Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 407: California's War on Woodsmen

Transcript

Ep. 407: California's War on Woodsmen · The MeatEater Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
0:13
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to hunt podcast,
0:18
Speaker 1: you can't predict anything presented by first, like creating proven
0:23
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear
0:27
Speaker 1: for every hunt. First like go farther, stay longer, Listen up.
0:36
Speaker 1: This is honest pitelist from meat Eater, and I need
0:39
Speaker 1: your help. I'm going to be at the National Wild
0:41
Speaker 1: Turkey Federation's Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee this year, and
0:46
Speaker 1: I'm looking for the best Turkey storytellers alive. Now. I
0:50
Speaker 1: know we all have a good turkey story to tell,
0:53
Speaker 1: but I want you to think about who you know
0:55
Speaker 1: that tells an absolutely riveting turkey tale a person and
1:00
Speaker 1: that draws everyone in the room to their story. Bring
1:03
Speaker 1: them to me. I'm going to be at Ryman's Studios
1:07
Speaker 1: in the same building as a convention, set up with
1:10
Speaker 1: recording equipment and fill. The engineer is going to be
1:13
Speaker 1: there to make sure it sounds great. I have a
1:16
Speaker 1: goal of creating a national archive of hunters stories, and
1:19
Speaker 1: my first stop is the Southeast because I know you
1:23
Speaker 1: all down there. It can spend a good story. This
1:26
Speaker 1: is our oral history. I believe there's immense historical value
1:29
Speaker 1: to these stories and they should be preserved for future generations.
1:33
Speaker 1: Don't let your grandpa's stories die with him. Bring him
1:36
Speaker 1: to the convention and have him spin a yarn for me.
1:40
Speaker 1: The stories can be funny, sad, educational, exciting, but most importantly,
1:45
Speaker 1: they have to be engaging. This is where the good
1:48
Speaker 1: storyteller part comes in. All storytellers will get twenty minutes
1:52
Speaker 1: to tell their story, and I will be on hand
1:54
Speaker 1: to ask questions to fill in the blanks. We'll be
1:57
Speaker 1: recording at Ryman's studio SEE from nine am to four
2:01
Speaker 1: pm Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the convention, which is
2:05
Speaker 1: February sevent and eighteen. There will be posters directing you
2:10
Speaker 1: to our location to sign up for a time slot.
2:13
Speaker 1: Ahead of time, go to the meat eater dot com
2:17
Speaker 1: and search Turkey Story sign Up. We will also have
2:20
Speaker 1: sign up available on location at the door of Ryman
2:23
Speaker 1: Studio See. Met Eater will use these stories in a
2:26
Speaker 1: forthcoming audio project, most likely in podcast format, so they
2:30
Speaker 1: will be available to everyone as long as the Internet
2:34
Speaker 1: is alive. So please come to Nashville for the National
2:37
Speaker 1: Wild Turkey Federation Convention and bring me the best turkey
2:41
Speaker 1: storyteller you know, are hunting legacy depends on it, all right, everybody.
2:53
Speaker 1: We're joined by a mercer, Lolling, who Karin described at
2:56
Speaker 1: Krin who's not here, described him as the last trapper
2:58
Speaker 1: in California. It maybe Bobcat expert, uh former not even
3:07
Speaker 1: former Bobcat like Bobcat for harvester turned uh continue to
3:13
Speaker 1: do that, but also uh got involved in the research
3:16
Speaker 1: world of applying his skills that being able to catch
3:20
Speaker 1: animals that no one else can catch. Yeah, for sure,
3:25
Speaker 1: it's uh been a fund several years. Have been doing
3:27
Speaker 1: it for three years on the project in Arizona now.
3:31
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, with the cage business, I end up,
3:35
Speaker 1: uh you know, I end up selling cage traps for
3:38
Speaker 1: research work for you know, all over the country really
3:41
Speaker 1: almost pretty much every state that's doing a population study
3:44
Speaker 1: or or anything. With the bobcats. They're not too many
3:47
Speaker 1: of them that doesn't end up using, you know, my equipment,
3:50
Speaker 1: and so I get feedback from them. And I've been
3:53
Speaker 1: on a few different studies and and I was just
3:56
Speaker 1: telling you this morning, I was telling links researcher that
3:59
Speaker 1: she's gonna need to can act with you. Yeah, that's great.
4:02
Speaker 1: They usually end up finding me. Um, the research community,
4:06
Speaker 1: you know, there a lot of them. You know, they're
4:08
Speaker 1: all pretty well connected, so a lot of them people
4:11
Speaker 1: end up usually finding me. Another thing we're gonna get
4:14
Speaker 1: into is the days in time you spent around California's
4:18
Speaker 1: Bobcat Band where you you uh told me some stories
4:23
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah. Boy, that's that's a few years of
4:26
Speaker 1: my life. I don't ever want to relive into that
4:29
Speaker 1: whole story. Um. Oh, you know the thing we got
4:32
Speaker 1: to talk about, Phil, What uh you toured a new
4:36
Speaker 1: one in that play? You tore that play a new one?
4:39
Speaker 1: Appreciate Did you guys go see Phil? I did? I
4:42
Speaker 1: did not? Sorry, Phil, I got a couple of feedback
4:46
Speaker 1: points for you. Oh let me hear it. Um, I
4:52
Speaker 1: thought you did a phenomenal job. Is this one of
4:54
Speaker 1: your famous compliment sandwiches? No, it's an insult sandwich. Great well,
4:59
Speaker 1: I got a question where I have two compliments, two
5:01
Speaker 1: compliments with insult in the middle. Before he gets into that,
5:05
Speaker 1: I got a question technical question. Are you guys amplified
5:10
Speaker 1: at all your voices or they're wearing. They're wearing Garth
5:14
Speaker 1: Brook's head pieces. You didn't notice, that's right. I was
5:16
Speaker 1: sitting in the cheap seats, Steve so No, I was
5:18
Speaker 1: too far away to see their uh little microphones. Yeah. Yeah,
5:21
Speaker 1: we've got a little bit of juice coming through the speakers.
5:25
Speaker 1: Had great seats. Middle Phil literally brought the roof down.
5:29
Speaker 1: Are you were of this hunk of roof? Like? It
5:33
Speaker 1: got to halftime in uh, which my kids are very anxious.
5:38
Speaker 1: They're told they could get a candy cane at halftime.
5:40
Speaker 1: So it got to halftime, the curtain comes down. A
5:42
Speaker 1: dude that's been sitting there for how long stands up
5:46
Speaker 1: and a hunk of the roof comes down and lands
5:48
Speaker 1: on his seat. Yeah, some of the some of them
5:50
Speaker 1: molding on the ceiling fell during intermation. They'll brought the
5:53
Speaker 1: roof down. They had to tape off like five rows
5:56
Speaker 1: and move These people crazy to have the halftime. Yeah,
6:00
Speaker 1: you get hurt. I don't think so. If you were
6:02
Speaker 1: listening careful, you'd have heard he got up, he got
6:04
Speaker 1: up and fell on the seat. He got up at
6:06
Speaker 1: halftime and it fell on his seat. Oh, I didn't
6:09
Speaker 1: catch a part that he got up. First, Oh, great job, Phil.
6:15
Speaker 1: And the second part, um, I felt that the the
6:20
Speaker 1: gentleman playing Scrooge wasn't sufficiently surprised at the arrival of
6:24
Speaker 1: the ghosts. Okay, yeah, it's a it's a I see
6:28
Speaker 1: where that's coming. Very surprising. Sure, yeah, I think he
6:32
Speaker 1: was playing it a little, a little loose and more
6:34
Speaker 1: on the the humorous side than kind of seriously definitely scared. Yeah,
6:41
Speaker 1: you know it is it is a complement sandwich, because
6:43
Speaker 1: it's in fact, it's two criticisms. Okay, that's um, you
6:47
Speaker 1: did a phenomenal job. Thank you. I felt that he
6:50
Speaker 1: wasn't sufficiently surprised by the arrival of ghosts, which would listen,
6:55
Speaker 1: I imagine quite a response. Um. The second thing is,
7:00
Speaker 1: and this is this is from a colleague of ours, Maggie.
7:03
Speaker 1: She likes a good spooky, She likes a spooky rendition
7:07
Speaker 1: of Oh yes, this this was not Yeah, it's a comedic.
7:11
Speaker 1: It was comedic. The only spooky part I'd say is
7:13
Speaker 1: the Christmas Christmas future gets a little spooky, but everything
7:16
Speaker 1: else is very it's it's it's a light touch for sure. Yeah, comedic. Yeah,
7:20
Speaker 1: and that's and that's kind of the first time I've
7:21
Speaker 1: done a version of it that's a little bit on
7:24
Speaker 1: the lighter side. You enjoyed it. I thought it was
7:26
Speaker 1: good for the kids. Kist it. They kept they kept
7:31
Speaker 1: their attention a little more I think than the than
7:33
Speaker 1: the spookier version. You know how Scrooge is, uh like
7:37
Speaker 1: he's looking in he's looking in at that and with
7:40
Speaker 1: the Christmas present, he's kind of like looking in on
7:42
Speaker 1: that party and her dogging on him at the party. Well,
7:46
Speaker 1: towards the end, my daughter whispered to me, if he
7:49
Speaker 1: fixes everything, well they still say the mean things about
7:53
Speaker 1: him at the party. It's insightful. Yeah, that's smart. Uh,
7:59
Speaker 1: well I had one more so that was kind of
8:02
Speaker 1: like a neither a compliment criticism, Yeah, observation. Yeah, it's
8:09
Speaker 1: about it. Great. Well, thanks so much for coming and
8:12
Speaker 1: I really did not Yeah, we really enjoyed it. Phil,
8:15
Speaker 1: Is your theater career just a Christmas thing? Are you
8:18
Speaker 1: gonna do like shows throughout the year? I did Sound
8:23
Speaker 1: of Music during the summer, and then they asked me
8:25
Speaker 1: to do this And now I think I'm gonna take
8:27
Speaker 1: a long break because I am I'm tired, and the
8:31
Speaker 1: family is tired. It's a lot of rehearsals, but I'm
8:34
Speaker 1: I'll probably do it again. I like it a lot.
8:36
Speaker 1: It's fun. I have ever told you I think is
8:38
Speaker 1: the worst, Like the absolute worst rendition of Christmas Carol
8:43
Speaker 1: is the Muppet one. Yeah, yeah, where Michael Caine to this.
8:47
Speaker 1: Yeah Yeah, he's looks like he's yeah, he's not acting,
8:51
Speaker 1: he's just kind of cur He's seems surprised that he's
8:54
Speaker 1: surrounded by puppet. The puppet started to sing and he
8:57
Speaker 1: he just zones out. It's like he's say it about
9:00
Speaker 1: shitty needs to do after work. So horrible. I think
9:04
Speaker 1: there's some some moving moments in that movie. But I see,
9:07
Speaker 1: yeah there, Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Here's
9:11
Speaker 1: something crazy, man, check this out. I got a lot
9:14
Speaker 1: of I got a lot of opinions about this, a
9:16
Speaker 1: lot of things to say about this. So there's a
9:18
Speaker 1: paper just came out, um a DNA some DNA work
9:25
Speaker 1: being done on black bears. They've identified a mutation. So
9:30
Speaker 1: they've identified a genetic mutation in black bears. You're following this,
9:34
Speaker 1: JOHNI I hope you're doing a better job than the
9:35
Speaker 1: roof Fallen down story and following us something about black bears. Okay,
9:40
Speaker 1: something about grizzlies. So they've identified a mutation known as
9:46
Speaker 1: our one five three C in a gene called tyro
9:52
Speaker 1: snis related protein one which causes an alteration in the
9:57
Speaker 1: coats pigmentation that makes it for the same color as
10:01
Speaker 1: a copper penny. Well, they're talking about when people talk
10:03
Speaker 1: about getting a cinnamon bear, a genetic mutation. They they've
10:08
Speaker 1: isolated what it is that creates the cinnamon variant of
10:12
Speaker 1: black bears, and interestingly, they've figured out when it came
10:16
Speaker 1: into being. Uh, I'll put it this way. I'll put
10:21
Speaker 1: it two ways. One way I'll put it is that
10:23
Speaker 1: the Clovis hunters probably we're not seeing cinnamon bears because
10:30
Speaker 1: this mutation seems to have emerged around nine thousand, three
10:33
Speaker 1: hundred sixty years ago. Here's what I'm gonna take a
10:37
Speaker 1: pause in this this paper, and it's it's it's spreading. Okay,
10:41
Speaker 1: it's spreading. Um. They feel that that the range and
10:47
Speaker 1: distribution of cinnamon bears is growing, and it seems to
10:50
Speaker 1: have a risen in the Southwest. But I'll point this
10:52
Speaker 1: out one time. Uh, if you look at the prevalence
10:56
Speaker 1: of color phase black bears on a map overlaid with precipitation.
11:01
Speaker 1: You follow the film, Yeah, take a color coded map
11:05
Speaker 1: that shows precipitation levels in North America, and then you
11:08
Speaker 1: take a map that shows prevalence of color face bears.
11:12
Speaker 1: There is an uh astonishing correlation. Now point out the
11:20
Speaker 1: people that correlation is not causation, but wet ass areas,
11:28
Speaker 1: the wetter, higher precipitation areas tend to have more black
11:32
Speaker 1: facebook tend to not have colored face bears. And one
11:35
Speaker 1: way you can look at me, like, there's stick vegetation,
11:37
Speaker 1: lots of shadows. They blend in thermal regulation stuff, right,
11:42
Speaker 1: meaning how you're for in the sun, cooperate and behave, um,
11:50
Speaker 1: the same reason in the North you run black angus cattle.
11:53
Speaker 1: In the South, you know where you're trying to keep
11:54
Speaker 1: them warm. In the South and the you know, in
11:57
Speaker 1: the extreme environments, they don't run black cattle. They run
12:01
Speaker 1: cream cattle and red cattle and stuff that don't get
12:03
Speaker 1: as much solar radiation on that that keeps them warm.
12:09
Speaker 1: So I always say, oh, there are different colors down
12:11
Speaker 1: in the Southwest because um, different camouflaging requirements and also
12:18
Speaker 1: perhaps it's just not hot hotter and balls running out
12:20
Speaker 1: with black hair. It makes sense. No, And I don't
12:24
Speaker 1: even know if this this undoes that they Here's a
12:30
Speaker 1: quote from the paper geography definitely plays apart. Our demographic
12:34
Speaker 1: modeling identified that the most likely place where the mutation
12:37
Speaker 1: arose was somewhere in the western region, very likely the southwest.
12:42
Speaker 1: From there it expanded through gene flow through populations, but
12:47
Speaker 1: even in that slow process. But even that is a
12:50
Speaker 1: slow process. With the majority of black bears on the
12:52
Speaker 1: east coast still sporting jet black furt and they're looking
12:57
Speaker 1: at the Great Plains as being a barrier to this
13:01
Speaker 1: gene mutation spreading eastward. M uh albion is um. One
13:09
Speaker 1: thing that happens albino animals is they go blind and
13:11
Speaker 1: die early like they do don't live that long. Um.
13:15
Speaker 1: But this mutation doesn't seem to show any signs of
13:17
Speaker 1: visual problems like all that. We're talking to a board, uh,
13:29
Speaker 1: drying and stretching board. No, like a like an old
13:33
Speaker 1: board of microbiologist wrote in this is this is good
13:38
Speaker 1: stuff to know, microbiologist wrote in and he had some
13:41
Speaker 1: things to say about our conversation. We're talking about the
13:44
Speaker 1: etiquette of the etiquette and safety of pooping on the ice.
13:48
Speaker 1: I've just been saving up all my things to say
13:50
Speaker 1: for this. I don't Okay, now I've pointed out I've
13:53
Speaker 1: never done this, but I was putting the question like
13:58
Speaker 1: if people are talking about just sinking one okay, going
14:02
Speaker 1: into the hole and then using your scoop or whatever
14:06
Speaker 1: to try to sinker down, sink the cake, like, try
14:09
Speaker 1: to sink her down and then get her out of
14:12
Speaker 1: the way so that it's just floating up at the
14:15
Speaker 1: surface of the lake eventually probably sink and then just
14:19
Speaker 1: you know, you've got it taken care of in that
14:22
Speaker 1: people wouldn't know you did it, or you can lay
14:24
Speaker 1: her right on the ice, which is unsightly. And I
14:28
Speaker 1: was talking about what if you took your auger and
14:30
Speaker 1: drilled a half hole so you got let's say you
14:35
Speaker 1: have twelve inches of ice. You take your auger and
14:37
Speaker 1: you go down eight inches, so you got a four
14:40
Speaker 1: inch buffer. Scoop that ice, slush out, go defecate, put
14:48
Speaker 1: that slush and snow back in and and and put
14:53
Speaker 1: it in a little vault. And I was talking about what, uh,
14:57
Speaker 1: maybe that maybe over there and that stream environment, the
15:02
Speaker 1: microbes and the nasty things that would get into the water,
15:05
Speaker 1: wouldn't would would die, probably not put anyways, A microbiologist
15:11
Speaker 1: wrote in. He says, I've decided to write in to
15:15
Speaker 1: correct you on your assumption that the microbes in your
15:18
Speaker 1: poo pile would be killed by making it into a
15:21
Speaker 1: ship slushy using a partially dug ice fishing hole and actuality.
15:27
Speaker 1: Your fecal matters snow cone, which is packed with bacteria
15:30
Speaker 1: and other microbes, would simply refrigerate, freeze and probably preserve
15:35
Speaker 1: the micro organisms and still spring. Microbes tend to go
15:39
Speaker 1: into a dormant stage sporulation during extreme conditions and are
15:44
Speaker 1: quite hardy in the environment. Much of the bacteria in
15:49
Speaker 1: feces is E. Coli, most of which is harmless, but
15:53
Speaker 1: some strains can cause nasty spray able dia aurehea. Specifically,
15:58
Speaker 1: he names one spray. Yeah, I'm just picturing it in
16:01
Speaker 1: a cane by There are other microbes and feces that
16:08
Speaker 1: can cause disease, but I think I have something more
16:10
Speaker 1: interesting for you. A condition known as c DIF caused
16:16
Speaker 1: by close Stridium diffcial can be fatal. Oh listen to this.
16:26
Speaker 1: He's knocking you down, and now he's gonna bring you
16:29
Speaker 1: back up. Listen to this. Well, no, because listen, this
16:33
Speaker 1: is fascinating. A condition is known as c DIF. That's
16:39
Speaker 1: a abbreviation, caused by close stridium diffcial. Can be fatal,
16:47
Speaker 1: but my emphasis on. But but it can be readily
16:52
Speaker 1: cured by ingesting the feces of a healthy person as
16:55
Speaker 1: an inoculation. That's no. I like that trip to the
17:04
Speaker 1: doctor where they're like, hey, eat this. Maybe maybe you
17:10
Speaker 1: can get it in pill form. Then he goes on
17:14
Speaker 1: to make a joke, and he wrote back to clarify
17:16
Speaker 1: he felt bad after making the joke. He said, you
17:20
Speaker 1: could you can almost justify pooping into ice fishing holes
17:24
Speaker 1: as a means of inoculating the swimming population for C. DIF,
17:28
Speaker 1: which is far more dangerous than ni cole i. But
17:30
Speaker 1: a day later an email comes in, Hey, that was
17:32
Speaker 1: a joke. Please don't that was a joke. I'm not
17:39
Speaker 1: sure if you'd understood it was a joke. That was
17:41
Speaker 1: a joke, and don't do that. So still, the best
17:46
Speaker 1: practice would be to bring a bucket. It's line with
17:49
Speaker 1: the plastic bag and pooping there. Collar. Yeah, the blue
17:53
Speaker 1: collar scholar sent me an amazing design we were talking
17:57
Speaker 1: about buying. I don't know who that is. Oh, Tommy
18:01
Speaker 1: had the guy. He's got an Instagram page now called
18:06
Speaker 1: the blue Collar Scholar because he does so good at
18:08
Speaker 1: the trivia show. He plays the trivia show and does
18:10
Speaker 1: he claims he does well, he was on the show
18:12
Speaker 1: and didn't. He sends, no, he bombed here. But but
18:16
Speaker 1: that's I think there's a lot of people who think
18:18
Speaker 1: they do great at home, but they bombed, they would
18:21
Speaker 1: bomb and really it's they're like they're kind of like
18:26
Speaker 1: I think they're like, oh, I kind of had that,
18:30
Speaker 1: Like well that was my first guess you know what
18:32
Speaker 1: I mean, not like no one's really putting the screws
18:34
Speaker 1: to him to like actually you know, I mean, it's
18:37
Speaker 1: in their head. It's in their head. So he's like, god,
18:39
Speaker 1: you know, I guess be Illinois, maybe Indiana. Yeah, in Indiana.
18:45
Speaker 1: Then they're like, Illinois, I knew it. Like a lot
18:50
Speaker 1: of that goes definitely. Um so we buy, like you
18:57
Speaker 1: can buy these things. You you go to any like,
18:59
Speaker 1: you go to sports his warehouse wherever the hell, and
19:03
Speaker 1: you buy it's like a light gauge five gallon pail
19:06
Speaker 1: with a snap on the seats, compatible with any five
19:09
Speaker 1: gallon bucket. It's a flip top toilet seat. And you
19:13
Speaker 1: can get those bags that have that I don't know
19:16
Speaker 1: what the hell it is older killer in it, and
19:19
Speaker 1: you drop one in there and then you it's like
19:23
Speaker 1: a big heavy duty zip block with a trash bag
19:27
Speaker 1: joined to it. So you go into the trash bag,
19:29
Speaker 1: close the trash bag up. It goes into the ziplock
19:33
Speaker 1: ziplock it shake it to get the crystal stuff if
19:37
Speaker 1: you if you so please, and then it's pretty much archival.
19:42
Speaker 1: You know, it's like one of those diaper genies. You know. Yeah,
19:45
Speaker 1: but then you get you know, you get back to
19:46
Speaker 1: the you get back to the boat launch or whatever,
19:48
Speaker 1: and and you got one of those bags. Anyways, Tommy
19:51
Speaker 1: sends me a thing. He's like, you don't need and
19:53
Speaker 1: these things are not expensive. But time he's like, you
19:55
Speaker 1: don't need to buy one of them expensive ass buckets.
19:59
Speaker 1: They he's got a bucket. It's fixture. You got a
20:01
Speaker 1: five gallon bucket laying there, put a garbage bag and
20:05
Speaker 1: hanging over the edge like a trash can, and then
20:06
Speaker 1: take a pool noodle and just cut an incision down
20:13
Speaker 1: the length of the pool noodle, so you now have
20:15
Speaker 1: a piece of pipe inslation, or take a piece of
20:18
Speaker 1: pipe inslation it's pre cut mm hmm, and you make
20:22
Speaker 1: a little rim, a little sitting room. I was wondering
20:25
Speaker 1: where this was gonna make a little sitting with that
20:28
Speaker 1: pipe inslave. I've seen this before. Yeah, when I was
20:34
Speaker 1: in the in the landscaping industry, you'd have to get uh,
20:39
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have to put some thought into how
20:41
Speaker 1: you were going some days, and a lot of guys
20:43
Speaker 1: carried like a bucket with a pool noodle. You didn't
20:46
Speaker 1: want to vault it in their landscaping. Well, you're all,
20:49
Speaker 1: you're like working in someone's front yard. You can't just
20:53
Speaker 1: can't just jump in the bushes. But if you're gonna
20:55
Speaker 1: land some side down, who's gonna know? Well, just late
20:59
Speaker 1: the just everybody walking by, the lady watching you out
21:03
Speaker 1: of the out of her front window is gonna know.
21:07
Speaker 1: That's a good point. You're caring. But yeah, I knew
21:13
Speaker 1: of guys that carried around a five beyond bucket head
21:16
Speaker 1: that pool noodle pool noodle. I feel like a sucker
21:19
Speaker 1: for buying that thing. I bought now, man, how how
21:22
Speaker 1: so in that when you were in the landscaping business,
21:24
Speaker 1: how where were they deployed, said Bucket, Well, you'd either
21:28
Speaker 1: deploy in the enclosed trailer or in the back of
21:32
Speaker 1: the dump like we had all we all had dump
21:34
Speaker 1: trucks and you you just get in the back of
21:37
Speaker 1: the dump truck. Yeah, but yeah, would you put us?
21:41
Speaker 1: How would people know you're in there? You just tell
21:44
Speaker 1: your crew that don't throw any biggs in there. Yeah,
21:49
Speaker 1: you're gonna take care of somewhere. Or you'd go right
21:51
Speaker 1: into the tool crib, in the in the yeah, in
21:54
Speaker 1: the in the trailer. Yeah, guy wrote in this is
21:59
Speaker 1: pretty good. This makes me jealous. This pass is the
22:01
Speaker 1: jealousy test. So was it? Uh? Why was it that
22:05
Speaker 1: Trump didn't Why did he not fight in Vietnam? Was
22:09
Speaker 1: a b spurs? This guy? That's what I thought. So
22:14
Speaker 1: he this guy had bone spurs. He got him cut
22:19
Speaker 1: out and then send us pictures. He had his wife
22:23
Speaker 1: earrings made out of his bones spurs. M He made
22:28
Speaker 1: the ear rings with his daughter. His daughter had an earring,
22:31
Speaker 1: had a jewelry kit, and he made a little box.
22:34
Speaker 1: He says, a piece of me for you, and it's
22:36
Speaker 1: these crazy little bone spur earrings made out of the
22:39
Speaker 1: bones spurs cut out of his feet. Man, I wish
22:41
Speaker 1: I hadn't known about that. I had bones spur surgery
22:43
Speaker 1: a year ago, did you. Yeah, I could have had
22:46
Speaker 1: something to remember it by besides just paint with every
22:49
Speaker 1: step I take. Still a year later, really, oh god,
22:52
Speaker 1: what'd you do with your spurs? Apparently they just ground him.
22:56
Speaker 1: I didn't realize they take him off in one piece. Yeah,
22:58
Speaker 1: he got his back. He had to clean him a
23:00
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, he asked for him. Everybody that writes
23:03
Speaker 1: in this is a common thing on this show. Everybody
23:06
Speaker 1: that writes in, we'll say like, I want my stuff back,
23:08
Speaker 1: and they kind of like they it's like your property.
23:10
Speaker 1: They can't not give it to you. I never even
23:13
Speaker 1: thought of that. He's the thing. This fellow says that
23:18
Speaker 1: his wife says it's the greatest present she's ever received.
23:22
Speaker 1: M I like her, man, I'll let marry her. She'd
23:26
Speaker 1: probably like some turkey spur hearings. Mm hmmm. Uh. Here's
23:33
Speaker 1: the trick. Here's the tricky one for me. Oh, Yanni,
23:35
Speaker 1: did you have something to add about the ice stuff
23:37
Speaker 1: you're saying you're saving up for that? Oh? No, no,
23:43
Speaker 1: I found it fascinating. The guy wrote in about here
23:46
Speaker 1: This is a crazy story that came in recently, and
23:48
Speaker 1: I called. I was like skeptical, were you are you
23:51
Speaker 1: guys here for this? No? Okay, guy like he ran
23:56
Speaker 1: out of gas and he had a gas can, but
24:01
Speaker 1: his gas can nozzle wasn't compatible with the port on
24:05
Speaker 1: his truck. You know they are now, Like, dude, Now
24:09
Speaker 1: vehicles come with special funnel adapters to get through the
24:11
Speaker 1: security stuff that people can't sipen your gas off. Anyways,
24:14
Speaker 1: he jams an arrow down in there, takes an arrow
24:17
Speaker 1: out of his quiver, jams it down there to hold
24:19
Speaker 1: the spring flap, and then he's like basically pouring gas
24:22
Speaker 1: out of a can in the dark, down the arrow
24:26
Speaker 1: into the gas can and winds up jabbing his face,
24:32
Speaker 1: jabbing his eye on the knock on the end of
24:37
Speaker 1: the arrow, impales his face on the end of the arrow,
24:43
Speaker 1: goes on to have all these future problems, never realizing
24:49
Speaker 1: that the knock came off in his eye and eventually
24:55
Speaker 1: hocks up a lugi. It's like a year and a
24:58
Speaker 1: half later. Yeah, that was him spitting out hacks out
25:05
Speaker 1: the knock. So as he gets up in his sis,
25:08
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know if I'm buying that. I said,
25:11
Speaker 1: I didn't believe it, but then I was kind of
25:13
Speaker 1: change my mind about it. Dr Alan Lazarre wrote in
25:16
Speaker 1: he buys a only reason it's not a hunter. He
25:20
Speaker 1: doesn't know the guy personally. Wow, the aero knock entered
25:26
Speaker 1: his f Moyd Sinus goes on to say that I
25:32
Speaker 1: rest in a bony box. I eat orbit with thin
25:35
Speaker 1: bones making up the walls the airfield spaces of the
25:38
Speaker 1: anterior face a k a. The sinus is lying close
25:41
Speaker 1: proximity to your orbit. These sinuses, as well as the
25:45
Speaker 1: NATO crimal duct. That's right, folks, you have one nasal,
25:51
Speaker 1: the crimal duct all have dropped. This makes me feel
25:56
Speaker 1: like I gotta hok up howk up a knock? I
25:59
Speaker 1: got a pellet B B or something. Uh. These sinuses,
26:06
Speaker 1: as well as the nasal La crime will duct, all
26:09
Speaker 1: have drainage into the nasal cavity, which is anatomically complex.
26:13
Speaker 1: In particular, the f void sinus lies medial i E
26:17
Speaker 1: midline to the orbit and drains into the paranasal sinuses,
26:23
Speaker 1: which in turn empty into the nasal cavity through the
26:27
Speaker 1: three conca That's a word. It's pretty incredible. I mean
26:33
Speaker 1: the body does wild force things out of itself. YEA
26:39
Speaker 1: surprised when I'm done. Who The nasal cavity and passage
26:44
Speaker 1: are connected to the oral fair and nagil space in
26:50
Speaker 1: the back of the throat. That's how Lucy's happened. Now
26:56
Speaker 1: onto the arrow. I'm not sure what kind of size
26:59
Speaker 1: knocked at him. It was used, and says the doctor,
27:01
Speaker 1: Or if just a piece of the knock entered his
27:03
Speaker 1: medial para orbital space and the rest fell on the ground.
27:07
Speaker 1: Either way, most common size knocks are sharp, narrow, and
27:09
Speaker 1: small enough to penetrate that space and the f moid sinus.
27:14
Speaker 1: I believe the knock penetrated his f moyd sinus. The
27:17
Speaker 1: immune system reacted and covered the thing in white blood cells.
27:23
Speaker 1: Over time, it eroded under the guise of perceived repeat
27:27
Speaker 1: sinus infections and made its way into the nasal passage.
27:33
Speaker 1: And then he hocked a colorful lugi wow instead of Actually,
27:41
Speaker 1: they should have given him a maximo facial CT. But
27:46
Speaker 1: he doesn't want a dog on the facility because he's
27:47
Speaker 1: not sure what kind of equipment they had. Jeez, what
27:52
Speaker 1: a story. Now, what do you think about that? Phil?
27:54
Speaker 1: I'd like to formally apologize to the gentleman. I wonder
27:58
Speaker 1: what his eynes would have looked like in if it
28:00
Speaker 1: would have been one of those like glow in the
28:02
Speaker 1: dark Knox or something, maybe look like a terminator or something.
28:06
Speaker 1: I can't I just can't imagine going on that long
28:10
Speaker 1: not knowing that something. So he he was having sinus
28:13
Speaker 1: infections for about a year and they still couldn't figure
28:16
Speaker 1: it out. Though. Let's say you let me walk you
28:18
Speaker 1: through this. Okay, you're drive down the road. You run
28:21
Speaker 1: out of gas that night coming home from hunting. I
28:23
Speaker 1: can picture this. Okay, you can't get the gas down,
28:26
Speaker 1: you put the you put an arrow down there. You're
28:27
Speaker 1: pouring gas and Nelson, you impale your face on the arrow.
28:31
Speaker 1: You're running around. Oh my god, right, scruciating pain. Later,
28:38
Speaker 1: I don't know you have an arrow on the knox missing.
28:40
Speaker 1: Are you gonna think like I wonder if that knock
28:42
Speaker 1: is in my head or if you think like in
28:44
Speaker 1: all the excitement, the knock fell off. Yeah, but I
28:48
Speaker 1: think with Seth is saying that he just can't believe
28:50
Speaker 1: that there'd be a knock stuck in there and you
28:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't say, my goodness, there's a chunk, a foreign chunk
28:57
Speaker 1: of plastic by my head. Yeah. You remember that dude
29:00
Speaker 1: that got shot by a nail gun and carried the
29:01
Speaker 1: nail around until they found it in there. Yeah, I
29:05
Speaker 1: guess this probably happens more often. What we thought you
29:11
Speaker 1: also says is that the dude is tough as nails,
29:13
Speaker 1: and I think that that probably points to out some
29:15
Speaker 1: people just don't have a way different pain threshold, and
29:19
Speaker 1: something something like a nail or a knot could be
29:22
Speaker 1: inside their body and they're kind of like, I'll keep
29:25
Speaker 1: about my day. That's just it's a little tickle. If
29:27
Speaker 1: he's Yeah, if he was feeling any sort of pressure
29:29
Speaker 1: back there, he was probably like, Oh, it's just the
29:31
Speaker 1: wound healing. It's some sort of scar I had. Yeah.
29:33
Speaker 1: I don't like any kind of injury. Man. I feel
29:35
Speaker 1: like I would have gotten all those kind of exams.
29:39
Speaker 1: I'm hard to worry about being out of commission. Um,
29:44
Speaker 1: check this out. This is good. You're hanging in there. Yeah.
29:49
Speaker 1: That story was just reminded me when I was a
29:50
Speaker 1: kid out of Mexican jumping being up my notes for
29:52
Speaker 1: about a year. No, stuck it up there. I must have, man,
29:56
Speaker 1: I don't know I went to the hospital a bunch
29:58
Speaker 1: of times, bloody noses, and eventually big old sneeze had
30:01
Speaker 1: come out. It's a story my mom tells me. Anyway,
30:04
Speaker 1: I'll buy it. She otherwise your otherwise honest. Yeah, Yeah,
30:08
Speaker 1: she's a good guy. Yeah. Do you remember we got
30:12
Speaker 1: that fourteen year old Saint Hill crane? Sure? Do? Minimum
30:15
Speaker 1: of fourteen years. We got a Sandhill crane and Texas
30:18
Speaker 1: Panhandle that had been banded. So we're in the Texas Panhandle.
30:22
Speaker 1: It had been banded as an adult fourteen years earlier
30:26
Speaker 1: in Fairbanks, Alaska, at least fourteen. Well, some mug in Tennessee.
30:30
Speaker 1: That was cool. That was banded in Fairbanks. And uh,
30:33
Speaker 1: I'll never forget either. How you and Ronny Bayim and
30:37
Speaker 1: Ed Arnett, three grown men sat there and argued who
30:42
Speaker 1: shot it, to the point that we had to get
30:44
Speaker 1: one band recognition form with three names on it. Yeah.
30:51
Speaker 1: I need to find my form. There's a quote I like, Uh,
30:56
Speaker 1: success has many fathers, but failure is a bastards child.
31:03
Speaker 1: M that's a good one. Uh. This guy has got
31:07
Speaker 1: one banded in nine nine. He just killed in Tennessee. Yeah,
31:12
Speaker 1: that's only eleven years younger than me. He got it
31:16
Speaker 1: on public land. There's a refuge and then there's some
31:20
Speaker 1: crop fields and outfitters leased to crop fields, and they
31:22
Speaker 1: got it on a little public wedge between the refuge
31:25
Speaker 1: and the crop fields. I can't even do the math.
31:31
Speaker 1: What do you mean before you you're not you're older
31:33
Speaker 1: than thirty three, I'm saying. I was saying the birds
31:36
Speaker 1: only eleven years younger than me. I'm sorry, thirty three
31:39
Speaker 1: year old sand hill crane. We got more than how
31:43
Speaker 1: many spreads? Is that thing? Seeing man spreads and coyotes?
31:47
Speaker 1: And what I was thinking about is there's not Is
31:51
Speaker 1: there anything else that we hunt that even gets close
31:55
Speaker 1: to living that long? Well? Bears get twenty years, you know,
32:00
Speaker 1: m Yeah, that's only I can't. There can't if it
32:08
Speaker 1: isn't some kind of water fowl or like like gators
32:13
Speaker 1: or something Florida like that. I bet there's some old
32:18
Speaker 1: as gators snapping turtles. I've been wanting to get like
32:21
Speaker 1: a really really good alligator expert on the show, Like
32:25
Speaker 1: a really good alligator expert. Yeah, I think Parker could
32:28
Speaker 1: find that for since he's down there and that you're
32:32
Speaker 1: extremely good. Send it an email to us that says
32:38
Speaker 1: the subject line would be extremely good alligator expert and
32:42
Speaker 1: then we'll know in crinical call you. Uh, this is funny.
32:49
Speaker 1: This is from when there was a bobcat on the
32:51
Speaker 1: Loose and Long Island. And of all, okay, let's say
32:54
Speaker 1: you heard they're they're very they're nervous about the bobcat
32:57
Speaker 1: being on on the Loose and Long Island and none
32:59
Speaker 1: other and Martha Stewart has a none other than Martha
33:03
Speaker 1: Stewart has a think about how to save yourself in
33:08
Speaker 1: the event you were encountered this bobcat, which they're frantically
33:11
Speaker 1: trying to find. Oh, it's just like an article on
33:14
Speaker 1: the Wild magazine. Or the more distance between you and
33:18
Speaker 1: the cat, the better, reads the website. Bobcats in particular
33:21
Speaker 1: usually do not attack humans. However, if one does attack you,
33:25
Speaker 1: your best chance of survival is to defend yourself and
33:29
Speaker 1: call for emergency medical care, as the animal may have rabies.
33:36
Speaker 1: Thanks Martha, the more distance between you, the better. Great.
33:42
Speaker 1: The first person to saw it was convinced. They were
33:44
Speaker 1: looking at the links. It was huge and look very exotic. Wow,
33:51
Speaker 1: what else that's about it? That's about it. There's a
33:55
Speaker 1: lot of questions about that one, like where it came from,
33:58
Speaker 1: how it got there. It's good stuff, all right, Mercy
34:01
Speaker 1: Ready to dig in, man, Yeah, sure, let's go. How
34:09
Speaker 1: First off, why did you stay? Why are you still
34:13
Speaker 1: in California? Right? If your whole life has been trapping
34:17
Speaker 1: in bobcat work and then California out right flat out
34:22
Speaker 1: you know, let me let me digress from it. Anyone
34:25
Speaker 1: who doesn't believe in the slippery slope, uh, needs to
34:29
Speaker 1: believe in the slippery slope. Oh, no doubt. Um, if
34:33
Speaker 1: you look at like nine you know, in the early nineties,
34:36
Speaker 1: they took away steel jaw traps, made us use rubber
34:39
Speaker 1: paddy jaws, and then in that took away foothold traps altogether.
34:44
Speaker 1: And then uh, I think it was two thousand the
34:48
Speaker 1: dust up over the cage trapping incident that that got
34:51
Speaker 1: the band started in the legislative action, uh, you know,
34:55
Speaker 1: was the next nail in the coffin, And they end
34:57
Speaker 1: up banning bobcat trapping all together, you know, even with
35:01
Speaker 1: cage traps. And then just a couple of years after that,
35:06
Speaker 1: then they went after trapping all together, you know, and
35:09
Speaker 1: then they said, you know, if you read the legislation.
35:12
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, well there's barely any trappers anyways,
35:14
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, their their numbers don't justify you know,
35:18
Speaker 1: what it costs the department, you know, maintain you know,
35:23
Speaker 1: a trapping season, and these animals have you know, more
35:26
Speaker 1: value to the public as you know, viewable nature, you know. Um,
35:31
Speaker 1: And so then they got trapping completely and at the
35:34
Speaker 1: same time, uh, they went after bobcat hunting, which was
35:37
Speaker 1: all that was left. And we could still hunt bobcats
35:40
Speaker 1: right up until I think it was December thirty one.
35:44
Speaker 1: I wanted to be one of the last people to
35:46
Speaker 1: ever hunt a California bobcat legally because the legislation they
35:51
Speaker 1: passed required a five year population study to be done
35:54
Speaker 1: in the state and starting January one, two thousand nineteen,
35:57
Speaker 1: I believe it was. Uh, they I'm just supposed to
36:00
Speaker 1: start that five year study to justify you know, the
36:04
Speaker 1: harvest of bobcats. Right and once once they take something away,
36:07
Speaker 1: they never give it back. So we're in the five
36:10
Speaker 1: year study right now, we're into five years. Yeah, what's
36:12
Speaker 1: gonna happen during the five year study? Oh and we're
36:14
Speaker 1: you the last guy to get one, you know, I
36:16
Speaker 1: might have been. I went out, I shot one about
36:19
Speaker 1: ten thirty at night. Um, you know who knows. I
36:23
Speaker 1: don't know. You probably were, I might have been. Um.
36:27
Speaker 1: And then and then if not, send an email that
36:29
Speaker 1: says Mercer is wrong. And then and then uh yeah,
36:34
Speaker 1: So they're supposedly doing some sort of camera trap work
36:38
Speaker 1: statewide and they end up they bought some cage traps
36:41
Speaker 1: for me as well. I drove him up to Sacramento,
36:43
Speaker 1: dropped off and I know the dude, the dude that
36:46
Speaker 1: I dropped him off with it, he was like a
36:47
Speaker 1: fisheries guy, and he was going to be in charge
36:49
Speaker 1: of the population study. I didn't leave there with a
36:52
Speaker 1: whole lot of faith. You're not going to get it back.
36:55
Speaker 1: You'll never get it back, even you know if they
36:56
Speaker 1: come back and say, oh, yeah, you know there, because
36:59
Speaker 1: they estimate to repulation of California between seventy and a
37:01
Speaker 1: hundred thousand bobcats, right, And so when you tell them that,
37:05
Speaker 1: you know, all through all through all those legislative actions,
37:08
Speaker 1: they you know, when you tell them that, you know,
37:11
Speaker 1: we're harvesting like anywhere from three hundred bobcats a year
37:15
Speaker 1: right in the entire state, right, you know, back back
37:18
Speaker 1: during the fur boom, you know, the highest years were
37:21
Speaker 1: around eight thousand bobcats, but on average or so during
37:25
Speaker 1: the fur boom years and then what fur boom are
37:28
Speaker 1: you talking about? You know, the mid seventies to boom
37:33
Speaker 1: capital F and B Yeah, yeah, uh and then all
37:36
Speaker 1: through the nineties and that you know, the harvest was
37:38
Speaker 1: to three bobcats and so out of estimated population of
37:42
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. Yeah, if you look if you go
37:44
Speaker 1: all of US undred thousands of what game official saying now,
37:48
Speaker 1: but if you look back when all the states had
37:51
Speaker 1: to come up with an estimated population for their state
37:55
Speaker 1: for the SITIS, when when bobcats got listed on sites,
37:58
Speaker 1: all the states had to come up with some estimated
38:00
Speaker 1: number either just using habitat you know, modeling and stuff
38:03
Speaker 1: like that. I think the number at that time was
38:05
Speaker 1: like seventy eight thousand or something like that for California. UM.
38:08
Speaker 1: And so, just so people are I'm gonna explain to
38:10
Speaker 1: you things. Side is like an international like it's an
38:13
Speaker 1: international wildlife regulatory thing which monitors moving moving wildlife species
38:20
Speaker 1: from one country to the next. There's a treaty the
38:22
Speaker 1: site he's treaty. So, for instance, if you go down
38:24
Speaker 1: and hunt which me and you always get screwed on.
38:28
Speaker 1: If you were to go down and hunt oscillated turkeys
38:32
Speaker 1: in Mexico and you went to bring parts of that
38:34
Speaker 1: turkey back home with you, you would need to do
38:37
Speaker 1: the site. He's work, Phil What in Sam Hill? Is
38:39
Speaker 1: that behind you? What? Oh? I have no idea. It
38:43
Speaker 1: was in the podcast studio. It was on the table
38:46
Speaker 1: here and it's just getting in our way. So we
38:48
Speaker 1: said it over there on the desk. It's it's a oh,
38:53
Speaker 1: never mind, that's cool. Oh no, I do need to
38:57
Speaker 1: see that. Where was that right? And what is that?
39:00
Speaker 1: Obsidian or or glass? Looks like obsidian? Give that to me,
39:07
Speaker 1: although it looks we're looking at an arrow for the
39:10
Speaker 1: people listening, Well, I'm waiting on my clothes thrusting spear.
39:15
Speaker 1: Where was I talking about? Sides? Oh it's glass? Uh,
39:21
Speaker 1: that's wrong. Then you had another Yeah. Modeling just so
39:26
Speaker 1: just real quick snapshot how modeling works. Like let's say,
39:29
Speaker 1: you know, let's say you wanted to count up deer
39:34
Speaker 1: in a county or a state or a country. Whatever,
39:36
Speaker 1: you might go like, okay, and good habitat. So in
39:39
Speaker 1: like usable habitat. We tend to see ten deer per
39:43
Speaker 1: square mile, and you go like, well, how many square
39:46
Speaker 1: miles of good suitable habitat do we have? Okay, well
39:49
Speaker 1: times that by that And that's like in a very
39:52
Speaker 1: like an actual modeler would be annoyed by my my
39:57
Speaker 1: quick summation. But that's basically what that is, um when
40:02
Speaker 1: you talk about modeling. So they're probably looking at some
40:04
Speaker 1: like habitat density and space and you work it all
40:07
Speaker 1: out and that's what you got. Yeah, for sure, it's
40:09
Speaker 1: it's pretty Uh, it's pretty detailed. From visiting with biologists
40:12
Speaker 1: toff like that. I mean they even got they've got
40:14
Speaker 1: people with the job title called like a biometrician. Have
40:17
Speaker 1: you ever heard one of those? Yeah, they they're like
40:20
Speaker 1: a combination between a biologist and a mathematician statistician and
40:24
Speaker 1: uh and they're the ones that that really get deep
40:26
Speaker 1: into the numbers and they can take a small amount
40:29
Speaker 1: of data and turn it into a lot of data.
40:32
Speaker 1: So you were saying that California came in with a
40:34
Speaker 1: prediction of seventy eight thousand bobcats and harvest was at
40:39
Speaker 1: what So during the eighties, the average harvest, the fur boom.
40:44
Speaker 1: Uh was somewhere in the forty neighborhood if you have
40:48
Speaker 1: take about a dozen years there in a row high
40:51
Speaker 1: of in the eight thousand's. You know, California was a
40:54
Speaker 1: destination during those times. It was where a lot of
40:57
Speaker 1: state hoppers ended their season. You know, they trapped the
41:01
Speaker 1: colder country and end up in the you know basin
41:04
Speaker 1: and range stuff of Never Nevada really, because I don't
41:07
Speaker 1: think they've ever allowed nonresident Boba trap and I could
41:10
Speaker 1: be wrong, but uh, you know, they'd work their way
41:12
Speaker 1: through Arizona and finish up in the Majabi Desert to
41:14
Speaker 1: California where I live. Huh yeah. Um. When you're talking
41:19
Speaker 1: about it never coming back, the reason it will never
41:21
Speaker 1: come back is because people will ally You'll always be
41:24
Speaker 1: able to do the trick in litigation where people will
41:27
Speaker 1: sue and they'll say, but you haven't accounted for now.
41:34
Speaker 1: Now the magical thing is you haven't accounted for climate change. Well,
41:37
Speaker 1: they'll move the goalpost, goalposts. Yeah, you'll never see it again.
41:41
Speaker 1: The big argument, the thing they pushed all the times, Oh, well,
41:43
Speaker 1: we know there's plenty of bobcats in California. We're not
41:46
Speaker 1: arguing that what we're arguing is that there's no way
41:48
Speaker 1: to control all the trappers from working in one area
41:51
Speaker 1: in depleting a resource. And yeah, yeah, and then of
41:55
Speaker 1: course when you say all trappers, you're talking about a
41:59
Speaker 1: total of anywhere from six bobcats during you know, the
42:04
Speaker 1: what i'd call the cage trap days, right, So we
42:06
Speaker 1: lost our foot traps and eight and by about two thousand,
42:09
Speaker 1: two thousand two guys were experimenting with using cage traps
42:12
Speaker 1: to catch bobcats um in Washington State, Arizona, Colorado. I
42:16
Speaker 1: believe all three lost their footholds before us, so they
42:20
Speaker 1: were already further down the road using cage traps for
42:23
Speaker 1: bobcats than California was. That was kind of an amazing
42:26
Speaker 1: era for it was sort of like in those early nineties,
42:33
Speaker 1: that period, late eighties, early nineties, it was it's surprising
42:37
Speaker 1: looking back how many hits hunters and trappers took in
42:42
Speaker 1: those years. As I think it's like Peter was beginning
42:46
Speaker 1: to take shape. It was kind of amazing that that
42:48
Speaker 1: you'd think that like stuff like that happens now, But
42:51
Speaker 1: people took a lot of hits, legislative hits back then. Yeah,
42:54
Speaker 1: between ballot initiatives, which are just they're just they're just
42:58
Speaker 1: the horrible thing, baland isshes and legislative actions to manage wildlife.
43:02
Speaker 1: It's just, it's just horrible. The truth is the first
43:05
Speaker 1: victim when you get into those situations, you know, the
43:09
Speaker 1: truth doesn't matter. I want to go back to the
43:20
Speaker 1: beginning with you. But why how would you not just
43:22
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, never mind, I'm leaving so uh so
43:27
Speaker 1: along the course of losing everything, right, losing the cage traps,
43:30
Speaker 1: and the next thing we lost was the bobcat hunting
43:33
Speaker 1: and the uh trapping completely and and then now I
43:39
Speaker 1: believe it's January one, So in a week or two,
43:42
Speaker 1: the statewide ban on for the sale of any any
43:47
Speaker 1: fur garments unless it's used old for any new fur
43:50
Speaker 1: garments statewide, I believe goes into effect this January. And
43:54
Speaker 1: so you were originally you were talking about you know,
43:57
Speaker 1: I think you're you're saying death by a thousand cuts
44:00
Speaker 1: type of thing. You know, Uh, slippery slope, slippery slope.
44:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it's encouraging people to believe in slippery slopes.
44:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's when when you have a state like
44:09
Speaker 1: California that's totally controlled by one party. Uh, you don't
44:12
Speaker 1: have a chance, you know. Um, I saw some ugly
44:16
Speaker 1: stuff when I was fighting the the first first Bobcat trapping. Yeah,
44:21
Speaker 1: you became uh you were a public figure in that fight,
44:24
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, I kind of got it from both
44:28
Speaker 1: sides a little bit. I had. I had trappers that
44:30
Speaker 1: didn't like me, wanted to blame me for for losing it,
44:33
Speaker 1: you know, because I was promoting Kate trapping and selling
44:35
Speaker 1: Kate Trapping products and get people started. Um uh. And
44:39
Speaker 1: then of course I got it from the antis because
44:41
Speaker 1: I was the only you know, I was the public
44:43
Speaker 1: figure they couldn't. A trapper got into some trouble trapping around.
44:49
Speaker 1: He was a marine that was stationed at a base
44:51
Speaker 1: down there, and I sold him equipment and I got
44:53
Speaker 1: him started, and he started trapping between home and work
44:56
Speaker 1: and and what was in between there was Joshua Tree,
44:59
Speaker 1: nashvill Monument, and which you know is surrounded by you
45:04
Speaker 1: know a lot of people that don't they wouldn't agree
45:06
Speaker 1: with the way we live our lives, you know. And uh,
45:09
Speaker 1: he got a he got a trap found that was
45:11
Speaker 1: on a piece of private property. Um that that you know,
45:16
Speaker 1: California laws, you gotta post your land or be told
45:18
Speaker 1: to stay off, you know, so private property law. He
45:21
Speaker 1: wasn't do anything wrong. No, it's just a piece of
45:23
Speaker 1: it's just people open desert that happened to be private.
45:27
Speaker 1: Some guy found it, took it to the local newspaper office,
45:33
Speaker 1: and a year later there's billboards up in California to
45:36
Speaker 1: ban bobcat trapping. You know, it's something in the cage. No,
45:40
Speaker 1: this is empty cage trap. But you know, at the
45:43
Speaker 1: same time, we're, uh, we're you know, on the internet,
45:46
Speaker 1: posted pictures and uh, Facebook and all that sort of
45:50
Speaker 1: stuff and trapping forums. Ah that you know, Uh, I
45:55
Speaker 1: guess the argument can be made, you know, don't do
45:58
Speaker 1: that stuff. I guess that's what the guys that you know,
46:01
Speaker 1: we're kind of blaming me for it all, you know, um,
46:05
Speaker 1: for you know, making it public, you know. Uh And
46:10
Speaker 1: because so, yeah, I was a public How much do
46:14
Speaker 1: you how much do you buy that, um that it
46:17
Speaker 1: would have continued if someone hadn't. No, so I don't
46:20
Speaker 1: buy it at all that it would have continued, right,
46:22
Speaker 1: And they're they're gonna get it no matter what. It
46:25
Speaker 1: is just a matter of time. But ah, those actions
46:29
Speaker 1: at that time you know, was the catalyst to what
46:32
Speaker 1: ended up happening. But if it hadn't been that, it
46:34
Speaker 1: would have been something else. And you wound up with
46:36
Speaker 1: death threats through this whole thing, and you weren't getting
46:39
Speaker 1: that from the trappers. No. No, there was one particular
46:42
Speaker 1: trapper that I was just a little bit fearful of.
46:44
Speaker 1: But he had he had been in trouble many times
46:46
Speaker 1: with game and fish. He woun't he wasn't a very
46:48
Speaker 1: good dude. Uh. But yeah, yeah, I got a few
46:52
Speaker 1: letters in the mailbox saying somebody's gonna come kill me.
46:54
Speaker 1: I had. Uh, those those people down at Joshua Tree,
46:58
Speaker 1: they're there. They were whack jobs, man, I mean they're
47:00
Speaker 1: they're whack jobs. Uh, scary kind of like whack jobs,
47:04
Speaker 1: like Manson type hippies. Just like some guy made a
47:08
Speaker 1: compilation video and put on YouTube of my vehicles and
47:12
Speaker 1: me and my kids, like pictures of us, you know,
47:15
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, if you see this guy they were
47:17
Speaker 1: I wasn't even the trapper that started all this. I
47:20
Speaker 1: was just the guy that sold this other dude some
47:22
Speaker 1: some traps. But somehow they you know, just picked me out.
47:27
Speaker 1: And yeah, uh, I think I called the FBI at
47:31
Speaker 1: one point saying, hey, I'm getting these letters saying somebody's
47:34
Speaker 1: gonna come kill me. And uh uh. They told me,
47:38
Speaker 1: what does it say a specific time and place. I said, no,
47:40
Speaker 1: it just says they're gonna come kill me. He said, well,
47:42
Speaker 1: we can't do you know that about it. That's what
47:43
Speaker 1: he told me. That's horship man, because I had to
47:45
Speaker 1: say I had a I called the FBI about a
47:47
Speaker 1: guy one time. He didn't give a specific thing. He
47:49
Speaker 1: made him. He made a reference to my kids. They
47:52
Speaker 1: went through the guy's garbage for a while, surveilled him.
47:56
Speaker 1: This is he. The guy lived in Ohio, went through
47:59
Speaker 1: his ash one day, called me to say he ordered
48:03
Speaker 1: a pepperoni pizza. It's not vegetarian um, and eventually visit
48:10
Speaker 1: him at work, stared the living ship out of him
48:13
Speaker 1: to get some of that. I said, I won't be here,
48:14
Speaker 1: and they said they came and said they won't. You
48:16
Speaker 1: won't be hearing from him again. Yeah, I'd love to
48:18
Speaker 1: get some of that kind of attention. Back then, they
48:20
Speaker 1: took a real serious. It wasn't like, Hey, on Monday
48:22
Speaker 1: at noon, I'm gonna kill you out in front of
48:24
Speaker 1: your house. That's what they're saying you have to have Yeah,
48:27
Speaker 1: that's what he said. Yeah, is a specific time in place,
48:30
Speaker 1: Posting a bunch of videos about your cars and stuff
48:33
Speaker 1: isn't sufficient. Yeah right. I don't believe that, man, I
48:36
Speaker 1: mean not that I don't think you're lying. I think
48:38
Speaker 1: someone blew you off. They probably hate Bobcat trappers. Yeah,
48:40
Speaker 1: well it's it's pretty easy to find those type of
48:43
Speaker 1: people in California. So but as far as what did
48:47
Speaker 1: you want? But what did you wind up doing? Yeah,
48:48
Speaker 1: we're gonna get the why you never moved. But when
48:50
Speaker 1: you had these threats on you, what were you doing?
48:54
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't take them too terribly serious. I
48:56
Speaker 1: did sit out in the bushes a few nights, you know,
49:00
Speaker 1: um watching your house. Yeah. Yeah, uh, but it wasn't
49:05
Speaker 1: it wasn't too awful bad. It was just it was
49:08
Speaker 1: just an ugly time. Man. Those those people are ugly.
49:10
Speaker 1: I mean they can they can hate Bobcat trapping all
49:12
Speaker 1: they want, but man, they're just nasty people, not not
49:17
Speaker 1: very good quality people. You know, you have a right,
49:20
Speaker 1: all the right in the world to to not like
49:21
Speaker 1: what I do. But don't go there. You know, I
49:25
Speaker 1: tell my kids all the time. You know, you can
49:26
Speaker 1: be frustrated, you can be angry, but you're not allowed
49:29
Speaker 1: to be nasty. Yeah. Yeah. The moral high grounds sometimes though,
49:34
Speaker 1: especially in politics, doesn't get you anywhere, right, So why
49:39
Speaker 1: did you why why didn't you just be like, hey,
49:40
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. Ah, shoot, you know, your home's
49:43
Speaker 1: your home. Uh. I got all my family there, My
49:46
Speaker 1: wife has all our family there. Now my daughter is
49:48
Speaker 1: going to college in California, so uh yeah, I think
49:52
Speaker 1: I'll be there at least three more years. I've been
49:54
Speaker 1: all over the West. You know, I've been a lot
49:56
Speaker 1: of cool places, like right here where you're at now. Um,
50:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I never found a place
50:02
Speaker 1: that I just was dying to go live. And you know,
50:08
Speaker 1: I ended up in in the Majabi Desert back in
50:11
Speaker 1: high school. And uh, you know, we didn't have rivers
50:15
Speaker 1: and fishing, turkeys, no real good deer hunt and you know,
50:19
Speaker 1: there's nothing. It was just cautin bobcat hunting. And so
50:24
Speaker 1: I've just pretty much spent the last almost forty years now.
50:28
Speaker 1: There's in a winner that goes by that I don't
50:30
Speaker 1: pursue bobcats with every ounce of passion that I have
50:34
Speaker 1: what was how did you get into it? Then? What
50:39
Speaker 1: year was it? Did you? Did you get into it?
50:40
Speaker 1: Because the fur market was so high, Uh, bobcats in
50:44
Speaker 1: particularly trapping and trapping and hunting, you know. Yeah, I
50:49
Speaker 1: was a hunter for many years before. I didn't even
50:52
Speaker 1: set a trap until we were already into the rubber
50:54
Speaker 1: jaw in the early nineties. Oh you didn't, So you
50:58
Speaker 1: didn't grow up trapping? No, Uh, you know I was
51:02
Speaker 1: in high school and eighty four I graduated, I think
51:05
Speaker 1: that year, me and a buddy, So I found a
51:08
Speaker 1: Johnny Stewart cassette tape in the China hutch that was
51:11
Speaker 1: my dad's from when he used to cayot hunt, And
51:15
Speaker 1: as my dad, what's this, you know? So that's forkyot hunting.
51:18
Speaker 1: So me and my buddy went in, uh temporarily borrowed
51:23
Speaker 1: one of those little tape players from the library at
51:25
Speaker 1: to high school, like a little carry strap on it. Uh.
51:33
Speaker 1: We went out of the desert dad afternoon and in
51:35
Speaker 1: thirty mile winds and turned on that Johnny Stewart cassette
51:39
Speaker 1: and hiked up the top of a hill and waited
51:41
Speaker 1: for a coyote. And uh, there hasn't been a winner
51:48
Speaker 1: ever since that. I haven't you know, gone after coyotes
51:52
Speaker 1: and bobcats with everything I had, what was the main
51:55
Speaker 1: years when you were when you really got into like
51:57
Speaker 1: the production bobcat work though, So, um, you know I
52:02
Speaker 1: was killing a lot of bobcats at night because we
52:04
Speaker 1: had a we had a pretty good bobcat hunting season
52:07
Speaker 1: that we could hunt at night in California and in
52:09
Speaker 1: that Mojabi desert because you know, it could be pretty productive.
52:12
Speaker 1: You know, I could shoot I think my highest year,
52:15
Speaker 1: I almost broke seventy bobcats just hunting at night. Uh.
52:18
Speaker 1: And they're good bobcats. You know you were talking earlier
52:20
Speaker 1: about the about the color face bears and and I
52:25
Speaker 1: think you were saying the darker ones or more where
52:27
Speaker 1: it's more human, more rain and everything, more thick cover. Well, yeah,
52:31
Speaker 1: and and so with bobcats, when you're looking for a
52:33
Speaker 1: good bobcat country, you tend to look for open country.
52:36
Speaker 1: You know, the color of the soil and ice and brown.
52:38
Speaker 1: When you get up in the country like this where
52:40
Speaker 1: you got your your timber and stuff, darker stuff, then
52:43
Speaker 1: you end up with a bobcat that's got a lot
52:45
Speaker 1: darker fur. On the back and stuff. And so when
52:49
Speaker 1: you're in like the basin and ranged country of of
52:51
Speaker 1: Nevada and the Mojabi desert California, you have a lot
52:54
Speaker 1: of a lot of sunlight hits the ground, a lot
52:56
Speaker 1: of brown ground, you know, not a lot of ground cover,
52:59
Speaker 1: and so you end up with a much more pale bobcat,
53:02
Speaker 1: which is where the money is. So I lived somewhere
53:05
Speaker 1: where there was you know, some pretty dark, nice bobcats.
53:08
Speaker 1: And they still have the big like Lynx grade bellies
53:11
Speaker 1: on them too, the big white spotted bellies. Are you
53:14
Speaker 1: talking about my bobcat? Yeah? Oh yeah, pure white, pure
53:18
Speaker 1: white with well defined, little tiny black spots. Yeah, they're
53:21
Speaker 1: they're they're not heavy enough for because it's not cold
53:25
Speaker 1: enough to to rate among the best in the country,
53:28
Speaker 1: you know, like a Wyoming bobcat or some of the
53:30
Speaker 1: Idaho cats or the high desert of say Oregon. Let's say, um,
53:36
Speaker 1: they just don't have the hef to the fur. But
53:39
Speaker 1: as far as a white fur with well defined spots, uh, yeah,
53:42
Speaker 1: they're pretty good quality cat. It's a real shame losing
53:46
Speaker 1: losing calf eastern California. We were we We've taxed a
53:50
Speaker 1: fair bit about the market, like what that fur market
53:53
Speaker 1: has looked like at times? Can you talk through some
53:55
Speaker 1: of the highs you've seen, like you mentioned when we
53:59
Speaker 1: were talking and yesterday you mentioned like some pretty sizeable
54:03
Speaker 1: yeah catches you had, you know, like like in terms
54:06
Speaker 1: of financial value, but what were these? It always surprises
54:11
Speaker 1: people to hear what what bobcats have been valued? That
54:15
Speaker 1: there's no other thing that even approaches the value of
54:17
Speaker 1: a bobcat. And yeah, in the trade you were talking
54:20
Speaker 1: about sidetes being alicted species, and that's that's only because
54:23
Speaker 1: it's I believe what it is refer you to do
54:25
Speaker 1: as a lookalike species. So it's the only spotted cat
54:27
Speaker 1: that can be sold on the fur industry, and because
54:30
Speaker 1: there's other spotty cats that are protected, they end up
54:33
Speaker 1: putting the bobcat on the side. He's yeah, And so
54:37
Speaker 1: there's there's been desire and attempts over the years to
54:40
Speaker 1: get it taken off that list, but you'll never see that.
54:42
Speaker 1: But so that's why I didn't know, That's why I
54:44
Speaker 1: was on there. That's interesting. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm
54:45
Speaker 1: accurate on that. That's how that works. But um, yeah,
54:50
Speaker 1: you know the high cats always get all the attention.
54:53
Speaker 1: You know. Um, you know you hear about a six bobcat,
54:57
Speaker 1: you know that got sold at a first sale or
55:00
Speaker 1: you know whatever the high cat of each sale is.
55:02
Speaker 1: You know, the guys do that for advertisement, the fur
55:04
Speaker 1: buyers and stuff. But really what you have to look
55:07
Speaker 1: at is the is the average price of for sales?
55:10
Speaker 1: You know, like we're what's the average bobcat? And um, yes,
55:14
Speaker 1: some of those averages uh uh. You know, like if
55:18
Speaker 1: the Fallon, Nevada for sale is always a good one
55:20
Speaker 1: to look at. Uh, it's a real long running first
55:22
Speaker 1: sale where a lot of the best fur in the
55:24
Speaker 1: nation end up, you know, stuff that doesn't get bought
55:26
Speaker 1: in the country and or shipped to the Canadian auctions.
55:30
Speaker 1: A lot of the best stuff ends up at that
55:32
Speaker 1: Fallon for sale and they keep a historical record there.
55:35
Speaker 1: You can look at it every year when you're at
55:37
Speaker 1: the sale. I think I sent you a picture, did
55:39
Speaker 1: all that? Um? Yeah? And you can look at years.
55:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, all the years kind of blend together,
55:44
Speaker 1: but you know, oh, age and I think twelve thirteen,
55:48
Speaker 1: like two thousand, twelve thirteen was a real high year
55:51
Speaker 1: if I remember, Um, you know, like I don't know,
55:54
Speaker 1: four hundred fifty dollar averages, you know, like like they
55:57
Speaker 1: sell like two thousand cats at that sale and rich
56:00
Speaker 1: prices three eight something like that, you know, for fifty.
56:05
Speaker 1: But but what makes the news is the the one
56:08
Speaker 1: cat that sold his bucks or something you were saying.
56:11
Speaker 1: They do that kind of they do that to generate hype. Yeah,
56:15
Speaker 1: the business. Yeah, you always if you have a high
56:18
Speaker 1: cab of stale, you always take a picture with the
56:20
Speaker 1: with the buyer that bought it and and he gets
56:22
Speaker 1: his name. But it gets people excited. Oh definitely. Yeah,
56:25
Speaker 1: you're like, did you hear the bobcats are going for
56:27
Speaker 1: six bucks? Yeah? That's all you hear. You know, Um,
56:30
Speaker 1: I think I think last year, uh there was just
56:33
Speaker 1: a little bit of good news last year in the
56:35
Speaker 1: firm market, and this year is expected to be at
56:38
Speaker 1: least there's no bad news. You know. I was just
56:40
Speaker 1: talking to a guy this morning, a fur buyer, and
56:42
Speaker 1: he said, well, initially they were saying prices might take
56:46
Speaker 1: up just a little bit because they're opening up some
56:48
Speaker 1: markets and they're figuring out how to get around the
56:50
Speaker 1: whole rush of thing. You know. Um, uh, they're expecting
56:55
Speaker 1: a little bit of a tick up this year, but
56:57
Speaker 1: it may or may not happen, you know, is you
57:00
Speaker 1: got to take everything a fur buyer tells you with
57:01
Speaker 1: a grain of salt, you know. Um, there's always a
57:05
Speaker 1: little bit of a more of a story to what
57:06
Speaker 1: they're telling you, uh, what they're wanting you to believe,
57:09
Speaker 1: you know, or and with me, they kind of want
57:11
Speaker 1: me to repeat something, you know, like they'll they'll make
57:14
Speaker 1: sure they they tell me something they want repeated, you know. Yeah,
57:18
Speaker 1: because I I don't know, there's three or four the
57:20
Speaker 1: main fur buyers in the whole in the West, and
57:24
Speaker 1: I talked to him all pretty regular and influence a
57:28
Speaker 1: lot of times, well a lot of times I'll get
57:29
Speaker 1: a little bit of a plant with me, you know
57:32
Speaker 1: that they're one for buyers hoping I repeat to another
57:34
Speaker 1: fur buyer. You know, I think that goes on. Why
57:39
Speaker 1: don't I understand Why I don't understand, like what would
57:41
Speaker 1: they be pushing to have out there? Give me the
57:42
Speaker 1: prince oh you know, like for instance, uh, um, you know,
57:46
Speaker 1: one one guy might report that he's at a certain
57:49
Speaker 1: number on a certain grade cat. That's what he's planning
57:51
Speaker 1: on buying at, you know, and hoping maybe that gets
57:55
Speaker 1: to another fur buyer to one end. They're always playing
58:00
Speaker 1: aimes Okay, but what would he be after I would
58:02
Speaker 1: I would assume he'd be after that, that buyer I
58:07
Speaker 1: don't understand, Like what would he be hoping the other
58:09
Speaker 1: buyer would do? It could influence his buying maybe, you know,
58:13
Speaker 1: like meaning that he's gonna pay less and that makes
58:15
Speaker 1: more available. Maybe he's gonna maybe he's gonna pay less
58:18
Speaker 1: and then the other guy, you know, has a better
58:20
Speaker 1: shot at other cats in the business. Yeah, they're always
58:24
Speaker 1: they're always gossip in and talking about each other and stuff.
58:27
Speaker 1: It's a yeah, it's it can get kind of fun sometimes.
58:31
Speaker 1: Have you ever gotten into that business? Yeah, very briefly,
58:37
Speaker 1: very briefly. The one guy here in Montana, he had
58:41
Speaker 1: me he was gonna have me buy for him at
58:43
Speaker 1: a at a first cello that in Arizona that I
58:47
Speaker 1: was helping put on um and at the last minute
58:50
Speaker 1: his daughter ended up showing up. Who's is she? Pretty?
58:53
Speaker 1: She pretty badass woman. You need to meet her someday.
58:56
Speaker 1: Her name is Liberty Cordhum. She's she's pretty cool, but
58:58
Speaker 1: she's a fur buyer. She flew out to to help
59:02
Speaker 1: me buy. Yeah, I was a nervous wreck. Yeah, oh god. Yeah.
59:05
Speaker 1: He gives me a bunch of checks and tells me
59:07
Speaker 1: to buy the best cats. They're they're there, you know.
59:10
Speaker 1: Do you know a good cat when you see one.
59:11
Speaker 1: I know a good cat when I see one. I
59:13
Speaker 1: don't know like they see. But at the same time,
59:16
Speaker 1: I've I've carried the clipboard for a lot of them
59:18
Speaker 1: fur buyers, you know, like stand next to him at
59:20
Speaker 1: the first sale and write down the numbers that they're
59:23
Speaker 1: telling me for. You know, the cats are all laying
59:25
Speaker 1: on tables and lots, you know, little groups for each
59:28
Speaker 1: trapper and stuff, and they're going through grading. I'm measuring them,
59:32
Speaker 1: looking them over, and they'll come up with the price,
59:34
Speaker 1: and they'll whisper to me. I'll write on the clipboards,
59:36
Speaker 1: you know, And more than once, with more than one
59:39
Speaker 1: fur buyer, I've I've gone down two or three you know,
59:43
Speaker 1: lots on the table and and say, hey, you know,
59:46
Speaker 1: I missed, I missed that number on a lot, you know,
59:50
Speaker 1: And so we back up five ft and go over there,
59:52
Speaker 1: and I'll be darn if you didn't come over the
59:54
Speaker 1: completely different price. Yeah, it's very it's very much. You
1:00:00
Speaker 1: to think that it's that there's this you know, like
1:00:04
Speaker 1: rules and and there is a technique that they look at,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: you know, measuring the width of it, the length of it,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: you know, the color of the fur, the definition of
1:00:15
Speaker 1: the spots, all that stuff. But there's also very much
1:00:18
Speaker 1: a human component to it. You know. They either just
1:00:20
Speaker 1: they can fall in love with a cat, just emotionally
1:00:24
Speaker 1: like it and or not like it. Um. You know,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: some fur buyers, you'll see them painstakingly measuring every single cat,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: you know, and just really being precise with their grading.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Um and other guys have handled, you know, hundreds of
1:00:38
Speaker 1: thousands of furs. Just grab it, flip it over once,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: flip it over again, look it up and down. They
1:00:43
Speaker 1: might brush the fur with their hand one time to
1:00:44
Speaker 1: see how it's gonna lay when it's on a garment
1:00:46
Speaker 1: and they tell you a number to write down. You
1:00:49
Speaker 1: might not know, but you're sitting in the presence of
1:00:50
Speaker 1: a top lot. Uh yeah, I think I remember that
1:00:54
Speaker 1: from Yeah, yeah, top plots for people over the years.
1:01:02
Speaker 1: Right on what makes a sixteen dollar gap? So all
1:01:07
Speaker 1: the money in a bobcat is in the belly, right
1:01:10
Speaker 1: the width of the of the belly, the whiteness of
1:01:13
Speaker 1: the belly, and there's money in that that color line
1:01:19
Speaker 1: from the side fur to the white so where the
1:01:21
Speaker 1: side fur comes down and blends into the white fur,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: the more pale it is there, the the It doesn't
1:01:28
Speaker 1: really make the belly any wider, but it's more usable
1:01:31
Speaker 1: for right because you can use a little bit of
1:01:34
Speaker 1: that side for you know, if you're talking about a
1:01:36
Speaker 1: belly coat, you know, eighty thou dollar all belly Bobcat coat.
1:01:40
Speaker 1: You know that's gonna be all white fur. And so
1:01:44
Speaker 1: the wider the width of that white belly, the further
1:01:46
Speaker 1: it's going to go on a coat square inches. You know,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: if you're just happy to be out and about downtown
1:01:50
Speaker 1: Bowsman and you see a coat that is pretty much
1:01:54
Speaker 1: stark white with small black spots, that's not where you
1:01:57
Speaker 1: go to see that coat. You could I saw something
1:02:01
Speaker 1: similar to that in I think it's one you're seeing
1:02:04
Speaker 1: someone from Houston who's at a ski resort in Colorado.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: That could be or big, but either way, that's what
1:02:13
Speaker 1: you're seeing. Is if it's a white coat with black spots,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: that's a belly bobcat coat. Depending on if it's a
1:02:19
Speaker 1: full length coat or a jacket. You know, jacket is
1:02:23
Speaker 1: going to be cheaper, right, you know. But I'm saying
1:02:25
Speaker 1: that's like, that's the fur that you're looking at. There's
1:02:28
Speaker 1: not another animal that would produce a similar not available
1:02:32
Speaker 1: to the fur market. You know what was that souped
1:02:34
Speaker 1: up coat the Russians were really interested in you're telling
1:02:37
Speaker 1: me about. Yeah, um, I think it was around two
1:02:40
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. There was pretty good cat prices and
1:02:43
Speaker 1: one of the fur buyers told me that there was
1:02:44
Speaker 1: a a sable coat um that was trimmed in Bobcat. Uh.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: That was the older dark special all the all the
1:02:53
Speaker 1: Russians had to have. What I remember the story. It
1:02:55
Speaker 1: was only about in US money. Um, but that's been
1:03:00
Speaker 1: a long time since I had to repeat that story.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: But so it's Martin for sable wind with Bobcat, sable
1:03:06
Speaker 1: with Bobcat trim you know, around the cuffs and the
1:03:08
Speaker 1: collar and I don't know, maybe the lapel. I don't know,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: I didn't actually see one, but that that was what
1:03:13
Speaker 1: was driving the fur industry that year, the Bobcat market. Uh.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: You know what, tell these boys about this, tell them
1:03:18
Speaker 1: what you were telling me about. What the rough on
1:03:20
Speaker 1: a kyote when you have your hood, Yeah, a coyote
1:03:25
Speaker 1: trim hood. I had no idea. Yeah, So what they
1:03:30
Speaker 1: what they sell in the in kyote for what they
1:03:33
Speaker 1: call a rough is not lengthways on the kyot, for
1:03:37
Speaker 1: it's around the kyote for so like going from the
1:03:40
Speaker 1: head towards the like it reminds me of looking at
1:03:43
Speaker 1: a like the diagram of butcher and at cal from
1:03:47
Speaker 1: it's always from the side and it shows, you know,
1:03:48
Speaker 1: the different cuts going. So picture of a kyote like that,
1:03:53
Speaker 1: and what they're selling is roughs and a good you know,
1:03:56
Speaker 1: big Montana highlighting kyote. I've heard you can't have as
1:03:59
Speaker 1: many as five roughs, you know. And so if you
1:04:02
Speaker 1: were to picture that rough on the hood of your coat,
1:04:05
Speaker 1: like those Canadian goose coats they were making for a while.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: So at the top of you, if you had your
1:04:09
Speaker 1: hood on the top of your hood would be the
1:04:12
Speaker 1: back for and as you go around left to right,
1:04:15
Speaker 1: left and right down to your throat, it would go
1:04:18
Speaker 1: side for towards belly. For that's dude. I'm so my
1:04:24
Speaker 1: daughter got a um, she got a she got a
1:04:29
Speaker 1: little winter coat that has a fake kyoe thing on it.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it in a real kyoe and I'm
1:04:34
Speaker 1: thinking about taking my first light Chamberlain. Oh yeah, you
1:04:38
Speaker 1: can't do it on Chamberlain, I already tried. I just
1:04:40
Speaker 1: told you that, remember, and I wasn't listening. I sent
1:04:43
Speaker 1: it to Samai. Or you were telling me about you
1:04:46
Speaker 1: didn't tell me about this, I sent it. I sent
1:04:48
Speaker 1: a chamberlain to Samai with a with a nice kayot
1:04:52
Speaker 1: and or you did tell me that she tried to
1:04:53
Speaker 1: put it together and she said that just the hood
1:04:56
Speaker 1: opening is too small, and if you were to attach
1:04:59
Speaker 1: that caught that rough to it, you get so tight
1:05:02
Speaker 1: that you you know, you'd be like just looking out
1:05:05
Speaker 1: of a teeny tiny hole. So the opening of the
1:05:08
Speaker 1: hood has to be bigger to make the rough work.
1:05:14
Speaker 1: It sounds like you need a kyo from lower country
1:05:16
Speaker 1: with less fur short fur. Yeah, soon as they caught
1:05:20
Speaker 1: it that way? Do you know that? I did not
1:05:22
Speaker 1: know that. I hope I don't get you a bunch
1:05:24
Speaker 1: of emails on that. But I'm sure that's how that works, probably,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: like everything is. Probably sometimes it's that way and sometimes
1:05:30
Speaker 1: it's different. But when I do it, that's how I'm
1:05:32
Speaker 1: doing it. Makes how much is that five rough Montana
1:05:36
Speaker 1: Kio Worth. I think the five rough I think that's
1:05:39
Speaker 1: probably an anomaly. I think you're looking at more at
1:05:42
Speaker 1: three or four roughs. But um, you know when Canada
1:05:46
Speaker 1: Goose was building all those coats before they switched over
1:05:48
Speaker 1: the plastic for um them Montana coyotes, the highlight clouds
1:05:52
Speaker 1: for you know, a hundred hundred thirty dollars, that drove
1:05:55
Speaker 1: It's crazy, that drove the market. Well, right now that
1:05:57
Speaker 1: Darren Yellowstone movie is is our TV show is driving
1:06:01
Speaker 1: the beaver market like crazy orders for forty beaver pelts
1:06:05
Speaker 1: right now to make all that wool felt for all
1:06:08
Speaker 1: those steps, to make all those felt hats. Yeah. Yeah,
1:06:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if they be Hollywood, Hollywood realize what
1:06:15
Speaker 1: they're doing better hit it in the spring. Yeah, but
1:06:18
Speaker 1: the hat or market still it's like not much money.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: It's probably still ten bucks oh for the pelt for
1:06:24
Speaker 1: the beaver. Yeah. So walk me through how in California?
1:06:30
Speaker 1: What happened that got you into designing and like creating
1:06:36
Speaker 1: cam trip cages. Well, so ever since high school I
1:06:40
Speaker 1: worked at sheet metal shop, which I ended up owning
1:06:43
Speaker 1: at some point. Um, which sheet metal is what you
1:06:47
Speaker 1: would call dry side heating and air, so not the
1:06:49
Speaker 1: plumbing side, but you know, heating an air contractor. And
1:06:52
Speaker 1: so I was I've been a fabricator forever, and so uh,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: I was trapping coyotes and a few bobcats in the
1:07:02
Speaker 1: late nineties and early two thousand's, and I was going
1:07:05
Speaker 1: to that um Nevada first sale all the time. Um
1:07:10
Speaker 1: and I met I met a dude named read Aton,
1:07:12
Speaker 1: who is you know, I guess i'd call him my
1:07:15
Speaker 1: k trap and mentor. You know, he's a California guy,
1:07:17
Speaker 1: and him and his his buddy at the time had
1:07:21
Speaker 1: you know, following the trap band, they started experimenting with
1:07:26
Speaker 1: cage traps and and cage traps that they could somehow
1:07:30
Speaker 1: put a lot of them in the back of their truck,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: you know, and come down because they were in northern California,
1:07:34
Speaker 1: they come down to my desert trap. And so if
1:07:37
Speaker 1: you think about a single cage trap that's all completely built,
1:07:40
Speaker 1: you can't fit very man them in a pickup truck, right,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: So they started experimenting with getting bobcats to go into
1:07:47
Speaker 1: narrower cages because up until then it was your guys
1:07:49
Speaker 1: were mostly using like raccoon traps, you know, like eighteen
1:07:52
Speaker 1: by eighteen k traps, right, there wasn't there was a
1:07:55
Speaker 1: there was an outfit in Nebraska who was starting to
1:07:58
Speaker 1: design and build specific Bobcat cage traps, you know, um,
1:08:02
Speaker 1: but mostly guys were just using whatever was available. And
1:08:06
Speaker 1: these two guys were trying to figure out how to build,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: how to come up with something that they could fit
1:08:09
Speaker 1: a bunch of them in a truck. Um, And they
1:08:11
Speaker 1: come up with a collapsible design and initially and then
1:08:14
Speaker 1: from that they went to a design where they nest
1:08:17
Speaker 1: one inside the other and one is you know, slightly
1:08:20
Speaker 1: smaller than the other one you can slide him inside. Um.
1:08:24
Speaker 1: And so when I met him, they were starting to
1:08:27
Speaker 1: become successful in about two thousand two with successfully cage
1:08:31
Speaker 1: trap and Bobcats in those narrow cages, right, so like
1:08:34
Speaker 1: ten inch wide cage, nine inch wide cage, eight inch
1:08:36
Speaker 1: wide cages, um, which I don't think anybody else was
1:08:40
Speaker 1: doing at the time. I could be wrong, but uh
1:08:43
Speaker 1: so after meeting him, you know, I bought one of
1:08:45
Speaker 1: his cages, and I and I bought some of the
1:08:47
Speaker 1: cages from the guy in Nebraska, and you know, immediately
1:08:50
Speaker 1: the fabricator and me was like why I can build
1:08:53
Speaker 1: stuff better than this, and so of course I did.
1:08:56
Speaker 1: Uh started building them myself, just for my own personal use.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: Because Reid had what was called the California cag Trap
1:09:04
Speaker 1: Company and he was selling cage stress. But eventually I
1:09:09
Speaker 1: told him I'll never sell a cage until, you know,
1:09:12
Speaker 1: until you're done with it or whatever. And it wasn't
1:09:14
Speaker 1: very long that he couldn't keep up. He was a
1:09:16
Speaker 1: older guy, uh, and he didn't like build him and
1:09:19
Speaker 1: shipping him. He couldn't keep up, so he start started
1:09:21
Speaker 1: telling people to call me. And at the same time,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: a trapper made a video on cage trapping Bobcats and Foxes,
1:09:28
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine in Nevada, and uh, he put
1:09:32
Speaker 1: me in his video, not me personally, but he was
1:09:34
Speaker 1: doing it where he didn't even need to be doing
1:09:36
Speaker 1: it right, Yeah, he's uh, he was using him mostly
1:09:41
Speaker 1: for Foxes. And then uh, there was a guy in
1:09:44
Speaker 1: California and we and him weren't too close with friends
1:09:46
Speaker 1: at that point. There was a guy in California that
1:09:48
Speaker 1: did the actual Bobcat cage trapping part for that DVD. UM,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: but he at the end of his DVD, he put
1:09:55
Speaker 1: my name in number on here, and so I just
1:09:58
Speaker 1: fell into it. I never did I had I had
1:10:01
Speaker 1: well paying I had good paying jobs all those years.
1:10:04
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing it for the money. I just was
1:10:07
Speaker 1: getting so much enjoyment out of uh well, I mean
1:10:11
Speaker 1: what really what really tickles me, floats my boat is
1:10:14
Speaker 1: is trying to build something better, trying to make it
1:10:17
Speaker 1: better and better and better, and and trying to develop
1:10:20
Speaker 1: ways to get the bobcat into the cage, you know,
1:10:22
Speaker 1: because that's that's always such a challenge, you know those
1:10:25
Speaker 1: the podcasts don't want to go in there. Can we
1:10:27
Speaker 1: get into that a little bit? Is that a good time?
1:10:29
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I'm wondering how you get I mean, could
1:10:32
Speaker 1: you fit auder into an eight inch by eight inch cage?
1:10:36
Speaker 1: Or is that too big? Well, you're if you're saying
1:10:39
Speaker 1: eight by eight you mean eight inches tall? And I
1:10:40
Speaker 1: would say no, um is it with yeah? Right? And
1:10:46
Speaker 1: then it's long eight inches wide? Yeah. So like if
1:10:50
Speaker 1: I if I say my tenes trap, so like my
1:10:54
Speaker 1: traps I build is the big one is eleven inches
1:10:56
Speaker 1: wide and twenty inches tall, and what goes inside that one?
1:10:59
Speaker 1: Would was the big challenge for me. An accomplishment was
1:11:02
Speaker 1: to make a cage that would fit inside there that
1:11:04
Speaker 1: only had a one inch size break. So from eleven
1:11:07
Speaker 1: it goes to ten by nineteen, So eleven by twenty
1:11:10
Speaker 1: eleven inches wide, twenties is tall, and then ten inches
1:11:13
Speaker 1: wide nineteen itches tall fits inside there. And inside that
1:11:16
Speaker 1: one is a nine by eighteen and inside that one
1:11:19
Speaker 1: is eight by seventeen. So you have four cages that
1:11:21
Speaker 1: only have four inch difference in the in the size.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: So did you sell those as a kid then? Yeah,
1:11:28
Speaker 1: the most common thing is a set of three. Yeah,
1:11:31
Speaker 1: I don't The smallest cages not always the most popular.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: It's popular in the desert, and their goal is, like
1:11:37
Speaker 1: you're saying, it's just so that a trapper can carry more. Yeah,
1:11:40
Speaker 1: I mean I run a little tiny Toyota with a
1:11:42
Speaker 1: crossbed toolbox and I can still fit fifteen cages in there.
1:11:46
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, that's the only way that you can
1:11:48
Speaker 1: be productive. So how do you get that bobcat to
1:11:51
Speaker 1: go in there? No? I may know less now than
1:11:56
Speaker 1: I did twenty years ago when I started this. That's
1:11:59
Speaker 1: that's the valunge with those bobcats. You know, they're always
1:12:02
Speaker 1: you just can't figure them out. You never will, And
1:12:04
Speaker 1: I used to say, you know, bobcats a bobcat no matter,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: you know, like wherever you go. But I have enough
1:12:09
Speaker 1: customers in different states, and I've trapped enough different states
1:12:12
Speaker 1: now that that's not true. You know, they're influenced by um,
1:12:16
Speaker 1: their environment, availability to pray, you know, the temperatures. UM.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: I was trapping in the in the Majabi desert, and
1:12:24
Speaker 1: there's just something about cage trapping bobcats down there is
1:12:27
Speaker 1: just easy. You're you're you're exposed to a lot of
1:12:30
Speaker 1: bobcats first of all, right, so there's higher densities depending
1:12:33
Speaker 1: on you know, how your droughts going and whatnot. You know,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: there's always the droughts really hard on them. But um,
1:12:39
Speaker 1: so you're exposed, you have more opportunities to catch bobcats,
1:12:41
Speaker 1: so you catch more, but they're just more likely to
1:12:43
Speaker 1: go in. And then you know that I had dinner
1:12:46
Speaker 1: with that local trapper last night. He uses my cage
1:12:48
Speaker 1: traps right here in Montana, UM, and he said that, man,
1:12:51
Speaker 1: he's really having a rash of walk bys, you know,
1:12:53
Speaker 1: where they just walk by in front of the cage.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: I mean, don't even pause, just literally walk past it.
1:12:58
Speaker 1: Why is he using a cage. Uh you know, Um,
1:13:03
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly there. They're very Uh they're they're
1:13:08
Speaker 1: easier to keep operating in in the snow than digging
1:13:12
Speaker 1: out your foot traps or you know, you got two
1:13:14
Speaker 1: ft of snow, you can say a cage. And so
1:13:16
Speaker 1: long as like the country you guys live in, it's
1:13:18
Speaker 1: just freaking cold all the time. Um, so the doors
1:13:21
Speaker 1: don't freeze up. But where where the cage trap doesn't
1:13:25
Speaker 1: work is when you get you know, freezing snow, you know,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: or it warms up during the day forty degrees and
1:13:29
Speaker 1: then it's you've got that water on the on the
1:13:32
Speaker 1: door that freezes at night, and then your your cage froze.
1:13:34
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not a perfect system, but uh,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: you can keep them working in the in the snow, explain,
1:13:41
Speaker 1: explain baiting and luring one so he goes into a cage. Yeah.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: I think what the biggest mistake that the trappers young
1:13:51
Speaker 1: and old make is they think too much like a
1:13:54
Speaker 1: human being, uh with the cage trap. And not to
1:13:57
Speaker 1: disrespect the animal. I I love and respect you know,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: all sorts of wildlife, especially the bobcat. They're fascinating creature.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: But They're just an animal, you know, they're they're they're
1:14:08
Speaker 1: only capable. They've never had an original thought in their life, right,
1:14:12
Speaker 1: They're only capable of reacting like a like a wild
1:14:14
Speaker 1: animal would. Right. So you see guys on the internet
1:14:18
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, you sprinkling feathers out in front
1:14:21
Speaker 1: of their cage, and putting missing urine on the front
1:14:24
Speaker 1: of their cage to hide their human sand and uh,
1:14:27
Speaker 1: you know, hanging a flag up in the tree. You know,
1:14:30
Speaker 1: those are all things that the bobcat is going to
1:14:31
Speaker 1: react to, and none of those reactions are going to
1:14:34
Speaker 1: cause the bobcat to become interested what's inside the cage trap, Right,
1:14:38
Speaker 1: they think, oh, I, I, you know, put a bunch
1:14:39
Speaker 1: of feathers from a feather pillow in front of the
1:14:41
Speaker 1: cage to get him excited. You know what was that
1:14:44
Speaker 1: caused him to do? That? Causes him to smell a
1:14:46
Speaker 1: bunch of you know, sanitized sterile feathers that came out
1:14:50
Speaker 1: of a pillow in front of your cage. He smells
1:14:52
Speaker 1: a couple of them, maybe one of them flitters in
1:14:53
Speaker 1: the wind, and he goes over there and puts his
1:14:55
Speaker 1: paw on it, smells it, and it didn't trigger anything naturally, right,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: So compare that to let's say, in within your cage trap,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: you have feathers from whatsever legal where you're, where you're living,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: you know, um say pheasant feathers, you know. Uh. So,
1:15:09
Speaker 1: like one of the things I do, after I bed
1:15:11
Speaker 1: the cage and put soil in the trap, I'll take
1:15:14
Speaker 1: whatever bait I'm using, Let's say it's beaver or a
1:15:17
Speaker 1: pheasant carcass, and I'll scrub the soil just inside the
1:15:21
Speaker 1: door opening of the cage, like, scrub that bait into there.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: Now I've imparting those natural odors into the floor of
1:15:27
Speaker 1: the trap before I hang the bait in the back. Okay,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: So now the bobcat comes and visit this cage, because
1:15:34
Speaker 1: most of them will walk over to and visit this
1:15:37
Speaker 1: thing that wasn't there last time they come through. It's
1:15:40
Speaker 1: this weird rectangular square thing, you know. So they're curiosity,
1:15:44
Speaker 1: they're curious. Nature is just going to cause them to
1:15:45
Speaker 1: come start smelling it. Um. And then they smell the
1:15:49
Speaker 1: ground and now they're like, oh, a pheasant. You know,
1:15:52
Speaker 1: I haven't had a pheasant in a while, you know,
1:15:53
Speaker 1: And they maybe take one step in because there's a
1:15:56
Speaker 1: few feathers in there that caused them to trigger now
1:16:00
Speaker 1: truly to it. You know, I think of as like, um,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: you know, like a storefront window. Right, you have the
1:16:06
Speaker 1: mannequin there on the with a dress on it, and
1:16:09
Speaker 1: you're walking down the street with your with your wife.
1:16:12
Speaker 1: She's not even think about dress, but then she sees
1:16:14
Speaker 1: the dress in the window, and now she's all she
1:16:17
Speaker 1: can think about his address. Right. It's like I'm trying
1:16:19
Speaker 1: to trigger them to want to investigate inside the cage.
1:16:23
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to use natural odors within the trap
1:16:26
Speaker 1: that cause that. You know, stuff that I do out
1:16:28
Speaker 1: of the cage, some of it has values like a flag.
1:16:31
Speaker 1: Some guys think, oh, all I gotta do you know,
1:16:33
Speaker 1: I'm making a Bobcat set, so therefore I need a flag, right,
1:16:36
Speaker 1: A feather hanging in the tree or whatever a c
1:16:38
Speaker 1: D Let's say, Well, no, a flag has a job.
1:16:42
Speaker 1: The job of the flag is to is to try
1:16:45
Speaker 1: to pull a cat over to your set that you
1:16:47
Speaker 1: don't expect to already be there. Right, So like where
1:16:50
Speaker 1: were Yeah they're blowing the wind from way off and yeah,
1:16:56
Speaker 1: yesterday in those stick trees. You know, a flag wouldn't
1:16:58
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of value. Right, You're gonna want
1:17:01
Speaker 1: to put your your set right where that bobcat is
1:17:03
Speaker 1: gonna walk anyways. But if you have, you know, some
1:17:05
Speaker 1: fairly open country out in front of your cage, you
1:17:07
Speaker 1: have a big hill next to where you're setting, and
1:17:09
Speaker 1: you you expect maybe a bobcat would be up there
1:17:11
Speaker 1: on that hill and the rocks or what have you. Uh,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: And you can't necessarily get the cage where you want
1:17:16
Speaker 1: where you expect the bobcat to be. Well, then you'd
1:17:18
Speaker 1: use a flag, you know, um, and then cause him
1:17:22
Speaker 1: to come over to see the flag and then becomes
1:17:24
Speaker 1: interested in the cage. Um. So everything you do outside
1:17:28
Speaker 1: the cage has a potential to distract the cat, you know. Um.
1:17:32
Speaker 1: I remember when I was filming for one of my DVDs,
1:17:38
Speaker 1: I had a trail camera on a set and I
1:17:39
Speaker 1: caught a big tom bobcat in this cage trap. And
1:17:42
Speaker 1: the next day I set up my tripod in my
1:17:44
Speaker 1: movie camera, you know, and I was I took the
1:17:46
Speaker 1: bobcat out of the cage and I was laying it
1:17:48
Speaker 1: down in front of me, and you know, I was
1:17:50
Speaker 1: filming myself, you know, talking to the camera. Yeah, I'm
1:17:53
Speaker 1: the great strapper in the world. You know, I just
1:17:54
Speaker 1: caught this big bobcat and just how you do it?
1:17:56
Speaker 1: And uh, I left the trail camera on there, and
1:18:00
Speaker 1: a few days go by, I never caught anything else,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: And so I picked it all up and took the
1:18:03
Speaker 1: trail camera home and and I end up with a
1:18:06
Speaker 1: video of this. What what I was guessing was a
1:18:08
Speaker 1: female bobcat come to that set location and she spent
1:18:12
Speaker 1: like three and a half minute smelling every square inch
1:18:14
Speaker 1: of soil where that tom had been laying in front
1:18:16
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, never even looked at the kate trap.
1:18:20
Speaker 1: So you end up with enough stuff like that happening.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I always tell trappers like, never
1:18:25
Speaker 1: pull the cave trap out of the trap bed to
1:18:27
Speaker 1: dispatch your animal, right, figure out a way not to
1:18:31
Speaker 1: do that. I stand my cage traps up in and
1:18:33
Speaker 1: we don't when to talk about dispatch. But what you
1:18:36
Speaker 1: do when you drag that cage out, you know, everybody
1:18:38
Speaker 1: wants to drag it out, turn it sideways to take
1:18:40
Speaker 1: a picture. You know, you're just dragging all that wonderful
1:18:43
Speaker 1: odors out of the cage bed onto the ground in
1:18:45
Speaker 1: front of in front of the trap. You know, if
1:18:47
Speaker 1: you let's say you dispatch your bobcat in the cage
1:18:50
Speaker 1: and you pull it out late in front of your
1:18:51
Speaker 1: trap and take a take a picture, you know, you're
1:18:55
Speaker 1: just causing uh, you know, confusion for that next cat
1:19:00
Speaker 1: or a distraction. So so when you ask about how
1:19:03
Speaker 1: you get a cat into a cage, there's a big
1:19:06
Speaker 1: list of don't and then a few dudes. You know
1:19:09
Speaker 1: that you you always want to make sure that you
1:19:11
Speaker 1: do hit me with the dudes. I am a big
1:19:22
Speaker 1: proponent of skunk paste, uh, you know, And so you
1:19:27
Speaker 1: can either put you're gonna push your cage up against
1:19:29
Speaker 1: a tree trunk. Let's say you can smear some skunk
1:19:32
Speaker 1: paste on that trunk before you put your cage up
1:19:33
Speaker 1: against it. Uh. I live in deserts, so I always
1:19:37
Speaker 1: just dig a little hole with my hand where the
1:19:39
Speaker 1: where the very back of the cage would be, like
1:19:41
Speaker 1: just beyond the pan, and I put my skunk paste
1:19:43
Speaker 1: in there, because I think skunk for for almost all
1:19:47
Speaker 1: the stuff that we trapped on the land. Um and
1:19:50
Speaker 1: even people it's it's like, you know, hey, something happened
1:19:54
Speaker 1: over there, I better go check it out. That's what
1:19:55
Speaker 1: skunk smell is to to all that. You know, Kyo's
1:19:59
Speaker 1: Bobcats and everything. You know. I mean, you guys spent
1:20:01
Speaker 1: so much time in the field, I'm sure you smell
1:20:03
Speaker 1: smell the skunk. You you might have walked towards it
1:20:05
Speaker 1: just to see, you know, what happened there, you know,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: something got killed or whatever. And it does the same
1:20:10
Speaker 1: thing for for predators. So you know, I'm a big
1:20:13
Speaker 1: proponent of that. Um. You know, having natural odors inside
1:20:17
Speaker 1: the cage to cause them to want to, you know,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: enter the trap. Uh, you're investigating those odors. You're trying
1:20:23
Speaker 1: to change their mind, right, they come up to the cage.
1:20:26
Speaker 1: Maybe they you know, hopefully they smelt it. So another
1:20:29
Speaker 1: one that I do. And I uh, you know, some
1:20:32
Speaker 1: of this stuff I learned from different people. I don't
1:20:34
Speaker 1: need to mention all their names give them credit. But
1:20:36
Speaker 1: you know, a guy in Colorado taught me about thermal's,
1:20:39
Speaker 1: you know, because you guys know about thermals your ilk
1:20:41
Speaker 1: hunters and all that. Um, I'm from the desert. I
1:20:44
Speaker 1: don't really know a whole lot about thermals um. But
1:20:46
Speaker 1: the time of day when the bobcats most active is
1:20:49
Speaker 1: going to be you know, the twilight hours, late afternoon,
1:20:52
Speaker 1: all night, and early in the morning when thermals are
1:20:54
Speaker 1: going downhill. And so I can't tell you how many
1:20:57
Speaker 1: cage traps I've seen that we're pointed up a wash,
1:21:00
Speaker 1: and I'll go up past them and set my cage
1:21:02
Speaker 1: pointed down the wash. So then when the bobcat gets
1:21:05
Speaker 1: there during the time of day when he's most active,
1:21:08
Speaker 1: it's the low light conditions, the thermal is going to
1:21:11
Speaker 1: be going down that wash. So when he approaches the
1:21:13
Speaker 1: front of the cage, the odors hit him right in
1:21:14
Speaker 1: the face. So now he triggers on those odors and
1:21:17
Speaker 1: he knows to follow them. Right. So a lot of
1:21:19
Speaker 1: these guys that send me pictures of bobcat tracks in
1:21:22
Speaker 1: the snow and stuff on the side of their trap,
1:21:24
Speaker 1: you know, the bobcats trying to get to the to
1:21:26
Speaker 1: the source of the odors or the bait from the side.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: What chances are that's where he's smelling it coming from.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: You follow me, Yeah, So he's standing, he stand at
1:21:34
Speaker 1: the front of the cage and nothing triggers him naturally. Um,
1:21:38
Speaker 1: are you brushing in your your cages? Um? Yeah? What's
1:21:43
Speaker 1: what's the set look like like when you when you
1:21:44
Speaker 1: set one. So you know, in the desert, you could
1:21:49
Speaker 1: spend ten minutes breaking brush and it looks like you
1:21:52
Speaker 1: threw toothpicks on your cage. You know, there's no leaves.
1:21:55
Speaker 1: So that's a very different set than the majority of people.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: Majority of travelers are trapping. You know, heavier country, um so,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys have to deal with snow
1:22:04
Speaker 1: right so up here, you guys would have to be
1:22:06
Speaker 1: putting plastic bags over the top of your trap, or
1:22:09
Speaker 1: even put your cage in a trap plastic bag. Uh,
1:22:12
Speaker 1: maybe finding ledges that are south facing that have dirt
1:22:16
Speaker 1: so that you can be under the ledge keep the
1:22:17
Speaker 1: snow off. Um So, you really have no choice. There's
1:22:20
Speaker 1: a The guys in the Northwest kind of use a
1:22:23
Speaker 1: dark whole mentality to their cage trapping. So like you know,
1:22:27
Speaker 1: throw a paper bag on the floor and your house
1:22:29
Speaker 1: cat just goes in it for whatever, why the hell
1:22:31
Speaker 1: it does, I don't know, it goes in the dark hole.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: So those guys kind of think of you know, trapping
1:22:36
Speaker 1: like that. Um that is not at all how I
1:22:40
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just where I lived. We couldn't do that.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: We didn't need to. Um. The bobcats just go right in.
1:22:45
Speaker 1: So there was a period of time when I thought,
1:22:48
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the difference of as I go to
1:22:50
Speaker 1: Colorado and I have terrible luck, I have a lot
1:22:52
Speaker 1: of visits with no no cats going in, you know.
1:22:55
Speaker 1: And uh, I started using more bait because I think
1:22:58
Speaker 1: they're more calorie driven in in the colder country. Um.
1:23:02
Speaker 1: In the desert, you can't really use bait because it's
1:23:05
Speaker 1: just too warm. It's just just you know, it's just nasty. Yeah,
1:23:08
Speaker 1: and so you use all lure and your cages are
1:23:12
Speaker 1: barely covered up. Um. So there was a period of
1:23:14
Speaker 1: time I thought, you know, maybe that's the difference. You know,
1:23:16
Speaker 1: maybe it's not the cat. Maybe it's maybe it's the country,
1:23:18
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, but I really can't say how.
1:23:23
Speaker 1: I I don't know why it's something more difficult to
1:23:26
Speaker 1: catch these bobcats and cages in the mountain country. I
1:23:28
Speaker 1: just don't know. I don't know. You were telling me
1:23:31
Speaker 1: something yesterday, uh about their power of smell that I
1:23:38
Speaker 1: was thinking about after we talked, And you're mentioning that
1:23:40
Speaker 1: when you when you're working on research projects, how quickly
1:23:45
Speaker 1: a bobcat will come in and occupy the vacated area
1:23:53
Speaker 1: left by the death of another bobcat, And like, how
1:23:57
Speaker 1: do they know what it was? And how do they
1:24:00
Speaker 1: know that the person the cat has gone? How do
1:24:04
Speaker 1: they know what it was? Like you were talking about
1:24:06
Speaker 1: spots where you can look at tracking data, Yeah, and
1:24:09
Speaker 1: you'll know that a cat were going and just take
1:24:12
Speaker 1: over the territory of another cat. Oh yeah, it's amazing
1:24:14
Speaker 1: how fast sometimes And I think the cat that died,
1:24:18
Speaker 1: the better his country is, the faster than neighboring cats
1:24:21
Speaker 1: will take it over, right, like as soon as a
1:24:24
Speaker 1: few weeks. It's pretty impressive. Like if you picture like
1:24:28
Speaker 1: a just picture like a checkerboard, Uh, you know the squares,
1:24:34
Speaker 1: and picture three squares, a black one on the left,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: a red one in the middle, and a black one
1:24:37
Speaker 1: on the right. We we had a situation with three
1:24:40
Speaker 1: cats that had radio callers on them, and they all
1:24:42
Speaker 1: three had their own was a it was a female
1:24:44
Speaker 1: on the right, a male in the middle, and a
1:24:46
Speaker 1: male on the left. And uh, the one in the
1:24:50
Speaker 1: middle was a big dominant tom so you would suspect
1:24:53
Speaker 1: that he was occupying the best little piece of country there, right,
1:24:56
Speaker 1: And they all three had fairly small home range. UM
1:25:01
Speaker 1: my estimate from you know, and I don't I don't
1:25:03
Speaker 1: have access to the GPS data. I just I just
1:25:06
Speaker 1: kind of get to get whatever I can from the
1:25:08
Speaker 1: boologists I'm working for down there in Arizona. Um. But
1:25:11
Speaker 1: just looking at the screenshots and stuff, Let's say each
1:25:14
Speaker 1: one of those bobcats had roughly a three mile by
1:25:17
Speaker 1: three miles square piece of country that they occupied. Fairly
1:25:20
Speaker 1: small home range compared to what I would expect up
1:25:22
Speaker 1: here in Montana. Let's say, um, meaning they had everything
1:25:26
Speaker 1: they needed right there, right, food three yeah, food, food, shelter, um, escape,
1:25:35
Speaker 1: you know, everything they wanted right resources. The one in
1:25:38
Speaker 1: the middle died the other two. I showed you that.
1:25:45
Speaker 1: Um it was wearing a collar. Yeah, I was wearing
1:25:48
Speaker 1: a collar. Yeah. You don't want to tell me how
1:25:49
Speaker 1: it died. Uh. It got caught in a foothold trap
1:25:53
Speaker 1: and a lion came and ate it. Oh yeah, line
1:25:57
Speaker 1: ate it before noon that morning. Yeah, just hollow the
1:26:01
Speaker 1: whole bailly out. You can. You can tell the difference, um,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: between lion kills and coyote kills and stuff. It's pretty easy.
1:26:09
Speaker 1: So trapper got it, but a lion got it. Yeah, yeah,
1:26:11
Speaker 1: it got killed in a trap. Well, just within a
1:26:14
Speaker 1: few weeks that the two cats on the other two
1:26:17
Speaker 1: checkerboard squares just immediately started venturing into his country, and
1:26:22
Speaker 1: then within just a few months they absorbed it and
1:26:25
Speaker 1: just took it over. And now they have each one
1:26:28
Speaker 1: of those two cats has a bigger home range, and
1:26:30
Speaker 1: they spend more time in his country than they do
1:26:32
Speaker 1: in their owns from what I've seen so far. And
1:26:34
Speaker 1: you always to hear that stuff, like an animal having
1:26:36
Speaker 1: its territory. But it's just amazing. We have another cat
1:26:40
Speaker 1: right now that the Bolois was sending me some screenshots on.
1:26:42
Speaker 1: He was a young male that we call her last December,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: and he lived in one spot, had a nice little
1:26:49
Speaker 1: home range, looked like he was making a good life
1:26:51
Speaker 1: for himself. Um, and then one day in June he
1:26:54
Speaker 1: just took off, and he took off and went I
1:26:59
Speaker 1: would have to estimate some forty miles or so north,
1:27:03
Speaker 1: just almost on a straight line, spend a day or
1:27:05
Speaker 1: two up there, turned around and came all the way
1:27:07
Speaker 1: back down along that same line, and then turned west
1:27:10
Speaker 1: and went across a bunch of juniper country, come down
1:27:12
Speaker 1: into a valley, went up and behind a town, then
1:27:15
Speaker 1: took off headed west again and was hanging out of there,
1:27:20
Speaker 1: hanging out over there for a month or two. And
1:27:22
Speaker 1: then now the latest, um, the latest little screenshot that
1:27:25
Speaker 1: the biologist shared with me, he is now occupying a
1:27:28
Speaker 1: piece of country that we had a mail that was
1:27:31
Speaker 1: callered that got shot that we knew his home range
1:27:34
Speaker 1: pretty well. And it looks to me like he's setting
1:27:36
Speaker 1: up to take over that Tom's entire piece of country.
1:27:39
Speaker 1: And now that he's gone, so he went on a
1:27:41
Speaker 1: big wander and found like a sweet spot that you
1:27:45
Speaker 1: know had been vacated and that I know for sure
1:27:48
Speaker 1: is vacated. Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty cool stuff. It's
1:27:51
Speaker 1: pretty neat stuff. How did that transition go for you?
1:27:54
Speaker 1: Where you're doing? You're doing bobcats as a as a
1:27:58
Speaker 1: fur harvester, so you really learned how to catch them.
1:28:03
Speaker 1: What was the first time a researcher called you up?
1:28:06
Speaker 1: I think it was probably just a slow thing. You know.
1:28:09
Speaker 1: I started selling the products to all sorts of researchers
1:28:12
Speaker 1: all over the place. Um, I guess the first project
1:28:16
Speaker 1: I worked on was when I was with U. S.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: D A. I did some seasonal work for a few
1:28:20
Speaker 1: years doing kyote work, and uh they sent me down
1:28:23
Speaker 1: to help a grad student catch some gray squirrels and
1:28:25
Speaker 1: put collars on them. Um. And then uh, then I
1:28:30
Speaker 1: I I went out on a couple of private researchers
1:28:33
Speaker 1: projects just to help him out, you know. Um oh, California, California.
1:28:38
Speaker 1: At one point there was a local biologists on the
1:28:41
Speaker 1: eastern part of the state that was trying to he
1:28:43
Speaker 1: was actually trying to get ahead of what he saw
1:28:46
Speaker 1: coming down the road. Like this would have been in
1:28:48
Speaker 1: about two thousand nine or tennis before we lost everything.
1:28:52
Speaker 1: He was trying to get ahead of it, and he
1:28:53
Speaker 1: was trying to be proactive and actually do a population
1:28:56
Speaker 1: study in the eastern part of the state. And U
1:29:00
Speaker 1: uh he was you know, getting callers put out and
1:29:02
Speaker 1: stuff like that. He I think he probably got pr
1:29:04
Speaker 1: money for it and and was doing a study. Um.
1:29:07
Speaker 1: He since moved on, But I got to go up
1:29:10
Speaker 1: there and I kind of like did a school for
1:29:13
Speaker 1: their trapper And then they were struggling, of course, and
1:29:16
Speaker 1: I went out and helped him a little bit. It
1:29:18
Speaker 1: was just kind of slowly and then you know, I
1:29:20
Speaker 1: mean I had a pretty good reputation in Arizona. Everybody
1:29:22
Speaker 1: knew who I was. I pretty much the only one
1:29:25
Speaker 1: selling all the stuff. And um, so when the biologists,
1:29:30
Speaker 1: I think it was like two thousand eighteen, uh, some
1:29:33
Speaker 1: of the animal welfare group started talking about pushing for
1:29:36
Speaker 1: a ban on lying in bobcat hunting and trapping in Arizona.
1:29:41
Speaker 1: And uh, like I was a director one of the
1:29:44
Speaker 1: higher ups that game at fish said to the furbear biologists,
1:29:48
Speaker 1: large carnivore lady that I worked for, uh say, hey,
1:29:51
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do about this? You know, we
1:29:52
Speaker 1: got enough data to to fight these people off? And
1:29:55
Speaker 1: she said, well, you know, there's never enough data. She said,
1:29:57
Speaker 1: I got this idea for this population study and laid
1:30:00
Speaker 1: on me, you know, and and here, uh, two and
1:30:04
Speaker 1: a half years later, it's I think it's the number
1:30:06
Speaker 1: one thing that game official is doing right now in Arizona.
1:30:08
Speaker 1: Their radio caller and bobcats and lions all over the state. Um.
1:30:12
Speaker 1: But when she you know, started getting you know, it's
1:30:15
Speaker 1: all pr money right um. And when she started putting
1:30:20
Speaker 1: that all together, she knew right away. She said, there's
1:30:23
Speaker 1: only two guys that I want to work with as
1:30:25
Speaker 1: the trappers. That's That's why I really respect the most
1:30:27
Speaker 1: with her because so many these other agencies they try
1:30:30
Speaker 1: to do with volunteer help, volunteer trappers, or they try
1:30:33
Speaker 1: to do it in the house, you know, because he's bologists.
1:30:34
Speaker 1: They spend you know, so many years in college, right
1:30:37
Speaker 1: they want to work with wildlife, and they find that
1:30:39
Speaker 1: they're in the office all the time, right, so they
1:30:41
Speaker 1: have a hard time giving up their field work. So
1:30:43
Speaker 1: then they try to do uh, you know, the trapping
1:30:46
Speaker 1: and stuff themselves. But that's why I have so much
1:30:49
Speaker 1: respect for the way our zone is doing it, because
1:30:50
Speaker 1: they hired too, you know, two confident trappers to go
1:30:54
Speaker 1: out and do the catching, you know, and let them
1:30:56
Speaker 1: do the science stuff. So uh So, so when they
1:31:00
Speaker 1: when they put that all together a couple of years ago,
1:31:02
Speaker 1: she called me and said, well, hey, you know, what
1:31:04
Speaker 1: do you do in this winter? And so that's I
1:31:06
Speaker 1: think we just had our third capture season right now.
1:31:09
Speaker 1: How many have you gotten collegs on? Uh So, I
1:31:12
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to be there to catch number one
1:31:14
Speaker 1: hundred for the State of Arizona. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: and then uh uh so one hundred deployments there's been
1:31:21
Speaker 1: I think somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty mortalities. Yeah,
1:31:25
Speaker 1: what what's where do you find is killing them besides people? Uh,
1:31:29
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest one, so I think the biggest category.
1:31:33
Speaker 1: And and I uh so understand I'm not talking for
1:31:36
Speaker 1: Arizona game fish. I'm just repeating some of the things
1:31:39
Speaker 1: that I see in uh some of what I know.
1:31:42
Speaker 1: You know, um, so predation I think is probably the
1:31:45
Speaker 1: biggest one so far for mortalities. And of that, the
1:31:48
Speaker 1: lions are really killing the heck out of them things. Um,
1:31:52
Speaker 1: I don't know there's been maybe I don't know about
1:31:54
Speaker 1: a dozer, so, uh, don't quote me on that. There's
1:31:59
Speaker 1: there's in around dozeners so predation mortalities, um and a
1:32:04
Speaker 1: lot of those are lions. I had two lines up
1:32:06
Speaker 1: on this one, this one ranch like collared, and three
1:32:10
Speaker 1: months later they were both dead. From what I would
1:32:11
Speaker 1: expect me the same lion. Yeah, two lions. Excuse me?
1:32:15
Speaker 1: Did I Are the lions killing them to eat them
1:32:20
Speaker 1: or a competition thing? Yeah, I think it's all the above.
1:32:24
Speaker 1: But I think lions just lions just wander around the
1:32:27
Speaker 1: country wanting to kill stuff. That's just how they are. Yeah,
1:32:32
Speaker 1: we saw a little bit of that. The other day
1:32:35
Speaker 1: a friend of ours another uh a sound engineer that
1:32:39
Speaker 1: works here, had found a lion tracked me he's checking
1:32:43
Speaker 1: his Martin traps. So he called me and another friend
1:32:47
Speaker 1: of ours with hounds. We went up there and run
1:32:49
Speaker 1: the cat. And as we're we're working sorting out through
1:32:53
Speaker 1: the tracks, first we found some kills, a couple of
1:32:57
Speaker 1: carcasses of the lions which had on top off of
1:33:00
Speaker 1: it laying there fresh, not even rig a mortist yet.
1:33:04
Speaker 1: It was a bobcat with no head. Is that right? Yeah?
1:33:07
Speaker 1: I mean that bobcat eating his kill. Yeah. And so
1:33:10
Speaker 1: we threw that in the truck, thinking like, oh sweet
1:33:13
Speaker 1: bonus bobcat, and a couple of hundred yards down the trail,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: we we like, see where this lion has been dragging something,
1:33:19
Speaker 1: to see the blood trail and cash underneath the trees,
1:33:22
Speaker 1: the whole kyote. Serious. See, that's something I didn't even know.
1:33:29
Speaker 1: Like three years ago, a buddy of mine told me, hey,
1:33:31
Speaker 1: my brother just shot a lion. And he said he
1:33:33
Speaker 1: was driving down the road and seeing a lion looking
1:33:36
Speaker 1: at him over the bushes. He got out and shot
1:33:37
Speaker 1: it and went over there was eating a coyote, and
1:33:40
Speaker 1: I said to uh, I said, my buddy, what do
1:33:43
Speaker 1: you mean he should eating a coyote? And I had
1:33:46
Speaker 1: to call a couple of houndsman buddies of mine, like
1:33:49
Speaker 1: lion expert guys like lions eat coyotes. So yeah, they
1:33:52
Speaker 1: chased the hell out them things eat him. We're on
1:33:54
Speaker 1: a track and saw where it got a red fox
1:33:56
Speaker 1: one time, and a front of my said he saw
1:34:00
Speaker 1: where gotta Floyd found where they've killed tortoises, really just
1:34:07
Speaker 1: killing everything they come. He said, they got They got it,
1:34:09
Speaker 1: he said when he sees it. He sees it on
1:34:10
Speaker 1: ocasi and they pull the I think it's Floyd. Sorry
1:34:13
Speaker 1: this they pull the bottom they pull the bottom shell
1:34:15
Speaker 1: right off. And it's similar to how they kill a porcupine.
1:34:19
Speaker 1: If you've ever run across a porcupine was killed by
1:34:21
Speaker 1: a lion, it reminds me, gives me an image in
1:34:24
Speaker 1: my mind of like a cartoon about of like that
1:34:27
Speaker 1: lion with one single claw, you know, like a scalpel
1:34:30
Speaker 1: and zipping the belly. But that's what it looks like.
1:34:32
Speaker 1: They like, like from the belly side, they cut it open,
1:34:36
Speaker 1: I assume, with their claw and then spread it apart
1:34:38
Speaker 1: and just hollowed out. You know, their tongues have those
1:34:41
Speaker 1: little hooks on their tongues. They can just lick meat,
1:34:44
Speaker 1: rath bone and everything. But that's three things happen, or
1:34:47
Speaker 1: I've seen three different things. When we investigate the little
1:34:50
Speaker 1: bit I've gotten to do, investigate the mortality locations. Um,
1:34:55
Speaker 1: a bobcat will either just bite a or excuse me
1:34:57
Speaker 1: a line or either just bite a bobcat's head and
1:35:00
Speaker 1: leave it they're dead um, or they'll crunch his head
1:35:04
Speaker 1: and then eat his guts out. But it's it's all
1:35:06
Speaker 1: very clinical, you know, when a coyote kills a bobcat.
1:35:11
Speaker 1: We I got to go on one of those. We
1:35:13
Speaker 1: had a mortality one morning. We were trapping this year,
1:35:15
Speaker 1: and I hiked across this little valley and with the
1:35:19
Speaker 1: with the GPS location when it went into mortality, found
1:35:22
Speaker 1: the bobcat there. And it was what I read in
1:35:24
Speaker 1: the ground was that this bobcat had gotten caught a
1:35:27
Speaker 1: little bit in the open, had gotten chased towards a tree.
1:35:30
Speaker 1: Why I didn't go up the juniper tree, I do
1:35:32
Speaker 1: not know, but I was picturing it just kind of
1:35:34
Speaker 1: backing up against the tree, like if you chased it
1:35:36
Speaker 1: with hounds and you just kind of you know, shelved
1:35:38
Speaker 1: up there and um, but he like decided that's where
1:35:41
Speaker 1: he's going to make his stand, is what I suspected.
1:35:43
Speaker 1: And there's a pile of fur right there where the
1:35:45
Speaker 1: coyotes got him. And then there's you know, a thirty
1:35:47
Speaker 1: yard trail where the coyotes are pulling on him and pulled,
1:35:50
Speaker 1: ripping for off and just left his carcass ly in there.
1:35:53
Speaker 1: But when a bob when a lion eats the bobcat,
1:35:57
Speaker 1: most of the time there was just this skin, uh
1:36:00
Speaker 1: laying there with bone fragments from the head um and
1:36:05
Speaker 1: like like clinically, like it reminds me of that Hannibal
1:36:10
Speaker 1: electro movie or something like how did that lion eat
1:36:12
Speaker 1: everything but the skin in fur? You know, like how
1:36:15
Speaker 1: are you so good at eating stuff? And there's just
1:36:17
Speaker 1: there's just a collar laying there and it's all it's
1:36:19
Speaker 1: all in a little three or four ft circle. And
1:36:21
Speaker 1: sometimes it's right underneath of a tree. And if you
1:36:23
Speaker 1: examine the tree close enough, you can see who the
1:36:25
Speaker 1: lion got up in there and ripped the bobcat out,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: because you know, uh, that bobcat there got killed here
1:36:30
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago. He was at the base
1:36:33
Speaker 1: of a tree. You know, why don't you just go
1:36:34
Speaker 1: up the tree and just hang out there until the
1:36:35
Speaker 1: caylots gook on? You know, I don't know, same same
1:36:39
Speaker 1: same question I have with the bobcat. I went and
1:36:41
Speaker 1: picked up off the railroad tracks, got cut clean too.
1:36:44
Speaker 1: I run over by a train, one of the with
1:36:47
Speaker 1: a color and how like, how do you not get
1:36:48
Speaker 1: out of the way of that train? You know, I
1:36:49
Speaker 1: don't know there's a bobcat. Yeah, trains not swerving. I
1:36:55
Speaker 1: have no idea. The railroad people were working found and
1:36:58
Speaker 1: laying there dead on the tracks, and I went out
1:37:01
Speaker 1: there to pick it up and it was just cut
1:37:02
Speaker 1: square in two. I'm surprised to hear that a bob
1:37:05
Speaker 1: can't can't I guess at least just mono imano take
1:37:08
Speaker 1: on a coyote. It might have been more than one
1:37:12
Speaker 1: that I would say, it was definitely probably more than one. Yeah,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: who would win in a one on one tussle a
1:37:20
Speaker 1: big tom or or a coyote? Yani's big old pounder
1:37:23
Speaker 1: and a kyote. Well, if the if the bobcat had
1:37:27
Speaker 1: one foot in a trap, you'd have a you'd have
1:37:29
Speaker 1: a dead bobcat. Yeah. Um, I'm sure they You have
1:37:33
Speaker 1: to imagine they run into single single shots from time
1:37:36
Speaker 1: to time, and probably that's that's the one thing, you know,
1:37:39
Speaker 1: the big Tom's if you look at the little bit
1:37:42
Speaker 1: of tracking data that I get to look at, you know,
1:37:44
Speaker 1: the Tom's the tom has definitely spent way more time
1:37:47
Speaker 1: in the open country. You know, they'll move there. There's
1:37:49
Speaker 1: still a structure related animal. They always want to be
1:37:51
Speaker 1: by structure, but they'll move from one piece of structure
1:37:54
Speaker 1: across some opening, whereas the females and the younger cats
1:37:58
Speaker 1: are just just almost always stands structure. They always be safe,
1:38:01
Speaker 1: you know. And that's how so later in this season, Um,
1:38:06
Speaker 1: you know those big tom show up like use you're
1:38:09
Speaker 1: trapping foothills and stuff like that a lot of times.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: Well then you start catching them big Tom's in January February.
1:38:14
Speaker 1: It's because they were they were down running with the coyotes. Uh.
1:38:17
Speaker 1: And then they'll come up into the trees to find
1:38:19
Speaker 1: find a woman. You know. But you were talking about
1:38:22
Speaker 1: like how fast they discover that their neighbors gone. Uh,
1:38:26
Speaker 1: that's that's like my most recent thing that's keeping me
1:38:30
Speaker 1: engaged in interested in trying to learn about bobcats more
1:38:33
Speaker 1: and more, as is how they figure that out, how
1:38:35
Speaker 1: they established those territories, Like what are all the different
1:38:38
Speaker 1: ways that they're leaving sent down that creates such you know,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: like defined barriers between one cat and another, you know,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: and uh, and some of those odors that are present
1:38:50
Speaker 1: in you know, they come from their glands. You know,
1:38:53
Speaker 1: they're just a big giant gland. They got gland of
1:38:55
Speaker 1: forehead behind their ears and their arms and there, you know,
1:38:58
Speaker 1: their anal glands. They're feet pads. You know, they just
1:39:01
Speaker 1: they can make smell like bobcats smell out of all
1:39:05
Speaker 1: their whole body. But uh, you know, when they're making
1:39:07
Speaker 1: them scratches, they'll scratch their back feet to their front feet.
1:39:10
Speaker 1: They're they're putting odor down. When they're peeing, they're putting
1:39:13
Speaker 1: oer down. When they're scratching a post, they're putting oer down.
1:39:17
Speaker 1: And some of those odors I'm starting to learn last
1:39:20
Speaker 1: a pretty short amount of time, you know, undetectable to
1:39:24
Speaker 1: us as humans. But you know bobcats, you know, uh, bobcats.
1:39:31
Speaker 1: If you know old old old trappers, you know, uh,
1:39:33
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, there was a rap on bobcats.
1:39:35
Speaker 1: They got a cold nose. They call them a cold nose.
1:39:37
Speaker 1: You know, they don't compared to a kyo, you know.
1:39:40
Speaker 1: But the longer I do this, the more I respect
1:39:43
Speaker 1: and admire the the ability of a bobcat to smell,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: especially watch them on trail camera when they come to
1:39:49
Speaker 1: your cage trap. They literally put their nose on every
1:39:51
Speaker 1: single thing. Yeah, and and they can smell so much
1:39:56
Speaker 1: better than I. You know, ever ever really thought if
1:40:00
Speaker 1: you hadn't got interested in bobcasts, what do you think
1:40:02
Speaker 1: you would have done your life? Golly, I don't know.
1:40:07
Speaker 1: You think you'd have got all obsessed with something different?
1:40:11
Speaker 1: That's a toughie. I mean, I mean I imagine by
1:40:15
Speaker 1: nature I would have, but like you were destined to
1:40:17
Speaker 1: get obsessed with something. That's what I always wondering about people,
1:40:21
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, like if if you spend your
1:40:23
Speaker 1: whole energy on one thing and that thing was an absence,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: would you have been to some like slack jaw TV
1:40:28
Speaker 1: watcher or would you been all obsessed with some the
1:40:31
Speaker 1: next like playing b Yeah. I don't know, I always
1:40:35
Speaker 1: I always, uh, I know, as a construction worker, all
1:40:38
Speaker 1: those years. You know. It's it's one of those if
1:40:40
Speaker 1: if you don't pick your future, your future picks you
1:40:42
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you know. And uh, you know, I
1:40:44
Speaker 1: started making good money in high school and and being
1:40:47
Speaker 1: in construction you know, lended itself to the talents already had,
1:40:51
Speaker 1: you know. Um, and I wasn't you know. I always
1:40:54
Speaker 1: always wish that I was good at school. I always
1:40:56
Speaker 1: wanted to go to college and to like that, but
1:40:58
Speaker 1: just never, I'm just just I just couldn't stay. I
1:41:01
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. Uh So, how far did you get
1:41:04
Speaker 1: in college? Oh? Gosh, I did? I didn't. I I
1:41:06
Speaker 1: just took you know, community college courses and stuff. The
1:41:09
Speaker 1: only ones I ever did any good and were the
1:41:10
Speaker 1: ones that I stuff I cared about, like geology and stuff,
1:41:13
Speaker 1: you know, or electrical classes and stuff. Um. But yeah,
1:41:19
Speaker 1: I always remember, you know, my stepdad was a was
1:41:22
Speaker 1: a cop. He was chief police stuff, and he he
1:41:25
Speaker 1: would always come home in a suit and uh and
1:41:28
Speaker 1: nice shoes and stuff, and he would put his work
1:41:30
Speaker 1: boots on when he got home. Well, he'd put his
1:41:34
Speaker 1: work boots on to do work. And I always thought,
1:41:36
Speaker 1: all those years doing construction, always that like I'm the
1:41:39
Speaker 1: exact opposite. You know, I wouldn't mind going to work
1:41:41
Speaker 1: in nice clothes, you know, and and the work clothes
1:41:44
Speaker 1: are for when you get home, you like. I don't
1:41:48
Speaker 1: know what I would have done if I wasn't into this.
1:41:50
Speaker 1: I don't know how long you've been married, nineteen years? Yeah, well,
1:41:55
Speaker 1: I mean there was one brief a couple of years
1:41:58
Speaker 1: marriage when I was younger. Um, I remember leaving that gal. No, no, no, no,
1:42:04
Speaker 1: I remember leaving that gal on the the apartment couch
1:42:07
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve to go out bobcat handing at night
1:42:10
Speaker 1: with my buddy. Uh. I don't know. I don't know
1:42:13
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that woman. I don't know. Want you
1:42:14
Speaker 1: to understand we're only married a couple of years and
1:42:21
Speaker 1: no kids luckily, and that might have something to do
1:42:23
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, she didn't,
1:42:29
Speaker 1: she had nothing, She wasn't against it, but you know,
1:42:33
Speaker 1: I just wasn't. The way it end up working out
1:42:38
Speaker 1: for me, and getting older, getting married older in life,
1:42:41
Speaker 1: having kids, older in life, it was to me so
1:42:43
Speaker 1: much better than my younger friends. They got married early
1:42:45
Speaker 1: and they had kids because they were still they were
1:42:48
Speaker 1: constantly fighting, you know, every day, wanting to have their
1:42:51
Speaker 1: own personal life, you know, fun life, you know, being
1:42:54
Speaker 1: tied down with these kids and being married. And when
1:42:56
Speaker 1: I got married older in life, I think it was
1:42:58
Speaker 1: in early forties, I was just I was ready. I
1:43:02
Speaker 1: was ready for that to be the thing I was
1:43:03
Speaker 1: gonna do, have kids and be married. I was pretty
1:43:06
Speaker 1: much sick of having fun by the time I had kids. Yeah,
1:43:10
Speaker 1: I don't seems like you have quite a bit of fun. No, No,
1:43:12
Speaker 1: I don't mean that kind of fun. I mean like
1:43:14
Speaker 1: having whatever like that. Yeah, I was, well, I was
1:43:18
Speaker 1: never a party here. I mean, not that kind of fun.
1:43:20
Speaker 1: The nighttime fun. I was never a party of Heck,
1:43:23
Speaker 1: me and Jay would ditch school and uh we go
1:43:26
Speaker 1: out in the desert shooting stuff. You know, we go
1:43:29
Speaker 1: out on weekend. We'd go on the desert night hut,
1:43:32
Speaker 1: you know, camping out the desert. Yeah, just going out
1:43:35
Speaker 1: doing stuff. That's yeah, that's what we wanted to do.
1:43:38
Speaker 1: Even though you can't hunt it and trap it. Is
1:43:40
Speaker 1: that Mohave desert stuff still cool to hang out in.
1:43:42
Speaker 1: Is it pretty wild? Uh? Now? So much of it
1:43:45
Speaker 1: uh has been closed to wilderness, you know, close all
1:43:49
Speaker 1: the roads anywhere that the topography out there in that
1:43:51
Speaker 1: desert changed from flat to two hills that they years ago,
1:43:56
Speaker 1: they turned it into wilderness, like drew a line around it,
1:43:58
Speaker 1: closed all the roads. Hiking it much. I'm I've never
1:44:02
Speaker 1: been a big hiker. Um. Then a big portion of
1:44:06
Speaker 1: a three million acres got turned into the Majabi National Preserve,
1:44:10
Speaker 1: and uh, their goal was to turn it to its
1:44:12
Speaker 1: pre colonial days, right, so if it wasn't here when
1:44:16
Speaker 1: you know, colonization, they they didn't want it. So they,
1:44:20
Speaker 1: you know, started working with private groups to buy out
1:44:22
Speaker 1: all the cattle ranchers and chase them out there. And
1:44:24
Speaker 1: then all those you know, the only reason that desert
1:44:27
Speaker 1: was worth anything was because a cattleman and and miners
1:44:31
Speaker 1: and stuff. You know, that's the only that's how the
1:44:32
Speaker 1: desert got developed, you know, because there's there's no water.
1:44:35
Speaker 1: So them guys were out there developing springs, natural springs,
1:44:38
Speaker 1: you know, and stretching cattle waters out across the desert
1:44:41
Speaker 1: and providing water for wildlife, you know. And so you know,
1:44:45
Speaker 1: over a period of quite a few years, they pretty
1:44:49
Speaker 1: much got rid of all the cattleman. There's only one
1:44:52
Speaker 1: left out there. Most all them cattle waters died. If
1:44:55
Speaker 1: you do hike into one of those old cattle waters
1:44:57
Speaker 1: or springs that the cattle rancher used to make tane,
1:45:00
Speaker 1: it's just overgrown. Now there's no water above surface, and um,
1:45:04
Speaker 1: it's just a it's just death valley. And it used
1:45:07
Speaker 1: to be teeming with wildlife, you know. But they did
1:45:09
Speaker 1: all that, you know, in the interests of they, you know, say,
1:45:13
Speaker 1: retaining it for future generations type. So um, yeah, they
1:45:18
Speaker 1: actually did that Mobbi preserve with supportive hunters, like they
1:45:23
Speaker 1: were told it was going to be a pretty pretty
1:45:25
Speaker 1: neat deal. Um to turn into preserve, you'd get federal
1:45:29
Speaker 1: money and all that sort of stuff. And and then
1:45:31
Speaker 1: over the period of time, different directors with the with
1:45:34
Speaker 1: the that be the Park Service. You know, they even
1:45:38
Speaker 1: attempt to do stuff like band nighttime coyote hunting out
1:45:43
Speaker 1: there for the sake of the dark skies, like people
1:45:46
Speaker 1: that want to go out and look at stars, like
1:45:48
Speaker 1: they don't want varma hunters out there at night, run
1:45:50
Speaker 1: a spotlight. You know, it's just a constant. It's California, man,
1:45:55
Speaker 1: So do you leave California every year then to chase
1:45:57
Speaker 1: Bobcat somewhere else? Yeah, Arizona's my playground these days, and
1:46:02
Speaker 1: I'm only two hours from there, but I just almost,
1:46:05
Speaker 1: I almost you know, satisfy that itch between. So for
1:46:10
Speaker 1: the last several years, you know, I was working for
1:46:12
Speaker 1: us d A doing you know, trapping, doing kyote worksheet protection,
1:46:16
Speaker 1: and then they we had contracts with you know, game
1:46:19
Speaker 1: fish stuff like that. We go into units and do
1:46:21
Speaker 1: fawn protection. You know, when the spring kill you remove
1:46:23
Speaker 1: coyotes to try to help the fonds um. But you know,
1:46:27
Speaker 1: I left that and then I found out about these
1:46:30
Speaker 1: different contracts with different states and stuff like that, and
1:46:33
Speaker 1: I was like, huh, you know, what's that all about.
1:46:35
Speaker 1: Why is the USDA getting to do all that? So
1:46:37
Speaker 1: then I started working my way into some of that stuff.
1:46:39
Speaker 1: And so between you know, building the cage traps and uh,
1:46:43
Speaker 1: in the springtime I'll do I'll do kyote work for
1:46:46
Speaker 1: about two and a half months somewhere and another you know,
1:46:48
Speaker 1: different different contracts, and then the wintertime, I'm got to
1:46:52
Speaker 1: do this radio collar stuff. For the last three years
1:46:54
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I'm hoping to get back home, get
1:46:57
Speaker 1: caught up on cage traps and everything, and get at
1:46:59
Speaker 1: least get to you know, recreationally in February. You know,
1:47:03
Speaker 1: for myself, it kind of like your business. The way
1:47:07
Speaker 1: it's evolved over time kind of reminds me of a
1:47:10
Speaker 1: little bit like being a writer, where um, the medium's
1:47:17
Speaker 1: change all the time, right, Like I was, I was
1:47:21
Speaker 1: in to talk about a certain set of ideas and
1:47:23
Speaker 1: at a time it was like, oh, it was in
1:47:25
Speaker 1: magazine articles, and then it was in books, then it's
1:47:27
Speaker 1: in podcasts, then it's an audio original ship and it's
1:47:30
Speaker 1: in TV, right, it's in YouTube, whatever it is. It
1:47:36
Speaker 1: feels like you've been doing the same thing, but like
1:47:37
Speaker 1: everything's changed around it for sure. Like for to get yeah,
1:47:41
Speaker 1: that you've just been like wherever Bobcats take me? No, absolutely,
1:47:46
Speaker 1: because for for quite a few years I just was
1:47:48
Speaker 1: into selling their pelts, you know, That's what I was about.
1:47:51
Speaker 1: And then the case trapping thing started. So now I've
1:47:54
Speaker 1: got like, you know, a little side gig going on
1:47:56
Speaker 1: with the case traps plus I'm trapping. And then and
1:47:59
Speaker 1: when as we lost everything in California, that was almost
1:48:03
Speaker 1: hand in hand the same time where I started doing
1:48:05
Speaker 1: seasonal work for U S d A and then working
1:48:08
Speaker 1: for you know, Arizona Game of Fish stuff. Yeah, it's
1:48:10
Speaker 1: just like like, yeah, every few years to figure out
1:48:13
Speaker 1: a new way to make money off of bobcats and
1:48:14
Speaker 1: and the research stuff is proving to be really fulfilling,
1:48:19
Speaker 1: very very fun. Uh. Sometimes people are right in and
1:48:23
Speaker 1: ask how to get a job, like an outdoor job,
1:48:27
Speaker 1: her job in the outdoors. It's kindly take your pick.
1:48:31
Speaker 1: I don't know every way in no way, you know, yeah, no,
1:48:35
Speaker 1: two people have the same story. I was saying, like,
1:48:38
Speaker 1: you've carved this whole crazy existence like that man, and
1:48:41
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be like, well, here's how you do it. Yeah,
1:48:44
Speaker 1: and every made any sense. It's not. I would love
1:48:49
Speaker 1: to tell you how to plan and figured it all
1:48:51
Speaker 1: out ahead of time, but it's like every year brings
1:48:54
Speaker 1: something new that's just not replicable. No. Uh, well, you
1:48:58
Speaker 1: know the USDA Wildlife Services route is not too bad.
1:49:03
Speaker 1: You know a lot of guys get there, get started
1:49:05
Speaker 1: doing that. You know, you can spend an entire career
1:49:08
Speaker 1: working for USDA Wildlife Services, you know, as a wildlife specialists.
1:49:14
Speaker 1: We've had some of those guys on the show. They
1:49:16
Speaker 1: get kind of a bad Everybody likes to make fun
1:49:18
Speaker 1: of the government trapper. You know, I didn't know that yeah. Yeah,
1:49:22
Speaker 1: they all like to cheese that, you know, he's not
1:49:23
Speaker 1: any good or whatever. But then yeah, but then at
1:49:27
Speaker 1: the same time you have trappers telling you, oh yeah,
1:49:29
Speaker 1: you know, the government trapper in my town taught me
1:49:30
Speaker 1: how to trap. So like the old government trappers, they
1:49:33
Speaker 1: get credit for being great and and you know USDA
1:49:38
Speaker 1: guys nowadays they get knocked on a lot, you know,
1:49:40
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, we had that, we had the government
1:49:42
Speaker 1: guy out. He couldn't kill the guyote, you know, so
1:49:44
Speaker 1: you know, like meet a bunch of boys from the
1:49:46
Speaker 1: bar went and killed it. You know, well, man, I
1:49:51
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming out and hanging out. Oh shoot, man,
1:49:53
Speaker 1: I got the in fight. There's no doubt that was
1:49:55
Speaker 1: coming up. Tell people how to find your tell people
1:49:58
Speaker 1: how to find your your business. Oh yeah, camp trip
1:50:01
Speaker 1: Cages on Facebook is where I'm most active, believe it
1:50:04
Speaker 1: or not. Facebook. Um, but your website says you're gonna
1:50:06
Speaker 1: make a website. Yeah, the website, the certificates and everything
1:50:10
Speaker 1: ran out like a year ago. Uh, and so we
1:50:12
Speaker 1: just kind of put like a placeholder side, you know,
1:50:14
Speaker 1: on their caging Bobcats dot com. Um, and it's been
1:50:18
Speaker 1: a year now. I've been promising that website guy that
1:50:20
Speaker 1: i'd i'd work on it for him, and I haven't done. Yeah,
1:50:23
Speaker 1: I'm sposed sending a bunch of pictures though, but heck,
1:50:25
Speaker 1: I'm so darn busy right now. Just word of mouth
1:50:27
Speaker 1: that you know, and it's it's kind of cool because
1:50:30
Speaker 1: when people look you up word of mouth, like they're
1:50:33
Speaker 1: they're looking for you because they want your product. Like
1:50:36
Speaker 1: you get that phone call, you're making a sale. When
1:50:38
Speaker 1: when I almost dread putting social media posts out because
1:50:41
Speaker 1: you get you know, you make one social Yeah, you
1:50:44
Speaker 1: get one social media posts. You get all kind of
1:50:46
Speaker 1: guys want free advice and asking a million questions and
1:50:49
Speaker 1: don't don't even read your post. They ask you questions
1:50:52
Speaker 1: about the post you just made. Yeah, all right, man,
1:50:58
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Yeah, shoot, I appreciate it. So find
1:51:02
Speaker 1: you there, um and if you're not out there, you're
1:51:05
Speaker 1: out in the desert somewhere learning about Bob Kints. Yeah,
1:51:09
Speaker 1: for sure, I appreciate you coming up, man, Thank you,
1:51:11
Speaker 1: thanks buddy, good me. Now you guys,