Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 054 - Clay Newcomb

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Join us for a discussion with Clay Newcomb, host of the Bear Grease Podcast. Cam and Clay cover bear hunting, Clay’s background with the show MeatEater, storytelling in the outdoors and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Connect with Clay: https://www.instagram.com/clay_newcomb/ Thank you to our sponsors: MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv  MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code Cam for 15% off  Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first Order Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/  Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro: Squirrel Hunting the Ozarks 0:02:49 Bear Hunting: The Bear That Got Too Close 0:07:28 Why Bear Hunting? 0:09:56 The Reintroduction of Bears to Arkansas 0:14:56 Bear Hunting Magazine 0:17:49 Bear Management 0:23:03 Hunting Predators with Hounds 0:27:53 How Clay Got Connected with MeatEater 0:30:15 The Bear Grease Podcast 0:31:48 The Donnie Baker Story 0:36:20 Bear Grease Podcast: Fascinating Stories 0:40:10 Social Media & Hunting 0:47:23 Hunting: Having A Culture & Space to Exist 0:50:16 Clay’s Sons: Basketball & Hunting 0:56:59 Clay’s First Bear 1:00:11 What Clay Uses for Bait 1:03:54 Rural Arkansas to Joe Rogan 1:06:03 Whitetail Hunting & Why Clay Started Writing 1:12:06 Clay’s Dream Hunt 1:19:16 Rifle Hunting 1:22:00 Bowhunting: Compound VS Traditional  1:25:22 Arkansas Bear Pit Blind Kill 1:30:24 The Link Between Bear & Native Americans 1:34:28 Brown Bear Hunting 1:36:48 Clay’s Future Goals 1:40:18 Storytelling Goals 1:45:07 Outro

Every step I take I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel, gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. Well, this is a Keep Hammering Collective. I'm here with Clay Newcomb from Arkansas.

Arkansas. Man, thanks for coming out. Man, means a lot that you had me on, for real. Really appreciate it. It's a haul out here, huh? Two flights. It wasn't too bad. If I had to driven my truck or ridden my mule, it'd have been a little longer, but...

I love those pictures of your mules out. You know, I think you just put something up, squirrel hunting, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you ride the mules out and just shoot squirrels and... Well, it's an effective method to hunt squirrels in the Ozarks. So, yeah. And we just got to cover a lot of ground.

We don't have real great squirrel hunting, so we'll ride 10 or 12 miles in a day, let the dogs hunt. Oh, it's a blast, man. It's a blast. It's one of the funest things I do. You take the dogs. Yeah, yeah. So do they point out the squirrels? Point the squirrels.

They don't point the squirrels, Cam. I don't know. I'm near a squirrel on it. They tree them? We got to indoctrinate you in the ways of the southern U.S. Do they tree them like lions? Absolutely. What?

They're phenomenal. I've got mountain feces. I've got two of them. Really intelligent little dogs. My dog weighs, well, my best dog. It weighs 19 pounds, and I mean, just a flurry of energy. And they tree squirrels. So they hunt out 150 yards, oftentimes within sight, but I'll let her get out 150 yards or more.

And when she starts barking, she's looking at a squirrel. Wow. And then you get as fast as you can there on the mules. And because the squirrel is going to be timbering out, most likely, or leaving. And sometimes they'll sit still, probably half the time they're sitting still, half the time they're trying to run. Get there as quick as you can. Yeah. Shoot them out.

Yeah, we love to squirrel hunts. Having a good squirrel dog down where I live is like a badge of a hunter, man. Really? Yeah, you bet. Yeah, I've never done that. I obviously don't know anything about it. I mean, other than seeing what you posted. But what I did see is, and you would know this, but there's no fat on those things.

A squirrel? Oh, no. Yeah. So I remember I heard one time that if you just ate rabbit, you couldn't survive on rabbit because there's not enough fat. Is that right? So squirrel's pretty much the same? Yeah. Yeah. There's no fat on them. They just look lean as heck. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's pretty cool. I mean, I don't know anything about it. But so just in general, I've just been following you for years because of bear hunting. You know, you had the magazine bear hunter, right? Bear hunting magazine. Bear hunting. Okay. And, uh, and, uh, Yeah, I remember reading that and falling along, and I think we've corresponding back and forth and met at the ATA. Yeah, but it's been, I just don't know that much about you. So it's other than, I mean, what I follow, sitting down haven't had the chance. Right.

Yeah, yeah. I'm pumped. But I will say last night I was watching some of your videos. And this one everybody probably talks about, but the one with the bear came in and hit the broadhead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. How exciting was that?

It was, yeah, it was, it was the only time that I really felt threatened by a bear, even though the bear was not really even acting that aggressive. Yeah. But it was just too close. Like the situation got out of control. The bear was, I saw him. I was shooting a traditional bow, so I was happy for him to be close. Yeah.

And when he started coming towards me, I just thought, great, I'm going to let him get as close as he wants to get. And you've extensively hunted bears like that on the ground in deep wilderness and they're typically not that afraid of people. I figured he was going to come in to five or six yards and look me over and turn around and I would just get a chip shot. Well, when he got to that five or six yards, he turned and just, you know, came right in. I'm on the ground in a, just a little brush blind. And I've got that, I've got a full-length. I've got a full length shaft. So I think it was like over 30 inch shaft on that traditional bow.

Yeah. Sticking out, had three fingers under the knock. And he starts coming and I just, I just keep thinking, thinking he's bluffing, you know, he's going to turn. Yeah. And so I, my heart rate didn't even go up. And but then when he got, you know, where I could have like punched him in the face. Yeah. You know, that was too close. And I and I mumbled something and stepped back and I just used the tip of my arrow and I touched his nose just kind of to make contact with him just like right wake up call yeah and when I the air I touched the tip of his nose he he kind of stood up about three-quarter stand and just kind of sniffed around I mean he was just right in my face yeah it was intense and then he dropped back down and I shot him and uh yeah so that was

that was that was exciting now and then the second shot was a great shot I mean, that's a longer shot. Man, that's, you know, the, the, just being in a state of flow. I mean, I couldn't have made that shot probably. It was 24, 25 yards. Yeah. I always, with my traditional archery equipment, felt like my, I really didn't want to shoot something much past 15 yards.

Yeah. So, but I already had an air in him. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like the perfect shot. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think, was it on that video where you guys were messing around?

at 45 yards. Yeah, we were plinking around. Man, you saw all the old stuff. So the, you, you, you were tapping back into the old Bear Honey magazine YouTube days. Yeah, yeah, it was good. Well, you know, the stuff that we've done the last several years is probably stuff I'm, well, maybe everybody's excited what they've done most recently. Yeah, probably.

Yeah. But so you think that it's gotten better since. even well okay so the the story was i i owned and published bear honey magazine for eight years from 2013 until 20 20 20 maybe 20 21 and so we we had a podcast at that time we had a youtube channel and we were pumping out videos and i was you know as an entrepreneur like yourself you know we were just kind of working on a small budget doing what we could do And yeah, it was an incredible eight years, spent a lot of time bear hunting, got to hunt some of the best places in the world for bear. Yeah.

And then three years ago, I started working for meat eater. And so I transitioned away from Bear Hunting Magazine. And my good buddy, Colby Moorhead, now owns it. And so for the last three years, I've been working with meat eater. And we've done a lot of really cool stuff since then as well. You've got a bigger budget now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That helps.

It does. Yeah. So how did, I mean, why bear hunting? Have you just, did you always love bear hunting? Did you start the magazine also? I didn't. It started in 2000. Oh, okay. And man, I just, I didn't kill a bear until I was 21 years old. Grew up in Arkansas, raised in Arkansas. Killed a bear when I was 21. And it was almost like my dad was with me when I killed it. And I, there was, was kind of a vermin mentality with bears at that time in our state and in a lot of places in the east i feel like yeah man when i walked up to that bear i was 21 years old i had already killed quite a few deer with a bow was was the way i described it is for deer i knew quite a bit about deer i knew

where they bedded i knew where they where that what they wanted to eat right i knew how to kill them turkeys i knew how to kill them all these animals we kind of lucked into this bear oh i see and And, but it was on purpose. We were bear hunting. And I walked up to this beast, and I was mesmerized. I really was. Was it a big bear? Just a 230-pound sow.

Okay. But I walked up to this animal 21 years old, and I recognized I didn't know anything about it. And that, to me, felt hollow. You know, just as a bow hunter, it was important for me to, and I wouldn't, nobody told me this. It's just. as I analyzed the situation, I was like, it kind of felt hollow. And then here was this incredible beast that I just killed. And that actually set me on a journey of just being mesmerized by bears.

So the next year, I wanted a bear hunt again. And my dad was like, why do you want a bear hunt again? You already killed a bear. And I was like, dad, I hadn't stopped thinking about bears since I killed that one. Yeah. And so I grew up focusing on white tails. My dad was a for our part of the world was a very serious dedicated public land white tail bow hunter. Didn't own a deer rifle.

Really? I first deer ever killed was with a bow. I mean, he wouldn't let us kill him with a rifle. So I grew up with a hardcore bow hunter. Yeah. So we were very much so focused on deer. Yeah. But when I killed that bear, it just was exciting, you know, just something exotic.

And then the bear story in Arkansas is really phenomenal too in that the reintroduction of bears into Arkansas was considered at the time of the reintroduction, the most successful reintroduction of large carnivores in the world. Really? It was because bears were extirpated. I'm kind of going down a lot of trails here. Bears were extirpated from most of Arkansas. At one time, there were 50,000. Bears in the state of Arkansas. We were known as the Bear State in 1800s. There's a lot of deep history that's really cool. Bears were extirpated. They were killed out, landscape level, logging,

market hunting, all the stuff that happened during that time. Between 1954 and 1964, this is all stuff that I would learn after I killed this bear. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But between 154 and 1964, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, without any public input traded, and I think that's cool. They traded bass and wild turkey with Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada and brought 254 bears back over the course of 10 years in wire cages handmade on the back of pickup trucks turned bears out into Arkansas. So reintroduction being capturing live, wild adult animals and relocating in. And from that reintroduction today, there's a hot spot. Like if you look at a black bear distribution, map of North America. Bears in the east were always there in the Appalachians and on the coast from

Florida, even all the way up into New York, like a stronghold. The Rocky Mountains and the northwest, always a stronghold of black bears. But in middle America, there was a hole where they were basically extirpated. Right. So today, when you look at a distribution map of bears, you will see a big hotspot that covers now Oklahoma, Southern Missouri, Western Mississippi, northern Louisiana, and northeast Texas. And all those bears came from that reintroduction of 254 bears into Arkansas. So it's a neat story. Yeah, yeah.

I didn't know that until, so I was in college at the time. I was married. I was married. I was at the University of Arkansas and studying for my degrees in environmental soil and water science, which I've never used a day in my life. But I would go to the university and I read, almost memorized every thesis research project ever done on Arkansas Bears. And it just seemed so important to me.

And at the time, it didn't make sense. You know, I was just enamored with it. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I was pulling books out of this library that I promise you, nobody had looked at in decades. But I found these books. and they were the research projects from UBA students who had worked with the game and fish,

and I started learning about Arkansas Bears, the reintroduction, the wire cages, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, how they, how they, how bears redistribute inside of a vacuum from, from extra extrapation. Mm-hmm. And it was just fascinating to me. Yeah.

And then, so I started, uh, long story short, I started a regional hunting conservation organization for, bears in Arkansas in about 2010. Okay. And it's called the Arkansas, Arkansas Black Bear Association. And it's no longer in existence. It was kind of a stepping stone. Yeah.

But it was really important for me. We had a good thing going. I just couldn't keep it going. Right. But so I started the Arkansas Black Bear Association, which at the time in Arkansas, like I said, bears were kind of a vermin to people. Like there really wasn't a cultural value placed on bears. And it's interesting, why?

Because bears had been gone. Arkansas was once known as the bear state in the 1800s. That's a whole other story. Then for 80 years, there were no bears. And in three generations, you can forget a lot of stuff. Yeah. And so really, bear hunting was, forgotten.

You know, like my dad had no place in his hunting world for bear hunting. His father didn't because when his father was growing up in western Arkansas, there were no bears. His father would have, you know, my great-grandfather maybe would have been in Arkansas when there were a few bears. And so when all of a sudden we had this burgeoning population, we started hunting them. New tradition. We kind of had to build a new bear hunting culture in the state.

and say like, hey, this is incredible. This is a world-class resource. And that's what we did through the Arkansas Black Bear Association. Through that is how I got hooked up with Bear Hunting Magazine. Okay. It really was kind of a, it was really a miracle in a way because I randomly got in touch with the publisher of this magazine. And long story short, K. When he was ready to get out of the magazine business, I hardly knew the guy.

But I had started this association in Arkansas and actually had a regional magazine that we were publishing, weren't making any money. But I was publishing a regional Arkansas hunting magazine. That's exciting. Called the Arkansas Barenbuck Journal. There's about 20 issues out there, man. And there, I love looking back. Well, I hate looking back at them. But it's kind of funny.

Why do you hate? Just rough? Yeah, just, you know, I look back at stuff like I did five years ago and kind of. Yeah, but I know. I mean, I look back at my early writings or even though my first book and it's just like, man, what was I thinking? But it's part of the journey, right? It absolutely is. Yeah.

So I hardly knew this guy that owned Bear Honey magazine, but in 2013, he was ready to, to get out. And he was the one that started. His name, his name was Jeff Becker. And he had started it in 2000. And basically, we, he worked out a deal with me that I couldn't refuse. And I took over owning Bear Honey magazine in 2013, which was, at the time, I didn't really view it as a risk, like a financial risk. I had a family. I've got four kids. I've been married 23 years. I was at the time landscaping. I had a landscape company in Northwest Arkansas.

Okay. Which I had so that I could be my own boss and so that I could hunt when I wanted to and provide for my family. That's all you need. And then so the transition from landscaping to bear hunting magazine was, yeah, I look back now and say it was like super risky

to go into the print magazine business. But man, I just knew it was right. I just knew it. It just was too good. And man, I jumped in with everything I had for eight years. And Bear Hunting Magazine was really my first step onto more of a national platform for hunting media and whatnot. Yeah. And I'd never set out to be in hunting media. It never was a goal. Yeah. I just love to hunt. Right. I just, I just, I just, just loved wild places. And loved bear.

Loved bear. Yeah. So did Rinella see that? How did you get hooked up now with meat eater? Yeah, I think Bear Honey Magazine, just what I was doing there in a few different places. Actually, the video clip of that bear touching my arrow, I think probably was one of the things that he saw. Okay. And in 2019, I didn't know Steve.

I had met him kind of like I had met you. I'd met him at a trade show, just shook his hand. And we were kind of email buddies, but did not know him. And then in 2019, just out of the blue, he contacted me and was like, hey, you want to come work for me either? Shock of my life, truly was. Oh, yeah, yeah. And how's it been? Man, it's been incredible.

It truly has. doing the bear stuff has been really interesting and it's also what I liked about what you've been doing all these years talking about bear hunting and not being afraid to talk about bear hunting this is going to get back to meat eater, okay? Okay.

When I first took over Bear Hunting magazine in 2013, if we could go back in time 10 years ago, very few people were on a national stage talking about bears and bear hunting. I mean, I would say there are way more films, media, just in general, it's way more popular and even accepted than it was 10 years ago. I just assumed that I would just kind of always just be an obscure niche. Nitch, yep, 100%.

Yeah, it's, I think we've done a good job of educating why bear hunting's important. and there's a little bit of romance to it. Maybe, you know, you're hunting in a predator, so it's different than a deer. But I think a lot of people who don't understand bear hunting think there are no bear. You know, it's like they don't know that there's thousands and thousands of them pretty much in every state

and they need to be managed and need to be hunted. So I think we've done a good job. You know, you've played a big role in that of educating the general public. So now it is more accepted. so people aren't afraid. Normally, if you're a hunter, you put up a picture, and Joe has talked about this a lot.

You know, a turkey, nobody even cares. A pig, nobody even cares. Bear, lions, people definitely care. You know, so it's, I think people avoided talking about it maybe because they didn't want to deal with the negativity. But the education piece, I think, has helped that. You're still going to get it, but it's a little bit. I think it's changed.

I think, and I think we, We've made it a kind of a rally point inside the hunting community. I mean, I see that happen with the mountain line stuff. I mean, guys are like saying, hey, this is important to us as a whole. And so we're not, we're going to tell our story. We're not ashamed of this. We're not afraid of this. We have this incredible history in America of bear hunting.

Bears are thriving. I mean, black bears, whatever's happening ecologically in North America has been beneficial to ursus Americana. I mean, bears are thriving. Yeah. Every research population of bears in North America is either growing or stable. Yeah. Like there's no stressed out population of bears.

Yeah. It's, you know, but that does put pressure on the prey animals too because now, like in Colorado where I just was, they have tons of black bears also. But now they have wolves and tons of lions, which are trying to ban, it's like, man, And those deer and elk and moose, it's going to be rough, rough going for them. Yeah. Which that might be the goal. Maybe they want that, you know, because then you think about, well, are they trying to ruin hunting basically?

So then hunting isn't necessary? I don't know. It's just, you know, we could go on a whole different rabbit trail around that topic. But, yeah, I mean, point is predators are, it's good business for predators these days. Yeah. But we still need to manage them. We got to kill them. It's all there is to it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my goal, I don't know about you, but I would love to be able to kill as many predators as I do prey, you know, and just to do my part, essentially. Yeah. And I, you know, with that lion hunt I was just on, I've never killed a lion. I've killed a bear with, one bear with dogs,

and that's the only time I ever used dogs. But I even had a hard time, like myself, thinking, am I going to be okay killing something up in a tree like this? You know, because it's not my typical hunt. It's not like, it's just different. But as hunters, that's our responsibility. We can't just shy away from what's necessary

to make this whole thing work. Right. So, yeah, but it is a little, I don't want to say a moral dilemma, but it's something I had to, I'm thinking about. Well, I think that the whole hunting predators with hounds makes a lot more sense when you understand the deep American history behind the houndsmen. Yes.

I mean, I was thrilled when I saw you put up a video the other day with hounds. I mean, about the most American thing a guy could do is go kill a predator with a hound. I mean, for real. And those guys, you know, as well as anybody, you have dogs yourself, but they love those dogs. Oh, yeah. And the dogs live for that. Yeah. I mean, it's just there's, it's, it couldn't be more pure as far as love for an animal and

animal love for what it's doing. Yeah. And that's what's, that's what I like about it. Yeah. It's, it's, and for somebody that didn't know much about it and just went out with houndsmen, you could get the impression that it was easy or that, but man, when you see the, the, deep history of these houndsmen, I, I say this all the time. and I'm, I would debate anybody on planet Earth about the ethics of hunting with hounds.

I mean, just, I will win. Yeah. I mean, there's, when you understand the deep history, and I know, I also understand that not everybody wants to hunt with hounds, and that's fine. Yeah. But the, there definitely is, the anti-honey movement is very interested in the hound community because it's the most vulnerable, it's small. It's a niche world.

And it's a very easy sell. It's a one step cell for me to talk to you who has no context, no rural background, no understanding of hunting the North American model of wildlife conservation. It's a one step cell for me to say, hey, these guys are using dogs to kill mountain lions. Really? Yeah. It's a longer story to see the deep tradition, the history, the skill, the animal welfare, the ethics, the selection. I mean, being able to select the animal like you're doing. Yeah.

It's incredible. I mean, and that ties back in to kind of the work that we did at Bear Honey Magazine and still continues today is that we kind of formed this ideology, a phrase we call Garden the Gate, which if you looked at, and this was the real simple version of it, if you looked at the whole of North American hunting as one big thing, elk and deer and bow hunters and rifle hunters and trappers and. and houndsmen, the anti-hunting community, they are interested in the low-hanging fruit on that. And the gate into our space is often through trapping and hounds, it just is. And so to me, if we're gonna protect the hole, we gotta guard the gate.

And to me, what we did for all those years and still doing is just educating people and on the management issues revolved around hound hunting, you can be selective, all the positives. Man, that's a soapbox of mine, big time, big time. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, here in Oregon, we took a hit in 94. That's when they banned it, and it was really easy

because they had, you know, shooting a cat or a bear out of a tree and is bouncing off limbs and hitting the ground. And it's just like, that's all they got to show. Yeah. So if you, if you, if you, you, don't understand hunting and you see that. It's tough. It's a, it is a conund.

I mean, I don't, I don't like watching it myself. You know what I mean? But it's part of, I don't like watching any animal diet, to be honest, you know, but it's what we do as hunters. But that's such an easy one for people for, as you said, slow hanging fruit. And there would be people that would say let it die. Yeah. For real.

I mean, there would be people that would say, hey, just let them have it. It's going away. When I got Bear Honey magazine, there was a reputable guy in the outdoor space. You'd probably know his name if I said it. He heard I got the magazine and he told me, he said, whatever you do, stay out of the dog stuff. He said, it's dying. It's going away. Just and I-

Can't give it out of. I immediately knew that he was wrong and that I was not going to do that. Yeah. And so we've been talking about hound hunting. and the tradition of it. We've made a lot of really cool films since I've been working at Meteor 2 with hound hunting out in Appalachian Mountains. I love it.

That's not, I don't own any big game dogs. So I have coon hounds and squirrel dogs. So it's not like I really even have a dog in the hunt, literally and figuratively. But I just love it. I just, I think it's something that's worth preserving. But I hate to, okay, big, big. Big, big circle. Go back.

The work that I was doing for Bear Honey magazine, Meteeter hired me to work for them to start a podcast. And, man, I give, I'd said that I felt like I would just kind of always be an obscure player in the outdoor space. Because I felt like the stuff that I was interested in was not, a mainstream audience would not be interested in. Yeah.

Yeah, from from bears to hounds to the history stuff that we do on our podcast and the stories that we tell on the Bear Greas podcast, kind of obscure, a lot of obscure storytelling. And, man, Steve Ronella, I think he, I gave him a ton of credit. He's been really, really good to me. He kind of picked me out of the crowd and was just like, you go. And he just turned me loose. Yeah. And, you know, that was three years, about three years ago. that I started the Bear Grease podcast, which that's 90% of my life right now.

I mean, in my career is producing that podcast. Okay, so let's talk about Bear Grease. Yeah. So where does the name Bear Grease come from? So Bear Grease is a metaphor for things forgotten but relevant. There would have been a time in American history when you could have asked 10 people on the street what Bear Grease was and probably nine of them. would have known. They would have said it's animal lard. We use it for cooking. We use it for burning our oil lamps. Today you ask a hundred people what bear grease is. Maybe one would

have a clue what it was. Maybe. Maybe. And there's this thing. Ah, my other thing I nerd out about bear grease. Yeah. No, there's, we have such an incredible history in America with bear grease. There's a big commercial bear grease trade that went on. But so the title Bear Grease is a metaphor for things forgotten but relevant. And so that's what we talk about. So the Bear Grease podcast, we, it's a history podcast. It's an anthropology podcast. We do deep dives, a lot of deep dives on historical characters.

Some of our, some of our best historical episodes have been, about Daniel Boone. We did like a, what would end up being like three hours of, of, of audio on the life of Daniel Boone and his impact on American identity and just fascinating.

That was a, we do stuff like that. We also do stuff. I just released a podcast called the Donnie Baker story, which where I interviewed a guy that killed illegally with his bow, a 204-inch Missouri white, until in 2009 on a military base in central Missouri.

I think, yeah, I saw that, a post about it or something. And he was a fascinating interview with this guy. And we always have, that's right. So you talked to the guy who did it. I talked to the guy who did it. And he got in trouble, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he got in big trouble.

So what was the, why did he do it? Just wanted to kill that giant buck? Well, it's, Cam, you got to listen to it. I know, I know, I know. He did not intend to kill the deer illegally. So, Deer, he was trying to kill legally. And basically, he was riding through the military base one day with his bow in the truck. Oh, no.

And it jumps out in front of it. And he basically jumps out of the truck and shoots it. He's a 26-year-old kid. Yeah. But so the story is him, he's an incredible guy, which it was a hard podcast for me to do because, I mean, here I'm sitting with a guy who most of the world would label as a poacher. Right. And, but that's why I wanted to talk to him because he's very open, very not, he doesn't blame anyone but himself. Really a different guy today than he was then and it came because of that.

Yeah. But what we explored too, and I talked with an expert on the subject, but what do we as a society expect from people who break a moral code or break a law? Right. And so we talked about apologies. And we talked about like public apologies that like a politician would make. Like how do you – because this guy, you know, a guy gets one headline in his life, killed an illegal deer, poacher. and then like how do we handle him for the rest of his life as a society typically we would just be like he's a poacher don't care anything about it yeah yeah well in the donnie baker's story's just way different than that

yeah it is and it kind of takes people on a ride of you just can't believe what this guy did and he lied he tried to hide it he tried to falsify where he killed it yeah super open though super open about it and then and then we go into, you know, I interview somebody else about apologies. So there's a, Berggris always has a deeper, a deeper, yeah, meaning than just what you get on the surface. That's interesting. You know, I've, you know, not that I've ever had to, well, I've obviously had to apologize for things, but I've thought about like, when we've been in kind of the hunting spotlight for a while, it's just like, and you do everything right. I was thought, to my what if I screwed up what if like what if I'm not going to go poach something but it would take

the the smallest oversight maybe on a license or a hunter safety card or something it's like how quick people would throw you to the side you know and just like just write off anything you've ever done because of one screw up yeah you know and I'm not saying what he did was fine and he should just ignore it but it's just like yeah that whole you know where we're at with mistakes or make or apologizing and uh you know because i've been doing this now we're bow hunting for 35 years and once grew up the the social media today i'd be you know people would love for me to screw up yeah you know just to rip me apart yeah it's like so you can't help but think about stuff like that oh it's that kind of stuff is fascinating to me and and really i think

the way we handle stuff like that is that if it's if it's someone we know or if it's someone that you could set across a table from and look in their eyes and talk to them about why they did what they did yeah be pretty easy to forgive and move on but a headline when you don't know someone when they're away from you it's so easy to just smash them yeah you know and and i'm i'm all for being strict on poachers i mean yeah like i'm saying and let's be soft on poachers, but it's just interesting. And then, I know. So we do this history stuff.

We, you know, we did a, I mean, we've done 100 episodes or more, well, 168, but they're not all. The Bear Grease is a documentary style podcast. So I might, I might interview three different people on a single one hour episode and have, it's, it's, it's very scripted and put together and an efficient listen. but we do you know we did a big series on a guy named Hulk Collier who was an enslaved guy at one time in Mississippi who became a famous bear hunter killed 3,000 bears and guided Teddy Roosevelt on a bear hunt that would become the bear hunt that that made the American teddy bear. Do you remember the story of Roosevelt not shooting a roped bear? Yeah. Well, Hulk Collier, the black guy, Hulk Collier was the one who. who roped that bear.

Really? Fascinating story. I mean, an incredible story. It's a shame that there's not a Hollywood movie made about Hulk Collier. And we did a podcast on him. And we did a podcast on a series on, I'm bringing up these poacher ones. They're not all about poachers. But I grew up in a small town in western Arkansas in the mountains of Arkansas.

And there was a pair of brothers named Louis Dillan. Charlie Edwards. They're both passed away now. They were a little bit older than my father. My dad's 75, so, you know, they probably would have been 80-something today if they were alive. But they were notorious turkey poachers, notorious. And just character, just backwoods, hillbilly characters. They were also incredibly beloved people in our community. Imagine them on a podcast. Well, the story. stories? We did a three-part series called Genuine Outlaws on Louis Dale and Charlie Edwards. Some people probably would accuse me of glamorizing, breaking the law, which I'm glad to take the criticism, because if you actually listen to the podcast, it's anything but that. And my lifestyle from day one has been anything but glamorizing outlawing. But it's a fascinating story. I interviewed. a son, an uncle, people that knew them at the game warden, the undercover game warden that tried to bust them from Tennessee that came in.

And just a fascinating look into kind of rural America and this poaching ring and these guys' lives. So interesting stuff. Why is it? Because, you know, I grew up in a little tiny town outside of Springfield here. but I don't want to say his name, but like he was the biggest poacher there, but the biggest personality, why do those guys have the best stories? I mean, why do they, is it this giant personality that drives them to, to, I don't know, exploit things or to get the biggest buck or to get the most box, whatever?

Because this guy would walk around this little town, but I would always want to talk to him because his stories were freaking crazy. Yeah, yeah. But he got caught poaching all the time, spotlighting, trespassing. But man, best stories ever. Yeah. I don't know why that is. Those guys have a lot of confidence.

I mean, I think confidence plays out into a lot of different areas, good and bad, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the way I look at these guys. They just, they were master woodsmen, number one, but they were just confident in all areas of life. They were just, I don't know. That's what, yeah, that's the guys that kind of reminds me of, you know, there was a couple of them actually up there, but they're loggers.

So they know, you know, when you're a logger, when you're in the mountains every day, you got such an advantage over people. We'd call people who lived in town Flatlanders. Yeah. So if you are confident, you're tough because you're a logger, you've been in the woods, you got woodsmanship, you're going to be pretty deadly out there. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe too deadly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but man, so this is kind of a, you know, I don't know, I like what you're doing and how you go about it. But, you know, social media and hunting, how do you marry that up? Because that obviously gets criticized. Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, killing for content, that type of thing. But are people just ignoring?

Is it just like that negativity that it's an easy, like a low-hanging fruit, almost like the lions. and running with dogs is like putting a kill shot up. Is that just low-hanging fruit for even fellow hunters to bash other hunters? It's just this weird social media and hunting. And how do you see that working? You know, I think as people that hunters that are putting stuff on social media, I think it is important to be introspective and to look at the motivations of why we do what we do. and to have an articulation for why we do what we do.

And my philosophy is if we don't tell our story, somebody else will. I feel like it's our responsibility to tell our story. And the modern storytelling media, medium of the world is social media. So for us to be absent from social media would be hyper unusual for anything. I mean, mountain bikers, car people, people that like to play poker, I don't know. I mean, just like every arena of life that people delve into, there are social media influencers. It's just the currency of this time. And, you know, yeah, there's certainly movements right now that are bashing social media influencers and saying that it's negative and it's hurting the sport.

I mean, there's never like a clear answer, like, yes or no. There are people that are hurting our sport for sure. There would be. And I'm not even thinking of a single person right now, but yes, there are bad apples. But, man, if we don't tell the world and interpret for the world our lifestyle, then number one, it would be lost. I mean, if you think of the long-term sustainability and the cultural value, like what makes anything stand inside of a society is it has cultural value. People love it.

People think it's cool. I look at your Instagram and see you with an elk, and I'm like, man, that is valuable. That is cool. I like that. I want to be like that. There's nothing wrong with that. And so I think we've got to be our own storytellers. Yeah.

And so that's my philosophy. There's, yeah, there's plenty of, I think it's a pretty small group of people that are on social media telling other hunters they shouldn't be on social media. Yeah. Yeah. They're a great group of people, too. I really enjoy them. Yeah. But, no, and I listen to that stuff and try to take it serious.

Yeah. It's like I do. I'm like, why do I want to put stuff up? Why do I want to? Yeah. And definitely there's a marketing aspect to it. I mean, there's just no getting around it. Like there is a, this thing is fueled by money to some level.

Yeah. Just like anything, just like the bicycling world, the motocross world, the skiing world. Yeah. And so like, you know who's funding me to tell these incredible American stories that nobody else is telling? And it's my full-time job. wake up in the morning, that's all I think about. That's all I do is meat eater. Yeah.

Who, yep, we sell hunting gear. I mean, it's just like, yeah, we're not trying to hide anything. This is just the way it works. Yeah, I love it. Well, you know, I think there is a responsibility to do it right. You know, and I'm not like the perfect, most perfect person, but I do try to think about what I'm putting out and how it's presented and how it's. what I'm writing with it.

Like, you know, on this lion hunt, I just know how critical it is in Colorado right now. So I was trying to be very intentional about the words that I'd put in each caption and what the story I was telling. But if we're not telling that story to your point, who is? You know, who is going to be the pro-hunting advocate? We have to.

And so if I looked at, like you said with Bear Hunting Magazine, you know, maybe you'd get to, you know, 10,000 subscribers. Well, you see what we're reaching on social media. So as long as the story is told the right way, we can influence not just hunters, but just society to accept hunting or to understand the lifestyle a little better because we can reach millions of people now

where normally it was such a niche little, you know, these magazines here, these hunting magazines or our books or whatever. It was, we were talking to other hunters. That was it. Nobody else is watching buying a honey magazine or watching outdoor channel. Those are just fellow hunters. Well, now we have this huge opportunity to share our lifestyle and share why it's so special

and what we're attracted to about it, why it's important and providing for other people and providing for ourselves, being self-sufficient. And now we can share that with the world. And that, yeah, there's probably going to be some negatives to that because there's negatives with everything. But man, way more positives than negatives. And so yeah, there's going to be people who do, you know, might be they're not getting the attention they felt like they deserve or who knows what that are going to be critical of that. But if we do it right, man, I don't see anything but positive. Yeah. Well, and I think I think social media also has the, the possibility of

not even in terms of hunter recruitment, like not trying to recruit people, but normalizing something inside of our culture. Like I know your audience, probably a lot of them aren't hunters. No, most of them aren't. And they see you with a dead animal, and they're like,

Cam Haynes is a solid guy, this is normal. Welcome to America. This is what we do. There's a percentage of us that are hunters. You know, I mean, that's part of what I feel like we've got to do, and really in my storytelling with our podcast, I've directly said this at times,

but we don't want everybody to be a hunter. We just want the culture to allow us a space to exist because there would be some that would want to shut down the hunting thing in America, which really, you know this, but, I mean, inside the world, what we do in America is so incredibly unique. It is. I get a lot of messages from the UK or from different parts of the world and hunting isn't really a thing there. Right.

You know, and so, yeah, we have something that's so unique. It's definitely worth protecting. But, yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I love talking about hunting. I love writing about hunting. I love looking at hunting. And then to see that I'm being criticized. for that it's like man that's i've been doing this forever and now of a sudden it's wrong yeah just because it's a on a different format yeah when it was in the magazine it's great right that's awesome now it's

we're doing the same thing yeah and uh yeah i don't know it's uh yeah crazy time but yeah well it's a it it it is kind of a i mean there's probably other parts of society that's experiencing the same thing when all of a sudden something that was relatively kept in a close circle is now being kind of exposed to the world yeah and uh but man i mean we have such a strong a strong position in a history of just this this this wildlife conservation this model that has worked so well i mean it's like we're on the right side of this thing you know yeah i I was thinking about this. So people would say we're glamorizing hunting or I don't know what, but how is it different

than when Michael Jordan would play basketball and every kid wanted to be Michael Jordan and they wanted to go to the play. There's not unlimited playgrounds in the world, right? There's not unlimited places to hunt either. So was Michael Jordan ruining playground basketball? Right. I mean, no. I mean, he was creating interest and people wanted to be like that.

So how is that different than what we're doing? You know, I mean, we're, I don't know, it's just, it's weird that you can celebrate one thing, draw attention to it, make it seem cool, make it seem like a good goal. And then that's a negative. When in everything else, if you bring attention to what you love, that's a positive. Yeah. But not with this. It's odd. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I understand. I understand. It's wild. Your son is a basketball player. Yeah. Is he pretty good? I saw some clips. He looks... Shep Newcomb is tough, man. He's a sophomore. He's taller than me. He's six foot tall. Yeah. And he... Seems like he's a baller.

He's a beast, Cam. Is he? I mean, his primarily in... What I'm primarily talking about is just his work ethic. I mean, for, for he's, he's six, well, he'll be 16 in a few weeks, but I mean, he works like crazy. And yeah, he's, he's really good. Yeah. He wants to play college ball. So he's a guard.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And he's the, I see, I saw him with handles, but he also hits threes, right? Oh, he's a shooter, man. So when's it? Are you missing a game right now? No, they all got canceled because of this dang snow.

Oh, good. So, yeah, he's, he's, no, I'd. It's one of the, he's my youngest son. Okay. And it's one of the great joys of our life, watching him play ball. Going to that. It's one of the hardest things in our life. You know, the kids today in sports, we were never the parents that were, we didn't want to be the parents that were pushing the kids into sports, which we didn't.

He just did it on his own. But now that he's at the level he is, we're trying to support him as much as we can. He's playing AAU ball and travel ball and travel across the school. That's busy. Yeah. That's busy. Because once you make that decision, you got to be all in, basically. Every kid plays basketball.

My son or Tanner said, why did you have us play basketball? You should have had us, you know, baseball or golf or said something else to, or skiing. No, skiing. Because everybody plays basketball because of Michael Jordan probably. But, yeah. Yeah, it's a tough, I mean, you got to be committed if you're going to stand out in that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's not, you know, he's not going to be real tall. But, but he's, he's a lot of fun to watch play.

And my, my son, my, his older brother, my middle son, his name's Bear, Bear Newcomb. He is, he is, he's an incredible hunter. He truly is. How old he? He's 18. Okay. just turned 18 and he's you know he's hunted with me his whole life but just in the last year he's kind of if you turn me and him loose in the woods on any landscape in America yeah he said who's going to kill the first animal I mean it'd probably be a toss-up like he's just really I believe that I do and he's just instinctive man I'll give you one example I got to tell you a story this happened a few days ago a couple weeks ago he was hunting he was

First of all, he doesn't want to hunt the private land that I hunt close to our house. That he grew up hunting. I mean, it's nothing special. It's just we just got some places we hunt. He's gone on to public land, scrubby public land, and has been killing deer. Killed four deer, I think, now three deer with his bow this year on public land. At tree stands? Yep, yeah.

Tree stand bow hunting. And he, the other day, he said, Dad, the only deer I can find her in a little bitty thicket right along this. creek and he said every time I hunt them when they come back in the morning he said no matter what the wind direction is the the thermals are always drafting down the creek blowing into this bedding area he said so no matter the wind the wind's always blowing into that bedding area yeah and he said the water pulling it down there yeah yeah just it's a pretty big creek and they're right on the edge of the creek so he hunted him two times and spooked him both times he spooked him they ran out a little escape trail well he woke up on a school day and went

I only planning to hunt like a very short time before he had to go to school. He went in there way before daylight and put out a bundle of dirty clothes where his tree stand was. And then went down the creek on the exit route and sat on the ground with his self-bow. He's shooting an Osage self-bow. He made it. Did he make it? No, no. A dear friend of ours made it.

And he's sitting there and he said right at daylight or, shortly after daylight, he looks up the creek, and here comes a bobcat coming down the creek with a squirrel in his mouth. He shoots the bobcat with a self-bow off the ground, kills the bobcat, gathers up the bobcat and still deer hunting, and the deer, he said they did exactly what he thought they would do. He sent bumped him.

Like he put this thing, and so they spook and come across the creek right where he wants them, and he ends up missing the deer. Oh, no. He's a pretty new traditional archer, but anyway, I just thought it was pretty. It worked, though. Yeah, it worked. I mean, I've never done anything like that. So I'm proud of those boys.

They're good. They've been in the woods a lot, it sounds like. They have. Yeah. And then, you know, being in the woods is one thing, but it's like, because a lot of people are in the woods are still not that great a hunter. So it's just like whatever, whatever skills or whatever he's got personally that match up with that woodsmanship.

It's like that will make a deadly person. Yeah. And man, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I was thinking, me, you know,

you've baited bear quite a bit, but we've, we baited a lot of smart bear, and we'd have to put, like, I remember we put, made kind of mannequins because those bear knew

where the tree stand was. So you got to make a dummy up there, and then you got to go into another, maybe even thicker tree where they can't see you, but the bear focused on the on the on the we'd have camo stuff hanging up there and trying to trick these bear but nice yeah getting a little bit creative you know i was thinking too what we used to call bear grease is the

grease pad in front of the bait oh okay yeah so we'd get the restaurant grease haul it in in a five-gallon bucket dump it and you know how that you know obviously you know how that works but for people that don't the bear will stand in the grease get it on their pads then they'll go walking out like it'll be like spokes leaving from a hub on a wheel. And then every bear that came across that scent from the bear grease pad would go back to the bait and get more bear. So when we'd say bear grease, that would be the number one thing for making a bait crazy because it'd get all those other bear running across that scent trail coming back.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's when I think bear grease, that's what I think. But yeah, it's, man, I don't know. I love, again, like you, love. love bear hunting. Yeah. Been doing it since, let me think.

I killed my first bear in 1990. How about you? I killed my first bear in 2001. Yeah, you're a lot younger than me, though, right? I'm 44. Yeah, see, a lot younger. Yeah. I'm way older than you.

Yeah. But in 2001? 2001. Yep. So that was the first year that it was legal to bait bears. in Arkansas and private land. So basically we had this reintroduction of bears in the 50s and 60s. Yeah.

The bear season opened up in 1980. I was born in 1979, opened up in 1980. And from 1980 to 2001 in Arkansas, you could only hunt bear just as basically just out in the national forest. We're almost 100% canopy, thick timber, hard to see. Basically, most 99% of the bears that were killed, opportunistic deer hunters that killed a bear.

Everybody in the state of Arkansas had a bear tag. So they killed very few bears during that 20-year period. And the bears needed to be managed. The land was reaching the carrying capacity. The game and fish made a management decision to manage Arkansas' bears on private land over bait, which was a brilliant decision. In 2001, that's what happened. And where I grew up was a really good bear area.

Bears aren't all over Arkansas. They're primarily in the highlands. They're now starting the highlands being the Ozark and Wachita Mountains. Arkansas has a, the eastern edge is the Mississippi River. So there's a lot of delta crop ground that's kind of like a different planet than the highlands. But the bears are typically in the highlands. It's changing a little bit. They're getting back over on the river.

But they started letting us back. in 2001 and I killed a bear and I nobody's ever disputed me on this and so I continue to say it over and over I was the first person in Arkansas to legally kill a bear over bait because I mean I killed one at that crack of dawn on the first day yeah that's the one I walked up to and was like man I don't know anything about this bear and 230 pounds out yeah and and and that's too when we started eating bear that's right when I started, I'd been married for a year. And man, we've literally fed our family off bear meat for the last 20 years.

I mean, it's just what we eat. Yeah. It's incredible meat, as you know. And I've heard you talk about a lot. Yeah. We're not, I think sometimes people hear me say that and they think I'm just like wanting bear meat to be good. Yeah.

But my wife who did not grow up eating wild game, she would rather eat bear meat. meat than any meat that we have. Really? She would. Wow. She loves it. Yeah, it's a, she loves it. Well, now they have, it's not a crock pot.

What is that, that high pressure, what is that? Suvee. No. Instapot. Instapot. Yeah, any meat in an instapot is so good. It's going to be good. Yeah, so we, we use that all the time.

But I was curious, so what do you bait with there in Arkansas? We were baiting in the fall. and we use a lot of dog food, corn, bread products, bread donuts. I buy some commercial bear bait. Yeah, that's dog food grease, and this commercial bear bait is going to be left over, like human food stuff. It's going to be cereal and granola and little candies and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, no, they'll eat about anything.

We, you know, you probably, I don't know, we used to cook bear crack. Did you ever remember hearing about it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. That was just basically jello, marshmallows, would put some syrup or honey in there, get it all cooked up and that scent would just go waifting off through there. And I started to do it in Alberta when I'd go up there at the rivets. And then it got too crazy.

Oh, really? Yeah, those bear would not wait. They're like, no, we're coming in right now. So it gets a little intense. So we kind of quit doing that. But, yeah, bear crack. I mean, around here, you know, where we started bear hunting, this is where I killed my first bear just right out of town here.

But there's quite a few bear, but not like Alberta or probably Saskatchewan up where you're at. Yeah. Or where you, do you still go up there and hunt? I hadn't been in a couple years, but I've hunted most of the Canadian provinces or quite a few of them. Yeah, yeah. Up there, you don't have to get too crazy on the baiting tactics. Yeah, it's a different world. down in Arkansas, we have to be really, it's a whole different world.

It's much harder to bathe them down there. We'd have to, I mean, we'd first put up a stink bait, which would be like a beaver, just up high where they couldn't get it just so that would go down, you know, because I'd go miles through these draws. And that would have to hang for a few weeks, you know. And then finally a bear would go. Then we'd have to work that one bear pretty much. But yeah, it was a lot of effort to bait.

Yeah. Man. It's an incredible amount of work. Like, oh, I've spent, I'm a bear baiting apologist. I spent a lot of time talking about just all the, you know, because baiting bears gets a lot of flack. But it's an incredible management tool allows to be selective. And it's probably as much work as anything that I do, baiting your own bears.

But I say that to say my favorite way to hunt back home is just hunting them in national forest with a bow without bait, just hunting like deer. Very difficult. Have you killed quite a few doing that? Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many quite a few would be, but I've got to where I can do it on purpose, but you can't do it every year. Or I can't. I don't know anybody that does it every year. I call it the sheep hunt of the South because it's, you know, the sheep hunt.

sheep hunters or these elite hunters and one percenters yeah yeah well killing a bear in the eastern deciduous forest not on bait not with hounds yeah on purpose and usually i'd use a traditional bow is an extremely difficult hunt yeah and uh i i love it and and like this year i think i hunted seven days not continuous but just i hunted seven full days and never even saw a bear yeah but uh but uh But it's a lot about conditions, but it's a, I love that kind of hunting. It's probably my favorite way to hunt it, just because it's such a challenge, you know. Well, how crazy is it that you went from, you know, whatever, rural Arkansas, and then you were on Rogan? When was that?

A few years ago. That was, yeah, 21, I think I was with Joe down there. Yeah, how'd that happen? You know, I think, I think it. It was when I started the Bear Grish podcast. Did you go to L.A. or was it Austin? No, it was in Austin. Okay.

It was in Austin. Yeah, that was a big deal for me. Yeah. I never would have seen myself as somebody that probably would have been on Rogan, but I had a great time talking with him and was, yeah, certainly a unique experience. Yeah. I mean, Rogan's a unique fellow. Yeah. I mean, I don't know him well.

I've been with him a time or two since then, but, you know, he and Ronella are buddies. Have you guys hunted together? I've never hunted with Joe. I'm going with Steve and Joe here next month. Okay. On a pig hunt. Right on. Yeah.

Have you been to that place where Steve goes in Texas? Yes. Is there a lot of pigs? Yes. So you're going with Steve to Steve's place. Okay. You're in good shape. Yeah, that is a ton of pigs.

Is there? Yeah. Yeah. More than anything, there's Neil guy there. Oh. Neil guy are just everywhere. Really? They're hard to hunt, though.

They're not easy. That's what Joe said. I think Joe hunted with him. Maybe that's where they go and rattle in the white tail, right? Yeah, so Joe did that before. This one, I think, was just a pig hunt. We're going to go get together here next month and do a pig hunt. Man, that's cool that you're, I'm glad you're hooking up with Ronella.

Yeah, I never, you know, I did the podcast at one time. You weren't out there. I think you were at home. But did that when the book came out. And yeah, so this will be the first time really hanging out. Yeah. So it should be fun. Yeah.

I'm looking forward to it. Well, you'll be with an eclectic crew there with Joe and Steve. I know. I'll just be a fly on the wall listening to him. Yeah. Yeah, it should be fun. But I'm hoping we can do a podcast and sit there and BS. So aside from bear, what's your other favorite animal to hunt?

White tail. White tail. I mean, like I said, my dad was. and still is a very serious white-tail hunter. Not a big buck killer. I mean, he's just thrilled to kill deer on public land. That's the way I grew up hunting. Yeah.

And, yeah, man, I love white-tail. Probably as much as bear. I haven't done as much media on whitetail as I have bear. You know, it's kind of just the way it's sometimes kind of, I mean, I'm used to it now, but people are like, yeah, you're the bear guy. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. But I, you know, I started out.

You're wearing a Berkrie's hat. Yeah, that gives it away. I actually started in the outdoor world in the white tail space. Writing articles or? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was, I just finished your book.

I bought it right when it came out. I wanted to support you. Just in the last little bit, I finished reading the whole book, which I really enjoyed. But you talked about Dwight, Dwight Shoe. Yeah. Dwight Shoe was also the first guy that bought an article for me. Oh, really? He was.

At Bowhunter? Yep. Yeah. In 2009. What was that on? So what got me into writing was, I always loved to write, but never had zero aspirations of outdoor writing. I killed a big deer on my small property in northwest Arkansas in 2007. saw in 2007 killed 169 inch deer with my bow on purpose.

I knew the deer was there, I hunted him for 15 straight mornings and ended up killing the deer in kind of a suburban area. Okay. And it was right when suburban white-tail hunting was starting to become known. Yeah. Before that, it wasn't a thing. Okay. And so here I killed this deer in my backyard and just couldn't believe it.

and I ended up writing an article for Bowhunter. But you talked about how, I think it was him that had sent an article back to you. Yeah, yeah. He did the same thing to me about an article they didn't publish. So like two years before that, I had sent an article to him about my first traditional archery kill. And now I look back and I can't imagine the amount of energy spent rejecting someone. because he wrote me like a full page that just was very encouraging. Yeah, exactly.

But it was just like, I think you need to do this, this. This isn't really what we're looking for. Da-da-da-da-da-da. I mean, I probably would have just like ignored the guy and not even wrote anything back to him. But anyway, so Dwight was the one who bought that article. So you rewrote it? You took his advice and rewrote it? The one that he rejected was never accepted.

Oh, I got you. I don't think I could really do what he was asking me to do on that one. But the big buck story, he took immediately. Like, you know, he just took it. Oh, I see. And so that was published in 2008. And then I started incrementally just writing a few articles here and there for kind of big buck pieces for North American White Tell

and in the regional Arkansas magazine, not mine, but another one, kind of doing big book profiles. Like I would find somebody that killed a big deer and write a story for them. Yeah. And I was just trying to just loved it and was just trying to find a way

to do something in the outdoors, you know? Yeah. No, I was exactly the same one. But I remember your book reminded me, though, and it's almost like I'd forgotten about it. But yeah, you had a column in Bow Hunter. Yeah. bleed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I'd almost forgotten about that. Yeah, the person who rejected me was M.R. James. Okay. Without just before Dwight. Dwight, he would have too, I'm sure. Yeah, he was like, he went to a school here at Oregon journalism. And yeah, he was like, I'm not, I mean, I try to write.

I'm not like a polished, like a Dwight shoot, you know, officially trained or, or formally trained like that. So yeah, I'm sure he would have rejected me just like M.R. James did. But, but yeah, I'm more of, you know, those guys, it seemed like at a time, there was a time where most of it had to be how to.

You know, they wanted, you needed to teach people how to do this or teach them something about it. I love writing adventure. Yeah. I just like to a good story. So like this one here about really bows and bears don't mix. I just like, you know, like that says up there,

full draw adventure. That's what I like. I'm not really good on the how-to stuff. Maybe you're better than me. No, it never was what I wanted to do, but it was what the market wanted, you know. I know. I know. Well, I did, they finally said, okay, you can do this column, bleed, and then I can still do my adventure stuff and just tell stories. And then I end up screwing up that column too. But I'm, I usually like, yeah, screw up any opportunity I have. So that's why this is, this is, this is, So I can be my own boss. You're your own boss. I don't think you've hardly screwed up your opportunities, can. But like you, I mean, I always just wanted, I just wanted write and find a place and be able to chase my dreams. And it's like, man, just like you.

That's why it's, I don't know, I've been wanting to have you on the podcast and talk about this forever. But I just know that all the way way back when with the bear hunting magazine is like, man, you, Yeah, there's always something about Clay Newcomb. Then I was like, yeah, that guy's, I like that guy. I appreciate it, man. So what's your, I mean, do you have a dream hunt? Or is it just bears in Whitesail and you're good to go? You know, I'm going to try one of these things right now.

Oh, is this? They taste, they taste, I probably shouldn't say that. They'll get mad. I'm not going to say they taste terrible. Okay. It's like an energy drink? No, it's like, it's like ketone IQ. It makes you smarter.

Oh, wow. Yeah, no caffeine. Okay, so it's not going to make me jittery. Uh-uh. Should I try one? Tell me what you think. I have, it tastes healthy. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. We'll see if it makes me smarter. I know. That's what I'm hoping for. I'm banking on that. I'm all for it. You know,

I feel like I'm really maybe unusually connected to place. I think you are too, meaning that the most, the biggest value that I could find in hunting would be something that I could access right by my home. I mean, like killing a big buck in Arkansas or killing a bear out in national forest with a traditional bow. Yeah. Like I would take that. over a hunt at some exotic destination.

Yeah. Always would because to me the guys that could do that back home and tough places. Well, I guess I came by this philosophy honest because my dad indoctrinated me this way. He, nothing against people that travel to hunt. I mean, it's what I do now, but dad would always be invited to go to Colorado elk hunting by all the people in our bow hunters in our community that would go. And he never had any interest in doing that. And he felt like, and now this isn't true, but this, I'm explaining the doctrine. Yeah.

He would say, Clay, if you can't kill a deer right here at home, you don't have any business going to Colorado and trying to kill a deer. Yeah, I get that. And so he just focused so much, just right at home, what we could do there and took it just so serious. And he did a great job of showing me the joy of just. loving what you have. Yeah, the simple life. He truly did. Yeah. And so now today, when I have a lot more opportunity, killing a buck out in National Forest means more to me than killing a big moose or something. Yeah. But I do love, I love an adventure hunt. I mean, I probably was 30 before I hunted out west. So I really didn't do a lot of Western hunting or traveling hunting until I was probably

30. So for the last 15 years, I've hunted. I've been twice to moose hunt in Alaska with Steve Ronella, which have been pinnacle hunts. I mean, an Alaskan ridge hunt is top-notch. For me, that's probably the hunt I love the most of a far-off hunt. Like Alaska Mountains? Well, what we call it ridge hunt is where you get drop. off on a ridge in a plane. Yeah. And you can't, you pretty much set up your camp and call from that ridge.

Yeah. You know. And I killed a bear last year in Alaska at Steve's fish shack in a wetsuit. I was in a wet suit. Yeah, I know. I know. We talked about that too. Okay.

That was pretty cool. It's just a good way to stalk a bear. Yeah. Perfect. I killed a brown bear in Alaska with a rifle several years ago. Never killed an elk. never killed a no you never have never killed no well really i've never two times i mean just in the last five years my son and i who at the time was 15 bear like two weeks before the colorado opener

i was like let's go elk hunting i'm going to take you out of school and we're going to take our mules and we're going to elk hunt and i just called somebody that i knew and was like hey where should I go and they'd said go here I mean it was the counter tag over the countertike it was not a really planned out hunt and uh we hunted for five days and actually drew on a bull that was legal that I could have shot but didn't realize that it was legal really yeah it's a terrible story it might totally my fault the guy at walmart when I was buying my tags yeah just sitting there waiting for the machine to process he's like yeah the elk's got to have a nine inch brow time before he can shoot it, yada, yada, yada.

And I didn't even look at the, I mean, it's kind of shameful. I didn't even look at the regs. You're taking what he said. I knew it had to have nine inches. Either four points on one side or a nine inch brow time. Oh, okay. Well, this kind of raghorn three by three bull comes in, and he's got pretty good size brown tines.

And I drew on him and, I mean, was like looking at him, but just couldn't, it wasn't Nine inches. You know, his brow tine. He didn't have four on one side. Yeah. Whatever the reg was. Right. Didn't shoot him.

And then when I got home, I told one of my buddies about it. And he was like, Clay, it's only got to have a five inch brow time. Oh, that is a, okay. I didn't even heard of that. Yeah, there's a brown tines. It's either got to have a point minimum or a five inch brow time. That's kind of like the moose then, you know, because like when I, where I killed that moose, I think it had to have three brow tines or 50 inches.

Yep. Yeah. So it's similar to that. Yeah. So that was our, that was my main elk. I just hadn't spent any time doing it. You know, the september's for me have been spent elsewhere. But I'm interested in killing an elk for sure.

Yeah. I want to do it with a bow. Well, you know, what we always used to say is, and it's similar to what I think your mindset, is if you can kill a black tail here in Oregon, you can go anywhere and kill anything. Yeah. Because it was just always so hard. Oregon is just a hard place to hunt. like Arkansas. Nobody's coming here to hunt pretty much. So we just did it because this is all we had.

Yeah. And we'd say, well, we can kill here. And now, you know, Roy traveled everywhere, they're not really everywhere, mostly Alaska. But I've traveled around and it's like nothing is harder than this hometown hunt. So I think there's always going to be a draw to that. And I've always said, too, just because I, you know, I feel like I screw up every opportunity. I always think that if all this goes away and I can just hunt here, I'm fine. I don't care.

I'm going to take advantage of all these opportunities, but if they're gone, I'm good. Yeah. I mean, I just want to hunt deer and elk here and bear and we're good to go. I don't need much.

But, yeah, we'll take advantage of anything else along the way, I guess. Yeah, yeah. I do love Alaska. I've been able to hunt Alaska maybe five, five or six. six times in the last several years.

And I'm kind of enamored with Alaska. Have you sheep hunted up there? No, never have. So you're, I mean, hardcore bow hunter back home. Do you still rifle hunt sometimes? I do.

Yeah. It's, we grew up so hardcore bow hunting that when I, it pretty much started when I got bear hunting magazine and started doing some Western hunts that the challenge, kind of do-it-yourself Western hunts, black bear hunts I was doing. The challenge was just in the logistics

and getting up there and finding bears. I wasn't worried about the limiting factor being my weapon, so I started carrying a rifle. So I'm rifle-hunted quite a bit out west. And then what happened to me, though, Cam, is I started enjoying it. Oh, I mean, which is, it goes against the bow-hunter's code. My dad is ashamed of me.

But, man, I've been shooting a bow since I was 14, well, since I was in the third grade, but killed my first year when I was 14 with a bow. And, you know, I think the older I get, the more focused on different parts of the hunt rather than the weapon. I mean, bow hunting is always going to be my core. It's what I want to do. Yeah. But I'm, especially if it's a traveling hunt, I'm. I'm a little more lenient than I have been in the past.

And it is actually made hunting in some ways more enjoyable. I mean, you talk about the grind, and I mean, you're like king grind. And I love it. But sometimes if the, for me, what I've found is if the emphasis is not on trying to get 20 yards from one of those suckers, you actually can enjoy different aspects of the hunt. I get that. I definitely get that. I think I get that by taking people out.

So I take my, you know, truet out. He killed a buck this year here in Oregon with the rifle. I brought Kat Bradley. She's an ultra runner. She killed her first buck. So I get that type of enjoyment. It's like I don't feel any pressure.

I mean, I want them to succeed. But it's not like you got to get 20 yards. You got to make a perfect shot. It's just like so much stress. You know, if one of these animals gives you an opportunity, it is it's it's it's a lot sometimes so yeah the rifle hunt it's uh it is probably more enjoyable in some respects yeah it's it's just different you know yeah yeah we bow hunted uh i just got back

from mississippi we bow hunted mississippi we bow hunted mississippi last week i killed two deer in mississippi this last week with my bow do's oh nice okay yeah and what boat is it you're a recurve or no i so for seven years i a traditional bow was my primary weapon. Basically from 2013 to 2020, I didn't exclusively hunt with it, but if I was bow hunting, I was carrying it. And kind of just to see if I could do it. And I think I killed seven or eight bears and seven or eight deer, killed a mountain line with my trad bow. And then one day it kind of just like, okay, I'm good. Yeah, scratch that it. I still, I still shoot traditional and planned. I killed the bear last year with a traditional bow at like four yards. But so, but that's the way I describe it

is there was a time when that's kind of what I was doing and I'm not in that phase quite as much. What bow do you shoot? I've got a, I've got a Matthews. Okay. Yeah, I'm shooting a Matthew. I started shooting Matthews when I was just a, just a kid. That's what my dad had. And that's what you've been shooting the whole time? Yeah, except for two years I shot Prime. Why did you do that? Sponsor. Yeah. Yeah. Can we say that out loud? Yeah, no, it's, it's all good. I mean. Man, I know you're a big, a big hoit man. They're a heck of a bow too, man. All of them are so good. They're all good. They're all good. I think after we get done here, I was going to, we're going to run down to the bow rack and I was going to, we're going to shoot some recurve bows they got down there. Oh, really? Yeah. So you can show me how to do that. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's a real. So I, my brothers. father-in-law. His name's David Albright. He's the one who made the self-bow that my son is shooting.

Oh, wait. Bear. How did that name come up? Just because of bear? Well, in high school, my nickname was bear, which had nothing to do with the wild animal bear. Just my buddy called me bear. Okay. And that, but it also, so it was in a way us naming him after me. Yeah. But I was also, by that time, was in the absolute immersed in bear immersed in the bear world so we named him yeah bear nukem that's a badass name he's a he's a heck of a kid man yeah he is he really is so anyway talking about his bow uh david albright yeah my brother's father-in-law mowyer dedicated traditional archer he gave me my first traditional bow in 2002 and uh we had compound hunted our whole lives and uh he he had compound hunted our whole lives and uh he was getting his limited deer on public land with his traditional bow every year.

And I was, I was just had deep respect for him and always knew that at some point I really wanted to test myself in traditional archery. And so that's where that seven year period came from. But last year, I didn't have time. I mean, you just got to dedicate yourself year round almost to, to,

to shoot and to stay good. And because of my travel schedule, I just wasn't able last, last year to shoot the trad bow, but I wanted to kill a bear with a trad bow in Arkansas. So what I did, Cam, was I... Did you see when I killed that bear out of a pit blind? I don't think I did.

Okay. I needed to get... I wanted to be within five yards of a bear on the ground in Arkansas, which if you were doing this in Canada, it would be no big deal. Right, right. In Arkansas, it's a big deal. And so I went and it was in a place I couldn't get like a man-made blind. And bears tear up blinds if you leave them out.

Our bears are hyper spooky. If we're in Canada, it had been no big deal. And Arkansas's a big deal. You've got to almost hunt them like white tails or meat. Very sensitive. So long story short, what I did was I dug a pit blind, covered it with logs, covered the logs with dirt and moss. and basically made like a cave that I could shoot my traditional bow out of and baited bears just right outside of the mouth of a cave. And I killed a bear with a stone point, a fulsome point.

Really? At about three yards. Who made the point? A guy named Tony Sores. And was it pretty sharp then? Yeah. And it was a, does the word, does a fulsome point? Does that ring a bell with you what that is?

Yeah, I heard that. I don't know what it is. Okay. We did a podcast series on the Folsom Archaeological Site. Folsom Archaeological Site is in New Mexico and is where that a group of Pleistocene hunters killed 32 Bison Antiquis, which is an extinct species of bison, using most likely Adelattles with a very specific stone point. The Folsom site overturned the world because at the time in the 1920s when they discovered it, archaeologists thought that he, humans has only been in North America for 3,000 years. Well, they find this site with these ancient, extinct bison that were Pleistocene bison

that had fulsome points, man-made stone points in the bones, like in the bone pile. And so the fulsome archaeological site told the world that humans had been here for over 10,000 years in North America, which kind of turned the United States over. The technology of the Folsom Point was unlike anything they'd ever seen. It's a very thin point. It has a lot. Imagine just a regular stone point that has both sides flaked off and these long flakes. They're extremely hard to make.

There's a 50% breakage rate. Yeah. But anyway, we did a podcast series on the Folsom site. I went out to New Mexico and met with really the world's expert on the Folsom site and we did all this stuff. I wanted to kill a bear with a fulsome point. Yeah. And so that's what we did. Oh, man.

And one of the best guys in the world that replicating fulsome points is the names Tony Sores out of California. He made me the points. And then we put them on a wooden arrow. And then I killed this bear with a fulsome point. And it was like point blank. The bear cave worked, man. We called it the bear pit.

It worked great. I feel like it shielded my scent to some degree. It was open on one side. Yeah. But if the wind was blowing, flowing into the cave. Just absorbing your sin in that. Yeah.

And they would, there was a little hole in my dirt. I had like logs over with dirt over the logs. And I saw when the light would, you can see this light hole, you know, light coming through. If a bear walked by. You just turned black. Yeah. Grabbed the bow. And we hunted for a couple days.

Saw a lot of bears. But anyway, killed it at. In Arkansas. In Arkansas. Yeah. It was in Arkansas. How long? was that fulsome point uh probably two and a half inches long maybe three and it was and so you hit

in the lungs and did it go down pretty quick yeah i mean i watched it fall really yeah yeah it ran 40 yards and you know wood arrow yep and turkey feather veins yep or i mean feathers yeah okay uh that's awesome and how how many pounds was your bow 50 and i it was a 50 pound recurve it wasn't a it wasn't a self-bow and I I short-stroked it on the videoed it yeah I did not come to anchor I like I shot about right here I mean it came around the corner I just went yeah but it worked oh man it works I thought about you know me and rollies you know you got a lot of time just just to sit and BS when you're in hunting camp but I thought god I wonder if you could cover yourself up with dirt with like a knife and a bear would come over and you could stab like out of the ground

You could kill one like that probably. I don't know if it'd be, I don't know how smart it is. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, be pretty, that's what your story reminded me of. Yeah, yeah. Man, I don't know. It's, what, what is it about bear? Because, you know, Native Americans obviously had a very, a big connection with bear.

And you have one. I feel like when I hunt bear, it's so much different than when I hunt anything else. I wonder why that is I'm right now in the process of researching for something we're doing on the Native American history of bears and how they used them and I don't really have an answer for you but other than they viewed bears as different

they killed them and ate them and used their grease like crazy all of them did all the tribes. tribes, but they viewed them as, they viewed them very different. They really did. So the Cherokee cosmology, the story of the origin of the black bear, they believe that bears were once Cherokees. And a boy went into the forest and noticed that the animals always had food. And he knew that his tribe sometimes struggled.

and so he wanted to become a wild animal. This is the Cherokee story for where black bears came from. And he became a bear. And he went back into the tribe and he asked his family. He said, hey, would you like to come back into the woods with me and become a bear? And they agreed and they went and became bears. Okay. They also said that the bears made a deal with the tribe.

that they would provide themselves as food when they needed them. And so the Cherokees viewed the bears as non-human persons. Even though they killed them, they used their grease. The point of that whole story is that me and you, it's different. Yeah. It doesn't make it wrong. I mean, people anthropomorphize bears. They attach human qualities to them.

We do that all over our culture, which is not really an accurate way to handle any kind of wildlife. but there is something different about them. Yeah, there is. The demands our respect. Definitely. And there's some Native Americans who won't hunt bear probably because of that. You know, because I've hunted, you know, with the Apache tribe down there, some of them will hunt bear.

Some of them will hunt bear. I think because maybe that connection with, yeah, I don't know. It's just it can be complicated, which, you know, there's not that you're not wrestling. with anything with deer and elk, it's just that bear, which is something so special. They have a lot of human-like qualities. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, I don't know. I like hunting with, I go to San Carlos and hunt with Apaches. And it's like, I always tried to,

I'm always asking them questions about their tradition. And like, there are traditional Apaches then there's like, and it's a little bit different belief system than the Christians. And so I'm always asking questions about that.

You know, they have the sunrise, ceremonies, which I haven't been able to go to one. They've invited me to them, but it's like, I love that Native American tie with the land and the animals and the respect. And that's where, I know for me, I went down there and it's like, that's where I first learned of making an offering. Like we've left the heart of some of these bulls that I've killed, left the heart there at the kill site just to show thanks, thanks for our good fortune. And hopefully if we'll leave an offering, then we get more good fortune on future hunts. So it's, I don't know, it's kind of a

long-winded thing to just wanted to get your feelings on why bear are so special. And I don't know if anybody can explain it, but yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely different hunting bear. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. And have you hunted grizzly and brown bear then? Yeah, one time. Well, I've been on two Alaskan hunts for brown bear and I killed one on the second hunt. Did you? Okay. And where was that? It was in south central Alaska. Yeah. On the squintna. Oh yeah. I know where that is. Yeah. Yeah. And it was it was a neat hunt. It was I wanted to do it with a bow. Yep. Yep. Yep. I wanted to do it with a bow. And when I got there, just realized it probably wasn't going to happen. So it was set up for bow hunting really? Not really. Yeah. Not really. Yeah.

Not really. Those brown bear, they're smart. I don't know. I don't know what your experience was. But man, you know, I killed that, you know, on Roy's before he fell, I went up there. And I killed one spot in stock in this area 16 up there. You can kill two brown bear, three black bear. One spot on stock.

And then we baited the one. It was so hard coming into bait. So sketchy. Yeah. Yeah. It would not, you know, the black bear were just in and out. they didn't right whatever but those brown bear man they're smart yeah i don't know it's a it's a different game different animal yeah did you get a good one um seven footer yeah yeah yeah it was

it was really the only bear we saw well i was there for 10 days in like 2016 never saw one one bear in 10 days and so and then ended up coming back and uh so i was happy to to just get a bear. It was not a prime spot for brown bear. Even though there were a lot of bears, there was just heavily wooded, thick area. I mean, a non-resident could kill two brown bears there, if you know.

So a lot of bears, a lot of bear sign, but boy, they're hard to see. Yeah. I mean, they were, I was amazed. Everywhere we went, we saw a bear sign, but in 10 days we saw one, basically a salon a cub. Jeez. In 10 days.

Well, we got to go show. the first the first time the second time. The one I killed was different. Okay. But some more? Yeah. Okay. Well, we got to go shoot bows, but I didn't want to ask you.

What's, so I guess you never could have anticipated you've been where you're at now. But what's your goal? Where do you see yourself going? What's your goals with the show? You know, you guys just had a book that came out, right? Yeah, we just had a, Steve and I had an audio original. book that came out about the long hunters. Yeah.

It was really a neat project and it's done really well. Has it? Yeah, it's only been out for a week. But it was number one on Apple audiobooks for all categories of audio books. Did New York Times come out yet? Not yet. We don't know. We don't know.

We're hoping. God, I hope it makes it. Yeah. No, you know, I, I'm very probably, I'm more passionate about storytelling and I really view what I do in my podcast as a craft that I just fully am dedicated to. Just a storytelling aspect? Yeah, yeah, just with what we're doing with Bear Grease. And I mean, I don't think I don't really have any big hunting aspirations in terms of like to go on this hunt or that hunt.

I mean, I've done a lot of stuff that I never dreamed I would do. I'm a writer. Like that's, that would be core to me would be I'm a writer. And so yeah, I'm, this is public knowledge. I'm in the process of writing a book right now.

On what? I can't tell you that. Serious? I won't tell anybody. Okay, I can't, I can't. I would tell you. I can't. It's actually public knowledge.

You could look it up right now. Oh. It's just so far in the future. I feel stupid talking about it. Really? Yeah. Why? Well, because it's going to be like a year and a half before we even speak of it publicly.

You started it, though. Yeah. Well, I've got to, are you going to edit any of this? No. Okay. Well, I don't. I mean, we can. No, no, no.

No, that's fine. It's totally fine. I mean, you could, yeah. Yeah, I'm in the process of right now. a book right now okay all right i'm not like bound to not say it you could you could look up the buck online i just feel silly talking about it because it's books are so long i mean it's going to be like yeah fall of 25 or something that's when you'll hear me talking about it so did you how do you guys do do you guys get a publisher or yeah with well meat eater does a lot of publishing you know okay that we have a

whole arm of meat eater that's publishing and you know the last several books that ronell has done have been New York Times bestsellers and and uh, then great. And uh, so yeah, penguin random houses, who we're working with right now. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to be signing another contract right now. They keep asking me, did I get the contract? And I just have been so busy. Oh, really for another book. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So it's, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, I love writing. I love storytelling.

You know, and it's like if those stories can help someone. or educate somebody or I don't know. I mean, I don't even know. Do storytellers, does there need to be a result? Or you just need to tell your story? You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, so your goal with your book, what is the goal?

You know, I think as, I think storytellers are the people that really hold the culture. I heard, it was Jordan Peterson the other day. I heard him say that the storytellers, and he was talking about Hollywood and the storytelling media, he said they have more power than politicians in this country. And he was talking about how people that are, how writers and actors and different stuff get involved in politics. And he's always really surprised that they come down a level to talk about politics. He's like, stay up on your perch and shift the culture.

from the stories you tell so influential yeah yeah and and i i think that is so true is that even even inside of my passion which would be to see wildlife and wild places persist to see our way of life to see our people i mean i really view north american hunters as like a tribe i mean like we're we're a brotherhood and i want to see that persist and i think through storytelling we do that more effective than almost anything. I mean, there's different points of action. I mean, there's people that do have to be involved in legislation and actually fighting, you know, bills like in Colorado, like,

and I'm going to be involved in that. Yeah. But I think a very powerful platform is storytelling, which happens through video and stuff, but I don't even like video as much as I like. I honestly think podcasts are powerful, if they're done the right way, but writing is also really powerful.

It is. And that's the craft that I'm passionate about. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I love going to bookstores. I love looking at books. I love picking up a good book. So, yeah, I mean, the writing, you know, even just like, there's one thing that I've always wanted to do

is tell Roy's stories. And that was I used to love, he would never. write an article, but I used to always write about his adventures. And it's just like, now these are so valuable because he's gone. Yeah. You know, so I can't remember every story told me, but I can, I can't remember the details of him, you know, but now when I go back and I look at what I wrote, and this was talking to him about it, it's there forever. Yeah. That's, you know, it's history now. Yeah. And the storytelling, it's like, we capture this, this, this,

these moments or these feelings or this adventure or whatever, you know, whatever happened at that time. And it's forever. Yeah. I mean, it's so important. Yeah. You know, it's, uh, you know, you talk about writings. The Bible's been around a long time.

People still reference it and it's still powerful. And it's like not saying that hunting articles are like the Bible, but man, that written word. Yeah. So Rinella had Werner Herzog on the podcast. just this last week. Yeah, I didn't listen to that, but I saw that. Werner Herzog is a filmmaker,

a documentary filmmaker, you know, really famous guy from Germany. Yeah. And he says over and over in a lot of the stuff, I've heard him say it several times, that he thinks his films will die away, but his writing will be what persists. In his mind, and he's made like 80 films,

and that's where most of his life's work has been. I think he's written 12. books and he says they'll forget my films yeah he said they won't forget my writing that's true i i mean 100 percent believe that so is your is your book going to be like your pinnacle yeah yeah it really will be i think i mean it's the first book other than this audio book that we just came out with it will be the first book that i've published you know i'm very excited about it's it's what i'm going to be working on very hard for the next year. And I'll tell you about it when this is off.

And it's not a secret, but I just, again, I just, I haven't, the bear grease people that listen to my podcast, I've not said a word about it. Oh, you haven't? Nah. It's not hidden. The publishers come out with a list of all the books that they're doing. It's like public knowledge. Oh, so it's out there?

It is. But nobody, but nobody would. it unless they were looking for it. So, well, the Keep Hammering Podcasts, hey, is where I release the book deal. Yeah, I've got, I've got a gift for you. All right. You ready? Yeah.

Thank you. Okay. I didn't expect it. You're going to, you're going to see this and you're going to be tempted to think it's a joke. Okay. This is, this is not a joke at all. This is like, serious. This is like, this is like the highest honor that I could give someone.

Okay. This right here, my friend. That is bad. That is a handmade Arkansas plot hound treed coon. And that is a one-sized fits all genuine Ozark Mountain Coonskin hat. That is amazing. For you here in the office. That is amazing.

I'm going to put this thing on right now. Yeah, buddy. Thank you. Let's see here. So my, oh, I got a video this. I got a video this. How does it look? You look good.

Okay, let me give you a tip on wearing a coon skin. Oh, yeah, yeah, please. Tilt it just a little bit so you can see the tail. Tilt like this? Yeah, so you can see the tail. Yeah, there you go. Looking good, looking good. It fits perfect.

Did somebody get my size for you? It's a one size fits all. Oh, it'll stretch. It has a little elastic. Did you make this? No, my buddy Josh Spillmaker did. Oh, man. Thank you very much.

Here we are in the, in CAMs. They keep hammering collective studio. Yeah, I got. Clay Newcomb brought me this awesome. awesome gift. Coonskin hat. Plot hound. Tried. Probably when that coon was shot, there was probably five or six kids under the tree and we'd had the time of our lives. Did you kill it? Oh yeah. I mean, I don't know. I was, that's my coon. But when we hunt, a lot of times I'll bring the kids, their friends. It's like a big community event. So it's possible one of the other kids shot

at, but. Well, thank you. This means a lot. I appreciate it. Clay. You're legit now. I'm So thankful you came all the way to Springfield, Oregon from Arkansas. This means a lot to me. I'm a big fan of what you do. Can't wait to hear about your book. Big secret. Yeah. Well, thank you.

Again, love what you do. Hey, man. I brought your book with me. Oh, nice. I appreciate what you do in the outdoor industry. Really do, man. Thank you. I mean, your influence is significant.

Thank you. I always respected you for just having a certainty of identity. I think a lot of people don't have that. You know who you are, unapologetic, and I think that's powerful. Thank you. Well, let's keep chasing our dreams, I guess. Let's keep writing good, I don't know, good hunting adventures, sharing what we love, and hopefully it's around forever.

Right on. All right, thanks, Clay.