilapidated old potties because he doesn't. But he said, we could have used crappers and he still would have been okay with his family, haven't it right? But yeah, dilapidated old potties, but it's actually not available available for everyone else. You got to get the f up for everyone else. You have to have to swear word. I was listening to you know, uh what quite surprised me. I think I think like swear words are different now. Six days before the election, jd Vance was on Rogan's podcast and he said the F word. Mmm, So I'm like, okay, we're in a new era now. Yeah, you could be running for vice presidents and say the F word. Damn. Sure could be on this calendar.
Do you think there was a time in your life where the vice president couldn't say the word.
Yeah, it was seven days ago.
Healthy j has had a pretty at a pretty filthy mouth, and I think it was it was kind of like off the record every all.
Yeah, it was all that stuff that they the secret tapes.
Sure, so the calendar in the meat Eater store and Yannie's spiffy stormy chromer orange vest also in the store.
Ye and we're and I'm taking suggestions for ne do we have time? Sure, I'm taking suggestions for next year's calendar. Where we were talking about doing fucked up old fish cleaning stations, but it's hard to capture the image, and it's hard to capture the smell. Then fucked up old boats. That's a good one. Fucked up old fisherman and it's just pictures of fucked up old fisherman like that. Oh yeah, a lot of them are dead, but what would they look like? Well, we're gonna get to one. What do you mean when we I don't like the name throwback Thursdays. I think that's stupid. But there's a.
Old come up with that's like a social media it.
Uh, I'll tell you about one. I'll tell you about one.
Phil, what else you got? Votive?
Just recognized that Phil and Steve remind me of my parents passively aggressively arguing with each other for the voting.
You should have heard us before the show. Uh, there was. There was a pretty earnest remark made by Phil that said, Steve, I feel like you're mad at me a lot. Yeah no, and then I said that he disagreement. It's like today I love my job. Yeah, both those things happen opinions on.
I'm guessing just pen Ray's birds being released on public land. It's our only good upland opportunity here in Illinois, Wisconsin. That's from Zach. Do you guys have any I think you've shared some of this, Steve, but it's a little wishy washy. We don't have to get into it putting you on the spot here, I don't mind.
Me put it on spot. What's you say? If it was possible to take that money an effort and do the right habitat work to get wild birds on the ground, I think that that would be a better use of time than it is to set up a sort of pretend amusement park type situation.
Yeah, you know that.
I didn't know where Steve was going, but my first thought was that, Yeah, I just wish that we could put that energy into habitat and then have wild birds. You're great, but if it is your only opportunity, have fun. It's a complicated situation and we should do a.
Whole thing about it. Thanks for springing that up, Phil.
You're welcome, Steve. Last one before our next segment. This is kind of broad. But you guys are from the area sort of. So Thomas's as.
Do we still eat it Dave Sushi? Yeah, great, we can do that one too. Oh, I'll talk about that at length. I'll talk about that at length. I just went back, we're switching. I still need a Dave Sushi. Listen, set the stage, set the stage.
All right, do we have time for this?
We got time for anything. We want to have time.
My favorite restaurant, and my favorite restaurant here used to be Dave Sushi. Oh yeah, Dudell family favorite. They bought some imported morel mushrooms. I didn't even know this existed. They bought some moral mushrooms that were cultivated and imported from China, and they were serving them like in a not cooked roll, not cooked. They were like giving them a splash of vinegar, serving them uncooked. And they had a made a bunch of people sick and killed a couple of people.
Uh.
And then everybody's like, oh, it's dangerous to eat it Dave Sushi. I said, well not anymore. It ain't. Yeah, guarantee, they're not selling that.
It's like they say, the safest day to fly was, you know, right after nine eleven.
So I took my family down there to eat just as an act of defiance. Put just something change down there, man, all the just something change the vibe.
I am in back, so it's not your favorite anymore.
I went that one time and I was like, bye, God, we're a Dave's family, and that's I don't want to hear about it. And then we haven't been back. We'reund to a new thing. Now we're around. We around the I like the table because my kids liked they squirt the sprite in your mouth and they throw eggs in the air, and.
Shit, it's kompa here in Yeah, there's some of those guys.
Some of those guys get a little burned out over time and they don't put on a show. That's me and my kids favorite restaurant. My wife doesn't like it. And then I I like the air Works. I like going there. Yeah, And there's a lot of restaurants I hate.
See I've been to that. There's some other there's some other sushi joints in our town. And after the Dave's thing, I went to the other ones and then I was like, man, if I'm gonna eat sushi in this time, I'm going back to Dave's.
Damn straight with you.
I haven't, but you gotta win the lottery to go to and I love going to guys, so I could.
I got the anniversary.
Here's the deal man that's not enjoying this local bowsman.
I got to come when you come.
I got a list of restaurants that long from there to there that I'm actually boycott. Oh why hate him so bad? Okay, hate them.
I'm going to one tonight, a new one. That's why I've got this card again. On it's the only this is the only office in the world where you could walk in with something that's not like a meat eater T shirt and people are like, oh, look at look at GQ over here.
What are you going to? The Queen was teasing me there today about my shirt. Really, he's like a little fashion coph.
A card. Again. We're gonna go to the Bitter Root b Stroup tonight.
You play something. Where do you get fashion advice here?
Yeah, we'll remember that. Phil. Let's let's do one more comment here and then we go on.
Yes, this is I mean, this could be a quick description Craig's outdoors. Could you guys explain how thermals work and how to take them into account while hunting. Never really understood this.
Go ahead, Yanni quick, warm.
Yeah, Phil, I don't think you did a great job of producing this one, but I'll do it. No, no, I can answer. But it's not a it's not it's yes.
Let me take a stab at it.
Thermals. I'm gonna go real quick.
Why don't listen, I'll do I'll explain thermals very quickly, and then you can take them. You can explain how to take them into account while hunting. Okay, anywhere where you have a topography, meaning like some sort of hills, mountains, or even just little bitty hills like ten twenty. It doesn't work on flat ground. You need to have a place where there's air that's going to sink when it's cold down the side of a hill, and then when it warms up, it's going to rise.
Okay.
So the same way that if you put your hand over a fire, you can feel the heat well above the fire, but if you're able to put it like down below it or off to the side, it's not you don't feel it quite as in the same distance. It's because the heat's rising well, it sinks when it gets cold too.
Okay, So.
Most days, like where I hunt in Wisconsin, if the wind's not blowing, like in the first morning, when it's super cold at first light, the air is sinking down the hillsides. As the day warms, the air starts to rise up the hillsides, and then again in the evenings, the air cools and it's gonna sink down the hillsides. Okay, So that is how thermals work.
Yep. I'll add a little tidbit. Cold water can drive thermals as well. But let me back up and say this. I think of there being I don't know if a meteorologist would agree. I think of there being two kinds of wind. There's wind that you go and look at the weather forecast and it tells you the wind's coming from the south. There's that wind, and then there's a localized thermal wind that has to do with temperature shifts. How do you use them? Let me give you an extreme version. It's very common if let's let's say you're you're bow hunting elk and you're looking at elk on the hillside, and you know the best approach is to come from above. It's real common to not make a play and wait for the thermals to switch and be like, I'm not going now because I need to come from above and the air going is going uphill. I'm gonna wait. The sun's gonna set, the air is going to.
No, no, you mess it up.
Am I where I'm at?
You need to come from.
Above, you know, you want to approach from above above.
And at that moment when you first seen him at first light, the air is still sinking.
Oh no, I was in the air. I was looking at him midday.
Oh.
Either way, you know that as the air is cooling or when it's cold, the air is gonna be going downhill, and when it's warm, the air is gonna be going uphill. And you might sit and be like, we're not gonna do anything. We're gonna lay here for three hours until the thermals switch, at which point we'll be able to do the approach in the way that makes sense for the wind. And that's not what the weather man's telling you. That's the topographical wind change. When I was saying about creeks, you might always notice if you're in a you might always notice if you're on a creek that has any kind of like canyon like aspect, you might always be like the wind is always with the current because that air, that water is cool in that little bit of air, and you have a little micro climb of thermal with air coming down. So it's a good idea sometimes to sneak up creaks because you know that there's gonna be ever so slight downhill draft from that cool creek air.
Here's another example. One time I got busted by thermals. I was on a north facing like deep ark timber hillside right like, I'm freezing my my tail off sitting there, and I'm looking at elk across the drainage that are in a south on a south facing quaky covered hillside that's in the sun, and i can feel the air dropping right down to the creek below me, and I'm thinking, well, it's just going to drop down in there and then just gonna keep on going out. Well, what my scent actually did was it went to the bottom and then it caught that warm air and that was going up the other side, and then went right up the other side to the elk and eventually busted me.
Drives more time, still no question. It's hot tips conversation. We talked about Poverty Pat earlier. The other day. I was with Poverty Pat and we were looking at a wallow and I was talking about how a fellow could set up on that wallow, and I said, you'd want to do two. You have to do two setups because of the thermal Sure, a more detailed breakdown. We have two really good articles on the meat eater dot com Understanding Thermals in Whitetail Country from Tony Peterson and then how to Hunt a Thermal Hub from Bomartnic. In that thermal hub, a lot of it has to do with hunting creek bottoms like sand and if you were if you if you need to approach a fucked up old shitter, you might play the thermals depending on the condition. That's a hot tip, dude.
Mark Kenyon just interviewed, Uh, John Eberhart and oh from Tethered Uh not Ernie, what's the what's his no? What's what's Ernie's partner's name? Greg Godfrey? He interviewed those two and in there they talk about thermals. On the podcast. It's not the current episode but the one before.
Uh.
They thoroughly talk through thermals. So go listen to that.
When I first saw that question come up, I thought, you want to know how long John's worked? Alright.
The only reason I thought it was bad films because I knew we could talk about this for.
Yeah, a little chuckle over there.
Moving on, our next segment is one minute Fishing.
Do I feel lucky?
We'll do you dunk, Go ahead, make my cast.
One minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is doctor Randall Williams, who's at the Meat Eater office pond today. Doctor Randall is fishing for a donation to TRCP. Steve, what are you seeing there?
When you look at the camera, I see that I see a homeless guy out by that pond or the Cleveland shirt on. So wherever he came from Ohio state? Sorry, wherever he came from it was Ohio?
Yeah, okay, Randal, give us a scouting report on the office pond.
Have you made a cast yet?
I made a few half hearted casts about twenty five minutes ago, and since then we've just been.
Trying to keep our hands warm.
There's a good breeze coming in from the west, maybe gusting up to fifteen miles an hour or so, so I apologize in advance. If Corey's hands are shaking because we're rather chilly.
Cold, that's fine. The connection is not great anyway. Do whatever you want.
And what's your tactic today, Randall? To be successful in one minute?
Well, I've got a number four panther Martin with a.
Yellow body red spots.
I believe it's been featured on this very segment in previous episodes, and I'm gonna give it about two casts. I'm gonna go one to the left, one to the right, and just see what happens.
I don't have much confidence, Steve.
What would you do if you were out there trying to catch a fish in one minute?
Same thing. I'd take a big old fat lee for him and put about twenty inches below bobber and huck that out and just have you start the clock.
Okay, all right, doctor Randall, Your time starts when you make your first cast.
Go ahead, let's do this. What if he has a license would be funny if you got like of citation.
We had someone from the production side of the company do this a couple of weeks ago, and I asked them beforehand and said, do you have a fishing license?
And they did. They didn't see it.
The first one got hung in the trees. No, Well, the good news is you have forty five seconds to figure it out.
You know what it ought to be. If they don't catch, they pay five hundred bucks. If they do catch, we pay five hundred bucks.
The opposite thing will happen where right now, we have a lot of people volunteering to do this segment. The other version. I don't think we'll have anyone. What's going on over there? Come on, Randall, let's go. You have fifteen seconds to go.
Is still in the tree? Why is he looking at us?
Five seconds?
R man, I wish we weren't.
It did not have today, Randall, tell us about what happened on that first cast.
Oh, he's on the ground.
Well, previously, previously i'd mentioned that there's a very strong breeze coming across the pond, and I went to chuck it past that tree, bring it right under there. A bit of a moonball cast must have caught a cross breeze and then got hung up about twenty feet in the tree. I I really, I'm surprised that it came out shocking to me. Really, I thought this was going to be a giant failure. Instead it was just sort of on par with all the other failures.
We have yet to have someone be successful doing one minute fishing at the office pond.
Oh, I'll get in there.
Okay, we'll do it, Steve, before that thing freeze over.
Because I've seen tracks cutting across it.
We're running out of time, so before the freeze happens, someone needs to be successful for one minute fishing. I'd like to tell you well done, but I'm not going to insult you and our listeners. So we'll try this against some.
Other Randall, does it seem my gud just go out there with a worm and a bobber and win.
I mean that was my That was what I'd hope to do, but you know, I just didn't come prepared today. Sort of the last minute deal.
So well, don't do that. That's what I'm gonna do your pocket.
Yeah, I think you do well.
Last thing, Randal, before we get out of here, we had someone Leland Nlly pipe in and say that Randal can be on the cover of the calendar for fed up Old Fishermen. Oh oh, I've got some.
I've got some real beauties in my back archives of me as a fucked up old fisherman.
So okay, believe me.
I think we could make a nice composite for the cover.
Thank you, Randal, Thank you Corey.
All right.
Our next segment is Throwback Thursday. Go back on a Thursday.
Stephen Rody take me back in nineteen seventy foot.
Believe and I mentioned Stephen Rody old.
As shit.
Dude.
I saw, I saw twice I'm talking about.
That's that little tune from Phil really tickled Steve in a way that I don't think I've ever seen.
Like I said, man, I could if I had, if you had an hour, I would start telling you about Gordon Lightfoot.
Okay, next episode, Throwback Thursday, is where we look at old hunting and fishing pictures of the crew. Yanni, You're going first, and if you are on our YouTube audience, either live or watching this in the future, you will get to see these photos that we're looking at. All right, Yanni, what are we seeing here?
What.
You guys can see what it is. But I want you guys to guess the year is that you assoom in there a little bit.
It is me.
I didn't bring a picture of somebody else. I'm gonna guess this is the year nineteen ninety one.
No, okay, what is it?
I was born in seventy eight. Okay, Steve's got the advantage of math on his side here.
It's like two thousand. Oh, okay, what year was it?
Ninety seven? Steve wins he's the closest. But yeah, it was my first hunting trip out west. My dad took me out to Wyoming. I think we were out by Gillette, and we were with some other Latvian fellas. They had done this hunt quite a few times, and uh yeah, I remember we drove out in a like an eighty seven Chevy Blazer, and we had it set up where you could sleep in the back, so while one guy drove, the other guy could lay down and sleep in the back. Not very safe, you know, but we got it done. Cool thing about this particular hunt is that we did kind of a soft push on these prong horn to get him to move by us. And I was actually being sort of semi guided by a fellow that unfortunately is no longer with us, Pete silton Man's just passed in the last year, and he was one of the landowners up there in Wisconsin where I hunt, and he was right with me. He set me up and we I think I got prone. I think I had a bipod. There's a bipod on that rifle, isn't there?
It looks like it.
And I was back and everybody had a hairs biped.
Yeah, and that's what that is on that rifle, the springs on their Yeah, yeah, well it works out perfect. We're sitting there, Prone said. I mean, we were just in some sage and the whole herd comes by it like one hundred, one hundred and fifty yards, you know, And finally this buck is there, and.
He's like, all right, shoot him.
Okay.
I flipped the safety click. I hadn't chambered one, and so A chambered one and then shot the buck. But there was a few moments there where I don't know exactly what Pete was saying behind me, but he got quite flustered with me that I hadn't didn't have a round in the gun.
And What I really love is it looks like you're wearing mass Yoke bottom land. Oh hell yeah. Did you have a lot of that back in your day?
No, no, it was I wasn't into it enough to know that that was Massiolk bottom lands. It was a shirt that I think my dad had grown out of. Is along with those pants. I still own those pants and I can still fit into those pants. Oh so I was nineteen then I can still. I still have those pants there. They're Winchester brush pants and they have this very shiny, loud nylon on the front of the chap. I guess of them, but I still have those. They sit in a drawer every now and then I put them on. I don't know for why, but yeah, that was before I got contacts too, when I still wore glasses every day.
That looks like an aniloe punting picture from nineteen ninety seven. Sure does, all right, Next one, I'll go next.
This is a big old bot in South Dakota. I found it floating dead on the beach I was. I was a sophomore in college.
I killed that buck on some public land on a near a big body of water. Has a Harris bipod on there as well. I did have one. I don't know if that one was a Harris bipod or not. But here's here's what I'll always remember about that haunt more than that mule. That morning before sunrise, in my headlight, I saw an Eastern spotted skunk. Now, if you don't know, those are super rare, and like South Dakota is at the very edge of their habitat. Many states have them listed is threatened or vulnerable. And a cool thing about the spotted skunks is that game agencies rely on trappers to track their population. Steve yann Erie Boy is familiar with like an Eastern spotted skunk? Oh yeah, I am, yeah, never caught one, and I looked this up shortly after I had saw him. In Missouri, for example, spotted skunk populations plummeted by ninety nine percent from the nineteen fifties to the nineteen eighties. In Minnesota, there were twenty thousand spotted skunks harvested in nineteen forty six. By nineteen sixty five it was less than one thousand, and in nineteen ninety two it was just four. So their populations have crashed and I didn't exactly know what I was looking at when I saw that spotted skunk. My dad was with me, and he had said, that's a SIV cat. Did you hear them called? Yeah, civid cat a cat. He was a big trapper, so he was also tickled to see that spotted skunk. Now, unlike stripe skunks, strip skunks have done a great job of adapting to cattle and crops and humans, spotted skunks have not. They need old growth pine and oak forests for their protection, so they have the right food. And the cool thing about them is it's like very cartoony, but they do a handstand when they're gonna spray, and that's how they aim their spray or to hit their target if they feel threatened, so they do a little handstand, aim their butt right at you, and that's how they hit you on like a stripe skunk which would just turn around and spray you. And Phil now has a map.
He showed a picture, but then talked about something besides the picture.
I'm telling you, when I look at that photo, what I think of is seeing that stripe that spotted skunk, Because it was that morning, a few hours before I killed that buck, I saw that spotted skunk. So that's what I always think of when I think of that haunter, think of that deer, think of that picture.
It would be like if I showed you this calendar and started talking about my computer.
Uh huh, hey, you could do that. I'm sure you have some memories that that are of your computer when you look at that calendar. Phil has a a map book that spotted skunk distribution that shows you how many times they've been recorded from the year two thousand to the year twenty twenty.
It's got to be a path like a pathological like, there's a pathology thing. What do you mean, Are you sure it's not some kind of virus.
Or habitat loss. I was looking this up last night.
Yeah, just that.
I'm sure there's other things, like they probably have some food disappear, but they just they're not as adaptable as other small man.
So you have like the spread of raccoons and possums going in the other direction. I just have a hard time believing that it could be habitat and not some kind of pathological or competition.
Is I'll send you the articles I read. They were adamant, adamant that it is about the habitat loss.
So if you look at that map where the greater occurrences are, it is in some pretty rough country right like along the ridge of the apple Acians, and then in that eastern South Dakota region and then in the Ozarks. Right that's the Ozarks I'm looking at.
Probably the only spotted skunk I'll ever see was. I was thrilled to have that sighting, an encounter, one of those see if your next let's let's see your photo for throwback there say.
Well, so this is at my house where I grew up. My mom still lives there. The guy down the shore, so from lookers left down the shore was an old timer, John Gary. And John Gary was kind of one of my main fishing mentors when I was a little kid. He was a World War two guy like my dad. He he kept he would keep track of every book he read on in a journal, and he keep track of how much he fished on a journal. And he fished two hundred and fifty days a year. But he lived by himself, which raises the question how do you eat all those fish? Because he didn't throw any kind of fish back. Huh, Well, he's he's gone. Now, all the players are gone. Here, I'm gonna commit. I'm gonna admit to a series of crimes.
Could you describe the photo first? For people who are just listening.
I'm holding up to snap, I'm holding up to ten pounds snap turtles.
What year is this?
I was in high school. It's like it's like ninety nineteen ninety. So John Gary explains to me, aardy kind of knew it. But one time he told me he made introduction. He was selling his fish to a fish market. And I remember when he told me the story. He told me, when you're buying something from blank fish market, he's got his thumb on the scale. Oh, he said, when you're selling something to blank fish market, he's got a finger under the scale, but it ain't his thumb. Yeah. And he went like that for you people at home, I'm raising my middle finger up Michigan Hello.
But that's not the nice Michigan hud.
So John Gary turned me on to this scamm he had going. We went out and dipped. One time he went out and dipped forty gallons of smell and that was a crime. No, okay, smelt season. Tell me when we get to the crimea what happened. As soon as we dipped him, I sold him to the guy bucket gallon, which were like, we went out smell dipping burn burned a bunch of gasket into pent water, and all of a sudden we sold forty gallons of smell for a bucket gallon. That's illegal, Okay, We're like dumb rednecks. So he then the guy says, well, here's what else I'm looking for, and he wanted snapping turtles. You could get a commercial license at that time for turtles for like next to nothing. I just figured that since you could get a commercial license, it must be okay. So I set the trap in turtles big time.
How'd you trap them?
I've made my own cage traps out of hogwire i'd make I'd make traps double doors, sometimes sometimes single door. I'd bait them with you guessed it, John Gary's fish heads. John Garrett Freeze all of his small mouthheads. I would take the small mouth heads. I'd bait turtle traps. And I started trapped turtles like a mofo. And this I was buying them for me A buck of pound dressed the turtle. YEP. So all I had to do was he wanted everything attached to the plaster, and he wanted everything attached to the lower shell. He wanted the top shell and the guts gone.
So if you had a ten pound turtle, what did he weigh after he was dressed?
You know what it wound up being. I can't remember what he paid me, but it wound up being the turtles worth about ten bucks. Yeah, I can't remember. I feel like I was gonna say a buck of pound, but a turtle is about ten bucks. But I had some giant turtles. I caught a thirty pounder one time, but I sold that to a different guy. But yeah, I was just law breaking. The thing is, I never would have gotten a Lacey Act violation because it was all in state. Terrible.
What did these guys do with the turtles?
They just he would sell anything. He would buy anything on the black market that he could have a play ausible explanation for how he got it. So you had tribal in the Great Lakes, you had tribal fisheries for walleye, You had tribal fisheries for yellow perch, you had tribal fisheries. He could buy bluegill from aquaculture places. He could buy snapping turtle from aquaculture places. So he'd buy anything that he could have and it wouldn't be crazy that he had it. He wasn't going to buy largemouth bass flays off because people like, where the hell did you get large mouth bass plays from? Okay, So what year was that photo? You think ninety ninety ninety one?
Head to YouTube you'll want to see. I love that picture of Steve. He he didn't he.
Cut say one last little tidbit. We had a big storage if you go down from there like lookers nutsack like down below the picture. We have this storage area that my dad made us build one summer out of out of block and I used to when I catch turtles, I'd put him in there until I had a bunch to clean them. And one time my mom left the door open for turtles everywhere, like a lot of them made a break for it and got into lake and there was turtles that just went the wrong direction. But it was surprising how well those turtles never haven't been there, new downhill gone.
You know, did you catch other kinds of turtles doing this too?
No?
Only snappers? Man, You know, I could get all kinds of turtles in there. No, and it was really good, like it was lights out, like season would open June fifteenth. It was lights out for a month later Michigan went and changed to opening a turtle to July fifteen, which sits now. It's hard. It's hard to catch a turtle from mid July on it's lights out June fifteen.
Yeah, if you're listening to this, you'll want a head to YouTube. You can see Steve's photo from nineteen ninety when he was a criminal, my picture from college in twenty twelve, and Yanni's Annalo punting picture from nineteen nine.
Can I say one last thing about John Gary? Last thing? After I sold my first book, I felt like I was loaded and I was over at John Gary's. He was old and John Gary made a deal with me, and I didn't take it seriously, but it was a serious deal. We're sitting in his house and he said, I will sell you this house and everything inside of this house down to my shoes, for seventy five thousand dollars. The deal is I keep it till I'm dead. And he was serious because he wanted money to be able to travel how long did you think about this offer a bit? But I didn't think about it seriously enough. Then later he passed his away in the house sells for seven hundred thousand dollars. Several hundred thousand dollars is on the beach. Yeah, could have been. I remember that detail, right down to my shoes and he pointed to his shoes. You could have had his shoes, everything, seventy five grand. He wanted it in cash, all right. That was throwback Thursday. Moving on.
Joining us on the line last is Mitchell Black, a journalist from the Post and Courier newspaper. He's been covering the story of how forty three female monkeys escaped a research facility in South Carolina. Mitchell, welcome to the show.
Hey, how you doing. Thanks for having me doing good.
First thing, tell us about the facility that these monkeys escaped from.
Sure, so, Alpha Genesis. It's a primate breeding and research facility in MSSE, South Carolina. And if you don't know where air that at is, that is sort of on the southeastern corner of the state what a lot of people might think of as a murdic country. And so this facility they primarily breed monkeys to be sold to the government into private companies for testing, and they also perform tests themselves.
They have a few.
Different locations around the low Country and the MSc themsel itself. They've got close to seven thousand monkeys. The town has a thousand people, so it's like a six to one monkey to town person ratio.
Over there.
So you know, a lot out of the monkeys in that facility and you know people can see them from the road and k ages. It's part of living in ms is having the these monkeys around.
And what purpose do these monkeys serve?
So it's a little bit they the facility is contracted for breeding, so you know, these monkeys are bred and that and so old to do different companies and the government for science and testing. And then they also perform some research on them themselves. And you know, if you look at at some of the work that company has done, you know they talk about outfit they use the monkeys for studies in vaccine development, therapeutic drug therapies, and.
Some surgical procedures.
You know, we're still looking to learn a little bit more about the specifics there. You know, one important thing to note is that you know these monkeys. Per their CEO, they're juveniles, so there are too young to be tested on, which is one of the reasons that they say that, you know, people shouldn't be all that scared, but they should still steer clear because you know, monkeys can be skittish and they'll just scamper off in the trees if you end up, you know, trying to give it a big old hug.
All right, tell us about the escape. How did it come to be that forty three monkeys got loose in town?
Sure, so it was in the middle of the day, the day after election day and so, you know, well people are still learning about what the results are of the election. A caretaker went into a facility, into the facility in ym See, and they were cleaning their enclosure, and they left the doors unsecured, and there was a jail break. Forty three monkeys out the door, and a lot lot of them have been hanging out in the area right by the facility. But you know, there were some reports of a monkey five miles down the road a few days into. It took a few days for the facility to start to bring the monkeys back into the fold because it was raining down here.
And the monkey's kind of hunkered down in the trees.
That made it difficult for them to catch, you know, because they're just didn't want to get wet.
And how how many have they caught so far? Then, it's been it's been about ten days or so since it's happened.
It's been it's been, yeah, it's been eight days. And so they've caught they've caught thirty five monkeys. There's still eight that are on the loose, and uh, you know, trying to learn about where exactly the os aar. I'm not sure or if they're or by the facility or if they're elsewhere, but residents are instructed to, uh, you know, call the police.
If they have a monkey sighting.
And you know, as a reporter, we're all always started of looking at different announcements from the police department and police reports, and you know, you see things like traffic accident okay, you know, if there's a break in okay. Uh, and so you know, we're looking and we get an email it's from one of the local lawenforcement agencies a week or so ago. It's like, you know, all these monkeys that have been broken out of the cilion, Well you know that's a story. So you know, we start making calls and you know, here we are a week or so later.
Is the climate suitable for those monkeys? Like? Is it plausible that if you just left them alone that they would find not only the right temperatures but food sources and you know what I mean, like, could you feasibly have a feral population of monkeys in this area?
Well, so there is a there is an island where a lot of these monkeys live just off the coast there. What I'll say is that these monkeys there, so there are resus macaques and they're typically found in South Asia, but they have been living in captivity so uh and you know.
Have been dependent on people eating them.
So uh, it's hard to say whether or they could just simply exist in the wild, you know, given that, uh, you know they a bit in living in cages for most of their life.
Yeah, but I mean outside of these individual monkeys particular skill sets, what I mean is is the climate in South Carolina suitable for the monkeys or are they freezing their asses right now?
Well? Right now, right now it's pretty warm, but it's gonna it's getting colder. Or at night, you know, uh so, uh, it's still pretty warm right now. I don't own you know, in terms of like me walking around, it's not not quite at you know, mitches freezing at his ass off temperature yet, so you know, trying to not not completely sure if they are you know, how they are going to do in colder temperatures, but you know that that's another good question, all right.
And just a second, Mitchell is going to tell us about how they have captured thirty five of the forty three monkeys. But Steve, you're a trapper. If you were tasked with catching these forty three monkeys, how would you do it?
Oh? Man, I got no idea. I don't know enough about them. Where would you start though?
What do you think? Live traps?
I imagine, yeah, live traps and maybe Mercer Longes bobcat cages. And then you'd have to put the mechanism you could figure that a little sucker in there with his fingers.
Huh.
You'd have to put the trigger mechanism up against some wall. Okay, so he can't fiddle with that, But yeah, I don't. I'm not that into monkeys, to be honest with.
You, Mitchell, how are they doing and how have they caught the thirty five monkeys so far.
Yeah, So they're they're using these traps that are called have a heart trap. So they are one of these things where if you think of like a cage that has an opening enclosure and then sort of swinging door where and they have food on the other side, the monkey walks into the cage, tries to get the food, door swings closed, and that that's what they are using. The other part part of it is that a lot of the monkeys are around the facility and they're just kind of.
Hoping that they return home. You know, there was actually another estate. Yeah, there's another I really need to do it.
He's like, I want to get back to that place where they're going to experiment out of me. Huh, And I got to live in that little box.
There are a lot of people who are waiting in here, and it's not uncommon to see on social media people saying let them be free.
But this facility has a history of similar incidents, right.
Yeah, So there was another split, if you will, in twenty sixteen when nineteen monkeys escaped from the facility, but they returned home six hours later. Twenty six monkeys left the facility also in twenty fourteen and actually earlier this year, not related to this facility, but you know a few miles up the road, there was a monkey who's someone's pet who got out and was wandering around the streets of Walterborough, which is in the area in Carlton County, and so that led to a multiple o day.
Monkey hunt.
Or you know, they were not trying to kill the monkey, of course, but attempt to try to bring the monkey back to its owners. So there's been a lot a lot of monkey he escapes down here. You know, a lot of monkey coverage going on.
All right, last question here, Mitchell, what is the community's added toward told the toward the whole thing.
Are they angry?
Are they amused? Are they scared?
So, you know, there are some people who live in places where they've got like a cap who comes into their backyard, you know, or you know, in some other places they'll have.
Like deer or bears. That's sort of the attitude.
And you know, in the deer the bear, they come in and you know, you sort of get used to seeing them. That's sort of the attitude that locals have about out these monkeys, like it's not amen for people to say like, oh, I saw them in a tree. Oh there was a few years back where I saw a monkey sort of trapes them through my yard, and so there there's a little bit of amusemusement, but also frankly, uh, you know, this is a small town and it's a big facility, and so it does a lot to contribute to the economy.
So there's a little little bit of an amusement.
But you know, there, I wouldn't say that a lot of the anger that we've heard, which are you know, typically coming from animal rights organizations, that's not as much coming from the locals.
That we've spoken to.
A right Mitchell. You can follow his coverage on the Post in Courier newspaper.
Thank you for joining.
Thanks Mitchell.
I tell you what if my kids caught one of those monkeys and I told them what was gonna happen to that monkey if we brought it back home, that monkey's come and live with us. There's no way the pet monkeys.
Oh yeah, there's no way that we guys on the podcast talk to somebody about monkey facilities.
Yeah, because there was they're trying to open more of these monkey breeding farms.
Uh huh and locals.
That's the that's the main thing I'm thinking about right now, because this is a hot issue in Florida. Is that was that what this was happening Carolina.
But there's Georgia.
That's where they're trying to open anyways, they're they're trying to make because there's a real shortage of these research monkeys, so they're trying to open new monkey farms, and locals are pissed. Yeah, and now the locals are going to be able to use this sure right and turn around and be like, such as what's going on over there? That's what we're talking about. We don't want that.
That's a level of nimby not in my backyard that I'd be comfortable with.
That's a mimby. I don't need a monkey in my backyard.
There you go, Really you're really worried about, like, what's gonna happen?
Worried? They just said they just go right back to the facility after a week.
I'd rather be in Texas. It's a good spot for it. Yeah. I don't know, man, I don't know. If my neighbor was raising monkeys, I don't know. I'd hope they got away all right.
That brings us'd be like one of his monkeys in my yard. That brings us to the end of the show. Phil, let's get some final listen.
That's the end of the show.
That's the end of the show. We're gonna get some final listening feedback. You want to keep going.
Yeah, Hey, last call for questions. A little sparse on questions. The more specific the better, too. We're getting a lot of like, hey, any hunting tips, don't do that a little more specific. But this one question is that provider outdoors, whether from the cookbook or not, you guys have a favorite antelope recipe.
I'd use I I if you look at our cookbooks, we instead of saying it's a mule deer recipe, it's a whitetail recipe, we do like horned and antlered game. I don't This isn't quite answering the question. I wouldn't worry about what it is. I would treat it like horned an antlered game. If there's a great venison recipe you like, if there's a great moose recipe you like, Hell, there's a great lamb rescue you like, I would make that recipe, I would not care what it was. The cut of the animal and the recipe matter more than what the animal was when it comes to that.
Just the other night, I cooked out the fresh backstrap from that male whitetail buck I just killed in Wisconsin by slicing the backstraps into roughly, I don't know, half inch three quarter inch slices, pounding them lightly, salting and peppering them, then dusting them in flour, and then pan frying them in uh, you know, a light quarter inch of oil and.
A little bit of butter in there.
Then I made a nice pan gravy, had some potatoes and asparagus in the oven, and poured it all over it. I did it with white tail, but I'm sure that it would be delicious with the backstrap from a prong horn as well.
Yeah, any venison recipes on our website are gonna work just fine. To be more specific, Danielle Pruett has an antelope sausage recipe on the meat eater dot Com where she really leans into the sage flavor profile, which a lot of folks say that antelope meat tends to taste like I think when people taste that it's because they were like quartering it up in the field and laid the hind quarterage.
Yeah, that's an oily plant.
Braiden, Steve is or scratch that reverse it. Steve Braiden is asking what's the hardest part of writing a book?
Writing it? There's a quote I think it might have been Garrison Keeler had this quote. Someone had this quote that writing a book is like driving at night. You can only see as far as what is illuminated by your headlights, but you keep driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and driving, and finally you get there. That's your experience as well. Oh hah.
Tory is wondering the weirdest thing you've ever used as bait for fishing?
This is what I would like to have used this bait, and what I've used this bait.
I've leaned into the weird catfish baits before for channel cats and flatheads. Soap that was a sexy one about fifteen years ago where your doory magazines would talk about. It has a strong scent. You think about if you'd have soap and water. You watch the sort of this oil skim anything with like you take a hunk of meat and soak it in cherry kool aid. That's been something that was heavily promoted for catfish baits. So doing the weird things like that, using like a kool Aid marinade or soap for catfish.
Yehanni, anything weird?
Not that I can remember.
Yeah, I've got nothing. No, if it was trapping bait.
What else you got?
Here's something you can either set the record straight on or agree with. But pippin Is says, what's the mediator's thoughts on the deer population? The northern part of Wisconsin? Seems the lack of deer is correlated to the wolf population according to the locals. Any insight y, Just.
No, there's no way, it's not There's no way it's not impacting that. I mean, they're they eat seven pounds of meat a day. It's like, of course it's having an impact. Is it the only thing? Certainly not? Is it a thing? Yeah, that's all I.
Got to say about it.
Perfect spencer. Someone just asked if someone can win the trivia question of the week more than once, trying to find that one.
But if I don't, they can't.
Sure.
I think he's trying to point out that he's won it, don't.
I don't see I don't recognize name that I've seen before often enough. So yeah, if you're someone who hasn't sent me a hundred emails, Uh, that could certainly happen again. Yes, anything else, Phil.
I think I think we're good. Okay, it's our longest show yet.
I think that we had We had a lot of moments where someone would declare, hey, can I do we have a moment where I can talk about this?
So it made it.
You said yeah, a little longer than normal, that's right. What would happen if I didn't say yes? Oh said okay, and that's it.
I said, don't try to talk when I'm doing something.
Okay. I'm glad I didn't shut him down. That brings us to the end of this week's episode of Media to Radio Live. We'll see you back your same time and place seven.
Thanks everybody, thanks for watching you
