Reptile Fight Club - Photos vs Video with Blaine Mazzetti

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Justin and Rob tackle the most controversial topics in herpetoculture. The co-hosts or guests take one side of the issue and try to hold their own in a no-holds-barred contest of intellect. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of Photos vs Video on herping trips with Blaine Mazzetti.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. I'm Justin Ulander, your host, and with me is Rob Stone. Say hi to the people, Froggy. Wave to the people. Blow them kisses. My dad always would say that. I'm not sure where that's from, but maybe some old show. Good times. All right, well, tonight we're joined by Blaine Mazzetti, so I'm glad to have him on. say that i'm not sure where that's from but maybe some old show but good times all right well tonight we're joined by blaine mazzetti so i'm glad to have him on uh how's it how's it going

it's going good finally starting to look like springtime so i'm getting excited right on yeah i it seems like you guys have kind of a uh early spring like you can find stuff in February March at least I don't know I guess I see Jeff Lim finding a lot of stuff out there but I don't know if that's just on his study site or if he's tricking us all yeah I don't know if us San Diego guys know that either it could be his study site or he's got a bunch of good sites. But, I mean, you could find stuff year-round here, honestly. I think no matter what, we can find snakes every month of the year, and we can start in January on warm days. Yeah.

I love Southern California, the deserts especially. That's where I would choose to be, I think, if I lived down there, out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it's nice. I love those Kyanactus, the shovel-nose snakes. They're such cool little snakes. Yeah, they are. They're pretty common out there, I guess.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they're fun. Well, yeah, thanks for being on the show. Looks like Rob's getting hit by a snowstorm right now, so he's having more winter fun. It's not spring here yet. Yeah, it was, what, 65, 70 earlier in the week, and now we went from winter wonderland to class 3 kill storm

and have a foot of snow. So, yeah, it's all good we got hit by a hail storm a couple nights back on tuesday i was out in the reptile room and i had the door open just kind of airing it out a little bit and uh and all of a sudden like i go over to the door and i had my headphones on so i go over the door and like start slipping by the door and there's all this ice i'm like where did this come from i look outside and it's just hailing away kind of crazy but yeah good times it's getting getting a little warm around here we might even be able to scrounge up a rubber bow if you know there's a nice sunny spot on the hillside they might come out and bask next to the

snow bank but might might, might be a little bit till then too. I don't know. I'll have to go check it out. That's, uh, that's been one nice thing of kind of getting to know my area a little better. I've always, you know, kind of focused on going to Australia or going somewhere exotic, you know, going to Southern California to herp. And I just don't do a ton in my own backyard. And there's a lot of targets I'm finding that I need to find in Utah that I haven't found, uh, talking to Blaine before the show. He's like, Oh yeah, I've seen a four Taylor ice, the Utah milk snakes. I'm like, Oh man, just rub it in. Why don't you? Yeah. That's a species I still need to find. Yeah, that's true.

I, well, and that's kind of one of the things I want to focus on this spring is Taylor Eye and also the smooth green snakes that you can find in Utah there. That's next month coming up that I'll be out looking for those things. They're kind of an early thing. Rock rolling time. I guess both of them are kind of lifting rocks. Approaching 50, I'm not as great as a rock roller as I, or not roller, but lifter. Yeah.

As much as I used to be kids, put the rocks back where you found them in the exact same spot. Yeah. But, and if you can't tell from my lovely bass voice, I am fighting a cold today. So that's another fun thing. Stayed home from work, but then I had to prepare a drug for an upcoming study, so I went back into work and played with some compounds for a little while. And that took longer than I thought and got home just in time to start the podcast, so good times. Yeah, well, anything exciting happening in your lives in regards to reptile stuff

um i mean out here we started finding snakes in january so i've been going out as much as i can whenever i can and already found a handful of rosy boas. Couldn't tell you how many rattlesnakes, a bunch of king snakes. It's almost prime time for us. I think the end of March through May is pretty much prime time. And then road cruising kicks off, and that's fun too. So it's kind of good here. Once the new year rolls around and those winter storms move on and it starts getting some sunny days, it's snake time.

Yeah, that's awesome. May and June are probably the prime months here in Utah. I mean, you can find them other times, also depending on the species. But yeah, May and June are kind of the good times to get out. So, uh, yeah, we did a nice trip last year with finding a lot of our targets and we missed a couple. So we're making round number two in June this year. We did May last year and yeah, had a two heel a day on one of the days and got a liar snake on the Beaver Dam slope, which was a, that's a tough target to find sometimes. And then the speckled rattlesnake as well. So hit all the hard ones. We surprisingly didn't see a single gopher snake,

which is almost a gimme. Um, in Utah, I remember driving back through St. George once from one of our Arizona herp trips, and I got rerouted because of a forest fire, so I had to go through. And I hit St. George like right at sunset and saw like five or six in like a 10-mile drive. And, yeah, gopher snakes are pretty common out here. So one of my favorite local snakes. I think the only one we saw, surprisingly, was one that was hid out by Capitol Reef, right? So that was a surprise.

I've seen a couple San Diego gophers on the first trip when we'd come out. For whatever reason... We've seen them in Arizona, too. Yeah. Sonorans. For whatever reason, despite your interest them in Arizona, too. Yeah. Sonorans. For whatever reason, despite your interest in Lampropeltis,

Justin didn't mention the pair of mating Utah pyros that we found on the trail on our first day. It's because I wasn't there! You guys found them without me. No, I was delayed. I had a family thing thing and Rob calls me. He's like, guess what we just found. Thank you for not being here.

Cause of course, invariably, if I don't show up, they're going to find something really cool. And it was a mating pair of pyros right in the trail. So isn't that how it goes though? Yeah, for sure.

It's funny. You guys talk about gopher snakes because they're everywhere here. And I found them when I went to Utah like it was nothing. And I've gone to Arizona a couple of times and I found mountain kings and patternless tiger rattlesnakes. And I've never found a gopher snake in Arizona. It's insane. That's crazy. Yeah.

We found, I think, just two on our three or four trips down there. We haven't seen a ton of gophers i know we saw that one on the first trip down the big one in the watch was it or yeah yeah and then yeah the one in the huachucas and then yeah the one that we were when we were driving with keith and yeah so i think we've only seen two but yeah yeah they're they're cool snakes i like pichuofas a lot but yeah they're cool they yeah they're cooler sonorans are slightly cooler i think san diegos can be cool but uh the further south you go darker it seems like they get better and better and redder and redder. Yeah.

Yeah, I really like the Sonorans and the Great Basins. There's some really nice Great Basins. I just put up a YouTube short of a Great Basin that was just pissy for some reason, kept striking at me. I'm like, I was telling these guys, oh, the Great Basins are puppy dogs. Like, they never hiss or strike, really. And this thing, yeah, the first one I found on that night I was talking about, just striking repeatedly. I had a hard time getting him off the road because he wouldn't stop striking, but I just grabbed him.

He didn't actually bite me. I just picked him up, and he's striking in the air and hissing and stuff. I'm like, yeah, you're atypical, buddy. It's funny to have him striking. Yeah, with bull snakes here, they'll make a ton of noise. You know, 95 out of 100, they're going to make a ton of noise and put on a big show, but don't really even strike and certainly aren't not at all likely to bite you. But you just have to pick them up. They're saying, don't pick me up.

And if you do, then it's all right. Yeah, I'll run into them up here occasionally the great basins they're they're nice snakes but yeah i really like the pichuophus at least the yeah great basins and snorrens sweet yeah they're cool i want to a goal of mine is to find some down in Baja, California, like the bimarus or the vertebralis. I'm not good with the scientific names, but I think that's what they are. Yeah, those are nice-looking snakes down there.

I'd like to do a trip to the Baja. I was just down there while we were down there doing whale shark dive, me and my wife. And right at the hotel we were staying, there were a bunch of records for the Baja Blue rock lizards. Oh, nice. The Petrosaurus. What's the scientific name? Anyway, but yeah, they're cool lizards. I was really hoping to spot one of those

but i was not lucky and i mean we were there in january but still there's records of them from january so i was hoping to get lucky but i didn't spend too much time out yeah just a morning when my wife wanted to sleep in i jumped up and ran out there and did a little hike looking around the rocks but didn't get lucky yeah but cool spot yeah baja is a really cool place yeah one of my favorite actually it is my favorite right now so yeah yeah have you done much down there um yeah i mean i haven't gone to sir yet because i have goals that i want to meet in Norte before I go to Sur where things get easier that I haven't met. But I've been, I don't know, 10 times maybe the last year and a half or so. We've done the mountains, the desert, hiking, lots of stuff.

That's cool. How difficult is it to drive your car over there and that kind of thing or do you rent or what do you do i drive my car i mean if you're smart and you get insurance and you're careful i mean things can always happen we've had things happen i'm not gonna bring it up on the show i'm not trying to scare people or anything but like yeah you got to be careful and you probably don't want to go down tiny side roads and roads you don't know where you are or be a little too aggressive with your driving. But I think if, I don't know, it's been good.

It's been fine. Yeah. Yeah, I did a trip down to Nuevo, Wymas or down Wymas area. And my buddy just drove his truck and got the insurance and it was a, it was a nice trip. And yeah, no, no,

no sketchy things going on. It was just pretty much drive down there, have fun, drive back home. So it was nice. That's cool. That's a lot of good. It's smoother than most of our trips but

yeah we've had yeah i mean i yeah but yeah when it's i mean that could happen anywhere yeah yeah i suppose that's the thing to me the mexico obviously there's so many incredible reptiles the the question has always been so it's great to hear from someone who's been 10 times you know 10 times in 18 months or whatever that's crazy um just give sort of an a or an f vibe in the sense that uh you know it goes great you find all these beautiful reptiles and it goes awesome or um you know you're kidnapped or something so it's just sort of but i wonder to what extent that's true or just sort of the general, you know, that's a misperception. Yeah, I can't talk much for mainland, but Baja, because it's right next to me, you know, we're down in a couple hours. It's so hard, like to give it a grade is so hard because the reptiles are like beyond an A.

Yeah. And the food is beyond an a so it's but sometimes i don't know like i'm not trying to scare anyone or deter but you know we've been robbed we've been held at gunpoint we've been had the military jump out and stop us and search us and you know push us up against the cars and whatnot and you know it's or people telling us you can't go this road or if you're going this road you're paying yeah i don't know i feel like the more you go you kind of get used to it and just be respectful and polite and you learn you start learning maybe i shouldn't go down this road or maybe i should keep it to the main roads which is probably the smartest thing.

But you never know. I've gone through military checkpoints and they shake us down. Yeah. Really. So I don't know. To me, it comes down to is it worth it? Is the risk worth it for you? And we've decided that we like the experience and the reptiles.

Yeah. Yeah, we like Baja Mountain Kings and we want to keep seeing them, so we're going to risk it. Yeah, no, that makes sense, man. As I say, it's not an off-the-table thing, but it definitely factors into the calculus and just says, I think that, to your point, certainly I was assuming it would be the sort of thing where you can make good decisions and bad decisions, right? For sure. And that will definitely impact how it's going to go. Yes.

I mean, obviously, like a couple times we've said, oh, let's try this dirt road or this shortcut to get from here to here. And it was probably not the best choice. And other times we're doing exactly what we should and just yeah car pulls up and stops you and pulls out guns and says you got to pay them or or what it just happens and you kind of never know when or where it's going to happen so it's just proceed with caution i mean if anyone my recommendation is if you can't speak Spanish pretty well, I wouldn't go. Yeah. Or have someone that can.

I don't know. If getting robbed and shook down is super terrifying for you, maybe it's not the place for you because it could happen. Don't carry large sums of money or valuables. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. it could happen don't carry large sums of money or valuables yeah yeah exactly yeah i've always heard baja is the like the safer you know spot to be in mexico for sure yeah obviously other places much worse things can happen but as we say too i mean that can happen in the U.S. pretty easily as well. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I don't know if it's safer. I think there's still some pretty gnarly cartel activity and stuff, but I think it's just like mainland.

You kind of got to know what you're doing, where you're going, and stick to the kind of well-traveled routes that does see some tourism and stuff to be the safest. And I mean, it's not that our activity inherently doesn't put you into spots that kind of veer into problematic in the sense of, oh, what's your ideal? Well, I want to spend all night driving aimlessly in the middle of nowhere. That's the sort of activity that seems like it might trigger a response more than just, I was just going to the grocery or whatever. Yeah, exactly. nowhere uh that that's the sort of activity that that seems like it might trigger a response more than just i was just going to the grocery or whatever yeah exactly and that road cruising

is always kind of scary you know you're just turning around in the middle of the night one o'clock in the morning and you're the only car on the road except for huge semis passing you and random caravans or whatnot here and there and you're like you said no cell phone reception middle of nowhere i mean anything could happen but it's to us it just comes down to is it worth it and we've we've chosen yes yeah 100 percent and it makes sense let me talk about the you know some of the coolest reptiles there are yeah some good ones great diversity and yeah you know and partially maybe some of it's the uh in the sense that we don't have it right either either in captivity or you know just we're not exposed to it as much so it's there's the mystique associated with it as well. Right.

Yeah. And I don't know, for us too, like, being mountain, like, I'm a lamp guy, but I'm a mountain king guy above all. So, and it's, I could stir some real anger here probably, but I've put Zenada above everything. It's just my favorite thing to find. And then I put a goma above all zanata so and like obviously we all know there's the northern range which is a little bit easier you still got to grind and whatever but then you go to the martyrs and there's only a handful of people in the history of mountain kings that have found them so that's kind of an alluring thing like pulls me down there like oh man how

cool would it be to find a mountain king in one of the toughest ranges out there yeah for sure definitely well we've uh this has been a great start to this but maybe we should do what we we usually do blaine how do you fit into herpetoculture? So what's sort of your story? How have you gotten to this point of having a YouTube channel that I really like? Well, that's kind of a funny story, actually. I grew up on a reservation in Southern California, a tiny little reservation. My family's Laseno Native native american so we've been here forever um always running around trying to catch horned lizards and whatever we could catch um never knew

what herping was had no idea what it was just grew up kind of trying to find reptiles and then what didn't do any of that obviously became an adult had to start working life hit had two girls kept me busy and then my two years ago my older daughter saw a youtube video of i don't know who someone flipping boards and said dad can we go try to find a snake under a board and it was like january and i had no knowledge of how you find snakes i think it was january of 22 and i was like yeah let's go look i know where some broke buildings are and of course we flipped a ruber our first try and i was like man this is it's kind of fun and as and she's like i want to make a youtube channel so i was like okay i'll

film you and you could tell people about snakes or whatever. So we did that for the first year and then she turned nine and she kind of was like, I don't want to do it anymore. And I'm like, I do. I love this and I'm addicted. I can't stop. I want to go out every chance I get. That's cool. Yeah yeah so your daughter brought you

into the herp world huh she did yeah she brought me into it and obviously you don't know what you're doing it's hard to find stuff so we started kind of reading books and trying to get some knowledge and meeting some friends you know a lot a lot of people are willing to share too much. Well, at least the people I talk to. A lot of the younger guys like to share a lot. Sure. Yeah, too much maybe. Yeah, we won't get into that.

I think we've all been guilty of sharing spots and info and getting burned. So we can all admit to that. But yeah, I got really into it, and I enjoyed making the videos with her. And then once I started finding cool snakes, I wanted to make cooler videos and stuff. And for me, it's more about I like getting people stoked, but I like to go back. I like to get nostalgic with it and be like, man,

let's watch the video from my first trip to Baja or the first time I found a mountain king or whatever. And it's, it kind of takes you back and gets you pumped all over again. Yeah, exactly. I think most of the videos I put up are just for me and especially considering the view count. It's not that, that great. So I'm i'm like yeah it must be just for me i guess i don't know but yeah i love putting up videos to remember the moments and seeing you know what we found and things like that it's a little easier to chronicle and it's a lot easier to remember what you saw and how you know how you saw it i guess when you have a video of it so that's kind of cool and i guess that will kind of get into our discussion here in a

in a bit but um i i noticed you're uh you're you've got some board lines are those the some that you've set up or do you have like people that have put you on board spots or or both um i don't i mean sometimes when i go out with people that show me board lines i'll go with them to their board lines um i don't go to those without them just i don't know it's just something yeah i don't want to drive that far yeah yeah maybe it's probably more of i'm not gonna go that far unless i'm gonna meet my friends like i don't yeah i've we just talked about getting burned i got burned kind of a lot showing some younger guys stuff and teaching them about mountain kings because got burned kind of a lot showing some younger guys stuff and teaching

them about mountain kings because i got kind of fast-tracked you know i've only been doing it this is my third year of herping yeah i learned a lot i did a lot um and i got fast-tracked i got lucky so i showed some people i got burned so i started backing off and now i only hurt with a few people or if people come from out of town you know might take them to a popular spot that they can't really do damage to whatever but as far as my spots and sharing i have you know maybe two guys i'll take out and they'll take me out but but i've built up um the reservation i'm on which is really cool actually because we have our own police, we have everything, and the locals aren't going to let anyone just wander here. So I've put out, I don't know, I've put out probably over 100 boards

throughout the reservation over the last two years, and they're producing and doing good. That's very cool. I did work. Yeah, that was my next question as a native american i imagine you have access to lands and places that most people don't so yeah yeah for sure i definitely have access to the res i'm from and live on which is awesome no one there's no other herpers here and then just because we're such a small and

tight-knit community i can go to all the adjacent reservations or some in san diego where i know other you know natives or tribal members and they'll they'll take me they'll you know oh yeah we got this spot or whatever and it's all untouched and it's really cool oh that's awesome. Yeah, my grandfather was adopted by the Hopi in northeast Arizona. Yeah, nice. Yeah, in the plateaus, one of the Pueblo tribes. And so we would go down there and visit the reservation sometimes. But, you know, of course, we're a bunch of white guys sticking out like sore thumbs. Yeah, exactly. We did get, you know, some access to some places that most white people aren't allowed to go, especially unaccompanied, but we did get

questioned, you know, like, why are you here? What are you doing here? Get out of here. That kind of thing. So, you know, but my, uh, there there was one so the reason my grandfather met up with the hopis was he was a field or a forest ranger on the kayabab forest above the grand canyon and uh this old hopi guy came up to hunt and he had this you know really old crappy gun so my grandfather said here take my gun and just bring it back when you're done. And, and, uh, they struck up a friendship. And so there was, uh, um, a shrine site down, um, where this man that adopted, you know, uh, my grandfather lived, uh, called Bluebird Springs. And we got to go down there and see the shrine and it had like these, um, deer, uh, antlers and, and skulls and stuff. And they had the Kaibab, uh, um, tags on them, which was kind of cool. Kind of, you know, brought, brought my

grandpa a little closer, I guess. But so I've always really appreciated, you know, the Native Americans and their, their contributions and stuff. And the Hopis had that, uh, the snake dance, which was always fascinated me when I was young. My grandfather actually got to see that, and I don't think they're doing that dance anymore, which is kind of sad. Their culture's kind of dwindling a bit. Oh, yeah.

He's lucky he did get to see that. And, yeah, it's going that way, unfortunately. A lot of the last people that participated in those things or heard the language, spoke fluently, for a lot of us around the whole country are kind of there in that last stage of life. And if nobody takes that knowledge from them, it's going to disappear.

Yeah, for sure. It's a tragedy. I mean, what a dark spot on our nation's history, you know, basically overrunning and people who are already here and not treating them well, for sure. So, yeah. But on to happier topics. Well, to transition just a touch, what's the vibe on the res in terms of, like, over the last two years, you became the guy who's putting out these board lines and finding snakes and all. How does that play out? Everyone's pretty cool though. A lot of people will just be like, they know if they see a board for the most part, they just like, Oh, that's, you know, that's one of Blaine's boards, just whatever.

He's just doing his snake thing or they'll see me in the hills and be like, find anything. And I had a rattlesnake in my house or people might call me and say, I got this snake. You want to come get it or whatever. So's awesome it's actually been pretty cool that's cool yeah what's the size of your community down there um it's very small i don't know i would say there's maybe only 500 or so living tribal members and okay maybe god i don't even know 200 or so that live on the reservation and then and maybe some family and extended family and whatnot and some renters or whatever but it's a pretty small community yeah that's really cool yeah yeah very nice well yeah we appreciate you coming on this this will

be really cool to get your insight into some some of the things we're going to talk about so um today's discussion we're going to chat about uh video where we've got a youtube videographer here and and has some experience that way and then then we're going to contrast that with photography and what's the best way to get your message across. We'll go ahead and flip the coin between Rob and I to see who gets to fight with Blaine here. Go ahead and call it. Hedge.

Me or Rob? Hedge. It is tails. I'm sorry, Rob. Oh, my goodness yeah you're just letting me win all these i am um well considering i'm i'm under the weather i'm gonna let you go ahead and and do this one so i'll moderate and throw in a comment here and there but i'm gonna have to mute myself too many times to sneeze or cough. All right, and then, Blaine, why don't you go ahead and call it to pick, see which side you get. All right, I'll go tails. Tails? It is tails.

So you get to pick which side you want to defend. Well, since I make videos, I think I'll just pick the video side, even though I feel like it's a double edged sword. Oh, sounds good. Yeah. Well, and that's, I mean,

that's the idea is to get, get all the double edges out there and to kind of discuss all the pros and cons, you know? So, okay. And then as the winner of the coin toss, you get to decide if,

if you want to go first or if you want to let Rob go first. Um, I guess I'll just go first and get it over with. I'm not. Okay. Talker. I'm just trying to defend making videos rather than photos. Is that the gist of it?

Yeah. Why, why, you know, taking videos is better. Either your preference or just, uh, if it communicates a message better,

it's more compelling. Any of that stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess all, if it communicates a message better is more compelling any of that stuff yeah all right well i guess i'll do the positive and then the negative of videos and from my opinion which both could be seen as positives but however anyways the biggest positive for me is it's almost like you have an opportunity to relive that moment, especially now a lot of us are using GoPros and we're getting the moment of the find, the flip, or as the pot milk guy calls it, the flip clip. You get that moment when you first see the snake. And that's a cool moment to relive. And to me, I love going back and watching those because it's so exciting and even like listening to yourself the way you reacted it's sometimes it's almost comical you're like wow i

got all like giddy like a little kid and i'm jumping around like i'm at disneyland and it's it's a snake and i'm almost a 40 year old man and kind of laugh at yourself um yeah and i love that and i think it's it's pretty raw it's it shows the emotion the excitement and the animal in its natural state and i really like that um is it is that a i mean if are you leaving your gopro on pretty much the whole time and if so is that uh a pain in the neck to edit or is it pretty easy to just pull out the clips that you want to include on a video? So I don't, I run it the whole time,

but I'll stop it about every two minutes because of the editing. And so often you're not finding things. Yeah. Um, so I'll just like, I'll flip for two minutes or whatever, you know, and then I'll start it over continue on

start it over and then that's how i do it to make it not so monotonous yeah so are you deleting if you didn't find anything you'll just delete those the last clip or whatever and then start it over and or are you just kind of making a note of which ones you found something i probably should delete it right then i don't just because you're in the field and you know you're trying to take advantage of your time so save i just uh yeah your battery power so i don't take the time to delete them right away i usually i'll go back once i'm done in the field i'll just go home and go through the clips and i kind of remember what was the first snake I found. Okay, everything before that can be deleted now.

What was the second snake I found? Okay, everything can be deleted from that one now. And then that's just the way I do it. It might not be the best way, but it works. Cool. Rob, do you want to comment? You're reliving the moment with pictures? when we're doing that, if you're flipping through, it's one thing when you're flipping these beautiful rock piles on a beautiful hillside, but if you flipped over a couch, you know, in the middle of a prairie field, sometimes that image isn't as visually compelling.

And while it's more true to what happened, and we actually had a fight club about this, you know, or that implied this a couple weeks back, but, you know, it's more true to what happened, right? It was, you know, a great environment under there, but the ability to see it then in what seems to be a more naturalistic condition, just that compelling image in your mind can be – I don't know. I find I can be satisfied with photos. That being said, I know, Blaine, I don't think I'm wrong on this. You have an Instagram as well, and you do post still photos, beautiful still photos of different things. Maybe, maybe a point we can get on in here today too, is like, what makes you, why, why are only some of those things in that spot? And you know,

you still take time to take beautiful photos. Yeah, I do. I do. Sometimes I'm a little more impatient than these other herpers that take really beautiful photos. But every now and then I do take the time and I do have a nice DSLR and some good lenses. And I love taking photos too. Photography is great. Animals, landscape, people. Photos are pretty amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think you did hit on a critical negative, right, in terms of photos. Yeah. And we all are so fortunate now that we're working with digital cameras, right? So our capacity to take photos is far greater than it was in the 70s and 80s when you're talking about rolls, even 90s rolls of film and all this stuff that, heck, man, I'll take 100 shots of something just to see, you know, hoping maybe it's making me a little bit lazier. But it gives me that freedom to say, I just then the hard part for me is choosing between those 100 photos of what I like, you know, which OK, which is actually the best. And often I'll sit there, you know, and it's sort of an A.B. test of is there even a difference between these two images? You know, becomes half of my challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know all about that too. Um, I'm curious too, like for, for, um, do you, have you figured out kind of, you know, based on the amount of raw footage you're taking, how much is actually useful? You know, like, cause I, I find myself like videoing and then I'll get to go to edit it. And I'm like, Oh, this all kind of sucks. And I, I don't have, you know, a lot of good footage.

And so I'm getting like, you know, just little clips, um, instead of, you know, maybe people don't want to spend, and you know, I see some hurt videos where they sit and hold the animal and talk about it for, you know, 15 minutes and you're like, okay, onto the next, come on, let's move it along or something, poor attention span or something. But, but um you have any kind of like idea of your ratio of footage taken to kind of what that translates into in a video i would say since i adopted using the gopro trying to get those you know the capture moments or the fine moments on camera that's added to that a lot i would say when i'm filming because other than that i'd choose my iphone to film which is pretty good quality we're lucky to have those too um i really

when i'm making a video i'm just trying to really just capture the experience you know so i'll have the gopro on i'll flip the animal i'll grab the animal i'll turn the gopro off i'll enjoy the animal myself for a second you check it out, get stoked for a minute, whatever. And then I'll film it in hand, whatnot. And then depending if I'm going to photograph it or not, I'll photograph it. I don't photograph animals. I'll never go more than like 10 minutes. I just can't.

And if the animal's that bothered by it that it won't sit still for 10 minutes. I just can't. And if the animal's that bothered by it, that it won't sit still for 10 minutes, I'm at the point where like this animal just wants to go back and be returned to where it was. Um, it's not having it. So I should do that. Um, but other than that,

like I'm not filming a terribly large amount or a bunch of just random crap. Um, I'm trying to keep the camera to where it's not showing where i am or giving away any features or anything but i'm really just trying to document the experience and so i can relive it and then if anyone else does want to watch it i don't know how many people watch my videos but if they want to they can kind of almost be like they were there with us or me sure yeah that's cool. Yeah, a hundred percent. So there are a couple of things there that, um, you know, were,

were either things that were in my mind or that really stand out to me there. The first was, I do appreciate that in your videos, I think, um, one, one thing that in some of the content that's out there, it can, it's edited so severely that it makes it seem like the entire, it's sort of, it's not true's edited so severely that it makes it seem like the entire, it's sort of, it's not true to the experience in the sense that it seems like they're just finding animals the entire time, right? Everything that isn't finding animals is cut out and it might represent two weeks worth of work that turns into 10 minutes. And it, but it, sometimes it even feels, you know, maybe a little disingenuous of like, oh, this was just one night. And maybe that's, you know, sometimes, yeah, it's really going off and that's true.

Other times it's not. I think your stuff is really, I find it compelling because it's not, it's neither too long and boring or full of stuff that is grating or is irritating, kind of like, oh, well, I'm not. It's the stuff that's enjoyable, maybe even for you if it was like your film. Oh, it's the inside joke or whatever. But some of that stuff can be gratuitous if it's then going out to this much broader audience that wasn't there and doesn't have the plus side of it. So I really appreciate that.

And you raised it yourself, right? So a downside to me with the video is the capacity to expose your spots or where you're at and just sort of give you know with that that photo you have a lot of time to process okay what is this image uh conveying right whereas the video sometimes i'm sure it's easy to or it's a lot more difficult to make sure that you're not saying things that you're not intending to say. Yeah, totally. It's almost like a skill and a mindset you have to have. You have to remember not to say things.

You've got to remember not to show things. And like, I don't know, nowadays, you don't want to give away anything really. But yeah, I appreciate the feedback and that's cool um that's a balance i try i work really hard to try to figure out how much of finding nothing should i put in the video how quickly should it seem like i'm finding snakes because sometimes like you said you're you find one snake a day and then four days later until you find the next snake. It's not, you're not finding 15 snakes every day. Yeah.

Yeah. What I guess that's another question is, you know, when you do have a day where maybe you don't have a day where you get skunked, but like on the days where you're finding very little or nothing too exciting, um, you know, do you just skip that and delete out that footage or are you putting together kind of videos of the

the not so exciting days as well i guess what kind of schedule are you trying to stick to or if you know what i mean that makes sense i don't know i feel like i i don't know if i have a schedule it feels like just naturally one a week starts kind of happening for me um and i think it's more about where i live and the fact that i go out a lot yeah um so you usually have enough footage for a video a week yeah yeah yeah sometimes i have a ton of footage sometimes i don't and a lot of the times like those days you're talking about where i just found like one snake or whatever two gopher snakes like sometimes I just that footage just never even makes it into a video you know so those those days are out there and they happen a lot and we all I mean we all go out in the field and we know it's not always finding double digit snakes

and a lot of the times you're grinding for one common guy yeah that's i mean that's kind of what we've talked about rob and i've talked about a lot is you know the the videos that make it look like you just walk out there and you find 50 snakes in a day and what people aren't realizing is this is like a you know combined you know week of intensive herping and and it's all pressed into one day where you're just showing the highlights and you're not showing the low lights and whether or not that's, you know, an honest portrayal or whatever you want to call it, you know, it's like, but again, who's going to watch a video of just walking around finding nothing, you know, that's,

you got to show the people what they, what they came to but you know i do i do think um you know i've seen some herping videos where they do say you know we got skunked last night we didn't see a thing or oh this is the only snake of the night those kind of things you know where they kind of bring in some of the reality of it but yeah that's kind of a trick i guess is to to find that balance or whatever yeah I think that's the best way honestly is like just to be honest because like I know I wouldn't sit through that I'm not going to sit through 10 minutes of someone flipping rocks and never seeing anything I'll be like okay why are you showing me this so like sometimes like you know flip eight twelve rocks cut the clip and be like okay we had to move to another spot because we just got smoked for three hours, you know, and that's that's cool.

That's the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty good. And in terms of the comment you made before, in terms of the photo, when you're trying to take photos and how long you'll engage with the animals, I do think you make a great point there that there certainly is a window of time. And it's situationalational too, right? Some of it is like if we're in a situation where we have exposed sun and our spot is getting that

and you can tell that the animal is going to be getting warm and all these things. You know, we've seen it in Australia, found a goldeye on a sand monitor on the road. So it was obviously in the middle of the day, you know, totally baking out. And then it stopped and, you know, you could see it. It opened its mouth and was clearly it's like this animal is getting overheated. You know, we've even in two minutes, this has gotten, you know, we've gone too far past what we can do here. It ran 10 feet and then stopped 10 feet up a tree so we're actually able to get compelling images you know with it in that context and whatever without you know it was then in shade and all this stuff so but yeah very clearly there are times where it's

absolutely too much other times that if you're in a group of people that can be hard too right in the sense of uh everyone's perception of what is uh enough not, it can be variable and can cause that can cause friction for sure. I think the one, the difficulty, right, if it's a for you, a San Diego gopher snake, well, you're probably not going to take a picture in the first place. But, you know, say it was a really nice one or whatever, and you're like, I'm going to do it today um the the hard part is you know compare that to like in a gamma right you probably would are going to be pushing your 10 minute limit when it's the target that's hard to get and all that stuff so you know i think that's just a challenge we all have to try and do our best with and just just be reasonable about whereas the video i mean heck

you're it does seem like it's a lot easier to, in a shorter time, capture the moment, you know, to the extent that we're saying, hey, what is it? We're our own customer first, right? Remembering our experience. You know, I do think that is a plus for the video. Yeah, I agree. And it's tough. To me, it just comes down to, like, obviously in 10, 15 minutes, you're going to have some photos. There's going to be some decent ones, maybe not what you

imagined. And I think that's where the issue comes up with where photos become almost too much or too fake as well. Like, I love the standard old field guide style shots you know the whole animal and a tiny bit of the rock or habitat behind it and and that's all and i like the macro shots those are really cool but some some of these guys man and they're beautiful photos don't get me wrong but they got these crazy vibrant sunsets or the whole milky way behind it and they did a long exposure and God knows what they did who knows how long they had the animal and to me it's like at what point is your photo more important you know to where you got out how long are you keeping that animal just to get your vision that's yeah yeah yeah it probably depends on the species too. I mean, if you've got a species that doesn't move around a lot and just kind of sits there, if it feels comfortable or not threatened, like a rattlesnake in a bush or something where it feels secure, you're probably not going to stress it out too much by having an extended photo shoot, but something that doesn't want to hold still

and you're grabbing it and sticking it under a cup and manipulating it, that probably gets to the point where it's like, okay, that's probably enough for this animal. How much energy is it spending trying to get away from you? But then at the same time, we're only seeing a fraction of the stuff out there and um and you know if it's to to you know this is this is your lifer you've never seen this species before you know i i think it might be worth a little stress

on the animal just to be able to have that interaction and maybe get the shot you want but there's definitely a balance that needs to occur yeah And like Rob said, it depends on who you talk to, what that time limit is. We had a little bit of a regulator with us on one trip that was, okay, that's enough time with this animal. Let's move on. We're like, wait, what? We've been here like two seconds. Give me a break. That was funny because it seems like the conflict in that situation is certain or in general, but specifically in that situation is that wasn't someone who was also taking photos.

So I'm sure there there is a non-zero like time is moving faster for them than it is for someone who's, you know, really game to the activity. So then that can cut both ways in the sense of I'm sure we're at the same time getting a slowed down version, a distortion of it, of saying like, oh, this hasn't been that long. And it's, you know, objectively, it's been eight minutes or 10 minutes or whatever. What felt like, oh, I've only been able to do this. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Actually, actually, I've had because when I go to Baja, I have myaja, I only go with one person to Baja now, and it's my buddy Ronnie, and he's even told me, because he likes the videos too, because he's always with me, so it's retelling his story, and he's told me, man, I've got to stop rushing you, I've got to stop rushing you, because he's not making the video. He's like, I want to get back in the car and cruise more and find more stuff, or I want to go flip more rocks and find the next mountain king. He's like, we don't have time for this video crap.

Let's go. And then later, when it's winter and we're not doing anything, he's like, man, I shouldn't have rushed you and all that. So I think, like you said, it's a matter of perspective. And if that's your thing or not. Some people want to flip a snake, see it real quick, release it and move on to the next one and try to get another one. Yeah, I think Rob and I are a good example of that kind of duo where Rob spends a little more time, well, a lot more time taking pictures of the animals than I do. And then in the meantime, I'll go around and maybe

find another one or go find something else or, you know, so I'll, I'll herp around close to where I can, you know, see him or close to him and then try to find something else. So if you, yeah, if you're antsy, you know, but, but I think we make a good match that way as far as, uh, herping styles can, can, uh, build on each other. I think. Nice. Yeah. I think me and Ronnie are like that too. And once he starts flipping, I'm kind of like, all right, I don't want him flipping the next one. Like I get that little competitive edge. I'm like, this, I'm putting this animal back in. Like, let's, let's go.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's the hardest in the road cruising context um you know for sure right and then sometimes it's one of those i know justin's has you know we've all had this feeling but you especially road cruising but generally at all you don't know what's coming next right you don't it's just a void so you're sitting there going okay should i rush this and then you know you rush your experience and then you don't see anything for three hours and it's like well i guess i could have taken five more minutes you know or or you find a fresh dor yeah or the opposite yeah and you see a car go by and now it's like either a just that car's in front of me you know which

is its own um stress and negativity or whatever or yeah then let alone if you see something get hit that it's like yeah i would have been there if we've been a little bit quicker yeah we we have that debate constantly on how fast we should drive actually like yeah the same debate like well if we drive faster we cover more ground and we'll see more and i'm like well maybe we drive slower and we don't pass a snake that would have came out in front of us. You just don't know. Yeah. It's all kind of luck of the draw a little bit, but you know, yeah, yes, it all works out. Yeah. Do you, in general, do you, do you have a, a road cruising speed that you like, you know, assume, assuming the conditions are, you know,

whatever, but, or the, you know, allowed speed or whatever, but just that, you know, I've heard people say, you know, some people like 40, some people like 55, you know, 70. No, I'm just kidding. That's kind of Justin, to be honest with you, depending on the road. Well, I, if I'm actively herping and looking, you know, road cruising, I like more 35, 40, but yeah, if I'm trying to get from point A to point B, I'm going 70. And hopefully we'll see it.

Yeah. I fluctuate from probably 45 to 70, to be honest, depending on where I am, what I'm looking for. If I've seen a lot of activity, I'm slowing down a little bit, trying to stay more around 40. If I'm on curves, I'm obviously not hauling ass through curves. If it's long straightaways, I haven't seen anything for hours, I kind of start speeding up, trying to cover more ground. But then we'll kind of catch ourselves when the snake comes out and

be like dang we barely saw that we need to chill out you know yeah yeah so yeah it can be a challenge to figure out a reasonable speed and i find myself as i get older too like i'm i'm not seeing them as well on the road so i need to slow down a little bit and go a little slower but yeah depends on the situation like you said for me now my average is probably 50 yeah which is probably fast for some people but and when you're when you're finding them road cruising what's your uh you know are you taking videos on the road are you trying to move them off to film kind of more naturalistic habitat you know that kind of thing um that one's kind

of circumstantial as well if it's wide open and i can film them on the road as found i always try to get that um if not we're just trying to get the snake off the road and us off the road safely before the next car comes or whatnot so luckily i've got my partner so whoever's not driving will jump out run back and do their thing unless it's like dead there's no cars around you know we'll just pull over both get out walk back yeah and enjoy the animal as it is and then move it off the road but it's just it just depends what's happening okay so you you kind of like the road road footage i guess there's nothing getting in the way it's you know pretty yeah i mean see the animal i'm like i said earlier you know i like

to try to tell the story as it actually was so if and it's it's not because i'm trying to necessarily make that my video style like i just enjoy it when i go back and watch it a year later or whatever it's like oh yeah that's how oh that's what that snake was doing or you know it's it's you remember the the experience a little better sure okay that's cool yeah fair enough i was just thinking you know as we were talking through the the little detour into speed you know the speed that you're going nothing makes you you know at least makes, I won't speak for you guys, but makes me more agitated than feeling like we're going too slowly when we're not finding anything.

And just go out, the juju is sitting there stealing and all. So I'd certainly appreciate that. The worst. I've had some experiences where, I'm not going to name any names, but I've been in the backseat with some guys before when I first started herping. They're going like 15 and I'm still screaming snake, snake, snake. And they're not stopping. And I'm like, wow, wow. Like, what's going on here?

And then like and then an hour later, we haven't seen anything. And they're still going like 15. And I'm just like, I can never do this again. Yeah. Yeah. That's it, man. Yeah, you learn pretty quick who your herping style meshes with and who it may not mesh with, you know? Yeah, totally.

Yeah. That's the beauty, I guess, is you get to choose who you go with. Well, this is the way I like these, and especially, you know, I just love the videos that you put out and stuff. So for me, you know, I just joined the podcast when Chuck had the circumstances, you know, change form or whatever. So Justin said he's gotten feedback that we've gotten too soft and that I break the fourth wall and that I engage with people too much and am too willing to see the positives and negatives to both sides. So I'm admitting that now.

But that being said, you know, yeah, man, I think we've hit... Justin, do you have highlights there? Or Blaine, do you have highlights that you think are either positives or negatives for either side that we haven't hit on? Because I just want to hear you talk about her, her and man and her and SoCal and all the different stuff. Yeah. Uh, you want to go first, Justin? I'm just curious, you know, another question for you in regards to videos, do you pay any mind to like the algorithm or trying to have some catchy title or, I mean, are you, are you paying any attention to that or are you just putting out videos for you? You what i mean i don't even know what i don't honestly everyone says algorithm and i don't even know what's happening i just figure out i guess there's some formula where your video gets seen more or something i yeah i don't really care i had my buddy who i play music

with he made me a little reggae beat because i play reggae music in a bunch of bands and he made and i made that as my intro song, and I try to do a cool little intro now where it shows some of the things I found, and then that's it. I post it. I usually don't even, 90% of the time, I don't even share the link on Instagram, anything. I just post the video and don't know how many views it gets, don't know what. If I get a comment, obviously I get an email so I can can reply i try to reply because if people engage i i respect that um i just enjoy doing it i enjoy

making the videos i enjoy watching them later i enjoy watching some other people's videos not all of them but yeah i just enjoy it yeah it seems like there's there's more and more people on there putting out herping videos. It's kind of cool if you're looking for, especially in certain areas. It seems like there's a lot of southern Arizona, but maybe that's just because what I was looking for. And Rob turned me on to your channel, and I've really enjoyed the videos I've watched so far. So I need to dive into them a little deeper. But yeah, good stuff. I appreciate that.

But I guess that's kind of my style too. I don't care if anybody watches them or if just for myself or whatever. But yeah, I hate the clickbaity stuff where it's, you know, am I going to die? I found this deadly snake, you know, all that kind of crap. You know, the clickbaity titles and stuff. But yeah. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I didn't get that vibe from you. I just wanted to see if you paid any mind to that or not. For sure. No, you never know. You never know people's ulterior motives or if they have them or not. I don't know. I'm still

new to this. It might not have, if I mean, whoever knows me might not. I don't know. I'm still new to this. It might not have, if I mean, whoever knows me might not think I'm new just cause I've done so much, but I'm still new. This is only my third year of serious herping that I'm getting into. So it's just, it still has that like,

what's it called? Like the honeymoon effect where I'm still super excited about everything. Yeah. Do you have kind of an example of some of your favorite footage you've captured that gets you most excited or what you go back and watch the most? I think, honestly, it's when I do a good one that tells the story really well. Like if it's a road trip and I document the entire story, well, you know, the, a little bit of the driving, the food, some of the interactions we have, the animals we find, those ones are cool. But my favorite thing to see is just like the actual flipping of the animals.

That moment you find it, when you turn that rock and just like seeing it for that first split second um and like watching like i said earlier you know hearing how i reacted because a lot of times you don't realize how you reacted or what you said or whatever a lot of the times i say and do things i would never do that are completely out of character, and it's just out of pure excitement. Yeah, I think you do a great job with showing that, still have the honeymoon, the passion for it, right? Even if it is something, you know, you've got to be,

I do appreciate that you come off as very real about it, in the sense that it's not, I don't know, there was a video today, that it's just so obviously like, well, either the person's insane or it's a put on or whatever, based on even the content that they've put out. You know, so while I don't enjoy that, to me, the part that I think maybe some folks who do YouTube videos miss is that it's like, for the most part, people watching this don't live there, live in that same area, don't get to herp or whatever. And so if there is a clear feeling that they're over whatever it is they're finding, my statement is always just, well, go find something else better to do with your time, man. Don't tell me that this thing that I've never seen that would be a lifer for me totally sucks. And I think you do a good job with that. Or it's a trash snake or something. Yeah, oh, it's just the 75th of these i've found tonight and it's like with yours and hell or i at least it's like you're true to the count

you're still showing them you're still saying man i gotta watch out where i'm going all this different stuff you know so that i think you do a good job with that and don't just sort of say like you know whatever everyone in the world has seen 70 million of these who cares you know and that that i think it's just appreciating that like hey the people who are watching this are definitely not here with me and probably you know might never do this yeah and it's still cool like even though it's my 179th hell or it's still cool like you still chose whatever that piece of cover or that road, whatever that snake chose to use, and you encountered it. It's still a cool experience.

At least that's where I stand now. Do I want to find hell or high? No. Is that my goal? No. But when I find them, it's still a new animal I've never seen before, a new location, a new flip, and it's still a new animal I've never seen before a new location a new flip and it's still exciting yeah I I have a maybe an off the wall question you don't need to answer it if you don't want to but you know with with filming the flips I think about that the 10 on 10 hell or I that was kind of

between the two 10 pieces and I'm like that, you know, when you're lifting that with your hand, that's awful close to where that snake was. Um, I'm just curious, like if you, if there was a bite or something, is that something you would probably not show? Or you think that would be something you'd want to show to represent it honestly, or not to, or not show it to kind of avoid the downside of that. Oh, man. I feel like this is such a teachable moment for all the young people and myself, honestly. That clip is such a teachable moment.

Yeah, right. I don't know why. I just continue to flip with my hands. And I shouldn't. I really should use a snake hook or something. My buddy Ronnie, you could see in that same video, he just picked up a stick and he was being careful. And he's pointed out to me so many times, look where your hand was. Look where the hell I was.

Look where the rattlesnake was. Dude, be careful. You never know. And I'm always just doing that. And I don't know. I don't know why. I think a lot of the times i get out of my car i'm excited and i forget my stuff you know i get i got my essentials i got my gopro and

my backpack and waters and my gloves and i go i don't think about a snake hook or whatever um but so that was my rant on if don't be me, use a hook. But to answer your question, I would show it. I mean, granted, I get to make that video. I think it's the experience. That's what happened. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't want it to happen.

And obviously it would be a delayed video because I'd probably be getting anti-venom in the hospital and all that stuff and whatever. Yeah. I just, um, I've had a couple close calls like that too, where I've just done things that I didn't really think of think through, you know, like,

uh, there was this, uh, beautiful and I was a kid, like I was probably 15 years old and there was this beautiful, and I was a kid, like I was probably 15 years old, and there was this beautiful, I think it was a con color, or it was probably a Grand Canyon rattlesnake, but it was going underneath a big boulder, and I grabbed the tail to kind of stop it from going

because my dad was going to check and see if we could collect it and take it home as a pet, and I didn't want it to get under this boulder. So I'm grabbing the tail and kind of yanking on it a little bit. And then it was fighting. So I'm like, okay, I'll let it go. And right as I let it go, its head came flying out of the, from under the boulder and just missed me, you know, like, Whoa, that was too close for comfort. But you know, I, um, uh, I, I think about that too. Like I'm, I'm kind of the same way where, you know, one really scary story was, uh, my friend was herping with his son and there were these two kids, they were near a campground and there were these two kids are like, what are you doing? And they're like, Oh, we're looking for snakes.

And they're like, Oh, can we do what come with you and so they were flipping rocks too and all of a sudden he hears the kid go ah it got me like he got bit by a rattlesnake you know following my friend around flipping rocks and so he's like oh man i didn't i didn't think think about that you know happening you know that was an unexpected consequence and then he went back to the campground and the family was just hanging out there and the kids like holding his hand. And he's like, are you not going to take your kid to the emergency room? Like he got bit by a rattlesnake. Like, get out of here, dude.

He's like, well, I mean, it's kind of going to ruin our trip or whatever. Like, no, there's no, get him, get him to a hospital. Oh, yeah, it's fine. And he drives him down. But yeah, I, you know, I wouldn't think about that. Like, in some ways, you know, I guess we have a little bit of responsibility if we're taking people out or showing people kind of the ropes and, and we need to keep that in mind. Sometimes, like, I just don't think about that, I guess. And, you know, you wonder how many times

people think about those kind of things. I, you know, as an example, I, I grew up, you know, hitting the desert a lot and climbing slick rock a lot. And so I'm feel very comfortable climbing. And, and I was, uh, like taking out some, a scout group and we're going over and, and I was just climbing away and I'm thinking, and then I look back and there's these guys like, how do we, how did, and I'm like, oh crap, they're following me, you know, up this, up this thing that I didn't think was that big of a deal, but they're kind of getting stuck and they're a little nervous or something. I'm like, oh crap, I, I should pay more attention to what I'm doing and you know, the people

that are with me and, uh, yeah, that's something I'm maybe more of a selfish herper. I don't think about others with me or something. I don't know. We've had a couple close calls with some sketchy stuff, you know. But luckily nobody's gotten too hurt. So I was distracted making the link today because I was watching the video when Nathan had come out with you. And there's a point in the video where I was like, oh, shooty, like almost tumbled down the mountain or whatever. And then you did talk through that, like, well, you stepped on or nearly stepped on a ruber under a bush, right?

So that was, oh, that explains why the video sort of did, you know, it didn't look like a clean maneuver for sure. Yeah, that was pretty funny because I thought it buzzed me, but I think it just like S'd and scared the hell out of me and made me do something, which probably would have been a really funny video if someone videoed me jumping off that rock. Right. But yeah, I mean, that's a good example, though, of, you know, 999 times out of 1,000, they're going to get out of the way, let you know they're there, and probably not strike. Yeah. You know um flipping rocks might be a little different your hands get a little close flipping rocks sometimes you know or touching the snake i think you just upped the odds there for yourself but yeah to each their own

i won't get into that hot topic yeah i wonder um they have those kind of bite-proof gloves have you thought about getting a pair of those you know uh flipping a lot i imagine those would come in handy they're going to protect your hands from bites as well as a lot of rocks well nipper brought those though and it's very hard to you know you lose a ton of dexterity with maneuverable maybe if he gets super used to it or whatever but i know he he had him because i guess it's a very european thing or whatever and i could you hardly bend your fingers you know so i don't know how functional it is that's yeah that's kind of my thought like they sound cool i'm sure they're pretty expensive and like if man if i lost a mountain king down a hole because of that, I'd be a little upset.

But I don't know. That's to each their own. I'm taking the risk. I try to be careful. I look. I try to look around the rocks a little bit the best I can. But it's like I said about going to Mexico. It's all kind of a risk and reward thing are you willing to take

that risk yeah that's true well have we hit all the important topic discussion items that you had in mind or is there anything else you wanted to throw out there

me or Rob? Certainly for me. Well, sort of, right? In the sense that, yeah, I just love it, man. I'm super impressed with the channel. I'm super impressed with the content. Super impressed with sort of where you're at now relative to, you know, just having started so recently.

I think it's all great, man. So, yeah, I just wanted to communicate that you why don't you put that information out there what what's the name of your channel and where can people find your your stuff yeah so my youtube and my instagram are both mazzetti's fine snakes um so it's my last name m-a-z-z-e-t-t-i and then s because sometimes my kids go so i leave it open to being family and then just find snakes and it's all uh any adventure i do whether it's mostly southern california second mostly baja and then some trips you know i've gone to arizona and we did utah last year and hopefully just keep traveling and uh having good experiences and getting to share that with everybody cool all right well appreciate you

coming on rob did you have anything else you wanted to say or we're good no i'm good man okay cool well yeah no it was a good discussion. Great to have you on. Absolutely. It was fun. I appreciate being on and you guys getting me on. That was really cool. Yeah. Thanks for doing it. We kind of maybe take a couple minutes. Outro Music