The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 232: How You Get to be a Big 'Ol Bear, Plus an Interview with Don Trump Jr.

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Clay Newcomb, Rick Smith, Seth Morris, Janis Putelis, and Donald Trump Jr.Topics discussed: Federal blaze orange laws; blood trailing dogs as an ethical tool for recovery; all the songs written about Jani and skiing; fish rigor and how AK's Fish and Game has it dialed; Steve and Seth's new TV special, Deep Drop Boyz; how cave art puts a smile on Rick's face; the definition of a therianthrope; elk esophogi replacing radiator hoses; a hatchling in a car part crossing state lines; theories of where brass tacks comes from and how Steve's ideas are invalid according to Wikipedia; Rick's conflict between filming bears and filming bear hunts for the MeatEater TV show; a new slogan: don't eat bacon, hunt black bear; the interesting story of the unsuccessful hunt; The Eagle's spotting abilities and far away calls; a willow-choked hellhole; a hot tip off on being wary of the person who wants to do too much stuff in too little time; and Steve talks to Don Trump Jr. about early hunting influences, public land access, sometimes disagreeing with dad, and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. You listeners ought to know that you just missed, barely missed a rant. My COVID rant. Has anyone else ever had a COVID rant? Yes. Not maybe

within this group, but there's certainly been a few. I think the internet is like 50% COVID rants. I need to log on. It was good. It was impressive. Don't waste your time. Clay, I'm going to start because I don't think you pronounce your name right. So I'm going to start calling you on.

I'm going to start calling. Clay Newcomb Newcomb. Man, one time. One time. Clay Newcomb Newcomb. Here's a good one for you. It's Newcomb. Newcomb.

Oh, like Newcomb. Duke Newcomb. Like Newcomb. We're going to Newcomb. If they mess with us again, we're going to nuke them. The only reason I really told you that. But how do you know that that's what it is? Because that's what my dad taught me, so that's good enough.

The only reason I told you that is because I used to pronounce your name. How did I pronounce it? And somebody literally said. Rinella. Yeah, I said Rinella. That's great. I don't care. Emphasis on the Rye. I pronounce it? And somebody literally said. Rinella. Yeah, I said Rinella. That's great. I don't care. Emphasis on the Rye.

I like it. Rinella. Rinella. Rinella. Somebody was like, if you ever meet him, don't call him that because it's Rinella. Stevie Rinella. Yeah, yeah. Steven Rinella Rinella.

Clay Newcomb Newcomb. Newcomb. Newcomb.'m whatever you whatever you need north korea we're gonna nuke them um uh here's one for you do you know this about this is in your wheelhouse okay uh there's a guy we know damon bungard you ever met him oh yeah yeah he's a friend of mine okay he's taken up at like you know i have a sunday i'm gonna take up the cause of that that i want to there to be federal blaze orange laws okay where blaze orange by federal edict is a hat while hunting with firearms. Nothing else? A hat. Wyoming.

It's the Wyoming law. A hat. And it would be like, people don't want federal. No vest? No call. If you want to wear a vest, feel free. If you want to wear an orange snowsuit, be my guest. But all you have to wear is a hat.

The law would be, because I believe in states' rights and all that kind of stuff when it suits my purposes. So the feds would just say, oh, you have to wear a hat. The feds would come in. The Supreme Court, say, would come in and say, hear ye, hear ye. Hereby, the majority opinion written by Justice Roberts is that you can't make someone wear more than an orange hat. This went all the way to the top. Supreme Court. Five-four? What was the vote?

No, it was like seven-two. So an individual state couldn't... Sotomayor couldn't get on board. It wasn't like, it wasn't really. RPG, yeah, RPG and Sotomayor felt that it wasn't really enough. It wasn't like, it didn't have enough imposition

to it. But everybody else is like, yeah, seems cool. Some states have no blaze orange laws. Alright, let's get back to what Damon's... I'll just say, an individual state couldn't add on to that no it'd be illegal okay like in georgia uh in georgia the the governor got sick in georgia the governor got sick of towns trying to go it alone on covet restrictions so the governor said

made a law that says that municipalities and whatnot can't make added stuff. So this would be like a deal where they also came in and did like the Georgia governor's COVID move on orange rules. Gotcha. This will become my thing when I retire. Did you hear that the governor of Georgia sued the mayor of Atlanta? No. Did you hear about that?

Over orange laws? Nope. Over COVID laws. Yeah. So the governor made a statewide regulation about COVID laws, and then the mayor of Atlanta came in and made a stricter policy than the state. Yeah. And the governor literally sued as i understood i just

heard that this morning he doesn't want it yeah he doesn't want the people going rogue i just thought that's pretty pretty rough uh pretty rough situation when the governor is suing the mayor of atlanta a weird part about that is that um a governor is going to be the one who is going to advocate for states' rights. Typically, the governor perspective would be adversarial to higher-level oversight. And if you were going to extend that logic, just for him to be intellectually consistent, it seems that he would have to say, because I generally advocate for local control and I don't want a burdensome federal imposition on my state, by an extension of logic, it seems that he would then have to say, therefore, I support even more local control. Right. In terms of mayor.

What do they call it? Mayoral? Gubernatorial? Gubernatorial is governor. Governor, right. So he's saying like, oh, no, no, no, no. I like local control, but not any more local than me. Right. I'm the, I'm about as local as I like local control, but not any more local than me. Right.

I'm the, that's, I'm about as local as I like to get. I guess so. So he's in a weird intellectual position on that. I see. So I got, I got his back on it. Here's the thing for you. Damon, he's made his life's calling to make it legal to what? I don't know. Oh, you're friends with him i am friends with him he uh he has a tracking dog uh you're getting warmer oh oh oh yeah he wants to make it he wants

to legal the blood blood track with the dog he's not even friends with the guy never even heard i thought we were talking about hunters orange oh yeah i don't know that was just a major dog his name is jaeger his dog's named jaeger and uh yeah he's uh yeah damon we've we've had him on the podcast before talking about i've met jaeger's dog he sent me a map of the holdout states okay so here's where it gets interesting like his crusade there's an organization. What's this organization? United Blood Trackers. Okay.

You should be leading the convo. United Blood Trackers. Now, his group that he's affiliated with, the United Blood Trackers, do me a favor. Bring everybody up to speed. Forget all this. with what he's talking about well so so basically basically blood dog blood trailing dogs is a thing where you you shoot an animal the animal runs off it leaves a blood trail sometimes that trail is short sometimes that trail is long and historically historically in Europe, blood trailing dogs

are big time. Like if you are a hunter, you have access to a blood trailing dog and they view it from a position of an ethical position of recovery, you know? So, so in Europe, it's, it's in many places, it's almost, I think it's even mandated that, you know, you have blood trailing dogs. And so in the United States, there are some places that don't allow you to use a dog to recover hit or wounded game. And it's because, really, it's just because of a lack of knowledge. They feel like it's, oh, you're using dogs to kill game, or you're using dogs to pursue game, Or you're using dogs to pursue game. Or you're using dogs to help you. Deer of all things. You're using dogs to help you be a successful hunter.

So it's like, oh, we don't, you know, no dogs involved in hunting whatsoever. So it's kind of one of these like blips on the radar where really it makes total, makes 100% logical sense where blood trailing dogs on a leash, a blood trailing dog is always going to be on a leash. I mean, some states are different. It's like you've read my notes. Good. Well, yeah, it makes zero sense that we couldn't use blood trailing dogs. And a lot of these guys have, I mean, these guys get into it, man. A guy, I've used blood trailing dogs twice for deer that I've shot. And my buddy in Arkansas, he, big time hunter, he would rather the telephone ring with a hunter calling him to blood trail a deer than for himself to go hunting and kill a deer. That's the sense I get from a couple people I've talked to in this space is they're like blood trailing enthusiasts. Yes.

That's what they become. And that's what Damon is. He really enjoys it. My brother's dog, Shifty, has emerged as. Who's a corgi. Corgi. That'll eat anything. Has emerged as a blood trailing dog.

It's like it kind of gets the it's with the program like it's been out hunting enough where it's with the program and is a and and is a real asset on trailing but they've been whittling away at states that um they've been whittling away at states that don't allow it. And he says usually, and Damon's emailed me about this, usually the turning point in the legislation process is clarifying. We're talking about animals that are on a leash. That's right. So they're not out free roaming.

They're not like running deer. Yes. We're not out free roaming. They're not like running deer. Yes. They're ruling out trespassing. You're not releasing this dog to go catch a deer. Yep. And it's not, there's no risk of it crossing fence lines and whatever. Because you're in total control of the animal. Usually when this is explained and captured properly, they find that the states wind up being very sensitive to it or okay with it.

He sent me this map of, and it's like, it's in greens and reds. And they've got like pretty much the whole country has decided, okay. Hawaii is one of those maps. Oh, no, Hawaii is green. Okay. Hawaii, Alaska, you can have a green. Okay. Hawaii, Alaska. You can have a dog on a leash and blood trail. The holes, it's a weird thing.

The West Coast is, or the westernmost five states. And then one looks like New York. I wish I could zoom this bugger up oh here you ready massachusetts rhode island and connecticut are no-go so the no-go states are clustered and weirdly um the five most western states in the U.S., so Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona are still no-go. And then you have a little cluster in the Northeast, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts are no-go. island and massachusetts massachusetts are so so more than more are pro blood trailing dog than than not by my reckoning okay 42 states are are okay with you pursuing game with leashed dog and what they what they want to do is they want to get the rest of the place cleaned up, opened up. Because like I said, just people that identify as United Blood Trackers members, so not counting all the dudes out there that happen to have a good dog for tracking,

but these dudes that are in this group recovered over 3,000 animals last fall. It's a lot of deer. Yeah. Yeah, how many animals do you think go unrecovered? it's a lot of deer. Yeah. Yeah. How many, how many animals do you think go unrecovered? Like how many, are there stats on that?

Yeah. It's very contentious. In fact, you're encouraged to not talk about it because it makes things look bad. Um, and it's hard to say, but it's not quite half of everything that gets an arrow stuck into it. And it depends by species a little bit.

But you also got to consider that that doesn't mean they died. This is handy for stuff. It's a much smaller percent. I mean, a lot of things get stuck with an arrow or nicked by an arrow or a bullet that doesn't kill it. Just go to a guy that processes wild game. They usually got coffee cans full of broadheads. They've been bullet. And shoulders and just, yeah.

Everywhere. Everywhere, yeah. So that's common that things just get wounded, just like people get wounded. I mean, you can cut your finger and bleed more than a lot of deer blood trails. And so there's that, which a dog isn't going to find anyways because he's on a leash and then there's the whatever percent of it is that it died um as much that like lethal

not recovered but dead is much lower but i would say significant yeah and there's a lot of things that can happen i mean you could hit something and uh you know and it goes into a creek and it washes you know washes blood away maybe it travels down the creek a minute it comes out of the creek dripping wet it makes it 20 yards before another drop hits the ground and you look and look and never piece it together. We used to lose a lot of deer. There's this thing called Mosquito Creek where I grew up. It was like once a deer hit Mosquito Creek,

everybody got a bad feeling. I remember one time. Was it just because of how far it was away from where you were? Because it already went a long ways, and then it was in the creek, and then everybody just really sucked the energy out went a long ways, yeah. And then it was in the creek, and then it was, everybody just, it really sucked the energy out of a blood trailing party. Yeah.

When you got to Mosquito Creek. You know what's interesting about those blood dogs is they're not always trailing blood. Like, you get the sense that they're smelling blood, and they are, that's all that they're tracking. Because, but that's why you need a blood dog is when the blood trail is sparse. And what they do is they, they lock onto the individual scent of that animal, a good one. You know, you, you put it on a track and you want it to smell some of the blood, obviously, because that blood is connected with that scent and that

track. And what's amazing is that, you know, individual animals have individual scent. And so that dog is trailing that animal. And then, you know, they're, just think of a 500-yard blood trail through good whitetail country. There's going to be other trails, you know, scent trails that cross that blood trail. Sure. And a good dog is able to lock on and stay on. He knows his dude. Yeah.

But it's also, it's a partnership between the handler and the dog because the handler has to understand what its dog does when it's on a good blood trail. So like Damon will tell you, he might, he can understand what that dog's doing. And he may be like, Hey, he's on the wrong track and may scooch over 20 yards and get back on the right track. So, you know, there it's a partnership. It's not just like the dog does all the work. There's some human intellect going into it as well. I've seen that with houndsmen chasing lion tracks where they call it sorting it out yep where everything just goes crazy and it's whatever

something happened a creek crossing right the dogs came up the lion came up on another lion bed, whatever, and they wade in there and hooting and hollering and stomping around, and pretty soon they get everybody lined out back in the... And a lot of times that means they're going in and they're finding the actual track of the animal in the snow, if they're in the snow, coming out the other side. Sorting out what exactly happened. They'll see their dogs just confused. They call it making a loss dogs make a loss and then the houndsman goes in and maybe he finds a track 300 yards from that loss

going the opposite direction they hoop their dogs in and get their dogs going this is my theory too on on blood tracking dogs um i don't know a lot about like drip patterns but i imagine when something's dripping blood um sometimes you're surprised what you're pleased with yourself about how small of a droplet you picked up i mean things that are like the end of a sewing needle, the thick end of a sewing needle. Right. And you might be like, ha, look at that. I'm a command master tracker. Yeah.

There has to be a lot of blood droplets. That we don't see. But that nose, it's whatever, like thousands times better than our nose, also find. Right, right. And then just ones that you just miss or they're. Leaves flip over. Yeah.

I mean, you know, animals running, droplet hits the leaf, leaf flips over when the animal passes over it. Have you met many people who are colorblind? Not really. Yeah. There's some folks out there. I think Canyon's old man

or kenyon maybe yeah something it's mark sounds familiar has that red has like uh they can't see red and when you're hunting you gotta have a plan you gotta have someone to call because they can't spot red my brother-in-law had that he couldn't see red on the ground so he he was like you couldn't no and then he'd see like a black you could see i think it was he could see like a big pile of it would just be recognizable by its pattern but the actual stuff it doesn't register to him as red yeah and you're at a real disadvantage clay uh this is not in your wheelhouse. What's next? Maybe. You've written a song about Giannis. No.

Well, Doug Duren's song. No, Gianni Cimani. Okay. Oh, no, not Doug Duren's song about Giannis. I've heard a reference to it. There's been many a song written about me. Yeah? Yeah.

I'm not aware of it. I've written several. A guy found a song that he sent in a song from YouTube that he thinks is the real song. I personally think it's the worst song. And not because of the subject matter. Are you about to start singing to music here? I can't wait.

I think it's the worst song ever written. Not because of why. Not because of why. It just, it's the worst song ever written. Not because of why... It's almost offensive. So he likes deer meat with his minimum wage. But where Yanni gets excited... Hold on a minute. The chorus. I like to have a little fun It's time to have a little fun

Time to have a little fun. Here's Yanni's part. Meat's in the freezer, let's go skiing Meat's in the freezer It's Yanni's new theme song, man. That's not worth a smile. i don't know what is the freezer let's go skiing he's like this is the it's got a whopping i've probably accounted for several that song was written a while ago it's got a whopping 4697 back when there were more true outdoorsmen running around these parts that's when it used to resonate. Yeah.

When you had more... I'm just saying the era that it was written. Oh, you mean it was written in response to true outdoorsmen like me? No. Oh, okay. No, back in the day, you can hear Hal Herring talk about it. Clay and I were briefly discussing Hal.

A fellow we respect a lot. And, you know, back in the day, like he says, it's like the true outdoorsman did stuff with every season that was available. You know, there was skiing, there was trapping, there was ice fishing. Which rules out skiing. Fishing. Now, you do it all. It's all here for you.

And that's a dying lifestyle. Oh, big time. So this song was written like a Westerner that would have filled his game tag and then went recreational skiing. Yes. David Walburn is the musician. Let's find out about him. Man, you're going to blow this YouTube video up. He might be talking about cross-country skiing. He's got a song.

No. You don't think so? The album was released in 2003. Its genre is easy listening. I can buy that. He has five albums. Where's he from? Colorado.

Duck Lake? You're thinking of Johnny Denver. Every state needs its own Johnny Denver. What is Duck Lake? He's up by Whitefish, Montana. Gotcha. He actually runs, as I'm doing a little sleuthing here, he runs like a vacation home

for outdoor enthusiasts and eco-minded travelers. Meats in the freezer. I wish it was a heavy metal song instead of easy listening. Kind of had a nice country and western feel to it.

See, I think if the meat's in the freezer. Yanni should sue him. And be like, dude, that's my shit from way ago. Yanni's eyes are rolling. I'd trademark that. He's like, I thought that a long time ago, and then you stole my thoughts. I think if meat's in the freezer, and you live in Montana, and there's snow on the ground, and it's wintertime, you should go lion hunting.

Meat's in the freezer, let's go lion hunting. That'd be good. Get some more meat. That'd be a good shirt for Yanni. Meats in the freezer, let's go skiing. Yeah, that would be a good shirt. I could see a little caricature of Yanni with his skis and his freezer.

I can't tell if Yanni's upset or not. No, I think it's great. I mean, you listen to that chorus and everybody gets a kick out of it. Oh, I love it. I think it's great I mean, you listen to that chorus And everybody gets a kick out of it Oh, I love it I love it Me too We've got some really good friends of ours

That are trying to convince my wife and I To become skiers Like they travel to ski Yeah, you live in the American South Man Hey, I was on the Spanwagon Long before I knew you were on the Spanwagon, Steve But I am

Not in the South I am not a skier And I am not a golfer Hey, I was on this bandwagon long before I knew you were on this bandwagon, Steve. But you're not in the South. I am not a skier, and I am not a golfer. Oh, I thought you meant the bandwagon about how you don't live in the South. Oh, well. I mean, technically I do. The upland South, as it's said. Oh, I'm thinking of Missouri.

What's the quote? There's a quote about how the Southerners think they're Yankees. The Yankees think they're Southerners. Oh, who's like this mid-South? I don't know that you heard that from me. No, I don't think I did. Now that I'm thinking about it. Here's another bit of feedback. So we had a very well-received, very good podcast episode with a meat scientist.

Was any of you guys there? I was not. Nope. Yanni was absent. Corinne was there. Very good episode with a meat scientist. And he made clear. He let people know the parameters of his expertise. And they did not extend into fish.

But a buddy of mine, Tony Calagrasi, who's been on this show, wrote in to share this. We were talking about rigor mortis, okay? And the meat scientist, just to refresh everyone or for people that didn't listen to catch that episode,

this is very important. I learned a ton talking to that guy. Was adamant that you need to let a carcass go through rigor, enter into rigor mortis, and best to allow it to do it on the bone. He's not keen on immediately, even though now and then you have to, like you have no options. He's not keen on and advises against deboning a pre-rigger carcass because rigor mortis is this like contraction and it's helpful when the

muscle's anchored at its points so that its contraction is limited. I'd like to plug. But when it's freed up, it goes like. Go ahead. That's right. It just turns into a ball almost. What are you going to plug?

I'd just like to plug Alaska Game and Fish because everything that Steve just discussed can be found on Alaska Game and Fish website about that. Is that right? They also have information about what they call cold shortening. When an animal is frozen too soon, when meat is frozen too soon. They do? Yep.

It's all there. Man, those guys got it dialed. They do, man. They got a lot of good information on that website. But no, I mean, I've been saying that stuff for years. I'm glad to hear that the meat scientist backed me up. He probably stole your stuff. No, I doubt that.

All Yanni's IP. Skiing in the winter. Leaving that meat on the bone. All of his IP is getting stolen. It's like at night, they're putting a radar gun up to Yanni's head at night and just sucking out all the good ideas, man.

Yeah. Before he can even get to them all. I've had my buddy, Chef Tony Palmer, he even feels the same way about a turkey. He'll let that turkey hang every time a full 24 hours before he removes the breasts off that breastbone for the same reason. I have immense respect for Alaska's Fish and Game Agency. They take the job. Very seriously. Seriously.

And they, I don't mean this in a negative way, they jealously guard their resources. And you don't have to ever question where, you don't have to ever question what they're getting at. You know, like they are just, you know, they are like very, they like to guard their resources and they like to let those resources that are able to support harvest be taken advantage of responsibly man they take it's big business there but and just in terms of sharing information they have a mat they have like a little online magazine they put out like like a summation of research in the state but made very digestible for layman but like what's going on some people like stupid fishing game right you can go and see like here's what we do here's why we do it here's how we do it and here's how it has implications

for you as an angler and yes um we count things and measure things and make rules and change our rules because it's a dynamic environment that we live in. And we're trying really hard to ensure for you an opportunity to continue hunting and fishing in the future, which now and then involves a little bad news. All right, back to rigor mortis. Oh, Tony Calagrasi. I have another digression. Should I hit it after i deliver the news or prior it's a tony i'll do it after host choice um tony was saying he was this was

explained to him he says i used to cook salmon the day i caught the fish until my buddy in juno told me that you should always let the fillets sit overnight in the fridge to complete the rigor cycle. If you cook fish right out of the water, you'll notice the fillets really scrunch up on the grill. And just like your guest said about red meat, and the meat is kind of chewy, almost a bit rubbery. I never thought much about it, always figured the fresher, the better. After hearing this from my buddy, I noticed a huge difference when you let the fillets sit in the fridge overnight, then on the counter to room temp before grilling. He feels that this is especially true with bottom fish. Him saying that, I can picture what he's saying. When a fillet scrunches up.

It almost becomes thicker. Yeah. You know, that's interesting because when we did. Then he goes on to say, you probably already know this. I'll be like, uh-huh. I bet Yanni did. When we cooked, we grilled smallmouth filets on the half shell, skin on. And we had caught them that day probably around i don't know noon

one and grilled them at six and uh they definitely had that like they got short it started off as maybe a 10 inch fillet and it ended up being an eight inch fillet and it was an inch and a half thick and when it was done cooking it was two inches thick. It's interesting. Yeah. Here's the digression. Tony Calagrasi does some deep drop fishing. They fish like 1,300, 1,400 feet of water for sablefish. And I just acquired my own deep drop rod and reel. And you know, me and Seth have our show onbs called the flip-flop flesher's fur shed we're on saturday morning program no it it it goes up against the nightly news

um competes well against the nightly news we're gonna start a new show called deep drop boys and what it is b-o-y-Z you see people would watch it Deep Drop Boys and what it is is me and Seth travel to all corners of the world where the water's deep and

we set my deep drop rod down there and see if anything's down there you know what would make this show work is if you had a second

deep drop rod with one of those magnets on it have you seen those where they drop the magnets all kinds of treasures down there. Yeah. Seth will be the treasure guy.

That'll be like his deal. He's like a big treasure guy. And I'm a big fish guy. And we argue a lot. Yeah, we argue a lot. Deep drop, boys. That would be on the History Channel for sure. Our first episode is going to be, we're going to call it,

We're Going to Need More Line. And then the second episode is called antipodes and uh for you listeners at home remember when you're a little kid and you thought that if you dug down straight through earth you would be in china um i think that's for most americans that is uh absolutely true. But in the Antipodes episode, we deep drop a spot. So let's say where we make our episode, we're going to need more line. Then we go to the Antipodes of that spot and deep drop that spot. Which is the exact opposite place on the earth. See how close the baits are.

Yeah, if we snag the hook, we'll know it's DSC. It goes all the way through. Yeah. What else I got? Oh, this is interesting for people to hear about. People aren't aware of this, but there's an ongoing competition globally to know what is the oldest representational art in the world.

And it's always being, when it gets beaten, I can see Rick get excited. This is the kind of stuff you like, Rick, like cave paintings. I do like cave paintings. Yeah, so you just smiled when I said it. All I do is say cave paintings and Rick smiled. I don't know much about them though. No.

Was it a lion figurine or something? Yeah. Yeah. I'll get to the. No, no, no. It's not. It's humans hunting. Oh.

Way old. Okay. Way old. But it's not a great. Did you see Herzog's cave painting movie? Yeah. Something Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Yeah. I went to thatgotten Dreams. Yeah.

I went to that with my buddy Ben Wallace. He's a writer. And we left, and I said, I don't know how you can make a bad movie about cave paintings. And he said, I don't know how you can make a good movie about cave paintings. Just very different views on cave paintings. It was shot in 3D. We agreed that we didn't like it. I mean, I loved the cave footage, but I just didn't like the handling of it.

Because I wanted more anthropology. I wanted less like modern day jackasses. No, I like Herzog. He's one of the best. But modern day jackasses talking about what they think people were thinking. And I wanted more anthropology. I can see that yeah i mean the the skulls in that cave are unbelievable yeah and the footage was unbelievable yeah like stalag tight stalagmite crusted i saw cave bear skull i mean yeah i saw it on tv it was it was stunning. Yeah, I saw it on 3D. It was cool. Stunning. Yeah. Stunning footage.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams? I think so. Dude found the cave by, this is a common cave hunter thing, air drafts. I think it was a kid. The main one, two kids found it and they guarded it until they could alert the authorities. Yeah. Maybe that's just anecdotal. Well, I remember, no, I remember him talking about people would go on these rock faces because

the cave models over time will get covered by debris, rock, and they go and they feel for airflow. I think it's cool air coming out. On a hot day, it's like cool air coming through the rock to find that there's a recess. So this new thing they found. For a while, they thought that Europe had the oldest. So previous to this new discovery, which is in Indonesia, there was a site in Europe that had where it's like abstract beings.

Therianthropes. How do you pronounce that? Therianthropes, abstract beings therianthropes how do you pronounce that therian thopes rick therian thopes i love that you would think i know that a therian thope a therian thrope is a uh like an abstract being that combines qualities of both people and animals um and they feel that they arguably communicated like narrative fiction of some kind like folklore religious myths spiritual beliefs what's that data to 40,000 45 or they start finding evidence of that around 40,000 years ago and then that that type of thing disappears at the pleistocene-Holocene transition,

so around 10,000 years ago. But prior, there was a site in Germany where there was a human with a cat head from about 40,000 years ago. Now there's this new limestone cave in Indonesia where they have human, it's human-animal hybrids. So these therianthropes are hunting wild pigs and a dwarf form of bovid. So some extinct wild cow species. Probably get fat on that thing.

43.9 thousand years on that thing. 43.9 thousand years old. 44 thousand years. Long time ago. To hang out with those guys, man. Would have been that different? Than hang out with Yanni? Yeah. Meat's in the freezer, let's get more. They'd probably ski in the

winter. No skiing, as far as we can tell. Here's one. Here's a good one. This is like one of those ones I flagged just because I'm trying to tell if it's really true. This guy claims, this guy, I don't know. This guy claims that they repaired a car.

So they're out at Elkhunt. They're in a Jeep CJ. And the lower radiator hose splits. They're so deep in the woods that they take the esophagus out of the elk and clamp it on and drive on out of there 16 psi 15 PSI. No, no, I messed up. His mom, okay, the dude wrote in saying his mom told him this about some other dude. And this dude's saying, like, do you buy that? I'd say the heat would break down and cook the esophagus and it would burst under pressure.

Eventually fall apart. He blames his inability to test this himself on how hard it is to draw an elk tag in Michigan. He's got to put it out to other people to help him. I think that's a good subject matter for Spencer's MythBuster. Well, Spencer's such a pain in the ass about the Mythbuster thing. I didn't know this. He's a real pain in the ass about it because every time I come to him with a thing that I know to be true,

he says, but you're the only person that thinks that or you're the only person that wonders that. And he likes it to be a widely held belief. Now, where it becomes a pain in the ass is he does things that I didn't know about. So I'm like, if it was that widely held i would have heard of it so it's like widely held as understood by spencer so i can't get him to do i can't get him to do the squirrel nut one do squirrels bite the nuts off other squirrels and castrate him he goes i feel that everyone who believes that heard it from you. But I think I finally got him talked into that, but I would love it.

Don't just secretly put me on BCC or whatever and tell Spencer that it's a widely held belief that Elk esophagus is. Rick, you know how to say esophagus is in plural? Esophaguy? Elk esophaguses. Rick, you know how to say esophaguses in plural? Esophaguy? Esophaguy. Can just be used to replace your radiator holes and you can drive around. And he'll do his thing. Be a good problem to have. To have a fresh elk esophagus.

Okay, you guys want, can we do one last one? Two last ones. You're running the show there, Steve. Boy, what do you think? Like if I start into another one, are you going to be like, oh my God. Well, I rip. I guess it matters how good it is. Yeah.

Don't let us down. We recently shared a story where a listener got thumb cuffed by a fishing bait. So he was like, I don't know how, I can't remember the exact details, but anyways, he like grabbed the thing out of his tackle box. He's like checking out or fiddling with a Rapala and tripped and got the treble hooks in each of his thumbs. And his phone's in his back pocket, and he couldn't even get at his phone to get it out. And he went out to the road, and he's trying to show people driving by, like, holding his bloody hands up to try to help them understand that he needs assistance.

And he couldn't get any, and he eventually had to walk to a bar to get some help. Nobody would pull over. No, he said, I'm holding my profusely bleeding hands up in the air as cars drive by. I would have stopped. Was he yelling, help me? I don't remember if he laid out that level of detail. He went to a bar and got assistance. Maybe I'm overestimating my ability to tolerate pain.

I think if it got to that, I would just be like, hmm. Have you ever had this happen to you? No, no. So I realized. It doesn't work that way. Really, you can't just get it out. Oh, plug Spencer's deal. Oh, yeah.

Spencer's article that I don't know yet for sure, but I think that because my wife came up to me very excited last night and said, look at this, photos. This is the title of the article. I like it already. That's my kind of article. The worst fish hook injuries to meat eater fans. And the title page has a dude very much squinting,

both his eyes kind of pretty much shut because he's got a treble hook, maybe two out of the three hooks in an eyeball. And I think another, the forward treble hook is stuck in his hat. And, man, if you can bypass that and not click to go see the rest of them, you're a stronger person than I am. But I was saying how he probably broke the internet with that one. Oh, that's like my... You know they use that radar gun

to get Yanni's IP out? If you were to use a radar gun on my head and be like, what does this person want most? It would be like he would most want a book of fishing hooks stuck in people's pictures. Like a coffee table book. Would it have a little subchapter of sleeved fingers?

Yeah, I'd put that in like an appendix. An appendix about appendages. Oh, another thing to plug is in our new, in our Wilderness Skills and Survival book, which will be available this December. You can go look at it now online, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. You can go to Amazon right now and check it out.

Gigantic book. Humongous book. The Meteor Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. We talking there about how to get hooks out. Best practices and good tricks on getting hooks out. But no, I had to go to, I had to go to, I still have a, see that? That's when I was like eight or nine years old.

I'm looking at a half inch scar on a thumb. Treble hooks. Treble hook. I picked up Chris Babcock's crankbait on his rod to admire it. And he like gave his rod a tug. And then when it didn't come and your little, when a hook doesn't, when your bait doesn't come and you're a little kid, what do you do? Pull it harder. And he seeded it in there

quite well. And I had to go and they had to cut it out of there. But no, when your thumb coughed real good, you don't just like, yeah! You'd probably walk to a bar. I gotcha. This guy's dog, this is a funny story. So these guys are fishing in Minnesota in a boat.

And it's wavy. The dog sits on a crankbait.bait gets tangled up in the crankbait and gets both of its back legs firmly snagged by the crankbait that's a bad day the dad is trying to restrain the dog and the dog's going ballistic as they do. And pretty soon gets its tongue thumb cuffed to the same crankbait. And they had to like subdue the dog and get it into the beach. 55 pound dog, 45 minutes. Finally got to the beach and were able to get some tools to get the dog's tongue and legs liberated.

That sucks. I don't like filming fishing for that reason. I get scared that that thing is gonna I'm just gonna get a even a little fly just right in my face. I snagged an ex-girlfriend on top of the head once. She didn't handle it well.

I pulled it out. Well, when you film Deep Drop Boys, we're just sending it right down. Yeah, there's no casting. And use circle hooks, which don't snag people that good. So you'll be safe on Deep Drop Boys. I might do two Z's.

I can't decide. One last quick thing. This guy wrote in, it's an an interesting story where he works at a freight company and this is a weird story it's not something i don't think it's make believe because you wouldn't like make believe this story it just wouldn't it doesn't serve any purpose to make believe the story he works for a freight company. We recently had some auto parts come in. Okay. And found a bird's nest.

In one of the parts. Not only. With a live hatchling. In the bird's nest. They took the problem to their operations manager who told them just to load it up and send it along to the next stop so as last he knew there was a live baby bird in a bird nest in a piece of auto parts headed from salt lake city to billings

his curiosity about this event stems from, are there any laws against transporting hatchlings across state lines? Anyone? Matters what kind of bird it was. If it was a game species, absolutely. That's a good point. If it was a clutch of quail or something. Or if it was a raptor.

And if it was a migratory songbird. Yeah, if it was a songbird, you can't, I don't think you can mess with them. You can order up chickens and turkeys and stuff online. So if it was a chick, if it was poultry, if it was a English sparrow, if it was a European starling, or if it was a street pigeon, I know you're cool. Oh. yeah. If I was a member of PETA or something, I would be scrambling to Billings. Try to find those birds. To resuscitate this baby bird.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Okay, now we're ready to get down to brass tacks. Do you know what that means, Clay? Brass tacks? I mean, I know what you're trying to say. You know where I think it comes from? I don't. My understanding is that in surveying,

when they do a corner post, they'll put down a corner post that's got a piece of lead in it. When you get down to brass tacks, there's like a circle of lead that you can do to like mark a corner poster thing. To get down to brass tacks is if you want to get super detail, when it really counts. Where on the top of that. You will drive a tack.

I think this is true, you will drive a tack into that circle to be like this is the spot. Not this like 2 inch, 3 inch wide thing, but this is the line property.

I like it. So we're ready to get down to brass tacks. First I have a quick listener note. We did COVID, yeah, it's been a real pain. Hey, can I interrupt? On Wikipedia, which, you know, they have all the answers, there's four

different versions of getting down to brass tacks. Please tell me mine's one of them. Neither of which. I didn't even make a list of four. You gotta edit that entry, Steve, for it to be number five. I'd go in there and add one. I didn't even make a list of four? You got to edit that entry, Steve, for it to be number five. I'd go in there and add one. I didn't even make a list of four? Jeez.

What else they got in there? What are they throwing out? The earliest attestation says in 1863, Texas, was that in a hardware store or a draper shop, they used to measure, used to measure cloth and precise units. And rather than just holding down and stretching it out with your arm to approximately one yard,

they would pin it with a brass tack so they can measure it. I don't buy that for a second. No, that doesn't make any sense. There's also a practice of using brass tacks to spell out the initials of the deceased on the top of their coffin. Don't buy that. Another theory, adorning one's gunstock with brass tacks, as was common in the American West.

True, but I don't buy it. And then the last one was... Nothing about surveying in there. Oh, no, sorry, that was the third one. That was just a further explanation. So there was three. Huh. We know what you're trying to say, Steve.

We need to make a note and get in there and just to validate my stuff. What I'm going to do is change it and then come back in and edit this podcast. Be like, if you don't believe me, go to Wikipedia. And I'm going to write the whole thing before it comes out. How about this? How about this? Let's just get down to the nuts and bolts of it. Yeah. I'm not going to write the whole thing before it comes out. How about this? How about this? Let's just get down to the nuts and bolts of it. Yeah.

I like it. But before we do that, I got to explain a thing that happened that was unfortunate. So we had arranged to have Donald Trump Jr. come in and record with us. But then we had a covid scare on our end and the day of had to cancel it was a physical visit in the studio wow had a covid scare on our end which turned out to be nothing but like uh you know i was you know everybody's had this right like so and so was with so and so and know, and then you track it down. Oh, by golly.

We got caught up in a web. I was positive for like the last, not yet, the day before, the three days prior to yesterday, I knew I was positive. But you weren't? No. Just because they put that thing so far up your nose that it hurt? No, it's, I don't know what it is, but I was at a wedding. Oh, yeah, no, you told me this story. And then like midweek.

Risky behavior. I've never had allergies. And midweek, I developed this like just slightly runny nose and like a slight tickle in my throat, like a scratch, you know, like early in the morning and then, you know, late at night. I'm like, ah, fuck. Cottonwoods, man. Yeah, exactly. Or like early in the morning and then, you know, late at night. I'm like, ah. Cottonwoods, man. Yeah, exactly.

Or they're cutting the hay right now. They are cutting hay like a mofo in this valley right now. I'm putting some sanitizer on. Just hearing you talk about this, I'm going to sanitize my lips too. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, when I got that test result back yesterday, I kind of walked out of there with my chest popped out, ready to go to

Alaska. Nice. Oh, because you got cleared. Yeah. Yeah, this is a COVID-free room right here, bro. Now, what was I saying? Oh, so I had a COVID scare, and I was like, eh, you know, there's a tendency to protect your business and not tell anybody, but we told them.

That was honorable. And they had to bail. Then we rescheduled and then he had a covid scare on his end and needed to be careful so in the end we settled on a hotel you call it skype we had a skype conversation yesterday for 30 minutes or so and so one's left being like what you know because this is like a podcast that we record in person but there was extenuating circumstances where we couldn't do it we still had a conversation which was i i think is uh was worthwhile so we're going to put it on here so when you get done with this you'll get done with this, and then that'll happen. Wow. So if all of a sudden it's different people talking, don't be confused.

It's not like he's sitting here the whole time and we're ignoring him. It's just, it'll probably sound different too, but that'll go on the end of this. So for you listeners wondering like, what happened? That's what happened. We didn't like, so 30 minutes, this is like a 90 minute, two hour show. So we're just left scratching our heads. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to put it on the end of the interview. All right.

Clay Newcomb. Maybe a few people know who Donald Trump Jr. is. The reason I wanted to talk to you, among other reasons, and we'll get into this, is one, I thought about him a great deal after he was on a hunting trip with Jason Harrison, who was a founder of both Sitka and Kuyu clothing companies. They were on a hunting trip and, um, Dollar Sheet?

Yeah. Jason Harrison took his own life like days after the hunting trip and not the, hardly, please don't think i'm trying to make this about me in some way like that tragedy but uh i thought about don jr because i had similarly had spent a week with a very close friend of mine and he went home and killed himself and the amount of uh second guessing and analyzing everything that was said to you and reading into you know what i mean and so having been through that and then knowing that he had that happen to him i empathized

with what that the the kind of like burden that puts on someone uh there's a writer ian frazier who's a wonderful writer you should read read it. Everybody should read his book, Great Plains. But Ian Frazier was one time writing a profile on a steelhead fishing guide. And who people, he was always out in the sun in Oregon and didn't wear a shirt. He went by Steelhead Joe, but people jokingly call him Melanoma Joe because he didn't do anything to protect himself from the sun. Anyways, Ian Frazier's profiling him. And while he's doing the profile, the guy kills himself. And they had been on a river trip camping. the night to take a whiz and climbs out of his tent to take a whiz and realizes that steelhead

joe is up standing on the edge of the river staring into the river in the middle of the night and then shortly after killed himself killed himself and he said it was like i got like a preview of him as a ghost and you know he left like untangle like what was that moment like you know just hard it's hard on people so i want to talk to him about that and also want to talk to him because i think that he's uh you know he's probably the most widely known outspoken hunter maybe in the world at this point. Really? You think so? I mean, give me number, who's in competition with him? Yannis Petelis.

Well, Yanni, yeah. Next to Yanni. Well, he's already on the show. Yeah. I'm looking forward to hearing that. So what'd you think of our trip this spring? Man, it was great. We haven't had a chance to catch up on it. We haven't.

To review it. We got the business done and got out pretty quick but i was a it was a great hunt i love spring bear hunting in montana that was my fourth you know quote unquote do it yourself spring bear hunt in montana um the second time that i've brought my mules up and hunted. And, uh, it's a tough hunt. It's a tough hunt. You can sure as heck go to Montana and not come home with a bear. I would go so far as to say, um, if you're doing it for your first time, I would go so far as to say, uh, plan on not seeing one.

There's a little bit of, there's a learning curve yeah you know same way if like someone's gonna like you know go out to colorado for their first archery elk hunt you'd be like it might take you a couple yeah may take you a couple at bats to get that whole thing sorted out you know the the challenge is or so we're all now so connected to so many people. And so I started kind of connecting with some guys in Montana. And if you're a local guy in Montana and you can drive out every afternoon, 30 minutes, and go and spot for bears and really know the country, that guy as a bear hunter or as any kind of hunter is way different than the guy that's driving 1,200 miles to spend six days that he picked out on a calendar four months before in hunting.

You know, so I mean, like there's a lot of local guys that, I mean, are passing up bears and are seeing a lot of bears. And so you kind of get this feeling about, you know know this may not be that as hard as you would think and uh but coming up here on your own and and I had some help you know the springs Justin Rebecca spring they've been big allies of mine on the bear front for all these years I've kind of base camped he's been on the show yeah he works yeah so they've they've they've uh they've kind of given camped out of their house. He's been on the show. Yeah. He works for Bird and Crocodile. So they've kind of given me the, you know, they're like, check out this area, do this. But overall, it's been do-it-yourself stuff, and I love it, man. I really do.

You know, everybody talks about bear hunting and trying to compare it to elk hunting or mule deer hunting, you know, spot and stalk in the West. And Yanni even said it while we were hunting. He said's not to you right now yeah i'm sucking his energy out the the uh there's not as much action like you're not watching game all day but to me that's why it's so cool because you sat there for you know and i mean we can get into the details of what we were actually doing but from an overall perspective you know you're sitting there for eight hours and see nothing and so then when you do see a bear it's it's i think that's an incredible feeling i think it's uh i think it's uh i think that's actually what people say they don't like about bear hunting is actually what I like about it.

Got you. You know? That's a good thing because from filming it, I approach filming it with a high degree of skepticism. I sense that while we're hunting. Well, I enjoy the dickens out of it. Years ago, my brother and I devoted ourselves quite heavily to it for a lot of years. And we would, we would be the two of us hunting very heavily would kill a bear every other year. Hunting hard for spring season.

Right. And you guys lived here. And there's, yeah. And there's no other, I mean, you'd see them and have missed opportunities, but if you really went and looked at this block of 10 years, that was our spring thing. This is before we even got, a lot of it was before we got into turkey hunting. It was our spring thing. When you really laid it out, that was our pattern. And I think you'd find that's pretty true. Like bear hunting partners that are kind of like low, not, not doing two week vacations, but hitting them when you can hit it.

Going out on the weekends. If, if, um, every other spring we'd get one. And so for filming, it's, uh, there's a, there's a difference between hunting and hunting and filming. Like there's an obligation to audience, you know? And so you just want to make sure there's stuff, there's a difference between hunting and hunting and filming. Like there's an obligation to audience, you know, and so you just want to make sure there's stuff happening. Yeah. And, and the ones, the episodes that we do where

there's a lot of stuff happening, just go together very painlessly. Yeah. You guys had two previous bear hunt episode or that you were working to make episodes, right? We'd filmed two other ones. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Well, in other, no, we've had great, there's other states like, you know, you go to Alaska. Yeah. And you're going to have action. You're going to be like seeing bears. Two Montana bear hunts that no bear. He ended up with no bear, right? That's correct. So this was the third, third go.

As a high country cameraman, Rick. Yeah. But also as like a, like you're a bear enthusiast. Yeah. When you hear, so are you conflicted as a high country cameraman to be, we're going to go film a bear episode. Are you, are you like, I hope we get one cause that'll make a good episode. Or are you like, I hope they don't get one cause I'm a bear enthusiast.

I'm conflicted for sure. Walk me through it. Um. I'm a bear enthusiast too, but just of a different flavor. Yeah. And I think there's, I think with, I mean, outside of my own confliction over or

conflict over, uh, bear hunting, I think I've talked to other hunters that also are like, I've went on a bear hunt or I've shot a bear and are also conflicted. So this isn't just, you know, I think it's somewhat a universal to some degree that there's a different issue versus filming an elk hunt. It's divisive. It's divisive. In my view, unnecessarily so. Yeah. And I try to.

So where's your conflict though? I mean, I've filmed bears just as like a wildlife filmmaker where you're just watching. I've just watched bears more than I've watched any other animal. You got to explain what that. I'll do it for you. Yeah. Like a Smithsonian, like there's a Smithsonian show right now called Epic Yellowstone. And I spent multiple seasons, multiple weeks filming the same individuals over the course of a few years.

Grizzly bears. Interactions. Yeah, interactions and behavior. And they're all habituated to something. And little facial expressions that they can manipulate to make it seem as though they have facial expressions of disapproval. Well, you can watch the show and then I think they did a great job. There's some cool stuff like coyotes spooking up an elk calf and then that elk calf runs into a pair of grizzly bears that I didn't see that, but I got them feeding on that carcass like right away. Really just cool stuff that you wouldn't normally see from less than 100 yards.

That's a great job. You got a great job. Yeah, it's totally cool. But so going on a hunt of a bear, it's definitely makes me think, all right. You get a good close look at him if it works out. Yeah. Which, which I'm not against, but ultimately I do this job because I like to get exposed to things

that I personally wouldn't do. Like, you know, I'm not a hunter, but I get to like, it's almost like I'm an ethnographer. Like I get to come along and observe you guys and your basically culture in something that I, you know, I grew up in the suburbs and outside of Seattle that I was never exposed to growing up or even into my, through my twenties.

Rick, you used to have a job restringing tennis rackets. Yeah. I mean, I worked as a tennis instructor. You had to go get the cat. Very different than growing up trapping things. I didn't do that as a kid. But going along

trapping beaver, I like beaver and I like them not dead, but I really enjoyed going along and seeing how it all goes. You better tell everybody about your hat, Rick. Oh, it's my favorite possession. Rick's got himself a's my favorite possession. Okay, so. Yeah, so there's.

Rick's got himself a beaver hat now. Yeah, it's fantastic. He wears it around. He's probably got it in his pocket right now. No, and I mentioned this stuff at dinner parties, and people look at me like the room stops. They're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I got a beaver hat. But those beaver are going to get killed by somebody somebody and i normally don't get a hat but if i go along and film it and i know the guy that's trapping them and i have i get to participate

like this stuff goes on whether or not we like it or or not or whatever yeah well you know but you're arguably complicit definitely yeah i don't think there's a conflict with you know i like a live bear better than i like a dead bear, you know? I mean, really. Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. You know, so. If you could milk them for bear grease, would you?

Yeah. You know, and then the other thing that you go along and people are like, well, you know, people always ask me, well, does it taste good? And I'm like, I haven't had an animal that doesn't taste good. So, and the answer is yes. And then you get into the history of like, now that we can manufacture fat so easy out of vegetable oil and whatnot, like it's just this, we were constantly basically like trying to get less fat as a society, but, uh, that's not true anymore. A hundred years ago, fat's good for you now. Now, but I think that I predict that sugar will become good for you soon.

I love sugar. I hope that's the case. But, but having Clay, somebody that's very passionate about this activity, explain kind of the holistic history of, of bear hunting and the uses of, of bear fat. And like, I'm, I'm so into having more knowledge about a subject than being like, I disagree with this, or I'm just not gonna, I'm just gonna pretend that I, and not engage. I don't think that's very helpful. So like I'm now, I can't imagine myself ever going on a bear hunt, but I would, I would happily go film another one. I mean, there's 300,000 black bears in the U S

I think there's 30,000 in Maine. I mean, there's a lot000 black bears in the U S I think there's 30,000 in Maine. I mean, there's a lot of black bears. I don't know what the, well, you would usually think it were from continental wide, you know, 800,000 to a million black bears. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, this, there's an astounding number of black bears. Um, so, you know, we kill a lot of other things and we make arbitrary dividing lines about what we choose to kill and not kill. I mean, there is an interesting idea that, you know, because black bears are omnivores or predators or more similar to us, that they potentially have diseases that we don't want, which maybe is where some of the, like, we don't eat black bear thing came from. I don't know where. We eat pork. Exactly. Plenty of people don't want, which maybe is where some of the like, we don't eat black bear thing came from. I don't know where.

We eat pork. Exactly. Plenty of people don't. Exactly. So it's, it's interesting where we divide, where we choose to divide those, those lines. I mean, you know, bears are very human-like, much more so than I would, than a, than an elk.

The other day. Just their anatomy, right? That you like stand them up. They're like, you know, people think they're Sasquatch. Tell people what you and Cal were doing for Cal's Week in Review show. Oh, we were trapping, trapping.

Cal in the field. Yeah. Trapping grizzly bears last week with Idaho Fish and Game. To pull like biometric. Yeah. It's part of the interagency grizzly bear study team, which is a collection of all the state agencies, the federal agencies.

The studies have been going on in Yellowstone since the, I think, late 60s, early 70s. The Craigheads, who basically developed collar, you know, location collar, radio collars. And grizzly bears, I think, were the only animals that could carry this thing around at the time. It was like a giant transmitter. But you guys worked two bears and one of them was 17 and one of them was 14. 15 and 22. Oh, so that's a,

see, that's like a point I was going to bring up. Cause I used to argue, like when, when I used to try to understand when I used to argue with people who'd be like, I don't know, it's not comfortable shooting a bear. I was like, okay, what is it? And they're like, well,, I don't know. It's not comfortable shooting a bear. I'm like,

okay, what is it? And they're like, well, they're very wide range. You know, they, they have such a big home range or we talked about this with Wolverines too.

It's like, well, cause they roll them all over. I'm like, well, caribou are the, they're, they have the,

they have the biggest migration pattern, um, of any North American, uh, land mammal, and you don't have a problem hunting caribou, right? I'm like, well, no. They'd be like, they get so old.

And you'd be like, but there's been cow elk that are 20 years old. You don't have a problem hunting elk, right? No. Well, it's that, right? And you go down this path. But I was talking to somebody the other day, and I didn't engage in this whole game with them,

but they were pointing out that they just get so old i mean it makes you it makes people think differently about it yeah yeah i think we just kind of choose things like we don't eat horses we don't eat dogs we just like but other people do and they might look at us like, why not? Why don't you eat your horses? Like, that's crazy. So I mean, I, I still, you know, I mean, I have a thing of bear lard in my fridge right now that I didn't, I wouldn't think I would have had that. Like if I thought of my future self, I wouldn't be like, oh, there's going to be a point where

you're going to be baking pies with bear lard. But I'm like, that's what I'm going to do with it probably. I gave that to you, didn't I? Yeah. I just remembered. Yeah. I was like, where'd he get the bear lard? No. like that's what i'm gonna do with it probably i gave that to you didn't yeah i just remembered yeah i was like where'd he get and i are lard no and i was i'm into it because it's really an amazing clean real fat it's great yeah so you know i'm conflicted i think i think a big part of what makes no sense that that especially hunters, and I can understand a non-hunter kind of feeling this way or that way, but for a hunter, man, black bears are thriving. I mean, whatever

is happening ecologically on the North American continent, we can say all the different things that are happening. Black bears are thriving. I mean, almost every population of bears is for sure stable, but most of them are increasing. I mean, I've. And expanding in range. And expanding in range. I mean, southern Missouri, you know, I talked with the. They're expanding south and north.

They're expanding north and the south. They're expanding west and the east and east and the west. And so, I mean, even if you look at it from a position of logic and management, I mean, these animals, there's only so much habitat. The country is, there's only so much suitable bear habitat in the country. And I mean,

these animals are expanding and to be able to. Didn't one just turn up in Iowa? Well, there was a bear that traveled from like Wisconsin down to, down to Missouri and they've been tracking it

and it's been on like a hundreds of miles i mean i can't remember how far it's one turned up on my mom's road the other day i just recently saw pictures of a i thought it was like it was in iowa it's just like a big loop through missouri it's like grain fields as far as you can see and there's like a black dot in the middle of it. Yeah. So, you know, so why wouldn't we build this idea, which is very true, that bear meat is incredible meat. These animals, you know, I mean, that's the foundation right there. I mean, the reason why we hunt these other animals is for the meat and bear meat's incredible.

It's a, it's a resource that's expanding. It's a resource that we can take the cream off the top. You know, harvesting 10% of the animals out of a population is going to typically stabilize that population. And if those populations aren't stabilized by hunters, those bears will die in some way. I mean, they will. They'll either be euthanized. They'll be hit by cars. There's a surplus that's going to go away.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you think about it of hunting keeping the meat keeping the hide bear fat bear claws bear chaps oh yeah you got genuine bear chaps now yeah man hair out the thing is that you run up against is that as you brought up there's a point at which there's there's a disconnect from logic meaning you could go go to Americans. Years ago when there was a big drought in California, grain prices, hay was scarce. People were trying to dump horses. It was expensive to keep them. It was big problems. You could be like, dude dude there's a lot of horses

they're really inexpensive um meat's great they love it in japan they love it in what's that country close to russia kazakhstan that one they eat a lot that's like the number one horse i think kazakhstan is the number one uh horse country horse eating place but people wouldn't do it they love what you're saying well and people are gonna be like yeah but i'm not really trying to have a debate with you about whether or not there's like a lot of horses around to eat i just don't want to eat a horse yeah and i think that there's certain people that you're going to convince by saying that you know it's a wild game species we have a harvestable surplus um people want it why not we let them have it you know we manage all of our other game species that way why should they

be an exception but some people are just going to be like i don't need a horse man um and i don't care how many horses are running around uh and you're just never going to get there with them yeah yeah well i'm not putting this as your problem yeah no but it's a great analogy because the the horse is just a farther extension of that these arbitrary lines that rick was just mentioning and and bears are closer to if there's a scale bears are closer to an elk than they are towards or they're like they fall between an elk and a horse right in most people's minds i'm very guilty of it i don't know if it's not because i because i didn't grow up with bear hunting right too many teddy bears on my bed as a kid i mean all sorts of reasons but the more

i know about it and like when you tell me i don't forget which one of you two told me that back in the day the settlers they didn't want to eat no deer meat. They wanted bear meat. Yeah. They just used the deer for the hides, right? So what's your being torn? Well, I'm not saying, I'm just a perfect example of someone that sort of, for an arbitrary reason, was kind of uneasy about killing and eating a bear. And the more I know about it, the more I do about it, I'm just getting drawn in and I'm getting it.

It's becoming more and more comfortable. Like you're getting there. Yeah. You know, the problem for us, if our position is to, you know, and I think it is, I think we can say this is the Meteor podcast. If our position is to defend the North American model of wildlife conservation and we're saying, hey, this is the most successful wildlife husbandry effort of all time. Then there's a problem when there's a problem with one sector of it.

You know, so the problem with it, you know, it's different than, you know, like making the analogy of it being like a horse is that, I mean, it just presents a problem when people don't, and I'm not saying non-hunters. I get that non-hunters may not want to eat a bear. I'm totally cool with that. Oh, I'll still, no. I am a bear hunter. I will defend it all day long. But I also think you might, that, um you might as well like talk openly and discuss

where people are at on it sure yeah yeah yeah and i think that's i guess i'm like that comfortable in my convictions yeah that i can sit down and verbalize and imagine what a contrary viewpoint would be without like losing my shit sure which a lot of people don't have like these like supposedly deeply held convictions, but they kind of fall apart the minute they're confronted with the obligation to at least consider where someone else is coming from. And then you're left to think like how much have

they thought this through that that makes them that uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have this, we have the scale where like, you know, a lot of, a lot of people are, don't eat that much meat, but they'll eat fish.

They're okay with fish dying. And then they like. They don't have eyebrows, eyelashes. That's what I've heard. Yeah. So there's, there's a. The fish had eyelashes. They have a scale where they're like, I'll eat

this sort of animal because it seems furthest removed from my experience. And then you get to prey animals and you're like, I'm okay with a prey animal because they're kind of like not that aware or maybe not that, like on the sentience scale. They're like, I don't know, seem a little more simplistic than as you move up and bears and pigs that would include in that same thing. They're like fully emotional creatures. I mean, in my view, or, and I think people would argue that they're, they're more intelligent than some of the, than some of the lower animals. Like have we told you the story of beans, the pig?

Yeah, I was there. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, but so in my mind, like people have no problem eating bacon. Like in the most, I mean, these pigs that are raised in industrial food conditions, they're pretty horrific. But then they're real up in arms about a bear that lived its whole life in the woods doing its thing until that last day.

Dude, that's a good point. Because that's the one thing people are like, that's the thing that collapses vegetarians all the time. They can't resist the bacon. It's just in pop culture. People are like, bacon, bacon, bacon. And it's all like, you see those videos of them being squeezed together in those massive slaughter operations. And you're like, I need to not eat this stuff at all. But I can't stop.

Yeah. It's hard. But I would make the argument that people probably should not eat bacon and go occasionally bear hunting. There you go. Stop eating. If you want to be ethically and philosophically responsible, stop eating bacon and start bear hunting. I like it, Rick's baby. If America's bacon.

If you don't want to do either, I'm totally for it. I just want to throw out here as devil's advocate. If America's bacon needs were to be satisfied with black bears. It would be impossible. I think that we would be out of them and Clay would be out of a passion. He'd be a passionless man within six months. This is the other thing that we need to come to grips with. We cannot eat things like bacon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's like an American right. Like, I deserve this much meat every day, all day long. I mean, the world is basically wanting to do that as well, and it has serious ramifications. Did you notice me jokingly sanitize my lips with that hand sanitizer?

I do not recommend that, man. No, it gave me instantly chapped lips. Between the time I said that. Yeah, that's not safe. And I didn't even really do it that much. I just did it to make my joke. I felt that it was funny, so I just did a little bit of it.

You're taking to heart the ingesting disinfectant. That's my COVID hot tip. This is a COVID hot tip off. Don't sanitize your lips. With lots of stuff, Perel advanced. You just need some light therapy.

Steve, I think what Giannis was saying was just his knowledge levels increasing and having some exposure to bear and bear hunting and people that are using bears, like that is increasing his, like he's seeing, he's beginning to see it in a different light. And that's what I see happening all over the place. I mean, I have people, I'm not going to say daily because that's not true, but constantly emailing me, whatever, i never even thought about bear hunting but now i am and in right in their home state or right within you know some driving distance they've got this

incredible opportunity to bear hunt you know and so they're starting to be and man that's what we have won when i say we i mean bear hunting magazine which is which is me and one other dude, Colby Moorhead. We have wanted to reform and change the branding of bearhunting in North America. You know, just bring it up. You know, so much opportunity, such great meat that people still don't understand, such history, such challenge, unique challenge. That's way different than hunting an ungulate, hunting an antlered animal, you know, which not taking anything away from that. Cause I love hunting those, but anyway, it's just this unique thing. So I think people, I think people are starting to see it. I mean, I have seen a

increase in or noticed an increase in media coverage of, you know, pro bear stuff. I mean, just in the outdoor section. Yeah. Outdoor world. So, but I also think it's partly opportunity. And people are looking for a way to be a hunter year round. And so much of our traditional hunting is just in the fall. And you can spring bear hunt, I think, in nine states, and then most of the Canadian province.

I think it's nine states. And most of the Canadian province. Well, yeah, in Maine, you can hunt on some tribal lands there in Maine. There's a spring hunt. But basically, there's this opportunity to hunt big game in May and June, and people people are you know back when you know in the 70s 80s when my dad was growing up serious deer hunters deer hunted for you know 30 40 days and well they focused on it for three months during the year the rest of the year hunting was just like not on the radar yeah now people are wanting to do stuff year round. So, you know, bear hunting gives them an opportunity to do that.

Walk. This is a little bit of a spoiler alert because we're making a show about this. But Clay got a bear. Walk through. Because it's kind of a good example of like what. Walk through the bear you got. Because it's a good example of how a spring bear strategy how spring bear hunting works and you know every state has got different rules in wyoming you can bait bears in idaho you can bait bears you can hunt

bears with hounds um in this state you can't use bait can't use dogs yeah well we go through the unsuccessful yeah oh that's interesting because that interesting. That's almost maybe even more telling of some spring bear tips. Yeah. Talk about the unsuccessful one. The unsuccessful story is interesting. Yeah. We packed back in on mules

five miles. Steve and I were riding mules. Stinkhole Creek. Stinkhole Creek. Stinkhole Creek. Yeah, that's where it was. And we, so we packed back in five miles. And we were, what we were looking for is we were looking for green vegetation, essentially. When you're spring bear hunting, these bears are feeding on green vegetation.

We were looking for green vegetation. We hadn't seen any bears, so we didn't know what elevation they were going to be and the way that i like to describe it in the spring is that you're you're hunting the green up so the higher elevations are not going to be green lower elevations are going to be green and the bears typically want to they're coming out of den and high typically going down into the green but they just seem to want to go back up so it's almost like they follow this green up line the green the green wave yeah and so we didn't really know what elevation that would be in but we me and you packed mules and uh and and i've got a i like not taking a pack animal usually when people think about hunting with a mule or horse, usually you have a pack animal that's dedicated to just carrying gear, and then you have an animal that you ride.

I like to pack light and pack enough gear for three days and go back in with one man, one mule, carrying a backpack full of gear saddlebags full of gear enough gear for three days camping stuff go back in and if you see what you like you can stay in there for up to three or four days if you don't see what you like you can get the heck out of there and go somewhere so that's what we were doing yeah went back in five miles within the first 10 minutes of being at the glassing point where we could really see this country that we were wanting to hunt, I believe Giannis. No, the eagle spotted it. The eagle spotted a bear. True to name.

1,100 yards away or, no, it was further than that. I think it was. No, it was way more than 1,100 yards away. 1,700 yards. I mean, it was over a mile, almost a mile away. No, it would have been farther than that. I want to say that we did the, it 1,100 yards away. 1,700 yards. I mean, it was over a mile, almost a mile away. I don't know if it went farther than that. I want to say that we did the, it was a long ways away. We did a long ass getting over there to get 800 yards away.

Yeah. It was a ways away. My vision only really becomes focused at about 1,800 yards, so I know it had to be farther. Your eyes are on the side of your head like a mule, so you focus out way out there. So we found this bear immediately once we get back in here, and it's a very nice, big Montana bear. And I don't know if you remember our conversation, but I wanted to go up higher because I felt like we were about to really get into the good stuff.

And to me, that bear was kind of – I knew it was going to be hard to get to. It was late enough in the day where it was, you weren't going to get over there. We weren't going to get over there. And so I don't know how long of a version of this story that you want, but. Medium. Medium. Well, we camped out. It was too late to go after the bear.

We camped out the next morning. It snowed. Yeah, snowed up there. We were at about 5,500, 6,000 feet elevation where we camped. Uh, the bear was at 4,500 feet elevation. Amidst another person's garbage pile. So we, the next morning, rather than going after the bear, which may have been a mistake, I don't know. We, we went way up to glass another area. I regard that as a mistake. I don't know. We went way up to glass another area. I regard that as a mistake. Yeah,

I think I did too. I just felt like if we could get over there, we were going to look down in and see a bear 300 yards away. I mean, that's where I've been wanting to go was back where I took you that morning. A bear in the hand. Yeah. I remember you say, Clay, this isn't Alaska. This is Montana. We can't just walk past this bear. So at 11 o'clock, 11 a.m., we get back down to the exact spot where Giannis spotted the bear, and we see him again. He hasn't moved. He is, I mean, that bear was staying in probably an 80-square-yard area on the side of that mountain. Which I think is kind of generally stays true you talk to a lot of guys that have that experience early early they just they find a spot they have what they need and they tend to not move around a lot but as the as spring fades to summer um they get moving the

more options they have the more they're going to move. The later it gets into the spring, the more they're going to be driven by breeding. So that bear was – and that's why I love that early – that time early in the spring is that if you find a bear, you can kill him if you don't get winded by him. Yeah. So we decide to make a play on this bear. We have to go down into the drainage. So we're looking across like three ridges probably, two ridges. And we see this bear.

So it's not like you can walk straight to him. So we drop off into the drainage, you know, probably walk close to a mile up a super thick drainage, then pop back up on the mountain. I'd call it the willow-choked hellhole. Yeah. It was rough. So bad that it was preferable. The bottom is so bad that it was preferable to side hill across scree slides.

Yeah. Which is not, it's got to be bad. Not enjoyable. It was. Yeah. When that's better than crick walking. Yeah. As a bad Crick

Don't we have a game trail I feel like Yeah but I'm just saying like Generally I would rather Walk up a stream bottom Oh Than side hill on

Scree slides Yeah And the Game trails were Ephemeral Yeah they would come They would fade in And out

You'd be like Ah here's a good trail Then like Then all of a sudden It's gone Yeah It wasn't horrible But Yeah Just saying Yeah, they would fade in and out. You'd be like, oh, here's a good trail. Then all of a sudden, it's gone. Yeah. It wasn't horrible, but. Yeah.

Just saying. So we get down to about where we were using our onyx. So we decided where we wanted to come back up the mountain to get a viewpoint of the bear. So we're in deep timber while we're walking in this drainage. Then we come back up the hill at this certain place. And I don't know if you remember, but we split up. Me and Dirt went probably 50, 60 yards up the mountain, and you guys stayed down low. And within 10 minutes, we spot the bear.

Still in the same place. Still in the same place. Middle of the day. It's 2 o'clock now. So it's like 20 hours later, and he still hasn't moved. Yeah. And at this point, I mean, we're in the chips.

Big time. 800 yards away. 800 yards away. The wind is bad, but we're both pretty confident that he's 800 yards away. Hold on. I thought we did this twice because we popped up at like

1,000 or 1,100. We didn't find him until we were 800 yards away. Well, but hold on. Didn't we, I thought we did this twice because we popped up at like a thousand or eleven hundred and then. We didn't find him until we were eight hundred yards away. Oh, really? We found him at that point. And it was like, the wind was bad. We are so far away that it was just, we almost went without saying, we'll just stay here until the wind gets good. Because how the hell is he going to smell us from here? Yeah. until the wind gets good because how the hell is he gonna smell us from here yeah and the bad kind of wind like not just like lightly blowing up the canyon it was a gusty afternoon like kind of like

you know honking like where if someone was more than you know 10 yards away you'd probably have to raise your voice to communicate right yeah and we're kind of down in the v notch of the valley and it's just washing all that warming air from the afternoon warmth is just that's the noise it makes for people at home this is like uh what's that thing where you play with beads and talk yeah um my brother likes asmr yeah it's kind of creepy seth likes it he was telling me he was listening to one where it's someone cutting your hair. Dude. That's weird. Yeah, that's real weird.

I almost feel like we should cut that out. Edit that out. You even know that, Steve. Yeah. Here's what it was like for people who like SMRI. What's it called? ASMR. I think.

Isn't it ASMR? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Which is it asmr oh i'm out of the loop here boys oh you don't know about asmr it's like you listen to a lot of people have like a russian woman playing with beads making noise banging beads together and talking and you listen to it to get your jollies not that kind of jollies. People just listen to it because they like the way it sounds. It stands for autonomous sensory meridian response.

It's like whisper. You ever hear something you like so much that it makes you get a tingly feeling in your head? Where it's like a wash. Here's what it sounds like. It's like tingle, tingle, tingle. Common triggers. Whispering. other auditory sounds rick could do that yeah i'll do it you keep talking rick you do that that's the wind blowing

up the hill well hey i've i've evaluated well so we're set up up the hill, 800 yards from this bear. I spot the bear. Me and Dirt, we're way up above you guys. We're the same distance up from the creek as the bear is up from the creek, even though he's up from us because the whole thing is up. Right. I see what you're saying. That was extremely clear. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. And there was a wall. I mean, the mountain opposite the creek of us, Steve, I've analyzed it since then why that bear smelled us. If it had been like this wide valley, I don't think he would have smelled us. It was like a cliff face. It was a cliff face. So, I mean, any air coming through there was just going to be going right to him. I honestly think that he was bedded down on the creek and I think he smelled us and that's why he walked up. When I first saw him, he was moving fast. When I first spotted, because I thought it was unusual. He never relaxed when we saw him. When I saw him, he was steadily moving up the hill at two in the afternoon, which I thought was weird. Waving his nose in the air. Well, eventually that's what he did. He put his head in the grass a couple of times but then both of us were watching him when he he turned and faced us

and he just started bobbing his head and me and you i don't think we said it to each other but i i didn't like it i didn't like it at all but it was just improbable i've seen like when they catch they catch the wind in a very um they catch the wind in a way that doesn't leave a lot to the imagination yeah i mean they're like he's like that bear is smelling like literally waving its nose around yeah up high like he's sampling the wind. We watched him for just a few minutes after that and then he didn't just turn and walk away, which

I thought he might have done. He turned and ran away. Do you remember that? Yeah, he spent 20 hours in one spot and then ran away hard. It's not entirely fair though if you're trying to understand how big game animals smell and their ability to smell. There were six of us there that all smelled terrible.

I mean, if it had just been two people, maybe we could have got away with it. Do y'all think we could have? Certainly your odds were better. Take a rotten shrimp and throw that in your garbage. And take six rotten shrimp and throw that in your garbage. Yeah. rotten shrimp and throw that in your garbage and take six rotten shrimp throw that in your garbage yeah at a point you get like a something needs to be dealt with yeah yeah so i was still i want to clarify though there's two points that i think need to be clarified here point one is that I was extremely surprised that he winded us at that distance. Point two is I have absolutely zero doubt that that's what happened. What happened?

What do you mean? That he winded us. Oh, yeah, sure. So I'm saying I have no doubt that he winded us. Yes. Yet I'm extremely surprised that he winded us. Oh, yeah, sure. So I'm saying I have no doubt that he winded us. Yes. Yet I'm extremely surprised that he winded us. Yes. Yep.

I thought we were safe. I would have thought we were safe. What's tough about – He's a big old bear to you, man. He was a big bear. And that's how you get to be a big old bear. He knew what to do. He don't hang out.

And that's the hard part about committing to a place like that is we pretty much knew that the hunt was over like we might have been able to find another bear in that drainage and maybe if we'd have stayed in there for five days i mean we probably would have but you guys i don't know if you remember but i went back out and got a turkey shotgun because on the way up stink hole creek yeah yeah we're riding mules pretty deep in we're used to seeing these turkeys close to the edges of agriculture or civilization in montana that's kind of the way it works oh they're yeah they're like they're close to openings they're so typically associated with human developments they like ranches yeah they like backyard feeders they like cattle fattening operations they like ag and they need and in the winter you could one could get a one could justify

this statement in many areas of the state they're not going to survive the winter without tapping into human resource fair very fair yep and so we found turkeys two and a half three miles back in on the way in but we didn't have it so we both have turkey tags we hadn't said that yet this was was a dual hunt. This was that we had spring, Montana spring bear tags and Montana turkey tags. And I'll come and tell people, here's a hot tip. Don't, first, don't put that handstand taz on your lips. Two, beware, beware the man who thinks he's going to go do a whole bunch of stuff all at once. Yeah. Generally, generally makes sense to be like, focus.

Yeah. Versus getting up and turkey hunting and then packing in and. Like, oh, we're going to do this and that. And then, hell, we'll fish too. It's just like a lot of times it just leads to, it can lead to some great experiences, but a lot of times like it just it just leads to it can lead to some great experiences but a lot of times it leads to some disjointed efforts you know i think the way that would work is if you were successful at one very quickly which sometimes happens that's what

you're planning yeah some percentage of hunts you're gonna take an animal on the first day or the second day i mean you know probably i don probably, I don't know, 30% of hunts, you're going to take an animal relatively quickly. And that's what I was thinking. I was thinking, man, you know, if we get a bear on day two and we've still got three days, why wouldn't we turkey hunt? That's why I had a tag. And then because I just know from my experience in Montana doing what I'm doing,

golly, you got to hit the ground running and pound the dirt hard to kill a bear. So I wanted a turkey hunt, but I was like you. I mean, I was like, man, I hope we can focus our efforts enough that we are successful. But out of that spring thunder on the way up, If there's one thing more enticing than a turkey, it's a turkey who surprises you with his whereabouts. At a weird time in the afternoon. For me, that's an itch that just has to be scratched. Because remember we passed that huge beaver dam? It was like the beaver dam of all beaver dams. The beaver lodge.

If you close your eyes, just imagine like a mountain scene with a beaver living in it. And then out across that, that already speaks, my soul is already stirred. And then out across that, as a gobble.

Or as Robert Abernathy says, pow! You guys are so focused on that bear, you decided not to pack a shotgun. It was just so hard to pack a shotgun, and we didn't think we were going to see a turkey. And there's legal things here, too, where you got a bear hunt, you got to have orange on. Turkey hunt, you don't want orange. So you kind of like, you know, there's a little bit of like, you got to change. You got to kind of switch gears.

Yeah. There's a little gear switching. A plausible thing is that you're going to hunt turkeys in the morning. If you were really into hunting. Well, didn't you kill a turkey and a bear in the same day, Seth? Yeah. I didn't personally kill a turkey. My buddy, Ford Van Fossen, who works at First Light, shot the turkey,

and then I shot the bear that evening. Yeah, Seth said you look out one side of your tent and you're turkey hunting. You look out the other side of your tent and you're bear hunting. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, that's fun.

Well, no spoiler alert, but that's sort of what happened to us. Go on. Well, so should we walk through the turkey hunt i ride back and get our shotgun i leave your truck unlocked and all that um uh and then we turkey out that next morning and find a bunch of birds called them right into the mules yeah yeah or no they they know they cold rolled into our mules we We rode for an hour in the dark, parked the mules well ahead of where we thought the turkeys were. And sure enough, the turkeys were probably roosted 100 yards from our mules.

I mean, is that right? I don't know if they were already roosted, or I mean if they were still roosted when we got there, because wasn't it a little after daylight? It was after the fly down. We got there like right at gobble time, I felt like. I mean, they were still roosted when we got there because wasn't it a little after daylight? It was after the fly down. We got there like right at gobble time I felt like. I mean it was dark. Gobble 30. It was pretty funny because Seth and I

you know turkey hunting and filming the name of the game is usually like chop down the crew as much as possible to just the minimum amount of cameras and since you guys were hunting together we had to have at least two so it's you know big group as it is. So Seth and I are basically just going to hang back at the mules.

We're getting food out and getting ready to make some coffee, round two of coffee, and just going to sit there and watch the woods light up from the morning sun. And you guys are just disappearing around the corner down the trail, going to where you think the birds are going to be. And then all of a sudden, the opposite direction, like not 100 yards away. Oh! Or as Robert Everett says, pow! Yeah.

So Seth and I then just shut our stove down and hit the dirt, laid there and waited for you guys to start working your way. Yeah, and it was like these turkeys kind of like walk into the mules and you can picture him talking being like dude i don't mean to be paranoid but there's a couple mules with saddles on them and though i do hear a hen calling from those mules uh i just i don don't know. As a matter of fact, she may be on one of the mules. I don't know. I feel like we should gobble a whole bunch but still move out of here.

Yeah. So we spent the whole morning chasing those birds around, and we probably were within 50, 60 yards of them several times. It just never could, they just never could make it happen, which was surprising to both of us i think because these are like wilderness gobblers that certainly had i mean i can't imagine somebody else being back in there messing they might be exceptions to my rule i don't know because turkeys will move a long ways yeah uh you know what i'm just thinking of right now for some reason um We one time were hunting moose in Alaska, 20 miles from the road.

And we killed a bull whose ass was full of birdshot. Hmm. All healed up. And I feel like you've gotten in someone's garden. Wow. I mean, he could have got shot out in the woods, but I always you know like they move that's not what you're expecting and turkey you know and i think turkeys don't move but you talk to the turk what's it what's uh chamberlain yeah mike mike chamberlain turkey doc he's got plenty of evidence contrary like you know they don't always move but they will move

yeah so i was going to say that these turkeys could be contenders for undoing my observation about turkeys needing a little help hereabouts in the winter. But if you told me that those turkeys were spent the winter 10 miles away, I would be, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Well, those turkeys were only a couple of miles from the nearest house. From cabins and stuff. Yeah. That's true. They could be like onto a cabin where someone's just putting out corn for them,

which happens. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I will say that Giannis Petelis has a very impressive mouth crow call. Oh, yeah. Hit it for me, Yanni. Can you believe it?

It's good, man. It's great, man. Do the far off elk, Yanni. You ever hear this? See, this is what Yannis is mostly famous for. That's some ASMR-I right there, man. That's an elk way far away. Do it again, Yanni.

Have him be even farther away. Here's when you know you're bummed because he's moving farther away. Do it again, Yanni. Have him be even farther away. Here's when you know you're bummed because he's moving farther away. He's smiling. He's trying to smile. That's when you're like, I swear I heard a bugle. I swear I heard a bugle. Then he gets a little farther away. Hit him, Yanni.

Then you're like, we're never going to get him. Yeah yeah he's got a really impressive crow call so much so that when we were trying to work these turkeys we at one point were trying to figure out where they were and wandered down yanni still is hanging out by these mules we wander way down the trail do like crow call blue jay call hybrid blue jay call, hybrid. Blue jay call, yeah. Owl call. And then Yanni can hear us trying to shot gobble it up. Yanni rips his crow call and the bird gobbles by us.

That was funny as hell. We pulled out everything we had to shot gobble this bird. Didn't work. Yanni. Turkey gobbles. 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

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I can't say it now because I don't want people to get onto this, but my brother had an epiphany, a shock gobble epiphany this year, and it's going to be very controversial, very divisive, but I'm going to use it too, and I don't want to talk about what it is. Okay. So you just told us that so you could tell us you can't tell us. I just want to rub people's noses in it. Very controversial.

Very divisive. Is it a wild animal? Is it the call of a wild animal? I don't want to get into it. It's a way that I will, in the shot gobble world, I will dominate. Hmm. I look forward to that. It's a, it's a, I don't want to go into great detail.

It will not be ignored by turkeys or people. Hmm. Very controversial. Well, I think you need, I think you need something Steve, rather than your blue J call. No, dude. I'm like, I like, I'm not, there's a lot of things I'm not. I think you need something, Steve, rather than your blue J call. No, dude. There's a lot of things I'm not. I regard myself as relative to – I've hung out with some very good turkey hunters.

I regard myself as if I had a turkey specialty besides like a certain level of gurr, which I feel like I have when it comes to turkeys. Enthusiasm. I have enthusiasm. I am a very effective getter of shot gobbles. I'm very good at getting shot gobbles. I'm not a good caller. I'm not a good lot of stuff. But I am good at getting shot gobbles.

Well, I can't wait until next year you can report back to us after you had a whole season with your new shot gobble getter. Because I don't know. I think there's a lot of things out there that people have already been doing that are very similar to that. Don't say too much. I won't. I won't.

I mean, we all know. They shot gobble to all sorts of crazy crazy stimuli sounds yeah yeah hmm so we so we chase these turkeys i am not i am not i am there's many things i'm not even in the turkey woods many things i'm not many areas where i fall short calling being one of them but i am a good getter of shot gobbles i believe that okay i enjoyed hunting with you for a couple days man many things i'm not okay tell us about those Oh shit Clay looked at the clock We don't have enough time for that Okay So where are we at

You guys didn't get a turkey I want to really quick Just in the interest of time So then I got real into turkey hunting On this trip And then there was no stopping me on turkey hunting. Yeah. And we started doing what happens hereabouts a fair bit.

We started hunting where national forest land abuts the yards of people who love turkeys and feed them corn all winter. Laws be damned. And that's like a, it's kind of like a dirty secret. A lot of turkey hunting, like Montana hunters open up a lot of turkeys to find like sunflower seeds or corn. And there's like dogs barking, doors slamming, people yelling at their kids, but you're on national forest land hunting turkeys. They're yard birds. And you're trying, you're like aware of turkeys because you see them in the person's yard.

Well, as an example. Strutting on their green lawn. As an example of this and a bird that was so comfortable in someone's lawn, we saw that one bird strutting, like, what, 10, 20 yards from that golden retriever? Yes. Yes. I'm talking, we're hunting. We're hunting this bird. That's when I got burned on Montana turkey hunting.

You could have written a children's story about those two. The dog and the turkey that loved each other. We were watching a bird gobble and a golden retriever. Yeah, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'll hunt turkeys wherever they are. We get all kinds of emails from people being like, I can't tell if it's right that I'm hunting the golf course. If there's a turkey

and you have legal access, hunt the turkey. It's just the reality. We are actively... There's a turkey hanging out with a dog and we're trying to bring that bird up on the forest. There's a guy cutting firewood too. We're trying to bring that bird up and there's a guy cutting firewood

too and we're trying to lure his bird up across the line. This is a different day in a totally different place. I just got all into it. I'm just saying at that point I was hunting turkeys. Yeah, so we came out of this deep country where we were after bear and turkey. Yeah, and I went to a totally different zone. So yeah, so we came back and that's when we

said, hey, we need to split up. So I went bear hunting and you went turkey hunting. I'm just saying, in the interest of time, in the interest of time, I'm trying to dispatch with my turkey hunt. I want to do a whole different zone where you can work the edges. Yeah. And we found, this is a good edge hunting story. We found an area that was just really getting scratched up real heavy and it was kind of like where national forest sort of jutted out into that kind of stuff uh you get

where it's all used to be farm and ranch but it's becoming housey but so you got like like where we killed our bird i mean we'd seen like white-tailed deer, mule deer, a bunch of elk out in the field, turkeys running around people's yards. And we're just kind of nudged out into it. And we were in an area where they were really scratching under some ponderosas. They had done a bunch of thinning projects, fire mitigation, and opened it up beautifully into like picture-perfect turkey stuff. And they were just scratching like the dickens. And we heard a bird gobble and everything went back the next day and reworked them and got them the second time around but

it was funny while we're trying to get them the first time we tried to work them we're sitting there against the tree and we got like we're like camoed up we're on one side of an old two track and the birds on the other our decoys on the other side of the old two track and all of a sudden rick's filming me. And all of a sudden, I hear Rick going, hiker, hiker. And the reason he's not saying it louder is she's already so close to us. It's like, there's just no way to alert her to our presence without giving her a heart attack, man. He's like, hiker, hiker.

And look, here comes a woman walking her dog. And the dog doesn't even know we're there. But she's on and she's in our lap and so i do the old like slow wave because i was like she's gotta see us it's gonna be worse like every step she takes it's only gonna be worse so i'm like pardon me there you know i give like a wave and she yeah jumps back very alarmed dogs hackles instantly go up and she's in the awkward position of like being cool with it but she was uh good luck oh wow and went about her business but yeah it was pretty funny man i was like in my head i'm like do we ride it out and just hope that she never notices us or notices why is there rubber turkeys in here?

Yeah, and you had to make that split-second call. Excuse me, ma'am. We're just out here enjoying a morning with a big camera and some shotguns. Clay and I ran into some horse people riding their ponies. And we had somehow passed by them once already. Then we had gone and set up a similar situation on this trail. And then we hear them talking. They're coming down the trail.

They're not seeing us. And the guy gets to, I don't know, 10 yards from us. Well, the horse saw us. Yeah, the horse saw us. And I'm kind of leaning around the corner already starting to make a wave. And he looks and sees our decoys. And he says to his old lady, he's like, there's those birds the boys are looking for. What did he call us?

Boys. I don't know what he said. I don't know exactly his statement. But he basically said. Was it derogatory toward you? No, not at all. He's just saying like there's, he saw our decoys and said, oh, there's some turkeys. That's the ones they're looking for?

Yeah. Well, the horses threw their ears up. And the reason they saw us is because the horse wouldn't go. The horse saw us. And that's what horses do. And she couldn't get her horse to go and that's just trying to get you yeah i didn't hear giddy up expressly um but that's what she was trying to get it to do and anyway yeah yeah so yeah i'm not a fan of that

kind of hunting i mean nothing wrong with it i just would rather be out in the woods. Yeah. Anybody would. I'm saying, as a turkey enthusiast, there's places where one just has to embrace. Yeah. You're like, this is where the turkeys are. I'm allowed to hunt turkeys. I want to hunt turkeys. And you just got to embrace that that's what you're doing and not doctor it up like it's something that it's not. Right. If I lived in Montana, I would do that.

I guess my thing was I don't come to Montana to turkey hunt somebody's backyard. Nor should you. You come to Montana to get in the backcountry. Yeah, but it's just the reality. Yanni, he had to call some that were roosted over a house. They were basically in the chimney and he had to work them yeah but those birds had not been hunted and and since they had been roosting above that chimney and uh but i tell you i mean an example of how a turkey gets real slick real soon and people are

like oh should i hunt them on the golf course it's like look man it may be easy a hunt or two it may it may never be easy but just because you see them on the golf course or in the neighborhood and you have that special access it's going to allow you access to those turkeys it's only going to be easy so many times we hunted those birds it's gonna be easy one time twice yeah once with just amazing ease and success. This next time was still pretty dang good. The third time I went back, there were no more turkeys.

Fool me once, whatever. Fool me twice, whatever. Fool me three times, that's what I think turkeys think. Clay, how offensive would it be? How offensive would it be to you? me three times the that's what I think turkeys think yeah mm-hmm clay how offensive would it be how offensive it would be to you if since we this is gonna be a this is an episode of our show right it's captured beautifully on

video yeah how offensive would it be if we left this as a cliffhanger? And you didn't right now actually tell how you got your bear when you went off road. Was that a bull far away? Would that be super offensive? That's your call, man. It wouldn't be to me. It wouldn't offend you? I mean, it wouldn't be to me it wouldn't offend you i mean it wouldn't offend me i mean i i think i think we could uh we could describe the hunt and and actually give people some meat to take home for how they could bear hunt in the spring okay go ahead and do it so

i'll just i'll just walk us into the the third day of the hunt y Giannis and I and Dirt Myth went back into a new spot. But you guys stayed hardcore. I went weak. That's right. And we, so we went to an area that basically Justin Spring had found on Onyx that just was a big, you know, kind of a opening in the midst of a big drainage full of timber. And I would say there was an opening that was probably a half mile by half mile. And you could get on the opposite side of the canyon and glass this big opening pretty easily. And that's where the food is. That's where the green grass, emerging grass. That's right.

And so we took the mules three miles to get to this vantage point. So this is way pretty far back in there. And that's why I went there. And long story short, we got there the last hour of daylight, and within five minutes of glassing, we spotted a bear. Who, the eagle? Me and Dirt spotted it. The eagle was walking to it. Dirt's a lot of things. Dirt was within arm's reach.

I love him. I love him. He's a lot of things okay dirt was within arms i love him i love him he's a lot of things he's not a spotter well he was within arms he was within arms reach of me when i spotted the bear i was giving him some credit and so essentially we watched this bear it was too late in the evening he was 800 yards away across this super deep canyon i mean to get over there would have taken two or three hours probably two hours i don't i mean there was no way to get to the bear so we camped out right there that yannis and i and we all we set up our camp exactly where we had spied the bear and the next day we just woke up at daylight and the plan was to watch that meadow the whole day. So, I mean, that's bear hunting. Find a bear, get in a spot where he can't smell you, see you, but where you can see him, and you wait for him. And when you see him, you make a move on him.

And so the next day, we woke up at daylight, and from camp, we glassed and didn't see the bear, didn't see the bear, didn't see the bear. But we were all pretty confident we were going to see the bear before the day was over, and the intent was to stay there all day and camp another night if we had to. And at 11 o'clock the next day, we saw the bear moving down an old, you know, unusable logging road through this clearing, kind of going away from us. Well, there happened to be a logging road that we were on that paralleled this bear. He's on this one ridge, we're on another ridge. And so we, the bear's moving away from us. Let's just say it was moving east. We start moving east on our ridge. The more, as we both went east, the draw, the hollow,

whatever it's called. The holler. We had a debate over what it was called. Yeah, we were moving upstream in the holler. Yeah, so the hollow narrowed. So every step he took to the east and we took to the east, we're getting closer and closer together. Yeah, like imagine the letter V.

Yeah. You're both headed toward the point of the V. That's right. But the problem is, is that the direction he's going, we're losing open space. Oh. So there's just this wall of timber. Yeah. So we watch him, we watch him, we watch him.

And finally, we get to the end of our road, almost as far as we can go. And basically, we watch the bear come down the hill and disappear into a block of timber that was three sides open and one side of this little block of timber was connected to this vast, unfragmented forest behind it, if that makes sense. Absolutely. Okay. We watched the bear go into this little block of timber probably 50 yards by 50 yards wide i was gonna say 200 but okay you know yeah not it not

huge not huge he we've got a 75 chance that that bear if he comes out of that block of timber that we're going to be able to see him because 75 of the edge is open. There's a 25% chance that he could skirt into the big timber and we'd never see him again. Into the abyss. Yeah. And so what we decided to do, Giannis, I think it was probably Giannis' idea was for us to go down even further and get as close as possible to that block of timber where we last saw him. So that's what we did. So we dropped off super steep i mean very steep hillside and we got to within i want to say 500 yards yeah some some of the shots might even been closer well they were lower down but of the block of timber from the block of timber i want to say we were five to six hundred yards away which is you know not in range. But we just decided to wait.

So the bear, we watched him. He bedded down at 11 o'clock. And we sat there from 11 o'clock till 5 p.m. when dirt saw the bear coming out of the little block of timber. Dirt did. It was pretty cool because we were sitting there. He must have known right where to look. It was funny because we're sitting there for so long that Giannis says,

where do you all think we're going to see the bear? And so we all forecast. I'm like, well, I think he's going to come out from here, and he's going to go up there. And then Giannis said, well, I think he's going to come out from here and go there. And Dirt says, you all see right through that little hole where two trees have fallen over and there's like a X in the

little opening canopy. And we were like, yeah. No, I don't, Dirt wouldn't describe it like that. He described it just like that. You see that tree? Well, hey, I got to give him credit. Garrett's been working on his spotting abilities and describing. You ever see this magazine cover?

Yeah, I saw it. When Dirt made the cover, Dip Aficionado. I took that photo. Yeah, Rick got a cover photo on Dip Aficionado. Okay, we really, yeah. So, you know what we're going to do? Let me just real quick. Keep going.

But here's the thing. At this point, it's a big, we know it's a nice big bear. I want to leave it like a cliffhanger. So, when you get to go to get the shot, let's not tell people whether you got it or not. And they'll watch. Because this will be like what we call in this business, we call it a throw. It'll be a throw to the episode. Okay.

Well, the bear shows up exactly where Dirt said. Dirt was literally like, he's standing over the log. I mean. Well, you know, yanni's dad can conjure game i wouldn't rule out that dirt conjured it it was it was pretty cool and the bear could have done he had 360 degrees that he could have gone there was about a 10 degree window that of what would have been the absolute most beneficial for shot opportunity for him to go in. And the bear came directly down the mountain. And so we're on a veed hillside. So the further he goes down the mountain, the closer he gets to us too.

You know, he's getting closer to us as he goes down. And the bear comes into 350 yards and you'll have to watch meat eater. Blouch! Does he get it? Stay tuned! Alright, now into That was good. People are going to be like

really on the edge of their seats. I think we told them we'd kill the bear though. We did. Shoot. But they don't know what exactly happened. Some people don't know.

A lot of people don't even pay attention. Stay tuned now for the appendix of this episode. In the appendix of this episode, one will find a brief online Skype interview with Donald Trump Jr., member of the First Family. Hey, how's it going?

How's it going, guys? Thank you very much for coming on. You know, I first wanted to talk to you and thought about you a fair deal after the death of, you know, a mutual acquaintance, a friend of yours, but just someone I knew professionally. Yeah. Jason Harrison, after you had been on a trip together, that must have been pretty impactful. Yeah, I mean, that was a rough one for me. I mean, he was really, you know, one of my best friends, uh, you know, we, we'd done, you know, sort of numerous sheep hunts together. I think it was an interesting thing. We sort of had, you know, the commonality that you and I know about, you know, just, you know, guys from hunting camp, but because, you know,

because he started Sitka, because he started Kuyu. We also sort of had that sort of business mindset. So we had those two things in common. So we spoke, I mean, almost every day. And like I said, I was on a sheep hunt with him. We did an incredible doll sheep hunt up in the Yukon. We came out of that and he actually had a father-son hunt to do literally the following week. I had the same. I took my son up into BC to do a goat hunt, uh, you know, like a father-son goat hunt. And it was awesome. And he was up doing a caribou hunt with cash, his son. And, you know, I, I remember I was coming out of, uh, you know, British Columbia. I was in, uh, the airport at Vancouver after transferring through Whitehorse. And Kirsten, Jason's wife, calls me and tells me this goes on. I'm saying, wait a second, like, we've literally gone back and forth all day by text message. I mean, literally sharing photos of our hunt that day, we literally booked a hunt for ourselves with our boys and, like, set a date. And so that was shocking.

I mean, I was like, you know, what's going on? I'm literally getting on a plane. She was actually in New York. So I was on a separate text message with her and Kimberly, my girlfriend, because we were going to have dinner in New York with Jason. And then him and I are going back and forth. I mean, come to find out, his last text to me was sort of a buddy-buddy, let's call it a slightly ball-breaking type of text about eight minutes before he did that. Oh, you're kidding me. And you would have never known. I mean, it was like literally an inside joke that we had going back and forth, just totally breaking chops. But like I said, within two weeks prior, I shared a tent

with him for 14 days on a sheep hunt. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, we shared a base camp and saw each other at night or anything like that. I mean, we did a, you know, 120 mile round trip trek up at, you know, the Bonne Plume River and, you know and 24-7 was with them. I actually tagged out on day two of this hunt. Just got lucky. Saw an incredible doll ram and tagged out. And rather than doing the usual, okay, time to go home, I said, hey, I'm going to stick around, do your hunt.

And so it was sort of nice to leave the rifle back at camp, just go along for the ride, go along for the hike and the scenery. And, man, I'm glad I did that because I got a lot of good times with a great man. You know, when I said I wanted to, how I had thought about you after that happened is I had had something similar happen with a friend of mine who, he was up at our fish shack. And we were hanging out for a week and then he went home and and uh and took his own life and it made and it really makes you go back and and sort of reanalyze everything and i think there's another guy there's a guy do you know i think jay scott i believe you know jay scott and he was friends with jason too and i was with jay scott shortly after that and jay scott said he was talking about how he's going to start changing the way that he asks his friends how you're doing.

Meaning he's going to be like, no, like, really, how are you? Right? Like, I don't want to miss something here, you know? Yeah, no, it's really smart. And, I mean, again, for me, I've seen it with people that I've been pretty close to in the last few years, like four people that I can think of. And I mean, again, not one of them you would have seen any outward signs. I mean, you know, hell, Jason, I thought he had the sort of the world by the cojones. You know, when you think about everything that he had going on, I mean, he was just a successful company, crushing it in every aspect of life, gets to do what he loves. I mean, you know, that said, I mean,

with me, he did show, you know, some of that vulnerability, but it was more that, you know, he understood, you know, the potential ramifications. In his case, you know, CTE from, you know, a collegiate and professional football career. I mean, he understood, you know, the dangers of the head trauma, but like he was that guy that, you know, Hey Don, if, if I had a, you know, an injury, you got to speak to this doctor, you got to speak to him about this. This is how you got to handle it. This is how you're going to rehab it. So, I mean, this was a guy that was aware, uh, you know, he was actively working to fix it. Uh, he didn't just take a shortcut. He was a really smart guy, you know, did all the

research. I mean, we spent hours talking about this stuff. So, I mean, he was preparing for later in life if this thing was going to manifest itself more. But, you know, I guess it turns out it was manifesting itself much more than we would have known. And again, it doesn't take a lot, you know, just needed someone else to be in the driver's seat for that couple seconds. And, you know, there's no taking back that decision. Yeah, it's horrible. You know, I was talking with some people the other day, and I was observing how I feel like you're the most enthusiastic hunter who's, like, really in the public eye day in day out in the country today i would almost have to imagine in terms of like name recognition but then you know we have a lot

of exposure into your your father's passions and what he does with his time um he's not an outspoken hunter hunting is so often this sort of, you know, I bring it up all the time. It's this, this thing that's passed along like patrilineal descent, but with you, it kind of skipped the generation, right? Like you got turned on to it through your grandfather. I did. Yeah. My, you know, my grandfather, you know, was a blue collar electrician from communist Czechoslovakia. So he couldn't hunt. I mean, that wasn't for, you know, if you weren't like communist party elite in again, you know, communist Czechoslovakia in the 60s and 70s and 80s, I mean, you couldn't do those things. But he sort of saw the lifestyle that we were blessed with in America with the freedoms.

And he just sort of said, hey, you have to see the other side of this. So he had that conversation with my father. And, you know, my father never got exposed to it because he grew up in Queens, New York. You know, he didn't get the ability to have a mentor. And, I mean, that's what I always talk about with the outdoors, whether it's fishing, hunting, shooting, all that. Like, they're not the easiest thing to just pick up and go do. Like, you need to sort of take the time and, you know, take a kid afield. Take a, you know, take a woman afield.

They get exposed people, you know, to the great outdoors. And so he sort of did that to me. But it wasn't like hunting. It was maybe a little bit of fishing and woodsmanship, but he was, you know, old school, sort of Eastern European guy brought me to then Czechoslovakia. It's like, there's the woods. I'll see you at dark. I'm like, okay. You know, six, seven years old, I'd go play in the woods. I mean, I honestly, I just, I fell in love. He passed away when I was about 12. years old. I'd go play in the woods. I mean, and I honestly just, I fell in love. He passed away when I was about 12.

But, you know, the summers that I spent with him there, you know, six, eight weeks doing those kind of things just really left a lasting impression for me. And, you know, that was about the time my parents were going through a pretty rough divorce. All of that stuff very public. And I just said, you know, get me the hell out of New York City. Like, I don't want to be here. So I went to boarding school in central Pennsylvania in Pottstown, sort of, you know, Rust Belt PA. But, you know, there were a couple of people there that, you know, one guy was just one of these, the dean of students, actually. It was just an old school guy.

I mean, the kind of guy that could run around to ski clean, you know, with an old Winchester 42 pump 410. Like, just real outdoorsman. And, you know, with an old Winchester 42 pump 410, like just real outdoorsman. And, you know, he got me into sort of the shooting sports that way. My grandfather got me into air guns and the stuff that they could do in Czech Republic, but not really any kind of centerfire or shotgun type sports. This was an old school place that had a rifle range on campus. It had skeet and trap just off. And so, you know, I fell in love and, you know, I had a mentor that was willing to put in the time. And one day he just goes, you know, I'll see you in the parking lot, Saturday morning, 6 a.m., dress warm. And I was like, like today,

today you'd be calling social services, you know, and the police. For me, I was like, okay, like what's going to happen? And he took me on my first sort of like upland bird hunt. And, you know, I fell in love. Then, you know, later that year just took me even just like an apprentice watcher, you know, Pennsylvania opening day deer, you know, with the sort of camaraderie and all of this. And, man, they're just at that point, there wasn't a book I didn't read, a magazine I wouldn't subscribe to, just trying to build up that wealth of knowledge as someone who didn't really have anyone else getting him into there. There was a similar story with a guy about fly fishing. They got me into the basics of fly fishing. But when I say basics, I mean, I reeled in the line

every time for the first two years of my fly fishing career. So, uh, it was pretty brutal, but you know, I fell in love and just kept going from there. I feel like at this point, um, you're like your outdoor activities are so scrutinized by the media. And I feel like kind of weaponized and taken out of context. And some, to some extent, I feel like you could have an impoverished grandmother who has a garden that's getting destroyed by rabbits and if don jr shot one of those rabbits oh man it would be right well it would be you'd be crucified for it like what was the earliest pushback you can remember when you started to identify you're like i'm gonna i like to hunt i'm gonna identify as a hunter and angler what was your first

awareness where you're like oh there's a price to be paid for this? Yeah, I never hid from it. I mean, it was sort of, you know, I'm kind of an open book for better or worse. I mean, it probably gets me in more trouble than, you know, I need it. But, you know, someone released or just, you know, sort of released some pictures of me hunting in Africa with my brother back in like early, early 2000s, you know, 2010-ish or something like that. You know, I didn't put them out myself. And, you know, 2010 ish or something like that. You know, I didn't, I didn't put them out myself and you know, the left just pounced on it. You know, the, the anti hunting crowd just went nuts. Oh my God. I mean, they literally wrote front page news for two weeks.

You know, they were poached in Zimbabwe. I'm like, we're in my taxi unit. Want to hear a permit? Like, but they didn't want to hear about permits. They didn't want to see, you know, all the documentation from Zimbabwe fish and game. They didn't, he is evil. They were hunting inside a fence. There's no fence in Mette. waste. And it was one of those, I just saw it and I was like, man, these guys are, they're trying to literally destroy, it was front page news for like two weeks going after my brother and I. And I just said, hey, listen, there's two ways I can go. I can do the usual, you know, I don't want to consider myself a celebrity, but like I had a name that was recognizable and was able to be weaponized against me. I could do the usual. I'm so sorry. I'll never do that again. I'll quit hunting and take up croquet. Or I can actually try to utilize that platform that they've helped at that point create to actually speak about conservation. The dollars that hunters put into saving animals around the

world, but especially the North American model and how it's been sort of imported and exported to other parts of the world where without hunting, you wouldn't have the fauna or the flora, frankly, that you do in some of our incredible wild places. So rather than doing the, I'm so sorry, I just said, here's some facts. Here's the brutal honesty. Here's what really happens. And it was interesting. I mean, you know, I may have gotten a correction in about 10% of the magazines, you know, somewhere in the back page or, you know, a tweet at 2 a.m. on a Sunday when no one's going to see it say, oh, well, they weren't actually poaching, but it doesn't stop them from saying that we still were 10 years later. You know what I mean? Like even with proof, it doesn't matter. But what was interesting about it is I was sort of unknown in the world, but I made so many friends

from sort of the hunting, outdoor, even fishing community that were like, hey man, like, thank you for just standing up to the nonsense thanks for putting out the facts like you know it's definitely cost me money as a businessman whether that's in you know sort of you know paid gigs that I did and you know now but like honestly you sort of have to stand up for what you believe in it and there's not enough of that these days hunting is you know it's definitely a third rail uh you know I think it's good that I see more of that from, you know, from different communities now. I mean, even, you know, I talk, I've seen and talked with like, you know, sort of hipster New York hunters that we probably don't share much in common other than, you know, sort

of the campfire being the great equalizer. Like, and I love seeing that, you know, whether it's farm to table, the organic movement, all of these things, I'm like, hey guys, like you want to see that stuff in real life, like take up hunting. And so I think it's awesome. And it's just been a great community. And I'm just glad I did it despite sort of the, again, there are costs, but those costs don't outweigh to me the risk of losing this sort of great American tradition, this great pastime, these great opportunities that I want to make sure are available for me and my kids. Because I know with hunting, with fishing, with shooting, archery, all of these things that I'm just so passionate about, spearfishing. I mean, these are things that kept me out of so much other trouble I would have gotten into as a youth with

too much free time. It's sort of hard to get in trouble when you're waking up at four o'clock in the morning. I'm not saying I was an angel. Anyone who knows me would never buy that one. But like, it was definitely a guiding force in life and continues to be. I mean, it's sort of where I go to escape the other, the craziness of my day to day. Early on when the new administration came in, I think there's a lot of enthusiasm on the part of many hunters and anglers that it was like, people were great to have, or were glad to have a lifelong practitioner such as yourself, like really close to the administration, right? Because you'd feel like, oh, you know, our viewpoints and perspectives we have are going to be voiced.

Do you, and I know you've taken pains to make clear that you're not an administration official, but do you imagine like when you heard that and you knew that was going on, did you feel that that was warranted? Was it kind of like a naive expectation of what sort of what, what, what a first family member's role actually is? You know, beyond that, I mean, again, I think if we're going to be candid about it, it's sort of like whatever I do is wrong in the eyes of the media. I mean, if I'm not loud enough, that's wrong. If I'm too loud, it's wrong. If I'm taking part in the administration, I'll get

killed in the press every day. That said, I mean, the only thing I wanted to take part in during the transition politically was the Department of the Interior. And, you know, I did that and was involved. And honestly, they've done a lot of things that, you know, you're not going to get a lot of credit just because it's the Trump administration. But when you talk about, you know, public lands obviously being, to me, like a number one issue because, you know, I understand how difficult it is to have access. And I'm blessed to have, you know, some of my own private land and friends with ranches and these sort of things. But for people, you know, who want to get their kids into it, you know, if you used to be able to go out your backyard and now you've got to drive four hours, guess what? You're taking up golf and the tradition is gone. So, you know, advocating for, you know, public lands, which

hasn't necessarily been a conservative talking point. But this administration, by September 1, will have opened up 4 million new acres of public land. I think that's the most probably of any administration since Roosevelt. They've created that kind of access. They've put in more for repair and maintenance to the national parks, which, again, less to do with hunting and fishing, but is you know, is a big part of it. I believe numbers like, you know, 66% more than Obama and Biden did in the same amount of time. So you sort of have these talking points that are out there in sort of the outdoor community. I don't want to say hunting or fishing, but, you know, they're selling off public lands. It's just not accurate, but it doesn't stop sort of some of these well-funded, you know, where the political, you know, can try to sway an outdoor group.

And there's a lot of that sort of even in hunting where it's sort of, you know, groups in name only, but really pushing a political agenda that's not necessarily for the benefit of hunters and outdoorsmen. I mean, you hear about, you know, coastal erosion, but you don't hear about about literally the largest investment into the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee by the Trump administration. I think it's like 7X what the prior administration even looked at in there. Same thing with the Great Lakes. So the administration is doing a lot of things to ensure that these things will do that. Again, now that I'm not part of the administration, once you got out of transition, hey, I can't get involved without sort of creating a catch 22 where someone loses their mind that I'm saying something. But that doesn't mean, you know, that I don't voice my opinion when, you know, if we're at a family dinner or with various things that are going on that are important to me that I do understand better than most. Where I do have people and friends on the ground. I mean, I sort of say,

you know, for me, you know, when I have a friend in Montana, it's not a token buddy that shows up that day that I've never seen before in my life for the photo op. It's like, these are guys I hunt and fish with and, you know, do these things with. So I think unlike so many of the decisions that get made as it relates to, you know, the Department of the Interior or the outdoors where it's decided by, you know, an emotional judge in D.C. that has no understanding of what's going on on the ground, no attachment to the local community, no understanding of conservation period whatsoever. You know, I think I do have a pretty good understanding of what's going on on the ground because that's sort of where I choose to spend my time. For me, hunting, fishing, shooting, it's not like the thing I then talk about at some cocktail party on the bullshit like New York City rubber chicken dinner charity circuit. It's actually what I do every weekend. Whenever I have free time, I'm outdoors doing something.

For me, it's actually my lifestyle, much more so than sort of the suit and tie of the day-to-day, whether it's business or politics. That's what I want to be doing. I saw you and your father speak at SHOT Show, which would have been still – the primaries were still going on. And I remember he got up and addressed the audience at an awards dinner I was at. And I remember being really surprised because the public lands debate was really heating up. But it was still gaining a lot of awareness. And I remember being really surprised that on his list of talking points was his acknowledgement of the public lands debate and him saying, like, I'm not going to sell off your public lands. And I thought it was interesting that he, that assuming, I'm assuming that was something that you had spoken about.

I was surprised it was even on his radar. And then I think that that's been an interesting point with the administration, because, you know, there's a lot of people that would criticize that the amount of fossil fuel exploration has been opened up on public lands. They'd be like, um, that they, they feel that that's a move against public lands, but really there's been, uh, people have stayed true to the administration's trade, stayed true to not reducing, not selling off and getting rid of public lands, which, uh,

was actually against sort of the party's platform at the time. Yeah. Um, and I remember that, I remember thinking of that as a pretty bold move to go in the direction of hunters and anglers when it might be against party platform procedures. Do you feel that there are more places and ways that that has happened where, you know, where there's a leaning into hunters and anglers, maybe in a way that's adversarial to industry, in a way that's adversarial to the party in general?

You know, I think so. I mean, the conventional dogma was, you know, obviously states' rights, which I still believe in. But the problem with the sort of the public lands and states' rights issue was, you know, you sort of give the states back the public lands, but then they use that land to sell it off to fund, you know, a budget shortfall in an inner city that's never going to make budget. You know, so it's a one-time temporary fix, but those lands are gone forever. So I sort of, you know, I made the point very clear, but at the same time, I also said, but as I mentioned in the prior point was like, you still need state and local people involved in the management of those lands, right? These guys understand what's going on. You look at what's

going on in the West or California, you know, with forest fires, because there's the preservationist mentality of, well, it's lands, but you can't touch it. You can't do anything with it. God forbid you even walk in it. You know, Overgrown dead timber is probably the worst habitat for animals, for plants, for anything, right? No sun gets to the ground. And it's also a tinderbox. It's literally just big, big sap-filled matches waiting for lightning, waiting for, in some cases, unfortunately, bad actors, waiting for irresponsible camper that doesn't know how to put out their fire or doesn't do a good job doing those things. And every year then, billions in destruction, lives are lost, homes are lost.

But then the same states that want control of those lands want the federal government to come in and say, well, give us billions to stop this thing when you could have employed a bunch of people to cut down some of that standing dead timber. There's economic value. You create jobs in places that actually need it. You're creating new growth forest, which is a big deal. So I mean, there is an aspect of whether it's even oil and gas, it's not like there's an oil and gas platform every 10 yards. If you say, well, we're going to shut down the entire Midwest because of the sage grouse, but you can't have a road to a platform that's 30 by 30, it's not realistic and it's not responsible. And we're still getting that oil and gas from Russia or from Saudi, who's going to be much more lax in terms of their environmental standards, getting these things out of the ground. So there's a way to have responsible stewardship of the land. I mean, in many cases, you can actually create an economic output,

an economic benefit, and still actually be better off for game. You know, again, cutting standing dead timber all over the West is the perfect example of that. And it's certainly a better option to create some jobs, to create some economic output than it is to spend billions fighting fires and losing lives needlessly. And so there's a responsible way to do it. It doesn't mean that it has to be done in a haphazard fashion, but it's one of those rare instances where you can kind of get the best of both worlds if you do it right. What happens when you and your dad don't agree on stuff? I mean, you're obviously very loyal, but there's got to be limits, right? And I imagine

you don't want to throw down publicly, but do you guys butt heads on stuff? Now and then you've got to be disappointed, right? Listen, I don't know that I'm disappointed. I don't know that i you know disappointed there's definitely i don't know that anyone you know this sort of notion of sort of you know bipartisan politics where everyone agrees with one aspect of something you're seeing that's becoming more and more the case unfortunately you know today the culture is such that you know if you're not 100 woke you're canceled yeah i mean you're gonna get canceled by some people for even you know giving me a platform that's sort of how it works these days so you know i'll give you the disclaimer. You had nothing to do with it, yada, yada, yada. But that's a shame. So we do just, listen, I don't think you can have my personality or my father's personality and not be outspoken. I can do that respectfully if there's bigger

issues we disagree on. Generally speaking, I agree with a lot of his policies. And again, as it relates to these things, man, I think they're doing a very good job of it. You wouldn't know it from what you see about it because you don't read about it. I mean, think about it, Steve. Four million plus new acres previously inaccessible for sportsmen and women. I mean, you don't hear that even a little bit, but you hear every day about selling off public lands. And by the way, when they talk about that, there's people that would complain about selling off public lands if you sold one acre of public land here or traded it for an acre over here that allows people to access 10,000 acres of landlocked

public land, because there's plenty of those people too. They are public land hunters, but guess what? Well, they're public land hunters because they're hunting landlocked public land, but they know the guy that owns the private land surrounding it. So there's a lot of BS involved in some of these things. And so you sell off a corner to create access to 10,000 acres where literally no one really from the public would have access. Oh, my God, you sold off public land. It's like, no, no, no. You created access.

Even if it's a fair trade. Even if you say, hey, I'll give you an acre for an acre or I'll give you, you know, an acre for two acres. Even if you made it sort of a net gain in terms of public land, someone's outraged and they're pushing a false narrative that's not really there. And I've seen that, you know, buddies places that I hunt in Montana, you know, man, the amount of stuff I see like that, that's like, well, it's not really public land if you're the only one that has access to it. You know what I mean? Like that's not the public land that I'm pushing for. I'm pushing for public land that's accessible by all, that we can get our kids into the outdoors, that I'm pushing for. I'm pushing for public land that's accessible by all,

that we can get our kids into the outdoors, that we can get our wives and girlfriends into the outdoors, that we can teach them about those experiences and create new hunters, new fishermen, new outdoorsmen in general. I'm generally, just speaking personally, I'm generally very appreciative of the environmental, speaking as a hunter and angler, I'm appreciative of the environmental the speaking as a hunter and angler i'm appreciative of the environmental protections that we get from democrats and i'm appreciative of the cultural and hunting rights and gun rights protections that we get from the Republicans. So as a closing thought here, hit me with a pitch, like hit me with a pitch for Trump's reelection, skewed toward a hunter and angler. Well, I mean, if you're a hunter, obviously, if you like firearms, you see what's going on. I mean,

I don't know how Joe Biden can pretend to be a moderate on firearms, but say, hey, I'm going to appoint Beto. Hell yeah, I'm going to take your AR-15 O'Rourke as your guns are. You saw him verbally assault a guy, I guess it was in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, who literally asked him a couple of questions about the platform. There's no education on the platform. And again, if you see what he put out with the Biden-Sanders plan this week. It is a super left plan as it relates to virtually anything. But that's certainly going to be an infringement on our Second Amendment rights, which is a big part of when I talk about the outdoors, I group that in there. I mean, I'm a competitive shooter. I was a ranked high power shooter, did a lot of F-class, love sort of the PRS stuff that's going on, do handgun, shotgun. I sort of do it all. And so, you know, the Second Amendment argument is a really big one for me. I think as

it relates to, you know, public land for hunters, there has not been an administration that's created more access for outdoorsmen. That's going to continue. That is something that's been a big part of that administration. They get no credit for it, but they've done it. And if you want to talk about preserving the tradition of the great outdoors, you're not century in terms of new access. And when you think about that in perspective and over time, I mean, that's a lot harder to do now than it would have been 100 years ago just because of the nature of the world in which we live. You think about the things that they've done, again, Everglades for coastal erosion, Great Lakes for all the great sport. I mean, I go up there every year to go ice fishing just because it's pretty awesome to catch a 20-pound brown tat.

You know, I'll travel to Wisconsin for a weekend to do that as a sportsman. But you've got to make sure you preserve those fisheries as well. So, you know, the reality of what this administration has done for the outdoorsmen, it's often overlooked, but it shouldn't be. All right. Donald Trump Jrr thanks for joining us i look forward to having you when all this uh chaos blows over man with the pandemic that seems to have a way of continuing uh yeah to having you in and for for an actual uh face-to-face conversation but it's cool to to get a chance to to hear from you a little bit um well, yeah, I know we were scheduled last week, and then I got the call from your guys that someone close to you guys tested positive.

And then it turns out the next, so we put it off for a week, and then it turns out the next day, my girlfriend tested positive. I'm going to say it's the super rugged outdoorsman gene that's preventing me from getting it. But, you know, so yeah, it's been a mess, but I'm sure I'll be back out there. We'd love to sit down with you guys and maybe more importantly, one day share a campfire. Yeah, well, we'll get through this and get it scheduled. And I appreciate you taking the time to talk and have a nice civil discourse, right? Sounds good, man. We need more of that. Thank you. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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