The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #113 with Chad Mendes

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Chad Mendes is a retired UFC Featherweight fighter, avid hunter, and owner of the outdoor guide service Finz and Featherz.

the Joe Rogan experience all right we're up and running money Mendes what's up good to see you brother finally man we've been talking about doing this a long time too long whoa look at that Jamie we splattered I tried to push the plunger down on the French press and it splattered everywhere so if my microphone explodes we know why it's

alright this this table needed a little seasoning needed some color I'm throwing one over here I'll get this that's alright so what's happening man how you doing how's the retirement life? Oh, man. A little retirement from fighting, but maybe not really. No, man. I'm actually more busy now not fighting. I'm actually want to get back into the training part of it so it can slow down a little bit. But it's been good, dude. We got a ton of stuff going on, a lot of stuff on the plate.

My wife's about to kill me, but we got some shit going what you're working too much too much man way too much but it's good man i you know after fighting i had to channel that like that energy of getting shit going and and being successful somewhere i almost felt like i jumped into a little bit of a depression there for like a couple weeks after because I had like no sense of doing you know right and so I was like fuck it I'm gonna start just trying to grow a couple brands and building a couple companies and see what happens so I was like honed all my energy onto that stuff and uh it definitely took over so it's it's been nice it's been fun being able to just basically channel that stuff into that and let it rip. It's one of the most difficult things for a fighter is the stopping fighting, but you don't know what to do with all this intense energy that

you've been focusing your whole life in one way. And now all of a sudden, and for a lot of fighters, it's like their whole identity, right? It is, man. Like I started wrestling when I was five years old. Like I wrestled from five years old every single year up and through college. And then the day after graduation, drove up to Faber's, fucking lived in his spare room and started training. Trained for three months and had my first pro fight and then just basically never stopped and so it's like when you have that identity of of an athlete and then that's like your routine that's what you do like when i stopped i was just like dude what am i doing like what do i do with my life and how old are you now at 36 i just. I just turned 36 in May. So you're still in this athletic zone where you're still, you know,

until you're in the, once you're around 40, people start going, man. Yeah. Time to do something else. But 36, it's like, man, Anderson was in his prime at 36. Yeah. I was going to say, unless you're Dan Hendo or even Couture, but those are freaks. Couture didn't even start his career, I think, until he was 35.

I want to say he might have been, it was 34 or 35 with his first UFC fight. Yeah, it's crazy. Let's find out what that is. Find out. It's like 1997. I was there for it. That was the tournament, and it was the same weekend that tito ortiz had his first fight guy metzger had his first fight um like tito beat wes albright i don't know how i remember that

and then he fought guy and guy tapped him out guy caught him in a guillotine yep i remember watching those yeah i i remember going to um uhbuster. Do you remember Blockbuster? Sure. Me and my brothers were right over there on our bikes and I'd go straight to the section that had all the VHS for the UFC events. Right next to like faces of death. Oh yeah. We'd grab as many as we could, take them home and sit there and just watch them for hours. I remember. I believe it was UFC 2 was the only one that was available. I believe you couldn't get UFC 1 on VHS for a while because I think Horian Gracie owned it or something. I don't know yet.

He would have been like turning 34 that year. Aha, there you go. Like a month after. That's crazy, man. Yeah, 34, starting his career, and goes on to become the light heavyweight and the heavyweight champion one of the best ever and then fights like wow for more than 10 years so this 97

when did he retire from the ufc i thought he was like 43 or 40 man i mean he fought leota machida he was like he was deep in his 40s. Or in his 40s. He wouldn't have been closer to 50. Would he have been? Well, when did he fight Leo Machida? I know, I can't. 2011. 2011?

April 30, 2011. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. 14 years. So, yeah. I can tell you I'm not fighting that long. So he's 48.

He was 48. Yeah. Yeah, he's 48 when he long so he's 48 yeah that's wild that's crazy that's super rare though super rare like Bernard Hopkins was the only other guy that fought like at a world class level into his 50s Bernard was like at 50

that's insane I mean I hope that i feel that good to be able to compete when i'm 50 but i'll tell you what i do a lot of hunting and fishing stuff with hendo and that guy's like yeah he's like a robot he barely can move dan and he's like no is he feel all right you talk to him oh yeah he's still spars he tells me he's still spars does he really yeah i'm, Dan, you're insane. Why does he spar? It's a good workout.

I'm like, Dan, I could give you like 50 other things you can do that's a good workout that you don't have to spar, get punched in the head. He's so stiff. It's like, is he stiff because he's just stiff or is he in pain? I think he's just stiff. Even if he's in pain, he would never tell you. That's the thing. He's got cauliflower hands.

I like look at his hands sometimes and I'll's in pain, he would never tell you. He's got cauliflower hands. I like look at his hands sometimes and I'll just grab them and I'm like, dude. And they just feel hard, like harder than most people's bones like in their hand. Well, all of Dan's body feels weird. Like when you put your hand on his back, it's like mahogany. Yeah. It's like, what are you fucking made out of? It's just petrified wood. Yeah.

He's not. He doesn't feel like a regular person. I talked to the lady that massaged him. She goes have never met someone more dense yeah he is like he's just dense yeah he's crazy well that's where he got all that power too you know i mean his whole body's just fucking yeah he's solid he's an odd dude he is i love him he's amazing amazing person i mean you gotta realize this guy competed uh as a heavyweight knocked out fedor remember that right like and that was when fedor was still fedor this is like fedor still fighting right but this was like more than 10 years ago this is a strike force yeah crazy yeah we we sat

and watched a bunch of those highlights from a lot of those fights uh we were over at my buddy chad building's house and we were doing some filming and stuff and we just sat down and everybody just kind of quit what they're doing and just watch that dude just ko dude after dude and it's everybody's like man damn because like a lot of the girls that work there and stuff that help us they don't i don't think they really understand who dan henderson is right and they're just watching this stuff on tv and they're like jesus dan's just like you know it's like i love the guy to death he's quite a character he's quite a character and a real pioneer i was there for his first fight too yeah yeah that was uh i think his first fight was versus alan goez if that wasn't his first fight in i mean in in the UFC, it was one of the first fights, and I think he was in a tournament with Alan Goas.

Yeah, I remember him talking about that. I missed it. I didn't see it, but he told me. If I remember right, he beat someone. Carlos Nudin? The crowd got really upset by the call, and there were people storming the cage or the ring. I think that was the Alan Goas fight.

Yeah, people were pissed. Yeah. Yeah, that was a... I don't remember the fight enough to comment on the decision, but I think some people were pissed at it. But, you know, that's one thing that's never changed, shitty decisions. I mean, they still exist.

You know, Francis Ngannou had a very good point the other day that there should be some protection for fighters because, you know, losing half of your purse because someone made a bad call. There should be a way around that. That's funny you say that because I years ago was talking with a buddy of mine and we were thinking of like an insurance plan for fighters just for that reason right there. For injuries, like say you're – because this is the shitty thing. I mean a lot of people probably know this, but you go through a 10-week training camp, and this has happened to me multiple times in my fight and some fights, where the week before the fight, your opponent gets injured. They back out.

They can't find anybody to fill in, and now your fight doesn't happen. Well, guess what? You just went through all that training, paying your trainers. You know, you still got to pay managers and everything for everything they do work-wise. You don't get paid. Yeah. So you're just like, damn it, man. And for some fighters, if you get injured after that, you're talking, I mean, what if you tear an ACL after that?

Then you're a year and a half out. Like, oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah, it's a hard world it's a hard world i wish somebody would come up with i don't have the capacity now to do it but i think it would be a smart business move and it would be cool for fighters to have for sure well you know there was a lot of uproar this weekend because of uh who's the gal that was in the uh co-main event who won and then she got the $50,000 win bonus.

I saw the videos. See if she can pull up her name. And people were really mad at the UFC because of her reaction because it changed her life. Go ahead. Was this the same girl that I saw started a GoFundMe page or something? Did she? I remember seeing there was a female fighter that started a GoFundMe page. I don't know. And it couldundMe page I don't know and it could be her I don't know but I did see the video of her where she's like taking a drink of her coke and then just like

yeah it's the ground yeah that's it yeah so go back up good so yeah Cheyenne buys banks a bonus for UFC 33 co-main event finish. So it was a beautiful finish. She caught the girl with a head kick and then finished her off. It was pretty awesome. But afterwards, they were talking about fighter pay. And she was crying, and then all these people got online, and they started complaining about the UFC.

And I see everybody's point. I see their point and I also see the UFC's point because a lot of people don't know who she is yet. I mean, they know who she is more now, but the whole thing about this sport is how many people are going to watch you fight. That's really what it is. How exciting are you? How entertaining are you?

How engaging are you, your personality? And do you put asses in the seats? I mean, it's clear now, you know, who puts asses in the seats, and those are the people that get the most money. Yep. And it's a complicated thing for people, you know, because they think, well, the best fighter should make the most money. And you go, yeah, but the best fighter doesn't put the most asses in the seats.

And that's what this game is all about. It's a weird sport, right? It's like, it's prize fighting, but it's also entertainment. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it is tough for a lot of guys because bottom line, you know, you could be the best in the world. I hate using this as an example because I love the guy Demetrius Johnson, in my opinion, was one of the best UFC fighters to ever stand in there.

Of all time. But it's like- If not the best. He, for whatever reason, and it's probably because, and I feel like I'm kind of the same way, we're not shit talkers. We're not guys that cause that drama and make things dramatic. We just want to get in there, compete, and kick someone's ass and go have some fun doing other things that we enjoy.

And, you know, I don't think he moved the needle at all, you know, and people were saying that. He was also 125 pounds. Exactly, and I think that's another issue too. It's a big issue. But it's not an issue But it's a You know It's something People want to see these big guys

Just go in there And KO people Bottom line Yeah Isn't it interesting Because 135 Is really popular It's only 10 pounds

I know It's kind of crazy Yeah I don't I don't understand it But it's weird It's like You can't be the smallest

You can be the second smallest And everybody's like Alright I'm all in With these bandwagons. Like that fucking TJ Dillashaw-Sanhagen fight from last weekend was amazing. Amazing. What a fight. TJ was supposed to come do our tuna trail, our Fins and Feathers tuna trip,

and we knew it was a 50-50 chance that, you know, whether he had broken hands or something, he wouldn't be able to come. His knee's mangled, right? Oh, yeah. He had to have surgery. Did he have the surgery? I think he already had surgery, yeah. How bad is it?

I don't, I think, I think he said it's a three-month recovery, but. That's it? Yeah. I don't even know if I should be saying all this on here. Sorry, TJ, but. Sorry, TJ. Yeah, I don't know if you want this out or not, but yeah, I know he was, he was pretty mangled up from, from it.

He was. Yeah, man. On crutches. It looked like it was the heel hook, if I had to guess. Like a lot of people were saying he wrenched it on the way out. But there's a moment where Sanhagen catches him in a heel hook. And he's yanking on it. And the way I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, that could rip your shit apart.

He didn't tell me what it was from. He just showed me photos of his knee was just huge. His knee, his ankle. Yeah. Probably barely knew. If his ankle was fucked too, that even lends more credibility to the possibility. It could have been opposite sides too. I'd have to look at the photos.

But I do know I talked to TJ like a week before the fight and he was like, man, this is probably the most injured I've ever been going into a fight. But he's like, fuck it. And TJ is just a tough son of a bitch. He's a tough motherfucker. Yeah. He's a tough son of a bitch. He's a tough motherfucker Yeah, he's a tough son of a bitch. People give him a lot of shit for that EPO thing and yeah And he deserves it and he'll tell you he deserves it. Yeah, but look that motherfucker was dying making 125 like literally dying I've never seen anybody look worse

Walking around like when they were filming him not even the day he was making weight But like up to the day of making weight he looked like a fucking skeleton yeah i'm so i'm so against big weight cuts man yeah i fucking hate it i you know i cut tons of weight throughout college for wrestling and you know my senior year i finally just put my foot down and was like look i'm going up two weight classes i'm not cutting to 125s anymore i I used to cut to 125s, and I was making weight two times a week, you know, wrestling. And I went up to 141s and was undefeated the entire year. My only loss came in the NCAA finals.

It was the best I had ever felt. I'm like, dude, why did I not do that my whole life? Isn't it amazing? It's like you're doing this. I'm fully against weight cutting in MMA, period. And you could probably apply it to all combat sports because I think what it is, even though there's no disrespect to anybody who does it, but I think it's sanctioned cheating. I really do. Because if you're saying you're the, like, let's say Kamaru Usman is the 170-pound champion. Kamaru Usman weighs 170 pounds for about 20 minutes.

Yeah. I mean, that guy's massive. You know, he's a solid 200 or close to it. He's a thick fella. You know, he's not really 170 pounds. And that's no fault of his own. Everybody he fights is the same way, whether it's Masvidal or, you know, all of them.

Everybody he fights, they're all big people. You know, Tyron was a giant he fights. They're all big people. Tyron was a giant guy at 170. He was never really 170 either. But if they just fought at their weight class, like what they actually weigh, I think they would feel better. They'd perform better. I think you'd have a longer

career. You'd probably have less injuries. More exciting fights, I think. More exciting fights. You'd have more energy. I think The solution is The UFC needs more weight classes I really believe that Every 10 pounds Is the way to go

I agree And I I was the same way man I would cut To 45's And I would Put on about 20 pounds 18 to 20 pounds

That big Yeah you're looking thick Right now fella You're looking about 180 What do you weigh? 70 Cut the shit I'm 170

I'll bring a fucking scale Out here right now Let's do it. Look how thick you are. You look like a gorilla. I was just trying to be like you, Joe. When you weighed 145, man, how vicious was that cut for you? It was pretty brutal.

I mean, I walked around, you know, when I was making weight consistently and training consistently, you know, two two sometimes even three times a day uh dude i walked around like 168 165 to 168 and i was cutting down to 45s and how would you do it how many pounds would you lose day of land usually i would try to get down to about five the day of and i would cut all water weight five to to six sometimes even. So would you just really restrict your diet the week of? Yeah. I mean, I'd say probably, I mean, I ate pretty clean throughout. About three weeks out, I really started cutting back on portion size. And then-

Look at you. Jesus Christ, son. Shredded. Lean. Shredded. Yes. Yeah, I haven't looked like that in a while, bro. 2014. Well, that's the funny like that in a while, bro. 2014.

Well, the funny thing is that's what everybody likes. They like to see people look like that, but that shit ain't healthy. No. Like that bodybuilder look. Shit, yeah. Those guys are dying. Yeah. I would get my ass kicked if I fought right there.

Isn't it crazy, though? Because everybody thinks, God, he looks amazing. Because you can see his six pack. So tired, right? See, that's different. that's ready to go yeah i'm all right full of water and i'm ready to go yeah ready to go i got a full belly how much of a hit do you think it takes off of your ability to perform though the fact that you do do that 24 hours before i i've i notice it like i and i almost wish that i would do this more through training camps when I was doing it but try to do a mock cut and then try to fine-tune exactly what to eat

after because even my entire career I mean I would try to have the same things that I would eat but you know you don't always feel 100% the next I don't think I ever felt 100% for any fight you know you cut that much weight. You feel good. But when you get in there and it's like I could go through 10 rounds of 10 five-minute rounds and be just relentless in training, being able to eat and be hydrated. And then you get in there and obviously nerves play a big factor too. But, you know, three rounds, you're already like, fuck, man, I feel this, you know. And I don't know if that's from dehydrating so much my body's just not back to full or it has to have an effect yeah i think it does it has to it just has to you know i mean it's just it's just not good for you it's and it's

so counterproductive it's counterintuitive like 24 hours before literally one of the most dangerous things in all sports a, a cage fight. You're going to dehydrate yourself literally to the point of death. Yeah. Dude, my Frankie fight, I think I messed up big time. I was using, God, I can't remember his name. It was a dietician, which I'd never used any through any of my fights before that. You never used any like Dolce or any of those guys? I never did.

I asked them for some advice here and there from time to time, but God, I can't remember this dude. through any of my fights before that. You never used any like Dolce or any of those guys? I never did. Like I asked them for some advice here and there from time to time, but I can't remember this dude. Lockhart? Lockhart. Yep. And used those guys. And it was a whole system.

And there was like natural diuretics that you use. And, you know, I'd never done any of that. And I just think it dehydrated my head too much or something. Really? I mean, if you watch the fight, Frankie like barely clipped my nose and it was just like lights out wow you know i've been hit fucking bit hit by aldo harder than that and just like bounce back you know and it's like i don't know it's just one of those things like i never did that after well a lot of people like when they make a cut like aldo's a good example right like Aldo was the king at 45 forever. Now he's figured out how to get to 35, and he looks fucking great.

He looks great at 35. But he had to figure it out. He had to dial it in, and he had to do it several times until he really got it down. I think he, too, he's lost a lot of muscle mass. You have to. Like when I cut to 25, you got to do a lot of fasting like fasted cardio fasted workouts to where your body's basically eating your muscle you know you

feel like shit when it's happening but you're shrinking up and then once you get to that point where you you know where you want to be your body kind of adjusts and gets used to it now now that's your your size you know yeah when cam was racing when he was running the moab 240 i forget what the exact calorie count was but what he did was he like let's say burned 3 000 calories ate 2 500 calories and i was like fuck just hearing that made me tired dude that's what he did he's a beast man that guy's such a beast he's got discipline on top of discipline it's a wild thing to see i wish i could find that mindset that cam has like how where do you find that i don't think you can but well i mean he's sort of cultivated it

over his life you know and he's just made it more and more focused as he's gotten older and older and gotten used to the grind. And it's become just a natural part of his life. But it's, what's fascinating is it's self-imposed, you know, it's very few people have that kind of discipline. But the only ones I know of like him or like him and Goggins and the difference between him is he has a full-time job, which is really crazy. It's nuts. Full-time 9-to-5 job and still has time to do all that other shit. And then he'll go run a marathon, right? Yeah, he'll run a marathon a day. A day.

Yeah. They tell you if you run a marathon, you're supposed to take months off. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm just going to do a day. One a day is fucking crazy, man. I think I'd give up from the foot pain. Like, I see his feet, like, going into those big races, and I'm just like, dude.

I'm doing some boxing training. I get a blister on my toe, and I'm like, fuck. Have you seen Goggins' feet? Oh, dude. I can't imagine. There's a photo of these memes going around when I sat down next to Conor when Conor had a broken leg and I was interviewing him. It was me interviewing the 9-11 tower.

It's got me interviewing Goggins' feet. Have you seen it, Jamie? If you can't find it, I'll send it to you, Jamie, because Dave sent it to me, and it's just so disgusting. His feet are so gross. Have you seen it? I mean, I know the feet picture, but... Here, I'll find it for you.

It's so ridiculous. All those memes were hilarious. It's so funny. Yeah. Here, I'm going to send it for you. It's so ridiculous. All those memes were hilarious. They're so funny. Yeah. Here, I'm going to send it to you, Jamie. Yeah, the internet wins always. Always undefeated. Yeah, Jamie.

But these feet, this is what happens when you run the kind of miles that Goggins runs. I mean, they're so disgusting. They're so destroyed. And he keeps running on them. That's the thing. It's like, look at that. Oh, God. Look at those toes.

Dude, no. Look at his big toes. They look like they're about to fall off. Yeah, well, their nails are gone. There's no nails on both of them. Oh, man. They're cracked and destroyed. He's still got crazy long toe fingers too, right?

Yeah, look at that. Look how long his toes are like he's got another toe coming out of the one you're interviewing but they're like fingers look how long they are yeah dude that dude put some miles on those fucking feet man that is it's unbelievable yeah yeah well he does it too like he was doing it with like some pretty serious meniscus damage my friend operated on him and cleaned up some of his meniscus and said his meniscus was hard like leather. He said he's like never cut through meniscus like that before. That's insane.

He's got to get a saw to cut through it. He said he bent the knife. No. Yeah, like legitimately. Dude, that's crazy. I mean, I guess those guys are just so mentally tough. It's like. He's hardening everything. Yeah. Bones, meniscus, cartilage. I don't care. Yeah. that's crazy. I mean, I guess those guys are just so mentally tough. It's like. He's hardening everything.

Yeah. His bones, his meniscus, his cartilage. I don't care. Yeah. It's crazy. I guess, you know, when you think about it, your body does adapt to a lot of shit. The problem is most people never push past the pain that it takes to adapt to something like that. I think that's key right there.

Yeah. That's it. Did you do a lot of running when you were fighting? I did, but I did a lot of running when you're fighting i did but i did a lot of uh road biking i liked riding just kind of zoning out and just doing you know 40 miles 50 miles um better on your knees too right so yeah and my lower back i when i run it's probably because i'm top heavy but yeah i noticed my lower back it's pretty sore like i rained last night and it's sore today but you know it's just those things, the aches and pains you got to push through, you know.

Yeah. Do you want to talk about that thing that you might be doing? Yeah, let's do it. We've got a big announcement. Push this microphone in front of you. That's it. There you go, like that. So tell me, what is this announcement?

What's going on? So I just signed a big contract, bro. I'm coming back to fighting. Oh, no! Yeah. In the great words of T.J. D So I just signed a big contract, bro. I'm coming back to fighting. Oh, no. Yeah. In the great words of T.J. Dillashaw, daddy's home, bitches. But I'm not coming back to MMA, man. I know that I've been seeing a lot of people's comment, and they're kind of hoping that I am.

I'm coming back to boxing, man. I want to try something different. Now, you coming back to regular boxing, or are you going to do bare-knuckle boxing? I think we're going to throw some bare-knuckle in there, bro. Just mix it up, get real crazy. Now, I've seen you. You're working out a lot. You're hitting a lot of mitts.

Were you doing that before, or did they contact you? How did this come about? This is actually something that's been in the works for probably a year now um you know it's just for me look I just turned 36 in May and we were just talking about still having that that desire like when I when I left the UFC I was just about to have my first baby um you know we had I had a lot on my plate there was obviously I had just lost but even going into that fight, I had started a company, was working on a few other companies. And there was a lot that I was more excited about than competing at the time. And I mean, obviously, we know that this sport is so brutal.

Like you if you don't have 100 percent mindset into it, you're going to get fucked up, you know. And for me, I was like, look, dude, I'm going to take some time off. Um, I'm going to, or just, or just end it here. I have other things going on and we'll see kind of what happens in the future. So I decided to retire, talked it over with the wife and that was, you know, what the game plan was. So, uh, fast forward two and a half years later, um, you know, obviously I still have that desire. Um, and obviously my, my baby girl's bigger now we are, uh, pregnant with a second. And, uh, I just started thinking like, man, I'm getting older. I don't want to get into my forties and then basically still have this desire to compete and be like, it's too fucking late, you know? So I'm like, let's, let's start talking to

some of these guys. I've always wanted to box, you know, coming off like let's let's start talking to some of these guys I've always wanted to box you know coming off of wrestling my style even in the UFC was boxing and wrestling were probably my two favorite things to do like I absolutely loved boxing sparring when I would be training through through training camps and then obviously wrestling too but I always wanted to try and compete in some type of boxing competition. And so Bare Knuckle actually reached out to Faber and was like, hey, do you think Mendes would ever be interested in this? And I'm like, I mean, I probably never thought about anything Bare Knuckle before,

but, you know, boxing definitely would be fun. Let me ask you this about Bare Knuckle. Why do they have those, like, really thick wraps that go all around the hand but just expose the knuckle and it's not mandatory on anybody like i see some guys where they just tape their hand right but i i think a lot of people do that for wrist support right like you know obviously you punch like a bag with no support in your wrist and a lot of the times it folds but didn't joe riggs get his eye cut because of one of the, when he fought Lombard, didn't the wrap actually scrape his eye?

I heard that, yeah. And it's, you know, I think that this is an organization that's still very brand new, and they're probably still working all these kinks out. But, I mean, I'm probably going to tape the shit out of my wrist just for the reason of support. But, yeah, I think that's something that's, you know, it's definitely a possibility of getting cut on that stuff.

Do you know when you're fighting? October 22nd. Oh, Jesus. It's coming up. October 22nd. Do you have an opponent? No opponent yet, but it's Chandler, Arizona is what they're saying. What weight?

155s. Okay, so you're not going to have to cut. No, that's what I told them. I said, look, dude, we had just talked about, I don't want to cut much anymore. Obviously, I'm getting older. It's harder. It's going to be hard as hell to make 45s,

but if I can go 55s, I would greatly appreciate that. And they're like, no, that's actually better. You're going to have more opponents to choose from. So I think that's what we're going to do. How many rounds? They're five. Five two- So, uh, I think that's what we're going to do. Um, how many rounds? Uh, they're five, five, two minute rounds, which I think, why are they doing two minute rounds? I don't know why they're maybe just, I'm not sure exactly what their thought process on that, but I, I mean, I love that. I'm a explosive athlete. Obviously I think this, I'm pretty much built for this style of fighting.

You know, I can get in there. I can be fast, explosive, quick, um, powerful. of fighting you know i can get in there i can be fast explosive quick um powerful and you know it's a quick round i don't have to uh you know pace yourself pace myself grind out those five minute rounds i can just get in there and knock someone's head off and uh and be good so that's gonna be a big difference for you right going from five minute rounds to two minute rounds yeah dude i've been hitting mitts for two minute rounds and i'm like i feel like i just started right right i could go you know i feel good are you training two minutes or are you doing longer so that you feel like two minutes is nothing we're gonna mix both in and and my thought process on that is um even when i was training for five minute rounds we do five minute

rounds i don't we would do more of them but I want my body my mind to get used to exactly what it's gonna feel like because of that reason like holy shit it's already over right you know so I need to know like you know basically where I'm at in the round you know and I want to get used to that but I'm definitely gonna do some longer stuff too or we'll do you know like ten two-minute rounds so you're basically just doing more of the exact same thing so where it's you know you hit those five and it's like, sure, I could go another, another full fight here. So how long did you have to think about this before you decided to do it?

Well, like I said, it's been a whole year process kind of going back and forth. My wife absolutely hates it. She's like, you're fucking nuts. But, you know, she married a fighter. I know. And that's what she's got. She's got to remember're fucking nuts. But, you know. She married a fighter. I know, and that's what she's got to remember that, right? But, no, man, it's definitely something we sat down and had to figure out because it is something that's pretty brutal. And my argument to her was this. Like, a UFC glove, maybe a quarter of an inch of leather,

half inch of leather over my knuckles, the concussion is not going to be much different, if anything. sea gloves maybe a quarter of an inch of leather half inch of leather over my knuckles i mean the concussion is not going to be much different if anything i think we're obviously dealing with a sharper object hitting you so cuts are probably going to be a lot more prevalent but as far as the concussion of you know getting hit you know i don't think it's going to be much different i also don't have to worry about a baseball bat head kick going whipping through and cracking me in the dome either, or someone kicking your knees out. So, you know, there's a lot of other things in the MMA game that I think are a lot more dangerous, but, um, you know, for me, it's just, it had to make sense. Obviously the numbers they were

thrown out in the beginning didn't make sense for me. I have other businesses that are doing really well right now that are something that I can do for the rest of my life and not have to ever fight. But I have that itch to get in there and compete still. And I might as well do it now while I'm still in my prime and I have that opportunity. Because like I said, when I start hitting 38, 39, maybe these opportunities have come and gone and nobody even really cares to see me fight anymore or you know I just don't feel good enough to get in there and do it so it's interesting how they're going after so many former UFC fighters I mean it's smart right these people already famous you know they got Paige Van Zandt Hector Lombard You now who else is over there? I know Leonard Garcia

Who else? Rochelle She just fought Paige Oshkosh Rachel Osterish. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. No. No. No, I didn't say So they're doing a smart thing where they're getting popular fires or who are you know known for UFC fights mostly and then just

introducing the Bare-knuckle world to them and I know it's growing right? I mean, it's it's people are paying attention now. They're watching a lot of fights yeah, I know Forbes just did a write-up saying it's growing, right? I mean, people are paying attention now. They're watching a lot of fights. Yeah. I know Forbes just did a write-up saying it's the fastest growing combat sport in the world right now. Well, I always thought that it was weird that you could elbow somebody in the face. You could head kick somebody with a bare shin. You can knee them in the nose with no pads.

But your hands are covered with a pad. the nose with no pads but your hands are covered yeah with a pad i was i was like but i used to say like why don't we just go bare knuckle because first of all to make grappling more realistic like submissions you could sink in chokes and stuff much easier but then i saw chris lieben versus uh who is it dakota what's his? Anyway, Chris Lieben's face got destroyed. It was crazy. The cuts. And I was like, oh, maybe bare knuckles is pretty fucked. It is.

And I think that's, you know, you're going to have a lot of blood, which probably makes it pretty entertaining for a lot of people. But, yeah, cuts are definitely going to be there. I mean, like you said, elbows, though, in the UFC. Oh, yeah. You throw up against the cage and elbow somebody. Or even off their back and you're on top dropping elbows. I mean, those cut probably more than knuckles, I would imagine.

But I think you get hit a lot more with punches than you do with elbows in a fight. And that's probably where more cuts would come in. How many of these things are you going to have? Man, so here's the situation. I'm still under UFC contract. Really? I still have fights on my UFC contract. So, you know, there still is a possibility that I come back

and maybe I want to do one or two more UFC fights after this. We'll see. I'm going to get in there. Is the UFC giving you a green light to do this? Is that how it works? Uh-huh. Interesting. Which is super cool to use.

I mean, they basically could have just said fuck you you're not competing well they kind of said fuck you to george st pierre when he wanted to fight oscar de la jolla well that's because it's oscar i know but come on that's a great payday for george i know i know um and in fact some of that stuff was in the works for me like we taught i was my name was thrown in there with oscar really yeah uh which would have been freaking cool just to say you get in there and box a guy like oscar but yeah they they wanted nothing to do with any of that stuff so you know yeah for them to let me and oscar do not get it's dana and oscar do not get along yeah what is the source of that do you know i don't know but i always see them talking shit to each other. It's so dumb. Yeah. So dumb.

Yeah. Like, you know, why? What's happening? I don't know. But luckily the payday I was talking about getting with them is what I'm getting in bare knuckle now. And, you know, obviously it would have been cooler to say that I'm boxing Oscar De La Hoya. Now I remember why. Oscar De La Hoya had that MMA organization for a short period time where he had Tito fight Chuck

Remember that and he was talking all kinds of shit about the UFC and talking all kinds of shit about fighter pay Mm-hmm, and then he's one and done and the organization. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Understandable, that's why They always do that though. They always come for the UFC. Mm-hmm when you're the UFC. It's like That's got to be pretty cool for the UFC. When you're the UFC, it's like. That's got to be pretty cool for the UFC. Everyone's always trying to be the UFC or trying to create these MMA organizations that are trying to be on the level of the UFC. Nobody's ever going to do that, you know? Yeah.

And it's, I mean, I get, if somebody was talking shit to me, I would be like, fuck you too. Like if I was in Dana's position, you know. But none of these guys are ever going to touch the UFC. Well, the only one that's close is Bellator. Yeah. Bellator has some real legit talent right now. Nemkov, AJ McKee. Yeah.

He's a bad motherfucker, dude. The way he took out Pitbull in that last fight. Dude, that guy is legit. Legit. 18-0, undefeated world champion. I mean, come on, man. Douglas Lima, world class. Michael Venom Page.

They've got legit talent over there. They really do. Gayard Mousasi. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think the talent's been like that for a while now. I mean, a lot of these guys have been there for a bit, but I guess my thing was it's, you know, you got so many people that are just like, the UFC is, is the NFL, you know, and it's, you know, we'll see.

I don't know if it'll ever be as big as UFC, but I just, you know, it is, it's, it's, it's odd that all of them have a name. You know, like none of them are just like, boxing is just boxing, right? Kickboxing is, I guess kickboxing is the same because you have Glory, you had K1, you had all these organizations. But it's odd that no one just says like Showtime MMA

and then just has MMA on Showtime. Like, you know, everything has to be like a Bellator, 1FC. There's always like some name, the PFL. There's always something. The PFL I try to follow. The fights are great, but your fucking score system sucks. I'm like, what are you saying? He's got points?

What is this? He moves up the rankings. He's got 600 for that and 35 for this. What the fuck are you doing, man? Just have fights. Have you seen the – there actually was bare-knuckle MMA that just started. I think that's – was that – god, who was it? It was a UFC fighter that started that, I thought.

I just saw – it was a full MMA fight, though, bare-knuckle, or it's going to happen. Oh, I don't know about this at all. No? No, I haven't heard this. Jamie? oh that's right is it MMA yeah it's not boxing I like it I like it I think it should be that way I really do people have a hard time with it because of the cuts and everything like that and I agree with you that it's easy to cut somebody but it's just if they think it's more barbaric but come on man think about when the ufc came out like everybody thought of the ufc as barbaric like my manager was kind of going over this with me uh the other

day and he's like i remember trying to get sponsors when the ufc was kind of first taken off and a lot of these companies were just like oh hell no like we can't be associated with that right now and now it's you know it's the UFC MMA is like so accepted maybe this is going to be the next the next thing you know who knows could be but yeah I mean Masvidal has a good chance of making it happen I've said for a long time they should have it on like a football field yeah like no no more cages because the cage is a big factor. It's a big factor in the fight. I mean, if you can have basketball

and you have it on this big ass court, how come you can't have a fight on a big ass court? Yeah. Just pad the shit out of it, you know? Make it so that there's like an area where you can't pass, you know? And you just chase each other down and beat the shit out of each other. Yeah, don't let anybody run away.

You can't just run away. Like, you lose points for running away. But lateral movement's good. Footwork is good. Basically, there's no walls in here. So it's like you're just out in the open fighting. Because think about, like, takedowns. Takedowns occur so often up against the cage, right?

I mean, it's a big part of the strategy of getting someone up against the cage right I mean it's a big part of the strategy of getting someone up against the cage is taking them down and then people use the cage to get back up onto their feet think about how few takedowns you'd have many less takedowns you'd have if you had no cage and also how few people would get up it's true get up less yeah It'd be more realistic because the cages is a factor. It is a factor. And I guess in a street fight, most of the time you don't have a wall to climb up.

Right. Unless you're fighting in a mall. Yeah. It's, you know, it's, um, it's a factor.

And the more factors you can cut out that are extraneous, I think the better. I like it. We might have to push that. They did it in Russia, the better. I like it. We might have to push that forward. They did it in Russia, but they do everything in Russia. Dude, I saw like a team fight. Yep. I don't understand the rules, but it's like everybody's just going at it.

Yeah, chaos. Yeah. One side wears red, one side wears blue, whatever, and they just beat the fuck out of each other. I saw a three-on-one fight the other day. It was ridiculous. This is it. Yeah, three-on-one. But the problem is the guy's of each other. I saw a three-on-one fight the other day. It was ridiculous. This is it. Yeah, three-on-one.

But the problem is the fuck, the guy's the same size. Like I've seen two-on-ones where the one guy was big, but these three guys that fought this one guy, look, they're all the same size. So this isn't even like team versus team. It's one dude versus three. Yeah, I just don't understand. This guy's seen too many Jackie Chan movies.

They just bum-rushed this boy. They threw him down and just started hammer-fisting him in the face. Look at this. Look how they did it. Oh, my God. Like, how could you expect to win? It's so ridiculous. Like, did that guy actually expect to go in there and say, like,

I'm going to beat three dudes up? The one guy just kind of held him down, and then the other guys The other two guys hammer fisted him Good job bro Thank you Thanks for hammer fisting the fuck out of my childhood Now I can't think about the 7th grade anymore

Look at them they're cheering Yes go get more Man Yeah Rush is wild They're nuts man They're willing Yeah

They're willing to try Those fucking crazy people It's uh I'm not interested in that But I am interested in removing as many factors as possible I like that, yeah, I do I mean, when I first started doing commentary in 97 People didn't have gloves Except Vitor and Tank

And Scott Ferrozzo Scott Ferrozzo had gloves too Most people had no gloves Really? Yeah I guess I didn't know that. Yeah, when Vitor fought Trey Tellegman, Trey Tellegman was no gloves. He's like a little bit of tape on his hands and that's it.

So basically that was the start of the bare knuckle. Maybe Scott Ferrozzo didn't even have gloves back then. See if you can find a video of Scott Ferrozzo versus Vitor. I'm not sure if Scott had gloves. Dude, that's crazy. Yeah, Vitor. I'm not sure if Scott had gloves. Dude, that's crazy. Yeah, Vitor was one of the first guys that had gloves on, and he just did it to protect his hands, you know? And that was back when you could wear shoes, too.

A lot of guys wore shoes. Yeah, man, I think that's my biggest fear with doing this bare knuckles, breaking my hands. Vitor is 19. Look at that. Pit fighting. 19 years old. Yeah. Vitor is 19. Look at that. Pit fighting. 19 years old. Yeah.

When I was 19. He was 205, and that was his actual weight. You know, because he didn't... Look at how thick he was. He was so thick. This is pre-Bruce Buffer, son. Look at that. Look at that.

That was someone else doing the introductions. This was the first time that I was ever at a fight. I was doing the post-fight interviews. And this was the one in Dothan, Alabama. Were you just like, what the fuck? What the fuck? Yeah, man. This was 97, and

I couldn't believe I was even there. I was like, this is so wild. It was supposed to be in New York, but then New York banned it. And then last minute, they had a backup plan. Bob Meyerowitz, who owned the UFC at the time, had a backup. Yeah, see, Scott's got gloves on too. Oh, yeah, yeah. So he had gloves on and Vitor had gloves on.

But Trey Telligman did not have gloves on. So they weren't mandatory. No. The guys could do it. So Trey hit a – or excuse excuse me Scott had already won one fight and Vitor had won one fight. I saw that cut of his eye. Yeah. Yeah, look at Vitor He was so fast and everybody thought that it was look at that straight left man. Boom He was so fast knee on belly and just bing bing bing bing bing lights out

Well, he was he had legit jujitsu you know he was from uh carlson gracie lineage and then the fastest hands you'd ever seen inside the octagon up to that point and that's a big dude oh yeah he's fighting look at that whoa whoa whoa you thought the fight was still going on and that was in big john mccarthy was a house too so he had to separate people big john big john's a tank too oh yeah he's a huge fella and back then he was power lifting you know that's cool the funny thing is he would knock guys out and go jujitsu yeah jujitsu it's like you just use your hands bro that was boxing but when he fought trey telekman trey telekman was bare knuckle it was uh you grab shorts back

then too like i remember waleed Ishmael was fighting somebody, and the dude was grabbing his shorts and giving him a full-on wedgie. Oh, yeah. You could grab shorts. You could literally hike him right up a dude's ass. There was a lot of crazy rules back then. Still groin strikes, too, huh? Yeah.

Joe Son and Keith Hackney. Remember that? Keith Hackney just pounding him in the balls. Yeah, it was crazy days back then, man. Crazy days. Guys wore geese and shit, you know? Could you imagine just having a dude sit there just uppercutting your nuts the whole time? Is this the Trey Telegman fight?

Yeah. See, if you watch Telegman, he's got no gloves on. See, look at that. And shoes. He had shoes on. Yeah, that was from a childhood car accident. Was it? Yeah, he had no peck.

Or some of his peck. That was the early days of the Lion's Den. Remember that? Lion's Den was the first. It was like lion's den and then like militant fighting systems in the sort of the same era but they were the first mma teams but the lion's den had like these crazy initiation uh like tests that they put guys through really basically like you know just like try to break you mentally. Yeah, they were well documented.

Incredible physical conditioning drills and sparring and just try to break you. I like that. Why don't we still have that today? Because they're trying to preserve athletes' futures. What do you think about guys that don't spar? When you hear guys don't spar. I think it's weird, man. I mean, I get it. like look at max halloway yeah when max holloway fought uh cater how good did he look really good and and josh emmet

one of my teammates his last fight which was one of the best striking fights he's ever had didn't he did like very very light sparring How come? I can't remember why. Like an injury or something? It could have been. Or that might just be the way that he's moving. Like he just doesn't want to spar hard anymore, which I get. Especially the style of fighting that he has. He's such a brawler.

Oh, my God. Like when me and him go light sparring, both of us get our bells rung. Like both of us are just like bulls in a china shop trying to go light. Like neither one of us can go real light. It's tough. But, no, he said I didn't spar hard. And I get it because, you know, obviously most of the damage that I ever took through any of my fights was through training camp. Really?

Getting your bell rung multiple times or, you know, obviously that stuff adds up and it's not good. I remember when we first got to Team Alpha Male, it was like me, Benavidez, Dillashaw, Danny Castillo, Justin Buckles. We had all the UFC guys in there in favor, and we would just 16-ounce gloves, headgear, tape up, and just basically be trying to KO each other for the entire sparring session. You know?

And I remember there was guys that would get knocked out, like, you know, guys that would jump in and spar with us and, you know, would get knocked out. I remember one of the guys went out and sat in his car, and he sat in the driver's seat for like 20 minutes and then didn't realize, like he looked at his clock and he didn't realize he was there for that long. Like he was basically concussed like really bad. Just out of it.

Yeah, yeah. It was just like sitting there. Jesus Christ. It's not good, man. So we didn't know that. I mean, Dwayne's actually the one that kind of calmed us down when he came into Team Alpha Mountain. Like, what the hell are you guys doing?

Yeah. Let's get some structure to this, you know? Right. And had drills and, you know, calmed us down, even in striking. Like, let's go 30%. Let's go 50%, you know? Mm-hmm. And, you know, you still get some asshole that's in there just like, ah!

Right. that's in there just like, ah, but, you know, he, he definitely kind of opened our eyes to the, the preserving, preserving of the brain type sparring, you know, and, and, uh, it definitely helped. I think once we started doing that, everybody's technique got so much better. Well, Dwayne is a master of technique. I mean, he is one of those guys that emphasizes technique. The technique is everything. What's so interesting to me me about duane's style of teaching is it's so much different than his style of fighting it's like he realized something when he was done fighting like you know what i kind of know how to do this better yeah and like the switching of stances and all the feints and the fakes but if you go back and watch his muay Thai career or Dwayne's MMA career, I mean, amazing fights,

but he doesn't fight like TJ. No. No. Not at all. But he taught TJ a better way to fight. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy.

Like, I remember him when he was at Team Alpha Male. I think that was kind of the beginning of doing all that type of stuff. And I don't know if he was just kind of, like, testing all this stuff out on us and then, like, see what would take and then be like, ooh, that type of stuff. And I don't know if he was just kind of like testing all this stuff out on us and then see what would take and then be like, oh, that works. Right. And then keep going that direction.

And if you try something that doesn't, then just kind of throw it away. But dude, I remember, I mean, obviously, you know, Dwayne, but caffeine, notepad, and that guy would just sit there. I don't think that guy sleeps. I mean, he'll sit there all night, probably writing combos and-

He's obsessed. Oh yeah. He's obsessed. I love that, man. I love love that i love that about a coach that can go and do that you know it's you have those very few coaches in your life that have that obsession and you know that's something special and duane has that yeah mark henry is another one of those guys um uh in jujitsu don her don her is another one of those guys there In jujitsu, Donahue. Donahue is another one of those guys. There's a few of those guys that have that absolute obsession with watching guys improve and figuring out what's the best technique. And also, Mark Henry is amazing because he develops combinations specific to each individual fighter and then names them based on like their kids or their friends

or where they grew up or you know for you it'd probably be like the the archery elk hunt or something. He would yell out some weird thing where nobody else would understand what the fuck you were saying and you would know what to do. And he would change it with every camp. That's cool. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. In the wrestling world Sammy with every camp. That's cool. Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah.

In the wrestling world, Sammy Henson was that guy for me. My senior year was, I mean, Sammy took me to that next level, you know, and he was one of those guys that was obsessed. And he would, like, pull me aside. We'd have, like, separate one-on-one type sessions. And, man, it really does make all the difference in the world. It really does. Yeah, if you can find someone who's that obsessed as a coach. I mean, I talked to Gordon Ryan about it when it comes to John Donaher.

And he's like, there's no mistake. Like the reason why I'm so good is not just because of his, obviously he's physically gifted. He's intelligent. He's super disciplined, super dedicated. But also he said John Donaher is like a cheat code. blend super dedicated but also he said john donahue is like a cheat code he's like i have this crazy obsessed jujitsu coach who coaches seven days a week 365 days a year doesn't take any days off ever has no family has no girlfriend and then when he's done coaching watches fights yeah that's special try finding one of those guys that's fucking special also a genius who was a professor at columbia yeah taught philosophy what yeah try finding one of those guys good luck yeah they don't exist

there's one yeah you know and you know and he's actually moving here is he's very exciting oh no way he's moving to austin oh you're gonna be all over oh man i can't wait can't wait to pick his brain yeah i mean look at just just even for commentary game, I would for sure want to learn jiu-jitsu from him. But just my commentary game will improve in leaps and bounds just talking to him. That's cool. He's amazing. But how many of those guys exist? There's a few of those guys in kickboxing, of course.

You've got Dwayne. You've got Trevor Whitman. Trevor Whitman is a spectacular coach. You've got some amazing coaches out there, without a doubt. But to find ones that are just maniacally obsessed, it's so rare. Man, I miss training with Dwayne. That whole situation with Faber, obviously. Very upsetting.

Yeah, it is, man. And I stayed out of the middle of it. I have a ton of respect for Faber, and I have a ton of respect for Dwayne. As do I. Yeah, I love both of those guys. It sucked. of it you know i have a ton of respect for faber and i have a ton of respect for duane as do i so yeah i love both of those guys it sucked and you know i talked to duane about it and i talked to faber about i'm like ah i know i can't do anything i don't know them well enough to get in the middle of it and arbitrate but i feel like the the improvement that everybody was making under duane was tangible it was noticeable yeah it's like he came along and then all of a sudden everybody had this footwork.

They're moving good. Their striking combinations seemed to be improving. I agree. Yeah. TJ for sure was the most – he benefited the most from it. He took to it probably the best for sure. Like a duck to water. Yeah.

Yeah. It worked perfect for TJ. His style of wrestling, his body style, and his ability to – I mean, TJ is one of those guys that gets obsessed too. And him and Dwayne just really meshed on that fact of notepad writing, you know, mapping everything out. And TJ has that memory, you know, that kind of comes along with it where he can remember all these different crazy combos

and then get out there and actually perform it. That takes a special athlete to be able to see that thing on paper, train it, and then actually hit it in a fight for sure. The wild thing about his fight with Sanhagen was Sanhagen had him in a fucking triangle, locked up. And I was like, man, I wonder if he had some pointers on how to finish that better. That would have been it.

Because it seemed locked the fuck in. I mean, he went through a knee, right? And then TJ takes him down. And in the process of taking him down, he locks up. Fully locked up triangle early in the fight. And I was like, man, I feel like he's got this. I was like, I thought TJ was going to tap. Yeah, man.

I mean, that dude's a beast. I was worried for TJ going into that fight. I mean, that's a lot of people are like, oh, I think TJ is going to go in there and just destroy. And I'm like, ugh. You know, I love TJ. I mean, the only guy who's ever really destroyed him was Aljo. And Aljo took him down and choked him. And Aljamain's got some fucking nasty jiu-jitsu.

I definitely knew this was going to be a tough fight. And it was a tough fight coming off of that long. TJ's not getting a tune-up fight. This isn't going to make or break, show everyone TJ's back. Or TJ's going to have to fight a couple times and get back. It's close to a decision as you're ever going to see. getting a tune-up fight like this is gonna make or break like show everyone tj's back or tj's gonna have to fight a couple times and get back but it's close to the decision as you're ever gonna say yeah i mean like you could you can make an argument that that sanhagen did more damage and you can make an argument that uh dillashaw controlled them more

i'm a damage guy i lean towards damage always yeah but tj close ass fucking fight it was close ass fight well i i guarantee they're gonna run it back oh they're gonna see that at least one more time yeah so well unfortunately with tj's surgery i mean he has like several major tears in that knee you really never know what a guy's like once you get your knee mangled like that because the pain might inhibit training. It might become a problem. It's so hard to say.

On TJ's post, he said it happened at this part right here where his knee gets all twisted. Yeah, heel hook right there. That's the heel hook. So he was yanking on that heel hook. You could see it. I mean, go back. And by the way, that is the worst kind of heel hook, the inside heel hook right there.

Oh, man. That is so nasty. So TJ just didn't tap, and he just tore his shit apart. Yeah, you can see it there. You can see him keeping his weight off it there for a second. You can see that. Here he falls, too, in the second round. It's just, well, I'm sure

because his knee was fucking mangled already. Look at him stepping on it funny. Yeah, he's walking. I guess I didn't notice that before, but. Yeah, he played it off well.

He really did a good job playing it off and gutting it out because he was obviously in like some serious pain. Yeah, right there he got clipped. But part of

getting dropped there was because he had no balance on that left leg. It was very wobbly, you know. Have you had any surgeries on your knees? No, thankfully. I've torn both MCLs through wrestling, but they were partial tears, and it was basically through wrestling season.

I just had to wear a brace and do a lot of swimming. And it was actually, I think it was the first year as an all American. I tore it like a couple of weeks or a few weeks before pack tens and, uh, just swam every workout up to pack tens. And then I just taped it up, went in there and I ended up winning pack tens. Wow. And then, uh, ended up getting sixth. Uh, did you ever get surgery on it after that? No, they just, it was one of those things you just got to let heal up. They said, unless it's a complete tear, um, you just basically let it heal. Hey, one thing I wanted to talk to you about is you got on the carnivore diet and it really cured up your psoriasis. Is that, I mean, how long have you had psoriasis for?

My whole life. I mean, I remember as a kid, you know, it started on my shins, and it was just a small little patch. And I think as a kid I even thought it was just a ringworm from wrestling, you know. But it just never went away. And then just over the years kind of slowly spread, got bigger. So it's basically from knee to ankle on both shins. And then, you know, as I started getting older, it started showing up in different spots. I got my elbows, my scalp,

ears, little patches on my body cavity. And what was your diet like then? Just, I mean, I'd like to say pretty much I eat clean, you know, but I mean, everyone, you know, it's still every once in a while eat some like fast food or, you know, if I go to somebody's house and there's they're making stuff, I eat whatever they eat. But, you know, for the most part, I thought I was pretty clean until I got on this diet. And then I really figure out like how bad I was eating. Like the amount of sugar I think is key. Like I got on this diet and I did it, I started March, I started March one and I did it for the last four months, um, or four months into that. Um, but basically sugar I noticed was probably the worst thing for it. it. Did you notice this because you added it in occasionally and you would see a difference? No, I just was, you know, my psoriasis over the years has just gotten worse and worse and worse until my buddy was basically telling me about this diet.

We started basically the American Almond Beef, my beef company. And I was like, well, I have all the beef at my fingertips here. I have all this wild game that I can live off of the meat part of it's not going to be an issue. It's basically me just making my mind up and being like, just do this. Yeah. And so it's always been something when I was fighting, like, ah, just cause I've known about people have told me about it. Like, I think it'll really help your psoriasis. You should try it. But I'm like, I can't, I can't, uh, cut out carbs. Like I need carbs for training. Like I'm an explosive athlete. So that was always my mindset, you know? So I never did it. And then finally I was just like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to try it.

I'm going to do it for a month. And if I don't see any improvements, I'll just kind of go back to normal. If I do see improvements, I'm going to continue doing it maybe for like two or three months and see what it looks like. Basically check back in and go from there. Dude, within like a week, my psoriasis was already night and day, like on my leg. And I, that was the before and after picture. I think it was maybe a week or even two weeks. On your Instagram, you posted that. Yeah, uh-huh. And it was just like my psoriasis was, that was right after a hunt that I had gone on.

And the lack of sleep really flares it up, which I, obviously on hunts, I'm eating bad in camp, whatever we're making. You know, I'm getting like four hours of sleep at night. And I'm usually living off of a lot of caffeine. Those three things definitely flare it up pretty bad. Um, and so that first picture was like extreme. And then the, the neck, the picture next to it was on that diet for, I think it was a week.

Maybe it could have been two weeks. I'll have to look back and see, but dude, it was already so much better. I'm like, well, shit, I'm going to keep doing this and just see. So I kept, kept doing it. And, uh, you know, I don't know. It was probably three months in. I'm just like, it's like almost gone. Um, and ideally I think it would be completely gone if I cut out caffeine, which, you know, they talk about, you probably won't need caffeine after a couple months, your energy levels will be better, which they were. I just really fucking enjoy getting all cracked out and getting a bunch of shit done. So I do love coffee. Yeah. It's a

problem. It's so good. Yeah. But, um, and then alcohol, you know, I just, I'm not probably ever going to just quit alcohol. Every once in a while I like to go have some wine with some buddies or go have some drinks. I'm a tequila guy. I'll sip some tequila. But as long as you're doing it in moderation, it seems to be okay. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, I've just kind of been sticking to it.

I talked to Sean and Paul. I've talked to both of those guys. And basically – You're talking about Dr. Sean Baker? Yes, Sean Baker. And Paul Saladino. Sorry, sorry. Both those guys are doctors, and they're also proponents of the carnivore diet. And basically the idea was do this for three months and then start adding things back in and just figure out what foods flare it up.

Well, Paul is a proponent of honey and some fruits. And I think when I'm doing it, I do it on and off. And when I'm doing it, I always have fruit before I exercise. That's what I like to do. I just eat like apples or something before i exercise and i because i need the fast sugar and i know i'm gonna burn it off anyway yeah but i really do feel better when i'm just eating just mostly meat yeah i mean i don't mind salads salads are good salads don't seem to have an effect on me but man the thing that has an effect on me Is pasta and dessert

Those are the big ones I feel like shit when I eat a lot of pasta And I'm a fucking glutton And I just keep doing it I keep them so dumb I'm so dumb, I know I always feel terrible But while I'm eating it, it feels so good Yeah, so good, man

I'm the same, and I've been doing fruits Pretty much most vegetables, like your nightshades. Like tomatoes and pepper, I notice, will start getting it flared up a bit. Really? Potatoes, I've started putting a little bit of potatoes back in here and there, and it doesn't seem too bad yet. What about sweet potatoes?

Sweet potatoes are okay, but mainly just fruits, vegetables. I I've been doing honey. Um, even, even mixing in some whole oats here and there. Um, Paul was like against that. He's like, I probably wouldn't do that, but I just wanted to see, and it doesn't seem to be flaring it up too bad. So what I do notice is sugars though. Like if I have any, just processed sugars, you know, you're anything like your processed breads. I haven't been doing any wheat, like any breads pretty much at all. Um, and I have a little bit of white rice here and there, and that seems to be fine. So, but for the most part, it's mostly meat diet. Yeah.

Now when you're training, have you adjusted it at all during training? Now, when you're training, have you adjusted it at all during training? I had to do that, man. I did notice, not that I felt bad. I just felt, I feel better. And I'm guessing it's because I'm more of an explosive athlete maybe, but I feel better when I have more carbohydrates in there. So, you know, obviously lots of fruits, you know, for your sugars, but that's where I started implementing a little bit

of the whole oats and the white rice too, as a white rice is like a post-workout. Um, but mainly for me, the diet is for my psoriasis. So, you know, if I can eat that stuff and it doesn't flare it up, I'm going to do it because it doesn't make me feel bad. What about just something bland, like plain rice? Does that fuck with you at all? No, not at all. And that's, maybe that's a good option for carbohydrates. I know a lot of, um, like I talked to Robert Oberst. I had him on the podcast. You know, he is one of the world's strongest man, like literal giant. His head is as big as both of us together. He's huge. He has, he's a funny dude too. Really hilarious.

But mostly what he's eating is meat and rice. Yeah. You know, and he's like, it's just easy to digest. It's simple. You know, so a lot of folks have a problem with bread. Like bread and pastas. And it's just for a lot of people, that seems to be the thing that fucks them. Yeah. pastas and it's just for a lot of people that seems to be the thing that fucks them yeah but rice i would think is a pretty easy especially white rice pretty easy thing to digest yep and

so far i haven't had any issues like it's i eat it and i'm like waiting for my psoriasis to just start itching you know and it doesn't so i've also heard people say that like things you eat can, it's like a delayed effect, you know, up to 30 days or something like that for your psoriasis to like really get affected by it. I don't, how's that work? I don't know. And I don't know what to believe. I don't know. That's the thing. I've read so many different things. I'm like, I don't know who to believe. I'm just basically testing shit out on my own. And right now it seems that that stuff's fine. So that's what an elimination diet is all about, right? You know, you just get it down to a very simple, simple, simple diet and

then add back mushrooms and add back fruits. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's interesting, but the reality of human bodies is that everybody's body is different and some people can thrive off nuts and berries and vegetables and, and that's like the best diet for them. And some people can thrive off nuts and berries and vegetables. And that's like the best diet for them. And you got to find out what's the best diet for you. I agree. It really is what it is. Yeah.

People always ask me like, hey, what's your, can you send me your diet? And I'm like, it's bottom line, what you just said. Everybody's different, man. Like what works for me isn't necessarily going to work for you. Yeah. You got to figure that stuff out. But I can give you kind of a guideline, you know,

but that is, it's, it's really the case. It's everybody has a different body and everybody's body responds differently to foods and obviously allergies and things too. There's a lot of people that have allergies. They don't, they don't even, they're not even aware of,

you know, like, uh, who was it? Was it Jessica? I believe just found out, out um that she was allergic to eggs and uh it was like one of the main focuses of her diet like she was eating eggs constantly and she was fucking allergic oh no what so what would it like cause or well it just

makes people feel like shit it's just your body doesn't like it it just it makes you sluggish you know you have a hard time digesting things, you know. I eat the shit out of eggs, man. I love eggs. I should probably go do another one of those, like, food allergy tests. I did one years ago. And at the time, I think, like, amaranth and. What is that?

I don't know. What is amaranth? I don't know. So that's your allergic to it? Yeah, that was probably. Seems easy to avoid. Right? What the fuck is it?

Amaranth. What is amaranth, Jamie? I think it's a grain maybe or it is a grain. What kind of grain? I don't know. I've seen it very rarely on like. Whoa, look at that thing. Meet this grain, amaranth.

Okay, it's really a seed, like quinoa. Ah, yeah. Tiny seeds about the size of, I could avoid the fuck out of that. Yeah, you're right. It was super easy to avoid. You can keep that shit, whatever that is. I have a hard time avoiding fruits. I love fruit, man.

I love a nice fresh orange or apples or something like that. I really enjoy that. I did the full carnivore diet one month and I felt fantastic and that was nothing but meat. It was ribeye steaks, elk meat, and bacon. Yep. I did the exact same thing.

And eggs too. Yeah, and eggs. What is, they say it's, so basically it's, what was it, meds? Meat, eggs, dairy, seafood.

Yeah. It's kind of, what they say is okay for that. But, yeah, I did it all of March and all of April, just the full. Because basically you're one of the people that kind of made me like lit the fire under my ass. Like let's just do this for this rice. I want to see because I saw your results. And I was like, fuck it, I'm going to try it.

It's just hard because I like food so much. That's the only thing that's hard. I mean, I really do love going out to eat, and I really fucking love pasta. But other than that, man, I'm telling you, I felt better. I felt like I had an extra gear. But it did slow me down with, like, when I was doing rounds on the bag, I would notice that, like, I was kind of gassing bag I would notice that like I was kind of gassing a little quicker that's what I felt too and I felt my overall

well-being felt good yeah I felt like when we're here doing this I feel energetic I feel great but that's that's why I started implementing a little bit more carbohydrates because same thing like I was hitting mitts and it's not that I felt bad but I did feel like different mics yeah my explosive cardio almost would like kind of dwindle a bit and then when i started adding in a little bit of the white rice and the grains and more fruit man i came right back yeah yeah i do you know who zach bitter is zach bitter holds the world record for running 100 miles. He ran 100 miles in, I think it was 11 hours and 40 minutes.

Holy shit. He's a fucking savage. And all he eats is meat. His whole thing is, but when he goes to do a run, he'll take like glucose gels and he ramps up his glucose and his carbohydrates for performance. But he's a big proponent of carnivore diet, which is really interesting. Because, you know, you think like carnivore, you think like big fucking, like Sean Baker's a gorilla. Yeah, yeah.

Giant fucking dude. But that is not Zach. Zach is, you know, he looks like a marathon runner. I mean, he's an ultra runner and mostly eats meat. Yeah, that's crazy. He actually does a podcast with Sean Baker. Really? Yeah.

I'm going to have to look that up. Yeah, that stuff interests me, those long endurance athletes, you know, and being an explosive athlete and then someone that's basically relying on, I guess those guys do rely a lot on fat, and that's kind of what the carnivore diet, your main source of energy should be fat now yeah and you're basically making the switch from glycogen from the carbohydrates to fat and the first couple weeks of that i felt like shit they call they i think they call it like the keto flu or something like that where you're just like i have like my brain's foggy i'm just like tired i don't have any motivation, no energy. And then when your body kind of makes that transition, I felt so much better.

I think you can move that along quicker with exogenous ketones. Yeah. Yeah, you take ketones. There's a bunch of ketone supplements and different things you could take. I should have done that. Ramp up your ketones. Yeah. I've done the keto diet too, but I just get bored.

Yeah. You know. Diets suck. I hate them. Yeah. I've done the keto diet too, but I just get bored. Yeah. You know, diets suck. I hate them. Yeah, it is. But listen, you know, I had this, uh, woman on yesterday, uh, who escaped from North Korea and is one of the most difficult podcasts I've ever done. It was really intense. And it was listening to her talk about starving most of her life until she escaped. You know, us sitting here talking about diet sucking. We're assholes. It's just such a privilege to be like, oh, I like eating everything.

Why do I have to only eat meat? If she could only eat meat, you know how happy she would have been? She would have dreams about just eating piles of eggs. You know, really crazy, crazy story. Yeah, man. Yeah, we're assholes for sure. Well, it's just, you know, you know what you know. Yeah, that's crazy.

I'm going to have to listen. Oh, my God. It was hard to listen to. Oh, I bet. It was, you know, having know yeah that's crazy i'm gonna have to listen oh my god it was hard to listen oh i bet it was you know having this conversation with her and trying to imagine that there's a place right now on the other side of the world where people are living under the thumb of a brutal dictator and you know they're starving to death literally like most of the men are four foot ten because they're just they have no nutrition they're starving and she's so tiny i mean she's like literally one of the most frail women i've ever met in my life because she was starving her whole life like when you shake her hand it's like you feel like they're

her her like bones cracking she's made out of glass you know she's so small she's 80 pounds that's crazy yeah and she's eating whatever she wants now but this is just because of her life you know starving all of her life it's it's the one of the craziest podcasts i'm gonna listen to it yeah heavy man just really fucking heavy like they survived off like bugs that was mostly what they ate grasshoppers is where they got their protein from yeah and i would imagine like hunting i mean they probably don't have the energy to do much of anything, honestly, huh? She was saying that little kids would catch rats that were eating dead bodies and they

would eat the rats. Oh, man. They were just so starving that when they caught a rat, they would cook it and eat it and then they'd get sick and die and then rats would wind up eating them. It was horrific, man. And that's happening right now in North Korea. That's crazy. It's beyond fucked.

Yeah, I feel horrible for talking about it. They ain't got to fucking only eat ribeyes. This sucks. Do you eat any organs? I do. And basically, I keep all the livers from all the animals i kill about heart and heart too i really enjoy heart liver it's not necessarily my favorite i eat it because i know it's good for me liver and onions is good yeah and i haven't tried that for a long time and i probably should do that i wonder if onions would fuck with your diet though i don't

know i mean you know only one way to find out. Right. You know, yeah. I would sauteed onions are so delicious, man. Some grass fed butter. Yeah. I eat the liver as well. I'm a, I'm a big fan of, uh, elk liver. You know, I was reading about, um, these, uh, Comanches that would take, I want, I want to do this one day. They would, uh, hunt Buffalo. And when they would would kill a buffalo they would cut the liver out and then eat it raw and squirt bile on it oh from the gallbladder they take the gallbladder and squirt bile on the raw liver and that's how they would eat it they would season it with gallbladder what do you know what the meaning or why they salty i guess i guess the gallbladder salty the bile from the gallbladder salty

i mean that has got to be a fucking strong flavor oh shit i would imagine i need to do that super tangy just like i feel like i should have a doctor on standby but if i ever hunt a buffalo i'm gonna do that no yeah damn it i ended up getting one uh was that two years ago now i wish i would have known that i would have tried it. I ended up getting one. I was at two years ago now. I wish I would've known that I would've tried it, but did you really wear a Northern central California? Actually, there was a mountain range out there that it's a 30,000 acre piece of property that this guy basically introduced a bull and like four cows to 30 years ago and just put them in there for it. Basically he wanted his family to be able to hunt them eventually.

And over the 30 years, they've kind of just reproduced, and they've separated into a bunch of different herds. And all the surrounding, like, ranches, the bison are starting to go in there and compete with cattle and their food and everything. So these guys are getting pissed. So that year was the first year that they basically opened it up to hunting. Like, we need to take a certain amount of bulls and cows off of this property because they're starting to expand off our 30,000 acres. And so I ended up going out there and smacked them with my bow and had a bunch of buddies there with me.

We all broke it down and basically lived off that. Not a lot of like genetic diversity. I know. If you have one bull and four cows. Maybe it was a couple bulls. Not a lot of like genetic diversity. I know, right? If you have one bull and four cows. Maybe it was a couple bulls. I know it was a small group that he just put in there and just let go. Yeah.

They had a hunt in Yellowstone this year. This is like one of the first years because they have so many bulls in Yellowstone that they had a hunt. But what was interesting is like the requirements. Like one of the requirements is no ATVs, no horseback. I saw that email. It was like a full like list of requirements. So, bro, you got to get a bunch of studs to help you carry out quarters. Like what if you shoot one 15 miles in? Dude, that's a, I mean.

Ooh, that's a big fucking animal, son. Yeah, dude. There's a picture of me holding one of the back straps. I mean, it's taller than me. They're huge. Oh, it's giant. Such a massive, massive animal. I've never hunted one, but I did take my kids to Yellowstone.

And we were in this one area where you could take photographs of them. And we're behind this area where if they wanted to, they could just fucking run you over. And I was like, you know, I think my daughters were eight and six at the time or nine, maybe nine and seven at the time. So I was like fucking super helicopter dad. Like the moment these motherfuckers flinch, I'm grabbing these kids like two footballs and making a run for the truck because uh i know they they smash people oh yeah you see videos of the kid just getting tossed i know that was a little kid just like yeah little little fucking kid she landed on her feet luckily yeah and she was okay but people don't realize like those those things are dangerous

man i mean they look they look like they're slow and just kind of lethargic, but they're quick. They run 30 miles an hour. Oh, yeah. And they'll knock your fucking car into oblivion with their head. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Man, it's crazy. It happens every year out there.

It's an insane, insanely powerful animal and so fucking delicious. Oh, yeah. You know, and so rich in protein. So good for you, too. Moose, too. Yeah. You've gotten a moose, huh? Yeah, I got one moose once. Yeah. Up in protein. So good for you, too. Moose, too. Yeah. You've gotten a moose, huh? Yeah, I got one moose once.

Yeah. I drew an Alaska tag a few years back with my buddy Pat up there. And we were like 150 miles upriver on his little skiff boat. Wow. And ended up killing like a 63-inch just giant. Oh, my God. Me and him. It took us like over 10 hours to get this thing all cut up.

63. For folks who don't understand what that over 10 hours to get this thing all cut up. 63. For folks who don't understand what that means, it's the size of the antlers where they take a tape and they measure it and 63 inches is fucking huge. It's huge. Like I could lay in it. That's like this table. That's like the antlers are the size of this table. It was crazy. The funny thing is so he's an Alaskan resident and

he's the one that told me to put in for the tag and he's like you'll probably take, you know, maybe draw it in like 10 years. Boom, first year, drew it. Oh, wow. That's crazy luck. Oh, it's so lucky. And me and him went up here, but they considered it a trophy tag. So it has to be at least 50 inches wide, or the bull has to have at least four points on its front brow time.

And so he's never trophy hunted you know they live off they kill the first yearling that they see and that's what they live off for the year you know right and so we come around the corner and this bull just stands up and it's huge you know and both of us are just standing there looking at it 50 yards and i'm like dude do you think that's 50 inches like i've never seen a bull moose this close. And he's like, ah, man, I think so. But it could be like 49. I don't know.

And so we're just sitting there for like, it seemed like 10 minutes just trying to like decide. And it only had three and two on the front brow tines. So that's out. So it's got to be at least 50 inches. And if you, I mean, if you're a half an inch off. You're fucked. You're fucked. Yeah.

Fish and game is taking it. You're getting. Yeah. Fish and game's taking it. You're getting fined. You're losing your hunting license. And so we're just sitting there for a while and he's just staring at us. And then finally he turns and you get that back view and we're both just like,

dude, that's gotta be over 50. And so I ended up getting him and we walked over there and 63 inches. Was this a bow hunter or a rifle hunter? Rifle hunter.

I definitely could have gotten with a bow. We were like 50 yards from him just standing there. Wow. Was this a bow hunt or a rifle hunt? It was a rifle hunt. I definitely could have gotten with a bow. We were like 50 yards from him just standing there. It's a big fucking animal. Dude, it's so huge. And then the grizzly came into camp that night and mangled a bunch of the meat that was hanging up. Oh, Jesus. The big chunk of neck.

Did you hear it? No, no. That's the scary thing. We're sleeping on the boat. It's got like a little cab built on it with like two cots. Did you put the meat in a tree? Well, we had like a hang station. Fucking, you see how big those legs are, dude.

It would like take everything for us to get that leg that high off the ground. You know, we're trying to like tie it up there. But, you know, everything's pretty low. And the chunk of neck was probably this big around. And it grabbed that, picked it up, didn't even drag it, carried it into the woods about 40 yards and set it down and dug a big hole, took a big shit next to it, and then I don't know if we woke up and it hurt us and it took off

because it never buried it, never got it in the hole, but we woke up and a bunch of the meat was kind of mangled, like some of the hindquarters and stuff, and we're like, dude, screw this. Let's get out of here. So we just loaded everything up. Do you listen to the Meat Eater podcast? Yeah. I did that with Rinaldi, dude.

Those guys are awesome. Oh, you did Meat Eater? Yeah. Did you do the podcast or did you hunt with them? The podcast. I want to hunt with those guys. I've hunted with them a few times. He's awesome.

Oh, yeah. I've watched it. They had an incredible episode of the podcast. We were talking about an elk hunt they had on a Fognac Island. Yeah, oh yeah. You know that story where they got attacked by a bear? Yep. Like where one of the guys, Dirtmouth, actually was on the bear's back as it was running down the hill.

It's fucking crazy. Like he found himself because the bear comes piling through these guys. And all of a sudden he's on this bear's back riding it down the hill. And they're talking about a coastal Alaskan brown bear, which is huge, like 11 feet tall. Dude, no way. So grizzlies, mountain lions, and sharks. Fuck that.

They can all go fuck themselves. Yeah, all of them. I'm terrified. Those are probably my biggest fears in life. Have you seen a mountain lion in the wild? Yeah, yeah. I had one stalking on me in Utah. Really? I was sitting there. I was filming for a hunting show.

There's a tree line right in front of us, and it's a big sage flat. Basically, the bulls would come out of the tree line, and they'd cross that sage flat. So we were going to try to cut them off and get in position. We're sitting there, and my camera guy's like, dude, what the hell is that? And we all turn around, and there was a mama and four younger ones just, I don't know, 100 yards behind us. Oh, God. And as soon as they saw us look, they, like, hunkered down.

Like, they were coming in on us. And as soon as we looked, obviously, they, like, turned around and, like, snuck back down, and there was a big canyon. They went back down into it. But, dude, if we wouldn't have seen seen they probably would have came right up on us when we were elk hunting two years ago dudley had one 20 yards away from him they were both stalking the same elk no yeah yeah you know dudley is a ninja right so he's like super slow moving quiet and he looks over and 20 yards away from his a fucking mountain lion it's like what

just like the hell but um you know in texas you just shoot them like in texas they have they're not protected at all it's just like a coyote yeah they're like get rid of it but in in california you can't do anything to them you can't even go out of state legally hunting one and bring it back. Right. Yeah. Right. But in Utah, you can hunt them, but you have to have a tag. And it's very difficult to get.

It's not easy. Yeah. I had a buddy, my buddy Adam Greentree, gave me some mountain lion meat. I hear it's pretty good. I haven't eaten it yet. It's frozen. Oh, you haven't? Yeah.

Is it like some of the backstrap? Yeah. I've heard multiple people. I've heard it's very good. Yeah. It's a real light meat. I hear it's pretty good. I haven't eaten it yet. Oh, you haven't? Is it like some of the backstrap? Yeah. I've heard multiple people. It's very good. It's a real light meat. Almost looks like pork. Rinella says it's superb. Really? That was his description of it. He said it is superb. I'm like, really? He goes, amazing. See, I always have this weird thing about eating predators.

Things that eat meat. I don't know. It's just... If you think about what they're eating like they're not like a coyote where they're just like eating stuff that's been dead for weeks and it's rotting you know they basically kill and they eat it fresh and then once i'm i could be completely wrong on this but this is what i've been told my buddy's a biologist and you know but basically as soon as it starts rotting, they basically don't touch it much anymore.

They go kill it. Yeah, probably. And so they're eating the clean, fresh stuff, but still just the thought of eating something that's eating meat has always been a little strange to me. Have you had bear? I have, yep. Did it weird you out? I mean, it was years ago. I made a lot of chili and jerky out of it. But, yeah, bear is definitely on that list for sure.

What's crazy is it was one of the preferred foods of the pioneers, the people that were traveling across the country. They loved it because it's fatty and it was soft. You know, like one of the things about, I guess, if you're just cooking things straight over fire, you would think when you think about bears, you would think for people listening to this that a bear would be like a really dense, really powerful animal like a moose or elk or something like that. But they're not. They're soft.

They're soft bodied, which is weird. Like almost like gooey. Yeah. And they have a lot of fat. Very fat. High fat content. And it have a lot of fat. Very fat, high fat content. And it's a delicious animal. And they ate the shit out of them when they were traveling across the country and including a lot of native Americans, like the Comanche ate a lot of bear.

It was one that I harvested in Idaho and these bears were all eating like wild plums. There was tons of wild plum trees all over the place. And so I didn't think it tasted bad at all by any means. Like I would definitely do that again. But I think it's just like that mindset of like, man, I'm eating something that eats meat. But like a bear is different, a black bear especially. Like I mean a lot of the times they're eating berries and grass and like the fruit tree, like plums or whatever. They're opportunists.

They'll eat whatever the hell they can come across and live off of. But, you know, I think like we have a pig ranch that I guide pig hunts on up in Northern California. And there's tons of blackberry trees, tons of mulberry trees, green pastures because they run a bunch of cattle on it. And then tons of acorns too. So these pigs, like people, I think a lot of the times get weirded out eating wild boar, and they're just like, you know, I think you go a lot of these coastal places where there's drought and like food's scarce, they'll eat dead animals. They'll, you know, even sometimes kill each other and live off of that, you know, and I think that's when you start seeing a lot of that really bad gaminess in the pigs and then also like disease coming. But these pigs up there

are phenomenal, man. It's, and I think it's cause they're eating that delicious stuff year round and they're not having to like scrounge around and trying to like find any type of dead animal that they can and live off of it. Um, and so that's what I try to tell people all the time on, you know, I'm sure bears are kind of the same situation. You know, you got a bear that's in a place where it's tons of food and they're not struggling all the time. They're probably going to taste fine. Yeah, exactly.

You got a bear that's scrounging and living in a trash can. There's not tons of other stuff. Or that's there and they just decide that's the easiest way to eat. They're going to go do that. Well, bears will eat rotten meat. And if you get a bear that's been eating rotten meat, apparently the nastiest bears are the ones who are eating rotten salmon. Like when they're a salmon run and there's a bunch of dead salmon,

they eat the shit out of them. Like Rinella was telling me that he borrowed a guy's smoker and he used it to cook some bear. And he said the smell of fish was so bad that he told a guy's smoker and he used it to cook some bear and he said the smell of fish was so bad that he told the guy hey man you gotta clean your smoker out it just stinks like fish and the guy said i've never cooked a fish in there in my life no way yeah and he's like really and he realized like oh my god it's the bear you know he's younger at the time he didn't realize it was literally the bear had eaten so much fish that its flesh smelled like rotten fish he said that one of the best meats he's ever had in his life was a bear that had been eating blueberries yeah i could believe that they say the blueberry bear is supposed to be just spectacular i don't think

i've ever eaten one but i haven't no not like that i've eaten bear from alberta yeah and it was really good but these are bears that just, you know, we're eating mostly, it depends on what they get. They eat a lot of fawns up there, a lot of colts, a lot of fawns, a lot of calves. My buddy was just here in Northern California scouting up in the B zone and there's tons of bears up there, but I don't think people realize how many bears we have here in California, but he watched a black bear come into a canyon. He was sitting there phone scoping a buck, and there was a doe and a fawn over here kind of lower,

and the bear comes up through the bottom of the canyon, and he looks over, he's filming it, and the bear sticks his nose up, and you can tell he gets wind of the deer. The buck takes off, and so he turns over and starts filming the buck still over here. And all of a sudden, like five minutes later, he hears that fawn screaming, and he pans over, and that bear was standing over the top of it just ripping it. It's like crazy. Eating it while it's alive, too.

Oh, yeah, it was screaming. And so it's like I guess people don't realize also how big of a predator bears are on the deer population. I guess you just think, you know, they're probably eating more, you know, smaller game things or if they find something dead. But no, they'll hunt down and kill fawns, even does or sometimes even bucks. I've, oh, I got a good story. Dude, it was an archery story years ago when I was young it was me it was opening day me and one of my team my wrestling teammates my dad and his dad went this way we go right we're coming up this dirt road and my buddy's like hey what's that under that tree right there

and I'm looking and there's a bear just sitting there staring at us and he's laying over the top of a giant black tail buck like big four by four and i'm just like what the and he takes off and so we run over there and i'm just looking at this thing and he that bear had killed that buck full-grown buck like healthy like it was still warm like he just killed it the only thing eaten off of it was the acid was eaten off on it and uh i i did not know that, I guess, black bear at that time would hunt down and kill a mature buck. Wow. And it was crazy to come up on it and just see it. Like it had just happened. Like we probably just missed it maybe an hour, hour before that. Where did it could catch it? Right. Bucks are so fast and so nimble.

But I mean, and we were back in a spot where unless somebody poached it, you know, but I looked up front, there was nothing in the guts. Like I was actually looking to see if somebody had done it. If there's a wound somewhere. Yeah, nothing. Clean body everywhere. He had just chewed like one of the back hands off. Wow.

It was crazy. So he probably stumbled upon it or something, chased it down, and got it. Wow. That's wild. Dudley told me he saw a moose get its back broken by a grizzly through a scope. No way. Yeah, he was looking at it through a spotting scope, and he saw this grizzly chasing this moose and swats it on the back and breaks its back.

No way. He's just chasing it down, chasing it. Boom. Snap. just chasing it down, chasing it. Boom. Yeah. Snap. The thing goes down. That's how strong a grizzly bear is. Yeah, and people don't realize how quick they are.

Oh, my God. So fast. We were talking about that. There you see one. It's like you just think of them kind of like a big, lazy, kind of slow. Dude, they can go. Yeah. They're lazy until they're not.

Exactly. I've seen videos of them running down deer yeah running them down like closing the distance the deer is like wide open and they're just closing the distance it is hard to believe because when you see them just sort of lumbering along preserving energy you just assume but you know they're masters of preservation i mean they literally sleep all through the fucking winter they eat so so much that they can just sleep. Isn't that crazy? That is nuts. Just the thought of a bear going to sleep for that long and surviving in a hole,

just a bear's life is just so interesting to me. It is. It's pretty crazy. It's a very interesting animal. But the thing is, people get so attached to bears. There's not an animal that people get more mad at you for shooting in north america than a bear i agree meanwhile it's like i guess people are just accustomed to people shooting deer you know and they they understand they see deer get hit by car

they see deer everywhere it's rare that you see a bear because bears are a little cautious being around people but there's plenty of them oh yeah and they make a big dent on wildlife and if you don't do something to manage them like uh my friends john and jen live up in alberta and where where they are like there's bears everywhere up there you can't imagine how many bears there are and this is like really really dense woods up there i see a lot of the videos you guys up there yeah it's a crazy place yeah it's really crazy but um because of canada and the lockdowns they can't even get up there they no one is allowed to hunt up there you can't like people can't come across most of their business was americans coming up to alberta to hunt and for the past two seasons in a row they've had no income. Dude, that sucks.

It's crazy. Are they taking care of them as far as, uh, I mean, what are they supposed to do? I mean, what are they doing in the government? Yeah.

Are they, I mean, they do shit at all, huh? I mean, I can't imagine they do. I mean, how would they,

I mean, like their business is based on customers and then tips. Yeah. So like, how could someone take care of them? What is someone going to do? How could the government supplement that? Yeah.

I'm not exactly sure what they've been doing, but they're stuck. Yeah. You can't even... They're good people, too. If you come from Canada, they're great people. Yeah, I love them. They're awesome. I love them, too.

If you come from Canada into America and then try to go back to Canada, I think there's like a 14 month quarantine. What? Yeah. Oh, excuse me. 14. Excuse me. 14.

I was like, what? I'm using words wrong. 14 day quarantine. And I think also your, I don't even think it's that easy to come across. I think you have to have a reason. Like there has to be like some clear cut. It's got to be work. Yeah, because like I was just reading something about the border being shut down. to come across. I think you have to have a reason. Like there has to be like some clear cut work. Yeah.

Because like I was just reading something about the border being shut down. So I don't know what that means. I think it is. And like, so, um, Paul bride who does a lot of Kuyus photography, he's up there and he's,

I know he came down kind of, I think that was last year, kind of in the midst of everything. And at the time it was essential workers only could come into the United States. And he had a hunt that was planned in California that he needed to get over there for to film for Kuyu or to do photos for. And he came in, he did the hunt, and on his way back, they, like, hammered him. He told us, like, they threatened him, him like you are not an essential worker basically. You are not allowed to travel if we catch you doing it again.

I think it was like what did he say like $700,000 fine. And there was a certain amount of time in jail if he did it. $700,000. Yeah, $700,000 is what they told him. And then he had to go quarantine for 14 days away from his wife. Jesus Christ. It's nuts. Canada is, you know, it's interesting how different countries handle these things, lockdowns.

In different states, you know, in this country, you're seeing differences on different, like New York City just instituted a, they have a passport, essentially. If you want to use a gym, if you want to use, and this is not even like a COVID test, like where you test negative. You have to be vaccinated, which doesn't make any sense. I don't get it. Because if you're vaccinated, you can still spread it. You can catch it and you can still spread it. Like you can do rapid antigen tests. It takes 10 minutes

and you could find out whether or not someone has it yeah it's not that hard I mean this is they've been doing it now for a long time the idea that you're gonna have a vaccine passport like a vaccine is the only solution to this it's just it's preposterous I don't get it I mean the logic with some of this stuff is so ass backwards it's a lot of it's fear based. People are just panicking and they don't know what to do. And they feel like, you know, this is a easy to follow solution. If everyone just got vaccinated, but that's not really the case because everyone would have to get vaccinated simultaneously.

And then even then, there's a lot of articles that are out there now. There's scientific papers that have been written about vaccines that don't eliminate a virus. Like they still allow someone to catch the virus. Well, that can possibly lead to variants that are even stronger. The whole thing is fucked. And again, I hate to be the fucking guy who keeps beating a dead horse, but they never talk about your health. They never talk about losing weight. They never talk about losing weight. They never talk about exercise.

They never talk about vitamins and all the things you can do to strengthen your immune system. Never bring it up. It's just a bunch of fat people eating McDonald's trying to get a vaccine. This is the only thing you can get. That's it. It's crazy. It's so frustrating. It is.

It is beyond. I mean, we could sit here and- Well, there's also people that have already had it. You know, people that have already had it and have antibodies, they still want you to get vaccinated. Like, Jamie has antibodies from nine fucking months ago. Look at him, flexing. I just got tested.

I had them too, bro. Yeah. Pound. When was, yours was from February? February of last year, which I don't even know. I never got tested then. It was just the big hunt expo in Utah that we do every year. And I got extremely sick.

And all the symptoms were the same as COVID. So February of 19? Yeah. Wow. 20. No. February of 19, there was no COVID yet. You sure?

Yeah. November of 19 was when it was happening in Wuhan. So how would it have been in February? Oh, right, of course. Yeah, duh. See? Again, I'm bad with numbers. No, I'm pretty sure that's when it was. So last year. No. 20. 20. It would have been 20. It would have been while the pandemic was happening.

You're right. Well, no, because last year. Right before the pandemic started. Well, the pandemic was March, right? Of last year. Yeah, March is when everything shut down. Gotcha, then it was February last year. Right before the pandemic started. Well, the pandemic was March, right? Of last year. Yeah, March is when everything shut down. Then it was February last year. So you were at February of 2020 right before everything shut down. Yes.

Right, okay. That was it. So, I mean, maybe that doesn't seem so far-fetched now. That's fucking long ago, man. That's crazy. That really is crazy. It's more than a year. Yeah, unless I came across it again,

I just didn't have any symptoms symptoms and my body was just like... Well, SARS-CoV-1, right? The original SARS, whatever it is. I don't know if they call it SARS-CoV-1. It's just SARS, original SARS. People have had antibodies for that for years, you know, and they think that, well, with you, listen, if you got it in February of 20 and here we are, how many months is that? 12, 13, 14, 15. That's a long fucking time, dude. More than a year later, you have antibodies.

It's interesting. I was on an elk hunt in New Mexico last November, and two of my buddies, like a day after we got back, tested positive for it. So maybe you were asymptomatic. Maybe. Because you had the antibodies already from February, and then it probably just went through your system. Wild speculation. I saw this yesterday.

Wait a minute. Wild speculation on this show? The fuck are you doing? They're saying the white-tailed deer have antibodies. speculation. I saw this yesterday. Wait a minute. Wild speculation on this show? Meh. The fuck are you doing? They're saying the white-tailed deer have antibodies. Yeah, I've seen that. What? If you eat that, would it show up, do you think? That's a good question.

That's a good question. Very good question. I did not know that. That's crazy. Yeah, there's quite a few white-tailed deer they've tested that have antibodies. How the fuck are they getting it? What the fuck? Who's coughing on deer?

Right? How are they getting it? They're outdoors always only right yeah wait a minute maybe not maybe these are deer that were farm farms yeah it could have been but by the way a petri dish of diseases they think that's one of the main sources for cwd chronic wasting disease yeah they tested 600 deer in one two three four different states but where are they getting the deer from? Yeah, these keep getting the 600 deer.

These got to be high fence operation, I'm guessing. See, if that's the case, you got a bunch of fat dudes that don't take care of themselves coughing on these deer that they're feeding. I fucking have a real problem with that whole feeder thing. People like sit in front of a feeder and wait for these deer to show up. Look, it's one thing if you're just getting meat and this is how you do it Yeah, but you kind of shouldn't call that hunting. Yeah, you're harvest killing. Yeah, you're killing you're killing Yeah, look I'm all down for it

If you you got invasive species like wild pigs and stuff like that, but it's the Texas situation is very odd very odd It's mostly private land. Huge ranches. Giant. And a lot of people hunting over feeders. Like I was talking to these guys like, you hunt? Yeah, we hunt too. Yeah, my buddy's got a ranch.

We sit in front of the feeder. I'm like, stop. Done. Stop. Stop talking. You're not hunting. You're waiting. Yes.

Yeah, you're waiting. I guess you got some of these like insanely thick, what do they call those? The Sandero's or something. They use a Mexican word for some strange reason. But really, I mean, I don't know how you would hunt these deer outside of that, but you're right. They basically just dump a bunch of feed down these clear cuts, like a road basically, and then get on the end of it and just wait. Well, it's similar to what they have to do with a bunch of feed down these clear cuts like a road basically and then get on the end of it and just wait well it's similar to what they have to do with a lot of bear hunting like they bait because there's no fucking way first of all bear's nose is so ridiculously powerful you're not sneaking up on them no it's like how it's you're gonna get them the only way spot and stalk works

is if you have to go to an area where there's like a clear cut where they have new uh like greenery coming through and the bears like to eat that right after spring yeah or you find them when they're eating berries yeah yep even that like getting close enough to archery hunt yeah yeah because if it's thick enough to where there's no possible way to be quiet like what are you supposed to do i have friends in in Montana that hunt bear and there's no baiting in Montana. So it's like spring bear hunt is like you might go 30 fucking days and never get close. That's how we are in Cali. You can't bait. You can't even run dogs. They used to run a lot of dogs on them where they'd tree them.

And I'm not, you know, if it's keeping the population down, that's cool. But it's not something that ever interests me to do. But, you know, we can't do any of that anymore. So it's not something that ever interests me to do. Right. But, you know, we can't do any of that anymore, so it's all basically spot and stock like Montana now. Right. I bet archery success in California has to be so low. I'm not sure, yeah. I know at Tohon Ranch they kill a few every year, and big ones too, but they use rifles.

They were trying to outlaw bear hunting altogether last year, but they put the kibosh on it. Well, when people started understanding the numbers and go, hey, hey, hey, do you know what the fuck you're talking about? It's like Ronell always likes to describe bears as charismatic megafauna. And this is the thing about bears, because people think of them as like stuffed animals or teddy bears or yogi. But if you're a person who lives on a ranch, you understand what these things really are. These are the things that eat calves alive. These are fucking predators, big, giant, fast moving predators. And you have to control the population.

Yeah. There has to be predator population control. But there's a thing about laws that get passed in high population Density areas where the people never have contact like in BC they outlawed grizzly hunting But meanwhile people that I know that live in like rural BC like fuck Like you assholes in the cities you just you don't even know what you're banning Like you assholes in the cities you just you don't even know what you're banning You're banning hunting these things that you have to hunt because then they're gonna hire people to kill them now Yeah, and so then these guides aren't gonna make any money the outfitters aren't gonna make any money More people are gonna get their shit eaten. Mm-hmm animal more people gonna get attacked

Yeah, they're gonna get less nervous around people because now they're not gonna think of people as being hunters anymore They get less nervous around people because now they're not going to think of people as being hunters anymore. Yeah. It's not good. Well, I mean, how few people really understand? I mean, other than talking about it on podcasts like this one or on Meat Eater or on any other podcast where people have, like, common sense discussions about wildlife management, most people really have no idea. No. No clue. Right. no clue at all and it's

i mean it's not like they're going to go out of their way to get on the internet and start doing some research on it it's just whatever they hear is what they they know yeah you know and it california is probably one of the worst places for that as far as that goes man it's tough uh you know people just like you said associate bears with the cute and cuddly. They don't, they have no idea that, I mean, I know now in L.A. they're starting to figure that out a little bit because you're getting tons of coyotes even coming in and killing people's pets and even attacking people. You got mountain lions, you know, attacking people, running and bike riding and killing them, you know. And I think there's even more and more bears now starting to, to move in.

Especially around Pasadena, jumping in people's swimming pools and shit. Oh yeah, it's crazy. But I mean, it's the population's only getting it bigger and bigger and bigger, you know, especially now I know that when we could run dogs, when hunters could run dogs on killing bears, there was a quota that the state would put on amount of bear kills once that quota was hit through successful tags they turn the season off um and every year we would hit that quota we haven't hit that quota since they stopped the bear hunting which or sorry a dog allowing

dogs to be hunted uh which has been years now and they don't i I've heard they get like half of it even. So it's like the population's just compounding. It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's going to continue that way too. Because the people that are making the votes are all city dwellers. I mean, the amount of people that live in the cities, whether it's the Bay Area or in Los Angeles, it's like most of the population of the state. But the crazy thing is when you make that drive from Los Angeles up to San Francisco,

you pass farmers. It's all rural. You don't have Trump signs up. It's kind of weird. Right? It's like, is this really California? What is this? It's crazy.

And then when you get up in your area like Sacramento, man, there's a lot of hunting and fishing going on up there yeah people don't know sack north it's um almost like a sorry sack north it's almost like a different state yeah it's um it's crazy but uh yeah man i i don't know i don't know if things are ever going to change for the state as far as that goes i mean if if there's not better game management like our deer herd california's deer herd is struggling big time. We can't kill mountain lions, obviously. That's another predator that's just compounding.

It's just continuing to get bigger. No management at all. Nothing. Unless they kill pets and they get a depredation permit and then all the wildlife nuts fucking threaten these people. And now they've even made some, like I said, my buddy, I have a buddy that's a county trapper and they've made it even harder now to take out problem animals so like a mountain lion say it comes in and kills a horse or whatever like it used to be what he killed my animal i'll get a

depredation permit we either see it we could kill it or we set a trap catch it kill it now it's like i think there's like three strikes like it has to kill three times and yeah it's fucking crazy dude my buddy's just like this is absolutely insane and it's not based again on sound wildlife management principles we're wildlife biologists it's people that don't understand what they're managing it's really it's like having nuclear waste managed by stand-up comedians you know what i mean it's like you don't know what the fuck you're doing like why are you doing this yeah they they really don't know what they're doing and you know in san francisco where they've killed a bunch of mountain lions that have killed people's pets and stuff one of the things they found when they they do necropsies on them and

they they they check out their guts they find out what they've been eating. It's mostly dogs. Yeah. They're eating like 50% pets. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean. It's crazy, man.

I don't know if we're ever going to do anything about it, though. That's the scary thing. Bro, if a mountain lion ever killed Marshall, I would become the mountain lion punisher. I would fucking decide that would i would dedicate my life to killing those cunts oh yeah i fucking i already had one dog get killed by a mountain lion in colorado no way yeah yeah yeah oh yeah back in 2008 or 9 2009 i guess it was no way yeah just in your backyard yep yep. Yep. Oh. Yeah. Dude.

Bro, they're fucking nasty cunts. They're nasty. I've seen videos online of, yeah, like, I think they're like home cameras, like security cameras that catch it, you know? It's fucking crazy. They kill a lot of dogs. I had, and this happens all the time, you know, I'd go and ask permission landowners, and, you know, usually it's these kind of, sometimes it's older lady. And this one in particular was an older lady. She had two little like white fluffy

dogs. And, uh, I asked if I could, could hunt on her property and she told me no. And so I would just hunt the property next year. I was just trying to expand the property that I could hunt. And so I'd be out there and this probably was like months later, she comes up to me, I was out there scouting some deer and she's like, uh, you know, I'd really like it if you saw these coyotes and shot them. Uh, my, one of them, I watched them pull my dog away and basically killed it. It was one of her little white fluffy dogs. And it's like, man, it it's it sucks that that's what it takes for a lot of these people like something traumatic in your life to be taken away for you

to understand like the benefit of doing this you know like if i was able to hunt deer in your property if you wanted me to kill coyotes i would take care of them for you you know right i'd keep the population down but it's like obviously i did it i was trying to help her out after that but it's like you know we i don't know it's just a population the coyotes town is a fucking full-time job son i've heard i've heard something crazy and i don't know how true this is but it's almost like uh what was it like if you kill coyotes in an area and you bring the population down to a certain amount they know that and they can they rebreathe yes to like in like double in size or like it's 100 true yeah how crazy yeah there's a

great book called uh coyote america i think that's where yeah yeah guy named dan flores who's been on the podcast before is a brilliant guy who's um so i believe he's a wildlife historian, and he was a professor. He was actually one of Ranella's professors while he was in college. And what happens is when coyotes yell at night, it's basically a roll call. They're like, and they try to find out where everybody is. And when one of the coyotes turns up missing,

the females have more pups so all the females breed more and that's one of the reasons why coyotes are everywhere and apparently it was a strategy for coyotes to um to survive with gray wolves because gray wolves hunt down coyotes and kill them and so because of, the coyotes had to figure out how to expand their range to get away from the gray wolves and how to breed more prolifically every time they got attacked by wolves. Gotcha. That makes sense. It's pretty wild shit, man, because the coyotes were smarter than the wolves

because when they figured out how to kill off the wolves, and what they would do is they would shoot a horse and then fill it up with strychnine and pump its veins with strychnine and then leave it there for the wolves. And the wolves would eat it and die. But the coyotes were like, nah, not today, bitch. And the coyotes kept expanding. So now coyotes are in every single state in every single city in the country. And 100 years ago, they were only in the West. Really? Yeah, they single city in the country. And 100 years ago, they were only in the West.

Really? Yeah, they were only in the West. I mean, this is a relatively short period of time. They've expanded through the entire state. That's crazy. They're in fucking Manhattan. They really are. What?

You never seen it? No. There's videos of coyotes in Central Park. That's nuts. Pull that shit up, because you need to to see this because it's so bananas. They're essentially a small wolf is what they are, which is why the red wolf and coyotes have bred in some parts of the south and I think the southeast. And they've developed these hybrids that they call coy wolves.

So it's like a larger coyote. And I've seen like inids that they call coy wolves. So it's like a larger coyote. And I've seen, like in New Mexico, they have Mexican wolves. But they basically look like a big coyote. But I think that's another kind of subspecies of it. Well, I mean, a coyote is a wolf. That's the thing that a lot of folks don't know. It is a wolf. It's just a small wolf, but a really fucking clever one.

Yeah, they're so smart. Really sneaky. And all these Native Americans have these, look at this, these motherfuckers in, look at that, in Manhattan. What the fuck out of here? No way. Central Park, coyote. That's a healthy looking coyote, too. Yeah. Check out this coyote stalking his way through Central

Park, or its way. What? Wild, dude. Look at that. New York. New York park officials offer tips after coyote sighting in Central Park. Bro, they're everywhere. Wow. They're literally everywhere. They're in the Bronx. They've seen them in abandoned buildings in the Bronx.

What the hell? Yeah. The fuck? They darted it. Look. Yeah. It's got a dart in it. Oh, wow.

They jabbed him. Man, that's crazy. I had no idea. They're probably tracking him, trying to capture him. Wow. Shit, dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.

You know, and people that just don't understand hunting or population control, they get so pissed off. It's predators. It's a predator thing. Bears. I mean, you see these people, you know, I have buddies that go out and do these coyote derbies. Basically, we're in the area. They'll bring a bunch of people in,

and everybody tries to kill as many coyotes as they can. And it's very extreme. I get that. But it's like in an area, you know, that's very highly populated with coyotes it's something that can help control the population very quick you know it's something that needs to be done yeah if you want to keep your dogs alive and you know you want healthy populations of deer and a lot of other wildlife like you can't have an overpopulation of anything and the only thing that balances that out other than nature itself and the cycle of nature itself when it bounces out is a cycle of starvation and disease.

Which- It's not good. No, not good at all. Not good. For anything. For anything. For anybody. Yeah, but that's how nature balances it out. The only other solution is wildlife management.

And that's where wildlife biologists do an accurate assessment, a survey of the area. They find out what the populations are and they figure out how many of each animal that they can pull from it so people don't understand like when you're talking about getting a tag for moose yeah it's not easy it's not like anybody could just go to Alaska and shoot a moose no it's fucking very difficult like some animals like like bighorn sheep like good luck getting a tag for them right oh yeah i got lucky on one of those two you're a lucky dude no dude just just uh i mean here's an example you're talking about the moose i have a story of uh you know i i got the rack you know all cleaned

up and everything i'm driving home from my taxidermist and this Prius rolls up and I'm not making that up because it's, it's a, it really was a Prius and they roll up and it's this big old fat chick. She's got like different colors in her hair and I'm guessing it's her husband or boyfriend driving. And I'm just minding my business in the slow lane. Just, just wanting to get home. You know, I don't want my nothing i want you know obviously if i could have enclosed the whole thing i would have just because i know it pisses people off in california and i'm driving this lady comes rolling up next to me flipping me the bird and she's cussing and yelling and they whiz past me i'm just like geez and so we start coming up on traffic

basically to where i'm trying to slow down because i don't want to get into it with this chick. I know what she's trying to do. And then all of a sudden they slow down too. And I see her window start rolling down. She's got a big gulp. It's like fucking giant, you know? And I'm like,

here we go. She slows down high, uh, you know, enough to get right next to me, tosses it and just hits my windshield. Just throws her big gulp on my truck, and then they speed off. I'm just like, you bitch.

Yeah. But it's like, you know, you don't know anything about that, you know? Like you just said. Do you think that fatso only eats vegetables? Yeah, not a chance. I only eat hot dogs. Yeah, she probably just got. They're from a hot dog factory.

Dude, it's insane when I get comments like that. Why don't you just go to the store and buy your meat like everybody else and stop killing these animals? Morons. Is that real? Yeah. It's so dumb. You really believe that? You really, truly believe that?

It is the dumbest fucking argument of all time. And you know who has that argument more? It's people that live in other countries that don't hunt at all. Yes. That's where I notice a lot of it comes from. Weird, man. Where they just don't have any history of hunting. They just think you're a cruel person.

Meanwhile, they're eating beef every day. Oh, yeah. Strange, man. It's crazy, man. And I try to inform. I mean, if they're willing to listen, a lot of the times they're not. They don't care what the hell you say. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not.

They're just like, fuck you. But if they're willing to learn, I'll sit there and try to inform someone. But, dude, it's crazy, the ignorance and just stupidity that some people have and will not listen to anything you try to say to them. Not only that, they are never going to get an animal who lives a better life than like a wild deer that you hunt if you if you're eating meat and you're eating meat even from like the best ranch you're not eating anything wild no I mean it's nothing wrong with ranchers I'm not opposed to ranching but if you're eating you're eating a wild elk

that you cook you hunted and killed yourself, there's no better meat on planet Earth. I agree, man. And no better for you and no more ethical because there's not a single one of them that dies of old age. It's never going to happen. I agree. It's not like they're not regulated. They know what the fuck they're doing. That's the thing.

I think these people just assume that we're going. I envision it like us in a back of a truck with an automatic weapon, drinking some beers, you know, blasting some loud music and just mowing everything down. Like, I think that's what they think. Well, don't let them see Texas pig hunting, man. Yeah, I know. These fucking helicopters out here. It's wild.

Oh, it's crazy. But Texas is just, I mean, obviously the pig population is insane. Bananas. And it's like, there's not a lot of other options. You can try and poison them, but you're going to poison everything else in the ecosystem. You can try and trap them, but pigs aren't stupid. No. You might catch one or two, but the other ones see it happen.

And then after a while, they're like, fuck you. I'm not going in that trap. And it's like, so what else do you do? The thing is the people that are upset about it are not the ranchers that are losing literally millions of dollars in crops every year. Those people, they're fucking furious about these pigs. Oh, yeah. But it's such a weird animal. It's like an invasive species.

And they breed all year round. Dude, it's such a weird animal. It's like an invasive species. And they breed all year round. Dude, it's crazy. I came to Texas years ago, and we did a pig hunt. We were spot and stuck right before evening. We killed a pig. What was it? We killed one of the pigs, and one of them ended up being like a really small pig, maybe like a 40 or 50 pounder, which is a pig that stands about that high.

And we're like, hey, let's clean this pig and we'll put this on the smoker and we'll let it smoke all day tomorrow and we'll have it for dinner tomorrow night. So we cleaned it. Dude, this thing already had piglets. Like it was already breeding as a 40, 50 pound pig. Yeah, at six months old, they're viable. It's crazy, man. I mean, i think there was probably already eight to ten in it you know and then within you know you said it was six months

those ones are already breeding again and you're how each one's having you know when you were from six to fifteen and then it's just like wildfire just keeps spreading somebody told me there was a new road that opened up somewhere in texas and uh the night the road opened they had 40 car accidents because of pigs because of pigs oh no way pigs had been using the area just travel just running back and forth people just driving bam shit 40 no way 40 car accidents put some hog wire man holy shit yeah i mean just just the sheer numbers in this state are really crazy. And they're delicious. They are.

I love eating wild pig. This is crazy. It's very good. Like I said, that's one of the things that we do for Fins and Feathers. And we guide people. I will personally at least go get at least one a year and live off that. But I love wild pig. I love the chops.

I mean, we'll do ground meat. And, you know, I do pretty much anything you do with ground beef, but I'll do it with, with ground pork. I love it, man. It's good. And it's a robust flavor too. It's a dark meat. That's the other thing. Like if you look at pork, like domestic pork, it's like a really pale flesh, but wild pork, it's almost red. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's good, man. I do a lot of, uh, cooking videos. I have a YouTube channel and we do, I basically film all my hunts. I try to do like a, my point of view from everything. So I do a lot of vlogging and stuff, but, um, my wife, uh, went and killed her very first big game animal with me. And it was a wild boar on that ranch. And, uh, like I said earlier,

it has, there's tons of wild mulberry trees all over the place. So she got this boar, and then we went and picked a bunch of the wild mulberries. And I did like this. I smoked. I did the whole video if anyone ever wants to see it. But I smoked the whole like bone-in backstrap, like the loin. And then I did like a mulberry reduction on it from those mulberries from the ranch. You're a fancy man. Yeah, it was fucking good, dude.

There it is here. Oh, yeah. There you go. I don't think I've from those mulberries from the ranch. You're a fancy man. Yeah, it was fucking good, dude. There it is here. Oh, yeah. There you go. I don't think I've ever had mulberries. What do mulberries taste like? They're so sweet. Really? That's hands down my favorite berry. Have you ever had a mulberry, Jamie? When these ones are ripe. I probably had one, but

I couldn't recall it. There's the boar. That's a good sized boar. Mine was in this video, too. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. We had a lion stalking in on us when we were stalking There's the boar. There she is. That's a good-sized boar. My line was in this video, too. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. We had a lion stalking in on us when we were stalking in on that boar. Really? Yeah. I forgot about that one earlier when you asked.

That's it. So this was Sunday morning. We're, like, stalking in on these pigs, and I look behind us, and I'm like, what the fuck is that? Like 50 yards behind us, this cat was just cruising. And I don't know if he was chasing that buck earlier. But, dude, it just started, like, just cruising. There's so many of them in California.

When I was at Tohon Ranch, they had a trail cam on one of their ponds. And they found 16 different mountain lions on the trail cam that's what happens when you have a ranch a large ranch with no people yeah right and a large deer pig and they have cows there too they run cows there too and elk and mountain lions unchecked there's nothing they can do about it it It sucks, man. It's crazy. But it's just a really bad wildlife management practice. I mean, people think that somehow or another these cats are endangered or something. No.

They're not at all. Yeah, not at all. Especially not in those rural areas. There's a lot of them, man. When did you start this Peak Refuel Company? So this is- You make great stuff, dude? It's a really good company.

It's really good. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, we – last year was our first Mendez Mill launch. So I got to create – this is, like, super cool. Seth and Bart, you know, these guys go above and beyond with this stuff. And we got to – basically, I created two game meat recipes. We did elk and we did a bison last year. And I create, like in my kitchen, come up with these recipes.

I absolutely love cooking, by the way. And then we go back and forth, turning it into a freeze-dried meal. And so that was the two meals that we did last year. And then this year we added another one of mine, which is a venison meal. There it is right there. Venison country casserole, elk ragu pasta, and bison ranch mashers. And what is the difference between like food that's dehydrated versus freeze dried? Is it a taste thing? Is it a nutrition thing? So it's the way that it's done, but obviously dehydrating, you're basically sucking all the moisture, like the liquid out of

it, where freeze drying, you're not doing that. And so when you rehydrate something that's freeze dried, like dehydrated stuff typically gets really mushy when you put water back into it. And so freeze drying doesn't do that. You know, you still have, um, all the, the right textures, the right, um, um, basically all the right flavors too. And another thing that we do that's different is basically like you, you got a mountain house company that's obviously been around for a long time. And that's like something I grew up using. That's really all there was back then. Um, but there are a lot of their stuff. Basically they, when they make it, they put all the ingredients in separate, you know, or they're, you know, it's not a lot of these other companies do that same

thing. It's not like us where we have like a giant, basically like a pot. We cook the entire recipe and make it taste exactly like it's supposed to, and then dehydrate that. Freeze dry. Or sorry, freeze dry that into our meals. So it's not like we're doing all the different ingredients and then just adding them into a bag, shake it up, and there you go. Is it a more time consuming process? It is. It's more time consuming, but what's great about Peak Refuel is we have the facility, first of all, and we have all the giant machinery that a lot of these other companies, especially like kind of the smaller

companies that are doing these other game meets, you know, they can only do a handful at a time. So it's hard for them to keep in inventory and stock where we have basically the giant stuff. We can pump out higher numbers of it. Um, so we can keep up inventory, but also, um,

you know, it's just for, we basically have the team that can keep up on top of, of being able to produce enough for everybody to keep it in their backpacks. And how long have you been doing this for? Last year was our first year. Yeah. So it was your first year or the company's? It was Peak Refuel? Peak's been around. So I'm not an actual owner of the company. You just work with them? I work with them. So this is a company that I teamed up with last year. And it's kind of a

cool story. So they haven't been around long. I think they've been around, I want to say three or four years now. I was one of their very first customers ever without knowing that, obviously. But I drew a tag here in Northern California. So I was going to do a backcountry hunt with a buddy of mine. And he had heard about this company because, obviously, like I said, the Mountain House stuff, that's all we've ever used. But, dude, that stuff fucks my stomach up. It's great if you like to fart yeah dude it's the worst and so i'm like i don't want to be alfredo man you good luck anything downwind of you oh yeah start a stampede it's horrible it's so bad and even after the hunt for like a week i don't shit right like

it's just bad and so i'm like dude i don't really want to live off this stuff like i'm gonna look into just making my own stuff and he's like dude check out peak refuel he's like this stuff it's all real ingredients they they do it right it's not like a ton of like preservatives it's not like all this nasty shit so i went on the website and ended up buying a bunch of their stuff for that hunt and it's funny because seth and and bart said that that was like in the beginning of them where they would just sit there like basically waiting for orders to come through. And Seth, who's the owner, is like a big UFC fan.

And he's sitting there and it's like bling and an order comes through. And he's like, holy shit, Chad Mendes just ordered some of our meals. And like freaked out, you know. And so he ended up writing a handwritten letter on and sending it with my stuff. And that's kind of how we ended up, uh, like knowing each other and figuring each other out. And dude, it was cool. I contact, we contacted each other and became like super good buds right off the bat. Like they're just great people, man. They're based out of Utah, hard workers there, you know, they, they have like amazing families. It's just been something that I feel honored to be a part of. And, you know,

for me to be able to basically create my own recipes and pump them out there to people that, for people to try and their game meets, you know, it's kind of something that's unique. You're not really seeing that very often. Um, it's, it's just been cool, man. It's been cool to be a part of. That's awesome. And how many different varieties do they have? They have a lot of different stuff. Yeah. The peak, peak lineup is it's a bunch of different meals. And then I just have my three as of right now. So they have snacks too, or just, they do. And they're, and we're actually working on some stuff for next year for some Mendez snacks and stuff. I have some cool ideas, um, for come. Yep. They just came out with, with the sweets,

brownie bites, cookie bites. Yeah. When, you know, for people that don't know when folks go, uh, hunting or camping or any of that stuff where you're, you're trying to pack as lightly as possible, it saves you so much weight to buy freeze-dried things like that and keep them in your pack and you know you could genuinely keep a whole week's worth of food in your bag and you know you have a large backpack yeah and that's what we did like I did a doll sheep hunt in Alaska last year and we were there for ten days living out of our backpack and that's you know I lived off all my peak stuff and basically you know you can just fold them up. You have your day's ration, like here's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

or whatever it is. And, uh, you know, it's, it's nice to know you can bust your ass all day and all these hikes, you're just kind of snacking. And then you have your peak meal at the end of the day, which is like your thousand calorie kick in the pants. Like that's where all your energy is going to come from for recovery from today. And you know, my energy for working, hiking and traveling tomorrow. So, um, man, it was, it's nice having that stuff for sure. Cause they don't, I mean, they weigh just a couple ounces each. Yeah. It's incredible. Right. When you think about the amount of calories from just a couple ounces and you add water to it, just very minimal water. Most of them are like a cup to a cup and a half of water,

which is nice because a lot of the other meals, like it requires a lot more, which in the back country, water is sacred, man. There's some spots you get into where there isn't any water. So you really have to ration what you have. And so, you know, only needing a cup of water to rehydrate an entire dinner, or basically it's your full day's meal, um, is pretty special. So yeah, just you basically,

we have a jet boil, you know, it's a, it's a little contraption that basically boils that water real quick within like a minute or two. And you just pour it in there, mix it up, seal it up and set for like 10, 15 minutes and mix it. And it's amazing food right there. Super easy, convenient, ready to go. How many of your hunts are you doing rifle versus bow? Oh, man. I mean, it really varies year to year.

I'd say probably 50-50. Some years more archeryery some years more rifle this year um it's probably going to be it'll probably be close to 50 50 which sucks doesn't suck but this fight now in october all my fall basically all my fall hunts are wiped out i gotta buckle down and i had to cancel quite a few few hunts that's gotta be a kind of a weird bittersweet thing for you right it is man because i mean hunting is has been it's it's been my true passion my love for so long like since i was a little kid my dad got me into it and uh um you know every september i'm out chasing bull elk with a bow and this is going to be the first year in a long time where i'm sitting back just

watching all my buddies get out there and do it and um not being able to do it but me and Dillashaw actually have a hunt in October like right after my fight uh fingers crossed nothing breaks handwise but we're gonna go to Colorado and we have a mule deer elk hunt oh nice right after so so uh that'll be mule deer in the rut? Yep, yep, second season, which I think this year Colorado, the whole season shifted. So I think it goes right there at the end of October and then that first week in November. That's nice. Should be.

If they're not in full rut, which they probably won't be in full rut, but they'll be acting ready. Is Colorado doing things differently as far as, like, over-the-counter tags? I heard that they're changing some of their over-the-counter tags i had heard that they're changing some of their uh over-the-counter archery tags and i i haven't heard but i would i mean i'm stuff changes in every state every damn year i feel yeah you know but um what were did what did you hear what making it more more difficult to get tags that they're gonna have draws instead of just playing over the counter yeah i think a lot of areas they probably would do that um which you know it's one of those things it's like it helps in a lot of ways but it also sucks well i think the pandemic really opened up a lot of

people's eyes to the possibility that there might come a time where you don't have any food at all and like how do you get food if you don't know how to hunt? And a lot of people are like, you know what, I should probably learn how to hunt. So obviously gun sales went through the roof, but a lot of people also took up archery and started, you know, bow hunting for the first time. I think a lot of guys like you and Cam and Dudley, you know, you've really shown such a positive light on archery hunting and hunting in general. I think, I mean, so another business is fins and feathers. That's the hunting and fishing. I basically guide people.

Which is pretty badass because you can literally go on a hunt with you. Yeah, it's so much fun, man. It's been awesome being able to like share that passion and just teach people. But what I was going to say is what you just said is last year with COVID, that was our best year we've ever had with fins and feathers. We had more people interested in hunting and going hunting and fishing last year than we ever have. Did you test them at all? No. You just said, fuck it. Fuck it, man. Let's go. Yeah, let's do it. But yeah, it was awesome. And we had a ton of people that had never hunted before. And they're like, look, we watch Meat Eater all the time. Or Nella, we've been joe do a lot of this stuff i watch cam i've always

wanted to get into archery hunting or hunting in general and i think it's basically because people were starting to realize like fuck if if shit hits the fan i need to know how to hunt i need to know how to go out and provide for myself and we had so many first-time hunters last year that booked with us and it was pretty pretty damn cool to see you know these people that are complete city slickers coming out there you know and we had guys show up in like tennis shoes to go hunting i'm like you should have i told you to bring boots but you know and you know did you have to teach them how to shoot everything um take them to a range how did you do it? I guided them a bit beforehand, told them what they needed to do,

get out there, sight your gun in at 100, make sure you're comfortable shooting out probably 200 or 300, and then when they show up, we take them out. I make sure that everything's dialed, make sure they're doing what they need to do. But they've all taken their hunter safety course, so they've gone through that. But then basically just hold their hand throughout the whole hunt, you know, and kind of basically just guide them, you know, leading the way. Like here's an example. It was a pretty cool example. We had a young kid that booked with us last year on our cow elk hunt up in Oregon.

And he was a huge fan of Rinella's and loved, you know, the Meat meat eater podcast and and the show and he wanted uh it was a cow he wanted the entire like kept all the organs and but you know it was his first time going out hunting and first morning I get him on two cows you know 150 yards just standing there across the canyon broadside and I get him on the shooting sticks and he's you know never ever been in this situation in his life and I look over and he's just like shaking like a leaf like not even close like he didn't shoot obviously it was just like we sat there for like five minutes and they're staring at us and he's like just heart beating out of his chest and you know and I forgot I guess at that point I kind of forgot

what that feeling feels like. I still get excited on hunts, but I haven't been that excited on anything since probably I was a kid, you know? And I'm just like thinking back like, God, I kind of missed that. Had he ever done anything that made him real nervous before like that? I didn't ask that, but it seemed like probably not. He was a pretty fragile looking kid, just a young guy. That's a big thing to do for your first really nerve wr a pretty emotional thing for him and, you know, very appreciative. How did you get him to calm down for the hunt a couple days later? Man, we had so many missed opportunities. I'm sure.

Dude, I got him a whole—this was probably opportunity number three or four. We pop up over this rise, and there's about 40 head of elk about 20 yards from us. No joke. I could have thrown a rock and hit one. And I'm like, dude, there's no time for shooting sticks. Pick that cow that's all the way to the right. Just pull up and shoot. And they're just standing there staring at us, like getting ready to bolt, but 20 yards.

And so he pulls up over the rise and shoots and misses. And so he pulls up over the rise and shoots and misses. And they run out about, you know, 20 yards. And they're basically trying to jump this barbed wire fence to get down into the draw. And when there's that many head of elk, it becomes like a traffic jam, you know. It's like they're all having to take their turn to get over. So there's a couple in the back still just standing there. And I'm like, dude, pick one of those, shoot. So he doesn't even jack a bullet in there.

I have to like reload the gun because he's just like pulls up again, shoots, misses. Oh, no. I jack another one in. It's his last round in the gun and shoots and misses. We empty the gun. He misses, doesn't get an elk on that one. And that whole herd runs down and disappears. And so, you i just i just had

to talk to him you know like hey man it's this is part of hunting especially because it's your first time like yeah i've been there like don't worry about it and he's getting bummed you know because you know you only get so many opportunities on a hunt and i want him to go home with something but we're kind of getting down towards i think he ended up killing on the last day. So we're getting down to the wire here. And finally we found one that was bedded up, and we came in and just sat on it for like an hour before it finally got up. And it fed out into a clearing. And he was sitting, and I put the tripod up, and he got a very, very steady shot and made a perfect shot and dropped it. Well, that's a very big change for him, right?

A big confidence booster, I'm sure. Once he's done it and experienced it and knows what it's like, it's so hard for people, man. It's so hard. It is, man. It's a difficult thing. It's like the fact that you're taking a life of something is hard in itself. And then if you've never been like an athlete or somebody that's been

put in that moment of truth situation to where you have nerves and you have to figure out with your mind going into that red zone like calm the fuck down you know what it takes for you to get out of that red zone and get into that calm state right If you don't know how to do that, you're just like, what do I do? What is this? You know? Yeah. It's complete chaos. And so, you know, it's, it's cool being able to, for me to like kind of teach a lot of these people that have never done it before and just kind of, you know, get them through that situation and then gain that confidence, have them gain that confidence after the fact. And then not only that, now you have all kinds of amazing meat to feed your friends, your family, and live off for the rest of the year.

Like how cool is that? Have you had guys do it for their first time and then come back again and become more seasoned? He's one of them. He's coming back. He booked – we have a moose hunt up in Newfoundland this year. Oh, wow. And he's going to go do that with us. That's supposed to be a great place to hunt moose.

Yeah. Johnny Cash hunted moose up there. Really? I didn't even know that. There's a cool picture of Johnny Cash from like, I want to say it was like early 60s. Yeah. Like dressed like normal. No way.

Wearing like farmer clothes with a wood. Oh, yes. Look at that. Look at that fucking radio he's got. He's got his collar popped. Yeah, he does. He's got his collar popped. He's got a jean jacket on him.

He looks like hunting moose in Newfoundland. I'm going to have to do that. Yeah. Apparently, it's a very moose-rich environment, right? Is that the story about up there? Mm-hmm. Now, how hard is it going to be to get up there? So the situation right now is if

everybody's vaccinated um so luckily we only have uh four clients three of the guys are from canada okay so they're good and they're all vaccinated anyways and then this guy was vaccinated so basically just to go do the hunt. Wow. Some dedication right there. Yeah. And what about you? Do you have to fly in and do you have to quarantine or test or anything like that? I'm actually not going on that one. So that one is basically we're working on.

I think Scotty Lago, I don't know if you know who that is. He's a pro snowboarder. Oh, okay. He's going to be our guy on that one to go out there and hang with everyone and hunt. Oh, interesting. So you have other guys that work for you as guides as well. Yep, yep. How many guides do you have that you work with?

Oh, man. And these guys, we call them the pro staff guys. They're basically just different UFC fighters. We have actors, pro ballplayers, Scotty snowboarders, kind of just a mix of celebrities, if you will. Basically, we subcontract guides that already have stuff up and running. So there's going to be professional guides they're guiding. And then we just send our group and our pro staff guy to go out there and hunt with them. And they hang out, shoot the shit around camp. Basically the idea with Fins and Feathers was creating that camaraderie that you don't really get anywhere else except for hunt camp.

You know, you've been there. You've seen it. You felt it. You know, you're sitting around a campfire at night. Whether you're, you know, someone's singing, playing a guitar. I've had that happen where, you know, everyone's kind of having some drinks, hanging out, telling stories. Like, you can't really get that anywhere else, man. You go through the highs and the lows of the hunt, you know, and you can go to an autograph signing, meet these guys, shake their hand, maybe take a picture. And then it's, that's pretty much

it. Is it a weird thing though, when you go take a guy out of the woods that you don't know, you know, like you don't know who's going to fall apart. You don't know who's going to be in shape. You don't know who can handle pressure. And that, i mean that happens you know as far as having somebody not be a like a cool dude we've had thank god we launched this back in 2015 we haven't had anybody like really weird that was always my concern like yeah and like wake up in the middle of the night some fucking crazy person no everyone's been cool that way, but yeah. But yeah, I mean, we've had guys fall apart on hunts. Like I've, there's been pig hunts where we have guys that are, you know, a little bit

overweight or a lot of bit overweight and it's tough for them to get to certain places. And they, we see animals and they're like, I'm sorry, dude, I just can't, I can't do that. You know? And it's, I think, I think it's a good thing for these guys, though, because it's a slap in the face. It's like that really shows you in that moment, like, fuck, I've got to change my life.

There's things I need to do different because this is ridiculous. I'm not going to go be a successful hunter and fill my freezer because I can't physically get to the damn thing, you know? So I think he ended up getting one later. Um, but he even said after he's like, man, this is, this is a definitely a eyeopening for me. So I had to change some stuff. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. I've talked to guys who took a, uh, a hunter out like guides who took a hunter out one year and then, you you know the guy was just absolutely exhausted then the guy comes back next year 40 pounds lighter and realizes like that's pretty

cool how to make some changes yeah like i that's one of the reasons i wanted to do fins and feathers like a you know it was something that i decided like how could i make some money doing something i absolutely love in the outdoor industry after i'm done fighting? And so that was kind of the main thing. But then also, how do I share this passion with so many different people or teach this to people that have never had it in their life? You know, I have tons of buddies that their dad's never hunted. Like there's nobody in their life that even would introduce them to it, but they're like excited to learn, you know, and there's a ton of clients that come in that are in that same situation. Like, dude, I've never hunted. I've

never fished. You know, no one in my family ever did it. I didn't know how to do it. How do I get into it? So I show them how to go through their hunter safety course. And then, you know, then they come out and hunt with us and I teach them like, okay, this is what stocking is. And like, we break it down and, you know, after the harvest, this is how we fill dress them and get the meat all prepared and take it home. And then what's super cool is that I get pictures all the time from these guys, like of recipes they've created with those animals and you know, it's them and their families and everyone just super happy, man. It's like so heartwarming for me to be a part of that type of journey for someone that had thought that they could never get into it, you know? It's just

fucking cool. That's very cool. That's very cool. Yeah. It's, uh, it's an immensely satisfying thing when you, you can go out and get your own food. And then when you're eating that, you're never going to forget the experience you had, like the difficult times you had, you know, hunting, The experience you had, like the difficult times you had, you know, hunting, stalking, just the physical fitness aspect of it. I mean, that's the thing that people, a lot of people just don't know how much cardio it takes to do a mountain hunt. Like you have to be in some serious shape. I remember the first time I went with Rinella, we went to Montana and we were in the Missouri breaks, you know, uh, and we were, you know, going through these hills and mountain ranges. And I remember at the end of the day, you know, we had hiked for like fucking eight hours. Was that the mule deer hunt? Yeah. And I remember

like thinking like, Holy shit. Like this is, I'm like, I'm glad I work out. Like, this is crazy. If you're a person who doesn't ever work out at all, like how hard is this? It's hard, man. We, it's difficult. And then, you know, even on these elk hunting, like, I'd say elk is probably one of the harder for sure, especially if it's a pack-in type hunt, you know, A, because it's a big animal. You harvest that thing, like you said, 15 miles back in there. It's a lot of fucking work getting that meat out, you know. And, you know, I think that's probably the pinnacle

of it but yeah mule deer hunting you're in those types of situations you've never been in before hiking those big ass mountains dude it's crazy that doll sheep hunt we did last year i'd say that's probably the hardest hunt i've ever done we did just over 90 miles in 10 days of hiking oh god we went up and over like four four or five different mountain ranges i remember the first day we hiked to the one and we're glassing and a fucking doll sheep's bright white so you can see it on that dark open hillside like 20 miles away you know right and it's like oh there's definitely sheep over there. We're going to have to get a closer look, though. So you see, like, one, two, three, four mountain ranges. And our guide's like, you see that fourth range?

Yeah, we're going to go up and over that by the end of this. And me and my buddies all look at each other like, the fuck we are? I'm not doing that shit. Can we get a helicopter or something? But, you know, you break it up. You're doing 8 to 15 miles a helicopter or something, you know? But, you know, you break it up. You're doing 8 to 15 miles a day depending, you know, and it's just – I mean, I remember there was days where the climb was so long. You're climbing, and it's one of those, like, step, kick your toe in, step up.

Step, kick your toe in, step up. And you're doing that for, like, five hours straight. You know, you take a break every once in a while, sip, you know, snack, whatever you do, and then you're just that for like five hours straight you know you take a break every once in a while sip you know do snack whatever you do and then you're just kicking towing up kicking are you using mountaineering boots uh yeah i mean no no no i mean i'm using very stiff sold boots um i think that when i was using the some crispies that you know it was a very very high end basically meant for the sheep type terrain. How do you know, like I wear crispies too a lot of times.

How do you know what boot to choose for a hunt like that? Because if you've never done a doll sheep hunt before. I basically asked around. I have a bunch of buddies that have done a lot of that stuff. And it's, you know, obviously I can do some research online but it's typical online like you can get an answer over here that's one way and then you can get an answer over here that's completely different so for me it's I wanted to I like asking buddies that have actually been there and done it firsthand and so I had a bunch of buddies that had hunted in Alaska and they kind of all steered me towards I don't know it was maybe like two was maybe like two or three different boots. And then I just basically chose one of them and went with it. Um,

did you have to break it in first? I did. I, I got, I got those boots probably three months, but maybe two months before my hunt and, uh, was just loading up my, my Kuyu pack and basically crushing it daily with, with a hike. There's a good area close to my house that basically it's fucking straight up and straight down for like four or five miles. And you hike down to the river and then you're basically hiking straight back out of this Canyon. And that's what I would do for training with, you know, obviously leading up, I would start off with a lighter amount of weight. And then as I got closer, I was getting heavier and heavier and heavier until I think I was at like 70 or 80 pounds in my pack. And, um, that's what I was doing at the end. And then I think my pack was about 55 or 60 pounds total with everything gun

and everything water. Um, and that's basically what I was packing around out there. So people don't know, they don't know how hard it is right and i didn't fucking get one that's that's the you know that's that's part of the hunt you know we did over 90 miles we were back there living out of a backpack for 10 days did you get close well we saw over 150 sheep there's tons of sheep but there was a huge winter kill off uh that year of all the mature ram so for people that don't know a doll sheep ram has to be of legal age so it has to be at least eight years old and how you tell and this is the most fucked thing ever is you have to get close enough to them and count the rings uh that are on their yeah the growth

rings and it's like they have false annual false ones ones basically. So, you know, basically what the guide was telling us is sometimes when, so basically how they get these rings is when they go through winter and food is very scarce and their body goes into basically like shock. They're pretty much like so run down that all their energy source goes into staying alive. So their horns stop growing. And then when snow melts off and things start getting green and lush and life gets easy again, they're like, fuck. Okay. And their horns stop growing. And then when snow melts off and things start getting green and lush and life gets easy again, they're like, fuck. Okay. And then they start

growing. And so that's what causes those rings. Every year they go through that winter, they get that, that ring. Um, and this, you know, this is what the guide was telling us is sometimes, you know, the snow will start to melt off and, you know, stuff starts blooming and they start thinking, okay, shit, it's time to start growing again. Their body starts growing. And then a huge winter storm will come and be like, psych and just fuck, like fuck them up. And so basically it'll cause those false annuli, which if you don't know what you're looking at, sometimes you're like, oh, that's definitely ring. And guys kill sheep that are seven years old not eight and you're screwed man you're gonna you're in so much trouble you lose you know they take it from you you lose your hunting license

you get fined i think there's even some instances if it's bad enough jail time like it's like legit yeah and so you know and it's it's not you have to in alaska you have to have a guide with you you you can't just go out there as a non-resident and hunt so you have to have a guide your guide obviously has to know the age and it's on you too so if i listen to my guide and he's like oh it's definitely eight shoot it and we walk up and it's seven i'm fucked too because i listen to my guide i have to like it's on me and him wow and so it has to be eight broomed off meaning like the tips are broken off, or a full curl. So the tips of the horns have to come up and break the line of like the profile of its neck. So eight and shitty horns, you still can't shoot it?

No, if it's eight, you can still shoot it if you can count eight rings. Okay. So even if he has shitty genetics and it's like a half curl, but he's eight, he's legal. Or if he's five and just great genetics and he's a full curl but he's eight he's legal or if he's five and just great genetics and he's a full curl he's legal oh really yeah interesting or if he's busted off they call it broomed and i don't know why exactly that makes him legal i'm guessing they figure the mature rams are the only ones that get so long that well i guess it makes sense he probably was full curl and what they say is it starts blocking their vision so they bust those off oh really to break it down here so that now they can

see because they're such a visual on rocks and huh even feeding in areas where they're eating like some of the lichen and i think they're rubbing on rocks when they're those real long rams speaking of lichen have you ever done a caribou hunt? I want to. Me too. That's definitely on the bucket list. That's a crazy hunt, man. I've heard just the terrain, like making your way over those weird patches. What do they call those things? They're essentially like small stumps, but it's like moss, and in between them it's like marshy.

I know what you're talking about. It's supposedly a nightmare to traverse because you're stepping on these things, and everywhere you go you could jack your ankle. And then if you're packing out, like if you shoot a caribou, and then you've got to get it out of there. Yeah. I know Ronella's done quite a few of them up there, and it looks awesome. It looks awesome.

It looks like a tough hunt for sure, like it can be as far as even finding them. But I've also seen hunts where they come across that migration and there's just thousands of them. Yeah, they just catch it perfect. The other thing is with Alaska. Alaska is really interesting where you can't hunt the day you fly. Yeah, that's right. So you have to fly and then like if you fly and land and then you are there when the migration hits. You're like, fuck. And then you have to literally go follow them.

And then, again, like we said, traversing that stuff is a nightmare. They might have moved 30 miles down the road. Yeah. And so you have to. And the huge, wide, open expanses where these caribou are roaming through, too. Yeah. It looks wild up there. It's cool.

And I've eaten caribou, and it's amazing meat, too. That's what I've heard. Yeah. It's really good. I haven't had it, but I've heard it's incredible. Rinella did a hunt up there with Tim Ferriss, and a grizzly smelled their meat and started running towards them. And he had to scare it off. No way.

Yeah. It's all on video. It's fucking wild. Rinella's had a few grizzly encounters on video. Two on video where they had to scare him off with guns, and then, of course, the one on a Fognac Island where they didn't capture it on video because they were actually eating lunch

when the bear bum-rushed him. Dude, that's crazy. He's been around so many. We saw a couple up there on that sheep hunt. I think we saw two grizzlies and a big black bear, but they were way the fuck away. Thank God. They're a strange thing to behold, right? They're huge.

They're so big. I can't imagine one of those things like on top of you. Like you're not doing anything. You're rushing you. You're not doing anything to that. No. You're screwed. No.

And it's my friend Clay Newcomb. He's been on the podcast before. And it's my friend Clay Newcomb, he's been on the podcast before, he put out a video recently on bear defense, whether or not you should have bear spray or a pistol. And it's just like. I've heard both work, and I've heard instances where neither work. Uh-huh. It's like, what do you do?

And again, like, what's the caliber? Some guys say a 9mm actually penetrates better, and some guys say you want a.45 because you want more hit. I've heard people shooting and bullets deflecting off their skulls. Off their heads. Yeah. Because it's so thick. Fuck.

No thanks. Such a crazy way to go. A lady got killed recently who was a biker. I think somebody was killed. She was a cyclist. Yeah. Yeah, I believe who was a biker. I think somebody was. She was a cyclist. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it was a lady.

But there's like this cycling path that is very popular. And a lot of folks take this cycling path, they bike, mountain bike, and then they stop in this one spot and camp. And this bear went into her tent and pulled her out and killed her. Yeah, dude, that's one of my biggest fears. I think about that shit every time I'm camping. It's a good fear. Yeah. I'm like scoot away from the edge of the tent.

When you do an archery hunt, do you pack a gun? Yeah, so like Montana, you know. Anywhere that's grizzly? Mm-hmm. And I don't know if you're supposed to, but you know, it's like, I think if I go to a state and I know that there's tons of grizzlies and you're not supposed to, I'll take the fine over getting eaten alive, you know? And I don't, you know, it's like, yeah.

What caliber do you bring? I think I, I think I usually bring a 40, the 45 or the 40 even I've brought, but dude, it's like, I don't know. I've heard, I've heard bad things about all calibers, but yeah. Yeah. I want to bring a missile launcher. Seriously. Can I just pack a rifle? Can I have a bazooka? They're so fucking big. I don't think people realize how big they are until you see one. We were in Montana with my family a few years back. We went to this, they have like a sanctuary for grizzlies. And you can go there and you pay and you watch these grizzlies.

I don't know if they were problem bears that they captured. I forget what it was. But one of the things that they did is they gave these bears frozen watermelons. So they had a frozen watermelon. Just chewing on it. They tear it apart like it's nothing really it's basically a boulder right it's a rock of ice but it's a frozen watermelon and this bear just grabs it like like it's nothing man that's your skull like oh my god yeah yeah your skull is

yeah like a zit it's gonna pop it's horrific watching that thing eat the watermelon, but it was such an eye-opener because I was like, okay. Yeah. Because, you know, we have this idea about physical strength of anything based on our own physical strength. So we assume, well, I guess it's stronger than me, but how much stronger? Yeah. Dude, an impossible-to-imagine level of strength.

Yeah. that's crazy Just biting right through a frozen watermelon like it's nothing and that's that's that thing not even like angry or scared Yeah, like exactly if that if yeah if you Bumped in that thing and it was terrified and it was coming after you that's amplified even though you know That's such a fear of mine just coming around a corner like even in Alaska ask all my buddies like I'm just terrified I'm like I'm gonna go in the middle of the pack like you let you guys go up there but I don't want to be the last one in line either yeah you know have you ever encountered wolves yeah yeah I uh that Montana hunt we'd me and a

buddy of mine we had just stalked in on a big bull that was screaming with his cows. And I closed the distance and flung an arrow right over his back. And we hiked out that morning, just tails tucked. And we come up on this big sage flat, and there's a group of antelope, I don't know, probably 200 yards in front of us. And we just sit there, and we're watching them feed. And they ended up just feeding out of view and we take one more step well there was a big ass wolf like 20 yards in front of us laying under a tree in the shade that we didn't see because we were focused on the antelope and we take one step and that thing jumps up and just takes off in front of us out through the wide open

sage flats dude that's another thing that people don't realize how big, I mean, I didn't know, like seeing one of those things in person, you're like, holy shit, that thing is huge. How big do you think it was? I mean, I would guess that thing probably 180 pounds at least. Really? Oh, it was, it looked huge. Like bigger than any dog I've ever seen. Wow. It was giant. I mean, I don't know. Fuck, it could have been 200 pounds. It could have been 120 pounds, but it looked giant. Probably a little lighter than you think.

Yeah, probably. Because they're fluffy and, you know, they have all that fur. Its head on it, I mean, it looked like it was like this, just like a big old dome. But, I mean, I'm sure it was thinking about eating some of those antelope that we came up behind them, you know. But no, it was. I only saw one once in Alberta, but it was at dusk and I just saw it run across a road. I was like, is that a dog? Oh, shit, it's a wolf.

It was a little too big to be a coyote, I think. I mean, it might have been a coyote, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf. It was a little too big. I've always had something for wolves and werewolves, actually, which is crazy. That movie, I grew up watching American Werewolf in London and American Werewolf in Paris even. But my mom-

How dare you mention the two of those in the same time. I know, I know. It's not the same movie. But I remember as a kid, that always terrified me more than anything. But I liked watching it. I don't know it's fucking weird but like the the thought of a werewolf like that was always something that

scared the shit out of me even like going in the woods at night when i'm hunting like hiking out or like that shit still scares the shit out of me not necessarily a werewolf but yeah just the thought of like a wolf or a bear but i think the thing is that wolves like coyotes, we were talking about coyotes being so smart. I think wolves are so smart that a lot of times people decide there's no way an animal can be this smart. It must be like a person that turned into a wolf. I think that's what they thought of. I mean, that's just a thought, but it's just so strange that this myth persists, but it doesn't persist with other animals right yeah like there's not a lot of like myths about a person turns into a bear or a

person that turns in I mean there was that one movie cats do you remember that movie with David Bowie yeah oh yeah I always think of The Labyrinth, too, with him. With Bowie? Yeah. But he had that movie. What was that lady's name? Natasha Kinski? Is that her name?

Yeah. Really hot lady from the 1980s. Who was a... I think it might have been in the 70s. Fuck. What was that movie from? Cats. I remember the name Cats, and I think I've probably seen stuff.

I bet if we watched it today, we'd probably die laughing. It's probably super corny special effects. Cat People. Cat People? Is that what it was? Oh, Cat People. Was that? Maybe.

I typed it. Yes. Cat People? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a dumb name. Malcolm McDowell's in there from Clockwork Orange? Really?

Let me see this. There it is. Natasha Kinski. Yep. Oh. Let me see some video from this stupid movie. Because I remember thinking at the time it was the shit. Because it was like this really hot lady who turns into a fucking like a cat is this

oh that's not oh this is this is a movie about crazy people who live with too many cats that is it 82 yeah now on blu-ray that was her do you remember blu-ray that was i do they still exist do they people have home theaters by blu-ray so she backs up I can't I can't make out with you because I'm a fucking cat I gotta say I've actually seen this this is like what's wrong why are you scared of me she's like but somebody eat you Malcolm McDowell. Wow. Oh, shit. Oh, she just turns into it?

That was it? Oh, no, no, no. Here she comes. Uh-oh. Oh, she's going to take her clothes off. Woo! She's looking at him. That looked like Faber. Oh, the woman taking her clothes off, looking back.

Oh, shit. Pulls off looking back. 1982 was so corny. Oh, dude. The guy breaks through. Oh, and she's a cat. Oh, boy, this is so dumb. Oh, my God.

So, wait, is he one, too? I guess he's a cat, too. I don't remember. They're going to breed the cats? I want to see the transformation. They might have skipped it. Oh, man. It has to be a transformation. Maybe there's no transformation.

That might have been too bad. They just skipped it. I feel like all these movies back then were kind of the same. Do you remember Silver Bullet? That was another one. Yes, Stephen King. Silver Bullet. We had, obviously, American Werewolf in London. It wouldn't be in the trailer let me find it I guess

so they might not have had a scene it might have been I loved it all those types of movies they're so bad when you watch a horrible silver bulls so terrible so bad but got it you got it oh it is There is a transformation Oh she's washing her hands Yes Whoa That's on YouTube? Tittai? Holy shit

They show on Tittai on YouTube How they show on Tittai? I don't know Someone missed it Yeah Did you show that on the screen? No no no Thank you

We're not watching it We're getting big fucking trouble Really? Our hands That's a solid minute of tit A solid tit minute Yeah That's nice What's gonna tit. A solid tit minute. Yeah. That's nice. What's gonna happen?

Come on. Let's get going. Oh, she's with a regular white dude. That guy's fucked. Oh, here she goes. Claws. She's getting more titty. Super important. Oh, okay. The brows are changing. The eyeballs. Right? Oh, here we go. What's happening? This is like an excuse to show her tits.

Whoa, the face. Oh, man. Oh, it's kind of creepy. Dude, this is great. I bet she's going to do that and then immediately be a cat. Yeah. I bet they're going to turn away. Oh, the claws.

Oh, yeah. Dun, dun, dun, dun. And he's sleeping. Oh, dude, it's just like American Werewolf. Oh, the titties are going away. Come on. Oh, dude, that's brutal. Oh, it comes out of the skin.

She popped out of the skin. Oh, it's wrestling with him? Get off me. This is my biggest fear. I'm waking up in my tent for this and it just runs away that's awesome well what a whack movie dude that's crazy this movie's whack i've never even heard of it the crazy thing is it like it seems like she's changing and then it bursts out of her yeah and it's like a cat her skin just goes away they didn't think there's a cat inside of her well you know it's like a cat. Her skin just goes away. They didn't think that one through very well. Well, you know, it's like 1982 special effects.

Pop. Look at it. Yeah. Like, it bursts. Ah! The fucking cat comes out. Blah! It looks like a gorilla at first.

There's no better scene, a transformation scene, than American Werewolf. Oh, dude. I love it. When the guy's, like, lying on the floor of that girl's apartment. Yeah. Extend out. His fucking back is popping. All the hair is coming out.

It's the best. Oh, yeah. I had Rick Baker on the podcast. Yeah, I had him on. Oh, my God. It was amazing. I'm going to have to watch that. It was so cool just to be around that guy.

I worshipped him when I was a kid. I wanted to be a makeup artist at one point in time when I was a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to do special effects for monster movies. I was like, that guy is so cool. Like all the stuff that he did for Star Wars and I mean, so many films, man. That is awesome. So many movies that guy did special effects for. But yeah, man, those kind of animals, whether it's big cats or wolves and there's something about them like i'm glad they exist

it's it's something dope about running into one you know i've only seen mountain lions a couple times i saw one in the distance in colorado and one um when i was in um santa barbara i was in montecito and we were driving i saw one run across the street oh shit yeah night at first i thought it was a coyote and then I saw the tail I was like Oh my god Look at his fucking tail That's a cat Oh

Yeah that's crazy And I realized It was a mountain lion They're crazy I've only seen a handful In the wild And they give me the chills Every single time

They're amazing I'm glad they're real But that would be A suck way to go Yeah Do you see that recently That video Like the hiker

Yeah we played it A bunch of times Just like Smack I would've shit Oh my god I would've been done Yeah Do you see that recently, that video, like the hiker? Yeah, we played it a bunch of times. He's like, bop, bop, bop, just like smack. I would have shit. Oh, my God. I would have been done. Yeah, and he was like, what the fuck? Fuck you.

Fuck you. Wish I had a gun. Yeah, but that was another case of a mama and her cubs. You don't fuck with a mama and her cubs, man. Yeah, he's really lucky that's all she did Instead of just tagging him She was like get out of here Just ripping his fucking face off He's really really really lucky

But the way it ran at him With the paws He just smacked I didn't know they did that I've never seen one do that and I don't want to I guess you only see it right before you die That's probably why we haven't seen it before like all you ever see is like they're moving slowly unless you're watching there's some pretty cool trail cam footage of them jacking deer yeah i've

seen some of those oh my god he's drinking out of a guzzler and wham just smacks it fast and hard just come in on them damn they're uh they're amazing animals but again that's one of the things that you appreciate about the wild when you're out there is that like if you didn't exist this is how it all goes down it's wolves and bears and mountain lions and deer and elk and all these animals trying to survive and it's just it's a magical place man i wish more people would experience it and i'm really glad that someone like you has this service with Fins and Feathers where you'll take people out that don't have any experience whatsoever in that world and you can introduce it to them. I mean, what a fucking, for a fan, like what a great thing to be able to hang with you for a week and to be able to be introduced to the wild. Yeah.

Yeah. If we can basically teach them enough to be able to provide for themselves for the rest of their life. Like that's, for me, that's awesome. It's pretty dope. It's pretty fucking cool. So, so your website for that is how do people get to it? Uh, fins and feathers.com and we spell fins and feathers with a Z.

What are you wacky? I know. Well, somebody else had the other one and they wouldn't sell it to us. So what is on there? I don't, who knows? I had never Well, somebody else had the other one, and they wouldn't sell it to us. What is on there? Who knows? I never even looked. Oh, really? Yeah.

Well, don't go to the one with the S. No S's. We want Z's. If you want to go hang with Chad Mendez, you need the Z's. Fins and feathers. Yeah, I know. And then peak refuel. And then your almond beef is your company.

So almond beef is like they're just eating almonds? Yeah, so basically what we do, here's kind of the thought, And then your almond beef is your company. So what was those almond beef is like, they're just eating almonds or they. So basically what we do here is kind of the, the thought of the reasoning why we started this company is we were kind of talking about it earlier. Like people, you know, wanting, at least for me, I get hit up a ton from people like, dude, I see all the elk that you got or the deer. Can I buy some? And it's like, I can't legally sell you any wild game.

Plus I don't know you. I'm not going to just ship you a bunch of meat but how i was like how can we create something like in the beef industry that is as close as we can possibly get to the health benefits of wild game and so we basically take these cows most of them angus we do some angus cross and pasture raised, no hormones, no antibiotics, no soy, no corn. We pasture raise them the last 150 days. We basically feed these steers our proprietary blend of feed, which is almonds. I mean, my team's probably not going to want me to say this, but I think this is probably one of our most important selling points on the beef, but is the healthy diet that they're eating. But it's almonds, the almond whole, which is like that fuzzy part on the outside, tons

of fiber, tons of protein, tons of fat, obviously from an almond. We got sunflower seeds, the shells, prune, prune pit, beet pulp, like the pulp from the skin and all that stuff. Brown rice. So when they polish brown rice to make it white rice, they take all that healthy stuff off of it. We throw all that shit in there. And then we do like alfalfa and then some type of roughage, like a barley hay or something like that.

So like I said, no soy, no corn. And that feed, which is super high octane, high in fat, high in protein, high in carbohydrates, is all we feed them for the last 100 to 150 days, which basically we were kind of testing all this out over the last year or so and just seeing the type of marbling it's given this beef it's you know obviously leaving them super tender meat's phenomenal i got some i'll go ahead and try and see what you think but yeah i'm really interested in trying it the fat on it has like almost like a buttery nutty flavor flavor. Because of the almonds? Yeah.

It's really good. Do they have the dark texture to the meat the same like grass-fed beef does? Yeah. Yep. We got – and it varies. Our meat is frozen. So basically what we do is it's frozen. It's basically like a butcher box or something like that where you can go on and order whatever cuts you want on our website.

And then it shows up frozen on your doorstep when it's not frozen. Like if you get that beef and it's fresh off, it's so dark. It's like that really rich looking stuff. But obviously once it freezes, you know, you lose a little bit of that, but, um, yeah, man, it's, it's something that's unique. It's different. We wanted to do something that was healthier in the beef world. different we wanted to do something that was healthier in the beef world you know obviously it's not quite wild game and i can't sell wild game but we wanted to create something that was healthier in that sense that where people can go online they can feel confident knowing like you know these are humanely raised they don't have a ton of shit pumped in them right and they're eating a good diet you know and this is all farmly or family-owned uh operations like our so it's me and four other buddies that started this

and like one of our guys one of our guys is one of the biggest almond growers in northern california so we get a lot of our almonds from him which is cool you know it's all family-owned the merlot family um and then you know the other two guys that are part of it have been in the cattle industry their whole lives so they know that world like the back of their hand and then, you know, the other two guys that are part of it have been in the cattle industry their whole lives. So they know that world like the back of their hand. And then, uh, me and my good buddy, Chad Belding, he's, um, the owner of, and the host of Fowl Life TV on the outdoor channel. So me and him are kind of, you know, obviously the people that are just letting people know

about this stuff. And so, you know, it's been, we launched at the beginning of the year. It's been a ton of work. I mean, fuck, I never thought I was going to be in the beef industry, but it's like, holy fuck. So what is the website? How do people find it? Americanalmondbeef.com. Okay.

And they're all going to make fun of me because they call them almonds. I don't know if you ever heard these guys. Northern California, they say- They call them almonds? Almonds. Really? They shake the L out of them is what they say. I don't know.

Really? Yeah. They call them American almond, like a handful of almonds I don't know. It's, really? Yeah. They call them American Ammon, like a handful of Ammons. What? All the farmers call it that. Yeah. Have you ever heard that?

Yeah. That's like, uh, you ever heard people call acorns, acorns? No. Acorns. Yeah.

It's like a South thing. Yeah. It's weird. I say almonds. Yeah. It's an almond, you fucks. Cut the shit. American Ammon beef. Yeah, it's an almond, you fucks. Cut the shit.

American almond beef. Imagine if you said, yeah, we run a company called American Almond Beef. Like, what the fuck is an almond? I searched Google for almonds, and it's telling me almonds. It says, how do you say the word? And there's a bunch of articles talking about that. So it is only a Northern California thing? I think it's just a Northern California farmer.

All the farmers call it that for some reason. And they look at you weird if you say almond. They look at you weird. Like you're an outsider for saying it right. Well, either way, I'm sure the beef is delicious. I can't wait to try it out. But thanks for being here, brother. I appreciate it.

I'm glad we finally did this. And good luck in your fight. So October 22nd, is that what it is? October 22nd, yeah. And that'll be on Bare Knuckle. They do pay-per-view, right? They do, yeah. And I think it's kind of similar to the UFC.

Like you download an app. I think you can do stuff from the app. I think it's the Fight app, right? F-I-T-E, is that what it is? Glory uses that too, I think. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, okay. Thank you so much.

And Chad Mendez on Instagram, Twitter, all those things, right? Yep, yep. Okay. So we have the yeah we're all there you guys can Chad Mendez on

and it's with an S a lot of people think it's with a Z so only fins and feathers with a Z alright brother thanks for being here man

thank you so much man bye everybody Thank you.