The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 094: Female Hunters

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

Seattle, WA- Steven Rinella talks with wildlife biologist Carmen Vanbianchi, Ryan Callaghan, Chef Andrew Radzialowski, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.Subjects discussed: Wolves returning to the landscape; predator interactions; spoonin' does; the creation of a female hunter; women in the woods and gender stereotypes; zero pink stuff; hunting alone vs. hunting with others; being moved emotionally; the striking effect of camo boxers; duds for ladies; the Heisenberg principle; the trouble with beavers; and more. 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.

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So, Carmen, what have you been doing? Are you still a biologist? That's a good question. Oh really? It's like up in the air? No, it's not up in the air at all. That's never been up in the air. But as usual, I'm just still patching things together. Let's see, since I was last here. Since you were last in this studio.

In this studio, I spent a winter helping on a new project that is happening in Washington State. It's a big predator-prey interaction project. Tell me more. I'm already interested. Well, so wolves have been returning to Washington. On their own. On their own. Walking in.

Just like regular old animals. Just like regular old animals. Not riding in helicopters. No, not in the back of trucks. They have four legs and they can travel real far. Can you tell people where they're coming from in my part of the state in the cascades they're probably coming down from bc whereas over in the northeast of the state they're probably trickling over from from idaho which are trickling over from the yellowstone reintroduction

right and yeah or and south from from canada um oh so you think that some so but you think it's fair to say that if you took if you look at washington state yeah do you think it's fair to say that some it's definitely fair to say that some wolves are coming out of canada yeah would be coming regardless of the yellowstone work from the 90s. But is it fair to say that some are coming from the reintroduction work that happened in Yellowstone in the 90s? From them going into Idaho and then flowing over into Washington. Yeah. Okay.

So anyway, this has raised questions about what might be happening to our ungulate populations. There's a big mule deer herd in the Cascades in the Methow Valley where I live. And so that's one of the study areas. They're also looking at possible cougar-wolf interactions, other interactions with other... Like what happens when a wolf and a cougar get together? Yeah, what happens when they're sharing the landscape? And then there's another study area

over in the Northeast area, and there they've got a lot more whitetail and elk. And so they're looking at interactions with whitetail and elk, and then also with cougars and wolves over there and other smaller carnivores too. But to do all this, these animals need collars on. So anyway, back to what I did this winter,

I helped put collars on cougars, and then we did a deer capture effort. So that was a lot of fun. And then over the summer... Can I ask right now how you put them on there? Is this a good time for that? On what? How you got the collars on the wolves and the cougars.

The wolves already, a lot of them already have collars on. The state does a continual monitoring. So the state's putting collars on. There was also some collars left over from a project I was on a while ago out of Washington State University looking at wolf predation. And so there were already some callers on from that project as well. So the wolves were, that's kind of an ongoing thing.

The cougars, a woman out of University of Washington, a PhD student is heading that up. And she's working in both study areas. And there's houndsmen in both study areas. Actually, Bart George is the one from the Northeast. Boy, look at how the axe to grind with that guy. Well, I haven't. No, that's not true.

I worked with him on the deer captures. If you see him, tell him. All right, I'll tell him you got it. You got a problem. Real problem with him, but go on. Um, anyway, houndsmen that were incredible and their dogs that were really incredible to work with. Um, so they, we'd just go out when there was, um, you know, it was all snowy. So you're using the snow tracking, snowmobiling around looking for cougar tracks.

And then if you find cougar tracks that seem fresh, they'd load the dogs up. They had these cool little trailers, snowmobile trailers, to pull the dogs out there and set the dogs on them. And they would just work and find those cats and tree them and then set up nets around the tree and dart the cat. Oh, really? To catch it because they don't want it to get hurt falling out? Right. So you can set up these huge nets.

How big of a net? Well, net isn't quite the right word. It's like a big canvas thing, and it's two of them, and so it's around the circumference of the tree, and then you stretch it out. It's probably a, I don't know, 10 or 15-foot diameter. So you've got to clear a lot of brush before you string this net, probably. If there's brush in the way, yeah,

and then you're pulling it out and tying it off to trees, and you're trying to guess where it might fall and block any dangerous things like rocks, stuff like that. So anyway, the idea is that the cougar falls into the net. Trying to guess where it might fall and block any dangerous things like rocks, stuff like that. Yeah. So anyway, the idea is that the cougar falls into the net. Once you hit it with a tranquilizer. Right, as it falls asleep. But if it doesn't, if it gets hung up, then the WDFW biologist who was heading up the capture would put on climbing hooks, climb up there, and lower the cat down.

But usually it seemed like they fell out it was easy from there now when you hit the cougar with the tranquilizer dart how long does it take before he doses off as long as it was a good hit and it got a good dose and it got enough i don't know maybe 10 minutes 10 minutes. And this whole time the dogs are just going nuts. So you got to restrain those dogs. They'll tear it up. Yeah, you got to restrain them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that done by like a rifle?

Yep, tranquilizer gun. Yeah, yeah. And then the, so for capturing mule deer, that was actually really fun. And one of the techniques for catching deer is to set up on their winter range, huge, um, nets, so hundreds of feet of nets. Um, and you set them up in topography that might sort of funnel them towards your nets. And then people hide in snow forts or whatever little fort they can make amongst these nets. They're kind of set up in rows and in various places. So everybody's hiding. Meanwhile- I got to understand, the nets are laid flat?

No, no, they're standing up. They're probably, probably i don't know 10 feet tall and maybe strung together so they might be a couple hundred feet wide they're like if you had drift nets or something so you might have um sort of layers of them like a like a stadium going down a draw or something gotcha so you're hiding amongst the nets snow, maybe a white sheet over your head or whatever. And meanwhile, there are helicopters or a helicopter driving around and they pick up deer and sort of slowly, gently push them towards the nets. And the helicopter's going and you're in your fort and you hear the helicopter, and your heart starts beating really fast, and all of a sudden, there's deer just running right at you.

They run into the nets, and you- Any big giant bucks? They avoided that. They avoided that. It was winter, so they didn't have their antlers, but we were just collaring does. Oh, like you just wanted the does. Yeah. Gotcha.

They leap into the net they get stuck you hop out of your fort and um spoon them basically so you you run up and start spooning you run up and you start spooning them yeah you you you're straining them big spoon yeah big spoon um and uh meaning you're latching yourself onto the back of the deer. Yeah. So they're probably kind of down on the ground, you know, tangled in the net, and you come behind them. You don't approach from the front.

Because they'll kick the shit out of you. Right. You don't want to get clobbered. You come from behind and sort of just give them a big spoon hug thing with your legs as well. And you want, I learned the hard way, you want your weight towards the back. Because otherwise they can get their back feet under them again and they can buck you. But it actually, I'm making it sound harder than it was. No, I don't think, no. Okay. I don't get that sense. I mean, it sound harder than it was No I don't think No

I don't get that sense It's a strong animal How hung up in the fence are they? In the mesh They can get pretty hung up So you spoon them You're grabbing their legs So that they're not kicking

Once you've got it restrained People come up Are they just bellowing? Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Yeah, yeah. It just sort of depended on the deer and how worked up they were, I guess. So do you have your face just like really tucked into the side of like the neck so you're not? Yeah, or kind of in the shoulder so you're not getting head butted.

Yeah. And so you're just, yeah, it's like extremely cuddly with this deer. And how many might you hook in one set? Where we were, they were pulling in small groups of maybe four or five deer. But we had a lot of people. So deer would hit the nets. Designated tacklers like myself, that was my job. Tackle the deer. Then other biologists come

put a face cloth on or like an eye cover. And they just chill right out then, right? They chill right out and if they aren't getting calm and they're monitoring their vitals if their vitals seem a little high or whatever they can be tranquilized to just help ease them through that but your goal is to not tranquilize them um it's a pretty fast recovery if you don't you know because then they're just

going to jump up and hop away it's a pretty fast recovery even with this particular drug but um it's it was pretty easy to just restrain them really quick, slap a collar on, take some measurements, and then they just go on their way. And what's their attitude when they jump back up again? Hmm. Bewildered? I don't know. They look like, whoa, what was that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then they quickly pull it together and get out of town. Yep, exactly. Yep. Yeah. pull it together and get out of town yep exactly yeah yeah have uh has anybody have any of the have you guys been checking on any interactions yet or is it too soon um i'm not really a part of that project right now so i'm not completely up to date but um you were just you were part of the collaring but not part of the monitoring right so um well yeah basically so they as of the collaring, but not part of the monitoring. Right. So, well, yeah, basically.

So they, as of the end of this summer, none of them had died from anything. My husband actually almost hit one in his giant work truck, but it- Oh, almost hit a collared one? Yeah, exactly. But otherwise, as of the end of the summer, they were doing okay. I talked about this before. They did a big collaring study one time up near Juneau. but otherwise as of the end of the summer they were doing okay i talked about this before they did a big collaring study one time um up near juno and they had a collared

moose i believe it was a moose not a caribou a collared moose fell into a crevasse. It was scavenged by a collared grizzly that fell into the crevasse and died too. And then those carcasses were scavenged by a collared wolverine. Lots of collars. Lots of stuff with collars. Yes. Co-mingling. Yep. That's very cool.

That's the kind of stuff you'll be looking for this study. Yeah. Yep. But are there issues in collaring these deer in, cause you're, you're picking them up and really like family groups, right? Well, they're, um, it's on their winter range, so they're pretty dense on the range anyway. But that was one of the reasons they were bringing in small groups. They'd pick off a couple from a group because we didn't want to get a bunch of callers in a group that's hanging out. I'm going to change the story slightly because I don't want to give away information to anybody. But we were having a very hard mule deer season in idaho and we all mean tough hunting yeah okay and pure curiosity uh everybody knows a bunch of biologists

and a friend of mine had called and the information that he got was there are only four collared deer left in your unit. I went out the next day and found three collared deer in one group. I was like, huh, what are the odds of that? Yeah, that's like a thing. Are they doing this poorly? Because I found all three in one spot at the exact same time.

But Carmen can speak to this better than I can, but that's the survey strategy called mark and recapture. We'll be like, let's say you, and Carmen, correct me if I'm wrong, or add color to this after I explain my understanding of mark and recapture. But let's say you have a lake, and you're like, how many walleye are in here anyway? And you go and pull a seine through the thing and catch 100 walleye and put a tag in each walleye and then over the course of the

weekend you know guys catch 300 fish including 90 walleye with the tag in them you'd be like i have a pretty good sense of how many walleye are in this lake where we're catching in a sample size of 300 we've got 90 of the collared ones or imagine you you tag a hundred walleye and then people fish for three years and pull hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of walleye out of the lake and no one ever finds one of the tag in it're like, man, there's a shitload of walleye in this lake. Sure. So if you know there's, in a whole unit, right, there's four deer left with collars and you go find three,

I'd be like, ain't many deer in this unit. Yes. Which is the case. How's that? Was that a good job? No, yeah, that's a good description of that. The only thing I was going to say is that it might not have been a marker capture. I mean, there's a lot of reasons.

Oh, no, no, no. I was thinking along the lines of migration corridor. Right. How these deer are moving. Not all the deer move from one spot through one area to the next spot. So it seems odd to me that 75% of the collared deer left are in this very small little hillside that I picked out. Yeah.

I want to, yeah, I didn't mean that. I don't want you to think I'm a dumbass. I didn't mean that as Mark Katcher. I just meant like

as a way to say like if I knew there was four. Yeah. Right? Yeah, no, yeah. I get what you're saying. I don't think you're dumb. I totally follow that.

That made total sense. I think this is just a different situation. Yeah. Or in my mind it was. God knows what. Probably a different question. Who knows what the question was that they were putting callers out there for. So no, they weren't doing a bad job.

They might have been. I don't know. So because I'm trying to follow your career now, as a, budding's not the right word, I'm trying to follow your career now. Budding's not the right word. As an up-and-coming field biologist, what are you doing right this second? I know you're at right this second,

but what are you doing right now? Are you going to be working on another project? Yeah, I have another one coming up. Right now, I'm working as a baker and making coffees for people. Really? Yep. And when's your next project come up? In January.

Oh, so it won't be long now. Yeah, and that's going to be another deer thing. I've been doing a lot of deer things lately. So over the summer, I was doing, for the same predator prey project, um, coordinating the capture season for fawns, putting collars on fawns over the Northeast part of the state as a part of this to see how, what, um, fawn survival rate is over there as a part of this bigger picture predator prey project. So I did that. And then, yeah, nothing was starting up in the area that I live right after that. So I've been just working on a bakery, which is a great place to be for the fall. And then next, doing another deer capture project, totally different.

This is with Department of Transportation because the stretch of highway that goes through the Methow Valley apparently has one of the highest rates of roadkill deer in the state. Okay. So going to be collaring deer there and trying to figure out if there are certain habitat variables along stretches of highways where or of that highway where more deer are getting hit so they're trying to understand if there's like some

thing yeah it's a habitat study basically trying to see if we can link clues about the habitat to higher collision rates on the road so that'll be a state level project. It's just in the Med How. So if you, but I'm saying it's conducted by the state. No, this is Washington State University and Department of Transportation. Okay. Yeah.

So like what's going to happen to you in the long, like what's going to, what will happen to you in the long run as a biologist? In the long run, I'm- Like you got to move? Well, that's the thing that i'm making it hard on myself because i love where i live um and i've worked there for so long and on so many different projects that um i've gotten pretty um attached to that landscape and just passionate

about it and that's the landscape and the wildlife that I want to be working with and, and trying to improve. Um, my husband has a really good job there too. So that's a factor. I have family there. And so I'm, I'm making, if I wanted to just move around, which I did quite a bit when I was younger, um, it'd be a lot easier to, to find a permanent job, but there's, you know, it job. But it's a tiny place. There's no stoplights in this valley. It's small, so there's not a lot of permanent jobs. Got you.

Yeah. So I'm just biding my time until something does come up and just patching things together. So I'm kind of unusual in that I'm almost 35 and I'm still patching things together, doing field work. But on the other hand, that's really what I love to do is, is being out in the field. You want to be doing field work. Yeah. And then what happened? Cause this is the other thing I wanted to check back with you in, cause I'm interested in your, in your beginning to hunt. Yeah.

So what happened there this year? Yanni said that you said that you had, how'd she say it? What'd she say? Long, arduous, challenging, maybe. No, it was, it was a great hunting season. I mean, for. Hold on real quick though. This is your what's hunting season.

Is what, what's isn't a word, but you get what I'm get what i'm saying i don't know yeah yeah yeah um 10th maybe 10th i think so almost maybe i yeah so i started hunting um i started getting really intrigued and interested um in when i was doing my undergrad at Humboldt State University in wildlife. I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Did some fishing with my grandpa, whatever, that sort of thing. Did you know back then you were going to be a biologist? Yeah. Yeah. I've always known. Yeah. I was in school for wildlife biology and I'd always wanted to do that. Okay. So I was already, you know, grew up camping and backpacking and in the out of doors and grew up in a rural area. And so I knew I loved being outside and all that. And I was doing wildlife work and I, yeah, I don't know.

Just something about it got me and I wanted to start hunting. And so I just did it and I, I took my hunter safety and, um, Where'd you do hunter safety? Uh, on Bainbridge Island in Washington in the sportsman's clubhouse. Um, did that. And I went, my first hunting trip was with a family friend in Northern California in the Trinity Alps. And he had been. Hold on a minute, now back up. I'm getting not lost, but close to it. Okay.

So you're going to school down in Northern California. Yeah. In big dope smoking country down in Humboldt. That's right. So you're like, hey man, I'd like to get involved in this hunting yeah so you wind up out on bainbridge island sorry yeah that is confusing taking hunter safety yeah that's that was the closest place no i'm i'm from washington over in that area that was a yeah so i was just it was a convenient time and location to take it yeah you were living out on bainbridge island no but it was near to where my parents live.

I was, I don't know, home on a break or something like that. So you're taking a ferry to go do hunter safety. There's a bridge. Oh, because you're coming from the peninsula side. Right, yeah, yeah. We just had a guest on from Bainbridge. Oh, really?

Yeah, the writer John Mualem. If you ever heard of him, just check him out. All right. Okay, so I get it now yeah so i was picturing you taking a ferry from somewhere to go to hunter safety no you're coming from you're coming from the olympic peninsula right exactly got you anyways so i got that and um and yeah lined up this trip with um back down in california back down in california with a family friend who had been packing his family had been packing into this

particular spot for, I don't know, like 50 years or something. Um, and I was the first woman. And I think the only one since to ever go to that, to that, to ever go with him on the trip. Yeah. Um, so it was, and that's not by design. I'm guessing. That's just by the fact that only 10% of the hunters in America are women. Yeah. Statistically. No, it wasn't like no girls allowed. Didn't have like a little sign. No, no. On the clubhouse door. No. Hey, there are a lot of signs on a lot of clubhouse doors. That's true. I was at a thing this year. I was at a thing this year where like, no girls allowed. For real.

A hunting thing. I believe it. There are sometimes, you know, signs that aren't there, but you can tell they're there. Yeah. And then sometimes there's just signs that are there. Right. Now, not that I condone. It's easier for me to understand that the sign's not there, but it's understood.

But it strikes me as really strange when the sign is there. That's pretty ballsy in this day and age. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think they've been in a situation where women come a-knocking that want, please let me in. Yeah. Read the sign. That's weird.

Yeah. So what happens on this trip so on first and last first and last girl to ever come with these guys yeah yeah it was the first time they ever got skunked oh man really yeah did they draw a connection no but it has always haunted me you know because you hear you know back in the olden days no women allowed on the ships and stuff like that so I've always worried

that maybe you know somebody might have How many people were on this trip? It was just my dad and this family friend so there were only

three of us and we got packed in on mules and dropped off yep dropped off and hunting mule deer hunting

no black tails so it was sort of near the coast west of i-5 yeah and um it was awesome i learned a ton and it was um it was a great trip did you see some critters we saw some critters apparently it was a it it wasn't the curse of having a female there. It was a really dry year. Things were different. And there had also been an article in a hunting magazine about this spot that previously. That always is a lot of good for spots. Right.

And so there were a lot of people showed up, whereas normally they had the place themselves. So we saw some deer, and I had a blast. And I was definitely hooked. But no, you didn't even get a crack? No shots fired? No, there were shots fired. I didn't have any shots fired, but there was a miss early on in the trip, the family friend that we were with.

My dad wasn't hunting. He was just along for fun. Oh. Yeah. My dad doesn't hunt. So your old man was like, hey, that sounds fun. I'll come along, but I'm not hunting. But you're hunting and the family friend, he takes a poke, misses.

Yeah, exactly. And you're like, I got to do more of this. Yep, yeah. And so then I just started going along or with anybody I could drag along with me. In what states? In Washington after that because I was a Washington resident. So I went around the plain area in the North Cascades

and just dragged my ass up ridiculously steep mountains in horrible vine maple. With little to no guidance. Little to no guidance. I mean, I'm comfortable in the woods that wasn't it but as far as i mean it wasn't like someone's like hey man go here sit on this right yeah little perch and observe and you'll see you know around 9 a.m watch a buck will come right right you didn't have that kind of intel no no intel um but it was a blast. And, you know, I learned, okay, crawling through vine maple isn't, there were deer there. I saw them, but crawling through vine maple up these cliffs isn't a good way to hunt. Can you describe vine maple? I mean, is it thorny or just thick? like um slide alder that same sort of idea where it's just really dense branches that you're having to contort through and if you're going uphill it's coming downhill and you're trying to get

oh yeah like the way alder branches downhill and grows parallel to the ground yeah yeah exactly that's a real plant that's hard to fall in love with yeah exactly thing. A little devil's club in there? Not on this trip. Older devil's club, man. The cocktail of ruined hearts, man. But the Trinities are not. There's some nasty country in there. And then you got poison oak. Maybe just like miserable spots.

I don't get poison oak. You don't get poison oak? No, I'm very lucky like that. Yeah. That's special. Yes. Okay, so I want very lucky like that. Yeah. That's nice. Whoa. Yeah. That's special. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so I want to get the timeline.

I'm trying to establish the chronology of a hunter. Not just that, but we're going to get into the chronology of a female hunter. Okay. The creation of a female hunter. Okay. If you're comfortable with that. Sure. Okay.

Which might not even be a thing. I'm going to ask. Okay. Which might not even be a thing. I'm going to ask. Okay. But year one, you cool on all this right now, Poo? Yeah, I'm good. You're tracking? No questions whatsoever? I'm just listening.

Okay. Just want to make sure. If something comes up, jump in. I'll chime in for sure. All right. 10 years ago, you do the trip. Now, I don't expect you to have like a, you haven't kept the hunting journal, have you?

No, I haven't. Man, I for years kept hunting journals, extremely detailed hunting journals. It's fascinating to go look at those now. I quit. I wish I hadn't quit. Yeah. Weather, what happened, who I was with, where I was.

Oh man, it takes like a lot of energy to do it but my god i was i was not too long ago reviewing hunting journals from a long time ago if i had done that my whole life because a lot of times i'm like i'm like man i don't know i know this one spot was pretty sweet but i can't remember where it was and i lost my map book it hasn't gotten that blurry for me yet. There's honest to goodness places where we went and saw bears, spring bear hunting, that I cannot remember

where it was that we saw them. But I know that it was like, yeah, there's a slide up some creek and I just, you know, you remember exactly everything, but I just like would never be able to walk there again. Because we checked out

a lot of the drainages. Yeah. And it's become blurry in time. Yeah. So now that you need that level of detail, but what happened nine years ago? So the year after the first one, is that what you mean?

Yeah. That's when I went to plane and crawled around in Vine Maple, saw some deer through the rain, nothing happened. Up close deer? Yeah. Why didn't you shoot? Because they were does. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't see any bucks. And you't you shoot her? Because they were does. Oh. Yeah. So I didn't see any bucks. And you're hunting by yourself? That, those times I was with some other family friends that I drug along, some, some guys that were younger than me and they'd never hunted either. And you weren't married at this point? Mm-mm.

Nope. So you weren't hunting with your husband at all? No. No. So then I did that, I think for a couple years and then let's see what happened during all those couple years never got never got anything but were you seeing bucks uh nope just does but see that's what i'm saying why are you still okay at that point okay go. Finish what you're saying. I wasn't hunting effectively at that point. I didn't know what I was doing.

I knew that I wanted to challenge myself and be having a really hard time, so I was doing that. But because I was crawling through vine maple, going up these really steep areas, there's no way to be quiet. I didn't have good visibility. I was just bumbling around. I didn't really know what I was doing yet.

If I walk long enough and hard enough, I will eventually just, there will be a buck standing there. Exactly. If I'm soaking wet. Yeah. I'll stumble into one. Yeah. And what, but what kept you wanting to keep doing it?

Because people like instant gratification. Yeah. I don't know. I was just determined. And I just love being out there. Were you meantime saying to people at Trailheads, like, hey, did you see any deer around? Or were you like running to other hunters?

Yeah, I was reading books. I was talking to anybody I could, friends hunted that sort of thing yeah and when you read books and the book said find um like a good place where you can really observe the surrounding country that didn't make sense because you're in thick stuff right exactly you'd read it but it didn't match up like what you were seeing right but so then i was learning about still hunting and so i was trying to do that too um but i mean and this is in washington it's a week you've got a week and a lot of times i did work during the week so it even though it was a couple seasons it was like days couple you know going on general firearm right exactly general firearm right so not 10 years you got two days a year?

No, this was just in the beginning. We're only in years nine, eight, and seven or thereabouts right now. Something like that. I don't remember exactly, but yeah. And you're seeing other animals. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing does, seeing bears and whatever else is out there.

Any lions? Nope. Nope. No, not is out there. Any lions? Nope. Nope. No, not in those years. Elk? Nope. Not a very elky spot out there. Okay. What's wrong, Giannis?

Nothing. Sure? Mm-hmm. Then what happened? Okay, so then I decided to move to the Met How Valley in the Cascades. Very different scene. It's open there. There's tons of mule deer comparatively.

I bought my first truck and it was a stick, which I'd never driven. I drove out there and learned stick on the way and pulled into a spot that I'd briefly... What was the truck? It into a spot that I had briefly...

What was the truck? It was a Toyota Tacoma. Nice rig. Yanni's got that same rig. Not a Vitonidra. I'm thinking about getting a Tacoma. Is that an upgrade or downgrade, Yanni? It's smaller.

Okay. So there you are, driving a stick shift Toyota Tacoma. Yep, for the first time. And I pull into this spot Where I decided I was going to hunt How did you decide this? I looked at maps and then I briefly scouted it And

Yeah I just sort of It was a lot of just pulling it out of the hat Sort of And still no one has said to you Hey go do this No I mean I learned some from has said to you, hey, go do this. No. I mean, I'd learned some from this family friend

on that first trip about you know, sitting, that, so his technique where we went was to, you'd hike to these spots that he knew, you know, they'd consistently gotten dear and it'd be like a brushy little draw or something and it'd be like a brushy little draw or something,

and we'd wait. And then if that didn't work out, we'd go somewhere else. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated.

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That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more as a special offer you can get a free three months to try on x out if you visit on x maps.com slash meet on x maps.com slash meet welcome to the to the on x club y'all but meanwhile how is it that they're not meanwhile why how is it there aren't guys saying like come hunt with us i steve is perplexed the universe hadn't offered you up some sort of guidance yeah no up to that point i also kind of had a thing where i really wanted to do it alone okay yeah because i could imagine I could imagine, I could imagine that in a small mountain town where men tend to

like outnumber women by a lot, okay, that there'd be a lot of guys would be like, hey, let's go hunting. And I don't mean that as a euphemism. I mean, there's be like, oh, you're like struggling to get into hunting. Come with us. Yeah. You were rejecting those proposals. I wasn't getting those proposals.

You weren't even getting those proposals. No. I mean, I just, so in the case of the madhouse, I didn't, I mean, I've literally pulled right into the camping spot with all my stuff. And were you getting funny looks like here's this lone woman out hunting, which is like, I'm sorry. You just like,

it's not something, not that it doesn't happen. It happens, but it's not something you typically see. Right. You see a lot of groups of guys driving around in a truck, Chester fried chicken. Yep.

That's the thing I see. Oftentimes I don't oftentimes see, um, I don't know. I don't see Chester. driving around in a truck eating chester fried chicken yep that's the thing i see oftentimes i don't oftentimes see um i don't know i don't see chester i've yet to see uh what uh just a lone female hunter or even like a group of people that's what i'm saying i'm saying i haven't seen it but i know that happens i know the women right i've met and hung out with women who do do that but i've never out no it's rare and have i'm never like out and i see some orange vest across the valley and i'm thinking about how upsetting that is to me but how it shouldn't be upsetting to me because we're all in this brotherhood together and then i decide to glass them up through my spotting scope and be like oh

it's a woman that never happens yeah it doesn't i'm sure what it is the guy yeah i uh i think that i'm out in the woods alone a lot for work and so you don't feel and look out of place i don't know what i look like but i do get comments i get a lot of well you do get comments yeah i get a lot of... Well, you do get comments. Yeah. I have people saying, telling me to be careful. Okay. You know, if you run into somebody or... People make comments, yeah.

And I... And how do you reply to those comments? Well, nicely. But it doesn't... It is irksome. It is? It is. I find it irksome. It is. It is. I find it irksome. I, um, the assumption that

I need to be cautioned or, or checked in with because I'm out there alone. I wish it was different. I wish that nobody thought, had a second thought about it, which I mean, obviously that's wishful thinking because people are going to have a second thought because they don't see it very often, but it's kind of this, this self-perpetuating cycle of. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. People saying, you know, be careful out there. And so then two women.

And so then women being fearful to be out there. Yeah. And I understand that because it's like you want to think like, why do you have to act like it's unusual? And some old guy is going to be like, because it is. Right. I'm sorry that you want me to act like it's normal, but it's not normal. So we can all pretend or I can tell you that i hope you're

careful right well or you could say you know have a good hunt right exactly exactly good luck it's kind of i it's kind of you can make the metaphor um sort of similar i often when i pick up a pocket knife am told don't hurt yourself you yes by various how about when you're wrestling deer not so much but the but the irksome part is when I pick up a kitchen knife nobody ever says that you know and so it's um it's it's this unconscious, and it comes from a good place. I don't want you to get hurt, but I don't need somebody to tell me when I pick up a pocket knife to be careful. I know it's sharp. Yeah.

Now, everyone at this table besides you comes from a place of incredible privilege in this society. Yeah. White men have a track record of being in charge of stuff around hereabouts. Right. So these sorts of things, when I hear about it, like I felt like I have this knee jerk thing to want to like defend the people like, oh, he means well.

Yeah. But how do you deal? Like when you deal with something like that and you recognize, and you're like, come on, dude, really? Like, I need to be careful. Maybe you ought to be careful because you look like you might already have a heart attack.

Or whatever you're thinking. Like, do you, are you, do you get mad at the guy or you just sort of get this like perturbed at how culture is? I get perturbed about how culture is. get perturbed about how culture is it depends also on how blatant something is i mean i think women probably in general are fairly used to or maybe don't even notice comments like that but um maybe because i work in wildlife biology and specifically oftentimes with carnivores and,

and also hunting, I'm often in an environment that's traditionally male dominated. Um, and so, um, I am around comments like that more maybe, and I'm also aware of them because I'm sort of constantly, um, fighting those stereotypes and those assumptions that people might be making about me. You're pushing against them, right? It's easy to walk into,

like walk into a room with another biologist and if he's male, people assume that he's a biologist and say something science-y to him maybe, but don't assume that I'm a biologist. Have you been pairing any vegetables lately? Essentially. It is culture

because I got my own little story interject here i used to feel that same irking when i'd be like in a grocery store when i was a stay-at-home dad doing the grocery shopping and i'd have my eight-month-old with me you know and people would be like oh uh do you know where your mother and your wife is? You're out here alone in the world with this child. You know, I'm like, come on, you know? I'm just, yeah, I got it under control, man. It's fine. I'm going to cook dinner tonight too.

But yeah, like, and women. They're like, be careful. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah. I don't want to make it sound like, oh, this is just something that happens to women.

No, you're not. I think it is just a, it's a culture thing. The difference is, the difference is, and this is like something that we're women. I think it's a culture thing. The difference is and this is something that we're talking about a lot in our culture right now. There's a difference between stereotyping that has teeth and stereotyping that doesn't have teeth.

Right? In some directions, it's toothed. It's damaging. In some directions, it's just weird and annoying. Right. In some directions, it's toothed. Yeah. Damaging. In some directions, it's just weird and annoying. Right. And in some directions, like with women, it's got a whole nasty history, too, that goes along with it. But, I mean, being stereotyped into either gender role is irksome. Yeah.

Yeah. But. So, now, had you ever been out during these early years of going out hunting? Did you ever have guys that were just outright scamming on you? No, but I didn't. I mean, I wasn't interacting with a lot of people either. I was trying to get away from people.

And you never had guys make you uncomfortable out in the woods? No. In trail heads or whatever? No, no. Like what's a cute little lady like you doing? Oh, well, yeah. But you're rolling that into the annoying. Yeah.

I never felt like threatened. That's the annoying, not threatening type. Right. Yeah. Okay. So let's continue on with the chronology. Okay. I'm going to return to this.

Okay. I'm going to return to aspects of this. Okay. Not that aspect, but other aspects of the female hunter experience. Okay. Yeah, so pull into- Can I add another quick question? Yes.

Do you have a lot of pink stuff on all your stuff? I have zero pink stuff. Okay. Yeah. So- I think in year seven I did or eight and what happened

well but we missed my first big solo trip was when I first well let's back up to that yeah let's back up because this was

where I learned I learned a lot um and stepping stone milestone yeah yep so I I pull into the Madhau Valley I'm moving here learning stick um starting a new life here um but I pull what was it for work it was because uh my sister had just moved there. She was about to have a baby. Okay. I knew I loved the area, and I knew I liked working in high mountain areas with carnivores, and it's a really rich environment there with lynx and wolverines and bears and everything else.

Okay. So you're making kind of a move to a greener pastures, but not some overwhelming, like specific thing you're chasing at. Right. Yeah. And I wanted, I'd been traveling around doing different field projects all over the country. And I was starting, which I loved, but I was starting to want a community and to sort of settle down, I guess.

Yeah. So I just chose that spot. But anyway, this was day one. And I pulled into this place where I wanted to camp. And I spent the next eight days hunting every day. By yourself? By myself. Car camping?

Yep. I'd hike back to my truck every day. And it was incredible. I got to know this mountain really well and i was seeing i should have shot probably five bucks that trip um i had opportunities the stumbling block there was just um i was really worried about um i don't know it was like i wasn't good yet at no because it's a three-point minimum I was really worried about, I don't know, it was like I wasn't good yet at, because it's a three-point minimum,

and I wasn't good yet at quickly figuring that out, which sounds weird. Meaning the Bucs had to have three times on one side. Yeah, exactly. So it had to be a Michigan six, or a Western three-point. Well, it could only have one antler, as long as it had to be a michigan six or a western three point it uh well it could be uh it could only have one antler as long as it had three i got you those doesn't even be michigan right yeah as long as one antler has three points right yeah so um but i had some incredible moments with bucks and it was a blast um so you'd see the buck and you'd be like there'd be a pause where you

just wanted to really extra careful Sure there was no surprises When you got over there I also had real shitty optics Is this still really thick country? No It was more open The particular mountain I was on was a little thicker

But in general it was more open What do you mean? What are the optics? I don't know off brand binoculars yeah but things that i know now like okay if i saw that animal again with my binoculars now i would know exactly what it was that it was legal um so in hindsight you feel like there are some legal bucks oh yeah oh absolutely i know like I can picture the rag. Yeah, exactly. Um, and also just, I don't know that those, those, it probably is something that people who've grown up hunting don't think about, but for me, the, the being out there was not what was hard figuring out just sort of smart ways to hunt was something I, I had learned in the years before that.

But then those final moments between getting something in your sights and pulling the trigger was for me, um, that was the stumbling block, just all the little decisions. And, and I had a lot of, you know,

fears and anxieties about what could go wrong. And so that was a stumbling block. But if I hadn't been alone maybe I probably would have gotten a deer because I might have had somebody to say, hey, go for it. But I'm also glad that I did that trip by myself.

And glad you didn't screw up shooting a legal buck. Right. Yep. Yeah yeah because you know as a guide we'd see that a lot you know people have a real easy time getting kind of up until that moment and then when it's just like you'd be like yeah peek over that hill and kill that deer or kill that bull they kind of look at you like uh what what now you know what do you mean it's like peek over that hill and kill that bull. And you're like,

well, take about four steps and really slowly with your gun already up, you know, like no one, you know, and there's like you're saying,

there's like a thousand little things going through your head and it's, we kind of coined a term for it, right? Like just those last few moments of like when you really go into like a kind of a kill mode,

you know, and everything else just disappears. And you're like, now it's going down. Yeah. Some people lack that decisiveness. Yeah. I was just too caught up in my anxiety about was this going to be exactly right? Was it going to go exactly right?

So. We were one time, you know, there's a similar restriction with doll sheep where rather than counting three points there's like things that make a doll sheep legal or not legal like that when viewed from the side their horn describes a 360 degree circle or that both of the land lamb tips that each lamb tip is completely broken off or that it has seven annuli seven growth rings so if they're not obviously full curl it gets really difficult yeah and we were hunting with a guy one time where we observed one, said that's a legal ram. And he stalked it and got up into range and we never heard the blouch.

And he comes back, he's like, I just don't think it's legal. Yeah. And then he left early and then we went and re-found it and shot it. Legal Ram. It was like, it was that, that doubt.

Exactly. But people that have that doubt are, it's good to have that kind of doubt. Yeah. Because the opposite. Right. That can get you in a tricky spot.

It's just the trick, it's like the trigger happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feller. Right. So, didn't, didn't get a deer um anyway started living but you kept at it for eight days yeah yep yeah i kept at it

it was a blast i mean just being out there and actually seeing that many deer compared to the years before where i hadn't been that was exciting enough and how many miles were you straying from your truck i don't know i wasn't keeping track but i mean i'd be out all all day hiking around running into other hunters a little bit not much yeah is that still a good spot um i've been there since then and nope i've never I haven't spent that much time, but I have never seen as many deer as I did that year. So it was a good year to be out there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I started living and working in the Met How Valley and just hunting every year. It's a short season. And met my husband. He hun hunts and so we started hunting hunting together um which was which is it's great i love so how'd you meet him um i was let's see i it was the first winter that i moved there and so i was um helping with the lynx trapping effort and also working at a bakery and making coffee.

And he is a lineman and his crew was working in the area, that area of the valley where the bakery was and came into the coffee shop. Gotcha. Yeah. And was it quickly established that he liked to hunt and you liked to hunt? Yeah. Yeah. Very quickly. Gotcha. Yeah. Very quickly. Gotcha.

Yeah. Anyway, we started hunting together, which was a whole nother journey. Just for me, adjusting to hunting with somebody else really was a big part of it. Like in a negative way? Yeah. I liked hunting alone. I do like hunting alone. But I also like hunting with other people. It was just meshing our styles

and getting used to consistently hunting with somebody else. And I think that now we're married and we've been together for a long time. And, you know, when we go on hunting trips, you might, you're not always comfortable, you're tired, you're cold, you're hungry. And so, uh, when you're with somebody who you don't have to be on your best behavior with, um, you know, it can get squabbly and stuff, but we're, it's getting more and more, um, harmonious and it's always been, been great to hunt with him. It's, um, it's pretty cool to do that with, with somebody that I'm not close with. So,

um, but anyway, back to the hunting journey. So we just started hunting together and finally got my first buck. And we were hunting together. And it was perfect. It was a great spot in stock. And yeah, so that was a great experience. And so what happened with that? How did you feel about that then? Did you feel like, finally?

It felt like, finally, yep finally yep yeah and it felt really satisfying and um and it wasn't a huge buck or anything i was really proud did you get it the way you wanted to get it like yeah were you still kind of doing it on your own no we were together but we were working together so well it felt it felt really good we spotted the buck a ways away and it was maybe an hour of stalking and then and i was out in front and peeked over this rock and the buck was bedded down maybe 40 yards from me so it was yeah so it was it was perfect yeah now did you uh what was your emotional response were there outward manifestations of emotion What was your emotional response?

Were there outward manifestations of emotion? Probably. Like what sort? I think that, I mean, you know, classic sort of things that you would see. Was it sadness or was it like real jumping up and down happy? It was, I wasn't jumping up and down, but it was happy. It was relief i there might have been a tear or two is that what you're getting at i thought so because i've been i've uh yeah i've had the good fortune to hunt with quite a few women over the years and um there's a i i and it's hard to understand i don't know if it's did it's hard to understand.

I don't know if it's a freer sort of expression or if it's some kind of innate thing or trained thing, but I find that the emotional response, based on an admittedly small sample size, I find that the emotional response is often different. Yeah. Well, okay, what about this, though? Lay it on me.

Could that be more that these are people who are experiencing their first deer kill later in life? Right. I think, you know. Yeah, that's exactly right because the cases I'm thinking of are people being introduced to hunting as adults.

Right. Whereas I'm hunting with a lot of guys who've hunted their whole life and all the shock is worn off. Right. All the surprises, not the shock,

but you know what I'm saying. All the like, holy shit. Yeah. I've seen plenty of man tears out there. Yeah. I have since then. Shit, I was on the verge this year with my mule deer.

I had a guy just telling me too. You know, it's funny. Who was just telling me they cried when they got something? I've seen. No, you told me you damned your cry. Yeah, you told me you damned your cry. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

So that's what you think is going on? I think so. I mean, for me, it wasn't sadness. It was just there had been so much buildup. And then there was the adrenaline going and I cry easily anyway. I don't, I was not crying. There were a couple of tears. I think it was just kind of the release of all the, all the buildup to that moment. You know, I saw Yanni's dad. Yanni's dad shed a tear. When? When he got his moose. Oh, right, because you got to watch.

I was just saying, I'm just wondering, because I'm like, you weren't there. Because when people say, you got to watch it on TV later. If you take any pictures on your hunting trip, I'm like, we took a hunting show on our hunting trip. That's right. I see everything.

I got an eye in the sky when I review footage. And yeah, Yanni's dad was moved emotionally. So sure. I'm not going to give up, though. I'm not going to give up on the idea that I think it's more common. Well, I mean. Let me be clear. I think it's more common. Well, I mean... Let me be clear. I think it's a higher...

I'm not going to give up on this idea. I think that there's a higher likelihood. And I'm not going to say what factors are at play. A higher likelihood that a female hunter will experience the emotions. Not experience them differently, but the outward manifestations might be different specifically there might be tears is that what you mean no i think that a that there's a greater likelihood of of emotions beyond just hell yeah yeah yeah well okay here's a little theory please that back to what we're talking

about with gender stereotypes okay it's more acceptable in women right in our society less acceptable in our society that's what i want that's what right that's what i wonder point yeah that's what i'm that's what i'm that's what i'm like getting at or wondering about. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that it's, I see you saying outward manifestations. Yeah, the feeling could be the same. And we only know about what happens when we're present. Right. So whose principle is it

that just by observing something you change it? Heidelberg? Heidelberg principle? i don't know i'll stop my head he's talking about a street someone's uh astronomy not astrology but astronomy and there's this idea that by observing something you change it so it's not really that what that dude was talking about isn't really the same thing as what i'm saying what i'm saying is by observing in this interaction you are changing it because you're a presence so i don't think that i'm not postulating or i'm not saying that like oh woman experiences shooting a deer differently than a man it's just a guy

might say of the 10 things i'm feeling right now i can tell you the one i'm not going to act on right because guys don't exactly cry yeah or guys don't act like they're conflicted right yeah so i don't agree with that i will act like i'm not conflicted and act like i'm not about to cry right right i think the last time i had it when i killed a big game animal it was pure um like relief type of tears yeah yeah it was like day five or six of the haunt and i'd been just humping some serious hills and i was worn out and just fatigued, probably hungry, lost like five pounds that week. And finally, it's like standing over a dead elk and just like, kind of like crying for no reason.

And you're like, it's just like the relief. You're like, finally, you know, I got it done. I've been just like pounding, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, you know. That was part of it for me that year too, because I'd been hunting on the weekends really hard. And then during the week I was working every day. So I'd get up and hunt out behind the house before work, go to work, which was hiking all day, going to wolf kill sites. And then I come home and hunt more. And so I was just kind of worn out by that. When you're going to wolf kill sites

and then having a tough time hunting, were you ever like, man, these wolves, these wolves have this dialed? No, because they actually don't really have it dialed. They don't have it dialed? No, I think their success rate is, it's not what people might think it was. And a lot of, so going to wolf kill sites,

you're going to places where there's clusters. They've got collars on taking GPS points every two hours. So you're going to places that have clusters of points. Yeah, it's not like you know something died. You just know that something went on. Right. And so most of those places are bedding sites. Gotcha.

Or just whatever. But you got to go check. Right. Exactly. It must be fun to spend that much time where wolves have been hanging out. Oh, it's awesome. And you're following around the same pack. And so, yeah, you get to kind of know what they're doing and what their deal is.

It's really cool. Just how they use the landscape. Where their spots are. And going to kill sites is just fun. It's really cool because you're poking around trying to figure out exactly what happened, who's been there scavenging, were they actually scavenging?

Yeah, it's fun. It takes a lot of tracking skills, which I enjoy doing. Yeah, which you probably developed. But I want to make sure we put this thing to rest because I feel like you don't like what I'm saying or getting at when I ask about the crying oh no no no

no I don't have a problem with it I just I just knew that was probably where you're going with it how did you know that's where I was going with it because it's I knew it was probably expected that a woman would be more emotional. No, no, no.

No, not expected. But it's not you, but you fit into a bigger pattern. Oh, come on now. Yeah, yeah. What is the pattern? I agree with Carmen. But you also say outward manifestation. I fit into a bigger pattern.

No, the difference. By trying to have. Before you asked the question or got to your point that you sort of could have just pulled a group of people and then it's sort of been like what's possibly like a question that we'll get to you know oh shit really yeah here i am i'm not gonna sit here and defend myself you don't need to no it's not like you did anything wrong this is like this here's what how i picture this this is where i get to um where i get to have a conversation with a person i respect whose opinions i respect and i get to all the things that guys wonder about women about hunting now i was gonna ask this next

but i'm gonna ask it now okay the reason being and this is something that you and i have discussed at length the honest we keep being told right but we keep being told in in the media in the outdoor media that there is such a thing as the female hunter and the female perspective is needed in hunting and which i agree with wholeheartedly but janice is always saying like but is it really how do we know that it is, that there is such a thing? Maybe it's just hunting. Yeah. And that's, and therein, and I want to say the second part, because therein lies the issue. We're saying that it's no different.

It should be no different. We should always treat it as equals, but there's a lot of people who are very invested in this idea of enhancing, developing, bringing out the female perspective, which they tell us is no different. I'm just saying, I have my own opinions about this. I'm saying one might survey the cultural dialogue surrounding women in the outdoors and come to the conclusion that like, let me make sure I'm getting this right. The female perspective is important, but it's not different. Okay. And there's tension between those two ideas, but they live side by side like friends. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I would say to that a lot of things.

Not that I have a problem with anything that you've just said, but I have thought about... How could you have a problem? No, yeah, and I don't. Now I'm just feeling like I need to defend the fact that you felt like you were needing to defend yourself. No, I totally, because I agree with you, because I've thought a lot about this, obviously.

You have? Yeah. yeah great i knew you had because i was gonna even ask that specific question and and maybe or i should have earlier because i was just wondering like how you spent time like sitting around in the woods when the hunting's slow thinking about this thing that we're now gonna engage yeah yeah i tell you what i damn sure haven't done is I have never sat out in the woods and being like, as a man, I feel this. Right. Yeah.

Well, what I've come to is if there is a special female perspective on hunting, I'm not really sure what that would be. I personally don't feel like I have a special perspective on it. I feel like where we should be, what people mean when they say that we should be equal, it doesn't have to do with the perspective, but in how women are represented and treated out in the field. Listen, that's not the mysterious part to me. I would love to hear you talk about it. I completely understand that.

Yeah. So I think it's, I don't know that anybody's trying to say that women have this different perspective and that's important. No, no, yeah. They are. But that it's the same at the same time.

I mean, I think you can bring different things to the table, but where it needs to be equal is how you're same at the same time. I mean, I think you can bring different things to the table, but where it needs to be equal is how you're treated at the table. If that makes any sense. It makes a ton of sense. Right. So I don't want to be treated any differently when I'm out there. It would be nice to see equal representation in hunting.

You know, it'd be great to go on TV and see as many women killing it out there and being inspired by that and being inspired, maybe not even consciously, but just seeing women doing that helps you to realize you can do it too. And just by the fact that there aren't as many women out there doing it and that when people are talking about hunting, it's all talking about men predominantly. It just every time kind of reinforces the stereotype in everybody's brain, women included, that this isn't an activity for us. This isn't something that I could excel at.

Can you think of forms of... Describe for me the ways that you see female hunters represented or how they represent themselves in media. What are the things that you see? Do you have categories of representations? Well, I don't watch a whole lot of TV. You don't look at hunting magazines? No, I do.

I watch a lot of YouTube hunting videos. Okay. And they're mostly men. But there was one I saw lately of a woman just out there hunting by herself, high country mule deer. And she was just, it was really exciting and cool for me to see, to see that. Because it was that, it was that it happened to be a woman. Right. Out hunting, but it wasn't the point of it.

Right, exactly. Yeah. And so then you noticed it and it resonated with you. Yep. I noticed it. It resonated with me and it, um, yeah. And she was just, she was doing it alone and that was neat to see. If you're watching, okay, let's say watching YouTube videos. If you're watching a YouTube video and you, and you stumble across a video where the point of the video is to point out that here i am a woman out hunting does that resonate with you or do you not like to see it articulated no i think it's fine it's great to articulate it because women are

underrepresented if you can um you know bring attention to the few women that are doing it, I think that's great. Yeah, it's just not seeing it as much and not being exposed to lots of women. It's not completely normalized. And so that's why people have a little double take when they see women in the woods is because it's not normalized

and it's back to that self-perpetuating thing where it's not normalized for women to be out there. They're not hearing stories about their mom or whatever going out there hunting. They're not seeing it on TV. They're walking into hunting stores and it's getting a lot better but it used to be that the only camo for women was like bikinis and underwear and so just seeing those little things daily it just paints a bigger maybe subconscious picture that this this isn't something that women do maybe they

can't do it as well or or whatever but that i think can we pause for a moment to talk about camouflage underwear yeah okay there's there's i know what you're talking about because there's like camouflage is uh is fredericks of hollywood still in business i don't know can you type it up there's that type of you're gonna want're going to want to use private browsers. But, Cal, First Light, you guys at First Light, make camouflage men's underwear. Why? We make camouflage women's underwear, too. Why?

Because they are in business. For some odd reason. I bet they got a camel line. I'm not going to go find that. No, I don't need you to. I just wanted to know. Because I didn't know if I was dated. It's very dated to point it need to. I just want to know because I didn't know if I was dated. It's very dated to point it out, but I just want to make sure

it wasn't so dated that it doesn't exist anymore. When it started out, a very small company. I want to interrupt my own. Go for it. Bear with me for a minute. I want to get back to this, but I just really need to... This is a

question I've had too. I need to pursue this to this, but I just really need to... This is a question I've had, too. I need to pursue this for a moment. Sorry. So, I mean, there are... We were at SHOT Show. We'd be right across the way from... Remember when we were in the corner at SHOT, the booth right across from us was like...

Had like the sexy camo. Yeah. You know, like, God, why do we have to be here? But I understand how that is. Okay, but when it started out for us, you know, very small company, and we would dye merino wool, you know, what's now a conifer, not green, black, dry earth, and fusion, right? Without really knowing what you're going to make out of it.

But you have to at least get to your MOQ, your minimum order quantity, just to get the stuff produced. So we got to this point where we're like, well, we got to make everything in everything just to hit our MOQ. Okay. And that's how it started. But I was like,

why the hell are we making camo boxers? The thing is they outsold the solid colors. Now, who is buying them? Is it a dude buying them? Or is it, and I always said, you know, it's grandma buying. Like, oh, Billy likes camo. I don't need his new underwear.

Right. Exactly. but the thing is it sells so now it's it's there dude i had so i had a pair of your camo boxers on yep first off i put them on and my lovely wife pointed out that did not let that go on uh observed on uncommented on she had to comment on her surprise and we had a little laugh about it then in the middle of night my two-year-old comes in our room because he is wet and now that's not doesn't fly with him anymore he needs to come let someone know so i hop out of bed in my camo boxers and i'm trying to be like because jimmy rolls you're sleeping and we can be quiet and he is screaming what's that underwear what's that underwear

it struck him like yeah we were talking about little kids know to be afraid of snakes and spiders but he knew that he had not encountered underwear like that in his day. And it really just drove me like, you know what? I don't know what is that underwear. So people really do want it. They want it. People want camo everything. But it's boxers. So it's not like, I can see a guy.

Dude's hiking them too. I can see a guy who likes to hunt. It's Christmas time. And he gets his wife some stuff that she actually wants. And he's like, yeah, it was for fun. I'm going to get her some camouflage lingerie just to have a laugh. Right? And so he would buy the camouflage lingerie.

But that's not who's buying technical merino technical underwear. Yeah, I truly don't. I'm from the dude who buys his lady lingerie and camo who you point to the oh just okay guy who has going to both ends of the spectrum i'm articulating here i don't understand any of it so you're as puzzled yeah and and everybody is too but the thing is it's it's great for me because when I go on a trip, I'm like, yeah, wore the black ones for five days. Now I can move on to the camo ones.

And later you're like, I got to go back to the black ones. Exactly. I find myself on long trips like that, I find myself, yeah, I'll change my undies. And a while later I'm like, if you balance the days out, I should really go back to the dirty pair. because i got four on those and six on these and jump back to my dirty uh peter what um can i see your underwear real quick what color you're on i don't know i think gray maybe solid gray Solid gray. Solid gray. Yanni? Not real tree.

Blue. Oh, you got like a fish kind. Oh, yeah. There's fish and deer on there. All right. So where were we? No. Okay. I'm glad you stopped and we didn't go all the way around the horn on that one.

Cal, do you got a pair of camels on? I don't. On furnace basement. Freedies. All right, I'm sorry. What came up that I needed to... Well, the camel section in some of these big hunting stories. Oh, walking into a camel section.

But do you really... But there were no female... Yeah, I'm sorry. Carmen's point was there were no female hunting clothing at all. For reals hunting clothing. Yes. But would that actually bother you?

Well, yeah. It did. For what reason? Why did that bother you? Well, first of all... Because of what it symbolized or because it was impractical? Both. Both. Because it was just, you know, you'd go in and be like, really, this is all there is, is bikinis.

There's nothing here for me. You'd be in a store that had men's hunting apparel and then women's bikinis. Exactly. apparel yep and then women's bikinis exactly there might be a couple items for women but pretty you know it was maybe a rack and then a rack of like camo underwear and stuff for women and that would be targeted towards the men shopping in the store right yeah i actually might now that i think about it i think i'm buying my wife instead of these for this christmas let me know hook you up no i mean the other oh the bikini not the kind you guys have oh okay i don't mean a practical set um yeah just you know just to it's free country yep um, so it bugged you because of what it symbolized.

And because it was impractical, yeah. But did you look at it and think this? Did you ever look at it and go, well, I guess it makes sense? Yeah. Because 10%. Who are they going to sell it to? Because a lot of companies don't make left-handed stuff. Right. And that's a higher percent. A higher percentage of the American population is left-handed than the female percentage of licensed hunters.

I get that. The frustrating thing. Because I feel burned when a company is not making a left-handed product. That's tough. But I don't feel burned by what it all means. Right. Well, because. I feel burned by the practicality. Right. Yeah. Because they've got nothing against. Please, I'm not equating being left-handed to being left-handed. No, yeah what it all means. Right. Well, because it's not the practicality.

Right, yeah, because they've got nothing against. Please, I'm not equating being left-handed to being left-handed. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, but yeah, but it's still frustrating because part of that is that feedback thing where when all signs are pointing towards women don't hunt and not encouraging women to hunt,

there's not going to be women hunting or not many women hunting and so there's not going to be many clothes sold for women so there's not going to be many many women hunting and on and on so do you think that a woman would actually not because i see this mentioned now and then that that's a barrier to entry i have a hard time picturing that there's, in the history of this country, has been a woman who's like, man, I would love to go hunting,

but I just can't because there's not specific female hunting clothing. Right, no. There is no way that's happening. No, no, no. Yeah, but it's stacking all of these little signs up together. That say, we don't want you here. Yes, I believe in that part.

Yeah. I believe in the accumulation of these little- No girls allowed on the clubhouse. Yeah. Exactly. The accumulation of unwritten notices. Yep, exactly. Implied notices.

For women's entire lives. And it's not just women don't hunt. It's little cues their entire lives from when they're babies on to be careful, don't take risks, don't be outside alone. It's kind of, it's more than just don't hunt. It's a stack of cues that we're getting our whole lives. Are you getting it from your family, you personally, from your family? No. I mean, my parents are very adventurous and always encouraged us to do whatever we wanted, my sister and I.

So you haven't felt it like that? No. Like disapproval from your father? Oh no no no no no no my dad's a botanist and so i grew up out in the woods with him all the time um my mom they you know took us backpacking and everything else and my mom um my mom is an artist um her main medium is cow intestines. You don't say. Yeah. Or pig.

And what is she doing with these intestines? So it's, or fish skins or lots of different sort of organic medium materials. And it's not like creepy or macabre or anything like that. I'm not getting a creepy vibe at all. Yeah, no, it's actually really beautiful. She does sculpture stuff and she takes the gut

and slices it up so that it lays flat and dries it either around a form or dries it flat. And that's her medium. I don't know, paper would be or something. So she might stretch it around a frame of sticks that are made into a boat or make it into like a book, all sorts of things. What's the, is it an umiak?

What's the word, you know, the walrus skin boats? Yeah, that was part of the inspiration for those know, the walrus skin boats. Yeah, that was part of the inspiration for those boats that she made, I think. The way that material looks. Yeah. Slightly translucent. Yep, exactly. Yeah, you can see light through it. So anyway, I grew up, I'm just, yeah.

So she's not exactly a stereotypical. We're going to have her on next time. Bring her along. She's great. We'll talk more about that. I'll throw out a chunk of gut and I'll be like mate two hours

yeah so I grew up in a house where you'd open a yogurt container in the fridge and it might not be yogurt might be little scraps

of meat scrap it could be gut it could be or whatever I mean she also she was actually went to Humboldt State too,

and she worked in their vertebrate museum and skinning and stuffing animals. And so. So she wasn't going to tell you. So she's not going to tell you that girls shouldn't be out cutting stuff up. Right. Exactly. Yeah. All right.

So you had a, I don't want to say atypical, but yeah, maybe an atypical. Yeah. So it was a science biology focused family you know um yeah now the next thing i want to ask you about what when you see okay now because we're on the subject of apparel and gear all right um when you go into a sporting goods store and they now have a full line of female apparel, but it's all got a bunch of pink stuff on it. Are you thinking, thank God? Or are you like, man, did they overcorrect? Or is it some other kind of like, I don't really know what to make of this.

It doesn't need to be one of those choices. Yeah. But you get what I'm saying yeah yeah um the pink stuff i mean to me it's um is it actually technically good gear does it work i think that um kind of gets back to that we're women in the field and that's special, but we want to be equal. I think that I'm a quite feminine person. Okay. And I'm not going to all like really man, macho clothes just to fit in. I'm

going to wear what I feel comfortable with. When I work in the field, which is most days, I mean, I'm not dressing in any sort of macho way or anything. I'm wearing what I feel comfortable in. And so if women feel more comfortable in clothes that have a little bit of a feminine flair, I don't personally have any pink camo, but if that's what feels comfortable, I don't, yeah, I don't need to focus on that. So it doesn't make you nauseous to see it?

No, I mean, to my eye, it looks ridiculous, but whatever anybody wants to wear, if it works and is comfortable and is practical, I think you can be feminine and be a badass in the field at the same time. Last year, Wisconsin and maybe some other states, Yanni, you might know the answer to this. Yeah, I think a few others. I don't know who.

Pass some legislation. I think Montana. Did they? Yeah. Pass some legislation. I know what happened in Wisconsin. That was one of the rare things where all the politicians of Wisconsin

could all agree on this. And it was like a quick, easy... All the dudes got together and decided. It was a quick, easy thing to decide that the reason women aren't out hunting is because they just don't like blaze orange. If you allowed them to wear blaze pink, they would flock to the woods.

So once this problem was identified, they quickly got in and pulled together and legalized blaze pink. Yeah, problem solved. Like, when you hear about a rule like that, what do you, when I tell you that, what jumps to your mind? That that's really ignorant and ridiculous. It does. That's not the problem.

Yeah. You don't think that's the problem? No, absolutely not. I mean, maybe you could make it into the problem sort of symbolically, like we need to make the image of hunting, I don't know. Taking the sign off the door that says no girls allowed and saying welcome. Right, yeah. But here's the problem I don't know.

Here's the problem I have with it. I don't think of blaze orange as being like a man color. If you, to be legal, had to wear a face mask with a mustache painted on it, and that was just how it always was. So anytime a woman wants to go out in the field, she has to have a mask with a mustache. And later, a state's like,

man, I just feel like the mustaches are a bit much for the female hunters. Let's pass a law saying you can wear a mask with no mustache. I'd be like,

yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. I agree with this new no mustache law because a mustache, when I see it, exceptions aside, screams man to me yeah but i don't

think of blaze orange as being gender specific yeah i don't either i think that that was kind of a um not great idea they had i yeah i would really be surprised if that changed anything drastically okay there's no scientific data polling data whatsoever to back that thing up like that no women were like oh bro I'm dying to hunt ain't doing it in blaze orange no yeah nope uh so not for me I mean very quickly when and I I mean I've seen this and that's why this law was very irksome to me. I wrote a few letters on it. What law? The pink? Yes.

You wrote letters about it. I didn't care that much. It's just an email these days. I got a lot of email addresses on file. So we put together a women's line. We had a panel of 50 women from young to old, uh, skinny to wide, all across the spectrum of, um, of skill level or, uh, days in the woods, I guess. Uh, and that's how we developed our line. And then, and we decided that we weren't going to have any pink on anything.

Right. And when we launched it, uh, interest industry facing at a shot show, and we're showing it to buyers for all these stores who are overwhelmingly male, very often we would get, Hey,

this is really nice, but you know what you should do? Pink accents. Put a little pink on there to say, this is really nice, but you know what you should do? Pink accents. Put a little pink on there. To say, this is for you. And they'd be like, huh? Little insider info for you guys, helping you out. You boys in Idaho might not be aware.

And this, yeah, the blaze pink law, it is the same thing. It's a bunch of dudes being like, all right, let's pink up these woods. Give them what they want. Yeah. They want pink. It's a bunch of dudes being like, all right, let's pink up these woods. Give them what they want. Yeah. They want pink. And that's what is irksome about the pink is that that is their idea of what a little bit frivolous to think that that's what's you know gonna do that was the problem yeah yeah hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle

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OnX club, y'all. I just don't like little things like that tying down valuable time when any form of government is in session. Yeah. There's a few other things that may. Yeah, there's some bigger fish. Well, they want to go with some slam dunks now and then. Yeah, they definitely do.

And, you know, Wisconsin, I'll always love Wisconsin because they went from having a case law where you had to have your gun in a case to being a no-case state. Very convenient. So now, you just put your gun in the bag and I'm going to have a case. So the place has my undying affection.

So they don't, all the slam dunkers that they get through, I'm behind some of them. Yanni? Are you typing down thoughts that you'd like to ask carmen i was reading up on uh how the blaze pink thing got started just seeing where like the genesis of it was all right carmen now yeah is there anything now that we've had, the guys here might have more. I've asked pretty much all of my ask a woman questions. Do you have questions that you've ever wished you could ask of a guy about these subjects?

And it could be, keep in mind mind you're not going to insult me you could ask a question that that betrayed a uh you know that might betray some level of exasperation with the way guys look at things whatever like i won't take offense but is there ever do you have any like burning questions about why do you guys always have to blank i think i would i mean i i think i know the answer but i would ask men to think twice before they um maybe even just sort of subconsciously are if they're in a situation with a woman outside um telling her to to be careful or i don't know to me be more encouraging of actually taking risks and putting herself out there and instead of you don't like the the protector stance i mean no not beyond what anybody

would watch their buddies back out there. Yeah. It's like the pocket knife thing. I don't need somebody to tell me to be careful with it. And I, or you know, I used to go, I'm a runner and I worked in the south

for a while and And for whatever reason, this happened even more there, but I'd be running at night often and men would constantly stop and, you know, ask me if I needed a ride and wasn't I scared of bears. That'd creep me out. Exactly. Exactly. And I'd be like, no, I'm not scared of bears. And in my head I'm thinking, but when people slow down and stop like this, this is what freaks me out. You on the other hand.

Yeah, yeah. I'm getting kind of, yeah. So I think it's not even conscious for a lot of people, but the sort of just protective, it's not even that, it's worry that's palpable from men. I'd rather just it be assumed that I got this. I'll ask for help if I need it. We kind of covered this earlier, but I just want to double check on something.

Do you feel that when a guy does that thing, the little lady, you ought to know it's dangerous out here do you feel that it's a that it's coming from an honest place normally or do you feel that it is a way of that it is a way of like asserting a sort of dominance is a little bit strong of a word but it's a way of like letting you know how he feels about what he's seeing or do you think it's like he's honestly concerned about my well-being i think that it's usually from that place of honestly being concerned but it's it's it um is coming from that's it's coming from a naive place. Yeah. And it comes off as sort of patronizing. So, yeah. Yeah, I understand that.

Every conversation I have on the trail with anybody ends with, have fun, be safe. Yeah. But that's a different kind of be safe. That's like a see you later. Yeah. Yeah. But I say it to everybody.

Yeah. We were trick-or-treating. We trick-or-treated the fire barn. As I walked off, I was like, thanks a lot, guys. Be safe, man. No, I don't think those guys, like that guy really patronized us. It was just like a sign off. You're telling me all these kids can't be safe?

Like when I, like my buddies are taking off, I give them the finger. Just like, I'm just saying, hey, you know, be safe. You're just saying, what's up? See ya. And that's kind of, I mean, I totally get what you're saying. And I say, you know, I tell people to drive safe, be safe, whatever, all the time. So it's not, that's why these things, it's hard to describe and hard to talk about because I couldn't probably point to every single instance

and be like, he was being really, I mean, sometimes it's blatant. You can tell that they're talking down to you or patronizing, but I couldn't tell you the motivation behind every one of these events but when it's your whole life and it's a pattern and it's just

they're just slight things that you might even be questioning like what did he mean by that but it's hard to it's hard to maybe put your finger on what the motivation was. Because there are so many people who are just, you know, be safe out there or whatever. And it's totally coming from a good place.

But it's the pattern of it. It's stacking up over your life. Living and growing up around old men and hunting camps, you're 100%. Like, it's very real and happening all the time. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. There's a word.

It's not new. And it's kind of like coming into its own now where you'll see it like all the time. Like the word mansplaining. You familiar with this? Oh, yeah. Does that bug you? Mansplaining for people who don't.

Mansplaining is there's this idea that men explain things to women differently than they explain things to men, where they explain things as though they were talking to a dumb child. Yeah, or just assuming even that it needs to be explained. Say, well, little lady, let me tell you. The box. Right. Rut the nose. Yeah the nose yeah and that

yeah i'm i just learned that word this summer okay um and funnily enough a woman was describing it to me and then a man mansplained mansplaining to me right there um but it is a good word to describe something that's happen a lot. You had a mansplained mansplaining. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, that's bothersome. For example, just a couple weeks ago, my mom and I were out hiking

and ran into somebody coming down the trail, and he stops and we're chatting, and I interrupt him because there's a peregrine falcon, and I to, cause there's a peregrine falcon. And I was pointing, I said, Oh, look, peregrine falcon, whatever. And he says, Nope, that's actually a, uh, uh, Harris hawk. Um, and starts describing to me that I've misidentified it. And he starts telling me about this hawk. And he was totally wrong. It was a falcon. But, you know, I didn't want to get into it.

So I just let him mansplain it to me. But both my mom and I, she's a great birder, just internally rolling rocks. He didn't offer up a correction? No. And he started to get into, well, they used to be called, and he started to say swamp hawks which is not correct it's marsh hawks and i sort of corrected him there but he then didn't even catch on that maybe i knew something about what i was talking about and he continued to so you guys were having a little a know-how showdown with some mansplaining yeah i mean i basically just let him go on about it just let him be a guy yeah but my mom and i definitely afterwards were just like you know so then you and your mom you

and your mom it was enough to you and your mom then later oh yeah we talked about it later it was so blatant and he was so wrong and we were so you're kind of like there, like there. Yep. That's what I'm talking about. Shiny example. When I'm talking about a woman in the woods. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's the experience.

Yep. Can't be. Yeah. Yanni? So I think we, I don't know if we covered it or not. You kind of said, I liked when you said like, you liked when you said we might bring different things to the table, but we want to be treated equal at the table. You've had a lot of hunting experiences now with guys and as a female.

Have you hunted much with other females? Nope. No. No. Do you feel like is there a different experience to be had there? I mean, I certainly cannot speak for all women. And if there is, I haven't identified it. Or I don't feel like I, in particular, bring something special as a woman.

I think I bring things. Yeah, none of it has to be special, but just that it's different. You're not blessing the woods with your presence in some special way? No. Or like changing hunting in any way with some fresh female perspective. Or that the deer you shoot feel better about having been shot by a woman? No, I don't

think they give a... The gentle hand? Yeah. Sure glad it was a lady that blew a hole through my side. That was the same gal that was spooning me last night. She's like, she's hot and cold. Yeah. Sure glad it was a lady that blew a hole through my side. That was the same gal that was spooning me last night. Yeah. She's like, she's hot and cold. Yeah. No, that was like my big takeaway when I sat around chatting with the gals from the office,

Brittany and Nicole and Annie. I don't know who else was there that time. But it's sort of like we went through their year of hunting that fall. We were kind of having the same conversation. In the end, I was like, yeah, it kind of sounds like you guys just had a whole bunch of beginner like hunting stories this year.

You know? So, yeah. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, maybe there will be some women out there that do bring a special feminine perspective and i'm look forward to hearing what that is but i don't feel like yeah i just don't you're not hostile to it no i'm not hostile to it okay uh i forgot one thing i forgot to ask we started out so you don't have to go into great detail this year was a shitty

hunting year or no no it was great you got something yeah i did yeah so this year i shot a buck all by myself um alone on the mountain for the first time which was that felt really good what's your husband doing working uh no he was packing for our trip to idaho because we went so we did like you pack and i'll head out yeah so this year's story was we did the high hunt. So in Washington, there's in September, there's a week-long high hunt.

And that was a really, it was a really fun year. It was hard because we were having a huge wildfire. It ended up burning 270,000 acre acres mostly in the Passatian wilderness which is our big wilderness area to hunt for the high hunt that's where we've hunted before he explained high hunt so that's it's in certain only in certain wilderness areas wilderness areas tend to be the highest nastiest

portions of the fort yeah yeah There might even be an elevation requirement. Some states have an elevation. You guys talk about a hunt in Colorado that has to be above 10,000 feet. In the regs, is it called the high hunt? Uh-huh. Yeah, I think they call it that. Yeah. But have you ever heard, what's that Colorado hunt where you cannot hunt below 10,000 feet?

Yeah, there's an early season mule deer wilderness tag, and it hunt below 10,000 feet? Yeah, there's like an early season mule deer wilderness tag, and it's for 10,000 feet and up. But I think, I could be wrong, but I feel like these, do they say that? Or does it just say wilderness areas which happen to be real high? I don't remember. I don't know. I think, well, in our area, yes, we're fine in all of our wilderness areas where you can hunt, but I don't know about other areas in the state

if there's an elevation thing. But anyway, so we kind of had to be on our toes. So we ended up hiking into areas that we'd never been and hunting, and we had a blast. It was awesome, but neither of us had the stars aligned to get a buck. Did you see bucks? Yeah, yep.

How many? We saw bucks bucks let's see we went we actually ended up backpacking into three different spots um and the first spot i think we saw uh four and why couldn't you get one because you're seeing them way off the first we saw a little um there was a little group the night before opening and they were way off uh went up to where they were for the opening day of the high hunt and um ended up jumping one buck and didn't see any others that day and then i saw another one that trip uh just for a second and it disappeared into into the trees lots of hunters nope we didn't see any other hunters that's that's one of the really great

things about the high hunt is there's a lot of people coming and hunt in the Okanagan, in Okanagan County, because it's great. There's a big mule herd there, but you have to work to get away from people. And so the high hunt kind of does that for you. Yeah, I see. I see. Yeah. So then you guys are going to go hunt Idaho? And he's like, I'll pack.

You hunt. Yeah. So we did the high hunt. We hunted really hard, had a great time, didn't get any deer. So then we both could still hunt during general. Because if you get something during the high hunt, you can't hunt during general. General, we backpacked in, pretty much did another high hunt. And my husband got a deer., um, so that was really

fun. And then we, we, we came back from, from that particular trip and had a couple of days before we left for our Idaho trip. And so, um, I wanted to just hunt till the bitter end. So he had to pack and I just went off hunting by myself. Just behind our house, there's a bunch of state land and found a little buck. And I stared at it and I had, so now I was in that position again of here's the last couple moments where my mind was racing and having all these doubts. And I just finally told myself that I'm going to have these doubts every single time. I just need to pull my socks up. And I knew that I had it, you know, part of my brain.

I just needed to shut those doubts down. And I did it. And I got it. so that felt good i felt like a hurdle i'd finally cleared so a deer all by yourself yep may having doing getting through those those final moments by my by myself without someone being like shoot them shoot them yeah without somebody you know saying you're good go for it it. So yeah, so we got, so I got that deer and then next day we left for Idaho and, um, and that was an incredible trip. Really worked really hard. Um, I only had an elk tag and my, um, husband had an elk and a deer and my brother-in-law did as well, and they both got a nice mule deer. And we never caught up with the elk, but we learned a lot about the area

and had a blast. So that was a really cool trip too. Yanni presented it to me like it was some kind of disaster. Oh, no. Not a disaster at all. I mean, we worked really hard. Maybe that's the part he caught. Arduous. Arduous, yeah. We were hiking

in, you know, I think our first camp was 13 miles in and we stayed there and hunted hard. I mean, it's rugged country in the Cascades. But, yeah.

It was good. So what time you hit that hit Idaho last week of October oh okay yeah yeah and it was first me coming from Washington going there the number of deer that we were seeing it was insane and and some big wide open some big wide open yep and big wide open, yep. And just, it was so cool to be seeing that many bucks every day. And it felt like, compared to our bucks that I'm sorry. Idaho, man. Ryan's just raging over here. I'm telling you what, if I was playing.

Oh my God, the levels are all out of whack on this machine. I have heard enough where I know that if I was planning a hunting trip, I would be headed to Idaho. Screw Colorado. Just unbelievable amounts of bucks everywhere you look. And we can trust Carmen because she's a woman. When Steve's talking about Colorado, he's lying. They're forecasting another hellacious winter.

If the thing you know about the gentler sex is that they do not lie. No, okay, I'm not saying. This is. Bucks okay. I'm not saying. This is. Bucks everywhere. In comparison. In comparison. So, yeah. In comparison.

Big bucks, too. Can't trust these women hunters. Just giant. Everybody knows that. Kel, be careful out there. There's a lot of big bucks out there that could hurt you. What are you doing with that pocket knife? You shouldn't have that. Cal, be careful out there. There's a lot of big bucks out there that could hurt you. What are you doing with that pocket knife? You shouldn't have that.

Where'd you get that? Who gave that to you? So it sounds like you're eating. So you guys are eating all kinds of deer meat. Yep. Yeah. A lot of deer meat. You guys eat mule deer then.

You guys are eating mule deer right now, mostly. You guys like the flavor? Uh-huh. I mean, it is. So that first buck that I got was a buck. I mean, as I was walking up to it, I could smell that goatee smell. That was a strong one. Yeah, but it's not on the meat.

But it wasn't. Oh, yeah. The whole thing tasted goatee. It did? Yeah, it did. What are you calling it? Goatee. Like kind of a barnyardy sort of yeah and that year it was a ruddy from a rut yeah i that year yeah sure yep i want positive

did you get like you could smell it as i was cooking it as i was cooking it yeah all right yep and that that year it still tasted fine, right? I mean, it tasted strong. I mean, we ate it. It was great. But yeah, yeah. So just walking up to it, you were like, holy moly. Yeah, and that year, out hiking for work, there were at least two times when I smelled a buck before I saw it.

Really? Yeah. Huh. All right. Just this real barnyard, goatee kind of smell. But the Idaho ones? I heard bucks are great in Idaho all the bucks we got this year are delicious

but they were not you couldn't smell them when you were up at them they weren't already smelling what was the date of the one you shot in Washington you felt was like rutted out pretty good?

It was mid-October. That was a strange year. That year is what a lot of people in the Valley refer to as the slaughter of 2015 because for whatever reason, bucks started migrating down into the Valley earlier, maybe because it was a really dry summer. I don't know, but they started migrating down into the valley earlier, maybe because it was a really dry summer. I don't know. But they started migrating down really early, and it seemed like they started getting ready earlier, and it was a slaughter.

People were killing. Because deer were just showing up everywhere. Yeah. That was 2015. Yeah. People were killing. Not this past hunting season. Right, yeah.

Yeah, this past hunting season, people have done, I think, pretty poorly, it seems like. So it's just one of those things. Well, congrats on your first solo deer. Thanks, yeah. That's cool. Felt good. It's about as small of a deer as could be legal in Washington.

But still ruddy. That's fine. No, no, not this one. Oh. That was, so the 2015. Oh, was the ruddy buck. Yeah, this one was. Because you already ate that one. That's fine. No, no, not this one. No. Oh. That was the 2015. Oh, it was the ruddy buck. Yeah. This one. Because you already ate that one. Yeah. Oh. So what's the new one? So that's a just tiny

delicious buck. I see. Yeah. Alright, good. I thought you were saying you got a whole bunch of eating ahead of you. No. That's all behind you now. Yeah. Yes. Polish it off. Now you're moving on to the good one. Yeah. Yeah. And then have you guys eaten any of the meat off the bucks that were killed in Idaho? Yep.

They're great. Yep. Good. Yeah. Yep. Kale? Did I ever ask you if you had any final thoughts? I'm just wondering where you're taking me hunting next. Now your place is burned out. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Okay. I'll answer that and i have some thoughts and questions but i'm gonna not do them congratulations thank you and uh lots of milestones to come huh and obviously uh when did you guys start going out of state for hunts? My husband has gone elk hunting for his whole life out of state. This was my first time. Nice. Yeah. But adding some more days to the year. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big thing. Does he kill elk in Washington too? He has, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then real quick, I might have asked you this before.

Do you have interest or not in bear hunting i don't not an invitation right yeah i don't personally you're a baker oh then the bear fat yeah yeah i've done that with a road kill no it wasn't a road kill it was a um a bear call i've done sweet it's good. But I just... I think we maybe talked about this last time. Yeah, we did. But I've worked with them. You don't look at it and see a game animal.

I've just... Yeah. I've done so much bear work and cub counts and you're dealing with their cubs and it's just... Yeah. It's a special critter. There's a lot of people I know that are lifelong, cold-blooded hunters who just don't want to hunt bears, man.

A lot of guys I know that got a bear, too. My brother put it. One of my brothers put it. He quit bear hunting when he got a bear and walked up to it. His first sort of feeling because you know the hide is beautiful right so you can't just like ditch the hide but it's expensive to get him tanned and it used to be like sweet you know get the bear get to eat the bear have a bear rug or bear hide for whatever but he said he walked up to one and his first feeling was oh man

and he's like then i just knew I was done. Just knew I was, the minute I calculated like, I gotta spend money to get the thing tanned because it'd be wasteful to not. And he just took that as his thing that wrapping her up on bear hunting.

Yeah, that makes sense. Carmen, do you have, and you guys chime in obviously but you're a seasoned hunter now right like 10 years i'm doing things the hard way you're like that was a girl and you've got some successes right i mean do you feel like now you're kind of working up to something else? Yeah, well, elk. I'm really looking forward to getting my first elk.

We always put in for all kinds of tags. I really want to go moose hunting. I'd love to go sheep hunting. There's tons of things I'd love to do. But I'm also just, I just want to get, um, good at high country mule deer hunting. Cause that's what, where we live is, yeah, it's what, you know, we've, yeah, I love, we spend the summer scouting and, and hiking around in the high country. And, um, yeah, that, that part has just really got me in the getter and I want to do that. So yeah, I want to get good at that.

Me too. Can you explain it? Last time you explained that sort of graph, the sliding curve that you have for when an animal goes from being like food and then I forget what the x-axis. Yeah, so there's your's your your and it's i imagine it as being different for everybody you've got your x-axis which is a order of

animals and it might for example start with mosquitoes something you want to kill and it might end with like your mom something you really don't want to kill. And then there's two lines and one is kind of your, I think of it as like empathy. And that line climbs to a point where you cannot set that aside and you just could not kill something. And then there's the want to kill,

want to hunt, want to engage in some sort to hunt, want to, you know, engage in some sort of predator prey relationship, want to eat it line. And so where those intersect is where things get fuzzy. Oftentimes that's maybe a bearish for people, it seems like. And then above that is things you just couldn't bring yourself to to kill and that that line for me um gets blurry or gets the empathy line climbs when i've worked a lot and and know a lot about animal and a species yeah yeah i was thinking on the flight over here at a very agitated gal that i was riding next to

um for reasons unknown and uh i had uh stewardess or flight attendant and i was working her tail off and uh but she had like whacked me with the cart. And I was trying to avoid the gal to my right because she definitely needed some space. So I got whacked with the cart really hard. And I kind of looked up at this gal, and she looked at me like, get the hell out of the way.

I just wanted to ask her, when did you lose your empathy? Yeah. Probably doesn't take long in service business sometimes. But that's not necessarily just being around the critter that you're dealing with, right? Right. Well, I mean, I don't know, understanding and maybe it gets harder to objectify them. Yeah, like if you started squid,

you might get burned out on eating squid or find them not appetizing, but it wouldn't be like, oh, I studied squid so much that I now feel real bad eating a squid. Right. I'm not sure that would happen with a squid for me. Yeah. I think it's like,

it has to be like a different kind. Yeah. Well, yeah. So for like, um, beavers, I worked on a beaver project,

a really cool project in the Met House for a couple of years that, um, it's still, it's still happening. It's a beaver, uh, relocation project. And a beaver,

I feel like is, is one of those animals that people, um, underappreciate. But through this project, I just, um, have kind of fallen in love with them just learning and sort of taking time to recognize what they do because this project um so our job was to there'd be landowners that might call that live down on on the river on the ditch system or whatever and they have problem beavers and so usually those are just lethally removed well in the met how just like a lot of the west beavers were you know trapped out and um 100 years ago yeah right over 100 years yeah and a lot of places they've had a hard time re-establishing um themselves and so in the met how there's all these high country creeks and stuff that used to have beavers in them creating a vastly different landscape. So we had these little creeks that would then have

just sprawling wetland beaver establishments just sort of punctuating these streams with all this fabulous habitat that is waterfowl habitat, fish habitat, fawning habitat. And then not to mention that those beaver establishments

hold water back. And so the snow melt-off doesn't just rush off the mountain. And so everybody downstream benefits by a slower release of the melt-off every year. And maybe that stream doesn't dry up. And there's also evidence that holding the water in ponds keeps the creek at a lower temperature for fish because that water is sinking down into the ground. Then when it comes up later, it's still really cold.

So the aim of this project is to take those problem beavers and then by live trapping them, and then we would actually hold them in a fish hatchery facility until we could get like a family group and then release them up in the high country and areas that could benefit from basically restoration of the creeks. And so we'd release them and hopefully they would stick. Anyway, but the point is that beavers, I feel like, are often really underappreciated, but they are actually, now I know, just nuggets of gold. And so that's something that I personally maybe didn't think about much before, but my empathy line has gone way up for these critters because what they do is just so, it's instant gratification putting them out there.

It's the most important animal to American history. America was built on that animal. Right, yeah. America's first homegrown millionaire made his fortunes. Yeah, yeah. Trading in beaver hides.

Yeah, but they're also really important for our landscapes. But, yeah. Pooter? Andrew, Andrew Pooter, do you have any final? No, it's been interesting. It's been a pleasure to listen to your stories. Feeling good about everything?

Yeah, I didn't contribute much, but it was good to listen. I want to make sure you have, that you feel welcome to join. You're a good presence. Yeah, thanks. Yanni. Yeah, thanks. Yanni?

I'm done. I already had my closing thought. Kel? I think I'm there, too. Tapped out. I think there's some good stuff, though. Carmen? Can I make a BHA plug? Yeah, just lay it on us, man. I'll give it. Yeah, that's great. So, I have...

You're just going to make the rest of us look bad that we didn't do a BHA plug. Well, I'm working on growing a little community of BHA members in the Methow Valley because it is such an important, maybe probably the most important mule deer hunting place in the state. And it is such a unique landscape with all this wilderness and everything else.

So trying to get a BHA community sort of established there. And it's also... BHA means Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, which is a nonprofit conservation group that you can tell them. Right. Keeping public land public and managed appropriately. And so we have an issue with a mining company in the valley, wanting to put in a Canadian mining company, wanting to put in a big copper company, wanting to put in a big copper mine on our Forest Service land.

And so our Washington chapter is supporting a mineral withdrawal, which is legislation that would protect 340 million acres of our headwaters from not only this copper mine, but any future mining claims. And anyway, so our chapter is supporting this mineral withdrawal,

but I just want to encourage anybody who is from Washington, especially if they come maybe from the West side of the state to hunt out in the Met How to check out our Washington chapter and get involved and we have some volunteer stuff coming up this spring and um people hunt out there can can work on the landscape a little bit with us too and a headwaters issue is everybody's issue yep everybody's

downstream yep yeah good plug. Ladies and gentlemen, Carmen Van Bianchi. That's right, right? Mm-hmm. Thank you for joining us, Carmen. Thank you. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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