The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 101: The Hammer of Steve Rinella

Episode Date: January 29, 2018

Seattle, WA- Steven Rinella talks with his buddies Jamie Fitzgerald, Matt Moisan, and Jimmy Doran, along with Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew. Subjects Discussed: Can bullets trespass?; Janis's secret cow hunt; to sling or not to sling; Fitz's on-again-off-again twenty-year hunting saga; what's up with the turkey flop?; what hunting and blackjack have in common; Jimmy Doran's rough hunt; Matt's high-mountain North Dakota hunt; the Sword of Damocles vs. the Hammer of Steve Rinella; 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. We are the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. All right, everyone.

We have like a boatload, a boatload of guests. I don't know if you can. You don't count as a guest, Yanni. So there's Yanni, and then three. Matt Moisen, who I've known for 20 years? No. I think it's more than that.

I think it's more than that. No. Yeah. Yeah, it's more. 22 years. Fitzgerald, Jamie Fitzgerald, who I've known for like... If I'd known Matt for 20, I had known you for 25. Yeah, it's more. 22 years. Fitzgerald, Jamie Fitzgerald, who I've known for like, if I'd known Matt for 20, I had known you for 25.

Yeah, early college. Jimmy Dorn, I don't know really at all. No, barely. Makes a good pizza. Two or three years. What's the pizza with the hot red peppers on it? I don't know the pizza with the hot red peppers on it. You guys don't have a name for that?

We have one called a Carol's, and that has pepperoni and hot peppers on it yeah jimmy dorn and i just brokered a boat deal brokered a boat deal yeah are you excited about our boat deal i'm pretty excited about it i think the terms are completely reasonable i think we need to put some terms around it all right well if you break it you bought it now first thing i want to get into is we have a guy like he's like the resident philosopher that never met him a dude named luke ryan who always writes in with uh vexing questions i want to pull you guys on a question luke ryan had luke ryan says um what one i want to do first here's this first one if you had to guess

imagine that you're standing on a patch of public ground okay and you're looking at a deer who's also on public ground, but between you and the deer is private ground. This happened to me on Saturday. Exactly. Are you serious? Yeah, I had this whole scenario go through my head because we're working a fence and we're looking at elk. I'm like, they're on private.

And then we realized, we're like, well, let's get a little closer and make sure. And then we realized, no, they're not on private. they're on private and then we realized we're like let's get a little closer and make sure and then we realized no they're not on private they're on public but there's a corner you know like that was coming basically out between the two of us and we had to go around that corner but i kept thinking well what if we get close enough and all of a sudden i'm pinned but i'm still haven't made it around the corner where your bullet trespass i'm gonna have to shoot across yeah so but that didn't, but I had these exact thoughts. Yeah. I don't understand.

I didn't even know. How did I all of a sudden find out you got an elk without having known you got an elk? It's been a busy weekend. So who are you out with? My buddy Brady. I had a cow tag that was good through the end of the year. So you went out and shot a cow elk and didn't even tell me about it? Mm-mm.

I figured I would today. Well, yeah, I found out about out about but not in the way i normally like to find out about stuff all right so here you are you're yannis okay just look at yannis you're yannis and you're on public looking at a deer elk what have you on public but your bullet needs to cross private your bullet will have to trespass to get there is that legal or not legal matt it's perfectly legal and here's why no i don't oh but i'm saying i'm saying in a declarative way because it sounds more convincing. It did. I thought you somehow knew. Because you don't own airspace when you own the land. And that is what your bullet is traveling through. No boot print to be found on that land.

Well, let me address that. Okay. Why is it, why is it illegal to corner hop? Because you have to theoretically place a foot on the really corner hopping. I know what you, I mean, I know what you're talking about.

I want the listeners to understand corner hopping. This is another landscape or land issue, ownership issue. Imagine you got, okay. Imagine you got two pieces of, well, two squares. You got two squares and the corners butt up. So the corners are touching. Now imagine that those two squares where the corners are touching are public property.

And then the other two squares that would make up the big square. Am I saying this right? Yeah. Keep going. Okay. Okay. You're painting a good picture painting a checkerboard situation yeah literally imagine a checkerboard and you're only allowed to walk on the black spots the white spots are private the black spots on the checkerboard are public you would think that you would be able to walk up to the very tippy corner of a black piece,

reach your foot out and over, and land your foot on the corner of the next black piece and step over to it and have not trespassed. If you're going by what Matt Moisen is telling you. And that's illegal? That kind of corner hopping? Corner hopping is illegal. It's illegal. that's illegal that kind of corner hopping is illegal it's illegal because you're passing through i don't know how

you're passing right your body is passing through so i don't know that the answer is an airspace issue if you were hunting yeah but it probably helps because let's say you were hunting deer, but it probably helps because let's say you were hunting deer with a bowling ball. You could see a guy saying, hey, man, you just rolled your ball across my property. You can't do that. And what's interesting, too, is if you flew an airplane up high. Well, at what point does it at what altitude does it become private? I don't know. I can't go hover a drone 18 inches off your picnic table

while you're eating dinner. Are you sure? No. But, yeah, I'm not sure. All right. So, Fitz, what do you think? We need to get the FAA in on this. Well, I know.

I haven't called that FAA, but I do have some insight. It seems to me that those boundaries go up. This is a poor analogy probably, but I'm going to use it. In the NFL, in order to determine a touchdown, the football has to break the plane, and that plane goes up. That's how they use to demarcate an end zone for football got you so to me it seems so you're a sports fan i am a sports fan are you a seahawks fan no jimmy doran is holy shit is that guy a seahawks fan i got no problem with the seahawks i just don't even i can't even begin to understand it. But anyways, sports fan.

So yeah, I think that boundary goes up. Your arm can just pass over the end zone when your body never touches the end zone and you win. All you got to do is have that ball over that plane, which goes up to the heavens. What if it just passes through and passes back out of it? It doesn't matter. You cross that plane.

That's a term. They cross the plane. Imagine your checkerboard is in 3D. So it's like all those. I didn't know the football counter. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying, I get what you're saying, but what about the bullet?

Yeah. I think if that bullet passes the plane using that same analogy, then that bullet is on private land for however long it takes to travel across. Do private laws apply to bullets? I would think so because the bullet came from an operator, from somebody making the decision

to shoot across that private land. Jimmy Dorn? Well, it depends. Like everything else in life. I don't know. I suppose looking at it from both sides of the question, if I'm the private landowner, am I going to want somebody throwing an 06 around across my property? Probably not.

Yeah, but we're not asking you what you want. We're asking you is it – Well, I kind of try to answer it all. If I was the guy and I was in that situation, I would put myself in the other guy's shoes and go, that might piss me off or how big is it? or if I was the guy and I was in that situation, I would put myself in the other guy's shoes and go, eh, that might piss me off, or how big is it? What's the ramifications of my decision-making? I don't know. I would say it's probably not kosher,

and I'd try to figure out a way to just get around the private. Is that the answer? No, not really. Jimmy's answer is predicate on how big the elk is on the other side. Whether you ask for permission or forgiveness. It's a lot easier to ask for permission in my experience. Speaking of that, real quick, can you talk about the guy you harvest wheat for and what happened with that buck on his property?

It was a buddy of mine. Not the guys that I work with. I've been telling that story all around. That's great. Yeah, he caught somebody. Yeah, sure, we can tell a story. Tell it. I won't name names.

So it wasn't the guy you assist with his agricultural operations? No, just another buddy, another guy that lives in town. And yeah, there was a few deer on his place that he had seen. And then lo and behold, there was a pickup truck that didn't belong there, which is how anybody thinks you can get away anything past a farmer in their area. It's just stupid. I mean, the fact that someone would think that he would not notice. That it would go unnoticed. Yeah, that it would go unnoticed.

And then they had seen this buck and it was an absolute monster of a deer i'll show you a photo in a bit and uh you know all of a sudden he hears bang and he's like wait a minute and he's like oh because he thought possibly they were going to be hunting coyotes blouch blouch and uh he thought and then where he heard it coming from he's like nope i'm gonna run over there and see if they just shot that deer that i was saving because he was actually saving it for his kid and of course he went over there and they were down the bottom of the coulee quickly field dressing it and he went down and you know read him the riot act and uh you know then they threw themselves on the sword i mean he's like oh i didn't you know he started this story with he didn't think he was trespassing

but you know he knew full well he was trespassing. Then it devolved into, though, that's the biggest year I ever saw in my life. I also hate telling stories like this, too, because you know it's like that told three stories down the line, how all the facts kind of change. But anyways. So he tried out the idea that. He wasn't trespassing, but he had to jump a fence. So it's kind of hard to say I didn't know that that fence wasn't there for a reason so then it became it was just so big he's

like it and then it devolved yeah and then yeah and the deer was so big i don't know what happened you know and he's like all right we'll get the heck out of here but then he called the sheriff and fishing game and they came and they took everything and wrote him a bunch of tickets and fishing game ended up with a big really big deer i guess one i've seen in the area in a while yeah it was big i don't want to tell too many details of this because i don't it's best not no no not your thing a whole different story oh okay my brother i don't know if he knows of him or knows of him, but there's a feller who poached a buck. Okay.

And the buck got confiscated by the State Fish and Game Agency. And the State Fish and Game Agency, as they often do, have it mounted and they hang it in a game office. Right? And a lot of times you go into game offices that I've seen all over the place, and they'll have all these animals up, like exemplary specimens, and with them is like the story of how they were confiscated or whatever, hit by a car, you know,

poachers they caught. And this buck carries the name of the, that tells the story of the poaching case. My brother says that this guy is still so proud of that buck. He takes friends down to fishing game, takes friends down to fishing game to show them the buck he was okay with the fine that's great wow he's like matter of fact i got a nice buck if you'd like to take a ride down to the fishing game it's not in my shop i can show it to you

can't touch it yeah they confiscated it confisc everything, and then wrote him a whole bunch of tickets. And then one of the fellas that was involved wasn't supposed to be accessing firearms. And apparently he got in a bunch of trouble. I love that. That reminds me of another great story. Yanni, did you meet this guy? You don't even know what I'm talking about. I'll tell you, then you tell me if you met him. I was talking to a warden who was watching one of those phony

Alaska shows. Alaska hunting shows. He's watching an episode and there's a scene in there where they're going to go out and shoot some caribou. The dad is making a big deal about how he's going to let his daughter do the shooting

and it just the warden watching it just didn't like the he just he just didn't strike me like the kind of guy who in this moment of cameras rolling and everything, is not going to just want the glory. And it seems strange to him. He said, I'm sitting there watching, and I'm thinking, that guy's got to be a felon and can't be on camera with that damn gun. Oh. And Colton turns it up, and exactly right. Is that right?

Yeah. So how'd you vote? No, or you don't know't know or depends or something like that shooting bullets across private property I say negative no I wouldn't do it you're like you're not answering the question though the question is what exactly

is it or is it not legal I'm going to say that it's illegal fair enough I already know the answer I was on the email, so I can't vote. Because I was on the email chain, too. Legal. It's legal?

Legal. No kidding. Really? Yeah, but don't get excited, Matt. It's legal, but I don't think it's your airspace thing. Oh, okay. What is it? It just says it's not illegal.

It's not unlawful. Now, I put this to an investigator in Idaho. Every state's different. So he says, I can only speak to here. He says, it's not unlawful to shoot from public to public over private. Well, here's the doozy. Same fellow. The resident philosopher, Luke Ryan, writes in to say this.

You're in a state where you're not allowed to bait deer or put out mineral attractants what's wrong fits i think i know where you're going with this but oh please no i just i it shooting across state line where you can do that no no no no we're done with shooting oh don't shoot we're on the baiting now, Fitz. That's a good one, though. I like that. So you're in a state where it is unlawful to bait or use any kind of mineral attractant to hunt big game. But as anyone who's wandered around out in the woods knows, ranchers who are running cattle have to put out supplements for livestock so here you have where a rancher has out a salt lick or a supplement lick for his cattle

but it's illegal to put it out for critters. And you realize that elk are in fact using this legally placed supplement. Are you allowed to shoot deer? Oh, it doesn't matter. Are you allowed to hunt over that legally placed supplement, which was not intended as an attractant? To add a little flavor to this, I'll point this out. In states where you're not allowed to bait for bears,

there's often a lot of questions around, what if I shoot an elk and I gut the elk? Let's say I shoot a deer and gut the deer. And then the next day I wake up and there's a bear eating the deer. And I shoot it. Have I baited bears? Or not? We can get to that. But that's its color to this broader thing.

The mineral lick thing. Matt? Me first. It's like a game show. Sitting third base at the blackjack game. If you feel like you're being unfairly picked on. No, no. It's a challenge.

I don't know. Number one, i'm not sure actually the answer but i would say that that is illegal and i would say i feel like when i've read regulations that talk about the legality of using bait using an attractant they talk about having it be illegal to hunt over bait like they i don't think they talk about placing the attractant i think they talk about it in terms of it being illegal to hunt over an a a placed bait or mineral attractant whatever well okay but i don't know i don't know that's great that's great but i want to add this okay color onto the color okay and the bear thing if you're in a non-bait state but there's a dead animal laying there you could shoot the bear now if you shot a deer and dragged that gut pile 10 feet over to get out in the little opening where you could spy on it from afar

that's baiting so do you think if you as long as you don't touch that mineral lick as long as you did not manipulate it in any way. I know the answer. Okay. I know the answer for the person I put it to in Idaho. Okay. I would still. But bear in mind the stuff we're talking about, about like that you, yeah, that you shot a deer and the next day you come by, there's a bear eating the deer.

You didn't do anything to manipulate. Like you shot the deer illegally, gutted the deer, left the guts where they were. A bear happens to turn up on it, right? I'm real hesitant about this one. I would be inclined to say that's probably not legal. It's an artificial attractant. It doesn't matter who put it there. Okay.

That's my guess. Fitzgerald? Yeah, I think I would guess the same. I don't know. But it seems that if there's going to be enforceable regulations, then agencies are not going to want to get into the matter of intention. Yeah. So I think that they would try to make it as cut and dry as possible. Plus, I think they would probably be relying on hunters, you know, understanding that that salt lick that was there for cattle is going to attract game.

So it's the hunter's responsibility to, you know, resist that urge. But again, just a guess. You know what happened to me one time? I do. do well different time not that time you know you know what happened to me one time that you don't know what happened i don't i know you don't i was oh fun yeah i was in idaho and i was hunting with two other guys and I didn't have a tag but they did and one day it was raining real bad and they didn't want to go out in the rain so I went out on a little walkabout to see what I could see and I get about two miles from our camp, and lo and behold, I'm coming down this trail, like a seldom used trail, but I look, and standing in a place that I was just not like kind of you know you in your head like how

something's gonna happen i just didn't like it's just as rare to be walking down a trail also just a bull just like watching you right in a very like heavily hunted area so i hauled ass back got one of the guys inspired him to then we go back and it's gone but then i started thinking so much about what was that thing to, then we go back and it's gone. But then I started thinking so much about what was that thing doing there? And I walked over and it was a lick. Salt lick. It was a salt lick.

For livestock? Yeah. Well, I actually had it in my head. It was like, like I said, not a heavily used trail. I kind of had in my head that it might've been placed. Possibly. It just, it wasn wasn't kind of like where you'd... Usually you're going to put salt licks for animals kind of like in an area where livestock's actually going to hang around.

Shade trees out in grazing areas. It makes some sense. It just was not like a... I think they're usually placed too in places where they're trying to congregate the animals. Like by a gate, you'll put a block so that when you come around a week later, you can then push the cattle through the gate. By a gate or

by water or something. This just didn't look... If I was ranching cattle, which I don't do, but if I was and I was like, I'm going to go help the herd out with a lick, I wouldn't go dump it where this thing was dumped. Could have been a bad rancher. Yeah, he could have been not good at running cattle.

So anyway, I could have very easily, had I been holding the tag, I would have shot the bull. And I would have walked over, and he'd have been laying dead on a salt lick. You couldn't see it when you first encountered the bull. No, I didn't see it until I walked. It was burning at me so much.

Just something was so unusual about his position. Right. That I went over there, and sure enough, that's what was going on. So I could have, like I would have, who knows? We haven't got to the end yet, so we don't know if I would have been an accidental poacher or not. Jimmy Dorn? I'm going to go with what Fitz said, too.

I'd say it's Hunter's responsibility to know and yeah no no bueno yes in idaho it says and you already know because you read the email our friend eric crawford says as for the salt baiting question our rule states the following this is an idaho no person shall take big game animals, as outlined in this section, with any bait, including grain, salt, in any form, liquid or solid, or any other substance, not to include liquid scent, to constitute an attraction or enticement. He says in Idaho it would be illegal never mind that it is

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OnXMaps.com slash meet OnXMaps.com slash meet welcome to the OnX club y'all so there you go Luke Ryan they would have to prove the intent though like you were saying because if you've never been to an area right and you pop up there at first light and

there's a herd and you knock one down and you walk over there into the meadow and you realize that there's five salt lakes yeah how could it really be your fault? Yeah. Yeah, I'm taking that one to court if I get a ticket. Yeah, and they'll call me for a witness and I'll be like, oh, Jimmy Dorn was talking all about this Salt Lick. All right.

Boat privileges have been there. How he was going to act like he didn't know it was there. He had someone else order the Mineral Rock for him. Gian yeah let's get back real quick can you finish talking about so you so you went out and got this got a cow we guys hunt you guys are hunting on public property obviously yeah it's kind of a hodgepodge spot but uh i found the spot because i was deer hunting there a couple years ago across the drainage.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. And one morning across the drainage, it just sounds like a war zone. I'm like, oh, my God. I glass over there, and there's orange everywhere and elk flopping everywhere. I'm like, man, should have been there, I guess, this morning. All day long from where I'm sitting, I can hear them, and I can see dudes with sleds and horses and in and out and working this trail.

It's probably only like a mile and a half, you know, from the truck. And by like midday, they all leave. They got their elk out, and I continue to glass for deer. And like at 3 p.m., I glass back down to that meadow, and there's cow elk filtering back out of the meadow. I'm like, I don't know what's going on down there, but I'm going to go get mine. Sounds like a salt lake. Sounds like a salt lake down in there. So I came back the next weekend, and they were right in there.

Killed a cow. So yeah, a buddy of mine hiked in Saturday morning. Perfect morning, man. Just started snowing the night before. We've had zero snow in Montanaana and anything we had is melted so we had probably two or three inches of fresh and uh we get up to where we should be able to see the elk and don't see him for about 10 or 15 minutes just long enough from like yeah what's plan b gonna be like do we just go for the big power loop or are we gonna turn around and go home. And right then and there, we're just kind of being dumb hunters.

We're out on a pretty exposed ridge at this point, and hands up our butts, or fingers up our butts. What's his name? That's an expression. Oh, okay. Yeah, for not paying attention. And I glass over, kind of just out of my periphery where I really wasn't expecting him to be, just kind of into the trees a little bit. there's a cow and a bull which was the oddest thing right because it's middle of december and you're expecting to see like a minimum of a

dozen cows together right and if you see maybe just an animal or two be like two bulls but to just see a cow and a bull together struck us as odd as odd. They're actually in love. It's not just... For most elk, it's just sex. Just September. That's a life partner issue there. Well, I didn't help that out. He's a little...

So he's back on the... Back on the market. Yeah, I put him back on the market. But yeah, we just snuck right in there and uh even i think season's been closed for three weeks now in montana and so i was expecting to have some chill elk and you know they'd be out feeding late snowy morning and man this cow was definitely like moving towards the timber moving towards the timber we had to hustle a little bit to get within rifle range before she got on to private.

Now, what was the dude you were hunting with doing? Just came along to hunt. Just to help you out? Yeah. Oh, he was hunting too? No, no, no. Sorry, just not shooting, just hunting. We're good.

Enjoying the hunt. Yeah, it was perfect, man. We got her out in two trips. I don't know what else to say about it. It was, you know, easy it's almost too easy it's just i've just had my feelings hurt that i had to find out about it by reading a text chain between you and kevin murphy the world's greatest small game hunter yeah well he was piling it on man that dude's been all across north america shooting oh dude if you get into a text message war with kevin murphy about who's been doing what yeah it's hard to come out on top yeah um fitzgerald so you only get to be

here because you only because you went on you finally after all the years i've known you no you could have been on because you're an avid angler right or an angler right i think that would get me get me passage onto the show you could have been on because you're an angler right i think that would get me get me passage onto the show you could have been on because you're an angler but you only recently like why you only you went on your first hunting trip yep can you explain to me what uh why like why not before but why all of a sudden now? Well, I actually did used to hunt when I was in probably like 1920, but it was like deer camp hunting up north Michigan. My cousin owned a place like 40 acres up in Fife Lake. Oh, dude, I know Fife Lake well.

I know. That's where Matt Dross lives. Yeah, exactly. And so I would go up there during the fall you know once one weekend of every fall and try to go get a deer in fact the first time i ever went hunting i was walking out to my tree stand i had my rifle on my shoulder and i was probably it was like you know 4 30 in the morning come walking around a bend and there is an eight point buck just standing right there and my gun's on my shoulder so i'm thinking like man

this is this is it huh this is easy so i take the gun on my shoulder and as soon as i do the thing's gone so i was like well i'm bound to see another one here soon and then i'll see you in 20 years and then a lifetime passes uh there's there's a writer there's a gun writer david petzel um who has a line where he says uh now petzel he's an interesting figure because he's like a gun writing columnist but he's also but he's kind of like weirdly infatuated with like celebrity hmm who's famous do they deserve being famous stuff like that and doesn't isn't he the one that kind of plays like the grumpy yeah gun rider yeah like he um he has a he has a what one would call a shtick which is probably yiddish right i'm thinking so he has a shtick of it being

a he's a grumpy guy like a grumpy old man but he's aware of things that grumpy old men aren't aware of like he has big opinions about like miley cyrus so like the normal like grumpy old man that i know if i went and said hey man uh what's your take on what miley cyrus has been up to lately they would look at you like right yeah crazy like right so it's like this weird grumpy old man thing where you're sort of like real hip to pop culture but hate it but you got a lot to say about it anyhow he says slings have saved more animals than pita slings like rifle slings rifle oh i okay yeah because you i don't know if you remember your story you just told us a minute ago i did i forgot that thing's called a sling he's a outdoor life or field who's the field stream yeah yeah yeah very good writer who's

yeah very funny but it's just like he's a it's a complex sort of things he's got going on like the the intolerant grumpy old man slash pop culture critic right which is actually like something you could really develop i was just gonna say it sounds interesting we might want to see if we could get him on to talk about this yeah i would like that can you ask him if he just always carries his rifle like this just out in both hands yeah slings save animals but they save shoulders i was gonna say arms man like what are you doing you're climbing around i think that what i think that the real lesson there well you know you look at pictures of uh you know this might help you look at like the africa guys the the the professional hunters the ph is in africa they don't use slings. They always carry it over there. They don't carry their guns either. Well,

no, the pH does. He'll have his gun over his shoulder, but he's also 50 yards from the truck on flat ground. And there's a lot of dangerous stuff that can stomp you. But I mean, you know, it's like he probably spin back around and set it on the truck,

but yeah, they don't use them for that reason. I think that you could be, Yanni is not tell them to give everyone your thoughts about slings yanni fits we're gonna get back to you well it's changed over the years but i went through a phase of not carrying one for that same reason because of readiness yeah did you really yeah oh yeah and guys i got it enough guys i mean it only happened a handful of times. But I would even be prepping them like, hey, we're about to come over a rise.

Good chance there's going to be something ahead of us here. Maybe you should be ready. And maybe I should have just said, take the gun off your shoulder and carry it in a field-ready position. I didn't. But, yeah, we'd peek over, and there's that bull looking at you. And I'm like, oh, there he is. And, you know, as they get their sling off, he pieces out.

But, you know, one of the things we've gotten so kind of, like, paranoid about safety and stuff that I usually don't even have a round chamber. So the least of my problems is having the thing on my shoulder. You know, it's funny. I mean, I never even considered it. Like, I never considered the sling as having an impact on readiness. It just never occurred to me. It's pretty fast.

It's a good point, but... Yeah, if you walked around with it up against your shoulder all the time, you'd, like, get a crack off faster. There's a time and place, you know? Like, I'll put it on my backpack if it's dark. I don't really put it on my backpack if it's dark i don't really put on my backpack yeah i hate that any chance of seeing a if my guns on my backpack it's because my tag is punched yeah or it's pitch black right i hate that feeling but you got to be able to recognize like when you're sort of again to use my expression from earlier but like kind of like diddly-doddling and not paying attention not haunting and you're going down a trail and you just go man it's a good chance that something

could be just standing here any moment and get this rifle off your shoulder and just like remember everybody taught they taught that what do they call that it is called like the cross field carry right yeah uh stone uh stone glacier they got the pack thing you ever see this yeah i have it i really stuck that i just go like no no no that's not what there's but i know you're talking about like a quick draw oh yeah they have one where you hook it to your pack but there's this little tab so it rides behind your shoulder it's it's vertical your rifle's vertical behind your shoulder strapped to your pack like total hands free guy there's this little tab you can kind of like tuck into your shoulder strap or whatever and when you pop that tab it's like you're pulling a parachute

you pop that tab and your rifle's free really yeah does it come down into like a field ready? No, it's like you pop it, then you kind of reach over your shoulder and grab the barrel or whatever, grab the stock or barrel over and just lift it out of the – I mean, I would like to see that work because – Yeah. Dude. I have a hard time imagining that's – How is that better than a sling?

Yeah. It's not better than a sling. It's worse than a sling. Okay. Oh, I thought you were arguing the other way for having no total hands for you okay well it's better in the sense that like even a sling requires some yeah care you know every couple minutes and so this is like intermediate it's either in your pack and for all intents and purposes you have no gun right yep this is like halfway between yes okay okay i got it it's like man

this is a long shit hike yeah and i'm always whatever needing my hands to take leaks and open gates and whatnot and you just put the thing on there and then but if i have to i'll pull that ripcord and now if i need to yeah okay i've done it and i keep my ripcord handy i have to i'll pull that ripcord and now she'll be the right yeah okay i've done it and i keep my ripcord handy i haven't i've never had to do a quick release but so anyways fits there you are you never got a deer as a kid never got deer as a kid no hunting up five flight yep you guys hunting bait uh some years and then some years, no. Because you're a cousin. You own a little piece of land, like 40 acres up there. And you headhunter safety.

Yep. Yep. The other time that I went hunting, not that long ago, up on San Juan Island with Chef Andy, we were hunting those. Chef Poot. Chef Poot. We were hunting those. Those are Columbia blacktail up there, right? So you can only use a shotgun on San Juan. So I had a shotgun, and I was probably 50 yards from a little buck,

and I had it lined up, pulled the trigger, gun misfired. No. Yep. Wasn't user error. It was not user i swear to god and nothing took off so i need help man i'm here for help yeah well no because we're gonna get to your successful hunt i know but i want to get a deer i want to go in fact yeah hearing about matt's you know elk hunt a couple weeks ago i I want to get over to Montana maybe in 2018

with your brother. You got inspired by that? I did get inspired by that. Did the firing pin just not hit? It must have. It must have. Yeah, because then we went somewhere else and I racked and shot it. We're fine.

I don't know if you guys tried to hunt deer on San Juan Island. Yeah, this is about five years ago. Oh, I do remember this. So you have dilly-dallied with hunting. I have. Now, I don't want to say where it was. We're going to say that beyond the fact that it was in North Dakota,

beyond the fact that it was North Dakota, don't get into any great specifics. Gotcha. But talk about your impressions of Turkey Hunting. It was so fun. I mean, it was the most interactive kind of game experience i've ever had i mean with fishing i i i don't fly fish so i know that's a lot more physical and interactive and you're reading things differently oh they'd sure like to think it is that's no unless you want to go down a real different path you better you no yeah i've done a book yeah sure uh yeah i mean, so, you know, walking out in the woods, looking around, making those calls,

and then all of a sudden hearing that response is just one of the most exhilarating outdoor experiences I've ever had. And then, you know, posting up, putting decoys there, and then calling them in. And just, you know, the first day, we were there only about four hours, and Matt called in a big tom. And just to kind of see that thing, you know, 100 yards out coming in through the willow, and then all of a sudden as he got closer, you know, big plume goes up. I mean, it was just one of the most exciting things I've ever seen outside. And that was, and Poole got him. So then the next day we went out early in the morning and

same kind of setup, just walking around in the woods. Got a call. Posted up. You heard the... Yep. And it didn't take long either. You know what they call that? They call that spring thunder. Spring thunder?

Yeah. What do they call it in the fall? They don't gobble. Well, I mean, some dork's going to write in about how they do gobble in the fall, and they do. But not like they do in the spring. Not like they do in the spring. They're fired up. Yeah.

They gobble in the spring. As Will Primo says, they're out there saying um this is my time of year in the spring yeah yeah it was it was incredible it was incredible yeah i got a jake the next day it was also the first time i've ever seen a turkey fly that was interesting they're impressive really impressive were you worried they could fly i knew they could fly what are they like a galanaceous bird right and i knew they could fly but i they they, like a galanaceous bird, right? Good, Fitz. I knew they could fly, but they can't fly long, right? They don't fly long distances. But just to see them fly, like they were much more agile than I would have expected.

Yeah, I would never accuse them of loving to fly. Yeah. Yeah. Powerful flyers. Yep. I mean, as far as just like the amount of energy and noise and just like uh yeah when they take flight it's not a subtle thing no you know you know what you like you know what you're like walking through the woods and and like a grouse will scare you to

death yeah like a turkey is would would put you in your grave i mean they they the um it sounds like somebody's shooting at you you know when one of those things takes off you know me and my boy were out uh jimmy were out there on sunday when i'll take took a little look for some small game and he had his first getting the shit scared out by a rough grouse by a rough grouse yeah but it blew out of a tree about head high but still same fact it's super surprising so that so here it comes and you level off on him well that jay got in close he was in god probably i i mean it seemed like 10 yards he was right he was right there maybe even closer i mean he was he was super close and uh coming right up to that decoy and so this is the first time you've ever fired a shot because you tried

one you screwed up because you're sling yep then you had your you i tried i would argue that you did something wrong with your shotgun i would i would respectfully disagree but i uh no way to tell can we back up to the shotgun question real quick? I don't want to dwell. Did you look at the primer? Was the primer dimpled? God, I was going to ask that too. Was there a strike mark on the primer?

Yes. There was. All right. You're right. No pop. But no pop. No pop. Not even a psh.

Nope. Nope. You know what's funny? We were muzzleloader hunting this year in in maryland and i heard a guy off in the swamp have a have we're just a cap have just either the pan or the cap depending on what time it's like you know you're hearing like now and then like boom you know those things are loud right it's like a real like it also went off the swamp here where the guy's cat went off in a big night yeah it was like prime time it was like this

dude was shooting at a this dude was definitely shooting at a dude it was like he was just getting rid of the primer yeah so um any feelings of remorse or anything like what was your emotion pure pure exhilaration just you know well i was nervous because i was like all right i felt like the the 20-year weight of history on my shoulders right because i've had two like you know well i was nervous because i was like all right i felt like the the 20 year weight of history on my shoulders right because i've had two like you know two experiences do you just refer to it as your slump buster yeah yeah i would yeah for sure yeah i will now for sure but yeah it was uh i mean no it felt it felt incredible it was wild like how active that bird was after it gets shot oh just you know i mean they don't just fall over like oh

you got me flailing and then you know i was with matt and we ran over there and he basically jumps on the bird yeah and pushing all the air out of it i guess is that what he's doing yeah and uh yeah no no feelings of remorse at all it was it was it was yeah one of the most exciting outdoor experience i ever had you probably realize this and it might be counterintuitive to some folks but that flailing is a is a way for you to see just how dead it is because like the more you know for people who have a turkey head when you shoot a turkey shooting that generally like if you're hunting a turkey, you're shooting it generally. Like if you're hunting with a shotgun, you're shooting it in the head with a shotgun.

And well, when you chop the head off a chicken, I'll remember they would chop the head off a chicken. Yeah. Fly around. Go crazy. Yeah. So when you see that like really just explode, like fluttering and jumping around, I don't look at that and be like oh he's gonna get away yeah it's more like oh man he's deader and dead yeah i would prefer it though because they do sometimes just fold their wings up and just lay over i like you don't always get a flop

sometimes they do just kind of just literally fold their wings and tip over. Because a couple of times I have seen it where it's like the flop, and they keep getting a little farther away, and they flop, and they get a little farther away, and all of a sudden they're flopping, but they're on their legs, and you're like, oh, shit, shooting in. No, any flopping that is them going whatever they're doing, but they're going the other way, I take that as a very bad sign right oh really yeah that's different than what i'm talking about what i'm talking about is that because they haven't been it's not a clean well he's got a what okay like but i don't

imagine a 360 degree circle what are the there's right a 360 degree circle and if he's picking that like 15 degree band that's directly away from me i'm like that feels to me like um sure he could be doing a general flop right or there could be more to this and the fact that he's coincidentally chosen the opposite direction to do that in i get like real nervous but i don't think they look that different for a second you know what i mean they don't that's what i'm saying my general protocol is like pull the trigger as soon as he's like flopping or whatever's going on i'm up on my feet and gaining some ground yes you'll never be glad that you didn't run over there yeah there's no like pro to not running over there. All I'm really trying to say is birds flop around a whole bunch. As evidence by which you've ever dispatched chickens.

It doesn't mean that he's kind of still alive. That's all. But no bad feelings. Nope. It did surprise me the day before when Peter got that tom how fast matt was running towards that bird once peter shot like exactly like you say janice like he was sprinting to that bird so that surprised me i wasn't expecting that but i lost the turkey once hit him assumed he was down yeah and didn't get over there fast enough and we were on a very steep slope and he pitched

off that slope and just vanished really you couldn't even begin to go look for him what was down the slope like a thicket no it was a big mountainside oh oh geez and he like went down i was like oh i got a turkey thing took two steps and it was a steep pitch, like I said. Took two steps, pitched off that hill, and it was just gone. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated.

Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. 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. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it.

Be part of the excitement. 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.

Now, how do you one time? I've seen one shot that covered ground faster than anything i've ever seen like my buddy eddie shot two and the second one was only winged or whatever and that thing vanished i mean it i saw it running and we couldn't throw down on it and i was just like i was pretty impressed with it's gone. I mean, that thing was, yeah, toodles. What? You never found them? Never found them. No, did not.

Yeah. And that could be just mis-aim, because if you don't hit them in the head or the neck and you just body shoot them and you just get that big puff of feathers, I mean, you might have a few pellets that weave their way in there, but a lot of times not lethal.

Fitz, will you field questions about your wife uh yeah can i hear some first before i decide that's fair dude your wife eats seafood she does doesn't like red meat no would she have eaten the turkey you shot probably not the only time she's eaten meat in the last 15, 20 years was in Montana when we were helping out at your brother's wedding making all that elk ravioli. And she accidentally ate one?

No. I guess maybe we just worked too hard in that kitchen and she's like, screw it, I'm going to eat one. Really? Yeah, she did. She liked it. But I don't think she would eat the turkey. But she likes to eat fish. Yep. What do you think is going on there? I understand it. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it's like, you know, I've known people like that my whole life. She's known at a very young age that meat was not for her. Like she was a kid, you know, who was complaining to her parents about anything that was meat at the table. And it was just a, you know, it's just an essential part of who she is. Meanwhile, you have a shirt on that's a meat chart of a cow. I like meat.

So you feel that the turkey wasn't going to – It probably wouldn't. No, it probably wouldn't do it. Maybe if I got a bigger animal. Really? Maybe. I mean I got a bigger animal. Really? Maybe. I mean, she's eating elk. So do you picture now that you will go on more outings, more hunting trips?

I would like to. Yeah, I would definitely like to. You know, part of the reason that I haven't done it regularly is that I feel like I've always kind of been a little out of my element doing it. I didn't grow up hunting. I didn't have a brother who took me hunting or anything like that, or even friends until I met you guys, really. And so it wasn't something that I felt I had a lot of agency to do on my own. And it's like, you ever play poker or blackjack at a casino yes well no because i feel too out of my element exactly like you don't want to screw up everybody's else's you know game right and i kind of feel i i felt like that way for a long time about hunting i don't

want to go out there and mess up somebody else's situation yeah that's a good analogy man because i like to play uh blackjack or it used to not like to play we'd play blackjack at two dollar tables because you go there and everybody at the table sucks right but then when you go on your with serious players right you become like very self-aware yeah is anybody good at blackjack like how do you say like all these guys suck suck at what okay all right deciding if you hit or stay no and that they have like real set opinions about stuff about what you stay on what you so like you could be playing blackjack and i'm not like dr blackjack but there are people who are suspicious enough or irrational enough to be that if you took a hit that's illogical, that you have disturbed the cosmos and have robbed them of the card that would have been theirs.

And they will be mad at you. Because if you knew what you were doing, you'd have known to never take that hit therefore you have offset this thing that was in motion between the stars and the universe and that deck of cards so what you're saying is those are tables like it's not that the people suck it's that the odds that somebody's going to come play at that table who sucks and messes it up for everybody else or just hire like it could you could have people i mean that when i sit down if i was to go sit at one of those tables and i have to go to las vegas every year for work yeah one and i always really bad want to do it you want to go play black

yeah but i'm like fits where i feel like i will take too long i don't really understand when to do what that i'll have some irrational blowhard get like pissed about something i did and and it because it doesn't really really mean that much to me i just sometimes don't unless i see a table where no one's there or i'm with a couple buddies of mine like last year me and yanni threw down for a long time because we just had our own little scene yeah we had the whole table well maybe five out of six spots yeah we had like five or six guys that we all knew each other and so we could go play and i didn't need to feel like i was like inserting myself into this this

thing that was going on my unprofessional to get good eventually like you're watching the cards so much that you sort of in in a way, start to count cards. Yep. Right? To where you kind of know what's been coming out, and so you're sort of expecting. How many decks is it? But no, it's like six decks.

I mean, you can get in trouble for counting cards. But you can go play at Binion's or go play in some of the old school casinos, and they'll play single deck blackjack. That would be different, and I would allow that that would be very different. I would allow a higher minimum bet. Are you a big blackjack player no i play poker you do yeah house odds are bad but if you're playing against another player i just don't you know i like poker a lot do you win a lot of money at poker no no i don't i haven't played in quite a while but i played a little bit it's fun why why do you like uh professional? What? Wow, that's a jump.

I don't know. I've always... Because they don't know you. They don't like you. They don't live... They're not from here. I was born... I've been playing football since I was a kid up until I was in school.

They're not from here. He's trying to explain. So he called me and asked me to go fishing on a night there was a Seahawks game. I'm like, no, I'm going to the football game. And he could not wrap his head around the fact that I wasn asked me to go fishing on a night there was a Seahawks game. I'm like, oh, I'm going to the football game. And he could not wrap his head around the fact that I wasn't going to go fishing, but I was going to go watch football. I told him to watch it tomorrow in the morning. It's an affront to his sensibilities.

I don't know. I've always loved football. I'm emotionally invested. In people that you don't know. You know? Who are just. I played team sports all the way through college i mean i just i've always been attracted to it and i never was able to play at that level but yeah i know

you're right and i'm wrong because everybody likes sports so you're wrong jimmy i i would feel remiss if i didn't stick up for you a little bit here because i don't even have like i didn't grow up watching football and i i never played it but I like it now as an adult. I like watching football. I have a team that I hope wins. I hope wins a game. I can't explain it. What team is it?

It's the Green Bay Packers. Really? Yeah. That's cool. They're pretty good. Why those? Because you're from Oregon. I know.

I can't leave Jimmy to have hung out to dry Why those? Because you're from Oregon. I know. I know. Because it picks a winner. I can't leave Jimmy to have hung out to dry because I'm even less rational. Dude, you and everybody on the planet. I know. I know. So I've had another friend of ours got into watching football, and he's like, because I hate TV so bad, I find myself that I'm in front of a TV. It's the most genuine-seeming thing to me. The football?

Like watching the game? It just feels like you're actually watching something genuine. It was an early childhood thing. It's like honest and genuine. It's a contest. But you're right. They don't know you.

I can't even explain it. But I do recognize now as an adult that I enjoy it. For me, it's just always been there. Corn Husker football on Saturday mornings is one of my earliest memories. I was probably four. Corn Huskers like the hand lotion? No.

That's hilarious. You're funny. No, you just pissed off everybody in Nebraska. There's a team called the Cornhuskers? Nebraska Cornhuskers. Go Big Red. Really? A professional football team?

No, no, no. College. College football. I don't feel so bad about not knowing about them. Okay, now, Jimmy Dorn, can you lay out your, can you explain a little bit about your Oregon hunting? Sure. It was easy. It was great. was great what the trip the hunt itself yeah just kind of how it goes down um my buddy's got a great big

place and you know this guy how i met him russ i met him at your restaurant yeah i was 10 in bar and this is probably like the mid 90s i was still 10 in bar before i owned the place and uh he came in with another buddy of mine and we started talking about fly fishing and then it This is probably in the mid-90s. I was still tending bars before I owned the place. He came in with another buddy of mine, and we started talking about fly fishing. Then it was, hey, you want to go fishing? We've been good friends ever since. A bunch of trips. I want to say around 2000 or something, his dad bought a great big huge place uh kind of by fossil oregon cattle

cattle ranch uh it big the previous owner did graze cattle on there um there's some light ag there's some wheat and there's some hay and stuff there but it was just mostly recreational john someone still runs cattle out there don't they do he has a he has an agreement with his neighbor that uh we can hunt on his property if we allow them to graze cattle on his so it's kind of a good and it's a good handshake deal that's that's lasted quite a long time and uh so we get to you know just so that's the deal that is the deal he grazes he grazes your body's land and your body gets to hunt his land that's correct yes that's pretty nice it's a great spot i mean the john d Day River runs right through the middle, smack dab through the middle of it.

So there's fantastic smallmouth fishing in steelhead right now and every kind of bird you wanted to shoot, more or less. And fantastic elk hunting. I'll put in there a waterfowl. There's chukar. There's a couple pothole ponds, so there's ducks you can shoot for sure. Not as many. I mean, you walk down and pop a couple in the morning.

That's about the extent of your day. I mean, jump shoot them. A lot of times, you can push them back and forth if there's actually between the holes. Have you guys done that? Where are you going? We used to do that in stock ponds now and then. Instead of going in there and trying to kick them off

and take a shot, just kick them off, throw two decoys out, and hide. And wait. Yeah, and they'll come back. Because a lot of times, they won't even leave. You won't even lose track. You'll see them circle and way out and then like all those dudes are gone now so i was in the truck and they're not what's that i said but they're not gone oh they're hungry they're right um just uh pretty easy 200 yards uphill shot one just came

around the bend it was sky lit perfect beautiful perfect symmetrical four point buck and it took one look at me and that was the end of that it was just it was really easy and dragged it downhill i mean it was like one of the most there wasn't a pack out it was a 150 yard downhill drag to my truck and then strung it up. It was great. So do you feel that hunting down there is making you pretty soft? I would 100% agree. Yeah, it's making me a little bit softer. I had occasion to go out on a high buck hunt in the Pasatan at the beginning of the season, and I was a little unprepared,

and I was a little disappointed in my level of being a bitch, to be honest, on some of it. We got there, and I had kind of misread a forecast, and probably a good idea to look not the valley floor, but actually where you're going to start going in. And we rode horses in like 16 miles way back in there. And I'd read the brochure and whatnot, and the outfitter was just great people. But, you know, it was they kicked the wall tent off the side of the mules,

and we got in late, and they had another group. So it was a drop-off hunt. A drop hunt, yeah. So you hired an outfitter to pack you in, but then he just drops you off. Pretty much. In good-looking country, and then you're like on your own. See you in a week. 16-mile ride. 16 miles in, yeah. And I hadn't ridden a horse in, I'm your own. See you in a week. 16-mile ride. 16 miles in, yeah.

And I hadn't ridden a horse in, I mean, I had ridden a horse fairly recently, but not that far. I'm just surprised where I hurt the next day. Yeah, your buttocks region. My knees was the weird thing. Oh, they're right. Yeah. But we woke up, and I was with a really good friend of mine, Henry, who just was amped about the whole deal. And it just, man, I woke up cold. And I thought, I read cot, not bring a cot.

I read there was a cot. You saw the word cot. You saw the word cot. Yeah. So, setting up the tent and they had had this big burn ban. The whole hunt kind of came off late because the area was closed and the outfitter really had to put the screws to the forest service to get them to let them go back in there they closed for fire season for reasons yeah they were a whole they had closed the whole wilderness area and anyway so you know nothing was set up we kind of got in there was a burn ban so we weren't allowed to make a fire and then you know

it was it was really it was pretty cold first day, sleeping on the ground. Dude, you sound awful right now. Yeah, I wasn't super jacked. I mean, whatever. Just like your dad saw from this Oregon private. No, no, no. I think it's accumulation of a lot of. So what wound up going on there? What happened?

Were you guys seeing big giant bucks running around everywhere? No, didn't see a buck. Saw about 15 does total. Saw one spike, but it's a three-point minimum. Like if you had on a sliding scale of one to ten, how hard were you hunting? I would say about a nine. I mean, you had to do, you know, 2,000 vertical to get to where you wanted the glass. You had to get up in the morning and do that in the dark.

And then the second day, it snowed nine inches. So so throw that into the mix how many hunt days do you have six you stuck it out for six hunt days was either that or walk 16 miles out of there made you know and i actually had all that's the funny thing too i'll admit it but like i had all my shit packed and i looked at it on the map and the whole area part of the pacific crest trail and i knew where my truck was and i got to thinking because my feet my feet got wet on the second morning and they didn't dry out and we kicked the whole no fire thing to the we're like i'm like nine inches of snow underground i'm pretty sure i'm like if they want to write me a ticket i'll go to court on this one and uh you know we made a fire got kind of comfortable but you know i didn't really get warm for about a week did you guys have a wood stove no no but a wall tent with no stove yeah we weren't allowed to

bring in a stove oh i see because of the ban so i was just kind of all thrown together at the last second and my buddy henry's really super just nice guy resilient he really tolerated me being a shithead for a couple days because i'm sure i wasn't too fun to be around but it was up and down i mean it was according to my iphone it was you know 80 stories a day when it's straight up looking around freezing your ass off for six hours and i got good at taking a nap when i was cold but it was great it was you know it was a hard hunt um ridiculously beautiful place i'm going back but there you go that's the spirit man i'm sure is that gonna be well you know i'm eating out bring a cot yeah i'll bring a cot and i had also misread i thought it was 50 pounds of gear per person so i got like mountain house and my jet boil and this other group of hunters came and they literally brought like rvs worth of shit like they had boxes and you know

eight days worth of prep food and coolers and pack alongs and you know i had my one little and he dropped those guys off on top of your camp no he dropped us first and that's another reason why just the wall tent went off here you go because it was getting dark and they had another three and a half miles to go so we were hunting in this one big basin and they were in the next so there's just only two groups and normally he has like six or seven groups so it was beautiful and beautiful. And it was worth every penny, and I'm going to do it again. And I've apologized to my buddy a bunch of times. Did you guys both have tags? Well, yeah.

Did you kill one? No. No, he just said he never saw anything but a spike. Yeah. Those guys. Dude, the Washington High Buck Hunt man, the more I talk to you about it, and even your stirring, inspiring story there. I thought it was in Oregon. no it was this was in washington this is the first is this the same one that carmen was talking about well yeah in that it's an early season

high buck hunt dude i'm gonna get way i'm gonna become like joe high buck i think i'm gonna change my name to jo Highbuck. You're funny. I am so fired up about the Highbuck hunt. I'll show you where I went. There's no way that you don't love it. It is just absolutely beautiful. Like ridiculously gorgeous.

And there's tracks. I'll go with you. Dude, you know what? Teach me something. I'm glad you're still doing that because I'm starting to feel that the Oregon private land hunt you go on, as fun as it sounds, it just seems like it's going to make a spoiled brat out of you.

Nah. I went to Montana as well, and that was legit. I mean, there was some walking around. At least, you know, it wasn't nearly as easy. So, I mean, I'm fortunate enough to go to this place in Oregon. It's just lousy with deer. Yeah, it's hard to not go. Yeah, I'm going to go as long as they keep letting me go.

Yeah. There's a lot of public land hunters out there who hunt public land because they don't have any better options. Right. There's a ton of public land also right next to this. There's a rare dude who could go to a gravy spot, but chooses to go to a shit spot. I agree.

That's a rare man. Yeah. Yeah, I'm lucky to get to go to a shit spot. I agree. That's a rare man. Yeah. Yeah. I'm lucky to get to go there. They're the nicest people. And, uh, you know,

fortunately get to shoot stuff most of the time or at least see stuff, you know? So, um, Montana was really good to me again this year. So I had, I had tags in Oregon and I bought tags in Montana, tagging,

Washington tagging, Washington. That's soup. And, uh, just because to be honest the freezer's full and i didn't really feel the that was an okay tag to burn because it was 40 bucks but you don't burn montana or oregon when you're talking six bills or whatever you have something to show for it yeah i'm gonna put a little bit more effort into that for sure so montana was fantastic this year that was a good hunt with a good shot. I'm going to tear that high buck on a new one, man.

We're going to sit down and I'll show you maps. I've been living here a couple years now and haven't gone. You're more than welcome to come along. I'm always running around doing all the junk. It's right in the kill zone for you. It's the 15th of September to the 25th. Yeah, it's like the time when there's the most stuff to do. Right.

It overlaps elk as well. What's the elevation for that out here? Went in at 77, and I got as high as, I want to say tickling 9,000, but don't quote me, quote me. Well, you ought to be wrong there because you said you rode in for 16 miles, and you climbed 2,000 vertical from your tent. You'd have been up on the top of Everest by then. We did passes.

We went over three different passes to get to where we were hunting. I got you. I thought you were going to lie. No, no. Not fibbing. Gotcha journalism. I won't lie. How many people listen to this?

How many emails you get if I lie? What did the guy charge you to ride you in 800 bucks 800 bucks and you gotta for the two of you you got a tent out of the deal yeah pretty much i think it would have been a little bit more kirsty like i said it was closed and he wasn't allowed in there and we got like the 11th hour call to go i should also segue with the whole story started with, I thought it was done. I thought we weren't going. I thought it had been canceled.

I just assumed my deposit and my whatever would go for the next year. But I get like, and it was on the heels of a Seahawks game where I might have had a couple of beers. Caused you not to read the brochure? Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. I get the phone call, hey, we're going. Like, we're going, like, in a couple hours. And I'm like, I ain't going nowhere.

What are you even talking about? It's canceled. He's like, nope, it's open. It's good. And they had to, you know, throw everything together when normally they would have had several weeks to prepare. And so we showed up, and he was still putting bridles on meals and stuff. So it wasn't all the way dialed. We left it.

We started in at 1 o'clock when we definitely should have been starting in at about 830 in the morning at the latest. So, I mean, it's just the whole thing was like, you know, we got there. And, of course, the last two miles, you know, started raining like God was angry. I mean, it was just like it was a cold, wet from jump. And you just, you know. raining like god was angry i mean it was just like it was a cold wet from jump and you just you know i love it ah you do i love it yeah that makes one of us i like i'm not you know no i mean i love it i don't love it i just love it all in hindsight yeah generally i think we've had this conversation with the ones that you remember are the ones that potentially suck the worst, but you wax nostalgic or reminisce about how awesome it was. The harder I work for it, definitely the better I feel if I'm successful.

Yeah, when you're an old man. Getting there. So in a couple years, you're laying on your deathbed, dying. Right. You're not going to be like, oh, man, that one time, man, that was a short pack out. Hunting at a buddy's place. Cold beer in the cup holder. No, you're going to be like thinking back to that mountain.

That rainy, snowy, no campfire mountain. Yeah. I'll do it better next year. I'll definitely be better prepared. And, you know, I owe my buddy one because he definitely was very tolerant. I want to go on the trip with you, man. I think you are invited. I'll show you on a map.

You'll look at it. Over the counterattack? Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then finally, Matt Moyes, you had a harrowing trip. No, you don't think it's harrowing, though? No, not really.

Not really. I mean, this will be the shortest story for sure. It's tough. I hunted. It was hard. I did that for a while, and nothing happened. But I'll recap it, really. Couldn't go where you wanted to go because there's so much snow

yeah we couldn't even approach it wow yeah we weren't within now don't take don't say the spots don't even give like mountain ranges no okay like it was in um california it was the mountain it was the mountains of north dakota Yeah, again, hunting in North Dakota. Okay. You're right. So we had planned to hunt. Can I say the state? North Dakota.

Okay. Where we had planned to hunt was inaccessible because of snow. In the high mountains of North Dakota. That's what I'm saying, mountains of North Dakota. And so we ended up having to pick another mountain range. But that didn't seem real detrimental at the time because we've hunted that mountain range before and plenty of animals. That didn't seem like a limiting factor, but we just couldn't quite make it work. Animals, we saw animals the first two days of the trip.

And in fact. Hunting elk. Yep. Yep. Hunting elk. But just never, never put it together. How far off were ones you were seeing? Like big balls of big balls 300 yards a guy one of one of the guys in our party missed a shot at like 275 i actually missed a shot on that trip i heard i missed a head shot on a on an elk which is dicey

which is a terrible shot to have to take and it was it was a you know it's one of those where i thought this is either going to go totally not my way or it's going to go my way and but it but it's a it reminds me of lenny kravitz yeah me too uh if he hunted um yeah i mean so it was it was a you a low percentage shot at something. And it's one of those things like, I don't know how often you guys do this, but I'm always replaying stuff in my head. You ever just replay what happened and think about what you should have done? I can't believe I have any energy or time in my day to go forward

for all the time I spent analyzing the past. I spent a full day thinking about how I should have done that different. Like, what I could have done different that would have let me had a shot at the body of that elk and not a head was elk in behind a blowdown timber and had me dead to rights. It's like, well, it's either, it's either, I mean, I was standing because if I bent down, she, her head wasn't even visible, you know? So it was, I mean, anyway, it's a bummer of a shot and I didn't make it. So that's even bigger bummer, but that was it.

You know, that was the first, I guess that was the first day. And then after that, we just weren't, we just weren't into animals. You could see where animals had passed through in a, you know, migrating from high to low, but we didn't see any of them move. Like being pushed down by the snow? I think so. So the first, there was a lot of snow. And the first, the two days before we got there and the first day we were there, there was quite a bit of snowfall. And you could see animals moving. We would be, like, before light the first day, we drove past a string of cow elk. It was probably, you know, they were nose to butt for probably most of a mile.

Traveling. Yep, traveling. You know, like they like to travel kind of at the dark. You saw them from a highway. Yep. So driving in, we saw a, you know. On private. Yeah, yeah.

All low down on the farm. On the great ranch land. Yeah, yeah. Ton of elk. And actually, even from up in the mountains, you could glass way down and just pick out hundreds of them in the flats. But they're so far. I mean, they're thousands of feet below you. Or I'm guessing, you know, whatever.

Yeah, no, they are. Yeah. So anyway, we just, you know, no one in the party ended up getting an elk. And how many miles were you guys walking every day i'm not very good at counting um i don't know you'd probably have five or six mile days i guess i'm i'm i don't know i don't know it's hard for me to guess i mean with a guy who uh had grown up in a city and he would always talk about blocks oh really just put it into he would be like even with caribou would you think of like anyone looking at a caribou would have no idea about a city block but he would talk about it's probably

like he'd be like there's a i saw a bowl probably three blocks away wow that's great wow that is great and the distances he walked he would give you in blocks it's about 742 blocks yeah no i'm bad at judging that but you know it was it's challenging country i mean it's it's uh it's either up or down you know if if it feels like so and you're walking in snow yeah there was six or eight inches of snow that adds to it for sure it does you know i've gotten better at that in my later in life though better what i've gotten better at being uncomfortable i was not good at that as a young person i had a real problem with it and now i feel like i can just kind of chill out it's like yeah i know this this sucks but you know yeah being okay with trudging yeah i i i was not good at it i i really wasn't i mean you've known me for 22 years but i never knew you i never thought he

has a cupcake yeah i did no but i mean i think it's like I was fine with this hunt and actually I wasn't even super bummed out to not get one I mean I just felt like uh that's what an elk tag is man you you you know dude if you went up and just plug on every time I yeah but you go look at success rates if you go look at non-guided non-resident elk success rates they hover like around 10 percent wow well i'm in the 90 i can tell you that for this year yeah no it's and i no i'm i was okay with it i mean it would you know anytime you're successful when you're hunting it's a it's it's real it's still a thrill for me anyway to to be a successful hunter but i think that not having success is it's like weirdly also poignant and and it didn't it didn't it didn't bum me out i don't know it's

a weird it's a weird thing man you've like really arrived at like a no it's like a mature yeah like a sound no no no that is one thing that's absolutely no next i'm getting next i'm getting two mule deer tags i'm killing something next i'm putting in for mule deer door tags yeah yeah yeah yeah it used to bum me out i mean myself personally when i was a kid if i didn't get something that was a failure and. Now, just being there is success. To me, it depends a lot on what's going on in the old freezer. Yes, that's a good point. Right? If I'm sitting on a couple freezers packed full, I get real, not

nonchalant, but I get real interested in seeing my buddies find success. Then it's fun. That's fun for me then. But if I'm kind of like really weighing out just like uh wanting to have the want to have the jam-packed freezer full of meat then i get a little bit fussy or i become less interested in my buddy's good times got you you know in a weird way i think being like so you know i don't hunt that much i mean i you know, I don't hunt that much. I mean, I, you know, I really don't with, with career and, and family and kids.

Like I'll do sort of probably one good hunt like that every year. And maybe I get to do some in-state stuff and, you know, goof off. I feel like in a certain way, hunting less is not made me care less, but enjoy it for its experience more. You know what I mean? And I'm not so outcome driven as when I hunted more. When you were carefree and would go all the time. When I was younger, I would hunt more. I'd be more miserable or at least wallow in it, and I would care more whether I was successful or not.

That's interesting, man. Yeah, I know. I don't understand it either, but it's true. So now, older, more seasoned, more responsibilities. You're willing to go out there enjoy the sucky aspects yeah and not fixate on the success thing that you used to be pushed by i guess so so you used to be like i hate being uncomfortable i really want to get something maybe i really wanted to get something so you could get home i don't know yeah that might maybe the only way to get out of here

the only way for me to get out of here and save face is to be able to get if i don't fill this tag man i'm gonna have to be out here forever yeah no i don't know it's it's funny yeah that's good i like that uh jimmy doran krasny about one last last thing today sure you were upset when the when chris cornell from soundgarden died can you talk about that sure oh man why'd that upset you you? I don't know. I met him when I was young. We're about the same age. And I think we discussed it pretty well. I just can't ever wrap my brain around what, in my opinion,

is a temporary problem with an obviously permanent solution when somebody does that. Suicide. Yeah. You're like, man, just call somebody something like jesus so that's what that's what spoke to you about that well that you know there's two different ways you know i get pissed i'm like oh what you know too many person you know too many private jets and you're tired of those five-star hotels like what's going on here most people would you know large percentage

of humanity would be feel pretty good about the situation he was in and but you know i've never understood like i mean i really liked him and obviously loved the music a lot and you're just like dude why would you just not just call somebody i don't know it couldn't have been that big of a deal couldn't have been that big of a deal that you're done and you just can't wait till tomorrow and vow tomorrow's gonna maybe be better or something i don't know man try to stay optimistic but yeah that was definitely a yeah that one sucked i really bum me out there's so many good musicians there are lots of them just kill themselves man i don't get it the guys you know the mark lincoln's from soundgarden or not something i know sparkle horse we talk about himself with a shotgun in the chest oh geez that Soundgarden. Or not Soundgarden, no. Sparkle Horse.

Shot himself with a shotgun in the chest. Oh, jeez. That can't be good. Elliot Smith stabbed himself to death with it. This conversation is taking a dark turn. We talked about David Wallace, right? David Foster Wallace. I tried to read his books again

on your prompt. I even bought the book you told me. Did you read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again? I did. I tried to read his books again on your prompt. I even bought the book you told me. Did you read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again? I did. You couldn't find it in you? I know I'm there, but it's just like trying to get a drink out of a fire hose, man. It's like... Have you read Brief Interviews of the Hideous Men? No. I'm still working on the...

I thought that was the last one you said. Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again? Yeah. I kept Infinite Jest next to me in my room so that way i look smart so when you have ladies he used it as a prop i saw tom petty the week before he died here oh did you yeah yeah for total weird circumstance i mean i would i i well i like tom petty but i would not have bought a ticket to that you know what i mean it's just not really what are you saying because i bought a ticket i mean me and the missus went to see tom but not there but oh really three years ago no i'm not saying anything by it it's just like you say we're

suckers anyway tickets fell into our lap and and and we went and we were invited by like a work colleague like oh man i'd love to go i'd love to see petty you know he's an icon and he's a great american yeah one of the one of the greats that's an america the story of tom petty is a story about everything that's great about america but here's so so i just i just bring it up because of jimmy's story about chris cornell which which is like horrible i view tom petty's the opposite there's a glorious story that dude wraps up a tour yeah and and you know figurative mic drop and just goes out right and like how do you do better than that what's the quote you used to say like some guy said if i had to do it all over again i'd do it like petty did it oh yeah it was an interview it was an interview with uh it was an interview with another musician who said if i could do it all over again i'd do

it like tom petty yeah that's what i thought about when i say tom payne's great american i mean the story of petty's like career and success is like to be like kids from gainesville florida like a garage band become like a bar band cover band you go out to la to make it big none of you ever been west of the Mississippi. You find some scrap of paper in a phone booth with some record producer's names on it and start calling. It's just a bizarre story. It's iconic.

That's the thing. Even when he died, I was like, this in a way is the coolest thing in the world. It's terrible that he died, but you're going to die anyway. What a way to go. Why not put a bow on it speaking of suicide american girl she could hear the cars roll by on all 441 like the waves crashing on the beach

and for one desperate moment it's about a girl that kills herself jumping out of a window american girl is yeah wow, it's about a suicide. Oh God, yeah, in the court. Oh God, it's so painful. Something that's so close but still so far out of reach. Yeah. American Girl.

I understand it's a doll line now. So, I think that's it. Oh, no, I wanted to say a guy wrote in, I had said something like having a hammer hanging over your head and a guy wrote in to say oh it's not that you meant to sort sort of democles yeah did you write in that nope how do you know what i'm talking about how do you know what i'm talking about well because it's not a hammer over your head that's

that's not a thing the sword over imagine no I was being like, I wasn't referring to that. The sword of Democles, because you guys are alluding to it when you talk about famous people, rich, famous people killing themselves. So a king has like a guy in his court who is just a professional flatterer. Okay. And he says to the king, my God, for just what I would love just to be would love just to be you, you have it made. Right? You're rich. You're the king.

Like, why can't I be you? And he goes, oh, please. I'll show you exactly what it's like to be me. And seats him at the banquet table with the beautiful women around him the food the wine the drink and then he takes a sword and hangs it from a single horse hair high above his head is that right i guess i don't know this he says okay do you want to stay in my seat now yeah the sword of democles and the hammer of steve ranella all right fellas you do have a you by the way you do have a kayak paddle over your head so

i think it's symbolic yeah carbon fiber carver five warner paddle could fall and bust me in the head yeah that's right i think wouldn't even give you a headache. So it'd float down like a feather. I don't know if you know, Fitzgerald, but up at the fish shack, the next time you go to take the canoe to get the skiff, you'll notice that I now have a carbon fiber canoe paddle up there. Holy shit. Yeah. I think I saw something about this.

Yeah. Good stuff. You keep thinking you forgot the paddle. Then you realize that you're paddling. That's great. It's amazing. All right, thanks for joining us, guys. Thanks, man.

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