The Joe Rogan Experience - #914 - Ryan Callaghan & Kenton Carruth

Episode Date: February 8, 2017

Ryan Callaghan is an outdoor enthusiast & Director of Conservation and Public Relations at FirstLite and Kenton Carruth is the co-founder of FirstLite. http://www.firstlite.com/

That's why you have a producer. Jamie's on the ball. You want to talk a little closer to the mic? Yeah, get that sucker right up to you. Me too. Bring it to you. You don't want to feel uncomfortable. These chairs are shit, aren't they? They're very nice. We're live? Oh, we're live, live, live.

I'm here with my good pal Ryan Callahan. How are you, buddy? I'm doing swell. How are you doing? And his good pal, Kenton Kruth. Met you before at the first light booth at the shot show that was the first time i met you right i think so i think that's it yeah and we i wanted to have you guys on first of all because i like i love your company you guys got a great company uh first light makes really cool uh hunting clothes outdoor clothes made out of

you started out with merino wool which i think uh before i went with uh ryan and steinella, I really had no idea about the properties of merino wool. I didn't know that it keeps you from stinking, that it really retains heat while you're wet. So it's got so many awesome properties to it. Like if you go out, for people that don't know, that don't go in the outdoors, but if you go out and you walk and it's cold out and you hike like a long distance and you get sweaty if you're wearing cotton you're kind of fucked if it's really cold out once you start getting sweaty your body starts shivering and you get in a real bad place wool has this really weird quality and maybe you can help me explain that where when it gets wet it's somehow another still retains heat so if you sweat sweat in it, you still feel okay.

Like, oh, what's going on there? Well, you know, it just naturally moves the sweat off of your skin and kind of tries to get it to the outermost layer. And at which point then it can evaporate fast. But, you know, sheep have to live in crazy environments. You know, it'll be hotter than shit in the summertime. And then, um, you know, super cold in the winter. So, you know, over the course of evolution, they've got, you know, a coat that will deal with a massive amount of variants, you know, and wool is pretty much the same. It's like, you can wear it when it's, when you're sweating bolts, it pulls the sweat off and then, um, dries dries pretty quickly but even when it's wet

it retains 80 of its heat yeah it's amazing it's amazing stuff and is there a synthetic uh material that does the same thing well every synthetic is trying to a mimic down or b mimic merino wool because those are the two most efficient um you know, temperature-regulating fabrics or materials out there. And that's how you got into your pre-Maloffs and all your military testing. And that's where you saw synthetics really take off. So, yeah, so like a pre-Maloff, for example, or some of your fleeces, they basically combine something that loves water and something that hates water.

So the thing that loves water is going to pull moisture off, and the thing that hates it is going to repel it and try to push it to the outside. That's interesting. So it's like sort of a two-layer process where something's trying to keep you dry, and something is trying to literally suck up the wet like a sponge. Yes. And then somehow or another, your body heat then can regulate it because your body heat, you're staying warm because the dry is close to your skin and then the heat comes off your

skin and can dry out that stuff better. Yeah, exactly. And your body heat, you're like your natural, you know, your natural zone, how much heat and how much moisture you push out is a major factor. Um, and especially when you get into like some of your waterproof, breathable, um, membranes and things like that. Uh, that's something that I think really would surprise a lot of people when it comes to,

uh, hunting clothing. They really would have no idea like how much how much how technical the stuff is and how much thought is put into it and how how like involve the processes of creating this stuff you know it's funny because we all kind of came from the traditional like ski snowboard snowmobile world you know grew up whatever skiing and so we've snowboard, snowmobile world, you know, grew up whatever skiing. And so we've been, you know, involved in having super, you know, technical clothes since I was, I don't know, eight years old. Right. Right. All the underwear stuff for skiing is all Merino wool. All the different polys when that kind of came out and replaced cotton when I was a kid. And, you know, they

work great, but it wasn't until we kind of started using Merino that we found something that, I mean, you know, if you go skiing or snowboarding or sledding, snowmobiling, right, you're sweating bullets and if you get stinky, whatever, it's just how it always was, you know, but for hunting, it's a really a big deal, you know, if you can possibly kind of, you know, shrink your stink footprint just by a little bit it can be the difference between succeeding that season or not you know and so we also are wearing merino for whatever you know all of the other sports you know like skiing and snowboarding and you know pedal biking and whatever um and once we found out that it didn't stink that was like whoa

that was a big deal you know because you could wear it for days and days and so that was like, whoa, that was a big deal, you know, because you could wear it for days and days. And so that was kind of the impetus. And at the same time, it started taking over, I would say, the traditional outdoor space, you know. Yeah. And your company is really popular with public land, do-it-yourself hunters, guys who go out backpacking for long periods of time. And that's one of the reasons why they like that merino wool. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have you guys on is to talk about what's been going on lately with HR 621 and now HR 622, these two recent bills. They pulled HR 621. Steve Rinella wrote a big article about it, but for the uninitiated.

What these bills are about is they're about selling off our public land, giving the states the ability to do whatever they want with it. Right now, these lands are federal. They're owned by the people of the United States. It's a very unusual situation that we have here. It's an amazing situation. And there's very few countries in the world that have anything even remotely close to it, where there's millions and millions and millions of acres that are available for anybody listening to this to go on. It's literally your land.

Like backcountry hunters and anglers have that great shirt that I wear all the time. It says public landowner, and I've seen you on it. And I'm going to tweet the picture of you and I from SHOT Show where I was with you and you were wearing that shirt. Yeah. That's such an important point for people because I didn't know it at all until I went with you guys. Until I went with Rinella and the crew, we went to Montana, that first trip with Brian Callen, who's hopefully coming. That's why that door's open, folks, if you're watching this. We're leaving that door open because Callen is trying to make his way over here right now.

But I didn't know that this public land system even existed. And I think most people are unaware they just don't they don't understand how unique this is and how incredible like the the four fathers like their their their vision to make something so incredible that no one can go in and Just fucking put malls up in it is an amazing thing and I think this is like the easiest battle in the world if we can somehow amazing thing and I think this is like the easiest battle in the world if we can somehow Tell people you're kept, you know communicate even a fraction of our appreciation for it. Yeah, it's just It is the reason I get up in the morning Well, especially where you guys are because you guys are like you're in the boondocks, man

I mean you guys are in Idaho and you're in the boondocks, man. I mean, you guys are in Idaho, and you're in a beautiful area, but you could literally go out your back door and make a straight line through public land forever. You could just go walk and disappear. Oh, I mean, we can walk straight north and cross two highways and one interstate and keep going across the Canadian border, cross two more highways and be in the Yukon, basically.

So it's a wild chunk of ground. It's amazing. It is. And it's open to everybody. Everybody. And, you know, it's an interesting issue because sometimes, you know, you'll get mountain bikers, you get after the equestrian people or the, you know, the hikers get after the motorbikers. But it's an issue for every single person because no matter what sport you do or how you choose to enjoy the outdoors, that's your land.

Once that's gone, it's gone. Yeah. I mean, and there are regulations like as far as where you can take motorbikes or where you can ride even bikes, right? Even trail bikes. But that set aside, man, there's some amazing country that you could just go get lost in. Just go wander, pitch a tent, drink out of a stream, and you could stay there for long periods of time. And it's totally legal it's totally yours your tax dollars literally fund and support it and all the money that comes from buying hunting equipment from buying tags from all that stuff is what pays to keep fish and game uh employed make sure that people are monitoring the health and the populations of the animals

that live there, making sure that no one is breaking any of the laws. I mean, it's really an amazing, amazing system. It is. It's unreal. And, you know, I want to clarify a couple of things. Like all these national forests, any BLM grounds, they all have their own regulations. So, yeah, you can pull up. Bureau of Land Management, for folks that don't know what you're saying. Bureau of Land Management, yes. You guys are deep on the inside. Most people listening to this don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

That's right. So different forests have different regulations as far as, like, how long you can stay camped in one spot. Typically, it's 10 to 15 days. And then you have to move, again, depending on where you are, X amount of, you know, sometimes it's 100 feet. Sometimes it's 20 miles. And then you can set up camp again. Just arbitrary rules?

It is not arbitrary. There's some smart folks out there that study the impact of man on the land and they want to try to keep that pristine experience that we all love to go find there for everybody. And they have an incredibly tough job because their mandate, their federal mandate, is to manage that land for everyone. to manage that land for everyone. How did you guys become a company that's so connected in people that do go into the outdoors and people that do hunt and, you know, enjoy your products? You guys are like really connected to public land conservation and, you know, and these do it yourself public land sportsmen. Like you guys are like very, very connected in that world. Like it's, you're very, it's a very respected company in that world. Thanks. I mean, you know, we do, we see it from all angles, you know, all of us have, you know, in the summertime, we'll, like I said, we'll ride mountain bikes and the wintertime backcountry skiing and it's

all of a sudden, you know, and then hunting, of course, it's huge, but you just see it from all angles, like places that where you recreate 365 days a year, all of a sudden to start to get sucked up. And it's just like, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, like if this wasn't if we didn't have public lands, we wouldn't have a business. Right. It would just wouldn't exist. It wasn't a committee decision. Our board of trustees didn't say it's high time. Well, if you look at the United States being only founded in 1776,

and you just look at the massive amount of land we occupy now, there's just the greater Los Angeles area where there's 30 million people. And you go up all through the Pacificific coast highway and just see all the cities and see all the buildings and see all the stuff that you would encounter if you try to try to drive from california to new york the only thing that's stopping that whole fucking area from being covered with buildings and malls and gas stations and anything else they can stick in there is the fact that it's public land it's that it's it's federally owned land and you can't build on it there's some folks that want that they want it we drove that uh what

is it trepanga tapanga canyon yeah yeah um and i was like oh there's a good looking house and i was like oh god there's houses everywhere in here yeah and then we came around the corner and there's a sign that says open space. X amount. I was like, yeah, cover that open space up. Get rid of that stuff. It said that? Yeah. Open space?

It said open space. I wonder what they mean by that. I wonder if it's like state owned. Oh, it had an acreage sign on it right there and it was like. Like a park? Oh, no, like a for sale sign. Oh, open space for sale. Yeah.

This space is still open. Yeah, there's a lot of development up there. Topanga is very unusual, though, because if you live in Los Angeles, you could be in Topanga and look like you're in the woods. It's cool, I've got to say. And right now it's all greened up. It's beautiful up there. Oh, right now it's spectacular.

Right now, I mean, it would trick you. If you came here from somewhere else, you're like, oh, my God, this is the most beautiful place ever. And you come back in August, you're like, this is fire hazard right we gotta get out of here everything's dry and people are throwing cigarettes at their car windows kenton's a serious audiophile so when we're driving up the road you know we opted to go over the pacific coast highway and then come over that way um out of la and kenton's like oh man i bet neil young walked out walked through that door a hundred times.

Yeah, I bet he had. I mean, there was a house that was for sale in Topanga, and I found out about it before. It was already sold by the time I found out about it, but it was a house that Jimi Hendrix owned. I was like, fuck, I would buy a house that Jimi Hendrix owned in a heartbeat. Buy a garbage can that he owned. Yeah, I mean, that whole place was just hippies galore upore up there it's a really interesting spot yeah uh 621 uh hr 621 uh what does hr stand for uh i believe it's house rule

right is that right no we're gonna have to google that up i'm i'm not real good on some of the nuts and bolts. Jamie will get it for us. But 621 was basically to authorize the sale of pre-approved lands, 3.3 million acres of federally managed lands that had been designated as basically disposable, right? Now, how do they decide what's disposable and what's not? That's a fantastic question. I've asked it a ton, and I don't know. I certainly haven't talked to anybody who was on that committee. That came up under Clinton, I believe. Three million acres.

Yeah, 3.3 million acres. That seems like a lot. Oh. Jesus. Like a stake. Yeah. acres. Yeah, 3.3 million acres. That seems like a lot. Oh. Jesus. Like a state. Yeah. HR just means it started in the house. Okay. House of Representatives HR. Okay.

And then 622, so 621's off. Right. Well, the guy pulled it after the backlash and his name's Jason Chavitz. Is that how you say his name? Yep is jason chavitz is that his name yep representative jason chavitz of utah and what's crazy is this guy's a hunter and a fisherman apparently then he took a picture with him wearing camo hey guys i'm one of you come on stop attacking me because

as soon as people found out about this bill his comments on his instagram page were just overwhelmed with hunters to just took over his Instagram comments, you know, and were really upset. And some people kept it classy. A lot of people didn't. And I'm sure he felt the heat of that. Yes, absolutely. Which is really interesting, like, now, because of social media, because of guys like you guys, and, I mean, there was a million people,

the Gritty Bowman, Rinella, I got involved. There lot of people involved and there's a lot of different you know you look at all that if you calculate all our followers up of all the different people that were making posts about this it reaches a lot of people and then it it gets people who might have been like me before I went with you guys to Montana who just might have been curious like what is this all about then you read into it and then you start looking into this public land system that we have and how unique and beautiful it is. And you just go, wow, they want to sell that. And Paul Ryan had proposed that as well. Right.

Didn't he propose selling it off to pay some some of the land off to pay for the debt? It's something that comes up all all too frequently because, I mean, it's it's a it's something that we've something that we've watched state by state by state do. It's like you get a bad fire season. All of a sudden you're up to your eyeballs in debt and it's raised taxes or it's... Sell off some land. Sell off some land, yeah. It's so short-sighted. When you think about the possibility that this land could not be there for your children or your children's children like it's been for us and it's been for our grandparents.

I mean, it's an amazing system that we have here. And what is H.R. 622? Okay, so H.R. 622 is right now it is very black and white. It's basically to remove federal law enforcement officers, LEOs, which BLM has its own law enforcement officers. Forest Service has its own law enforcement officers. Remove those and then give county law enforcement the authority to enforce laws on the federally managed lands huh so if their resources are tight which they are they probably wouldn't stop poachers they probably wouldn't do a good job of keeping people of you know making a mess out of the place yes yeah and basically what it does is it sets the federal land system up to

fail it's like a booby trap it's like all right now we're gonna pull you know all this all these resources out and then five years later it's like oh look what a disaster it is now it's moving to state you know what i mean it's right so it's it's weakening the structure of it to facilitate a collapse yes and there's nothing there's nothing against county law enforcement here. The thing is, it's like, you know, you go grab your local sheriff or sheriff's deputy and say, hey, you know, how many mushrooms can I pull off of this burn on, you know, the Cibola National Forest?

I mean, that guy's going to look at your cross-eyed. You know, ask him how many cords of wood you can go up and cut for your fireplace in the winter. The guy's not going to have a clue because it's not his job. He's got bigger fish to fry. Totally different laws, right, for federal versus state. Yeah, I mean, it's a different job. Now, explain to people, what is the difference between BLM and the other organizations that control public land? Okay, so basically—

Bureau of Land Management. Yeah, so the Homestead Act, right? Go West, young man. Everybody gets 140 acres. So basically we pushed a lot of people out onto this big open space because the east needed money. So we really need to populate these areas and start the economy rolling again. Basically the areas that failed, like a large chunk of the Missouri breaks is block land management or bureau land management. breaks is block land management or bureau land management um the areas that failed and were not hospitable um became blm ground and basically the impetus of blm is um they're they're more

revenue focused than um your forest service lands are so bl BLM is more focused towards grazing. So leases, like oil and gas, grazing. And the grazing lease was the big thing with the Bundys. Correct. That was the big thing up in Oregon where there's a standoff with the Rangers and all that jazz, which is fucking chaos. Chaos. But they owed a ton of money. Yeah. And they didn't want to Chaos. But they owed a ton of money.

Yeah. And they didn't want to pay it. They owe a ton of money. Yeah, they still do. How does that work? Because we've been on hunts before. We were recently with Rinella and crew. We were in Nevada, and we were on a mule deer hunt.

And you'd be stalking on a mule deer, and these fucking cows were everywhere. I mean, everywhere. I mean, if you were hunting cows, boy, you would boy you would be golden like dude we're eating good tonight there's fucking cows everywhere but we were hunting deer so you you would have to get away from the fucking cows to get to the deer and the cows would sometimes spook and then the deer would realize that the cow saw something and they would boing boing yeah or the cows would want to come check you out yeah and you would step in cow shit everywhere and i was like this is so crazy like how are these how does this work and you know they were trying to explain to me that these people just sort of let these cows wander through

and we found that in montana as well yep and we just let their cows wander all over the place then they round them up yeah and that's something so the you, you know, we, the people, have these programs in place to where we lease that ground. I would say more often than not, if not 100% of the time, far below market value to, you know, the rancher. And it's right at first refusal. So the first guy to say, hey, I want to graze my cattle on this property, his name's going to be on the lease until he doesn't want it anymore. And it comes up for renewal. And then there's rangeland biologists who go out and they say, this is how many days and how many, you know, animal cow-calf units can be grazed on this area for this long. And doesn't that affect local wildlife as well? Because I would assume if you're having your animals graze on this land, they're eating a lot of stuff that the deer would eat or maybe a lot of the other wildlife would eat.

But you got to keep in mind, man. Is it a tough call? I mean, yeah. I mean, where we are, you know, in the lowlands, it's the antelope and the cows live pretty harmoniously. In fact, a lot of that, you know, if there's a lot of grain they use to a lot of cow feed, then, you know, it could help. When done properly, it works really well because, you know, basically our beef has replaced our bison, right? Our buffalo. So there was a major grazer out there prior to the beef being out there. You know, super dense grasslands are good

for some things, but, you know, oftentimes your upland birds need open areas for, you know, picking up scratch and it's better for the bugs and a number of reasons. So when that system's respected and done well, it's good for everybody or can be good for everybody. Now, what are your opinions? Now, what are your opinions? I'm sure you guys are aware of this whole American Serengeti project that they're trying to do in the Midwest of this country, in the middle of this country, which is really quite fascinating. They're trying to buy up private land and turn it into what they think was essentially like what America was before people came here. Yes, and I'm not super studied up on it, but yeah, that is the kind of the nuts and bolts of it. And at the end of the day, if it's going to be privately held and I, I want to say nature conservancy, American Prairie Reserve, there it is right there. This is a little piece on it that Jamie just pulled up, but you know, I mean, they want to reintroduce bison, like wild bison, all throughout areas of Wyoming.

It's Montana, Wyoming. There's a bunch of different areas, right? Where is it ultimately? I know it's been talked about in a number of different states. yeah, the kind of the Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, like the true prairie region there. Where it used to be like giant herds of buffalo wandering through the land. They want to recreate that. Yes.

And they're also going to open up block management on that, right? So this is going to be an area like once it gets established and once there's populations of animals there, then people are going to be allowed to hunt those animals. Yeah, and, I mean, if that's the case, that's great. Like I said, I haven't been super studied up on it, but, you know, I mean, I love the idea, man. I mean, it's fascinating, you know, that they're doing this

and buying up private land that's right now being used for whatever, and they're going to turn it into public land, and they're going to allow people to go there, and you're going to be able to see great herds of bison roaming through some of these states. I mean, that's going to be incredible. That's something we always talk about on this land transfer stuff. Once it's gone, it's gone. So if these guys are out there trying to make some more of it, I say, good on them.

Yeah, I mean, they literally are trying to make more public land, which is kind of crazy. Yeah. What are they going to do about predators? Are they going to bring in predators? Are they going to bring in wolves? Man, if they're going to. Can you say that, Jamie? Here we go.

Does the APR intend to reintroduce predators such as wolves, grizzly bears, which are historically present in the region? As a private nonprofit organization, American Prairie Reserve does not have the authority to reintroduce species to the area, even if those species were historically present. Species reintroduction falls under the jurisdiction of Montana Fish and Wildlife Parks and or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and any decisions regarding the reintroduction of wolves or grizzlies in the region will need to be made by these agencies,

augmented by the will of the general public. Interesting. Yeah, reintroducing grizzlies is a fucking dovesell. Yeah, right now the grizzlies are going for it, though. Oh, in Montana, it's crazy, right? That area that you and I were in, Missouri Breaks, I mean, that's east of the mountains, right? Right. east of the mountains right right um they every other year or so they catch some loner um typically a young male grizz way out in the prairie and it just looks like he's just kind of naturally

getting funneled down in the missouri breaks which you know is historic range for them and uh somewhere along the way he get you gets his hunger gets the best of him and he knocks over some sheep and that's kind of the end of him but they're getting close. Wolves are going to be the same. Wolves are going to come whether you like it or not. How do you guys feel about wolves? Because you guys are in Idaho and Idaho has a really interesting relationship

with wolves where it's a real love-hate relationship. Like I gotta imagine it's gotta be cool as fuck to be out at night and hear It's interesting. It's amazing. relationship. Like, I gotta imagine it's gotta be cool as fuck to be out at night and hear, It's interesting. I gotta say. It's amazing. So at first, I think it was, before you

could hunt wolves, and before it was totally unchecked, the elk hunting sucked. Because they killed all the elk. Because they came in, the elk didn't know what was going on, they hadn't had wolves there in a long time, over 100 years. And then explain to people that there's a reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone region in 1990-something or another. Six maybe or two.

I'm not positive when it started. And this was not voted on either. This is a really controversial subject among sports people. And also among wildlife people. A lot of wildlife people completely support it. They think it balances out the ecosystem and that the undulates like the elk and the deer were running rampant. And they were destroying a lot of the grasses and the plants that would like provide homes for a lot of other animals. And this whole thing was kind of unbalanced.

Just like with beef, man. Overgrazing is a bad deal. Absolutely. Just like with beef, man, overgrazing is a bad deal. Absolutely. So, you know, prior to us being able to hunt them and stuff, it was, it really was skewed. The elk had no idea how to deal with the wolves. So, for instance, a pack of wolves would come in, a bull would go out and try to fend off the wolves, and it would just get crushed by the wolves you know right a bull elk should tell anything yeah full boil right but nowadays after maybe living together for and i

mean i've seen this it's in my happening in my neighborhood like as we speak there's wolves in my neighborhood right now and it literally you can tell when the wolves are around the elk they pod up kind of um kind of get into a circle. And they don't try to go out and fight one-on-one. They'll just sit there and the wolves will kind of come in and they work together. And it's an interesting thing. Our elk hunting is quite good. And the elk don't run.

They don't run. They don't split off. They've kind of figured out this symbiosis, like how to live with wolves. It's an interesting thing. That's fascinating because they always did live with wolves, you know, until people came along. Right. And, well, in elves tradition, or elves, what am I talking about? This is where my mind is.

Elk, traditionally, before people came around, there's a debate as to whether or not they were mountain animals at all, right? They spent more time in the prairie. Starved going through the Nez Perce territory, right? There was so little game in the mountains when they were out there. That's one of the major arguments for that. Right. But, yeah, you know, there were animals covering the prairies, if you, you know, believe every word of those Lewis and Clark journals. Well, it kind of makes sense if you think about it, because if you see the way they're adapting to wolves, and every animal adapts. I mean, there's a crazy documentary right now, and this is a little bit off topic, but on Netflix about rats.

It is so fucking disturbing. If you haven't seen it, it's amazing. It's called Rats. It's called Rats. I've heard about rats. It is so fucking disturbing. If you haven't seen it, it's amazing. It's called Rats. It's called Rats. I've heard about it. Morgan Spurlock, the guy who did Supersize Me and a bunch of other documentaries, he created this. Woo!

Rats, like, they're gross. Everybody knows they're gross. When they start pulling parasites, they catch a bunch of rats, start pulling parasites out, and they're like, well, this one will kill you if you have an open wound and this gets on you. You're fucked. Well, the black plague, right? Yeah.

It all came from rats, yeah. And they pulled a bot fly out of this one rat that was literally the size of its head. It's just like this gigantic thing. And then at the end of it, they kind of explain, like one of the guys who's an exterminator explains how smart rats are and how much they adapt. And what they'll do is if there's poison or if there's traps, they literally, how smart rats are and how much they adapt and what they'll do is if there's poison or if there's traps they literally the smart rats the older rats will hang back and they'll let a young weaker rat go towards the food and you know he gets his fucking head crushed by

the the trap and they go yep i thought something was fucked up about that let's get out of here and you never kill them all like to be able to kill them all, the most effective method that they were using in this documentary was dogs. They had a bunch of terriers. It was in England. Terriers, yeah. Oh, these little fucking cute little dogs, man. Box dogs. Cute little dogs.

You would think, oh, a little sweetie. Those little fucking Jack Russell terriers, those little suckers were meant to kill rats. That's why they made them. And they just run after these rats, and they're all ripping them apart. It is ruthless and brutal. But it just highlights the adaptation that animals undergo when there's pressure. Any kind of pressure makes them adapt and change. And they just sort of figure out what the fuck the problem is.

Brian Callen on the way. I grabbed it. There it is. Brian Callen on the way. I grabbed a... There it is. This is a scene in it. Oh, there we go. Look at those. Things are pissed. Oh, my God.

These little fuckers are monstrous, man. They just crush these rats, and they rip them apart. Like, they play tug-of-war with these rats. This is not in the movie, right? This is just something else. This is just on YouTube called ratting or something. Ratting, yeah. And this is how they rid the countrysides of rats in really heavy areas.

They don't eat them, though. They just kill them, right? No, they just crush them. Well, sometimes they eat them. In the movie, they were eating some of them. Speaking to the parasite side of things, Kenton and I were cruising down, where were we last night? See a Kardashian?

Ventura Boulevard. No? There is a possum. Yeah. Same thing. Cal grabbed the possum by the tail. I thought it might have been Curtis' firm. You grabbed it?

I couldn't help myself. It was the first possum I've ever seen. Seems like a good idea at the time. You've never seen a possum before? I've never seen a possum. How's that possible? You're in the woods 300 days a year. We're going to have a possum.

We're going to have a possum, man. Wow. Yeah. So I grabbed the thing by the tail because I wanted to see if it'd play dead, right? Right. That's the thing. And then immediately I just ran inside, washed my hands because I was like, oh God. Yeah.

I'm in LA and I grabbed a possum. Oh yeah. That's a dirty possum. It's got AIDS for sure. It's got possum AIDS. So the adaptation thing is 100% true. Yeah. Those elk got punished when the wolves were coming on the scene.

And they just figured it out. And they figured it out. Prior to that, they got punished by people and they moved into the mountains. They realized, look, these people, the lazy ones, they want to pull up in their truck and fucking shoot off the hood. And just stay away from cars. Hey, guys, let's go up here. It's hard for them to go up here. They get tired.

There's not that much air. Let's go higher. The wolves are super smart, right? They's go up here. It's hard for them to go up here. They get tired. There's not that much air. Let's go higher. The wolves are super smart, right? They don't mess around. Once the bullets started flying, they would, you know, they were, you know, there's a wolf quota and rarely in our unit does it get met, you know. So it's, I don't know. Now explain that to people that are uninitiated.

So what it is is the wildlife biologists, and this is a really controversial topic, because when they reintroduced wolves, there was a target population they wanted to reach. And they felt like we could reintroduce these wolves. And what's interesting is they got them from Canada. And the guy that trapped them, the legend holds, he just found the nastiest, biggest, like, oh, you guys want to bring wolves? Because in Canada, like where I got this moose in bc they have so many wolves that uh mike hawkridge my buddy who lives up there one of his neighbors they took out a cow and you know they they'll just get these big packs and they'll just

fucking attack things they roll in at least like four to you know a pack of four small i mean yeah nine of them and but all right one I'm not like some wolf hater, right? No, no, no, no. By any means.

But it is, they are gnarly predators. Like, I've seen them, you know, kill stuff, and it's, I don't know,

it's interesting to me how people have this real soft spot for wolves. Like, they're amazing creatures. Amazing. And they can do amazing things. They can travel amazing distances.

But nice, they are not. And it's not like this furry kind of thing. They're, creatures, and they can do amazing things. They can travel amazing distances. But nice they are not, and it's not like this furry kind of thing. They're pissed. Well, people think of them as dogs because they look a lot like huskies. We think of them as some beautiful forest creature that lives its natural existence, and they do. But they're also fucking ruthless predators. Yes. And they are the only predator in North America like that, that size. It operates in packs.

Mm-hmm. And that's some scary shit. I mean, coyotes kind of do it, but they're a lot smaller. And, you know, it's just, they're more going after rodents and fawns and little things that they can get a hold of. Wolves will take out a fucking full-blown elk. You come across a kill, and it's, that thing did not die in any sort of a nice disney sort of way oh boy and amazing back to the front almost always when we were in um um bc in that place where i was getting to with

my friend mike hawkridge up there we uh came across a kill it was pretty fresh it was a uh calf a moose calf and it was just the what the stunning thing about it is first of of all was pretty fresh like you look down at it like it probably happened the night Before maybe at the very earliest like a day ago, and there's fucking hair everywhere like that's what I didn't expect Somehow another I thought like like I didn't expect to see so much hair But it's like almost like they shaved it and it stays for like a long time You know you could come in the next summer and it would be just this big it looks like a carpet. Well, up there in BC where he lives,

you can shoot as many wolves as you want. There's no quota. The reason being is that there's so many of them, they have to control the population and they're so fucking smart. They're really hard to kill. And so these people that have cows up there and their various farm animals up there, I mean, they're constantly under pressure.

They're constantly under threat of these wolves. And as well as him, Mike shot a wolf that came at him and jumped at him off of a ridge. He was going up a ridge, rifle in his hand, and he had made some howls. You know, he can imitate a wolf's howl. And the wolf saw him and literally was jumping at him, and he shot it in the air. That is amazing. That's like full Africa style, right? And he's got this wolf mounted in his house like this with his feet up to remind him of that scene.

I mean, that easily could have been the end of him. I mean, if he's up there without a gun, that wolf could easily have killed him. It's the teamwork aspect. It's the worst end of the teamwork aspect yeah oh yeah oh yeah it'll be horrific the worst so we called in a wolf so yeah we should go back to like the quota thing because this is kind of a pet peeve of mine right people look i try to encourage everybody at the office to go to our local fish and game meetings and the town hall meetings and things that happen there in Ketchum, Idaho. One of the arguments that came up was just so backwards, but it came from a place of, I can see the logical sequence here,

but typically if there's a really, really long hunting season on something, it means that hunters are doing a really bad job of filling their tags. Right. Okay. So if there's a really short season, it typically means that hunters are doing a really efficient job of filling their tags. So we have this very long season on wolves. And several people from town stood up at the fish and game meeting and said hey this is just immoral that you know we were putting hunting pressure on wolves for eight months out

of the year and the truth of the matter is is hunters myself included are doing a very, very poor job of putting a tag on these things. And I've called in one in our area, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. But, you know, basically our south-facing slopes are wide open. Our north-facing slopes are heavily timbered. And I could hear the wolf calling below. My friend of mine, Jim, is a amazing shot uh old retired forest service dude and uh he got set up for the shot i'm calling at the wolf as the wolf's coming up the mountain it all of a sudden starts making noises that i just cannot make so i kind of knew

i was screwed right um but it was amazing the vocal range is unbelievable what kind of look what just like barks and wolves like, like wolfs and growls. Like it just sounded like this thing was getting more and more pissed off the closer it got to us. And that was my job, right? I was like, I'm going to make this thing so pissed that it just keeps coming. And Jim's going to get a shot at it. And that thing broke the tree line at probably 500 yards made it at a dead sprint about 60 yards from the timber all of a sudden hit the brakes turned around was gone

and that is the closest i have ever gotten to killing a wolf in idaho and saw it for maybe a second now there's a lot of people that are listening to this to go why the fuck would you want to kill a wolf man you know what do you got a little dick? Dick doesn't work. You know, that always, that's the big one that always comes up. Is your dick so small, man? You want to kill a wolf? What I think is lost on people who don't encounter wolves or who don't understand the science behind wildlife management is that there is nothing else that's going to control their population. It's only going to be people. They're going to survive through the winter.

They're going to eat as many elk as they can, as many deer, as many whatever the fuck they can get a hold of as they can. And especially since they had this kind of crazy head start before the animals figured out that they were there, because they'd never been there in over 100 years since they were extirpated from the American Southwest. And what they had done was with wolves, they had shot like horses, like wild horses, then injected them with strychnine, right?

Yeah. And then they had shot like an alpha wolf and rubbed his scent and his glands all over the meat so that the other wolves knew that he had been there. So they thought it was OK to eat that stuff. And so they would eat eat it they would get the strychnine and they would die and they it was a mass kill off the judas wolf yeah yeah judas wolf yeah yeah um yes so yeah there is management right and the thing is like one of the hottest topics in our area was um in the winter especially a heavy winter right now all your game animals get congregated um in lower elevations typically on these south facing slopes and get

a lot of sun the heavy winters like we're experiencing right now these animals are basically pushed into that farm and ranch country and those operators down there are feeding their winter livestock. And the wolves and the coyotes are right in on top of everybody in calving seasons right now. So then you get typically a very large mortality rate. Yeah, mortality rate spikes because you got animals that are in distress and there's you know after birth from the birthing process everywhere you got easy pickings on the calves and uh hunters aren't knocking these numbers down so the state and you know like cattlemen's association will go together and fund helicopter gunning so aerial gunning to go out there and shoot those animals so um you know i i would love to hear the tiny dick argument um well you gotta kill a wolf

because you got a tiny dick why would you want to kill a wolf they're beautiful magnificent creatures right and they are but it's important to recognize that there have historically been gigantic problems with wolves and people that's's where all the Little Red Riding Hood shit comes from. The wolves in Paris story, I'm sure you're aware of that story from the 1400s where they killed like 40 people in Paris. India. Yeah. Paris has wolves in it again.

Do you know that? No. Yes. The people are being told, there was an article about it recently, where people are being told to not fear the wolves that are in the streets of fucking Paris because they're only looking for four-legged prey like these fucking people don't remember the story from the 1400s this historical story where the the people of paris had to gather together with fucking spears and corner these wolves and kill them in the town square it's an amazing story

you know how much of it you know obviously when you're dealing with something from 1400, there's no film, so we don't know how much of this is accurate, but it's a historical story that they had to kill a ton of wolves. And I'm sure you guys know about the story from World War I. The Russians and the Germans had a ceasefire because so many of them

were getting killed by wolves in Russia. They decided, let's go kill these fucking wolves and then we'll go back to killing each other. I'd never heard that. You never heard? It's a great story. It's a great story. I think, I mean, the populace at large, what they, I think, what could benefit the most from is there's people on extreme lovers and extreme haters, but in the middle, there is

somewhere in the middle, there's a right thing to do. And I think that the government definitely puts their best foot forward via scientists and whatever to figure out that balance, you know, and I think that to say that, you know, we need to have, you know, 10,000 wolves in Idaho is naive, because that would happen, for instance, if they were just let, you know, procreate at will. So, if they were just let procreate at will. So these people are trying to be good, right? That's why they're culling them. That's why they reintroduced them to create a balance.

And I think that that needs to be realized. Both sides. Both sides. Both sides. The people that don't want any wolves to die, they don't want wolves to die because wolves are amazing. And then wildlife is amazing. Totally. Well, you can go to die because wolves are amazing. And then wildlife is amazing. Totally.

Well, you can go to Yellowstone, and I went this summer, and you go and see a herd of buffalo just chilling on this field. And I was there with my kids, and I was giving them the binos, and they're staring at these buffalo, and they're only like 100 yards away. And I'm like, this is amazing. And my kids are like, those are wild. I'm like, those are wild. They go wherever they want. And that's in their head. They're like, that's a wild, this giant furry fucking Star Wars beast is a wild animal?

They'll never forget it. They'll never forget it, yeah. And it was sinking in their head, too, that this is wild. Because it's one thing if you see something behind a fence and you go, oh, that's a cow. We're at a farm. That's a cow. And I'm like, no, honey, those things live in the woods. They go wherever they want. There's no boss.

No one tells them what to do. They just do whatever they want. Totally. Well, coming full circle, like the whole wild thing is that, you know, with public lands, people get to have these crazy wild experiences, i.e. by hunting. Like there's very little things that you can do where you go out and it's raw, right? Things can go sideways and, you know, you can get caught out. But, I mean, it's a unique thing to be able to do to experience this wild stuff. Yeah, and what you mean by get caught out there is, like, you could go somewhere and the weather can turn ugly and you can get snowed in.

Get lost. In the fucking mountains. Yeah, people die every day yeah bob bob bobcat goldthwait had a really fun video a movie rather that he did called willow creek about and the the movie was about all the different people that get lost in the woods and his movie was saying that bigfoot was eating them right it's pretty ridiculous but but or is it yeah or is it but it was fun Bobcat is a nut he's a Bigfoot fanatic I was like

I was trying to tell him from people that actually go to the woods you know how many hunters see Bigfoot zero zero it's fucking zero

how many get hit by cars zero right fucking zero how many get caught on trail cams fucking zero and you gotta that's the other thing

like with the the number of trail cams that exist today in the woods, people put up to scout, try to find out where the animals are. And then on top of that, the number of phones that people have that have cameras on them has gone through the roof, but the Bigfoot sightings have shrunk. There's

way less of them. Interesting. And UFOs, too. I'm going to re-evaluate my Bigfoot and UFO thinking. When was the last time you saw a good UFO video? They're fucking non. They're non. Our area, the magic is gone. If you were going to see a UFO, you could.

We have zero light pollution, right? And the air quality is insane. Oh, you guys must have, like, crazy skies at night, huh? I mean, UFOs all over the place. Yeah, you guys must have beautiful night skies. Solid. Unreal. So weird.

I mean, the office is just under 7,000 feet. And then within 20 minutes of the office, you can climb to 11,000 feet. Wow. Try breathing up there. It's difficult. Bring one of these kettlebells up there. Get yourself a workout. You feel good. It's difficult. Bring one of these kettlebells up there. Get yourself a workout. You feel good.

You feel good. And then you have, you know, a couple days worth of stuff on your back. And you're like, I feel good. Why is it that you have to drink so much water when there's high altitude? What's that about? It's just dry. Generally speaking, where we are, it's just low humidity. And you breathe, you know, every time you breathe out, you breathe out a little water.

Right. Yeah, that's what the mist is when you see people at night and it's cold. That stuff that's coming out of your mouth, that's actually water vapor. Right. And it exists all the time. You just don't see it because there's not a big difference in the temperature between your body and the air like it is when it's really cold out. I think that's why people are more hungover in the mountains, too. Certainly my excuse.

Well, it's got to be because you're dehydrated too, which is the big factor in being hungover in the first place, right? Exactly. Like the people that are pros, they'll pound booze and they'll have a fucking jug of water. A buddy of mine drank with Jean-Claude Van Damme and he said, this is like way back when Jean-Claude Van Damme was you know big movie star doing all these big movies He said he would do booze and he had a fucking gallon of water with him He brought like a milk jug size gallon filled with water

So you do a shot and fucking chug the water like he was really consciously Boozing which I've never seen anybody do before that's an aggressive boozing, which I've never seen anybody do before. That's an aggressive guy. Mindful boozing. Mindful boozing. Health boozing. He was health boozing. That's a guy that's going, look, I'm not going to stop being a degenerate, but I'm going to take care of my body in the process. He comes

to catch him, so he used to, and we'd hear stories about looseness, but I don't know. I've never witnessed it myself. Looseness? You know, going to the bars and getting loose. Getting partying? Yes. He gets crazy and catch him? Apparently. Used to.

Throws sidekicks off the roof and shit? Yeah, you know. Shots for everyone? Shots for everyone. First time I ever heard a wolf. And this goes back to the hair on your arm standing up. I was working with a buddy of mine in the Frank Church Wilderness. Where's that?

It's just straight north of Ketchum. It's the largest contiguous wilderness in the lower 48 really yeah it's huge and it tried to get peopled right we tried to force people in there to mine it and farm it and it just didn't take so there's old homesteads and stuff and there's some eerie stuff like the missouri breaks yes yeah very very similar this is just you know on a kind of a grander scale, much more timber and stuff. Your guys' first experience out there, I think, I still think about that. Because that was, I would love to put some of these, like, land transfer people out there on that same trip.

Oh, yeah. These guys showed up. It was like 34 degrees, trying to snow, mostly just rain, overcast, gray skies. It was perfect. Nothing merry about, gray skies. It was perfect. Nothing merry about it. Yeah. It was awesome. That's the worst temperature to deal with.

Well, then it got down to like nine, you know? It was getting real cold towards the end. But at least it's not wet, right? It was fucking awesome, man. It was awesome because it's just, it's, one of the things about being in the real wilderness is how like beautiful but lonely it is. It's kind of lonely. There's something weird about it.

You could die, and it doesn't give a fuck. You have this illusion. If you died right here, if you had a heart attack and tipped over, we'd all be bummed out. Like, God, we lost Ryan Callahan. I can't believe it, man. And you know we'd be bummed out. But the woods wouldn't give a fuck. No.

You would fall dead dead and everything would go it's just the the humble the feeling of humility and the the feeling of Insignificance is so overwhelming and unavoidable that it's just this intense Realization of your peace like where you are as a person where you fit in in this grand gigantic mandala of life yes and it's it's like it's amplified the fur the further you go back you know when you know you're a full day plus walk away you know or you get dropped off somewhere you know it's like whoa i mean we're here and you know it's it's a it's a cool feeling though that's the whole thing right you're outside your comfort zone that's what makes it so pleasurable my friend adam green

tree went on a do-it-yourself hunt in montana an archery uh elk hunt and he went i think he went at least 12 miles in he might have went more by himself shot an elk big fucker packed it out by himself four days four days of pack out so he's got 100 pounds on his back and he's got to walk 12 miles back and forth for four days to get this elk out that's heavy for folks who don't know that is four days of misery that's not four days of looking around and enjoying whistling through the woods. That's just work. He's in decent shape. He works out a little bit, but he's not Cam Haines. He's not like some fucking crazy marathon ultra runner.

It's not his job to be fit. He's a professional bow hunter and he's got a mining job in Australia. That's the other thing. He lives in Australia so even though he brought all that meat back, he couldn't even take it home. He could only eat what he had here in America and donate it. it. Yeah, you can't bring it back to Australia They don't allow it a shame Australian customs. They won't allow you to bring in me or trips. So let's say did a

Little bit of meat and his entire camp out on the first trip. That's three loads of just meat 80 pounds load Yeah, I mean that guy brought out a lot He brought it all back. Yeah lot. He brought it all back over four days, but when he described it, like how brutal the experience was by himself shooting this animal. And then he called a buddy to

help him. This guy helped him pack out a little bit. So imagine your bones laying there on the prairie in eastern Montana. there's a good chance because hunters do the same thing right and game kind of does the same thing generation after generation generation think about you tip over dead there's a very good chance in that country there's probably like a crow or a sioux set of bones underneath you. Maybe somebody's horse, bison

antiquus, all stacked up underneath you. Yeah. Like, it does not give you a fuck. Doesn't give

There's plenty of bones out there. You just join in the pile. And there's a whole system. Like, the idea of waste is

ludicrous. You know? Like, if anything that dies, it's not going to waste. Like, you're not going to waste. Your dog dies out there, it's not going to waste like you're not going to waste

your dog dies out there it's not going to waste something will eat it yes and it is that is the whole system there is a i mean it doesn't seem like it to you as a person you're like you're not supposed to eat fluffy he's my dog no that's a dog and the dog is an animal and an animal that dies there is a whole system in place for handling that. For sure. I mean, from the wolves, then the foxes will come in, then the birds, and then, you know, then you get flies. And the bugs.

Bacteria, bugs, everything, and it'll be gone. It'll be down to bones, and then eventually something will eat the bones. It just takes time. Yeah. The picture of the archery bull I posted this year. Yeah. It just left the face on and then took all the meat off. You did an amazing job.

That's so important to post too because you didn't waste an ounce of that meat. You cut every in between the ribs. You know you were I mean and people were like commenting on that photo like that is the respect that you give an animal when you hunt it and you shoot it. That's the right way to handle it. Yes. Now the reality

and I think so too. And I I try to go above and beyond because it is. The tongue, organ meat. He's an organ meat guy. Yeah, I'm an organ meat guy too. I love heart and liver. I'm medium on the organ. I'm going to start with tongues this year. I was thinking about your liver. Oh, dude.

That was the worst thing to be vocal about ever. I used to get called up all the time. Like, hey, I got a tongue for you. Cause I know you like them right now. It's just overwhelmed with tongues. No, everybody keeps their tongue. They keep their tongues. They keep their damn tongues. Yes. It's out of the bag. Yes, it is. But you will love it. But, um, the thing is like, yeah, you should take every single thing, but there are little things that get wasted.

And, like, the rib meat chunks, especially later in the season when there's not a lot of fat on these animals, like, if it's going to take you some time to get out, that's the stuff that's going to get super dried out before you can even make something out of it. Right. You were saying about liver? Oh, yeah. So you made a comment that you eat a lot of liver yeah like is that is that a typical la dish around here no no no no it's me it's just organ meat's really good for you it was so high in vitamins and iron it's just and it's just something about it just feels good when i'm eating it you know that's all i've read about wolves that wolves

like that's one of the ways that they That they established the alpha the alpha is the one that eats the liver when he killed when they kill an animal the alpha Leaves the liver yeah resting yeah there was this guy that was living with wolves and he had these wolves sort of convinced that he was a wolf and It was he was a wildlife biologist and a wolf expert. I forget where this was that he was doing it, but it was a whole documentary on it. It wasn't Never Cry Wolf, was it? I don't remember the name of it.

Unfortunately, maybe Jamie can find it. But one of the things that this guy did was he would put a liver in a downed animal. They would kill an animal, place it, put a liver in it, and he would eat the liver in front of the other wolves so that he would be the dominant male. And where he got fucked up is he had to leave because as a wolf expert, there was a farmer that was being inundated by wolves,

so they had set up this whole way to keep the wolves away from this guy's property without killing him. And one of the things that they did was they set up all these speakers and they projected the sounds of these alpha wolves with these giant speakers so like look bitch there's a new fucking king just moved into town everybody get the hell away from these sheep and they set up these big ass speakers all over and it worked but it took a long time to keep these wolves away like a couple of months and so when he came back then there was a new alpha that had taken his place and he wanted to kill him. And it's a horrific scene where this guy is standing there whimpering in front of this wolf.

And this huge wolf is in front of him, baring his teeth. And you're just thinking at any minute, this wolf is just going to tear this guy's fucking face off. Is this real? Oh, yeah. It's 100% real. Yeah, it's 100% real. It's gnarly. When the wolf's in front of him, like... And he's like...

I mean, he's got to, like, hope that this wolf does not decide to attack him. That shows him mercy. Yeah. That he established a friendship with this wolf when he was the alpha, to the point where it's going to accept the changing of positions, and he has to show no resistance to this change, so it's a really critical moment in his fucking life, man. Because it might end right there with that wolf.

In a bad way. Yeah. I mean. You know, everything's happy when there's food around. So if late in the season and food's scarce, that would be a tough proposition. Yeah. Early in the season when everybody's happy. Right.

Lots of calves on the ground. Easy pickings Yeah, I was reading this article about bears in this one region of Alaska where is this salmon run and it's we had a video of it where there's a guy I'm sure you've seen the video because it's a famous video where this guy is sitting there He's got a little lawn chair, and they're taking photographs of the Bears and this fucking Volkswagen bus with fur walks up to him and just hangs out. And there's no danger. There's no fear because this bear is fat and

there's salmon everywhere. And as the guy pans away, he goes, get out of here, bear. And the bear leaves. But I mean, it's a fucking 1500 pound bear. It's an enormous, enormous bear. I don't think people even get how big they are. Until you're right there, you probably can't. No. But as this guy pans away, you see that there's just like a dozen bears in this one area. And they're so well-fed, this area historically has an incredibly low incident or low rate of attack. There's like almost no attacks by bears on people in this one area.

This is it. Food is the deal. Look at that fucking thing. You can see it in this one too. That's a tanker. Did we contact, did you get a hold of Adam about that fucking TV? I told him to contact you.

Did he contact you? We better replace this TV. Look at the size of that fucker. Just decides to sit down. Look behind you. This TV sucks. He keeps cutting out. Yeah, so he's, this guy has to chase his bear off. But now look as the bear goes, alright, whatever.

I mean, he's got a big fat belly. And you turn and you look down at the river and it's just overrun. Look behind you. Look behind you. Fuck that TV. That TV's such a piece of shit. But look behind you. Look at all those bears. I mean, that's insane. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. There's 14 bears in this limited perspective. And this guy's taking photos of them. And there's more. It's just overrun. Just overrun with fish. We were fishing up in Prince Wales off Steve's Fish Shack up there. And we had his little boy in the canoe.

So it was three of us in the canoe. And it was high tide, and we paddled way up this creek. And there were six black bears in this creek that's, I mean, as wide as this room. And we were just sitting in the canoe, and we kind of push the bow of the canoe on this stick so it'd hold us in place. And Steve's kid, you know, being a kid, he's like, bears are bad. Bears are scary.

He's like, what are we doing here? But you could watch these bears take turns. And there was one laying in this creek. And as the salmon would, the water's dropping, right? The tide's going out. So the salmon would come up. The bear would wait for one to be easy, grab it, walk into the woods. The next bear would come down, lay in the same spot, and just wait.

So it was like a line. It was a food line. And everybody was totally cool with each other. We're all all gonna get some yeah plenty of food no conflict i mean isn't that the same with people yeah yeah i mean it's like kind of universal amongst all species those resources get scarce shit gets weird yeah i mean and that that is one of the things that's sort of important to bring up when people are talking about wolves and predators and populations like you can't ensure that's sort of important to bring up when people are talking about wolves and predators and populations.

Like, you can't ensure that these things are going to have an adequate food supply, especially as their numbers grow higher and higher. It's a really controversial subject. I think the one thing that people don't understand from the outside, that really don't understand the whole idea of hunting predators they i feel like you really kind of have to be there i feel like you kind of have to like almost be just really involved in that whole ecosystem just be there physically to kind of get it i think that's probably accurate like i think it would be almost odd to be like, I'm going to go shoot this, some animal you've never seen, know nothing.

You know what I mean? There would be, there's a certain cruelty to that. But maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But once you're, once you've seen the cycle, like in person, it kind of, I don't know, it brings everything together, if you will. You see like, you know, wow, that's interesting that, you know, that, that, that they're, um, you know, that they're around now and I hopefully don't get too many of them, but, you know, maybe it's a good thing. And maybe, you know, certainly in our unit, things are elk wise are fine. Well, balance is so super important, which is one of the reasons why

places like New Zealand are so odd because they brought over incredibly odd they brought over all these animals in the what is like the 1800s the Europeans brought them over England brought them over is that what it was yeah I mean earlier than that earlier than that all the way to because I think god I think Roosevelt gave them uh Canada geese and the mallard duck in like 1905 or something like that. So what they did was they brought all these animals over there with no predators at all. And so they have wild stags and these red deer and all these different animals that are not native. And they're overrun to the point where they have to do helicopter runs on fucking stag.

They have to fly over it. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. They have to poison. Like, they'll poison a whole valley because the possums or whatever go crazy, you know, and there's nothing left to control it. It's nuts. And you've got to think the thinking was,

no predators. This is going to be great. Everybody's going to get along, and it's going to be, and we'll have food. Well, the idea was that New Zealand was going to be an exotic hunting ground for the wealthy. It was going to be like a Texas ranch.

For the English or something? Yes. Really? Yes. They were going to come over and they were going to, Cholly good time. I'm going to hunt a stag. And they would go over there.

So they put these animals there, but then there's nothing killing them other than people. And so they're just fucking like crazy and making baby stags and just, woo, this is a party. There's plenty of food. It's all lush and green. It rains like crazy, so there's plenty of food. Beautiful place. Oh, stunning.

Kenton's been over there. I have not made it yet. Did you hunt over there? Yeah. What was it like? It was cool. We just kind of went over there and met some of our wool growers. And they rented a helicopter and they kind of dropped us off in the middle of nowhere.

They said, we'll see you in a couple days? Yeah, exactly. They dropped us off on top of this hill. I was ready to get out of the bird, frankly. It was like crushing snow. I mean, I've been in helicopters a solid amount and I don't love them. And I was like, I'll walk back. Like, let's get down.

So we got down and, you know, and just made our way out. Ended up shooting a really nice chamois. Oh, those are really wild-looking animals. Wild, yeah. I mean, we didn't even know, like, how big anything. We were just out there, and we're like, oh, there's a chamois. Shot it. Those aren't native to that area either.

No, no. We took it apart and, you know, got all the meat and everything and started walking out and almost left the head there. And then, like, let's bring the head, you know. It turns out it's some, you know, it was like an SCI gold. I've never seen one before. They're all so small, you know. They taste phenomenal.

So that night we got out. It was an SCI gold? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. You're saying, like, the size of it? It was like a trophy-sized animal or something? Yeah. And it was, which I thought was kind of funny. Which is how they score all that stuff. They do SCI gold? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. You're saying like the size of it, it was like a trophy sized animal or something? Yeah. And it was, which I thought was kind of funny.

Which is how they score all that stuff. They do it in gold? They have like silver, bronze? Gold, silver, right. Yeah. You know, the inches. Right. But then it puts you into a different category.

So it's like a 400 inch elk. Yeah. Like that kind of thing? Yeah. Or a 200 inch whitetail. Like there's this. Yeah. There's this.

Yeah. Yeah. Like a number that very few people ever achieve, right? Yes. But it was, um, I don't know. I'm not a huge number. Of course I like to pay attention, but whatever. But, um, it's super yummy. Shammy's like super good. What does it taste like? Just kind of tastes like, I don't know. Like lamb? I would say a cross between like a lamb and a really good whitet tail. Look at that thing. What a weird animal.

Isn't it? Wow. And they're everywhere. Whenever I see a big fat guy with a dead animal with a rifle, I feel like there's something wrong there. Yeah. I mean. How does that guy get up there?

How, you know, I feel like you should, I mean, this is totally ignorant on my part and very biased, but I feel like you should have to be in this is totally ignorant on my part and very biased, but I feel like you should have to be in shape to kill something that lives up there. When I see a fat guy that just figures out a way how to do it, I'm like, all right, fat Getting short roped in. Yeah. Short roped? What's that mean?

Yeah. Like when guys climb Everest that are not fit, they'll have a guide that just basically short, puts a short rope on and drags them. Basically. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. Aggressive guiding. have a guide that just basically short puts a short rope on and drags them basically yeah really yeah holy shit yeah aggressive guiding what is what the fuck is wrong with someone that doesn't get fit and want to climb everest i just think that they have no idea what it's like to be of

8 000 meters like they might sit there and you know go on the treadmill every single day and i don't i don't know 8 000 meters is what's really important because 8,000 feet sucks. When I lived in Boulder, we were at 8,500 feet and I would do my kettlebell routine at 8,500 feet and it was just like trying to like run through water. It was like

Jesus Christ, this is hard to do. It was incredibly hard to do. It was so much more difficult than it is to do at sea level. I couldn't imagine what 8,000 meters is like. Gnarly. It's like 3%. I think you lose something like 3% efficiency every 1,000 feet. You come down to sea level and you feel like...

Every 1,000 feet. Every 1,000 feet. So 8,000 meters. You're talking about... 24,000, 25,000, 26,000 feet. It's insane. It's insane. It's insane.

You come down to sea level and for me, I'm like, running this has been running for a while now i don't really feel anything yeah yeah that was one thing that i noticed when i did live up there for it was only like for four months but when i go down to sea level i felt like i could fucking run through walls yes like now i get why those guys like train at elevation and then go and fight at sea level because that's a big thing with fighters a lot of them train in denver or up here they go to big bear sure it goes away fast though it literally like you're here you you acclimate here probably back down i don't know it seems like not five days and you're you know it takes the same when you go back up though if you've been at sea level for a while you go back up it takes a while before

you're kind of yeah i think yeah i think they say that the best way to do it is actually to train at low altitude but to live at high altitude so because you could put in more work so like you go down for the training like say if you were next to big bear you would drive down and then train it like you know wherever down there and then bust your ass in san bern Bernardino or whatever and then go back up the hill and sleep and eat and do all your stuff at high altitude. So where your high workload is, like for the maximum efficiency of your training. Because you can get 100 reps in at low elevation. Exactly. Right.

You get more work in. You can do more work. You can. and at low elevation. Exactly. Right. You get more work in. You can do more work.

You can, and you can do also, like for fighting, it's super important to not be tired while you're doing certain technical work. Like, you're going to be

a certain amount of tired, but you don't want to be exhausted. Because your brain doesn't work, right? No, you drop your hands, you develop shitty skills,

you start making errors in your technique, and those errors in your technique will manifest themselves under pressure so it's like one of the things about fighting is it's super important that you do everything in training exactly how you would do it if your fucking life depended on it and if you don't you're going to pay a price like guys who slack off in training they almost never become

champions i mean unless you're some physical freak who can get away with it. The reality is, in order to compete against like-minded people that are also phenomenally fit and motivated and understand the consequences of not being fit and motivated and well-trained, you have to do everything right. And especially now, like MMA, you can get away with a lot. When I started doing commentary in 1997, you could get away with a lot because it started uh doing commentary in 1997 you could get away with a lot because it wasn't not a lot i mean just the level of competition just was not the same as it is now but now the people are so good that the margin of error is so small the difference between victory and defeat is so small that it's just so much high level activity going on in mma fights that you can't you can't fuck around in anywhere where your nutrition and with your recovery, with your, you know, like all the different things that you're doing, um, outside of training, like cryotherapy or floating or all these different

things that people do. Sauna. That's another thing that a lot of guys do. All those different things are like hugely important because these little tiny edges, but also technique, like your technique has to be efficient and has to be correct so that in the heat of the moment, you never think of doing things wrong because you've never done anything wrong. Every time you're training, you're doing things correctly. And that might not even save you. You still might get head kicked. So you're like still basically you're at – when you're at your worst, you're still the best. Yeah.

Well, there's no – that's the problem. The best fluctuates. Yeah, well, there's no, that's the problem. The best fluctuates when you're dealing with like world championship level, right? Like say, like a division, like say the UFC is 170 pound division, very competitive division. So competitive that the last title fight resulted in a draw. And one of the first draws, there's only three draws in the history of the UFC and title fights. So this fight lines up in a draw, and then there's a bunch of other guys, fucking just straight killers waiting in the wings to have their shot at the title. So on any given day, one of these guys might be able to beat one of those guys. Like one of these guys comes in a little bit sick, has a little bit of a cold from training, or maybe they're breaking up with their girlfriend, their head's a little fucked up, which happens a lot.

Yeah. I thought that was a training thing, was like, stay away from a little fucked up, which happens a lot. Yeah, it's super common. I thought that was a training thing, was like, stay away from the ladies. Ah, that's bullshit. Yeah, sometimes it's actually better to have sex because then you're not thinking about sex. But everybody has their own mindset. That's what you see in the movies all the time, right? It's like, yeah, you've got to be off the ladies if you're going to train for me.

Well, a lot of fighters do think that, though. Like Hicks and Gracie was one of the greatest jiu-jitsu fighters of all time. He wouldn't have sex for months out. No wonder he's just furious. Meanwhile, Mike Tyson would get his dick sucked right before he knocked someone the fuck out. He didn't give a shit.

He was like, that's both here. I'm here for pussy. He has a great quote. Mike Tyson has a great quote. He said, if a god invented anything better than pussy, he's keeping it to himself. So he would have sex, like, right before he fought and just destroy everybody. So put that in perspective. It doesn't make any sense.

He's not known to be a wordsmith either. Yeah. He's actually not the most educated guy, obviously, but not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. I heard that show he did was fantastic. I heard it's amazing. I never got a chance to see it. I saw the documentary but I never saw the live show. His live show is supposed to be amazing. Oh, he did like a stand-up

show, right? Sort of, yeah. Like just a story of his life. One act kind of. Yeah, and it's supposed to be just insane. Everybody that I know that's seen it said, you gotta see it. It's amazing. That's cool? Yeah, yeah. And it's supposed to be just insane. Everybody that I know that's seen it said, you gotta see it. It's amazing. That's cool. Yeah.

But anyway, sex for him, yes, he would have the sex. Just not for everybody. It's just, I mean, it certainly would lower

your testosterone a little bit, but I mean, if you're fit and prepared, it might relax you where you get a good night's sleep. You know, because that's one of the things about these guys

is like, anxiety, staying up late, you know, just trying to get your shit together, making sure you get a good night's sleep so you don't get sick. Don't be overwhelmed by the pressure of the moment. It's a lot going on. Hell yeah. And, you know, once you've introduced the possibility of just getting the shit kicked out of you, that raises the anxiety significantly. Sure.

Now, think about the anxiety of releasing a perfect arrow on a beautiful animal. You know, there's a lot of anxiety involved in that. And it's something that people on the outside, I've heard people say ridiculous things when it comes to hunting. But one of the most ridiculous things that people have to say is, you know, there's no skill involved in that. All you're doing is, you know, you're shooting a defenseless animal. Like, do you, you have no idea. You don't know what you're talking about. It's insanely difficult. It's so difficult to keep your shit together in that moment. And if you're a person who is compassionate and who understands the consequences of wounding an animal and what's, what's at stake

here and the, you know, the, the responsibility of making a perfect shot and a clean kill it's a very anxiety-filled moment absolutely and i'll tell you right now it you know i've been around a lot of death i'm not necessarily by my hands but you know doing the guiding gig and stuff like that um i i did not ever think i was susceptible to that anxiety of being behind the trigger because i'd been around it so so much so what i'm trying to say is once you get that skill to be calm behind the trigger or on the string if you're releasing an arrow it's not necessarily something that's going to stay with you right it's not an automatic deal because

i i missed the largest mule deer in my life this year with a rifle at 90 yards no way largest mule deer i've ever seen no way bigger than the one that you killed with steve yes that's insane that one was massive that one that steve killed was huge how was it bigger this thing man i just don't we hiked for uh two and a half days my buddy uh kyler reardon he's the dude who boiled out your mule deer skull uh your montana one um we i mean we hiked for two and a half days he and he and uh his wife were having a baby so we were like gotta make this happen because it's not gonna happen next how far in did you guys go? We were seven miles probably. So you're going over and under, over elevation, climbing mountains.

Yeah, basically, you know, big river crossing, big climb, try to follow a major drainage up, couldn't find anything or found very, very little um just nasty nasty country um finally find one mule deer fawn sun setting there's a mule deer fawn on this ridge line i'm like well let's just camp here um because we had to leave the next day but that's the only sign of life that we saw whoa and so he camped and uh kyler's all fraught because he's like god this i thought this would work out it was his spot wasn't my spot and the next morning we get up and just stare at this hillside kyler leaves to go take a shit and

just stare at this hillside kyler leaves to go take a shit and yeah four hours later there's a buck crosses and i can't get a range on my range finder it's too far away and i'm just pissed at the whole situation kyler comes over he's like hey i found some deer and we slipped around and in this tiny little you had to be there it wasn't something you could see from two miles away you had to like stumble into this pocket there were seven bucks chasing one doe seven mule deer bucks chasing one doe and we're looking at these deer and we were so far in you know it typically you're just not going to shoot a buck for meat when you're that far in. And out of this. When you say a buck for meat, you mean a small buck.

A smaller buck, yeah. Because you've put out so much effort, you would like to get an older, mature animal when you're that far in. You're still going to eat the meat. Right, of course. But you want something kind of exceptional. Right, exactly. But for people, for the uninitiated, which a lot of people listening to this are, the meat buck

you would think of like a young fork buck where it doesn't have big antlers. You're looking for a big mature animal. Looking for a big mature animal. Which is a difficult challenge. There's a lot involved in an animal like that. And it's also an animal that most certainly has bred. Spread its genes. And so it's a an animal that most certainly has bred. Yes. Spread its genes.

And so it's a good animal to take out of the gene pool to allow other animals to also breed. And in fact, this is the only deer, only buck in that group that was going the complete opposite direction. So everybody else, his six buddies, were on that doe following her, and he was going the opposite direction.

Smart. He's like, listen, bitch. Yeah. he was going the opposite direction. Smart. He's like, listen, bitch, I got no time for these fucking games. You know where to find me, hooker. Good luck. Good luck, honey. Yeah, he probably fucking drove his Ferrari over the top of the hill. When you're ready, I'll be over here in my mansion. And, man, I had this thing dead to rights.

I mean, a shot I can make any day of the week. And I missed that thing at 90 yards with a rifle. Offhand? Was it offhand? Oh, no. I had a big, beautiful rest. I had no excuses, and I just lost my shit. Did you jerk the trigger? You don't know?

I know exactly. I mean, it was a bit in the situation a lot. Like, okay, deer's undercover. He's going to step into this opening. I had around in the chamber. Finger was off the trigger. I was just waiting for him to step into that opening. Crosshairs were there.

As soon as his nose came into the scope, I pulled the trigger. Oh, and went right in front of him? Yep. Oh, you panicked. Oh, I lost it. Because you saw all those antlers. I just, I never even looked at the buck through my binoculars because I knew, I just knew. How big he was.

How big he was. How big do you think he was? If you had to guess, like inches wise. I would say once in two lifetimes. Like, I will never see a deer that big again. Like a 290? It was. Like one of those Arizona strip bucks?

For me, yes. For me, yes. But I would say it was well over the 220 mark. For people who don't know what that means, that's like me with my arms out. Like, that's how big the antlers are. If you see that thing, that is... There should be a lot of... For me, there's a lot of misery in seeing that thing. It should be a major pat on the back because that's just something nobody gets to see.

Yeah, it's super rare, right? For them to get that big. That's genetics, age, it's a wise animal. There's a lot involved. Certainly in that unit. Yes. Yeah. So this is an over-the-counter unit yeah and everything which means that for people uninitiated you just

you don't for a lot of places like where i just said the arizona strip the arizona strip is like this legendary area that borders between utah and arizona and it has these monster mule deer in it like every year they pull these just insane deer out. They've gone over 300 inches, which is just, it's like the one-tenth of one percent of the world's population of deer. It's just so rare to see an animal this big. And this one area consistently produces these animals. So it's really hard to get a tag there. Really hard.

Like you could put in for 20 years and still not get it. What that means is there might be thousands and thousands of people. Well, they are. There are thousands of people that are putting in for a tag there, and they might pick a very small amount, very, very small amount. Yes. So this was like an animal for there. And this is like I said, no excuses.

We shoot a ton. We have a reloading bench in the basement. We shoot our bows in the basement. We shoot our bows in the basement of the office. We have multiple shooting facilities that we can go to within 15 minutes of the office, spend a ton of time behind the trigger. Do you have a process that you do in your mind? Like when you see an animal and you're about to pull the trigger, do you have like a thing that you do?

Yeah. Because they say that that's a good thing to have, like almost like a mantra. For sure with archery, like the more you do it, the better you are. Like the way you take your arrow out of the quiver, the way you put it on the string, like you want that to be to where if you are just gripped,

right? It just happens. Exactly. Like fighting. I'd say that's probably accurate. Same exact thing. Same exact thing. Dealing in anxiety and having this like pattern that you've carved so deeply into your mind and your body your neurons that your

body just knows automatically like when i was competing there was moments where i did something where i didn't even know i did it and it was over already right you basically don't even remember what well you're just moving on this total reaction and training Yeah, you know and for archers that moment like you have to kind of like carve that path Also, because like if you're if you're fighting you get to spar a lot So you get to hit people a lot you get used to the idea of moving away and hitting someone But how often you get to shoot an animal? Right. I mean, it's really rare. I mean, you shoot one, like, maybe once

in six months, you know, once a year if you're a busy person, if you're lucky. Maybe you go a year and you don't even get a shot at one, because maybe you get this one trip a year and, like, what, you know, you go somewhere and, like you were saying, you didn't see anything until you saw that fawn. That have been the whole trip could have been the entire

trip and it happens all the time you go you'll be out there for days and days and days you don't see a goddamn thing and then next year comes along and then next year sucks too and then the year after that you finally get a shot and you're like Jesus your whole body is just racked with anticipation and nerves and I've seen people where their legs are shaking their arms are shaking like I've seen videos or guys hunting elk where you see their arms shaking as they're pulling back their bodies just jacked with adrenaline like jesus and they're just trying to keep that pin in the general area that animal pull through the shot for those of you who don't know this is like stepping into a

place that you have never been before you're not sure what's going on, and you whistle, and a six to eight hundred pound animal with big chunks of sharp bone coming out of its head and its dick slapping against its belly, spraying piss all over the place, wants to come in and either mount you from behind or beat the piss out of you.

Yeah, or stab you with his antlers. It's a forest horse with swords growing out of its head. I mean, they're amazing. It is amazing. You freak out, man. You freak out. It is. But one every five, if you're an archery hunter, one bull every five years or one successful

season in five is the national average that's why cam haynes is such a freak because he has not been he's he hasn't been unsuccessful on an archery hunt since 2009 and the guy goes many times a year many times a year but all the ultra marathon running and all the weight lifting, all the crazy shit he does and constant practice with archery. He just like, when the moments come, he's so dialed in. He's so ready to go. It's really, really impressive. You know, I mean, I don't think people understand.

So when I see people on like his Instagram page going, it takes no skill. What you're doing is you're a coward. Why don't you fight that thing hand to hand? Like, you have no idea what you're looking at. The one 10th of 1% of all the hunters. That's what that guy is. He's the, he's the one 10th of 1% of the hunters. And he's out there being way more successful than anybody else doing something that's insanely difficult, but to the uninitiated or the people that just have never experienced it it looks like he's a animal hating monster who's out there shooting god's beautiful creations all right sometimes ryan and i'll go hunting with military guys will come out and um back to the just having the process it's the craziest thing guys that are

really good at this you know and it's like it's almost like a robotic action when it's the craziest thing guys that are really good at this you know and it's like it's almost like a robotic action when it's go time it's like sit there packed down you know just it's pretty wild to watch somebody that's that's so practiced at that you know the way they load the way they reload on target on glass like it's it's it's amazing you know and you see true pros at you know well that's a totally different world when you have to shoot people, and they're trying to shoot you, too. I mean, you think of the anticipation, the anxiety that's involved in shooting a beautiful deer like you missed.

Now, imagine you're in some foreign land, and this is some enemy guy that you're engaging with, and he's trying to kill you, and, you know, like, yeah, you got to be. I mean, that's where legit where legit like that's one of the interesting do you know who joel turner is i do not joel turner has a whole series on target panic for archery it's really interesting it's an online series um what is it called uh something see if you can find the name of this guy a traditional guy yes i've heard of this is he out of like denver maybe something um i'm this guy. Is he out of Denver maybe?

I'm not sure where he's out of. But it's a fighting instinct or something like that? What is it called? Iron Mind. Is he the closed loop guy? Yes. Closed loop, open loop guy. Gotcha.

He's got this whole system that he's put together, and I actually paid for it and watched it. Very good stuff. Very well thought out, very interesting stuff. But a lot of it is on the mindset because he was a, he was training police officers. He's training like SWAT team members and how to keep it together in the middle of a firefight. And he actually was talking in one of the interviews that I saw him in about a conversation that he had with a police officer that was in a firefight with a bad guy and heard his words and his instructions going through and executed correctly and did the right thing

while this guy's shooting in his car window and glass is flying and bullets are flying at him and he stayed calm and killed this guy who was shooting at him. But this process of having a thing, like a mantra that you relay in your head that relates to physical action and that you drill it in yourself so it's like, it's unavoidable. Like, this is how you do things. That situation we described with the bull coming in, like, yeah, you shake. Your heart goes a million miles an hour. Yeah, you shake. Yeah.

Your heart goes a million miles an hour. Like, if you don't have something to fall back on, the odds of you making a mistake, I feel, are way higher than you being successful. Yeah. Yeah. There's got to be a thing in your brain that you can, like, press play on. You know? And then once you do that, like, there was an article that I read recently about, it was about choking in sports. And it was essentially, the article was essentially saying that what you have to do is figure out a process that removes your conscious

mind from the equation. Like figure out a process of training where you know what to do. Like someone's, you have a basketball, someone's coming at you, you juke left, you go right, you know how to do this. You've done it so many times that this is just a natural reaction. And get it to the point where you don't have to think about it so you're not overwhelmed by this moment and the anticipation of what if i fuck this up oh my god so many people are watching what happens here what if i do that and you'll you'll see those moments where people just lock up and they panic you see it in fighting all the time. You know, the trad bow thing versus the compound bow. Traditional bow. Traditional bow, like a recurve, right?

Yeah. That introduces, that's when this shit can get crazy. Because, say, with the compound, you draw back, you hit the wall, right? The bow only lets you draw back so far. You look through a hole, you light it up with another hole. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no picnic. But then, you know, once you start shooting a traditional, there's nothing that's super repeatable. I mean, you try to do it, but you pull it back as far.

Or if you don't pull it back far enough, you goof up. You know what I mean? There's no aiming. And it's a funny experience when all of a sudden the first time you draw back on an animal, you're like, what the hell is going on? Like, there's no reference, right? Your brain is just kind of bouncing around. And I think where that, what was the guy's name? Joel Turner.

Yeah, where he is just, you know, a genius. He shoots with a thumb loop. He shoots Mongol style. You know what Mongol style is? No. The Mongols used to have a thumb ring. They would have a bone ring that they would wear around their thumb. And that's what would fit on the groove of the string.

So they'd hook the string with their thumb and then close their index finger over it. And they would draw back like this. And according to Dan Carlin, if you've never heard this before, if you've heard me rant about this before, I'm sorry, just ignore me for a moment. There's an amazing podcast series called Hardcore History. It's by this guy who's a friend of mine. His name is Dan Carlin. He's this genius historian who is so good at relaying this.

He'll say he's not a historian. He definitely is. He's a super humble guy. But he's so good at relaying information in an entertaining and dramatic fashion. And he has a series called The Wrath of the Khan. And it's a five-part series. You have to pay for it now, but it's like a dollar an episode. It's so worth it. It's worth a hundred times more than that, but it's a five-part

episode on the Mongols, and he said that their bows were like 160 pounds raw. They were just these sinewy fucking savages that were incredible archers. They had developed this ability to release the arrow as the horse was in its gallop. So when the horse was in the air, there wasn't a disturbance, so they would time the release of the arrow to when the horse was actually in the air. They had it down, and they had a thumb ring, and that's how they would draw back. So not with your fingers like most people do. They would draw back with the thumb, loop the index finger over the thumb,

and for some reason they found that to be a better method. I'll bet you it's like a primitive release. That's the thing with the trad, right? Your fingers, you can pluck. There's a hundred different ways to screw up, right? Whereas if you had that, you let go, it's probably a lot more consistent. Yeah. Well, that's the whole—yeah, there it is.

You can see that. That's the bone thumb rings. And a lot of people like to shoot that way now. Yeah. You know? Well, that's the whole, yeah, there it is. You can see that. That's the bone thumb rings. And a lot of people like to shoot that way now. It's really kind of interesting stuff, man. See how it holds? And then you throw your finger over the top of that thumb ring. And, you know, your thumb pushes back on it. And then your finger, your index finger closes over the top of your thumb.

It's not dissimilar to a modern release, right? To a release in a lot of ways, yeah. Like when I shoot a compound bow, I use a Carter release. It's a thumb trigger release. Good brand, good tension. Yeah. I use one called the Wise Choice. But I use a tension-based one, too, the Evolution,

or it's one that John Dudley put out called the Silverback that I really prefer. Does that screw you up going back and forth? No, no, it doesn, or it's one that John Dudley put out called the Silverback that I really prefer. Does that screw you up? No. No, no, it doesn't. Because it's the same motion. You know, the idea is you don't ever pull the trigger. You lock in, you pull in place, you put your thumb over the trigger, then once you're in place, you

concentrate on the muscles that are in the center of your back and you pull those and the release goes off and you get a surprise shot. So the idea behind that is there's never a moment where you're like, now! And you punch it and then you move the arrow or you move the bow. It's like, did I get it? All that shit is out of your head. Because all you're doing in the shot process is pulling

and concentrating on those muscles in the center of your back and your scapula and contracting those. And as you do that, the release just goes off because your thumb is pressing against that trigger, but you have to resist that urge that everybody has. Just now, now. Yeah, punching. So that's the difference between John Dudley's approach versus Joel Turner's approach.

Joel Turner has the same approach and even talks about it when it comes to compound bows of using a thumb trigger of pulling and letting you know letting the shot go off automatically but dudley um he thinks that you should start off using a tension-based release which the way that works is you actually hold the safety you hold the trigger until you lock in place then once you're ready to execute you release the safety and all it takes is like a couple extra pounds of pulling and it goes off interesting yeah so it's like a carter evolution or he he has one that he makes called the silver back that is a two finger version of the carter evolution so he feels like the least amount of fingers that you have on it the least amount of tension i mean this is the point

to try to people like what the fuck are you rambling about what i'm trying to rambling about is like this this thing is insanely complicated. So to the people that look at this and say, oh, there's no skill involved, and oh, you're just killing this defenseless animal, it is the most difficult way to get your food. Yes. It's the most difficult way. There's no more difficult way to get your food than shooting an animal with a bow and arrow.

It doesn't exist. Unless you want to fucking use a spear. I mean, I guess that's... It is not getting groceries. I guess you could jump out of a tree with a knife. Yeah. But that's stupid. I mean, but...

It is. You know, the animal comes first, right? Like, for me, if it is proficient and proven to be proficient, when Kent and I were making the switch to go back to traditional archery. Why'd you guys decide to do that? Man, I got so tired of the stuff. Yeah. Like tough. Stuff changing every year, new sights, new strings, new this, new that. I got to hate, hate setting up a compound bow. I hated it. Why? Because there's just so much shit going on and like oh man

Is that me or is the bow out of tune did my string stretch cam timing and twisting your strings? And I'm going back for this year I'm gonna get a bow but I'd like to cows point plus when you going back to traditional or you going back to compound I'm gonna go back to compound a company is making Called g5 really nice bows and a camouflage pattern i'm i'm pretty excited and plus i don't know i i i've had very mixed success i've struggled a little bit yeah i'm sure um but how could you not but the um but the but frankly the the simplicity of it is so appealing you know what i mean it's it's fantastic right versus setting everything up and

plus you know you get to a point where a modern compound bow if you practice a lot meaning for years right you you'll get to 90 yards to where you are professional day people are going to complain and i don't know i'm not it's not it's not really that ethical for most people to shoot at 90 yards but it is for a guy like John Dudley or a guy like Cameron Haynes because they do it all day every day. This man is a very technically proficient shooter in anything that he shoots. He won't say it, but we used to sit in the ski area parking lot, Greyhawk parking lot, and 106 yards is as far as my adjustable sight would go on my bow so he would stand there he

could shoot a lot further but i mean the groups that he would put in at 106 yards were amazing because he's got that mind to do it so he can shoot you know i don't know but the thing is is that after a while you get to the point where I don't want to shoot something at 50 yards. I want to shoot my next elk at 15 yards. You know what I mean? So I think that's largely it. And I think, without a doubt, in the past three years, I've become way better at hunting. We've, you know, both.

I mean, Cal's killed a bull both years with his trad. I missed a nice bull two years ago. But it's just hard it's you know and if nothing else you're going to get way better at hunting in the sense that you're going to hunt more because you're not going to kill shit right at first right but you know being having to go from let's just say 80 is a max yard and i don't want to get into the argument about distance but let's just say that was you know your max max on a perfect situation. With a compound bow. With a compound bow. Down to, say, 25 or 30 yards.

It's interesting. It just makes you, in your head, just so much more. You have to try so much harder, you know. I don't know. I just wanted that experience. Even people that have no desire whatsoever to hunt, even if you're a lifelong vegetarian, you're never going to eat meat. Just go shoot a bow and arrow at a target.

It is so relaxing. It's a weird meditative way. It cleanses your mind in some strange way. It's Zen stuff, man. It is. It's like fly fishing, kind of same thing. It's like you're not necessarily, I don't know, you have to concentrate. But at the same time, it's like taking a nap or something.

You go shoot for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and you're done. You're like, okay, what was I thinking about before? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love to do it when I've got like a business issue I'm dealing with or something I'm trying to like sort out in my mind. I just go out in my yard. I got a big rubber elk out there at 85 yards, and I'll just start shooting that sucker.

And you don't think about nothing but that shot. You just like center that pin, try to stay calm, relax your hand, let the bow go off. There's no room for anything else. And it's quiet. And you walk up there, you pull your arrows out, you walk back, you're concentrating. The whole process, I don't know, I think it's... It's cleansing in some sort of a weird way. And I'm not a traditional bow shooter, but would imagine that was accentuated even further because uh it's even more like instinctive you have that involved as well

so like instead of using a sight you're sort of like calculating in your mind the drop of the arrow over distance yes but it can be more frustrating too way more with the compound i've gone out i mean with the recurve i've gone out and shot two arrows and was like fuck this i'm i'm done it's like just but you know the the kenton and i i'd our all uh our uh our first accountant gal retired and so we all went out and had some beers with her and and i was a little fuzzy the next morning i forgot my tags so uh i was like i'm just gonna call for for kenton and we took off into the woods and called the bull in within 20 minutes didn't have a shot at oh my gosh it's a great day we ended up calling in three more

three more bulls that day but the bull that kenton got a shot at, he would have shot four times before it ultimately came in to recurve distance. Right. But it did come in. It came, I mean. It was in four yards at one point. Oh my God. Yeah.

I mean, it was like this close. That's so crazy to have an animal that big, that close to you. It was crazy. But to Cal's point, the beauty was, was that it was hanging up out at, you know, 50 yards for five minutes. And that would have been the end of that experience, right? Right.

I would have not had that same experience. And then it comes up, and to Cal, it licked you, basically, right? It came in. I had my ball cap in front of my face. I was looking through the mesh in the back of my cap. Really? Yeah, I was saying, it's screaming. It comes straight towards me but i it kind of caught me you know to where

i didn't have a shot um and then it went and looked and i missed it i'll never forget that but um but it would have been over the experience of having of having to get that close is really cool yeah you know what i mean if like like i, it would have been done and we'd have been packing it out. It would have been cool, but whatever. And that would have been incredible to shoot it there too. But just to be that close and visceral and it's like, holy smokes. I mean, this thing is here. Yeah.

It's one of the things that I talked about with Jason Hairston from Kuyu, we were talking about the difference between like mountaineering and hunting. And it's like all these things and hiking and hunting, it's like all these things are beautiful and they're amazing. But then add to that this experience of this really intense moment with a wild animal where you have to execute something. You have to execute a shot and you have to, everything has to come together and has to come together perfectly. And that is what makes this so addictive. And that's something that, man, I try to relay that to people and I try to explain it, but I just feel like my words aren't adequate. I feel like everything, everything I always say to describe it, I feel like I just, I'm just rambling and it's not going to work because you have to, you kind of have to see it to understand.

Yeah, I mean, there's very little reference, right? And that's what you're talking about. It's like you can say, well, it's like, you know, imagine skiing a perfect 50 degrees powder line, right? Or whatever, something kind of heavy with consequence. But it's totally different than that. It's like, it's just raw. I don't know how else to describe it. There's no else to describe it.

There's certain words, like there's no words for a giant mushroom trip. I've tried to talk to people who have never done anything. Like, what's it like? You see things? You see pretty colors? Is it really worth it? You can see God. You just got to take enough.

Like, yeah, you can definitely see colors. But I mean, just saying those words to people and then you know you talk to somebody about it and then like a year later they go dude i did it whoa like a buddy of mine recently just did dmt and uh he had talked about it for a long time and he finally did it and then he just he sent me a text message he's like dude i'm at the elves i was like oh well there you go he texted you mid trip no no no he texted me after it was over because you know he had been thinking about doing it forever. And then it's one of those things like unless you do it, whatever I say, the words that I'm using to describe, they're just not going to work.

I think that's the case with so many experiences in life. Like try to describe being in love to someone who's never been in a relationship. There's no way. You could never do it. You can never explain the love of your children to someone who doesn't have kids. It was like, like the way I love my dog. Like, oh man, figure it out. It's like, you know, and I think certain intense experiences in life like hunting or just even, I mean, we even forget the hunting. I mean, just being in the woods, like attempting to hunt an animal is an insane, almost psychedelic experience.

It's one of the things that I describe to people. The first trip that we went to the Missouri breaks, when I shot that deer, when I locked eyes with that animal for the first time, and I was sitting on a pack looking down the scope of this rifle, and I was looking at this animal, and then I look at this animal through this rifle scope and he's looking at me I was like this is a weird life form that's living in this very barren and desolate place where there's no people for miles and I'm locking eyes with this thing and it was oddly psychedelic it was oddly like paradigm shifting. Like the moment was so intense and weird. I was like, wow, I didn't expect this. Like this is, this is like, I mean, I mean, I'm feeling like, cause this thing is looking at us. I'm feeling that this thing is thinking

like, what are you and what are you doing? Cause we probably never seen a person before. What are you, what are you doing here? And should I be worried about you? He's going, that wasn't here yesterday. What is that? What is that? And all he's seeing is a baseball hat and the metal barrel of a rifle. He's not seeing much. He's just seeing us resting over the top of a ridge looking down on him.

He's like, what the fuck is that? It's a really weird, weird intense experience it is and the because you you do look at things in a much different way and and you know kind of the point of talking about all this public land stuff is it i i do feel like people who hunt and fish carry a big load of this burden right through the taxes that we pay that are taxes that if you don't hunt or fish carry a big load of this burden, right, through the taxes that we pay. That are taxes that if you don't hunt or fish, you don't pay them. And we've highlighted that on the show, the actual amount of it. We've showed, like, from the Rocky Mountain Elf Foundation, their Instagram page.

They have a really good Instagram page that has a bunch of different examples of different states of the sheer volume of money that comes in because directly because of hunting and fishing and it's Staggering it's in the billions and it is by far above and beyond anything else by far The the largest amount of conservation money that comes into this country the largest by far it is so Fisherman, yeah, nothing even close It's amazing you think about it that way in that sense this system that we have here with public land and with using these tax dollars to pay for all the wildlife biologists, to pay for the fish and game, to pay for the population management, it's amazing.

It's an amazing system. But if you're a hiker that, you know, you're a peak bagger, right? You're finding names on the map and you're like, I'm going to hike to this lake or I'm going to hike to this peak. That's what you call them? A peak bagger? Peak bagger. You bag a peak? How many peaks have you been to? Yeah, exactly. That's interesting. A peak bagger. Big.

Sounds like a pervert. Big in that Boulder community, right? Boulder? Yeah. Yeah, 14ers and bagging a lot of peaks. Yeah, people fall off those peaks too, man. Yes, they get stuck up there. Woo! That sucks. But, you know, you are taking a trail, an established trail, and you're covering miles

and you're getting to your goal, and maybe you're snapping a picture or spending a night, and then you're coming back on that trail, or maybe it's a different trail. on that trail or maybe it's a different trail whereas you know a hunter is you know as soon as you step away from the truck and are out the trailhead you are plotting your own course you're making your own moves and there it is a totally different experience everything means something different to you you're looking at in a different way you. You're looking at it in a different way. You're trying to interpret different signs. And you have no path. And your choices are pretty much limitless. They're absolutely limitless.

Like when you leave, as soon as you get off the trail, you're just like, you know, hopefully you hear something or you see something or you smell something. And that begins your day. But you don't know you might you might not leave a hundred yards that day and you might cover you know it might be a heavy you know eight mile you know five thousand foot day you don't know and that's i don't that's the craziest thing you just have to be prepared for whatever and so you know i get people who are like well there aren't any wolves here anymore. Because in Idaho, wolves were, you could see them a lot, especially in the Ketchum area, the Loman area. They're wolves that, you know, they're smart critters. They know that, they knew that nobody was going to shoot at them.

And so they were a fairly common occurrence to see. And then once the season opened, once they let people go out and they issued tags, they picked it up really quick. And you didn't just see them hanging out next to the road. And people said, well, the hunters killed all the wolves. But oddly enough, the hunters are reporting wolf sightings. I don't know. I saw this. Yeah, they're not killing all the wolves.

They're killing a pretty small number, right? Yeah. We're doing a poor job as hunters. We're not getting the numbers that we're supposed to get. So what do they do? Are they hiring professional wolf killers to go after wolves like they're doing in California to go after cougars? Since they stopped the hunting season on mountain lions, they haven't stopped killing mountain lions. That's something people don't understand.

There was a depredation order on a mountain lion up in the Malibu mountains that had killed 11 alpaca and a goat in one sitting. Yeah, this big fucker just, and they know the lion, too, because it's tagged. It has a collar on it. And this fucker just found an alpaca farm and just went to town, just had a

glory-killing spree. Wait, so in California they can't, no cats? No mountain lion hunting whatsoever, but they're Wait, so in California, they can't, no cats? No mountain lion hunting whatsoever. But they're everywhere, especially in rural areas. There's a place called Tahone Ranch where that bull came from that you see out front. There's one lake that they have, like a pond they have out there, and they have a trail cam up. They've got 17 different mountain lions on trail cam. Oh, my gosh.

You hear about them eating people fairly often out here, huh? Well, it can. on trail cam oh my gosh you hear about meeting people fairly fairly often out here huh well it can it's you know it's a lot of it's joggers or uh bikers like people on trail bikes because they think they're trying to get away yeah you know the things it's almost like a cat with a ball yarn they just can't help themselves right or flight yeah someone's running they're like you bitch where you going but you know the the thing is, it's like hunters are doing something different than your typical recreator out there. Yeah.

You know, we're not sticking to a game plan. So I feel like. And you're there different hours. Yeah, different hours. And you're making predator, prey noises, right? Yeah. Yeah. You're just doing things differently.

So I feel like I get a little torque sometimes where people think oh well of course hunters are going to say there's wolves out there yeah it's it's this is good information for biologists because we're out there actually our point in the woods is being out there looking for animals now one of the reasons why i wanted to have you guys on is to really sort of discuss this public land issue and also to allow people to understand what's at stake and to give them options to look into and different resources that they can check in on, like backcountry hunters and anglers. Yep, BHA.

Yeah, backcountry hunters and anglers. I can't say it. My mouth starts shutting down after two hours these days. But what they're doing is amazing, like highlighting what this is and how important this is. And what are the other things that people can do if they want to look into this stuff? Yeah. So BHA is Big Loud Voice. And I think they're one of the best groups out there right now to really just raise awareness on public lands and access issues.

Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership does a phenomenal job. There it is. Backcountry Hunters. National Wildlife Federation. And by the way, you can buy that t-shirt there too, folks. If you want to buy that public land owner t-shirt, they have it there. owner t-shirt they have there now um so what the the main issue is and and kent and i we talked about you know you have an incredible platform here joe and we don't want to waste it so the this is a non-partisan issue if you don't like hunters and hunters or anglers that is still your

land if you never leave downtown LA, all this public land contributes to your quality of life through clean air, clean water. Just knowing that it's there should be something that is warm and cozy for you because it is your birthright as an American. In this country where 95% of the people eat meat, it's something, it might even be higher than that. It's depending upon it. And there's so many,

so many discussions these days about where your food comes from. There's no better way to find out where your food comes from than to actually go out and get it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But man, if you're buying beef or lamb off the grocery store shelf, those grazing permits that we talked about, a lot of that happens on federally managed lands, whether it's BLM or Forest Service ground. non-partisan again and one of the things that ticked me off about old jason chavitz on uh hr 621 and said hey you know this uh started under obama no you said clinton or clinton yeah i said clinton took designated these lands as useless yeah who cares yeah i don't care if it was clinton obama trump that doesn't matter yeah you're taking the land. Who cares? Yeah. I mean, to Cal's point, too, it's a nonpartisan issue. And I think a lot of times people would like you to believe, oh, if you're a Republican, you're against this. Or if you're, you know, pro-Second Amendment, you can't vote for that and this.

And the fact is, is that you can. If you have a Republican leader in your area, they can change their mind. You need to be involved, right? And if that's the way you feel, that's great. But you have to realize that you can have your cake and eat it too. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Like, you know what I mean? You can be conservative and still be pro-public lands, you know? And you need to work and call and do what you need to change them if they're not, Because once it's gone, it's gone. And use social media. Because social media is an amazing tool.

And that's what killed HR 621. It was directly killed by social media. And it was killed quick. It was killed in a couple of weeks. You know, the pressure that they faced from guys like me posting it to 1.8 million people on Instagram, 1.5 million people on Facebook, 3 million or whatever the fuck it is on Twitter. All those people add up, and then those people find out about it. They jump in, and they realize that this is a really important issue.

It's a giant issue. And Rinello always points out that he's—by the way, Rinello wrote a great article about all this and about how killing HR 621 is just one battle in the overall war. And we're not there's no not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. And that article is available right now. If you go to his Twitter, it's on I think it's on meat eater dot com. Is that where it is? Yeah.

But no, that's not that's one. But there's one that I tweeted today. This is the one from January 20th. There's one that I tweeted today that he just recently wrote. And he calls himself a political eunuch because he's like, look, he goes, the Republicans want to sell off the land and the Democrats want to take away your guns. He's like, I don't know where the fuck to go. You know, in that sense. Well, my point simply is

that you can change you know what i mean it's like if you you need it's not a part it shouldn't be a partisan your representatives are there to represent your exactly this is the article it's roosevelt robber barons and the continued fight for our public lands and he just published it today and is that on meateater.com? Yes. Themeateater.com? Yes. Somebody owns meateater.com.

Yeah, isn't that weird? Give it up, bitch. There we are. I'm going to give it up. What is meateater.com? Go to meateater.com. What is that? I think it's... Is it available as one of those things?

It has been just like a picture of a steak for years. There you go. Garlic top sirloin. Yum. It's delicious. Best cow in school. So is this like someone just holding it? I think the person may have died or something.

No, they're dead. But, so 622 is going to... Yeah, they have a fork with a piece of meat. Look, here is my food. Chicken drumstick. Mmm, look at my food. HR 622 is going to gut the folks that are supposed to be out there protecting our resources, making sure people play nice on public lands. Yeah.

You know, the Planning 2.0, just a terrible name, not sexy at all, but that is the new management plan for Bureau of Land Management. That just got shut down it's going up to the Senate right now so the thing is if you want to know what you can do you have got sign these petitions that are going around TRCP has got a great one the sports ones pledge you know join a rod and gun club BHA National Wildlife Federation these plans are here for everybody. It's not just hunters and fishermen. And, man, all you got to do is write emails and call your duly represent, your officials that are there to represent you.

And, by the way, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers has a form that you could fill out on their site. They'll send it for you. You enter in your email. They have, like, a letter that you could fill out on their site they'll send it for you you enter in your email they have like a a letter that's already written up yes so it's super easy to do and they'll they'll direct you to where it needs to be sent and you know they're doing a great job of setting that up and letting people know i mean we gotta be you gotta be wise about this this is we have an amazing place it's an it's an. The fact that you guys live, like you were saying, that, what is it, church? Frank Church?

Frank Church. Frank Church Wilderness. I mean, can you imagine if you went up there and it was a fucking mall? Oh. You know? Somebody chopped all the trees down and put up a go-kart thing. So if you look at the state land example, right? These state lands are there to make money for the states.

And like we said, state gets in trouble, they sell those lands. Yeah. Fire, anything, right? It just sucks all the money out of the state. And then the states literally mandated not to have a negative balance. So once that happens, it's like, how are we going to make our money? How is Roosevelt so wise? make our money how is roosevelt so wise oh he had just panic fear of god put into him because he had this realization that he's like oh my god the entire reason i am who i am today

is because i had this opportunity to go out and chase animals and and if i saw a horizon line i could go over the top of it because nobody owned it right he's like that made me who i am i gotta try to make sure that this is here for the next person well a lot of people don't understand that in many countries that's not really possible and that's actually the story of robin hood story of robin hood wasn't really about stealing from the rich and stealing their money and giving it to the poor it was about hunting lands that was the original. Yeah. It was about the king did not let anyone hunt in the kingdom's hunting lands. And Robin Hood was like, fuck you.

And he went out there and he was shooting deer and getting people food because people were starving. Yeah. And that is something that we can do here in America that you can't. It's one of the reasons why you get so much hate mail from Europe. You get a lot of hate mail from places where they don't have recreational hunting because they to them They don't even understand and they're eating steak They're eating steak like my wife got in an argument with one of her friends husbands where? You know she was saying that I was on a hunting trip and this guy was eating a steak

Carving a steak literally there at dinner dinner and he's like well that's deplorable that's deplorable he hunts animals like you don't have to do that like she and she's like you're eating a steak she's like well these animals are farmed animals and i go she goes well don't you think that that animal lived a horrific existence and then finally was killed you think that's better than someone just out of nowhere you're hiding behind a bush making cow calls and you blast an arrow through the heart of some wild beast, and then take that thing down off the mountain. You have the experience.

You have the food. You also have this wild encounter with this magnificent beast that you have this connection to that every time you eat, like every time I eat a steak off of that elk, I think about the experience of hunting that thing. I think about seeing it. I think about cutting it up and carrying it out of there. The whole thing about it is all, it's all connected.

Loading it into the truck, hoisting it up. Like the whole thing is like in my mind every time I cut into the meat. And people at the end of the day are genetically hardwired to do that. Yeah. It's weird. You know? it's weird when you tap into that file like oh you didn't know about this file it's working for it man we're i mean that's the other experience on public lands there is it's just we talk about this at length all the time and kenton's got this like knicker analogy and we're walking around shot show and there's this european hunting company down the road and he stops me and he's like hey cal it's like we lose all this land

this is what we're going to be making knickers yeah you know it's like this it's like this like fake hunting i'm not gonna say there's fake hunting but it's like uh canned experience right shooting clothes yeah hunting let's go here and you know private lands where they release pheasants out of the back of a truck. And that does happen, folks. There's a thing called like pheasant shoots, European pheasant shoots. And they literally release these birds and the birds fly away and guys stand there with guns waiting for them to release from the cage and shoot them. That's how Dick Cheney shot his friend. Remember that?

Yeah. People don't remember that story. He shot his friend remember that yeah people don't remember that story he shot his friend in the fucking face and uh that was a canned hunt where they just open they literally open a can the birds fly out and they wait and boom and shoot them we got them i mean the hunting thing it's honestly like being outside of your your comfort zone that is it yeah that mean and i mean you know and if if that's not going to happen i don't know i'm not interested i don't know man the public hunting experience is man we're all you know you that's why you follow the rules right yeah because everybody gets the

same experience then right and on our side we are constantly like analyzing our clothing and analyzing our days and we're getting to be totally truthful uh man life at first light's pretty freaking good man we get to spend a lot of days in the woods way more than your average joe gets to and that's how we make stuff good right and well the way you guys do it is you you have new pieces and then you give them to like your representatives like people that you guys have like what do you guys call them like ambassadors or something like that what do you call them you know team guys team guys so you have a bunch of like guys who i follow on instagram hardcore hunters who spend a giant chunk of their life out in the woods yes some are public some are not

but the idea is to send to send them to people that use them in tons of different environments like you know we hunt in the rocky so you know we've got plenty of experience there but it's cool we'll send stay stuff to you know guys hunting in bc or guys hunting in ak where it's raining all the time but that's the that goal, you know, where it's hot. But being able to send stuff out and have it used in these tons of different environments allows us just to build better stuff, you know. Yeah, and it's a real trial and error thing where you're taking these super experienced guys. And when you said some guys are public, some guys are not,

what you mean is some guys have public profiles and some guys, they just stay under the radar. Yeah. You have a lot of guys like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's it. Everything gets thoroughly tested and that's the fun part.

But the amazing thing about us and one of the things that I love is we get interns and people from all across the country that have, you know, sometimes very little experience. And sometimes their input is the most valuable. For sure. Because you get a bunch of people who are like, I know it all. Right. Oh, no, don't worry about that.

Nobody does that. And then you get this, you know, girl from Ohio and she's like, well, what about this? And this happened to me. And you're like, really? Yeah. You know, because it's a fresh brand new perspective, somebody who just started hunting. And I think that that's been incredibly valuable on our line too. So living there too, is it's living in the mountains, you know, you get to take stuff from all different sports, whether you're, you know, riding your bike or whether you're back country skiing like a lot of that stuff crosses over you know and i think that allows us to round things out nicely like you know hiking

hunting is quite different than hiking right like hiking people want to build the lightest thing they can build that can do whatever hunting's totally different you're off the trail you're going through bushes like you kind of have to throw that lightest thing out the window you know you more have to approach it of like how heavy can i actually build this and have it still work well because it's going to get thrashed you know what i mean so you've got to approach it from kind of a different shift and how you know when you build stuff it needs to be versatile right like you can't have you know i don't know the equivalent would be like having a guy that was a construction worker and he's got a eight penny nail he's's got a 16 penny nail. Does he have an eight penny hammer

and a 16 penny hammer? It's like, no, you need to be able to do everything with, you know, a certain amount of stuff because you're going out in the woods and, you know, you might be walking slow, you might be stopping, you might be going uphill, you might be going downhill, you know, and it just allows carrying fewer things that do more jobs. And then you might have to go through thick brush and you might have to have clothes that are durable. Or if you're in Texas, you might have stuff that has thorns and shit. It's going to be ripping your clothes. And yes, don't go to Texas.

Don't go to that. Everything stabs you and there's Texas is that Texas is a great example of what could possibly happen if we lost public lands because Texas is weird. I love Texas. Don't get me wrong. I love the state. I love the people. It's one of my favorite places on earth.

But Texas hunting is very strange. There's a lot of it that's high fence and a lot of it is like over feeders. They have like these feed machines and these animals come like these feed machines and these animals come to the feed machines and they're overrun with wild pigs and then they have these fucking weird african animals that you can hunt anytime you want i mean there's more there's a bit from my last special but it's true there's more tigers in captivity in texas than

there are in all of the wild of the world really Really? Yeah, really. Oh, tell me that's not true. It's totally true. There's more tigers in dudes' fucking backyard. It's private collections, not zoos, not wildlife sanctuaries. More tigers in private collections in Texas. Is that legal? 100% legal. There's no laws in Texas.

You just can't have weed. No weed, queer. That's it. No gay marriage, no weed. I want to hunt in Texas. Keep it clean. I've never hunted there, but I would like to. I've hunted there. It's it. No gay marriage, no weed. I want to hunt in Texas. Keep it clean. I've never hunted there, but I would like to. I've hunted there.

It's awesome. I love Texas. But they have scimitar oryx and fucking elans and all these weird African animals that are running around. Look at that. There are more captive tigers in Texas than in the wild. That's real. That's real as fuck. But yeah, man, you don't need the type of innovation 20,000

privately owned big cats including tigers lions and cougars currently living in captivity in the u.s the exact number is unknown due to insufficient record keeping none of your fucking business are you sure that doesn't count like those little kind of half-wild cats, those little whatever? No, man. I've been to Texas, and I have a friend in Texas that has a buddy of his that has a fucking tiger thing in his yard. He's got this giant fenced-out area. He's got a giant ranch, and in his ranch, he's got a bunch of fucking tigers. What does he feed them? Like a cow.

Like a live cow? No. Well, they could if you want to. Maybe they won't admit it to me. But they'd take a cow or a calf, shoot it in the head, toss it over the fence. These things tear it apart. Unreal. And they watch it.

Yeehaw! They fucking drink a couple of Budweiss and fuck their cousin. Yeehaw! Look at that. The chief of Dallas and his wife are the proud owners of three 600-pound tigers they have raised since they were born. Jesus Christ. Police chief in dallas former police chief jesus christ like many texans bill rathburn is no longer satisfied with an ordinary pet well i had a german shepherd but that queer all you want to do is hump my leg tired of this of this. Need a goddamn American animal.

These cats tend to mind me even though I use no discipline, he says. No discipline at all. Shut your fucking mouth before you get killed. He has 22 tigers, this guy said. He has even trained these tigers to remain tame. Oh, my God. Unfortunately, you can buy a tiger for less than $1,000. Is that like rescue tigers or anything?

No. no. See, Texas has completely different laws when it comes to wildlife. The wildlife in Texas is not, it's private property. It's a whole different situation. I mean, they have tags when it comes to like white-tailed deer and indigenous species. But when it comes, and who knows if even the white-tails are indigenous there. I mean, they're bringing them in from farms, so they have bigger racks. They have a lot of weird shit they do.

So I wonder, it must be if you have a high fence, then it's, once that thing's fully fenced, everything within becomes private. Yeah. Must be. I think that's exactly what it is. But there's a lot of elands and oryx and all these African animals and axis deer that have gone rogue. They've gotten through fences, and now they're just wild and free range. Owl dad.

What do they call them in New Zealand? Convicts? Escapees? Escapees. Yeah. That would be crazy if a cat got loose. It could go nuts out there, right? Oh, yeah, man.

I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure if you could drive down the road somewhere in Jasper, Texas or something. You see that tiger? I just saw a fucking tiger. It's the scariest thing in the world, right? Tigers in Texas, we don't even know how many there are. I'm blown away right now. I've never heard of this.

I have a whole bit about it, man. You should watch it. It's the strangest thing you saw come out of the woods this season. Yeah. Texas is a very odd place. But what I wanted to highlight is, man, you don't want that to be the only way you can get a hunting experience. Because Texas is fucking weird. It's weird.

We wouldn't have jobs, man. I mean, the reason for innovation is that competition, that being outside, pushing yourself, you know, climbing new peaks. Why is the hunting clothing industry like a bunch of fucking high school girls? Because there's a lot of weirdness, like cliques. Like if you wear Sitka, you're not supposed to wear Kuyu. If you wear Kuyu, you're not supposed to wear First Light. Man, I thought you were an Under Armour guy sitting over there with that first light shirt on. Like, what are you, a bunch of fucking girls?

Little high school girls? Not that there's anything wrong with being a girl or being in high school, okay? I used to be in high school. I've never been a girl, but I have no problem with that. I'm glad you picked that to clear up. But you know what I'm saying? It's like a clicky little weird thing where they're on teams. Like, hey, there's no goddamn teams.

Like, I had a conversation with one of the, you know, Sitka, Harrison, Jason Harrison, who found the Cuyu, started out with Sitka, and then they pushed him out and they bought it out, and now the Sitka guys and the Cuyu guys don't get along. Like, what? You guys are out of your fucking minds. There's shit to worry about. They may come from, like, the pro staff thing. Maybe that's where that grew from. There's shit to worry about. They may come from the pro staff thing.

Maybe that's where that grew from. It's team mentality, man. It's the same thing as people from Texas that don't like people from Wyoming. It's like, we played y'all in the fucking Super Bowl and kicked your ass. It's the same shit. I think it'd be really hard to believe.

We're very friendly with anybody. Yeah, you guys are. I think it'd be real hard for me to believe that anybody's out there being like listen if you put this on you fucking hate those people oh definitely there's people like that out there i think people kind of just pick it up and run with it yeah well some i'm sure some people are ultra competitive and it comes from that like me that's just the way it is in business right instead of concentrating on what you're doing a lot of people concentrate on the

other people that are doing what you're doing and say these fuckers are trying to get us and we need a fucking yeah, but the competition is good That's the good part. Yeah, right Yeah The competition is amazing because you guys are constantly elevating your game like I was Saying Ryan I wore your stuff when I went to Nevada and I was like man those fucking What is the like the corrugated? Yeah the corrugate guide pants. Those fucking, they're great, man. They're so, like,

loose. Like, when you're walking in them, there's no binding at all. They're tough and durable. And I'm like, you guys nailed it. You nailed it on a lot of stuff. Thank you. It's a cool system in that, you know, generally speaking, you go to a few different shows like the Outdoor Retailer and whatever, and you get to see all the best stuff, right?

Like, whether it be from Patagoniaagonia right yeah everything um and you know you get to build the best thing you can build and there's like you know a couple few companies that literally like us that cost is kind of no object i mean it's way down the list and i i wish we're making things as cheap as we can and that's still expensive but it's a fun thing to be able to make the best you can make right and some people might you know say oh our stuff's better because we i don't know whatever you know it is what it is but i mean everything is so good now yeah it's so good selfishly we can make it for ourselves well you know it's so much better than when I started hunting in 2012, which is incredible. In the four and a half years that I've been hunting, stuff has gotten a lot better.

Absolutely. It's really interesting. That's awesome. Yeah. So there's an accelerated curve out there of competition and innovation. Certainly. And for people that don't even hunt, like you can get your stuff in solid colors and it is amazing outdoor wear it's as good as you're gonna get like i have this this jacket that i was wearing the other day when it's

cold out and my wife was like what a skiing jacket i'm like it's a first light jacket bitch because it was just black you know right i'm like this is the warmest fucking jacket it's so light and so thin but you know it's what is it you're puffy is that what you guys call it the uncompagre yeah i'm like this is a great jacket i mean it's just it's the perfect jacket for know, it's, what is it, your puffy? Is that what you guys call it? Yeah, the uncompagre. Yeah. I'm like, this is a great jacket. I mean, it's just, it's the perfect jacket for, like, when it's kind of cold out. And I wore that in Montana when I was doing Anthony Bourdain's show, too. I'm like, it was fucking freezing out. Right.

And I'm like, this jacket's amazing. You gotta hang out with Buddy Goodtime and Dan Bailey, the Pheasants Forever dude. Who's Goodtime and Dan Bailey? I don't like the way you say that. He's a big, lanky dude. I'm nervous. With the two, he had the two griffons the two pointing dogs yeah oh okay oh yeah real good dude oh that's awesome man yeah i'm bird hunting is fun but it's it's like way down on the list for me well dude you're scared you so we were talking about elk hunting in idaho

yeah are we doing that when are we doing that here's some time out okay well it's hard to give So we were talking about elk hunting in Idaho. Yeah. Are we doing that? When are we doing that? We've got to clear some time out. Okay, well, it's hard. You've got to give me some days. It's hard. I've got kids. I've got a wife.

Everybody's bitching at me. I've heard of those things. Yeah, trust me. Kenton fights those battles all the time. You've managed to stay clean. Kenton's got restrictions, right? Donald Trump has made your house a swear-free zone. Is that what you were saying?

What happened? I don't know. My wife and I might not have the same political views, so we've gotten pretty PC. Was it the grab-em-by-the-pussy talk that pushed her over the top? It did me no favors, let's say that, as far as having a house that was pretty free and loose. Do you have boys or girls? Two boys and a girl. Oh, okay.

You're lucky. Yeah. There's like a balance there. You've got two girls and two boys in your house and then you. Oh, boy. For me, dude, it's all chicks. My fucking whole house is overrun by chicks. And my wife's mom lives nearby.

She's over the fucking house, too. It's all women. All women. You get a lot of time shooting your bow. All women. Yeah, daddy's going to go outside and pretend he's still a man. And fucking hide. Hide from all you sirens trying to bring me to the rocks it's it's it's funny though you know so what what laws did get established in your household

oh i don't know you know we just uh we just have to be concerned with what what we say doesn't isn't is it negative how did did Donald Trump bring this about? I don't know. Like you said, I think there was enough, like, you know, I have two boys, right? So they're not afraid to call each other a pussy if something's going, you know what I mean? Right. They heard it on the news. Yeah.

No, but they're, you know, they're into their extreme sport. You know, they're skiers and mountain bikers. And, you know, inevitably it's like, like you know there's a jump built or something and first thing like it's called is you know the p word right house in my plan that was the first thing my wife's like no no no no you're a dick you're a dick do you like that i was like whoa she's serious like she did not that was not going to be a derogatory term and that's fine whatever it shouldn't be but you, it was funny because, you know, they'll heckle each other. And, you know, they're boys. They want to get after, you know, some gnarly ass, you know, jump or whatever on their bikes.

And somebody's got a guinea pigot. And sure enough, it's probably the one that got called a pussy first. Right. So we don't do that anymore. Well, for me, when Donald Trump, that whole story came out, it was great because then all of a sudden everybody, so many people are saying pussy. And it seems like this country is like backing. We had gotten to some weird politically correct phase just in the last couple of years where people are so mad at so many different groups are so mad at the way our culture is that there was all these words you weren't allowed to say anymore. And there was all these new things like you're not allowed to wear sombreros because it's cultural appropriation

they were getting mad at people for cooking other cultures dishes like people got so politically correct that like the good thing about donald trump being in office is that i said that political correctness just took a missile to the dick because like that guy as the fucking commander-in-chief man that political correctness shit it's like it doesn't seem very effective it didn't work here like you can't you can't and people are fighting it of course and rallying and protesting and all that jazz but it the good thing about it's like you realize like oh that's just a word like pussy's just a word like and that guy was saying pussy. Now he's the president. Like it's not really like this like taboo word that summons demons. You know, it's just a word.

And it's intent that's important. It's not demonizing words and making these words impossible to say because we've made them. Like there's certain words now that you just can't say in our culture. Or people get upset at you. That were real common. Like retard. You call someone a retard. You're not saying someone has a disease.

You're saying someone's a fucking knucklehead. Oh, that guy's retarded. You know the intent of that word. But people are saying, no, don't say that anymore. That's offensive. Well, the more you create offensive words, and the more you create words that you're not allowed to say them, the more you're going to give those words power.

And people can't wait to say them, the more you're going to give those words power. True. And people are going to, they can't wait to say them. They can't, I mean, then those words become like nuclear power. That's what it said, a nuclear option. Yeah. Then you've got something, right? Oh, you've got the C word, you know? Yeah. You're always holding on to that one.

If a chick gets crazy, you're like, listen, cunt. Like, what? Ah! Oh, yeah. That's it. It's just, it's impossible to come back from. There's not an equivalent word for men. Like, by telling us, we can't say that word.

You can call us dicks all day long. You fucking dick. Eh, guilty as charged. Say I got a girl. You can say it on TV now, practically, right? Yeah, you can. As long as it's not like, you know, I mean, I think like NBC, CBS, they still don't use it. But like any cable show, they use that now.

still don't use it. But like any cable show they use that now. All I know is Kenton's wife tends to look at me like that is the source of looseness right there. That's a single man with a mustache. Exactly. If this man got cut loose to spend too much time with him it could all go down here.

Just go feral. Yeah. What's why? No one tells Ryan where to go. Ryan can just go into the woods anytime he wants? I don't think that's right. What about, he doesn't have a leash on. How many times does he call and check in? Ryan's just out there with no leash.

Does he have a collar? I get a long leash. I get a long leash. Especially during hunting season. But mark my words. But it's still a leash. You have a leash. Ryan doesn't have a leash.

He's just out there. He doesn't have to call anybody. He just goes where he wants. Anarchy is what it is, Joe. What if he just decides to take that mustache and go for a hike? Nobody can tell him? That pisses women off because then the man goes, Yeah, hey, Ryan's just out there with no leash.

He's doing whatever he wants. I'm so emasculated. Oh, I wish I was like that. Like, I love being married. I love having kids. I love the whole deal. I love having a family. But I got a buddy, my friend Ari. You know what Ari did? He just went off the grid.

Shut his fucking phone off. He won't answer his emails. And he just disappeared. He went to the South Pacific. Free and easy. For how long? Just wanted to do it for a few months. He's a stand-up comic.

Hilarious guy. Successful show on Comedy Central. Doing great. Kicking ass. He just decided, you know what? I need some experiences in my life to write about, to talk about. So I'm just going to fucking stop talking to people and disappear for a few months. I haven't talked to him in two months.

I haven't talked to him. I don't know where the fuck he is. You call his voicemail, it just says the subscriber you have reached has shut off incoming calls. I'll play it for you guys. That's amazing. Dude, this thing is just the most devious creation on the planet. It's a tether. It's a tether.

It is. It is. To the subscriber's request, this phone does not accept incoming calls. Message NV1. God love him. Ari Shaffir is rocking message NV1. He doesn't give a fuck.

He went straight NV1. Yeah, so if my wife heard that, well, he's out there with no leash. You think that's good? He's got no one to call into. He can't even check in. But he can check in. Right.

He can do whatever he wants. But he can call and say, hey, everything cool? Yeah. All right. Late. Boom. He can call me. I'll pay faggot.

I'm still alive. And then hang up the phone. That's it. I'm like, oh, god damn it. He's out there free. He's free. The ability to check out. Yeah.

We can, I mean, where we are, it is narrow valley, public land everywhere. As soon as you get off the valley floor, you're on public land. Like we talked about, I can hike to the freaking Yukon, man. Yeah, that's crazy. And you can be disconnected, as disconnected as you want to be. And, man, there is no price tag on that. No price tag. That is the most invaluable thing.

And I need it. Well, that's the constant dilemma amongst a lot of hunters, especially the really hardcore guys. A lot of the podcasts that I listened to, like, uh, there's a bunch of them, but the big dilemma is how much time does your family allow you to get out? How much, how much time can you spend? Can you do one of those 30-day trips? You know, like there's a lot of guys that do like a 30-day trip. That's pretty heavy. That's heavy as fuck. But there's some street cred to that.

Or should I say trail cred? Right. Right? You might have coined a new term. You know what fucking Ronella said to me once? It was really funny, man. We were laughing. We were talking about Grizzly Man.

We were talking about the Werner Herzog documentary and Ronella was laughing. He goes, I'll tell you what though. He goes, that guy did some fucking hard camping. He goes, I gotta respect that guy. That guy was a hard camper. He loves the hard way. He does. He loves it. No one loves it the hard way more than Rinella. He loves it. He does. But there's something to be said for it. Because I think, just like we were talking about, you know, things get more PC or whatever.

You start patting yourself. And all of a sudden, you don't know what rough is. Save spaces. Nerf the hard edges of the world. It's super important that we be totally inclusive. Competition is not a bad thing. And there's no more primal competition than you trying to go out and get your own food that's running around trying to stay alive yes and what do you have you got a pointy stick you're trying to shoot

through another misconception every time a hunter goes into the woods something dies that's what i that's what i hear all the time it's like well i saw five people go into the woods behind my house on a public easement i was at a uh uh city council meeting listen to this gal talk somebody public easement so people can access public land only way their housing development got built was so that because they allowed to easement so people could get to the public land she's saying that five people went past her house and five elk died it's like not the case i'll tell you right now it's never happened i don't punch my tag until the absolute last day because as soon as i clip it i gotta be back into work with that guy i mean yeah i mean i've had conversations with people that don't understand

they're like you know you go out there and you shoot these animals i go no you go out there you try to get an animal she's like well how often are you successful i said well i went on five hunts last and i'm super dedicated i practice, well, I went on five hunts last year, and I'm super dedicated. I practice constantly. I'm absorbed in it. Five hunts, three of them were unsuccessful. So that's, and that's a good average. That's a good average. So you're spending 15, you know,

like each hunt, at least five days out in the woods, and just nothing. Sorry. Come back home. Nothing. Struck out. Yeah. And you go, oh, that was an absolute failure. My kids look at me like such a loser. Nothing?. Nothing. Struck out. Yeah. And you go, oh, that was an absolute failure. My kids look at me like such a loser. Yeah. Nothing?

Like nothing. Struck out. Like you didn't, nothing? Nothing. Nothing, you little fucks. Yeah. Can't figure that out? Exactly.

It's hard. Come with me one day. Right now you're too little to hike. You're lucky. What are the ages? Six and eight. Oh, getting close. They love, they eat everything though, man.

They've eaten bear, elk. They eat elk all the time. Nice. They've eaten bear, elk. They eat elk all the time. They've been eating wild game since they were little. They, you know, they don't know the difference. They like it. They love elk. Are they both skiing? Yeah, both skiing.

They've been skiing since they were two. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I took them when they were just so little that they just pizza'd down the, like when they had the little connector with the two skis and they just slide. My daughter Rosie, I don't even think she was two. You have a Rosie?

Yeah. No way. Oh, no way. Oh, no way. Oh, because Steve's daughter, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, kids are, you know, it's an amazing thing to have a little person that you're raising and you get to see them learning things for the first time, which will never happen

again. You know, everything they learned for the first time, like the first time they went skiing, I remember this look on their face, like they got the mittens on. They're like, this is crazy. They got a helmet on. Whoa, they're so happy and excited. Like there's never going to be a first like that again.

And the more firsts you can have in this life, I think the better and more rich your life will be. The more first experiences, the more times you can learn things. And people get locked into these patterns in their life, and I don't know why it happens I don't know what causes it But we get a job and we get a career and we get a path in a neighborhood and that's boom and then the first stop There's no more firsts and then it becomes the same shit over and over again life becomes mundane and life becomes tired

same shit over and over again and life becomes mundane and life becomes tired. It's how you grow old, right? In a lot of ways other than aging. But the other thing that happens is you realize that this is what's going on and then you seek novelty. You seek new experiences and hopefully that's what happens to more people more when they listen to podcasts like this and they hear you guys talk about your experiences and and they they say god damn it i need some of that in my life you know i need i need to just go fucking camp i need to just go out there i need to wake up and hear bulls bugling you know i need to like wake up and hear birds that i don't recognize chirping and squawking and

look over the ridge and see a bear i'm'm like, whoa, the fuck is that? That's a wild bear. It's just hanging out, chilling, doing bear stuff. Like all that stuff is like having new experiences like that. It's just giant for your life. And again, if you're not into hunting, you don't even want to go. Just try archery. Just try that.

Just try that. Just a new experience. Go somewhere. Find a place that gives lessons. Oh, just go. Yeah. Drive out to the national park. Drive out to you know bears your national monument go check some things out yeah road trip right yeah car camping is fantastic hard to get people out of their comfort zone yeah

hard it is but baby steps man go do it go do it first time one of the most fulfilling things i do i try to do take somebody out on their first time every year and it is one of the most fulfilling things I do. I try to take somebody out on their first time every year and it is one of the most fulfilling things I do every year. I'm sure. It's just the best. It always blows somebody's mind. All you have to do is hear a bugle and people are just like whoa.

It doesn't sound like a real animal. Jamie, cue up some elk bugle because people never heard it before. They don't know what the fuck we're talking about. You live in a city somewhere you poor bastard it sounds like an animal from the lord of the rings it doesn't sound like a real thing yeah it sounds like some crazy exotic beast is it a good one heard a little bit of it Did you just pick the first one you found? There it goes. Now, that's not even like a crazy one. That sounds like a little bitch bull.

But this is a 1,000-pound forest horse. It's making... That's a real bull right there, baby. Oh, my God. That guy's like, I get all the pussy. Yeah. And the other one's saying, I'm, no I do. Look at him screaming! And then they throw their head back and just launch that in the air. So these guys are going back and forth in this video.

What a crazy animal. It is not something you get sick of hearing. Never. Man, every time I've been elk hunting, and I've been elk hunting a few times now, you see one and you hear it and just your whole body like tingles. It's like, whoa, what a magical experience just to be around these things. To feel that noise in your chest. Jesus Jesus look at the size of that fucker God I

Mean the things that are keeping those things alive are the money that comes from hunting That's super important for people to recognize there was a time in this country where those things were almost extinct in the early 1900s There was very few there was very few. There was very few deer. There was very few anything. And now, there's more deer in this country than there were when Columbus didn't really discover this place. And that's why people are so passionate about this, man. Look at the history.

We landed. We said, hey, this place is going to be different than where we came from. The land or the animals belong to the people. We fucked that up real quick with market hunting. Yeah. Market hunting is an interesting thing tell people about that most people don't didn't even know that that was a real thing they know that we killed off all the buffalo but they don't really understand that back in the day before refrigerators you know you got to get meat like pretty much then yes uh matt read mitchner's uh chesapeake that there's a great description on market hunting in the Chesapeake Bay.

Guys going out with low-profile boats with cannons on them, stuffing them full of shards of nails and stuff. And they'd go up to these big rafts. When ducks and geese sleep in the middle of the night on big bodies of water, they all get huddled up together. This is in the chesapeake bay but it happened in the great lakes also big rafts of birds and you would you know push off in the middle of the night sneak up really slowly on these big rafts of sleeping birds and touch this

cannon off shoot this cannon and then and that's how the Chesapeake Bay Retriever was basically bred into existence, was they needed a big, hardy dog that could withstand cold water. This dog would spend hours never getting back in the boat, but just constantly retrieving for hours because they'd shoot, you know. And probably a mouthful of nails too, right? Yeah, hundreds of birds, right yeah hundreds of birds right yeah hundreds of birds and then that dog had to then sit on the pile of birds and defend it the next day from everybody else right because those birds are worth money so they were taking them across to uh so they

had to be guide dogs or guard dogs rather and they also had to be retrievers yes whoa yeah whoa and then they would bring those to market. By the barrel full. And they were only good for a couple days. Yep. And people would, you know, they would try to keep them cool, and then people would try to buy them as quick as they could before they spoiled, and then they'd have to go right back out and do it again. And that process resulted in just a devastation on the wildlife in this country.

Yes. And the same thing was happening with, you know, white-tailed deer, elk, black bears. Everything. Bison, obviously. Yeah, obviously, yeah. That's the one that everybody harps on, but they don't realize that it was pretty much everything

that we could eat they shot. We could put a price tag on it, right? And that's one of the major issues that, you know, we're seeing in Idaho is they want to, and with some of this auction tag stuff as we're starting to put a dollar amount on our game. What do you mean by auction tags? Where we're pulling tags out of the general pool.

So like right now, let's say in the state of Idaho, we could all put in, you know, we could all put in, you know, a thousand people put in for four elk tags in a prime unit, the unit that grows the biggest bulls. Well, in order to raise more funds, they've started to remove one of those tags and auction them off. So that's putting a, you know, whatever we could all put in for $30 for the remaining three elk. But if we choose to, we could all try to bid on each other for that fourth tag. So if there's a limited amount of tags, people have to realize that your chances of drawing that tag are probably pretty slim unless you build up points. Every year you build up a certain amount of points and that makes it more likely that you're going to draw a tag. So people that

don't understand the process. So one person, they'll take one tag and they'll put it off and they'll allow it to be auctioned off. And sometimes they'll go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes. Right? Like crazy rich dudes. So there's two schools of thought. One school of thought is look how much money is going to conservation because this one rich asshole that wants to spend $400,000 to kill a bighorn sheep.

Yes. And I think, you know, saying it like you do, the rich asshole thing, that's how everybody says it. Right. And of course, I get really frustrated with that because I'm like, well, aren't we as the remaining sportsmen in this pool supporting the rich asshole by giving him the ability? Why don't the thousand people in the pool just agree to spend a couple extra bucks on the tag well that might help but is it really going to get you the hundreds of thousands of dollars for that one tag i mean it seems like without burdening the regular sportsman who doesn't want to spend like didn't montana like significantly raise their tags the the price their tags recently there's a lot of

complaints yeah they're uh but they put a lot of burden on the out-of-state hunter not the in-state right yeah the resident hunter gets a break right they get our in-state um you know i'm i support a tag fee increase for resident hunters because we haven't had one in a lot of years so what a tag, like an over-the-counter tag for elk right now in Montana? Or excuse me, in Idaho? I want to say $40, $35. That's amazing. Yeah, and I want to say Montana's $17 as a resident.

Do you know how amazing that is? That for $17, you can get 500 pounds of meat. Yeah. And obviously your effort, too. Most hunters, I mean, speaking for the guys that i hang around with and nobody else we like to drink our beer what yes and spending 17 on a case of beer that has gone and i'll generously say a couple of weeks right i love i love to hunt elk and deer. Absolutely love it. It is, I mean, it's just something that I look forward to the year long. Right.

I can very, more than willing to spend more than 17 bucks on the potential, the thrill of the excuse to go hunt for a month. For sure. Yeah, I think that's reasonable. And that pretty much within anybody's budget i mean just raise it to 20 bucks and then all that money is going to go back to the state and it's going to help and it's still very very very reasonable yeah and collectively i'm gonna say i mean the reason we don't know the exact price generally is because you can buy a sportsman's package so i think it's for a hundred and i don't know five dollars you can hunt and

fish like basically anything that's not a draw. Everything over the counter as long as you don't go over the limit of what you could get. Pretty much. It's pretty amazing. And Idaho's a true lottery, right? So there are no points. Oh, it's one of those states. That's interesting.

Yeah, and I truly like it because it spreads out the pressure. So our draw odds are fantastic so now where someone wants to auction those things off like what is a like one of those crazy elk tag because i know that wild sheep is the big one right like bighorn sheep are the ones that people spend went for 305 is that what it was three hundred and five thousand dollars and so the same for an elk tag uh sheep oh wow for breaks area that um that hunted, that I think last year went for over half a million. Whoa. But you've got to keep in mind, sheep are the rarest thing that we have.

They're doing really well in the areas that they're doing well in. In the brakes, we saw a ton of them. It's crazy. They're everywhere. But disease, they're super susceptible to disease domestic sheep disease is correct right because there was a sitka video uh that they did they did this short film about the uh tender yeah tender i heard is how do you say it t-n-d-r-o-y yeah tendroy yeah and these these sheep are suffering from diseases that are coming from domestic sheep. So they're trying to figure out a way to breed a domestic sheep that doesn't catch this disease so that they can reintroduce healthy sheep into these areas and not have them be infected by these different diseases that they get from. it's really fascinating stuff do you remember uh kit fisher was on that hunt with us um in the breaks he was rowing one of the boats um he works for national wildlife federation and that's what he does is he does conflict uh mitigation basically so he

identifies those uh grazing allotments um and most of them are on public land. And he identifies the conflict of grazing allotments, mostly for bighorn sheep, that could put domestic sheep that could potentially be carrying diseases in contact with these wild sheep herds. So he's looking to, you know, typically pay the rancher that has that grazing allotment fair market value for that grazing allotment and he just turns it back over to the u.s forest service and that's a real issue with buffalo right with wild bison because there's two schools of thought and there's one school it's about brucellosis and that brucellosis will somehow or another be transmitted from the bison to cattle. But apparently a lot of people say that that's kind of a bullshit argument because it's really about the bison eating up all the grazing land and forcing out the domestic cattle.

So they're using the brucellosis as an excuse to say that this is the reason why we need to kill off the bison and get them out of the way. I think there's some legitimate— A little bit on both sides? Yeah, and the difference between to kill off the bison and get them out of the way I think there's some legit a little bit on both sides Yeah, and the difference between the sheep and the bison is sheep don't carry a disease bison definitely do carry The brucellosis but domestic sheep do carry some disease a mess cheap do but the wild ones do wild wild ones don't but they can Catch domestic sheep disease. Yes, and they have no They can't find no immune systems. Yeah, so they have no, they can't fight. No immune systems, right? They just die off.

But yeah, the bison one is, you know, I got a big eastern Montana family. It takes a lot of ground to grow beef out there. And if that's your livelihood, absolutely. You know, putting more animals on the countryside. Yeah, some fucking hulk bison thing. Yeah. That's way bigger than a cow. Yeah, it's a scary thing man it's going to

directly impact your livelihood but i think just as we were talking about earlier man there's some there's some happy medium there yeah and if especially if we're looking at you know um some of this oil and gas stuff that's getting scary right now like especially with like all of a sudden we're saying that you don't have to clean up after yourself after you, you know, start a big mine somewhere. Right. Like, I would much rather have bison out there than, like, let's raise funds through sportsmen or recreationists than digging a big pit in a beautiful spot. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to cover it, though. It's not.

a beautiful spot. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to cover it, though. It's not. The Dakota Pipeline, like what they're talking about there, it's just like, I mean, the amount of money that's going to come from that is just staggering. And so the amount of pressure that's involved in making something like that go through is also pretty staggering.

It is. You know? But it's dangerous, you know? And what the disaster that could take place is, you can't put a price on it. Because what could be done if they ruin a river system if somehow or another this gas line breaks and you have oil flooding a river system the same way they had that bp oil rig disaster out in the gulf god could you imagine they're still dealing with it right yeah fuck yeah yeah fuck yeah and how about the people that had to deal with it that were living near there that were sick?

You know, there's all sorts of diseases and there's all sorts of lawsuits going on. The cleanup crews, I mean, they made prisoners clean up the fucking BP mess and there's a lot of weird shit involved in that. Right. I'm truly not educated on the economics of it. And, you know, my brain says that, no, there's you know, we couldn't there's no warm, fuzzy eco, you know, lodge that we could set up that would match the funds from, you know, oil and gas. But, yeah, man, yeah, I'm just trying to think long term. And, oh, boy, it just wrecked that landscape. And the landscape is what I've been in love with since a little kid. Yeah, you know, and nobody wants to be able to light your toilet water on fire either.

You ever see this fucking Gasland documentary where it's coming right out of the tap and the guy sticks a lighter to it and his fucking water's on fire and people are like, well, they've always been able to do that. That's always been the case. Not with these fucking people. With these fucking, they've always been able to do that. That's always been the case. Not with these fucking people. With these fucking people, it's directly related to fracking. There's all these apologists for that stuff. It's like, how many fucking earthquakes

do you need to have in Oklahoma before you go, hey, um, is this okay? You guys have a thousand earthquakes a year now. Is that cool? Yeah, as long as it's under a thousand. We're looking at, you know, as long as we only pollute like three or four wells a000. We're looking at, you know, as long as we only, like, pollute, like, three or four wells a year. We're survivors.

It's fine. We got plenty of bottled water. But, man, I mean, there's just, it's a constantly evolving thing. You know, technology all across the board is getting way, way, way better. We know way more about these migration routes than we used to. We know way, you know, intact migration routes are what we need for healthy mule deer, healthy elk. Yeah, that's like a recent thing. They realized how far mule deer travel, right? It kind of blew these biologists away.

Mind-blowing, yeah. Hundreds of miles. We have deer in our unit that migrate 170 miles. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. They have to. I mean, like, years like this, we've got, you know, right now we've

got, I don't know, six, seven, eight feet of snow on the ground, right? If they don't travel, it's curtains. But when you come here, and you see no snow, but so many people, what's better? Regarding? I don't... What's better? No snow, and a

massive swarm of humans or eight feet of snow not that many humans what do you guys prefer? I think as long as you guys stay where you're out and I stay where I'm at. Yeah exactly. Is this like a trick question? No it's not a trick question. I always want to talk to people that come from a place like Ketchum and come to angeles and see the fucking swarm the hive the get on that 405 and go what in the fuck is this thing dude i i'm not gonna when we hopped on the bus just go get a rental car last night i was gripped yeah i was gripped felt like i was in a nascar race with like on a bus on a genius car. Oh, yeah. They're aggressive. They're aggressive. They're super aggressive.

Yeah, you have to be. Yeah. Do you know, they did a study that showed there's a direct correlation between the amount of footsteps people take per minute and the population that they're in. And also, the faster they talk, if the population is higher, they will say their syllables faster. They will say words faster. They'll say more words in a minute. There's a direct correlation.

People from New York definitely talk faster. Oh, yeah. Agreed. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But it's fascinating. They walk faster, too. Interesting.

Like, there's a... Here it goes. Senator, what is this? Amy clears way for finishing Dakota... Oh, Army. I'll write Amy. Go, Amy. Finishing Dakota access oil pipeline by granting easement.

Opponents likely to appeal. Oh, just now, huh? But yeah, you know, where you guys live, it's just a completely different kind of place. Look at the first quote. Go back to that. Go back to that. You should mention that Obama approved this project in the first place so the libtards can't blame Trump. Alright, fuckface.

Libtards. That is one of the best words that's come out of this whole fucking right versus left. Oh man, I mean, like I said, I'm just speaking off the cuff there. You know, I love, I'm an outside guy. I don't want that stuff to ever change. But I realize there's got to be something for everybody too i mean we're a big country it's more than just me and like you said super out of the way place in idaho so i don't ever want to live in new york city but i know a lot of people fucking love it and good go have it yeah good luck with it but it's interesting when

i see guys like you that come from idaho and then come down here to los angeles and i see look in your face you're like fuck this place you're like you can't wait to get out of here i live here i'm raising a family here this is where i do my work you guys are like fuck this place right it's just interesting it's like the driving i don't know cal I like ran a stoplight already. I'm like, I don't know. You know, it's. The hive, it gets to you.

Too late in the road, right? Too much going on. It's crazy. You feel it. You feel the pressure of the hive. Oh, man. Putting your blinker on means like to the next guy, it's like when you put your blinker on to change lanes, that means here.

It means like close that space, you know? Speed up. Don't let that fucker in. Exactly. He's going to slow me down by one tenth of a second it all adds up combat yeah it is it all adds up it's very intense it's very intense all right gentlemen this has been a fun conversation and uh thanks i hope we illuminated a lot of these issues with people and uh fuck hr 622 yes sir and uh any bills like it and we need to do the same thing we did to 621. We need to do that to 622 and contact that guy

and start the whole campaign all over again because you just can't remove the resources that are going to protect those lands. They're going to keep coming. It's very important. So thank you guys for what you do. And your website is firstlight.com, L-I-T-E. Correct.

Is it firstlighthunting.com or firstlight.com? Firstlight.com, one word. And anything else? Thank you, buddy. That's good. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, guys. Bye, everybody.

See ya.