Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 855: Clay's Utah Mountain Lion Hunt | 12 in '26

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Ep. 855: Clay's Utah Mountain Lion Hunt | 12 in '26 · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Wow, what a beautiful animal. God get just to get
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a few moments to just watch that animal. Few people
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in the world will ever get to do that. You
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: can be out. You can be out in this country
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your whole life, hiking, riding the mule, whatever. You might
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: see a mountainlying in a lifetime. You know they're just
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you just don't see them. The only way you're gonna
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: see them and look at them like this right here
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is with hunting with these dogs. And we are a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: long ways from the truck, miles and miles in back
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: country from the truck.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: When when I see an animal like that, I think
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: about the country it came from. I mean, this is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: some true back country and that sucker is made of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: living out here his whole life. What you just heard
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: was a clip from my new film out on the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: med Eater YouTube channel of my lion hunt on Mules
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: with some very legendary guys McLain and Hunter Meekham and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Ty Evans. We're gonna talk a ton about them. But
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: this was episode two of Meet Eaters twelve and twenty
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: six series. So Meet Eaters always putting out videos. Every
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: week we put out videos, but this year we're putting
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: out twelve long form films. Everyone films, not episodes, not videos,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: not clips. Films, Yeah, Yannis, Yeah, Me and Jannis have
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: this argument going on of are we making episodes? Yannis
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: makes episodes. I make films, right, I think Jannis makes films.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Jiannis is incredible. This is meters twelve and twenty six
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and the twelve twelve meaning twelve months of the year
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: twenty six being the year of twenty twenty six. We're
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: producing twelve full length feature films. This film that we
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: just released to mine is forty five minutes long. Giannis's
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: first film about his baited bear hunt. The first twelve
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and twenty six was a full hour long. And these
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: are presented by our sponsors, our big time friends products
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we use in the woods all the time on X
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and Moultrie. And this is the Companion podcast, the Companion
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Show called the twelve and twenty six podcast. That's where
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: all this has been going, folks, ever since you started.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: This is the twelve and twenty six podcast, right, that's right,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the Companion Show to the twelve and twenty six film
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: series where we go behind the scenes. You know, I've
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: always been a big fan of long form audio like podcasts,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: because when I started making films, you can go on
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: some big expedition and make a twenty minute film and
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: it really doesn't It honestly doesn't capture the full story.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: If you were just sitting there listening to me talking. Now,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: if you're just listening to me talk, you're not seeing
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the lion, You're not seeing the mountains. You're not you're
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not You're kind of in the moment in a different.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Way at all your senses, right.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: But I feel like a film sometimes doesn't capture the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: full thing. So what we're trying to do is just
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: like fill in all the gaps. So you got the film,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you can watch it. You can see the mules, you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: can see the lions. We tread three lions. But spoiler alert,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: this is behind the scenes. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna spill it all, folks. It's all
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: gonna be on the table on this episode of the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: twelve and twenty six podcast. I'm joined by my dear
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: friend and producer Josh Landbridge spillmaker. And if some of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you might be if you're not tuned into Bear Grease
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: all the time, you might not know that Josh. I
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: gave Josh this nickname. I mean like in two thousand
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and eight, a long time ago, like probably twenty years ago.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I started calling Landbridge because he's got such a good
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: mustache that this is a true story. One day we
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: go to church together. At church, I saw Josh and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I was inspired to go learn about the baring land
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Bridge and went and ordered my first book on the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Bearing Land Bridge. I still got it inspired by this
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: because inspired by Josh's mustache, because it's like links continents.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So Josh Landbridge filmmaker. It was deep in the weeds
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: on the Bear Greege podcast with me so awesome.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Well, Clay, this was this was a fantastic film.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited to kind of get into it. Hear
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: your thoughts on this specific hunt, lion hunting in general.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And we've got some great questions from me and some
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: great questions from some of our social media outlets, YouTube
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and Instagram. So we're gonna throw it all at you
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and give you an opportunity to respond. So kind of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: just getting into it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Can I do a preamble? You can't what every preamble
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I just did?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I just want to I want to like set the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: wider picture for dry ground lion hunting, so you're gonna
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: hear that term used, and that what that means is
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: is when you're when you're hunting lions. Ninety nine percent
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of lions harvested in this country ninety five to ninety nine,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I would say, would be lions that were harvested over dogs.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And it's primarily in the west. There are no lion
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: seasons east of the Mississippi or even really east of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains, right, and so it's all happening out
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: west and in the northern part of the Mountain lion
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: range there's snow. And when you are lion hunting in
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the snow with dogs, a human goes out and looks
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: for a track in the snow so you can drive roads,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you could ride to your equine animal, you could do whatever. However,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you're going to get across the country and cover vast
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: amounts of ground. Half half of the hunt is finding
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a track. But when it's in the snow, you can
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: see the track, you can tell what kind of line
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it is. You know if it's a male female. Typically,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: but most importantly, scent holds better in the snow, and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is much easier to trail a lion in snow than
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it is on dry ground. It was described to me
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: one time like this, imagine a scent particle being essentially
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: like a biologically active particle, and if you put that
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: particle in the refrigerator, it would last longer and not degradate.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Which this brings up a point. I was curious about
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: that word, which I don't think is a word degradate. Yeah,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: oh dang, yeah, So folks English majors forgive him.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Well, degradates a word degrade. It's just pronunciation tomato, tomato.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So the scent particle, if you were to take it
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and put it into the refrigerator, that makes sense. I've
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: never thought about that, but it totally makes sense. And
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so lion hunting in the snow is easier. I'm not
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: saying it's easy, but it's easier, and it takes a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: dog that doesn't have to have as good as nose.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You get into the arid Southwest like in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: You used to could run hounds in California, ken anymore. Uh,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: they're having to start these lines on dry ground right
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and in the hound world, and people turn it up
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're what, turn up the volume on
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: your device right now so you can hear this. In
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the hound world, the dry ground lion dogs are the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James of of of the
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Hound World. There, I said it, I said it. Okay.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot higher skill set two tree a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: line on dry ground than it does to tree a coon.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I can just see the comments that are going, Oh.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna hurt, but it's just it's just no,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: there's every every animal and dog used in hunting has
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to have a specific set of skill sets that make
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it wonderful and unique. But from my estimation, for whatever
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that's worth, and the estimation of many really great people
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in the hound world, for a dry ground line dog,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he's got to have an almost otherworldly nose, okay. And
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for instance, in coon hunting, you don't necessarily want one
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: with a super cold nose because there's there's coons everywhere.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: You don't want him to treat started track that's twelve
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: hours old, right, You want him to go find a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: hot one, right, And that's all in his ability to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: smell and his desire. You got to have a line
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: dog that has an extremely cold nose. These dogs have
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: got to be superb athletes. I mean, I'm telling you,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: McLean Meekham's dogs were running. I mean we were putting
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: twelve to twenty miles a day on the mules. We
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: were following the dogs, not step first step, but I
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: mean those dogs had well over one hundred probably one
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: You're gonna you're gonna have to pump the brakes on
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: this preamble a little bit. Coming getting into the content
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that we're going to talk about. People got lots of questions.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Well I hadn't even started the preamble yet. All that
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to say, dry ground line hunting and the men and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: women that are dry ground line hunters often are held
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: in high esteem in the in the very small circles,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and the Meekams are nationally known and respected as incredible
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: dry ground line hunters. And I'm telling you they made
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it look easy.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to go out in five it's amazing. Don't try
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to stop me, Josh, to go out in five days
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: in tree three Well.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: That actually kind of of kind of leads me into
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: into one of our first questions here is you know
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: you say it's rare to at first, you say it's
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: rare to to treat two lions in three days?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Right right?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Right? What when you're getting into it? When when you
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: before you went, what was your expectation did you have
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: an expectation like could I go five days and with
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: us not tree line? Or what what did you think
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: was gonna have?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I had a lot of confidence in the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Meekhams and they they we were coming at a good time.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: It was a good time to come. We had optimal conditions.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: We had some snow, it was really cold. But is
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: it possible to go out there for five days and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: not tree a line, even with some of the best. Absolutely?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I know multiple people. Last night a guy texted me
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and said, I've been on two guided lion hunts, like
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: paid money to go on guided line hunts like week
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: long hunts and never saw a line. Wow, and like wow,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: presumably two five day hunts. I know another guy I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: won't say his name, a dear friend of mine, has
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: been on two guided line hunts with very reputial outfitters
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and has never killed a line. I think they probably
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: treat a female or something.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, for us to treat three in five
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: days was you couldn't have asked for anything better.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, we've got some kind of we've got some
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: footage of of kind of just of the terrain of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: where you were hunting in Utah. Have you hunted in
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: this region before?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Never have? This is my first time in Utah.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So did you have an expectation of what the riding
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and the and would be like before you got there?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it was. It was probably longer than
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be. Like, we rode
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: over eighty miles per hour on X that we were tracked.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of miles. And you rode the same mule,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: didn't you.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I rode the same meal.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: That's unbelievable. That's unbelievab.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, one of the mules. So our cameraman, one of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: our cameramen was on a mule law and Molten and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: on the fifth day and he I mean this mule
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: is riding right behind me. I mean it's gone eighty miles.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I asked mcclan how old is that mule? And he
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: said twenty five years old. Wow, carried Lorn Malton eighty
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: eighty miles and you know, not like eighty twel miles
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: telling you eighty miles of up and down an elevation
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: game and skidding down mountains. I mean, rough, unbelievable, But
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: it actually to me in some ways is I don't
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: want to say easier. But when you ride long distance
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: in the eastern deciduous forest, you're constantly fighting brush and
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: getting scratched up.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I wondered it was what happened to your nose?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I got banged by a cedar tree. But most of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the time we're just like out in the wide open,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: okay most of the time.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Well the scenery was I mean spectacular, So well, that's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: that's great. We're gonna we're gonna watch another clip here.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Three quarters of a century of selective breeding by the Meekams,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and you'd have to sell your truck to buy one
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: if they were ever for sale. Line dogs require a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: unique skill set of hunt drive, physical stamina which borders
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: on something supernatural, and an incredible nose, topped with desire
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: to treat game, not just to run it.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: So you kind of got into it. Was there anything
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: you wanted to add to well, you know, people would
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: look at these dogs and just think, you know, there
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: some of them are mixed breed, but they've just they've
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: they've bred these genetics into them to do what they're
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: supposed to do. So you talked about cold nose, you
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: you talked about them being able just to trail and
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to have the drive and the athleticism anything else that
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: would set apart a lion dog, a dry ground lion
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: dog versus like a coon dog or a deer dog.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Well, the when you look at like some of the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bigger hounds in the East, and there's some big dry
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: ground line dogs, but typically like McLean's dogs were probably
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: fifty probably forty five to sixty five pounds, and I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: mean some of these bigger coon dog breeds are are
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: bigger than that. And a bigger dog typically breaks down
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: a little faster, just like doesn't have like the stamina
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: of their feet breakdown. And so when you're going that
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: many miles day after day, you got to have a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: dog with really good feet and that won't go lame
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on you, you know, way back out there. Sure, and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that comes after just selective breeding, you know, litter after litter,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and breeding the good ones to the good ones, you know,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and eventually you get this this dog that is kind
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of dial itself in a way, you know. I mean,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: when these these guys hunt so much, they really do.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, they they hunt so much, and they just
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: really their dogs express the potential that they have. And
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: but okay, I think the dogs are endlessly fascinating.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Another question, how would you respond to critics of hunting
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: with hounds that would say it's easy or there's no
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: hunting taking place.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Right man, I would say, honestly, anybody that would say
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that has never maybe they've gone on a hound hunt,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: but they've never owned hounds or done it themselves. And
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I would I would say that hunting with hounds is
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: actually the most primitive method of hunting. Like if you
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: take out a scope with a rifle on it and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: go sit in a deer stand, and then you say
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that someone is not hunting when they're hunting with hounds,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I mean you kind of live, you know, dichotomy. There's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: some this isn't going to work for you. But I'm
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: a big proponent of hound hunting, and it's a traditional
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: practice that goes back to the very beginning of the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: human story. And so this is a this is a
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: modified version of that. I mean, it's like, obviously we're
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: not subsistence hunting, but it's super hard man. Yeah, I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: mean you load up a pack of hounds and try
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to go out to Utah by yourself and tree line
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: good luck. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's very difficult.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And then the beauty of it from a conservation perspective
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: is you get to you get to be selective on
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the animals that you harvest, which was pretty much the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: theme of our of our of our sure for sure.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's we got another clip here too.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: The African tracker's ability to follow planes game hyper focus
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: on obscure details for decades produces unique while following the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: dogs step for step. And there's a reason these Western
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: line hunters typically use mules. They're more surefooted, safer, lasts
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: longer in rough country than horses.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Tipically, there's a it's a few clips together.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Temperatures are hovering in the single digits, and we're going
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: into a completely new canyon.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, not supposed to hear the audio of this anyway,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: We'll just watch it. The dogs make so that that
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: that spot there Tie when Tie's mule slips on the
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: rock that was that could have been pretty hairy right there.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: You know, Tie Evans heartbeat would not have skipped a beat.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Really yeah, he didn't.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't have even and he knew that everything was
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: okay because of that mule. I mean that that's that's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: when you want to have an animal that's very sure footed,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and that's when where the mules thrive. And I mean
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: obviously that mule slipped and fell, but it recovered tumbled
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: down the mountain.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Sure would you say this is probably some of the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: roughest riding you've.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Done, you know I have done. There was one section
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: on day one that was super steep and the camera
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: just didn't pick it up.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: There were a couple of spots though, where you you
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: could get a little bit of an idea of how
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: steep it was. I mean it scared me, you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: having been on a mule a little bit, it scared
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: me looking at it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Well, the first the first two hours we rode, the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: dogs just went over this mountain and belled off and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it was I mean, it's hard. I don't even know
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: how to describe how steep it was. I would say
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: ninety five percent of people riding an ecoin animal would
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have walked the mule down right, and we knew we
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: could have right, But I was there with Ti Evans,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: McLain Meekham, and I was like, hey, let's just ride.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: That scene where I don't know if it was McClain
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: or if it was Tie where they're coming down and
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the bridge and that was steep. Yeah, I
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: mean that was really steep. And you mentioned the brig
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: and that you use the bridging on mules, and that's
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: the strap that goes around the hind quarters of the mule.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Whichever you use a bridging on a horse.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It typically don't And I wasn't able. This is a
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: prime example people of where it films doesn't give you
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the time to tell the whole story. So the reason
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that you only see briging on mules is because a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: mule's front shoulders are narrow, and so the saddle has
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a tendency to slide forward because the mule doesn't have
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: very strong withers, which withers is an anatomical term for
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: basically the front shoulders and like the hump on the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: neck of a horse, right right, So a horse has big, strong,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: broad front shoulders. A horse is more typically has more
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: muscle than a mule, and they have a lot of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: it up front. They have big, big hind quarters sinks
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: in then big front shoulders. A mule has big, nice
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: hind quarters and narrower front shoulders. The saddles slides forward.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: You need a breech and to keep your saddle from
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: sliding forward.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, are these mules? Shoot? Did they?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Yes? They these mules were shod and had had ice.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I was unfamiliar with it because we don't have that here,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: but they had like ice cleats. Oh really, yes, they
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: told me when I was originally going to bring Izzy.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So Izzy is is my nine year old mule that
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: that you would see on the logo of the Burger
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Eas podcast. So that's the mule that I trained and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: still have. When I told originally we were gonna go
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: out there and take our mules, Me and justin House,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: my friend justin House from Arkansas, We're going to drive
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: out there, and uh, there was actually an equine disease
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that was going around the rodeo world at that time.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: An interstate travel of equine animals was in jeopardy. Like
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: it's possible we could have got out there and if
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it had escalated, we might have had to left our
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: mules there or something. So we decided to fly and
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to ride his mules. But when we were going to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: take mine.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Which ended up being a good decision.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I think it was when we got there where he said,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: when you and is he get here, we'll put these
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: basically snowshoes on her. Okay, like they were that serious.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: They were like, you need these, wo and man when
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: in some of that stuff, I was very glad to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: have a grippy a grippy shoe on those right mules.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Right. We had a comment on YouTube by Brooke Anderson
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: fourteen twenty three said, this is the most unique camera
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: work I've ever seen on a hunting show. Really makes
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: you feel like you're riding along with them. I'd love
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: to see more hunts on horseback film like this, And
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I just want to give a quick shout out to
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the camera guys.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Drew Steckline and Lauren Moulton.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they not only filmed, but they were you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: they weren't just riding, but they were also filming, so.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: They were there the whole time.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: You know what.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: A lot of those a lot of that riding stuff
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: was done with those OSMO cameras. Yeah, he's a little gimbal.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: You're letting people see behind the curtain, little.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Little gimbal cameras.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty slick, pretty slick. Well, shout out to those not.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: To I won't say which one, but behind this is
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes, right behind the scenes, like unplugged.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yep, right, yeah, this like a backstone.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: One of our cameras got lost. Osmo cameras got lost
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: underneath that lion, the first lion.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Oh really Yeah, so if you recognize that tree, if.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: You find it out there in the Utah backcountry, let
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: us know.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: We've got another clip here from the truck.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: We went down some steep stuff that might have deterred
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: us if we didn't have to follow the dogs that
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: failed off the edge. Dogs often force your hand to
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: go places you wouldn't choose the strap around the back
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of the mules high.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Nope, I guess that's it. So kind of help us
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: understand you kind of you kind of described the the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: qualities of a good dry ground line dog. But when
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: you're running dogs, what are you trying to do? Are
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: you trying to maintain a certain distance from them? What's
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: what's that process? And you use the term of dog race,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: what does that mean?
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So these guys are free casting hounds, which means they
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: don't always know where the track is if if you well,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: let me back up. Free casting hounds just means you
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: just turn the dogs out and have that they're just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: looking for a us set. They're not on a leash,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: they're just out hunting, right, And so we free cast dogs.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And they have have a ton of control over these dogs.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And I mentioned in the film you can you know,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: they kind of hunt them like bird dogs. They want
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: them to stay fairly close. But then because when they
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the dogs start running a track that they want to
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: be able to go over to where the dog is
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: barking and see if they can physically see a track.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: So they don't want a dog to go three miles
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in there without them and start a track that they
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: can't immediately go and check out. Because these dogs will
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: run bobcats and mountain lions and they don't A dog
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: is not gonna distinguish between let's say a female with
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: kittens and a big tom. I mean they'll run either
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: one just the same. And so if it was a
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: female with kittens, they would immediately pull the dogs off,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and they do that through just training, I mean vocal commands,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: but they can also tone the dog, which is not
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: shocking it, but just beeping it and getting attention of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the dog, and they can they can call them back
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: from long distance. I want to say something about that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: little clip talked about how when you're following hounds, you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: go places that you would have never gone otherwise. And
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that is a cool part of hound hunting because if
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you were just going on a pleasure ride through all
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: those canyons that we went through, I mean, you would
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: pretty much take the easiest route, or maybe a route
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that went by some esthetic point or something. Man, when
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you're following the dogs, you're you just have to go
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: where they go, right, and so you find yourself in
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: all kind of just places that just are off literally
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: off the beaten path. And that's what I've always liked
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: about hound hunting is you know, you just get a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: tour of the world. And that kind of goes as
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: well to what I was so impressed with. We would
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: be so far from the truck, Josh, yeah, and McClain
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: would be like, man, when we drop off in this
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: little canyon, we're gonna pull up and there'll be a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: big bluff and behind that bluff is a set of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: pine trees and that's where those cats like to mark.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: The male cats like to scratch. And we're gonna go there,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and I mean we've been We're like seven miles from
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the truck. And he would just have this copographic memory
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of just every detail of the land that I mean,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you just wouldn't. You just wouldn't be able to have
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that detailed of a map in your head without a lifetime.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And McLain's in his fifties. And but also being on
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the back of a mule or horse like you just
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: you can just cover so much ground. But they also
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: elk hunting, mule deer hunt in these regions, and that's
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting place. We ought to go,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: probably sooner rather than later. Is the the the what
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the film dealt with so much, which which was lion conservation.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: We've got that coming and we've got a lot of
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: comments about that. So but we're almost there.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Well, they they mule deer hunt, elk hunt this, so
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I mean they just know it every possible way in
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and out.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at B spoke to said this was much harder
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: before GPS dogs. He's correct, Okay, we're kind of we're
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: getting to the lion here.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Well, we got a lion, man. They started it way
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the heck over in that other canyon, and we can
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: see it right up in the tree, just glowing up there.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Tom got his head and then about four inches
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: under the base of his tail will be a black
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: dot if it's a tom.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So we'll get up here and get a look at him.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And let's look at the scream. So you got that
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: first lion? How many days in was that?
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: That was the second day.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, what's it like to be standing that close to
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: a full grown mountain lion?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I noted it of just just how rare it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: really is, Like I mean, if you're if you're a
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: lion hunter, it's not because you see him, you have
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the dogs, but really in a natural situation without dogs,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: just in a you would be very rare to be
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: that close to the line without it. Just I mean,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the lions are notorious for being unseen. And then in
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of the GPS college studies they've done, they
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they see how close these lions let humans get to them,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and the lions never, you know, reveal their presence. Like, so,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out west that live in Lyon
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: country that are doing a lot of bad country stuff
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: have probably been within twenty to fifty yards of many
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: lions that they never knew about, which is interesting. But no,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: this line. When I first I knew we weren't gonna
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: shoot a small line, okay, And we really hadn't talked
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: about exactly what was acceptable.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I mean I didn't know what kind of lion. We
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: just knew we needed a mail for sure, in an adult,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you know, a full grown one. And man, when I
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: walked up to the tree, I was like, dang, that's
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: a pretty good mountain line. I mean, it had a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: pretty big head. And but I could I could just
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: immediately tell well, I mean they told me, They're like, yeah,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that's like a two year old line, you know, And.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Did you think it was older than that?
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I would have thought it was older than that.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: But I have no right basis because you've you've lined
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: hunted before you took a lion.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this line weigh one hundred and twelve pounds.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Where in uh in the Panhandle of Idaho. Leon Brown
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: guy named Leon Brown plotman, And I mean that's technically
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: an adult. I mean, like it wasn't like still with
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: its mother. But this was probably a two year old
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: line hundred and twelve pounds, which is you know, you're
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: you're you're hoping to take out the big ones and
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: in the biggest lines in North America and these would
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: be like phantom, but would you know push two hundred pounds.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I mean there have been two hundred pound lines taken,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: but a big tom in Utah, I would say, would
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: be in one hundred and fifty pound range plus or minds,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I mean like that would have been.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And that's what they're that's what they're looking for.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: That's what they're looking for. But then again, these guys,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: like I said, hunters never killed one. I mean, they're just.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Did he say why? Did he say why? I mean,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: they're just like he's seen a mature cat.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, number one, there they are outfitters, right like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: so they do take people that they're trying to get
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: a line. So presumably a lot of the big ones
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: they've they've they've treated, they had a client with them,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you know, so they would have shot the line. But
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I get it, like it's just not that's just not
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: what they're in it for, right, Like just to to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: shoot a line just doesn't mean that much to him.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: They'd rather let it go and treat it again, or
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: or someone someone else take it right. And so I thought,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting and that made me feel
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: good when I passed that line, because it was hard.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I would have been so happy with that line. I
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: think it was probably bigger, you know. McLean said it
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: was between one hundred and ten and one hundred and
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: twenty pounds, and I feel like it looked quite a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: bit bigger than Oh really in this one, Okay, doude.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: This this hunt is on the bear Grease YouTube channel. Okay,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: my lion hunt from like twenty sixteen or something, probably
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: ten years ago. I went up to the panhand on Idaho.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I killed that one with a traditional bow with Leon Brown.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: So we have another another comment from YouTube. I believe
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: s three V three n D three two to lots
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: of threes. Okay, and that user name How does passing
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: on a kill affect the dogs? How do you reward
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: them and also disengage them from a successful hunt when
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: you don't understand the harvest of an animal, When you
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: don't harvest animal right.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You know what, I think it's that's a good question
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: because it would seem like those dogs.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I like how he said a successful hunt too. I
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: mean that the dogs did their job.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Well, I think the reward for those dogs
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: is just to look at it, yeah, and see it
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: up in the tree.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Were you able to get them pulled off and get
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: them disengaged from that line to move on?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they just call them, I mean the lead.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: They would lead some of the younger dogs away, some
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: of the older dogs. They just be like, let's go
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: on to the next one. Okay, And now I hope
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: that we're as soon getting to line.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: We've got one more clip. We've got one more clip
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: with a short question, and then we're getting.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: In the line, man, because I have some insider information.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I love insider information.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, next clip.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: We have.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: We've ridden six or seven miles from the truck, and man,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: they've got that cat treed. You can see him through
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: bonos down there. I thought he might be baiting one
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of these rocks. We got one of the guys.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Going to him.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: We're gonna try to figure out how to get down there.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It looks like Tom just from the track but just
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: unbelievable country. When you come to Utah, this is where
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you'd hope to tree one. I already don't like it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Pretty sketchy getting down here, But we're gonna try to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: look this line over. We don't We think it's probably
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the same caliber line as yesterday, but we really don't know.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: One we're gonna try to take or not.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: So you you mentioned how steep it is and and
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: that you don't like it. Where'd that come from? Well?
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You know, justin House was there? Hunter Hunter Meekon was there? Uh,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Dustin from Arizona was there. Uh, there were there were
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: multiple people there that went down with us, And it
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was not that big of a deal. Like there were
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: parts where we had to slide right and there were
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: there was always hand holds. But I was I just
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I was trying to just be vulnerable and honest it
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: it just kind of fluttered my heart, like one of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: those flutters that you can't control. Yeah, and uh, and
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I was just like, what is going on? Like this
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: is not even that bad? It was bad, like like
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: ty Ty Evans had cowboy boots on that day and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: he chose not to go down because he had like
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: slick cowboy boots and and the consequences of Allen were
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: were high. I mean like it was. It was just
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: almost straight down in several spots in snow and uh no,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: it get I had, I had, I had my buddy
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: justin carry my gun. I can tell I was kind
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: of wigged out.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: I was like, sorry, you had a pretty harrowing situation
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: with your mountain mountain gun.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's what I that's what I well, I
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: know is part of it is. Uh yeah, we were
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Me and Dirt Myth were hanging on the side of
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the cliff for two hours retrieving that goat.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, the moment you've been waiting for, Okay, we're going
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to talk about conservation.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: These these cats are I mean, they're carnivores living off
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: meat and they they they follow these elk herds. And
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: what's kind of interesting being here in Utah is that
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: they really liberal liberalize the lion hunting. And I mean
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: they you can trap them, snare them you around sea
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and don't need a tags, need a license. And you'd
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: think that the line hunters would be happy about that,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: but they're they're not. You know, they feel like they
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: should be managed a little more conservatively, but the Game
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of Fish has done it because they the mule deer
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: populations are down. They're trying to save some mule deer.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: So you know, there's probably like two sides of it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: But when you're with line hunters, they're the ones who are,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you know, wanting to be more conservative.
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: But taking the beating. And you know, on we everything
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: needs to be regulated, you know, every specie, but just open,
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: wide open for one specie is not going to change
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: our meal deer. Yeah, there's so many other factors. There's highways,
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: there's stroud out, there's habitat off there's so many other things.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: And I think as humans we played more in the
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: part in hurting the mule deer. Yeah, population than those lines.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Are you taking area like this or there's like at
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: the elk so they keep the rodcats, the skunks, Yeah,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: all kinds of things. But it's amazing how many people
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: they take out in the hills and the first thing
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: they see some bones, it's automatically a line killed. So everything,
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So the theme of the film really was the lion conservation,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and in the last year Utah has opened up mountain
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: lion hunting to to the widest gate possible. It's a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: year round season. There's no quotas. You don't have to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: have a tag, you don't have to buy a tag
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to hunt one. Even as a non resident, all I
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: had to do was buy a non resident hunting license
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and it was legal for me to harvest a mountain line. Now,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: after you killed it, you did have you do have
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to check it and they pull a tooth and they
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they they they gather biological data. But basically this is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: this is my understanding of it, which is is is
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: not the full picture. But there was a time when
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: there were probably five hundred thousand mule deer in Utah, Okay,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: like in the glory days, which that would have been
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, fifty sixty seventies. At some
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: point in time, there were five hundred thousand mule deer
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: in Utah. With whatever is happening ecologically management wise today,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: as to understand that they have roughly around three hundred
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: thousand mil deer okay, wow, and it's been that way
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: for a long time. Well, Utah is a trophy elk
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: and mule deer state big time. They also have about
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: three thousand mountain lines in two thousand and seven, twenty
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: years ago, and it's the guy I talked to believed
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: it was probably similar to that today. Three thousand mountain lines.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: So that's one mountain line for every one hundred a deer. Okay,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and lines undoubtedly are eating deer. And when I talked
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to uh, I talked to Chuck. Oh boy, let me.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna say his name. He's a great guy.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: He's helped he's worked a state agencies, knows a lot
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: about lines. Basically, the lines typically are after the mule
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: deer more than the elk. And and they don't just
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: prey upon the mule deer in in uniformity, they trend
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: heavier towards males. Oh really yeah, because males are solitary,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: more solitary, they're traveling more, they're just more vulnerable. So
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: they're definitely eating does and fawns, but they there would
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: be a higher percentage of the males that they eat.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: And so that actually there's a biological term for it,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: but that it sounds bad for a sportsman to think
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: of of a lion killing a big trophy mule deer,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: but from a population level, it's actually less consequential than
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: if that lion killed a doe, Because if the lion
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: kills a doe, you're not only killing that doe, but
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you're killing her reproduction potential for the rest of her life.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And so basically, when they introduced elk, the first line
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: studies in Utah were back in the nineteen sixties and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: all the lions like exclusively ate mule deer. And it
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: was because there were hardly any elk there. They introduced
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: elk and they started taking primarily juvenile juvenile elk. Okay.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: But this is the most interesting thing that he said,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: is that what you really if you're thinking about mule
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: deer populations, what you really have to be focused on
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: is the amount of mule deer fawns getting killed. Okay.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: And he said, what kills a bunch of mule deer
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: fawns is coyotes?
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And so he said, he said it was it's a
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: It's very complicated, but basically it's the he believed, Chuck. Uh,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I gotta find Chuck's name.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Hold on here, it's Chuck Bodenkirk Boden, Chuck, Mike Boden, Chuck, Mike.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I was calling Chuck.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike boden Chuck.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Mike Bodenchuck, He's a sorry, he's he's a consultant. Has
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: worked with state game agencies with UH Carnivore Management for
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: his entire career. Like super knowledgeable guy. And I'm not
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: quoting directly. I just had a conversation with with with
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Mike today, but basically it feels like there's a lot
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: of pressure coming from the sportsman of Utah to hammer
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: down on the Lions and UH and basically Mike Bodenchuck
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to quote him, you can ask
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: him yourself, but he doesn't think that this. He thinks
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: that this is unsustainable what Utah is doing. Really he
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: he I actually thought he was calling me to tell
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: me I got it wrong, because he somehow he got
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: hooked up with him and he watched the film It's
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: This Expert, and I actually thought he was going to say, Clay,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you painted this in the wrong light. This is actually
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: good and he was like, he was like, well, he said,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's sustainable, and what he The only
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: positive thing that he did say about this new rule
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: that the new regulations is that it does just open
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: up a lot of sportsman opportunity and the state agencies
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: aren't going to be killing problem lions. A sportsman could
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: actually go kill a problem line. So they do have
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: livestock depredation in Utah. Sheep, cattle, stuff gets killed less
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: than it has been in a long time. But in
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the past, if you had a sheep get killed by
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: a lion, you would call the state agency and they
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: would send out a government hunter to come kill that line. Today,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: with three hundred and sixty five day a year season,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you could call your buddy that's got line dogs any
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: day of the year and go trail a lion and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: kill it. And you know, he said, you know that's
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: positive for sportsmen, right.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: So the total reported harvest of mountain lions in Utah
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: from November twenty twenty three to twenty fourth five hundred
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: and thirty.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Five hundred and thirty lines. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: it doesn't I mean, in some really simplistic way, you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: would just go, well, a lion on the the that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: line that I passed on the second day, he's killing
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: probably a deer a week, so that's fifty two deer
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: a year, and you're like, remove that lion. You have
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: plus fifty two deer. Well, I think what McLain and
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: what others are saying is that mil deer populations, even
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: thriving mile deer populations, they have natural systems built for
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: some level of mortality, and there's a whole lot more
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: mortality coming from human induced stuff and stuff beyond our control,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: droughts that are producing degraded habitat and just increase people
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in the state hitting deer on roads, hunters taking deer.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: There's just a lot of little points, and basically the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: lions are one data point that are taking taking deer
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: off the landscape. And to just smash in that button
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is to the people that I've talked to that are
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: in the know to think that that's not really helped one.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: We've got a comment here from Joe Prutz sixty sixty three.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that the game Commission knows that lions aren't
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: the only factor, but they're most likely the easiest factor
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: to control.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: That's probably a fair statement. Yeah, and it and it's uh.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is that you know how many
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: very serious lion hunters are there in the state of Utah.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a couple hundred, maybe right thousand, how
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: many serious mule deer and elk hunters are there in
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the state of Utah A lot, hundreds of thousands, And
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: so it's one of these things where it may not
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: be best practice, but it's it's it just seems like
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the easy thing. And honestly it's a philosophical question too.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: If there were no lions in Utah, there would be
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: more mule deer, right, I mean period, Yeah. But so
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it's like it raises the question, do we want a
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Utah with no mountain lions? And I think the answer
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six to the modern sportsman is no.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: We want wild landscapes with intact, trophic structure inside of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, we want some predators on the landscape. Our
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: ability to manage those predators is essential. Take that away
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: from us and we're in bad trouble and we're gonna
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: fight to the to the bare dirt to get it back.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: But and there's places where they've done that. In California,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: they've completely just like taken the legs out of predator
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: management and it's it's wild over there, what's going on?
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: And just to be clear, the only way to actively
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: hunt mountain lion would be with dogs.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Well, no, so this is in open landscapes like in Utah,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and now there will be a lot of just happenstance hunting.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Like if you're elk hunting with a rifle and you
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: see a line over there three hundred yards talking across
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the ridge, you can shoot it legally. And so there
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: is going to be quite a bit of harvest that's
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: going to come from just kind of by accident. There's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a term I'm looking for, what's the term. Secondly, there's
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of trapping going on in Utah at A
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: lot of guys are trapping mountain lions, and so in
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the past, pretty much the only way you would have
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: done it would have been with dogs. But now everybody
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that's got to tag and a weapon in their hand
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: could shoot a line. And I mean I would if
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I was out there elk hunting and saw a big
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: mountain lion walking across the ridge.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean that's that's pretty cool.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: So what it Mike bowdenchuck he watched the film and
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: he said, Clay, your experience there in Utah was exactly
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: what I would have predicted. He said, the top end
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of male mountain lions is gone out of.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Utah because of the open season.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or will be gone because year round no quota.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: So in the past they would have had the state
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: separated into quota quota zones for lions. So like maybe
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: where the and I don't know this, but perhaps like
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: where the meecums were hunting, there would have been a
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: thirty lion quota with a with a female quota too,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: so like maybe you could kill thirty lines, but if
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: you killed fifteen females that shut off, but you could
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: kill thirty males. So they regulated it pretty tightly. And
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: so this this is essentially going to take that top
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: end because guys are gonna go there. Uh uh run
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: dogs and the big ones they're going to get because
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you can hunt them through in sixty five days a year.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Oh really, Oh yeah, you hunt them, hunt them every day.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, that's a big deal.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so he said us seeing juveniles like this
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: or or sub adults, he said, was pretty typical. And
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and honestly, the McLain and them and hunter you know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: just kind of said Clay, Probably a lot of line
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: hunters in Utah would have shot those two cats, those
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: two males like they're just looking for you know, a
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: grown male.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: So a couple of other comments, Austin Sikich says, as
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: a Utah hunter, I appreciate you guys bringing awareness to
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: our backwards approach to predator management. Killing lions to help
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: mule dealers, like putting water in a grease fire. We
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: need to prioritize water and habitat, not killing lions. I
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: thought that was a good comment. Yeah, we had another
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: comment that talks about wild horses even Yeah, he says,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: the mule deer in Utah have a lot of competition
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: for feet and water as well elk, pronghorn, and tons
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: of wild horses. I've watched a group of wild horses
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: run a herd of deer off of a water hole
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: and a couple a couple of years ago, those horses
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: just hung out guarding that water like they owned it.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: D n R will remove every line from the state,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: but leave the horses alone.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Seems really off to me, guys bringing the heat.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: So anyway, it's definitely it's definitely a controversial topic. Yeah,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: but I think that the film kind of shed some
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: light on some good practices.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: So I've got a quote Mike. Mike told me this
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: quote and This wasn't from him. He was quoting somebody else,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: one of a biologist that he wants. He said, in
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the absence of wolves, he said, the way to save
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: elk is to reduce the amount of lead in the air. Basically,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: this biologist was saying, hey, well, in the absence of wolves,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: he said, the way that you manage basically deer in
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: elk populations is by how many get killed by human hunters.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Well, we had another comment. Andrew Ferris two two five said,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: limit the mule deer tags easiest way to control.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: And they have done that to the point that you
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: can hardly hunt mule deer in the storm. Okay, I
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: mean yeah, Like anybody that knows the draw system or
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: has played in the draw system knows that you talked
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: some one of the hardest states to draw. It's also
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: some of the best mule deer hunting in the country,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: So everybody wants to go there. But even residents don't
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: get tags every year in good zones, typically the residents
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: get priority, like in some of the premium Western states.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Let's take for instance, Montana. If you're a Montana resident,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: every year you get a general Montana elk license, which
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: means that every year you can hunt elk. You may
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: not be able to go to the premium zone, right,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of general elk zones. Okay, And
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I mean in Arkansas. Can you imagine if we couldn't
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: hunt deer in Turkey every year, Like if like once
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: every five years we got to deer hunt. I mean,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: that sounds like they'd been constitutional. Yeah, and so in Utah,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and it's other places too, New Mexico and Arizona and
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: other other states. But there are plenty of places out
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: west where even the residents have to draw a tag
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to hunt, and may not even get
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: a tag to hunt.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: South Dakota's like that.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like, well not hunting this year, didn't
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: get a tag. I mean to those of those of
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: us in the East hunting deer, in turkeys and bear, that.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Just sounds that is a god given right.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: It just sounds unbelievable, but it's the reality out there,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: and so they are regulating the tags.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's watch another clip. So that was a tom also, Yeah,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: it was not quite as big as the other one
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: or was it similar size?
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: It was similar size, It didn't look as big it
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: didn't look quite as big, but it was. It was
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: a male inside of that same range. So when you're
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: dealing with servands like elker deer, you you have these
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: rut windows that produce very specific fawning times, and so
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: all the juveniles of a given year a cohort are
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: basically the same age, okay, right, With lions, it's not
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: like that, Like you know, it's not like they breed
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in this window and they have kittens in the spring.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: It's not like a bear.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of speculation when you see that.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you might be looking at you might treat
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: two lions that were born four months apart or five
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: months apart, when typically in other species that have these
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: really regulated breeding windows, you would be looking at animals
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: that would be a cohort of a year, right, like bears,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Like you'd be like, that's a two year old bear,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: three year old bear, four year old bear. Does that
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: make sense?
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the breeding with the cats, as I understand
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: that they can basically breed any time of the year, okay,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: just when that female comes in. I actually learned that
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: an adult female lion is basically constantly pregnant or with
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: kittens her entire life. Once she reaches sexual maturity. Wow,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: she's either pregnant or nursing or rearing kittens.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Now do you know will they typically have a litter
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: of kittens? I mean, will they have multiples?
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I I'm not a line expert. You know
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: who was Teddy Roosevelt? Be nice to hear of him?
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Up? He was.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: He was the premiere lion mountain Lion guy in America
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundred.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: He'll see if Steven Alla has his phone number.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah no, but I'm they have like two kittens, okay,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: and the obviously could have three or four, Sure could
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: have one, but typically too kind of like bears.
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: Okay, let's look at this last clip here, Oh yeah.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Right here that.
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: All these dogs went the wrong word. This dog stayed
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: well over here for several hours. This little female he
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: was the reason we got this cat.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: This guy right here, So you you that was obviously
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: a female. Is there a term for a female cat?
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: And I don't think we can use it on this podcast.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, got it, got it? Wait, never mind, So you
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: said that dog stayed treed for hours?
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Yes? That this is again where video just doesn't really
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: allow you to tell the whole story. We started that
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: day on the track of a Magnum Tom like one
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that we didn't think we were gonna find right and
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: they were running it, and I mean McClain was like, hey,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: this might happen, and we were going into good country.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Every time that you're there with them there the dogs
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: are going in the direction. They're like, well, boy, if
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: they get over there, it's gonna be tough. Or man,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: if they go that way, we're in the chips. And
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: so last day, find a big track. Dogs are running
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: it and I go, we'll tell me about the direction,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: and I think they're gonna say, oh, Clay, it's gonna
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: be really tough for them to catch that line going
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: that way. And they go, this is great, this is fantastic.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: They're going the right way. And it's like mid morning,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: so we got plenty of time. A lot of times
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: you just run out of daylight. You just you just
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: trail it, trail it, trail it, trail it, and it
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: gets dark and your dogs are still running. You got
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: to call them off. And so it's it's mid morning.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: We're running a big line track, bigger than the ones
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: like they were like, you'll you'll shoot this one, Clay,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, that was the idea. And as
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: we're going, we're like seeing the lions tracks and the dogs.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: And you can tell it's big because of a big
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: track just and the distance between the steps. R.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, they they can just glance at the track
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: and like tell you the you know what that dude
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: had for breakfast, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable. And
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: so as we're going, it was like fate and we
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: couldn't show it in the film. It just it just
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: was too already capture a female crossed that lion's the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: big lions track and uh and the dogs turned and
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I think actually might have gone backwards on the female,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: even the best dogs in the world, but Whalon broke
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: off and just drifted into no man's land. And so
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: we actually followed the dogs and McLain immediately smelled a rat.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: He was like, something's wrong. He's like, they're not doing
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: it right. And then he sees the female track and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: sees they went the wrong way, and we spent a
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: bunch of time going down to them, and Dustin from
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Arizona was with us, Dustin Clark, and he looks at
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: his garment and he says, mclan whalon is like two
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: miles away showing treat and we were we thought maybe
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: it was an error on the GPS. Who it just
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the likelihood of this dog treeing the line by himself.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: And I was like, was it a good dog? And
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Dustin's like, man, it's one of my best I was
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: like really, It was like, do you think it's treated?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: And he said he was like, who knows. I think
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: he wanted to it's treating that he was being. He
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: was being reasonable, and it's like hard to say, well,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the dog is so far away that we almost didn't
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: go to it. I mean, that's what it felt like.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: But we finally get the dogs gathered back up from
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: kind of going the wrong way on this track, and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I remember it was late in the afternoon and we
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: could have it would have been way easier to just
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: go back to the truck, and McLean said, what do
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: you want to do? And I was like, well, I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: want to go see what that dog's got. I want
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to keep going, and he said okay, and so we
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: head off and go on a multi mile very treacherous
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: you know, like up this canyon and across and down
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: and back up, and the dogs still treated. And we
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: think it's possible that it's got that big male treat.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: It's possible. Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, these guys
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: were looking at their garments and I think they kind
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: of had it figured out what had happened. They just
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: it's like they're playing chess and I'm just kind of
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: like watching the game board, don't really know exactly what's
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: going on. And when we got to about one hundred
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and two hundred yards from the tree, we could hear
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: the dogs. By this time, all the other dogs went
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: to join Whalen, that English red and so that you know,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: all the dogs are going, and we know they've got
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: a lion tread. And McLain is like, I think it's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: that female. And so we get down there and sure enough,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: and when you look at her in the tree, you
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: can see how slender she is. I mean, she actually
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: has a feminine kind of face, you know what I mean,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: just like the lines on smaller head, smaller feet. She
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: was very nervous. Those males would just sit up in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the tree and just kind of them.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they seemed the tom seemed unfazed.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: They were just they were just sitting up there, just
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: they didn't care. That female was just constantly on edge,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: just kind of act like she and she ended up jumping.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, did.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: The dogs chase her when she Yeah, we we tried
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to catch most of the dogs back, you know, but
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: they actually, yeah, they actually chased her and treat her
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: just like one hundred yards away. And then we gathered
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: up all the dogs and took out.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: And you said, you know, this animal is legal to take,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: but we're not gonna yep, And I think I think
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: you've covered it well enough. It just just to be clear,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't take a female, because.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: So the only lion that is illegal to take in
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: the current structure is you cannot shoot a female with kittens.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: And typically a female is gonna tree with her kittens, okay,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: if she's got kittens. That's the way I understand it.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: And and in lion hunters in general are not gonna
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: shoot a female. I mean, they're just it's kind of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: the code of the West.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Because, like you said, the reproductive potential of that cat.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Right, and in most places there's the quotas, the female quotas,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: and there has been so I mean, these these regulations
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: create culture inside the states, and so there's been female
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: quotas all over the place. So for generations it's been
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: not okay to shoot a female, or you know, you
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: kind of get I mean, people do because the female
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: quotas get met, right, But it's like, don't shoot a female.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I mean the guys that are serious pretty much are
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: saying that there will be exceptions. I mean, maybe you're
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: with a kid, or maybe you have some reason to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: want to take in the whole female, and I don't
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: that could happen and be legit, but in general, guys
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: are after the males.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Sure. Okay, last question, So looking back, you decided to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: pass that first cat. Yes, if you had to do
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: it again, would you change your mind?
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I would do it just the same. But
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: would I have liked to have taken that cat? Yeah?
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: If if I had, If I wasn't with these guys
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: that were so knowledgeable and I respected so much and
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: had such strong opinions on the deal, I mean I
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: could see a scenario where I was with different people
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: that would have just been like, shoot that one man,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that's the best one we're gonna get. This is awesome.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think to a lot of people, to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of line hunters, that would have been like,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: what you the best of what you expected? You understand?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: I mean so, but again, you're you're a product of
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: the context that you're in. And I was these people's guest,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and they told me Hunter, Yeah, what's not on film
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: is that Hunter and McLain both were like, Clay, take
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: that shoot that cat. They were like, do what you want.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, and yeah, I mean they were They were like, yeah,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: if you want to shoot that cat, you can, right,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's legal. Like they know what's happening, and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: I think they knew that the chances of us treating
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: a bigger one were slim slim. Yeah, and so uh
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: but I could tell they they they didn't. I mean
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to put the blame on them.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I made the decision, sure, because I mean they told
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: McClain told me. He was like, you do whatever you want.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: But I was like, kind of taking your cues from
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: him one.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Hundred percent, which I would. I think, you know, somebody
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: new to hunting or I mean, that's what you do,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, when you're with people, you know,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I guess other parts of life are like this, But
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: in the hunting world, I feel like there's this hierarchy
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: of knowledge kind of on any hunt, and there's usually
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: somebody that's the de facto leader, just based upon their experience,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: the respect they have with the group, and I mean
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I kind of typically we kind of hat tip to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: the to the leader, right, you know, well.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: They've got a long history and legacy in that region
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: for what they do. Yeah, well great, that's all the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: questions I've got.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Man, I thank you guys so much for watching Meat
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Eaters twelve and twenty six. We've got ten more films
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: coming out this year. Two of them will be with
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: me and Bear John and the rest of the team,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, Brent Scott, some Yiannis has more. There's a
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: bunch of really great films that are coming out. And
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: there was a little bit of a snaff foo on
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: the release of this one. For the first five hours
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: that this line film was out, we actually had the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: wrong version of the film up on YouTube, so we
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: replaced it late on the first night. It's kind of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: a bummer, Yeah, that happened. But the current film that's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: up is the is the one to watch. If you
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: watched it in the first five hours you would have
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: seen a film with no narration. And I mean I
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: watched part of it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: So did you.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I mean it kind of made sense. Yeah, it was
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: just kind of odd, long musical pauses.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you kind of fill in the blanks with your emotions.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. I had a couple of people
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: be like, they were like, man, that was awesome, and
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, maybe I shouldn't talk, but no, it
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: means it means the world does that. Everybody watches what
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: we do. I mean, we would never take that for granted,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: and and and just what I mean, every time I
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: relive some of these moments, I mean, I'm just grateful
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: to be an American sportsman and I want to be responsible.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I want to be knowledgeable, I want to be ethical.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: I want to to steward this opportunity that we have
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: in modern times to be the caretakers of wildlife and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: wild places and the culture of American hunting, which is deeply,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: deeply part of our national identity, which we just have
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: to foster in the coming days because you know, I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: think I think hunting and being actively engaged in while
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: in wild places is it's good for society. It's good.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: You know, Teddy Roosevelt believed, you know, his strenuous life doctrine.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: He believed that, uh that to to go and test
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: yourself in the in the wilds was essential to the
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: national character, you know, And I think there's part of
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: that that's that's probably true. Not everybody in the world
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: gets to do what we do. And whether it's going
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: turkey hunting in your backyard or going on a lion
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: hunting utah or an el khunt, whatever version of your
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: excursion into the wild, whatever version that is, is awesome,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: whether you're squirrel hunting or small game hunting or white
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: tail hunting. And I'll never we get to do some
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: cool stuff, and I realize we're kind of anomalies in
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: a way, kind of propped up by I mean, this
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: is my job working for Meat Eater, so I realize
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I get to see a lot of cool things. But
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: my favorite things in the world to do are right
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: here within thirty minute drive in my house. And that's
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the truth. So thank you so much for watching this
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: twelve and twenty six podcast. The companion series to Meat
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: Eaters twelve and twenty six films