Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 138 - John Barklow

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

John Barklow - a seasoned outdoorsman and 26-year U.S. Navy veteran. A diver by trade, he spent most of his career supporting Navy Special Warfare, often working with elite SEAL teams. Much of his time was spent in Kodiak, Alaska, training SEALs in cold-weather survival and night movement through technical terrain, known as Cliff Assault. After his service, John joined SITKA Gear, applying his military expertise to develop advanced clothing systems for hunters and outdoorsmen. Join us for a conversation about John’s experiences with helping grow the Sitka brand, the succession of hunting gear and how the gear has changed, some of John’s greatest hunt stories, 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 Follow John Barklow: https://www.instagram.com/jbarklow/  Follow Sitka: https://www.instagram.com/sitkagear/  Thank you to our sponsors: Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Timestamps: 00:00:00  Montana Knife Company Video Series & a Unique Perspective 00:04:28  John’s Background (the NAVY & Teaching Survival Skills) 00:11:17  Understanding the Concepts in Gear 00:16:12  The Great Equalizers: Testing Guys in the Field 00:22:20  Survival Exercises 00:27:09  Finishing School for BUDS 00:29:07  Peer Reviews 00:31:56  Ad Break (Ketone IQ & Sig Sauer) 00:33:56  Diving & Getting into Hunting 00:36:18  When John got into Hunting 00:38:56  John’s Most Memorable Hunt 00:45:52  Hunting Mountain Goats 00:48:53  John’s Brown Bear Hunt 00:54:59  High Stakes in Hunting & Memories from the Hunt 00:59:31  John’s Buffalo Hunt 01:08:48  Takeaways from John’s Hunting Stories 01:13:10  John’s Best Elk Hunt Story 01:18:35  Hunters John Looked up to 01:22:03  How Much the Hunting Industry has Changed 01:29:03  Failure: The Foundation that Built Cam’s Hunting Career 01:30:51  Celebrating Success in Hunting 01:32:29  Measuring Success in Hunting 01:33:47  The Succession of Hunting Gear & Clothing (Down) 01:37:10  What’s Next for GORE-TEX Gear 01:42:29  Small Adjustments in Gear Make a Big Difference 01:44:44  Nobody Likes Being Cold 01:45:40  QA: F#$k, Marry, Kill: Backcountry Bowhunting, Diving, or Mountaineering? 01:46:48  QA:  For Sitka - is Mountaineering a Good Place for Inspiration? 01:50:34  QA:  If you had to Choose 1 Material or Textile to Use, What Would You Choose? 01:52:06  QA: How Would You Use High Pressure Situations to Help Develop Your Career Path? 01:54:21 QA: What’s One Non Negotiable for Your Daily Routine? 01:57:06  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'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is the Keep Hammering Collective with John Barclow. How you doing?

Good, man. Thanks for having me. Are you a big podcaster? I've been on a lot of podcasts. Have you? Yeah. Honestly, probably 100. I've listened to, you talked to Aaron a few times, right?

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I've listened to that one or I mean, I've heard you on there, but I didn't know how many you've done. I've listened to, anytime I see your name come up, I'm like, I'll listen to that. Yeah. You're legit. Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean, but yeah, I've been on a lot.

Yeah. I don't have my own and I'm glad about that. You do your video series though. Do you still do that, like talking about gear? Is that? I do. You know, I'm doing some work with Montana. a knife company. So we're doing, I'm doing doing a video a week for the next year for them.

Oh. So I got a lot of them filmed already. But, uh, so I haven't done as much on my personal channel, but, you know, the whole intent when I started that was once a week, one video a week about something about outdoor education or hunting. Right. Just trying to like promote that. It's not about me or my cat, right? But, uh, yeah, so I've kind of slapsed. off on that because we've been posting all these Montana knife videos. And what's what was the thought of that? Like what's the angle of those videos? They're calling it the MKC's Survival Guide.

Okay. So they really left it up to me and I kind of scripted it out 52, trying to make them seasonally relevant. So started, you know, I think the first one or two was like, hey, how do you stay warm on a whitetail stand? You know, here's some considerations. And then we just filmed the whole survival series about, you know, you know, fire making and building improvised shelters and water purification and just all kinds of

stuff. Just it's a great, I think it's going to be a great resource to just go in reference. And then, you know, I've built some courses with outdoor class, like full, you know, beginning to end, um, courses with outdoor class, which is owned by RMEF. Yeah. But, but these are like more easily digestible where you can just go to MKC's YouTube channel and, you know, watch one a week or, just sift through and find the one you want. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it's been, it's been fun. I really enjoy that, that educating component. Got a lot of knowledge to share. Yeah, I think I have a unique perspective. So like during COVID, I was all upset about something and it doesn't matter what, but I remember driving home from work and I'm thinking, you know, I got three options. I can

just keep bitching about it, which, you know, in the immediacy. That's what most people do. Yeah, I mean, it feels good, right, to just go home and rant and raving bitch. I said I could forget about it and do nothing. Or I could step up, you know, put some stake in a game and provide my opinion. And I thought I had a pretty unique perspective. And I'm not here to argue with anybody. It's like, that's the information.

If you like it, fine. If not, fine. I really don't care. Right. you know, based on decades of experience. And so I was, I like to say I'm kind of a, I kind of got dragged to the table. It's not something I wanted to do. But I almost felt like, like you, like you're kind of, it's kind of what you do.

Right. And so it's been great for me. Like the last couple of years has been, I feel very fulfilled by it. You know, and it's led to some interesting opportunities. But really it's, it's this resource that people can go to if they're starting out to, like, how do I, you know, How do I even, there's no reason to go into the backcountry with a bow to pursue an elk if you can't backpack, if you can't set up a tent. If you, you know, all those other things that we take for granted. Yeah.

And so it's like where do people go? So that's basically what I tried to do. But I kind of am begrudgingly doing it. Yeah. It's not like I wanted to be on social media. And my out psychologically is I like to say that because I created it, then I reserved right to quit at any time. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

But yeah, it's just been rolling now. So yeah. Yeah, I was wondering how natural that transition was because when I think about, and I want to hear more about your background, but like, you know, when Tanner was in the Army, my oldest son, no posting. It's like you're a quiet professional. 100%. You're not like on social, you know, that's not what you do.

That's not your job. Your job is to just be a professional and just, you know, whatever. So you have that. Tell me about your background. And maybe that was why it was like a begrudgingly type journey to get in front of the camera. So tell me about, you said you have a unique perspective. Where did this get developed? Yeah. So let me start by saying, really, I'm an introvert. You know, I mean, I can certainly speak publicly and all that and it doesn't bother me. But really, I'm more of an introvert. So yeah, I was in, I was in the Navy for, you know, total of 26 years. started out as a diver like a hard hat diver a deep sea diver and i uh i got into the seal teams teaching them combat diving and submarine operations etc and uh you know like i was saying earlier i didn't know if i was going to stay in the navy so this is like 10 years in thank god i had a wife that was smarter than i was and she's like you're not getting out but i was i was starting to train to become a mountain guide like ski mountaineering guide or like rock climbing guide or you know

know, just pursuing some crazy dream there and started acquiring skills. And well, I realized that that those skillsets were also required at the seal team that I was stationed at. And even though it wasn't my job, people started coming to me and saying, hey, we've got this interesting problem to solve. Like I was telling you, how do we go from the water up this cliff to get on land, right, where nobody would expect us? And so kind of started there, just trying to be an asset. Just trying to do more, not always just saying, oh, that's enough. I don't need to do anymore. It was a very competitive environment.

And so what I didn't know was that that was leading me in a direction that when 9-11 happened and that everything changed overnight, right? Peace-time military to wartime military, they're two totally different things. And so this guy calls me from Alaska, who I knew, I'd worked with. I'd done some work with this little detachment up in Alaska, and they're like, hey man we need you up here like immediately and my wife who was also in the military she did 28 years in the air force um we don't have kids like we never bought a house like we were we crafted our lives to be able to take advantage of opportunities right and so boom we were up in alaska and i remember

i remember within six weeks of getting that call i was laying in a single person bivy um in Alaska with a platoon of guys that I happen to know watching the first Northern Lights I'd ever seen. And so that started the next half of my career, which was becoming really a cold weather and winter warfare expert and like passing that on. And then at the end of that, well, I guess in beginning of that, we were also tasked with like, hey,

we need better gear to get these guys in Afghanistan. They're freezing their ass off. wearing cotton BDUs and things like that. And so, you know, was able to work with some of the best people in the industry, designers, developers, kind of start to learn the language. But I think the unique part was, to me, it's this full circle approach where I knew how the gear was developed. I knew the technology involved.

And then we as instructors would go out and try it ourselves so that we had that experience. Then you would teach, you'd see how that, you know, all these. students everyone learns different how they would process consume the information you're putting out how they would use it look at their performance at a different level than you were right so they're coming in and then modify that that training again and then this circular feedback loop just continued and so i like to say that's really where i became i mean i don't i don't necessarily think of myself as a as a master but i certainly have to think of myself as an expert at this point right yeah and trained thousands of guys over all these years.

And I learned, you know, oh, you don't learn that way or you can't build a fire that way, I'll teach you this way. Oh, you can't do it that way, I'll teach you this way. And so having that understanding of training guys to go into the field in an uncompromising environment in a no fail type of atmosphere, right? They get dropped off, they don't get to come home

because they're cold or wet. It's when the mission's over. And so it was, in my, opinion, deadly serious, very important. But then what I realized is what I was teaching and learning, I was then taken in to the mountains of Alaska and applying it to my bow hunting. And so when I, you know, eventually retired and was lucky enough to get the job at Sitka was the perfect fit for me because my experience, I didn't have business experience. But I had all this other experience and developing the product and actually understanding authentically how to use it,

that that just happened to dovetail with what they were doing, right? And so that's a long way of saying. So now here I am at this like fork in the road or crossroads. And I'm like, do I do something? Do I not do something? Yeah. You know, and I said, you know, that experience, that, that authenticity, that ability to teach because I taught for a long time.

So like to break down these concepts and digestible kind of, pieces, right, or parts to like feed them. And then if somebody says, well, what about this or what about that? I learn from everybody all the time. But I can also say, oh, you don't like to do it that way? Let's do it this way. Oh, you don't live in that environment. We'll do it this way for that environment.

And so I think that's what I bring to the table that's just a little bit different. It's like I understand it from every aspect and have, you know, at this point I'm going on just with all that stuff I just mentioned, you know, two decades of experience, let alone, you know, all my personal experiences prior to that. So. Well, it makes sense why you're so good at what you do. And then also why the product that you help develop or you weigh in on is so, I mean, it's the highest level. It's like who could compete with that type of experience, that type of teaching,

that mindset, you know, it's so you say unique, definitely unique. Pretty amazing. Yeah, no, thanks. And, you know, there's so selfishly, you know, we develop this great stuff. I certainly feel it's the best. But if nobody understands how to use it, then, you know, not taking it to their full potential, then I feel like, I don't feel like I'm fully doing my part. And so that's where being able to step in on my personal channels and, you know,

now some through Sica, educating that consumer, right? So the analogy I use is, you know, one of your sons turned 16. And you've been telling him the whole time, it's like, when you turn 16, I'll let you drive the Porsche. Right. Right. And he turns 16. You give him the keys. He jumps in the driver's seat.

He grinds the gears up in the third, goes 60 miles an hour, fastest he's ever been, hair's blown back. He thinks it's awesome. And then you say, okay, now let me get in. And you smoothly run through the gears in the sixth gear, go 120 miles an hour, fully show him what that thing's capable of and then all of a sudden he gets it and he goes i understand now why this is so valuable right and so just trying to do that again selfishly because i want to continue to push technology you know just in what i do at the sick aside but you can't you can only go as fast as you can bring the consumer along or you're gonna you're just going to leave them in the dust

yeah so that's kind of like what i've been trying to do and i think it's a a great kind of blend of the two that I've been able to kind of pull off here. Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, it's, yeah, I knew that you had done some of the training of, was it Cody? Yeah. Okay. I knew that, but yeah, I didn't know the depth of it, but that is, that's incredible. I mean, I can't imagine not only how much you learned, because you already knew it,

but like how much you learned from teaching. That's where I really learned is teaching. And that's, so that's why you're so good at what you do and explaining these things. I mean, for those, you know, listening in it on the podcast, we did a whole separate video on the eight-letter system, basically, or the eight-component system of just having everything you need from basically, you'd say, we talked about Sitka, but it, no matter what you're talking about, like to be the best in the mounds, here's what it takes, from skin to outerware to shell to the rain gear. And I think that video is going to be super, I mean, very valuable. very educational, but that all makes sense why you're so good at explaining all that. So it's, man, it's awesome. Well, you know, the human's the human.

Like, we don't change. And so when you're going out there, you know, our bodies are doing whatever it does. So if you understand that, if you understand that the concepts, then whatever environment you're in, say in a hunting environment and whatever gear you have, you can utilize it to achieve your objectives. So I'll call him a mentor. I think of him as a mentor, but this guy Mark Twyts, who he's a retired now professional alpine climber.

And he was a big field tester. Good rider. Yep. For like, you know, the Patagonas and stuff back in the day. But we hired him when I was in Kodiak. Like, we hired him to help us understand these concepts and learn how to field test the gear to deliver this to the guys, right? And so I remember, I call it this.

the trash bag analogy, but, and Mark doesn't, I don't even think he remembers telling me this, but I distinctly remember and he said, he goes, because I'm asking about like, oh, like that jacket and like that specific jacket, I'm right in like, you know, buy this jacket, buy that pant. And he goes, man, he goes, when you get really good at what you're doing,

he goes, I could be given a trash bag. And because I understand how my body performs And that trash bag performs, yeah, it's not going to be nearly as good as, you know, the system we built for the military. But I can get the most out of that trash bag because I understand the concepts. Yeah. And I'm like, goddamn, like, if you boil it, and you hear this all the time, but if you can just boil it down to the basics. And they're not sexy sometimes, but if you understand them intimately, dude, that is the unlocked to, like, true capability. Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, and again, it could be. hunting, it could be, you know, being a soldier, it could be trail running, it doesn't matter. But that's like, that's where I think that, you know, my perspective comes in because I had to teach it at a basic level, but I also did a lot of advanced training to guys who were super experienced and we had to go in and try to help them solve very unique mission sets.

Right. And we could do that too. And so that feedback loop again is what really, I think, brought it all together for me. Yeah, that's, what, what, If you could ever, I mean, like looking back on it now, what made people good at like the cold weather training that you were doing? Is it like, did people excel at that that were just more like calm and stressful situations?

Or like what made people good at what you were teaching them? You know, it's really interesting. The two things that to me have, I call them like the great equalizers, are one is water. So you could take the toughest guy in the world, throw them in even the deep end of a pool, and some people just do not perform well in water. Not that they can't learn,

but it's just not natural to them. And so that's one. But the other is the cold. And I'm not talking just, you know, some quick cold exposure, like a cold plunge or, you know, even an overnight. But cold weather can really, again, it's a great eucalizer.

It can really start to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now, most of the guys we got, I mean, they were already proven mentally tough. We would get people, some of which had never seen a snowflake ever in their life. And let's just say that the basic course was 30 days. And within the first five days, they're spending their first night out in the field, right?

And we normally buddy everybody up, so they have a partner. That's just the way the military works, and it's a great system. so they can watch out for each other, but maybe they're equally, you know, at the same level, so they don't have a lot of experience. And it was the guys, so you couldn't judge, like you can't judge a book by its cover as a true statement, but the guys who trusted the information getting put out and just simply applied it as we described it

were the ones that got through. And it was the people that either thought they knew better or tried to kind of buck that system bucked that experience, then ended up really having a hard time. Because the thing with, you know, if we're going out on a hunt and it's like just the most insane egregious weather, we may say, you know what, we're just going to push 24 hours and go out tomorrow morning. But when we were training, again, because of the mission profiles we were training for, it's like, it doesn't matter what it's doing, we're going out. Now, we may modify the mission a little bit when you get out there, but like, we're going. So, like, just the absolute biggest,

like, shit storms, like, and you're like, I'm even questioning. I'm not, like, question that, can I survive? But I'm like, I got all these guys to manage. Right. And, like, this is just going to suck. Like, it's just going to suck. And the guys that trusted you were the ones that had an easier time. And the ones that didn't. Now you're looking at, you know, frostbite and cold injuries and, you know, altitude injuries like altitude's another one you know i've had to carry like physically carry a couple dudes out of the mountains either their pack or them personally because they just thought they could tough it out and you know yeah and it's like no we told you you can't but i guess you have to learn some times a hard way you know which is fine yeah um i'd rather them learn those lessons in

training then for sure you know than when it's for real but yeah how long when you guys stay out the longest we'd stay out is I mean multiple blocks of either four to five days so like we had a we had a kind of the the big initial patrol so to speak we'd go out in the mounts for four days but that's the one where when we came back they think they're getting to you know the extraction point i.e they're going to load up in vehicles drive back get some hot chow take a shower kind of thing yeah um and that's when we'd put them in the trucks maybe and drive them to the ocean to a frozen lake maybe give them some fire axes and make them cut a big hole in the lake and we would do what we call the rewarming drill so that's where we would take these guys after four days and again you

told them stay up on your hydration stay up on your nutrition make sure that every time you pack your ruck you're packing as if you're going to stay in the field because you never know right in that case And so we'd, you know, bring them to that lake. There's kind of a famous photo that we literally had them cut a hole, like almost dig their own grave in the frozen lake. And then, you know, we had these protocols. We had a doctor and everything was kind of managed safely. But we would put them in the water, depending on the water temp, between 10 and 15 minutes, up to their neck, in all their patrol gear. So what we would call it their hiking gear.

And they'd have their loaded packs with their food, their stove. their stove, their fuel, their puffy gear, all that stuff right there. And then what that did, we weren't trying to make anybody quit, but what it did is it lowered their body core temp and that it induced a sense of urgency when they got out. So as soon as they got out, their hands and feet already didn't work. So it's like if you hadn't practiced, if you hadn't listened to us, if you hadn't kept up on how you loaded your ruck and all that, you were really going to struggle. Yeah.

And once they got out, there were, you know, time limitations and stuff. And so the idea was, in a worst case scenario, again, not going to leave the field because you got cold or wet, we were showing them the capability of their complete system, building confidence in themselves, building confidence in their buddies, that they could manage that situation and rewarm themselves, dry out with body heat, and then stay in the field. And so those lessons, you know, if I can be given credit for you. anything it's bringing that rewarming drill into the hunting industry and I've done it now several times on film and it yeah it kind of looks like a circus act but it's really trying to show the performance of modern technical gear right so so that was one that we did with those guys and so

it you know we'd always say don't tell the next class right and they wouldn't because they want to get everybody over right and then then the next big one uh was this big survival exercise so we started teaching survival. And it evolved over the years, but we would go out to an island owned by one of the native corporations. So we had full access to the island. We had the ability from the state of Alaska educational permit. We could harvest.

The instructors could kill one deer and any amount of rabbits and fish. And so we would do that. But anyways, the students would swim into the beach wearing dry suits, strip that stuff off, and then we would do a bunch of stuff, like escape and evade. They'd build survival shelters. We would, you know, if they did well, we'd give them a fish or a rabbit. Right.

We would show them how to process a deer because a lot of these guys, they would get overseas. Maybe they'd be living in a village. You don't want them, you know, killing your goat and processing it for you, right? So, but they were making themselves sick because they didn't know how to do it. So there's these big tough dudes, but like they grew up in the city. They didn't know how to process a deer. Yeah. And if, you know, you can process the deer.

You can process anything. Yeah. So anyways, we would do that for four days, so they'd have no food unless we gave them something. And then at the end of that, you know, based on all the training we'd given them, their kind of their passing grade, so to speak, was no matter what the conditions, no matter what the time of year, each person individually with the kit they had, assuming they maintained it, had to build a fire. and then that fire had to be robust enough to boil 16 ounces of water.

And then if they could do that, that was the pass. Okay. And then the reward was their first dehydrated meal after four days. So these guys were like super motivated and super hungry, right? And then the last big exercise was like, it depended on the time of year and what we were doing, but like three to five days where they actually then went out on their own, had a mission profile. Like they were kind of self-sustained and we were just there.

you know, kind of... Oversean. Yeah, exactly, if they needed any help. And so you could take a guy in 30 days who had never seen a snowflake being fairly competent to at least manage himself and his buddy. Now, there's still a lot more learning and growth

that had to go on, but you felt pretty good about that. Like, what would a mission profile be? Would that just get to a certain point back in the interior of the island? Or what would it be? So just generally speaking, it was like some kind of reconnaissance.

So, you know, because we're in the Navy, and these guys are seals. We would normally have them swim into the beach. So that adds a lot of complexity. Like you have to swim in. It's at night. You got to deal with water, et cetera, et cetera. Transition out of that dry suit.

Keep your gear. So like sometimes, perfect example. Guy swims to the beach. So there's a piss zipper on your dry suit so you can relieve yourself. Guy doesn't have it all the way closed. Drop them off. He swims, you know, they swim, say, 500 yards to shore.

he's wet from the waist down because his piss zipper leak was open yeah he ain't leaving the field we just taught you how to deal with this manage it now if it got to the point because it is training like hey i'm really you know going to die here maybe but it never happened but uh anyways so then they would get to the beach they would transition and now they're doing land navigation through you know mountains they have to deal with snow conditions and avalanches potentially and all kinds of weather, get to a position to observe a target. Maybe that was the local airport. Maybe that was a Coast Guard facility we had there. And then they would do that and try to stay clandestine. And then we, you know, we would do certain things that they would have to make sure they were

watching so they could report it. And then they would have to then extract themselves, but in a different direction, get back to the water, swim back to the boats. So, you know, it was, it was a big deal. I mean, it was, you know, anytime you have water, it's a real deal. Like, You're not faking that. You can drown in a puddle, right? And then those environmental conditions depending on the time of year. Oh, yeah. But the confidence that they walked away with in themselves, their kit, their buddies,

like that's really, that was the most important thing, right? Well, we'll teach them the tactics later on, like, when they get a little more experience. But, like, that was kind of the foundational stuff they needed to walk away with. That sounds intense, but yeah, I could. It was. So you can see how sometimes, you know. They call it my instructor bitch face, but when I start talking about this stuff, I fall back into my old ways. And it's like, dude, you don't need to be so intense to hunters.

And I'm like, don't I? Like, you know, you could easily die on a hunt. Yeah, for sure. And you certainly don't want to, you know, kick your own ass if you don't have to. Yeah, for sure. Did, so that wasn't obviously part of buds, but could people quit? Absolutely. So it was.

I'll say it's the finishing school for Buds, right? So Buds is kind of like the first initial six months. And that's really where you're vetting people and you're teaching a little bit. And then there's a secondary component of that before they get to their first team called SEAL qualification training. And so it's kind of changed over the years how they did that. That's really where we were. Most of the people that we, so nobody quit per se, but now it's very much based on the their performance. So as an example, if you're an officer, like you are you are absolutely

continually graded on your leadership, right? Ability to follow orders, ability to manage your guys. If we said, you know, if a guy got hurt in that and that officer squad, you know, or fire team or platoon, yeah, the guy who, you know, maybe got frost nip on his toes, he certainly got reprimanded, but the officer got his attitude because he wasn't the one keeping up on his guys right right and we are asking a lot because they were probably all on the same learning curve but it's like god damn it you signed up to be an officer we're going to hold you accountable yeah or like the you know if there's a a more senior enlisted guy maybe a little older guy but new to the teams um you know we held them accountable and so most of the people that you know got

kicked out of train so to speak or failed it was really based on performance most of it was leadership, some of it was their character still, always graded. But yeah, a lot of it was that. I mean, we're, you know, we're there to teach. Yeah. I mean, it's easy to kick somebody's ass, right? But to actually convey ideas and like get them to, you know, process that and make them more capable, that that's really what we were trying to do. I'm curious on the leadership part, because I know when Tanner went to Ranger's school, I'm pretty sure that there's a peer review part where your peers great you. Absolutely.

And did you guys have peer reviews also? Yeah, absolutely. And listen, even us as instructors had peer reviews. And I can tell you that nothing will get you to sit up straight and take something serious is when your bros, your buddies, sit there and go, hey man, you're letting down the team. Hey, man, you need to do better at this. It's always constructive. It's never destructive.

Right. But it's tough to receive and it's tough to provide. But absolutely that is a component. And that wasn't always around, but it definitely came in. And it is definitely something that will hold you accountable. And the people that, you know, take that personally and hold themselves accountable, like, that's what we were looking for as well. But it's, you know, you think you're like kind of the shit and doing your deal. like, man, I'm the best.

And then you're confronted by your peers and they're like, hey, bro, like you need to step up and do better. Like, that's humbling. Yeah. And I think that's a good thing. It is. It's like I've heard it said before too that, you know, men, if you, men, if they could choose between love and respect, they won't respect.

Yeah. Men don't need love. I agree. They want respect. So when the guys aren't respecting their leadership or their ability, that means something. that as you said that gets people to pay attention it means something and in the military it becomes a real issue because that can kill people right right so on the hunting side it might not kill you but it might just be you know um lack success on a hunt could be a once a lifetime hunt but when the stakes are

higher like it could be my life or death and so that's why we took it so serious right so that's i don't know i i i fall i fall back into that sometimes i mean and and honestly i try to i don't get that peer review necessarily so much but i try to hold myself accountable like and try to just be brutally honest because to do anything else it's just so you're just blow on smoke up your own ass right so yeah it's uh no i love it it's like that's you know to get respect that's hard it's hard to have to earn respect it is you know i mean to lose yeah and it's like you know as we've said through life you know positions don't really mean much it's like you can be a leader and not be whatever and not be the leader not be the leader right so um yeah super interesting i just was

curious because i know that like i was over in hawaii doing a ruck and i know there's a jungle school oh yeah so this is kind of like the cold weather school is what you yeah super interesting how often did you hunt up in alaska um i mean really every chance i got okay so i you know i I started out my military career living in the Philippines, believe it or not, which was amazing for a lot of reasons. But I essentially lived underwater. Like I cannot, it's kind of crazy to think back on it, but like just six, eight hours a day for, you know, six days a week.

Diving, huh? Yeah, just like doing all kinds of stuff. Okay. Picking up bodies, picking up helicopters, like swimming. Every time a submarine would come into port, you'd have to check it. And like before and after. all this stuff. And so, um, just, I mean, I got so comfortable underwater, probably too comfortable, but like so comfortable underwater, we do these, uh, they're called requalification dives. You'd have to do

like, recalification dives or like you have to do them with jumping and demo and all this stuff, shooting. And so anyways, nobody wanted to do it. Yeah. Because you're already in the water all the time. Right. So you're like, yeah, just go down for 60 minutes and we'll count. And I would just fall off the boat. And I remember one time I, I, I, I, we were in the Philippines, fell off. the boat crystal clear water sank to the bottom i don't know it's like 60 feet or something i'm laying on the on the bottom it's this white sandy bottom beach you know kind of bottom and i just lay on my back and i went to sleep and then uh under water and then they just like you know hit the hit the buzzer the alarm and i woke up and i came to the surface and you know called it good and uh yeah so probably

not the safest smartest thing to do but uh nonetheless i did that but yeah um I forget. I got distracted there. I was thinking too much about that. I know. I was just asking, like, how often you got a chance to hunt there in Alaska. Oh, yeah. So I didn't get a chance to hunt much in the Philippines, a little bit in Virginia Beach.

When I was living in Virginia Beach, I got to go hunt some white-tailed deer and stuff, you know. But I was still pretty busy. And then once I got to San Diego, California was a tough state to hunt. Yeah. And honestly, I just didn't have much time. So I didn't hunt much in San Diego. As soon as I got to Alaska, man, I was like ready. Like, you know, bought a new Hoyt and just jumped right back into it.

And it's always been my passion. I have no idea why. It's just like ever since a little kid. But you didn't grow up hunting or did you say your dad? I did grow up. Well, my dad hunted some birds. Okay. Right?

But like nobody big game hunted. So for whatever reason. And where was that at? Cleveland, Ohio. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't admit that too often. But, you know, great whitetail state. But no, I'm a self-taught archery deer hunter, and I was miserable at it.

I mean, I had a wonderful time, best probably hunting memories in my life, but I wasn't successful. And so it's, you know, it's been a long journey to kind of become, yeah, it's a tough thing to hunt white-tail deer with a bow on public land. It's not easy. So I had hunted when I could. Do you know who M.G.K is? He's from Cleveland. he's a rapper. No, I don't.

He's got a song called From the Land, I think. So you can look it up at some point. No. But when I got to, when I got to Alaska, I was like, this is my, like, I like to say ever since I left home, like I've been living my childhood dreams. And just trying to be true to my heart,

follow my passions. And so when I got there, I'm like, I cannot believe I'm this lucky to like not only be in Alaska, but like Kodiak Island has a lower, to it. Like there's a mystique to it. As you know, you've been there, right? And well deserved. Yeah. And a giant bear. But like the mountain goat was amazing. Like I got to do a lot of mountain goat hunting. Specifically, you would get winner tags that were over the counter.

So like October or when? It's no, November 15th that would start. Okay. And so most, I mean, I've been on, I don't know, 30 probably plus successful mountain goat hunts with everybody. But, you know, I've, the ones I've killed, so I've killed five with a bow, they're all been in winter, great hair and stuff. But it's like, so now of a sudden it was like this melding of, you know, what I'm teaching in the military, what I learned kind of going through that process of maybe becoming a mountain guide, right? And then, or, yeah, mountain guide, rock climbing guide.

And then with my hunting experience, that's where everything started to come together. Right. And so, you know, solo, dull sheep hunts in the Brooks and, you know, and the chew. got you got you know and then the brown bear the black bear and prince well like all of it and i'm just like i cannot believe that's awesome and you know i mean the state's huge yeah so it doesn't matter where you live a lot of adventure it's still like a lot of logistics to get around too yeah that's the biggest thing up there it's like yeah logistics yeah it takes some planning it takes some planning it's a little even though you live in the state it can still be costly yeah you know for sure what was uh like

tell me about a the most memorable hunt you had up there So it's got to be, I mean, to me it's got to be this mountain goat hunt. The last one I killed, the biggest, the biggest billy I'd ended up killing. But, you know, went out, I think it was middle of December. Days are short, as you know. And so I go out by myself, which I like to do a lot of. And I knew these, I knew this group of goats because my buddy had been in there, I don't know, a week or 10 days prior. He said there's some big billy.

he wasn't able to get on him. And so I went in kind of with the mindset of, I'm going to bring the tools to, like, get around the train. So I brought crampons. I brought some ice axes. How high were they, like, during that time of year? So they were post-ruts, so they were going back up into the cliffs. Oh, okay.

Yeah. And the wind would blow them off? Or was there snow there? Oh, yeah, there's snow, but, you know, that wind would come in. Anything that it actually benefited us. because one in the rut if you find a nannies you find abilities right but also when they're snow on the ground not only can you track them but if there's any wind exposed uh meadows and stuff or like little hangings where they'll be that's where they're going to be or they're going to be close right

but anyways i went in there and uh sure enough i got right on the goats and i'm waiting i'm waiting i'm waiting and I'm waiting. And two, the two biggest billies, you know, big, nasty, piss stained,

like rotten. One, I thought one had been shot. Mm. Because he was bleeding on his, on his, like right rear, you know.

Quarter? Yeah. Well, what it was is they had been fighting. And so the one got gourd. Oh, I see.

Right? But they were both okay. So anyways, yeah, I eventually got a shot at the biggest billy. And as soon as I shot, everything like everything just blew up in a cloud of snow yeah and just disappeared so you know waited

waited waited waited watching the time um and now i start blood trailing while i'm blood trailing downhill and i get down to where it's starting to get steep now where i'm almost thinking about like i need to turn in and face the mountain to down climb yeah and i look across this gully and there's the herd of goats and I'm looking real quick, you know, and I'm counting, and one's missing, and I don't see blood on any of them, except that one, you know, they had that, and I realized that when they went across this gully to get to the other side, that they had caused an avalanche. And so this gully had slid, so I'm like, all right, be careful, right? But I'm like, my goat's got to be down there. And I'm thinking maybe my goat even caused the avalanche, which I think in hindsight happened.

So I'm down climbing, down climbing, I'm turning into the hill. And I'm like, you know, you know shit's going south when like you're so nervous, you're breaking out in cold sweats. Yeah. And it's cold out. Did you have, you had crampons on and ice axe? Absolutely. And that's how you're backing down the hill.

Because I just, I just knew. Now, I was smart in one respect, but I'll tell you in a minute how I wasn't smart, right? Okay. So I kept going and like a couple times, I'm like, God, maybe I should like go back up. And then it was going to be this huge. Like I had to come in the next morning, like up from the bottom in this drainage.

And so I just keep going and going and just talking myself through it. And finally I'm like maybe 50. So this is probably 400 feet down. I've done this. And I'm just about to the bottom, maybe 50 feet from the bottom. And the avalanche now had slid off to my right.

I'm looking over my shoulder like this and I can see this giant pile of frozen avalanche debris. And there's this little like, black thing in the center of the cone, like right at the top. And they have these little ermine weasel things. And they turn white and they got like a little black eyes. So I thought it was one of those.

Okay. So I'm like concentrating. I'm okay. Finally I'm down. Like I'm safe. And I look at this pile of avalanchebrey that's at least as tall as me. And dude, no shit. Right at the top this much like an inch of a mountain goat horn is sticking right out of the center of it.

And I'm like, you got to be kidding. So avalanche debris sets up like concrete. Okay, I was gonna say. I've got no, I've got no shovel. Yeah. No like avalanche shovel or nothing. I've got nothing to dig this goat out. I got a cell phone.

I have no reception. I was able to get out and I wish, in hindsight, I shouldn't have done this, but I tried to call my wife to tell her, to tell my buddy Aaron to bring some shovels and snow shoes, because I didn't have snow shoes either. Right. And, you know, told him where to come and meet me. Yeah.

Well, all she heard was, uh, goat dead Aaron help. Okay. And I'm like, that didn't help me at all, right? Uh, soon a day's long story short, hands and ice axes and everything. I, I dig a hole. So now I got a hole. I got the, the goat exposed. He's dead.

But I can't deadlift him out of the hole. Yeah. And then I'm like, well, okay, dumbass. How about just digging a little train? wrench. And so I end up pulling them out, setting them up, got great trophy photos, right. Skinned them out, you know, capped them out, quartered them up, got to take all the meat. Yeah. I got this giant pack. It's dark now. Oh, man. And I still got a long way to go. I got no headlamp. I didn't bring a headlamp. I mean, I'm an idiot. Like, I never said I

wasn't. I don't think to this point I've said, didn't have a headlamp, didn't have a shovel, didn't have snowshoes. You said you had a unique perspective. Yes. So this is part of how you develop that. This is, this is trial by fire. Yeah. And just as I got it on my back, and I'm like, all right, this is going to suck, but it's mostly downhill. Yeah. Don't, don't like blowing the eye out or something. Right. I can see this, I can see this light coming up the drainage and it's my buddy Aaron. Oh, man. And I started walking downhill. Like, were you off the road system or? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. So he had just, he had, so he had, so he'd, My wife didn't exactly know what I'd said.

Yeah. But she knew enough to call Aaron. Yeah. Aaron just kind of guessed where I was. He found my truck. Okay. And then he just, I don't know. I mean, he was, he's a smart guy.

I figured it out. And so he finally comes up and he's like, hey, bro, like, you know, I got the snow shoes and this and that. And he goes, you know, let me take some of the meat. And I'm like, you know, F that. Like, I'll take the snow shoes. You take my bow. I'm not unloading this pack. You know, I'm carrying this.

At this point, I'm carrying it out. my own. So yeah, those those hunts, uh, I think mountain goats are like a little bit underappreciated. You know, I mean, big, big ram, big head gear, but like mountain goats are amazing. Right. Where they live and they're tough as nails and I've never had a chance to hunt one, but I want. Oh, dude, you've got to do it. Like they're, they're amazing. I put in for Oregon every year, never get, you know, it's like one and a million chance of getting here. But, um, yeah, Roy and I had plans because he used to hunt him a lot in October on

Kodiak where it'd be like let me think I guess right before our deer hunt because we'd always do like Halloween yeah first week yeah that's a good time but he killed a bunch or I don't know about a bunch but yeah I mean I remember his videos and stuff I never got a chance to to go but looked awesome yeah those those regulations kind of changed so as a resident I think as a resident you could maybe not at first. It was always a draw, but then it was, there weren't enough people

going down to the South End to kill these goats. Is it, you know, a little bit of money, takes some commitment. Everybody wants to hunt deer. So then they opened it up as a resident. You could just go down there

and hunt over the counter. And then, you know, that later season, archery hunt always opened if they hadn't filled their quota. But now I think, unless something's changed, recently like residents and non-residents can go down to the south end and hunt mountain goats.

I think you can even kill two and it's and it's over the counter even for non-residents. Now you have to have a guide. Yeah. Right? But it's like where does that opportunity exist anywhere in the world? You know? I know. I need to get a hold of Cole Kramer.

But it was cool because I'd be up there on some of these hunts. And of course the brown bears, you know, they're looking for dens and stuff. But I mean, I'm up on these ridgetops that I had to climb to and I'm stalking these goats. And in the snow, I mean, they weren't like fresh, like imminently. I was going to run into one, but like there's brown bear tracks, walking these ridges. And I'm like, are they stalking the goats? Are they just looking for a place to like den up? Like I never did quite figure that out.

But I know where we'd hunt the brown bear up high in the mountains, like in the Alaska range. We'd be on snow machines. But, oh, yeah, I heard some of those crazy stories. Yeah, they would, I mean, it would be like a steep hill or actually on the mountain way up there dug in. And I don't know. And I think, you know, Roy would, he actually went in some dens, but it would go go in and then. Of course he did. Yeah. And then like a button hook. Oh, really? Because the wind would come in otherwise. So they'd kind of make a little like right turn, left turn. Yeah. And just be back in there. Fascinating. Yeah. For whatever reason, I remember he would say he like had a shovel one time and he had

like cut these footholds just to get up to this den he wanted to check it out so yeah they like those steep hills but i don't know maybe they're hunting too yeah i mean maybe they're trying to find like the last did you ever have a brown bear tag here oh yeah okay yeah how'd that go um awesome yeah i mean i loved it uh i won't remember the the name of the bay but uh yeah took a boat over and uh i had a spring tag okay and so you know you go get your tag and and and you go get your tag and as you know, like you get 15 days to hunt. So it's like I pick my tag up and you tell fishing game, it's like, okay, it starts tomorrow.

Yeah. Boom the clock starts. Yeah. So spring can be a good time to hunt them. It can also be a bad time. Like they can be rubbed. Right. You know, we were finding some really good bears,

but they were, to your point, like they were up high, which that in and of itself wasn't the issue. It was trying to get in on them quietly to get an arrow on them. Like some of these big, big, big slugly. would come out of these dens and just lay there for a couple days. Right. Like kind of come back and forth, but really not go anywhere. Yeah.

Trying to get their system going. Yeah. And, but so anyways, it was like, I knew a big storm was coming in. It was going to cut my hunt short. We needed to try to get it done. We were cruising in a boat, just kind of glass in the hills in the evening. And I saw this bear coming down, ran the boat into shore, had the wind in our face. I got out and just started jogging.

I mean, I just started jogging. I just trying to cut distance. And I ended up, the, the boat, the boat, the shore, the wind up the boat, the way, the The bear was just above the high tide line in like this grass and this big willow bottom. And with the little bit of a breeze, the waves breaking, and, you know, it's just being like quiet grass. I got him behind the bear. And he's just, he's just walking and feeding. And, you know, I'm probably, you know, give or take, like probably a hundred-ish yards behind him just kind of shadowing.

So he's just eating grass at this time. just walking, just walking and feeding and stopping. And, you know, I'm not worried about daylight, lots of daylight. And when he would stop, I would stop. And he would walk, I would walk. And he eventually, yeah, he eventually just bedded down and took a nap. And then at this point, my buddies were able to come up behind me. And so we were behind a knob.

We came up over the top. He's, I don't know, maybe 60 yards away. And that was, maybe not today. It wouldn't be too far of a shot on a dangerous animal like that. But I had a self-imposed limit of 40 yards. I was like, if I can't get the 40, I don't want to shoot. Took off my shoes, went down a trail, probably a deer trail, right? And it's going right at them, the direction I want to go, but then it veered directly off.

And I was like, well, that's not going to work. And then I come back and like, I'm sitting on the hill again. And then I'm like, well, I just got to go right at them. And so in that process, because this is now, I mean, dude, we've been there at least 30 minutes, probably 45 minutes by the time I shot him. Yeah. And, you know, I can't believe he didn't know something was up, but maybe at some point he did. Yeah. And so he's kind of almost bedded directly away from me.

And he sits up on his haunches like a dog and still facing directly away from me. And then he turns to his left. And as he goes up, I just, you know, based on instinct, right? Yeah. Drew the bow and I didn't think he'd see it and shot. And I don't remember this, but my buddies do because it freaked them out. But the bear stands straight up on his hind legs, arms in the air, spins towards me. I don't remember any of that.

And then the next thing I know, he's just running straight away through the Cottonwood Bottom. And I heard, and obviously you know this, but like the last thing I want to do is go track up. a brown bear let alone you know because you don't know especially with the bow like is he wounded and not right I don't want to go into a shit storm and Cole you know Cole's got lots of stories about them

button hooking back and you do too anyways long story short he died in this like open grassy area in the cottonwood bottom so it and it was maybe so come to find out we're maybe 250 yards from the ocean so my buddies went back got the boat came in

and then you know we were able to skin the bear out and carry it, you know, just 300 yards, which that's a heavy hide. But because of the spring tag, right before I left, the biologist says, hey, because you got a spring tag, he says you should consider taking some of the meat. And I was like, you know what? I never considered that before. Yeah.

So, you know, I don't know about you, but my experience is like every bear is, like some bears don't smell at all. And they're like this, and some are just like really bad. and I'm I'm uh I'm you know we're cutting up this bear and skin him out I'm like this bear doesn't smell like he smells great meat looked good meat looked amazing so we took we took the hams off each hind quarter backstrap some tenderloins and uh whatever a week later sink of demile I was at but same buddy was with me we're at his house he had a bunch of people over and I'm cooking up some brown bear I don't tell anybody what it is yeah and I just served it you know kind of like

cubes and everybody's like oh my god this is amazing what is it i'm like oh it's brown bear and they'd never had it before and uh since then i've eaten you know a couple more yeah but uh yeah so it can be hit or miss it can be very hit or miss bears kind of that way especially i don't know if any of i don't even know if the natives eat them in the fall like once they're on fish i don't know but spring you know i've had some good spring bears for sure yeah yeah meets yeah oh that's that's interesting awesome story though Godding. You got to love those brown bear stories. Oh, dude.

They are such an amazing animal. Bow hunting that species is unlike anything else. I mean, it might be like similar. I could have, I've tried African lion one time. I didn't kill one. But those two got to be the pinnacle that feels like for dangerous game. Yeah. So I'll tell you how I approach it.

So the brown bear and then, you know, last, this last August, I went hunting Cape Buffalo. And so, you know, I enjoy the preparation and the training for whatever the hunt is as much as the hunt, right? Because it extends a hunt, it makes it longer because the hunt's too short. And more intentional. Absolutely. You know, and I just, I want to make sure that I've done everything I can, control all the variables I can. And then you've got to leave kind of the rest of fate, you know.

But anyways, I go into those hunts. I distinctly remember on that brown bear because it was the first like I hunted black bear but like this is really like the pinnacle for me at the point. And I remember thinking I'm like I'm going in to kill this bear

and there's only two outcomes I kill the bear or the bear kills me. Full stop. That's it. You have to go in with that mentality right? Because you're going you are walking into the bar you're going up to the biggest dude and you're going to freaking punch him

and the balls. And start the fight. And like, yeah. And then, you know, because you initiated it, like, you have to own the outcome. I love stakes like that. I do too.

Because when in life, I mean, maybe you could punch some guy in the bar and the balls, but when else is that those highest stakes out there, right? That's, to me, that's living. It is. And the bar, chances are the cops or your buddies are going to pull you off.

Like, this is for real. Yeah. You know? And how long ago? was that oh man that's uh at least 15 years ago yeah and you still remember it like distinctly every detail but and i think that's what people who maybe who don't hunt because a lot of people who don't hunt listen to this and they don't realize this is more than just oh your hunter you kill animals no this is like everything i mean these memories this is so ingrained in our psyche

forever. It's so powerful, these experiences that we have out there. And yeah, so just, I love hearing a good hunting story. And that's a great hunting story. But these are such, like all these interactions we have

with animals, especially bow hunting, right? They're so visceral. They're so primal. You know, you can remember, you know, we just talked about the smell of the animal, right? Or like, what colors the meat? Or like, what does the meat taste like? And all these things are like,

how are these animals put together? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like you don't ever get, to experience that unless you put yourself in those positions. Or like, you know, having those, we were talking about, you know, elk coming in and, like, head back and like steam coming out of their nose and, like, drool. And they're coming to fight.

Yeah. And, like, that's, I mean, that's a super intense experience. Yeah. But hunting a dangerous animal, because the elk's going to run away as soon as you, you know, make a mistake. Right. Chances are. That animal is going to kill you. Like, he ain't messing around.

And so I love that. Yeah. And it's not for everybody. It's not. you start your career but i think at a certain point it's a place where you want to get to you want to test yourself some people still there's some people who still never and even lifelong hunters who aren't interested in that you know but there's a certain sector of people who yeah i mean i'm like fascinated with did you ever read the book silver tip oh yeah yeah so it's like those stories and that

your story reminds me of those stories paul schaefer bart schuyler oh man those guys are just legend and living life on the edge. It all, and it's like, yes, they all died, you know, but that's a risk. Yeah. You know, and it's, I don't know, I'm just fascinated by it. I could read and hear stories like that all day, every day. It's, I don't know. Yeah, those guys are absolute legends. And, you know, we just don't, we don't have to put ourselves in those positions anymore. You know, life is getting easier. It is. We're getting more, coddled, not less. And so to make that conscious decision to, you know, do whatever, run a three-day race, right? Or go pursue a bull or a dangerous animal where the outcome is completely uncertain.

Yeah. And all you can control is like your mental, you know, your mindset and your preparation. It's like, I live for that. Like, if not, like, I'm just, what is it? Don't give in the habitual comfort. That's right. And you're like, I'm not giving in a habitual comfort. Like, I just can't do it.

Well, tell me about your Buffalo hunt. So, yeah, I've been wanting to do it, so I was turning 55. I'm like, you know, it's on my list. I got to check it off. I know. I got to check it off. And so, you know, again, the preparation and the planning and all that is like just as enjoying enjoyable to me as anything. Yeah.

So that was the process. It's like building that up. And so, you know, it was FMJ, dangerous game. two blade, grizzly stick, mass eye, you know, single bevel kind of thing. So I had basically just shy of an 800 grain arrow. Yeah. But, you know, I don't mind telling you, like, I don't shoot a heavy bow really for my side. I shoot like 70, 72 pounds.

Yeah. But I wanted to be able to shoot 80 pounds at a minimum. You know, Evan, you know, got me a bow from Hoyt, set it up. And then it took me a couple months to just get to the point where I felt comfortable not drawing the bow, but drawing the bow smoothly, calmly in any position. Because I don't know what I'm going to encounter. Am I going to be on my knees? Am I going to be twisted?

Am I going to be standing? I don't know. Like, am I going to have to hold a full draw for, you know, and risk my life if I let down? I don't know what I'm getting into. So it took me a couple months and then just shooting. I went so far. and I've done this a lot, but I'm, you know, you hear athletes all the time talk about visualization. And so I'm huge on visualization.

And I think just like even just, you know, as you're going into a hunt, like thinking through that shot, like thinking through that, that positive outcome. And like your arrow hitting exactly where it goes, the bull running and falling over, right? Like, and just that visualization. So I think the way we practice is, you know, so to speak, the way we fight, right? Or the way we hunt. And so I did this a lot for my brown bear. I built a full size brown bear target out of a sheet of plywood, you know, and just, you know, as artistically as I could, painted up and then cut out the kill zone. So it gave me not only the visualization of the bear and, you know, the size, the general size of the animal, but then just a little bit of intention that if I didn't hit, you know, I'd put a whatever, you know, block target or whatever behind the animal.

kill zone but like if you don't hit the kill zone like they're good chance you're gonna yeah there goes 20 bucks right yeah and so it gives you just a little bit of of uh there's some stakes there exactly right so i did the same with uh with the cape buffalo so put the cape buffalo target i bought a a poster like a full size like people would shoot it gun at yeah and i took it and i traced it out and then i built this cape buffalo target and i started shooting it got the arrow dialed you know worked up the broadhead, found out what I wanted, penetration, et cetera. And then I took that Buffalo target and I started putting it in my yard down in a ravine, shooting uphill. And like, I went in with as much confidence as you possibly could have. Yeah. But at the end of the day, there's still this lingering doubt. Am I going to

perform? And I'd never shot and killed anything with this setup. So, like, I have to trust people, like, that this is going to work, you know? So long story short, you know, we got a tracker on the front of the vehicle, we're driving towards a waterhole, we're going to sit water. Yeah. And it's in the evening. And the guy picks up tracks and they're headed towards the waterhole. Well, when we get there, the wind's all wrong, like for the blind. So it's not going to work.

And the guy's like, well, I think what we should do is hunt into the wind and see if they're around here. And then we'll do a big loop and we'll end up back at the water. water at at dusk and maybe the wind will have either calmed down or you know whatever so I'm like yeah bro I don't you know yeah I don't know shit for shit yeah and and sure enough as we're going into the wind so we've got the advantage they're coming to us perfect setup so you know you don't have to you know it's just like my best success with elk has been yeah I can stock in I've killed a few like that but the best opportunity is like me setting up and letting them come past me right so

So like I try to control again this many variables. And so that's what happened. But now they get 70 yards away. And we'd already talk me in the pH. He's got his gun, 416, whatever. And he's like, don't worry about shooting through like your cape and like wounded another. Like probably not going to happen. You know, told him what I were shooting.

And he's like, you know, once you shoot, don't move, et cetera, et cetera. So we go through all this. Well, they're coming. And so we stop. we get you know we don't really have any cover but now they stop and they're just milling around and they're a couple of them bed because they're just going to wait till dark to head to water yeah right are they still 70 about yeah and so now like you're in the presence and like you can feel the aura like this is what i this is what i signed up for yeah like i don't want it to be quick and like

done no like i want to experience this and so you know i i have a i don't know why but i maybe because of the preparation, whatever mindset I have, but like I am not, I don't get nervous in these situations. Because the way I look at it is, I haven't done anything yet. Yeah.

Like I'll get happy and nervous after I kill the animal. Right. But until then, why, you know, why go there? But it was awesome to have them there. But I'm like, don't fuck this up. Yeah. Like these things aren't going to run away. They could chance it could stampede us, right?

And the trackers, had already told me, like, one guy had a scar, like, up his ribs, and he said that they weren't even tracking a buffalo. They were tracking an Eland, and this buff just runs out of nowhere, and, like, damn near gores this guy to death, right? And they all had these stories. So, like, this is real. They're aggressive.

I'm like, cool. That's what, anyways. So just by luck, they start standing up. Well, we had already seen one of the, there were a couple good bulls in there, but one bowl was bigger than the rest. he was grayer than the rest and he was broomed on his right side and they're like the guy's like that is an old doug a boy yeah like an old dug a boy yeah and like he's not going to win any

beauty contest right perfect so just so they get up they start milling and and just by luck this old bull is you know they're kind of in a in a herd right and there's maybe i don't know 13 or 15 or something like that he just happens to be closer to me and i just wait i'm like you know what if it if it if he doesn't give me the shot don't shoot like you'll find another one it's either meant to be or it's not you know and sure enough i was super patient he comes by broadside and he moved that leg forward and as he moved that leg forward you know it starts to like i'm thinking like obscure his vision i'm not worried about the others i come to full draw i settle in 26 yards oh 26 and I had an orange veins, a wrap, and a knock, right?

And I just, right now, I can still see that orange arrow going exactly where I wanted to, right? And so I shoot and I didn't move. Normally I'd reload. I didn't move. And I just remember hearing the pH say, Deadbolt. Oh, man. And so they run off like this and they loop around and you can see them kind of running through that scrub country. And all I can see is like this big black mask.

going in like a cloud of dust and one little black blob is a whole falling back from the rest and then that blob disappears and the herd thunders off i got the african sunset i got a bow in my hand my cape buff is dead right there and as that's happening i hear the death bellow and i remember like right now I'm like bro I'm like fucking be present and just take all this in and remember it because this this is what you live for and dude he ran a hundred yards and fell over dead now we still waited till dark and still waited for the trackers and still did the whole thing and played it up but I was like how amazing is that and even they're like and you've said this a lot and I I always agree with it, but it's like that was the honorable death that that old bull deserved

and the best death he was ever going to get. Like he was literally over in seconds. Yeah. You know? We've seen what happens in the wild in Africa. Oh, dude, it's brutal. Yeah. To even healthy animals, let alone old animals.

Yeah. But yeah, that was a perfect death for him. But what a... I would do that every year. Dude, what a visual. What a visual. It's like, I can just see it. I the takeaways I have from from those stories about your brown bear and your k buffalo is the intentionality and your preparation and i think people can learn a lot from that because i this is serious it is dead serious but it's not you can be serious and is like oh yeah i shot my bow every day okay but to what level i mean there's different levels of shooting your bow every day yeah your level is the highest level you know you you know had that

that where you wanted that image in your head. You wanted that buffalo silhouette or whatever. And you wanted the stakes if you hit the plywood or whatever on the brown bear. And it's like that's what it takes. That's what it takes to be infallible in moments where a lot of people would crumble. You know, a lot of people in those situations

because the emotions are so high and there's so much pressure and you're in another country or in Alaska, a lot of people fail. And there's other people in that case. there were other people's lives on the line I felt. Right. Like I had, I felt that responsibility.

Like, if I wound this Cape Buffalo, like, I'm not going to track it. They're going to track it. Yeah. They've already shown me that they've always been killed, you know. Wow. I mean, listen, I'm not going to shoot my bow through my truck windows like you, right? But it's the same thing, right? You're trying to, you know, you can't simulate that, but you're trying to like add some pressure.

Right. to test yourself prior to the ultimate test. Yeah. You know, and I really enjoy that process. And I don't think enough people, and I don't think enough of us talk about that for people to understand. Like, this is how you, this is how these things,

this is how you're consistently successful. Anybody can be randomly successful. For sure. But it's like, you want to be consistently successful. And that's, I think, to the level it takes. Yeah. I mean, you know, the truck window thing, that's a little bit trolling.

people because people get so loose their shit for whatever reason. Like I said, I'm not going to do it. But yeah, you know, it's my truck. I don't know why they're so working out. But it, um, it does it, there's a point to it. There's a point. There's absolutely a point. Everything that I do. Some people get distracted by stupid shit, but whatever. And some people, it's sometimes it's intentional on my part. But, um, yeah, I, I, I love those stories. And I, you know, just hearing you just share that, that experience. It's just like, one, I'm jealous of that. moment because it seems like incredible um but yeah i love man i love a dude that's so badass uh i can't imagine how that felt because yeah there is a when you said there's other people relying on you

to make a good shot there's you know peter capstick wrote book called death in the long grass and a lot of times those buffaloes they'll go in you know the grass can be 10 foot tall as tall as a ceiling and they'll go in there and they'll button hook back and then you'll be blood trailing and they're waiting for you to stomp your ass. Just like those brown bears. I mean, they are smart. Yes, they know what's going. They're used to surviving amongst predators. I mean, brown bears are the top of the food chain there, but, you know, in Africa, there's lions. Oh, yeah. There's plenty of other things. And it's, yeah, it's tough living over there. Those animals are so tough. The people are tough. I'm over the guys speaking in Swahili.

Did you ever, did you communicate with the tractors? at all? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, gotcha. The one guy, Patrick, I think his name was the head tracker. Like, he spoke some English. Yeah.

He's pretty good. Okay. Like, he was the one that told me about, like, and showed me the scar about, you know, getting his shirt ripped off. He dove into some, you know, thorn bushes to sing rage by him. And I'm like, okay, thanks, bro. Yeah. That's, yeah, you know.

I don't know. But how lucky are we to be able to experience other cultures and other, you know, countries and other, hunt other animals? and work with other types of people, it's like, God, we're lucky to do this. You know, I think that the animal absolutely deserves it. And I think people who don't hunt don't understand that, but it's like, we love those animals.

Like, I don't want to see that any animals suffer. No. You know? And so you can't hunt without having killed, but, you know, you want to make sure that you do your part so it's as quick and clean as possible. Definitely. So we've shared elk camp before.

Tell me your best elk on the story. Oh, my best elk hunting story. Yeah. I remember being there and it's like it seemed like we were hunting kind of the same country a little bit. Oh, yeah, that one night. We absolutely were. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And did you kill a bull that night or no, you did. Okay. I don't think I went back there. I don't know if it was the next night or the night before we bailed off the other side of that bridge. and ended up killing a bull that might have been yeah i don't want to say because then everybody want to go there and i'm always trying to go there um it's really good i don't know i got to tell you like i was hiking well no we weren't hiking i was hiking back in the dark of course but like driving back and i'd heard you killed and i just i shook my head and they just smiled i'm like i don't know

how he does it man but um because truitt was with you that yeah that's that night he's been going with me last few years yeah yeah i mean probably similar to you like i live to elcon i think for the most for most of us like it's as close as we're gonna get to you know cavemen hunting dinosaurs like when they're in the rut they're fired up like it's such a primal thing when they're bugling you can hear that it's just like it ignites something in your soul right i think if you're like really into it and uh you know they're they're not easy to kill they demand your best like they're not going to give you anything you know but i've had so many i'm trying to think of like um Well, so I'll just tell you the night or two after, you know, you had killed, you know, we hear these bugles.

And of course, it's all the way at the bottom. I mean, it's big country, you know? I mean, right? So, but we're just, you know, you got to chase bugles because you know that there's bulls. Yeah. And so I'd gotten aggressive and, you know, where I think mule deer is a little bit more surgical with the bow. Like they don't give you much. Like you gotta be really precise

and like sometimes you just can't go in and get them. But when they're, when they're bulls rut and like I just, I tend to be more aggressive, right? And I kind of get in there kind of assault them, so to speak. And so I'd done a little bit at, but there weren't like, there wasn't anything mature, but there was a lot of like younger ones just kind of going off. And it was turning into a kind of a rut fest.

Yeah. And but so I'm slipping down. and I got a guy with me from Sica. He wasn't a hunter, but he was learning to hunt. So he's pretty inexperienced. And I'd been on some hunts with him before. So I wasn't concerned with him. But dude, it's just like going off and going off.

And he tasked me on the shoulder and like, you know, 70, 80 yards to our right is like, I don't know, maybe a five or six row bull. But like, and he's, he's just wallowing, you know, and then he gets up and he bugles. and like, but I know these bugles in front of me. Like, I know that, I know that's got to be where my destiny is, right? And then you can hear a couple clashes, like, where they're locking up. And you're just like, I'm like, yes, like, this is what I live for. Yeah.

And so anyways, I got an arrow knocked and I hear these antlers clash. And then I look and I can, like, just see antler tips coming. And it's that it's that hunting off instinct that that that's where the, you know, I think experience comes into play where you're not thinking you're now, you're now reacting to the situation. You're not thinking about like shooting your bow. Like it just is happening. And at least for me, that's where I've like had my best success. So anyways, I see antler tips. I don't know if he's a shooter yet.

But I come to full draw. I anchor in. And here he comes. And I don't have to think. I'm like, yes, absolutely. shooter and I don't have time to range. I didn't have time to range or anything. Again, that's where time on the on the range and like seeing a target at 20 yards or 30 yards and like you're just your mind, your computer's just like running. And now this was a fairly easy one. So he comes up this trail

and I'm, my mind, I'm like 20 yards. Like he's within, you know, margin of error. Yeah. And I just stop him. And he stops right where he needs to right up over the top. and piles up. Nice. And I'm just like, did that just happen? Because you know, you live all year for these things. And then when it happens, you almost like, did that really just happen? Right.

And you know, leading up to that point, it can be frustrating sometimes. You're like, man, I blew that. Man, I'm not good enough. Is this ever going to happen? Like, will I ever kill another elk in my life? And then it happens like that. And I think I take, like, I feel proud of myself at that point that, like, okay, I put the work in. I earned that.

Yeah. wasn't luck. I mean, there's always some luck, but like I did my part, you know. Yeah. And, but yeah, so that's what happened like a night or two later. Can't beat that. And it was, it was awesome. Never is. And the thing is every, the chaos is still going on. Yeah. You know, because the party just moves up or down the drainage. Nothing else changes. That's what, no, that's the thing about the mountains is, yeah, there's life and death every day and nothing changes. Yeah. It's just, it's, yeah, it's, uh, I was, uh, I was curious as you were, coming up as a hunter, like I have people that I looked up to as young,

Larry Jones used to live right here, or still does live in town, but he had a video called Elk Fever, him and Dwight Shoe. But I had these people who I looked up to as like a young bowhunter. Who did you look up to coming up as a hunter? Like, who are your heroes? You know, I mean, when I was, I mean, we're similar age, right? But so Fred Bear was kind of like still around, but older. You know, he was the old guy.

Yeah. Really, probably Chuck Adams is the one that stood out at the time. There were some other whitetail guys, I think Miles Keller and some guys like that who were, you know, more white-tailed focus. But the thing with Chuck Adams that I appreciated at time is like, you know, he was pursuing the 29. He had all this diverse experience. This is where I first heard about Kodiak, you know, and stuff like that and like the allure of that. That big bear he killed is kind of like in the creek a little bit. But it just, I think they said it was like a 1,400 pound bear or something I remember.

Yeah, because I think it was a fall bear. Yeah. Because he was sitting there and he had, I just remember that picture, his beanie and in the alders. And it's just like incredible photo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. And, and I, again, I'm just trying to, I mean, I'm just trying to kill a dough if I could, you know, and I'm looking at this. And so, yeah, so those guys were some of them, you know, Fred, but again, if I couldn't read it in a magazine when I was growing up, like it didn't exist kind of thing, you know, and there was a lot more, I mean, really, I don't know if maybe, you know, or have an opinion of this, like, I don't know if bow hunting was kind of a fringe thing back then, but it wasn't as prominent as, say, rifle hunting.

You pick up field and stream and like Jim Zumbo and all these guys. It's like, it's all rifle stuff, which is fine. Jack O'Connor. But it was, it was, yeah, Jack O'Connor, but it was hard to find the archery specific stuff. I mean, it. And I still have the very first book I bought. It was like, you know, hunting white tails or something. I still have the book, but I was like, you had to buy a book and read it and try to, you couldn't ask questions to anybody and just try to figure it out on your own, you know. Yeah, for sure.

It was definitely a different time, but man, so addicting. It's like all I thought about, all I wanted to do, all I wanted to read about. There wasn't anything on, you had to do a VHS at Mohawk Video over here. Yeah, yeah. rent those and that's what i did yeah i did i did a lot of that but you know dwight shoo was definitely somebody i looked up to um i never i never got to meet him and then uh actually was was real privileged to hunt one year uh in montana with with larry d jones okay and i mean that guy is just yeah i mean he's an icon right for sure but he's a machine yeah he is i saw him at popin young

a couple months ago okay you know he's still is passionate about bow hunting as he's ever been yeah You know, and I think that's somebody to emulate and look up to. And like, he just always enjoys himself. Yeah. He was just walking on the bike path, like, not far from here. Oh, he lives around here? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. No, but yeah, that was those guys, I remembered every word from elk fever, the VHS. And it's like, I don't know. What an awesome time to come up as a bow hunter. I think so. How do you think that it's like the industries changed from back then to now what would you say um well try to not be too demeaning uh we don't want to be the crotchy old guys no i always say no well i might have to join you here but i'm older than you

i don't know by less of a year but nonetheless you are so you are the oldest guy here um i i'm not bashing on social media but i'll just say there's so much out there now right that So here's a mistake I think, maybe I'll start here. Here's a mistake I think younger hunters make is they see you or they see me or hear these stories. And rightly so, just like I did and you did, they're like, I want to be him. Yeah. I want to pick up the bow and I want to go kill a bull elk. And I'm like, great.

But that's not where you start your journey. That's not where I started my journey. And I certainly didn't go out there on my first elk hunt with the expectation of, and I'm going to kill, you know, a six by six or like put a number on it. Like, who gives a shit about that? Like, that shouldn't be what you focus on. But, of course, we talk about it. And so that becomes the exception.

And so I think a lot of hunters are let down when they realize it's harder than it looks. And then if they don't, let's say they shoot the spike bowl. Like I think you said that was your first, right? Yeah, I see the tags sitting right there on the wall. So that broadhead holding that tag, that's from 1989. But that shows you how much that meant to you. Oh, yeah, Spike Bull. Nobody called it a trophy.

Correct. But nowadays, I think the disappointing thing is, because I get it a lot, like on Instagram, and I always know how the story's going to go. And they're like, hey, you know, thanks for this information or this information, help me do this and that. And I'm like, oh, cool, all right? Because I know there's a picture.

But there's always the dot, dot, dot, dot, but it's just a spike. Yeah, I hate that. It's my first bow kill, but it's a dough. And I always like tell them, never apologize for what you kill. Because you get to make that decision. Yeah. And forget what social media thinks. Like this to you at your experience level, and I don't care what age you are.

Yeah. Like that's a big deal. Right. And you should, you should embrace it as a big deal. Well, the animal deserves. I mean, absolutely. It deserves their respect. You killed it.

Be proud of it. And the meat's going to be amazing, right? And it's going to feed you. you and your family. It's like there's nothing to be ashamed of. And it's none of it's easy. It's like I don't care what animal it is. If you killed it with an arrow, that's a trophy. Absolutely. That is so hard. Absolutely. And so I think that I think that people are not, I think they're missing out on some of the biggest impact that that bow hunting can have on them because they're nowadays focused on, you know, the success you have in this room came after 40, you know, came over 40 years.

Yeah. It didn't come your first year or, maybe even your 10th. I think the average, I think the stat says the average, I don't know if it's out west or just a Montana or whatever, but it's like the average success is like to kill your first bowl, takes seven years. Yeah. Right?

And that's not a six by six or a three 50. It's like to kill your first bowl. Yeah. It's like seven years. Seven years. I'm afraid that people aren't going to invest this, you know, now that's on average. Maybe it comes quicker, but it's like, are you going to wait those years to achieve that? People are taking longer than that did.

I absolutely know people who have not killed one in 10 years. Right. And so if you're not, you know, doing it for all these other reasons, like, man, you know, I'm out in nature. Self-fulfillment. It's motivating for me to stay in shape all year and train and do all these things. And like, you know, and then, yeah, maybe you kill the, you know, maybe you kill the, the forky mule there on your Elkhont.

It's like, dude, you should, you should embrace that. Yeah. But people won't talk about it because I think the industry, and I'm not blaming anybody, but it just comes across as like everybody's killing big, big animals. And if you're not, like you're somehow a failure, not part of the club, not part of the community. And it's like, no, it should be the opposite. Like, you're absolutely part of this community. And we're all on a, I like to say we're all on a different part of our journey, right?

If we're all climbing the mountain, we're all at different parts. But we're all climbing the mountain, right? And I can't, the one thing about bow hunting, hunting specifically, it's like, it's, it's not an organized sport. There's not a, there's not a field where we can measure my effort against your effort equally. Right. Right. And so to try to do that, which most people understand team sports, like you can't do it that. Hunting is like this your own personal journey.

And, you know, because I've been here or been there when I was younger and like trying to compare myself to so and so. And maybe it's like, maybe it was Chuck Adams, you know, or maybe it was you or whatever. As a matter of fact, I read your, before I moved to Kodiak, I think, anyways, your Blacktail book. Yeah. Right? And like when I was on Kodiak, it was either during, right when I got there right before and I'm like reading that book and I'm like, okay, all right, yeah, because I don't know the animal behavior. Right.

And then let's say I'm successful with sick of black tails, and now I want to go hunting out and go. It's now I need to learn that behavior and see what their environment is, right? And so it's just kind of like lifelong journey. Yeah. But I can't compare myself to anybody else. And I think we're just with young hunters, I think they do a lot of that. And I think they're missing out on some of the, you know, that great reward you get from that. Yeah, I do too.

You know, I mean, I know young girls struggle with this on social media with the comparison thing, but hunters, because we put so much into this and it means so much, you are comparing yourself to basically the world now. You are. You know, where when I grew up, it was a little small town. Nobody's hardly killing anything. So I killed a Spike Bull. I was actually getting shit talked about me because people were jealous. now you're going to be like probably criticized if you put up a spike bowl picture which is yeah which we would both agree is terrible i mean and that's not how as a community we should be

but the point is is we were for bucking the odds in this small group of people we were celebrated for our success or our accomplishments where nowadays we're looking at you know a 250 inch mule deer or a 400 and whatever inch bowl. And all of a sudden, that's a standard. Yeah. It's like it's not the standard. That's not real. That's not real.

That's who knows what that person had to go through. Because if I think about, so my journey, you know, in the wilderness, like being, getting my ass kicked for day after day after day coming home, not eight hour drive home, thinking about how I screwed up, eight-hour drive back, pack all the way into the, that was all for failure. That was all me not being successful. So if I'm just obsessed with only success, I wouldn't have done any of those things.

Those things, those long journeys, those long drives, those long packs, that made me who I am. It was the failure and the struggles that put this edge on me or put a chip on my shoulder or had me testing myself, and if I test myself, I'm failed, I'm like, I need to get better. But that's all part of it, right? So it has to be.

That failing is what gets this. We can't have one without the other. Yep. Exactly. And that's what I want people to, you know, and I think that's what you're talking about, it's like, it's the whole thing, it's the whole journey. It's, yes, we're trying to be successful. We want to be intentional in our practice.

We want to think about this. We want to visualize everything. just like you, I visualize that perfect moment. I visualize that leg coming forward, picking that spot, arrow disappearing, a perfectly tuned arrow, flying like a shit out of my bow. And it's like that, I mean, that is just part of the life of a bow hunter. And then, yes, if that all works out, then you're successful. And then you have blood on your hands and you're hanging quarters in the tree.

And his life is great. But it's all encompassing. Yeah. I think it has to be, and I think that's the most rewarding part of it. Yeah. You know, we used to have to walk into like the bow rack, right? And they'd have the cork board. And, you know, everybody posts their picture or whatever they killed.

You know, there's always at least one guy who's like, you know, better than everybody else, so to speak. And like, and you're always like, I want to be that guy or I want to, you know, I emulate to like have that, you know, have the same success. My eyes get, would get poked out. People hated my face on there. But to your point now, we're comparing. ourselves to the world. Yeah. And it's just so it's it's, uh, it's really like, yeah, it's lopsided. It's a slippery slope for sure because it's, we're almost sabotaging ourselves by that because yes, we want to celebrate our success and

I'm as guilty of it as anybody. I try to share everything, my appreciation for everything, the people, the country, the land, the animals, all that. But still, if I'm successful, there's that picture going up. And that gets going to get the most focused. generally. But yeah, so I mean, it's, it is a slippery slope. Yeah. It's like we want to celebrate what we do. And the people that we look up to, our heroes, they, they celebrated what they did. So it's, it's just in a different, it's in different context now because of social media. But it's still, we're still proud to be hunters. We're still, we still worked our ass off for this success. And we want to share that. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it can be tough. I think people are, they're, they're, they're,

they're kind of missing out on on the best parts of hunting not killing the animal like being successful quick clean ethical kill 100% that's you know probably the best part that's why we're out there yeah but you know going back to you know my training you know training guys in the military it's like you know my training's a little i talk about training a little bit different context and you do um but it still is the same thing it's like this this objective of going went out saying September is making every other aspect of my life or, you know, what we espouse other people's lives, it should make every other aspect of your life better, right? You have motivation. You have a reason to get out of bed. You have a reason to stay in shape, to be disciplined,

all these things. And so if you just measure it on either the kill, be it a spike or, you know, maybe you didn't kill, it's like, are you telling me that the last year of preparation and training was wasted? No. No, but the time that you have to put in to get that gratification is just delayed. And so you just got to keep going. And so there's so much there that enhances your life that I just hope people aren't dismissing because they don't get the reward right away. Yeah.

You know, we talked about that. It's like there's going to be a lot of people playing golf, you know, if they expect to go kill a bull within a year or two and like a big bowl, like it just doesn't happen very often. No, it's so hard. In regard to like your position with Sitka, like where do you see to me it's like I think we see it with the bows and you're like, how can this bow get better? Yeah. This is like incredible. But every year's like something happens, makes it more forgiving, more accurate.

Something. Where do you see clothing progressing to or do you think that like we're at the pinnacle of what we can do with clothing? man it's such a great question and uh i every time i think we've gotten to kind of the pinnacle like there's something else that will the gold the gold in the down or whatever that was yeah the gold the gold dust on the down yeah that seems next level which is a real thing um but but just uh to kind of speak broadly it's it's people can wear less to still to still stay warm and comfortable in the field. So that is technology just kind of moving things along. So, you know, you talked about putting on nine layers or 12 layers or whatever it was. It's like you can get

away with four or five now. But, you know, with technology comes price. And so I think what's important is not just to build great product, but we have to bring the community along to understand the value it provides him, right? And why there's a cost associated. And what the benefit is going to be for them in the field. But I would tell you that insulation is one of the things that has continued to evolve in a meaningful way. So like the gold dust down. You know, even five years ago, I would have told you,

people have accused me of like being anti-down. And I'm like, no, I'm not anti-down. I'm pro-synthetic insulation. Well, why? Well, because I don't have to think about it. And most people, like, if they get it wet or get in a situation, like, they're going to be fine. but with down with the treatments like to your point like you could lose the loft and all of a sudden

you have nothing it doesn't keep you warm and maybe you become hypothermic right need to get rescued or whatever right and so um you know nobody likes to be cold and wet so if you can keep warm and dry like that's a benefit but it's also a very easy benefit to measure it's like i put it on i stay dry i stayed warm this is great and so being able to move in that direction i think tech uh uh Insulation technology has definitely continued to improve, like that ambient you like so much, right? I love that piece, but like that was something where if you like, you don't have to dig into the details, but if you dig into the details and you realize it like there's different, there's different diameter fibers and different lengths, kind of mimicking animal fur to like help trap a little body heat, but also the face is breathable enough to like let heat escape.

Like you don't need to know that stuff. Right. But that's where it's going, right? And so, like, part of my job, our job is like to just communicate that at a digestible level to let people know you can dig in if you want or you can take our word for it. Yeah. But when you're in the field, you should be able to experience the benefits of that. But so there's that. There's wearing less layers.

And then I think so that keeps you warm. And then the dry part is like Gore-Tal. right and like where Gortex is going and so the ability to make things you know that dew point system I showed you was a pound and a half yeah I'm working on a system and now I'm not making any guarantees but I'm feeling pretty confident like we're gonna potentially be able to deliver a system it's not gonna be for everybody or everything that maybe is one pound or less right so like you go down to you know wherever San Carlos like you probably don't use rain gear but it's not what

what I would say you should take on a brown bear hunt in Alaska, but like for that insurance policy, for the ounce counting sheep hunter, like that might be what they need. And so taking weight out of your pack, which makes you perform better in the field, and then the things you take, even though they're less than ever,

have greater performance than ever. And so you can take less to get more. And that's really where things are going. Sometimes they come with a really high cost and the value proposition isn't there to like, maybe it's a little ahead of its time. And so we have lots of things in the hopper. So just to give you an example,

you know, this is summer at 2025. Fall 2026 is done. We're working on fall 27 and thinking about fall 28. That's amazing. That's what it takes. Yeah. And on average, it's two years maybe from ideation to commercialization. of a product.

That's, you know, on average and best case scenario. Sometimes it's three years. I've worked on projects four and five years and just kind of had the shell of them at a certain point because either it was going to be too expensive or the technology just wasn't there or it was going to be so hard to communicate. It was more just like kind of a niche thing that wasn't really going to, you know, improve anybody's life. But you got to be given the reins to do that stuff and try some things.

And then not all of it works, right? Some hit, some miss. Yeah, I mean, you're still always shooting for the stars. Yeah, I mean, we, you know, we want our batting average to be, you know, above average. But that's what it takes. Yeah. So, but I think that the, the building of it's one thing, but the educating of the consumer to, like, truly get that drive that Porsche, like, as best you can. Like, that's when they actually really understand.

And then, you know, if they ever do end up, you know, in a, you know, it. you know, I talk about survival a lot and, and I'm kind of known, you know, for teaching survival, but it's like, and it's a broad term, but, you know, everybody's definition of survival is different. So as an example, you know, you break your leg, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you've got to in reach your buddy, okay? And it's going to take him 24, 36 hours to get to you. And you've got to crawl under a tree, put on your clothing, make a fire, and ride it out. Like, that's a survival situation. Yeah.

It could also be, I got a mule deer on my back, and you and I are packing back to camp. We get stuck in the cliffs. It's a moonless night, and the best thing for us to do is sit down, wait till dark or wait till dawn, and then either go back up or like find our way safely down through the cliffs. Right. And then if I'm not experienced, if I don't have the right stuff, maybe it's a little wet, I start to panic. And I'm like, you know what?

F and I'm going down. And then you fall and break your hip. Yeah. Right? And so it, it, Exactly. And so the better prepared you are, the better decisions you can make. The better in shape you are, the better decisions you make cognitively and all this stuff. And so what I want is not just to build the best product, but I want people to know what they've got, the capability they have.

So when they find themselves, you know, sitting on the bowl, wait until daylight with the fire going to keep the grizzly bears away or in the cliffs or whatever, that they understand just like that rewarning. drill, like, you've got the capability on your back to survive this. You're not a victim. You're just going to have an uncomfortable situation, not necessarily life and death. Right. And so all this is what this modern stuff does. Whereas, you know, I give this seminar called Survival for the Modern Hunter. I actually got a course on that as well.

But really, I use a picture of Fred Bear, and he's standing there looking at the mountains. He's got his recurbed. He's got probably a canvas, you know, duck camo, jacket on and I'm like if that guy gets wet and you get wet I don't care if it's fred bear or not that guy's in a world of hurt compared to you now and like he either has to leave the mountains he has to try to start a fire he has to go back to the wall tent you can stay there and take advantage of that one hour window and maybe a week where you said the weather breaks and that's when the elk you know steps out in the meadow right and so that's a capability you have and so all those

things are what we have at our disposal now. I mean, we got it better than ever. We could actually say, like, you know, we talked about it already, but the gear's amazing. Like, you don't have to be as tough as you used to be. Like, in one regard, in another regard, you've got to be real tough because maybe there's not as many animals or there's more people or more competition. More competition, for sure, you know. Yeah. It's a, where I notice, too, is like we've talked about big examples, But to me, it's a lot of little decisions you make on the hunt, little shortcuts people make when they get fatigued or they get tired, their pack gets too heavy. Whereas this stuff, because it is lighter and more effective and allows you to maybe perform at a higher level, I think back to like I use poles when I'm doing some of these ultras. Oh yeah.

And the poles that I use, they're carbon, of course, but they're also not adjustable. When they're adjustable, they weigh a little more because you have to have that extra sleeve in there to change a height. So I get them exactly the right height so they're lighter. When they're lighter, I'm using less energy. So I say all that to say that when you're hunting and your pack and your system is just so dialed in, you don't have this extra fabric. The fabric you do have as higher quality or performing higher or allows you to operate at a higher level. When you're on that stock and it actually matters or you're having to go in the bowls or across a canyon,

And you got to get over there before the sun falls or goes down or before the when the wind switches or you're taking advantage of time essentially. You can do that. You're more likely to do that when you're more efficient. This gear helps you be more efficient. It allows people, you know, because you can always justify shortcuts in your head. Like I don't have time to get all the way around that ridge. Maybe if I just go up the bottom, well, wind's going up to them. That's always when I get burned.

Should have went around the top. But people, you know, even if it's subconscious, it's because they're fatigued, because maybe their packs a little heavier and it needs to be because maybe they don't have the best top-in sitka gear or whatever gear they're using. And all that makes a difference. It's, yes, it's a big thing, but oftentimes it's a little things. And it's a bunch of little things to add up to who's successful and who's not. So I just think that, yeah, it's a.

It's a great time to be a mountain bow hunter. And you're doing a good job of making people, like, putting more odds, like, I don't know, just, I don't know, getting the odds in their favor to a level. I mean, as much as possible. Yeah. You know, I mean, going back to, you know, training in Kodiak and nobody likes being cold, if you can keep them warm, then they stay engaged, right? Yeah.

Maybe if you're not freezing your ass off, you're like, okay, I need to hydrate. I need to fuel up. whatever, I stay focused. You're making good decisions. And oftentimes it's like, if you make one bad decision, it tends to lead to a series of others. And so you have to break that cycle immediately. But if all of a sudden you're cold, you're wet,

you're losing focus, you make one bad decision, you take the next shortcut, which leads to the next bad decision. These are when things spiral out of control, right? And so all this just helps you stay engaged in the hunt. And so it's an awesome thing. time. I mean, in one regard, it's an awesome time. In another regard, I wish I was able to bow a hundred years ago, right? Me too. I want it all. I do. Why not? Why not? The peanut gallery has a question for you. Oh, wow. This is you. You're on. Have you listened to this part of any of the

other podcasts? Apparently not, because I was going to ask you if you've ever done this before. Yeah, we have. I just forgot. Yeah. Okay. So. Is this question from you? Yes. Okay.

God only knows what it's going to be. Flock Mary Kill. Backcountry bow hunting, diving, or mountaineering? You have to, you have to, Firmary kill all three of those. Which one's which? Oh, oh. So here's how it works.

Kill something you don't care about. Friving. Or kill diving. Okay. Kill diving. I don't ever want to. dive again. Mary is what you love the most. Bo honey. And what you're, so you're, mountaineering? Yeah. That means just like just for fun every once in a while. Oh yeah. No, that's

perfect. That's exactly. That's my answer. So the mountain's your buck, buddy. And I never want to dive again, but I want a bow hunt forever. Perfect. That's it. Do you have a, I got, I got another good one. Okay. You talked about earlier where you were wanting to be a mountain guide. Yeah. Do you believe that The mountaineering industry is a good place to draw inspiration from for Sitka as their kind of technical gear has maybe been a little bit ahead of the hunting industry. That's an awesome question. So really, Sitka was born from, you know, the two founders hunting in mountaineering clothing because at the time it was the only like technical stuff.

The problem was it wasn't quiet. It wasn't built for what we do. Didn't have camouflage. A lot of times you were buying it from brands who, you know, were anti-hunting. REI. Yeah. So that's where the inspiration came from. And I think that at the time,

so it was sick as 19 years old right now, it would be 20 years old in 26, that the hunting industry writ large was, I'll bet you 20 years behind the outdoor industry. Or the mountaineering industry. Yeah, the mountaineering industry. And in some regard, you can understand why, because, you know, they're going out in very harsh climates.

They're, you know, they're climbing. They're taking a lot of risk. And hunting just hadn't caught up. It was the same thing with the military. The military, when we built that first clothing system, was at least 20 years behind the outdoor industry, the mountaineering industry. I would tell you now that we're at least on par with,

and I would even argue, and I could give you, you know, I could give specific examples if people wanted, but I would even argue that we are ahead of most, of the mountaineering industry at least at sicka but i think that that holistically speaking the hunting industry at least the top brands are on par and i would say we've even led that and the reason i say that is you know we talked in our video about the system like we're creating textiles to solve problems we're using installations that have never been used before we're we're building insulations with you know we built an insulation with prima loft like very few brands anywhere in the world are able to do that

And so, yes, I think that we got inspiration from them, but I think now that, you know, we're all on an even playing field. Sorry, I don't give short answers. No, that's good. That was good. Yeah, that is interesting because that's been pretty much what, like, the common thought is that we're always behind. Yeah. You know, hunting is always behind mountaineering because everybody point to artarex or. Exactly.

Like even, you know, the Rangers, they used to. use a lot of Patagonia because they had a little more leeway on what they could use and wear as opposed to the big army. But yeah. Yeah, I'm very familiar with the Patagonia system, Arcterics. You know, when we initially started that work, I don't know, back in 2003 or whatever, you know, all those brands like reached out and like said, hey, we're here to help. And so that's, you know, that was kind of where my beginning of my pedigree came from.

but dude they were so far ahead like light years ahead right and it's just been fascinating to watch what's happened with hunting and and us being able to get up to speed and then like I said it's kind of neck and neck but sometimes we'll surpass them here and then sometimes we'll surpass us here but we're learning from each other and we definitely I think we're definitely looking at each community is looking at each other to try to learn something well you're a great resource for because you're definitely pushing the envelope on that and the results speak for themselves. So I don't know if the other brands have somebody like you, but if they don't, they're behind. Did you guys have any more?

I got one more. Uh-oh. If you had to choose one material or textile to design with for the rest of your time, what would you choose? One material or textile? So I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of windstopper. and I can't get everything away, but like, so lots of reasons. One, wind stoppers, the name implies, like blocks wind, right? Why is that important?

Because if I can cut the wind without the penalty of bulk, and, you know, you talked about it, like you can layer it under, you can lay it over, we talked about that. If I can cut that wind and convective heat loss, then I can stay mobile. I can stay active. I can draw my bow. I can climb the mountain. I can crawl in. You know, people ask me a lot.

what do I wear, you know, crawling in on that mountain goat when it's like in Clement weather because rain gear's going to be too loud and I'm like, man, windstopper's it. And there's so many ways to like manipulate it and apply it and pattern it in or, you know, we have a jet stream jacket that's, you know, one of the OGs of Sitka, been around forever. We've got a lighter weight version. I can do so many things with that that that's, that's what I'm I would, that's what I would use. And there's, you know, I can't give it away, but like, you talked about the future, like, there's iterations of that that I'm really excited to try to, like, bring the market now because I think there's a lot of upside. So, yeah, windstopper.

Awesome. Good stuff. Is that it? I mean, we could choose another one. It might get. All right. I'm going to give you, let's see, I'm going to hold myself to a three-word answer. Go ahead. Three-word answer. Yep. Okay. You've lived. I'm going to challenge you now. I, I, I, I, I, I, saying that before. You've lived multiple high performance lives from the Navy, uh, backcountry hunting, now designing, uh, clothing gear.

Um, how would you say that, or how would you use those high pressure situations to help kind of develop your career path, uh, as a leader and someone who, who's a voice for, for men? Three words. be an asset. There you go. All right. So all those things can help make the rest of your life easy.

Because I always like try to. Perspective is a beautiful thing, right? Because you control your perspective. Like it could be the worst hunt and you're just like getting your ass kicked. But if you change your perspective, you can be like, okay, this is a learning experience. It's going to happen. Maybe I got to drive eight hours home and come back. but like that perspective changes things.

But so that's one thing. But like it helps you in your daily life, but it's like always trying to be an asset somewhere to someone. It's like, man, maybe it's not my hump and I'm going to help my buddy, whatever. Like that's what I would tell you. Yeah. I'd always say whenever we'd have a meeting over at work,

I'd always just say make a difference. There you go. Just because people sit in meetings, they don't say shit. I'm like, fucking make a difference in there. But yeah, so it goes, right along those lines. But yeah, we're just trying to make a positive impact. Dude, there's a lot worse things in life to do than help people.

Right? Definitely. And that's one thing you've done. I've talked about the other place, but like the inspiration you provide to such a diverse group of people, the motivation that we all need, you know, dependent, maybe I don't need as much as the other person, but like we all need it at some point. Like that is a wonderful mission in life to have. Like there's a lot worse things you can be doing. I agree. Yeah. Good stuff, man. What a great discussion. I really enjoyed it, John. Are we good guys?

Or you got another one? I got another one. Okay. All right. I'm not holding myself to any this one should be word count here. Okay. What's one non-negotiable for your daily routine? To not be too specific, I would say that every day I try to do something that I don't necessarily want to do. I'll give you an example and I'm going to hold myself to a word out of your comfort zone but yeah so I'll give you an example it's like I decided one year a couple years ago I'm like I am going to take away the comfort of a hot shower until I kill a bull which was nine months away and so for nine months I did never took up I always took an ice cold shower oh like didn't count like Like, cold plunger, like, I denied myself that gratification. So did it? Because it helped me build just some mental resiliency. When you, and I listen to Huberman talk about this.

It's like sometimes it's like the shower or the cold plunge is one thing, but it's that mindset leading up to actually doing it that maybe is even more beneficial, right? And so it's like, I'm going to do something sucky every day, whatever it is just to be disciplined. to force myself to do something that I don't necessarily want. And it can be the simplest thing, right? It's like, you know what, I'm not going to have coffee this morning. I'm not going to have coffee until 10 a am. I'm going to take a cold shower, whatever it is.

But it's like I'm going to hold myself accountable to that because I don't want to do it. What I like about that example is you had it tied to a specific goal result and the goal. It's like so every day you did that, you were thinking about why you're doing it. Why are you doing it's because you need to kill a bull. Yeah. So when you're thinking about killing a bull every single day, which maybe you would have without it. But for sure, it's like driven,

I mean, it's getting driven home every day. It's like, I'm doing this till I kill a bull. And it's like, that is a focus of everything then. And what a beautiful thing to have this, you know, this passion in our lives, which, you know, is bow hunting that makes the rest of our lives better. So like just that thought of, you know, that motivation to get to September and make that perfect shot.

And it's like every day I'm going to think about that. And it's going to make my life, leading up to that better because I'm going to build that discipline in and make myself, you know, do difficult things. Yeah. And then when you kill that bowl, all that confidence you gain from that whole exercise. I mean, and that's where, you know, it just rolls from there. For sure. Yeah. I love it. Anything else? Yeah, good. We're good. Okay. Well, John, this has been, man, just an incredible, incredible day. I mean, I loved going through all the gear, and I think that video is really going to

help people, but I also love this discussion and just talking bow hunting. Oh, yeah. And this has been, I don't know, one of my favorite podcasts just because I just like hearing good stories. I just love talking bohunting, man. I appreciate you having me on. Oh, it's been amazing. Well, thank you. I'm glad you made it out. I'm glad we had this opportunity, and it's definitely an honor to sit here and talk bohunting with you. Yeah, thanks, Cam. All right, thanks, brother.