The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 382: The Making of MeatEater

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with Rick Smith, Garret Smith, Chris Gill, Loren Moulton, Danny Bolton, Janis Putelis, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: MeatEater's Season 11, Episode 1 with Evan Hafer of BRCC is live on themeateater.com; how Chris Gill had never pooped outdoors before filming the MeatEater series; not caring if you live or die when you're young; a reminder to get tickets for Chester + Trampled By Turtles' concert in Atlanta on Dec. 1; Trampled By Turtles new album, Alpenglow, is out!; when your wife accidentally runs over and kills your target buck with her car; how the Rinella kids range everything; Steve's bloody vasectomy story and how you gotta check out his Instagram account for the video reenactment; defining what a Good Samaritan actually is; Steve claims that he's the first person ever to rattle in a sitka deer; are we allowed to call someone a bitch?; explaining verité; Steve yelling at the camera guys all the time; the mindless ferocity of Americans; the 180-degree rule; NIMing; not liking to hike in the dark; our 10-min episode about an attempted episode that won't end up being a MeatEater episode; the extreme difficulty of making tree stand hunting exciting TV; how ice fishing simply cannot be captured; and more.  Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Alright everybody, we got a boatload of camera guys here who filmed I don't know, man. Bazillions of episodes of Meat Eater. How many years have you guys been on it? Just go around the room and say who you are and how many years you've been on the show.

Or any kind of rough estimate of how many episodes you've done. Rick Smith. I think I started working 2016 was the first episode, which was season, maybe the end of season six. Started season seven. And I don't know how many total. Was your first one when we went

to Mexico with Garrett? Yeah. First one, Snorra. And we learned about night terrors for the first time. That was your first shoot? That was my first one. Yeah, First one, Snorra. And we learned about Night Terrors for the first time. That was your first shoot? That was my first one. Yeah, I had done Apex Predator with Remy Warren.

A couple episodes of that. It was tryout. They were skeptical of my, I don't know, skeptical. We have to be. Yeah, totally.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect. Yep. Ooh. So, you passed. I don't't know I could talk about just that trip for an hour it would be funny there's there's a talk about Garrett's night tears there's I was here in the tent with him yeah it was terrifying my mountains and cartel country no night tears no what was the thing that you said that night Avalanche

It was a mud avalanche Yeah He thought it was an avalanche Woke up grabbing I should have warned you Gear and screaming I was like Dude we're in Mexico

You guys were feeding me Yeah And we're on top of the mountain Danny tells us Yeah you guys can't Give me Snickers Right before bed No sweets

No candy No sweets And I can't turn them down Alright Lauren Yeah my first show was Washington elk with you guys maybe 2018 I'm guessing I remember that one oh so your new relative newbie I remember that I mean four years I guess I don't know five if I didn't do it some but you've been filming for a long time you bet you film that show mountain man for a million years ten years on mountain men then I was with

Newberg Randy Newberg on on Your Own Adventures when he started. That was seven seasons, I think, that we did that one. And kept a couple of totals in the beer business. Yep, until just recently. No. Yeah. Oh, he's done with beer. Threw in the reins on the selling of beer.

No longer going to sell. Just consume. Just going to push and be the regular peer pressure guy. End of an era, man. I wanted to bring bloodies this morning, but nobody really was into it, so. Oh, I drink an NA bloody, man, for sure. He's never filmed anything.

I did work on Mountain Men though. Oh, there you go. Ridge? I think I started in 2015. I remember your first trip. That's when you got the name Ridge Pounder. Yup. Oh yeah.

Yup. Although I was telling these guys, I feel like when I got in my thirties that I've kind of like phased out of that. You lost it for sure. I kind of lost it. Yeah. I lost a little edge. Uh.

So I liked you cause you were a good walker and you, and you were real enthusiastic about that soup can full of bacon grease. Dude, that bacon grease, man. We'd add that to house. It was great. There was a lot of firsts for me on that trip. I hadn't like really, I hadn't hiked off of a trail. Pooped in the woods.

Hadn't pooped. Never pooped outdoors. Never. Never pooped outdoors. No. First time. Yeah. That was a big moment.

You didn't land one On your suspenders Did you? No I didn't No No I got I got a pretty good spot

Then when you're wearing Your suspenders It's right Just a little It's right at your face Wait a minute I'm on my shoes It has to happen

But I hear stories Yeah Yeah What else did we do On that one? Hell of an intro To the woods that trip yeah that was a big trip yeah wet ass snow british columbia yeah bears bears although you know it's like we

were on a grizzly hunt but we didn't see that many grizzlies we saw the one like the first night i think if i'm remembering right and then we saw one which i should have got i should have just in hindsight it's the best opportunity we had it was yeah but there was like you didn't know if it was male or female or whatever there was something and then we saw one like way later but you can't do that you had to ground check it yeah that's right that hunt is that's that hunt is no more past i think it might i've been getting some intel i don't know i shouldn't say that it's going to come back in some form, some new form. I don't know if that's true. Yeah.

Can I just. Anyone listening understand that I don't know if that's true. You're going to get a lot of people writing in. Yeah. Just a quick question. When you, like, how did you feel accepting that job? Like going on a grizzly hunt, not having pooped out in the woods? Oh, I was so stoked.

I'd already done a lot of like filming in like pretty tough places and tough conditions so i kind of like was into the the tough stuff so that wasn't scary and i i'd seen some episodes and i had a a buddy who had worked on this show on meat eater that brought me on and i was like oh yeah i'd be down to work on it and then yeah. But like pursuing Grizzly like getting close to them on purpose was like not a deterrent. When I was that age I like really wasn't that scared like now I'd probably be a little more hesitant based

on some of the experiences that we've had working on the show but at that time I was like pretty into getting into like some I just wasn't as worried it's like you're kind of young and not really. You don't know what to worry about yet yeah i wasn't like oh a grizzly could maul my face off i was like oh it's a bear like whatever we got guns and stuff we'll be all right but when i was younger i didn't care if i lived or not yeah i wasn't really thinking of mortality in the same

way no no it's just you know i know i just had zero not. It just didn't matter if I stayed alive. Yeah. Well, it's before you had kids and married and stuff. Yeah. I hadn't really like, I don't have kids now, but I'm very happy in my life. So I calculate risk differently. Back then I was like, oh, whatever. The summer I got married, right before I got married was the first time I had a feeling

of not wanting to, of like really not wanting to die. Yeah. And it was the last time I topped a big tree out. Oh, your last arborist work. Last time I topped, well, I was just doing it for a neighbor up in Alaska. We topped a big sick of spruce out. I climbed up there and knocked the top out.

And I, when that tree stopped going bucking, I realized that something had changed and I didn't like it and I was never going to do it again. Huh. Yeah. How old were you? And I just think it was great.

How old were you, Steve? When I got, I don't know, when I got married. 30? 30 something? In my, probably, I don't know, somewhere around. Yeah, I think you just start thinking

about it different. Yeah. Then, you know, when you're younger, you're kind of. Garrett, I don't think you're there yet, buddy. No. No, don't care. I don't care if I of garen i don't think you're there yet buddy no no i care if i live i just don't i don't worry about uh the next day as much as the the present day

you know yeah because i don't have i don't mean not like you're i don't mean like suicidal i just mean you don't you're just not the thing in your head isn't boy i better not die that's gonna be horrible on everybody yeah um which is something I think now about with my family. Yeah, you don't really think about it. Yeah. That was a good shoot though. That was a fun trip. Especially because my wife

tells me what she's going to do if I do die. What's she going to do? She laid out the life plan and she made it just despicable to me. So now I need to stay alive just to keep getting off the rails in my death. It's so bad he doesn't want to repeat it,

but we talked about it a couple episodes ago. Oh, you did? Oh, no. She's like, if you die spearfishing, here's what I'm going to do and here's who I'm going to marry.

So, she's like, bear that in mind. Oh, no, man. It's going to be nothing but team sports for the rest of the years. That was like my family the rest of the years. football coach or something? Yeah. It's going to be nothing but team sports for the rest of the year. That was like my family, the rest of the years.

The high school football coach or something? Yeah. He's real into golf. Paint the house Denver Broncos colors. Okay, Dirt. I think 2015 as well was my first season. Maybe 2014. A little caveat.

I put a door in the meat eater office before I started filming. Oh, at the old office? Yeah. In the ZPZ West office. Right, didn't they? You were there as you or there as a contractor? No, I was there as me. I interviewed with Yanni and this guy, Dan.

And they said, how about putting that door in? Yeah. They said, well, we don't really need someone. That's one of the interview questions? Well, it was like, you know, I'm around to work and I had a background in photography and also building and they're like, well, until we need someone in the field, can you put a door in the office? I was like, yeah. Remember that?

Didn't they meet your dad first? Yeah. So Steve had. Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My dad worked on, um, wild within.

Yeah. He did an episode with his boat operator. Your dad did? I didn't remember that story. Yeah. We hired him to run a boat and man, it was, we were having a did an episode with his boat operator. Your dad did? I remember hearing that story. Yeah, we hired him to run a boat, and man, we were having a lot of problems with the jet intake on this boat. It was the stupidest.

Weeds and stuff. Yeah, he had to strip down and get in the water. This is November. He had to strip down and get in the water and go under the boat to clean the intake out. Oh my God, dude. So that kind of cleared the way for me once I threw that name out there.

Yeah. I was like, if he's half as tough as the old, as the old man. But then, yeah, that was, yeah, put that door in and then, uh, got on a shoot just out of, I guess, fate. Fate. Yeah.

You remember which one? It was your first one? Yeah. The turkey hunt, Sonoma, turkey hunt Napa with Joe and Brian Oh was it I was like holy shit man This is fun Did you get bad poison ivy

No but that was when Yanni had that like two months Two months stint of it I didn't get it that trip But I think I've since then now I think I'm like over 60 episodes You've done more than anybody else. Yeah, I think you've done the most. Have you really? Yeah. He's done a lot. Yep. Yep.

How many total have there been episodes? Oh, God. Well over 100. Way over 100. Over 100. Yanni. But not 150, I don't think. Yanni was around before any of you guys were around. Oh, yeah. Yanni's been... OG, baby. Yeah.

Fairbanks, right? Oh, I don't think. Yanni was around before any of you guys were around. Oh yeah, Yanni's been OG baby. Fairbanks, right? Oh, I don't know what year. Yeah, 2012 was the first year we met. Oh yeah, we're supposed to be

having a 10 year anniversary party. Just you and I going, I don't know what we're going to do. Go watch a movie or something.

That's good. I would love that. We're also joined by Danny Bolton from Hawaii who happens to be in town. And he's on a couple of the new episodes we have coming out. Yeah. And we're going to cover some other stuff. Then we're going to get into the life of a backcountry cameraman.

And I think these guys are prepared to tell the thing they appreciate most about working on the show and the thing they like most about me. Yeah. And there's another topic. That's what the note said, yeah. My understanding is what's going to happen here today. Chester is not here. So Chester's a divester.

Did you guys hear about this? His wife had a baby a month early. Yeah, they had a kid early. Chester almost thought he's going to deliver the baby. Is that right? That's exciting. Just was just wham. Whoa. Baby.

Month early. If anybody could do it, Chester could do it. Yeah, he could. I could see it. I talked to him yesterday. Happy papa right now? Yeah, they're happy. I mean, they got a couple little complications just because the baby was born so early.

Yeah. Are they in the hospital or are they at home? No, no, no. They're hanging on to the baby. Cool. Yeah. He said everything's good. Good. He's just little. Yeah. But there's no, no. They're hanging on to the baby. Cool. Yeah. He said everything's good. She's just little.

Yeah. But there's no, you know, they had to put him on some oxygen. Yeah. A month early. That's pretty good. I'm kind of giving away, I hope I'm not divulging too much about Chester's personal life, but no, he's doing great. Good.

His wife's doing great. Danielle. He's going to be a good dad. Oh yeah. She's going to be a good mom too. They're good. No, they should be. If you had to like apply to have a kid, I think that I would have approved the application.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That clears up for Chester. One problem is, I don't know if you guys know, everybody here knows that Chester is opening for Trampled by Turtles in Atlanta. I'm going dude. I already bought tickets. Oh, okay.

And there was a problem. There was a problem where if the birth didn't happen, right, he could have gotten in some trouble. But now he's way clear. Oh, yeah. He's going to be sleep deprived. Because if the baby was late, right? But now he's A-okay.

He'll have a couple-month-old baby by the time he goes. What's the date on that? It's December. Oh, no, it's days before Pearl Harbor. Is he written originals? Have you talked to him about his... I haven't talked to him about...

All anybody does is tell him what he ought to do. his, I haven't talked to him about. You know, all anybody does is tell him what he ought to do. Yeah. I haven't told him what he ought to do lately, so I don't have an update. Every time I see him, I tell him what he ought to do. I go, what you ought to do,

something like that. And then I tell him what he ought to do. That sounds right. And I, and I like to contradict whatever I told him to do the last time. That sounds very familiar. Yeah. I told him.

If I was a new dad. A few times ago, I told him, I said, I. That sounds very familiar. I would have told him if I was a new dad. A few times ago, I told him, I said, I think you should play as Chester the Molester and just embrace that situation. Embrace the Molester handle. And build kind of like a career like that. That's what I was telling him. But that sounds so weird now that he's a dad.

I don't even quit. It's got different... We were having a laugh the other day because that's what he saved in my phone as. You know how when you call on your vehicle and it says it back to you? Yeah, it makes me chuckle every time I drive. Oh, Chester.

I've changed it now that he's got... Oh, man, I got to go out. I'm like, Phil, can you pause so I can go out and change that? Oh, it's right here on my phone. I'm going to change that. That's horrible. Trampled by by turtles does have a

new album out um so they've been uh you know dave simon has been on the show chester's opening for them their new album comes out october 28 produced with and this is interesting jeff tweedy from wilco that's a name dude nice Makes me kind of want to hear that. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. Wilco, I think their album, AM, and then their album, Being There. Damn, that's good stuff. Good stuff, dude.

Long time ago. Here's a funny story. A guy I know who's a, I've actually talked to him before because he's a funny story. A guy I know who's a... I've actually talked about him before because he's a bobcat trapper and makes bobcat trapping equipment. He traps bobcats as a researcher. People that are studying bobcats, he catches bobcats for that.

He also traps bobcats for the commercial markets and he's a bobcat expert. He wrote me a note unrelated to bobcats. His dad had a friend who's got the name that I wish I had. I might legally change it to this. Donnie Mountain. Years ago, his dad, so he wrote me this note. He texted me this note.

Years ago, my dad had a friend, Donnie Mountain. Most nervous wreck of a human you've ever been around in a violent temper. This is a great detail. He would light a cigarette while opening a gate for you while out hunting. Then he'd put it out to get back in the truck.

He never killed anything all the years we took him. Once my dad had a secretary friend make up a real official looking letter on photocopied utah game and fish letterhead explaining the extensive work that goes into wildlife management and part of that utilizes hunter's success and that they respectfully asked that he not apply for a tag in the future because it takes away from other hunters opportunities that would likely be more successful than him he says i'll never forget when he got it in the mail and came over just

livid talking about those assholes at gaming scarred ego after that man uh another buddy of mine who's in the fur business uh i one time referred to him on this podcast as joe beaver which he said his wife likes quite a bit he sent me these trail cam photos so some guy he knows was watching this buck and he sent me these beautiful trail cam photos this is giant white tail and there's a grip and grin of the dude's wife next to her car where she actually ran over and killed his target buck hit it driving that night yeah like i. It's like the buck. I was going to tell a whole bunch about youth deer hunt, youth deer season.

Yeah, you guys just got back, huh? Oh, great time. Yeah. But the weather turned, and I have never seen sloppier gear management in the wet and rain than I saw exhibited on this year's youth deer hunt. By the youth or by. By the youth. Oh yeah.

Mindless. Overwhelmed. Just no, no. Have a great time. Just mindless gear management. All of them? It was rampant. It was particularly rampant in my tent

because I was in my tent paying attention to what was going on in there. Just coated in mud. I guess I'll just go roll around on the sleeping bags in my rainwear. Oh. Eye on the prize, not on you. A disaster. Oh, it stresses me out.

But no, they had the time of their life. It doesn't... They're not at a point yet where that stuff occurs to them. When you were a kid, were you fastidious about all that stuff? Did you just come out of the womb? I think it's the type of the kid too, because I've got two,

and we camped together in the same tent this weekend, and I gave him a big how to be a good camper speech before we started, and at some point we're like, where's Mabel? Ina's like, oh, she's in the tent cleaning up her stuff. But her room at home is tidy. Ina's not so much. And so, so yeah ina has an explosion of gear in the in the tent and but mabel's stuff was tidy so i would say go i'd be like go into the entrance of the tent don't step on anything take off all of your rain wear, take off your rubber boots, then you're good to then enter the tent area.

Just, they can't. Was it a floorless tent or? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if one of your buddies. No, I got to take three sleeping bags. I got to take three sleeping bags down to get them.

Cleaned out. Yeah. I'm going to just take them down and have someone try to clean them up. Did one of your buddies like coerce the kids like, hey, you should, you should be as dirty as you can at camp with your dad. I don't know.

Did you do that, Danny? Danny is with us. Oh yeah. I just told him like, Steve's going to love it if you just roll right in this tent. Just go ahead and do a couple of somersaults in there. A little gymnastics.

But yeah, Jimmy boy was like, there's a few spots where he was just crawling up the stuff, hands and knees, and just coated it or going down the stuff too, just sliding on his butt. You know those hand boat pumps? Yeah. Bilge pumps? Yeah, yeah.

We got back from getting Jimmy's buck in the rain and I had Danny, I had him go out on a rock in the river and I had Danny take i had him go out on a rock in the river and i had danny take that bilge pump flush it and i had him stay on that rock and i hosed him down with the bilge pump i was just pumping it steve's just hosing him down stand there kid just boots everything hands try to get him cleaned up that mud out there is rough. Oh, man. I'll tell one quick story.

We were hunting in the rain, and we were going into the wind. It was beautiful, and we were in a great area. And I was like, man, I just feel like we're going to get a buck. We're going to get a buck. And come around a corner, and I just peek around a corner, and I see a little forky. And I didn't even look at him that long, but he doesn't seem to be aware of us, but he's kind of looking in

our direction. Did you ever look at him through Knox? Yeah. Was he looking down the hill? Yeah, he was kind of looking off to the side of us. Yeah. And I, and so I got Jimmy all set up and he shoots the buck.

And, uh, I think that buck was watching a coyote because when he shoots a coyote comes squirting out from probably 30, 40 I think that buck was watching a coyote. Because when he shoots, a coyote comes squirting out from probably 30, 40 yards below that buck. And I think that coyote was causing just the right amount of distraction where he didn't catch a snake in around the corner. Nice. That worked out perfect.

Yeah. Oh, we had such a good time. We found, last year we had found a fossilized clam bed, but I didn't think you were allowed to take, I didn't think off, uh, BLM land, I didn't think you're allowed to collect fossilized clams, but it turns out you can collect in, in quote, in reasonable

quantities, you can collect fossilized mollusks. And we found a rock. It was about 50 pounds. My daughter wanted, we were a couple miles, and my daughter wanted me to haul it out for her. It was just a 50-pound rock of fossilized clams. And we wound up finding smaller ones. We found trilobites.

I brought a big block about the size of a big platter that's just a fossilized clam bed. It's just fossil, clam fossils. And the little shells too. Yeah. You still see the shells in there. On the shoreline or up on the top? In the hills.

Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It looked like you could see the layers up above and it kind of just falling off. And there was the little mussels too. Yeah. Right. Looked like it, you could see the layers up above and it kind of just falling off and there was the little muscles too.

Yeah. Right, the little shells. We found a skeleton that hadn't fossilized, but it was set in rock. What kind of skeleton? I'm sure it was a bison. Oh, sweet. Oh, no.

We, uh, we didn't hunt the youth season, but my youth hunted with me and we went out for Montana's, uh, rifle opener, but we were hunting antelope. Pronghorn. I keep trying to say pronghorn, but it's so hard. I totally switched. What's the deal with that? What's the switch for?

Technically, it's a pronghorn and not an antelope. Yeah, it's not an antelope. I resist that shit normally, but I totally switched. You call it pronghorn now. Yeah, I'll tell you one thing I don't call it. Speed goats. Speed goat. I never heard that.

What about loper? It's meant to be like you're super in the loop. One of the cool kids. Loper is a shortening of antelope. No good. We had some milestones. They were good campers, but there's kind of three major milestones. One was that Ina spent a little time skinning.

And she's not like, I'm not going to be like, yeah, go ahead and skin that deer out. Like, that's not going to happen. But she's showing interest and she's like working at it, which was good to see. But then, two, they're driving around the Can-Am. So you can just be like, after you shoot a couple of antelope, you're like, hey, go get the Can-Am and drive it back up here.

And they can do that. So it sort of takes like a step of work out. Yep. Then, I don't know how to rate these. One or the two is number one, and then the other one's number two spot of milestones for the weekend. But they're opening gates. Oh, that's great.

Ooh, that's huge. Yes. They both have, like, the strength and the know-how to, like, and if it's too much for one, then the other one can pitch in. They were able to get through all of the gates that we had to work over the weekend. Yes. Are they smoking a cigarette as they do it? I don't know.

Put it back out. They're not there yet. That's funny because my 12-year-old just can't figure it out. I can't do it. I can't do it. You know what? These gates, although they're old and crusty, they have the, like the, instead of just having a piece of wire around the top, they've got that latch deal. Yeah.

What do you call those? Yeah. I don't know. You know what I'm talking about. You probably buy it at Murdoch. Gives you that latch deal. Yeah. What do you call those? Yeah. I don't know, but you know what I'm talking about. You probably buy it at Murdoch. Gives you a little leverage. Yeah, exactly. But lastly, I was hanging in camp and they were sort of directing the conversation. My brother-in-law just kind of like kicking back, you know, having some beers. And I just realized there was a moment where I'm like, you know what? I'm just like listening and enjoying the conversation. And I'm not the one having to be be like so what was the most exciting part of the

hunt today for you girls you know they were just sort of doing that i was like this is very fun that's cool yeah it's a nice moment my my daughter something switched in her um she's like very now very impatient to be old enough to deer hunt next year and has like, wants her own binos, wants her own bino harness, wants her own backpack. She's fired up. Sweet. So that's where my focus is going to be next. Oh, that brought up another milestone.

Sorry. We were just killing it this weekend. The binos things. I just sort of not even thinking. It was like, oh, I'll throw in a couple of sets of binos into the gear bag. And then I'd offered them up. Oh yeah. We would like to carry binos.

Two different times, both in the same evening. But I'm like driving out of there, kind of like already glassed the field. I'm like, ain't nothing here. Let's keep moving. And my girls, they're like between me and Cameron in the can-am, like jabbing each other and fighting and just being general pains in the ass. I'm like, look around and find some pronghorn. That's we're doing you know and five seconds doesn't go by and i was like oh there's a herd now look over i'm like where i don't see one like they're right there i'm like

i don't see them she's like seriously right there i glass i'm like oh yeah no shit you know unfortunately we try to pull the quick uh u-turn and then just get behind a little ridge. But man, three weeks into pronghorn season, they do not take that shit anymore. But yeah, then later, we didn't know that they busted. So we put the big stalk on them. 30 minutes later, we've cleared the place out. That herd's gone. And we're just moving down the ridge. I've kind of dropped my edge on the ridge top now and just getting ready to head to the K&M again.

And Mabel's like, they're still in the field. There's some right there. And I look over. I'm like, where? No, they're not. She's like, no, they're right there. They're bedded. I'm like, what?

I'm looking, looking. She's like, I'm like, where? She points. Glass. I'm like, oh, yeah, look at that. No kidding. It was getting low light. And I don't know if my eyes are just going a little bit.

And when those, you forget too, when you're so used to looking at elk, which I was, what I've been hunting the last month. And then you go to an animal that's like a sixth of the size. And then they bed down. I mean,

it's like looking at a mouse out in a alfalfa field, you know? But, uh, so anyways, yet another milestone where I'm like, I don't even have to glass anymore. I just can hang out and wait for them to be like,

there they are. You should introduce them to a range finder. Oh, yeah. My kids will spend hours ranging everything. Everything. It's pretty fun. Yeah. And my daughter's not like a good, great glasser yet

because a lot of times I look and I think, I was like, the best I can tell is she must be looking at her knee. Or she's got them aimed up in the sky. She doesn't really use, she just sort of, it's fatalistic. She just looks through whatever they happen to be aimed at. She hasn't figured out that you can kind of point them around where you want to be. She's sort of like, well, I guess, you know, I'll look there and take my lumps, you know. My girl's favorite is after about five minutes of regular glassing,

they flip them backwards. Oh, yeah. Because then everything gets really far away. Oh, God. We were talking a lot about how much a human scroll can handle. This is this guy I wrote in. Pretty amazing. No, it's a great story he says there was a podcast episode a while back where y'all were questioning how much weight the human scrote he

calls it a scrote i like that could take before tearing home he says i will tell you in confidence does that mean i shouldn't tell no i think the way i'm reading that Is he's saying that I'm telling you This confidently like this This happened If I said to you I'm not going to say his name I'm not going to say his name So I don't betray his trust but if I said to you

Or you know what I You just think he's using it that way But is this like a rope test you know where they test The breaking strength like rope or cable? Well, we had a guy send this, he had this scientific analysis and even a video, like a engineering video of what happens to your scroll. If it's pulled. Mm-hmm.

We're talking ball sack. Tensile strength. Yeah, your ball sack. That's correct, Garrett. Oh, here's a joke for you. The scrotum. Did you hear about, did you hear about the guy, Did you hear about the guy that put glitter all over his scrotum?

No. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. So, he goes on to say, I will tell you... That's the dad joke. So he goes on to say, I will tell you in confidence that when my dad was younger he worked as a framer. Dirt's tracking.

Yep. And fell off a scaffold and was caught on a picket fence by his testes. E. When he came to, he was hanging upside down like the squirrels that I often see on Steve's Instagram page.

That raccoon, right? It was a raccoon? Possum. Possum. He was able to get them surgically reattached and went on to have four of the most huntingest, fishingest sons. He told me he had almost completely forgotten about it until he got a vasectomy and cried out loud when they snipped the scar tissue.

Aren't you supposed to be sedated when you have a vasectomy? No. Did I ever tell you my vasectomy story? No. It'd curl your hair. Really? Yeah, you got a vasectomy? Oh, God.

Did they numb it? Oh. Or anything? I was wide awake. We were talking. Really? We were talking hunting. I can vouch for that.

You're wide awake. Yeah. The numbing, too. Sometimes it didn't work for me. I felt a lot of it I'll tell real quick Dark Holborn I gotta say this too

Cause Dark Holborn Said that He He said It felt like Someone was Like Trying to start

A lawnmower With like a pull start Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh. Yanni went there. He didn't tell me that in confidence. There's one more thing now we're going to get.

Okay, I'm going to tell this quick story about my, tell Corinne my quick vasectomy story. So I've all, I've long suffered from a thing in my, my left side of my scroll where I have a thing called a varicoseal

it's like this little nerve ball i feel like i've heard of that not not of you just hot humid days man oh that's why i never wore but i don't wear boxers so that's always bugged me now i go down to get my vasectomy and you're laying there and you're just shooting the breeze and they numb you up. And I don't even know he started yet. And he's got a side done. Huh. Okay. And I'm saying, so what's going on?

He goes, I already did one side. What were you guys talking about? Like politics or just the, okay, got it. Yep. And my dentist hunts too. So he does a side and he's like, we're three or four minutes and he's already done and I can't even tell that he's gotten going yet. And we're talking, talking, talking. And pretty soon I realized a long time has gone by.

Uh-oh. And he's still, I said, so if he got one half done that fast, why have we been talking for 25 minutes? And I lift my head up and look, and it's just blood everywhere. I said, nerves, it's blood vessels. That very, that little growth thing in my sack.

He was having a hard time digging the pipe. He's trying to find, he's having a hard time digging it out of that blood vessel sack. Bleeding all over the place. At one point... Here, make a quick video of this.

Can you make a quick video? Sure. I want to act out. We'll put it on Instagram. Are you wearing like a... You're wearing like a medical thing, right? Yeah, what are you wearing? Are you talking about like a toilet seat cover over your area, right? No, I think you're just naked from the waist down, if I remember right.

Yeah, you probably just in like a robe. No, they have surgical dressing. Oh, the gown. The gown, then they just scoot the gown out of the way. I'm trying to get something bad happening. The guy has like the helper dude who I kept saying, yes, sir, no, sir. So he thought, remember, he thought I was in the military. He's like, that's not part of the story so I look up okay and there's just blood everywhere and he's getting frustrated and at one point he goes like this I'm gonna demonstrate what

he does so he's down there having surgery on my scrotum and he goes like this he's standing over me my computer's my sack oh god and he does this this is not what you want to see someone do he goes it goes back to work oh that is not what no 25 to see. 25 minutes in. How was the conversation after that? I don't know. I've never done a vasectomy. I don't know how. He was unsure that he'd got the right hose. What would happen if he got the wrong hose?

Still make a baby. Either way, afterward, this is the bad part about a vasectomy. Afterward, you got to keep supplying specimens to see if it was effective. But nowadays, you don't need to go down there and do it, you know. Do the whole thing. Do it in the bathroom there or something. Maybe some people still do that. When you're seeing a lot of your own blood, like you're used to seeing blood.

Yeah, I don't like my blood. Your hands are like, yeah. I was going to ask if you had some kind of your own, like you're not feeling anything, but you're seeing stuff that should be inside of a body. And you're, what was it? No, I don't like, I don't like, I don't mind seeing my own blood as much. I don't like people. I don't like any kind of needles and hoses and stuff getting installed in me.

I once told someone, I once told a doctor, I could cut your arm off and eat it and it wouldn't bother me. But you putting that in my arm is really upsetting to me. Did that doctor take it as a threat? No, I was just trying to explain how much I don't like needles. But I got over that. Eventually got over that. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning 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, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try

OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com meet. onxmaps.com meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Oh, one last thing and then we'll get to what we're here to talk about. on X Club, y'all.

Oh, one last thing and then we'll get to what we're here to talk about. We've gotten a lot of letters from biblical scholars. I don't even know how to explain this. Someone mentioned something about a good Samaritan. Okay. And I had said my understanding in the good book

is that Samaritans were um bad people okay so the fact that the fact that a samaritan when you say to someone oh you're a good samaritan you're basically saying so surprising that a person as bad as you must be as a Samaritan did that. It's not like if you're a good Samaritan, it'd be like, you're an unlike, I had always been told you're an unlikely candidate to do a good deed. That's why it's noteworthy because people that you'd expect to do a good deed. I don't know what the hell a priest comes by.

He doesn't do anything. Another guy priest comes by he doesn't do anything another guy comes by they won't do anything and then of all people a samaritan yep right it'd be like saying the good bad person well we got letters from biblical scholars i don't know if I want to get into it, but I'm going to do it. Yeah. Biblical. This gets rich. It's complicated. I'm never going to say a good Samaritan ever again. I don't say it,

but anytime someone does say, I'm just going to shut up. Biblical Samaritans were people of mixed Jewish descendancy. Following the split of Israel in the Old Testament, Israel, a.k.a. the Northern Kingdom, was taken into captivity by the Assyrians. While there, bloodlines mixed between Assyrians and Jews.

The people of Judah, a.k.a. the southern kingdom, were taken captive by the Babylonians. Following their subsequent return to Jerusalem, they declared their Jewish purity by bloodline

and lineage. Many of the northern kingdom Jews living north of Jerusalem in an area known as Samaria could no longer do this. They now had mixed ancestry between themselves as Jews and Assyrians who took them over. These partial Jews became known as Samaritans and were utterly despised by the purebloods. No self-respecting Jew of the time would deign to socialize with, visit with,

or even help an ailing Samaritan as they were considered to be all but dogs. This is someone else writing it, I'll point out. Yeah, context is important on this story. Thisris gill writing in no this is a stranger writing in who i will not divulge their

uh you take it up with them but i'm not gonna tell you who they are i'm just this is someone explaining this stuff they're all but dogs and doing so would make them ceremonially unclean. That said, the priests and Levite, who first passed the injured man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, would not even touch their own countrymen, also out of fear of being made unclean. So, self-loathing. While the people of Samaria were of mixed descent and also may have practiced some pagan forms of worship, there is nothing really in Scripture to indicate that they were bad people as I, me, Steve, indicated.

While there may be other reputable documentation available outside of the Bible to support this, the fact in and of itself has nothing to do with the idea of being a good Samaritan. The point was, a man considered by the culture to be less than human crossed geopolitical lines to help a man who was in need and being despised by his own countrymen. He did something that none of the three Jews, the injured man included, would have done for him. Jesus' point in the story? All people are our neighbors, whether they're socially acceptable or not, and whether they're covered in human waste or not.

That's a referral to the episode we did about the great outhouse rescue. Thanks for your time. Another guy that wrote and explained that a scholar was trying to get Jesus in a tight spot when he told the parable. And he said, okay okay who are our neighbors and he wanted him to try to draw some hard lines about who the jews should be friendly with and and as he liked to do he answered with the story jesus jesus that's when he told the parable someone's like so who are our neighbors mr smart guy and he said well let's talk about that for a minute. And he told the story of the Good Samaritan being like, that's your neighbor.

Yep. The least suspecting one. Yeah. Lesson of tolerance. Mm-hmm. Inspiring. I feel like I had the thought. I feel like I had the thought. All right right let's get into it so right now is it true that right now yeah like season 11 is yep we're episode one is out i've explained the thing about

show business before where we license our show out. But right now, you can go watch. You can watch for free, I'll point out. You can go to themeateater.com and watch for free. That's the first place to go see the new episodes that make up our season 11. It's available now. We're going to put up one a week. And one is available right now. Episode one.

Which episode is it uh hunting cynical black tail deer in southeast alaska with evan hafer who's been on the show a couple times from black rifle coffee company was uh i've been on i think at least two of those hunts maybe three they've been extremely difficult did you guys crack the puzzle this time? No. Crack the code? No. We got a deer. But no, I know less about it now than... Really? When they're not in the alpine. I know less about hunting the rainforest now than I ever did. You did have a breakthrough with the rattling though, right?

Can you bleep that? Sorry. Just make it go beep over what he said. Is that a spoiler? No, it's not a spoiler. Oh no, we show it. Is that a spoiler? No, it's not a spoiler. Oh, no, we show it. What am I saying? Yeah, it's kind of emphasized.

Put it back in, Phil. I mean, there was a question of if rattling would bring in a lot. I'll just come out and say it. Yeah. Someone will correct me, I'm sure. But you pioneered. I believe that people were writing and being like, you're the dude, right?

I believe I'm the first person to ever rattle in a stick of black-tailed deer. There, I just said it. Well, I witnessed it. I don't know if you're the first, but you did it. I am. I'm the first. Why wouldn't it work, though? Because they just, I don't know.

Because they're just goofy little shy little deer that just like they're not they don't socialize. They're just shy. All you hear about the people that have the epic hunts is like oh we just got out of the truck and blew on the call and three of them came running

over to us. I don't mean okay they come to call I don't know why us. I don't know why not. I don't know why. In my head, not in Yanni's, in my head, I just don't think of them as... I don't think of the Bucs as social in that way

and all fired up in that way. Where they're smashing up another Buc. When you're calling them, you're usually calling them using distress calls and fawn bleeds and Yeah. When you're calling them, you're usually calling them using distress calls and fawn bleeds and doe noises. And you're like, you're generating

some excitement from does that come in and carry bucks with them. I just don't think of bucks running out of the brush because there's a rattling noise. Yeah. And they've got

little teen little antlers. Yeah, they're not. Yeah. It's just like, but obviously they duke it out. I don't know. I don't know why I thought that. But it works.

Yeah. Apparently Yanni lays in bed at night thinking about how good rattling. Well, that's the thing. It might be the misconception and it might be the thing that is going to like turn a lot of would be successes into real successes. Or a total fluke. Might be a fluke. I mean, he was running. He was coming in like he was responding to it.

He was coming. Well, dude. Yeah, there you go. He was curious. Ninth hour, too, or 10th or 12th, whatever they say. 11th. He was coming hard.

Real easy place to work. Oh, man. Miserable. Yeah. Especially with electronics. Okay, you guys are tasked with sharing your favorite story ever from working on the show.'s my understanding oh favorite story by that i mean like something that were like uh like something i said that really stuck with you changed the course

changed the course what was the quote you said earlier about chastity of intelligence or something like that skepticism is the chastity of the intellect there you go there's a lot of quotes like that i did call you guys something once that i had you later i told you never to talk about it because it could get me in a lot of trouble bitchy hr issue bitches of bitches bitches little bitches yeah yeah that was it meaning that we complain a lot but what's great about that is that just recently came about we've been working on the shows for years oh no that was like, that was like a 2019 or maybe 2020. Anyone can file a complaint with HR. Pennsylvania, was it?

We have an official HR. Was that the COVID cabin? I took it back the next day. Yeah, COVID cabin. I know. I called Annie. I texted Annie for my in-reach. I was like, Annie, I don't know if you're an HR person.

I need to talk to you. Well, what's great is we've made it through years of doing the show and then the moniker comes out yeah yeah it's like i can see right off the bat being like you know what you're you know well there's been some like there's iterations of like the crew has changed over the course of time that i think we've all been working on it yanni was on it for like most of i think still you're probably on it longer than anybody. And never became a bitch. I never called you the bitch's little bitches.

I want to know, Corinne, I'm going to point this question at you. Is bitch woke now? Oh, you definitely don't say it. No. You don't? No, that's why I said it. You know what?

It's kind of come back around. Like a few years ago, it went out of fashion, and now people are taking it back. Like, bitch is fine. Oh, it is fine again. I think so. I don't know what's the sensibility. Call me. If the sensibility is that someone just wants to see you bleed, they're going to get mad

about it. Yeah. Yeah, sure. But like, what use of the word bitch? Bitch please or calling someone a bitch. That's what I think. Anymore people don't really call

females bitches. We have a funny story about this from the other day. We do? We were doing our cookbook photo shoot and two women that we work with are driving too fast down this road and an old man comes out and yells at him and then they then spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out did he say slow down a bit as one of them thought or did he say slow down a little

bitch very different can you believe he said that? Said what? Johnny, to answer your question, I guess I can't keep up. I don't, I have no idea, but I just, I find it interesting that the, the interpretation of a word or like how someone perceives it when called it or when they hear it just changes with like the weather. It's just silly to me. I said it and I recognize it.

Now you're just weak. You guys were being the bitchiest of bitches. I'm guessing you didn't want to hike anymore. Oh no, no, it wasn't hiking. No, it was probably something practical and reasonable associated with batteries. Maybe a TV show, you know, which is the job, the reason the whole, you know, that we're there.

Wait, you want to focus on something important? Yeah. You don't want to go on a midnight death march back to camp? An optional. I'll set it up by saying I view the relationship I view that there's a push and pull right

you guys want your desire to film things sometimes prevents there being anything to film yes you're not incorrect on that and so I'm like do it my way and I'll show you something anything to film. Yes. You're not incorrect. 100%. You're not incorrect on that. Yeah.

And so I'm like, do it my way and I'll show you something cool to film. But that's an affliction that I think we have on everything that we work on.

Yeah. That's something that I, at least I'm always like, oh, we got to do it this way. And then it's like, my wife's a director too and we get into healthy conversations

about things. Yeah, that's why your wife, even though she's never shot a television show, that's why your wife, even though she's never shot a television show or a hunting television show, she'd still probably be like, oh yeah, those fucking camera guys. Oh no, if I tell a story and it's like,

oh, this is crazy, she will usually side not with me because she knows that it's like, because if you're not getting the story, if you're only getting the images and it's like you don't have anything. Yeah, and this is something that any documentary film is going to run into the problem of filming it is preventing the thing you're doing.

Hunting just is more so. You add all these people to the woods. You're trying to be stealthy. It's like incompatible. But I've been talking about this a lot lately. Like that Meat Eater is actually the like the only true verite show that i work on now explain verite verite is like you as a camera person are capturing events as they are unfolding in front of you it's like just very honest fly on the fly on the wall yeah it's like

you're just french french term that was like related to just capturing truth. Yeah. But I think we keep that in mind to not prevent the success of the hunt. Oh, dude. Like that's why it's fun

to work on this show because it's like nobody does that anymore. It's always like, oh, we got to set up and we're going to this place and we're going to light it and we're going to do this

and it's just like, okay. But there's a thing like people want to see Steve's face but if we're constantly hiking behind him. And it's just like, okay. But there's a thing like people want to see Steve's face, but if we're constantly hiking behind him, we see his ass the whole time. And as much as you, the authenticity of the moment is to see him from behind, because how would a camera guy be out in front of him?

Yeah. You have to blend the verite. The audience needs to see your face. It's just like, it's what people, it's just one of those things. And so we have to find those moments where Steve lets us run ahead. That's a source of tension. Oh, my God, dude.

I've been yelled at for that. And so you can decide to err on the side of getting less coverage and not having Steve yell at you. Yeah. Or pick your moment. But sometimes you pick your moment and it's not the moment. But every year we get emails from Guy being like, you don't have this, you don't have this, you don't have this. And I'm like, ah.

Guy's the main editor that has edited over 100 episodes of the show. And yeah, if you guys don't get the coverage from the front, you will get yelled at him. Yeah. So we kind of get twofold. And when an editor is going through our footage, often I'm sure they're like, what the fuck were these guys doing out there? Yeah.

Because it just seems like they didn't do this and they didn't do that. You know, like all the basic things

that you do in, you know, documentary film, but we're just under a different constraint. Even just,

just the walking, like it's easy to look at something and be like, that doesn't look that hard or whatever. Oh, like most of Alaska?

Just the walking and filming at the same time is just like an incompatible situation. It's all shaky. And you're like, yeah. Yeah, you got camp on your back. Camp on your back. You're hunting. You're filming. It doesn't come out in conversation, but I respect and understand what you guys

need to do. And I could turn it right around and give your side of the story you know and i i honestly view it as i honestly view it as a um team yeah that there's that there's a push and pull going on you know i if i was always if i always won all that stuff it would be to the detriment likewise if the reason the show is good is because we can't enforce our will on the production well because then it'd just be like like pretty b-roll yeah pretty b-roll it's like there's shows out

there like that or a lot of fake a lot of fakery like authenticity people use that word all the time we want authentic media or we want to like, and they're so full of shit. They don't want, they don't want that. They just want to write a script, like block it out, like shoot this, shoot that. Television production is based on, you have a specific amount of money, specific time in the field. And so you guarantee what's going to happen. And the fact that we're hunting, there's no guarantee of anything.

That's why all these hunts end with, you know, quote unquote failure. Or the 11th hour. Or the 11th hour, because you're actually doing it. But the filmmaker part of me is like, I got to try to control as much as I can to make sure we have these, the start of a scene or the end of a scene or like a

butt, you know, and Yanni was good at this. Well, hit it in VO. Yeah. But like a little, a little, a little sound bite that closes a moment, you know, like put a button on that. Yeah. So there's like some, you're doing TV all the

while you're just at the whim of chaos. Yeah. Yeah. It's unlike most other productions, like you guys already said. You know, you don't have all those components

that you would normally have on every other show that we've worked on. You have fly on the wall, and then you got to figure out how to make sure your camera batteries don't run out

and your tapes don't run out or your media doesn't run out. I guess tapes is a little antiquated at this point, but, uh. Same thing. So it's different in that respect, in that regard. It's different than every other hunting show or

even television production show we've worked on. Well, there's always, you know, there's like that life. You just roll for a hundred minutes a day. Well, I don't know. I want to talk about other shows. I want to see other shows. There's other shows out there that are like pretty

tough, but I'm always like, how hard are they really? they really are they that are they that hard because like we do some pretty hard stuff there's some hard stuff that people do but meters pretty you're you're juggling a lot you're juggling a lot it sounds like you guys should get paid more oh buddy well inflation's up man yeah i mean i don't know what just like those contractors out there everybody is in demand yeah one of you guys should explain the economic like not the economics with exact numbers but explain how one lives as a freelance camera operator well to coin your term we're all free trappers you know in this room i think there's like a couple yeah no there's no staff like filmer just filmers right for me neither no we have a staff, there's no staff like filmer, just filmers, right? For a mediator? No.

We have a staff. Seth's our staff. He's the photo, yeah, yeah. But we know we don't have any staff, just camera people. But in a lot of ways, being a camera operator or director of photography is you're an independent contractor. You're a work for hire. You make a day rate.

And that day rate's pretty standard yeah in terms of like non-fiction tv there's like kind of like a there's like a threshold of low to high and it kind of operates within like a window of that yep and uh you sometimes you can bring your own tools and rent your tools to the production camera or other equipment to kind of like bump your day rate. Yeah, you're in that biz, right? To have my own gear. Yeah. Depending on the production, which is nice because then you can work for less. People are happier to pay for equipment than they are labor.

Dude, people don't like paying. I'm always like, why are we paying like a robot, man? Give me, yeah. No, but they're like, oh, no, they like negotiate your rate. But then you're like, and I'm going to bring some gear. And they're like, oh, no, they negotiate your rate, but then you're like, and I'm going to bring some gear and they're like, oh, yeah, whatever. I don't know if it's a part of capitalism or

they're like... Seriously? The technology... They want to argue about your value more than the value of having your camera there? Yeah. We'll find another guy and just, we'll rent your gear. I mean, it's a funny economy in the sense that the

UK is the biggest probably non-fiction industry. Oh yeah, they invent it. Until Attenborough dies, then I think it's going to dry up. They don't have Attenborough anymore to be like, I can't do it. Who can do his accent? Someone will be like, oh, look, a whale. State-funded. Come on, Phil. You got an Attenborough anymore to be like, I can't do his accent. Who can do his accent? Someone will be like, oh, look, a whale.

State-funded. Come on, Phil. You got an Attenborough? You can't do an Attenborough? You're the only actor in the room. Lauren Prykant. My voice isn't deep. I'm not doing it.

Lauren? Lauren Prykant. I'd have to practice. What's he even sound like? He's very formal. He's like the whale. He has a very stilted. He's got like He's like very formal He's like the A whale No that's He has a very Like stilted

And he's developed A minimalist style Over the years Now he'll just come in And be like Whales You know He's getting old man

He's like He goes for like real I think he just gets wore out Yeah He likes little punchy Little things Uh huh Yeah he's

You know Yeah that whole business When he dies It's gonna dry up But the Brits Economies funded You know they have socialized system where they didn't probably have, you know, six-figure student loans or whatnot. So, like, the U.S., like, we don't have healthcare.

All these things add up. So, our rates are generally, like, a U.S. cameraman's rates are higher than the Brits'. Oh, because you're talking about, yeah, as freelancers, we don't have benefits. Yeah. We have to pay for it. Retirement. Yeah. Like, all that stuff when people are like, what are you doing for retirement are higher than the Brits. Oh, because you're talking about, yeah, as freelancers, we don't have benefits. Yeah. We have to pay for it. Retirement. Yeah. Like all that stuff when people are like, what are you doing for retirement?

What do the Brits have? They just have, they're not paying healthcare. They get paid a lower day rate. We get paid on what's called a- Because the government pays them for everything else. Yeah, they have, Canada too, because Canada has healthcare and all that. So U.S. camera people are expensive. That's why we got that edge to us, man.

Yeah, man, you got to really scrap. You got to really take the gloves off and go at them, man. That's why we got that edge to us, man. Yeah, man. You got to really scrap. You got to really take the gloves off and go at them. That's what I was telling. I was arguing with Jay Stevens about Canada, and I was saying, you know, you guys don't have that. I was going to say, you guys don't have that edge, you know. No, they're just comfortable. The fact that the show. He finished my sentence for me. he finished my sentence for me he

said i think he finished my sentence for me i said you guys don't have that mindless ferocity no the fact that the show happened during the pandemic like we were in production oh dude if it wasn't for meteor i'd been like yeah i had to go on unemployment during that because i had no i mean dude our industry's shut down. I mean, everybody did, but we really did. But the fact that we had that season of production when everybody else was. Oh, dude, we were working. Working.

Yeah, we were working. I loved it. It was great, man. Yeah. We were up in Alaska. We did a bunch of stuff twice. We were at that cabin in Pennsylvania. The old COVID cabin.

Oh, yeah. That was where we all got COVID. Yeah, see, we worked all through the pandemic and still can't get the governor of Florida to come on the podcast. You're trying to get DeSantis on here? Oh, yeah. You'd think he'd love it if he heard that. Why wouldn't?

Why is he? Did we bust his ass through the pandemic? You'd think he'd be down here right now. All gave each other COVID? Yeah, it sounds like it's... More than once. More than once. He won't come out.

I don't know. Was he a hunter or a fisherman? No, I want to talk to him about the Everglades. Oh. Yeah, he's passed some, they've passed some good conservation bills. I got to get on that again. Please. Come on, Ron.

Yeah. Well, he, I mean, they were pretty busy the last month. They had that. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's probably less likely to happen now, but I want to talk about the Everglades and sort of like the politics of the Everglades in Florida. Anyhow, go on.

But the antagonistic relationship that the crew and Steve have to have, it is what makes the show good. If Steve gave us everything we requested, the show would be bad. We need some stories, guys. Some actual ones? Like, I don't know. I got an early one that actually is beneficial for us and you steve that makes me look good yeah oh he's in mexico on that trip which mexico the sonora the first one the night terror one yeah i remember i was i was very new to meat eater

but understood if you didn't film and it didn't happen. And I was on the long lens at that point. And we were coos deer hunting. And I remember you were talking about, I think Rick and Chris were doing the cross coverage. I was on long lens and you were talking about a deer. So I was getting into position to try to shoot video of the deer and you snapped at me. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

But I was being, because i grew up hunting so i knew like you know i don't want to spook this thing that is the subject matter and so after after you know you kind of snapped at me i said you know if i don't film it it doesn't make sense and like this this scene won't make it and you you like you like, you agree. And you're like, okay, just be, you know, just be, be careful. I was like,

yeah, be quiet. Yeah. Don't move. You and me got in a fight recently. And I think you said, you guys did? Yeah. Not a fight.

And he snapped back like, we've done this before, Steve. Oh, take it. That was my other stuff. Come on guys. He said,

this is my 50th episode, bro. Yeah. Oh, dude. I did not say that. The moose was, I was. I'll get a little frustrated. Oh, yeah. I was more responding to being offended that you didn't think I had the savviness not to spook the moose.

And you were. Was this Alaska moose? not to spook the moose. And you were. Was this Alaska moose? This just happened. Alaska moose. We got, we like had a bull. We took his temperature. He looked interested. Yeah.

And he wasn't, but for a minute he looked interested. And I just wanted, I wanted us in case he came. Yeah. I wanted a lockdown. And I was not in lockdown mode yet yeah i was like a couple seconds oh this is the other the other thing related to that we film everybody that's on camera settle into position get quiet oh this is thank you yeah we we are we have a packs on people decide to sit down be quiet when we go to do the same thing they just did 30 seconds before we did,

we get yelled at. Yeah, we're late because we're filming it. Yeah. And then we have to sit down too, otherwise we're standing there. God damn it! Yeah. You guys just rustled, took off your jacket, all this shit. Dude, I've gotten so good at That's a good point. I hadn't thought about it like that. And that's what happened on Moose.

I'm settled. Picture coming over a ridge I want to slip over the ridge Uh huh And just settle Yeah So I slip over I take my backpack off

Put on some layers Whatever Get ready And then I'm settled Snacks out And all of a sudden I hear noise behind me And it makes me want to kill people

And also it's like rustling It's like then There are times where it's like Okay you get into position You settle And it's like Okay we're glassing But then you're like really hungry And you're like I, there are times where it's like, okay, you get into position, you settle, and it's like, okay, we're glassing,

but then you're like really hungry and you're like, I know I got some dried mangoes in my bag, but they're in like the loudest cellophane wrapper you've ever heard. Aluminum foil. Yeah, the worst sound, man.

I'm trying to get silent at it, but it's tough. Yeah, yeah. But that was the situation on Moose. I think we had filmed you guys seeing it, and then I was getting into position to cross-shoot Clay. To get serious. Yeah, and then I was locked in.

Yeah, that wasn't a fight. All of the equipment is loud. Oh, yeah. All of it. Plastic. Everything. Everything we have. You can't just get the shot by being silent.

You got to make noise you gotta move around there's also like physics involved in our job and i don't know if it's physics geometry it's geometry thanks rick um it's like we have to be in a position where we can see things that are happening and see people's faces and then but we also need to be in like a correlated position with the other camera person so that when you're in the, when you're editing it, everything cuts together well, because if you don't observe this thing called 180 degree rule, you, uh, when you cut two images together, it looks like the people are looking different directions. It doesn't look like they're talking to each other on camera. Explain that to me. That's like, I think the way we explained it.

It's easier to draw it. Finally, it was the line where I had you punch one direction, and then I flipped across the line and had you punch again, and your punches are going different directions, screen directions. Do you remember that? I do remember this now. In Turkey. I was not in Turkey, but filming Turkey in South Carolina.

And this was part of the argument about why you guys move around so much. Yeah. Well, and it's especially true when the talent comes on and has no idea what blocking is or has ever dealt with blocking before. Because you guys dance around constantly. You're constantly moving around, looking at things, shifting. And then a guy switched places and we have to switch places. So it's just a constant thing we're looking at each other's eyes what are you on what are you on all right oh they moved oh

my god we have to move too all of a sudden or you're shooting across the line or something not yeah and the editor sometimes will say oh don't worry about that. But you got to. Yeah. It's usually an eye, it's like the direction that the character on the screen is looking. And so we're just aware of that in a way that it's kind of annoying. It's called the vector line, right? The 180 degree line.

Yeah. Can you just explain that for like a viewer watching? It's like you're watching Steve face to the right of the screen and look to the right at some distant critter he's just caught sight of. And then something else happens, and then you need to avoid that the next shot is suddenly that you are in a different place as a camera guy in relation to Steve, and Steve is now facing to the left of the screen.

Because then, as a viewer, you have no idea what's going on. I mean, just after hundreds of years of theater and television and film, our brains are kind of subconsciously trained to watch movies in a certain way. And when that 180 line, or what you guys are talking about, is broken, like what Corinne said, when a cameraman is all of a sudden behind Steve when he was in front, it kind of messes with how your brain is like visualizing like the geometry of the scene. And the editor's trying. It subconsciously kind of throws you off. And the editor can flip an image, but people don't.

Yeah, it looks weird. Your face looks all weird. Yeah, it doesn't. It's like a weird mirror. But it happens. It's most important in a weird. Yeah, it doesn't look great. It's like a weird mirror. But it happens. It's most important in a conversation. Yeah. Because if it's just you doing action on your own, Steve cooking something,

you can always go to that close-up shot, go right back to him. And if it's a different, it might be somewhat jarring, but as long as you pop to a different shot, it's not as jarring. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Here's one thing I'd like you guys to explain that I've been trying to prod at recently, and I don't get it. We'll film all manner of stuff all the time where there's no control over what's going on. Okay? There's zero control. There's nothing you can do about light. There's nothing you can do about rain. There's nothing you can do about where an animal comes from, when it comes, who says what, who does what, someone misses, hits, whatever.

Uh-huh. I know where you're going. Yeah. Then, all of a sudden, something will happen and you guys act like you guys act like there's a thousand variables that you now need to control. Why? Is this for the meal

scenes? Yeah. Whatever. It's mostly the meal scenes, I feel like. Yeah. Or like, we're gonna talk about something that we kind of know we're gonna talk about oh yeah if you're just setting up like a dialogue beat and we're so like okay we got to explain what's going on so and then all of a sudden holy cow where was all this for the rest of the hundred hours of stuff you guys filmed because there's a thing i think it's like we can work in those environments where there is no control and you kind of like our brains kind of just be like okay don't worry about the fact that like the light is terrible right now because

there's no you cannot have control but as soon as you let like a little crack of control can come in it's just like we'll just grab at it right and then we'll just start talking about like food and green light nobody wants to eat that food. So yeah. So you're like. Certain foods on a headlamp like doesn't look great. It just doesn't look appetizing. Oh, yeah. You know, there's these conventions of how people have gotten used to looking at food. And if it looks bad, it's going to taste bad.

Nobody can taste the food. If it looks good, it's going to taste good. It's just like, it's a visual medium. Nobody can smell the smells or whatever. So if it all has like a greenish tint to it, like under some fluorescent light, maybe the experience is that's the actual experience of where you guys are eating.

That doesn't work for TV. Well, it's it's too, yeah, to, to that point and said, this is going to be a stretch cause I'm spitballing, but so say as a hunter you go out pre-season you go scout you take your time you do you know you do everything you kind of can pre pre the actual hunt you go sight on your rifle you know maybe at a shooting range with a bench and a target in place you know so you're putting all this time into that that part of the hunt. And then when you're out in the field and, you know,

there's game coming over the ridge and you're in a weird spot to shoot, but you still, like, that's happening real time. There's no arguing with it. Yeah. You just have to do what you can do. And that's kind of the same. If we do have the chance to, like, make something look good to tell the story better, we're going to put in that effort, whereas those other times, you can't.

You kind of just swallow the pill. Yeah. Jared Androcanis, who's a producer over at Zero Point Zero, he told me early on in my producer career that uh there's only two scenes that you can really control when you go out and do make a meat eater and that's the intro of the show and then the meal scene which is usually our outro and everything in the middle you're just gonna have to you know roll the dice and spray and pray and get the best you can spray and pray is not true these guys aren't praying usually when they shoot but you know what i mean yeah they are those are the two times though and when you can slow down a little bit and

just make sure you really nail it you know and to give two nice bookends to an episode dude and there is no worse feeling i mean there's probably worse feelings but it's it is so brutal to be like looking at your monitor and looking at just like a potato. And I say potato, not like a real, but like just like a real dog shit frame. And you're just like, oh my God. Yeah. It's, it's torture. It's tort. You're just like looking at it and you're just like, I know what I need to do to like make this not look good, but we can't. And I'm just like, oh buddy, this is hard to, that's a pill to swallow that's one of the other cameraman has a acronym for that it's called nimming tyler emmett is one of the other camera guys is not here but

uh what are you doing over there tyler he's like oh nimmin what do you what do you mean nimmin not in movie i'm shooting something that will not be he's rolling anyways man he's rolling anyways he's rolling anyways let me ask you guys another question I'll start out with set a scene for you you know when you go to when you're at Home Depot or some place like that

and someone wants a product that's up on the high shelf and they got six people they got people with flags everybody's got orange vests on there's a guy buckled into the scissor lift. Buckled into the forklift.

There's a siren going off and he's going to extract a grill from the top level. It looks like they're getting ready to arm a nuclear warhead with the amount of staff and safety protocol. They shut down that whole quadrant of the store.

Oh, yeah, they put the little accordion metal fence up. Yeah, man. Okay. You don't work in that environment. Not regularly. So how, what's your attitude, what are your attitudes with risk? Because there's like pretty real risk about injury yeah well like we were talking about my attitude changed because we had that goat hunt and i'm not i'm not ashamed to say

it but we got into a spot where we were like crampons this was the mountain goat hunt like two when was that 2020 was it last year might be in yeah season 10 i think it was season 10 yeah we got into a spot where you took a shot at that goat and we'd been hiking all day and we were like messing around in an avalanche chute where it was like I don't know how big was that chute

from where we were scrambling around to the bottom which was just giant down timber that was like probably 1,000. I mean that whole drainage was probably 1500 feet tall yeah but if you took a slip and rode the hill down how deep oh yeah you'd have been a mess yeah so i was that to me i felt not dead but like a mess yeah you'd be real banged up i and that was the i think that was the only time i bailed on a stock where i was like i didn't i

just was not feeling it that day and And not used to crampons. So I calculate risk more now than I did. But when we were in grizzly country we slept on this hunt I just did with Yanni. Yanni was the only dude sleeping outside of the bear fence. That bear fence is only

for your mind. I kind of looked down on you for having that bear fence. The picture of that bear that they put on that bear fence is just like, there's no way. It's good advertising for a bear fence. I thought you had it for keeping your caribou meat safe. No. Yeah, we strongly agree.

There's not even any. It's like, you just don't. But I mean, like, I wasn't really thinking about risk. I'm not really thinking about it in that environment. It's like more like, if I have control, I don't know. about it in that environment. It's more like... I don't know. It's hard to explain. You guys did get attacked by a grizzly bear. Yeah, we got charged by a grizzly bear.

That story's been told. You know what me and Chris were talking about that's a shame on the Fognac trip? The fishing was freaking amazing. I always forget to talk about that you think about that yeah oh you guys get some gravy it's because you rode a grizzly burger yeah yeah you guys get

some amazing opportunities oh dude that's i would expect a lot more messages being like thanks for the amazing oh dude i don't have to pay for my own health care benefits no that that shoot we did up at the fish shack that was like during like peak covid deal that was like july 2020 that was uh oh when fishing where we went up fishing there was a moment where we were on the boat we were like tethered to steve and yanni were on camera and we were tethered to your guys's boat and if you guys hooked up we'd quickly like pull the line on our bow to get up to your boat to film it and then that was like kind of like we were dicking around a lot and then there was a moment where you're like all right we're gonna fish we're gonna film and we were like that trip was amazing man that was a good trip yeah that was a one where i where i feel like i

did not hit the mark as the producer because the the show there was Steve teaching you guys all how to fish. Steve and I, I felt like we did, I don't want to say lackluster, but it wasn't our best performance. We pulled a great episode out of that. That was also the happiest I've ever seen Steve. That's totally, 100% weird. When I caught that blackhawk. Oh my God, dude. It was the highlight of my life.

How many seven years of filming this show? Happiest teens ever been. Having my babies. Getting married. The black cod's number one. You were pretty stoked on that moose this last trip, or two trips ago. I was. Not like that black cod, though.

Yeah. Dude, that black cod. I mean, it was funny that you were that worked up about it because the process of doing that is so underwhelming. And it's so like. There's a postscript to that. Yeah. I thought it was going to be.

I guess I mean visually. I thought learning how to catch black cod. I thought it was going to be very, very hard to get good at it. Right. Then we caught one right away. And I was happy because it turned out that it wasn't going to be very hard to learn how to do it. And it has been nothing but downhill from there. Really?

It's in fact turned out to be harder than I ever thought it was. And you caught me at a moment of false optimism. That was like a total beginner's luck total fluke whoa no fluke no i haven't heard this whoa i didn't know that that makes it even better every time i go i get worse at it really so i was like this is gonna be a decade-long process right learn how to deep drop black hot and i'm like oh i thought i was gonna have to spend 10 years trying to figure this out. Here it is. Yeah, you were getting ready to make a new

show called... Deep Drop Boys. Deep Drop Boys. We had tiny sets, man. Me and Seth are going to travel the world to the deepest places and drop that electric rod down and see what we catch. Deep Drop Boys. I think there's still a market for that.

I wouldn't abandon that. Garrett, tell me what's the prettiest scene that you shot in season 11. Man, remind me of

what those would have been. They kind of blurted together. I mean, they do blurt it together. Oh, I know. It's like,

what's one season to the next is like so arbitrary because there's no... Bring some notes. Remember, Corinne asked you guys to come prepared.

Yeah. Fuckers. I mean, I only worked on one episode in season 11, so it's easy for me to think of. Okay, well tell me.

Which one was it? In the... New Mexico turkey. Yeah. Heal the turkeys. Walking through those stands of Ponderosa up high.

Dude, that place is so pretty. With like really tall grass and the light on the grass in the mornings and the evening, Steve walking through it, slow motion. Man, we had different trips on that. Or different experiences on that trip. Yeah, totally.

You suffered way more than I did. It was beautiful though. Yeah, but that's pretty stuff. And when you got your turkey, Steve, I think that stuff made the show real pretty. Backlit. In that area. Yeah. We were in the first. That was a wilderness area before they had wilderness areas.

So they made the Gila. They had some other name for it. Aldo Leopold advocated for it. They made the Gila. I can't remember what they called it. They made it a wilderness. It was the forest services only area that had that level of protection. Then later when they passed the wilderness act, they rolled.

The Gila was the first thing they rolled into it. So we were doing a thing about the Gila and the way fire shapes the landscape. And, uh, yeah, it was a beautiful place. I mean, I think,

yeah, like every place we go, I mean, not every place. Cause there's sometimes we're every place. Cause you were always, the cool thing about this show is like, we're always up and out before the sunrise typically.

And so you get to go in like very remote places and see it and experience it at like the best times because you're usually out after sunset because you're hunting till last light and you're up before first light and you're just seeing like the most like i've seen the most amazing shit working on this show like landscapes and nature and just things that we observe that i'm even like personally i still like don't go out and go as hard as we do on on the show so it's like always a real treat to go see something like even the first one that stretch up in bc was like dude there was like that day where the kind of the clouds broke and it was kind of like that that spin drift oh and in that on the goat hunt when

we had that crazy spin drift oh my god the light of god shining down i remember that craziest thing i've ever seen in my life man it's like stunning i'm goosebumps there's so many moments like you're saying yeah you just see like really amazing amazing stuff i don't know if we capture it to the level that we're experiencing it i hope we do but we try. We try. It almost leaves you with a feeling of failure. A little bit. When you see stuff like that, you're just like, dude. That's all pretty and beautiful places and things, landscapes. What about a scene where you caught that verite moment of a human having an emotional experience

or having an experience and you were there to capture it i got i got one based on season 11 that for sure i think about a lot is when when you and evan when he ended up you know you guys were in position and he shot that black tail the elation and like like uh the celebration was like so cool. And I think we got that. You guys like embrace in and being like, man, we just kept putting it, you know, putting the coals to the fire and it paid off. Just that like unhindered joy. That was cool. Yeah.

Similar in the, in the moose experience too. Yeah. When Clay laid that thing down, I mean, you guys were hugging and high-fiving, and it was crazy in the moment. You know, like, we'll see how it all ends up in the edit. But, I mean, that was definitely a high point in that hunt. It sounds cliche to say it, but I, yeah, it's just getting to, it's like a thing of aging, I guess. But it's just fun to watch people get stuff, man.

That was, yeah. It's fun to watch people get stuff, man. That was, yeah. It's fun to watch people get stuff. Especially after you worked all that time where we thought we were done. You know, we thought after nine and a half days, we're going for an afternoon, let's glass on the place where we haven't seen any moose and it comes together. I mean, that is next level. Those are the best, too, man. Because that's like, yeah, where you get like the best emotion and so i think like outside of the success or failure ultimately like you're and too i'd like to think of us as production crew we're all in good enough shape like there's

not a ton of struggle in the field like visually like that would be another kind of cool thing if you were like all disheveled and tired and like. Oh, you're never like that. Oh, weaseling and Hoffman and stuff. Oh, no, no, yeah. So there's not really like an emotion in that, in the like lead up process. Oh, yeah. If you.

I could produce that for season 12. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get Steve on some skis out there somewhere. More dirt on his face. We got to put more dirt on his face. He's too kept together. So it's like,

ah, he's cruising. I mean, even, even back to the, the episode one of season 11. I mean, that was brutal,

but I don't think seeing, I don't know what part of the cut I saw if it was the final, but it doesn't, the suffrage, it doesn't read because you guys are just kept together kind of. And you're watching a week turned into 22 minutes yeah yeah exactly there's a lot of time meals so if you just took the 22 minute or whatever the hell now we don't you know we're not like wed to the 22 minute thing

as much but if you just took it and made it like people hiking through the rain for 22 minutes you'd make it look you'd get the right dismal feeling yeah but how much can you really devote to it no it's like you can't capture it's it's really hard to capture how much time is spent on a glass and knob yeah because it's because of the edit yeah yeah i mean you spend like four days on some glass and tit how much is that actually how much of the show does it actually make you know. I attempted to do that in Alaska. I took a time lapse

of you sitting there glassing, which will not make it, obviously. NIMSHOT. Because of my prohibition. He doesn't like time lapses with people in them. You had a prohibition

of time lapses? I do not allow time lapses of any vertebrate except migrating caribou are okay. Oh yeah, that's cool. I thought maybe if it was you, just you by yourself

maybe there would be a real pass. Unless it's a massive amount of big herd. But I don't think that's because it's because the subject matter because I feel the same way It just looks weird. about whether it's a human or a tree blowing in the wind.

When you time lapse it, It just shakes in the frame It's one of the ugliest things you could put on a television screen It looks like a seizure You need to slow that shutter It tells the story of how long you were sitting there That's the only reason I took that shot Because it definitely Paints a picture of how long

During that nine days We sat there not didn't move just classed it there's things that i think that there's things people work on where it's not hard but they they're making it seem there's like media products where they're trying to make something seem hard that's not. Yeah. And I think one of the frustrations of working on stuff is that there's stuff that you watch later and you're like, why can't you, and this is no, this isn't to, in saying this, it's not to criticize the coverage.

It's just, why can't you capture certain amounts of annoyance you know like being just in very high wind what what being in very high wind for five or six days feels like yeah you can't get there you can't feel it what the screen what it feels like just to wake up and be like oh i'm gonna go and try to find the fortitude to sit on this hill and watch the valley blow, despite all indicators that nothing is going to happen, that you'll go do that. And there's an experience you're living that you can't get to it because of the time limit.

Yep. It's what kind of makes that stuff interesting. We've joked about it. It's that stuff they're into in Northern Europe, right? Isn't it Northern Europe they're big into it? Where you just watch like a fire... Slow TV? Oh, slow TV, yep. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm into that. You're into slow TV? I am, yeah. Yeah, train.

What do you watch on slow TV? Oh, yeah, he was like a train going through like the Alps or something for three hours. Just on the front of the train. Dude, you know how you could drone like just long drone footage going over like cities and canyons.

That counts as slow TV? I think so. Sure. I like that because that's what our TV goes to when you're not doing anything. Yeah. It's like jellyfish and stuff. Or shorelines.

Or drone shots of mountaintops. Or just like underwater as though like, you know, you were free diving or you had a scuba tank with like unlimited amount of, you know, and you were just like going for hours, like swimming underwater. Like maybe it's home from like a submarine or something.

That's good TV. The other thing I don't think we capture very well is, well, we don't because we put the cameras away. It's nap time. No, it gets dark and we're going back to camp. Often the most, like, not exciting, but, like, the adventure part of the adventure starts as soon as, like, we were like, okay, let's pack up the cameras because it's dark. Yeah. Can't really film anything.

That brings us back full circle to you and Garrett's first trip when we walked by supposedly the same rock in the darkness. And Garrett goes, yeah, we've been here. I know that rock right there. I'm like, Steve, don't listen to that guy. Steve always says it's not a death march until you disagree about where you're going. Yeah, we should do it. We've defined it finally. It's not a death march

until there's a fight and there's a fight and there's people that are going to branch off and go their own direction. People are like, we're not sticking together as a team anymore, boys. Yeah, it's every man for himself. We're going that way. You guys can go that way.

We'll see you at camp. Well, we ended up walking out a different way than we came in. Oh, after you got his bucket, right? Yeah. That night, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And it was not the ideal route. Technology has changed death marches.

Because here's what used to drive a death march is this. You are in difficult-to-navigate terrain, and you're operating with GPS with no mapping or track function. Right. So you wander around all day being like i'm gonna go around that cactus patch and there's a little pass through the hill right and and that looks like a horrible little ditch that i should not go around and then at dark all you know is you know a point that you made where camp is and so then it's like i guess we'll just walk straight to that point but that's not how you got there there's so many nights we've been walking i'm

just like walking behind you or like a couple of you behind you and then all of a sudden we stop i see the gps come out and i'm like ah shit man we're not anywhere we're not close to home boys i started keeping my own track once you could do that because I just started to mistrust the... What was the one in Colorado we did with Rourke that it was like... No. That wasn't a full death match. No, were you there? It was the one with Brody we got in a big fight.

Oh, I wasn't on that one. Down to the golf course that night. No, that was a good one. I enjoyed that one. But earlier we did some... We went to the... It's always easy to go down to the bottom of a draw. Yeah.

Because you think it's easier walking for a little bit until it turns into a waterfall. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, this wasn't the right way to go. It's not the right move. Yeah. Yeah. I do think, I'll stand by this. I do think that people don't like my route selection,

but it's not haphazard. Okay. It's not. I'm factoring in, I'm probably factoring in more things than you're factoring in. It's probably true, which is I don't care if I'm lost or not. That's one of the things.

Which is good, because when I first started, I did not like walking at night really. I hadn't done a lot of it. I had the sense of like, I got to be back to the spot. Yeah. There's no, you don't need to be anywhere. We have all this chill.

We don't need to be. But there's this sense that I got to get back. Yeah. It's like, I think it's ingrained in us as a, whatever. There's no, you don't need to be anywhere. It really opens up possibilities when you say, oh, okay, I'll hike for three hours in the dark. Or, or yeah, or it's fine. It's going to be fine.

Like there's no sense of you need to be here at a certain time or. Do you think all the listeners understand of like, or maybe people that don't hunt much, like hunting and Western hunting is like, there's generally no trails. I just like, I think hunters obviously know that. There's a lot of no trail. But I think of people who don't hunt or haven't really spent a lot of time out West in the mountains and stuff. Yeah.

It's like most of it's not on a trail. So we're talking about like hiking back in the night. It's like, you're just, you're walking. In the bushwhacking. Yeah. You're bushwhacking. Yeah. And that's like, that can wear you down.

Some of my, no, some of that can wear you down some of my five no some of my best um some of my happiest my mentally happiest moments would be not filming anything but when you got just enough moonlight to do a good no headlamp oh yeah night hike yeah i like that yeah those are nice. Those are really nice. When everybody's just running dark a few miles like that. Yeah. That happened on the goat hunt, I feel like, a couple times with the snow.

The snow was bright enough to kick back. Yeah. And no headlamps kind of bugging you. Yeah. I love it. The headlamp can be a little disorienting because you only have like your little tube of light that you can look through, you know? So if you kind of, yeah, let your eyes adjust.

If it's not pitch black out, if you let your eyes adjust, you can end up seeing a lot, which is cool. I was just wondering, I know we don't have Justin Turkowski here or Perrin James here, but for any of you guys who have done like surface water filming,

I don't think any of you guys have done underwater filming or have you. If someone could speak to that. A little bit, yeah. I mean, I can't speak to Justin and Perrin's real pros. They're like the real deal. I will say...

The little bit I did, I ended up burning up a camera. Oh yeah, you dunked a nice camera. A little O-ring action. Speaking of did i ended up burning up a camera so yeah you dunked it you dunked a nice camera little ring action yeah that's sealed so speaking of the uh like difficulty of keeping gear running for sure no but the thing i think justin's was really impressive because when we were down this is not this is season 10 i think i didn't do the season 11 hawaii one but we were down there with a similar crew you came up steve and you were talking about how

like you guys were on some fish you shot and then surfaced to catch air and then went back down and justin like stayed down the whole time and like you found that to be very impressive down for the whole thing yeah i was like dude that is because it's like yeah his coverage on that i didn't and i don't see parents but i'm sure it's's absolutely just as insane. It's like we talk about we're bitchy little bitches, but dude, the underwater stuff is a whole different deal. His coverage is so impressive because he's able to connect everything kind of in one shot, and I think it's also the way things are set up underwater. They know how stuff's going to play out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really cool. I guess in that way it seems like the skill of the camera operators are set up underwater. And they know how stuff's going to play out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really cool. I guess in that way it seems like the skill of the camera operators need to be equal to or surpass the skills of the hunter, right?

Which is the case with us, too. Totally. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're all probably the best hunters in the room, man. I was just going to ask who hasn't hunted

or didn't grow up hunting and then now because they've been following Steve and Giannis and the rest of our gang, who could just pick it up and do it? I didn't grow up hunting,

but I could probably get something down if I had to, I think. I don't know. No, I haven't. Maybe not a wall hanger, but I could shoot a doe. Steve, what do you think?

I mean, I don't know how you wouldn't. I mean, unless you're just kicked in the head by a mule i don't know how you would not i don't know how you would not have picked up like a lot of little pointers oh yeah yeah oh you know that's that's a funny point because we were in alaska and i had this on our texas deal too with yanni's thing it was like i really enjoyed the uh hunting side of it more than the filming side of it like i wanted to not film i just wanted to like be hunting caribou because i like feel like i have a knowledge of hunting now that i didn't have when i started took a long time to get it but yeah i feel like i spotted some game on that one i had some good some good eyes good job we just made a video of an episode we

tried to make for season 11 but it was just lots of problems with weather equipment covid uh it was an ice fishing episode oh so we made a 10 minute we made like a 10 minute video about the episode that never will be yeah and an explanation of why i'll never be and it's kind of a it's a little bit of a condemnation i sent it to uh i said to a friend of mine who was friends with um a friend of mine who was friends with jim harrison and i sent it to him to watch and he had a laugh about it and he said you've read harrison's piece about ice fishing called the moronic sport, right? But of all the things, what is the hardest thing to make seem interesting with a camera? Ice fishing and whitetail deer stand hunting was hard. And whitetail deer stand.

That's crazy because that's that's you're talking about probably 90 of the outdoor television that gets made is white tail deer stands and all of it's like pretty formulaic because there's only there's really so much you can do like you can't you're stuck in a spot you know you can't cover it you can't you're not walking around you're not glass and there's not like new things you're usually solitary so there's no conversations with like another person that you can do the way you can with like a Western style hunt. Or if you're fishing or something, it's like, yeah, it's pretty much. A friend described it to me as whisper, whisper, shoot.

That's pretty accurate. Yeah. Ice fishing and white tail deer hunt. I think so. Staying out. Anytime you're, anytime you're stuck in one spot is really hard to just give a variety of angles. So the editor has a hard time because you just don't have, you don't have like the coverage is just limited. You have like one viewpoint.

Yeah, I feel like the talent is going to carry that the whole way through. The white tail hunter with that camera in his face talking about what's going on is your content because otherwise you're looking at time lapses leaf shots maybe some deer oh my god there's been so many times where you're up on like hour eight of just sitting in a saddle and you're just like i guess i'll film some more bark that's never gonna make it but you're like i don't know what else to do right now do a little more gaming yeah. Yeah, a little more gaming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those are tough. I remember one time I got, we were doing a Michigan hunt, which I

don't know if that episode came out. Nope. That one didn't come out. No, you know what? That was, there was three.

Yeah, the other day you said two. I said two and I forgot there's been three that we didn't do. Out of the 150 whatever, there's been

three we didn't cut. But that one. Yeah, that was one we didn't cut but that one yeah that was one we didn't cut that yeah well chris i asked steve i said did that show not make it because chris had to get out of the stand to take shit no i had to take a leak man i climbed down the other debate about the tree stand hunting is like if you're in the same tree or the not the same tree but you snake it out and just pee? Yeah. And I was basically touching. If I was in a tree stand, it's easy to take a leak, but I was in a blind on somebody else's property. And I was like, well, I'm not just going to like pee in this side of this dude's blind right now. Cause that's kind of messed up. Yeah. And a box

blind. And you were in a tree that I could, you were like, I don't know, 20 yards away from me, less than, and we hadn't seen anything all morning. And I'm like, okay, I really, I got to take a leak. So I climbed down. I'd left, I don't know, 20 yards away from me, Lesanne. And we hadn't seen anything all morning. And I'm like, okay, I really, I got to take a leak. So I climbed down. I'd left, I made a rookie mistake. I'd left my camera in the blind because I didn't want to make noise climbing down the ladder

and like banging everything around. So I leave the camera. I get down, I get down the ladder. All of a sudden I see Steve do like the antler thing with his hands up. And I'm just like, and I can hear this thing like crunching the leaves. And I'm like, fuck, fuck, fuck. And up. And I'm just like, and I can hear this thing, like crunching the leaves. And I'm like,

fuck, fuck, fuck. And I just, I like take out my cell phone. I like try, slowly raise up my iPhone. Like it's going to make it in.

Yeah. That was, that was a, that was a lesson learned, man. I knew better to leave my camera too. I was like bummed out about that. Yeah.

That was one of the, that was probably the coldest. That was one of the coldest I've ever ugh that's that wet Midwest yeah that was cold that was cold

yeah that was a tough one I don't know man we're gonna have to go out and make some more shows oh please do I know please do I do have to say

I'm 0 for 2 on this season I was supposed to do two of them and I got waylaid for various reasons. Without a doubt, like all of us have been saying, it's amazing being out in the field filming this show. Every time I learn something, whether it's hunting or tenacity, I just can't say enough about how big of an influence this last seven years of filming this with you has been.

Positive, all positive. Best job I've ever had, for sure, without a doubt. You guys have all taken your little breaks, too, and gone on to, you know. Do stupid stuff. In air quotes, you know, better things. I wouldn't say better. Well, at the time you did.

And then six months later, I get an email or a phone call, so why? You got any meetings? It's coming up. It's coming up. Because it all scratches different, it all scratches different inches. Yeah, it does. No, it's been, I've had just a wonderful time with you guys, man.

As much as I love Knocking around with my kids I like just going and doing stuff for fun But I really The time we've all spent In the field has been pretty special We've seen a lot of crazy shit Oh man

Real adventure There's nothing else I do for work That's like Created or constructed adventure This is real adventure Every time There's no there's there's yeah, there's nothing else I do for work. That's like There's like kind of Created or constructed adventure. This is real adventure every time you don't know what's gonna happen Is it is it drugstore Cowboys that Gus Van Zandt movie where the guys always says the things we've seen Bob the things we've seen I always quote that Yeah, it's like a crazy shit

Well the other cool thing too and we've all talked about like the most positive feedback from the general public about anything i've worked on nobody cares about anything else no no but meat eaters like what right yeah they're like you know steve ronell yeah yeah they're like uh can i get you to sign you know have something signed or whatever it's been fun, man. The things we've seen. The things. And the things we'll see.

The things we'll see in the future. Yep. No, and the cast of characters that come along with the show, like Danny. Yep. And everybody else that we've gotten to meet over the years. I value all those. Oh, dude.

I mean, you get to spend time. Like, I didn't know Cal, and then all of a sudden you spend all day every day for like a week together. I know Cal, yeah. Yeah. And you're like, oh, I know this guy get to spend time. Like I didn't know Cal and then all of a sudden you, you spend all day, every day for like a week together. Hanging out with Cal. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, Oh, I know this guy.

Yeah. Great. Yeah. It's rad. How many of you guys are sticking around for trivia? I think all of us. I got nowhere to go. I got nowhere to be.

You're not a local? Not a local. So when you're watching season 11 or any of the shows going back a long, long time, these are the voices you will not hear. Something bad has happened. There's some occasionally Gil's voices in there. Maybe. In the background. Maybe.

There's a cameo now, but it's like the people behind it. I once, of a different camera guy that went back to one of the guys that shot the very first episodes, very first episodes, I once remarked that I thought that the amount of walking, it was like the me is a bird hunter and the cameraman was the bird dog. And the amount of miles put on. Yeah. Yeah. We're putting on some miles.

Putting some miles on. Yeah. So when you're watching the show, that's who's putting the miles on. And we'll be rolling out an episode every week. I don't know how, eight shows? I think so. Some great spear fishing stuff, big game hunting stuff, turkey stuff, the usual mix, great characters.

And we'll be seeing first, again, for free. I keep thinking of people seeing there, they think it's like a chart. It's for free. That's a good deal, man. That's a good deal. Go watch it. Go watch it. You watch all kinds of stuff on there. Available there.

We'll have a lot of auxiliary stuff. And watch out for our episode where we deconstruct why an episode doesn't become an episode. Wait, that is an episode. That's a full episode? No, it's just a YouTube video. It's 10 minutes long, but it's about why. Yanni doesn't think it's funny, but Yanni has taken to nagging me all the time. He thinks it's too inside baseball, but I think it's funny, but Yanni's like, has taken to nagging me all the time. He thinks it's too inside baseball.

But I think it's funny. It's funny. I'm honest. It's a very, it's a funny thing about why ice fishing is the white whale. I'd say it's the white whale, which is a Moby Dick reference if you guys aren't well read. Why it's the

white whale of outdoor TV? It can't be captured But we got the pike spearing Yeah dude that No that's in there That was sick That's in there If it's not spearing it's like

It's the white whale Ice fishing cannot be captured And so we'll release that And you'll see about that Season 11 good as ever. Meeater.com. Check it out and stay tuned for trivia. We'll see what these guys have picked up over the years.

Uh-oh. Not much. No, dude. No, I got low, low expectations for my performance, man. No, I think there's going to be some strong performance. Thanks everybody for joining. 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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