The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 440: Glassing for Sheds

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Steve Rinella talks with Ben Dettamanti, Chester Floyd, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics include: Phil's flat top; Chester's "not a ballsack" tattoo; the best song ever written by man and tribute to Gordon Lightfoot; how Steve wants his remains to be consumed by wild animals; when you grease your boots with your own belly fat; Wisconsin's excessive drinking; more on hunting kangaroos in Australia; a real Chetiquette stumper; having the shed eye; illegal shed stash piles; Pennsylvania's laws against settling antlers; remembering Jim Phillip's shed antler castle; Shed Crazy's 50 state shed hunt; how Utah is number one in green jello consumption; "The Stuff in My Pockets" episode from Brent Reaves' "This Country Life" podcast; and more.  Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. All right, good lord, there's a lot to talk about. Should we start with introducing our guests or talk about Phil's new haircut? People get more conservative the older they get.

Generally. Not always, but generally. That's happening to Phil with his hair. Because my hair is getting more militaristic. He pretty soon is going to have a flat top. That's what my grandpa died with, so it's only a matter of time. He's gradually going flat top.

And Chester got a ball sack tattooed to his arm. Can I see it again? No. Can I see it again? Oh no, that's been there. Yeah. Yeah. If they would just close this up right there, it would be a ball sack for sure.

Yeah, you could have, I mean, if you got. He's even got like the wrinkles. If he got even a little bit drunk. Well, if you gave me a tattoo gun, I could turn it into a C and B. Wow, that was the first time I heard that. Wow, because I was trying to think of how to keep a family friend. Yeah, that's totally a family friend. We'll still be clear.

C&B. Just so everybody knows, it is, in fact, not a ball sack. It's a proof of sex tattoo. And it is... It's a what? Proof of sex tattoo. It it is... It's a what? Proof of sex tattoo. It is a... All right, guys.

It's an old school, like, spay fly, like a steelhead, like a swinging fly. Swinging, all right. We are going to be able to get through this material, Steve. All right. Oh, Chester. I've seen that tattoo a thousand times, but I just didn't see it that way. Now you can't unsee it. Did you know what it was?

I've always known. But then when you said what your sister thought it was, then I looked at it anew. Because when my arm's down like this you know it kind of can i is there can i get a pen can i give it a couple little can i give it a couple little hairs just to see what looks like the only one we have is a sharpie that's too bad what kind of fly is that it's just uh, you know, those like spay flies, those fancy feathered flies that people tie up with like guinea hen. And it's one of them. Danielle and I were in Hawaii.

And I was, we just decided to get tattoos. Spur of the moment. Did the Hawaiian know what that was? No. He's like, oh, that's cool. And then he had a little snicker with his buddies in the back tourists i love that tattoo chester thank you chester's also got an arrow tattooed up and down his arm yeah it's not really proportional my mom hates that one it's like a crossbow bolt with a giant oh yeah it's got a lot of fl mom hates that one. It's like a crossbow bolt with a giant stone point.

Oh, yeah, it's got a lot of fletching. Yeah. Yeah. And he's got a fly on the other arm. You got a trap on the other arm? No, I should. Yeah, big old double long spring on there. Joined today by Ben Dedamonte.

Am I saying that right? You did. You nailed it. You guys are Italian, huh? 100%. 100%? I like to say I'm 100% Italian, although I'm not actually 100% Italian. A little bit Italian.

About 25% Italian. Fantastic. That's right where I'm at. Yeah, it's a good number. Have you done the 23andMe? Yeah, yeah. We did the whole breakdown. Really?

I think it was like about a quarter for me. Well, actually, my dad did. I didn't do it, so I'm deducing from his results what I am. Did you know I'm 10 times more African than Elizabeth Warren is Native American? I say count it. I'd be putting that on 2%. Paperwork. 2%. Count it. Because my Italians are from Sicily.

That's a good place. We're from Lake Como, apparently. Oh, really? So you go by, I know this because on your social media stuff, Shed Crazy. Tell people about that. You're not crazy about building sheds. Well, no. I don't know anything about building sheds for sure.

But, yeah, it does, you know, come up a lot, you know, shed crazy. But, yeah, that's kind of just a little thing I started social media back maybe 2012 or something. Started a little Instagram page, and now it's my identity. Because you love picking up sheds. I do. I love picking up sheds. I do. I love picking up sheds. Do you get sick of it? Sometimes.

Like I don't get sick of finding sheds, but like the grind that comes with like constantly going out and trying to find new areas and stuff gets old for sure. Really? Yeah. But you retired from being a custodian. I did. We're going to get into that. Yeah.

In order to hunt sheds. Yeah. I left an illustrious career as a custodian to do this full time so it's a interesting way to make a living and right now it's like you should not be here right now you should be doing that no i'm sacrificing some prime real estate some prime time in the hills to be here so you guys are welcome i found a shed yesterday but then i realized i'd already found it yeah you re-found my dog because my dog carried it off and and i thought I found it, and then I got to looking at it

and realized that it had the same string that I used to hang it into a tree. It's probably just as exciting though, right? Oh, hey, another thing. You know how we like to, if you're a frequent listener, you know that we like to tack things on the end of the show,

so the show will end and you'll hear a new thing that's interesting or whatever we're going to tack on an episode of our new podcast called this country life with brent reeves it's it's really really good it's really funny i driving if i'm driving around listening to it i laugh out loud. My kid, my older boy, loves that show. He just sits there going, I like this guy. I like this guy. Do you like this guy? I like this guy.

It's so good. We're going to tack on an episode. It runs on the Bear Grylls feed. So the same way if you have the Meteor podcast feed and the trivia show shows up on there, if you're on the Bear Grylls feed and you listen to Clay's Bear Grylls podcast, you'll see that now you're also going to get served this country life with Brent Reeves.

Just so you get a taste, a little lickens, we're going to tack, what's it called, Phil? The stuff in my pockets. The stuff in my, I was going to say what's in my pocket. The stuff in my pockets on the end of the show. So give that a listen. If you love it, go over, subscribe to Bear Grease, and you'll see it rolled into the Bear of the show. So give that a listen. If you love it, go over, subscribe to Bear Grease and you'll see it,

you'll see it rolled into the Bear Grease feed. I like it so much I might steal it from Clay and put it in this feed, Phil. What do you think about that? You and Clay might have to throw some fists, but we'll make it happen.

We'll see. Enjoy that when you get to the end of the show. Gordon Lightfoot passed away. I thought you were going to bring that up away One of the greats Oh my god The legend lives on

Inarguably He wrote the greatest song of all time The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Interestingly If you go on Spotify The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has This is just one measure Okay On the album Summertime Dream the record the edmund fitzgerald has this is just one measure okay

on the album summertime dream the record the edmund fitzgerald has 52 million 765 830 plays on the album it came out on. A seven-minute song. They came out. Phil, can you check what year Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald came out? The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was 1975. I was one years old. This was 1976.

So he wrote it right after. So at the Centennial. At the American Centennial, the American Bicentennial, Gord, Canadian folk singer Gord, comes out with the greatest song ever written by man, the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. On that album that it released on, that's how many plays it has on Spotify. So just a relative picture here, 52 million will round up to 53 million plays on his album, Summertime Dream. Guess what the second highest number of plays is on Spotify, on that album? Sundown.

Different album. You already skipped ahead to the depressing part. Two million plays. So his race among the ruins, not a great song, has 2 million plays. The wreck of the MF has drilled 53 million plays. However, like Chester brought up,

this is how you find out what's wrong with America. Like Chester brought up, you go to his album Sundown, great tune and sundown right now is sitting at 98 million meaning that more people listen to a song that is not the greatest song ever written by man than didn't listen to the greatest song ever written by man, then listen to the greatest song ever written by man. I wonder if that's because people

have a hard time like holding their attention to something for seven minutes. Sundown's only three and a half minutes long. And it's catchier like to the mainstream too. Yeah, isn't it? It's been sampled. Isn't that been in like movies and stuff? Sundown? Oh yeah, it's been sampled and I think like been in movies and stuff? Sundown?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's been sampled. And I think, wasn't it like P. Diddy? What the hell is his name? Is that what he goes by these days? P. Diddy. Sean Combs.

Didn't he sample Sundown? 96 right now. Pup Daddy. Yeah. Pup. So. I'm sure he goes by his real name now. The wreck for you. Phil, let's cue up the part where he talks about Lake Michigan.

Because there's a part. And this always spoke to the part where he talks about Lake Michigan. Because there's a part, and this always spoke to me because I grew up on Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan steams like a young man's dreams. Her islands and bays are for sportsmen. What he does in his song, he does a comparison contrast between all the great lakes.

And he's like, basically, Lake Superior is a cold bitch. And then Of the other lakes he has Whatever he has to say And his typification of Lake Michigan Is Lake Michigan steams like a young man's dreams Her islands and bays are for sportsmen

That's a good line Which makes it seem like it's like a Wimpy little lake Not that The Edmund Fitzgerald was hauling iron ore, I believe from Duluth to down to Youngstown, I believe. It sank in a horrible November storm,

1975, 29 people aboard. It sank in 500 feet of water. In Lake Superior at 500 feet, there's no life and no light and there's no current. Which I didn't really know until recently. No current.

It's in 500 feet of water, so you used to not be able to dive it, but people can dive it. And so starting in the 90s, people started to be able to dive down to the wreck. The bodies are still identifiable. No. Whoa.

Still identifiable. Really? Yeah. Sitting in 34 degree water, no current, no light, no life. A guy took pictures of identifiable bodies. They later made it illegal to dive that wreck and pull stuff off it, but they took the bell off it and they replaced it with a bell with all 29 sailors names etched into the bell.

So now in 500 feet Lake Superior is a bell, a new bell with all 29 sailors names on it so at the at the maritime sailors cathedral at a church in detroit the next morning someone came out and rang the bell in detroit 29 times once for every person lost on the ship a journalist saw him do it and knocked on the door of the church and interviewed the person who rang the bell, and that became a big news story. So in the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,

when Gordon Lightfoot says, the church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald, that's what he's alluding to. And now that bell, there's a bell on the ship and once they found the ship they found out that a detail like gourd was real specific he even says that the ship weighed 26 000 tons more than it weighed empty like very specific i didn't know this he later changed i'll just read about this all when he. He changed the lyrics about the cause of the ship

because he said, at 7 p.m., a main hatchway caved in. And now it seems like maybe that's not the case, and he changed the lyrics to stay true to current understanding of what sunk that ship. We used to ice fish in Whitefish Bay looking out toward where it was. I've seen Gord do that song live two times. The first time I saw him do it live was at Interlochen, which is like an artsy-fartsy camp in Michigan.

Second time I saw him do it was at a big hockey arena in Ontario. So then you're in shipping country. I mean, Interlochen is on the lake that steams like a young man's dreams. When I saw it the second time, it was where Lake Superior flows into the St. Mary's River, which drops 20-some feet into Lake Huron. So Lake Huron accepts Lake Superior. Lake Superior dumps through the St. Mary's Rapids and flows into there. So I saw him there at that very important place.

And Gord is standing up on stage and it's in a hockey stadium. This place is packed because he's Canadian. I can't remember what year it was, but he basically stands up and says, like later in the concert, because when you have a big hit, you always do it late, right? Like when I saw a Marshall

Tucker band, you don't come out and do Can't you see right out the back. Because everybody leaves. Right. Standing in line for Marshall Tucker band, my friend Brian said, if she don't like Tucker, I ain't going to. See you in beat. Fill in the blank.

So, there at the hockey arena, Gord, toward the end of the show, stands up, and I can't remember what year it was, but it would have been, he stands up and says something like, it'll be 35 years

this November. That's all he needed to say. And the crowd erupted. Oh, my God. I often allude to when we beat the Russians in hockey, in the Olympics, in like the 80s. That feeling of that emotional catharsis that America went through. Yeah. When Gord, it was nothing compared to when

Gord stood up and said, in Canada, it'll be, it'll be whatever, 35 years this November. I mean, people wept. Oh. And he passed away, made it into his 80s. Make your own rules, superior scenes. In the rooms of her ice water mansion. Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams.

The islands and bays are for sportsmen. You know how when they killed Bin Laden, they supposedly put him in a sack with an anchor and overboard? Mm-hmm. a sack with an anchor and overboard. I would like to get Gord's carcass. It's not too late, I'm assuming. You might ask me. I don't know. I would like to get

Gord's carcass, get that same setup and go right to that waypoint and that's where he belongs. set up and go right to that waypoint. That's where he belongs. Put him down there with the 29 others. That's where he belongs. You think he'd sink? Well, you weighed it down. Last thing's light foot.

He might just. That's a good joke. Yeah. He's had three good jokes so far. I know. Retire now. I would say if I had jokes as good as yours, I'd say I'm super loud. Yeah.

Maybe your headphones are just quiet. Oh, so rest in peace. I got to do a cover of that. Oh, you should. The Dandy Warhols covered it. Seven minutes. That's another thing I want to add. It got to number two and stayed in the Billboard charts for months.

And this is at a time when songs had to be three minutes long, and they were a boy. A song was this, three and a half minutes long, okay? Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. It was like, love goes wrong. Like, there's love. It goes wrong. I left her she left me I wish she was back like that was what music was I can't funny thing you're saying

that I wrote a song the other day and it's exactly what you're saying love it goes wrong chorus there's no. I don't like bridges. Oh, bridges are... Oh, Chester. Put a bridge in it. Thank you, Seth. And here's a guy that comes out with a seven-minute song detailing in great specificity an iron ore freighter sinking in Lake Superior.

With the tonnage. Yeah. Now and then something slips through the cracks. You can picture just as well that Gord would have written the Edmund Fitzgerald, and no one listened to it. If that's the greatest song ever written, Tonight We Ride is the second greatest song ever written. That's what I was going to say.

That's number one in my book. Great detail. That's my favorite song. Pancho Villa comes into the U.S., raids a Texas town. Blackjack Pershing, who would later make his name in World War I, goes in pursuit of him,

chases him for two years. Some of the guys he's with decide to hang on down in Mexico. They have various adventures. Nothing about boys and girls. Well, no, because he does. He alludes to going to a whorehouse.

Yeah. There you go. It's a great song. Oh. Man, we should make a playlist, Phil. We can do that. You made a playlist for the live show that you had me play. But this would be a different playlist.

Blackjack Pershing on a Dancing Horse is Waiting in the Wings. It's like the writing of Cormac McCarthy where you gotta look a lot of stuff up because he said, when Jackie wasn't looking, I stole his fine spade bit. The hell's that?

Spade bit. I didn't know what it was. Did you know what that was? I don't even have a general idea of what it is. I don't know too specifically. What is it? It's a spade-shaped blade that goes into a horse's mouth. So when you pull on the rein, it drives that spade-shaped blade up into the roof of its mouth. Greatly irritating.

Yep. That's how you push a horse hard. He says when he catches, he was going to catch Pancho Villa and make chaps out of Pancho Villa's skin. Shoot his horse, Siete Levas, and his 27 brides. It's a good song. He observes that you don't need no teeth for kissing

gals and smoking cheap cigars. That's a good one. I sleep with one eye open neath God's celestial stars. Yep. That's back when they could write. Rest in peace, Gord. Rest in peace.

Maybe even better than dumping them over the ship was to get one of those divers and go tuck them in down in that ship. Hmm. Get a wetsuit for that. I'm surprised there's no life down there. Yeah. I was very surprised by that.

Yeah, not what I expected. In the ocean, giant squid would eat them. Yeah. So if Gord's family's listening, think about this Or you could just take a more modest approach Put his stuff in a big ol' heavy

See that thing we got You know that artillery shell we got down there Oh yeah Put his ashes in there Put a bunch of melted lead in there And Right down where you want her They could use that artillery

shell if they wanted i'd imagine gordon's family's listening we have an artillery shell oh you know what you should do i got it now phil we're gonna wrap it up on this conversation this is what they should do get a bell oh carve gourd here lies here lies. Carve gourd. Here lies. Here lies gourd or gourd or gourd and light foot, depending on how the person etching it has that much time. Etch gourd and light foot into the bell. Invert the bell, put the ashes in there,

pour a bunch of lead in on top of that. Then you got to ring it one time for him. Sure. Spell chime to the ring one time for Gordon, for the, for the writer of the admin, if you didn't end up in a family plot, Steve, where would you want your body or ashes to know exactly where I want it? I've told my kids, I've told my wife, none of them listens. I know exactly where I want it. I want it on top. I've told my kids, I've told my wife, none of them listens. I know exactly where I want it.

I want it on top of a particular butte. And I want preferably them to quarter my carcass out. I've explained this to him. Oh my God. I want to be quartered out, hauled up there. It's three miles, hauled there and left there, tucked in a little out of the way.

Yeah. So I can be scavenged by wolves and grizzlies. That's what I would like. I've said, I've told them if you aren't able to do that, dump the ashes there. Who's packing the head? Doesn't matter to me. It'll be up to my kids.

There's three of them. It's like not a bad load. Now it's easy. 50 pound packs. Quartered, cooled properly. Bled out. In a bad load. No, it's easy. 50-pound packs. Quartered. Cooled properly. Bled out. In a game bag. And just tucked in out of the way,

and something can eat me. That's what I want. Cool. It's a new green burial. We burned a lot of time up, Corinne. We can cut half of the talking points. Well, there's a few things here. There's some great stuff in here.

This is interesting. Okay. Here's the deal. You guys are all familiar with Saxton Pope. Pope and Young? Mm-hmm. Okay. I didn't know this.

So, Saxton Pope had a book hunting with the bow and arrow 1947 now corinne if i'm understanding this is in saxton pope's book yes so saxton pope and what was young's first name you remember him uh art yeah saxton pope and art young two early archers, uh, who w what's kind of funny about archery today is people talk about traditional archery, traditional archery isn't old. I mean, it took a long high, like traditional archery took off, a a long hiatus now at the battle of little bighorn in 1876 they were still well at the fetterman fight which is 63 1863 i think was the fetterman fight 63 or 64 primarily bows the sioux involved in that fight when they killed um they called it the battle of 100 in the hand because they killed about 100 cavalry soldiers,

primarily with archery equipment. You get to 1876, Battle of Little Bighorn, they kill several hundred soldiers, still using bows, primarily guns at that point. Still some archery stuff, though. And it had a strategic advantage because they would use their bows you could shoot people without seeing them because you could just lob arrows they would lob arrows so if you were like dug into little holes they might have guns but they could just lob arrows up and just land arrows down on things that were in holes or out

of sight but then it was by, people weren't using bows. So it took a big break, and then you get into the 40s, and then dudes like Saxon Pope kind of like reinvigorate, rediscover archery hunting. Saxon Pope has this story in his book. I had no idea.

I haven't read this. He's talking about Humboldt County. People that like to smoke a lot of weed know that place. There was an old settler named Pete Bluford. Now, they use a derogatory term that was very common. Anytime you're reading books from...

The term... There's a term you see all the time in old books called a squaw man and a squaw man is a derogatory term for like it'd be a derogatory term for a white person if a white man married a native american woman and lived with her family or lived in her village he became not bob or doug he became a squaw man that was his defining characteristic so he's talking about a man who he's using the term a squaw man which means a white man was married to a native american woman this feller shot a female grizzly with cubs within a quarter of a mile from what is now Bloxburg in Humboldt County. It mauled him real good, tore his abdomen open, pulled his guts out.

His buddies sew him back together. He lives many years afterward. Now, when the guy was sewing him up, there was a large glob of fat protruding from the incision. And he couldn't get it tucked in right. He later greased his boots with it.

Wow. Wow. Hmm. With his... Wonder how... Rendered down his own belly fat and greased his boots. That's kind of cool. Now that is...

Waste not, want not. Yeah. When I'm talking... When I'm explaining why I love America, that's why I love America. That's why America's my number one favorite country. No, I like that. You know?

Bald eagles and belly fat. Gordon Lightfoot's country would probably be a distant third. For me. That's pretty grotesque though. That's why I refuse to lose weight. You never know when you're're gonna need a little boot grease you know dude yeah it could come in handy yeah you could grease a handful of boots

I thought he was gonna render it and like cook something in it me too that's where I thought it was going that would have been see that would have been just that's just gross yeah where do you draw the lines, Steve? Still, after our podcast, this guy, someone wrote in.

So we still get a lot of notes about gators from our gator podcast. I remember one guy wrote in that he loved hearing all of you northerners get real excited about alligator facts. So, this guy writes in, I really enjoyed your podcast, especially the recent episode on alligators. He's a private lands biologist in southeastern North Carolina. Part of his role includes handling nuisance gator issues. Oh, Corinthians this morning sent me photos of them pulling human parts out of a gator. Yeah, that's another gal.

Have those been on the internet? I thought about posting, but that seems like a good way to get your account taken away. Yeah. It's old. Oh, it is? Yeah, that happened, I forget what year it was I told you about when I was in 5th grade

The teacher brought in pictures of her boyfriend's remains Removed from a crocodile What's interesting is another alum From Reese Puffer wrote in to say Dude I had the same teacher, same grade She showed me the same pictures Wow He's like you weren't wrong

You weren't remembering wrong She showed me those pictures. I never thought. So she kept her job for a while. We know that for sure. I know. We used to fish walley dogs right out in front of her house. She lived on the Muskegon River.

Big swamp. She's since passed. Oh, yeah. Okay. Was it pictures like what we saw? I mean, basically it's like a gator's belly open and you see like an entire you know it looked like it just looks like your arm it wasn't digested because it was so recent like an arm it's like it's like someone someone who was retrieving the arm from the belly it's

almost like he's like holding the hand of the severed arm hand. Was it just an arm or was there other? I mean, in the picture. It's just someone pulling it like an arm. What's the story behind it? It was just there was an attack. Oh, okay. Last summer, this guy goes on. You know what it reminded, seeing that photo reminded me of?

And I'm still traumatized from it. I don't know if I ever told you this story. I'll show it to everyone else so they get traumatized. When I was a little kid, I watched them pull remains from an airplane wreck. Oh. You don't know that he's not alive in there. Maybe she's just helping him out.

He's like, get me out of here. He's just like, get me out of here. But then there's another picture of the person lying there without their owl. This guy goes on. Last summer I found an entire barred owl

and a recently consumed turtle inside of a seven footer that turned up dead at a golf course after being killed by a larger gator. They had a GPS alligator swallow a basketball and it slowly starved to death. It took it multiple years to starve to death. That same alligator also had a six-inch arrow shaft embedded in its skull behind the eyes

that likely altered its vision. Jeez. I wonder, how did it get a barred owl? You know? Here's my theory on it after I thought long and hard about it.

That owl was laying there dead in the water. That's what I thought. Most probably, yeah. 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 a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the 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. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Do you remember on a recent episode we were talking about them having those gator mummies? The Egyptians having 2,000-year-old gator mummies? That gator mummy has 31 crocodiles in it. It had a 5.5-foot croc and 30 croc babies all embalmed and positioned so as to appear riding on the larger individual's back wow in in the antiquities there's a term called the provenance am i saying

that right provenance provenance meaning like let's say i came to you and i said hey check this out i i actually own the Mona Lisa people would be like well I'd like to understand the provenance of that meaning how did it flow from the Louvre to you Steve's actually a very successful art dealer

in 1899 Phoebe Hurst of the Hurst family right she bought it from an antiquities dealer in Egypt In 1899, Phoebe Hurst of the Hurst family, right? She bought it from an antiquities dealer in Egypt. Now, we were wandering in there. They said how there was a fish hook in there. And we're like, what kind of fish hook?

And why would it not have corroded? They believe it was a bronze hook. That's how they caught that thing. So people in Egypt 2,000 years ago fishing gators with bronze hooks. Yeah, it's less susceptible to corrosion than copper and contemporary forms of iron and steel, says this archaeologist. And yeah, bronze would have been consistent with contemporary fishing, fish hook manufacturers at that time, even well into the Iron Age. Here's a story from Minnesota.

Oh, you'll appreciate this, Ben. All right. You ready? Mm-hmm. ready guy in minnesota um was living near a registered sex offender oh let me just do the transition this guy who wrote in about the gator mummies shared this story because his parents live in this town where it happened and he didn't he doesn't he didn't bring it up with his parents or ask around because it's a small town so So everyone knows everyone. So this story comes from the same guy who just wrote in about the crack mummy. So he has eclectic interests.

Yes, very much so. It's a very interesting email. You know, you don't expect the second part of the email after reading the first, but there you have it. Like usually when you send someone an email, you put the really interesting part in the first part.

Yep. Yep. Like you'd never be like, Oh, and by the way, I was mauled by, you know, P.S. Right, yep, yep. Like, you'd never be like, oh, and by the way, I was mauled by, you know, Grizzly. Yeah.

It's a whole sordid story. I don't want to get into all the details, but basically a... It involves antler sheds. A man... A man beat a child molester to death with an antler.

Oh. I support it. Multi-use. Dog chews antler. Oh, I support it. Yeah. Multi-use. Okay. Dog chews. Well, they, I mean, they can be a serious weapon.

I mean. Oh, yeah. I've thought about it many times, like when I'm not carrying, you know, a pistol or bear spray. At least you're toting an antler. Got to elk shit just in case. Would you go pedicle side first as the clover? I think I'd have to try to get the tines in there. Yeah.

So you'd hold the pedicle. Like poking. Righticle right yeah a little bit of stabbing motion in there i think like a big like a five point like a raghorn elk shed you could get some lethal velocity behind that thing i think it'd be pretty easy for that to accidentally end up 180 degrees the other way at some point during a struggle well oh and your opponent would turn it on you yeah yeah not in my experience but a guy wrote in about me complaining about i think that wisconsin voters and i'm just i'm carpetbagging here i'm not from wisconsin i'm not a wisconsin voter i think wisconsinites have made a horrible mistake in not allowing through the ice, Northern pike spearing in their waters. The argument against it is.

They won't be able to tell a pike from a muskie. That's what the argument sounds like. In that voice. They won't be able to tell a pike from a muskie. People point out. Why don't keep it closed in muskie waters? Well, hear me out. How can hunters and anglers be trusted to tell a, tell a, uh, female from a male, uh,

Pike? Black bear? No, I'm pointing to the sky. Yeah, duck. I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to think of I'm in a little bind here because I'm trying to think of a duck species where you need to know male from female where the male and female are not super and I'm struggling.

But, okay. 30 minutes before sunrise, you can be trusted to tell a drake from a hen mallard. They can trust you with that. You can be trusted to tell a drake from a hen mallard. They can trust you with that. You can be trusted to tell a two-inch long spike antler from a three-inch long spike antler. Hunters can be trusted to determine that a black bear does not have a cub hidden in the bushes.

Tom or a hen. You can be trusted to tell if a turkey has a beard or not. The one I shot, barely. A singular feather. It's a feather. A beard is a feather. A singular feather growing out of its chest. We can trust hunters to figure that out,

but they can't be trusted to tell if you're spearing a pike or a muskie. You can be trusted to know if you're throwing a pike or a muskie into your ice box. You can be trusted to know that you're putting a gaff into a pike or muskie at the hole when you're tip-up fishing, but you can't be trusted to tell a pike from a muskie when you're spearing. And a guy wrote in saying, you have to understand how drunk these people are. That is, that's true. He said, there's two kinds of goggles.

He says there's beer goggles and there's snorkeling goggles. He thinks that you should definitely be allowed to spear northerns in Wisconsin underwater with goggles on, spearfishing, because those people aren't drunk. He then followed up with a chart that shows excessive drinking by county across the country. Dude, this is insane. I saw it yesterday and was just laughing my ass off. Excessive drinking by county across the country. Holy cow, Wisconsin. Excessive drinking is marked by dark blue. Wisconsin is the only state where every...

Every county is... All of Wisconsin is dark blue. Even if you go look where Wisconsin rolls into Michigan's Upper Peninsula, it's like at the line, they just stop excessive drinking. Yeah, that's bizarre. And then you go to Utah? Dude, those guys... Don't drink.

Because there's that joke. There's that joke like, oh, you know, how do you take two? I'm not going to tell a joke. Sure. We got it. Listen, Utah, they are not excessive drinking. Nope. But I wonder if it's all like voluntary.

They're like, do you excessive drink? You think anybody in Utah is going to say yes to that question? know what the funny thing is like yes sir i do you know what the thing i notice about that wisconsin map is lake winnebago is all white but because they're not excessive drinking on the ice that's a misrepresentation they should just color in the lake when that thing is frozen they need to color in the lake. Holy cow. When that thing is frozen, they need to color in that lake. Yeah, why is Green Bay white? That's a great point.

Green Bay should be dark blue. If you notice in Montana, Gallatin County, the county we're in right now. Hard drinking. Hard drinking county. Yep. But Wisconsin, my goodness. And they like to pull a cork around duluth too i just love how clearly utah is outlined in that map it's like you can't really tell

any other state and then bam in appalachia you know why because they're making their own yeah and they're lying about it yeah no 100 they. 100%. They're like, nope, don't have any, nope, none here. None of that stuff in this household. Dry county, didn't you hear? Appalachia, sober as the day is long.

Oh yeah, 100%. Wisconsin just drunk as a skunk. And he says, that is why you can't trust those people with a spear. Speaking of, tell us about Forest Floor Foods old-fashioned kit, Chester. Oh, yeah. We have those on sale. So my dad, he started this. We've talked about it before, like a cocktail garnish company for like Bloody Marys and stuff.

It's a great state to be in for that kind of business, as you can see. But now Meat Eater, and they have been, they're selling that old fashioned kits on the website. So, you know, after you get done spearing pike and whatnot, you can have yourself a cocktail. Continue to contribute to that dark navy blue color. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. My parents actually just got their products at the Brewers Stadium.

So like all the Brewers games. Oh, nice. That's big. Packer games. No kidding. They have some of their stuff there. Wow. Congrats. Nice. It's big. Packer games. No kidding. They have some of their stuff there. Wow. Congrats.

Nice. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Kind of proud moment. Recently we covered this move, like all these people banning kangaroo leather. Yeah, like Adidas, Nike, and, and, and. Why did Doug, why did Bubbly Doug

write me a thing about Posh Spice? Was she on the list of people? Remember the band the Spice Girls? Yeah, that's Victoria Beckham. She's a huge

like fashion person now. Who's married to David Beckham. That was who that was? Mm-hmm. Yeah. She was a Spice Girl? Mm-hmm. Well, what's her story?

Like, did she, is she protesting? Because Doug was pointing out her husband has used, has worn out thousands of shoes made of kangaroo leather. I wonder if she is. We didn't, I didn't research that. Wasn't Victoria Beckham one of the names that Steve listed in the pod? Oh, yes. That's Potch Spice.

Oh, right. And she's married to David Beckham, the soccer player. And she has a fashion line. That won't use kangaroo leather, even though her old man's been running around in kangaroo shoes his entire life. Yeah, there you go. Genuine Ozzy wrote in, Just thought I'd add some detail to how idiotic the kangaroo leather boycott is. As a roo shooter myself.

As a way of controlling kangaroos, we have two different permits. Harvest permits and drop permits. Harvest permits require a firearm accuracy test, butchering course, and certified holding rack to acquire on top of a gun license. Oh, okay. A certified holding, so they're heavily licensed to get their firearm. Which all in all costs around $10,000 if starting from scratch. There are strict rules around the gutting and transport of kangaroos.

Generally, they are used for either pet food or human consumption depending on your nearest drop point. A drop permit is as it sounds. You shoot the kangaroo and leave the carcass. I've heard about these. You legally cannot utilize any part of the carcass on that permit. These can be obtained by landowners and carried out by anyone with a gun license

that's approved for hunting. Every year, the same amount of kangaroos are killed. They're either killed by a drop permit or they're killed by a harvest permit. If you're not using the harvest permits, they just shoot them under a drop permit. The amount of harvest permits that are used is proportional to the price you get per kilogram of kangaroo. At the moment, it's $1.20 per kilogram of carcass weight. That market took a big hit last year price-wise due to Germany banning the use of human consumption of kangaroo. That's pretty rich coming from that place.

And I can only assume the price will drop again with these U.S.-based bans on kangaroo leather. So what you will see in 2024, harvest permits will go down, drop permits will go way up, the same amount of kangaroos will hit the ground, and they'll just lay there and rot on the ground. And he points out that kangaroo leather you're not they're not killing kangaroos for their leather

they're the leather is a byproduct of hunting the animal and consuming its meat much like beef leather cow leather cattle leather whatever you want to call it you don't you're not no one's raising them i shouldn't say no one maybe some, you're not, no one's raising them. I shouldn't say no one, maybe some freakish situation they are. No one's raising them. Oh, you know what? This girl I went to high school with married this dude who was from South America and he was in the cattle business. And this is crazy.

He was telling me that he buys leather for luxury automobile manufacturers and he targets leather not from the U.S. but from areas in South America where they don't use barbed wire. Oh, huh. Makes sense. Blemish free. Yeah, totally makes sense. He's looking for absolutely blemish free leather for the finest luxury cars and he needs to find it where there's no barbed wire. Makes sense. Put that in a freaking podcast. That's good stuff right there.

You just put it there. It's there. Kangaroo leather is like really, really soft, right? I think, I've heard it's really durable, but I don't. Durable and kind of soft. Yeah, it's very like supple. I think my soccer shoes were kangaroo leather back in high school.

Yeah, you can buy like the kind of back to the ball sack topic. Like you can buy a kangaroo coin pouch like we bought them at the airport when we were coming home from Australia. That's a good idea.

That was like a kangaroo nut sack. It was soft. Chester got that tattooed on his arm. That's what this is. That's what reminded me, yeah. So because of posh spice, a lot more kangaroos are just going to rot. Rot. Good work.

Saving the world. We should partner with some hunters in Australia and start a butcher box of sorts. Yeah. I wish I had a whole different... If I could wrap up my current line of work, my new line of work would be parkas with coyote rough, kangaroo leather sneakers. And I would just double down on stuff. I would double down on great ideas that people are throwing out from being dumb. Yeah.

Utilize those natural materials that are going to waste. Yep. There you go. Ben, are you interested in ethics and etiquette? Not really. It's not my strong suit, for sure.

Here's a listener. We got Chester in the room, so we're going to hit it. Currently listening to podcast episode 431 and I had to drop an interesting, complicated scenario that is related to the discussion the crew had regarding the unwarranted disclosure of the status of firearms in someone's house for the sake of guest children present in the house.

This guy's a very good writer. Last summer, my girlfriend and I were on a... No, he's not. Well, plus, he wasn't on the house. He was in the house. They were on a rental house tour instead of in a tour. Just keep reading, Steve. He's back to being a good writer.

Last summer, my girlfriend and I were on a rental house tour for a prospective apartment in western New York. At one point during the tour, we sat down with the landlord. I should note, this is a parenthetical, I should note that she was a novice landlord, as this was about to be her first rental property. To review our responses to a tenant questionnaire we filled out, one of the questions on the questionnaire inquired about firearms ownership and potential gun storage in the apartment. I, being an honest person, checked yes and had to elaborate to the landlord that I am an avid hunter and firearms enthusiast and have several firearms that I intended to keep properly locked away in the apartment if we had the opportunity to sign a lease.

I even went so far as to show the landlord my valid pistol permit. Regardless of my answer, I could tell the landlord seemed very uneasy about firearms being stored on her property. After the tour ended, my girlfriend got very upset with me for potentially ruining our chances at being able to sign a lease. Should I have lied?

Yeah. Dude, but he didn't know initially what this girl's reaction was going to be, right? Listen, if the thing said, do you plan on partying? What are you going to put? I'd be like, yes. Occasionally. I don't think so.

I'm from Utah. I think the least amount of people that know that you have firearms the better i would have put down i would have put down short for nunya which is no mind your business really yes absolutely yeah even if you didn't know what like i suppose have the question in there was a red flag. Well, it's a liability question. I would have flat out lied. I would have flat out lied and I wouldn't have viewed it as a moral infraction. Yeah.

I mean. I agree with you. I agree. I probably would have done the same thing as he did later thinking i should have lied about it chester because it's chetaket yeah you get to have the final say oh the final say i mean oh he's struggling this is tough i don't know man i it depends how bad they wanted the apartment. There's a lot of things in there that...

Chester, don't get wishy-washy, bro. I probably would have done the same thing he did. Do I think that... Because he's a very honest person. Chet, don't lie. Yeah, that's a thing. It's not lying. It's not lying.

It's deferring. It's obfuscation. It's not lying. It's deferring. Obfuscation. It's not lying. It's putting... When someone asks you, do you plan on storing something in this place and you tell them no and then you do it? That's a lie. Okay, let me put it this way. Let's say you're harboring.

That's why it's his etiquette. Okay, let's say you're... Okay, let's say you're... Okay, let's say this. Let's say you look out the window and there's a cold-blooded axe murderer in your yard. And he knocks on the door and says, I'm going to murder your wife. Where is she? And you say, well, you're like, well, I can't lie.

She's in the closet. But that's different. No, Corinne, this is a one-to-one scenario. Perfect analogy. I can't tell a lie. You probably ought to grab one of those guns and fill them full of holes. I'd be like, she's in the bedroom right now, and if you try and take one step in this house, I've got a shotgun sitting right next to the door.

So you'd be utterly truthful. We're going to have a dog fight. Let me try to think of another scenario. All right, I got a scenario. Oh, where Chester has to lie? Yeah. Yeah, do it. So say you check into a hotel.

You put down one guest, one room. Then you meet a girl off Tinder. I mean, obviously, this doesn't apply to you. You're going to go to the front desk and tell them you have another guest in your room? No. I need to update. Excuse me, ma'am. Excuse me.

I just. I actually do need to add a guest to my room. And then Chester has to go back to his date and be like, the lobby's closed. You're just going to have to go home because I can't update my thing to say that there's two people in this room. I'm sorry. But at the time that he said one person, he was telling the truth. It's

different to update. Yeah, I could allow that, but I think you've got to gauge the situation because there might be cases where the landlord wants you to have guns in the house, too. Maybe that could win you an apartment. Yeah, right. You have to judge the landlord wants you to have guns in the house too maybe that could win you an apartment yeah yeah right you have to judge judge the landlord a little bit character yeah if she's wearing a you know federal shirt yeah i got guns yeah i i mean he i don't even know if that if he I think him lying in that case is valid.

Looks like you're struggling there. I think you're just a truth teller. What do you mean wishy-washy? He doesn't feel comfortable lying. I like it, Chester. Stand your ground. That's good. I mean, he didn't know.

The big thing here is he probably didn't know the landlord didn't want him to not have guns in there It's New York But it's western New York Give us the final answer I think if your Wife really wanted that apartment And you did too And you had guns

Then You could fib about it a little bit and you did too, and you had guns, then you could fib about it a little bit. Let's say you were Harriet Tubman. Again, one-to-one scenario. Apples to apples. I mean, did he get the apartment? I didn't read that far. Mm-mm.

Did he get the... No, either way, the scenario really chapped my... Oh, sorry. Luckily for me, we ended up living elsewhere for unrelated reasons. There you go. A little wishy-washy, Chester. Ben, you'll appreciate this one. This is our last news item, you know.

I'm ready. I'm excited. A repeat violator. Shed hunt violator punished. Crin can't spell punish. Yeah. Typo. Bozeman man, so hometown man.

Convicted of illegally stashing shed antlers in Wyoming. They point out to profit by selling them as dog chews. Can't set foot on federal public land or hunt anywhere in the world i don't get that one oh because it's federal why the world i don't know yeah federal oh it's federal i don't know so there's this thing called the there's's this thing that's, it used to be the Western States Violator Compact. Oh, interesting. Which now is way beyond the, now it's everybody. So if you lose your hunting privileges, if you lose your hunting and fishing privileges, hunting and or fishing privileges in any state,

you lose them in every state that belongs to the Violator Compact. Oh, interesting. And now provinces. At a time, it was like a collection of Western states because they would just have a problem with it, have like a repeat violator, right? And then he'd be like, oh, okay, so I lost my hunting privileges in Wyoming. I'll just hunt Montana and Colorado. No problem. And so all these states started signing out.

And now I think it's like, I know Hawaii's not in it. Nebraska's not either. Nebraska's not in it, but 40 some states are in. I think it's 48. Are in the compact. And then several provinces are in the compact. So this guy was,

is in federal trouble, but here's what he was doing. I don't know if you do this, Ben. Uh, I don't know. Hopefully not. After hearing this, Ben. I don't know. Hopefully not. After hearing this, you won't.

I'm a very law-abiding shed hunter. I love how this article uses the word rat hole. He was going into areas before they're open. So shed hunting areas before they open up. Finding big piles of sheds and rat hole them. I've known people that have done this in their younger,

more reckless days. He's just going to make little stashes and then wait for the season to open and then go up and get it. But he got caught doing it multiple times. For the first offense, he was ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and subject to a five-year worldwide ban on hunting. He was also ordered

to not set foot for five years on the National Elk Refuge near Jackson or in Teton or Yellowstone Parks. Says the tactics were of cash to pay. That's a 123-year-old law on the refuge. Wow. Oh. he was charged both times under the Federal Lacey Act. For you folks at home, here's what

the Lacey Act is. The Lacey Act means that if you break a game law, like let's say you're in Michigan and you poach a deer, okay, you poach a buck, and your taxidermist is in indiana and so you poach a buck and you drive an hour south to bring it to your taxidermist in indiana you violated michigan's law by poaching a deer you also violated federal law because you committed a wildlife violation across state lines the reason they brought that into play was when they were first trying to establish game laws and conservation

laws they had states that would just turn a blind eye to violations so like the plume hunters in florida who would hunt for feathers for hat adornments it was illegal but no one cared not no one cared they wouldn't do anything about it florida's just lax about enforcement so then they'd say okay we're gonna make a thing that if you're a plume hunter and you shoot an egret in florida and then bring those feathers to sell them to a dealer in new york i don't care what the state says you violated a federal law now and you could really go after poachers and that was like that was in 1900 that was like very important to getting uncontrolled market hunting under control with the laciac so this guy had a laciac violation because he was bringing those antlers across state lines into montana and then it was also

selling them online yeah he's a dog chew dealer i understand that's the way i understand it so he was going out and collecting inventory. And I thought I read somewhere that he was cutting them up and bringing them out in horse saddlebags. But I'm not sure if he's actually cutting them up out on the range or if that was just the way they made it sound in the article. Ben, you've probably seen some crazy stuff, shed hunting. Because I feel like shed hunters that I know that are

real serious about it have seen some pretty wild stuff like that yeah yeah for sure I've seen well I've just seen a lot of people do shady stuff like that I mean that happens a lot like the stashing is is very normal like I found stash piles before more people stashed them during closed times. You know, you walk up and there'll be five or six in one pile or something. But, um. And then what do you do? Take them.

I'm not going to leave them. Oh, because you're there during season. Yeah. If I'm there legally and there's a pile. I mean, I'll look around. Like, I'm not trying to rob them from a guy who maybe just like made a little pile and went to go look for more that day. You know, but if they're clearly there from before the season, it's really only happened one time like that where they were clearly there from before the season and I just took them.

Um, we had a, it was a real, a tragedy where not too far from here, a guy was killed shed hunting, killed by a grizzly last spring shed hunting. Yeah. And when they did the investigation investigation he had done one of those yeah he had a little stash antlers he found left him on a ridge went down into a bowl and got killed by a bear but yeah so he had his little micro stash there yeah it's pretty common you know if you get into a good handful of antlers to just haul them out later as long as it's all legal you know hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear

from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast.

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

Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. How did you get into the custodian business um i kind of fell into it it was uh i was doing i was going to school to uh be a paramedic i was gonna be a paramedic firefighter and i had a year in between finishing my emt one and two and then starting a paramedic program i had to like wait a year for the course to come up again. And so I moved to the city where the school was, where I was going to go to paramedic school and just was looking for kind of a job in the meantime. And a buddy of mine was the head custodian at a local high school offered me a job. And so I started working there for him, just kind of waiting for that course. And then I just decided I didn't want to be a paramedic. So I started just working as a

janitor or whatever. And it gave me a lot of free time on my phone. I started building this brand while I was working on the clock. So thanks to the Washington County School District sponsoring me in a way. Yeah. And then I kind of just transformed into this from that. But were you a daytime or nighttime custodian? I was a swing shift custodian. So I'd go in like 2 PM. I'd be there for all the evening activities, football games, whatever was going on at the school. And I'd have like a cleaning list and I would get off like at 10 p.m. Were you popular with the kids? I mean, I didn't really see them too much because they were all leaving school when I got there. But like I had some, yeah, definitely some buddies and stuff.

Like there were some kids that were fun to be around and there was a lot of obnoxious ones too. When you started getting really into shed hunting, when did you get really into shed hunting? I got crazy into it maybe 12, 13 years ago. Right before I got married is when I got really, really into it. But I've been doing it off and on since I was 14, 15 years old. Why? I mean, do you like them better like do you like them better hooked to the skull or better off the skull it's a toss-up it's tough um there's definitely been times like

when i was more into shed hunting than hunting um like would you ever be like oh i could shoot that big buck but i might wait because i could probably pick his antlers up after they fell off no just because the probability of getting them so low but i mean there's times where like you see a big bull get killed you're like damn i wish i could have found his sheds instead of seeing him die you know really yeah for sure and then when you got into it you got into it because of the market part of it yeah for sure like just the ability to be able to pay yourself back you know pay yourself a little bit of fuel money for going out and finding antlers. And then I really got into it because my brother-in-laws were just crazy about it since the early 90s.

They've been just wild about it. And where'd you grow up? Southern Utah. What town? Cedar City is where I was born, and then I live in Laverkin now. And they were making bank. I mean, they had a lot of antler back then but the prices weren't what they are now so i mean they it's kind of the same like now you can find less antler and

make the same amount of money but what are prices right now um i think the last i checked on elk it's like 17 to 18 a pound for a brown elk antler and then your hard white will be anywhere like 10 to 11 and then chalk like maybe chalk kind of has the most variation if you're if elk antler. And then your hard white will be anywhere like 10 to 11 and then chalk, like maybe chalk kind of has the most variation. If you're, if your antler buyer has a good market for chalk, you can get four, four dollars a pound, maybe out of your chalk antler.

And if he doesn't, maybe a dollar, $2. Do those prices fluctuate much? They do. Yeah. Like it seems lately they've just gone up a dollar or two every year. Oh. Um, and they kind of start off, like if a buyer gets

desperate to fill an order towards the end of the buying season, he might bump his prices up. So sometimes you can do better by hanging on a little bit. Yeah. And get maybe another 50 cents, dollar a pound. Do you know what kind of profit these buyers are making?

I don't know. I was a buyer for like maybe a year or two. And I was aimed for a dollar a pound, but I was middleman of middlemen, you know know. I was a buyer for like maybe a year or two and I was aimed for a dollar a pound, but I was middleman of middlemen, you know, like I was basically just using social media to find the seller, buying antler and selling them to another antler buyer. And I just tried to make a dollar a pound and buy as many as I could. Gotcha. So I think like on the top end, they're trying to make a few dollars a pound per antler, like yeah how many layers do you think there are in this um like 17 middlemen it depends when i was buying um the the buyer that i would sell to had a buyer that he sold to and he was an exporter at that time

most the antler was going overseas for medicinal type stuff and And I know, I mean, there had to be me, then him, then the exporter, and then whoever he was selling to in China. So it could be five or six layers to it. But a lot of it now is more, I mean, it can be direct to consumer because a lot of people who find them cut them and sell them for dog chews or they sell them to a buyer who cuts them and sells them for dog chews. So it's kind of lessened the tears of the market a little bit what what's been your thoughts on uh well no yeah i'll ask you this now then we'll go back to we'll go back to earlier what's

been your thoughts on sort of what i gather from my perspective to be increasing sensitivity around shed hunting activities and how they affect animals at their most vulnerable state in the late winter. I think it's, I feel like it's overblown. Like from what I can see in my personal experience, I'm fully biased. I'll a hundred percent admit that I want, I want to shed hunt and I want to shed hunt more. I hate shed seasons. I've been an opponent to shed seasons almost across the board.

Have you? Yeah. Okay. Walk me through it. Walk me through. First, I want you to see how good you can do. Articulate for me why someone would want shed seasons.

So the theory behind most shed seasons is animals are depleted. You know, shed hunters on the landscape displaces the wildlife further depletes them and causes an increase in winter kill that's the idea and that sounds you know pretty solid common sense makes it makes sense to most people and that's why these seasons continually get a lot of support in my experience i don't think that's necessarily true um i guess i has to put like an asterisk there because in certain cases it can be true.

Like this winter with the snow levels, how they have been, like I actually ended up supporting the seasons that were put in place, like emergency closures in Utah this year. So you like a more surgical approach. Yeah, that's always been my thing is I want them to actually do the research

and decide which areas need to be open and which areas need to be closed instead of just saying a mass, okay, state's closed. Because I live in the desert. I live in the South end of the state. Our deer don't really win or kill. Our elk don't win or kill. They never will rarely get snow bound. We don't deal with the same issues as the rest of the state, but we always get shut down. And I understand their logic. Like they're trying to keep the Northern people from flooding us out in the South. So it's not, no season isn't the best solution. I don't like the full closure either.

So I don't know. I guess I'm not really making a great argument for my case, but my experience is that I can shed hunt without disturbing animals for the most part. Like you are going to bump them, but I think that they're a lot tougher than people give them credit for. And I think displacing an elk, like if it stands up out of its bed and identifies you as a threat or not a threat, it stands around for a minute,

maybe runs up the hill and beds back down. I don't see that actually causing much harm. And I don't, I've never seen any data to support that it does. So that's where I'm at. Yeah. I could see that it might be theoretical, but there's an issue we've been covering a lot is the trail cam issue.

And in talking about Arizona, Utah, Kansas public lands banning trail cams, we've gotten into like, what are the different motivations for it where some people that that are some people that don't like trail cams are coming and saying violation of privacy there's an assumed privacy on public lands yeah and and it's a violation of privacy there's people that come and make this argument like oh it's not fair it's like the whole fair chase thing about trail camps but we had a frequent guest on the show jim heffelfinger who's a biologist in arizona he sent us some materials on the trail cam question in arizona and there was a wrinkle to it that i hadn't considered well when he sends us a picture of a waterhole in arizona that has 15 cameras on it yeah on a strip i'm sure a concern that was articulated in the documents that he sent was something i hadn't thought of it was if you put 15 cameras first off you have limited water

you're in a desert ecosystem you have limited water you have 15 people monitoring, pulling cards on cameras. Yeah. And I hadn't thought about, he's like, the amount of disturbance that is happening of a large group of animals, that's their place to go get water. The amount of time they need to be able to spend there getting cool getting water and the constant disturbance of people coming to check the cameras at the water is one articulation of what is the issue so that's not even a thing i'd considered yeah is i never considered wildlife disturbance but i don't know that someone would go and measure i suppose you could go and measure the cost of that yeah it'd be a tough thing to actually determine because, I mean, how do you look at the health of the animal versus the pressure and determine that that was the cause? But I think, like you're saying with the trail cameras, I think that's a great argument for cell cameras, you know, is to those people don't have to go out there and actually check that.

Yeah. That water source. But, yeah, it is a concern, especially out there in Arizona where there's that many cameras while the hunts are going, when it was allowed to run cameras during the hunts, those outfitters and guides were checking those cameras daily to see what had come in during the night. So yeah, there's a legitimate argument there. when you started shed crazy like just like a a sort of brand company whatever around shed hunting do you imagine it being uh do you imagine yourself being mainly into shed hunting as a because they're cool to look at or because you because you can make money messing around outside which is everybody's dream yeah i always it was always kind of both to me like i love antlers i still like go crazy that's stupid i love antlers. I still like go crazy.

That's stupid. I love antlers. No, you go crazy. Yeah, go crazy for antlers. But yeah, I still am, I love to find big antlers. I love the idea that you can go to these premium units and find, you know, giant bulls and giant bucks without having to get a tag there. You get to experience those places. But yeah, there was always a financial element to it for me. In the beginning, it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to grow this brand so that I don't have to work anymore.

It was just everybody on Instagram seemed like they were starting pages that were like, you know, whatever, big buck killer outdoors. And it was a thing to do. And so I'm like, oh yeah. I want to check that page out. Probably exists. And I'm like, I'll start an instagram about my passion on the side which is you know finding sheds and finding antlers and i lived right down the road from muley crazy i'm like oh shade crazy sounds pretty cool so i just ripped them off kind of

do uh how how would you okay i think that that uh lion hunting is really really hard hound hunting for lines especially dry ground lion hunting i think it's like very very very hard probably like maybe one of the most challenging outdoor pursuits. Okay. I think that, um, land, I think that like, uh, trapping, uh, fox and coyotes is hard, technically difficult. Okay. Yeah. And then you can like kind of rank all these

things out, right? Mm-hmm. Um, all these different outdoor pursuits. Do you, like, do you think that there's how much uh skill do you feel like how much skill are you utilizing as a shed hunter um this i don't know that i would even call it skill as much as like determination it's like but but think about it for a minute though and i don't put words mouth, but you have to know where they are. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Where are they standing on the day when their antler falls off? Yeah. You do put a ton of time into the online maps and understanding like the feed that they're utilizing, migration routes, where they are when the snow melts, where they're able to travel to because of snow. What the wind's doing, where they're able to travel to because of snow, what the wind's doing, where they're able to find places to get out of the wind. You look at stuff like where the green up happened first, what kind of grass they were hitting early spring.

So there is like a large barrier to being able to do it successfully is, and you have to learn all that stuff. But then like, there's a lot of places to like, even in Arizona where there's just big cedar flats that have elk antlers in them. And it's just those places you walk enough miles, you're going to find sheds. So it's like anything, it's like saying, you know, ranking it next to mule deer hunting or whatever

to kill a big mule deer, a big mature buck is hard to kill any mule deer is not that difficult. Yeah. But shed hunting is the same way. If you want to find, you know, smaller antlers or a lot of antlers, it's not terribly difficult to just find wintering ground where there's a lot of animals hanging out and you'll be able to find a few. If you want to target big bulls on premium units that a lot of other people

are also targeting or big mule deer, then you, you do have to do your homework. So it's tough. Like for me, I think finding a big set of sheds is harder than like killing a bull on a unit in Utah. Really? For me, it has been. I've killed a lot more elk than I have found like giant sets of sheds. Right now, let's say you go to take a premium unit. Like name a, it doesn't need to be one of your favorite ones, but name like what you'd regard as a great shed hunting state locality whatever however you want to put it oh i mean arizona's good state there's a bunch of good units in arizona what percent of the

antlers get picked up let's say you took a unit it doesn't need to be a specific one take take in your mind a great shed antler unit a destination shed antler unit yeah uh what percent of the antlers that hit the ground i think you could get as high as 50 you can probably kind of gauge it on how many like whites and chalks you're finding yeah and with the popularity of it if there's chalks it's like oh someone didn't find that one. Right. That's the coolest thing about finding a chalk is that people missed it for multiple years, you

know, and you just hit the right line to pick it up. But I think, yeah, I think in very popular units, they get half and maybe more. Just judging. I mean, there are places now where I shed hunt where you're pretty much only finding browns. So that most of them get picked up.

Did you know you're sitting across the table from an exceptional shedhunter? I didn't. I don't even try. Wow. He's drawn to them like a... Like a magnet, huh? Like a fly to excrement.

He is kind of... Like that one we found in... Michigan? Michigan, yeah. Seth found an antler. What one we found in Michigan. Seth found an antler. What'd you find in Michigan? He found an antler hanging from a grapevine. Michigan's a tough state to find a shed eye. I ducked under it.

So as to not poke my eye out. I found a couple in Kansas on his last trip. You could be walking, five people walking in a line, Seth's taking up the rear, and all of a sudden you look and he's holding an antler. No kidding. Well, the shed eye's a line, Seth's taking up the rear, and also you look and he's holding a handler. No kidding. Well, the Shed Eye's a real thing. He's got a Shed Eye. It's like a Jedi, but a Shed Eye.

You know what I think it is? I think I'm a bad hunter because I'm always looking at the ground. T-shirt idea. Because you always find cool shit laying on the ground, like arrowheads and sheds and cool rocks. I can't stop. I want you to finish, but I'm so hung up on... Can we have Hunter

make a shirt that says Shed Eye Warrior? It's like... Are you speaking my language over here? I think it's out there. So, Shed Eye Warrior... No! Yeah.

I think I follow a dude that's account on Instagram is Shed Eye... Shed Eye... Warrior. So, it looked like... what is it like like a Jedi it looked like Luke Skywalker holding the antler does he have merch I don't know I think maybe I've seen it out there but I bet I've been Shed Eye Warrior where it's Luke Skywalker you

know how like you know how like uh it's like he's got Leia and everybody and he's kind of on the top he's holding that lightsaber up in the sky yeah he could be holding yeah but he's kind of on the top and he's holding that lightsaber up in the sky. Yeah, he could be holding, yeah. But he's holding an antler. I like that. Return of the Shed Eye. Let me find him. It'd be sad. Listen, don't. You have a mustache.

Let's do this, but don't ask any freaking lawyers about it. Oh, no, there's no. Oh, yeah. Someone already did it? Yeah, but. Damn it. I Googled it.

Nothing's coming up. It might just be like a username for somebody on Instagram. Go straight to Instagram. But he's like, not... I think we're still good. I think we are

very still good. I actually just texted my other people. Oh, Shed Eye Master? Yeah, that's the one I've seen. He's got pictures of his girlfriend. So he doesn't care

that much about sheds. He's got pictures of his baby. He's not committed at all. Get that baby out sheds. He's not committed at all. Get that baby out of here. He's not Shedicated for sure. No, he's Shedicated because he does a lot of hunting and stuff too.

He's going to be stoked. Right? He's followed by Shed Crazy. I think I do follow him, yeah. Alright, never mind. He already came up with it. But live on SP, this was completely independent of him. And he can still make the shirt. Yeah, this was completely independent of him. Jedi warrior.

And he doesn't have a shirt. Maybe we do a deal where he gets a buck off every shirt. Hey, I said it. I want the buck off every shirt. But you didn't say it like Jedi. You said it like a Jedi. Oh, I said Jedi, yeah. But you meant it like Jedi.

If I say that, do I get the dollar a shirt? Yeah. Damn it. Nah, you can just do it. It's all right. You can have it. That one's free. I'll have some other good ideas in this podcast. I'll probably have to charge you for it. Nah, you can just do it. It's all right. You can have it. That one's free. I'll have some other good ideas in this podcast.

I'll probably have to charge you for it. Yeah. Yeah, I feel now like we can't do it because this guy already came up with it. Yeah, but does he have like a logo? Dude, it's called the Shed Eye Master. Come on. That's a good name, right? Yeah.

Yeah, but there's nothing that has to do with like spinoffs from Star Wars. Yeah, he's got his horses. The whole name is a spinoff from Star Wars. I'm going to text him after this podcast. Here's a Chetaket question for you. I'm going to write in. Chetaket. Dear Chester, I'm thinking about stealing someone's idea and making a shirt.

No, but you didn't steal it. Should I? You didn't know about it beforehand. We have proof because of this podcast. We definitely kind of came up with this idea ourselves not knowing about this guy we should probably reach out to him maybe maybe it's in the public domain scroll back and see how long it's been on instagram i mean if he has a good i mean if there is not a t-shirt out there he started with a

2013 jedi master do you think he invented jedi sorry, go ahead. If there's not a t-shirt out there with a guy that looks like a Jedi holding up a shed. Yeah, he's got none of that. We should be able to do it.

I think it's fair play. Mm-hmm. The jury says yes. I think everyone's got a yes. Why are you wavering, Steve? Well, because I feel bad now.

Please, um... Collab. I think everyone's got a yes. Why are you wavering, Steve? Well, because I feel bad now. Please. Collab. I might have to call the Shed Eye Master. Shoot him an Instagram message. Heads up. Yeah, because here's the deal, though, too. You said Shed Eye. Like, Game Eye. Shed Eye. um you said shedi like game i shedi when you said shedi did you were you thinking about how it

sounds like jedi or did you just mean a good game i shedi it's both right we call it the shedi we've called it the shedi forever but i mean it's not necessarily referencing star wars so it wasn't like a play on jedi i didn't like envision you know, Seth Foley decked out in Star Wars regalia. Wait, are you saying Chedi or Shed-Eye? Shed-Eye. I like Shed-Eye too. That's good. Let me see.

When you click on it, it says page not found, but someone made a Shed-Eye master t-shirt before. What's the site? Well, no, it's a cowboy wielding an antler. Yeah, but, I mean, we'll dig into it. It's close enough. Don't talk to any lawyers, Corinne. I won't. Anytime you get a good idea and you go to a lawyer,

they're going to be like, well, I recommend against it. I got it. We'll just wait for the cease and desist. That's like when Steve has to play a song on the podcast. Like, well, I can't really. Let's go check with the lawyer. We'll just never mind. Let's just not do it.

It's not going to happen. We're going to check with the lawyer. Just don't do it. Because they're going to tell you no. Every good idea that you think you have nowadays, it's really hard to find somebody. I've got a real good idea that I thought of the other day. Don't say it, Chet. Someone will steal it.

But I think it would be, I don't think I could do it unless it was with you guys. Tell me later. It'd be conflicting. Why did Shed Crazy become a humor site? It's like a comedy site. Yeah.

It's funny. Thank you. That's why I wanted to have you on because I always get like a mega chuckle. Oh, good. Yeah, it was really like kind of my wife's

doing so she's funny no she's not i mean she's not gonna listen to this so it doesn't matter she's not gonna listen yeah no she doesn't care what you do no really she doesn't even know where i she's texted me before like where are you again she doesn't even know but no she is actually pretty funny but um i kind of like when i started the page i thought people wanted like badass hunting content you know so i was trying to go down the road of like oh cool guy super tough yeah and like she would look at my instagram she's like this is like not even close to who you are like why do you pretend to be like a tough guy on the internet and so i started thinking about it did you have like kiss makeup oh i mean it wasn't tough. Like I didn't paint my face or go to the gym or anything like that.

So you didn't get any kind of, any kind of injections, drugs? No, I mean. Nothing. Maybe minor like light drugs, but. So she, I used to send her stupid videos. Like when I was out hiking, I'd just make dumb videos

and send them to her and she would just laugh at them and she'd be like, why don't you post these? Like, why don't you show people that like you have a good sense of humor? So randomly, I just started posting just stupid videos about, like, little Debbie snack cakes and energy drinks and whatever else. And they started doing way better than any of the Shed stuff I was doing.

So I just started rolling with that. Just got to see what sticks, you know? There's one you did. It was a while ago, but you did one about um it was like you talking like when someone asked you where you killed a buck or something like that yeah it was like just the most like obfuscating answer yeah i think it's that napoleon dynamite clip the guy talking about finding arrowheads but yeah i like that stuff man to me like i want hunting to be like fun i like the whole badass mentality thing is so old and it's so played out

and you have to like post a reel with like ass rock music in the background and like make yourself look cool yeah i hate that stuff oh i did one of those not too long ago i mean yeah jess was legitimately tough though yeah. Yeah, obviously. Tattoos and everything. His nickname at work is the muscle hamster. I could see it. I could see it. Oh, he'd beat your ass. I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm sure he would. Not if I had a shed, though. Yeah, right. Come here, you muscle hamster. He'd beat you like a pervert oh god so then you started doing that but like how do you uh you quit your job yeah but it wasn't you didn't quit your job because you're making so much money selling antlers or was it well that was part of it like you don't make that much as a custodian, like newsflash. Um, you just don't. So like it's, you just don't have leverage.

Right. Wasn't, yeah. Wasn't that hard to replace my income. So I wasn't earning a terribly like large amount of money. Did you go to college? Uh, just my EMT stuff is all I did after high school. Um, but we kind of were in a place financially, like we got totally out of debt. We just decided that like, we were going to do that before we kind of did it. So I could go to paramedic school, um, sold our house and sold all our stuff and got to where we had zero debt. And we really needed like very little money to live on every month. So you were living in a house you bought and then sold it to rent. Yeah.

Wow. That's a crazy move. No one does that move. Yeah. It's like not good. It's not a good move. Usually like even in our circumstances, well, I just have, I hate debt. I hate being saddled by debt. It makes me feel like I can't do what I want to do. So I just got rid of the house and the cars and everything. And we had a couple hundred thousand in debt and we knocked it out in like six months and sold what we needed to. And then I started picking up antlers to get out of debt. Like a lot of it, I would be like,

Oh, if I can go find five or six elk sheds, that's five or 600 bucks. I can pay off on just like stupid credit cards and stuff that we had. So we knocked all that out. Oh really? Yeah. Do you sell everything Ben?

Um, like, yeah, like 99% probably. Do you got a big pile of weird shit you found? I got a decent, like a storage locker full of just like, yeah, like 99% probably. Do you got a big pile of weird shit you found? I got a decent, like a storage locker full of just like unique or big stuff. Hmm. Yeah.

I got some, some crazy stuff. It's almost like a little savings account. Kind of. It's like times get tough. You just sell that shit. Yeah. Yeah. I've kind of been through some tough times though.

So most of it's kind of got culled off. I have to gauge how much I'm attached to any specific antler a few times. So how much, what's your average antler weight? Like for elk? No, not average. What's a big elk antler weigh? 10 pounds. It's a big antler.

Okay. We had a guy talk about, he must have been talking about, like, an extraordinary one. Because we had a guy, wasn't he saying, like, a 20-pound antler or something like that? I mean, that's just an insane antler, right? That's top 0, 0, 0.1%. Okay. Like, the biggest free-range elk sheds we've ever held is a set that my uncle found. And the heavy side of that bull weighs 17, and 17 pounds, 6 ounces.

But that's a 400-plus inch bull. It's a 400, yeah, 409 inch set of sheds. Got you. So, so absolute stomper trophy bull by anyone's standard. Yep. $60,000 Southwest reservation hunt bull. Yeah. Will throw a 17 pound antler.

Yeah, but not always. Cause I found one of my biggest single elk sheds is off of a 380-inch bull and it's a 6.5-pound antler. What? Yeah. It doesn't always translate. So much of it's just related to the amount of moisture

in the area. The desert bull is always way less. You can probably find heavy-ass antlers in Pennsylvania, elk sheds, but you can't sell them. Oh, really? Yeah. It's illegal.

Really? Yeah. Why? I don't know. You can't sell animal parts other than fur and stuff that you trapped. That's interesting. And they roll antlers into that. Mm-hmm.

If you go across state lines and sell them, is it a LASIAC violation? I don't know. Sure. I wouldn't say so. That's interesting. Hold on. Do you know the logic behind it? No, I think it's just...

Is that just with elk? No, it's with all sorts. I think California has something similar too. Because my buddies that live down there always just keeping them, keeping them. They said they can't sell them down there for some reason. Yeah. Unless they change that. But as far as I know, you can't sell antlers out of Pennsylvania.

Yeah, it just says PA.gov. I didn't open up the page directly, but part of it is it is unlawful for individuals to possess a shed antler to sell, barter, or trade, or to offer to sell, barter, or trade any shed antler. shed antler to sell barter or trade or to offer to sell barter or trade any shed antler that's wild that's from the game commission now let me click to see if there's any rationale grow up i don't understand the law i mean i'm not i'm not here i don't like to just start randomly you know being like well that's bullshit, but I don't understand the logic. I don't understand the logic that if a farmer found a elk shed antler on his place and it's not attached to the skull, so there's no question about, like you can tell an antler that shed naturally. There's no question that he shot the bull in order to sell 400 bucks worth of antler.

I just don't understand. I don't understand. Yeah. I mean, it says it's lawful for individuals to retain deer and elk antlers found on public land. So as long as they were shed through natural causes, but what's unlawful is for them to possess it to sell, barter, or trade. So, yeah. I heard the public land thing. You want to know a crazy-ass deadhead rule?

Remember when I drew that Ibex tag in New Mexico? Yeah. This is crazy. And we found, at the base of a cliff we found some ibex horns and so they don't shed right so it's it's like if you find the horn it's something died not shed so it's different but we called the game warden you were there weren't you grab yeah remember that grabbed them you got to call the game ward. The game ward comes out and says,

here's what you owe the state if you'd like to have that. And it seemed like you could almost kind of barter with them, right? Oh, yeah. The game warden totally decides it on the spot. He just decided it right there. What did he say, 20 bucks? Yeah, it was something like that.

And you pay in cash. They give you a receipt. Or it might have been like, we offered 20, he's like bucks? Yeah, it was something like that. And you pay in cash. Yeah. They give you a receipt. Or it might've been like, we offered 20. He's like, how's 15? Or something like that. Yeah. And then he proceeded to check our licenses. Yeah.

But we were dialed. After he called him. He also checked our film permits. No, he's like, while I'm here, let's have a look. Yeah. But at first I was like, what the heck? But then, you know, you're like, this guy's doing his job.

Yeah. He's doing a good job. For those Ibex horns, I kept one. No, I didn't. Kevin Murphy kept one. I don't know who else kept the other one. I have one. You have one?

Yeah. And he wanted like 20 bucks. But if you found some big like 200 inch muley deadhead, he might come and say, they can just as well come and say, I don't know, 500 bucks. And then one time I was at a thing in New Mexico where they auction off all the

shit, all the roadkill stuff, all the confiscated stuff, and they'll pull out like tank or muley deadheads, and you can bid on them. Yeah. Yeah, Utah does that every year too. They have a big auction every year. Hey, folks.

Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right.

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

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So if you look at it, let's say you find, what is the value of, when you just said you go out and find a few antlers and that's a couple hundred bucks or whatever. You can go out to a place and find like, let's say you find a 350 bulls, one side off a 350 bull.

You could be holding a couple hundred dollars. Yeah, if it's a brown antler, yeah, you could, $100 to $200 pretty easy if it weighs up good. Could you sell? I could see the appeal of that because you could go trap a beaver. You got to trap them, haul them, all the shit you need to buy flesh them yeah stretch them go in and out and he's not worth a portion of that no yeah and that takes specialized equipment yeah this i mean you can meet your antler buyer when you get to town and he'll hand you cash and you're done so can you sell like a a big set for more money than if it was just like a, like an individual antler? Sometimes.

Or could you sell them to like niche markets, like a taxidermist or something that. Yeah. You can sell them to collectors sometimes if they're over like, you know, on elk, like big, big, like 380, 370, 380 plus. Or the best thing you can do is if you find a set, like an older set off a bull that somebody's

killed, a lot of times they'll want them so you can make a deal with them. Oh. Or, you know. I never thought of that. Yeah. Sometimes you can get a little better price for like a big set from a buyer too. Like if you have a big set, they might, I mean, what I usually do if I have something big or special, I'll just kind of set it aside and just ask the buyer if that's worth anything more than regular poundage to him. Yeah.

And he might have some sort of a market for it. and then i've got like maybe an extra dollar a pound or a couple dollars a pound out of something big gotcha but if you find like a super freak thing that's just cool to look at that's a whole different market though it can be yeah you're just set up can you just set up a website with being like weird ass shit i found it's not a bad idea um i should write that down too. Do check with the lawyer on that one. Yeah. I sold a couple on eBay

just out of curiosity to see what they would do. And they both sold for a ton. I posted them on my Instagram. I'm like, I found these sheds. They're on eBay. Go bid on them. I sold the elk shed for like $950.

What? And then a deer shed for like, I think it was like 280 or 290 really but you can get a little more for a nice match set too right yeah depending like same if they're above that trophy class like on deer they ought to be over like really 180 or have somebody has to have some attachment to them the the a shed i have that i feel would be of exceptional value but it has a very prominent position in my home i have a moose paddle that was burned a little bit in a fire and has a weird drop tine coming off the back of the paddle so So it stands like a three-legged tripod.

Yeah, freestanders, man. There's that cool little. And it stands like totally on display with a little prong of growth coming out the back. And you can tell that it's been burnt, singed and burnt in a fire. That's cool. It's a beautiful.

While you're here, you should go out to Three Forks to, what's that guy's name? Jim? Oh, the Shed Antler Museum? Yeah. Dude. Look at his collection. You ever been to that place?

Uh-uh. Really? No, I've never been out there. You'd like it the most. Yeah. Since you're here. I'd like to check it out. Oh, you gotta do it.

Yeah. It's just a collection he's got out there? Dude, it's, you can't. Oh, he's got like 60-some thousand antlers. Oh, really? Remember how I was talking about the Louvre earlier? Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

This is like the Louvre of antlers. And the building is also made of antlers. Really? Yeah. This guy is an eccentric, obsessed dude, and he was doing it when it wasn't a thing people did. Yeah. He has the craziest. He's one of two people I know that legit found a bear trap.

Oh, really? Like the old grizzly traps In the woods found a grizzly yeah In the woods found it I've always wanted to find one of those You and me both yeah My buddy Mike found one and he found one That's cool yeah I'd like to check it out I could spend some days there I'm sure We did a show from there

He's a hell of a gardener too He lives a couple blocks a gardener, too. He lives a couple blocks from me. Yeah, you guys are neighbors. Right down the road, yeah. Jim Phillips is his name. You ever go over there? No, I haven't.

It's unbelievable, dude. I saw some pictures. I don't know if maybe you guys posted them, but it looked like the inside of a barn or something. Yeah, that's it. We have pictures on the website. He's a craftsman, man. He's an obsessive collector. I mean, he's a collector of weird rocks, trees.

I don't know. That's cool. He's obsessive. Probably, I don't know, might be a hard man to live with. He seems lovely. He's also a writer. But the amount of work. Everything he touches is, is, is everything around him is like thousands of hours. Yeah.

Yes. It's like, see that garden? You look at the garden and be like, that looks like thousands of hours. Yeah. See this, uh, this shit I did with the trees I planted to like, that's thousands of hours. Um, everything he does. All the rocks he has yeah and then what he does with them his whole front bed in his house is all like instead of mulch it's all uh fossilized wood that he found and brought back that's so cool thousands of hours yeah it sounds like my wife's grandpa he was like, picking up antlers in the 60s, 70s, and just to have them in his yard. When he passed away, like, he had 100-plus deer antlers just in his planter in his front yard.

Yeah. Just went out and got them because he thought they were cool. Imagine if you took all the time you spent doing, like, dumb, non-memorable stuff and spent it doing, like, obsessing over your space and like finding things and building things out of things you found it it's a i would like i love this place he's he's a was a great guest great guy um i think that his place would be as interesting to someone who is interested in human behavior as it would be to someone that's interested in human behavior as it would be to someone that's interested in shed antlers i mean this in the crin's laughing i mean this in the nicest most flattering way possible yeah it's like it's interesting to see how different people

focus their energy and their time and that is like a visual representation of God knows how many hours of someone's mental focus. Yeah. Yeah. And he, at some point early on, had to have envisioned in his head some aspect of what it was going to look like in the end. Meaning when, I'm not trying to equate this to the pyramids. I am. When someone started making the pyramids, they were like like and it'll look like this when we're done right yeah do you know how much money and poundage that is i was just gonna say you're probably gonna eye that and like estimate he's never sold an antler i've trades he's never

sold he trades and finds that's's respectable. That's commendable. He'll find a bunch of normal stuff and then trade it for the weird shit. Yeah, he likes the weird stuff, huh? Oh. And he's got little... He's got like clubs, like antler clubs. I mean, he's got all kinds of things that maybe would work very well for self-defense. No, you and him would be best friends.

I could spend a lot of time at that place for sure. I'll find his contact information for you. Yeah, you guys would be like best buddies. Did he find most of those? All of them

or he traded. Or he traded. Yeah, you guys get a kick out of each other. There's like a big... Oh, man. That thing's gnarly. A double bean bowl.

Jeez. He's got a few years on you. Yeah, I'll catch up to him. Give me some time. Well, I just mean in age. You won't catch him. Well, no, because eventually he'll stop. Right.

And then you'll. With diminishing opportunities, we'll see, though. Like, it's getting harder out there. Is it? Yeah, for sure. Are the good old days of shed hunting over? Yes and no. Like, you just, I mean mean you got to work for them so much harder now it used to be like we would literally drive out to nevada park in the desert walk and pick them up and now you

got to be pretty pretty calculated because the people interested in them yeah it's because these damn youtubers ruined it for everybody yeah ruined the finding of antlers. Have you gone down the path of getting a dog to do it? I, uh, not really. I, I started talking to a kid recently about getting one, but I just am not, I'm not a good dog owner. I'm just not home enough. Like we have a dog, it's a family dog and she's awesome. I love that dog.

But for me to take a dog with me everywhere I go, so much of it's like staying in hotels and driving around in my van. It's like taking care of a dog would probably be too much hassle at this point but someday i will when i'm back to kind of just doing the western like the elk shed thing uh walk me through the idea that that you wanna uh you have a quest to find a shed antler in all 50 states in one year. Yeah. I don't know if I'll do it in a year. Like the idea was between this shed season and the end of next shed season.

So it could be like a year and a half. Yeah. But yeah, that's the goal, man. I started talking about it with my buddy Josh like five or six years ago. And I always wanted to do it. And I was going to do it the year of COVID, which is 2020, and everything got so screwed up I couldn't do it then. So as soon as it the year of of covid which is 2020 and everything got so screwed up i couldn't do it then so as soon as we got out of that darkness i started planning

trying to figure it out so if you imagine the pile all 50 of the shed antlers in a pile how many whitetail sheds are in that pile oh man a lot like 30 something and there's one axis deer yep from hawaii yep. There's probably two or three moose sheds. Yep. Moose trips planned and figured out right now. Caribou maybe. I think we'll get a caribou. It's kind of in the works.

Maybe a Sika deer. Maybe a Sambar. I'm not opposed to picking up a couple exotics while I'm out and about. Sure. In Hawaii you'll have to yeah for sure hawaii uh you know what if you to get a glimpse of what shed hunting used to be like probably i mean if you go way way back there's all kinds of areas in alaska where no

one's going to pick it up there's no way to get it out of there right and you'll see like a saddle you know like a pass and you'll fly over it and it'll be literally dozens. Yeah. Like literally dozens of antlers. That sounds awesome. In a paddle. Or you'll be flying up a braided channel of a stream that's all willow flats. And you'll be flying up.

It's just like moose antler, moose antler, moose antler, moose antler, moose antler. You know, just everywhere. That's the stuff I dream about. Usually at like, usually if you go to any landing strip in Alaska that are down along the river, that most of them are like down along the willow flats, you just often are landing in willow flats. And you get like, oh, we've got to wait an hour for the next plane or whatever. And you just start cutting loops. You will find a moose antler. Really? Oh yeah. That's sweet, man. That next plan or whatever. And you just start cutting loops. You will find a moose antler. Really?

Oh yeah. That's sweet, man. That's. They rot, you know, they're nasty. Yeah. They rot, but yeah. Well, I talked to some guys up there that are really good, you know, shed hunters in Alaska.

And that's, I mean, they say they just, it's not finding them. It's just the logistics of getting them to anywhere you can even collect them or sell them or whatever. Yeah. We met a guy that does it for moose out of a super cub and he just lashes them to the struts.

But yeah, but he's looking, he's picking up huge brown moose sheds. Yeah. And it apparently the money is good enough to that. You're like burning that level of fuel. Yeah. What's a, what's moose, moose shed worth versus antler like per pound it used to be the highest like when i first was really getting into selling antlers everybody wanted moose but i think it's kind of slumped off a little bit comparatively um i think there's i

can't remember if i read it maybe it was caribou but there's one type of antler that's not as nutrient dense for like a dog chew and the hardness isn't right for dogs so it doesn't have as desirable of them it might that might be caribou but um well that stuff is exceptionally hard yeah yeah i've heard that but i know the markets for moose is down a little bit i think it's like maybe 15 or 16 dollars a pound last i heard another way down another thing about caribou which is interesting um it's like maybe $15 or $16 a pound, last I heard. Oh, wow. It's not way down. Another thing about caribou, which is interesting, it's got flex. Really? A lot of flex. Huh.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever really held like a big caribou antler. Oh, you can take a big ass antler, put one in on the ground and press the top. Really? Oh, yeah. Very bendy. Like bendable wire? Oh, yeah.

It's got flex. Really? Yeah. You'll see those caribou running, you know, and stuff. It jiggles. Really? Yeah. That's cool.

It'll bend, it'll bounce back like hard wire? It's like do-ing-a-do-ing-a-do-ing. Or is it like almost pliable? You can bend it and you can just... Well, no, it goes right back, but it's got spring to it. Do they think they break less because of that? Man, you know where they talk a lot about this is in john mcphee's coming into the country he talks about the tool use of caribou antlers

and talks about but i can't remember i have to see if i can find a cliff note somewhere well well that sounds like a good read so when you do the all 50 uh what's the goal of picking up a shed antler in all 50 states? That's it. Just a quest. Can I follow up on that? Is it like you have a standard for size measurement or you'll like step foot in a state and be like spike. Okay.

Oh, I already did that. Yeah. Yeah. Like we got it to Arkansas. We met up with my buddy Austin down there and he just had some public land that he shed hunts occasionally and we got out of the van, we crossed the road, walked up the hill and boom, spike shed. I'm like, get back in the van, boys.

We're out of here. Count it. We've knocked her off. How many states do you got so far? 14. And that's just since March. Are you going to find one here while you're here? Yeah, totally. We're going tomorrow. I'm meeting up with Dylan from Onyx and we're headed here to Montana to look for elk antlers.

I got a little, well, you know what? The water's up right now pretty bad. Yeah. Got a spot? Yeah. Oh man. I think that I have a spot where you could very, very, very close by. That's what I like to hear.

Go find some sheds. Yeah. I can take you and pull you. Don't what I like to hear. Go find some sheds. Yeah. I could take you and pull you in. Don't say it on the air. I'm not going to. Water is high right now. Water is high. It's very high.

I went and looked a little something, something this morning for something. Did you? And I couldn't get there because the water was high. A little something, something for something? No, I can swim. You can't even tell us what you're looking for.

No. I'll tell you all there. When we leave here, I'll take you to a spot and I'll show you and I guarantee you'll go in there and find one. Really? If you got a good shed eye. I'm down. Yeah, I got the shed eye. I got the shed eye. You know what I'm talking about.

Do I? Maybe. What kind of a shed would it be? Whitetail. Right on. I like picking whitetail sheds. I found a new affinity for it. I got just the spot for you man let's go I'm not going send me in then

that's fine I'll show you where perfect you'll be there in not long that's good I like

I like urban antlers I used to pick a lot of mule deer sheds in town in Cedar where I grew up. They would just come into town at night and feed vacant lots and everything. We'd go pick them up. One of the biggest deer sheds I ever found came out of a vacant lot next to our hospital in town. Really? Yep. Nice.

If someone came and said, I'm going to take all your sheds, but you can only have one shed, and that's the only shed you can have for the rest of your life. What shed would it be? Oh man, that's tough. I have this, this Nevada bull that I picked up and it was like, it was cool because it was the first set I ever found in this new area. I went out there exploring, never been anywhere near there and, uh, hiked all over, never found really any sign or anything i got up on this point to glass i put up my binoculars like your glass and for sheds oh yeah yeah we glassed for antlers a lot i remember setting the binos or spotting scopes i'll bring a spotter if um if i'm looking at big enough country but most of the time just binoculars on a tripod it's so funny

you say that because that's another way hunting moose. You find so many moose sheds glassing. Just spot them scanning around. That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tip. Glassing for sheds.

Hot tip. That might be a good episode for the show, glassing for sheds. But I wonder if we should claim it like, oh, no. Glass of brasheds. Just call it Shed I Wore. Yeah, something like that. Oh, no. Anyways, go on. So I glassed up after like, yeah, one thing I like to do when I'm glass of brasheds,

I'll put a timer on my phone and I'll make myself glass for that long. Because otherwise I'll get distracted and I won't put in the actual energy. How much time? I set a timer for 20 minutes. One spot? Mm-hmm. Do you have like a strict grid How much time? I set a timer for 20 minutes. One spot? Mm-hmm. Do you have a strict grid that you follow? I try to just follow terrain.

Like I do, I do. I mean, I do grid, but I'll just follow the ridge down, pick up the next ridge, and go back up. If I'm going too fast, I try myself to slow down. As you're talking,

I'm thinking how many times I've glassed up mule deer sheds, too. Yeah. You can see them from a long ways away. But I've never sat down to glass a shed. Yeah. But you're just glassing and be like, hey, there's a shed.

Yep. Yeah. It works the same. I could see how one would discover that. Huh. But I glassed up a giant five point side out there, like an elk side. And I was really, wasn't even expecting there

to be elk in that spot necessarily. And, uh, it was a long ways away. I got over to it and it was busted but it was a great big like a 370 type side off of a bull and i walked up the ridge and his other side was right there and it's just this big webbed out and it's split on its fifth point and it's fourth and it has a little brow tine so i was like nine points on it total just beautiful heavy webbed out and i think that's my favorite elk shed that i've ever found i probably you've hung on to it yeah and what i like about it is like

after i found those sheds i ended up finding like over the course of the next couple years probably 100 to 200 elk sheds in that little spot and it was just loaded up and i never would have gone in there if i wouldn't have seen that, that one side. Little hunting hole. And it's paid off multiple years. Oh yeah. I go back there every year at some point. So that's number one for me. Have you, uh, I know the timing's way off, but does, does your shed hunting activities inform

your hunting activities? A little bit. Um, like I do have some deer that I target and try to find their sheds specifically cause I can hunt them. But most of the time I'm heading to units that I'm never going to have a tag in, at least not for a long time, but it's helped like buddies, like my brother-in-law drew an elk tag in a unit in Nevada that I love to shed hunt. And it was a late rifle tag. So all those elk were right where they would be during shed time. So we were able to see some

of the bulls that I had antlers off of and use that knowledge to find big bulls right at that time. So, yeah, we use it a little bit. It's not like a major tool. What I wanted to ask about too, lay out for me how you're going to tackle the whole country. Are you being systematic about it? No, I'm not that systematic about anything. So you didn't go, I'll start in Florida and zigzag.

Well, I'll plan my road trips likezag. Well, kind of like I'll, I'll plan my road trips like that. Like I just did a road trip from Utah. I, first place I went was Texas and we found some antlers in Texas and then we shot over and I got, um, Mississippi and Alabama. And then we went North and got Arkansas.

Um, and then up through Missouri. Um, and then went to Wisconsin and got Wisconsin, hiked Yanni's place in Wisconsin. Oh, nice. You found one on the Labian summer camp? No, I didn't find it on his place. The one I picked up was in Travis's, which is right next door.

Got it. And then I came home through North, South Dakota, Minnesota, and so I just tried to hit them all in a big loop. But here's the thing. Here's what you're not thinking about too clearly. You got to go back down now and do Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. Right. Did you do Alabama?

Yeah. I got Alabama. You should have mopped up that little corner down there. It's timing though. Like I can't, I mean, not trying to stay on the road for like two weeks, you know. Do you turkey hunt at all? Not much. I was going to say, if you're a turkey hunter

you could fit in a lot of turkey hunting with these with these shed trips for sure and there's a lot of people that when i tell them i'm coming they're like let's go hunt turkeys and look for sheds and i just kind of tell them like i'm here to get antler and get out of here so probably passing up some good opportunities does your wife like to look at the shed antlers no she doesn't give a shit. I'll bring them home and show them to her, and she's like, yeah, good job. Anyway, I've been home with the kids for seven days. I was going to ask about that. How many kids you got?

I have three boys. And how old? Seven, eight, and four. That's great. How long have you been married? 11 years. 11 years. What's the key to 11 years of marriage?

For us, it's to be gone a lot. That works great for us. You don't get burned out? No, like it's good because, I mean, me and my wife, we're a good team. And when I'm home, it's cool. And then after about four or five days, she's ready to send me out the door again. And I go do my thing. And she's a very like, she's a very career oriented woman.

She's very, I mean, she just handles stuff. And so I come home and help out and do what I can, see my boys. And then I'm gone again and she just handles everything. Do they like shed hunting? Yeah. Yeah. And the older they get,

the more like they want to be involved and stuff. I'm excited for them to get out of school this year. Cause we're going a bunch of places this summer. A little shed hunting family vacation. Yeah. We're going to go knock them all out. So that'd be good. That's a good movie, vacation. Yeah, we're going to go knock them all out. That'd be good. Sweet.

That's a good movie, man. Yeah, I'm excited for it. A little shed hunting road trip. That'd have broad mass appeal, wouldn't it? Yeah. Niche as it gets, baby. So this summer, where are you guys going to head? I'm going to start knocking out western states.

I left a lot of them undone and just not mess with because of the snow and because of the seasons and because you can get antlers all through the summer in the West. They don't really get eaten up that bad. And you can find elk antlers in the tall grass. So I'm going to start knocking those out. We're doing a thing with first light in June. So I'll go get Idaho then and then start working through.

I haven't done Nevada yet, which is like my bread and butter. Are there any States that you're most worried about? And you could use a little Intel and you might take this opportunity to, to throw out, Hey, shoot me a, a DM as the kids say about, uh, any hot tips for how I can pick off some certain state. I think the Northeast has me a little worried. Um, I have really covered like a lot of friends who pick up moose paddles in Maine. But like I really don't know my way around any of the stuff like Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey. I mean, there's a lot of states out there that I'm just going into totally blind and I don't really know anybody. So anybody in the Northeast would be super helpful. Then even like North Carolina, South Carolina, um, I have some, some friends

like in the Virginias, but I think it's, uh, West Virginia that it might be illegal to pick them up on public land. Oh yeah. So I'll have to find some, some private. I found sheds in New Jersey, just driving around. Really? There's so many deer. They're just, just laying around. That's, that's what I like to hear. See, stay right in the van. Maybe it won't be that, that big of a deal I know a guy that has so many Whitetails down his place That we were talking about shed antlers

And he was complaining about them Because they puncture his tires Well that's one of the pitches we use Not like the first thing that came to his mind When we talked about shed antlers Was get them out of his tires Why doesn't he just become a seller real quick Spend a day like.

Yeah, they don't. He's a farmer and he does, farmers like to farm and that's about all they want to, you know, not all they want to do, but I mean, it's just a demanding thing. And he's like, yeah, it was very critical of deer for dropping things that puncture his tires. Well, that's the number one, like positive response when we ask for permission is, is farmers saying like, yeah, get those damn things out of the field. Like, please. But like, we even call people and offer and be like, we're picking up antlers. We save you some tires. And I mean, you save them one, one of those track tires are expensive. Yeah. Tell them I'm from the tire preservation society. Yeah. That's honestly a decent pitch. We're doing some, hey, that's a shirt. Try to find a shirt in here somewhere. Yeah. We're doing some volunteer work. So it's a dude holding an antler, and it says tire preservation.

It's a Shed Eye Warrior, and he's like smashing a tire with an antler. Oh, that could get somewhere. There's got to be a t-shirt in here somewhere. We got a good shirt coming up because my buddy Tommy, he's in a cow milking tournament. A tournament. Yeah. Is this the blue collar scholar

blue collar scholar is that in Wisconsin listen he's serious about it man they got a team there's prize money you gotta milk

a wild cow you gotta catch a wild cow you gotta catch him yes I've now I know what you're talking

I just pictured him exercising his hands trying to get his no man you gotta catch a cow and milk it yep those are pretty rowdy.

No, that's a great term. They do that at like rodeos, I think, right? You got to get a drop of milk. So he's got a team and we're sponsoring his cow milking team. And then our artist did his team shirt. Spencer? Yeah, it's a gnome with a big old, one of them old styled jugs of milk. Riding a bucking milking cow.

That is great. And so Tommy needed five of them, but we made 105. We're going to sell 100 of them. Oh, I want one of those. Well, now we're going to sell 99 of them. I'm keeping one. 98. I wouldn't mind having one. I'd wear it if you got a 2X.

Well, we'll sell you one. So you guys have something to sell here. Yeah, all right. That's fair deal. Just give me some kind of a promo code. Give me a deal. We'll give you. Or if you trade me that five, you know what?

That five, that crazy five point. Yeah. Give me that. I'll give you that milking shirt. Milking shirt. Yeah, I'll think about it. All right. Well, tell people how to find you. You're going to stick around for trivia?

Yeah. Have you ever listened stick around for trivia? Yeah. Have you ever listened to the trivia show? Yeah, I did one during Hootenanny, I think, with First Light. So, yeah. Oh, I didn't hear. You know what's up. Did Spencer host it? Yeah, Spencer hosted it.

How'd you do? I think I got, I did okay. I think I got five right. Did you do it in the First Light store in Haley? Uh-huh. How'd you do? I think I got four or five right. I think I maybe got second or third.

Oh. Strong player. Yeah, I don't want to oversell it. He's going to throw you a bone. Or a shed. Okay. Oh. Oh, man.

Good stuff right there. Seth's on fire. Wow. He's going to throw you a bone, a bone a shed i'm gonna say that during the trivia show like it was my joke because it might be different people listening i'll let you have it some people know i stole it but i might catch a few that don't know because i meet a lot of people in the airport and whatnot that just listen to the trivia show it's taking over yeah they're like, you just like,

oh my God, my boyfriend listens to it all the time. Drives me crazy. Stuff like that. Yeah. What was that joke? Oh, throw you a shed.

But I don't know what it would be. How do you throw a shed hunter a bone in a trivia show? I'm sure we'll find out. Maybe it'll be. How do you throw a shed hunter a bone in a trivia show? I'm sure we'll find out. Maybe it'll be something about regulations. What states start blah, blah, blah.

Picking up on public. Or it'll be like, what state does not have a ton of excessive drinking? Yep. Probably like easy. Yeah, my home state. Yeah. I'd like to see that map if they're talking about green jello, though. It'd be a whole different story.

It was a green jello heat zone map. Uh-huh. Yeah. You guys are in jail now? Utah's're talking about green jello, though. It'd be a whole different story. It was a green jello heat zone map? Uh-huh. Yeah. You guys remember that? Utah's number one in green jello consumption. Which is what? Like marijuana? Not jello shots.

No, no. There's no innuendo involved. I'm talking about actual jello. Just green jello. Oh. I didn't know that. I thought it was like wheat jello. Why do they like green jello so much?

I don't know, man. I was just born there. It's something that we always eat Do you hunt pretty hard? Yeah Do you hunt animals more than sheds? Yeah probably now You do?

Yeah I used for a long time No way a long time I would shed hunt maybe like 50-75 days a year And then just hunt my couple tags in Utah Let me ask you this Because because this is the true test. All right. Have you ever shed hunted during hunting season? Oh yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot of times where like I'll start hunting and start glassing antlers and I'm like, screw it. I'm shed hunting now. And so I'll just go start walking ridges and, and picking up antlers. If I start finding sheds while I'm hunting, I lose interest in hunting. Uh, but it's dedication. Yeah. Shedication. Shedication. If I start finding sheds while I'm hunting, I lose interest in hunting. It's dedication.

Yeah. Shedication. Shedication. How about this? Like Shedhead, like a Grateful Dead fan, but like all those little rainbow bears, but they're holding different sheds. Huh? You guys are new to the Shed market, I can tell. There you go, Phil.

You guys are new to the Shed market, I can tell. This is awesome. Does that mean no? Yeah. That's completely original. Yeah. I think you could find it on Instagram too. It's all been done.

Damn it. Look it up, Phil. Shedheads. All right. Tell people how to find yourself. So you can find me on Instagram, at Shed Crazy. All one word. Same with YouTube, Shed Crazy.

You got a lot of subscribers on YouTube? Yeah. I don't know. Like maybe 30 25 30 000 there that's great yeah how how often you drop video i've been dropping two a week while i've been on this shed tour so you got some fresh content oh yeah there's a bunch i think there's at least i think i'm totally up to date on the usa tour so sweet everything's live over there does that live under its own house not really it's just all on my Shade Crazy channel

I'll make a playlist for it so people can just binge those episodes if they want cool that's great good luck man thank you

I appreciate it you sure you don't want to ask for any hot tips any spots I mean you just don't even need it I have a I have a

link on my Instagram that has like a Google form people can fill out and it's a bunch of questions and like you know information oh that's such a Google form people can fill out and it's a bunch of questions and like, you know, information. Oh, that's such a good way to. That was my wife's idea. Explain that to me again.

So it's a form they can go and fill. It's like a questionnaire basically like what state are you in? Like what kind of animals do you know? Like do you know shed hunts? What's your information? And then I can go through the back end and read the responses and then contact people via phone or email off of their responses. So he doesn't get bombarded with random shit either. I understand now. Yeah. I'm tracking because I'm getting like hundreds of DMS people like come here and I'm like,

oh sweet. Yeah, for sure. I will. But then I, they're so lost in the messages by the time. Oh, I understand. I get there. So that was a big help. So check them out. Shed crazy. Your real name doesn't even matter. Ben Dedimani. Yep, that's my real name. Nobody calls me that. Everybody calls me Shed. What's your wife call you? I don't know. I can't say it on the air.

All right, man. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, guys. But yeah, if you want to have a laugh, go to Shed Crazy on Instagram. Super funny videos. No toughness. No.

Zero percent tough. Just fun. Just laughs. No tough, all laughs. Yep. tough. Just fun. Just laughs. No tough, all laughs. Yep. All right, man. Thanks a lot. Oh, ride on, ride on, let it ride on.

I want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun. Ride on, ride on, ride on my long-winded heart. Sweetheart, we're done beat this damn horse to death. Take a new one and ride on. When a gun beats this damn horse to death, so take your new one and ride on. Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that'll help you beat the system.

This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you. The stuff we tote around in our pockets. The Stuff We Tote Around in Our Pockets Everyday carry is a term I'm only recently familiar with, but one I've been practicing since my feet hit the ground in the mid-60s. Now, that's only partially true because some of that time, at least initially, I was what was being toted around every day.

But from my earliest memories of having britches with pockets, I've had my go-to items that I couldn't leave the crib without, especially after I got out of the actual crib. Now, why is this important? Because a man needs to be prepared? Well, that's partially true. The correct answer is we all need to be prepared and carry things we need, so feel free to interchange pocket with purse, backpack, satchel, briefcase, sock, brassiere, or wherever you decide to cash something that you might need later. But what are these items? Are they there out of necessity and utility, or are they simply there for nostalgia, or maybe a little bit of both? I can't speak for yours, but I'm going to tell you all about mine. We're going to talk about it in a minute because first, I'm going

to tell you a story. Mr. Bill Chancellor was a tractor mechanic. He could more accurately be described as the tractor mechanic. I'm not saying he was the only one around because where I grew up, you couldn't swing a dead cat around more than once without hitting the tractor man, regardless of where you were standing. There was lots of folks that were tractor mechanics. What I am saying is if a tractor mechanic needed a tractor mechanic, he called Mr. Bill. Now, I can't remember where my dad got his tractor, but it wasn't in the best of shape, and he got a pretty good deal on it because of that. It was a 35 horsepower Massey Ferguson, and the red paint had long faded to a rust brown,

and the gray color of the engine and the chassis, that was all gone. There was a little padding left in the seat, and the only thing left that identified it as a massive Ferguson was a sliver of one of the decals that was on the hood. But the plan was to help Mr. Bill rebuild it from the floor to the ceiling in Mr. Bill's shop. So whenever Dad got away from work that summer, we worked on that tractor under the guidance of Mr. Bill.

I was probably 11 or 12 and trying to make a track in every track my daddy made at that time, and on this particular day, we were nearing the completion of the tractor restoration, and let me tell you, that joker looked good. The engine had been completely overhauled. The paint was original Massey Ferguson red and gray paint. Mr. Bill had replaced the decals with originals he'd gotten from the Massey Ferguson headquarters. I remember exactly where I was standing watching Mr. Bill as he adjusted something under the hood and he asked my dad above the racket of the tractor, he said, buddy, I can't reach my knife. Let me borrow yours.

Well, I started looking around for Mr. Bill's knife because I knew my dad was not about to hand him his when I see my dad reaching his pocket and hand it to him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wasn't allowed to touch it, and here Mr. Bill was scraping and gouging on metal with all his might. I was shocked. That was scraping and gouging on metal with all his might. I was shocked. That was a killing offense.

But my dad just looked on like nothing was happening. Like the previous 11 years of proper knife care instruction that he drilled into my head had never happened. That's a knife, not a screwdriver. That's a knife, not a hammer. And yet right before my eyes, I was watching Mr. Bill slap a knoll at the edge off my father's case knife, which was the knife everyone who knew Reeves was correctly spelled R-E-A and not R-E-E carried in their pocket. There were no exceptions. Dad got that pocket knife back, and eventually we loaded up and we headed home.

Now, we ain't got out of the driveway when I said, Dad, I saw you hand Mr. Bill your pocket knife. He kind of laughed, and he said, Son, you saw me hand him a pocket knife. He handed it to me. It wasn't a case. I was a little confused. I said, I thought we only toted case knives. He

said, we do, son, but we don't loan them. All right. Every day carry, EDC for short, the stuff in your pocket, or in my case, pockets, because I got stuff in just about all of them. This is learned behavior from someone in my formative years, like my dad, my grandpa, my older brothers, folks I spent the most time hanging out with, which was exactly how they came about carrying the items in their pockets. Every male member of the Reeves family carries a case pocket knife. Now, you ladies hold on to your hate mail. My sister-in-law has a collection of them that would rival most museums. I kid you not. My wife doesn't tote one because she has me, but if she wanted to, she would. And I would make sure she had a good one. Now I don't know what number of great-grandpas it was that started this tradition, but I can testify that the Reeves family has been patrolling Arkansas

and removing with a knife all the parts of animals that don't taste good since before the Civil War and way before the Case brothers got together in 1889 and commenced giving birth to what would become a staple in the Reeves boys' everyday carry, the case pocket knife. Around 1920, one of them jokers designed the Trapper model, and that's the one. That knife has become a part of our identity, and you can bet one thing for sure, if you see one of us and need a knife, we got at least one. We ain't gonna let you borrow it. Just show

us what you need cut and get out of the way. Anyway, let's start with the right front pocket of these American-made roundhouse overalls. Inside, you'll find a case pocket knife and a tube of chapstick. Now, some might say, why would a man tote a pocket knife in 2023? Same reason he tote one in 600 BC, when the first folded knife was invented. Did I say 600 BC? I sure did, because that's when some cat in Austria got tired of his wife hollering at him for poking holes in his britches every time he put his knife back in his pocket. Now I'm sure she had plenty of sewing to do without fixing his clothes every time he got finished skinning a mess of squirrels. So, he invented the folding pocket knife and marital bliss. And for at least 2,600 years, a man that was prepared

and ready to be a man has toted a pocket knife. And just think, 601 years after he invented it, say around 1 AD, I bet he was the most popular dad in Austria when the tales of him sitting around the tree cutting ribbons off a Christmas present quicker than a hiccup. Way to go, man in Austria. You, sir, are a legend. Now, if you're not prepared to answer the call when your wife hollers for you to cut something for her, I wonder about your priorities and her judgment. At the beginning of our marriage, Alexis would say, Brent, do you have your knife? And my answer would usually reference a question about a bear's wilderness bathroom habits. Now, years later, as she celebrates daily her lottery-like husband win, it's a simple, honey, cut this for me, and bam, the deed is done. I'm always ready.

A pocket knife can protect your family, skin your supper, help you build a shelter, open a package, perform surgery. The possible uses are endless. When you need one and have it, life is golden. When you need one and don't, there's not a more helpless feeling. This is normally where I chunk in a story about how I got in a bind one time and needed a knife and didn't have one. I can't do that. You know why? Because I ain't never been without one, except when we go to airports, concerts, and different places now where you can't tote one. I can't tell you how many times I'll pat my pocket for the knife that ain't there and the short-lived panic that startles me till I realize I didn't bring it with me on purpose.

Which reminds me of a time when me and Clay Newcomb were catching a flight out of northwest Arkansas. We were headed for British Columbia on a bear hunt and it's not a big airport but the security folks there are just as observant and dedicated to doing their job and making things safe for all of us. Fortunately, we were in Arkansas and not some big city airport when the x-ray man found the skinning knife in Claybo's carry-on. Apparently, our clothes and our gear leaned more toward a couple of hunters than a couple of fellas with nefarious intentions.

We called Misty and she came and picked up the knife. The TSA guy was cool about it. Besides, we had several others legally packed and secured in our luggage. We wound up not needing a skinning knife anyway, but that's a different story. All right, pocket knife. Covered that one pretty well, at least till we get to the other pocket. But until we do, what else is in the old right front pocket? Chapstick. Now, here's a disclaimer. Down here, we call lip balm chapstick, regardless of the brand, but we never call it lip balm.

Hey, I don't make the rules. I just lip balm. That's the end of the disclaimer. Chapstick. Not much you can say about that. Sure you can. You can dab it on a cut to help stop bleeding. You can use it to moisturize dry skin. Heck, you can even use it to help with building a fire and keep you from having chapped lips. My dad told me a joke when I was a kid about an old cowboy that rode into town from out on the range. Instead of rushing into the saloon to get him a cold drink, he hitched his horse up and pulled a brush out of his saddle and started brushing himself off. The mayor of the town was watching him as the cowboy cleaned up as best he

could, straightened his clothes, washed his hands in the trough, and tucked his shirt in. The mayor was impressed and started walking toward him to welcome him to the town when the cowboy walked around to the back of the horse, poked his finger in the horse's behind, and rubbed it on his lips. The mayor was shocked, but he welcomed him anyway, and he said, I appreciate you cleaning up when you got here we got a lovely little town and we want to keep it that way but man i only got one question why did you poke your horses behind and rub it on your lips the old cowboy looked at him and said my lips are chapped and the mayor said oh does that cure him the cowboy said no but it keeps me from licking them and making it worse

tote some chapstick with you. It's smaller than a horse, cheaper to feed, and there's no bad aftertaste. The right front pocket is done. So what's an old lefty? Loner pocket knife, a buckeye, and a sack of your wheel $1 coin. The loner knife is for your friend that doesn't carry one, but finds himself in the need of one on occasion, which is the very reason you tote one to begin with.

And if he doesn't tote one, he ain't got enough sense not to use your good one in a manner that it wasn't designed. All these things I'm about to say now go slap out the window when it's emergency. When it's life and death, nothing else matters. However, when it ain't and you need a wire cut, a screw tightened, or a pry bar, don't look at me and ask to borrow my pocket knife.

It's something to be respected, taken care of, maintained, and sharpened regularly because a dull one is of no service to anyone. Now, I'm not going to tell you what the brand of my loaner pocket knife is because it don't matter. It ain't a case. It's a well-made pocket knife, I assure you, but I'm talking about what's in my pockets and what I like the best. You may hate case pocket knives and like something totally different. I don't care. That's fine with me, but you ought to be in jail if you do. Just kidding. Not really. What about that sack of your wheel $1 coin? Well, I can tell you it was minted in 2000. Monetarily, it's worth whatever a dollar will buy you, but my wife gave it to me. And if you don't know who sack of your wheel is, do yourself a favor

and look her up or better yet, read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. That book is thicker than a cat head biscuit, but worth the effort and just as easy to digest. She was an invaluable guide and interpreter that helped Lewis and Clark find their way across the wilderness, and back when our country was young and we didn't know our behinds from 15 cents about anything west of St. Louis. The coin serves as a symbol from my wife to me that when I'm out on a hunt or a long journey, I can always find my way home. She's my Sacagawea. She's a whole lot more, but she's not much on skin and stuff though. And I have a feeling Sacagawea was. Anyway, that's why I told you. The Buckeye. If you've listened to any of the Bear Grylls Render podcast, you may have heard me mention it. I'll tell you about

this particular one in a minute. First, I want to talk about why you'd have one to begin with. Aeschylus pavia, commonly referred to as the red buckeye, that is the most prominent variety of the two known grow to Arkansas. It produces a nut, which is actually the seed, and it grows in a pod that matures in late summer. Now, folks have been toting them in their pockets for luck for generations. There's an old saying that went, you'll never find a dead man with a buckeye in his pocket. Now, I don't know if that's because you don't find a lot of dead men laying around or because it wouldn't be too cool to pilfer through their clothes if you did my family close friends and i would give them to each other as tokens of good luck for hunting somewhere in our family's past

it was dictated that one hunter had to give it to another for it to work. You couldn't just find one and put it in your pocket and reap the benefits. That ain't how that works. Now, I'm not superstitious at all. I just firmly believe that if I was to lose the one I got in my pocket, that I would never have another successful hunt. The one I have, I've been carrying for close to 10 years, and it means a lot to me. First time I met old Claybo, he'd asked me to come film a bear hunt for him in the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. He and the majority of his youngins took me around where he grew up hunting and we wound up on a mountain in the area and I saw a buckeye bush. I told him the story of how my family traded them back and forth and handed him one and in return he gave one to me. I'm still toting it to this day

and I have every day since that hunt nearly 10 years ago. Clay's always amazed when he asks about it and I take it out of my pocket and show it to him. He told me he lost the one I gave him before we got off the mountain that day. He didn't kill a bear that year either. Coincidence? We'll never know for sure, but no, absolutely not a coincidence. In the bib of my overalls on the right side, I carry my billfold, all my folding money. Inside that billfold is a bicentennial quarter. A quarter minted in 1976. My dad had jars full of them. So along with everything else that's part of my uniform, I tote one of those in remembrance of him.

And until I started thinking about all my everyday carry items to tell you all about, I never really seen how much connection there was to the members of my family who passed away but now I do and talking about each one of them makes me smile I've always fancied a good pocket watch and on one father's day my wife and little girl Bailey gave me one it came all the way from London England and it keeps time like a man possessed it has a decorative silver coon attached to a short chain on the other end that hangs on the outside of the bib overalls now for all those that have a pair of overalls real overalls and you never quite figured out what that slit was above the bib of the pockets

and the small hidden pocket sewn into the seam on the bib if you didn't know what that was for stand by for news it's for your pocket watch chain and your pocket watch the watch is obviously for telling time but the fob tells everyone a little bit about you it makes a statement without making one i like to think that when folks see mine that they see a country boy that's proud of where he came from, proud of the folks that raised him, and even more proud to share these stories. Thank you so much for listening. If you like it, share it with your friends. Maybe they'll like it too.

And hey, beat the system. Tote two pocket knives. Keep the good one for yourself. Loan the other ones to your friends. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful. 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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