The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 327: A Gold Medal Podcast

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with David Wise, Paul Schommer, Janis Putelis, Samantha Bates, Chester Floyd, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Back from the Olympics; "Outdoor Kids in an Inside World" is here to preorder; strategizing biathlon; how Steve is pro-skiing for all humans on the planet, except for his family; hunting while skiing; your chance to bid on Auction House of Oddities items until April 25th; the word for fossilized poop is ‘coprolite’; shitting out a rattlesnake fang; bobbing and weaving; the most groundbreaking photo of a fox squirrel eating a shad in a tree; how Steve will never traffic in memes; a non-apology to the falconer community; the "S&M hood" that falcons wear; the history of skis; biathlon as the most watched winter sport in Europe; precision vs. accuracy; how professional curlers probably have day jobs; too much socializing in the Olympic village; balancing your passions; the shit ton of attention you get during an Olympic year; when you do your best work wearing a helmet and goggles; how Steve's daughter loves Jani's cooking way better than her own dad's cooking; flipping and spinning; and more.   Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel from merino base layers to technical outerwear for every hunt. First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Hey everybody, you've heard us talking about it for months now. My new book coming out May 3rd, Outdoor Kids in an Inside World. Getting your family out of the house and radically engaged with nature. This book covers it all, man. Many of the questions that I've gotten over the years from people, such as, like, how old should my kid be before I allow them to start shooting.22s or getting them started on a BB gun? Do I think it's damaging if a kid sees a deer die when they're really young? How do you get your kids interested in eating game meat? How do you get kids engaged around gardens, right? In my view, it's how to

get your kids radically engaged with nature because a couple of reasons. If you're listening to this, you probably like to hang out outside. You're probably into hunting and fishing and you want to have that be a family thing and you want to introduce your kids to it in a way that it becomes a family thing that your kids like too. Because that's what you like doing. And there's nothing selfish about that, man. If you're a parent, you play your best game when you're engaged too. You want to demonstrate authentic enthusiasm to your kids. You want to show your kids what it's like to be excited about something.

You're excited about nature. This is just some insights and help about how to make sure that you can pass that along to your kids. And here's the thing. If they grow up and they never touch it again, that's fine. Still love them, but you know that they go into life armed with that toolkit that you demonstrated to them by living a life outside. It's a good book, if I say so myself. Anyhow, you have until May 2nd to pre-order and then be eligible to receive an additional 50-page free resource guide. So when we were doing the book, me and Brody Henderson, who you hear on the podcast here all the time, we put together a 50-page resource guide full of all kinds of extra advice and insights and

gear tips and everything for keeping your kids squared away, right? Feeding them, dressing them, everything. Safety information, resources about how to find stuff you might want to find. We didn't put it in the book. It's a 50-page resource guide that we will email straight to you, free, once you share your pre-order information for outdoor kids in an inside world, it's a crazy ass URL. I'm not even going to give you right now because it's so like weird, but here's a couple of ways to find it. No matter where you buy the book, you buy it on Barnes and Noble, you buy it on Amazon. We don't care where you buy it. Take that order information

and go to this page to redeem the thing. The page will be in the show notes to this podcast episode. If you go to Instagram and go to at Steven Rinella in my bio, we'll just leave it. It'll live there for a while. And my bio will be a link that takes you to where you put in your order information, regardless of where you bought it, where you put in your order information in order to redeem and get the 50-page free resource guide. Thanks, guys. I hope you enjoy the book. I know you'll enjoy it.

I have been thinking about writing this thing since the minute my wife was pregnant with our first child 12, pretty much 12 years and nine months ago. So thanks thanks everybody. Turn the machine on, Phil. Sam Bates, you, so you're better at both skiing and shooting than Giannis, I hear. Yes.

Like you whooped him at biathlon. I absolutely did, but I think we maybe had different strategies. She already had her post-race big puffy jacket to stay warm on by the time I finished the course. I was so far behind. I don't really understand what happened. I don the course. I was so far behind. I don't really understand what happened. I don't either. So you guys went down with an Olympic, who's here with us right now.

You went down with an Olympic biathlete. What do you call him? Biathlete? Biathlete, yeah. Oh, you do? Mm-hmm. Introduce yourself. I'm Paul Schomer.

I'm on the U.S. biathlon team. Fresh from Beijing. Yeah, a few weeks out, but yeah. I'm on the U.S. biathlon team. Fresh from Beijing. Yeah, a few weeks out, but yeah. So at this point, are you guys able to speak freely without being worried about retribution? Yeah. Or is it still like you guys are still a little buttoned up? No, not really.

You've got to be like, this snow is amazing. No, no. I mean, you can speak freely. We're in free speech. We're back in America now So we can say whatever we want Hold on, this is something I don't know about Annie told me all about all this

Because Annie's a skier So when all the skiers Were over there, you guys weren't allowed To talk freely and truly About your experiences It was strongly discouraged If someone said, like, how's the snow? You had to be like, it is the best snow I've ever seen in my life.

The thing is, we're Americans, and we take our Americanness with us over there. So it was kind of a caveat there. Like, we know you're probably going to say whatever you want, but we strongly discourage you guys from saying anything negative politically about the conditions, about the conditions, about the venues, etc., etc. David, introduce yourself. I'm David Wise, three-time Olympic medalist

in half-pipe skiing. Was that a nuclear reactor in the background? What is that? What was that in the background? That's a great question, which I don't have the answer for. Were they like flexing?

Were they like, just in case people forget, nuclear superpower? I think so. I thought it was odd too. With the Olympic sign on it? I know it was like a big green space as well. So it was like both of them. It's like, hey, we have nuclear power, but we're also concerned about the environment. But was that an active cooling tower?

I don't think so, no. No. It's like they decorate with cooling towers. I think they put that up. I think they intentionally built that in the background, but I don't know. To be like, hey, just so you know. Somebody's going to fact check me on that.

Just so you know, we're cooking down some uranium. It blew my mind that that was there. Yeah, I don't compete in big air, and that venue was very far from oh so you never got over there i never even saw it in person no yeah god i feel like every time i walked by a tv i was looking at that cooling tower yeah because especially the early events were all you know snowboard big air ski big air women's men's like god that was a very well featured site yeah you know in hanoi, at least when I was there

not terribly long ago, all the parks were still decorated with downed American aircraft. Like a wing out of the ground, a tail fin out of the ground, and it'll be like the date they shot it down. Yeah, that's cool. A little flexing of military power, man. Yeah.

Now that we're above that I mean we got generals we flex yeah we got generals all over the place not fake

cooling towers but I don't want to do this because I don't want to detract from the experience but I would

need to go to our colleague Annie to interpret the Olympics for me she's never been

but she like follows skiing I I guess. I'm looking at Yahoo Sports right now. Title of the article is, Reason China Built an Olympic Ski Jump Next to a Giant Factory. And the first sentence is, No, they're not nuclear plant towers.

Oh, just a cooling tower. I'll have to read a little bit more, though, and tell you what they are. I want to get back to how Sam's better than you at skiing and shooting you guys tell me what you guys did yesterday we did not ski oh we were just like um walking very fast snow melt as if as if you had skis as if we had but you did not yeah and you shot and then we shot and we shot prone twice and then standing twice and then they had us do penalty runs if we missed yep so basically the way biathlon works is you go you shoot every shooting you have five shots

any shot that you miss you get penalized with a penalty loop or a time penalty and so yesterday we had them doing penalty loops but um we took it easy on them in some respects and not in others because there's different size targets as well. But, uh, yeah, they did well for the most part. We actually had to walk the course. The course is basically like maybe 40 yards down and around a truck that was parked. And then the penalty loop was maybe a five-yard loop around two tripods with a spotting scope set up on them. Got it. And what were you shooting?

What, what? Oh, you were shooting the actual, we'll get into that. Yeah. You were shooting the actual biathlon gun. Yeah. At actual biathlon targets. Got it.

And Yanni had one-on-one training up to that race. So I don't know how. His excuses are getting removed. One-on-one training up to that race. So I don't know how. His excuses are getting removed. So I just want to say, I'm honestly asking. You guys were toe-to-toe and you outshot Yannis. I don't think outshot would be the word. I mean, actually, do you guys know what you shot?

Like how many you missed each time? Because that would be something you could think about. I think I shot dirty, as I learned was the phrase, which means that the first round of prone, I missed all five. He did. Ouch. Me too. Yeah.

You did too? I don't know how. The first round. So that was on prone targets. So it was the smaller targets, which you always get people, like when they first start biathlon, you kind of get their confidence up by having them just shoot standing targets in prone. But then we switched the targets to the smaller ones and then it was a little bit of... Maybe explain how like the race, a biathlon race actually works because...

Well, no, I want to save that for in a minute. Okay. We got some stuff we got to take care of. Okay. Well, I want to say that for in a minute. Okay. We got some stuff we got to take care of. Okay. We're going to get in all this. You want, I mean, do you want to,

we can talk about Sam's strategy right now. I'd like to know. If someone could like, like imagine that I'm five years old. Tell me really quickly how, what Sam beat you at. Okay. So I would say my strategy that I didn't realize I had was to be accurate with the prone shooting as best as I could.

Which, I don't know. I think the second round I got all five, but the first round I didn't. And then to just be fast with the standing because I knew I wasn't going to be able to hit them anyways. And then I could just run my penalty laps really fast and then finish. Oh, so you just basically built a strategy where you're planning on missing. Yeah. So just get it over with. Yeah.

And then do the penalty shit. Because I can't hold the gun up for that long. You know, it's like I knew I wasn't, like like without time i wasn't going to be able to shoot accurately not that i was shooting accurately with time but got it in my sport we call that skiing your strengths there you go oh yeah i just think the biggest figure out what you're good at and you send it there you go yeah i think the biggest thing to just remember with biathlon is that it's a race it's not a shooting competition only so as sam demonstrated that to get done with shooting

quicker, you can get to your penalty loops faster. And then therefore you just kind of keep it moving where I don't know other people, sometimes you camp out on the range. I mean, if you're camped out there for a minute and a half and somebody else shot in 30 seconds, you can think they have a one more minute ahead of you on the course already. So it's kind of that fine line. And, uh, yeah, like there, you definitely see that on windy days when it's like super windy out, people are kind of like, well, I'm not going to hit all five anyway. I might as well just kind of throw some shots down range and get out here as fast as I can. But, you know, it's a very fine line in any, any competition

where it's like, okay, want to shoot fast. But you know, if I'm going five seconds faster, but I miss an extra shot, it's really not worth it. So you gotta, it's a, okay, I want to shoot fast, but if I'm going five seconds faster but I miss an extra shot, it's really not worth it. It's a game of trying to play to your strengths. If you imagine an axis and on one is

fast skiing and on the other is being a dead-eye dick, where is your strength um i would say this year i was better relative to like the world cup field i was probably a little bit above average on shooting and right around average with skiing got it so that's good to hear yeah uh okay we got a cover call. Thanks.

Corinne, one thing that you misrepresent. I'm not anti-skiing. I'm anti my family skiing. If I could have my way, everybody in the whole world would ski. That's all they would ever do. And then anything I wanted to do, they wouldn't be there. So like spring break, I had to take my kids to Six Flags. I'd be like, no one's at Six Flags.

They're all skiing. I'm just at Six Flags with my family. If I go ice fishing, no one's ice fishing. They're all skiing. Except me. But I'm with my family ice fishing. Got it. It's not.

I am not. I am pro skiing except for five individuals on planet earth but you don't feel like i want 700 700 billion 999 million and you know what I'm trying to say? 700 million is quite a lot. People ski. That many people ski. And then there's five that don't. And it's my family. Don't you knock Giannis for not being a true outdoorsman because he

splits his time skiing? I'm glad that he does it, but I look down on him for doing it. But I support him doing it. I think you're calm. I looked up. It just surprises me.

It surprises me that he's not a true outdoorsman. I just want to say, Steve, that you might need to rethink how you're kind of framing this whole skiing thing. I know you're trying to do that actively right now, and I'm proud of you, but I just want to say,

I want to say that the public reaction to you, to your and Brody's I don't even know what to call it grievances the other day. To sum it up, I'd say they thought you were selfish and insane, which is kind of how I felt as well. Now my daughter

is like, I'm going to be a ski racer. Okay, what about biathlon? What about biathlon? Do they do it on weekends? I'm sure they could, yeah. If they do it on weekends, I don't like it. Weekdays, weekends, you know,

every day. You can show up any day. Now listen, my kids skied nine Saturdays in a row this winter. The Rinella household was dead. The Rinella household was dead. The Rinella household shut down. Nothing, like, ground to a halt. The minute that shit ended,

we went to Texas hunting. We went out fishing here. This weekend, we're going beaver trapping. We're back on. Why are we back on? Because skiing ended. There's two days in every weekend, you know that? But it doesn't work that way.

Skiing one day takes up the entire weekend. No, because I like to leave. I like to go. Friday night, Out. Gone. Don't you feel like your stance on this might actually be hurting you in the long run? Yes. Because I- My wife doubles. No, my wife's like-

My wife has taken now like a sort of screw you, I'm going to make it worse. Oh, yeah. She's digging her feet in. She's like, uh-uh. You ain't pulling me away from this one. Oh, yeah. Now she's like, yeah. So now-

Listen, I got the pleasure to be at the ski hill when his kids are skiing. They're skiing right next to my kids. And the smiles on all three of Steve's children as they enjoy gravity pulling them down that hill.

They love it. You wouldn't even believe it. It's just like pure joy and so much fun. I'd love to hear that. And probably partly the enjoyment there is because they're like, Dad doesn't like us doing this. Oh, so yeah, it's like listening to rock and roll back in the 50s. That's right.

Okay, but what if they did biathlon and their shooting practice was increasing their accuracy and their hunting prowess. If my kids all of a sudden said, hey, you know what I like to do? We like to go to the mountains on our skis and ski around hunting snowshoe hares. I'd be like, I think we should do that every weekend. And then would you take up skiing?

Until we die. Yeah. Okay. If that's what they were going to do. Oh, Steve said it. No, I'd be like,? Until we die. Yeah. If that's what they were going to do. I'll be like, that sounds right up my alley. That sounds right up my alley. Listen, if we get this trip to Sweden dialed in, where are we at

with that, Sam? I'm waiting for someone to approve it. Oh, for our Capricallis? Yeah. We're going to be skiing on it. Here. I hereby approve it. Thank you. Now tell Annie and Tracy that. We're going to be skiing on it. I didn't know it was held up on me.

11 foot skis. 11 feet long. I'm probably going to bring some shorties. Sweet. That's a long ski, right? That sounds so fun. They have to be long for flotation. We'll see.

So the one thing that I would say about this, though, is when I was ice fishing as a kid, I was definitely wishing I was out skiing. Really is that I was like when I was ice fishing as a kid I was definitely wishing I was out skiing so Really? I mean but I was also in Appleton, Wisconsin

which is just like there's no skiing around there anyway so it just seemed like this fantasy thing. You ever go to like Sunburst? Which is right there.

I didn't ski when I was growing up so I just didn't I was just like I wish I would. You didn't ski? No, no, no. So when did you

actually start? When I was like 16 I started skiing. Oh, okay. Yeah, before that I was a wrestler. Okay, hold tight a minute. Yeah. I'm going to reintroduce our guest.

Then we're going to get serious about this show here. David Wise from Reno, Nevada. First light ambassador. Have you ever watched the Olympics and see a fella running around in first light hunting clothes? Probably you. It's probably me. I would assume. Unless they're picking up ambassadors left and right, but I think I'm

the only one. Two-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time X Games gold medalist. So the Olympic gold medalist, 2014, 2018, four-time X Games gold medalist, 12, 13, 14, 18. He took silver for half pipe

in this year's Beijing Winter Olympics. That's not the one I'm wearing. I'm wearing his medal. I almost went three for three. Happy sons of bitches. What are these weights? Just one step shy of three for three there. Really?

What do these weigh? Like 500 grams. Just over a pound. How old are you now? 31. That's old for i didn't know i didn't know this i didn't know this so i read it today yeah you're like tom brady yeah i've been getting some tom brady references plenty plenty of uh yeah plenty of old guy 31 is old well if you think about it it's all it all comes, it all comes down to the age range of the sport. And there's no collegiate competition for half-pipe skiing.

So pretty much you either drop out of high school and start as a professional at 15, 16, 17, or you complete high school and then you have to launch your professional career fairly early. It's a young sport like i turned pro when i was 18 but some of my peers like started signing contracts and traveling the world 15 16 years old so even though i feel like i'm young as a human in the sport i'm old because i've been doing it for you know 15 16 years young human old skier yeah old half pipe skier. If you went back and tell us in four years. Yes, the Olympics are every four years.

You'd be the oldest dude. Yeah. In your competition. I would assume so. I was the second oldest in finals this time around by one year. And if I go again, I'll be the oldest, I'm sure. In half pipe. Not on the I'm sure. In half pipe. Not on the Olympic team, in the half pipe.

But there can't be many other athletes much older on the American Olympic team, right? Yeah, there was a snowboard cross guy in his early 40s this year. He was the oldest guy. Oh, and Jacob Ellis that won gold. She was like 36 or 37, right? Yeah. bellis that won gold she was like 36 or 7 right yeah um so this is what troubles me about this whole thing you can be the best of the best and have like a whole career and then you're like 32 or whatever and you gotta go do like a whole other one yeah that's a real pain in the ass

i guess you become a commentator. Oh, there's so many different things you can do. Yeah, commentator, coach, whatever. Do you think you're going to the commentating business? Yeah, I enjoy that. I'll do a little bit of that. The last couple of years, I've gotten really into doing mental strength training.

So just kind of taking this 12-year cycle of going to the Olympics and trying to perform at your best under pressure has taught me a lot of things. I feel like I've learned a lot of things the hard way, kind of like you do when you're hunting. You're like, well, I'm never going to make that mistake again because they winded me and they're all gone. So that's kind of how my experience has been as a professional skier. So lately I've just been picking young. I essentially look for athletes who are like I was when I was young because I had all the talent and all the skill. You're like a talent scout.

A little bit, but I look more for people who are getting in their own way mentally. Because when I was young, I could do all the same tricks as everybody else, but I could not land a contest run to save my life. I didn't win my first X Games gold medal until I was 21, which was already old for a first time X Games gold medalist. Because you had target panic. A major target panic. I would get there, and I would just stress out. I'd be like, I have to land this run right now.

I've got to do it. And then, of course, crash. So all those mental strongholds that I built over the years, I'm like, man, I could just use these for myself for the rest of my life, or I could help out some young athletes who are like I was. So it's been pretty fun. Let's test your commentator skills. I want you to give a formal introduction to Paul.

It's highlighted there. So be like, this young man out of... I like baseball when they do all their talking between swings. Oh, there you go. Okay. So be like, this young man out of Appleton, Wisconsin. Swing and a miss. Grew up.

Joining us here on the Meteor Podcast today, we have Paul Schaumer from Appleton, Wisconsin. He's a Wisconsinite like cheddar. Like cheddar. Let me interpret that for you. Chester Chester. That is a nickname. Oh, Chester. Yeah, Chester the Taster sometimes goes by Cheddar because of Wisconsin. He's a Wisconsinite like Chester.

He's a biathlete who represented the United States at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. His first World Cup podium finish was a silver medal in 2019 for the men's 10K sprint competition. And if you're going to be a real commentator, you have to get good at stating

very obvious shit. So you'd say, today he's going to need to ski fast and shoot straight. And not lose his skis. I need my thing back. Great job. You got a bright future.

I don't care if you go into consulting, commentating. You got time to figure it out. Appreciate that. All right. The Auction House of Oddities is back on. The Auction House is open. It's live now.

So it closes on 4-25. You got another week to go bid on some of the following items. So a five-day Alaska King Salmon fishing trip. Dang. That's awesome. Yeah. Go bid on that. Go to Alaska, fish King Salmon, five days.

I think that's for two people. I don't know. Who donated that? The guide, the outfitter. We got a custom silversmith belt buckle engraved with the Meat Eater logo. Listen, we have one of the street. You know, does everybody know those things? I feel like they sell them in like, what's that place where they sell those things in airports and whatnot?

The head scratchers. Like little kios in airports and whatnot? The head scratchers. Those little tingly head scratchers. Corinne made one of those out of pheasant feet. They're cow's pheasants. We got a raccoon hide. So one of Clay's raccoons signed by Clay. We have my left-handed

300 Weatherby Mark 5 and First Light Camo. We have, oh, my complete archery setup. So if you watched the Season 10 episode of Meat Eater where me and Phelps are hunting elk and I shot a bull, that bow, like, ready to go. I actually, like, I haven't really shot that bow since then

because I had a shoulder injury, and I'm just now trying to get back to be able to pull my bow back. Cal's pruning shears, that'll fetch a pretty penny. Those are very useful. Lots of good stuff in the Auction House of Oddities. So go check out the Auction House of Oddities now. Can I tell you one thing that's not on that list? Oh, yeah, please.

That's going to be a big hitter. There's a shitload of stuff on the on the list yeah uh james miller who you know we had dinner at his house down there in colorado very very crafty fella in my repertoire of stories there's a james like i only have like certain stories like i have like five or six stories i tell and one of them is about him do you care to tell it now? I just probably told it last podcast. It wasn't long ago. About when that deer tried to beat him up. That's right. And he is building a, or has already built

a quiver that goes on your back that is leather lined and then finished on the outside with a coyote pelt. And with that, he makes custom wood arrows. Footed shafts. And usually he just sells the shafts themselves.

So footed means you take another piece of wood that's heavier. And with like, what do you call that connection? Is it just a dovetail, Chester? There's different, there's a few different ones that you can use for the footed shaft. He also tapers these wooden shafts, which doesn't happen often. Makes them tighter, stronger, and straighter. Usually he doesn't finish them, but for this, he's going to finish a dozen arrows. So if you bid on it, you're going to just call him up and say,

hey, I shoot 70 pounds. Draw length is this. I need this spine and arrow. And he'll build you exactly what you want. This dude is one crafty craftsman. Yeah, they're so beautiful that when you get them, you're going to say, I don't know if I should put them on the wall

and just look at them, or if I should go and shoot them. He would rather have you shooting them, but maybe you'll take two or three and just keep them as art. And he's sending them in that coyote fur quiver. No shit. Mm-hmm.

Oh, you'll appreciate this as a archer, bow hunter. Yanni and I were doing a little research on something the other day. Three arrows recovered at the Battle of the Little Bighorn site. Sold at auction. $96,000. Woo! Beautiful, though. Steel trade points on them,

wood shafts, feather veins, from Little Bighorn. That's wild. What auction? You just picture one of them sticking right out of Custer's forehead. What's that? What auction?

I don't know. We didn't get that far. Like a museum or something? Custer, how much did that chunk of, oh, I can't, never mind. I almost just ruined something. Yeah, don't do that. Oh, check this out.

They were, you know, there's a thing called a copper light. You boys know what a copper light is? They teach you that at the Olympics? No. Fossilized human, or fossilized poop is a copper light oh okay learn something new every day some guy drops a deuce in the right spot 10 000 years go by yeah becomes a copper light they were analyzing a copper light in texas Was this near Bonfire Shelter, Buffalo Jump?

I do not know. Oh, did you see those pictures of me and Cal posing with those dinosaur tracks down in Texas? I took them. Oh, that's right. Okay. Steve's got a lot of time oh no here's the problem i have like i used to always because yanni and i traveled so much together anytime something happened i assumed yanni was there and it's always be like hey yanni you remember when he's like no because i wasn't there like how would you not have been there you're everywhere yeah sorry. Sorry, Corinne. No worries. I thought that was Giannis. Took those pictures. So they were examining a coprolite and this feller, this feller that took a growler 1500 An entire whole rattlesnake.

In past, I think the scientific term is shat out. Even one of the fangs. Wow. Vertebra. That must have been a hungry dude. Vertebra, or. Just one of them? Or, yep. Because, because.

Wonder where the other one is. Well, it was probably them? Or. Yep. Because. Wonder what the other one. Well, it was probably in the next. Oh, sure. Right? Yep. In the next one. Yep. The next day.

Or. He had his coffee, smoked a cigarette, and went off and ordered some other brush. I don't know. I don't know. So, vertebra, ribs, fang 40 some scales and as happens in this discipline in archaeology and we've joked about this in the past we've had archaeologists joke about it anytime you find something weird you say it may have been some kind of a ritual exactly Exactly. So, of course, there's the, this may have been ritualistic. I'm picturing this being some kind of poetic justice.

So I have chickens at my house and we had a, we raised a pig and the pig was very kind and super lovable. And then at one stage, it just kind of went feral and started eating the chickens. Oh. So when we butchered the pig and turned it into bacon, I took some of the guts and stuff like that and fed it back to the chickens. Felt like it was poetic justice. Got it.

Yep. So I think maybe this feller had a pet rat that was like his, you know, his homie. And he watched this rattlesnake swallow the rat hole yeah and he was like i'm gonna kill you and i'm gonna do the same thing to you that's probably you should publish that i just wrote it right now alternate an alternate explanation really interesting though now heffelfinger i can't tell how serious was heffelfinger when he was suggesting that yeah never mind i don't Because he kind of made a flippant, off-the-cuff comment.

I don't want to hold him to it. Yanni... This is a hard-to-explain thing. It's between me and Yanni. I sent Corinne a screenshot of my text message exchange from Yanni. I haven't asked Yanni about this yet. Yanni shares with me how yeah yeah he one day shares me how he and mingus operating together as a sole unit caught a mountain lion and this is like a a threshold this is a this is this is like a threshold. This is almost like a religious experience for Yanni.

Because this is like the archaeologists always say. Yanni knew he would arrive. Like him and his dog as a hunting unit would arrive once Mingus just caught a lion. Because then it's like it wasn't that he was following one of his buddy's dogs. He wasn't just along for the ride. He wasn't barking, but didn't really know what he was barking about. Like he did the work. Yeah.

Caught his own line. Irrefutable proof. Which last time. Unless he just had me walk through the woods and notice the lion in the tree, which doesn't happen. And last time we were talking about this on this year podcast, I was saying that that's, you were asking me like, what's next? I said, that's next.

We got to go out and hunt and do it on our own. And you've since caught three. Yeah. So that was number one. And then we got lucky and caught a trail of two lions together and Mingus treed them both. Really? Yeah.

He did? I thought you treed two separately that day. Did they go up the same tree? No. We were in a creek bottom. He cut the trail and took off up the hill. I've realized

now, this is one of the cool things about getting to know what your dog does, is that if he opens up, meaning that he starts to bark on trail, if he is not moving very quickly, he's on a bobcat. Because there must be just less scent. The bobcat weaves and bobs through the woods more.

That's where they get that name from. Bob and weave? Mm-hmm. So he doesn't move very fast. I can usually catch up to him. If he just lines out, and all of a sudden the GPS shows a straight line of like 100 yards, like it's a mountain lion track. So this is what's going on, and so I just start boogieing up the hill,

and I imagine that he had those lions caught in 30 minutes, but I had steep, deep snow, like probably crotch deep snow going to get to the ridge. When I got to the ridge, I thought, oh yeah, easy going now. But it turns out the South Basin slope was covered in like scree and loose rock with like two to six inches of fresh snow. So even it looked like it was going to be breezy and just going to grease right across it and it not being so, and it was kind of treacherous, like slipping and sliding, feet poking through into holes, smashing my shins under rocks. So I had to slow it down.

I even busted out my trekking pole. That's how bad it was. That bad. So he was there for a solid hour. I finally get there. Making noise the whole time. I don't know. Oh.

Hopefully, that's what he's supposed to be doing, right? All I know is that I get there, right as I get there there he maybe quits barking like five or ten seconds earlier and it wasn't until i was under 200 yards so i could even hear him barking just because of the curvature of the hill you know i get to kind of a rock out cropping and he's quit barking for maybe 10 15 seconds and i look down below me and i see a mountain lion on the ground slinking away. Going the direction I came from, but 80 yards below me.

And Mingus is not barking. And I'm like, uh-oh, I did it. Got your dog killed. Yeah, got my dog killed because he was by himself. Bad news, you know. It was just in the back of my head. Your daughters would have been pissed. Yeah, but I could have fixed that problem with another puppy

but i got girls i got good news and bad news yeah i would have had a very heavy heart so i'm like mingus mingus talk to him talk to him like just like trying just to get something out of him and he immediately just comes kind of out of the woods and i can see him and he runs up to the base of this tree that i was not looking at because I was looking at the mountain lion walking away. And he starts, you know, treeing on that tree. And I look up the tree and about eye level with me, actually a little bit below me, there's a cat.

And so, like I said, I knew I was following too because I was following two different size tracks every now and then they would split. Yeah. And I could see at the base of the tree that he had worn it all out. You know, there was no snow left. And he's a tree biter. So at about, when he's on his hind legs, at about head height for him, there's usually like an 18-inch oval circle of where he's worn the bark off the tree.

So he does that for a minute or so. I'm like, okay. But again, I don't know what the other cat, I don't know had he been going back and i don't know what the other cat i don't know had he been going back and forth between two trees where the other cat was i don't think the cat would have just been on the ground watching him treat the other one that doesn't make sense so i don't know what happened there for an hour but he only trees there for a minute and then all of a sudden he stops and you can see his nose kind of points the direction where that

line was and i think it was about 10 10 30 i'm guessing that he caught like an uphill thermal and must have caught the center of that other line that left and boogies down to that track takes off and two or three minutes later i can hear him bark and treed like 400 yards away so he went and caught that one was it a female in like a semi-mature kit exactly female and a sub-adult man we gotta set some time we gotta set like some time to hunt but i'm telling you i'm getting the lion yes over mingus yeah so that's how we get back to this text chain oh so oh but uh one quick thing uh yanni informed me before we started that yanni has now secured permission with his spouse to get a second lionhound. Ming sneezes, buddy.

Are you going to buy a high-test pedigreed lionhound? I've already had some offers for free to just take dogs. I think that there's plenty of hound trainers, handlers, whatever. They might not even necessarily be breeders, but they like to see lineages keep going and they're not in it to like make money. They do it. They're like, Hey, I have great dogs. This other person has great dogs. We're going to make some great dogs.

We would like them to go to people that hunt and keep those dogs hunting. Oh, yeah. And then you- Keep that line hunting. Yeah. And you'll obviously take super good care of it and hunt it. Yeah. You won't be like some guy, oh, just watching TV, but I was going to be a lion hunter.

Yeah. So Yanni texted me- Dave and Paul, there's a picture of Mingus. Back to the text change. Yanni texts me, texts me that Mingus caught, uh, his first line. And I text him like, I don't remember what the hell I said. Great. Then I text Yanni a photo of a fox squirrel eating a shad in a tree

Hold on, let's get it exactly right Because I feel like I'm about to get thrown under the bus here You said just you and Mingus I said, yep, I did get a tip from my buddy about two spots to check And the cat was in the second spot You said, that's gotta feel good And right below that's got to feel good. And right below that's got to feel good, there's a picture of.

A fox squirrel in a tree eating a shad. All coated in blood. Yeah. To which he has zero reply. I just sent him the most interesting photo in the history of photography. No, I said, I'm on cloud nine. I said, coincidentally, I got to watch him find the tree she was in the first time. She jumped twice. This is while sitting on the most groundbreaking photograph known to man.

I said, it was beautiful. You come back and say say no comment on the squirrel eating the fish eating a shad in a tree this is like trying to think of photos that could compare oh like neil armstrong like on the moon with that flag i basically sent that to yanni but it's 1970 or whenever the hell that was right yeah so Yeah. So I'm in like a very different headspace. Cloud nine. My dog's just treed its first mountain lion on its own.

And you said, that's got to feel good. And then just slip in this picture. And I look at it like, oh, that must be one of those memes, but that's like Steven Rinella style. Like, that's got to feel good. Just like this fox squirrel has to feel good munching like this fox squirrel has to feel good munching on this shad.

Because most fox squirrels don't get to eat fish too often. No, I said no comment on the squirrel eating the fish. There's a picture of the squirrel eating the fish. If you guys want to reference. I figured it was a meme. Yana says, is that real? I figured it was a meme. That went with, that's got to feel good.

I want to clarify something for you and everybody. I have never in my life, nor will I ever in my life ever traffic in a meme. I'm right there with you. I'm on team no meme. I won't text a meme. I won't put with you. I'm on team no meme. I won't text a meme. I won't put a meme on social media. I will not. I do not traffic in memes.

Or emojis. Just like all of it. No, I don't traffic in emojis. I use all of those. I will never traffic in a meme. You guys big meme guys? I mean, I appreciate a good meme. Oh, do you yeah i'm not

i'm not a trafficker of memes either i don't i don't create them or you know i have friends that do that and then i share them hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the can the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there. OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps

that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the on X hunt team.

Some of our favorites are first light Schnee's vortex federal and more as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try on X out. If you visit on X maps.com slash meet on X maps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Quick note. This is the opposite of an apology to the Falconer community.

Love it. We need to get a Falconer on at some point. I pointed out. They're not even taking on what i said they're not even tacking what i said i pointed out that i believe that i made an estimate i believe half of all falconers got into falconry through a dnd path took a path that went through D&D to get into falconry. That's all I said. This guy's like, we spend 150 days in the sea.

That's not what I said. His was not the only comment. It's just representative of an upset, you know, falconer community now. Like some other thing. What is a LARPer? Oh, live action role players.

I had to look that up too. Because a LARP, there's a LARP, which is Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol in Vietnam. A LARP is not nearly as cool. You could be a LARPer about a LARP. You could LARP LARP. Yeah, you could LARP a LARPer. Team no meme, LARP LARP.

So just a clarification toP Lerp. Yeah, you could LARP Lerper. Team no meme, LARP Lerp. So just a clarification to the falconer community. I didn't say they don't go out a lot. I said I believe that 50% of all people that self-identify as a falconer came through a D&D, took a D&D path, came through D&D rather than coming through a relationship with the outdoors. I think you're wrong. We'll never know. Oh, no. I think, well, what if we just polled 10 falconers? Do I need to poll more to find out?

Well, because how are you going to find them? I don't know. Through Instagram. Okay. That's fine. You're actually going to do that? Yeah, I'll poll 10. You're going to make a meme about it?

Are you going to be happy if I poll 10 and zero of them say, or all of them say, I've never played D&D? I will be happy with it once I see your methods. If your methods is going through your network of people who are big-time hunters, I won't trust the data.

I'll get with Chester the tester on it to make sure that I'm doing the right. All the falconers I know are pretty serious. I know. Once again, I'm not questioning whether they're serious. LARPing festival and see if there's any

falconers there and ask them if they got into it from D and D. If I said, if I said after the movie top gun came out, um, inductees into the air force skyrocketed. And then some guy said, but I wound up being in the air force for 12 years. Sure. You'd be like, but what's that being in the Air Force for 12 years. Sure.

You'd be like, but what's that have to do with what I'm talking about? Yeah, you're not. They're not talking about what I'm talking about. And you're not. I get it now. Okay. Is it a video game? Dungeons and Dragons.

I was confused as well. There's a class. I have no idea what this is. There's a class in a lot of fantasy role playing called a druid that can communicate with animals. And they're spirit familiars. Sort of like a ghost or an animal that they sort of have. Not like a spirit animal, but not too far off from that concept. And falcons are a very common, familiar that druids use

to like, you know, reconnaissance. And they wear that little S&M hood the birds do. It's like leather and ornate. S&M hood, yeah. Yeah, it's very like medieval. There's a lot of like

medieval symbolism in there. Yeah, they're like blinders. Yeah, yeah. It's all very medieval. That's all. I get it, I get it. I get it. Did you guys know that,

hmm, it's estimated that the ski was, I'm just looking at some stuff Corinne shared with me. The ski was perhaps invented before the wheel. Yeah, of course. Oh, that's obvious to you? I mean, it seems obvious to me.

Maybe that's my ski background, but. But it's also much easier to? I mean, it seems obvious to me. Maybe that's my ski background. But it's also much easier to construct a ski than it would be to wheel. That's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah. It's a big flat thing. The first skis were glorified snowshoes. You think so? Absolutely.

22,000 years. Saying that there's, I got to get this evidence. 22,000 years worth of evidence of skiing. Cave drawings suggest man used skis during the last ice age. The oldest ski artifacts come from the Mesolithic period. Fragments of ski-like objects discovered in the 1960s date back to 6,000 BC in northern Russia. You buy that?

Yeah, I mean, how much winter is up there? You have to get around in the winter. So, I mean, otherwise you're going to just be post-holing around all the time. There are, from 4,000 BC, rock carvings of a skier in Norway.

There's skis, actual skis, discovered in Finland that were from 3300 BC. In Sweden, two skis in a ski pole emerged from a bog in Sweden dated to 2700 BC. From 2500 BC, there are rock drawings in Sweden dated to 2700 BC. From 2500 BC, there are rock drawings that depict a man

on skis holding a stick on a Norwegian island. 200 BC, they got into skiing in China. Check this out. The word ski comes from the old Norse word.

I don't know. What's that word? Skia? Not quite sure, but it sounds. It's probably like skia or something like that. My coach is Norwegian, so we always butcher Norwegian words and it drives him nuts because he's like, no, it's not that.

It's the. yeah so the words derivation is a split piece of firewood that's pretty damn interesting oh do you guys know what the alamo means i didn't know that it meant uh cottonwood and i know that nope all right do you explain to to me because you because as a bi like let me ask this as a biathlete um how much is like how much is the history of skiing and hunting like how much is it interwoven as sort of like a genesis myth and how much is it that people are like yeah who cares um like how many biathletes yeah like is it like are you hearkening back to the olden times or there are a lot of people who are like i don't give a shit where it came from um i would say a lot of people probably like i don't really

care but uh i mean it really depends what nation you come from too like i mean if you're coming from germany the sport's just so big you're like i don't care i just am like out here to like compete um but i think there are definitely other people who have like more of those those roots like if you're up in norway sweden finland um but i mean it kind of went from like hunting also the military side so i mean i would say the military uh roots are still pretty strong because they still have like military world championships every year and stuff like that. But. Yeah. Cause isn't that one that won the Finns were whooping on the Russians prior to world war two. Yeah. I mean, they used to train. They like kind of dominated them in winter combat, right? Yeah. I mean, that's how like,

I mean, in world war two as well, like Norway, the Germany, they just like really couldn't hold Norway because they were just so, one, they knew the land so well, but two, they could get around really, really well. But I mean, they had trained their military in their like border patrol pretty heavily on skis for the longest time. And that's when like those training exercises really started to morph into competitions and people were like, hey, this is pretty kind of, this is pretty fun to watch and like do and um so it more came out of of of military units trained to travel by ski travel on skis yeah i think but i but like because it

originally had come from hunting because you know back in the day in the you're in the middle of winter up in sweden norway finland uh russia, you just can't, it's so much more effective to get around on skis. And so, um, I think the military adopted that. And I'm sure that back then that's where, um, they, they kind of saw the success of it and more like, Hey, we're going to, we're going to adopt what these people have been doing on, on snow and, um, train our military. Cause it was just like very effective. What, what countries kick the most ass in biathlon? Like who has the most golds? Uh, Norway for sure right now. Um, and I mean, it's, it's pretty big. It's the most watched winter sport in Europe. So, um, it's really, yeah. Yeah. Like the average World Cup has about 36 million viewers on television.

Yeah. It has some like huge market shares in Norway, Germany, Sweden's growing, Russia, France. But for the most part, I would say Norway has like a really strong development of younger athletes as well. So it's, they just, I mean, they have the numbers as well. I mean, here in the U S you kind of struggle to get more than like a hundred people at a race to, to go where in Norway you show up and you may have like 1200 kids just like racing on a weekend. So you're, you're sort of like testing, they're testing a much higher percentage

of youths for talent yep and they have a culture we probably have a lot of talent that we don't know about because we're not but also like in the u.s you have a lot of talent going elsewhere i mean uh in the u.s it's like hey you could be really good at biathlon or you could be like really good at another sport that's going to have a lot more support um not to say that there's not talent in biathlon but it's a lot harder to find as well i mean most people don't even know what the sport of biathlon is. I mean, back home, I say it and they're like, like, oh, what do you do? And I'm like, I'm on the biathlon team. Oh, so you're like running bike or swimming, do something else. And you're just like close, but it's skiing and

shooting. And then they get even more confused. So it's, I mean, it's just- So David here, if he lived in Norway, he might be a, it's more likely that he might be a biathlon. He might be a biathlete. I mean, but Norway in general, they just have like a killer winter sports. Cross the board. Yeah. I mean, they won the medal count in the last two Olympics and they're a country of five and a half million people. So it's like basically Minnesota dominating the Olympics just as one state, but they're an entire country.

And part of that is because they, they care a lot about it. Um, and they have training centers and, um, everything else set in place to develop all the sports across the board. Um, so, I mean, uh, I don't know who, I mean, I think the U S is still like the powerhouse of freestyle skiing, but it's, the example would be then, uh, like snowboarding, the U S has always been really good at snowboarding. Why? Because we like kind of invented the sport and Norway is kind of the same way. I mean, they, they, it's like their sport. Um, they've always been doing it, but like, there's always, there's also a huge following in Germany and Germany,

uh, have really good biathletes as well, but it's because it's, it's really popular there as well. Do you have this experience where you go to Europe, Scandinavia, especially where like you get off a plane and you're, uh, you're like almost an A-list celebrity because you're an Olympic biathlete? Um, I wouldn't quite say like getting off the plane. People know you. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but no, like if you, if you go to these races, races, like my first World Cup in Antolz, Italy, there was about like 60,000, 65,000 people at the race. And it's like, yeah, it's like people are just like, oh, can I get your autograph and stuff? And you're like, yeah, sure. I don't know why. You're just kind of like confused by it all.

But yeah, no, people are definitely into it over there for sure. And then you come home and people are like, you do what? Yeah. No, people are definitely into it over there for sure. And then you come home and people are like, you do what? Yeah. Why? I mean, I landed in, so I live in Fargo right now and I landed there right, like flew from Beijing home for a week before I had to go back for the last world cups. I land and I'm wearing like my team USA sweatshirt. And this woman comes up to me and is like, I hate to be weird and stuff, but like, I was looking for him and you kind of look like him, but did you just come back from the Olympics? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I did actually. And she's like, oh was looking for him and you kind of look like him, but did you just come back from the Olympics?

And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I did actually. And she's like, oh, what's your sport? And I'm like, biathlon. She's like, oh, so you're, you're a summer athlete. So you're not actually competing right now. And I'm just like, well, no, I just said I flew home from the Olympics and it was just like, people just don't get it. And I mean, it's like, okay, well, whatever. Has the U has any U S team member ever placed a medal in biathlon?

Not at the Olympics. We're the only U.S. sport to not have medaled at the Olympics. Ooh. Yeah. Does that hurt, or is that like a challenge? How many more Olympics you got in you? How old are you? I'm 29.

So I'm like middle. I'm not quite old. What's the oldest person to compete? Like 38, 39. Okay. So you guys can squeeze more years out of it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, in endurance sports, you're going to have a little bit more time.

So you'll go back? Potentially. That's something I'm definitely thinking about. But, I mean, I'm 29. I 29 and got other things I want to do in life too. So I don't know. But you'll live to be like in your early eighties. Yeah, for sure. So, but it's a lot of time on the road too. There's just a lot of different things to kind of balance, but. So you're thinking about wrapping it up? I have at least two more years. It's a matter of if I want to go two or four more years. Where's the next one going to be held? In Cortina, Italy. So it'd be pretty sweet actually. And, uh, that's something that I've definitely thought about. Cause I've had my best races in Antolz, Italy, which is the venue

that those Olympics will be at. And so it's kind of like, Hey man, like, uh, go back and, um, have a good thing going with the team and stuff. So yeah, it's definitely something I'm still thinking about, but, um, going back to the question of like, does it hurt? And I mean, it's definitely something I'm still thinking about. But going back to the question of like, does it hurt? And I mean, it's something that's always talked about any Olympic cycle. It's like, oh, man, the last sport to not have won a medal. And I mean, there's definitely a lot of media hype and stuff around it, but it's not an easy sport to win. And that's for sure. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about how many nations are also represented in biathlon, um, in the depth. And I think you just look statistically, it's one of the most competitive sports at the winter Olympics, which you think like maybe cross country skiing or something like that would be easier. But, um, biathlon is actually harder to like get into, um, for the Olympics in some sense than cross country skiing is even though there's, uh, the rifle shooting component. Yeah.

Cause Cassie is shooting iron real quick. Yeah, for sure. Yanni said, uh, Yanni said the, not you particularly necessarily, but he said the biathlon community is pretty loosey goosey about gun safety. Any comment? Well, uh, that I, I, I would say in some ways we are um but like growing up hunting uh the biggest thing on a rifle that you'd like talk about is like the safety so you'd be like you always got to have your safety on and i was taught growing up you know when you're walking in you put that

live round in you got to be ready to to shoot whenever but um my biathlon rifle does not have a safety on it and the biggest reason for that is, is I never have a live round in the chamber until I'm like ready to shoot. Got it. Tell me what I'm looking at here. So it's a Anschutz Fortner slide action rifle. It's a 22 long rifle.

That's a nice action. So yeah, it's a slide action. It's like a, yeah, it's like a bolt, but you don't. Close the bolt. Describe it, Yanni. You don't need to go like, when you think of working a bolt, but you don't... Close the bolt. Describe it, Yanni. You don't need to go like... When you think of working a bolt,

this is... Yeah, there's no handle that moves up and down across the action. It's just a handle that just pushes, that slides. Slides over a slight little ledge. Yep. Damn. So it's basically, it works with ball bearings,

and that's how it locks into place. And then when you pull it back, those ball bearings release and then come out. Yep. Okay. So I'm trying to, this is a complicated ass grip. What do you got going on here? So that's like the pistol grip there. And then the piece ahead of that.

Where's your thumb right? Up there? Yep. So basically when you reload it, you'd pull it back with your index finger and then you'd close the action with your thumb with your thumb i gotta do it left you just get a sense for the trigger it's really light about 500 grams so you'll feel the first stage if you pull it in super super light and then you hold it and then you can feel it get the last part oh so that's glossy yeah so uh that i mean there's a lot of big differences

between like just a biathlon rifle and a normal hunting rifle. And what, what, what, uh, explain the site to me. They're all open sites. You have a rear aperture and then the front site, um, basically it's just a circle that you line up around it. You have to put down out the, the snow. There's two on each site. There's snow, um, snow guards. Just keep shit out of there. Well, I mean mean if it's like nuking snow out there you don't want to get all up in your sites and you can't see anything so even by athletes use the term nuking i mean i don't know do you guys use nar nah not really we're actually not that like cool in a lot of ways do you ever say stoked

yeah for sure i mean as i mean I got a point stoked has gone very mainstream okay it's been stolen away from the skiers yeah it's no longer ours no you guys lost that you guys lost the

we stole it from the snowboarders in the first place oh you did and they stole it from skateboarders in the first place but I mean it's kind of cool to hear the lingo too because I was like

in Beijing walking through the the village and I saw this Japanese snowboarder and I'm like oh how's the how's the courses here

and she's like oh man they're like super sick but like the weather's also really sick. And so it was like, you're using like all this lingo and you're just like, oh, it's kind of funny how like the rest of the world has adopted some of that, that culture. What's that little burr on the trigger just to help you with finger placement? Yeah, exactly. And just like being able to feel it.

So I shoot with my gloves on. Um, so I'm not like messing around, taking gloves off or anything else like that. So it just gives you a little bit better trigger feel. Find your little sweet spot. Yeah. So it's basically just like a little pin to, so that one, you're putting your finger on the trigger in the exact same spot every time,

but then also you can get a good feeling for it. And tell me what, how far are you shooting and how big are you trying to hit? The targets are all at 50 meters. So about 56 yards. Okay. Here, I pull up my notes so i got everything right but there's two different size targets um you're gonna have the the prone target which you would shoot when you're lying down and that's about 1.8 inches in diameter and it's hit or miss yeah binary yep it's's hit or miss? It's binary. Yep, it's all hit or miss. And there's, let's see here. Yeah, it's all or nothing.

So at prone, you're hitting a target that's what size? About the size of a golf ball, 1.8 inches in diameter. Open sights. Open sights. Well, peep sight. I'm not diminishing. Because most people think of open sights, they think of a buckhorn sight, right?

Yeah, and I mean, there's no magnification allowed. So it's all just like open peep sights. There's no lens in there. Nope. Nope. Got it. And then, yeah, so it's at 50 meters, about 54 yards or 164 feet. And because it's fixed, that's why you have such an elevated, you don't need to worry

about, well, what if the shot's at 40 yards? What if the shot's at- No. Yeah. It's all the same. And every day- So you just zero very specifically for 50 meters the same. And every day, every day we're at the range. So you just zero very specifically for 50 meters. Yep.

And every day before we shoot, we zero. So we zero every single day. You're not like showing up and, you know, like pulling it out and going. Part of that is, one, if you're going from range to range, you don't know like what the... There's just like air is moving. And because we shoot standard velocity, uh, you're going to have wind affecting where, where your bullet goes, um, depends on elevation as well. Wind might push more at elevation or, um, if you're at sea level that all changes and then

also lighting can, uh, change things. But then lastly, um, you take your part, your rifle apart, you travel with it, you put it back together um how the rifle reacts in the cold so like on race day once our rifle goes outside like before um zero and stuff we leave it outside because you know if you bring it in and then it's getting warm and then you go back outside and it's getting cold um so i mean it's just little things like that and at the end of the day we're accuracy shooters not precision shooters so i'm sure like i don't understand the difference precision would basically be, how close to the center can you get? So like precision shooters, um, in the Olympics, they'd be looking to get tens every

single time. For me, it's like, I just got to hit that prone target down. That's about it. And we, we also have the race aspect where it's like, you want to do it pretty quick. Like, I don't want to be sitting there trying to shoot tens every single time. I just got to like, make sure I'm hitting prone targets or standing targets. And how big is the standing target? Standing target is about four and a half inches in diameter. Oh, okay. So.

At what range? Still 50 meters. Okay. Same thing. Yep. If you, when you go squirrel hunting, do you, do you bring this or do you got, do you use a different thing? Um, I have, but it's like, it's a little different.

Cause I mean, this is just so dialed in at 50 meters. Um, I mean, I've shot a grouse with my rifle before um just like i was out but i mean it's just like so specific for for biathlon it's like man yeah if that if that whatever is at 50 meters sweet i'll get it but like it's but you don't know where it's at at 40 meters you know i haven't really done a whole lot of um whole lot of shooting at other distances, but also because it's a standard velocity ammo, it's going to have a little bit of an arc on it. So it's good.

Well, these are all your magazines. So you, I mean, so for during, uh, during races, you got it. So if it's a two or four shooting race, you got to reload each time. So each magazine holds five rounds and, you can up to five five shootings so that that's the prone sling yep so that prone sling uh goes into my cuff which is on my arm which the guys were doing yesterday they were looking pretty good with the with the cuff on yeah it's

pretty slick it's like just basically an arm band on your bicep and when you get into prone you take that little hook and lock it in and when you lock it in you can just basically just go all skeletal and relax that front hand and it's you know like a nice platform do you guys all use the same gunsmith um pretty much everybody uses the same action barrel so the on shoots uh fortner 827 and then but there are like other guys that are like renowned for ranching on these biathlon guns? Yeah. Fortner just is like small little, basically a farm in Germany.

Um, if you go there, it's just like this rinky dink shop, but, um, they basically manufacture and work on all the, the rifles. There's, there's a few other guys that do, but they're pretty much all based in Europe. Like not a lot of guys in, in the U S but, um, yeah. Is your community under a lot of pressure to get rid of lead? Not yet. It's coming for you. Yeah, for sure.

It's something we've thought about where we're like, because there are, the Paralympians sometimes use laser rifles, but like laser rifles would kind of ruin the essence of biathlon. I think that's something that a lot of people, people recognize, but I mean, the big thing that affected us this last year was the, the banning of fluorocarbons. And so we can't wax with fluorocarbons anymore. So the waxing industry has kind of been making a big change, but yeah, I think lead might be the, that next one and just trying to find something that can still be accurate and work well in biathlon. I got a biathlon question for you.

Yeah. In order to medal. You already finaled it. Does anyone want to final this that hasn't finaled it yet? No? Okay. You should put it on with those straps. We might have to build another sling. Oh, I'm going to fall in love with that?

I wish we had more time because I want to shoot that thing for sure. I didn't catch the question. Go ahead. So I'm just curious in terms of meddling because I'll be honest with you, I watch your event every four years, similar to how you probably watch my event every four years.

In terms of being able to be on the podium in biathlon, do you have to shoot perfect that really depends um that's a good question you i would say to be successful i'll take that one i'll field that one let me answer this way if i would want a medal as like this year, yes, I would have had to shoot perfect. Um, other people maybe not because they're really good on skis. You generally have to shoot 90% or better. The, the chances of someone winning a race, having shot under 90% happens maybe when there's really crazy wind conditions and everybody's

missing and then just kind of turns um into like sometimes the fast skiers can kind of ski ski off the penalties but um yeah generally it's about i would say 90 to 100 okay yeah uh walk through how you how your sport came onto your radar being not from a country that yeah a country that doesn't delve yeah uh so i mean like i uh had said a little bit earlier i i actually grew up wrestling in wisconsin i had no idea what was uh what biathlon even was growing up um really like you wouldn't have known nope i mean i maybe would have seen a picture like yeah that's something that's like in the olympics yeah i got um but yeah i had not done done i had not skied or anything like that um in high school is when i started getting into

cross-country skiing and then went to college and it was at it was in college where my my coach used to be a biathlete himself and he knew like the opportunities and how big biathlon was and my talents and he's the one who kind of started putting biathlon in my head what i was reading about you um about this deal like with the weight cutting and wrestling that that got dangerous yeah it's funny because i've talked about on the show i've talked about like buddies of mine in high school doing the you know running around with garbage bags on and spitting into mountain dew bottles all day and sucking on marbles or whatever the hell they're doing all the time to try to like work it up you went down that you went down that rabbit hole pretty good um in some ways yeah it was kind of weird because it like when i was in middle school i was always like super

against it um like the cutting weight culture but it was mostly because i didn't really have a reason to at that time i didn't have a specific uh weight classes i was trying to make i was just like wrestling other guys around my same weight. And most of the time my dad was in, in the rooms trying to put me in heavier weight classes anyways, just to like get me to wrestle some like heavier guys. Um, but in middle school, I mean, I never really felt like much of an athlete growing up. Um, I wasn't really good at the sports that were big in my hometown, football, baseball, basketball. And so, uh, in eighth grade, I actually saw an opportunity for myself to like maybe be distinguished against, uh, amongst my peers

by getting my name on a weightlifting board. And so that's when I had like my first reason to really, um, cut weight. And so I did and got my name on the board and stuff, but then I thought, oh, maybe I'll be, be careful. And like, I can keep my weight down for the upcoming season. I can try and, uh, be prepared for the fall. I don't want to like gain extra weight and stuff like that. And it just kind of turned into this, uh, being disorder. Yeah. That I was just thought I was being healthy, try and make right decisions, but you know, I was a young kid. I didn't know what I was doing. And eventually I just kind of developed this addiction, um, and struggled with that for, for a while heading into my freshman

year. But all like based around competing. Um, I, I mean at the beginning maybe, but not really towards the end. Um, at that point it just became like, I would thought I was like being healthy. Um, but really I was just like, I was being super unhealthy. Um, I took a lot of things and that I learned from like health class and, you know, media that was telling me. But I was like 13, 14 at the time. I couldn't really know. I didn't really know much of the difference. Now when you look at, now that you're, you know, that you train at such a high level

and obviously have access to legitimate professionals, do you look back and be like, what in the world? Oh yeah, for sure. Like I look back, I'm like, man, why was I doing that? And like, it's really hard to think about. Cause like at that time you're, um, you're not thinking straight. I mean, like with most addictions, you're just, uh, really struggling through something. It was in your teens. Yeah. When I was like, uh, so I mean, it was between my eighth grade and freshman year of high school. Um, and I mean, I struggled with it for, um, about a year,

year and a half. And so, yeah, during that time, it was definitely a difficult time because my dad really struggled to understand it. I mean, he was just like, why is my kid so much different than like every other guy? Just not eating food and stuff. And my dad ended up dying in a car accident that winter that I was struggling with it as well.

What age were you then? I was 14 at that time. So, um, and then, so how, so all of a sudden, like someone just calls you on the phone or whatever. Um, I was actually at school and my brother and I got called down to the, uh, to the office and we're just like, Oh, what's going on? Like, why is my brother here? And then, um, they ended up taking us over to the middle school. Cause that's where my sister was. And my mom told us. And they didn't tell you why you're going to the middle school? No, not at first.

And they just like, my mom wanted to tell us at school because she's like, I don't want them to associate that sort of news like in our house. But why did they tell you you're going to the middle school? They didn't. They were just like, your mom's over there. And, you know, at that point, we were just like, your mom's over there. And, you know, at that point, we're just like, what's going on? This is kind of weird. And I don't think that they, it was, I mean, yeah, it's a hard situation. You know, you don't want to tell your kids like, hey, you got to go over to middle school because your mom has some hard news for you.

It's like, but yeah, it was, it was a tough time. But thankfully I, that went, that summer I still was, um, finally went to treatment at Rogers Memorial hospital in Wisconsin and, um, got my, got my life back there. And, um, when I, when I first went in, I like never thought I was going to compete again as an athlete one. Cause I thought high school sports was kind of like the end all be all of sports you know it only if you were like really good would you go to college yeah and professional for most people it's the like yeah exactly right exactly and like my relationship with high school sports at that point was like not good i was just miserable i wasn't really good i was um just doing it for the wrong reasons um and it was after that

that i actually got introduced to cross-country skiing and just was like on the weekends going out and to be honest like getting out of a gym full of yelling parents and being out in the woods by myself was a great change and just like got really passionate about the sport. And people were like, hey, you're pretty good. You should try some races. And by the time I was a senior in high school, I was like racing, traveling around the Midwest, qualified for junior nationals. And then it was like, I'm going to go to college and give this thing a go. But no guns yet. Nope. That wasn't until about my junior year of college. Um, someone's like, Hey, you should, I mean, I had 22 with you. Yeah. And so I graduated high school in 2010 and that's when the Vancouver Olympics were going on. And so I like saw some

biathlon. I was like, man, that looks like super cool. But like, I don't even know where to start to get into that. I mean, cause it's like, I didn't even know where the nearest like biathlon. I was like, man, that looks like super cool. But like, I don't even know where to start to get into that. I mean, cause it's like, I didn't even know where the nearest like biathlon range was. I didn't know anything about the sport. Did you go up to like Hayward? Um, so I, yeah, I actually lived in Hayward for a couple of years. Um, when I first started biathlon, um, I had some friends who, who had a cabin and like, I was just broke at that time living on my car. And so for like two, three years of my biathlon career, I't pay any rent but was just like living in where i could and i was kind of doing some rocky training at one point just like living in this cabin in hayward and um oh you mean like when he has to fight the russian guy yeah kind of where i'm just like i had like my own biathlon target that i bought

from someone full of rocks and whatnot yeah in some ways i set up my my target on the side of the road and i was just like roller skiing and shooting off the road. It was a good time. I love Hayward. It's a great spot. Roller skiing? Yeah. That's basically just skiing on roads. I heard your kids are pretty interested in it. It's like skis are

a little longer than rollerblades and the wheels are a lot slower too. If I saw a guy come down the road with rollerblades and a gun, I get a way different idea in my head. Yeah. Than a guy on skis with a gun.

They purposely make those wheels slow so that there's more friction and more resistance. Yeah, because if you think about how fast cross-country skiing is, you don't want to be out there just going 25 miles an hour.

I mean, inline blades are fast. So our wheels are a lot softer rubber. We use the same boots that we use on skis in the winter and stuff. And our, our wheels are a lot softer rubber. Um, and we use the same, same boots that we use on skis, um, in the winter and stuff. And then, yeah, so it's, it's to simulate skiing. Oh, you know, speaking of the wrestling, you know who you might want to fight? It's Chester here. Yeah. He, he wrestled. I don't want to fight you. That's kind of behind me now. Yeah. It takes a, it takes a lot to piss me off. So what age was it that you first,

like, like actually did a biathlon event? I mean, it doesn't need to be the high level, but you went to an event and competed. So my first biathlon race was actually over in Minnesota at Elk River. And there was this guy gave me this like

old biathlon rifle day before. He's like, basically this is how you guy who gave me this old biathlon rifle the day before. He was like, basically, this is how you are in position. The day before? Yeah, the day before. And he was like, all right, go out and send it. And that's what I did. And that was when I was probably 21. So he's like, look through this hole.

You see a little dot. Put that on that little thing and shoot. Did you do well that first race? I can't even remember. Honestly, I know I didn't hit a lot of targets, but I don't think I ever dirtied, so that was a success for me at that point. What's dirtying again? Dirtying

is when you miss all five targets. When you hit all five targets, that's when we would call that a clean. Dirtying's not good. In high wind, you're holding off target? Depends. Depends what your strategy is.

So, if you adjust your sights, we call that like clicking. Oh, so you'll do that? Yeah. So, there's wind flags on the range. And so, depending upon what the wind flags are doing, you might click. Do you guys use MOA or what do you use? Or MRAD? Like, what system do you use? Just looking at the wind flags are doing you might click do you guys use moa or what do you use or mrad like what system do you use uh just looking at the wind flags and no no i'm saying like when you click

i don't think it's the same yeah it's just like i mean so all i know is like on my rifle the sight when i so if i come in and the wind flags are like straight out i may have to go four clicks which is about four bullet holes um of adjustment so if I'm shooting center and I take four clicks, I'm like on the edge or just outside of the prone ring. So it can make a difference. Similar to making adjustments on your archery setup. Yeah. Yeah, you're not thinking MOAs. Yeah, you're just, I mean, you have the little lines on your sight that you're like, okay, I moved it that far.

Yeah. Each click is a certain amount. Gotcha. Yeah. And that was what age again? When you first did your first about 21 but i mean what age were you uh headed for the olympics like i'm trying to figure out like how many years yeah uh 2015 is when i graduated college and went full-time biathlon um and unfortunately i like just missed out in peong chang uh olympic trials I got sick and was like the first alternate. So, um, didn't go there, but I would say those three years were pretty tough.

But, um, the biggest thing with that is like the skiing aspect of the sport. Like you have to be a fast skier. And thankfully, um, like through college, I really worked on all my like skiing development and stuff. And so at that point, it was really just about learning how to shoot, um, which to learn how to shoot a biathlon rifle. Well, probably takes about one and a half years to two years of like failing pretty miserably at times. And then you're like, Oh, I think I got this. And then the next day it's like, man, I can't hit anything. And so there's a lot of ups and downs, but it's just, it takes a lot of persistence and you have to be willing to, to not do well for a little while.

If you right now went in, like what event in the Olympics most closely mirrors the actual skiing part of what you do in terms of equipment and course and all that? Cross country skiing is like basically the same. So the skis aren't any different. I mean, like, yeah, biathletes are about as close to a cross-country skier as you probably get okay like any other sport i don't know if you guys had if your gear was more tweaked out for certain so how would you do would you just get smoked in a cross-country skiing event um depends your definition of smoked like you could hold your own yeah for sure okay i mean talking about

like how competitive biathlon is in the olympics there's actually a few guys from some nations um including one guy from latvia that i know um he actually went to cross-country skiing because he it was easier for him to qualify for the olympics cross-country skiing than biathlon so you guys are high test skiers yeah for sure well i'm trying to sort out though like the shooting end of things and the skiing end of things but the skiing is it's top-notch skiers. Yeah, for sure. I'm trying to sort out the shooting end of things and the skiing end of things, but the skiing is top notch skiers. Yeah, for sure.

Is there any crossover? Are there any athletes that do both? Yeah, I mean, you definitely can... At the Olympics. At the Olympics, not anymore

because it's just really specialized. Biathlon does have a little bit different type of skiing. So our longest race is going to be 20K, which is like 13 miles or something like that. Uh, whereas when you have,

if you're a cross country skier, your longest race can be 50 K. So you're going to change the train a little bit different, but we also have like seven, eight pound rifle on our back. So, um, and we're doing loops. So there are a little bit of differences. Um, but like, it isn't unheard of for, for us to like jump into a cross country ski race at times um like in the off season and stuff like that so how if if it's so a 20k race yep how long would it take you if someone just said like uh put your gun on your back and just go ski the ski 20k yeah uh depending upon snow conditions i'd say around 45 minutes okay and then and then on average in that 20k event how many shots i know it's between one and five for every target

depending on how let's say like perfect conditions you're shooting great how many shots you can touch off um ideally 20 for 20 so in a 20k race you, you're going to have four shootings. So you're going to have 20 shots. The best I've gotten is 19. So 19 for 20. And... I understand.

You hit one target. You hit two targets with one bullet. No. 19 out of 20 shots. 19 out of 20 shots. But you missed one circle. Yep.

I missed one shot. Oh, you're shooting steel. But you didn't keep shooting in order to hit it? You can't. Nope. Not in that race. Yeah, you shoot. There's five targets, and you have five shots,

and you shoot each one one time. So I'll explain it. Oh, I thought you had five shots. You had five chances to hit it. You should just break it down from start. Yeah, so with the range, so the range is set up with the targets are at 50 meters, and each point, which would be like each shooting lane,

has five targets. And so every time you come in, you're taking five shots at those targets. If you hit the target, it goes from black and turns to white. So you know you hit it, and if you miss target, it goes from black and turns to white. So you know you hit it. And if you miss it, it just stays black. So you could get up there and whiff all five of your shots on one target. Yep. But okay. I see. And that's what we call dirty. So either way you're, you're dumping, when you stop, you're dumping five rounds. Yep, exactly. I'm with you now. And so,

so say I come in and I hit four of those five shots, that one shot that I missed, I get penalized. And so I, in the 20K race, which is the individual, you get one minute added onto your time. So say I finished the race in 44 minutes, I'm going to, there's one minute added on. So my race time is then 45 minutes. I'm with you now. So, so So say, then with a 20K race, there's two prone shootings and two standing shootings. So you have 20 shots total and five shots at each shooting.

Man, I really feel like you should commit yourself to try to do one more Olympics, man. That's what I was going to say. This story's got so much grit. Yeah, because then when they make a movie about it, you'd be like one of the Jamaican dudes

won the, or didn't win. Oh, Cool Runnings? Yeah, they didn't they make a movie about it, you'd be like one of the Jamaican dudes won the, or didn't win. Oh, Cool Runnings? Yeah, they didn't win the Olympics. They just went to it. Yeah. With the bobsled? Maybe it'd be more like Miracle 1980 on ice.

There you go. Yeah. But yeah, because you could beat the Russians, and everybody doesn't like them again. Yeah, if they're still in the Olympics, we'll see. So I think you should go one more time. Like I said, I've had excuses. It's not entirely up to what you decide though right like you got to like earn your spot again oh for sure i mean it's like i mean that's the reason why i'm giving it some serious thought right now because if i'm going another four years i'm all in i gotta be prepared

and like uh i mean these things don't happen overnight. And so you gotta, you gotta be committed to that long-term vision and like. I got you. So you're, you're deciding, it's not like, do I want to go to the Olympics again? It's do I want to spend the next four years entirely committed to this one thing? Yeah. So like for me, um, since like April 30th of last year, I've been home for like less than 30 days because I'm on the road all the time, training and racing. You married?

Yep. You got kids? No. How long have you been married? About three and a half years now. What's the story with that? How'd you meet her? Met her at the bike shop that I worked at in Duluth, Minnesota during college. And she was working there before she went to med school and we just hit it off. Really? Yeah. That's good. So, but like I left November 10th of this last

year and I was in Europe until I went to Beijing. So through Christmas and then I came home for one week and then after that week, I've been now back on the road since, um, for about four or five weeks. And so, I mean, just all in all, it's, it's a lot of time on the road. Any endorsement deals in your world?

Yep. Oh, there are? Yeah, for sure. So I work with Rain Body Fuel, Aaron's out of Wisconsin, JJ Keller Foundation, and Rogers Moore Hospital as well. Oh, good. Yeah. All right. So you don't have, you don't need to have a day job. This is my day job. If I had another day job, I would, you can't make it work with biathlon.

It's just, I mean, it's, it's full-time training. Cause as we said, you have to be at a super high level ski, ski wise. And in order to do that, you have to train on skis, probably 750 hours to 800 hours a year. And then you have to add in the shooting component, but then, I mean, in order to train well, you have to also recover well. And so, I mean, if I'm like at a job trying to figure it out, but also I'm just on the road all the time. And I mean, this is my job. But people in curling, they have to have day jobs. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a different thing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I could pick, yeah. But that's what makes biathlon so difficult is it's like such a demanding sport. And the level of the sport has only gotten higher i mean the the field itself is just getting closer and closer in the uh like the ski ski times are just getting faster and faster um part of that really came from oleander bjorn dollin out of

norway he just took it to a whole nother level and i think we see this with a lot of sports where like one guy takes things super super seriously and. And when he does that, everyone else is like, man, I have to also just like commit my life to this if I want to have any sort of success. And I mean, it's probably like the same with hunting in the hunting world. You know, one guy is like super dialed in and everyone else is like, man, if I want to like compete and in some ways like on that, like you gotta, you gotta be dialed in. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers

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onxmaps.com meet. onxmaps.com meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. David, did you go by David Weiss or Weiss? Weiss. That's what I thought. I hear people say Weiss.

I think Callahan says Weiss. It happens a lot. To the point where I've just given up on correcting it. I'm like, if you want to call me Weiss, call me Weiss. Did you guys bump into each other at the Olympics? No, not this time around. No, but you're in Jean-Jacques, right? Yeah. So we were in the same village,

but there's a lot of people there. Did you know each other before today? No, we just met. Oh, so you might have bumped into each other and not known it. Yeah, we might have walked past each other in the village and not even known. It's possible.

Huh. Do you hang out with other disciplines? Are you so into the moment that you just focus on what you're doing? Oh, no. That's one of my favorite parts about the Olympics is going and hanging out with other disciplines? Are you so into the moment that you just focus on what you're doing? Oh, no. That's one of my favorite parts about the Olympics is going and hanging out with people who do other crazy things. Is that right? Yeah.

So there's like a social component to being there. Totally. I mean, you try to find the balance for sure because I've seen some folks go over to the Olympics and fall a little too heavily into the social component. Seriously. And then they get to their event and they're like, oh crap, I haven't actually prepared for this at all. Really, like all hung over and... I mean, it depends what sport you're in.

It totally does. Those curlers. Curling, yeah. Now, you grew up in the outdoors. Yeah. Did you feel that... You know what I'm talking about? The tension, right?

The tension that I'm having in my family between traditional hook and bullet activities and skiing. Did you feel that there was a compromise you had to make? A little bit, yeah. Where did your old man fall on this whole thing? Well, I think for the most part, they complimented each other. Tell me more being well i guess the best simplest shortest way i could describe it to you is that really good strong skiers can carry a really heavy pack so true so if you're trying

to rig your your children up to be good pack out buddies keep them on the skiing program because the the training that i do they wouldn't be able to go help. Well, they would in the archery season. That's true. Yeah. No, because I heard when you get real serious, you start spending half your year in New Zealand. Yeah.

Did you ever do that? I did. You did that route? I did one season and I just realized, I mean, for me, it's all about balance. And part of why skiing complimented, why hunting complimented skiing so well is that I could kind of put the skis on the shelf for a while and really focus on something else I was passionate about. And then I would hang the bow up on the wall and, and really be

passionate about skiing again. But I wasn't all one thing all the time. Cause I think, you know, talking about how I overpressured myself as a young athlete, that was a huge part of it was like, I was waking up every single morning and just dedicating my entire day to being the greatest skier I could possibly be. And to the point where I became too focused and I was overpressuring myself. And so having those alternate passions has always been really good for me competitively. I don't know if it's good for everybody. There are certainly some athletes that I know who live their sport every day, day in, day out, and they do it well.

But for me, having those balancing passions was always good. So it's even like you'd view it as strategy. Oh, absolutely. Like actually benefit, not just like, hey, it'd be better if I just did this one thing, i can't you're like it's good to have a split yeah it's great to have a split because i mean think about for me i think about all the mistakes that i've made in bow hunting and how much that's translated to making mistakes in skiing because if you if you really beat yourself up about missing a stock bow hunting, you're going to be miserable. Because five minutes later, you're going to make another

mistake and learn another lesson. Five minutes later, you're going to make another mistake and learn another lesson. And life is like that. We're constantly, it's trial and error. You're constantly trying to do new things. You're trying to do something innovative and you're not always going to succeed. So the bow hunting crossover has been very mentally like just beneficial for me. And I mean, just in my soul too, I need that time in the wilderness. I'm, I'm naturally an introvert. Like I, I really like to read a lot. I like to just be, I like to be alone quite a bit. And so, I mean, there's two to three weeks in the fall where I just turn my phone off and go off with my bow on my backpack and hike into the wilderness and just completely detach. And that sets me up well for traveling all around, all around the world,

competing every other weekend, all this other stuff, because I can get to like a spiritual medium. Is it like a little, is there like a little ritual when you like go and hang up your, your bow and pick up your skis? Is it like today's the day? Yeah. I always kind of laugh because I, I know for a fact, I always have these high goals of I'm going to shoot my bow in the off season more than I did last year. But pretty much every time it's like, it's like mid to late November, I hang the bow up on the rack and I'm like, that's probably the last time I'm going to touch that thing until spring. Is that right? Yeah. And you just start in on it. Yep. Yeah. What, uh, walk through how you like sort of your, you know, at, at whatever point, like how you progress up to the point where you're in the Olympics. Yeah. Well, I, like I said, it's a, it's a young sport. I started competing really young. I transitioned over from Alpine racing. My dad was, he raced in college and,

um, wanted me to be a racer. My older sisters who are twins, four years older than me. Oh, so you did what your dad said you should do? At the beginning. Yeah. That's good. And then, but I always wanted to jump. Even when I was, even when I was like neck deep in racing, I would skip race practice and go ski the terrain park. So I think that everybody kind of knew at an early age, this kid's going to transition to free skiing at some point. So I switched over and competed in moguls and aerials and all the traditional uh freestyle events early on but that was when terrain park skiing so half pipe slope style and big air were kind of coming into the

scene because you know most people don't even know even to this day a lot of people don't even know that we have skiing half pipe in the olympics and i'm like dude we've done it three times now but um it started with snowboarding. Snowboarders created the terrain parks. They, they took things from skateboarding. They were like, oh, a half pipe would be cool on snow. And so when I was 11, 12, 13, that's when free skiing was becoming big. And growing up, I was wanting to be, always wanted to be a snowboarder because those were the guys I saw doing flips and spins. Cause they were the rebels too. Yeah. They were the rebels. I wanted to be a rebel. I always was. So, yeah, I just, at the point where I probably would have transitioned to snowboarding was when free skiing was getting cool.

And I was like, I already know how to ski. I'm just going to do this. And started traveling and just chipping away at it. I went to my first Junior Olympics, which would be junior nationals. We called it junior Olympics back then. Junior nationals when I was 13 and won an event that I just was surprised I even won and kind of just chipped away at it from there. Like I said, in the early years, I was really bad at competing, but I would always get one or two wins per season to kind of keep me in it. I never had like a full season of failure. I always won the last couple events of the year.

Cause I finally just found my zone or found the swing of things. It wasn't actually until, uh, 2011. Uh, so in 2011, I got married, had a little girl and all of a sudden my world changed.

And it was that, it was actually that det actually that detached got married young man super young yeah 20 my daughter was born was 21 yeah wild times so how so how old your daughter now she's 10 okay yeah i had her at 18 so seriously it feels that way sometimes when she's getting salty with me uh but i just uh so what was cool about parenthood for me is everybody thought my career was over they're like oh dave went a different route he got married young he had kids young you go by dave it depends on who you're talking to i have great dave david's dude phenomenal luck with dave's okay that's good yeah dave's good for me uh whenever people get uh whatever one of my buddies is gonna have a kid i always say dude name him dave that's i really appreciate the reliable i really appreciate that

turn yeah the odds are they're gonna be all right all right i went from over focusing over pressuring myself wanting to be the greatest skier of all time and never performing well in competitions to this whole new aspect of life where i kind of realized this whole game i play on a pair of skis doesn't really matter doesn't matter as much as i thought it did and what really matters you mean matters like in a in a sort of global existential way. Yeah. Like in an eternal way, you know, like what really matters. And I realized what really matters is how I treat my wife, how I love my daughter and now son. And all of a sudden the pressure was off for skiing. And I started seeing it as an opportunity rather than a necessity.

Before my daughter was born, skiing was something I had to be good at because that was what my identity was. I wanted to identify as a great skier. And then when I just decided to identify as Dave the human, who's a husband and father, skiing became like something I did more nonchalantly. And that's when my string of success started. I just started cruising.

I was enjoying it. You know, a friend of ours, Mo, he expressed something similar to me that once he had his, all he ever did was work, right? And then once he had, he got married and had a kid, he felt more like,

like when he went to work he stepped into a role and it just changed it changed for him it got better yeah but he said he started thinking of like putting on the hat like putting on your top hat and grabbing your briefcase and like going and doing that thing yep and then at a point in the day you stopped doing that thing and it gave him like clarity into what it was. Yeah. Like into what his job was. Absolutely.

It wasn't just that that was Mo, right? It was like, well, there's Mo, but he does this thing. Yeah. You know, and it was helpful to him. I think for me, it comes down to quality over quantity because before Nayeli, my daughter was born, um, it was all quantity of skiing, like quantity in the gym, quantity, just thinking about skiing all the time. And there wasn't a whole lot of quality there. I wasn't as, I wasn't as focused training for skiing as I had to be when I had to wear

the two different hats. I would come home from training at the gym or whatever, and I would take the skier hat off and put on the husband and father hat. And actually being able to focus on those two different things was really good for me because, yeah, my quality went way up, even though the quantity went down. Do you, what about if you like, if you're introverted and you like things to be quiet and like to,

to be by yourself, you, you gotta have also like an obligation to be out there. Yeah. Right. In the public eye. Like it can't just be that no one ever hears a peep out of you. And then all of a sudden you should turn up at the Olympics. Right.

Right. You need to be like a, yeah, I don't know what the word is. You need to be like a personality, right? Especially around the Olympics, because if you're in a niche sport,

like Paul and I are, we, we, you don't get a lot of attention except in Olympic years. So it's kind of daunting how much attention you do get in those years because you're like, wow, I have 12 interviews scheduled this week. Last year I had zero. Because they want you to market the competition. Yeah. They want you to market the Olympics in general. And you want to market your sponsors. Your sponsors want you to market them. You want to market yourself. There's so much that goes on. It's, it's a very focused time of doing a lot of media and stuff like that.

And actually that's where my like deep addiction with hunting kind of came into the picture was after I won gold in 2014, I was stressed out and overwhelmed by all the attention. The introvert in me was just like, dude, you got to stop. In what form did the attention come? Interviews. Going to weird stuff, like doing a lot of interviews. I got to go on the Ellen DeGeneres show, like things that are totally outside of a professional skier's normal. She's a big animal rights person. Yeah. Did you guys get into that? No, we didn't. They very, very staunchly told me

not to get into that. You didn't say like, hey, I got a question for you. I would have loved to have had the time. Those shows are produced down to the second. Oh, sure.

It's crazy. So, yeah, I was just overwhelmed. Like, I went to Oscar parties. Like, they treat you for a couple weeks. Especially when you win gold, they treat you for a couple of weeks, especially when you win gold, they treat you for a couple of weeks,

like an A-list celebrity. Who's they? The Hollywood. The media. Or the media or the people of the United States. And so you got a manager comes in and they like, are you fielding the inquiries? Hopefully your agent or somebody else is.

Cause if you were fielding all the inquiries, it would just drive you into the ground. So you're like, no, no, no. Yeah. I'll do that. No, no, no. You got to do this. And there's, and I guess for me, especially cause I was young, I was like, well, I'm going to do it all. I'm going to do everything because my, I know my windows is tight here. So I have to do all these things. They all seem like great opportunities. I just wore myself out. What did your wife think about all that? You'd have to ask her, but I think she was pretty worn out too.

She didn't like all that. I mean, she was riding the wave along with me. She went to the Oscar parties with me. She went to do this stuff. Oscar parties. Yeah. It was wild. It was a wild time.

I said no to all those things the second time. Because I felt like I did it. Just play my last interview. Paul, are you taking notes? Because when you win America's first medal in biathlon, it's going to be two weeks of hell. I mean, yeah, I guess. But I totally sympathize with him where it's like people come out of the woodwork

and they're like, man, you haven't cared about me for the last two years. They come up, they care about you for about three, four weeks around the Olympics. And then they just drop off the face of the earth. And they do a really good job, speaking to my old young self after I won gold in 2014, they do a really good job of making you feel like they actually care about you. And so it's really hard to say no to a lot of things because you're like, oh, no, this person really cares. They did their research. They know all about my backstory. And the reality is, yeah, you kind of have to go in knowing this person doesn't really care about me. They only care about what they can get from me in this moment. So anyways, back to my long

winded story. We care about you guys. We appreciate that. Yeah. You know what? I want you to come. We need to do the math and find out what day is the most far away from the Olympics. And we'll go sturgeon spitting. And you guys come back that day. Okay, so back to the bow hunting thing. Remy saw,

who's a lifelong friend, saw that I You guys are both from the same state. Yeah, we're from Reno. Yeah. And he saw that I was stressed out and he's like, here's a bow. Just, I think this will be good for you. And like the meditative aspect of shooting, I really fell in love with. Because I was just a recreational hunter. I would hunt, especially living in Nevada.

Basically, I would just hunt when I drew tags on the rifle side of things. And then I got, I just fell in love with the sport of archery. And it was, it was really grounding for me during that crazy time. And then I was like, oh, well now I can shoot. I might as well hunt. And the seasons fit better. Everything fits better. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause archery season in Nevada. Get cracked. Starts August 1st. Yeah. So like 109 degrees out. Yeah.

It's so it fit perfectly. So that's why, you know, skiing doesn't really detract from hunting and hunting doesn't really detract from skiing for me. There are certain tags that I can't put in for yet because I'm still competing, but they definitely complement each other well. Yeah. Like the mule deer ruts out. Yeah. I've never shot a running, rutting butt with my bow. Maybe it'll happen someday. You got to get it in. You got to get it in when the getting's good. Yeah. So you put in for tags

all over the place now? Yeah. Each year I put in for a new state along with all the other ones. I'm sure you guys have experienced that progression.

Oh, yeah. So you call up Hunt and Fool and be like, listen, man, I can only hunt in like August, September, early October. Yeah, where can I go?

What do they got? What do they got for me? Yeah. Yeah. Where do you live now? Still in Reno, just outside Reno and Verdi. How far from where you grew up? 20 minutes.

Huh. Yeah. Your folks still there? Yep. Are they all proud of you? You have national, national state, David. Oh yeah. David Wise Day, right?

Yeah. No, the community, the Reno Tahoe community is very proud of me. In 2014, after I won, uh, the governor at the time declared David Wise Day. So every February 28th, just remember that it's David Wise Day. I will. Do something cool. Is it hard for you to go out around town? No, no, it's, I mean, yeah, there are people come up for autographs and photos, but it's not, like, that doesn't hurt my feelings.

Did you like COVID because you had the mask on? I mean, let me be honest. The level of fame that we're talking about for me versus the level of fame for somebody very famous is so minuscule. I'm not talking about in your town. Yeah. Well, in my, even in my town, it's like, it's like once a week. It's not like every single meal I go out for. I see.

And we kind of live off in the woods. Like we eat, we eat at home most of the time, mostly cooking wild games. So it's, we don't, we don't eat out very much. So maybe every time I go and eat out, somebody comes up to me for something. And you do all your best work with a helmet and goggles yeah exactly it's not like i'm i'm not that recognizable yeah i have the funniest experience that i have is usually when i'm

getting my oil changed or you know at the sandwich shop people will just stare at me with that like where do i know you from like that skin dude no they don't even know that they where do I know you from? You look like that skiing dude. No, they don't even know that. They're like, I know you. And they'll say that. They're like, did we grow up together? Did we go to school together in elementary school? Where do I know you from? And that's just kind of funny for me.

Do you cook in your house? Yeah. Does your wife cook much? She cooks mostly. Oh, she does? Yeah. There's kind of a running. She'll cook with wild game.

Yeah. She like to hunt? She will. She'll cook with wild game. Yeah. She like to hunt? She will. She'll tolerate hunting. Like I put her in for tags, for rifle tags. I'm like, all right, babe, you drew this tag. Let's go. Yeah.

But it's not her passion. But she loves cooking. She's a great cook. And she prefers that you guys eat game meat. Oh, absolutely. When you went over to the Olympics, did you bring some game meat with you? That's probably hard, isn't it? I thought about it.

I mean, I do it everywhere else. But I was like, I probably don't want to get caught with wild game meat. Yeah, there's this whole thing with moving animals across the border right now. Yeah, exactly. So no, but the funny thing is when we travel amongst my peers in skiing, I'm kind of the cook because I'm the oldest guy. I have kids. And so if we're all staying in one, like if there's four or five guys staying in one condo, I'll cook the cook because I'm the oldest guy. I have kids. And so if we're all staying in one, like if there's four or five guys staying in one condo, I'll cook the meals and I usually bring wild game and they're all excited about it. And so I have this like reputation amongst my peers and coaches and support staff that I'm this amazing cook. So every time any of them talks to my wife,

they're like, wow, it must be so great having Dave around to cook all the meals. And she's like, yeah, that'd be nice if you ever actually cooked. Cause I don't cook when I'm home. But my daughter, my daughter stayed over at Yanni's house. I'm still pissed at her about this. My daughter stays over yet. She's nine years old, stays over at Yanni's house and tells him, oh yeah, my dad, he hasn't cooked breakfast at all. Told him that he just looks at his phone. Which is a bold faced total lie. I think she got caught up in just like I do. You go to someone else's place, they could cook the exact same thing you cook all the

time because someone else cooked it. It's going to taste better and be different, you know? And she got caught up in that. I happened to make some lemon ricotta pancakes. My kids are like, eh. And Rosie's like, oh my gosh, best pancakes ever. My dad never makes pancakes, you know? So true.

And I forgot what else there was. Whatever we had for dinner, she was a real big fan of too. Oh, yeah. Yanni made schnitzel with wild turkey and she gets to telling yanni i've never had this before i'm like what is this it's like a staple yeah i'm like i think most of america thinks that your dad invented this dish so funny man so uh when do you at what point do you got to decide if you're gonna go to the olympics again right you know i don't mean go but try to go or is it are you already got invited

oh no i didn't already get invited so you could like go to shit and not make it oh absolutely okay yeah i mean it at least for i mean i was thinking about hanging it up after the last olympics and just kind of moving on you are like what's his name you are like Tom Brady all the hemming and hawing every year well no I was never driving the news cycle with your hemming and hawing I'm an introvert so all this is

going on in my head I wasn't saying it out loud like I was thinking but I was considering I just had kind of lost my love for the sport I had a couple seasons in a row where I was injured a lot of the time. And it was just, it just got to the point where I was like, man, do I really love this anymore? So I got out of that place and decided to do another one here in 2022. And now I'm kind of like, man, I'm pretty motivated.

I think I want to do one more. Have you touched a pair of skis since you got off the podium there? Yeah. I bruised my heel pretty good this year, and it was just causing me great pain while I was skiing. So it's hard to be motivated to go out and recreationally ski when you're dealing with an injury like that. But I skied last week, and it was fine.

So I'll probably be back out cruising now. If you decide, when do you need to decide by and when do you need to start acting on that decision? Oh, it all comes down to your talent level in some ways. Because I know for a fact that I'm not talented enough to not stay in it for the next four years and try to make it four years from now or three and three quarters years from now.

So if I'm going to go for another Olympics, I kind of got to stay in it, stay competitive, be training, be doing all the same stuff that I've been doing. Start and win right now. Starting now. Yeah. Hmm. With that ski and it, it's just so crazy how progressive it is though, and how you have to stay on top of it and just watch some guy probably on Instagram do something crazy and be like, I don't know. It just, it's just so progressive. It seems like, oh, it's just changing all the time. Well, yeah, just with the tricks, you know, or do you not feel like that? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Part of my early success was because I was, was that guy. I was the pioneer. I was the

one who was like, just looking at the sport and picking off things that nobody else was doing and saying, I'm going to do this. And that's why I was able to win so many contests in a row is because I was just like, I had this, on paper, I had an advantage at the start of the day. So all I had to do was land it in order to win. And so now I'm not in that position anymore. I'm kind of like looking at the younger guys and watching what they're doing. You're an old fuddy-duddy now. I'm just all washed up. Like what's a trick?

Like what's one of the best half-pipe tricks right now called? All the tricks we do are counted in degrees of rotation. So 360 degrees is one spin. And in the last Olympics in 2018, I won because I did double corks, which means you're flipping twice and spinning in four different directions. So I took off backwards to the right, did a double cork, took off backwards to the left and did a double cork. And those were 1080s and 1260s this time around at the olympics it was all 1440s and 1620s so it's like really like yeah people are now like spinning stopping themselves

right in some stuff and like landing the opposite in yeah you call that a pretzel when you when you spin one direction and then almost hold it and bring it back the other direction so that's in that's not in half pipe yet but but it may we may get to that point but paul there's all kinds of innovations going on shooting dude paul's gonna be like shooting over his back and shit you know pretzel shooting uh that's yeah i hadn't really thought of that part of it it's like it's not like this like thing that's always existed and you just do it faster right and that's what it that's what it's like in most of the traditional freestyle events like aerials and moguls for the most part they're doing the same tricks and just trying to do them better but my sport is all about innovating and

doing something new that nobody else is doing and differentiating yourself that way. Well, man, we'll be watching. I appreciate it. I'll be rooting for you. Thanks. You know, I feel invested. I always get interested. I can't get interested in sports. I know someone that does it. Yeah, both you guys. I feel like we're invested.

We need to see it. Paul's mad. Well, you guys got to send me a text when you decide or not. Paul, how does the average Joe American get to watch your next big race or just biathlon in general? Is there a streaming service or a website that you recommend? Yeah. I think the easiest way is Peacock. Peacock generally has all of the races live.

If you have a VPN, you can watch it on Eurosport or if you go to biathlonworld.com, they have live broadcasting on there as well. NBC Sports at times does have it, but Peacock is generally the easiest or Eurovision as well. And that's the same for my sport too. Peacock is a really good way to tune in. I think everybody has Peacock now because of the Olympics. Yeah. When's the next for my sport too. Peacock is a really good way to tune in. What is the next big... I think everybody has peacock now because of the Olympics. Yeah. When's the next big showdown? Our first World Cup this next season.

So we just wrapped up. I was in Norway a week ago. And that was our last World Cup of the season. And our next World Cup to kick off the 2022-23 season will be in Sweden on November 28th. Oh, so you've got a long break right now. I'll be in Sweden on, I think, November 28th. Oh, so you got a long break right now. I have about a month break, and then I got to get back to training.

Yeah, okay. You guys call it a shootout, a showdown? What do you call it? World Cup. Oh, okay. Shootout sounds way better. Yeah, I was going to say, I think a biathlon shootout sounds way better,

or a showdown even. Yeah. Yeah. In general, is the worldwide biathlon um trending upwards like more people getting involved and watching it yeah for sure it's it's a huge market um i mean they signed some the the ibu which is the international biathlon union they signed some like pretty hefty uh tv deals and their broadcasting has all been, um, with, with Eurovision and Eurosport, which makes it a lot more accessible for people to watch worldwide. And as a result of that,

it's been a growing, a growing sport. What's the trend in the U S? Um, that I don't know, statistically, it's definitely growing, probably not as much as other, other countries like, um, but the IBU is definitely trying to target those different markets that aren't quite as big yet, including Finland, which is more historically a cross-country nation. But, yeah, they're definitely growing. It seems as if just in Bozeman here, I hear more chat about the sport. Yeah, because there's that place up the road that does all the

cross they got like crosscut they got all the you go down there and there are people shooting away and yeah so crosscut mountain sports here in town uh they just put in a brand new 30 point range which is like a regulation size range to hold international competitions and they're currently starting a uh fundraising campaign to build a full training center and lodge and everything else like that, which is super exciting. So it's going to be a really sweet facility once they get that put in. And so, yeah, if you're in Bozeman, you should definitely go check it out. How do people find you? Are you active on social media? I am. I'm on Instagram, Paul T. Schomer. That's my main one. Otherwise-

S-C-H-O-M-M-E-R. That's correct. And then I also have a website, paulschomer.com. I don't update it a whole lot, but everyone's on that. They can find out. They can drop you a note. Be like, hey, if you really want to shoot good. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think I mispronounced your name when I was introducing you at the start of the show. Yeah, it's okay. What's the best way for people to find you, David?

Same thing. Instagram. My skiing page, just my personal skiing page is MrDavidWise, M-R David Wise. And then if you're interested in the hunting aspect of things, I post that all on WiseOTG, which is short for Wise Off The Grid. And I'm on YouTube too. I vlog here and there. I'm not super consistent about it, but I do hunting and skiing stuff on the vlog.

And how did they find that? That's at MrDavidWise as well. MrDavidWise. MRDavidWise. All right. Well, guys, thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for having us. I'm pulling for your asses.

Don't let me down. You thought you felt pressure before. I can't wait to look back on this and be like, you know when Paul decided? It was when he was sitting there at the meat eater. Yeah, at the meat eater. Bozeman. But then he went on to be the first ever. He got to think about that Jamaican bobsled team and went on.

Yeah, I'm on. Took the podium. I mean, honestly, even if we did it without the skis, we should maybe try to do another little meat eater get-together so you could just shoot that rifle. It's a real joy. I'd like to shoot the rifle. Yeah.

Bring your kids up, too. I'd like to see you shoot the rifle. I'm bummed I missed out. I don't want to bring my kids because then what if they get into it? That sounds a little terrible. More weekends away. What if they get into it and it's a weekend thing? I mean, it could be a weekday thing, too.

It's here at Bozeman. It's not like you're going to be traveling places. I guess they could do that on Tuesdays or something like that. Yeah, they got weekend programs and stuff. You're super close. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, I don't know. Alright guys, thanks for coming on. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

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