The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 401: Ch-ch-ch-changes and Lessons for 2023

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Steven Rinella talks with Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Chester Floyd, Hunter Spencer, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.   Topics include: When silk killed the beaver hat; Steve's Hot Tip to parents: watch "Adventure Time" with your kids; should you shoot and tag a wounded animal?; when Steve practiced civil disobedience and picked up roadkill; names for genitalia; wacked, crunched, and aced; does a farm-raised duck count to your limit?; to pee, or not to pee in a treestand; Brody guiding his wife on her first big game hunt; Hunter's first pronghorn; sometimes you just gotta enjoy the experience; Chester’s debut gig; disagreements about paternity leave; Jani’s ‘glass half full’ mindset; when Jani brought his daughter to Latvian deer camp; Steve’s dissatisfaction with catching critters on accident; don’t take credit for what you didn’t do; be appreciative; and more lessons for 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Alright, Happy new year. Happy new year. Happy new year. It just doesn't feel like 2023. Because it's not. What do you mean? Well,

I gotta just, I'm just to come flat out and tell people. We're recording this before. It's a long, no, it's not a long story. You're listening on the second, dude. It takes a minute and stuff to turn around. So this is, it's not the new year. But it's our, we're going to talk about new year stuff. Because it's a new year mood, dude, like on Spotify.

Oh, yeah. That was the stupidest thing in the world i mean god bless them love spotify i listen to i listen you want you want to know something i'm in the way ass see in my house i have a sonos system but i run spotify through am in, I am in the.01 top percent of Sharon Van Atten fans. Sharon Van Atten. I'm listening to more.

Based on the reaction in this room, I buy it. I listen to more Sharon Van Atten than 99 point. I can't even do the math. If I'm in the top 0.01% of fans,

what, what, who am I, who, how many more, what percent am I listening to more of? So your, so your, your Spotify rap wasn't completely bungled by your kids. Cause mine, that's, mine's completely, it's gone. It does not. Those sons of bitches, I can't stand when they do that. Oh, it's terrible.

I've had to, like, I don't want to name names, but I had someone affiliated with my household. Really screw up my program. I hate it. No, they weren't able to, I like wage war on them on that they have an alexa you know i'm alexa deals uh-huh it's tied to your account right yeah but you should not have like amazon never had any music but now they have they went they're kind of going the spotify now they have a ton of music but they just opened up some thing where you know like normally they're like yeah amazon had its own service but there wasn't a huge selection at the first launch.

But now they've got a lot more. So you'd be like, play me some Hold Steady, right? And they'd be like, well, here's something similar. But now they got a bunch. Anyhow, somehow my kids figured out for a while how to get into Spotify. Oh, they're throwing my stuff off because they like those stupid songs. Now you're in the top. Pancake Robot.

1% of Baby Shark. throwing my stuff off because they like those stupid songs. Now you're in the top. Pancake Robot. I'm right there with you. No, they're not into that but they like a song called Pancake Robot. It's just these goofy songs. There's one that my kids love called Jingle Burgers. It's terrible. It's adult singing in high pitched voices just to like, you know, I don't know.

Kids love it. Christmas themed? Nope. And there was recently something that came out. Here's why I hate like, one of the reasons I hate virality. This is a good kickoff to the New Year's thing, right? One of the years I hate,

did you see something that was everywhere? It was like a kid talking about corn. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's like who cares? Well listen, let me tell you something. Was he cute? Cute. People liked it because people liked it. Yeah, it's like, who cares? He has a cone. Well, listen, let me tell you something. Was he cute? Cute. People liked it because people liked it. Meaning, if I took 100 Americans off the street, let's say I had that recording, and I'm the

only guy that knew about that recording, okay? I pull 100 Americans randomly off the street. I sit them down, and I say, watch this video on my phone. Is this a life-changing video for you? They'd all go, no. Kid's cute. Kid's cute, but no. However, if you pump into America's head that something has, that like everyone is liking it, they like it.

They like it because they like it for instance whenever it became like a thing to say like a dad joke okay once it had a name it became a thing but they they need language like americans need language to make things a thing and they need like they're like a dad this a dad bod okay so like this whole genre of like dad bod dad joke came out and then everybody becomes aware of it because there's now language to describe something that's always existed but they didn't know to care because it had no language around it likewise this stupid kid with the corn thing there's a song but they took the kid talking about corn and set it to music my kids play that all the time oh yeah yeah i use dad bod now but before i would just be like i'm getting kind of

fat i know because you do you know what people would describe the hold steady as dad rock sure yeah no because that's like drug addict it's all about it's like they're all it's all drug addict stuff yeah but they're all they're all cleaned up and old now. No, what you're thinking is Yacht Rock. No, Dad Rock is a thing. Yacht Rock's a whole different thing. I'm trying to back you up, Steve. I'm here with you. The Hold Steady is all about...

Wilco is another example of Dad Rock. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And there's a lot of... There's a lot of... They're happy to have that. But weirdly, they have a lot of drug references and a lot of spousal abuse references, which is like a wrinkle.

The Hold Steady is just like drug addict music. It's like about drug addicts. But dads love it. It's not like, you know, it's not music about dads. Yeah, it might be. That'd be a great band, though. What was I talking about? You were talking about how you're the best fan ever of uh sharon oh no oh corn kid oh how it's like oh i know what i was getting at geez

man it's been a long time since i started making my point point being it has the feeling of the end of the year because i just got served uh my spotify that stupid thing with the like psychedelics on spotify that tells you what you're up to over the course of the year. Tells you all your favorite genres, songs, bands. It's really disjointed and it's all like you're looking through a kaleidoscope. Yeah, I didn't like it. So anyways, it's in the air. It's a long road to get there, but we got there. The New Year's in the air.

Chester just told me something New Year's-ish. Yeah, there's ice out there starting to be some ice out there your dip quitting plan I got two other buddies, those guys are real into fitness

are they real into dip, first of all I want to get to how what you said wasn't that smart but go on yeah i'm i'm getting there okay i mean it's not what i they're real into fitness and uh all three of us occasionally like to dip actually not occasionally we like to dip and they were like how about whoever caves first meaning we're gonna going to try and quit chewing, and whoever puts a dip in their lip has to swim a mile in the pool. And I pointed out, if they're into fitness, how is it a punishment?

I think if you had a bunch of unathletic fatsoes who hate any kind of exercise and they wanted to quit dip and the punishment would be you had to swim a mile in the pool no i get it and that's why i responded to them like how hard is it to swim a mile in a pool like i need some context here because i could probably benefit from this swimming thing you know know. But they said it's extremely difficult, especially if you don't swim. So they don't want to swim the mile in the pool. I don't know, because they, I don't think they do. But you do see what I'm saying. They're scared of drowning?

Of course. You see what I'm saying. It's like you said, like, if all of us were like, whoever has a drink first, they have to go hunting. Like you just said. Yeah, exactly. When my old man quit smoking, did I tell you what he did? How he finally quit? It was like a money-related bet.

He gave 10 to 1 odds and got to be, there was no way he could afford to not. There's no way he could afford to not quit because he was given $10 on the dollar. To a bunch of people. A lot of people. So how much did he make in the end? I think he made $700. If I remember right. He made $700 and would have had to fork out $7,000 if he didn't quit.

It's better than swimming a mile in a pool. Making $700. Here's the other thing. You're not getting anything out of winning. True. All you're getting is the set. It's like all you know is that somewhere someone's swimming in a pool. While my old man's walking around with a fat wallet.

Maybe you can like stand on the edge of the pool and make sure he doesn't like touch the edge or something, you know? Could heckle him. If you go 100% zen, does that count as quitting chewing tobacco? I would just count it as nicotine, you know, is what I am addicted to. Mm-hmm. So you're trying to get off of nicotine altogether. Yeah.

Because you switched to dip alternatives, now you're doing the next thing. Right, and I've tried quitting. I try quitting about every other week. Probably. Well, you know, I like to follow the fur market. This is like New Year's.

I was just reading the fur market report for coming up. And like the whole Russia thing's got everything whacked out in various ways uh they buy a lot of fur um traditionally like a lot like u.s fur will go to russia the other thing is there's a sable market so like there's a lot of sable they get trapped and sable are sable are european like eurasian martin yeah is what what they call sable do they buy when mart when american martin are sold they're sold as sable so like in the old days you get like a

sable brush that was like the hair in the brush or like a sable scarf even american martin wind up being used as sable so the russians always buy a shitload of fur and that's all screwed up. Oh, did you know that the Russians, the Ruskies, reached out trying to,

the Ruskies reached out trying to do a Ruskie version of one of our books? Pretty, it felt pretty good to make a political statement there. Yeah, especially because it only cost five bucks.

Fuck you guys. Yeah. I was like, I'm reading this thing and I, do you remember what book it was? It was the survival book. Okay.

Yeah. The Wilderness Skills book. Which they may need over there. I know. So there's like this Russian publisher wanted to buy the Russian rights to do a translation of the Wilderness Skills book. And the whole time I'm like, oh man, this is like, you know, it's going to be hard. Like you can't do it. Yeah. a hot like you can't do it yeah you

know you can't do it because all the boycott stuff but man but I got the end I was only 500 bucks so I'll be like hell no I was like oh good not cost me anything to be So here's an interesting thing, man Beavers, so In the beaver market Beavers are sold as Most beavers go into what's called The hatter market So if you go back to the old days

You go back to the mountain man era All those beavers that were trapped By all those mountain man rocky mountain beaver trappers and others were all used to make hats they shred the whole thing and make wool felt uh so abe lincoln like the top hat and all that right beaver wool felt top hats they're water resistant warm very fashionable uh, he might have been the silk hat era. Because when they started making hats from silk, it killed the old beaver market. But today, everything but the best.

So you might have a lot of beavers that come out of the upper Great Lakes, extreme northern Midwest. Like very dark, heavy beavers. Those go to certain uses. Most other beavers from the south,, heavy beavers, like those go to certain uses. Most of all the beavers, most other beavers from the south, all the beavers from the west go into the hatter market. They go into making Stetsons. This bobcat guy,

Mercer Long, who's going to be coming on the podcast, he used to be a, he still is, a fur trapper, but he also, when researchers are trying to do catch bobcats to collar them, he's the go-to guy when you want to put a collar on a bobcat. He's like Joe Bobcat. He sent me a text. Let me tell you another.

Let me give you another. He has some interesting insights. He said this one day. So here's him. Why does it bother me so much these guys with the $70,000 land cruisers and Jeeps with all the stupid shit bolted to the outside of it? Water jugs, gasoline, traction boards, and handyman jacks. Can you imagine actually spending any time on dirt roads in one of those things?

All that crap that's bolted to them, things just rattle off or the racks would just fall to pieces eventually. There isn't a single lift point on one of those vehicles that you could even use the high lift jack on. And then you see them out there when you're trapping on their big adventure, a dozen of them making a big deal about driving down a trail that you check traps on every single day. Most of the time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a half bottle of water in your vehicle, and your spare tire's been flat in the bed for a week and a half.

No, this guy's really your buddy. Yeah, this guy knows how to get to your heart. Yep. Here's a taxi that sent me. Do you suppose the liberal, save all the animals Hollywood folks involved with the TV show Yellowstone realize they are almost single-handedly pushing the beaver market?

Orders for 40,000 to 50,000 skins to supply the hatter industry? You suppose they even know that those western hats are made with beaver felt? Probably not a lot of people do. No. I doubt it. No, I don't know that those western hats are made with beaver felt probably not a lot of people do no i doubt it no i don't know that well also the guy that runs yellowstone taylor sheridan's a pretty centrist dude he's not he's a beaver trapper yeah he's a he's a friend of the beaver trappers he is i keep we keep getting pitched a podcast guest

from various angles who's a it sounds like an anti-Beaver Trapper. Might have to get him on. They wrote Beaverland. I just got pitched them again today. They have startling startling findings about the secretive contemporary fur trade. Oh, so it's based on fur. It's not like

environmental love. No, it's about like, hey, beavers make dams. It's like, news alert and then um you don't say and then uh and then um it has startling discoveries about the contemporary fur trade i don't know maybe we should have that definitely that sounds interesting uh oh another heads up before we get we got a couple things to talk about. Here's another heads up. You know, like, speaking of like, you know, the liberal Hollywood types, you know how everything in Disney is like, how it's just like nonstop, like anti-hunting stuff. Like if you watch, it's not Disney, but like Wild Kratts, for instance, like the bad guy

is a wild game chef in Wild Kratts. You ever watch that show? You kids ever watch that show? Oh, and like the... It's these two brothers. The animal... They used to have an actual show. I don't know if they got too old and they started to turn them into much younger cartoon people.

But yeah, the hunters are always the bad guys. Like when the animals are the characters, like the buffoon hunters. Yeah, there's a wild game chef. There's three. There's one one of the bad guys is kind of like a very he's like an urban dweller very fussy and it and like how do i put it how do I put it a very effeminate fussy urbanite who kind of hates animals okay one of the bad guys is no joke a chef who wants to like eat the last of things

yeah you know every other thing like if you watch a movie and there's a couple and there's a hunter in it it's like what is he he's from the south he's from the american south he's careless and and like ruthless i have this is a hot tip for parents with kids adventure time that's me and my kids show i I love it. 10-15 minute episodes. We watch them at night before bed. All their house is taxidermy. They sleep under animal skins. Everything in their house is draped in animal hides.

What's this one called? Adventure Time. It's a dystopian, no it's like a utopian post-apocalyptic world where you gather that It's also kind of fantasy and medieval. It's like a whole, it's cool. It's it's a cool humans are all gone except for one kid inanimate objects have become animate and now and then you see like a iceberg will wash up on the beach and it's full of humans wearing business suits with pustules all over their face like humans are gone and it's

a kid and his dog and they have a lot of adventures and sometimes like I was watching one the other day and it just ends inexplicably they just come in and he's holding like a big dead animal and drops it on the floor and his buddy's got an arrow sticking out of his head

and yeah they sleep under his bed is all bear hides and rugs where can you watch it? is it like a YouTube? I don't know where we watch it. It was on Cartoon Network, but you can watch it on HBO Max

and any sort of Cartoon Network. We have the kind of TV you talk into, and my kids just talk into it. One of those smart ones that they have nowadays. They just talk into it and it plays it, but I don't understand where it's coming from. That's a hot tip. Adventure time. I'll have to...

When Oscar can start watching... It has a lot of talking animals, but I watch it for the taxidermy. I watch it for the tanned hides. The beds made of nothing, but they just sleep under rugs. People like the effed upouble taxidermy calendar?

Mm-hmm. Good. I mean, they're never going to like it as much as the deer stands calendar. Mm-hmm. But yeah. Good. Well, speaking of, that was another good 2023 hit. Got a couple of ethics questions we got to get into.

Well, yeah. If you don't have a calendar for this year yet. It'd be ethical to buy one. Yeah. There's like just a few left, right? I think. Really? Yeah.

I think I saw an email that it was like 24,000 have already been shipped out. Oh, so they sold a good pile. Yeah. Oh, sweet, man. Yeah. And then there was some as a promo, like for certain orders. Yeah, I think in the last, like. Last year when they were getting rid of them, it was if you make any order, you get a free

calendar with any order. So people would order a calendar. Right. Because then you're buying like a cheap item. So you're paying like whatever, 14 bucks. And then your free item is a calendar. Yeah. So it's basically like two for one calendars and a lot of calendars sold like that.

Yeah. But yeah, it's not too late. Hopefully you can still go get them. We've talked about this one, but man, it comes up all the time. Here's a guy. Here's a guy writes in. Phil Statesian. As previously discussed on the podcast, hunters are placed in moral and legal dilemmas often.

I'm quoting. On the opening day of rifle season, I experienced quite the predicament. Still quoting. Hunting public land, I heard someone shooting a small caliber semi-automatic firearm, sending out multiple shots. After about 10 to 15 minutes, I hear an animal headed in my direction. I look up to see a small buck, very wounded, limping into the area. Upon looking at him through my scope, I can see that he has been shot through the front leg at the joint.

Upon seeing this, I decided to do the morally correct thing and dispatch the deer. As I checked out the deer, I began to see he was shot multiple times. Twice in the neck, once through the front leg, and once in the ham. I proceeded to wait over an hour in hopes that someone would show up looking for the deer they had wounded, but they put about as much time in finding the wounded animal as they did at the gun range. I know taking a wounded animal has been discussed on the podcast before, but how would you have played this one? Use your only rifle buck tag on a small buck that has been discussed on the podcast before, but how would you have played this one? Use your only rifle

buck tag on a small buck that has been shot up? Harvest the animal and not tag him? Let him walk? I respect the opinions from the meat eater as y'all do. Nice. He ends with some nice things.

What would you have done? I want to first lay out like what you should what you what you need legally this is what this is why i talk about ethics because i've i've been in a situation i've been in a situation two times more than that well i was in a situation yesterday in a weird way because i'm driving down the road we're going out to set some martin sets and there's a deer all busted up on the side of the road laying there looking around cars whizzing by you can see where it kind of dragged itself off into the snow and like we talked about we should probably shoot the deer that you're actually not supposed to do that

right that's breaking the law it's breaking the law to shoot the deer. You're actually not supposed to do that. Right. That's breaking the law. It's breaking the law to shoot the deer. But twice, I have killed severely messed up deer that I did not tag. One time, the first time I did it, we were camping, and I took a backstrap off it. And then I felt, like, kind of bad about that. You stepped across the line at that. Well, it was, listen, it was a deer that got hit in the lower back ham. It was just packed full of dirt.

The leg was just dragging. Oh, just a mess. And I was like, it's like a total mess. It was obviously a hunting related. It was hunting season. You could tell it had been shot. I shot it. And I'm like, man, I don't know.

And that night we ate a backstrap, which was wrong. That was probably moral. I don't know. That one's moral. Legally wrong for sure. The other time I killed one, a little fawn that had gotten out onto an island in a river and had been hamstrung by coyotes. It was just a total mess and dying anyways, and I shot it. Didn't touch it.

Both times that was illegal. Because you didn't use your tag. Didn't use a tag and didn't contact a game warden. So I'll do mine and you guys can do yours. I'll do mine for what I think this individual, what I would have done in this individual's shoes if I was being my best person. Well. If you're being your best person, you wouldn't have messed with it if you didn't want it your second best person you just shot it realized it was full of holes realize that no one came and

looked for it and call a game warden and be like i don't i i saw a deer coming i knew it was shot i shot it i didn't realize it was this. And where the hell's the guy that shot it? And let the game warden sort it out. If you really laid it out and the game warden was quite convinced you were telling the truth, there's a good chance. And he probably would have done some asking around about who had been plugging away at it and probably would not have forced you to tag it. If you're like, I don't know, here it comes.

It's got four brand new holes in it. I don't want it. But where is he? Yeah, I think if I would, I'd shoot the deer, go up to it, realize how shot up it was. If I could get a bunch of meat off, I'd probably just take the deer. But if it was just demolished... But what if it was your only buck tag? And you had like another week to hunt, Chester.

I mean, I'd love to shoot a bigger buck, but it's just like meat, at least at this point in my life, the meat is uh more important than the but in this case you're not gonna like the meat's gonna be all right shot up and if it was all shot up i'd do exactly what you guys are saying and call the call the game warden i've tagged two shot up animals i tagged a shot up turkey with y, and we jumped it out of a brush pile, and it couldn't fly, and I shot it and tagged it. Full story, I think it was like the last couple minutes of our hunt. And then I shot a coos deer on the show one time that had been shot through the foot.

So you got some yield off of that, though. There's nothing wrong with it. Shot through the foot. What's interesting is after I killed it, we were cutting it up, and here comes the guy. We got to hit it a couple days before in the foot. It's still out in the mountains looking for it. Hmm.

In Arizona? I wasn't on that one. Did you give it to him? No, he was totally cool about it. He was still up looking for it. He wanted to know what happened. He was happy as shit. I just like... Is it like the morally correct thing to do like are you morally obligated like i don't know if that's i would now now knowing what i now know i would just if i knew something was messed up i'd be like they tell you not to mess with i'm not gonna mess yeah you know I don't think you're morally obligated to do anything.

The one area I think that I, the one area where I think that I used to practice civil disobedience is picking up roadkill stuff. Back when it was illegal. Yeah. And mostly now it's like more every year, like more and more states make illegal. But when it was illegal to pick up roadkill, I would pick up roadkill. I wouldn't even be discreet about it and i was looking forward to going down to court and being like yes your honor there was a deer dead on the side of the road that was going to rot on the side of the road and i ate it guilty as charged have you shot and to see what actually happens to you have

you done done the putting a wounded animal out thing and tagged or untagged? One time going up 131. One that was hit by a car. Yeah. Yeah. I was a young hotshot elk guy and always had a pistol in my car and just needed a reason to discharge that son of a gun and there it was. I knew it was a reason I've been carrying that for 10 years.

I think that was the only time. Yeah, I don't know that I'm going to burn my tag in that situation, that's for sure. No, I'm not. I mean, you can, but it's not like a thing. I don't feel like I have to do it for this reason. This animal has to be put out of its misery. I don't know.

For some reason, the older I get, I don't believe in that quite as much anymore as I used to. I think those animals are a lot tougher than we think they are and I think there's a little bit of anthropomorphization that goes on when we think oh let's put it out of its misery.

You don't know how it works. Well that deer yesterday laying on the side of the road dude was not getting any better. No it's not I'm not saying it's going to get any better. It's going to die. It's going to get eaten by something. But here's another wrinkle in this to consider. He's talking about human caused.

Which I view like human caused. We're part of nature. I know. No, that's a good point. That's a good point. But I mean, it's the morally correct thing because that's the one you saw. Like if you're out there hunting and firearm season in Wisconsin, there is a sheet load of wounded deer running around in the woods.

You know what I mean? But just because it's the one you saw, it's, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like. It's my, it's my belief that like, we talked about this a long time yesterday I was talking with some folks it's my belief that wound loss on archery elk is one to one

everyone I know that archery hunts has a story man I think for every elk that dies an elk gets wounded so if you imagine all those like you know and so many of those recover it's kind of like yeah you see something coming along you don't know what it's gonna happen to it here's a good one i recently harvested a duck that caused me some confusion yesterday i was

out jump shooting some local creeks this is really interesting i had bagged three greenheads. That's good. That's a good little jump shoot. I had bagged three greenheads, and because the limit is four mallards here in Skane, Chester, I could shoot one more. As I walked along, a flock of three erupted from the bank below me. I picked out the one bird with a green head and a white collar, pulled up, and crunched it. Hadn't heard that before. Crunched it. Means he got it.

Yeah, I had never heard anybody use crunched in place of got it, shot it. Folded it. Folded it. You ever heard anybody use crunched? It's a little aggressive. Just this is the first time right now. Just imagining bones shattering, which I don't think is the image that you want. Well, I think a lot.

I did some waterfowl hunting last week. And sometimes when you do get like a really good shot on one and they. You crumpled it. They crumple, which I could see. I could see that that could, you know, you could flip that to crunch pretty easy. They do kind of look like they get. Pilloweded no never guys about folded in when I was in college I had to do this thing that I've talked about this story Corinne you you'll remember I told you this or not I found an academic paper

well cuz you're all you know you're usually here right I found an academic paper where they took a roomful of women from a college who all knew each other. Okay. And they had like 15 minutes to think of all the words they could think of for male genitalia. I don't remember this. And then they took the same number of guys. Come on. I've heard it at least 10 times.

Really? You've heard this before? Maybe I'm getting old. Hey, look, Hunter's sitting over there like he wants to hear what they call the penis. Okay, so

then they took the same number of guys and they found guys that all knew each other and put them, it was a linguist, okay, that did the research.

So the women all generated for 15 minutes just free form generated as many names they could think of for male genitalia. Then you had a group of 15 minutes, just free form, generated as many names they could think of for male genitalia. Then you had a group of guys. And they, free form, generated as many names for male genitalia as they could think of.

And a stark difference in the, like a stark difference in the lists. The males had more names? Authority figures. Like the commissioner, the governor. That's terrible. Kojak. Like authority figures. like the commissioner, the governor. That's terrible. Kojak, like authority figures. So the authority figures

were coming from the men, I'm guessing? Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. The female is just like a wildly different list of, you know, like, just like

very different. Point being, I think it'd be like, thinking about this, crunched, crunched it. It'd be like thinking about this crunched, crunched it. It'd be interesting to go around the country. Just be like,

for five minutes, give me, you'd be like harvested, took, right? Somebody would be like whacked, crunched. That'd be a good shirt.

Just have a map. And what are the kind of terms. Yeeted. It's fun for the Gen Zs. Yeah, yeah. So, it'd be interesting research. So, back to our duck hunter. I picked out the one bird with the green head and the white collar, pulled up, and crunched it.

Something seemed off about the bird i figured it was just a juvenile drake seeing as i had harvested two of those already that day however when i stripped down and waded across the creek someone should send this guy some waders when i stripped down and waded across the creek i found what was clearly a domestic duck i have no ethical dilemma about shooting a domestic duck. I was in the heart of public land and escaped. Domestic breeds can be quite damaging to the genetics of our wild mallards. What I struggled with was whether or not it should

count towards my limit of mallards or my limit of ducks at all. I understand that it's a descendant of a mallard, but a feral dog is a descendant of a wolf. Should you then be required to put your wolf permit on a feral dog if you shot one? Last time I shot one, I didn't.

Or, say I had my own domestic ducks. If I were to shoot a limit of wild ducks, would that prevent me from being able to butcher my own that day? He's making a point, right? I don't think he's asking, what are those, hypotheticals, theoreticals? I don't know. Yeah, he's just laying out an extreme possibility, I think.

I had a similar experience last year. My boy got a duck, a strange duck. And we speculated about what it was. And the more I did online research I had found a it was a mallard muscovy cross which even has a name so then you're like we counted it toward the limit I would think that in this case this individual I would think that you might get cited but when you went to court you're not gonna get in trouble you'd have to court, you're not going to get in trouble.

You'd have to, how do you prove it's a domestic duck though? If you cared that much, you'd get it tested. Right. Couldn't it be that that duck is just hatched out from a hen that made it, a wild hen that made it with a, you know. Yeah, but you see those crazy like oh for sure ponds full those crazy like not quite mallards all the time i mean it's one duck like why not just call it a day right because he's a curious person i guess look at this all this job look at all this like another one of his credentials he does have some credentials another one of those things another

one of those situations though where it's just, if you really wanted to keep hunting, you just could call up your authorities and kind of see what they think, you know? Yeah, I think they're going to be. On the other hand, you can't be every day calling a game warden weird stuff to happen to. Yeah, but this stuff doesn't happen that often. Guess what happened now. Yeah, but how often does this stuff happen? You won't believe it, but. You know.

I feel like my local game warden likes getting a phone call from an inquisitive Yanni. Yeah, and I apologize to him every time I do it. He looks at that phone. He's like, God damn it, it's Yanni. Every time I do it, I'm like, hey, man, I hate to bug you with this kind of stuff, man. But like, what if? It's their job. Yeah, no, he likes it because he's like an intellectual.

I would have kept hunting. Bonus duck. Here's what I would have done. I'm telling you, this is what I would have done. My better self would have just, my better self would have, I'm bagged out. I'm done hunting. But in the back of my mind mind when I see a game warden I'm going to say to that game warden

hey I got one for you and you're like I'm not going to call him this time and be like hey I got one for you here's the thing that had me what would have been your attitude to that

I wouldn't have shot another one planning on arguing my way out of it he'd be like well you'd be like you get caught between me ducks. Like, well, you'll notice. It seems like

you want to clarify first and then figure out. Right? Yeah. The third time you had three regular mallards and one

bonus domestic mallard, he might start asking questions. you had three regular mallards and one bonus domestic mallard, he might start asking questions. Carry a little whiteout with you or something. Just kind of make them a little different. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement.

You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Here's one. This isn't ethical. This is a strategy. We've talked about this too. I know, okay, the subject line of the question is, to pee or not to pee? Is that Hamlet or Macbeth?

Hamlet. Hamlet. To pee or not to pee? In a tree stand. I know the subject line of this email is a little weird, but it gets right to my question. I hope it will help settle the years-long debate within the group I deer hunt with in Minnesota.

When you're on stand for hours on end, should you refrain from peeing in the woods near your stand, or does it really matter? He points out that he's searching past articles on our website. Hmm, that's not on our website. Hasn't found anything. Point that out. We should point that out to Spencer.

Growing up hunting, my dad taught me to try to minimize your scent while hunting, and peeing near where you're going to be hunting was a big no-no. I still follow this rule today, and I have to go on stand. And if I have to go while on stand, I found that a large Gatorade bottle or milk jug, so he goes trucker right into a Gatorade bottle. Other guys pee at the base of their elevated stands. Please help me settle this debate. Oh, come on.

The best one, though, is that some guys have a funnel with a garden hose that is then dug into the ground at the base of the tree to really hide that. Sorry, I don't know how I missed that. That's a permanent stand. I've seen other elevated stands that have a funnel in the corner of the stand attached to a garden hose that runs down into the ground. I'd check that for fetishists, man. After all that outhouse business we got into,

I would check that hose for fetishists every time I went out there. Do you know what I mean? Just keep it around. Make sure there's not someone hiding in the leaves down there. Let's move on. I think I'm pretty sure I know guys that pee on their scrapes that they make and whatnot. You got that dur in your eye. If you got buck man juice, if you're Doug Duren, that's where the buck is going to be.

Yeah. This seems like a real Mark Canyon question, because I can picture him getting into it. But I've heard that piss is piss for the most part, and there's some subtle differences, but it's kind of a volatile thing, and what you wind up with is you wind up with like ammonia. Right. And it doesn't really matter. I don't do a ton of – when I was young, I peed out – when I used to hunt off a tree stand for whitetails all the time, I didn't pee out of it strategically.

I peed out of it out of expediency because we didn't do anything properly according to like contemporary understanding of like how to actually do everything you know no we didn't like no scent control or i just kind of the wind was blowing the wrong way that sucks you honestly did you uh you just spent some time in a tree stand in wisconsin what were you doing peed a lot right out of the tree yeah and uh no no negative. And specifically paying attention to it within an hour, does, downwind. And I feel like I did a pretty good job. We had some company, I think Code Blue maybe, somebody had shipped a big box of stuff here.

So I had some scent elimination type stuff with me and mostly i was spraying down my uh first one or two uh sticks that i was climbing on because a couple years ago i felt like i yeah she came right as soon as her nose got like parallel with that ladder you know what else happened this year they did they actually went by my stand so they actually came from downwind where i didn't think they'd come went by my stand didn't smell us it was tyler and i up in the tree together and i had a trail camera on a trail the trail i was going to try to kill these deer on and i didn't like where it was and so I had moved it yeah with gloves on moved it and they got next didn't like got next to that trail camera and just immediately like noses up in the air looking around oh not

seeing it now I was like what the hell's that no no no smelled my and that cameras been there for a year now and And I had just touched it and that tipped him off. Really? But the pee didn't. No. Pee away, I say. Now, are you dribbling her down the tree or are you shooting straight off? Because I'll dribble it down the tree.

On purpose. So it's not to make noise or? I don't know why. I shoot it at the tree. Because you can make some noise if you're up there in dry leaves. You know, I'm in the saddle these days so I usually just kind of

turn 90 and just go I never saw it. Just arch her off into the wood. It's more fun that way. Try and keep it out of your face. I think I was thinking about, I don't know, noise and like, I don't know, just like kind of... It seems like on the tree, you'd leave a much larger like... And then you got to climb down that too, which as we know, an hour later, it's just ammonia. But if you're a fetisher, you might be into that.

Well, that's not where my mind was. And I feel like, yeah, I don't feel like I'm climbing back down through it. I don't know how many sides to a tree there are, but there are a lot of sides to a tree. It's a circle.

It is, but you're bear-hugging the tree as you climb down. We're in the tree a lot of times with a cinematographer. That's hard peeing. Yeah, so it's just nicer to turn your back to them and pee away from the tree. Yeah, that's the awkward situation. Can be.

Yeah, they just looked around the tree and you're like, Oh, I'm just dribbling down the tree trunk here, bud. Don't worry about me. Sorry about your boot. Okay, that is that. Oh oh okay yeah hold on oh we should before before we cap that off i just uh need to add that in fact our beloved patrick durkin oh has in fact written on this it's a oh 2018 article called Human or Deer Urine Does It Make a Difference? This guy must not be very good at internet searches.

Maybe he didn't find this. It might not be cataloged properly. So here's what Canyon had to say. Mark Canyon. All the research I've seen on this points to human urine being indistinguishable from deer or other critters after a very short period.

So I just let it fly anytime, anywhere. I've not once seen a deer spook from it. I also pee and mock scrapes and have seen bucks immediately start using them with no negative response. That says a lot.

Clay, I've had mixed success peeing out of stands that could be read a hundred ways like it didn't go well like dribble down your leg he peed down his bibs i don't know let's read down is that all he wrote? End quote. I thought that's what you were getting at. That's all he wrote back. Just leave it at that. No, I had this

recently, man, where I was interviewed for an article recently and it's like, I feel like if you're talking to a journalist, you could say you could say, I don't eat deer meat when I'm vomiting. Right? And you'd read the next day and be like, I don't eat deer

meat, says Rinella. I've had mixed success peeing out of stands. I've seen deer spook and not spook. Supposedly, after some period of time, the urine is indistinguishable. Interesting that the same word choice is Kenyan. From other mammal urine.

However, I do like peeing in scrapes after a morning hunt. But if you plan to have deer within bow range of your tree, peeing out of the tree. See, this is screwing it up because now we should have read his first as a dissenting view and then given like overwhelming but now we're leaving him with a seeded out yeah but he contradicts himself like how can peeing in a scrape be good but peeing out of a tree is bad i don don't understand. I wish we hadn't even asked Clay. However, I do like, to read again, Clay says, however, I do like peeing in scrapes after a morning hunt,

but if you plan to have deer within bow range of your tree, peeing out of the tree isn't the best option in my opinion. Then why in the world is it a good idea to pee into a scrape? That's what I'm saying. I think it'd be even tougher to get them in bow range. If they like it in the scrape, why wouldn't they like it next to your tree? If Clay thinks the way he thinks for real, you know what he ought to do?

He ought to make a big pee funnel, pee way out one way, pee way out the other way, and leave a pee gap right at your tree. Maybe it's just something he eats down there, like okra or something. Don it's just something you eat and channel them in. Okra or something. Don't eat any okra

and you'll be good. Did you hear that Jerry Clower line? When he was a kid, they ate so much boiled okra, their socks wouldn't stay up. Yes! That was so good. Okay, here's what we want to do to get everybody

rolling on 2023. We want to talk about impactful things from 2022 and how they may have changed your perspective, changed your life course. Right? Mm-hmm. And it's important because that's why you live an introspective life. You try to make sense out of stuff. So that was what everybody was tasked

to do. Who wants to start? It's a big task. Oh yeah. I still haven't thought of mine. I can't think of one. I mean, I got a bunch, but I can't think of which one is the most impactful thing. I know what it should be, but it wouldn't seem impactful to anybody. You should try us. Get the ball rolling.

Because there's all the, yeah. Too much context? No, no, no. No, I'd be like saying, that was the most important day of my life. Except when I got married and had kids. You know what I mean? Where you got to, right? You talk about a thing and then people are like,

yeah, but what about whatever? Like when Chester goes, he's going to do his big concert, not having his kid. And then people are going to condemn him. I can tie them both in there in a way. Oh, okay. So who's going first, Brody? can go first okay um what happened to you in 2022 that you feel will change your course

uh taking my wife on her first successful hunt ever uh she drew an ant well we both drew antelope tags for out in eastern Montana and planned to hunt for opening weekend of antelope rifle season. She's been hunting a couple times before. Giannis almost put her on a turkey a couple years ago. But she didn't really show any interest in hunting until we moved to Montana a few years ago and kind of slowly took more interest in it why didn't you want to hunt Colorado when you guys had all that hunting right out of your door I don't know I don't know it's a good question maybe it's all this you know what I think it is what your kids

are getting older and it's not such a pain in the ass anymore probably yeah that's what I think about it gives you a chance to think about something else. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And over the pandemic, she took her hunter safety course because it was something to do. You could do it online, you know, the whole thing. Anyway, she drew the tag. We both drew antelope tags. We went out to Eastern Montana. And I was, like, nervous, man. Like like I don't get that way taking my kid hunting

I I have old I have friends who started hunting late in life that like I didn't ever get nervous taking them um because I knew like if things went badly I just had a feeling it's something she would never do again like if she ended up having a horrible time or wounded an animal and we didn't get it. Very, that was very much like weighing on me, like putting things together in a way that everything went well. But we, I mean, neither of us knew up until the moment she pulled the trigger if she would even pull the trigger she might decide it's not something she wanted to do um so anyway we went out we had a couple stocks like right off the bat at first light and i was kind of glad they didn't work out because you want to like get some experience in there you don't want to be like, get some experience in there. You don't want to be, like, first hunt, step off the road, boom, it's over.

Yeah, and then she'd be like, wow, those are the big people. Yeah, exactly. So we chased a bunch of antelope around for two or three hours, got busted, you know, a couple times it didn't work out. And then late morning I saw a little buck, a doe and a fawn,wn like laying against the base of this little knob They were in the perfect spot To like come up behind him on top of the hill and shoot down on that little buck But man eyes like heart pounding like very worried about how it was gonna go It was just the dichotomy between like the husband-wife thing was different man it was cuz you thought you were afraid she's gonna cripple one up

or miss one it I wasn't so much worried about missing like that I think would be easier to get through than wounding one and you're like the whole time you're acting like you would not act with a buddy. Like, I'm not saying like, hurry up. Don't you see him? Like, you know, things you weren't doing that.

I was not. I was like, I've been doing that. I know, but I was like, I can't exactly. Is the problem. Exactly.

Yeah. I, I was like, I can't act like that. There's like, I can't make this into something like getting in a fight over the dishes at home. If I start irritating her in a way like that, this is not going to be good. Oh, yeah.

So it ended up all working out. It's a short shot, 100 yards. The animal, he runs a little ways and tips over. And she was freaking out that because he ran, he was wounded. But it all worked out. And I don't know, man. The whole thing taught me maybe I should be acting like that around other people, not just my wife when I'm out hunting with them. Like, be more patient.

Kind of realize that not everyone has the experience not everyone can see the game the way you know what i mean you're hearing this yawning brody's gonna turn nice that's not i'm not saying that there's still start petting all dogs like the whisper yelling is not it's not gonna end but it was definitely like maybe there's something to that, like taking things a little slower, explaining things a little better, you know? Oh, it goes a long way. Yeah. Yeah.

People like that. See, yeah, because I find myself yelling. I like yell at my kid about the need to be calm. But. Which is a contradiction. Think about if it was Katie. You would not like. Oh, dude, I'd be walking on eggshells, exactly oh yeah we were oh my god i'd be like yeah it was well you know i could see why you're doing it

that way right but you know another way to look at it would be that you'd walk quietly yeah but you know now that i totally see your point yeah just a thought um you know, now that she's... But I totally see your point. Yeah. I mean, I see why. Just a thought. You know, and it was emotional for her, which I'm not saying it's not emotional for me, but to see an adult in their 40s, like, their reaction to their first ever kill is a big game animal. It's an animal. It's not a squirrel or even a turkey, you know? It's different. And, yeah, I think i'll take away a lot of lessons from that when i took my wife squirrel hunting for the first time she hit one in the ear

and uh it left a little blood trail in the snow right but we couldn't find it oh that tore her up she thought it was more binary right she thought it's like it dies or it gets away she didn't know about an ear shot yeah then i told her i don't really know but that that that squirrel's gonna be fine in spite of the little drips of blood that came off his ear but you like got him in the ear like ear hole no like like pierced his ear. Oh, I gotcha. No, not in the ear hole. Like creased its ear area. Pierced his ear. Pierced his ear. I'm surprised that let a little blood trail.

Yeah, it did in the snow. By my mom's place. That gets me excited to go hunt squirrels. But I watched that squirrel for a long time. Running up and down, you know, getting away. But yeah, creased him. Creased his little melon. She felt horrible. Yeah, getting away. But yeah, creased him. Creased his little melon. She felt horrible.

Yeah, he'll be all right. Crunched him. So you're going to start being super nice to everybody. No. No, she got her first hunt out. Now I can act like I normally would. But no, it taught me a lot. You take for granted the experience you have.

Sure. And you can't just act like you do with people what exactly is the problem you know what exactly is your problem it was cool it was good or another thing you'll do is you get like really condescending not you one one will get really condescending where you're like okay so tell me where you're not getting it. Like, there's a deer in front of us. Right? Do you see the deer? You know, different approaches like that I find to be very helpful.

Yeah. Would you rather have me shoot the deer? Yeah, that's good. It's nice to be able to go hunting with your wife. Yeah, that's good. It's nice to be able to go hunting with your wife. Yeah. I don't think it'll be something she's, you know, she's not going to be out there filling four or five tags a year, but if she does one big game hunt and a

turkey hunt in the spring, that'd be great. Would be good. I'm going to be done hunting in a couple of years. Yeah. You start getting busy, man getting busy, all my kids. Well, all my kids. I mean,

that's the thing is, uh, you start getting those tags filled from other people and all your time's taken up doing that. Yeah. My boy, he got, he got four big game animals in 2022.

Jeez. That's two more than I did. Yep. It's like, I'm about, I'm, I'm wrapping her up. Yeah.

We pulled in a couple extra big game animals A couple turkeys Imagine when I I'll pretty soon have three hunters I won't hunt anymore I don't know you got pretty lucky With James and he seems to respond well To your condescending technique

But the other two might not Yeah that's what I was going to ask Because Rosie is going to be up this year She's fired but she's fired up Do you anticipate having to handle your interaction? No, I'm going to act totally different with her than her brother. Right. That's what I was wondering.

Way different. Egg shells part two. Yeah. I'm going to act totally different. But she got a turkey last year, didn't she? She's killed two turkeys. But no, hunting big game, I'm going to act different. I just know I will.

Because there's just a dynamic. It's like you try not, like I don't have the dynamic of being that, that like I want her to go hunting like more than I want my boy to go. Right. Because I want, I don't want to fall prey. Like I want her to feel compelled to do it and not fall into this like boy girl crap. However, i just know that i'll act different to her yeah i'm just more i mean like i'm just flat out i'm more tolerant yeah

i'm more talent with her than i am i mean i like i act out my i've taken my dad's role and i've given my kid my role and and it just we're in the trap of the we're in the father-son trap. Yeah. I do find that I explain. And I'm like not in it with my daughter. I explain things a lot more than my dad did to me with my son who's hunting now. Like I, I feel like it was just like, do this back in the old days and you just did that.

But now I find myself saying why we're doing things which is good yeah honor so yeah this year was um my first time going past tennessee to hunt west okay so i grew up uh on the chesapeake bay and so saltwater fishing, Chesapeake Bay, Outer Banks, hunting in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. So as soon as I came on to Meteor, you know, instantly you got work colleagues, friends, you know, getting tags. So to kind of get into that, I had been putting in, over the last couple of years, tags. Unsuccessful, unsuccessful. I had been putting in over the last couple years tags unsuccessful unsuccessful this year I got success on a rifle tag for a pronghorn now I started watching videos trying to get myself you know excited about it and and I was and then it instantly kind of turned into like now what the hell am I going to do didn Didn't want to bug anybody in the office,

you know, what to do. So in August, I went with Hayden. Why would you not want to bug anybody? I'd have bugged the shit out of everybody. That's why you work here. Yeah, man. Well, I mean, I just figured everybody's got, you know, they've got their own tags,

they've got things going on, and then the last thing they need is a hanger on her to, you know, well, going forward after this event, yeah yeah i can't believe you just wouldn't want to go hunting and have someone just yell condescending things into your ear while you have animals so you do realize we're hunting right that's that's how the story kind of felt like it was getting to in a minute. But yeah, in August, Hayden had drawn a archery tag for Pronghorn. So that was like my first, you know, situational experience. I quickly realized after about a day, who the hell is going to, you know, stalk a rocket ship in a flat field with a bow? It just seemed like it was impossible so i kind of knew

that like that trip it was my task was like spotting on the scope and giving pep talks on blown stocks you got it buddy you'll get the next one just takes one just it just takes one or 20 um but yeah like inside my head i was kind, man, you got it made with this rifle tag. I mean, not like in a cocky way, but just in a way that— Yeah, you're like, all these pronghorn he can't get with his bow, I ought to get them all with a rifle. I just thought, well, I'm going to tag out day one or two. I might as well go ahead and put Hayes taxidermy into my phone. It's going to be easy.

It's going to be a giant. Yeah. I haven't gotten them yet, but it's on a good price. Exactly. Let me know, John. So come October, two months later, that confidence level starts sinking a little bit. Probably not unlike when you felt confident going to the open up for Trampled by Turtles and then come showtime, that nerve starts kicking.

So day one, you know, I'm kind of, I'm in a local unit around here, which I kind of learned quickly that the pronghorn are going to be mainly out towards the eastern side of the state. In the open country. In the open country. In the open country. So I'm kind of basically day one hitting little BMAs and state pieces. And I did see a small herd, but they were so far on private and they weren't going to get to public anytime soon. And they didn't that day. Day two and three, I didn't see anything.

Now confidence levels drop and I'm getting in my head. Time's ticking. Like, shit. I got so excited for this tag that, you know, it's going to be, I'm going to be flying back with tag suit. Got to call the taxidermist back up. Yeah. Something to ever mind.

Try to get your deposit back. So it made me think in my head. I'm like, you know, okay, a lesson learned here would have been study the shit out of the units, know what's got more access than others, and what holds, you know, whatever you're hunting for. The only question I had when I read your story earlier in the notes was right here okay because i figure someone gave you advice on where to apply you didn't just potentially pick this unit out of a hat and apply right right right so i want to know who's to blame who after the podcast i can go point my finger at and go why did you tell him go get there i thought so so i think that's think that's an important point though because I think

a lot of people that are planning their first western hunt, they may not do the kind of research. You might find a unit that's easy to draw for whatever. Deer or antelope. There might be a reason why it's easy to draw because there's no public land.

Listen, I did the exact same thing on a mountain range nearby here. I won't name any. And it was a pronghorn tag too. It's like my first or second year here. And Dan Doty, the old producer of Meteor, and I were like, look at this. It's like almost 100%. It's so close.

We got the tags. We were like, sweet, we're partying. Right. And then we started driving around and literally could not access a single piece of public land. Not a one. In the end, we ended up going down a road that,

judging by the map, it was pretty much open and got into one and shot to pronghorn box, left, and the next day we're like, oh, that's right, two other people in the office

had also applied for the same tack. We're like, let's come back here. This is awesome. We got a spot. We're like, let's come back here. This is awesome. We got a spot. We get there, locked gate. So I think we had done a little bit of trespassing to get to the state land. I got you.

You know, but anyways, so you're not alone in this. Yeah, yeah. It's a common mistake, I think. So all through the first three days, Garrett Long had texted me. And I had a good relationship with Garrett in the fact that he's probably who I dealt with the most over the last couple of years. So I tell him, no luck, no luck. Day four comes along, and he's like, hey, I've got some permission on a private piece. So my confidence level starts to go back up.

I'm like, okay, I'll have Garrett with me. You know, he'll be good to have there. Text to the tax service back. Yeah, exactly. But that's when I realized that now I'm really letting shit get in my head because now I see it. Now I'm saying, okay, this is actually going to happen. I've got Garrett here who I naturally would feel completely comfortable with.

But with this being my first tag, I felt the pressure of like, man, I, he's gone out of his way to get the permission. I got to get this done. Well, I missed the first shot. Couldn't believe it. I was just, you know, shook up. And this particular field has got. How far away was it? Probably about 267, 270.

Was it because of. That sounds a little bit like what he told me as we walked back to the truck that night. It's like a golf term. You might not know. Yeah. When you were bearing down on him, was it like, were there nerves? Oh, yeah. My breathing was out of control.

Heart going through my chest. You know, just everything to build up of like this being the first Western hunt was all happening right there. Did he ask you what exactly was the problem? In a little bit, he did. So I shot and there's this sort of um crested ridge that runs through like dissects the center of this property well they had taken off off the back side and i couldn't see him adrenaline still pumping well all of a sudden the buck must have turned and comes right up to the

ridge line about 75 yards from me so now i'm a wreck i'm trying to swing around i got bipod legs flailing everywhere and i'm looking through a scope that because i'm just worried that he's going to bolt magnified way too much couldn't get him in in the scope missed two now i thought you couldn't get him in the scope just because you know it was so magnified and i'm just trying to find them and locate them in that scope quickly but then you found them i found them and yeah well how is the missing them related to not be able to find them i don't know just general flusteredness yeah yeah okay so because you need to shoot without finding them in there

no no no that's your way yeah the wheels have. The wheels have fallen off. Oh, they're way off. And I remember, and at this point, I'm not sure if F-bombs flew out, or I think what happened was I just kind of like pulled my head down and stared at the dirt, and I just said, hey, Garrett, can we not mention this to Steve? Well, I haven't heard it until now. Yeah. Well, that's good.

I can count on him. But yeah, so on the way back walking to the truck, he was like, man, buddy, that was a big buck. He was like, I said, how close was that? How close was he on this? Probably 70. You could have thrown a rock at him. Oh, no.

You know, just kind of ribbing me having fun. So day four comes along, and they're in the same exact spot. So I'm like, all right. I remember where I screwed up on day three. I'm going to do this all over. But this time I'm further. I'm probably 380, 390. I'm on the other side of the property shooting over two ridges and they're on the ridge line.

Do you check your rifle? Yeah, all good there. We sat there for like 20 minutes. I felt calm. I could rule out, you know, and I can't explain it. I don't know why. Missed three. And at this point, now it's not, I can't look at it and go, oh, it was because I was flustered or whatever. I can't explain why it happened. And I'm embarrassed. I'm just crushed. I just want to tuck tail and walk off. But yeah, he's great at consoling. So, final day, and I'm a wreck.

You know, I mean, I talked to my wife that night on the phone, and she's trying to talk me off the ledge. You'll be fine. Got one more day, and I'm thinking, you know how the other days went. The next day starts off horrible. I haven't had a nosebleed since I was a kid and it was just pouring out of my nose trying to get out of the house to go meet him. I'm shoving Kleenex in my nose trying to lace my boots. Just an inexplicable nosebleed from the dryer. So I guess it is explicable. Yeah. Lace out my boots and head off and I meet him and

there they are again. And these guys never learn. Well, I don't think they were worried at that point. They're like, listen, someone might shoot over here but just stay calm.

Just stay calm. You're good. You're good. So, Garrett's there for a little bit and he's like, well, hey buddy, I got a meeting I need to go to and I thought, all right, that's cool. a little bit and he's like, well, hey, buddy, I got a meeting I to go to.

And I thought, all right, that's cool. I'm thinking, yeah, he probably just can't stand to see me miss the fourth time. So, yeah, I'm there by myself and I'm seeing him on the ridgeline. And like I said, the way that it crests, I'm trying to say, okay, well, if they come off my side, I'm good. But if they go off the backside, I've got to somehow manage to get all the way around to the other side of the property before they get off the line. Came off to my side. Long story short, crawled quickly into position, got in the corner.

First shot, perfect. Right behind the shoulder. How far? I think I was about 280, 290 on that one, maybe. So, good poke. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know,

the rest of them took off and he just stood there for a second and then just dropped. And Garrett was there or not there? Not there on that one. So, I don't know if he meant I got to leave in a minute, but he left. Yeah, he'd already left.

So, I was there glassing him for probably about an hour, hour and a half. And as a matter of fact, he had just texted me like maybe five minutes before. He's like like, Hey, see anything? I'm like, no, they're still there. No, I don't. I think no sooner did I kind of like look down for a second, look up, they had gotten up and started kind of walking to the line. Um, yeah. So I made sure, uh, you know, that he was down and, uh, called my wife, felt that was the right thing to do first.

Thanks for the pep talk. Quickly called Garrett because I wanted to sort of redeem myself after those days. He was excited and chucked it in the back of the rental vehicle. Gutted it and then chucked it in the back of the rental vehicle learned that trying to take pictures when you're by yourself and setting timers on your phone to prop it up on your pack and try to get a picture sucks um but yeah toss it in the rental vehicle um took it back to hayden's and started cutting up as quick as i could had to delay my flight an extra day. Oh, really? Yeah, because I wanted to make sure I got it frozen. But yeah, I was excited. Finally got to make that call to John and send it up there.

So John Hayes, what's he going to do to it? He's going to do, it wasn't a shoulder mount, but it was like a shoulder mount. And normally I would do a freedom or Euro mount. But with this just being my first Western hunt i wanted to do something special um so yeah i was very excited about that and i'll quickly recap my second hunt um i won't i won't go as long into it but um went to nebraska probably 16 days after that to Jordan buds. Oh, you did. Yeah.

Oh. And, um, so I took my wife out there and we were out there for a week. And, uh, ironically, the Nebraska episode for meat eater aired while I was there. Um, so there I was sitting out in the exact same field that you guys were hunting watching it in her truck on her phone with her and i and and listeners i'm not blowing smoke because steve's sitting here but your demeanor in that episode just talking about like telling jordan hey i'm having a great time it's no big deal yeah that she's sweating it and then telling her at the end you know it wasn't about

you know it wasn't about that for me on this trip it just it kind of just was like a turning point in my head you know just kind of resonated um so i didn't feel that like pressure that i had on the pronghorn hunt um had a good time laughed the whole time. Last day, buzzer beater. Last hour of my hunt before we had to pack up and head to Rapid City. Yeah, beautiful buck starts coming up the riverbed. And this was an archery tag. And got to about 40 yards and let it fly and perfect shot. Really?

Yeah. Crunched it. How did he know that? With the bow? Yeah, crunched it. did he know that yeah so you sent me the pronghorn but you didn't send me that i'll send it to you yeah and it was good it was great being there um whether i mean did your wife hunt yeah she as a matter of fact she had seen that same buck i didn't realize it when i shot it that it was the same buck, but she had sent me a picture, and he was out of range on the second day. I was like, man, wow. I hope you get to see him again.

Show me the picture. No kidding. So, yeah. Did you get along with Jordan? You didn't get in a fight with Jordan? No, no. She's great. I have my, I don't know if you'll be able to tell in this picture

but see if you recognize Let me turn it real quick. Did Garrett or Jordan speak condescending words into your ears as you were trying to shoot at these animals? He was in a tree stand by himself. I was in a pop-up blind, actually.

Oh, that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great, man. Yeah. She said, you recognize the bino harness? I was looking at the deer. So I'm going to see if you... No.

It's yours. Oh, is that the one from the thing? Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's yours. Oh, is that the one from the thing? Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So it was kind of deemed at my good luck charm.

Oh, that's great, man. So that was from the auction house. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. So no, it was great. And I definitely, and I don't really know how to practice it, but I think getting, my big takeaway was like, yeah, you need to prep physically, but man, mentally, it just seems like if you can let it get in your head, you can nose dive quick. I would like to work on not having last eight kills before you have to take off because that's a little

stressful yeah keeping your head right yeah yeah yeah so it was great excited excited to be in this room with you guys sharing it i mean person i probably influenced me the most and you know it's kind of cool not being in here talking about an art project, but actually talking about you know speaking the same language That you guys talk about every week. Thanks man. Yeah, good Yeah, that's great. You should definitely try to work yourself into a hunt with Steve to get to experience that what it's like to constantly put down You want the wheels to fold off in the first 30 minutes of that yeah, yeah You'll be forged by fire.

That's right. Every hunt after that will be, you want to talk about, yeah, that's the way to do it. So that you don't have, your wheels will never fall off again after one hunt with Steve. Everything else will just seem like cakewalk. It's like when people are afraid of flying and they strap them into those planes. Maybe it's a guy-girl thing, but when Steve took me spearfishing, I didn't experience any of that.

Well, he can't talk to you through the water, Corinne. That's true. No, I was being nice as shit. He was trying to do things with bubbles, but he just weren't getting the message. Spearfish is not like that for me. It's only big game hun. Well, squirrel hun. But yeah, for some reason I don't get that feeling with spearfishing.

Because that was probably frustrating the hell out of you. I couldn't even stay in the same place for more than two seconds. I don't get that super bloodlust like I get hunting where I just want someone to get something. Bad. 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 on X is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on X are available for your hunts. This season, the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24 K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. I've been spearfishing with Steve, and it's been great. Speaking of that headspace, just like you're talking about. 2022 has been like an incredible year. Some of the highlights were it was actually spearfishing for me when I was in Hawaii and Louisiana, kind of like groundbreaking moments where you can like, if you put your head and your mind to anything you can you can make a lot happen if you calm your nerves and whatnot from going from not being able to

break the surface in louisiana to like diving right a decent amount but anyways that was a highlight and um can i interrupt real quick on that thought yeah greg fonts early on when i started hanging out with him explaining to me that um if there's something wrong with you spearfishing is where you'll find it meaning like all there's no hiding from anything yeah total like in a total health perspective it'll find you yeah like mentally physically yeah he's just like if there's a problem it'll emerge it'll emerge there dude that's interesting though because after i learned how to dive a little bit right i don't i felt very calm very very calm but i just had to do something that was one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life which was open up for a band

called trampled by turtles which all of you guys probably already know this story. Long story short, Corinne got my number to Dave Simonette, who is the lead singer for Trampled by Turtles. This was in July. This is, my wife is pregnant. We're sitting on the couch, and I get a text from Dave saying, basically, do you want a gig? Do you want to play some music? Hold on, did Corinne pitch you to Dave? No. He just reached out.

He was like, what do you think about my idea? So those guys actually used the word gig. He used the word gig. Who reached out? To who? Dave texted me with an idea. He was like, what do you think about this? And, you know, like like should i ask him and you know if yes like should i can i have his uh contact information and immediately i just thought it was

the best idea ever and that's awesome chester that makes it even better they're searching you out yeah he had seen like a video of chester singing and he just thought he was really talented. That's what he told me. Dude, anyways, like, if people, like, I am not, I learned how to play guitar a couple years ago. And I picked it up and I was like, I want to learn how to play this for my wife at the wedding. And I learned, you know, the basic chords. And I took some online stuff, tried to take lessons, ended up playing the show.

I would have never in a million years thought I would be standing in front of like 1,600, 1,700 people two years later with a guitar in my hand trying to get through a set list. Like never in a million years so you girls get away let's run out to bat carl yeah let's get out of here carl it's getting crazy um so dave texted me and i'm sitting on the couch with my wife like i said we were pregnant and he said you want to open for she was she was she was pregnant i don't know why i always say that but yes i was not pregnant it was my wife and uh he said do you want a gig december 1st and it's july and i thought about it and she was jumping up and down saying you have to do it you have to do it so i called dave back and i said, I think I'm going to do it, but I really got to

buckle down. So I just played guitar as much as I could. I hadn't played in front of anybody. I did a few sets at the same restaurant in Bozeman twice, Bridger Brewing. They went okay, but- And then you're saying you played at Bridger brewing again, but a different branch. Yes. And a different branch location. So it was like two shows. Yeah. They,

they really helped me out, you know? So I asked Carl to do this with me, Carl Hansen. He works with us and he's a, he plays in some metal bands and things like that. And I just needed some help, you know,

to help me along on this so we got a set list together and we practiced um I don't know once a week starting in September maybe is when we started practicing with Carl and the days are ticking down and another element to this is we thought we were going to have our child this uh when was it november 19th which would be 10 days before this gig was actually supposed to happen in atlanta georgia so i didn't really i've never had a kid and it hadn't really hit me of how hard that would have actually been if our first son was born on that date he He came four weeks early, October 19th, which is actually just like a blessing in disguise because I was able to help my wife out with that

first week or two, which is extremely challenging. I was able to be at home. I was able to practice more, which if I wasn't able to be at home, I don't know if I would have, it would have been hard to, to do pull this off, I think. So everything worked out. And here it is. We, Carl and I flew down to Atlanta, Georgia with, I had two guitars and he had his bass, a little tambourine on one foot and a kick drum on his other foot. And we show up at this theater, the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta. And I walk in there and it's like full on rock star. Like green rooms, really nice. There's fog. You walk in and there's like fog rolling out of the door from the smoke machine.

You know, we get badges. The whole trample guys are there. They have like tins of chew all laid out for you and stuff in the green room no i could have looking back i could have asked for that but they had uh put it in your your rider contract no mint yes exactly no i just asked for some light beer and water um i could have asked for a little more knowing, but I didn't need much. So Carl and I show up there and the trampled guys are out on stage doing sound check. And I walked out where the crowd would be standing and it is like full on, just obviously a legit setup. They got like props and lights and the sound guys working his magic and it's like bumping.

Like people are going to be able to hear me kind of thing. Things start to set in and we do sound check and I'm not nervous at all. And we do sound check and it goes pretty well. I was calm and things were working out, and I was getting all amped and excited. We go back to the green room. The hours start ticking by. People start showing up.

My heart's starting to kind of do this. My breathing's a little bit harder to breathe. I tune my guitar. This is a moment when it's a little harder to breathe i tune my guitar this is a moment when it really hit me backstage and i walk out onto the stage and there's already a crowd out there not a full room but i walk out there and all of a sudden i hear chester yeah like there's like a line of people in front just to see me. Like, they showed up early, obviously heard about it on the podcast and stuff. And it was great.

Like, I was like, hey, guys, like, thanks. But I get back, you know, in the green room. I'm just like, holy cow cow here it goes you know and uh carl's all jacked and giving me a pep talk and whatnot and i walk out on stage for the first song and i don't know why i get like this sometimes but i am nervous it makes me nervous a little bit thinking about it but my leg was shaking a little bit um i felt like i couldn't feel my fingers you know and we i sound like when seth got mercury poisoning from all that tuna yeah right that's like the exact same yeah i sure just didn't have mercury poisoning yeah i was like did i eat some tuna before this? Anyways, like, that's not a good feeling.

Especially when you've got to play with your hands. Yes. And they go, no, man. Yeah. And I got through the first song, and I'm saying I got through it. People will say I did great, but I missed some notes and things like that. I sang it, got through all the lyrics and whatnot and uh it was kind of a relief because then after that i introduced ourselves how we got there the crowd i can't thank them enough

it was they were absolutely fantastic and it's a good thing that you know we mentioned it steve mentioned it because if it was just like a trampled by turtles crowd, who knows? They might not have been as, as, uh, warming. Well, that's one thing I noticed.

I wasn't there, but I've watched a lot of the videos and the crowd was being super respectful and listening. And that's kind of a hit or miss thing at concerts, but with the opening act, they could just be on their phones and talking to their friends and everything, but everyone was locked in.

It was great. Yeah. We fluffed, we fluffed the Dickens out of them on this show, though. I mean, we promoted it, too. Right. And everybody knew not to expect too much of you. Yeah.

Because you downplayed it. No, no, no. Chester was like, I'm going to go down there and rock their world. You know? But no matter what you did, if Chester had gotten up there and it sucked, they would have been on their phones. That's the world we live in today. And they would have been chatting with their buddies. They world we live in today and they would have been over their bodies they would have gone

to go get more beers or whatever but I but I also think well a performer is more than just the work it just is a very lovable person yeah so I feel like it'd be harder to disrespect Chester than someone else yeah most of those people didn't know Chester. That's a good point. Yeah, so, I mean... They liked you, Chester. They liked your voice. Don't think that I'm saying...

No, I'm not saying he didn't do a good job. I'm not saying he didn't do a good job. I'm saying he brings goodwill from the world. 100%. I try. I definitely try. I try and make that an effort. But, yeah, I I introduced ourselves and uh the crowd was like like you said very much so listening I made I mean I was like making eye

contact with people and um did the show go perfect as in like an uh performer no um but i got done with every song everyone cheered did you feel like like as you progress down the line like you got looser and more comfortable and like it got easier as you went along yep that shaking went away um i was i was starting to i was starting to smile, you know? Yeah. I walked out there and I was like. Yeah, a little stiff. A little stiff.

But you could tell the crowd was getting into it. Whoever, I think Steve had shared the video or somebody. Oh, no, people were loving. You could see their heads moving. And Dave sent me, as he was on stage, Dave sent me a text. He was happy as hell and you had just gotten started. That's great. Dave sent me a text. He was happy as hell and you had just gotten started. That's great. Dave was

awesome. I actually asked him, this was Carl's idea. He's like, what do you think about playing one of their songs? And I was like, huh? He's like, yeah. So we learned one of their songs. That was the clip I put on Instagram. I ain't never

been a gambler because i'm always bound to lose but uh we played that one up there and uh dave was kind of like all right and those guys are like you're pretty ballsy for opening up with one of our songs but i'm really glad we did hold on you, you didn't ask him? No, I did. Oh, okay. Yeah, and I looked at their set list, and he said we'd be honored. But I could tell that the other band guys were like, all right. Chester did a mic drop and just said, done. But I'm really happy that he let me do that because people knew the words to that song. And after they sang that, it definitely loosened me up. I think I even said like

all right this is starting to actually be fun i think i said that on the mic so are you gonna are you gonna get more um have you got any more gigs uh i have i have no more gigs but what i what i did learn from this experience is that like if you put your mind to something you can almost do anything if you really put your mind to it and dig down i mean i had to deal with that little bit of anxiety which i absolutely hate and i knew i was maybe gonna have that but i've the more you do this stuff i feel like the more relaxed i'll. And my goal now is to get good at guitar. Like before, I kind of skipped a whole bunch of stuff. You know what I mean?

But you have to learn your craft before you get fancy. And I kind of ended up trying to get fancy. I think the quote is, learn to play guitar, then get sexy. Yes. Yep. I think that was given to, it was either given or came from someone from Leonard Skinner, if I'm not mistaken. But I like the quote a lot. So I'm going to do more gigs. I actually had a great time and it was fun

and there's so much room for improvement and so much like just playing that gig definitely helped me grow as a person um and like focus on the task at hand, good practice. It just, I don't know, it's a great experience. And I'm going to now get good at guitar. Because you're already sexy. Yeah, right. Do you feel that there's like a compromise or a deal to be made between fishing and guitar playing? No, no. You're going to be made between fishing and guitar playing No, no, I I've got a true deficient stay true deficient for sure

It's just like 20 minutes a day of good practice. Mm-hmm There's a difference between going and playing that same song over and over but if you like focus on Let's say cross picking or flat picking and just work on tech, your picking technique for 15 minutes a day. It's amazing. You want to be like Eddie Van Halen. Doubt that, but definitely improvement, you know,

and all that said and done, like appreciate my wife for being very supportive. And it's a real thing. Once you actually have a child and being gone and like missing them, it's like very nice and relaxing to be back in Bozeman and hanging out with Oscar and Danielle for the holidays. There's a lot of people in the world that don't do anything that requires any kind of discipline after a certain point in life. You just fall on the total automatic pilot. I feel like it's important. No discipline.

We got a lot of years left. All of us do. It's good for your brain too. Yep. Reading. Keep doing challenging stuff. Playing music. Because you fall into that like the kind of mental space. You just watch one of those shows and they get people unstuck out of

ditches all night long. And your brain capacity just goes down. Yeah. Challenge yourself. Chester, do you feel like bitches all night long and your your brain capacity just goes down yeah challenge yourself chester do you feel like a different person in a way like in terms of yourself identifying um you know prior to guitar than now um i don't know about prior to the guitar after the show, I feel a little bit like I got done with that show and I went in the crowd to give my aunt and uncle a hug.

And there were people coming up to me wanting pictures saying I did a great job saying they love meat eaters saying they love the podcast. And still in my mind, I'm like, I'm, I'm just, you know, I'm just chester man like yeah but you know it's hard to you can legitimately use the word gig now like you're you're in you can say it you can say it yeah i don't know i don't feel different i feel enlightened in a way no yeah You still on paternity leave?

Yes. That's the craziest thing. People like authenticity, Chester. So you keep being Chester. I had three kids. I never got a lick of that shit. Paternity leave? I couldn't believe

when I heard we had it. You came up in the wrong time, bud. I know, man. Times have changed. It's like... I'd have had nine months just doing whatever I felt like doing. Makes you want to have another kid,

doesn't it? I know. I missed out on nine months of just like dicking around all day long by not having. Well, and that's here in the States. If you lived in Latvia, it's going to be mandatory soon for the dads to take off three months. Mandatory. Nine months of just doing nothing. God.

Me? Nine months? No, I'm saying I had three kids. If I was coming of age now, I would have enjoyed nine months of

just whatever. Have some more kids, bud. It's too late now. Why? I mean, maybe not.

I don't know. I told you about my best sex. It's only like 99.2% effective. Six months. It's two months. Oh, it's two, not three?

Well, I think you can... I'm not quite sure. I think you can maybe do three if you need it, but there might be some... Well, when I found out about it, I was perturbed. And what I did is I said, if it's three and three,

I said we should take one of them from the guys and give it to the girls. Make it two, four. Yeah? I just don't see why they're girls. Make it two, four. Yeah. I just don't see why they're off. It's just not the same thing. You didn't have a baby. Yeah.

Yeah, but you could be the one who's staying home, taking care of the baby. Come on. A child is not just raised by its mother. Listen. When I heard that it was three and three, I never followed up on it. I said, it shouldn't be three and three. It should be four and two. They should, guys should give one of theirs up for the girls.

I agree. It is very, very nice though. Like being there for her, especially since it's our first kid and learning how it all works and still being able to go do things on her own. being there for her, especially since it's our first kid, and learning how it all works, and still being able to go do things on her own. I'm sure a lot of time off's real nice. That female is out of the workforce and not participating in her career

for then an extra two months longer than that male is. They don't say you have to take it. That's true. You don't have to take any. That's true. Let's move on. I'm excited to get back to work. I'm not a

policy guy. What's that? I'm excited to get back to work. We're excited to have you back. I try to figure out who said that quote, just because it'd be good to know, because you like to say it and throw it around. Learn to play your guitar and then get sexy. Yeah, I can't find it, but what this does tell me from doing this quick little Google search

of putting that in there is that playing or even just holding a guitar makes you sexy. The top six articles are apparently this matters. Holding a guitar makes you sexy. Sexy MF by Prince. The guitar's power of seduction. Men who play guitar are instantly 90% more attractive. It goes on and on. Do you want me to tell you who told me that quote?

There's a writer named, look him up. There's a writer named Padgett Powell. I've heard of him. I, yeah, because you're a Southerner. Yeah. So the writer Padgett Powell told me that, and I think he was friendly with the Lynyrd Skynyrd fellers mmm he told me that story so it might not be

captured on the internet yeah I think I got that from you but I butchered the quote hmm okay yeah you ready I don't know that's a tough one to follow but I'll give it my best for you guys great year I had again as I tend to have can't remember the last time I had a bad year

yeah cause you're a half glass full exactly you're nailing because you're half glass full. How's that go? Yeah, exactly. You're nailing the quotes today. Half glass full. You only have a half glass, it's always full. He was

born with a half glass. I was going to recount Ina's, who's my oldest daughter, her first Latvian deer camp experience. And what I learned from that. Yeah, please. And what's interesting about that is that I was just thinking as I was gathering notes in my head is that the story starts about a year earlier when I was back in Wisconsin

for the rifle hunt after already being there for a week archery hunting. And I was texting with Steve and he's like, where are you? I said, I'm in Wisconsin rifle deer hunt. He's like, again? I said, yeah. He said, make sure to get to hunt a lot without your kids. I'm like, yeah, well,

I'm not 100% sure. I don't think that's what I said. Well, okay, what did you say? I said, you got your kids with you? Okay. You got your kids with you. Which is kind of like, you can say that same thing,

saying that you're hunting without your kids. Well, cause you're at the Latvian family camp. Uh, oh, you're asking. So you thought that my kids would be with me. And I thought there was some talk of that.

Hmm. So, well, either way, I was talking at the, at the time I was, and I was told you, I said, I don't know if it's 100% cool to have females in this camp. It's always been a male camp.

And the one instance I can remember when a wife showed up, and this was a long time ago, I was like, I remember there being some friction around this? And I later found out that it wasn't because she was a female and that she was there being a female. It was because there was some other just drama amongst people, like people like to do, and that's what caused it. So it had nothing to do with her being a female. But you read it one way at your age.

Yeah, sure. I was in my teens probably. And so anyways, I asked if I could bring my oldest daughter that last year. And everybody was like, yeah, for sure. Bring her. So it was unanimously supported. Yeah, totally. Okay.

And at the time, I didn't think that I would have any sort of, you know, apprehension about it. But I did once it was like, as the trip was kind of coming up, you know, it was no different than taking your wife out on her first, you know, hunt or whatever. You start to get this apprehension of like, you want everything to go right. You want the crew to accept who this new person that you're bringing in. Yeah. And you want Ina to be like, this is something I want to do the rest of my life. Yeah. A hundred percent. So you're trying to make it great. You know? So I bought like a thousand, it was, of course it hasn't been cold in Wisconsin for the opening day of rifle season, since I don't know when. And the forecast is like highs of 16. Like, oh boy. So bought it like a

thousand hand warmers, body warmers, toe warmers. My dad showed up with a blind, had him get me to one of the buddy heaters. And, uh, I'd never done that setup. That works slick. So slick that Ina, um, we would get to the blind and get in there and get her packed full hand warmers and body warmers everywhere. Get the buddy heater going. Fall asleep. She was wearing the first Light Sanctuary kit in like not even five minutes. I'd be like, okay, cool, we're all set.

And I'd look over and she's sleeping. She's like, this is nice. I don't know how you could get so comfortable in one of those like folding camp chairs. But yeah, she'd snuggle right in and there'd be a solid 90 minutes. I'm like, well, this is great. The wind's right.

It's very quiet. If a deer comes by, we'll get a shot. She didn't get to see any deer the first morning because when I'd see them, I'd be like, I had a deer. She'd be like, you know, there'd be barely any movement. Like, no, no, no, deer coming, you know? And by the time she'd actually wake up, you know, open her eyes, you know, they'd be long gone, but, uh, so she didn't get to see any deer that day. Um, but it was great because the, we only hunted two days, we were there maybe two

and a half days. And it was great from, to see like the way everybody took care of her, accepted her, you know, made her feel part of the group. And the way that my daughter was able to just, to just at 11 roll into, you know, a deer camp with, I think we had 12 or 13 this year, you know, most, she knew a couple people, my brother was there, my dad was there, but you know, a dozen, 10 people that she's never met before and just roll with the punches you know and be social and be comfortable and chit chat with everybody um she enjoyed that part of it the camaraderie as much as she did you know being out in the woods with me which was great to see

you know that and that go ahead which is a big part of the Wisconsin deer culture. Exactly. Yeah. And that was going to be a point I was going to bring up too, is I realized this year with having her there is how important that camp's been in my life and that experience, you know, and being able to go there, not every year, but off and on for, you know, coming on 40 years. It's a pretty special deal and you, and you realize how many people don't have that, you know, like how many people haven't ever even been to like a real deer camp, let alone for 50 years in a row. Like some of the people that, you know, go there have, you know, I mean, there's a real connection there.

And I think that, you know, those bonds and friendships are, it forms people, you know, I mean, it's certainly that camp has influenced who I am, you know, as a, as a person. Um, it was cool to have three generations of, uh, Patelises in one camp, you know, something I didn't, you know, think about beforehand, but then being there and seeing my dad and me and my daughter, you know, in a picture, it was, it was a cool thing to see. Um, so great, great weekend overall. Um, I guess, I don't think there's one general takeaway or thing I learned from it, but things that I'm reminded of that, uh, I try to live this and, but it's hard to always remember. Because like you say, it's easy to go on autopilot. But doing things that might make you feel nervous or difficult or whatever it might be, hard, if you just go and do them,

you're going to come out the other side a better person probably. Whether it's getting up and doing a show or taking your daughter into a, you know, a camp full of men where for me personally, it'd be a lot easier to go there without my kids, hang out, stress, you know, not have that stress there and just be doing the old guy thing and, you know, drinking a few extra beers, whatever it might be. This is the harder version, but then in hindsight, it's like definitely the best version, you know, that it could be.

Oh, they're a pain in the ass. They are, but that brings up like the other sort of, you know, takeaway from it. And it's the reap what you sow. It's like we've done, you're experiencing it too. I think Matt is finally getting there where he's not so much a pain in the butt. My girls have really grown out of that completely.

Oh yeah. My kids are all rational now. It's fun. It's a pain in the butt. It's like a pain in the butt. It's a lot of wet, muddy stuff, you know,

but it's great. But I mean, it's just, there's no relax. Still isn't no relax. There's no relax. Still isn't no relax. There's no relax. Well, I'm starting to like, I'm starting to reap a little bit of relax and just get to enjoy their company and enjoy and just see like all that time and effort that we put

into, which hasn't, when you look back at it now, when you're in the mix of it, you're like, oh my God, it's never going to end. Now, looking back on it, you wish you had more years doing it because it's over and those 10 years have flown by you know that we put all this effort into it and you've sort of now created these you know not quite adult humans but getting there and uh they are who they are you know and so it's it's it's cool to sit back and go oh yeah yeah, it worked. I'm glad we spent more time reading and less time on tablets. And I'm glad that we said no so many times and taught them to be polite and taught them to talk to adults or whatever it might be. Just general raising adults.

I heard a quote the other day. I can't remember who said it. She said, I never raised any kids. I was raising adults. I heard a quote the other day. I can't remember who said it. She said, I never raised any kids. I was raising adults. I like that thinking. You're not really raising kids, right? In that thing, I think one of the best strategies I've had,

like one of the things that we've done that paid off the best is I always make my kids go up and shake people's hands and introduce themselves. Always. Huge impact. That doesn't come naturally. No, it doesn't. For them to be able to learn to go in and shake someone's hand and say what their name is and ask them what their name is.

Yeah. They used to not like it. Now they just do it. Yeah. Are they going to do so? No, I've been there plenty of times for that when you do that with your kids. And I feel nervous for the kids. That's good.

I got to go back for a second. You're still not, like, relaxing at all. No, no. With all three of them? You may never. When they're all together. All three of them, no. Yes.

Well, what day was it? Sunday. We got to get a Christmas tree. Okay. And we did, like I said, we did an extreme Christmas tree hunt. We saw trees never before seen by man. Trophies. Trophy.

However, I don't, the gear management, I don't understand. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean. Like this super slick hillside covered in powder snow and they're sliding down it and we haven't started hunting trees yet you're like you're not allowed to have fun while we're out here well no like now well I know where this is gonna land I know it's gonna land I know that one's gonna be crying because he's cold because he's cold and he's got my gloves. I just want you to get to the point.

Then I had to give him my gloves. Then I just wanted you to get to the point where you can relax. You're supposed to bring extra hats and neck gears. I'm with you on this. I'm starting to get to the relaxation stage a little bit, man. Just not. You'll get there. Don't worry.

I love it. There's nothing I'd rather do. It's the only time I don't feel guilty in my life. Because you're with your kids. Yeah. Because I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to do. I'm not wasting my life. I'm't feel guilty in my life. Because you're with your kids. Yeah. Because I'm like, I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to do. I'm not wasting my life. I'm doing what I want to do.

And then they're there. So I'm not being like a bad dad. It's the only time I'm happy. The only time. I just want to drop one more thing because it's kind of funny. I was overanalyzing the hunting because I was trying to get a success. And I wanted to get a success, you know, and I wanted to, you know, see a, see a kill and which brings up another thing with too, cause I'm like, well, you know, I'm only going to shoot like a, you know, nice buck, you know, and should we shoot a doe or not?

We can go back to Montana and shoot does. And I hadn't really asked her, but in, on the last evening when we're like watching some deer running around in front of us, she's like, I'd be happy if you shot anything. And of course then I didn't have another opportunity. And so whatever. She wasn't bummed out about it. But as we're hunting along, I'm trying to include her in the process. Where do you think we should go? Did you like that spot where we were yesterday morning? You know, the wind's doing this, the deer should be better at this. I'm just like, hey, do you have any input at all? Her answer every single time, is there going to be action there?

Let's go where the action is. Don't leave deer to find deer, dad. I'm like, and it did hit me. I'm like, that's right. Keep it simple, stupid. Just like go where the action is. And we did. We literally went to the spot where even though someone had already shot a buck out of there,

there was a bunch of tracks in that zone. People had seen deer in there. The cameras had picked up a few pictures of deer. And we went there. Lo and behold, we got to watch two bucks fight. And another one messing around. And they all chased one doe around for like 30 minutes. It's quite the wildlife encounter, you know?

That's good. Yeah. There you go. There's my advice for 2023. Go where the action is. Yeah. I like that. Or be a good dad. That too. Here's my thing. It's not that monumental, but just something that stays in my head. Early in

Let me back up. Let me back up. In Michigan up in michigan i i was i like to trap a whole bunch growing up and um was real heavy duty into it i thought that's what i was gonna do for a living and you were allowed to catch a bobcat quite a ways yeah hour drive had you had to go about an hour hour and a half north where you're allowed a bobcat and um i never did it because those michigan bobcats they're not valuable at all so like bobcats in the high like high plains bobcats or you know great basin bobcats they might be like five six hundred bucks they're like fifteen dollars in michigan because they don't have the white belly they're just dingy

um so never could justify it because I would just catch stuff to sell it. And it wasn't valuable. One time though, I was this must have been in 94, I think, 1994. I would go up to

Mecosta County up by Big Rapids, Michigan. We'd trap beavers through the ice after everything froze up. Late December, January, trapped muskrats and beaver through the ice. And I was on this big marsh and there's all these beaver lodges, three or four beaver lodges through this big marsh. And one day walking along where I had sets and this bobcat had walked from lodge to lodge, like on our tracks. And I had laid a beaver down on the ice and when something drowns,

it'll bleed out its nose a little bit. I'd laid a beaver on the ice and it had left a little blood patch. And that bobcat kind of like walked around smelling that blood plant patch. And, uh, thought from then on always about how like it just seemed mysterious i always wanted to catch a bobcat and then i probably moved away left the area thought and thought and thought about it and last year right in january now we're trying to think. No, I can't remember if it was December or January. Either way, I went out and spent a week trying

to catch a bobcat. For like seven days. Didn't catch one. Then, last year in January, I caught one on accident in a martin set. So,

he got caught in one of my martin boxes, and I didn't know it. I get up to my martin set so he got caught one of my martin boxes and i didn't know it i get up to my martin box and the traps out all kinds of branches are broken and there's white fur in the trap and i'm like trying to think what the hell would have done that you know and i thought maybe like a weasel and something to aid it but there's no blood there's no no nothing. And I just wrote it off like a mystery you'll never solve. I go to the next Martin box 50 yards away, and there he is dead under a doornail. He crammed his hand, his head. He had to squeeze his head into that thing. He gets caught.

How unsatisfying to catch him by accident. I'm glad I was glad. I'm glad I was glad I glad I got him. I got him registered. He's hanging in my office. But, um, like the role of luck and intention, man.

So unsatisfying. Didn't even kind of scratch the itch. Are you? It's not getting the bobcat. Yeah. It's on whose terms? Your terms. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Completely un, you know, kind of like the same way you used to say, like getting a, something that's been collared that somebody has already gotten it before. Yeah. On accident. Are you going to get back at the's already gotten it before. On accident.

Are you going to get back at the Bobcat? Oh yeah, on purpose. It's like it never happened. Yeah, but as a trapper... I was glad. I was like, oh, you know. But no, I wasn't. It was like, it was honestly,

it was the most mixed, it was the most mixed emotion feeling. It was more like I was watching it happen to someone else. But as a trapper. I've been thinking about that all year. Someone satisfying. But as a trapper, it's like, bound to happen, that bycatch. I know.

But it was like, there's certain things that I just was, there's a thing I wanted to do and haven't done it. And then I did it on accident. It just kills me. Chester, it'd be kind of like if you're out fishing for perch, nine, 10 inch perch, and you shit into a 10 pound walleye. Yeah, like you're doing the dumbest thing in the world. You're doing the least walleye thing in the world.

And you catch a state record walleye. But then don't you just experience that as a really nice surprise? I try. I've been trying for a year. I still can't get there. When I walk into my office, every time I walk into my office, I see that Bobcat hanging there.

You'd think at a point it would just be glee. I see that Bobcat hanging there and it still stings me. A year later. I totally get that. That makes sense. I'm glad I got it. I don't want it to go away. I'm glad I got it. Every't want it to go away i'm glad i got it every single time i look at it it's not a you know it's like a you know an accident blind squirrel does it make you

be like i suck at bobcat traffic no it just is like um yeah but you know what it gave you a good story and you got a good story out of the deal. I feel like it's how people that inherit a lot of money feel. When they look... Like, if you made a lot of money through entrepreneurship and risk, and you look in that big, fat bank account, you're probably like,

hell yeah. You did that. But if you just got it from your grandpa... Like generational wealth. Yeah, you're probably looking in and you're like... And then you look out at that Lambert. Yeah, you're probably looking at it and you're like, And then you look out at that Lambert meeting outside. You don't look at it, you're not like, yeah! You're like, yeah, you know.

It kind of makes you feel a little icky. When you set that trap, Bobcats were the first thing from your mind, right? I didn't think a Bobcat could fit his head in there. So I get it. I don't think he thought he was going to fit his head in there. If you were playing a one-on-one golf game with Tiger Woods, and it was neck and neck up until the end, and then Tiger Woods just swings and misses and lands on his ass

and shits his pants, and you're like, oh, I guess I win. But Tiger Woods probably shouldn't have fallen down and shit his pants. I like that. Or he had a stroke, and you beat him. Not a stroke like a swing. Yeah, yeah, I got it. It's like you didn't sink the long putt, but he three-putted you. Yeah, exactly. It still kills me every time I look at him. I'm glad I beat him. Not a stroke like a swing. Yeah, yeah, I got it. It's like you didn't sink the long putt, but he three putted. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It still kills me every time

I look at him. I'm glad I got him. He's beautiful. Yeah. But it's not... And we're doing a fundraiser dinner and I'm gonna... We're doing a fundraiser dinner and I'm cooking that bobcat up. I got his two little legs when I froze up. He had four.

But I saved two. I did some gumbo with my bobcat. It was delicious. Was it? Yeah. That's another cool thing about bobcats. Like, you catch a coyote, you know. I've learned my lesson on eating coyotes, but bobcats, people enjoy them.

Oh, yeah. They're tasty. Man, gumbo sounds good right about now. Tis the season. So I'm trying to think of where that leaves people for 2023 confused if you're going after something and it doesn't work out

the way you planned just keep on trucking yeah it'd be you know what it is in 2023 don't take credit for something you didn't do take care of your daughter play lots of rock and roll but when luck shines upon you for something you didn't do. Take care of your daughter. Play lots of rock and roll.

But when luck shines upon you, be appreciative. Yeah, right. Be grateful. And if you take your wife hunting, don't freak out on her. In 2023. And make your kids feel real awkward.

Make them go introduce themselves to people. Call them down out of their room. Just make them come make them go introduce themselves to people. Call them down out of their room. Just make them come downstairs. Just introduce themselves to someone. It'll pay off. It'll pay off. I'm just picturing Matt doing that, though. Kind of like regrettingly hanging his head.

No, he gets in there and gets it done, man. He does a good job. You know what's funny, too? When someone rings the doorbell, one of the kids lies running over where they can see and I'll be watching and they just go over and stand there looking out I'm like well now what happens

you go invite them in staring at them through the window is this the Rinella household nope yeah they race over to look at the person through the window What's the problem? Is this the Ranella household? Nope. Yeah, they race over to look at the person through the window. Happy New Year. I'm trying to think of what I legitimately like, what I'm going to do.

As much as I hate resolutions, I'm trying to think of what I'm legitimately going to do. Catch a bobcat. I mean, like in terms of personal behavior. I'm going to try not to freak out on my kids as much. That's a good one every year. Hard. Hard. I'm going to try not to freak out on them as much.

My dad freaked out on me all the time. It's like in my blood. It's going to be a good year. It's going to be a good year. Make it a good year.'s gonna be a good year make it a good year there you go chester all right but happy uh happy new year man don't take credit for something you didn't do thanks steve but get a tan definitely get a tan be appreciative Appreciate it. Hey, folks. Exciting news. 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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