The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 500: The Rodeo Life with Zeke Thurston

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Steven Rinella talks with Zeke Thurston, Ryan Callaghan, Janis Putelis, Brady Davis, Garrett Long, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: being a world champion saddle bronc rider; screwing up decoy placement; the canadian bronc scene; pre-order MeatEater's American History: The Long Hunters (1761-1775); renaming birds; deer birth control; feedback about Catalina Island's mule deer; Chetiquette: to check or not to check someone else's trail cam footage on public land?; wolverines protected under the Endangered Species Act; how to judge and score riding; the horse that loved riding so much; half the kickin' horses are mares; born into rodeo;  the earnings conversation; focus on the neck; all the injuries; cheer Zeke on at the National Finals Rodeo; the myth of the synched testicles; 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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without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com well so okay i'll tell this story you ready for this zeke i'm ready okay then i'm going to introduce you as soon as i tell you the story okay we had a historian on the show elliot west and then he was on and then elliot west um was on rogan show and i listened and that guy is so good that he talked about totally different stuff

one of the things they were talking about is the term big wig. He's a big wig. You ever hear that term? Yeah. Okay. It used to be so, such a disgrace to be bald. That you would wear a wig made of human hair, horse hair, because it was so disgraceful to be bald. The King of France goes bald.

He gets a wig. Then everybody's like, now I want a wig. Turn the tide. So then all of a sudden people that weren't even bald were wearing wigs. It'd be like you look up to Jeff Bezos, full head of hair, but you shave your head. You follow me?

Zeke Thurston. That's a good episode. He's tracking the whole damn deal. Rodeo rider, bronc riding specialist. Won how many times? Just won my fourth Canadian title and won three world titles. I mean, how good are you? That's not too shabby.

That's great. We're going to talk a bunch about that, but I got to talk about one thing. As much as you excel in your discipline in rodeo, I saw you get demoted this morning on decoy yeah putting out i was setting the decoys out wrong and he actually was putting the duck stands on the goose yeah and i saw you well you and i both made a mistake we both took the carabiners off early and got tangled up rat's nest had a rat's nest. We had to get bailed out of that. And then you made a second mistake.

You unbagged. Yeah, I unbagged him early. You unbagged and then I saw you get demoted. I didn't realize the goose decoy etiquette. You got totally taken off the job. I did. I felt embarrassed he said uh you know is this one of your compliment sandwiches but without the first half it's an open face you would you could take a hundred people okay if if we were hunting with brady davis and matt mccormick uh who've been on a number of times, the Flying V guys,

and no disrespect, Brady's here, no disrespect, you could take, not 100, you could take a dozen people and say, how should we put the decoys out?

And I don't know that, like 12 of them aren't gonna, right, 12 of them aren't gonna have the same system, but you got very rigid in the system. So there's a dozen on a carabiner you take the carabiner off the hook and you go out and you place just place the bags in the right place then when that's done you place a stand by each bag when that's done you go and take them out of the bag and put them on the stand and put all the bags into the yellow bag and the yellow bags get hung up but don't put them on the wrong stand

and when you take them in you put a bag right there's a whole way of doing it and and we screwed up and and and uh and yeah they just came in and said to Zeke, Matt McCormick said, you know what would be a better job for you? Yeah, but I did notice that I untangled my own rat's nest. You let Matt take yours over. Oh, you got yours all undone? Mm-hmm. He follows through is what he's saying.

I felt a little emasculated. You made the mess and then just He took it over and untangled My rat's nest and I had to stand there like a Child watching He reached into his pocket and gave you a lollip And said hey this might be fun Can I tell you the

Behind the scenes after that happened right So Matt and I are setting up decoys So the way we got to this system is By just hundreds of days on the road Together right so matt and i are setting up decoys so the way we got to this system is by just hundreds of days on the road together right so you just you kind of figure out you got the core group of guys that know the system and then when you have guests hunting you just kind of get in where you fit in right yeah but after that happened with you two today we're we're over there and we'll set out the decoys then matt and i at some point we'll always like reconvene you move this one that six

inches and that one but we'll like reconvene when everybody's doing the thing it's just he and i it's like all right what how you feeling like what are you thinking we everything looking good here and he goes you know what would be a really awesome thing to have in the next goose trailer because we're building a new one for next year way bigger right and i said what's that and he goes we need a whiteboard i said okay he's like imagine if in the morning before everybody just shotguns approach this whole thing we just took five minutes open the door and on the whiteboard it's like we draw it out and then we can say Zeke you're doing this Garrett you're doing this Steve you're doing this Brady you're doing he's like

dude just be like sports, right? Like coach has a whiteboard, comes up the playbook. It'll take us five minutes when we first get to the field. But he's like, I've been thinking about it this morning and I think it'll save lots of time. I would put yardages on it.

Yardages for sure. So when you draw a basic picture, you're like from here to here, that's going to be about 50 yards. This is going to be about 10 yards. Great idea. And then you got like your, your reserve players, right? Where you're like from here to here that's gonna be about 50 yards this is gonna be about 10 yards great idea and then you got like your your reserve players right where you're like you guys are gonna be sitting here in the vehicle yeah and yeah just be ready to go i need you steven zeke you guys go ahead and have a cup of coffee we were gamers we just started grabbing

stuff but we was doing it wrong no which which we appreciate because a lot of times when you have people come hunt with you it can be a little overwhelming when you look at this trailer right and so people come and just go i don't know what to do like it's everybody's just moving so you just kind of sit so to your point i do like you're a gamer like you guys will get in and get dirty and i got stuff i got yelled at right away because i unhooked the blinds wrong and brady came into the trailer talking to Dane with me standing right behind him. Didn't realize you were there. And he goes, no, he knew I was there.

And he goes, somebody did this that clearly doesn't understand our system. And his name is Garrett. I was like, you don't screw around with Matt and Brady. Well, you don't want to be the guest that doesn't participate in all that work. It's a double-edged sword, dude. The other options, you just stand there and watch, and then later they talk about how you didn't help. No, so you're exactly right. I would rather have somebody that helps too much and makes a rat's nest out of the decoy bags.

That's better than standing with your hands in your pockets. Than a thumb sitter. And Zeke and I talked about it. The way we set up on these hunts, there is a pile of decoys and a pile of work. Like a lot of gear, right? It takes time to get it all out. There's a lot of stuff in that trailer.

Get it all picked up. So we are very much appreciative of those who get their hands dirty and get to work. Brady, I was surprised to learn that you studied bronc riding under Zeke's father. I did, yeah. Do you guys use the term study? I don't know if it would be study.

Maybe like learned, I guess. Yeah. I think an appropriate term for me would be I got my head drove in the dirt a thousand times while Zeke's dad watched me and tried to give me pointers. What's your dad's name? Skeeter. Skeeter? Yeah.

And he's American. Yes. What state was he from? Nebraska. Nebraskabraska born and raised sandhills so you got a foot in each you got a foot on each side of the line you got a canadian mother and a and an american father but you know how you know americans have somewhat i don't know if you caught on to this somewhat myopic view of the world it always surprises me to hear that there's like a rodeo guy in canada because we think that we sort of own everything do you know i what I mean? Oh yeah. We're like even up there, but it's a thriving culture up there. Yeah. It's, uh, especially like, you know, Alberta,

Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Western side. It's, um, it's huge. Um, it's, uh, it's a big industry up there. Um, some of the, some of the best, uh, rodeo contestants come from there. Um, bucking horses, the, the whole born to buck program was started up there. So it's, uh, yeah, it's deeply rooted. Is, uh, is it, is there a regionality to the different, uh, events? I mean, like you mentioned that, right. Is there like a barrel racing Mecca, a Bronc Mecca? I mean, not, not necessarily, but like, would say like, like me and Brady were talking on the way over here, like for example, like if you want to be a calf roper, like Texas, Louisiana, your southern states are kind of where you'd want to be. Is that right? rope 365 days of the year where if you're from alberta you gotta have an indoor barn um you know to go rope from probably this time of the year till mid-may you know i heard recently surprised

me that's similar to that as someone's saying that it's like that rich kids always do better in skiing and immediately you think well it's because they go to the big ski hills that are expensive to go to but it's the rich kids are always going to kick everybody's ass because they go to New Zealand for the summer. That makes sense. Yeah. So if your family's loaded, you're just, you're going to ski 365 days a year. If you're broke, you're going to ski when you got winter. You can't chase the snow.

Yeah. I don't know if that's always true, but it's just like sort of generally true, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, I don't know, like Alberta, like Canada is definitely known for their bronc riders, um, known for their, you know, quality of buck and horses. And those two things go hand in hand. Yeah, for sure. But I don't, I mean, you can be from anywhere and do, do any event or discipline you want.

And you're a mule deer hunter. Mule deer hunter, whitetail hunter. You like hunting deer. Yeah. Not a big, not huge on waterfowl. Uh, I actually. I saw that this morning, the way you're a mule deer hunter. Mule deer hunter, whitetail hunter. You like hunting deer. Yeah. Not a big, not huge on waterfowl. I actually. I saw that this morning

the way you handled a decoy string. Yeah. I actually had a blast. I've just never, I've just never done much of it. Hey, you got the only bird, dude. Yeah.

We had a slow morning. Yeah, we did. You got the only bird. And when we cleaned him, what did we find? I don't know. He had a hole through his heart. Yeah, I did.

Your heart shot him. A lot better than Brady's turkey. Oh, man. Brady's the invincible turkey. We heard a story this morning about an invincible turkey. All right, we're going to get back. We're going to talk about what it takes to be an eight-time Wrangler, national finals, rodeo qualifier, and a three-time world champion.

Before we – I'm going to leave you and then come back to you, but let me ask you this. What's an old bronc rider oh like billy etbauer probably the most legendary bronc rider um i think his last in afari was maybe like 40 and you have to fact check this but 45 to 40 somewhere in there but that's that's that's extraordinary that's old he's an outlier you're long now are you you're long too long in the tooth if you're. So at 29, where are you? Are you in the middle?

Are you toward the autumn? Where are you at? You know, it just, I mean, it's kind of a personal preference. You know, as long as you're competitive and, you know, keep yourself, you know, where you want to be, you can probably ride Bronx as long as you want to. What all bones have you broken? Oh, I've broken. I've been pretty lucky in that department. I broke my femur in high school riding bulls.

I've broke some ribs. I broke my ankle at the college finals. Knocked all my teeth out once. Doing what? I was riding steers. And you got kicked by a hoof? No, I took a horn in the face. Oh, a horn did it?

Yeah. How many teeth did knock out? 13. So did you have fake teeth in your head now? No, I did it. Yeah. How many teeth did knock out? 13. So did you have fake teeth in your head now? No, I was eight. And so it was all my baby teeth still. But that's, yeah. Oh, no.

So you're losing them anyway. No, I'm not. Yeah, they're going anyway. I just saved them time. Yeah, exactly. Did you have to go have a night for the tooth fairy? Oh, yeah. Saved the tooth fairy some trips.

Pulled 13 bucks that night. Yeah. Instead of spreading it all out Over all those years You can invest that way Get it all in one lump sum We'll come back to that Every time we have a professional athlete in I like to try to hammer on this

The life expectancy thing Because the interesting thing about athletes Is you get like You get such a second act do you know what i mean when you're so well i mean if you're in a thing where you're going to wrap it up when you're 40 right you look at you'll get most people that that dedicate themselves to some career they're planning on i mean they're like i don't know i'll do this till i'm 70 65 70 but to have it be that you can come out of one career and still have a lot of years ahead of you you're still sharp mentally

maybe in your case you'd be a little bit beat up physically but you also look be like man i got 40 more years on the planet and you go into you just change gears you go you do some other thing yeah now in your case you might go into teaching but it's just interesting to be in a situation where here you are you spent your whole life trying to become like the best in the world at something and you sacrifice everything to do it and then you get to this age which is relatively young meaning i'm i'm, I'm 49, I'm out. Right. And then all of a sudden you start some whole new. Whole new never.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, you're like, what am I going to do? Do next. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it can make, make some people go mad. For sure. And some people are good about it.

A lot of people struggle with that too. You know, and, and not in just rodeo, but all sports like, cause when you make your living with your body, you have a shelf life for only so long, you know? And then you, like you said, you've poured everything you've ever had in, into this one thing. And then you're, you know, when it's all over, you kind of, so, you know, some, it seems like some guys almost kind of lose their identity or. Sure.

Without, you know, that drive or that, that one thing that made them tick, you know? Yeah. You see it with people in the it with people that retire from the military because you got guys that are getting 20 years into the military and they're under 40 in some cases. And you just, like, wake up one day and you got to, like, make a new. Yeah, go a different direction. Yeah, you got to find, like, a whole new dragon to slay, you know?

I can just picture it being challenging. We'll come back and talk about some of that stuff. New audio project is out January 9 9 now get this we've talked about this a thousand times we haven't talked about it i haven't talked about to the level of detail i'd like to so we are if you are familiar with our previous audio originals we've done a number here at me eater we've done a number of audio originals we did our close calls series um close calls volume one close calls volume one close calls volume two we're working on a volume three of that but we started this new series this new

project called meat eaters american history and for the first one we are doing meat eaters american history the long hunters so the way i can always connect people to what a long hunter was is daniel boone um is the most famous longhunter everybody knows daniel boone was some kind of frontiersman or explorer pioneer whatever what daniel boone really was like how that guy made his living made his living supplying the he made his living working in the whitetail deerskin trade. At that time, through all these socioeconomic geopolitical reasons, there was a tremendous demand in Europe for American deerskins. And the good deerskins, the good numbers of deers deer skins came from the places you weren't supposed to go.

And the long hunters like Daniel Boone were these guys that would go on long hunts and they died like flies trying to participate in the deer skin trade. As we explain in our audio book, which is called Meat Eaters American Histories, The Long Hunters. As we explain in this, this is like the way we're looking at American history and market hunting

and commercial hunting is dicing it up in these very fine pieces. The Long Hunter era, basically, as we'll explain this thing, you'll learn. The Long Hunter era

goes from 1760 to 1776 why does it have such a tight bracket you'll learn all about why the height of american deer hunting was bracketed by those dates 1760 1776 1776 might ring a bell in your little noodle there because it was American independence, right? So you'll hear the whole story about the deer hide trade. In it we cover why deer hides, what was going on with them. We cover the beginning of the bracket. We cover the end of the bracket.

We covered the gear used by the long hunters. We cover how they process and handled hides. We cover how they died. We cover the interactions they had with native hunters on the landscape. A lot of bloodshed, a lot of mayhem. It's a phenomenal story. And it's like, this is because I've always liked to read about Boone. I've always liked to read about the long hunters.

This is all of the information that I wish I had had. Like if I had found this somewhere, we wouldn't have made this. We made it because it's all this shit. When you're reading these normal Joe blow biographies about these people who are coming from people who don't hunt and they don't know what's interesting. So as you read their books, you're always like,

well, you should be explaining this, but they don't realize what's interesting a lot of biographers don't but i worked on it with clay newcomb and dr randall williams and we were able to set out and be like what are the things you don't learn that you wish you learned when you read these books and that's what this is this is the stuff for people who like to do things with their hands and understand how shit worked why like when you killed a deer what did you do with the deer how did you prepare the deer for transport right it's it's everything

packed in to it's about five or six hours meat eaters american history the long hunters from the long hunters we're going to move on to the rocky mountain beaver trappers um the mountain man era which is also tightly bracketed let's say 1810 to 1834 from there i don't know we might go back to clovis or we might go forward to the buffalo hide hunters and then perhaps on to the whalers not sure yet um a lot of this depends on you and your willingness to go out and buy this damn book you can buy right now it's available pre-order the more you pre-order the quicker we'll get the green light to go and continue making it and cover everything off you'll know that we've been successful when we get to the plume hunters, the guys who hunted shore birds like egrets and flamingos and other things in order to supply

feathers for the women's hat trade. Uh, this is real. This, this is, I can't stop thinking about this. The. Okay. I'm interested to get your take on this. It so stupid i don't think it is oh my god is it stupid corinne you're gonna have a debate it's so stupid the american ornithological society who goes first you want to tell us why it's smart first or do i tell why it's stupid first

i think you should just explain it. The American Ornithological Society is now in the process of renaming all bird species currently named after people along with any other bird names deemed offensive or exclusionary to the tune where they're going to rename some 70-some birds. Now, I'll start by

saying why it's dumb or yanni starts by saying why it's smart wait let's let me just uh since brody's not here i'm just gonna say what brody said brody says pretty soon they're gonna have to think of a non-denominational name for the cardinal maybe a little red bird with a pointy hat i thought that was pretty funny it's good right because the cardinal is named after a catholic authority figure right that's not gonna last i would imagine it might not but you think it's great i don't i didn't say i thought it was great but i think i think there's some after did you read the article i mean there was some people After, did you read the article? I mean, there was some people... I've read not just this, but a lot of other coverage of it.

Okay, I mean, there's some people... Are you starting? There's some people that also were against it, like heavy birders, heavy people involved in... Oh, and they're like, well, at first I didn't like it, but now it's like they got with the program. They got with the program. Yeah. They understood. I don't care what they say um i i think for us being white males

that skews our view of things like this uh big time because i don't think that you or i have ever felt excluded from a lot of these things that we do um in the outdoors that we've made excluded yeah you know, my buddy was telling this whole story to my buddy Alex yesterday, and he said, he goes, that's right, man. When I look up a bird and realize it's named after a white guy, I always think, go team.

Well, didn't they, don't they say in here that one of these birds is named after Hitler? If we can all agree on something. Well, I haven't given my spiel yet. My spiel isn't just eye roll. It's like I have a real spiel. Now, something I didn't think about, but it was mentioned in this article that I think would make it much easier just to be a general birder,

as opposed to having to remember that the Gamble's quail has such and such characteristics, if they change the name to reflect those characteristics, it would be easier for me to remember and then in the future identify that bird. I agree. They should have done that in the past. They should have done that in the past.

Okay. The mule deer is a great example. It's got big ears like a mule. Got it. But the coule deer is a great example it's got big ears like a mule got it but the coos deer um it just sucks that it got that guy's name but that's its name i i'm done i mean please please tell us why here's my issue i used to play ball with the american ornithological society when the american ornithological society came in and said, you know what? We've been calling these birds blue grouse, but in fact, we're capturing these two divergent species when we say blue grouse.

There's the dusky and the sooty. And they have a different call. One of them tends to strut and display on the ground. One of them tends to strut and display in a tree. They make a different noise. The eye comb's different. Totally different habits, right? Not a lot of bleed over between the two.

So we have decided that based on these criteria, there's actually a sooty grouse on the coast and a dusky grouse in the interior and we're splitting them i was like that's great that's great one of that case it's like you looked across the spectrum of birdiness you decided this is the case there's another bird there's a bird called an old squaw a duck called the old squaw uh someone at a point there's been a lot of there's been a lot of movement over the years i don't know how many squaw peaks became something different people used to call salmon candy uh squaw candy it's like there's just this general movement away

from a term even though the term was used by native peoples there's a movement away from a term that has been deemed to be derogatory so the old squaw became the long-tailed duck the squaw fish became the northern pike minnow and i'm like okay okay i get it to to go in and and do this under the under the pretext of what they're saying they're saying that it's exclusionary, meaning that, well, first off, you have to ask yourself, just to take a step back from it, what is a birder?

It's like, it's very hard to define a birder because we don't have the same term for a person. We don't have the same term for fish. We don't have the same term for mammals. So a birder, I would gather, means you are an individual who's interested in birds. And if're interested in fish like if i see a fish that i don't know what it is i'm damn sure interested in finding out what the fish is but there's no word for that you're just a whatever the hell you're just a person if i see a mammal um and i'm in a new area

and i'm like what the hell was that i want to go find out what it is, but there's no, there's no name for that. So, so birding has sort of created that there's a thing called birding and it's being interested in birds. I gather they're proposing here that an individual who's not previously interested in birds, I mean, they've been inspired by life to become interested in birds. They decide that they want to become interested in birds. So like, you know what? I'm going to become more interested in birds. They decide that they want to become interested in birds. So like, you know what? I'm going to become more interested in birds. And they see a bird, um, fly by and they're like, what in the hell was that bird? This is the, this is the reasoning

that the ornithological society thinks that people are going through. I'm an individual. Um, and I see a bird go by. I'm like, wow, look at that crazy purple iridescent loud-ass bird go by. I'm like, I'm going to find out what that bird was. So I start looking through my bird book and I'm going like, oh shit, it's a Stellar's Jay. What they're saying here is that individual goes, hmm, who's this Stellar feller? 90% of white birders don't know who stellar was but they're saying an individual

is going to be like oh a stellar's jay hmm i wonder what the etymology of that is and then they're going to look and be like oh here he is he's this guy and he went to the arctic and has named a sea lion and a and a this and that after himself. Oh! He's a white male. Fuck that bird. I'm getting out of birding. I just like, there's no way that's happening.

That's a partial. Is your connection to birding so tenuous? I don't think that's the main thrust of it. Because you found out it was a white guy. The main thrust, I think, is immortalizing someone in some way that maybe i'm not gonna i'm not gonna throw my ball in whichever direction this is going but it's immortalizing someone who maybe shouldn't be immortalized in that way i think it's more

i'm gonna look at who this guy is i'm like oh maybe he has some good ideas oversimplifying this steven because it's a fun argument for you which is a theme we've experienced in the past okay go on um 70 bird species a yeah sure make it 700 whatever um you've run out of birds after a while part of this right is like when we look at the squaw fish to northern pike minnow there's a rebranding on behalf of the species right to where you had um an association with this species that could be causing that species harm and then when with that rebrand the idea is there's a uh a larger respect that comes along with the rebrand it gets a facelift and then they put a bounty on it in its native waters well in some places right but that's a huge different we can pick a different deal if you want right um but you

do understand what i'm saying so when we then have an association with something that has like a very well uh everybody has a negative opinion of a certain name that could then have a negative effect on that species which would be a pro for a rebrand in my opinion right there's a big difference between the word. Well, it's not nearly as fun as being like, oh, it's anti-white people. No, there's a big difference between the word squaw and the word stellar.

Which is not my argument at all. Yeah, okay. Absolutely, they're spelled different. Both have S in them, that's good. But the flip side here is for history every time you do come across something like this uh like we had you know great discussions on the renaming of mount gore right and that brings into light that individual's history again when these conversations come up and i think that that's incredibly valuable

so valuable that we may not want to change these names because it would be removing this spotlight that circles back around on the past actions of these people and that's what history is about is going back and relearning and seeing where we are in time and try not to make those same mistakes but some people at the end of the day are just giant assholes and i say they shouldn't be associated with anything that's not the criteria here i think again the criteria you're focusing on one aspect a very shotgun approach it's a very shotgun approach they could have uh i don't know there could be a abe lincoln bird and they're gonna throw all the abe lincoln bird it's a hard line to draw right it's a ridiculous line to draw it's distracting it's like you know uh people for the ethical treatment of

animals they will often do things to generate headlines right because they the way that they get coverage they get coverage oftentimes from an opposing perspective who covers pita under the oh my god what will they do next right so pita will pick a thing that that just seems sort of outlandish because it gently puts them in the news cycle it's like inconsequential outlandish and you know, it'll get tons of coverage because the coverage will be, holy smokes, these people are crazy. And they feed that narrative because that's just generally. You can't beat a dead horse. You feed a fed horse or something.

They did. They, um, yeah, all of, uh, all the, they, they came out with the thing that we have a lot of sayings, more than one way to skin a cat, and they're like, we need to stop using all these sayings because these sayings are... And they get tons of... You get people talking about it because even if they're talking about it negatively,

they're still talking about it, and it creates a conversation. I feel that this move is coming from a pr person it's coming from a person who is generating who's creating noise for the sake of creating noise it's like i find that there's a much bigger problem of people seeing a bird and not knowing what they're looking at and not caring than i do that they do a bunch of diligence and find out it's named after an individual that they're gonna wind up not liking what do they have to gain from making noise it's not like pita what does the ornithological society have to gain from

they probably like to be in the news they are probably very excited i'm not saying it's like they would be excited about conversations like this what i what i don't like about it man is uh and i didn't read this article at all um and from yanni's perspective uh and it's right i am coming at it from a you know montana born and raised white kid um but you're kind of like leaving it up to this society to dictate what they think is right or wrong in history too. Yeah. Right. So like. They didn't name the birds in the first place. They're, they're deciding what names, uh, we should be able to like attribute to animal species or not, which in my opinion, like it's very, well, not in my opinion, it gets very political.

Right. On behalf of whatever their kind of their personal direction is like, what about rivers? What if we started doing the same thing with rivers? Jefferson River goes away. People get mad when you do this because you go like, well, what will happen when Washington, D.C. isn't Washington, D.C.? And then go like, well, now you're just doing like trickle down. What's next?

Slippery slope. Slippery slope. I don't like to do all that, but you do wonder. I want to talk about riding crazy horses. I mean, I want to talk about this too, but finally, there's this idea that, this is the thing I'm honestly curious about. If you get to, if you, we have the Constitution, we have a Constitution that protects, it codifies free speech. Okay, so you have this document that paves the way for free speech and paves the way for a separation of powers and paves the way for a separation of church and state. And then you go and say, but we're going to get rid of any kind of marking of the individuals

that did it because they're bad people from the beginning. At what point do you also ditch the thing they made? And what do you replace it with? So if you say, there can't be a bird named after this guy, that's horrible.

There shouldn't be a statue of this guy because that's horrible. There shouldn't be a town of this guy because that that's horrible. There shouldn't be a town of this guy. Cause that's horrible. In fact, but what about the fact that we're living under a document that they created? At what point is that horrible? And what is the,

what is the alternative guiding national principle? When you ditch all aspects of these people, because there's things about them, you didn't like at what point do you go like, and not only that, but all this stuff about like freedom of the press, free speech,

um, being, uh, you know, double jeopardy, having your house seized by the military to store soldiers. Like at what point is all that kind of stupid? Because the people that made it were bad people.

I just think it's like it's just it's it's a i think it's a largely kind of a it's just like this like it's an exercise in divisiveness um well in theory you can amend that document you know it's very difficult to do but i'm like you know it's not like well yeah you can amend it only by the rules of the document yeah true that's true okay so that is laid rules of the document. Yeah, true. That's true. Okay. So that is laid out in the document. Yeah.

There's only so far you can go with this before you run up against the real wall. If there was a bird called the Rommel's bird. Distance of how far you can go is a big, big difference. Distance between changing the name of a bird and tearing up the U.S. Constitution. Sure, I know. That is a long way. That is so far of a long way that I would say we will never, ever, ever get there. I think that in your lifetime it will be toyed with. I think it's been toyed with since it was written.

It'd be toyed with from a different angle. I don't want to conflate that with this bird thing. I just think the bird thing is like, you can't just all of a sudden, you can't just all of a sudden do it. It's going to create another thing like this. You know, when years ago, I was working on a writing project and I was with some guys from the Buffalo Field Campaign.

This is a whole other angle. This is a whole other annoyance I have with this naming thing. I was with some guys from the Buffalo Field Campaign. So the Buffalo Field Campaign, they were a preservation organization. The world got a little bit too complicated for them, but at a time it wasn't too complicated for them, and they were a fairly active preservation organization for the american bison but they called it the old-timey word buffalo

which was around hundreds of years before anybody ever thought to say the american bison so i'm with a guy from the buffalo field campaign and i see off in the distance a bunch of pronghorn and i said oh there's some antelope and he said it's actually a pronghorn. And I said, oh, there's some antelope. And he said, it's actually a pronghorn. I'm like, well, it's actually not the buffalo. So to have to go through that now 70 or 80 times more than you have to go through it now and all the conversations you have with some old ass duck hunter who went out and shot an old squon, you gotta be like oh you know actually it's a you know it's a long tail duck i mean i

don't know if you caught the caught word i just think it's ridiculous it's a distraction yeah but man we may never ever ever be faced with that distraction of these 70 species how many do you interact with frequently? Quite a few. The Stellar's Jay I count among my favorite birds. And. The English Sparrow. What happens to his ass?

Um, yeah, I count among the Stellar's Jay among my favorite birds. Uh, Moving on. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, 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,

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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. Here's an interesting letter. There's's a guy so a guy wrote in he was um him and his buddies are all special operations veterans and they lately have gotten into going into landlocked hunting landlocked private land and they've done it with aircraft public land sorry what did i say landlocked public land sorry they have they have become they have become enthusiasts of hunting landlocked public land meaning public land you can't access by walking or driving because it's surrounded by private land and they were using um they would pitch together money and, and just get a helicopter to land them in these certain areas they wanted to

hunt. But they found that like landing the helicopters, very intrusive, noisy, um, can draw a lot of attention and they all hold, uh, and they're all former military guys.

So they've, they've been, um, former military guys. So they've been bailing out of helicopters at 7,000 to 10,000 feet and parachuting into land where they want to hunt. And then they just get picked up later by the helicopter. So they land parachuting. And in classic special operator fashion,

their eyes are all blacked out in the pictures, but he's got, here he parachuted in and he's got a grip and grin with his antelope that he killed, uh, with his parachute in the background. Oh, actually I'm reading. Where there's a will, there's a way. That's commitment.

I'm reading his email. It does say landlocked private land, but I think he meant to say public land because that wouldn't make any sense. Yeah. I mean, I. Where there's a will, there's a way. I think that does take commitment.

That's a power play, yeah. That's cool. But man, like we've talked about this on the technical gear side, like how we what we do all year round is talk about how we go and kill critters. We game it all year. Can you imagine being an antelope

in this picture and you look up and you see some guys jumping out of a helicopter coming in and you'd be like, when does it end? Like, golly man what's next i mean it's cool though i don't want to get into the birds control thing on deer because that's been talked about a lot also from a high level i think that it's interesting so uh urban suburban environments where you have a lot of uh like too many deer overabundance of deer

uh from the standpoint of property damage vehicular collisions um all these different issues uh these guys have been having some luck with contraceptives um in canada and they bring up an interesting point in the article i hadn't thought of when you do a culling operation if it's good habitat you do a culling operation what do you what do you imagine happens after you kill them all like other ones just move in but just saying through this through this experimentation work to doing with contraceptives is you keep the landscape occupied but they just can't reproduce and it's less inviting to new animals coming in because you have these like dominant breeding age animals around um what's their plan for administering the contraceptives they dart one right

yeah and that's what i've heard about is like who darted what and it's complicated i you know i i always look and i'm always like yeah but it's probably people who'd pay money to go hunt those deer and it is in this article like in oak bay you cannot have people running around hunting just isn't gonna it's not workable so that's that's the thing a guy wrote in a very spirited rebuttal of our conversation around Catalina Island muleys. He's a biologist who's been working out on the, let me first give a quick thing.

So on Catalina Island, they have, there's a herd of buffalo out there which are brought out there for some movie like in the early days of cinema. I can't remember when they brought, there's a herd of buffalo out there and there's a bunch of mule deer out there, which are brought out there for some movie. And the, like in the early days of cinema, I can't remember when they brought the, there's a herd of Buffalo out there and there's a bunch of mule deer out there. And, um, I talked about, well, why not just have people go hunt them?

Um, who wouldn't want to go hunt these military and why, why sharp shooting with helicopters? When you can just, you know, lower their populations with hunters. He writes in a couple of thoughts on why that's not, why that doesn't work quite the way you'd think it did. So he's been out, he's been working on the California Channel Islands for 25 years.

He's a biologist. He thought he'd add a few things around the deer cult issue. Santa Catalina, I'm quoting him. Santa Catalina Island is completely private property, either owned by the Santa Catalina Island is completely private property. Either owned by the Santa Catalina Island Company. 11% is owned by the Wrigley family, chewing gum.

So owned by the Santa Catalina Island Company, the Catalina Island Conservancy, or people who own houses in Aalon um there's no public land whatsoever so i know that was pretty confusing but the conservancy has 88 of the land uh one percent of the land is just people who own houses in the town 11 of the land is the wrrigley family. Okay. It's hardly private land. He says they got about 2000 mule deer on the island. Now they've been given out 400 tags per year. Every year, 240 of those tags are filled. Check this out. There are 4,000 residents on the island.

20 of them get a deer. So they're killing 400 tags. They're killing 240 mule deer a year. And as terms of why not just let the locals shoot them, of the 4,000 locals, 240, I'm sorry, of the 4,000 locals, 20 get a deer. He says that DIY hunting out there Doesn't really work One, you can't rent a car It's hard to even get out of town

If you're not a resident Because you're on the private property Steep roads, long distances There's no way to get There's no refrigeration facilities To keep meat cold And there's no easy way to get, there's no refrigeration facilities to keep meat cold and there's no way to, there's no easy way

to quickly get it back onto the mainland because he's using the ferry system to transport them. He says, thus, for these reasons, guided hunts are the rule. There's no,

there's no path forward and his, in this guy's opinion, there's no like realistic path forward for DIY mule deer hunts out there. Mule deer were brought

to the island less than 100 years ago. Private landowners brought them there and put them on private land to hunt them. They were brought from California mainland, and that is why the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has jurisdiction. All the land is privately owned, and the private landowners who own all the land. So again, here we are, these guys own 88% of the ground and they want the deer off their land, but they're holding California department of fish and game responsible for their deer. And the conservancy is paying to eradicate the deer.

There is no state or federal money involved. The deer also do not belong to the people of Avalon, meaning the people who live on the island. Just like a deer eating someone's garden does not belong to someone driving by on the road. And he goes on to say that deer have documented negative impacts on native plants and animals goes on to say that deer have documented negative impacts on native plants and animals which are only found so endemics only found on the california channel islands the islands are the quote galapagos of north america specifically because they have those unique plants

and animals um he says they also use this term to market tourism. He says there are a lot of mule deer on the mainland. If the deer and other non-native animals and plants are not controlled on and preferably moved, removed from the islands, eventually the islands will look just like the mainland. The islands distinctiveness will be lost. Then he has a couple of sum ups. Um, basing him saying we got that all wrong. Good point. Yeah, I mean private deer, right, is what it amounts to.

Trail cam chatticate. This is a phenomenal one, even though Chester's not here. The reason I say this is phenomenal is because I recently heard someone say this. This guy hunts public land in Texas. Often comes across trail cameras. So again, he's on public land and he comes across a trail camera. I often come across, this is a quote,

I often come across trail cameras which on most public land spots are not supposed to be left for more than 24 hours or beyond your hunt. He carries his own SD card reader in his pack. He likes to pull the camera, since it's sitting there

anyway, he likes to pull the camera and have a look-see. Sorry, he likes to pull the card and have a look-see. Puts. Sorry, he likes to pull the card. And have a look-see. Puts everything back the way he founds it. Is this poor etiquette? If it's on public land,

I say everybody's got a right to look. I would say the same. It seems weird, but like after kicking it around, I would say, like for instance, if you put a pop-up blind somewhere, that's not your, yeah, it doesn't claim your area. You put a tree stand in a tree, that doesn't claim your tree. We were hunting public in Oklahoma, and there's a tree that you look and be like, any person on the planet is going to put a tree stand in that tree.

And you go there, and there's all kinds of hooks and nails and shit. You can tell over the years, everybody, their brothers hunted this one tree over a waterhole. Um, so put a tree stand there. It doesn't claim it. Uh, so it's like you forfeit your ownership of the material you paid for. Once you put it on public land, I see both sides.

Yeah. It would be hard to go by with, with an SD reader and not check it. Oh, I think so sides. Yeah. It would be hard to go by with an SD reader and not check it. Oh. I think. So you agree. I think it feels, here's the thing, is like half the cameras I set out, I don't turn them on right.

You had one out for a whole year. Oh, I put one out for a whole year and all I talked about, my wife's like, oh my God, if you stop talking about the stupid camera, all the stuff you're going to have on that camera, you know, after a whole year out there, I go up there, I was like, ah, my God, if you stop talking about stupid camera, all the stuff you're going to have on that camera, you know, after a whole year out there. And I go up there, I was like, ah, forgot to turn it on. I'm going to try again this year. So there's that.

I mean, you know, if they put it all back the way they found it and tidy everything up and turn it back on, I would feel, it's one of those things that um it's one of those things that i get it but i don't think i would personally do it because i would feel so weird having my hand caught in the cookie jar because you're on the camera well yeah you don't have to be on the camera i know but like you can sneak around if you stumble across one like the odds are you're on there you've already been on that. Because there's like a what? There's like how many degree radius of your back.

It's a big, right? I've waved at a lot of trail cams in my day. Yeah. Yeah. The best like video would be you seeing it, going and checking the card, and then setting up a blind right in front of it. Just the way you saw the card. Because the card was so good. I'm going to hunt right here.

Or you could pretend to be a deer and like go down there and put your little lips up to the water. Do a little splashing. That'd be fun. Yeah. I don't have, um, um, oh, he has one of those sign off things. You know, like when you're on a forum, all the old men have a sign off. They're like um

44 mag Because shooting More than once is stupid I kept that in there For you because I knew you'd pay attention To it it like colors his character Right his his sign off Is for god

God gave us a spirit Not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Self-control. Self-control. Yeah. But he's powerful and not afraid. Yep. So this one, even though Chetak is not here, we usually like to give like, when we do these,

we'll sometimes remember to do a little quick survey, a quick panel. Yeah, I forgot to ask, Chester. Yeah, I don't think it's bad, but I wouldn't do it. Zeke? I mean, I probably wouldn't check it just because I probably wouldn't have a card reader with me. But if I had the card reader, I mean, I might. But if you started hunting public land a bunch, and you knew there was cameras out there. If I hunted public land a reader, I mean, I might. But if you started hunting public land a bunch,

and you knew there was cameras out there. I mean, I don't know. That's a tricky one. I'd probably have my own camera out there. Check it. Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't think I would have a card reader. Okay, let me back up. You do. Okay, I do.

But let's not have that. What if my fingers are so cold that i don't have the dexterity there's so many factors to this like had i been in the mountains for say nine days looking and hadn't seen anything and i had like found this area and i'm like the the bucks are here they gotta be here and i stumbled across the trail camera oh well golly it'd be hard not to look but i have often fantasized about finding a trail camera golly it'd be hard not to look but i have often fantasized about finding a trail camera and then shooting a big animal like right in front of it so they had camera like i got it i beat you here you're at work i'm not guess what i win you can make a little note and say like

please send me the photos right can i have the photos of my butt you're welcome to come to my house for a beer and like look at it on the wall Can I have the photos of my butt? All your gripping grins are in front of you. You're welcome to come to my house for a beer and look at it on the wall. Yeah. I like that a lot. I don't know. I've never done the mental gymnastics on this question. If I were in an area with a high trail cam density, I'd pack a card reader with me. And it's public land.

I mean, that's, yeah. I'd be like, if you want to leave it out here. Yeah. To your point, it's on public, right? Yeah. But you feel obligated to put it back the way you found it. Yeah, for sure.

Oh yeah. For sure. I wouldn't, yeah. I, you know, you gotta like let people know because a trail cam is a, I've told many people like, hey, do not put a trail cam there if you think that is an awesome spot because then it's an indicator to other people that somebody's paying attention to that spot for a reason. Or let's say they think it through even more.

And like, he's got a trail camera here, but he's not here. It must not be any good. Because he would know. Huh? You don't put trail cameras. Huh? Mm. Mm. Mm. Yeah. You don't put trail cameras in bad spots though. Yeah. I, I don't.

I have. Yeah. We put a buddy of mine killed the bull archery season in Bob, tons of grizzlies around, put a trail cam on the, on the carcass just to get grizzly photos and swung by the carcass, saw a sow and two cubs on the carcass from a respectable distance. And we were. With your own two eyes. Yeah. Salivating over how cool

these photos were going to be. Um, because of the grizzly activity, we couldn't pick it up the same week we were hunting. So, um, had to leave it for safety reasons. Came back, uh, a couple months later and got the camera. And the only thing you see is this cow elk come in. Messed it. Messes with the camera, rotates the camera around. And we, we got nothing. We got just that nose in there. It was such a bummer.

I was like, we're going to have these pictures on outdoor life. You know? A long time ago. It was funny. I wouldn't mess with it. I like mystery. Hmm. Yeah.

Taking a totally different angle. Garrett? I'm in it for the meat, man. I'd check that camera all day. I'm out there to kill stuff. I would just check it now and then probably. Well, yeah, I wouldn't check it all day, but I would definitely.

It's a public land. I'd rather somebody check it than screw with my camera. Like I've had cameras taken before. Yeah, or steal your camera. Yeah. I'm right along with Garrett, a buddy of mine who's hunting not far from our place in Wisconsin on public land a lot as well. He was just telling me that he did this exact thing. And he thinks that the advent of these cellular

cameras now that have GPS systems within them, so you can actually track your camera and it's meant to be used as like oh i i i set it and i forgot it where i put it now someone horks it well yeah but so now people are realizing that they have these systems in them so he feels like there's a lot less stealing of these gps enabled cell cameras going on out there which is a nice thing which again in his mind he was like yeah i'd much rather someone just checks my card versus takes my 300 camera you know my uh this is not a poll that conversation but i have two trail cam pictures i've gotten that i'm proud of i have i showed you the otter carrying the trout which i like a lot and i have a bear on new year's eve wading through the snow oh that's nice yeah new year's eve these are not belly in the snow. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. New Year's Eve. These are not trail cam pics.

Oh, it was belly in the snow. Oh, it was that same, it was the same camera that you left on, you didn't have on all year. No, but buy that one. Oh, let's buy it. Okay.

I got to tell you a story about a dead deer picture that I saw, grip and grim. I didn't believe it at first, but then I got the pictures. I left my phone upstairs so I didn't have the issues

of, you know, messing with our mics the pictures. I left my phone upstairs so I didn't have the issues of, you know, messing with our mics in here. I'll show you later, but just listen up here. This dude shoots a buck. From a distance, he can see there's something around its neck. Like, the buck's obviously been entangled in some thing.

Turns out that it's like that electrical wire that you'd use to, or like tape that you run around to like electrify a fence, you know what I mean? It's like that electrical wire that you'd use to, or like tape that you run around to like electrify a fence. You know what I mean? It's like a wired tape. Yeah. So it's pretty tough stuff.

Within that tape around his neck are the deer's antlers from the previous year. No way. Holy smokes. They're not, it's not a giant buck, but like. He's got his sheds tangled up. He's got his sheds. Yeah, so it's hard to say whether like... The old twofer.

If he got it stuck in the antlers first, and then it sort of worked its way onto its neck, you know, later. Oh, sure. As it all came down. That's phenomenal. Unreal. Because you know when you show someone a pair of sheds, and you're like, well, how do you know that was from that buck?

You'd have to shoulder mount that deer exactly as you shot it. Oh, that's the first thing I said. That's great. One last little thing. This is a, I'm bringing this one up because it's a great, it's a, I lost words. Brings up a lot of complexities. So the Wolverine in the lower 48 is Endangered Species Act protections are imminent. This is an interesting one because you're operating on the animals so poorly understood that you're sort of admitting that you're operating on a bit of assumption,

that here you have this animal that lives at extremely low densities, even in the best of times. No one has ever had an adequate way to count them. So you can't demonstrate an actual decline, but you have to look at the writing on the wall and be like, this ain't good. Meaning there are so few Wolverines and none of the things that are happening, meaning development, loss of habitat, warming environments. Like none of the things that are happening are going to do these things any good. And it's guesswork how many there were. It's guesswork how many there are. But people are looking and being like, man, it's got to be bad. And so you have an animal whose population dynamics and ecology is not at all well understood moving to ESA protection. The one thing about this, I'm always telling people to read Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper.

It was really in the end of Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper, he has these little synopses of animals just kind of observations about animals and it's so funny because that dude calls wolverines abundant or common common animal and you're like what in the hell like you know i mean was it was it a typo did you know uh who what did he mean but he says common a common animal wolverine. Or was he just gloating? From the 1800s. Or was he like, I'm such a badass, common to me.

Years and years ago, I was guiding out a glacier and had a wolverine climb down a cliff in front of us, swim the river, got it on video at the time, was packing a camera with me a lot, climb up the other side of the river, got it on, on video at the time I was packing, packing a camera with me a lot, uh, climb up the other side of the, the cliff, uh, middle fork of the flathead, real narrow gorge section.

And he sits up on top of that cliff and just like cusses us out. Hmm. Like, like unbelievable. Making what noises? Unbelievable. Just kind of like spitting and, and kind of, yeah, just like being a very ornery critter.

I was kind of like, well, you chose to reveal yourself. How is it our fault type of thing? Yeah. But very, very cool. And I thought, man, that's once in a lifetime experience for sure. Probably. Almost like literally maybe a once in a lifetime experience? Yeah.

I mean, the swimming, the whole thing. A lot of things it is right. Probably. Um, that the next June I'm in Alaska working, uh, a brown bear hunt on the peninsula and it's a late, late winter up there. Everything snowed in a pretty bad bear season, but every single day I saw multiple wolverines that for the first week of that trip. Multiple wolverines.

They were following us around. They were popping over snow banks. They seemed to be just like your general super inquisitive weasel. And, you know, so I was kind of deflated from my previous Wolverine experience. So I was like, well, apparently you can just go someplace and see a ton of Wolverines every day. Yeah. Which is like when Osborne Russell was running around here all those years ago. Was it that?

Because if that's the case, then they are hurting. Or was it because like you can go out on the Alaska Peninsula and not see a wolverine all week. Was it just that late onset winter? We were hiking where the squirrels and stuff were popping up. Or maybe there was meat cached underneath those snow banks from slides or who knows. But was there just a relatively unnatural concentration of Wolverines at that time? Yeah. Well, you could have been seeing the same

couple of Wolverines over and over too, right? Yeah, but. Real social ones. Unless they had distinct markings, right? Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I was deflated when I learned that, you know,

I grew up in the Wolverine state and I was deflated when I learned that, um, it's kind of like, eh, maybe. Oh, for sure. I was deflated when I learned that, you know, I grew up in the Wolverine state and I was deflated when I learned that, um, it's kind of like, eh, maybe. Oh, no way. Maybe now and then. I was thinking of you. But not thick. They weren't thick. one weasel was following me around at the spring and I was making little, uh, mouse noises and he came into like 20 yards and got to look at him through the 10 by fifties.

Just super awesome. Already white. Completely white. Was there snow on the ground? Yep. Pink little pads. Had his hands up like this. Do they,

uh, I get the sense you want to move on, but, uh, no, no, I'm good. Uh,

this is interesting do they like mention what it you know wolverine being added to the endangered species list what that means well you can kind of look by you can look at some other examples because for instance um there's no hunting or trapping for wolverines in the lower 48. So it's not going to mean a cessation of those kinds of activities. But one thing that they'll do is, so for instance, with lynx, they create like these lynx protection zones, which come with added

restrictions on fur trapping to diminish the likelihood that a trapper might accidentally catch a lynx. Um, and then even like, even, even people involved in that are admit that they overdrew the map that at the time they didn't understand lynx habitat. And so they got a lot of stuff rolled up into trapping prohibitions that never had and never

will have a lynx on it. Um, with the Wolverine stuff, cause they're, they like rock and ice, you know, high country critters. I don't know.

I could picture that it might have implications for, uh, logging projects, maybe have implications for road building, might have implications for mining, but I don't picture it bleeding over into hunting activities. Yeah. I mean,

just to make this about me, um, like where I get nervous about this kind of stuff is one of the best snowmobile places like around this area. I would look for this to change. Was, uh, was up highlight, right?

Like you used to go up there and it was just like endless powder, amazing writing. And I remember I was, I was pretty young when it happened, but I remember one year my dad was like, well, we can't go there anymore because it got listed as a wilderness study area for Wolverine. But it wasn't wilderness. It was just like, they're like, well, we want to study if there is a lot of wilderness study areas.

Yeah. Yeah. But it was just like, they sit in limbo. It was just like overnight, all of a sudden they were like oh there could be wolverines here and we want to study it which means and then you know i don't want to get too political but then just like all of a sudden they like they paved like this massive trail from one of the trailheads all the way up to the lake for cross-country skiers which was like ironic to us right terms of, so just whenever I read this, just selfishly, I'm like, well, what does that mean for playing up there?

I could picture that, um, there are certain high country snowmobile areas that could, I mean, I'm, I'm totally guessing. I have no idea. I could picture that that would be potentially a thing when trying to think about what might be a thing. And you know, your observation, I don't want to get political i think that everything is political yeah when people say i don't want to get political it's like everything's political yeah i don't get political but i couldn't put my septic system where i wanted it that's politics it's like everything's political. Everything's political.

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Alright. Zeke Thurston. We covered when a bronc rider becomes an old man, but we didn't cover why as a young man did you get into bronc riding. Can you hit some basic definitions too just to help people understand?

Like what? Like you got the different event, different rodeo events, what your event is and what sort of, you know, what distinguishes the event you like to do? Yeah. So rodeo is made up of, well,

you got like six major events, um, and team roping is, uh, I guess it's probably a major event now too. But, um, uh,

at the rough stock side of the arena, that's, that's where, uh, you know, we, we perform or whatever. And define that too. Define rough stock. So the rough stock would be your riding events of where, uh, you know, we, we perform or whatever. And define that too.

Define rough stock. So the rough stock would be your riding events of like, uh, you got your bareback riding, saddle bronc riding and bull riding. And then. Rough stock meaning like not broken. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, uh, for the timed event side, they've, you've got roping boxes or boxes and a shoot and that's where they team rope, calf rope, bulldog. And, uh, and then the barrel racing is just run in the middle of the arena, obviously. So for, for my event, um, you, you get on a horse, uh, you have, uh, what you call bronc rein or a hack rein, and that's what you hold, you hold onto.

It's connected to a halter that goes on the horse's head. Um, we have a saddle, you have free swinging stirrups. Um, so foot in each side and, uh, you gotta keep a saddle, you have, uh, free swinging stirrups. Um, so foot in each side and, uh, you got to keep your free arm up and, uh, you have to ride for eight seconds. Um, it's a judged event. Um, so there'll be judges on the arena floor. Uh, they judge the horse and the rider. Um, the, uh, like stipulations, I guess, is like you would, you have to spur your horse out. So that, that means you have to have spur contact above the horse's shoulder the first jump out

of the chute when his front feet hit the ground. And then after that, you try to pick up the horse's timing and you want to spur as high as you can, set your feet in the neck in time with the horse while he bucks. So the spur, I just judge it off of speed, spur contact, how high you spur. Is the spurring actually

causing the bucking? No. No. The animals are bred to buck. That's the way they are. But the animals judge because you don't get more points if the horse is having a bad day. No. No, you get less points. Right. Oh.

I always wondered about that. I didn't understand that. I didn't understand that well enough. Yeah. Cause I was like, what if the horse is just like a, like just comes out and stands there. I mean, obviously you don't count, but then. You get a re-ride. Yeah. But obviously, so, so, so, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't need to re-articulate it, but I've always wondered about that, like how they calibrate that. Yeah. So the judging criteria is from one to 50, the horse is judged off of how high he jumps in the air, how high, like how high his back end, you

know, when he kicks, how high he's kicking and how hard he's kicking. These are like measured, these are measured things. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and then obviously like other factors come into like play, like speed, um,

direction change. Um. I mean, they like to see direction changes. Yeah, like, cause that, that makes the difficulty level go up, right? It's like your horse is, you know, lands with his front feet over here and then the next jump he, you know, lands over here four feet.

Yep, yep. That's obviously a lot, a lot harder to ride than one that's going straight, chalk line straight, you know? So one to 50 for the, for the bucking horse and then one to 50 for the, the bron bucking horse and then one to 50 for the, the bronc rider. So a total of a hundred points possible. Got it. How do you get, uh, like assigned a horse?

So it's a random draw. The judges at the rodeo will, um, actually they do it in the PRCA office three days prior to the rodeo. Um, the stock contractor, whoever is, um, supplying stock or putting, putting on the rodeo will,o will send in their list of horses. So you got your pool of bareback horses for the bareback riding, then you have your saddle bronc horses and then their bulls, and the judges will go through there and draw, just random draw an animal for each contestant that's entered in that rodeo. Is that a spectator event too? Like?

Like do real insiders like to go watch the draw? Like the way people pay attention to draft? Oh, the draw? No, no. The way people pay attention to draft picks and stuff like that? No, nobody's in on the draw. It just happens. Yeah. And they say, here's what happened.

Yeah, you find out three days before what horse you have and you decide if you're going to go get on it or not and do your deal. I got a question for Giannis. Guess what an old old you know how i asked him how old a guy can be and still compete um guess what old horses or old bronc old bucking horse how long his career can be bucking horse yeah 15 15 no's, they're just getting started at 15. They had, he was telling me about a horse that was still kicking off pro riders at 24 years of

age. He said they get better. Oh. Cause they actually learn. That's an old bucking horse for sure. But like their, their career, their best years are from. Is he aware that he has a career?

I wonder. He's like, oh, the horse is like, what are you doing? This is all over, man. He's reached like doctor status. That horse I was telling you about, those 24, what was his name? Sundance. They retired him. That year he was retired. They didn't load him

on the truck to go to the National Finals Rodeo. The next day they found him out behind the shed and he had passed away. Oh. Like a euphemism or he had passed away? No, he passed away. But I bet if they loaded him out behind the shed and he had passed away. Oh. I bet. Like a euphemism or he had passed away? No, he passed away. But I bet if they loaded him on the truck, he probably would have still been ticking. Died of a broken heart.

I think so. I honestly think so. He wanted to go to the big show. Yeah. They love it that much. They do. Really? Oh.

But like their best years are from 10 to 18. See, man, me being a dumbass about this i would have thought for some reason that you find yourself like a three four year old horse that no one's ever been near and he's gonna give the best ride he'll ever give the first time someone jumps on that's because that's what that theory that's that's because that's what we usually get bucked off of that's when they start them yeah but that's no different than Brady, you know, training a puppy. It's going to run out there and mess up, you know, like there's lots of, so that's what we call colts. And there's, you know, they've got it bred into them.

They're really trying to buck, but they're trying to do too much. You know, they don't have a pattern. They don't know what they're doing. So there's, you know, there, they can do anything. So do you think they legit, I mean, you're saying this essentially, but they legit learn like, here's how I like to get people off me. And I find that this works or I find that that works. Oh, absolutely. They're smart.

Like they, uh, they can feel like which, which way you're, you know, what side you have more weight in and they might turn and go away from that leg. No kidding. Oh, yeah. They get really tricky. Some of them get like, they kind of like play little mind games, like when you're crawling down on them in the buck and shoot, they'll kind of like squat and like kind of stand shitty in the buck and shoot.

And then like, and some of them you can't get to stand good. So you can't get a good, you can't get your position. But yeah. And so when you nod, then they dart out of there and. And get to stand so you can't get a good no you can't get your position but yeah and so when you nod then they dart out of there and he's already got you throwing off they might so can you watch uh watch some film on these horses i was asking if you get some tails if he scouts and be like oh this is kind of this yeah like style so like when you get to the point where i'm at and you're going you know and you're doing it for a living like um a lot of the the horses that we compete on end up at the same rodeos as us. At the biggest rodeos, they try to have the best stock for the contestants.

So we see them. You see each other in the cafeteria line. We see them over and over and over. Like Calgary Stampede stock contracting firm from Alberta, we'll see those horses from January until the end of the end of September at the end of the season. What right now is, what, what's a horse you guys talk about?

Like you and your peers. Oh, well, probably like the most recently crowned bucking horse of the world is explosive skies owned by Calgary. It's almost like they knew he was going to be good. Yeah. She's good.

She, she is it usually she, uh, no, they can be the geldings, mares or studs. So that's not an issue. They're not, they don be geldings, mares, or studs. So that's not an issue. They don't always wind up being one or the other.

No, no. And so the theory of the flank strap goes around the testicles is thrown out the window because half of them are mares. Man, that really surprises me. Is there not a lot of sexual dimorphism in in horses meaning um the males aren't always a little heavier or something like that like so if you leave a horse a stud like they'll get like pretty distinct features like where they're like their jaw or their jaw like right here will really get um like it gets it's swollen almost and and quite a bit more prominent than say like if you gel the horse at two years old, um, they get real hard necks.

They usually grow quite a bit of mane. Um, they're kind of a little more like, they're just, they're just a harder, leaner animal. You can tell when you look at them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but that doesn't necessarily. A lot of testosterone running through them.

Yeah. But they, but they might turn around and, and a mare can outbuck them. Oh yeah, for sure. Studs are actually kind of finicky. There's been some really good studs, but for the most part, a lot of contractors just use their studs at home for breeding because they can be kind of inconsistent just because they can get running so hot.

And, yeah, like studs don't seem to last as long as, as a gelding or a mare. Would like a hot mare kind of throw their game off to you or something like that? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like definitely the hormones do play a part. Like if a, if a mare is like in heat or something, like she might have an off day and not

be as good as, as she normally would be. Um, so it, that all plays a role. That's what like geldings, you know, they, they just have one job, eat in the back pen and go out there and buck. When you're matched up. They're usually pretty, they're usually pretty consistent.

When you're matched up at three days prior, you said people then get to decide if they're actually going to go out and ride that animal. Um, what is the decision-making process? Obviously it's like, could you, like if you have enough points, right? Uh uh do you go oh this horse is having a really hot streak right now so i'm not gonna ride yeah like like for the most part we i mean you you don't enter the rodeo to not go right right so you you plan on going um

and competing but i mean there's we you don't out a lot, but like the times that you would turn out is like, maybe if you draw a horse, that's kind of inferior to like where, you know, you have no chance of winning. Um, the other time is maybe like, if you have a horse that's, that's maybe known for, for doing something, you know, that where it could hurt you. Oh, so you're saying that you draw a horse that's not as good. So no matter how well you ride, that horse isn't going to get judged high enough to then give you enough points to do anything beneficial for it. Correct. Yeah.

So like, say like your average bucking horse would be a 20 point horse. So if I get on that horse and I do my job correctly, I put a 23 point spur ride on that horse. You know, you double that up. I'm 86 points. If you draw a horse that's, you know, commonly a 17 point horse, it doesn't matter how, how good you ride. You know, max, max, you can be 80 points and probably not going to win anything. Gotcha. Zeke knows I'm good enough that like before a rodeo, he'll tell me if he's probably going to make the short go or not. Seriously?

Yeah. Before you even get on? Yeah. Like you have a pretty good idea of, of how it's going to go before, beforehand, but I mean, they're animals too. So, I mean, they're unpredictable. You can draw a horse that's, you know, normally,

you know, maybe not that desirable and you wouldn't want to draw it and you go get on it and it has the best day of its life and you can win the rodeo. Got it. So a hundred points is max. Yeah. When, when you, when you win the world, what kind of points are you getting? Well, that's a select, when you win the world, it's, it's based off of your whole season. So a hundred rodeos on your rodeo count, and then you have 10, 10 rounds at the NFR. And so the, the, basically the world champion is the guy with have 10 10 rounds at the nfr and so the basically the world champion is the guy with the most dollars won at the end of it so what winds up being an act like if you

could put it like what what is a winning streak of scores i guess is what i'm asking you know like you got to be in the if it's 100 top you got to be in the mid 80s you got what's winning okay yeah at the nfr to win go roundsarounds, I mean, shoot, nowadays, you probably got to be like 88 points to win most go-arounds. But like an 85 is going to place you somewhere most next. And how much do you feel that judging is arbitrary and debatable and how much of it's just facts are facts? It's however you want to look at it.

Um, I mean, it is, it is a judged event, you know, and, and, uh, they, they're not always going to get the calls, right. You know, a lot of it happens fast and it's with the naked eye. So, I mean, but for the most part, it's, it's pretty good. Um, you'll, you'll run into it more like regular season rodeos, maybe where it's, you know, it's not a big rodeo and you'll be like in somebody's kind of, you know, somebody's territory and you're riding against them kind of, you know, maybe not their hometown, but like their state, you know, and they're really, they're a big deal in that state. They might

not have to outride you to beat you. Oh, move to the home. Yeah. It's like a bias. That happens quite a bit. Whether they realize it or not there's a bias for the local guy I don't I don't want to make you uncomfortable but I thought that or I wondered that about the rights until I was in Pendleton watching you know sitting behind somebody else that didn't know me and

you rode and I thought you got underscored. But the person in front of me goes, of course, because he's Zeke Thurston. And I was like, oh. Of course he got underscored, or of course he got a good score? They were thinking he got a good score because he's like the reigning champ. He didn't throw that out there, did he? I'm not going to say it hasn't happened to me, but it didn't happen there. I promise you that.

No, there it didn't happen. How old were you when you first got on a horse? When I first bronc? No, I mean like just riding. Oh, I grew up riding. He's actually never ridden a horse. Just eight seconds. I don't even have a memory of getting on a horse.

Just, yeah, I just grew up riding. And would your dad put you on ones just to see you get thrown off or how, like how, how do you get started and all that? To get started? No, no. Like it's, you kinda, there's like stepping stones you go through, you know, and stuff. But like, I grew up riding a saddle horse, grew up on a ranch in Alberta. So, uh, like a lot of our days were spent in the saddle, um, just cowboying and doing, doing ranch work. And, um. So you guys work cattle off horseback.

Yes, sir. Yeah. So then like from there, you know, obviously I rode sheep when I was little and did that stuff. And then, um, kind of when in Canada they have at their, at their pro rodeos, they have what they call boy steer riding. And you can start that, um, I think like maybe 11. And so I started riding steers so i knocked my teeth out and then um yeah just kind of progressed from there to you get on some junior bulls you know like two three-year-old bulls and stuff um all like age appropriate and um you know type a point. I mean, depends who you ask. Well, for sure. Your grandma was like, he only lost 13 teeth. I was like, age appropriate.

Uh, then you get your teeth kicked out. Did it, did you get a little gun shy after your teeth got knocked out? Yeah. Well, I was pretty young. Did you take some time off? Well, I was eight and it was at a, at a birthday party, you know, it was more for fun, but, uh, that was all I ever wanted to do. And then after that, I was kind of maybe second guessing what I wanted to do a little bit.

Man, I can't remember if I told this story or not. You might, I should find this article and send it to you. There's a writer, Burkhard Bilger. He's a Southern writer. He's the one that, he's the one that kind of popularized, not for the people that do it but popularized for the media noodling for flatheads he had a book noodling for flatheads okay and then it became that that everybody on the planet went noodling for flatheads um it was like he kind of like brought this to the public eye right you know there's always people do it but but he like, people were like, what? Right. I want to go do that. That was him.

He wrote a profile on these, uh, bull riders. He was, he was doing all of his work in Nevada and it was just about this bull riding community in Nevada and little kids learning, trained to be bull riders. And they started him young. Like you're talking about like all that he gets into the mutton busting and on up, right? And as he's writing this, so he lives in Park Slope in New York. And simultaneous with him spending all of his time in Nevada with bull rider kids, he's also in the same article, he's covering the local reception to them putting in rocks in the park down the road from his house in the upheaval

and condemnation from parents in park slope brooklyn that they would put actual rocks in the park as hard as they are and that someone needs to get these rocks out of here and couldn't they have put a rubber rubber yeah at the same time so he's like covering this community issue and then he's 12 years old he's covering these bull riders in nevada it like it kind of brings the two stories together yes it's like when you talk about like you know within, within limits or, you know, age or perspective. Yeah. Yeah. I think what Zeke is kind of underplaying though is like his dad was an absolute legend as you like touched on. Mm-hmm. And you like grew up touring with your dad a bit too. Yeah.

So like I grew up in it. Like that's all I've ever known. Like both sides of my family are just deeply rooted in rodeo. My dad, he had a successful career as a bronc rider my mom she did a little announcing and then they ran the grand entries at the canadian finals worked for the calgary stampede did the nfr um so always always been in it and around it and um yeah just that's all i ever remember wanting to do so i went through the stepping stones and uh kind of climb up road steers did that whole deal and then what are some of the stepping stones like just really just being a cowboy kid and and riding riding any animals

that you have around the place i mean what are the like the professional ones like meaning um i can't show up at right no like i i can't show up at, right? No. I can't show up at a major event and be like, hey, I'd like to go too, right? There's got to be, there's a system of. Yeah. So when you get to like. A system of checks, right? Yeah.

So like they have high school, like junior high rodeos where they have like a build a cowboy program, which is, you know, so you're, you have junior high kids and they put them on, you know, like a bucking machine and judge them on there or they'll get some like Holstein cows and, and, uh, they'll, they'll ride Holstein cows or whatever. And, and you can go through that deal, get to the high school rodeos. You start getting on real Bronx, real bulls. Um, but again, all for the high school level. And, uh. Did you ride bulls in high school

yeah yeah i did um i roped a team roped calf roped road bulls road broncs and then uh yeah once kind of once i went through college and stuff just kind of narrowed it down to what i really wanted to do and that was ride broncs yeah i was asking about that this morning when we were goose hunting is uh you know if you're uh you know there's certain disciplines in the olympics for instance there's there's like a you know a skier might really excel in um i don't know what help me out swallow them right or whatever the hell but then you'll hear they also competed in some other, some other like semi-similar. The giant slalom. Yeah.

So lay it out for me. Like if you're a skier, you might do blank, blank, and blank, but you have your specialty. Sure. Like all the slalom, the giant slalom, and then the super G. Okay. And then the downhill. So I was asking him about that, but he's like, he was saying nowadays, as though this used to not be the case, nowadays you need to, like competition's so sharp, right?

He said nowadays you need to, you have your thing. You have your discipline. You don't do, you can't do, I'm going to go jump on a bull and try that. Well, I mean, you can. There are guys that compete in more than one event, like Stetson Wright is, he's arguably one of the very best bronc riders and bull riders going.

It's just a lot more rare now. And you were saying because it's, because it's, you're. It's just gotten really competitive, really specialized. The bucking horses have gotten, and bulls have gotten so, so good. They're so rank to, you know if you you gotta go through a season

and get on like i'll get on 100 to 150 broncs a year so if you i mean if you're doing that double time i mean that you're asking a lot of your body yeah you might be done when you're 24. yeah i also think and you can correct me if i'm wrong zeke in this but you know back in the days the old days of rodeo right these old cowboys that were trying to make a living rodeoing, it didn't pay what it pays now. Like the pool wasn't near as good, and so they were going to the rodeo, like they would want to enter more than one event just to increase their odds of making some money in order to make some more money to make it to the next rodeo, whereas now, like at Zeke's level

and when these guys are going these rodeos especially these big rodeos pay so good that if you are truly good at what you do like zeke you can go and actually make a living in your one event and specialize and save and preserve your body be hyper focused on what you do but earn a living enough that you can continue on down the road to the next one where it's like back in the day it was like hell let's enter the bronc ride and the bull riding the team roping if somebody's got a horse i'll do some steer wrestling exactly because i need beer money see if we can't bring a little money home seriously yeah and that's what you did at like the high school rodeos because they had an all-around and you wanted to get all-around points college you're on a college team right so you're trying to get your team to

the college finals so you enter multiple events to get points total for the team um when you get to the professional level it seems like you kind of narrow in on one one one specific speaking of narrowing in i don't want to make you uncomfortable but i want to talk about the economics so when i ask you about the economics of it you don't need to talk about you but you just talk about generally how it goes oh yeah um but first this one's not terribly personal. Uh, what was the first time you, you walked away with money from a rodeo? How old were you? Oh, like, I don't know, like probably one, you know, an envelope with 40 bucks at junior

rodeos when I was little, but competing, like when I started actually to like make a little money was when I started riding steers in Canada as a boy steer rider. And at what age? That would have been like 11, 12. Making money at 11 or 12? Yeah. That was awesome because you didn't drive and your parents paid for all the fuel. So it was all profit.

And then what would be making money? What do you mean? A few hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks? Oh, I think that one year after I won the Canadian title in the steer ride, and I think I had like $10,000 from riding steers. Did your parents take it away from you? A 14-year-old kid, 13-year- think I had like $10,000 from riding steers. Did your parents take it away from you? I was a 14-year-old kid.

13-year-old kid. Did your parents take it from you? No. They're like, you have it? Yeah, yeah. You've just inspired tons of young kids. Are you serious at that age? I'm dead serious. It's way better than my mom's.

Was that regarded as exceptional? Actually, I think I bought my first cows when I was 14, 13,, 13, 14, with my steer riding money. Just cowboy through and through. Cowboy, yeah. You didn't buy an Xbox. It would have been a great opportunity for the folks to be like, this is what trailer tires cost. This is what fuel is. Oh, yeah, you can see a lot of parents be like, oh, hand that over.

You still owe me $100,000. Yeah, exactly. They actually had a big steer, like, uh, like, so it seems like every, like my, my age group, I guess, especially in Canada, but, but everywhere, like through high school rodeo, through my steer ride and all that stuff. Like there was always like a big, a big group of kids that were, you know, that were really good at it and, and, and gamers. So like when we were riding steers, they actually put on a steer riding, um, in Canada. And I think it paid, it paid like 7,000 to win it. And I won it the one year and I got a, a, a one, a, a buck and bull cow. Like I won an actual cow. Really?

Yeah. What'd you do with the cow? Just sell it or bring it home. We just preg checked her three days ago and she's, she's still alive. So that was, that was in 2008. So that thing wound up paying a lot of money. So she's 2008, and yeah, she's been bred every year. I raised two bucking bulls out of them.

They didn't buck very hard, so I just started breeding her to a black Angus bull. You're kidding me. Do you mark that one so you can track the payoff on that win? On the? I mean, do you mark how much you've made off that cow? Off that cow? No, I don't. I mean, I'm not sure. It'd be interesting to know. The cattle market fluctuates a lot, but you can tell her. on the i mean do you mark how much you've made off that cow off that cow no i don't i mean i'm

not sure interesting cattle market fluctuates a lot but you can tell her she really sticks out from the herd she looks like a she doesn't belong yeah she's pretty mean too so when you were okay so at 14 you started buying you bought cows yeah yeah so you just knew you wanted to be in the family business yeah now how many guys are there u.s canada i mean i'm sure there's i don't know how just do your best job of answering this because i'm sure you can start getting into what about mexico or whatever but right like give me a ballpark how many how many guys are there that are making the bulk of their annual income bronc riding bronc riding is it hundreds no like i mean it depends i guess how much what you consider income yeah i get it because you

could be like live in your parents basement yeah yeah a thousand bucks but i mean to truly make a living riding bucking horses i would say the so like for us to rodeo throughout the year, I'm going to say you probably have around 70, 70,000 ish invested to go full season. That's between like your, your fuel, your entry fees, flights, food. So, so you're to make the NFR, you've got to win like this year. I think it took about 105,000. So they, mark it by just the purse it's a dollar dollar dollars one so i mean if you make in the nfr you're coming out on you know you go to the nfr and don't win a dime you're coming out on top with 30 000 extra

you worked pretty damn hard for that 30 000 and took some years off your life yes so you can look at someone there like someone at that point has has pocketed like at a minimum they may be pocketed 30 grand like yeah i mean that's to make it but like your top your top guys i mean last year i went out to the vegas i won more money than any other contestant there but i left just vegas alone with 256 000 and how many days of work was that 10 days yeah that was exceptional that's good though that's yeah that's that's doing as good as you can do yeah uh taxes gotta be a bitch on that stuff taxes taxes suck they pretty much act like you won the lottery yeah well there's not a lot of things you can write off against you know your

road you can't write off your bones and shit yeah Yeah. Well, that cost me, that cost me my femur. That's gotta be worth something. I'm going to do that as a deduction. But I mean, if you're doing good and you're in the top five or whatever, I mean, you're making, you're making a decent living.

You know what's funny about that line of work too, is I always think about this with professional athletes and stuff and others is, uh, like when I was talking about economics and the personalness of economics is it's so public do you mean like we had a guy on that won the british open right and everybody knows how much yeah you don't need to ask him i could like i could in three seconds tell do you mean i get in three seconds everybody knows how much i make yeah it's so funny so you come back from something and people are like hey hey, good luck on, you know, good job on the blank dollars.

Yeah. You know, there's no. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's not too private, but I mean, like, I lost my train of thought. No, just not private. This is public information. It's treated as the point system to your point though, right?

It is. It is literally the points and the currency that is used to quantify what you've achieved in rodeo. Like the dollars. The dollars won. And so earlier today when we were goose hunting, you know how Zeke was talking about you can only go to 100 rodeos in a year. So you have to pick. So there might be 700 or 800 rodeos, pro rodeos in the nation, the good guys like him and that top shelf group of guys, they're not going to like some podunk rodeo and podunk middle of nowhere, right? They're going to the big shows because that's going to pay the most dollars.

And so it gets to the point where it's like, we're going to go to the least amount of rodeos we can and win the most amount of money to make it to the NFR and not kill ourselves in the meantime, but still make a living going. You have less travel costs, higher reward. That is what I was going to say was, yeah. So like rodeos, it's the only blue collar sport left where you pay your own way and

you don't get paid unless you win, you know, where everybody else is on a contract. And so that's what makes rodeo pretty neat because you see like these guys are out there. That's interesting. They are giving it their all every time and they're doing it because they want to. You know, you can get drafted and sign your $3 million or your three-year $10 million contract and then, you know, go coast around the ice

or football field or whatever pretty easily. But, you know, in rodeo there, you have to win. Because it's blue collar and draws from blue collar, do you guys have a real reputation for blowing your money? I don't know if they have a reputation. Do you see a lot of guys that are smart with their money? I wouldn't say rodeo cowboys are smart with their money. No.

I feel like I've done a pretty good job, but. You see a lot of money get blown though? The majority of them, yeah. You see a lot of people burn a checkup? Yeah, somebody will win, you know win a Houston for $50,000 and then they buy a new boat. They're like, when are you ever going to use that? You're rodeoing all summer.

You can't even, you're gone. You're not going to go to the lake. So could you, it's $100,000, right, the entry. The point system is $100,000. To make the NFR. To make the NFR. To make the NFR. I mean, it fluctuates every year. So let's say you're gaming out and you can do a maximum of 100 events.

Is that right? 100 rodeos. Yeah, you get 100 rodeos. You can't go more than that. Top 15 in the world qualified. Is there a minimum? A minimum? So for us, we have what they call standalone events,

which are, and the bull riders do too. And a few in the bareback riding, but it's, they call them extreme Bronx where it's just bronc riding. Okay. So like if Bozeman was to have an extreme Bronx, you would come and watch 30 of the best bronc riders in the world get on. That's all you'd watch is 30 bronc riders. So a lot, I mean, in the PRC organization, like it, they feel like it kind of takes away

from rodeos that are adding, you know, that have a full rodeo. Got it. So in order for us to, you know, for your extreme Bronx money to count, you have to go to a minimum of 40 rodeos. Oh, okay. Cause they're trying to keep the whole, the whole program rolling. Yeah. Cause we could go, I mean, we have a lot of extreme broncs now like you could go to 40 extreme broncs win a hundred grand in that you know but not not get your 40 rodeos so

that hundred thousand is not counting towards the stand that's what i was curious is if to what degree do people game it meaning if you knew that if you know that going to nfr that you're a real contestant and you might walk away with a sizable chunk of money and you're going through the season and you hit the minimum threshold is there some part of you that says i'm not going to risk my body unnecessarily i'm just going to chill and and wait and just go to the big time and not do the circuit. Yeah, not necessarily. As far as the rough stock events go, the bronc riding is the easiest on your body. Once you learn it, not that you ever have it totally learned, but they call it the classic event.

It's all timing and balance. It's kind of like riding a rocking chair when it's going right. For us, if you have a good horse drawn that you're going to win on, you're going to go get on it. If you have the, say you have the finals made, you know, halfway through the year, you might be a little more picky and choosy and maybe not go get on this horse that, you know, is known for sucking. But then on the other side of the coin, you might be on the bubble

to make the NFR and you have to go get on everything. Yeah, and if you don't go, you don't get paid. No. It's just a net loss in dollars. 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.

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I want to go off of that analogy of the rocking chair. Because I'd like you to go through, if you can. Well, first tell me, I think you can tell me really quickly,

is what you're mimicking when you do this bronc riding event, is it what used to be, or still is probably, but breaking a horse to be able to ride it with a saddle? Not really. Or is there something else that goes on in ranching that this is mimicking? and bronc like bronc riding is the event that started rodeo and where it came from was when the european settlers came over they took the spanish vaqueros influence on how to handle cattle with horses and they you know they seen that as a benefit so they started to you know handle cattle that way um you know before fences you would have a big roundup and everybody would gather all the cattle together and put them in a big herd, a big mob, whatever you want to call it. And they would call

it the roe deer. And that's where, you know, all the ranches would get together. They'd work, work their cattle, and then you would take your calves and go ship them. And that guy would take his and go ship them. So that's, you know, that's what they would do. And, uh, kind of in the midst of all this, you know, they would be out there for months at a time. And in the midst of all this, they rode, they would, you know, they'd have their cowboys or their day hands that would come in, you know, that worked for that ranch and they would do on horses that, you know, were untouched by people when they're, you know, they'd be eight, nine, 10 year old horses. So you would have to blindfold them. They'd tie a back leg up, snub them up, you know, whatever. And get, and usually, you know, most, most of them, cowboys had to have some sort of a brunk ride that morning just to, just to get his horse snapped out and, and then take off and go do their work for the day. So that's, I mean, cowboys being cowboys turn it into a

competition of hey i you know i dare you to get on that crazy like yeah i can i can ride that you know this is the rankest horse i can ride him or you you couldn't ride my horse kind of thing and it would be like a daily event you just knew back then for them start your day you'd have to get on that horse in some weird way that you just described. I didn't understand half the terminology, but you'd have to get on him, go through eight or maybe a minute of craziness, and then you'd go about your day of work. Yes. And they would ride him once and consider him broke. Like, that was a broke horse.

But he might buck for the next 60 days that you saddle him. Which is the fact that he had been ridden. That somebody had been on his back at one point. He was considered broke. So that's what on him. Which is the fact that he had been ridden. That somebody had been on his back at one point. He was considered broke. But, so that's what they did. So then. You know, we got a body who, well, our body's body. Who's that guy?

I remember we were squirrel hunting down, we're talking about mules, squirrel hunting with clay. And he had his friend with us. I can't remember the guy's name. He was funnier than hell. Ooh. They got to talk about the mule trade on Craigslist. And they're talking about like how they got to talk about the the mule trade on craigslist and they're talking about like how bad craigslist is for the mule trade and this guy says man i

broke i sold he says i sold a crazy horse or i sold a crazy mule to a guy on craigslist and two weeks later i saw that same mule being sold as a broke mule that's that's how they did it yeah so then they i mean obviously it turned into you know the the art of bronc riding um just came from those everyday working cowboys you know making bets and trying to ride the rankest horse and um, it just kind of progressively got sportier over the years, I guess. Um, I think maybe like somewhere in the early 1900s is when they, um, like when the Calgary Stampede put on their first, you know, outdoor

Calgary Stampede, you know, and brought contestants from the United States and Mexico and all over to come compete. And, um, I think Guy Wiedek was maybe the guy that kind of started, like put the rules kind of in place to, you know, make it more of a structured contest and then it's kind of evolved from there. Are there any other continents, um, where this goes on? Do you know about? There are, but like in different styles. Okay.

Um, like, I don't know. I've like seen videos like on, on social media. I don't know even what country it'd be from, but like these guys get on, like they'll have these horses snubbed up and they'll get on like maybe to a post and another horse be, be between two, you know, two riders on a horse. They'll kind of sandwich the horse up and this

guy will crawl on and then you'll have a quirt. And I'm honestly do not know how two riders on a horse and they'll kind of sandwich the horse up and this guy will crawl on and then you'll have a court and I'm honestly do not know how they stay on, but they'll have a bit in the horse's mouth and like they, they don't really buck. They don't, they buck nothing like ours, but they're, it's more of like a raring style of bucking. And these guys will ride these horses. Um, over in Brazil, they ride with like a, a saddle that's got like a handle on it. Okay. You know? Um, so okay you know um so there's i mean there's different variations of it what's the significance of the one hand in the air yeah just difficulty level i guess just showing that you're only using one hand and then uh you know the famous wyoming symbol who's that dude i don't actually know it's like

a famous guy yeah i don't know who that is. Okay. Tom Horne, maybe. Can you take us through, pick up wherever you decide it's interesting enough to tell the story, but take us through step by step, moment by moment, the whole riding experience of when you get into that shoot. But it might start, I don't know, two minutes ahead of time like when you're the other dudes riding ahead of you you're back there you're getting jacked up just kind of take us through everything that's in your head and as that process goes down because i think like when i watch it on tv like they get on whatever animal and you always see see him jimmy dicking with that rope and then that tether or whatever it is i mean i kind of think oh he's making it tighter but obviously there's more to it than just that so it'd be it'd be cool

if you could just take us through through the steps what is roughly just 30 seconds i'm guessing in its entirety but yeah i take you five or ten minutes yeah so like we try to get to the rodeo an hour before um you get your equipment kind of ready just an hour yeah yeah usually i mean that's about what it takes. You warm up your body, get everything firing. You know, you go get a halter. They supply the halter. So you go get a halter, put your hack grain on your halter.

Bronc riding is usually, you know, pretty commonly in the middle of the rodeo. It's usually about third to fourth event in. So you'll kind of, you'll help your buddies on in the bareback ride and watch them do their thing. And then, uh, they start loading Bronx and it's, you get, you get your gear on, put your vest, your chaps, um, all that. You take your saddle over there. What's that?

That vest is protective, right? Yeah. It's a protective vest. It's got like Kevlar plates or something, isn't it? Yeah. I don't think it's, it's like a, it's just kind of like a thick foam, um, covered in leather. Okay.

So, so it wouldn't, it doesn't help you get stomped on. It helps. Yeah. So that padding will help you get stomped on? It's to like disperse the, you know. I got you. Yeah. Like in anything, like we don't, I mean, hopefully you don't have to use it for getting stepped on.

I mean, it's not super common, but it's nice to have it on when you do. But some horses, you know, like if they, some old smart horses will, you know, try to set back in the chute and, you know, kind of mash you in the back of the chute, you know like if they some old smart horses will you know try to set back in the chute and you kind of mash you in the back of the chute you know gotcha so it's nice to have it on for that and that stuff's yours or not yours that's mine yeah yeah no you have you but you go get the the you're talking about getting the the other equipment the halter the that's not you can't bring your own that is brought by the stock contractor just usually because they well i mean you just wouldn want to pack a halter around, but they also have like their rodeo company's name on the nose band. And there's some famous special horses have their own name on the nose band and stuff. What about the saddle?

When does that go on and who provides that? So they'll like, once they start loading the bucking horses for the bronc riding, you'll go find your horse, um, you know what shoot or what side you're you're you're on um you take your equipment over there you'll start by putting your halter on the horse at this point you know what that horse looks like oh yeah yeah i mean you've probably known it like days before yeah um you always go and talk to the stock contractor beforehand always be friendly shake their hand ask them what side he's out of, you know, blah, blah, do that kind of deal. But then, uh. What do you mean what side he's out of? Like, so there's at the rodeo, well, most rodeos, not all, but there'll be a left-hand

delivery and a right-hand delivery. And that depends on the horse's tendencies? Yes. So some horses are right-leaded and some horses are left-leaded, just like people. Oh, so they tailor it to what that horse is going to want to do. So like some horses, yeah. So if a horse likes to kind of circle to the left, they'll put them out of the left side so that he can, you know, he starts in the left lead and goes out there and makes a circle

to the left. Okay. They're not just mixing it up randomly. No, no. There's actually, there's a lot of strategy that goes into it. Yeah, I got you. But yeah, you get your horse altered. I'll put my saddle on.

So you put your saddle on? Yep. Yeah. Personal saddle. I'm responsible for all of my own equipment my stuff okay yeah like so basically when you enter the rodeo and you get there and you're gonna go compete on that horse like that that horse is basically my horse for the time being like i'm i'm doing everything with it and obviously the stock contractor owns it and you

work with them to you know but those saddles gotta fit like criteria right you can't invent some genius saddle no no there's specs for a saddle um you know where they where they sit and how they pull and and all that stuff yeah um but anyways i'll put my saddle on and then uh usually about the time the bronc riding's starting to kick off wherever you know wherever you happen to fall in the lineup. Like you might be first out, you might be 12th or 13th out, depending on how many guys. And so you'll kind of time it, like do my chaps up and get them tight, you know, probably five or six guys ahead of me. Start pulling my horse, which is, you know, start cinching your saddle down.

Now what are the chaps doing for you? Because you're not riding through briars. No. So the chaps, they're leg protection. And then we also put rosin on our swells, which is where your legs come in contact with your saddle. So it's kind of a sticky, you know, it's a sticky tree sap rosin. It looks sweet too, right?

Yeah. And style too. And that helps you grip the horse? Yeah, it helps you grip your saddle. And you're allowed to right? Yeah. And style too. But, uh, yeah. And that helps you grip the horse? Yeah. It helps you grip your saddle. And you're allowed to rise in it. Yes, sir.

Yeah. Because in baseball you're not. No, they grip their, they rise in their bats, don't they? Well, they can't put sticky shit on the ball though. No, not on the ball. Yeah. Yeah. But you guys are allowed to.

Mm-hmm. Okay. I mean, there's criterias on that too. Like you can't, can't be painting on gorilla glue. But yeah, so then depending on where I am in the lineup, I'll start, you know, cinching my horse, pulling my saddle. I get everything squared away. And then it's basically just go time.

Everything, you know, you get a couple guys away from me, I'll suck my hat down, put my mouth guard in. You measure your rein because each horse takes a different rein measurement depending on where they hold their head, when they buck, how they buck. And so you have somebody hold the horse's head straight out in front and you just pull your rein across there and measure it from the back of your swells. Like a one, a fist with your thumb sticking out is considered an average. So if I was going to give a horse what they call X and four, I would give them an average

plus four fingers. And so measure my rein. Once my rein's measured, I take my back cinch. So you'll snug your back cinch up. So I feel like, yeah, from watching, I feel like I know what you're talking about now. Yeah. Yeah. So then I'll snug my back cinch So you'll snug your back cinch up So I feel like yeah From watching I feel like I know What you're talking about now Yeah

Yeah So then I'll snug my back cinch up And this is all happening fast It happens fast Cause they want like For the spectator's perspective They want like a certain cadence right Oh in Vegas

Like they want Like you have to have Your back cinch You know Rain measured foot in your saddle As the other guy Before you is going So like they just snap

One after another As fast as they can. So it's fun to watch. Yeah. Regular rodeo, it's not quite that intense. Who's doing the back? Are you doing the back cinch? I do the back cinch, yeah. You do.

And then the stock contractor is in charge of the flank. And then, like, usually, like, I like to get my own guy. Sometimes there's a guy supplied, but you have somebody what you call, like, your head man, and that's the guy that will turn the horse's head out of the chute once the chute gate is opened um most of the horses that we get on you know they're they've done it so much that you don't you don't really you don't touch them and you feel that horse is fired up oh yeah yeah like they like it yes there's some horses that they'll run in the buck and shoot and they'll just swell right up and get tight you can tell that you know they're ready there's other horses that they'll run in the buck and shoot and they'll just swell right up and get tight. You can tell that, you know, they're ready.

There's other horses that will stand in there and they act half asleep. And you're like, come on, wake up, man. Like we gotta, we gotta go do this. You know, they all have a personality. Um, they're all different. And, uh, yeah. But anyways, I'll, I'll step over the back, crawl down on. And, um, once like, once I'm crawling over the buck and shoot it, like, I don't hear anything.

Like I don't hear the announcer. You might communicate with the stock contractor or your helper that's there. And then after that, you take a deep state and faraway look and nod your head. Faraway look. Okay, so you nod your head. One guy swings the chute open.

So when the gate starts to open, all I can see is I'm focused on the horse's neck. I can see my rein up in front of me. So as soon as that horse's head starts to move, like he or she is committing to leaving the chute, is when I'll reach up and spur them out, get a hold of them with my feet. Then I'll have to hold my feet in the front of her,

above her shoulders or his shoulders until the front feet hit the ground. Ideally, how they teach it is you want to have, you want to spur the horse out for two jumps, which means you, you know, you, you leave your feet in the front of the neck for the first two jumps. And then after that, you have to pick up the timing and you want to beat the horse to the ground with your spur stroke. So as that horse is breaking and coming, coming over, and then as it starts to kick and come back to the ground, you want to already have your feet in its neck. What is that for? You can, it's, you can honestly ride, you could, they couldn't blow you out of there with a cannon if you're if you're ahead of the horse um so that's why they they call the classic vener it's

it's like riding a rocking chair if you get behind and you know you're you're spurring you're hitting the front as the horse's front feet are hitting the ground or even after it you take you take all the power of the horse so that's when you start to see guys like when they get their chin popped and they're, you know, getting strung out and then it just turns your ride progressively. Like, I mean, you can catch up and get ahead of them again.

It'll cause you to mess up a jump or two, which obviously reflects in your score, or it can just kind of foul up the entire ride. And if you're out of time. Yes. Yeah. And what's the significance of the we're not there yet but uh what is the significance of eight seconds like where did that ever come from i don't know it

used to be used to be 10 okay i think um they just shortened it i'm not really sure it's not like a spanish tradition or something no i'm not sure where the eight seconds come from okay yeah but you how how well do you know when you're there uh like well they have a horn that goes off i don't know but do you know anyways though yeah yeah you have a you have an internal clock and you have a pretty good idea how far into the ride do you know if it's going to be a spectacular ride or it's a dud yeah just i mean you can it kind of depends on the ride like you know you get a horse, maybe the first three or four jumps are, you know, outstanding and it's looking like you're going to be 88. And then he kind of peters out or trails off at the end.

And, you know, his last three jumps was a 77. So then you end up being 82. So basically. Because you see riders get off. I used to be confused about, but this conversation is how I'm explaining it As you see riders get off You think they tore it up And they get off and they're pissed

It's kicking the dirt And I was like what Still got all your teeth They never fell off They're pissed because of the horse I mean it could be or something Maybe something that they Maybe weren't happy with themselves that they did.

No, the intricacies of the scoring explain it. If your horse bucks hard from start to finish and you ride it really well, you're going to get a big score no matter what. Zeke, you said you snugged down your hat. Aren't a lot of folks wearing, like, full face protection and helmets these days? In the bull riding. Just the bull riding? Yeah.

No bronc riders wear helmets. I mean, there's maybe one. Wow. So one smart bronc rider out of the whole crew. Yeah. I think he wore a helmet because he had a soft spot on his skull from a previous injury. That makes sense.

He's late to the game. Yeah. His nickname was helmet. Oh, okay. You'll know him when you see him yeah old skid lid how often do you how often do you get like what percentage of the time do you get thrown off well i don't i mean this year i've been bucked off twice i guess uh-huh and what's the most common um so that'd be like wait that'd be like two percent yeah it's just less likely to happen right and when you get bucked off are you like i screwed up or is it that that horse had an amazing

move um yeah it's usually it's it's on me obviously because it's i mean the horse is your dancing partner they're out there making they're in the lead right and you're making the counter move so obviously if i get bucked off there's you know i i didn't do something correct but uh there's there's there's just times i mean you you can't it's inevitable it's gonna happen especially if you get on enough of them um something like the other day at the canadian finals they bucked me off the first round and uh i knew it was coming a horse that had bucked you know all the all the best sprunk riders going off that same way. And I figured I had a pretty good game plan for her.

And she did to me what she does to everybody else. But you knew that it was coming and what it might be. But I was doing every, like I watched the tape back and I was doing it, I was doing everything pretty correct. What was she doing? What was the thing? Like she just turns out of there and like the first two jumps are really big and I had her spurred out and and i was gonna hold my feet for two jumps so like the

second jump or like the first jump was is pretty good like it's a big jump but like she's pretty honest about it the second jump she like really elevates and and moves away what they call so like she starts to really jump forward which makes you want to run out the back of your saddle. But then on top of that, like what is your, your balance point or your pivot point is your bronc rein. With that, she move, is moving forward, but then giving her, giving her head back to you.

So you got nothing to pull. Well, that's, that's the thing. Yeah. All the pressure, like the pressure on your rein is what holds your butt down in your saddle. Got it. So when she's starting to make a 30-foot jump that way, plus giving her head that way, I just slid out the back and she backed me off.

But looking back, I was doing most things. You were aware that that could happen. Yeah. Yeah, she's done it to everybody. How are you going to count her? Yeah, did you learn something? Do you feel like? I don't know.

I watched the thing and I was like, I don't know what I would do different. Yeah. I'll probably draw her again and I'll probably try it the same way i was doing things pretty pretty right huh yeah so uh what are the you laid out a number of injuries to talk about the one when you're a kid but like like at your level now what's the thing that you worry about happening like like what would be the thing that winds up banging you up you don't really worry about any of it happening i mean obviously it can happen i mean if you're worried about getting hurt you probably shouldn't do it but um i mean it's it's a high contact sport for sure and injuries are going to happen

big ones for bronc riders um groins knees um. I seem to do a knee or an ankle every year. So is it, is it mostly like twisting and falling? Yeah. Like more than legament stuff. More than getting like, more than getting stepped on or banged into, into the, into the arena walls. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, things do happen like wrecks in the bronc riding or, I mean, they're, they're few and few and far between uh for the most part i mean you can you can get into a situation that is just unavoidable and and get kind of wiped out or

whatever but um like like for me this year like i sprained the snot out of my ankle pretty good and it was just getting off on the pickup man um i just got off and stepped in a hole wrong and rolled my ankle you know undramatic yeah very, just not even a cool story. No. But, um, you know, like knees twisting the wrong way and stirrups, like you say, you're getting bucked off or coming off and your stirrup hangs on your, on your foot for a second and, and twist your knee the wrong way.

Um, you know, ligaments and knees and, and groins seem to be, be hard on brown cradders. Got it. Uh, is there a lot of groupies in the rodeo world? Um, I mean, there's some. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I see you're married though, huh? I'm married. Yeah. be hard on brown cradders got it uh is there a lot of groupies in the rodeo world um i mean there's some yeah yeah all right yeah i see you're married though i'm married yeah i'm married i've been married this will be i just had my anniversary the other day seven years oh what's going on with that going good oh it's really good i have uh we got three kids We just welcomed our third one two weeks ago. My oldest daughter, Lucy, is five.

I got a boy, Hardy. He's two. And then Maggie is two weeks old. Damn. Got it going on. Yeah. You like being married, though? I love being married.

Good deal. That's the right answer. That's the right answer on a podcast. Have you really done? Say something different. Like, what's the gap between you and the other guys going in? Because the NFR, what, when this drops is like two weeks away. What's the gap between you and the other guys?

Like between me and first? Yeah. Probably like right around 30,000, which ain't much. Because last year, I think first place had 115,000 on me and I caught them. You kidding me? Yeah. Same number.

Oh no, probably not the same number. Um. Did you guys, did you guys both hit the 100 mark or no? Uh, yeah. Like what do you, like the. Like how many, how many. They're way over that. Yeah.

Yeah. Like for the year one right now, I think I have 223,000 one or something. No, no, no. I meant when you said like the guy being over, I said, I meant, um, when you look at like who's top, does it matter how many events they took place in? Oh, like how many? I gotcha. Yeah.

No, you can go to, you can use all a hundred or you can use, I mean, I usually use around, you know, 80. Okay. 75 to 85. And is that a common number? Yeah, most guys. I mean, some guys like to make sure they use all 100 and give themselves the very best chance. Yeah.

Other guys, you know, like for me, I have a lot of other things going on at home and stuff. So, I mean, going to 80 rodeos for me, that's really doing it. So if you're on a plane and someone says, what do you do for a living, what do you say? It's the hardest thing to explain to people. You say you're a rancher. They think you're crazy. You tell them you're a professional bronc rider and they're like, what's that? They're like, my ass.

I'm a gypsy that travels around and gets on horses that try to throw me off. So you will tell people that's what you do? Oh, yeah. And some people are, you know, you'll run into people on airplanes that are huge rodeo fans that you wouldn't even think. And other people, you know, might be upstate New York and don't even know what, and the feed goes in the horse.

I only ever, if I'm ever in that conversation, I only ever say that I say I'm a writer and they go, what? And I say books and magazine stuff. That's all I ever say. I never. say that i say i'm a writer and they go what and i say books and magazine stuff yeah it's all i ever say i never and people go oh i'm familiar with books and magazines i read one myself yeah i could picture at some point in your life you just be like ah ranching ranching no yeah because if you say cowboy they're like my ass yeah one thing one thing to note you know when he said that you know they could be thirty,000 from the next guy

Those guys take their yearly earnings And then once they get to the NFR There's 10 rounds Each round of the NFR pays really good So like last year was it like $28,000 I think yeah $30,000 this year $30,000 to win one round of the NFR So you got 10 goes

So say on night one you show up And Zeke wins round one of the NFR And the guy 10 goes so say on night one you show up and zeke wins round one of the nfr and the guy who was ahead of him doesn't win any money well now they're tied and so what'll happen is you have this year-long race to get to the top 15 to get to the nfr but as soon as you get to the nfr man there's been times when the guy who came in in 15th place has jumped up ahead and won a world title because it's your year and money so it's the year and the nfr and so for the for for these guys just getting to the nfr they'll make oftentimes more money at the nfr in 10 days than they made in the rest of their whole season oh yeah i got

a strategy you gotta get hot at the more we're talking man i'm really seeing a an approach where you just sandbag all year just go down there and tear it a new one, man. That's a good strategy. I don't know. The problem is you got to draw good to do that every time. You got to make it though, which means if you make it, you got to be, I mean, if you make the NFR, you're doing pretty good. It's hard to make. Yeah. I got you. So like there's probably 400 bronc routers that hold a PRCA card. I don't know. I'm just guessing. Somewhere in there. Only 15 of them get to go to the NFR. Yeah, I mean, I think what we're missing here

is there's quite a few people that would say they're professional bronc riders that don't go to the NFR. Yeah, but remember the vast majority. Yeah, but Brian Harmon. Were you here when the professional golfer Brian Harmon was on? No. There's some golden ticket. What was he saying? There's's some golden ticket. What was he saying?

There's like a golden ticket. If you win something or another, you get to skip all the BS and you know you're going. You win a Masters. I think is what it was. A Masters is one of the, I believe, four majors. If you win a major

you skip all the BS. You get to keep your card for whatever he said yeah they don't have that rodeo like like you win they're like buddy take it off take it easy next year you got to do it all over again from scratch yeah yeah so what uh right now how long do you think your ride for are you just gonna wait it out or do you got like an exit plan no i mean and it's i'll probably just know i'll know when i know um you know i'm healthy i feel really good so i got i got some good years left in me and um what does your wife support

you doing that kind of work she likes it oh yeah she i wouldn't be able to do it without her she's she's been there with me every every step of the way got it yeah she's she's not telling you she's just as much a part of it as i am yeah she traveled with you a little bit yeah yeah yeah are you able to bring your kids now and then yeah yeah like they don't go a ton like they obviously will get to quite a few of the canadian rodeos and stuff and then like kind of the end of the season when we're winding down that's like september like so they come to pendleton um hung out there for a week you know go to go to a few do you think you're gonna have any riders in your family the kids my little boy he really i mean he's two so it's hard to tell but he sure acts like he wants to that's all he does the cool yeah the cool family aspect um and i think it's like this is

why i think well for a lot of reasons why i think pro rodeo is the best professional sport so i went to great Falls to watch Zeke. Jan and I get in the stands and I'm texting Zeke as they're loading up the bucking horses and Zeke's not there yet. Right. Like he's still like walking up. Rodeo started. He was traveling with his daughter, walks up to the announcer stand and drops his daughter off with the announcer.

Right. Goes over. To keep an eye on her yeah yeah give her a good seat yeah good seat gives her his phone so she can videotape him right goes over saddles his own horse bucks out what that was like an 89 or something like that that night uh won the go-round won the rodeo won the rodeo how much was that i don't know what great falls has added maybe got 8 000 added or something so decent and then he gets off it was just this amazing ride too we're watching it he gets off you see him walk up to his daughter 10 minutes later i get a text and he's like hey

meet you in the buffalo wings uh parking lot and it's like that's pro rodeo. Like where else, what other professional sport do you see that? Yeah. No, I can see it. I can see the appeal from that angle. Yeah.

Like it says like the only blue collar sport left, right? I got one follow up. You mentioned earlier that the, now I'm going to forget that, not the cinch, but the flank strap.

Yeah. That there's a myth that it like cinches up the testicles and that's what makes them look. I've been told that. Yeah. So just like set the, set it straight for that strap.

Okay. So the flank strap is just, it's just a piece of, it's just a leather strap and then it's covered in sheepskin or like wool and it's the equivalent to you, you know, tightening up your belt. Like the horses and the animals are bred to do it. That it's just basically an encourager for them to kick. So they, you put a flank on, like they'll still buck without the flank, but the flank just encourages

them to kick harder and higher. So it's just, it's just a leather strap. It's got a quick release buckle on it. So. Right. Because after the ride, you see the helper cowboys. Yep. They ride in.

Release it. Yeah. So it's got an eight foot latigo on it, two rings on each end with quick, quick release buckle. They've got the sheep skin that goes, you know, around the horses, um, around its midsection or whatever. They pull the flank. Um, you know, the horse goes out there, bucks, the whistle goes, the rides over the pickup men ride in, they trip the quick release, the flank um you know the horse goes out there bucks that the whistle goes the rides over

the pickup men ride in they trip the quick release the flank falls on the ground out the horse goes yeah one other quick thing to note when you look at flank straps on horses and bulls anatomically it would be impossible to go around their testicles or anything like that anatomically it doesn't work so it yeah it yeah, it's a, it doesn't work like, and, and horses like they, they don't perform under like, if you have a saddle that doesn't fit right, um, it can, you know, and it is pinching the horse, you know, somewhere that, and it's,

you know, inflicting pain. It could take, you know, maybe the best bucking horse in the world and make it have a terrible day because like you can inflict pain. Like they don't, they don't perform under, It could take, you know, maybe the best bucking horse in the world and make it have a terrible day. Because like you can inflict pain. Like they don't, they don't perform under, under those circumstances. A bull riding flank is a six foot cotton rope with a ring on it. So when you.

No, no, no genitalia. They're no different than us. If you're in pain, you're not going to perform your sport at the highest level. And my belt's not around my going heads. Yeah. Right. Lucky for you. Right now it's not.

But is that like, so it must be somewhat of a trained thing then, right? Like as they're, they only get that strap when this one thing happens, right? Yeah. So they know, oh, the strap's on. It's time. It's go time.

Yeah. Remember how in the beginning we were talking about like the second act, you know, that you might retire from this and go on to something. You'll just go so seamlessly into ranching though, right? Yeah. I mean, for sure.

I got a lot of hobbies that I'm pretty excited to get time to do. Yeah. You're going to go home and hunt right now. I'm going to do a lot of hunting, um, ranching. You got three weeks to hunt right now? Yep. Yep.

I'm going to go hunt, hunt before the NFR. Mm-hmm. Um. Mule deer. Mule deer. White tail. My wife deer. Mule deer. White tail. My wife has a cow elk draw. She likes to hunt?

She likes to hunt. That's great. Yeah. A friend of mine, Alberta Gal, just whacked a really nice mule deer. So there's one less for you. He showed me some pictures that are pretty amazing. Well, he showed me a buck.

Where's she from? Calgary. Right near you. I was going to say, she's right from your ranch. Yeah, that's not far. Exactly. She was he showed me a buck. Where's she from? Calgary. Right near, yeah. I was going to say, she's right from your ranch. Yeah, that's not far from my place. Exactly, she was on my place. Everybody knows your schedule.

Everybody knows your schedule. She parachuted in. Yeah, she parachuted in your place, man. And then, so are you in the cattle business now too? Yeah. Are you invested in cattle? Yeah, so like we run,

we have some, me and my wife have some cow-calf pairs, mama cows. Yep. Um, and then, you know, for what I do, the work's better for, for us cause we're gone so much in the winter rodeoing is we run what they call grassers.

Um, it's kind of the middle phase of the beef industry. Um, so we get yearlings in, in the spring, run them on grass all summer before they go to the feedlots. And they're out the door. And then we get yearlings in, in the spring, run them on grass all summer before they go to the feed lots. And they're out the door. And then we don't have them around in the wintertime.

You don't overwinter or anything. No. So we don't, cause we have, we have a place in Texas and all the winter rodeos start in January. So me and the family, we load up, head to Texas and. Oh, so you'll base down there for the winter stuff.

Yeah. For about three months, we usually leave right after, right after Christmas or New Year's and, and be down there till, you know, first, first or second week of April. Do you guys go to homeschool your kids? Um, well, I mean, Lucy's just, this is her first year of kindergarten.

So. Oh, they've been so little. Yeah. Yeah. They're still pretty little. And she'll just, yeah, we'll, she'll just take her schoolwork with her and stuff for this, the first few years.

Um, once she gets a little older, I'm not sure what we'll do. But yeah, we try not to keep too many animals around in the wintertime just because we're not home. Yeah. So on this mule deer hunt that you're going to embark on tomorrow, presumably, do you got a goal in mind? You got a buck you've been watching actually that's that's the other downside of rodeos i don't get to be around enough in september and october you're out of the league um to know what's around i do know i haven't seen late eyes on them but they uh the neighbors say there's there's a cranker not far away right um so yeah we'll

probably be poking around looking for him. Rifle or archery? Rifle. And it's spot and stalk mule deer hunting, right? Yeah. Yeah. Got you. And when you guys are hunting whitetails, you hunt them down the bottoms, like river bottoms?

So like we live four miles off of east of the Red Deer River. You'll get whitetails, mule deers down there. But we, we got enough, like there's enough mixture between pasture and grain farming where we're at that the, the white tail get in like the poplar brush and stuff. Yep.

You know, bedding there in the day and then they come out and feed in, in the evening and stuff. So there's actually, there's, there's a lot of both around. And you don't farm at all. I, I own some farm ground. Um, I don't farm it myself.

It gets farmed by my in-laws for me. Oh, I got it. Yeah. But you'll hunt that farm ground? I'll hunt that. Oh, yeah. All right. And then you were saying you guys got some moose running around.

Yeah, we got moose, elk. But it's hard to get the moose tag? Yeah, you're probably, you're an eight on the moose. Yeah, you're probably eight years. Get your bull moose draw. How often will you draw a bull elk tag i mean you can just buy an over the counter archery tag um but i think you're probably you're probably seven on your on your elk got it just keep in mind like i've been applying for moose here in montana since i was 12 or yeah he's no closer to getting that tag than

he was when he was 12. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. For me to be like, oh, I will is just like a fun game to play with myself. Yes. Yeah.

All right, man. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Well, thanks for having me. Dude, I got to tell you on a scale of one to 10 in rodeo knowledge, dude, I was like a one. On rodeo knowledge? Prior. Now I'm like a 10. Youo knowledge prior now i'm like a ten you're ten now maybe a twelve nine see for me decoys any future questions yanni bring them to me yeah on rodeo goose decoys i was like a negative two before this morning

brady got me lined out i'm i'm freaking ten i can set we're gonna we're gonna do it again yeah brady's coming to Alberta. Yeah, me and Matt, we're going to head out. Oh, they're going to come up there and raise hell on your birds? Yeah. Yeah. That'll be fun. Well, you shoot them there and then he can come back down to Montana and we'll beat them up again here.

Just chase the same birds on the way down. We need everyone, too, to cheer him on at the NFR. Look for that meat eater logo. It's the only rodeo athlete that has a meat eater logo on his chest bucking out. Yep. It's pretty cool. So cheer him on. Top right chest.

When is the NFR? December 7th it starts. Yep. 7th to the 16th. 10 days. I'll know when you get off that horse. I'll know if you're waving that hat around or if you're kicking the dirt. I'll know what happened.

That'll be my first indication of how the ride went. You'll be able to turn to the the ride went you'll be able to turn to the person next to you and be like so let me walk you through what Zeke's thinking that'll be my first indication

you'll get a celly or nothing at all yeah we'll be on the live tour so we'll be able to check in every night yeah alright man

thanks for coming on good luck hope you win appreciate it hope you don't get hurt yeah thank you alright man take care

you bet Good luck. Hope you win. I appreciate it. Hope you don't get hurt. Yeah, thank you. All right, man. Take care. You bet. Oh, ride on, ride on, let it run on. I want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun Ride on, ride on, ride on Sweetheart, we're done beat this damn horse to death Take it to noon and ride on We're done beat this damn horse to death Take your new one and ride on. We're done beat this damn horse to death. So take your new one and ride on.