The Joe Rogan Experience - #1499 - Aron Snyder

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Aron Snyder is the President at Kifaru international, and also the host of the KifaruCast podcast available on Spotify.

What's up, brother? Good to see you, man. We finally did this. Yeah, yeah. Good to see you. I had been pestered about four million times when you're getting on Rogan's podcast. I'm like, why don't you ask Rogan? I don't know. So when you finally asked, I'm like, woohoo. I was excited. I feel like I've made it. Well, so many people have asked me when I've worn your shirt. People are like, what is this shirt? This Rhino shirt. What is that? That's Cafaro. That's your backpack company. And because I've worn this on the podcast, people are like, well, when are you going to get Snyder on?

When are you going to get Snyder on? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that probably gets old. I have to respect the amount of people that – how many times have you changed your phone number in the last 10 years? Multiple. Yeah, I bet. Keep it moving. Yeah.

Got to keep it moving. I might have to copy you. And I've got one-tenth of the following you do. I just uh it's hard to keep keep up and people um surprised how sensitive they get when you don't respond to them and it's like they get angry yeah and I'm like I've had guys like I know you're not that busy I'm like really you don't really know people get real weird with that kind of stuff when they want something you know it's like there's some people that'll text you and then

if you don't text them right back they they'll send you question marks like, question, question. Yeah. Come on, man. Yeah. It gets, it's weird trying to, little did I know where I would end up in life compared, you know, kind of where I started from. And then now, well, it's funny. My wife, she knew me and we met in 07.

Didn't have a phone, no computer, lived in the woods, slept on a Therm-a-Rest air mattress. You didn't have a phone or a computer in 07? It was bad. You know what? I think I might have got a flip phone right around that time frame. And I was sleeping on a, and this is a no bullshit story, she'll tell you. I had gotten divorced and I kind of made this, you know, do whatever. I wanted to hunt a lot, get out in the woods a lot.

So I slept on a Therm-a-Rest air mattress in my, you know, you bring I wanted to hunt a lot, get out in the woods a lot. So I slept on a Thermarest air mattress in my, you know, you bring chicks over, they're like, what the fuck is this? I just had this, you know, 24-inch wide backpacking air mattress. I slept on that and just saved, you know, money for whatever, hunting, getting in and out doors. And then she and I, you know, screw around, dated for a while, and we were apart for several years. And we got back together.

She's like, who the fuck are you? Like, we're in walmart they're like snyder and she's like is that a friend of yours i'm like i have no idea who that is and she because she skipped all that time and then i'm marketing and i'm wired in all the time she's like uh are you a different person a different body because i was not different acting she just you know she she knew me as the low-tech dude that just was anti you know so because of your podcast like and that's probably what and then gritty bowman before that yeah yeah all of that stuff forums and you know whatever all that different stuff uh just got well known and then um yeah went from there well Well, that world, that world of outdoor enthusiasts and backpack hunters is such a rabid world. The guys who are really into that, for people who don't understand, it's like if you combined ultra marathon running, rucking, and hunting together.

Yeah. It's kind of all those things because it's, you know, we've talked about it on the podcast before and I know I've brought you up before But this it's that world is it's the combination of athlete. I don't like when people call bowhunting a sport Because I think it's more of a discipline. It's a weird thing to call it a sport because it's not like there's a game going on It's it's you're hunting an animal. Yeah, but it's a discipline. Mm-hmm, but it also requires Athleticism and requires the kind of workout that, I mean, if you're going to be able to make it 15 miles into the backcountry with a 40-pound pack on, you have to be in insane shape,

and you've got to be able to get out with an animal on your back in multiple trips. It could take you several days. Just the taxing effect that it has on a human body. So the guys that are into that shit, when they run into a guy like you that's legit, they get very rabid. It's crazy. And I mean, there's, well, I would say Cam kicked it off, right?

He was the, not the, you know, people get sensitive about that. Cam was not the original, but Cam was the original that everybody knew. And he made a book, too. He's got a great book. Well, and he was the guy that, you know, going back, like he was the first one to promote backpack hunting with a platform. Like, I'm not the first stick bow guy. I'm just the first stick bow guy with a platform. You know what I mean?

Like, I'm the first dude that shoots a recurve that, you has somewhat known where for people that don't follow hunting let me explain you aaron got too good at shooting with a compound bow which is probably one of the hardest ways to hunt so he decided to shoot with a fucking like a medieval bow let's talk about how that got started so i was uh i was i was you in the fact i made fun of stick bow guys. Like I was bad. Like I was truly mean to them. Like somebody come down, you know, so for people to understand when you go to an outdoor range, you've got one long line and you've got targets on the far right, which is like the five pound weights at the gym. And on the far left, you've got the 200 pound dumbbells. That's a hundred yard bale. So I'm over at the hundred yard bale shooting a Reinhardt 18-1, 100, 120,

and I would have stick bow guys come down to me and tell me I'm unethical for shooting that distance, and I would be like, you can't hit the bail down there at 10 yards. You're at the chump side. What are you giving me shit for? They would tell you you're unethical for shooting at a target? Yeah. You're practicing at that range? Like what were they?

It was weird. It was weird. It was weird. And why is that that people want to do that? They want to tell you what you're doing is wrong. I had a human nature, I guess. And I ended up doing a podcast, talked about, you know, God forbid you break down mathematically, right? You can break down the speed of an arrow and the accuracy.

And you take a guy, you know you know shooting whatever 290 feet per second how long does it take his arrow to get to 80 yards how long does it take an arrow to get from you know 170 feet per second to 35 yards so I kind of evened all that up and said well here's apples to apples oranges to oranges this is it fuck I got hate mail I mean you're a horrible hunter you're using your ability instead of hunting skills you know to shoot and so i was like fuck it i sold everything i had every compound every side every arrow i didn't want that temptation and i'm like i'm gonna shoot it up we'll see right i will see how good i can get because i never shot a stick bow so you just because of people's reaction to

you you decided to go to a recurve bow yeah 100 which is for people don't understand the difference so this can be uh absorbed by people don't hunt the difference when you have a compound bow you have a site on a compound bow that will allow you to scroll out you could roll out to like so my site is set at 30 yards that's where it's normally set at but you can go all the way to 120 yards and what it does is it it? Raises your pin so it changes where the pin goes up and down and the pin is how you aim So you can get really accurate see if you're a guy like Cam Haines. I mean he shoots at a hundred yards all the time and

You know he can get into a small group at a hundred. John Dudley, the same thing. It's very accurate. Whereas with a recurve bow, there's no sight. You're doing it with the point of your arrow, and you have to practice much more. And it's like throwing a rock. Like if you throw rocks all the time, you kind of get a feel of where you can throw that rock. Yeah, throwing that rock was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Let me tell you. So I'm very goal oriented and I had a problem, which is much, I don't, I'm not very good at losing and I'm not saying I'm a spoiled loser. I'm psychotic when I lose at something like my wife will tell you, I'll go to a tournament. First thing I do when I get

home, I'm having her film me breaking down things. So I thought, well, we're going to see if I can, if these people are right, I'm going to, find out i'm gonna do nothing but trad and so trad meaning traditional traditional archery yeah and uh so i i'm lucky enough you fall tom clumb right he's like the yoda of the traditional archery so i go down there with a wad of cash and i'm like and they've got several hundred recurves. I'm like, hey, I'm going to shoot a stick bow, guys. And they're like, they've seen me shoot a comp, and they're like, cool, let's get you set up. And I'm thinking, I've got to get hand-eye coordination.

This shouldn't be a problem. Fuck, man. I'm like, I went from shooting 58 Xs on a five spot on average to I can't hit the target at 20 yards. And I'm like, oh, this fucking was way. I've only shot a recurve bow a couple of times, but I did it recently in Hawaii, like last summer. And they had like some range out there and they had recurve bows that you could shoot. It's amazing how difficult it is to hit something if you don't have any experience doing it. Yeah.

Well, and I was lucky because I had that whole family there to help me, right? So they're, you know, it's like you have in Dudley and King. You know, they took me under their wing, and they're explaining this. And so I got what I thought was good pretty fast, which 40 yards with a stick was far. But I hadn't hunted yet, you know, and so then I go out, and I don't know if you remember I shot that black bear. And, you know, I'm within 40 yards of it for 20 minutes, and in my mind, you would be so dead if I had my compound. I just couldn't get a shot.

And I finally squeaked it in, missed it at like 18 yards, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, Snyder took it. So luckily, and Tom had told me this, he said, you're going to get two or three shots in the animal. They don't hear the bow. And they don't. Landed by its feet. It kind of looked around. And I'm like, oh, I'm not going to miss you again. Got it on the second shot.

And I'm like, ah, this isn't, you know, I can get this figured out. Did you have any qualms about hunting with it? Like how long did it take before you felt ethical enough to hunt with it? Well, I hunted with it three months. Did you feel like that was a smart move or do you feel like you rushed it well let me i was psychotic shooting 10 hours a day like i was shooting constantly so if in i think i was fine because i had the coaching i had had the help, and I had the accuracy. I could hit. I mean, I was doing well. To what I had to compare to around me, I was like, okay, this is good. So I didn't feel like I went into it unethical, like I couldn't hit what I was aiming at, but I didn't have experience. And I mean, you look at knowledge and wisdom, right? Knowledge,

you're reading about it, wisdom, you're experiencing it. Well, I thought what I knew from shooting a compound my hunting skills would be enough and they were i ended up shooting i don't know 11 12 animals that year but man it was like every time i went out i was learning something new and i had to totally change my hunting style when you think about it from a perspective of someone who's a non-hunter they they question why you would want to shoot a bow and arrow in the first place because they think that that would be less ethical than using a rifle. Like if you wanted to shoot something, you should use a rifle.

You could kill it quicker. It's better. To go from that to a compound bow, it's like why are you doing that? And then they realize like, oh, you can actually be very accurate with a compound bow if you have practice and if you learn how to do it correctly and you're disciplined. If you have practice and if you learn how to do it correctly and you're disciplined, but to take it another level and to go to a recurve, like that's, that's where it gets to in some people's minds. Like, are you hunting for food? Are you hunting for your ego?

Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing it with a recurve bow? And I think one of the best answers I've ever heard from anybody is that they said it is much more difficult, but also much more rewarding. And when you're eating that animal, you have this insane sense of accomplishment that's actually another level past even with a compound boat. Does that make sense? Yeah. And you've explained it better there than I could, and I'm going to give it a whirl. So I went from your side of the things, making fun of everyone to being addicted to getting close. So now my,

the first year I shot a mule deer at four feet in the cliffs when I drew my bow back. My arrow was between its horns when I drew up. Frank took photos of it. That's so crazy. But it was one of those things where now the reward from it, like, yeah, that feeling you have when you get it done is a ton. Because it's much more difficult. Yeah, much more difficult much more yeah much more difficult think about like what it must have been like to be the native americans hey what it's like

he's fucking hungry is what i was like i bet i mean it it i have technology on my side right and i have a lot of finders yeah binoculars clothing right you got everything and so that that year though when we were going in um on a lot of these animals, I was able to get a couple turkeys and a black bear, and I shot a mule deer. And that mule deer, like I said, when I was in those cliffs, my arrow was between its antlers when I drew back, so I shot it at three feet. That's crazy. It was crazy. And that would have never happened with a compound. How did you sneak up on it like that?

Luck and wind. Wind, yeah. So Frank, he was glassing it and i i circled it was probably two and a half miles around me so you were above it on the cliff no we were uh when i shot it i was so you know we were across from it however far we were i mean over a mile and i looped way around and i told you know frank i said hey when you see me just give me the you know the touchdown and i'm above it man i lost i i stalked the wrong rock twice i lost my boots you know i'm like what because because you took your shoes off to sneak in yeah but except i was sneaking in on a fucking rock

right i wasn't at the right rock and i i because to go that far and hit the exact same spot is is difficult because i lost sight of frank almost the whole way because I couldn't expose myself. So when I looped around, when I would see Frank, he was so far away and I was so close to the rock that I thought the deer was under. I didn't want to make any crazy movements. And then I would go back to a hundred yards, try and find my boots, get my boots back on, loop back around to try to find the spot. So when I finally got to the right spot, Frank stood up mile away, held his hands up and I'm like, it's got to the right spot, Frank stood up a mile away, held his hands up, and I'm like, it's got to be right in front of me. And I caught the top three inches of its, you know, its velvet antler sticking up. And it was windy, so every gust of wind, which about

every 10, 15 seconds, I took a step. I got to nine yards, and I grabbed a rock and threw it. And the mule deer, everything, they tell you everything you need to know on the top four inches of their antlers. So I'm watching those to see if he moves. Didn't move at all. Nothing. Threw another rock, nothing. Threw another rock, and I'm like. So explain to me.

Were you throwing a rock to try to get this thing to stand up so you'd get a shot? To get a shot, yeah. So you're throwing a rock just to make noise. Yeah, in hopes that he just starts to get a reaction. And anyway, he didn't move. And I'm like, I'm going to climb on that rock he's bedded under. And I mean, you can talk about, you couldn't have put a greased flaxseed through my ass with a hammer. I had just started doing this.

And this deer is feet from me. And I got my foot on the rock he was on. And I'm like, I hope this, you know, planting off on my right foot to spring up onto this rock. I waited for a gust of wind. So I'm 25 seconds from me to you from this deer. He's got no idea I'm there. That gust of wind hit it. I pushed off.

And I was worried the shade, they'll think it's a mountain lion pouncing on him. So I could see the shade of my fat head on the back of his neck. And I'm like, oh, you know know it's one of the most intense moments of my life you know as far as this goes and so when I went to draw I had to sweep my arrow right between his horns and drew back and shot him you know straight down and he ran 50 yards and piled up when you eat that animal that's got to give you this insane feeling of accomplishment. It is extremely, extremely rewarding. To a point, it's hard to explain in words because you've bested the animal in a lot of ways with sure skill. And I'm not saying that like I'm Billy Badass.

I'm just saying like you have snuck into its living room. There's a lot of variables. And you've earned it. Yeah. You did it the right way. As you know, I've shot a lot of stuff pretty far away with a compound which i'm not embarrassed of but you know it's just now rather than hanging that badge of honor how well i can shoot it's also you know how well i can hunt and it's been an uphill road to hoe i mean there's

been how often do you think about like i mean i i find myself thinking about that all the time like i'm real lucky that i can buy food in a store because this this is not even with a regular compound bow with a with great binoculars and you know using a range finder and all that jazz it's not guaranteed that you're gonna eat no do you think about that when you're hunting? Like, this is, it must have been insane to be one of the, you know, the American Indians on the plains. Well, you had Jordan on as well. You know, whatever, the alone guy, right? Yes. Like, that dude had an advantage.

He was awesome. I wouldn't want to go against him. I mean, that dude was born to live on nothing, right? So I always put things into perspective and he brought it up too, was when things are down, right. When you're mentally or whatever drained and you think about it, it's like, all right, I chose to put myself out here. You know, all the people before me, they had to hack it out with, they didn't have, you know, any great, they didn't have Sitka gear. They didn't have binos. They didn't have binos they didn't have this they didn't have that and so it helps motivate me for one but i'm like it's weird as it sounds i

think of that a lot when i'm getting my ass kicked basically it was like if i had to live off this thing i would have to put in that extra not only that they had to make their own bows i'm not to that level i mean that life i mean i i got on this this real long kick of Native American books. There's a guy named S.C. Gwen, and he wrote this book called Empire of the Summer Moon. And it's all about the Comanches. And a lot of it talks about their lifestyle and talks about the hardships that they had to go through. And mostly bow and arrow hunting for deer and buffalo and it's just that that life must have been insane but that also it also talks about one of the main

characters of this woman uh cynthia ann parker who was abducted when she was uh nine years old and then uh they recapture the americans recaptured her when she was in her 30s and she wanted to go back yeah she didn't want to to live in a town and live in a house and she fucking hated it. Yeah. It's like that life of, even though it's so difficult, that subsistence hunting life, it's so insanely connected. You're so insanely connected to the forest and to the woods, to the animals, just to the earth itself.

You are. the forest and to the woods to the animals to the just to the earth itself you you are and and i think uh on me it just i spent 150 200 nights a year in the wilderness for the last yeah you probably do more than anybody that i know that's one of the reasons why i wanted to talk to you about this and because you're you know your company um kafaro which makes you know some of the this is some great backpack companies out there that make like amazing gear, but you guys make, I mean, there's no arguing it's top of the food chain shit. And one of the reasons why your company makes such good backpacks is because of your experience in the woods. I mean, you fucking live out there. Well, it's, it's weird. So when I started, uh, Patrick, the, the owner, um, he same way, right? I mean, he's 80 now or however old, you know, 79, 80. He was the same

way as I was. So when I started there, whatever, a decade ago, he was, I wouldn't say enamored, he was happy to see a younger guy that could not get out of the woods. And so what was crazy, where most people end up getting stuck in an office, if he came in the office and I was in there and disgruntled, he'd be like, what are you doing? Go get your shit and get in the woods. He would want you. Oh, there's no one. He would make me.

I'd be like, Patrick, man, we got a lot of stuff going on. He's like, and he always has glasses, right? He looks over the top and he's like, son, it can wait. And I'm like, okay. So what he wanted was a guy and he quizzed, you know, there was a long trial period to find his successor, right? There was a lot of questioning. We backpack in, and he'd be like, hey, why don't you catch some fish, shoot a couple rabbits, and a few squirrels for dinner? I'm like, all right, cool.

And I'd do it, bring them back. He'd be like, you want to clean them? I'm like, yeah. I mean, of course, I'm like, I didn't know I was being tested. So he was testing you. Yeah, I didn't realize that I'm like yeah and then at one point in time he told me he's like you have passed the test and I'm like I've been doing this shit's birth Patrick and he's like everyone says that very people have and my my my background my hometown's only 200 people right

I'm a logging community in Oregon it's right off the Pacific Crest Trail. I mean, that's all we did. I was on a trail crew team clearing off wilderness trails with a fucking crosscut saw and a hatchet at 14 years old. That's what I did in the summers for money. So that's crazy. Different lifestyle, right? I mean, my daughter and I love my daughter to death and she'd be like, Dad, did you have a job when you were my age? I'm like, I was running a fucking 72 inch bar still chainsaw, honey. Yeah, I had a job, you know. And I've been able to pass a lot of those things on to her, but it's a different lifestyle. When I was in high school, you could have guns in your truck. You'd take them into the principal's office.

He'd keep them in his office. And then when you got out, you'd go deer hunting. I'm not that much younger than you, but a little bit. I've heard those days. Those days are gone. I've heard of those days. So, you know, it was something. You'd skip in school. We'd skip school to hunt. Well, you take off opening day. It was like a national holiday almost.

It was a big deal. And so, you know, we didn't have any money. I was poor as a kid. So we picked mushrooms, chanterelles, gamakatsus, morels. That's what I did for school clothes, split firewood. It was a different lifestyle and so as i've gotten older you know all of those things that i learned have carried on to where now i'm pretty i can sustain myself for on just about anything what part of oregon were you in detroit and is that what is that roosevelt elk country so it's east of i-25 so they're hybrids um every rocky mountain and roosevelt hybrid yeah and it so it's cam and I are right beside I mean we're super close from where I'm from he's 45 minutes

away um the first bow that I got actually I was 13 I'd mowed lawns all summer and worked or whatever and we went to the bow rack my mom and that's just what Springfield Oregon yeah we drove down there and I don't even hardly remember my mom was telling me and we bought a bow and I don't know what I was doing right um and I I would say like the way that you know at that time I was pissed because we'd go to football camps I'd have like the poor kid stuff and whatever but it makes you a lot better person I think yeah that feeling when you're poor and you're young that's irreplaceable you know i still think about when i was young like not knowing if we were going to have enough food yeah i think about that we were on welfare when i was like

seven years old and i think about those days because i remember being nervous that i that we wouldn't have enough food or people being mad at me that I ate too much. Like I've never been mad at my kids if they ate too much. Yeah. But I remember that I would get, people would get upset at me if I ate too much. And I remember thinking, man, we might not have enough food. And there's like a, there's something that gets instilled in you when you're poor, when you're young.

There's a, like a nervousness or a drive that I don't think you can replace in a kid that grows up affluent. I just don't think it's possible. I would agree. And, I mean, you've been around all walks of life like I have myself. And the one thing I wouldn't take back is, you know, now they'll be, you know, of course you get successful and people are like, oh, you know, he's got money, he's got this. And it's like, I remember my dad, he worked for the highway department. He was a sole provider for the family of four making like $1,400 a month. And I had a sister and, you know, both my parents smoked.

My dad drank a lot of beer. So whatever that $1,400 went to, it was a lot less than that after those vices, right? And so when I needed something, you had to work for it. I remember working my ass off to get a pair of Converse, which was a huge deal. They were like 50 bucks or something. Where now, you know, my daughter, she works hard. So I try to instill some of those things on her,

but I also probably spoil her too much because I'm like, I do not want you to suffer a struggle like that. I know, isn't that funny? It's like what makes people interesting. I always say this about my friends. Like all my friends that are interesting grew up fucked up. All of them. All of them grew up in like crazy households and fucked up.

And now they're just like me. They're all like really loving parents. They love being a father. And I'm like, God, we're giving these kids a life that is going to ensure they're never going to be interesting. Yeah, that's no shit. I will say, thank God for my daughter because I, whatever, she's five when we got divorced. And on my side of things, you've got backpack hunters and power lifters, photographers, you know, team, you know, like a tier one group guys. And Kaylee's like all walks of life.

She speaks two and a half languages working on a third show. Two and a half? She's not fluent in three. So I say two and a half. I don't want to say she's fluent in three but she's and she's shockingly caucasian and she speaks fluent fluent spanish like literally she's from mexico and so that kid it's a good skill to have oh it was i just hired a kafaru uh because um you know we have different uh you know people uh some of our sewers and things. It's super handy. She can speak it.

Well, I we've done good between my ex-wife and I, because that kid budgets to a point. I want to choke her because we she just moved up here and I'm like, look, I'll just pay for it. She's like, no, I don't want any money. I'm gonna do it on my own. I budgeted all this and I'm like, I must have done something right because I, you know, I would have prayed for help because I didn't have help after 17. I think sometimes it's just genetics too.

It's what makes a kid a kid. Like I have one kid that's insanely ambitious and like super hyper-focused and she, whatever she gets into, she becomes obsessed, just completely obsessed. And it's not because of want or need. It's just some weird drive so it's like you know i think they call it epigenetics it's something that's transmitted down from parent to the child some desire to for perfection and things we should talk about that because that's interesting i brought up i've never smoked weed in my life never no coke no heroin no no

nothing and my dad is a huge pothead right i am incapable of losing i hate losing my dad is the most uncompetitive man you would ever meet in your life and it's weird something skipped you know what i mean like yeah well that's my family too my mom is like real laid back like she's not ambitious at all she's not uh she's just real friendly and sweet and easygoing Yeah, and I've always been just psychotically driven from when I was young. I remember I came home once I was running in the snow and I was like 16 and

I had run up we lived on a hill and I ran up the hill and then ran up the stairs into the house and I Opened the door and it's fucking snowing like crazy outside. She's got a cup of coffee because it's early tomorrow She was like I don't even know where you came from and she just goes into the kitchen has breakfast i tell you what though it is good um yeah you know i'm not father of the year by any means but when we do you know simple things for your kid to see like we do backpack cardio and kaylee comes you know and she can see you're giving it everything you've got you know you know what i mean they see that that shit's it's impressive it's uh you know they they learn impressionable i guess yeah hell yeah they do yeah they say like the best way a guy can

be a father to his daughter is to to especially like to set them up for the future is to show them how they should expect to be treated and show them how you treat other people like the way you behave around them is like what they're going to learn yeah like being if you're respectful and friendly like the way you are that that results oftentimes better for them to see than even what you teach them and tell them. Because what you tell them only goes so far. But what they see, when they see you drive or driven, when they see you work hard, when they see you diligent and respectful and friendly, that's what really like sinks in. Yeah, it's worked good. So I crossed my fingers.

She's 19. So, I mean, I wouldn't change anything where I was a little fuckhead when I was a kid. I was bad. Yeah, I was worked good. So I crossed my fingers. She's 19. So, I mean, I wouldn't change anything. I was a little fuckhead when I was a kid. I was bad. Yeah, I was a fuckhead. I was a fuckhead for sure. We were talking, you know, where I'm from, while we were bouncing around in rabbit holes. There's a lake I live on.

It's like nine miles long. And you're a product of what you're surrounded by. So, you know, all my dad and his friends, you know, did not like tourists, right? So we would cut boats loose and push them out in the lake for all the people camping. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's old enough now I can't get in trouble, right? Your dad was teaching you how to do that? He didn't teach that. He was just constantly complaining about tourists, right? So then we

would wreak havoc and then go Yogi Baron, you know, get camoed up, go steal everybody's beer in the middle of the night. Why did he not like tourists? What was it? I don't, California was probably the worst one, right? I mean, freeing from Oregon, you know, if you're from Idaho, you bitch about people from Washington. Right. I don't, you know, my world was so much different because I left at 17 and, you know, I joined the Army. I was in the Army for a few years and then I got out. And so from how I was raised to how I end up, it's just different, you know. I mean, I'm 200 people in my hometown.

I live in Denver now, for God's sake. So it's a big difference. Giant difference. Well, I mean, social diversity as well. Yeah. I mean, like now I from where I was to like right now, the views I was raised with and I mean, everything has changed greatly for the better. I mean, I'm you look back. I mean, I'm sure your same thing made you, you know, I mean, well, my dad was not exactly easy on me, but it made me tougher. So, yeah, it's weird. It's like you wouldn't want to go but it made me tougher. So I can't bitch about that. It's weird.

It's like you wouldn't want to go through it again, right? You don't want to be. But there's some insanely valuable lessons in that. But I think, you know, I mean, I don't think it's impossible to raise a good kid, you know, if you're not struggling. I don't think it's impossible. But I think it's more difficult. What is that old expression? I don't think it's impossible, but I think it's more difficult.

What is that old expression? It's easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than to go to heaven. I don't know that one. I think that's an ancient biblical expression. Usually my sayings are much different than that, and I usually get in trouble for them. But, yeah, I'm sure that sounds, I'm sure that makes sense. Did you just bust out your Copenhagen? I did. Am I cool to chew on here?

I did. Do you need a bottle to spit it into? I got this here. We're good. How often do you have to chew that shit? It's funny you mention that. About a can and a half a day. Cowboy gave me some once and I swallowed it.

Oh, did you puke like Luke? No, I didn't. Every time Luke borrows a dip. Oh, you manned up? It didn't even make me sick. Luke puked all over yesterday. I didn't puke like Luke. Every time Luke borrows a dip. Oh, you manned up? It didn't even make me sick. Luke puked all over yesterday. Right in the film cruiser everywhere for the tournament,

and Luke is just yakking uncontrollably. I'm like, oh, good God, somebody get a camera on him. Jamie thinks it's funny. I didn't even know you swallowed it. That I didn't know I swallowed it? It's unbelievable to know that that's so disgusting. That's why he asked if you puked right away. Yeah. No, I didn't puke.

That's pretty solid. It's weird. I drank for the first time with Luke not too long ago. I haven't drank in a couple decades. Oh, really? What made you have a drink? I told him I would. He said, I want you to get you fucked up on my podcast.

I was his first guest. And so, you know, you've known Luke forever. I mean, I don't know if you – how long have you known Luke? Decades? Quite a – we should say who he is. Luke Cordeo. He is involved in MMA. He's been involved in MMA forever.

Used to be a fighter. Works with Justin Gaethje. He was a UFC interim lightweight champion. Yeah, I've known him a long time. He's always been around. Yeah, so we shoot archery constantly. In fact, for everybody listening, I have taken every bit of money from Luke. He's about to get divorced.

Just to remind you of that, Luke. Do you guys gamble on archery? Oh, my God. Really? And I'm not a good guy to gamble against in archery. I didn't know gambling in archery was a big deal, but it makes sense. It is in bowling and pool. Think about it.

If you have pick guys, you get Dudley and Cam and me and you and I don't know if you know Levi Morgan. Probably the greatest archer to ever hold a bow in his hand. I hunted with him in Utah last year. Yeah, it's a super cool dude. We were in camp together. Great guy. Think about the amount of money if everybody's got a few hundred in their pocket and the shit-talking starts. Well, Luke is the epic shit-talker, but he does not have the skill level to back that up.

He just loves talking shit. He does, and so I goad him into gambling. So yesterday, I think he's $45 short of paying up, but I'm pretty sure he's about to get a divorce from gambling too much. Oh, no. Yeah, it's bad. Well, in pool, they would always tell you that you should gamble because it'll make your game better. Hell yes, it will.

Yeah. And I would imagine that that same thing would be said for shooting because you would be able to fire under pressure. Yep. Are you packing right now? I'm packing it. Yeah. I'm going to put an upper decker in.

An upper decker? Yeah. Do you worry about mouth cancer with that shit? I don't. No? Jesus Christ, look at the size of that wad. Holy fuck, dude. Oh, my God.

That was crazy. Yeah, it's worse than the bottom lip. That was like a handful of grass. Like you just grabbed some mulch. Yeah, I started chewing Zin. Have you seen that some mulch. Yeah, I started chewing Zin. Have you seen that? What's that? Is that fake? No, it's not fake.

It's strong, but it doesn't have the carcinogens in it. What? How do they do that? Christ, man. Don't make me explain. Jamie, can you look at that? How could they take the carcinogens out? If people hear me coughing, it's not the COVID, folks. I did a stand-up this weekend for the first time in three months in Houston.

Shout-out to Houston. And my voice is shot from screaming. I didn't realize it, but your voice gets in shape. Yeah. You know? And my voice is way out of shape. After the first show, my voice was like a little hoarse. Did you pack the house?

Yeah, well, it's supposed to be at 75% capacity. I think that's what they were saying it was. So it was packed, though. It was a lot of fun, man. It was weird. It was very weird to be back on stage again. A lot of fun, though. But L.A.'s bad right now.

The comedy store just furloughed all of its employees they were hoping to reopen and they had opened as a bar so they had outside patio seating and they had it all set up nice social distance and everything and then the governor just came down with another order to shut all the bars down and now the comedy store has no money coming in so they're fucked and then it looks like it's not gonna they're not gonna open up anytime soon they were hoping to open the comedy club back up in August or July. That was the hope. And it looks like that's not happening now.

So we're fucked. That sucks. It does suck. Because in Texas, they had it down. You wear a mask. People wore a mask in the audience. Everybody had masks. Like getting into the building, all the servers had masks.

They checked temperatures in places. They know how to keep people safe. You got to give people the opportunity to make their own decisions. That's my thing. You know, if you want to wear a mask or stay home, that's your prerogative. But, you know, I'm not, of course, you know, I'm young and healthy, so whatever. I'm not worried about it. But you lock people in.

I mean, I don't see anything good coming out of that. No, it's not. It's not good for the economy. It's not good for the people. It's not good for their sense of, like, how they fit into the world. Well, and I'm kind of with you. I'm all for fat shaming, or I'd be fatter than I am now if it wasn't for fat shaming. The health, I mean, you think about it.

How unhealthy people are getting just sitting at home. It's not good. 70% of the United States at home. It's not good. 70% of the United States is overweight. That's insane. I mean, that really is insane. And that's a real problem with COVID. They say that one of the major factors in COVID is obesity.

Obesity. It's a huge factor. Yeah, which is, you know, in general or whatever, it's pretty, I get a kick out of how we're pretty soft as Americans, especially if you're in third-world countries. And you look at people are happy. They don't have to go to work. And I'm like, good God. I know. A lot of people are actually making more money from unemployment than they would be if they went back to work, especially like waiters and stuff like that because you're dealing with a much smaller amount of people in the, in the, in the restaurants and businesses

because they're even in like, uh, Texas, even though the restaurants were open, I think, I think they were at 75% capacity and then they just rolled it back to 50%. So if you're working as a waiter or waitress, you know, you're, you're going to make less money. So for some folks, it's actually better for them to say, oh, I don't want to do it. I'm just going to keep collecting unemployment. And you actually make more money that way. I've talked to a bunch of people that have said that, that they make more money off unemployment. Well, we at Kefaru, we just kept paying everybody.

You know, we took four months off, I guess, just paid everyone or whatever. And we, you know, I was looking at like how that worked and I was like, good God. Once I started reading about the, you're talking about the unemployment. I'm like, Jesus, there's going to be a lot of people that don't go back to work. And it's the same thing in Colorado, but. It's, it's sad, man. It's really sad because there's a lot of people that are losing their businesses through no fault of their own. They didn't do anything wrong. They work hard.

They're disciplined. They show up every day. They put together a business, and now it's folding. It's going under. And it might be happening to the comedy store. They don't know what they're going to do. And I heard the lab factory is about to go under as well. So the state of comedy in California is in a real bad place right now, real bad.

Yeah, that sucks. I don't want to dive into this too much, but it's fucked up. It seems way blown out of proportion, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But how many people do you know that are sick personally? I know one guy who almost died. Yeah. And he's not an old guy. His name is Michael Yeo.

He's a comic. And he, there was a bunch of extenuating circumstances. And one of them being that he has vitamin D deficiency. Another one being that he flew to New York with very little sleep, worn out, did radio and promotion, did TV shows. Then did two shows at a comedy club. Two shows the next night, flew back home. Again, very little sleep. Got in his car with his family, drove to Vegas to be with his wife's family, and then drove back home on the same day.

So that's at least eight hours in the car, just driving. And then he had auditions the next two days, and he just was wiped out. It was burning the candle at both ends. Yeah. And he got real sick. Real sick. Yeah, immune system was just crushed. Yeah. But that's, you shouldn't do that. All those things, that's too much. You know, it's, it's just poor planning. And then, you know, on top of that,

I think he was run down already. Like he might've had a little bit of a cold already. So it kicked in and it was bad. I mean, he was hospitalized for over a week and his doctor actually told him they were, you know, thinking about putting him on a ventilator. And his doctor said, if we put you on a ventilator, you'll probably die. And it turns out his doctor was a wise man because somewhere around 80% of the people they put on ventilators in New York City died. Yeah, I heard that. That's crazy. The doctor was saying that if you put him on a ventilator, his body would stop working.

you put the guy if you if you put him on a ventilator his body would stop working it's like if if i give your body this uh machine that starts working for and your body stops working there's no guarantee it's going to start working again it's going to breathe on its own again right scary fucking shit man yeah that they you know and but here's the big one man the real big one that drives me crazy why are they not talking about how to take care of yourself? Instead of all this fear of you got to wear a mask and you got to social distance and all that stuff's great. Yeah, you should do that. You should wear a mask. You should social distance. But you know what you should also do? Drink a lot of water. You should also get sleep. You should also stop eating sugar. You should also take vitamins, supplement your diet, try to get some sunshine, you know, do,

do all the things that you need to do for health get exercise yeah increase your cardiovascular capacity it's a giant factor and whether or not you you know you recover from this disease or how quickly you recover no my my buddy john called and he was like going on a tirade about exact same thing you're talking about he you know he he's um you might know him he's uh prs he's a shooter long range shooter um he is a super fit guy lawnmower he you know normal dude right he owns a like a lawn mowing deal anyway but he's one of the better shooters in the united states or fuck i don't north america long range rifle shooting yeah yeah he's a crazy kid i would not want him shooting at

me at a thousand yards and he you know his thing was is why the fuck aren't we giving people dieting advice? Why are we telling people rather than having all these announcements? It's like, hey, we're losing so much money. Like, let's start focusing people as dietitians. Let's get people on a health food kick. Like, I mean, how many people and you pick 100 people, 99 probably understand how to eat healthy. Right. Not their fault.

Right. They just I didn't know until later on. Yeah, so I agree. And I mean, you know, on my end, I'm super lucky. We live at 10,000 feet. You know, I have my wife drop me off at the bottom of the mountain, so I have to hike home to get dinner, right? You want a way to get healthy, you fucking don't get to eat.

So she drops me off at the bottom of the mountain, and I go to the top. She cooks all organic. And I talk to some of these people that have other issues and they're worried about COVID. And I'm like, you're worried about fucking COVID, right? You've got a hundred other problems other than COVID, right? You're like diabetic and a bunch of other shit. And it's amazing not to get on the diet thing, but America's pretty bad as far as that goes. We should put some money into that.

Our health system is all about fixing you once you're broken. It's not about preventing you from being broken. Everything is about our health care system is all about care once you're injured or care once you're sick. It's very little is about preventative nutrition and making sure you take care of your body and education. I mean, our governor, our mayors, all these people are doing is just talking about wearing masks, talking about staying home, flattening the curve, making sure that, I mean, all this shit they're talking that no advice at all about taking care of yourself. No advice at all on meditation. No advice at all on eating healthy and exercise. Yeah. It's sad.

I say that as I just jammed a giant wad of chewing. How bad is that for you, though? no advice at all on eating healthy and exercise. Yeah. It's sad. I say that as I just jammed a giant wad of chewing. How bad is that for you, though? I mean, as far as like— What is it doing? It gives you a little jolt, right? Yeah. Well, for me, obviously the worst thing is obviously cancer, right? I mean, that's bad.

But other than that, I mean, there's not— How many people get cancer from that shit? Is it real common? Man, I'd have to look that up. don't know i um what's that there neuro gum this is you're gonna get me other kind of shit i'm addicted to um this is good stuff man it's nootropics in mint form you've already got me addicted to all that shit on on it you know what the first time i took alpha brain now that we're just diving down all the time, I had the most crazy-ass dreams, which I knew that shit worked because I don't dream. But either way, as far as the Copenhagen, I'm just – my buddy was addicted to cocaine and Copenhagen. He tried to quit both.

He's still chewing Copenhagen. So I'll give you an idea. It's not easy to quit. But that Zin, what we were talking about, it is just nicotine in it. It's Z-I-N? Z-Y-N. Z-Y-N. And this is the first time in my life I think I'm going to be able to quit.

So I went from a can and a half a day to about a can every four days. There it is. Are Zyn nicotine pouches safe? Recently, a novel non-tobacco nicotine product, Zyn, has been developed. It is similar to snus. I never knew how to say that. Okay. Thank you. I think. However, it contains no nitrosamines. Is that the word? Nitrosamines or polysilic hydrocarbons, which may potentially be carcinogenic. The overall safety of Zyn is better than Snus.

However, it only has a little bit less nicotine than Snus. Okay, what does that mean? I don't know. What did they just say? Don't read anything bad. You're going to take away my birthday here. So it's a pouch? Yeah, it's like a pouch.

So you don't have to pack a wad of mulch and stuff it into your face? Yeah, yeah. It's a little more professional, I guess. It just gives you a jolt? I tell you what, I put two of them in the first time and I got dizzy as shit. So it's got some strong, I mean, because they said it's 100 cigarettes in a can of chew. Really? Equal of Copenhagen.

Oh my God. Really? Oh man. 100 cigarettes worth of nicotine? That's what they say, yeah. So how many cigarettes worth was that giant wad that you stuffed in your face? I don't know. I'm sure I'm going to get some hate mail from this.

I'm talking about being fat and unhealthy and I'm chewing Copenhagen. Well, it's a stimulant. Yeah. Well, the other thing, the physical addiction, that's the problem with Zen. You don't spit, right? You get used to that. I mean, I've been chewing forever. So you just hold it in your mouth.

Well. You swallow it? I do. It tastes good. Maybe that's why I got so dizzy. I got like a citrus one or whatever but i just uh it's the first time in my life where i've been like yeah honey i think i might be able to quit one of the stunt guys i used to work with on fear factor used to swallow his chew and he told me uh that he learned he used to swallow the spit you know and he turned

me learned how to do that on sets because you couldn't just carry a bottle around and spit into it or spit into a cup. So he just would swallow the juice. And I thought it was so fucking disgusting. It is a disgusting habit. It's pretty bad. But, yeah, I don't know. Whatever. We'll see.

I guess in three months if I text you and be like, hey, fuck, I quit. Do you drink a lot of coffee too? No. I drink a decent amount of coffee. I mean I'm a caffeine. I get migraines, so I'm 500 milligrams a day. Really? I pretty much map it out.

So you take caffeine to avoid migraines? No. I just know that I, because I get, as I say that when I got on TRT, I get a migraine once every three months. I was getting them once a week. Really? So whatever TRT did, which I have to thank you for that, right? We'll talk about that in a minute. Okay.

But I learned really quick seeing neuropsychologists and brain doctors. They don't know a fucking thing about the human brain. They're like, here, take some more pills. No. And so I literally... They don't. We're in real trouble.

Well, they're giving me these Band-Aids, and I'm like, look, I don't want something that fixes after I got it. I don't want to fucking get them. Right. Like, you know, this thing could probably take my, make my asshole turn around, start talking back to me, the fucking negatives to this pill I'm taking for my, my migraines are so bad. Right. And you, was it one of those pills? There's some pills that you take once a week. I just take it when I get one. So I have ocular migraines. Like I couldn't, I couldn't tell you two apart when I get them. I get blurry vision an hour before I get the migraine. So I take that pill as soon as I get blurry vision.

Now my head itches and I'm all kinds of goofy. There's some kind of anti-anxiety or depression in that thing. There's a bunch of other shit. I don't know. But I don't get a migraine. But those pills cannot be good for you. I wanted to get to a point. Is it my diet?

Is that what's giving me the migraine? Is it caffeine? You know, because there was a time I didn't take any caffeine. So I map out everything and I kept a log of when I got migraines. And so once I got, that's why I know exactly. Describe what it feels like. I've never had a migraine. What does it feel like?

Jamie pounding a fucking nail through my eye socket. So just intense pain I got them so bad I had to get a spinal epidural because I was heaving up blood because I was convulsing basically I'm not the only one

so when you get them and they're not all that bad but you get sick and you would vomit uncontrollably and then your esophagus would rub together or whatever and you'd vomit blood. And so – So you're – from – explain – like where's the blood coming from? You said your esophagus is rubbing? Rubbing together, heaving.

No different when your kidneys rub together. When you dehydrate, you piss blood. Same principle except it's your esophagus. That's what that is? Your kidneys are rubbing together? Is this all science? Yeah, I've peed blood a few times on backpack hunts. You run out of water, kidneys rub together, and you'll pee blood.

They rub together? That's what's causing it? Yeah, I guess so. That seems wrong. Well, I'm not a doctor. I just play one on a podcast. But I've had doctors tell me that's why. So your kidneys rub together, wow.

So your esophagus is rubbing together from you heaving from the pain of the migraine. Yeah, from the migraine. Motherfucker. So people listening to this, I'm sure you're going to get all kinds of emails. Because when I started talking about it on a podcast, I started getting tons of people. This is what I took to get rid of them. I mean literally hundreds of people that have suffered from migraines. And I've had a lot of concussions, you know, shit. So that I'm sure that's part of the problem. Well, part of the problem is my blood pressure is extremely low. When did you get the

concussions from the service or I had one bad one there. I had two bad ones in football, flipped a bike over, got kicked in, kicked in the head once later on. It was pretty bad. Uh, I was in a car wreck and another one. So I've had nine. And did the migraines come after that? Yeah. Yeah. And actually I recently had, you'll like it. I don't know if you've been able to listen to it. I had Steve Tetreault. He was, I was stationed with him in Korea. I got hit with an AT-4, got fired off a rocket launcher. I was right behind it. That's how I got that big knot on my head up here. That was when they started. That was bad.

And so whatever. Michael Yeo, who we were talking about before, he actually played football in high school and college. And he had some real bad concussions. And he gets migraines because of that as well. So I think there's probably a connection. Well, I would think there'd have to be. But one thing I noticed is whatever's gone on in my melon, my blood pressure is low and I got a bit of a temper problem. And so when I my anger spikes up, my blood pressure rises.

I get a migraine the next day. They're real connected, you know, like brain damage and temper is very connected. Well, I started working on meditation. Like I really, you know, I've really it's helped in my shooting because I can really focus out. You know, I can get I mean, weird as it sounds right you become one with yourself right trying to so try and keep my blood pressure low um well I think with the TRT my blood thickened up some um from when uh you know when I wasn't taking it my blood was super thin maybe that's it when you say thickened, like more red blood cells?

Well, when I say thickened, this says no scientific nothing. When they took my blood every three months, when they first took my blood, it ran like water. When they took it the next time, they were like, hey, your blood's thickened up, whatever that is, red blood cell count, I don't know. They were like, your blood is thicker. It is not as thin or runny as it was before. And I'm like, is my blood pressure up? They said, well, it's normal now. For everybody listening, welcome to another episode of two morons talking about medicine. As we're saying that, I told the lady that I work with, and she

basically said the same thing. She's like, well, we'll take credit for it, although I don't know that it has any scientific weight on the subject. But the moment I started taking TRT— There it goes. Testosterone increases the chance of clot formation in two ways. A common side effect of testosterone therapy is—and we go with the words—polythymia, which increases the body's supply of hemoglobin and hematocrit affecting the blood cells. This can increase the blood pressure and thicken the blood slightly. There you go. See, I'm not full of shit, everyone.

I was 100% truthful. Science. Whether that has to do with it, that's just a redneck way of saying I don't get migraines anymore, and that could be why. Whatever the actual scientific reason is, my blood is definitely thicker and my blood pressure is normal. One of the things that happens also to people that have had a bunch of head injuries is your endocrine system doesn't function properly. Your pituitary gland doesn't produce hormones correctly and it makes people depressed. Gotcha. Makes you very lackadaisical, lethargic.

It's very difficult to get motivated for things. And they find that with football players, particularly with soldiers, a lot of soldiers that are treated by my friend, Dr. Mark Gordon. He runs this Traumatic Brain Institute. And the whole goal of this was essentially to try, initially to try to figure out why these soldiers and football players and martial artists and all these people were experiencing so much depression and what was going on. And it turned out that, man, your pituitary gland is really sensitive. Yeah. The endocrine system just get really fucked up by even jet skiing. Well, luckily, like, having my blood tested every three months, you know, I don't go to the doctor.

I'm bad about that. And so that was, like, the first time I had a physical, basically. Ever? Yeah, a couple decades. Yeah. I don't – I got pneumonia once, and I went to the doctor for that. I almost died. I was too stupid to – you know, how a man or a woman, whatever, how a certain individual's brain works is stupid looking back at it.

I thought I had, like, allergies or something. And I'm like, hey, let's go do cardio. Let me work this out of my system. I worked my ass right into the hospital. I double on pneumonia. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm an idiot. Trying to push.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I pushed my way right into almost death. I got pneumonia when I was 19. It was rough. Well, it took me, like, six months to get back on track but the lady was super nice i remember going in and she's like hey who's your doctor i'm like i don't i don't have a doctor and she's like well you have kaiser insurance i'm like if i have a doctor i haven't seen him you know i'm like you tell me who my doctor is because i don't know you know and because they assign you a doctor you're not one of those responsible

people with a regular doctor. No, I'm not. Negative. I'm horrible. I'm like the worst adult or known to man. It's bad. And so she,

they gave me the x-ray and they're like, you have double lung pneumonia. Adulting is hard. It is. You know, people give me, you know, you suck at anything.

I'm good at photography, shooting. I'm like, yeah, I'm fucking horrible at adulting. I didn't file my taxes for four years. I've got a lot of downfalls. Oh, it's all taken care of now.

When I have people at work that come up with an issue and they're kind of embarrassed, I'm like, look, there is nothing you have fucked up that I haven't. Do not be embarrassed. I can help you. Because I focus on so many other things, things like that, just get pushed to the wayside. Do you find that because of all the time you spend in the woods that it's kind of difficult to concentrate on all that silly shit? Because when you're out in that primal environment, you know, like there's something about it that makes all that other stuff seem meaningless. You don't want to focus on it. Yeah, because we live in a society where it's important and I'm not good at it.

It's horrible. I talk about it all the time at work. I mean, I hire people really smart around me because I'm just not, you know, we could be sitting there in a meeting. I shouldn't even say this out loud, which is an extremely important meeting. And I'm sitting here and thinking what my gear list is and how much my caloric intake will be on a five-day backpack hunt. It's normal though. If you're spending 50% of your time literally sleeping under the stars. We'll get done with a meeting. I'm like, all right, who took notes? But I am now have gotten better at just telling people ahead of time, like, hey, you're going

to talk with me. We're going to do our initial bullshit session. You're not going to want to deal with me after this because I'm going to let you down. I'm too busy. You're going to deal with Frank or Dana or Anders or whoever that works for me. You're going to deal with them. Don't expect me to come through because my mind's on too much other stuff. And I've had to get a lot better at that because I just don't function well on stuff like that.

Yeah, but I think that one of the reasons why the company is so good and you guys make such good backpacks is because there's real, like it's hard to put it down in the real world. You know, it's not like accounting or bookkeeping and like where you know oh we have to do the work here but doing the work of actually sleeping under the stars actually camping actually hunting and hiking that's there's that's invaluable man there's been a few heated arguments over that where they've given me crap about paperwork and i'm like oh you know totally

I get it I'm gonna get better paperwork but your ass is coming with me on a 10-day backpack hunt and you're not fucking slacking and you're getting water and you're building fires and you're spotting animals and when we get done with that if you're as good at that as I am then I'm gonna get better at paperwork but until that fucking day right now what we're good at is making badass gear for the backcountry. That's why I hired you. Yeah, it's got to work together, right? Yeah. Like you've got to be able to do that and they've got to be able to do the shit that you can't do.

Yeah. And we have a tight-knit group now, which is great. Like we have everybody knows their role and we're all supportive of each other. But there's times where I got to kind of stop and really take a gut check where I'm like, man, I have so solely focused my life on living and not dying. Like hunting and staying alive to where, thank God for my wife, right? I mean, she's an angel because we're getting ready to buy a house, right? And so we, I shouldn't even admit this on this, we go to get credit, right? Credit, like check my credit score. When would you say is the last time I had credit? I shouldn't even admit this on this, we go to get credit, right? Credit, like check my credit score. When would you say is the last time I had credit?

I don't know. When was the last time you had credit? What would you take a guess of a normal human? Four years ago? 20. So they're like, well, your debt to income ratio is great, which it's unheard of. And I'm like, oh, cool. They're like, you don't have any credit.

And I'm like, I got a cell phone. Like, no, you don't have any credit. Oh, because you don't have like a leased car or you haven't had a mortgage or any of those things i've had fucking anything and so i was like so let me get this right i'm not gonna say how much i make but i do good i'm like so my wife makes substantially less has substantially more bills and her credit score she gets approved for more more than I do. Well, they want to show that you have a history of paying things back. Like I was told that early on, like to get credit, you should actually get a loan. I was like, well, wouldn't it be better if I saved money?

Well, no, it's actually better if you spend money and pay the bills. Well, I can tell you I made an ass of myself at that loan office because I was like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm like, so I can go right now and buy a vehicle cash, but that's bad? It's bad. That's bad. My wife was laughing her ass off because she knew how I live like a caveman. I mean, I don't get bills.

I save and I buy. I bought a Tundra. I paid cash for it. Shouldn't that be healthy? I thought it was. That seems like it's fiscally prudent. Well, you are wrong, Joe. Because I was literally, I was like, so we had to go.

So I go to, believe it or not, I go to discount tire. I got approved for $1,200, which is insane for what I make. And I'm like, so this is, I can get four tires? That's all I got? And they're like, well, you don't have any credit. And so my credit score now is like a 710. I don't know what that means. So you have to just buy more shit with credit to get credit.

Oh, my wife went and got, we got a B&H photo card. So we just got a bunch of cards that we could pay off. I maxed them all out so she can make payments. It is fucking weird, isn't it, that we exist like that? I mean, that's the only way people could buy houses, really, though. I mean, if you're making $ hundred thousand dollars a year and you want to buy a six hundred thousand dollar house that's not even possible you'd have to by the time you're done saving you i mean the house would be worth more than that anyway well she my wife gets a

kick out of it because she knows how i mean you know obviously super close to me and so she knows how my brain functions and i'm like why don't people just work harder and put, you know, go do some side jobs, just figure shit out. Well, she's like, yeah, no, people don't do that, honey. You're weird. They put it on credit. And I'm like, well, I'll go put somebody's shower door and I'll figure it out. Well, living your life that way for 20 years is not good. Well, a lot of people are finding that out because of this pandemic that living like that with credit and, you know, having high bills and paying those bills off. And that's what a lot of companies did because they thought it was the right way to do it.

Yeah. And those companies are fucked right now because they've had no income coming in at all for three or four months. And it's going to implode. My buddy Andrew Schultz said it best. He said this pandemic has exposed weaknesses both in people's healths and in businesses financial health it's exposed the flaws yeah in the the way they operate no i i it was an eye-opener for me and i and this isn't like something to be proud of that i haven't been good at adulting for 20 years but i just

i i literally was like oh if i want to set up binoculars i'll save up and buy binoculars how many people contacted you to talk to you about hunting, though, once shit started getting weird? An awkward level. And not just hunting. Sustainment. Yeah. Can I – I'm trying to name drop, but Barclow. Yeah, John Barclow.

John Barclow works with Sitka Gear, and he and I are – if he wasn't my brother, you would have never known. Same mentality, same thought process, same ideas on gear. I love that guy. He's great. We just did a did a podcast he's like are you sure this isn't gonna piss anybody off i'm like fuck it they need to hear it right and so what were you pissing people off with the reality of how life works living in the woods and the people that fake it basically like you know how many people you know you stay out there three days and all of a sudden they're experts right yeah the reality a lot of photos. Yeah, yeah. The reality of living, being able to survive and be happy, and then what you read and everything else,

basically just talking about that. So with the- Okay, so everybody grabbed toilet paper, right? In third world countries, you wipe your ass with your hand. You don't worry about toilet paper. So toilet paper is gone. Wet wipes are gone. You go to the grocery store, everything that lasts forever is still there.

Like you get pasta, top ramen, simple stuff. It's all on the shelves. But all these things that Americans have to have. I'm not saying I want to wipe my ass with my hand by any means. But you don't need toilet paper to survive, right? You need clean water, right? You need food. Your body will last quite some time, three or four weeks without food. With water, right? You need food. Body will last quite some time,

three or four weeks without food. With water, it's a couple days. And so I'm looking at all these things leaving and I have all my, I'm not like a prepper by any means, but we've got crap to house. And I was, you know, so that this came story time for my wife where I'm explaining to her what would happen if everything kind of shit hits the fan and what's going to happen. And Americans are so weird with the way that we think. And so I had tons of people from what kind of gun, what kind of survival stuff, fire starter, what kind of stove. So, you know, isobutane stoves, the canister stoves, that's the end thing. Everybody uses those. But a multi-fuel stove, when the world comes, when the world ends, the zombies are coming,

a multi-fuel stove burns kerosene, diesel, gas, white gas, burns everything. No one uses those anymore. They're a little bit heavier. But things like that, that multi-fuel stove, everyone should have one of those because you can, no matter where you go, you're going to have some type of fuel to burn in that thing. So we talked a lot about that on the podcast. That was a lot of the questions I got was, you know, sustainment, basically. So, I I mean it's a weird world we live in but I live I definitely live probably in a weirder one in some ways yeah I mean everybody wanted to know how to get a gun everybody wanted to know how hard is it to go hunting for the first time those those are the questions that I got a lot like how do you get a gun was a big one and there was lines outside the LA gun stores.

It was really crazy to see. Well, my wife was worried about it. I'm like, honey, don't worry. I'm going to take theirs. Like, don't worry. They don't know how to use it. We're good. If somebody comes trying to get your stuff.

Oh, well, the local game warden, we taxed back and forth. He was like, dude, you would not believe how many people are like, I'm just going to go wait it out. Drove their asses into the mountains and set up some Walmart tent and then a snowstorm hit. Like this isn't a story. He's like, dude, we're pulling people out like crazy. They were doing this in March? Yeah.

No experience. In Colorado. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. He was laughing. He's like, dude, you would not believe the amount of people that were like, I'm going to go wait this thing out in the woods. And it's like, you're camping beside the road.

You're not really waiting anything out. People don't even understand. Once you're just one night by yourself out there and you would have a totally different understanding of what it actually means to exist in the wilderness without assistance. And it's very scary. We're so accustomed to life with assistance, whether it's buildings or electricity or air conditioning

and refrigeration and all the different things that we use, supermarkets. We're just so doughy. Oh, yeah. So soft. What's the longest you've gone without talking to somebody? Not very long. Jamie? Maybe a day.

I have no idea. So you look at like alone. I explain it to my wife. I'm like the gear they have is enough. They have enough to survive. I was like what kills people is they are alone. They don't have that many people to talk to. They don't – the fear – think about how many people are afraid of the dark.

And then what to do if something happens. There's all that unknown. And then what to do if something happens. There's all that unknown. And that, to me, like we go out for fun for 14 days, backpack in with what's on our back for 14 days. And we're choosing to do that and having fun. What about solo? What's your longest solo trip? 14.

14 solo. Boy, you better not have any fucking skeletons in your closet. Man, I talk about this a long time. You want to talk about everything you fucked up in life by about day seven. You're like, I'm a piece of shit. I should have done more for my kid. Why didn't I? Because you have seven days to think about everything you've done wrong. And that's one thing that people really need to understand is getting right with, which I've tried to work on a ton, is just getting right with everything in life that, you know, up until that point, like any wrongdoings you've made, any, anything, any skeletons, just try to

clean them up. Well, if you stay busy in life, you can avoid all your mistakes. You stay busy. You don't think about your mistakes, but when you're alone and you have downtime, that's when they creep into your mind. Well, and then sleep deprivation, water deprivation, food deprivation, all of that, along with, you know, being alone, starts to take a toll on the human mind. And it's funny. You see the same with alone, but same backpack hunt.

You know, I get thousands of emails. You know what? I'm going on my first backpack hunt, going in for 14 days. And I'm like, yeah, you're probably not going to go in 14 days, but that's your plan, right? You're going to go in about three. Colorado loves you. You're going to donate 500 bucks to an elk tag, and you're going to get in there, and you're going to pitch out, and you're going to head back out in about three days.

We're going to take your money, and you're not giving it back. Is that the average? Yeah. Yeah. Three to four. So a lot of guys think they're going to be able to do it, and what gets them, you think? What's the first thing that gets them? Other than mentally weak, right?

That's what gets them. That's the big one, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, not to bring up Cam again, but he blew that up like it was fun. He's crazy. I have to say, like, he's not a gear geek, right? Cam is just harder than woodpecker lips, right? Yeah.

He's not a gear – when I say he's not a gear geek, he's so fucking tough. Like, I talked about this seminar the other day. I used him as an example. He pushed this Gore-Tex bivy, which is the worst thing in the world, the sleeping. But he's so tough. He doesn't give a shit. Well, all these people are sleeping in Gore-Tex. It's a Gore-Tex coffin, right?

You don't get – you can hardly punch your clown in that fucking thing, let alone have fun in it. And so when weather comes in, you're in this Gore-Tex coffin. You can't do anything. Your gear – So Gore-Tex bivy is just like basically like a sleeping bag that's made out of waterproof material. And you just sleep in it. And it probably has no breathability or very little. Very little.

I mean, it has some, but you get condensation in your foot box. And then if you use down, your foot box is wet. Once the down's wet, it's flat. It's no good. It's a contractor's bag. Pretty much, yeah. And I mean, they make some that are decent. But, you know, I would laugh so hard when Cam was coming up and people are reading all this stuff.

And I'm like, yeah, you're not fucking Cam, right? Like, you know, you can do what you can think you want to be. And when you go, when you hike in, usually, you know,'re you're coming from back east right you you forums and all facebook whatever all the shit you different get and you're packing way too much shit right like gear list wise which i can go over in a minute but you're packing probably 30 pounds of shit you don't need right and so then you're smoked going in and you've watched way too much primos videos and you think the elk are just coming screaming in on it and that fucking doesn't happen and you don't see them. And then the, oh, like my knees hurt, right? Or, oh, I got to get back to my business. All the excuses come up, you know, and you can come up with some shit,

right? I've heard some amazing excuses for coming out. The realities are just not tough enough. And I'm not saying that like, you know, me or Cam or Frank or whoever's tougher, but the reality is if you were mentally tough and you really wanted it, you would stay as long as. And a lot of that mental toughness comes with experience, too, I'd imagine. And it also comes with the experience of forcing your body to do tough things. You know, one of the things that Cam talks about is that he really got into endurance racing to improve his hunting. When he first told me that, I thought that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. I was like, I don't even get it. You're running to improve your hunt?

But then once you do it for a while, you go, oh, okay, I get it. First of all, I had no idea you'd get that tired hunting, just hiking. Just walking around the woods is fucking exhausting. And then when you add a pack, especially if you're living off your back like you do. Just the way I do it, if I'm staying in a lodge or I've got a tent somewhere, just carrying your stuff that you're hunting with is exhausting. But it's also something about continually and regularly pushing your body and your brain way past the point where you want to quit and doing it so that you're comfortable

with being uncomfortable. And most people in everyday life are not comfortable with being uncomfortable. They never really get to that place. Yeah. If you become friends with pain, you'll never be alone. And that's what you got to look at it like. And I'm not trying to blow it out of proportion because it is fun if that's what you're into but reality you're looking at two to seven to eight miles in and in colorado you're at 10 to 12 000 feet when i think about preparing for those things besides the shit the cam does i think about that fucking machine that you showed me that's an inclined treadmill that has barbells on the side that you lift up so you're carrying this thing where you're going up a treadmill farmer carry what is that What is that thing? The Hitmill X.

Pull that shit up. So, yeah, we have the name for that, which we can cuss on here. So it's called the cocksucker. Because I put 45s on either side. The problem with that name is some people like sucking cock, and everybody likes getting their cock sucked. Nobody likes getting on that goddamn thing. When we first got it.

So how I got, which actually this leads into. Look at that thing. Oh, it's a bitch. So this thing, you're doing a farmer's carry uphill on a treadmill. And folks, when I tell you, just looking at this thing hurts my feelings. So how I got that, the guy. I have to get one of those. The guy that's, which I guess, whatever, we can talk about this the the guy that's which i guess like whatever we can

talk about this the guy that's actually purchasing kafaru with me i took him on a goat hunt the day before we went on a goat hunt he had that downstairs and i'm like dude that is like perfect and he was like man get on it so i got on it with no weight he had 45s on either side and i'm like this is made for backpack hunting, right? Yeah. I would imagine that's probably other than actually hiking yourself. That's probably one of the best ways you could ever get in shape for that. Well, you think about it, you look at like his little video there. So what I do is I have a 45 to 60 pound pack and I have two 45 pound dumbbells. And then I'll do five minute intervals with just

the pack. And then I'll grab the dumbbells and I'll do five to minutes of shrugs or just holding the weight up with the 45s then I go and I put it down to like basically a half mile an hour and I do a truck pull and I put my hands and you're basically just driving forward with your body not parallel to the ground but just like if you're pulling a truck with a harness and I do that and then I do those three exercises and intervals for 30 minutes and i'm pretty fucked up by the time that looks like pull that picture up again the video of that shit that looks like one of the hardest things you could do in terms of like something you could do in a gym if you're carrying that weight like in that farmer's carrier and you're going uphill

on a self it's a self-propelled treadmill too right yeah i have one of those outside one of those air runners yep i fucking love it well you can't break it is what's nice right right the self-propelled so it's just so hard to work on yeah but that thing's amazing and does it vary the uh pitch can you raise it lower you can't vary the pitch you can just vary the resistance so i hit the brake when i'm doing a truck pull i drop the brake on it and. You can vary the resistance of the treadmill itself? Yeah. There's a brake. Oh.

Yeah. It's on the left side. Oh, my God. That sounds amazing. But one thing about stabilizer muscles, though, I would think that they don't necessarily get the same work. What if you did it with. Do you remember those shoes that they got sued for? Kim Kardashian was promoting them.

They're like real fat, smushy shoes. And so they made you kind of stabilize while you were walking. I would think that those actually would be good to wear on something like that because it would be – you know what a sand dune stepper is? Yeah, they suck. Yeah. In a good way. In a good way. Yeah.

I got one out here. Yeah, they'll burn out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They work different parts of your leg. Yeah, right'll burn out the – Yeah, yeah, yeah. They work different parts of your leg. Yeah, right. Because you try stabilizing. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And I would imagine like having a sand dune stepper type shoe on while you are going on that thing would be the ultimate. Well, you're right. And people do not think about that. And that's one thing that guys that just run on pavement, flat ground, when you say a stabilizer muscle, whatever you want to call it, the left and right part of your shins. The first time you take a guy out that hasn't hiked side hills, like 35-degree slopes with a 45-pound pack, their calves are smoked and the left and right side of their shin bone is just toasted because they're not working those. And that lateral stability, people understand, that's why I'm not a runner. So I don't like running, but I train with a pack on and I hike everywhere. And so we, I do a lot of side hills just to get those muscles ready for that because

it's a different world and it'll KO you. I mean, you'll be down for a couple of days because they're so sore and stiff if you never used them. And that treadmill does not help with that. But when I said like that, the Sandstepper sucks, it's a good suck because it's a way indoors you can. Yeah. Yeah. One of the ways I try to explain to people stabilizer muscles is upside down kettlebell press.

I was like, take a kettlebell that you can press fairly easily, like a 35-pound kettlebell. Most guys can press that overhead. Now take it and flip it upside down so that the handle is on the bottom and the kettlebell is above, so you've got to balance that sucker out. And as you're lifting it, it's way more difficult to do. And that's using your stabilizer muscles. Yep. Another thing is those bamboo bars.

Have you ever used one of those? Yeah. Yeah. We put all those in. Well, some of that shit I copied from you for my home gym. That's another one. You don't realize how much those kick the shit out of you until you get them. Yeah.

They're pretty amazing. It looks so easy, but when you put, when you got a bamboo bar and I do it, I hang kettlebells with rubber bands. So I have like heavy resistance bands that are hanging the kettlebells. So it's all bouncy. Yeah. And so as you're lifting that fucker yeah but that you know really stabilizes everything keeps everything tight it's funny how much you can torture yourself with very torture yourself with very little i um i got that big rope um and i just my forearms uh i got issue well i talked to you about a tendonitis or whatever so So me doing the rope workout, it's just I wasn't doing it.

It was hurting my forearms. And so I turned that into a rope drag. I hooked one of my belts from Kefaru and hooked a harness to it. And I pulled it to that thing in half and wrapped it with Gorilla Tape. And I dragged it up and down my driveway. Fuck me. That's horrible. It's bad.

But when I say bad, when you've kind of committed your life to backpack hunting there's only so many ways that you can get rid you know you just got to beat the shit out of yourself to get ready to get ready so like people think i'm crazy we live at 10 000 feet my wife drops me off the highway and then she goes home and cooks she goes with me a lot too but how far is the walk anywhere from five to two to five miles, depending on where she drops me off. And it's getting a couple thousand feet. It's a climb. It sucks. But the best way, if you're not feeling like working out, is have your wife leave you in the middle of nowhere because you're fucking getting home, right? Necessity. Yeah, necessity. And so when people don't, I try to put myself in a position to where I have to do something, if that makes sense.

Because there's days you just don't feel like doing shit. I mean, right? So I just make my wife drop me off and I'll tell her, you know, I would say earn my day. I'm like, I got to earn my day, you know, and I keep tracking my steps on my watch. And so she'll drop my ass to the bottom of that fucker with 50 pounds and she'll laugh leaving. I always tell people one of the best ways to make sure you do something is have a list just have a list of what you got to do today just make sure you're doing it just write it down it seems so crazy but if you don't have a list if you don't have it written down what you absolutely have to do man you're gonna slack off

you're gonna find reasons why you should do less or especially if you do like what i do is when i lift i train myself for the most part you know sometimes i work with trainers i work with a kickboxing trainer now but most of my weight lifting sessions i do by myself so i have to i have write out what i need to do yeah and if i don't do that i mean then i feel like a pussy yeah but if i if i have it written down like today you're running two miles in the hills yeah today you're doing this today you're doing that if i don't do that it's it's you're not going to get it done. If you could just give yourself a manageable goal to start with, just real simple. Make sure like for every day this week you're going to do 40 push-ups.

You're going to do 50 sit-ups. Just give yourself some kind of manageable goal. Get a chin-up bar. Do 20 chin-ups every day. Just do that. That's a manageable thing. You can do that in 30 minutes. You could have all that done and you're good. But if you force yourself to do that every day, man, you're going to feel real results, real results. At the end of the week, you're going to go, fuck, I did it. And then you ramp it up some more, ramp it up some more. But it's all

about writing it down. Yeah, I got a whiteboard uh yeah in fact i wrote something on the whiteboard once and a bunch of people i think you and jocko did a podcast because the one day i just wrote on there just do something yeah and i think you guys must have done a podcast and talked about that because i you know people i mean i know not everybody has a free schedule but even when i work construction you can make time most people can make time. Now, I don't sleep that much, which isn't a good thing. How many hours do you get a night? I recently got up to six, which is pretty good for me.

I was at four for a long time. Damn. Yeah, but if you heard my day. Is it because you want to sleep four? I mean, were you getting up early, or is it just you have insomnia? I have insomnia. I just don't sleep. I go to sleep well. I just don to sleep for? I mean, were you getting up early or is it just you have insomnia? I have insomnia. I just don't sleep. I sleep.

I go to sleep well. I just don't sleep for that long. When you wake up, is waking up with something bothering you in your head or you just, fuck, I'm awake? I'm just like, fuck, I'm awake and I got a lot to do. And so, but it's gotten better to where I've been tracking it on the watch. I think you got a G-shock there. That's what I used to wear. This is one of those ones, tracks my steps and calories and everything. So I think you got a G-Shock there. That's what I used to wear. This is one of those ones.

Tracks my steps and calories and everything. Is that a Garmin? Yeah, it's a Phoenix 6 Solar, I think. Does that work on solar power? It helps it. Yeah, it helps with battery life. So I did not like the original because they died pretty quickly. Batteries, right.

The batteries. This one lasts almost three or four weeks. Really? And the way that I navigate off a UTMm grade coordinate i don't need to leave it on very long so it works i can use it for a long time so that work with navigation how long will it last man i if you left it on i would think man three or four days maybe really so in that three or four days it's supplementing with solar? Is that what it is?

Yeah, yeah, supplementing with solar. That's fucking amazing. So the way that I navigate, which actually going back to the board, I can't agree with you more. I just write shit down, and it may be three sets of 50 crunches, three sets of 50 push-ups. Make sure you do it. Yeah, and then check them off the list, right?

And so those are the days when I say I don't want to do anything. Those are the days when my ass is getting dropped off the bottom of the hill because you fucking have to do something. You're going to get home. But with the way that I navigate, and I get people crap about this all the time, right? You've got a watch and a Garmin inReach and a GPS. You've got all kinds of shit to navigate and you don't know how to fucking use it. That's like a big pet peeve of mine.

You got all this technology. You hit the easy button on everything. You never learned how to use it. And so I'm like a real stickler on land nav, like learning how to navigate to a certain degree and not just using a GPS. And so what I do is I have an 8- or 10-digit UTM grid coordinate and a map. What does that mean? So the way the world was mapped, basically, and I'll try to explain this as easy as I can, from top to bottom, there's lines drawn around it, spaced. And then there's horizontal lines

drawn around it. And each one of those is a square. And as you break that down in squares, you end up with a thousand meter grid square. This is like a very plain Jane way to explain it. Inside of that grid square, when I turn this on, it tells me inside of that grid square how far I am from left to right and how far I am from bottom to top. So easting and northing. And so inside that thousand meter grid square, my pinpoint location is a 10-digit grid coordinate within three meters of my location. So anyway, once it gives me that, I can plot out and up to where I am inside that grid square on my map and gives me my exact location. So what it means is if I'm all fucked up and I have no idea where I'm on, I just turn on my watch and it tells me.

And then I plot it out on my map. And then if I'm lost – Okay. I just turn on my watch and it tells me. And then I plot it out on my map. And then if I'm lost. Okay. So it shows you on your watch and then you just look down at the map to save power.

But you actually know how to use a compass and navigate and actually use a map. Yeah, exactly. That's a lost skill. On a map, you'll have all these different grid squares. Okay. And so this is a- For people just listening, he's drawing stuff right now on paper. So if this, it's 1,000 meters over and 1,000 meters up, 1,000 meter box. Okay.

So if I take a line and I'm 700 meters easting or to the right, so I go over 700 meters, and then I'm 300 meters up, I go up 300 meters where those intersect. So then you know where you are in the box. Where I'm at. And so what people don't understand, like if you talk about intersection and resection, if you're lost. So let's say, Jamie, you ever been in the woods very much? So you're out and you don't know where you're at, but you know two known points. So meaning you can see a mountain over here and here and you know what those are and you you have a map. From where you're at, you can shoot an azimuth to the top of this mountain. What's an azimuth?

You take your compass, and it's basically out of the 360 degrees. It's the azimuth or the direction of that mountain from where you're at. So you take that, and then you do a back az azimuth and you draw a line from the top of that mountain backwards. So if it's over 180, you subtract. If it's under 180, you add. So you look at it and say, okay, that's northeast. And so then you look behind yourself and you go that southwest? Nope. Nope. So if I'm lost, but I don't know where I'm at, but I know this mountain and I know this one. And I shoot this, you know, azimuth with my compass. And I know, so right now, this is 90 degrees.

So that's about 45 degrees. So that is under 180. So I add to it. And so 180 plus 45 is what? 225. So now I go to, on my map, the top of this mountain. And I do an azimuth, and that azimuth is going to be 225. The top mountain is going to cross my exact location. Are you writing this stuff on the map, or are you just looking at it?

Yeah, I'll write it on a map. And I go to this mountain, I do the exact same thing, and where those two lines cross is my exact location. When you draw on your map do you use a marker to use a highlighter like how do you do it i have an erasable pen i keep with me just like it's just a little like a sharpie erasable pen and i have a protractor anyway just because this could this is a course that takes weeks to actually learn how to do it is this from the military these skills uh i learned this originally uh when i was on that trokru team and then it was i learned more and more and more when i was in the military, these skills? I learned this originally when I was on that show crew team, and then I learned more and more and more when I was in the military.

I went to some land nav schools. And what they do is they drop you off, and they give you two 10-digit or 8-digit grids. One's where you're at and one's where you're going. And then you have to plot from – I'm going to lose you here in a minute, and you're like, this is boring as fuck because it is. But you're going to have to – you have to convert it it from basically there's different norths from where you're at. There's a grid north and a magnetic north.

Anyway, before we get really fucking boring here, once you learn how to do that, you're never lost. You can train associate. And so I'm a real stickler on using all of those things. So I've taught my wife how to do it. It's not that difficult once you get going as far as – So this is something you learned when you were really young when you were cutting trees? Yeah, 14. So you learned it then and then you learned more.

Have you been formally trained in this stuff? Well, in the military, I was formally trained. And I went to a class, but I was so young I can barely remember, when I was working for the Forest Service. I went to a class, but I was so young I can barely remember when I was working for the Forest Service. And then now I teach courses for this because the ability to get where you're going is kind of lost now because you just turn on a GPS or you use Basemap or Onyx or whatever. But the reality is, is navigating if you're in a hurry. So if you and I, you know, we're in the woods and we needed to get to a basin before dark, you're going to have handrails and catching features. You know, if you can look at that map and see it in a three dimensional way and I can grab my compass and say, hey, if we head northeast, you know, the whole way half ass, we're going to hit this creek and that creek's gonna intersect with a trail i don't have to use my compass anymore really i'm gonna shoot an azimuth and i'm gonna look at the farthest point i can see to where we need to go that i'm gonna be able to see the whole way and that compass is gonna go in my pocket we're gonna haul ass eventually we're gonna hit

a creek somewhere but generally where that creek's at let's say a trail crosses it there's a hand rail and a catching feature there anyway Anyway, this is boring shit. But it's not. I can get there quick. But what's interesting is like very few people know how to do this, and this is a critical skill if you do get lost, and a lot of fucking people get lost in the woods. One of the things that you were talking about in your podcast once

that I never really took into consideration was the fact that a lot of binocular holders, harnesses, have magnets on them. Yep. A lot of people love those. Like I've got one of those, one of those marsupials. Marsupial gear. It's nice. Yeah.

But those can fuck with your compass. Yeah, you definitely have to hold it out. He was giving me shit because we partnered up with him because he said, my sales went down from you, dickhead. And I was like, dude, it's just, it's got to be said, right? I mean. Yeah, it's got to be said. Otherwise, people are going to die.

Well, it's funny because I even have, I have a compass in my, I keep a compass with me all the time. Do you really? Yeah, it's funny because I even have a compass in my – I keep a compass with me all the time. Do you really? Yeah. It's fucking weird. I know. When I had a G-Shock, I had a compass beside it. On the watch.

Beside it, a little Suunto. The thing is, it's like when I was hunting out in Texas. I don't know where the fuck I'm at, right? You know, it's Texas, right? And we're on these huge – it's north Texas, so it's like big plateaus. And that – did you see that Palo Duro Canyon where we were at? It's like the Grand Canyon. It's fucking crazy.

So, you know, where we are, you know, these guys have lived there their entire lives. And they're like, oh, it's northeast of where you're at. I guarantee they know where, they've farmed it their whole lives. Where I'm like, fuck, the fucking sun's not up. The clouds are out. Which way is northeast? Well, oh, there's northeast. So I just have always carried, you know, always have a compass with me.

But being lost when you're young and almost dying, that'll help you probably want to learn too. Because when I was super young, we were in cotton and shit and snowing and rain in Oregon. You got lost? Oh, fuck, yeah. I almost died twice. Really? How old were you? Got stuck out overnight.

11 the first time? Jesus Christ. You were by yourself? Well, now, I don't want to make this sound way worse than it was. I was a dipshit, and I was with my dad. He was probably drinking with his buddies, and I went after a deer and got all fucked up, and I couldn't find my way back. Whoa.

When you were 11? Yeah. Oh, my God. I have a 12-year-old daughter. I can't even imagine. Oh, man. My poor mom right dealing with the she had to deal with with me because i i was backpacking when i was super

young right like backpacking all over the place and and uh i've always liked to do it so you can imagine you're you know nowadays like if my daughter at 15 said hey i'm gonna go on a four day backpacking trip into the wilderness well me can i go right where with my mom had to deal with a lot of that as a kid i was always super adventurous i just think that that feeling of not knowing if you're going to survive and then surviving i don't want my kids to have that but goddamn that's invaluable when you we we talk about it all the time that's one of the reasons i have so much respect for a guy like frank or or jake they have no fear of anything when you get to the point where there's no mountain truly no mountain too high no valley to whatever the saying is there's nothing that stops you you will get out and most people lack that meaning if you've backpacked in whatever six miles and um

as long as you can get the animal out especially especially mule deer, you can pack it out. And you see a mule deer two and a half, three more miles in, and you have no, you're like, oh, yeah, it's like going to 7-Eleven. We're going, right? There's not, and this is normal for any backpacker. I'd say Cam would say the same thing. There's nothing we can't get to. There's nothing we worry about. We have enough gear.

It's a cool feeling, you know. I mean, I don't think about it anymore, but it's definitely helped put some animals on the ground. Well, it's also, there's a mindset that the hardcore backpack hunter has that they look forward to those challenges and overcoming those challenges. And then when those things happen, it's something that you have prepared for so it's it's actually like almost like a positive experience yeah and then you get out and you tell people how far in with you nine nine miles wow just pack it on one trip oh it was a big fucker we had to take it twice and i mean i know a lot of guys have ruined their body doing that too though

i know quite a few guys that have sustained injuries with a heavy pack you know i have like crazy stories when um uh one of our buddies it was he and i and he killed an elk and we were seven and a half miles in and anyway he got on the ground well he's younger guy and i anyway we split it in half and it was downhill the whole way. And I know I can pack you for infinite amount of time downhill. So I'm like, ah, fuck it. It's downhill. I didn't want to come back. So we're having our little hobnob meeting that next morning. We're getting ready to go out.

And that night I ate everything I possibly could, like drank water all night. And I picked up the pack, and I'm like, I think we can make it. Fuck it. If we can't, we'll just leave some of it on the trail, come up so we got 178 pounds legit we weighed it in the truck oh my god he had 184 oh my god so on the way down these aren't bullshit no this fucking probably took 10 years off my life so we go on the way down and i took his bow and he took my walking sticks and we're bushwhacking for the first two to the trail. And Frank and I went and reenacted this because I'm like, dude, I got to go see how bad this was because I was in fucking spirit world like half the time. It was bad.

And so Frank and I, we did it and we marked it out. And it was actually plus or minus right in that seven mile range. So we get to the trail. I'm like, look, dude, I'm not leaving you behind. I'm fucking leaving you behind. I can't go this slow. I'm like, I i'm not leaving you behind but i'm fucking leaving you behind i can't go this slow i'm like i'll get to the truck i'll turn around come back and grab you because i was fucking hurting bad and um i called my buddy you probably seen him on there he's actually i can't say his name he's a sf dude i call him i'm like dude i i fucking need i need a pickup i need you

to come help us out and he's hardcore motherfucker he's. He's like, yeah, I'll be up. Let me talk to my wife. We'll be up there. So I pass him on the way out on the trail, and I've got, I thought, like a half mile to go because I could hear the highway. And he's like, dude, you got like a mile and a half. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? He's like, can you make it? I'm like, oh, I'm fucking making it.

Like, it's mind games now. Like, I'm not letting this beat me. And I'm like, but you got to go in and get my buddy. He's fucked up. So I get to the trailhead. I get the pack off. I'm laying in my underwear under the truck. And if I had an IV, I would have gave myself one.

There's hikers. It was awkward, right? There's hikers. But I was like, fuck it. I'm done. So I'm just trying to get under the truck. The truck was in the shade and the wind was blowing. So I'm laying there literally just sprawled out four points of the compass trying to cool off because I was worried about getting heat stroke.

I get hydrated, and thank God, you know, my buddy went and helped my other buddy. Anyway, he gets back, and he's like, dude, he was fucked up. And I'm like, how bad? He was like, when I got there, and keep in mind, my buddy did not know he had help coming. So he's on his hands and knees on the wrong side of the trail looking for water, and the creek's on the other side of the trail, and you can hear it. Oh, my God. So this is how—and, again, I'm not trying to blow this out of proportion. It just happens, right?

You start talking about cognitive skills, dehydration, everything. So my buddy's like, hey, dude, what's 4 plus 4? Like, he's checking him. He's a medic. He's an 18-year-old. He's a medic. And he was fucked up. He hadn't eaten anything.

He hadn't drank any water. His brain wasn't working right. And so that's just one example of how fucked up you can get from, you know, you got to be careful. Like, you can do damage to your body. How long did that hike out take? I did about a mile an hour coming out. Wow. So seven-ish.

About. Yeah, it was bad. Fuck. But I give you an idea, you know. That's so long. When I was with Pinch, he's the sniper guy. He shot his goat at, he was one of those dudes who wanted to shoot it at 40 and in with a bow or 1,000 and out with a gun. I can't remember the exact yardage, but it was over 1,000 yards.

So he shoots this thing across this glacier. yards. So he shoots this thing across this glacier. It took us six hours to go 11 or 1400 yards straight line distance to a point where I'm like, we're going to fucking die getting down to this thing. Like at one point in time, I slid down and of course I'm a dick, my knees slam into my face and I'm like, we're all good. Come on down. I don't want to be the only one in pain, right? Here comes everybody else sliding down and pinch is like, are we going to get out of this? I'm like, well, we don't have a fucking choice now. We slid down it. We got to get back up, right?

And so we didn't get back till 2 o'clock in the morning. We were still four miles in. So when people, you know, like the idea of backpacking, hunting, that's what they're liking is the idea of it. Because can't glamorize the shit out of it? It's fucking painful. He's not a normal human. You can't go by his standards no his ideas they say that sheep hunting is the hardest they say that uh like like alaska sheep hunting

in terms of like just the difficulty of the terrain and the the dangers of it yeah um that somewhat yeah i would say the one i've only been on a couple sheep hunts in Alaska, right? Most of mine have been in lower 48 or the NWT, the Northwest Territories. The thing with Alaska that's easy is you're not getting that much altitude. Distance is far. But the weather is bad. Like, generally the weather is pretty bad. And then the amount of pressure now, and, again, I'm not an expert on Alaska.

The pressure is much worse than it's ever been in Alaska. In terms of the amount of hunters. Hunters, yeah. Yeah, a lot of hunters out there. And then animals. Grizzlies and shit. Yeah, which is a fucking real. You've seen us get charged on video.

Yes. When you were with the Gritty Bowman. That was terrifying. Yeah. That was crazy. Tell that story. I'm an adrenaline junkie. I'll. That was terrifying. Yeah. That was crazy. Tell that story. I'm an adrenaline junkie. I'll tell a true story.

Okay. Because it's not, I thought we were calling it moose and I'm like, look in and I'm like, I think there's a moose coming and a grizzly pops out. I'm like, hey, get your camera. Let's call this thing in. This is a true story, right? Because we made it sound like it was, oh, here comes a grizzly. So I thought it was going to get to that fucking stump and stop, right?

You called the grizzly in on purpose? It was coming into a moose call, right? Oh, no. So I'm like, hey, grab the cameras. Let's get this on video because he was looking for our moose calls. So this big bitch gets by that log, and she stands up, and she's looking around. And I'm like, oh, cool. And you can hear my shutter on the video.

Fuck, it hit the ground, and it was coming. And I'm like oh cool you can hear my shutter on the video fuck it hit the ground and it was coming and I'm like oh well and immediately me I've been charged enough to where I'm I'm an adrenaline junkie anyway I'm desensitized and I'm like well he's gonna eat fucking this other dude anyway so I'm like you can see my camera's shifting right a little as I'm taking these photos I didn't have a weapon out of bow and so here pretty quick i'm thinking shoot this motherfucker it's like 15 yards from us oh my god he fired off around at its feet and i knew his gun jammed on the second round uh sometimes so i'm like oh that fucking piece of shit brownie abel doesn't jam on this second one or whatever it was right um not saying a browning's bad well it stopped you remember and it came again i think it's like 12 10 yards when it finally turned off and ran away.

10 yards is nothing. Well, I tell you, like. That's almost like that wall. Yeah, it was big, too. It was a big one. Was that in BC? Yeah, that was in BC. In reality, though, you talk to, like, I bring up the Lancasters,

who I went with when i stayed in the nwt for that two months time frame those guys live up there i bet if you asked uh a bart or a clay lancaster how many times they've been blessed charred bluff charged it's like triple digits like well just hunting with those guys the shit that they've done triple digits meaning a hundred times at a minimum and that's god so like the like the shit those guys deal that they've done triple digits meaning a hundred times at a minimum and that's god so like the like the shit those guys deal with they've been doing it since birth right and so i was telling um like like amy and frank i was like okay you guys know how much i've done and all the different things you know hunted and how many animals i put on the ground

it's a fraction clay lancaster's been on 320 sheep hunts. 320. That's a lot. That's not including caribou, moose. He's been all over the world. So the amount of experience those guys have and the stories, like when I get those guys on the podcast, it's hilarious because I, you know, I just got to experience a two and a half month section of it we were literally from from a light bulb from a paved road hours from any electricity like it's a 12-hour drive to where the helicopter picks you up and then you're flown in another two hours so when i got bit by that bite it was funny by that spider it was funny at first oh yeah i got bit by a spider up there and uh i'm like hey clay i my legs fucked up i think i got bit by something he's like ah there's nothing poisonous up here well my

about fucking died my uh my legs swelled up we're drawing circles around it well the first couple circles right wasn't that big of a deal so clay cuts it open and listen to the podcast he's hilarious because he squeezed that thing and I acted like it didn't hurt. I thought I was going to pass out from fucking shock. Squeeze the pus out? Yeah. I don't know that it helped, but it gave him pleasure. What kind of spider was it?

Man, you got to listen to the podcast to hear the whole story. But we ended up calling it the long cock black hobo spider. And there's a story beside that. But I think it was a hobo spider. Those are dangerous. Yeah, but I don't think they're overly poisonous i think i was uh allergic to it but the moral of the story in six hours my leg locked up straight there was veins going up towards my heart and uh i had cold sweats heart rate was racing and clay's like dude we got to get you out of here you're gonna fucking die like

we are a long long long ways from anywhere. How far? Four-hour helicopter ride, but then you're dealing with some fucked-up doctor in the northern part of Whitehorse. It wouldn't have been good. So I called my buddy, who's a medic, and I was like, dude, what should we do? And he's like, all right, piss on it, bleach, ibuprofenfen fucking get some shit yeah because i guess um like bleach cleans everything out like he's giving me i can't remember so trump was right i don't know what's true exactly but i was like holy shit i was like okay so we're pouring pee on it we're like crushing up ibuprofen and yeah do you pour pee on it did you let your buddy pee on it? So here's the thing.

One of my buddies must have had a Big Johnson because he was ready to pee on it right there. And I'm like, dude, pee in a fucking bottle. I don't want to see your wiener while you're peeing on my leg. You wouldn't want it right off the tap? Somehow or another it's better if he pees in a bottle and then pours it on you? It would have been awkward.

And think of the stories that would have been told after. Yeah, but it would be funny stories. Well, either way, we were pouring pee on my leg but if it was a matter of survival isn't that funny that you you'd rather have a guy pee in a bottle and then pee and then pour that pee on you then pee on you i guess looking at it that way it's weird i get it i feel i i'm right there with you oh i understand your your thought process well i think I'd let the guy piss on me though. At the time I was like not overly worried. And then when my leg locked up, um, it's, so it was, if you measured my leg, it gained two and a quarter in circumference inches. That's how much my leg swelled up. Oh, wow. So yeah, it was, I mean, I'm laughing about it now,

but what was funny is once it went back down, we just duct taped towels around my calf muscle to go on moose hunts because it was so fucking painful. When the infection was going down because of the willows, we were beating it up, and I'm like, I really want to see some of these 70-inch wide moose. Let's just take—so we taped towels around my calf. So you never made it out of there? No. So you just dealt with it while you were in the woods? It went away in like 24 hours. Oh, okay.

Yeah, it wasn't that—it wasn't— But you didn't think it was going to. You thought you were in the woods that went away in like a 24 hours oh yeah it wasn't that it wasn't but you didn't think it was going to you thought you're gonna die eh i don't want to make it sound worse than it was it got a little nerve-wracking there towards the end my fucking heart started racing like and i'm like so your body's not good when you have an infection infections are fucking dangerous man well i had veins going up my leg like you can see the veins that you're saying? That's what Clay was talking about. Of course you have veins going up your leg. That's how you get blood.

Yeah, and it showed them a lot. So they were blue or something? It looked like an Etch-A-Sketch going up my leg. Dark? Yeah, dark. So you were worried that the infection was making its way to your heart? Well, from what limited knowledge I had, that is a pretty much sure thing you're gonna fucking die that's when i carry any antibiotics with you or anything when you go into a hunt like that

i do when i go to canada now because of their weird government i i uh i shouldn't even say this i have friends that'll prescribe them to me to take with me now last in 18, I don't even remember my hands looked like Deadpool's face from that milkweed or some shit. I was, shit that happens in the back country. What happened? So I'm on that mule deer hunt and my hands are swelling up and I don't know why. And they look like Deadpool's face and I'm like, what the hell is wrong with my hands? I'm looking around like, what could be around me? It's not poison ivy. And my hands are swelling up like, remember that movie, Big Trouble in Little China? Yeah.

The Asian dude's hands swell up. Yeah. Yeah, it looked like that. Well, as it turns out, it's hogweed or milkweed, I don't know, some fucking plant that does that. Now, if you Google you now if you google it you pull it up and it's fucking nasty but if you want to google um hogweed on certain humans it has this crazy rash inflammation so my hands it's affected by sunlight it's worse so i'm at 13 000 feet and i'm on the spotter with my hands in the sun all day to a point like.

And at 13,000 feet, the sun is way stronger. Fuck yeah. Yeah. You get really burnt up there. Use a solar charger. It charges up your shit twice as fast because you're that close to the sun. Is that really what it's from or is it just a lack of. Oh my God.

Look at that giant hog weed. Look at the hands. It wasn't good. Let me tell you. So my hands look like those ones in the middle blow that picture up in the right hand corner that is crazy the one the one that you see the large picture the one the yeah look at that what the fuck man that's from hogweed so go to the go to the left um the one in the middle there that's what my hands look like

the one in the middle the left that one yeah they look like that so frank comes over and he's like dude what the hell is wrong with your hand i'm like you know that's a good good question so we we come out because i i dude it was bad and i go to the doctor right and i'm like you know i go to the emergency room and i'm like hey i what does that hogweed look like just so I know it says you get some people have gotten third degree burns from it whoa it's not good

can we see an image yeah yeah it's just like a little plant that's it that stuff that's beautiful yeah and I was low crawling

through that shit oh my god giant hogweed and it's toxic cousins wow that's crazy but those are the things you just don't think about, right? So I

went and they gave me, I don't know, all kinds of steroid cream and shit. And it went away in a day or two and we hiked back in. This looks like a flower. I would have never imagined. So this is just, how did it get on both your hands? Your hands just rubbed up against it? Well, you figure it's, there's big fields of it and I've got my bow hanging and I'm low crawling and just like it would any weed. Oh. So to mitigate that, what do you do? Do you wear gloves? Is there something you can put on your hands?

I don't know. I just. Look how fucking tall that shit is. Yeah. I just kept my hands out of the weeds the next year. Oh my God. Toxic giant hogweed plants show up in Duncan Lake. I don't know.

You just made it too big. Lake Cowichan Gazette. Yeah. Where's that? Duncan? I don't know. Look at the it too big. Lake Cowichan Gazette. Yeah. Where is that? Duncan? I don't know. Look at the size of that. It's like fucking nine feet tall.

It wasn't that tall where I was at. It was three foot tall, right about even with your hands. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So just that weed has like some sort of an oil or something like that? That's what they said. The doctors— Like a poison ivy type deal? Yeah.

Well, it's funny because when I went, they had no idea. I'm like, hey, my buddy from Alaska messaged me. And he said, dude, I think that's hogweed. I'm like, what? I had the same reaction you did. What the fuck is hogweed? Googled it, drove across the road, Kaiser's whatever, emergency room, things like right across the road from Kefaru. I drove over there and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm all screwed up.

And they're like, what is it? You know, they don't know what it is. And I'm like, hey, this is what I think it is. They Googled it just like we did. And they were like, oh, well, that it you know they don't know what it is and i'm like hey this is what i think it is they googled it just like we did and they were like oh well that makes sense because they didn't know and then they gave me like this steroid cream to put on it and i don't know went away in a couple days jesus christ so between that and the bite what was worse oh the bite the bite was that much worse i could have kept hunting with that i just not knowing what it was.

Well, we'd been in there 12 days. I'm like, ah, it's about time to come out anyway. So we came out. What was crazy, we came out a couple days. We go back in and Frank's already got his deer. We go back in and Frank, I thought his appendix burst. As it turns out, he just ate too much sushi and it got clogged up in his stomach. But Frank is harder than woodpecker lips.

We get on these two deer we're trying to get and he's not getting out of the tent. And so Frank is not like that. He's like, I hear him go, sir, I'm going to stay in a tent this morning. And I'm like, dude, you good? Now, keep in mind, Frank got pulmonary edema and that dumb shit hiked out with pulmonary edema. He literally, his lungs filled up with liquid. And that's an altitude sickness, right? Altitude sickness.

And that fucker hiked out nine miles with pulmonary edema. Jesus Christ. When he got back, he'd cough, and it was like emptying a water bottle. So he's a tough individual. So I'm like, dude, this guy. I even texted Amy. I'm like, hey, Frank's fucked up. I might have to hit the beacon.

Like I might have to get help. So anyway, I go over. I shoot this deer. So it was just sushi? I guess. So where did you guys eat sushi in Denver the day before? So I think what had happened, we had starved ourselves for 12 days, right? Dehydration.

And he must have ate in the woods. We came out, you know, I took, we all went out to dinner and I think he ate all that white rice and it just clung to his intestines like a woolly mammoth. Because he ended up just having to take a big poop, right? But right in the middle where, you know, your appendix is, he's like, it hurts right here. And I've had gallbladder issues. I got, I passed a kidney stone like six miles in. So I was like, his appendixes erupt. He's going to die back here.

And so to show you how the moxie that Frank has, he drug his ass out of that tent and filmed me shooting that mule deer, and he hobbled his ass over there after i shot it and it's fucking mile and a half from where he's glass and you know flagging me in and he just sat by the deer i cut it up whatever and i'm like dude i'll get most of it you good and he's like yeah i'm okay i'm okay and i'm like i can tell you're not fucking okay like you're in pain and he made it out and then he took a giant poop and everything was okay but it uh i thought he was gonna i thought i was gonna have to hit the beacon that's so bizarre

that it was just from rice and poop well we're not doctors but that's what i chalked it up to yeah maybe food poisoning sure it wasn't food poisoning he wasn't puking that was the only thing but again i'm not a doctor but i every time i've had it i puked so those are the worst experiences what about injuries you ever like, really hurt out there? I'm trying to think. The kidney stone, that was a bad one. You had to piss that out? Oh, fuck, that was horrible.

How big was it? I don't know. I'll tell the quick version of it. I think I was 10 days into a hunt, and I shot a mule deer. Were you dehydrated? Fuck, yeah, I was dehydrated, and I peed blood. And, of course, like an idiot, and I'm like, ah, it's fine, whatever. And hiked the mule deer. Were you dehydrated? Fuck yeah, I was dehydrated and I peed blood and of course like an idiot and I'm like, ah, it's fine, whatever.

And hiked the mule deer out, turned around. I met a buddy, dropped it off and then hiked back in. And then like that night or the night after, it was pretty high elevation. But anyway, I went after this bull and something like knocked loose in my kit. You know, I didn't know what it was. All of a sudden I had this shooting pain and I looked at the dude on the green mile trying to pee. Right.

And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Like I literally, I'm like, I'm going to pass out from shock. What the hell is wrong with me? Did you think it was a kidney stone? I didn't even, I didn't know. Right. I just, I didn't, it was so much pain in my back area that I knew it had something to do with my kidneys.

But every time I tried to pee, I literally would drop me to my knees. And so I was like, okay, let's assess this. And I'm trying to think through, should I take next to no gear and try and hike out, take enough gear to stay the night, but then have the burden of the weight? You know, what's going to be the best option? Because I didn't have any service and I didn't have anything back with me that I could get a hold of anyone. And so I'm like, fuck it, no guts, no glory. I grabbed the basic essentials and hobbled my ass out. And at one point, I did have a phone, but I didn't have service.

I texted my buddy Tony and said, hey, what is the nearest hospital to this trailhead? And I lost service. And so all he knew was I'm fucked up. So I get to the trailhead and I get in my Jeep. And I had a giant Jeep and I'm doing like 90 down the road and I get pulled over. Well, the cop was looking for me because my buddy had called and said, I don't know what's going on. Well, the cop was kind of a dick, right? I get out, and I'm like, hey, man, he wanted to call an ambulance.

And I'm like, look, dude, I just hiked out six miles. I'm not paying $3,500 for a fucking ambulance ride. I just hiked six miles out. I can make it to the hospital. And so he was a little bit of a dick, but he followed me into the hospital, and I passed it. I don't know. Clink. In the toilet.

Tink, tink, tink. And it looked like a chick. Did you save it? No, but it looked like a chickpea. Oh, a chickpea? Yeah, a little spiky little bastard. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was horrible looking. How big was it?

Not very big. Big enough for your dick hole. Holy moly, man. Going through that. What was crazy is right after that, I was good to go. I mean, once you passed it, I was fine. I hiked back in the next day. A lot of fighters get those from dehydration, from weight cuts.

I think Aldo, Jose Aldo, has gotten those before. I think more than one fighter has gotten those from weight cuts. I think what they told me, a buddy of mine is a doctor. When I was roided out, I was taking a lot of protein and different things, that there was a calcium buildup from that or something. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. Some people get them apparently from drinking too many green smoothies. You should be careful.

I believe that – which one is Thor? Chris Helmsworth? His brother. His brother had to quit being a vegan. And that's one of the reasons why. Because he was passing these stones. And he had to wind up getting surgery. Here it goes.

Australian actor Liam Hemsworth told Men's Health that he had to completely rethink his vegan diet after ongoing surgery for a kidney stone. Some foods are high in substances called oxalates, which can increase the risk of kidney stones. These include spinach, potatoes, nuts, and even chocolate. There you go. Yeah, I've heard of it from kale, too. I eat a lot of kale. I re-thunk my raw kale smoothies. I was drinking a lot of kale, too. I ate a lot of kale. I re-thunk my raw kale smoothies. I was drinking a lot of kale smoothies in the morning.

And then I found out about the dangers of oxalates, and I was like, oh. So I thought I was doing healthy. Yeah. Well, whatever mine came from, it was an eye-opener because that shit hurt. But I've been pretty lucky as far as injuries and nothing. IT band syndrome issue, normal shit, right? I mean, nothing too, too crazy. No blown out knees out there or anything?

Knees are great. Shoulders are great. That's what would scare the fuck out of me. Blown out a knee in the backcountry and you got to figure out a way to get in. Yeah. You know, like knock on wood, you know, I haven't had to. I mean, I've been in some hairy situation on cliffs where storms rolled in, blacked out and and just had to hunker down in like a cave, right, and just wait it out. But nothing horrible.

Your kidney stone was bad. But really, like some of the things you'd think that would happen. If I die back there, it's probably not going to be from a bear. I'm probably going to fall off a cliff. Like that's the one thing that I would guess would happen. That's how Cam's buddy Roy died. Yeah. On a sheep hunt.

Serious. That one there is's buddy Roy died. Yeah. On a sheep hunt. Serious. That one there is probably worse than any. The chances of having a bear eat you is so slim, but lightning and cliffs are probably the worst ones. Yeah, lightning is another fucking scary one, huh? That's a normal experience out there is lightning storms. Yeah, and that one area that's stronger to Christos is the mountain range, and it's scientifically worse there because of the heat from the ground and the cold from above. The lightning storms there, we go down there just to photograph.

What do you do if you're in a lightning storm? Do you get near trees? Because if you get near trees, what if the trees get hit? I'm going to give you horrible advice. I don't do shit. I just get in my tent and do my thing. So when there's a lightning storm, you just lay in your tent and hope it doesn't hit you? Well, I mean, the reality of it is, is as they blow over, you may be causing, and I'm not an expert at this. It's just I have the, if it's my time, it's my time.

So I just get in and I listen to an audio book and try to pretend it's not there. And that is probably horrible advice. But the reality is my buddy. not there i uh and that that is probably horrible advice but the reality is my my buddy um what audio book would you listen to when you're almost dying from a lightning storm the crow killer jeremiah johnson oh damn you're getting serious mountain man yeah yeah i'd listen that one helps me go to sleep that dude's uh voice uh is um what helps me go to sleep so but my buddy um which i don't know if i can say his name he's on an oda team him and his buddy this fucking guys get hit with lightning in in the spot where we killed a bull and he texts me

and he said something about this reminded me of i think he got hit with an rpg or something and i'm like well dude are you good like that's a hell of a build-up to a story with no finish right he's got scars where the lightning came out of it, oh, no, that's where it entered, and then it blew the front of his, or his buddy's shoe out. What? Fucking, they hiked out. Hit him in the back and blew his buddy's shoe off. Because they hit them both at the same time. And so I would guess they were probably more trained than I was, and whatever they did didn't work.

So anymore, Frank and I just hunkered down and I listened to an audio book. Remy Warren got hit with lightning in high school, if I remember correctly. And I think he lost a sense of smell. No shit. Yeah. Something wacky like that. Remember that movie with, what was it, the big dude, the actor, where the guy gets hit lightning?

He's like, six times. And he's like, oh, you've been hit with lightning six times? He's like, no, 66 times. You remember that shit, John Candy? Yeah, yeah. With the great outdoors? Well, there's a guy that has been hit like a record number of times. There's one guy.

See if you can find that. There's one dude that for whatever reason, they don't know, they don't understand it, but he's been hit by lightning multiple times. It's not because he's looking for it. Like he's particularly attractive to lightning for some strange reason. I think I'm particularly attracted to black bears. How many times? Seven times. Good God. Yeah, he's a ranger.

Park ranger. Yeah, come on, man. So, Roy Cleveland Sullivan, he died in 1983. United States Park Ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia between 1942 and 1977. Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them.

I would go home and talk to my wife and see if she'd put some voodoo on me. That reminds me of that saying I have, if it was raining pussy, you'd get hit in the head with a dick. That guy's bad luck. That is horrible. Seven times, it's crazy. That doesn't even make sense.

Yeah, I just don't worry about it, though, anymore. What jamie this one says another guy hit 10 times 10 god another guy's like i'll show you pussy 10 times put a fucking metal hat on yeah it's just i think though you get desensitized to different things and lightning is definitely one where i just kind of hang out in the tent and it cooks you from the inside out like being in a microwave he says man 61 survives being struck by lightning ten times Melvin Roberts made headlines in 2011 for being hit six times in one year wife said he's been struck another four times South Carolina man suffered memory loss headaches speech problems and has nerve damage in his hands and leg. Like, I don't, I'm so confused.

I don't understand why he keeps hitting them. Let me see what that guy looks like. Yeah. He looks like a guy who's been hit by lightning 10 times. Yeah, because usually it'll blow the end of your toes off. Really? Yeah, where it exits. A single lightning strike is made up of several 100 million volts.

What the fuck, man? Yeah, we've been in lightning strikes where they hit trees close by. It just blows them up into shrapnel. It's pretty wild. How does it not kill people? Yeah, that's where it exited the toe. Oh, Jesus Christ. Nerve damage in his leg and foot as a result of the lightning strikes.

That might change your idea. It says Roy Sullivan is the current world record holder. And then he was hit seven times, the guy that we're talking about. He died in 1983 by his own hand. Oh, no. That's not good. Yeah, you got to wonder, like, what's left after you've been hit seven times? Like, your shit must be scrambled i

don't know man but those are the things that'll probably get you you know like talking about yeah bears is like the last thing i worry about light lightnings of it's a that's a real problem what is there a way to get it to hit something else like if you're in your tent would it hit the tent and not you or would it just go right through the tent? I think it'd go through the tent. I saw it hit an old growth tree once and blow a 180-foot tall tree into pieces. And I'm like, oh, that did not look appealing, you know, as a kid. You watched it happen? Yeah, and that's not uncommon either.

When you get, when you, because you get, if you have service, you can see where it's going, right? Like the one that passed two years ago, I knew Frank was fucked because it was going by me literally 400 yards. And I'm watching cloud to ground. And I'm like texting wow, texting Frank. I'm like, dude, buckle your shit up. It's coming. And it went right in front of me and over Frank. And, you know, Frank's so funny. He literally called me. He's like, I'm okay, sir. And I'm like, how'd it go? He's like, that was not cool. And he had video of it striking, you know, all around him. But the thing, like he said, is where's he going to go? Because he's just running into a storm. You're not going to outrun it.

What do you do? What are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go near trees? You're supposed to get into depression and hunker down is what you're supposed to do. Into a depression, like some sort of a valley? What's it say, Jim? I was reading through Roy Sullivan's Wikipedia. It says he got struck two other times, once when he was a kid, but it didn't hurt him, so he didn't claim it. And then another time, his wife got struck

while he was helping her with the clothes, but he didn't get hurt that time either, so I guess he didn't claim that time. Is he a fucking alien? Like, why would one guy get hit so many times? I'm trying to read why it says, but there's no reasoning why or anything like that. That's so weird.

Like, what about a person's biological makeup would be so different that lightning would be attracted to them? I don't know. He's got some serious static electricity. The thing is, the more you're out there, epic shit happens. Well, I guess you might not consider it epic, but I mean, the

more... He's a park ranger. Right. That's what I mean. You're out there, and then you think about how much time I'm out there. Crazy shit's going to happen if you're in the woods a lot. I mean, there's no—well, the Wolverine. Yeah. It's a one-in-a-billion chance for that to happen. I mean, that's literally—but the more you're out there, shit's going to happen.

Well, Jordan's story about the Wolverine stealing his moose fat was hilarious. I know. He had to one-up me. I was giving him shit about that, right? Like, one of the only guys in history to shoot one with a recurve, and he basically killed one with a hatchet. I'm like, you son of a bitch. He said he couldn't eat it, though, so it was disgusting. Yeah, I had a lot of people—well, you asked me, too.

I had a lot of people ask me, and I was like, yeah, I'm not eating that fucker. It's nasty. But, you know, talking with coyotes and stuff, I think Rinella ate a coyote. Yes, him and Remy Warren, they cooked a coyote and ate it. It didn't seem that bad. It seemed edible. It's not for me. I don't care. But if you were starving.

If you were starving. Yeah, oh, yeah. I've eaten marmot on purpose. Marmot tastes good. You don't want to eat the old ones. They're not so good. A marmot's like a rodent, right? Yeah, yeah.

Those taste pretty good. We call it Rocky Mountain fish and chips. We cut their own brook trout and eat marmot. They're really that good? No, they're not that good. I've had beaver. Rinella cooked up beaver. Beaver tail is pretty good.

It wasn't the tail. It was the hindquarters. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, he cooked it. It was like a beef stew. He braised it and then slow cooked it in a crock pot. It was actually very good. Like, we were stunned.

It was quite delicious. Yeah, I've had beaver, but the tail more than anything. and then slow cooked it in a crock pot it was actually very good like we were stunned it was it was quite delicious yeah i've had beaver but to tail more than anything tail's weird right yeah which i was gonna say it's very fatty is what it is but yeah it's like a fat sandwich yeah i mean i get the idea of um you know they eat what you kill or whatever but i also get the idea that wolverines eat the shit out of they'll clear a basin of mountain goats and sheep out in a minute did i did you hear the whole story that fucker bit the arrow in half on the third arrow and charged me after biting it in half jesus christ yeah it was pretty crazy it was cool it's a wild little animal man i mean they're in the badger family and that you know honey badger

don't give a fuck is pretty famous oh you know how many memes i got a honey badger don't give a shit oh fuck it was crazy wild little too, just the way it looks. It doesn't even look like a real thing. Yeah. Well, it was crazy because they were fighting when we saw them. And so we stalked down in on them. I was like, you know, figured we were 30 yards away. And all of a sudden we were, Jesus Christ, they were like 14 yards away.

Yeah, I've seen them chase off wolves from kills. It's crazy. I've seen them in off wolves from kills. It's crazy. I've seen them in video at least. It's a wild little animal. It's just so funny how something so small can be so ferocious. Look at that fucker. Look at that face. Yeah, I saw it like at six yards on my third arrow.

That's a honey badger. Yeah. Wolverine's real similar. Yeah. But just any kind of badger. It's such a strange animal. They are. And I guess there's a lot of them up in that mountain range.

Because I know they encourage you to, you know, whatever, shoot them. Because they're hard on the ungulates. Do they encourage you to? They encourage you to take them out because they kill the... Look at that one with his mouth open in the middle. Low down. Yeah, look at that. Fucking A, man.

Yep. Their faces. Look at his fucking face. Fucking A, man. Yep. Their faces. Look at his fucking face. That doesn't even look like a real face. Dude, I should send you mine. You can put it in here. And like, every time you look at it, it scares the shit out of you. I kept the whole hide.

I just, you know, when we were in there, it was like. It's sad to me. I'll put it right there next to that chimp, that fake, this thing. This is Shane against the machine on instagram made me this oh no shit that's badass it's a chimp skull that he made out of uh zildjian thimbles no it looks like it says zildjian on the back it reminds me of that movie congo oh right yeah yeah bad gorilla remember that yeah do you know why they you know what's interesting about that that's a michael crichton book right isn't it michael crichton yeah know what's interesting about that? That's a Michael Crichton book, right? Isn't it? Michael Crichton? Crichton, yeah.

What's interesting about that is I thought he was just making that up, but there is a giant chimp in the Congo. There's a giant – they call it the Bondo ape. It's huge. It's like six feet tall. They've caught him on camera traps. There's a – I think he's from Sweden or Switzerland. I forget.

A wildlife photographer named Carl Amon, and he was obsessed with these things. He saw one once, I believe, and then he set up all these camera traps. He spent years in there trying to document this thing because there's an enormous chimpanzee, like a subspecies of chimpanzee that lives in the Congo in this place called Bili.

And he got photos of it? Yeah, they have photos. They have camera traps. These two guys who lived there shot one near an airfield landing strip. It's huge. It's like a six-foot-tall chimp. It would be equivalent to seeing Bigfoot, right? Yeah.

If I ever saw it, I'd certainly want to go find it more. I don't necessarily think Bigfoot exists. But if I saw one, I'd certainly want to go find it. This one's really trippy because it sleeps on the ground like a gorilla And that's yeah, they nest on the ground and they they caught one eating a leopard They don't know if it killed the leopard or if it was just eating a leopard that was already dead But you can imagine how strong a chimp is now imagine how strong a 200 I mean not 206 six foot tall probably more than 200, probably 300 or 400 pound chin. With the densest muscle mass known to man.

That'd stay the fuck out of the jungle. The crazy thing is they have camera trap photos of one walking upright. Oh, no kidding. See if you can find the guys. Carl with a K, Amon. He's this wildlife photographer that got obsessed with this animal. Because a lot of people were claiming bullshit for the longest time on this that there's photos of one that someone had shot from the 1920s and they were trying to figure out if it was a hybrid it was a gorilla chimp

hybrid if that's possible see that's the one that's the camera trap on the far left so you see it walking that that fucker was walking on his hind legs it's huge and now go back to where you were see that one right beside it on the left? That's the dead one up top. Up top. Yeah, right there. That's the one that they shot at a landing strip. They shot near an airport.

Look at the size of his hog. Good Lord. Good Lord. Look at the size of that fucker. I mean, you don't know how big the men are behind it, but even if they're 5'7", that's a six-foot enormous chimpanzee. And then the one in the middle, the black and white one, Jamie, over there, yeah, that one.

That is the original photo from really, really early on. I think that was the early 1900s. People were trying to figure out what the fuck that was. It was like it's really big for a chimp because these guys are trying to hold it up. And, you know, its legs are still dragging on the ground. So if it was standing up on its hind legs it'd probably be as tall as them good lord yeah crazy so it is an actual chimp there's another one too that one right next to it jamie above right above where your cursor is down and to the right that one i mean this is a fucking enormous animal man oh yeah that's like like the big foot of the jungle.

I mean, imagine a 400-pound chimp, six-foot-tall, 400-pound chimp. Like, what the fuck? So this guy, Carl Amman, A-M-M-A-N-N, has been photographing these things for years and set up these camera traps. They have two different types of chimps. They call them tree beaters and lion killers. The tree beaters are the ones... Look at that one in the middle that's standing up.

Fuck you. Look at that thing. God damn, that's crazy. If you could watch what a normal chimp does physically, that's probably going to be pretty impressive what that thing can do. Yeah, I mean, they throw themselves through the air with their arms. Literally just throw themselves and catch a tree.

That's wild. And hang from it. So that's why that Congo movie was so weird. Like it's kind of sort of loosely based on an actual real chimp. Yeah. And they get real gray looking too, which is also true, just like his book. Yeah, I was going to say in the movie they had the gray. Yeah.

They get real gray when they get big, sort of like gorillas. They also have a crest on their head like gorillas that this uh see this chimp this fake chimp skull that he made this is a normal chimp skull but the ones that they found that's why they got so confused these uh bondo apes they actually have a crest like they have this big thick partition at the top of their head and the skull that usually like, like with bears, that's an age, right? When they get that butt crack in their forehead, it's basically coming down. That big, thick muscles that they can crush moose bones with. Yeah, it's crazy.

It is pretty wild watching what some of the, like I got hit by a black bear once running, just clipped me. He was running scared, but he hit me and I was like, oh, that was definitely a reality check of where I'm at. You were running? Like jogging? No, fuck no. I was on the trail and he ran by me and I was like, oh, that was definitely a reality check of where I'm at. You were running? Like jogging? Oh, fuck no. I was on the trail and he ran by me and clipped me.

Oh. And it wasn't like this crazy. I mean. He just ran you over accidentally? Fuck, man. He hit me and that was a reality check of where I stand at in the food chain. I thought I got hit by a fucking 600 pound linebacker. I mean, it blew me back.

And he clipped me on the side. But it happened so fast, right? And literally it took me a second to like jesus christ when he hit me he was running scared right it was just a happenstance thing but south got attacked by one when he was young south cox yeah when he was young but it really shows you like well i have a matrix target you like those the fucking bear at my house pushed the center octagon out he doesn't have opposable thumbs he didn't release the ratchet straps and he was managed to push the

middle portion out probably had peanut butter on my hand and i was pulling arrows oh and you smelled it yeah and he was able to push that center octagon out and that was 180 pound little black bear so imagine what a you know 500 pound black bear could do to you well when you see them run up trees just just use their claws and just run up the tree and full clip like you you would run on the ground but faster and they go up a tree that way oh yeah we're so weak i uh yeah it is it's pretty crazy that that one i got that one that charged me um two years ago guys man that thing was like i hit it two times coming at me here and here. And I was shitting my knickers, right?

I mean, the first time I hit it, I was like, oh, like running backwards. And I wasn't, I was pooping my pants, right? And then it took off and it started stomping the ground. So I huffed at it again and came in again and I was not ready the second go around either. And I hit it here and then it ran off broadside.

And I, anyway, I ended up killing it. But it was hilarious because my buddy was like, hey, did you get a shot? Because he couldn't see in the timber. And I'm like, dude, I'm out of arrows. And he's like, what happened? And I don't think he believed me. And we got up there. I'm like, dude, it's a big bear.

And I said, did you hear it? And he said, I could hear it stomping. And I was like, did you hear it fucking try to eat me? And he was like, did it really? I'm like, no, it didn't try to eat me. I was like, but Jesus. And he looked and I was like did it really i'm like no he didn't try to eat me i was like but jesus and he you know looked and was kind of reacting you know reenacting telling him what happened it was a trip man but those i was wearing black i still when i thought that you were a bear so when that snow melts the you know king king of the apes right the the biggest bears guard the

luscious grass right and so when i stalked in i actually pulled my camel off and i put on black fleece because it was in a field and i was on my hands and knees and he'd feed and i'd get closer and he'd feed and i got to 35 yards and uh he wheeled out right when i shot and he went into the timber and i was like god damn it and then i could hear him in there popping his teeth and i'm like oh he wants some so i load an arrow and just dove into the timber and i started huffing at him and uh that's a dominance thing you wait what you did that to get him riled up why would you do that well it seemed like a good idea at the time right looking back caught up in the moment well if i could be honest with you i've never had one

come at me that fast usually they'll just stand up there and they'll stomp the ground. Oh, so you thought you were going to bluff him and then he would be there for a shot. Yeah, and it didn't quite turn out like I had planned it. And he came straight at me. And so I started like, oh, that's a fucking bad idea. And I started running backwards and I shot. But it was, I don't know, from here to the TV. And I hit it.

Well, I thought, okay, that should slow him down. I'll get in that. Well, fuck, it just pissed him off. So he ran out there at 20 yards and started stomping the ground. So at this point in time, I was a bit caught in the moment. And I'm not trying to make this sound any more than me being a dumb fuck. So I started huffing at it again. And he came straight at me one more time.

And I hit him on the other side. Well, what was funny is Gary, you know, was like, hey, did you get a shot? And I was like, yeah, dude, you would not believe this. And you could tell he was like, yeah, whatever, we get in there, and this thing's got one arrow sticking out of here, one here, and one through the lungs. And it was fucking crazy. He's 7'4".

It's a weird animal to eat, too. You know, the rivets taught me how delicious they can be. They're good. John and Jen rivet really know how to cook them. And especially on a Traeger, they'll smoke cook, slow cook a ham. It's unbelievable. It's so good. I get a kick out of the hate mail I get about, um, predators, right? Cause we, we eat them. Um, like mountain lions, unbelievable. It's not as good as axis deer, but it's pretty damn good. And it's like, just because it's weird that you get less hate

mail from a deer than, than you do something that can, I like just because it's weird that you get less hate mail from a deer than you do something that can eat you. I know because it seems like if you're killing an animal like a mountain lion, you're doing it because you want to be a badass. Yeah. That's what it is. But if you kill an animal like a deer, like that's normal. People are accustomed to people killing deer for food. Well, I had people like, oh, those are endangered because I kill a giant mountain lion. And I've killed a bunch of bears.

Like they're endangered. And it's like, no, there's actually kind of a problem, right? Because in California, they're not endangered at all. You hear that talk all the time. At Tohon Ranch, they have one particular camera trap where they caught 16 different mountain lions on a pond. Yeah, they're a problem, and they'll eat two and a half deer a week um pretty easily and so i'm outlying but you think like people think you can't eat and there's some predators you probably shouldn't eat but again in the big picture which i i do not understand how people think they eat everything else and so

to be truly not to hashtag conservation but if you're worried about other animals you have to keep everything in relative check yeah there's a weird thing that people have, though, when it comes to predators. Like there was a woman who ran an alpaca farm in Malibu, and she had this one particular mountain lion that had found her farm irresistible and slaughtered a bunch of them and killed a couple of goats, too, and she got a depredation permit to kill this thing. And the amount of death threats that she got when they found out that she was going to kill this mountain lion or was told that she got a permit where she could hire someone to take this mountain lion out. And so she eventually wound up not doing it just out of fear.

She was just scared. But meanwhile, they don't have any problem with this thing really thrill killing it was just thrill it can't help itself yeah once it found out that it could get into that pen where the alpacas were it just was slaughtering them yeah the the the u.s well not just us here it's kind of weird so put things in perspective things don't think about this if you shoot an animal and you don't pack it all out you get a ticket for wanton waste right and and honestly i mean what do they do about like uh rib meat do they call them on rib meat as well every state's different so in colorado you have to take uh four quarters and neck meat um some places you don't have to take rib meat some places you do you think about it how much food do you think was wasted in california yesterday beef how much was thrown

away the people didn't finish their meals. Their steak was cooked medium rare. That animal was alive once, and they throw it away. It's weird how people look at that. That is weird, but it's like the thing of you going out and doing it yourself. And I think they're really worried about someone shooting a deer and just taking the antlers, which is— No, no, I get that portion of it. I don't get the other portion. I get, like, well, I get that portion of it. I don't get the other portion.

Like I get like, well, I got three, dude, I eat 500 pounds of meat a year. Right. It's a big deal for me. What's crazy to me is this some dude that just let his kid throw his entire steak away because it didn't taste good. It's going to give me crap for shooting a deer that I'm going to eat the whole thing. Well, that's human though. Yeah.

Humans are, we're real complicated animals. So we're real bizarre and what we can justify and not justify, you know, and that's, that's human, though. Humans are real complicated animals. So we're real bizarre in what we can justify and not justify. And that's one of the things you're seeing. If someone's walking around without a mask on the street, people will yell at them and tell them, you're putting me in danger. But you will see a massive protest, and it gets nothing but positive responses from the news and the media and like this is amazing people are unifying and it is amazing but it's also amazing that two weeks later there's a giant spike in covid and no one wants to something i've read though that there is a big spike in covid but there's not a corresponding death spike yeah i, I read the same thing. Yeah, see, that's true. Read, that's true, because they said that COVID is spiking, but deaths aren't, which is really interesting,

because that must mean that they're better at treating it, or maybe people have a better understanding of how to survive it, or maybe the people that are getting it are younger, because a lot of them are getting it specifically from the protests, which they're kind of denying. It seems hilarious. Which is weird. Yeah, the whole thing. I'm trying not to read it because I just get depressed. People on top of each other.

I'm 100% support of the protests, 100%. But people on top of each other, you're telling me if they're sick, they're not going to give it to each other? That seems highly unlikely. Yeah. Not a doctor. There's just a lot of contradicting views of that. Like you can't protest certain things, but you can protest other things. And then when COVID first kicked off, six feet, wear a mask, whatever.

And then I see these things where, you know, there's there's a six foot thing. But we do. We don't mind if you protest. And it was exactly everything was strange to me. And well, there's a big gay pride protest or celebration this weekend in Chicago. Same thing. Everybody on top of everybody. And everybody's like, this is wonderful. Unity. Okay.

But, you know, in two weeks when the restaurants and the bars shut down again, we're going to question our decisions. Yeah. It's, you ever watch like Zombieland? That movie's funny. Yeah. The fatties are first to go. Right.

I bring that up all the time. Think about how bad would it be to rewind 80 years. Like what would happen? Like how soft we are as a culture now. It's pretty amazing. And then like, you know, you think about some of the different plagues. You know, I read and listen to, well, I don't read shit. I listen to a lot of audio books. Me too.

I'd like to say I read though. It sounds better. It does for me too. But the reality is I don't read shit. I look to a lot of audio books. Me too. I like to say I read, though. It sounds better. It does for me, too. But the reality is I don't read shit. I look at pictures. I read magazines. I read articles online.

I read articles. I'll read some articles, especially on my phone. I'll pull them up. Yeah, but I rarely read books. I fall asleep when I read them, when I when I look at all of the different everything that's going on nowadays, like if there was any major actual real major crisis, like how fucked we would be as a society is pretty amazing. Well, it's like we were talking about our dietary choices. The fact that 70 percent of Americans are overweight. That is so crazy. That's so not this is such a weird time in terms of how easy life is without pre-COVID and that people had gotten accustomed to this soft way of living.

So when someone does something like what you do and what you prefer to do, that's what makes it so extraordinary. Someone uses that ridiculous farmer's walk, farmer's carry machine. And here it is. As U.S. coronavirus cases spike, country will be seeing more deaths, Dr. Fauci says. That guy. They will be going up is what it says. I understand that Dr. Fauci is a medical expert and a good man, but I am annoyed at him for what he said about the masks because he literally said that we told people not to wear masks

so that they wouldn't buy them so that health care experts can get them. You can't do that. You can't do that because then we know you're lying at one point in time. You can't lie. You can say, please don't buy masks because health care workers need them. Instead, get a bandana. Instead, take an old T-shirt, convert it into a bandana. Please say that.

Please, in the future, don't lie to us. Because when you lie, then we think you're lying no matter what you say. Exactly. Especially when it's about something like that. Like, I understand they probably compelled him to do that. But, man, that confuses the fuck out of everybody. Because there's this video that uh you know him talking about you don't have to wear a mask and it's like then a couple weeks later they're

like actually you you have to it's mandatory yeah the whole covid thing is a different it's different scary well and i think you sent me a text or something i thought man this is blown out of proportion and i think you said definitely for people like with me. And one of the, you know, one of the. If everybody was like you, it would be a bad cold. Yeah. I hope you don't get it. But if you do, take a lot of vitamin C, drink a lot of liquids, get a lot of rest.

But the problem is, you know, obese people people diabetics older folks and that's what i don't want to beat a dead horse to death but i really really would like you know not to sound too what's the word liberal tree huggerish like i really wish bottled water as we're drinking it i'd like to see more options for filling up an algae i would like to see more options for people for health like right god forbid we spend all this money on stuff. Like, it wouldn't be horrible for the government to spend money and get some free dieticians out. I mean, I don't have a plan for this.

But knowing as a converted fat kid, like, fuck, I wish I had some help when I was younger. Do you remember when Trump had that lady that was telling everybody not to touch their face and then she licked her finger and then turned the page? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, exactly. But that's when we're talking about health experts and things along those lines.

That's the kind of shit that you see sometimes, and it just makes you go, God, people are so weird. Just human beings. We're so weird. What we concentrate on and what's important to us is so strange. Well, you're from New York, right? I was born in New Jersey, but from 13 on, I grew up in Boston. Not to turn the reverse the roles here, but what made you get into hunting?

Well, I had seen a bunch of those PETA videos, and I was like, I'm going to do one of two things. Either I'm going to become a vegetarian, or I'm going to become a hunter. And then Rinella took me hunting on a show and i i dropped a mule deer the moment the deer dropped i was like okay i'm doing this from now on and then the moment we ate it by campfire i'm like this is the best meal i probably ever have in my life and it just made me realize like we cooked it we left some of it in it we we hung it up in a tree because it was pretty late when we shot it we took the organs and then we fried up some liver and onions and we fly fried up some heart and um by the by the campfire and i remember thinking while i was eating that like

this is the most satisfying meal i've ever had in my life this is how i'm going to live from now on so take that and multiply it by 100 that's how i feel with a recurve. I don't know how else to explain it. I get it. I get it. It's just, I mean, something about watching that arrow fly through the air after all that hard work. Now, you may want to snap that fucker in half several times on the way to finally hitting an animal. Right. But being a guy, I'm driven.

I'm goal-oriented. You know, I really like the challenge. I like to practice. I like all that. I get it. I totally get it. I would imagine that the connection is so much more intense than even with a compound bow because you're dealing with all the cams and the engineering and all that jazz. The noise, right, getting closer, like the different things you have to do.

It is hard for me to explain to, you know, to have a little bit different perspective because i've come from that the compound side being able to i shot my caribou at 127 yards i've gotten bashed for that right and i'm like that's a crazy shot but if you're trying to shoot a caribou like a lot of times you can't get very close yeah we just we couldn't get close but i you know without me getting bashed too much about shooting long distance now i really i mean getting sub 10 yards from an animal is pretty freaking cool i mean i can imagine it is and you know when people thinking about trying it out might give it a try right when one thing good you can do with your kids do you ever get to a point where you're like i'm gonna make my own arrowheads fuck no not yet i'm gonna cut my own

sticks and whittle my own arrows like i i have really full-on comanche i've i've had a lot of people message me about that and and amy right now i can tell you that i like i am very accurate with that well we just shot that tournament with um you know luke and the group and the compound track luke was like so happy because at the end he asked a bunch of compound guys what their scores were so he could give them shit because mine was higher because everybody was giving him shit about how do you let Aaron beat you with a stick bow and he's like screw you guys, you come do it because I've taken a bunch of money from him.

I like that accuracy even though it's not where I was with a compound, I don't know that I'll never build my own bow but I would say the chances are highly unlikely. I'm pretty happy where I'm at right now. Building a bow by yourself, you mean cutting a wood and actually constructing a bow out of the wood? Yeah, and probably the best guy that Clay Hayes is a real traditional dude. So not even a recurve. He's using like a regular longbow. Self-bow, cut out of his front yard.

Jesus. What kind of wood would you use for that? Well, they have bow dart trees, which is, actually, I don't know what the real, Osage maybe is what a bow dart tree is. Anyway, I'm not an expert at this shit, and I don't plan on being. I mean, I got an aluminum riser right now, so what am I talking about? But the thing is- See, that seems crazy. Well-

When you're using a traditional bow, but it's made out of aluminum, like- I know, right? Kind of. Right. Yeah. I was just going to say I get hate mail all the time for it takes a lot for me to get any engagement or any rise out of it. I just read them and laugh because I'm like, yeah, well, whatever. That's your opinion. But the problem is with me, not problem. I answer so many tech questions. I try to be super involved with our customers as well as guys that need help. So you have to read some emails and some, and some of them I just laugh at, but I will say like, um, like that stupid trad vein I came up with. It's not stupid.

I thought that would be good for the community. Fuck. No. Like I got, I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, it's just a, it's a vein you can shoot out of a,

I mean the feathers for people that know the feathers for the arrow. So feathers are for generally traditional archers shoot feathers. And they do that because it has to contact the riser and it flattens out easier? Flattens out. So it's more accurate. Yes, exactly, because you don't get to bounce off the ship. Right. Like you would with a plastic vein like you do with a compound bow.

It hits the shelf and you get get contact bounces off so i had that goat hunt i got a hold of the guys at ae and i was like hey let's get this i don't care if you sell them i just want them well i thought that would have been this is how weird the traditional archery community is for me i thought that would be a positive for guys that do backpack hunts and and it was for a lot of guys i got i i made the mistake of reading a few online traditional archery forums about myself and that was a bad idea because i was like the devil because those veins um to come and they want them to be feathers yeah i'm like the antichrist or something i don't know they want it to be feathers because it's traditional it's traditional yeah and even

though the wood is made from a cnc machine riser, and their limbs have carbon in them. No, people are weird. People are weird, especially when people get into tradition, traditional things. They get very strange. Yeah, and I don't, man, like with me, I don't care if you hunt in pink underwear and use a whatever the hell, Dave and Gliath, whatever, the bow. You do whatever that makes you happy. I just want people to get outdoors and get off the couch. But, you know, everybody has different opinions and perspectives and whatever else.

But for me, that was just a tool that increased my opportunity while I was out there. But it was definitely frowned upon by some. Yeah. Fuck them. Don't you think that this would be a really good time for some sort of hunting education, like a program that people can enter where they could be taught adult-onset hunting, like people who are adults learn how to do it. Someone take you out.

I mean, I know there's a few people that do similar things out there, but, man, it would be real nice, especially when COVID happened and people realized, like, hey, this food supply chain is a little sketchy. Like, we don't really have any toilet paper here. And my buddy went to the grocery store. He said there was one package of ground meat. That was all that was there. And I was like, yeah, man, that could go sideways.

It was pretty crazy. Some of my neighbors that were not keen on me taking my own animals and all the food I had in the deep freezer, that all of a sudden wanted to come. They were not keen on it. Like, did they tell you they weren't keen on it? Yeah. You can see they're pretty down on it. You know, like say something to you, you know, other than like, yeah, I'm not into hunting like that.

Kind of underlying, you know, go fuck yourself. You shot an animal. And but they ate meat, you know, so whatever. However, you want to look at that. And then when weirdest COVID hit, because I do, I eat four or five hundred pounds a year. Pretty easy to meet. Maybe more than that. Plus, you know, I get my daughter and whatever. Anyway, I some of them had come over and were like, hey, can we try some of that? Like, yeah, I don't you know, I'm always going to encourage people to try it.

And then now it's obviously worked out because they're addicted to it. They love it. Once you clean it. Yeah. It's so good so good for you too it just feels better when you eat it you like you eat a real nice elk steak like you get like energy it's weird it's hard to describe to people it is and i mean you also have like for me the the fact that i you know the way i well the way i got it it just adds to the whole experience which is hard to explain but i think that um as a whole like a land navigation um you know how to break down an animal you know animal behavior yeah that'd be a hell of a class that i think wouldn't be a horrible time yeah i think it would be great for people i mean i wouldn't say do it with archery i would say do

it with a rifle you know especially people that don't have any experience in it but i think there would be an incredibly rewarding. It's not something that everybody can do. People always say that when you talk about hunting as being a method of acquiring your meat. Like, hey, we don't have to factory farm. Hunting is still a possibility. People go, well, you can't feed everyone with hunting.

And they're right. You really can't. But guess what? Everyone's not going to do it. It's like everything else. It's like the whole world can't go to jujitsu class. It would be too packed. That's good because most people are not going to do it. It's like everything else. It's like the whole world can't go to jujitsu class. It would be too packed. That's good because most people are not going to do it anyway.

It's too hard. It's the same thing with lifting weights. It's the same thing with yoga. It's the same thing with anything that's difficult. Difficult things do not attract people. They attract some people. They attract people that are interested in challenges. Yeah, and I would say the only thing if you did that,

you'd probably want the shooting of the weapon to be the last portion because a lot of people would want to just do that and bounce. You know, you'd have to earn your way to that. You'd have to have a curriculum, right? Oh, yeah. Well, and I talk about that easy button that people hit all the time. One of the things I got most thankful for is I came up with a time with no range finder. Oh. I had to learn to range, right? Yeah you range with no rangefinder did you learn how to like

like recognize actual distance of things by thinking of it in terms of like body sizes like what it first it was a tape we measure and you know what I mean you'd roll it out and we would have different courses or whatever and when I say we didn't have rangefinders right when i started there was like a bushnell 500 the thing was the size of this freaking notebook it was giant uh it was a mono an ocular and that was like the first one and then they had some other ones that they were probably available to people had a lot of money but you would be pacing it out my step is a yard and so i measured out or we were at a range and I'd make sure how far everything what, you know, I would pace it out. So I would guess the yardage and I would pace it, guess the yardage and I would pace it. I've heard of archery competitions where they don't let you use a range finder. about Levi before. You know, Levi Morgan has shot higher scores at times on unknown 3D courses

where the known 3D course had a shot a lower score and those guys had range finders. That's how good that dude is. So when you say unknown, you mean 3D courses where you can't use a range finder. So you're shooting at targets and you have to guesstimate. Yep, and he guesses the yardage. And there's another class, shoots from the same stakes, and they get range finders. Levi has beaten them with no range finder. That's insane. That's how fucking good that guy is. That's insane.

When people talk about, because you get guys like, I would say, me and Cam, not a tournament guy. Cam's shooting 160-yard shots. Great shot. Or even Dudley-yard shots. Great shot. Or even Dudley. Dudley, amazing shot. But then you look at a Levi Morgan, if you dig into him, 13 ASA World Championships in a row that that guy won. That's pretty crazy. And he's still shooting today.

And then you think he's hitting fucking quarters not knowing the distance out of 50 yards. It really is crazy that someone can win something that competitive 13 years in a row. I mean, it's hard to believe. Well, I mean, about the time, like, my wife is making my head too big, I'll pull up YouTube and have her watch an ASA with, like, a Gillingham and a Levi or Dan McCarthy. And I'm like, these guys are good, honey. I'm just okay.

Like, these guys are fucking unbelievable. Well, it's an obsession, right? Archery is a weird zen obsession like the the feel i try to explain to people like if i never hunted again for the rest of my life if i never uh never even ate meat for the rest of my life i would definitely shoot bows and arrows yeah definitely practice archery because there's something that happens when you concentrate on that target and the shot process and the shot breaks and then arrow sinks right into where you're looking at. It's amazing. It's a beautiful feeling.

That's extremely rewarding. It would be hard for me. I mean, what happened with me when I did that switch, right, when I found a new love for archery that i had lost because the newness ran away and i'm not saying i was you know perfect at it but you can pick up a compound and and uh you know shoot it and and skip a week and and still be pretty damn good with it right you know that stick bow you got to shoot it all the time so i got to a point where 15 years ago i would take work off and call in sick to set up my new bow like I was always

been addicted to archery and then later on down the line that newness wore off where now well I'm the boss so I don't have to call in sick I am so I mean literally a kid at a Christmas waiting for shit to come in with that recurve so it rejuvenated that love for for archery and it kicks the shit out of you and so that challenge you know when i say kicks shit out of you that challenge of practicing it's pretty addictive i was actually surprised you haven't tried it more yet but you may not traditional bow yeah i just don't have the time i know what it is it's i know that it's going to take x amount of hours every single day yeah and i'm scared it's like the same reason why i won't play golf yeah like i know me i'm not doing that i'm not walking around for eight hours a day because then I would be doing it every day and everything else would suffer.

That's why I don't do CrossFit, to be honest with you, because I'm super competitive. Fuck, I fucking hate to lose. I just watched that documentary. There's a CrossFit documentary. I forget what it's called. It's The Fittest or something like that. It shows the competitions. It's like fucking bonkers, Matt.

We had Matt Chan on the other day he's um took second in 2012 in the crossfit games i'm not a crossfitter so i don't know all the different shit but i mean he's fit that's for sure but i i've told frank i'm like dude i'm not good at not giving everything i have and one i'll probably fuck myself up physically you know trying too hard but two the time to put into that with everything else I've got going on, my workout program's fine. So I'm like, dude, I've got enough irons in the fire. I don't want to dive into the CrossFit arena and get consumed by that as well as many other things. Even photography takes time and all that shit.

All your hobbies take time, so I don't fly fish. The CrossFit thing, too. I know too many people that have hurt themselves. They push too hard and they hurt themselves. I was just reading an article about a guy who was a CrossFit trainer who got rhabdo rhabdo myelosis? Oh, no shit. Yeah CrossFit trainer He's like I'm a CrossFit instructor and I got rhabdo from a CrossFit workout But you just you know You're pushing yourself so hard with all those reps and you're doing it trying to keep up with all the people that are in the

Class with you I get it's great for you But for morons like me probably not the best move I'm gonna agree with you in that moron category on my end because a moron like me, literally, Frank and I are competitive even though we're not competitive. We both want to do good. If I go into a CrossFit gym and Frank beats me, it's not like I'm going to go home and be like, Oh, shucks, I lost my mother. I'm going to go full ape shit.

Exactly. Again, guys get pissed or whatever about, you know, me. I'm not talking shit about CrossFit. I'm saying I do not, I would probably slack on form because of whatever the WOD or whatever it's called for the day. I'd probably chintz on form and fuck myself up. Look, I know you can fuck yourself up doing everything, and I've fucked myself up doing jujitsu multiple times.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but, I've talked to people that are real like legit trainers like Steve Maxwell who said he doesn't like it because it's lifting weights as a sport he goes lifting weight should be something you do that enhances sport he goes particularly when you're doing Olympic movements he's like Olympic movements shouldn't be done to maximum repetition and he's like they should be done controlled and they should be done, you know, a low number of reps. And you're just trying to build strength. But everyone's got their own thought process.

And when you look at those guys in those competitions and the girls, the girls scare the fuck out of me. There's some of those girls are built like fucking gorillas. Like, yeah, it's crazy. I don't know if that's good girls, but I don't know who's into that. But the guys are obviously insanely fit. So saying that it's not good for girls. Yeah. But I don't know who's into that. But the guys are obviously insanely fit. So saying that it's not good for you seems silly. It's obviously very good for them.

You know, some of those fucking dudes are so impressive. I just worry about shoulder injuries. Exactly. Like the kip-ups, thingy-dingies. What are those called? Kipper? Kip-up, chin-ups. And body muscle-ups.

Those things look like a recipe for me to fuck myself up. Yeah, they're a recipe for a labrum tear. But guys, a bunch of guys gave me shit when I set up my own gym. They're like, it looks like a CrossFit gym. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing any kip ups though. Like making jokes, but I do it pretty simple. It looks like a functional strength gym. I do the most, I do, you know, as far as like, I'll do one arm dumbbell snatches. I do some straight leg deadlifts, but I do everything most, as far as like, I'll do one-arm dumbbell snatches.

I do some straight leg deadlifts. But I do everything in moderation. Where I used to lift super heavy for power, like crazy heavy now. Well, you used to be a big motherfucker, right? 70 pounds bigger than I am now. That's so big. Well, I got to, I benched, my goal was to bench over 500. Now, before any dickheads email me, I cheated, right?

I used steroids. And I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. But I tell you what, when your wiener breaks from taking that, that'll make you stop doing anything. Because that's what happened. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. But I got to where I could lift pretty much anything I wanted. I couldn't walk from me to Jamie and back without getting winded. And so, I mean, I'll just get a just list

what I took he didn't matter so I was taking 250 milligrams or one milliliter of a nanthate every three days so basically I was taking three shots a week of a nanthate I don't know what that is so our stuff no it's just testosterone milligrams. So I take one shot of that a week now for being on testosterone replacement therapy. Yeah, testosterone replacement. But I was also taking Ecopoise. That's for horses. Yes, it is.

I was taking Ecopoise. I was taking – that makes you super purple. Deca. I took Trenibolan for a while, but I could not handle Trin. Dude, fuck, I hung a guy out of a building.

Trin is not good. It's superhuman strength, aggressive, sex drive, but superhuman dickhead too. It's just not for me. So I only took that for a little bit. And I didn't take it for that long.

The one thing I found out is, one, there's a reason that you're not supposed to be on that shit. And I'm not a religious guy, so I'm not not gonna say god didn't mean you to be that way but somebody didn't mean me to fucking be that way well you're monkeying with your your structure you know you give a chemical and biological and hormonal structure of your body and you're monkeying with that you know you're adding massive amounts of muscle to your body you're adding superhuman levels of hormones to your body.

Well, and I, you know, I'm an, like the first time I took Ecopoise, it's a horse decongestant. Is that what it is? Decongestion? Yeah, it's like cleans out the airways or opens up to bronchial dilators. I'm hacking shit up. I'm like, what am I getting sick? Well, it's because I was, you know, there was horses and pigs on the fucking container, right? I'm an idiot, right?

People ask me about it. I'm like, don't do it. Eat healthier. You know, there was horses and pigs on the fucking container, right? Idiot, right? People ask me about it. I'm like, don't do it. Eat healthier. You know, work out hard. Like, I lost everything anyway. But the problem was is in the middle of that, they have Deca, and they call it Deca Dick, right? It makes you like no sex drive. And I wasn't taking anything to – because I watched Hidalgo, right?

And the horse fell in the pit with my daughter, and I started crying. I don't cry. It's a movie, right? Okay. Anyway, horse falls in the pit fell in the pit with my daughter and I started crying. I don't cry. It's a movie, right? Anyway, horse falls in the pit and the horse gets like a spear in its leg. I'm crying. I'm like, what in the fuck is wrong with me? Oh, you're emotional. Jesus.

My estrogen levels were like through the roof. So I looked and like an idiot, I was taking, I had 200 milligram per milliliter Deca. And then I had another bottle that was like 400 or something. And I got them mixed up. So I was doubling up on DECA. Because some of the dumber shit. How long did you do this for? Maybe a year and a half.

Did you get yourself checked out after it was over? Oh, yeah. To make sure everything's okay? Well, when I first got off, I wish I had a photo. I don't know if we could pull one up, how big I get. Dude, I look like that rock on Fantastic Four. It's fucking weird looking. Dude, I had Ronnie Coleman in in here oh my god weeks ago first of all what a great guy so nice yeah like so friendly and so so happy even though he's basically broken yeah he's had

how many back surgeries did he say he had something crazy yeah like more than 10 back surgeries. I read an article that said 13, but I don't know. That was probably it. His entire back is basically fused. Yeah. But when you look at him when he was Mr. Olympia, you know, when he was winning? Yeah.

Jesus. Yeah. Jesus. I mean, that a human being can get that big. Oh, it's insane. I mean, I only scratched, like I didn't put the, you know, he's done it his whole life, right? Those guysaks phil heath lives by us in denver you'll see him every now and there you used to and he's a new kind of a one guy like ronnie the thing is

though it's like you go into a gym and grab two 200 pound dumbbells and you start doing incline binge with no spotter that stare you know grabbing some looks but I genetically was not built to lift that heavy, right? That that's there's some help involved in that but I got to a point where I was super emotional and not like a I Don't believe really in the roid rage thing because I never got that What are you talking about? You just tell me you're hanging a guy off the side of a building. That's what rage. Yeah, let me finish good point, but I think if you just take an increased amount of like testosterone and anabolic in general, if you're a happy guy, you're happy. If you're a sad guy, you're sad. And if you're a dickhead, you're more of a dickhead.

The thing with, well, trend, that's why I got off it. That was one thing for me that definitely I just I was changing psychologically when I got off it was the problem like emotionally I was a wreck like that's the closest I'm not like a suicidal guy that's the closest where my brain just didn't function right and then I got off cold turkey and whatever I do that is a big issue with kids young kids their endocrine system crashes and just like we were talking about with soldiers that have been blown up a bunch or football players or fighters, your body's not producing testosterone correctly.

After you get off that shit, you get really, really depressed for some people. Bigorexia is what they were telling me because I was afraid to go to the gym because I was shrinking. Oh, right. So, you know what I did is I joined Planet Fitness. Perfect. You can hide in there and be little and fit right in. You can't even make noise.

No, I know, right? Kick you out. Lunk alarm. Have you seen that alarm? Have you ever seen an alarm go off? Yeah. So there was a couple muscle heads that went in there, I think, to prove it in one of the gyms that I went to.

And they were grunting and deadlifting and dropping. They kicked them out. They pull your membership. That's so crazy. You can't try hard. I know, right? If you're lifting heavy, you're going to like, that like hey it was you're trying too hard we don't want that here it was weird for me i'm not a weight dropper but definitely if you're doing a deadlift there's

something and it's heavy something's probably gonna come out of you right you're gonna you're gonna do some grunting i'm a grunter bro and uh so i i don't um i'm not the guy that makes a crazy amount of noise in the gym but there's times where last couple you know yeah oh yeah you're it's frowned upon so i went there for like six months which i will say was the smartest thing i could have done there was no temptation there's tootsie rolls in a fucking basket at the front of it right there is no really oh yeah they serve tootsie rolls pizza they serve pizza oh it's the weirdest shit i've ever seen at that place in the space of my life it was what i needed because i had no temptation i just think it's amazing that they would set up a place where they're encouraging you to not try too hard and they do well i'm sure i was that's how people

like it i was laughing because well i'd say laughing like for me once i got out of it you know i was like that is the strangest shit i've ever seen there's a gym that wants you to be fat that's strange um because they do there's pizza tuesdays or whatever is it do they want you to be fat or do they just encourage you to not intimidate the other people with your performance is that what it is probably because that was i was definitely the oddball at the one I went to. And so like I would do calf raises and I would put two 45s on each side on the ground. And then I would put four 45s on the, like a Smith machine. And I'm just doing calf drops.

Right. Oh, that got shit canned immediately. I was like. They told you not to do it? Yeah. Why? Well, one, they said I was taking all the weights up. And two, they said that's not, they didn't kick me off totally.

They said that is frowned upon here. And I was what is frowned upon here cat phrases because i how i was doing it um when i was like this is strange but i can't again it was good for me at that time to get off because dude that was the hardest thing mentally that i had to do that is everything i hate about america yeah like that whole just the idea behind that, don't try too hard. Just like, no, no, no, not here. Here we're going to use 45% exertion. Dude, I get in trouble a lot. I get called a dick for being the guy that's rubbed some dirt in your crotch and get the fuck up and go.

Like, rub some dirt in your crotch. Is that really good advice? It gets a point across, right? Well, when guys will ask me certain pieces of advice that they need, like a they need someone like maybe you or me or Rinella or whoever to give them a, oh, man, that's OK. I'm not that fucking guy. Don't send me a message where you think you're going to get some kind of, you know, oh, it's OK that you suck. You know, keep going. Like I try to circle myself with people that tell me I suck to try harder. That makes sense. Yeah. And I get messages and I'm like, dude, no, that's not OK.

I'm like, you're you're fucking weak. Just push harder. That's that's the key. Keep trying. Well, the only problem with that kind of advice is some people start off with a terrible base. Right. If you're if you're a person that doesn't have any athletic background, no exercise at all, you really do have to start off light. And I tell people all the time, like, if you're just starting exercise, if you work in an office, you're in a cubicle, you're completely sedentary, all you have to do is just start walking. Just start with walks.

Then start with do some push-ups, do a few things. Don't do anything crazy. That's great advice. That's the advice I'm giving, do anything crazy that's great advice that's what the advice i'm giving though is that type of advice like when they're they send me their diet plan and it's the diet plan of a greek god and i'm like yeah you're fucking lying like you're not doing that shit like that's what i'm talking about i totally agree with what you're saying but think about it if i message you and said hey man i've been eating 80 grams of carbs a day. I'm walking four miles, no soda.

I'm still 260 pounds at 5'9". I think something's wrong. And it's like, yeah, you're fucking lying to yourself is what's wrong. Or maybe something's really wrong. You need to go to a doctor. I've said that, too, because I've met a lot of people with thyroid problems. Yeah, definitely that. But you can get checked out.

And so I am probably not the best for advice because literally, if you're the guy that's with thyroid problems yeah definitely that but you can get checked out and so I am probably not the best for advice because literally if you're the guy that's gotten checked out and you're just making excuses I'm like dude you quit fucking lying to yourself and push more it is kind of crazy how many people lie about how often they work out what they do yeah it's really sad yeah well and again I probably sound jaded but coming as a recovering fat kid myself, right? Like,

fuck, I wake up and eat peanut butter. My wife has to hide the shit, right? I got problems. So I know where they're coming from. You say that, but I've never seen you fat.

The years I've known you, you've always been fit, but I always say I'm fat. So I don't get that. Exactly. But that's the mentality. That's the right mentality versus the mentality that lies about how often you work out and what you eat.

Well, and, and, and, you know, again, I call myself fat and I always will because I never want to be fat again. I got up to 260 when I got out of the Army. Did you ever get to a point where you were making your own meals for the backcountry? Like, did you ever use a dehydrator? I do that now.

Do you do that now? Yeah. What do you cook? Like, what kind of stuff do you make? So rewind the cheapest meal I can get if I'm in a hurry and I can't make it is I get brown rice top ramen and olive oil tuna. For people listening, that is a cheap way to do it. So tuna and olive oil, brown rice top ramen? Yep. What is brown rice top ramen?

It's just a healthier top ramen. Okay. And then I make my own seasoning so it's not loaded with sodium. Okay. And then I make my own seasoning so it's not loaded with sodium. Okay. But when I make a meal, and there's multiple ways to do that, the super easiest is just take elk steak or elk roast. Cook the roast like you normally would. And then in that roast, I'll cut up sweet potatoes and I'll put in veggies in there, just basically make kind of a stew. And then in that roast, I'll cut up sweet potatoes and I'll put in veggies in there, just basically make kind of a stew.

And then in that, then I put a—so when I do that, though, I put a ton of olive oil in it because of the fat. And then I have trays on the dehydrator, and they're the trays where it's like a Frisbee, so it can't go through. So I've got elk, sweet potatoes, olive oil. I'll usually put in, like, broccoli, shit like that. And the sweet potatoes I cut up relatively small. I Dehydrated that it's that simple. Do you have to when you make a meal like that with a dehydrator? Do you have to add extra seasoning so that it tastes good when you rehydrate it? There's two ways to do it What I encourage people to do is not add as much seasoning when you cook it because it will be hard to get it

right meaning everyone might if you're if you got a buddy or it right. Meaning everyone might, if you're, if you got a buddy or, or depending upon what the meal is, some meals are more flavorful than others. Some are more bland. I add it after. Oh, okay. So when you're in, it's like you pour barley water into it and then you add the seasoning on top of that. So what I do is I, depending, you can do it in a Ziploc bag, but the easiest thing is those just cheap plastic containers, or you can put in a titanium one. It doesn't matter. But once I, you know, kick it off, boil it, get it rehydrated, get the boiling water in there. I just put a lid on it, let it sit for 10 minutes, not very long,

or boil it until it is if I have extra fuel. And then it's ready to go just like that, just like a mountain house, same principle. Dude, nothing makes me fart harder than mountain houses yeah and it turns your poop funny colors like mres is an orange and mountain houses are green um i've never pooped green at least i did and i didn't look at it but the smells that were coming out of my body last time i ate mountain houses it's like christ that shit cannot be good for you it's got a lot of sodium and most people are like why does it matter it's like 150 nights a year. It fucking matters. Like I have got to, I can't eat those things all the time.

So there's a few new companies off-grid. It's pretty healthy that I use. But when I make my own, like I will take Idaho and potatoes. And then at home, I make for shepherd's pie. And then what I've made and put in the dehydrator, I just mix it with Idaho and potatoes. So I make my own shepherd's pie and then what I've made and put in the dehydrator I just mix it with Idaho and potato so I make my own shepherd's so you dehydrate it and then do you vacuum seal it in little packets it depends if I'm a lot of times no I actually just put it in a Ziploc bag because the vacuum seal thing it helps but if I'm making it per trip or per month you know you're

not trying to get it to stay forever. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. So yeah, that's one of the things. But there's other ways to cheat the, you know, I say cheat the system, but there is other ways that you can save money, eat healthier, you know, when you're out there. And a lot of guys, if you're only going for seven days, it's not that big of a deal. But long term, you really got to think ahead. I would also imagine that it gives you an extra sense of satisfaction that you're doing something. Like you're creating your own meals. And while you're eating that, you know this is a meal from an animal that you shot yourself.

You put the meal together yourself. You dehydrate it. Now you're rehydrating it. That extra sense of satisfaction that you're doing something. It is. Actually, I've done it so much now that satisfaction is almost kind of, again, desensitized. We're talking 20 years. It normal it's it's normal what's weird what's not normal is when people look at me like i'm weird that i do it that is weird for me like i'm like what it's not i'm like

you cook burger don't you like really people come over and well my wife's a real estate agent she gives a package to to the people that want a wild game. Dude, it's like the smartest thing she ever thought of because I don't, you know, I've never bought elk, but I guess it's fucking expensive if you go buy it. Try to get. Yeah, so she'll do like a package wild game as a thank you if she sells a house. They'll call and she has all kinds of recipes or whatever.

So when people come over and they're like, what are we eating? And I'm like, oh, that's mountain goat and that's moose there. And then we have like jalapeno cheeseburger and we'll mix it with our dad because our dad's kind of a weird flavor what does our dad taste like because everybody is varied on that some people say it's terrible some people say it's delicious i would say the taste is good it's tough it's tough chewy so it's good like like a braise it and cook it slow cook it so i don't think you can fuck up anything you slow cook.

That's the thing when people are, I'm like, how do you fuck up a roast? But if you, like I took a backstrap or a tenderloin and cooked it, it was pretty tough. So we make everything into burger, salami, you know, pepperoni sticks or whatever out of the Outdad. Now, is it my first choice? No, but I tell you the burger is pretty flavorful. So we make almost everything out of, into breakfast sausage and burger. Does it depend on what time of year? Like if it's in the rut, I would say the rut part has a huge part to do with it. But if you make it into jalapeno cheeseburger, I don't give a fuck. If you put that into a turd, that is going

to taste good, right? It doesn't matter. And so the last one, that big, big one I shot, we made almost that whole thing into, well, we did, we made the whole thing into burger brats, breakfast sausage, but it tastes pretty good. It's not bad. I mean, I think how people take care of the animal is part of the problem and how they cook it. So we let, let them, we, we drip them, you know, we drain them totally. And when I say age it, not aging, we'll let it hang for a couple days. We let it age as far as let it drain out. It makes it more tender. So I hate when people say things taste bad when it's just you're a dumb shit.

Bad preparation. Yeah, it's bad prep. Because I haven't tasted much wild game that wasn't great. Dude, we just did three hours, believe it or not. Good God. Time flies in this room. I know. I haven't peed yet, and that's a fucking miracle right there.

I know. You drank two Kill Clips and a bottle of water. Yeah. Listen, man, tell everybody your podcast, Kefaro Cast. You can get it if you're interested more in hunting and backpacking. Kefaro Cast, it's available everywhere. And what is the Kefaro Cast, it's available everywhere. And Kefaru, what is the,

Kefaru International is the website? So, Kefaru, K-I-F-A-R-U dot net is the website. And Kefaru Cast

is the podcast. And, best fucking backpacks in the game. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on. Great for being here, brother.

It was awesome. It was really fun to talk to you. Yeah, definitely. All right, bye everybody