The MeatEater

This week, Tony chats with public land bowhunter, Clint Campbell, about discipline, a proper mindset, and how we can all learn to lean into deer hunting challenges no matter how difficult they might be.

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In this episode of In Pursuit Rich sits down with NFL standout Zach Sieler to share his passion for the outdoors and how it fuels his life on and off the field. From advocating for conservation to thriving as an underdog in the high-stakes world of professional football, Zach reveals how his hunting roots and relentless mindset drive his success. Join Rich for a hard-hitting conversation packed with grit, heart, and inspiration for anyone chasing their goals in the wild or beyond!

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Early on in my duck hunting journey, I lugged some wood duck decoys and a spinner deep into a chunk of public land in north-central Wisconsin. I’d stumbled across a pond in the parcel while scouting for whitetails, and figured it might pick up some wood duck and teal traffic on the opener.

As soon as I tossed the first decoys in, my retriever followed. When I jammed the spinner into the mud and turned it on, her eyes bugged out of her head. It became pretty clear that I hadn’t trained that young Lab around decoys enough, and I was about to pay for it.

That mistake was dumb, but I’m not the only one who has made it. In fact, a hell of a lot of waterfowl hunters have trained their dogs all summer long for specific scenarios, while ignoring the other aspects of a hunt that are guaranteed to distract their retrievers, or worse, just destroy their ability to focus altogether.

This is no fun, but totally avoidable. You just have to think through what you’ll use during your average waterfowl hunt, and then try to incorporate that gear into your training sessions.

As I mentioned, I made the mistake of not training my dog around specific decoys enough. Given the different options on the market, many of which are designed specifically to move and splash, it’s pretty easy to understand how a dog owner can get into trouble.

It can be a pain to set up decoys for every summertime training session, but at some point, you should. In their simplest form, your decoys will float in one spot while they are anchored in place. A dog that has to swim through them to retrieve a real duck, better learn how to swim through them to retrieve a bumper first. If you’ve never seen a dog get caught up in some decoy cords, then you might not appreciate why this needs to be done. If you have, you understand completely.

Spinners, tip-ups, splashers, jerk rigs, and quiver dekes, are all options for giving your spread some extra life. They are also great at drawing your dog’s attention and causing all kinds of steadiness issues. If you don’t want to deal with that (you don’t), spend some time this summer training with the exact decoys out that you plan to use.

This goes for field hunters, too. If you like to flag geese or throw up a tornado for snows, the same rules apply. The key is to not surprise your dog with anything during the hunt that he hasn’t already seen during calmer, low-stress training drills.

Full-sized duck blinds aren’t all that easy to find to train out of, which is unfortunate. Smaller, mud-hut field blinds are an easier proposition, however. If you plan to hide your dog in some kind of field blind, then you should plan to train your dog in one as well. This seems intuitive, and certainly is for a lot of folks, but it’s also extra work when you could just go toss some backyard bumpers for your dog.

The same rules apply for dog stands. Whether you employ one just to keep your dog out of the cold mud, or you’re a flooded timber hunter, your dog should be allowed to develop an extreme level of comfort with whatever stand you choose. Just like with the decoys, you don’t want to spring something on your retriever that is brand new during a hunt. This will only lead to a lot of frustration on your part and confusion on his.

No one with the IQ of your average coot would take a dog duck hunting before conducting proper gunfire introduction. That would be the best recipe you could find for taking a retriever from hunting dog to house dog in a matter of seconds.

Yet, a lot of people won’t blow a duck or goose call around their dog until opening morning. While seasoned veterans who know the drill will look right past someone dabbling or honking away in their ear, younger dogs aren’t as likely to ignore calling.

Incorporating calling into summertime training sessions is easy and important. You want that sound to be associated with something exciting, but also, just be part of the overall background noise that they need to learn to ignore while they do their job.

In other words, do what you can to create real-world hunting scenarios during your training sessions. The fewer surprises you have for your dog when the opening bell rings, the better his performance will be overall. That’s it, and it’s important.

Janis Putelis returns to his Wisconsin property to hunt whitetails in early November. Between a summer of habitat conservation work and a ton of activity on trail cams leading up to this hunt, Janis has high hopes for a lot of rutting buck encounters. A methodical tree saddle placement presents a golden opportunity for Janis. Presented by Moultrie

EHD can change everything in a matter of one outbreak. Deer disappear, patterns break down, and entire herds can be impacted. In this episode, Jake Hofer asks Steve Hanson, Don Higgins, Skip Sligh, Mark Kenyon, Jeff Sturgis, Bobby Kendall, and Bill Winke how they adjust when EHD hits their area. Can you still have a successful season when the deer population takes a hit? And what should you be looking for when the woods go quiet? The group shares their experiences with EHD outbreaks, how they adapt their expectations, scout differently, and shift their plans when the usual playbook no longer applies. If your hunting area got hammered by EHD, this episode offers clarity on what to do next.

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Thanks to our sponsor Land.com

On August 29, 1911, the last survivor of the Yahi people wandered into Oroville, California, naked, starving, and carrying with him a history and language unknown to the outside world. This is the story of Ishi, a man who endured the extermination of his tribe and went on to leave a lasting mark on modern bow hunting and linguistics. Host Clay Newcomb guides the narrative, joined by traditional archery historian Gene Hopkins, to explore Ishi’s extraordinary life and legacy.

If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [email protected]

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This week, Tony explains how amazingly athletic dogs can be, but also how we can get fooled into believing our personal dogs are more conditioned than they really are, and why that's a big problem.

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Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Cory Calkins, and Logan Dove.

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Editor's Note: This article was previously published stating that Patton died from his injuries, however, he is currently still alive. Apologies for the error.

On September 3, 72-year-old Vernon Patton suffered serious injuries after being attacked by a black bear in Franklin County. According to CBS Channel 5 News, Patton had been spreading gravel at his property in Ozark when he was attacked without provocation by a 70-pound juvenile black bear. He was airlifted to nearby Fayetteville Hospital before being transferred to the University of Arkansas hospital in Little Rock.

Arkansas Game and Fish wardens were able to track and euthanize the bear after Patton’s son witnessed the attack, and biopsies of brain tissue revealed that the bear was not infected with rabies or distemper, diseases that can cause unusual and aggressive behavior.

It’s hard to overstate how rare an attack like this is. AGFC official Trey Reid said, “I've been at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission for almost 20 years and have never heard of a black bear attack on a human. An unprovoked attack, it's just unheard of, honestly.”

“Unheard of” is the right way to put it. For perspective, about 200 people are struck by lightning every year, and about 20 of them die. In contrast, research has shown that only about one or two people are killed by black bears every year, and all of those deaths are caused by full-grown adults. Non-fatal attacks are much more common, at about twelve per year, and are typically caused by female bears protecting their cubs, while fatal encounters are almost always predatory attacks by males.

All this tells us that the odds of being killed by a juvenile black bear make winning the Powerball look like an everyday thing. Unsurprisingly, bears habituated to human food have more run-ins with people, and the bear who killed Patton did have human food in its stomach.

The reason black bears have fewer violent encounters with humans than brown bears has to do with the habitat they evolved in. Biologist Stephen Herrero, a leading authority on bear attacks, has consistently observed black bears staying close to trees throughout their life cycle. The species originally spread throughout North America in the dense boreal forests that took root after glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age.

Herrero concludes that a black bear’s first response to danger is to simply retreat up a tree. Brown bears, in contrast, evolved in the open plains of Eurasia and continued to prefer that habitat in North America. With nowhere safe to retreat to, their first response to a threat is often to attack. Although brown bear cubs climb trees, by the time they’re adults, they don’t tend to do so.

The location of the attack that killed Vernon Patton is notable, too. Starting in the 1840s, Arkansas became known as the Bear State, named for the density of bears there and the stories of bear hunting that became popular in hunting magazines of the time. Because the Mississippi Delta region of the state underwent uncontrolled flooding well into the late 1800s, it was one of the last remaining forest regions in the South after most others underwent clear-cut logging. By the late 1920s, black bears had been extirpated from the region, with as few as 35 bears remaining in the entire state.

Then, between 1958 and 1968, black bears were brought into the state from Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada, in what became the most successful reintroduction of a large carnivore in history. Contemporary estimates put the number of black bears in Arkansas at around 5,000 and steadily growing.

Vernon Patton’s family released a statement in response to his death. “This has been an extraordinarily difficult time for our family, and we are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support we have received. We ask that people show compassion and consideration as we focus on being together as a family for as long as we still can. We also want to extend our heartfelt thanks to the medical teams who are providing exceptional care and to everyone who has offered their prayers and kindness.”

This week Reid and Dan host a set of brothers for another BROPOD. They are hosting Scott and Matt of the #1 country band, Parmalee. They immediately dive in on brother wars, taking punches to the face, and what growing up as Irish Twins looked like. Matt and Scott share how they passed time during quarantine by fishing in Alaska and why they believe salt water fish is superior to fresh water. They share their journey as a band and in a vulnerable moment Reid shares what it is like sharing all of this with his brother. The episode ends with a classic Travis Tritt Gravorite!

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