Bear Grease - Ep. 156: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - The Element Guys

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

This week on the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb is joined by Tyler Jones and K.C. Smith of The Element Wild. Topics discussed include all things whitetail deer and specifically: the joy Clay gets from watching K.C. eat chips and salsa, the importance of tracking your receipts, capitalizing on first-time sits and the value of moving your set for hunting whitetails, practical jokes and undercover agents, the finer points of scent control and the benefits of getting high in the tree, hunting media and its impact on hunting in general, that ground meat is most likely leading to the downfall of western civilization, the most recent Bear Grease episode “Deer Stories - Gruntin’, Missin’, Buckin’ & Tradbow Bucks (Part 2)“ and the Buck Truck series, how to stay up to date with the Element wild guys through YouTube and their podcast. We really doubt you’re gonna want to miss this one… Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render.

My, oh my. Man, today is different than probably anything we've ever done. Usually, Casey and Tyler, we have, spoiler alert. Usually we have like six people on the Bear Gries Render. Six people, which is a lot of fun. But you guys are so much fun that there's only three of us here. Well, we can eat enough for six people. That's right, man.

It just means we've got it rendered down to the purity. You know what I mean? Like it's... Oh, that's good. Yeah. It's milky wine. I have no doubt that you guys could eat enough chips and salsa. Okay, if you don't know Casey Smith, Tyler Jones of The Element.

Appreciate it. They are from Texas. Man, I enjoy watching Casey eat chips and sauce. To me, it's like, it's like watching, it's like watching. It's like watching somebody ride a good pleasure horse through an arena. You know, it's just kind of like a thing of beauty. Or watching a marathon runner like, you know, stride through mile 12. It's the first time I've been compared to a marathon runner, I believe, ever.

So it makes good sense. But when you hammered out on chips and salsa, it's like I feel joy. Yeah. It's the same thing I feel whenever you eat, you know, oatmeal or whatever. what is it granola that's what you eat a lot of right yeah yeah so man hey you know a man's got a man's got to stick to his guns uh on his diet when he travels that's the one thing i've learned in in my traveling over the last decade is man if you break if you break the routine much you'll you won't have a routine at all yeah guarantee you you know what when i was with uh i spent a little bit of

time with Will Primos. And what you wouldn't know about Will Primos just from watching him kill elk and call and love turkey hunting is that he is an extreme man of discipline. And wherever he goes, he goes and does his own grocery shopping and eats his own food in camp. Hmm. I took note of that. I was like, that takes some dedication because it's hard.

We have to make food for like five people when we go places. So we eat our own food and make food for everybody else. 10 pounds of ground taco meat. A potty and jalas. Six gallons of salsa. That's right. I'm telling you. I want to introduce everybody to my guests.

This is Casey Smith and Tyler Jones of the element. The element is a, what's the element? Y'all tell me what the element is. It's what we're living in, man. That's right. You know. Go for it, Mr. Puns. So the element is, uh,

Pretty much everything that Tyler and I do, and we've got some help with Greg and Eric and Michael. We video all of her hunts. We have a sort of weekly podcast. I kind of say that joke. We get that out pretty much on the week, and it's kind of a chronicle of our stories, our hunts. And just we try to share the knowledge that we accumulate by hunting so much. You know, we try to not be – we're not experts at things. And, you know, I feel like it's pretty, I don't know, it's not a good thing to consider yourself an expert of anything, but I like to say we have a lot of experience.

So we try to share what we experience with other people, and hopefully we can all learn to be better hunters together through that. So that's kind of what the element is. And it's just, I don't know, we had a video series on Meteor last year called Buck Truck. And I think the intro for that is me talking. real short and sweet say two buddies hopping and pick up travel the country hunting deer and that is about near what we are mixed in with about i don't know uh 20 percent bible study throughout all that it started with fishing you know i mean that's what that's what was uh it's kind of funny you know so we just like doing it all kind of like you man or old brent reeves you know we just like doing

uh being outdoors and if if there's something to chase or catch or or find we're we're doing it man So you guys are colleagues of mine. You work for meat eater, at which you've done for the last year. Is that about right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Close to it.

Man, what's it been like working for meat eater? It's different. That's for sure. You know, I actually have to. Because y'all are entrepreneurs. Y'all, y'all had your own business, did all your own stuff, had this YouTube channel. podcast called the element, travels and hunted, and then now you work for, now you work for meat eater.

Yeah, we're trying to be. Yeah, we try to remain just true to who we've always been. And that's kind of difficult whenever you have outside influences of things, but then at the same time, it's nice to be able to collaborate and put together some good thoughts and some minds and some different experiences around the country and just make sure you can kind of refine what we have been doing. And that's essentially kind of, I mean, man. outside of like having a bigger network and you know quite honestly a boss like not a lot has changed

for what we do you know we still operate this thing essentially how we want to and you know just pursue having the most fun that we can that's that's legal for you know a couple guys to do yeah well I think that's that's kind of what I was getting at in a way is that I feel like you guys coming in the Meteor really hasn't changed a lot of what you want and that's what they were just to peak you know crack the veil back just a little bit I mean I feel like I feel like that's what Meteor did for me as they said hey you be you and do what you do and do what you're passionate about but just work for us. And I mean, that's an ideal situation.

And I feel like that's what's, from outside looking in, I feel like that's what's happening with you guys is that they've just kind of broadened your horizons, but you guys are still who you were before. Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, that's what, that's the same kind of thing we had in discussions going, you know, prior to this was, you know, can we continue to just be who we are

because that's what we want to be, man. That's honest, you know, and that's what we want is honesty. what we do. And so, I mean, it hasn't changed a whole lot of what we do outside of the fact that I got to really take care of receipts, you know. But, you know. That is the biggest, that is the biggest problem with corporate America.

I guarantee you. Receipts. Ghaly, yeah. And it's because, is yours because you don't like touching them because the radiation? That's mine, you know. Like, those, you know, those heat print receipts, man. That's what's giving us all melanocel. That's right.

That's tough. Every time I, like, am on a work trip and, like, buy a coffee at a gas station, and I, and the person does not give me a receipt, and I go, hey, could I have a receipt? I feel like they think that I think that they cheated me. Yeah. And they're like, oh. Oh. So, you know, there's a lot of personal drama involved in receipts, man. Guarantee you, I almost bought a drink with cash this morning.

because I didn't want to have to ask for the receipt. Oh, yeah, dude. Sometimes it's not worth it. That's tough. That's tough. The worst part is like, well, we all got accustomed to this, you know, I'm speaking to an elder millennial here with Clay Newcomb, but you still fall in the category, right? Like, we were around for the transition of prepay to, like, just pay at the pump, right?

And so, like, we love pay at the pump for a gas station. I like being able to just make a quick stop on the road and just go. You know, like I have a large bladder for a medium-sized man, so I don't have to use the bathroom too much. Not me. And so, like, I can just pay at the pump and go, you know, and then guarantee you, like, more often than not, the receipt machine don't work on the pump. You got to go inside after all this, and then you end up seeing a package of peanuts you want, you know, it just ain't good. It sounds like a first world problem, but when you travel for a living, I mean, it's pretty tough to, to lose, you're losing 10 minutes of your life at a time. every week or whatever.

Every 400 miles. Yeah. That's right. Man, man. Problems, problems, problems. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I look forward to the day when there's so much surveillance in our country that just, like, you just go to a gas pump and just like get gas and it just like knows who you are already, knows your bank account already.

Oh, goodness. And knows where you work for already. And you just like, just everything's just all automated. Hey, we're there, man. I just got an email from ornithology. Ornithology, is that how you said? Yeah. Cornell Institute. Cornell Institute.

Literally 20 minutes before that, KC. and I were having a big bird conversation with another guy. So they're already there. They're listening, man. They know. I hope y'all know that I was kidding about my surveillance. Oh, I know. Hey, let me go ahead and just for people who wouldn't be familiar with you guys, let me just, I want to introduce you even further to the Bear Grease audience as that, hey, these guys right here are some serious deer hunting machines.

And I don't throw that kind of stuff around lightly. I really don't. I mean, I mean, I think in a brotherhood, compliments are earned. They're not just guaranteed. I'm just glad you didn't say serious conspiracy theorists because that's what I thought you were fixing to say. I know we're all into that. But, no, Casey and Tyler are really good hunters, and y'all have really had a lot of success and the proofs in the pudding of what you guys are doing. and I was able to hunt with y'all

for a week last year in Arkansas and it was a really unique experience for me because you don't give you wrong you guys are crazy because you guys are absolutely nuts no I tell people all the time I tell people really I told somebody this week I said man I hunted with the element guys

and I said we hunted six days morning and evening six days and I said those guys never set in the same tree twice and I because we were in a boat we were we were hunting by boat I had kind of just submitted myself

to you know I'm just going to do this the way these guys do it my instinct would have been to and just the way I've done things I mean I don't even know if it's an instinct it's just the way I think about whitetail hunting is, you know, you would go to a spot and you'd sit there probably two or three sits at least, just give it a chance to work itself out.

Or, heck, even dig in longer and sit there longer than that. And you guys were like, no, man, we're going to move a bunch. And really what I feel like you were doing and probably do a lot of is capitalize on that first time sits. Yeah, absolutely. And when you're traveling around, let me tell you guys something about yourself, okay? Let me explain y'all to you. All right. No, the other thing is that y'all do something that I don't always do.

Most of my whitetail hunting is local, and I'm going to places that I go to all the time and have gone to for a long time. and you guys are going into new areas, new places, and have very short time frames to hunt. So you've got to turn up the knob, the volume of concern, or you've got to be kind of extreme in a way. Like you can't be conservative. Like if you're going to the same 160 acre property for 15 hunts between, you know, October 1st and November 15th,

like you kind of have to dial back the aggression because you're going to burn out your spots you're going to bump your deer and you may already know kind of what's going on you go you show up at some place you've never been to you've only seen it on on x you got to be aggressive and you got to take a bunch of risk and boy that it seems to really pay off sometimes and i'm sure sometimes you strike out or sometimes you make it mess something up, but then you just go somewhere else. Yeah. I mean, would you say that's a pretty good descriptor the way y'all hunt? Yeah. I mean, it for sure is. I think that there's a lot of calculations that may go under the radar when we're hunting with somebody, you know, like, but one thing that, I mean, we certainly have, like, a

pretty good degree of aggression in our sits and those kind of things. But it also is very dependent upon, like, what we've got going in the way. the area, you know, because you don't want to, if you got one spot that hunts on a North Wind in that area, you don't want to blow it out if you got to drive an hour and a half to get to another spot that hunts on a North Wind. So, you know, and a lot of that aggressiveness comes through like a freedom that we have from scouting all summer on X, you know, on the maps. So we're able to have a pretty good idea what things are going to kind of look like.

and what's going to work for us going in. And we have a lot of commonalities, too. There's some different, some things that we do different and think about different. But, like, the one thing that we do have in common that really helps us to be effective the most is that we are pretty, I think, at least, you know, I feel like it's weird kind of saying this about myself, but we're fairly selfless in the way we look at how we take spots and how we hunt and these kind of things. You've got to be whenever you have to be. Yeah, for sure.

And it's just that's really, I mean, there's, you know more about this Clay, but I won't elaborate, but this, foundationally, that's where we are in kind of what we think and what we believe. So we, we don't ever, really hardly ever argue about anything too much anymore. I mean, getting, getting used to each other early on, you know, is a thing, but like, we don't, we never hardly, like, if, if there's a spot somebody wants to go to, I mean, we almost like nobody will take it you know what I mean it's like oh no you go there I'm like no I got another spot over here and you just okay well are you really saying that

or you know is that it gets the point where you're trying to figure out like hey this is what I want where I want to go the worst but are you avoiding that spot because you know I want to go there you know and so you know you kind of come full circle on the thing but I talk about this quite a bit but I preach against pride all the time man like you can't have like any level of or self, I don't want to say self-confidence, but like, because that's a good when it comes to hunting, but like self-ambition. Yeah, exactly, self-ambition, right?

It was it, James 3-5, isn't that what it was that you said? Yeah, something like, is it into James 3 or something? And so, like, if you're doing this thing and your common goal is for everyone to have a great time and hunt deer and be successful, like the thing that Tyler and I do that I cherish is that we can look at a spot, that we've never been to or that we have either way and just shoot a bunch of holes in the bottom of boat

for about five or ten minutes and come out with the best possible plan. And I think it's like key to success force, man. Oh, for sure. I mean, if one person shoots a deer, I actually killed a deer on Texas public land the other day, about a week ago or so. And, you know, KC was like,

I just listened to him straight up because he went in and hung this camera and wasn't able to go on that hunt that particular. night and he was like hey the deer do this there's two thickets here they travel this way they're going to hit a scrape on the edge of that transition in between two thickets and the wind you know is just going to be it's going to be a matter of wind and I went in there and I played the wind where it was just off and it was able to get into a tree based off of that and like kill the deer you know

because I just straight up listen to KC you know I mean and that's kind of that that's that thing that really there's a big common theme in white tail hunting the last few years and maybe it's going away a little bit but uh especially when we were when we were getting started there was this lone wolf mentality and uh you know it's very prideful it's very much like i can do this and i want to do it and i'm going to do it my way and i don't need anybody to help me when really everybody's going out there shoot a deer we're hunting we're not nature walking you know what i mean so uh if you want to shoot a deer sometimes it's okay to listen to your friend and just be like that was that was fun you know what i mean and if you want it a different way next time you can do it too but

But anyway, I just think that it's way better, way better thing to have, you know, your buddies helping each other out. It just, it makes camp way more fun, man. Yeah, man. And you've got to have some discernment, too, and keep good friends and good hunting buddies that you know are going to make some good decisions for you, or at least, like, I ain't going to name any names, but we might have a friend somewhere in this world who might not actually have the best advice, but I'll still listen to him, you know, and,

hunt with him and hang out. But you kind of got to figure out who you can count on that kind of stuff too. But that doesn't mean you can't count on that individual as a person. You know, those are two different things, you know. Well, that's a really cool perspective. And I saw that in action with you guys. And, you know, like when I saw, y'all've had a really good fall this year. And heck, even I just said it, I said, y'all have had a really good fall. Well, Tyler's killed three deer. Is that right? Yeah. Yep.

That's right. And then in my mind, when I hear one of you have killed a deer, it's like, it's like you are the same person. Like it's like, they got one. It's weird, dude. It's like a married couple, man. That's it. It's a little weird, but, you know.

It's a win for us. So it is, man. Like, you know, there's a, there's a certain degree of that. And then there's this also this degree where like last year, year I had a little bit rougher a year overall than I normally do. Had some things just didn't go away. And, you know, you feel a little bit like almost like you're not helping the team out like you should or whatever. You're not doing your part a little bit. But I know, like, it's not on a per-deer basis, you know, like KC's super happy for me when I shoot a buck and vice versa. But, you know,

you get a couple bucks behind and you're like, oh, man, I've got to do something here. But it's a good pressure. You know, it's like, it's like Tyler and I are playing linebacker for meat eater right now, just hunting deer, you know, and like he's up, he's got three sacks this game and I ain't got none, you know what I mean? Actually, I got one. But, you know, you're just like, it's good for everybody when the sacks happen, but I kind of want a few of my own, you know, which it was kind of weird this year, too, because we went to Nebraska and we killed Bucks on the same night. It was awesome.

It's the second year in a row we've done that, which is just, it's such a blessing, man. the deer I shot this and this video will be on the Meteor channel Tyler's is way bigger it's already on the element channel right now but I almost didn't get to enjoy Tyler's deer as much as I wish

I would have because my shot was like my deer just what didn't how do you say it the shot wasn't as good as I wanted it was lethal and everything was great but you know I was like a little bit anxious about that and it almost took away from the experience because I just would

uh don't get me wrong i'm glad to killed a deer but i would have loved to just been able to just relish the fact that tyler killed one of the biggest eight points i've ever seen in my life you know like and i kind of got to miss out on part of that because i was all concerned about going and finding my deer so like yeah no i understand i don't know it is cool to um have that relationship where you can truly just have joy for the other person yeah there's a lot of things that teaches you man we're we're learning a lot of things about life really through this man through this old deer hunt thing that we're doing. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there.

And, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, maybe y'all could give me some advice because my partner,

Brent Reeves, is, I know he's an undercover agent. Double undercover playing the long game on me. And I tell you what, one of the best friends you could ever have is an undercover wildlife agent. Yeah.

I mean, they're a lot of fun. They're always ready to go. Always ready for new ideas. But anyway. You should, yeah. You could go double agent on him. That's what you should do. I mean, I'm not kidding.

Say that. What did you say, Casey? You should join the force and go double agent on him, you know, like, be a mole. okay this is a joke but actually the first couple of years that Brent was hanging around it was my bite my it was kind of like I had just stepped into an outdoor media platform and I have always been just paranoid about breaking the law and different things and I'm serious I actually I actually thought this guy might be working for the government Yeah. Well, I think that's just an Arkansas thing. I think that's just the way y'all feel about stuff. You just feel like a little paranoid. Yeah, you know, like there's just this thing that you're born with. It's like, man, I might have already done something wrong. I didn't even know what it was, you know, and the deer was. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's it. Exactly. No, I mean, you know, we're from deep western Arkansas there in East Texas, and I kind of got the same thing going. And honestly, it's kind of funny you say that because if you travel around much, deer hunting,

State-to-state regulations are a lot different. Yeah. And so, like, you might have to have this permit over here, but over here you've got to worry about what kind of boots you wear. And, you know, who knows what. Yeah, and in this state, you can tag them when you get to your truck. And in that one, you literally cannot move the deer at all. Can't even take a picture with them without tag on.

It's like, man. Oh, you talk about it. So here's the thing. Tyler and I trust yourselves or trust each other a whole lot. So I kind of, I probably, it's going to come back to buy me. All right. but I've been delving into the practical joking a little bit here lately and incorporating that into our hunts.

So Tyler went to South Dakota and killed a deer first sit because he just does that. And so he became bird hunter, an upland hunter real quick. Well, they have multiple species of upland bird there in South Dakota. And, you know, seasons kind of change, but depending on the bird, Well, he kind of was all hot because he'd killed some greater prairie chickens, which is something we don't even see. I ain't ever seen one, you know, until we go up there.

And they're awesome. They're like the world's biggest quail. They're the same thing, pretty much. You know, they're just cool. Well, he called me because I was deer hunting that morning, and I was headed back in to camp afterwards. This is bad. He was like, all hype about it, you know, like, dude, I killed a bunch of doves yesterday,

and I went out and I got a shot a limit of these prey chickens. And I was like, just kind of just going on with it, you know. And I was like, man, that's awesome. You know, are you going to, because we do, you know, the social media thing or whatever, and I'd already seen on the story that he posted about it on Instagram. And I said, are you going to, but I didn't tell him that. I said, are you going to wait to, like, post that on the 15th or, like, what's your plan? And, you know, I didn't come out and say, I'm not sure there's not the season, you know,

but kind of give him a little, just like a little taste of like. And the season, the season had opened on September 15th, and I knew that. But it was, you know, the second of October or whatever. So I was in the season, but I started thinking about, oh, that was a 15th. That was a, oh, that's 1015, dude. Oh, no. I was like, how he posted on the story? I got him pretty good.

Oh, he had me for a second, man. And then I was like, I mean, I couldn't even speak, dude. I was like, because I'm the same way, dude. Like, you can't just, you can't just, you can't do something wrong, man. I mean, there's how many people out there even listening to this podcast right now, you know, have cheated the limits a little bit or done something over the years? Dude, Clay's already trying to get us on the Game Board podcast. He was, I made a joke about shooting a. bear thinking it was a hog and all of a sudden Clay goes into federal agent mode on me.

You know? Well, I may be working for Brent. You might. There you go. That's it. There you go, man. You know, R.T. Stewart, I mean, this is like legendary bear-grey stuff. We did a series called Secret Agent Man, one of our most listened to series of all time on a secret agent from Ohio named R.T. Stewart.

One of his biggest, I mean, one of his, like, best moments. Best Bear Grease moments was he was deep inside of a walleye poaching sting. These guys were fishing wallies and selling them, like big money, like selling thousands and thousands of pounds of illegal wallies. Apparently those people up north are nuts about wallace. And he was at a party with this big-time poacher who they were about to nail. And R.T. moves in to get. get him to confess more than he ever had.

And the guy all of a sudden gets suspicious of R.T. Maybe for the first time, definitely the first time he'd confronted R.T. And he says, you got to be a bleep-de-bleep game warden. I bet you're wearing a wire. And he just confronts R.T publicly. R.T. stands up, drops his pants to his ankles,

takes his shirt off, and yells to show that he's not wearing a wire and accuses the other guy of being a Game Warden. Oh, double cross. He goes, you're the Game Warden. You're the Game Warden. Take your clothes off. You bet you're wearing a wire.

This is like at a public party. He's got his pants to his ankles, no shirt on, but there's one thing I haven't told you. He was wearing a cowboy hat. and his wire was under the cowboy hat. Oh. Bam.

You see? You see it? But one of the best things he ever did was accuse the other guy of being a game warden. At Waterburger. That's a good trick. That's a good trick. At Waterburger, that's right, man. For sure.

So was it not suspicious for this Ohioan to be wearing a cowboy hat? Man, there's a lot of that. Southern Ohio is like... Oh, yeah. It's a weird place. Appalach, man. Yeah. Yeah, there's a, it's, yeah.

Is it, is it in bounds? There's that little area of the country there that's like, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, they don't even know where they're from. No, they can't tell you which state they're from. Because it's like they just claim it all, you know. Artie Stewart, you could have put him, you know, like football season. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

Hey, see. At T. Stewart, you. Speaking of Ohio play, you got to hunt with, on that Arkansas hunt, you got to hunt. You got to hunt with a guy you know is Spike. Mm-hmm. How's that, man? Man, so we're talking about their cameraman. Mike Stroll.

Yeah. Stole. Stole. Yep, that's him. That's him. Stoll, my bad. I mean, I just wondered how, because there's a pretty famous cell phone recording of him trying to go up a mud bank in the boot.

Yeah. I just wonder how it was walking around in the woods with him, you know, if he was sliding all over the blaser. Man, he impressed me. That's good. You know, when we hunted together, any cameraman that I ever hunt with, I'm suspicious of from the get-go. Not suspicious that. I'm just like, hey. Like, did you ask him if he's wearing a wire and make him stripped down or what kind of suspicion are you talking about?

No, no, no. I got nothing to hide. I was cool with him recording everything we said. I was just like, listen up, buddy, you're not going to mess up my whitetail hunt, okay? You're going to have to sit there like a dead bird on a branch, not move, not talk, do your job. No, I'm not a jerk, but I am just like, I'm like, we'll see how this goes. Man, he was killer, dude. He could sit longer than me. He could stay warmer than me.

He talked less than me. He filmed very well. He was helpful in the woods, scouting, hunting. I mean, we were just kind of a team. You know, I was asking him what he thought we should be doing. And, ah, he was a joy to hunt with. We had a great time. He is, man.

He's got two of my videos on video this year. He does a good job, man. He says that you like the nosebleed section of the woods. man i do like to get i did have a big old stack of sticks i didn't stack of sticks i didn't realize it until i started hunting just to misho a cameraman he said the same thing about me

um i just feel like the higher you are the better chance you're going to get away with uh with scent problems and just them seeing oh clay newcomb the scent control master over here right that's right that's right don't get me started I was listening to a podcast and your dad is all about it. Well, see, okay, well, that's, you don't know the whole story. I mean, the reason I can speak so authoritatively on whitetail scent control products is because I was there at the start, brother. Yeah. I mean, in the mid-90s, when they first started coming out with scent shield and scent lock and all that stuff, I mean, we were right there.

And my dad was as serious about it as anybody that ever lived. I mean, I'm serious. Like, the nitpick detail of his scent control regiment is incredible. And so I, as a kid and as a young adult, I did that to hunt with him. Like, he wouldn't hunt with you if you didn't do it. How about that? I mean, he's just like, literally he would be like, I will not take you hunting if you. Or he wouldn't put me, like, the way it.

would work when I was a kid was he would have good stands that he had scouted. So, you know, I'd on the weekend go hunt with him and he'd put me on one of his good stands, you know. And he's like, I mean, it's like we had to do it. So when I became an adult, moved away and really started to learn to bow hunt on my own, I couldn't afford that stuff. I didn't have the time for it. Like, just life was very hectic when I was going to college, had kids, newly married. And and I just started hunting the wind. And, you know, basically, that's when I really started killing deer. And then at least two different times during my whitetail career,

I have gone back to major scent control product use. Okay? I won't go into the details of those products. But there came a time, just even a couple years ago, and I was like, okay, I'm going to give this a go again. I was getting smelled or hunting risky spots and getting smelled. And I didn't like it. And I was like, maybe technologies change.

Maybe things are different. And basically, it's anything that someone observes in the woods is always going to have some level of anecdotal evidence. Like there's some level of you could have done it different, you could have done it better, maybe it was just a freak circumstance. But basically deer would smell me just the same when I was using all those products as they did when I didn't. So I was just like, well, I'm cutting out that section of my hunting because of how much energy it takes. And I'm devoting energy to the actual limiting factors of my hunting. So we've gotten in the same place. Yeah.

Yep. We're there, man. And when you travel as much, that's when it really gets tough because you don't have dryers and washers and all the stuff always. and, you know, it's just you've got to put gas in your truck because you're out of, you know, you've been 400 miles. You've been in a boat and it's always going to smoke. You know, I mean, you got to get some gas, you know. Now, I got a question for you on that front, though, but you do something we don't, that's that bear hunting. And you're in close a lot of the times on that deal.

But a bear's psyche is different than a white tail, right? Like they just approach the world differently, and their nose is just like, You can probably go on about this more than that game. But their nose is like their window into the world. So do you approach that any differently with bears than you do deer? Well, it's the exact same. I mean, because it actually amplifies the fact that you can't hide from them. Yeah.

Like to me, what people say about scent control products is that maybe it helps a little. And I don't think there's such thing as helping a little. Like if a bear smells a little human or a lot of human, he's going to be, he's going to be alarmed. If a doe deer smells a little human or a lot of human, she's going to run away. Clay, like now, when you say a little human, what exactly? Because we have this thing where people say all the time, oh, I'm a big hunter. And you're like, well, how big?

What do they smell of little hunters? How big a boy are you, you know? Okay. I walked into one of your inside jokes. That's what's happened here. That's exactly right. We have a lot of them. Yeah, you didn't talk about that.

It's one of the things you learn about us, too, is how many inside jokes were there. Oh, yeah, that was the third thing. Aside from y'all being really good hunters and moving around a lot, is a lot of inside jokes that nobody gets but y'all. Well, now you're on the inside, man. That's a good place to be. Well, I am now. Yeah.

Little human. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty funny. I like it. I want to start using that. Oh, yeah. He smelled a little human. Oh, yeah.

I always been a little human. Bears respond differently to humans sit in different situations. Like if you're baiting them, you are not trying to, I mean, they are very aware that there's a human involved at this bait site.

And so you can get away with human odor with lesser animals to some degree. You know, there are times like this year, my son was hunting bait and like he said dad the wind was blowing directly to these bears and they just didn't care and they would come in um but those also weren't big older mature males big older mature males are just like it's so it's so amazing than all the species the big older mature males just operate in a different level of consciousness of the world and black bears are just like big white tail bucks

they're just on a different life schedule and routine. But very rarely, very rarely, even on a bait site with a big adult male, smell like no human is there and them just barge in. But a younger bear might. You're out in the woods, you're out in the big country, not in a bait situation, any bear on planet Earth, you know, 95% of the time smells a human.

They're going to run like a scalded dog, you know. is there a is there a like there's a pretty I guess at least a vocal subset of whitetail deer hunters that don't like the bait thing you know

is there is that I feel like that I may be wrong because I'm pretty on the outside here but does I feel like it doesn't exist as much in the bear world is that right what do you mean like like there's not like baiting isn't as taboo in the bear world as it is in the deer world sometimes seems like oh I don't know I think it probably

is I think there's plenty of people that wouldn't like bear hunting over bait or just but you know we've we've been talking about it for over a decade is that man bear hunting over baits just it's a management tool that we use in places that we that we that we need it and it's an incredible way to be selective and manage bears and hunt and it's just like anything if you're if you're trying to get an older age male it's extremely difficult I mean I you'd you'd be better off you'd be it'd be be easier for you to kill a big buck in this state than it would be to intentionally kill a big bear I mean if you were like clay you got to kill a big buck or a 450 pound black bear this year you've got to or we're gonna take your house what are you gonna do I'd be like dude I'll take the 140 I mean it's hard even with bait oh you call 140 big I didn't realize that I call 140

real big. Oh man. Hey, let me let me switch topics a little bit slightly, slightly.

There's two things I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about outdoor media. It's rare that I have another person in media on the Bear Grish render. And but also want to

talk to you about the deer stories thing a little bit. Yeah. The, I feel like, I don't like being in outdoor media. Well, when you said that, I kind of creased,

you know, like I'm right there with you. Yeah, let me explain. Yeah, people, look at us, like guys like,

you guys that are full time employed inside of production of everything that involves the element, which is a, It was just a hunting show podcast group. You know, people look at me and they think I'm a hunting professional. I don't like that, but that's just the truth. There's also been a pretty big stir in the pot of late about this idea that hunting media and hunting influencers is really negative for conservation and hunting.

Are you all aware of that? Yeah. You all know that's going on. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how in tune I am with that, and I don't know how much, to what degree the percentage of the population feels that. But there is a, there is chatter that is out there for sure. What do y'all think?

I mean, like, how do you, how do you, I guess in a sense, we're, we are all trying to, all of our goals. is towards a limited resource, which would be hunting land, access, bigger bucks, white-tailed deer, whatever. And, you know, we are, we're promoting hunting. And, and, but also, you know, the big thing that, that people are saying is that we've commodity, we've made hunting, what's the word I'm trying to say? A commodity?

Commodified. Yeah. Yeah. Commodity. We have commodified hunting in that we are selling products as a result of our hunting and that we're recruiting new hunters basically to buy a new product. That's what people say. What do you guys think of that?

I mean, I feel like since, you know, beginning of time, people have had commerce. I mean, whether you work at a hardware store or a dairy plant or whatever, you're essentially making an in-product sale, right? I mean, I don't know. There's probably not a whole lot of, if any, jobs, and I'm sure somebody will correct me, but like I can't think anything off top of my head that don't end in some sort of sale, right?

So, I mean, that's how the world works. It's either barter or sale to either acquire something or get rid of something. So, I mean, it's not, it is a very complicated question, like a very big, broad, general question too. So I'll try not to be too verbose, but like I've wanted to do,

I've wanted to hunt or fish for a living since I was tiny, man. Like, I wanted to be a fishing guide for a while. Well, what does a fishing guide do? Well, he sells fishing trips, you know, and probably sells, you know, G. Loomis rods or whatever, too, along the way when, you know, they give him free. rods and his clients fish with them all day or whatever. So, I mean, I could do that or I have a

pretty good degree. I could have gone to Dallas and worked for a company that, you know, sells wealthy people financial advising plans or whatever, you know, like whatever it might have been. But I mean, you got to do something. And I feel extremely blessed to just be able to to hunt so much. I can't, I can, actually, I can remember one of the first days after, uh, we started working for meat eater. And me and KC. were walking around and the guys were with us and we're walking around in the woods,

uh, trying to shoot a pig, spot and stalk down in just our home, you know, woods, just in the river bottoms. And I, like, it was like Tuesday. And I told KC. I was like, I can't believe it's kind of the first time I've been striving to do something. as an entrepreneur for a long time and been we live very poor for a long time um and i can't believe i'm walking around in the woods right now hunting pigs and like that's kind of my job you know it's it's like it doesn't even it's never felt like i could tell somebody honestly like that's what i do

for a living and all sudden it changed you know what i mean and i and i could say if somebody asked me well what are y'all doing today well we're going to go hunt pigs and It's like, and that's what I'm supposed to do. That's like how I work, you know. And I couldn't believe it, man. Like I said, I don't feel, I mean, I've certainly worked hard, but a lot of, a lot of fellas out there work hard, man. You know, I feel extremely blessed to be able to do what I'm doing.

And as far as the media side of things go, man, it's a tough line. And we are constantly, like, changing and figuring out how to do it to the best of our ability where you do things that people are interested in. people want to see, but you also try to show a positive lie into the hunting world, but you also want to show a realistic light, right? I mean, not every deer dies quickly, man, you know? We all know that, but people that are new hunters or anti-hunters don't know that sometimes. And what they also don't think about maybe is that in nature, those deer don't die quick either,

you know, like whether we're hunting them or not. So it's just a, it's a hard thing to, to contemplate and to understand, I think. That's kind of my two sense. Yeah, there's like a right way and wrong way of doing it just with about near anything you're going to do, you know. And I think that first off, if you're going to set out to do something, you should have the best intentions in what you do. And just to, if you don't mind me speaking freely on your podcast, you know, Tyler and I, our desire. is to glorify God with what we do. And not everybody believes that, and that's fine.

But, like, so through our desire with doing that, we're going to do our best. We're going to fail because we're humans. And that's, like, the human condition, right? Medium-sized humans. Not little-sized humans. Not little- or big. Not a little-sized.

Just the medium-humans here. But, you know, so, like, if you sit out with that intention, I think that at least through most people, besides the ones that are just out to get you. It's perceived as genuine. And that's what I try to do and stuff, you know. And I also am a free market capitalist, so I feel like this stuff is not going to,

like if we are making hunting videos. That's exactly right. I don't know what you're going to say. And it's going to, and it still perpetuates, you know, then it's good. If it ain't, and if it doesn't, it's going to, cease to exist, and I don't want the government or any entity telling us we can or can't do none of this stuff just because it, you know, it bothers somebody's feelings.

You know, honestly, like, if we do our job and portray this stuff in the right way, it's going to produce two things. It's going to produce more people who are in support of hunting, and it's going to produce a higher demand for hunting access and opportunities. And if your government didn't hate you, then you would have, they would see. that you want more opportunity. So, you know, like the people who are yelling about the fact that we're shining light on maybe public lands and public lands are too busy.

And it's like, well, don't get mad at us. Tell the powers it be to open up more ground. You know, like that's the result we should strive for. But that's a little too soapboxy. Sorry about that. But I get fired up, man. No, no. I mean, that's what I wanted to hear because, you know, I think it's a point of

introspection that anybody that's involved in, social media, outdoor media in any way, we have to evaluate why we're doing what we're doing. Yeah. Because I think it's important. Motivations are very important. Motivations are more important in many ways than anything. It's like why we're doing what we're doing.

And so as I've heard some of this stuff from, you know, from different groups and different people just about, it's kind of like just say, the things you've said there that social media influencers are drawn all this attention to hunting in public land and artificially recruiting new people that's overcrowding and all this stuff. And yeah, man, I mean, I could go on and on. But I think it's good to hear stuff like that and consider just like, okay, are they right? Like, do they have rational arguments that make sense?

Yeah. And, you know, questioning, do they? And most of what I've heard to me really doesn't add up. It's like, man, if we just don't talk about our hunting and hide, we have lost pace with the age. And we will die off and fade away as the trend of modern bias and modern ideas just overtakes. And it's like we've everything, every single industry, every single one, from bicycling to four-wheeling to tennis and golf and knitting and everything has media.

And that media has influencers, people that are at the forefront of that industry. And all those people are fueled by the financial side of that business. And so it's kind of like, don't hate the player, hate the game. game. Yeah, kind of like Casey's capitalism. It's like, this is just the way this works. Yeah. And I like what you said about us putting demand on the system for more access.

Now, you know, there's all kind of, there's no right answer to anything. I mean, inevitably, popularity in hunting has caused land to be leased that was never leased before. It's causing excess recreational land prices and all this stuff. And it's like, if we hadn't talked about hunting, do you think that would be any different? And anyway, I just think it's... Probably not. But, you know, man, like, the sister of pride is envy.

And that's the thing that gets a lot of people. And a lot of times these, you know, squeaky wheels are envious of whatever things may be. You know, we can... I'll just allude to things. But there's a great story, the greatest story that was ever told, right? There was a creator, and then there was an impersonator. And that impersonator still works hard every day. and is just furious that it cannot be the supreme being, right?

So like that you run into that and it's played out again and again and again and again in so many facets where a lot of the times, I'm not saying all the time, because like you said, there are some rational arguments to be made about this stuff that the person who is whining about stuff is envious of the other position that the other people are in. And they are mad that they can't do that, and they want it their way and it doesn't work.

Well, I can say this too. I've been there, man. And I've been, we all know, man, that of the three of us, I'm the worst, you know. Yeah, we're not saying over here, man. I wouldn't be insane. Yeah, there we go. I've been there, man. And, you know, we also, the three of us believe we shouldn't be grumbling and complaining about stuff,

but we do it at times, you know. And I think that hopefully if there's, a message that could come through this too from me that just said everybody could have a little more grace with each other because um i mean just you know there's this think about this man when you were when i was 18 i thought it'd be so cool to be you know on tv hunting right watching some monster bucks you know being like man what if i could go do that you know sitting a tree stand on the edge of a you know field uh wheat field with corn on the edge of it or whatever and just shoot a big old monster Like, that's what you thought was cool.

And I think, man, you got to look at some of these, you know, what Clay you're saying is an influencer. And sometimes they're 20-year-olds, man. And I'm, you know, in my mid-30s. And there's guys like Steve that are older than that. And there's guys that are in their 70s that are still on TV, you know, and doing things. And I think that as a guy who's probably on the younger end of this spectrum, but one that's not a 20-year-old, I can say, like, You know, my priorities have changed. What I want out of this has changed a lot since I was 20,

or even since I was maybe, you know, 29 or 30. And so I think just to have some grace with those people to understand, hey, you know, they got a chance to grow up, give them some grace and let them, you know, let them pan out and see if maybe they're not so dumb when they hit their 30s, you know what I mean? Yeah. And then I'm sure Steve's saying the same thing about me, you know, or whatever.

But it just, that's the thing, man. It's just everybody got to understand, man, we all have some bad tendencies. And not everybody's trying to, you know, be bad. A lot of people are trying to be a little bit better as they go and they grow, you know. And here's, I'm going to take this a different direction just to kind of, you know, maybe appease those who got a little outlaw in them, you know, like a lot of us do. There comes a point. Just note that I'm recording this whole thing. That's right.

I hope you can. It needs to be known. You'll come and take it, as we say. Here's the deal, man, is I love what we do enough, not the media side of it, but the hunting side of it. And we're talking about how media affects hunting, right? I never want to sabotage what we're doing. I want it to be something that perpetuates until it can't no more. And so, like, I want my kids, my grandkids, all that to be able to go out and enjoy the outdoors the way that we do.

And at some point in time, there may be. be, and there could be, there are people out there currently that would have that taken away, not because we're making videos, not because, you know, they just don't understand our way of life, but just because they don't like the fact that we kill animals. And if that ever grows, and that's going to happen whether or not we make videos about it, right? There could come a time, and I am willing to do it to, I would become. a so-called poacher, if need be.

Let's go, dude. Get on Clay's podcast again. I want to be on Clay's podcast as much as possible, but hear me out, all right? Not in the sense of the word that we understand it, but the only difference in poaching and hunting is a law. And it may be like a sense of morality in one's own personal ethics, right? But just stick with me for a second. Like, suddenly, if they made it illegal to hunt white-tailed deer where I live,

exclusively you just cannot hunt them. I don't know if I would be a law-abiding citizen. You get what I'm saying? Right. So I care about it that much, but I'm going to do everything I can to not ever see that become a reality. Clay, I hope you don't get too many messages. I love to say controversial things,

and it's not because I desire controversy. It's just who I am. Well, and I think what you're saying there is something that a lot of people have probably thought about. Yeah. It's like where does, where does this thing, and we're a long, thank goodness that we're a long ways. Yes.

That's right. And if we, and I feel like if we do our job and really, I feel like we're a part of a revolution that has. Let's go. Where are we going with this? Culminating. Really, a revolution in. in the ideology and communication around hunting,

that we are, we've just got so much rational, common sense, goodness, and civil, wonderful things that happen and services that are provided to the world by hunting and through the dollars of hunters, that it's just hard to even argue that this is not a very positive thing for our society and our country.

You know, I mean, it's like, so that's our trajectory, you know. But we also have to, like any rational person, assess in the situation, and say what could happen, you know, a generation from now, or 20 years from now, or, you know, what if this happened, what if that happened? And, I mean, I think it's where, what you're saying is that there comes a point when this violates almost like civil liberty. Exactly. Yeah, there's an infamous quote. To say that you can't do this.

There's an infamous quote that says there comes a point in time where reasonable men are driven to do unreasonable things, right? And I don't desire that by any means, so let me make clear. And clearly you're not saying, you know, break reasonable game laws that have been set by agencies that are for us, not against us, which is, I mean, I believe exclusively true across the board 99% of the time. And I think that's the way we've got to believe is that, you know, agencies that are running our game departments in each state ultimately have the resource in mind and our traditions in mind and and you know there's that could be scrutinized in small cases i'm sure but i mean back to the the media thing you know if it is if it is creating more hunters and and

that kind of thing i mean that's what you want right you want numbers of people saying hey you don't need to take this away yeah it goes back to the whole like hey give more access if if if you have more hunters. You should be generating more dollars. Speak with your dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think if hunting means as much, if hunting really means as much to us as we say that it does, then it's been invaluable inside of our life.

Us wanting to share that with the world makes a lot of sense too. And as places, you know, it's possible you could go to your public land spot and there'd be more. more people than there were five years ago there. That's possible. Yeah. And you hear about that a lot.

But I also hear from a lot of people that are like, man, I hadn't seen anybody where I hunt in years. I mean, I do. Not all over the country. I mean, it just matters who you talk to. Sometimes the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the attention, gets the drama. There's a lot of great, there's a lot of great hunting left and in a lot of places. and anyway, I think the more people we have, the better.

Yeah. I really do. I just wanted to ask you guys about that. Yeah, sorry, you're like, hey, guys, we're talking about this too much. But there is a generality of like, hey, if you don't like a certain situation, then work harder to improve your personal situation. You know, and you can go down to just the basis of, like, public land hunting, right? Like, whenever I see – like, if I encounter people on public ground,

I'm like, not mad at them. I'm mad at myself. because I'm like, well, I'm not smart enough. I haven't learned enough lessons to say, hey, there's going to be a dude there. You know, I need to go deeper. I need to be smarter. I need to be more cunning in my methods. You know, so it's like, you just got to, you know, realize that when you're pointing a finger,

you've got a couple point in back, you know, like you got to just work on yourself because that's the thing you have the most control of. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason, Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds. on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut

and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut

for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Yeah, man. Well, on this latest Deer Stories episode, well, actually on both So we're right in the middle of a series on deer stories,

which is one of my favorite series we do every year on Bear Grease. I go around and collect stories from guys, and it's a lot of fun because it's kind of like homecoming in some way. I mean, I'm going and visiting all these people that I know. And most of the stories I collect in person, some of them I don't. But we've had, I made it a point this year to include several days. dog hunting stories, which is a very small subset of white-tail hunters. So this is kind of like little hunters.

Can you, when you say dog hunting, are you talking about something that is publicly perceived positively or negatively here, Clay? Well, I'm not following the joke, Casey. I'm saying, you're not saying that a person goes into the woods in pursuit of a canine, right? You're talking about something where they're using dogs to change. Chase deer. Oh, oh, yeah. So, yeah. Okay.

Is that still legal in Arkansas? Yeah, it is. It's legal in multiple states, but actually very, a very small percentage of hunting land in the U.S. Is it legal to pursue white-tailed deer with the use of hounds, with the use of dogs? And where I grew up, to this day, it's still legal to run hounds. And I didn't know there was any place that it wasn't, you know, until I became an adult. And I was like, oh, wow, this is actually really unique and special. And it's a fascinating group of people that are dog hunters.

And they, I would, I would say they have received an incredibly small amount of publicity in all of, the reporting on whitetail hunting ever. I mean, real. It's just like go show me a sink, you know, a mainstream video of a deer hunt with dogs. I don't think I've ever seen it. You know, I never saw, you know, any of the big names deer hunting with dogs and all this.

And there's reasons for that. But these guys, when you meet them and talk to them and you really understand the way they think about things, they're as serious about white tails as you guys are. I mean, they are. I mean, without question, their energy is just placed in a different way inside of hunting. And so on this last series, well, in this series, I've had multiple dog stories. And you know what?

I love this so much. I want to just like make t-shirts about it and tell everybody. But, you know, the dog hunters look at still hunters and think that sometimes think they aren't sportsman-like. They're like, it's not sportsman-like to just sneak up on one and thump it in the head. We usually honk the horn or something to give him a warning when we go out, you know. Yeah, like Kevin Murphy, like Steve Renella's buddy, my buddy, Kevin Murphy, who when he squirrel hunts, he blows his horn before he turns the dogs loose, just to warn the wildlife, here we come. Yeah, let him know what's there. Stony Edwards had a little part in his last story.

And, man, it was my fault that it wasn't included. It was actually an editing error. It happens at Bear Gracie Cay. It was my fault. I had about a two-minute segment in there where he was talking about the way he views sportsmanship and hunting with dogs. And he was like, man, this is the most primitive way on earth to hunt a deer. And he said, this is really difficult. He's like, if we want to just kill a bunch of deer, we wouldn't be using dogs.

But those guys, oh, without a doubt, I mean, he said, we'd go sit in tree stands if we wanted to kill a bunch of deer. You know. And, but they, you know, they, they love their dogs. They understand deer. Holy cow. You want to learn something about deer and where they go and where they travel. Put a deer, put some dogs behind them. Does that descend from like the, you know, the English fox trials and stuff like that?

You know, if I'm, you know a lot more about this than me. Yeah, I mean, those guys all. Go ahead. Most of the hound traditions in the U.S., you could trace them back pretty easily back to our European traditions. You know, I mean, they ran red stag and wild boar. They ran everything with hounds over there. I mean, back in those days, hunting meant you had hounds. And so a lot of these families, whether they be bear hunters or deer dog guys,

have deep, deep roots that go probably without skipping a generation, some of them, all the way back to those roots across in Europe. I mean, no doubt. And that love of hounds and pursuit is still there. And I love it. And I mean, I'm not a big, I don't own deer dogs. I've killed a few deer in front of dogs, but it's like not something I personally am going to go do all the time, but I'm passionate about telling those guys' story and letting them tell

their story. But with the point of it being, because on this last episode, there was a dog story by Stony Edwards, and then the very last story, which to me was the most, I really enjoyed it, was from a man that has been a heavy influence in my hunting, a man named David Albright who he tells a story about killing about a 155 inch deer on public land with a traditional bow he made himself and and that's like normal for him like he's been making his own bows and hunting on public land for most well for the last 35 years or so or 40 years and but I told these two stories right side by side deer hunting with dogs and then a tree. traditional bowyer who's hunting out of tree stands, making his own bows, hunting deer just on public land.

And I said, in the spectrum of deer hunting, these two guys couldn't be further opposite each other. They really couldn't. I mean, could you think of a more extreme two ways to hunt white tails? I mean, because hunting with traditional primitive equipment is like the most primitive self-imposed limitation method of hunting white-tailed deer possible. I mean, perhaps an addle-addle where it's legal.

I think in Missouri you can use an adal-addle. Like that would be more primitive. And then on the other extreme, I mean, I would argue that hunting with dogs is extremely primitive, but it would be using a whole different set of metrics to kill the deer. Yeah, right.

And at my point was, these guys are, you might say they're on opposites and they're not alike, but I said, these guys are like fraternal twins. These guys are way more alike than they are different. Like if you just canvassed planet Earth and all the diverse things that people do with their life, it's like some people are golfers, some people watch television, that's all they do. Some people are insurance agents and enjoy, you know, going on the lake and skiing. Like, of all the diverse interests, David Albright and Stony Edwards are almost, they are twins,

fraternal twins. Like, they have way more in common than they have differences, even though if you got them, you know, they might be, seem like they were different. The whole point of it was there's power in us sticking together. Sure, that's a good thing. Real power. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the thing, man.

We got to understand that, uh, You know, instead of looking for the differences, and like I said, I'll say it about myself as much as anybody, but a lot of people, including me at times, like to look for things that are negative or complain about things, right? Casey and I call it the farmer in the coyote complex, where the farmer, if he ever actually kills that coyote, he doesn't have anything to complain about anymore. So he doesn't get to go to the cafe and talk. He doesn't really have a whole lot to say. So he always misses the coyote kind of on purpose.

Oh, my gun went misfired. I couldn't get my gun out of my truck quick enough, you know, or whatever. And I think that's what generally, you know, humanity likes to complain a little bit. If you're to listen to any popular song, I bet you're 80% of them are complaining songs, you know, especially in country. And anyway, I think that we should definitely just just, be emphatic about your statement there that maybe we're more alike with each other sometimes than we think, and we should try to emphasize the things that we like about people and focus on those things when we talk about people rather than talk about their negatives. And again, I am in

that discussion a lot, so it's something I'm learning to do better for sure. Yeah. And I think that as real, it's easy to talk about something like this, but to me where the rubber hits the road and it functionalizes. It's easy for me, for us three to sit here and like be on our high horse talking about, you know, unification of the hunting community. It's another thing when I go out and this recorder isn't working and I'm talking

to my sons and I'm talking to just other people in camps. And it's like I have to have that attitude all the time. And that means when I'm out bohunting on public land over here and a pack of deer dogs runs by me and messes up my hunt, I have to just be like, hey, man, they got me this time, but, you know, next time, I bet they won't. And, you know, those guys had a good time because of that. I mean, I have to actually have ideology that reflects what I'm saying. Yeah, sure. The action show what you believe. Take. Yeah. There's give and take. Tyler's point about grace, too. You know, it's like, hey, those guys do.

It doesn't have malintent to mess up your hunt. So, you know, like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to be frustrated or whatever, you know, but like, you shouldn't just want to just, you know, bring them harm. End what they're doing. Yeah. You know, I, I talked on the podcast about traditional use practices. And I, I really have a strong belief in inside of hunting, inside of a general conservation plan that is beneficial for the resource. but including traditional use practices as a major thing in making laws. I mean, it's like, I think it would be a massive crime if in 30 years from now you couldn't run deer with dogs in the United States.

Yeah. And it's not because I love to do it. It's a philosophical position. Yeah. Let me ask you a question about that. So, yeah. I come from a traditional use practice culture of hog dog. So it's different than running hog than deer with dogs

But you know you're familiar with it's baying hogs with dogs And I grew up doing it a lot of guys doing it in different ways But there's a gruesome nature to some of it And I would I would definitely this and this kind of ties the media thing together with what you're talking about with with Deer dogs and stuff like I would I for sure would say that There are things that happen when you're running hogs with dogs that doesn't need to make a lot of day for most of individuals and i would even go so far as to say that there are publications whether they're

you know private or or commercialized i'm not really i don't want to say what but just videos have come out that i believe have hurt the image of hog hunting with dogs uh just because it is not a um it ain't for the faint of heart you know what i mean uh sure so like is there is there a is there a Is there a way where, you know, the publicizing hunting deer with dogs has a similar effect? Right, right. That's a good question. And I don't think there's the right answer. I think guys might just have opinions.

But I was confronted with this big time with the bear hound hunting community 10 years ago when I was running Bear Honey magazine. And we began to highlight bear hunting with hounds more than it had ever been. highlighted nationally. And there was some group of people that I felt like were upset with us for showing something that had kind of been under the radar, so to speak. And in my philosophy was, we have to tell our, let us be the storyteller of our lives and our story and our passion, because if we don't tell the story, somebody else will. That is not a license to put anything and everything.

on television or on YouTube, there's parts of hunting, just like there's parts of life. There's like parts of your life that you don't want to broadcast to the world. Yep.

That are private, that are ugly, that, so I mean, I think it just goes back to... Dang, you're talking harshly about my life here, Clay. Yeah, yeah.

It ain't pretty, Casey. We all know it. No, so, yeah, do I think they need to be putting a bunch of bay up and stuff on the internet. I'm a little bit undecided, to be honest with you, because I think definitely there's some things that shouldn't.

But should we completely hide that, I don't think, I don't know, because our society, there was a time when that would have just been known that that's the way the natural world worked. Is that the natural world has a component, a God-given component of brutality inside of it. And as we handle that little part of it,

and people do have a big problem with humans being involved in anything like that, like they can watch a lion like mall and pull the guts out of a living gazelle, and it's like not a problem for them. But if they watched a person release a dog that bays a hog, which is not nearly as brutal, you know, they might have problems with it. And so, you know, that's a, it's a tough one. But at the same time, what I think we have to say is that what we're doing inside of hunting is highly regulated, highly backed by science, highly backed by a ethos inside the hunting community in general. There's always bad apples.

There's always guys that are going to break the rules. There's always outlaws. There's always going to be people in tennis, in golf, in jet skiing, in hunting that are going to make us look bad. But in general, the hunting community is trying to be as absolutely humane as possible in everything that we do. We're trying to make ethical shots. We're trying to take down animals, quick and clean kills. We're trying to minimize any amount of suffering for anything. Always.

We always do. But sometimes that the very nature of what we're doing is rough. Yeah. And I feel like society just has to be okay with that. Yeah. It needs to trust us inside of that space. Because, I mean, we could get into all the philosophical elements of, like, you see an Angus beefsteak on the counter in the freezer at the grocery store. And it's like, brother, that animal lived in a tremendous amount of trauma on its life.

I mean, it was, you know, you could talk about all the different things that went into the quality of that animal's life versus the quality of life that a deer that we killed had. And, I mean, you know, we're going to win that ethical debate that that wild animal had an incredible life until it was taken by a hunter. And so hiding that brutality that happens at times, very minimal, of all the animal kills that I've witnessed in my life, a very, a small percentage of them have been like that. And that's just the truth. And it's not the norm. but I do think a guy's got to have good judgment and it helps as we continue to broadcast to the world hey we need to be savvy about this

we need to be savvy I'm still working on this theory but I've got this theory that ground meat is going to be the downfall of the Western world because it's the first transition from the natural state of things that you would eat into something that does not resemble what it came from.

You get what I'm saying? Like, okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, so like. A little bit, a little bit. I grind a lot of deer meat, too. Don't get me wrong. I love it. But like,

I'm going to tell my wife just a little bit. She doesn't really like to bite into a hunk of steak. She likes ground meat. She doesn't like bones. And I love her to death, you know, and we have two different upgrades. Oh, you still love her even though that. I can't tell you're a real saint.

Yeah, well, you know, like, We have to actually appreciate the differences of us and our wives because I don't want to actually be married to Tyler. People just think we are close. You know what I mean? Hairy-licked boys weird me out. So I appreciate some of her dainty nature, right? But at the same time, there's this thing of like, you know,

everybody likes to criticize tofu or vegan diets or whatever. And it's like, hey, you know, like this all kind of started back when the first person was like, you know what, let me take this meat and chop it up real small and make it into something it doesn't look like what it was in the field. You know, so this is just still, this is still in development. But I kind of feel like the burger patty or the chicken nugget is kind of like that first thing that removes people from the idea that, you know, they're not actually taking muscular tissue and breaking it down.

It's already done for them. So it's kind of like it's not as real as the original steak. Are you grind shaming people? No, like I said, I'm right there. But I think that maybe people should have to grind their own meat. Well, they do when they chew up a steak. Well, that's true. But I'm saying those people aren't, the people who are consuming the ground aren't, you know, doing that.

I like it. Here's my full circle moment right here. We're going back to kind of the, I don't know, at the genesis of this thing, you started to kind of ask us about how the meat eater thing was going. And I think that if there's one huge benefit to work in for Mediator, there's a couple. But this is one of the one of major benefits is that the balance that you play with in your mind at all times as a guy who's creating hunting media is like, where is that line? What's the line that I shouldn't show? You know what I mean?

So, for instance, with us, you know, early on, we thought, well, we're just going to put out pretty much everything. And we're going to be completely transparent and honest with everything that we video. And then you put out a couple of videos where a deer die slow or you may not even recover one that you hit, but you got good footage of it because we're bow hunting and we're 20 yards from these things, you know, or 30 or whatever. And you end up getting a lot of hate all of a sudden, you know. And then you're like questioning, well, is that the right move? Did I do that right? Should we do it different next time if that happens?

You know, if we don't get a good clean kill on a deer, should we not show it? And then you start going, well, if we don't, you know, the income stream that we have at the time starts to fade if we can't get out, you know, a video that month or whatever. You know, I'm just throwing a lot. Some of this is hypothetical, but it is things that we've dealt with here and there. And you go through these things in your mind, right? And at the end of the day, you're like, man, my kids, you know, I can't even afford to take them out to dinner at all this month, you know, and celebrate a birthday the way I want to or whatever. And you kind of just got all these. It's a bunch of different variables that go on.

And I would just say that with the meat eater opportunity that we have, it helps a lot for us to be able to go, okay, what is the most tasteful thing that we should do? What is the best thing for hunting that we can put out? And if we end up, you know, having something happen that doesn't go the way you want it to, which occasionally does go that way, if we're all honest about it, you're able to just say, you know what, let's just not show that because that deer had a huge hole in it or whatever. You know, like it may have died quick, but maybe it's really gruesome, you know, or whatever. So you just, I don't know. And we're always constantly balancing that thing.

we're trying to learn. We're putting out stuff that maybe we shouldn't have. And then we can kind of rescind that in the future when something like that similar happens. So I guess what I'm saying is, you know, a lot of these people that are putting out things that are pretty distasteful to most people, they probably, a lot of them are just trying to survive their brand, make their brand survive and hopes that, you know, they'll be able to make a dollar. And it's all, there's a lot of things to that. So I'm not trying to justify for anybody that's being crude or whatever.

But I'm just saying there's a lot of variables in these questions, man. Yeah. Well, and that would be probably the biggest point that this group that would be talking negatively about the influence of social media and hunting television or not that television, but hunting related media. I think that would be there maybe a strong point on their side is that sometimes. that kind of stuff happens. Yeah, it does, man. It does. But, you know, people get injuries in football, too,

no matter how many regulations they put on it, you know. I mean, the world has problems, you know. So we just try to do it to the best of our ability. And I guess at the end of the day, like what I was saying is just that it's nice to be able to have the support from meat eater. to do what we need to do and what's best for the hunting community at all times. It definitely, it's a peace of mind as much as anything for us. Yeah, man.

Well, you know, I think I'm, the older I get, the more I'm confronted with, we will reap the fruit of the decisions that we're making right now. Mm-hmm. There will come a time when there will be an evaluation on this job. generation of hunters' lives, just like there's been massive evaluation done on the market hunters, Daniel Boone and Crockett and all these guys, it's like, man, in the moment, what they did made perfect sense. And it's hard to even, for them to fathom that they would have had

the foresight to know that what they were doing was ultimately leading to massive destruction. but now it's like so easy like you don't even have to it's not you don't even have to convince someone it's like yeah market honey was really bad and we can look back at all the generations

and find false with the way that they did things and one day generations will look back at us and they'll say what did the people do that started with, you know, the first hunters that encountered social media and YouTube and a global audience. Like, what did they do? Yeah, yeah.

And where's the line between what you believe and what is culturally acceptable and pandering to that? You know, like, that's a hard line to draw. What do you, you know, because as you know, Clay, not everybody believes like you, you know. and there's probably about scent control yeah there's a small segment you know or whatever but you you know i guess you have to that's a thing you have to try to understand better as we go through this and it's a it's a frontier right yeah what we're at right that's a great point too and here's the other deal too is like we're doing the best we can with the information that we have currently and that stuff changes it's like you're saying with you know with boon and them guys

like market hunting worked then and you know what? It could have sustained if a ton of other variables went a different direction too. You know what I mean? Like I get the population the U.S. is higher at the moment

but like there was a gazillion buffalo on the landscape and now there's a gazillion cows. You know, so it's like that probably doesn't work, the math doesn't work out perfect but you get what I'm saying is it's like I think I see what you're saying.

It's not that what they did directly live. to some bad stuff, but it's the extenuating circumstances that are beyond the control of the certain individual that actually writes history, right? So like... But there has to be a scapegoat in every story. Yeah, that's right. You got to blame somebody. Sure.

Otherwise, you know, you have to look in the mirror, you know? And that's that. Nobody wants to do that. I get older and ugly. That's right. These gray hairs, man. But, you know, it's essentially, it's like what you're saying, man. a lot of variables and we just have to do the best that we know to do and that just be what we

focus on yeah yeah well i think one of the there's all kind of there's all kind of bright spots inside of where we're at with wildlife and north america i mean incredible bright spots we talked about how we are in the heyday of white tail deer hunting and that that that doesn't come from me. I was at an event with Kip Adams of the National Deer Association. And I mean, basically that's what he said. I mean, when you look at all the factors and the amount of deer, the number of big deer, the amount of access that people have, it's like, we're in the heyday of whitetail deer hunting. I mean, I'm, I know like the bigger deer that I've killed in my life at one time was kind of a big deal, even regionally, to me. And today it's like,

golly, I mean, 150-inch deer is just like fairly common. That's what Casey said. And I'm telling you, 25 years ago, they were not. Yeah. And we're in the heyday. There's a lot of really bright spots inside of hunting. There's also a lot of very real existential things. And threats to the long-term sustainability of what we do. And I think that's why we just have to work to show the best side of hunting, to have intelligent arguments for the reason we do, things that we do, but also tell the story of the culture of hunting and how this is really a part of who we are as Americans is the ability to hunt.

And we've got to tell this human story. And I feel like that's what we're trying to do at Bear Grease, is tell the human and cultural story of hunting and its significance. Yeah. Aside from, and it's like, yeah, there's a lot behind this that's powerful. And I think that carves a space in society. Like someone might be able to listen to some of our stories and understand hunting,

maybe like they never have before. Like they understand, okay, now I kind of see why they do that. And, yeah. and I think that's important. But, yeah, a lot of threats, but also a lot of bright spots. You're one of them, man. Yeah, man. We are glad that you're leading this ship, man.

And we're very appreciative to have you as not just a friend, but also somebody that we get to work with towards the same kind of goals, man. Shoot, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I just need to go back hunting with you guys again. Come on. Hey, open invite me.

We've been talking about this a little bit. You got all busy with some interesting stuff you got going on. I know. There's some, hey, just, you know, when you get back in December, you're going to be jealous. You need to talk to us. You're going to do something. I'm already jealous. No, I'm not jealous.

I don't get jealous. I really don't get jealous. I'm, when I see somebody's success, I'm pumped for him. Well, what we need you to do is. I do wish I could go hunt with you. You know, here in Texas, you don't have to put on the wetsuit to swim up on a deer. You actually just wear your Bermuda shorts and go, swim up on the deer and shoot them. Fight off the water moxkins, you know?

Man, we're going to close her down here. We've been going for an hour and a half. This has been great. This is longer than most bear grease renders, guys. Sorry about that, man. Long-winded guys around here. Birds of a feather. No, it's good.

It's been good combo. Yeah. Been good combo. No, I was, you say in water moccasins, I saw a giant rattlesnake that while I was deer hunting the other day up in the mountains. It was pretty cool. Did you put that on Instagram? I think I saw that today. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was awesome. Timber rattlers are so pretty, man. They are, they are, they are. Yeah. I've had some good, I've had some fun hunts this year, but it's been tough so far. Close us down. Where are y'all going next? Where are y'all headed next?

Man, that's a great question, Clay. It sounds like you're trying to, you know, write me a citation somewhere. I don't want all these people showing up on our public lands, you know. That's right. That's right. I got some unfinished business up in the North Country. I'm about to go address in a couple days. Okay.

Up in the plane. That's as specific as you'll get. Yeah, that's right, man. North country live. Yeah. But, I mean, it's just full-bore whitetail from here on out. We're going to pretty much hit about as many states as we can get to. and at some point in time,

we're going to be in your home state here this fall. Looking real forward to that, I mean, it's a beautiful place. Yeah. Very natural. Well, good luck to you guys. Man, thanks for being on the bare grease render. And just for everybody out there,

if you're looking for some fun stuff, check out all of the elements, YouTube videos. They have their own YouTube channel, but they also, it's kind of confusing. Life's complex and confusing. They also have a series called Buck Truck on the Meat Eater YouTube channel. So you can go back and look for the buck truck. And there's like seven episodes, I think.

And one of our episodes is on there, the Arkansas deer hunt that I did with Casey and Tyler last year. Had a great time. I wanted them to spell it with a W at the end, but they wouldn't let me, man. Oh, that would have been good. Yeah. Yeah. That's some deep, bear-gree stuff right there. That's right.

We did a whole series on Arkansas with a W. I know it, man. You know, I appreciate the opportunity to do this, Clay. And we, one other thing, if I could just give one more, a little plug here, is our podcast, the Element podcast, is a good way to keep up with everything and much more detail about what we're doing. So if you're interested in that, or if you want to hear more about the Arkansas buck truck trip that wasn't in the video, we talk about that on our podcast, you know.

So you can check that out over on whatever, whatever. whatever network you get this one on. Yeah. And the other cool thing that's going on with Meteor to YouTube is you can watch all of the Meteor Season 12 episodes. So this is Steve Renella's Meat Eater, the famed show in its 12th season. And I think it's wild that the place, the platform that we're putting that today first is on YouTube. It's wild.

It's because it's such a It's such a big platform So there's still four, people are confused It's hard to keep track of But you know there's four seasons of Meteor that's still on Netflix Like season maybe 8, 9, 10, 11, something like that So you can go to Netflix and watch it

But the new seasons, seasons 11 and 12 are now on the Meteor YouTube channel And those are good, man. Man, Rinella's show is just, it's next level. Always has been, always been my favorite. It'd be hard to top. So you can check that out.

And, yeah. Well, guys, good luck to y'all. Thanks, man. We're going to get after it. I hope you have safe travels this year, man. We'll be talking to you. I appreciate you, Clay. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.