Big Mouth Buffalo with Ryan Callaghan and Miles Nolte

In this episode, MeatEater's Ryan Callaghan and Miles Nolte travel to Minnesota to learn more about, and even try to catch, big mouth buffalo. The guys build a raised casting platform on Das Boat, using supplies scavenged from the trash heap behind a local hardware store. After that, they meet Alec Lackmann, the world’s foremost expert on a fish that few people care about. Alec studies big mouth buffalo in the Detroit Lakes area and has discovered some fascinating facts about these fish: First, they live a long time. No one actually knows just how long, but the oldest specimen he’s dated was 112. Second, in the Detroit Lakes, and probably other places as well, these fish have not consistently reproduced in over 80 years. Cal and Miles tag along with Alec to help release some buffalo that he was studying in a capture pen; he fills them in on why these are such cool fish; Miles tries—unsuccessfully—to catch one of these octogenarian fish in the lake; and then they sit down with some local bow fishers to share a conversation and some beer. From there, Cal and Miles head over to the Mississippi River to try their luck on a population of river buffalo that don’t get hunted with bows and are successfully reproducing. They cap off the episode with a delicious meal of fried sucker balls. #fueledbynature