Huntavore - If You Give Huntavore A Fish…

0:00This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by Interstate Batteries. Since 1952 Interstate Batteries has been evoking compassion and a trustworthy spirit into the surrounding communities. Interstate Batteries is a mission driven company fueled by purpose and guided by their values. If you need help locating a specific battery, stop into your local Interstate Batteries retail store and speak with a battery specialist. They even offer cell phone repairs. Interstate Batteries. Outragiously dependable. This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by Nathan and Sun's makers of underbrush remineralizing gum. I started keeping a packet my desk for after lunch, and honestly the chew is so satisfying. Most natural gums turned a mush, but underbrush has this incredible texture and natural saps that hold up. My favorite is the spirit. It leaves my mouth feeling insanely clean without that artificial fake sugar taste.

1:00Plus, Nathan and Sun's makes it from scratch in Northern California using the same mineral that your toothy name is made from. It's such a great habit to get into because it supports remineralization and freshens your breath all at the same time. If you want a simple daily upgrade for your teeth, head over to NathanandSunds.com and check out why underbrush remineralizing gum is right for you. Right now, you can get 30% off your first order when you subscribe. Visit NathanandSunds.com today. Welcome to the Hunt of War podcast, powered by sportsman's empire, where we celebrate the hunting

2:01and fishing lifestyle through the utilization and consumption of our wild game. No egos, fork in hand, beer in the other, no status. If he's a red meat and a hot grill and turn it into a burn offering, just catch it, cut it, cook it. Well, egos, beautiful morning here in Michigan. I should actually say, balmy morning here in Michigan, the dew point is super high. Temperatures are super high. So here we are in early September, jumping in on summer temps. It's like the one kick that it's trying to get back at us. It's a really so cuss out. It's not a dry heat. No, no, this is a wet heat. Anyway, with that said, kind of moving on into this episode. I want to do just a little intro.

3:04Things have been a little bit crazy on me personally. School is now back in session. We're two weeks in. Taking an already busy schedule from summer, just with kids and projects and things that I'm trying to do. Now let's wrap in a nine to five job. And man, oh man, is it winding up to be something that I'm really like, I got to take this day by day. I got to really map this out. I got to really capitalize on what I'm doing, really capitalize on the time that I'm given. That's just been a struggle, but it's one of those things where I really like, woof, a couple of things that I'd go on the back burner and a couple of things that had to get pushed forward in priority. And that's just the way the cookie crumbles. I'm sure all of you can attest to that as well. Because now here we are in the months that end in burr. And this is our

4:07time to shine. This is outdoors mincentral. This is where things really start to heat up. As far as personally my hunting plans, I have aspirations today to get the bow out and to really start slinging some arrows down range, getting ready for opener here in Michigan. But you know, it's still in October. I got a month ago on the archery front. Nothing has changed. I'm sticking with everything the same equipment wise. Everything seems great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So I don't have any interesting add-ons. I don't have any new pieces of equipment that I'm working with. Other than kind of repacking my kill kit for going into the pack and kind of rearranging some of the things that I carry into the field that I need up in the tree. Or should I say, what? Up in the tree. I think one thing I really want to do just as something that I try to

5:17step up a little bit is I'm going to try and take a paperback book with me and get some reading it. I've been doing more audiobooks. I should say doing more audiobooks if done one audiobook. Okay, so folks, I'm starting. I've started. I got one audiobook in and really enjoying that time that I am spent doing a a meaningful or a a a task that I can kind of zone into. Or I've been listening to the book on my rucks rather than listening to nothing. When rucking or when hiking, I normally don't like having music. I just want to be immersed in kind of where I'm at. But then at the same time putting in one earbud and doing an audiobook really has melted those miles away. So that's been a nice ad but throwing in a paperback book into the pack much better than grabbing the phone

6:18and flipping through social media as you're set up in a tree. So that's going to be kind of like something that I'm truly really trying to truly change about what I'm doing out in the field. That's neither here nor there or is it going to as it going to be a big drastic change other than internally me and how I view things and how maybe I get a different perspective that might be one of them but other than that, that's kind of the only thing I've shaken down. As far as exciting news though, talking with Mitchell Shirk over in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania woodsman, we've been drafting together an idea of myself heading out to him for a New Jersey bear hunt. Very, very excited. Actually put some plans in place like we were to plane ticket. I'm going to be flying out there getting picked up by him and we'll be heading over to camp there. So we've got

7:22lodging put together on there. He's got a plan. This has been a hunt that he's done with a group of his friends and he's opened it up. Gave me the invite and so I finally was able to put that together. I'm taking advantage of it here in October and heading over and trying to get me a black bear and that just seems very exciting. A, the new experience. Sounds like we're going to be approaching these bears in an ambush style. So we're going kind of like white tail setup where we're going to be up in a tree. We're going to be in a stand and then I'm actually going to bring my saddle with me. I can sit in a saddle way longer than I can sit in a hang on. He's doing all the work as far as as baiting for the bear and scouting for the bear and putting up stand sites. So he's kept me posted on that. I'm really excited to see where this goes.

8:26I mean new experience, new animal. I'm not picky. I'm looking to, you know, as we start this out, I don't want to say first available, but you know, I'm really hoping to put an animal down and then to get a chance to really embark on I'm using this animal. It's going to be because we're going to be someplace else. We're going to be not near my shop. I won't have the chance to put my full kit to work or I'm just going to be a long ways away. New environment, new way of handling things too. So I'm going to lean heavily upon Mitch. That'll be a conversation that I think I'm going to have with him later is, yeah, we're going to have to find ourselves a processor that can take this bear in because I'm going to be flying. I'm going to lean heavily in on Mitch to hold my bear until I can get it, until either we can ship it home or whatever. And then,

9:29yeah, if we get the bear, I definitely want the rug. So we're going to, we're going to have to use his taxidermists. So I'm going to have to learn his his protocol on how he does this. So it's just going to be ultimately a very, very cool learning experience here. A seeing new country, seeing new environments, dealing with some new people, it is very exciting. So yeah, there's been a lot of things that have been on the burners, both the front and the back side, a lot of plates spinning. I know I missed a week last week for having a podcast. So I do apologize to listeners on that. But yeah, we're going to pull ourselves up from the bootstraps like we do, and we're going to keep on recording. So folks, I hope you enjoy this episode because I think this one has a different spin to it. It really leans in heavy. Yes, on the wild game that I'm going to be talking about. But it also goes into something a little bit deeper and then ties into another

10:32project that I'm exciting, that excited to be a part of. Something where I'm actually donating animals as opposed to keeping them for myself. Always been a great idea and not finally going to get a chance to put that into practice. So folks, I hope you enjoy this, enjoy this episode. Thanks for letting me just tune in here with a little bit of an intro. I hope you guys and Gales have an amazing start to your September. If you haven't gotten the bow out, be a good idea to get a few reps on that. If you're if you're a rifleman or a a gun guy, might be a good idea to find some time to go out and zero, zero everything yet, because it's it's time. It's the things are going to go quick and we want to be prepared. So yeah, let's get into this episode. Thank you, everybody, for joining it.

11:41I want to start today's episode with something that is actually sitting in my freezer now. Sam. Several full days of Great Lake, Sam King Sam, to be exact. And the interesting part really isn't the fish itself. Yes, local, here to the Great Lakes, absolute great protein, amazing color. But that's not what's important. It's how it got to me that has really touched the spirit behind this episode. Somebody gifted me this fish. We've all heard the phrase, if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. We take that second part of that phrase and we really cast off the first. We want to teach people,

12:46we want to get into that and we kind of forget a little bit about the gifting part of that fish. I got a chance to experience that on the front side. And while it is, if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. In this instance, I was gifted a fish, actually, I was gifted quite a few fish. And I was then able to have an experience that not only was great with the protein itself, but it built a friendship there. It opened the door to where a deeper connection can happen. So how did this all start? Well, friends of ours, Jason and Brittley. Jason is,

13:48he's an avid outdoorsman. I don't think he got the start into white tail. He leans heavily on the waterfall side. So he's done a lot of goose hunts, he's done a lot of duck hunts. I think small game is in his wheelhouse, but also being on the water. That's his primary. He's got a nice big boat. He heads out on the big lake and just enjoys big bodies of water. I find myself more of a land lover. I'm out chasing more. I'm here in Michigan. I'm chasing like the classic game. I'm chasing white tail, small game. More on the side of it, you had processing the animal. So I've got my fair share of plucking waterfowl and upward birds. But Jason and Brittley, we've connected through soccer. Their son is on my son's soccer team. You get to talking on the sidelines.

14:54Then we go to a couple tournaments and you now spend not just one game together, but you start spending multiple games and multiple days together. As the kids and the boys create friendships and as they get closer together, thus happens with the adults. It's been a very fun, unique experience, getting to know these parents on the soccer team. With Jason, getting to know him, hearing his heart for the outdoors and then seeing it in action has been really cool. That's a great connection point that we have. He was put on a fishing team. He's got several buddies who join tournaments. Again, this is a big gray area in my life. I'm like, okay, we've got fishing tournaments.

15:55I understand that. Then there's big lake fishing tournaments and they're all going out there for kings and lakers and you name it. So they go on on this tournament and they absolutely dominate. I got some pictures from him earlier as they were out on the water and he was just showing these massive fish that they were pulling in. They struck gold and they won the tournament. Here's the downside though that kind of brought this whole thing together as well. Britley is allergic to fish. Not in like a, like, oh, she gets a stuffy nose or makes her eyes water. No, no, like clothes is soft. As in, she cannot have fish, can't have fish by products. It's just a problem. And Jason's now from this tournament inundated with a lot of this fish. They split it all

17:02up amongst each other and Jason will brought home several big gallon bags. Full, full aze. I'm talking 24, 26 inch long full aze full sides of this year that he's now having to, oh, how am I going to use this? So knowing that I'm into the culinary side, Jason reached out and said, hey, not sure what you're doing, but I got these bags of fish that need to get used up. I can only grill so much salmon. I need some of this fish to get used up. So I offered my services. I said, yeah, I'll take the fish and I'll cook it up. We'll make it, I'll get rid of it by eating it, I guess. And then I'll also prepare a bunch for you, knowing that you want to continue to eat fish, but not

18:05expose your wife to it. I'll make you some jerky. So he gifted me the bags and then began my process. I get these bags. He's done a great job already. They've already scaled it. So I don't know what they use if they had, if they had top bottles on a stick and they were just doing the stick method if they were using the back of a knife, if they had a scaler. I'm assuming there's probably at the fish station. There's probably a scaler. But anyway, fish is scaled, fill it off the side. All I had to do was a little bit of trim and then make sure I pull up the pin bones. A couple of the fish I had to kind of search for the pin bones to find them in there. I find my weatherman is great. The needle nose on those is just working out really well. And I would pull and they kind of like crack one and half and then I got to dig in here and get the next one. And you just get the feel for it as you pull out these pin bones on some of the bigger

19:12fillets. It was like a rib that I was pulling out. I could grab easy hold of that. You pull that and that sucker is probably two inch to two and a quarter inches long pulling out the side of the fish. We're quite sturdy. It was like, how he smokes. These are sizable fish. I took a lake trout, which I think that's another story here. That's back from when I was ice fishing and watching those crews around the water. I think the lake trout has just kind of become my favorite fish. If I had to pick one of the big one of the big lake fish, I think one of the they're just very cool. The patterning on the side, their behavior. And I know they already have, I'm finding out too, that they've got a stigma. They call them greasers. They're heavy oil. They're a little bit greasy. More so than the King salmon. They're going to have a more thick, punchy flavor to them.

20:12But at the same time, I'm not scared of that because I'm getting to eat something that is unique in itself. So that was the first filet that I was preparing. That first filet that I did is I turned that into jerky using pink shaw's method. Well, jerky or more so, more along lines too of like salmon candy. Pink shaw's got a really basic recipe where you're using brown sugar and salt. As a cure, you work that into into the meat. Let it sit. They want six out or he was calling for six hours just because of the heavy salt to it. That fish absorbs that salt really quite fast. So it was like six to eight hours that I would let it go in this cure. Rinse them all off, lay them out flat and then get that onto the grill. When I say grill, I was going to smoke that on my grill.

21:17I have a smoker and he's a little bit out of commission. I got a rust issue on my little smoker. So that's another project that I got to add to the list. But I cut the salmon in a way where I was keeping the integrity of the fish. So it's like you can go cross grain on the filet. So if you cut up and down vertically on the fish, it's going to begin to break apart. If you cut it horizontally along the fish, that's where it's going to keep where it's going to be held together. So cross grain is going to make more of a folly apart with the grain is going to help maintain that structure. So I started doing all this before I realized that my smoker was all rusted up. But what I was going to do is I cut with the grain. I cut horizontally

22:17and then I took these pieces and then cut them again in half, leaving the skin attached and a notch that I could essentially drop. The two ends of the fish, the two ends of the now going to be piece of jerky on either side split, wrong of the rack. Those would hang vertically. I could hit the smoke and they would all rise up. Having to quickly change, I went with with racks that I would use in the oven. Essentially like the cookie cooling rack, double stack those. Those went on my charcoal grill and that's how I was able to do that one. I'm using black cherry wood that fell during a storm in my backyard. So I'm actually using stuff out of my backyard into chunks, a little bit of charcoal, a little bit of these

23:21kindling pieces that I've made for our black cherry wood. And that's how I got the smoke onto these. I was really impressed with the color change, especially on that red red meat. Having it take on that tan look of the smoke really just enhanced the visual of that fish. It wasn't a deadening of it. It really brought out the color of it. So when you pick it up, not only are you eating it with your mouth, but you're eating it with your eyes. It's very, very cool. So that was the first batch of that laker. That came out. The salt was just right. Having half salt, half brown sugar kept that salinity down. It's still salty enough that having it with with a beer is going to be much more appetizing. Having something to wash it down, kind of to cut the salt in your mouth. And then yeah, being that it's from a lake trout,

24:23it did have a little more oil. It did have a little bit more grease to it. But when you put it into that jerky aspect of it, it just played also well. Kept your mouth from drying out when you were eating it. Just a banger set up. And that's what I gifted then back to Jason. So you have this perfect scenario here where you've got a fisherman who wants more of his of his bounty, but he can't have it in a way that he can't have half of his family half of it. Have it. So now I was able to make a treat for him, back it up, hand it back to him so that he has the ability to enjoy it. So all that, it does reduce, I mean, you're getting rid of a lot of water weight in this. So what would I brought back to him was far less than when he brought, when he brought it to me in its fresh state. We laughed a little bit about that, but he was very happy to

25:30to get that. And so I knew like with the other bags of fish, I'm going to have to make some more jerky. So that was a big part of my August, I don't want to say a big part of my August, but that was a big task, I would say, I don't want to say learn, like I already knew how to do it, but it was a great exercise. That's a great work for it. And exercise in being able to preserve that bounty. This huge bounty of fish that I just got out of nowhere in the month of August, having to preserve it, having to utilize it, having to get it to where I can either hold onto it, putting the same in the sake of like fish too, the longevity of it being in the freezer, the longevity of it just sitting in the fridge, it's got a much quicker clock than say a piece of venison. So having to jump in and partake into that to be blessed with that gift, then to turn

26:37around and have the ability to gift it back in a different form, I think that's just that perfect symbiosis that you have among outdoorsmen. They have a bounty and they need to use this and they want to use it to the best of their ability. So they gift it. The same thing what we do with our venison, we gift out that venison, someone's low on venison, you gift them there. Jason had several stories of saying where he would switch out with with another friend, he's like, hey, I've got a a duck breast, would you like these duck breasts? Yes, oh my goodness, thank you. Oh, hey, by the way, grab this bag of, at that point, fish, I got these fillets, use these up. And so there's just this this building, this community that you're bringing together. And it was just really unique how that hit me, how that that idea and that building of community as sportsmen, it hit me in that August where I think I just, I wasn't ready for, I wasn't ready for

27:44this to happen, I wasn't ready to take on five gallon bags of fish, but then at the same time, how blessed I was to now have this exercise in preserving and this exercise of cooking. And yes, one one bag went to just cooking for lunches and meals that my family enjoyed this past week. I was able to put together salmon and rice and avocado as as my pre-made meals. I got all my macros in there. I had the protein, the avocado added in there, the fat and the the rice, the carb, measuring those out. When I had my talk with Andrew Munts, that's what I really wanted to do, was plan out these meals so that I wasn't getting off track, that fast food during lunch would be irregular. And this gave me that opportunity for something different. I had already done the wild board. I had already done the venison. Now I'm throwing in sides of fish. Very, very cool.

28:47So now that leads me here to again, our phrase that we were talking, give a manifest and he eats for it day. I think you give a manifest and he soon finds a camaraderie. If you give a manifest, we forget that he's really going to appreciate. If you give a manifest, he's going to want to make something and he's going to want to share that with you, whether it's in a picture, whether it's a little bit back. If you give a manifest, you're going to start a friendship. I think that's ultimately what we forget about that phrase. If you teach him in a fish, then he's going to eat for a lifetime. If you've gifted him a fish and now you're going to teach him to fish,

29:49you're going to now have a friend for life. I think that's where it's ultimately, ultimately go. All this to be said, Jason Brittley, thank you so much for that salmon. Thank you so much for that Lake trout. It was a huge blessing. Not just in calories, not just in food on table, but I think a connection between our two families. It was just really fun. Like a catalyst, if you will, to get a relationship going. Because I can now see that when we get into venison season, we're going to have some gifts going out to place that just to my freezer. Staying on this story here, I talked about this salmon, but it really wasn't about salmon.

30:52It was about where it came from and it was about who caught it. Because I want to take this idea and really tie it into a new opportunity. I'm still flushing it out. I had an amazing conversation with Scheter Beckman, Eric Beckman. I had a conversation with him on my last podcast episode. He's out of miskegon near where I'm at, maybe an hour. His passion is for the outdoors as well. The more that I've talked to him and the more that I've got to know him, we share a lot in this wild game venture. I find Eric very, not what I want to say. I find him very passionate and it's easy for me to talk with him. It's

31:58easy for me to engage with what he's talking about because I find it very authentic. I find it very wholesome. Now, when we have this conversation, yes, we're talking a little bit about the ins and outs. He's talking to me about Bang Bang Blue Gill and how I can take an old blue Gill filet that my family already loves and take it to another notch. Now we're adding a little Asian zing flare into it. Now, it's like we got something brand new. He approached me after that episode with his idea of giving a man a fish and it's more along the lines now of giving a man more protein. We're looking at sharing a problem in our state of Michigan or at least that's what others have deemed a problem. Skiter kicked it off a couple

33:04weeks ago with Do-Dash. Playoff of Do-Dash, Do-Dash, the app that you can go on, select the food that you want. Somebody then brings it to you. In Do-Dash, you need some high quality protein because you either A, you're falling on tough times or you just can't seem to find some really good high quality protein to feed your family. This is where Do-Dash comes in. Do-Dows are going to be dropping this year. At least that's what everybody's hoping. Everybody's thinking that we're going to take all the Dows this year. I'm, I don't want to say hesitant. I am optimistic that they are going to go. Anyway, Do-Dash is where you're going to be able to donate Dows, get back from a processor, a large amount of ground venison that's then going to be distributed through this is where I think

34:11my notes fall short. There is a, I'm not sure if it's a, if it's hunters against hunger, if it's, if it's part of the field before, if it's, I forget the venue on which would be distributing this. But from the processors, it's going to then get donated to food banks across the area. And that'll be an easy way for folks to get that protein to use it, which is very, very, very cool. My big roadblock in being able to donate venison is that I process my own and I just haven't created a relationship with a processor or know how to donate or have an area processor who does donate. I'm, I'm well versed at least in the domestic side of, of meat production that there's a lot of boxes to check and sometimes the slowest boxes that get checked is from inspections. So,

35:18so sometimes processors don't like to funnaggle with that. It's a, it's a hassle. It's a good idea. They want to do it, but there's so many roadblocks that are in the way. But yet, they're also processors who really do a great job. And I think sketer has found those. On top of that, sketer has turned it into basically like a, a dole pole. You're, you're bringing doves in to get them, get them donated. There's going to be raffles. There's going to be prizes. There's going to be, there's going to be a gathering. I think there's going to be like a flat out like big dough dash party. And from all this, he's also going to take the idea of you're giving it and you're gifting now. If you give a man a fish, if you give a man and 40 pounds of ground venison, is he going to make 40 pounds of burger? Is he going to make chili after chili? Is he going to make tacos after tacos? Is he going to get sick of the three things that he normally

36:19makes out of ground? And that's where sketer wants to then up the level and he wants to then put together recipes. He's pulling recipes from a lot of people and he invited me to, to throw two of my recipes on. I have yet to actually send that information over to here. This is actually the the launching point for me to really get into action. I talk about it and I tell you about it. Forces my hand to get on it. But I'm going to be able to send a couple of my recipes. Which recipes am I going to send in? I'm going to go with one of my main stays, a meatball. My quick 30 minute meatball that I use. Now, it's been a hot second since I've made meatballs. Maybe we need to do that again. But my quick 30 minute meatball that you can make it Italian. You can throw it into the Swedish style. Whatever you'd like to do it, but it's just a great way to use up a burger in a different way than, say, hamburgers. So the meatball recipe is going to be

37:28one of mine that goes on there. Again, going with all the fields and the traditions and everything else I'm going to go with my wife's grandfather's diosa. He got his recipe from folks that he was staying with in Japan when he was over there. He was stationed over there. Anyway, he was one of the mechanics. It wasn't on the front lines, but definitely in the theater was staying with folks in Japan and diosa was a meal that they enjoyed. That was one of their party meals. So bringing that recipe back, we do that. Christmas is usually the time that we hit those. So I'm going to put together that right up. I'm going to put right up there our diosa. What a great way to, a, not only spread out that 40 pounds of venison or how much ground

38:29they get, but once we do that, it's not the same old, same old, you eat that diosa. You're getting not only the venison flavor, but you're getting the cabbage that's been shredded. You've got the fried wonton. It becomes a whole mouth experience. It's just so fun. It's like a party on tray or like a fun meal aspect as opposed to, here's a bowl of chili. Now, let me look down upon a bowl of chili because that's what gets a lot of us through the winter. But it's just a different avenue, a different form that we can take when using the venison. So yeah, there it is. A lot of talking about a fish that I was gifted and where is that taking me this fall. I'm creating a relationship with another sportsman. We're diving deeper. We're going back

39:32and forth now. So he's giving me fresh fish and I've been sending back, uh, made uh, treats that he can then enjoy. Uh, so he gets to enjoy that bounty. But then going from that relationship to a different relationship, or now we're trying to do more outreach where hunters are really despite what I think about some of the new rules that have come down the pipeline and how people are viewing it. Skeeter's got the right mindset here that's saying, hey, this doe overpopulation that we have isn't necessarily a problem. But it can be a solution to a hunger problem that we have that is we get into food banks that shelves are dependent upon the community to refill. This is an awesome way for us to give high quality protein to people who need it. And then on top of that,

40:32to spark it with we're not just giving you this to make your same tacos or to make your same chili, but we also want to offer some new ideas to really jazz up what you're eating and have fun with the food that's going to power you. So if you give a man a fish, he's probably going to enjoy it. He's probably going to eat for a day, but then he's going to turn around and make it into a podcast. He's probably going to be inspired, continue to use more of the fish that he's actually the two bags that he throws to do with different things, but at the same time, he's also going to be inspired to jump in and find a way to gift more wild game to others who are in need. So folks, whether it's salmon that you're pulling out of the water right now, that you're going to have a chance to throw on the grill, make sure that you get those pin bones out. And make sure you do a

41:38really good job of getting some or getting the scales off, or whether it's going to be prepping out your bow and getting it dialed in, looking at those broadheads and making sure you really got a good sharp if you've got the fixed blades on them, or if you're using the mechanicals, make sure you do that. But if you're going to have a knife anywhere on you to prepare that meat or in the field, make sure that the edge is very sharp.