The Joe Rogan Experience - #817 - Jason Hairston & Brendan Burns

Episode Date: June 30, 2016

Jason Hairston is a former NFL player and founder of KUIU, an "Ultralight Mountain Hunting Gear" company. Brendan Burns is an accomplished mountain hunter and manages KUIU Professional Services.

couple hours and yeah we got the gun what's up gentlemen how are you good thanks for having us for people who tune into this podcast i got brendan burns and jason harriston who run a company called kuyu which is uh the premier if if you could look at your company like in comparison to a lot of other like sporting good companies. And like, if you, if people think about like a hunting company, you think about, Oh, well it's like some duck dynasty type shit. You guys,

what I like about your company is there's not a lot of people that take what you guys do, like make clothing and gear and take it to the most technical and most intelligent. Like what is the best shit you can possibly make? That's it. And go do that. That's the goal. And that's it. But because of that, this company's become this gigantic company.

I found out about you guys from my friend, Matin Putelis, who works for Meat Eater. He was wearing these clothes. I go, what's going on with that? What do you got there? And he's like, this is Kuyu. This is this new company that's out. Feel this. Feel this. Feel this. This is is ultra light it's the best kind of fabric so he started telling me about your company and i just love when people go for it i love when people like people wouldn't think that there's like this big market to create

the most technical most ridiculously engineered hunting clothes. You would say, well, what the fuck? Who's doing that? And who cares? Yeah, exactly. Who needs it? But then listening to you guys on a couple of podcasts, I'm like, these guys are fucking sharp dudes, super sharp, intelligent people who just happen to be in love with hunting. And so you've taken this mindset, this achievement-oriented mindset, and put it towards this company.

And it's fascinating to me. Yeah. I just got into it because I wanted to make stuff I couldn't find. I wanted better-performing products. It's what we created the category with Sitka back in the days, back in 2004, because I was wearing all mountaineering gear. And I wondered why I was the only person that wanted that style, that type, that performance level of hunting gear. I didn't believe that I was alone.

And came up with the concept, introduced it in 06 to the hunting market, and it exploded. Created the entire technical apparel category, and it's just now what everyone's chasing, it's what everyone wants to wear, and makes a significant difference for our customers in the mountains. Well, there's a bit of this. A lot of hunting people are kind of fashionistas in a way.

Totally. They're like, ooh, what do you got there? Is that Under Armour? Ooh, is that First Light? They start looking at your stuff almost like girls look at shoes and purses and shit. It's really kind of interesting that way. Well, no one likes to go to hunting camp and be outgeared, right? Your buddy's got the coolest, latest stuff.

They're like, what well what is that one of the reasons why i want to have you guys on is because i've done the best job i can of trying to educate people as to what i see when i talk to people that are really intelligent really ethical very very involved people that are fanatics about hunting because i think there people have a distorted perception of what hunting really is. They totally do. It's like yahoos, beer drinkers. It's Bubba. Bubba, exactly.

People think of hunters as Bubba, rednecks, driving around drinking beer, shooting stuff out of the truck. And it's so not that. No. At least our customer base and what we do. I mean, it's a true lifestyle. It's a heritage. It's been passed down in my family.

It's where we live and breathe. It's why I train every day. It's what my focus is in my life and what I've done for a career in a business. And there's a lot to it. And the places we go require that or you're going to pay a huge, huge price. And so it's a way for me to test myself as a human being, as a man, as a hunter, and in life. And it's something that, you know, is a big, big part of me. It's been passed down from my father, and I'm passing it down to my kids. And, you know, we've been hunters for 2 million years. I'm freaking proud of it. A lot of people shy away from it. And it's something that is, you know, really, really obviously a very important part of my life. Well, there's not a lot of high-performance, super-skilled things

where you also have a lowest common denominator kind of guy that you're associated with. I mean, if Mountaineers had a guy that was wearing a white tank top and was down at the climbing gym falling off, breaking his head every week, people would perceive him slightly different. It runs the guys that are doing the most extreme stuff in the world and the percept the perceived person that's down here so you know what people you get lumped in with the lowest common denominator guy which is not not the case at all i mean yeah that's a real good point yeah and uh yeah i mean it's it's uh it's certainly what we're doing and what we're testing our products.

I mean, we argue that it's a different format than even outdoor gear. I mean, when the weather's bad and you're on a climb, you stay in your tent. When the weather's bad and we're on a hunt, what do we do? Yeah, especially if you're not bringing much food and you're counting on killing something and eating it up there. Totally. It's an endeavor that's a very, very difficult and misunderstood endeavor. It really is. And I think companies like yours and what you guys are doing and the videos that you release on YouTube especially when you're going

over the extreme engineering involved in your packs and your gear and all the different things. To me, that stuff's fascinating. It is. Because I love people that are just going for it. That are just engineering the shit out of things. You guys are chopping down toothbrushes to make them lighter and all the stuff you're doing.

I was listening to one of the podcasts where you talk about your Excel sheet that you make, a spreadsheet that you make for every hunt. You weigh everything out so you know exactly what everything weighs before you're going on to a mountain. You have to for what we're doing. Yeah. I mean, you look at any endurance sports sports you look at cycling is a great example i mean ounces they've proven are huge if you're climbing on a bike and the bike weight and the body weight on all that leads to better

performance and we found the same to be with with what we're doing on backpack hunts i mean every ounce over a 10-day hunt really adds up in calorie burn and calorie deficit, which then turns out to be performance. And you know it well from training. Well, it's also, you guys have engineered these clothing, your clothing line is incredibly quiet, which is also a really important thing. And there's, there's so many different levels to getting it right when it comes to hunting gear, getting it right when it comes to, you know, I mean, it could be the difference between success and failure.

And this is one of the things that I wanted to kind of highlight about this pursuit. I don't like to call hunting a sport or a discipline. I mean, call it whatever you want, but it's not, you know, it's not really that. Yeah, it is what it is. It's weird that you have to lump it into this other thing. But I think that people have a distorted perception of it because of what you said, because of this lowest common denominator guy, the Bubba thing. But the more I've gotten into it, the more I've met people like you guys or people like Cam Haynes or Steve Rinella or Remy Warren. And you get deep in and you realize this is a really difficult discipline, very, very difficult, that has many, many, many layers to it.

It really does. I mean, you look at some of the expeditions we're doing up north. You know, we go up to the Yukon or Alaska or Northwest Territories, and we're going from point A to point B like a normal expedition. But we're hunting on top of that. Exactly. And then we've got to manage the game that we take out on top of that, the weight and the extremes and the conditions and the weather. of the game that we take out on top of that. The weight and the extremes and the conditions and the weather, I mean, it adds to

I mean, you have to be really well prepared, really physically, mentally, and also with the right equipment and gear. Yeah, I mean, you head in the mountains on some of the stuff we're doing. I mean, it's not like, it's comparable with mountaineering, but I mean, you don't have to, you know, it's not A to B. You just

got to survive to A to B. I mean, you have to thrive in the mountains. You have to understand what's going on with the animals. You're up early. You're up late. I mean, it's even more in-depth than just getting from point A to point B. And a lot of these places we're going, there is no reason to ever go there unless you were hunting. I mean, there's some random mountain in the middle of an ice glacier that's not particularly tall, but there's no reason to go there unless you had something to go there to look for. And that's the cool thing.

We're seeing stuff that nobody would ever go see. Yeah, it's like A to B with a very complex biological puzzle. Totally. It's so different than, like I said, a lot of people think of it. And one of the things I like about your company is you guys are represented by this bighorn sheep. I mean, that is like a part of your logo, which is one of the most difficult animals to pursue. Sheep hunting is a pinnacle, man.

And it defines for Brennan and I and for people in the company and people associated with the brand. I mean, it is the ultimate dream. It's what we all dreamt about growing up is someday I would be a sheep hunter. I'll earn the right to go sheep hunting. Because it's so difficult. It is. The opportunities are limited

the and it's an animal that lives in places that we you know we can visit but we can't live there i mean they live in places that you just you know the normal we we only get to like a snippet into their into their life because it's places you can't you just you just can't live i mean you can't go there and you you can die. Absolutely. I mean, Cam Haynes' good buddy, Roy Roth, died just this past season. He did. Fell 700 feet to his death while sheep hunting. I was hunting.

I had a tag in Alaska in the Chugach a little ways over from there. I mean, we went 37 miles in up uh up to two two forks of a glacier and i mean we got to where you could physically a human being without climbing gear could not go any further where i killed my sheep this fall i mean 15 year old ram living up in the rocks and i mean like that is some of the that's some of the most that's some of the toughest country in the world i mean it's brushy and ice and nasty and you know again know, again, it's not, it's not pleasurable to go in there. Like you have to, to really go into something like that. You have to have a goal or a reason to be in there. It's not like I'm going to go grind out this miserable brush and, you know, poor, you know, shitty rainy weather. Yeah. You just like, why would you be there? Cause you go there cause you want to see, you know, is this is going to test me? And you want to see if you can match with, with this animal and you, you know, you're just like, why would you be there? Because you go there because you want to see, you know, is this going to test me?

And you want to see if you can match with this animal. And, you know, you want to go see if you're up for the challenge. I mean, that's what we've been doing for the world's oldest and greatest sport. I mean, if you're not, you know, you're either a hunter or a berry picker. Yeah, and the level of intensity that's involved in that moment when you actually try to take that animal after that incredible hike in after 37 miles of risking your life to get to that point and then that moments there just the Extreme amount of pressure and intensity involved in that moment that to me is what defines? the real challenge the ultimate challenge of hunting and

This idea that it's a bunch of people that like killing animals or it's a bunch of fat yahoos that sit around drinking beer. No, there's way more to this thing. Way more. This is an insane, like really primal pursuit. It is. We always say you're either a hunter or you're, like Brendan mentioned, a berry picker. It's in our DNA if you're a hunter.

you're like Brendan mentioned a berry picker and it's in our DNA if you're a hunter and to be able to test that against the toughest conditions against the hardest animals to hunt in the most remote places is to me the ultimate test of being a human being and ultimate test of being a hunter and that's what drives me and what we do and why I train you around why I'm always thinking about gear about food about weight about uh you know, about how I could improve from what I learned on last year's hunt to this coming season's and preparation of it is, A, it's fun. I love it. I live it and breathe it. And it's challenging.

It's really challenging. Well, it unfolded for me, and it still continues to do so, because I've only been doing it for four years. I mean, Rinella got me involved and he took me out to Montana in 2012. And, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to be interesting. Let's see what this is all about.

Because I had watched shows and I had read some stuff about it. But one of the things that he said, he's like, man, there's a steep learning curve to this. There's a steep learning curve and it goes long. And I was like, well, how long can it go? You fucking find an enemy, you shoot it, you kill it, you eat it.

What's so hard? But then as you get into it, you realize, and then of course bow hunting, which is the most difficult of the most difficult pursuits. It is. And as you get into it, you realize like, oh, this is like some crazy puzzle. It's like some crazy challenge that you have to figure out that also involves a way to procure your food. It does. And it's a skill set you never quit learning on every time you go i learned something new yeah there's a there's a natural progression you go through i mean it's like you're just excited to be there

right and then you're and then you and you see it with people you take out for the first time they're just like oh kind of what's what's going on here and you know and then then all of a sudden they get a little click and it's like, I want to get one. And then that's usually a couple years and then I want to get a nicer one than the one I got last time. And I want to do something a little more challenging. And it just keeps progressing until you get wherever it ends. And you're hunting the toughest animals, the biggest animals, the oldest animals in the toughest conditions and being successful. And a lot of people won't get there, but it's, it's, it's always a challenge.

It's something that never gets old. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's comparable to any athletic event. Only you can do it for your whole life. You know, I mean, there's lots of stuff you do athletic and then in growing up or whatever. And it's like, but it doesn't really translate, you know, as a college wrestler, that doesn't translate that well to the rest of your life. I mean, like if you're that dude down there at the intramural wrestling, like you've missed, you know,

so hunting is one thing that is just throughout your entire life, depending on where you're at. I mean, you can, it's, you can always continue to learn and pursue it. And, you know, sometimes you, you know, you don't have a ton of time. You can do a short hunt. Sometimes, you know, things are going well. You can do something that's, you know, an epic adventure. But it's always a challenge.

It never gets easy. I mean, the animal you killed last time does not care. The new animal you're hunting does not care what you got last time. You have to go out. You've got to be sharp every single time, you know. know yeah and everything has to be done right every single time yeah yeah and what i like about guys like you two is you take two dudes like yourselves who are both like real goal-oriented savages and you put together a company like this that pursues that one ultimate experience and says what is the best shit that we can make what is the best way we can pursue this we do and that's why I built Kuya the way I did

having learned from Sitka selling to retailers the limits of what we could produce and I was super frustrated the fact that I was walking away from the best materials and walking away from the best innovations and when we sold that company to Gortex I had the freedom to go start something new and to eliminate the retailers so I could go build a business platform specifically so I could go out and take these amazing materials, amazing designs to market that I couldn't do before and get them to market through this brand, Kuyu, which has made all the difference. Well, isn't it interesting that this has all happened at the same time where the internet has kind of exploded in this way that people are doing massive amount of shopping online. Yeah. I mean, I have one of those mailboxes where they get your packages for the company. And, you know, when I used them 10 years ago, I'd get like a package every couple days or something like that.

Now, every time I go, there's stacks and boxes of shit because I do like all my shopping online. Everyone does now. Now every time I go there, there's stacks and boxes of shit because I do all my shopping online. Everyone does now. It's a crazy thing how that's happened for you guys. Right as your company started was right at the same time. You caught that wave right at the crest. When I look back, it's like we orchestrated it and timed it perfect and we could see the future.

I could see the downfall. You called it. I mean, Brent and I talked about it. There's a problem with retail. When you can't produce the best products possible for your customers because they can't sell it, they can't add the value any longer because all they're offering is price and selection. So price wins in a sea of selection

with no one there to explain why a new product is so much better than the old product. There's a problem. And I saw it coming. And now you see it getting exacerbated every day with new reports about retailers failing, malls going out of business. Retail is in big, big trouble. Amazon's made that happen faster.

The internet's made it happen. And it's all looking back with Kuyu. Timing was, it's everything. I mean, as you know, with business, a lot of it is timing luck and being in the right place at the right time with the right concepts and ideas. And we totally nailed it. We kind of came in at the exact same time with Onnit that you guys did with Kuyu and with the same exact model. Selling directly to people, getting the very best shit you can possibly get. What is the, like, forget about cost.

What is the best, most nutrient-dense foods, most nutrient-dense supplements? Let's figure out a cost what is the best most most nutrient dense foods most nutrient dense supplements let's figure out a way to get the best stuff find who's got the best protein powder who's got the best well it's cost prohibitive because of this and the retail gets marked up exactly that's the issue right is like when you sell something to a retailer like a cabela's or something like that they tack on a a bunch of money. A ton. A ton, right? They make a lot more money than we did. A hundred percent. More money than you guys.

No, no. I mean, they tack on a hundred percent. A hundred percent. So a jacket I'd produce for a hundred, I'd sell to Cabela's for 200, they'd sell to you for 400 bucks. Wow. For putting on a coat hanger and throwing it on a rack. Makes it convenient, you know, if you're like in a place and you need a jacket and you left

your jacket at home, but it's a a faulty model it doesn't make sense if you're a guy like you that does research and knows exactly what he wants and you can put a tape measure on yourself and know how big you are i mean i'm roughly an xl and you could save yourself money and get a better product it's no brainer well also the amount of research that you can do like if you go to a store and you talk to the guy that's behind the counter what you know at times i've talked to people like you go to a place that sells car parts or something like that and you ask a guy a question and he says something that's totally wrong you're like well i know that's not right if you don't know that how the fuck do you know where this goes really yeah i mean you have to be

someone who's like deeply, deeply involved in the product to be able to explain it to someone who becomes obsessed. Exactly. Like if someone is like your packs, the way you guys engineer the carbon frame of your packs. I spent like a fucking hour and a half the other night watching videos of how you guys make packs. Isn't it cool?

Yeah. The first thing he said right off the bat is like, we're going to pull the curtain back. I'm going to tell everybody what everybody's been afraid to tell everybody i'm if if if you educate the person to know what they're looking at and you're building the best stuff they'll end up back here and so he's just like no one had ever said here's what fabrics we're using here's where we're getting it here's where our factory here's what we're doing i mean like competitors like are people gonna seal it you know i don't care you build the best stuff and you sell it at a good value for what you have to. And man.

Yeah, the whole transparency thing has been incredible to watch. And being direct where you can communicate directly with your customers, as you know, it's so freaking powerful. And they love it. And we're able to build so much trust. I mean, I started blogging about Kuyu 18 months before it ever launched. I talked about the fabrics, materials, the factories, the process of building a company. And I really did it just to keep my name associated with the next brand. As I left and transitioned out of Sitka, I had no idea what it would create.

And it created this massive following. People started engaging with me and asking me questions. massive following, people started engaging with me and asking me questions. And I was listening to their suggestions on products and educating them on what great fabrics, what great design was. And they just ate it up and the consumer loves it. The retailer wasn't giving it to him any longer. You know, what, back in the day, I used to, I grew up working in an archery shop in orange, California from Bob from was a really, really amazing archery shop owner. And he was the guy, right? I mean, you walked in from Bob Fromm, who's a really, really amazing archery shop owner. And he was the guy, right?

I mean, you walked in and said, Bob, what's the latest, greatest stuff? And he could tell you all about it. You go to Cabela's now, like you were saying, the guy on the floor has no clue. The customer knows more than the retailer now. And, you know, by taking with Kuyu and going directly to that customer and giving them all that information,

giving them the power to make the decision, they ate it up. And then being able to involve them through this process, they just build a ton of trust with you. It's like they understand the brand, they understand you, they understand how you think and why you're making those decisions, and then they trust you. And once you have the consumer's trust and you don't break it, you can really build a brand off of that now. Well, a guy like me who loves to geek out on shit too, obsessed with things. That's what I love that I can go and watch all these videos and read all this stuff about all the different engineering that's involved in creating your products. And when I do that, it gets people more excited.

That's why I think it was a brilliant move to blog about it in between the time of building the company. It was. I mean, I look back now and it's like I had a blueprint on how to build a company today when we did that. I look back and read the blog posts and I look and I just go, wow, I can't believe I actually did that without really knowing what I was doing because it seems like I executed so perfectly. And I was just following my gut and interacting with the customers. And it was so, so powerful and such a big thing because as I built this business model, which was the first of its kind in this industry and even the outdoor market,

people told me, cool idea, but how are they going to find you? How are they going to trust you to buy your product to begin with? How are you going to get customers soon enough before, so you don't go out of business and run out of money? Because so many companies will go create a website, launch, and no one knows about it. How do you create that interest in advance and create the demand? Well, you can spend a ton of money. You look at like a Warby Parker or a Hairy Shave or Dollar Shave Club.

Well, they spend more money than they're bringing in. And they're burning cash like it's going out of style to create demand through high levels of marketing that's very, very expensive. Or you can do it like we did and educate the customer and be transparent and build trust in advance and then launch. And then you've got your best sales force in the world, which is your customer base because they know everything about your brand. You guys have this advantage in that hunting because it's such a difficult pursuit because it sort of gets in your DNA.

You become obsessed with it. And when you become obsessed with it and you find a company that's also obsessed with making the very best shit possible, and then you guys geek out to such a high level on the videos and on these descriptions of what you're making, then these obsessed people become obsessed with what you're doing. And they go, oh, well, if I'm going to do this right, I've got to do this this way. They do.

And it's great. I mean, people we meet and hunters we meet or at hunting camp or traveling, I mean, it's amazing to me how much they know about our product and how much they know about the brand. I mean, they are, like you said, they geek out on it and eat all the little details up, which I love because that's what I geek out on when I'm searching for these amazing fabrics to learn about new technologies and I share it these people eat it up they love it well it's really a sort of a master class in how to do things the right way to follow passion and being

obsessed with something but doing it to the utmost because if you do that then the word gets out the word gets out people talk about it and like I said I found out about you guys through word of mouth completely well if you're actually doing it too i mean like yeah the customers really see that you know like you know no one else that's running a company this i mean you know multiple hunts every year big study like believes in what he what we're building and takes it to the places that are the worst place our customers could ever go and use it. And people respect that. They love it. Not only that, that's what I want to do, but I know that he's done it too.

We've used that stuff in those places. Well, was it your blog that I read? Which blog was it where you guys were sucking water out of the top of a rock? It was one of the blogs for your company, one of the early on blogs. You guys went on a hunt, and you were just talking in depth about all the different i don't know who it was or wrote it but it was all kuyu stuff we were talking in depth about testing out the products on these like really remote backcountry hunts yep yeah i mean it's how we figure out the shortcomings of our product you can look at all the laboratory data you can look at all the test results of

of what that's given back to you but you really don't laboratory data you can look at all the test results of of what that's given back to you but you really don't know until you put it in the conditions that we put it in and we've like tori who's my main fabric supplier is the most innovative japanese i mean they are the the bomb as far as technical fabrics go and this is japanese yeah the japanese by culture build the best fabrics in the world what are they what are they putting in them because like you guys use a lot of synthetics right they do i mean they're so their quality standards in japan are much higher than anywhere else in the world and they have a really high quality standard of the raw material then they have a really high quality standard of the actual yarn and then

they've figured out how to make their yarn stretch and recover with no elastic. It's wire stuff so light. But because of that process and because of their high quality standards, they're incredibly expensive. But the Japanese, just by their nature and their culture, they don't do things that cut corners. You look at the building of a samurai sword is a great example. There's a lot easier ways to build a sword than a samurai does. The samurai sword is built. I mean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and it's perfect. I got one over there from 1511.

So you know it, right? Yeah, that one sitting there, that's a real one. It's the way Japanese do things. And it's the same way of why they produce such amazing fabrics and materials, and they're continuously pushing the bar as far as innovation, reducing weight. And it's a partner for us that's just amazing. found tori well before i started kuyu i couldn't i tried to build a tori product line with sitka and it was just price prohibitive i took it to a couple buyers at cabela's um one at shield sports and they said beautiful way too expensive so what are they doing

to make this stuff so light and like it it stretches a little bit and it yeah and it snaps back but it's very light so they have a patent on how they make the yarn it's called prime flex yarn and if you look under a microscope it looks like a spring right and so it can stretch out and then recover without any elastic everybody else has to put spandex or elastic or lycra in their fabrics and elastic super heavy it holds moisture it's also you know stretches and doesn't really recover until you wash it again if you wear a stretch pair of pants with a lot of elastic they kind of sag you after a period of time you notice with ours they'll fit the exact same way on day 10 as they did on day one because of their fabric because

of how they make their yarn the stretches recover that elastic so why are they making this fabric too it's like who are these crazy people that are out there like super engineering fabric it's the japanese and they'll sell it into you know japanese market they'll pay for performance their pricing on their performance apparel is much higher in japan the european market as well for their climbing industry and some of the ski brands run their their fabrics as well um but it's nobody's really introduced their product line like we have in the united states because it's been cost prohibitive to up until kuyu business model came out so they just decided essentially the same

thing that you guys are doing just figure out what is the best way to do this that's how they do it yeah and they're a and tori as a as a company is a Japanese conglomerate, which is pretty typical of Japanese companies. And the start of their company was chemistry. So they're a chemistry-based company that makes chemicals and make carbon fiber. But it's chemistry that starts with everything they do and understanding how everything is produced and made. how everything is produced and made and it's that foundation allows them to put out these amazing innovations to figure out nanotechnology how to waterproof a down feather how to make membranes that breathe two and a half times that of Gore-Tex and still stretch and recover and a more durable it's that foundation of who Tori is is a chemistry company that allows them to push these innovations out and then you add in the Japanese culture of perfection and making things correct

and having processes that continue to produce high-quality products and materials over time. And that's why Toray is so freaking amazing. I dork out over shit like this. Oh, it's so cool. I just love when someone's trying to figure out a way to engineer something to the very finest edge. They do. And then what's great about them is always pushing. And so they're coming to us with new fabric innovations, new technologies and innovation.

And we're able to find their limits because of our customers and what they use it for. And I'm able to go back to their engineers now because I've developed a really big relationship with them. We're now their largest customer in the world. And work directly with their team and say, hey, guys, your membrane works great, except for these certain situations, for instance. And so they go and they try to figure out how to rectify that. And they will, yeah.

I mean, they'll commit themselves to fixing issues that we'll find. The laboratory tests say they should never fail, and we'll find the limits of it. I mean, not necessarily Brendan and I, but our guides, that are spending 200, 250 days of their life every year in the mountains, they'll come back and say, hey, guess what? This happened in this situation. That's rare, but it lets us go back to their development team and say, hey, we found limits on this thing.

And they listen, and they go back and try to re-engineer it to figure out how to push the bar further so those failures don't happen. I was listening to you on a podcast recently. You were talking about this new engineering that you're doing on your packs and how you're testing them. So when you have a new product, say if you create a new pack or something like that, before you bring it to market, do you get it to guides? Do you have them test it? Do you test it yourself exclusively? Yeah, so it starts as a process in-house,

and we'll put it through certain tests depending on the product, like the new pack frame we just introduced today earlier at KU Live. I don't know if you just happened to see my live presentation for a flight down here. So you do a live presentation, like a product launch, and you did that today? Yeah, kind of like a keynote thing like Jobs does. That's hilarious. Who the fuck's doing that with hunting? Nobody. You guys are

savages. That's why I'm excited about this. Not doing it well. So you have this product launch, and so what did you launch? What is it? Well, we introduced a new carbon fiber technology that just came out on the market a couple years ago. Introduced as far as ability to start developing product with a new fiber technology called spread-toe carbon fiber. You'll love this because you geek out on stuff like this. So carbon fiber, traditionally, the fibers are put into yarn, right? So they take each individual carbon fiber, group them together, and make a yarn. Those yarns are then woven into fabric. It's what you see of typical carbon fiber look, right?

The woven look you see on carbon fiber. What spread toe is, instead of round fibers, they've figured out that if you flatten the fibers out, so instead of being round, they're flat. And then instead of weaving them, they lay them next to each other and then sew. They run sew lines across it, which you can see in our new frame. And by doing so, when you mold it into a product, because that fiber is now completely flat and it's running the length of the product, it's much stiffer and stronger than if you weave it.

And it has the fiber has to go up and over other fibers. It's not as stiff, not as strong in the performance level. You give up quite a bit compared to spread toe so spread toes all directional fibers and then what we've done in our frame is we now can determine exactly how many fibers run from the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame and then we count the fibers of course and then lay in on a 45 how much stiffness we want and flex we want on the horizontal axis. So if you want our packs, you'll notice that it carries a load really well because of vertical stiffness, but it's also comfortable like an internal pack because of how much fiber we have running on the horizontal axis that controls that flex.

So you want to have a certain amount of flex. Yes. Have to. But you've got to figure out what that amount is and the way to figure that out is by testing we went through 18 versions of our frame to get to where the formula is that we now and reintroduce today that's fucking hilarious who does that i do we're fiber engineers and with our development team sean and in our office but is there any other companies is going through 18 different versions of a carbon fiber frame in order to figure out?

We're the only one in the world that produces one, so it's probably just us. I've got a patent on our frame design. I know what carbon fiber is, but I don't know what carbon fiber is. You know what I'm saying? My car has... Oh, look at this, Jamie. Dude, killing it.

Jamie's always on the ball. It's a cloth. It it's soft it's pliable um how does it be like i have a porsche 911 gt3 rs that has a carbon fiber rear wing and i'm always like it looks badass but what the fuck is that lay it down as a fiber and then you put epoxy in it and that's what connects it so the epoxy so it starts out as a carbon cloth it is it's pure cloth you feel it flexes moves just like a cloth and okay here it is this is what it out as a carbon cloth. It is. It's pure cloth. You can feel it flexes, moves just like a cloth. Okay, here it is. This is what it looks like as a fabric.

So that's spread toe there in a bidirectional format. And then from there, you turn that somehow or another into this really hard stuff with a heat-activated resin. So you saw, if you go back to the mold with a frame we're laying in there, right there. So we're laying that into a mold. So we have a bottom mold, it's all aluminum cut, and a top mold. And we lay that fiber in. And then what he's doing is applying the resin. And then we'll put the top mold on top. And then we add a ton of pressure. I forget how many thousands of pounds of pressure gets put on top of it, and add heat and time. And over, I think it takes a little over an hour,

we will cure that mold or that resin into an actual part, and that becomes our frame. And what is the advantage of that over, say, any other very stiff or durable material? It's half the weight of aluminum. It's twice as strong as steel and then by twice as strong as steel it is it's amazing it's amazing material and one and then also how we engineer the mold and a big part of the engineering process of this is understanding how far apart you separate the fibers create stiffness. So we have foam in between the carbon fibers

in the center portion of the frame. That foam creates what they call modulus, which is separation of the fibers. And that modulus creates the overall stiffness within the center portion of our frame. And then how much of that we have within the frame determines how much flex, stiffness, and then also where we're putting the fibers and how many so there's a lot to it the weak point of carbon is the epoxy the carbon's

the strongest part and so the the new spread toe what it does is it it makes it tighter smaller yeah less less epoxy yeah and so we've got a spread toe which we just introduced for no weight penalty we now have a frame that's five times stiffer and stronger than what we had previous, which is still a really good performing product. And we just got five times better. That's insane. Isn't it? And so when you say five times stiffer and stronger, how do you know? Is there a too stiff or is it not a stiffness issue?

It's a flex issue? Is there a difference there? Yeah. I mean, there is. And it's a challenge, right? It's is there a difference there yeah i mean there is and it's a challenge right it's finding that perfect balance and you can do that with carbon you can't do that with a steel or aluminum frame pack and you really can't do that with any other pack frame design which is usually some sort of plastic sheeting with aluminum stays put in the flex is kind of there you can add more aluminum stays, but then still doesn't stay. What is an aluminum stay?

For people that are listening to this, they're probably not going to understand what we're saying. It's an aluminum bar, essentially. Which you can kind of mold in a curve or whatever. It's sewn to a piece of plastic, shoved down the back part of like an internal frame backpack has aluminum plastic. And it's to add some sort of support? Stiffness. Stiffness.

Rigidity. It's what will pull the weight off somebody's shoulders and it will help carry that load versus just a duffel bag strapped to your back, which is uncomfortable as you know. Well, that's where the interesting aspect of the engineering comes in when it comes to packs because the same weight with a different pack feels different.

Totally different. And that's something I think a lot of people are not aware of. Like you think, oh, if you're carrying 100 pounds of your back, you're carrying 100 pounds of your back. No. No. No, it's dependent entirely upon the ergonomics, how it sets on your body. It does. And geometry of how that load is transferred onto your back and the frame and balancing it.

There's a lot to it. And, you know, in the past, before our frame came to market, you either had really stiff frames with external frame packs, metal or aluminum. And then you had this internal frame, which was really comfortable until you had put weight in it and then it wouldn't be stiff enough and it would end up putting a lot of pressure and weight on your shoulders and your hips. So how do you engineer that? Do you have to try it out? Do you have to like take one of these packs and wear it on a long back country hunt and then say, okay, here's some, I got a little bit too much weight on my shoulder, a little bit too much weight on my hip, or how do you, how do you discern? It's essentially that I do a lot of workouts with weight on my back in a

pack on a treadmill. Um, so I'm able, I'd spend a ton of time in our packs with various weights and we do that. Um, a lot of guys in our office do as well, as well as my pack developer, Sean and Brendan. And then once we feel like we're really close, we then ship them out to Brendan's guys, a bunch of guides, and say, test it for us. Put it through your world and what you're using it for. I mean, one of the challenges we have with our industry in backpacks is this huge, as you know, this huge swing of weight. Yeah. Because once we get something down, we've got to get all that out. So we're going to go from maybe packing them with a 50- or 60-pound pack to also now you've got a 100-plus pound load and you need to manage that.

So how do you get a pack that can do both? Be comfortable with lighter weights and still have the ability to carry heavy weights. It's an engineering problem. And it's also an engineering problem that's handled a bunch of different ways. Like some people pack it inside the bag. Some people, the pack separates from the frame. You pack the meat to your body and then put the pack, the rest of the pack, strap that down on top of the frame. How do you decide how to handle that? Just trial and error as well? Well, you want the weight closest to your back. The closer you can get, the better it is. And is it the closest to you can get it like flatter to your back as well like you don't you don't want it like bulging

out right like if you have a large yeah if you have a hundred pounds and it's sitting in a two foot square at the lower part of your back that's not nearly as good as like flattened out to six inches and going over the entire section you want to spread that out up and down the frame as close to the frame your back as possible. And where do you make it sit on your shoulders? How are you strapping it in to make sure that it's in the right place? Well, you want to carry the majority of the weight with your hips. So, I mean, you start at the waist, put it all in, and then shoulder straps,

all that kind of stuff, and stand up, and then your load lifters and all the way up. I mean, it's an individual thing how it fits fits but you want to start with i mean your hips are your strongest your center of gravity that's that's where you want the majority of the weight to be carried as close as you can and this is all trial and error stuff that's been done through mountaineering through all these different guys that are going on these long backpack hikes yeah it is and then it's it's fit and also i, it's critical that you have a pack that fits correctly. Most people have a pack that isn't set up correct. And we found that with our packs, they're really easy to adjust the shoulder straps so we can get a perfect fit for each customer. And we put an instructional video out there of making sure the geometry from your load lifters,

which are the straps that come off the top of the pack down to your shoulder straps, that geometry is critical that it's perfect. It has to be at a 45-degree angle. That will help take that load off your shoulders and transfer it to your hips and help you manage that weight comfortably over a long period of time. So you need, like, geometry. You need, like, a triangle to set up to make sure. This is where the whole Bubba thing doesn't come in real well for our sport.

Right, exactly. There's a lot to it. thing doesn't come in real life exactly that's why there's a lot to it i mean it starts at mathematics with the frame and designs and cad and cnc machines and all that and the math and all through it and then it goes all the way through and you build it and then all of a sudden you know it's then it requires testing and and and taking it you know in real life settings and and and people vary on what they like i mean there's some guys like to carry things a certain way some people like fit you know some guys like their pack things a certain way. Some people like fit. Some guys like their pack way up high.

I've fitted guys that like them way up. I mean, you can only know by testing it, by doing it, by carrying some weight. And how many different products are you individually overseeing? See, that's the most daunting aspect of it because you've got all this different shit going on at the same time. And on top of that, you're doing a dozen hunts a year plus and you're out there in the field. How the fuck do you find the time to do all this? Well, it's interesting. When you do something you love and you have a huge passion for it, I never stop working.

I mean, I work second I get up in the morning until the time I go to bed. If I'm not sitting in front of my computer working on stuff specific for Kuyu, I'm thinking about it. And that's, it doesn't feel like it's a lot of work. Although I look back now and go, fuck, that is a lot of work. We put out some amazing products. And, you know, it's just, it's a process. And it's solving problems through finding materials and technologies and designs that solve those problems. There's a lot to be solved in hunting, fortunately.

Because there's a big gap. Brandon, pull that sucker up closer to you. A big gap from some of the other industries that were out there before Sitka and Kuiu's come along. So there's a lot of work to do. And we've done a lot to take from where hunting apparel and gear was back in 2004 to where it is today in 2016. It's a massive change. And not everything's as in-depth as the pack all the way from start to finish. I mean, sometimes you have a great fit on something and you have a new fabric.

Well, you know, I mean, it's got to get tested. You've got to see how you like it. But it's not like 18 models of, you know, when you get a superior breathing, you know. Membrane, yeah. It's not all as in-depth as that it's it's you know a lot of it's plugging in the right product to the right fit and then you have you have a winner right off the bat well i think uh what you were saying about the amount of work this is also like how we were saying that hunting isn't really a sport like it gets called a sport it's sort of

its own thing when work is sort of its own thing too, because you can call it, you can call it work, but if you love something, it's not really work like showing up at the garbage depot and, or the garbage dump and picking up cans all day. Plus you love garbage. I guess you could love garbage. You could love garbage. There's some people who probably love being a garbage man. There's some guy out there screaming, I fucking love garbage. Kill it in garbage.

Yeah. Yeah. But when you find something that you become obsessed with, that becomes a passion, it's like, it's a puzzle. It is. It's just like you're doing a game all day almost. All day. And it's also, in a lot of ways, an art form. I tell you what, brand building to me is fascinating.

And it is an art form. And there's no science. There's no blueprint. This is how you build this brand. And I think it's the most fascinating work i've ever done it's truly figuring out a craft brand building is a craft well it never stops you never stop learning from it every day i mean you live it and breathe it every day yeah it reflects you guys i mean that's one of the things that i found interesting about this is like you can kind of see when there's someone like you that's at the head of something like this and you're this driven focused guy you kind of see that when you when you see the the the actual brand itself it reflects you so this idea of like it being work it's really

like a passion project it is it truly is everything from the product to the brand building to the videos to the imagery i mean i've got my hands in everything. And I'm super particular about the way our image is presented to the marketplace. I always tell people I can feel it, I can taste it, I can smell it. Everything with Kuyu. Well, that's one of the beautiful things about having a very small center of operation. It's just you guys deciding how this goes down. You don't have to meet with a giant board of a bunch of different people.

You're not a public company. You don't have to – there's nobody there to water down the Cheerios. Does that make sense? It's not a democracy. Water down the Cheerios. I don't even know. Yeah, no. I always say every day, it's a dictatorship at KU.

Yeah. It kind of is, and it works well that way. And it's interesting because we get – because of our growth and because of our business model, we are approached all the time by private equity investment groups, you know, throwing huge valuations and money at me. And I'm just, when I look at the opportunity, yeah, it's a lot of money, but I don't want to change what we've got. Right. You know, as soon as I bring in outside capital or professionals and look in the business they're like well you need to professionalize like for who right what does that mean what is professionalize my team right exactly well you need a cfo you need a cmo

you need a co i'm like for for what right so we can slow down our process so we can change the culture that's built a really special unique unique company. So a bunch of other people give pieces of the pie away. Right? Yeah. It's just such a broken traditional model as far as growing a business. We're doing it just the opposite. It's the same thing with podcasting. There's a broken model.

There's a lot of podcasters today that are joining in with these gigantic networks, and they think that being a part of a network is like being on NBC or being on CBS which it used to be a big deal back in the day like if you were run doing a play and NBC came along and said we want to turn that play into a sitcom you'd be like we fucking made it yeah but now if you have a successful podcast and someone comes along and says hey we would love you to be a part of our gigantic corporation like get the fuck out of here we got a run we got to run. We got to run away from these guys.

They're going to ruin everything. And they will. They will. They'll come in. They'll tell you what to do. They'll tell you what you can't do. No more cussing. No more cussing for sure.

Yeah. You can't bounce around. You got to pick your topics. You're way too spaced out. What does water down the Cheerios even fucking mean? You certainly can't cover hunting. Yeah, exactly. That's way too controversial.

Certainly not twice a week. I mean, I had Cam Haines on on Monday, and you guys on this one. I just don't think you should do anything other than what you want to do. I think if you could live the best life, it's like, what actually interests you? What do you actually enjoy doing?

Well, do that. Is it possible all the time? No. There's some obligations you're going to have to have. There's family stuff, work stuff, business stuff. There's stuff you have to deal with. But do what you want to do the most that you can do it. Absolutely. I always say, if you can be an expert in something you love, you can find a way to make a living in it. I mean, Brendan's a perfect example. He freaking loves hunting and he lives it and breathes it, studies it. Look where he is now.

Well, when I met Brendan, I met him this past weekend in Bozeman. And one of the things that struck me is you and I were talking. You have this fucking crazy fire in your eyes. You're like, I wanted to be the guy that kills the biggest bulls every year. And when I killed one big bull, I didn't want it to just be like, oh, it was just a fluke. Well, now you've got to be consistent. And I was like, all right, this crazy motherfucker, I see where he's at. And then when you told me you had this gigantic bull down in schnee's which is a store

on main street in bozeman i went to the store just to see that bull i i was like we got to stop in i gotta i gotta take a look at this thing and there's this elk that looks like something out of the lord of the rings totally that doesn't even look like a real animal it's breathtaking it's fucking massive isn't it i mean if you walk up to that thing and you look at it and you literally stop shooting your tracks explain the weight of the antlers on that thing yeah so i mean it's obviously unusually big i mean most elk given their whole lifespan will never achieve that it's a truly special elk and like in people like it's not just a number but i mean it is a shaquille o'neal of elk that's what it is it's that rare and uh yeah the horn it would when when the skull plate sawed off it weighed 54 pounds jesus so

which is two antler i mean it's it's heavy and giant like unusually big they're just it just massive you know it's the biggest elk killed in 30 years in the state of montana so it was what it looked like when it was alive, my God. How much did it weigh on the hoof, do you think? You know, a big bull elk will be 600 to 700 pounds. I mean, they get thrown 1,000 pounds a lot, but, you know, to weigh them, like, there are a few great big bulls that'll weigh 1,000. It was a 1,000-pounder. He was 12 years old. You know, he was just a monster, you know.

So, the Roosevelt elks are the ones that have the biggest bodies, the the roosevelt elk have the by far the biggest bodies yeah but not the biggest out not right not the biggest antlers but like how big their bodies get 1200 it's a really big bulls i mean you can see in photos of them they're just enormous i mean they're unusually giant i mean especially the really big bull you know and you know like not every elk is huge i mean right an old bull who's had good feed and lived a long time and was genetically big to begin with will be really big i mean they're not they don't all end up huge you know they're uh just just the ones he hunts yeah what's a fascinating pursuit you know pursuing the the the apex of the genetics

you know finding the animal and it's also one of the things that's important about this like the pursuit of hunting is that this animal that you shot was probably like i mean how old do you think he was he was 12 years old i mean that is an old old elk that is that's old age in the world of wild beasts it's the ultimate i mean like When you get to the level where you're consistently killing stuff and you've gotten the point that the ultimate level is to kill the biggest, oldest, most mature, historically significant on the chain of events in history of all the guys that have ever killed elk. Not all elk are going to be huge, but with any animals. guys have ever killed elk i mean not all elk are designed are going to be huge but with any animals like when you kill something is super old super big super smart that is the pinnacle of where your skills have gotten and a lot of people never get there you know based on you know they don't have time i mean the biggest the biggest factor in doing that and getting to that point is having

the time you know just just having the time to know, I spent a decade of my life putting a boot track everywhere you could put one, finding where every elk was in my state and looking for the biggest ones. I mean, it is like the work. It's consuming. You have to love to do it. It's not fun. You just have to be driven to do it, to want to be able to do it. But the result is fun. I mean, the photo that you sent, you sent me some text messages,

photos of that thing on the ground. You see the size of the antlers. No, that's another one. That's another one you shot? That's a pretty big one too, but that's not nearly as big as the one. You want me to send it to you, Jamie? I'll send it to you, Jamie.

Should I email it to you? Either way. Okay. And that was, you know, at that point in time actually when i killed that elk i wasn't at the skill set i am now i mean i got pretty lucky that was the third elk i ever killed right place the right time did the right thing and you know just lit a fire in me like i want to do that more yeah that's ridiculous that that was the third i thought when i first started talking to brendan about elk, he would hunt a elk.

And that was so different for me. I mean, I was just trying to find a bull to hunt, any bull, and I would try to get a good one. But Brendan would hunt and find an elk and spend the entire season trying to kill that single elk, which I thought, at least my experience elk hunting, was hard to find that same elk twice that I'd maybe see in the morning, and I would never see it again. Brendan had the ability to hunt it down and kill it. Well, it's also the best thing from a conservation standpoint. You're talking about an animal that has spread its genes for at least 10 years, right?

For 10 years, that thing has been spreading those superior genetics, and it's probably been forcing a lot of other males to get the fuck off the mountain. Would me. Yeah. It's huge. That one did. I never saw it. forcing a lot of other males to get the fuck off the mountain i mean when would me yeah that one did i never saw i watched him for three days morning and night before i killed him and he another bull never came near that thing that's like brock that's like brock lesnar of elf yeah yeah or alistair overeem yeah exactly yeah when you're but hey old like uberine old alistair yeah alistair when he's on the Mexican supplements.

Yeah, the new Alistair might be a better fighter, actually. It's interesting. When you see an animal like that and you realize how difficult it is to reach 12 years of age in the wild with mountain lions, wolves. I mean, Montana, it's like he's just got everything after him. Grizzlies, everything's after him and to be able to to be that smart to get to this position in life and for you to solve that puzzle and to get in and shoot that elk that's that's one of the things that sort of embodies the the the really intense difficulty in hunting it's it's one of those things where, I mean, it's the ultimate challenge. I mean, once you've, you know, killed a bunch of elk and, you know, I mean, it gets to where it is the ultimate challenge and you're not always going to win. I don't always

get them. I mean, that's, that's the beauty of it. I mean, like you never get to the point where you're so good. Well, I haven't got to the point where I'm so good where every great big one I get, I mean, I, it's getting there. I'm getting closer, but they do, you know, like you're learning stuff all the time. And it's one of those things nobody can tell you about. You can't, you know, I'm, I'm basically self-taught. My dad taught, taught me how to read maps. And until you figure out, you know, why is an elk here? What's he doing? You know, not just wandering around like, oh, there's some elk over there, but like, why is he here? Why would he be here this time of year? What is he doing?

Where, where's he going? What's his next move? Like, I mean, I've had bulls where I've hunted, where I know what they're going to do before they do. Literally, I know what that, that bull was down here. He was doing this. And I was like, I think I know what he's going to do. And I go the other direction, come around the other way. And and that's what he did I knew before he was going to do it um it just it just comes from watching him spending thousands of hours and just data chunking yeah yeah and I mean you you see the picture of the great big bulls and it's that's that's great but there is right there the time that goes into that like nobody ever sees you know they don't see hundreds and hundreds of days in between. Yeah, I was a young guy there, man, 22 years old there.

It's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. And when you eat that animal, I mean, the amount of satisfaction that comes from sitting down to a meal that you procured in the most difficult way humanly possible. I mean, you shot that thing with a bow and arrow in the mountains, and here you are eating it 12 yards snuck right up on him yeah yeah it's cool i mean the the thing about trophy hunting that's not understood is like it's the ultimate it's it's the pinnacle of combining you know what you love to do and then this incredible skill set that you're developing to be better than you know i'm not saying better than anybody else, but it takes a lot of work. Better than you used to be.

Better than you used to be. Continuing to get better and better. Yeah. And, you know, the funny thing to me is always like the thing trophy hunting has got this weird stigma with it or whatever. And it's like, man, I mean, I eat the whole elk. I love doing it. I love the challenge of it. I don't, you know, I don't shy away from saying I love to to kill animals i mean like i love to hunt them i love the challenge of you know take you

know of getting the biggest one i find it the most challenging thing i've ever done but um you know i always eat it i eat everything and you know and i take the hide and the head i mean i'm using more than most people are you know people like i oh, I just trophy hunt and whatever. It's the challenge. The term needs to be changed. It's the challenge of it. Well, the term is kind of screwed up because it's applied to things that people shoot where they don't eat it, which seems to be like a cruelty, like a pursuit, a vain pursuit of going out and shooting lions and shooting things that you're not going to eat.

The weird thing about that is I was talking to a guy who was doing an article for the New York Times and he said, I don't have a problem with hunting as long as you eat it. And I just said, you don't have a problem with hunting. You legally have to take the meat. The amount of people that would shoot something and not take the meat is the same as people that are thieves out on the street i mean it's it's so uncommon so like the perception of you know guys just shooting it and you know just because 10 years down the road all i have in my garage is the head doesn't mean that i didn't use it and so that the perception again against the lowest

common denominator guy you hear about one horrible thing going on or somebody that doesn't take the meat and all of a sudden it's everybody's lumped into it i mean i grew up in rural montana i never had a beef steak at a restaurant until i was on a recruiting trip in college i mean i grew up eating wild game my entire life i never had my parents never bought meat ever that's probably why you're such a good wrestler yeah i guess right get that fucking protein get that wild dna in your system free range organic yeah yeah that's that's the real food but people it's like a disconnect they don't they don't understand like oh man they eat you know like you don't need to do that it's like i'm not saying we didn't need to do it we that's just what we did i mean i grew up in an area where that's that's what

we that's what i ate and like i said i never my parents never bought meat yeah the exception hunting day is so screwed up. It is, but it's also because of cities. I mean, one of the things that's made us be able to be so comfortable and have air conditioning is technology and advancement. But it's also allowed us to be completely disconnected from where food comes from. And that's what allows people to stand up on these pedestals and point down at people that they think are doing something wrong when they're responsible for just as much death. They're responsible for more suffering.

More suffering, exactly. Yeah, more suffering than hunters, for sure. Absolutely. But just as much death, too. Totally. And even people that are vegetarians, even people that are, they think that by eating vegetables and plants that they're doing no harm. by eating vegetables and plants that they're doing no harm. The amount of wildlife habitat displacement that takes place in just growing kale is ridiculous.

And all the pesticides and everything else that goes into it. It's mind-blowing. Bees and fucking rodents and all the different death that is associated with combines and wide-scale grain when you're growing and harvesting grain. There's so much death involved. There is. And there's no getting around that. I mean, we are consumers in some sort of a weird way.

But to me, the purest pursuit of it is what you're talking about. Archery, hunting in the backwoods, in the most difficult environments. I mean, it is an unbelievably difficult pursuit that somehow or another gets lumped into this idea that it's a bunch of dumb people and they're cruel. If you're dumb, you're not going to be successful doing that. And if you're lazy, you're not going to be successful. You're just not. Yeah. I mean, I've been, because of Cuy, you've been in New York doing a bunch of media tours over the last year and to be interviewed by these people that live in a big city that have no idea of what hunting is like or what it's about is really

mind-blowing to me because it's been such a big part of my life and everyone I'm associated with and friends with typically hunts or understands hunting their perception of it is so amazing to me that we would just kill an animal cut its head off and leave everything i don't know anybody that's ever done it it's completely illegal and but that's what mainstream media has made out hunting to be and it's like a mission of mine now to change that perception and mine as well it's it's a lazy it's a lazy perception of it it's not it's not real it doesn't happen not not for real hunting no it absolutely just never happens yeah i mean like this new york times yeah i was just

like yeah it's you know i took him through like the wanton waste laws and and all that and he was just like he's like wow that i mean you you legally have to take it like it's not it's not something that's new you know like it's it's always been that way and there there is this cool meat movement that's been going on but you know one thing that's like don it's not something that's new, you know, like it's, it's always been that way. And there, there is this cool meat movement that's been going on. But, you know, one thing that's like, don't get it lost that, you know, guys in the 60s, 70s, all, you know, since, you know, aside from market hunting back in the day, which isn't real hunting, it was just extermination for, but I mean, it's, you know, people hunt and they consume what they eat. Like anything else, just like eating, just like eating bread or anything else. I mean, it's like you got studs in your house. They came from a tree.

This is where they came from. Yeah, exactly. I always say if you want to fix the health problems of the United States, make everybody hunt. The problem is there's none of the animals. There's too many people and none of the animals. I know, but it's like obesity, overweight, poor diet. Right. Make them all hunters.

That all goes away. It does all go away. Because they have to live a lifestyle to actually harvest an animal. Yeah. To change everything. And hunting, you know, I mean, God, it's been our DNA for two million years. Yeah. And it's the last hundred that people had an issue with it.

Not actually the last 50. Yeah. Well, it's when you see things like the Cecil the Lion thing and then everybody gets up in arms about hunting and it just becomes this really distorted version of what it actually is. Yeah, but the stuff with Cecil, that's not even true. I mean, it wasn't, you know, he wasn't living full time in the park. There's a new thing that just came out in the hunting report about the whole background of it. I mean, there's a lot more to it than that.

And it's all how it's said, too. There's a lot more to it than that. And it's all how it's said, too. It's like, oh, the guy killed Cecil Lyon, who's this super old male who had been kicked out of the Pride, apparently, and the whole thing with his brothers and the family and all that stuff. Yeah, it's hilarious. And at the end of the day, it's like, oh, he shot him and beheaded him. It's like, well, hey, that burger you got at McDonald's, guess what? It died and got beheaded. It's all how you word it.

You could also say it was processed. I mean, just beheaded this is a horrible thing it's like yeah everything that gets killed and processed gets beheaded but don't you think that part of the reason why people get upset about lions is because people generally don't eat lions so when someone says that someone goes and shoots a line like why would you shoot this beautiful rare majestic animal just so you could stick it on your wall and and just think you're a badass because you've got this thing that could kill you if you didn't have a weapon and you got it on your wall now well i mean it comes down to like predators need to be controlled i mean it's

it's not one of those things that's pretty and people really love to hear that but at the end of the day it is true i mean like you know i mean you were just down where i grew up i grew up in just north of the of the greater yellowstone elk herd, you know, between Gardner and Livingston, that's where I grew up. And when I was in high school, there was 19,000 elk in that herd. You go down there in wintertime and see 1500 bulls. I mean, it was, it was amazing. And they're down to two to 3000 now because of, you know, the reintroduction of the wolf, you know, like you have to control predators, um, um anywhere wherever they're at i mean it's it's it's insane to think that we don't exist and these houses and fences and highways and stuff

are not there and that you can just turn something loose and just let it run its course and and you know you mean people are even appalled by the natural core i mean when you see a young lion take over the pride and cecil gets chomped and destroyed by two other younger lions that came in and got him. People don't even like seeing that. Right. That's just how it happens. It's just attachment, just attachment from the actual cycle of life. It is. Yeah. And the other thing that's going on is that people love to, they love to broadcast how horrible the people are that hunt these things and how these lions need to be preserved and it's so important. Like Leonardo DiCaprio had something on his Instagram page the other day

where it was like an anniversary of the death of Cecil and he was talking about how few of these animals that are left, they have to be protected. What he very conveniently ignores is the fact that Zimbabwe is going to kill 200 lions now because no one's going over there to hunt those lions. I was just going to talk about that. So there's more of them, so they're decimating the undulate population,

so now they're going to kill them and make no money. So they're going to lose out on millions of dollars in revenue. What would you expect from a guy that got attacked by a CGI bear? I mean, he doesn't live in reality anyway. A CGI bear. He probably didn't even write it he's probably doing coke and banging hookers and just called his assistant hey man put something eco on my page yeah see some anniversary yeah now they're now they can't now that's a ton of money they could

generate to shoot those and I know guy I mean I know booking yeah I talk to him all the time there's guy that nobody will touch that with a 10-foot pole it's a great hunt it's a cool thing to go see they do need to be managed. I mean, you know, like a lot of things, like it just is what it is. It's very inconvenient when you look at the actual facts of hunting over there, even hunting, you know, just quote-unquote for trophies. That is where they get a massive amount of their revenue. It feeds a lot of the people that are over there. It makes a huge impact on their economy.

on their revenue. It feeds a lot of the people that are over there. It makes a huge impact on their economy. And a lot of people don't like that, but I urge people to watch the Louis Theroux documentary about his trip to Africa, where he spent, he spent several weeks in this African hunting camp. And, you know, it was the same thing. It was like a high fence operation where they had lions and they were throwing like calves over the fence to feed these lions. And there's like two fences separating him from the lions. And he got to see in depth what's going on. He's essentially saying that these animals, the only reason why they're here at all, massive amounts of them, is because they're worth something to people that come over.

And if it wasn't, this place is so poor and so crazy that these animals would have been wiped out. And they were on the verge just a couple of decades ago before they introduced hunting. So it's such a catch-22 because they have more animals than they've ever had before. But the reason for that is because they're worth something to hunt. Exactly. They're an economic resource. And because of that, they have value, so they're protected. And there's money to protect them.

And people get put off by the fact that people enjoy the pursuit. Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, it's one of those things like I have a hard time explaining it to people that, you know, I mean, what makes a little kid who when you're in the yard and there's a bird right there, like some kids, you know, just look at it. And some kids want to chase that thing down. And it's like 10,000 years where the genetics that say. Two million actually. Yeah. You want to do it.

Like this is something that is built in yeah you want to do like this is something that is built in you want to do i mean you felt that you didn't draw up hunting right and all of a sudden now you you you can't i mean you think about it every day that's all you want to do i'm sure yeah and so to explain that to somebody that doesn't have that it's really hard i mean you know especially while they're eating a hamburger on from their pedestal telling you how you know you shouldn't kill anything. Well, I almost think, I mean, I don't think anybody should be forced to do anything, but I almost think that it would be good for everybody to have to kill something and eat it,

if you do eat meat, just to experience it. And, I mean, that's just killing something. But to actually go out and hunt something down and kill it and eat it, I think would open up a lot of doors inside your mind. Open up a lot of areas of perception and give you this real understanding of what it means to consume life. There's a lot to it. It's a very complex thing that's going on when you're eating an animal. A lot to it.

It's like you talked about that disconnect. I mean, there is a massive disconnect yeah it's weird it's people think just because it's in a package at a grocery store and they're cellophane with a styrofoam thing underneath that it's not didn't come from an animal or something yeah but you should almost have to watch even if you're not going to do it you should almost have to be there where they kill the cow and then string it up and then cut it up and people how many people become vegetarians then right remember that whole cow thing that went on a couple years ago i think it was in a slaughterhouse down in southern california and those cows are sick and they're falling over and they got video of it and it got

out there about the processing of meat and all these people up in arms about it i'm like that's always been that way yeah and it just got public right people were appalled by it but that's the reality of beef and industrial food complex versus the animals that we hunt. They're going to have a great life. Most of them, like the animals Brent and I hunt, which are the older ones, they've had a full life. And they've had the opportunity to experience things in nature and reproduce and have what an animal's life should be like. Where cattle or any type of industrial type of food animal, like chickens or cows or pigs, I mean, it's like living in a concentration camp.

And it depends on the situation, too. I mean, my wife's father has a big ranch in eastern Montana, and they raise and process all their own stuff. People talk about all the beef and meat's horrible and stuff not where not where i come from i mean they take really good care of those animals and and it's very important and they don't go to the you know the giant stockyards and all it just it just depends it's all relative you got to look at everything as it is you know right you know where did that come from at least you know where it's more connected yeah when people hear about grass-fed beef, one of the big complaints, they go, God, it's so expensive.

But yeah, it's not supposed to be that cheap to eat life. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? I mean, a steak can be so cheap, it's ridiculous. You think about the amount of effort that has to go for you to get this $5 steak. The amount of effort. The animal has to grow, it has to be fed, it has to be taken care of, then it has to be slaughtered, cut up, packaged, processed, sent to stores, put on the shelves, and then you go and buy.

Like, look at the prices. Like, oh my God, no shit. Of course. Yeah, exactly. You could try doing it yourself and you would value it. You would realize, like, wow, this is actually a pretty good deal. And all the process, it's not all the same either. Like I said, I mean, there's lots of great ranchers that care about what they're doing and

do it right and all that stuff. And, you know, again, your lowest common denominator, you get, you know, a place that's got 70 cows packed into one shoot and people are like, oh my God, we're up in arms about it. It's like, well, that's not the norm on everything either. I think it's good, though, that people are being aware of this. And I think it's good that people are up

in arms because I think there is something really disgusting about factory farming. Undeniably disgusting. And I think the education of this and i think it's good that people are up in arms because i think there is something really disgusting about factory farming undeniably disgusting and i think the education of people and getting to understand like yeah this is a system that you're a part of even like the really hardcore radical animal activists that you know risk their um their lives and make these crazy fucking videos and get inside slaughterhouses and you know violate those ag gag laws i salute them i salute them for getting that out there. I do, too. I mean, it shows the other side of it, the bad side of it.

People don't get to see it. We shouldn't be shielded from the truth in any way, shape, or form. And that's one of the things that's allowed this factory farm system to get so disgusting is the fact that people haven't been able to have their input. They haven't been able to see it and protest against it and say, hey, you shouldn't be treating living things like this. Totally agree. I mean, that story doesn't get told enough.

And I think the reasonable people who love animals and maybe they don't have any desire whatsoever to eat them, those are the people that I think respect the pursuit of hunting and respect the idea that, look, a person, it's not something for everybody, but neither is marathon running, neither is weightlifting, neither is football, jujitsu, anything difficult, wrestling. These are not for everybody. Everybody's not going to do a lot of things that are hard to do.

But if you want to procure meat, that's the best way to do it. Couldn't agree more. And everything that goes into it. That's what I love about it. Well, I think it's way to do it. Couldn't agree more. And everything that goes into it. That's what I love about it. Well, I think it's important to spread that. I think that's sort of getting out there as well. There's this anti-meat movement and anti-animal cruelty movement. And I respect that.

I understand where they're coming from. Unless you're driving the Lexus with the leather seats. I mean, honestly, it's like like you know yeah you see it all the time guy wearing leather shoes and a leather belt you know talking about you know his impact and how little you know being vegan or whatever it's like man that's just the hypocrisy is insane of people you know like living in a house like how much is animal byproduct from from everything you use and it's like well yeah but i just had a salad today it's like yeah that's i mean it's killed 50 rabbits when they harvested it it made you feel

good but in reality you're just bullshitting yourself yeah but they don't even know they're bullshitting themselves if they if their perception of what they're doing was accurate then they would have a good point but it's a it's an ignorance to what what is actually involved yeah it really is i don't i don't believe in killing anything it's like every time you get in your car man i mean the most animal the most life i've ever taken is every time i take a 500 mile road trip i mean and i gotta wipe those things off my window i mean like i mean people people are like oh you can kill the shit out of bugs right you know fish or cool or whatever it's like we got eyelids involved now it's getting weird it's like well where does it where is it yeah exactly i used to live in

boulder and uh i lived next to an ashram and the lady that ran the ashram this buddhist ashram she used to poison the ants and i said to her i go what are you doing i go you poison the ants she was like well it's inconvenient we really don't like to do it but they get in our kitchen i'm like oh shit yeah that's where you draw the line you guys are this is some weird gray area you've entered you're a murderer later yeah you're a mass murderer you've killed fucking thousands of beings just today but an ant's a weird one because like i've seen people like they'll see an ant on them they'll squish it and then they flick it on the ground in your house. Totally.

It's so little, they don't care that it hits your kitchen floor. Yeah, exactly. But if it was a mouse, if someone in your house stomped a mouse in the middle of your kitchen, you'd be like, what the fuck, dude? Like, Jesus Christ, is it because it makes more of a mess, and now you have to consider what's actually going on there. Totally. People are fucking weird. They're weird.

Yeah, it's weird. I mean, but that's not really what I wanted to bring you guys in on. That's like a beaten to death subject on this podcast. You didn't want to talk about ants? No. I love ants, by the way. Do you?

Are you a big ant fan? Yeah, yeah, they're cool. I mean, wouldn't it be amazing to be able to pick shit up that was that much bigger than you and walk around with it in your mouth? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Cool. Impressive. When it turns out, when you start talking about what they're capable of, yeah. And what's also... Isn't like an ant the size of a cat could be able to pick up a house? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And no free will whatsoever. Yeah. There's no decision making. They just do. Just an ant. Have you ever seen those ant death spirals? No.

Got to check it out. Jamie, pull something like that up. The ants follow the pheromones of the queen. And when something. I get it. When something goes. Yeah, I get it too And when something goes wrong, when something goes wrong, like their scent gets screwed up or the queen dies or the queen gets removed, but the scent's still there, the ants will circle.

They'll circle each other and spiral. Yep. Like a hurricane until they all die. And you're talking about thousands of them. Really? Yep. And they'll keep circling. No one knows what the fuck's going on. That's talking about thousands of them. Really? Yep. And they'll keep circling. No one knows what the fuck's going on. That's the true power of pee right there.

Yeah. I mean, look at this. That's amazing. And a few of them are going the wrong way. Those are a few rebels. That looks like the freeways in Southern California. It looks like a hurricane. It does. I mean, it really does. That's the eye of the storm in the center there. And they're circling around and they don't know what the fuck's going on. So that's with a dead queen. Yeah. Well, it's either a dead queen. I'm not exactly.

Jamie, see if you can find out the actual exact reason for it. They can't really know. No, they don't know. They're following the pheromones in some sort of a way. But when they're doing this, I mean, this just shows that this this being these ants have no you don't just find an actual explanation for it not a video but when these these animals are doing this like they don't they don't have any free will they have this this this sort of directive this is what they do you know they make the nest

they build a beehive they do this they change like a friend of mine was Ben O'Brien you guys know Ben O' from uh used to be work for peterson's uh magazine he was telling me about one of his friends had a queen bee somehow or another got stuck in their car and this hive of bees followed them for 20 miles they followed the car for 20 miles because the bee was in the car like they're they don't have any like man she's gone we gotta. We've got to let her go. We can't. We've got to push on. None of that. There's no free will. It's just what they do.

There's no decision making. It's just what they do. They never give up. It's a bizarre form of life. They have these really weird things that they do. If you've seen videos on different ant species where the females will chop the male's legs off. I think, is that leaf cutter ants that do that?

I forget which one. But they chop, they take the male and they're going to breed with them. And they essentially cut his legs off so that he can't move. And then they carry him to wherever they want to fuck him. And then they take him and breed with him. I've met a couple girls like that before. Ain't a bad way to wherever they want. They want to fuck him. And then they take him and breed with him. I've met a couple of girls like that before. You know, bad way to go about it.

I'm like, you can take my legs off. Yes. Lying there, a stub. Yeah. All these chicks just pull cum out of you. It's like,

it's, but, and again, no thought process. There's no meeting. They don't have a board where they sit down and decide how to do this with the male. They just go about the way they've always done it. Yeah.

What a trip, huh? Yeah. Here we go. How to make ants commit suicide. You can make it happen. You can make it happen? Yeah. It's just like you can force them into a potted plant and they'll just start following each

other and next thing you know, they're all dead. We should bring that in on the show. We could put one right here. It'd be rude. People would be angry. They'd protest. Yeah, right? That that's cruel but that's the thing like a certain amount of death is okay i mean every time you wash your body you're killing flora you're killing living living organisms that are on the surface of your skin there's no getting around it

and there's no way to live a life where you're not killing other life it's there's this constant cycle that's going on in some sort of a weird way that most of us are detached from the way it's always been yeah it's bizarre not to be in touch with it and or just to deny it like i mean like no i'm not i'm not doing that amen i mean and there are like there are a few people that you know try as hard as they can and all that but most people like they always give up though they love the idea yeah but you know, try as hard as they can and all that. But most people, like, they always give up, though. They love the idea. Yeah. But, you know, implementation is where it gets complicated. So I think there's also a problem with entertainment,

like the anthropomorphizing of animals and Disney movies and things along those lines. So, like, when you think of an animal, you think of this big, furry, lovable thing. You don't think of this, you know, like what an elk is is essentially a warrior. It's this living warrior that has uh weapons grown out of its head and they run around they kill each other when i was at tohon ranch you've been to that place they found this huge like 390 class bull dead that had been stabbed by another bull he just ran them through and he's lying there dead on the side of the mountain with holes in his body from from the other bull just fucking head butted him to death i'm going through it right now i got

a four-year-old son and he watched this little show called the lion guard which is like and all these animals get together and they're all friends and and we started watching he would ask questions and stuff and and now i'm like we watch you know if you want to watch the lion guard that's fine but i've explained to him like the cheetah and the lion and the hippo, they don't get along. They're not buddies. And we watched Discovery Channel and he watched it, you know, like the day we just watched the wildebeest. A couple of days ago, we watched the wildebeest getting eaten by the crocodile. And he was just like, whoa.

You know, it's like, and now, like, when it comes up, he's like, well, that's just pretend. But I want to watch that. And it's like, that's fine as long as we know that's not really how it goes. We'll go to Discovery Channel and watch Killers on the Savannah. And it's like, wow, the lion doesn't get along with anybody. He eats everybody. And I don't want my kid to think that, well, it's just a big peaceful thing, and they're all this big symbiotic relationship, and they all love each other.

No, man, that ain't what's going on. Yeah, it's weird the way we've chosen to distort these animals and like polar bears like there was a picture that was going on on instagram a lot of people were posting up of this enormous polar bear walking around with a cub's head in its mouth everyday occurrence they're cannibals 100% of the males are cannibals and most people people have no idea of this. So they think of a polar bear like Klondike bar or Coca-Cola salesperson. Yeah, there's the photo that's been going on. And this is just food for them. Absolutely. I mean, in a polar bear, he's not an omnivore. No, 100% carnivore. He eats people. He eats whatever he can get a hold of. Yeah. I

mean, that's all they eat is meat. They're not like a black bear or any other bear that can eat anything. All they eat is flesh. That's it. That bear at the zoo is eating meat. Yeah. They don't let you see it, but the polar bear at the zoo, just hammering away at it. Yeah, that's one of the darker things about the zoo, too, is we take them away from their actual purpose. I think if you're going to have a zoo, it should be like you should have animals that –

have you ever seen that zoo in Iraq that they had when before we invaded Iraq they they had zoos where they used to just let like a goat loose and then they would open up the gate and let the Lions come out and jack the goat and there's literally soldiers took videos of these things and people were like aghast like I don't understand why you think you should be able to keep a lion but don't let a lion be a lion like you're gonna do all the killing for how's you giving him some fake meat no you're giving him real meat okay so something had to die in order to get but you don't want him to do it why don't you want him to do it like what the fuck are

you doing yeah exactly what is a zoo trust me the lion wants to hunt. That's what they live for. Here's the video. So they have these goats, and these goats are just wandering around. They have no idea. They let them loose, and then they open up the gate. And when they open up the gate, the lions, apparently, they do this all the time. So they're hip to what's going to go on. They're stretched out and ready to go.

Oh, yeah. They're warmed up. They put on sprints. They don't want to pull a hammy when they get the goat so they open up the gate and as soon as they open up the gate is just on like donkey kong i bet they got walkout music and everything they're just ready yeah this queen is playing we will we will rock you here Here it goes. Boom. They open up the gate. I like that zoo.

It's not that weird to be fascinated by that and for those guys to look at that and go, wow, that's lions being lions. Like, that's pretty wild. I mean, they're going to eat today one way or the other. And here's another interesting thing. It's interesting for us to watch. If we're watching and we're going, whoa, and we're laughing, oh, my God. But if we were there and we were laughing, then people get upset.

Like there's an instinct to, like, listen to those guys laughing while it's happening because they're filming it right through the fence and go, wow, a bunch of assholes laughing at death. But meanwhile, it's okay to laugh at it if it's on a YouTube video. Totally. It's okay to throw a bug in a and and watch a fish eat it it's like oh cool right but it's like a goat and a lion it's like whoa that's good it's like watching a fight yeah i mean we want to see the guy get knocked out right next step is death right it is so take it as close as possible oh yeah i mean we find thrill in that well the guy chokes the guy out and he steps off of him and he's totally unconscious. The only difference between that and death is time.

The amount of time he has to choke. That's it. That's it. Keep that choke on for another minute. That guy's dead. Yep. Or not even a minute. And we get millions of people who want to watch it.

Yeah. But at least they make a decision. They both make a decision. They're both going to enter into this. And it's an extreme form of a competition with dire physical consequences. And that's why it's so exciting to watch. I mean, I think the parallels when you're watching something like that. It's a little different.

Yeah, a little different. But still, it's a detachment thing. It is. Yeah. Well, you know, you watch a movie. You can watch a movie where 10 people get shot, and they get punched and kicked, and everybody gets their ass kicked. But if they fuck, if they're naked, they start to to go what are you showing me like what is this like people are

weird we're real weird they like to draw the line on certain things for whatever reasons no it doesn't make any sense whatsoever no it doesn't it doesn't that's why with the hunting thing you can't win it all yeah i mean you do a good you do as good a job as you can putting forward an educated you know opinion of why what we do and and and at the same time being you know where i'm unapologetic about it too it's not like somebody there's not a conversation that could convince me that what i'm doing isn't what i was meant to do you know now when it comes to hunting i mean you you know you put forward that you know we try and tell people about it and educate people as to what it is and people are going to feel how they're going to feel.

But at the end of the day, I mean, nothing's going to change with us either. How did you go from being a guy who's obsessed with being the best hunter you could possibly be and wanting to be the best hunter in the world? How did you go from that to working for a sitka, an apparel company, a hunting company, and then going to Kuyu? Well, I, so after I killed that big elk i was in you know i started writing some stories and and like i told you i mean i i really you know there's a lot of guys that get something have a great stroke and luck in life and all of a sudden they killed one big thing or they win one small lottery or whatever and and you never hear from again and

that was like that you know growing up being a hunter like to kill this huge elk was yeah i was just i'm at right place at the right time. An amazing thing for me, but I was at the time super conscious that I don't want to be a one hit wonder. I mean, I want to do it more. I want to be really good at what I'm doing. I mean, like I grew up reading hunting books and like the best hunters in the world. I want to, I want to defend his title. Yeah, exactly.

I want to keep the strap after every year. And so I just put the work in. And then I was doing some writing. I was at a trade show when I met him. And I didn't work at Sitka. I was the first. They had an athlete team in one of the first ones. Pro Staff.

First year. Not really an athlete team. Yeah, whatever it was. They called it that after I left. Pro Staff, we were talking about them on the phone. It's a weird term today. It is. You can sort of buy a hat that says like pro staff oh yeah the franchise is completely dead i mean like i said you know pro staff with everything it's like when you can buy a hat that says that

it's it's dead i mean it means it means nothing it's it's been but back in the day it was i mean like back when print media and like at the one point in time it meant you were vouching for our product because you used it and you earned the right to vouch for it yeah you had you had the photos you have the accomplishments you earned the rights not so much today you have you have the credibility to say this is this is good stuff or not and not because you did social media reps but because you actually had been out there using it and killed big stuff yeah and had the track record so i met him at trade show and uh you know like i said every now and again in life you have something that's just right place at the right time and i'd kill that big elk and it kind of was getting known and

and i met him in the booth and he's like you're that kid that killed that big elk and looked exactly the same still does yeah and so we hit it off and i started helping him testing gear and shot a commercial for him down and stuff we just became really good friends and then um when the whole deal went down at sitka um he you know it's like when you're when your guy you know your guy is you know there and and is leaving you know you have a choice you can either go with your guy or you can you know stay with you know what's whatever the the best thing you think is to do and and i was like man whatever you got going on next let me know i'm i'm down what did you think about this pursuit that he's

on to create the most finely engineered like to the extreme products like what he's doing it's it's fine i mean he's he's hit everything on the head that he told me i mean we flew down we went to a i flew down like i don't want to say it was like in november or something the year before he's who you started who he was already started but beforehand he he basically is like nostradamus in hindsight i mean it's like listen he breaks out this he i remember i'll never forget this briefcase and he pulled this thing out and it was a carbon fiber frame and he's like this is this is the backpack we're coming out with and the whole business model and all that and it's like i'm not the smartest guy in the world but when i meet a really smart dude that's got a really good idea you know i'm not that dumb

you're smart enough to recognize smart people yeah yeah i was like i was like man i don't yeah it's i mean when you see something you go dude i want to know more about that and that seems like it's going to fix a problem and uh and just you know the knowledge of what he what he knew about everything and you know we were buddies and it's like dude why wouldn't you want to go you know work at a company where you're going to be able to hunt as much as you want you're testing gear and and i mean truly living the dream and not just saying it like living the dream like you don't you wake up every day and you like what you're doing and

you know it's it's been awesome i mean that's and so so yeah he said he's basically i'm looking for somebody to run this part of it and um and it's like he's like you'd be perfect i'm like well perfect well i think people like you are attracted to the pursuit of excellence. And when you see the pursuit of excellence in another form, you go, well, there it is. That's how it is with me when I started seeing your company and I see a company that's trying to deeply and seriously engineer something. I geek out on shit that I'm not even interested in buying.

If someone's making the craziest grandfather clock in the world and I see this guy that's engineering these things so it's accurate to like one 18th of one second over 20 years, I'm like, oh, I want to know what's going on in this dude's brain that makes him want to make this unbelievable grandfather clock. Like I'm fascinated by pursuit. You know, when someone's trying to do something better than the people that have done before it, I'm fascinated by pursuit. When someone's trying to do something better than the people that have done before it, I'm fascinated by that. So you must have seen that for a guy like you. And I know what I like, and I know when I see a good idea.

The one thing is I wouldn't say I'm necessarily the best at doing super intricate things or knowing exactly how to get there. But when you see somebody that knows how to get there and like it'd be a good combination and you can, you know, assist in that and somebody that when they're headed on the right direction, it's like, yeah, I'm down with that. And then, you know, I have my input on what we do. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you know, a lot of it is, you know, how he goes about stuff. It's cool to watch.

I mean, it's like it's I always tell people people at what we do, it's exactly what you think it is. There's not like, oh, you step in the room and it's like, oh, yeah, this is some other guy's stuff. We're going to knock this out. That's not going on. But that does happen in some companies. You were pointing that out. All the time.

That's disturbing to me. When you look at the future of this, how far can you keep pushing this? I mean, this is a fairly new thing that people have been ridiculously engineering, hunting and outdoor equipment. And it obviously exists in the mountaineering world and the REIs. Every year they're trying to come up with better and better stuff. But how far can that go? Is there a point where you're going to have it done? This is the best backpack anybody could ever possibly make.

These are the best clothes. Is there a point where that ends? You know, today, innovation is happening faster than it ever has. And with this business model, we can implement those innovations quickly. And we're always looking for the next greatest thing. I always am. I mean, I search the globe on a continuous basis for what's new, what's next. Align myself with the innovation leaders for every single category, whether it's merino wool, whether it's leathers, or whether it's for our gloves, or whether it's carbon fiber for our packs.

our gloves or whether it's carbon fiber for our bat our packs we had our designer down at stanford meet with a carbon fiber scientist down there that's working on some leading edge technologies around carbon fiber that won't even get to market for a few years we're that interested in seeing what's next because we can implement it because we have no price restrictions what we take to it's for us it's it's a never-ending pursuit and there's always new ways to make things, it's a never-ending pursuit. And there's always new ways to make things. And it's why I tag the line for the business of Ultralight. Because if I can find a way to shave an ounce or a gram, there's a reason to redo that product. There's a reason to reinvent that product. Because that makes a difference. And that was my focus with this is that Toray's technology and how they make their yarn, carbon fiber, it all led to ultralight.

And ultralight means performance in the mountains. And so my goal is to get our weights continuously to come down as far as our product without giving up performance. And that's through using really innovative technologies and designs that are all focused around that. And, I mean, from where we started to where we are now I mean we've taken pounds and pounds of weight out of people's kits and packs and seen the results and it's been amazing to watch people that normally would walk into the mountains with a 70 pound pack now leaving with a 40 pound pack and coming back and saying made all the difference in the world I can hunt now and I thought I was done because of pack weight now have you guys thought about implementing any sort of workout routines or

diet routines or things like that on your website and sort of shaping people's ideas about getting your body prepared? I'd like to do more of that. I really would. We've started developing our mountain fit line that'll come out next year. So using all of our fabric innovations into a performance fitness line for our customers, because they're all training for hunts and I have wanted to step in and help people get fit nutrition supplements and bring that to our customers as well. We just haven't gotten there yet, but I think it's absolutely something I know I want to do cause I live and breathe it every day.

Just haven't done it yet. Don't you think that's also another aspect that people don't realize like how much physical requirement is necessary in order to hunt, like especially mountain hunting elk hunting. You're going in the mountains of Montana. that people don't realize like how much physical requirement is necessary in order to to hunt like especially mountain hunting elk hunting you're going in the mountains of montana you're at fucking 9 000 plus elevation it's unbelievably difficult on the body and i think most people don't realize how much physical preparation is involved especially you two guys you're a former wrestler you're a former football player you guys have athletic backgrounds you know how physically

demanding this is. The hardest things I've ever done have been hunting, without a doubt. And, I mean, like, it's hard to say there's stuff that's tougher than college wrestling practices. I've definitely, you know, I mean, you push it to the limit, especially on some of these long expeditions. You know, I spent 24 days backpacking in the Bob Marshall last year to find a sheep, to find one ram. And it's like, until you've actually done that, I'm talking like, it's not just, you know, I spent 24 days backpacking in the Bob Marshall last year to find a sheep, to find one ram. And it's like until you've actually done that, I'm talking like it's not just, you know, how far or how long, but it's sustained. It's at a sustained high level of focus also, which, you know, like you can you can grind away at stuff and you can, you know, just go and go and go. But I mean, again, when we get we don't just go from a to b we have to be

you know you have to be on on point in the mountains too i mean you have to be sharp you have to be ready to execute the moment comes you can't be just sort of trotting along like a zombie yeah i mean when you get up early in the morning if you're not glassing every single time with with the same enthusiasm and the same whether it's your grid system or whatever you have to be as intense on day one as you do on the last day because you could miss what you're looking for. You can't let up. That's the beauty of it.

I mean, yeah, physically fit, there's lots of different stuff. He's got his whole training regimen, and everybody's different, but whether it's yoga or cardio and how much you're eating. I mean, it never ends. There is no magic bullet. The puzzle, you're always breaking it down and doing a new puzzle. Yeah, I do every year. Yeah, and everyone has different physical requirements. There's some people that are older,

and you're just trying to kind of maintain the best possible shape that they can get in. There's some guys that are younger. We're trying to get them into ultimate fitness. When you're training and you're doing all these backpack things, you say you're carrying weight. Are you using weight plates? What are you carrying around in a backpack? So I use, we have these sand bags that are set up for putting over the booms in our video room.

It's now what I use. You can buy them in 20 pounds, 25 pounds, 30 pound increments. And that's what I put in my pack to train with. And so like right now as we're rolling and we're about 45 days away from a sheep hunt in the Yukon, I'm really stepping up my weight. So I'm training with a 90 pound pack now and I'll do a two or three hour hike, 1500 to 2000 vertical feet. And now I'm doing it in the middle of the day with the heat we're having because it adds another mental toughness factor to it. Plus, as you know, it adds a whole nother level of fitness too when you're training in the heat so my goal is to try to train in situations with weight and conditions that are harder than what i'll experience in the

hunt just for the mental strength as much as the physical part of it because you get beat down on day three or day four and you just i see a lot of guys just fold in the towel and say i've had it yeah home right just physically they don't have anything left nothing left right so there's a mental side of it too that's a big part of it that gives me confidence when i'm going on these trips because it's i mean they're freaking grinders i mean i've had hunts where we walk for three freaking straight days with 70 pound packs before you even start hunting that's just to get into the area from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed and that can you know most people can make the phone sat phone call and

get picked up and taken out and we hear about it all the time from from clients and customers so we try to help them get prepared lower that weight so that doesn't happen to them when you're doing something like that and you're preparing for something do you start off with like 20 pounds and just do like how do you how do you do? And how would you advise someone like, say if there's someone listening right now that says, Hey, uh, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm going to go on a hunt this, this winter or this, uh, this fall rather. And I need to really get physically prepared, but I don't want to blow it all out in one shot. Yeah. You definitely want to build up to it. And because I don't stop training, I come out of a hunt, I'm go right back in my training. But for a lot of guys that are

just getting to ease into it, right. And I mean, you a hunt, I go right back into my training. But for a lot of guys that are just getting to it, ease into it. I mean, you want to, like you said, start with 20 pounds and build yourself up over time. Because the last thing you want to do is go into a hunt hurt. I've done that before. I've over-trained or done too much going into a hunt. And you have to be careful, especially as you age. I tend to get tendonitis and joint pain more than I ever have. And so it's managing your body through that process and having something left when you leave.

But being fit enough and having your feet in good enough shape and your boots broken. I mean, there's a lot to it besides just the cardio part of it that goes into the hunt. Yeah, I think people would benefit from seeing, like, if you could make, like, a blog on how you do it or outline. Totally. seeing like if you could make like a blog on how you do it or outline totally outline how you start off and how someone would build into it and maybe consult with someone who's a an expert trainer and figure out what's the best way to uh get people prepared like to develop an actual workout for like for pack hunting or for even hiking any any any sort of thing where you're walking uphill in the mountains with weight on your back.

It's like, boy, that is an unbelievably difficult thing to do all day, every day, for several days at a time. And it's just a different biomechanical movement. I used to trail run a ton before I hunted. And that was enough. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that I need to train more specifically for hunts. And that's carrying a pack with weight. And it hits different muscle groups, as you've felt. It gets more up in your hips and more in your glutes and it hits a whole different muscle group than trail running does or that weight training does or training on an elliptical stair master

or whatever that is there's no substitute for spending time in a pack with weight there just isn't no there's no sub it's so different than anything else it's just it's so exhausting it is and it hits a whole different muscle group and And your heart and lungs may be in shape, but those muscles aren't, and it taxes you. Yeah. As much as I lift weights and work out and kettlebells and all this stuff, I packed 100 pounds for like three quarters of a mile

in the fall, and I was fucking dead. I know. When it was over, I was like, oh my God. I can imagine 70 pounds on my back for three days at a time, walking all day. Just to start hunting. Yeah. I'm like, Oh my God, I can imagine 70 pounds on my back for three days at a time, walking all day just to start hunting. Yeah. Not, I'm not in good enough shape for that. So if someone listening to this, is there a resource, is there any like sort of a website they can go to that can give them some good workouts for, for something to get prepared for

something like this? There isn't one specific to what we're doing. And I think it's a great idea that you have is, is really laying that out. I mean, we talk about it all the time. We take all this for freaking granted. Yeah. We've grown up doing it, right? These spreadsheets, people are like,

oh my God, that's so amazing you do that. I'm like, I've always done it. Right. How in the hell else do you know what your pack's going to weigh?

Right. And that you're not overpacking and that you have exactly what you need and how much you need of it. We break it down to like calories per ounce and ounces per day

as far as our food. We bring, I mean, I go on a sheep hunt. I don't rely on the outfitter to pack for me. I bring all my own food and it's all weighed out. It's all, it's all calculated out to the exact calorie per day I'm going to eat. What kind of food do you bring? A lot of whole foods. Now I used to bring, you know, lots of bars and cliff bars and power bars. Now it's real food. And Brendan and I have both gotten into that nuts and whole grains and,

and, um, getting away from the dehydrated meals so much to have high sodium, not a lot of nutritional value and really trying to focus on bringing breads and peanut butters and cheeses and things that will stick with you versus high sugars and quick burns. Right. When you have dehydrated food, how nutritious is that stuff? I don't think it's quite very nutritious. I think it's very nutritious i think it's calories and if you really look at their calories they're not that many calories per ounce they're light and some of them have higher calories per ounces than others but brendan's come up with a really good recipe with your with peanut butter and some noodles and like

stuff you get really creative with it i've been i've been kind of building my own like my like stuff uh it wasn't my idea exactly but i've modified it a bit and a couple things ramen and peanut butter and fats and jerky and stuff all that's the height weighs about the same and has double the calories and and you know one the one thing i this is what i do a lot is advising people that are going on a big hunt you know and it's like start today don't put it off don't get get a plan. Like get a pack on, go for a hike, start working out right now. You know, it's going to and get all your gear in order. And at the end of the day, it's going to be a grind. You're not going to you're not going to be full the whole time. You're not going to have all the energy you need.

Like that's the beauty of it is like you can train all you want to do. At the end of the day, you're going to be working on the deficit. You need to be sharp and you just can have to grind through grind through it and you have to be tough you know that's the beauty of it you can't be a wimp and do this so how do you figure out how much peanut butter to bring how does well you can't bring enough right so you're going to burn what i mean a thousand two thousand calories an hour when you're carrying heavyweight altitude is it really that much yeah two thousand calories an hour you'll do a thousand calories on a treadmill an hour but is that is that even possible 2 000 calories an hour if you're hiking for 12 hours at altitude with weight it's possible done it's why you lose a pound a day two pounds a day on these hunts if you if you're not in total shape going in which is your body just burning

off way more than you're taking in yeah you're going to be a calorie deficit no matter what and that also puts you at a mental deficit. Totally does. Makes you mentally exhausted when your body starts using all its resources to- Take part of it. Yeah. The same feeling you get cutting weight, you get on a huge trip when you're running out of food. You're way back in there.

It's just like you just got to dig deep. Like, how do you show up for practice when you're cutting weight? You just got to do it. And you just got to dig deep and your body will, your body responds. I mean, the cool thing is your body responds. It will eat what it needs to eat and you just keep going. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's going to be the, the, the beauty of it.

It's, it's never easy. I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be tough. Well, that's one of the things that's so exciting about it, right? This is, it is this unbelievably difficult pursuit test, man. Now, if you're going like, explain to me a hunt, like say, if you're going to go on, like, a mountain goat hunt or a sheep hunt where you know you're going to go into very difficult terrain and you have X amount of days. How do you pack for that? As far as food? Yeah.

Two pounds a day. Two pounds of food per day. Yep. And then you want to be ranging between 100 to 120 calories per ounce on your food choices. That's how I break it down. Do you concentrate on vitamins? Do you think about like... I do.

Yeah, I'll bring supplements. I'll bring, you know, whether it's, you know, electrolyte replacement tablets or vitamins and that type of stuff. And then the other part of it is just whole foods, making sure we max out that calorie per ounce, high fat content. And then the other thing I try to tell people is try it when you're not hunting. Totally. You have to. If you don't like it, you're going to hate it on the mountain. Like when you're about these new pro bars.

Have you tried a pro bar? Yeah, I got those. They're kind of nasty after a while. I mean, there's a lot to it. There's nuts and grains. Yeah, they're very filling and they're very big and dense. But try eating one for 10 days or three of them a day for 10 days. At the end of it, you don't even want to eat it.

And so I believe now, for me at least, and what I recommend to our customers is bring food you like now that you love. And focus on that stuff versus trying to get crazy on something new you haven't tried and thinking, okay, I'll go to rei and buy all these different type of exotic bars and that'll be my food source dude before i was on a ketogenic diet i was eating like 10 of those pro bars a day so i don't know what you're talking about well that's peanut butter and chocolate ones i fucking love those things man i lived on them for for 14 days in the mountains i couldn't if i ate another one i threw well you know that that expression find me uh the best looking woman somewhere there's a guy who's tired of fucking her. Yeah, exactly. Totally.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it with the food is you got to try it out early. You got to try it beforehand. I mean, I tell people, like, if you've never eaten Mountain House, I mean, it is, it's like second nature to us. We've eaten so much of that shit that it's like, I mean, I got to. I tell people Mountain House is dehydrated. Yeah, dehydrated food. Is it freeze dried or dehydrated? Freeze dried, Yeah. Whether it's mountain house or, I mean, there's a million kinds of it, but I've gotten aware, like I can only eat a certain, some of

them function better for me. Like I don't like any of the red sauce. I don't like, don't ever eat chili Mac, by the way. Why? Just try it. It goes right through you. Yeah. Your buddy, anyone you're hunting with is going to be bummed you ate it. But if you've got somebody you're hunting with, you don't like feed them chili Mac, but if you've never a lot of hang time if you've never done it before and and you know you all of a sudden you go on this great big trip and you're you're stressed you know you're traveling and all this stuff and all of a sudden you know it's like throwing diesel into an unleaded car i mean if you've never ran on that before you don't really know how you're going to run on it that's why you got to go do it right you know and a lot of people

you know it freaks them out. That's the thing leaving the outfit. Because you on a sheep hunt, they'll provide the food. Right. But shit, you don't know what they're going to give you. They don't know what you're going to like. They always overpack you. I mean, the food bags they'll hand you will be 40 pounds for 10 days when you really need 20 pounds.

Because they don't know. The last thing they want is a client that doesn't like what they have to eat or runs out of food. And so this is all part of it. And then part of it, you may not like what they have to eat or runs out of food and so this is all part of it and then part of it you may not like what they provide you the ketogenic thing is super interesting and i'm messing around with that actually as we you know as we speak because the thought of being able to go for 10 days with sustained energy while you're burning your own fat versus i mean that is that is like i would say that's cutting edge i'm messing around with that right now that's why i got the MCT oil and all that stuff. I'm going to try that this fall to see.

Because I've been in places, you know, and it's kind of funny. Like I've had times where you run out of food or you have so little food that I think your body has switched over to where it's just straight. Most certainly. Absolutely. And then you feel fine. Like it's like it just goes away. Well, hunger goes away in some sort of a weird way and there's there's also a bunch of different people that are involved in this now that are coming up with snacks and different foods

that you could take with you when you're that's one of the reasons why i wanted to ask you guys what you're carrying around but once your body's into ketosis you know then you just need high fat high fat content foods and you got to figure out how to keep them okay or keep them uh from going bad while you're out there in the mountain yeah you know but almond butter things along those lines yeah we're bringing a lot more of that than power bars yeah and peanut butter the problem with peanut butter is most peanut butter you're going to get is going to be loaded up with sugar and just you're going to get the insulin spikes you're going to get the crashes when when you're talking about 20 pounds of food that doesn't seem like a lot if you tell me 20 pounds of food for how many days?

For 10 days. Two pounds of food a day is our average. I'm fucking panicking already. I'm panicking. I'm starving. I'm going to starve. You've got to ration it out. I eat too much. You've got to ration it out.

And, I mean, it's not like you're sitting around like, oh, man, I'm ready to get something to eat. I mean, you're doing stuff. You're glassing it. Right. I mean, it's just like here's, you know, it's. Bottom line is you're hungry, too. It's like going on a diet it's it's it's it's basically you're in the mountains but you're meal prepped like there's your little meal you know it's like these guys that are slimming down to be on these competent you know it's like that's all you get and do you have them broken

down to packets we have a i have broken down per day so i have a ziploc bag with my day and how big is it what does it look like it's about this big i mean it's not very big that's so crazy and then you know every day is broken down exactly that way so what's nice about it is you get back and now you're exhausted you take your empty bag out that you ate all day that goes in the garbage and then you pull your new one out of your food bag and dump it in your pack so there's no guesswork none can't be and are you eating this stuff like he's talking about before you go out there? Are you trying to live off that

for a few days? I try everything year round. So if something new comes out or we learn about something new, I'm trying it during my training. I'm trying it in the off season to make sure I'm going to like it. Have you ever,

there's a new product that's out, this friend of mine has put out, it's called Fat Fudge. Have you heard of this? Nope. It's,

see, pull up, I think it's phatfudge. you heard of this no it's uh see pull up um i think it's p-h-a-t fudge.com i think is her uh the website which she sells it but she's uh or it might be paleochef.com but she's uh created this um it's like a snack it's very nutrient dense it's a fudge that has mct oil in it very low sugar i think it's got like a little bit of honey in it um but they're they come in these small individual packets dude i fucking live on i gotta try that it's fantastic but that's the type of stuff that is so powerful in the mountains yeah because it's a small packet you you know just rip the top off it shove it in your mouth and uh chew it down and

uh you know you can see you see what all the ingredients are it's ketogenic and uh it's all got you know cacao it's got turmeric cinnamon sea salt maca honey grass-fed butter it's all like super super good stuff but it's you know a lot of calories for like a little tiny thing but very nutrient dense and for someone who's trying to burn off nothing but fats it's a good way to go it is yeah the whole, the concept of burning fat versus using sugars was introduced to me. We're doing some VO2 max testing in weight with our packs on at a UC Davis performance lab. And that guy trained, worked with US cycling team. And they were talking about this movement into burning fat versus using gel shots and sugars. And I've started to, in our diets and what we bring, that's been our focus.

And this made a really big difference. It's made a big difference with me. It's made a big difference with a lot of UFC fighters. Misha Tate switched over to a ketogenic diet before she won the title. Brian Carraway, her boyfriend, he's on it too. He said weight cutting is way easier. His performance levels are higher. And one of the things that I'm finding with myself

And with a lot of my friends have gone on as your testosterone goes up Noticeably and some guys it's going up by double really it's because the precursors for testosterone. It's all about it's all about fats It's all about your body turns fats saturated fats and Cholesterol all that stuff that you're eating from healthy fats turns that into hormones. That's like what it needs. And it's one of the big problems with going on high carb, low fat diets is that your body has a difficult time creating hormones through that. I didn't know that.

It's really interesting and new stuff that's coming out is that these guys that are taking it, they're finding that when they're doing their blood tests that their testosterone levels are higher, their their testosterone levels are higher. Their growth hormone levels are higher. It's really interesting stuff. Like, I think your body is designed to eat that natural food, like plants and vegetables and meats. It is.

You watch a bear, what he eats first, all the fat off the fish before he even eats the meat. I mean, that's their number one food source or energy source is fat first. I mean, it's a wonderful thing. It's just for whatever reason, our society decided that's what makes people fat. It's really the sugars. Yeah, it's the sugars.

It's 100% the sugars. But this stuff changes all the time. And if you go back five years ago and you read some of the studies that are done and what people recommend for as far as diet, now today it's totally contrary to that it is it's interesting how this the the edge is always moving it's a cutting edge of this stuff is always it's always changing and people are always coming up with

uh new studies that show better ways to eat and that's the fun thing about what we're doing is yeah we're you know we're always there there is no magic bullet i get guys call all the time like hey what what jacket do I need? It's like, dude, it doesn't work like that. Yeah, clearly. First of all, what is the name? What does this mean? It's an island in Southeast Alaska.

Oh. It's got the highest density of black bears in the world. And I've hunted it. And it wasn't dot commed. And I just like the way the name lays out. I like the way the balance, the look. And when I was hunting it, and this is when I had Sitka, I was hunting there with my ex-business partner,

and actually Gore-Tex before they had licensed us and invested in us, and woke up one morning before everybody else was sitting on the back of the boat and I was like thinking about Kuyu, the name, and I was like, that's what I'm going to name my next company. And I don't know why that even came to my mind, because we were in the midst of building Sitka. But I just like the name for whatever reason. Just my gut told me that was it.

Go with the gut. Totally. Always. Every time. Every time. Yeah. Isn't it amazing when you follow it, how powerful it is? It's my whole life.

Right? I've always gone with my gut. Totally. Yeah. There's no other way. So many people are driven or their entire life is about fear. And it dictates everything they do versus following your gut and putting the fear aside. And once you do, it makes all the difference in life.

Yeah, fear is good. It is. It's a motivating factor. Well, it's also the lack of fear can be very dangerous. Absolutely. It's one of the things that i always say like people that are not scared when they're fighting like those people are in trouble you're in trouble man you should be fine nobody likes to be scared but when i was competing the worst

tournaments that i ever fought in i was not nervous i was too confident and i just performed poorly but when i was fucking terrified and like completely on edge. Then your body's just, it's just primal. It's just like you get down to that, the bare minimum amount of understanding of what you have to do, of the thinking, the rest of the world fades away and all you're thinking about is that task. You're cutting out everything else.

There's no thought about bills. There's no thought about the future. There's just what's going on in front of you right now. And if you can get down to that, that's when you perform at your best. But it's fucking terrifying. So nobody likes it. Nobody likes to be, like, when you see guys that are in, like, the UFC, that are like, here's a good example.

I'm a big fan of Luke Rockhold. I think he's an awesome guy. We were just talking about it on the way down. He was way too relaxed. Way too much. He thought he was going to kill Michael Bisping and michael bisping fought that fight like he was going in against a fucking silverback gorilla totally he was terrified or not terrified but you know jacked up with nerves and like you always have a line for him yeah and that's how

he walked knocked him out such a great sport is that his first knockout too in the ufc it's his first ko like that that's what i was telling him on the way down. He stopped Jorge Rivera in Manchester. Long time ago, though. He beat down Mayhem Miller as a TKO. But the TKOs, yeah. I mean, he's also sitting down on his punches better. Jason Perillo, his boxing coach, has really been working with him and done a fantastic job with him and with Chris Cyborg

and a bunch of other people that he trains. The buildup to that reminded me of keith jardine talking about houston alexander it was like i kept thinking like man he's really dismissive like not even in my league and all that stuff and all of a sudden yeah you're done yeah you can't when a guy's a professional fighter if you just stood there and let him punch you in the face would it knock you out yeah absolutely okay so that it can fucking happen it happens all the time yeah and the last punch you in the face would it knock you out? Yeah, absolutely Okay, so that it can fucking happen. It happens all the time Yeah, and the last thing you want to be is the guy that says this guy can't beat me I'm gonna go in there and fuck him up and then you wake up with a flashlight in your eyes like what?

What's going on the doctor saying don't move like oh shit. What happened motherfucker? Yeah And then you have to deal with that that ego that allow like the ego tells you that it going to protect you from all this, you know, you're the baddest motherfucker ever. You don't have to worry about shit. Whoo, I don't even have to worry. And then, blam! And you're like, goddammit, ego. Yeah, exactly.

And then your ego leaves you alone. Like, where are you now, bitch? Ego's gone. It's okay to say it. Just don't believe it. Yeah. Yeah. And even if you say it, you've got to be real fucking careful.

Yeah, you've got to be. Well, look who you're saying it to. These guys are killers. Yeah. I mean, I just, man, that sport's awesome. It's a crazy sport. It is. Brandon's got me into it, and I'd never miss a fight now.

Have you come live yet? I have, yeah. Where have you been to live? We went to the Thompson Hendricks. I've been to like 25 of them. He was at Thompson Hendricks. Nice. You know, Lorenzo Fertitta's nephew owns Go Hunt.

Go Hunt, yeah. Yeah, so Lorenzo and I are buddies,hew Owns GoHunt GoHunt yeah Yeah so Lorenzo and I Are buddies So he took me We got full access Oh that's beautiful Oh that's beautiful Yeah the big one's

Coming up next weekend UFC 200 Totally different experience To live Oh yeah Than on TV Oh yeah Yeah I was like

Wait I need to build A hero again So I know what's going on Well they have these Little things These little radios That you can get at the You know the concession stand

Can you really Yeah I miss that Most arenas have them now And you take these Little radios And you can get at the uh you know the concession stand can you really yeah most arenas have them now and you take these little radios and you you turn them on and it actually has a frequency that picks up the commentary really yeah it's excellent it's really cool i miss that part of it yeah well there's sometimes something's going on you don't know what happened yep yeah and like like they stop the fight like why they stop the fight you don't realize oh his fucking legs broken or yeah exactly it takes a while yeah yeah yeah commentary and it also uh i believe you can get i'm not sure about that that might just be fight pass one of the cool things about ufc fight pass is you can listen into the corners oh you

can yes the corner guys are mic'd up so you can you can hear like someone saying oh you know his hands broke or oh you know uh this is what you got insight that you wouldn't yeah yeah you just get you get insight and you also get a sense of uh building up anticipation like if you know that a guy's got an injury and then he's trying to gut it out it makes it even more exciting to watch yeah i mean yeah it's an awesome sport like i said i only have a couple hobbies and watching mma hunting that's it and then they're very it's very they're very comparable like you know from going from being a wrestler i mean you i mean it's just they're very it's very they're very comparable like you know from going from being a wrestler i mean you i mean it's just it's exciting it's slow portions of nothing and

this training and grinding and all of a sudden and then every now and again you get to step in and and and see where you're at i mean it's it's it's you know like you always say like two guys i mean that's that's a strip down to the gets you either win or lose 50 50 i'm either gonna win or i'm not and same with hunting i mean at certain point in time in that hunt you either either get them or you don't like the percentages work out like that i mean it's that's that's the cool thing about it well i think also like hunting it's very it's not perceived correctly by a lot of people it's very misunderstood and a lot of people think of it as this barbaric, awful thing involving bullies and assholes, when really they're incredibly intelligent, difficult people who are pursuing one of the most difficult things to do with dire physical consequences if you fail. Those bullies and assholes, they don't have the dedication to get there.

Those aren't the real guys. Well, they don't have the understanding of who they actually are. In order to face your own fears, like a lot of the bullies and the assholes, you can get a certain distance with that, with physical power and genetic attributes. I mean, some guys just hit fucking hard, and they're just good at taking a shot, and if you stand in front of them and wail with them,

they might catch you and knock you out and beat your ass, and you just got beat by a bully. But the reality is when those guys get to a Stipe Miocic or Cain Velasquez or the best of the best, they're going to get fucked up because those guys are just as physically strong, just as K, but also have their mental shit in order. They have their ego in order. They have their understanding in order.

And those guys are some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you're ever going to meet because they get their ego checked on a daily basis. Every one of them I've met, we have some guys that are some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you're ever going to meet because they get their ego checked on a daily basis. Every one of them I've met, we have some guys that are customers of ours, TJ and Mendez. And, I mean, they're really sharp guys. Very sharp. And very nice, very polite, not assholes, very thoughtful. I mean, just great people to be around. And they also recognize that same thing in hunting.

They do. You know know TJ and Chad are Gigantic hunt oh my god and Chad not lives for it I mean this he wants to do that like most Most really good athletes that you come across that are hunting like that's that's like their second passion I love doing we want tons of baseball players and football players and meetings because like men well the intensity Well, I think the same you get the same drug out of it yeah it's the dna right i mean those guys same guys are the hunters of the tribe right are the athletes yeah and it just it's a natural natural deal we had uh carson palmer's a customer of ours and he had never it's kind of like you never been hunting before who is he

carson palmer is a quarterback for the uh cardinals i literally don't follow any other sports i could tell you everything you want to know about MMA or kickboxing. I love the narrow focus. I'm all about narrow focus. Apparently, yeah. So Carson won a thing called the Heisman Trophy. Oh, I heard about that. Jamie told me about that.

It's this metal trophy thing that you get for playing football in college, and then he's the quarterback for now the Cardinals, but then he was Cincinnati, and he had a guy on the team that took him hunting during one of their bye weeks, put him up in a tree stand. He never been hunting before. He grew up in Orange County like I did. And he said the first time a deer walked under his stand, a buck, he the adrenaline and the DNA of that process took over. And he is just a diehard hunter now.

It's all he wants to do when he when he's done playing football. He only wants to hunt. He wants to invest in kuyu so he can be involved with hunting i mean it's just that happened for him like it happened for you yeah see it happens so much with athletes we have brent burns plays for it's a game called hockey hockey that's on ice with water oh ice yeah skates they actually well it is water they freeze it freeze water right yeah and he's the same way he just got into hunting and he is just like this is the most amazing thing yeah just dna it's intense it's it's it's unbelievably intense and again incredibly rewarding i mean like when i go to the store and buy a steak there's no reward it's like oh this is delicious i can't wait to eat it but it's not like you know you're

cooking up a deer backstrap that you know you had to get out of the mountains yeah i love your instagram post of your elk steaks with the jalapenos. Yeah. Well, the next day I went and cooked it up just like you did. Oh, dude, I sweat like a pig. I got sweat pouring out of the top of my head. Everybody's laughing at me, but I'm like, it's so good. Isn't it amazing?

Yeah. Oh, man, with jalapenos, man. Have you tried it that way? Every way possible. I've had it raw to burn anything you can put on it love it all yeah yeah it's the best meat you can ever eat it is and my kids have been eating it for four years now i have a six-year-old that's been eating bear since she was three so awesome yeah it's it's the healthiest food it's it feels better it feels

better when you eat it it really does well it's flat out better for you, too. Yeah, and I'm really into pursuing the art of cooking it in a bunch of different ways, too. And that's another thing that I learned from Rinella. I'm getting Hank Shaw, who I think lives up your way, too. He's a wild game cook, a famous chef who's turned to becoming a hunter because he was interested in trying to prepare this food and being more connected with food. So then he started hunting and then using, he uses a lot of local ingredients too. A lot of like ingredients from the area where the animal actually lives.

Oh, that's cool. It's really interesting too. That is. Yeah. Do you cook? I barbecue. That's it? Just about everything.

Fire and meat? Yeah. That's all I do. If I can't barbecue it, I won't cook it. Well, it? Just about everything. Just man style. Fire and meat. Yeah. That's all I do. If I can't barbecue it, I won't cook it. Well, that's the best way anyway. It is. You know? Especially.

No, it really is. But yeah, talking about chefs, like Guy Fieri's a client of ours. You know who he is? Yeah, sure. Yeah. And so he's actually become buddies with Brendan because he likes to smoke meat and cook meat like you do. We've got to shave his head.

Yeah. Right? It's not the 80s, buddy. He loves those frosted tips. You've got to go. I know. That's hilarious. Hold him down and hack that stuff off.

We've got three haircuts for one this morning, by the way, if you haven't noticed. Goddamn, your haircut looks good. Thank you very much. Yeah. Lots of love. No hope here. Kids are going to have to shave their head, too. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, like, chefs like Anthony Bourdain, he took me hunting in Montana recently. We went on a pheasant hunt. And, you know, he's a big fan of doing that as well, as cooking the animals, you know, that he hunts himself and showing you how to prepare it properly. And he's done that a bunch of times on his show and very involved in it. Yeah, it's actually fun to put different marinades, put different recipes together. I mean, I throw it on the barbecue, but there's a lot that goes into it.

And then also something that people don't do, I think, enough of with wild game, they wonder why it doesn't taste right, is proper aging your meat. I don't know if you do that with yours. I do sometimes, yeah, but most of the time I just cook it. Yeah, I mean, it's better if you age it. You can do a quick age in your fridge where you put it up like on a rack in like a pan or a plate with like a wire rack that gets it off the bottom of it and then put foil over the top and let that blood drain out.

And how long do you age it for? I'll age backstrap for 10 days in my fridge. Really? And it is so much better. What does it smell like? It doesn days in my fridge. Really? And it is so much better. What does it smell like? It doesn't smell like anything. Really? Nothing.

How come it doesn't stink after 10 days in your fridge? Because it's not rotting. It's just aging. They do that with beef. Right, but then the outside of it is all black. But that's what you're supposed to do. You cut off the outside edges. And that's what you do with your backstrap as well?

What you do with any meat, yeah. But that outside doesn't stink? Nope. It just gets dry. And it actually builds a crust. You trim off the crust and cook the middle a million times better. What is the temperature that it has to be at when you're doing that? You can cook it medium.

You cook it medium-rare. No, I mean when you're in the refrigerator. If you're going to quick-age, it goes in your fridge. It's just a normal refrigerator temperature, which is what? I don't know, 36, 38 degrees. Right. But when they dry-age meat, when you go to one of those butcher shops. I think they're hanging at similar temperatures.

My brother went to culinary school. He's the one that taught me that. Really? He's like, you need to age your meat because you'll get all the blood out of it. The blood is what causes a gamey flavor, and it also tenderizes your meat when you age it. Try it. Right.

You take a piece of backstrap, put it in the fridge with a little bit of soy sauce and some brown sugar or something on it i mean you're not eating sugar anymore but if you do that it'll i mean it's phenomenal i don't know if it would go bad it's never i've never left it long enough where you couldn't eat it but uh i mean i've left i've left a backstrap for weeks yeah weeks weeks wow it doesn't rot that's interesting is it is it more sustainable because it doesn't have all that fat on it like a beefsteak they age beef right but do you do that and it just seems weird because people don't do it but it's like like a guy i know that a big african ph he'll take a whole hindquarter um the guy named steve cobrini told me this he'll take a whole hindquarter and

put his fridge in a fridge at his house for 30 days and then it's the best it is so a ph for people don't know is a professional hunter which in africa is like a guide it is yeah yeah yeah do you know steve cabrine no so he's uh bow hunter really cool guy big guy um he's basically killed everything in africa with a bow i don't know that anybody else has ever done it like this guy is the real deal goes into the gnarliest places but he he takes takes people hunting over there and stuff but almost almost entirely a bow hunter himself like stud and you know i'll introduce you to it's really cool like everything and no one's killed more animals in africa than him everything he's been everywhere to everything we're just thinking of the sink thinking of his meat sitting in the refrigerator for 30 days it doesn't go bad try it's crazy yeah i mean it's covered in foil put a rack so the blood can drain out

and it can sit there for it'll be you'll be amazed at how long you can age it and how good it is when you do is that the key because i've had meat that i let sit in like a like i bought a steak at a store and let sit in my refrigerator for too long. Then you open up the meat and you're like, oh, it smells terrible. Well, that's already been aged too. And it's sitting on itself, right? Right. Is that the key? Yep.

That it has to drain. You have to get it out of its blood. Yeah, don't wrap it up. Don't put it. Don't contain it. Right. You need to have airflow underneath. And then you can.

The other way, if you don't have a rack, you can take. I do as a bowl, right? Or a pan. I'll put foil over it and punch holes in it. So it suspends it in that plug and go through those holes in the foil. Then you put foil over the top and slide it in your fridge. Do they sell like a rack for aging in your refrigerator? They make little cooking racks that are just like screens with, that are designed to go

in a pan and get stuff off of a pan. That's interesting. I'm going to try that. You got to try it. Yeah. I haven't been doing that. Oh, it'll make a huge difference. I marinate sometimes.

You know what I like to do? I like to take Newman's own balsamic vinaigrette. So good. Yeah, just put it in that for five or six hours. Italian dressing is a great marinade. Yeah, yeah, it's excellent. And then pull it out. Someone served sheep.

I was at a camp. It was actually at Tohon. We were pig hunting and someone um brought by uh some sheep backstraps and they they had it marinated in uh italian dressing gods right there there's nothing better than doll sheep or stone sheep backstraps yeah it's amazing how good they taste it's so good cheap meat is is that the best meat of all the meats is bighorn the same as thin horn uh bighorn's not near it's it's good and and like the harder you work for it the better it is but like a sheep tenderloin pulled right out one minute each side as hot as you can get it and

i mean it's just that's it yeah right you just want to sear it no one will ever know how good it is because they never make it out no critic will ever get a bite of that right because they never get it out of the mountain no yeah never comes out most of the time you cook it while you're up there right yeah a lot of times yeah i do we have a thing called man kebabs which is you gotta hunt down the animal you gotta kill it you gotta bring it you gotta pack it back to camp you gotta start a fire that you create you gotta harvest the willow stick that you're gonna put the meat on and you chop it up you slide on the meat and at the time we only had top ramen seasoning so we sprinkle the top ramen seasoning out put it over the fire that's a man kebab top vegetables it's kind of kind of funny though the top ramen is the season

but top ramen seasoning is fucking good it's fucking good i used to eat that stuff and i get some of it on just a little bit on the table and put it on my finger it's delicious it's a good season good seasoning you get really creative you don't have much it's probably a good idea too like to bring like in camp it's a small packet we do it's already sealed up it's like a good size oh it's great and you do it as like a rub and then you put the kebabs on that thing granted you're starving to death by the time you kill this animal and put it on the fire, but it is off the hook. Well, when I hunted with Ronell the very first time

and shot a mule deer and then we ate the liver that night, we hung up most of the meat in the tree because it was pretty close to dark and we went back the next day to pack it out. But when we went back to camp and ate liver and onions from an animal that died two hours ago. It was like the most insanely delicious food I've ever had in my life. I couldn't believe how good it tasted. Yeah, you guys hunted down from the ferry up on the Missouri up there.

Yeah. We hunted sheep in there a bunch. Yeah, it was a cool hour. We saw a lot of sheep up there. It's probably pretty hard to get a tag, though, right? Hardest place in the world, yeah. Is that the breaks? Yeah.

Hardest place in the world to get a tag. That's interesting. They're just doing a really good job of making sure the populations go up. Biggest place in the world, yeah. Is that the breaks? Yeah. Hardest place in the world to get a tag. Yeah. That's interesting. They're just doing a really good job of making sure the populations go up. Biggest sheep in the world. And, yeah. They had giant balls. Like, we spent a whole segment of the show concentrating on the balls of the sheep. Like, Rinella made a video.

See if you can find this, because it's pretty funny. We were there, and R and ronella like is obsessed with these bighorn sheep and their balls and he's like the moment i kill one of these things i'm gonna i'm gonna kill it and i'm gonna take one of those balls and i'm just gonna eat it i've eaten i eat it like an apple i'm eating them they're great they're huge they're they're the they're the biggest of anything though like you've eaten sheep balls oh yeah that you killed yeah what is sheep balls i'm not eating sheet balls. You're not going to eat it?

I'm not doing that. I'll save it for Steve. Just meat, good like everything else. You're like Cameron Haynes. Cameron Haynes won't eat heart. He won't eat liver. He won't eat anything. I'm like, you're crazy.

When we shot an elk, I was cutting the heart out. I was like, you're going to eat that? I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm going to eat this. Around the hole I put in it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you got to cut around the hole. Yeah. Depending.

If it's a bow and arrow, you don't have to do that that, you know? No, you don't. You get that weird funky lead in your mouth. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, look at, this is him and I up there, and he started he started obsessing about the balls. It's amazing. I know exactly

where you guys are. I mean, exactly where you're at. When you go home and tell people what a bad spot I took you to and you say, boy we did see a lot of bighorns though. What they're gonna say is something like, what kind of dumbass hunts mule deer in bighorn country? You've never seen a scrotum? I've seen a scrotum on a big one there. It's a sight to behold. I'd love to show you if you turned right.

Your hat's on backwards. No, it's perfect. It's like a church bell. Really? This is like a church bell hanging down between his legs. Wow, what a giant animal. Wow, what a cool little animal. Are they awesome? Crazy animal.

Yeah, this is one of the... Are we able to see that church bell in the middle? Yeah. It's impressive. He's excited. Look at you pondering it. Here it goes. The first thing I'm going to do when I kill one, I'm going to punch my tag and I'm going

to eat the contents of that sack. Just straight up. Raw? Just right there, like apples. Why? No way. Why? I don't know. I feel a calling to do it. Well, he's another

really important factor in educating people about hunting because he's a very well read, very intelligent guy, very educated very educated and really very very ethical yeah i mean is a ethical and as driven as you can be do you read his book american buffalo yeah well i didn't read that one i read the other one the meat eater one oh did you read the american buffalo i heard it's fascinating yeah he's got a history of american buffalo's tragic yeah it is and. Yeah. He's got a great history. The American buffalo is tragic. Yeah, it is.

And he spells it out so well. Well, um, he had this guy on his podcast, Dan Flores, who is a wildlife biologist who a wildlife historian, I should say. It's an amazing podcast where he details the history of,

uh, animals and European settlers coming over here and the wiping out of the, the various animals and what's being done to try to restore that. They're trying to do something called the American Serengeti where they're trying to put together like an area, like a protected area, like as big as Yellowstone. But it's actually going to involve hunting. Really? Yeah. They're buying property right now in Montana.

I mean, it's going on. What's it going to be? Well, I don't know that much about it. I only just bought a property that's not very far from where you guys were there. It's in block management. You're allowed to hunt it, but I think they're pulling the cattle off it. Oh, got it. But that's a huge success story right there.

I mean, those sheep were planted back in there in the 1970s. It's probably the biggest herd in Montana and certainly the best sheep hunting in the world. heard in in montana and certainly the best sheep hunting in the world and they were planted in there in the 70s and started hunting in the about 1990 they restarted hunting again and i mean they were totally brought back from money from an auction tag put a transplant in there and they've exploded onto the landscape they were shot out by market hunting and and domestic sheep interaction you know years ago and then brought back and now it's the best place in the world, you know, and that wouldn't have happened without hunters. Yeah, it is an amazing success story.

And that's also an interesting thing, these auction tags, which is really weird, where you let someone, you give them this opportunity to hunt, and a lot of times these guys are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. I got the most expensive tag in history, $485,000. Right there, Missouri Breaks. What? 2013. He wanted those balls. So a guy paid, I mean, there was a huge ram that a couple, there was three of us that guided it.

And there was, yeah, a guy paid $485,000. And the money thing about that is really weird. It's this perception of some rich dude buying like you're paying for an opportunity to bypass the system to do something that you would normally have to draw that's it's as simple as that it's not like i'm gonna spend this huge amount of money and you know it's this huge head hunt and this ego thing you got guys living i mean like there's so many misconceptions about what goes on with that type of thing that it's not even funny it's a tax write-off it's a donation to wildlife if you really care about wildlife and it gives the guy an opportunity to take you know and again if

you're a billionaire if you've made a ton of money and you care about wildlife and you love to hunt why would you not do that it's not that weird i mean right i mean it's all relative it's all relative it's money and it's a donation and yes we had we had this big sheep we spent 18 days hunting it's the biggest one ever been killed with a auction tag in the united states and was a phenomenal hunt and the guy you know was glad to donate the money and it's you know it's it's provided new sheep transplant it's money for wildlife that would not exist if they didn't do it it's one tag and raise a half a million dollars well that's the big contradiction when people talk about hunting and hunting being for conservation, how it helps conservation.

That is one of the biggest examples of it is how much money goes into helping these animals and habitat preservation and reintroducing them to areas. Like what the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has done with reintroducing elk to a bunch of different places. Sheep is the biggest success in North America. I mean, they were shot basically into a few places and they've, they've brought them back through and it's strongly been through money by guys that are fortunate enough to, to be able to do it. And it is, it's a total misconception. I mean, you are paying, the guy is paying money as a tax donation and he's giving money to something he truly cares about that he loves. And it's probably grown up doing is, you know, this guy was self made, started painting boards in West Virginia and started a bank and made a billion dollars, you know, like he loves hunting.

That's what he loves to do. It's not, it's not some rich guy paying to, you know, put a head on his wall and, and, and he was glad to do it. And you're paying for the opportunity. I mean, the thing that's always lost in it is, is the dead animal or whatever. The guy's paying for the opportunity. We, we had no advantage over anybody else. It was the same season everybody else did and the guy um we ended up killing him you know a great big ram which was you know obviously the goal but i mean one sheep raised a half a million dollars and that's incredible and and the guy it was he's paying for the opportunity he's not paying for you know you know it'd be a hell of a lot easier to buy a great big head to put on your wall than it would to be to spend that to spend that much money and then go out there and maybe not get them but the the pursuit is is what drives them and how does that work like there's

three guides so do you did you guys scout in advance and find that was a unique that was a unique situation we had uh so and and it's it's basically a three-year story of following one ram this ram we call b52 and in 2010 a friend of ours was with a guy who killed a ram um up in the breaks same deal exact same area you ran and there was a big ram standing with it there was two big rams together he killed one of them and and uh the next year when we were up there scouting we came across this ram like that's the same ram in the photo they took a photo right before they killed it and then we tried to hunt him in 2012 didn't get him and in 2013 it was like this this ram he was really big and then he slipped through two years nobody got him smart old smart old sheep i mean really smart

and it was all of a sudden you know we let a few guys know that hey there's not an unusually big ram up here and if if you want a chance to hunt it it's unique in the time frame and the fact that there's not always big sheep around i mean this is this is one year this ram is alive right now and we told a few guys and and five guys went you know there was five guys that were willing to pay a half a million dollars that went to i mean there was five guys bid in over 460 000 for the opportunity to hunt this area and look at the size of that thing oh my god there you go the horns on that thing are insane yeah willie headinger al mckinney and myself and i mean we spent 18 days like rattlesnakes out there and it was uh it was an awesome hunt i

mean it's a it was a smart old ram. It was just a really cool deal. And the guy, we ended up getting it. How far did he take it from? He almost killed it with a bow. What? I snuck him into 12 yards, came over the top on it, and a resident hunter, being a dick, came down the ridge and spooked the sheep. Spotted us, knew we were hunting a sheep, and came down and spooked the ram, but he should have killed it with a bow

We I mean a resident hunter with a sheep tag with a sheep tag. Yeah, they do it on purpose. Yeah, I think so Yeah, I mean if you saw three guys and you knew that they had a guy with them that had paid $485,000 to be there all this you would probably think I'm probably in the right area, right? Yeah, no shit, but that's what gets weird with public land, right? $25,000 to be there. And he knew all this? You would probably think, I'm probably in the right area. Right. I'm going to follow these guys. Yeah. No shit. But that's what gets weird with public land, right?

It does. That ram bugged out. We killed him 10 days later, nine miles from where they're. And how far was the shot when he killed him? He shot him at 460. That's a different ram. Oh, wow. That's a different ram. Goddamn, that thing's massive too.

That's crazy. So I was fortunate to be on both of those. That's two of the top five sheep ever killed in Montana in 10 days. They are just majestic beasts. When you look at what nature has given them in their head, like what a crazy animal that developed these gigantic battering rams out of the top of their skull. And the photos really don't do those things justice.

No. You put your hands on those horns. I mean, it's impressive. Both 11 1⁄2 years old. I mean, that's the top of their skull and the photos really don't do those things justice no you put your hands on those horns i mean it's impressive both 11 and a half years old i mean that's that's the end of his life i mean he's you know he's run his full course that ram actually did not rut at all that ram had a broken shoulder and we had seen him for a couple years and he had a really small body and he was actually a non-dominant sheep and it was just kind of floating around out there he wasn't right he was he was just physically physically past his prime. So did he like fall or something or hunting accident? Hard to say. It's hard to say.

Yeah, I mean, they have a tough life. Yeah, they do. For an animal like that to live that long. Its nature is so incredible and its diversity that this is something that we have here in North America, this incredible animal, just a strange looking. I mean, almost we're so used to them. We know they exist. So I don't think we kind of appreciate them as much as if you were just introduced to them as an adult,

if you'd never heard of her, seen it before, probably blow you away. Totally. It's like, what a crazy animal. It's got a battering ram on its head. It does. I always say like with desert sheep, you know, they have this tiny little neck and it's like, when you see one out in the desert, a desert sheep, a big ram, it's like, they wouldn't look any stranger if they were green.

Like if they landed on Mars, if they landed on Mars and all of a sudden there was a desert sheep popped his head up, you'd be like, that's about what I thought would be here. It's rocky and dry and his neck's this big and he's got a 50 pound head. Like, yeah, that's about what I thought. Have you ever seen the video with a ram and the cow butt heads? I haven't. Jimmy? There's a video, a crazy video, where this ram starts moving towards this cow and the cow's calf,

and the cow decides it's going to headbutt this ram. Watch this. Go full screen. Check this out. Watch. The ram comes into vision, and the cow's like, fuck this. So it sees it. Watch this. Knocks the cow out like fuck this so it sees it watch this knocks the cow out KO'd him and he gets up I can't tell if that's a bull is it a bull or a cow I can't

tell it's hard to tell it's a blurry ass picture or blurry ass video but just this tiny little thing that weighs about 150 pounds the cow's much more than a thousand and kaos it with a headbutt i've seen them i mean i've seen rams that had their skulls broken entire horn torn off like that the amount of power i mean they they get up and when they hit and then it's like this state of right after a guy you know where after you take a huge uppercut and they just stand there and kind of go and then they kind of come back and they're like, all right, let's do that again. I didn't get enough of that. They've got CTE.

Yeah, oh, for sure. Don't do a football study on them. Yeah, exactly. You kind of wonder, like, what crazy design. Nature has figured out a way to have all these various different designs. Here they go. Boom! And they just stand there.

Look at this collision. That's when to make your stock right then. Well, one of these dummies needs to figure out how to dive under and get an uppercut going. Get some leverage. Yeah, just like, don't headbutt them. Juke them. You got to juke them and then slide under.

You're talking about the balls. Bighorn sheep have two moves. So it's this move right here and then when they're posturing and kicking each other around, their other move is they get behind each other and smash each other in the balls. The front kick to the nuts is

a bighorn sheep. Look at the balls. Look at the balls in these things. Watch this. Boom. Look at these nuts. Look at these nuts. Look at these nuts hanging. If I had nuts like that, I'd never wear pants. I'd be like, everybody just deal with what I've got here. And you wouldn't be doing a podcast. You'd be doing videos. I'd be in the home business, son.

And that echoes for like the sheep I hunted last fall. That's how I actually found them. Oh, you heard it? You could hear in the middle of the night. Boom. It sounds like gunshots going off. Really? And you get up.

I got up. And yeah, it took me four hours to figure it out where they were because it echoes all over. But you can, about every 25 minutes you'd hear boom. And it just sounds just like a gunshot. And it's like, okay, they're there. And you start honing it in and boom there they were wow 10 rams and they were button heads yeah it's pretty pretty cool like little things like that it's like you just so cool well being out there in the wild you get to experience firsthand the diversity of all these wild and like mule deer with their incredible racks or elk or bighorn sheep. And there's so many bizarre creations.

There it is. And there's so much diversity. Oh, they're hitting each other in the balls. Oh, yeah. How rude. Look at him. He's just kicking him in the balls. He's like, fuck you.

I'm going to get behind you and kick you in the balls. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. I already know that move. And they just spin around each other. Every time. He's kicking the other sheep in the balls. Yeah, they only get five minutes like you do at UFC if you get kicked in the balls. Oh, yeah, they've got no timeouts.

No timeouts. It's hilarious. They know that they have balls, so they go to attack them. How the fuck did they figure that out? How do they know that balls are, I guess they know that they have balls. Dude, if you have balls that big, you're going to figure that out. Yeah, I guess. You're going to sit on them.

Something's going to hit those things. But what a bunch of dickheads. Imagine if- They're fascinating, too. They're like, I mean, when they're in the rut, they're a totally different animal than when they're early. You know, when they get late in the year and start chasing, like, there's nothing. They just go insane. Isn't that also bizarre that they have a season where they have to have sex?

Where you lose your mind? Yeah. Once a year? I mean, we got that, too. Let's sort of. Yeah, but we get to do it all the time. It's called sex. Where you lose your mind. Yeah. Once a year. I mean, we got that too. Let's sort of. Yeah, but we get to do it all the time. It's called college. And we can jerk off.

Yeah. You can alleviate it yourself so you can think clearly. But these poor bastards. Wait, all year? Yeah, all year. No wonder they go nuts. Yeah. Just getting ready.

No wonder their balls are so big. And they're born with weapons. Yep. Yep. And as they get older, the more dominant ones have the bigger weapons. What a strange system that nature's figured out. It is, isn't it? And it's also strange to me how you see when it's all over, they bachelor up.

Like when the rut's over, like we went moose hunting in BC last year. And when the rut was over, we found these like bachelor groups of moose that probably were trying to kill each other just a couple weeks ago. Well, you know, it's how you beat up somebody, your best friends after, right? I guess. Right. But you don't bang his girlfriend either. Yeah. I don't think anybody has a claim on any of them.

They're all just running around trying to, trying to score. But I think when it's all over, they're probably like, what the fuck was, what were we doing just a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, exactly. What, what, what came over us? Yeah. I think they knew. I know, but it's just strange that it comes over them once a year.

Yeah. And it's so strong. Yeah. And the rest of the time, like, a big ram wants nothing. Like, if you're sheep hunting the rest of the year and you see and use, you're in the wrong spot. They want nothing to do with them. Really? I don't blame them.

Yeah. Same with big bull elk. They serve their purpose. Same with bull elk. Just kidding their purpose. Same with bull elk. Aside from the rut and a few times where they interact, the rest of the time, if you're seeing tons of cows, you're in the wrong spot, dude. Well, that's what I told you about when I was in Montana. We saw 100 elk together, all cows. This time, yeah, no bulls.

All cows. Or little spikes or something. Yeah, exactly. I saw like one spike. It's just so so fascinating the diversity that nature's created so many different animals like that well and hunting gives us the opportunity to truly see it as it is oh yeah it's like a national park or yellowstone yeah to see it as it is up close in its natural habitat when it's quiet and you get to see those things the way

it's been for so long does it don't you feel like when when you sneak up on an animal too and you you lock eyes with that thing you don't you almost feel like you're in it almost feels like a different dimension or something like that because you're you're in this world that they exist in and there's there's no cell phone service there's no people anywhere near you it's a a very strange environment. It is. It is. And it's like everything else gets tuned out too. It's like this laser focus of what's happening right then. All your senses go way up. I mean, at least for me.

It's from the smell. And you can feel the slightest breeze in your face. And you can see that animal move really, really close like you never would notice before. Because of that laser focus intensity just kind of takes over your whole system and there's something about talking something there's something about tricking an animal that's whole focus in life is to not get caught that is a great sense of feeling like oh yeah you do everything right in the right place and this thing walks by and like oh and arrow's already on the way it's done deal it's like you you did it i mean you you

outsmarted something that's 10 million years where the genetics and you got it fair you know especially with bow hunting like you got in that close and got them not only that we're clumsy our noses suck we can't see very good our hearings dog shit they have ears like satellite dishes they're spinning around left and right looking all over the place trying to find you. Like a mule deer in particular. Those giant ears. Well, and their nose. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

The power of scent is crazy. Yeah. I've seen the craziest stuff at the farthest distances. Hundreds and hundreds of yards. They're like, fuck this. Yeah. Done. What?

Yeah. And you think the wind's blowing in your face and it's actually going around the mountain and ends up right back out. It's just amazing what happens. People are like, oh, you're out there hunting, chasing a poor defenseless animal. It ain't defenseless. If it was defenseless, I'd have way more big ones. I'd always

get them if they were defenseless. They're a smart... I've seen them... I've hunted animals where they got one whiff of you, you're gone. And gone for days no gone never saw him again gone he figured me out gone they're around wolves totally you know bears yeah mountain lions i've seen yeah i've seen deer do some crazy things like lay down on the

ground and like hide from hunters and let hunters walk right by him like within yards wow and just do some really cool stuff sneak away from away from people. And you go, those guys never knew they were five yards away from a giant buck. And that thing just totally outsmarted them. It's the coolest thing. Yeah. They're tuned in man. Dumb humans walking by.

He's like, no problem. I'll just lay down. They'll never see me. Just imagine if you were a 300 pound animal that had to escape something killing you all the time. That's your every day is try to get some grass in your system and get the fuck away from everything that wants to eat you.

Once a year. Try and get laid once a year. Polygamist. Yeah. Definitely not, you know. You're sleeping outside in Montana. Yeah. In the winter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's amazing and we're so lucky in this country that the people like Teddy Roosevelt and the people that founded these areas for public land, they set them aside and allowed these places to be established where these animals can live. And we never have to worry about them being taken over and they build malls there. I mean, it's a really beautiful part of America, even if you don't have any desire whatsoever to hunt.

The fact that you can go up there and backpack and camp and be in that natural environment it's a really beautiful thing about america totally yeah i mean the perception of hunters were just out there to kill something it's for me it's a small part of the whole thing it's a good part though it is but it's being out there too yeah it is definitely good experience all that i mean obviously i wouldn't be there without a tag i get invited to go hiking or go to a park all the time or you know national park i'm not interested but i mean it's a i mean being out in the mountains in the wilderness and seeing all this stuff is just awesome yeah it's not like if you go hunting and it's unsuccessful it's a zero it's like a six it's like a six out of ten if you if you get a big elk it's a ten

yeah but if you if you go out there nothing happens like uh hiking's a elk, it's a 10. Yeah. But if you go out there and nothing happens, like, oh, who's next? Hiking's a four. Yeah. So it's two points above a hike. Yeah. Armed hiking, we call it. Especially if you actually see the animals. Totally.

If you don't see the animals, it's like a five. If you don't see anything, you're like, what the fuck are we doing in this spot? If you don't see anything, you need new friends. Yes. Somebody's been lying to you. Yeah. Yeah. Or just something happened.

You know? You never know. Now, these bighorn sheep, they're Or just something happened. You know, you never know. Now, these bighorn sheep, they're very difficult to get a tag for, right? Yep. In Montana? Like, there's so many of them now, though. Yeah, but, I mean, there's still not enough to go around. It's the most exclusive tag in the world.

How many do they give out? In Montana, we give out 150 a year. I drew one last year. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, the odds in the best place are like one in 500 um it's a lottery system and then the lods in the like in the roughest areas that have better odds are like one in 100 one in 500 that's incredible so brendan drew a sheep tag in montana to hunt

one sheep yep you had one the entire unit yep he showed me the picture of it when he drew the tag goes i'm gonna kill this sheep. How did you know about this sheep? And guess what? He killed it. This sheep's dead. You're a savage. Totally.

I was like, I'm so glad I'm not that sheep right now when you drew that tag. When they lose their mind once a year, they come out to the winter range. And a buddy of mine, Robbie Doctor, had found this ram on the winter range. And she sent me a picture of it. And said, dude, this is a huge ram in an she sent me a picture of it and said dude you know this is a huge ram in an unusual area and uh applied for it i mean it's happened before like oh there's a big sheep nobody knows we didn't tell anybody and then he showed up again the next year didn't draw the tag and then last year i drew it and it was like i drew the tag and was like he's on the outer edge

of the life expectancy of a sheep you know it's a 500 square mile area i'm going in there as long as it takes 500 square miles to hunt one sheep you know mind-blowing that's pretty crazy think about that well that is the ultimate pursuit right we're talking about the most difficult challenge of hunting with a bow yeah how many yards you get it from uh just outside my effective range long shot like what i snuck in I snuck into 15 yards for 20 minutes. It took me 24 days to find him. I passed up 33 eight-year-old or better rams. How many days did you spend scouting, too? Oh, I mean, I lost track of time.

I mean, I put on a crazy amount of money. What job do you have? We all need one of those. He said he's like when when i was like dude i i drew the tag and like i was emotional i drew it like i mean people don't understand like oh you got a tag to hunt this thing it's like 25 years in a row of nose of no right well how many people put in for the tag and there's 150 tags available so 150 tags in the whole state the whole state and how many two tags in this area two tags in this area. Two tags? Two tags. So you got one of two tags.

Two tags. 220 people applied for two tags, and I drew one. Wow. It was, like, amazing. And, you know, I had a picture of this ram. And, like, he had showed up on the winter range and then disappeared into this abyss called the Bob Marshall Wilderness. And it's like, I'm going to go in there and find him. And how many total days were you hunting?

Oh, I mean, 24 days hunting. I hunted 24 days. How many total days were you hunting? I mean, 24 days hunting. I hunted 24 days. How many scouting days you had was ridiculous. So you're going back and getting food and going back and again? Yeah, I was doing four or five days at a time. Like all good things, like all the most amazing things, timing's kind of a bitch. We had a baby do. My wife would fucking kill me.

Right? Out there chasing one. Did you see any other rams yeah but it wasn't quite big enough you piece of shit 33 i passed up 33 rams before i push hold on yeah yeah so yeah i mean i was after this one sheep and i i thought and and you know like when you talk about really getting to know animals he had showed up on the winter range and twice we had pictures of him two years in a row on the winter range and it's just like okay we got a picture of this big ram well what you know i started looking at the pictures and comparing them and all of a sudden i noticed that in in one picture from 2013 or from 2012 and one in 2013 he had the same two young rams with him a year apart

10 miles apart in distance and he had the same two sheep with him so all of a sudden i'm like you know most people would be like oh it's just a sheep and there's a little half curl and then there's a young kind of unique looking ram with him and i'm looking like it's the same ram so all of a sudden i got a ram band that i'm looking for there. You know, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship. Young rams allow old rams, or old rams allow young rams to follow them around. They show them kind of the hills, and they kind of tolerate them. It's not like, hey, you're my buddy or anything. They just kind of like when the senses start to slip, you'll see old rams with young rams.

And they're keeping an eye on their back for them, and they kind of show them around. Oh, I see. So I figured out this ram who was 13 years old, which is the oldest. So I ended up killing him, obviously, and he was 13 years old, which is the oldest ram killed in the whole state. I have 150 by two years. So he's beyond, he's off the charts old. So he had these two young rams with him.

So I, you know, basically knowing enough about sheep behavior, I was like, okay, I'm looking for this old ram in this massive area, but I'm actually looking for three sheep because if I see either of those two young rams without him, I'll know he's dead. It makes a big difference in 500 square miles to look for three sheep versus one, apparently, huh? I guess. It's still ridiculous. So I went in there and I was like, I'm going to go find every sheep in the entire unit. And I went in there and I found, I thoroughly believe that I found every single sheep in there. I counted almost 50 more sheep than the biologist and i went in there and i found i i thoroughly believe that i found

every single sheep in the area i counted almost 50 more sheep than the biologist thought was alive in there and and and so crazy isn't that nuts did you take photos of these oh yeah the bio i get them to the biologist yeah yeah yeah he's kind of changed his management plan in the area a little bit like he knows more about it i mean it's hilarious and it's like i went in there because you know for since i was a little kid it was like man that's something i always wanted to do and then you're going to get this opportunity it's like i'm not going to go do the easiest thing i mean i passed big rams big rams with my bow but i wanted this ram i wanted to have like an epic hunt and just to see if i could do it see see if I could find him. And, uh, and I hadn't found

those young rams about 23rd day. I said, I heard him popping heads, started glass and cutting the timber apart. And all of a sudden, you know, another key to the puzzle, all of a sudden, there's that little young ram that was with him standing in the timber. Boom. I got him go down there. There's 10 rams in there. My ram walks out. That's him. You know, it took me two days to kill him, but I found him. And you're doing all this by yourself um i had i had my buddy that originally found the sheep when i found the rams i called him he's he had a regular job and uh it was about a 10 mile uh it was about a 10 hour hike in he hiked in to help me hand signal and kill it that's a good friend right who'll hike in 10 fucking hours for you yeah my friends would be like dude uh my wife

just told me i gotta go walk the dog yeah fucking hike in 10 hours it's funny i call and pack it out for you yeah it's a good friend he found the ram originally and then yeah and i i called him and he he disappeared you know he he jumped off of work like like his wife was in labor you know jesus christ rolled out like, I got to go. Are you guys on the same breeding cycle, like rams? No, no. His wife, he left like that. It was like, hey, my buddy found the ram.

I got to go. And it's a Montana thing. It's like the guys that he works with are like, yeah, go, man. You got to go. But your wife was ready to pop. No, we had had the baby. Oh, you already had. I left.

Yeah, I left. We had the baby September 11th. So I had left like seven days. I went out. We had the baby September 11th. So I had left like seven days. I went out and we had the baby. Everything was great. And then you left right after the baby was born. It's almost even worse. I stayed home, right?

You sleeping all night, honey? I'm going to go kill a sheep. Yeah. You know, my wife, I mean, she was just like a couple of days, like, you know, we got everything settled back in. And she was basically like, get the fuck out of here. Wow. His wife's amazing. That's amazing.

Yeah. She gets it. Well, that's a good story to end this with, because that sort of embodies what I appreciate about what you guys do, that you guys are really like the one 10th of the one percenters of the outliers of the crazy people that are pursuing this as a just an incredibly difficult biological puzzle it is you know awesome i appreciate what you guys are doing we gotta get you we gotta get you on a sheep hunt i'll do it i'll do it i mean yeah let's put one together let's figure it out let's definitely figure it out it's next level but listen uh thank you guys for just being you and

thanks for doing what you're doing like i said I love when people are just fucking going for it so this was a cool podcast for me it's life man and it's cool to watch you guys geek out and see all your

innovation and I just appreciate it yeah we appreciate it too love the coverage love what you do as far as exposing the world to hunting it's awesome man

my pleasure so people want to get a hold of you K-U-I-U on Twitter right is that the Twitter handle i believe so yeah that's the website on instagram and then our website kuyu.com

all right only place in the world you can get it there it is folks good night it didn't seem like