The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 312: The Shaded Side of The Mountain

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with Jay Scott, Jason Phelps, Paul Lewis, Garrett Long, Ryan Callaghan, and Phil Taylor.Topics discussed: Colburn and Scott Outfitters; FHF's cool new rifle sling coming soon!; divorcing your wife because she sends your kids skiing instead of ice fishing for 9 Saturdays in a row; Jani’s big bobcat and Steve’s tiny bobcat; go watch MeatEater's Season 10, Part 2 on Netflix; why Cal looks like a turtle without a shell when he’s wearing a wetsuit; Phil's full head of hair vs. everyone else’s early baldness; skinny-shamed; static breath hold and Kimi Werner's masterful deep diving abilities; ibex darting off from the Florida Mountains; more on thermal night vision and game recovery; a Lyme vaccine; blaming bad vision for shooting a guy while hunting critters; Robert Abernethy, the treasure; glassing and missing in Mexico; border crossing dos and don’ts; 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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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Alrighty everybody, joined today by a number of esteemed guests, but the most esteemed of all, Jay Scott. Colburn and Scott Outfitters. Do you guys still go by that name? Yep, we do. We're always getting people asking about recommended guides and whatnot.

Can't go wrong with Jay. Limited inventory, though, right? Yeah, pretty much. Now, this man would take a bullet for you. I don't know about that. No, I feel like if someone can, like, I feel in terms of, I don't have, like, tremendous amount of experience around the big game guys, but I got enough. I feel like you have to be, if someone's going to rate them out in terms of organized, not overselling value, like trying to like create like a low dollar value, but like very cognizant

of the money, like what the expectations are of the money being spent. Sure. It's probably because you don't have any, um, there's no desperation about you. Well, we have a great team. So I'm surrounded by really good people. And I think that's a huge part of it. Um, a huge part of our success is, is having, you know, from all the way from, you know, people that help people cross the border to cooks, to guides, um, you know, surrounded with a good team, it really helps. But I think, you know, I think one of the things outfitters over the years have kind of gotten a bad rap, if you will, is the expectations of the hunters coming maybe are too high. Um, and so what I try and do is paint a picture of exactly what they should expect.

And it's kind of a bar that we try and uphold. Yeah. And so. And you've been at it long enough to kind of know what to expect. Yeah. Um, we just finished our 26th season in Mexico and, um, it's been an unbelievable ride. It's hard to even believe 26 years.

Uh, but you know, Mexico's an unbelievable country and we do coos and ghouls hunts down there, ghouls turkeys. Um, and it's, it's something that I enjoy. I hope I get to do for a long, long time. It's, uh, Phelps and I were talking about this. Um, it's like the good old days. No, I can't remember.

So one of us were talking about this. I'll introduce everybody else. But, uh, we're like, it's the good old days right now. I'm going to ask you about what would, what ways in which it could, the good old days could end right now. There's gotta be ways in which the good old days would end. But right now. Well, I think.

For like ghouls and coups and stuff in Mexico, like spitting distance from the U S border is like the good old days. One of the things that I think is so unbelievable and all you guys have been to Mexico is to me, it feels like you're going back in time a hundred years and it feels like it's pure hunting to me.

It feels like, you know, you've, you've kind of left your cell phones behind and you're just with your buddies and you're just out there. You know, there's coyotes yelping and there's maybe turkeys yelping or, and, and, you know, there's, there's javelina fighting and it's like, you can kind of get out there. Five miles off, there's a guy walking a donkey with a scabbard lever action and you can sit and talk for 20 minutes about what in the world was that guy doing? Yeah. And he's just smiling the whole time. And you know, you see things that you're like running fence lines or whatever, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's literally like going back in time a hundred years and I feel like that working cattle off horseback. It's like, yeah. And the way of life is so simple. I think that that's one of the things that draws me to Mexico is the adventure.

Um, not that we don't have adventure here in the U S but it just feels like the old days. It feels like old times. It feels like, you know, almost like you're looking around for wagons to be going by and, you know, horse drawn buggy type stuff. Yeah, it's really like that transition is so immediate and you can look off and see one of those border...

You see the blimp up there. The border blimp. Yeah. Which is perhaps the most technologically sophisticated thing you're going to look at for months. Yeah, you can see that with one eye and the other, you feel like you're back in the 1800s. Oh, that's wild. We're going to get into all that in much greater detail with, again, a highly esteemed guest, Jay Scott. Phelps is here.

Yep. And his Phelps hoodie. Got anything to say for yourself? No. Just keep it real simple today. Yeah, I'm going to keep it right there. Phil, you might as well unhook that mic. It's like wasting electricity. Phil,

of course, Callahan Of course Are you going to say something zippy? Uh, no Well, I mean, come on We got all sorts of awesome stuff to talk about Season 10 just dropped, right? That's why Callahan's here, we're going to talk about that

Garrett Long What's up? And of course, Paul Lewis from FHF Gear. I'm here. Second time on the show. Second time. One of my absolute favorite human beings on the planet, particularly right now.

Yeah. Because he's always open. Doesn't run around spewing a bunch of bullshit, I can tell you that. Open to new ideas and we got new projects in the works that we're in the R&D phase. Are you guys doing R&D

together? Yeah. Yeah, he woke me up out of bed the other morning and said, hey, I have an idea. Is that a rear rest? No. It could be. Is it a business card holder? Yeah, it's a FHF business card holder for everybody. What's the plastic window on the side?

Well, you signed an NDA and we'll get back to you on that. Oh, really? He could tell you, but he'd have to kill you. No. You're going to tell me? You called Paul in the middle of the night, tell him about that bag? Yeah. Yeah, I will tell you, but we got, I can't do it live on the air.

Oh, come on. Let me see the bag. Oh, take a look at the bag. It's a hamster holder. This is Core FHF, Core Steven Rinella organizational items. It's a hamster holder? What'd you say it was? It's an organizational item.

No, I thought Garrett said it was a hamster holder. Oh, so that is a little place where you put stuff. There's a spot for a label? Keeps things nicey-nice in the parlance of vanilla? Oh. Well, if it keeps stuff nicey-nice, I'll take 10. Is this what you think about at night when you're laying in bed? I'm the type of person that, um,

occasionally does have good ideas, but if I don't immediately transmit those, then they're gone. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think there's going to be like 10 of those in Steve's truck here by the end of the day.

Cause. I'm excited about them now. I like keep myself organized. And, uh. It has something to do with shotgun shells. Oh, I already got it. For the listening audience. That's a great idea.

It's a great idea. I already got it. It's not hamsters. It's better. Although it could double. Uh, Paul, where's stuff at with the new rifle sling right now, man? Uh, they are in production right now.

We, uh. Can you go pre-order one? You can't pre-order yet. Uh, but we were waiting on the, the swivels is what the holdup was and they're all us made and there was a steel. It was hard to get steel. So that was.

Even that little dinky bit of steel. A little bitty piece of steel. Cause like one I-beam would make. Right. Um, yeah, we ordered quite a few of them though. And they're, they're in production as we speak. So hopefully we'll see them. What's it called?

Tell people the name of the sling. Does it have a zippy name? It doesn't. It's probably Rifle Sling at this point. See, no bullshit. Yeah. None of the names we have are real zippy. If you've been waiting to, if you're going to get a new rifle sling or like need a new one or just want one, I would check this.

This is a great rifle sling. Yeah. And it's got, so the page is live on the site right now where you can sign up for notification as soon as we get them. We aren't taking pre-orders, but you can definitely sign up. So your email, you know, you'll get an email drop as soon as, as soon as they hit the site. Yeah. You got, it's got like a little clip. What do you call those clips?

Like a buckle? I don't know. Yeah, just a buckle. And it's got a clip where it clips to your backpack. Like there's a, is it the male end or the female end clips to your backpack? The male end. The male end's connected to your pack.

So there's a male end of a clip. It's the same kind of clip that you'd have, you know, on a, on the. Like on a sternum strap or something. Yeah yeah on a sternum strap of your backpack like the same basic idea right so the male end of that clips up to where your backpack shoulder strap joins your backpack and it just hangs out there like you don't even know it's there but then when you sling the rifle you can just click that into the sling itself and then for like jumping, crawling, whatever,

it just stays glued there. Yep. And it stays on your pack. It stays on your shoulder great anyways, but that little clip and then just one hand you can reach up, free it fast. Yep. And it's, it's got an additional, uh, strap on

the bottom so you can click the bottom end of the rifle to the, your waist pack or your waist belt as well. If you want to, I know you don't typically run it like that, but I like to run it up there. It takes the weight of that rifle off your shoulder. Yeah, I do in the dark, but not in the daytime. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely speeds it up. My wife loved that, that little guide too, that you put on your shoulder strap of your backpack. Cause one thing I've never thought about is you look at her and like, she's got her backpack on and there's no shoulders that come outside of her backpack straps. So she puts her sling on, right. And it's just like, it's constantly falling off of her backpack. There's no extra, there's no extra bone and meat.

Yeah. You like clip that in there and put the guide up and it just stays riding there all day. Yeah. She loved it. Yeah. Definitely kind of an optional clip, but that'll, that'll be included in the sling. But yeah, I use it all the time. Both, both buckles and the clip, it definitely lets you keep less tension on the sling itself and hold that sling steady and not move around. You guys notice how in the, in the talking, uh,

points, I have a note that says divorce and my wife. I see that. Dude, listen. Go on. Listen. She like put, so she puts our kids

in some kind of ski thing up on the ski hill for nine Saturdays in a row. Oh. And every Saturday, like, well, I was going to, we were going to go ice fishing this Saturday.

Oh, no, I already paid. I already paid. Can't now, I already paid. There needs to be a way you pay to go ice fishing. That's, ice fishing's a great problem. There no, I already paid. I already paid. Can't now, I already paid. There needs to be a way you pay to go ice fishing. That's ice fishing's a great problem. There's no one to pay. Because if I could go in and be like,

oh no, I already paid. I paid for them to ice fish 12 Saturdays in a row this winter. We got six clinics lined up. I know. It's like that. Yeah, it's like, in her mind, it's like inviolable. They have to go because she paid. And it's like, I'm like, well, I'm sorry.

I don't know who to pay. I didn't know who to pay to make it that we could ice fish on Saturdays. It's the stupidest thing in the world. And Brody's wife did the same thing with his boys. I just feel so bad for these kids. They're options. I mean.

It just is so maddening to me, man. Go skiing? The whole It just is so maddening to me. Go skiing? The whole skiing thing is so stupid. It's like, I get it for kids. The primary, you go down a hill, you're like, wee, wee. But like at a certain point, that place is mostly full of grownups.

Do you think the Olympic athletes make that same noise? I'm sure they do. It just is driving me crazy that they're missing out on nine Saturdays of ice fishing. Yeah, you need to like rent a cabin or something like that. That I pay for. Yeah, rent it

on a lake or something like that and be like, I already got a cabin. No, no, sorry, we can't do ski this year because I already paid for ice fishing. Rent a snow bear? There you go. Because they get free, at their age, their licenses are free, so I can't say I paid for their licenses. Yeah, you gotta get a cabin. There's no one to pay. We're going to have to call David Wise and just ask him one question, Dave.

What noise do you make when you go down the half pipe? Oh, it's wee. Gravity's working. Gravity's working. It's so, like when I was a little kid, I liked to go sledding. But I mean, sometimes you move on. It's like I would like shit my diapers. I did that for a while.

Then I sledded for a while and like I got over it. It's like, yes, gravity pulls you down slick slopes. It's like, I don't care. God, man. Did you guys see that giant bobcat Yanni just got? Did look like a big cat. 25 pound bobcat. Really?

Well, then feltelps won. Tell them, one up them, Phelps. Phelps one upped them already. Well, we just caught one back in a cubby set way back in Washington that was 33. Whoa. But it was a giant, but our cats are so ugly back home.

That was the thing is. Yanni's cat, you just want to bury your face on that thing. Yeah. Cause they got the big, what makes a bobcat in what makes it cool and valuable is if it's got the, yes, like a clean white belly with well-defined black spots. And it's funny about bobcats is, you know, a few years ago, and this stuff's always exaggerated. Like a few years ago, cats were exceptionally high. And everybody would run around being like, bobcat's worth $1,100. Because maybe like one bobcat sold for $1,100.

So then it becomes that every bobcat on the planet is worth $1,100. So I don't really know. They're very valuable. It was like a lot of guys were getting like $600, $800 for high elevation Western bobcats. At the same time, a bobcat from my home state of Michigan would be worth $15 because they don't have that belly. Yep. Why?

Why don't they? I don't know, man. I was texting about a similar thing with our good friend and your fellow Arizonan, James Helfelfinger, this morning. He knows a little bit about stuff. Yep. This morning I sent him a picture, a kid had sent me a picture of a deer he killed in Florida that had

like that crazy black mask. And Heffelfinger's like, it just seems like a Florida thing, man. Like deer that have some weird throwback to when they, at a point when they had face markings, like dark facial markings. And he said in that area,

it's common to get them with varying degrees of black marks. And I don't know if it has something to do with, it'd be an interesting thing to take a bobcat, you know, from 9,000 feet in Wyoming and send them to Michigan and would his progeny wind up having knot spots? Yeah. I don't know. I caught a little teeny bobcat. Like teeny, teeny.

One slipper. Yeah yeah one slipper but that was an impressive one that yanni's got and they're filming a thing right now about hound hunting they're out hound hunting for lions and yanni's got his pound puppy dog and mingus So that'd be part of that. Well, Giannis was giving all the credit to Jake's dogs. Well, I think he's got like some like unbelievable dogs. Okay. And so Mingus must not have been in there mixing it up on that one. Yeah, I don't know.

But Giannis is pretty modest about that. I mean, he's a pound dog. I think if Yanni would go out, he got the dog for his kids. And then sort of after the fact, wanted to make it like a lionhound. I think if he had started out getting a lionhound from one of his lionhound friends, he'd be in a different place right now. Agreed to a certain degree. I mean, a hound's brain is dedicated to that nose.

So I think, I think that breed of all, uh, is going to probably put, it's going to be chasing something. Yeah. Like you can kind of get on board or, or not, you know. When that dog comes in, like when we're staying somewhere and I have my duffel bag

and that dog comes in, it spends, it devotes about an hour and a half to your duffel bag. I'm like, what, what? Just like every single thing in there. I'm like, you know, most dogs that come in and do like a once over, but no, he just unpacks it. Right.

With his nose. If he's getting information off that thing once over, but no, he just unpacks it. Right. With his nose. If he's getting information off that thing, it's like from the last guy that owned it. Right. If you could like plug in like a ticker tape thing, it'd just be like, just peeling out rolls of information. Yeah. Makes you self-conscious. Yeah.

Delta United. Oh, yeah. Michigan, Arkansas. united oh yeah michigan arkansas so right now uh live and available part two of season 10 so season 10 equals 10 episodes part two just hit up at netflix um so we're gonna do a few questions the questions already poured in cal's gonna handle the questions with. Let me put my spectacles on. Here's one for you, Cal. Why do you look like a turtle that lost his shell when you're wearing a wetsuit?

I think that has to do with your skin tone, perhaps. Oh, yeah. I mean, you got real Irish lineage. We aren't known for deep tans, I suppose. Um, and, uh, I am, in case you didn't notice, balding at a rapid rate that's accelerated since the eighth grade. And. Yeah.

When did the first hair come out? Well, it wasn't so much that. I just always had like real, like the pits, like the recessed. Um. Widow peak. Widow's peak. Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? And so I, I don pits, like the recessed. Widow peak. Widow's peak. Yeah. Yeah.

What the hell does that mean? And so I don't know where it comes from, but. Is it like an architecture thing? Probably. Like I used to have like long curly hair, believe it or not. She looked like the comedian Gallagher. But I could always like grab that mop and pull it back and people would just be astounded at how far in the skin went to the hairline.

How old were you when you were bald? Like bald, bald? Well. I was 21, slick bald. Really? Yeah. I mean, this is as, you know, as I suppose as bald as I've ever been, but.

No, but what age? It hasn't come back at all. At what age did you look in the mirror and you're like, I'm bald. Jay, you went bald at 21. Slick bald at 21. 21. And it went like that.

I would say in probably a year, went from like, I think I'm losing my hair to bald. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. So that's what I was curious about. So did you start to shave and then you went like Michael Stipe then? Just went short. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I got plenty of unsolicited feedback as to I should just shave my head. Yeah. Well, you normally do, but now you kind of got the little side deal going on. Oh, the toncture. That's what monks would call it. Oh. But yeah, I'm aware of that.

It's just, I shave my own head and kind of gets knocked down the list. Paul, you don't have a hell of a lot of hair. I don't. When did yours fall out? Started probably 26 and then same as Cal, a lot of unsolicited comments that I should probably, probably just get it

over with. Phelps? 25 to 30 was a bad, bad stretch for my hair. The hairline quickly moved back over those five years. Yeah, look at Phil down there, man. Full head of hair. Oh, cocky as all get out.

Looking at all these bald guys in here right now. Yeah, I think that's where the turtle comes. It's a dark wetsuit, bald head. Yeah, sure, that's a great association. There's a great detail from the Battle of the Little Bighorn where it was a lot of Irishmen like yourself that died that day with Custer.

And there's a detail that the next day some soldiers were coming up the valley and they didn't know what happened and they saw on the hillside brown splotches brown things on a hillside and they saw pure white things stained in blood on a hillside. They thought that the Custer's command must have caught the Sioux and Cheyenne in the midst of a buffalo hunt. And that what they were seeing was

buffalo hides laid out. And then the white fat of buffalo streaked in blood. Upon closer inspection, it was dead horses and stripped and mutilated Irishmen. And that white skin was so white it looked like buffalo fat.

What do you think about that, Cal? It certainly lines up. I mean, I remember looking at my grandpa's legs, you know, he'd like cross his legs and his slacks would ride up a little bit and just being kind of horrified. Yeah, in awe, like a translucent type of situation there. Like it's just been, just hasn't, has not seen vitamin D in decades. Another question that came in is what's up with Danny's neck hair?

I have no idea. I spent days with that man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are the same folks that give you unsolicited advice on how to cut your hair because you're not doing yourself

any favors, right? They're like, well, look at that neck hair. Yeah. That guy. Why on earth did Robert Abernathy throw raisins in his wild turkey salad? I'll point out that that's the question of a not very careful observer.

I think he threw cherries into that. So here's my question to you. Why can't you pay better attention? Put in all this time and effort, make show. Don't pay attention to the details. When was the last time I ate a steak? I eat them all the time. I'm sure the question is beef steak.

Yeah, they're skinny shaming me. Yep. It's still okay to skinny shame people. It is. It's the last thing. The last thing you'll be able to do is you'll be able to ridicule poor southern males. Like, that'll never, you'll always be able to do that. Like, you'll always be able to ridicule poor Southern males. You'll always be able to do that. You'll always be able to ridicule on movies or whatever.

You'll be able to ridicule poor Southern males, and everyone will always think that's funny. They'll never get like, oh, you shouldn't do that. That's terrible. It's like they'll always be a target. Yeah, but didn't we talk about this on the trip? No matter how woke society gets They'll still think it's a good idea to ridicule Poor southern males

I was thinking that it was like a deal Where someone's trying to give you a compliment But they're like making a little underhanded Oh we talked about how you can still skinny shame I just got skinny shamed by two women And I don't think they're trying to shame you I think they're like trying to compliment But then be like oh you're too skinny no like jason and i were

saying how we get told all the time like you're just too ripped like you got too much muscle going on yeah that's not what it is i don't i don't remember the last time it's okay to skinny shame and i'm not saying it shouldn't be i'm just saying it's puzzling to me because if as society serves collectively saying we're gonna stop dogging on each other all the time about stuff. Not that one. I do think it'll eventually become bad to skinny shame and then movies will still make fun of poor Southern males. That's my prediction. What do you think about that, Cal?

I think, yeah, sure. I mean, folks are going to, folks like ribbon on each other, right? So you're going to rally around the things that are still acceptable. Yeah. I was making the comment, we did some, uh, hockey playing a couple of weeks ago, actually while you guys were in Mexico. And, uh, folks were talking about like old hockey movies and I had purchased a bottle of Newman's own salad dressing for the trip. Got it.

Paul Newman's in a famous old hockey movie. Um. Oh yeah. Yeah. And. What the hell was that movie? Long time ago. It was, uh, what the heck is it?

Shit. Now I can't remember. It, uh, cripes. Anyway, anyway we'll we'll figure it out but like slap shot that's right i couldn't i was i was did you look at outfield or know that i thought it was slap shot i just double checked yeah slap shot you thought it was slap shot what was his what was his search can you tell me what his show Paul Newman Hockey? I feel like you're lying. I searched for Slapshot. He did.

He did? For real? Yeah. I thought he typed in Paul Newman Hockey movie. So he no joke wrote Slapshot down. Yes, absolutely. He did. I'll give it to you.

The guy's on it. Anyway, just an example of like something, uh, in one's past that was apparently broadly socially acceptable at the time type of humor. Uh, that is like, like you cannot, it's hard to make it through that movie at this point. You wince a little bit. Oh yeah. Big time. Big time. And then, you know, Newman's own foundation, all profits go to philanthropic deals.

And you're like this guy on the salad dressing once said this in a movie. Yeah. Someday the wrong person is going to watch Slapshot and Paul Newman's whole thing is going to be over, man. Yeah. Yeah. Steve, I got a question for you real fast. I see you keep popping those designer glasses on.

I've got a solution for you. fast. I see you keep popping those designer glasses on. I've got a solution for you. What? LASIK eye surgery. No, because it doesn't work for reading. I just got it done. Just for reading. Well, so I... I don't have an eye problem besides reading.

I couldn't sit on the couch and read the golf scores on the TV or the football or whatever on the TV. Now I can sit and read them perfectly. I couldn't read Royal Coachman over there on that thing. But have you always needed glasses? No. Oh. So the last couple of years, my eyes have gotten worse and worse and worse.

At night, especially low light, I went in and got LASIK, and they said one downside is you might not be able to read your phone. So I got it done 8 a.m. the next morning. I was 20, 15 and I can read my phone and my computer screen. Really? So you might have it checked because.

Oh, I got an eye exam coming up. Oh, you do? Yeah. To find out what, but I mean, this has been happening since I was 45, just like slowly. Right. It just gets worse and worse. So I use these, these readers. How fast was your recovery?

I could actually do it. I just had to make a weird face, tip my head at a weird angle, and get back. Can you see at a distance? I mean, can you see a buck out there at 200 yards? Extremely well. Okay, so your distance is fine. My distance was shot. My last eye exam, they told me that my distance stuff is still spot on.

It's just reading fine print is getting harder for me. I'm going down. We're going to get down to the bottom of it. I bought these on Amazon. I bought five for 10 bucks. What power? Twos. You know, I was going to tell you, uh, when you brought that up the last time, my, my

buddy Kyler, his dad passed away. Right. And, uh, we used a bunch of communal stuff for horse packing and, and things like that. And every, every item that we touched of his had a pair of reading glasses in it. The little fold up ones that, you know,

that fold out. Sure. So I just went to that strategy. I was trying to do the thing where you have a pair. Everywhere. That shit doesn't work. So now I have a pair everywhere. Yeah.

So funny. Saddle bags, uh, old duffel bags, the jockey box in his truck, the glove compartment in his truck. I mean, they're just everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way you got to do it. Here's some more serious questions.

What was my favorite episode from part two, indisputably? The show we did with Kimmy, Me and Cal and Kimmy Werner. God, it's just... What's your problem? What do you think of that? Phelps? Oh, that hurts Phelps because Phelps and me did an episode together.

Listen. Phelps, that was not a hit against you, man. No. Phil, can you edit that to say, um... Edit that to say, uh... Phelps?

I'll give you some money later Listen You just gotta do your next Elkhunt While holding your breath Underwater That was a great episode We had a good time Loved it

But Like I said man I feel like I wasted my life By not being a spear fisherman It's not my fault because of where I was born I wasted my life And if I could redo fisherman. It's not my fault because of where I was born. I wasted my life. And if I could redo it all over again, that's all I would do. I can tell you from a viewer standpoint, I really enjoy the spear fishing stuff and some of the stuff on your social media.

Is that right? It's, yeah, it's something that. Even though you're from Arizona. Well, I'm fascinated by it. I've never done it, but it's kind of gotten me to thinking of doing it. Yeah. It's hard. All the other cool stuff, um, especially at this point in life, I think it'd be very different. Uh, if, if you started out of the gate.

Right. Being able to hunt on land and hunt in the water. But at this point in life, it is literally being dropped into another world and it's hard to recreate that experience elsewhere. Right. So like, that's kind of what you're up against. It's super new. So it's fun, right?

Exactly. It brings back like the kid in you. The steep part of the learning curve. Right. Yeah, exactly. You've done it quite a bit too, right? Trying, trying. Yeah.

Yeah. The effort's there. We might lose Cal to spearfishing. I mean, like he's going to die. Cause he had a trachea squeeze and bled out his nose. And then he's got a problem where he comes up and kind of like gets a little feinty. Well, that is one question I had.

Like, can you do it and just kind of surface fish or do you technically, do you have to dive? I spent many years just surface fishing. So you can just enjoy it? You pick your spots. But then I, then I realized that, but the, the people that are serious about it, they're like, they kind of like mostly regard themselves as free divers. Sure. But we would go to the Bahamas and, and you, you know, you're like, and the deepest you go is eight feet.

Right. And did all that, but it's, it's, you're like, the deepest you can go is eight feet. Right. And did all that, but it's, you're just. Does it become a point where like you got to get to the depths to get where the bigger fish are? Okay. I think that if I could get where I could comfortably fish, if I could get where I could spend a minute at 70 feet. Free diving. If I could go down and lay on the bottom for a minute at 70 feet, I would be very happy with

myself. So how long? Would you say like, I would sign that contract right now. Yeah. And that's, that's your max. I would say if I, if I could have a down, like a minute laying on the bottom of 70 feet of

water, if someone said like, I'll give you that, but you'll never have more. That's as deep as you can go. Yep. You can, we'll sign it right now. You can spend a minute at 70 feet. You'll never get another thing, but I'll give it to you right now. I would sign that contract.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, that, that's like, that's, that's probably like a little bit more than what you really need in most, most places. You can do a hell of a lot of fishing. Yep. Hell of a lot of fishing. When. Hell of a lot of fishing. When you say that though, Steve, how, how long does it take you?

Cause I, I'm thinking about this in terms of just holding your breath. How long does it take you to get down there and back up? It'd be a two minute downtime. Two minute down? You'd be underwater two minutes. Oh, okay. Total. Total.

Yeah. Because, uh, you might have a max breath hold. Do you know the max static breath hold is what? Type that in, okay. Total. Total. Yeah. Because you might have a max breath hold. Do you know the max static breath hold is what? Type that in, Phil. It's like nine minutes max. That's not exerting yourself, right? So if a free diver, like if you're talking to a good spirit, like take like Greg Fonts, okay? And I might mutilate

his numbers. Apologies, Greg. Let's say Greg Fonts has a downtime. His known downtime is three minutes, meaning he can go down for three minutes, not a problem. Most of his dives are going to be 90 seconds because when you come to the surface,

your recovery needs to be twice as long as how long you were down. So it takes away how responsive you can be to what you saw while you were down, right? Also, you can run into trouble, meaning like, let's say Greg is spearing oil rigs. You go down, everything's going fine. You shoot a fish the fish shoots through one of the support columns and kind of wraps around your leg a little bit now if you've already overstayed if your downtime is three minutes and you're like oh i'm at two minutes 30 seconds because it's only gonna

take me 30 minutes 30 seconds to get to the top and then you do something like that not what happens to you so they'll they'll just do like 90 second dive 90 second dive three minute recovery time 90 second dive three minute recovery time and they're just and they develop that cadence so it's not always about it's not always about like what can you maximum get away with you know and so they'll if they're comfortable at three they're probably up at 90 seconds and then if something crazy happens like you're down there and then you see something you still have something you reserve to go make it happen but they're not down there like pushing limits all the time the uh world record was set in 2016 by a spanish free diver at 24 minutes and three seconds static breath hold yep no way way. Was he breathing out his nose?

There's a whole article on how, like, scientifically it's done, but I haven't read it. You have got to be kidding me. I think it's, like, cold water, certain depth. There's some things to it. Man, that son of a bitch gets some fish. No. That doesn't do anything, right?

That's, like, there's no exertion, because any bit of exertion sucks up oxygen, right? Even Kimmy Werner was saying, on this spearfishing episode we did where me and Cal kind of expose our, expose our beginner-ness and, you know, Kimmy's a pro. Like literally has been a professional spearfisher woman. And we captured like the, what we captured on film that like shows off Kimmy's capabilities is, is like the, the tip of the spear for her. Like it's, it's incredible. She wasn't feeling too good.

No, she wasn't feeling very good. Uh, when talking about exertion, um, cocking a three prong that like they're so in tune, the good freedivers are so in tune with their own physiology that she'll notice the impact on her downtime of having a three-prong cocked because you're putting grip on something and that burns oxygen. Like when Greg gets up, like they don't drink, they're like monastic and they're on dive days. And I've gone with them. They're, they're,

they're, they're like monks, you know, like they're watching. They don't want to drink the night before. If you're really trying to perform peak, like you don't want to drink the night before. There's a guy that cuts out dairy days before for any kind of mucus buildup in your head.

No coffee. Super careful about any medications you take. Very careful about food you eat. Avoid acids. It's a deep, dark hole. Which is, but it's about like knowing yourself and your capabilities, which I want to swing back to the issues that I've been having. And, you know, I worked on like a lot of breath hold charts and did a lot of training and really did make giant leaps and improvements and my abilities. And, and the reality is, is like, I think I'm always going to be susceptible to the mistakes I'd been making. Uh, but it's a, a training and repetition thing.

And, and certainly a mental thing of knowing like the safe way to push your boundaries and improve and, and sticking to that, you know? So it's, it's awesome. Like I, I just absolutely love it. Wasted my life.

Wasted my life. And you're getting old. Yeah. It's over now. I still had fun with Phelps. Here's a question Phelps from a listener. What, uh,

what were your backpack setups on the elk episode? I had a Xo mountain gear 4800 which i like a whole bunch and then what'd you have for and then explain your arrow setup because i mimicked phelps's arrow setup so i was running a kafaru 44 mag on that so 4400 cubic inch um pack on that one and then similar we had similar size similar size we knew we were only going to be you know three to five days so it was a perfect size without a bunch of extra room. We still had the ability as soon as we killed to take, you know, a quarter out on that first load. So really good setups in that, you know, 4,000 to 5,000 range.

But as far as the arrow setups, we didn't go completely Ashby. We just went with, you know, a semi-micro diameter arrow from Black Eagle. We put a lot of weight on the, in the insert. So I think we were both shooting 150 to 200 grains on the insert. And then we were both shooting a hundred grain, uh, iron wool broadheads.

Um, so kind of not in my, my specific setup, I don't know where you ended up. I have a longer arrow and a little bit heavier arrow. I was at like 560 grains, um, total arrow. Yeah. I don't know. Um, yeah, you're, I have a longer arrow and a little bit heavier arrow. I was at like 560 grains total arrow. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think you're probably in the low fives. I just wanted to switch everything up, so I asked Phelps what I should use,

and that's what Phelps told me I should use. So I got exactly the arrows and exactly the broadheads that he said. And had that pretty close range frontal shot. That bull took two steps, and it looked like a garden hose coming out of his brisket. Yeah. And fell over dead. Yeah. Like somebody.

I watched it fall over dead. Yeah. I mean, if you were to fill, you know, a gallon jug up with some, you know, water with some red food coloring and you just drilled that and just watched it explode basically. I mean, it was like just a, yeah. Yeah.

And I heard Phelps' bull go down and i was 20 yards away from him and i heard it hit the day yeah yeah very very short blood trails on those with the very controversial frontal shot um there's a question feral goat hunting in hawaii is there a process for feral goat hunting in hawaii there is and there isn't we were hunting on private ranch, big ranch north of Waikoloa, that charges, there's like a trespass fee. There's a trespass fee. And then I think for different species,

there's trophy fees as well. So it's like, if you kill something really big that they're trying to keep around, there's something. But I think there's a lot of folks that you could call over there. And then the locals hunt, just the locals just hunt up in the mountains for goats and sheep, like just local meat hunters go up and hunt in the mountains, but they're not going to tell you,

they're not gonna be like, oh yeah, go here. No way. Right. No way. If you're going through all the hassle, like to get over to Hawaii and all that, um, and you want to go do it. I mean, that's what we did. Yeah. I, I think it's a great first step at least.

And for all the activities that there are over there, uh, it would be a very efficient use of your time too. So, um, someone asked like how Kimmy, what, how deep was Kimmy going under the water? Like, so we're talking about that 70 foot thing. Kimmy can very comfortably fish at 70 feet. She can fish over a hundred feet deep. I don't know what her deepest dive is, but I mean, she can fish at a hundred and over a hundred feet of water.

Yeah. Um, yeah, she, she did tell us that. I mean, it is, it's, she may have done like one 30 for a minute and 30. It's some, something very similar to that. I, you know, after we were done filming, we went, uh, fishing, uh, for a few days and I didn't, you know, witness, I swam with Kimmy on her birthday. And that was like the day that she must've been feeling very good and just decided to not deal with me. I was there just trying to me, but just the comfort of being underwater underneath big boulders, underneath caves for long periods of time with, you know, your running line that attaches your spear to your gun, you know, going all over the place through fish. They're wrapping up on things.

And from the top side, looking down, like my heart was going, cause I was like, oh God, that does not, she's been down there a long time. It seems like a dangerous situation or a potentially dangerous situation. And, but you're, you're watching a person who is completely confident and completely relaxed. Like there is no difference than her, uh, you know, untangling her fly line on the bank versus untangling this line underneath.

It's like, as Steve would say, it'd be very like do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do type of thing. I went back with my wife and kids between Christmas and New Year's, the spearfishers came to me again and I'm so jealous, man. I went back with my wife and kids between Christmas and New Year's to spearfish with Kimmy again. I'm so freaking jealous, man. Wasting my life. Did I tell you that, Phelps?

Yeah, multiple times. What was the tastiest fish you ate in Hawaii? Oh, were the camera operators using scuba or free diving? Free diving. Kimmy's husband is a phenomenal, Justin, a phenomenal underwater photographer. He shot, Kimmy's husband, Justin, shot a lot of the underwater stuff you're looking at, but Dirt shot a lot of it. Dirt's comfortable in the water. Yeah, Rick Smith is a.

Yep, Rick shot some. Yeah. But some of the highly liked, some of the real doozies were. Justin. Justin on the deep stuff. So we were, we actually like, uh, yeah. And, and we'll probably, we'll probably use him again. I'm hoping to use him again.

Oh, definitely. I mean, we talked about on, on the podcast that we did in Hawaii, but watching Kimmy do her thing. Incredibly impressive. her thing incredibly impressive and then justin is there you know basically driving uh like an old portable television underwater would be like a similar like you know like a 15 inch old portable television for those of you old enough to remember something like that that's like what he is pushing ahead of him in the water doing very, very similar things. Still kicking your ass. Yeah, and it's unreal. 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,

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So we did an episode about Ibex. Have you ever done the Ibex hunt, Jay? I haven't. In New Mexico?

I drew a, like a, the way the tags work is they have a once-in-a-lifetime tag where you can hunt any Ibex and then get a big male

and they got, I don't know, 48, 50-inch horns. They're insane. I had a tag that's good for a female or an immature tag where you can hunt any ibex and get a big male and they got what i don't know 48 50 inch horns they're insane i had a tag that's good for a female or an immature billy so the horns gotta be like sub 14 and we did an episode about this it's a great spot and they they hang out in the florida mountains and someone asked why don't they just strike off and why like why do they stay in the Floridas? It's surrounded by, I'll start by saying they don't. It's desert flats.

But it's surrounded by desert flats. So this is a mountain dwelling, cliff dwelling critter. When I say cliff dwelling, I mean they dwell on cliffs, vertical cliff faces. They are quite at home hanging out on vertical cliff faces.

So that's their refuge, vertical cliff faces. And that's their like, that's their refuge, vertical cliff faces. Um, and this thing sits out there. It's like an Island mountain chain. It's like, if you imagine a flat sea with a rocky Island on it, that's kind of like the flat sea being the surrounding desert. And then you have this rock pile. People even call the mountain range, like the rock. So it's full of rattlesnakes too it is a lot of rattlesnakes

yep when they get you know they're they just hang out on the cliff faces to avoid predators so he's got to like give up that that desire to leave and they do leave but the way they run it is the state is comfortable with them being in the floridas where they were introduced the state's not comfortable with them being out of the floridas you can at any time a new mexican resident can at any time buy an ibex tag and shoot any ibex they see that's not in the florida mountains and they do strike off and um but uh our friend down there jeremy romero with uh wildlife federation he uh fantastic human being yeah probably one of the best Our friend down there, Jeremy Romero, with Wildlife Federation. Fantastic human being. Yeah, probably one of the best.

Phelps is going to get offended by this. No, no, no. Probably the best person on the planet. Jeremy Romero. I'll just come out and say it. Best person on the planet. Jeremy Romero. Followed closely by my children.

He's got friends, and they know people that have now and then been out doing something in one of the surrounding mountain chains. They'll be like, oh, my God, an Ibex. And you run down and get a tag, and it's all yours. And that's how they keep them from spreading out, which is very similar to how they're running, to how New Mexico is running the um oryx situation where um oryx were introduced down to the white sands missile range they have a robust population there it's very hard to draw the tag and then around white sands they're running uh i think it's 11 seasons a year. Each season is a month long.

I drew that too. So you pick your month when you apply. And like each season's a month long. So outside of the White Sands Missile Range, they're being hunted. Upper 200. I don't know what the hell it is. I can't do the math very good. 300 days.

Is it one month or two months they don't hunt them down there it used to be 12 months a year i think it's 10 months a year they're hunting them 300 days a year off base and it's like when you get a tag it's on range off range and they're just gradually getting them whittled away where they're confined only to that missile range and anything basically it's not a free-for-all, but basically anything that disperses across that fence line is basically up for grabs.

And you'll see that most people that kill one, when you draw the off range, most orcs that get killed are killed within five miles of the fence anyways. People aren't now and then they do, it's not like people are finding them a hundred miles away. You know, they're kind of getting them, they're getting the ones that flirt with the border uh this is one for jay this is a quite this is this is i'm gonna have you field this one

okay because of where you live when you head into rattlesnake territory do you wear anything different or carry anything for extra protection no No. Being an Arizonan, genuine Arizonan, no. A lot of guys wear snake chaps. I don't want to say don't do it, but I don't. Had a lot of close encounters, but you just got to be really aware of constantly watching the ground, constantly watching where I'm putting my hands, my feet, anything. You just stay vigilant. Yeah.

Can you answer for me while we're on the subject? Why in Sonora hunting coos do you, why do you just not see rattlesnakes? So we've seen a few in 26 years. So I don't want to say you don't. But there becomes a point in time when it's cold enough at night that most of them den up. Because it's below freezing every night. Yeah. Interesting.

We have a ranch in Chihuahua that we've hunted three years in a row now, and we found a snake den and it's right up against this cliff face and where you kind of have to walk to get up on top to glass, you got it the way the angle of the hill is, you actually have to get really close, like from here to the wall of this den. And the first year the guys found it, you know, they came back that night and they were like, yeah, we were, you know, walking along this cliff face and we heard one rattle. And then we started looking in and it was just full of snakes. And then one of my guides, Nate, actually got down on all fours and was looking in the hole. And one of the other guides said, Nate, don't move. And in the grass, he was kind of down on all fours looking in. I mean,

it's pretty cool. I saw it this year. There was a snake coiled right next to his left hand and probably 15 inches from his face. Really? But it was cold. So he just kind of backed away. Um, but they will get on those south facing slopes in their dens. And sometimes when it warms up, they will just kind of ease out a little bit to, to get the warmth. Soak it up a little bit.

Um, but the reason you don't see them is primarily they're dinned up. Yeah. When we were hunting in New Mexico. Was he scared? No, I. In Mexico? No, it didn't bother me, but on the New Mexico primarily they're dined up yeah when we were hunting in new mexico no i i in no no no it didn't bother me but on the new mexico salmon our producer about got it yeah what was funny is there was for whatever reason like a great abundance of grasshoppers you know when they jump oh yeah

so but you got hundreds of them oh yeah so it's a constant noise of grasshoppers. And we're walking along and all of a sudden there's like a different cadence. And I don't even think Sam put it together. No. But I heard like, that ain't grasshoppers. And she had walked, yeah, very, very close. It doesn't matter what time of year it is for me when you step on like dead grass or something and you hear that noise, you know, when you get scared enough, like initially you literally feel like your heart, you're like, I

just lost 20 minutes off my life. Yeah. Yeah. When I still hear grasshoppers click or, or leaves or branches that just have that sound of, I've been in around enough snakes that it's, it's, you know, I'm convinced I've probably taken a month off my life when you add up all

the times that it wasn't a snake, but I thought it was. You've used up a whole lot of heartbeats. You've never been hit? No. Never been struck? No. Oh, here's a question that came in. Thermal imaging.

We discussed thermal imaging on a recent podcast. Like Utah banned thermal imaging, thermal night vision, which is really like taking over the coyote. It's like firmly ingrained into hog hunting. It's really impacting coyote hunting. Utah banned it because I know that people are using it to scout, right? You can follow a herd all night long. And he's asking like like what about game recovery in my view uh i don't understand the i don't really understand the reasoning behind

let's take away the enforcement aspect okay like meaning this let's say a state like utah says okay no thermal imaging um and they just say you just can't use thermal night vision equipment. It's probably because then it winds up being that you have no reason to have it with you and if you were allowed to use it for game recovery then you'd be like, oh no, I just have it for game recovery and it just makes enforcement hard. So if you never mind that complexity,

I don't see the reason, I don't see any reason to do anything that makes, any rules that make game recovery harder. I think the laws that mean you that say you can't use a leashed dog for game recovery is stupid. It's already hit like, let the person find it. I think the, is this going to, uh, make that small fraction of the hunting population

take a poorer shot, try to force an opportunity that isn't really there because they know they are, their confidence lies in their game recovery technology oh like my dog will find it my dog will find you just got to get a piece of it yep get you know something yeah um and so i was kind of do you think that do you think that that would happen yeah absolutely i mean but you know what is the Venn diagram of the overlap of the folks who don't even buy a license or a tag and are out there hunting with the folks who are like, just hack away at it. We got thermal imaging in the truck. We'll find it.

Right. But here's the thing, too. A dog, if you're using a blood tracking dog and it's on a leash. Yep. Or you're using thermal imaging i think it must be dead well okay with the leash dog well no you're right because it could be holed up under a tree yeah and you could jump it back up again yeah and then that yeah i get it i know i've opened up a can of worms yeah i understand it if there was like a magical box that, you know, it was like break glass in case of, right?

I'd be like, yeah, have your thermal imaging in there, your blood trailing dog, your, you know, whatever. Drone in the sky. Like, cause I don't like the idea of wasted meat or, animal that's going to suffer needlessly or whatever. So it's a tough one. Wasn't that the argument against Illuminox? It was like you were going to hunt too late in the night. And I think you just kind of – And other people were like, well, no, it just helps with recovery.

Right. So it's just kind of like a slippery slope that – I agree, man. I think if you're just using it for recovery – Let's say people were totally honest and not dumb. Right. I agree, man. I think if you're just using it for recovery, like. Let's say people were totally honest. Right. And not dumb. Right.

Then I would say. The other side is too, man, with like thermal imaging, the investment level you have to go to, to then go break the law. You know, like you just got to imagine. It's not like throwing, you know, a spotlight in your backpack and you're like, oh, I'm just going to go night hunting now. It's like that level of investment that's required around thermal imaging, I just don't see those folks wanting to go out there and then try to find something in the dark and shoot it. I think too, there's a thing where people that don't understand a technology are always sort of, it'd be like this. Let's say someone's sitting in Colorado and they're going to sign a thing that says you can't hunt lions with dogs. And their mind like, what's a challenge? You know, they just don't understand that the challenge is incredible.

Right. It's like, if you want to talk about what's the challenge, it's a lot harder than shooting a deer out of a cornfield. Yep. If everything's like, what's the challenge? Like that's extraordinary. what's the challenge? That's extraordinary. It's extremely challenging.

You have to know a lot to pull that off. But I think that people look at technologies that they don't understand that are also like, they just imagine it being like this, they imagine being like, it just simplifies everything. But we had the experience where we got some renter, loaner night vision equipment from this place called Ultimate Night Vision to mess around with it. And dude, it's not like you just walk out and all of a sudden you're like oh aha right you know we were blowing a predator call at night that stuff there's a learning curve and

it's it's not that all of a sudden like the world becomes easy right you kind of we're sitting there i don't know is it an orangutan right you just see a little dog no it's a little baby mouse five feet from me it's either like a it's either a deer way dog no it's a little baby mouse five feet from me it's either like a it's either a deer way out or it's a little baby mouse yeah nibbling on my toe i can't tell yeah because i'm divorced from all spatial yeah you don't have any spatial this uh this guy came and visited me uh javier for with wounded warrior outdoors and we went out with that thermal going after coyotes and and he's like oh Gary he's like we got a coyote coming in it's coming into the call and he's

getting all amped and I'm like I just do not because I was looking through thermal like I do not see this coyote and I'm like you sure he's like yeah I can see it zigzagging to us I'm like god dang you know so I just like all I can see is that baboon well so I like I pull my eye out of the scope right because we're like right next to each other. And I look and his AR is pointed like, I'm not kidding you, like 15 feet in front of him. And he's looking down and I look and it was a mouse and he's watching this mouse run back and forth. Right. But like that spatial awareness, cause he couldn't see the terrain, you know, and the stubble field looked like hills to him. That was a coyote running in and it was a mouse at like 15 feet.

It's, it's, you know, I mean, not even to say like what anyone ought to do about them. I'm just saying, you sort of get in your head that, that there's certain things that do, that have certain magical capabilities.

And then you mess with it. And you're like, I'm guessing you could get there. Like if you're in the military and you train for years and years and years using this stuff, you probably get really, then you're probably like, it does become magical, but just to open up a box and throw those things stuff, you probably get really, then you probably like, it does become magical.

But just to open up a box and throw those things on. Right. Or look through a scope, you're like more confused than you would be wandering around in the dark. Yeah. You know, at first. I do want to say like in, uh, to Garrett's, uh, point about the investment, like how many people that, uh, would weed out, weed out from wrongdoing. I was interviewing a game warden years ago and he had told me, he's like, you know, I don't care that much about the fines. He's like, I don't go for big fines.

It's like, what I go for is stuff. He's like, I seize the toys. That's where you hurt people. He's like, that's go for is stuff. He's like, I seize the toys. That's where you hurt people. He's like, that's how you hurt these guys. He's like, custom rifles. He's like, these folks have a laundry list of fines and things that they're already not paying. Child support that they're already not paying. He's like, but you want to see somebody have a come to Jesus moment.

He's like, you seize that custom rifle that they're so proud of. Or his $5,000 thermal scope. Right. Um, and Paul, do you have, uh, you got any insight into that at all? Yeah. No, yeah, definitely. We, we saw that where it was, uh, like you said that typically the folks who are out doing that are exactly that. They're already not paying the fines.

They're already not doing any of that stuff. And yeah, it's the physical possessions that they're worried about losing. And I'd use thermals and night vision, both in law enforcement, and I have to agree 100%. That's why the Navy SEALs have the four tube goggles versus a monocular that you're going to see

on the civilian market. For depth perception. perception, depth perception. And it's, it's tough. You have a hard time, you know, it takes a lot of practice shooting with that stuff. And, um, yeah, it's just a whole different world, but I agree as well that the, like, like you said before that the, um, there are a small number of people out there who, if they have it with them, if they had that break glass in case of emergency situation, that would be great. But there's often a lot of people out there that are going to be, well, I brought it for this, but it's going to help me find it. So I'm just going to use it now and then tell them I didn't, you know. Yeah. Tell them I brought it with me for the other stuff.

Yeah. For sure. I'll tell you one application for me for thermal imaging, which I've never used, but all my buddies were thinking, oh, you could find a big bull or a big buck or whatever. I thought about turkeys roosted in a tree. Oh. Being a turkey hunter, how many times do you roost birds at night, but you don't know exactly where they're at?

You go in in the morning and you're like, do I shock them and wake them up? And then I got to move a little closer and then they might hear me, see me, whatever. And the application I thought of would be like, I know they're pretty close. Oh, there they are. Okay. I need to move up a little bit closer.

You don't have to make any noise. Then you can just let them wake up and do their thing. Well, not only that, man, go at one in the morning. Because even if you kind of. Well, if you didn't have them roosted., man. Go at one in the morning. Because even if you kind of. Well, if you didn't have them roosted. No, find them at one in the morning and make a

waypoint. Because even if you made them a little nervous at four in the morning, five in the morning, they'll be like all settled back down. It'll be like whatever happened, happened. But when the thermal imaging thing over the last couple of years has gotten big and everyone's talking about big bucks, I'm thinking about

turkeys. I'm like, what an awesome opportunity to just be able to know exactly where they're at because I'm always in the morning going, God, I don't really want to shock them because then I wake them up. Okay, let me ask you this now. Yeah.

Would you do it? I don't know. Right, because here's the question and this is like the basis of this, right? Is the gobbler you got that way as good as. On a purity schedule. The same gobbler that you made the wrong call to shock. Sure.

You had to move. They got nervous. They went the other way. And you had to come back the next morning. Sure. Screwed up again. But the third morning you got them. I think, I think I've screwed up so much that I might, if it was legal, I don't know if it actually is,

but I think I might do it to just be able to be in position, know that I'm set up to have an interaction. I don't know. There you go. But I thought of turkeys. Everyone else is thinking of big bucks. I'm thinking of turkeys. Yeah, it's a real, there's a Pandora big box i'm thinking turkeys yeah it's a it's a real um there's a pandora's box man oh yeah hiding in that thermoscope box yeah uh would you here's

a guy wrote in it's a good one i don't really get this did you read this cal a guy's saying that um what state is this in central virgin Virginia. There's a guy raising non, okay. He has a local, oh my God. It's so confusing to me. There's a new animal product being offered by a farm in my area. He goes on to say, in a partnership with another farm that is committed to sustainable ag practices. One of my local producers is offering local non-GMO. That's like, okay, but no, I guess that doesn't, yeah, there's no such thing as a GMO rainbow trout available to anyone,

but they could be fed non-GMO corn, I suppose. So he's offering local non-gmo no antibiotic rainbow trout raised in low capacity pens in a river they're feeding them on wild venison how is that true the trout feed is described as not the normal GMO grains and antibiotics in a dirty, tight capacity system. This is still quoting. They have a 100% survival rate, which goes to show what a great setup it is for the fish. This is some of the only ethically raised fish in the country. That's okay. Feeding the venison is a double win as it

thins the overpopulation of deer and gives the rainbow trout an excellent non-GMO food. First off, wild deer are not non-GMO, especially in Virginia, because they're eating in GMO fields probably every night. But what are they talking about? It could be that these are roadkill would be my, that would be the easy answer.

So then it's the cars are thinning the population. It's the cars that are thinning the population. Or you got to keep in mind like the big, sorry, I want to use the word battle, but it happens on a lot of the national monuments over there that are battlefields where you have these crazy spikes and white tail populations they're getting them from sharpshooters who are like doing contract work could be some of that um so that would be like the sourcing part but the question of like would you eat that eats this that's surprising

is like yeah of course because you have no idea what a wild turkey has consumed. On its path to you. To see a whitetail deer in Virginia's non-GMO is just not true. It's just not, not true. Yeah. Um, the, and you know, like what, what a

beef or pig or a chicken eats before it gets to your plate. Like, I think you'd get surprised on what. At least that's a closed system. I mean, you can, you can tell what, you know, you can control what it is. There's a question in there of like, would you eat rainbow trout that eat deer?

That was his main question. It's like a wild, uh, rainbow, uh, anywhere in the country, a wild brown trout, a cutthroat, they're all eating their normal things. And then they're trying out some odd things. Um, and you have no clue what you're going to find in that stomach really. Like for instance, like the burbot that I caught last year and was, I always do a little stomach contents check. And, you know, it's like, I have a pretty good idea what they eat, but this guy's gut had

several rounds of what, without testing, is a wild guess, but I would describe as cheddar brat elk sausage. It had a distinct look of wild game. And I think you could attract it back to a local processor. I mean, I'd much rather eat a fish that ate deer than like worms.

Like the deer seems like a lot better option. Well, that's a great point. In and of itself, if someone told me that there's a great fish and it eats deer, I wouldn't care. I just like, I guess I'm not able to really focus in on his question i'm more the details like leave me a lot of questions he even goes in to say i'll keep the names of the farm operations out of this email here's a good one we're getting around it we're gonna get we're getting into coos during a minute

here here's another one they got a new uh everybody uh, everybody knows like the, the COVID vaccine was an MRNA vaccine. Um, man, these guys at Yale got one worked out for Lyme disease. Yeah. Which is fascinating because it doesn't, uh, let me, let me put it to this way. The mRNA vaccine targets the antigens found in tick saliva and alerts individuals to tick bites by triggering an immune response at the site of the bite. The vaccine also prevents the tick from feeding correctly, so it will quickly fall off the host, thereby reducing its ability to transmit pathogens and providing partial protection against the tick causing bacteria. Hmm. Which is, is, I mean, I'd, I'd sign up for that.

I mean, I'm thinking right now about turkeys and was talking to a friend of mine in Tennessee about going to get turkeys. And I mean, you, you just get covered in ticks and they're the tiny one you know i wonder if this will become highly politicized well no one's going to come and tell you you have to get it so it might not become politicized if it's just like a thing if you want it go get it it probably won't be political yeah if someone says by god by Monday. It's a creepy deal, man. I, I, man, I, yeah, the tick experience I had with Lyme's disease and, you know, the journey

that you went through as well, Steve, like, that's scary stuff, man. I don't. For our next close calls, for our next close calls series, I'm going to tell the tick story. That's a good one. I'm going to have Jimmy sit in on it too. Me and my boy are going to tell our Lyme disease story.

Oh, the heartbreaking. Yeah, we haven't done it yet, but I'm looking forward to telling it. Yeah. Close Call. Here's one for you, Jay. Speaking of being blind, going blind. No, seriously. So we cover a lot of, in the Close Call series, we talk about this too.

We cover a lot of situations where hunters mistakenly identify a hunter for game. Okay. Shoot people. Shooting other hunters in an accident. An eye doctor writes in. He's got a very interesting point that I hadn't considered in all these discussions we've had um he says as an optometrist i'm curious as to what type of vision the hunters have that mistakenly shot another hunter thinking they were some big game animal i'm stereotyping here this is him the eye doctor talking. I'm stereotyping here, but slightly far-sighted middle-aged males, 40 to 55 years of age, which middle-aged males that age, that's a lot of hunters, right?

Most of them probably. That have never worn glasses before eventually lose their distance clarity in the same age as mentioned before. And most of the time, they say they see just fine. But he goes on to say, not according to my visual acuity charts. I wonder if they see a blurry mammalian blob because they see quote just fine and decide to shoot. Sometimes putting a new pair of distance prescription glasses on a dude that thinks they can see

is like putting distance prescription on a kid who truly has never seen clearly before. They're like, wow. So he goes on to say, if you're a hunter, maybe there is cause for you to now and then get your eye exam. And it could be someone who's spent their whole life thinking they see everything just great. And it's the, the decline is so gradual that pretty soon they see a movement and they feel like,

well, how would I make that mistake? But they're just not seeing the way they were seeing. I am that guy. Five years ago, 10 years ago. And you're not meaning to do anything wrong but you think you have capabilities you don't

this year in the fall at the Otzix Ranch, Hunter, we were actually driving to a spot and some elk ran out and he goes, check out that bull and I could tell it was a bull just because of his body and I could tell it was a bull he's like, he's got a little kicker

without popping up my bin He's like, he's got a little kicker. Without popping up my binos, I mean, he's 26 years old and can see it like that at 250, 300 yards. And I used to be able to. I just saw an elk, could tell it was a bull, but I had to pop my binos up to even see what he was talking about. To me, that was kind of the straw of like, hey, I need to go get surgery. Yeah. And now it's amazing how driving, you know, I mean, I'm even thinking like this summer, like rowing my raft and stuff, how blurry I was

actually seeing, not being able to see, you know. Like you're starting to realize. What I was missing. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And it was just kind of a blurry blob. You can still see it, but you can't define it.

Does that make sense? Sure. I'm curious though, with these accidents, if it's a, like, do you imagine that this guy was like looking at it and was like, oh, I can't really tell what it is. I'm going to shoot. And it was like this calm or like, is it a sight issue or a judgment excitement issue? But let's play, let's play the optometrist. He's not saying.

He doesn't know for sure. He's just saying it's a thing to wonder about. But let's like take that as a thing. It would be that you've hunted your whole life and you've learned to like really trust your vision, but you don't realize that it's gone down and you're operating on a cockiness that came from, that you developed over years of seeing very well. I think it's a reasonable thing to bring up.

But I think it goes back to, I mean, everyone needs to pull up their binos and do a check and say, what am I shooting at? And what's behind it? And I am not in any way excusing shooting people. I feel this guy's got like a couple open slots in his like his schedule and he's trying to film let's let's i can't fathom even if my eyesight it was going bad how you would ever get to the point of let's just say, let's take people out of it, a black bear versus an elk, both walk on four feet. Like, how do you ever get to the point where you mistakenly, to me, that means you're replacing

an entire animal color characteristics. You've made the decision to pull the trigger on what you think's behind the shoulder. Like, I'm not buying it. We had a big- No, what do you mean? There's nothing not to buy. No, I'm just saying that I don't think that would ever be even maybe the tenth factor. You don't think in all the cases where a hunter has shot another hunter,

you don't think that poor vision might have something to do with some of it? I think it could start it, but at the end of it, there's got to be a judgment factor. At the end of everything, there's a to be a judgment factor. I mean, at the end of everything, there's a judgment. I mean, I'm not excusing it. No, I'm saying similar to Jay's example where he right off the bat, he was off, but then there's the progression. There's that decision tree where you're going to get a better look. You're going to figure out if that's the animal you want to shoot.

Where are you going to shoot it? Like there's like seven more stops. Like the initial eyesight might've got you going down the wrong track, but. Yeah, no, I'm with you. Yeah. I would say every i would say you might you might have been like oh oh here's something yeah but then there's like six things that need to happen and you somehow skipped them all yeah that's when someone shoots a person hunting i'm always like hold on so you thought you were aiming behind its front shoulder yeah or wherever like you'd picked your spot i would argue though that almost every single accident involved someone shooting without pulling up their binos to check what they're shooting at.

Are you with me on that? Yeah. No, you know what? So if they would just take the time and pull up their binos, I think it would eliminate every, almost every, what would it be? False shooting. That'd be interesting thing to look at is if you could have a, if you could have sat down and done like exhaustive interviews with everyone who's done a mistaken identity shooting, would you ever find someone who would say like, oh no, no, I even put my spotting scope on it? No way. Yeah.

No. Right. I mean, and I think a lot of these cases come out of areas where there's not a lot of bino use period, right? They don't even have binos. Thick brush. Yeah, a lot of thick brush and period, right? They don't even have binos. Thick brush. Yeah, a lot of thick brush and quick decisions. It's kind of a sight shot. You know, you hear something and you're so

amped to get something. Well, the turkey accidents, right? Yeah. It's like, that's a perfect example. Like the highly advertised incident in Colorado this year, you know, open site muzzle loaders. So they're just, you know, optics are probably never being brought into the situation.

Did you hear the episode we did with the turkey guy that got shot turkey hunting twice? No. In the same place? What? Yeah. And had two. Wait, he got shot? Preston Pittman.

Yeah. He's been shot twice turkey hunting. He's a great guy, by the way. In the same place, or like in the same spot, hunting spot, and had two very different attitudes from the shooters one shooter was uh so distraught and apologetic that he quit hunting and preston pitman had to gradually get him back into hunting and the other guy was mad at preston well preston sounds exactly like a turkey so he probably called him right in he was blaming the guy that shot him was blaming him.

That he was so good. Well, you shouldn't, uh, you know, you're kind of like, well, hold on a minute. So, so it's my fault that you just shot me with a shotgun. That is one thing that I always tell people. Like if you're calling, no matter what animal it is, and you start hearing other hunters come your way, a lot of guys think it's fun to call in other hunters. You know, like, oh, I called, I called Jay Scott in, you know, or I called Phelps in.

Like they would, it would be like, oh, look what I did. I always say, listen, if you start hearing other hunters call back to you, like I would not be the first one to just jump up and say, hey, hunter. Like it's not worth. Calling them in nice and close. And getting shot. Yeah.

Like, don't mess with it. Yeah, you don't wait until he's trying to pluck you. Right. Oh, yeah. One number nine shot TSS to the eyeball. Yeah, no thanks. Changes things a lot.

Abernathy. I can't remember what shot size he was saying he shouldn't be able to use. It's so funny because Robert Abernathy, I can't remember what shot size he was saying he shouldn't be able to use. It's so funny because Robert Abernathy's like, maybe someone had fives. I don't know what the hell he had. He's like, man, I don't think you should be able to use those. That hurts. I said, what are you talking about?

Because he'd been shot. He'd been shot by someone using that. He doesn't think it's a good turkey load. He put, I think i told this did i tell the story about him he put his he was sitting there listening to a bird calling listening to a goblin just trying to think about where it was and how he's gonna get over there and he puts his foot up on a stump bam guy shoots him in the leg. In conversation with the shooter, the shooter explained, when you put your foot on that stump, it looked just like a tom going into full strut.

Unreal. Eye exam. Eye exam. And you can get all sorts of Abernathy fix on season 10 of Meat Eater. That was great. One in a million. I don't want to say he's the best guy on the planet because Jeremy Romero, but he's close.

Wonderful man. Wonderful man. Love the guy. An American treasure. If you haven't seen season 10, it's live on Netflix right now. Check it out. I put a bunch of work into it.

Cal's in two episodes. I. What percent is two out of five, Phelps? 40. Cal's in 40% of the episodes. Which is, that's a lot. Makes it sound like a lot. Bald, white little head.

Yeah, look like a shelled turtle out there. So you can see that. A bunch of other awesome stuff. And can we say that we're in the midst of working hard on new episodes. New episodes. Which would be not season 10, part 3, but season 11. TBD. TBD. TBD.

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. Eflin sweepstakes law. It makes it that they can't join our Northern brothers. You're irritated. Well,

if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there on X is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on X are available for your hunts. This season, the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right.

We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites

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OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Here's how we're going to start talking about Coos Deer. You're hip to the fact that that that the esteemed biologist james heffelfinger has once and for all put to rest not what the deer is called but like how that man pronounced his name i've heard rumor yeah um did you know that our our mutual acquaintance chris denham I think has now said he's going to switch?

To cows? Yeah. I'll never do it. I would tell you that I don't know anyone that uses cows, dear, other than Jim Heffelfinger. Well, now Chris Denham, supposedly. I know Chris. Did you see his little stickers? I was going to give you one.

I did. You actually sent me one. Oh, I did? Okay. Or one or one of your team yeah kylie sent it to you awesome uh yeah butcher the deer and not the name yeah cows yeah but you're gonna keep calling them coos deer oh yeah for sure me too do you think that there's um do you feel that you're the most uh you gotta be you got to be. You have to be the most experienced coos deer hunter on the planet. I don't think so. Who would be more?

I don't know. Who would be more? I mean, there's lots of guys that have more days in the field than I do probably. You think so? Yeah. I mean, I have a lot, but I don't. I bet you there's no one that's seen more than you. I mean, I've definitely lot, but I don't. I bet you there's no one that's seen more than you. I mean, I've definitely seen a lot for sure. Don't think about it seriously for a second.

26 years, seen a lot. Don't be modest, but think about it seriously for a second. Who can you think of that might've seen more than you through a pair of binoculars? Well, I think one of the benefits that I do have is I go to Mexico and have for 26 years. And so your opportunity of getting to see a lot of bucks is big. I had one of my guides actually asked me, he's like, how many bucks do you think you've seen in your life? And I was like, never even thought of it.

And he's like, well, you've been going to Mexico for 26 years. How many do you see in a year? And I was like, probably a hundred at least. He's like, that's 2,600 bucks. I'd never thought of it. But I, you know, it's hard to believe I'll be 49 this month. You know, that aspect alone, it's hard to believe I've been doing it for 26 years. You know, it feels like it, you know, I'm as fired up today about Coos Deer as I was the first day I went out.

Yeah. I'm as fired up today about coos deer as I was the first day I went out. There's nothing in me that has waned with coos deer. I'm as excited to go. I'm as fired up to go. When I see big deer, I get as excited as I first did. Did you know, Phelps, what age was it that you were going to allow yourself to shoot a whitetail? I was going to start whitetail hunting at the age of 70. So as much hunting as this guy's done, which is like a lot, he had never ever shot a, well, until this year, had never shot a duck. Had never shot a whitetail because he's so committed to elk and mule deer.

Is that any type of whitetail? No, I was reserving that for the North American whitetail. So I, I, the, the Coos deer. But now he broke. Like how old are you? 38. Yeah.

So you've missed it by 32 years. But I feel like even though these just carry the name of whitetail, the hunting can't be considered whitetail hunting. So you don't regret having gotten one? Oh, not at all. Like I was telling jay before the podcast like i'm trying to figure out how to go again next year yeah he was asking

a lot of questions about your outfit jay because someone said something yeah and he said something like jay says if you really want to go see some coos you you got to go like you know eight miles south of the border and we're like no we're fine with our place. Like we're going to stick to our place till the day we die. And Jason perked right up. He's like, so where now? Yeah. So you don't regret going and doing it? No, not one bit.

Breaking your whitetail streak. It was extremely fun hunt. Like one of the best deer hunts I've ever been on. Yeah. What is it? Why is it so fun, man? It's hard to figure out why it's so damn fun. I was trying to put it all together.

I don't know if it's like the, I was telling Jay again before, like the combination of you're seeing just enough deer. I mean, it's still hard. These things are hard to spot even when you know they're in your, your optics. You're seeing enough bucks. You know, it's almost seems like it's a one to

one buck to doe ratio. So you're not just like glassing up 80 does a day to see two bucks. So it's like a good balance. They're just sneaky and, you know, do coos deer stuff enough to get away from you time and time again. So when you do spot them, it's not a guarantee. And it's just that combination of you're probably going to find success. It's just how it's all going to come together, which is kind of like the perfect mix.

And then, you know, as Jay mentioned earlier, it's just that off-grid feel of it. You know, you got the cowboys running around and, you know, doing, you know, they basically work to live. And it was just, I don't know, just something cool about it. Just, you know, kind of untouched country, it seems like. Yeah, it is. It's one of, kind of like my favorite thing now is hunting youth deer season, which is two days long.

I love hunting youth deer season with my kids. But it's not like a seasonal highlight. You just get so lost mentally. There's enough going on. I've talked about this a bunch of times before, but for me, I have the most fun when something's detailed enough and hard enough. You don't have other things to think about and once you get up and get going on the day there's enough just like excitement and things happening and um like visual stimuli and this feeling of being like in another land that until you're until you go to bed till you climb in your sleeping bag at night it's like i don't think

about anything what i'm doing i just think about what I'm doing. I mean, we might have like a few laughs, you know, throughout the day, which is just part of it. But for the most part, you're just, it's like this kind of time just to really take whatever, seven, eight days and just focus on something. I think one of the things too, it's like you said, such a visual aspect with the glassing. And, you know, we glass everything we hunt up here and, you know, the, the lower 48, but when you get to Mexico and when you're specifically hunting coos deer, it's so glassing intensive. Um, and, and you can have a big buck and he's rutting a doe and you can have them right in the center of your binos and you can literally start, look away for a

second, open your pack to get your spotting scope out and go back in your binos and you can literally start, look away for a second, open your pack to get your spotting scope out and go back in your binos and you're like, they're gone. For the rest of the day. Where did they go? Where are they? What? I just looked away for a second.

Then sometimes they're right there. Yeah. They never moved. So you just looked for, you looked away, you look back in and you say they're gone. Then you keep looking, keep looking and they're in the exact same spot. Okay.

Yeah. Then there's times when you do the same thing and you look and they are gone. And I think to me, that's what makes coos deer so exciting is the fact that, you know, when a bull elk is standing there at, you know, 1200 yards and he's in your binos and you look away for your spotting scale, most of the time, as soon as you pop back in, he's right there. Yeah.

The coos deer could literally be standing with his face, you know, turned this way and rack shining in the sun and you're clearly focused. You look away for a second, back in, and it's like, you really have to look and he's not changed his pose at all i had something very similar we were i was walking to meet up with yanni and i was kind of done glass and a point um and i look and naked eye one it's it's 220 yards away i see with my naked eye and it's and i mark it because it's right i just in my head i just realized it's at the sun line the sun's coming up and it's at that line of like shade meets sun on a hillside i see with my naked eye i put my binoculars up and i register enough to be like oh it's a buck and i go to sit down so i get a more stable look and then i'm like that's some bitch snuck away and i knew where he was because he's on the shade line and i looked and looked and i'm starting to

try to look to see where he might have gone. And I go back and I realized, like you're saying, he hadn't moved. He's in the exact same position, in the exact same shade line, and just like. And to me, that's the intrigue. Yeah. That's what really gets it for me.

And then big deer too. You know, when you are fortunate to get big deer in your hands, to me, they're so unique. Every rack is different, and you, when you are fortunate to get big deer in your hands, to me, they're so unique. Every rack is different. And that's what I like about them. You know, there's really no cookie cutter when you get big ones, there's really no cookie cutter racks. They're all different. They all are shaped different. You know, some are wide, some are tall, heavy, thin, whatever it may be, extra eye guards. But when you start getting big, mature coos deer, to me, that's just like the icing on the cake.

Yeah. It's a cool critter, man. Yeah, it is. What was your take on it, Garrett? I mean, you've hunted whitetails. Yeah. I feel like, but I wouldn't even say that it was whitetail hunting.

Like it just, it felt like a cross between whitetail and mule deer and then like this element of black bear hunting where you're like sitting and watching these fingers and waiting for like the sun to come around i think what i liked about it was you knew there was like you come to a face and you know there's deer on this face there's enough deer where you know there's going to be deer on this face somewhere you just have find them. And so it's like the most intense glassing session I've ever had in my life because it's like, you know, it's there.

Like, or you can even watch it walk into a little brush patch and you know, there's a deer there. And now you just got to spend your morning or all day in Paul's case, all fricking day in one spot, looking at this like brush line, waiting to see the like little tiny, I mean, they're like how many pounds?

100 pounds. 100 pounds. So it's like painting your dog kind of brownish gray and then trying to find them in the woods. You know, it's like. And I think to add to that too is like when they go into that brush pile, you don't know if they went in there and they bedded down or they

went in there, they're going to squirt back out. And then you're watching the brush pile and you may watch it for an hour and you're like, and then all of a sudden, like 30 yards to the left, you're like, I've been watching the whole time and somehow that sucker squirted out from there over to here. And I've literally been watching and now he's

just standing there in the wide open. Yep. You know what I mean? Yep. The buck, the buck I got this year, uh, Phelps saw it, saw it go down into this little timbered hole. Rutting a doe or just. Yeah. He pushed, well, Phelps saw it, saw it go down into this little timbered hole. Rutting a doe or just?

Yeah, he pushed. Well, he wasn't super interested, but just kind of followed her off. We surrounded the area. And I was even telling Yanni, I'm like, there's no way, if I'm sitting here, there's no way he's going to come east. And we're kind of watching. Yanni got where there's no way he's going west. I got there's no way he's going east. Both of us are going to see it if he goes to the north or no both would see if he went to the south

and there's one little like potential out the north always the back door yeah and we sit there all morning and i just happened to at one point look over and be like well he got out of the trap i mean i still got him but it was like and way out of the trap yeah he was way out of the trap. I mean, I still got him, but it was like, and way out of the trap. Yeah. He was way out of the trap, but standing there in plain sight. To me, over any other animal that I hunt, they have a way of like, we call it going in the tunnel system.

Like we're all sitting around, like you guys were watching for that buck and somehow he slipped out of there. And it's not like you're farting around, you know, digging around in the pack or you're doing whatever, everybody's looking. And then all of a sudden someone's like, Hey, I got him.

He's way over here. And you're thinking, how in the world did that even happen? To me, they're the only animal that I hunt that kind of have that element of like, they're small enough and they're wary enough that they just do that. I was really nervous going into this.

Cause I don't have patience typically when I'm hunting. I, you know, I'm like because I don't have patience typically when I'm hunting. I, you know, I'm like, I don't see anything. Let's go see what's over the next ridge. And I didn't think I could sit there that long, but these quickly proved that you could sit there and just, you were always expecting to find something, you know, it might take all day, but

you just, it kept your hopes up, I think all day, just sitting there, like you'd glass the same tree, the same bush, the same shadow all day long, not see anything. And then all of a sudden there's one standing in the middle that you have no idea how it got there. Garrett made a comment. He's like, I don't want it to be, I don't need it to help me. But I would like when I finished glassing a spot and I won't take any action, I would like a way to know how many were there. Right.

Did I cover it? He's like, I'm not going to go back. I'm not going to exploit the information. But I would like, when I'm all done, I would like someone to tell me, Garrett, you missed eight bucks laying on that hillside. Which might be just maddening too. Just to know what you're missing.

I think one of the things too with Kuznir that gets me so fired up is kind of the strategy and tactical standpoint of like, if you can consistently be looking in the places where those deer are the most, you're going to see more. It sounds real elementary, but I have to be constantly, you know, on my podcast and Instagram, I'm answering a lot of questions. And that is you want to use the sun in the morning at your back. So you're using that sun to brighten and illuminate the hillsides because they pop. Yeah. But then you want to reverse that, okay, as the sun is, you know, getting till midday and afternoon,

you want to be focused with the sun in your face, looking in the shade. And if you can focus your afternoon glassing, a lot of people like to use the same thing and let the sun shine in the afternoon. Well, they are looking where 10% of the deer are. The other 90% are on the other side of the aspect of the hill.

They're on the shady side of the hill. Really? Absolutely. In the evening. So you of the aspect of the hill. They're on the shady side of the hill. Really? Absolutely. In the evening. So you want to be in the evening. I didn't know because I, if I had, if I, I usually try to make a move to get where I'm looking at the illuminated stuff in the evening. No. So if you do the opposite, I bet you'll see 50, 60% more deer than what you saw the night

before. You're late. You're waiting for them to come out of the shade. So I, in the afternoon, I am, I, when I get to a property or I get to a new place where I'm hunting coos deer, I say, where is the most predominant afternoon shade? 365 days a year, which hillsides give those deer the most shade? Why do they want the most shade? Cause it's most, you know, you're there in January when it's cool, but most of the time in Mexico, it's very hot. So those animals learn to find on all those ranches, the hillsides that give them the coolest spot to lay. So if you focus your attention in the morning with the sun helping you, which ironically, it's the same side of the hill.

So you don't really have to shift much. So that's going to tell you that those deer are going to be on those east facing slopes, those north facing slopes a lot. They come over to the south chase a little bit, but they very rarely will bet on those south facing slopes. They're in the thick brush. And so in the afternoon, when, when I started, you know, helping people try and focus, it would be no different than you, Jason, helping them with an elk tactic. Focus on the shade in the afternoon, you're

going to see way more bucks and you're going to find more mature bucks. Hmm. A hundred percent. I, it's like something I'm adamant about glass into the shade in the afternoon. And I think, I think mule deer hunters could take it too because, um, you know, a lot of the

arid places where mule deer are, they seek shade, you know, elk do too. So in the, in the morning you want to look with the sun and flip around and just seek shade. So down there, like what exposure is it? So you're looking at east facing slopes. Okay. Cause the sun.

So you're generally, you're generally always going to want an east facer. I'm east and north, north, north, excuse me, east, north and northeast facing slopes. You will find more coos deer bucks. The does, I would say frequent the south facing slopes more than the bucks do. So when you do have rutting, you do have those

does on the south facing slopes, bucks will come over, but a lot of times they'll push those does over and find a shade pocket. So if you, if you're looking in the afternoon using the sun to your advantage, you are looking where only 10% of the deer are. Can you explain for everybody how does deer management work in Mexico? And how is deer management just different than the way it works in the United States? Sure. So I don't know the exact percentage, but I would say 98, 99% of property in Mexico is private land. Those private land, most of those ranches are

active and working cattle ranches. In order to register your ranch, you have to get a survey done from a quote unquote wildlife biologist, which would be a Mexican wildlife biologist. Who works for the state. Who works for the state or not sure if it's fed or state. Okay. They come out and they do their surveys at night with a spotlight. They drive down the road and they count eyes. Okay. Then they look at the number of hectares, which is four acres that the property is, and they kind of have a, well, we saw, you know, 42 eyeballs and this amount of time and it's this many hectares. So we'll give you eight packs. And they're very conservative. I would find, would you agree with that? So a general rule of thumb from an outfitter's perspective, if a ranch has 12 tags, I would say it's good to harvest six. If it gets 18, it would be nine.

If it gets six, it would be three. I always like to take. Oh, really? I thought like when you look at the massive size of those places, then you see the number of tags they issue. I'm like, man, they're being pretty conservative. Well, in my opinion, though, so hundred inch bucks and bigger, as you know, you've hunted down there, what, seven, eight years or so. They're hard to find because they're the older,

they're the four, five, six, seven year old deer. Will they, you know, coyotes are after them, lions are after them, poachers are after them. I look at Mexico, in my opinion, when the ranchers get their tags, I always like to cut them in half. If they get 12 tags and they kill 12 deer, in my opinion, two, three, four years, there won't be any four-year-old bucks left. I mean, if you got like high test hunters in there who are looking for big bucks. Right, right. But then you have properties that are high density and low density. And I would say

that the survey method isn't exactly the most scientific counting eyeballs with a spotlight for a couple hours or a couple nights in a row. I don't think you could get a real, I think you could ask a group of like you guys hunted there for seven days. How many deer are on the property? I think you could come closer than someone driving around with a spotlight. Yeah, I got you. But so they register the ranch and then the rancher, the owner of the property is issued those tags. It would be like in some of these states where there are quote unquote landowner tags.

Yep. Then they're free to do what they want with those tags. But when they're cowboys shoot a deer, if they do, there's no way people are putting tags on those deer. And so that's the element from an outfitter's perspective that I always have to manage is are cowboys shooting deer? because there's some ranches that ranchers, uh, maybe haven't had their property, uh, out or registered and gotten their UMA registration. So they don't place a value on those deer. So from an outfitter's perspective, I try and shy away from those properties. If I show up and there's deer legs all over and there's hanging racks all over, that's a really

good indication that, hey, these cowboys are shooting, uh, shooting deer. Completely outside of the system of like. Right. Outside of the tag system. So you've got the tag system and then you've just got, hey, we're going to shoot a deer. Like pot hunting.

The deer that, you know, they just shoot to eat. Yeah. Those obviously don't get tagged, but you have to watch. Um, and I try and look for owners that place value on their wildlife by not letting the cowboys shoot their deer. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then once they see a value in those deer, they really start to understand management more and more. One of the struggles that I have is trying to explain to owners, yes, you get 12 tags, but if we shot 12 deer this year, none of these American guys would want to come back next year because we've basically shot every mature deer on the property. And certainly if you did that for a couple of years, then you would just have two and

three-year-old deer running around. Have you ever heard any ballpark as to how many deer per square mile are down in that country? I haven't. But the thing about Mexico that has always intrigued me, say more than Arizona, other than some of the things we've already talked about is the fact that you tend to see more, as many bucks as you do does.

Yeah. So. We, we marveled about that. Yeah. And that's the part that's so awesome is getting to see bucks. I mean, that's what fires me up. Oh, when you see like, when you're glassing

along and all of a sudden you realize you saw a tail flick. I mean, like, you know. Pretty good chance it's a buck. In your head, you're like, you're already, you're like, oh, probably a buck. Right. And if you hunt in Arizona, you know, you could go and see 50 or 60 does and see three bucks. Well, if you see 50 or 60 deer in Mexico, probably 20 of them, 30 of them are bucks.

That's the difference. So it's, it's almost like a target rich environment. You know, if from an aspect of, I can't wait to see what the next buck I see is, that's what I just love about Mexico. I think that's what makes getting out of the sleeping bag so exciting down there, man, is you're always just like, dude, today can be the day. Yeah. And, and going to, when they're rutting, um, is a, is a really cool thing because I feel like, you know, I spend all September at the Ottsix Ranch watching elk rut. And I've done that for a long, long time. But I feel like getting to watch coos deer truly rutting in their environment is a really neat thing.

When we were down there, guys, we were always like, man, if Jay was here, I'd ask him. What do you guys? I don't want to dominate the whole conversation here. I think the glass and thing was one of them. I feel like we were circling the mountain a lot and probably at the wrong time of the day. Yeah. I had, listen, and it's Jay's fault. Until this moment, he has never, in all the interactions I've had with the man, he's never explicitly told me that.

So you, just remember this.'s never explicitly told me that. So you just remember this. You never explicitly told me that. You want to, whatever. You have cost me a lot of opportunities. I've cost you a lot of big bucks. When you go to a property, whether it's in Mexico or anywhere else, what you want to find is where is the most predominant afternoon shade on this mountain? That's where you start. Day in and day out where if I wanted to get out of the sun, where would I go sit?

That's another way to think of it. In other words, it's hot. Where am I going? Well, if I get on that ridge and sit on that face, that's going to be the shadiest spot on this ranch. That's where you want to go. And then you branch out from there and you always

hit those shade pockets. Now I'm reviewing in the, in the times we've hunted at the place we hunt, I'm reviewing all of our like known buck pockets. I need to go, I need to get on a map and go look and see if they conform. Well, and, and the other thing is I get people, there's always exception to the rule.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's always those thick patch of mesquite or oak that does provide shade that is on a south-facing slope. But they know they can scurry their way up there and they can lay there all day and they can get a nice breeze and they get shade. So I don't want to say that you can't find deer on west-facing slopes or south-facing slopes. I'm not the kind of guy that's like, yeah, but what about, like, I get what you're saying. But I would even tell you in Montana, if you focused your buck hunting on, on shaded afternoon

slopes, you're going to find more mule deer bucks. I got a question. I do know my question. So when we were looking at some of these bigger mountains out there, I found myself, when you go elk hunting, right. And you're looking at this mountain. Usually what I end up doing is I go to the tree line and I look like just below where the tree line is.

And I kept wanting to do that with coos, right. You'd like look at this Rocky point and be like, God, the biggest buck on the ranch has to be right below that Rocky point at the top of the mountain. Is that true? Or are they just like, because of pressure, just all up and down the mountain doesn't matter? I would tell you, I like to go to the top of the mountain and look down. Whereas a lot of people like to go and look up.

I feel like if you're up and looking across or down and across you can the grass is tall so now you can see at the angle you're looking into the grass rather than if the grass is here you're looking up and you've got a very short angle window there when you're up looking down it increases your spectrum of like i guess it's increasing your angle um But as far as like where are big bucks in relation to the top or the middle or the bottom of the hill, I would tell you in Arizona where they're getting pressured, the furthest away from roads you can get, the deep, dark hidey holes or even the top of the mountain where no one's getting, that's where your older age class bucks are going to be. In Mexico, it doesn't really translate because no one's hunting them. You're, you know, so they,

it's not like, oh yeah, six groups have already gone through here. They've killed all the easy stuff. Let's go to the top. But what I like to do is like hour before light, hiking with a flashlight, headlamp, get to the top. I like cone peaks because I can get up there and very quickly, you know, those cone peaks are very rarely like as small as this table. They're more like this room or twice the size of this room. You can bounce there and cover a bunch of

different country from one spot. Like you're glassing the peak you're on. I'm on the peak looking at the other country. So I like to go to cone knob peaks where I can just glass for 30 minutes here, bounce to the other side, glass for 30 minutes, bounce over here to the north side glass and cover. And be on the highest thing around. Highest thing around and cover basically all of the country in a six hour period and look at a ton more country. That makes sense because you can very easily just bop around. It's much like walking a ridgeline where you can look left and look right as you're

going up a ridgeline or down a ridgeline. That gives me twice as much country to look at. Mega glass. I was wondering, yeah, I was wondering on this trip, yeah, there's a place that you had marked for us. Mega glass. That no one's ever glassed from Yeah We always laugh about the place

Called Megaglass That's where That's where I'd go Really? Cause I'm gonna tell you Here's why we laugh About Megaglass so much Is um

It's thick Yeah we're like Whoever Put this there They found it on a topo map Giannis has asked me About Megaglass before For whatever reason That canyon put this there. They found it on a topo map. Giannis has asked me about mega glass before. For whatever reason that canyon where mega glass is,

I just envision a big buck being there. Oh, listen, we hunt the piss out of that area, but we just don't hunt it for mega glass because you'd have to bring some repelling equipment. I want to be on the highest knob that I can get to. Most every time.

Yeah. That'd be maker glass. No, we always laugh up. That's our primary landmark, maker glass. And then it brings in too, big glass too. I like using, you know, 25 power. I've had, you know, I've had basically every pair of big binos that made, you know, 32 power, 40 power. I like using big glass as well.

And there, but I also like glassing through 15s. I also like glassing through 10s, close stuff. But then I also like really reaching out there and, you know, looking into those shaded slopes. I have a question for you, Jay. As far as like, how long do you invest in an area to like dig up a big buck?

You know, like a blacktail, I might hunt the same area for 30 days and never see him again or seen him at night or on a camera. Where it seems like when we did find a buck, we would see him again and again in that area, like heavy eight. You know, the buck that Garrett ended up shooting, like they were bucks that we had seen in that area again. Paul's buck, we seen him there. Yeah, we found him and we're able to find him again. So if I know they're there, I won't leave. If I know there's a big buck there, you know, if someone had seen a big buck, I know that that deer likely is within 500 yards of where someone saw him.

Is that right? Yeah. They run a real, so when they rut, the bucks cover a lot of country. But does pretty much live within an 800. It's proven. Richard Auchenfeld studies. I don't think he's alive anymore, but Arizona Game and Fish, Richard Auchenfeld collared a bunch of deer and studied buck and doe and how they travel. Heffelfinger probably knows all about it. Um, and they say that a, a coos deer doe spends her whole life within an 800 meter circle.

No kidding, man. Yeah. So that, that goes to show like where, where those bucks are, they're going to go find those does, but they're so home bodied and so habitual that like, if, if I knew that there was a big buck in the Canyon, I probably would bounce around and get different angles in the Canyon. But if I know he's there, I'm not leaving. So, all right. So let's flip the question a little

bit. Say you're glass and you feel like you're doing a really good job. You've given it your all, like, are you giving a good bucky looking area, like two days, and then you're going to go find a new area or. Every spot is different and it's kind of a gut thing and you just have to, the worst thing you can do when you're glassing is be second guessing and I do it all the time. You're second guessing, am I wasting my time?

So you have to kind of bridge that gap of like, I have to invest the time and I have to literally know that this deer may only stand up 10 minutes of daylight and I've got to catch him when he's standing up in those 10 minutes. Okay. That's one train of thought. You've got to watch that your mind wanders going, the buck isn't here. You've been looking for three days. I can't tell you how many times that darn I have pounded over a country looking and just covering different angles, looking in

the same spot. And five days later, the buck stands up and he's there the whole time. I think one of the biggest mistakes coos deer hunters make is when they find a big buck, they take their eye off it. That's a whole nother subject, but I always tell people, if you find a big buck, do not for any

reason, take your eye off it. I don't care whether you're using hand signals, whether you're using radios, whatever your comfort of, of communication, whatever you want to do. But if you're trying to kill big bucks, keep your eye. Someone has to watch that deer at all times to, to an extent of like, Dar and I always laugh. I know that if Dar finds a big buck, I know that he's not taking his eye off. If he has to go to the bathroom, it doesn't, if he, he, he will not take his eyes out of those binos on that big buck. And that's how we have been very successful in killing big bucks is that when you hunt with guys that do not take their eye off the deer, the chances of that deer getting away are go way down. If you dig your lunch out of your pack and you get up and you take a leak

and you stretch and he could have just popped over the hill. Now you're looking in a Canyon that all you'd have to do is just know that he popped up 30 yards. You don't even know that because you took your eye off him. I mean, it's, it's, it's not rocket science, but it's, it's funny how I talked to a lot of people and they're like, yeah, I had this big buck and I had him and he was rutting this doe and he

was chasing her all around and I needed to get closer. I said, well, wait a minute. Who was watching it? Who was watching it? He goes, well, I was alone. I said, well, wait a minute. Who was watching it? Who was watching it? He goes, well, I was alone. I said, well, you didn't watch it till it bedded down, till it was hot, till you knew that the deer had a chance to probably lay for at least an hour where then you could

move and get in position. Well, no, it was first thing in the morning. It was first light and he was chasing this doe and he was just a sitting duck. I said, well, yeah, but he's running around chasing a doe and now you don't know where he is. Yeah. So what I try and do is tell people like, watch the buck, keep your eye on them, bed them down, try and stay 30 minutes to make, because a lot of times they'll bed down. They do this all the time. They'll come in, run around, they'll lay down.

15, 20 minutes, they get up and change beds.'ll come in run around they'll lay down 15 20 minutes they get up and change beds they don't like where they're laying so i watch for like 30 minutes yep he's not moving and then i make my move and then one other tip i don't know why i've turned this into like you know jay's tips but no it's great. Always mark the landmark where you saw the buck, the dead oak tree with the limb that points out to the right or the white rock or whatever it may be. Even take your phone out and take a picture. Cause when you cross a Canyon, get up on another

knob, you get over there and it always looks different. Yeah. Always. I think that's a good tip. That's the thing I'm always harping to people about, is it just, you got it in your head that it's like a little peak and there's a ridge coming off it.

And you get over there and it's just not. It changed. You know, the perspective, the angle changed and it looks different. How many times have you got over and you're like, I've been watching this deer for three hours and you're like, where is he? Oh, there's the rock.

It's way down here. I thought it was more of a perspective that it was up here. Well, when I got over on this point, it's now lower. Um, those are all little tricks that, you know, I've just, I've learned so many times the hard way and those deer have gotten away that I kind of have a system that I go about hunting them. I want to get to the biggest, like the thing that comes up most when talking about hunting the border country in Mexico.

Give me your, like, what is your perspective on like the security risk? So, I mean. Like, you can't tell me it's absolutely zero. Oh no, it's not zero. No, I mean. Like, what's, give me your sort of, after all these years, like where you had on it? So I don't think there's anybody in the world that would deny that there's stuff going on within 30, 40, 50 miles of the border on either side that, that would blow our mind. Um, I would argue that, that there's probably worse things going on on the U.S. side because now whatever's going on is really illegal and they're trying to get, whether it be drugs patrol, call FBI, whoever you may police, whatever, whoever you may call.

I feel like in Mexico, it's actually safer because there's designed routes and, and, and things that, you know, those, those people want to push things through. And certainly there, we've all heard stories of ranches where, oh yeah, we had, you know, traffickers just trafficking through. We just don't hunt there. We're not, I'm not going to put me or anybody else in a situation where I knowingly have a situation where things like that are going on. So you'll see activity 30 miles south of the border. So we debated this, like, but what needs to

happen there? Like, I don't understand. There's a lot of staging and there's a lot of different things, travel routes. So, you know, it's not like I'm an expert. I'm just speculating. I've watched Narcos Mexico like everybody else, but you know, they're bringing product in from

other countries and they're bringing it in from other countries and they're bringing it in through the ports. They're bringing it in through boats in the ocean. They're bringing it in, uh, via airplanes and they have to have a place to stage and then they have to have a place to be able to get stuff driven from there to, from point A to

point B. I'm with you. Yeah, I understand. Um, so. I was thinking more like foot traffic, but you mean like, just like, like infrastructure for narco trafficking. Yeah.

And so like the foot traffic, the people crossing thing, I mean, they literally drive them up within 500 feet of the border and they cross. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's a whole nother story. I used to have guys that, that work for me.

I'm, I'm, I'm a real estate investor and constantly kind of improving properties and building stuff. And I've used a lot of guys from Mexico to build all kinds of stuff, incredibly talented, but they would tell me stories like, Hey, uh, it's Christmas time. Uh, we're going to go home for a while. We'll be back in about a month. So when they'd get back, I'd be like, so how was it? Oh, we had to walk like 50 miles. It was fine. Um, you know, then stories of, oh, we had to walk and we ran into some bad guys and they took our shoes.

Hmm. You know, like if you don't use a certain trap or I guess a coyote and you're with someone else or you're on your own, just crossing the border, walking back in, they're going to take your shoes cause you didn't use them. You didn't pay them. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, hear stories like that. But as far as safety, when I'm outfitting the coos deer and the goulds turkey, it's always my number one thing. I want to hunt properties that are not around that kind of stuff. So I try and limit the exposure to that stuff because it does go on. Um, I can tell you in 26 years, like, you know, the stories of like, oh, our group of cars got

stopped by a caravan with guys with machine guns. It's never happened. I've never seen that. Never lost a hunter. I know people, I know people that that's happened too. Yeah. Um, but a lot of it is, you know, taking care of hunting on ranches that that's not going on, hunting in areas where that's not going on.

And then we don't travel at night. We travel within the ranch, locked gates at night, but we make it a point, highways, whatever roads, you just don't travel in Mexico at night. It's a good rule of thumb for safety. Have I done it just don't travel in Mexico at night. It's a good rule of thumb for safety. Have I done it? Sure. I've traveled at night, mostly by myself. Would I do it with people? No. Do I make it a practice too? No. Have I done it? A few times. Yes. We use, when we cross, we, Jay has a network of people he knows, bilingual people he knows and trusts who live on the Mexico side. And when we cross, we use one of Jay's guys who drives, escorts us.

We have a little two or three car caravan. Like this year we had my truck. We had a can-am on a trailer. Which was the first year you guys have brought that. Did you really, it was awesome. Dude, it changed everything. To be able to get around. It changed everything.

Yeah. Yeah. We brought down, I brought down a, I have a four-door K&M side-by-side. You could get everywhere. Changed. Yeah. And I had my, and I had my F-150. And you could do it quickly.

Yeah. I got my F-150. It's got like a, you know, two-inch lift on the front, airbags on the back, good tires, right? We could drive that anywhere, drive the K&M everywhere. We got everywhere we wanted to go. It changed everything than trying to limp around and like rented minivans. Yeah. Changed everything.

Yeah, I mean. We had a great year. We had our best year ever. And we're kind of like, why was it our best year ever? And Jan and me were like, why was it our best year ever? And we're like, the transportation thing has to be a huge factor. Yeah. You guys have been renting, uh, trucks and, and driving around and, and these roads across the board and on these Mexican ranches, because of the monsoon rains, the roads get washed out very, very easily, very, very quickly. Um, pretty much with, you know,

any UTV, any quad, you can get around and kind of rock crawl and do whatever you want to do. When trucks, you're fairly limited. Um, one thing I'll point out and then we can get back to the people that help. Yeah. Yeah. I want to touch on that before we close. Um, is for anybody listening, if you're doing a DIY hunt, uh, that you need to know that you need the truck, the trailer and the UTV all to be in the driver's name. In other words, Steve, you couldn't use your truck and Garrett's quad.

You can't mix ownership. They want to see Steve Rinella, Steve Rinella, Steve Rinella on truck, trailer, and UTV or quad. You can't put Jason's quad on your trailer. It would have to all match your name. You get a vehicle transportation permit when you go a certain distance south of the border. And then there are some quote unquote travel free zones that you don't have to get a permit. But most of my ranches, you have to get a vehicle permit. And that's just something that everyone has to have a passport.

Everyone has to get that transportation permit. Yeah. So we use, when we cross, we use someone to come help us with the paperwork. Yeah. Which doesn't, can be, or doesn't need to be the same person that we use to escort us. I think it's important to have that translator, you know, to have someone that knows the process because right there at the border, you know, you get your gun, you get your transportation permits, you get your gun permits checked at the police. You, you know, you're basically doing all your border stuff. Then you travel about a mile away to the military

where then that person helps you get your guns crossed at the military. And a long time ago, I figured out that it made crossings a lot smoother if I had one of my people there that understands the process and any little things that come up, uh, they can handle and talk to who they need to talk to, to get everything, uh, okay. If you know. The place we're hunting is only, as the crow flies, it's only like 15 miles from the border, 17 miles, but I don't know, it was a 30-minute drive. We came to a National Guard check station they had set up. And our escort, who we've become friends with over the years,

he spoke to the guys and then just waved us all through. We didn't even have to have an interaction. And then we get out to our place. And then like you said, when we're talking about like you're 100 years back in time, we get out to our place, unload our food in a ranch house, and then it's like all that shit is just gone. Yeah. It's just gone.

It's a nice feeling to kind of be able to wash that away. Now don't get me wrong. Like on the ranch, you guys have, there's a few Hills that you can go up and boom, you get cell service. You can check in. So it makes it kind of nice.

It's bittersweet. But, and, and, and people ask me all the time. They're like, will we see checkpoints? I say,

listen, when you're on the highway and you come across a military or police checkpoint, it's a good thing. They're like, how is that a good thing? And I say, well, they are actually monitoring the roadways. They're keeping it safe. So by actually having a checkpoint, they're keeping it safer than if there was no checkpoint and it's just willy-nilly out there. Yeah. All right, man. So you, like, you don't do any DIY Gould stuff.

All your Gould stuff is guided. Yeah. So this will be my 13th season doing Goulds. I believe I had you down there in maybe my first or second season. I feel like my Goulds turkey operation has really blossomed. We've got a lot of phenomenal properties. No, why don't, because you let guys, so not let, you have guided coos deer hunts where you do, you got you guys. And then you have, like you do for us where you arrange.

Yeah, so I have DIY coos. You arrange like a property, you arrange a tag system, help everybody hunt, and they're on their own. How can we not do, why don't you do that for Goulds? You know, I've thought about it. It's a good question. I've thought about it and thought, you know, I've kind of run through the different scenarios, and I just always keep coming back to guided Goulds is probably a better scenario. You know, details, I don't really know why. it just seems like maybe we'll do some in the future, but your gut feeling. Yeah. Cause me and Yanni, we're going to talk you into letting us do it. Well, I could definitely arrange you guys to

come and do it. And, uh, how, how far into the future are you booked up for Goulds or for Cousdeer? So I'm booking right now for next January. Okay. And a lot of guys like to really book, you know, 24, 25. I try not to get too far over my skis. I just try and, you know, all book for 2023, even before I go in 2022. But right now, when we just finished the 2022 January season, I don't really like booking 24, 25, 26. I just prefer to kind of stay out 23.

You know, I've got a great schedule lined up for Gould's Turkey. Still have some opportunity for this 2022. For the spring coming up. Oh, you do? Mm-hmm. See, that's the thing. Because like you get like, like guys like me,

who I'm, if I, i might become a world slam holder but the super slam turkey thing you need to get that gould's turkey yeah that's hard i i get so many people most everyone that comes for gould's is basically wanting to check gould's turkey off the list it's funny though when they come down you've seen gould's they're just amazing bird um how they become person that wanted to check it off the list but then now they've come three Yeah. It's funny though, when they come down, you've seen ghouls. They're just amazing bird. How they become person that wanted to check it off the list, but then now they've come three, four, five years in a row because of the hunting is so good. Yeah. I got a hot tip for people on the, if you're doing the DIY coos hunts with Jay.

If you got a friend, like what does it wind up being? Like a ranch has got three tags, four tags, six tags, whatever the hell. You put got a friend, like, what does it wind up being? Like a ranch has got three tags, four tags, six tags, whatever the hell. You put together a group of guys, right? Yeah.

Man, if you, just to enhance, you don't need to, but to enhance the experience, if you got someone who's like pretty checked out on Spanish, so that you can talk to the Cowboys. Yeah. The Cowboys.

We had two guys this year. Yanni's getting pretty good. Ross Copperman from First Light was with us.'s getting pretty good ross copperman from first light was with us he's pretty good it just is real good man yeah because it winds up being like you see some things that you it kills you that you can't ask like like what is with whatever yeah why is it like this yeah or like or like where like some giant drop antler what like where'd that come from? Yeah. Yeah.

It's so nice if someone could go and hack their way through with the cowboys that are out riding around. Yeah. It's real helpful. One thing you do have to watch with cowboys, it's, it's just human nature is, you know, there's some that, oh yeah, there's big bucks everywhere and they're pointing to mountains and stuff. So you kind of got to learn which ones know what a big buck is. Our main buddy down there at our place, there's no buck you can bring in that he won't be like, oh, no, no, no. Yeah. That's not a big one. No, no, no.

What are you doing? And then we're like, where? And he just points like, he's like, yeah, kind of there, there, there, there, everywhere. He said that there's bucks bigger than Steve's everywhere on that place. Yeah. And I mean, that's common. The other common thing is they, there's two things. I say, how many points?

12. It doesn't matter which, if I'm in Chihuahua or Sonora, whatever state I'm in, you ask the cowboy, what's the biggest buck on the ranch? It's a 12 pointer. You know, I've never seen a 12 pointer in my life. And every ranch you go to, doce. And, and then the other one is they have nicknames for them. Oh. It's the same nickname. It's like Mark Kenyon have nicknames for them. Oh. It's the same nickname.

It's like Mark Kenyon. They call them El Negro. Oh. Because their cape is dark. Oh. It doesn't matter what ranch you go to. They're like a grande buck named El Negro lives on that hill. You know what his name is in Michigan?

What? It's old mossy horns. Yeah. I mean, it just, it's funny to me how it doesn't matter where you're at. They're all the big ones are El Negro because, and when you do kill a big mature buck, a lot of times their cape is a lot darker. A lot darker. Yeah. All right.

We're going to wrap up. Tell people how to find you. Probably the best way is to send me an email at jscottoutdoors at gmail.com, my Instagram, jscottoutdoors, Colburn and Scott Outfitters on Instagram. I answer my direct— Call your podcast, dude, while you're at it. So I have to credit you and Yanni. My podcast will be seven years old in about two weeks. I started very quickly after I remember you and Yanni sent me your pilot episode. And I said, well, what's a podcast?

I started and it's, my podcast is much more boring than your podcast. It's real informational, real educational, puts a lot of people to sleep, but it's been a lot of tactics and strategy on all sorts of big game. J. Scott Outdoors podcast. Yeah. And you said how people define you if they want a book. Yep. Just jscottoutdoors.com.

I mean, there's a lot of, just type in J. Scott Outdoors in Google and you'll find me. Yeah. We've been doing stuff with Jay for, honestly, like we've been doing stuff with you for a decade. I think it's 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. And again, man- We've done Turkey and Buffalo. like we've been doing stuff with you for a decade i think it's 10 years yeah yeah and um again turkey and buffalo again have just uh i've said it a bunch of times have just been throughout

every interaction just always impressed with how you run your program well i appreciate it yeah just like no just clean clear no, honest dealing, highest ethics. It's like, it's just been a pleasure to do all that, to range all those cool hunts with you over the years. Well, I appreciate it. I really value my reputation and I never want anyone to have a bad experience or a bad hunt. So, you know, I feel like sometimes I take it to heart, maybe even more than I should sometimes. That sounds kind of bad, but. That's the bullet, I feel like sometimes I take it to heart, maybe even more than I should.

Sometimes, uh, that sounds kind of bad, but that's the, that's the bullet taken. I was talking about, I really, I really, uh, want people to have a smile and really want them to love Mexico like I do. And, you know, it's, it's, it's important to me. Yeah. Well, I hope you keep at it, man. We all had a great time. Um, I'm always waiting for my text message from you saying it's time to commit. I need to get you back down for Gould's turkey. I feel like you did it 10 years ago. Well, Yanni's hot to trot, so I can go down and watch him. I feel like, too, in your turkey hunting life spectrum, when you hunted Gould's, I feel like you were a little bit new. Sure, yeah.

And I feel like you might appreciate it even more now that you've hunted turkeys. I hadn't seen as much. Right. Nearly as much at that time as I have now. The birds are amazing. There's a bunch of them. They gobble and strut. I mean, they're just phenomenal.

Yeah. I'll do it. I'll do it. You ever get a Goulds, Phelps? Are you anti-turkey? No. Oh, no, you're pro-turkey. I love turkey hunting.

He's anti-whitetails, but he's pro-turkey. Yeah, pro-turkey. The Goulds are on the list. Oh, they are? Yeah. Got any concluding thoughts, Paul? Just give me thumbs up or thumbs down on Mexico. I loved it.

It was a good trip. The whole thing, like Steve said, the whole experience was a blast. Did you get some good food too? I didn't ask you guys that. That's some of the best. Lots of good food. By day seven though, you're like, I don't know if I want to see any refried beans anymore. The main thing is

we just laughed our asses off. We, one thing before we close, Steve, Jason and I got you a little present. Oh, you did? Yeah, coming out of Mexico, we know that you were very self-conscious about a certain pair of shoes because you didn't want to be a poser. Oh.

So we got you a pair of Hey Dudes. Oh, so you don't think I'm going to be a poser? Well, no, because now if somebody sees you in Hey Dudes. Is that why you asked me what my shoe size was? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. So you lied.

I did. Oh, yeah. And I was lying about why he needed to know. I asked Katie and then she's like, I think 11, but then she never got it. So we went a different route. Yeah. I'm always admiring Phelps' hey dude loafers, but he was telling me that ropers wear them and I thought it'd be like if I got a 10 gallon hat.

And he said, no, you can pull it off. All hat, no cattle? Yeah. He said like an old dad type guy like me could wear these. The way we figure it is now, now you can be like, if someone's like, oh, you have hay dudes, you're like, oh, yeah, my buddy's got them for me. But you don't have to like even credit for it. Yeah. If people are like, dude, you shouldn't have.

Those are like, ah, my buddy's got them. I got to wear them every once in a while. I'm pulling my hot ass boot off and putting this thing on. It might change your life. Yeah. It's like Crocs, but not made out of rubber. I do.

I have one little closing thought while you're trying your shoes on. Look at that. Um, since I am, since I'm a guy that wants to go back to mexico and coos hunt and let's not like only talk about how fun it was and all the good stuff i wanted to focus on like the thorns and the cactus like i that are in your butt everything pokes you yeah no i'm i'm just joking with you jay like it's horrible not deterring anybody from going to Mexico. It was amazing,

but you shouldn't go to Mexico just to make sure there's tags for me. The number one thing you should have in your pack is tweezers. Yeah. That's a great idea. I had my wife digging one

out of my finger the other day. It got me too much for me to handle, so she dug it out for me. Yeah. My wife says you're on your own. Even though I'm going to leave her over the ski situation.

She still did me a good turn on my sliver picking. All right, man, we got to wrap it up. Jay Scott, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Don't screw us on our place. I'll try not to. We're coming back. You got a lifelong customer in Phelps.

Don't screw it up. I'll do my best. Thank you very much, man. All right, Jay Scott, Jay Scott Outdoors, J. Scott Podcast, Colburn and Scott Outfitters. Right? Yeah. That covers it.

Okay. In the meantime, Phelps, Phelps Game Calls. I just hit them up for some turkey calls for the spring. Yeah. And Paul with FHF Gear at FHFGear.com. That's it. All right, guys.

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