The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 215: I Miss My Friends

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Phil Taylor, Ryan Callaghan, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: Steve's violated sense of artistic sensibility; Cal gets robbed by meth heads; is it okay to kill someone for stealing your shit?; how everyone knows the sound of their own truck; stick 'em up!; Steve’s elaborate vengeance fantasies; making the perfect batch of turkey stock; prepping vs. supporting your community; how Cal borrowed Steve's dehydrator and will not return it during this time of need; hunting and fishing in the land of Covid-19; the need for a little self-policing; Steve hearts suppressors; the Rinella-Putellis 2020 campaign and MeatEater's Land Access Initiative; the Michigan hello; no blind spots for my kids; 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 hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by OnX Hunt, creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters.

Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with Onyx. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, this is something I never wanted to happen. This was never supposed to be part of the plan. This is a live recorded show. It was meant to be that way.

All I ever did. I mean, I did a couple other things but the primary thing i have done over the years is argue against people who've tried to convince me of all the benefits and ease that would come if you would just record the interviews over skype and shit like that and i've always said it just violated my artistic sensibility. I just resisted it against all comers. But in the end, I was defeated by COVID-19. So here we are recording the show, not live.

I am so close to Cal. I can smell him, but we can't be together. I can't silence our phones. Cats and dogs living together. Anarchy. Mass hysteria. Cal's so close. I could smell him, but I can't touch him.

He's over in his garage. Giannis, not as close, but I could still kind of smell him. Locked up in his home. The big moose skull from Alaska looking down upon him, which makes me feel especially distant as Cal is just robbed. Cal, can you tell everybody about getting robbed? Oh, man. Yeah, so folks broke into, I guess, thieves, not folks, thieves,

broke into my truck, opened my garage door about two feet with my garage door opener. And can I ask you real quick about that so they did like uh they to look to uh reduce noise they just open enough to crawl under yeah reduce noise and and you know everything's very well lit here 20 24 hours a day so maybe it was to keep the uniformity from somebody driving down the street yeah because the garage doors are so tall but and just to paint the picture cal lives in a cal lives in a live work spot so he's got a big huge garage and on top of that sits his house, his home. Yeah, one-bedroom apartment. So that may be even giving these folks way too much credit. You know, my little sister's a detective now. I like to call her a dick down in Denver.

And I was asking her about... A dick in Denver. ...what her thoughts were. And, you know, I have all, I got fancy new steel gas-powered chainsaw. Yeah, they didn't take your chainsaws. No, no. So there is like this $1,200 chainsaw right next to an $800 chainsaw.

And they took the $200 like hedge trimmer. And I was asking my little sister about that. And she was very serious. She's kind of a serious kid. Hard to call her. She's a serious dick. And she's like, well, did it have like a nice package or did it have like bright colors to it? I said, well, the lettering was really bright.

You know, it's brand new packaging. And she's like, yeah, Ryan, that's called meth. She's like, anything that's like shiny and good looking and you started looking around the garage and uh yeah it was just like severe severe add where something would be picked up and moved and put on the floor and then in that spot you'd look around and be like oh from here they grabbed this and moved it and they yeah the so they piled up a bunch of guns you know i never got around to building the the gun safe that i was going to build or the safe room for the guns that I was going to build. But nothing was out. But they found where I have all the guns

and they just, they brought them out and stacked them. And then I have a brand new Weather B18i in the box that I was going to, uh, mount some turkey sites on. And that was laying on, uh, the couch next to my desk down here in my garage office, where I was doing all my taxes whole file of all of my sensitive financial information had been resting. So they had picked up the brand new shotgun, saw that file, put the shotgun down, picked up the file, threw that in my bag use so they used my yeti backpack and and this black hole patagonia duffel that i've had for 15 years and to like grab stuff and throw stuff in them

and that black hole duffel bag they dumped out several thousand dollars worth of fly fishing gear in order to utilize the bag to put in uh maybe a hundred dollars worth of pawn shop tools in that bag so your sister thinks it's meth. I think it's, I'm putting together a little profile. I like it. I like it. They got a hedge at their house

that looks rough. They're handymen. And they got a background in accounting. They got a background in accounting uh they got a sack full like many many you know we always talk about like what the hell do you do with elk ivories well i've just been cleaning them up and chucking them in uh it's not a Crown Royal bag, but you know, like those little velvety booze bags. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For freaking ever.

They stole those? They took those. Also, a couple of arrowheads that I had sitting there, some buffalo teeth. And I felt really bad for the cop, right? Because he's like, what's missing?

And what he meant to say is tell me if any guns are missing but he just said what's missing and it's 2 45 a.m and i'm walking around my gar my garage being like son of a bitch and he's like okay what i'm like my buffalo teeth he's like okay and i'm like oh my arrowheads and my elk teeth and uh and then i turn around and he's writing this stuff down like out of a sense of duty not out of a sense of justice or anything right and i'm like oh sorry and i'm like look around I'm like, look around. I'm like, you know what? They, uh, they got a couple of, uh, whether it be over and under shotguns that I had, I had, uh, that are like our office shotguns, you know? Uh, and I had had them here for one of our last hunts of the year and, and cleaned them up and had them sitting in the garage or sitting in the gun room and uh they had taken

those those were the only two shotguns that they made it out the door with um but they stole my truck they grabbed my spare set of keys hold your truck's gone it was gone for all of five minutes they drove it a tenth of a mile with the stuff must have thrown it in wherever they had parked their car and you know the the bozeman pd had my truck like two officers show up and they're like hey what's going on and then immediately one of the officers like grabs his like you see on tv like grabs his radio and he's like run runs out of here and you know 15 seconds later they're like yeah they got your truck i'm like okay so go over to the truck and there's the two weatherby shotguns in the back

but they got so here's here's the biggest like the biggest takeaway for me um lock your guns up oh like that's the thing is like the stuff that was locked up but you know in my mind it is locked up but yeah it's locked up in your garage yeah right you need a better job of locking your stuff up how many feet were you from the burglars while they were burglarizing you? If you could bore a hole through the ceiling, about eight feet. But so here's the crazy takeaway, right? Home defense. A year ago when I move into this place, I make the decision.

No, I mean, whatever judge me. Um, Oh, I already have, I already have Cal to put a 10 millimeter pistol and a three 57 pistol in, in, in cases,

but like carry cases, right? Essentially right next to my bed. Yeah. And I made that decision to where I was like, You don't have kids, so go ahead. And I was like, but still safe, you know? Like, not, my nephew's not going to come over here and have any way of accessing those things.

So. I used to keep a pistol next to my bed. a few is not going to come over here and have any way of accessing those things. So I used to keep a pistol next to my bed. You can't do that when you got people running around your house, but if you live by yourself, but you know, in my mind, I'm like, okay, yeah,

home defense. And why would I just have all my guns downstairs when I'm upstairs? So I hear stuff going on outside and I'm like ah no that's nothing but i have turkey stock going on on the stove i'm like i better talk check that turkey stock since i'm awake anyway and then i get up and i hold it one time this is at 2 40 a.m you had hold on let me get this straight so it's 2 40 a.m and you're like wake up and realize that you want to check your turkey stock well something wakes me up right and i kind of listen i'm like oh this is kind of a noisy area town anyway and you kind of get used to some of the noises okay but also there is something like that's not right so i'm like oh i

got a turkey stock on the stove i'm gonna go check the turkey stock i make it about five feet and i'm like oh my god somebody persons or a person is downstairs in my home like in my home and right next to me are those two pistols and i know as any hunter in any scenario would know if i step out onto my deck i will be looking at at least one of these people yeah and it is at that moment that i'm like do not grab that pistol because you will kill that person oh i feel like i would have thought something different yeah man but i just absolutely know like from the gajillion times i've been in the woods at this point you know when you're like well let me just look at it through the scope like

things die when you do that and and at that point i was like man i i don't want to kill anybody tonight right or wrong i mean that's that's the process that went through my head now the other deal is you didn't have um man you weren't just overcome with just immediate feelings of just wanting vengeance for them violating your, your, your place, violating your sank, your,

your sanctity. I, so I, I, like I said, like the door to the apartment part of this place is wide open. And so there's one door separating the garage, uh,

from upstairs. And, uh, instead of going out on the deck, the garage from upstairs. And instead of going out on the deck, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go down the stairs. And at this point, I'm on the phone with the cops. And just to let you know

how fast this happened, I'm on the phone with dispatch for like 30 seconds and I can hear sirens in the background and then i'm like okay i gotta go downstairs and uh i'm gonna pound my feet on the way down the stairs and get these folks out of my garage um and then i make i don't even make it to my stairs which is hard to do because it's such a small apartment and i hear the unmistakable sound of my door my vehicle door opening and closing and my vehicle starting like everybody knows the sound of their

truck and i was like oh shit yeah you're like how could that be because i'm up here exactly exactly and uh yeah and then i was just like oh ah you lost this round yeah would you have gone in there guns a blazing, Yanni? Well, I was just thinking maybe a couple of warning shots, maybe shot the tires out, you know, as they were pulling away. No, I'm kidding. Warning shots in the middle of town probably aren't a good idea either. So, no, I wouldn't have gone in there guns a blazing. I mean, you're going to murder some guys

because they stole a chainsaw in your passport? Yeah. So here's the thing. Like when I came down Sunday morning. It wouldn't be murder. Not that I slept at all. But Sunday, I'm down in the garage, like really taking stock of what is gone. And they have two of my other bags, like chocked full of stuff that they didn't make it out the door with.

Um, so I'm going through that and seeing what, what they grabbed. Um, and they grabbed, uh, a thing of rubber bands, uh, old set of first light suspenders, a couple of headlamps, one of which does not work anymore. Things that I had intended to return to the manufacturer for warranty purposes. A Sawzall that is pushing 20 years old that I literally dug out of a dumpster in Ketchum, a DeWalt drill with batteries that don't hold the charge anymore that I had finally been like, I'm going to call those guys from Milwaukee and see if I can't get a discount on a new drill. And all I could think is had I stood out on my deck and shot one of those dudes. And like I'm saying, I know for a fact,

like I would have stepped out there and been staring at those guys eight feet on the angle. Yeah, but you could have. I mean, there's a lot of gray. There's a lot of gray area between doing nothing and shooting at someone. You could have said, you know, maybe like, stick them up. Oh, yeah, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? That might have come into my mind. Had I shot one of those dudes and the cops like, okay, yeah, clear, you know, self-defense, got it, you know, castle doctor and all that stuff oh but then you'd get to read about him online and you'd find out about his mom and yeah and by the way

here's your uh uh saws all that you dug out of a dumpster and that uh circular saw uh that uh you got for 20 bucks at a pawn shop and uh you know oh your drill doesn't work here's that drill it doesn't work here's your elk teeth you know um oh yeah officer i may have fibbed a little bit that wasn't an authentic indian arrowhead that's a reproduction you know like no i understand man i understand all that but i also know that um you know i don't think that these individuals had any it's not like you're dealing with children who don't understand right from wrong you're dealing with people who've made a conscious decision to to steal your stuff and then potentially put you in and at risk oh I know I know

and it had that that's why I was kind of like stuck between a rock and a hard place cuz I like I was like you know somebody starts coming up the stairs to my apartment, it's going to be a very different story very quick. But, you know, that didn't happen. And the other thing is like when I heard them start moving out of the garage is when I was like, shit, I got to get down there. Little did I know that they had the keys to my truck and they were jumping in my truck at the time.

But when I had, at that point, you know, I'm on the phone with the cops and I actually had like a little more reassurance that they're in probably the only extended cab eight foot bed tundra in the state of Montana during quarantine at 2 45 a.m. I'm like they stay in that truck these guys are gonna get caught you know so and I was like do I drop my phone and so i can run out of here in my bare feet and chase my truck on foot like what are the better odds you know i mean i'm sure we'll get a gajillion people telling me exactly what i should have done but yeah that's what i did

you're more mature than i am um i think because when i've had stuff stolen, I just fixate on, I fixate for a long time on the vengeance. And I allow these elaborate vengeance scenarios to play out in my mind. Dude, you've been in my place. I have hatchets and hand forged hammers and all sorts of stuff laying on every surface upstairs. It's all for vengeance. I haven't been sleeping since this happened because all I'm thinking about is like, would love to take that hammer and find that guy.

Yeah, how'd that turkey stock, how'd that wind up turning out? Oh, beautiful. Nice and clear, not cloudy. So I'd purposely, because I always feel like wild game stock, you have to reduce it so much to get a rich stock. I purposely only strained the turkey stock like with a rough strain mm-hmm so it's like when you're unfiltered IPA is there a hazy IPA there Yanni so it it's you speak you speak Yanni's language now but it's not

yeah I mean so it's a little bit cloudier than you would think, but I did that on purpose to see how that runs. You know, it works to decant it now and then to get it clarified, and then there's another trick they do, which is – hold on a second. I told you someone would be crying. Hold on. Matt, what are you crying about? Well, I was laying down on the snow and then a dragon.

Where was I? Oh, clarifying stock yep yeah you can to clarify that stuff you can decant it like just let it settle and then pour off the top but there's this other thing i've done it's an old-timey method is um you'd use like like, crack an egg in there to clarify it. I don't even remember the details, but I remember doing it. My next step is I've been hoarding tongues like you wouldn't believe. I got all sorts of tongues

in every freezer. And I'm going to do a couple of big corning batches of tongue. And I have this old-timey, you know, preserving book here in the garage. Miraculously didn't get stolen. They probably discussed it. Exactly. They're like, I don't know, man. What do you guys think?

Old-timey preserving book? Should we grab it? Yeah? No? Don't want that new shotgun in the box. We'd have to put it together. Nobody wants to deal with that. Yeah, so I guess that's the next deal so i

i i don't know i i think the turkey stock leaving it a little little cloudy i think is going to work out good and then i got uh i did a giant batch of uh all my elk bones and a couple of mule deer bones that i had in the freezer uh that as soon as we're done i'll run through the strainer and and can that today too well it's good that you're staying uh you're you're being uh you're staying active over there uh i'd like to quickly can i quickly add about the clarifying stock? Of course, yeah. Well, the egg thing is you just beat some egg whites and mix it in there and then let it cook together. Yeah, I remember doing that and the impurities bind up in the albumen or something yeah basically when it when you then let it settle and you take it off the heat it like you're saying the the stiffened egg whites or what's called the egg raft um will soak will grab that um stuff and you just basically take that out um

and still run it through a sieve with a damp cheesecloth. But I was going to also say that I always felt like that one of the number one rules for preventing cloudy stock is that you need to be careful about not ripping the stock too hard while

you're cooking it. Yeah, it just gets everything agitated and stirs it all up. Yeah, you just got to slow and low. But, you know, I used to judge a man's stock by its clarity or cloudiness, but then I realized it just doesn't matter, man. I think it's aesthetics. Maybe someone will counter that and tell me it's not aesthetics. I think it's just aesthetics.

Because it is gorgeous, man. I mean, it is gorgeous. I bet you there's a bitterness that comes with the cloudiness really i i i want to i'd like to explore this but i i wound up not putting a whole lot of attention into it i thought it just as looks when people used to make gelatin stuff you want to be nice and clear not cloudy uh in terms of cal in terms of covet 19 and cal getting robbed and cal not taking any cracks at the burglars with his pistol it has been interesting for me to see um well one this reaches across all you know all aspects of our american existence and what we're going to talk about a handful of

ways in which like in the the outdoors world the world we deal in uh there's impacts from covet 19 but we're going to explore some of this but the implications of the pandemic i mean touch every aspect of of american life um and that certainly isn't limited to america every for you know every aspect of global life um and it is felt in a lot of ways even just in the world in which the the world that we deal with here on this show around the outdoors that we're going to talk about some of the a little bit of that coming up here. 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 our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x 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 hand-picked by the on x hunt team some of our favorites are first light schneee'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. And thinking about Cal getting robbed and whether or not you go out and take a crack at the guy um it's like it illustrates some kind of like interesting aspects of uh our own psychology and the psychology of others around how you imagine a situation like this

playing out and that so many people especially people that i view as being like peers of mine and like-minded individuals sort of immediately go to this place of uh go to this kind of last man standing mentality where you're going to get armed up, um, in order to, uh, I don't know what,

um, repel your neighbors. If they come for food, like, like I don't really know. And I feel it like, and I understand that you want to have this sense of that. You want to hunker in and stockpile and defend.

But I also wish that there was more of a knee-jerk reaction toward just going toward being, getting prepared to be supportive of your neighbors and community. I need to prepare to support my neighbors and community i mean a lot of people feel that way but it's also there's also this pull that makes you want to get really insular man um you know to get maybe you're supportive of your neighbors and community and family of course always your family but then you have in your mind, too, that there's this last-ditch thing, and that you'll have plenty of food, you'll have water, you'll be able to defend your home if that structure that you're trying to simultaneously be supportive of were to collapse. It all is jumbled around in my head right now

it's not fun it's not a fun thing to think about no it's weird and I've done you know like so I'm I'm yeah it is it's jumbled around my head right because I'm like boy

all of my meat is in the freezer so you know i went over and stole your big ass weston dehydrator you know may have haven't returned it no uh may not that thing rips you can do some cool stuff with that thing um but i took an unbelievable amount of meat and reduced it to about eight pounds of shelf-stable meat. Yeah. Do you got a generator over there? No, I don't. Yeah, so I got a generator for my freezer, but my stockpile of gas, I need to start stockpiling fuel.

Which you can, right? It's like, unless it's a diesel, it's like that's just the shelf stability of fuel so bad. Unless you get a bunch of those steel shelf-stable fuel deals where they put the Freon or something on top of it. No, I buy ethanol-free gas and stabilize it. Oh, okay. But then, you know, I've been canning some stuff and then i i have given away probably 200 pounds of meat since since the corn

teening talk started you know and my buddies with kids. 200 pounds? Yeah. Yeah, weighed on that hanging scale. How big are your, how many freezers do you have and how big are they? And how many pounds do you have total? You got that big one right there. And just in sausage meat that I ground up and mixed at Steve's house,

there's 80 pounds of grind in there. Yeah, I did a batch of grind the other day that was 40 pounds, man. And that was like not a lot. Yeah. And then there's a little chest freezer next to that one. And then I got my freezer upstairs too. Freezer attached to your fridge. Yeah.

And so there's a third of an elk in there um almost done eating through my 2017 mule deer and um some coos deer and and uh getting getting through the last of the fish right now too so yeah i mean i just i gave away a ton of meat um so you're playing both sides you're trying to do you're doing prepper stuff where you're making jerky and candy but you're also doing community oriented stuff where you're helping people out yeah and like the canning and the jerky making are all things where i'm like oh i'm gonna get to that one of these days and so here's kind of a good excuse um but the reality is like for me if all this stuff went belly up if i wasn't such an invested friend

to my friends i could grab my backpack and be just fine. Like I'm going to be able to get clean water. I'm going to be able to get food. I'm going to be able to have shelter and, and, and be just fine, you know? So I guess I'm probably not in the same mindset of somebody who's like, right here, this particular spot, if all this infrastructure that we rely on goes down, I got to stick it out right here. Right here's the last place I'm going to be. You'd be more mobility oriented. Yeah. Yeah, it's stunning. So at our website, themeateater.com, we have up a tracker. It's updated constantly, right, Cal?

Yep. We have up a tracker on our website where you can go to follow and understand state-by-state rules and regulations and closures that will impact hunting and fishing type folks and outdoor recreation type folks. And it's getting to be a really complicated atmosphere out there. In our own state that we're under right now, our governor has, well, I'm under two things. So today is the last day of my 14-day international travel quarantine. So I was down on family trip in Baja, and things really kind of went to shit while out there.

There was like the whiff of going to shit was in the air when we left. I think if it was 12 hours later, we probably wouldn't have gone. We got down to Baja just in time to have this feeling of like, oh my God, what's happening? The day before we got home, our governor had put out a thing that, I don't know what they call it, a mandate, whatever. What's the word I'm looking for? That anyone returning- Directive? A directive. That's correct.

Thank you, Giannis. A directive that anyone returning from international travel do a 14-day quarantine. So we've been very strict about it. Besides my home, I haven't walked into it. It's kind of funny. Besides my home, I haven't walked into a structure, not even a gas station, for two weeks today. I left the airport when I landed in town, and I've been outsider in my home. But again, outside has been really important. It's a somewhat lame time of year for some people. It might view it as a lame time of year for outdoor activities but just to keep out there and keep at it we've been out um trapping beavers and doing stuff we're going to fish this weekend and there's and then before my 14-day quarantine ended there's another directive of a stay-at-home directive for the entire state and there's a lot of exceptions

for the stay-at-home directive and one of those exceptions is outdoor activity and you'll find even places where people in some states are being encouraged to do outdoor activity but also being encouraged to practice social distancing during outdoor activities so i was trying to determine what that meant for me specifically and i made some phone calls and read and just read the actual directive um and yeah you can uh you know you can travel to do outdoor activities on public lands here that's not the case everywhere uh one interesting thing we've heard from a guy so for instance we got a guy in maryland he said that he wrote in and was talking about that just by listening to this show he got very interested in learning how to hunt so he went out and bought a gun bought calls binos turkey decoys boots all getting geared up to hunt

turkeys this spring did all hisouting, got some private land permissions, did his hunter ed, and all he had to do to seal the deal was do his hunter ed field day. Got his online coursework done. But then the state canceled all field days. So this guy's sitting in this situation where he's already geared up to go. He did his hunter's ed, but he can't fulfill his field day. So his spring turkey season is now off.

My buddy, Tony Calagrasi in Washington State was fishing on the Queets River in Olympic National Park and he was having a good day and getting some steelhead and all of a sudden he's got a park ranger yelling at him in a friendly way that the governor has just declared that recreational fishing is done in that whole state. And Tony was actually escorted out of the park so that they could gate a certain area of the park. Him and his dog were escorted off. And now in Washingtonhington you cannot fish and this strikes me as weird because if you lived on a private lake let's say you live on a lake you can walk down and hit golf balls out

into the lake but you can't cast a fishing pole out into the lake so rather than putting some parameters around what kinds of fishing what places what group size whatever it's just you cannot fish it'd be like saying no touching like not only that you close the golf courses which i'm sure they've done but you would also have a directive that says no one can touch their golf club and swing it. It's interesting how the stark contrast between that and then a lot of other states have changed their fishing regs recently. Almost completely 180 degrees in the other direction. I'm guessing maybe it's because Washington is such a hotbed of covid and so that's why they're just shutting it all down

and telling people to stay inside yeah like seattle being one of the main you know the initial explosion point for the virus and then remaining like a real hot spot yeah yeah maine and missouri and pennsylvania there's a couple did what yeah well they they've all uh suspended all fishing license requirements uh right now and a couple other states have opened fishing seasons a week early to encourage people to go outside and fish and uh and you know saying that it's good for your health and so that no one has to probably, one, go and get fishing licenses and go in and out of stores, gas stations, whatever, and have human contact. And that way, no wardens have to have human contact.

Everybody can basically just go fish without a license. What states is that happening in? Definitely Missouri, Connecticut. Maine. Opened fishing on lakes one week earlier, on all lakes, rivers, and streams earlier. Opened it a week earlier yeah and they're not the only ones uh wisconsin currently waiving all fees for state parks and trails um main yeah their inland fishing season was set to open uh or no it usually opens april 1 but they opened

at march 13th for the same reason just to get let people to get out there uh pennsylvania trout openers now april 18th and that's across the whole state there's not i guess normal years they have different days for different parts of the state when the opener is. And now it's just wide open. Yeah, I think that about covers it. It fuels this sort of suspicion or conspiracy theory. I almost hesitate to say this because I don't want to traffic and misinformation, and I know this isn't the case, but I've had friends in Washington who have expressed to me and being baffled by the severity of the directive, have expressed to me this sense that they feel that their state has a, they feel as though it has a sort of uneasy relationship with its hunters and anglers

anyways. And it sort of feels, fuels this little bit of paranoia that it's not as supportive, you know, that it's not supportive in some way. But again, I shouldn't say that because I don't know the full story there, but it does feel really like there's a sort of a lack of nuance in how it's being pushed forward. I know that yesterday in Michigan, for instance, they've been seeing with so many people home from work and school, they've been seeing an explosion in visitation at certain fishing access sites and recreation areas to the point that they have taken to closing some because people are going to these fishing spots, like I mentioned, like one like Tippy Dam where we used to fish steelhead and walleye,

going to some of these fishing spots and not able to practice responsible social distancing at the fishing spots and they've had to close it down because people are too crowded i was talking to a a firefighter here in our own town and they closed one of the local ski hills but you could still go there you know the the oftentimes ski hills around public land around they're on national forest land. So in the summertime, you can go wander around up there. Uh, they close the lifts, like close the lodge,

vending services, all that, and shut it down. But you can still just go up there and sled or ski on the hill. And they had put around some like guidelines about how to handle this and that you'd go up and like skin up, ski down, don't linger. And that somehow turned into 150 people having a party on the balcony of the lodge.

And so then they're forced to come in and consider how much are people able to just be smart and how much you need to come in and institute a nanny state because people are have a hard time understanding sort of the spirit of what's trying to be accomplished nebraska suspended new sales of non-resident turkey licenses so if you already hold a spring turkey license in Nebraska and you're a non-resident you can go hunt but I believe as of yesterday or the day before so as of like March 31 or 30 or something in there they weren't selling any more non-resident turkey licenses Washington shut down resident and non-resident,

canceled some of the early bear hunts. Is that correct? That's correct. What are some other examples you guys are seeing here? Well, I just, a buddy of mine who's one of the very accomplished, awesome anglers

at the Bighorn Angler down there in Fort Smith, Montana, just, uh, took a picture of some concrete barricades at Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks boat ramps there on the, on the Bighorn. No. Seriously. As we, as we're talking um so i imagine we're gonna hear some news on that here pretty quick the here's the here's the thing that's been irking me and it came to light again yesterday when i was looking at the ne executive order. Um, and everybody who's listening to this,

follow the link and read the actual executive orders for all of this stuff, because it is just too easy to sensationalize these orders, uh, in whatever media. Um um there's a lot of passion involved but the in the list of executive orders for the state of nebraska there is also an executive order to allow drive up mixed drinks and how we can determine the drive up mixed drinks is a stronger benefit to the health of the population of Nebraska

than running around hunting turkeys. I mean, we're talking about non-residents right but it's like if we're gonna lay this thing on health let's get real healthy and i apologize to the business owners on this i used to sling a lot of drinks down at red's bar in missoula montana i believe they're doing mixed drink cocktails to go now too so yeah so so if you go to our website they got you'll find a banner this covid19 changes the hunting and fishing regulations and it's kind of like it's it's amazing to look at what the sort of i'd love to understand it better the different approaches uh yeah new jersey like did we talk about new jersey's trout season

ahead of schedule. In Wyoming, if you want to register a black bear baiting site, you're supposed to be able to go in tomorrow and start registering it. You normally would go into an office, a fishing game office, to register your bait site. They're trying to work out a way to some new procedures that they'll, they'll delay by two weeks, some new procedures where you can register your sites online and not have to come into an office.

Yeah. I believe state of Idaho, um, you know, same deal. You gotta, you gotta have a permit for your bait. Um,

they had it set up. I feel like earlier this week or end of last week where it was, you had to set an appointment, um, to come in and, and do that. I would assume they're going to switch to online. Um, you know, the, I, the point, like, I'm sure we're going to get into a lot of this, but I don't like any angler outdoors person can have the mindset that this isn't going to happen because it's, it hasn't happened yet. Uh, just like we self police for poachers pretty darn well. And people who throw trash out, like we we gotta self-police for

social distancing and if that means going to the next fishing access site down the road because the one that you want to go to is too too crowded you better move on down the road because you know it's these examples these bad examples that are setting the precedent for the entire state um it's a it's a tough i mean it's a really tough spot for our community because you have people who, just by the fact of what they're engaged in, just people who don't do well being cooped up and confined. And when you look at being outdoors is this place where you can kind of find some space for yourself right and just get away from it all and then people start

pointing out ways in which um it's not safe because the overcrowding it just gets like it gets intimidating and you want to be a good player, right. And, and be supportive. And like I said, we got, had a quarantine to travel quarantine, um,

and, and have just stuck our immediate family has spent the last two weeks engaging with no one besides me and my wife and our three kids. So you're a good player, but then you look at some of this stuff and it winds up being, yeah, there's aspects of this that drive it home for everybody. And there's a risk here of sounding callous. There's immense amounts of suffering happening. People are dying.

People are losing family members. And I'm not losing sight of that. But as we stated in the past around political conversations and otherwise, we try to, in this show, stick to the ways in which world events and political events and national events impact a segment of our existence. And this segment of our existence we're talking about here is hunting and fishing and other outdoor activities. So that's why our focus is there rather than talking about, you know, lack of ventilators that a state might be experiencing or overcrowding in hospitals. Like that stuff's real and that's what's going on and that's the news you can get. But we're trying, you know, we have an admittedly limited focus. South Carolina. Go ahead.

Is it too early? I'm just saying like the tie-in for like conservation-minded folks is like we're dealing with people on a population level, not you as an individual. And it's going to be unfair for all of us at certain times because we're, what's happening, whether you want to believe it or not, in some cases is we're, we're talking about people as a, as one giant entity, not you as an individual who, um, you know, has all your turkey hunting stuff ready to go. And, um, your governor says you can't go turkey hunting, you know, it's, it sucks. I hate it, but man, you got to find some, some ways, some positive ways to focus that

energy. Yeah. I had been personally, I had been for nine months planning a trip up to an area called the High Line, which is some of the lowest human population densities that can be found in the lower 48. And just kind of a couple of days ago, realized it wasn't going to happen, but officially pulled the plug on it this morning. And I could load my truck up and my camping gear up and my kids up here with food that we already have in the house, grab a box of latex gloves and do nothing but pump gas with a latex glove on and be up there camping, but just something about the fact that it's a four or five hour drive

made it feel like I was sort of not within the spirit of, that I was not within the spirit of what it is we're trying to accomplish here. I think you're spot on. But then you can think about it. It's like, I will have interaction with no one. I'll buy a tank of gas. I'll drive up there. Yeah, you'll put the effort into having interaction with no one as well.

Oh, but I think, no, I think the reason not to do that, though, is that as limited as the risk is, and the risk might be higher that someone's going to get hurt just throwing snowballs at each other at your house or get cut with a knife, but just getting on the road and traveling that far away from your house and getting away from your community, like you're just sort of opening yourself up to a little bit more unknown,

and that unknown could turn into something bad. And then, you know, you could be stressing the system that we're trying not to stress right now. Yeah, no, I got it. 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 our northern brothers. You're irritated.

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if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. South Carolina, all the lottery hunts on the WMAs have been canceled. North Carolina, some state parks, and then boat launches and game lands on some state parks close to public access. National parks are shutting down. Arches and Canyonland National Parks close until further notice. Glacier National Park closed until further notice.

You know, this makes me think of as something that a really interesting experience that happened to me and my brother years ago is we had a horrible fire season. This is 20 years ago, maybe. We had this horrible fire season and there were huge areas of, big areas of national forest that had been shut down and you couldn't get into them. And they had been shut down

and you couldn't get into them. They had been closed for in some cases they'd been closed for upwards of a month, weeks or a month. The closures on these national forests extended into archery elk season. We were

actually heard some rumors that they might be removing some of the barriers and open some of these things back up. And we'd sort of driven down to hunt on spec based on rumors we heard. And we were driving up a, we were driving up a access road to a chunk of national forest and actually shot the shit with the the uh forest ranger who's taken down the barricade like we're the first truck through as he's opening up this thing they've been open forever and i'm not i'm not joking man this is a place we had

hunted pretty heavily i'm not joking we got to the There's a big meadow at the trailhead. There's a big meadow there where guys will put up hot wire lines to corral their horses and stuff when they're packing in. There's elk in the trailhead. Right? So you imagine the impact of

Glacier National Park being closed. And you imagine the impact of Glacier National Park being closed. And you imagine the impact of some of these stretches of river and stuff that just wouldn't get hit. And maybe these are places that just get fished 365 days a year. And what that's going to look like later if all of a sudden, let's say, stuff stays closed, what it would be to have it closed for a month and then get back in there.

Down the line, just like some more interesting stuff, is that, yeah, West Virginia, suspended fishing license. Blows my mind. Fishing open to the public with or without license.

You still got to follow bag limits. Michigan suspends all charter fishing and guide operations. At least until April 13th. I got a buddy here who's a guide not close here in Montana. All of his trips are canceled. I got a buddy here who's a guide not close here in Montana, and all of his trips are canceled. He's scraping up odd jobs, painting houses, doing yard work for people right now.

Just immediately felt the crush. Oh, yeah, man. In Oregon, as of midnight, Columbia River closed to all salmon and steelhead fishing. They did it to maintain solidarity with the state of Washington as two states shared this fishery. So you picture there, right? You can't

fish in Washington, but you just go over the bridge, whatever, buy an Oregon license and start fishing the same river. Maine's closing state parks, certain state parks. Washington, you can't pick clams either, so they're not just picking on rod and reel fishermen.

Yellowstone closed. Grand Teton National Park closed. Missouri suspended all fishing license requirements so missouri is pretty funny the fine print says you have to be in good standing with the missouri department of conservation as in if you have a previously revoked fishing license that's great you can't you can't legally fish even when nobody has a fishing license so if your privileges are suspended you're like that's really interesting i love it when people think of their good stuff where some guy's like yeah but what about people who aren't supposed to buy a license can they fish and someone's like

yeah good catch let's write that in. Can you imagine being the conservation officer trying to track those folks down? Yeah, you see some dude that you know. It's like, dude, you can't fish. He's like, what? There's no license requirement right now. I know I can't buy a license, but I don't need it right now. Wisconsin.

Here's interesting. Wisconsin waives all fees for state parks and trails. Though the state is under a shelter-in-place order, the order recognizes outdoor activity is essential. So come one, come all. No fees at state parks. Florida, all state parks are closed. Oregon, all state parks are closed. Oregon, all state parks closed.

So I wonder if, I'm sure this has to play in somehow. It's like the impact of people on those individual park systems, right? It's like we've all seen, I haven't been in Yellowstone in years, but so many pictures and so many stories at Yellowstone, people are so packed in around everything and wildlife spottings and bear jams and all that stuff. And maybe some of these state parks, like they just don't have that many visitors or don't have a density of visitors in some of these areas and that's why they they get to stay

open the um well you know like florida that's a crowded ass place with a lot of boats you know how florida like we're talking earlier that washington says okay, no fishing. In Florida, the governor issued an executive order requiring all recreational boats to remain at least 50 feet apart. Wow. So there you're sort of, in that case, you're sort of trying to work with people, but you're also putting, you're also giving people a lot of room to screw up or not.

You're treating people like grownups. And they don't always do well. They don't. I mean, when they get treated like grownups, unfortunately, but I love it. It's a great. I love it. I mean, if it works, it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's opening up, it's opening up to give people some, uh, room to still operate and, and, and, and try to find some

mental health, um, while still following through on the objectives of the state to keep people apart. Yeah, it's just so like, you know, working outside Glacier National Park for a long time, the park is there and it's beautiful and awesome, but you get to see firsthand how reliant people are on the services provided by the National Park Service or provided by the vendors approved by the National Park Service. Give me an example there. What do you mean? Trash cans. Okay. Like, you're staring at this unbelievable mountain range up on McDonald Pass going to the Sun Road,

and it is absolutely breathtaking, gorgeous, and there's mountain goats and stuff like that. And then you drop your gaze a little bit and instead of people seeing a very full trash can and being like oh i better do something else responsible with my trash my refuse like hang on to it a little bit longer until we find an empty trash can, uh, down the road, maybe, or down the sidewalk, they just chuck it there next to the gas can or gas, or sorry, to the trash can or pile it up on top and the wind blows it and takes it away. And it's like, I just see like, people are so reliant on those services, clean bathrooms, you know, all this infrastructure that has to be potentially in harm's way to provide those services that are weighing in on this to the governor, and they're like, you know, we don't have problems with people here,

so we'd like to remain open. I wonder if they're making a decision. Or if it's like, you know, we are so understaffed and so under budget under the best of circumstances here because the crowds that show up behave like such pigs that uh we'd prefer to close it's funny you mentioned the garbage thing because like in raising kids we try really hard to make them aware of that kind of thing you know like how you handle your personal refuse and that when we eat in a restaurant we make them get down on the ground and

clean up and to police their area around their plane seat before they get off the plane and not just be that ah someone will get it like i make them get down and crawl around under the table at restaurants i love that picking their mess up dude because if you don't pound it into them now though it's like they'll never get it it's so funny you bring that up like the overflowed trash can and people are like i can't just throw it on the ground i'll set it on there and my piece of trash will displace some other piece of trash that will land on the ground, but no one can say I didn't try. Yeah, man. I'm probably just complaining for the sake of complaining, lamenting.

But, man, I've been thinking about that a lot for some reason. I mean, are we bringing some of these closures upon ourselves because as a group we have been behaving so poorly in some of these places? Hey, did we hit that? Yeah, we already hit New Jersey 10 days ahead of scheduled trout season. Trout are going to be feeling the pressure.

Cal, tell everybody about, well, first off, let me start with this. Oh, you know what I want to tell you guys about real quick? A little update, non-COVID update. After 11 months of waiting, 11 months of incubation, I got suppressors my silencers so i had two silencers suppressors it's funny because everybody used to call them silencers but it's like you know how you have the death tax and the estate tax and it's the same thing and the word you use depends on your viewpoint about said tax uh if you support the tax you're like let's call it an estate tax because that makes it seem like

you're just hitting rich people and that's cool and then dudes with enough assets that they're going to be hit by such a tax called a death tax because that makes it seem like well dude you can't tax a man upon his death that's not fair so you use different words to sell your viewpoint what had historically been silencers um which is a miss i'll admit is a misnomer um silencer doesn't make your gun silenced uh it suppresses the sound you still have the the sonic crack. If you're using most ammunitions, it's faster than the speed of sound, so you still have a sonic crack, a loud noise.

Either way, suppressors. That's what you're supposed to call them. A year ago, I got two suppressors, a.22 caliber in the parlance. You'd say a can. I got a.22 caliber can and a. 30 cal can um but you can't bring them home with you like you can go down to the to the you can go down to the sporting store you can go to walmart right and buy a rifle and take it home with you but if you want a device to make it not so damn loud you have to get a special at atf permit for it um and you go down to like a ffl

and they receive your cans they receive your suppressors and then you fill out all these forms and you send it off and apparently i don't know if it's just i don't know what it is the story goes that the atf is so backlogged in suppressor forms that it's taking them that long to do their end of the deal and get your form back. So I dropped off my two suppressors and waited 11 months. Then all of a sudden I get a call from the sporting goods store that I can come down and take possession of my suppressors. There's a lot of countries in Europe where it's super hard to get a gun, but you can go down to the equivalent of your local Walmart and buy yourself a suppressor.

So it's just like they can't believe, some people can't believe that in America, like I can't believe you can hunt with one of those. And then I remember talking to a guy in Scotland and him saying to me, I can't believe you can hunt without a suppressor. So I haven't done any hunting with mine yet, but I now am the proud owner of two suppressors, which Yanni in your situation of gunshots downtown,

when trying to scare off looters or trying to scare off burglars, you could have had a, uh, probably a much more intimidating sound. Were they aware that you were up there with a suppressor shooting warning shots. That'd scare me more. I'd be more scared because I'd have a different vision of who it was that was wielding the firearm.

I'd be more like, huh, this isn't going to work out well for me. I can't wait until the day that we can just, when you buy a rifle, you can just buy the suppressor with it. I'm going to have it on all of my guns. It's funny because let's say guns, like the people that resist it, and I understand the arguments against it. There's an argument against it that it makes the, that you could commit a crime without that as loud of that telltale crack,

and burglars, murderers, what have you, are going to be less inclined to shoot because the gun's damn loud. It'll alert people to the... That's a reasonable argument. Then there's the reasonable argument that poachers will be emboldened because there's not that telltale gunshot off in the night that a game warden might hear.

And in fact, we were talking to a game warden in Missouri one time, and he was saying he personally didn't like suppressors because he gets a lot of work done based off toward dusk. There's that one rifle shot off in the distance. And he's like, huh, something about that seems fishy. And he heads over there to investigate. And he was saying without the report, he feels that his ability to do his job would be compromised. So there are those arguments. But I wonder, let's say that for whatever

reason guns just weren't loud right that somehow the mechanics of a of a gun going off wasn't loud would there be people pushing for regulations that you need to put a thing on your gun to make it louder no probably not so the fact that someone might want their gun to not be so loud seems to make it louder? No. Probably not. So the fact that someone might want their gun to not be so loud seems reasonable. If we could achieve it with different powders, somehow some scientist developed a gun powder that just, for whatever reason, I don't understand the mechanics of it,

made it so it just didn't stay damn loud when it went off and people started using it, would they be bummed out? Would they say, no, no, no, no, no. You got to stick with the super noisy gunpowder. It's interesting. It's like a good game. That when they're like, hey, I noticed that when you shoot your musket, there's not a blinding cloud of smoke.

What you got there? That's called smoke powder that some regulator would be like you know I want you guys to go back to the real smoky guy I liked it better when you couldn't see shit after you shot I had a fella right in the other day he was kind of getting spicy with me because he was wondering why i hadn't brought up talked about the the fact that uh everybody should have suppressors and stuff on your on your on your conservation show yeah and i'm just like how i don't have one i don't even apply for big game tags that set me up for that much disappointment of waiting for 11 months um you know i'm like when it becomes easier i'll have

one but right now i'm like i just got i don't like uh filling out forms that set me up for a lot of waiting so oh to be honest with you I did it as much as just because I wanted to explore the process as anything else. It was a learning experience. Oh, yeah, man, because you hear so much complaining. I mean, I'm here like I haven't even tried because I've talked to so many people that have complained so much about it. I'm like, man, that doesn't seem like it's worth my time. So there's an ill-fated bill out there called the Hearing Protection Act. that have complained so much about it. I'm like, man, that doesn't seem like it's worth my time. There's an ill-fated bill out there called the Hearing Protection Act.

And that's like a name for an act where you'd be like, well, who the hell could argue against that? But it would remove a lot of the red tape and it would remove a lot of the red tape around suppressors. Another thing I want to touch on, everyone knows me and Giannis are running for president, which is going

pretty well. Ranella Patel is 2020. When we launched our campaign, there was the issue of where we stand on campaign finance reform. We had always said that our campaign finances were reformed

because you know how you can go and buy a MAGA hat? You can buy a Make America Great Again hat. I saw recently that you could enter a drawing to win a MAGA hat signed by President Trump, right? And they sell the MAGA hats, and it raises money for Trump's re-election bid. I don't know if you can buy a Biden hat. I haven't seen anybody running around. I haven't know if you can buy a Biden hat. I haven't seen anybody running around. I haven't seen one guy yet wearing a Biden hat. But let's just assume maybe you can buy yourself a Biden hat.

What that money does is it goes to support the campaign. But Ranella Patel's 2020 is different because when you buy our stickers, hats, t-shirts, yard signs, what have you, we take all the profits from those sales and don't line, don't use it to stock our own campaign coffers, but we use it to plow our profits into our land access initiative. And Cal, tell them all about it. All right. So the Ranella Putellas 2020 campaign merchandise,

any purchase of that merchandise, the profits from those sales will go into our land access initiative fund. That fund will be utilized when we can find that opportunity that fulfills the campaign promise, which is giving you, us, we, all more or better access to hunting and fishing. So if you know of a property or a landowner or an area that could benefit from let's say an easement or a boat ramp or a trail or something that accomplishes this goal then let us know. And you can do that by going to the Rinella Putellas 2020 website and filling out a very simple form.

And, yeah, hopefully we can keep this thing going. So that's the program, but we're all real excited about it, and we've got a bunch of submissions already. What kind of submissions are coming in? Well, because of the design of the form, we have, you know, it gets to be pretty pointed. You know, we're asking for um a pretty pretty good details of of the piece or pieces uh that that folks are submitting so um you can't just write in and say

boy i'd really like to get to this place and i can't right now. You have to write in and say, hey, here's the name of this landowner. This is that they would be amicable to talking about an easement or this property is for sale or this property will be coming up for sale and it backs up to those types of situations. We need a hot lead is what you're saying. We need a hot lead.

Yeah. And because of the nature of this and what everybody else deals with too is I can't really be like, well, this one particular property that's up for sale right now is just a real gem. one particular property that's up for sale right now is just a real gem and if we were to get a hold of it we'd provide access to 20 000 acres for the low low price of because i don't want some uh you know real self-centered son of a gun to be like oh to move in there and scoop you scoop all of us steve scoop all of us yeah got it Scoop all of us. Yeah. Got it. So the way to support the land access initiative, go again. If you go to themeateater.com, themeateater.com, all one word, go there.

In addition to COVID-19 changes, the hunting and fishing regulations, which includes park access and all that kind of stuff we've been talking about. You can go there and find our Ronella Putellas 2020 thing support us better hunting and fishing for america sports campaign sorry for the interruption steve but it's under the conservation tab if you click on that then and and then there's a drop down menu and the bottom uh option is land access initiative. And that'll take you to the page where you can, all your answers about what we're talking about will be answered. Sorry, all your questions will be answered. Yeah. Polling really well across the country.

Better hunting and access, or better hunting and fishing for America with our land access initiative. Oh, you know, one last thing I want to talk about, and I just want to make sure Yanni's got a chance to chime in. He's got a guy pointed out that all the talk we used to have about the Michigan hello, which is the practice. It's a national practice of giving people the bird. I gave you guys one today when I signed on.

As a way of saying, what's up? You flip someone off. They were talking about This guy wrote in saying that's a very zeitgeisty way to say hi because it eliminates contact.

When you say hi by shaking someone's hand, you're exchanging a massive amount of germs. But when you give them the Michigan hello, there's no exchange of germs. And it's also a two-fold message. You're saying hello, but there's also a little bit of a don't come near me mixed in. So when I see you and I throw you the bird,

I'm saying like, like hello keep your distance yeah you're eliminating the confusion of all those extra fingers in the air of a traditional high exactly or a wave yeah so this guy was saying that the michigan hello is really like a thing that we should all be paying attention to and using right now and i've been upping my usage considerably yanni what else you got have you taught your kids about what the middle finger means yeah well i didn't tell them like they know that they're not supposed to do it and then if one of them they know you're not supposed to do it they don't i didn't like put it i didn't verbalize it they know it's an insult and they know to watch each other, and if they catch one another inadvertently with their middle finger out

for whatever reason, like for whatever, they're holding their cup in such a way that makes their middle finger appear to be out, they will then tattletale on that person for putting their middle finger up. They feel that it's like, regardless of intent, regardless of scenario, keep your middle finger in line with its neighbors. Got it. Sorry, what were you going to ask me?

Just if you got any final things. I miss you so damn bad, Giannis. This almost brings a tear to my eye, man. This is the longest we've... Many years, this is the most we've been apart. Oh. Has to be. Here's something that comes to mind, man.

We have some neighbors that simply just can't seem to live without deliveries every day. And I feel bad for the FedEx and UPS folks that have to come to people's houses and possibly come in contact with people for bullshit that they probably don't need.

Limit your buying. You don't need nothing right now but but but let me let me counter that for a minute because um you might want to ask these people if they want to continue if they like having their job right now and that we want to continue some economic activity in this country um and if we determine that there are certain ways in which there can be some economic engagement that minimizes risk sure if i don't know i don't know that i want to tell the guy from fedex or a guy from ups that uh it's too bad you're working

and that you should be like people that work in restaurants who have no income right now. Yeah, no, I just feel only – I only feel bad for him if he's thinking like, man, I'm getting put into a situation I don't want to be in because of what's going on. Yeah, for sure. But on a lighter – be in because of what's going on. Yeah, for sure. I hope that they have some practices

they do to you know, they have some practices they're able to use to stay as safe as possible. Sure. Hopefully they're heating them. Hopefully everybody's heating them. But on a lighter note, you know, we did the other

night, I don't know. Oh, it was from butcher box. I had like, uh, maybe 40 chicken wings in my freezer, you know, cause everybody's been finding these little gems in their freezers, uh, during these times when everybody's got more time to go digging around. And I happen to have 40 chicken wings. My girls are six and eight, and they had no idea what a chicken wing was. And so I made barbecue sauce, I made teriyaki sauce, and then a classic just hot sauce and butter,

spicy chicken wing. You made three sauces just for your family? Well, the barbecue sauce was already in the in the fridge so that's still ambitious that's ambitious but uh man i tell you we had such a fun evening of uh frying and eating chicken wings and talking through the whole chicken wing thing i had to tell them about how there's whole restaurants out there that we'll go to when hopefully the world goes back to normal where all you can eat is chicken wings and uh they're really blown away and we had a nice fun evening uh with chicken

wings so uh next time you go grocery shopping see if costco's probably got a giant bag of frozen wings you can get did you try to tackle buffalo wings buffalo did you throw that term at him? No, I did not. I did not. I should have. If you've got kids, I think it's helpful right now to imagine how you're approaching

this whole thing with them. We kind of went to a... Two weeks ago, we had to go to a um information on a need to know basis with our kids because we started to feel that it was getting a little it was getting a little much and a little chaotic um i'm not one i'm not inclined to i don't like to sugarcoat stuff for my kids my kids understand um you know we talk very openly about sex and drugs and rock and roll you know as much as we can around home like we don't have a lot of we don't create a lot of blind spots for them but it's it's i'm trying we're trying to try to you know have this be not the least not traumatic um a lot of big changes and a lot of things going on we try to keep pretty positive spin on it i think that one good way to help do

that is just around evening meal time we've been been working, um, cooking together a lot. I had the kids last night make, uh, they did everything to make venison meatballs, you know, like from taking bread, putting the food processor, making the breadcrumbs.

They did the whole process. So we've been doing a lot of that, just some good education there. And, uh, so I think if you got kids, try hard to try hard to, to take advantage in, in the best way possible to take advantage of the situation and maybe do some things you don't normally have time to do with your youngsters.

And hopefully they'll not come out of this any more scarred than they need to be from being removed from their friends and their schools for so long. Yeah, it's overwhelming for them too. I think we roughly did that at the same time because I had mentioned to you that we had quit listening to the morning news while everybody was having breakfast because the kids were just having too many sort of scary thoughts and asking questions about their elders and the longevity of their elders' lives, et cetera. That's funny because that's where we wound up getting hung up. We wound up getting hung up on grandmas and grandpas. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's worth mentioning, too, that the whole reason that you're kind of beat by the COVID and you're forced to do this podcast is because we're taking it seriously, this whole social distancing thing. And, you know, locked up in our houses and trying to, you know, be doing our civic duty to hopefully help this thing get better soon. And hopefully everybody else is taking it as seriously. Yeah. I'll tell you, um, you know, when you guys first got back to Mexico and, and, uh, I brought over a grocery run for you guys, uh, and guys and maintaining the social distance. And my little buddy, your youngest, you know, easily eight out of 10 times I come to your house, I'd, you know, pick the little guy up and give him a big hug and having to stop him short and the three of us yelling at him not to come any closer like wait wait wait wait wait yeah what a horrible i mean damn near cried on the way home like that is just

it's terrible so i i really do feel for you parents out there because i'm sickeningly independent and selfish over here in my garage. Yeah, it's hard on everybody, man. I really can't even tell you. I think that if it was happening for natural reasons, like if I was just up at my fish shack for a couple of weeks with my family, I wouldn't be like, man, do I miss my friends? But just knowing that you can't carry on the way you carry on and that I, you know, not able to hang out with you guys. It's like, yeah, it's like it's it's it's hurtful. It's it's hurt.

I don't like it. I miss everybody. When this is over, I think we'll all probably look at each other differently. But, yeah, we're going to wrap it up for now and take care of your family, take care of your friends, take care of your community, take care of your country, kind of in that order. Be respectful when you get outside, but get outside. Yeah.

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