Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 136

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. Porn - thoughts on the ease of accessibility, and impact on young adults 2. I got hurt by the black belt coach at my gym, when is it time to start looking for somewhere else to train 3. Western big game packing and loadout considerations Enjoy

All right. We are back. Last Friday was a little bit different than the normal routine. Obviously, I did a triple seven update with Mr. Mike Sorrelli. This episode is coming out on the 23rd of December. Let me take a look at the calendar right here. Yet by the time next Friday's episode comes out, I'll actually already be on the road staging in Punta, Arranius, Chile for the beginning of the triple seven, which we will begin in Antarctica because of the very unpredictable nature of the weather. We need to start there first and begin our journey. And I'm going to be doing updates from the road on random days throughout the week. And if possible, I'll try to upload an episode a short, maybe 30 minute update as we are continuing our travels in shenanigans and antics. And I'll post

when I can. So I would say next Fridays, I'll record that before I actually take off. And I think I'll do a little bit of a year end in review what I'm looking for for 2023. And beyond that, the next Full Auto Friday or the next Friday episode on the 6th of January, probably going to be updates from the road. So that's what the near term schedule is looking like. Having said that, how about we just go ahead and dive in to this Friday's episode where I have four questions, traditional Q&A. So Full Auto Friday, number 136, coming at you right now.

Close now. All right, shall we begin? I think we shall. So let's start it off with an easy one, a softball. Let's talk about porn. Hello, Andy. I've been a listener and a flagflare merchandise wear for years. Love the show.

Okay, I've been working my way through a porn addiction that stems from being molested consistently, not by family and not by a grown adult when I was in first and second grade. This made me feel completely uncomfortable with myself and eventually found sexual comfort in porn at a very young age. Pros to being introduced to high-speed internet very young. I'm about 30 now, and I've been in therapy for years, and have changed my life and now marriage significantly for the better. I am now a father of a 10-month-old son.

Here's my question. What is your experience with porn, and how have you handled that with your kids and your daughter as well? Not knowing that kids are being exposed to this type of content at the youngest ages in history it makes me very nervous for my son and other children especially how explicit popular music and glorification of sex and only fans is now and even social media also just what are your thoughts on porn and the popularity and availability of sexual content thank you well damn there's a lot of questions that are in this and i'm going to open with i'm incredibly sorry that you

had that experience when you were young um i did not have that experience uh uh to the my knowledge, I don't have any close friends that had had that experience, but I can only imagine the impact that it would have, fuck, not only your life at that point, but moving forward. And you're just so young and malleable. And one of the things that I hate most about humanity, or humans in general, are those that choose to prey upon children. I have a very creative solutions that I will spend an enormous amount of time in my own head daydreaming about doing to those people and I'm not going to you because I don't want to end up

in prison. Suffice to say, they're my least favorite people who walk the face of the earth. What I'm really glad that you were able to do is change your trajectory and you did so by dealing with the issue through counseling and therapy. And if you hadn't had added that into your email, of course, that's the one thing that I'm going to recommend is go talk to somebody who can help you reframe or work your way what happened to you in the past because you're 100% not responsible for what happened to you when you were a kid. Whether you let it, you know, destroy your life and you take the steps or use the tools necessary to improve and enhance your life later on, you know, you have control over that,

but you have no control of what happened to you when you were younger. So again, I'm very sorry that that happened. On to your question. I guess maybe I'll go backwards. My own exposure to porn. I'm an adult male at the age of 45 and here's what I'll say about porn. It's never really been my thing. Have I ever looked at porn?

Have I ever been exposed to it? Yes, of course I have. And probably, I think growing up, I remember, like, I actually remember one time riding my bicycle home from school and I found like a discarded playboy, which in my mind at that, I forget what great it was and I'm not sure what year. But that was probably what I thought pornography was at the time. That was my limit of exposure. There was no internet. There was no only fans. And I just didn't have any idea.

deal. Did I look through that magazine? Oh, fuck yes. I looked through that magazine. I think I actually might have stuffed it in my backpack and kept it in my house. I'm not even sure. But I certainly thumb my way through the pages. That's a far cry from what is available to my kids. And actually, sorry, I need to go back because you ask me what my thoughts are on porn. I try not to make a value judgment on the choices that people make. So what my thoughts on, pornography, if you are an adult and you are choosing to seek out that type of content, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. What I worry about is consent.

If, you know, from a pornography perspective, you know, people making porn, if it's too consenting adults and they know what they're doing and that's what they want to do is film that interaction and want to sell it, I'm not going to sit here and try to say that is right or wrong. Everybody has their own moral compass and they can navigate through that issue the way that they want to, but my concern is consent. Now, this episode is going to come out after the Nick McKin. I'm sorry, no, this is going to come out. I have Nick McKinley on from Deliver Fund on Monday. And I think it came up in our conversation. He was talking about the amount of trafficking, human trafficking and sex trafficking in the pornography industry, which completely changes that perspective, right? It may appear as if it's too consenting adults, but behind the screen, behind the scenes, if you will,

that's not what it is. And I have a huge problem with that. Consenting adults, living their life the way that they want to, I don't feel like I am in any position to say what is wrong or right. I can answer questions about what I would do and what I wouldn't do, but I'm not going to try to put a value judgment on other people. Having said all of that, I think one of the biggest issues with porn if you are exposed to it early on and you and you consume a lot of it again and let's just assume that what you're watching is produced and through the lens of consent from the people that are making it and you are consenting to watch it i think the danger is it sets a very unrealistic expectation and if that's your first exposure to i guess a broad term sexual

sexuality, sexual activity, I don't know how to describe it. But if that is what you think is normal and that becomes your litmus test for what is reasonable and normal, I think that your expectations for intimacy are going to be completely and utterly destroyed when you get into the real world, into real life, unless I guess you go into work in the porn industry, which again, you know, live your life the way that you want to as long as the foundation of that is, in fact, consent. So I don't have, you know, if people want to look at that type of material, make an educated decision, make an educated choice. Understand what it is that you're watching. Understand that it's

not a realistic portrayal of, in my experience at least, real life, intimacy, love, and understand that it could really taint what you think normal is. You know, go to, you know, completely leap across a spectrum to law enforcement, talk to some people who have worked in law enforcement for a really long period of time and ask them about their take on humanity and how much hope they might have with human beings. In my experience, they tend to be a little bit dark. Why? Because their norm, what their normal is and what they deal with day in and day out is not necessarily the positive side of society. It's people on their worst days and it can really temper the lens that you view the world through. So now I'm talking about them. They're viewing humanity

from that perspective. This is obviously a subset or a microcosm of humanity in one particular activity, but it can reset what you think is normal. And it can reset what you think is normal pretty quickly, at least from what I have heard from people who have consumed at a voracious level too much of this stuff. And it can really damage you. And if you don't know that going in,

I don't know if you can actually, you know, provide your consent. And I think you have to be cautious with that. it's just not replicative or indicative of what I think the real world is. And living in a fantasy world and trying to find that fantasy world in real life, your expectations are going to be off. And I don't think it is a way to lead yourself to long-term happiness. So that's my overall thoughts on porn. How have I handled this with my kids?

Because as you mentioned, their access to this type of stuff is, unbelievable. And for all the parents out there who think that they have their parental controls totally on lockdown and they have devices for their children that they're using that have access to the internet, let me just tell you right now. I don't care what age your children are, male or female, at some point in time, they're going to find a way around your parental controls. And what I have seen, this I guess would be secondhand because it was a story was told me, but multiple instances of people on a parentally, parental, control, very lockdown device, I believe this was a smartphone, who were able to open up browsers

inside of apps that were allowed. And they basically continued to open up other apps and sub browsers until they were get to a place where the internet was unthrottled. And guess what they started searching? It was boobies, right? Little titties and ass. And there's nothing wrong with being curious because we're all curious at a certain point in time. And that's where I hope the role of the parent steps in, right? Where can your kids go if they are. curious, hopefully they can go to your parents. Hopefully you have a relationship with your parents that you can have a very meaningful back and forth conversation. My point being, as a parent, you can put all the safety mechanisms in place. Your kids are going to find a way around them.

How do I know that? Well, I have kids of my own, but I was also at their age. And it's, I'm not going to say it was a challenge, but I always found a way to do the things that I want to do. And if You think that your kids aren't doing exactly that. You're kind of lying to yourself. Now, I haven't even addressed what happens when they go hang out with their friends, when they're at school, when they interface with a social circle where people don't have any lock on information to their devices. They may search for it themselves or they're going to be exposed to it from somebody else. So how do I deal with this with my kids? I talk with them about it, not necessarily about pornography.

when it has come up, I talked with them in almost the exact language that I did when this person asked me the question on my thoughts on porn and the impact that it can have and the unrealistic expectation and nature of it. And I've had conversations with my kids about sex, about intimacy, about love, all of it. And it's not all at one time. And it's been interesting to me as a parent when those questions will come up. And oftentimes they come up in little granules that if you put them all together, it would make a whole pie. I've never sat down and tried to eat the whole pie at once. It's a little slice at a time or a little bit of a crumb,

but I get the information in when I can. I told my kids, all three of them, sons and daughters. You know, be careful where you dedicate and allocate your time. Just because something might seem like it's not dangerous, doesn't mean that it can't be. The internet is a great example of this. Social media is a great example of this. TikTok or Instagram and any other social media platform where you could spend hours of your time and actually get nothing from it.

And actually at the end of the day, really make your quality of life less because what you are doing is judging yourself against what you see on these screens. And it can be terrible. So I have had very upfront and honest conversations with them. But I also realize that I have less influence on my kids now than I did when they were younger. and that is going to continue to decrease as they get older because they spend more time around their friends and out of the house at this point than they do with me. So the best thing that I can do is present to them who I am as a person, what I stand for, and hopefully have them understand that I am always there for them to talk through any issues

without judgment. And one of the things that I try to constantly reinforce with my kids is that although the things that you do on the internet may seem like they are temporary, you should always treat them as if they are permanent. And that means every text that you may send, and I don't care what the medium is, iMessage or Android, if you hate yourself, you know, signal, WhatsApp, Snapchat, you know, a lot of these features and apps, they want to act as if, like, you can, you can say and do what you want because nobody will ever see this or our chat will disappear after 30 seconds or whatever it may be. And if you want to think that and if you want to think that there's no way for a record of

that stuff to exist, go ahead and continue to tell yourself that. The reality is most of what happens, if not all of what happens on the internet, is permanent. There is a record of it somewhere and I constantly reinforce that with my kids, especially when it comes to for whatever reason, first of, I can't imagine ever at the age of, let's see my daughter, she's 14, at the age of 14, I cannot, I cannot even fathom the idea of sending a naked picture or asking somebody for a naked picture. But apparently, that is what kids are doing at her age, which completely blows my mind. Why they're doing that, I don't have an answer to that. the fact that they are doing it and that it is a thing it is beyond my vocabulary to explain

how confusing that is to me maybe i would have a better understanding with it had i grown up with these tools but i didn't and i just was way too self-conscious and shy of a person to ever even think about doing something like that so i know that that happens and i just constantly reinforce Like if you were to ever think about doing something like that, just understand what the long-term consequences could be. The most private things that you would want to say on the internet, just assume that they will not always be private. And keep that in the back of your mind.

I can understand the compulsive nature of being in that age and the fear of missing out or whatever it may be. And I also understand that it's very hard to have a view of the future. when you're in your teens, like the future is tomorrow or next hour. So I do the best that I can. And I do the best that I can, that I'd be honest. And instead of waiting for one of their friends to broach a topic with them, sometimes I will broach that topic and ask them their thoughts or ask them what people

in their peer group or social circle think about that. Not about specifics, but like, hey, are any of your friends like sending, you know, naked pictures back and forth. Does anybody at your school gotten in trouble for actually doing that? Like, let's sit down and talk about this for a second. And you can have the same perspective when it comes to porn. So you're a father of a 10-month-old son. You're worried about the impact that it could have on your 10-month-old son because of the impact that it had on you. And what I'll say is you're in an amazing position to talk about the negative impact it can have with your son when it's time. Because, you're in an amazing position. You're in an amazing position to talk about the negative impact it can have with your son.

because of what happened to you. You can, from a first person perspective, in a very detailed manner, and I'm not saying like maybe get into the crazy details, but the power of being able to talk about the impact that it had on your life as this person's father, speaking in the first person, is not something that a lot of people are able to do.

So you can take your experience and you can be honest with that about, I'll honest with that about your, son when the time comes and I think that's going to be the most powerful message. And as, and so he's 10 months old now. I mean, in 10 years when he's 10, I'm at the point where I think the internet might just be beamed into our head at that point. So I don't even know the mechanisms that people will be able to access this stuff.

But again, it goes back to the message of what this stuff can do, not necessarily how they can access it. Be upfront, be honest, and address it. before your friends, or I'm sorry, not your friends, your kids social circle does. That's your opportunity to get out in front of it. I know there are things that will, my children will be exposed to from their friends before me, but I try to make that list as small as possible. I don't want them to have any, in this world, revelation or exploration that is so shocking

and jarring. I would have already rather, you know, wargamed that with that. them talked about that with them laid a foundation of the potential consequences with them before their friends because here's the thing in every social circle there's a fucking asshole in there somewhere there's a total dipshit kid in there who for whatever reason is well ahead of the curve of everybody else and i want to do the best i can as a parent to limit that dipshit's ability to impact my kids so hopefully that answer your question on to the next here we go I've not trained BJJ, Brazilian jiu-tizu in about nine weeks.

The gym I was going to was small, very spar-heavy, and run by a black belt with a particularly aggressive style. I've always heard that it's not the black belts you have to worry about. But the last time I trained, the guy abruptly cranked a leg lock that partially tore my meniscus. I was super jaded, thinking the guy at best knew better, and at worst did it on purpose because he didn't like me. I generally have an easy time trusting my other training partners, and I've never had a problem with the other people that trained there. getting hurt by the black belt that owns the gym has made me think I should avoid that place in the future, even though everyone that trains there is generally respectful and trustworthy. Do you think that's a legitimate reason to stop using a BJJ gym?

Okay, short answer, yes, but I have some questions for you and I have some additional thoughts. But do I think it's a legitimate reason if the black belt and gym owner has a particularly aggressive style and he's hurting people on the matter. that he is supposed to be setting the culture for. Is that enough to find a different gym in my mind? Yes, absolutely full stop. If you want to. So again, it's a choice, but you need to understand what you are getting yourself into.

So the gym that I train at, SBG Calispell, which is part of a larger organization, Straight Blast Gym, from every black belt that I have ever spoken to when it comes to either being injured or injuring other people, it is and I'm not a black belt so I'm going to I'm going to repeat what I have heard other black belts say and this is not me speaking for black belts I just need to be super clear here I am repeating what I have heard countless black belts tell me inside of the SBG network if as a black belt you hurt anybody

that is a lower belt than you that is completely your fault in responsibility now I've also heard people say, well, what if I put, you know, what if I'm practicing my heel hook and I get a white belt and I put them into a heel hook and I don't crank on the heel hook and they explode out of it the wrong way? That's not my fault. It's like, no, fuck you. That is your fault. Why would you expect somebody who doesn't know anything about heel hooks to know the proper defense for that move? There's a reason why it is only allowed at certain levels. And yes, even though you didn't necessarily attempt to finish the heel hook, the person, yeah, you know, in your mind, injured himself by exploding. out of it, but let's take this a little bit higher and a little bit less of a myopic approach. You should know better than to put them into that position in the first place. There's a lot of things that you could practice up along that way, up until the point of actually locking in the heel hook. You could practice your opening sequence that would lead you to that. You could practice your entry into the heel hook.

And you could practice everything up to and including locking your hands together without putting this person at risk. they are not going to know which direction to rotate they're not going to know how to protect themselves and quite frankly heel hook is a good example of this people hear the term heel hook and they think it's an attack on the heel and it's actually not it's an attack on the knee and guess what you can't really feel in your knee the tension and pain that you need to that would lead you to a tap on an arm bar or an ankle lock so you can blast every one of the CL's intendants in somebody's knee because they may not even know when to tap

because it doesn't feel like they are at risk until it makes a noise like a shotgun going off. If you're a black belt and there are anything other than a black belt or even a black belt, if it's a black belt on black belt violence, I think at that point in time both of the people should understand.

But if you're a black belt training with a white belt or a blue belt and they get into that situation and make the wrong call because you led them down that path and you're just sitting there and you're going to tell yourself, well, that's not my fault

because I didn't actually go the wrong way. I would say you need to go look in the mirror and reframe that. And that's an example of somebody not necessarily being aggressive, but they're putting somebody into a deeper pond or a deeper pool and they're not ready to swim for that yet. That's the black belt's responsibility. So a black belt, you're rolling with a black belt and they abruptly cranked a leg lock that partially tore your meniscus. You know, there's two things here.

One, the abruptly cranking it on. And two, you're saying this individual rolls with a very aggressive. style. There's nothing wrong with either of those things, but what I would say is they have their time in place. So again, in the SBG world that I have trained in, almost exclusively, I'll generally go to class from 12 to 1, which is going to be a technique focus class, and it's broken up into two weeks of curriculum. So you'll do half-guard bottom for two weeks, and you'll work on a variety of things, whether it be proper framing and defense, you know, keeping people in half-guard, perhaps then going to a sweep from there.

There are some submissions from half guard bottom. You know, you could work on that stuff. And then, so that would be a bottom position. And then in the next two weeks, we'll switch to, call it mount top. Or it just switches top to bottom, top to bottom. An hour of class where there's going to be some drilling, but a lower intensity level, then there's an open mat afterwards. But what the school also has, and I found a lot of schools have this, is they have a comp team

practice as well, meaning people who want to train for an upcoming competition, or maybe they're just looking for a higher level of intensity. If you come to one of these classes, you need to understand that you might have somebody who is going to abruptly crank on you, whether it be a rear naked choke, maybe it's going to be an arm bar, a shoulder lock, whatever it may be, they're showing up and they're playing to win, I guess is the point that I'm getting to. But if you come to a competition team class, obviously the coach should be explaining what's going on, the people there are consenting to be there for the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the,

I guess it could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe they don't want to compete, but they're looking for a more intense role. Maybe they want to get a better understanding of the point system in competitive jiu-jitsu. It's a different environment than your normal open mat. And the people who are there slapping hands, they understand that. You're going to be more aggressive. You're going to go for points.

You're going to try to score first. You're going to try to win. You know, at a normal open mat, to say that people don't care about winning, I mean, I'm sure there's varying levels of it. But nobody, I honestly, the last open man I did was a few days ago. I don't think I could actually describe a single role that I had there. Why? Because I am there, one, I'm physically and emotionally exercising.

I'm working on different techniques. I don't give a fuck about the outcome. I really don't give a shit about the outcome. If I went to a comp team practice and I'm getting ready for a competition, now I give a shit. And I'm going to go harder. And I expect the person that I'm going up against to go harder to defend harder. And I want them to win as well, too.

more aggressive and like I said, it's going to be what is going to be, but there's a different setting for that. Whereas in traditional open mat, the rule I go with is, you know, catch people quick, but you put it on slow. So I could catch somebody in a leg lock, but you don't have to put it on fast. You're giving your training partner the opportunity to react because in that setting, the end state doesn't matter unless, well, actually take that back. The only end state that does matter in that setting is that you are improving. not the result or outcome of the role. It's good to hear that you have an easy time training with your other partners, trusting them.

My problem with this, though, is that the school owner and the senior black belt sets the culture. If your black belt has a particularly aggressive style, it's not going to be uncommon to find other people that are replicating that. And I'm not saying that's wrong or right. What I'm just saying is that's the natural order of things. people in a hierarchical system like this, which jujitsu absolutely is, there's a reason why there's a rank structure in the belts. And for anybody who says that they don't look up to the black belts on the mat, I would say you probably have a casual relationship with the truth. When it comes to that particular issue, it sets that culture. And for people who think that the color of the belt, I talked about this with, I think Dan Hart when we were doing the full out of Friday with him.

And I've heard this from every other black belt as well. The color of the belt around your waist has nothing to do with the type of person that you are. Jiu-jitsu is a skill. It's a movement pattern. It's pattern recognition. It's leverage, weight distribution, angles. And none of those things that I just listed, and sure people would have a better description of jihitsu than I do who have been doing it longer. But I have yet to hear a description that ends where.

with begins with or has anywhere in the middle where it says and is only used for good. It's a tool. And I could pick up a framing hammer and I could build an amazing structure. Or I could take that same framing hammer and I could walk down Main Street and Calispell and I could cave somebody's head in like a fucking cantalope. And it's not the hammer's fault. It's the person that's holding that hammered. You can make arguments like that with weapons or whatever it may be.

And not to digress into that. My just point is that just because somebody has knowledge and experience, experience in something and they have achieved a level of authority or leadership or, you know, a position that you want to be at does not mean that they're a good person. Not every black belt is a good person. And I'm not saying that this black belt at your school is a bad person. But if you're hurting people as the black belt, you need to take a fucking look in the mirror. Because it's really easy to hurt people with jujitsu who know less than you do.

It doesn't mean that you're a badass practitioner. It means you have probably been doing it longer. You have better pattern recognition. You have an A game that you can funnel people into. And if you can get them into that A game, they're fucked. And can you hurt them? Yes, you absolutely can. Should you?

No, you shouldn't. What does it mean if you do? It means you're a fucking asshole. And maybe you need to reconsider what your job is and why you're up there teaching people and acting the way that you are. So if this has happened to me, I'll put this in the perspective of this has happened to me. And this is something, and this is a behavior, because you did in the very first sentence,

it was a behavior that you have recognized this particular style, you don't feel comfortable training with this person. Would that be enough for me to train at a different gym? My answer, yes, that is what I would do is I would look for somewhere else to train. Maybe you don't have that option. And if you don't have that option, what I would recommend is really setting some boundaries choosing your training partners as specifically as possible, up to and including maybe not rolling with this particular black belt until you guys can have a conversation.

And if you do have a conversation, and again, I don't know what belt you were. I don't know how long you've been training and maybe this would destroy your relationship. But if the guy asks you to roll, you have the ability to say no. You know, that's something you need to be able to pull out of your back pocket at any given time. And if they have a problem with that and they ask you why setting specific of course, I'm not saying you should have this conversation in the middle of the packed open mat, but I would be honest. And their reaction to that would probably be the nail in the coffin or the door opening even further for me to going and finding another gym.

Black belts, any senior belt should not be hurting anybody else on the mat. Jiu-jitsu is an individual team sport. If you think that you're going to get better at jujitsu training by yourself, you're wrong. If you think you're going to get better at jujitsu training with a training dummy. I mean, maybe you could work on some foundational stuff, but guess what the training dummy is not going to do? Provide for you realistic feedback. You need training partners. As you progress in advance, you can start teaching other people through the lessons that you have learned.

But you have to have these training partners. And all the belts that you're ever going to tie around your waist are more about the people that you are training with than it is about you. And that's one of the things I appreciate about the SBG network. they do a what's called an Iron Man at a promotion ceremony when you get your new belt. And you actually have another role with everybody else in the room. And my coach Travis does a really good job of talking about why you do that. It's not a test. It's a celebration.

And it's a recognition that with every belt that somebody achieves that is built off of the time they spent on the mat, or on the mat, I should say, with everybody that's there to celebrate in that Iron Man. So that's actually what it's about. It's a really good concrete reinforcement of essentially it takes a village to build whatever it may be. So I think you've identified something that could be an issue. And if I were you, if there are other options, if this was me, yes, I would try to go somewhere else and find somewhere else to train. So, okay, switching gears a little bit. Some hunting advice, and I think I've already been running my mouth.

Let me check here for, oh, damn, I'm already over 30 minutes. So we're going to do one more question. I try to keep these right at 30 minutes so I don't drive anybody crazy to include myself. Here we go. Looking for some advice on an elk hunt that I'm taking next year. We've been hunting East Coast white-tailed deer for 30 years, so I'm comfortable and confident with that style of tree stand hunting, which is required where I live.

But this elk hunt will be in Colorado in late October. I'm aware that Colorado elk hunting will be a walking, stalking hunt, so my questions are one. I usually use my 300 blackout for whitetail, which works well. But do you have a caliber you recommend? If I were to spot elk, I don't plan on shooting over 250 yards, as I'm not accustomed to shooting further than that. So that's a great question to start with right there.

You know, East Coast white-tailed deer hunting, from what I, the limited amount of time that I've been able to go there and hunt, you have limited ranges. And I'm sure a 300 blackout would work great for that. It's going to be a couple hundred yards at most. It's essentially a 762 round. I don't know if you're using subsonic or not, but on a deer-sized target, yeah, that's going to be a hammer, especially assuming that you are accurate with where your rounds are impacting. for elk which are going to be four or five six times the size of a white tail i would not recommend 300 blackout which it already sounds like you're asking about a different caliber anyway so that's a good sign my recommendation and anybody who knows me knows what my answer is going to be is 300

wimag it's going to work great for deer it's going to work great for elk if you wanted to go bigger later on you could go for moose it just gives you your carrying fucking thor's hammer in the woods and it gives you the ability to shoot long distance accurately. It performs well in the wind. It just has this ballistic punch when it impacts. And they're not that hard to find. You can find great optics form. And ammunition is also relatively easy to find pretty much year-round.

So I would recommend for you change, keep the 300, but just change the blackout to win mag. Question two. Not to put the cart before the horse, but how do you? you pack out the meat? A buddy got an elk this year in Colorado and said that packing it out was the worst part. Do you use a rigid frame pack? Yes, everybody focuses on everything leading up to the shot. And it is a lot more work once you actually get the animal on the ground. So this is a great question. And the answer is it really depends. How do you pack out the meat? I have been fortunate and been in places where right as the animal hits the ground, there's a

farmer right there and they will literally come scoop it up with a bucket loader. I have been to places where you're going to drag it with a four-wheeler. I have been to places where you are going to gut, cape, and quarter the animal in the field with game bags. You're going to carry as much out as you can in your backpacks with the group that you have, maybe even individually, probably hanging the rest of the meat depending on where you are in the time of the year. And you're going to do laps until all of that elk meat is back in the refrigerator or back in your cooler. And I've also seen people use horses. I've heard of people using, I think, llamas or alpacas, but essentially it's just an animal that can hold a weight, a weight-bearing animal. And all of those things could be

great, but it depends on what you have access to. Do you use a rigid frame pack? Yes, I do when I am hunting for big game because there is just nothing worse than throwing weight on your back, especially, I mean, a quarter, an elk quarter. The front quarters are lighter than the rear. I would say an average elk quarter rear is going to be probably 70, 80 pounds minimum. Don't put that in a backpack that doesn't have a rigid frame. I mean, you absolutely can, but the ride you're going to get on your back and shoulders is what you signed up for. I highly recommend you find a backpack with a rigid frame. And I'm not going to recommend a particular manufacturer because there are a variety of them.

But that's what you should start. That's what I would recommend that you start with when you're looking for that. Last question. Any suggestions on keeping the weight of my pack low? I can't imagine needing a ton of supplies in the field every day as we plan on staying in a lodge every night. Basically, what is essential to have in the field and what is best left back at camp? Thanks for taking the time to read and answer. So what if weighs a lot? It's one of, Mark Twight said that first. I'm totally and utterly stealing it from him. But it's so incredibly true. What if weighs a lot? So it would be very easy to load your backpack up to a place where you, wouldn't even have room to put meat into it. And I don't think you should do that. At the same time, I don't think you should go so light and fast that if something changes in the field and you guys need to make an audible for whatever it is, or maybe you just get stuck out there that you're really going to suffer or potentially die because of that.

So for me, you know, non-negotiables is a communication device. So Garmin in reach. I have no relationship with Garmin whatsoever. I do not go into the backcountry without my Garmin in reach. and I specifically have the mini, and I don't have the new one, not the mini two, the mini one, but at Bluetooth, right to my phone,

and you can send regular text messaging through the Garmin app. It's just, and you can just find your contacts. And if you want to, you can set it, so it sends your position with each one. You could send an auto reporting position. I take it when I'm on my dual sport motorcycle or anytime in the backcountry.

It's so lightweight and so simple to use that it's just completely non-negotiable to not have on you. So I have my comms. You know, water, food, you need to bring enough for what you think you're going to need. And then I would bring a little bit extra. On the food side of the house, trust me, you're going to be okay if you don't eat for a few days. On the water side of the house, very different. If you're going to be hunting in an area that has water available, don't think that you can just drink it out of the ground and you're going to be okay.

You might be. You might not be. So I would have a water purification and collection ability at all times on me. And then the ability to start a fire. I mean, that could be a couple lighters. It could be wind and weatherproof matches, whatever floats your boat. But those things are always going to be on me. Now, you mentioned Colorado and in October.

And what I'll say is weather can change drastically. You're talking about a Western hunt. I would always have rain gear in my pack with me, the tops and bottoms. And maybe it'll just be all the way at the bottom and I'm never going to need it. But if I do need it, I really want to have that stuff. I probably would have one puffy layer in there as well. I'm going to have essentially what is a poncho. I don't even know what they were.

John Barklow from Sick has sent them to me, but it's essentially a large subalpine tarp. And it's great for a few things. One, if the weather is great, you can lay the thing down on the ground and you can put all the meat on it once you get an elk on the ground and it keeps it cleaner.

But this happened to us in Wyoming. A storm rolled in, and we saw it crazy thunderstorm with like these incredible clouds with extensive vertical development. tied it up three of us got underneath it stormed like crazy we didn't get wet at all we layered up a little bit though with our puffy and sat under there and I stuffed it back in so what I mean I just went an incredibly large and verbose way of describing having some ability to have a structure not a structure but uh cover from the elements you know protection from the elements and in that case uh this one has strings attached to all four corners it's perfect and you can find them Have one of those with you at all times. It doesn't weigh that much.

What else? What else did you have on you? I'd say a navigational device and whether that's onyx on your phone or a GPS, whatever it may be. You want to have the ability to navigate. And I'm trying to think if I have left anything else. So I have my life sustaining stuff. I have my comms. I have inclement weather gear.

I have an impromptu shelter if need be, the ability to start a fire. I would bring a little bit of extra ammo. I would bring some extra batteries. Anything on you that has batteries that requires batteries in the field. Rangefinder, gyro-stabilized binoculars. Bring a battery for that. It doesn't weigh that much to throw them in a Ziploc baggie and put them in your backpack. There's nothing worse than trying to range your first elk that you've seen in Colorado.

And it comes back with because you don't have any batteries in your rangefinder. And you have to guess. And then you just miss and it runs away and you never see it again. easily solved problems and i'd say that was about it um if you're going to stay in the lodge every night you need to plan how far and how comfortable you are getting away from the lodge so um this just reminded me because you're staying in the lodge every night you need to have a light on you at all times as well just a little headlamp or a flashlight don't rely on your iPhone or your android have a light with you in case things get dark and you need to be able to navigate you need to be

able to see. I mean, first aid kit wouldn't be a good, wouldn't be a bad idea either. Doesn't need to be anything particularly crazy. And there are companies like fieldcraft survival that can point you in the right direction for sourcing that stuff. Damn, something else just came up to me when I was saying that and I can't remember what it was for the life. Meant Medical kit, knife, obviously, you need to have some knives. I mean, and they can either be Montana Knife Company knives or, you know, they'll just fail on you in the field. Your choice, shooter's choice. I'm just saying that Josh Smith's knives are the best ones I've ever had in my hands.

And I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of stuff, but that is a good starting point. Oh, game bags. Make sure you take game bags as well. It'll help keep your meat clean, and you can, it'll keep flies and stuff off of them, and you can actually use them to hang from the trees as well. And like I said, I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a few things because I'm just doing this off the cuff and I didn't write this down. and if there's any other hunters out there,

feel free to throw into the comments, things that you would suggest as well. And I know I said I was going to do four questions, but I just ran my suck for 42 minutes. So we're going to call it there. I'll see y'all next Friday.