#2100 - Cameron Hanes & Steven Rinella

Cam Hanes, what's happening? Good to see you guys. Yeah, thanks for having me out, man. My pleasure. Cam, explain that ridiculous thing around your neck. What? We talk about Oh this that's it. Oh What what can we're in my like camera? I'm right there. Yeah, so this is How bad ass is this solid gold mold of? This is my first brown bear I killed with Roy. So they made a mold of this claw. I had this just tanned hide lane around. I'm like, I got a... We got a... I don't know, what's it going to do? Just lay there? So I'm like, I got to have something. And I took it to Skis Jewelr, which has been in Eugene for 104 years. So it's kind of a cool little story and they came out with this crazy necklace So it's oh they wanted me to tell you it's It's re what is it? It's not not newly mined gold. It's reclaimed reclaimed Yeah, you know, so they're not ruining the planet to get it So they won't need this is like reclaimed gold, but it's solid. And then there's six carrots and rubies on there and black diamond. So the rubies, if this is a ridiculous thing you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, that was it. Yeah. So the rubies, a lot of pawn shop wedding rings laid up in the old man. I know a lot of failed marriages. They're dreams. Yeah, this is probably not what that came from. They come like gold wire. Like 50 failed marriages right here. And the rubies look like blood. So what they did was it's pretty fucking dope. They made the rubies, if you could hold it up with the camera, if you could see it. The rubies look like it's dipped in blood. There's black diamonds too. Oh nice. Yeah, that's a lot, dude. You're balling out of control. I know. It's crazy. So the last, I had that one from Scooby, the C.A.H. He made me never worn it since, but it was over here. In the last time I had my son had an ivory from a bull I killed in Arizona. He just put it on the leather strap and that was my last podcast, uh, adornment. Now, here we are. Cody Garber and Gamey One that has my dogs face [2:07] on one side and the other side that has the JRE logo. I'm like, either one of them is too weird for me. Carved into an ivory? No, no, no, it's solid gold. Oh, solid gold, I'll say that's an intricate carbon. Yeah, it's so ridiculous. Hey, now there's no limit now. I'm you got any jewelry now. Come on. Oh, no nothing No tattoos no jewelry man. They'll never I would if I ever turn up Remember what they make they won't be able to identify me. Do you ever rubber wedding ring? Do you wear one of those? Well, I went from regular to Silicon to nothing. Yeah, I don't worry one anymore My wife doesn't wear one very often. Oh, yeah, no, no, where one I'd yell at my wife. Yeah, what the fuck you going? Well, I know But it's not like anyone comes in someone comes in scams. I mean now, you know, right? I'm there I just smell like I smell like a married dude. I don't need that thing. I get it No, I just always I don't mind wearing it and I love these silicone ones. These are great. [3:05] You can lift weights in them. I do everything in them. I had a couple accidents, the snagging it and then arcted on a battery, the metal one. Then I got on this thing and people were sending us all these pictures too of what they called degloving. She think. Yeah, we pulled off. We got just people sending horrible pictures like guys catching them on a ladder rack on a truck and then like jumping down, endless. And that cured me forever, that metal one. I kept the metal one in a little baggy. I will wear the metal one if I go to dinner with my wife. Oh really? Or if I'm doing the UFC, I'll wear the metal one if I have a nice watch on, but I never wear it other than that. Oh, that's cute. Do you put it on at dinner? I'm gonna do that sometime. We do date nights. But you put your ring on? Yeah. I'm gonna start doing that. Well, I always wear my rubber ring, but the silicone ring, but the metal one, I'll put out, we're going out. Nice one. Do you wanna take It's a good tip for date night. Yeah, I do use mine for this. You have what you need. [4:06] She, your wife's like, where's your wedding ring? Well, you know the necklace I got. I still have it. She assumed it's final four. I wear it all the time. I wear it right now. My buddy in the last, he had, he had his wife kept all her jewelry in this little box in her house burnt down. And he later went and found all that stuff, like it melted into a blob. So she took that blob and took it to your jewelry and had that blob turned into a big old necklace. So it's just like this amorphous glob. Oh, to the glob with no change. Oh yeah, it's just amorphous glob. Oh, to the glob with no change. Oh yeah, like just amorphous glob of gold that she'll put on down. And then it was like all of her stuff and this little pile that melt, yeah, melt together. That's been a fucking hell of a fire. Oh yeah. Oh no, it was for sure. And she didn't like wear it, wear it, but she would get out and be like, oh, here All the lumped cheers on my stuff. Yeah, the jewelry thing is a weird thing. [5:07] The people that get really in it. One of the things we're gonna do for Protect Our Parks who've been talking about doing this is get grills like the wrappers wear. Oh yeah. I gotta wear grills during the podcast for what's going to get fitted with like diamond grills. They take a little diamond dust and you smile like Paul Wall and you have a full mouth full of diamonds. And I think it's like badass. That's my next move. Hahaha. Just fangs. Well, I have a tooth that got knocked out and it's like one of those calves. And one time we were drinking and I, when I was younger, we were drinking and I was trying to open up. But it used to be that coming to me to Keelah that had like a sombrero for a lid? And I was opening one of these bottles and broke that fake tooth off. And all night I'm going on about how I'm getting a gold. Because it's gone, you know? [6:01] And all night I'm like making a plan, talking all this and I woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror And I just wanted to wipe a regular white tooth back so bad Yeah, so you opened it up with your tooth yeah, I broke that tooth and then like got fired up about getting a gold one and Not never did it that'd been the closest thing I had to or jewelry with my gold tooth, but chickened out that would look sick Yeah, I thought about a gold tooth for brief moments, generally wild drinking. They want of them. They have those, they just feel a little diamond on it now. Yeah. My old man told me that during the war, guys would carry around dental picks. And he fought World War II. He said during the war, they would carry it around and they would go and get all the, they would get the gold out of German's teeth. True. And save it up in the bag. And there were certain guys, which is into it. I remember as a kid, I asked him like, hey, would they ever get it from an American? And he goes, I'd be a good way to get shot, but they'd dig it out of there. Hmm, which is a macabre business man. Yeah, very macabre. [7:06] They, people used to dig up graves to do that, right? Yeah. Well, the original fillings, the silver ones, with those lead. Don't know. Because they used to have fillings that were metal. Like, and I remember people were saying, hey, those are fucking terrible for you. Like, you figured it out years later It's like living your whole life with the fish and sinker and your mouth man, right? Have you seen you saw Shane Gillis last night? Yeah, how funny is that dude? Oh my god. He's hilarious. He's so funny He had a bit about George Washington and it's one of the funny spits I've ever seen in my life and George It's a whole bit about going to the George Washington Museum because he's a real history buff But one museum because he's a real history buff but one of the things was George Washington's teeth like George Washington's teeth were teeth they weren't wouldn't they were set in lead like the the fake thing that he had was set in lead the top was horse teeth and the bottom was slave teeth so they have teeth pulled from his slave to make yes yes and then that thing was set in lead with springs on it and that was George [8:09] Washington's teeth i mean how fucking crazy is that but but his whole bit is about how George washington had led poisoning is a fucking maniac because it's a front of the line just fuckingcidontes. Just fucking haggar. You have to see the bit. It's very funny. Folk Lord notwithstanding, Washington's four false teeth were not wooden. He obtained them instead from horse's donkeys, cows, and human beings. According to his account books, 1784, emulating some of his affluent friends, he bought nine teeth from unidentified Negroes, perhaps enslaved African Americans at his beloved Mount Vernon. The price was 122 shillings. Yeah. I mean, imagine eating with that fucking monstrosity of lead in your, any, so he's got [9:01] that in his mouth all the time. Oh, yeah. Just getting lead poisoning. Hmm. That's pretty intense pretty intense having another dude's teeth in your mouth too is wild Yeah, I had a cadaver bone in my jaw for a while and you then you'd get little You know little pieces of it and you're always spitting out little pieces of some guy Some other dude for a while they took it out. Well, no, it know. Half for a while, they took it out? Well, no, it just heals up. Oh. So they drill a hole in there and they fill it full of cadaver bone. Whoa. And I ask who the dude was, you know, they can't figure out who he was. Hmm. I have you're like all over your office or whatever you're like, some little chunk of a guy, you know. My right knee is a cadaver ACL ton. But it's not anymore. What happens is your body proliferates it. So it just acts as a scaffolding. And then your body just fills it in with its own tissue. They would give you info about the person? No, no. [10:01] I just don't get me a viking. Get me some fucking gigantic dudes. You're swinging a battle axis whole life. Yeah, they actually use the Achilles tendon though because it's much thicker than the original ACL It's like a hundred and fifty percent stronger than an initial ACL But I would do that operation and get an heartbeat. I've always told everybody I've had my knees done both ways I have my left knee done with a battella tendon graft Which was the most painful and took forever to recover from and then I had my left knee done with a patella tendon graft, which was the most painful and took forever to recover from. And then I had my right knee done with a cadaver graft. It was way easier. I went to a party five days after the operation with no crutches, no nothing. I just put a brace on and walked. And I was like, it was feels fine. I mean it was obviously unstable. I guess it was weaker So I put the brace on but I Could walk around like it was was not that big a deal the first one. I was in fucking agony for months at least weeks Because they they have to saw what they do is they take your battalot tendon [11:01] Which is a very large thick tent you don't need all of that, and they take a strip of it. And then they take it... Like peel and string cheese. Yeah, exactly. And then they take a chunk of your kneecap and a chunk of your shin, so they pull that out, and then they open you up like a fish, and then they screw it in on the top and screw it in the bottom, and that's your new ACL. So it's a part of your body, so your body accepts it. It's not like another person's tissue, which could be an issue, your body might reject it. And then it takes a long ass time before you can even get on your knees again. It took like a year before it doesn't bother me to be on my knees, like if you're hammering something or something, I couldn't get on that knee. It was just so fucking painful, because you got to hold there and hold the knee cap, but it all fills in eventually. Both of them are fine now, but if I had to tell people if they're gonna get the operation, get the fucking cadaver, get that dead dude. That's risky now. What if you get a vegan that's vaccinated cadaver? [12:02] Your knee's gonna blow out like... It just flims in. Every day, every You're knees gonna blow out like flimsy every day every day Like flimsy string cheese like when your bow string is getting frayed like damn shall I replace this like when you're deloop this fucking vegan This ligament Yeah poor vegans man boy You want to talk about people that have been sold bill of goods. Not very durable, are they? That's not just that. It's like, there's so much propaganda that that is good for you. And there's so much evidence that it's not. And this mindset that these fucking people have, where they're just like, they believe the China study, they believe meat causes cancer. I've had conversations with people. We try to be rational with them. If meat really causes cancer, do you know that 95% of the people on Earth eat meat? We'll look at all the cancer. Yeah, but look at all the other food they eat. Do you understand how epidemiology studies work? When they have these arguments, no one ever takes it to this rational conclusion. [13:03] Do you know how they work? The epidemiology studies? No. When they say, like if they say there's been a correlation between high consumption of red meat and cancer, people eat red meat five times a week or much more likely than people, what are they eating with it? They don't take that into effect, because it's not a real study. It's bullshit. What they're doing is just trying to come up with some biased interpretation of data that makes it seem more likely that meat is killing you. I was trying to explain correlation, causation, all that's my kid the R&I. I was telling them about stuff like this, like education levels and divorce rates, right? I'm like no one's gonna untangle what it is, but you can look at these things and see that there's something going on, but no one knows exactly what, right? Yeah. So with this stuff like that, it's like, so did you eat a lot of meat? Uh huh. Yeah. Okay, well, yeah. And what form, where, what were you doing? It's not even what form. It's what else What else are you eating? If they're only looking for red meat, so they're asking you in these studies, [14:06] like how many days a week do you eat red meat? And then you say five, and they say, well, we've gathered up all the data, and the people that eat red meat five days a week are much more likely to have cancer. Yeah, but most people who eat red meat are eating burgers, and they're eating burgers from like jack in the box. Where you get this bullshit bun, you get these fries or made in seed oil. You probably wash it down with a Coca-Cola. You're flooding your body with unnatural levels of sugar and these carbohydrates that are all processed with folic acid and bullshit and they're fucking terrible for you. And your gut is just inflamed and your whole body's freaked out and then do you smoke cigarettes? And do you drink alcohol? And do you live near a fucking power line? Like there's so many factors that lead you to, if it was just, I wanna see a study on people who eat wild game or grass fed beef, [15:00] and just fucking vegetables. Like are those studies? I bet those folks aren't getting high instances of cancer. Cancer is like, there's a lot of environmental factors, there's a lot of genetic factors, a lot of things that lead people to get cancer. It's not just what you eat, but when they say meat, like, what else are you eating? Why are you blaming meat? Well, what I used to do is go to McDonald's. So yeah, I had red meat because in the burger, two plain hamburgers, large fry, apple pie, diet coke, and a milkshake. Just think about all the bullshit. And they're like, do you eat a lot of meat? Yeah, blame the meat. Right. It was like, look at to your point, look at all that other sugar and carbs. Exactly. That oil and that meal right there would probably kill you. Yeah. And some people, it's the same people going through McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's every single day getting their go to. Yeah, so those are the people that you're asking about. Do you eat red meat? [16:00] Yeah. And of course they are. But look at all. But yeah, I just got my blood test yesterday from my get it tested every once in a while. And my numbers are phenomenal. I eat meat five times a day. Yeah. I mean, I'm eating meat all day, all wild game meat, though. I found that people also have, I saw this the other day when my body sat where people also have, I saw this yesterday when my body sat where people also have a tendency to find that there's so much conflicting dietary information that people also will find something aligns with their aesthetic. Yeah. Right. Or that aligns with their political sensibility. Meaning Right, or that aligns with their political sensibility. Meaning, if your general tendency is to be opposed to meat production, certain agricultural practices, and you see an article where it says, you know, high meat diet correlates with cancer, [17:02] they're going to read that with great enthusiasm. Yes, yeah, confirmation bias. Cause they're gonna be like, oh, this lines up with a bunch of shit, I already think. Yeah, make sure. And so when we were talking about this, we're trying to, I was sort of teasing out, right? Like, I like to have a garden, I like to hunt, and I look with fondness upon data that suggests that eating like fresh veggies in meat is really good for you and it definitely feels good. But I'm sort of like, am I, you know, I mean, do I make the same mistake that I tease other people for making? Like if I read some study that said, you know, eating mule deer's, you know, the best thing you can possibly do. I'd be like, no, that's my kind of study. Yeah, but it just makes logical sense. Yeah, it does. For sure. You understand the building blocks of human beings and like what's necessary to promote, you know, all the things that you need that only come from animal tissue, B12 collagen. There's like, there's so much stuff that you can get from meat that you're just not gonna get from anywhere else [18:06] So whenever I see an athlete that starts going on a vegan diet I look at it the same way as like a snake handler like okay. Let's see how this place. Yeah, what would it play though? You're gonna get bit it's gonna it's gonna take some time place out the same every time. Oh, it's like I have a friend And he was like my girlfriend's gonna let me do three sums. The moment I hear things like that, I just like the exact same feeling as someone coming up to me saying, Hey man, I started making my own bombs. Like, this is not gonna work out. I know a guy that went through something like what you're talking about. You know, and I remember when he broke it out for me about like some like deal he had arrived at. And it's marriage. It looks good on paper. It's like I can't fucking never see an example once. I can't tell you how I know, [19:00] but I could just tell you that this is not a good idea. I never worked. Yeah, I mean I know but I could just tell you that this is not a good word. Yeah, I mean, if you just get you out right here, it would look all right. Yeah, it's not, she's gonna kill you in your sleep, bro. This is not gonna work. It's done, this is real. You got it. Get out now. Yeah, but you know, the vegan diet thing, it's just so unfortunate that people have been, it's like, it's such a, I get how you could come to this sort of idea where if you just eat vegetables, then you're not as responsible for killing. But one of the real problems is, first of all, there's a real problem of farming, you know, that especially industrial monocrop agriculture, God damn they kill a lot of things to get that crop out. They kill everything that's in the ground when they're using the combines. They use people to kill ground hogs, they're killing all the varmints and gophers and everything gets fucking killed, right? We all know that. Ground nesting birds, fawns get chewed up. [20:00] There's a lot of things that happen. But then on top of that, there's emerging evidence that plants have intelligence. That not only do they have intelligence, but they communicate through the mycelium in the ground. And that they share resources. Like they allocate resources towards plants that need it more. There's evidence that they communicate with each other. Like for instance, like the Akasha tree, which there's trees in Africa, where when giraffes eat them, if they're downwind, the other trees that are downwind will start producing a potent chemical that makes their leaves taste like shit, so that they know that they're getting chewed on by, oh my god, there's a giraffe in the abyss, start taste like shit. So that they know that they're getting chewed on, by, you know, oh my God, there's a giraffe in the neighborhood, start tasting like shit. And so they've released chemicals. I mean, how insane is that? Yeah. They not only is it that, but they have now shown that they can play recordings of insects eating the leaves. [21:04] And if they play those recordings, next to the plant, the plant will start producing those toxic chemicals that make them taste bad. So I've read that about willows. I never checked to see how like valid it is, but that a willow will send root tendrils in the direction of the sound of running water. That makes sense. Oh, no, that's cool. Sorry, I can't know, that's cool. Sorry, Academy to step over you then. Oh, no, no, I was just saying so it's sound and also you said before you said it was downwind. Yeah, so it's scent and sound. It's a bunch of things that they don't understand because they don't have noses. They don't have ears. Like how does the sound of caterpillars eating leaves change the chemical structure of these plants? How are they knowing, okay, time to let loose the poison? How are they getting it because they're down to wind? But it gets so bad that some animals that try to eat them, they wind up starving to death [22:01] because they don't want to eat this stuff because it tastes that bad. I can see where you're going with this is that sometime down the road there's going to be some tough decisions for people who are looking for general, well like not wanting to harm creatures. And when you have the face of the fact that here's this like semi-sentient communicative plant that you're yanking. Yeah, they just can't move quick. And it does move. And if you watch high speed images of plants growing and moving with the breeze, you're like, oh, it's just a different kind of movement. Like it's clearly growing. Like it grows forever. It's not even like another animal. It's kind of more fantastic. Cause it'll grow for 100 fucking years and keep growing. Or if you go to some of those crazy Northern California, there's trees that have been around for a thousand years. It's wild shit, man. Yeah, I'll, you know, I'll hunt all manner of stuff. [23:01] And I used to work as a tree surgeon with fell trees, but at our place in Southeast Alaska, which is in the coastal rainforest, and we're in an area of old growth where our stuff's at. I'm not like in no way condemning people to do. I would not be able to put a chainsaw on one of those trees. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean, like we, like everyone finds their sort of limits. And when I'm looking at some tree that's whatever, for 500 years old, I personally, you know, I could kill a bear without thinking about it. Not without thinking about it, but yeah, I can kill a bear and be real happy I did. Man, just I personally couldn't put a saw to one of those trees. Yeah. So people, yeah, you find these lines. Well, there's also the renewable resource of bears. You know, if you're gonna kill a bear and eat a bear, that bear is nine years old. Nine years is not that big a deal. Yeah, eight, four hundred. Yeah, I mean, there was a, I was in Scotland recently, and they had this tree like, this is the oldest tree [24:03] that, you know that is in Europe. And I was like, how old is fucking tree? And it's like a 5,000 year old tree. I'm like, how is that possible? Yeah, that's incredible. See if you can find that, the oldest tree in Scotland. It was a crazy, gnarled up looking fucked up tree. I was like, how old? I might be wrong with the age, but it was crazy old. And I was like, whoa, like how do you know? How do you know how old this is? When you go to Europe, Scotland was amazing. I took this trip with my wife and we went to visit these sites where they have these stone circles that are older than Stonehenge. And they're like right in front of this dude's house. Like this dude has a house and then there's a small street, like a two lane street, 5,000 years old. Yeah, 5,000. Or you too. Google says two to 3,000 years old. Okay, so the sign says 3,000. Well, back when they made that sign, what kind of fucking carbon dating they have, you know? Some dude, you know what that's? You know what that's? Man, that tree must be 5,000 years old. that on the side look at the image of it. That's what it looked like see the image To the right Jamie to the no slightly to the left that yeah, that's it. That's it. That's exactly what it looked like [25:11] That one's a thousand year old north downs in Surrey. So that's an England. Yeah, fuck that ugly tree That tree looks dope. It looks dope. That's not it. That's not the tree Steve was talking about That tree looks old. Oh, looks old That tree looks like a gnarly old man Yeah like some old dudes I can't even hear what it was like It couldn't be real or anything Hey so Steve I was thinking like So what's the difference between A person who you said you wouldn't like to cut that tree Or you wouldn't Just like I said not I don't say that to condemn, I don't say that to cast judgment on a logger that does. I'm just saying I personally. No, I understand that, but then there's some people who take that to, I'm just trying to, I don't know, reason with myself, [26:01] because around here we've had people chain themselves to trees. Sure. You know what I mean? So, would you do that? No. So, that's what I'm saying. It's like, I mean- No, because the passion's not that- Right. There's a look that the passion's there, but it's not that deep. Right. Yeah, it's just, it's weird thinking about, I understand what've never cut down a tree. I've never been a tree surgeon, but I would probably feel the same about maybe a four or five hundred year old tree. I might be like, you know, man, Cam, you cut it down. When I was in Northern California, I don't wanna have the deal with any reef cushions. Right. We were in the Redwood Forest, and there's a tree that you drive a car through. Yeah. cut a hole in the tree and I was like, why did they do that? But it was like 1920 or something when they did it. Yeah, they didn't care about anything. They didn't even fuck. But when you're around those trees, they're so big. It's so crazy how wide they are. And when they're gone, that's it. You just chop down something that took thousands of years to grow so you can make what, a fucking table. [27:02] Yeah. There's a lot of trees that are like, they're 20 years old. Go kill those. Yeah, it's a tough one, man. It's tough on looking at those trees, but it does seem like, you know, some of those trees you look at, it's like you're looking at, it almost seems like some approximation of God, you know, and look at some of those old trees, man, just astounding. Yeah. Yeah. That's in Oregon. That was a big thing because we had the spotted owls in late 80s basically and spotted owls lived in old growth. So we had that whatever timber activists or who have spiked trees. Yeah. And or living in them. They'd like, well we live here or we chain ourselves to them but they were up there and so the loggers would get there to cut you know do their cut and there's people living in the trees Yeah, that one gal spent her name was like Joe's probably had around the show Was it like butterfly? But I mean, I guess my point is it's like you got people whatever their passions are they will go to the ends [28:02] You know like we defend hunting till the end. That's our passion, that's what we love. But yeah, it's like all these different factions of people that, man, you'd have a hard time saying, you're wrong and believing that, because that's just what they believe, that's our passion. So it's like finding that middle ground. The one thing that I never really thought of until I started hunting was the spiritual aspect, the hunting. That's, it's a part of it. That it's almost indisputable when you experience it, like when you first experience it, when you first start eating an animal that you, like the first time you ever took me hunting, when we were in Montana. And I remember when I was eating that mule deer. We're sitting over the fire I was like this is so different than any meal I've ever had in my life It's so different. I feel so connected to this animal. I know how difficult it was to do this I know how insane their life is that this is this [29:01] Wild creature that is 100% gonna die soon, no matter what. If it's next year or the year after or the year after that, it doesn't have much time left. And if you can move in while dip your toe into the wild and extract that thing out, to me, that was like, oh, this is the best way to eat meat ever. This is 20, 30 times better than just getting a steak from a store. I remember when we were sitting around the fire and you're like, what do you think? I'm like, I'm doing this forever. You remember that? What year was that? I don't remember that specific conversation. That was 12 years ago. Oh, it was really a 10 years ago. 2012. Okay, and then you bow I have two people in this room that introduced me to hunting and that's our Montana Meal deal right there. That's him. That's him. That's him. That's the most the nose bones That's the ones out there. Yeah, well, he's missing this too. Yeah, you need to shake Jamie down He might have pocket full those nose bones. I think that I think they they boil it out too long I think is that what it is. Yeah, always go always go home back in but anyways [30:05] Sorry, but that guy is very special to me that guy's very special first kill And I remember when we were eating him over the fire I was resorting my schedule I was like okay, how many times a year come out now? How much how long is it gonna take to eat after the first year? First time right away eating it over the fire like right, I was like, oh, I'm doing this forever. This is what I do now. Like right away, I was like, okay, now I got a really research like Calibers and rifles and how to do this and how to do that. I got my cardio, I got to start hiking hills. I started thinking all these things like immediately. And I started planning out Yeah, okay, I got a hunt every four months. Like, what can you hunt? I gotta get a pig's, cause then you can font them all year round. Immediately, my brain starts spinning. Like, okay, this is what I do now. I was like, okay, I found it. I've taken quite a number of people on their first hunt trips. I've never had, I mean, probably dozens, maybe dozens. Either way, I've never had any of them regret it. Like, no one's ever said I wish I hadn't done that. But I would say the majority, [31:09] definitely a good strong was your did not pursue it. Didn't regret it, glad they did it, but didn't make it part of life. What's difficult? It's difficult, you know, and that's the thing I think that is the impediment for a lot of people. It's like time consuming. If you don't have something like you or something like you to teach them, like I have friends that are like, hey, I want you to take me hunting. Oh, Christ. I don't have the time. I want to go bo hunting. I'm like, do you know what you're saying? Do you know what you're saying? Like I just want you to come with me one day and watch what I do. Fucking every day. I'm going through that, I'm like many. I'm going through that on my kid where my older kids very interested in bow hunting, but it's just, I'm like, man, you have to appreciate the level of discipline, dude, that you gotta to shoot, right? Like I'm perpetually rusty. Like you can't be like me. [32:01] And I actually pulled the plug on them this year where I said, if you shoot every day, like he'd been shooting throughout the summer. I said, if you shoot every day prior to this week, we're gonna go boh on. I said, I want you to shoot every day prior to the week and you didn't do it and I said, we're not going. And I'll see if next year that impacts him, but it's like the discipline. It's unfortunate, but I think, you know, there's no way to teach someone that. There's no way to really like get it into their head, how hard it is, unless they're in the field, and they're drawing on an animal, and then they realize like, unless, there's some ways to mitigate that. Like, you've had Joel Turner on, which you've had him on, right? You never had Joel Turner on? The Shot IQ guy? No, I'd like to, but never. Oh, I got to connect to you. Do you have his number? No, but I'm familiar with that. He's been recommended by many people and the guys I work with are familiar, but I haven't had him on. He's absolutely God. And you've recommended him. Yes. He's got a, there's a happens when you're in a high-pressure situation that I recognize from martial arts and from a lot of other things [33:06] where you do not have full control of your faculties and your body is operating on anxiety and adrenaline and when it's completely unique like a bow hunting thing where you have hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of preparation and thinking about it for seconds of action. And it boils down to this one movement where you're like, yikes, if you don't have a strategy for managing your mental state while that's happening, the odds of you flinching or moving or doing something stupid are really, really, really high. And Joel Turner went through that for like, fucking 15 years. He like couldn't kill an hour. He was always choking. Yeah. And then when he became a swat instructor, when he was, you know, he's on a swat team. So he's literally, like, he was telling me this one story, we're here to shoot this guy that was holding a young girl hostage. [34:01] And like, I think it was with a weapon. I forget I made a knife or something and so he has a headshot While this guy is holding on to a girl and He had to figure out like what are the what is the mental process that allows people to flinch and panic During these moments and he realized this is different between open loop systems and closed loop systems and the open loop system is something like swing a baseball bat like once you start swinging you're just swinging you're just you know you're swinging and unfortunately with a lot of people that is the initial reaction they just go yeah I get it like the final thought you have is that you're gonna swing the back. Yeah, I don't know if a professional, I don't know if a friend of mine is a real home around hitter. I don't know if he would agree, but in my mind, yeah, it's like you've decided to swing and everything else is just nothing. Well, you're not gonna stop it in the middle of the swing. Yeah, you're when you're fighting. Punching comes it's an [35:06] automatic movement like you slide back and you don't even realize what's happened. You're already punching and you're not going to stop that punch once you've launched your shoulder forward and when you're using his system he has you talking to yourself through every step of it. So you're always conscious. So it's always a closed loop system You're in complete control at any step you could stop and he's like sometimes the best shot is a shot You don't take when you realize you're shaking you're holding too long let down That's the best decision you could ever make if you get get your mind to like, just shoot now, just go now, you're, ah, now, I'll see people with so many videos on one. See that I've been there, my, yeah. Yeah, everybody has. But there's a way to mitigate that with this. So it's not just the practice. The practice is great. [36:00] You have to practice. I practice constantly, but you also should have a pre-shot routine. And I actually used CAMs pre-shot routine when I was in Utah. Because I remember CAM had this thing where he's saying, keep the pin on him. Keep the pin on him. And you say that while you're shooting. Keep the pin on him. Keep the pin on him. I just know if I keep the pin there, it's gonna, arrows gonna hit good. Yeah. But yeah, what happens is people drop their bow on the lot. Yeah, I mean, that's what happens a lot. Is that drop that bow on the hit too low. So if you keep that pin there, both of them do so. Oh, you're saying, be conscious. That's on yourself. Be conscious as keeping the pin on it through the shot. Yeah, not moving. Because the moving thing is like, oh, I hit it. I'll hit it. Ah, and So left, right, fucking three, four feet, you're like, how? You know where people realize that they have a problem is after they make a shitty shot. And they're just like, why didn't I practice more? Why didn't I listen to Joel or Joe or whoever? Because then it's real. Because we have a tendency of making things work [37:02] out on our head the way we want them to. And then when it doesn't work out like that, because we haven't put it in the time, or we don't have a process down, and maybe you hit the animal bad, maybe you miss, maybe you know, just shit the bed, and then you're just like, God, what am I doing? Yeah. But up until then, you're like, you're the baddest person shot. That's the interesting thing between and talking to people that blow a shot with a rifle and talking to people that blow a shot with a bow. People will blow a shot with a rifle and they'll assure you they did everything right. Guns on. No one blows a shot with a bow and comes away saying, I don't know what happened, I did everything right. Cause you fall into, like you fall into like, you're saying, you fall into this like despair and guilt and you're trying to review in your head. I've accidentally landed on the thing, it's not fail safe, but somehow, when you say like, keep the pin on them, I've landed on this thing like, like remember your elbow, remember your elbow. And if I remember to like, [38:01] cause when I'm shooting just practice, I'm always, there's always this thing of sort of consciously being aware of my elbow raised. And that makes everything fall on the line. And so if I'm going to get a shot, I could think like, if you'll do the part, the elbow. If you do the part and then that elbow goes up and then everything else sort of like takes care of itself. And then if I take a shot, I might review in my mind like I never did that thing. I never did the elbow deal. Which drives all the other actions. It's imperfect, but it's similar to what you're talking about. There's something about staying in a conscious state and being able to maintain your composure during that high pressure situation, maintaining a conscious state where you're talking yourself through it and not just At just being a reptile You know just people black out kind black out. They really do know what happened. I don't know what happened Yeah, I think you use it up. Maybe I felt that if anything Just a gradual dissipation with age and experience perhaps experience for sure [39:04] I'd be curious if some dude started, like a some dude at 60 years old, you know, some dude at 60 years old started bow hunting. Are they gonna wig out like a 20 year old on their first shot? Depends on who they are. There's something that's like their brains already chilled out. I think there's a part of your brain that I think there's a part of your brain that, like there's a part of your brain that Andrew Huberman talks about. I forget where the exact search goes. Yeah, that when you force yourself to do things you don't wanna do, when you force yourself to get up in the morning and run in the cold and get in the cold plunge and all these different, it literally grows larger. This part of your brain that is able to do things that are uncomfortable, that you don't wanna do actually grows larger. And it seems to be that that's a muscle just like every other muscle, not a muscle, but a thing that is more robust with use. And if you're a 60 year old guy that's just been working [40:01] in an office and listening to the boss and driving home and you know, there's no stress No, no like not stress, but no high pressure Decision-making in the moment choices that you have come accustomed to Managing and and and dealing with a negotiating if you're if you're a person is like fucking gone to war You know, maybe you better had some crazy high pressure job and you're 60, you probably got fucking ice water running through your veins. Five times you're 60 years old, you're like, you've seen it all. So it depends on the human. But for most people that, there's got like Derek Wolf, you met Derek Wolf, you have money podcast. I mean, you're talking about a guy that is fucking played professional football at the highest level. And even he says it's the most exciting shit that he's ever done. Like I've told Cam, like so many times, dude, I've done a lot of shit. I've fought, I do stand-up comedy, so many live things that are like high pressure. Nothing is like elk hunting. [41:02] There's nothing like that moment. When you're drawing and that thing is like in the field and it drops his head down at 50 yards and start eating and you draw back and you got to, he's like, is this happening? Is this really going on right now? Ah! It's so pressure filled. It's so, it's such a novel and unique moment that unless you have a bunch of those moments, like I'm at the point now, you know, 10 years into bow hunting, where when I draw on an animal, I can keep my shit together. And now to me, it's just like making sure I'm steady and the shot's good, there's nothing weird going on, there's no weird wind or, and I just go through my process and I'm very confident now, but it's numbers It's numbers like if you I always tell people like the more things that you can shoot the better and then you get Shoot pigs you shoot things that people have to kill You know if you can go to lini where you can get like multiple shot opportunities on access deer that kind of situation [42:01] that's for me the difference difference between how I feel in September during elk season and some years where I feel great and super confident, it's always that I went on a couple of other hunts. It's always. So you get that experience, this is how I used to feel fighting too. A couple of times I got injured and I couldn't fight for six months, and then I'd fight, but it almost like it was like brand new again. Like when I'd be in there, like, whoa, this is crazy. The first time you see people fight, they're in a panic. It's like, you can't believe it's actually happening. You're like, are you ready? You're like, yes. You know what I mean? And they get out there and if you're an experienced person. It's one of the reasons why like champions have such a massive advantage. They have such a massive psychological advantage because they're the champion. And they've been like, you would see guys and they would fight Mike Tyson, they had already lost. By the time they got in there, they were looking at him like, oh my god, what is happening? Is this real like the whole world was like that big? [43:01] And they were just in a full like panic and they just couldn't fight. You know that's that's kind of similar to how people feel bohunting elk for the first time. I mean that bulls coming in. Yeah. They they lost. Yeah. When that bulls coming in and it's coming in 20 yards it's just like there's there's a chance but I remember the first time we had your first bohunt we were in Colorado the two bowls were coming in on this little tight creek We were in the soil draw coming in at the same time and they were just bugling and it was insane Not even big bowls, but just coming in and closing down on us and you remember that moment. Yeah, just like It was unbelievable. It's so nice. It's all the shit that you've done this high-level crazy stuff That there was nothing that compared to that. The screaming. When you're there and they're like 30 yards doing that, the sound is so nuts. Like if you're not a person that's ever been around elk calling, when they do it, when they bugle, it sounds like Lord of the Rings man. [44:02] It's such a crazy sound. It's so crazy to be intimidating if you're not ready for it. There's a thing Derek will have told me, when you talk about the stress and competitive stress, he told me a thing that had never occurred to me before, to about getting in a ring to fight Mike Tyes and or whatever is in his thing. You're also, there's a thing where you can get your star struck. Yeah. Like picture you're an incoming player, okay? And you're real young. And also, and you're like, well, I'm supposed to go tackle Tom Brady. Yeah. I've been watching. Right. I've been watching through my whole, like, coming up through high school, coming through college. And also, like, wow, that's him. Yeah. There's the goat. Hey, you got to sort of put that on your head. You're like, you're like, hey, tight. Let me get his interview. Then I'll come, let me get his autograph. Then I'll come back and then I'll tackle him. Yeah, like, yeah, I mean the goat. You've heard how, you know, I'm a big fan, I like to meet you, sorry for having to do this. [45:05] But isn't that also the case with bow hunters where like you've been hunting your whole life hoping to see a 200 inch buck? And then one day you're in the mountains and this mule deer steps out, you're like, oh, yeah, this is it. Is your imagining taking the photo, smiling on Instagram. You're imagining, you see this wide mule deer buck. Like, this is crazy. This is a real one. I can make this happen. You're like, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, everything is just full panic. I was like, Clay Newcombe just did a bear grease episode about a guy, a, a poacher in the interviews, the guy at length. And this guy played softball on the army base. They had like athletic complex And a couple times he sees this giant buck and the people were aware of this giant buck And he was trying to figure out if he was possible to kill it as he calls it kill it right or kill it legal and One day just have us have his bow in his car and sees it not anywhere. He's supposed to hunt in the way [46:04] He describes that he describes it, he describes it like, he was out of his body and he shoots it. And the minute it falls over, he thinks, you'll never get away with this. God. But he looked not only lost, I can't, I think he's in Missouri, I'm a Missouri. So was he in the wrong unit or was he on a military base for you, you can't hunt. Oh wow. And not only like losing not only losing your mind as you draw on back, he lost his mind in the whole thing, getting his bow out of his thing and kills the buck. And then he the minute he kills it, it occurs. Go first to why to voice done. So what did he do? It's a whole episode. It's two episodes about just horrible. Well, I mean, I, you gotta walk real fine line. I mean, he did like, as he admits, you know, he did a criminal act and it's not like sympathetic [47:01] of the criminal act, but it's a, it winds up being a story of the unraveling of someone's life about just a mistake, but being that sort of lost for that animal. Right. I guess we should be thankful that Derek Wolf never saw Tom Brady out of pizza then. You know what I mean? Good just freaking light him up, sack him. Yeah, right. I got him. I got him. That got him. I'm glad you did that. He's a lot of funnier burger king. He is fucking go for it. I lost my mind. It was Tom Brady. I just fucking, I don't know. I've just been programmed to tackle him. Yeah, no, but that, I think I was thinking back to on, you said when you're not ready for it. My first two years, my first year of bow hunting, my first year of rifle hunting, I was 15 when I was right hunting. We did this drive, we used to do drives, right? Not really hitting pants. Not really hitting pants, but not far from it. So you send the guys and then put the, whoever the shooters on the stand. You know what, can I ask you real quick, [48:01] did you call them? What were the names you use? We debate this all the time. What? Who was, okay, what were the terms you used? Pushers, sitters. Yeah, that was it. Okay, use pushers and sitters. Yeah, or it's very regional. Or on the stand. Like, yeah, you're on the stand and then we're pushing to you. Okay, yeah. But so I was there, had had this, let's see, 300 Savage, just old gun, but 15 years old, doing the push. Okay, go here, I didn't even know if I was in the right spot. I'm just like, God, I'm by myself. Just don't know anything. And then all of a sudden I look up and here's this buck. Giant mule deer. I didn't know how big it was, but it looked. And I was just like, Pfft! Shot, no but it looked and I was just like Shot no clue. I don't I never probably never saw it in the scope It was like probably seemed like for me to you and I was just like had no idea what happened Was I prepared to kill that buck hell no? So I killed a spike buck like the next day, right and that's how it works [49:02] You're not ready for a giant right Right. Then same thing with bow hunting. First day bow hunting, this giant bull comes out seven by six rows of felt. First day, I'm like, sit on kneeling in this logging road. I felt like my arms were asleep, they're tingling. I'm like, I don't know if I could draw this bow back. He's broadside head to the right, but to the left. And I shoot out, it's like right at 40 yards and I miss behind his butt. So I'm off like six feet at 40 yards and then end up killing a spike bowl. So it's just, you're just not ready for those, the giant, you know. But that's where I think Joel Turner comes into play because I don't know if he could have helped me. I don't know if he could have helped me. I don't know if he could have helped me. At that time, he'd have been like, give me that bow. Yeah, it probably wouldn't, you probably weren't totally ready for that at that moment. But if you have a certain level of proficiency and a certain amount of experience in mitigating high pressure situations, then I think you could get through it. I've been teaching a lot of people to shoot above for the first time on [50:07] the lift or in shoot show that I do. Joel Turner is gonna tell them anything. No, I mean, it's like there's so many basics you have to get before that. Oh, yeah. But as you said, once you get that routine down and you're kind of more seasoned, then I think that can that closed loop open loop, then that would make more sense. It was so attractive to me. When I first started shooting a bow, I was like, God, there are so many, you get lost in this. Like there's so much going on just in your yard when you're just shooting at a target. There's so much mental and physical and there's so many things that have to align. Like I have a checklist that I have on my phone. That before I go hunting, like when I'm on the plane flying to wherever I'm going, I look at my notes on my phone and I go over my checklist and I bounce it around in my hands. The process. Yeah, I have a shop process. Not like boots, socks. [51:00] No, no, no, no, no, I got all that. That I'm terrible with too. I just stuff everything in there. I'm like, I think I got it all in there. I really need to organize it. If I was gonna go on one of those way more than you need. Oh, I was gonna go on one of those backpacking mountain hunts where you're carrying your whole camp on your back and you're walking in for fucking 20 miles. and stuff and the bush is on the way up. Two knives just a case. Meanwhile, like Adam Greenchery has been doing it forever. That motherfucker saws his toothbrushes in half to cut weight. He's got it down to a science. You would do that one time. One time. Exactly. That's how you learn that. Everybody's learned that. So my process for packing is just fucking shove it all in there. And mostly like I always have two range finders and two binos in case I drop something. And you know, remember that time we were hunting in Canada and I broke my rest? My rest snapped, but I had a whiskier biscuit. I was ready. I was like, ah! Oh, it's good. [52:01] He's being obsessive out there with his rest, just like wrenching on it for hours and changing and doing all this and in-up stripping something out. Because he's like got too crazy on the rest. Well, it was fucking up on him. It was fucking up. The rest wasn't dropping all the way. And so like my arrow was catching it. Like the fletchings were catching then I was like, oh, look at my wrist. It's like slightly up above the riser. Like, goddamn, that's what I'm talking about. Fucking good. And I'm like, boom. Oh, no. Oh, no. But whisker biscuits, man. I know they take a couple of seconds away from your feapers at the boy. Those fucking easy to turn. Oh, yeah, it's a lot less, a lot less little stuff to go wrong. I don't know if I can do high level hunters still use whisker biscuits just because they don't want to fuck around with anything. It's like for that hunt it's perfect. You're going to be shooting at 10 or 20 yards, you know, or a white tail hunter. They're shooting at 20 yards. So if you're going to be shooting long distance, a fletch going through with all that contact through the, through the whisker basically, that's going to impact long distance. Well, apparently really impacts it when you have helical. Yeah. Right. So if you have straight, [53:10] so helical for people that are listening, there's an angle that the fletchings are placed in that accentuates the spinning of the arrow, which makes it more accurate. And, you know, that's what you want. Right. So some people don't use that. They just have straight up and down fletchings, which is still good. You know, you could still shoot very accurately with straight up and down fletchings, but most like really good archers prefer a helical, like you have a helical. Yeah, give a little direction to the energy. So the arrow won't plane. But the whisker biscuit accelerates that spin, makes it immediate. Well, it fucks up the fletchings, because it's twisting as it's going through all those hairs. Whereas if you have a straight, straight fletching, it's just gonna pass through. It only takes a few, Tim Burnett still hunts with a whisker biscuit. I was watching one of his YouTube videos. [54:00] I mean, that guy's running killed everything. He's been around forever. Solar Hunter, you know, Remy's buddy. And, you know, he's a really good hunter. And he uses the whisker biscuit and I was like, this is crazy. I mean, maybe he's only using it on this one video that I saw, but I was like, there's a lot of people that just go, I wanna cut, they're just like a lot of people don't fuck with the can I did with mine as I put it on my fishbow, but it won't flow to five or glass arrow, I realized, you know what I'm saying? I was like, man, this is gonna be genius for fish hunting. But it just the arrow just goes, right through it. Right through it. Right through it. I mean, the hair is, yeah. That looks like a lot of fun, like bow hunting for fish. Oh, I love it, man. That's what You just get limited to a fish that you get limited in the U.S. You get limited to a lot of fish species that are not as desirable. Right, like a car and carp and stuff like that. Down South America, you're hunting like the best of the best of the best fish. Yeah, so the best fish. Yeah. [55:01] I mean, you're hunting like the most coveted food fish, which is fun. Because I mean, how many carp do you want carp do you want we used to do it when you're kids man. We'd shoot all kind of cart but I just you know and a while that carp are like prized in Europe. Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense They like they go I shouldn't say it doesn't make any sense that they didn't but I don't know where we went I don't know how we went so wrong. Yeah, it's weird, right? They put them all over, thinking everybody's gonna eat them all the time, and just like to not take off. Well, they ruined lakes, where I live on Lake Austin. There's a buddy of mine who's one of my neighbors, who's a fisherman, and he said, man, he should have been here before they brought carp. He goes, there's all sorts of vegetation in here, and the bass were everywhere, but now he goes, if you can get a camera and look at the bottom of this lake, it looks like the bottom on the swimming pool. There's fucking nothing. It's incredible, man. But the fact that it was intentional, there's so many non-native, there's so many invasive species that were unintentional but the fact that for the most part, the common cart was they were doing everybody a favor. I think they thought they were doing a favor for rich people on Lake Austin, [56:06] because I think they wanted people to have less vegetation so they could take their boats out. Got it. That's what I think. And that's what he thinks too. I mean, I got this from him. He was like, I think they just wanted to clean up the vegetation because it was unsightly. He was in, they fucked this place up met him he was casting under my dock, you know, and I went out there and also I was going on man You weren't yelling at him. No, I've seen that on your show. No, I like it I always when I see those guys and they're always like a little nervous So I was like how you do man? Oh man, this guy's gonna yell at me I was telling this guy like the other day that there's like this four pound bass that lives underneath my dock. I go, hey man, this is a pretty good bass that lives underneath the dock. And he's like, really? I go, yeah, can I fish it, man? Is that all right? I start talking to him. But my friend Alan shout out to Alan, who's my neighbor. He catches all he catches his big bass. He goes, I don't even try around. He goes, I just want big bass. [57:06] Cause there's like 15, 16 pound bass in that lake. And so he catches some big ones. He sends me some whoppers. Defenders, the eight year effort to bring vegetation back to Lake Austin. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, they fucked it up. They fucked it up. There's still good bass there. I'm gonna show you like what Alan catches. He's catching some big ass fucking bass. We used to, me and Roy used to be addicted to car punning because we'd go, they'd be spawning in the spring after we poured concrete. He had a construction company. We'd pour concrete then we'd go and go try to get carp for bear bait. So before they outlawed it in 94 in Oregon, we'd get carp, catch these giant carp, have a wheelbarrow, get them all back, put them in a like a 55 gallon drum, put the lid on it, and then we'd make stink. So we'd call, we need to some stink to get the bear bait going. Because if you got that rotten carp in a gunny sack and you put it way up a tree where they couldn't [58:05] get it. That stink smell would go for five miles down the draw and then all the bear would come in, right? So I just remember it's one time we had it in that bunch of carp and fifth-five gallon drum. After a while that kind of builds pressure. We didn't really think about this. So we go to take that lid off and it freaking explodes. In this shit smells. So I mean maggots, carbs, rotten, carp exploded all over us. Have you ever seen those sails and when whales explode on beaches? Yeah, well, I see them when they blow them up. This is what Alan just caught this in front of my house over there. God dang, that's giant. Yeah, he catches some big ass bass. I think he's huge, man. Yeah, I think that would give him. That'd be interesting, bass fishing. Yeah, he catches a lot, here's another one he just got. And whenever he catches one, he sends it to me. Yeah, but we're homies now. Those are big fish. But yeah, the weird thing manner of outdoor activities. I would never want someone to not fish near my dock. [59:06] That's like so stupid. Yeah, I think it's a repulsive behavior. It's repulsive. Yeah, it's not your, it's a dock. Like let people fish. Well, you should talk to them. They're your friends. Like, wouldn't you do it? If you didn't have a dock and there was a dock and you knew the fish hang out under the dock, wouldn't you fish there? Yeah. So what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, so it's, or it's like, well you're gonna have to move your dock because there's a fish under there. Not the fish more. But this is the situation where that's where they go. They go where it's shade. They go where they can ambush. And they're all going under docks and hanging trees and anything they get because they've fucked it up with carp. Yeah. I was living in Seattle for a while and there's a, we would fish smallmouth and perch and stuff in the sink at Lake Washington which is like right downtown and there's this, I was in this neighborhood where they have these apartment buildings that are on pilings. [1:00:02] So it was just full lot of apartment buildings out over the water built on pears. And they would cast shadows and fish would collect there. And you'd be a boatman. I mean, you're like, like, besides being out in some dudes front yard under their dock, you're fishing where you're right here almost looking into the window. You know, if someone eating breakfast, but your cast right there which felt much more intimate and kind of creepy. Yeah. That felt weird. Well, the weirder than, you know, like I said, where you got a house, than a yard, than a dock. Like that's not weird, but you could get where you could basically like awkwardly wave at someone in their bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're trying to fix it. Yeah, just don't make eye contact. Sitting there taking a shit, looking out the window. Yeah, the doc thing is a weird one, man. It's a weird one because I get it if you're not a fisherman and you're just some asshole that just doesn't want anybody near your house. [1:01:01] What they're gonna tell you, what they always tell you is that some guy's gonna take a lead head jig and chip the paint. Chip the paint on the boat, ding the dock. That's their claim. Is it they're gonna whack your stuff with a lead head jig? I feel like that's the same as if you're driving off-road. You're worried about pebbles. We're gonna get these fucking pebbles at it. You're driving off-road, like, and you're worried about pebbles. We're gonna get these fucking pebbles out of here. You're driving off-road. Yeah, I'd be like, well, don't put your stuff out over the public water. Yeah, and what are you doing? A boat's not a car man, like, it's a boat. It's supposed to get scratched up a little. You don't want your boat scratched up a little? Like, what people don't get it. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you've got like, you're on a ranch and you got those stripes on the downside of your truck. It's on the pinstrips. Yeah. That's kind of cool. You break it in. That's what you do when it's new. You kind of want that. I kind of want that. I like a car that's been fucking used, you know? Yeah, well you have 20 cars. I do. [1:02:05] But you know, I did. I'm pretty sure that's how I think. You know, I was thinking about your shot. You know why I think that that helps when you do the elbow? Because when you get that elbow right, you're pulling hard against that back wall. A lot of people creep on their shot. They'll get the aim and everything's going good. They're pulling hard and then as they're aiming, they're kind of relaxing. Oh. And then that cam is kind of rolling over. It's called creeping. That'll throw off your shot. So I think when you think of that elbow consciously, it makes you think of pulling hard against that wall, which that's where the bow performs best. Kyle Douglas pulls so hard that he's made Bose break. Yeah, he's broken Bose like pulling into the back wall Kyle But what you're saying but it makes good sense. Mm-hmm. That's what helps you Kyle Douglas who's a fucking Yeah, I changed my shot quite a bit when I started pulling really hard against the wall really hard [1:03:02] You know I pull fucking hard I have that locked in. And it also changed when I stopped using a resistance attention release. Cause Dudley had me on what's called a silverback, which is I think one of the best methods for learning how to shoot because you have a safety, you pull and then it's all tension based. So when you have the safety on, you could pull it hard. And then when you release the safety, you just pull a little more and it goes off. And you could set it to like two, three pounds, whatever the amount of difference. So if you have a 70 pound bow, you set it to 72 pounds. Or whatever it is, you know, when you're at, you know, a full draw, whatever the, you know, the drop off his. So they have this resistance setting where you can, you tweak it in your yard at like, you know, five yards or you're right in front of the target and you get it to the point where it's at the back wall and then you just pull a little more and it snaps and breaks. And it makes her a perfect release and I use that forever. But then when I really started pulling hard in the back wall. I was making it go off when I didn't want it to go off and then when I switched releases, [1:04:06] then I'm like, oh, that's definitely the most. Because you're much more steady when you're like, when I'm fucking locked out, I'm locked out. Like I'm engaged in my back when I'm shooting at something, I am, everything is locked out. You know, and I find that to be way more stable. Is your front elbow locked out? My front elbow is locked out, no? Yeah. I used to bend it. I used to bend it a little. But then I was listening to this one guy and he said, if you are going to lean against something and want to be totally stable, when you lock your arm out, if you're leaning against a wall and you want it to be completely rigid, I was like, oh, that makes total sense. Now that's when you want strength, it's bent. Like if you fall, you're not falling like this. You're falling. Right, yeah, but when you're like benching like when you have strength like that, it's not locked out though. You're stronger. Yeah, I think you're trying to push your, right, when your body's car gets stuck and you're trying to help push, you're not locked out. Right, but that's strength. I'm not looking for strength, I'm looking for stability. Yeah. [1:05:05] I have plenty of strength. The strength is not the issue. The thing is for me is if I'm locked out, that's less movement. I'm completely locked. But then, I mean, I'm not saying, you know, it's all there's a very good thing. I'm anything but I'm anything but band we teach everybody to have it a little bit bent but Wayne always references this poster of these premier hoi hoi shooters and they'll have the exact same form and they're all slightly bent. Yeah. Oh man I find but I find myself better when I'm locked out. Hey listen the thing is if it works for you. you, who gives a fuck with anybody else's, because everybody says, I anchor wrong with my thumb behind my neck. Right. It's like, you know, whatever. If the arrows make any sense to me, if the arrows going where we're supposed to, that the problem with the thumb behind the neck makes no sense to me. [1:06:00] That seems to be to be way better because if you're anchored behind your neck that's one more part of contact and that's one more thing that's locked in you're like completely rigid that thumb only as that much give and that's behind your neck i would do it if my neck wasn't so i can't even see what all this is yeah that doesn't seem crazy no i know well you see cam do it cam he gets his fucking thumb behind his head. And the reason why. And your thumb's looking for a little spot probably, too. Yeah, kinda, yeah. Now I just don't even think about it. But how it used to be back in the day when we started everybody, like there was 30 inch bows, 29 inch bows, and that's about it, drawing. So mine 27 and a half, I just had like a bow that was way too long. So I'm just like this and that's where it starts. Oh, you're just looking for something. Something I'm like, God, I'm trying to like just hold it. I guess do that behind the neck and they'll tell you not to do it. I do not understand the law. Well, we started because the bow, the draw link thing, people weren't really fitting bows to the shooter at that time. Right. It's like your brother's boat or whatever. Yeah. [1:07:06] Somebody gave it to you, but it's funny. Carking him back to the old days. I just had Waddle on the show. So me, Wayne and Waddle were shooting at the bow rack. And we all have still trigger releases. You know, like nowadays a cool thing is the handheld, right? Right. But we're all old school still shooting, like my wife's father's finger. Why is this guy just a trigger release like that? And we were shooting pretty good. We had a shooting contest all in the X's. And I said, let's get a picture of these releases because it's kind of a novelty now. It's like just the old guy shoot those. Well, there's still real good competitive archers like Gillingham. Gillingham is one of the grace of all time and he uses a trigger. And he'll tell you, in the way he says that he goes, this thing about Targapanic, he goes, it's all just a mental weakness. He's like, when you're looking at a target, he's like one of the best of the best. It's a different animal. But he's like, when you're looking at a target, like if you're practicing in your yard, you can do it, right? You can hit it, not flinch. [1:08:06] He's like, it's mental weakness. That's all it is. And he's like, I prefer to command fire. He goes, I know when that pin is over that target and I can stay steady and let it go. But he's got all kinds of wild wacky releases. He has, he's always gets it in his head. Modern stuff. Yeah, modern stuff. But he adjusts his stuff. He's got some weird ones, man. Well, you look at the extended releases. He's got a lot of wacky, I wouldn't want to emulate it unless you were him. He's also a fucking giant six foot six dude. And it's like, he's got crazy long he shot so much he has a crease in his nose swear to God from the string that's good I know guys it wore a groove in your teeth cut fish line you know yeah same thing he's got that just where that string sits it's like a crease yeah I shot a lot of arrows [1:09:02] I like great I like a handheld because I've been doing handhelds for so long But when I'm a here I practice with your release in my range Yeah, I have the wise guy. I think for hunting. I think it's an I think for just Control situations where you got all day. I think the handhelds a way to go In an animal you have to do command sometimes sometimes you do you get a punch a fuck out of that trigger Sometimes I've killed a lot of animals doing it. Yeah, sometimes if you can keep it together, there's moments where you like, you gotta shoot now. You can't wait for the hinge to break. Right, yeah. I bet there's certain thing, I remember taking one of those home at Massimovah. And I had the same feeling, I had one of my nephew who was trying to explain chess, like the game of chess to me. Well, I was like, that's pretty cool. Realistically, I'm not gonna, right. I'm not gonna figure this out. I admire it. And I took that attention thing out my yard. [1:10:00] And after a couple minutes, I'm like, are you honestly, I'm going back to chess. Are you honestly gonna figure this out? And I was like, at my age, as much as I shoot, I'm just not gonna. And I went back and I just, so I shoot a trigger and I'll shoot that trigger to my dad. You shoot the same trigger, he does. You shoot the wires go. Yeah, that's a good one too because it's hot. Yeah, you're not yanking on it and pulling it and there's not a lot of weird movement. Like when you touch that fucker it's going off. Yeah, there's certain, there's a type of trap called a Mb750. That release, it just seems like really nice little mechanical contraptions. Like I just like it. It's like you pull it, it's so like, it's so clean. Well, I use a thumb trigger now. I've been using a thumb trigger the last few years and I'll still use a hinge too. You know, I like a hinge too because there's something about a hinge where I hear that click and I know, okay, here we go. And that keeps me in the moment. So I hear that like pull, I hear that click. I'm like, okay, everything, keep the shot process going, and then it goes off. But the problem that is when it's windy. [1:11:08] Like, one of the things that I found, especially like hunting at the home, you know how windy it gets up there and those can't even... Oh, you're trying to punch as it drifts over. You can't do it. You gotta, you have to have a trigger. Yeah. You have to be able to control fire occasionally. But but it helps you to have that process of recognizing that a surprise shot is important, at least an element of surprise where it's not like now, but it's like just go to the, I can, you know, with a thumb trigger, you can make it go off, but you can also have it surprised. So to me, that's the best of both. But that's a strange situation to be in when you're thinking, the next time that pin blows over that target on a punch Yeah Well that's half of some people the mind fuck of target panic is crazy You hear about people that can't get the pin on the target They can hold like six inches under the target, but once they rise up to the target like yeah [1:12:02] Everything starts getting shaky my body wants to put that pin my body wants to put that pin just to the target like yeah, everything starts getting shaky. My body wants to put that pin, my body wants to put that pin just to the left. Ooh, yeah. Well, that's, that's, I don't know why, because I think I don't want to obstruct it. Yeah, you want to see that. Yeah, you want to see that. So, I got to, when I bring it up, like if I bring a cross here, it's gonna want to sit just left so I can still look. And then I gotta go like, now I'm gonna bring it over where it belongs. You know what's the greatest thing of all time? It has some problems, but it's the greatest thing of all time, and I know they're gonna eventually work this out, is that Garmin release. Do you saw that one that I was using last year? The last year? I stopped using problems ranging things, but dammit when it works, it's a clear window with just a led dot. No, just like a red dot with a pistol. It's fucking magic. It's magic because there's no obstruction. You just put that pin right where it is. You can see through the pin because it's an LED. [1:13:01] It's amazing. But there's some problems with ranging. When I'm in my yard and I'm at 74 yards I know it 74 yards and but I'll put that pin on I hit the button and then it'll say 67 85 73 I'm like what the fuck and I'm like I can't I can't have this mind fuck and so last year I stopped using it and I went oh I stopped using it because when we went to Utah they made it illegal I didn't I hunted a full day with that release and luckily didn't shoot anything and then we went back and then Colton said you know I I think that's illegal here. Yeah, yeah, I don't like I don't think you didn't huh You just practiced well, I definitely didn't shoot you thing no, but I did go out with. I didn't even go to full draw, but I didn't go out with it. Luckily, I found out, like, imagine, I was thinking imagine if you killed something. I think photo with that, and you didn't know. Because the year before, I had shot my elbow with that. They changed it in April. Yeah. And it's just, you because it only makes it more effective and it's not easier. [1:14:06] It's just you're more ethical. Yeah, but there's a, they had, I mean, it's a range finder. Yeah, but the states are gonna have, like they have to try to like play the technology game because they just have to. I agree to a certain extent, but if you're gonna allow range finders, why do you allow range finders? Because you don't want people guessing. Well, there's a lot of guessing when you're gap-pinning. There's a lot of guessing. When an animal, you range an animal of 50 yards and then he takes three or four steps, there's a lot of guessing. You're just going to hold high or you're going to do so. With the Garmin, all you do is just press that button again and you get a new pen and it's perfect. And the other thing about the garment that's really fantastic is if you can't range like say if you're at 20 or you're at 40 yards and you range them and then he walks out and you're pretty sure it's like 50 or 60 you can also press a button and you get a full range of pins. So you get 20, 30, you get five LED lights, [1:15:06] you know, instead of just one. So there's an advantage of that too. So if you're in a situation like we were at, when we were rattling and the buck just come running in and you know that's 20 yards or 30 yards, like you just pulled it up and you got your pins. And you can do that. Or if you're at 60, like I shot the Neil guy you can hold it and then you get a pin that's what it looks like It's the shit, but it just makes me nervous. They're just trying to protect But what they'll say is the primitive integrity of archery. Yeah, it's still pretty primitive You're still using a rangefinder. Yeah, it's just a rangefinder to incorporate it They're also trying to imagine where it's going like You'll see some level of herky jerkiness and as they bring in regulations, as they try to like get a sense of what's common. Because if you wait too long on certain technologies, you develop a user group, and then you develop a level of resistance. Like think the second drones, [1:16:01] the second drones became a thing. It was like a medium, like 13 states. Nope. Yeah. And in the end, you can be like, why is it even on your mind? In the end, if you look where it's gone, in the end, they made the right call. Yeah. In open country, they made the right call. Yeah. Other things I think that you might look and try to like picture where it's headed and then maybe come back and crack. Like there was a time, I remember the first time Montana came out with anything about two way communications. It was no two way communications in the field. The first year. People were like, oh, if I'm hunting with my 13 year old and my 80 year old dad, I can't give them a radio so that they have a problem, they can get a hold of me. And they're like, oh yeah, I guess we didn't really mean that. And in the next year, there's a modification. And the next year's a modification, as they try to let gauge what's going on, but I think that as technologies come in, there's a tendency to want to pump the brakes [1:17:04] to ascertain what's going on. Like look how long some states waited on trail cams. Yes. Right? And like when trail cams came out, no one imagined they would be cellular. Right. Or that you'd run 40. Or that every waterhole would have 50 different dudes in a trail cams. Transmitting immediate information. And so then you got to, then you develop a big user group and you develop a big resistance and it just becomes a much different conversation. So I think that in those cases where you see a sort of, you'll see a thing that doesn't entirely make too much sense. I think that's part of the gamble and struggle of getting it right. And another thing is, like I think it's part of the gamble and struggle getting it right and other thing is like I think I think it's winning out as they used to say Well, you can't have dogs hunting deer of course and Then people been like but I want a recovery dog Like I don't the dog it doesn't do any good until I've already wounded the thing and once I've wounded it Like why would you do anything to impede me getting it back? [1:18:02] Right and they've kind of are settling in on a, yeah, you can't run deer with a dog in most states, but they're coming around to say, but for recovery, you can track a wounded deer with a dog. And so you have, there's a, you know, there's a sort of compromise get struck. Right. Or even a dead deer where you can't find it. Like heavy, heavy timber. Well yeah, yeah, that's where it's put used to some states, you know, you used to be, you got to have it on a leash, but whatever, but coming around being like, yeah, we meant you can't hunt deer with a dog. Right. We didn't mean you shouldn't be able to find a wounded or dead deer with a dog and then they make a gradual correction. Well, that's also the Also the first step they do to outlaw mountain line hunting, right? No mountain line hunting with dogs. And if you do that, like, that's coming from a completely different, right? That's coming from a completely different agenda. Yes. That's not trying to help. Right. That's trying to screw, honey. I just don't saw some of them I don't understand. Like, lighted knocks. That's to me is the dumbest one. It's like, knocks allow you to more clearly see your impact and find the arrow. So you're not littering. [1:19:06] So instead of like an arrow just alone in the woods, you see that green light in the distance, and you could find it, you know? That one doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I wonder if someone if in defining the legislation, there's a little bit of a what else is going to be on an arrow that's electronic. I don't know Well, they are doing something like that now where there's like there's talk of like Bluetooth technology They have that yeah, and so and so is it used wise now? Yeah, I mean that's been out for years So you could find the arrow with an app and so what they would say that if somebody's just gonna shoot an animal Excuse me in the ass just get an arrow stuck in it. And then where it is, then they'll find it. So is it gonna perpetuate shitty, unethical shots? Like if I can just get a piece of it, I'm good. Stuck in, just track it. Yeah, like a whale. You know, like you put a harpoon in a whale. [1:20:01] Yeah, Oregon was very late on allowing mechanical heads and lighted knocks. I mean, it was just recently. That's why I was like fixed blade forever because at home I couldn't even shoot expandable. So Oregon, Idaho, they were pretty late coming to the game on the electronics because they call a lighted nod electronic. And I still don't think Garmin sites are even Legal and Oregon. There's like 10 states or I think they're illegal at least. Yeah, but Utah It's interesting that they did it this year Yeah, so yeah, I know they changed but it might be to what Steve was alluding to it's like it tried to course correct Or they didn't want to get too far down the road before they tried to back because yeah That that user group was established? Yeah. And we'd been doing it and now they have this, you know, they fight back on that. Yeah, I just think all it does is allow you to make more ethical shots. That's all I think that a range finding side does. I mean, they could say that, well, rifle hunting is more ethical than bow hunting. So why do we need to bow hunt? You know what I mean? Well, you could also outlaw traditional bow hunting then, because that's all guesswork. [1:21:08] Yeah. A large part of it came already alluded to this. A large part of it is protecting, a desire to protect archery seasons. reasons as you know you can kind of hold them out as low harvest limited efficacy high opportunity hunts right in a state of run of both season and then they'll get in the general firearm and everybody gets down to the real serious business of killing and you can look at the archery harvest and the archery harvest winds up in comparison being, I don't want to say negligible, but in comparison, it's just, it's a blip in the harvest. And so the desire to, you know, limit bringing in crossbows, certain technologies is be like, let's keep it simple, traditional low efficacy, low harvest, and then allow for greater [1:22:08] length of seasons and greater opportunity. And if you get to, and I know it seems impossible, but if you can use technology to get it up where your harvest rates really start to spike, you're going to have the same thing you run into in other areas where you start being like, okay, we gotta limit the opportunity pool. Yeah. Because these guys are too good, you know? If you look at, like a general raw number is just generally an archery alconer, well, has a 10% chance of success? Yeah. Just it fluctuates, but like generally is a 10% chance of success. Like generally is a 10% chance of success. If that became 20, 30, you're gonna pay for it somehow. Right. You're gonna pay for it somehow. That's what a lot of detractors of archery will say. And I don't wanna say, I mentioned earlier that maybe you just eliminate bow hunting if you wanna be more efficient with killing, [1:23:02] just make it rifle. I believe archery is just as deadly and just as ethical as rifle hunting. I believe that that's the way to go. So I don't. Certainly is for you. I don't want to, but the success rate is lower to Steve's point. And it's what the guy is back home have said that just detractors of bow hunting is that the, in this could just be old boy talk the bow hunters are killing all the big bowls because I have heard that they're they're writing we can call them in right we're getting prime rut time right and so and it's you kind of get lulled into this trap especially social media that you're thinking god is everybody killing a fucking giant bowl but now what you see, these long range shooters, man. With a rifle, you mean? Yeah. These long range rifle guys are taking 700, 800 yard shots. You know, it's really good at it. You know, it's crazy. I don't even rifle hunt. I mean, I haven't rifle hunted since 89. [1:24:00] You're missing out. Yeah. I took, I took a cat Bradley. I know we talked about it before to get her first buck in Oregon. And so my buddy, Kevin had the SIG gun. She was going to shoot and is all good. But this, this other guy, he reminded me of, uh, God. Remember Mark Wahlberg in that movie where he was like this recluse, uh, lived up in the mountains. Not Boogie Knights. No, not Boogie Nights. Yeah. No. He didn't have it. Oh, yeah. Damn it. Go on. Good movie. So they wanted their somebody who was going to assassinate the president. They tried to get him because he was this ballistic expert. They wanted to get him to tell him where they'd kill him from. Anyway, they, yeah, right here shooter. So anyway, this guy down there where we took cat reminded me of Mark or no, not Mark. This old guy he went to talk to that knew the history of right. Anyway, he had these guns set up in this steel out there at 990 yards. And I can shoot, but I never shoot. I haven't done it in years. [1:25:01] And I was just like, I go, how far is that far one? He's like 990 and I'm like, what do you got here that'll shoot? And so he had this fucking sweet setup, right? Got up, set up, got there. First shot out of this gun. Had the wind gauge up there and I'm like, okay, the wind's going here. I'm gonna hold on the left side of the steel boom 990 yards first shot and smacked it and I'm like I fucking never shoot Right right I can hit this this steel this big at 990 yards Yeah, so to your to your point about this long range thing that's changing the game too Oh, yeah, people want to talk about archery's Evolving and getting too far ahead of ourselves. God dang, these long-range rifle guys. My kids can shoot steel at distances that we didn't know you, that when I was a kid, you didn't know you could shoot. 300 yards was a long way when I was... The farther shot you could take was across that corn field. Yeah, 300 yards. If the corn was down. [1:26:00] You were like a great shooter if you could hit anything at 300. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. That was the, yeah. Well now everybody has shooting sticks and, you know, bipods and all sorts of different things that they used to set up to make them more stable. What we had with the drone. Oh, yeah. I mean, those, yeah, a bipod wasn't even a thing when I started to run for hunting. It's like, you had a sling, you could put your arm in there a little bit. That might help a little bit. Put your off hand. Off hand still. Yeah. So, I mean, when we kill black towers, like, if you get, you don't want to be past a hundred. You imagine if they said with rifle hunting, no more prone shots. Well, no. Well, I don't think they would approach it a different way. They wouldn't approach it that way. Well, they would start with buy pods, right? No, they would want it to. No, they would probably cut. See, I hesitate to say anything. So I want to give anyone anyone I, anyone ideas. But if you were going to try it, like I can't even think if you were going to try to regulate, [1:27:00] well, I'll put it to you this way. So we have muzzle loader seasons. Okay, a lot of states have muzzle loader seasons and just very generally, a state's big game hunt would go archery. And then general firearm, and then you go into late season muzzle loader. And states will regulate muzzle loaders down to whether you have what powder, okay? So loose powder, okay? So loose powder, palettes. They'll regulate it down to open sites or no open site. They'll regulate it down to whether you have a projectile that's true to bore or encased in a little case and call the Sabbath. One of the kind of stuff they throw at you? Meaning they really like pick your gear. They're like in some cases they're like rifles. Ignition, they they'll regulate ignition systems. In some cases they break it down to completely primitive muzzle loaders. That's what I'm saying. So there's nothing like so they do have the power and not the power as as though they're right, word for it. [1:28:05] They do have the ability to come in and really nitpick your gear, right? Right down to weird stuff that you could have people not even know what the hell you're talking about when you say true to bore projectile. But you just, that hasn't come into, that hasn't come into general firearm. And in fact, I can't really think of anything out there besides you can't use anything that projects light. Like a laser laser, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so like projecting, you see regulations around projecting light. And I think there's some regulations about the scope can't have electronics in it, meaning lighted radicals, I think in some states, you can't have lighted radicals. But so far you haven't seen that real, you haven't seen a real nitpicking of long range rifle equipment. I don't even know where you'd start, man. I don't know what. Did they regulate the magnification, [1:29:02] that they would somehow regulate. Oh, laser range finders. Imagine they regulate distance. Just you can't shoot over blank distance. Yeah. I don't know. It'd be a real puzzle if someone was tasked with figuring out how to reign in. I would pay a lot of attention to that because I guarantee whatever they come up with is should I use? Well, in that case was shooting the 990. It reminded me of running, you do all the calculations on your phone. I mean, it's, and then you set the scope to whatever this says. Right. You know, if the scope has, not just magnification, but also like you're changing the zero of it. So, but you're doing it based on the distance, based on the load, based on everything else, it goes into the phone. The wind was not the greatest because you could check the wind at the gun, but when you're a thousand yards, so that's why you needed that flag out there. But to set the scope on to hold right on, that's all done on the phone on an app or something. So crazy. Let's go back to talk about bow hunters [1:30:01] killing all the big stuff. Yeah, I know. It's a spaster. Yeah, I know. It's a... It's a spaster. Yeah. I mean, I've heard everything I haven't heard that. So that's the... Yeah. I get it the rut. But again, it's, you know, social media, it makes it seem like for anybody that people are everyone successful, everyone's killing bulls, and it's just not the case. It's just not, success rate is still 10% on bulls with a, well, not even just bulls, elk with a bow. Well, social media is just fucked up our perceptions of everything. You know, I always get those bodies of people's faces, filters, but... Well, Albrecht does seem like everybody's getting a big mega bull down there. Well, there's so many people with Instagram accounts. Yeah. And everybody can't wait to post those photos. Yeah. It's You know, I was when I asked what year that was I've seen some graphs on on hunting. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that buck And I see some graphs on hunting and I you know We all get blamed for a lot of ill so probably we don't deserve in regard to hunting [1:31:05] But I saw this graph talking about the flot hunters, you know, 50 years ago, there's this many hunters. And right around 2015, I mean, it was plummety. The number of, on the graph I saw, the number of hunters was plummet, just going straight down. And then I was trying to like, is that when you started coming in? And we talk about hunting here. going straight down. And then I was trying to like, is that when you started coming in? And we talk about hunting here. And then now it's, you know, maybe there's a little bit of an, I know there's an uptick from where it was going, but I was thinking, I think it's a down tick now, right? Now it's a down tick. Now after the COVID, now it's going back down. But if you look at the graft that I saw before you started talking about hunting, who knows where the hell would be? If you follow that line down to where it was going, there'd be no hunters from 2015 to 2024. It's like it was, I don't know where this graph was, but it's, I don't know. [1:32:00] Well, it just makes sense. Think about the amount of millions of people that have been exposed to talking about hunting now. But it's never exposed. So it's not just, oh yeah, hunting's in a more healthy spot because we do need hunters to champion our cause, right? But it's not just that, oh, that's good, but imagine without that, where we'd be. I once saw a graph, it was not a graph. It was a whatever the hell diagram or something and it showed in Michigan average age of fur trappers people held fur harvester license The average age every year of someone holding a fur harvester license actually went up one year. Hmm Sure. No one knew. I was like, save people. They're just, you know. I mean, how many new people are getting into trapping that have never trapped? Some. God, it's gotta be small. Not like it is when fur prices shoot up. Right. [1:33:00] Well, that's different, right? Yeah. One thing's easy for me. One thing's easy Well, that's different right yeah, but I think he's small man. Oh super super small and in anytime Yeah, for prices skyrocket then it brings people in if for prices are low. It's just no one Well, I think you told me once that blew me away was at one point in time the richest man in the country was a beaver Trapper. Yeah, well, yeah beaver be man John Jacob Astor. Yeah, that's crazy Yeah, that was the most precious commodity was beavers. Yeah. I mean, you talked about Colorado, man, that's a crazy time right now, because they are, there is that measure out there. I don't, I think it's about a measure, but it is. Yeah, where they're trying to, they're calling, they want to label lion hunting as trophy hunting. And look, there's a guy there who's very passionate. He's been doing a lot of good work. He's named Dan Gates with Colorado for a responsible wildlife management. For people who listen, don't know what we're talking about, we should say Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion, yeah. Well, all good. They say Mountain Lion Bobcat and then Link. [1:34:00] They throw in links, which you can't hunt for anyways. Yeah, it's not even to create this idea that, yeah. It's not even legal, but they love putting this trophy hunting moniker out there because it's really easy to hate trophy hunting. Right. Which isn't even legal. You can't even, they make it, I read this article from Colorado Sun or something like that, where it's like they want to eliminate people who kill mountain lions and just go cut their head off and just take the truck. It's like, who fucking does that? Nobody does that. But people who don't know think, oh my God, that's despicable. Let's not serve them some mountain. Yeah. What the aim here is that is the attempt to create a legal term, the attempt to create trophy hunting as a legal term. When you have a ballot measure, both sides argue about the language. Like when voters go in, what are they going to read? Obviously, you could write any ballot. If you could just write the ballot initiative how you wanted to, you'd win every time. [1:35:02] But people got to debate the wording. That's what they did with the wolf thing. Did you read the wolf thing? I never actually read it. I couldn't even tell what was four wolves and what wasn't. Oh, yeah. It was like, what the, I don't know which one I'm against. It was like forcing, it was, it was, should the state, does the state need to implement a re-interduction or discovery effort or something like that. And this is trying to, the debate comes around, do you say trophy hunting in a ballot measure? Because if they can, if you can set the precedent, if you can use that, what a great tool because people are going to say, oh, I don't agree with that, you know, I don't agree with that kind of hunting right Which would have widespread implications because as Demonstrated here with this deer here There's a lot of parts of it that I don't throw away and I keep sitting around [1:36:02] Yeah, so is this a trophy or is it an emblem or what the hell is it? Right. But if I kept it does that mean that I'm now captured under your definition? Right. Right. Yeah. What is trophy hunting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the bringing in the wolves thing is pretty wild because there's no precedent. They really don't understand like. Oh, there's precedent with, obviously with Montana, with Yellowstone. Ideho's Frank Church, Yellowstone. But long term, I mean, we're only from since the 1990s. Yeah. There's a reason why they eradicated wolves. It's, I don't agree with it. But when you have ranchers, and you have all these people that they're living is based entirely on the stock that they have, and whether or not they make money enough to keep their farm running or not, is depending upon how many animals they bring to market. And then you have wolves, and you just bring in wolves. Yeah, well, so there's a, if I got the tinfoil hat on, they want to eliminate hunting. [1:37:02] I mean, they want to eliminate hunting and ranching. So they don't care about ranchers losing their animals. They would love people just to be 100% consumers, relying on the government so they can control them. They say, here's your food, here's what you're getting, you're getting it from us, you're not out there hunting it for yourself. They hate hunters. If I was thinking about, you know, the governor of Colorado, which is Paul, his husband is anti-honey. Yeah, he's an animal rights act. That's where all this is coming from. Yeah. So, but if you look at the bigger picture, hunters, they cannot stand. Hunters are usually capable, confident. You know, they have a skill set. You can't control people like that. They want people, government wants people they can control. That'll be afraid when they're supposed to be afraid. Where this mask when we tell you, get this shot when we tell you, here's, you get your food from the store, here it is. [1:38:00] And I think there's certainly an element of that. Hunters are the opposite of that. Yeah, I think there's certainly an element in that, but I think it really all boils down to people that love animals. Yeah, I think there's a, I definitely detect that there's a complete disinterest in what hunters think about it, and they think that for someone to come in and argue by doing this wildlife measure, you're impacting, like, you would like this animal on the landscape for viewing pleasure. I like certain animals on the landscape for hunting, consumption, eating, whatever, and there's a conflict here where by doing this, you're going to lower by increasing your likelihood of having a viewer pleasure, you're having a potentially really negative impact on my use of natural resources. I think that they would look at you as though you don't have a that you're ridiculous or evil or don't have a point in saying [1:39:03] that you want to control, you want to limit predation on a resource you rely on and they don't accept that as a reality. I haven't encountered a lot of really, really forceful wolf advocates that are serious hunters. There is a trend there, you know? The thing that bothered me most about the Colorado reintroduction is that while the ballot measure was going forward, wolves showed up on their own. I would have imagined, even if I was on, and I'm not anti-wolf, but when they showed up on their own, I don't even know if it's legally possible, I would have halted that whole thing because the social friction is so much less if they walk in on their own. Diane Boyd, who is the Montana wolf specialist for many years, She even came to believe in hindsight that the Idaho Montana [1:40:09] reintroductions ultimately would have been unnest ultimately were unnecessary and that you would have gradually achieved the same thing with wolves walking in on their own and had a very different societal perception of what was going on. People would look at it as a natural, like a natural dispersal, a natural occurrence, and not a government action, right? Yeah, but I think they wanted that pomp and circumstance. Like, Polis was there, I think, when they released the wolf's hat. Oh, yeah. It's like stupid smile on his face. Yeah, they wanted. Everybody else, all the biologists, all had this like, what are we doing? He was like, yay! Yeah, they wanted that. Nature. Right, they wanted that. And if they knew the truth of how nature balances itself, it doesn't really balance. Over predators kill way too many prey animals because there is no tag limits. They're not like, for example, they talk about trophy hunting alliance to mountain lions. [1:41:03] To hunt Colorado, you have to take, it's very regulated. You take this test, so you learn how to identify a tom and a female, you learn how to age a little bit, based on the coloring, you learn what size a track. So you have to go through this before you hunt. The whole quota system. The quota, like, yeah, so the quota where I was in the unit I was hunting was 34 lions every night after five you call in to see what the where we're at. When I got there it was at 31. I was there for six days. It was up to, uh, it was 34 was a limit. It was up to 33. So one more lion could get killed and then it's done. So it's not like what happens if like you kill at the same you're in the woods no signal. Yeah, someone else kills Two yeah, it's 36 it could that's why you check in 24. There's a window after five Yeah, so I think I think it'll usually click in like a 24 hour clock Or maybe they might have been immediate. I don't know it was they have you have 48 hours Okay, to turn it in there and [1:42:01] But anyway point is you're not over harvesting. The estimate goes up to as high as 7,000 mountain lions in Colorado, probably maybe 5,000. But in the whole state, hunters are allowed to kill 450. And they've been doing this. And it's not like they're out there killing mountain lions, cutting their heads off, no regard for the numbers, wiping them out. It's so regulated. You know, you don't have to call and report your deer and elk, but lions are like a whole another level as far as control. And think about that quota system. If you have a horrific snow storm that pushes all kinds of deer and elk out of high country, and like everybody in his brother, like a perfectly time snow storm, and everybody in his brother is just piling up deer and elk. And they don't go, uh oh, shut it down. Yeah. They sit back and they'll go like, wow. Yeah. Mother load. What a harvest. [1:43:00] Yeah. But the lions, they would come in and go, oh done. Yeah. But they got a cat It's a it's a perpetual motion machine where they've had these they've had a really healthy stable population Minimum harvest yeah, that just goes on it's under 10% of the thing that we should talk about when when it comes to these Reintroduction of predators which listen I to these reintroduction of predators, which listen, I fucking love walls. I mean, if you look out here, I've always photos of walls. It's a long distance photos of walls. I'm happy that they exist. I think they're fucking amazing. I got my favorite on my wall in my living room. They're probably my favorite animals. I just think they're the fucking coolest animal all the time. I really do. I just look in their eyes, photos of them. If I come across photos on my Instagram, I'm always like, holy shit, look at that thing. They're majestic. But their numbers have to be managed and is uncomfortable as that sounds for people. Wildlife biologists, they have an understanding of the carrying capacity and the resources of the land. [1:44:01] They understand how many hunters there are, they understand how many, that's how tags are allocated. Yeah, it's not a guessing game. Yeah, it's the way people need to understand this. It's like they've they've done this for a long time. These people have, you know, painstakingly researched these numbers. They know exactly what they're doing. But when it comes to this game of reintroduction of animals, the first step is they say there's a carrying capacity for the amount of wolves. This is the number when it gets to that, we will agree to open up a season on wolf hunting. But every time that happens, there's lawsuits. There's lawsuits to try to stop that hunt. And then the wolves get larger and larger. And then you have larger and larger populations. I was looking at a graph the other day where they showed reintroduction of wolves to the Yellowstone, the amount of elk that existed, and now the amount of wolves versus the amount of elk. And it's pretty shocking. It's a giant drop. And they're so good at hunting. They're fucking amazing. But hunting wolves is insanely difficult. [1:45:04] It's really hard to do. They're really fucking smart. They're really aware. Their senses are light years beyond what we can even physically imagine an animal to be capable of doing. In our minds, like we know that deer, I remember I was watching episode of your show where bear, when did you guys like fucking 500 yards or something? Like it's incredible. Their noses are fucking amazing. Their senses are amazing. I don't think we really, it's almost like looking at the size of the universe. Like you know it's 13 point whatever, a billion light years across, you don't fucking. That's just going in your head. You know, the kind of power that the senses of a wolf have. I don't think we could even really fathom it. So our thought is people are just gonna go in there and wipe out the wolves like they did before. That's just ignorance. The way they wiped out the war was true. At this point, you can go and say that it's just, that's not the reality. [1:46:00] Because after the delisting in the Northern Rockies, after the delisting, that didn't happen. Right. Did they ever recirculate us? Yeah, they reached quotas. Every night, not every night, many nights I'll check and y'all get notifications like the ornate I got a notification, whatever the hell, 313, whatever it was, unit had hit its quota, region five had hit its quota, I'm talking about in Montana, whatever region like the ornate got a notification whenever the hell 313 whatever it was unit had his quota region five it hit its quota I'm talking about in Montana whatever region hit its quota at this point it's at this point we've hit at it is a stable there's a stable population of wolves across a big chunk of range that are managed as a renewable natural resources, they're managed as a big game species. There is no problem. It still gets litigated all the time, but the whole idea that they're gonna be pushed back onto the ESA, on an endangered species list, the state doesn't want that. They'll be the worst thing that could happen to the state. They're not gonna shoot them into oblivion. [1:47:00] It's like, we have wolves on the landscape, and you could have the extremes of people that want to live in the world where there aren't any. That's not realistic. Like you lost that fight. You have extremes where people want to live in a world where there's as many as possible and there's no regulation on them, which isn't extreme because we could live in that landscape. But right now we're living in a landscape where there are wolves on the ground. there's a healthy population, there's hunting for them, there's a, a, a, a equilibrium emerging and it's very livable. But in Colorado, it's like, you got hunters that are, if hunters saw that there was a pathway to finding the extent of it, they would probably feel a lot better. But right now they're like, we're gonna lose 50% of elk, we're gonna lose 75% of elk. This is gonna get litigated. It could be a hundred years from now. We could have 90 years of full recovery objective. There's still no regulated harvest on wolves and they're apprehensive. Right, it's also for high population areas, [1:48:02] which is the ones that vote the most. I mean, that's where the people are that are voting. These are generally urban areas that don't have any understanding of what they're even voting on. They're hoping to see one. Like, is that what's going on in BC when they delisted, when they made it illegal to hunt grizzly bears and the people that live up in BC, like my friend Mike who lives in northern BC is like, Jesus Christ. First of all, this is a way that a lot of people make a living is by having these bear hunts. This is a part of their lifestyle. They're guides. They guide people to hunt grizzlies. And it's important to maintain their population because if you don't, nothing is. And these people in these urban areas, they think of it as trophy hunting. But at least people know that you eat bear. Nobody's eating wolves. So that is like one of the most difficult to defend. When you say, I'm gonna go wolf hunting. Like what a piece of shit you are. You're gonna hunt wolves? The fuck is wrong with you? Here's a, you mentioned Steve that it's kind of at a stable [1:49:02] level with the wolves now. you know, you call and check in and wolves are introduced, they're still being hunted. So that works in Montana and Idaho, I think in Wyoming Idaho, Montana. Right. So I sent this to you. I was just looking this out. In the last course. Right. And Idaho, low, low region, and and 95 12-woles were introduced in 2005 512 wolves were present in 2011 800 wolves were present so the elk from 95 there's 16,000 elk in this region in 2016 there was a thousand elk so went from 16,000 to a thousand so that's what wolves can do so when you say and that's what wolves can do. So when you say and That's what they can hunt them in Idaho In Colorado when there is no wolf hunting and now these wolves are bad and there won't be Now not under this their governor now, but And that's what I say is like once these prey animals get down then they can say well we don't need hunters [1:50:08] Nothing to hunt. Well, that's the objective in California. Yeah, it's a regulated objective in California Right state state objective and I've heard they want to turn Colorado into a Almost like a viewing state like you know how they do the safaris over in Africa where there's no hunting You're just out taking pictures. That's what they want Colorado to be. So they want low numbers of elk and deer, so there is no hunting. So then they can say, well, we don't really need hunters. And by the way, do you guys need guns now? I don't know if you need guns, because you said you needed them for hunting. So that's a big portion. Some people people say, yeah, we want our everyday carry for protection. A lot of people say we want to hunt. With no hunting, you don't need guns. So there's this big diobachal plan you could say, is this what's happening? But all I know is that where there's wolves, there's way less elk. That's openly stated on this wolf conservation website. That's their ultimate goal. Their ultimate goal is to remove firearms, because you won't need them if you don't need them for hunting. You wind up with this attitude about it that a lot of people that are just really, [1:51:12] and again, I'm starting here because I'm not an anti-wolf person, right? I'm a pro hitting a recovery objective and then having a managed resource. But you'll find that a lot of wolf advocates will really try to, in one breath, tell you that it actually, they don't actually do that. They don't actually cause the decline of elk numbers. Like when elk numbers collapsed in the coming of the wolf in the northern Rockies, there's other factors that could have explained that. They don't actually do that. But at the same time they'll say, oh, but there would be a great tool for controlling wildlife diseases which populate among overpopulated ungulates. So you want to [1:52:02] get this crosstalk. On one hand hand, oh they're not that, it's not that catastrophic for big gamehards, but it really lowers big gamehards and helps the disease transmission. And it's part of that, that's kind of stuff really frustrates people. Yeah. You're getting all this, you know, they're like shit rainbows, you know? Like you're getting all this, you know, they're like shit rainbows, you know? Right. And it like pisses people off. Well, it's also like we were saying, it's almost indefensible to someone who's an anti-hunter. Like you could say I hunt for food and people go like, I don't agree with you, but I get it. Nobody gets wolf hunting. You know, like do you to go hunt a wolf? I don't want to hunt a wolf. I don't want to shoot a wolf. I love them. I think they're amazing. But I get you. You could say I take the thing of, I harvested an animal and took the thing of highest relevance and value to me. [1:53:01] On a deer, I didn't keep the hide, I didn't retain the hide, but I kept the meat on a wolf. I didn't keep the meat, but I retained the hide. I took the thing of highest value to me. Well, there were some trappers you were telling me that wolf meat was their favorite meat? Oh, there's an Arctic explorer, Ville Jolmer, Stephenson. He had my life with the Ascamone. And he made first contact with a lot of Ascamone and knew it honors in the Canadian high-artic and he always claimed that was his favorite game eat. Well, why, if people eat, if they eat mountain line and mountain line, you'd tell me it's delicious. Yeah. Why don't they eat wolves? It's weird, man. I've never, I mean, I've never gotten a wolf. You ate a coyote once. Yeah, I've never got a wolf, and I've never eaten a wolf. But I know people that have eaten it, but it's not a, you know, eating, like, lion hunters eating mountain lions is very common. I don't believe that, I believe there's some people that eat some wolf meat, because I've heard of it and seen it. [1:54:01] I don't think it's widely practiced. Have you ever heard of it? Do you ever talk to someone who's eaten wolf? Yeah, who? I do know a couple of guys that have eaten wolf. My friend Buck Bowden's eaten wolf. That's the guy that makes the bowls? No. He had eaten it. And I think, I think, Rade didn't rain any new burgui to wolf. He might have. Yeah, I think he would. What did a buckbotin say tastes like? There's a story about buckbotin where someone's talkin' to him and he's cleaning a Wolverine skull. Okay, when he was trapping Wolverines, he's cleaning a Wolverine skull with a knife at a counter and someone's talkin' to him. And as he's talkin' to me, he's eating the hunks of meat and he scrapes off the skull of the knife. So, but out of remember what he told me about it. He told me, I remember him telling me the one thing he can't get that he's tried every which way is brown bears eating salmon. Just always. I remember him telling me that was the one food he had a hard time with. Well, you were telling that story about how you borrowed your friend Smoker. Yeah, colds the blackberries. Yeah, and you were like, man, you got to clean your smoker. [1:55:08] Smoker's like fish. He's like, I never cook fish on that smoker. Yeah, you know, I didn't use that for that. And I was like, oh, that's my bear. My bear ham did that too. How did the bear taste? Oh, I don't mind. You like that, that beard tastes like smoked salmon. Cause he's like, well, I like smoked salmon. Right. And I like meat. And this is the full bag. Yeah. That's fusion. No, you hate to know. But I'll just eat stuff. You know, I don't care. If I have it, I'll eat it. Well, if you do it right, like diverted ducks, which people normally say they taste like shit because they eat the stuff on the bottom of the lakes. How many cooks? Jesse Griffiths can cook some diverted duck that makes it like literally one of my favorite fish I've ever eaten in my life. You can figure anything out. You can figure anything out. It just depends how much work you want to put into it. [1:56:00] Right. And obviously it doesn't hurt being an amazing chef, you know, but he's, you know, he's got it down to a fucking science Those diver doctors sensational But if you talk to the average duck hunter, they're like, oh If I got a wolf, I would definitely want to have a couple of shoes off it, but uh, I I mean, I could tell you that you'd never separate me from the hideoff that thing But I would you know, I would go into be like, I'm gonna try it just because I wanna see what it's all about. Yeah. But it wouldn't be my primary objective in getting one. Some of those animals just need to be killed. That's all they're like coyotes, wolves. They just need to be killed. You have to, and whether you eat them or not, I don't know, their numbers need to be managed. The wildest thing about kiosks is it doesn't work as the opposite effect. Well, depending on how good you are at it, they're done in a very surgical fashion. At the right time, the right place, with the right level of intensity, they have found that it is effective. [1:57:03] We gotta bring in a fucking special ops unit. No, like you can, there's, man, if you have imperiled populations of pronghorn or imperiled populations of Mule deer, and you go in, deer, like, deering calving season, in the right areas at the right time, you can move the needle on recruitment. is at the right time, you can move the needle on recruitment. Does you now and then, if you ever ranch and you now and then see a coyote and get it, are you doing like effective predator control? Probably not. That does not mean that you cannot done in a timely fashion, like I said, surgically, a timely fashion with the right approach at the right time, you can absolutely move the needle on wildlife recruitment. You see it in Alaska, you see it in Arizona, you see it in order place. But the issue is statewide or locally, that might be the case, but they will then spread out. Yeah, but they will, now they're in every state, they're in every city in the country because of that, [1:58:03] because people funded them. So I put this to someone there a day. I got you know how you don't like you don't do media. Yeah. You know like doing interviews. Yeah. I now then get like sucker to do an interview and I did an interview about a contentious issue. Um, those about states banning. I knew the myth the journal is called. I mean, he's talking about banning wildlife killing contests. And I said, can we please say hunting contests at least? Do you have to say wildlife killing contests? And I'm like, my body dog has a doe or derby, where they're in an area where they're trying to lower deer numbers for issues of disease, transmission, and habitat improvement. And he has a little derby where you win some prizes because they're trying the state is explicitly trying to encourage doe harvest. Is he having a wildlife killing contest? Or is he having a derby as a management tool? [1:59:03] Right? Anyways, I do this interview and shouldn't down it because the quote they pulled from me was not the right quote. I'm so mad about that, I came in with pointless driving at. You were gonna say that they tried to lump it in as a killing contest and, oh, without law, the contest of killing animals, basically. But I had some like broader-ass point, I can't remember now what it was, apologies. Got some roundup about talking to that guy. Yeah, yeah. So I do wanna revisit one thing because I said, for me, anytime I see Kaya, if I got a license in this legal, I kill it. I killed one this year. I'm always trying to, my personal thing is I kill so many prey animals a year, whatever that number is, I'm going to try to kill a number of predators also. I feel like that's doing my part to whatever, to balance it. But I didn't want to say one thing about the mountain lion hunting. As I say that I will kill just a coyote just because I think it's to kill. I didn't kill a lion in Colorado [2:00:05] because one of the biggest benefits to using dogs is identifying if that's the animal you want to kill. It's not what what happens now like in Oregon where the outlawed running lions with dogs is if you kill one it's just one you saw and you don't know you don't know what it is you don't know how. You don't know male, female, because you don't have time. But that's the only way you can hunt them. So now they have, the season is open all year. It never closes in Oregon. There is no dog. So lying numbers are going way up. Deer numbers going way down. That's kind of what happens. Where dogs are allowed or baiting for bears allowed or even hunting black bear with dogs is allowed. You're killing the animal that should be killed, the older male generally, and you're identifying it, you're taking out the right one. Without those measures in place, so as hunting a dog is a tool. Without those measures in place, it's not nearly as controlled. And it's not like people are just [2:01:03] going out there just going to kill any lion at the tree just like I I didn't kill one because I didn't see an old male lion Howonsman are the one that originally pushed for lion regulations. Yeah, they were pushing for lion regulations one No one was paying any attention to lion lion Conservation okay, I finally remember my point. Okay. Am I allowed to go back? Yeah, we were having this conversation where people say that the coyote hunting actually increases coyote numbers. And I see what Tomoe could have disrops packed dynamics and can lead to animals shooting off in new directions and starting packs. And also leads them having more offspring. But I said, well, if you're super pro coyote, why would you not encourage that? It's true. And I'm just throwing out there as a rhetorical question. Well, it is a rhetorical question, but it actually does have merit. You know, when Dan Flores' book, Kio De America, which is an amazing book, fucking incredible book, when you realize how wild those things are. [2:02:02] Yeah. When they while those things are. And when they get killed, they, when they do their roll call, and there's a coyote missing, the female coyotes will produce more pups. I mean, that is just, that's the reason why they're everywhere. Yeah. I'm friends with Dan. I studied under Dan. I have massive respect for Dan. I have Dan on the show. There's certain little tidbits of this debate, the Dan and I don't see eye to eye on. And this is one of them. Yeah. But the effect. Love him. The fact is hard to argue. They literally have gone from a hundred years ago, where they were primarily in the Southwest and in the West to everywhere in New York City. And they have coyotes in fucking Central Park. Yeah. And some of their, and you got to realize you like wildlife dynamics can play out very slowly. So in some ways, it's possible they're still responding from the elimination of the wolf. Right. Right. Like, like, some of this stuff tastes so light. It just look at, like, why does this very gradually, [2:03:05] why do raccoons and possums keep going north and west? It's just so weirdly gradual. Havolinas, right, move over time. So you see these things that happen so slowly that you can't picture and play it out, but with the coyote, it seemed like there was a gradual movement and then just an explosion. I remember them coming into our area, like there was a gradual movement and then just an explosion. You know, I remember them coming into our area. Like I was a Red Fox Trapper and we didn't have kiosks. I remember the first kiosk I ever saw. And now it's like for the most part, Red Fox are gone and kiosks are there. Um, and that was part of the like not just the gradually increase. That was like the explosion in the 90s where they just like, I don't know. They suddenly figured something out, something clicked. I don't know what it was, man. Well, I was as this conversation with some guy in the Hollywood Hills, you know, people up there terrified of losing their dogs. They lose their dogs all the time. [2:04:02] Dogs and cats get killed by coyotes constantly. And he was telling me about this and it's like, fucking hate them. They're everywhere. I go, yeah, I get it. But you love rats? Because if it wasn't for coyotes, rats would be everywhere. They'd be everywhere. Like, they also keep the population of things down that you don't want. I mean, they're an essential part of the ecosystem. There's a reason why, like where I used to live in California, it's not infested with rats. Because it's got a lot of coyotes. They're fucking everywhere. And yeah, don't leave your dog out. Yeah, don't let a kitten roam around your backyard and you're not looking. Because they'll get it. You know, they killed all my chickens. But they're also, like, they're a very important part of that system. Again, I don't dislike them. Yeah, I love them. I like them. Every year I flesh and stretch a few and send them to the tannery. Someday I'm gonna have a big giant bed spread out of kiosk. How many of you have now? [2:05:00] What's that? How many do you have? How they got saved up now? I mean I used to sell them now. I got saved up maybe ten of them. How many do you need for a bed spread? I haven't done the math yet Maybe I've already sent in we had 50 beavers and we did two blankets two big blankets out of 50 beavers. No Beautiful that the first thing is a fascinating one too because there's people that are really anti-fur But yet they're wearing leather and they probably don't like the oil industry Well, that was my favorite I talked about that on stage last night the fucking stop oil people that block the highway with their fucking paint on their You're assigned. [2:06:24] It's made with oil. Wearing shoes are made with oil, wearing shoes that are made with oil, wearing clothes and they wear them. They're not dressed in fur, it's made up. On anti-depressants that were made from oil, they use oil for everything. I don't know that. Oh yeah, man. That's something that happened in the early 1900s. They figured out to use petroleum-based things to make medicine. Yeah, they've got their fingers and everything, don't they? Everything. Not for. Not for. Yeah, everything. But it's like the weird thing is like people don't like animal skins that have fur on it. That's crazy part. [2:07:01] Like if you have fur boots, people are like, oh, you piece of shit. But if you have leather boots, people are like, oh, you piece of shit. But if you have leather boots, like, oh, guys, got boots on. Yeah. It's almost over notice, but it's always drives me crazy. Like, why has it become bad? Why is this so much better to take the fur off? Weird. It's weird. The skin itself is leather and that's fun. But if that's one argument that I, you know, people like to lump kind of an aside, but lump hunters into trophy hunters or me hunters, which I think we would all agree you can be both. Yeah, I take, I take every ounce of the meat from the animals I kill, every ounce is like, is more valuable than gold to me. And I take all the antlers, the hide, I got claws. I mean, it's like all that's all part of that memory of that hunt and I'm honoring that memory and that harvest essentially. But I'm also sharing that meat. We eat the meat every night or every day and it's like we're both, we're not just, because I meet people and they say, [2:08:01] well, you're not a trophy hunter are you? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am. Yeah, I'd be like, I'm all kinds of hunters. Yeah. Well, you know, here's what's interesting. It's like we're so separated from the idea of animals and just the wilderness itself being a resource in order to sustain you. But during COVID, there was a bunch of people that reached out to me and wanted to start hunting because they had this thought Because when like my friend Duncan went to the supermarket and he sent me a picture He's like, dude, there's no food. Right. Oh, photo of the the meat shelf and there was literally like a package of ground beef left Yeah, there was nothing left because the supply chain he got interrupted and people started thinking oh my god We could get to a part where I don't have any food like that's a real reality. Yeah people felt vulnerable They felt vulnerable so the two things started happening to me during that people started reaching out asking me about hunting And then when the George Floyd George Floyd riots kicked in the guns the people wanted to borrow guns [2:09:01] Yeah, people asked to borrow guns. How many guns do you have? Can I have one of your guns? Yeah. That's not legal. Because in Texas, I could just give you one, which is wild. Like in Texas, you don't even have to fill out paperwork. Like if you were a Texas resident, and I was a Texas resident, I'm like, you like that gun? You can have it. Oh yeah, that's the norm. That's the norm. But in California, I was like, I can't do that. It's absolutely. I could go to jail for giving you a gun. Like you have to go through the whole process and then the lines outside the gun stores were wild. Because what you can't do is you can't go down and buy, you can't go down to the FFL, the federal, like, you can't go down to a dealer. Gun store. And buy it and say it's for you. And then put it actually your body buying it. That you definitely can't do. Right, you can't do that. But in terms of you like legitimately went and bought it for yourself and then you decided that you did not want it, you can gift that to a friend. What they're trying to prevent is your body saying hey go down and buy it for me. I'm a [2:10:06] felon and can't right that makes sense. So they don't prop the oddly they um they don't really prosecute people for lying on FFL statements. Interesting. It's a real yeah it's a real issue. Well yeah that could be definitely an issue of someone's a felon. I mean but then there's also the they'll reject the purchase and then that go after the person, but when they have those gun Fucking conventions when you can go and just what do they call those things when they gun shows? Gun shows where people just you get that's a weird one, right? Yeah, it's like it's the kind of can skirt around Some regulations and that was part of things that people didn't like when you hear in the gun control debate People about trying to close the gun hole loop holes, they're trying to put it that they should be subject to FFL transfers. But like when my dad died and I got my dad's guns, we didn't do an FFL transfer. Right. How does any kid get a gear hunt right now? [2:11:00] So get your grandpa or your grandpa. Yeah. Like here you go son. Right. Like that's just how it works right? We're going to the tree, man. Yeah Yeah, it's there's a lot of regulations that make sense and there's a lot of them that don't and most the ones that come out of California Don't I mean the limiting magazines that's a fucking insane one down to 10 rounds or certain guns You can't even buy they're trying to do it in Oregon five rounds. Oh my god that's what I was. Didn't wash. Washington already did that right? Maybe so maybe that's what I mean. That is so crazy. Yeah. So what do you do if you have a Glock 16? You don't? Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean that's fucking insane. Yeah. I can't remember. I don't know about, on long guns, there's a restriction, a magazine restriction. What's interesting is for hunting waterfowl, federally regulated migratory waterfowl, there's always been a magazine restriction in the field, three rounds. And then, as they're trying to lower snow geese numbers to protect arctic habitats, they've gone in and undone. [2:12:07] They've made an exception to allow unlimited capacity magazines to hunt snow geese. So it's one of those weird areas where you see a real reversal of like a time honored tradition, which is three rounds in your gun to make it that people can kill more snow geese. That's an animal that I want to hunt with you one day, the ribe rounds in your gun to make it that people can kill more snow geese. That's an animal that I want to hunt with you one day, the ribeye in the sky. Oh, the cranes. Yeah, sandhill cranes. Oh, yeah. I remember those are insanely delicious. Oh, it's great, yeah. It's crazy when you see a bird that is like a dark red meat. Mm-hmm. It's like, bird is this? A friend of mine, he's right where he said, it's watching one of those come down out of the sky as like watching a folding lawn chair hit the ground. It's just the wild bird to hunt, man. But, you know, I asked this question to Waddle the other day. What do you guys think would end hunting if anything does? [2:13:01] Do you think it would be anti-hunners, politics or fellow hunters causing division and infighting and whatever? Public referendums, politics. Politics? Yeah, urban centers. Urban centers for people vote and they don't have an understanding of what they're voting on. You don't got to wonder about it. It's happening. Yeah. It's not theoretical. Well, why would you say hunters though? Like hunters in what way do they stop? about it. It's happening. It's not theoretical. Well, why would you say hunters though? Like hunters in what way? Well, because I see fellow hunters are so much infighting, whereas you look at the anti-hunners, they're so aligned. They're not like parsing out to this and that. Yeah, this guy is the number one anti-hunter in the United States. No, he's not. He's a piece of shit that Hunters love like yeah I'm He's a he's a fucking [2:14:01] It doesn't happen they are so aligned. Right. They get, they get, you know, they have the lobbyists working for them. Meanwhile, hunters, fuck, we can't get out of our own way on half the shit. Yeah, but I have a long history of being a public person and I understand it from a different dynamic because there's just a thing that happens with men where they become jealous of other men and hateful of other people's success. And then they look at other people for whatever reason, as anytime they do something, it takes away from them. Or they look at someone getting attention and somehow another takes away from them, and they focus entirely on that person's success, or who that person is, and they try to find flaws with them. It's a natural thing with jealous weak-minded men. Right, so we have that in hunting. Yeah, you're gonna have that in everything though. We have that in comedy. It's a real issue with stand-up comedy. You have that in fighting. Nobody's trying to ban comedy. But they are, you're wrong. Yeah, there's shitty comics that try to tell people [2:15:03] that they can't joke about. What joke can they get? Like what comments? Yep, they all suck. There's one thing they have in common, they're all not funny. 100% of them, every single one, there's not a single one that's exceptional. It's not a single one that is anti-comedy about controversial subjects that people are excited to go to see them that are real comedy fans, that are really good comics. There's not a single anti-controversial joke comic that other comics seek out to go see. What's interesting is half your guess are your competitors. Yeah. Half your guess are comics. Yeah, but I don't think it's comics ever as competitors. For sure. They're my tribe. That's like, I try the best I can to get them more famous. Yeah. I want them to be huge. My daughter had a book that described, she had a book about jealousy and it described jealousy as a hot prickly feeling. Mm. I've heard it as a vessel that poisons the thing that carries it. [2:16:04] Or I mean a substance that poisons the vessel that carries it. Or a substance that poisons the vessel that carries it. You know, that's the best way to look at it. It doesn't do you any good, but it can do the opposite. It can do the opposite if you have a good mindset. If you have a good mindset and you see someone in your envious, that can be fuel for your success. As long as you manage it in your mind, like almost everything else it's complicated. You have to manage it in your mind as like, this can fuel me and be a fantastic resource. When I see someone's success, I get inspired to work harder. I get inspired to do more. So I am happy that that person is success. So if you saw a comet coming up and they were kind of in your wheelhouse and nipping on your heels, you'd be like, I'm gonna have that some bitch on the show. 100%. Every time. I do it all the time. I'm gonna shine a spotlight on that. 100%. That is my, that's, look, that's why I used to take Joey Diaz on the road with me. Cause I couldn't follow him. I was like, he's so funny. He was the funniest guy mind. And I'm like, yeah, but if I can ride that way. [2:17:06] You said yourself up to be that one guy that wasn't as funny as the other guy. Oh, I would hear it all the time. People would say, you know, you're opening acts funny with the new, I'm like, yeah, he's the best. You have a unique mindset. That's all I worry about, or not all I worry about, but with hunters, we just, we have a hard time giving other people credit, being supportive of each other, some of us. And so with this, this disjointedness, that's what I get worried about. But you know how that changes? These conversations. Yeah, this gets out there in the zeitgeist. People hear it, they recognize their own failings, their own shortcomings and their own thought processes and then they realize this is not admirable well some people never will we can't afford it. I mean we can't afford it we can't you know so I'm thankful for outfits like Dan Gates is in Colorado and then there's another one I wanted to mention called howl yeah and I think is it john's to loan man I know Dan we had Dan Gates join us at a live show and he's we got him scheduled to come on the podcast as vote and [2:18:07] starts heating up on the voting starts heater, you know, as the we start nearing the date for the initiative in Colorado. I'm familiar with Howell. I was introduced to Howell by my colleague, Janus, who's a supporter and we've done some things to support them, but man, that name, I probably met him But just right now I'm space and if I am so apologies to him. I believe it's John still on but but anyway It's they are helping keep us organized. They're you know make it easy to send letters to legislators and It's yeah, they're leading the fight on that they're leading the fight on the on the hunting bands Right so and that and especially in that arena right there that's a positive that's a big one they're still like in the grand scheme of things small like if you look at numbers of followers or things like that but they're making an impact and so I've been trying to I want to support them and and help or we can it's just you know this you know [2:19:03] you're unique when you look at a comic, hot comic coming up and you want to celebrate them. I wish hunting could be more like that. It can be. It can be. Do you just got to, these weak people have to understand that we know what they are. We see right through them and you're not admirable. Not only not admirable, you're not respected by your peers. Everybody knows you're a bitch. Nobody likes a bitch. And when you're a man and you can't recognize another man's success or you see a man and you measure yourself up to him and you fall short and so you start shitting on that person, everybody knows what you're doing. Every man knows what you're doing, especially every exceptional man. They know 100% what you're doing. So you have to live with that. And that's how it's a poison that ruins the vessel that carries it. It's not good for anybody. And it's just a thing that people do. People have always been jealous of other human beings throughout time. But you gotta understand for your own personal benefit, that feeling can be changed inside of you to fuel. [2:20:04] And it will make you a better person. It'll make you better at what you do. It'll make you understand that competition is critical and vital in order for you to reach your full potential. You don't reach your full potential if you're the king and everybody else is a pussy because then you're like, well I'm the king. Everybody else is just a bitch. I don't have to be any better. But if you're a king around other kings, you realize, wow, these guys are all fucking getting up earlier than me, working harder than me, thinking smarter than me, being more effective, recognizing their shortcomings, fixing them, talking about it with other people that do the same and growing from each other. You know, when we have like in the mothership, the comedy club that I own, when we get together in the green room during the shows, we're always breaking down bits, we're talking, we don't like hold secrets, we don't have like trade secrets, I don't wanna tell anybody how I write, I tell everybody how I write, I tell everybody how I correct things, I'm like this is a thing that I've noticed that helps me. Here's a thing that I've added, [2:21:01] I started listening to my recordings and doing this afterwards. When I get home, I always do, if you just do that one hour every night, just think over time, and then my other friends have said, I started doing that, dude, you're right. I just sat down for 10 minutes, I had a new bit. I wouldn't have come up with that bit if I didn't do that, I guess. Yeah, now we all learn from this one guy that's out there that's putting in all this extra work and succeeding and you just start shitting on him. Everybody knows what you're doing. You know what you're doing, motherfucker. You know in your heart of hearts. You know you're being a bitch. And you can live with that if you like, but I can't. I'm allergic to that feeling in me. I hate that feeling. I've experienced it. I'm allergic to that feeling in me. I hate that feeling. I've experienced it. I know what it is. It'll still bubble up every now and then if someone's killing it. I'm like, wow, that guy's doing so good. Well, fuck him. You know, like that fuck him part of you is always there. But you gotta go, oh, you little bitch. I know what you are. You're a little bitch. But if you can do that. And this is in the mirror. Yeah. Yeah. The hassle. [2:22:05] But generally never gets the mirror. It's like I try to squat that fucker as soon as it comes up like a weed. I pull it out right away. But if you don't do that, it's not good. It's not good for you. You never change people's opinions. If someone is doing exceptional work and doing an exceptional job of being very unusually successful, and then you start picking all the little flaws in that person, and people are gonna look at you. They're gonna go, well, you're kind of fat and lazy, and you fuck up all the time, and you're always drunk, and this problem and that problem, and how can we not look at it your own self with the same scrutiny that you look at this extremely successful person? Yeah. It's because you're jealous. That's all it is. It's a natural human instinct. But that feeling can be repurposed. That thought can benefit you. That feeling of comparing yourself and coming up short. [2:23:00] What you're supposed to do is going, what do I need to do so I don't have this feeling anymore? Why do you work harder? I need to do so I don't have this feeling anymore? Why don't you work harder? I need to work smarter. I need to do some things and I'm not doing that maybe make me uncomfortable. And that's what I need to do to get better. Yeah, you know, to your point last night, I saw two of the funniest people I've ever seen. Shane and Tony both putting notes in their phone from comments that were made in the green room. Yeah. Oh really? Oh, we always do that. Yeah, so they're like, just, you're like, oh, that's, okay, I'm gonna put this down so I don't forget it. Trying to grow, you know, that's exactly what you're talking about. They're, they're almost at the top of the game, still trying to get better based on feedback from other comics. We always do that. We workshop constantly. We're always in that green room And I was trying to explain that to one of the managers I was like the reason why we have to like when comics get together like we're at the comics bar And we're all just talking shit like if someone is sensitive and they get in that and they start complaining about jokes You're being told hey you've got to leave now because this is literally how we spar like this is what we do [2:24:04] If you're complaining that someone is making fun of this person or picking on that person, creating an unsafe work environment, okay, well you can't be here. It's like if you go to the gym and you're trying to be a boxer and you're like, everybody's trying to hit me. Like that's what they do. This is how you get better. You hit each other. You don't like being hit, you can't be here. You can't fucking be here. And that's, this is like this the reality of what we do. And the only people that really truly know that are the practitioners, the ones who are doing this very difficult thing. Look, with standard comedy, there's a lot of hunters. There's a thousand of us on earth that are worth a fuck. It might be less, I'm being generous. It's probably 500. It might be 250 that I want to see. On planet earth, 250 comics that I would go out of my way to see. That's not a lot. Like we got a fucking stick together. There's so few of us. For you to be shit on this guy because he's selling out arenas. Why do you think people like him? [2:25:03] What is it? What's he doing well he's doing something fucking figure it out get better that I was I'm curious does comedy have the same in hunting it was a big deal when the girl started coming in right so a lot of guys would say oh she's just getting this because she's got her tits out or whatever right which is true is true. And but I could see comedy being the same. Like, because our women comics, did you guys look at women be like, she shouldn't be up there. It's only she's only up there. Get the stage time because she's hot. Well, comedy is a meritocracy. The thing about comedy is if you're not funny, we find out real quick. Nobody laughs at you just because your tits are out. Well the thing about hunting though, like there's there's gals that become very popular online that are just hot wearing camel. That's how I looked at it is if I can't be more whatever stand out more than this girl just because she's hot I must not be [2:26:01] that fucking good. I think of it in terms of effectiveness. Like if a girl is really hot and she's got big tits and camera butt, she's also a beast and she's out there really killing a lot of things. Okay, that's not very many. Right. So what are you worried about? I'm not. I know, but a lot of guys were. But like what are you worried about? They're not effective. Like if there There's a girl that's hot and she gets on stage and she's bombing all the time. No one's like, yeah, she's gonna be up there because she's hot. You don't care. If she's bombing, if someone bombs all the time, you're like, oh, get away from me. You don't wanna be around them. It's contagious. If someone's good, like Whitney Cummings. Whitney Cummings is hot, but she's also really fucking funny. And so when Whitney's just a real comic, when we're around Whitney, no one thinks, oh, here's that hot chick that's just like, it's just like, oh, it's Whitney, what's up? It's like, she's one of us, but she also is hot. It's hard to be that person. It's very fucking rare, but it's doable. [2:27:00] But she had to go through all these ladders to get there because it's preconceived notions when you see a woman go on stage You like immediately Mo a lot of men. I've been guilty of it. You know what are the odds? She's funny. She's too hot It's like almost immediately they can't have at all What's not so you think like what how did she ever like Richard hit a Christopher Hitchens rather wrote a long piece for vanity fair ones called women aren't funny. I remember that. It was brilliant. He was so fucking smart. Who wrote that? Christopher Hitchens. Because he could attack things from a level of intellectual introspection. He has looked at this in a way, like analyze his own thoughts on funny, how he feels, how other people feel. He broke it down so clearly that like female comics really couldn't even say anything about it, because what he was saying was true. He was like the ones that are funny are kind of daiky. They're kind of like, you know, like this the most. [2:28:00] And he's like, no, I'll go back to attacking religion and other safe subjects. But there's, you know, it's that thing. It's like why do, why are men funny? More men are funny for a lot of reason to impress women. That's how they learn to do it to impress their friends. Like it's a part of the natural banter that men have when they get together. Women don't necessarily have that same banter, some do, but most don't necessarily have that same banter, some do, but most don't. And women don't have to be funny to attract men. They just have to look good. So they think they're funny because guys are laughing at anything because they want to sleep with them. They're like, oh, you're so funny. I remember when we were young, someone pointing out that for a girl to say a guy was nice is not good. Oh, right. They're like, dude, she said you're nice. They're like, if she says that he's funny, that's a real good sign. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's true. Because you know what, the nice thing. There's less funny women, but the women that are funny, I respect the shit out of them. Because it's so hard to do, especially first of all, subject matters limited because nobody wants to see a woman talking about politics on stage very [2:29:08] few men want to see a woman with like very strong political opinions on the other fuck up they get mad and then if you talk about sex you talk about sex too much I'll just what this all these thoughts that that's always struck me as an unfair thing is how much guys get uncomfortable by that all totally unfair yeah totally unfair guys get real like all he did but it does create a a situation for a woman comic that if a woman comic can navigate that they become undeniable if you can navigate all those preconceived ideas that people have about you before you go on stage but yet you still succeed at making them laugh That's black belt shit. That's high-level comedy. That's what Whitney can do Yeah, you know she she pull I've seen people look at her when she gets on stage and they're like Yeah, yeah, she's hot and then and then she starts killing and they're like god damn it [2:30:01] She's fucking funny and then after a while you just give in. They're like, wow, she's fucking great. And then you're laughing, you just enjoy yourself. But it's much more complex. Whereas a fat guy gets on stage and he's already funny. It's funny, looking. Big fat, stupid looking guy. And he starts talking about himself being fat. And then you got a lot of leeway. A lot of the way. Yeah. You know, I want to return to for a minute, you talk about after, you know, comics being in the green room, workshop and if in Colorado, they lose this bailed initiative about hunting bobcats and hunting mountain lions around this definition of trophy hunting. And America's hunters get together in the green room and workshop what went wrong. Yeah. I think they're going to determine that what went wrong is not identifying with and fighting for people who are engaged in activity that a specific segment of the activity that you're [2:31:04] not engaged with. Right. And needing to come into the awareness that like this, as this plays out, this will get around to impacting you. Yes. But you have to have that ability to do that. This is going to get around. This is like the next thing that comes up is gonna be something that is gonna like strike at you near and dear It's gonna be Bow hunting is cruel unnecessarily cruel. Right. Yeah I was there are people that have that perspective that are fonters. Yeah, and then they're gonna then you're gonna be like you're gonna freak out Yeah, yeah, and they start coming this is going too far Yeah, yeah, then you'll be you'll be the one that you ignored when other, you'll be ignored when other traditional use practices were getting eliminated because it didn't affect you and then now here it is on your doorstep. There's also a thing about hunters where they're competitive in a different way than like saying comparison to stand-up comics [2:32:02] because stand-up comics, you have that audience to yourself. It's not like they killed the audience. The audience doesn't exist anymore. Like I had a great audience. I'd you kill them all, you fucking piece of shit. That's a good point. Now this is the other guy in the box. Yeah, but if you go to the mountains and you kill a 400 inch bull, like that's a 400 inch bull that's gone now. I can't kill that bull. Now, ah, he fucking kills all the big bulls. No bulls left. Audiences are always there. And the more comics that are really funny, the more it makes comedy grow, and you get more audiences. You're not assassinating them. Yeah, but you could be competing with them on any given night, though. Yeah. You're both in Toledo on Monday sort of but when it's your opportunity It's your opportunity and it's just your own shortcomings that are allowing you to fail in comparison to them It's not them doing something. It's not like they're yelling at you from the side of the stage trying to fuck up your routine You know I'm saying yeah, but it's like when you have your time. That's your time and that's yeah [2:33:02] I think you know with a bowl there's more bowls though You know it's not like there's a horn, but there's not a lot of 400 inch bowls No, and if you're a you're a public land hunter and there's a specific unit and there's you know You know it's allocated 150 tags for the specific unit and everybody's in there hiking out trying and one guy shoots this big-ass Bowl that's a big-ass bowl you're not going to be able to kill. And so there's a different level of competition because even though it's a renewable resource, it's a limited resource and there's also exceptional aspects of that resource, like an enormous animal, a very unusual rare outlier of an animal that if someone kills it, now you can't. So there's that competition and And then there's also the the fucking dick measuring thing where guys are taking gripping grins. You know, one of the things is really disturbing to me is the numbers thing. You know, I was talking to friend of mine who was a guide and he was furious because this guy who is this well-known hunter shot a mule deer, and it was a beautiful mule deer, but it was only 189 inches. [2:34:09] And he wanted a 190? He wanted 200 inches. And he didn't think of it as like, it's just a buck, it's just a buck. And this guy was like, I would cut off my left nut to shoot that fucking buck. And this guy is this rich famous hunter who goes in and he's complaining about it. He's not even appreciating this thing. Oh, it's a buck. Just a buck. That's a giant buck. It's a giant old, seven, eight year old deer. That's a giant. Yeah, but it's funny. I'll get something. I have a lot of stuff that I've never measured, never will. I got a really nice moose this year. I don't even, I don't know in measures. I should say no one. Pretty much no one measures moves. You tell about how wide there and you leave it at that. But I will have stuff for now and then someone's like, around me that likes to do that. And I'd like to measure that thing. I'll just curious about it. It's like I don't hate the, it's a plain reference. Yeah, I don't hate the it's a pointer reference. Yeah, I don't hate the number system I get curious by like I'm curious about all aspects of all all aspects of hunting and wildlife and and the boon and [2:35:12] Crocus system is of interest to me I don't even die by it. You know, I'm at times I'm not curious what that is, but if someone shot a real stomper I might be like What is that dude? Like, what did a tape put into you? That's what I do too. I don't necessarily care about what, if I kill something just because I just was there. Mature animal. I'm not thinking about is this 400, is this one anything? And I said this the other day and talking to Waddle, it's like, people talk about that you get great opportunities to hunt. I mean, that's just all there is to it. But I said, Joe, I've never heard Joe talk about a score of something or he didn't want to kill it because I said he doesn't care. There's been one ant word elk that he's like, he would kill it, right? I would try to. [2:36:00] Yeah, and you're fine with it. You're fine with it. but like, I don't care. I'm gonna eat that. Right. And he's a big bull. I think it's kind of cool when they have broken out. Right, so it doesn't bother me at all. People will take shots at you because you killed a giant bull and this and that and they've been hunting their whole lives. It's like, you don't give a fuck. You just love hunting. And like, that's the truth. People can turn it into whatever they want. Yeah. They're wrong. I'm like Daniel Boone, man. I go to the best hunting place I can go. Yeah. Yeah. You should. Like I don't know many people that, yeah. I don't know many people that they said like, hey man and we found this sweet spot, but then we got to think that we should actually go to a family vacation in the shitty spot. Yeah. Well, it's also all the, it's the same thing that we're talking about with jealousy. If those people have the resources that I have, and if you didn't do what I do, you're a moron. You don't go to the places where there's elk screaming all over the place. It's awesome. Yeah, I'm always looking for good opportunity. I mean, I'll take the shitty ones too, because I'm looking to get out all the time. [2:37:06] So I'll take the shitty ones, I'll take the good ones, but I'm gonna generally, like if I get to, if I'm at a fork in the trail, and one side is like good and one side's bad, I'm going up the good one. A hundred percent of the time. Yeah. it's just a resource thing. You know, like, do you have the ability to do that? If you don't, you might criticize people to do. Oh, ever since I was a little kid, we went to the way I think I did the best thing, you know, I did, I went to the best spot I could get my best fish and hole always. But I first. Yeah, I mean, you're right. It's a resource thing because when I started where I killed that spike bowl that I talked about earlier that was Warehouse or timber company land anybody could go there Everybody could go there freaking hard hunting to kill a bowl with a bow so hard up there That was as tough as it got right so then I'm like well God we could go to the wilderness [2:38:03] It's more open. It's on the east side of the state where I was hunting the west side of the state. The bulls are more vocal, it's the high country, that's better hunting. God, but that cost, we gotta drive all the way, eight hours across the state, we need gas money, we need food when we're there, we're not just going home every night, but it was better hunting. Then it was like, shit, Oregon. Oregon sucks hunting wise compared to other states. It's like, I wonder if I could hunt Wyoming, put in for a general tag and Wyoming, drew it, killed a six by six bowl. Next time I drew it, killed a seven by six. I'm like, God, this is so much better than Oregon, but it's $1,100 for this premium alchac that I was putting in for. Got to work a little harder. Got to come up with some more resource. You said it's a resource that you're allocating. Worked a little harder. That was better hunting. It's just that process. I started with the shittiest hunt you can get and the shittiest state to hunt basically maybe Washington's about it. No, my state was way shit. You're in your state. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [2:39:07] So you keep working for these. Don't you give me shit in your state. You're shit in Michigan. Michigan is out of season, but I had it quite good. I'm just joking with you. But that's how people think. No, it is true. You're right. But anyway, the point is, it's like, you keep working, you keep moving up the ladder to get to better hunting. Yeah. Now, it crosses the line. And I do understand when people are killing high fence animals in small properties, and they're making it look like this is a wild animal. Yeah. There comes a line, and that line gets crossed all the fucking time right here in Texas. Yeah, I don't like it. Because I know a guy who has a 200 acre high fence property. And I'm like, ooh, I'm gonna go there. That's rough, dude. I can't go there. If you have a 15, 20,000 acre high fence property, [2:40:02] I'm like, okay, what are the odds those animals, unless it's a mule deer, it's a migratory animal. What are the odds those animals would ever get out of that 15,000 acres in their normal natural life? As long as you're not feeding them, if you're not like, like I'm standing over a feeder waiting for them to show up at 5 p.m., as long as it's not that, it's just hunting. And when people start talking about private land versus public, I understand the appeal and I understand that public land should be available to everybody and I agree. And I think it's an amazing thing that we have in America. Well, we have these resources where any person can go to a place where you can get a general tag and go to public land and hunt. I think it's amazing. But you're also dealing with animals that are acting in a very unnatural way because they're highly pressured. So if you have a lot of hunters and a lot of pressured animals, you're dealing with an animal that's not acting like a wild animal. You're dealing with something that's being constantly harassed. And that to me is unnatural. Well, then you get in like a history debate because you're on landscape that have been haunted. [2:41:05] But I would agree that high pressure absolutely changes everything about how they conduct their business. You're also competing with other guys, like I've talked to guys that have had situations where they know that they are downwind or they're upwind rather, their wind is going to come down on an animal, but they see someone stalking that animal and they try to get to it first. And they know they're going to bust it. They know it and they don't give a f***. They would rather bust it than have the other guy kill it. Yeah, that's tough for them. They know to take a chance and there's so many morons that are doing it. I think the best case scenario is human beings interacting with absolutely wild animals in a way where these animals are acting as natural as they would be as if human beings didn't exist. That's best case scenario. And if you can get to the most remote places, [2:42:01] that's where you can get that. In the most wild places. I will say your example about, you didn't want somebody else to kill us or you can go down. I've probably done that before. It's like, when I was, when I was honey, it's like every man for himself. Yeah. I've raised people. I mean, I've also backed out of race. Yeah. It just felt too weird. I'm like, yeah, I'm not I felt, it just felt too weird. No, I'm not gonna do this. Because I remember, here's how much I wanted to protect my, in that same logging country, I would go out and the road would end maybe, I don't wanna drive out to the logging unit because that's gonna spook all the deer, especially in the headlights before it's, you know, light and you're out there waiting. So I'd park like half a mile back and walk out there. But I didn't want anybody else driving out there. So I'd park in the middle of the road sideways, leave my truck there. It's like, I'm not saying you can't come out there, but you're not driving. People, people lost their shit. I mean, I would hear gunshots going off of my truck and I'm like, are they shooting my truck? You know, you know, or are they gonna shoot me? So I did a lot of this crazy stuff. [2:43:07] I mean, I'm very competitive. I did want to also clarify one point because you said animals on 15,000 acres you know, wouldn't be reacting, they wouldn't know they were an offense type thing. Because I've seen people say crazy shit about, or our hunting, but the bulls you kill are not an offense. I've never because i've seen people say crazy shit about uh... or hunting but you the bulls you kill are not in a fence i've never been in a fence and always been fair chase always been i've even said all of these bulls run beta blockers uh... some crazy bull shit beta blockers beta blockers so on bulls i'm to limit their i had a dream i don't know what the hell it do so i guess i guess i don't, hall leads can't use them. And there's, there's sort of not scared. Yeah, it kills your adrenaline. So like, people say crazy shit. I don't want them turning in that you were validating a big high fence area. No, I've never done that. No, so the bulls you're hunting are wild, fair chase, there's predators around, there's lions, there's bears, there's, [2:44:06] I mean, this is wild elk. So I just wanna make that clear because people say, they say crazy shit. Maybe even 15,000 acres is not a good example. So let's say like the four six ranch that my friend Taylor shared in notes, it's 270,000 acres. Wow. Yeah. Really? He doesn't fence that. Wow. Yeah. Really? Yeah. He doesn't fence that. No. God, that would be a lot of money in a few. Be a lot of a chance. But even if he did, you know, that's like the fuck. Yeah. Like that's where they live. Yeah. You just put a fence to keep other people from going in. Really not, you're not stopped. That's like whole country. You could look at it that way. But I've never done it. And I've never done it. And I've had like occasion to debate people about it. But it's not like maybe I used to be a little friskier about arguing about all the finer points, but it's just it's, [2:45:02] I haven't done it. I just don't really think about it, you know what I mean? It's not the same thing. When I talk to guys who hunt out here, and most of them are pretty honest about it, the way they do it, like the hunt over feeders, you're just not people that hunt a lot, they don't practice a lot, but when they get a chance, it's essentially like a kind of harvesting animals. It's almost like a type of farming. Because if you're hunting over a feeder and they'll put you in a tree stand and say, all right, the feeder goes off at five o'clock. You're like, what? It's a collision of animal. It's a collision of husbandry and animal husbandry. Of hunting an animal husbandry where you're using the sort of harvest tactics of hunting, but you're employing a lot of the principles of animal husbandry. Yeah, it's not the same thing. It's not going into the mountains. Like we do, we're hunting in Utah or you're going to Colorado. You're going in the mountains. Yeah, well, there's a wild animals, they're unfenced. And to that point, it's not guaranteed. I mean, when we were there this last season, great, it's a great property. I mean i nobody could argue that it's incredible alkanne but there was hunters the week where there who didn't kill the week [2:46:08] after we were there seven guys did not kill well the week where they're only three did so only three guys people both people make it sound like it's just shooting fish in a barrel and guaranteed a hundred percent it's like how many hunters were there the week where there? I'm not sure. There was, there had to be 30. I don't know, it's a big piece of property. And it's fucking hard, man. And you gotta be in shape. Yeah. You gotta be in the reels. Miles. Ten miles a day. Ten miles a day through the mountains. The end of the day, you're fucking exhausted, you're eating everything you can get in your face. You're so tired. And then you get up in the morning and you're doing it again. And the idea that somehow another that's cheating. You go think that if you like. But if you do it, you go there, you won't think that. You go there, you're like, oh, this is just an amazing opportunity in a beautiful landscape where wild animals live, unmolested. [2:47:06] You know, they're still lions there. I mean, the one that we saw. Yeah. Those are the first time I've ever saw a full grown big ass cat in the wild. It's like, wow. I got to watch one miss a deer down in Mexico this year. It was really cool. Oh wow. Yeah. Watch them come in. It was a doe. She was traveling, I watched him come in ahead of her and he kept looking down and trying to guess her trajectory and got laid down and then mister. Did he go after her? Oh yeah, yeah. Like he couldn't, I mean, it was like a ball of fur, dude, and she comes squirt. Well, I'm saying I'm kind of simplifying it where there was a fork yet. I didn't know about and she got up right next this forkey and then the line blew out It kind of first tried to roll that forky and Then sort of spraying out of that and tried to get the dough But it's like he was he was flockshootin [2:48:02] You probably if you ask him he probably had a target. But man, it ran like hell. Little school of seed. He does a second line. I saw that night. Yeah. That was a rarity. Yeah. When I was in Colorado this year, in the week that I was there, I killed a bullbuck in a bear in that week. I saw four lions. Hmm. So many lions in that kind of that's a lifetime supply for seeing them without dogs. It's it was insane, but it's Yeah, I was gonna say that story reminded me of you said the flock shooting I remember this old guy who'd come back from to hunting cap and I first started. He's like you see anything He's like yeah, yeah Saw got on a good herd. I said you get a shot. He's like, yeah, yeah, what happened? He's like well I shot over some and a shot under some I could just envision that there's a herd and Trying to get an arrow in one of them, but uh, yeah, it's uh you imagine being a Native American with a fucking [2:49:04] Handmade bow Chasing after those things. I bet shit didn't spook 200 yards away back It's you imagine being a Native American with a fucking handmade bow Chasing after those things. I bet shit didn't spook 200 yards away back That it yeah, that's true. Yeah, we know that I the first I'm trying to think man the first three or so dear I got I got on on when I was a kid I killed first year and else 13 the first three or so dear. I got I got all on private property And then I killed I went into the white river, kind of the, we just called the white river swamp, but down on National Forest Land and killed a fawn, one October with my bow. And you didn't hear people, like people didn't celebrate public land hunting then. It was like you're slum in it You were there because you couldn't get a no farmer was gonna let you didn't know any farmers Right, you know if you went out on public land in Michigan and you went to anybody that was on public land And said hey, you got a hunt like the farm over there No one is like out of principle by God. I'm staying here. They would just they would go to the farm [2:50:04] but out of principle by God, I'm staying here, they would just, they would go to the farm. But when I did get that fawn deer, which I killed over a bait pile in the White River swamp, it felt good, man. Like, you know what I mean? I was aware of having did this thing that I would have, to have and did this thing that I would have regarded as almost like semi-impossible, right, you know, to pull that did this thing that I would have regarded as almost like semi impossible right, you know to pull that off I have a deep respect for people that can shoot mature animals on public hand That is very hard to do and it's very I mean I and I get that you would have a higher sense of pride I I totally get it. I've gotten a vote. I've gotten a handful. I've gotten like four big me older I've gotten like four big Milder, nice Milder, I've never killed a Milder on private property. And I got four good Milder on public property. And like that, like I can't deny that that sort of means of thing to me. [2:51:01] Yeah. You know, not that I wouldn't, like if someone tomorrow, if I drew some tag and some area and some guys like, oh, my ranch, I'd go hunt their ranch all day long. But it just, it sort of like happens that that's true and I don't look at it and think differently of it. The same way all kinds of factors plan to it. But every year, like I've gotten some big coosier and I've never got all the coosier I've killed on big private ranches in Mexico. Um, I've set for Arizona, but gotten nice to your big private ranches in Mexico and love the experience. It's, I like all, I mean, I'm into all that stuff, man. Yeah. I get why people would think a certain way because it's very similar in a lot of ways to bow hunting versus rifle hunting. Yeah. A little bit more. If you see someone that kills a big bull with a rifle, they're like, yeah, that's a big bull, man, that's awesome. But if you see someone that kills a big bull with a bull, you're like, whoa, that's a bigger deal. And it feels way different. As someone who shot bulls with rifles and shot bull with a bow and arrow, you cannot compare. In my, the way it makes me feel when I make a perfect 52 yard shot and I [2:52:07] watched that arrow go into the crease behind the shoulder and you watch that bowl buck up and you know you got him you're like whoa it's like there's nothing like it there's nothing like it there's nothing I was hunting with Evan Hafer from Black Rifle Coffee this past October. We were both alkaning at this ranch. And I shot this bull and it was like on the fifth day of a six day hunt, it was a lot of up and there's a lot of fucking missed opportunities, a lot of getting winded, a lot of shit went down. But when I finally snuck in and it was a long ass stalk, it was like, it took me an hour and a half to cover about 40 or 50 yards because the elk was bedded and I was barefoot. I was in my socks and I was just slowly creeping. Slowly, and every time he'd move his head, I'd stop. And I was slowly creeping. When I finally [2:53:02] released that arrow, I hit that bowl and I heard that whack and the bowl literally ran 30, 40 yards and piled up. The woo that I let out, you could have heard it a fuckin' mile away. I, they heard it on the other side of the canyon. They were watching with binoculars and they heard, woo! Because it's so different. I shot it with a rifle, I'd still be pumped. It's a beautiful bowl, it's meat. I'm psyched, I got all this food now, this is incredible, this is what I wanted, this is what I was working for. But it's harder, it's harder to do on public land, it's harder to do with a bow. There's always little factors. Like any accomplishment, there's all these little factors that wind up, you know. Accentually elevating experience or some other thing. And then you get into where I'm at now in life where for me, the highest, like the most elevated experiences that have to witness my kids do something. And yeah, my kids hunting. [2:54:01] Yeah, well Cam always talks about that, like his favorite experiences, when he takes people for their first time. Like you were telling me that the time you took that woman. Yeah cat. Yeah. And she shot that deer and you guys are eating it like is it getting any better than this? No. You introduced something to this thing that you love you have deep passion for. They get to experience. You see them get lit up. I mean you've done that so many times. I'm sure I want I wanted to take Steve on that hunt. I think I mentioned that. Yeah, we did text about that. Yeah, that was I just. I missed out. You missed out. It's you're done. That's it. But no, I just, especially that one, because that's Oregon black tell, which I grew up hunting in Western Oregon. So I really love sharing, you know, the small little logging community, the badass logger there that are tough as hell. Just that little Western Oregon vibe. I love sharing that, but then she also killed a big four by four buck with the eye guards. Just this old big old buck and it was, then we, of course, packed it out as a steep log in unit, then we cooked it up the next morning. [2:55:01] It, definitely the highlight I killed quite a few animals this year, none better than that. That was the highlight. I didn't kill it. Yeah. But it was just that experience. It's, yeah, there's nothing, you know, in my kids, I took true it the same, he killed a buck down there too this year. So yeah, it's, you know, you get to where, and all I said, I was very competitive, very tunnel visioned. It was all about me. And that, you know, with age, that changes. And then you're like, no, I want to, I want to share this with people. Yeah. So it's, uh, well, if you don't do that, how are they going to find out? And one of the things that you've talked about so many times, Steve, is the barrier to entry. For someone who's like, they're thinking about hunting. Like, I thought about it for years. My wife used to go crazy because I would be at home watching the Spirit of the Wild. I thought she was like, what the fuck are you watching? Why are you watching Dead New Jit? And I'm like, I want to figure out how to do this someday. And then I want your show. KC plays, I got to be here, KC plays Fred Bear. Yeah, well First saw your original show, The Wow Within, right? That was what it was about. When I first saw that show, I was like, oh, I wanna talk to that guy. [2:56:06] And that was before, meat eater even started. And then when you invited me to come hunting with you, I was like, oh, finally, now I can figure this out. But if it wasn't for that, having something like you to show me how to do it and take me out and to have you be my guide like fuck what are the odds? I'll see people making like like young hunters or people to start And I'll see them make to see like horrible decisions, you know Yeah, we're like I think I'm growing up there in the morning and on one hand I'll I want to have feel like bad. I'll be like oh my god. It's a horrible idea. I never have like dude. Yes Like that's all the stuff that you, like that I had to do when I was figuring anything out. Like, hands off to you, dude. You're gonna get up and go, like you don't know it, but you're getting up early, you're gonna go try something. I recognize that that's the dumbest thing you could possibly do, but like that's how you do it, man. That's how you learn. So that barrier to entry, like some people have the mental fortitude, well they're just going [2:57:06] to take it on. And then some people are going to sit and be like, yeah, I'm not, you know, I don't have it in me to really figure this hard ass thing out. Well, until you've experienced success, it's very difficult to justify the work. And if it seems insurmountable, and for a lot of people that don't have someone like you or someone like you taking them out, it's almost insurmountable. And for a lot of people that don't have someone like you or somebody you taking them out, it's almost insurmountable because there's so many things you have to learn. It's not intuitive. It's something that you have to figure out through trial and error. We have to read a lot or watch a lot of videos and absorb all that information. Yeah, mostly it's you have to learn it yourself. Yeah, because you can read reading helps, watching helps, talking helps. You just got, just as you said, that's how they learn. They get out there, they do it themselves, and then they're like, well, that didn't work. Now what? And that's how you learn. That's what's hard about hunting with that barrier to entry is that experience accumulates slow [2:58:01] for most people. When I was hunting back home, I would get a week for elk. That's all, so a week a year. And that's it. So I had to go out take photos, try to be out there amongst them, learn body language, learn what they like to do. And that takes years. So when somebody comes in late, yeah, they can't shortcut that experience part. We were lucky to grow up doing it and now we're in a position where we can share it. But it's tough if you didn't grow up doing it. Yeah, there's a few places people will teach you how to do it. You know, Jesse Griffiths has that school. What is it called? The new school style. What is it? What is it again? His school. He has a literal like limited. It's not the new school, but that's in it. Yeah, so he has Jamie pulled up, but he has a program where I'll take you. He'll teach you how to shoot. He'll teach you how to hunt. It teach you how to butcher. Teach you how to cook. The whole thing. I'll take you through the whole process. That's so valuable. Have there something that you can do and especially with a renewable resource like pigs? [2:59:01] Yeah. New school of traditional cooking. That's right. And I mean, it's like a somewhat contradictory, yeah. New school of traditional cooking. But that's so valuable, where someone can take you through the whole process. And there's not a lot of that available, unfortunately. And even if it was available, it would be very difficult to screen applicants to make sure that it's even worth taking your time. Because if you got a guy and, you know, he's 50, 60 pounds overweight and got a bad knee and you want to take him in a mule deer hunt in the mountains. Like, we can't really do this. Like, you're going to have to lose weight. You're going to have to get in shape. You're going to have to figure out don't think everyone needs to get there. There's an area of expertise or a level of expertise that I think is admirable. And it's, you know, you learn how to hunt some particular spot. And that's great, right? Like you learn how to hunt some particular spot and that's your hunting spot and you get it really figured out and that's a wonderful journey and that's really good. I think that getting to the point where you get that place and thing that you're comfortable at [3:00:10] and then you go and be like, okay, I'm gonna take whatever it is I learned there and try to apply it to something totally different and figure that different thing out. Right. And get where you're good at these spots and these things, but you become good at like deciphering, figuring out and being able to move into totally new things and carry that accumulative knowledge into these new spots, like that becomes pretty fun. Yeah. And that's a high, I regard that as being not better, but a high level of expertise. Well, there's also variables that maybe some people that are successful in other disciplines don't recognize as they enter into this new world that there's different parameters. Like for instance, if you got someone who's a successful white tail hunter that hunts out of a tree stem, a really good archer, [3:01:01] but they're used to shooting a 65 pound bow with like a 350 grain arrow and they're used to shooting these animals that are fairly small and then you take them on an elk hunt. And you're like, hey, that's set up with this three blade mechanical with a 60 pound bow. And you're shooting a fucking enormous animal with huge bones. Like you might not even get through the ribs with that thing. You might center a rib and that's huge bones. Like you might not even get through the ribs with that thing. You might center a rib and that's a wrap. Like you have to recognize you're dealing with a totally different thing. And you're not, you can't just be weak. You have to be physically strong. You have to be capable of making it to, you're not gonna sit in a tree stand. Like you've got to change everything about the way you approach it. Yeah, you got very successful with this one aspect of this thing, but you've got a whole new thing now you have to apply it to. And if you don't, you're gonna wound animals. You're gonna have problems, or you're gonna just not be successful at all. I remember the first time I went out of the guy deep drop in for swordfish, so I watched a guy [3:02:00] catch a couple swordfish in 1300 feet of water. And I realized I knew nothing about fish. And I mean, that's so specific. Oh my God, man. Like all the shit you think you know that you go out there, do you like you're not gonna catch a fish out here? You can't do that. Well, nowadays with fishing, you know, Steve, I sent you that thing the other day where the guy had a screen on his phone, and there was some sort of a camera attached to his line. Oh, that guy, yeah, that was crazy. Wild. So this guy cast out, and he's looking at a screen with like a little or a dishealed the sun on his rod as he's really seeing the fish coming towards his bait. Yeah, not like ice fishing with the camera, but he's like, he has a camera on a, he's casting and has a camera watching fish interact with his bait while he does a retrieve. Huh. Yeah. I never seen that before. I was like, this is great. [3:03:00] But the things that are sent you, the ice fishing guys, they're nuts, man. They got fucking cameras down there and like a fully heated shack where they're watching television. I was telling you, my kid don't want an ice fish without the camera. Well, it's an added element. You see the fish, like this is so cool. You can watch them sneak up to it. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it reminds me there's something new in hunting now, which I, I don't like. But it's at the heat seeking binoculars. I think it's heat seeking. Oh, thermal, thermal, yeah, thermals. And to me, I don't, you can't use it for big game hunting. No, it's not, there's some states where it's not regulated. It's not regulated. They don't even mention it. No, no, no, you can't. Well, yeah, you can't get outside illegal shooting hours. No, but to find out. Oh, I see what you're saying. Are there states where you allow to find game with thermal? I think it's not, it's just not disallowed. Yeah. I got it. It's not addressed. Well, there's an issue now where they're banning drones that use thermal for recovery. But I don't like [3:04:06] because your scout, the argument is your scout, of course, you could be if you're a piece of shit. But like what guys could conceivably do like an Oregon, as I've talked about in Western Oregon, glassing those big huge logging units and finding deer is an art. I mean, it is hard to pick those things up. But if you could just put, you know, and find the thermal register of it. Sure. They're, oh, it's right there, you know, and that's like a big part of killing a buck. I don't like that. That needs to be regulated. Yeah, honest was just hunting in Latvia. And in Latvia, they get out in a clear cut, mill the day, whatever. They're gonna get out in a clear cut and put a thermal up and be like, nope, hop back in the car and roll out. Yeah, I don't know. And he's like, I can't believe you guys can, you know, I can't believe you guys do that. Like I can't believe you don't do it. Yeah. Right, it works, stupid. Yeah, I, well, I was in Scotland. Uh, there's Stag where we were at. I was ranch out there and they said do you want a hunt and I said do you guys yours rifles and [3:05:05] he goes yeah I go can you use a bow can I bring a bow and they go no we don't allow it in the country I don't like what yeah like you don't allow can you watch me shoot first like let me talk to the governor you set up a target at 80 yards and show you like this is I know what I'm doing, like let me do this. You can't. Yeah, I think was it South Africa. There was like quite a lobbying effort to allow archery equipment. Really? Wow. Yeah, there's some countries over there that didn't have it. I don't, I think Ted Newge was involved in something about having to show the how lethal it was before they were allowed. It was a lethality concern. Yeah. And I don't know what it was for. I don't know if it's for elephant or something like that. But is that always the case when people just don't know and you think of a bow and arrow? [3:06:00] You're like, well, that sounds like a user gun stupid. You know, so much more effective. You know, when I have that conversation with people that are non-hundreds and they're like, why do you use a bow and arrow? I go, that says, you're more connected. It's quiet. It's like there's so many things about it that are just, it's more difficult to do. It requires more discipline and concentration. It's more rewarding when you do it. The isn't a rifle better though. Oh yeah. Why don't you try to get meat? Yes. Why do you support spear hunting? Like I have no, I have no, I have zero problem. Zero problem with spear hunting. I don't think it's gonna be a thing to impact game numbers. Impossible. I 100% support it with pigs. But I think that when someone does it, I feel that if you had a regulation I feel that That if if if someone wanted to say we'd like to open it up that people could hunt with a spear I would probably generally say okay I just cuz I don't think that this is gonna be a thing that Reduces opportunity. Well, you know you remember the thing that happened in Canada [3:07:01] John Fomar they banned spear hunting because this one controversial moment where it was totally legal. Everything he did was totally legal. Yeah. And they said just the thing no one realized. Because there's things that are legal and they're legal because they're not illegal. Right. Right. That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to hunt with a spear, but I get it. But I always feel like it's a gimmick. Like when I see someone hide into tree and they spear a pig. They're showing that it can be done. Yeah, it's kind of a gimmick. I haven't done it. I wouldn't, can't picture getting into it by any stretch, but I just don't think it, I think it hits like traditional for sure. And then I think it's not like I don't think it's gonna throw off population levels and and lead to like decreased opportunity. No, I don't think he was gonna be like the spear guys got them all right They got the all the big bulls because they get hide and trees. Yeah, I mean even if they wouldn't have made it illegal who the hell was going to spear hunt a bear said Josh up there right it's less it was just it it [3:08:08] it's a real psycho it caused such a stir that they had to address it yeah so it's uh but yeah I wasn't going to have an impact on the population well it's it caused a stir because it was discussed publicly and it was like it was a social media thing and it gets into this weird area where, you know, some people have a really hard time with people exploiting hunting on social media because they say that you're kind of like bastardizing this beautiful thing and you're making it just like showing things on Instagram. Just like all the other things that you show off on Instagram, your private jet or your big house Yeah, I'm fucking yachts and shit like you're you're making you're cheapening this This beautiful moment when I was kid you had to go down to the local sporting good store and staple your picture up to the brag board Yeah, other community brag board and you had to go down there to see what always happened [3:09:02] Well, it's essentially just a limited version of what Instagram is, but it's a global brag board. Yeah, but that's the thing too. It's you're not getting people that come into that local sporting goods store that don't understand. Yeah, that's great. No, I think that is a big deal because I think in a big deal in that we need to think about how we're presenting things. You know, wherever, if you're down at the local sporting, if that's only hunters pretty much seeing that. Just like when you'd write an article like when I wrote for Easton's Journal or whatever, that was just hunters or if you're an outdoor channel, it's just, no, nobody besides hunters is watching that. Now everybody's on social media. So I think we just need to be very cognizant of what we're putting up there. Will you do a fantastic job of that? And you have a very specific protocol you follow. You know, will you show photos of the hunt, then you show the meat. You know, you show harvesting the meat, cleaning the meat, and then eventually you'll show a photo of the animal that you killed. [3:10:00] Sometimes I don't even do that. Sometimes I just show the whatever, just because the gripping grins for some people, and I have a lot of people that follow that don't hunt, they have a hard time with those pictures. And I'm just like, I get it. Whatever, you haven't grown up around this. I have to me and people like me, this is part of it, but I understand. I've never had anybody get mad at me for cooking in Elk State. Exactly. And it's just not gonna happen. So it's just like, do we need to put the grip and grin it up? I mean, is it necessary? I don't care if people do it. I just want them to think about what they're saying when they put it up, how they do it to me. I lead up to it. I show the country, the animals, the journey, like on this lion hunt. I actually also showed a lion killed a beef calf. Didn't eat any of it because if they killed it in the creek, the lion wasn't big enough to drag it out of the creek. So they left it and went and killed an elk. [3:11:02] That's interesting. Followed the tracks for three miles and I would see the lion go and Was sitting behind a tree all the deer tracks are there so The lion was hunting could and I shared all that that's all part of the journey. That's all the cool stuff people So I say share things like that and also you can share your kill shot. It's great It's also sure what else stood out from the hunt? There's also a problem with hunting TV shows in that you're condensing something that might be seven days of 10 hour days. In 22 minutes. Yeah. And then, speedball. And then you want to pick that you want to pick to enter asking 22 minutes. Yeah. It's like you randomly pull out segments out of your $100 footage. Right. Yeah. I think it's, that's been a big benefit to tell more of the journey now that, you know, Steve's on YouTube. His videos on YouTube have tons of views. So he's able to explain why the hunt's important, what stood out to you. It's more intellectual approach to it. [3:12:00] Whereas you didn't really have time on an outdoor channel show. Well, it's time to get into that. Some of my favorite shows of yours are Meteor, you're unsuccessful. And I love that you have those. You know, I remember that one where you're getting real introspective about your father. That's like one of my favorite episodes you ever did. And it was just you unsuccessful hunting. And it's like, yeah, that's also a part of it. Like this is not easy. And it's often unsuccessful. And I was always, you know, and was always, am always bummed and not get something too. Like I'm trying, but we'd be, you know, back in the early days, we were making 16 shows. So you weren't gonna, you know, if you weren't spent a week busing your ass, you didn't get something. It wasn't the option, wasn't there to ditch it. We were gonna make something out of it. And in the end, that was great. Glad we did it. But I've never gone in the woods hoping to be unsuccessful. It definitely happens. [3:13:00] But I always wished it was otherwise. Of course. Yeah. But it's just the editing it down to 22 minutes. It gives people that are on the outside a completely different perspective. They think it's so easy. Well, you just go, I mean, how many times have you heard that? If you're a real man, you know, you'd go the hunt it with a knife or something like that. Something stupid. Oh, what a coward. You're shooting it from a distance with a rifle and in that 22 minutes to there's also sponsor Obligations when it's on TV so it's not even 22 minutes of hunting You know you have to have the this tips and tactics brought you by Ozilor right right right so it's like you get down to the hunt You can't really say why the hunt is important to you almost it's like it doesn't give you time to Develop that story so we've it's a big benefit to us. It was social media now. We're not, we don't need approval by an editor. We don't need the channel to approve how long this thing is. We put it on YouTube and then we can tell the story of the hunt in a more [3:14:00] honest and relatable fashion, hopefully, and explain why it's difficult and people understand it What kind of restrictions is YouTube put on hunting videos now because I know that you can push it a little far and get dinged What is it pushing far the the kill shot? It's a blinds a being no like blood and and Skinning shots and you kind of graphic like we know we got the first ding you hit is you had a demonetization thing Right, and then you can hit all their levels of dings and there's like a little scorecard, but oddly Doing a neat we had something like just a couple examples of doing a knee-cropsy on something Just you graphic organs things like that, just assembly, that'll get you dinged. You can get demonetization. I believe there's levels of demonetization you can get around certain firearms issues, but the primary thing is just like gore, right? [3:15:02] But even put in terms of a knee-cropsy you so I'm sure at some level it's like, I'm sure it begins as a AI thing, right? Scouring all this footage and find something that's like bloody and graphic and at some level it gets elevated. We've argued and gotten our stuff back. If you can get someone's ear and you can get it tested by a person and gotten it back. you know, if you can get someone's ear and you can get it tested by a person and got in the back. But that is the primary thing is, is, is, is gore. There was talk of them eliminating kill shots. I haven't, that, that could be hadn't heard that. I remember, I think that I got rescinded, but I think there were some issues. Uh, here it goes. You, you can turn on ads for this content hunting content where there's no depiction of graphic animal injuries or prolonged suffering hunting videos where the moment of kill or injury is indesernable and no focal footage of how this dead animal is processed for trophy or food purposes boy that's pretty fucking limited yeah well like for for me I had I had one that was limited in age restriction. So People 18 and under couldn't watch it. Was it a fire arms and fraction or no? [3:16:09] No, no, no, it's just archery, but and I don't monetize any of my hunting videos because I just don't even want to deal with Oh, you're killing for fucking profit or whatever the hell so I'm like I don't even I don't make anyone You don't turn monetization out not for hunting I do it for my lift run shoot and my podcast. But for just the hunting, I'm not meant. That's a good way to. But I still got that age restriction because of they said the Gore, then there was an outfit that, what's his name, Jason? I think sportsman's alliance maybe. But anyway, they wrote, they appealed it for me. They got it in touch with YouTube and appealed their decision and got it overturned. So they, for people like me, they, or for like us creators, they will go to, go to, go to bat for us and. Yeah, oftentimes I've seen cases. [3:17:01] I remember our senator and our,, Montana, got dinged on one of the social media platforms for having like a picture of him and his wife with a pronghorn and his account got taken down. In a minute, humans became aware of this. They're like the right humans became aware of this. They did like a very quick reversal. So the way the way we'll generally look at it with putting up video content is we'll try to avoid demonetization being demonetization, you cross some line, right? But the thing is I haven't found it to be like, it's not like an owner's process. I feel that it's pretty, if you compare it to other channels of distribution, I have not found YouTube to be dramatically overrestrictive, especially compared to any kind of, [3:18:02] especially compared to any kind of like network parameter. Right, no. They're not, they might be bad, Especially compared to any kind of like network parameter. They're not, they're not, they might be bad, but they're not bad compared to anybody else. And that one, that was Jason Quick who helped me with that. I just remembered his last name. But that one I showed, I killed this bull on San Carlos and I think I showed the lungs or where the arrow hit. You know, and that's And that's what got it. And it wasn't, once I appealed it myself, they said no, we're upholding the restriction. And then they did get it overturned, it took. So it took a couple of times, but still is reasonable. And they took, they had age restrictions on other ones I didn't even know about, but I didn't notice that the viewership was down. And so that, they lifted all those. It's kind of a weird situation where, although there are many, many video platforms, YouTube essentially has an overwhelming majority of people into the point where it's almost a monopoly. [3:19:02] And if you have things like that that are very valuable to people, I want to see where the arrow hits Yeah, I I like when I see blood pouring out of an animal because I know that that's a lethal shot That's what you want like that it might be graphic to some people But if I I see a rage hit behind the shoulder on a deer and I see that blood squirting out as soon as the deer starts moving, I'm like, that guy got that deer. That's a dead deer. That's what you want. It doesn't seem awful to me. It seems better because that's a lethal shot. That's a successful hunt. That's what you're trying to do. To pretend that's not what you're trying to do, boy, that seems insane. And if you're doing it only to protect the ignorant, that seems insane too. It's like you don't have to watch those videos. And if you're going to allow those videos on the platform, you should allow those videos to be a realistic depiction of what everybody's trying to do, [3:20:01] which is a lethal shot on an animal. And if you hit a lethal shot on an animal and you hit it in the vitals, and you use a strong arrow with a great broad head, you're gonna get blood squirting out of it because that's what you want. The last thing you wanna see is an arrow hit an animal and no blood comes out. I mean, and that's okay. Well, and meanwhile, they show people getting killed, I think, on YouTube, don't they? I do not know. But they shouldn't be in pull those, I think. They try to be injured. Yeah. Well, you see it on the war videos. You see it blocked out or obscured. Yeah. Some of the hunting networks used to have self-imposed restrictions that they felt were cleaning up hunting for the sake of non-hundreds looking in and it was counterproductive because they would have a restriction that they didn't want to see raw meat, they didn't want to see bare bone. [3:21:04] And so it created this sense of, like when I say counterproductive, if you were looking in and on it watching it, there was no acknowledgement of what happens to it later, which created the sense that maybe nothing. Right. And then that eventually corrected itself. And they're like, oh, some level of gore, right? In parentheses, like some level of gore is helpful in explaining the process. But the instinct early on, the instinct was to not have any of that. And people would get dinged for raw meat. They'd get dinged for like a bone sticking out of a backpack. One of the things that I really appreciated about your shows, particularly early on, is that you have a lot of segments where you cook the meat. And there's a lot of shows where they don't cook the meat. Those are trademark, dude. It's a big difference. Big difference, I mean, it's much more enjoyable. Like one of my favorite videos is you and you shot that black pair that the blueberries and you're watching, like you're you're explaining like look how purple this fat is because this thing's just been gorging on blueberries. Then you're cooking [3:22:08] it and eating it like that to me. It's like that's a full range of what the experience of hunting is about. I wish more people would do that. I find now looking back on those days it's like I sometimes look back and I'd be like it was just shocking that that wasn't shocking that that wasn't out there more. Yeah. At the time, you know, it was like, it's something like so simple and elemental. And it was just, uh, surprise people. It was almost non-existent. Yeah. Surprised people. On those outdoor channel shows, you'd need very, very rarely saw someone cooking the animals that they killed. It was, I think it was kind of assumed just because of how we grew up. And in magazines, they never talked about that. You never read an article where they talked about how they processed the meat or ate it. That have a recipe of finished, like a recipe with, you take out of the freezer, but there was an ignored part. [3:23:02] There was the old Fred Bear videos. You know, Fred Bear is making videos way before we ever started hunting. The meat was never shown. So it was just kind of like that's just how we could learn. Then Steve, brilliant idea, meat eater. Yeah. I mean, meat eater, right there. You got the fork, you got the forks on the frickin' mousse. Yeah. So it's like, that was the best decision ever because it addresses that part of it, which was kind of like, it's impressive that you foresaw what might be a challenge for us, explaining and hunting. So that was just like brilliant to come up with that. But to our defense, that was never a thing. We just knew, I mean, I read this old article, my first deer, I killed that spike that I said when I was 15, I wrote this little thing for the school newspaper and said I got 37 pounds of hamburger from it. And I don't know why because I don't know why I said that school newspaper. Yeah, yeah, because nobody ever talked about it, [3:24:03] but it was like, that's hilarious. Yeah, it was funny. I said something like, my mom was happy because you got 37 pounds. It's probably all we got off that deer. It's pretty small. Yeah. But yeah, so I mean, it's a, yeah, it has changed. It certainly opens people's eyes up that are non-hunters, and it's, I think it's a very valuable addition to this whole video depiction of what hunting is all about. You know, and also you're a really good cook. So you would get like really like involved to make some pretty cool recipes. And you know, you cook for your staff and you've got episodes like that. We cooked all these different preparations of different wild game. It's cool. Yeah. It adds to it. Oh,hmm. No, I think you appreciate it. Well listen, let's wrap it up. Let's bring this bad boy home. Medi-diers available. It's essentially only on on now, right? Yep. Yeah. Well, we have, you know, like the fast channels and but yeah, you can find everything we do.