The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 025

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

Episode 025: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Steven Rinella talks with Janis Putelis and Ron Leighton, a Vietnam veteran and former commercial fisherman. Subjects discussed: Janis' first Sitka blacktail buck; muskegs; deep-water shrimp trappin'; why Steve doesn't catch a fraction of the shrimps that Ron does; why do so many men cook nowadays, and what happened to women?; smoking, canning, and jarring octopus and halibut; commercial halibut fishing; saltwater as a cure for seasickness; identifying found art; Latvian power rings; shooting critters in the head vs. in the lungs; deer calls; and the one thing good about getting old. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. All right, this is the Meat Eater Podcast. We're recording Prince of Wales Island. I'm here with one of my favorite people on the planet, Mr. Ron Layton. What's your middle name, Ron?

No middle name. No middle name whatsoever. Just Ron Layton. And also Giannis, the Latvian lover, Putellis, who just got himself his first sick of black tail buck. Purely recreational hunt. Not like a thing. I want to be in the hero but tell them your hunting story honest you know i was retelling my hunting story about an hour ago over here and i found out that i killed jones buck no you did yeah he did i just told you i like the hunt down here in the lower muskegs.

We were in the lower muskegs. Because there were no muskegs. That's true. That's not a false statement. There are bucks all over the place. What about the other forky that he didn't? Johnny, tell your hunt story. I snuck up through some muskegs three nights ago.

This is a record. Say, why are you hunting at night? Let me set the stage real quick. What would you like me to call it? Pre-dusk. Three hours pre-dusk. We're out working on a secret project. And in the morning and at nighttime nighttime there's a little free time which yannis who you

might know from his famous t-shirt line the hunt to eat t-shirt line you can go to hunt eat.com buy one of yanni's t-shirts and help make him even richer than he's already become selling his t-shirts you should send ron a free t-shirt i will um. Joan would like one. The Alaska shirt's on its way. You're making an Alaska hunt to eat shirt? Yeah. Okay, so. So do you have any boots to go along with that shirt?

Nope. He's not in the boot making business. Yeah, just t-shirt, man. So, Yanni's been feeling some of his free time. Like the time normal people would spend going home watching TV after work, Yanni goes out and looks for black-tailed bucks.

Tell me your story, Yanni. I was sneaking around with bad wind. I ended up on a little knob. Like you were gassy? No, bad. There were no steady thermals. It was just the wind direction kept going. Willowa.

What do you call it willow willow that's a bad wind well you never know which way it's going to be blowing it doesn't it's not consistent it just it'll shift it might be coming out of the east one time out of the south another and then it's called the willow willow i hadowa, and it betrayed my location to what I thought was a buck. All I heard was boom, boom, boom, boom as it bounded off. So I ran over to where his bed was that I saw then. So he was in his bed. He ran off. I stood there and looked for 10 minutes, nothing.

I started still hunting down through the woods, waited for another 30 minutes, and I heard boom, boom, boom, boom again, and he drifted off. I stood there and looked for 10 minutes. Nothing. I started still hunting down through the woods, waited for another 30 minutes, and I heard boom, boom, boom again, and he drifted off. Never could catch up to him. But you just knew he was a buck. You could feel it in your bones. Single animal, you know.

He sounded heavy. He had a sweet... Where he was bedded, he added himself a real nice perch with a nice outlook. Seemed like a buck bed. Seemed like a place you'd sleep if you were a deer. Steve and I came back the next night.

Sneaking in real quiet. Real quiet with great wind from a different angle. We got to about, I don't know, 100 yards or so, maybe a little less of his bed. We sat down. Steve blew on his black-tailed deer call that Ron gave him. It's called the Summoner. Did you know I named that call the Summoner?

Really? Yeah. Because it summons them? That's exactly right. It's supposed to. That's why he gave it to you. Yeah. I'm going to get to black-tailed deer calls, your black-tailed deer calls in a minute.

But finish the story because I blew the Summoner. Yeah. We waited. It felt like 15. It might have been 10. But I had it in my head that we should be moving. I was getting ready to say, let's go. Let's go.

Ladies and gentlemen, picture this. This is dank, dark, temperate rainforest nastiness. Yeah. Here's that old buck. It looks thick when you just walk around it, through it, or whatever. The minute you start to hunt in there and try to find a small hundred... What do you think that buck weighs? 150 pounds or so?

I didn't see it. No, no. That average black-tailed buck. Probably that, yeah. 120? I think they look like 120 pounds. Yeah, so not a giant animal. But man, when you start looking for those suckers,

then you go, man, this place is really thick. It really is a jungle. Yeah. So anyways, we had one good- I laid down some sweet notes on the Summoner. We had one good shooting lane. And 10 minutes later, I was looking up at the top of the hill and saw a little brown patch move.

Told Steve to quit moving. So I promptly, he said, don't move. So I quickly moved in order to look where he was looking. By glass, there he was looking down at us, looking for that. Looking for that. What are they coming to look for, Ron, when they hear that call? They're curious. They become very curious.

And normally, you're not going to get a buck to come to a call this time of year. Usually, they will come during the rut. What we had going for us is we snuck in on his bed. I think all he had to do was basically stand up to be like, what the hell was that? Well, I think that's basically what he did. I don't think he traveled, probably.

He probably just was like, what's going on? Yeah. Well, curious. Yeah. Again. But when you... Hey, Yanni, go grab a couple of Ron's deer calls. Oh, I don't want to blow them now, do I?

I'll blow a damn thing. Oh, okay. So anyhow, Yanni shot the buck. It was a good shot. It was Yanni's first sick of black tail. Now, Ron, let me set the stage here a little bit just because I'll explain. Ron was born in Ketchikan, Alaska, many years ago. Spent his whole life doing a variety of things,

but always hunting and fishing and whatnot. And Yanni just laid down a large collection of Ron's primarily handmade Sitka blacktail calls or blacktail calls. First, I got a question for you, Ron. Before I ask a question, I'll explain. There's this stuff like you have the rainforest around here, just thick ass rainforest. A lot of it's old growth.

A lot of it's been cut at various times. It's just really hard to see. But here and there, there's these features out in the rainforest called muskeg. And I think it's successional. Like they were wetlands, you know, marshy ground where peat got built up and it creates these openings. It's like, it seems metal-like, but it's very heavy moss and sedge in there.

And it's like the only place you can actually see what's going on. Ron, do you think that the blacktails like the musk egg or is it just you can see them because it's the only place you can see anything? Do you think that they're actually in it or you just notice them because it's the first time you can see beyond arm's reach? Well,

I think on certain days they're going to be in those musk eggs because the sun's out. And they're just milling around. Normally, I mean, if it's a real bad day, if the sun is really pounding down, you're going to find most of the deer in the tall timber. Really? And if you've ever been in the edge of a tall timber

and have a breeze go through there, you'll understand why then. Because it's probably a good maybe 20 degrees cooler. And especially with a breeze coming down through the tall timber and the trees there. It's real comfortable. I know it was comfortable for me when I'm standing there in the tall timber rather than out in the sun.

And a lot of people don't realize it here, but the last couple summers was almost record-breaking as far as... It's hot as hell. Yes, it is. And I've had that throughout my life where you do have warmer summers than others. So I know what standing around in a musk egg could do to me, you know, and especially if there's no breeze at all.

Yeah. You're going to overheat, especially if you're in your camel gear or whatever. Do they like to feed in that musk egg? Is there grass or anything that grows in there that they like? You know, they like to forage anything. And in that musk egg there, a lot of them you might see that salal. Yep. Okay, well, they do eat the salal berry.

And if you look close when you're through there, you'll see a lot of the salal berries. And they'll forage on almost anything in there. Normally, they eat on a plant called deer heart. And this deer heart, the reason why it's called deer heart, the plant, the leaf itself is in the shape of a deer heart. Gotcha. But they find this very good. And there's been talk about how clear cuts will expose a lot of that deer heart to the sun,

which actually is bad for the deer heart. It takes a lot of the nutrition out of it. So a deer eating that is not going to have near the nutrition that it would have if they were eating that deer heart under the canopy. Gotcha. You know, in the tall timber. And in the wintertime, especially with deep snow and stuff like that, they are dependent on this deer heart in the tall timber.

And that's how it gets them through a deep, cold winter. I've seen deer when there's a lot of snow forced to the beach. And years ago, when you had a lot of snow forced to the beach, then there was some times that they had to actually bring bundles in of hay and start dropping it around on the beach edges just to help some of the deer survive the winter. No, no kidding. I've heard that when you get bad snow,

they'll come down to feed on like sea lettuce and kelp that washes up on the beach and stuff. Yeah, whatever they can get, whatever they can eat on. I see them on the beach all the time eating and they they're i think they are eating the goose tongue and the beach asparagus and and maybe even some of the pop weed or the the bulk help i know up at etlin island when they brought in transplants to elk, they have found that the elk really like the bull kelp. So they would come down and they'd be all over the beaches eating the bull kelp.

And they are thinking that maybe that is why this group of elk here have some record-size antlers. Really? Getting minerals and stuff from the... Minerals, yes. And they do. They won't allow those antlers to be entered in or counted within any of their Boone and Crockett. Because it's introduced or something? Experimentally. Call it an introduced or something? Experimentally.

Call it an experimental herd. Really? Yeah. You know, those elk, like, Edlin's the one they swim off

when they come to Prince of Wales, right? Correct, yes. Well, they swim, they were transplanted only on Edlin Island

in the area there, but since then they migrated over into, what's that another island? I want to say Somobia. But, and now you can't hunt these. On both those islands, Etlin and Somobia,

it's only a drawing for elk. Yeah and but if they make it to this island you can kill them on a deer tag a non-resident can kill it i don't know what a resident is but a non-resident if you see an elk on this island the deer tag is all you need to hunt that out is that true with you they keep make they keep liberalizing it used to be how much how much was your deer tag because when i do tag here for non-residents, $150. Okay, because when I talked to them here, I was just checking into that just for you. And they talked about how it would be, I think, $250 for you to get a permit to get an elk on this island.

But it's not a drawing. Yeah, they keep changing it, man. Like, they keep making it more and more easy. Well, it's probably because they're becoming thicker and thicker. They don't want them to get a full hold, yeah. Until they fully understand what type of impact they would have on the local deer population, the Sitka deer, blacktail. So until then, I think they want to be cautious

about allowing them to spread. And they are spreading. On the north end of the island here, there's a pretty good herd that was established in there. I'd like to get in after those things, man. They, yeah yeah and there was two there was a roosevelt elk and the rocky mountain rocky mountain introduced and i couldn't i don't know the difference between either one of them you know if i if i was the elk as an elk

you what you might be able to tell the difference yeah i mean of them you know if i if i was the elk it's an elk you what you might be able to tell the difference yeah i mean yeah i mean there's some on the extremes on a big grown-up one i can look at them and tell just on just sort of like the way they're shaped you know what i'm saying they're like stubbier um just for background i i always tell the story the way I met Ron I wouldn't have met you if it weren't for you giving

my brother Danny a jar of smoked octopus I don't know how that was because he came to your house years ago in 2002 he came to your house and you drove him around while they were doing some

work you sent him home with a jar of smoked octopus he brought that jar of smoked octopus to my house to share it I ate the smoked octopus to my house to share it. I ate the smoked octopus.

It was the best thing I ever had. And I said, I want to meet the dude that made that smoked octopus. So that's how you got up here the following year then? We came up to fish. Right. And I thought of you. And before, I didn't know your name, but I called you the smoked octopus guy. Smoked octopus guy. Ron does a lot of shrimp trapping.

Explain shrimp trapping and explain how you get octopus in there now and then. Well, the trap is big enough. And actually, I had some octopus in there that were pretty good size. And, of course, the entry holes on a shrimp trap are, for the most part, about two inches across, maybe. Round. And the size octopus that I got in that trap there, I just have to think, how?

How do they get in there? Yeah, because the thing's 30, 40 pounds that get in there. Oh, absolutely. And their head is as big as yours. I mean, it's as big as a human head at that point. I don't get it either how they get in there. No. They get in there because they want to eat the shrimp, right?

Right. The base of their tentacle is actually about the size of what would slide through there. So they have the tentacles plus their body. So they have to probably do it slow and squeeze in there, but I guess they do it. I mean, they do it that way. Yeah, a shrimp trap, like picture it in your mind, like picture, I don't know man, like a bushel basket that's quite a bit bigger than a bushel basket.

But the same basic shape. And like a compressed cylinder, you know. And you put bait in there. You usually use salmon parts, heads, whatever, fish heads, clean fish. And you put halibut head or salmon head in there. Yeah, I don't. In my shrimp pots, I don't use halibut carcasses it doesn't seem to work as well as it does with the salmon heads or carcasses so that I I want to when I put

my pot I want to be as efficient as I can because obviously the price of fuel is an issue. So when I set my pots, I want to be very efficient. And I learned over time, you know, when they call hanging bait. Yeah. Well, you don't ever want to hang bait in your pot. Hang it from the top down yeah what are you talking about is uh let me let me finish just let me i want to get this i just want to explain to some people a picture we're talking about it's like a cylindrical trap and it has funnel shaped entries on it so you know the shrimp can kind of he wants to get in there and he finds his way through

these little funnel entries and it's harder for him to get out. It doesn't prevent him from getting out because you see him squirting out of there all the time, but it generally holds them in there. And these shrimp are big, like the ones you target are called spot shrimp, big ass shrimp, deep cold water. And they were going feed off salmon heads or just carcasses you know and you set in between 30 and 50 fathoms a fathom six feet so deep water well actually different areas cause you to fish at different depths so wherever wherever I find so if I move into area with my pots and I have 10 pots, I want to set them in various different depths. So I want to spread out

and try to find where I get the best pots, where the depths that they're fishing best at in certain areas you might find around 40 fathoms is effective and that's the best other areas it could be 60 and where i'm at now that's the case about 60 62 is what i target now. So 360 feet of water. Right. Yeah. And it's... And what were you saying about hanging bait? You don't like the name hanging bait?

Hanging bait means you're just taking a carcass. Like, people use different baits for shrimp. Like, you can take this stuff. Like, it looks like dog food. It's actually made like a commercial bait. It looks like dog food. You fill it full of a little can. But that's all shit you got to buy, you know?

Hanging bait, that just means like a carcass, right? You put it on a skewer. dog food you fill it full of a little can but that's all you got to buy you know hanging bait that just means like a carcass right you put it on a skewer like on a looks like a souped up uh safety pin yeah it's a souped up safety pin so you you pierce your fish parts and usually go through the the uh both eyes and the head and then uh bring in the tail. So the reason why I do that is I don't want anything floating atop, and that's what I'm saying. When they say hanging bait, it's a misnomer. Floating bait. Well, actually, it is floating bait.

So I put my bait on the bottom of the trap so that it won't float up to the top. So if you have it on the top hanging down, then your bait's going to float up to the top, and that's all the shrimp have to do for the most part. Sit on top of the trap. Sit on top of the trap outside and eat. So you're not catching the amount of shrimp you could catch if you had it on the bottom. And that's what I found over time. I'll point out, I have shrimp pots, and I don't get a fraction of the shrimp that Ron gets in his pot set in the same water.

Kind of pisses me off. But that's one thing. Yanni's got a big cold. You hear him? He got a cold out deer hunting. He's not used to being cold and wet. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever

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Welcome to the OnX club club y'all when you used to uh did you ever commercially shrimp no well i had a little bit okay and uh it was just for a couple seasons nothing yeah but it was nothing big, you know. It qualified me for a pot fishery license. But for me, I'm not into that. I'm not into going out and running pot fishing. What do you mean? You just didn't enjoy it? That kind of fishing? Yeah, I really didn't.

And the time of year that they set the season for is a bummer because that season there just happens to be executed at the time when the shrimp are fully egged. And everybody, or you know, that the shrimp are unisex. So they both, if there's such a thing, is both male and female. Or mafroditic. Right. So they are all egg bearers.

Okay. So visualize the time of year I start shrimping in June or July. You as personal use. Yes. Like subsistence use. Well, as my gathering. Yeah. I don't like the word subsistence. But so I just call it the use of the resource or customary and traditional use.

So this, this shrimping, when I shrimp, maybe 1%, if that, are egged. But if you come into October, starting in late September, they all become started to become egged. And it's going to turn it around to where upwards of 75% to 80% are egged. Yeah. And it bothers me that this here is allowed to go on. In fact, it was this way in British Columbia, and it became problematic to the quantities of shrimp. I mean, they started dropping, and they figured out why. So what they did is modified their seasons to, I think they start in April.

So they're all spawned out. They're already hatched. So you're not taking a shrimp out loaded you're waiting till it's you know hatched and by doing that they're having a pretty good season down there for for their commercial guys another thing they've been doing down there is they would uh they wouldn't go back and fish an area until after three years gone by so they'll fish this one area let's say uh 2001 they won't go back to that same area until about 2004 so what they do is send their fleets out to a different area. Let everything rebound.

Everything rebound. No chance of it becoming damaged. And everybody, all of your consumer groups, whether it be commercial or personal use or sport or anything, have a better catch rate, a better success at their ability to get shrimp. So here I've been trying to convince a biologist in Ketchikan to drop the season down a little bit, let it rebound. I've had commercial shrimp fishermen say they should do this. They've noticed the catch declining. Well, sure, they did. And a lot of them just, they can't bring it upon themselves

to even go out there and fish it. But does that mean it's going to rebound? Maybe not. There's other people that come in here and fish. Maybe they don't know the area's here. But every time a person moves in, he doesn't come in with one pot, he comes in in 100. And some of them have 125 pot permit or license.

So even by that, even by coming in and experimenting and stuff like that, you're still catching fish or removing them out that are fully egg. How do you describe the area where a shrimp – how do you describe the area where you like to set for shrimp? Well – Like what are they looking for? Because it just seems almost kind of arbitrary. I'm sure it's not.

I find the areas that I like to set my pots you could see on your sounder the colors and whether the colors are darker or more color there that's a denser bottom with a denser bottom that's seems to me that you have better success with that situation and if there's no color in there are very little and you can see a little bit i find that to be a real

muddy bottom and i've brought some pots up after setting there you know and it just covered with that clay type mud and i had rocks up on top of it everything and I don't know what was going on. Rocks on top of the trail? Rocks. I mean, mud-type rocks. And I think probably when I was pulling it, maybe it shoveled some up. But that tells me then the bottom is pretty deep in that mud. Yeah.

And maybe that's the place where they spawn. I don't know. But you don't have a real success rate of catch there because of that. And I know that when I bring my pot up that their mud really has a bad smell. Phosphorus. A bad smell. Yeah. So explain what you do when you catch the octopus. How do you prepare the octopus? And I know that when you catch the octopus how do you make the how do you prepare the octopus and I know that you turn

when you catch him you turn his head inside out like turn the mantle inside out well that's part of part of how you kill him but I mean I like to remove the mantle

as soon as possible and you don't cut that meat up I do and I have and I will yes but remove the mantle as soon as possible. You don't cut that meat up. I do, and I have, and I will, yes. But for the smoked octopus in a jar, I just tend to use the tentacles, which makes better texture. Oh, it's amazing, yeah. everything down.

So when I get that, I put it in a bucket. You can still see, even with the head off, that tentacles are moving around. They're still trying to crawl out of the bucket. So after I get back, let's say, after I get back, then what I do is I cut away each tentacle and then with a suction cup still on it and stuff like that, I put them in my sink and then I take the hide off.

After I get the hide off... How do you do that? Boil it off or skin it off? I skin it off. And I found that if you take the stainless steel sink there and if it's not been frozen or cooled too much, you could put the suction cups on there. They stick to the side. So then you could take your other hand and pull that hide. It stretches out quite a ways.

So you do that, and at the same time, you sit down there and cut with your knife all the way down. It removes pretty easy. It doesn't remove everything because you have a little bit around the tentacles, but I don't want to remove that because of the suction cups. I don't want to remove that because I don't want to lose any of the suction cups that's all part of the good part good part you know so you skin each arm out I skin each these arms might be four feet long three feet long right might be but uh

it doesn't matter on the size or anything like that it's just I want to get the skin off of it, the hide off of it as much as I can. Then I put it into boiling water and I bring it back to a roll boil. And I'm talking vigorous roll boil. And allow that to boil away and keep it in there for about 30 minutes. And any other fish you do this to is going to toughen it. Or have it fall apart eventually. One or the other, but on the octopus there, it actually tenderizes it.

So after that, then I take it out, and then it's the time that I cut them up into the size pieces I want. Then we go to a brine, and I use a dry brine. It's four parts brown sugar to one part salt. I don't want to use a lot of salt in there because the octopus meat really draws the salt out faster than any of the sugar. So I go a four to one brine. And then once that's brined enough, which doesn't take very long at all. The pieces, not the whole arm,

but you got it cut up. I got it cut up already the size of a piece. Like you cut up a hot dog for a little kid. Chunks like that. Right, right. And that's the pieces that are going to go into the jar. So it's already to go into the jar. What about smoking?

Oh, you're smoking. No, after smoking. But I mean, so once you're doing that, then we take them out. And I say we. My wife is either doing it or assisting me in doing it. And she is getting pretty good at it, probably better than me. You know, ladies are good cooks.

Well, it's true. Not mine. Not yours, huh? You don't like to cook. Well, I live in a modern family, man. You do? Yanni lives in a modern family.

I know. I think your brother does too, huh? He lives in a modern family. Right. Who cooks more in your family, Yannis? You do the most cooking. Between my wife and I? Yeah.

I do. Did you know that that's how shit is now around how would I know that I don't know just talking to guys like young guys well yeah but I've noticed

I've noticed a little bit with your brother whenever I travel north I go out to their place for dinner and yeah he's doing some he's doing the cooking, but I didn't know that was all the time, constantly.

It's more and more dudes nowadays, especially guys I know that hunt. They always cook. So do you think that it's a woman that is becoming more... Lazy. Not lazy. Ladies are getting lazy. No, no.

I wouldn't say lazy. I would say smarter. Ladies are getting smarter. I honestly don't know what it is, man. Well, I don't know what it is man well i don't know i've i i could cook and i have from time to time and it's probably rare that i do but sometimes i do um but i i interrupt you to talk about the problem with uh not the problem actually i'm joking i prefer it that way i like to cook uh so you got the octopus smoked well i got the octopus sectioned

and brine so i take it out of the brine and i wash it off so i get all of the brine that's attached to it off. And then from there, then I go out, I put it on my smoking racks, and I let it tack up, become tacky. To me, that's the most important part of smoking than any other of your brining or what type of wood you're going to use to smoke. It's a must. You have to. What's the name of that? It's a pellicle.

Pellicle. It forms a pellicle, yeah. So once that's formed, then you can fire up your smoker and get it going. And we don't, because it's going to be jarred, you don't want to oversmoke it because the jarring process enhances the intensity of the smoke so just by doing a real light smoke it would you know I'm trying to cook it in there because you already boiled it it's already safe to eat right that's right it's safe to eat and but you don't want to over smoke it it's it's a must because even your salmon, you have to be real careful because it might look good. It might be good to eat then.

But when you go to put it in the jars and in through a pressure cooking, it tends to really enhance that smoke flavor and it might even Coming out looking a little bit different a little bit more dark and You would like to see and it might be coming out a little bit more dry than you would like to have you think In a jar and stuff like that wouldn't be dry, but I've had some come out In a less desirable condition. Well, that's one of the weird things I noticed when you're smoking stuff. Like when you smoke, when you smoke and jar salmon, we're saying jar, we're talking about putting in, you like mason jars or cur?

It, you know, it really doesn't matter anymore now. Yeah. I used to like... Or bell. Ball. Ball, yeah. Yeah, no. I used to like the ball because they had a different membrane on their ceiling jar, the tops, than the kerr did and the kerr had more like a paper uh deal gasket like to seal the

product and i just didn't it didn't feel comfortable with me so but now they're all now they're more of the same i think they're all they run all that same uh type uh rubberized membrane in there so it's more safe, I think, that way. Well, what I was going to say is what I noticed, when you smoke the octopus and when you smoke some of your salmon and jar it, you have like a, like there's air in the jar. Not air, but there's a vacuum. I mean, it's not full of liquid.

You could take your smoked octopus and rattle that shit around like a like a rattle inside there yes and you don't need any liquid in there and if it that's one thing good about the the jar and i started using jars and it was by accident i used to use cans steel cans steel cans and then you had to go through and use a jar, a can sealer. Yeah, my brother Danny has one of those steel cans. Well, I ran out, I ran low on cans one time

and I still had some fish. So I had some jars and lids and I put them in there and I pressure cooked them in the same batch. I mixed them, intermixed them, put them in there, and I pressure cooked them in the same batch. I mixed them, intermixed them, put them in there, run them through it. But I noticed something that I probably would never have noticed because of that. Because now it's the same heat, the same length of time, everything,

but the product came out of the jar a lot better than out of the can. And when I seen that, I opened up a can and a jar. Yeah. And I put them out. And it was obviously different, a different texture, a different flavor, everything. And the jars were a lot better. So you switched to glass.

So I started, yeah, I went and I switched to it. Now, also the jar is what they call South Vinny. And a lot of people don't realize that on that can sealer, you have the numbers. So what you're supposed to do is you go and you set that numbering sequence there, run your can and seal it to the first portion, to the number two. Take it out, set it aside, do the next one.

Now you have to back it up to one again and do that and keep on doing this until you get enough. Then you run it through your pressure cooker and reach your 10-pound pressure and bring it up for about, oh, maybe 10 minutes, 15. Then shut your pressure cooker down. Take those cans out. Now you have to handle them when they're hot.

Then you start from the number two and finish sealing them. That's how that works? That's how it's supposed to work. Nobody uses that. Nobody understands why, but that's part of the venting process. In other words, if you run your sealer through number one and then run on to number two, you're not allowing that can to vent properly.

Yeah. So that's why they do it that way. That's why it's recommended that way. So on a jar, it's automatic. It's self-venny. And that's a lot of the reason why it's a better product. Yeah. And I took one down to one of the local fish processing plants in Ketchikan,

one of my jars down. A glass jar. That was full. With what? Salmon. Salmon. Yeah, sockeye in it. And I asked the guy. Did you catch sockeye

here? Are there any runs around here, sockeye runs? On the island? There are. Yeah. Yes. There are. Several. In various states of whether they're

outfished or overfished and stuff and most of your streams, mostly all the streams, sockeye streams are taking a

hit. They have taken a hit. They're right. Yeah. It's, they really need, they're in bad

need of some type of enhancement program or a back off from the commercial fisheries. I think our, from the commercial fisheries. Yeah. I think our fisheries in Alaska, and I'm getting off the subject again.

It's tough to stay on it, but. I'll bring you back. Well, our fishery in Alaska, the Board of Fish, the court ruled here about 19, I think it was 80-something, 84, maybe sometime in that area, that the Board of Fish has ultimate authority. Since that ruling came down, the Board of Fish does not have to listen to biologists. So if a biologist comes out and says, hey, don't open this. It's going to hurt and damage that resource.

They don't have to listen to them. And I have to ask. Because a bunch of other interests all have their ear. They might be like serving other interests. Yes. Financial interests. Yes. Financial interests or whatever. No, no, that's true. And I think that's what happened.

Another important thing about this is that they have one board of fish in Alaska. And it will meet down in southeast Alaska once every three years. So you have three regions. So you have the western, central, and southeast. So at any given time, and this is the problem, at any given time, anybody that, the majority of the people voting on an opening or a closure of a fish season, they're not stakeholders. So it's easy for them to say, well, it's not going to affect me.

Yeah, go ahead and open it. I'll vote the way you want me to. And that, I think, is the worst thing we have going for us. So I've made suggestions on all levels of government to do away with this here statewide board of fish and go regional. Have a board of fish just for the southeast region. That way you have people that have a stake in it. And everybody. Local expertise. Local expertise, local knowledge, and they have a stake in it.

And not only that, if they make the bad decision, they can't blame it on somebody up north. Yeah. You know, and maybe they'll make a better decision that way. But when you have two-thirds of that board voting on it that aren't even from the area, it's easy for them to say, yeah, but they voted on it. Yeah, yeah. See? I had nothing to say about it.

It was like limited accountability. It wasn't me, in other words. Yeah. So, yeah. And I'd like to get that fixed. So we're going to go back to what again? Oh. Oh, I went.

So I bring my jar. So you brought your can of sockeye salmon. I brought my can of sockeye salmon to a local processing plant. That you caught and smoked yourself. Caught and that's true yeah yeah and it wasn't in a jar and i was curious and there's a way they have a method in there to check at any given time the pressure in a can or the suction in a can i think they call it the mercury pressure. So I asked the fellow there if he could test this. He said, oh, well, yeah, yeah.

He says, did you do this at home? Yes. Well, and then he went through a big speech. He says, well, I'll tell you what. You guys, we have special equipment here. And our equipment is that just before that can is sealed, we have a vacuum that vacuums out all the air. So we'll get nine pounds of mercury pressure in a can.

And that's all you're going to get is about three pounds, maybe at the most three and a half. I says, oh, okay. Could you check mine though? Yeah. So he went in and a half. I says, oh, okay. Could you check mine though? Yeah. So he went in and checked it. Put the pin in, you know, into the lid. And it went right away to 29 mercury.

And watch his three times. Yeah. What his is, what theirs is, and he was puzzled. You did this at home? I says, yeah. Amazing. We only get nine pounds, and you got 20.

What is it? What is what? Why is it more pounds? You just got to. Because, like I said, and I i'll reiterate the jarring method is self venting so when it's self venting it gets that to a precise venting thing it's not a guess it's not a vacuuming out yeah it's actually in there in it it as it, it releases all the air in there, and then when it collapses and seals.

It's perfect. Yeah. It's as well as you're going to get vented. Do you ever jar halibut, can and jar halibut? I've canned and jarred both halibut, yes. Now, you've always fished halibut. Yeah. How long did you call your first halibut?

When I caught my first halibut, I think I was about eight, eight and a half, something like that, maybe. No, I just was eight um so i was down at new england fish uh docks i was down there to cut halibut cheeks and let me explain that what that means why you were doing that what that means well i went down there to cut halibut cheeks so i could just sell them to the restaurants we used to go down there and cut about 20 pounds of halibut cheeks a day and then go around the restaurants and sell it to them for 50 cents a pound. And they were tickled pink with it because they get, number one, they get it delivered. Yeah.

It's very fresh. And the price was right. In the cannery, they weren't using the cheeks? At that time, no. they were not using them. So you could just go and they didn't care. You just dig through their pile of fish carcasses and cut the cheeks out. Right, and I think to this day they're not using them.

I think to this day they're not. I can't be certain of that, but I know back when I was longlining that they wouldn't pay you for the head so when they wade your halibut they remove the head so they're actually not buying the head from you so the head belongs to you they leave the collar on the fish but cut it from the gill cover forward right right and and so that head really belongs to you and And after I'm done, I might have a couple of totes there full of heads. So I'd just alert somebody, and I'd talk to the VFW to go down there and have them cut the halibut cheeks and stuff like that, and maybe they could.

When you were longlining, you'd do that. Right. No, this is when I was longlining, yeah. But when you were a kid, you'd go down and cut the cheeks out. How many pounds did you cut out? 20 pounds a day. How long did that take? Well, it didn't take long.

I mean, we didn't have the best knives either, but, you know, so I'd bring a paring knife from home and get down there and get it done. And then you make your rounds to the restaurants and catch a can. Then we start down and make our rounds. Most of the time we sold them out. What would you get for them? 50 cents a pound.

So I make $10 a day. What would you do with the money? Well, that's another thing there. I'd bring it to where my mother charged her groceries. And I'd just walk in there and give them 10 bucks and say, here. But this is how my mom's account. I used to bring it home. I used to bring it home to my mother.

And that was back when bingo started. Bingo. Bingo. Yeah, you know bingo. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is that bingo was first introduced in the Ketchikan by the churches so that it helped them raise funds.

And so it started out one day a week. Then another church would bring it on. So there's two days a week. Then another church. And it's three days a week. And then somebody else would want to bring it on. And they'd have bingo and catch a can six days a week. And when they start that bingo,

it's at seven o'clock it starts. But my mother and everybody else would say, no, no, I want to get the best seat. And I want to go down and get the best cards. Because they picked their own cards. And they like combination numbers on their cards. So they get down there a good hour ahead of time. So they're leaving right when dinner should be. So the churches helped remove the family from a home.

Yes. And that upset me a little bit there because one time a week is not bad, but turning it into five, six times a week. It's bad. And then my mother was really stretching it to pay her charge bill down at the deal. And I heard her. Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do this. But everything that I got, every nickel, dime that I could scrounge up

or whatever I used to bring home, here, well, it wasn't doing me any good. nickel dime that I could scrounge up or whatever I used to bring home. Here. Well, it wasn't doing me any good. I was just supplying her habit to go to bingo. And I'm not talking down on my mother, but I could see where it was a problem. And I really dearly loved my mother

and she was the best lady on earth. But I realized that I got to do something different. So instead of bringing her home, I just go down to the grocery store. I knew the owner and I trusted him. Of course, there was no receipts he had given. I didn't even know what a receipt should have been. I just said, here, it's on my mom's mom's account and I had passed away when you were young he'd bet yeah he passed away when I when I was seven and there was six of us so but my mother was also tough

and she kept the house together for the most part. Yeah. That's a lot, man. That's a lot to put on someone. It's a lot, yeah. And I think we were very blessed and fortunate that my stepfather came along

and they fell in love and got married and they had one other child after that. But that's a lot of burden. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's something else to get married, but get married with six kids already? Oh, a lot of guys were on the other direction, man. I know. So anyway, it worked out.

It worked out good and uh I've I've been through and involved in fishing and stuff like that for a long time and I can remember talk about that halibut though when you were cutting cheeks oh yeah so I was looking around I wanted to go ahead and put a line down over the dock there. So I started looking around the New England cannery for a hook. And I was finding all the hooks, most of the hooks, they didn't have a circle in them like sport hooks do. These were all flat, and that's how they tied them on to a... Oh, yeah, you mean there's no eye in the hook.

There was no eye in the hook. You got to, like, snell it on there. Right, and I was young, and I didn't know anything about that. I knew how to operate a hook, you know, with a circle in it and tie it out there, but that I didn't, I couldn't figure it out. So eventually I looked around I found one was already tied and I tied a knot in that and then I found some other line long enough to where it would go down and just right on the bottom off the dock of the cannery. Off the dock of the cannery. I wasn't thinking.

I mean, so I'm down there, and I tied it off on a big cleat. And they had these big boat cleats, so I tied it off there. Went and cut the halibut cheeks and everything like that. And then when I was done, I went back. I grabbed that line, something heavy on it, and I started pulling it. It started jerking back. And my brother was with me, and we pulled that thing to the surface. And I said, that is too big. Now, I'm looking down at this, and it's a good 40-foot drop from the dock down to the water.

So there's no way are we going to get this halibut, which as near as I can remember, I mean, from what I know, it was probably a 250-pound halibut. So there's no way. So I let it go back down. And I ran, and I found the superintendent. And I says, hey, I got a big halib an online down here and I don't know what I'm going to do to get it. I mean, can you help us? So we went down there and we brought it up and he seen how big it was. So I said, whoa, wait a minute. So he goes, rigs up one of these totes.

They had a rope tote and stuff and put it down. This was made out of wood, but big enough to handle that hell, but for sure. And he had a big crane to do this with, you know, and everything. So that's how we did it. And then we brought it back up. He's operating that. And he has it dipped down in such a way so that when we come up, we could just pull it and slide it right into it. And it landed in there, and he brought it up.

I can't tell you i can't remember how much i got for that halibut but that's the first fish i sold there wasn't a bunch of money though well it was and i can't i can't remember how much okay so but i'm it seems to me like it was maybe $20, $25, but that's a lot of money for me, for me anyway. So that was a good day. I had my $10 for the cheeks plus the halibut deal. But, yeah, that was good. When did you start? Because you did several seasons of commercial halibut fishing.

Right. I started there, Joan and I bought the El Sol in 92. And that was when I went out trolling and then also long line. Trolling for salmon.

Right. How does the long line, how does the halibut long line work? Like how does the commercial halibut fishery work? I mean, just the mechanics of catching the fish. Well. Like how would you guys get them? You know, like just like the actual fishing part of it.

We had, we were running snap on gear. It's a skate. I had 18 skates. Each skate, I'd say, is 1,000 feet long. And how many hooks do you clip on that thing? It all depends on how close you want to clip them on, but for the most part, it

slips my mind how many per there's an awful lot of hooks. And then you let it soak. You try to pick it, go back and pick it. But you set that thing down like you got an anchor. Like you're running on the bottom. It's not hanging, suspended, right? Anchor on the bottom, then 1,000 feet of line with hooks,

another anchor on the other end, and then a line goes up to your buoy. Actually, when we run them, I run about maybe six or seven skates all in one row. Oh, is that right? Yeah. So you have-

Six or 7,000 feet of hooks down there? Yeah. Over a mile. Right. At what depth? A whole variety of depths. Well, actually, yeah. It's going to be a whole variety of depths because-

You're not going to find a stretch that long. It's all the same. No, you'd be surprised sometimes out there. There are some of them like that, but for the most part, yeah. And you're baiting with what? Well, you can bait with several things. I wish we could bait with salmon, and maybe some people do now. You could buy salmon if you could get it.

I mean, there are certain people that have the ability to get salmon. There's other people that have to settle for herring. You settle for herring, you have to brine it. Yeah, because they just pick that shit right off the hook, don't they? Yeah, that's right. And then you can get squid. What does the brining do? Makes it tougher?

Firms it up. You know, so it's herring. We've been using that brine. Like, I take the herring out, you know, when you buy them in the box or you buy them in those little trays, I take them out and put down a layer of ice cream salt or rock salt, put down a layer of herring, salt, herring, salt, herring. I don't think it messes.

I mean, they still smell nice. They're still oily, but they just don't rot as fast, man. They stay really nice, and they get leathery after a while, but they still, I don't think, I mean, I'm not a halibut, but I don't think they give a shit. Guys, in my opinion, I think even by salting them, they fish better also. Because what it does, it concentrates. It shrinks it down.

Takes the moisture out of it. Shrinks it down. And you get more oilier. So they release that oil off more than they would. Yeah, they smell great. Yeah. And then, of course, you get a hit on a smaller fish and stuff on there. He's not stripping your bait off as fast but so and which

is something that you want them so you could not you like you didn't were able to use just salmon bellies or fillets cut up into strips you guys use squid you could you could you could use that like i say if you get there at the right time and stuff but But I wasn't moxie enough to, you know, a lot of the guys, a lot of the guys that fish that are saners themselves. So they'd go out at the end of the season, they'd get the best of the chum they could, and they would freeze their own bait. Oh.

So you'd use chums because you have a low sale value. Yeah, so they'd have their own freeze locker at the cold stories or whatever. And these are the guys that have been in it for a long time, and they know. And they're fishing big-time other fisheries. So it's what you know. So you were using primarily herring and squid? Yeah, primarily, but at times I could find and locate some halibut. Or not halibut, excuse me, salmon.

But it's something that you had to really look for and get ahead of time. And, of course, where am I going to freeze a bunch of this bait? Because you need huge volume. Huge volume of bait, yeah. Hundreds of hooks. And thousands of hooks. Yeah. So you'd run that thing out,

and you'd get all those hooks laying along the bottom at what from what depth to what depth well i like to write right around 100 fathoms 600 feet of water yeah so you're fishing way deeper than sport fishermen are fishing for the most part for the most part yeah i i don't i don't know and we fish halibut and half that depth with a rod or even a third yeah yeah well your reels probably don't have enough line to get down and it's just you get weight issues and current issues and you know your bolts over one place and your tack's 200 yards away because the current so how long would you let that thing soak then you don't want to smoke for for rule of thumb you don't want to let it soak any more than six hours because the sea lice right yeah you have

sea lice problem and if you get too much sea life lice there, you're going to have an issue that it's going to be no more number one grade. It's going to be number two, and the price really drops drastically. If they see those lice on the fish. Yeah, and I went in to deliver my load one time, and I went up, and this guy here said, that's number two so I I grabbed it I got my fillet knife out and I flayed the thing out and everything and laid that flesh down there and says where why is this number two?

Well, it's around the outer fins there. It's eaten away. Do you sell those fins? No. Well, again, why is this number two? So he had to give me number one price, but what he didn't give me a number one price on, I said, okay, fine. I'll bring it back down the boat then.

Oh, you're not going to sell it? And I said, no. I'd rather give it away than get screwed by you. I'd feel better. So that's what I would do you know how many like when you pull it up

how many halibut might be on there again like how many might you deal with in a day hmm well maybe roughly around maybe 400 or 500.

Individual fish. Right. And in a day, you're going to say in a day, but we have a 24-hour opening, and we're fishing around the clock. Oh, you might only get 24 hours to do it. Well, that's what it was. They had some openings were 48 hours, but most of the last ones were 24.

Your whole season. Yeah. Well, twice a year, 24. Let's put it that way. But yes. And you can keep a boat and maintain a boat and maintain a license and maintain all the gear in order to fish 48 hours.

Well, again're you're also fishing your boat is fishing other fisheries gotcha okay but for the most part no you wouldn't be able to and if you're only fishing long line in halibut because the season is too too short so they had you coming and going and it, I don't know who was doing the selection as to what day the opening would be. Yeah. But whoever that was was very accurate on picking it the worst possible time of the year because of the weather. So the last halibut opening that we had, that I fished, and the last one that was had, I mean, they quit after that, went to IFQ. I was fishing the west side of of Forester Island.

And the both Canadian and U.S. weather said that I was blowing 35 knots when we put later gear. But we did it because both Canadian and U.S. said that the wind was supposed to subside and drop back. Well, it didn't. It increased. It went up to 50, which made it almost impossible to get out there and fish. I mean, 50 knots, 20-foot seas. You know, it's... But yet you feel you have to.

But while we were out there, one of my deckhands, actually, I popped a hydraulic hose. And when that happens, your deck becomes extremely unsafe and slippery. Because it's hydraulic fluid. Right. So I just pulled everybody into the wheelhouse and we went in into the lee of the Forester Island there and tried to clean that

up and fix the hydraulic hose but tried to clean the deck up we'd done a pretty good job on it but while we were out there the one guy one of my crew members slipped and said he hurt his back. And he didn't really look really, really good.

I mean, he had some discomfort. It was obvious in his pulse. So got ahold of the Coast Guard and let them know. And they came down to the island with the plane tree and i could see them there but they wouldn't get within a mile of the island they were afraid of the rocks or something like that but i tried to explain to him you come straight in you bring that ship right into me if you want. But they didn't want to do it, so they launched a hard-bottom rubber dinghy. And I cautioned them when they came up because during the blow and stuff like that, I ripped off a rub rail on the starboard side of my vessel,

so there was some exposed screws that were in there and stuff. And I told them, you come up on my starboard side, you're going to get a hole poked in your boat. And I says, come on to my port side. What do they do? They come on my starboard side. And it's rocking and rolling out there. And they brought out their corpsman or whoever he was,

but he'd done some tracking, and it was his idea that they were going to go and air medevac him to Sitka. And I says, okay, but you're not going to take him in that hard bottom skiff, are you? And then you see he's back to your boat with a bad back or a damaged back, injured back. Oh, no, we'll do that. And I says, no, I can take the old soul, go in the lee of your ship. Then we do the transfer in the lee. It means your ship doesn't want to come here, in here to get in the lee of the island.

So anyway, I couldn't talk them out of that. And so that's what they did, and they airmed it back to them off. All this time it was taking, I was having to be laid up and stuff. And so by that time, we were done there, and I went out, and I had just enough time to get all my gear pulled in,

and I didn't have enough time to reset. Oh. Yeah, it was. So you got one set for the whole day. Right, and I was right down. I mean, I went right down to the wire and get my last skate on board. I mean I went right down to the wire I get my last skate on board I mean it was close because they're pretty sticklish about that and if you're

flying over and you're still pulling gear after that's down they'll side you Was that your last year doing it? That was my last year doing it and all of the years I fished they didn't count that towards an IFQ in fact I think they stopped counting that's the quota system right that's I have individual fishing quota so like just for listeners like rather than a lot of fisheries have gone to this they used to have these gangbusters seasons where they'd open it for some set time. Like Ron's saying, regardless of whether, if you want to make a play, you got to go out

and do it when they say to go do it. Later, they came up with a system, much safer system. I'm sure there's cons to it, but one of the pros is much safer because you'll tell a vessel that's licensed what he's allowed to catch and he's more at his leisure to catch it. Well you know another important

faction to that too is when they went to this system I normally fished up there at Coronation Island. When they went to the individual I normally fished up there at Coronation Island when they went to the individual quota no well before that that was my normal spot the only reason why I went to Forrester Island is my brother Ivan he was on board and he says we got to try that we got It's going to be good, blah, blah, blah. Well, it wasn't. But for the most part, I fished up there at Coronation Island. And it's my belief that when they went to the individual quota system, they use your fish tickets to establish the amount of quota you're going to get. Yeah. Okay?

And each fish ticket also puts down what area you got your fish from. So most of the guys would go to their same area over and over. They're comfortable that way because they know by going to new areas and stuff like that, you can get into all kinds of problems and stuff like that, not knowing that there is coral trees down there, and you're going to damage and ruin a lot of gear and maybe possibly lose some. So it's good that you go back to your same area because you know, okay, it's free of coral and halibut are there and several things and not a lot of bycatch. So that's what you got to watch for too, you know. I mean, they only allow us to keep like 10% bycatch on your yellow eye or your lingcod.

So if you get into a lot of them when you first start, how much are you going to keep, you know? So you have to discard it. The bycatch. Right, because you don't know. I mean, they have this here magic number. And back then, they didn't have the safeguards or a way of, or a procedure or a law stating that, okay, now I think they have to go ahead and at least bring them back down or they have a way of removing the air out of a yellow-eyed's stomach

so that his survivability after being caught drastically increased. Yeah. So like a round-stop yellow-eyed rockfish, and rockfish, along with some other species, don't have a good way of regulating for pressure. So when you're fishing in even 300 feet of water, 250 feet of water, and you catch a yellow eye, and they're bottom fish,

and you crank them up in a hurry to the surface, by the time he gets to the surface, he's cashed out. I mean, he's got like his stomach hanging out of his mouth because their swim bladder erupts with the alleviation of pressure and shoves it out of their mouth. For that reason, you're not supposed to size grade rockfish. You're not supposed to, you're not allowed to be like, oh, I'll hang on to him and keep, or I'll throw him back and keep fishing because the thinking is you're going to kill the thing. For a long time, people would take a needle and try to puncture that slim bladder.

And you can do it. If done right, you can do it and let the pressure out and put the fish back. But people tend to puncture the stomach, which is fatal for the fish. So now there's these release devices. We've been messing around with them. Where you pull that fish up, you put this release device on there and send that son of a gun right back to the bottom. And apparently

you have very high survivor rates doing that. But still, even with that, you can't size grade rockfish. If you catch one and you're going to continue fishing rockfish, that fish goes in the boat. You don't throw them back and continue to fish.

And the thing you're talking about too, yellow eye, as a non-resident, I'm allowed two yellow eye annually, one a day, two annually. But you guys would get big hauls of them. Well, in a commercial deal, I was fishing up there and I got in too close to the rock one time. Big mistake. And I got a massive amount of yellow eye and ling cut.

So I moved away from there fast because I didn't like what I was seeing. You know, I mean, you're discarding. You have to discard it back. And they're all floating. Some of them, for whatever reason, could go back down, but for the most part they're just sitting there floating until they're done or until some critters get them or eagle or whatever, but I didn't feel good about that.

So I'd move off of it and avoid that area as much as possible, but as I knew what I was catching and stuff like that, then I felt comfortable with keeping them on board so that I don't go over that 10% because when you go over it, then they could find you. And the finds are pretty steep. And you had a lot of people viewing this fishery. So that when I go into the port and I eventually get under the hoist to be offloaded,

then they'd have somebody from, use the Coast Guard or somebody in there with a, you know, with a type deal where they usually measure your feet when you go get a new pair of shoes. Well, they had that set up, and they had it set up at 32 inches. And under ideal conditions and stuff like that, they'd pull it through. Well, if that halibut didn't meet that then you're fine so also you're supposed to turn out any halibut under 32 132 is supposed to be out was there a cap on the top end for egg bearing females like were you allowed to keep 300 pound halibut you were allowed to keep them at back then um and i right I've been out of it so long, I don't know. I don't know what their limit is on the high end. But this system here, when they go in, they closely, you know, I mean, like say you're a sixteenth of an inch under, you know, they'll get you.

But so I just put a mark on it at 32 and a quarter. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, let's face it. I'm not going to waste that. You're tossing. You're turning. You don't have the best light. You've been up for already maybe 40 hours without sleep

because you have that, baiting, getting ready, going, fishing. So you don't have a lot of things in your favor for getting it right or very accurate. So to be on the safe side, I just marked a quarter inch over. Throw anything that was questionable. Right. And they do. They closely do that.

I mean, they'll sit down there and have two or three people there with their uh shoe shoe measuring device and uh so how many years did you do that for i just i just did it for the uh uh three three four years you made money you did you make money? You did. You made money, but you didn't get rich. I mean, you made, let's put it this way, I always made expenses. Yeah. But, and even on that trip that I only had one pole, you know, but that again was, you know, it happened. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness,

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out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So when you

quit doing that and you went back to just fishing halibut with a rod and reel did it feel funny like did it feel like because here you are catching hundreds of halibut and all of a sudden you're back out just a guy catching halibut for his own freezer no it didn't feel funny because i was doing that before i went uh long lining you know so i've always i've always fished it rod and reel you know yeah so yeah it was easy to get back into it that way but did you miss the commercial stuff or you just done with it now at times i did but they had it so goofed up i don't you know i didn't miss as probably as much as i i would have if everything

was going rosy and fine but uh going out there in their fishery, the fish, the halibut, is monitored and controlled under treaty. So they have a treaty with Canada and the United States on the halibut that is caught within their waters and ours. Yeah, because they're big, because they're migratory fish. Right, within their water and ours. So we don't have 100% of say over what the season's

going to be or anything like that. I mean, you could probably put in a suggestion to the North Pacific Fisheries Management or the Halibut Commission, but how far is that going to go, you know? Yeah. How many years did you do salmon for? About the same, a little longer. But I've seen handwriting on the wall. With regards to what?

Well, with regards to the price that I was getting at the coal storage or the canneries for my product. You're fishing salmon with hooks, not nets. You're trolling salmon. Right. But you're sitting down there, and they're giving the same price over and over and over again. The price never seemed to fluctuate very much.

It did at the beginning of the season, and if you were fishing Winter Kings, the prices were up then, and I never did go up, travel. I was going to try to go up to sitka and fish that out of there for winter kings because of the price you get a better price or you get a more fairer price and i i don't to this day i wonder why it didn't follow through why shouldn't there be a good price for king salmon all season you know you fish fished kings around here? You fished kings around here instead? Well, around that, yeah, around Prince

Wells Island, you know. The west coast was my favorite spot for kings. That's where I done most of my fishing. How many days a year were you doing that? Well, the king season fluctuated for the amount that was allocated, and it varied.

It went between two days to five days, opening season. And then after that, that would close down. You'd go ahead and fish coho for a while. Even that would close down for a short period of time in August, you know. So you had your various fishings, but the one thing that was discouraging to me is that all your gear prices, your fuel prices, your oils prices, your hydraulic fluids, all your part prices, your oils prices, your hydraulic fluids, all your part prices,

everything was always going up. Yeah. Always going up with the cost of living and everything like that. It increased and went up. But your salmon never seemed to increase that much, that fast. So it was costing the fishermen, you were losing a lot by that

because of the prices for the fish that you were getting was remaining at a certain level, the same level. And so I says, nah, this isn't for me. I'm not one that I like to be taken advantage of. So I'm not going to hang in there and allow it to happen. It's just me. Did you buy the El Sol just for that purpose, to do halibut and do salmon? That's correct, yes.

I got into it. I always wanted to go back and do try commercial and uh i did you know i i started commercial fishing with my grandfather yeah when i was about eight and uh he always fished the west coast and he was always the first one out last one in so i went out there and he showed me how to gill and gut them and ice them and everything that was my job and it was a hot hot day then i mean uh time of year. It was sort of like what we've had here this summer. Hardly a breeze and it's down there and you're out there getting double reflection from the water up and you're getting really whammed with that. I'd go down below after up there getting them and gilling them and gutting them

and getting enough and then I'd go down below to ice them and as I was down below there it's just nice and cool pleasant and when I was down there I noticed three or four coils of line back in the back underneath the poop deck there and I said, that looks almost like a hammock, I figured, you know. So I hopped up there. I hopped up there and lay down and see how comfortable it was while I fell asleep. And the fish started stacking up. And my grandfather says, hmm. So he went and looked down at the fish hold. He didn't see me there. So he figured I was in the fo'c'sle. So he went down the fo'c'sle. I wasn't there. Came back, yelled down the fish hole. I didn't answer.

So he put the dreaded call out to the fleet that had fallen over. Of course, I don't know how much of the fleet was out there looking for me and stuff, but I'm pretty sure a lot of them were. And all the time I was down there sleeping. And to this day I could not tell you how long I was asleep down there. But I could say one thing. When I did come up out of the down below in the hold, my grandfather was coming out of the wheelhouse.

He had one foot in and one foot out. And he's a big man. But his eyes met me, and that was the first time in my life I ever visualized or seen that he didn't know whether he wanted to kill me or kiss me look. Which did he go with? I think he went with a little bit of both, but he caught

up to me eventually because it wasn't always that type of weather. So the weather had changed and became a little bit rough. And that was my first experience with seasickness. And I got seasick. So he pulls out, and back then we didn't have any plastic pails or anything like that. So he pulled out a galvanized bucket of salt water, put it up on the hatch cover, and gave me a coffee cup. He says, drink. And I drank. He says, more. And I drank more. Salt water. Yes, salt more. And I drank more.

Salt water. Yes, salt water. And I drank more. I don't know how much I drank and all of a sudden I became deathly ill. And I know I was down on the deck and I was rolling around. It felt like a bowl of jelly.

And all of a sudden I had to let go and I went over the edge of the boat and litter fly but I'll tell you one thing I'll tell you one thing that was a first and last time in my life I was ever seasick. Really? It cured me. And I don't know whether it's a fear that I might have to drink all that salt water again or not, but it did cure me. I've never, to this day, since then, ever been seasick. I'm going to try that because I still get seasick. I'm about 50-50.

Well, I think you have to have somebody bigger than you you need a big old grandpa to make you do it I can force myself to drink salt water when I dive when I'm diving

yes I'll usually like remember we were up here a couple weeks ago we went looking for scallops I drank enough salt water that day

where I threw up a little bit. Not like you're talking about. Just little sips. But not like, it just makes me kind of, you kind of throw up in your mouth a little bit. Yeah. Snorkel hanging out of your mouth.

Well, you don't get seasick, do you? Or have you? You do, huh? I don't think so. You don't? When I was a kid, we't get seasick do you or have you you do huh tell me i don't think so you don't when i was a kid we get seasick out in lake michigan but lake michigan get like six foot waves are big in lake michigan but it'd be enough to make you seasick my kid got seasick because he wasn't looking he didn't know to look at the horizon you know he's like the sicker he got he's five you know sicker he got the more he'd slink down the bottom

of the boat i could tell him you gotta sit up more he'd slink down the bottom of the boat. I could tell him, you got to sit up, man, and look around. Don't be looking at the boat, you know. So, Hans, what do you do when you get seasick? Look, is it a boat or a horizon? I focus on the fishing. Usually if I focus on the fishing, I get better. But the horizon, yeah, for sure.

Or I just, you know, make myself let it go, and I get better. Did you know that Giannis' woman's father is a boatmaker? No, I didn't know that. What type of boats? They make a deep V bay boat, and then they make a flat-bottom skiff. Is this fiberglass? Fiberglass, North Carolina. Not meant for rocks.

Nope. Wouldn't do well up here. So did you guys see that boat out here that I told you about? Did you go look at it? The Japanese skiff?iff no i found a japanese gas can yesterday you did two days ago yanni found who found it i did yanni found he saw something red up in the tide rack there went over there and it was a gas can with japanese script on it and i cut that off i cut the japanese writing out and nailed it to a post on my shack

that's found art you know what found art is yeah so so so so um you're you don't do you don't report this stuff then? To who? There's a site that you go on and report anything that you found. Oh, no, I'll put the jacket in the gas can. I found a huge bottle of detergent, five-gallon tank of detergent not long ago on the beach, and I found a shrimp basket not long ago on the beach, and my Jimmy Carter hat. A Jimmy Carter hat? A Jimmy Carter hat?

A Jimmy Carter nuclear sub hat. Oh, okay. All right. I'm a beach combing son of a gun, man. But there's a Japanese boat that washed up near here? There is out there on Grendel. Have you gone and looked at it? I did.

I went and looked at it. And it's really a Skookum-built boat. It probably came across the Pacific upside down, the way it sits. And I say that because the rails portion of the boat in areas is just pounded where it's been off and on beaches or whatever or hitting things but for the most part I think it's salvageable but it does have the Japanese name on the hull itself but somebody how long is the boat uh Close to 19, 20 foot. Could you get it off there and drag it home? Well, you could at a super high tide.

Is that legal? Yeah, you found it, right? Well, what I'd rather do is just go out there. I didn't get a picture of it. I'm going to go out there and get the whole name off of it, and there's a site that you go to. In fact, one of the people on that site speaks and writes fluent Japanese on the site that you are reporting into. So if you take a picture or anything, that he'll be able to decipher what it is,

and it'd be interested to find out you know maybe who owned that boat or who oh yeah man be super interesting yeah yeah the gas can i found was busted up it was cool yeah i mean it looks like it's been in the water a long time do you know they say in 80 million years that japan will have accreted all of the illusions and be docked up against Alaska? Well, what difference does that make today? Doesn't make any difference today. Something to look forward to.

Well, I guess... You know, Alaska originally hit... Do you know your state originally accreted and banged up against California, then rolled a transform fault to where it is now? I don't doubt that a bit. You know, I mean. You can picture it.

I can picture it, yes. Well, what do they say now? Your tallest mountains and your biggest valleys and stuff like that and your biggest canyons are below the water. Yeah. There's a book, there's a great trilogy written by John McPhee about geology called Antles of the Former World. And in it, he says, if I was going to sum this book up in one sentence,

it would be that the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone. Wow. He also says another thing in that book that's interesting. He says, if you imagine the history of the earth as your arms spread out as wide as you can spread them, he said you could remove all of human history with one stroke of a nail file that makes our little problem seem like no I know that I mean the earth they date someone dated back to

billion years old yeah that's a lot old I think the earth's in a midlife crisis because in four billion years the sun's gonna burn out we're in a midlife

we're halfway the earth's halfway done I told my kid the sun's gonna burn out and it really affected him and I couldn't explain to him that I met in a long time shouldn't have told him that

well sure you're mean you're mean alright You're mean. All right, Yanni, what concluding thoughts? Yanni, you took off your Latvian power ring. Yeah, the salt water, I think it's the salt water, the air, it caused me to swell up a little bit, so it's getting a little snug.

As part of being a Latvian, Yannis wears a Latvian power ring called a names. And it's something the Latvians... Have we ever talked about this before? I think so. The Latvians stole it from the Old Testament. Or Gianni would argue the Old Testament stole it from the Latvians,

where some guy had it where he was going to go kill the Latvian king. And he said, just look for the guy with the Latvian power ring. And all Latvian dudes went out and got a ring just like the king's so that no one could tell who the king was. It's old memory, you put a stripe,

put a red mark on the door on the Old Testament. So Yanni, in order to protect Names, the king, wears his Latvian power ring. One time I was uh off-color jokes i don't want to tell you about what about yanni and he was telling me that some one of these the next time i make that joke i'm gonna see a flash of blinding silver as his fist collides with my face. It's his names. Do it. I made up a song.

I made up a song and a dance. It would be well-deserved, right? My grandmother made that for me. His brother has one, too. And he's got a Lavian power tattoo. I think, Steve, when was the last time you were ever disciplined? I'm 40 years old, man. Well, that's true. But when was the last time? were ever disciplined? I'm 40 years old, man. Well, that's true.

But when was the last time? When I was 18, 19. Your wife never disciplines. Oh, no. Yeah, my wife has a way, like she has a disciplinary method. You know? It works very well. Good.

Riani, any concluding thoughtsing thoughts oh another thing about the lab the empower ring you told me the other day you were thinking about not wearing any rings anymore yeah because you swell up no

because who just some celebrity just got what do they call that when your ring pulls your skin off your whole finger? Hurt? Yeah. No, there's a term for that. There is?

Yeah. Collared, sleeved? Yeah, something like that. Anyways, I know quite a few guys that have had that happen to them or had it close to happening to them, and so instead they've just gone to a tattoo for their wedding band. I'll tell you what. I quit wearing a wedding band, not because I'm trying to do something wrong,

but for a lot of those reasons. And I also had these watch bands, and they're all metal. And then you could break them open to take them off. I don't know what you're talking about. And I had one of those. I'm working on my car, and I had this wrench, and I was sort of tightening a post down, and somehow that shorted across to the negative.

And I think when I came down, my watch came down on the post to the negative and i think it when i came down you know my watch came down on the post of the negative and i had a hold of that and it gave you 12 volts more well that 12 volts with a lot of amperage i mean i took my watch band off and i had burn in. It was just welts all the way around. No kidding. Yes. I arced mine on a battery, and I caught it on a couple tree limbs, and I proposed to my wife that I stop wearing it. And she said no. She said I can get the tattoo.

But I made it this far in life without a tattoo. I don't want to go get a tattoo now. I'm going to ask her if I can just start taking a magic marker every couple days, a magic mark ring couple of days. A magic mark ring. A mark. Just before you travel with me? Whatever. She just likes me to have it on.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, sometimes she doesn't even know where hers are. I find them laying around now and then. One day I found one in her damn shoe. So you're married. She's not. Yeah. She's always like, oh, she got them both on none on one on don't know where they are and meanwhile here's me puffy old finger of the ring on it well tell her you can turn that in for a uh

they actually gave this to me when i bought her ring nylon ring or something i thought about getting one of those silicon rings she said i, I can do that if I want. Well, Joan had one, I think. It was jade ring. A solid jade ring, was it? At one point in time. I think you still have it. Oh, maybe she doesn't.

But it was made out of jadeite. Very expensive. But there is a thought too. So Yanni's going to quit wearing the Nam Ace. Possibly. Alright, Yanni, concluding thoughts? Any wrap up questions? You're going to chance for concluding thoughts, Ron. When?

After Yanni's turn. Oh. I guess I have a concluding question. We might be able to squeeze another hunt in how far do we have to go up the hill so that we're not hunting like a low end muskeg dude listen I don't believe

any of that I just want to stay on everybody's right side around here are you on okay you guys know this buck Yanni killed personally what was his name was he in velvet or not in velvet Are you on? Okay. Okay. You guys know this buck Yanni killed? Personally. Okay.

What was his name? Did he have, was he in velvet or not in velvet? Name was Bucky. And he was not in velvet. And I'll tell you, had the most symmetrical two points that you ever saw. That's not this one. Oh, yes, it is. So, you know what? Go ahead and do your hunt and stuff like that.

But, you know, really, I thought you guys were sport hunters. No, meat hunters. You're a meat hunter or a sport hunter? Meat and sport. I like to mix it. Do you like to challenge? Yes. Then you're a sport hunter.

Do you like to challenge? Uh-uh. Okay. You don't want to be accused of being a sport hunter. No, I hunt for fun and meat. If I didn't get meat from it, I wouldn't hunt. If I didn't get meat from it, I wouldn't hunt. If I didn't have fun doing it, I wouldn't hunt.

Then let me ask you this. Okay. Challenge, sport and meat. I'm a sport and meat guy. So let me ask you this. Why don't you shoot your critters in the head? I'll tell you exactly why I don't shoot critters in the head. Okay.

Because I was brought up by my father more reasons than this but I'll start with the first one my father would hold up a tennis ball and a volleyball okay he'd say which would you rather hit

that was the first thing later in life through i've been fortunate to do quite a lot of hunting i have generally found that aiming for the lungs is consistently, when you puncture the lung, you have a dead animal. You have a huge margin for error. And oftentimes, you have very, very, very low meat wastage on broadside shots.

When I have seen people do headshots, if they're not an expert marksman and they don't know their own limitations, they're dealing with a very small margin of error. Like when you're off an inch, you're off. And it leads to blown off jaws, punctured ears, whatnot. It's just simply a matter. You can hit the rack and split it. Well, that's going to ring its bell and knock them down.

But, you know, I mean. I don't think guys who shoot lungs aren't shooting lungs strictly for the reason they don't want to mess the rack up. Well, no. Okay. But to me. You shoot all your deer in the head. Yes. Or the neck. But most of them in the head. And the reason why I do that is we utilize the heart and the liver.

So do I. Well, there is time. Well, Yanni threw the heart out of his deer. Yeah. But Yanni likes the lips. Okay, so you like the lips and the nose? I'm joking. Ears? Che me like she I like

cheat me yeah right no you ever roast the deer's head pick the meat for tacos no I have method waste all that meat well I don't call it waste because that there is a given I mean you gotta hit him somewhere. Yeah. And so until I acquire a taste for brains. Yeah, I don't like brains. Well, until, if I ever. But even if I do hit it in the head, I can utilize the brain if I wanted to tan the hide with it. Yeah.

So it's not a waste there. but I don't want a chance of, and I always give my son and his friend a bad time because sometimes they don't bring back the heart, the liver. Because they're shy of the body? No. No. They always do headshots. Well, what's, how far, like, what's the maximum distance you shoot at a black tail? No, no. They always do headshots. What's the maximum distance you shoot at a black tail?

Typically. The maximum distance. What would be a long shot for you the way you hunt? Oh, 250, 300 yards. And you're still shooting for the head. I don't care if you're Lee Harvey Oswald. I think that that's a bad aim. Well. That was a really bad thing I just said.

I didn't mean that. The only reason I just talked about Lee Harvey Oswald is earlier I was talking with someone about going to the museum in Dallas, the Book Depository Museum. And I remember looking out the window and expecting it to be a much longer distance it's not it was very short distance yeah people always made a big deal about how could he have done it if he

hadn't had this and that and it was impossible he could have made it with a site open site and i said that went on like that is not everybody all the guys i hang out with to do that shot no problem anyhow i should have said that that That was insensitive. However, I don't care if you're a great shooter. I think that you are. let's put it, you said the maximum. Okay,

and most of my shots are within 100 yards, 125. Some of them are even, you know, like when I got that one big four point,

you know, I didn't even use my scope. It was so close. I mean, so when you say my maximum shot, well, that was, you know, one I took and one I got. Here's why. I'm not going to have this argument with you because you've been hunting your whole life.

You've killed umpteen million deer like you know what works for you okay you know what you're capable of you know it works for you but would you agree with this statement you have a grandson right yes you tell your grandson hit him in the head or hit him in the lungs hit him in the head his his last year he shot was a five point yeah michigan was that his first year huh was was that his first year and he shot it right in the nose put it down pretty quick huh yep all right i'm a lung man yanni's lung man right Yanni's a lung man. Right, Yanni? Yeah, I had a couple bad experiences.

I had some good experiences putting down some animals very quickly with headshots, but I had a couple that, for me, it doesn't warrant taking that shot anymore. First deer I ever shot, 13 years old, shot him in the head, had to run him down down kill him with a knife and that was probably a jaw shot exactly now another thing I saw happen some years ago when they started

you know when Buffalo leave Yellowstone National Park the way the laws are set up down in Montana and Wyoming when Buffalo leaves Yellowstone National Park, the way the laws are set up down in Montana, Wyoming, when a buffalo leaves Yellowstone National Park, he goes to be in wildlife, to livestock, unlike every other animal. If a wolverine, wolf, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, mule deer, antelope leaves Yellowstonetsin national park he's wildlife a buffalo which is just as native and has just as much right to the lands any of our creatures leaves yeltsin national park he becomes livestock the department of livestock rounds them up and sends them off to slaughter really so when they first started to open up some permitted hunting for these things and it wound up being in many ways to serve the interests of of killing them off but the various tribes in that area who had a historic claim to that area were allocated tags to go kill buffalo when i was working on my book about

buffalo i went with not with but I accompanied without them actually asked me to accompany, but I went out with the Nez Perce when they were there to shoot five Buffalo. And they were doing headshots. At one point in time, I think that they had all five of the ones they hit in the head were still wandering around with holes in them. It's like you need to know exactly what you're doing. Had they been shooting for lung, eventually they got them all. Had they been shooting for lung, you hit it through the lung, it's going to die.

Well, Buffalo too. I don't know what type of particular round they were using. You got to have a sturdy one. I know. But I was just talking to those. Well, Buffalo too. I don't know what type particularly around they were using. You got to have a sturdy one. I know. But I was just talking to those. We were up. Yanni was there. We were talking to these

Chupacabra. They shoot walruses of.223s in the head like you're saying. So if you know about shot placement, and those boys do,

they know exactly. They show exactly where to hit the walrus. They say walrus can't even get off the ice when they hit it like that. It can be done, but a lot of people

don't have that skill set. So it's like, clearly you know what you're doing. You've been doing it your whole life. The average Joe Schmo, I think is better off

aiming behind the shoulder because he can be all shaky and all nervous and all kinds of crap like that and still be six inches off in any direction and kill the thing you could take and get in your kayak or your canoe and go right out here now even in this bay

right here now set yourself up a target over there take your rifle and try to hit that target while you're in that canoe and see how many times you're going to miss. Well, it's illegal for me to shoot from a boat. You're talking about the Eskimos shooting walrus from their kayaks. And this is an open, open ocean. From motor skiffs. And this is open ocean. Yep.

And they have a way of knowing and timing their shot oh and that thing rocks i'm sure they do rocks back up they do yeah expert expert marksman no you gather i mean they definitely know what they're doing but i but i was a distinguished marksman a little bit better than expert in the military, a little bit better than an expert. In the military? Yeah. A little bit better than an expert, but I'm not saying I've been shooting all my life. My father, before he died, I think I was about five years old, he bought me a single shot.22.

And he would go out to target practice, and he was teaching me how to handle it, care for it, this and that, when I was young. After he died, of course, I couldn't utilize or go with, you know, do the gun again. Until I was a little bit older, and the only way my mother would allow me to do that is I had to go down, and at the Civic Center in Ketchikan, they had an actual indoor range. And I went down there and went through a marksman course, you know, and stuff. So you were pretty closely supervised for safety and everything like that so I was taught then but I was also taught sighting you know using your sight patterns and

this and that and I got pretty good with it and just over time I got real good with it. And just over time, I got real good. I mean, there and pistol, you know, so. What did you shoot when you were in the military? Well, I shot the AR-15, M16. Yeah. AR-15, a lot of people know of that semi-automatic, but ours was fully the M16. I shot the M60 machine gun.

Is that what they had in the helicopter doors? Yes. And then I also qualified with a M79 grenade launcher and a 3.5 rocket launcher, which is the bazooka. Oh. And those I used. 45 caliber sidearm.

God, what else? They took away from me when I entered into country in Saigon, Tonsonette Air Force Base. They had you put your open-air duffel bag, put it between your feet there and you're standing there waiting. And they came through and started taking everything out of my duffel bag. But I brought with me, I brought my.38 Smith & Wesson pistol and they seized it.

Oh, yeah. And I thought that was the dumbest thing they could ever do, you know, because I'm used to that weapon, and what's going to hurt? Just another weapon that you have in a war zone, you know? Meanwhile, you got an M60 door gun. Well, sure. You're going to mess things up with your... Well, no, that, yeah, but, mean, I thought it awful funny about that.

I thought I would never see it again. They gave it back to you? It got back. It got back. And they mailed it right back to our post office box. Back then, I guess they could do it. You know, not anymore. You can't mail to the post office box.

But it made it back. It was there when I got back anyway. One last question. How'd your dad die when he was so young? My father was in the engineers, army engineers. And they went to Okinawa. And they were going to pull their invasion going on to Okinawa. So he and his squad went on there first under cover of darkness to start clearing away so that

they're not bottlenecked on the beach by obstacles and stuff like that. So they went in and started working stealth and wiring it up so that when that started, then they'd start blowing all these obstacles up and clearing the way so that they're not jammed up waiting to proceed off the beach. And in that process, they were still working on the roads and stuff like that that they're getting the stuff up off the beaches

so his whole squad was facing towards the beach so they get out of the way of all the amphibious vehicles coming up off the beach so they had to, they were being cautious about that and one of the fellows that were driving one of those amphibious rigs, they shelled him. And he went into shell shock and turned his amphibious vehicle back around and started heading back down the beach. And ran over half my father's squad including him and I could remember as a child I could remember

looking at his back you know when he had a shirt off and you could actually see it still see some tread marks and big scars and everything like that where they had straightened his back out well Well, he always had problems, always in and out of the VA hospital, all the time, constantly. And I didn't know how my mother had six kids, but she did, you know. So something was working. But for the most part, he was a pretty sick person. And as near as I could tell, he had problems with ulcers.

I think he probably had some cancer. I don't know, though. But he went down, was in the hospital. My younger brother, Ivan, was just born. I think Ivan's birthday is the, I don't know, end of June, first of July. My father died before you could see him. He died in the hospital in Portland, in the VA hospital. After he died, and the VA knew it was service-connected. They knew damn well it was. But they did not, they denied my mother any help.

Is that right? Right. Yeah, you know, and that always rubbed me bad because when a veteran, I wasn't married when I was in Vietnam, but I've seen other veterans that had a wife and kids home, and I've seen the effect they had on them, and they really missed them. And that was the most important thing to them. And they didn't want to get blown away and leave their wife and kids without any means

of support. And so Joan and I, one time, we were going through Seattle. We were at the Red Line. Red Line and this one fellow from Ketchikan there was going back for American Legion convention. And I told him, I says, you know what really bothers me? That a veteran, when they're having a disability, and they're married and they have kids, but they're getting a disability pension from the VA. If they die, that pension goes away. And that's not what that veteran wants. And I told them a story about when I was over there, I seen what effect

it had on the soldiers that did have a family back home, a immediate family, their wife and kids. And how they were saying... On top of anything else, all the anxiety about their financial well-being. Right, yes. If anything happens to them, how are they going to be taken care of, in other words? And that's true. Back then, if something was to happen to them, their wife and kids didn't get anything.

I guess I imagine they have Social Security help them a little bit, but for the most part, nothing. And that was true up until, actually, when the guy listened to me and he went back. And it made a difference. That's when they started the process. So I'm 100% disabled now. And anything happens to me now, at least Joan will get some of my pension.

But before then, that hack came in. If I was to die, she would get nothing. Boom. So if I was making house payments, or we had house payments, and she didn't have any other income and stuff like that, but maybe Social Security or something,

she would be hurting and probably lose her house. So they did. They came through, and they said that right now she'd get a third of what I get. I feel it should be a little higher. When I retired from law enforcement, I reduced my monthly, what they were going to give me, to assure that Joan would get something when I pass away.

Gotcha. So what I did, I set her up to where, because I wasn't taking my full retirement, some went, you know, kept back, but anything happens to me now and I die before her or whatever, she'll get 75%. There was another one where I could have set it up for 50%, but no. I mean, she was on there going through what hardships and stuff like that. I went going through the police department and going through different things, and, you know, you do.

And so I know there was a lot of times I had to phone home and tell her, hey, lock the door and load the rifle, you know, because just be on the safe side. You never know. Because of a case you worked or something, and someone would be out for vengeance. Yeah, and what the person told me, you know, himself. So, yeah, it was, so that's what I'm talking about,

the military, they turned around a little bit. Just like I may be keynote speaker for the upcoming gathering for the Vietnam era veterans over in Craig the 26th of September. I was asked to give a talk for about a 20 minute talk and in there you know the United States government in the last decade let's say has realized what especially

since the veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Desert Storm, they came back heroes. You know, and we never did. I mean, I came back walking through Sea-Tac Airport and had some demonstrators in there and they're calling me baby killer, and one spat on me. I don't think you'd be spitting on anybody else after that.

I mean, I think you learned this lesson. My death changed a little bit, thankfully. Well, I knocked them out, and I was putting a bathroom in there and cleaning off all the spit, and in walks two Port of Seattle Police Department personnel and two MPs. And one guy asked me, did you hit that guy out there? And I turned around and I pointed, put my finger in their chest, each one of them.

I said, they'd hit you, you, you, and you. You called me a baby killer and spit on me. They did that? I said, it hit you, you, you, and you. You called me a baby killer and spit on me. They did that? I said, yeah. I showed them where they spit. By the time I got out of there, they were gone. So, which was good, but. That was coming home.

Yeah, I was coming home. They gave me a brand new uniform, fitted me for it. And I got home. When I left the house there, my mother was in the kitchen painting totem poles. In the seat sitting there. And when I came back, snuck in the back door there. Well, I got my stepfather down to the bar. We had a few tips and my uncle and had another guy that I ran into.

He was in the Navy coming back. So we're sitting there in a bar, and I wasn't 21 yet. So I told him, and neither was this other guy. So I told him, hey, come on. We deserve it. So we went in there, and even the bartender once in a while would buy us drinks. I thought it was pretty cool.

But for the most part, when I got in there and I got home, my mother was at the kitchen table there painting totem poles. Is that right? Yeah. And she turned around, looked, went back to paint totem poles

and all of a sudden, she realized I was back home. So, that was welcome home enough for me. Yeah. You know? Yeah. All right, Ryan, you got any concluding thoughts?

Yeah, I do. You know, lately here, I realized one thing, and I came to the conclusion there's only one thing good about old age. What's that? It doesn't last long. And that's the only thing good about it so anyway no I'm I'll tell you I'll tell you another one too hey I added on to this when I heard it someplace else but I added on a few other things. The golden years. It's not the golden years. It's what I refer to as the metal years.

It's where you get silver in your hair, gold in your teeth, lead in your ass, iron deficiency. Your mind is like a steel trap, rusted shut. You have enough platinum credit cards to buy the world, but not enough gold to pay them off. And I think that more accurately describes it than the golden years. But yeah, since 19, 2000, 19, 2000, since 2007 when I had my episode of The Last Cloudy and stuff like that,

my, before that, I was in as good a shape as you. Yeah. Maybe even better. But now, I mean, I've been crashing, going downhill, and then I had that open-heart surgery and one of those metal valves put in, and that there further depleted. I mean, anybody could look at me and they would say, you're not disabled, but looks ain't it. I mean, it's what I can or can't do anymore.

And because of all this here going on at one time and the medications they got me on, you can't. But yeah, how old are you? Well past retirement age. What's retirement age? 65? You're older than that.

Well, sure. Yeah, I am, but that has nothing to do with it. I mean, really. I mean, Joan is in better shape than I am. Yeah. You know? And she's older than me.

She was the founder of the International Order of Cougars. Look at her. I'm just kidding, hon. You. Yanni's wife. Can I tell about your wife, Yanni? I agree. Then we got to wrap it up.

Can I tell about your wife, Yanni? You go tell these guys about your wife, Yanni. You can. Yanni's wife asked him to get married. And he said no. No, he said yeah. Oh. wife asked him to get married. And he said no. No, he said yeah. He loved his wife so much that he broke

the Latvian legacy. Ring? Broke the Latvian bloodline. Really? So that must be... I'm going to blow a quick note. I'm going to close the episode with a quick note.

Did you make this one? No, no. Are these yours? This one, for sure. That's a nice one. Ooh, that looks like the summoner. Yeah, it does look just like the summoner. I'm going to start out with a mating call.

And here's a wounded calf. You like that, Ron? Which one do you get better response at? The wounded calf makes does come and snort at you and buck their feet up and down. And that could bring in a buck. Really? Yeah. For doing all that?

Oh, yeah. I've had that happen to me all the time, and especially this time of year. You get a doe riled up and a buck will show up? Yes. Yeah, eventually it will. Because that doe's doing a lot of stomping and snorting. Yeah. So you'll keep holding her attention as long as you can? Yes, I will, as long as I can you yes i will as long as i can and you

have to hide real good i mean i was gotta keep her curiosity up yeah i was gonna go at some dude i was down underneath the log stick my deer call out and blow it again as soon as she comes back stomping real close by i mean i had him had her stomp a foot away from my head, but I'm under the log and I'm all right. And she'll act like that as long as she can't spot you. She don't know the source. And the longer you can get her to stomp and snort and stomp and snort,

the better your chances are of getting a buck to respond. Those will bring in blackberries too. Oh, constantly, all the time. And, you know, one of the times I was up there at Paul's Bite on a road system, and I see, look down below, and here is two doe down there. So I tried to get them to stomp and stuff and I blew and they did they were stomping and snorting and stuff like that so I said this is pretty cool

and I was up there and every once in a while as soon as they slow down I blow it again they continue stomping and I see something on the tree line coming in so I scope it and as soon as I seen what it was a son of a chill up my spine

and I didn't realize, but this bear, black bear, was crawling in real slow on his belly. Oh, is that right? Yes, coming in. And that just sent a chill up my back because I'm in a musk hag, blowing my deer call, and I always hear little subtle noises around the back of me or off to the side, you know, and I figure, well, there's got to be a buck coming in and stuff like that. Well, it never did come in, you know. Yeah.

But, yeah, and I had a friend of mine that was sitting in a small musk egg and he had his rifle down one in the chamber safety off he's blowing his deer call and he's sitting on this stump

or log and this bear come bolting out of the other side of this here short musk egg. And before that bear realized that he was not a deer or something, the bear spun. And as he spun away, the ass of the bear came around and knocked my friend off the log on his back.

Really? And he never even had a chance to raise his rifle. That's tough. Oh, they're fast. They come in very fast. And I didn't have time to stick around and see what that bear was going to do with the does, but I probably should have.

But I had a hunt to do, and I started going up the road. But I only could picture, you know, he was coming in stealth and getting in within that prancing distance of maybe, what, maybe 150, 200 feet. Yep. So that's right, ladies and gentlemen. You have right here, bears are fast, but not as fast as you should run to hunty.com.

Buy one of Yanni's t-shirts. How do you like that ad, Yanni? I love it. Thank you. That's H-U-N-T-T-O-E-A-T.com. And remember, I get nothing. I get nothing for promoting Yanni's t-shirt. Besides free t-shirts.

I have two free t-shirts. I'm going to make you, if you don't send Ron and Joan a free t-shirt. Besides free t-shirts. I have two free t-shirts. I'm going to make you, if you don't send Ron and Joan a free t-shirt, I'm going to quit plugging Hunt Eat. Well, I think you ought to plug the Kassan restaurant. Yeah, if you're passing through Kassan, go to the Kassan restaurant. All you can eat everything for $1.

$1. Oh, yeah. All right. eat everything for $1. $1. Oh, yeah. All right. Tune in next time. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. On-axe hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24k topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.