The Joe Rogan Experience - December 15, 2016


Joe Rogan Experience #886 - Hank Shaw

Topics
food art molecular gastronomy seven gill sharks Lyme disease horror story toxoplasmosis effects toxoplasmosis and zombie ants aquatic worm inside grasshopper alligator gar fishing trip gar fishing paddlefish caviar restrictions fire ants gamey venison flavors head cheese hunting rut guacamole bear hunting deer worldwide javelina hunting
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Guests
Hank Shaw
Mentioned
Steve Rinella Jamie Jesus Christ Stéphane Dion Hank Shaw Buck Buck Moose Anthony Bourdain Bud Schuster Bill Hicks Livermush Squirrel Sturgeon Robert Sapolsky Joey Pallotta Steven Kotler Frank Wolf Bergman Nature Louie Joe Rogan Questions Everything and 39 more
Joe Rogan Experience #885 - Tom Segura Joe Rogan Experience #887 - James Hetfield

Episode Stats


Length

2 hours and 6 minutes

Words per minute

190.34

Word count

24,151

Sentence count

2,917

Harmful content

Misogyny

71

sentences flagged

Toxicity

342

sentences flagged

Hate speech

46

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this week's episode, we're joined by former Washington Post political reporter and current Los Angeles Times writer, Joe Pesci. We talk about how he got into journalism, why he left the job, and what it's like being a reporter in Congress. Plus, we talk about what it was like to be a member of Congress in the late 90s and early 2000s, and why we should all be thankful we don't have to pay tolls on the Turnpike. And, as always, thank you for tuning into HYPEBEAST Radio and Business of HYPE. Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to our other shows MIC/LINE, The Anthropology, The HYPE Report, and HYPETALKS. Please remember to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, too! if you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review! If you don't like the show, please tell a friend about it and tell us what you think about it! And if you have any thoughts or suggestions on how we should make it better, we'll consider it in the comments section below. Thanks again for listening! Timestamps: 1:00 - What's your favorite part of the show? 2: How do you feel about the episode? 3: What's the worst thing you've ever heard of a politician? 4: How did you think of a piece of legislation? 5: What do you think it was? 6: What would you do with it? 7:30 - What does it feel like? 8:40 - How did someone else do it better? 9:20 - What kind of thing you'd like to do more? 11:00 12:00 | What's it's better than it's a better than someone else? 13:30 | How did I feel like it's my favorite thing? 14:40 15:30 16:40 | What s your biggest takeaway from it s better than that? 17:30 // 15:10 | How do I think it's the most important thing to you can I would like to see me do it more than that you could do it in a little bit more? / 16:00 // 17:10 18:20 19:20 | What do I got a better job than this?

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:01.000 So I've never been to Woodland Hills.
00:00:03.000 It's a rare land, the land of wood.
00:00:06.000 It smells like money.
00:00:07.000 Does it?
00:00:07.000 Yeah.
00:00:07.000 Out here?
00:00:08.000 Yeah.
00:00:08.000 Really?
00:00:09.000 It smells like white people, where white people come to breed. 1.00
00:00:12.000 Hank Shaw, ladies and gentlemen, we're live! 0.94
00:00:15.000 Hank Shaw said Woodland Hills smells like money.
00:00:17.000 He does.
00:00:17.000 You gotta go to Beverly Hills.
00:00:18.000 It smells like diamonds.
00:00:19.000 They don't let people like me in Beverly Hills, no.
00:00:21.000 They don't?
00:00:21.000 Come on, man.
00:00:22.000 You look respectable.
00:00:23.000 Barely.
00:00:24.000 You look fine.
00:00:25.000 You're a chef.
00:00:26.000 How do you go from being a political blogger?
00:00:29.000 You were a political blogger.
00:00:30.000 Well, I was a political...
00:00:31.000 I was a Capitol Bureau chief in Sacramento and in other places and covered Congress, so I was a bit more than a blogger.
00:00:36.000 You were deep in.
00:00:37.000 Oh, yeah.
00:00:38.000 I was in the room several times.
00:00:39.000 Watching this thing go down now, this atrocity of justice and voting and chaos and everything that's going around, the Russians are attacking, all this stuff that's going on right now, what does this feel like to you?
00:00:52.000 It feels so good to not be doing this job anymore.
00:00:55.000 So good. 0.96
00:00:57.000 I feel like anybody that has any sort of intelligence that is a political blogger that's involved in it for any length of time, or not necessarily a political blogger, or a columnist, an author, after a while you've got to realize that you're fucking writing about pro wrestling. 0.98
00:01:13.000 This is a rigged system. 0.86
00:01:14.000 You're writing about a rigged system and then occasionally something like this happens.
00:01:20.000 It used to be—I mean, what got me into it, I did it for 18 years.
00:01:23.000 Wow.
00:01:23.000 I got into it because when I got into it, the essence of politics was people of different kinds of backgrounds and persuasions of different regions would all meet in a room, i.e.
00:01:32.000 the Capitol, either it's a state Capitol or Congress.
00:01:35.000 And solve a problem somehow.
00:01:37.000 So it was all about compromise and debate and wheeling and dealing and that kind of stuff, which is inherently fascinating when you're a reporter.
00:01:43.000 Like, whose ox is going to get Gord?
00:01:45.000 Who's going to win this?
00:01:46.000 And like, you know, Joe needs this and somebody else needs that.
00:01:49.000 I got to give him this thing.
00:01:49.000 Otherwise, I'm not going to get his vote.
00:01:51.000 And then at the end of the day, you'd have this bill, this transportation...
00:01:54.000 I mean, I could go on about some hilarious congressional stories and state government stories.
00:01:59.000 Please do.
00:02:01.000 So there was a transportation bill.
00:02:03.000 It was a T-21 bill in Congress in 98. And one of my guys, a guy named Frank Wolf, he was a lawmaker from Northern Virginia.
00:02:12.000 He's not there anymore.
00:02:14.000 He's kind of a do-gooder, you know, kind of a reformer Republican guy, you know, Dudley D. Wright kind of guy.
00:02:19.000 And he hated pork and wanted to get rid of all the earmarks in the transportation bill.
00:02:23.000 But as you probably know, the transportation bill is what they call a Christmas tree.
00:02:28.000 So everybody gets a little bit of an ornament on top of the tree so that they can go home to their district and say, look what I got.
00:02:34.000 So Bud Schuster of Pennsylvania was the head of the Transportation Committee back then.
00:02:39.000 So Bud...
00:02:41.000 We'd shut the door, and anybody in the Transportation Committee was one of Bud's boys.
00:02:45.000 You were a Republican, you were a Democrat, you were one of Bud's boys.
00:02:48.000 And so they all played a game like this.
00:02:50.000 And so, except for my guy, my guy would come out and hold press releases saying, oh, you know, this is terrible, you know, this is corruption, blah, blah, blah.
00:02:57.000 Nah, that's how the game is played.
00:02:59.000 You know, everybody gets a little piece.
00:03:03.000 So, it comes out, and the bill passes over Frank's dead body, basically.
00:03:08.000 And he holds a press conference talking about how terrible it all was.
00:03:12.000 And I'm coming out of this press conference, and one of Bud Schuster's aides comes and says, hey, check out page...
00:03:17.000 I can't remember.
00:03:18.000 It was page 123 of the bill.
00:03:20.000 So I did.
00:03:21.000 And in there was a line item that gave the residents of Bud Schuster's congressional district a free pass to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike for X number of years.
00:03:34.000 So basically anybody who lived in Bud's district didn't have to pay tolls for, I think it was two years.
00:03:40.000 Awesome. 0.74
00:03:41.000 That's ridiculous. 0.87
00:03:42.000 Well, there was a reason. 0.73
00:03:43.000 Because the road that most of those people took to work, there was going to be construction on it for the next two years.
00:03:49.000 Oh.
00:03:50.000 Well, that's fairly reasonable then.
00:03:52.000 You could justify it in front of a court of law as not being completely.
00:03:57.000 But, you know, I mean, cases were like, yeah, check out page 423. We stuck something in there.
00:04:01.000 It's still going on, too.
00:04:02.000 I mean, that's what's so bizarre, that even in this age of transparency, they're still, like, stacking stuff in, sliding things into bills.
00:04:09.000 And there's very few people to watch them now.
00:04:10.000 Yes.
00:04:11.000 And there's too many things to look at anyway.
00:04:14.000 Even if there is something...
00:04:15.000 Yeah.
00:04:18.000 Even if something does get in, there's going to be some new scandal tomorrow, Kanye West going to be visiting Trump at the Trump Tower, and you're not going to think about the bill anymore.
00:04:26.000 Exactly.
00:04:26.000 There's too much to pay attention to, Hank Shaw.
00:04:28.000 Which is why I find it fascinating that you went from that world to much more of an artistic pursuit of being a chef.
00:04:37.000 That's something that I've really come to appreciate over the last, say, ten years or so, and I credit the initial push To watching No Reservations when Anthony Bourdain's show was on the Travel Channel.
00:04:51.000 Because I always loved food.
00:04:54.000 I like eating.
00:04:55.000 Everybody does.
00:04:56.000 But I never really thought of food- Dietitians don't like eating.
00:05:00.000 Which ones?
00:05:01.000 Registered dietitians.
00:05:02.000 They don't?
00:05:02.000 They don't like eating.
00:05:03.000 Well, they don't like the pleasure aspect of it. 0.98
00:05:05.000 They want everybody to just say, like, there's a fucking guy that I know who's like, I don't eat for taste, I eat for performance. 0.98
00:05:10.000 He eats, like, oatmeal with water, and he doesn't heat it up. 1.00
00:05:14.000 I'm like, get the fuck out of here, you asshole. 1.00
00:05:18.000 There's people that just, you're missing the point. 1.00
00:05:20.000 You could do both, stupid. 0.99
00:05:22.000 But the point being that I didn't think, I thought of food as being, like, great. 1.00
00:05:28.000 Like, oh, this tastes good.
00:05:29.000 I like this.
00:05:30.000 I didn't think of it as an art.
00:05:32.000 And then when I watched Anthony Bourdain's show, when he would have this great reverence for these people that he would visit, who were these real artists, and they would put together these amazing dishes, and the enthusiasm and the passion that he had for describing it made me super excited about it.
00:05:48.000 And then I started realizing, oh wow, I never thought about it like this.
00:05:51.000 This is an art form.
00:05:52.000 This is just an art form, like, you know, in a way that you would, like, make a sand castle.
00:05:57.000 You know it's not gonna last forever.
00:05:58.000 You're making a meal.
00:05:59.000 You can take a photo of it.
00:06:01.000 It is not unlike stand-up comedy.
00:06:02.000 In a lot of ways.
00:06:03.000 It's performance art.
00:06:04.000 Yeah.
00:06:05.000 It lasts for as long as you're in the restaurant or as long as you're in that comedy hall.
00:06:10.000 Yeah, if, like, you couldn't record comedy where, like, you could record a meal and film it, like, on Anthony Bourdain's show, and I can't appreciate it at home, but I could watch you, if you did stand-up and I laughed at home, I don't have to be there.
00:06:23.000 That's true.
00:06:23.000 It serves more people, but in a sense, the same way.
00:06:27.000 Like, if there was no recordings, it would be kind of very similar in a lot of ways, but shared for...
00:06:42.000 We're artisans.
00:06:45.000 We're craftsmen.
00:06:47.000 But that's an artist, too.
00:06:49.000 What's the difference?
00:06:50.000 Well, okay, so there are some people who will say that my cooking leaves you with a deep feeling of whatever, you know, ennui or happiness or joy or farts or whatever.
00:07:01.000 And, like, no, we're cooking good food.
00:07:04.000 We are buying product.
00:07:05.000 We are making product in a way that will make you interested in it and will delight you in some way, shape, or form.
00:07:12.000 And, you know, there's a very famous old Spanish chef whose name escapes me. 0.97
00:07:17.000 The end of every Michelin-starred meal ends with good shit. 0.99
00:07:24.000 That's a great way of looking at it. 0.99
00:07:26.000 I just don't want to take myself that seriously.
00:07:28.000 Well, good for you.
00:07:28.000 But that's the same thing as comedians.
00:07:30.000 Like, my comedy changes worlds, changes minds.
00:07:34.000 I'm an influencer.
00:07:37.000 I think it's important to get my message out there and use my platform.
00:07:40.000 No, dude, you're joking.
00:07:42.000 You're making people laugh, ultimately.
00:07:44.000 Well, comics are freed from that today in this very unique form because of the internet and because of podcasts.
00:07:53.000 So because of podcasts, comics, if you have actually something that you want to say that is not necessarily funny, you can do that now.
00:08:01.000 Because podcasts are so open-ended, there's no real structure to it.
00:08:04.000 Whereas, like, if you go on stage, and people did for the longest time, they would go on stage and rant about the government or about abortion or about crime or whatever, and it would be not funny.
00:08:13.000 And they would feel like it was something that was important.
00:08:17.000 So it had to be discussed, even though it was discussed in this weird forum where people go to pay to see comedy, and you're not giving them comedy, you're ranting.
00:08:25.000 And it was almost, like, respected under, like, some snobbish...
00:08:29.000 Sort of sect of stand-up comedy fans and practitioners.
00:08:33.000 It was a real weird time.
00:08:34.000 I blame Bill Hicks.
00:08:36.000 Do you know who Bill Hicks is?
00:08:37.000 Yeah. 0.78
00:08:38.000 Bill Hicks did it perfectly, but the way he did it, fuck, a lot of people imitated it to the point where there's a famous comedy club in Georgia called The Punch Line that went under, and it had a back room, the green room where the comics would hang out, 0.96
00:08:53.000 and everybody wrote on the walls. 0.97
00:08:55.000 And one section of this wood-paneled wall said, quit trying to be Hicks.
00:08:59.000 And Jamie, the owner, says he's going to get me that because they tore it down.
00:09:03.000 They saved those pieces.
00:09:05.000 Yeah, I mean, it's...
00:09:07.000 You can, by all means, make a statement, but make it funny.
00:09:10.000 Yeah, man, that's where it's hard.
00:09:11.000 It's hard to do that.
00:09:13.000 So some people, like, took the shortcut and they just wanted to be self-righteous.
00:09:16.000 It's hard to do molecular gastronomy and make it actually soulful.
00:09:20.000 Ooh, molecular gastronomy is what he's calling cooking, ladies and gentlemen.
00:09:23.000 Not my cooking, but...
00:09:25.000 And that's tweezers, foams, spherification, calcium lactate, all that kind of jazz.
00:09:29.000 Yeah, what is that all about?
00:09:30.000 Like some people go too deep, right?
00:09:32.000 Yeah.
00:09:34.000 Well, you're kind of the opposite.
00:09:35.000 You're like, one of the things that I've really enjoyed about seeing some of your dishes, that you like to cook things, like say if you're cooking like a wild pork loin, you want to use a lot of the ingredients that are in the area where that animal lives.
00:09:52.000 Yeah, I'm not the first person to do that, but it's one of the things that I do a lot.
00:09:58.000 What goes together in the field or in the water or in the seashore or whatever, almost always will go together on the plate.
00:10:06.000 So, I mean, I've done such weird stuff as, you know, when I go grouse hunting, what were the grouse eating?
00:10:12.000 You can tell what was in the crop.
00:10:13.000 And, like, I'll never forget there was this moment in, we were in North Dakota hunting sharptail grouse.
00:10:20.000 And the grouse had all been eating rose hips.
00:10:22.000 So I'm like, yep, got to make a rose hip glaze on these Sharpies.
00:10:25.000 A rose hip glaze?
00:10:27.000 What does rose hips taste like? 1.00
00:10:29.000 They're a little bit like...
00:10:31.000 Well, they're loaded with vitamin C, so they have that kind of acid-y twang to them.
00:10:39.000 But they're...
00:10:41.000 Like, imagine a cross between a watermelon and an orange.
00:10:46.000 It's something like that.
00:10:47.000 That's what rose hips taste like? 1.00
00:10:49.000 Mm-hmm.
00:10:49.000 Why don't we just buy rose hips at a store and eat them?
00:10:52.000 Because the center of a rose hip is what they used to make itching powder out of. 0.95
00:10:57.000 That's what it looks like, Jamie?
00:10:59.000 Oh, look at that.
00:11:00.000 That's a rose hip? 1.00
00:11:01.000 Mm-hmm.
00:11:01.000 It's a fruit.
00:11:02.000 It is.
00:11:03.000 It's the end of the rose.
00:11:05.000 And, I mean, that's what a rose becomes.
00:11:07.000 Really?
00:11:07.000 And there's a variety called, yeah.
00:11:09.000 How the fuck do I not know this? 0.99
00:11:11.000 Mm-hmm. 0.99
00:11:11.000 I have roses. 0.99
00:11:12.000 Well, they don't always get pollinated.
00:11:15.000 Oh.
00:11:17.000 So when they get pollinated, the best one is called a rugosa rose.
00:11:21.000 And it's a coastal rose.
00:11:23.000 It lives in beaches and dunes.
00:11:25.000 And the rose up there is like the size of a cherry pepper.
00:11:27.000 It's like that.
00:11:28.000 Wow.
00:11:29.000 Yeah, it's looking at a solid, you know, half-dollar size.
00:11:32.000 If people remember what a half-dollar looks like.
00:11:35.000 It's that big.
00:11:36.000 And it's juicy like a sweet pepper.
00:11:39.000 But you don't eat the center because the center is what they used to make itching powder out of.
00:11:43.000 Itching powder?
00:11:44.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
00:11:46.000 So it's like one of those blowfish that can kill you, like that kind of a deal? 1.00
00:11:50.000 Well, no, but it just sucks. 1.00
00:11:51.000 Not that bad, but it sucks. 0.99
00:11:52.000 Oh, no, but the outside's yummy. 0.96
00:11:54.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:11:55.000 Wow, how fucking, how bizarre. 0.99
00:11:57.000 Put that photo up again. 0.99
00:11:58.000 I literally had no idea that they looked like that.
00:12:01.000 So that center part is nasty.
00:12:03.000 Right, so you eat around it.
00:12:04.000 It looks nasty.
00:12:04.000 Now, if it dries and you, so I make a rosehip puree, so I'll get that kind of rosehip and dry it.
00:12:11.000 And then you rehydrate it, and then you boil it just so you get it soft, and then you run it through a food mill.
00:12:17.000 So only the red flesh comes through and all those seeds stay in the food mill.
00:12:20.000 And you get this incredibly amazing looking paste that looks exactly like tomato paste, but it's like concentrated rosehip flavor.
00:12:27.000 And it's ridiculously good.
00:12:30.000 Wow, and what is that back there?
00:12:32.000 Back that up one, Jamie.
00:12:33.000 That's like a puree or something.
00:12:35.000 Is that like how they would make that?
00:12:37.000 You would grind that up in some sort of a way?
00:12:40.000 Yeah, it's probably the extract.
00:12:41.000 I mean, they make jellies out of it a lot, and the Swedes and Norwegians make fruit soups out of it.
00:12:48.000 How do I not know this?
00:12:49.000 I really thought rose hips were somehow or another like a rose leaf.
00:12:53.000 I thought you'd take like the...
00:12:55.000 Because I know those things must taste good because deer eat them like crazy.
00:12:59.000 Oh, yeah.
00:13:00.000 My friend's wife was like, oh, I love animals. 1.00
00:13:03.000 It's so cute.
00:13:04.000 We have deers in the yard.
00:13:05.000 I know where this is going.
00:13:07.000 They all go the same way.
00:13:08.000 They started planting the roses.
00:13:10.000 The deer can't beat the roses. 1.00
00:13:11.000 She's like, these fucking cunts need to die. 1.00
00:13:13.000 Kill them. 1.00
00:13:14.000 Kill them all. 1.00
00:13:15.000 Kill them all. 1.00
00:13:17.000 Yeah, so his wife literally wants to murder these deer because they're killing her flowers. 1.00
00:13:24.000 It's funny.
00:13:24.000 It's like, oh honey, we need a tag.
00:13:26.000 Yeah, she's going to try to get a tag from Malibu. 1.00
00:13:28.000 Ooh, Malibu.
00:13:30.000 Lots of luck.
00:13:31.000 Yeah.
00:13:33.000 I know Malibu just granted a stay, a pardon on that mountain lion who's been killing all the alpacas up there.
00:13:40.000 I don't know if I heard that story.
00:13:41.000 No, but it's awesome.
00:13:42.000 It's a fascinating story because there's a mountain lion, his name is P-45.
00:13:46.000 He's actually been collared and they know who he is.
00:13:48.000 They know he has an active radio collar on him, so they know it's him.
00:13:51.000 And he's just murking these alpacas.
00:13:54.000 He killed, what is it, 11 alpacas and one goat? 1.00
00:13:57.000 What's the stupidest, slowest deer I've ever chased? 1.00
00:13:59.000 You're going to He just hops the fence and has a slaughter fest. 1.00
00:14:03.000 I mean, he's not even eating them. 1.00
00:14:04.000 He's just fucking them up. 0.99
00:14:05.000 I think he's plenty of food up there. 1.00
00:14:07.000 He's just decided to eat them or kill them because they were there.
00:14:10.000 And so they decided that they could pass a depredation permit on him. 1.00
00:14:18.000 So they're going to kill him. 0.99
00:14:19.000 And so then there's this outrage.
00:14:20.000 And the woman who owns the alpaca farm apparently was really scared because she was like, I just wasn't prepared for the vitriol.
00:14:28.000 Mm-hmm.
00:14:28.000 And so now she doesn't want it killed.
00:14:30.000 She's not going to use the depredation order.
00:14:33.000 She instead wants someone to somehow or another take it away and put it somewhere else.
00:14:38.000 Probably up in NorCal where I live.
00:14:40.000 I've seen five mountain lions wandering around in the wild.
00:14:42.000 I mean, they're around.
00:14:43.000 Oh, there's a lot.
00:14:44.000 There's one today.
00:14:45.000 Big kitties. 0.99
00:14:46.000 There's one today, a video they put up of this guy in his home looks out on his front porch and there's a fucking mountain lion killing a deer on his front porch. 0.99
00:14:55.000 It was just put out today. 0.98
00:14:56.000 Did you see it, Jamie?
00:14:57.000 You see that one?
00:14:58.000 It's crazy.
00:14:59.000 I mean, it's in a suburban neighborhood.
00:15:00.000 It's a big cat, too, and it's just dragging this deer on his front porch like, whoa.
00:15:06.000 Whoa.
00:15:06.000 Jesus Christ.
00:15:08.000 Here it is.
00:15:08.000 Like, this is this guy's security.
00:15:10.000 The mountain lion was caught on camera Thursday attacking a deer in a resident's front porch in San Francisco.
00:15:15.000 San Francisco?
00:15:16.000 Yes.
00:15:17.000 Look at this. 1.00
00:15:19.000 I mean, this is fucking San Francisco. 1.00
00:15:21.000 San Francisco! 1.00
00:15:22.000 Yeah.
00:15:23.000 And it's dragging the deer away.
00:15:24.000 This is crazy.
00:15:25.000 Okay.
00:15:26.000 That's amazing.
00:15:27.000 Because, I mean, both of us have been to San Francisco.
00:15:31.000 That thing must be living in Golden Gate Park.
00:15:33.000 Well, the crazy thing is...
00:15:35.000 Or it came up from the peninsula where there's a fair bit of habitat for it.
00:15:39.000 It's very strange what they're able to do and how they're able to move around.
00:15:43.000 They're just so smart.
00:15:45.000 Oh, the deer had been eating roses. 1.00
00:15:46.000 Well, fuck them. 1.00
00:15:47.000 See? 1.00
00:15:49.000 Sometimes you gotta pay rent. 0.99
00:15:51.000 That's the mountain lions hired by the fucking rose owners to jack the deer. 0.99
00:15:57.000 Yeah, it's amazing how they can get around. 0.99
00:16:00.000 They killed a giant one in Santa Monica in someone's backyard.
00:16:04.000 Santa Monica was just, like, deeply populated. 0.98
00:16:06.000 And this guy called up, I don't know, the police, I guess, and said, hey, there's a fucking giant mountain lion in my yard. 0.98
00:16:13.000 And they couldn't figure out how to get it out of there. 0.99
00:16:15.000 They killed it.
00:16:16.000 It was...
00:16:17.000 You know, a 150-pound cat in Santa Monica just wandering around.
00:16:20.000 That's pretty big.
00:16:21.000 They get bigger.
00:16:21.000 Do they?
00:16:22.000 Really?
00:16:23.000 200. Do they get two?
00:16:24.000 Oh, yeah.
00:16:24.000 That's a giant one, huh?
00:16:25.000 Big kitty.
00:16:26.000 You see them in, like, Utah.
00:16:27.000 Well, I was listening to this podcast yesterday where they were talking about spotting jaguars in Arizona.
00:16:34.000 They're spotting them more and more lately.
00:16:35.000 Apparently, they've spotted a couple of them now.
00:16:37.000 And in Texas, too.
00:16:40.000 Really?
00:16:41.000 In the very southern part of Texas.
00:16:42.000 It's so interesting.
00:16:44.000 It's like part of you is like, yeah, that's cool.
00:16:46.000 They're coming back here.
00:16:47.000 Part of them is like, wait, it's cool as long as there's only a couple of them.
00:16:50.000 Right.
00:16:50.000 You don't want too many jaguars running around where the kids are playing, folks.
00:16:53.000 It's like sea lions.
00:16:55.000 I have nothing against sea lions, but there aren't enough great white sharks to make the sea lion population kind of normal.
00:17:00.000 So we're just blitzed with sea lions up in Northern California.
00:17:03.000 Have you ever seen the video that they took of people right on Fisherman's Wharf?
00:17:08.000 They took his mahi-mahi? 0.98
00:17:09.000 No, no, no.
00:17:10.000 They're killing seals or sea lions.
00:17:12.000 What?
00:17:13.000 They're killing seals on Fisherman's Wharf?
00:17:15.000 Giant, huge sharks.
00:17:17.000 Oh, sharks?
00:17:18.000 Murking these sea lions right next to the Fisherman's Wharf.
00:17:21.000 So these people, they're filming.
00:17:23.000 I did see that.
00:17:24.000 While they're hanging out, here it is.
00:17:26.000 Right?
00:17:26.000 Oh yeah, exactly.
00:17:27.000 Yeah, this is New York Times. 1.00
00:17:28.000 Yeah, these people are hanging out and they're like, yeah, yeah, well, you know, we're just going to, oh shit, boom. 0.99
00:17:34.000 And look at all the blood in the water. 0.96
00:17:36.000 I mean, and they all come to the side of the edge to look over, over the edge of the dock.
00:17:41.000 And I guess this is a security camera that's on this boat.
00:17:44.000 Yeah.
00:17:44.000 That's filming this.
00:17:45.000 But I mean, look at all the fucking blood. 1.00
00:17:47.000 That is crazy. 1.00
00:17:47.000 Well, you know, they're warm-blooded mammals. 1.00
00:17:49.000 Yeah.
00:17:49.000 This one's rapidly cooling.
00:17:53.000 So I've caught all kinds of sharks.
00:17:55.000 You see where that powerboat is in the background?
00:17:58.000 Go about 150 yards towards Alcatraz, or actually that's towards Angel Island.
00:18:04.000 And there are seven gill sharks, big, big, big seven gill sharks that live in that channel right there.
00:18:10.000 What's a seven gill shark?
00:18:11.000 Is it a different type of shark?
00:18:12.000 It is.
00:18:13.000 It's a really, really primitive kind of shark.
00:18:14.000 They're actually quite tasty.
00:18:16.000 And you're allowed one a day.
00:18:18.000 And they cruise the bottom and the deep channels in San Francisco Bay.
00:18:22.000 It's actually one of the best places to catch them outside of New Zealand.
00:18:25.000 How deep is that?
00:18:26.000 It can be over 100. So you just troll at the bottom or you just drop a line down?
00:18:30.000 You either anchor up or you bounce bottom off.
00:18:33.000 Oh wow, what a cool looking shark.
00:18:34.000 Yeah, they're crazy looking.
00:18:35.000 Wow, they do look really primitive.
00:18:38.000 You know, it's interesting.
00:18:39.000 Sharks, because of the whole shark fin soup controversy, this...
00:18:44.000 Which is not good, by the way, if you've ever had it.
00:18:46.000 I have had it.
00:18:46.000 I've had it once, and I'm like, bleh, no thank you.
00:18:48.000 It was okay.
00:18:49.000 I mean, it wasn't anything that I think you should slaughter sharks for.
00:18:53.000 Precisely.
00:18:53.000 Especially not just the fin.
00:18:55.000 Like, it's so bizarre.
00:18:56.000 It's the worst.
00:18:56.000 There's so much meat on a shark that...
00:18:58.000 It's the worst, you know?
00:19:00.000 But what I was going to say is that there's this new sort of liberal knee-jerk reaction to sharks that now you're not supposed to kill sharks.
00:19:09.000 So there was a, I think it was the mayor of New York City, or was it the governor, that caught a thresher shark.
00:19:16.000 And it's not an endangered species.
00:19:18.000 It's a totally legal fish to catch.
00:19:21.000 And you'll see him at fish markets.
00:19:22.000 And he caught it and cooked it, and people just jumped on the outrage train and started getting angry that he was killing endangered sharks.
00:19:29.000 And everyone was like, whoa, [...
00:19:32.000 We're not making shark fin soup.
00:19:33.000 We're not some gigantic Chinese commercial fishing vehicle.
00:19:37.000 Here it is.
00:19:38.000 New York governor in hot water over shark photo.
00:19:40.000 And that's a little fresher, too.
00:19:42.000 It's total legal.
00:19:43.000 It's a fish.
00:19:44.000 I mean, it's not a fish.
00:19:45.000 It's a shark, but it's no different.
00:19:48.000 I mean, it's what it is.
00:19:49.000 I mean, I get that a lot because I fish for leopard sharks in San Francisco Bay and Tomales Bay every year.
00:19:56.000 They're delicious.
00:19:56.000 They're fantastic.
00:19:57.000 And I get the same reaction, but I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:20:01.000 First of all...
00:20:03.000 They're a species of least concern, if you look at all the fish monitoring things and whatever, and we're keeping like four for the whole season.
00:20:13.000 Because they can get reasonably big, and it's the common shark that lives up there, and everybody...
00:20:19.000 I think that when you get down to it is Americans are not really good at nuance.
00:20:23.000 Right.
00:20:24.000 And, you know, it's like, oh, well, one shark's endangered, so they all must be endangered.
00:20:29.000 It's like...
00:20:29.000 No.
00:20:30.000 Well, there's a very cursory glimpse at the facts and what they're going to get outraged at before they decide to pull the outrage chute.
00:20:39.000 They're just like, pull it!
00:20:40.000 Pull it! 0.98
00:20:40.000 He's got a shark! 0.98
00:20:42.000 Pull it! 0.98
00:20:42.000 Yep. 0.98
00:20:43.000 Outrage!
00:20:45.000 They just don't...
00:20:46.000 I mean, there's not enough time in the day to really pay attention to all the different animals...
00:20:52.000 That are being consumed and what you should be concerned with and what not.
00:20:56.000 So you think, I think I read somewhere that sharks are endangered.
00:20:59.000 And he's got a shark. 1.00
00:21:00.000 Hey man, fuck you! 1.00
00:21:02.000 Precisely. 1.00
00:21:03.000 Meanwhile, they have a fillet of fish in their stomach.
00:21:05.000 You know, they were eating fries cooked in beef fat as they were on the way over there.
00:21:10.000 Which are good, by the way.
00:21:11.000 Yeah, they're great.
00:21:12.000 But these leopard sharks, now what is the difference in like, I've had mako, it's the only shark I've ever eaten.
00:21:18.000 What would you say a leopard would be?
00:21:21.000 It's pretty dramatically different because makos and threshers are much more like swordfish.
00:21:25.000 So if I, or swordfish, sturgeon makos and threshers all kind of are in the same culinary bucket.
00:21:30.000 They're like a steak.
00:21:31.000 Like a thick meaty?
00:21:32.000 Yeah.
00:21:32.000 I like that.
00:21:33.000 A lot of people don't though, right?
00:21:35.000 Some people don't, but.
00:21:36.000 No.
00:21:36.000 You know, no accounting for taste.
00:21:39.000 But a leopard shark, which you have down here in SoCal, leopard shark is super, super white.
00:21:45.000 It's very dense.
00:21:48.000 It's a little bit more like grouper is how I would describe it.
00:21:51.000 Interesting.
00:21:51.000 It's an amazing...
00:21:52.000 Now, I mean, there's a trick to it.
00:21:53.000 So if you're going to fish for these fish, you need to have ice on board.
00:21:57.000 And you need to basically catch the fish, you kill the fish, and then you gut the fish right there, and then you get them on ice.
00:22:04.000 Because sharks, skates, and rays effectively pee through their skin.
00:22:11.000 So if you don't gut the fish right after you kill it, you get this buildup of ureic acid in the meat, and basically your fish fillet is going to smell like ammonia, which nobody likes.
00:22:22.000 So that's interesting.
00:22:24.000 Skates and rays are the same as well, huh?
00:22:26.000 So all three, I think, if I have to remember, they're elasmomorphs. 0.98
00:22:33.000 I forget what the scientific name is, but it's the cartilaginous fish.
00:22:36.000 Now, the variations in sharks, that's a very extreme variation, the difference between like a grouper and a swordfish, which is like a real thick, meaty.
00:22:46.000 What accounts for that?
00:22:47.000 Diet.
00:22:48.000 Yeah.
00:22:49.000 Leopard sharks like crabs, crustaceans, shellfish, that sort of thing.
00:22:55.000 Although they actually really, really dig this nasty little fish called the midshipman, which looks like the ugliest catfish you've ever seen.
00:23:05.000 Here's a pro tip for you.
00:23:06.000 The best bait to catch a leopard shark is what was ever in the previous leopard shark's stomach.
00:23:12.000 Just bait your hook up with whatever was in its stomach and then you will absolutely catch another leopard shark.
00:23:16.000 Huh.
00:23:16.000 And this is the...
00:23:17.000 That's the midshipman, yeah.
00:23:19.000 Midshipman.
00:23:20.000 Yeah.
00:23:20.000 What a strange looking fish.
00:23:22.000 Well, the other good thing about them is not only do the sharks love them, but they stay in the hook forever.
00:23:26.000 Do they have a thick outer shell or something?
00:23:29.000 Yeah, and see the luminescent dots on the bottom?
00:23:32.000 That's pretty cool.
00:23:32.000 Wow, what a cool looking thing.
00:23:35.000 How big do those things get?
00:23:36.000 Well, about like that.
00:23:37.000 That's it?
00:23:38.000 That's about as big?
00:23:38.000 So they're essentially just little tiny bait fish.
00:23:41.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:23:41.000 I mean, they can get maybe 10 inches long, maybe?
00:23:43.000 What a cool looking fish, though.
00:23:45.000 That's so prehistoric looking.
00:23:46.000 There's a little ray.
00:23:47.000 Actually, it's a skate.
00:23:49.000 Go back to that other thing again.
00:23:52.000 Yeah.
00:23:54.000 Look at that thing. 0.92
00:23:55.000 That's so bizarre.
00:23:55.000 Yeah, there's little bioluminescent dots underneath it.
00:23:57.000 So in deep, deep water, that thing, that's all visible?
00:24:00.000 Yep.
00:24:00.000 Wow.
00:24:00.000 It's like racing stripes on all those tricked out sports cars, you know, like a Nissan Maxima.
00:24:05.000 Like my sneakers.
00:24:06.000 Like if you rent, these things, like you see them at night.
00:24:10.000 Oh, they glow?
00:24:11.000 You know what I'm talking about?
00:24:11.000 Yeah.
00:24:11.000 Oh, perfect.
00:24:12.000 They reflect.
00:24:12.000 Yeah.
00:24:13.000 Well, that actually is like luminescent, though.
00:24:15.000 It's not that it reflects light.
00:24:16.000 Yeah.
00:24:17.000 It actually exudes light.
00:24:18.000 Right.
00:24:20.000 That's a trip.
00:24:21.000 See, I am as fascinated by the ocean as any other part of the world.
00:24:27.000 And I just think it's so incredible that we've only explored like 90, I think... 0.54
00:24:32.000 2% or something ridiculous like that?
00:24:34.000 Yeah, I think 90-something percent is unexplored. 0.63
00:24:37.000 That's so strange.
00:24:38.000 Yeah, there you go.
00:24:39.000 Look at that thing. 0.92
00:24:40.000 But it's funny, I mean, I'm known as the game guy, right?
00:24:42.000 But I've spent most of my life dealing with fish and shellfish and seafood.
00:24:47.000 And I only started hunting when I was 30. That's interesting.
00:24:50.000 Yeah, adult-onset hunting, as many people call it, right?
00:24:53.000 Oh, yeah.
00:24:54.000 Now, when you cook something like a shark or anything that's controversial, anything along those lines, do you feel like you have to preface it with some sort of an explanation that this is not an endangered species and it is a giant misconception and this is no different than eating a tuna or...
00:25:14.000 I usually put a paragraph or something in there to say...
00:25:18.000 When you're writing something about it.
00:25:19.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:25:19.000 You'd be like, you know, hold on, people.
00:25:22.000 This is not, you know, it's not a white shark.
00:25:25.000 It's not, you know, it's not an endangered species at all.
00:25:28.000 I mean, it's just, you know, and I'll usually put a link to the, where it says, it's IUCAN, is the International Union of Concerned Whatever.
00:25:36.000 And it's basically, it's the marker that shows what's endangered, what's threatened, what's the species of least concern.
00:25:42.000 And...
00:25:43.000 Even then, if you think about it, our bag limit for leopard sharks in the San Francisco Bay is three a day, and we typically do a self-imposed limit of only two a day, and we almost never keep females.
00:25:56.000 When you say we, meaning you and your friends and the people you fish with?
00:25:58.000 No, meaning most of the commercial fishing fleet.
00:26:01.000 So if you could take a charter in the bay- You mean commercial, like recreational?
00:26:06.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:06.000 Like charter boats.
00:26:07.000 Right, okay.
00:26:08.000 They'll typically, like, do you need three fish?
00:26:11.000 Like, you can have three fish, but it's sort of strongly encouraged just, you know.
00:26:15.000 Oh, that's cool.
00:26:16.000 Just take the two, and we're going to throw these big giant females back, because a lot of times, especially this time of year, they can have pups, because they give birth to live young. 1.00
00:26:25.000 Yeah.
00:26:25.000 And nobody wants to, you know, open up a shark that's got little pups inside.
00:26:29.000 That's just wrong.
00:26:30.000 Yeah.
00:26:30.000 Have you ever seen that, is it an x-ray or a sonogram of sharks with the baby sharks in their stomach?
00:26:40.000 No, I've never seen it.
00:26:41.000 Well, most people don't know probably that sharks do what you say, have live young inside of them.
00:26:46.000 But they're like these, I put it up on my Instagram because it's so crazy looking that it looks fake.
00:26:52.000 It's like they're little monsters living inside this other shark's body.
00:26:57.000 See if you can find it.
00:26:58.000 Well, if you look at a human fetus, it's like four days.
00:27:01.000 Look at that.
00:27:02.000 Look at his mouth going open.
00:27:03.000 Oh, yeah.
00:27:04.000 But there's images of it that's better, Jamie.
00:27:07.000 There's some...
00:27:08.000 Yeah, you can get a look at what it looks like. 0.99
00:27:11.000 I mean, that's fucking crazy. 0.99
00:27:13.000 And some of them eat their fellow brothers and sisters inside the womb? 1.00
00:27:18.000 Like, they'll eat the weaker ones?
00:27:20.000 That's why you shouldn't have more than five kids. 1.00
00:27:22.000 But what the fuck? 1.00
00:27:23.000 How do they eat and they're eating inside a womb? 1.00
00:27:27.000 Like, what kind of a monster is a shark that they can eat while they're in the womb and they have teeth already?
00:27:33.000 They have fangs.
00:27:35.000 Well, you know, human babies have teeth when they're born.
00:27:39.000 Don't they?
00:27:39.000 No.
00:27:40.000 No, that's right, they don't.
00:27:41.000 No.
00:27:41.000 You don't have kids, do you?
00:27:42.000 Nah.
00:27:43.000 Not that I know of.
00:27:46.000 You skated through.
00:27:47.000 You passed the breeding point.
00:27:49.000 I'm pretty sure I have.
00:27:50.000 How old are you now?
00:27:51.000 45, or 46. Did you come close at any time?
00:27:54.000 Not that I know of.
00:27:55.000 No?
00:27:55.000 No.
00:27:56.000 Good for you. 1.00
00:27:57.000 There's plenty of fucking people. 1.00
00:27:58.000 That's one thing people with kids will try to tell you, like that everybody needs kids. 1.00
00:28:02.000 Like, I have kids.
00:28:03.000 Let me tell you something.
00:28:03.000 Everybody doesn't need kids.
00:28:04.000 There's plenty of people.
00:28:05.000 You can be a wonderful contributing member to our culture and society without reproducing.
00:28:10.000 Yep.
00:28:11.000 It's nonsense.
00:28:11.000 It's not everybody's path.
00:28:13.000 But...
00:28:14.000 One thing about babies is they don't eat other babies while they're in the womb. 0.98
00:28:18.000 That you know of.
00:28:20.000 They do absorb them, though, don't they?
00:28:22.000 Like some weird twins.
00:28:23.000 Oh, weird.
00:28:24.000 Like these weird Siamese twins where one twin will absorb the other one and then they'll find like a tooth in the baby's head.
00:28:30.000 Oh, yeah.
00:28:31.000 I've heard about that.
00:28:31.000 That's called a dermoid.
00:28:33.000 Ooh.
00:28:34.000 What's a good name for it?
00:28:35.000 It'd be a good name for a kid.
00:28:36.000 What's your name, dermoid? 0.59
00:28:39.000 But there are a lot of meals now that people look down upon, and that's becoming one of them, right?
00:28:46.000 Sharks.
00:28:47.000 Squirrel?
00:28:48.000 Squirrel's another one.
00:28:49.000 Squirrel's mostly, that's mostly urban people like to make fun of rural people for eating squirrels.
00:28:55.000 It's a sign of like, oh, you must be a hick. 0.95
00:28:56.000 Well, there's a park in North Hollywood near where I used to live, and you can go there and feed them peanuts.
00:29:02.000 It's kind of cool.
00:29:03.000 They come right up to you.
00:29:04.000 You just lay down.
00:29:04.000 As long as you're laying down, the squirrels will literally...
00:29:06.000 You lay down and hold up a peanut, and the squirrels will literally come up to you and take your peanut.
00:29:10.000 And people feel bad about that.
00:29:12.000 Like, we have weird rules about what animals we like and what animals we don't.
00:29:17.000 Because if it was a rat that came over and took your peanut, you'd be freaking out.
00:29:20.000 And there's not a whole lot of difference between a squirrel and a rat.
00:29:23.000 It's the tail, dude.
00:29:24.000 Yeah, the tail's so fluffy and adorable.
00:29:26.000 And it sticks up.
00:29:28.000 It looks like it's talking to you. 0.98
00:29:29.000 Tree rat with good PR. Tree rat with good PR. And something about fuzziness will let them in. 0.98
00:29:36.000 Come on in.
00:29:37.000 Come on in.
00:29:37.000 As long as you eat just plants.
00:29:39.000 Which is not true, apparently.
00:29:41.000 There's a video of a squirrel they caught eating some sort of a mammal, like a mouse or something like that.
00:29:47.000 They eat eggs all the time, too.
00:29:49.000 Do they?
00:29:50.000 Like ground nesting birds' eggs?
00:29:51.000 No.
00:29:52.000 They go in a tree?
00:29:53.000 Tree, yeah.
00:29:53.000 Oh, wow.
00:29:54.000 There it is.
00:29:55.000 Look at this. 1.00
00:29:57.000 Look at this fucking squirrel eating this mouse like it's a sandwich. 1.00
00:30:01.000 That reminds me of that Monty Python rabbit. 1.00
00:30:03.000 This is so crazy.
00:30:06.000 How often does this happen?
00:30:08.000 You know ground squirrels in California, there are guys, I haven't done it, but there are guys who go out and shoot ground squirrels.
00:30:15.000 Keep that up.
00:30:16.000 When you shoot Louie, Joe comes out of his hole and grabs Louie and eats him. 0.99
00:30:21.000 Oh, Jesus. 0.88
00:30:23.000 It's a little horrible.
00:30:25.000 Instantaneously, they just started eating?
00:30:26.000 I never liked you anyway.
00:30:28.000 You know, I mean, it's just horrible.
00:30:29.000 There's a ranch that I go to, Tahone Ranch.
00:30:32.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:30:32.000 And Tahone Ranch, the guy who, one of the guys who's a guide there told me that the biomass, this is a morbid scene.
00:30:39.000 It kind of is.
00:30:40.000 We're sitting here talking while this squirrel is eating intestines from this mouse.
00:30:43.000 It's pretty much eating the entire mouse.
00:30:45.000 Oh, my God.
00:30:46.000 And he's going off, too.
00:30:48.000 The biomass of ground squirrels.
00:30:52.000 Is he a ground squirrel?
00:30:53.000 He must be, right?
00:30:53.000 He looks like it with his little squirrely tail.
00:30:56.000 He does look like a ground squirrel.
00:30:57.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:30:58.000 Squirrely little bastard. 1.00
00:31:00.000 The biomass of ground squirrels is more than any other animal on the ranch. 0.99
00:31:05.000 It's 270,000 acres with mountain lions, deer, elk, pigs, and there's more weight of ground squirrels than anything else.
00:31:17.000 I would love to be able to tell you that, yeah, they're delicious, but they tend to carry bubonic plague, which does not make them good eats.
00:31:24.000 Yeah.
00:31:25.000 You can eat regular squirrels, but you can't eat ground squirrels?
00:31:27.000 Tree squirrels, yes.
00:31:28.000 Ground squirrels, no.
00:31:29.000 What is the difference in the species?
00:31:30.000 Are they interchangeable?
00:31:31.000 Are they hybrids ever?
00:31:32.000 No, they're totally different species.
00:31:35.000 The western gray tree squirrel is really, really big.
00:31:38.000 He's over two pounds, and he's kind of a very cold slate gray.
00:31:43.000 And it's actually quite good eating squirrel.
00:31:48.000 There used to be a very high limit on them here in California, but when Southeast Asian immigrants, the Hmong came. 1.00
00:31:54.000 So the Hmong are very fond of squirrel hunting. 1.00
00:31:57.000 And so it was a big thing what they did back in Southeast Asia. 0.66
00:32:01.000 And so when they caught here, they're like, sweet, there are all these squirrels.
00:32:05.000 And I guess they shot them out because the limits were 10 in the 70s and early 80s, and now they're just 4, which is fairly low.
00:32:16.000 You know, for example, in some of the Appalachian states, it's 10. Hmm.
00:32:21.000 So that's interesting.
00:32:22.000 The Hmongs, I've heard that before. 1.00
00:32:24.000 They're a big hunting community.
00:32:25.000 Of the recent immigrants to this country, the two most huntingest groups are the Hmong and the Russians.
00:32:33.000 Interesting.
00:32:33.000 And when I say Russians, I mean sort of very, you know, Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans.
00:32:37.000 Right.
00:32:38.000 Do they have a preference for, like, what they go after?
00:32:40.000 Well, I know the Russians have been putting a herd on our sturgeon up north. 1.00
00:32:44.000 Sturgeon?
00:32:44.000 Yeah.
00:32:45.000 Interesting.
00:32:46.000 And it's mostly poaching.
00:32:48.000 And fish and game is having a hard time getting a handle on it.
00:32:51.000 Now, do they like sturgeon for the caviar, for the meat?
00:32:54.000 Yeah, for the caviar.
00:32:55.000 Oh, wow.
00:32:56.000 But that would have to be a female. 0.97
00:32:58.000 So how do you differentiate when you're catching them?
00:33:00.000 Well, you can.
00:33:02.000 They're pretty calm, slow fish, so it's pretty easy to determine if it's a male or a female.
00:33:10.000 They call it gravid, but it looks pregnant if it's a big female. 1.00
00:33:15.000 And the other thing is they're almost always oversized fish.
00:33:21.000 So we're allowed three a year in California legally, and they have to be—oh, I'm going to forget this.
00:33:27.000 I think it's 40 to 60 inches from the fork of the tail.
00:33:30.000 That might be a slight layoff, but that's basically the size.
00:33:32.000 The legal size.
00:33:33.000 How hilarious is that?
00:33:34.000 Legal size is 40 inches.
00:33:36.000 Oh, yeah.
00:33:37.000 You have to catch something 40 inches.
00:33:38.000 Well— That's a big-ass fish. 0.99
00:33:40.000 State record's, I think, eight and a half feet long.
00:33:42.000 Wow, in California?
00:33:44.000 Yeah, it's either eight or ten.
00:33:44.000 It's huge.
00:33:45.000 The state record was caught by a dude in Vallejo.
00:33:48.000 He caught it in the Carcanez Straits in, like, I want to say the 80s, judging by the haircut.
00:33:53.000 Now, where are they?
00:33:54.000 Are you catching them in deep water?
00:33:56.000 Like, how do you catch a sturgeon?
00:33:57.000 You can catch them in Sacramento.
00:33:59.000 You can catch them in Colusa.
00:34:00.000 You can catch them in the Delta.
00:34:02.000 Are they in rivers?
00:34:03.000 Like, what are they in?
00:34:03.000 Yeah, they're in rivers, and then they go out into the bay.
00:34:06.000 Wow.
00:34:07.000 But the general place you're going to fish for them is going to be the Delta, out of Antioch, out of San Pablo Bay, that kind of area.
00:34:15.000 Now, these sturgeon, are they biting hooks or are you snagging them?
00:34:19.000 No, they're biting hooks. 1.00
00:34:21.000 What do they feed? 0.98
00:34:22.000 So, depending on who you talk to, there's a friend of mine named Jay Lopes who runs a guide service there.
00:34:27.000 He's a specialist in sturgeon, and he really loves cured salmon roe.
00:34:31.000 Oh.
00:34:32.000 So, and he's got some special thing that he does with his salmon rope.
00:34:35.000 But some people use ghost shrimp.
00:34:37.000 Some people use caught herring.
00:34:39.000 They'll eat all kinds of stuff.
00:34:41.000 The largest freshwater fish on record for California is a white sturgeon caught by Joey Pallotta in 1983. Yep, Joey Pallotta.
00:34:47.000 I knew it was the 80s.
00:34:48.000 You knew it.
00:34:49.000 The huge fish weighed an amazing 468 pounds. 1.00
00:34:54.000 Whoa, that's a big fucking fish, man. 0.99
00:34:58.000 That's amazing. 0.99
00:35:00.000 The story of that fish is pretty hilarious, too, because he was working and he cut off work at, you know, I think it was in June or July.
00:35:07.000 Yeah, so it was still light out late. 0.92
00:35:10.000 So he caught this fish after work and he couldn't get the damn thing in.
00:35:13.000 So he's like, it's dragging him all around the Carcaneus Straits. 0.91
00:35:16.000 And I guess he gets on another boat, like mid-catch.
00:35:20.000 And it was a bigger boat that could actually control it because the sturgeon was just dragging them up and down.
00:35:25.000 And it's just the story, if you can find the story of it, it's just hilarious.
00:35:28.000 Is that it?
00:35:29.000 Wow, look at the size of it.
00:35:30.000 And it is a story that will, and that fish will never be broken because that would be an illegal fish right now.
00:35:36.000 Why is it illegal?
00:35:37.000 Because you're not allowed to land anything bigger than 60 inches from the fork of the tail.
00:35:42.000 Oh. 0.96
00:35:43.000 Well, how the fuck are you going to measure that? 0.98
00:35:44.000 Like, what if it's like, you're like, hold on, get the fish close. 0.98
00:35:47.000 I'm going to get out the ruler.
00:35:49.000 Oh, if it's close.
00:35:51.000 You just cut the line.
00:35:52.000 Well, no, if it's close, they're really survivable fish.
00:35:55.000 They don't die easy.
00:35:56.000 So you can, I think you bring them on board.
00:35:59.000 You bring them on board, measure them, and then throw them back.
00:36:02.000 Huh.
00:36:03.000 Now, is that a good fish to eat outside of the row?
00:36:07.000 I love sturgeon.
00:36:08.000 How do you eat it?
00:36:10.000 Sturgeon, again, I would say if you've never eaten sturgeon, imagine swordfish.
00:36:14.000 Oh, okay.
00:36:14.000 It's a lot like that.
00:36:15.000 No kidding.
00:36:15.000 It's a signature dish of Sacramento cuisine, actually.
00:36:18.000 So if you go to restaurants in Sacramento, you will see sturgeon all over our menus.
00:36:22.000 People don't know about Sacramento's.
00:36:25.000 Sacramento is so different than California in terms of how LA people think or San Diego people think.
00:36:33.000 Sacramento might as well be like Iowa.
00:36:36.000 I don't mean it in a bad way.
00:36:39.000 I love Iowa.
00:36:40.000 I mean in terms of the hunting and fishing and the outdoors people.
00:36:45.000 It's more like the Twin Cities.
00:36:46.000 Okay, that's a good way of putting it.
00:36:48.000 Yeah, like Minnesota.
00:36:49.000 Yeah.
00:36:50.000 Yeah, that makes sense.
00:36:51.000 So here's a stat for you that my girlfriend Holly just told me.
00:36:55.000 She was doing some research for a piece that she was working on.
00:36:58.000 95% of Californians are urban.
00:37:02.000 95% of California is rural.
00:37:05.000 Ooh.
00:37:06.000 Isn't that crazy?
00:37:07.000 That is crazy.
00:37:09.000 Wow.
00:37:10.000 And over a third of this state is public land.
00:37:12.000 Really?
00:37:13.000 Wow.
00:37:14.000 It's remarkable.
00:37:16.000 And it's why I stay here.
00:37:20.000 That whole public land, private land thing is something that I had literally no knowledge of, no interest in, never discussed until I met Rinella.
00:37:31.000 And when Rinella started, Steve Rinella started explaining to me The difference between public land and private land and how it was all put in place by Teddy Roosevelt and all the conservation that was done in the 1800s and how much resistance was behind it.
00:37:43.000 And he actually talked about it pretty in depth in a podcast we did here a couple of weeks ago.
00:37:47.000 And I just, I can't believe it took me until I was like 45 until I heard about that.
00:37:53.000 It's, you know, actually, Steve's got a really good example of why you might not necessarily have to.
00:38:00.000 It's because he was talking at the backcountry hunters and anglers.
00:38:03.000 He used to live in Brooklyn, weirdly.
00:38:06.000 Yeah.
00:38:06.000 Well, his wife was working there.
00:38:08.000 Right, I know.
00:38:09.000 That's when I met him, he was there.
00:38:10.000 It's still kind of odd.
00:38:11.000 It is.
00:38:12.000 Because he's about as Michigan as you get. 0.59
00:38:13.000 Yeah.
00:38:15.000 And so he's like, yeah, well, everybody in New York City knows, can cite you chapter and verse, the subway lines.
00:38:23.000 No one who doesn't have reason to has any reason to know about the subway lines.
00:38:29.000 So when somebody who lives in rural Montana or whatever says, why haven't you ever, you know, this issue with public land, blah, blah, blah.
00:38:35.000 Well, if I live in New York City, I don't have to know.
00:38:38.000 It's just like we were saying at the beginning of this, it's like there's too many things to look at.
00:38:43.000 There's too many distractions in our world right now.
00:38:46.000 And it's just, it makes it hard to do anything anymore.
00:38:49.000 There's no quiet at all in our lives anymore.
00:38:53.000 Most people's lives, yeah.
00:38:55.000 Yeah, Steve's got a real good way of breaking things down like that.
00:38:59.000 He's got a good way of providing you with examples that you go, oh, yeah, that's a good one. 0.98
00:39:06.000 Because, yeah, if you lived in Montana, you wouldn't give a shit about the subway lines in Brooklyn. 0.93
00:39:11.000 And if you lived in Brooklyn, the infringing on public lands or Paul Ryan's plans to sell them off to corporations so that they could pay off the debt, it just doesn't even register. 0.96
00:39:22.000 Well, here's a good one for you.
00:39:23.000 So depending on where you live, like most of us call it public land.
00:39:28.000 Other people call it government land, which has a very different connotation.
00:39:32.000 Yeah, because the government land means it's not ours, but it's really ours.
00:39:36.000 So if you call it government land, it seems like, well, if they sell it, it's not yours anyway.
00:39:40.000 But it actually is yours, which is, that is a weird one that takes a while to absorb.
00:39:46.000 The land is actually the people of the United States are the owners of the land.
00:39:53.000 So if you go hunting on public land, you know the backcountry hunters and angler shirts they have that says public landowner?
00:40:02.000 I love that shirt.
00:40:03.000 Because we're all public landowners.
00:40:04.000 You pay taxes, you live in America, you own public land.
00:40:07.000 Well, similarly, all the game on.
00:40:09.000 Everybody's land, public or private, belongs to either the people of the United States or, if it's migratory, the people of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
00:40:17.000 Or if you're in Texas and it's a high fence and it's owned by- Well, yeah, that's legally livestock.
00:40:22.000 Yeah, that's real weird, right?
00:40:24.000 That's a strange distinction, the difference between public land and private land and the animals being on it.
00:40:30.000 Even if it's private land, those animals are owned by people.
00:40:34.000 Right.
00:40:35.000 By the people.
00:40:36.000 Right.
00:40:36.000 Which is why we actually have deer.
00:40:38.000 Yeah, that's the only reason why.
00:40:40.000 Well, that and large-scale agriculture, the populations are higher than ever before and all that good stuff.
00:40:44.000 Actually, there's a great book called Deerland that talks about why, if you go to the Northeast, they're overrun with whitetails.
00:40:50.000 Because whitetails like the edges between field and forest.
00:40:55.000 And suburbia is their perfect habitat for it.
00:40:59.000 Yeah.
00:40:59.000 And the problem that goes with that is, of course, deer ticks and Lyme disease, which is run rampant through the Northeast.
00:41:06.000 Steve has it.
00:41:07.000 Yeah, Steve has it.
00:41:08.000 His son has it.
00:41:09.000 And they are amongst two people out of, I don't know, maybe 10 that I've ever met that have been misdiagnosed.
00:41:15.000 I had this guy, Steven Kotler, on here the other day who was misdiagnosed for a year. 0.99
00:41:21.000 For one fucking year. 0.97
00:41:22.000 And because of that, it got so deep into his system that he was in bed for three years in the hospital. 1.00
00:41:26.000 Oh, man. 0.99
00:41:27.000 He was hospitalized for three fucking years from Lyme disease. 1.00
00:41:31.000 Unreal. 0.99
00:41:31.000 It's a horror story. 0.99
00:41:32.000 It's so scary.
00:41:34.000 You know, and you talk to people that have had it, and one of the really fascinating things about Steve, he's really smart, Steven Kotler.
00:41:40.000 And when he was discussing it, he was talking about the neurological aspects of Lyme disease, that it really wrecks havoc on your cognitive function.
00:41:48.000 To the point where one time when he had it, before he was diagnosed, he didn't know what was wrong with him.
00:41:52.000 He was at a green light and he couldn't figure out what green meant.
00:41:54.000 Oh, wow.
00:41:55.000 Then he couldn't figure out how to drive his car.
00:41:57.000 He had a stick shift.
00:41:58.000 He could not figure out how to do it anymore.
00:42:00.000 He didn't know how to drive his car.
00:42:01.000 Like in the middle of driving, he forgot how to drive it.
00:42:04.000 And he was like, oh my God, I'm going crazy.
00:42:06.000 There's something wrong with me, like bad.
00:42:08.000 And that's like right before, I believe you said it was right before they checked him into the hospital and...
00:42:13.000 I bet.
00:42:14.000 ...pumped him full of IV antibiotics and figured out exactly what it was.
00:42:17.000 Well, I had plenty of ticks on me, but, you know, knock on wood, never had Lyme.
00:42:21.000 Yeah, man, I wish there was a way to stop it.
00:42:23.000 Like, I wish...
00:42:24.000 There doesn't seem to be any...
00:42:26.000 I think it's...
00:42:27.000 In California in particular, it's misdiagnosed a lot because it's not here yet in mass.
00:42:32.000 It is.
00:42:33.000 They found it in Mendocino, but it's not...
00:42:35.000 In mass.
00:42:36.000 Yeah, right.
00:42:37.000 Not in mass, yeah.
00:42:37.000 Yeah, in the East Coast, they think something like, I think they were talking about Long Island, where they were saying some absurd number, like 50% of the ticks have Lyme disease?
00:42:48.000 There's something crazy like that.
00:42:49.000 I went mushroom hunting two summers ago with a fellow chef friend of mine named Anita Lowe, and so we were out mushrooming by her place in the eastern end of Long Island, and we cooked some mushrooms, had a good time, blah, blah, blah.
00:43:02.000 So I get back like 48 hours later and I find two tick nymphs right in the band of my boxers. 0.98
00:43:11.000 And I'm like, oh, shit! 0.98
00:43:13.000 And so I immediately rushed to the doctor, and I got that. 0.99
00:43:17.000 Basically, they give you a three-pack of Cipro, and you go boom, boom, boom, and try and knock it out, and it seemed to work.
00:43:23.000 You've got to get it quick, huh?
00:43:24.000 Yeah, you've got to get it really quick. 1.00
00:43:25.000 Those little fuckers. 1.00
00:43:26.000 I did this show for SyFy called Joe Rogan Questions Everything, and one of the things that we investigated was this weird disease called Morgellons. 0.99
00:43:35.000 Have you ever heard of this?
00:43:36.000 Not by that name.
00:43:37.000 Well, it's weird.
00:43:38.000 They think it's a psychosomatic disorder where these people believe there's something wrong with them, but there's not.
00:43:43.000 And they have these parts of their body where they just itch incessantly and they can't stop.
00:43:49.000 And then they believe fibers are growing out of their body.
00:43:52.000 And they'll get, like, carpet hairs in there and they think that it's growing out of their body, you know, carpet fibers.
00:43:58.000 And they're convinced.
00:43:59.000 But one of the guys that I interviewed was a doctor who also had Morgellons.
00:44:04.000 And he had a really unique insight to it because he said that as a doctor, one of the things he found is a direct correlation between people who have this disease and Lyme disease.
00:44:15.000 They almost all have Lyme disease.
00:44:17.000 And he thinks that what's really going on is that people...
00:44:20.000 And this is a guy who was talking about his own...
00:44:22.000 His brain malfunctioning on him.
00:44:25.000 He was saying that people who have Lyme disease, that there's some sort of a neuro...
00:44:29.000 Toxic effect of Lyme disease, which distorts reality to the point where these people think these fibers are growing out of them.
00:44:35.000 And he was talking about himself, like he saw something moving around in his eye, like saw something wiggling around on the surface of his eye, and then it wasn't there anymore.
00:44:44.000 And he realized, like, okay, this is not real.
00:44:46.000 Like, I'm seeing something that's not real.
00:44:48.000 And then as he got deeper into it, he found that all these people that had this bizarre Morgellons thing also had Lyme disease.
00:44:57.000 Makes sense.
00:44:57.000 I mean, you know about the symptoms of toxoplasmosis, which makes mice really dig cats.
00:45:04.000 Yeah, well, it makes them sexually attracted to cat urine.
00:45:07.000 People don't know what we're talking about.
00:45:09.000 Google Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University in Northern California.
00:45:14.000 I've been trying to get that guy on for years.
00:45:15.000 He's just so not a publicity whore.
00:45:18.000 He's just like, I can't get him on.
00:45:19.000 I'm like, I'll fly to you, dude.
00:45:21.000 He's like, I'm busy. 1.00
00:45:21.000 I'm like, fuck. 1.00
00:45:23.000 He's an expert in, well he does a lot of primate work too. 1.00
00:45:26.000 He does a lot of work with baboons and stuff too.
00:45:29.000 But he's like the foremost expert in the United States of toxoplasmosis and the effects of it.
00:45:35.000 It gets them horny for cat urine. 0.96
00:45:39.000 It literally changes the sexual hard wiring of a rat. 0.99
00:45:44.000 Gets it horny for cat urine. 0.99
00:45:46.000 They literally get erections. 0.72
00:45:48.000 And they go running around near cats.
00:45:50.000 They're not scared of cats.
00:45:51.000 Takes away their fear.
00:45:52.000 The cats eat them.
00:45:53.000 And because of that, it gets into people.
00:45:55.000 It doesn't seem to affect the cat's behavior.
00:45:58.000 Yeah.
00:45:58.000 The cats are just carriers.
00:46:00.000 And then it gets into people, makes people more aggressive, makes people more prone to get into accidents, disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims, motorcycle crash victims have toxoplasma.
00:46:10.000 Interesting.
00:46:11.000 That's what Sapolsky pointed out when he was doing his residency.
00:46:14.000 He was doing some work in emergency rooms.
00:46:16.000 And one of the surgeons was saying there's a disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims that have toxoplasma.
00:46:23.000 When a motorcycle victim would come in, they would test him for toxo.
00:46:26.000 Huh.
00:46:26.000 Interestingly, toxo is one of the few diseases you can pick up from deer.
00:46:32.000 Really?
00:46:32.000 Mm-hmm.
00:46:33.000 How do you get it from deer?
00:46:34.000 I'm not entirely sure.
00:46:35.000 I think it's contact or eating undercooked venison.
00:46:39.000 Really?
00:46:39.000 But it's very rare.
00:46:41.000 It's actually...
00:46:41.000 I think there's only been like six cases in the last 20 years that the CDC reports.
00:46:46.000 But ironically...
00:46:48.000 There's a guy who is on the Facebook forum that I run, was one of the six.
00:46:54.000 Oh, wow.
00:46:55.000 Like, what are the odds, right?
00:46:56.000 And he's like, well, you know, I'm one of these guys.
00:46:59.000 And it messed him up pretty bad.
00:47:01.000 Like, in what way?
00:47:01.000 What did you say it did to him?
00:47:02.000 A lot of the same symptoms that you were talking about.
00:47:06.000 Risk taking.
00:47:07.000 Risk taking.
00:47:09.000 Aggressive behavior.
00:47:09.000 There were some blood problems, too.
00:47:11.000 I can't remember for the life of me, but his blood pressure spiked.
00:47:16.000 It was significant.
00:47:17.000 Well, it's what people, when they talk about crazy cat people, That literally is what they're talking about.
00:47:22.000 Probably, yeah.
00:47:23.000 Oh, 60% of France at one point in time had toxoplasma because of all the cats roaming around.
00:47:29.000 They think they've gotten it down to as low as like 35%.
00:47:32.000 Same as Brazil.
00:47:33.000 Brazil is somewhere around 40%, 40% plus of people that live there have toxo.
00:47:39.000 There's also a disproportionate connection between toxoplasmosis rates of infestation or infection and successful soccer teams.
00:47:49.000 They're risk takers.
00:47:51.000 Yeah, risk takers, more aggressive.
00:47:53.000 It's very strange.
00:47:54.000 You should test MMA people.
00:47:56.000 It would be off the train.
00:47:58.000 It would be a real problem.
00:47:59.000 I love my kitty! 0.99
00:48:01.000 I'm fucking cat crazy, bro! 1.00
00:48:03.000 I think there's also some sort of a connection between sexual promiscuity and females. 1.00
00:48:10.000 Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff they're working on to try to figure out what exactly these fucking parasites are doing to people's brains. 0.99
00:48:16.000 Well, you've heard of the cordyceps, right? 0.99
00:48:17.000 Yes.
00:48:17.000 Yeah.
00:48:19.000 Like the zombie ants?
00:48:20.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:48:21.000 Well, there's good strains of cordyceps, too.
00:48:23.000 You want to climb to the top of that leaf.
00:48:25.000 Well, this is what people don't know.
00:48:28.000 What you're trying to talk about is there's a mushroom that infects the spores, infect an ant, convince the ant to go somewhere high so that these cordyceps mushrooms grow inside the ant's body, and then it explodes and sprays spores through the air,
00:48:44.000 infecting all around them.
00:48:46.000 It's so gnarly, dude.
00:48:47.000 So crazy!
00:48:49.000 Nature's so nuts, man.
00:48:51.000 Have you watched the movie Alien?
00:48:53.000 So I don't know if this is 100% true, but I've always heard that the creature is a mashup of real insects.
00:49:01.000 Is that the bug?
00:49:02.000 Okay.
00:49:03.000 So is this a dead one that has it already?
00:49:05.000 Is he about to blow?
00:49:06.000 Yeah, you see it's time-lapse?
00:49:07.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:49:07.000 So in the time lapse, this mushroom is growing out of the back of this ant's head.
00:49:12.000 Like this ant has been killed by this fungus, and it's now manifesting itself in this growing form that's not really a plant.
00:49:22.000 That's another thing that people misconstrue about fungus.
00:49:26.000 It's actually closer to an animal.
00:49:28.000 Than it is to vegetation.
00:49:29.000 They breathe oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. 1.00
00:49:33.000 So this is some fucking freaky ass alien life form that's growing out of this ant's head. 1.00
00:49:38.000 Look at the size of that thing! 1.00
00:49:40.000 It's huge!
00:49:42.000 That's so gnarly.
00:49:43.000 Kills the ant.
00:49:45.000 And it grows mushrooms out of it, and then the spores blow up, and oh my god.
00:49:49.000 That's a cool one.
00:49:50.000 That's so bizarre.
00:49:51.000 Look, it's popping through its exoskeleton.
00:49:54.000 That's so creepy.
00:49:55.000 Now you know where Ridley Scott got it.
00:49:57.000 Oh, yeah.
00:49:58.000 Well, do you know about that aquatic worm that infects grasshoppers?
00:50:01.000 No.
00:50:02.000 Oh, this is a great one.
00:50:03.000 This aquatic worm.
00:50:05.000 I love how focused and direct our conversations are.
00:50:08.000 Every one of them I do.
00:50:11.000 I don't have anything focused and directed in my life.
00:50:13.000 But these aquatic worms, or what is it?
00:50:21.000 Yeah, it's an aquatic worm, right?
00:50:23.000 Yeah.
00:50:23.000 It gets inside a grasshopper.
00:50:26.000 And this is one that's infected a praying mantis.
00:50:30.000 And this one's going to burst out of the praying mantis.
00:50:32.000 But when this aquatic worm gets inside...
00:50:35.000 Oh, because you get it wet, that's when it'll come out.
00:50:38.000 But the aquatic worm that gets inside grasshoppers When it reaches gestation, when it's time to be born, it rewires the grasshopper's brain and talks the grasshopper into committing suicide.
00:50:55.000 So the grasshopper jumps into a lake and drowns, and the aquatic worm comes out of its body and swims away.
00:51:01.000 Look at this thing.
00:51:02.000 That's so nasty. 1.00
00:51:03.000 Look at the size of this fucking thing that was living inside this praying mantis while it was alive! 1.00
00:51:09.000 So it takes over the mind of these beings. 1.00
00:51:14.000 I mean, look at the size of this thing.
00:51:16.000 I mean, it is a solid 30 to 40%, maybe more, of the mass of the body of this bee.
00:51:22.000 Wow.
00:51:23.000 That's so gnarly.
00:51:25.000 It's hard to believe when you look at the size of this thing, because it's continuing to come out.
00:51:28.000 The grasshopper, let's just, if we had a scale, the grasshopper's maybe two inches long.
00:51:33.000 Well, that's a mantis. 0.86
00:51:34.000 That mantis is probably a solid four inches long.
00:51:37.000 Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:51:38.000 Mantis.
00:51:38.000 So whatever length that is, the aquatic worm is three times that.
00:51:43.000 Yeah.
00:51:44.000 Which is just nuts.
00:51:45.000 And it's living in its body.
00:51:46.000 And it's still coming out as we're talking.
00:51:47.000 Now it's out. 0.99
00:51:48.000 It's fucking huge, man! 0.99
00:51:51.000 And it's trying to find water. 1.00
00:51:52.000 It's gravitating towards the water. 0.93
00:51:54.000 Set that thing on fire.
00:51:56.000 I know, right? 0.83
00:51:57.000 That's evil.
00:51:57.000 We're lucky they're little.
00:51:59.000 If you find the grasshopper, there's one where it talks the grasshopper and the grasshopper just jumps in the water and just starts drowning and then it pops out of its body.
00:52:09.000 Nature's such a creepy, creepy thing in a lot of ways.
00:52:13.000 Like, the parasite world in particular.
00:52:15.000 Like, somehow or another, predators to me are less disturbing than parasites.
00:52:20.000 Oh, yeah.
00:52:21.000 Here's one that's coming out of, was that a cricket or something?
00:52:25.000 Could be. 0.99
00:52:26.000 Look at that creepy ass thing. 1.00
00:52:28.000 Yeah, aquatic worms. 0.99
00:52:31.000 Yeah, not good.
00:52:33.000 I wanted to talk to you about more bizarrely edible things that maybe a lot of people don't think.
00:52:39.000 Sturgeon is one of them.
00:52:40.000 I didn't know.
00:52:41.000 I knew that people eat sturgeon eggs, but I really wasn't aware that sturgeon was that delicious in fish.
00:52:46.000 I also wasn't aware that it was legal to catch them.
00:52:49.000 I, for some reason, thought that they were endangered.
00:52:51.000 It's weird, which is one of the reasons why poaching is such a big issue, is because we're one of the last recreational fisheries in the country for sturgeon.
00:53:00.000 Really?
00:53:00.000 Yeah.
00:53:01.000 Because of populations?
00:53:02.000 Yeah, because the East Coast sturgeon was fished out around 100 years ago, and they're only now coming back in the East Coast, and there's still no fishery for them.
00:53:13.000 So all of the sturgeon you see in restaurants in Sacramento is farmed.
00:53:17.000 Oh, that's interesting.
00:53:19.000 Hmm.
00:53:21.000 So how do they farm a sturgeon?
00:53:23.000 Slowly.
00:53:24.000 I would imagine.
00:53:25.000 I think they have to be seven years before they get to market size.
00:53:29.000 So it's like making bourbon.
00:53:31.000 Yeah, because I was reading another commercial fish.
00:53:35.000 They were talking about the amount of time that it takes to grow a commercial fish to the point where you can harvest it.
00:53:41.000 And it was some insane number, like two inches a year, where it takes forever to grow these things to the point...
00:53:47.000 I think it was catfish they were talking about, like large catfish.
00:53:50.000 That's what it was.
00:53:50.000 They were talking about what's going on in the Ohio River, that they're putting these catfish in lakes And they're taking them out of rivers.
00:54:00.000 They're putting large catfish in lakes, but they can't survive.
00:54:02.000 They can only live in these lakes for so long.
00:54:04.000 But everybody wants to catch a big catfish.
00:54:06.000 So they have these commercial catfishing businesses, recreational catfishing, where they'll take these people and they'll have them fishing in these lakes.
00:54:15.000 And they use some sort of chemical in the lake that forces the catfish to bite.
00:54:22.000 Yeah, and this chemical...
00:54:24.000 It's like a catfish bordello.
00:54:25.000 Yeah, it's really gross, man, because it causes these legions on the catfish's skin.
00:54:30.000 So these people catch these catfishes, and they have...
00:54:33.000 Catfish, rather, sorry.
00:54:34.000 And they have these red sores all over their body because some chemical's been introduced into the water, which I guess the irritant causes them to...
00:54:44.000 Like they're biting out of frustration, I guess, maybe?
00:54:47.000 The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.
00:54:49.000 What's just so bizarre?
00:54:51.000 Like, what a strange choice that people have decided.
00:54:53.000 Let's take this animal. 0.99
00:54:55.000 There's one with legions on it.
00:54:57.000 Oh.
00:54:58.000 Yeah.
00:54:59.000 Yeah, see, another issue arises when bigger catfishes are introduced into pay lakes.
00:55:03.000 Yeah.
00:55:04.000 Pay lakes.
00:55:05.000 Yeah, they have these lakes.
00:55:06.000 I didn't even know there was a pay lake.
00:55:10.000 Like, look at all the spots on that one.
00:55:12.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:55:12.000 Look at the fucking spots on that thing. 0.99
00:55:14.000 It's gross. 0.99
00:55:15.000 And see if you find what it says that chemical is that they dump into the water, Jamie.
00:55:19.000 Just go to the Rappahannock River in Virginia.
00:55:21.000 You'll catch a nice one.
00:55:22.000 I've caught 70 pounders.
00:55:24.000 Well, in a river, really?
00:55:27.000 Mm-hmm.
00:55:27.000 Yeah, I mean, how many of them are out?
00:55:29.000 Which fish do you catch?
00:55:30.000 Is it blue?
00:55:31.000 That's a white cat.
00:55:32.000 A white cat, because it's a big one?
00:55:33.000 White cats, blue cats, channel cats.
00:55:35.000 But yeah, blues and whites are usually the biggest.
00:55:37.000 Flatheads get really big, too, but they don't live in Virginia, I don't think.
00:55:40.000 It's called juicing.
00:55:42.000 Okay, chemicals they put in the water make the fish bite.
00:55:45.000 In the Pay Lake industry, it's called juicing.
00:55:47.000 Whoa, weird. 0.99
00:55:48.000 Look at the fucking lesions on that thing. 0.99
00:55:50.000 Scroll up a little, Jamie, back up. 1.00
00:55:52.000 Look at that poor thing's body. 1.00
00:55:55.000 That's just wrong.
00:55:56.000 It's bizarre.
00:55:57.000 It's not just wrong, it's bizarre.
00:55:59.000 I tell you, I don't really understand how that ever got passed, how people are, like, accepting that.
00:56:03.000 Like, that's a natural one.
00:56:05.000 The one below that seems totally healthy that some guy caught from a river.
00:56:09.000 So these pay lakes, I guess it's like a private land thing.
00:56:14.000 Somebody owns them and just keeps dumping these fish in there.
00:56:16.000 And apparently they don't live there very long.
00:56:19.000 Yeah, well, it's the fishing equivalent of those little teeny high-fence places you see in the east.
00:56:24.000 You know, go hunt elk on 40 acres.
00:56:27.000 Do they have those in the east?
00:56:28.000 Yeah, the east coast.
00:56:29.000 So, you know, in Texas, a lot of the high-fence places are thousands and thousands of acres.
00:56:34.000 But they have them in the Midwest and in the east.
00:56:37.000 And sometimes they're...
00:56:39.000 Painfully small.
00:56:40.000 You know, like tens of acres.
00:56:42.000 Ooh.
00:56:43.000 Where effectively, you know, you're like shooting something in a pen.
00:56:47.000 I saw one that was 10 acres.
00:56:49.000 Right?
00:56:49.000 It was on eBay.
00:56:50.000 Yeah.
00:56:50.000 Or Craigslist, where this guy had put up this hunt in quotes.
00:56:55.000 I'm doing air quotes.
00:56:57.000 For this enormous buck that they had used for breeding on this commercial deer property.
00:57:03.000 See, if you own a piece of land in Texas or in any place where they allow this, you can buy deer and then have these deer released onto your land and then you can Air quotes again.
00:57:17.000 Hunt them.
00:57:18.000 So they raise these things to maturity and they give them this massive protein-rich diet and then they also have great genetics on top of that.
00:57:27.000 So these deer have these insane antlers.
00:57:30.000 Frankenbuck.
00:57:31.000 Oh, they're so strange looking.
00:57:33.000 It's such a weird thing when you see them and, you know, that is what a regular wild Colorado mule deer looks like.
00:57:40.000 It just looks normal.
00:57:42.000 It's like That's what you see.
00:57:44.000 Everybody recognizes it.
00:57:45.000 That's what it looks like.
00:57:46.000 When you see one of those bizarre farm-raised bucks, it looks like they have bushes growing out of their heads.
00:57:51.000 It does.
00:57:51.000 It's really bizarre.
00:57:53.000 I don't even think it's attractive. 0.74
00:57:55.000 It's gross.
00:57:55.000 It doesn't have that.
00:57:57.000 You know, that classic line of a deer that is kind of, I think, is imprinted on our brains.
00:58:03.000 Yeah.
00:58:03.000 No, I agree.
00:58:04.000 It's some weird thing like double E fake boobs. 0.97
00:58:09.000 Right? 0.99
00:58:10.000 Like, okay, what are you doing? 0.61
00:58:11.000 Like, you went crazy. 0.66
00:58:12.000 You went too far.
00:58:13.000 Like, you did something that doesn't make any sense anymore.
00:58:16.000 Yeah.
00:58:18.000 Another fish that I wanted to ask you about is...
00:58:20.000 What are you going to...
00:58:21.000 What's up?
00:58:22.000 I found out with the juicing.
00:58:23.000 Okay, what's the chemical?
00:58:24.000 Copper sulfate.
00:58:25.000 Oh.
00:58:26.000 So it says that it forces them to feed and move excessively.
00:58:30.000 And then it also is used to treat vegetation and algae and other lakes.
00:58:35.000 You mean kill?
00:58:35.000 Kill, yeah, but then used in excess that can kill fish too.
00:58:39.000 But it says it's designed to kill unwanted lake vegetation.
00:58:43.000 Yeah, when you look up, there's copper sulfate in fish.
00:58:45.000 And it also used to be put in canned green beans to keep them green.
00:58:48.000 What?!
00:58:48.000 Oh my god.
00:58:51.000 I wonder if it made people move around a lot after they ate them. 0.99
00:58:57.000 How fucking strange, man. 0.99
00:59:00.000 God, what kind of a monster pours that into a lake to get the fish to eat more. 1.00
00:59:06.000 I want to talk to you about gar.
00:59:08.000 Have you ever had gar fish?
00:59:09.000 I actually haven't.
00:59:11.000 I know guys who have.
00:59:13.000 I know you have to pretty much clean it with a hatchet.
00:59:16.000 Yeah.
00:59:16.000 And I know that everybody I know who's eating gar says it's awesome.
00:59:21.000 Yeah, I've heard smoked gar is awesome.
00:59:23.000 Jamie, that's a little tiny one.
00:59:25.000 Pull up.
00:59:25.000 Yeah, look at that.
00:59:26.000 There you go, yeah.
00:59:26.000 That is a crazy fish that's been around for what?
00:59:29.000 How many millions of years has that thing been along for?
00:59:31.000 A lot.
00:59:31.000 Like, over 100, I think.
00:59:33.000 It's totally primitive. 0.99
00:59:34.000 I mean, it literally looks like some kind of a fucking dinosaur fish. 0.99
00:59:38.000 And those are in Texas. 0.99
00:59:39.000 Natural.
00:59:40.000 Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas.
00:59:42.000 Yeah.
00:59:43.000 Louisiana. 0.96
00:59:44.000 And can you catch those on a hook or do you spear them? 0.98
00:59:47.000 You can catch them on a hook.
00:59:48.000 What do they eat?
00:59:48.000 They don't have wire.
00:59:49.000 Yeah, you've been having a lot of wire, right?
00:59:51.000 Like those teeth.
00:59:52.000 If I remember right, they like live bait.
00:59:54.000 Oh, okay. 1.00
00:59:55.000 What an enormous, fucking crazy, weird animal. 1.00
00:59:58.000 Yeah, there's a big one. 1.00
00:59:59.000 Okay, that's a perspective shot, though.
01:00:00.000 That's still.
01:00:01.000 That's probably an eight-foot gar.
01:00:03.000 What's a world record gar?
01:00:04.000 Let's take a guess.
01:00:05.000 I'm going to say...
01:00:06.000 I'm going to guess 12 feet.
01:00:07.000 12 feet?
01:00:08.000 Really?
01:00:08.000 That's going to be my guess.
01:00:09.000 Wow, I'm going to go with 10. You're probably right, though.
01:00:13.000 New world record.
01:00:15.000 That doesn't look like 12 feet.
01:00:17.000 Let's find it on the web.
01:00:18.000 What is the world record?
01:00:21.000 279 pounds!
01:00:22.000 Wow!
01:00:23.000 How big is that?
01:00:25.000 How long is it?
01:00:26.000 279 pounds caught in 1951. That's the world record?
01:00:30.000 Yeah.
01:00:30.000 Whoa!
01:00:31.000 That's not from 1951. Look at the size of that thing.
01:00:35.000 Big old alligator gar.
01:00:37.000 No, is there a difference between an alligator gar and a regular gar?
01:00:40.000 Yeah, I think there's a couple different species.
01:00:42.000 Oh.
01:00:43.000 And you can eat them all?
01:00:44.000 As far as I know.
01:00:45.000 So yeah, that's another animal.
01:00:46.000 I didn't know that you can eat these fish until I watched one of those crazy reality shows where people live in the mountains.
01:00:53.000 You know, one of those subsistence shows.
01:00:55.000 You didn't make people eat them on Fear Factor? 0.98
01:00:57.000 We made people eat animal dicks. 0.99
01:00:59.000 We never made people eat gar. 0.94
01:01:03.000 It literally has an armor plate on the outside of it, right?
01:01:05.000 It's like you need a hatchet to get through it.
01:01:07.000 Yeah, I've seen people cutting through them with what looks like... 1.00
01:01:10.000 Sawzall and stuff.
01:01:11.000 No, what they were using was something you would trim branches off a tree with.
01:01:15.000 Yeah, loppers.
01:01:15.000 Crack, crack, crack.
01:01:17.000 Just try to cut through that stuff.
01:01:19.000 47 inches in girth.
01:01:21.000 8'5".
01:01:23.000 Oh my god.
01:01:25.000 That's a giant thing.
01:01:26.000 But that's not a world record, right?
01:01:28.000 That's just a giant one.
01:01:30.000 Hmm.
01:01:30.000 Oof, what a weird animal.
01:01:32.000 I know.
01:01:32.000 And it's just strange to me also that some animals figured out how to stay alive, like alligators and crocodiles for, you know, X amount of million years.
01:01:40.000 Well, all these other things like largemouth bass are so much more recent.
01:01:44.000 Mm-hmm.
01:01:45.000 And these things swim amongst them.
01:01:48.000 These strange remnants of a much more savage past.
01:01:52.000 Like the coelacanth.
01:01:53.000 Yes!
01:01:54.000 That's a great one.
01:01:55.000 Because that one, they thought until they caught one, it was like the early 1900s, they thought it had been extinct for millions of years, right?
01:02:01.000 Yeah, well, of course, South Africa.
01:02:02.000 Yeah.
01:02:03.000 Now, apparently, like, you can catch them.
01:02:06.000 How weird.
01:02:06.000 Like, there's a place where you can catch them.
01:02:09.000 And it's legal?
01:02:10.000 Well, I think it's catch and release, but it's not that...
01:02:16.000 It's not like they're super common, but it's not like a news event when they catch one anymore.
01:02:20.000 Oh, there's one right there.
01:02:21.000 Wow, what a strange-looking prehistoric creature, too.
01:02:24.000 Actually, honestly, I think the gar is more impressive.
01:02:26.000 That's bizarre-looking, but...
01:02:29.000 The coelacanth, is it a deepwater fish?
01:02:32.000 Yeah, it's a deepwater fish. 0.99
01:02:33.000 Now, when you catch and release a deepwater fish, aren't they fucked, though? 0.99
01:02:36.000 Not all of them. 0.98
01:02:36.000 Just bringing them up through the top? 0.98
01:02:38.000 Like rockfish are in the Pacific.
01:02:39.000 They certainly are.
01:02:40.000 Their eyeballs pop out of their head.
01:02:42.000 Right.
01:02:42.000 That's weird, man.
01:02:43.000 But lingcod don't. 0.99
01:02:44.000 Oh.
01:02:45.000 So if you catch a lingcod, you can bring them up to the surface. 0.68
01:02:48.000 Is that a coelacanth that someone caught on a hook, Jeremy?
01:02:50.000 Yep, looks like it.
01:02:51.000 And so when you catch a lingcod on a hook, you can just throw it back in the water, and even though it goes 500 feet to the surface...
01:02:57.000 I've never seen a lingcod with a Benz. 1.00
01:02:58.000 Really?
01:03:00.000 Rockfish always get them.
01:03:01.000 So it's just a matter of the frailty of the...
01:03:04.000 It's just the way the fish is built.
01:03:06.000 I think...
01:03:07.000 You know, in here I'm just guessing.
01:03:10.000 But lingcod will come from the bottom all the way up to the top to hunt. 0.95
01:03:16.000 Beautiful fish, too.
01:03:17.000 Whereas rockfish, yeah, there's bucket mouth. 0.97
01:03:19.000 God, what a cool looking fish and delicious, too.
01:03:21.000 Big old bucket mouth. 0.82
01:03:24.000 Yeah, lingcod, that's another one that looks like it's not supposed to be alive anymore.
01:03:29.000 They're so awesome.
01:03:30.000 They're so awesome.
01:03:31.000 My biggest one I ever caught was a hitchhiker.
01:03:34.000 It had hit a rockfish.
01:03:36.000 Wow.
01:03:36.000 And so I brought the rockfish just to the surface and the lingcod wouldn't let go.
01:03:40.000 No shit. 0.99
01:03:41.000 So we gaffed the lingcod. 1.00
01:03:42.000 Wow.
01:03:43.000 That's interesting.
01:03:44.000 23 pounds.
01:03:45.000 Whoa.
01:03:46.000 It wouldn't let go.
01:03:47.000 Nope.
01:03:47.000 Wow.
01:03:47.000 It'll let go if you let its head break the water.
01:03:50.000 But if you keep its head in the water, it won't let go. 0.99
01:03:52.000 Oh, so when his head comes out of the water, he's like, oh, this is bullshit. 0.99
01:03:55.000 Right. 1.00
01:03:55.000 He's like, huh, that's peculiar. 1.00
01:03:57.000 Let's go. 1.00
01:03:59.000 Look at the mouth on those fuckers. 1.00
01:04:00.000 Oh, yeah, a blue one. 1.00
01:04:01.000 Wow.
01:04:02.000 So cool looking.
01:04:03.000 How'd you like that to be the last thing you saw? 0.85
01:04:05.000 Yeah, that would suck. 0.97
01:04:06.000 It would be like tripping in hell. 0.99
01:04:09.000 Sucked into that vortex.
01:04:10.000 Yeah, that looks like something from that movie The Event Horizon when the demons had taken over the spaceship.
01:04:15.000 Or Dune.
01:04:15.000 Sucked into that.
01:04:16.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:04:18.000 Look at the teeth on that fucker. 1.00
01:04:20.000 It's a hard-ass world that thing lives in. 1.00
01:04:23.000 Don't lip him when you catch him.
01:04:24.000 Oh, yeah, right?
01:04:25.000 Yeah.
01:04:26.000 Yeah, you've got to grab that thing around the gills or gaff it or something.
01:04:29.000 What is all that we're looking at here?
01:04:30.000 He's gutting it.
01:04:32.000 What a strange stomach looking.
01:04:34.000 Yeah, they turn blue like that.
01:04:39.000 I used to know.
01:04:40.000 They turn blue because of what they eat.
01:04:43.000 Like salmon?
01:04:44.000 When you buy commercial salmon, they have to dye the skin because they're not eating the same kind of bugs?
01:04:48.000 Yeah, well, farmed Atlantic salmon, yeah.
01:04:51.000 Well, they're eating...
01:04:52.000 The red is from krill.
01:04:55.000 Extremely rare blue cod.
01:04:56.000 Okay, so this is hilarious.
01:04:58.000 So, I've seen this article.
01:04:59.000 Extremely rare blue cod caught in Australia.
01:05:02.000 Which is...
01:05:03.000 Okay, so it was explained to me that they are extremely rare in Alaska.
01:05:07.000 Does that say Alaska or Australia?
01:05:09.000 Scroll up?
01:05:09.000 Alaska.
01:05:10.000 Alaska, yeah.
01:05:11.000 But they're incredibly common where I live.
01:05:14.000 Oh.
01:05:15.000 I once hooked into 13 lingcod in one fishing trip.
01:05:19.000 And six of them were blue.
01:05:22.000 Whoa.
01:05:22.000 And this is all off the Northern California coast?
01:05:25.000 Yeah, this is off the Marin-Sonoma coast.
01:05:27.000 That's a great area to fish, right?
01:05:29.000 It is.
01:05:29.000 But it's like not extremely rare.
01:05:32.000 But apparently up there they're rare.
01:05:34.000 But it has to do with their diet.
01:05:36.000 Okay.
01:05:36.000 So maybe did it migrate from up there all the way up to Alaska?
01:05:40.000 Well, they're native.
01:05:40.000 They're native all the way up to Alaska.
01:05:42.000 Like the really biggest ones are if you catch them in Alaska.
01:05:45.000 Oh, really?
01:05:46.000 Like 50 pounders. 0.51
01:05:46.000 Ooh. 0.51
01:05:47.000 Yeah.
01:05:48.000 The ones that would eat a toddler. 1.00
01:05:49.000 Well, Alaska has those goddamn halibut that are like... 1.00
01:05:52.000 Barn doors. 1.00
01:05:53.000 Giant.
01:05:54.000 So I was sort of sad because I went up there because I wanted to catch a giant and then I was reading about it before and I realized that every halibut over about 125 pounds is big breeding female.
01:06:06.000 So it's a bad idea to land it because actually the halibut stocks in Alaska are not doing that well.
01:06:12.000 So get it to the surface, get a picture of it.
01:06:16.000 So your ideal halibut apparently is like an 80 pounder or an 85 pounder.
01:06:20.000 That's plenty big.
01:06:21.000 Right, which is plenty big and it's not necessarily big breeding female and so you're not really going to hurt the species.
01:06:26.000 It's like the guys who keep the 400 pounders.
01:06:29.000 Absolutely.
01:06:30.000 And the weird thing about fish breeding behavior is that it's exponential.
01:06:35.000 So a buddy of mine, a guy named RJ Waldron, he landed a 53-pound striper in the Delta.
01:06:45.000 Actually, it was his fishing buddy.
01:06:47.000 And they tried and tried and tried and tried to revive it, but it died, which sucked.
01:06:54.000 But that thing there would be like the supermom for...
01:07:00.000 Yeah.
01:07:23.000 I had a friend of mine who caught an enormous halibut on a boat.
01:07:26.000 It was one of those charter boats, fishing boats, and when they were pulling it up, they cut the line on them.
01:07:32.000 And he was so pissed off.
01:07:34.000 He's like, they were trying to tell him, like, look, you can't keep this one.
01:07:37.000 Right.
01:07:37.000 It was huge.
01:07:38.000 He was like, I go, how big?
01:07:40.000 And he's like, more than 300 pounds.
01:07:42.000 I don't even know how big it was.
01:07:43.000 Big breeding female. 1.00
01:07:44.000 It was so big.
01:07:44.000 Took forever to bring in.
01:07:45.000 But once we got it to the surface, they wanted to cut the line.
01:07:47.000 They let it go.
01:07:48.000 Yeah.
01:07:48.000 And he was so pissed off.
01:07:50.000 It's the right thing to do, biologically.
01:07:51.000 Makes sense.
01:07:52.000 It totally makes sense.
01:07:53.000 And they're such a cool-looking animal, too. 0.93
01:07:55.000 Like, what a strange, flat-ass teeth. 1.00
01:07:58.000 The size of that fucker. 1.00
01:07:59.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:07:59.000 That one's too big. 1.00
01:08:01.000 255 pounds, they fucked up. 1.00
01:08:02.000 They shouldn't have killed that one, right? 1.00
01:08:04.000 I wouldn't have.
01:08:04.000 I mean, it's legal.
01:08:05.000 It's not illegal.
01:08:06.000 But you're not supposed to do it.
01:08:08.000 Because the stocks are okay, but they're not doing super great.
01:08:13.000 Because the chances are, in the next drop-down, you're going to catch a 75-pounder anyway.
01:08:18.000 Right.
01:08:19.000 Really?
01:08:20.000 Jesus.
01:08:21.000 You see the ones on the right?
01:08:23.000 That's what you should be keeping.
01:08:24.000 The 287, I'd let that go.
01:08:26.000 Because think about it.
01:08:27.000 How much halibut are you going to eat, really?
01:08:29.000 Right.
01:08:30.000 I mean, yeah, I know.
01:08:30.000 Most guys are going to go up to Alaska once a year.
01:08:33.000 But still, those other ones are in the 70s.
01:08:36.000 There's easily three or four of those in the 70-pound range. 1.00
01:08:41.000 287 pound fish is a big ass fucking fish, man. 0.99
01:08:44.000 And the flake on those big halibut is so big that it gets so coarse that they're okay. 0.99
01:08:51.000 I mean, they taste fine, but they're harder to cook.
01:08:55.000 When my oldest daughter was, I guess she was like 12, somewhere around then, 12 or 13. She's real sensitive.
01:09:04.000 She's a very sweet person.
01:09:05.000 She wanted to be a vegetarian.
01:09:07.000 And she was a vegetarian for a while, and then she started eating meat again.
01:09:11.000 But she always loves animals.
01:09:13.000 And I said, well, listen, let's go fishing.
01:09:16.000 And this is before I ever hunted.
01:09:17.000 I'm like, let's go fishing.
01:09:19.000 We'll catch a fish and we'll cook it.
01:09:20.000 And it's kind of a cool experience because you get to experience catching something and cooking it.
01:09:24.000 So we went on this boat. 0.98
01:09:26.000 Five minutes into the trip, we catch a fucking marlin. 0.99
01:09:29.000 All right? 0.99
01:09:30.000 Where are you fishing?
01:09:31.000 Hawaii.
01:09:31.000 Oh.
01:09:32.000 We're in Hawaii.
01:09:33.000 And five minutes in, it's not a big marlin.
01:09:36.000 It's about a 70-pound marlin.
01:09:39.000 It takes a while to get it on board.
01:09:40.000 We get it on board, and then the guys who run the boat beat this thing to death in front of her with a club, because that's what you do.
01:09:47.000 You get a marlin on board, you beat it to death. 1.00
01:09:50.000 Why?
01:09:51.000 That's the only way to stop it from flopping around.
01:09:53.000 Why are they keeping a marlin? 0.90
01:09:54.000 They kill it and eat it.
01:09:55.000 Oh. 0.88
01:09:56.000 They eat them.
01:09:56.000 Okay.
01:09:57.000 Yeah, they smoke them, apparently.
01:09:58.000 Okay.
01:09:59.000 But that was another thing.
01:10:00.000 I thought marlins aren't good.
01:10:01.000 I'm glad you just said that, because the most recent trip that I had, I was in Hawaii just a month ago, and- That's the only state I've never been to.
01:10:08.000 Oh my god, you gotta go.
01:10:10.000 That's a magic place.
01:10:11.000 That's a real...
01:10:12.000 I think Hawaii has an energy that when you get off the plane you go, oh we're here.
01:10:18.000 Like it's got a feel to it. 1.00
01:10:19.000 Because you're on a fucking volcano. 1.00
01:10:21.000 You're on a volcano in the middle of the ocean. 1.00
01:10:23.000 I mean, that's really what it is.
01:10:24.000 This volcano popped out.
01:10:25.000 I mean, we took a helicopter where you fly over the volcano as it leaks into the ocean.
01:10:30.000 You see the steam coming up as the lava's flowing.
01:10:33.000 It's amazing.
01:10:35.000 Anyway, she's such a sweet kid.
01:10:38.000 She's so sensitive and friendly and nice. 1.00
01:10:41.000 And they beat this fucking marlin to death in front of her. 1.00
01:10:45.000 And then they're covering it with bags of ice, and they're all psyched. 0.99
01:10:49.000 And it's making all these weird noises.
01:10:50.000 And then, like, she just starts to calm down and get over it.
01:10:54.000 And then 20 minutes later, it starts flopping again.
01:10:56.000 It's not totally dead.
01:10:57.000 She's like, oh, God.
01:10:59.000 I've never been able to take her fishing since.
01:11:01.000 She's 20 now. 1.00
01:11:04.000 She's like, fuck you. 1.00
01:11:06.000 Fuck you, Dad. 1.00
01:11:07.000 What did you do? 1.00
01:11:08.000 And I'm like, honey, this is where we get fish.
01:11:10.000 This is where fish come from.
01:11:12.000 It was the size of a dog.
01:11:14.000 It was like a dog-sized thing.
01:11:16.000 It wasn't like we brought in a 12-inch trout. 0.94
01:11:21.000 It was a giant-ass living creature that these guys beat to death.
01:11:26.000 I mean, it's a small boat. 0.97
01:11:28.000 They beat it to death five feet from her. 0.98
01:11:30.000 So five feet away, they're beating this thing with a club.
01:11:34.000 Wow.
01:11:35.000 That's kind of traumatic.
01:11:36.000 It was very traumatic.
01:11:37.000 It was a lot of us, a lot of us.
01:11:41.000 So that was the end of that. 0.99
01:11:42.000 See, we've talked about taking her hunting, but I think still that fucking one marlin messes with her. 1.00
01:11:50.000 But they were telling me that you had to smoke it. 0.98
01:11:52.000 But on the last trip that I was on, which was about a month ago, these guys were telling me that, no, no, no, you can cut it and eat it like swordfish.
01:11:59.000 Yeah.
01:11:59.000 You cut it and grill it.
01:12:00.000 There's no reason why you couldn't.
01:12:02.000 You've ever had it, though?
01:12:03.000 I've never actually eaten it.
01:12:04.000 So why were you saying, why would you keep a marlin?
01:12:06.000 Because almost nobody does.
01:12:08.000 Like, you know, like if you go to Costa Rica or Baja or the Caribbean, they're caught, it's catch and release only.
01:12:15.000 Now, do they do that to ensure the population?
01:12:17.000 I think they do.
01:12:18.000 I mean, because I've heard that the Hawaiians eat them, but I've been reading it.
01:12:21.000 And that's just, but yeah, I mean, almost all marlin fishing is catch and release.
01:12:26.000 Hmm.
01:12:26.000 That's interesting.
01:12:27.000 Yeah, that's the big trophy fish, right?
01:12:30.000 That's the one that they want to have on the wall.
01:12:33.000 I've never caught one.
01:12:33.000 Yeah, it was the only time I ever caught one.
01:12:35.000 And we caught it maybe 10 minutes into fishing.
01:12:38.000 Now, swordfish get that big.
01:12:40.000 Yeah.
01:12:41.000 But that one's coming over the rail.
01:12:43.000 Yeah, that's a delicious fish, right?
01:12:45.000 Now, you think that takes significantly different than a marlin?
01:12:48.000 I bet they're pretty similar.
01:12:49.000 I would like to know.
01:12:51.000 Well, I just wanted to ask you about gar because I've always wanted to go gar fishing because I've seen them.
01:12:56.000 And when you see those images that we just looked at, like, God damn it, I want to see that thing in real life.
01:13:01.000 I would wish you had tried it. 0.80
01:13:04.000 I've tried a lot of things.
01:13:05.000 Yeah, have you not tried- Paddlefish, bowfin.
01:13:07.000 Paddlefish is an interesting one, right?
01:13:09.000 That's a Sacramento fish too, isn't it?
01:13:11.000 No, that's a Missouri River thing.
01:13:12.000 Oh, okay.
01:13:12.000 They're cousins of the sturgeon.
01:13:14.000 Oh.
01:13:15.000 Okay, and that's one that doesn't really have, um, they don't have any bones, right?
01:13:20.000 Right.
01:13:20.000 Neither do sturgeon.
01:13:21.000 Oh, really?
01:13:22.000 Mm-hmm.
01:13:22.000 Oh, so sturgeon's a lot like a shark in that sense.
01:13:25.000 Yep.
01:13:25.000 But sharks have bones only around the jaw.
01:13:28.000 Right.
01:13:29.000 Now, there's also some weird thing with the paddlefish where you pull that spinal cord out of them, right?
01:13:35.000 Mm-hmm. 0.99
01:13:36.000 What a weird-looking fucking thing that is. 0.99
01:13:39.000 They're pretty tasty, though. 1.00
01:13:40.000 That's what I hear.
01:13:41.000 And if you've ever had lumpfish caviar, that's what that is.
01:13:44.000 No, I've never.
01:13:45.000 What is a lumpfish caviar?
01:13:47.000 It's just caviar out of a paddlefish.
01:13:49.000 I don't know why they call it paddlefish, but they should just call it paddlefish caviar, which I think they are now.
01:13:53.000 Something about the restrictions on commercial paddlefishing because of the concern.
01:13:58.000 I don't think there is any.
01:13:59.000 No?
01:13:59.000 I think it's all recreational now, and in some states...
01:14:02.000 Wow. 1.00
01:14:03.000 Look at that fucker. 1.00
01:14:04.000 That looks like a fake animal. 1.00
01:14:06.000 That doesn't even look real.
01:14:07.000 Football fish.
01:14:08.000 But I think that concern was about the caviar, right?
01:14:10.000 Right.
01:14:11.000 So there was, again, there was an illegal trade in paddlefish caviar.
01:14:19.000 So there's some states where you can keep your fish, but Fish and Game keeps the caviar.
01:14:23.000 Right.
01:14:23.000 Really?
01:14:24.000 Mm-hmm.
01:14:24.000 How bizarre.
01:14:25.000 I don't think that's cool.
01:14:27.000 I think it should be illegal to sell, but like in Missouri.
01:14:31.000 Why would Fishing Game keep the caviar?
01:14:33.000 What are they going to do with it?
01:14:33.000 It's going to go to waste?
01:14:34.000 I think they sell it.
01:14:35.000 Oh, that's even weirder.
01:14:36.000 Yeah.
01:14:37.000 That's really weird.
01:14:38.000 Well, I would...
01:14:40.000 I mean, probably, I would hope.
01:14:42.000 Missourians will tell us.
01:14:44.000 But I would hope that the proceeds from selling the caviar by fish and game would go back to habitat restoration or something.
01:14:50.000 I would hope so, too.
01:14:51.000 But I would hope that you could pay an additional tag...
01:14:55.000 And get to keep the caviar.
01:14:56.000 Oh, yeah.
01:14:56.000 Say if you caught a female and you pay an extra $30 or something like that and you keep the caviar.
01:15:01.000 Yeah, I know you can in some states, like in Montana for sure.
01:15:03.000 You can in Montana?
01:15:05.000 They have paddlefish in Montana?
01:15:06.000 Yeah, they're all in giant rivers.
01:15:08.000 Like, you know, name a big giant river in the middle of the country and they live there.
01:15:11.000 That looks like another one that just made it through evolution.
01:15:15.000 It did, yeah. 1.00
01:15:15.000 How long has that fucker been around? 1.00
01:15:17.000 A hundred million years. 1.00
01:15:18.000 Ugh.
01:15:19.000 Easy.
01:15:19.000 There's a show on TV, I forget the name of it, but it's this guy who cooks weird stuff on the Sportsman's Channel.
01:15:29.000 Oh, that's Scott Laysath's Dead Meat.
01:15:32.000 Yes, Dead Meat.
01:15:33.000 Scott lives like one day...
01:15:35.000 Ten miles from my house.
01:15:36.000 That's why I was going to bring him up, because he's a Sacramento guy.
01:15:38.000 Yeah.
01:15:39.000 And he cooked paddlefish.
01:15:41.000 Yep.
01:15:42.000 He pulled the spinal cord out of him.
01:15:46.000 He's on an interesting show.
01:15:47.000 He cooks everything.
01:15:48.000 He has one of the best self-deprecating sense of humor ever.
01:15:52.000 Yeah.
01:15:53.000 Ever.
01:15:53.000 Yeah.
01:15:53.000 It's hilarious.
01:15:54.000 The dude's on the road like 300 days a year.
01:15:56.000 Really?
01:15:57.000 Yeah, he does a lot of stuff for a group called Huntfish Feed, so it gets hunters together to donate tons and tons of game meat for homeless shelters, and they do a big cookout thing so that everybody gets a meal.
01:16:09.000 Oh, that's cool.
01:16:10.000 Yeah, it's cool stuff.
01:16:11.000 Yeah, but he's found a lot of fish and a lot of game that people thought was inedible.
01:16:16.000 It actually turns out to be quite delicious.
01:16:18.000 I'll tell you one that he didn't.
01:16:19.000 What?
01:16:19.000 Python.
01:16:20.000 Oh really?
01:16:21.000 Not good?
01:16:21.000 He said it was like mainlining mercury.
01:16:23.000 Whoa.
01:16:24.000 He said it was the worst thing he's ever put in his mouth.
01:16:26.000 Wow.
01:16:27.000 Yeah.
01:16:27.000 Python.
01:16:28.000 Python in the Everglades.
01:16:30.000 Huh.
01:16:30.000 Did he try to do anything with it?
01:16:32.000 Marinate it or anything?
01:16:32.000 I think he tried it every which way but sundae and he was just like no man.
01:16:35.000 Just none of it?
01:16:36.000 No dude.
01:16:36.000 Now how do you know when you're eating something like that whether or not it's actually edible?
01:16:41.000 Well, I think you can do some...
01:16:42.000 Like, all birds are edible, for example.
01:16:44.000 All birds.
01:16:45.000 Yeah.
01:16:45.000 Some say disgusting and fishy, but...
01:16:47.000 And most mammals are edible.
01:16:50.000 But, like, you know, the livers on polar bears have so much vitamin A, they'll kill you if you eat them.
01:16:54.000 Really?
01:16:54.000 Yeah.
01:16:55.000 So don't eat polar bear liver.
01:16:56.000 Just a pro tip.
01:16:57.000 Dude, I was about to.
01:16:58.000 Pro tip.
01:16:59.000 Another pro tip?
01:17:00.000 Two and a show, folks.
01:17:02.000 What a show. 0.68
01:17:05.000 I know.
01:17:05.000 It's, like, so random.
01:17:08.000 Polar bear is an odd one, right?
01:17:09.000 That's a strange animal in that it's a bear, but it's 100% carnivorous.
01:17:16.000 There's not a vegetable to be seen up there, and it's adapted.
01:17:19.000 I've seen them eat seaweed on TV. Really?
01:17:21.000 Yeah.
01:17:22.000 I think it's because they're freaking out because they have no sea ice anymore, and so they're just doing whatever they can do to survive.
01:17:30.000 Yeah, that's creepy. 0.96
01:17:32.000 There's a really fucking scary video of this polar bear. 0.97
01:17:37.000 There's a seal on an ice shelf, and the polar bear slips up behind the seal, and the seal doesn't know, and the seal's like, oh, Jesus, and then just tries to get away. 0.98
01:17:47.000 And he's got that really sad look on his face.
01:17:49.000 I've seen that video.
01:17:50.000 It's just like, oh, you lose, seal.
01:17:52.000 He gets into the water, and then the polar bear's in the water right behind him seconds later, and then the polar bear comes out with it, and it's in his jaws. 0.99
01:17:59.000 That's a goddamn ruthless animal. 0.99
01:18:02.000 This poppy's got to eat. 1.00
01:18:03.000 Well, there's no other way.
01:18:05.000 And it's enormous.
01:18:07.000 There it is.
01:18:08.000 Look at it.
01:18:08.000 He just slowly creeps up.
01:18:10.000 I mean, literally like a shark.
01:18:12.000 Look how slow he's just moving around.
01:18:14.000 And that sea lion.
01:18:15.000 Is that a sea lion?
01:18:16.000 Yeah.
01:18:17.000 No, it's a regular seal.
01:18:19.000 So apparently they differentiate seals.
01:18:22.000 So like that one's the good tasting one.
01:18:23.000 And then...
01:18:25.000 I think.
01:18:25.000 If this is the one that gets eaten, it's the good-tasting one.
01:18:28.000 And then there's another one that is really nasty with sharp teeth, so the polar bears are like, eh, I'm going to leave that one alone.
01:18:34.000 Like a leopard seal?
01:18:35.000 Is that what you mean?
01:18:36.000 It's not that bad, but it's some seal that lives up in the Arctic that's kind of badass.
01:18:41.000 Leopard seals are amazing.
01:18:43.000 Oh, yeah.
01:18:43.000 That's a crazy animal.
01:18:44.000 I remember that Marching of the Penguins movie.
01:18:46.000 I didn't even know a leopard seal was a real thing.
01:18:49.000 He's like, well, we're just chilling.
01:18:51.000 Look at him.
01:18:51.000 He's like, yeah.
01:18:53.000 Fuck. 1.00
01:18:55.000 And he's just right in the water after him. 1.00
01:18:57.000 Sorry, dude.
01:18:59.000 You ain't gonna make it.
01:19:02.000 I like the silence.
01:19:04.000 It's kind of epic.
01:19:05.000 There's a stand-up comedian, Kevin Fitzgerald.
01:19:08.000 He's also a veterinarian, and I worked with him once in Denver.
01:19:11.000 And he told me that polar bears are one of the few animals that, when they come out of the womb, they're like the little alien from the movie Alien that bursts out of the chest.
01:19:19.000 Like, ah!
01:19:20.000 Like they're looking to bite you. 1.00
01:19:21.000 And he's like, they are predatory from the moment they come out of the vagina. 1.00
01:19:25.000 Yeah, he said they just look at you different. 1.00
01:19:28.000 They look at you like you're meat.
01:19:29.000 Well, that's interesting.
01:19:30.000 So another friend of mine, a woman named Rebecca, who's really good with animals, she's worked with all kinds of animals, but she mostly focuses on raptors now.
01:19:39.000 But she worked with cats. 0.79
01:19:42.000 Back in the day.
01:19:43.000 And she said that mountain lions are big kitty cats.
01:19:48.000 They're giant house cats.
01:19:49.000 So if you can understand a house cat, you can understand a mountain lion.
01:19:52.000 Leopards and jaguars?
01:19:54.000 Very different.
01:19:55.000 It's exactly what you were saying.
01:19:57.000 They're looking at you for you to make a mistake.
01:20:01.000 And it's just a very different vibe from those cats than a mountain lion.
01:20:05.000 It's not that...
01:20:06.000 I remember that.
01:20:08.000 Yeah, it was interesting because it's, you know, back to our talk about jaguars coming back into the United States.
01:20:15.000 Well, any animal that's forced to kill things with its face in order to stay alive is a sketchy thing to have in your neighborhood in San Francisco.
01:20:23.000 They're just so big.
01:20:24.000 They need so much food, too.
01:20:25.000 I mean, you think about how big a polar bear is, how much actual meat a thing must need to consume in order to keep that mass.
01:20:32.000 A lot.
01:20:33.000 I mean, there's a place called Oli's Big Game Lodge in Paxton, Nebraska.
01:20:38.000 And it's one of these places in the middle of western Nebraska.
01:20:41.000 It's kind of in nowhere.
01:20:42.000 But it's where you get off the highway if you've got to go eat. 0.98
01:20:46.000 And you walk in there like, holy shit, there's this giant... 0.97
01:20:50.000 12 foot tall polar bear stuffed right at the door when you open up the door. 0.99
01:20:55.000 And it gives you an instantaneous notion of how small you are compared to a polar bear.
01:20:59.000 They're the biggest, right?
01:21:01.000 Yeah.
01:21:01.000 They're bigger than Kodiak bears?
01:21:03.000 Yep.
01:21:03.000 Wow.
01:21:04.000 Yeah, that's a weird thing, right?
01:21:06.000 An animal that lives where there's no vegetation and all the life comes from the sea, and it's bigger than all of them.
01:21:14.000 See, you know, blubber must be good.
01:21:16.000 Well, isn't also that principle that the larger mammals...
01:21:19.000 Bergman's rule.
01:21:20.000 Yeah, the further north they go, the larger their body has to be in order to maintain heat.
01:21:24.000 Yep, it's called Bergman's rule.
01:21:25.000 The Scandinavians.
01:21:26.000 Yeah.
01:21:27.000 Well, that's another animal, bears are, that Steve Rinella likes to call charismatic megafauna.
01:21:32.000 Yeah.
01:21:32.000 That's an old biological term for when, back in the 70s, when, you know, save the whales and everything.
01:21:39.000 And everybody who was studying keystone species, like krill or, you know, things that aren't very charismatic, were like...
01:21:45.000 Everybody wants to say the charismatic megafauna.
01:21:48.000 What really is the key to everything is this indiscriminate krill or this little teeny forage fish or whatever.
01:21:56.000 Or like ants we were talking about.
01:21:57.000 They say if all the ants died, there would be no life on this planet inside of 100 years.
01:22:02.000 Wow.
01:22:04.000 We'd be dead.
01:22:05.000 Even fire ants?
01:22:06.000 I think it might be less than 100 years.
01:22:08.000 Find out what would happen if all the ants died.
01:22:10.000 I think it's actually less than 100 years.
01:22:12.000 Even fire ants?
01:22:12.000 I hate fire ants.
01:22:13.000 They're not nice.
01:22:14.000 They're definitely mean.
01:22:16.000 I first discovered fire.
01:22:18.000 I knew they existed all the time, but I'd never actually encountered them until I was in Texas, in Austin, digging wild onions.
01:22:24.000 And these ants crawl over my hand, like, oh, look, there's ants.
01:22:28.000 I used to live in Florida.
01:22:30.000 In Florida, they were all over the place. 0.92
01:22:32.000 What the hell?
01:22:33.000 And my friend Jesse's like... 0.65
01:22:37.000 People have died, for sure.
01:22:39.000 There was some little old lady who, I remember the story, she tripped and fell right onto a mound, and they just consumed her with bites.
01:22:47.000 Wow. 1.00
01:22:48.000 Yeah, and just fucked her up. 1.00
01:22:49.000 They just thought she was a threat, and time to take you out. 1.00
01:22:52.000 God, what's going to be on that poor lady's tomb soon? 1.00
01:22:55.000 I don't know.
01:22:56.000 I don't know.
01:22:57.000 You're aware of Bullet Dance, right?
01:22:59.000 Oh, yeah.
01:23:00.000 Yeah, that's an interesting one.
01:23:01.000 Didn't Steve encounter Bullet Dance?
01:23:03.000 Yeah, in Bolivia.
01:23:04.000 It's the same place where he ate a monkey.
01:23:06.000 Yeah, no thanks, dude.
01:23:07.000 You wouldn't eat a monkey? 0.83
01:23:08.000 No.
01:23:08.000 That's where you crossed the line?
01:23:09.000 But if someone cooked it in front of you and it smelled good and it was in the bowl and you were with these people and they were all eating it, you wouldn't take a bite?
01:23:15.000 I don't know.
01:23:16.000 I'd have to judge that when I got there.
01:23:17.000 I think you would.
01:23:18.000 I would probably try and get out of that situation before it ever happened.
01:23:21.000 I would worry about...
01:23:25.000 Like, I know they're cooking it really well, but I know that prions, like the prions that cause mad cow disease that come from brain matter.
01:23:33.000 Well, you know, with chronic wasting.
01:23:34.000 Yeah.
01:23:35.000 Is that from prions as well?
01:23:37.000 Same thing?
01:23:37.000 Yeah.
01:23:38.000 Chronic wasting disease, for folks who don't know what we're talking about, is a disease that affects deer.
01:23:42.000 And it's really common in the Midwest.
01:23:44.000 And they think that it may have originated, at least this is the rumor, from these weird commercial deer farms where they grow all these deer and they all live together.
01:23:53.000 Because apparently one of the things that happens is if deer eat out of the same spot, that's where it develops.
01:24:02.000 Like if there's a feed tray and they're all eaten out of the feed tray, that's unnatural for the wild.
01:24:08.000 All right.
01:24:09.000 Yeah.
01:24:09.000 Yeah.
01:24:10.000 It's one of those things that are difficult to...
01:24:13.000 I mean, I get asked about it all the time.
01:24:15.000 I'm like, well, what do I do with...
01:24:17.000 If I want to make chops or if I want to make stock out of the bones of the deer I shot, what do I do with CWD? I've done an exhaustive look at all the science that's out there, and it's never jumped the species barrier.
01:24:29.000 To humans.
01:24:30.000 To humans.
01:24:32.000 It's primarily going to be located in spinal tissue, so you're going pelvis to skull.
01:24:39.000 And that's about what we know.
01:24:41.000 So if it was me and there was testing available for my deer, I would absolutely do it.
01:24:47.000 And if you're in the clear, you're in the clear.
01:24:49.000 And if not, and it was too hard, I would probably keep the limb bones but not anything off the spinal column because I've just, you know...
01:24:58.000 And you would keep the limb bones for marrow?
01:25:00.000 Yeah, either marrow or making stocks and broths.
01:25:04.000 And then, you know, cooking shanks on the bone. 0.63
01:25:06.000 Right.
01:25:06.000 And when you do shanks, you braise them and slow cook them.
01:25:10.000 That's a neglected part of a lot of undulates, right? 0.99
01:25:14.000 I think it's probably the single easiest way of You know, to use the stupid catchphrase, opening your game. 0.98
01:25:21.000 Because grinding shank meat sucks because there's so much connective tissue and they're easy to saw off with a sawzall or a hacksaw. 0.98
01:25:28.000 They usually will fit in your pot and they're amazing braids like that.
01:25:33.000 And even if that's all you do different, besides your butcher will like you because all he's got to do is just saw them off and put them in a butcher paper and bring them back to you.
01:25:43.000 Now, you started your hunting and cooking career off.
01:25:47.000 You started as a chef, and then you wanted to get closer and maybe understand what you were cooking better.
01:25:55.000 Is that a good way to describe it?
01:25:57.000 Is that accurate?
01:25:58.000 Sort of.
01:25:59.000 I mean, I started hunting in Minnesota, and my best friend was the outdoor writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
01:26:06.000 And we had been fishing at the time, and then hunting season came around, and he invited me out.
01:26:13.000 Well, let me preface this, but he'd been sort of plying me with mallards and with rabbits and with some venison prior to me ever going out.
01:26:20.000 So the stuff that he had killed, he wanted you to try.
01:26:24.000 And you were already a chef by then?
01:26:25.000 Well, at that point, I was a newspaper reporter.
01:26:27.000 So I started as a restaurant cook, you know, a line cook and a low-level sous chef.
01:26:31.000 Then I went into newspapers, and I was still as a newspaper reporter at that point.
01:26:35.000 And I got into it because I wanted to eat these things.
01:26:39.000 I loved cooking the mallards.
01:26:40.000 I loved cooking pheasants.
01:26:41.000 I loved cooking venison.
01:26:43.000 And you can't buy it, so you've got to learn to get it.
01:26:46.000 And the other thing that was really life-changing about it was...
01:26:51.000 So, I'm a pretty good fisherman, and when I'm in a place for a while, you learn to read a body of water.
01:26:59.000 You know, in my case, back in Long Island, you learn tides, you learn weather patterns, you learn all of the little intricacies of what it takes to actually get on fish.
01:27:10.000 So, most anglers are just hooks and lines.
01:27:15.000 The real fisherman knows where to put the boat to find the fish, knows how fast to troll, knows what angle to the waves you want to be, and all these little detailed things.
01:27:23.000 And I knew that.
01:27:25.000 My friend Chris knew this by looking at the land.
01:27:28.000 Like, he could just take, at a glance, he could look at a field like, nope, no fizzins are going to be in that.
01:27:32.000 And I didn't, how do you know?
01:27:34.000 And he just knew, because he'd done this a zillion times.
01:27:37.000 And his ability to read land, like I could read water, I wanted that ability.
01:27:43.000 And that every bit as much as the eating part of it was what brought me into it.
01:27:49.000 Now, when you say that you really enjoyed cooking them and you really enjoyed eating them, is it because the flavors are different?
01:27:56.000 They're more complex?
01:27:58.000 They're more like, you know, one of the main criticisms that people have...
01:28:06.000 I mean, there's two things to gamey.
01:28:17.000 So one, I think we both agree that what we would call gamey is somebody screwed up.
01:28:22.000 Right.
01:28:22.000 So almost 75% of all good venison care happens before the meat ever gets to the kitchen.
01:28:31.000 So that can give you what we would call gamey.
01:28:34.000 But, I mean, I've had people eat backstrap that it was perfectly prepared, perfectly cared for, and they say, well, it's kind of gamey.
01:28:42.000 What they're talking about is that it doesn't taste like corn.
01:28:45.000 Every meat animal, including to some extent salmon, that we will get in a supermarket is corn-fed.
01:28:52.000 They corn-feed salmon.
01:28:54.000 Yeah, it's in the pellets that they feed them.
01:28:56.000 It's part of the pellets.
01:28:57.000 Jesus Christ.
01:28:58.000 Yeah, I know. 1.00
01:28:58.000 This goddamn corn industry that has its tentacles deep into America. 1.00
01:29:03.000 Right. 1.00
01:29:03.000 And, you know, this corn tastes like it has a very particular flavor profile. 1.00
01:29:07.000 And so with that flavor profile is broken by, you know, deer that ate something else.
01:29:14.000 People are like, ah, it's different.
01:29:15.000 Well, yeah, it tastes like something.
01:29:16.000 It tastes like something that actually lived a life.
01:29:18.000 Tell me that about mule deer, that they don't like mule deer, because mule deer tastes like the sage that it eats, and that they like whitetails because they eat corn.
01:29:26.000 I'm like, Jesus Christ, man.
01:29:28.000 Like, I've had mule deer.
01:29:29.000 They taste great.
01:29:30.000 You're out of your mind.
01:29:31.000 And then people will say, elk is so much better than deer.
01:29:35.000 I'm like...
01:29:35.000 Okay, I get it.
01:29:36.000 I mean, there's some minor differences and subtle differences.
01:29:40.000 And if you put one next to each other, yeah, there's a little bit of a difference, but it's not that dramatic.
01:29:45.000 Like, I'm a duck hunter.
01:29:46.000 The difference between a Spoonie and a Pintail is profound.
01:29:50.000 What's a Spoonie and what's a Pintail?
01:29:52.000 So a Spoonie is a Northern Shoveler, and it's one of the least desired ducks that we have.
01:29:57.000 Northern Shoveler.
01:29:58.000 Yeah.
01:29:58.000 And is it a diver duck?
01:30:00.000 Is that what it is?
01:30:01.000 It's kind of a hybrid.
01:30:03.000 It's technically a puddle duck, but it dives more so than the other puddle ducks.
01:30:07.000 If you don't mind, explain to people what the difference is.
01:30:09.000 Oh, okay.
01:30:10.000 So every duck that you've seen in a park with his butt up in the air, that's a dabbler or a puddle duck.
01:30:15.000 So a diver duck is a duck that dives very deep.
01:30:19.000 And the deepest of all are a third kind of duck called a sea duck, which, as you might guess, lives in deep, deep, deep, deep water.
01:30:25.000 So divers would be like bluebills, canvasbacks, redheads, buffleheads, goldeneye.
01:30:31.000 And then puddle ducks would be obviously the mallard, which everybody knows.
01:30:35.000 Mallards, pintails, spoonies, wigeon, teal.
01:30:39.000 And so in general, puddle ducks taste better than diver ducks because of what they eat.
01:30:47.000 But ducks are all omnivores, much like pigs and bears.
01:30:50.000 So you have a spoonie, which loves to eat shrimpy things and algae. 0.91
01:30:55.000 Meh.
01:30:56.000 Versus a pintail, which loves seeds.
01:30:58.000 It loves seeds of all kinds.
01:31:01.000 And that's a more tasty bird? 0.96
01:31:03.000 Any bird that eats seeds as a matter of habit, human beings are going to like to eat it more.
01:31:08.000 Because it just creates a set of flavors that we're more familiar with.
01:31:11.000 Now, the exceptions to that are kind of fascinating.
01:31:13.000 If you talk to Newfoundlanders or Icelanders, Or Inuit, the people who are grown up eating seabirds, they love that fishy, low-tidy flavor thing that's going on. 0.99
01:31:26.000 I see you're getting the hairy eyebrow.
01:31:30.000 I want to try, even though I know I'll hate it, I want to try that fermented shark that they love in Iceland.
01:31:36.000 No, you don't.
01:31:37.000 Have you had it?
01:31:38.000 Tell me what it's like.
01:31:40.000 Mmm.
01:31:45.000 Fishy natto. 0.80
01:31:46.000 What's natto? 0.76
01:31:47.000 It's fermented, stinky soybeans.
01:31:50.000 Oh, I've heard of that stuff, too. 0.68
01:31:51.000 It's disgusting, supposedly. 0.82
01:31:53.000 It's stinky, blue-cheesy, fishy, ammoniated. 0.94
01:31:59.000 It attacks your mouth. 0.81
01:32:01.000 Ammoniated?
01:32:02.000 Yeah, heavily ammoniated.
01:32:03.000 Now, the Iceland people, are they drunk when they've eaten this?
01:32:06.000 I think it's just like a polar bear.
01:32:08.000 There's nothing else.
01:32:09.000 So they developed a taste for it?
01:32:11.000 Well, apparently you can't eat that shark fresh.
01:32:14.000 What?
01:32:15.000 Yeah.
01:32:15.000 Oh, wow.
01:32:16.000 I think it's another vitamin A or something like that.
01:32:18.000 There's some reason you can't eat that.
01:32:20.000 It's a Greenland shark.
01:32:21.000 And you can't eat a Greenland shark fresh.
01:32:23.000 So it was the only way to eat it was to ferment it.
01:32:25.000 How bizarre.
01:32:27.000 Yeah.
01:32:27.000 And so they became...
01:32:28.000 Who was the first guy to figure that one out?
01:32:29.000 Yeah, right? 0.87
01:32:30.000 Let's eat the rotten one! 0.99
01:32:31.000 And how to prepare it.
01:32:33.000 You have to figure out how to ferment that thing.
01:32:35.000 Because I have never seen or heard...
01:32:38.000 I've seen videos of people trying it.
01:32:40.000 I've never heard anybody who's tried it that enjoyed it.
01:32:42.000 Anybody who lives in Iceland, though, will tell you.
01:32:44.000 Like, it's a delicacy.
01:32:46.000 We like it.
01:32:47.000 I'm like, I don't understand that.
01:32:48.000 I wonder what our delicacy is.
01:32:49.000 What is the thing that we, either in California or in the United States, really, really like? 0.95
01:32:55.000 That everybody else in the world is like, holy crap, how can you eat that? 0.93
01:32:58.000 That's a good question. 0.96
01:33:00.000 I don't think we have anything like that.
01:33:01.000 Our food is so bland.
01:33:03.000 Like, an American food is like you think of a cheeseburger and fries or steak and mashed potatoes.
01:33:08.000 You don't think of anything that has, like, incredibly potent flavors to it.
01:33:13.000 Yeah, I mean, I can think of some regionalities, like Scrapple.
01:33:16.000 Right.
01:33:17.000 But you call Scrapple regional American, but not dominant American food.
01:33:22.000 What's Scrapple again? 0.96
01:33:23.000 Eh, it's basically lips and assholes ground up really small and mixed with either cornmeal or sometimes, you know, oatmeal. 0.91
01:33:29.000 Yeah, but that still won't be, like, potent. 0.97
01:33:31.000 It's baked and...
01:33:32.000 Is it?
01:33:33.000 Yeah.
01:33:35.000 Livermush is even more potent.
01:33:37.000 Livermush?
01:33:37.000 Livermush.
01:33:38.000 Mush, really?
01:33:39.000 It's basically that, but it's made with liver.
01:33:41.000 And they're both breakfast meats.
01:33:43.000 And, you know, I've had good scrapple.
01:33:46.000 I've not had livermush that I really, really enjoyed.
01:33:48.000 It's kind of a...
01:33:49.000 You see a lot in South Central Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, that area.
01:33:56.000 Whoa, that's it right there, huh?
01:33:58.000 Wow.
01:33:59.000 Scrapple.
01:34:00.000 So you cut it like a loaf, like a meatloaf.
01:34:03.000 Yep, and then you fry it.
01:34:04.000 Oh, wow.
01:34:05.000 So you farm it?
01:34:06.000 It's not horrible.
01:34:07.000 Do you boil it?
01:34:08.000 How do you get it to that state?
01:34:09.000 Oh, it's all liquid.
01:34:10.000 Oh, Jesus.
01:34:10.000 Look at this.
01:34:10.000 I don't look good.
01:34:12.000 It's all liquid.
01:34:14.000 It's basically like Scrapple is the scraps from slaughtering a pig.
01:34:18.000 So is it almost like a gelatin thing, like a head cheese type of a scenario?
01:34:22.000 It is, but I would say head cheese is probably a more wholesome product.
01:34:27.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
01:34:30.000 Well, head cheese is very strange.
01:34:32.000 I didn't know what head cheese was.
01:34:34.000 Fromage du tête.
01:34:35.000 Yeah, until probably like five years ago.
01:34:37.000 And I remember watching a video of someone making head cheese.
01:34:41.000 I like head cheese.
01:34:42.000 I've never had it.
01:34:44.000 Okay, so here's the thing.
01:34:45.000 All it is is...
01:34:47.000 Well, there's a German way that is really dig on the gelatin. 0.86
01:34:50.000 And I'm not super heavy on the gelatin.
01:34:53.000 And that gelatin comes from the collagen that breaks down in the tissues?
01:34:57.000 So, take a pig's head. 1.00
01:34:59.000 Okay.
01:35:00.000 And typically, you will either have the ears thrown in there or you'll have an extra foot thrown in there for some more collagen.
01:35:08.000 You boil it slowly with a lot of spices and herbs until it practically falls apart.
01:35:16.000 Then you fish everything out.
01:35:17.000 And then the iron rule of head cheese making is, if it looks like meat, keep it fairly big.
01:35:24.000 If you have no idea what it is, chop it very small.
01:35:30.000 And then you pack it into a loaf pan or a sausage casing, and then you boil down the cooking liquid by half, and then that really concentrates the gelatin.
01:35:40.000 And then you pour that hot broth over the mixture that you packed into the loaf pan or the sausage casing or whatever, and then you put it in the refrigerator and it sets.
01:35:51.000 And you eat it cold.
01:36:09.000 And it's actually very, very good.
01:36:12.000 And it needs pickles and or mustard.
01:36:15.000 Pickles and or?
01:36:16.000 Yeah.
01:36:16.000 There's head cheese.
01:36:17.000 See, it looks good.
01:36:19.000 That looks better than Scrapple.
01:36:20.000 Oh, yeah.
01:36:21.000 It's much better than Scrapple.
01:36:22.000 But it's a weird distinction. 1.00
01:36:23.000 I mean, I guess it's because it's not dicks and assholes. 1.00
01:36:26.000 Right. 1.00
01:36:27.000 More uteruses, please. 1.00
01:36:30.000 I mean, I've always been fascinated by chartreutery, just the idea that people figured out a long time ago how to dry things and preserve things.
01:36:38.000 That's it?
01:36:39.000 Head cheese right there?
01:36:39.000 That's how I make it.
01:36:40.000 That's called patta testa.
01:36:41.000 That's an Italian style.
01:36:42.000 Okay, and then you slice it very thin?
01:36:44.000 See that arc thing in the bottom left-hand corner?
01:36:47.000 That's a little bitty slice of pig ear. 1.00
01:36:49.000 Oh, wow.
01:36:50.000 Really?
01:36:51.000 Mm-hmm.
01:36:51.000 And that's edible?
01:36:53.000 You can chew that down?
01:36:54.000 Yeah.
01:36:54.000 Well, it's been boiled for hours and hours.
01:36:56.000 It just becomes super tender?
01:36:57.000 Yeah.
01:36:57.000 Because I think of them as things I feed my dogs.
01:36:59.000 I buy those at the pet store.
01:37:00.000 If they're not boiled, yeah.
01:37:01.000 Yeah.
01:37:02.000 Pigs are a weird one, man.
01:37:04.000 That's such a weird thing, because you find out how smart they are, and commercial pig farming becomes very disturbing when you find out how- That's another reason why I got into hunting.
01:37:13.000 I have not bought meat or fish for the house since 2004. That's awesome.
01:37:18.000 With maybe a handful of exceptions.
01:37:19.000 I bought a chicken a couple of times.
01:37:20.000 But part of that is I would prefer to opt out of that system because you're exactly right.
01:37:26.000 Yeah.
01:37:26.000 I just did a podcast really recently with my friend Ari.
01:37:30.000 Ari Shafir, who's a stand-up comedian, and it was his podcast.
01:37:32.000 It's called The Skeptic Tank, and we went into that because he's never hunted, and he asked me about it.
01:37:38.000 And that is what I gave him.
01:37:39.000 It was pretty much my reason for doing it in the first place.
01:37:42.000 I felt like I didn't want to be a part of that system anymore, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a vegetarian.
01:37:47.000 I was like, it's going to be one of these things, either a vegetarian or a hunter, so let me try this hunting thing.
01:37:51.000 And then I got into it, but...
01:37:53.000 It's the connection with the food, it becomes a completely different experience.
01:37:59.000 And it's so hard to explain that without sounding pretentious or without just repeating myself over and over again, which I've done many, many, many times on this podcast.
01:38:08.000 But when you, if I'll pull like an elk backstrap out of the freezer tonight and I'll thaw it out.
01:38:15.000 And I'll, you know, marinate that, put some kosher salt on it, some pepper, and grill it.
01:38:19.000 And it's a wonderful experience.
01:38:22.000 Like, while I'm cooking this thing, I'm all excited.
01:38:24.000 I remember the hunt.
01:38:25.000 I remember, you know, seeing the elk.
01:38:27.000 The whole thing.
01:38:28.000 I mean, it's just...
01:38:29.000 It's a totally...
01:38:30.000 And when you're eating it, it's just rich with vitamins and flavor, and it's alive.
01:38:34.000 I mean, it's just...
01:38:35.000 It's definitely not alive.
01:38:36.000 But, I mean, it has this taste to it that's just so different than anything you're going to buy in a store.
01:38:41.000 Well, for me, as a cook...
01:38:44.000 Having entered this whole game as a cook or, you know, this pursuit of hunting, it really challenges me to make great food out of every bit because, you know, you broke it, you bought it.
01:38:55.000 And tacos de lengua made from elk tongue, phenomenal.
01:39:00.000 Head cheese made from a doe's head, braised shanks. 0.97
01:39:05.000 Hell, I even made venison tripe.
01:39:08.000 Wow.
01:39:08.000 One of the most delicious meals that I ever cooked with Wild Game was on our first hunt.
01:39:12.000 Ranella cooked a deer head in the ground like the Big Sky.
01:39:18.000 He read about it in that book Big Sky, the Guthrie book, and he decided that he wanted to try it that way.
01:39:25.000 So this is like the first time he ever tried it, and we buried this thing.
01:39:28.000 We put hot coals, wrapped it up in cloth and wet cloth, put it underground, poured hot coals all over it and buried it.
01:39:37.000 I hope he salted it first.
01:39:38.000 I do not remember, but it was amazing.
01:39:40.000 Whatever he did, he did it right.
01:39:42.000 Maybe he did insult it.
01:39:43.000 I don't remember.
01:39:43.000 I love how Steve will always take the hard way out.
01:39:46.000 Oh, he's the hardest motherfucker on the earth. 1.00
01:39:48.000 Every time I hunt with him, I feel like a pussy. 1.00
01:39:50.000 He's just always wanting to do everything hard. 1.00
01:39:53.000 If he doesn't get miserable...
01:39:54.000 I watched a show once where he saw this giant bull elk on the first day of his hunt within the first couple hours, and he didn't shoot it because he didn't want to be done hunting.
01:40:04.000 That's why you go fishing afterwards. 1.00
01:40:06.000 You're out of your fucking mind, man. 1.00
01:40:08.000 Elk's dead. 1.00
01:40:08.000 Time to go fishing. 1.00
01:40:09.000 He explained it to me afterwards where it made more sense, and it was because he had just come from Kentucky, where he had did another show, and he had shot an elk in Kentucky, like, literally the week before.
01:40:20.000 Yeah.
01:40:20.000 So he felt bad about shooting one right away.
01:40:23.000 I'm like, it's not like you're going to let it go to waste.
01:40:25.000 Right.
01:40:25.000 And he's like, well, we have to make a show, and I can't just shoot it on the first day.
01:40:28.000 I'm like, shoot it on the first day and then pretend you're looking for an elk for three fucking days afterwards. 0.99
01:40:32.000 Jesus Christ. 0.99
01:40:33.000 Now you know about editing?
01:40:35.000 His ethics are so strong, and his...
01:40:41.000 The inability to be disingenuous is so powerful that he won't do that.
01:40:47.000 Well, the hunt I did with him was like, yeah, I'm older than he is.
01:40:50.000 I'm like, I'd like to climb to the top of this mountain and look for things and then sit here for until I find something and then walk to that thing and shoot it.
01:40:56.000 He's like, let's climb all over these mountains.
01:40:58.000 Like, woo! 0.93
01:40:59.000 And I'm like, ah, dude, I'm just going to sit here.
01:41:01.000 Like, this is where we saw deer.
01:41:02.000 I'm going to go, no.
01:41:03.000 As it turned out, He was right.
01:41:05.000 Oh, he's always right.
01:41:06.000 He knows what he's doing.
01:41:07.000 I went on a mule deer hunt with him recently, and I was like, let's go after them now.
01:41:10.000 He's like, no, no, no.
01:41:11.000 Just sit and wait.
01:41:12.000 You don't want to blow them out.
01:41:13.000 I'm like, you sure?
01:41:15.000 Just go.
01:41:15.000 Let's go.
01:41:16.000 He's like, you can go if you want.
01:41:17.000 I'm like, okay.
01:41:18.000 I go down the hill.
01:41:19.000 They're gone.
01:41:20.000 If I could take off.
01:41:21.000 He's like, we'll go after them tomorrow.
01:41:22.000 I'm like, tomorrow?
01:41:24.000 But it's like one of those things where your friend could read the land.
01:41:28.000 You have to listen.
01:41:29.000 When you...
01:41:31.000 Have someone that has this deep experience in something that's very odd information, like where the quail will be.
01:41:38.000 How do you know?
01:41:39.000 Dude, I've been doing this.
01:41:41.000 I have that with ducks.
01:41:42.000 I can do that with ducks and geese.
01:41:43.000 Is that your favorite bird?
01:41:45.000 Do you have a favorite bird to cook?
01:41:48.000 Maybe grouse.
01:41:49.000 Grouse.
01:41:49.000 Maybe grouse.
01:41:50.000 Never had it.
01:41:50.000 What's it like?
01:41:52.000 Imagine...
01:41:53.000 It's what a chicken dreams about being when it grows up and goes wild.
01:41:56.000 Mmm.
01:41:57.000 It's a wild chicken.
01:41:58.000 Just a little tiny wild chicken.
01:42:00.000 They're not that tiny.
01:42:01.000 No?
01:42:02.000 What's a fat grouse?
01:42:03.000 I shot a big blue grouse in Utah that plucked, gutted, and it looked just like a chicken you buy in the store.
01:42:12.000 It was two pounds.
01:42:13.000 Oh, that's pretty heavy.
01:42:15.000 That's about as big as they get.
01:42:17.000 That's a pretty big animal.
01:42:21.000 No kidding.
01:42:22.000 And sage grouse are even bigger.
01:42:24.000 Really?
01:42:25.000 Mm-hmm.
01:42:25.000 What's like the biggest world record grouse?
01:42:27.000 Like a five pound grouse?
01:42:28.000 It'd be a caper kale in Sweden.
01:42:31.000 I think they're like 15 pounds or so. 1.00
01:42:33.000 Oh, it's a fucking turkey. 0.99
01:42:34.000 Pretty much. 1.00
01:42:34.000 But they don't have turkeys there. 1.00
01:42:36.000 Wow.
01:42:37.000 So, I mean, I guess the biggest gallinaceous bird would be the turkey.
01:42:40.000 I was interested in what the difference between wild turkey and regular turkey is.
01:42:46.000 It's surprisingly not as big as you might think.
01:42:49.000 Yeah.
01:42:49.000 The breast was almost identical.
01:42:51.000 Except it's very narrow.
01:42:53.000 Yeah.
01:42:53.000 But the wings, or rather the drumsticks, did have a different flavor to them.
01:42:57.000 Yeah.
01:42:58.000 It was more distinct.
01:43:01.000 And they work for a living.
01:43:02.000 Yes, they're out there hustling. 0.99
01:43:04.000 Which is the same you could say about pigs.
01:43:06.000 Like the darkness of the meat of wild pig is so preferable to domestic pigs.
01:43:12.000 I love shooting wild hogs.
01:43:14.000 Well, you have to, first of all.
01:43:17.000 I know.
01:43:17.000 That's one of the animals that really...
01:43:20.000 When you talk to people that are anti-hunting and they just want to let nature run its course, there's some animals where you literally can't do that.
01:43:28.000 Pigs are one of them, especially invasive pigs.
01:43:31.000 I have hunted pigs in California for years and years and years.
01:43:34.000 I've heard all these stories about Texas.
01:43:36.000 A few years ago, I finally went down to southeast Texas to do hunting and cooking schools.
01:43:42.000 The guy I was working with is in Bay City.
01:43:46.000 We're down there and...
01:43:49.000 He's like, okay, first thing you have to understand is that these are a problem.
01:43:53.000 Like, what were you talking about?
01:43:54.000 So we went out and there are these herds of pigs and like 90 pigs in a shot.
01:43:59.000 They'll walk into a field and do $100,000 of damage in one night.
01:44:03.000 And it's astonishing.
01:44:04.000 This is all year round.
01:44:06.000 And I had no idea.
01:44:08.000 Like, because, you know, if you've hunted pigs in California, it's a hunt.
01:44:12.000 If you go to Texas, it's like, how many can you kill?
01:44:17.000 And you still won't make a dent on the population.
01:44:20.000 There's a story that I've told before, but I'll tell it again just for the sake of this conversation.
01:44:23.000 There's a new highway they opened up in Texas.
01:44:25.000 And the first night they opened up the road, 40 car accidents with pigs.
01:44:29.000 Wow.
01:44:30.000 Wow.
01:44:32.000 Just overrun. 0.99
01:44:33.000 They were just overrun with pigs. 0.96
01:44:35.000 Wow.
01:44:36.000 Yeah, car accidents and wild game and population control is one of the most surprising statistics when you tell people 2 million car accidents with deer every year, or 1.5 million, at least, in the United States with deer.
01:44:51.000 And they go, what?
01:44:52.000 People who don't know go, what?
01:44:54.000 They go, 1.5 million car accidents with deer a year.
01:44:58.000 Just the United States.
01:45:01.000 Yeah.
01:45:02.000 And they're delicious.
01:45:03.000 Yeah.
01:45:03.000 Years ago, I was working at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, and I did a data analysis, one of the first ones that was ever done on deer vehicle collisions.
01:45:12.000 And apparently, if you're in Anoka County, north of the Twin Cities, on November 8th at dusk, watch your ass. 0.98
01:45:18.000 That's the one day? 0.99
01:45:20.000 There's this huge cluster right there.
01:45:23.000 Well, then November 8th's the rut.
01:45:25.000 Yeah, November's the rut.
01:45:26.000 That's when they just get completely bonkers.
01:45:28.000 They go running into traffic and...
01:45:29.000 Well, you've been to a singles bar at closing time.
01:45:31.000 Yes.
01:45:32.000 Well, I've also been to Iowa in the rut.
01:45:33.000 I was just there a few weeks ago.
01:45:35.000 You got an Iowa tag?
01:45:37.000 Yes.
01:45:37.000 Wow.
01:45:37.000 I got a governor's tag from my...
01:45:39.000 A buddy of mine owns some property out there and knows people.
01:45:42.000 You're lucky.
01:45:43.000 Yes.
01:45:43.000 Very lucky.
01:45:44.000 Yeah.
01:45:45.000 You can get one there.
01:45:46.000 It takes a couple years.
01:45:47.000 You put in points.
01:45:48.000 You can get one every five years.
01:45:49.000 But Iowa's amazing.
01:45:52.000 The whitetail population is so strong. 0.96
01:45:54.000 And one of the reasons is they don't have a rifle season.
01:45:57.000 Right, it's shotgun only.
01:45:58.000 Shotgun and archery.
01:45:59.000 So you've got to work for it. 0.96
01:46:01.000 Because if you're going to shoot something with a shotgun, you've got to be pretty fucking close. 0.97
01:46:04.000 I'd rather use a bow. 0.99
01:46:05.000 Even with a Sabit rifle barrel slug, you're still talking 100 yards. 0.94
01:46:11.000 Is that the most you could shoot one at?
01:46:12.000 I've heard guys shoot farther, but week in and week out, 100 yards with those rifled Sabat slugs. 1.00
01:46:18.000 And I would imagine there's a giant drop to how far it falls in 100 yards.
01:46:23.000 Yeah, you've got to be aware of it.
01:46:24.000 It's like shooting at the top of the back at 100 yards.
01:46:26.000 Whereas, you know, I shoot a.270 and I lose like two inches at.300.
01:46:30.000 And I've heard that with some places, some states, they allow you to use shotguns, but you can't use a scope.
01:46:37.000 Oh, that's interesting.
01:46:38.000 Yeah, you can't use a scope on the shotgun.
01:46:39.000 You have to use the old-timey...
01:46:41.000 Iron sights.
01:46:42.000 Yeah.
01:46:42.000 Or you could probably use a peep sight.
01:46:44.000 Do you have a favorite game that you enjoy cooking?
01:46:47.000 Is there anything that you like, this is my favorite game to cook in a variety of different ways, or do you just like all of them?
01:46:54.000 Well, I think if you're talking about a variety of different ways, ducks and venison, but if you're talking about...
01:47:01.000 Favorite thing to cook in general.
01:47:03.000 Go back to grouse.
01:47:05.000 Grouse are not as versatile, but I love the flavor of grouse.
01:47:09.000 But it's a whole bird that you're cooking.
01:47:11.000 And is it because of its wild diet?
01:47:14.000 It just has a more complex flavor to it?
01:47:16.000 Very much so.
01:47:17.000 There's nothing that tastes like a grouse.
01:47:19.000 It's sort of like a chicken, but you'll know you're eating grouse.
01:47:23.000 Now, well, I didn't know this either until fairly recently, as you were explaining before, that there's different kinds of ducks, and the ducks that eat seeds are preferable, but diver ducks you can eat.
01:47:34.000 Oh yeah, all the time.
01:47:34.000 But they have like, do you enjoy them?
01:47:36.000 Oh yeah.
01:47:37.000 But they have like a fishy taste to it because they eat primarily seafood.
01:47:40.000 Some do.
01:47:40.000 So, this is a great example of diet.
01:47:44.000 So, Brant, which is like a sea goose, there's East Coast Brant and West Coast Brant.
01:47:49.000 And the season just ended yesterday, I think, on Brant.
01:47:54.000 And so on the West Coast, they are the best eating waterfowl there is, period, bar none.
01:48:01.000 Because they eat eelgrass, and they have a very clean, almost saline flavor.
01:48:06.000 It's not fishy.
01:48:07.000 It's not pondy.
01:48:09.000 They're fantastic birds.
01:48:11.000 You shoot it at Brant and the East Coast, and they eat sea lettuce, a seaweed.
01:48:17.000 Revolting.
01:48:18.000 Like, barely edible.
01:48:19.000 Really?
01:48:20.000 Like, barely edible.
01:48:21.000 You just gotta chew through it.
01:48:22.000 Yeah.
01:48:23.000 But, you know, so canvasbacks, they're a diver. 1.00
01:48:25.000 Redheads, they're a diver. 1.00
01:48:26.000 For the most part, I'll always pluck them, because they have a different diet.
01:48:30.000 But on the other hand, goldeneyes, buffleheads, most bluebills but not all, ringnecks, a lot of those birds, you know, they still taste good, but I'll tend to skin them.
01:48:42.000 It is really fascinating to me that the taste of when you eat an animal depends so much on what the animal's diet is, and then it makes me think about my own diet.
01:48:52.000 And like, what is going on with the cells of my own body?
01:48:55.000 And you think about people that are on poor diets that have terrible food that they consume and they choose to drink soda all the time.
01:49:01.000 And their tissue itself is affected so drastically. 0.97
01:49:05.000 Oh, long pig. 0.80
01:49:06.000 This one's sweet. 0.99
01:49:07.000 Oh, long pig. 0.99
01:49:08.000 Cannibal's called human. 0.97
01:49:09.000 I don't know what that accent was, but I don't like it. 1.00
01:49:13.000 Have you ever had blueberry bear?
01:49:16.000 I've had manzanita bear.
01:49:18.000 What's that?
01:49:19.000 Manzanita is just a different berry that bears love to eat in Northern California.
01:49:24.000 Oh, okay.
01:49:24.000 And was it similar, like the blueberry bear concept?
01:49:28.000 Well, it didn't turn anything blue, but it was amazing.
01:49:32.000 I mean, it was super sweet, super fatty, just very mild.
01:49:35.000 Yeah, that's what I hear, that blueberry bear is like the ultimate game.
01:49:40.000 I think you get a bear in the fall that's been eating blueberries, and like Rinella did a whole episode about it on his show where he cut one open and it had purple fat.
01:49:50.000 Yeah, isn't that crazy?
01:49:50.000 Amazing.
01:49:51.000 There's actually a better one, and it lives right near you.
01:49:54.000 So legend has it, so I believe the state record black bear in California is a 700 pounder from the San Gabriel Mountains in Ventura.
01:50:02.000 Or it's from Ventura County.
01:50:04.000 From Ventura?
01:50:05.000 Yes.
01:50:05.000 700 pounds?
01:50:06.000 That's not far.
01:50:07.000 So apparently these bears live in the mountains and they come down to the avocado groves and gorge themselves on avocados.
01:50:14.000 And it's one of my bucket list goals is to get what they call a guacamole bear.
01:50:21.000 A guacamole bear is supposed to be really good?
01:50:23.000 Because I can only imagine how delicious an avocado-eating bear would taste.
01:50:27.000 I wonder if it would affect it that much, because avocados are a fairly mild fruit.
01:50:32.000 It is a fruit, right?
01:50:33.000 Wouldn't you consider it an avocado fruit?
01:50:34.000 But the fat quality would be amazing.
01:50:36.000 Yeah, it's very rich in fat, right?
01:50:39.000 I eat a lot of avocados.
01:50:42.000 I wonder if I would, hmm.
01:50:43.000 See, the thing about the blueberry bear, though, is that it's got that engaging sort of sweetness to it that I think would be really interesting.
01:50:51.000 I don't think you'd get that from the avocado.
01:50:52.000 No.
01:50:53.000 No, you'd have an urge to eat Mexican food, I think.
01:50:55.000 What is this, the Rinella one?
01:50:57.000 Yeah, it's just showing how when he cuts into it, this fat has this insane sort of bluish hint to it.
01:51:06.000 Huh.
01:51:07.000 Yeah, you see how that...
01:51:09.000 Is this when he gets himself trichinosis?
01:51:10.000 No, that was later.
01:51:13.000 Poor Steve.
01:51:14.000 Yeah. 0.97
01:51:15.000 Well, he's just crazy. 1.00
01:51:17.000 He's too crazy. 1.00
01:51:18.000 He's had everything, this fucking guy. 1.00
01:51:19.000 He's had trichinosis. 1.00
01:51:20.000 He's had...
01:51:21.000 Lyme disease.
01:51:21.000 He's got chardin.
01:51:22.000 Yeah.
01:51:23.000 Oh, he got giardia?
01:51:24.000 He got giardia, yeah.
01:51:27.000 The other cool thing is that if you were to get one of these guacamole bears, you can freeze it and be free of trichinopsis.
01:51:33.000 Because south of about Oregon, draw a line all the way across the country, the bears there, if they have it, will tend to have a variety called Trichinella spiralis, which you can kill by freezing.
01:51:48.000 Interesting.
01:51:49.000 But north of there, from the northern tier of this country and all in Canada and Alaska, it's called Trichinia nativa.
01:51:55.000 And that one is resistant to freezing.
01:51:57.000 So it stays alive even if you have it in the freezer for months.
01:52:00.000 Right.
01:52:01.000 That's sick. 0.55
01:52:02.000 What a creepy animal.
01:52:03.000 I know.
01:52:04.000 Well, I mean, it's from up there, so it must be, you know, frost resistant.
01:52:07.000 I was surprised how good bear it tastes.
01:52:10.000 I was too.
01:52:10.000 Yeah, that's one of those ones where you go, I don't know if I want to eat this.
01:52:13.000 This is just a teddy bear.
01:52:15.000 Same here.
01:52:15.000 This is Yogi.
01:52:16.000 This is all the anthropomorphizations.
01:52:20.000 Charismatic megafauna.
01:52:21.000 That's the weird...
01:52:22.000 I've never had people more mad at me for anything I've ever shot than bear.
01:52:27.000 People don't seem to be that mad about a deer.
01:52:30.000 Some people are, but most people understand it.
01:52:32.000 Like, you ate that.
01:52:32.000 You're going to eat it.
01:52:33.000 That's the way you shot it.
01:52:34.000 We are who we are because we hunt deer.
01:52:36.000 Yeah.
01:52:37.000 Anthropologically speaking.
01:52:38.000 I mean, there's all kinds of evidence to show that...
01:52:41.000 The reason why we can run.
01:52:43.000 We were the only primate with an arch.
01:52:45.000 The reason that we can actually throw properly.
01:52:47.000 The reason why that we can communicate so complicated in so many complicated ways.
01:52:52.000 There's all kinds of reasons of, you know, the structure of our shoulders, the structure of our hips.
01:52:57.000 A great amount of the way we're built and the way we think and the way we act has to do with us teaming up to hunt large deer-like things.
01:53:07.000 Really?
01:53:08.000 Where'd you get this?
01:53:37.000 You know, that's why.
01:53:39.000 I mean, we're hardwired to hunt deer.
01:53:41.000 Well, one of the things that I said that I was describing to my friend Ari about it is there's this strange familiarity.
01:53:47.000 Yep.
01:53:48.000 And almost like this deep reward system that gets plugged into that you weren't even aware that you had when the deer's down.
01:53:56.000 And, you know, when you're quartering it and cutting it up, it's like, oh, I kind of know how to do this.
01:54:01.000 Or at least I don't know how to do this, but this seems normal to me.
01:54:04.000 It seems familiar.
01:54:05.000 Right.
01:54:05.000 I mean, we've been...
01:54:06.000 This is the other thing about some of the research I've been doing lately is that everybody hunts deer or something like a deer.
01:54:13.000 So all over the world.
01:54:15.000 So my banker, a guy named Omar, I was doing some banking stuff and I was talking to him about this book I just wrote.
01:54:22.000 And he said...
01:54:24.000 Oh, yeah, you know, I really miss hunting gazelles in the eastern deserts of Lebanon.
01:54:30.000 Oh.
01:54:31.000 Right?
01:54:31.000 I had the same reaction.
01:54:33.000 You know, I have a friend from the Yucatan who hunts deer in the Yucatan.
01:54:37.000 And, you know, I have another friend from Hokkaido in the northern island of Japan who hunts the same sick of black-tailed In Alaska now, they used to hunt in Hokkaido as a kid.
01:54:47.000 And, you know, South Africans and New Zealanders, and I mean, even if you can, you know, if you're smart and thinking out there, you're going to say, well, what about Australia?
01:54:55.000 In Australia, I mean, I don't know if you've ever eaten kangaroo, but kangaroo looks exactly like venison.
01:54:59.000 It pretty much tastes like venison.
01:55:00.000 Yeah, it's a crazy deer, right?
01:55:02.000 It kind of is.
01:55:03.000 A strange sort of a weird hopping deer with a tail.
01:55:06.000 Ish, yeah.
01:55:06.000 Yeah, ish.
01:55:07.000 So the human connection with hunting and eating something like a deer is worldwide and very, very deep.
01:55:17.000 Now, this new book that you have here, I've been reading it.
01:55:19.000 I was reading it today, actually.
01:55:21.000 Buck, Buck, Moose.
01:55:22.000 It's a lot of really interesting information about animals and about how to prepare them.
01:55:29.000 One of the things that I thought was really funny is the whole point about testosterone.
01:55:34.000 Testosterone stinks.
01:55:36.000 The animals that everybody wants, like the big bucks with the big racks, they're going to be smelly animals.
01:55:41.000 They're going to be tougher.
01:55:43.000 If you get them before the rut, which is not easy, but if you get them before the rut, they're perfectly fine.
01:55:48.000 But that's the rub.
01:55:49.000 That's when they're easiest to get, when they're all horny and confused. 0.74
01:55:52.000 Yep. 0.99
01:55:54.000 But you've got some great fucking recipes and ideas in here, man. 0.99
01:55:58.000 How long did it take you to put this together? 0.99
01:56:01.000 I've started, I don't know, maybe some of it 10 years, but actually sitting there writing it, two years.
01:56:09.000 You know, because all the recipes I had to test and I had to send the recipes out to, you know, lots of readers because one of the things that is important for me is that my recipes are as watertight as possible.
01:56:21.000 So I send them out to civilians. 0.99
01:56:22.000 I don't let other chefs test my recipes because, first of all, they're not going to follow the recipe.
01:56:28.000 Second of all, I want...
01:56:29.000 Really?
01:56:29.000 They wouldn't?
01:56:30.000 They would add their own bullshit to it? 1.00
01:56:31.000 Oh, yeah. 1.00
01:56:31.000 I mean, because they can't help themselves. 1.00
01:56:33.000 Wow.
01:56:33.000 No kidding.
01:56:34.000 It just is.
01:56:36.000 I'm at peace with it.
01:56:37.000 But what I want is for somebody who reads what I write to be able to make what I made.
01:56:44.000 So anybody who's ever sent a text message knows that...
01:56:48.000 If you've ever sent a text message, what you write is not necessarily what the person hears in their head.
01:56:53.000 Right.
01:56:53.000 So that can't go if I'm writing a recipe, because especially...
01:56:58.000 Because think about it, right?
01:56:59.000 If I'm going to tell you to do X, Y, or Z with a tenderloin, There's only one, you only get one shot at it.
01:57:06.000 There's only one set of tenderloins on any animal. 0.95
01:57:08.000 And if I'm going to tell you to do something with it that's beyond whatever it is that you normally do, it better damn work. 0.87
01:57:13.000 Because you can't just go to the store and get another tenderloin. 0.90
01:57:16.000 Right.
01:57:16.000 Like, you can get another chicken.
01:57:17.000 You can't get another tenderloin.
01:57:19.000 You mean tenderloin from a moose or from a deer.
01:57:23.000 Right.
01:57:24.000 And so everything has to be airtight and tested.
01:57:27.000 Will any of these recipes work with domestic animals?
01:57:31.000 Sure.
01:57:31.000 Like, if somebody's really curious about it, how would you know how to substitute them?
01:57:35.000 I would say bison or grass-fed beef will get you pretty close in flavor, and lamb or goat will get you pretty close in size.
01:57:43.000 Lamb doesn't taste like medicine, but in terms of size, like a shank recipe, for example, or a shoulder recipe, or a neck recipe, lamb would be a perfect substitute.
01:57:52.000 But if you want to get close to what a good deer or an elk tastes like, grass-fed beef or bison.
01:57:58.000 And when people do buy commercially available venison and elk, doesn't it all come from other countries?
01:58:04.000 Does it come from New Zealand, most of it at least?
01:58:06.000 Most of whatever it is that you will see called venison will be red stag from New Zealand.
01:58:11.000 But there are elk farms in the United States that have seen elk commercially for sale.
01:58:16.000 Really?
01:58:16.000 Commercial elk grown in the United States?
01:58:18.000 That seems wrong.
01:58:20.000 You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment.
01:58:25.000 Doesn't it seem a little...
01:58:26.000 But that's one of the weird things about Wild Game is that you can't sell it.
01:58:29.000 Right.
01:58:30.000 And that's one of the really appealing things about...
01:58:32.000 Because they belong to all of us.
01:58:33.000 Yeah.
01:58:34.000 Yeah.
01:58:34.000 Well, it's also the market hunting is what wiped them out at the turn of the century.
01:58:41.000 Even as late as the 1950s, it was a news item for somebody to get an A-point.
01:58:48.000 Wow.
01:58:49.000 I know guys who...
01:58:50.000 An eight-point buck, what he's talking about, the antlers, because they were almost wiped out.
01:58:53.000 Yeah.
01:58:54.000 I mean, it was a news event, even in the 60s in some places.
01:58:57.000 So it's like, these are the good old days of deer hunting.
01:58:59.000 Yeah.
01:59:00.000 Yeah.
01:59:01.000 Well, when I was in Iowa, we saw a lot of...
01:59:02.000 We didn't see any big deer that got close, but we saw like, wow, this is crazy.
01:59:06.000 They're here.
01:59:07.000 Yeah.
01:59:07.000 The biggest whitetail I ever saw was this giant in western Kansas when I was quail hunting.
01:59:12.000 Kansas is supposed to be Mecca, right? 0.95
01:59:14.000 It's a Mecca.
01:59:15.000 I mean, Kansas, Iowa, you know?
01:59:17.000 Iowa and Kansas for big giant whitetails.
01:59:19.000 Yeah, I know people that move there.
01:59:21.000 My friend John Dudley moved there just because of the deer hunting.
01:59:25.000 He's an archer.
01:59:26.000 He's a bow hunter.
01:59:26.000 He's a little obsessive.
01:59:27.000 He's a little crazy. 0.99
01:59:28.000 He's a little crazy. 0.96
01:59:30.000 Do you have a favorite mammal that you like to cook?
01:59:36.000 You know...
01:59:36.000 Okay, but the first thing that came out of my head was javelina.
01:59:41.000 Javelina?
01:59:41.000 And I think it's because I'm a fan of the underdog.
01:59:45.000 Oh! 0.99
01:59:46.000 So, I shot a couple of skunk pigs. 0.98
01:59:49.000 So, javelina... 0.99
01:59:50.000 They call them skunk pigs. 0.92
01:59:51.000 Yeah, they do. 0.90
01:59:51.000 Yeah, it's not really a pig, right? 0.90
01:59:53.000 Well, it is, but it isn't. 0.88
01:59:54.000 It's a peccary.
01:59:55.000 Right.
02:00:14.000 And you go only to South Texas.
02:00:16.000 There you go. 1.00
02:00:16.000 Creepy fucker. 1.00
02:00:17.000 If you go to South Texas, they're like, ah, they're disgusting. 1.00
02:00:20.000 Or they're rats or whatever. 0.98
02:00:22.000 And so I was in South Texas and I said to the landowner I was with, let me shoot a couple of javelinas. 0.92
02:00:27.000 He's like, all right.
02:00:28.000 And I cleaned them because I was wondering about this mysterious scent gland that you're not supposed to break up, which is on the smaller back.
02:00:34.000 It's kind of like a javelina tramp stamp.
02:00:37.000 And so if you skin the animal like you would skin a pig, you never see it.
02:00:44.000 It's in the skin.
02:00:45.000 So if you come underneath the skin, you'll never nick it.
02:00:47.000 You'll have no problem.
02:00:48.000 Oh. 0.99
02:00:49.000 And it's just like a little teeny pig.
02:00:50.000 And they taste fantastic.
02:00:52.000 Really?
02:00:53.000 There's no off-taste to them at all.
02:00:55.000 Describe it.
02:00:56.000 Is it neat?
02:00:56.000 Pork.
02:00:57.000 I like pig. 0.59
02:00:59.000 More like pork.
02:01:00.000 Domestic. 0.83
02:01:00.000 Like domestic pork than wild boar is. 0.83
02:01:02.000 Really?
02:01:03.000 Yeah.
02:01:03.000 Because they're almost...
02:01:05.000 I don't know if they're obligate vegetarians, but they're primarily vegetarians.
02:01:10.000 I know.
02:01:10.000 My friend Doug Stanhope told me that one killed his neighbor's dog.
02:01:14.000 They surrounded the dog and mauled it.
02:01:16.000 Well, that's good.
02:01:17.000 Have you ever seen javelina teeth? 0.98
02:01:19.000 Yeah, they got big ass crazy teeth. 1.00
02:01:20.000 They're spikes. 0.98
02:01:21.000 They're actually like spikes where wild boars have arcs, like cutters.
02:01:26.000 Yeah, well, they hunted this thing.
02:01:27.000 They killed it on purpose. 1.00
02:01:28.000 Look at that fucking creepy bastard. 1.00
02:01:30.000 Jesus Christ. 1.00
02:01:31.000 Roar.
02:01:32.000 Ferocious looking, weird hobbit animal. 0.79
02:01:35.000 Hobbit pig.
02:01:36.000 Yeah, it doesn't look like a real animal, right?
02:01:38.000 It looks like something from a movie, like Lord of the Rings movie.
02:01:40.000 But, you know, that said, I just...
02:01:43.000 I like it.
02:01:44.000 I love cooking them because they're fun and I like pork and...
02:01:47.000 And you prepare it the same way you would cook, like a pork loin or...
02:01:50.000 I tend to go a lot of Mexican, Central American recipes because that's where they live.
02:01:55.000 And, you know, desert, southwest kind of stuff.
02:01:57.000 But, you know, don't get me wrong.
02:01:58.000 I love antelope.
02:01:59.000 Probably pronghorn and antelope wouldn't be my second favorite.
02:02:01.000 I've heard this delicious.
02:02:03.000 See, you'll hear it's delicious and you'll hear it's disgusting.
02:02:05.000 And here's why.
02:02:06.000 Because pronghorns are...
02:02:09.000 They're super nervous animals.
02:02:10.000 They're like high-strung deer, basically, even though they're not deer.
02:02:14.000 Pseudocapra something or other.
02:02:16.000 That's their genus.
02:02:17.000 They're their own thing.
02:02:18.000 Weird side note.
02:02:20.000 They're so fast because they evolved to run away from the cheetah.
02:02:26.000 This will blow your mind.
02:02:27.000 So the cheetah in Africa was actually a cheetah in the American Great Plains before the Ice Age.
02:02:33.000 It migrated back over the land bridge.
02:02:36.000 It got itself into Asia and Africa.
02:02:38.000 So the cheetah that exists now is our cheetah, except our cheetah died out in the Ice Age, and the pronghorn antelope did not.
02:02:45.000 So the antelope is essentially waiting for the cheetah.
02:02:48.000 Nothing can catch it.
02:02:50.000 Yeah, they're so fast.
02:02:51.000 Nothing can catch it.
02:02:52.000 People call them speed goats.
02:02:53.000 Speed goats.
02:02:53.000 Yeah.
02:02:54.000 And so they're super nervous, and they die really easy.
02:02:56.000 Usually it's like, ow, I'm dead, and they fall over. 0.99
02:03:00.000 And so what you do is you go up, you take your little shot, yay, kill the leno. 0.93
02:03:06.000 And then got him right there, throw the wobbly bits in a bag and throw it in a cooler, and then get him out of the skin as fast as possible. 0.60
02:03:13.000 If you do those two things, it's some of the best venison you'll ever eat.
02:03:17.000 Why do you have to get it out of the skin as fast as possible? 0.85
02:03:18.000 Because they burn hot.
02:03:19.000 Their body temperature's hotter than a deer's, and their hide holds heat better than a deer.
02:03:24.000 So those two things, plus the fact that they're super nervous like this, they can go off in a hurry.
02:03:29.000 So what you see a lot of guys do is, like, let's say, you know, you and me and Steve, we're hunting antelope.
02:03:35.000 And, you know, I shot mine first thing in the morning, and you shot yours, you need an hour or two later.
02:03:41.000 But Steve can't buy a shot, which is probably not how it would work, but for the sake of the story.
02:03:46.000 So let's say Steve finally gets one at, like, 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
02:03:49.000 Yay! 0.99
02:03:50.000 Then we would start gutting him. 0.60
02:03:53.000 You see that happen a lot.
02:03:55.000 And our antelope will be ruined.
02:03:57.000 His will be fine.
02:03:58.000 Oh, I see.
02:03:59.000 So you just got to jump on it right away and get it to a cooler as quickly as possible.
02:04:03.000 Because you often hunt antelope in warm weather, too.
02:04:05.000 Very hot, right?
02:04:05.000 Like New Mexico in the summer, right?
02:04:08.000 Late August, September.
02:04:09.000 So it's like many things.
02:04:11.000 We were talking about gaminess.
02:04:12.000 It's just a preparation and an understanding of what you are required to do in order to make sure that this meat is edible.
02:04:18.000 Exactly.
02:04:19.000 And tastes good.
02:04:22.000 There's a bunch of animals that people...
02:04:25.000 You gotta get out of here soon?
02:04:26.000 Soon.
02:04:26.000 We'll wrap this up.
02:04:28.000 We can wrap this up.
02:04:28.000 Yeah.
02:04:29.000 There's a bunch of animals that I think have no equivalent in domestic food, right?
02:04:38.000 Like, what would you say...
02:04:40.000 If you were trying to coax someone into trying wild game or being interested in wild game, what do you think would be one that you would start them off with?
02:04:50.000 Something that's familiar.
02:04:51.000 So duck, venison backstrap, anything with wild boar.
02:04:57.000 Because it's basically pork.
02:04:58.000 If you had to pick a recipe out of this bad boy.
02:05:00.000 Oh, out of this one?
02:05:01.000 I would do just a simple seared backstrap with like a Cumberland sauce or Steak Diane.
02:05:08.000 Steak Diane?
02:05:09.000 What is that?
02:05:09.000 Steak Diane.
02:05:09.000 So Steak Diane is a 150-year-old recipe that's a classic for a reason.
02:05:18.000 Diane is for Diana, the goddess of the hunt.
02:05:20.000 So originally in France, it was a venison recipe and it became a beef recipe later.
02:05:25.000 And it is a recipe with cognac or brandy, a little bit of mustard, a little bit of cream, the drippings from the pan sauce.
02:05:33.000 Ooh, look at that.
02:05:33.000 Yep.
02:05:34.000 Good Lord, that looks good.
02:05:36.000 And that's actually my recipe.
02:05:39.000 Is it?
02:05:39.000 Yeah.
02:05:40.000 I did that on Simply Recipes.
02:05:41.000 Oh, nice.
02:05:42.000 And so it's a million years old, and it is amazing.
02:05:49.000 I don't think I've ever encountered anybody who has made my recipe for it who didn't like it. 0.97
02:05:54.000 God damn it, I want to cook that tonight. 0.97
02:05:56.000 It's easy, too. 0.99
02:05:57.000 That's the other thing.
02:05:57.000 It feels sort of chef-y and date night-y, but it's the 30-minute meal.
02:06:02.000 Wow, that's awesome.
02:06:03.000 Well, listen, man, your book's awesome.
02:06:06.000 I've enjoyed a lot of your videos.
02:06:07.000 I've enjoyed you on television before.
02:06:09.000 It's a pleasure to have you on and get to talk food and the origins and everything with you.
02:06:15.000 I like our nonlinear conversations.
02:06:17.000 It was great.
02:06:17.000 It was fun.
02:06:18.000 It's all mine go that way.
02:06:19.000 I urge people to go out.
02:06:21.000 If you're a hunter or if you're just a fan of delicious food, go out and check this out.
02:06:26.000 Buck Buck Moose by Hank Shaw.
02:06:28.000 You have other books available, right?
02:06:29.000 What are the other books?
02:06:30.000 My last one is Duck Duck Goose, which, as you might guess, is about waterfowl. 0.99
02:06:33.000 You silly goose. 0.96
02:06:35.000 And then my first one is called Hunt's Gather Cook. 0.99
02:06:37.000 Okay, and you are HuntGatherCook on Twitter and the same on Instagram.
02:06:42.000 Yep.
02:06:42.000 And do you have a Facebook as well?
02:06:43.000 I do.
02:06:44.000 And it's HunterAnglerGardnerCook.
02:06:46.000 Okay, thank you, brother.
02:06:47.000 This was really fun.
02:06:47.000 I really appreciate you coming on.
02:06:49.000 Absolutely.
02:06:50.000 Thanks, everybody.
02:06:50.000 We'll be back tomorrow with James Headfield from Metallica.
02:06:53.000 Ah!