The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 258: The Chit and the Poof

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Rick Hutton, Rick Smith, Dirt Myth, Loren Moulton, and Seth Morris.Topics discussed: Steve's fake teeth woes; Dirt's incredibly dirty hat; when Steve's brother ate a lightbulb; the ban on Sunday Hunting; how Seth and Rick had to identify 50 trees just by looking at little twigs; Rick's dad as the first American to get a deep brain stimulator implanted through his left shoulder so he could still shoot a gun right handed; huntin' the strippins; Steve's parents' honeymoon taken in an ice shanty; touch hole size; closing the frizzen and all the other click noises; Steve blaming Seth for blowing up his great opportunity; a vicious hang fire; the camaraderie of deer drives; 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. I'm having a lot of problems with my fake tooth. I have two fake, I don't know, I have a few fake teeth. One of my fake teeth. Rick, I'm going to fill the listeners at home into what we're talking about. Okay. Then we'll get down to a bunch of other stuff.

Okay. I feel like I told people a long time, we were hunting in damn when was that last fall hunting in wyoming and i developed a horrible horrible toothache like bad um so bad that i was it was hard to eat my supper got real painful ran into a guy that I would have thought, I don't mean to discredit this dude. Like I just caught him on a whatever day. But someone's like, hey, that guy's a dentist.

And I don't mean to generalize or stereotype. Like looking at him, I just didn't see dentist. When I looked at him, I wasn't like, there is a dentist. I expect a dentist to be wearing a golf shirt or something. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. But lo and behold, the guy was a dentist. And he goes and gets me some kind of opioid from his dentist shop.

And I started taking that. Get home and right away I walk into my regular dentist and he's like, that thing's got to come out. And I had broken the, what do you call it? The part that goes way up in your head. Your root. I'd cracked the root probably a long time ago, but it had become all infected. So they pulled it out and they packed it full of, I know I covered this on the show, they packed it full of uh i know i covered this on the show

they packed it full of cadaver bone oh yeah i remember here so there i am walking around all day spitting up chunks of someone else's bone and i'd show people and then when they put that cadaver bone in there i asked him i said what can you tell me about the feller whose bone I have? And they can't tell you anything about him. Like legally, they can't disclose that. Or they don't know, or whatever. But I would like to, I wanted to visit his relatives or something. Could have been a bunch

of people. Yeah, he could have been a horrible guy, I don't know. I mean, how do you know it's just one person? I don't. You probably swallowed some of that. Oh, I ate all kinds of his bones. And then they fill the cavity full of bones, so I might be screwing this up.

They fill the vacated spot, because they yank all the junk out of there. Okay. Basically take a jackhammer to it and pull all that gunk out of there. Then they fill some dude's bones. And and somehow i could be getting this wrong but like like your body recognizes bone is bone somehow and then makes it turn into bone okay fills in the gaps yeah it's like oh i get it there's something but the little granules come up. Okay.

Looks like 3G gunpowder. Oh. Coming out of there. You're already spitting it up. Yep. And I'd spit it up and show people. Eventually that. Pre-COVID. That healed up.

How long? I had to wait months. I was going to say, how long does it take for your body to start that process? I think it was like three or four months. Okay. months okay then i go in there and they put in a titanium socket like a female threaded component okay and your uh body heals around that okay the bone heals around that socket so he told me if you ever lose this tooth meaning the one that's giving me all the trouble, he's like, if you ever lose this tooth,

it'll take a chunk of your jaw with it. Like this thing is in there now. You put that socket in there, then you wait three, four more months. During that interval, I started to question why I have the molar anyway. Yeah, why you just didn't get it removed.

Because once I got used to it not being there, it was no problem. And I started asking around. And a lot of my closest friends and associates are missing their teeth. Seth here. Say something, Seth. I'm gesturing. Here I am. He doesn't have one.

He says the only – well, you tell him, Seth. What's the only time you remember that you're missing your molar? The only time I remember when I'm missing it is when I'm eating trail mix and a peanut that's just the right size gets stuck in there. Let's see. Open up. It's like a decoy molar. Oh, yeah.

No way. This tooth was a root canal that – they did a root canal on it, and then they killed the root, so it just eventually decayed and fell apart and fell out, and they took the rest out. Did they try to talk you into giving them $2,000 for a new one? Yeah, they told me I had to come back and get it fixed up, and I never went back. My problem is I lost the one right up front,

and if I didn't have that, I think I would be judged. You look like a hockey judged. Oh, yeah. Well, this, yeah. This front one's fake. But I always believe in getting your front ones put back. Yeah. You got fake-ies too? Horse trailer. Handyman Jack. Oh, how'd that happen, Dirt?

That is the dirtiest hat I have ever seen in my entire life. Definitely the wrecker. It looks like it's waxed canvas. It's waterproof. No, but this handyman jack's a good story for the listeners, so they prevent losing a front tooth.

Okay, well, let me tell, I want to hear it, but I just want to remind people where we're at. I'm in the middle of telling, this is not what this show is about. This show is about firearms. I'm in the middle of telling about all my problems with my tooth, which people are dying to know about. This is like really like people are loving this episode.

Go ahead, Dirt. Never mind. No, no, no. Please, I want to hear the handyman jack. I'm joking about them. I'm joking. No one cares about my molar, but I'm going to tell them anyway. I don't care.

I don't care what they care about. I was always told with those handyman jacks that keep your face away from the handle because they're prone to jump on you. People know what a handyman jack is? Dead man's lift. Yeah. And it was jammed

up. Nowadays, young whippersnappers like to have them affixed to the outside of their truck all shiny red because it may look like they're gonna do some serious jacking uh um hey duke and uh the monkey wrench gang he was a he he had a lot of good stuff oh yeah they're great but if they get gunked up well it got gunked up we had a horse trailer on it and then my brother couldn't get it unlo loose and I just went over there and kicked it and the handle popped me in the face couple times yeah I kicked it and it released whatever was stuck but my face was over

the handle oh I mean before I didn't even hurt it was like a battle of Buster the ballad of Buster Scruggs where the guy gets shot twice by the pistol. Yeah, doesn't even know it because it's so quick. Yeah, knocked that tooth out. Well, I actually broke it and knocked it. Now it's just bent, kind of. But yeah, two root canals. Sent both those teeth flying?

No, just the one, but I think they did two root canals because it got infected or something. I can't remember. You know what was funnier than hell? One time I had my brother shop this one out. BB gun or something? No, man. We got to taking weird little kids, man.

We took aluminum arrows and cut the ends off them, cut the knock off and cut the insert off, and we realized that those Lightbrite pegs. Remember Lightbrite? Oh, God. That's a generational thing. off and cut the insert off and we realized that those light bright pegs remember light bright oh god that's a generational thing it would be like you'd get this there's this board full of holes there's a light bulb and you get these designs right and it'd like be letters to tell you what color and you'd put these little pegs in there and the light would come through the peg and you'd make like so whatever you make like a unicorn or something on a light bright but a light bright

peg fit perfect in that aluminum arrow and so we do blow gun fights with those light bright pegs because it's like a pointed projectile man it had like a good ballistic coefficient man that like but this dewey hung out with davy cole his old man worked at a ball bearing plant and had all manner of ball bearings and so someone came into some ball bearings that fit that same tube, and we realized how to do something called a machine gun, which is where you'd fill your mouth full of those ball bearings, take a deep breath, right?

And then you'd use your tongue to funnel them in. And you'd get like a semi-automatic effect, fully automatic. So it'd be like a semi-automatic effect fully automatic so it'd be like right and we had these fortresses built and whatnot and goggles you know but i remember he come up and he kind of ripped me crotch to eyeball with a with a you know a burst of swing with a burst and shot the tooth clean off at the gum line oh oh man this man. This story really starts to make its own gravy because, man, I want to get back to this other thing, but this is interesting.

I go in, and I don't want to say his name. The dentist that I initially go to see and that did a root canal on me was later shot and killed by his own son. Jeez. He was watching TV, and his son came up behind him. How old was his son? Like little, little?

No, no, no, old dude, older dude. Oh. I actually have a picture of my old man. It's in my desk. My old man, that dentist, and the dentist's kid dennis and the in the in the dennis's kid that later shot him in the back of the head watching tv what was the reason yeah why don't know don't know anything about it yeah anything about what happened so he that dennis does a root canal i'm building up to another part of this but he does a root canal and

and i don't see any problem like the root canal is fine and i go throughout my life and i keep getting these fake caps on there how old are you when this happens 10 10 um had just grew that tooth too because you know when your little one falls out like my kids are losing all their teeth all the time now yeah it just grew that new big bastard good target i know so uh a decade goes by a decade plus goes by and i develop a horrible toothache hunting deer which is the weird part hunting mule deer just like the toothache i'm trying to tell about now i develop a horrible not a toothache a nose ache i think something's wrong my nose i think i got a nose disease so we get done with our hunting trip and i go to the dentist or doctor i'm like man something's

wrong the inside of my nose and he's like no it's not a nose you got a tooth problem you need to go to dentist it's not a nose problem so i go to the dentist and he's like your root canal is abscessed or failed or whatever he gets the rooting around in there and pulls out a hunk of rusted file it looked like a file that if you threw a file down into the ocean like in some ocean beach right at my fish shack if you threw an old rat tail file out there and left it there for 10 years and went back and got it that's what it looked like a rusted pitted how long file about an inch and a half long holy shit and the guy got it out and he said man i could not tell what i was looking at on that x-ray it was metal he had busted off the guy that got shot by his kid had busted off a hunk of rat tail file up in there.

He just patched it up. And whatever, told my old man or didn't tell him. No, he'll know. Told my old man or didn't tell my old man, I don't know. And sealed it up in there where it sat set to rust and decaying and whatnot. I don't know. It's not oxidized. Maybe there's oxygen.

I don't know if there's oxygen in there or not. But either way, it got all rusty. And I kept that thing and walked around with it for a long time. Now I can't figure out what the hell I did with it. Which leads me to... I'll carry a question about that. Was this around when you went to Guyana the first time? No, no.

That's what I'm trying to get to. Well, I'm trying to get to my main dental problem but the funny part is one time so I had that fake tooth like from the all this the whole story I had that fake tooth and one time it fell out in the snow it was about knee deep snow and I knew right where it fell out because I was laying down trying to shoot I was actually like drawing a bead on something and in the snow and all of a sudden like when I put my cheek up to the when I put my cheek up to the stock it felt like something not right.

Do you know what I mean? Like it was like a normal feel and it felt like somehow not right. And yeah. We looked and looked through that snow but you can't find a tooth in the snow were you mule deer hunting that time too? no did you get the critter you were

beating up on? I did how was that grip and grin photo? oh it was horrible man I ended up having a bad time with that tooth so this current issue I'm having once I got it out so you don't have a tooth

nope another uh close relative of mine uh he's missing a couple of them and he said i'll think less of you if you get that molar installed like they don't serve any purpose and when i went in they make you sign a little thing because they must have a lot of people go home thinking they're going to get a molar and change their mind once they realize that they're stupid that molars are stupid they try to make you sign like a little agreement that you're going to turn back up

again to get the molar installed which can't be binding but anyways all the time goes by and I don't even want the stupid molar anymore but people keep trying to say like oh your teeth will all migrate. Oh, spread out. And my wife would say, if you smile big, I can see the hole where it used to be. As a cameraman, you smile real big, I see that hole.

You know what? It's character. Then I get where I don't even care anymore, and I think molars are stupid. And I go down, and they put the molar in and there is not a day gone by i'm happy they got that molar in there it is the this is what me and rick were talking about before we hit record it is the food catching this son of a bitch on the planet hey i watched you brushing your teeth there tonight and i was like wow steve's really going to town on that side of his face but you thought i was doing it over here i thought you were but

then i was man i was probably working over here you were in the mirror maybe no i looked i just glanced up at him but i saw steve just going to town i was like oh man must be still trying to get stuff out of your teeth well i get it out all the time but something's stuck in there it's killing me uh that's all. Okay. That was an interesting story. I have a question. Oh, please go ahead. Unrelated to your teeth,

but when you were doing the ball bearing fights, did anyone ever swallow a ball bearing? Not that I recall. Okay. We had a lot of access to these. Oh, an invention we worked on for quite a while when we were little is we felt that we were working on an invention whereby you'd take ball bearings

and make a masking tape. It was meant to be a frag grenade. Not a frag. What's the kind of grenade? You're from the military. What's the grenade that has the shrapnel that flies out? Well, a frag grenade, but you're talking about probably a Claymore.

Sparkling ball. Well, I know there's a kind that just the shrapnel that flies out? Well, a frag grenade, but you're talking about probably a Claymore. Sparkling ball. Well, I know there's a kind that just go poof and nothing happens. Like a concussion grenade. Yeah. Fragmentation grenade is the one where there's actual frag. We were working on a frag. A little shrapnel. We were working on a frag grenade invention by which you'd take half dozen ball bearings

and wrap them in masking tape. And then when you pulled back with your slingshot okay thinking being that you'd hit a tree or side of a house or whatever and the masking is shower squirrels or your brother whatever shower them with frag frag I think it's a good inventive thing for kids to do that work no we never got it perfected. We worked on quite a bit, that little bit of technology. Yeah, good access to ball bearings.

I have another ball bearing. One more ball bearing question. When you guys were going around shooting these at each other, would you pick them back up off the ground and keep popping them in your mouth as you'd go? My mom's, if you went in, i should have my mom on the show my mom's primary gripe in life was um if you you know like my mom had a hoover vacuum um i remember had a little light bulb like a little headlight yes the dark corners oh yeah i remember my brother

taking that out and eating it and just cutting the inside of his mouth all to holy hell and needing to go to the emergency room. Yep, tried to eat it. What? I don't know why. He screwed it out. When he was a little, little kid, pulled it out and ate it. Not during the BB Wars.

No, dude. He crashed into the side of the house one time and got 32 stitches across his forehead. My mom thought he was dead. Older brother or Danny? You need to have your mom, Matt, and Danny on the podcast. Special episode. To sort all this shit out because there's some stories.

My dad didn't know. My dad had one of those sleds with the runners on it. And my dad shoved him down the hill toward the house, and he didn't know he couldn't steer. My dad said he just kept going, going, going, going, right into the block foundation of the house and got all the stitches. Yeah, then ate that light bulb out of the Hoover.

Out of spite. But, man man listen to my mom vacuum you know like and also you hear like where'd you suck up one of those ball bearings or bb's or something oh my god she would get mad but i'm sure i have no doubt we recycled yeah it was pre-covid yeah you got a uh stevie got a hanger on the left. Oh, thanks, Derek. Good thing it's radio. I don't want to get it, though, man. You got it. Explain to me, one of you, we're in Pennsylvania, and we're with two genuine Pennsylvanians.

Rick Hutton, never been on the show before. Yep. Nope, first time. Seth Morris, many times. Dirt's from Montana. Yeah. Nope. First time. Seth Morris. Many times. Dirt's from Montana. No PA roots here. Lauren's here. How's it going? Minnesota guy.

Minnesota guy. Cameron, Minnesota guy. And Rick. Washington. Rick never been hunting his life, Smith. Explain to me how, I want to get into the flintlock deal. But I think the first thing I want to cover off on, which is really interesting,

is that we spent a fair bit of time talking about Sunday hunting over the years. It's very interesting to me that the ban on Sunday hunting over the years. It's very interesting to me that the ban on Sunday hunting goes back three years prior to Custer dying at the little bighorn unrelated, very unrelated, but you put it in perspective.

1873. Yeah. 1873. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 1873. Mm-hmm. Just wrapping up the old Civil War. Yeah. It was, I don't even, so a lot of that stuff researched before we came out here, but I,

definitely that predates the Pennsylvania Game Commission, but that might be one of the first legal laws pertaining to hunting. I know it says, also the ban of shooting spotted fawns. In one year, in 1873, they banned killing fawns with spotted coats. Coats. And Sunday hunting. Yeah, and it's like deeply rooted in this state. I would love to go back to hear what was said at the time.

Me too. Like what was, like how vocal was the debate? I don't know if it was super vocal or anything, but you just, the only way I can wrap my head around it, it's, you know, it's a common and Pennsylvania is a Quaker state, you know, Philadelphia and the history of the state's all based in the Quaker faith. And so, uh, yeah, the Sabbath cannot go out on Sunday. It's a day of rest. So that's, but other than that, I don't know the exact roots of that, but I can't imagine.

Was it, yeah, was it accepted generally? It probably was, to be honest. You think so? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I wonder if people were pissed. Well, I mean, some people had been pissed, and some people had ignored it for a long time. I was just saying, I bet you a lot of people just ignored it.

What's interesting is that then stood for like 146 years. And just now, they're starting to ease. Yeah, 2020 was the first year Sunday hunting is allowed. Seth knows the actual. They allowed three Sundays. Yeah, there was one Sunday in archery which was the last Sunday in November.

It's not the last Sunday in November, but the last Sunday of the season is in November. A Sunday during bear season. And then the first Sunday of the rifle season in Pennsylvania. Or the three Sundays that you can now hunt. Unless you choose to hunt coyotes, foxes, or crows. Yep. That is A-OK.

The devil's critters. It must be the devil's critters. Well, they mess with agriculture more. That's why it eased up. Do you think they're aiming toward... There's a lot of movement away from

blue laws. Blue laws would be like all these things like your tavern can't be open on a sunday you can't do this on a sunday that on a sunday do you think that this is just like a step toward like getting rid of that altogether yeah and i think pennsylvania is a state that's been stepping that way because when we were kids i don't know the alcohol all my week like no alcohol sales on sunday i remember my dad could never he can never buy alcohol on sunday and now you can right When we were kids, I don't know the alcohol. Like, no alcohol sales on Sunday. I remember my dad could never, he could never buy alcohol on Sunday. And now you can, right?

Something like that? Yeah. They're easing it up now because it used to always be distributors. And now there's beer in stores. Like, they're allowing grocery stores to get. And I don't know. Well, it's because those stores are buying. There's, like, a set amount of liquor licenses.

Mm-hmm. And, like, I don't think they can make any more. So like if a bar goes out of business, someone else can buy their liquor license. Got it. So like, you know, for an example, there's a bar in Milesburg, Pennsylvania, which was not too far from here. A bar went out of business. A gas station bought the liquor license and set up shop right across the street. And they sell, the gas station sells like 12 packs and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, it sells beer. Which that never used to be the case. So like that's easing up and like blue laws are changing. Now Sunday hunting, which that's been to be the case. So like that's easing up and like blue laws are changing now Sunday hunting, which that's been a big thing. And I haven't been in Pennsylvania for all that shift, but I know growing up here,

I could not stand the fact that we could not hunt on Sunday. I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world. Would it be such as like as strict as if you were hunting out of season or is it like a lesser? Oh yeah. You know, I don't know, but it's,

I think it's yeah. Hunting out of season. For sure. It's that to you? You know, I don't know, but I think it's, yeah, hunting out of season. Yeah. For sure. It's that kind of punishment. Yeah. I would think. Rick, since you've never been on the show before, tell people what you do now, and then

we're going to talk about what you did in the past. Okay. So I am the content community manager for FHF Gear, stands for Fish Hunt Fight Gear. We manufacture the bino harness you wear on the show and a bunch other u.s made hunting and fishing gear so and some tactical gear and then uh you studied forestry you like you and seth did you guys meet through the forestry world yeah we we met at penn state mon alto which is a branch campus of the main the, which is in Mont Alto, Pennsylvania. It used to be the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy.

Gifford Pinchot started it because he grew up in Milford, Pennsylvania. He started it, and then Penn State bought it, turned it into a branch campus. But all the original buildings on that campus were built by the original forestry students. They would show up by train. They would get issued acts, a bunch of tools. They'd go to class. They'd come back and like Conklin Hall on the campus and everything. They built all that by hand, all the forestry students. So the campus still has a very big associate degree program. That's where Seth and I started in the associate degree, got our associates in forest technology. And then I went to Penn State.

We both went to Penn State main campus. I finished with a bachelor's in forest management. Seth switched to agriculture. What was the draw to forestry? I just wanted to be in the woods. And I thought going into it, I just wanted to be in the woods. I thought it would make me a better outdoorsman learning uh and that was always the ultimate goal just be like a well-rounded outdoorsman woodsman like a naturalist yeah kind of you could say like that but i'll just get better

at hunting and fishing you know and i thought that'd be a good thing i also thought it would be easy uh like it'd be something i can do in college. Because I did not, I wasn't good at math. Didn't want to, you know, do any like crazy, crazy. I want to say like didn't want to work hard in college. Because I definitely ended up working very hard. Yeah, you were mistaken with the easy part. Yeah, that's what I was just getting around to. Boy, did we get slapped in the face. It was extremely hard.

And had way more math than ever. Statistics, everything. It was, yeah. And at that point, Mon Alto, which it still does, has a very hard program. Well, you guys were telling me about the test where they take 50 limb buds. Yep.

Leafless branches. Yeah. Sections of twigs. Sections of twigs, lay them out, and you got to identify all 50 of them. Yeah. So you'd walk in the laboratory, and there'd be 50 sheets of paper,

and on each piece of paper, and they were all distance out so you couldn't cheat off your buddy and you'd walk around and no complete silence everything and there'd just be a one inch four inch little twig with just the buds but what about unlike the pines and stuff there'd be a fascicle like which is the clump a clump of needles like a five needle or three you know hard pine soft pine well not always you got a lot of different types of conifer now it's all stuff native to pennsylvania since we were in pennsylvania but a lot of the species were up and down that northeast

but like with the hard pines you got table mountain pitch all different types like you can it can get a little tricky or there'd be a cone an armored cone you know the soft pines were easy for us here in the in pennsylvania but sometimes the armored cones like shortleaf uh pine table mountain and pitch sometimes their cones are a little hard to tell apart so it'd just be that and you'd have to do family genus species in the latin and i think sometimes it asks like you'd have to say a fact about that tree you had to know all that and then yeah so that was for dendrology man and we had we learned that test seth i don't remember on that one i was good at dendro i wasn't good at anything else i really wish i knew my trees better i walk around go oh that's a tree we we had to be able to identify how many tree species

it was in like 120-ish ballpark is what we learned. Family, genius, and species. And we'd have we would go out. So we would do part of our exams where we would do field tests. And we would walk out into a field.

We'd have these little pieces of paper. And our professor would point to a tree. And we'd have to write it down and hand it to her. And then she'd do that for, I don't know, 20, 30 species. We'd weekly exams like that. How many students in your course, in your class? I think I graduated with like nine or 11 or something like that. I started with 30-some in the program, but after the end of the two years,

there was only like 16 maybe of my associate, and then I only graduated my bachelor's with like six to nine people, something like that. There was some attrition. Very much. They dropped like flies. Because it's hard. Yeah, because everyone did.

They'd pick it. It's weird that you guys got that far then chickened out and went into different fields. Well, he didn't. Rick didn't. I worked in forestry. Then you went into the military. Well, that was a different goal. But then when I got back, I went right into

work for Pheasants Forever. I worked for Pheasants Forever and then went out to the U.S. Forest Service. And I used to work for the Game Commission in college. You know your observation that you thought by studying forestry that you'd be better at hunting and fishing yeah um we were having we were talking about that one time with with uh our beloved pat durkin and like just like woodsmanship and being a naturalist right yeah and he was saying um he's kind of expressing this almost like it's unfortunate but he's like you know he spent a lot of time profiling like very effective deer hunters like stone cold killers on white tails

you know yeah he said the thing he's found a lot of these guys they can't tell you what kind of tree their tree stands hanging in. Really? Yeah. That amazes me. He's like, it takes a lot, but it doesn't take that. I saw one time. That's a good way to put it. I saw a dude.

He's like insta-famous. Does a lot of whitetail hunting in the Midwest. And he was going around like scouting a property and he was saying how um you could tell this was a fresh deer rub because it was low on the tree an old deer rub will be higher in a tree because the tree grows up huh yeah and i was like leave a comment i didn't know i don't you don't troll but i was like that man probably knows his shitload about deer but has no clue how a tree grows yeah but yeah definitely doesn't know how a tree grows that's really funny yeah uh yeah that's interesting because um we shot a steel broadhead into a

tree in our yard when we were little and you can still see like a little swell from it there and it yeah never changed height no um that's surprising though that that's the case because i felt like and i'm sure seth would agree when you learn all your species and then until you really start getting into like sylvics of the species like you can look back that the whole landscape's a history book and you can look at how stuff regenerated you can look at stumps you can start breaking the fort like we do we break everything down into stands okay group group of trees that is unique to like a size species you could start lumping them together and you can just create

these rooms like you can actually create a bedding area why deer bedding there then you could see travel corridor and then you can actually see like why especially with mass producing eastern hardwoods when you're dropping acorns and everything and like we're talking about their day like they're they'll have a deer will eat white oak acorns before they start hammering on the wet red oak acorns because it tends and stuff see when you start knowing that youorns because it tans and stuff see when you start knowing that you can break it all down it makes sense it's not just a bunch of green stems i think it's like it's a component yeah it's helpful but there's a lot of ways around it totally just like you can know every damn tree in the woods yeah but be fidgety or i think it

helps not patient but you don't need to but it definitely helps yeah so when uh so you got out of that whole deal got out of school yeah and then i want to get to about i want to get to the part about uh well no you know where i'm going i know no sorry i asked you permission if i could ask you about it yeah there's a part to ask if i could ask i'm not asking that yet yep but um i caught when we were talking so i know you were in the service. Mm-hmm. And your old man was. Yeah.

And he was injured in Iraq. Yes. It's so weird that at this point to be talking to a grown man whose old man. Was in the Iraq war. Was injured in Iraq. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What branch of the service was he in?

Marine Corps. Oh. He was 40.. Was injured in Iraq. Yeah. What branch of the service was he in? Marine Corps. Oh. He was 40. He turned 43 in Iraq. He was old, though, when he was there. I see. Yeah. Was he a lifer? He did 24 years.

Most of that was in the reserve. So, yeah. But he got deployed in 03. Yep. Because it was right after I shot my first deer when I was 12. Everything was 2002 and he deployed in january went to iraq and came back and like just under a year so you were 12 and the old man got shipped off to iraq yep okay yeah one of like the last times we really like

had a father-son like experience was when i shot my first year yeah and then uh then you didn't see your dad for a year then he got super busy like for pre-deployment, all that and everything. And they left in January, like beginning, yeah, maybe middle of January. I can't remember exactly when he left. Went to Iraq, but he got a traumatic brain injury there and then came home. And from that brain injury, he had traumatic brain injury and a bunch of spinal injuries. And he just, but like, he just took ibuprofen. They didn't, they didn't ship him home after.

They really didn't know what was going on with him. He just got a Parkinson's-ism. From his brain injury, he has a lot. He has mobile problems. He's mostly in a wheelchair a lot and stuff and has problems getting around. I just saw him at Christmas. He was doing pretty good. It comes and goes, but it's all neurological.

He is a deep brain stimulator, too. He was one of the first people in the U.S. to get a deep brain stimulator too he's one of the first people in the u.s to get a deep brain stimulator so he has it and i'm pretty sure he was the first guy to have it installed on his left shoulder instead of his right because he wanted to still shoot a firearm and they were all putting them on uh yeah the right shoulder and he asked the surgeon if he could put it on his left so he could still shoulder a firearm but it's like a pacemaker it goes down into his brain pulsates and um helps his uh dopamine levels for mobility and everything so yeah so with that i yeah i uh so then you felt compelled to go in the marine corps no no it was it was opposite all i wanted

to do was go in the marines when i was a kid and then i with his mobility and struggles i was just being a 16 year old kid being an idiot and i just struggled with that fact and struggles, I was just being a 16-year-old kid, being an idiot, and I just struggled with that fact. And I was irritated because we had to kind of figure out what was going on with his situation with the VA, and he couldn't work no more when he got medically retired and everything. So I did not join the military at 18, which is my biggest regret in my life. Even though I'm glad where my life is right now, but I not join at 18 i went to college and did mon alto and then my sophomore year of college i started having big regrets about it and i made the decision to to just join after call post-college so did how long uh so i did uh i was doing officer's candidate, uh, like recruiting and ended up graduating. Uh, and I was six months out.

I was living on Seth's farm, just waiting to get like a date to go to officer's can school, a ship date. Cause you don't, you gotta get accepted. And at this time there's a huge bottleneck. They really slimmed down how many guys were going officer's can at school. So I ended up getting impatient and I enlisted,listed um various reasons a bunch of family stuff too i didn't know if i can like my dad wasn't doing too well at that point um so and i wanted to go infantry really bad so ended up the contract i did was infantry but i went reserve so so then i did boot camp uh school of infantry and then got put back in reservient in Pennsylvania.

And I just did four years because at the end of the four years, my plan was I would try to go back officer. Oh, I got you. But that's when moving to Montana. That was better. That was new. Yeah. I wouldn't change that at all. Did your dad support your decision?

Oh, yeah, 100%. Yep. Yep. Yeah. My mom supported it too. Yeah. But it was, you know, that was at the draw that was in 2013 i left so that was when everything was starting to really settle down but yeah no i was very supportive grew up in a military family almost all the

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onxmaps.com slash meet on x maps.com slash meet welcome to the to the on x club y'all so talk about when you got like uh when you went through your health crisis yeah okay so this is the part Steve really likes. Not that I like it. It's just something we've, it's just like a thing we have never explored. Yeah, no. So I was a fat kid. Always, you know, always overweight.

Like all growing up. Yeah, for the most part. I got, you know, heavy when I was 10, around then, and everything, all through. But I was still very active like i was eagle scout did boy scouts we did backpacking all the time 50 miler uh backpacks every year we did a couple of them so super active but in college i got like the freshman 15 really packed on some pounds and i got up to 230 some pounds how tall are are you? I am five. It's funny. So the military only does you by a whole inch.

So I'm 5'9 on their records, but I'm 5'8 and a half. So, yeah. They round you up. They round you up, which is good. That's generous. Well, because you get a weight cap. And I was always one of the guys that was pushing it. Also, they gave you an extra half inch to help you out on the weight cap?

Yeah, that's usually generally what they do. I'm trying to think of how big that is. So what was the weight again? Like mid-230s. I can't remember what the max, max pound it was, but I was in that 230s. And I'm 5'8 1⁄2", and in five months, I lost like 55 pounds. Just one day? Yeah, I made a decision.

I was like, this is done. I'm done doing this and that's all it is it's a mental but when you made the decision what was your understanding of why it was that it happened to you not tracking with the quiet what's your like you must have said like you didn't make a decision to get thin you had to make a decision that that i'm gonna do such and such thing like how did you know what the problem was? So when I was thinking about joining the military, I was like, well, you got, like, there's weight regs, everything's got to be in shape.

And that's when I made the decision. I was like, well, if I'm going to do that, I need to just get in shape. And two, I was never, you know, I always wanted to be able to run faster and do all that. So that was just like little all I needed, and it clicked in my head. I was like, well, I'm going to do it.

I'm just going to get in really good shape. So I went down, got to like, at one point I got to 158 pounds. Dang. But what were the things you changed? Diet. I got up every morning and ran three miles because that's what the PFT was. So I knew I had to work on that time. And what about diet? Well, I pretty much, this is where I made some mistakes. I starved myself. There was days, some days I would eat a couple oranges. Like you were just that committed. Yeah. I would get really bad starvation headaches, but I was just so committed. I was like, I don't care.

It's calories. Your calories burned has to exceed your calories in. And that's all I did. And I just, I, which definitely can tell, I think I hurt my stomach a little bit by starving myself. But I, you know, I would eat not like months of just low, low calories, but there'd be a day a week. I'd be like, well, I'm hardly going to eat any day. Just keep going. And I'd run three miles.

Yeah. But it was easy because once I started seeing progress, I was like, this is it. I am, I'm getting to that goal and I did it. So, yeah. So it's just, it was a mental decision to lose goal and I did it. So, yeah. So, it's just, it was a mental decision to lose that weight. That's all it was.

And it's painful, but. Painful in what way? Well, when I was not starving myself. Oh, painful like that. That was a little painful and everything. And yeah, but, you know,

one thing that was pretty awesome, though, was the encouragement people. Like, I knew Seth then when I lost all my weight. And like, everyone, when they saw you, it was like real encouragement when they haven't seen you in a month or a couple weeks,

and then they see you again. You're really working at it. It's awesome. I was still up. He's a year ahead of me. So I was sophomore year. Yeah. And you were junior year.

Up at main campus, I was still at Mont Alto. I remember coming back up to main campus i was still at monauta i remember coming back up to main campus to visit for the weekend and i saw him was like holy shit like what happened because he just like i hadn't seen him for months yeah all summer and i came up and saw him for the first time in like three or four months and just like half the size he was and i had no clue that he was even like trying to lose weight yeah i didn't tell no one i was just yeah i told everyone i came back to school but yeah that was it so what was it when you the first time you went back in the woods you know lighter like feeling fit did you was it was amazing that much more enjoyable man

oh yeah i feel like i could do anything yeah it was like running wise and everything and uh uh yeah totally i would encourage anyone like if especially in a young person uh to just do it it's a mental decision just make the decision and stick with it it's gonna like suck but just do it because man once you're fit and everything you can like i'm addicted to running now i love going for long runs and stuff and everything so yeah but uh tell people about the decision to uh expunge your oh yeah because that came up because we're talking about photos because i i have a somewhat of a well yeah i have a regret now i was so ashamed of those years of being overweight. How long were the years? Well, from 10, 11, all the way up until college.

So, 19, 19. Defining years of going from boy to man. That's kind of a pivotal. Very pivotal. Because you showed me a picture of a big, huge freaking bobcat you trapped. Yeah. That was a couple days before i went to bootcamp yeah well i was like you look skinny as a bean yeah i'll show you some others there on my phone

you should see how skinny i am yeah uh but yeah but then i just destroyed and got rid of all the i call my fat pictures i'm just like i'm getting rid of this i'm burning this part of my life out really oh yeah and and i regret it because i got rid of a lot of hunting gripping grins and hunting pictures and stuff i've killed oh man i still got some seth keeps seth keeps yeah he's got ones uh yeah digital on his phone um but yeah i just tried to erase it because i was like ashamed of it but now i look him back as i'm getting older i don't know a lot of people say you should just be proud that you did that you made that change you didn't just keep going down that path so yeah no it's tricky because you obviously switched up some habits and created some new ones that you're really happy about but to be so like ashamed of of just yeah it's I don't know it's a tricky it's a tricky thing, right? Yeah, definitely. Because I feel bad for that 13-year-old Rick.

Well, yeah, because I got picked on and stuff or what? You got picked on? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I was a fat kid. I got picked on. Heck yeah. Yeah, the judgment that goes along with it. Yeah.

What kind of picked on? You know, general, like being picked for a lot of sports and everything, like in gym class when you're a fat kid and everything. Ugh. Yeah. It's breaking my heart. No, so that part really makes me. It's breaking your heart, really?

Yeah, no. I'm just thinking about how wicked. I got kids, man. That's just the way, you know, kids. Kids are wicked, dude. People are terrible. People are. They're evil little.

They don't know better, but they're just evil little people. Yeah. People are. Yeah. Yeah. No, i can't remember like exact things people i just remember sometimes being really stressed and upset they're they have moments of like incredible passion and moments of just wickedness yeah yeah that's a really good way to put with kids and it can happen at the same time one out of the left hand one out of the right yeah so but horrible little things yeah

well hey you're raising a bunch so so i'm saying just just i'm not and i'm not acting like this is just i mean i see them do things to each other yeah i'm like what who would like no one i know would do that to like someone even a stranger let alone a sibling i don't i think when you're young you don't have you don't understand like the ramifications of what you say and how that will like burn and linger in someone's mind or anything like that so but then again i don't know all that led up to me just being like i'm sick of this and i made my decision so if no one did do that to me or like i was i wasn't frustrated with my physical abilities would i have ever made the decision to change i don't know and i'm so glad i made that decision like what do you think

now about um you know there's this kind of national dialogue right where oh this is yep where you know it's i don't know how to rick tell everybody about what i'm talking about i don't know the obesity pandemic is it is it the like no except like the idea of your body type thing yeah the idea that that um like love your body yeah which is like a good advice you know like generally but then there's this, there's this idea, like, I guess within the culture,

there's a growing trend to be like that, that, that, um, beauty was always defined a certain way. Yeah. And so it was like this binary thing, like you're like thin and beautiful or you're not,

you're, you're, or you're ugly. And there's this, this um tendency to want to like to take this down to have this not be the way that it's not like that such a you know this huge percent of the population should sort of like feel the shame of not hitting um a certain physical stature that society has deemed acceptable but at the same time there's like health care professionals who are like there are serious like like yeah there are costs to being overweight very legitimate cost of being overweight and it's not like a beauty it's like beauty not beauty is sort of like there's a

health component yeah and i but i mean you know i'm doing a horrible job expressing it but this is like a thing you hear about totally no i think you did a pretty good job let me explain that and i'll just say my personal opinion about it uh i think everyone should be confident with themselves i think that's a big thing because we're all different and it's weird when you compare like major athletes and stuff to everyone like just be confident yourself, but be healthy. That, and it really pisses me off. I'll be honest.

When, uh, cause people don't know my past when they see me and then they're like, well, I can't lose cause I can't lose weight cause of this or that. And, you know, I'm 50 pounds overweight and it's just never going to happen. And it's, it is a, it irritates me cause I'm like, you can. It is a decision because I woke up one day, and I flipped a switch in my brain, and I did whatever it took to accomplish that, and I think there's very few people that have a physical limitation to holding them back from being super healthy, and there is not a day I wake up that I would go back to that.

I love being healthy. I love being able to go for big LeRonn runs. I love being able to go to the gym and actually perform the way I should for my age class. And I will say there's, there's health ramifications. My knees, I think my knees are going to give out before they would have. Cause I was carrying around all that extra weight and especially too, I was an active kid. So I was going on backpackers, you know, I'd have a big pack plus extra weight. Toting all that weight. All that extra weight. And especially too, I was an active kid. So I was going on backpackers, you know, I'd have a big pack plus extra weight. Toting all that weight.

All that extra weight. And, uh, I don't know, you can ask Seth. He's heard, I'll bend, I'll kneel down. My knees will crack loud. Both of them. Like, and I can tell some days I gotta like, I'm definitely going to have those. That's the part of my body I think is going to start failing early is my knees. And well, let me ask you this as long as we're on the subject uh

the people that goofed on you when you were a kid yeah okay um do you now think like thank god those people were so ruthless and awful no okay but i also i'm did, man, it's kind of hard. I, yeah. I don't think they need to be as ruthless. You can't in some way be like, well, I deserved it. No. No, I don't think that. But then I also, I think because of the subject we just talked about, I don't think you should totally ignore. I think people should be like, hey, you know, if you have a friend that's, that's overweight and unhealthy, you should be like, hey, let's, you should think about taking some steps to just be healthy. Like you shouldn't ignore it. That's my, that's what I'm getting at. You know? Um, yeah, I don't think, yeah, I'm never like thankful I got bullied for that, uh,

part of my life and everything, but I definitely, I don't know. I'm just, I guess I spin it in a positive in my mind. You can't just look negative at it do you feel um to lose a bunch of weight do you feel that you were more uh moving toward like a definition of health that you had or more moving away from like getting goofed out by people uh moving towards a definition of health i think yeah yeah because like i was in college and everything when i was i was like my i was a fully well i wouldn't say fully developed man uh but uh by that point getting close but i was myself and i was confident in myself too who i was but i just wanted to be in shape and yeah the goofing probably stopped in college college

yeah the goofing stopped. I don't remember anyone giving me an hard time about it. Seth would have kicked their ass. Oh, yeah, buddy. No, because your old man was a Marine. Did he look like a Marine? Yeah, he looks like a Marine. Yeah, he looks like a Marine.

He still looks like a Marine. Really? Was there a little bit of rebellion in there, maybe? He thinks it's illegal to not get a high and tight haircut. So, yeah. He just can't shake the old habits. That's the only haircut I can get these days. Yeah. But.

You were Marine too, right? I don't know if that came up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to the Marine Corps. Yeah. Yeah, which my like service was nothing compared to my old man's. Yeah, I don't even talk about my service that much. No, you really don't.

No, no, I don't. But, yeah, because what my dad gave up for the country and everything, I had a little bit of that. So I don't talk about it much. He's the one that got you started hunting, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I started. I mean, we joke about it.

I don't know anything about sports. I played some sports because I think my parents were like, we want you to be accepted. Try this. And all I want to do is play with guns and go hunting and fishing. But he got me started in all that, and I was in the Boy Scouts all the way up to my Eagle. But, yeah, my dad got me started in all that. He grew up in a hunting family.

Can I ask a question that might be jumping ahead too much or maybe not yeah man did he did your dad get you into flintlock or where that because yeah i'm sitting here thinking like how am i gonna get out of this and get into because i'm super interested in this but i know where we got to go so i'm sitting here thinking about how am i gonna do it yeah i was like i don't know if people care about my past. Oh no, they care a lot, dude. I didn't know what to do. Now I was about ready to hit panic

and then dirt comes in. That was an amazing transition. Started out going small game hunting with my dad. Watching him shoot squirrels at 22. But the first deer i ever watched get killed uh was with a flintlock was that the one your dad was kind of shooting down on it kind of yeah and i was kind of down at it too um we were out so this you can transition this into i don't know if we're gonna talk about later but seth and i was great job dude oh yeah i was

oh you're real solid man seth and i both uh grew up in areas of Pennsylvania that had heavy coal mining. And I did. I grew up in Schuylkill County, the anthracite coal region. So a lot of what we hunted was all— Better tell people what that means. So anthracite coal is hard coal. And eastern Pennsylvania, from Scranton area all the way down to Pottsville, which is where I was born and raised, is where you can get anthracite coal.

It's hard coal. It's shiny, burns more efficient, less ash, and more BTUs. Good, clean coal. Yep, good, clean coal versus bituminous. But I grew up in that region. Seth grew up where they mined bituminous coal. So he grew up in the shit coal area. He did.

That's right. Do you feel that affected you guys' outlook and personalities? What, that he grew up in the shit coal region? Yeah. Like shit coal and good coal? No. No? I think it shaped how we view resource extraction, but I don't think it made me think any less

of it. But we always call it like- I didn't know Seth grew up in a bad coal area. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all this coal on the hill is soft coal. Yeah. That's the only place in the U.S. Everything's soft coal except for in eastern Pennsylvania. It's the only place you can get it in the U.S. is anthracite, hard coal.

That's it. Everything else is bituminous coal to some level. There's different levels of bituminous. What's lignite? That's bituminous, but I think it's really crappy bituminous. to some level. There's different levels of bituminous. What's lignite? That's bituminous, but I think it's really crappy bituminous. It's a real crummy coal. Real crummy coal, yeah. Like I grew up, my grandmother would have coal on her bookshelves from all her family.

Like a couple of her brothers had mines and stuff, and they're like shiny black diamonds. Like they shine, they're all washed off, but it's real shiny nice looking stuff so so when those guys are goofing on you about your weight where you're like well at least uh at least i come from good coal country that didn't occur to me that was just normal that was life uh but we always hunted out on a lot of coal land like we always said down in the strippings um because a lot of really yeah strippings yep yeah stripping pits strippings that's what they call it is that what it's called because they're strip mining yep yeah right we're sitting right now right below um what i would regard as like you you clarified it's not i would look at that that must be like that must be the mountaintop removal we hear so much about but you're like

that's that doesn't even no not technically it is a strip it's a strip mine strip they they do recontour and level stuff during strip mining. We're close enough to the mine right now. We were sitting here earlier in the cabin, and there was a little bit of a shake because they must have detonated a charge up there to move some ground. So you guys are hunting the strippings.

Yep, we're out in the strippings. And I probably was like 11 Maybe 10 at this point And I was getting a little tired We were doing mooches as Doug Duren would say But small drives just with my uncles It wasn't a full on drive Doug wouldn't really agree with that Oh he wouldn't

He's a little stupid about it He would Like a mooch i've argued with doug about this a million times yeah in a mooch which is like a deer drive but not in a mooch it would be that like there's like a like a blind sitting still hunting component to it. Okay. It kind of stems from like some relative of his,

probably looked exactly like him. At one point in time, it said something like, you know, I was just creeping along. Yeah. You know, mooching, right? Okay. And it'd be like, if you're doing a mooch, it might be that everybody goes out in the morning

and gets in a blind, in their deer blind, around the farm. Yeah. And even the neighboring farm, might be that everybody goes out in the morning and gets in a blind and their deer blind around the farm yeah and even the neighboring farm right like everybody's out in their blind and it's scheduled that like we'll sit till about eight and then dave and bob are going to get out of their blinds okay Okay. And mooch along these two different ridges. Yep. Okay? Yep. And just stir stuff up. And just gently, gently get things a stirring.

And then, like, let's say Dave arrives at some other blind that he hadn't been sitting in. Mm-hmm. He might climb up into that blind. Okay. At which point Doug gets out and mooches down into a little bottom yep real quiet and then around about that time like shirley climbs down out of her blind you know yep yeah and mooches around to Doug's blind. And then Deb.

And it's this whole thing like that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So technically, we're not doing that. And it's like, wow, it's just little mini pushes. Yeah, mini pushes. Mini pushes. Little short drives.

Mini, subtle, like not blowing deer out, but just nudging them. Nudging them. Yep. Mooching along. My uncle was going through conifer cover. Like, we did a lot this whole trip. And he bumped out two doe and they came running. Well, oh, I got to back up.

I was tired. Now, why do you not say does? Oh, man. Were you brought up to say doe? Yeah, and it's a really bad habit. Did you grow up to say doe where you live? I don't remember. Yeah. That's just just way my entire family and honestly a lot of the guys that grew up hunting around how they said it so it's just

it it's automatic i don't even think it's regional because we grew up with people that said it yeah buck and dough not bucks and does bucks and does yeah i think it's super common i know a lot of people do that and i don't even catch myself doing it I saw a two buck, three doe but I was tired and he climbed up on a big overburden pile of coal it was left from years ago

and it's all grown up around it everything but he went up on it like it'd be in a stand to get an elevated shooting position at the end of this conifer cover and my uncle booked uh two does out and they came running right up and one saw me sitting on a stump my dad set me on hit the brakes and just watched me and i remember staring right in her eyes and i heard the flintlock go off and like a foot two foot big shot of blood shot up out of her side and she ran off 30 yards and

piled up my dad came down that was like the first time i put my hands on a dead deer and i was so chomping at the bit to go hunting after that and then so like flintlock i mean my dad has killed more deer with his flintlock than his centerfire rifle yeah what year did they start the flintlock season here? 73? We should check that sheet in front of you. I say the years. 73?

One second. That page covers the advent of the triple trophy. Yep. Where you get a special trophy if you killed a deer, bear, and turkey. Same year. Which they started handing out in 1966, and then in 1972, myster mysteriously they ended the triple trophy program i really need to reset i don't know the history behind that i just knew it was a good idea for six years at my hunting camp there was a few guys that had their hunting jackets and they had triple trophy patches on it well how do i not remember

this was the damn year i was born oh two years after jeremiah johnson yeah so that was yeah i threw that in on that little thing because I feel like that probably set the stage because that was such a popular movie. I think my parents watched Jeremiah Johnson. At your conception? About a year and three months after it came out, and that led to my conception. Such a weird thought. It's a romantic movie

My mom and dad For their honeymoon They went and stayed In one of those ice shanties You can live in Oh really Yeah Oh that's cool

That's romantic Yeah spent their honeymoon Ice fishing in an ice shanty Do you think it was a scene Where he flips the blanket Off Swan That like got your parents Is that when you're thinking

Of your I'm trying to think What's that scene She lays After they get married She lays down Under the blanket off Swan that got your parents. Is that when you're thinking of your... I'm trying to think. What's that scene? After they get married, she lays down under the blanket naked. And then he flips it off and says, Lord. Yep. I remember that scene. Okay, where were we? I don't know. Oh, they started muzzling with flintlocks.

But it's the only state that has the flintlock season. Yeah. Yeah. Why is that? And tell people what the hell flintlock is. We've covered it so many damn times. Maybe Seth can do it. Yeah, Seth is that? And tell people what the hell flintlock is. We've covered it so many damn times. Maybe Seth can do it. Yeah, Seth, do do it. I'm talking too much. But first tell them what a matchlock is.

Or I can do that. Yeah, you tell them what a matchlock is. You probably explain the matchlock better. Time, 1600s, beginning of the 1600s, the cutting edge technology was a matchlock. So it was a pan that came out, beginning of the 1600s, the cutting edge technology was a matchlock. So it was a pan that came out the side of the barrel, held a priming powder, and then an arm that would be cocked back. And then when the trigger was pulled back, the sear would move, it would release, and a smoldering rope would go in that and ignite the powder the problem with that is as you as the rope

kept smoldering back you kept having to push it and make sure time it was up far enough and timed right so if like someone starts a drive a deer drive let's say with a match lock you might light the wick right when it starts and by the way they say like well here we go you'd light the wick i mean yeah if they were doing deer drives back then, yeah, that'd probably be what you're doing. Or it would smolder. I'm not sure how like the rate, maybe it was a super, super slow, so you can almost hunt for it. Or would it be, here comes a deer, you're lighting the wick. No, no, you would want to, yeah, you're not like sitting there.

Because I think they didn't have any lighters or anything. It wasn't a quick ignition, so you had to try to take something from a candle or a fire to light that, start smoldering that rope. Until this very minute, I didn't know that that's what a matchlock was. Yeah. The hammer held a burning wick. Yeah.

And then pushed it right into the pan. And would it put the wick out when that happened? I don't know. I don't know if it did or not. I feel like it probably wouldn't. It would still be smoldering because there's ignition in the pan. It's not like it goes in and cuts off all oxygen or anything and there's nothing. And then that little pan of powder goes poof.

Yep. And then shoots into the side of the barrel through a thing called a touch hole and then ignite the main charge and it pushed a patch and ball, or just a ball because a lot of them were smoothbores. Well, I think all matchlocks were smoothbores, yeah. And he would throw that ball down the end of the barrel. So if that was the bee's knees, what were the poor folks shooting during matchlock time? What was a bad gun during matchlock time?

Yeah, I don't know. A sword? A cannon? Yeah, I don't know. Sword? A cannon? Yeah, maybe not a gun. Some sharp little whippersnapper. Bow and arrow. Yesterday's equivalent of the dude that comes up with a laser range finder. Yeah.

Decides, he says, you know what I'm going to do, man? What does he do, Seth? He comes up with something better. It makes the flintlock. you know what i'm gonna do man what does he do seth he comes up with something better you know it makes the flintlock so the flintlock is um it's similar in the way in like how the parts move in a way there's a hammer there's a flash pan and then there's a touch hole that goes into the barrel but over the pan there's you gotta think of like a flint and steel. So on the hammer, there's a piece of flint.

Held in by a little vice. Held in by a little, yeah, a little vice type thing. And then over the pan, there's a frizzing, and the frizzing is the steel part. So when, so you prime the pan, flip the frizzing down down over so that keeps that powder kind of dry and it's about the priming is about as much as like when you see it you know in the movies and someone gets a little fingernail a coke or something it's about like that amount of powder yeah like a pinch of salt yeah like a pinch of salt um the frizzing covers the the powder in the pan and when you cock the hammer back and pull the trigger

the hammer flies forward hits the the steel on the frizzen which flips the frizzen out of the way the the sparks from the flint hitting the steel fall into the pan, which causes a little explosion, a little flash in your face, which then travels through the touch hole into the breech of the barrel, which ignites the powder, sending the patch and ball out of the gun.

Yep. I think it was a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Depending. Oh, you can go. Did we ever work?

Does this ever work out? Like, remember we were talking about the pig, the javelina eating the turkey shit. Yeah. Did you put it on Instagram? Yeah, I did.

So people could go find it. Yes, it worked. It mostly worked. Did you see evidence of people going to see it? Cause we talked about it. Yes. And I've received probably 50 messages of people asking me where they could see that video.

Wasn't it right there? Yeah. Just like I said on the podcast, it'll be in the highlights under Texas. Why don't you just put it in the feed? It expires eventually, right? Put it as a post. As a post. Oh, yeah. Well, then eventually someone listening to that podcast a year from now can go to my highlights, and they're right there, right on top.

Yeah, but no one knows about that. Seth's picky about what goes in his feed, though. Yeah. He's trying to keep his heart. You put it in there in a way that people couldn't find it. No. Rick, help me explain this. It is easier to...

It's easier to find. ...to find it in the highlights than it is in the feed. Well, you listen to me. He has an aesthetic to keep up with. You listen to me. Mr. Technology over here. That's me tapping. Listen.

I'm going to put the world's greatest hang fire video steve will not in some stupid highlight folder steve will put it in his feed meat i will put it in my highlight folder right in the meat under pa flintlock right in the meat like when you go in you're gonna type in at steve and ranella and you're gonna be served up a smorgasbord of visual imagery if you go look you'll find one of dirt having a great uh a great what's known as a hang fire and depending on when this podcast comes out um don't expect it to be the first video on your feed you might have to you might have to scroll once you know when i said smorgasbord are you gonna do a bunch of no you'll be served a smorgasbord of images but it might be that particular video might be where they put like

the uh lemon uh oh cheesecake like as you go through the thing, you got rolls, salad, croutons and bacon bits. Then you get into the... Salami. The weird area where you had cottage cheese and whatnot. And peaches.

And peaches. And then you're going to keep going. There's going to be like a big vat of soup and stuff. And you're going to go down. There's going to be like a big vat of soup and stuff and you're going to go down and there's going to be dirt with the hang fire. Okay, that's where you'll find it. That's where you'll find it. On at Steven Rinella.

I didn't know you didn't come through on that. What? Like I asked. No, it's there. Well, 50 people couldn't find it. Yeah. 50 people have a hard time listening to directions. More than that.

More than that. So it'll be there, the hang fire. Yeah. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

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Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. What the hell were we talking about? The hang fires.

Oh, the sound of it. Yeah, that's the sound. That's what Lauren was saying. Sometimes it goes... I feel like in the best case scenario, there is a small. What Lauren was saying, sometimes it goes... I feel like even best case scenario, there is a small delay, right? No, best case scenario, it's just like... I mean... It's quick.

These peddlers... It's quick. Yeah, Rick, you're kind of right. There's a slight, slight delay. But it's not as slow as most people think, though. My old flintlock, my old flintlock, which I sold on consignment, had a big delay.

And maybe it was like, there's all kinds of reasons that could be. It could be like, I was using like goofy powder. I didn't have whatever. Because in a flintlock, when you prime,

the priming powder is a finer grain than the actual charge powder yeah i could have been screwing all manner of things up with my old flintlock where i wouldn't have a delay it would be like right my new one is yeah because something about it petter solely yeah it Yeah, it's a good rifle. Something about the configuration of everything that when it goes right, it's very fast. It could have a lot to do with the touch hole. Big, large bore touch hole.

You might have had a smaller touch hole on the previous one. Yeah, if you weren't using 4F powder, too, like if you were using 3, like we talked about, Steve and I had a powder incident while hunting. Powder outage. Yeah, where we had to use some charge powder in our pans. And I've never actually done it, but I always was told if you need to do that, it's going to be a little bit slower because that ember has to go down and it smolders for a couple of seconds with that bigger grain of powder. Just like you've taken kindling for a fire and trying to light heavy, too heavy, like of kindling or tinder. Well, the reason I think that might, I don't know, I don't think that's why I had that delay is because I remember not realizing there was such thing as priming powder and have a hell of a time getting that thing to go off.

Yeah. And then got actual priming powder and have a hell of a time getting that thing to go off. Yeah. And then got actual priming powder and got it to work way better. Yeah. But I think I want to establish, so in 1974, they start the flintlock season. No other state had a flintlock season. Nope. Why?

Was it because you guys had a lot of period, like buckskinners, like reenactor community in Pennsylvania? From what everything we can understand what started that, Pennsylvania has a big history with the Pennsylvania long rifle. And everyone always says like the Kentucky rifle, but you know, long rifles started in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. German gunsmiths took the really high precision rifles of from german and swiss gunsmiths and southeastern pennsylvania has tons of german heritage people moving here and settling so those gunsmiths brought that really good craftsmanship and mixed it with the english style like brown best long long rifles um made them super precise and then put rifling in them

to twist and stabilize that patch and ball um so with that like even if you go to build a flintlock today and you order a stock a lot of and i just did it before we came just to see how often but a lot of the stocks are pennsylvania counties like Lancaster-style stock, the York-style stock, Berks, Bethlehem, which is a town, not a county. But there's so much history and heritage with flintlocks in the Pennsylvania long rifle. Like during that early to mid-1700s, guns were flowing out of Pennsylvania.

I think it was 1719. Oh, man, Merlin was his name, Seth? The gunsmith? Yeah, the gunsmith that's mostly noted for putting rifling and making the flintlock. It was like 1917. 1719. 1719, okay. And then up into the 1730s,

there is another gunsmith that had a lot of oh, man. What do you call it like craftsmen underneath him uh apprentices and really they started manufacturing on a larger scale i can't say large scale like we think of today but larger scale pennsylvania long rifles um and then gunsmiths from that took that technology down in virginia kentucky which is where a lot of people say kentucky long rifle but a but it all stemmed out of Pennsylvania.

So with that, like I grew up with, there's muzzleloader clubs. And Seth, there was one up here, right? Didn't you say there was one? I don't know. Okay. I'm not sure about that. My one scout master was really into flintlocks.

He would not use a centerfire rifle unless he absolutely needed to shoot a deer and he wanted to shoot a deer that year. My dad was really into it. He just loved flintlock hunting like i said he killed more deer um with his flintlock than he did his centerfire rifle um and a lot of that came down to time to hunt because of the sunday hunting thing he'd be off around the holidays and the season is after christmas um usually for like two weeks so he did have more time. That was a factor. But with that, I just grew up going to a lot of muzzleloader shoots and there's clubs around here.

And from what I could tell from that history is there was a, the Pennsylvania Federation of Black Powder Shooters. I think I'm saying that right. And they were pushing because the archery hunters now had their season, their piece of the pie. Yep. And they started pushing then in their you know early 70s for that to be there be a designated muzzleloader season and it's written

still in the law it's a flintlock ignition only it cannot be anything more modern than flintlock ignition we do have an early season in october or Pennsylvania does, that you can use modern inlines now, but the post-Christmas late season is flintlock ignition only. And that early season is doe only. Yeah. You can't shoot the antlered deer. Gotcha. The first problem I ran into hunting my first Pennsylvania flintlock season was not one I anticipated.

These guns have what's called a set trigger. They're a Hawkins style. Is that the model? Yeah, so Hawkins styles, from what I can read, and I'm not an expert on any of this so uh but like my gun is more is a more aft traditional pennsylvania kentucky long

rifle style it's a little shorter just to because it's modern um the hawkins style came later when they started doing um because a lot of pennsylvania long rifles were 36 to 45 caliber i'm fondling i'm fondling you of these right now. And then when 50 caliber became a big thing in modern rifle flintlocks, Hawken was a manufacturer of a style, too. They cut the stock back, shorter barrels, but usually a lot heavier. Like you guys can notice, my rifle's more slim line than yours. Yours is a lot heavier,

which goes to period correct of that firearm from what I can tell. What's that call where they hire someone to read while they play with beads? What? You say like, I'm playing with your beads. Palm Raider type, I'm playing with your beads. AMSR? Yeah. So that's what this is. So you're going to hear

I'm going to cock it. It's on half cock right now. I'm going to go all the way for it. Okay. Here's half cock. Satisfying. Oh, yeah. Closing the frizzing.

Now, I am... What do you say? Activating? I always say setting the trigger. Yeah, setting the trigger. So, okay. At at this point now i'm gonna full cock okay love those sounds now if i were to pull the this thing has two triggers in the trigger guard if i were to pull the front trigger i would have to give it a mighty tuggins

yeah to go off yeah it's heavy i don't know how many pounds that is, but it's heavy. A lot of tension in there. A heavy, heavy thing. A lot of slop. That noise? That's slop. No. When I do this, there's a big hook-shaped set trigger,

which I'm now going to activate. The rear trigger. Did you hear that? That was a satisfying noise. That's craftsmanship. Now, if i so much as look at that front trigger she might go off it's probably like climate it scares the shit out of me still it's got to be what like a like a two pound pull i think that's one that's under two pounds for sure that's that's around a one now i had my cz22 trigger done and polished yeah and i have that problem

now and then where i'm just drawing a bead on a squirrel and it'll go off prematurely yeah this is a little more scary though when they go they go off prematurely. Oh, so, and here's why, here's the problem with this stupid thing. Not, I'm stupid, not it's stupid. Is that you're fiddling around in there. Mm-hmm. So, here you are, and here comes, and here you see a bunch of deer come charging through the brush. Yep. And you see antlers.

Mm-hmm. And the rule here is it has to have three on one side. Yeah. And you see that it's a nice, clean eight. Yep. Way legal. Okay? And your normal thing is just to shoot.

Yep. But now I got to be like, okay, I got a lot of little things I need to do. In short order, I need to go like this. I need to go. And then I need to like. Yep. All while this thing's coming at me. Yep. So I do all that,

and then I'm kind of like swooping in on him. He hits the brakes, and I'm coming in on him, passing from left to right. Yep. To eventually settle up and draw a bead on the white of his brisket. Because he's like handshaking distance.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you were. He's on top of you. And I'm looking around. I've activated my set trigger, and my finger's kind of hunting around for the other trigger to make sure I'm in the right spot. Boom!

Off to the side of his head. Like way off to the side of his head. I felt bad walking up when you told me that. And that was my opportunity. Yeah, that was. That was the only opportunity we had out of Buck, and that was your golden one. 15 minutes into the whole hunt.

First day. If Seth was a good host and guide. Yeah, tell, yeah. What he would have done. He would have known that that was a great opportunity, a great drive. That's why I put you here. We would have gone to shitty drives.

Yeah. And got seasoned. Yeah. See, I thought I was being a good host by putting you. And got seasoned and got more accustomed to the equipment. He was putting you in the primo spot on the best drive possible to just get it done. At which point we became seasoned. Yeah.

And accustomed to the equipment. He would then have said, now I got to drive for you. But instead, we no sooner walk out the door and here I am shooting off stray rounds out of my floor. I felt bad too because I felt like I jinxed you a little bit.

Because before when we were citing in the muzzleloaders I even said as joking I was like Steve there was so many times when I was younger and I got my my pet or solely in the dirt in front because I grew up the rifle I got when I was 12 was a single trigger it was just a lineman muzzleloader so I was used to that and then somewhere in my mid-teens I got my petersoli with the set trigger and i shot the ground in front of so many doe because i would i would get super excited i'd hit that set trigger and as i'm bringing the rifle up to draw a bead like you were i i won't even feel it but my finger would get too close to that and i'd shoot right in the dirt it didn't even occur like we talked all about all the hang fires and this and that and all that it didn't occur to me till i was leaning on my stump and i'm sitting here looking

at this thing and i'm thinking like at what point am i gonna do all this stuff oh yeah do you know i mean like like when i see the whites of their eyes, I'm going to set my set trigger. And I was, like, sitting here kind of, like, obsessed in the body a little bit. Like, what was my sequence? Like, how was I going to sequence it out? And I really thought it all the way through, and here's my buck. I don't touch my set trigger now until I'm in and around the vitals. That's what I noticed.

Seth lifts up, aims, set, trigger, pull. Yeah. And you do that after some mistakes. Unless Seth never made that mistake, but I definitely did a bunch of times. My other mishap was we went to a spot

and Seth had a good little drive planned out. And I think it was, yeah, you and me climbed into, we got into, they were going to push a whole hollow. And we were posting it. spot and Seth had a good little drive planned out and I think it was yeah you and me yep climbed into we got into they're gonna push a whole hollow and we were posting it we were posting yeah well let's cover off on that real quick because I grew up yep you do a deer drive yep same and on this deer drive you have pushers and sitters oh you called them pushers too pusher man pushers and sitters and i grew up saying drivers and posters and i don't know but posters are what you hang yeah no poster you're i don't know why but that's just what everyone i knew because you're driving

the guys walking are driving the deer towards the guys who are standing a post. So when you're dropped off, you stand right there, you stand that post until the drive's done, and that's why you're a poster. And Seth calls them cops and robbers. Chasers and watchers. Chasers and watchers. Yeah, like the side hill up behind camp here

we would i would say we're gonna chase that side hill sure push it out sure so rick and i go in and we're the sitters yep and the pushers are going to push a whole hollow and it's a long they got a long way yeah it's a big hollow so we sneak in there and it's what you guys call game lands yep it's owned by the pennsylvania game commission and they i was surprised to see they do some food plots oh yeah, yeah. I remember that one truck passed us, and I said it was a food and cover crew. Every region has food and cover crews, and they all have state game lands they work on, and they maintain food plots.

They do the stocking of pheasants, and they'll do, if they have a lot of time, they'll do a lot of TSI, timber stand improvement things. They do a lot of active management. They do a phenomenal job. They do. Yeah, amazing job. They do a phenomenal job. They do. Yeah, amazing job. Real active management. Yeah.

We were walking along, and all of a sudden, we're standing in a turnip field, and the deer had been digging all the snow out in the turnips. Yeah, they were hammering those turnips. So we snuck down in there and got in our spot, and we sat there a little while, and lo and behold,

I see that a deer is out feeding and has gotten up out of its bed in its feet. And I wanted to call off the drive. Because it's coming my way anyway. A little fawn. Not spotted. So I wasn't going to violate that rule.

I would have been in violation of the... I think it's on the second page. I would have been in violation of the 1873 prohibition on killing spotted and it's coming my way and I'm just waiting and licking my lips, you know, but eventually I see Seth coming and the, it had been a wet day. Oh, extremely wet,

big, wet snow all stuck up in the trees yep and all that wet snow dripping yep everything was wet and this fawn is already in range but i can't get a clean shot but it sees seth and bounds my way a little bit and stops like very close and this time i'm like you know i'm gonna shoot the top of its heart off the way I'm aimed up on it. Because any adrenaline overshooting a fawn has evaded. Because I've been standing there for 20 minutes thinking I was going to get a shot at it.

And I draw a good solid bead on it and click. Nothing but spark. Just spark. No flash in the pan. No. Nothing but spark. Just spark. No flash in the pan. No. Nothing.

And I had allowed my... When I opened the frizzing up, it was like pudding in there. I had allowed my thing just to get soaked. Which isn't conducive to black powder. No, and I observed to Chris, Ridge Pounder Chris, that one could, in this moment, say, boy, it just goes to show the struggles they put up with in times of yore.

But I was like, it's more like, it just goes to show the mistakes they probably didn't make yeah in times of yore yep like they would have been man wet day like this everything dripping all the time sitting here probably be a good time to scrape that junk out of there and put some dry powder in yeah and do whatever it takes to what just didn't occur to me. And I had done it a bunch of times, man. So checked it. Then I just got bored of checking it or whatever. It's funny,

that deer, if he could tell stories, he'd be like, and I looked up and there he was bearing down on me. And he hit the trigger and just and here I am. Tell the story. He forgot to keep his powder dry. That fawn would be like,

moral of that story, keep your powder dry. How hot of a commodity was powder so that like, would their, back in the times of yore, would they often discard it? Oh, I'm sure.

Or was it one of those things like you're not going to – Well, no, I know people, they would dry it back out again. Oh, that's – And they would make it from scratch and wet it with their own piss. But it wouldn't – And then dry it down. I don't know. It probably just depends so much.

Yeah. If you were on a long hunt and commodities were scarce, I could picture that maybe you'd foul up it and you'd put it in a little place, knowing that you're going to try to rejuvenate it later. You could dry it out. Put it back to use again. You don't dry it out with a lighter. Somebody had that bright idea.

Hey, why don't you just put a torch to it? Oh, yeah. Ridge. Dry it out. Dry it with a lighter. In there. Steve, you said about, like about the mistakes they didn't make. That's one thing.

You know when you see old paintings of mountain men and any kind of frontiersman, he's always cradling his rifle. Yeah. He don't have it slung, but there's slings on them. You know what? I know, man, and I thought a lot about that, and I never put much mind to it, but cradling it in the crook of your arm. Yep.

That's why I hardly ever sling my rifle. Because my dad never let me. He never even let me have a sling on my rifle until I was older. Because he's like, that lock, you protect that thing. You keep it tucked, not in your armpit because of moisture, but just under, like keep that arm like a wing over that thing. And then when you're holding it vertically, everything's running up and down it. Yeah. Water will run down the barrel.

Like I said, we used to take on really rainy days, which didn't have it, and it didn't do that. Monday, we probably should have done that. But take Vaseline, and we put Vaseline in front of the lock, in front of the frizzing. So if any bead of water was running down the barrel it would hit that vaseline and shoot off to the side instead of going down continuing into where on the barrel where your touch hole is yeah but like that's one thing how maybe your powder got wet walking into that stand well i had it slung all the time and it was wetter than hell yeah the funny thing about that day it was a real wet day oh yeah and at the end of that day, I had already had a misfire.

I took a needle and cleaned out the touch hole, reprimed, and had a vicious hang fire, which people will find in the main feed at Steven Rinella on Instagram, they'll find that video. And my highlights. Dirt's hang fire. And the other guns didn't go off either. No.

And it took quite a doing to get up. Man, it was a wet old day. It was wet. Because in the next day, everybody's gun worked. Yeah. Whole damn day of hunting. You guys stopped. You started putting the powder, the primer powder in when you'd sit down.

You wouldn't hike with the primer powder. Started knocking it out of there and then filling it up with sap. It was just like ridiculously wet. Yeah. I mean, it was the kind of wet that would have been uncomfortable even regular hunting because you just get all that wet water and snow down your face and neck all the time. Felt extremely humid compared to Montana. Yeah. face and neck all the time felt extremely humid compared to montana yeah which like

seth and i grew up here and now coming back i can't believe how humid it feels but monday was particularly bad very bad i was thinking too that uh i don't really know that um as a neophyte flintlock hunter such as myself like i would probably be more effective just with my bow that's not as fun though no but no it's fun to go through experience i'm saying like if you're just like a dabbler who's not even going to spend like a week yeah practicing but just like shoot a few times and be like i'm ready to go yeah like you don't if you're like if you shoot if you shoot archery a lot you know it's better just bringing a damn boat yeah it's gonna go off that's one thing your effective range might be a little i mean even that a little less but you like at least you know what you're

doing yeah yeah but your dad was pointing that out uh flintlock season no people out and no one's out no one didn't see any other hunters yeah even when we went and hunted we saw one dude i guess i didn't see him but a suspicious figure yeah i don't know did seth did you see him no no never saw him we saw him yeah and he just he was in truck, and as we went down the trail, I think he got out and was cutting to the left of us. Did he have a gun? We didn't see him with anything. He might have been trapping.

Yeah, he could have been trapping. But Pennsylvania has a ton of hunters, right? What's the, more than one? Yeah, I don't know if that's true right now, but they've kind of always had the highest hunter. Pure number. Per capita, they had the highest number of hunters, like 20-point-something hunters per square mile. In 2013, they had 20.5 hunters per square mile, highest hunter density in the U.S. In 2019, 558,

we'll just round it up, 559,000 adult resident hunters. And that figure wouldn't even have caught the three of us because we're non-resident. Yeah, we are. What year was that? 2019.

2019. Down from a million. i think in the eight early 80s it was like a million that's crazy a lot of hunters a lot of hunters um i do like the flintlock hunting though man uh yeah what was your honest like opinion i know we had a lot of things go wrong okay i go places and one of two things happens. I either go and be like, dude, I want to do that again. Or I go like, eh, that's cool. Had that real like to do that again feeling. Let me ask you this.

So Montana doesn't have any kind of dedicated muzzleloader season or anything like that. But we have weapons restricted areas would you if you were going to go on a doe hunt or something in that weapon restricted would you take that flintlock or would you be like i'm just going to take my bow i'm never touching that thing again well in keeping with my general philosophy i would bring my regular muzzleloader okay fair enough my general philosophy of generally speaking i'm like i'm going to use whatever like thing like whatever the the rules are like the thing that's like generally most effective for the rules so like when it's archery season i use like a compound bow with pins and a mechanical release right yeah like i don't i'm not out there with a recurve uh when i when it's general firearm season i use a like a a center

fire rifle with a good vortex scope on it i carry a laser range finder right like i generally am I generally am like goosing things in my favor. Yeah, understandable. I used to set double long springs for beavers and I discovered the MB750. So yeah. So I feel like

but what I was having a weird mind movie about, I don't know why. Was it if I went chasing lions with a buddy of mine, I was like, I should bring this thing out. That'd be cool. Yeah, that would be cool. For when you shoot the lion out of the tree. Yeah.

But then I was like, what kind of person brings a flintlock out to shoot a lion out of a tree? Because houndsmen don't like to fetishize the shooting of the lion. Yeah, yeah. They don't like to make a thing out of it. It's kind of get it done. A lot of it makes them uncomfortable to even use a bow because they're like, the point isn't shooting a thing out of the tree.

That's a formality. If we're going to kill one, the point is catching it. Acting like there's something going on here that's not going on, it's in a tree. The hunt's over. We caught it. If you want it, we're going to shoot it, but we're not going to act like that's not the thing. The thing is over we caught it if you want it then we're gonna shoot it but we're not gonna act like like that's not the thing the thing is that we caught it so if you said like oh i bring my

flintlock you'd probably they'd probably a little bit like let's just bring a gun go for hunting go for hunting with the flintrock i'll do something with it i don't know what go for we should just even if we don't ever hunt with it again in Montana, we should start shooting. No, I will use it. I like it. I'm going to start shooting it. I'm going to start Flintlock Shooters Association.

Of America. Of America. Would you let your hunter addict son shoot a flintlock? Oh, yeah, because I have a flintlock. I have a percussion cap black powder pistol oh he's dying to shoot that thing so yeah i'm gonna have him start shooting the flintlock nice for sure man yeah i'm gonna have him train up on the flintlock it's easily the coolest gun to take pictures of to film so much is going on and big sparks and like it unfolds over a long

enough period that it's not like invisible to the camera. Like you can see all the little steps. Yeah. Oh, it's great. Just feels good carrying it. Oh, yeah. It's fun going. And I was talking to Dirt and he was saying how like it's a cool style of hunting like the deer drives because you're like like at

one point we're running our asses off trying to trying to cut deer off and it's like very active and yeah um you're not just sitting around waiting you're like very proactive yeah a lot of strategy busting your ass to try i killed my first deer in a deer drive. Did you? No. No. Nope. I feel like I was part of the hunt. Actually part of it. As a driver.

Yeah, you were part of it this time. Pusher. Pusher. Chaser. Chaser. It's that camaraderie that goes with deer drives too. Yeah, and you can bullshit and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, afterwards you all meet up and tell stories about what happened and what you saw. So there I was. You're looking at a lot of tracks, a lot of animals squirting everywhere. We saw a lot of tracks from a lot of different animals. Bobcat, Fisher, grouse, turkey, elk, gray fox, coyote,

gray squirrel, weasel. Did we figure out what that weasel was? It was a weasel. He didn't turn white, but these guys are saying some weasels here don't turn white. Huh. Yeah. Which I'd never seen a weasel in January that wasn't white.

I don't think I've caught them in January, but December, brown. Brown. Yeah. There you go. All right. Any final thoughts, Rick? I was just thinking of a sunday hunting and flintlock season we didn't kind of touch on like how those we talked about sunday

hunting and how we couldn't hunt on sunday which was our first day here uh but i think what drove pennsylvania's flintlock popularity for that season was no Sunday hunting. Because if you, Seth and I added it up, at least years ago before we moved away, if you only took one vacation day and you took off the old original opener, which was on Monday for our firearm season, and you bow hunted, with no hunting on Sunday, you had five Saturdays in bow season. Does that sound right, Seth? Like five Saturdays in bow season. Yeah, five or six.

The two Saturdays in rifle and the opening Monday you took off. Or maybe six. It was six, I think. Yeah, because it was nine days. Yeah, and schools around here typically have Monday, some are Monday and Tuesday you get off school for. So you can deer hunt. The first two days of the rifle season.

But if you only did that, yeah, you got nine days of deer hunting and then you're done. If you didn't buy a flintlock and partake in the flintlock season, which most, I think it worked out just a lot of hunters were off for after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year's already. Cause. Yeah. A lot of people don't work. Yeah already because yeah so it was just very conducive to getting more opportunity out in the field that you

picked up a flintlock and i think that's what really because you're already getting screwed anyway yeah you're getting screwed on hunting days so this was another way you could try to fill that tag and get out there and it was fun like we just talked about the camaraderie i just you know i always thought it was a blast going out there with a big crew and sending a lot of shots and missing. I did a lot of missing when I was younger, that's for sure. But I don't know. I think it's neat that our, you know, one aspect of how opportunity was taken away

maybe drove enthusiasm for another opportunity. Sure. Buy that. Yeah. Seth, got anything you want to add? Concluders? Man, I'm just excited to have everyone here at the family camp, Caboose Hollow Camp.

A lot of good memories in this place, and it's cool to be able to add you guys to the memory bank, you know, hunting out of this place. We never took that picture. No. Oh, man. We could probably do one inside here.

There you go. Yeah. All right, everybody. Thank you for joining. And Rick, thanks for sharing. Yeah, I know. I felt like I did a lot of talking. Yeah, I feel kind of bad for the folks listening.

Oh, man, we covered some ground. Yeah. But thanks to you, Steve, for letting me come along on this trip. It was pretty exciting being back at this camp and getting to shoot flintlocks again. We'll do it again. We'll come out here and catch a fisher. Well, I like it. Cool.

Can we squeeze some cat trapping in there too? We'll squeeze it in. Okay. All right, everybody. Thanks a lot. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

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