The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 273: Hunting with Sharks

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Kimi Werner, Justin Turkowski, Ryan Callaghan, Seth Morris, and Chester Floyd.Topics discussed: A hodgepodge of Japanese and Hawaiian fish names; poaching a wolf; a Meatcrafter knife goes for huge cash on Ebay; getting baptized in a sous vide tank; getting bit by sea turtles; the ocean louse that kills your tongue and then replaces it; social distancing from wildlife; putting food on the table by spearfishing; what does it mean to spearfish for a living?; how Kimi can hold her breath for close to five minutes; melting into the bottom; fluffing sand and hiding your eyes; three-prongs; Little Steve's "Hawaiian Sling" piercing a puffer fish; playing chicken with a shark; shaking hands with a sperm whale; nearly getting your eyeballs sucked out of your head; 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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Okay, Kimmy Werner, explain where we are. We are in Kailua, Kona, in a house after three wonderful consecutive days of free diving and spearfishing. Now, I'm assuming that some listeners have the same confusion that i had is that like break this down if you say you're going to hawaii and then people say what island all the islands have cool names except for the one island and you're supposed to say the big island and i was asking you why does the big island not have like like, why did the Big Island be the Big Island? Why is it not a traditional name? And the Big Island does have a traditional name in the same way where there's Maui and Oahu and Lanai. The Big Island is Hawaii Island.

And so it's a really cool name, if not the coolest name. It just gets confusing because the state is also called Hawaii. And so when you say you're going to Hawaii, it just needs more specification. And so it just goes by its nickname more commonly, which is the Big Island. Because all islands have their true Hawaiian name, and then they have their English nickname maui is the valley isle kawaii is the garden isle but everyone just calls it by the hawaiian names except hawaii island um just gets called by its nickname the big island you know what i've found was interesting talking to the last couple days is

the um the different like the the mix of when discussing fish for instance the mix of common english okay like stateside english fish names hawaiian fish names but then sometimes you refer to fish by the japanese like japanese fish names yes is that how were you brought up with that mix? I feel like every local person connected to the ocean was brought up with that mix. And that's just one of the cool things about Hawaii is just, we have just such a history of immigrants from all over the world that kind of came together and formed this melting pot of a culture. And because the Japanese were, you know, really good at eating fish, and that was already part of their cuisine, they ended up making a lot of the food that became popular here. And so a lot of the Hawaiian fish, they will have English

names and Hawaiian names, but a lot of people here do refer to certain ones that are popular in Japanese cuisine by the Japanese names. And that's all just because of the immigrant days, the plantation days. Got it. Yeah. And what, real quick,

like give the names for octopus. Like what, what is the, what's the, is there, there's gotta be a Hawaiian name for octopus, right? The Hawaiian name is He'e and you will hear it more often these days.

And I feel like that's because there is an actual intention for a resurgence of just really trying to bring back the Hawaiian language. So these days people do try and be intentional if they're saying He'e. But the much more common name that almost everyone calls it by is taco which is japanese what's cal call it taco cal said taco it was a stressful situation all right we're also joined by i don't know justin you're kimmy's husband i don't know did you guys like i don't know what the whole name situation is. Are you Werner? Justin Tchaikovsky. Oh, give me your last name. A lot of people will call me Justin Werner.

I kept my last name, Kimmy kept her last name, and our son, Buddy, Kimmy gave him my last name, so it's Buddy Na'awa Tchaikovsky. Oh, good deal. All right, you guys got to hang, well, chime in, we got to cover off on some things. We got to say at Cinematowski. At Cinematowski.

Right. On the Instagram. That's his Instagram handle. That's you on Instagram? That's me on Instagram. See some impressive work. Yes. Thanks.

Okay, Hank. Now, if anything we talk about catches your interest, chime in. Okay. And we're going to get back to you guys heavy duty. We got to talk about some stuff. First off, Giannis is not here because he's off in a less tropical location. He's off filming with Clay Newcomb for Meteor Hunts. Now, Meteor Hunts' first episode of this season, hosted by Gianni,

none other than Gianni, is out to watch on YouTube right now. So go check that out. Everybody turned out real heavy duty for yannis before and they will do so again so that's our latest series on youtube meat eater hunts um okay we're gonna talk about wolves for a minute kimmy do you understand that wolves um wolf management wolves very divisive in the rockies very divisive in the upper great Lakes. Yes. Do you guys have a divisive animal here in Hawaii? Like an animal everybody likes to argue about? Nothing as controversial as that, I wouldn't say.

We definitely have a lot of animal lovers who just don't really want people killing animals, and there's controversy kind of over that, but I don't think we have any one particular. Well, I could think access deer. There's controversy because it's an invasive species, and it really does detriment to the land, but a lot of the population really likes to eat them and hunt them.

Yeah. But nothing like wolves. Wolves is pretty big. I don't feel that's divisive. I feel like that's on the same side. We're like, oh, cool. It's a problem to the environment, so us eating them and killing them helps save the land.

Good deal. You know? Yeah. A couple of interesting wolf bits in the news lately. The first one's kind of baffling to me. I wasn't there, and i don't really know about how light these fellers got off so a couple guys um near wisdom montana had apparently had a permit to do coyote work out of helicopters. So shooting coyotes for depredation, livestock depredation, out of helicopters.

And they, according to what we're seeing here, they mistook a couple wolves for a couple coyotes. Shot them. Then went and retrieved him on a snow machine. Didn't self-report. Is this tracking with your understanding, Cal? It is, yep. Didn't self-report.

A couple game wardens go out to pay these guys a visit. And they have the wolves. Haven't turned them in. According to what's out so far, they didn't have landowner permission to hunt on that property. They did not have wolf hunting permits. They didn't have wolf tags. They did not self-report.

Yet, the fine, what would you get? The fine wound up being a whopping 425 bucks per person no one had i don't understand one had 435 oh they didn't 425 for one 435 to the other they didn't even they declined to say who the helicopter operator was the warden quoted here was saying had they told us the helicopter operator we. The warden quoted here was saying, had they told us the helicopter operator, we probably would have talked to them, but the suspects in this case wanted to leave them out of it.

Normally, if you poach a gray wolf, there's like big game restitution in Montana. So if you poach an animal in Montana, they'll look at like what the value of the animal was, right? And what restitution does is it makes it be that if you're poaching trophy class animals, it makes it that you could, let's say you shoot a whitetail doe, like your family's hungry, whatever, you shoot a whitetail doe in the summertime to eat it. The restitution end of that is going to be way, way smaller than you shoot a trophy class whitetail.

They're just going to look at it different because the value to the state's different. They paid no restitution. Normally restitution on a gray wolf was a thousand bucks. No forfeiture of hunting privileges. They got breaks because they were rewarded for their cooperation, yet they didn't self-report. Baffling to me. I mean, I don't even know what i'm saying should have happened but i would just if you told me if you laid out to like someone had a helicopter permit to shoot coyotes shot a wolf didn't tell anybody got caught later i would have been like man that is their ass

the the baffling part is they've they said i believe they said that they didn't know they were wolves until the deed was already done um and then and and really at that point is where like the track record of of law breaking begins so at that point they would be like oh pretty sure those are wolves they go out on their snow machine and go out and they go oh now we're on the ground proofing the fact that, yes, these are wolves. That is the exact point at which they are supposed to call the game warden. They can't then retrieve them, take them back, because that would really cast a lot of doubt on the fact that they misidentified a wolf for a coyote sure and the

wardens were tipped off yes their plan was to skin it and they had no plan to even report it but anytime you kill a wolf you have to report it yes i mean if you kill a wolf legally you're supposed to report it and i think this is just like a really weird gray area that's not actually supposed to exist of what the social tolerance is and and i know from my personal experience of being in that valley just just walking around being a new face in town people are like hey do you you're here to shoot wolves you know um and i and this is very tongue-in-cheek information but i know it to be fact the landowner uh had no idea this was going on but was 100 fine with it yeah my only comment here is only that i would have said, man, that's going to be their ass.

Yes. Yeah, no, it, you know, and, and we've had some history in the state, right.

Where it's like, Ooh, I'm not sure if the law would have landed that way for me. Well, uh, regarding wolves and the take a wolf. So when I went to read that article in the Montana Standard, I had to take a survey.

You know what the survey was? You have to answer marketing questions to read the article. I wanted to know how likely are you to try to lose weight in the next seven days? I put down not likely. And then I was allowed access to read the article. Idaho, speaking of wolves, Idaho getting real. Explain all this, Cal.

All right. As I read on TheMeatEater.com, taking the gloves off. Taking the gloves off on wolf management. On Wednesday the 5th, the governor of the state of Idaho signed into law Bill 1211, which is legislative action against wolves.

And that's a big thing in the state of Idaho because the state of Idaho is supposed to have an independent fish and game and an independent fish and game commission. Those commissioners can be, and typically are appointed by the governor of the state, but it's still considered independent of the general lawmaking of the state of

Idaho. You get your appointment from the governor, but that doesn't mean you owe him your bidding. Correct. Same thing with, you know, Supreme Court, right? Right. Even though presidents get very annoyed when their appointees do not do their bidding.

Exactly, exactly. And work very, very hard to make sure if they have the ability to make an appointee, they're damn sure going to make it happenee they're they're damn sure gonna make make it happen underneath you know i'm not supposed to say this but you you do understand exactly right but so like your fish and game commission is supposed to be balanced of um you know some folks that understand the interests of the state, so it's supposed to be representative of, let's say agriculture, uh, recreation, hunting and, uh, outfitting for sure. Outfitting. Yeah. Birdwatch, you know,

it's supposed to be like a good mix, right. Of, of what the state interests are. Anyway, so for the first time in the state of Idaho, we have legislative overreach, if you will, that says, you know, basically, this is how we're going to handle a big game animal, which is what the wolf is considered to be in the state of Idaho, a big game animal. It's also considered to be a big game animal in the state of Montana. And the reason for that is this wasn't an independent decision. In order to get state management of the wolf and get that animal off the endangered species list, the states made an agreement to say, we're going to manage this animal this way they came out with a management plan that was agreed upon and then that's how states got the ability to manage the wolf and hunters got to be able to hunt the wolf and trappers got to be able to trap the wolf

yeah that was an interesting thing if you look back to that decision how you're going to manage it was interesting because when they were first talking about the delisting thing and states were needing to come states needed to come forward to say okay if we're going to remove federal management of wolves states need to have management plan proposals and i remember wyoming yes was insistent that they were going to manage wolves as a big game animal in a certain core area in the northwest corner of the state but they wanted to basically take like a coyote style like they want to do like like coyote management the rest of the state yes and i remember that was amazing they stuck to their guns and got there but initially i thought man you're crazy like why not just do what montana Montana and Idaho are doing and just do big game animal and get the whole thing over with? But they toughed

it out and got through and have a management plan that's decidedly different in that state. And that is core to this bill, right? The difference between a big game animal and a varmint. So a big game animal, wolves, bighorn sheep, elk, deer, they're managed a certain way. Varmints, which would be coyotes, skunks, raccoons, they're managed a certain way to where your big game animals have seasons, they have tags, they have harvest reports typically uh and your varmints are managed much more loosely to where they are uh an opera animal of opportunity if you if you will um there's much more leeway on how an individual chooses to manage that animal when they come across it so typically you can shoot on emblematic of like a low amount of public desire too yes right there's not there's

not a big demand on the resource correct yeah um and so idaho has the wolf listed as a big game animal which means tags are required and there's a harvest report involved what this legislation does is um says yes it's a big game animal you are going to have to purchase a tag but uh the means of take the legal means of take will be of that of the coyote so it's going to be legal to pursue this animal in all the ways that you can legally pursue a coyote. So it's a much more broader means of take, but you still have to have the tag. You still have to commit to your harvest report.

Yeah. For instance, you can't run an elk down on a snow machine, but you can run and a coyote down on a snow machine. You can't use thermal vision, thermal night vision to hunt an elk, but you can for a coyote down on a snow machine you can't use thermal vision thermal night vision to hunt an elk but you can for a coyote yeah right and so that's that's how the these means of take are being broadened it says here that in idaho like in 2020 there was only 84 confirmed wolf kills on cattle yeah very small percentage when you think of and in the three-year average it's 113 wolf kills per year um which is like very very small percent

like 0.004 percent what's interesting is all these means of take that you uh can use to pursue coyotes were actually legal under depredation circumstances if you had a depredation incident regarding wolves and you went through the proper channels you could hunt wolves using thermal vision night vision you could uh you know you could be very aggressive as if you were not hunting a big game animal in a case on a case-by-case basis on a case-by-case basis same but those guys were just talking about exactly they. They had permits, according to them, I think, and maybe they did, I don't know, had permits to aerial gun for coyotes. Exactly. Not just anybody can be like, you know what, let's rent a helicopter this weekend.

Yeah. Right? So that's another great example. So there's all these things where it's like, well, how did we get to this point of saying, well, we have to take legislative action to provide for these things. Many of which are already provided for in the state's predator management plan of which wolves have a dual role of being a big game animal and a predator, right? Chet's point of how much livestock depredation there actually is for how many animals are out there is very, very low. What is hard to consider is the stress factor of livestock on ground where where wolves are

just heavy predator numbers are where you could potentially have animals stressed where they're not putting on the amount of weight that you would expect them to over a a typical amount of time on a typical pasture because they're getting run rag. Because they're getting run ragged. Because they're getting run ragged. You could also have, so you could have lighter animals, right? You know, weight means cash in the bank for a livestock person. Or you could even have some instances where you are not getting the calf recruitment or lamb recruitment that you typically would. So you have to have way more rams or bulls in with your cows for a lot longer than you

typically do. You know, so just it adds up to more expense for these these producers and a lot of this is being pointed towards wolves that that's an interesting counterpoint because when i was looking at the act when i was looking at different states like the number of cows actually killed by wolves or sheep killed by wolves the numbers are low oh so low but then you're like. But then you go to people and you're like, well, one, those are confirmed. Yep. And a lot of guys that turn out livestock to run, they don't see it for months on end. So you go back and round everything up,

which has been out of your sight for many months, and you get numbers that come back. There's an enormous, like there's a question mark leaning over what the hell happened to them. You don't go out there and it's like you get a mortality signal on a tracking collar and go out there and confirm every one.

So those are like confirmed cases and they have to be confirmed to be compensated. So if you put 300 out and 290 come back and you have no idea what the hell happened to the other 10, you then don't go down and get your money from the wolf mitigation program. Correct.

You had to bring out your BLM officer or U.S. Fish and Wildlife person to come check out that kill site, determine if it actually is a kill site. And I'll tell you right now, there's a million ways a sheep likes to die. Growing up in my family, we saw it all the time. And that's what we just kind of chalk it up to. It was like, boy, sheep just love to die yeah right and then like the idea but to go on with that though the idea of like stress-induced abortion of fetuses yep and then or just the refusal to take yeah weight then the weight reduction what it does is allows people to point and say okay yeah i didn't lose that many that i know about but wolves are costing me a lot of money exactly yep and it kind of leaves a little bit

of a lingering it's kind of like prove me wrong right you know right and and you know i think with most cases like there's there's a there's some truth there i'm sure like in in certain areas there's some truth um there's there's a meat in the middle type of situation right um what's interesting though and and i i would certainly point the fact that um what's interesting to me is like why is this being taken care of legislatively when you look at the numbers of how idaho fishing game has managed as an independent fishing game has managed wolves. Um, there. So if you look at when the very first season in Idaho, you were allowed to hunt wolves. I believe you could have five tags. There was no trapping season and it was confined to a very small area. As the wolf population grew, there were more hunting tags and then trapping seasons.

The area of take also expanded to now, currently in the state of Idaho, you can hunt wolves almost, and this is before this legislation goes into effect, which I think is going to be june or july um you can hunt wolves 365 days a year or trap wolves almost 365 days a year in all game management units throughout the entire state that's already the case that's already the case uh you can get 15 hunting tags 15 trapping tags your hunting tags can be used for trapping as long as that season is open to hunting as at the time of of take and and you know to be clear that the trapping side of things is just a much more effective means of taking wolves. Yeah. And so you're seeing the state agency respond to the growth of wolves. And I think the biggest sticking point is like what we're seeing is a social tolerance that has been been exceeded with a very large and influential group in the state of Idaho.

We were saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. When the state wildlife management plan for wolves started, it was 150 wolves on the landscape. Yeah. And what's funny about that number is that number at that time was unsettling to some people. Yes. 150? Yes. that's way too many

the estimated wolf population in state idaho now is 1500 wolves right and like wildlife management is just not an exact science like everybody loves numbers but they can't wrap their head around the fact that it's like counting anything wild is very hard to do like there's a bunch of wild chickens around this house like take a ballpark estimate of how many birds there are at six i know i'm joe i have no how'd you come up with that right you're just like well the first day well i saw one my buddy saw four yeah right but uh the state of idaho has a bunch of camera traps out there they do aerial surveys um there's as few as let's say 900 there's as many as 2000 and in the middle there's the number 1500 i think that i don't think that anyone imagined when they delisted wolves um i don't think anyone imagined how ineffective

human hunters would prove to be i think they i mean i don't think that the idea was that you would like say manipulate this dial and turn that up and down but it's like they've opened it wide up i don't know if it's a lack of uh motivation on part of the public i think a lot of people buy the tags like oh i'll run into one i think the wolves have gotten very smart they avoid people and those numbers just grow and grow and grow and i think that people when they started these hunting seasons it was supposed to be the end of wolves oh yeah yeah i mean the headlines right it was like the hunters are gonna kill them all right but and and i think you're wrong in the fact that there were plenty of folks that have similar interests a lot of the people in this room do a lot of reading and we're well versed on all the old trapper and mountain man books

and stuff. And it's like, if you read those things, the way we got rid of wolves was pumping a bunch of carcasses full of strychnine and whatever ate on them, you know, died. Right.

And a lot of what ate on those carcasses were wolves. And we did that everywhere. The book I'm reading right now, I keep talking about, I want to do a full report on it, Alaska's Wolfman. When he was doing wolf work, he would go into an area where there was like a caribou herd that was getting too much predation on it. And any patch of high ground around, he would shoot a caribou, lace its carcass with strychnine,

and then use also little balls of fat that he would also poison and scatter them all around. And that was his methodology. Yeah. It wasn't out there plinking away at him. It was wholesale. Like, in an estimate of how effective that was, he was working near Kotzebue one time poisoning wolves and a guy reported that he saw a group of nine wolves it was like two black wolves and seven

gray ones come off the sea ice and he's like oh that's interesting a couple days later goes to check one of his bait stations there's all nine of them two black ones and seven gray phase laying around his bait station very effective very effective but i don't in any way think that we need to return to that but that was it wasn't shooting at him right does it say what else he's killing he well there's a picture of him uh doing a grip and grin with a wolverine that turned up as one of his bait stations oh i i bet yeah oh you can only imagine um so basically the legislation here which which is going to become law in in june or july um provides for a lot of things that uh were provided for with the intended purpose of mitigating livestock livestock damage um damage. Now it's up to

the state agency to figure out how to implement this program that's been handed to them. And the scary thing to me, and I'm not

trying to fear monger here, is if you look at the numbers before you get into the scary part in the bill the frustration is that from the state legislator it's that the frustration is that fishing game isn't doing enough yes but if you look at the numbers despite all the things you laid out that they're doing like but but that's the criticism like if you won't do your job i'll do it for for you. That's it. Right. And it's a lack of patience. Right. And, and, and really, yes, thank you for keeping me on track. Like that's the problem with wildlife management, right?

It takes a lot of time because what they're doing is they're making incremental adjustments to a growing population and they're trying to figure out like the magic number for wolves is 40%. You have to remove 40 of a population in an area there's only one study that backs this up but that number is 40 if you can remove 40 of a population you'll see a decline a gradual decline overall in the wolf population oh man that's surprising to me and that's a lot of animals, right? 40% of a total, an overall population is a shitload. If you did that to a population of mountain goats,

they'd never recover. Oh, no, no. But last year, the state of Idaho, under the current regulations, removed over 30% of the population, of the overall population of wolves in the state of Idaho. Which, like, if you put that in the context of big game animals, of which it's classified,

like, you'd be turning some frickin' heads if you removed 30% of the whitetail population someplace, right? Yeah. But that's not an apples-to-apples to apples you'd be getting emails from doug duran so um the scary thing here is here is a social response to a scientific management situation that says what by God, if you're not going to do something, we're going to do something. I have very, very, very serious doubts that the legislation is going to result in some magical 40%, 50%, 60% reduction of the total overall wolf population in the state and what happens when that happens is there going to be another shoot from the hip social legislative response that

says okay then we do need to start poisoning on public land. You can poison through, you know, certified agencies on private land currently. But, you know, you take the state of Idaho, you got 1,500 wolves in the entire state of Idaho, dead center in the state is this impassable chunk of ground that connects with hell's canyon um the frank church wilderness which is 2.4 million acres do the math on 1500 wolves covering 2.4 million acres right it's no big surprise that people aren't running into wolves left right and

center right you can run into a lot of wolf tracks but actually putting eyes on one is tough um like we're not i i just don't think we're going to get to some astounding amount of wolves with this legislative tool that all of a sudden got pulled out of the toolbox and what happens when that reality sets in are we then going to see this slippery slope which is the analogy we love to use in the hunting world of more managing wildlife through legislation the the headlines around this would uh tell you that's going to be very effective reuters idaho lawmakers passed bill to kill most of state's wolf population. It's like, yeah, I don't think so. No, no, no.

I mean, we know some things are effective, right? We know trapping is effective, but effective trappers, the overall trapping population is very low. The very effective trappers within that population is very very low and i mean it's a full-time job uh through through the hunting reports you know because it's a big game animal you got to report your harvest in the state of idaho um there's been one trapper who's filled his 20 tags. And that was from last, the 2018-2019 season, I believe, where you were limited to 10 hunting tags, 10 trapping tags.

I'd like to talk to that guy, man. Oh, I would love to, too. If you're listening, please write in. We'll give you a hat or something because that's an amazing feat yeah 20 i mean 20 wolves no i would love that just to just to get a little bit of intel from that guy about what he goes about doing yeah and i guarantee it's not like oh well one weekend i went out yeah what's their end goal with that just to like the people that want the wolves gone, gone. I mean, if you think about 80 in 2020, going back to that, there's 82 confirmed cattle. That's pretty good in my opinion.

But it's those other unforeseen things. And then there's also sort of like proxy stuff, right? Like there's an enormous amount of like, it's it's not even debatable fact that it has ramifications for big game hunting right but if a hunter says hey my problem with having what i would call too many wolves is it lowers the get the pool of animals out there for people who want to hunt because then people look and be like well that's an illegitimate argument so i think it's in a little way there's sort of like taking a thing that has some level of public sympathy which would be a a livestock producer's ability to stay in business right like that seems important and you take all of these different anxieties about wolves whether

they come from people who have what i would argue to be like very ill-founded concerns about human welfare legitimate concerns about wild game populations legitimate concerns about cattle issues and you kind of put it into a place that seems like the best way you're going to win um for hunters to say like i want there to be a lot more elk around because i like to shoot at them people like are very unsympathetic even though that to me seems like an extremely rational argument people are very unsympathetic to that yeah and from the clear water north uh all the way which is essentially the pan handle idaho if you look at as a as a handle with frying pan on the end uh from the clear water north there there's almost like there's no doubt there's been a reduction in elk numbers in those zones,

but that's also where the bulk of the authorized wolf depredation, like aerial gunning has gone on. And that's where like the big, the hammer, sledgehammer size tools in the toolkit are coming out to reduce those wolf numbers in those zones. There's also the issue of you're still running around with from the mid 90s when they began to do reintroductions people had to put numbers out there and you're you're at zero right you're at like effectively zero wolves

so people say what does success look like to you and they threw out some numbers that now seem like astonishingly low but they were they threw out some numbers that now seem like astonishingly low, but they threw out numbers that people could agree with. Be like, oh, let's say 150, 75, low-ass numbers. And then people are like, well, I guess if it's only 150, I can get on board with that, or I won't resist that as much. And then time goes on and they have ESA protection. You hit 150, and then the states say, okay, we're there, we're going to go back to state management, and then people use lawsuits to block those management plans for 20 years.

And all of a sudden, the 150 we were talking about is 1,500, and people get real used to that number. So then this number that everybody agreed on, 150, someone proposes we go back to 150, and how are you treated in the media? You want to kill 90% of the wolves. And I don't know. I didn't come up with the number. You guys came up with the number.

Sounds like a mess to me. Even in this discussion, right? What we're looking at is this vacuum where it's the number of elk versus the number of wolves and all the other factors aren't being taken into account, right? So from the Clearwater North, that's like the densest, thickest pine forest in the state of Idaho, which at the time of Lewis and Clark, they were like, you know, the natives around there, the Nez Perce were like, oh, there is no food up there.

Like you're going to starve in the mountains. Right. Then we had major catastrophic fires. Um, the big burn era, right. That ripped through there along with heavy timber management, like heavy timber management with, which opened up a ton of country.

Uh, there were elk re reintroductions going on. So we, you had fresh growth, rehab growth in that area, and then constant timber production, more big burns in the 30s, constant timber production. It was a much better place to be as an elk during that time. That very well could have been the heyday of elk in that region and it very well could be this real terrible meat in the middle situation of less timber management some of that has to do with with um the lawsuit type of situation around timber harvest.

And we haven't had big burns. And you got wolves that are just really freaking hard to get on in big dark timber. And that area grows really big bulls and really big bucks because they're really hard to get on in big dark timber too. But I was talking with a buddy of mine and he's like, really big bulls and really big bucks because they're really hard to get on in big dark timber too. Um, but you know, I was talking with a buddy of mine and he's like, you know, I'm not making fun of this guy in any way, but he just said, he's like, my family's been hunting in the exact same spot, kill an elk for 35 years and we haven't seen,

haven't seen an elk in, uh, you know, 10 years or something like that and it's it's hard to say but it's like the only thing that hasn't changed in that scenario is the fact that you guys put your camp in the exact same spot everything else has changed forest management practices everything has changed like it's just it's, you don't live in a vacuum and it's so hard to contextualize all that stuff. Now I'm really done. No, that's great.

Here's the interesting one. This is like one of those things. This is one of those pieces of reporting where someone does something kind of crazy. It has no chance of passing, but it still makes the news everywhere. In Oregon, there's a bill. What's it called it's called the it's initiative called the abuse neglect and assault exemption modification improvement act which would make it in oregon this is a bill put out there

an animal could only be injured in cases of a human self-defense. A veterinarian could still spay and neuter household pets, but you would not be able to. It would make it illegal to kill livestock. It would be illegal to force impregnation on livestock and would ban meat production in the state of Oregon. That's like an interesting, very aggressive approach.

But again, it's almost like not worth even reporting on because it'll never go anywhere. But it's interesting. The sexual mutilation aspect of it. Chester, instead of Bitcoin, you know what you should have should have invested in well everyone's saying dogecoin no oh first off how is bitcoin the continuing adventures of chester the investor

come to papa moon that's it come on Come on. It's just kind of up and down and up and down. Petered out. Petered out? No, it's not petered out. It's just, I think it's still smart to dabble in it. When we had our meat, did you buy a meat crafter knife or did you get one for free when we came out with our bench-made meat crafter knives?

No, I would have loved one, though listen there was there's a limited number they're all gone they were sold for 300 bucks a piece a guy just put one up on ebay he got uh 37 bids the bidding on that knife closed at 1225 plus 20 shipping and handling. 37 bids? Yep. $300 knife. Now going for $1,225. You got any more of those laying around? I just asked Casey how many we got

because we're going to start our meat eater auction house of oddities. And at first, I didn't think that that... Because it's for conservation spending we're auctioning off weird shit cool stuff like the first thing is buck bold a birch bowl a bucky bowl by buck bowden got all kinds of stuff we gotta bring home something from this trip um and now we can put our own knives in there now that they're like uh collectors i can't believe that. That's amazing. The sous vide thing, even though I promise not to talk about it anymore.

This is still interesting though. So the whole, everybody who listens is aware of this. The conversation about the guy that warmed his birthing, his wife's birthing pool with a sous vide wand. A pastor just wrote in. He's always struggled with getting his baptismal well what do they call it yeah just calls it the baptismal 300 gallon galvanized stock tank for baptizing people he's always struggled with water temp got himself suvi this uh keeps it at a very comfortable

temperature but then pulls the wand out when he has the baptism when he has to baptize somebody this reminds me of uh you remember when we were all sitting there freezing our butts off in the ripping wind on uh a super icy lake this winter we're talking about methods of keeping the ice hole from... Your generator in a sous vide one. Yeah. Just run a shitload of sous vides out there. Yep. So this guy right here, genuine pastor, doing baptisms in sous vide heated water. He can send a picture.

Kimmy, I want you to weigh in on this one. We were having a debate recently about how why snapping turtles don't seem to want to bite you underwater, but as soon as you lift them out, they want to bite you. Guy was saying, this is apropos, Guy wrote in, I was in Hawaii a few years back, and we decided to do a guided snorkeling trip. He says his family is very scared of the ocean, so they were overloading the guide with questions about what all will bite you.

They got to question about getting bit by sharks. They questioned about getting stung by urchins. And then one of his cousins says, do the sea turtles ever bite? The guy laughed, acted like it was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. Says he's been diving for 40 years, never seen anyone bit by a sea turtle.

The guy goes on to say, I shit you not, those were the last words that beach bum said before hopping in the water and immediately having a full-grown 300 pound pissed off mama sea turtle latch onto his stomach do you buy that uh yes i do i i know someone who got bit by a turtle my friend angela's a spearfisher, and a turtle just came up to her and bit her right on the butt and threw the wetsuit, broke skin. But just a love bite, but yeah. No way!

Why do you think they would bite? I honestly think that, because that turtle was kind of known, like it was in this place where we'd go a lot for blue water diving for onos and stuff. But in that type of diving, you have chum. And turtles will eat chum. They will eat octopus. They'll eat all kinds of things if they're fed it. And so I think a lot of times people just kind of got to know that turtle and maybe were feeding it.

And so I think it was just kind of a, hey, feed me thing. And so that story that you just told, I bet if they're taking tourists, snorkeling there, you know, there could be someone feeding the turtle. And I think that when they become like pets, they want to ask for a snack and they don't have any other way to ask. It's a hell of a way to ask. I've had one bite my fin before. Oh, you did? Yeah, did yeah diving scared the shit out of me i i didn't know what it was and it was a curiosity bite i think more than anything it wasn't aggressive it's also pulling

on your fin yeah just real lightly though huh uh this interesting thing from nature's metal the other day the sex changing tongue eating ocean louse you know about this Cal yeah it looks like that little alien they're disgusting there's a bug it's not a bug it's an ocean louse lays eggs on a fish's gills they like snappers

his Linnaean name is Simothoa exigua I don't know they live inside this picture is out of South Africa name is Simothoa Exigua. Exigua? I don't know. They live inside a certain so this picture is out of

South Africa. Their offspring are born in the ocean. A group of them attach themselves inside the gills of a

fish. They like to target snappers. Once they're attached, one individual from the group will become a

female. A proto andritic hermaphrodite. She grows larger, so one of them decides to become female. That one grows big, moves onto the tongue of the fish, clamps onto the fish's tongue, feeds off its blood, eventually cuts off the blood supply to the tongue the tongue atrophies and falls off then the parasite assumes the responsibilities of the tongue and lives there as a tongue permanently

everybody else stays a male and they all are. It's sort of like a bivy of mates. Hanging out on the gill as boys. That thing is like the females. It's her little harem of males stuck to the gill. The great picture. Oh, here's one last thing that caught my attention uh i'm on

the i get emails and i used to i've tried to not i've tried to like unsubscribe but you can't unsubscribe and now i'm glad i didn't unsubscribe even though i've tried a couple times from the wildlife conservation society they came out with like they're sort of like rolling with the social distancing thing you know and they're saying and they came out with this research about how we need to social or throwing out there that we should social distance from animals better and it looks at non-consumptive recreation and the impacts of non-consumptive recreation on animals and they're putting out distances at which your presence screws with wildlife uh wading burns and songbirds 109 yards hawks and eagles you should stay 437 yards away from them

mammal threshold distances a thousand yards for large ungulates like moose. You should stay 54 yards away from small rodents. Oh, there's a gecko just caught a moth right here. Well, you're way too close to his ass. Seth is 18 inches from a gecko fighting a huge thing.

That was an ambitious... You should make a little video of that, Seth. Oh, sweet! That's awesome. Nature is metal. We've had qualified captain and nature is metal in two days. Well, I caught it right there. While we're talking about how you shouldn't get so close to critters.

But, point being, that's a really ambitious ask. Like, I don't know what people are going to do with those numbers oh boy people in parks national forest getting them to read a sign i think is uh thousand yards from moose 50 yards from a chipmunk it's real hard i yeah i i can't picture this getting much traction be real good for folks in the laser rangefinder industry that need to carry a rangefinder with you. I think what this report will do is it, I think that it will, it won't like, it would be horrifying to see this enacted by law, but I think it does make people, it asks people to be aware of what their presence. It asks people to be aware of what their presence around animals do. But when I an animal i always want to go over there and check it out oh yeah i very rarely am moved by the desire to get farther away and youtube is full of people like you yeah

it's like i don't know it's worst thing would be that you're worrying wildlife it's the the way i would sell is you're just going up there to have a look like look at that let's go over and have a look that's just my instinct man so seeing this felt like i felt really singled out 54 yards from a chipmunk my mom's head right now as she sleeps is about three inches from a chip chipmunk den on the other side of the brick. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast.

Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try OnX out

if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. All right, Kimmy and Jocelyn, give you guys a better, more thorough introduction now that we're ready to talk shop, ready to talk Hawaii. Introduce myself? Yeah, both of you.

Like, give it like what your shtick is, what your spiel, you know, your spiel. These are all Yiddish terms, I think. Like, what your deal is. I'm Kimmy Werner, and I was born and raised here in Hawaii, Maui, and grew up kind of tagging along with my dad when he would go spearfishing. And now I'm a spearfisher woman myself. And this is my husband, Justin.

How'd you guys meet? Spearfishing? No. Met on a gig. I got hired from Minnesota to come to Hawaii to be a production assistant. And Kimmy was the talent on the show. And we worked together for a while. And once work was done, we hung out. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Did it wind up being... How was that received by the rest of the production team? Well, good, actually. We waited until it was kind of over,

you know, just for the sake of... Well, nothing happened on production. Yeah, nothing happened. But you guys took a shine to each other. Yep. I just stared at him a lot. And then after production wrapped, we did some filming here,

and then we went to Mexico. And then after production wrapped, then we started talking. And then I invited him to Hawaii. What was it that you liked about him? I liked that he was really nice and that he worked really hard because it was kind of a shit show of a production like it was really bad and and there was a lot of tempers and stress and egos and all kinds of stuff that you just really, it wasn't a good feeling production a lot of times. And Justin, who had just taken a gig, he was a cinematographer for snowboarding and bow hunting, but he just took a gig as a PA just because he wanted to come to Hawaii.

And so he was kind of working so hard, working circles around a lot of people. And I just noticed that he was just always kind to everyone. And in the midst of all that stress, it was just like something I could tune into to not get irritated. And he had nice eyes. And what'd you like about her real quick? I remember just watching her GoPro. I mean, she was very kind to everyone of course and she cooked very well which is really great but mostly her kindness but then I remember being

blown away on one of our trips like I'm so new at this point to the ocean and when we were in Mexico she was wearing a GoPro and she shot an ahi and first of all I didn't even know you could like shoot fish underwater which spearfishing I didn't even know it really existed they'll hang you from a tree if you do that in minnesota pretty much yeah now i hear about shooting walleye and they'd really hang you in a tree

um in montana but uh so i remember watching that and i just thought like holy shit this is the most badass thing i've really ever seen you know and her just like being able to do that and control it and then learning more about her but then um once we were able to just spend time with each other, when she brought me, like I had like four days off in between hunts, she brought me to Maui where we ended up getting married like eight years later. And she came over from a different Island and she brought venison, lobster and Minpachi, which you guys learned about. And then we fell in love. And it's the same type of lifestyle that I grew up on, except for in Hawaii. You know, I was really attracted to lakes and wilderness and hunting. And she was everything about that. But in Hawaii, which was so foreign to me. So now

being here eight years, I felt like a kid again, learning the ocean and learning a whole new hunting tactic of spearfishing, you know, learning the oceans, learning how to free dive and things like that. So she really has changed my life in such a great way. And it was kind of neat because, um, when, after our four day first date, you know, when we did fall in love and, um, Justin, it was kind of an interesting situation because we wanted to be together. I wanted to be in Hawaii. And so Justin was trying to figure out how to get here, but he was a snowboarding cinematographer. And so it's not like the easiest career to keep living in Hawaii. And, um, and so

it's just really neat that somehow I was able to take this Minnesota boy and just like train him to dive and it ended up being the coolest thing to like mold this person from scratch to be this underwater cameraman who had no bad habits at all and I could really just like teach him like where to lay, how to, how I hunt. And it ended up just being really cool. A good way to bring us together, first of all. But now that we still do that today, it's just, it's pretty fun. Yeah. You guys work together like a very fine-tuned machine, but you know what each other's thinking. Yeah. And that's one thing in water, you can't really communicate, right? Unless you stick your head up and then you're burning energy yelling or talking you're trying to get that person's attention so it's just all like the more in sync you can be the better because there's

so many times when i wanted to say things to to you and to cal in the water and i just like i wish it was like hunting on land when when someone's helping me they're always whispering in my ear and there are so many times me, they're always whispering in my ear. And there are so many times I want to just like whisper in your ear, but I can't because you can't talk underwater. And if I take my head out of the water to talk to you, you got to take your head out of the water. And anytime your head's out of the water, it's not good

because you're taking yourself out of that world. You're taking your eyes off that fish. And so it's really a difficult place to communicate with words and so the more you learn to just watch somebody's body language and understand what they're thinking and what they're doing the more seamless you become like a pack oh yeah watching you too is very apparent like it's it's i mean it's it's fun to see like the level uh of i i mean communication and and just like flow that uh that's possible you know what when you were what was your earliest exposure to the ocean i was what age my dad says i was. I remember it when I was five. But around four or five, my dad started letting me tag along with him.

To do what? To go spearfishing. I wouldn't spearfish. But my dad, that's how he put food on the table. My parents didn't really have a lot of money. And that's literally how he fed us, was to go spearfishing. And he always just says it's because when my mom was working as a waitress, he couldn't afford a babysitter. So he just started bringing me along.

And at first he would just tow me on a boogie board, but I'd always want off the boogie board. I'd want to see everything. So then my job was just to keep up. And so all I would do is swim on the surface. I wouldn't help much. You know, I would just tell him what I wanted for dinner and watch him go down and get it for me. But that was my earliest introduction. Were your parents married? They were married. Yeah. And then how far back? They are married. Was your father and mother both born in Hawaii? My mom was born in Hawaii. My dad was born in New Mexico.

Yeah. And he came here and took to just eating out of the ocean. My mom was born in Hawaii. My dad was born in New Mexico. Huh. Yeah. And he came here and took to just eating out of the ocean. Yeah, he was, he went to Vietnam. And when he got out, he kind of didn't know what to do with himself. And he moved to Hawaii in his early 20s. And he was taken in by this wonderful Hawaiian family. Was he a combat veteran?

He was in the Air Force. And he was actually more of a mechanic in the Air Force. But yeah, he got taken in by this beautiful, wonderful Hawaiian family who they just taught him. It was actually the grandma of the family that kind of got him into spearfishing. So when you were little, did you, do you remember at, because you got exposed to it at four years old or sometime around then. Yeah. Did you, do you remember ever registering fear of the ocean or did you miss did you skip that step oh no i um everything about it was scary like we would have to you know we would pull up at these big tall cliffs and my mom would drop off sometimes my mom would drop off my dad and i

and then he'd have to put me on his back and we'd hike down these cliffs and we'd jump off these rocks and then we'd be in like crazy blue water that you couldn't touch and you couldn't see. And we would drift the coast down to another bay where my mom would pick us up. And so a lot of that was intimidating to me. And my dad would just like, he would just play these like tricks on me. Like he would, I mean, it's true, but he would always like look at me as soon as we pulled up and he knew I was scared. He would always just be like, whew, wow, Kim, aren't you relieved? We just survived the most dangerous part of our day,

the car ride. Like, let's go, it's all downhill from here. And he'd always like say stuff like that to kind of train me to think about things differently. And yeah, and sometimes I would get in the water and I'd get distracted I'd see a beautiful turtle or something and then I wasn't doing my job of keeping up and I would look up and he'd be nowhere in sight and I would just be alone in the blue and that was really scary for me but

I'd have to like look at the edge of my visibility like just to see the bubbles left by his fins and just keep swimming that way um but you know I think it was just because I was so young and I just, my dad was like my Superman in my, in my eyes, you know, he could, in my eyes, he could do anything, especially at that age. Like he was just my hero. And so as long as I knew that I could see those bubbles from his fins, as long as I knew that I could see his silhouette, as long as I knew he was anywhere around me,

I just felt like nothing bad could happen. So I think that helped me overcome that fear. And he would always just really drive it into me to relax. But those days didn't last forever because my parents did start making money very shortly after that. They saved up money to put my mom into a community college when I was five as well.

She was 40 years old, first time going to college. Two years later, graduated, got a job as an emergency room nurse. And my dad's company also started taking off because construction company. And so then we made money. They worked all the time. We moved out of the shack in nature. We stopped getting our food from the ocean. We got it from grocery stores and restaurants and that kind of all ended. And so I didn't actually take up spearfishing until I was 24 years old. And the fears I had to face as an adult, reentering the ocean, trying to get dinner, they were definitely.

So you didn't spearfish at all for all those years? Yeah. Really? Yeah. It almost felt like, I felt like I was really lucky to have experienced that, but it's not something that everyone does, you know, and it's definitely not something that girls did. And so I pretty much just grew up, like, knowing that that was a passion of mine, knowing that, like, I had comfort and skills in the water every once in a while. Like,

you know, every time I got in the water, I would try to go and hold my breath and do stuff, but we just didn't do it as often. Did you do the other kid stuff in that age? That's like the prime social age, right? Like were you doing basketball or organized sports for school? Were you surfing with folks? Yeah, I like playing in the waves and going bodyboarding. I was on the swim team um all these things that you know were never quite as exciting as that first thing i did canoe

paddling competitively um but those were always my favorite memories and my dad and i would still go fishing bottom fishing for fun and catch fish that way but we just we didn't spend as much time going diving in the way that he used to when he would use that to feed us and and so yeah it wasn't until later in life when I just realized like you know that's not just this nostalgic memory it's like it's not something because I would look up the word nostalgia because I felt like I was suffering from it because I really missed those days. And it, remember it said like longing for something that no longer exists. And I just thought that time of my life of living that closely to nature and getting food that way, it was a time that I was lucky to experience,

but it doesn't really exist in this modern world anymore as much. But when I realized that it still could, that was when I decided, like, I have to go see about this. You know, and I went and I got my own spear. I couldn't get anyone to take me diving to save my life. Do you think your dad saw spearfishing in kind of a negative light at that point? I think that... Like he had to do it yeah to provide i think he he loved it but i i know that when i was 24 when i did finally get that spear

and i drove myself to the beach and i remember i just had no idea what i was doing went in the water started swimming got super scared like wanted to turn around everything. And like, I had to use little tricks myself because at one point I saw a little wave break and I saw the bubbles and it made me feel calm. And so I keep swimming that way. But anyway, by the end of that day, I was able to get some fish, just remembering what I saw my dad do. And I was able to get five fish, just like those aholehole and kole and menpachi. And that day, I just knew, like, I'm a changed person. Like, the woman that came out of the water was just, like, completely different woman. I felt accomplished. I felt like a lioness. And I just felt like

to take this catch home and cook it, like, this is the best meal I've ever eaten. And it made me feel like I was falling in love. And I called my dad up to tell him. And I remember being so happy and just like, because he was always wanting to know what I was going to do with my life. You know, like I just, he knew like I was cooking, but I wasn't really into it. I would always talk about doing art. And he was just like, those are not careers, you know?

And when I finally told him, dad, I found what I'm going to do, I thought he'd be so proud because it was what he taught me. And I told him, I'm going to go diving. I'm going to be a spearfisher. And he was just like, Kimmy, I don't know where you're looking for the answers, but they're not going to be at the bottom of the ocean. And I remember I was just so heartbroken. Like, he just totally, like like dismissed the whole idea of it

when I thought he'd be so happy. And I think it is because he related that to being poor, to being so poor and struggling to, you know, to survive and succeed. And when they did start making money, I guess, you know, that's what you do is you become successful so that you can give more to your children than what you had and you can see them go further than you went, you know, I guess that's parents' dreams. And so when he saw me like gravitating back to wanting that, it didn't sound like a very good plan to him.

You know, you kind of answered the question, but earlier I was going to ask you if, and I know you were just making a funny point or being glib when you said that he took you because he didn't have a babysitter. And I was going to press you on if that was totally fair or not. But now it seems like he wasn he wasn't in his mind he definitely

wasn't giving you like this great gift to teach you to be in the ocean it was pragmatic i mean that's what he you know that's what he says like but in my mind he had to know he was giving me such a great gift because if he said we're going diving tomorrow i was the one knocking on his bedroom door at five in the morning saying, I think the sun's coming up. Let's go. So he knew that I loved it. Were you an only child? No. I had two older half-brothers, but they're out of the house already. They're much older. And so it was my sister and I who are just a year apart and um she was always invited to come

but just never really took to it and she also my parents gave us like the choice if we wanted to go to preschool or not i chose no she chose yes so she had to go live with my grandparents to go to preschool oh yeah um what other like what other ideas were you pursuing to, to make a living? And then also, what does it mean to spearfish for a living? Like, just tell, give people a glimpse of what, you're not selling fish, right? So, so give people a glimpse of what that looks like. Yeah. Well, so the other ideas, I mean, I knew I liked cooking and I knew I liked food.

So I got a degree in culinary arts and I was working in the restaurant industry, but I was just so bored there. Like I just was working with ingredients that meant nothing to me that were flown in from afar and frozen. And I was making the same thing every single night and just feeling like this is not creative. I also tried to do art for a while and I really enjoyed that because it gave me the freedom to go spearfishing. But I really barely got by on selling paintings. That was very hard. And I never really knew how you would make money as a spearfisher because I wasn't a commercial fisher. I just knew it's what I wanted to do. I didn't even really approach it as a career. I just looked

at like, if I can paint paintings and sell them so that when the weather's nice, I can get up and go, that's a win for me if I can survive just doing this. But eventually, I got better and better at it. I ended up winning the national championships and started getting attention for it and then um it just ended up turning into a career where people wanted me to you know use their gear use their their products and give it a try and get photos with it and took a long time but like i would say 10 years after doing that i finally started realizing that everybody was making money off of me and i could probably start asking to get paid for it yeah i got you can you explain a little bit the um

where free diving plays into spearfishing and your challenges and emmer and like going into that world free diving is how you spearfish i know that you can definitely do it on scuba and do it with tanks, but I find it just so much more in tune to just hold your breath and go down and hunt like that because you're not making all these bubbles and you're not scaring fish away like that. There's not, I just feel like it just makes the most sense to go down on a single breath of air and, and try and get this done. Um, it's definitely challenging, but, um, but it makes you more a part of the ocean. And I think the animals start to,

you learn to move different with that. And it just like, it really teaches you this finesse that is all a part of hunting. And when it comes to freediving, I mean, there's so many challenges that come with it. And I think just taking that drop into the unknown and just leaving air behind and getting further and further away from it.

And then just trying to figure things out with this time limit, you know, trying to understand things and stalk things. And if you could just stay down there forever, it would be a lot easier. But the thing is, is that you always, you always got to go. And so it's, it's definitely challenging. How long can you, how long can you hold your breath underwater? The longest I've ever held it underwater was four minutes and 45 seconds, but that wasn't like actively hunting at all. When I'm actively hunting, it's like, I try and keep it around two minutes. And the main reason why is because you have to recover on the surface

for twice as long so that you don't get hypoxic and blackout. And if you hold your breath for two minutes, you have to recover for four minutes. That's a long time staying on the surface. And I wouldn't want that to be any longer. so i also feel like if i can't bring a fish into me within like a minute and a half i should probably try a different technique and try a different strategy rather than just try and wait it out and what's the deepest you've dove? And what's a normal, what do you consider like a normal, comfortable, maximum diving depth?

The deepest I dove was 159 feet. And that was just like, oh, I want to see if I can go touch the bottom and come back. And that's all I did, just turn and burn. But it was just neat to be down that deep and feel that pressure. But I would say comfortable. I mean, like yesterday's diving, we were hitting the bottom at about 75 feet. Yeah, that was like watching you go down to 75 feet

and then land on the bottom, the both of you, as a couple. And the water's so clear you can see it from the surface steve and i as your support crew on the surface yeah yeah go on those things so swim straight down 75 feet of water lay on the bottom for i don't know how long yeah it would have been just so cool to shoot one of those big ukus though but they come back up it's amazing. And that's the thing too. It's like you, you know, it's one thing to go down to 75 feet and hang out, but you go down to 75 feet and a big shark swims up to you, which we saw that yesterday. Like that can really take a lot of oxygen out of you right there. It's just having that reaction of fear.

Or you should- That'll burn oxygen. Oh, 100%. Anytime you get flustered um that burns a lot of oxygen and or having if i shot a fish and it ends up fighting me ends up tangling on a rock you know all of that at depth can just wipe you out so it's um something you got to do carefully. Can you, you know, you said if you can't bring a fish in within a minute and a half, but you don't have, you're not like throwing lures or bait or anything to bring fish in. So can you explain what bringing fish in means?

Totally. And it was so fun to watch you both learn that over the past few days is because a lot of people think that to hunt a fish, you know, you just hold your breath and swim up to a fish and go shoot it. That's what Chester does. And sometimes. Chester is just on him. They know he's on him. Sometimes that might work. And he's just on them. But most of the time, like with smart fish or, you know, really nice fish

that you want to get, that's, they're not going to stand for that. You can't out swim a fish. And so if you start swimming towards it, they're just going to out swim you and go away.

And so my strategy is I just, I go to the bottom and I know they can see me. It's not like, it's not is I just, I go to the bottom and I know they can see me. It's not like I really am trying not to let them see me. I actually want them to see me. And I land on the bottom. But then that's when I just try and melt into the bottom. I try and just mold my body around wherever I'm laying.

If it's on a rock or in a sand pocket, I try and just become a part of that environment so that they see this creature come down and then they kind of see it disappear because that's going to pique their curiosity. That's going to make them want to see what was that, you know? And then I hide my eyes. That's important because the minute they see my big old eyeballs looking at them, that can really freak them out. So if I just keep hiding my eyes, they'll keep wanting to see them because I feel like when you make eye contact, that's like a part of recognizing, you know? And so I don't want them to see my eyes. I'm always trying to hide my eyes. So I'm always kind of turning away and it makes it like

this passive or shy looking body language and that can definitely bring them in but there's also just tricks of fluffing sand you know just taking sand and just throwing up clouds of sand again even that I want to do it so gently because I don't want to burn out my energy and just this motion of fluffing sand there's sometimes where I'm like oh that was a little too powerful you know like calm it down Kimmy, don't waste your energy. But so you want to use the least amount of energy possible to do things like fluff sand or just to kind of scratch the rock, scratch the coral.

Do things like that because they mimic things. You know, the sand, it mimics when a stingray is feeding at the bottom because its wings are flapping and it's fluffing sand and it's overturning food and nutrients that fish come in and want to eat. So it's mimicking that. Or if you scratch rocks together, it mimics fish that eat off the rocks. And so all that kind of stuff will also help bring fish into you. When you were saying that you don't care about that you'll come

down, you're not trying to hide your arrival. Right. If you were, just in the last couple days when we were fishing together, if you're looking down and you're looking down on 30 feet below you, a surgeon fish, you don't

or I'm sorry, looking down on a parrot fish. give me the word so you don't think you're gonna drop down way over here and then creep in there you're just like i'm just here and i'm gonna melt to the bottom and i'm not even gonna try to like you can do both you can you do try to stalk in um you do try to sneak up on them. Yeah, we didn't do too much of that these past few days, but I definitely do that. I 100% will sometimes drop in one area

and then just slither, slither, you know, around the rocks and creep in. Once I'm on the bottom, I try not to kick too much. So if I can just kind of pull myself forward, I'll use my hands and do that. But yeah, a lot of times I do i stay low and i i creep in does it work too because i always i don't think i ever did it successfully but does it work to be like the fish goes behind a rock you're like now's

my chance yeah so you can really like get away with something and he doesn't know what went on that's what cal did yeah we i kept thinking i was gonna do that but i don't know that i did that yeah i mean it's it's trickier than you think because a lot of times they're on to you and they're going behind that rock to make you think they're coming around and they're just digging out the other way but every once in a while you can find one that's just not quite paying attention to you and you can see oh and definitely once you see them tuck away where they can't see you that's when you make your move and you make it quickly. If they're not looking, you move fast.

Yeah. I think it's hard to describe. So like if you're a hunter, archery, or rifle really in a place where you spot and stalk game, what we were hunting fish in was a very spot and stockable zone so there's lots of variation in the landscape there's drops there's rises there's there's little passes in the rocks there's um lots of opportunity to to get behind things and and try and try to creep. But it's so, it's like looking through a spotting scope when you're looking at it from the surface, um, through your goggles, things get

flat. And then when you get down on the bottom, it's amazing how all this, how big it is, how big it is how big the terrain is um and boy it just i have like a finite finite amount of drops in me like for breaking from the surface and getting on bottom and you're trying to squeeze all the knowledge out of all of those drops to be more effective on your next one but it's it's amazing when you get that uh idea of how big that bottom topography is and and then it's like oh god how do i keep track of where that was it's amazing to even hear you say that because i feel like most people beginning at diving they don't even get that like they they don't even get it at all like they're so fixated on the fact that they see a fish or they have to hold their breath. And there it's just the way that you guys were

able to actually take the time to read the environment. It's, it's, it's so cool. It really just showed me how much hunting on land has to cross over because that's everything you know it's like that time when you're just like on the surface kind of checking out what you can see below and um and planning your job planning like how you're going to approach where you're going to land what shadows you're going to use what structure you're going to use and 100% like you have to pay attention because some rocks are way too big where if you land right in front of them think it's a good hiding place but you just blocked out your vision completely it does you no good you know and you guys were really choosing

good approaches and good hiding places yeah and in elk hunting i'd always tell people that's a good spot to view nature but we're here to kill nature yeah like when you bury yourself into a tree then you realize that there's nothing you can do yeah it's like good good job you kind of laid out when you were laying out our trip you know we had a few days um you laid out a sort of progression for us and it was a progression in terms of what we were after, how the conditions we were after it in, the equipment we used. Can you walk through that progression? Definitely. And I really respect that you guys actually did it in that way where we started off, you know, basically with three prongs, you know, looking under rocks, looking for small fry fish that you really got to get close to. And with a three prong, a simple pole spear,

there's no trigger mechanism, nothing like that, just a rubber band on one end and three prongs on the other. And it's all human powered. You have to hold it to keep it cocked. And you really have to get close to your prey. Like you have to sometimes just get in there, let your eyes adjust. What do you think it is in, if you have like an eight foot pole spear, what do you think it is in inches? I mean, you're close, close.

Oh yeah. I'd say, I mean, I wouldn't take a shot more than three feet away. That'd be really far. Yeah. Really far. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say a lot of that stuff is i feel like you're you're 18 inches away from it yeah even closer

sometimes yeah like the spear point is yeah is close it's not even you're not even really like aiming you're kind of you're kind of pinning yeah you're only pointing at it and pointing with your finger you would be making them very uncomfortable yeah Yeah. You'd be in their personal space. That's good. Yes. But what I like about that is that you have to get that close to your prey and then your prey, these little fish, they dart. They dart back and forth. Yeah. They're not unaware of you. Yeah. And then it really tests your instincts and your reactions because the minute you let go of that spear and let it fly, like you're committing to, you know, to hitting that fish. And so you're really kind of leading the fish where you think it's going to go or just like, you know, letting go

when you think they're going to stop. And then when you do that, it's not over. Like it's just a three prong. And so oftentimes you got to then pin your fish and pounce like a cat. And so I just think like, just really honing those like responses, those like quick reactions are, are so good to just hone your overall hunting vibe. But then the next step, what we did after three pronging was we did get spear guns and tried a whole different technique, which is so much less aggressive, you know, where it's stalking and it's waiting. And it doesn't mean it's at all easier because it's just a different technique. But I think that it's a really good progression to have to kind of start off like

super primitive and just like instincts and jumping and, you know, and doing whatever you can throwing yourself at those fish really. And you guys were throwing yourself on dry reef at some points, you know, to then having to switch it and go to this, like, much more stealthy, much more quiet, much, like, less movement type of hunting. And the speargun will obviously give you more range, but I think that's just a really good way to keep stepping it up. Then talk. So go on to the next stage though. Oh, and also, can you help me with the, what, what the hell is the, cause we grew up when I was 10 years old, I came to Hawaii with my family.

My dad had a, he was a salesman, like sold insurance. And he sold enough insurance, like win a trip through metropolitan life. I don't know if that's even still a company. He sold enough insurance to win a trip to Hawaii. So when I was 10, we came to Hawaii and he bought us a spear. And I remember my brother coming in and had a giant puffed up puffer fish on the end of that thing. But we took it home with us and realized it was very effective on bluegills, but very illegal. And we grew up calling it hawaiian sling but that's not what it is it's i mean people call it that all the time and when they do i know that they're referring

to a three-pronged pole spear but hawaiian slings are a little different because they're more like these these old style like hinge guns that would have shafts that would just free fly, like bow and arrow kind, and hit your fish. And yeah, so a three-prong isn't really necessarily. It's really not a Hawaiian slay. But the right term is a pole spear, and it has a three-prong head on it. Yes, it's a pole spear.

Yeah, okay. And then talk a little bit about the different species we were after. So we started off going after menpachi, which live in the holes and have big eyes. That's with the three-prong. And coles and surgeonfish. But then we moved up and we said, okay, today our goal is going to be parrotfish.

And parrotfish are tough to shoot in Hawaii. There's something where a lot of other species are going to kind of come in and you got to let them come and you just got to wait. And if you take a shot at any of them, the parrotfish will go away. So you just kind of have to wait and pass and wait and pass. And that parrotfish will eventually maybe come in. But even the way that they swim, it's like, it's something that it isn't always the easiest to track, especially, I'd say, in shallower waters, like swinging a gun around in the shallows. It just, it gets a little more difficult. And so, yeah, we went after parrotfish. And then after we accomplished that,

then we went after dropfish in the deep. Explain that whole process. Because that was kind of interesting. Wasn't that fun? It was just, so with that, we went out, we went out to this drop off. We went out to like this 60 foot ledge that drops off into the blue. And that's a really good place to get job fish, or how we call them, uku in Hawaii, gray snappers.

And what we did, we brought out some bait and just started breaking off pieces and letting them fall to the bottom. And our goal was to get the uku to leave the bottom and come up and start eating the chum so that you guys could just go down and shoot them from the surface. Shoot them right below the surface. That was the goal. And it was amazing that we actually did get to see that. But they get smart so fast i have to say this is where like your calm confident explanation of what was going to happen at the point may have um uh maybe cost us one encounter yes uh because it was like okay so what's going to happen is

we're going to go out we're going to start dropping little bits of chum, these sardines, and then the triggerfish are going to come in, and then some other fish are going to come in, and then the gray snapper is going to kind of come in, and then they're going to get kind of competitive, and then they're going to start eating up the chain. And it just like read out exactly that way, like in a book. And like,

and I think Steve and I were both sitting there like, okay, so now the snapper here. So what's going to happen? Yeah. Like in no time. And I was like, holy man,

we're going to get a lot of these things. But I also said, I also said, and then they're going to go away and then they're going to get smart. Like I also said, like they're going to come up, they're going to do this. But after a while, like they're going to get smart. And they wise end up fast. But I also said, like, they're going to come up, they're going to do this, but after a while, like they're going to get smart.

And they wasn't up fast. Yeah. That really happened fast. But yeah, it was one of those moments where, when that big, there's two of them, but that one was just extra big. When it started coming up and doing its thing and like 15 feet of water, like if I could have been whispering in your ear, I would have just been saying, go, go, go, go, go. But you know, I don't want to freak you out.

Oh yeah. It's all so new and it's hard to respond right. Well, it's, I mean, I have only recently dabbled in bow hunting and I freeze sometimes, you know, when the opportunity is there. But the thing about spearfishing is that you also have to hold your breath, you know, when the opportunity is there. But the thing about spearfishing is that you also have to hold your breath, you know, and that's like, I feel like a whole

another level when you get excited and you just realize like, oh my gosh, there's the fish. Okay, I got to go and I got to get ready. But then you actually have to think about leaving this beautiful thing called air that really is nice when you're kind of excited and, you know, flustered. It's nice to breathe. So it is a lot to go for it. But yeah, there's some opportunities where it's like, you know, if you're hunting the reef and you see that parrotfish where, yeah, you can wait, you can plan it, you can wait till you're ready. And then opportunities like yesterday, when that fish comes up from the depth,

it's like, nope, sorry, you gotta, somebody's gotta go now. You don't have time to breathe up. You just gotta make the contact with you. I think it warrant it. Like we have to bring up just how clear, the water's so clear, it's kind of like it's not there. I mean, it is, clear it's kind of like it's not there i mean it is but it's kind of like it's not there but you can be at the surface where we were in 75 feet of

water when you can see the rocks yep you're you're in 75 feet of water but you're looking and if a fish did the right thing on the bottom you would see it there i mean there's things you're gonna miss but you could like feasibly see it and it wascast. So I can only imagine if it was full sun what you'd see. But you can see down that deep. And Kimmy is taking anchovies, right? And you're breaking them in half or breaking them in thirds. And they fall very slowly. And they kind of create like a slimy cloud of scales.

So you got to move off to the side. Because if you're looking down, like if you side because if you're looking down like if you're imagine you're in the water you're dropping something that's falling slowly if you're looking down the sort of shaft created by its descent there's a lot of oil and scale which obscures your vision so you want to you move off to the side and then you're kind of you're peering in at this this cylinder of stuff dropping. And when something first shows up at the bottom, it's like when you hear, I always talk about this,

it's like if you hear a turkey gobble way off or you hear an elk bugle way off, you know it's there, but you don't, you look to your buddy to be like, did I just hear that? And the first fish you see i'm like you know it catches you where you think you're hallucinating and i remember cal like you saw one and i couldn't see it and it's frustrating but also there it is and you guys are so good at shapes i don't know what the hell i'm looking at when those sharks showed up i'm like hey i know that fish but it's like a

lot of times you're like i don't know man and then i'd get all excited about a shape and you'd kind of like like that's not the right shape and so the one thing that did show up that i like the second just because my very limited ocean experience a tuna showed up in there and i was like that's a tuna you know and you were very much go get that thing yeah that is fast that was incredible another incredible the speed and he just in there having his day with our chum line man so different from the other fish like it's almost like just no fear just bursting and shaking in there and these diagonal patterns and just coming right up to us because he's just so fast and i drove i've dove down i don't know 15 20 feet to try to like and i got down eye level with him and this is something i hadn't thought of but he's moving so quickly

the the gun i had is a 90 i think it's a 90 centimeter yeah 90 what is it it's a 90 shaft it's either a 90 or 100 good but what is the measurement i can't remember centimeters it is okay oh yeah um the fish is moving so fast and the resistance of the water is strong enough you can't track it like if he comes swinging by you're not gonna it's not like you're shooting at a duck where you like swing your shotgun through his line of travel you physically can't move the gun fast enough to track it and so you're kind of like in this sort of intercepting it and if i had had five minutes of breath i would have gotten a i mean i took a hail mary at it oh you're close man yeah that wasn't a hail mary that was every one of us that we were watching you, we all thought it was in the bag.

And that was, Justin woke up this morning. The first thing he said was, God, oh my God, it would have been so cool if Steve just shot that tuna. Like, because it was that close.

Like it was, that wasn't, I would not, cause that's not a Hail Mary at all. That was like, oh, he's going to get it. Like,

but they're just so fast that even the people watching it happen from a distance think it's gonna happen and it just didn't you know speaking with rick smith about this situation he he made this uh comparison which which is kind of right it's like oddly enough the turkey hunting of the spearfishing world where you get down there and you get set up in a certain direction for this turkey and the turkey's watching you so you can't you can only move your gun so fast right so you can't position yourself even though he's gobbling to your right now and then to the left right you can yeah you're like how am i ever gonna get all my situation pointed over that way exactly yeah how do you uh can you guys talk about how you know what the hell sharks are what and then how you know what mood they're in and what their purposes are i mean i guess it's, it's a body language thing where if they come in and they're just

like swimming slow, they seem calm. If their fins are kind of out like the wings of an airplane, that's a good sign that the sharks, you know, not really gonna attack or do anything too aggro. When they start putting their fins down pointing them in a downwards angle if they start kind of arching their back if they start um flexing their gills um that means they're pretty pissed and um and if they're moving just really erratically and quickly and making these turns um that that is not always a good sign either. Is it you that's pissing them off, though?

A lot of times, yeah. Is it a competition thing? Yeah, it can be territorial. It can definitely be... Some sharks can just be big bullies, you know? And they just see you on their turf, and they just kind of want to bully you. And, and sometimes I feel like, yeah, they're, they're the ones that just are

there to steal your lunch, you know? So the, they're coming in, they're checking you out and they're telling you that they're the boss. And then if you shoot a fish, they're going to be the ones to take that fish. And so you kind of have to face the bully. And so that's why even with those, you know, those smaller sharks that you kind of just saw me going down there and just kind of tapping them, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't hurting them, wasn't poking them, but I was just. I'm going to interject here. Cause that's not quite what I saw.

Cause yeah, from my perspective, it was one of the favorite things I saw over a couple of days is in that, you know, chum situation that Steve described very, very well. Um, two black tip reef sharks came in and we're, we're doing their thing. And, and to me, I saw it very clearly as, uh, the high school bully in the hallway, right? But in this scenario, Kimmy was the bully. And she was swimming down, and the black tip was kind of like mixing around, but gradually coming up.

And they just like passed each other like two kids in the hallway. And she just gave that black tip a little elbow shot, basically. Just bumped elbows. Bumped elbows. She kept going. the shark diverted i i loved it it was great i got a shot of that like she just moved right through it and i was like did that thing hit her in the head but she just like didn't even it didn't even phase her she just there was a piece of by my head so that's also why it was so close it didn't even bother you but Were you concerned

when you asked her about that? I noticed that you asked her about how it came up to her face. Were you like concerned or are you just curious? I was more curious. I was like, how close did you get to that thing? Because I don't know, I trust her. I have like, I feel safer with Kimmy in the water. Obviously, she's taught me all that. But I have complete confidence in Kimmy in those circumstances where uh I do I do have confidence by myself but when I'm in the water with Kimmy her knowledge is ridiculous even when we saw that bigger Galapagos I was just like hey that's something I think I pointed to you yeah right I'm like hey that's something to just be aware of because it was decent size and it was

moving quickly at the bottom I was happy that shark left. Yeah, likewise. I was like, oh man, like, cause that one was a big shark. That was a Galapagos. And the way that that one came in, but I also have to say we were chumming. Okay, so that's a different story. Like, I can't just call these sharks bullies. If I was just there minding my own business,

spearfishing or swimming, and a shark came in and started swimming like that. And then I'd be like, okay, we really got to face off and pay attention. When you say big shark, what do you mean by that? What would you say? I don't know. I think I said it.

I thought it was like eight to 10 feet. Oh, yeah. Eight feet maybe. That's when you can really tell it's big because the thickness of it is what i could kind of see well they're not snaky looking yeah yeah thick and and fast and and yeah and the way it kind of came in and like started eating chum and doing those movements i was like oh man with that shark i was just like okay how are we gonna tell this shark that he's not the

bully i'm the bully, you know? But it took off. But then when those other two smaller ones came, basically, I'm not too concerned about those sharks biting us because we're so much bigger than them. And I just don't think that they would look at something so much bigger than them and say, oh, yeah, that's my prey. So I wasn't concerned about them attacking any of us or anything like that. But I was just thinking,

I don't want them getting too confident in getting food off of us because that's what they're doing is they're just getting really confident in eating food that was coming from us. And then what if an uku comes up and one of you shoot it? Then they're like, oh, we've been taking his lunch all day. This one's mine. And there goes your fish. And so what I was trying to do when I was going down there and kind of like, hey, stop eating that chum. Hey, you stop eating that chum. That's my chum. That's my chum. No, that's my chum. Is I was just trying to mama hen them and tell them like, this food, this is mine, you know, like, and I'm not okay with you taking it. And let them know that as long as I was there, that is the presence I'm going to carry.

Because that way, if we shot a fish, if one of you shot a fish and you're bringing it up in a fish in distress, that's what's going to bring in sharks. And that's what's going to kind of turn them into like almost that frenzy state is like those vibrations of a fish in distress, more than blood, more than anything else. It just hits their lateral line, those vibrations, and it activates that it's, they're going to eat, they're going to take a bite. And once one shark commits to a bite, you'll see sharks just come out of nowhere. Yeah. And so even though they weren't a threat to us, if one of them had committed to taking a bite out of a spirit fish, that situation can escalate quickly because the minute one takes a bite, all the other ones in the neighborhood are like, oh, that's a buffet. And you'll just watch things get vaporized.

And so basically, I wanted to just show my dominance so that that way, if you guys shot a fish, I would know that all I have to do is just swim down towards your fish and just get by your fish. And those sharks will know like, she's back not ours that mean old lady's down here yeah exactly hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew.

Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS

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if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX x club y'all steve kind of brought this up um but how often do you two spend as much time in the water as you do like get concerned in situations like you know it's it's hard for me because even just when you turn to me and you're like hey you know you see that like that's something to be aware of um in my position it's almost like i may as well never even seen the glockwell shark because

like now that i'm aware of it what the hell does that mean to me like i don't know how right to me is it like okay don't even if i get a great shot at something don't don't shoot it or like i see you guys aren't getting out of the water so it obviously doesn't mean that right yeah i think what it more meant is we're still going to shoot fish, but let's all be aware. Maybe we should have had to talk about this, but let's all be aware that when somebody shoots a fish, the rest of us need to protect that fish, you know, protect that person pulling in that fish and just, and, um, and just swim towards the shark. Like that's's usually if i'm concerned i'll swim towards the shark yeah and i feel like there's bigger concerns more than we usually have with sharks like a lot

of the concerns most times like weather changes or where's the boat or oncoming boats or but i feel like concerns as a shark usually isn't at our top level for the most part. Would you agree? Yeah. Currents. Currents are much more of a concern. Separating. If you're further out in the water, currents pick up and you separate. That's a bigger concern than most anything. But I definitely have been in situations where a tiger shark's swimming straight at you on the surface,

and you're not just going to ignore it and turn around and say, I'm not concerned, you know? Or you're on the surface and a great white swimming straight up at you, and you're going to pay attention, you know? So definitely I'm concerned. I just think that there's a difference between reacting out of panic and just responding accordingly. And the number one thing I think I've, I always just keep learning in those situations is I can't out swim a shark, you know? And so the only way to truly handle it is to,

is to face off with it. I mean, yeah, you could like, just leave and get out of the water, but, um, That's what I was going to ask. Like if, if you see a great white or a tiger shark, that's not like, all right, time to get out. It's just time to like be hyper aware, but keep doing what you're doing. I personally think those encounters are really cool. And so, you know, as Steve was saying earlier, like, you see something like, oh, wow, let's go check that out, you know?

And so I just think they're pretty cool. And they demand my attention because they're, yeah, they're frightening, but they're special. And so I just like to check them out and, and see how it is. And like I said, if there's a tiger shark just swimming straight at me on the surface, it is nerve wracking because now I know, oh man, I got to swim right at this tiger shark, you know, and like, I have no other choice. Like that is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to meet you with the same energy you're meeting me. And you're not, like, you're going to know that if you're curious in me, I'm just as curious in you. That's how I stand.

And so it's not always, like, what I feel like doing in the moment, but you just do it. And the next thing you know, you're playing chicken with a shark. But it's, like, that's what you need to do. And then when it turns, it's like, it gets kind of ticked off and irritated, you know, and it might do it again. But you just keep meeting it. And usually you can just defuse the situation. And then it's just, it's a really cool encounter let's say that yesterday when we're chumming a 14 foot great white starts circling around below us you you like you wouldn't have automatically called

it off its mere presence wouldn't make you call it off you'd have to see more and figure out what was going on i probably wouldn't be at all focused on ukus anymore i wouldn't be like hey everyone let's keep spearfishing um because all of my attention would be on that great white shark definitely yeah yeah there's difference in sharks you know um and cal hang on to the chum bag tell people about your the story you're telling about the sperm whale oh yeah so that was that was in um dominica and i was on the surface of the ocean um and and a sperm whale was was swimming along and it ended up swimming on the surface and we ended up like pretty much just meeting up head-on on the surface it was about 30 feet away from me and there's a photo of this there is

it's incredible and um i know because when you asked me how far away were you and i said 30 feet i was like i'm gonna look at that photo to make sure i'm not exaggerating and it really was it was a very close encounter um and as soon as it was about 30 feet away, it just used its tail, which makes a lot of bubbles and turbulence to use that big tail, and it used its tail and it just flipped itself completely upside down.

And then it just opened its mouth and I could see all its teeth, you know, even from there. And that was a pretty intimidating experience. But then after that, it just gently rolled back over and very gracefully kind of did a dive down and just dove down into the depths and was gone. And later I learned from scientists that sperm whales, you know, they have huge heads, the hugest on the planet. And because I was just like right in the middle of its sight it could just it couldn't see me with both eyes and so it had to turn upside

down in order to be able to see me see what i was and then they're hearing it comes from the inside and so so it had to open its mouth so that it could hear me and so it was just it was just a way of like shaking hands you know know, getting a better look. Yeah. And the photo kind of captures the moment where it's inverted. Yeah. In a gate. What's the scariest thing you've run into?

Like the scariest moment you've had? Well, I mean, when it comes to animals I think yeah my first time with a great white in in the water they're just so big you know they're just so big and so fat and I just always thought of them as these ambush predators that is going to eat you. Um, and, and so I think just like having that, you know, that idea in your head and knowing that like, that is what they can do and do to their prey. When you see a fat, big, great white shark in the water with you. Yeah, it's pretty intimidating. But that experience ended up being just a really beautiful, peaceful one where I just got into a groove with this shark and ended up being a really cool shark and that's one thing that i've noticed too is a lot of

times the bigger the shark the more calm their presence it's just and and like the little ones little pesky ones they can be kind of more like the bitey punky ones yeah they just got more experience i think so what they're dealing with and uh i don't know this because you said it to me i know it just from having read about you. When you started out in spearfishing, you in some way registered or had the feeling of not being taken seriously by guys. What is that?

Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but I know that it's a thing that you've lived through. I mean, I can't really say that completely at all. I don't know if I ever really said that. I mean, I know that, I know that I definitely, yeah, I mean, there's truth to that. I know I caught a lot of guys by surprise because they just aren't used to seeing, they weren't used to seeing a girl who spearfished. Yeah, okay, there's definitely a lot of guys who didn't take me seriously and probably because I was a girl

and they just wouldn't associate those two things together. And even if I say I spearfished, they probably just don't quite believe me. So what does it look like? I mean, what does that exchange look like if you're in if you're in a thing is it just that that you don't that you're not invited to go along or you mention it and people think that you can't be serious i mean yeah but i i hate to even just say like oh guys because um because it was guys that that taught me to spearfish too. Like it was the guys that did believe in me

that took me more seriously than I ever could have taken myself, who mentored me, who just like believed in me, believed in me, believed me. It was all men who took me under their wing and did that. So we're just talking about different humans. And yes, out of like all these different humans, there were definitely some men who just couldn't register

that a girl could be doing this. And it just looked like things like, we'd be at like spearfishing tournaments and they'd be talking about like, oh man, I'm gonna go do this trip in Cabo and get yellowfin tuna and i'm just like sitting at the table and like nodding my head and then they'll look over and they'll be like oh like i mean what we're talking about kimmy it's like equivalent to you like

going on all expense paid for a shopping spree and i'm just like i fucking hate malls like what are you even talking about like i was into was into the tuna story, you know? And like, so just things like that. And it's just funny. Like, you know, some guys are just like, they just can't quite figure it out. Like, how is that possible? It can't be possible that this girl can do that or whatever.

So they just ask you really funny questions and you can just tell that they just don't quite believe you you know do you take it as uh is it damaging is it amusing you know to to get the like to get the flack or to or to be that to feel like you're uh treated as a sort of special individual because of being a spearfisher woman um i mean i think it's for the most part like all the all the silly stuff with the irritating stuff it's just not even it's neither it's just not really worth my time and it's just like that's when you know like those aren't my people you know and um and then like i said and then i just i've had i just had way too many of encounters of the opposite though of like of people who just treated me like a diver like

that's and that's what i always wanted and that's what like i loved before about like you know sometimes just putting your your hood on and whatever you kind of just like look the same as everybody else and um and I think that was it more than anything is I didn't want to be I didn't want to be just good for a girl which that was one of like the weird like compliments you would get from the ones that were intimidated by you and i didn't want to be like as in uh oh yeah that's that's pretty good for a girl exactly like oh yeah she's good oh yeah i heard she's good for a girl you know and i just like i i don't that's not i didn't like that but i also didn't like um the idea of like oh i'm trying to be better than the boys you know um i just that would be like ascribed to you as a motivation totally yeah yeah and um

and i mean it was always sad and like like good-hearted fun and that's fine it didn't bother me but the truth was it's just like i just wanted to be a good diver that's all like i wanted to be and and the guys that um i ended up just like you you know, becoming super friends with, they became my mentors. Like that's just how they saw me. And, and it was just, that was just the best feeling in the world, you know, just to, just to, just to be part of this club where, yeah, you're just, you're, you're just trying to be a good diver. Do you, like sitting here having

this conversation like this part of this conversation is it annoying like just be totally honest i'm i'm just like i'm always curious how to navigate this like that sort of question is it annoying to you that i asked you that no it's not i mean i think like i think my first thought when you asked me that, though, if I am honest, was like, oh, are you trying to be considerate? You know, like, is that like a polite thing to do is to like look at how things are for women these days and this and that? I don't know. That was like one of the first things that went through my head. But it doesn't at all annoy me because I think, okay, another thing I have to say, I think it is an important question.

I think it's a very important question. And before I used to not think that, and I wondered why people ask me that so much. Um, and an example would be that I used to always enter co-ed, um, dive tournaments. Right. And so it would be me and a bunch of dudes basically. And, and then more girls started getting into these tournaments and then they started like having, um, like, like protesting them or whatever, like they needed a women's division and they saw it wasn't fair if they didn't have a women's division. And I was the first one that was just like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, why the heck would you do that? Like, are you kidding me? Cause I was just like, I want to be a good diver. And, and I no, no, no. Like, why the heck would you do that? Like, are you kidding me? Because I was just like, I want to be a good diver. And I was just like, I go home and I remember just telling

my sister, like, oh man, like I really liked all these girls, but now they're getting all crazy and wanting to have like women's division. I don't get it. Why? So that like three of us can enter and three of us can walk away with trophies. Like, why would they want to do that? Why don't we just dive as divers? And that was seriously my point of view. And then my sister, she just looked at me and she's like, oh, it must be nice. It must be nice for you to say that. And I didn't quite get it.

And then she's like, Kimmy, don't you get it? Like, she's like, you're the exception to the rule in so many ways. And she's like, dad took you're the exception to the rule in so many ways. And she's like, she's like, dad took you in the water since you were five years old. And like, granted, it didn't happen all my life, but it did happen for like a good few years, pretty solid, where I was in the water developing this comfort, developing this belonging, you know? And she's like, you know, how many other guys do you know

that their dads did that for them? And I could think of everybody, you know, if not their dads, their uncles or someone. And she's like, okay, now how many other girls do you know where their dads did that to them? And I honestly could not think of a single person, like not one single person, and that to me just like changed things.

I was like, oh my God, you're so right. Like every single guy that I like went to high school with or grew up with, like they were the ones I would die with because their dads or uncles taught them, and I don't know a single woman who like was given that same opportunity, and then she's like, so now think about like,

you know, it was already intimidating for you to get back into it on your own. But the thing that got you through was those early years of being taken along, like with someone that you felt safe with, you know? And she's like, if no girl has ever experienced that ever, and now they see you achieving what you're achieving and that inspires them and they want to get into it. But they didn't have like what you had, you know, and you don't even want to give them their own division. I was just like, give it, give it to us. A little gut check.

I think that in asking it just or in talking about it, where it's interesting to me is that participation rates and some of the activities that i hold near and dear and that i like participation rates are so overwhelmingly male and i think that you would you would look at it and find that you know that there's that there's probably some physiological underpinnings to explain some of it right in some cases like i think if you removed any kind of like social cultural aspect do i really think that 50 of the population of people that hunts or fishes would be male like i just feel like it's probably still tilt that way just in terms of i don't know man like like like physiology or something like a diving maybe i really i can't really speak to diving i think that for free diving i mean i would have

to say like i think women would really have it would excel i do yeah yeah i think when i get at that like a couple things that reasons when i say physiological is is if you look at different cultures around the world okay um even cultures that hadn't had contact with one another for perhaps tens of thousands of years would develop along these similar lines where you would had that that like the the hunting class like the the the members of the society that gauged in hunting and fishing um if you look at indigenous cultures in asia and africa south america north america you want to have seen that all these independently developed cultures also developed this thing where it was predominantly it was predominantly man men right not for free diving okay no free diving it's the women like um justin and i actually we went to korea to meet the henyo and they're these like old lady divers

because they're kind of they are the last of their kind it's something that hasn't really been passed on but um for centuries they've been the one free diving for um for sea snails for um abalone for horn conch and um sustaining their whole island you know and you find it in the japanese culture too with the ama and they were like shellfish divers, pearl divers. Really? Yeah, and it turned out that, I mean, the story I hear is that for Korea, actually at first it was the men that would do it, but then I think what happened is Japan invaded Korea, put this tax on the working people of this island, Jeju. And so there's kind of a loophole because the tax was only applied to the men

because they were the workers. And so the men taught their wives to dive, but then they ended up being so much better at it anyway. And the reasons why is because they had more fat. And so they could stay warmer in the cold water, but they also could hold their breath longer. And then, so the women kind of did it because they weren't getting taxed. And then they ended up being so much better at it that they became like, they were the ones that sustained the family. To this day, they're still the ones.

We went and we interviewed these women and talked to them. And they're the ones that they, um, they put their, their husbands into college or whatever it is. They, they take care of the whole family financially. They take care of the community because they're the ones that make the money, um, because they're the ones that can dive. And so I really think that there's something different about about free diving because you don't need to be like that physically strong I feel you know like I probably can't load your gun cow like but I don't need to because I know I can bring the fish closer I know you don't need to i just what i what i was gonna get at with the what i wanted to get at in the long run around the thing about physiology is i'm saying like even if there is

some physiological element or something just about like aggressiveness or whatever the hell right that i think that we've had like we've had social and cultural overlays that have definitely impacted that. And what originally got me thinking about it was, I remember I was talking to a guy that looks at hunting and fishing demographics. who hunts and fishes there's a greater likelihood that they are in a family where there were no boys or where they were the first child that guys will rotate like that guys have historically been like basically oh i guess you can go because i don't have a son to bring, you know? And I think that that's like a, that's an actual thing. I mean, we've tried to, I perhaps, um, and having a daughter, like, I feel like I

perhaps try to overcompensate, um, under like instructions from my wife to the minute she found out she's having a girl, she's like, you are not going to treat her different than the boys. And so to hold up on that, I feel like I like i um maybe do the opposite and lean on her a little more heavily or like have hot like have higher expectations to sort of demonstrate how um how good i'm doing right you know like i need like i want my progress to be measured by hers in a way that winds up putting a little bit of an unfair you know yeah like an unfair expectation wait you know somebody like when she was eight years old like this year i really was like we're gonna get a turkey we're gonna get a turkey we're gonna get turkey it was coming from me very much like that i needed like i needed to do that to undo the stereotype that

you're not responsible for right you know so it's just become a thing of interest to me and then we hear from people who feel um you know we'll oftentimes hear from people who feel like like unwelcome by guys who sort of seem to want these this this world to be guy-centric or find comfort in that i I don't know. Yeah. I guess I can relate to all of that, I think. Yeah, because I do see some guys, they're used to it being a certain way, and they're afraid that if a whole bunch of girls come into the scene,

it's just going to change the vibe of it. It's all just interesting. I don't know the answers. We're kind of on the edge of a recruitment-type conversation here. Oh't know the answers. We're kind of on the edge of a recruitment type conversation here. Oh, is that right? Yeah, kind of. So could you speak just briefly as like spearfishing as a community?

Would you say it's a welcoming community? Is there part of spearfishing that like wants to like mentor people and bring more people into the space? Or is it kind of an insular community that it's like, hey, man, there's only so many fish in the ocean? I think it's both. I think you got to earn it. And so it's like it's not going to be handed to you. Doors might not just be opened for you. You know, it's not something where it's like, hey, welcome, let's

show you the ropes and take you to our fishing spots and teach you how to do this. I don't think that, you know, it is fishing. Like people are going to be protective and secretive and keep to themselves in a certain way. So maybe getting a foot in the door isn't just like an easy handout. But I think that if you want it bad enough, like if you try hard enough and if it's just something you're really passionate about, I guess I'm just telling my own story. But like and you do it, you're going to earn the respect of this community and then all of a sudden doors are gonna open and invites are gonna start coming and and i think i kind of like it that way like i just you know um and i think maybe in a way that's even why i was like no you guys got to go three pronging first you know like you know it's just, don't just roll up here and put a spear gun in your hand and I'm going to take you and

shoot a big fish. Like you didn't earn it yet, you know? And so, so, so I guess I think it's a very wonderful, tight knit, beautiful community that I do think is welcoming. But I think it's the more you earn respect, the more welcoming it's going to be. Do you see a similar path in your bow hunting career? I mean, honestly, with bow hunting, I feel like I've spent, I feel like I've earned respect as a spearfisher woman to the point where bow hunters look at me and say like, oh, you know, like, and, and they, I feel like the doors have opened almost too easily where. Like your, your spearfishing credentials. Have, have put me.

Transferred. spearfishing credentials have have put me transferred some sort of like have gotten me at least my spearfishing credentials have all of a sudden made like to me it feels like a lot of people welcome me welcome me into bow hunting because people respect that yeah and i think that's nice but i think i almost shy away from it it because it just sometimes feels like a little too spoiled for me. Like I, you know, it's really, I really appreciate it. But I feel like sometimes when things are just like handed to you, it just doesn't feel right, I guess I could say. And so I've actually shied away from it a lot because I have been, I have gotten a lot of offers and opportunities and, and gear and stuff. When I get it, I'm like, I'm such a big kook. Like I don't deserve this. Like this person

deserves this. Like you should really be giving it to this person because I see her working her butt off, you know, whereas me, like I didn't earn any of this. And so I kind of have shied away from it. And what has actually made me cross over just in this past week was that it was all those old dive mentors that I just speak so highly of who really trained me in diving. They're all bow hunters now. And, and they called me up and they said, you know, Hey, let's get together and do a sheet punt. And like those guys, if they're going to tell me to do anything, I'm going to do it.

Like, and so I just said, sure. And they're like, okay, have you been shooting your bow? Like, nope. Okay. Well meet me at the range. And I just like, and I'll just listen to them because I don't know. They're just like, they're my teachers. And so then it just clicked naturally. And these guys, yeah, met, you know, helped me dial things in with my beau, try to- They really got you comfortable. I'm just comfortable, yeah.

And I just like, maybe I feel like I, somehow with them, I feel like, oh, I have paid my dues, you know, many times paid my dues in this crew. And so when they're going to tell me to do something, I'm just going to listen. And it was just such a cool learning process. And then when we did go on a hunt, it was really neat because the sheep that we saw, you know, my friend Kalei, who was my dive mentor, he'd just say, oh, Kimmy, like, there's sheep up there. But honestly, there's not enough trees. That's all lava, really crunchy and noisy. The only way you could possibly close this gap is if you go alone.

I can't go with you. Like, go. And that was, like, the first time I felt, like, confident in myself because he's the guy that he would tell me, like, I know you never dove this deep before, but today I know you can do it. Go to the bottom. And he would, he would do that to me. And so when he told me go, it was like this nostalgic bliss and like primal anything. I'm like, I'm going, you know? And, and so now I feel like, yeah, like I feel like ready to embrace that. Whereas before when it's just like people I don't know

like it's so nice and I'm not at all complaining I really am happy that I have bows and stuff you know but just like sending me stuff I just started to feel a little too privileged where it made me kind of even back away from it more I can't speak to the gear end of it but in terms of the invitations and stuff end of it I think that what you're experiencing is like we talk about the transfer is that you've hit um a level of extreme competency at something that is recognized as being hard so it's an easy jump for people to make to assume that if you can do that if you can excel in that space um that you would be a great asset to have along in this space if i hear like if i'm hanging out with a soldier right who's gone through and done you know like that became like a special

operations soldier um and lived in that world and excelled in that world. I have like zero apprehensions about going on a backpack hunt. Cause I'm like, I don't really know that, but I understand that to be like some hard shit. You obviously are really good at that. I can imagine that that would jump over and that you'd be welcome here because it's,

it's, it requires spatial awareness it requires like organization it requires an ability just to stay calm and think it requires an ability to get along with other people around you um and so it's like easy to to make the jump so i think that you're probably just being uh people are like i maybe i don't even know that much about that shit, but I understand that's extremely challenging. If you're that good at that,

this will be a walk in the park. Yeah, I guess you're right. And I just, I guess I never really thought it would necessarily cross over the same. And it wasn't until those guys who have pretty much trained me from scratch, they pretty much said that exactly.

Like what you just said, they said it to me. No, you've got this. Yeah, like if you said like all of a sudden, like, I'm going to be like way into tennis. I don't know that you would then, right, find that you would infiltrate that world. Yeah, yeah. Just because. And then it was so neat when I, when I did stalk that sheep to see how much it did cross over. Like it really, like I had no one else there to ask or, or to

blame or do anything. Any decision I made was my own. And I just had to look at that environment in front of me. And I just looked for, for the shadows and the lava. I looked for like where to crouch down all that kind of stuff and i it really it was very similar uh oh i gotta ask something real quick to you boys chester and seth chester uh talk about your impressions had you dove in salt water before no i tried no really i mean i was on a snorkeling excursion kind of as we were fishing one time in mexico and uh i remember our guide getting out and like diving down to the bottom and like looking for stuff and trying that and failing miserably that was with my family back in the day but uh yeah i was really really excited to try it watching you guys um

the first day i didn't have a spear gun i was just swimming around with a snorkel looking at stuff and it is a different world like from the top you just can't you mean from out of the water from out of the water you have no idea what's going on you get down there and it's like cracks and cliffs and crevices and um fish everywhere and i the next day i ended up carrying around a a three-prong from some fins that I found here at the rental house. And I borrowed dirt snorkel and was messing around. So you probably borrowed a little bit of chew, too. I definitely borrowed a little bit of chew.

You're a winter green. I needed some of that. No. But yeah, I was swimming around by myself and was able to get to the bottom and was trying to imagine, okay, there's a cliff here. So I'm going to try and dive, get to the edge of that and peek over it. Then you peek over and you're like, now I have no idea what I should go after you know um but I ended up I think like sticking a fish and I didn't get him was like one of the ones that you guys had in the cooler with that three prong but then Steve came up and helped me out got i got the big spear gun um and then you know

was following steve and he'd point at a fish and i'd look at him and suck in water and then spit it out again and like point at the fish again you know and uh i ended up i think it was like the first got lucky probably the first one or the second one that he pointed at, dove down and shot and was surprised. It just got him right behind the head. You were more surprised than the fish maybe. Yeah. I was like, holy cow, look at Steve.

And he's like, good job. And I got my first fish. So it was awesome. Proceeded to miss quite a few after and then peeked my head on the surface and go see where Steve was and swim over there so he could load the gun again. But it was awesome. And I could get into this for sure. Is that right?

Yeah. Are you feeling the same way, Seth? You're not a water man. You're a water man, but you like to probe the world with your walleye jig. Yeah. Yeah, I was telling you earlier, I like to feel the bottom with my walleye jig rather than look at it. But no, it was my first time.

I snorkeled a couple of times like up in Maine on the lake when I was younger, but first time in the ocean and I don't know when I first jumped in just getting used to everything it was just like very stressful at first but you know like panic mode I want to point out that it was um um you know like on a scale of one to ten of the sort of like stressful places to to jump in i feel like it was over five because we were up in the rocks and there was yeah some crashing waves it's not like you're in some like lagoon yeah it wasn't still water you feel the force of the uh swells coming in and in the noise element, I think, like,

you probably can't relate to this anymore, Kimmy, but, like, there's a stress-inducing element to, like, the water moving, bubbles in the water. All of that. Snorkel in your mouth. Yeah, just the bubbles will kind of make everything more intense. Yeah, and the alarming thing to me was, like, my mask wasn't quite right, and I was, like,

getting water up my nose and water down my tube and just trying to breathe. You got to trim that stash. Yeah. Just trying to, like, you know, breathe normally while looking down in the water was a, like, struggle at first. Yeah, I kept trying to encourage Seth to find something different to do with his hands. Yeah. I was just trying to encourage seth to find something different to do with his hands yeah i was just trying to like swim just but uh yeah once i kind of got the hang of it and settled down it was awesome after hovering over you know being in the air right but you're over the ocean for a couple days when you got your when you got your face down there and looked around what was your feeling of of finally oh it was just like yeah you like after being in the boat for so many days just like trying to picture what's going on down there it it's so different

from when you actually stick your face down in the water you're like oh that's what's down here like this is cool yeah yeah um but no it was cool definitely want to do it again and eventually get to that point where i go down start hunting dive down yeah on on another note real quick the clearing part like i basically got my eyeballs sucked out of my head yesterday. Yeah, broke some blood vessels. Yeah. Some blood was drawn on this trip. Yeah, yeah. When you go down, everyone's so focused on equalizing your ears

and clearing your ears, but that air in your mask definitely starts to compress and compress, and it will suck your eyeballs right out if you don't equalize your mask too uncomfortable yeah it hurts kimmy do you have any uh final things you'd like to talk about that you wish i'd asked about and didn't ask and then also how can people go and see um the work that you and justin put together and like and how should people go find you? I think I'm just more so curious to you guys,

to you and Cal. I just want to hear from you about how it was, how this whole trip was, what you feel like you learned. Because I know on day one, I told you like, Hawaii is not necessarily the best place to come as a beginner because it's hard. You know, the fish are smart.

Like they might be everywhere and you can see them, but they definitely don't make it easy on you. And so more than just me getting you on a fish, like I think the bigger goal would be like really to learn how to hunt underwater. And for me personally, even though I said that to you, I was blown away as we just did it day after day after day. And I really wish we were still doing it right now. Just watching you guys go through these steps. And to me, it felt like you were just learning so much constantly. And I just kind of want to know, like, yeah,

what was that like? Like, what did you learn? What did it feel like? Oh my gosh. Learned so much. I guess for me, you know, it's like, uh, uh, you know big win and and kind of a a little disappointing at the same time because like i knew coming into this trip that the one of the things that i really had to fight was just like my eagerness and excitement and i was so excited to be in the water and so excited and and i was every single day every like every minute of every day. You know, it's like Chester in a candy shop, right? He's going to grab everything he can. Like really, really, really going after it.

And, you know, I kind of failed at that really. Like I was just so excited, like elevated heart rate the whole time just trying to just just really trying to uh you know it's like the old you know i got a dad as a football coach right or a football coach as a dad who was like you know go go go go go and for me instead of like calming down and slowing down it's like just work really hard and push through it. It is kind of still what comes out. And I just need to get a better handle on that. But the consistency of finding

like very legitimate opportunities, like I absolutely know the first time I did this, um, part of me was like, definitely got lucky, had some success, but definitely got lucky doing it. Um,

I wonder if I could pull that off again. And, you know, after this trip, like, like I know I can get food. Totally. Which is awesome and a huge accomplishment, right? So like the consistency of finding those really good opportunities, even though I didn't capitalize on all of them or even a third of them, um, is a huge accomplishment. Oh my God. But just the fact that you capitalize on even like,

even if it's just one, like, I just think that's not, that's a huge win. Like you shot a legitimate Uhu, like you shot a parrot fish. Like that was like, when I told people you guys were coming, like one of the first thing they said was, well, there's no way they'd be able to shoot a Nuhu. And like, I just think, the fact that you accomplished that, like I don't even know if you realized

what you accomplished because that's a big deal. Well, yeah. I mean, it's just, it's like bittersweet, I guess is what I'm getting at. Like watching, you know, you and Justin in the water, like part of me is like almost in panic mode of like, oh my God, did you like squander this opportunity?

Did you not leech enough knowledge out of those two? Like, well, you know, it's, it's right here. Did, did you not get enough out of them?

You know, that's, and maybe that's just being in the learning curve, you know? I think if i had to look where i got this trip um you had to like i'd want to explain a little bit about my history with being curious about it is um i mentioned earlier we got that pole spear when i was 10 and we would go out in our lake with an onion sack and shoot bluegills off the bed and stuff them into an onion sack.

Illegally, but when you're a little kid, you can do things illegally. If you were a grown-up in that lake, it wouldn't last five minutes. But as kids, it's like, ah, they're just kids, right? So I'd always had a little bit of that curiosity about it. And I always had a lot of problems with my ears when I was a kid.

Getting water in my ears going to like eardrum problems my mom bringing me to the med stop like and i uh felt like i can't like i'll never be able to spearfish because what my how i my i suffer from my ears all the time ear infections all kinds of junk um And then when I started to get, I kind of presented to my friend Greg Fonz this problem. He said that many people feel they have that problem. He's always hearing about people that can't dive because of the ears, but it's just a lot of things you need to learn. It's a learned thing.

I had some of my first real legitimate spearfishing experiences, and he started to supply me with some equipment and kind of walk me through the gear and then i was in this world of of uh with the actual gear which is hard to get used to and then being in the water and like trying to learn through a thing that you told yourself you can't do like i took like i just didn't think i could go underwater to any real depth six ten feet whatever because i thought my ears would get hurt so i was struggling to understand the gear struggling to get over my fear of what would happen to my ears and how to stop that from happening to my ears and then just being

uncomfortable in an ocean environment in in the unknowns, right? Because I'd spent so much time and very comfortable around freshwater. But just a lot less going on. It's a much less dynamic environment anywhere in freshwater. It's not moving as much. There's not as much depth. There's not as much abundance of life. There's not all the unknowns.

I could tell you most lakes categorically. I said, there is not a fish longer than this in this lake and say with like a lot of certainty that that's the case but in the oceans like shit i don't know it's stressful um so i think for a long time now the last few years for sure i've talked about how like i want to be a spear fisherman i would like to be a spear fisherman um on this trip or like the couple days of pretty intense training and exercise we had, I finally got to a point a little bit where I was like, I got comfortable with the equipment.

And I caught moments where I wasn't having a nagging problem of not understanding some aspect of the equipment. Like knowing what the lead's supposed to feel like. My mask is inexplicably leaking all the time right and and i like know how to load my own gun and when it's messed up i'm able to quickly ascertain what's messed up i don't need to go ask somebody so to hit that point where i'm i i i'm comfortable with the gear finally and i can finally look around and then i can finally understand at least what i need to know about my ears like there's a there's a pathway to like get like here's where my problem occurs and sometimes i'm able to do it sometimes i

don't but i'm able to be like here's why that like, here's why that dive didn't work. I guess there's a day or two days here where I felt like I was actually spearfishing. And I wasn't just overwhelmed with anxiety and like, what the hell is this thing for? And why is that that way? And is it normal that i can't see shit because it's all foggy you know i didn't drink a gallon of salt water today because i can't remember where the snorkel is and isn't or greg fons remember this i didn't lose my snorkel you know i just like got like oh i'm here i'm actually here i'm fishing you know felt good, man. It felt good to be like, to have some moments where I was there. Yeah, I think it was really good that you guys both, it seems like you both came with

a lot of that just figured out, which was cool. Like you guys both seem to have your gear dialed and everything. Because like even, you know, when Seth was talking about just like getting in, it's like a whole different world. And like, all I could think was like, that must just be so crazy to just have your face in the water for the first time and just to tell yourself to breathe, you know, like we're not used to breathing through snorkels. And when you are used to your face being wet and in water, like I would think that just

your reflex would be, and I see it all the time. People just put their head out of the water to breathe. They don't want to breathe through their snorkel. They don't trust it. And it takes a long time, I think, to get kind of dialed and comfortable with your gear than with, yeah, this crazy different world. And I guess I'm, yeah, I'm just glad that you guys put in the time that you did prior because you came, I don't know, I feel, I feel like you're both spear fishermen. Like, I definitely do. I think when I hear you say, oh, I want to be a spear fisherman, like, you know, you know, I know that you could go and, like you said, get dinner and go feed yourself. Like, you know, you know, I know that you could go and like you said, get dinner and go feed yourself. Like, it's like that even just like found an octopus. And I know that kind of stuff happens by chance and happens like when you're just in the right place at the right time. But that is spearfishing. And I just think it's it's super cool to see that you guys can now enter this underwater world

and just leave with dinner. Very cool. Very cool. Can I ask what you two are doing next? Yeah, and roll in the how do people find you part of that. We have no idea what we're really doing, but we created a YouTube channel, we created a YouTube channel. We created a YouTube channel. I'm going to stop you real quick. Okay. Because like the last,

the first time that we actually met, so we met through some friends, Kimmy was doing a talk in, in Ketchum where I used to live. And, and we ended up having many, many talks when we overlapped on that trip. And, and, uh, there was, it's, it's funny that one of the conversations was like, uh, Kimi's a international traveler, international woman of mystery, like going all around the world, spearfishing everywhere. and just got this incredibly supportive boyfriend, longtime boyfriend, Justin at home. And you'd set this like kind of date for yourself or benchmark to like, well, I thought I would start a family at this point, but that's kind of, I've already passed that now. And there's all these other events

and things going on, right? Yeah. But, you know, like as the world turns, it's like married, baby. And so what's next? Yeah, that is, that's all very true. And it's crazy, like with that transition from going from just like traveling all the time, constantly to then all of that is coming to a screeching halt, um, with, with having a baby and then COVID happening at the exact same time.

Um, we, I, I ended up staying home and it just ended up being the smoothest transition. Um, somehow like I thought I'd get itchy. I thought I'd miss traveling. And Justin and I just ended up creating this YouTube channel together and just really filming the adventures of our own backyard. It's a lot of spearfishing. Pretty much every episode, we're going out, going diving, getting food, cooking it up, trying to do it all with our baby buddy in tow. And that is a whole nother fun adventure and challenge of its own. And it's just kept me so entertained and kept us so busy. And we've done that for a year now. We put out an episode a week. We committed to a year, one year, and we just finished that year. And now

we're just trying to feel where the inspiration's going. Take a break and kind of recollect. That's a lot of work. Episode a week. One episode a week with a baby. That was a lot. What's the YouTube channel? It's just called Kimmy Werner. I think it's like at

K-I-M-M-I space Werner. And on Instagram you're Kimmy Swimmy. I am Kimmy Swimmy. Spell that for people. It is K-I-M-M-I space Werner. And on Instagram, you're Kimmy Swimmy. I am Kimmy Swimmy, yeah. Spell that for people. It is K-I-M-I underscore S-W-I-M-M-Y. And we're here filming. So with Kimmy as a guest on our show, which will come out on Netflix next fall, and Justin, all the underwater photography,

you'll be able to see his handiwork. Which the clips we've seen are stunning. So cool. Amazing. It's so good. I cannot wait. My favorite was watching you guys hunt the aholehole, our favorite fish,

and just the surge and getting whacked against rocks and just like you guys coming up with one because it's not easy. And seeing how much you learned in those couple days and applying it to like going back to the three prong and going back to small fish, you guys succeeded. And that was really cool. They're natural. Justin had to wear a lot of hats. So I feel like we really need to make sure he gets his due here.

Yeah. Well, when you watch, when you watch, when you watch me eat her on Netflix and you get to the spearfishing episode with Kimmy, all that underwater work is Justin. He was a mentor. I might put on the credits that I did it. No, you guys, you all have shots because you were wearing GoPros and stuff. So you guys get credit, right? No, no, no.

We don't usually do that. At Cinematowski. Yeah. Yeah, spell your deal out uh cinema c-i-n-e-m-a-t-o-w-s-k-i my name is justin turkowski a combination of it but yep and then um yeah so check these guys out on instagram check out the youtube channel and uh thanks for having us and stay tuned thank so much. You will get up close and personal with Kimmy Werner on an upcoming episode of Meat Eater, which, like I said, will come out next fall.

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