Ep 91 - Hunting Californias Invasive Mute Swan

Dive Bomb Squadcast

Ashur Tolliver

Sports, Wilderness

4.9 • 561 Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Matt Judy sits down with Zane Halsey — one of the first hunters to take part in California’s brand-new legal season on invasive mute swans, which opened January 1, 2026.

We break down what the new season really means, why mute swans were declared invasive, what the hunt was like, what gear and loads were used, the challenges of identifying swans correctly, and what it takes to hunt them ethically and legally. This episode dives into the first wave of what could become a major shift in how invasive waterfowl are managed.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's up, everyone?
0:09.3	Welcome back to the dive bomb squad cast.
0:11.9	I'm your host, Matt Judy.
0:13.2	We have episode 91 coming at you.
0:16.5	And California just opened up their first ever legal swan season on invasive mute swans.
0:22.5	And today we're talking to one of the first guys who actually went out there and hunted them for the first time.
0:29.6	And we got Zane Halsey on today.
0:31.9	How you doing, man?
0:33.5	Good.
0:33.9	How's it going?
0:34.5	Pretty good, dude.
0:35.4	It's going great.
0:36.9	Looks like you're sitting in the rig. Just got done scouting or something. Heck, yeah, the freaking front drivers. That's what mine should be, too, honestly. Gosh, dang, dude. I feel like I've been on the road for the last four months pretty much. Actually, basically have been. How about the witch? went dude the wedge hunting's been freaking awesome
0:56.4	lately we uh we got a pretty hot field right now that we just been absolutely smashing them out
1:02.5	so it's been a pretty good you know the season ends in two weekends it's been going it's been
1:07.8	phenomenal dude they have got into them that heavy yeah man i was gonna ask you how's your how's your's been phenomenal, dude. They have got into them that heavy.
1:11.1	Yeah, man.
1:11.5	I was going to ask you, how's your, how's your season been so far down there?
1:16.3	We've had a really good season, me and my buddies.
1:19.3	But it's hard.
1:20.4	I mean, a lot of guys are struggling because it's all the local refugees are flooded.
1:25.4	I mean, pretty much all the birds get in the floodwater
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ashur Tolliver, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ashur Tolliver and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.