The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 100: The Powerful Joe Rogan

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

Los Angeles, CA- Steven Rinella talks with the powerful Joe Rogan, along with Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.Subjects Discussed: Trees of questionable integrity; Joe's obsession with archery; open loop systems and managing a mindset; recreational outrage in America; vegans; throwing out false bait; sharing photos of dead animals online; moving the needle toward a pro-hunting place; predators and surplus killing; 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.

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

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We're talking about the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. First thing I want to talk about has nothing to do with you, Joe Rogan, but you might appreciate it.

No, it does have to do with you, and i'll get to that in a minute a guy wrote in yesterday sent us an email dude named rusty down in texas and he's he was dicking around on our on our website and realized there's a podcast but he's in his tree stand bow hunting and he said he's in a real shitty tree like he calls it a tree of uh integrity. So he's got earbuds in and turns the podcast on. And the intro, there's like the sound of a, Jamie knows it well. There's a sound of a tree falling, like, you know? Yeah. But he thinks the tree's falling over the music.

So he panics, realizes his tree's not falling, but then he's looking for the tree that is falling and is it going to fall on him before he realizes it's the podcast intro. That's hilarious. There's two other things that happened to me last night. I read that and then my brother calls me and an old buddy of ours is at my brother's house.

This buddy of ours is at my brother's house. And this buddy of ours years ago, we were kind of based out of the same house doing some hunting. And one day he leaves before it gets light out to go hunting, but then comes back and it's not even light out yet, but he's got a dead deer. And he said, oh yeah, I was driving out and the guy in front of me hit a deer in his truck. So rather than going hunting, I just took that deer and tagged it and brought it home.

Well, this guy this year is hunting, and he's hunting in a field by a road, and he's watching a buck, praying for the buck to come in bow range of him. At one point, the buck walks the other direction, steps out on the road, gets hit by a truck while he's watching it. So he ate that buck. Yeah, watched it happen. I like that some state agencies allow you to do that, to tag a deer that got hit by a car. Because you talked about that in the podcast too.

The odds of someone purposely driving around trying to hit deer like the odds of success are so low it's almost a ridiculous thing to consider and the risks are high and i don't want to go into too much detail i don't want to go into too much detail because i'm not sure the total you know it's not legal method to take yeah i don't that's know. That's why I'm not like talking in too great a detail about where it has happened and everything. So I'm not sure. I feel like he's got the moral, right? Morally, he's right. When we used to salvage roadkill in Montana when it was illegal to salvage roadkill.

Because I was, it was kind of like a civil disobedience. I always wanted to go to court and say, yes, your honor, I ate a dead deer I found on the side of the road. Guilty as charged. Just to kind of make the point, but then in the end, they corrected it. In Michigan, you always just called the cops. If you wanted a deer that was hit on the side of the road, you call the cops, they just come out and give you a permit for it. You were talking about this earlier, but isn't it interesting that you see different states with educated

and understanding hunters that are a part of the community versus, say, what's going on in New Jersey with the bear hunt thing? The governor comes along and says, New Jersey has the highest population of black bears per capita or per acre in the state, apparently.

It's overrun with black bears. I have friends who live there, and they go, it's crazy. You've seen the videos of them fighting in neighborhoods. Big 400-pound bears duking it out in the middle of the street, and cars stopping, and they're knocking over trash cans. They're everywhere. But this governor has just decided he's going to go full greenie and stop the bear hunt we need to stop like it actually ran on it yeah it kills me how are you going to control the population chris christie's popularity level had gotten real bad toward the end there just looking at polling

data from new jersey but like he had always stuck up for the you know he'd always stuck up for the bear hunt but you know it's like i feel bad for real bad for the guys in New Jersey, and I would do anything to make that governor have to suffer politically. But the way that people go and stake out the... You got to take your bear to a check station, and people go and protest the check stations to take a lot of the fun out of it. Yeah, it's no fun. Yeah, there's something about bears.

I mean, you said it best charismatic mega fauna what you had new jersey too is you had it that the season went away because you know their bears had been just in terrible shape and so they couldn't i mean like like many many places for a long time couldn't couldn't support certain hunting seasons and then they eventually recovered bears to the point where they're like we used to have a problem not having enough bears now we got a problem of having by many estimations too many bears but the minute you the minute you lose if you lose a season it's hard to to have it come back for for something like that you know and like even places they're doing like elk recovery there are some states who want to recover their elk herd and bring new elk in but they don't want to do it

until they can put in place absolute language around how the fact that this is going to be a hunted population because i know there's been cases where you've re-established a herd of elk and then get to the thing like okay now we're going to open a hunting season and people flip because it wasn't that way before. So now they want to like make sure like, and I hope just so everybody understands when this recovery happens and we reach recovery objectives, there will be a hunting season because it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult for people to get used to the fact that you're going to be hunting something that you didn't hunt before. Because they can't picture it being sustainable if it used to be that there weren't enough of them.

Wasn't that the thing with wolves? Like when they reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone, they had a number that they had set where it was a viable population, right? Yeah. And anything above that, they would open up a season. And then they just kept moving the goalposts. Well, they knew that anything, there was never, I don't know if there was never, I don't think it was explicitly in the recovery plan that hunting would open, but it was in the recovery plan that they reached the recovery objective, it would go to state management.

Now, many people know what that is going to mean, but it wasn't like, and then we'll start hunting them. It was just to state management. Now, many people know what that is going to mean, but it wasn't like, and then we'll start hunting them. It was just like state management. But people generally know. The same with the recent Grizzly delisting and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. It's like when they're no longer eligible for federal protection,

which that population of bears is not because it's gone far and above recovery objectives, it will go to state management. People know what that's going to mean. So that's what gets people upset. And in that case, they're correct. Those populations... But most people don't actually know that.

You're assuming that. Well, here's the thing. When we went to delist the eagle, the bald eagle, everyone was real happy. No one was suing to keep the bald eagle on the endangered species because no one hunts eagles because there's no risk of human exploitation because historically and culturally there's just like people don't hunt eagles the reason people that are fighting the the delisting decision on wolves or grizzlies they're not arguing recovery well i mean some are but mostly they're trying to use that argument as a way to prevent the possibility of human exploitation of the resource all right joe rogan joe rogan why do you um why

and i i know the but I want to hear it from you tell me your thoughts about bow hunting you just love it yeah, love it and guns is like not I'll still do it I'll go with you

I don't think you're like an anti-gun hunter but talk to me like when you dipped into this, when you dipped into hunting and started getting exposed to it. Like walk me through kind of your discovery of archery. You know what I mean? Like what grabbed you? Well, I started doing archery long before I ever started bow hunting. I bought a bow just on a whim. Me and my wife and my daughter went to an archery shop just for a goof.

Because you were fired up about that movie where they all got a chase? No, it was before that, too. The Hunger Games? Yeah. No, it was before that. I bought a bow and I bought a target and I had it in the backyard. And I shot at it a couple times. Didn't know what I was doing.

Poor technique. You know, the whole deal. Okay, but indulge me. What was it about bows? Just like something to do. Is it like because you like shooting pool? Yeah, maybe there's a little bit of that. Archery just seems like something fun.

Like it's fun to hit a target. It's fun to go to the rifle range and just shoot paper. It's fun, right? So there was no thought of it as a weapon? No, not really. It's fun to hit a target. It's fun to go to the rifle range and just shoot paper. It's fun, right? And so then... So there was no thought of it as a weapon? No, not really. No. No, it was more like for fun, target.

And then I met Cam Haines and had him on my podcast and he brought me a Hoyt. And he came over my backyard and showed me how to do it. And then I kind of got into it. And then I really got into it. And then I met John Dudley. And John Dudley started giving me real serious archery advice and explaining the importance of structure and stance and technique. And then I got obsessed. By that point, you were hunting, though.

Yeah. It became like martial arts. That's what it is. It became like a thing where you realize, oh,, there's like some serious levels to your ability. And it's all about how much time you put in. And you could see the improvement with every – there's a direct link between the amount of focus and the amount of energy that you put into it versus the amount of proficiency that you observe. And you just keep getting better and better at it. And there's a long, long, long road.

Like it's not an easy thing. It seems like it should be. But just the act of releasing an arrow with a surprise release, it's a very difficult thing to do. And so all this became sort of a mental, almost like a meditation thing,

mental exercise. And then when you add to the fact that you can kill something and eat it with that, then it became very exciting. Have you, have you in your life,

have you moved into and out of passions? Obsessions. Yeah. Obsessions. Yeah, I have. Yeah. But when,

when you like, cause you used to love the shoe pool. Yeah, I still do. Well, I just don't do it very much. But okay. Well, like still do. Well, I just don't do it very much. Okay.

Well, like, do you imagine, is archery different? Or do you think that is it plausible that in five years, you'd be like, man, was I into bow hunting? No. Now I'm real into. No. Throwing darts. No, no, no, no. The bow hunting thing is for life. Yeah, that one's deep.

That one's deep in the DNA. Because you're getting food from it. It's way more intense. A ball going in a hole doesn't mean shit unless you decide it does. If you're shooting pool and all the money's on the nine, you made a inch mule deer comes out of the trees and it's 30 yards away and you're centering your pin on its vitals you're like holy shit and you got to try to keep it together and release that arrow that's real and that's intense there's no there's no uh added value to this you know because you you've decided that you're playing in a tournament or that,

you know, like this is a big game. This is bragging rights. No, this is a life or death situation with this wild, majestic animal. And you owe it to the animal to have a certain amount of proficiency. And also you just, you want to make sure that you pull it off. You know, you could hit that target if it was just off you know you could hit that target if it was just a target can you hit that target if it's the deer of a lifetime just standing right there can you do it and there's when you do do it and then you wind up eating that thing like that's what i said to you when you first took us in montana and we were we were eating that deer over the fire and you know and you were like do you think you're gonna be hanging about 100 i'm

like as soon as that deer hit the ground and i was like oh i'm doing this forever you know i want to get back to the to the idea of why can you hit the target but you can't hit the yeah animal i want to talk about that i feel like you have like you'll probably have helpful opinions about it um and i somehow think there's a link there between how many times you've been hit in the face by people. But I often have this fantasy of if you could rewind human history and just take it back to some point and let it run through again just to see what things happened, like what things were inevitable,

and what things were like a freak. So if you backed it all up to i don't know ten thousand seventy thousand whatever and just like let it go and be like oh wow i can't really i couldn't believe like what a flute world war ii was right we didn't even come close to that on the second time through fidget spinners cars right yeah fidget spinners yeah so yo certain fashion things. Absolutely. There's no way in the world it would hit again.

Right. Right. It's weird because you got young kids. You know about fidget spinners. Sure. I know, though, in my experiment, that people were going to see big animals walk by and want to put a projectile behind their shoulder blade. Yes.

100%. You want to eat them. That's why, that's what it feels to me like so kind of i don't want to say nice about inevitable there's inevitably there's an inevitability about hunting they don't know how many times you rewind it it would we would be finding ways to do it the gear would look a little different but the the the basic groundwork would remain intact well it's almost unfair to use hunting in that sort of model of redoing the world all over again. Because human beings, there's a lot of speculation.

The reason why our brains doubled over a period of 2 million years is because we started eating meat. Because we started hunting. We started figuring out ways to kill animals. We started cooking these animals. We had more access to vitamins. Our brains grew larger for a variety of different reasons. But most of it is connected to the idea of us being hunters. Yeah, it's impossible to know the absolute answer, but I've even seen it.

I wrote about this in one of my books, I think, where there were some anthropologists who speculated that even the idea of language was probably, I mean, their hypothesis was that language was an offshoot of coordinating hunting activities. That it would have been like, here's this instrumental thing you need to figure out how to do. It's very difficult. And we start to see, in human history, we start to see these ideas of clans of people coming together to do collective work. Same thing like wolves will group hunt but this idea that that was sort of a good thing to have been an early impetus to be able to discuss abstract notions you go there i'll go here and then it you know it really forced humans to start to interact and make long-term plans i was talking about this with my uh with chris stapleton

yesterday we're talking about fishing and that there's a thing that happens when you catch a fish where it triggers these ancient reward systems in your body. Like I see it in my kids. The first time they catch a fish, like, oh, oh, oh, you got it, you got it, we got it, we got it. It's like there's a reward system because if you could catch a fish, that means you're going to eat. Like you've got one, we've got food, it's time to celebrate. Woo, we did it. And there's this huge rush of euphoria and happiness that happens.

Even, like, five-year-old kids. I remember my daughter was, like, four when she caught her first fish. And she couldn't believe it. And I'm helping her hold on to the rod. And she's got this fish. And her eyes are white like saucers. Just so happy. And I was, like, this is, like, in your system.

Yeah. When I see a kid who doesn't get excited about catching fish, I just want to, like, say to the parents, like in your system yeah when i see a kid who doesn't get excited about catching fish i just want to like say to the parents like you might want to get that kid checked out i'm amazed too how without any provoking they immediately are like how we're going to cook it when are we going to cook it yeah when are we going to eat it like you don't have to start asking questions about that and provoking it that's like the next thing out of their mouth it's like oh holy shit i caught one now what you know trying to talk my kid into letting something go

but i'll talk about anything man okay like you know he catches a cricket and that cricket goes into a bucket i'm like okay let's let the cricket go that cricket lives in that bucket now. Do you think that your kids have your, this is like a serious idea. I don't understand entirely where personalities come from, and I don't understand how much genetics get transferred from the parent to the child, but there's certain traits that my middle daughter, my nine-year-old has, that are undeniably me.

She's obsessed with things. my nine-year-old has that are undeniably me. And like, she's obsessed with things like she'll do. She, we, we were coming home from this. So we're staying at this resort and we had to walk, you know, like maybe half a mile to the place where we're staying.

She did cartwheels the entire way. Cause she's obsessed with cartwheels. Like she'll do back handsprings in the middle of the house. And you got to tell her, you got to stop doing that. Like, stop. She's like,

okay, okay. One more. And she's, she's, she's fucking nuts and i'm like oh that's me that's me if i was a nine-year-old girl like this is nuts that's weird that's me with my bow and arrow but it's not me like i told her to be like this like i've let her just be whoever she is and my youngest daughter has none of that she's not like that at all but when your son is around you and you know and obviously your brain is and your dna is filled with hunting like your knowledge your experiences how much speak how much of like what gets transferred from your dna to your children is your experiences and your knowledge and what you've accumulated,

all the things that you've encountered in your life. I mean, does that transfer? I mean, it has to be some. They don't really know. Yeah, I wonder about it all the time. And I feel like I may have even mentioned this to you before. A lot of friends would say to me, like, what are you going to do if your kid doesn't like to hunt as much as you do? And I often point out like well

not many people do yeah so the ones that be normal the ones that do i i know them all yeah and uh so yeah i'm open to the idea that that's true that that would happen it won't be upsetting to me but in the case of my older one he is just fascinated by it loves it okay that's what he wants to do um i don't know that maybe i subconsciously have treated my daughter differently and my when we found out we're having a daughter my wife made it very clear she's like this is not going to be like a boys club the hunting fish and stuff is not a boys club our daughter is in 100 equally there was not i'm on the lookout for you to like favor our son in this world and it's not going to fly so i have tried very hard not to but

but she's not as fired up as he is right and i don't am i subconsciously sending a message i don't know she's just not as fired up so yeah they're just different one thing me and my wife have done really well is just let our kids do whatever they want to do like what do you like and just pursue that not try to push them into something that they like just try to figure out what you like and i get i try to explain to them what i do for a living that i'm very fortunate that i just do what i like and you can do that but you you have to pursue that really early on. It has to be a part of your brain.

Your mindset has to be like, what do I like to do? Well, I'm going to go do that. Not I'm going to do this safe thing that I don't really want to do because I know that maybe that'll pan out better. But no, just go figure out what it is you like to do and then pursue that and you'll be happier. Yeah, honestly, the other night we were going to go squidding and my daughter bombed out were you there and it made you like you started having feelings about

my daughters yeah you're like man i'm real nervous about when that happens to me or something like that yeah yeah they do yeah they're already doing it but i don't know how we got to talk. Yeah. She did bail out. And for no reason, she bailed out on the trip. Just didn't want to do it anymore. Just at the last minute.

I don't want to go. I'm like, how old is she? That's like four. Yeah. I'm like, that's okay, sweetheart. You can come next time. Welcome me time. You know?

And the idea that my boy would like bail. No way. I was like, I've talked with, this is something I've thought about many times. I would get a guilty conscience to not go when I was a kid. Really? Yeah. I felt bad. I felt like I would feel a sense of shame

if everyone was going hunting or fishing and I didn't go with. Wow. Guilt. That's awesome. Even to the point where we would wake up very early to go out and sit in tree stands for deer. And my bedroom was on the second floor. And I'd be looking out on these oak trees that were just so close to the window, they'd almost scrape the house.

And I remember when the alarm would go off, I would look out kind of hoping to see that the trees were just whipping in the wind because i knew the old man would call it be like not gonna go it's just you know way too windy and i remember i would wake up and look and be like ah shit it's not windy sundays we gotta go and i'd feel so bad for having that feeling It was like a guilt thing. But that was put into me because if you got caught, it'd be your ass if you got caught watching TV. If the old man

caught you watching TV, you're absolutely going to be put on a chore list. To where he'd take a legal pad and name chores until he hit the bottom of the legal pad. Really? Yeah, it was a lot of chores. You couldn't watch TV? Well, if you got well if you got caught watching tv he's gonna hit you with the chore list if you were if you were out

hunting and fishing he was that was the number one that like that's good every other thing i will make you go do chores wow so i think that instilled that i haven't tried that with my kids because it just seems a little bit like prone to backfire but yeah that's a lot of pressure but he raised people who like to yeah work for him um get to get to uh why is it hard to hit because i'm asking you this because i feel like you're sort of a student of the mind right why is it different to hit something living than it is to hit a target with a bow that's the thing that people is that okay yeah consequences you understand the question yeah it different to hit something living than it is to hit a target with a bow? Consequences. Consequences. The thing that people, is that, okay.

Yeah, consequences. You understand the question, honestly. Yeah, it's pressure. It's the same thing as fighting. There's a lot of people that can fight in the gym. Like, you get them in the gym, and they're there with people that they know, and they spar, and they look like a world beater. But then you put them in a competition.

They look like a what? A world beater, meaning they could beat everybody in the world. Gotcha. World champion. It's a fight expression um but you get them in an actual competition with some stranger and you know the pressure of it is just too much the pressure they can't manage their mind a lot of it is managing stress consequences possibilities probabilities and then managing the idea that there's going to be the consequences of failure and what could go wrong. You could get knocked out. You could get beat.

You could get humiliated. And all those things are just overwhelming. They dwell on the negative so much they can't handle it. It's just a matter of being able to maintain a mindset under pressure. And I think that all those things, whatever you do, whether it's live performance or you do a stand-up comedy show or archery or fighting, it's like the thing that they have in common is that there's expectations,

there's high levels of stress and adrenaline and nerves, and you have to be able to manage a mindset in the middle of those. And that's a big thing when an animal comes out because one of the things like there's a parallel between playing pool. When you play pool, you should never think, I hope I don't miss this shot. Because if you do, you're going to fucking miss. You just are going to miss. You can't think that. You literally cannot think that.

You mean like, let's see if I make it. You can't think that you literally cannot think that you mean like let's see if i make it you can't do it you mean you might make it one out of a hundred but i really believe that the vast majority of times if you go into a shot with that mindset you will miss and this is like taught this way billiard academies there's a mindset that's taught like it's just very similar to archery in that you have fundamentals you have technique and position but then when you imagine and visualize that shot you must visualize that shot going in the perfect hit follow through and just go through with it but there's all like oh don't fuck this up oh it's gonna screw it up there's all these nerves that come in and you have to

learn how to manage that mindset it's the same thing with bow hunting. With bow hunting, I remember the first time I shot an animal with a bow, it's like the consequences are so grave. You've got this razor sharp broadhead, you're pulling the bow back, you're centering the pin, you're looking at it, you're like, when am I going to do this? Am I going to do this now? What if I miss? What if I fuck this up? There's all these things you have to go no no no just go through your checklist center your peep make sure you have your anchor points in place make sure your hand's not gripping it in a death grip you got to go through this whole line of thing there's a great website called iron mind hunting with this guy joel turner he's a uh sniping uh sniper instructor oh you what? My buddy, Matt Elliott, was just telling me about this and talking to me and Yanni about going to a meeting with this guy or going to do something with this guy.

I'm sure as to say it's got to be the same guy. It's got to be the same guy. You should do a podcast with him. He's great. He does a lot of podcasts. But he's got a whole website that'll take you through. Because he trains people that are fucking clearing buildings and shit. He trains people that are you know fucking clearing buildings and shit he he trains people that are first responders he trains a lot of police force people and it's

about being able to stay calm under pressure and the difference between closed loop systems and open loop systems in the mind meaning that you know you you could you got to be able to stop it at any time you can't, like a bat. You start swinging a bat, the ball's coming. You're not going to stop that in the middle, right? But when you draw back a bow, it has to be conscious. You have to be able to go. You have to be able to let down.

You have to be able to know when the shot is bad, when it's not breaking. And you've got to be able to execute to the point where you're really legitimately getting a surprise shot. And that don't understand i forget which one it is i i totally get what you're saying but i still know the i think it's open i think that it's open to uh it's open to to to yeah being changed yes or interrupted yeah i think it's open loop i think that i hope i don't fuck this up let's see jamie see if you look that up it's open loop. I hope I don't fuck this up. Jamie, see if you look that up.

The difference between open loop and closed loop systems. So the first time it happened to you, were you able to maintain? Yes, luckily. But I recognized, oh boy, there's a lot to think about here. You were how old? You were 45. Right. I was old enough so that I had gone through a lot of other shit before that was difficult. But then I recognized like, oh, great.

Welcome to my next obsession. Because now I'm fucking balls deep in this. I just got so obsessed with it. I remember getting like getting it narrowed down to us. Sorry. I was going to say, I feel like it's a little bit of like a luxury to do it when you're older because you have more control over your mind. Oh, for sure. 14 when i shot my

first deer it was with a shotgun not a bow actually i think a couple days beforehand i'd missed a doe with my bow and it was i mean the arrow had fallen off of my wrist i was shaking so bad like literally it hit the ground you know the leaves and i put it back in there and shot and don't remember anything about that moment it was just like, it was like went over her back. But the same thing two days later with the shotgun. It was sort of just like, oh, my God, there's a deer. Bang, bang, bang. Wow, it's on the ground dead.

As a kid, I don't know. I feel like I was probably closer to 20 five years later until I was finally like, oh, starting to think like you are, you know, when you're like, oh, here's the moment when shit starts to get crazy and I need to pull back in and start to think through the process. My early rig that I started, I missed my first deer with a bow when I was, I remember I missed it one year before you were allowed to hunt. I missed my first year of the bow when I was 11. And the bow I was using was, it was a compound, but it just had a stick on. You remember flipper rests?

Yeah. It's like a little wire on an adhesive pad that you would stick to the riser of the bow. And that was your rest. We shot with finger tabs. No pins. So just like shooting instinctive with fingers. But basically you're shooting like a recurve, but it has to be a compound. Some guys still do that. Yeah.

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You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. 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 OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. It'd be like, it's a great compromise.

Yeah, I heard a good argument for it the guy was saying like think about how much more flat a compound bow shoots than a recurve like if you just have the same weight arrow all the time and just get used to it like you're you're gonna have a pretty good sense of where that thing's gonna go based on just you know like the same way you have a feeling if you throw a ball where that ball's gonna go yeah surprise because like now it's like people either they go to the extremes you know you see like people like okay i'm done with all this tech i'm done the technology i'm just going stick bow yeah yeah you can all yeah the stripped down compound but i got to be where you know when i would shoot at a deer with my bow

after a while i got to be where i kind of knew what was going to happen. But you're talking about you're on a platform in a tree, and your shots are 20 yards or less from the base of the tree. But I got to be where I wasn't Hail Marian. But then when I started encountering elk with a bow, everything came undone. Even cows. But even cows. Oh, really? Just because they're so big?

Just big, and you're on the ground. I think being on the ground with them. Yeah. And they're so big. And they make so much noise. Coming through the woods, the noise they make. I remember being with a girlfriend of mine and we had some elk feeding up a hill. And I had already tagged out, but she was hunting and these elk were coming up.

And this bull eventually comes up. Easy shot. He's got an erection he's screaming she never even pulled her bow back and that elk stood there stood there and walked off and she just looks at me look in her face like holy shit and never even like thought to draw the bow wow but i had a similar thing and i remember i couldn't get i'd get the shot opportunities and blow them the first handful of them i'd blow them. And when I was reviewing my mind,

I'm like, I cannot remember shooting. And I eventually forced myself, like our old man, he used to put these stickers on the limb, on the riser of our bull that said, stay calm, pick a spot. Not that you're going to remember to look at the sticker, but you just like help like getting that in your head.

I remember getting to be with, if I can remember one thing when i pull back if i can get myself to think of one thing and i got in my head like lift your elbow lift your elbow because i knew that if i thought to lift my elbow all the other stuff would fall in place and the first bull i killed i was going down a hill and i could see a cow bedded down in front of me and i'm like well shit now i'm stuck and i knew the bull was down lower but i couldn't move and eventually that bull came up to her pulled back i remember it was the first time i ever had him i had like lift your elbow just lift your fucking elbow and boom through the heart took two steps and fell over i thought i was hallucinating i was like something must be wrong with me because i swear i just hit that bull and it fell over. I thought I was hallucinating. I was like, something must be wrong with me

because I swear I just hit that bone and it fell over dead. You better check my vitals. It just took one conscious act and not just the... Just stop for a second because this is a normal thing for you. This hunting experience is a normal thing for you. Imagine the average person

who works in a cubicle, who drives in traffic, who deals with nonsense corporate office bullshit and human resources imagine that experience how alien that is the intense pressure of the moment all the the stuff running through your head trying to manage the adrenaline executing the shot the average person has no connection to that experience but i wonder like if having no connection to it where could it be that if you don't care it's not scary yes well it won't be as nerve-wracking if you don't care for sure if you don't want it that's what my my brother... You're going to care. My older brother, what he dislikes about when he messes something up is he's like,

I hate that I'm so susceptible to lust. Like, I lust. I want that bull so bad. Yeah. So bad that something like, some weird synapsis system falls apart and I can't get it. It's like,

I just need to control the lust. If you could want it a little less, you would do better. That's the same thing with fighting though. You have to be able to be zen in the moment and manage all the pressure. That's what it is. You want it so bad that you're out of composure. You're not composed. You're not together in that situation. That's what it is.

Do you feel like your experience fighting changed how you were going to look at it? That you'd been just hitting the face a bunch and had just dealt with sort of fear and performance? I think it helps for sure. i'm used to being nervous like i've been nervous at everything so like i know how to handle this i know what nerves are do you still get nervous walking out to do in front of a big audience yeah yeah i still get a little nervous but could you this is another question i like when i think about this when you're talking about the consequences thing can you stand in front of a mirror and do your act no i don't do that because there's no consequence

yeah well it's just not not beneficial there's nothing good so it's not that it's not that it feels awkward it's just gross staring at yourself talking and just be too weird it'd be too like i'd be too too uh aware of how goofy it is to stand in front of a mirror and practice. Comedy is a weird thing that you kind of have to practice it in front of an audience. It's really the only way it goes. I write solitary. I write solo. But basically the writing is almost like just a framework, scaffolding.

And then I just go on stage with those ideas and I have to flesh them out in front of a live crowd when you when you write comedy do you are you writing how when i imagine someone who deals in the written word writes like are you sitting there writing or is it just that you're always writing because it's in your head no i sit down and write i sit down on a lot on a laptop i have a program called and you write out like dialogue yeah yeah well i most of the time i write out like essay form and then i extract bits from it you ever heard of right room do you know what right room no it's pretty cool it's a uh it's a software that blacks out everything doesn't give you access to your you don't have access oh yeah i'm sorry i don't know about this so it's black and then the the print is green, like the Terminator, like the Matrix type shit.

And I like that because it gives me this complete... There's a version of it for Windows, too, which I occasionally use. Occasionally, I use Windows. But what I do is I write everything as, like, an essay, and then once I'm done writing it as an essay, then I go over it, and I try to figure out, okay, where are the bits in here? But you're writing it to yourself.

I'm just writing. You know? This is what it looks like. Yeah. And what's the program called? It's called Write Room. Hmm. yeah and what's the program called it's called right room how long how much time goes by between when you first have like you're driving around or whatever and you go like oh that's funny the thing that just passed through my mind how much time does it take from that for that to

become a joke for that to become a thing that is delivered to an audience. Sometimes it's instant. Sometimes I'll have an idea and it's almost like a done bit. Like I'll go on stage with it and it requires very little tweaking. It's like it's there. I just know I have the idea. I had this whole, you've seen that bit. That bit that I used to do about vegans. This whole long bit about vegans.

About how vegans always like to say humans are the only animal that drink the milk of another animal i'm like yeah you know what else only people do fly planes make movies call each other on the phone tell each other how awesome milk is like what kind of stupid fucking point is that and that bit all this was a long chunk and it all came out of like one conversation that i had with this one proselytizing vegan i was like this is such an annoying conversation like you haven't done both sides of this conversation you haven't done the response like how would other people look at this like you've just got this idea in your head that everybody thinks like you and you're going to push this thought through. And that bit came out. Literally, I wrote it on a plane.

And it went from the laptop to being on Comedy Central. All in the same form. But does it always have to pass through the laptop? The laptop is not required. Sometimes I'll have an idea that never hits the laptop. And then I just bring it up on stage. I'll bring it up on stage and I'll start working with it and then I'll tweak it on stage. But I always have to write it out on top of it too.

Over the last three years, I've modified my technique. And one of the things that I've realized is that the best way to really refine the bits is to do them, and then once I'm doing them, even if they work on stage, then I take them and I sit alone with them with the laptop and I rewrite them. And I'll rewrite them from like two different angles. I'll say, okay, I know we're going to come at it from this way. Let's come at it from another way. We already got this bit.

The premise is already locked down in this way. Let's come at it from another way. We already got this bit. The premise is already locked down in this form. It's already functional. But let's see what happens if we come at it from this way. Let's see what happens if we come at it from that way. And then sometimes I'll take a little piece of that and I'll take a piece be objective and going back and trying it again and trying it soft, trying it hard, trying it slow, trying it fast. You got to figure out where it works. There's a thing you do.

You got to be aware of it where you bait your audience into... Let's just say. Let's say you decide to, for a minute, hack on... You're going to hack on Republicans. Not that you don't do a Republican bit, but let's just say you're going to hack on Republicans for a minute. And you get a certain segment of your crowd kind of like they're loving it.

They love hearing this shit. But then you're going to turn around and very quickly flip something and attack the exact opposite. Yeah. I've seen you a couple times where I feel like you almost

throw out a false bait. When you used to have a... You throw out a false bait and it gets like some guys in the crowd ready to go like they're like i can't wait for coming next he's gonna attack the thing that's most annoying to me in life but then you just like pounce and go the other direction and just annihilate the idea that you're hope that they're hoping you're going to pursue. Do you keep in mind the balance?

Oh, yeah. You have to. Like, I'm going to dog on guys, then I'm going to dog on ladies. Yeah, but you got to go, first of all, because I'm a guy, and because of the type of guy that I am, I have to go hard on guys first.

Like, over the top. Where there can be no doubt at all that i've just covered you low yeah yeah every fucked up thing about being a man has to be just beaten down exposed even exaggerated and then you can move on to the ladies like and now ladies yeah but you have to have i mean you see my new set when i was in seattle so i've got this whole chunk that I'm doing on that, you know, about this team thing that people do. Or they just, they only, you know, like people get real tribal. Like women want to stick up. Like there's a lot of women that, like I had conversations with women where they failed to recognize that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate for president.

Like they failed to recognize it because they wanted a woman in there so bad. I'm like, that is so tribal. I'm like, this woman, first of all, doesn't care about you. She didn't support gay marriage until 2013. She's a fucking politician. She's as dirty as they come. She did these speeches for bankers where she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, won't release the transcripts.

The Clinton Foundation is dirty to the core. There's so much about her that's compromised. hundreds of thousands of dollars won't release the transcripts and you know the it's like there's so much the clinton foundation is dirty to the core there's so much about her that's compromised and people like i don't care i want a woman i want a woman i'm like that woman this one this is a terrible one i got i got the admission you're after or not that you specifically after but i got an admission like this out of a friend of mine where we're talking about the the russian meddling issue and i and just how you know just what needs to happen this you know unprecedented and i was saying so let's let's look at this for a minute that let's say hillary clinton won and it later emerged that huma Abedin had gotten an email from some suspicious source saying, hey, I got some real dope on your opponent.

Would you like to hear it? And she says, oh, yeah, sure. I'd like to hear that. And they got it. Would you now be saying that Hillary Clinton should resign? Well, no. Okay. Oh, it was like yes so you agree that you're using you're pretending to be

outraged about something because it serves your ends like that we just we live now in a pretend outrage world everything is just us pretending to be more upset about shit than we actually are well people get i almost did it today there's something I'm upset about and I was trying to, I was like, I guess I should probably pretend to care more in order to frame the kind of argument that, that people are after. People do get upset, but I think one of the reasons why they get upset is because there's no real consequences in life. Like the real, the, the actual day today struggle is so far removed from the primal world in which we evolved that our day-to-day differences about ideologies and about left versus right or

man versus woman or whatever they're so they're almost me it's like petty yeah they're petty they don't they don't carry any real weight. So this man versus woman thing. Look, all presidents suck. We've never had a single president that didn't suck. It's a terrible job. It's a job that would be great if there was 100 of us. But the idea that one king monkey is going to run 320 million people is just bananas. It doesn't make any sense.

So whether it's Hillary Clinton or whether it's – and then the idea of two parties, that's ridiculous too. And anybody who doesn't want to agree to that, come, come on, man, you don't see that scam. We have a left versus a right. That's it. There's no room for nuance. What about a third party, a fourth, fifth? No one takes those seriously. We just, we have a weird sort of monopoly between these two very prominent parties. I think that the people that do get upset about this stuff and the people that do get locked in, I don't even think they know what they're doing i think they're acting on like ancient reward systems that like want to protect the veracity of their tribe and anything that's against their tribe they dismiss oh like what was going on with fox news when all the russia stuff was going on all they wanted to talk about was

hillary clinton's emails uh that's all anybody wanted to talk about well hillary clinton deleted 30 000 when the grab the pussy tape came out. It was Hillary Clinton and her emails. They didn't even spend a moment on the idea that you are setting an example for all of the human beings. The president sets a tone. Do we really

want to say that we're okay with a president of the United States, the commander of the military that is the greatest army the world has ever known. This guy is okay with saying, you can grab him by a pussy. I was trying to kiss this girl. I moved on her like a bitch. I always have gum on me because I always want to have my breath because I just kiss.

I just kiss. I can't help myself. It sounds like a fucking maniac. He would argue he was doing stand-up. Well, he probably was. He probably was. I mean, that is a really good look there's a real good argument for having something like that being a massive violation of privacy and should be punishable by some sort of an extreme way yeah i remember

you joking before that why is everybody not super mad at Bob Marley for how he was going to shot the sheriff? He went out and shot the damn sheriff. People aren't mad at him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was another bit that I used to do. Yeah.

These ideas, I think people get so wrapped up in there. We have these weird patterns, you know, and we're very tribal in our defense of our patterns, you know, and I think that's what you're seeing with left versus right. I think you see that with hunters versus vegans too. I've got a bit in my act where I'm like, there's vegans that are vegans because they really care and they don't want animals to die. Then there's vegans who are really only vegans

because Scientology didn't find them first. These dumb motherfuckers could have joined the Taliban if they took the wrong exit. They're stupid. They just found a group that will take them in, and now they have vegan in their screen name, and they'll attack. Well, the thing I like most about vegans, or maybe it's least, I can't decide. I don't like to, like you're saying, I don't like to try to put them all in the same box. But it's such a radical departure from norms.

Yeah. Right? So it's like you're engaged in this, you have this belief system that's just really, I mean, it's radical from any perspective. Yeah. Historically, right? Like contemporary, it's just a really unusual,

statistically like a really unusual way to eat. But then the way they act so just dumbfounded by the fact that there are people that aren't engaged in it. It'd be like, you know, just if you got interested in, it'd be like you all of a sudden get interested in shooting pool and you're just so angry at everybody that doesn't. You want to be like, but most people don't shoot pool. Why, when you run into a non-pool shooter why are you so pissed at them it's like you're you're talking about something that just like

is kind of like brand spanking new yeah and people are super selective about their outrage like a vegan has to drive down the street and almost every gas station you look at has slim jims every mcdonald's get dead cows in it everywhere you go you're just looking at meat but then they'll find some guy with a rack in his truck, like some guy with a dead deer, and they'll just, this is a fucking outrage. You know why that is? Because they like when people,

like people that don't like hunting, but they eat meat. I think that they feel that the only way to responsibly eat meat is to have this vague sense of guilt. Yeah. Like, it comes with shame. But the minute there's some dude who's like, oh, yeah, I eat meat. And I'm eating this thing right here. And this thing makes me real happy.

I'm glad I got it. I'm now going to eat it. I love this animal. I love where it lived. I like everything about this whole damn thing. This is very exciting to me people are like well i would appreciate it if you felt some sense of like not knowingness and a little guilt a little more uneasiness like don't engage in this thing and like it that's why they're pissed because you're you're like you're

sort of going like yep everything about this picture feels right to me and that is annoying to them yeah i get it but like people are going to mcdonald's and they got this guy and i really shouldn't eat mcdonald's so much and geez you know i don't really know like how are these animals taken care of like that's sort of like this thing but then when you get like real happy about the meat it's off-putting there's another thing that people do that i've been talking about a lot lately, and it's vegans who have pets, and they feed their pets animals. No, this is one of the best parts of your bit. When you're the cat, Joe doing the cat who's looking out the window at a bird and remembering old buried feelings.

But that's, I mean, there is something fucked up about people that can sort of departmentalize like that they can they can compartmentalize their ideas and just like it's like this is just cat food this is just cat food just pour it in there it's okay no it's a fucking chicken that chicken was in a cage and it got shoved into a machine dozens of chickens and they ground it down bits of dozens of chickens and they made little stars out of it like this is not karma free like this is crazy yeah but people like acting like oh my cat's vegan like they're proud of it like you know you could lock someone in a room too and be like you know what's cool about that person they never want to go outside that's true it's i mean look i think there's an also there's an issue that a lot of people

have that aren't involved in hunting and i think when you look at the the general population what is the numbers like 97 percent eat meat something along those lines oh man i've never looked it up i don't know i think it's pretty crazy high it's something in the range of you know i have looked up i can't remember what i found what percentage are engaged in the death of that animal is it even 10 it's probably not even 10 it's way less than that five five percent maybe right i mean like what percentage of people i guess you can say like what percentage of people work in the so you'd be saying this the meat the the processing and agricultural sectors even that yeah that or hunting or like say that what percentage of people are involved in the actual death of the animal that they consume?

It's so insignificant. It's so small. But if you think about the past, all of human past, the connection was almost immediate. Like almost every person had some sort of an immediate connection to the fish that came out of the river or the cow that they slaughtered or the deer that they hunted. All that stuff was like immediate. And so it was natural and everybody understood it by by separating people almost unanimously from the meat and from the the death of the animal like the connection to it is is so vague it doesn't even make sense to people it doesn't make sense you'd shoot an animal meanwhile they're cut My wife was having dinner with some friends and one of the guys was English and I was on an elk hunt and they were like, well, where's your husband?

He's like, oh, he's hunting. And the guy's cutting into his steak. He's like, that's deplorable. He hunts. That's deplorable. She goes, you're eating a fucking steak. Like, what did this grow off a steak tree? What are you talking about?

He eats that. You're eating it. Is it okay that you killed it with your credit card, but it's not okay that someone does it with a bow and arrow? You're out of your fucking mind. You've got some weird mental blocks. If people were honest, they would say, yes, I can't explain why, but that's what I'm saying. Yes, but that's not a tenable argument. it's not it's just not and what they people love recreational outrage they love to be able to be upset about that's a good i'm gonna steal that word you make that up yeah

i think so i'm not sure recreation people have attributed to me i might have heard it from somebody else but i say it so much i almost own it now but anybody can have it recreational outrage is what it is it's like they've decided this instead of going also known as facebook yeah instead of saying yeah this is kind of weird that i eat steak and then i have a problem with someone killing a wild animal like thinking about it a little bit yeah here's another weird thing i've had people say i like that you do with a bow and arrow i think rifle hunting's for pussies but i like the fact you do with a bow and arrow. I think, oh, rifle hunting's for pussies, but I like the fact that you do it with a bow and arrow. It seems to give the animal more of a chance. And I go, okay.

Honestly, it's better to do it with a rifle. I'm like, it's smarter. I'm like, if you do it with a rifle, you have a higher percentage of kills, a higher percentage of success, more opportunities. And it's going to die a little quicker. Yeah, if you're're gonna do it ethically i mean it's gonna it's like a rifle is a really good way to go like why why does that why someone think it's too easy like oh it's too easy like i could get a hunter thinking that like i i enjoy a more intense challenge you know like i'm tired of tapping out blue belts i only want to spar with

black belts now i want i need a more intense challenge to excite me. Which is weird for people. Like, wait a minute. Are you trying to hunt for food or are you playing a game? Like, what are you doing here? Which one of these? Well, it's kind of both. Definitely both. Yeah, it's definitely both. But people don't want to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that. Well, you get off on this? Do you get

off on this? Yeah. Yes, we do. I mean, look, when I was in Utah, we did this Under Armour film that's going to be released this Friday. And I shot this giant herd bull. It was amazing. It was the craziest experience. This bull had like 30, 40 cows.

He had herded them all into this one area. And then one cow took off. And he followed this cow. And he's like, get back here. Come on, get back here. She's like, fuck you. I'm going to find someone else. You got too many women. And she takes off and he had to follow after her. And so he brings all of his cows to follow after her. And we went and followed after her too. And so as we were coming over the hill, there was some other bulls that had been bugling behind us. He thought that we were those other bulls. So he came back around, and that's how I got him. And this whole thing was like I was –

He heard you guys crunching. Yeah, he heard us walking. So he came around, and then he went around us to try to catch our wind. But I was at full draw with like eight yards. It was like a bunch of bushes and trees, but I was at full yard. And he's huge. I'm looking at his antlers. He's standing there.

He's like just looking around and I see him right there. And the thrill of it all, it's so insane. And then to have him go down the hill and then come back around and then he's in a gap at like 32 yards in between these two trees. There's like a two-foot gap. And I punched that arrow straight through the heart. It was a perfect shot. And he walked like 15, 20 yards and just starts wobbling

and just drops. If that's not thrilling, if you want me to say that I didn't enjoy that, I'm not going to. I'm not going to lie. I enjoyed it. It was exciting. It was crazy. I love the meat. It's the best tasting meat. I love the idea of

getting meat that way. I love the fact that I'm not dealing with factory farming or hormones or antibiotics or tortured animals. I'm dealing with a wild animal that thought some other wild animal was going to come and bang his chicks. And he was like, fuck that. I'm going to protect my girls. And he came back around and I got him. And I think if you took any vegan, whoever, through that same experience and just held them by the hand and were just there. They didn't have to try to shoot the animal, but just held them by the hand and let them experience all that.

They'd have a very hard time looking you in the eye and saying that wasn't thrilling at all. Well, you were an elk guide for a long time. saying to these people in in utah i was saying have you guys ever thought about taking people out that have no desire to hunt and just dress them up in camo and sneaking them into the rut just get just get in there just while while it's happening and watch how crazy it is it's a little bit different there than if you watch it on blue planet or it's so much different it's so much different i mean we were we much different. We crawled. I mean, by crawled, I tiptoed real slow through the woods for about 35, 45 minutes until we got to these trees that were the edge of this creek where these elk were all funneling through. And we were super close, like inside of 20 yards of some of these cows.

And some of them would look at us and stare at us, and we're totally frozen, and we're not moving. And then they went back to their shit and started doing things and doing elk things. But we're in the heat of this. And I was like, this is so exciting. Even if we don't ever shoot an elk, you're surrounded by 20, 30 elk in their world, and they don't even know you're there. You get to see them be elk. I'm like, this would be an exciting thing

just to take people and just tell them how to walk real slow, and we're going to get you in the middle of this crazy activity. We saw them rutting. We saw this one bull elk literally tackle this cow. He got on top of her, and he hits her one time, breeds her, and sends her flying.

Sends her flying forward on her hind legs legs and we're like this is crazy you're right here you're right here watching that i think a lot of people would come out of that experience and they wouldn't be like and now i want to go run an arrow through one i agree with you yeah for sure i think a lot of people would have a real hard time watching that animal stumble watching the blood pull out both sides of its body through its vitals and watching them drop over. To me, I was like, look, he's not going to live forever. He's going to get eaten by mountain lions or wolves or whatever else bears, whatever else comes along and catches him when he's weak.

He's probably eight and a half, nine years old. If he's super lucky, he's got two years left. He's in the autumn of his life. If he's super lucky, he's got two years he's in the autumn of his life he's super lucky he's got you know but that you know i wouldn't go and say that there's like an old man walking on the side of the road that oh yeah it doesn't matter if you run him over i mean he's the old guy that's true no it's true it's but the the old guy on the side of the road is not going to get attacked by a mountain lion anytime soon hopefully this. This animal for sure is. I mean, that's their demise. Their demise is freeze to death, starvation,

predatory. They have three options. Yeah, it's not hospice. Arrows are way better than all those other options. It's hard to... I spend a lot of time trying to get into the... It's a mental trap. You try to get into the animal's

mind i think that's where where it winds up being tricky when talking to people who like to bow hunt i was having this conversation with april vokey where we're talking about bow hunting she's talking about just like seems more ethical to bow hunt and um and i'm like well it just winds up like like you brought up earlier it's really tricky because from whose perspective? Right. The animal doesn't care. Yeah. At all. I had like an animal rights. I interviewed an animal rights activist and had him explain.

He's like, the animal doesn't care. The animal doesn't care that you have these like high-minded ideals about wildlife conservation and preservation. And you respect it. And they're going to utilize it all it's dead the same way that someone's going to come and and shoot you you're probably not really going to like weigh out what were the motivations of the person that shot you you're like oh with all that considered i'm glad i was was murdered. Yeah. That's his way of looking at it. That's a way of looking at it, too. Did I tell you about speciesism?

Have I talked about this? Oh, I know about that. I'm a speciesist. There's a fucking thing, a meme that someone made where it's got like Hitler is like a racist and then it comes to me and I've got a moose leg on my shoulder. It's a speciesist. Yeah. It's a good concept yeah have have you had any uh has anything have you learned things or had thoughts or seen things

in hunting that have gone and and made their way into your stand-up like would your vegan exist if you hadn't started dabbling in hunting was that already an annoyance you know i told you before we went on that trip that I was having some real concerns about factory farming. I'd watched way too many of those PETA videos. I'd seen a bunch of them. And I was like, what am I doing? Like, how am I eating this food

that's being raised like this? Because I think the ag-gag laws that we have, the agriculture gag, people don't know there's laws that prevent people from filming inside of these horrific factory farm warehouses where they have these pigs and cows and chickens just stuffed into these really confined areas. I mean, illegal for them to do it, even if the manager of the slaughter facility wanted to let them. No, no.

I think it's undercover filming. I think that's what it mostly involves activists like releasing undercovers yeah okay so that you're not allowed to show people because it could harm the business yeah you know which is just crazy it's like it harms the business because most people are not aware of how horrific these conditions are and uh i had gotten down too many rabbit holes and i'd watched too many of those videos. And I was like, this is just a crazy thing that people have accepted because they're completely insulated from it.

You just go to Morton's, and you order the ribeye, and it comes out, and you're like, ooh, that looks good, and you start digging in. You don't think about what happened to that animal up until that point, why I had started thinking about it. So I had made this sort of decision before I went with you that I was either going to be a vegan or a vegetarian, or I was going to become a hunter. I was like, I got to figure out one of these things. Cause this is just, I can't just keep ignoring the fact that I know how these animals live.

And then when, um, I told you when, as soon as that, that deer dropped, I was like, okay, I know what I'm doing. I was like, this is just too exciting. This is amazing. And then when we're eating it, we're eating it over the fire. To this day, that's one of my happiest memories. Like you and me and Callan and Callahan were just cutting up that meat and Doty. We're eating it over the fire. I'm like, this is one of my best memories. Guilt-free eating. It was 100% guilt-free. I mean, it was definitely a sense of loss. I mean, you guys captured that really good. You got my face. Like when I shot the deer and I didn't, it was definitely a sense of loss. I mean, you guys captured that really good. You got my face. Like when I shot the deer and I was like, whoa, here we go.

That's one of my favorite meteor moments of all time is your reaction there. I mean, it was beautiful. Yeah, it was intense. When I originally talked to you years ago now about going on a hunting trip, and we were kicking around various ideas, you were reluctant to go hunt bears, but then later did a bear hunt. What went on in your mind around those ideas? What do you think it was?

Well, I didn't think that you ate bears, and then I realized you do. So the idea of eating a bear was kind of alien to me. I was like, hmm, I can't think that you ate bears. And then I realized you do. And so the idea of eating a bear was kind of alien to me. It's like, hmm, I can't get that good. But deer are good. I like venison. So you can just picture it really well. Yeah. And also bears are just too much like dogs.

They're too canine. It's like there's too much about them. And I have gone on bear hunts, but the reality is I do not enjoy it the same way I enjoy elk hunting or deer hunting. Because you like elk meat. Yeah, because I like elk meat. I like the idea that there's predators and then there's prey. Although bears are omnivorous, they're essentially predators, whereas the deer, they're prey. You can even eat them raw. like you got trichinosis

so that that trichinosis thing freaks me out yeah like all the weird pathogens and parasites and shit that these bears can get that freaks me out too but it's just i don't feel the same way about they react differently when you hit them like when they get hit they literally try to attack the area that that got like an arrow goes through and they go and they try to like go back and get it and they they moan they fight death in a different way it's like everything about them is different and there's just um they're too close to like what we are you know i'll eat them i mean don't get me wrong like if you have some bear sausage i'll definitely eat it and if you know we're out on a bear hunt i'll do but the reaction that people have to bears too is another thing that keeps you like if you put up a picture of a dead bear people blow their fucking gaskets yeah they go crazy people have a real hard

time with dead bears even but you but would that uh would you allow that to influence your like are you like oh you know i would put this picture up on social media, but I'm not going to because it's too upsetting to people? I kind of stopped putting dead animals on social media because it's just too... Just stoking the flames. Yeah, too confusing for people. I'll put up pictures of me hunting. I'll put up

meat. I'll put up... Some hunters will give me a hard time. Our friends, put up the kill shot. Why don't you put up the dead animal? Because I don't feel like it. I think it's too confusing. People just look at it like, oh, trophy. You're a trophy hunter.

You're killing this animal for that. But if you just have the meat, nobody gets mad. Very few people get mad at me when I cook some elk and I'll put a picture of it on Instagram. I'll have one out of 400 on Instagram. Like I'll have, you know, one out of four or five hundred comments would be shitty. But those are like those proselytizing vegans with like vegan warrior princess in their screen name. And they're just going to attack anything. That's just who they are, you know. But that's a, there's a notion out there about trophy hunting that I just like absolutely reject is this idea that if if I'm

going out and and I'm hunting and I kill a buck and I eat the buck and I like the buck a lot and I'm real happy about it and I keep its antlers that somehow the idea that it would have been more pure had I discarded a portion of it. The antlers. Yeah. And just got the meat. It's like, well, no, I'm sorry. I like this whole thing. Yeah.

I like being able to eat it. I also like to have these antlers around because I think they're cool looking and I remember it by it and I just like them. And this whole thing is important to me. And you enjoy the experience. But people, like somehow this symbolic gesture that you'd be like, my motivations are so pure, I will discard these antlers,

lest anyone think that I cared about antlers. Well, you have to have the time to explain what you just did every time. Like Joe's saying, you're just taking it out you know so it doesn't blow up into something i think you're doing it does help the greater good i think just to be keeping doing the the meat photos and stuff like that because you're probably bringing more you're moving that needle to you know a pro hunting place as opposed to that one grip and grin is moving at the other direction yeah but i don't think i don't think of every action I take as being engaged in some rhetorical battle.

No. But I think for Joe, it's just like a waste of time, right? Eventually, you just create conflict. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. Boy, my

goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. 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. Well, if you're sick of, you know,

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. A friend of ours once passed along an image. Never mind. Talk about confusing. I'm not going to talk about this image. But I am going to talk about this. Mo, who you know. Yeah, I love Mo. You're talking about a bear's response like just bears being different

mo i believe he's in columbia with some uh like indigenous hunters and they shot a monkey with a blow dart i could be messing this up i don't't think I am. And he described the monkey reaching around to grab at the dart. I think this is Mo telling me this. Yeah, I remember you told me this. I want to take the name out because I'm messing the story up. But that really struck him. Yeah. Of the thing that like there is this sort of difference.

And I oftentimes try to reject it. The idea that we should, that if you have a sustainable population of black bears, and you have a team of wildlife professionals or biologists who are able to look and have a management objective for the bears and realize that there's a harvestable surplus of animals, meaning that you could have an X number of bears, and that every year you could harvest some percentage or kill some percentage of those bears. Then the next year, have the same number of bears again because the landscape has a carrying capacity that it's going to maintain. And you can remove some animals and that number is probably going to stay the same. same because if you were not to remove those numbers you would see a similar effect from

starvation territoriality you know bears killing other bears to defend territory and so there was you know the term like a harvestable surplus so i'm like if you agree with these concepts it shouldn't matter if we're talking about bears or deer but it's in people's heads we were one time with one of the guys we work with and we're looking at a wolverine scavenging a moose carcass. And we didn't even go after it, but someone observed that in this unit we were in, you were allowed a wolverine. And because of the way the tag system works,

that one of us could have legally gone after the wolverine. And he's like, well, I hope you don't go. I hope you guys aren't thinking you're have legally gone after the wolverine and he's like well i hope you don't go i hope you guys aren't thinking you're gonna go get that wolverine it's like well we're not but why like what is it about that because we're out here hunting right and we're hunting under guidelines that you're comfortable with as laid out by the state wildlife agency and they say that it's all right as well just because they travel so far. And I'm like, well, no. We're hunting caribou right now and this is the largest,

this is the longest migrating land mammal we have. So it's not distance traveled. These things will travel hundreds of miles. He said, well, they live to be old. I'm like, well, we got radio collared elk and other things in their early 20s and you're comfortable hunting those

well it's he doesn't know just something's different about it well also isn't it that you're not going to eat it would you eat the wolverine well I got a friend who I got a

yeah here's the thing that's what always goes through my head because I'm not dying to go I gotta yeah you know here's the thing that's what always goes through my head because I'm not dying to go I'm not like I'm not dying to go get a Wolverine I'm not like really interested in

eating a Wolverine right I would now my friend Bach a buddy of his was talking about sitting there coming into Bach's house one time and he's boiling a Wolverine skull

because he wants to keep the skull and his friend's saying as I'm sitting there coming into Buck's house one time and he's boiling a Wolverine skull because he wants to keep the skull and his friend saying as I'm sitting there watching him clean the skull with a jackknife he's just picking the skull meat and eating it so here's a guy that likes Wolverine flesh just fine why are you telling me that there was some famous trapper that really enjoyed wolf wolf was like his favorite meat that was the arctic explorer viljalmer steffensen who ate who lived as the strict wild game diet out of necessity while he was uh traveling in the canadian high arctic and uh he had actually made first contact with a lot of uh innuit hunters in the early even in the early 1900s he was making they were aware of whites but hadn't met whites but um yeah he was just like that was his meat wow wolf he had eaten you know he's eaten

muskox doll sheep caribou he preferred both loved it talked about all the time it was his favorite meat but take this he one time there was a dead whale on the beach that he writes about and it was like this uh like this dried out like a desiccated whale carcass on a beach and they were really hard up for food and so they went and cut the tongue out of this whale and he talked about how they had to boil it change the water boil it change the water boil it change the water just to get, change the water, boil it, change the water, just to get the salt out. It was so impregnated with salt. And they eventually eat it. And later he hears, they encounter some Inuit hunters, and they

explain, I think it was, that thing had been laying there seven years. So he had a strong stomach. Seven years. Another really interesting thing that Stephenson, you should read Stephenson's My Life with the Eskimo. My Life with the Eskimo. Because a thing that steffens you should read stephan you should read steffens in my life with the eskimo my life because a thing that frustrates steffensen is that when he he would go i know i told you about this too steffensen would go and try to impress

the inuit with technology but because they had this very elaborate, mystical belief system, things weren't impressive to him. Like he would say, you know, he would bring up, you know, where I come from, we can open a person up and do a surgery. And they'd be like, oh yeah,

we know a guy can pull your whole spine and skull out while you're sleeping and put a new one back in. And he'd say, well, check this gun out. I can shoot something 200 yards away. Like, oh, yeah, we know a guy who can take his bow and shoot it. And the arrow will fly over the mountains and kill something on the other side of the mountains. And he'd always be getting bent out of shape about his inability to impress them because they had and everyone's telling too like he's talking about his uh a telescope that he can observe the craters on the moon and like we know a guy that hunts up there

that's awesome but one thing he was able to get him on board with was a small stove he had or i think it was a stove or they're like no that that's something i do dig that stove man that's awesome oh yeah man well if you uh went wolf hunting would you be into eating it would you definitely take the meat you know what oh there's no way yeah just because of me and my personal like just how i like how i approach stuff and sort of the moral system that i have set up this isn't a comment about what i think other people should do it's just like me personally i'm talking about like my personal view of what hunting is to me and does for me um yeah i would i'd be actually pretty curious about it but here's the thing

that happens to me. Is everywhere I go, I'm always buying wolf tags. But then I just don't have the, like when I see them, I don't have a... Lust. Yeah, I don't have my brother. My brother describes his lust. I remember one time we were hunting and I got a dull sheep. Then a few days later, my friend got a black bear and we were camped up on a gravel bar.

And, you know, here comes a wolf down the other side of the stream from a river from us. Beauty too. Yeah. Just like loping along, white. Dusky light. I mean, it was kind of magical. It's just not. And I just felt like, yeah, you know, we just got like a sheep.

We got a bear. Like, you know, not enough. And yeah, it's like it doesn't go. Seeing one. I just don't. I don't feel it. And it's not. I'll probably still continue to go buy a wolf.

I don't like buying tags. I don't look at it as being a waste of money. It goes to fund. Right. You know, wildlife agencies. It's not like you're throwing down the drain Buying tags, I don't look at it as being a waste of money. It goes to fund wildlife agencies. It's not like you're throwing it down the drain. But yeah, I get them, and then I don't walk around hoping to every corner

I come around there would be a wolf stand there in range. Yeah, I just want to see them in the wild. I think I saw one in Alberta. I saw something very dog-like run across the road late at night like it was like at dusk or waiting to get picked up and it ran across this uh dirt road and it's like i think that's a wolf they got a lot of wolves up there but never seen one like real close where you could

definitely get a get a look at it but my instinct would definitely not be to shoot it yeah i don't have it but what's funny with me is at the same time, I'm a very strong advocate of the idea that healthy, sustainable wildlife resources should be managed for people to do like extraction of renewable resources so i always support and and continue to push for states that have stable populations of wolves to be able to manage them as the state sees fit including if they have wolf seasons but the same way that you know some things i hunt for all the time and keep wanting to do it there's other things i'm just like just want to be not that interested in you know i was just having this conversation with rammy the other day where um you know after a long time of no emperor goose seasons in in western alaska they're gonna have like an emperor goose hunt and we were kicking this around about how you can apply for a tag for an emperor goose

and uh usually i'm like a generalist and i want to go hunt whatever. But in talking about, I was just like, I just don't feel like I'm just not fired up. Like I haven't had enough time to begin to think of it as a game animal. Yeah. You've talked about that about Africa as well, right? Yeah. Like I, yeah.

I think that when I look at a lot of things that just, there's certain things that look at, I'm like, that's a game animal to me. Like it's appealing to me. It's appealing to me it's appealing to me as a thing to hunt and until other people's different i think you know you it's hugely dependent on where you grew up like if you see a white-tailed deer boom that's food that's a white-tailed deer

if you see a neil guy you're like oh look at that yeah what's that again that's a neil guy huh look at that so that's what one of those looks like yeah so it's something that develops over time yeah i'm curious about the wolves i kind of feel like what might happen is the same thing that happened with the mountain lion yeah have you tried mountain lion i heard it's delicious dude i look at a mountain lion i look at a mountain lion and i'm like that's a game animal yeah but a year ago before we went on that hunt and before you shot that one before i ended up with whatever 30 pounds in my freezer i kind of had hit them and the wolves in the same category i was kind of like

but you couldn't tell if it was like an eating thing or not yeah right and then all of a sudden i started eating mountain lion i'm like i need to get another mountain lion next december oh i'm telling you what's it comparable to pork pork Pork. Pork. Yeah. Like a really good pork roast. With the fats good on it. Really? It's got a white fat. But now I'm talking tattle, not waxy fat like ungulates. Or not waxy fat like members of the deer, not ungulates, like members of the deer family. It's got a fat on it that looks like a pork fat and that shit is good, man.

That Tihon Ranch place where you took me hunting wild pigs they have a trail camera that's set up over a pond and they got 16 different mountain lines on that trail camera different yeah different ones they're like california is overrun it's overrun because they won't manage them well no but i heard they're killing just as many now as they ever did they still kill a lot it's just killing them well they're killing them when they encroach on on civilization like they're not killing them out in like to hone ranch but they're killing them like in san francisco they uh they've been doing this thing where they did this study on the the diet of these mountain lions that they wound up killing because they wind up you know getting too close to people it's all pets it's all dogs and cats they're eating people's dogs and cats like that's

like 50 of their diet they thought it'd be mostly deer but the dogs but it's funny because the public's okay like they're like oh yeah i'm okay with killing mountain lions as long as the person hunting them isn't having a good time if they're being paid by the government to do it that's cool but if they're paying if they're paying money yeah to go out and do it and they enjoy it and they view the animal with like a certain level of admiration and respect and want to be like putting its skin in their house to look at for the rest of the life that's not okay with me i want the guy who just is punching a nine to five clock and doing it that's their perspective on it yeah they don't want it to be a pleasurable thing.

They want it to be a necessity. Yeah. A management issue. But they don't understand, like, they're the resources. The money goes the opposite way. Now you have to pay someone to do something that you would get money from. You know, you would get someone to pay you so that they can go out and do it. Instead, you have to pay someone to go out and do it.

Do you hear about that mountain lion, the collared mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains that fucked up this alpaca farm? Yeah, I read about this. And this woman got a depredation permit and she got so many death threats. This mountain lion killed 11 alpacas and a goat. Just went on a rampage.

That was a New Yorker. Sorry to interrupt, but that was a New Yorker story. That's where I think I read it. And so she got a depredation permit. This is her livelihood. She raises alpacas, and this thing just slaughtered them. And even though this mountain lion is obviously just recreationally killing animals, the idea of killing that mountain lion was so it angered people that a person would do that. So they started sending her death threats and

she panicked and she pulled out of it and she's like i'm not doing anything so she's sort of left in this terrible situation where you know 12 of our animals were murdered by this big ass collared mountain lion i mean really murdered it's not like he's eating him you know it's one thing like he killed an alpaca and he ate it well some mountain lions do you know it's going to be around them maybe she gets some dogs and bark or something, but no, this one just got in and just went on a rampage. She's like surplus killing.

People like to really, it's funny that people like to really argue whether that's a reality or not. A mountain lion doing that. People like to debate. It's like people who talk about surplus killing tend to be okay with hunting wolves and mountain lions and people who are very uncomfortable by the subject of surplus killing tend to be not okay with it like they're like i don't want to acknowledge that that's true because it messes up the the message i'm trying to send about how

these animals behave basically the same thing you were talking about with like hillary clinton with the russians yeah like if you were on that team you would say well no no no no no no no you would you would find some way to justify it yeah it's it's a tribal idea and the the tribal idea is there's hunters these terrible mean people like elmer fudd and then there's us good people who don't believe in that want to protect wildlife at any cost i've i've run into the same thing by writing about um archaeological work at bison kill sites that sometimes you would have or that you talk about like articulated and disarticulated carcasses at kill sites where you'd have the remains of hundreds of animals, hundreds of buffalo or bison, and a dozen have been processed and the rest of it is there.

It makes people uncomfortable because there's this tidy notion of that prior to European contact, like all killing was very purposeful and every part of the animal got used which is like a pretty which is a helpful concept to understand hunting practices you know among native americans but there are exceptions to the rule and people don't really like that kind of like extra noise to be like oh there's a kill site where 800 of them went off a cliff and it seems that maybe 20 or so were butchered and the rest of us left a rock probably because it was hot out. How could you ever get to them all?

It was like a thing that happened and it does. And it winds up, it's just like people don't like that kind of stuff. Yeah. Like, you know what? Sometimes a mountain lion would just kill a ton of shit kind of because it just enjoys the excitement of it. Yeah.

We'll never know what's really in his head, but he's expending energy. Right? He's putting himself to risk, which they understand. So there's something he's getting out of this. Or else, why would it be that he would just go out and like, I'm going to expel a ton of energy and really be at risk in a place I know I shouldn't be or a place that's like more scary than when I'm laying up in a tree in the middle of a thicket. I'm going to do all that and kill a bunch of stuff. He's got to be getting something. There's something that's coming out of that. Yeah, we were talking about this the other day, those wild animal parks.

You ever see that wild animal park footage from Beijing where this woman got in an argument with her boyfriend? She gets out of the car. The tiger jacks her. No. Yeah, it's crazy footage because she shut the passenger side door and she storms over to the boyfriend's side. She's yelling at him and then out of nowhere this tiger just goes and just grabs her. That's what it wants to do.

That's what it does. You can't just feed it. Killed her? Yeah, killed her. Didn't kill her. Killed the person who tried to rescue her. Her mom got out of the car and chased after the lion or the tiger and the tiger killed her. Mauled her. Killed her mom. That's what they want to do.

And you can't just feed them. You just can't just keep feeding them. That's not good enough. Like they're designed to kill things. They're nature's cleanup system. Anything with a limp gets taken out. Everything slower gets taken out. And then all of a sudden they're in this weird enclosure

where people are staring at them through glass and they never get to kill anything. And like all these reward systems that are primal, that are just a part of their DNA since the beginning of time, they don't get exercised. It's kind of torture in a lot of ways. Yeah, I want to point out too, when I talk about surplus killing among predators,

I don't in any way hold this against them. I'm not pointing out like, oh, and they deserve to have bad things happen to them. It's just in understanding wildlife, which I'm interested in, it's just a factor. But I'm not saying there's any, I'm not proposing there's any

thing there. I believe that I believe we should continue to try to recover and maintain all of our wildlife anywhere that it's plausible to do so. So I know that there are people within the hunting world who would like to see, who don't really welcome the return of certain predators on the landscapes. But I think that generally speaking, in places where we can recover large carnivores

and have let's say minimal risk or a limited risk of them having human conflict, I think we should do it. I'm not like a guy who wants to go wipe them off the face of the earth out of some notion that you're going to have tons of more elk and deer

around. That probably comes from the hunt in Alaska. Alaska, you got wolves and grizzlies across 97 or 98% of their historic range. It's also a great place to go hunting. People in lower 48

are super anti-predator. And they're always talking about how they want to hunt Alaska. I'm always like, oh, you wouldn't like it, bro. There's a bunch of predators up there. Must not be any good, right? Well, I like the idea of wild, right? The wild. And the wild is balanced.

You're going to have everything. You're going to have the wolves. You're going to have the predators. You're going to have gonna have the prey it's gonna be the whole wild experience everything else is just some sort of a weird artificial environment like you've removed all the predators and now you get to be the predator only and you get to drive in in your truck and hop out and just pick what you like and just shoot it it's not really wild yeah Yeah. You know? I love that feeling of looking over my shoulder, man. There's a few places left, though. But with 48, it's tough to really get wild.

I don't know, man. Do you still feel that way after your experience at a Fog Mac? Oh, buddy. That feelings have changed. That podcast was amazing. Well, I still feel like I'm looking over my shoulder. That podcast was amazing. I was pissed at you for breaking it up into two pieces though. Well, you know, I should

come clean on that. I should come clean on that. Everyone that's asked about it in private conversation, I've told them what happened. We're a little light on content. So we wouldn't even have broken it up. It just was convenient that

we needed to fill a spot yeah i'll take the blame as a producer and i was like wow we just talked about that so long you could actually make that too and we wouldn't be needing to worry about how we're how we're low on uh release dates people were pissed why do you have a um do you you have to release a certain amount of them? No, it's just in our heads. You got to let that go. Probably, but I'm a rigid guy. Oh, I like that advice, Joe. I like that.

Yeah, you got to let that go. Yeah, that's the beautiful thing about being your own content provider, right? You can do whatever you want. It's the only thing that makes me happy. I mean, it's not the only thing, but one of the primary things about this job that I love so much is I don't have a boss. Nobody can tell me what to do.

I do whatever I want. If I can call the people up and go, tomorrow there's going to be two podcasts next week, but we have all these ads. Tough shit. Bye. Click. That's it.

This is what I'm doing. I'm doing two. Next week I'll do five you know i'm taking the week off after that i don't want to have a schedule i don't think that's good for you not when it comes to some things i want to answer your question though that shit changed me it changed my soul but you're sure you're more skittish now well yeah definitely a little more skittish i don't. Maybe that'll go away. Time will just sort of smooth it out.

But I told you we saw a grizzly when I went to hunt with your brother. Yeah. I had my daughter with me. I haven't seen a grizzly on this ranch in 40 years, maybe longer. We roll in there, come to find out a sow and three cubs had taken a deer away from some hunters the night before. But it just really didn't like click that it was like right in that general zone well the next morning we wake up and at gray light we're crossing the big meadow and i'm glassing to the north end of it i'm looking i'm like that ain't elk that ain't deer those are big bears and they get up on their rear legs you

know looking our direction they're probably 300 yards away. But, I mean, certainly having my daughter there played a big part in me being like, I'm getting the hell out of here. If you didn't have your daughter with you, if your daughter wasn't with you, and you had bailed, I would never talk to you again. That's not true. Yes, it is. I would never, ever talk to you again. Were you wearing a rifle? Did you have a rifle on you? Yeah.

Were you rifle hunting or a deer spray? Talk to you again. Do you have a rifle on you? Yeah. When I heard that story, I was like, oh. And I even said I would have done the same thing because I can't imagine ever hearing the end of it from my wife. Yeah. But I guess my point though that I want to get to is not just like on a case-by-case basis of now, how do I feel when I run into bears, but just sort of this bigger idea of large predators on the landscape, us living with them.

Because now as the GYE bear population grows, my house, it's only a matter of time until one walks through my yard. I mean, it could happen today. Right. It wouldn't be at all unusual. Montana's exploding with them, right? I'm just saying that it's'm just saying I'm just now having different feelings about how earlier

I used to be like yeah great grizzly bears everywhere you're anti grizzly now I'm just saying something's changed inside of me I'm thinking about it I haven't come to a conclusion yet but it's a powerful experience I like what you said about it, more worried about it. I haven't come to a conclusion yet, but it's a powerful

experience. Well, I like what you said about it. You were saying you had all these ideas of what it would be like. And you had experienced false charges before. You'd experienced all that stuff. You had an idea of what an attack would be like. And it was so beyond what you could have

possibly imagined. Yeah, I feel like I scratched an itch. Because I had always wanted to get a little bit mauled up. You talked about getting claw marks across your chest, like a long scar like a tattoo. Yeah, now I'm like, oh, that's what that's like? I don't want nothing to do with that shit, man. But you know, one time I was sitting there trying to call a turkey.

And no joke, heard an exhale in my ear. I mean, I'm going to do it. It's just like this. And whipped my head around. And it's a bear feet. The guy had called in a bear who was sneaking in behind me. Jesus. Not a grizzly, a black bear.

That gave me the shakes for a long time. What did it do? It just exhaled in my ear. What did you do? When I flipped around, I was just scared and stumbled backward, but I wasn't half as scared as he was

once he realized what I was. I think at that time of year, he makes his business walking around, listening for hens to go off and then goes eat their eggs. Or eats their chicks and probably kills some of them. I was calling, he was coming in. I think he got up to right where the part is where he pounces

but had a like, whoa, what the hell is that? I just hear him go, I don't know why. i feel like the first thing i thought was it was a person they're so quiet that's a crazy never hurt and he was just i mean i could have poked him with my gun i mean just right there they're so big and yet they can just silently move over twigs they just have this weird way of articulating their paws and their bodies. Our buddy was calling turkeys in New Mexico and looks and does a double check because he's sitting alongside a two-track and the grass he stripped down the middle is a lion belly to the grass using the grass he stripped as camouflage, stalking him as he calls turkeys.

Whoa. And that thing, it's not going to kill you, but it probably gets to where it gets in range and it sees that movement and it's going to pounce. I remember a guy, reading about a guy who was predator calling

and when a bobcat came in, took his hat right off, hit him so hard. Whoa. Yeah, he's like making rabbit squeals and the bobcat came in and took his hat right off, hit him so hard. Whoa. Yeah, he's like making rabbit squeals, and the bobcat sees his hat move, and so that bobcat came in and flew off with his hat. When it hit him in the head.

Man. Crazy. It's a wild world out there, man. It is a wild world. It's just most people don't experience it. I love it. I love, man. It is a wild world. It's just most people don't experience it. I love it. I love the excitement of it. I love the dangerous

parts of it. Yeah, I love it too and I love it in many ways thanks to you. Oh, I keep meaning to bring this up. This is our 100th episode. I meant to bring this up. This is our 100th episode. I meant to bring this up in the beginning, but I got distracted by the guy who heard the show open and thought his tree was falling.

This is our 100th episode. And the reason I wanted to do it with you is because I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for you. One, inspiration. And two, encouragement. I've told you before, you're a very generous person. I appreciate that. It's been fun to do this 100 times. Well, I'm selfishly happy that you do it because I love listening to it.

Well, thank you. I really loved that one the other day with the writer, the fly fishing writer. John Gerard. He was great. Yeah. So, yeah. So, this is a small token of my appreciation to have you on right now because it's been fun doing this, and I honestly would not be doing it if I hadn't seen you do it so well and then have you say that I ought to be doing it too. Well, it's a travesty if you didn't do it because I think your voice is so important in this really conflicted world when it comes to wildlife and hunting and conservation and all of these

different subjects. Your voice is incredibly necessary. And there's only so much of your voice that's going to get on your television show. So much of your voice is going to get out through the articles that you write or the books that you write. There needs to be more. And your voice in the podcast, you're designed for podcasts, man. You could go forever. You have so many stories. You're so articulate. For you, this is the perfect venue. It really is. When I first did the

podcast with you, I was like, why does this guy have a fucking podcast? You should have a podcast. People get mad at me when I tell people they should have a podcast. Hey, bro, everybody does need to have a podcast. I used to get these comments. A lot of people need a podcast. Like, hey, bro, everybody does need to have a podcast. I used to get these comments. Like, a lot of people need a podcast. And there's plenty of room for everybody.

Yanni, you too? You've been in it for a long time now. Yeah. I've done 99. Next week, it's Yanni's 100th podcast. I can't let you leave without... I was with Callan last night, and he was grabbing me like, when are we hunting again? When are we hunting again? I can't let you leave without... I was with Callan last night, and he was grabbing me like, when? When are we hunting again?

When are we hunting again? Because he hasn't been hunting since that last trip that we did in... Was it Alaska, or was it Turkey hunting? Turkey hunting. Turkey hunting was the last one. That was the last one. How's he doing? Is he good? He's good.

He's doing good. Kicking ass. He's doing well. The other day, I did an event in Oregon, and a guy came up and asked about the cashmere killer. No, we'll get one on the books. Let's do one. No, I think we should. I absolutely should.

Because now we're starting to get to that time of year where we're looking ahead to next year. What do you think about going to Lanai? Let's go bow hunting. That I would like to do. It's the greatest thing ever. They're super delicious, and you're in paradise. It seems surreal. You're bow hunting, and you look to your left, and it's the Pacific Ocean.

And it's gorgeous. It's amazing. And it's also necessary. When you talk about conservation, I mean, they hire people. They hire snipers. Yeah, that's one of those weird places where the conservation goal is to get rid of the animals. Yeah, they literally told me when we go there, it goes, everything you want to shoot, shoot it. Everything?

They go, yep. There's no number. Nope. No number. You have a license? Once you have a license, you can shoot as many as you want. Like, you can shoot five, six deer if you wanted to. It'd be crazy.

You could have deer for a year. And they eat great. Oh, they're amazing. Yeah, I've had them before. They're amazing. I hunted one on Molokai, and it was amazing. They're super tender, too. Like shoulder meat and hams taste like backstraps or a tenderloin.

It's like super tender. They're delicious. And I had an old buck, too. And still, like, really tender meat. Really good. I mean, it's just a weird environment. I'm sold. let's do it and you can shoot with anything rifle no if you're gonna bow and arrow i'm gonna bring the old bow and arrow i'll dust her off all right dust it off all right calum's got the cashmere killer's got a bow really yeah

i'll bring them here i'll have i'll test them on the range we'll we'll start let's start training them. Got little suction cups on the end of the arrows. Alright, Joe Rogan. Host of the Joe Rogan Experience. Really good stand-up. That makes you want to piss your pants. All kinds of stuff. Color commentator. I do a lot of things.

You once told me you had three jobs. Yeah. I think it lot of things. You once told me you had three jobs. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's more. Maybe three. Color commentator for the UFDC, stand-up comedy, podcasting. Yeah, it's pretty much just those three. You've done some TV and film action. I've done those things, too.

Yeah. I don't anymore, though. All right. Thank you, Joe Rogan. Thank you. Thanks for introducing me to hunting. No problem. It was all you.

For real. No problem at all. We have a reciprocal giving relationship here. And it works out well for me and you. It's very hard for someone who's in their 40s to figure out how to hunt. So for me to have you mentor me and take me out like that and show me how to do it and then take me to Montana into a real real you know the Missouri breaks real wild environment that was a life-changing experience like I said to this day that moment of cooking that deer over that fire after a successful hunt

or Callen Callen had killed I'd killed we're sitting there and we're eating and we're enjoying it and tastes delicious and I was like this is it tastes delicious. And I was like, this is it. This is the solution. I'll add too, as a final thought, is that's a national monument. All right, thanks for joining us. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles

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