The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 218: The World's Best Small Game Hunter Conquers Mongolia

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Kevin Murphy, Phil Taylor, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: The wild swings of rabbit populations; a hunting station wagon brought back from the dead; a dog named Wings&Things; wanderlust; an epic hunting trip to Mongolia; how your shit needs to be in shape to hunt snowshoe hares; the last remaining eagle hunters in the world; an owl, three golden eagles, two ravens, five Mongolians, and two Americans on horseback trying to catch a critter; how harness boots aren't worth a damn for climbing around; if you want to stack up a lot of game animals, you don't want to be a falconer; the crack of the ass cushioning the rest of it; abusing one’s scrotum; all for a chunk of tungsten; from city junk bond seller to swamp rabbit hunter; recruiting newbies; 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 OnX. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Murphy. My favorite guy in the world. One of them. Definitely better than Yanni because two reasons. I just genuinely

like him and two, he makes my job easy. I don't need to drag out. I don't need to like wrestle out thoughts out of him. He's just got thoughts. So here he is, Kevin Murphy. So glad to see you. Like, yeah, kind of, because we got, I got,

I got to look at you through a computer, man, which is not my preferred way of doing this. You know, I'm the same way and good seeing you guys. And, you know, it's kind of strange. Just like a week before you called me up and said, hey, you want to do a remote podcast? I had told myself I had had some bad experiences over the telephone interviews and doing some things that I would never do a remote podcast over the telephone. I had told myself, but I am eating the words now because you guys are just like family with me.

So I have no problem at all sitting here and talking to you guys. It's just like y'all were in the room with me. So, yeah, I agree. Generally I would stick with your, uh, I would stick with that, but everything's, you know, a lot of exceptions going on right now. And on a one to 10, Kevin, how, how bummed out are you about how we weren't able to pull off our squirrel and rabbit trip in March? Oh, I was bummed out, but you know, Yanny said, Hey, we're going to, yeah, it's a 10. Cause I was up there pre-tuning and ready to go. And I bought my damn yearly license too.

So you may get a bill for that. Yeah. So I was, I didn't do the regular five-day or seven-day whatever, so I went ahead, and I was going to go back up there, but I decided not to. But we had a really good time. My seventh trip to Barren Springs over the last eight years, shot a little footage, saw all my amigos up there doing a hey you to all the people around Barren Springs, and enjoy you very much,

and look forward to coming back next year. So I love going to southern michigan i really do uh very nice people up there just like home folk uh dog lovers uh good stout rabbit population and have a good time every year and you can't hunt in kentucky and bart so it's uh kind of the tip of the spear as far as the end of the hunt season and then you get to start all over again. Good. Have you ever seen it? I got a, I got a rabbit.

Cause we're right now, we were going to, before we plan that trip, we were going to have Kevin come out to Montana and hunt some small game, but the rabbit numbers have been so low. And this is going, this is going on probably three, four years.

No, I don't think they've been really good, like really, really good since 2008. Really good. So 12 years. Since they've been like where you feel like something bad is going to happen or so many rabbits. Yeah. Now, Kevin, have you ever seen like just numbers really low where you've hunted your days? You know, I've only been a rabbit, a real top-notch rabbit hunter in the last, since about 2011 when I retired. And I see those cycles, you know, there's a lot of things that can happen. You can have a wet summertime, wet wet spring and then a lot of the offspring die off sometimes some parasites and disease come

through and wipe them out now with the squirrel population crop it's a food food driving thing there we had some late frost here the last couple of weeks i'm a little bit concerned about some of our acorn trees that kills the uh caspians on those on tree limbs, so it could cut our food back. But rabbits, like I said, usually moisture, I think, is more of a thing that drives those guys up and low that affects them when they're in the nest. Drowns little baby rabbits out. Y'all have cottontails up there, so they're born... Western, yeah, western cottontail. Yeah, they're born naked with their eyes closed, so they don't have much to protect them from Mother Nature, the elements.

So I'd say that's one thing. But habitat is the big issue around here. We had a wet spring and a wet summer last year, so it knocked our population down quite a bit. I talked to quite a few rabbit hunters, and they said they were having difficulty finding rabbits and we've killed some really small rabbits towards the end of february or our season goes out the 10th so the last week we killed some rabbits that were really small and they'll cycle all year long you know try to raise offspring if the winter

is not too too bad hey yanni what year was that that we were down in wyoming hunting antelope that was ridiculous monser rabbits yeah i was just trying to remember what year that was um because that was like as good as it gets yeah that was probably like 2013 ish okay we we put in some miles hunting turkeys this weekend saw one cottontail normally in that neck of the woods there'd be a lot of them but uh yeah it's been dismal so then we we were gonna hunt here with we're gonna hunt montana with kevin then we're gonna hunt michigan and we got we got derailed by the the pandemic and kevin yanni was saying you had some what's your take on this whole pandemic situation man you know this is going to be my 36th year of germ warfare and uh explain that

i'm a water wastewater guy uh degree in environmental geology background work started out working the health department 1985 of being an environmentalist going around doing different lots of different things testing water making rat poison a couple tons one day uh tell me real quick real quick uh give me the basic recipe on making a ton of rat poison you know i was just throwing whatever they told me to do because i was brand new. I didn't know what I was handling, whatever. But we had a little concrete mixer, throwing stuff in there and bagging it up and stapling

and giving away for free. No gravy clinics. And then I worked at a power plant for a while and they put me over in the water department and made sure that we were sucking out river water make sure that was chlorine was at a residual high enough to kill back all the pathogens in it and then I transferred over to the wastewater plant in 1989 and I spent from 89 to 2003 no till 2011 working my way up to the top of the totem pole on the wastewater system and uh being environmentalist and making clean water every day so uh back in the so your

so your your credential to your credential to at least have an opinion yeah i think so i mean you know i was permitted i'm a class four operator. I can operate any plant in the United States. I'm qualified to do that. I do yearly CEUs and I've passed the exams to do that. People can work under me. I knew early on in my career as I worked my way up with Nashville is only two hours away. Within two hours, anything in the world could be, I could be face-to-face beating a person or it could be in the sewer system, and the sewer system is very hostile to some pathogens, and it's very inviting for others, so I grew up in the heyday of hepatitis C, AIDS, not knowing a whole lot about it,

Ebola outbreaks, and I started reading books and journals and trying to protect myself. I would go and have to pull samples at the local hospitals to make sure that they weren't dropping anything into the sewer system that they weren't supposed to be like, you know, broken mercury thermometers or blood pressure machines or acetones from the lab, all that debris. So I'd have to go out there, open up a manhole, and I'm right there in the front line of everybody in the whole Area 6. So I knew that I could

personally be engaged in it. My guys could be face-to-face with it, or I could bring it home to my family. So I started reading some different books about pathogens, Ebola, mad cow disease. I just found it intriguing it was kind of a way to let my mind drift away from work but at the same time learn something about work and I read a book and I got out the other day looking at it. It was on the Spanish flu of 1918 called the great influenza. And by coincidence, I came by Fort Riley, Texas or Kansas back in December. I was with Zach from CZ and his wife. She's an environmental engineer for Kansas Light Empire. And as we drove by the military base, I says, I am pretty sure that is where the Spanish flu started, the epidemic.

And that's where it was first recognized. And it swept the world, just killing millions upon millions of people. And I said, it was, you know, very intriguing. I grew up in a small community. When I was a kid, there was three sets of orphans, all about the same age, 40 to, they was probably 50 years old, somewhere in that time frame. I don't know a single orphan from then or from now. But after I read that book in 2005, I did a timeline, and their parents evidently died from the Spanish flu.

And that's what the Spanish flu, it concentrated on people of childbearing ages and you know probably the book said like 50 million people you know died worldwide so many people died in india they don't have any any idea what happened they try to compare that's amazing because this is the this is the thing that people draw you know this current situation is when people are looking for a parallel, that they reach for that. Yes, they do. And I don't see it based on my experience in reading the books. And they want to compare St. Louis to Philadelphia. And I went back and read some of the book.

You know, St. Louis is right above the river system from us, a combined sewer system. Waste goes out to the river to dispose of. They had some really sharp dudes in St. Louis. And then Philadelphia, a wartime city, people jammed together, households of maybe 15 to 20 using an outdoor privy. So they were constantly in contact with each other. So I asked some of the engineers at work, I said, I want to see somebody do a comparison between Philadelphia sewer system

and the St. Louis and the population and all that to see how it compares. But, you know, from what I read in the book, and the guy's name was Barry, he wrote that book and he wrote another one on rising tides about the great floods along the Mississippi River. So he's a very good historic author that takes his research very seriously. So I don't see it from what I see, from the numbers that I crank out. It is a flu. My mom is 80 years old. She needs to be careful what she does. I have a friend that had a liver transplant. He's 57. He needs to watch what he does. But, you know, we're all one microbe away of being wrecking our system. My former boss, Don Heiss,

he came down with West Nile virus and it wrecked his system. And I talked to the doctor at Vanderbilt University and he says, hey, Kevin says everybody in this mosquito pit, it's West Nile virus. You may feel bad for an hour or two or two or three days. And he said on some rare occasions, I see it wreck somebody's system like your boss. And it just totally, you know, annihilates and paralyzes him from the waist down. And he had to have a trach and he fought through it for four or five or six years and then finally passed away. And a very good person, a very good person in the community, but very health vibrant, you know, for an older guy, rode his bicycle, helped everybody out in the town. But like I said, you know, if I was a germaphobe or whatever, I wouldn't be able to do

the travels that I do and go out and do the things or be even a hunter, you know, knowing that there's viruses out there, rabies, you had trichinosis, I think, you know, you just take that as a human being. We're very resilient on what we can do. We build up an immunity pretty quick and I'm a firm believer, you know, in that. But, you know, when I went to Mongolia, I did take a, I think a diphtheria test. I had my latest tetanus shots and I do believe in vaccines. And if there's something available there, I will study it there. I might not be the first dude that gets a shot but after after a few people take it and look at it uh i will um so yeah i'm a firm believer in the vaccines and i'm a dude too that you know i had the mumps uh the measles chicken

pox uh and then then i i got i went through a line one day at school, and they vaccinated me, and this alien, it come up here on my shoulder and popped out there and grew a bacteria culture for smallpox. So I have been vaccinated for smallpox and have the scar for that, and a lot of the young people have never went through any of that stuff. And, you know, I can remember my mom, all three of us, my sister, Kim, and my brother Kent, we was running ass wild through the house with the monks. And my mom said, Kevin, if you don't settle your ass down,

your nuts is going to shrivel up the size of a marble. That's what happened to Yanni. I don't know if I listened to her or not. I do have two kids, but I do remember her saying that. But, you know, I've been exposed to that, and we've become sterile in America where we won't even hardly drink tap water. You know, you go in the office

and you see a bottle of water, a water machine, and all that, and there's a certain amount that you can get immunity. I've got a good friend that he, his dad's an engineer. They had a plant in Iraq or Iran. He said, man, Murphy, I hate going over there.

When I was a kid, he said I would get dysentery every time I'd go until I built up immunity to it. And he showed me in college he had a bottle of tap water that come out of the municipal system. Hell, it didn't look any better than Barkley Lake. And I just saw him back in February, and I asked him, I said, man, remember that bottle of tap water that you had from Iraq or Iran? And his eyes lit up, and he said, oh, I bet my mom still got that.

I said, that just fascinated me. You know, small things like that fascinate me, that we take for granted in this country that that other places you know they don't they don't have that that that mechanism that makes sure everything is safe as it can be that we just take for granted and um don't utilize you know the resources out there yeah so tell me real quick about uh this hunting station wagon you're working on? Oh, I brought back from the dead yesterday, a American Motors Corporation, 1984 American Eagle, four-door, four-wheel drive station wagon that has not been fired up since 2008.

So 12 years it has not been on the road. I got it jacked up, put some weed eater gas in it, got a young boy out there showing him the way. He's 38. Says he was raised on a farm, but he's scared to death of a handyman jack. So he said, man, you can't pour that weed eater gas in there. I said, yes, I can. So the gas tank was bad, so I just got the fuel line off the fuel pump

and got me a water bottle. Now, I do consume water bottles. It is very convenient a lot of times. And I filled it full of weed eater gas, which was some lubricant in there and stuck it down in there. And we fired it up and she never missed a lick. Jacked it up, took the tires and wheels off of it. And then just let her sit there and idle and spin and lube all the seals and everything up. So I'm going to bring it back to the dead and maybe drive up to Montana and go hunting and let about six or eight beagle hands rolled out the back end. It will be like back in 1984.

So you're saying where you're from, it used to be that you'd have instead of a hunting truck, you had a hunting station wagon. Oh, I can remember that as a kid. And I've been on a mission here the last couple of weeks. I put the feelers out to all my friends and junk people, everybody that I know. So, man, I'm looking for some kind of vintage station wagon everybody says man Murphy when junk got up really high you get two three hundred dollars for a body everybody started crushing shit so I found a big Buick estate wagon over in Livingston County so I drove over there and it had a Pearl Harbor survivors license plate on it and I pulled into this trailer there and I kind of looked at around,

looked like nobody was living there. And I went down the road a couple of miles and found two dudes on the side of the road, talking some farmers and I talked to him about it. So, well, it's so-and-so lives there. So she comes to the door,

she'll have a shotgun. I said, that's the kind of lady I like to deal with all up front. She means business. So I found this American Eagle. It was only like two miles from the house. So I got the local car guy. I'm always dragging in scouts and wagoneers and vintage four wheel drives. So I got him to haul it to the house yesterday. And he was kind of saying, man, yeah, before you spend a bunch of money, I need to fire it up and all that. So I got it

fired up yesterday afternoon and I sent him a picture picture of it and he was as excited as I was that, uh, brought it back from the dead. So, you know, I'll just like projects and doing stuff and get it going and, and bringing the old stuff back. Why,

uh, why was it a station wagon thing back in the day? Is it just because availability? Uh, yes. Cause his family cars, you know, and I was talking to the,

to the, uh, uh, Mark Bailey, the record guy, he says, you know, when I was talking to Mark Bailey, the record guy. He says, you know, when I grew up as a kid, we raised Holstein cows. And so we would buy bottle calves from a guy over in Calloway County. And said he had a station wagon instead of a pickup truck.

He says, you know, a new pickup truck was about $5,000. And he could buy an old used station wagon for $500. He could haul his feed, mineral. He'd call calves in it whatever but yeah it's just kind of availability something cheap there was a lot of station wagons out and uh you know you can't call haul a bunch of kids in a car so it's multi-purpose you know it's like the minivan of the day the station wagon was there's three three of us kids and then my mom and dad and then we put the dog in the back and hell sometimes we just have a sedan and haul the dogs in the in the back of it we didn't have a hunt you know a designated hunting truck like a

like i do now so yeah there's availability and necessity and then you got uh you got this new dog yanni was telling me you named a dog wings and things. It sounds like a restaurant. You know, the dog was pre-named. It took me three months of my best Jedi negotiating to get this dog. It comes from Patrick Flanagan, and it was never about money. It was about being worthy enough to own a really good, outstanding hunting dog. And I wanted something small, and I went with us uh hunting in uh december out in kansas with zach of cz and had my bird dog setter uh dan lieutenant dan out with us and he's a he's a pleasure to hunt he likes to go out make a circle come back in get his head rubbed and i've got

another why do you call that dog lieutenant dan oh it's got a good ring to it you know lieutenant dan he's worthy he wants to serve you and do whatever's necessary now now um and so i we hunted with a sage which was the brother to wings and things and uh we hunted on a saturday on monday the monday before he was neutered so they turned him loose and he out hunted all of our dogs put together was a machine and he went out and he pointed something out the middle of field and i walked up there and i saw something gray and furry the first thing it thought that went through my mind was it was a badger and i needed to protect the dog because i didn't want the badger to tear his foot off you know bite him real real hard so i hollered badger, and then I got to looking at it. He had a coon pointed out there in the field.

So I'm thinking multi-purpose dog. And I asked him, I said, man, is this boy, Patrick Flanagan, from border to border, has he got any dogs left like that? He said, I think he's got three. So I started negotiating in December for the dog and finally ended up getting the dog in March. So she's been a constant companion. What did the negotiation look like? It looked like a lot of being worthy enough to, to own the dog, to, uh, convince me that I was

going to hunt and take care of her because the dog was born on his girlfriend's Lacey's birthday and she named the dog Wings and Things so I had a whole lot to overcome and finally he gave in we had a couple trial runs where the dog was supposed to be delivered I couldn't show up and finally got the dog and after I had the dog for three or four weeks I sat down one day and wrote Patrick a handwritten letter telling him how much I appreciate him letting me have the dog and I could tell what kind of dog that she was a very highly intelligent highly motivated and a very special dog and that there's more to life than money and a good hunting dog to a good person is a good thing that I didn't even have a will i know all my stuff's

going to go to my two kids uh seth and caitlin but i wrote out on a mondagolian uh note uh that if anything happens to me that the dog goes back to to patrick flanagan and had his phone number on it so i put where did you put that note hell i can't find it i don't know where it is but uh like i said i told patrick anything ever happened to me the dog would go back to him and lacey so what sort of questions was patrick asking you in this like interview and process well just kind of you know how much you're gonna hunt what are you gonna do of course they had seen me what the hell does he think what the hell does he think you do has he didn't he look you up yeah he did and he saw and and that probably helped me hunting with you two guys and see that i was a true dog guy so yeah y'all you guys helped

me convince uh them that uh that i was worthy of having a really really good top-notch bird dog he's he's very particular about his his dogs and who they go to it's not you know i think a better question i think a better question would be is he worthy of you having one of his bird dogs oh i think so he's he's a dog man in the clan so i think very much so very much now why didn't you change the name from wings and things like i said it seems like a restaurant you find in you know she's got she's got two uh spots on her that look like a pair of wings get your ass over here oh oh yeah we can see her right here there's two spots kind of hard to see but they look like a pair of wings i think they look like her kidneys are sitting outside of her body yeah yeah yeah she's kind of kind of docile right. But I don't know how they come up with that name, but it's kind of like changing a ship's name,

which you get it. It's bad luck to change a dog's name. She responds. She's a very responsive dog. We just got a dog for our kids. And when the dog came from the pound, they had named it our daughter's name. Okay.

So we didn't want to have two people named Rosie. So we had to change the dog's name. Well, that's certain circumstances. I can understand that. Yeah. Well, and those dogs at the pound, they've only had those names for hours, let alone days. That's what we thought, too, is like the dog, does he know that that's what they named it?

No. It could have been like the horse I bought one time that I made a deal on a horse and then I asked the guy what his name was and he looked at me and then he looked at the horse and said his name was Star. But she had a star on her forehead, so I'm pretty sure that's where it comes from. It didn't have a name until I asked. And over in Mongolia, they don didn't have a name until I asked.

Over in Mongolia, they don't give horses a name over there because they might have to eat them sometimes. Oh, I got you. I want to get to this Mongolia situation, but we've got a couple other things we want to talk to you about. When you're yelling at that dog, what are you going to call it? You can't say wings and things running around in the woods. I just call her wings. That's what I do.

I just call her wings. It's kind of like Butchie Badtoe. i just call her wings you know that's what i do i just i just i just holler wings it's kind of like you know butchy bad toe i just call him you know butchy it's with me and him's out there so uh i shorten it up and a lot of times you just say here and she'll come in come in here so you know when i'm out hunting especially birds and stuff i try to keep the communication down and use a whistle uh because animals they they hear your human sound and they know there's some shit up that you better be looking out, you know? So I try to keep, you know,

sometimes squirrels don't give a damn, you know, and the rabbits all the time. You need to be quiet with them is when they're one circling back around. Other than that, you know, you can talk and carry on. And that's why I love small game hunt so much because you can be out there

with your friends and showing new people what's going on. They don't have to be super silent. You know, just go to the moments where you need to tone it down and be quiet. But 99% of the time, you can talk and bullshit around. Yanni's got a question for you. Well, no, I was just going to say that I feel like that name is fitting because the more I think about wings and things, it's sort of, to me, it means versatile. It means that the dog is, you know, mostly on wings, winged animals, but it also is going to hunt other things. You're very true. That is a very good way to look at it because I

can make this dog pretty sure do anything at all. was i was coming home other night and i had maybe too many gin drinks and i was in the jeep and we were coming down the road you know the long lane and there was a bunch of deer out there so private private road ladies and gentlemen private road that's right i was just across the the uh the field there with my new i'm corrupting some young youth. He's 22, and his name's Connor, and Abby's 21, and they think I'm an old dude. Like I said, they can stay up past 10 o'clock, and I've been over at their house hanging out. Coming home, we were in the little CJ5, my 1965 half cab,

and we saw some deer, so Wings was up on the dash looking at them, so I started chasing them, and she started barking her dash looking at them. So I started chasing them. And she started barking her ass off at them. That's probably not a wise thing to do because the next time I had her out in the field, she went running after some deers. But I had the e-collar on her, so it was no big deal. So, yeah, she could be very versatile, very vocal. I can make a squirrel dog out of her, no problem at all.

But Patrick would beat me to death if I did that. So I can't do that for a while. Maybe raise some puppies some days out of her, but she needs to be a bird dog. You're allowed to breed her? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no conditions other than just to take care of the dog. Okay, before we leave the dog, tell us what breed it is, because I don't think we know that.

She's a half cross between a German short-haired pointer and an English pointer. So a little 32-pound dog. She was the smallest, the run of the litter, little female. So very unique dog. I wanted a small dog, nothing large to take, you know, have to upkeep. I like beagles and small squirrel dogs. So I'm not a big dog guy, a 45-pound dog. She probably weighs a little bit

less than 40 pounds i haven't weighed her lately but i like a small dog with lots of finesse and she certainly meets that that credentials for that hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from 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, 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. All right. What I thought you wanted to ask about, Yanni,

was if you could get out after the turkeys, Kevin. You know, you can make a turkey dog out of it, too. There's no doubt. And I've got a buddy in West Virginia, and that's all he asked me. He said, man, have you had that porters after a turkey? turkey he's a turkey dog hunter and that's on my list to do is go man my kid my kid is fired up about the prospects of fall turkey hunting with a dog yes he thinks that sounds like how a person should spend his time i you know i'm right with him i'm voting with him uh you know during ticks attract come to me like i don't know what some kind of

fur bones or something I generate, but I've already picked out probably like 30 or 40 off of me this year. Already. I hate being out there in the woods this time of year, but Turkey hunting with a dog, anything with a dog or animal. That's, that's what gets me fired up.

You know, Yanni, whatever happened to us applying for like land between the lakes, Turkey tags. Did we give up on that? Yeah, we never did it. hey you know what i just drew kevin check this out just today i drew uh for new mexico i drew a oryx tag okay feral or you know i know i know it's running around new mexico yeah i drew an off-range oryx tag that's good for june hot as hot and then i drew a um i drew a female ibex tag for next february great great that's, uh, you're very lucky. Now, so no, you, you, you haven't done any regular old Turkey hunting this spring.

No, no, not any, not any, no, it just doesn't, you know, after I go through hunting season, I'm usually kind of wore out and stuff and I, it just does not intrigue me. Everybody's trying to get me to go and do that. You know, and I love hearing a big gobbler gobble. And I might go some. I've got a sportsman tag, so I've got a turkey tag and all that. So when everybody gets it out of their system, I might go out there and piddle around and take a gun and mess around some.

But, no, I haven't been turkey hunting whatsoever yet. So I may end up going to get bored or whatever, do a little prospect and see what's going on out in the woods. But I'll give to everybody else first and let them kind of get burnt out. Then I might go into the tail end and mess around a little bit. So I've got no skill as a turkey hunter. I can't stay still. So I'm still, even with my bad knee, moving around too much.

So I leave that for the turkey hunters. So explain, the main thing we wanted to get here and we've been trying to get you on to talk about this quite a while how how you you recently got back from a trip to mongolia how did how'd that come on your radar like i know you got like a lot of wanderlust that's one of the reasons i love you is you got a lot of wanderlust but your wanderlust is usually more targeted toward you know driving around the country chasing small game critters around how did it come to be that you thought that you had to go all the hell over to Mongolia? Well, like you said, I retired 2011. I grew up always wanting to go to Canada, walleye fishing,

or go out west, Kansas, South Dakota, pheasant hunting, and never had the resources to do that. So as I got established and older and then retired, I had some friends that went to Canada, been to Maine a couple times, up in the UP, Drummond Island hunting. Where were you hunting in Drummond Island? Snowshoe hares? Snowshoe hare, grouse, yes.

Yeah, yeah. And those dudes, man, that's a special place right there. A snow shoe hare will run four to six miles up there on that island before you get it. You know, it is something to kill a snow shoe on Drummond. They run and run, and your shit better be in shape, or those hares will run your dogs to death if you're not careful. I've got some buddies from west virginia they've got it figured out i've teamed up there with them and we had an absolutely fabulous

time uh running the the snowshoes up there uh september early october oh really yeah not not in the middle of winter no no you know there's no hunt season that's kind of a pre-tune for them to head north until their season comes in and sometimes it's a little bit warm but we had an outstanding hunt two years ago are the rabbits turned color yet they're still brown they are just starting to turn just a little bit you know their bellies on the underside so yeah i've never seen a true snowshoe you you know, solid white before. My adventures to Michigan and Maine, they've always been just kind of starting to turn. I did hunt snowshoe one time in Maine. My first time, I forgot, that was probably like 2016. Yeah, I think 2016.

I just hired an outfitter to go and hunt snowshoe. Totally different than running swamp rabbits or cottontails. They stay in the shadows all the time. They won't get out hardly in the open at all. You've got to get right in there and get right on the track pretty much. They're hard to predict what they're going to do unless you've got a good GPS and you see the dog track. So it's a little bit different hunting than than our our dumb cottontails and

the sleek swamp rabbits that we have we used to get them with very limited success late in the winter with snowshoes wearing snowshoes pushing them trying to drive them just break the habitat up into chunks and try to drive them out. And if we'd go out and get one or two, we'd be all excited. Well, like I said, you know, you pretty much look on the GPS and we have to run our dogs from four to six miles. You can pretty much average that per rabbit. And so, you know, you might have two races in the morning, take a pack of dogs in and let them rest and then bring another pack out that

afternoon or just let them rest. So it's a, it's, you know, it's quite a, it's quite interesting to see a rabbit go that far for that long, have five to eight, nine beagle hounds pounding after the thing. So I truly enjoy it. And is that a four to six mile loop that they're doing? Or is that multiple loops? Multiple loops. And that's how you you know you can you can usually pin them down you look on your gps and see that track and try to get somewhere

close on that track so you can kill them because you know you're in that that conifer forest so you can't see very far at all i mean like you know a 10 12 yard shot is about it a lot of times so you just try to get somewhere where you think you can you can be on that rabbit's track blow your gps up as big as it goes and try to find you know a couple loops when the dogs have brought him through there and stand right there and the next thing you know he's come 25 yards or 50 yards down the road from me or whatever so they're pretty crafty very very crafty for rabbits. So I enjoy truly to have a pack of dogs and try to outsmart, you know,

something with a brain about the size of probably a walnut. Sometimes they win, sometimes I win. all right let's get back this uh i know i derailed you there the mongolia so you've traveled around a bit right uh 2015 i went to south africa and you know everything's high fenced over there i saw some squirrels after about six or seven days. I said, man, it would be a shame that I come all the way to South Africa and not get me a squirrel. So I asked the people that we were staying with, I want to kill a squirrel. And they thought I was kidding. And so nobody's ever asked to kill a squirrel.

You know, I think I was the first one ever killed any Egyptian geese. I think you posted those that I was, they were eating and that we killed those over there. We borrowed some decoys from some rednecks, South Africans, and set up an irrigation pivot. Raymond and I, he's my wingman. He's been to South Africa. Then we went to Nicaragua to shoot some white wing doves and killed some Yucatan black-throated bob whites down there. We were going to go after some tree ducks and never did get any of those. The wind was blowing so bad. And then I went to Costa Rica, caught a 100-pound sailfish,

and then I wanted to go on a truly, truly adventure. So that's how we ended up with mongolia just started scrolling through the internet thinking of things to do and i've been fascinated by falconry i've got a young friend up in kankakee illinois clayton that you posted a picture of him and i we had called a red tail hawk just for him to show me how how how easy it was to catch a bird of prey and i don't want to be a slave to a bird I want to be a consumer like the rest of my buddies when they go rabbit hunting I keep them for 365 days a year and then maybe they go rabbit hunt with me two or three times a year you know and have a good time

and that's the way I am with a bird of prey I would not want to own one be like owning a snake that eats every day so I found it very fascinating to go over there and just you know get on the internet and started scrolling through looking for somebody to an outfit or something got some references and called some people up from the US had been over there and there's one guy his name was Mark and he had been over there and I kind of guy his name was mark and he had been over there and uh i kind of asked him said hey mister uh what kind of adventures have you been on he said well sunny boy so when i was about 18 i was over in the mecon delta waiting around i said thank you sir for your

service and i appreciate it very very greatly and that's all the information that i need and there was a couple of veterinarians out in California. They'd been over there twice. And so I talked to them, I think via email or whatever, and just, you know, just decided we was going to go on an adventure. And that's truly what we did. It was a adventure that started on, I got off work at a project on the Friday, the 20th of September, got up the next morning on the 21st of September at 3.30, went to the Nashville airport, flew to Atlanta, Atlanta to Seoul, Korea, Seoul, Korea to Ulaanbaatar, and then Ulaanbaatar to Cove and then drove to Oogie. So at about 4 30 Tuesday afternoon we rode into the Eagles camp. So it was quite the adventure just getting in there. Got handed off by probably nine different people. You know they was out there uber my ass around. They was architects, engineers. It didn't make any sense to me. I've got a story that would last forever on that part,

but very good people. Enjoyed it very much. I plan on going back in probably a year or two and go down to Gobi, buy me a new motorcycle, ride it around for five to eight days, and then go back and see the eagle hunters that I spent 10 days in the desert with.

So explain these eagle hunters. They're not hunting for eagles. No. I had the opportunity to meet like six different eagle hunters out there. And they're from Kazakhstan that came into the southern tip of Mongolia. Mongolia is a population of about 3 million people. And they become democratic in the early 90s, about 92. In Mongolia, to give you an example of how big it is, you start at Cincinnati, Ohio, go to Salt Lake City, Utah.

That would be from left to right, and then the top would be Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska, down to Dallas, Texas, and only three million people live in that landmass. You know, here in Kentucky, I think we've got 4.8 million, I think, is what's in Kentucky. So you've got all this landmass, and you've got only three million people out there. I think Mongolia is the highest elevation occupying country in the world. We were always, I think, above a mile high. Ulaanbaatar is UB, as people call

it, as I call it. It's got like 1.4 million people. Half the population lives in one city over there. Really, the other half want to get in there. They've got seven coal-fired power plants cranking out admissions, putting a strain on all the drinking water. I met some environmental engineers over there working on a project to take the water from their wastewater plant, use it for cooling water at the electrical plants, and then use their fresh water for drinking water systems.

So I'm out, you know, meeting people and looking for maybe a future job or whatever. If I was a lot younger, I think I would go over there for a while and work. I just fell in love with the country, with the people. We're so nice. It's very vast. You know me. Usually I'm the first one or so to see some kind of animal, and I got over and I got stressed because they were seeing all these animals and I was not seeing it because it is just so vast out through there. So what makes the eagle hunter eagle hunter?

The fact. Okay. You know, they're born into that family of eagle hunters. Supposedly they're somewhere less than, you know, 300. Some people say like 100 true eagle hunters left in the world. And they'll go out and four of the eagle hunters that I met, they rode out like 75 miles to the mountains, and they robbed a young pup eagle, as call it from the nest and they'll get the biggest eagle that's in there that's a female they use the female to hunt with and then they'll bring

it back home and then they will train it to work for them and I didn't get into really a lot of detail how they did that but I ordered a couple books from National Geographic and I saw one picture and read a short article that said that after they robbed the bird from the nest, they'd bring it home and put it on like a clothesline, and the bird would sit there and flop and stay upright. And then when the bird lost all of its drive to stay upright and turned upside down, then that's when the eagle hunter would go in full with it. And then he broke its spirit, and he'd bring it back and

and train it feed it and it become a companion uh with them to hunt you know their their natural instinct to hunt their raptors they want to use their talons as far as their beak for a defense weapon there you know i saw you know i met several different eagles over there and mess around with them just a little bit not once did any of them try to pick any of us or do anything but their talons are very very deadly lots of psi as far as force you know they can kill a small a small wolf pup you know uh if need be but foxes and rabbits you know no problem at all for them to uh to kill a mongolian fox or a rabbit over there. And these are golden eagles? Golden eagles, yes. Yes, female.

Female golden eagles, wingspan about six foot, weigh about 14 pounds. And when you see pictures of these guys, they're always on like they seem to have a giant bird and a dinky horse. Yes, very small mountain horse. It's golden in the mountains out across the flat desert not worth a damn in my opinion but those dudes man they've got four-wheel drive they'll go on a one-to-one slope anywhere you point them they're like a mountain goat i mean they can

really dig in and go their ass is scared to death of a stream hell they won't even cross something that's like you know a foot wide unless they see where another horse or another animal has crossed you got to get on their ass and get on them pretty hard to make them go through water they do not like that but yeah they're on those small mongolian type horses very stable i went out there they had three uh staked out so you know i flew with horses a little bit so two of them had their heads down at the ground not paying attention and they had one that had his head up i checked him out and i just grabbed him as my horse so i kept him for 10 days and i i made a good choice there's no doubt in my mind that i got the best out of those three horses now the thing about people that are into falconry here

in the u.s at least is, uh, you're not, you know, when it's all said and done, you're not really like hunting to get meat, you know? I mean, you're not getting that much stuff, what you do get, the birds messing with it and you know, you're not like filling the freezer with a, as a, as someone who's into falconry, that's fair. You think that's a fair statement? Oh, very much so.

You know, I went on this trip, and I read a book called Eagle Dreams. Oh, I forgot the author. He's a hunter, dog guy, whatever. But I read that book, and he made one trip early after they become Democratic, and they never caught anything. So I knew going in there there i did a little research that most likely that we might not catch anything but hunting is more than that yeah but but but but but my question is these dudes these these eagle hunters in mongolia they're just like practicing

falconry are they are they using it because they're hunting stuff because they want to eat it uh it's in their heritage in their blood you know but they they don't believe in killing a lot of animals you know they were satisfied just going out and with their eagle on their shoulder and getting after some stuff and flying it and they don't have to kill anything i showed them some of the pictures of like a some epic rabbit hunts and squirrel hunts that that i had been on and they just kind of shook their heads and then there was one uh oh like like filling whole tailgates up full of rabbits and stuff right didn't speak to them there was um we went to the eagle festival and we had a private concert from some musicians there and they had one song, and it was about a mother getting on to her son for killing a lot of animals. He had the kill lust, as a lot of young people do,

and I did it one time in my life. But the song was written about that he was going out and killing too many animals. And they had their instruments tied in with some little puppet things. It was very intriguing to hear that song to kind of go in with some culture that I had already experienced. So I knew what they thought, a true hunter, and then they had a song to go along with it. So that was something very unique from my experience. Go ahead, Yanni. Did their ancestors use this method as a primary way to secure protein ever, or has it always just been more of a, not novelty,

but an ornamental type of a hunt? They've got a very close bond with all types of animals uh you know they had dogs that would would sleep all day and bark all night and i saw some cats that were just tethered up but they brought that from kakistan uh and i don't really know the relationship how far that goes back you know they're nomads uh i think it probably was a way for them to secure food at one time you know back in their heritage and they just kept it going because you know as far as guns and weapons and stuff they were very limited on what they could do you know bows and arrows genghis khan whatever but when you've got a bird of prey that can come out of the sky after a rabbit

i would say that at one time in their lifetime that they probably were used uh very beneficial to help them uh be uh be hunters and gatherers and live off the land you know they have a very harsh environment that they live in go up in the mountains and live in a yurt a felt tent uh our gear or whatever we want to call it and then spend the whole summertime up there and then come down in the valley because the winters are so severe, you know, like a minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit is how bad it gets. So, yes, they are very, you know, very hardy type people there. And I could see it sometime in the history of those guys that they used that bird of prey to help them survive and get through.

It's kind of like me, you know, with the squirrel dog. You know, at one time in history, that was a vital part of a person's house to have a squirrel dog. And they were multi-purpose. They, you know, protected stock, was a guard dog at their house, whatever, and helped them gather food and maybe herd cattle or livestock, kept varmints away from the chickens. So I look at an eagle as being part of their history that they just keep going. And at one point in time, it paid its way by catching meat for the table. What are the primary things they like to go for? What do they like to use these eagles to hunt for?

There's like two or three different kind of foxes over there. And then they have the snowshoe hare. And they've got some kind of wolf, right? They've got some wolves over there and then they have the snowshoe hare um uh there's also they got some kind of wolf right they've got some wolves over there and um the uh homestead that we stayed with our doc is the eagle hunter i was with there they told me we've been there three or four five six nights or something there that a pack of wolves had came into the valley and killed 150 goats and sheep and that they thought that it was a she-wolf teaching the cubs how to kill and then after being there for like 14 days I found the only or one of the only squirrel hunters in all of Mongolia and found some

trees and we were driving up the valley that morning well you had been we had been uh like tuesday we come into eagle camp and we spent that week there and then the following tuesday we left out on a four-day journey across the desert on horseback to go to the eagle festival enogi and uh we did that we came into town for two days for the Eagle Festival. We were supposed to go back out and spend some time with the Eagle Festival, but the people that were in charge of us, I asked them, said, can we do something since we have been out 10 days with the best eagle hunter in all of Mongolia, and to go with another eagle hunter would probably

most likely be a disappointment. So can we do something else? Can we sightsee is what I asked him. He says says would you like to go see some some red stag i said yes i would like that very much so they picked us up at 7 30 uh on monday morning and on a forerunner and we went to a gas station to get some petrol and i watched them as the the forerunner gas tank clicked off the two dudes got up on the back bumper and burped the tank to get an extra liter or two of gasoline in the tank I knew right then that we were going to go on a true adventure that day just trying to get a you know 3.8 liters to the gallon they would just get a couple more liters of gasoline in the tank and we rode in about midnight that night and across the desert and we might come to an intersection

and there would be like five roads and they would stop and they would look at those roads and i got to figuring out they always kept the the moon on the right their right shoulder all the time all the way back through you know who knows there might have been a blacktop road right out there, you know, five miles away, and they just took us across country to give us, you know, our money's worth, but, and we certainly did, and I highly recommend, if anybody's an adventurer, to go to Mongolia and spend some time, but we went up the valley and looking for this certain eagle hunter that knew about these stags, and as we were going up through there, I saw a small herd of horses and I saw this little black horse with its left rear flank with meat hanging

in the wind it was shredded and it looked to me like a wolf had tried to bring that hamstring that horse and bring it down and it ran off I didn't have time to take a picture and we finally we found the eagle hunter and then through the interpreter i asked him was that a wolf that had tried to eat that little black horse up the valley there and he said yes it was a wolf so you know wolves were a constant threat for them you would see uh scarecrows out around the campsite they would bring their livestock in around camp at night and the dogs would bark all night and you would hear them barking and stuff they'd have scarecrows set up and up on the ridges they would have like little rock men set up to scare away the wolves but that was pretty predominant all through the uh the area that we stayed in to see scarecrows rock man everybody had a dog that slept all day and barked

all night so it was it was a true true adventure that I will, you know, just always think about and want to go back and do something again over there. So when you struck off to go hunting, like how did that play out? You ride off into a good area, you're looking for what? You're trying to visually see it? You know, we started out, you know, not knowing us, whatever. So the first day we do, we do practice to see if we can ride horses because some people come over there, shit, they can't ride a horse.

The guide told us, man, I'm so glad that you guys can ride a horse. And so we strike off across the desert where it's flat to just see if you can ride a horse. So I have no problem. Raymond, my wingman, is with me. And he sneaks his wife in, Tammy, at the last minute there, the month or two before we leave. And she's going with us. Of course, she's a nurse.

I'm thinking, man, that's a good idea to have a nurse on board. So the three of us take off out across the desert just riding flat ground, seeing how we do. And then we go up into the mountains like the foothills and then we start looking for animals and the foxes and stuff they like to stay around the livestock you know because the rabbits feel safe around the livestock and there's this uh co-mingling of you know creatures our food chain type deal so so we're out looking up on the mountaintops there and we spend the first day with the eagle hunter and I

stay with his ass like everywhere he goes I'm right there on me you know riding the horse trying to see something's trying to see a fox and he says he sees with some a couple times but I never see it but we're trying up in the up in the mountains it's pretty treacherous it's pretty steep shit there with shale and rock and all that you do not want to tumble off a horse because it would be bad news but i think that first day he saw how interesting i was to try to catch something and i could stay with him then the next day we go hunting he recruits two more eagle hunters out of the valley and that day we do get after a fox and have three eagles in the air after the fox. And we see the fox run out and then the three eagle hunters.

Like the fox is booking away from you. Right, right. We're coming up the side of a mountain and they say, fox, fox, fox. And I'm looking and I don't see anything because everything's monotone there. And finally I see a little grass at the top of the ridge and I see the fox coming over in silhouette across the ridge. So I see him then for the first time. And then he's over to the right, you know, two, three hundred yards. And then all of a sudden we circle back around to the left.

And I'm not a mountain guy at all. You know, I'm flatland, swampland swamp river bottom rolling hills type dude so we come around the left side of the uh the mountain we're on horseback and then we post up and then the fox he pops out of like a ravine at the bottom and then they they take off after him on this one to one slope and i'm thinking shit it's pretty damn steep, but I'm going to trust my horse. And I go on. Well, the guide and Raymond and Tammy, they stay behind. It's too steep for them. So I take off after the eagle hunter's ass, and they put the three birds in the air. And then I see two birds dive bombing down over the next ridge.

I think, man, they've got him over there. So I ride over the ridge, and there's two eagles on the ground, and they look like they're fighting something. Well, they're fighting each other they miss the fox and then the young eagle the third eagle he flies off because he's not he's being trained he's kind of like a young dog so he flies off and then i decide i'm going to ride off with the eagle hunter so he gets mad at me and scolds me he cannot speak any english so i finally understand that i stay there with the two, the two Eagle hunters and they get their birds apart and get them back on their horses. Now, why are the dogs, why are the birds

fighting? Um, I guess just because they're predatorial, they miss the Fox. So, you know, they dive bomb from, from high up in the atmosphere and, and they just barely missed him. I didn't see that part of it. So they're just kind of like two dogs, you know, that gets after a critter. And then, hell, there's no critter, so they get after each other. Yeah, I got you. You know, so it's just, you know, one of those rare things that happen that, you know, a fox is pretty wily. And then you come from the top. And then you've got to take in granted that the birds, this is the first of hunting season. They're out of shape. They're fat. of hunting season. They're out of shape.

They're fat. It's warm. They're not that hungry. But the main thing is they're out of shape. They're not conditioned for this. And I read about that in the book, saying that if you really want to catch something, you need to go over there in the cold wintertime when everything is in shape and you've got snow on the ground and critters stand out.

They can see. They can pinpoint what's going on. Was that the sole encounter you guys had with a game animal? Oh, no. Oh, no. No, that was like the, oh, I guess it was the second or third day that we had been there. And then we went out a couple other times,

and the eagle hunter said he saw a fox but i never i never did see it but i believe him but when we started our trek out we'd been there seven days we went fishing two days uh we caught some grayling one day that was my first grayling we fried it up and cooked it ate the caviar the eggs out of it. It was very, very good. But when we started our trek across country, the first day, I don't think we caught anything or got after anything. We spent the night with a family as we go in their mud and log hut, just the three of us in there. They had two kids and then two, the couple.

So there was seven of us in just a little room of, you know, probably 15 by 15. And I slept in the bed for the first time in probably seven days. It was one of those old-timey spring-type beds with no mattress or anything on it, so it felt like a Cadillac, like a water bed. I'd been sleeping on the ground the whole time uh we would burn uh cow dung and camel dung and maybe a couple lumps of coal at night during the adventure uh when we were at the eagle hunter's house and uh finally one night the wind would get up it got up so bad that it blew the top out of our our gear and uh the stove pipe was flapping in the wind and they

was afraid he was gonna burn down so they took the stove outside and we moved in the actual Eagle hunters house and spent the last two days but the first day on our trek we didn't get after anything and the second day we got after a fox or two but the third day we got after we were coming, and they said we was going to ride up, was riding up through the desert, and we rode up on this little mountain. They said we might get after an owl here. Now, when I first called it, an owl, yes, an owl, I said,

I'm ready to catch a field mouse. I'm ready to catch something. It doesn't matter what it is. So when i first got there i started looking at all the the vehicles and the motorcycles everything had feathers tied to it and i asked the guy so what's all these chicken feathers on your handlebars of your motorcycle in your rear view mirror he says oh it's a sacred animal the owl it protects us and we kind of you know we look after the owl i I said, well, where do you, where do you get all these feathers at? He said, well, we get them from dead owls. So,

you know, you just don't ask some, some questions to people to go into detail. And I found out just because someone can speak English better than me and answer my questions that they know what in the hell they're talking about. And I know what they're talking about. So I just kind of dropped it and we got over there and we had three eagle hunters with us, our guide, and then we had, we picked up a flusher boy and his job was to ride, if we were on top of the mountain, he would ride at the bottom and try to flush a fox or a rabbit out for us. Or if we were at, on the bottom of the mountain, he would be at the top trying to flush something out or roll off a boulder the size of a washing machine or whatever he could or throw rocks. So we were down at the bottom of the mountain,

and he was rolling off boulders and shit, coming off there, trying to drive this owl out of this crevice. Yeah, it was kind of sketchy you know what was going on but i was enjoying it i was ready and then i saw this the first time i saw an animal the first one i spotted a red fox our casa kazak foxes they've got three different kinds over there and i'm not for sure which which one this was but i saw this fox and i started pointing to him and telling them fox fox fox but they would pay no attention to me, and I got mad because I finally saw an animal on my own,

and they wanted this owl. So finally, the flusher boy ran this owl out from under this rock crevice. It flew out, but it would never get over five or six feet off the ground. You know how owls, they fly low to the ground. And then we turned the eagles loose, and we had three eagles after it, and it went around the mountain like three times with us trying to flush it out of these crevices, throwing rocks, whatever we had to do. And then the last time that I saw that owl going around the bend of that mountain,

it had three golden eagles after it and then two crows or ravens come in i don't know where they flew in from that but they were on the tail of of of the golden eagles and then it had five mongolians on horseback and then just raymond and i two americans and i don't think there's anybody in the world that's ever experienced that that type of hunting experience where you've got you've got three golden eagles, two ravens, five Mongolians, and two Americans on horseback trying to catch a critter. So the owl got away. Really?

Yes. Yeah. You know, the eagles didn't stand a chance because that thing was only like five feet off the ground, and they couldn't get enough altitude up to dive bomb down and get that. But it was truly something very unique to witness that, to be a part of it, experiencing on horseback up on the side of a mountain. Everything was kind of sketchy. You know, their gear and their tack.

If I had that shit at my house, I would throw it away. You know, it was like a kid saddle. Well, that's saying a lot because I've seen your house. That's saying a lot. You're exactly right. My big toe would go on the stirrups. You know, they were afraid that somebody was going to get hung up in the stirrups. Their reins were like a shoelace.

And the girt, they didn't even tie a girt knot there. They would just make one wrap around. And it was like two or three days before I even noticed that, you know, that was kind of sketchy, all their equipment there, but it held up and, you know, I made it back. But we left that mountain and people would just come out of nowhere. I mean, out of nowhere. But Mongolians are constantly have binoculars and they're glassing all the time looking for something in the distance. And people would ride up on a motorcycle or horseback or whatever and talk to us. Well, they talked to the eagle hunters.

And some dude come in on a horseback, and he told us it was a family of foxes on the next mountain. So we rode over there, and we got after two foxes over there and we ran around the side of a mountain and one of them, he froze up at the tip of the mountain and the eagle hunters saw him and the guide saw him so we came over and we got off the horses and we walked over to the edge and he was down probably about 100 yards or so, just frozen because he

didn't want to move because he there was an eagle in the air and finally we were all looking at him and we gave him the stink eye you know how animals are you've been out before when everybody starts staring at something animals feel that a lot of times I mean they do and so we all started staring at that Fox and he finally bolted and he ran down the, and there was a herd of sheeps and goats down there, and he ran through them. They turned the other two eagles loose, and that fox, he headed into a headwind to the next mountain. So we got three eagles in the air, a fox running wide open across the desert plain,

headed to the next mountain, which is over a mile away. We've got three eagles on his ass there. Well, the first eagle, he peters out about just a quarter way and turns around and comes back. The other one stays with him about halfway and comes back. And then the third one is on him, but he's in a headwind and he cannot cannot, he cannot flap hard enough to catch up with him, so he just sets his ass down on the desert, and then the little eagle hunter that's with us, he, I don't know why he didn't ride his horse under, he just dismounts from his horse, and he runs all the way down there, and picks the, and picks the eagle up on his arm, and brings him back,

so, you know, I saw three eagles running after a fox in a headwind trying to catch a fox, and they were just out of shape, and they couldn't tackle that wind. And that fox, you know, he was smart enough that he'd come off that mountain, ran through those sheep and goats as a distraction, and then turned into the wind because he knew that eagle would have trouble trying to capture him in the wind like that. 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 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 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. So do you get the sense that these dudes, like, do they want to get something or do they just want to be out messing around? Oh, yeah. No, no, man, they want to get something or they just want to be out messing around oh yeah oh no no man they want to get something because we left that mountain and one or other and we got after we got after another fox and they was always on my ass all the time you know that damn horse rode a blister in my ass it was uncomfortable and it's jog trotting i'm a gated type horse guy i like when they hit a lick and good to travel across country there but they were always on my ass every time i try to gallop a

horse or whatever and we were going to another mountain over there and we got after a fox and the flusher boy there he was trying to cut the fox off and he had his horse at a full gallop going across the desert floor they told us to post up and not to go anywhere and he was at a full gallop going across the desert floor. They told us to post up and not to go anywhere. And he was at a full gallop, and he hit a lemming colony, you know, like the little animal, like the gopher that's over there. And he hit that colony there, and his horse caved in on a hoe, and he went head over heels off that horse. And he finally got up, brushing all the dust and everything off, holding his arm and rubbing his leg and finally got up on his horse enough and then got back over there and still

like two hours later he was still holding his arm and he was a young dude in his 30s but we got after a fox and they said he ran up into the mountain up into a like a cave a crevasse on it and those dudes got up there about 50 60 feet climbing around and they all wore these boots those harness boots like the harley davidson motorcycle guys you know right they ain't worth a damn for climbing around in rocks but they were up there poking around trying to find you know where that fox was throwing some rocks trying to get him out but yes they truly were trying to catch some some critters yeah they wanted to catch you know catch something you know for us but like i said it was just the circumstances over there and that's part of being a falconer that you alluded to earlier there you go out trying to catch an animal you're not going to get something every time and it's kind of on an even

playing field where you've got predator and prey out there, and it's just who's the strongest or what conditions you are, who's going to win that day. And if you want to type a guy that wants to stack up a lot of game animals, then you do not want to be a falconer. You're in it for owning a bird, taking care of it, having a relationship where you can take an animal that you have tamed and go out there and turn it loose into the wild and it trusts you enough to come back and sometimes their eagles don't come back uh one guy lost an eagle at the eagle festival he turned it loose and he just decided it was going to fly off and not not come back so he's going to go back to being an eagle yes and

they do that you know they may keep an eagle for five or six years and then turn it loose and and then go get another one the eagle hunter that we were with he had a six-year-old eagle and a two-year-old eagle that he that he was training and then when they got uh so old then they would release them back into the to the wild and and let them go free you know what you're talking about how are you saying that horse likes to run and you'd like to run enough another way well there's like a gallop you know jog trot and gallop like a lot of quarter horses and there's a canter that's kind of an easy, slow, you know, ride. A Foxtrot, you know, different shuffle there. A gated horse has a smooth ride.

And I'm not a big horseman, but like I said, you know, if your ass is in a saddle, you can feel it, you know, get them in a certain. I thought a horse was a horse until I got involved with them. A friend of mine, he's a big horseman, Paul. You met Paul. We went over and ate breakfast at his house. So I just thought all horses did the same, whether they run the Kentucky Derby or pull the cart or whatever.

But, yeah, there's riding horses and working horses and roping horses and mountain horses, and definitely those Mongolian horses are made to billy goat around on top of a mountain with no fear whatsoever, be on a shell slope and shit sliding off, whatever, and see them a nice piece of grass and bend down and take a big bite and not worry about falling their ass off the face of a mountain. So, yes. What I was taking an interest in in Wyoming this year

when we were hunting down there on horseback is just how bad your scroll gets just beat up man on a certain when they get to trotting yes there's got to be like there's got to be tricks for that well you know you can stand up in the stirrups but my knees are shot they are completely wore out so i got no cushion in my knees anymore. I cannot do that. So, you know, basically I spent about 10 days on horseback when I was over there. Was your scrotus getting just beat up?

Not too bad. My ass, the saddle was too small. So the crack of my ass was cushioning the rest of me. So I didn't have to worry about that too much. But, you know, I'm kind of a horsemanman so i kind of know how to get in the saddle and use the back of my ass for the padding instead of the front of my scrotum to ride on yeah someone was telling me that part of the thing is like not to clench up when he starts trotting right you clench your legs up and you make less room in there for everything to lay out how it needs to lay out right i was wondering about if you went if you'd be smarter to to to go no undies to go underwearless like if you were up

there then i got thinking take it to extremes let's say you're up there and nothing you're up there in your birthday suit are you still smashing your scroll well Well, you know, you use your thighs to push in there. Yeah, and when that horse starts to move and you clench up more, and someone said it's being learning how to relax your thighs and not squeeze in so bad so that everything's getting beat up. I'm telling you, I don't remember this being such a issue when I was younger but and it seems in the harder kind of riding it's a real thing where I feel as though you would sat one might sacrifice his ability to have children not that I need that ability anymore

well it's kind of like riding a bicycle too you know you're on a bicycle seat so you just smash my screw on a bike well depends on what kind of saddle and like I said it just kind of comes natural to me where I've done enough miles on a horse and you've done enough miles on a bicycle to know how to maneuver yourself where you don't hurt yourself. So I think there's a lot into that. Probably the more time that you spend in a saddle, the more comfortable you get because I can look at some of your photographs and tell you, you're tense on a horse and you're not in control. Oh, listen, man. of your photographs and tell you you're tense on a horse and you don't you know you're not in control oh listen man i'm not listen i would never come i would never come present myself as a horseman

i'm the opposite of a horseman right and i'm putting out an honest thing there when i'm sure we'll get some good feedback from listeners on it but uh i just need to if i was going to become more of a horseman like if someone was said to me hey do you want here's a horse you can have this horse and if they even said i'll even throw in do you want, here's a horse, you can have this horse. And if they even said, I'll even throw in like you keep the horse here and I'll feed the horse in my mind would be, man, do I really want to smash my scroll that bad all the time?

That's what would come to my mind. And Yanni, you're, I know that this is something that's on your mind. You do? No. I thought we talked about this. did i mean it was you know noticeable but i feel like we rode all week and i don't know you just get such a hit now and then

it just hurts you're you're probably leaning too far forward like i said where i wore a blister on my ass because i was leaning back to not do that. I'm definitely leaning forward. Yeah, you need to lean back into the seat of the saddle more. I feel like I'm all tensed up, scrunched up. My thighs are puckered up. I'm leaning forward. It's just like a slugfest down in there, man. You are tense.

Like I said, I've seen a few pictures of you, and you just got to learn to relax and feel confident and trust your horse so you don't trust your horse and that's one thing that you've got to do is trust your horse you gotta have a good horse to trust and you know paul he taught me a lot about horses i'd only ridden like five or six times in my life before i met him so i spent a lot of time in the saddle from about 92 to uh you know 2002 man we had some some fantastic squirrel hunts with we know we might have eight or ten people out there and a half day with kevin is 12 hours and a full day is 24 on a squirrel hunt yeah what some of the boys would say but you just gotta

you know it's like riding a bicycle after you get used to it and know how to maneuver around whatever, you'll keep from hurting yourself. And the same with you. You just need some more time in a saddle, have a good horse, have your stirrups and everything fit you, or you can stand up and cushion yourself in a big enough seat where you can lean back and feel comfortable and find you that sweet spot where you can ride and maneuver and cover ground so you just need some more time in the saddle that's all

yeah my only like i don't spend any time just messing around on horseback it's like we get thrown into situations where you're like oh we're gonna ride these horses up and look for a grizzly bear ride these horses all through the mountains i never just get a chance to just go out and develop my skills. Yeah, you need to go out and pleasure ride and have no mission other than you spend a good day on the horse with somebody and have no mission other than to get comfortable and see the outdoors and cover some ground and find out what works for you. Your assessment of these Mongolian guys, were they hunters too? Are they like, oh, next weekend we're fishing,

then we're going to go hunt this, then we're going to go hunt that, then we're going to go eagle hunting? Are they like well-roundedrounded all-around outdoorsmen um probably as far as like one trick ponies um yeah you know they had high-powered guns they didn't have a lot of game there you know it's been i guess vanished there wolves uh you know i had a 22 rifle made in russia and they had a bruno uh i forgot what caliber it was 7.6 by 39 or something uh but they didn't talk about hunting a whole lot uh but as far as fishing and living off the land and all that yeah they just didn't have you know they worked and had to uh to take care of themselves but as far as having organized hunts. Now, one of the guys that was driving us around, he had a Dragunov Russian sniper rifle, and he talked about bear hunting.

He was an eagle hunter. You know, the eagle hunters are kind of like nomads, so whatever it takes to live off the land is what they do. They're sheep herders, goat herders, have camels, have cattle, cross with all the Mongolian cattle. I'm going blank. You know, they are basically their diet is red and white, dairy products and meat. As far as vegetables and things of that nature, they do not have.

So a lot of yogurt, cheese, things of that nature they do not have so a lot of yogurt cheese things of that nature cream milk whatever we had over there but as far as a hunter they knew how all the animals act whatever you know whatever it took to kill a wolf catch a wolf or whatever yes but you know my experience with them was just around the camp traveling on horseback uh fishing uh so we didn't have the opportunity to see a whole lot of different game over there we never saw a rabbit when we were out eagle hunting now coming back from the little squirrel hunting dude there we got into we saw a siberian lynx our european lynx no kidding yes yes it crossed the road in front of us.

I got out, tried to force it around, circle it back around because cats usually are very curious and not really afraid of humans that much. And I got into it and I noticed that there was a bunch of sticker bushes, thorn bushes there. And then I put two and two together. That night when we were coming in, we saw several rabbits and they were around that same type of vegetation so the rabbits you know there be like briar patches here when we were out in the desert we never i never saw that vegetation whatsoever anywhere and they told me that most of the rabbits were up in the rocks so they didn't feel comfortable getting out you know uh being silhouetted or whatever but we saw saw rabbits. I saw the links with in the, in the thorn bushes.

And then that night saw several rabbits coming in by moonlight and they were always in the thorn bushes. So, uh, you can include this trip in there or not, but, um, if you had,

uh, well, let me ask you this first. If it, are you going... Well, let me ask you this first. Am I going to talk to you in a year and you're going to be a falconer and not just like a dog man? No. You're not going to give up dogs for birds. I wouldn't like that.

No. As I said earlier, I think I do not want to be a slave for a bird because when I go on a hunting trip, I may take a pack of beagles or a bird dog or a squirrel dog. And then I've still got some troops at home. I've got some very good neighbors that come over and take care of my critters while I'm gone. I would not want to put that on anybody taking care of a bird. And it doesn't. I'm fascinated by that.

I've got some friends. I've got Clayton. I've got a young boy and he's a Connor. He's getting his paperwork together and I put him together with a friend that I talked to on the telephone. off on you and then you get a permit to catch you a bird but now i as far as me going out hunting i hope he gets one i will be a consumer i'll take my dogs maybe borrow some horses i'm out of the horse business right now and we go out and catch us a squirrel or a swamp rabbit or maybe uh out west and get some some uh game birds or whatever but no i don't don't ever see me. I have no ambitions of being a falconer. I appreciate the sport. I want to go, go back to Mongolia. I want to go in the U.S. and go on some hunts, but I'm fascinated by it.

But as far as being bound to a bird, no, not me. What was your, out of your season your 2019 2020 season what uh what were some like what's the biggest lesson you learned if you factor in mongolia everything else what'd you find out about yourself about hunting uh you know uh hunters worldwide are golden and there's a certain bond that you can do by just small things that put you all in a brotherhood, you know, just some things that you can do. To give you an example, our young guy started out with us. He's 31 uh eyeball and uh when when our game plan changed that we wanted to go sightseeing they put an older guy guide with us uh tupac and he'd been

over there i thought he was dead well he lives in mongolia he lives in mongolia and i was kind of uh uh not happy not pleased that they swapped guides up us. But it worked out for the best. And I have two friends over there now. But he had been there around socialist time. He had led several geological expeditions out into the desert, into the mountain region, looking for tungsten, rare earth elements, uranium, copper, and all this. And he knew about mining and tungsten and all that.

And, of course, with my geology background, I find it very interesting and inquisitive. And you can see the landscapes over there. No vegetation, so you can see veins where tungsten were and the copper, the different types of rock formations and all that so we uh we uh went up the valley made friends with the eagle hunter i saw that he had a squirrel he told me about getting a squirrel and where they were and somewhere or another we got into the tungsten uh part of it and he he had some not supposed to all the government owns all the minerals and resources over there. But he had some and he showed that to me.

And I felt it very fascinating. And I so much wanted to be a tourist and say, I would like to purchase a small piece of that tungsten from you. But I didn't. Kevin didn't do that. So he showed it to me. I handled it in my hands whatever and uh we went uh he said about four o'clock these stags would come out and we could start looking at them and they were about 2 000 meters away up on the mountainside and we were glassing and finally a doe came out

and saw her and then i i looked over to our guide and i said you tell the young eagle hunter said uh if i was 10 years younger we would be having that doe for five finger feast tomorrow and he he he told him that and immediately for some reason he got up and went in the house and got started beating on something and come out there and gave me a piece of that tungsten and of all the things that i brought back you know that i paid for whatever that is my most cherished uh uh memento from the trip was that small piece of tungsten that i didn't ask for whatever but we just kind of communicated he knew that i was golden then that i would most likely supersede laws and values to be a true part of the culture over there. So that's probably my golden lesson there, that there's a bond when people do certain things that you can tell. They can talk all they want to, but until they really do something, do you know that they are part of the brotherhood?

So he knew that, hey, at heart, I was a hunter and I didn't have to have a permit, but I would go up there and we would kill that animal together and have a feast. And it just clicked. I mean, it's just something magical, surreal about that. So that's probably one of my big lessons that I learned. And then my buddy Raymond, he taught me. He's my wingman. He goes all over the place with him, but he will not go into any gentleman's club in any foreign country. He won't let me go in there either. But we were out hunting, and he showed me the difference between where a squirrel had been eating an acorn and a blackbird or a bird, blue jay, whatever. Do you know the difference?

Have you ever seen that okay if you'll uh hold the acorn up you know the woods floor was covered with acorns where something had been eating on them yeah but but they pull the cap off and then they they they like scoop it out with her beak and you can see beak marks in the acorn where where i guess they hold that in their one of their claws and pull the cap off of it and they were able to eat that but i he taught me that and i did not know that so that's something about nature that i didn't i just thought they were squirrels or whatever i knew that they come in and eat acorns but now i can distinguish whether it's been eaten by a bird of some type or a squirrel well that's a good trick to have yes yeah you

know something a little tidbit of information you're never too old to learn something listen you know kevin fit finish that uh the squirrel hunt in uh mongolia story and then because you said you met the only other squirrel hunter in mongolia so did you bond with that dude that's that's the guy that that broke me off a piece of tungsten and gave it to me. And I got a bottle of wine out, and we drank. And he told me about going up in the mountains. It's like a European black squirrel, and I've got a picture of holding up the pelt. That was one of his – you know, they'd have this like a little shrine in their house

where if they were an eagle hunter, they would have like a rabbit pelt, a hare pelt, sn hair pelt snowshoe hair uh fox whatever well he had a squirrel pelt hanging on his wall and i instantly bonded with him when i saw that and he told me they they lived up in the mountains and there was some timber that was the first part of mongolia that we actually saw any trees the rest of it was just rock and just arid, just high mountain desert. I call it desert. It's really the most mountainous region, most barren region, least populated in all of Mongolia.

You got Russia up on the top. You got Kazakhstan kind of in the middle of the point, and then China. We probably got within 15 miles of China, our closest, and within 75 miles of Russia and Kazakhstan during my trip. So we're in that far left corner of Mongolia, right on the border of China, Kazakhstan, and Russia. You know, how did it sit with you eating all that, eating just meat and dairy? I feel like that tears some people up. Well, you know, we were concerned about that. Everything that we had read said, you know, the food was kind of bland, bring you some

hot sauce, some salt, whatever. So the first stop that we made after we got situated was to go into a small grocery store. We bought five pounds of salt, a bunch of different hot sauces, all that. Make the long story short, we left it all with them. Our food was excellent. We had our own cook. We had some type of vegetables every single day. I eat a banana just about every day.

I took ester vitamin C and a vitamin B1, basically the same formula as Airborne. We were at high altitude the whole time. I was worried about altitude sicknesses. But we ate like kings over there. And finally we had to tell them, hey, cut our food off. But we had to cook Zoya. And I made

some, she showed me how to make some kakistan donuts and fried them in cheap fat one night. But our uh, our meal, they had, you know, special meal for us. Uh, we'd have eggs and cream of wheat and, uh, peppers, and we had a pretty wide variety of food to eat. And so we did not have, you know, traditional, just a red and white diet. So they were very accommodating with us on that and the food-wise it was very good.

Every little homestead that we came into, the Mongolian people very friendly. It's like old country folk, when I was a kid you'd come to their house, they'd get their best food out that they've got and maybe leftover biscuits, country ham, bacon, some old coffee, sweet tea, or whatever, and they would have us a feast, and they wanted to hear about what was going on in America,

about our kids, about our jobs, and it was just wholesome. I mean, I just fell in love. The longer that I stayed over there, the stronger that I got, and the more that I liked the country and the people. Even though there's a communication barrier there you know there's always some kind of interpreter or whatever saying and some people welcomed me into their house one of our drivers his family his his younger sister she was young and she played like a little musical instrument so she serenade us during a one visit so it was it was a truly adventure just jam-packed food entertainment you know when I went to the Eagle Festival I met little spy girl Jillian you know I spent 10 days out in the desert with the best eagle hunter in all of Mongolia and then we pay money to go to this event where all the eagle

hunters bring their eagle in and they do competition it would be like you know being out west bird hunting with the very best bird hunter like Patrick and his dogs for 10 days and then going to some pay preserve and paying money to shoot some quail that's been raised in his cage the entire life. So that was kind of the scenario. So I just couldn't get into it. And there's a bunch of tourists, bunch of tourists there. And I looked around and I saw this blonde headed girl with this orange toboggan on, so saying, hey, come talk to me.

So I went over there and started talking to her, and she said she was a junk bond dealer off of Wall Street, and she wanted to do some traveling before she got too old, in her early 30s. And so she found me fascinating that I squirrel hunted and hunted and did all that, and we've become friends. And she even came in the 28th and 29th of February. And I took her, and we got a swamp rabbit and a fox squirrel. So we are friends today.

Like dating friends or friends friends? No, friend friends. I've recruited someone into the, uh you know i have done the recruitment uh we've got retention and reactivation so i've got a young a lady female that never been hunted in her life uh had never killed an animal that her first animal was a swamp rabbit and yet he hasn't killed a swamp rabbit yet have you that. No, hell no. So, yeah, we're friends, and she finds hunting very fascinating, and it's a pretty unique story. You know, she's traveled around the world, went to Antarctica,

sent me some pictures about being down there with the walruses and the penguins and all that. So, you know, I'm ready to anybody I can get in the hunting world. Not everyone is made to be a hunter or a traveler or whatever, but I'm all for recruitment, getting people in, and to show them that hunting is more than killing an animal. It's going out, maybe going to, you know, maybe I just go to Bering Springs, Michigan and meet some of the local people, go out and eat and enjoy their friendship, you know, once a year, or maybe go to a foreign country and see what all they eat and meet a person that maybe I just become friends

and just talk on the internet or, you know, telephone call or letter or whatever. So there's a lot more to a hunter than just going out and killing an animal. There's, you know, friendship, camaraderie. There's a common bond, very complex, you know uh scenario uh being being a hunter and not everyone is meant to be a hunter um so you know i can respect people that don't want to hunt um i'm after people that's in the middle that uh that would that i could recruit into the world um you know at one time i had lots of competition and i don't have any competition anymore it just seems less and less every year that we have people out hunting,

hunting with dogs and pursuing nature. So I'm all for trying to get as many people as we can into the field and help support buying license and protecting our environment. And if you don't want to hunt, that's your right. You don't have to hunt. Hell yeah, Kevin. Thank you, man. hunt that's that's your right you don't have to hunt hell yeah kevin so thank you man i can't wait to uh we gotta get back out i'm ready we gotta get back out bad bad bad bad and i'm talking to kind of getting out where we get something but uh we gotta we gotta i gotta we we got to talk about a couple quick things here, Kevin.

I'm going to act like I'm telling you about it, and then you act real interested. Okay. Okay? And then listeners will not realize they're listening to us plugging our own stuff. Yeah, you can ask questions, too, if you want, Kevin. Okay.

We got a new series, new YouTube on our YouTube channel, a new thing we're putting out called Meat Eater Hunts. Different stuff. Launches Wednesday, April 22nd. I know. Already happened. It's already out. Launched.

That's what I meant to say. April 22nd. Meat Eater's already out. Launched. That's what I meant to say. April 22nd. Meteor's YouTube channel. We've put up two new episodes every Wednesday. The ones we just put up so far, first week's episodes, is a spearfishing trip me and Yanni did in the Channel Islands. And then we got one of Yanni's elk hunting trips. Yanni's elk hunt in Colorado.

Those are the first week's episodes of Meteor Hunts. This is something we'll be rolling with and doing more and more of coming up, so check those out. What else, Yanni? Yeah, how's that sound, Kevin? Are you going to go watch? The spearfishing, that's right up my alley to go hunt some fish. Dude, it's the greatest thing in the world, man. watch the spearfishing that's right up my alley you know to go hunt some fish you know

dude it's the greatest thing in the world man you know when i go fishing i like for them to be biting i don't like fish for fish now i can go hunting and hunt for something and not get it but on the fish i want to be out out hunting so that spearfishing that sounds like on my bucket list you know oh it's kind of short i wasted i wasted my life man i wait if i had found out about it i would have taken a different if i'd have known about it earlier what i know about it now i would have taken a different path in life i'd take a different path i would be living some cold ass mountains i can tell you that i'd be living in some tropical environment right now um so Everybody should go check that out. Meteor Hunts, go on the YouTube channel.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We've got all kinds of junk up there. Good stuff. Good junk up on that. Kevin Murphy, dude, I miss you so bad. Knowing that I can't hang out with you and I can only look at you, this is going to lift soon, though. We're going to start getting back to normal.

Oh, yeah. It makes me depressed. Yeah, very much much i miss you bad well like i said it's good having you on though i'm glad seeing you guys and like i said you're just like family you're in the brotherhood of you know we we bond together we get it you know you don't don't even have to say thing you know a good hunter can just look at somebody and go after game or whatever and know what the other guy's thinking. And that's part of being a well-accomplished hunter there, that you don't have to talk or whatever, body language, just eye contact, say, hey, we need to do this. It's kind of like telepathic with really good hunters.

And I'll put you two guys right in there with me on that part. Yeah, maybe we get Yanny a swamp rabbit one of these days. I'm looking forward to it, Kevin. All right. He might have to get rid of that mohawk. We'll talk about it. He might be able to bring that mohawk with him. All right.

Kevin Murphy, world's greatest small game hunter. Kevin, I've got to tell you this. We recently had a guy ask. He wrote in to ask, who's the second greatest small game hunter. Kevin, I got to tell you this. We recently had a guy ask, he wrote in to ask, who's the second greatest small game hunter? And we told him we didn't really have any ideas for him. It's not that kind of thing. There's like the greatest, and then there's everybody else. I appreciate it.

I'm trying to groom a bunch of people into being the second best, and there's a lot of guys out there. Yes, there's a lot of guys out there that can fill my shoes, And I'm going to do whatever possible I can to help them get up there to be number one. That is my goal in life from here on out. To help either your accomplish or the beginning hunter or whatever. If I can help you in any way, I want to send a message to say, hey, get out there. And everybody's wanting advice. But the best way to do it, like you guys know, is just get out there and start doing it

and do what fits you because everybody's different in how they tackle things. So just do, you know, like riding a horse or riding a bicycle. Hey, get out there and do it and see what fits. Man, next time I see you, Kevin, I'm going to see you for real. It's not going to be on this screen. I'm going to reach out and give you a pinch on the cheek or a titty twister. I don't know what, but I'm going to make physical contact with you, Kevin.

You guys maybe ought to go do some pleasure riding together. There you go. Yeah, we can come down. Go on horses? No, we're going to go hunting. All right, Kevin, thanks again, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Dude, I miss you so bad.. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Dude, I miss you so bad. I miss you so bad, I can't stand it. You too, Giannis. Hey, thanks. All right, guys. Kevin, world's greatest small game, Hunter Murphy. Take care. Thank you.

See you, Kevin. See you. All right, signing out. 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.