Oct 15, 2026 · 2 hr 10 min · 36 segments
Steven Rinella and the MeatEater Crew Discuss: a songbird smuggler; are you smoking drugs or calling ducks?; the Chai Vang Massacre; a bobcat poaching ring; Steve as a big time anti-hunter; is Ambler…
Steven RinellaHostJordan SillarsGuestJanis PutelisHost
Brody HendersonPanelist
Now, here, before I get into Operation Night Cat, I always thought, [laughs] I, I always was under the impression that when you name an operation, you use code language.
All the bad sounding crimes, but then when you get into it, it's basically dudes were shooting deer, making smokey sticks, selling smokey sticks in bars, and then taking that money to pay their taxidermy.
And then one day one of them runs off and catches a bunch of walleye somewhere, goes off to another state, joins a walleye tournament at a gas station [laughs] wins, and so then he had, like, all these fraud and racketeering charges.
The wire fraud was because one of them, a guy poached a deer, and he had a girlfriend call the hotline to, to report the deer.
Now, here, before I get into Operation Night Cat, I always thought, [laughs] I, I always was under the impression that when you name an operation, you use code language.
All the bad sounding crimes, but then when you get into it, it's basically dudes were shooting deer, making smokey sticks, selling smokey sticks in bars, and then taking that money to pay their taxidermy.
And then one day one of them runs off and catches a bunch of walleye somewhere, goes off to another state, joins a walleye tournament at a gas station [laughs] wins, and so then he had, like, all these fraud and racketeering charges.
The wire fraud was because one of them, a guy poached a deer, and he had a girlfriend call the hotline to, to report the deer.
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