The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 514: Glassin' In God's Country

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Dan Isbell, Reid Isbell, Jordon Isbell, and Katie Finch. Topics discussed: Subscribe and listen to MeatEater’s brand new podcast, “God’s Country,” with Dan and Reid Isbell; the Mississippi cold shoulder; the Nashville song writing scene; “Fresh Set of Eyes” becomes a country song; smashing your finger while rattling because you forget to cut off the brow tines; advice from a TSA agent about hiding pocket knives at the airport; interesting hunting strategies while hunting town deer; the aspirational town hunter; getting back with an ex-girlfriend to gain access to a big buck, then breaking up with her the day after you shoot it; when a trapper gives CPR to a marten; burping your pet raccoon; land > trucks; when you’ll only let Jesus hunt your land; the place that outdoor living occupies in country music; writing and singing about what you know; growing up singing in church; major hustle in ten-year town; selling your struggles; the song called, “Big, Huge, Giant Bucks”; 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.

We've got a new book coming out in the meat eater universe. And for the first time, it is not one of mine. Instead, it's my colleague, Danielle Pruitt. Yeah, Danielle, the founder of Wild and Whole. It's called Meat Eaters Wild and Whole, Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook. And it's an ode to cooking seasonally with wild and foraged ingredients.

Now, let's get to what you'll find in this book. This cookbook contains more than 80 recipes inspired by what you can hunt, fish, forage, or grow in your garden each season. Often, Danielle will pair her ingredients to reflect both the hunting season and the growing season. So her turkey cutlet is combined with springtime morels. Her Gulf Coast redfish was summertime sweet corn. She cooks venison with pumpkin for a tasty fall stew.

If that all sounds complicated, trust me, it is not complicated. Danielle has a knack for creating recipes worthy of a five-star kitchen, but accessible to two-star cooks. And you'll come away armed with techniques that will make you a better cook all around. This book is also beautiful to look at with gorgeous full-color photographs that inspire you to take a real hard look at your kitchen's output. It's Meat Eaters Wild and Whole, Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook by Danielle Pruitt. It is out now and it's available at TheMeatEater.com or wherever books are sold.

This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt 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

okay everybody we're recording in nashville tennessee and i'm in a very tight spot as a podcast host because i'm plugging a different podcast so theoretically you could turn this one off and turn a newer, perhaps better one on. I like that. Already? Tight spot. I like that. The God's Country, not the, God's Country, not the.

Why are you looking at us? I mean, the God's Country podcast. God's Country podcast is live right now. Okay? Yeah. As you're listening to this, as you're listening to through magic of the magic of show business as you're listening to this um it's live right now the first episode dropped this past tuesday from your perspective as a listener today um january 16th is the actual date

from your listener perspective listening right now the second episode is coming out tomorrow if in fact you listen to this show on the day it comes out what just happened what happened is bad producing i take this up with cringe night oh don't say anything who's not with us today the god's country podcast will launch on a weekly cadence first episode january 6th first episode out january 16th so from there you can just track in your calendar what day of the week is that tuesday tuesday so tuesday releases every tuesday right every tuesday so you get the meat eater podcast on monday you god's country podcast on tuesday i'm sitting here with a collection of folks instrumental in the creation and launching of god's country, including Dan and Reed Isbell. Isbell.

There you go. Who've been on the show before. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. One time. Wyoming. Are we talking video show or are we talking podcast show? No, Ben.

You were on the podcast. We recorded one time in a tour bus. Yeah. We recorded on a tour bus in Wyoming. Yeah. Yeah. You missed it. It's supposed to be called Should missed me cold shoulder does remember yeah following an antelope hunt we recorded you guys came on the show and we talked about the business of among other things we talked about the business of country music because you guys are both uh i don't know what the hell you call your lunch pail songwriters like contractual

like contracted songwriters professional songwriters yeah i want to hear more about the mississippi cold shoulder. Well, when we got there, I think I told this then, but when Steve came up, he was real tough. And wasn't like, hey, how you doing? Good to see you. He actually spoke through Yanni. He was like, Yanni, tell these guys what we're about to do.

Steve, Reed, Steve, Luke, Steve. And then he just jumped in the truck and drove off. Because I was trying to get some stuff squared away. I know, you've already justified it on the other podcast. I was trying to get some things squared away for our deal. Square up. Square up. His thing is squared up.

Also joined today by my wife, Katie, not Rinella. Nope, Katie Finch. Here we go. Katie Finch. That's a thing. We need to talk about that thing. Oh, no, I'd like to. Yeah, great. I'd love to. That's a thing. We need to talk about that thing. Oh, no, I'd like to.

Yeah, great. I'd love to. Yeah, me too. Who put a ton of work into God's Country Podcast. And Jordan Isbell. Isbell. Isbell. Isbell. She thought her name was Isbell until earlier today.

About 10 minutes ago. Isbell. Been married a couple years. And with all due respect, the MVP. MVP. Of this podcast. Give her a round of applause. No question. A lot of therapy has went into the MVP of this podcast. Give a round of applause. No question.

A lot of therapy has went into getting us to this point. So we're going to do our normal thing where we get into all kinds of stuff. But I'd like you guys just to do your own intros real quick, too. Just talk a little bit about yourself. Do you work up eighth mile from here? Yeah. Do you have an injured finger? I do, yeah.

We're currently on Music Row. I write at 50 Egg Music, which is, I think it's just this way. I don't know if that's north or south or whatever. This way, about an eighth of a mile. Then Dan's at Sony. He works at Sony down here, probably an eighth of a mile that way. So you guys work for competing outfits. Yeah, you could say that okay yeah um but

yeah it's a it's it's a friendly competition though it's it's more like because they all kind of have to work together in order to get songs in different places that makes sense yeah okay yes it's competing outfits but at the same time like we work together all the time like we write songs and it's not weird to write with other people's companies got it because you need you need that different angle um to get a song cut as well as like a different perspective yeah you just helped my my younger son work through a couple kinks of a song he was working on yeah called twinkle little star beautiful rendition it's not called twinkle little star they Beautiful rendition of Twinkle Little Star. Matty Ice. Did you Twinkle Twinkle?

That was officially called Twinkle Little Star. He did great. He just needed a little push. Sometimes you need that. Remind me again the outfit you work for? It's 50 Egg music. They got that saying from the movie Cool Hand Luke.

When he eats all those eggs. They said he can't eat 50 eggs and he eats them um but usually this is where this is monday uh that we're sitting here recording this usually this town i mean the roads would be jammed up with cars and trucks and all these back parking lots writing songs and the the the food house or the restaurants would be jammed up with people but But today, there's probably, what, four inches of snow on the ground? And I would venture to say that we're one of the only ones doing anything productive on the road today. Nashville's looking for a reason to not do nothing. Yeah.

Well, part of the reason today would be they asked you to not do nothing. Agreed. True. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's like during the pandemic when you felt bad going and doing stuff. Those were good times. I didn't feel bad about that. We had a thing where they said outdoor recreation is a-okay but don't go anywhere so it put you in a bind like we would go five six hours to outdoor recreate and it felt like

so am i under the outdoor rec or am i under the not go anywhere well i think as long as you stay i mean my own justification was as long as you stay you know relatively spaced out are we talking about covet again no we're gonna quit three years four years down when you when you're when you're writing are you sitting in a couch like this yeah man yeah well in my place if i'm writing i've got a room up here um wait you want a little skit you want a little skit of how this goes yeah hey man i heard in the couch hey man i heard jake owen was cutting i had a thing like this oh cool i think he needs an up tempo he needs an up tempo yeah so see his he has different knowledge positive i think he needs a positive so he has different knowledge than i have right

even me saying hey good to see you this morning let's try can you back it up a minute sure how did the conversation start what's up dude what's up What's up, dude? Good to see you, man. You got anything? I heard Jake Owen's cutting. Yeah, I heard he needs like a positive up-tempo. Who told you that? My publisher did. So someone's assembling his album and they said you need

a positive up-tempo. Yeah, because he's got it. I've heard he's got a sad song. I've heard he's got a dad song. A couple heartbreaks. A couple heartbreaks. Wait, why is this funny to you? This is not sarcastic.

This is the construction of an album. No, no. I like that there's the sad dad Also, Jake Owen, we're just using him. Okay. Jake Owen could probably

use a positive uptick. Easy. Okay, he's got a sad song. He's got a dad song. He's got heartbreak songs. Yeah, so. He needs a party song. So I'm not going to go.

Yeah. Because I already know he has it right Your chances of getting that thing And beating something he already has Is way less than Trying to create something Okay he needs a

Up tempo We start there Got any hooks Yeah man I was fishing the other day And my dad said This What did he say

Make one up right now on the spot He said Fresh set of eyes Will always find more beans He said Fresh set of eyes will always find more beans. He said fresh set of eyes will find more beans. It's a little old school. I don't know what it means, but I bet we

could figure it out in a day. So why don't we write a song that says say. Yeah. Then we go, oh, you didn't say an rhyme there what's a cool a rhyme and we try to make that fit because that's what based on the information that he has and that i have we know that there's a space there we're commercial writers not everything that comes out of us has to be what my great granddaddy told passed down the line this saying sometimes it's just hey what does this

guy need we're commercial writers we're hired in order to do to fill that need right do you have particular specialties within that yes like how would you describe well i mean it depends on different different writers have different strengths right so i think i mean it's a good example of us sitting right here right now like i would consider myself a melody guy i can write a lyric but i feel like melodies in my head are my first go-to like when dan if dan plays a song i'm not going to say what if the first verse said this i'm going to go what if it sounded like this yeah and do the the ups and downs of a melody to a, you know, of a verse melody.

And then, which is completely different than a chorus melody. And that is my strength. Dynamically speaking, right? Like you obviously want your verse melody to be somewhere in a range that you can lift from in order to. Create emotion in the chorus. Yeah, create an emotional lift in the course but dan is i would consider dan we can we can both of us can do all the i feel like can do are

really good at doing all the things but dan's strongest specialty that you know that you say is a lyric painting a picture getting some getting a listener to see what we're saying and dan's you know really good at that. Real good at that. Yeah. Well, so I'm good all around. Can you cover off real quick on your finger injury? Yeah, so I smashed my left index, that's an index finger,

with a set of rattling horns last week. Because you didn't cut the brow tines off. Because I didn't cut the, I didn't listen to my dad. Daddy told him. I cut some brow tines off the other day did you yeah we uh i was we were going down for a week rut hunt um last week and i found a i got a pair of horns and you found them or got them found them uh found them on our property i actually we can get into this a little bit i was i was bow hunting um sitting in my stand and i heard the the wildest like grunt slash roar roar i've ever heard in my life behind me and i'm sitting

out there in the woods you know far away from anybody so my first thought it was what is that it happened again thought it was a bull hung in a fence and then like a cow yeah like an actual cow like and then i heard it grunting like a buck like and this is we're getting close to the run when this was going down so i was like man what is going on i called dan videoed it sent him a video he's like dude you need to go check that out i went back there and got down out of your tree got down on my tree to go investigate and found a three-year-old buck that had the back end of it chewed off by coyotes why was he grunting because he was getting eaten alive like it was it was a oh he was bellering it was a grunt it was

like a roar like a like a yeah it was real i'll show you the video anyway found that deer was the coyote still on him no they ran off um tagged him take him took him in cut the back straps out of him and then cut his horns off to make some rattling horns just so you know man so i didn't we didn't throw him you know just we ate that joker yeah we ate that joke yeah um so that was the pair of antlers i was using and yeah before going down to the hunt my dad was like hey you better cut this brown signs off so you said to that buck you're, you won't be needing these anymore. Dang right. That's what we said about his tenderloins too.

Went down to Mississippi, ended up not cutting the brow tines off last morning. I go in for a sequence and man, I smoke my finger. And it's pretty much if you took pliers and tried to rip the side of your index finger off, that's pretty much what happened. Stitched it up, quick stitch. We're chilling, bro.

Now, when you say a sequence, what do you mean? I mean, I don't know what you mean, but do you have a philosophy? Not really. I think. The initial, you were talking about that. Yeah, sequence. I mean, I'm not going to sit there and bang them all day. You know, when it comes to,

I just try to recreate a fight that I've heard in the wild before before and and that's usually a big bang at the front some rattling in between what what i really am kind of intrigued at is and i've heard people doing now is is taking two or three sets of rattling horns tying them to a rope dropping them on the ground from your stand so when your rat your sequence starts you just start picking up that rope, and it's hitting the ground, making leaves move, cracking limbs and stuff, and making noise ground level with the deer, as well as you've got the leaf noise going on and stuff like that. What I've found is when they come, people say the turkey knows what tree you're sitting against.

Absolutely. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I've always heard that. When they come, we were messing around recently with posturing decoys yeah buck decoys which way and yeah but when that buck comes in he's like got it i see the decoy but i know that under that tree there should be another deer yeah do you mean they're like aware of both for sure yeah they don't go like oh there it is they're

like well there he is but what about what I know should be here? I've always heard that, too, the turkey thing is like, it doesn't matter how far a turkey is, if you hit a yelp call or whatever, he could pinpoint within 10 yards of where you're sitting. And if he's enticed to come check it out, you better be ready because he's coming. And same thing with a buck. I mean, you've rattled in deer before.

You better rattle and then set your horns down and get ready. Because if a buck hears that and it triggers that innate fight to survive, I got to get over there, check it out. He's not taking his time. Like he's, he's going to rumble in. And that actually is what happened when this happened. I hit my finger and I wear cutoff gloves when i'm bow hunting so my hands were frozen anyway so when i hit it i knew it hurt and i looked down at it and it was just i mean there was blood everywhere so i start to wrap it

up and i hear and i look up and luckily it wasn't a deer that i was you know gonna shoot and and a three-year-old eight point ran in 30 yards from my tree and just you know went downwind of me checking it out and looking and didn't see anything scared us he sent us a picture he was like got a blood trail and there was blood all over the leaves and then he held his finger up where it was everybody was like yes i was like yeah it's from my i wish that was because everybody was like yeah he got one he shot one it was like no just busted his own shit there's a uh we hit on a thing this year i'm not gonna talk about rattling all hour here but we hit on a thing this year I'm not going to talk about rattling all hour here But we hit on a thing this year

You know that buck He's going to know where that rattling noise is coming from And he's going to come downwind of it And he's going to come downwind of it 20 or 30 yards No doubt We hit on a thing this year The rattler The rattling person

Sets up And then you go 50 yards Then the archer goes 50 yards downwind of the rattler that way that bark bam comes running in right on top of the staring in the direction it thinks it is never even would think to look further downwind yeah but then the one thing is i when i was hunting with with seth did you guys meet seth Yeah. I don't know if you met Seth. Yeah, we did. Yeah. I had to decide if I was going to risk piercing him with the arrow. Yeah.

I mean, because that buck stopped. And I'm like, man, I hope he's. And Seth said he could see the buck, and he started trying to slink down in the tree. Did the deer come between you? Get behind the tree. Oh, no, big time. And I had to shoot earlier and i wanted to because i was watching at what point it was going to go through and get set really and he said he could see it happen and he started trying to melt into the ground thinking about that think

about you guys are sounding real desperate to kill a deer here man gee that's a big that's a big turkey strategy is is the caller if a turkey's not coming in if he's hanging up at 100 yards and then and the call if you're you know a couple guys sitting there you got a shooter and a caller the caller. If a turkey's not coming in, if he's hanging up at 100 yards, and the call, if you're, you know, a couple guys sitting there, you got a shooter and a caller, the caller's gonna, you know, a good strategy to drop back,

to continue to drop back like that hen is walking away, which will entice that turkey to come on in. Come forward. Jordan, so you're tangled up in the music business too?

Yeah, so I'm a marketing director for a label group here in town based out of la but i kind of head up their nashville but you can't say who yeah virgin music group oh yeah so um they're playing people ish we don't get a discount though on the hotels or the planes or the cruises but messed up yeah we passed one of their hotels right here right here no discount no discount no take eighth of a mile yeah and so yeah and then kind of helping these guys our brains work very differently so helping is not wrangling is a better term leading i mean we just kind of show up and do what she says lassoing these guys hurting yeah hurting like this morning for example they were sitting at the kitchen table oh don't just say we're i was you guys don't all live in the same house

no no no dan came no we we do live 10 minutes apart from each other we did live in the same but dan came over this morning dan was holding one of my babies and but they are sitting at the kitchen table talking about buying trucks and the conversation just will not end well it was it was 8 45 and jordan was like we got to be out of here at nine and i've got sweatpants on a t-shirt she said 9 30 9 15 9 15 okay um and i just i don't know i also think being late is like a sign of rudeness and so i am always just like okay let's go whatever um she walked in with a baby this is we i was sitting down like this with my my feet did have sweatpants my feet propped up on a chair uh jordan had a baby in her arms i was drinking coffee jordan you know she's we gotta go you had your concrete boots on yet or not

no not yet not yet um dude these things are mean these are cold but dan sitting there jordan deadly too if you lived in the north you'd know better dude my feet are freezing he learned a lesson you'll eat it too on ice go on jordan you'll have good working on concrete that's good jordan walked in and goes hey and this is how this is why she works with me and dan and and she she walks in and goes hey i love you guys i think you guys are great she was like we gotta go like quit talking about buying a truck and go put some pants in your in your concrete boots and they were both like okay what do we gotta do and i was like snow needs to get off the truck dan truck reed. Reed, shower. Do something.

But yeah, so I guess in Wranglin, these you-hoos. It's been fun. Great. And Katie? I noticed your little about Jordan's comment about being late. I did too. I noticed that. Yeah, yeah.

That is one of the main things that Steve and I argue about. So are you always on time? No. I'm a. Yeah, yeah. That is one of the main things that Steve and I argue about. So are you always on time? No. No, no. You're the layman. I'm a minute man, dude. You're a what? A minute man.

Minute man. From the American Revolution. Yeah. Yeah. Our kids, they all try to be minute men. Our youngest is the only one who has achieved that. Oh, dude, he's fast. That's my guy. my god he is always ready

for school on time anyway you asked me you i'm i am your wife and i work at meat eater do a variety of things and had the awesome amazing fortune of getting to work with you guys on this podcast so excited you guys know we met through publishing? I did know that. I did. And then Dan, go ahead. What? Talk about your line of work.

Oh, it's the same as Ray's. We do the same thing. I'm a professional. Yeah, we kind of already covered that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Great. So we're going to do a couple things that we're going to get into. We're going to get into the God's Country podcast.

Now, you guys are not familiar. You're familiar now with my saying that I invented. A fresh set of eyes will always find more beans. I'll clarify where it came from. It came from when you'd send people to pick pole beans. As one does. They'll come and say, well, I got them all.

I'm like, no you didn't. And then I'll go out and there'll be more. Anybody. This is a very specific saying to our children though yeah i think it just applies to you how do you apply i'm really curious as to how you're applying this to your children though no it's like so like literally sending them outside to get pole beans yeah what are you what kind of you guys do bush beans or pole beans down here what are we talking about are you talking about gardening gardening oh, no. I don't do any.

I don't do any. Okay. Either way, I observed that no matter how many people you send out, you'll send them out. Pick a pole beans is hard because they camouflage

inside the trestle. Can I get a spelling on pole beans? P-O-L-E. Pole. A pole. I thought you said pole. Well, you have two varieties. So you have bush beans.

We have snap beans and green but they can they can be either or okay just just for clarity's sake uh bush beans are already generally they're determinate meaning they're already all at once right so for canning and stuff they're great then you can have indeterminate pole varieties which just produce over a long period of time you will send as i've had to explain a bunch of times you'll send someone out you'll be like hey kids go pick all the beans for dinner and they'll come back but we got them all and then i'll go out and they didn't get them all there's more so did you invent the saying or was

this a past no i invented the saying a new old saying a new old saying which means that's not old that means like a like you can apply it to glassing for instance yeah yeah like no i glass that hillside out there's no deer there and then a new fresh set of eyes he's like oh there's one like fresh set eyes fresh set eyes so we've got a lot of variations on this i have a conflict with that statement working on song titles and a guy said that he tried it on his wife the other night um she was looking in the she was looking in the pantry for vanilla extract she couldn't find it and he said well i'll come in and take a look and she said what good would that do i'm already looking he'd been wanting to use the expression his wife's name is kate he wanted to use the expression so he

said it and then in reply she called the the one word that no one has ever said on this podcast see you next tuesday oh which made me think what kind of wife's he got what happened right there? What just happened? Doesn't matter. Okay. See you next Tuesday is way more than one word. Yeah, that's what he got called for applying to saying.

Now, we've been covering situations with TSA agents stealing your pocket knives. And we had a guy, we haven't been disclosing where any of these TSA agents are located because we don't want them to get in trouble. Oh, yeah. But there's a TSA agent who tells people to go put it in the bathroom drop ceiling oh and a guy goes to later get his knife and he says that he finds multiple three other knives in the drop ceiling another tsa agent wrote in he says i work for the tsa and there have been many times that someone was caught while attempting to stash a knife in the ceiling tiles of a bathroom they are usually caught by

another passenger who reports them to either tsa or the police at the airport my suggestion this is coming from a tsa agent which is what i've personally done put your knife inside of a planter you're less it's less suspicious to see someone fiddling with a planter than the scene then someone in the bathroom fiddling with the drop tiles agreed yeah i agree a guy wrote in about hunting strategies you guys might be interested in this he's talking about trying to kill town deer. Yeah. Folks, I've got some very exciting news. First Light has just launched their all new, completely reinvented whitetail line. And this has been after years of brainstorming, prototyping, and field testing. This innovative new whitetail system incorporates the technology, the features, and the designs

demanded by some of the most hardcore deer hunters in the world. People like Levi Morgan, Tony Peterson, myself, Andy May, Jeff Sturgis, Michael Hunsucker, Sean Luckdell, and a whole bunch more. We were all involved in designing what we want. This is the system. These are the jackets and bibs that we have helped design. I'm very excited with what we've come up with. They are all fully windproof. They are all featuring new, more technically advanced, and more weatherproof fabrics and insulation. Like I said, three new jackets with a whole bunch of interesting new features, including an improved kit link pass-through system, interchangeable hoods,

new cuts with collars and wrist gaskets, all sorts of stuff. To learn more about the new first light whitetail system that's right for you just going over to firstlight.com okay he's observing when you're hunting town deer and i've seen this you're hunting town deer that are town turkeys town deer they're totally used to people but the minute you go to hunt them they know you're hunting them agreed he's saying the reason that's happening is because you're acting different. You're dressing different, acting different. When he's hunting town deer, he acts like he's going to do a normal town thing. Like go to the grocery.

You put on normal clothes and don't go toward the deer. You go toward the shed. Yeah. You go like you're going toward a car. Yeah, crank a four-wheeler out there. And he talks on his phone. And then he turns around and whaps him. And it said it's so easy

that he's gotten sick of it. So, but he's been successful with this. You sound angry about this. I'm a little angry about this. Well, he's like, hey, I'll act, if I'm trying to get a town deer, I'll act like I'm doing,

messing with my garbage. So smart. Because the minute you like get all your gear on and act weird and try sneaking up on it it's like what the hell the deer's like what the hell is going on with this guy and he takes off he's hunting me yeah he's like he doesn't like it yeah so he said just like have it be chill do normal stuff he like say it works so good. This works so well, it ruined the whole experience. Oh, beautiful. He's got a friend. This guy should go find some public land.

He's got a friend. He says that Hunt likes to hunt deer. He's a mechanic, and he hunts deer by the garage. He hunts in his mechanic clothes by the garage and he said that he thinks is the perfect all that grease is a good cover center his area it just absolutely demolishes like all the standards and bars that we were brought up on as far as like respecting everything and do it you know what i mean it's just like hey man just sit up by the garage of your work suit shoot some shit so you don't think you should do it i'm not saying i don't think you should do it i would

absolutely do it i just think it it just doesn't feel as good to me like hunting some weird you know what it is it's it's it's well go on no you i'm good i'm I used to... So when I used to get on a plane and there was people in first class, I wanted to cut all their throats. Wow. I knew they were like... With your knopf that you hid in the plane. No, I was like, you know...

Did you bring the planner on board with you? Rich bastards came by it dishonest. Yeah. You know what I mean? And then later you get where... Or they got free upgrades. Then later you get where you start getting... Or they worked real hard for it.

Oh, I know. But now, you know, now I get out there and I'm like, man, a bunch of hardworking people, you know. Yeah. A lot of sacrifices. You sit down by them. A lot of sacrifices they made. You sit beside them. A lot of sacrifices they made to be in this situation up here.

You guys order champagne. You get to talk about. Hey, what was your, what stocks you're investing in? I used to look down on people that hunted town stuff. But now I have a yard that has a lot of town stuff in it and i'm always plotting and devising um how i would go about it and the one neighbor i have right next to me is out in a different zone a different administ municipality administrative zone and i'm envious even though you know one of the commandments is don't covet that neighbor's

property i covet his property because he would be at will to hunt the town stuff. I'm not saying I wouldn't look down on it. Now I'm an aspirational town hunter, meaning it's just your situation varies. So you wouldn't... You live in the country. Correct. Back porch.

Yeah. A giant deer walks out across your backfield. Depends on how the years go okay and what season end of season you haven't killed a buck yet night night see ya yeah you would shoot it yeah all right we recently looked at a property that's basically touching our property and my only motivation looking at that property is that you would have excellent town hunting when you say town hunting like are you guys like in talking about hunting habituated animals okay yeah that was not my motivation for looking at that

i'll still do normal stuff but i was like my like this would give you a chance at town bears i'm saying there's a diff for me personally now what i mean honestly ignorance is bliss too right like if you didn't have the foundation i guess that we were brought up on it probably wouldn't matter to me i'm old now and there there is more to it for me than the animal and i'm not trying to put myself on some you know purist pedestal here i'm just saying it it just i don't know that it would that it would bring the same satisfaction as because you didn't feel like you worked hard enough for it so there's a guy here in town no no no yeah um and you guys probably know this story but he was dating this girl who lived within

city limits oh you're doing it you're doing it she is doing it okay okay don't say names into it i'm not gonna say names i'm not gonna say names um the girl lives in east nashville very well known for having like town deer over there oh no she's at a location big deer in east nashville we're getting close but we're gonna judge you if you shoot them because you shouldn't shoot town deer. Anyway, this guy was dating this girl. And he had been watching this deer come up on her property. They ended up breaking up.

And I don't really know what. I think they were kind of like talking still. And as a talking, she sent him a picture of this giant buck in her backyard. Conveniently, they got back together and he shot it and then posted a picture on the internet in his camo like he shot it out of the country. But didn't they break up right after that? And then he broke up with her the next day. My dog.

Sacrificed it. I'm with that. Wow. That's my dog. But it's kind of funny you say that. He shot it off the back porch in his normal clothes, went inside, put his camo on, and then went outside and took the picture with the deer. We don't know that that happens.

He might have put his camo on and climbed up in a tree. One degree removed. I like to be a very well-rounded outdoorsman. I hunt, I trap, I fish. I hunt in some of the most remote places you can get to. And as the well-roundedness, I'd also like to be able to hunt in some of the most remote places you can get to and as the well-roundedness i'd also like to be able to hunt in some of the least remote places you get to just to have that full breadth of experience yeah and i don't think you're gonna i don't think you're gonna damage the

resource which leads me to another thing that someone wrote in about where a guy wrote in looking for some moral help he has a 20 acre plot 20 acre track of land in western virginia used to be a big cattle operation but it got all as things do. Got all busted up into little pieces, one of which he purchases. Loaded with deer and turkeys. Here's the thing. He's in a situation where, in terms of the state regulations, he's totally fine to hunt. But there's this dumb Property Own owners association prohibition on hunting and

he's looking for some moral guidance and what you should do uh i just i i never knew i didn't really understand what those things were i bought a house that's in one of those things and i would never make that mistake again i would not pay any attention to that no me either and i live in one as well like like we we live outside of the city um but it is it is in a community and and there is an hoa system in place and they will send you letters if your grass is not cut at a certain height or if you've got limbs in the backyard which i just kept on moving them. They look fresh. Yeah, just moved them in a different spot. But, yeah, I'm the same way, man.

I think, and I always say this too, like until that association is paying the taxes on my property, I'll do what I want to do on my property. I have all phenomenal neighbors. Same. Yeah. But I would rather all my neighbors were hoarders. I mean, I don't want to trade my neighbors in. I'd like to have my wonderful neighbors that I have,

but the, but the, they were hoarders and junk collectors. Okay. Meaning when you need something like I have in my place in Alaska, I had a hoarder junk collector neighbor. Anytime you needed anything, just walk over there, you go over there and he'd have it.

Yeah. You don't have to keep up with it. So you need like a, and didn't even know he had some metal. Yay. Long, right. Whatever. Yeah. You know, he's going to have that h over there and he'd have it. Yeah, you don't have to keep up with it. So you need like a piece of metal yay long, right, whatever. He's going to have that hunk of metal yay long. It's just they have all kinds of rabbits like junk piles.

Yeah. And then my place looks awesome. Sure. Not having it in an HOA. Looks way better than everybody else's place. We've never gotten any like criticism from the HOA except not like grass, anything we've done to the house, just our camper trailer.

Yeah. Staying outside for too long. How'd that make you feel? When you opened that letter and read that. Didn't come in a letter form. Was it right after your hunt with Luke? No, it was during the big flood. That we had just gotten a notice about our camper trailer.

And our HOA was upset about it. And I pulled in from work one day. And there was probably 20 cars, our trailer, and a tour bus. The generators running. That's amazing. I love that. For like two days. And I was like,

well, if they were upset before. Yeah. It is. A Minnesota Trapper. This was reported in, I believe this was reported in Minnesota trapper. This was reported in, in, uh, I believe this is reported in Minnesota public radio. A Minnesota trapper had a Bobcat set out.

This, this, this is not, this is, this story makes trappers like pretty good. A Minnesota trapper has a Bobcat set up and he's in the area where you can't trap pine Martins and he catches a pine Martin in his bobcat set and he thinks it's deceased calls a warden because that's what he needs he needs a self-report oh this guy's an exemplary figure because a lot of guys would have been like that didn't happen yeah right just go about your business but he calls a warden to say i had an

incidental catch i think i killed this pine martin the warden says on the call the trapper then says opitz eyes just moved and hangs up on the warden he then manages to give cpr the warden backed him up on this gives him cpr resuscitates him up on this. Gives him CPR. Resuscitates the Martin. Puts it in his vehicle to warm it up.

Say it again. Moves the Martin into his vehicle to warm it up. Okay. He put his mouth over its nostrils and put air into it. I'm with it. I'm not saying I would have done it. The warden rushes to the scene.

Beltrami County. The guy gets it all warmed up in his all-train vehicle. They don't say what kind. The warden rushes to the scene. They get it revived to the point that it becomes very angry. Just let me die. Confined within the ATV.

Tired of this life. And they released it. It's impressive that he pulled out the CPR and knew how to do it. Not only that, the warden reviewed video taken by the trapper's wife that confirmed the sequence of events.

The warden was so moved. He included it in his weekly report of notable activities, activities. The trapper, I wish Corinne was here, supposedly does not want to be interviewed. If, if anybody could anybody could make that happen, it would be Corinne.

Yeah. I always think I'm redneck, and then I hear stories like that, and I'm like, you know what? Dude, what a story. Wait, didn't your parents have coons or something? Oh, yeah. My dad and stepmom raised raccoons in our house.

There's literally pictures of her dad holding a raccoon, feeding him a Twinkie, like on the couch. And they would have to burp the raccoons, our house. There's literally pictures of her dad holding a raccoon, feeding him a Twinkie on the couch. And they would have to burp the raccoons like a baby. It's a whole thing. I'll show you the pictures.

We kept them when I was little. My kids are dying for one this spring. A raccoon? Yeah. They fell out of a tree and they were Huey, Dewey, and Louie, I think.

And they would open the door at night and come in and eat Cheetos. That's pretty redneck. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess I am. I never give a mouth to mouth. What a story of the pond martin. Let me ask about the pond martin though.

I was going to move on to another news story. Sorry, is that... Obviously, we don't have pond martins down here. Is that like a revered animal there? Would it be like reviving an opossum? No, it's more heroic than reviving an opossum.

We trap martins where we're at. it's more it's more heroic than reviving opossum so we trap martins yeah where we're at and it's the an american martin people call a pine martin have you ever heard of sable like a sable coat or a sable brush so martins are sold as sable and it's a very high-end luxuriant fur and they used to make a brush with the with the hair of a martin and now like i was saying if you were an oligarch's wife pre-ukraine invasion if you were an oligarch's wife what you wanted was a sable coat wow lined with bobcat which really brings this guy's worlds together so is there like a season for pine martin and it wasn't in season the season for pine martin runs well i don't know in his area he might be in a unit so there are minnesota units you can trap martin he might have been out of you

but our season runs from uh december 1 to february 15th for martin trapping and they're regulated as a fur bear they're a mustelid they're a weasel remember the weaspping and they're regulated as a furbearer they're a mustelid they're a weasel remember the weasel family they're regulated as a furbearer and you'll have all kinds of quotas in place and stuff like that but right now the unit i'm in is open quota december 1 to february 15th so is that why they're worth they're worth like 40 50 bucks so is that why he had to report it because it was out of season yeah okay was Was that what you were going for when we had the snowmobile? Yeah. We were Martin Trapp when we had our snowmobile crash.

Okay. So I have the best photo ever. I'm going to find it for you. Okay. We had a miscommunication. I took her trapping. We had a miscommunication. It was not a miscommunication.

No. Here's the deal. He was like, I have a great date day. Date day. Date day. Got her with the date day. And I was like, oh, that's sweet. So I had her drive.

She's like, I don't want to be driving on some steep ass trail. Yeah. And I was like, the one thing I'm worried about is driving off the side of a mountain and flipping over. Valid. So I said, you should drive the snowmobile and learn how to drive on the flats. Tough to drive a snowmobile, by the way. So she drove it and then wasn't crazy about driving it. And then I jump off to check some sets.

They just happened to be where we were. I leave it. No, this is true. He's like, I'm supposed to do a day-to-day, but I have to go check my seats. I jump off to check some sets and I go down the mountain. My snowmobile has foot warmersers you can jam your feet up into these feet warmers she moves up to try to warm her feet on it so when i come back up the mountain

she's perched up there in the driver's seat yeah yeah in the driver's seat i thought she was up there because she's itching to drive again but she was up there trying to warm her feet yeah but she then decides just whatever i jump her feet yeah but she then decides to just whatever i jump on the back and she's like well i guess i'm driving again and i had already broken trail through this area so then we are on the steep stuff she doesn't want to drive on and her skis get a little out of the ruts this is the day ken block died on a snowmobile always be able to find the day same day yeah so she gets the r So she gets the skis out of the track. I reach forward to grab the bar and pull it back on,

but inadvertently punch the accelerator with my mitt. Whiskey throttle, dude. That's what that's called, whiskey throttle. So we went off and flipped. I whiskey throttled it. Off the side. And off the mountain we go. And I think, think man this is gonna

hurt when this thing starts rolling over a bunch of times so i kind of bear hugger and get like tucked in expecting the machine day romance come over but the powder was so deep it just burrowed in and i was like man this is bad but we, there's two trees in the vicinity. I had one tree to get it back. I got a rope puller on one tree and got it upright. Got a rope puller on another tree and got it back on the road, and we were lucky and underway. Jordan. That's the pine marten.

I don't know if I put my mouth on that. That's a pine marten? Yeah, I'm not putting my mouth on that. And the guy didn't mouth the mouth on that. That thing would eat your tongue out'm not putting my mouth on that and the guy didn't mouth the mouth on that like terrified that thing would eat your tongue out oh yeah they're being little suckers steve's face so recorded in the okay here's here's here's a here's a here's a here's a distressing story kind of so a group by now in canada how it'll work like in canada big game in british columb, big game guides will have.

I hunted in BC on one of these. A big game outfitter in Canada will have what they call, on crown land, they'll own the concession. So big game outfitter, the public can hunt a certain area, but only one outfitter can guide an area, and that's what you own. There's an animal rights group in the Great Bear Rainforest of BC, which is buying up the concessions, doing everything normal, and it's a bid process. So it's like willing seller, willing buyer. They're doing the bid process, doing all the necessary paperwork, but uh-uh.

So that would essentially be like here where they do duck draws. They draw for blinds, right? Is that what they're called? Pits and stuff. And so what they do here is essentially it would be them entering these duck things, getting the rights to it, and then just not hunting it essentially. But with a duck thing, you have – And mocking people out.

There's a possibility that you can't. This is money. No, no. This is money too. People buy pits from people who draw them all the time oh you oh okay maybe illegally but they definitely do it okay i see what you're saying this is similar to a move that's been happening in other areas where uh so a couple years ago when the u.s fish and wildlife service moved to d-list grizzly bears and the grizzly bears in the greater yellowstone ecosystem we're going to go under state management some of the states montana sat it out wyoming said that we're going to issue 20 tags for hunting idaho was going to do a a sort of uh they were going to do one sort of a symbolic one tag and there was a big movement for

if this went through it was going to be that the whole they were trying to get people just to swap the application system in hopes that that anti-hunters would draw the tags and just sit on them right so this is like a play that you'll see that is happening more and more and more and more let me ask you about this okay do you feel how how do you feel like if there's a versus the revenue of hunters versus the revenue of non-hunting where does that how does that sit i think it you know i think where you see it play out in a really effective way is you where you where you have a legitimate juxtaposition would be as explained to me would be if you look in areas in africa where you have countries that have moved away from right you have countries that move to a park system

and countries that run a hunting concession system what it winds up doing with countries that run like that have like a park system you have the same way you'd have it and for instance in montana with yellowstone national park or glacier national park then the rest of the area you have a high volume of spending in a very concentrated area and in a bunch of neglected area so in as it's been explained to me would be in the case of in africa you have these vast vast vast areas that are hunting concession and it brings in small amounts of people that spend extraordinary amounts of money and allows for habitat preservation to occur on in remote areas on

big landscapes and then you have park systems where large amounts of people spend small amounts of money and they're very concentrated um its effectiveness almost lies on its effectiveness almost relies on the concentration right meaning a dude that goes to wyoming to hunt elk um and you know a dude goes to wyoming elk is going to go spend over 10 grand all in. You go visit the park, you're not spending that amount of money. But that 2 million acres of Yellowstone National Park, for instance, that 2 million acres generates an enormous amount of money per acre. But it wouldn't be applicable across these sort of like less showcasey scenarios do

you think that's moving our our country to a gotta own to be able to hunt place man everywhere outside of the big public land areas um yeah i mean i'm witnessing that in my i mean you know i'm turning 50 pretty soon here so it's like in when i say in my own lifetime keep in mind that's like a half century yeah but i've witnessed that dramatically in my own lifetime pay to play right yeah like the days of we used i used to maintain when i was growing up in michigan for trapping i maintained 25 permissions i had 25 permissions to hunt trap yeah it's definitely happening here in the south i mean you you have to and i don't know i don't know if it's a i don't know if it's people just don't want people on their land at this point but like to me it was the most it was the it was the most important thing I could spend money on was land

in order to lock up a place for my kids, Reed's kids. You know what I mean? Like I don't care about trucks or any of that other stuff. It was like give me. You were just talking about buying trucks this morning when you were supposed to get ready. I was talking about Reeve on the truck. No, we were talking about you buying a truck.

Just this morning. Well, he's rich now and he already has the land. For a guy who doesn god doesn't care about trucks i'm sorry i shouldn't say i don't care about trucks i care about land more than i care about trucks and i care about acquiring land more than i care about trucks and that that's what i think is is part of the problem as well is because once i get an antibody hunt man they're not my family's gonna hunt that so the more that that happens the more locking up that that happens the less opportunity there is for people that that's not important to them yeah especially now that that land is is through the roof and price man that's what i'm saying that's i mean so you've decided no

one's hunting your place nobody's's hunting my place, bro. You can come sit with me, dog, but you're not shooting anything. You need a doe or something. But look, here's the other thing. Okay, let's take the six point, for example, the one I sent you the picture of. I've been watching that deer grow for four years. So I come in, I work and don't buy trucks for years in order to be able to purchase this ground, right? It comes for sale.

Bam. We hop on it. I go. Start hunting it. Dream spot. Backs up to my little farm. So now we've got this acreage. I see this tall six point, right?

He's running around out there. I'm like, man, that thing's pretty. It'd be awesome if he could make it. He makes it. Makes it another year. Makes it another year. And eventually turns into this desired six and a half year old whitetail, right? So the thought of me bringing

anybody outside of Jesus Christ to shoot this deer is outlandish, dude. I've been passing this thing. How sick would that be? He's been dodging Z71s for the past six years on the roads, You know what I'm saying? Not to mention other whack job mechanics sitting out behind their house trying to shoot him.

All greasy and everything. All greasy and everything. Acting like they're working on a car. To me, that deer is more periodically running an impact driver. Like with a flashlight and a 270. You know what I'm saying? And I'm with the mindset of it. I'm just saying it's a tough spot, right?

It's a tough spot because people want their own ground and they want to do what they want to do on their own ground. Well, let me hit you with this. Okay. This is true. But, like, okay, my friend Doug Dern, he manages his family's farm. Right. That dude, he takes the number one number he's interested in.

He's interested in two numbers. One, he likes to brag about how many people hunted his place. How old is this guy? Older than me. So he's had some time on there. You know what? I'm older than he was. He recently pointed out to me.

I'm now older than he was when he and i became friends that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to you but either way oh i don't know what the hell he is a decade older than i am yeah um maybe a little more than that anyway he'll brag to me 44 people hunted my farm this year in a very controlled organized fashion and if you go talk to doug too the number of dead deer is usually at or higher than the number of people that hunted this place how big is this place several hundred several hundred acres yeah he takes pride in getting people on his place i got another buddy i got well i got another but does he set limits on my buddy my buddy matt cook there's years that dude don't hunt his place he's so busy having everybody else on his place wounded veterans kids non-profits real bad right he's the last time a wounded veterans hunted your spot

if we had gotten the land behind us oh come on katie get him would you invite a bunch of people to come over and my kids bodies that i got another guy i got another guy i know uh another guy i know mark that dude he's got more kids running around hunting his place so you don't need to be mean like but it also could be that you could mature into this in old age maybe that's what doug durham did you know well he did because he used to be he's he'll tell you well i i'm not saying no one can ever hunt my place well Jesus you said he could now at this moment

cause he killed that deer and me yeah we shot some turkeys off there I'm just saying it's the dilemma right I hear you loud and clear locking up ground for you and yours to do what they want to do on.

Can I hit you with a scenario? Then we're going to move on. Round two. Yeah, let's go. I'm not as guilty as you are. I already look like an asshole. Well, no, I'll hit you with a scenario. So I own a weird little spot.

Okay. I own a weird little spot where. Now, let me just say this. If you've got a record deal You're welcome to hunt my spot I'll swap cuts for a For a For a doe any day of the week If you're looking for an up-tempo positive

Up-tempo positive We'll slide in there Hey man Shoot that fork horn He don't make it down to me I have a little spot That opens up some great opportunity Like in and of itself

The spot's nothing But it just gives you It gives you like Pretty good access to an area and a buddy of mine owns a little spot next to the little spot that i have a buddy of mine on the spot next to the spot no okay so he gets a letter from some kids saying couldn't help but notice you got a nice little spot could we use your little spot to get to the other spot other spot and i said man i'd act like i never saw that letter and i'm gonna be in real glad i didn't get the letter so because that would put me in a morally compromised position so what would the little montana heart of yours have done i would have been in a bind i would have been in a bind

but thankfully i was like just i just was i thanked the universe that that didn't come to me because I wouldn't want to have to deal with a situation like that. What did he do? Did he say, no, you and your kid? I advised him to act like he never saw that letter. Is that what he did? Is that what he did?

Well, he was a little distraught about, he was a little distraught about that he was a little he was a little dismayed about the address that they found. What? They'd done a lot of work. He felt a little spied on. Well, we had

someone. Let's just leave it at that. Maybe something for that. My stepdad has land and had someone approach him about getting to hunt it. And so my stepdad actually made a list of jobs he didn't want to do on the property to help clean it up and told the kid, if you trim the fences, paint the fences, do all this stuff, you can have rights to hunt it. Which the kid has not done.

And so Reed took over the hunting there. And then we locked everybody out. I'd invite your dad to visit with the guy I was talking about, Doug Duren, who lets everybody hunt his place. Because not only that, he has started an organization

called Sharing the Land, which is just for that purpose. Doug's philosophy is this. First off, his philosophy on land ownership is, uh, it's, uh, it's not ours. It's our turn. Hmm.

Interesting. Land management. It's not ours. It's our turn. Jesus is really making me laugh. Well, let, let me tell you, he's gonna get worse. It's gonna get worse. So Doug's like, there's every time, you know, everybody knows what the hunter gets out of

the land, right? Everybody knows that the landowner gets out of the land, but Doug's like, what does the land get out of it, out of this exchange? So Doug has started this thing called sharing the land, which is he brings in farmers who have chore lists, right? And he brings in groups of hunters who say, like, I'm ready to work for access.

But the work that they're doing goes toward habitat improvement so if a farmer's like he wants shelter belts and wind rows he wants to pull up old fencing he wants to do any number of things they try to gear it toward land improvement wildlife improvement actually and then he puts the he pairs the hunters with the landowners there's no and it winds up being there's no exchange of cash, so you don't wind up in a weird regulatory space. But it's like, oh, I've always wanted to improve my riparian area or try to reestablish willows along the creek

where the cattle grazed it down or try to do trout work on my stream. But shit, I'm not going to have time to do that. Well, you get these hosers that want to hunt, and they'll come out and pour the coals to it and then they get to do their hunt i'm with that sharing the land and i think it's good especially if the landowner doesn't hunt like they're not going to be like if you didn't hunt yeah you would let people probably hunt your land yeah man so you got like i think in dan's defense, you brought up the fact that it's a dilemma. To act like it's not a dilemma is not truthful.

You're being honest about it. And you admitted that you also were conflicted when, you know, tangentially. I think we're on the same team. He's just not as vocal about it. He's just not owning it. No, no, no. I'm just putting you in a tough spot. I know, but we're on the same team.

I'm not going to lie. If I owned land, I wouldn't let people hunt it. I'm just going to say it. Not even your husband? I mean, yeah. What about your brother-in-law? You got land you own without me? No, but I mean, like if I, I mean, I grew up on a chicken farm in Kentucky and I don't,

I wouldn't let people hunt that. I wouldn't let other people hunt it. I would let my family enjoy it. I would be selfish about it. That's what I'm saying. I'm exploiting myself. It's this tough spot. And I'm not saying I'm not taking a wounded veteran, like back off.

I'm just saying. You're like, how wounded? Which ward? No, look. veteran like back off i'm just saying like how wounded which war no look i mean here's the prime i have a prime example um they probably never listen to this anyway there's a there's a guy that has asked like hey man do you mind and i I was like, yeah, I do mind. Nicely, I worked extremely hard to have a place for my family to do this, and we're going to be doing it on that day. So next year rolls around. Hey, man, son's in for Christmas.

Do you mind if we? I was like, ah, wish we could make that work but my brother and i are actually going to be back there on the next year rolls around hey man my nine-year-old granddaughter who has never killed a turkey she's a combat veteran she's a combat veteran and has a purple heart is there any chance and i And I was like, dude, I'm going to have my nephews. All true. All true. Me and Reed were hunting one year. Me and my dad were hunting the year before.

And I was taking my nephews the next year. All true things. I'm not just lying about it. But I'm trying to establish the fact that, hey, bro, find a lease somewhere, buddy. They're out there. Because I feel like that's what we had to do that's what we had to do to get ground we had to we hunted core ground and public land and i shot a turkey on the other side of the lake over there then and i mean we we worked to have access to places to hunt

understood and there is ground 15 minutes down the road that we have killed deer on. Now, were they six-year-olds? No, but we got to hunt there. I feel like you should be able. God, this sucks to say. I just keep feeling like a jerk every time it comes out. No, you don't need to feel like a jerk. It's the thing. Let me bring a positive that we can move on from the conversation.

Okay, sorry. Yeah, we've been on this. No, no, no. I just think that hats off to the people that have that ability to let people go on. Oh, my God. You're terrible. Jesus H. He's terrible. I'm totally joking.

I know. I'm totally joking. If we ever find ourselves in a position where we have land to hunt I will be very interested to see if you just open it up to all hunters everywhere yeah no I'll be like hunt

what when okay do you do that with your spots that you hunt now are you like after you film your little show do you go hey man by the way here's the pinpoint go kill everything out there

yeah but not to anybody I was gonna say you ain't giving me no coordinates well I what here's the way here's the pinpoint go kill everything out there yeah but not to anybody i was gonna say you ain't giving me no coordinates well i well here's the deal there's sort of a no i have a collection of individuals i have a circle of individuals that there's that we there's like an unwritten deal okay where i throw them little tidbits and they throw me little tidbits little tit for tat it's and it's highly reciprocal it's highly reciprocal and sometimes you know in the godfather when the guy comes and says to marlon brando he's like he wants something done about um someone that violated his daughter and the criminal system.

Let her go. Yeah. Brando says to him someday. I don't know when, but someday I'm going to have a favor for you. Maybe never, but someday I might have a favor for you and I'll take care of this. So you feel about.

So the people that I share with someday, maybe I share with, I have an expectation that sometime down the road i might say hey i'm in a little bit of a bind trying to take a buddy mine uh to get some uh whatever ducks this weekend you got any tips and i would expect and if if if they clam up on me then I would expect like down the road, I'm not throwing tidbits. I get that, dude.

Like, you know what I'm saying? I'll do that with fish, but I mean, I don't know about deer, dude. Fish, anything. You were explaining to me the other day because I was a little bit surprised by it that if you take someone somewhere and then they go without you,

that that's real bad. I just said it's good policy to acknowledge agreed yeah it's a good policy to it'd be like if i take someone to a spot it's good policy for them to say hey what uh is it cool if we yeah like like i want to go up there and hit that spot i don't want to be up in each other's business i know you showed me the spot like what are you thinking oh yeah to which i might to which i would be very upfront i'd be like you know what i was gonna i was gonna go up there with my boy he already tagged out i'm not gonna hit it this year if you're gonna hit this year yeah and then the one deal is just let me know what you see right and i'll say that to people i'll be like dude go you should check this

spot check this spot let me know what you're running into now look if we're talking public ground that's all what i'm talking it's a different deal yeah it's all i'm talking about because ultimately you can't hunt at all right that's a different deal and i'm with you i would i would do exactly what you're saying hey man now i'm not telling everybody and maybe if i bring you to the spot you don't tell nobody else yeah but you if you're going over there with your kid like let me know what you say i've had people say to me i don't go to spots with people because i don't want to have to then later on be like worried about that stuff i'd rather just find it all on my own and know that i found it on my own and never have to deal with any kind of weirdness i don't

know if that's worse i don't know if that's worse than owning land and not letting people hunt it because you're not really sharing the resource i do share do share. I don't have one public land. I do not have one public land secret that I don't share with my circle of friends that we network. How big is that circle? What's the initiation for that circle? It's big because it's spread all around. Yeah, across doubt it's big because it's spread all around

yeah across the country yeah it's spread all around i mean there's probably i could sit and list i could probably list there's probably 20 people that depending on what's going on that i would be like oh yeah buddy like i mean we've checked this out are you nolly spots because we don't hunt that anymore yeah and because it's public land that's that's what i'm saying i mean it's public ground that we've hunted that we hunted for a long time while we were busting to have our own ground you know so we we pay for a lease in a spot and then we've you know we purchased some ground so yeah um so there's not the need to continually stomp out public because it's not a it's a big it's a big place but it's not giant compared to the pressure you know it's all i just think it's all part of it's just all part of fun man

and then i'm like way more sympathetic to kids right if someone's trying to get their kid into some action i'm sure way more we're more sympathetic to record deals if you get a record deal there's there's a good chance you can find some of our secrets out. All right, moving on. The last time you guys were on the show, we talked about country music and the place that outdoor living holds within country music. How would you guys describe that? The confluence is very strong. It's not a subtle connection. would you guys describe that? Do you mean like sort of the confluence is very strong.

It's not a subtle connection. And I would argue that it is like I listen to country music made from the I don't like anything like pre- mid-70s. I listen to country music from the mid-70s to present. It has grown. The outdoor

hunting, fishing, references and stuff within country has absolutely grown in that time yeah i agree to a crescent maybe a crescendo right now i think it's always going to be a part and you also got to just we also got to like draw a line between like commercial music and non-commercial music okay draw that line for me it's just a different bit of a genre and i i feel like those genres are kind of blending right now don't you yeah i would agree um yeah i don't know if it's if it's like more people like you know it's kind of a, a snowball effect where, you know, it started getting written about and started getting sung about. And now people are kind of jumping onto that ship and writing about it.

Or if it's just more people are writing lifestyle music and, and writing what they know. And you have more of those lifestyles coming into town, trying to do what, you know, trying to write commercial songs. And that's a good term. More of that content is,

is getting put into the songs that are getting played on the radio because more people do it. It's their lifestyle besides not doing it. When you say lifestyle music, explain what you mean by that. As opposed to... Faking it.

As opposed to, yeah, writing about something you don't know. Me writing about New York City something you don't know me writing about new york city you know i wouldn't know what if i was going to write a song about new york city i would have to look up what's in times square because i don't know i don't i hadn't spent time there i don't you know i don't know what buildings are where or what little restaurants or you know little little niche places that are local to people that would want to hear that tune but i i can write a song right now about the woods or fishing.

Or a four-wheeler. Or being on a boat or a four-wheeler. And that's what we've always taught. And we talked about that in the Josh Thompson episode. It's about, to me, country music. And writing songs is writing what you know and writing about your life. And my life is all about my family, God, and hunting. And so most of the songs that I'm going to pin out or ideas that I have,

if they meet that space, you know, I'm going to put in there something about sitting in a, you know, an oak flat in November and watching the sun rise while i'm sitting there waiting on a buck to walk by you know because that's what i know that's what i love and that's that's that's the truth of to me you made a move like you're gonna play something well i was just thinking a lot of our songs do that but there's also songs like it was just like a total smooth sex tune you know what I mean like wait let me hear it I don't hear the sex part put you gotta put the

ready we singing this you You are. Okay. You're going to have to help me with the lyrics. Ready? Remember the verse. We've been burning both ends, keeping the lights on. This is not a hunting song, by the way. But we do know the song. I've been thinking we're needing a little time alone.

Three week number one. Five. Would you say we cancel a plan? Tonight I'm only gonna be your man. Let's get some candles burning. Some records turning. All the lights down low. Take it nice and slow the way your body's moving keep doing what you're doing to me all night long writing our love song girl i want it gotta have it let

the passion take us to a higher place making that kind of love we made not really about the outdoors but we have outdoor songs so i'm saying i don't know where that came from you gotta write what you know is what he's saying i'm trying to explain that as a commercial country writer you have to be versatile in the areas that you know so no not all of them are tailgate hey man come on out check this lifestyle out but we also have a lot of songs about that too but it's kind of like we were talking about earlier it's it's it's constructing an album and and you know if if if i was making an album i would want love songs on there i would want love songs on there. I would want dad songs on there. I would like hunting songs on there. You know, I wouldn't necessarily want a song about New York City

or something like that because that's not my lifestyle. We recently had Evan Felker on Turnpike. Yeah. On the podcast. He's great, dude. Well, he is. Love that stuff. I was asking him about

i asked him a couple questions about the role of the outdoors and and his music and i said do you ever think to yourself man i should put more i could put more hunting references in or i should pull them out he says he didn't really like the question but eventually said that i guess if i thought one way or the other i think that i could get away with putting more in but he said for me i don't make it's not about that it's just a background like i need people they're doing something so i'm not talking about the act of doing it i'm talking about something that's going on in people's lives and that's just what they're doing that's what's happening yeah so it's the backdrop of the subject which is which is a thing because i mean hearing you say that you can absolutely write

i mean better together was a great example of that is is you're writing a love song that's a that's a that's a slow tempo you to your you know know, the one you love, but it's got eight, eight points in autumn, you know, and, and it's got 40 HP Johnson. It's got a, yeah.

Outboard. It's got outboard. So you're seeing that. And that's, that's something to commercial songwriting in the country. Music round two is like painting these pictures of the life that we all lead, but at the same time, tying them into a subject that's love

or something else, whatever it is. That's part of the trick, too. My favorite thing about the thing we just played and how it's relative is that when that song was going to radio, three of the wives of the four people that wrote it were pregnant. So it's like-

They had been doing something like- And here's a little thing, too. We were actually- Jumps being one of those vibes. We were in Mississippi on a turkey hunt. And it rained us out that morning when we wrote the song. When we wrote half the song. Yeah.

We started. We literally went down there to turkey hunt. We were in camo. You guys will hunt rain, huh? We will. Don't try to step on turkey. We really make a million dollars trying to sell. I got a beef.

I don't want to hear no turkey hunting down from meat eater. I don't want to hear nothing about what we need to do turkey hunting. We got turkey down on bad things. We don't walk up and go, man, these elk sound pretty shitty over here. You just don't want to even step on the court with turkey. I've seen a couple of those episodes. I stand corrected. I stand corrected. You don't like to even step on the court with turkey. I've seen a couple of those episodes. I stand corrected. I stand corrected.

You don't like to get wet, huh? Dude, I've killed plenty of – I've got pictures to show you of dripping wet turkeys. I would rather write a hit song than tell it in the writing. I'll tell you that much. Like Reed says, he always says this. You write what you know, and if you can blend some of i feel like if i can get five percent of of either my upbringing or what i'm in into now or whatever into a song i feel like okay i can you know not all of them are 100 percenters you know this this artist needs to

say exactly what i'm feeling or what i've been through in my life. It doesn't necessarily work. Sometimes you're just making words rhyme. Now, a lot of the time, the general idea is from a genuine place, right? But if you had to be a commercial writer and write 200 songs a year and every one of them had to be about what you've been through in your life. Is that a volume that's achievable to touch to touch that many songs yeah i mean for us you'll touch that many songs well i mean there've been years not now but at the in the in the grind in the early probably first five i mean i mean you got at least three songs a week there's 52 weeks

somebody that math in a year i mean that's 160 ish-ish. I mean, I'm confronting techies of the math. Yeah, but that's also co-writes. Yeah. I mean, so... But I mean, like me, I have a nine-year catalog at Sony where I've been, the first five of those,

I was writing five days a week, sometimes two times a day. And my point is, the well will run dry on your experiences, which is why you need co-writes. You need other influences. You need, hey,

he needs a song in this realm otherwise you're just writing it just absolutely melts your brain got it there's a uh question i have that's more interesting to me than it is to any of the songwriters i've asked uh this question too would be you'll produce a let's say you produce a song here like sitting in nashville produce is a weird that'd be a weird term though you're saying create a song right because you're going to be a producer i don't mean that i don't yeah uh just clearing it up so here you are like you guys grew up in the broader area you grew up in the region right yeah you're working out of nashville tennessee and you and you're working with a you're working with some outdoor know-how that would be known here but might not even be broadly known

to other outdoorsmen outside of the country. Meaning, I know outdoorsmen that if I said, like I know guys in Alaska, for instance, older guys in Alaska, if I said, I got a nice eight on camera,

they're not going to know what I i meant really well because they don't they're not they don't do trail cameras they don't traffic in the lingo a nice eight now if you said i got a nice eight point buck on my trail camera they'd piece that together but they might not immediately recognize that the lingo yeah so but and that's even somewhat familiar so a thing that i i'm always curious about with songwriting is here in Nashville, you're exporting music around the world. People around the world are listening to the music you produce. But then you have these references that are no way going to be understood.

Right. Because for them to be legitimate, they're like insider references. Sure. I asked about this before when we talking about like a johnson outboard now if you if you went to most people on the street and you asked me hey name some outboard companies that may who makes outboards they're gonna be like well honda makes outboards yamaha makes outboards evan rude makes outboards no one around now is gonna say johnson's right but there's a there's a great reason to use that because it's it's it's it's it brings reminiscent nostalgic right it's like a certain type of person is gonna have and know

that okay let me ask you this when was when do you feel like johnson was the one like when what listener like what what year section i'm talking about specific demographic here i was born in 1974 and we spent the 80s trying to keep a johnson 10 see i was born in 1983 and when we had johnson's so between 70 what did you say how old are you like 150 right so between that age and like my age we know that that was the one in there so when you think about demographics i would say probably the people who are listening to that it that's why i clicked in them is because most of them were we're seeing that and you kind of get two birds today it'd be a tatsu you know what i mean i don't but it doesn't sound good though exactly which is part

of the that's part of the thing too it doesn't sing but you're getting yeah you're getting two things with with one word there. You're painting that picture of a motor on the back of the boat, which most people would get. And they would listen to that lyric and then go on to the next one. Or you get the guy who was trying to keep a Johnson going for 10 years, and that immediately clicks, and he's stuck there. And that takes him back to, man, probably some of the best days of his life.

It's kind of like boxing, too. It's like you hit with a left, and then there's a line right after that. Yeah, and some guys might dodge that right hook that's coming, or some guys might get knocked out by it. Oh, hook. I like the way you do that. Thanks, man. I asked Evan Felker about his use of a Belgium bra.

I got one. I asked Evan Felker about his use of a Belgium brownie. A5, yeah. I got one. So that's like, you know, I brought that up, and then all kinds of people wrote in, like, can't believe Ronell doesn't know about the Belgium-made brownies. My old man thought he had a Belgium-made brownie, and he got it. So when my maternal grandfather died, my dad took possession of his browning a5 which my dad mistakenly thought

was a belgian made browning which meant something to him and didn't mean anything to anyone around him but then here it's a reference like he's holding it i'm just saying you're gonna wind up you have a reference that people aren't gonna know what you're talking about yeah for sure a lot of people like it not you have yeah for sure a lot of people like it not you have a reference that a lot of people it's gonna be like over their head yeah but some of us there's also some some interest in having people just try to figure it out too right like go dive in there and see see like okay let me ask you this the fact that it's not belgium made does that take anything away from you owning the gun yo yeah because i've been raised

to think that it was great and then we looked up the serial number and we're like does it say made in belgium no there's all these there's all these ways you could have known if you knew but no we just looked up there's a serial number look up and you tell where it was manufactured it wasn't after it went to mine says made in belgium oh well that means it didn't i don't know why he thought it did i don't know where it's at right now probably at my mom you don't even care anymore no i do care i had i tried to shoot it for a while oh you're saying you'd care more if it was a belgian that's what i'm saying would it mean more to you if it's belgium right yeah but i wouldn't be able to tell you why they're but

they're better but either way it didn't work good maybe it feels belgium would work good didn't cycle it wouldn't cycle anything wouldn't cycle anything i think too though going back to to the reference thing is the front of our minds and writing country and it might be different for la pop writers or new york writers writing pop songs like we write country music commercial country music with the country listener at the front of our mind got it so like we write country music commercial country music with the country listener at the front of our mind got it so like we're gonna use the lingo that the south is gonna pick up on can i just interject right here like without even knowing you just clicked my brain into songwriting mode and i didn't even hear the last 30 seconds of what you're talking about because you said i wouldn't be able to tell you why and that's a great hook like I wouldn't be able to tell you

why and you can immediately my brain went oh man why I love you why I don't love you why I fell out of love you with you why I fell in love with you I'm not able to tell you why why did we break up I don't know I'm not able to tell you why like it just doesn't turn off as soon as something hits that you're like man and then i started thinking well who would be somebody that could sing that and you start running artists through your brain then you go well does this guy need that or is it already cleared up is he already cut and he's not cutting for another two years so knock that guy out who's the next guy on the list and that's all that happened within the last no doubt 30 seconds because you said it's hard to

follow conversations well i started to bring my phone out and put it down and I was like, nah, Katie's sitting right beside me. That would be rude. I'll just sacrifice that idea. If anybody writes it. I was about to say, nobody write that idea. We'll write that before this podcast. Here's one that's good for you.

This is my favorite quote. I don't know if I want you to say it on here. Because then everybody could know. We'll just write it before this comes out. That's a great quote. All right. I was explaining to him. Oh, God.

Do you think it's going to be good or is this going to be bad? No, this is good. No, I see. You're saying that, but we know whether it is or not. That's what they all say. If it wasn't good, I wouldn't be telling you. I wouldn't have it written down in my favorite quotes. Yeah, they all say that.

I got favorite quotes. I got some I wouldn't say on the air. My mailman says the same shit, dude. Go ahead. Yeah, bring it. He said I was explaining something to him about manufacturing and manufacturing his is his business he manufactures in a different sector than the sector of manufacturing i was talking about and i was telling him like well everybody knows you can't blank to which he says i don't know why that's

not true but that's not true pretty good it's better my dad's my dad's was working for the weekend so i'll take that one bro dad's dads are better when he doesn't even know he's saying i know my mom's like mom will come up with a great idea tell you and you can write that i did dad's like hey man listen work i woke up last night with an incredible thought working for the weekend i'm like okay well and then he starts telling me what he did yesterday and i'll get four song ideas out of that yeah what what songwriters do you guys like i'm a big tony lane fan oh man yeah there's a lot we don't like too i mean we've had don't tell me

those yeah i mean i didn't put a negative no yeah we had it we had him on the podcast and he'll he'll have his episode out but you know casey bethard is is the goat man now is it is it like uh you like them when the ones you like you like them lyrically you like them because the melody that's interesting i mean i say this all the time we write with a lot of people we know we've met a lot of people and songwriters to me are the most entertaining uh coolest individuals on earth because there's always there's usually a sense of humbleness because the town kicked them in the teeth for 10 to 15 years oh when they were trying to be a performer for sure they figured the thing out or just a songwriter i mean yeah just yeah they figured the thing out and then and then their

stuff started hitting. They stayed true to what they are, regardless of what that is. Yeah, and I think with most of them, man, now that we've moved to town and we've met a lot of the guys that were writing the songs that we loved growing up. We've met some of those cats, and it's everything. It's who they are as a person. It's their story that they tell you and you can see where these songs came from

and it's the lyrics and the stories and the songs and it's the way they sing them and the melody and all of it. It's all those things that make you love somebody's work, you know. I'll tell you, man, there are major guys like, I mean, Waylon, you know christopherson yeah uh johnny cash i mean all these people wrote songs but there are also people behind the curtains um that are that are

so important to the genre that a lot of people never see and those people and a lot of those writers don't want you to see them they want to stay and i segue i also think that's what's great about what the podcast that we're doing is we're able to bring a light to those people without just completely exploiting them you know it's it's more of a like a respect issue and and saying that hey these guys earn their stripes as well and there are guys like casey bether josh thompson bryce long the people we've had on the people that we plan to have on who just live behind that curtain and yeah and grew up just like everybody else like same stories as we all got about child and our absolute masterful wordsmiths yeah what is the general trajectory you just use the term move to

town 10-year town baby i gather that means that like you move to nashville what's the general trajectory 10-year town 10-year town is what everybody calls i mean it's and for me it was but tell me tell me from you guys so i moved i moved here in oh eight uh because of what i mean i know why but like how did you go like now is my now is okay i had a band i had a funk country band we played but we played stevie wonder we played jamie davis and soul gravy dan was the soul gravy got it what what did i just say everybody likes to say i was the soul gravy. Got it. What? What did I just say? Everybody likes to say I was the gravy, and I don't know why they say that. Do you? No. Me either.

So, we had this band, and you're the good thing that they put on top of something? I think it's a weight reference. Yikes. Jordan just... Why'd you look at my stomach when she said weight? I was looking at your guitar a bad place so uh anyway we we we were getting these we i didn't know it but we were actually

getting the run the the natchville like run like possibly signing us as a band and they were putting us with different writers we didn't know it well were. Talk to me like I'm five years old. Well, we were essentially babies in the industry. Okay. And didn't know that this could even be a career, right? So when our band starts getting the front man, Jamie, who's one of my best buddies, and then me, we're coming up here and doing the co-writes. They were using their leverage to get us into rooms that we didn't necessarily even deserve on the possibility that we might be assigned band but they is who the business whether that be um a manager a manager bmi uh and you guys had your

band was where out of based out of north mississippi so you start getting some traction and then pretty soon you get some invites to work on stuff. There you go. Yep. And as that starts happening, we kind of realize we don't want to necessarily be that upfront band. It was fun, but I never wanted to do that. I always wanted to be a songwriter, a back harmony singer, a company guitarist. I never had ambitions for the light. Reed grew up under us and his band i mean having little bands and stuff my favorite story about him is when when we started i was i was traveling with his band just kind of helping and then

when a big run of shows came in on the week on the starting date of bow season me and dad i told him i couldn't go. I said, me and dad are going to deer camp. He was like, what? I was like, yeah, we're going to deer camp. He was like, oh, if y'all think y'all are leaving me on the road while y'all go to deer camp, it's out. Hung up the phone, canceled all the gigs, and never played another one.

And here's my, I'm going to be real vulnerable with this, but it was never my dream to do this. It was never my dream to do this. It was never my dream to write songs. I had a dream to perform, because I always did. I grew up in church. My dad was a Baptist pastor, still is. And I sang. I was the front man. I sang every Sunday, two and three times, standing ovations, let's sing it again. I grew up doing my i grew up doing that and so i felt like i had a my dream was to perform to big audiences and crowds um and then moving here and i didn't move here on the on the base to do that i i moved here because dan was like hey man you need to come do this like and i i was in school at ut knoxville chased a girl up there terrible decision got some

great song ideas out of it but failed physics twice and was kind of sitting. I was actually at their show. I was literally like. I had a Jamie. It was on Christmas break. It was on Christmas break in Tupelo, Mississippi. And my girlfriend at the time, sorry, Jordan, for talking about a girlfriend. It's okay.

But my girlfriend at the time called me. She goes, hey, you failed physics again. She was like, what are you going to do? Who called you to tell you? Ex-girlfriend. How did she know? Dude, because she signed me up for all my classes. I didn't even know what credits were in college, bro.

She just did everything. And that's how I just didn't know what I wanted to do. And she was like, you failed physics for a second time. You're not getting into med school. And I was having a good time in Tupelo, Mississippi, sitting on a park bench outside this club where they were playing. This song. And I was kind of looking up. She goes, what are you going to do?

And me and Dan had been like, dude, you got to move to Nashville, man. We ride from 3 to 11, three or four days a week. We get to travel. And I was sitting there on a park bench, and I told her, I was like, I think I'm moving to Nashville. She was like, what? What are you going to do in Nashville? I was like, I don't know. to Nashville. She was like, what? What are you going to do in Nashville? I was like, I don't know. I'm going to sing and write songs.

We broke up that night on the phone, on that park bench at Chupelo. I walked inside. This was going down. I went through. I'm like slithering my way through this crowd of people who are singing every Jamie Davis song, this cover of songs. And I get to the front and I went, Dan. And I'm like like people call me

spaz cat what i went i went i went i'm moving to nashville people call me this gangster of love i'm like what i said i fell fitness again and i just broke up with my girlfriend i'm like oh sick all right let me finish this i'll get i kind of got a thing going i'll get back to you in a minute and that was it and that was it i moved that semester at the end of that semester i moved to town we started writing some songs for my project and and i we got a band going we went out and played some shows and i quickly found out that that's not what i wanted to do i had fallen in love with with writing music in the room and and hearing other people sing those songs but being gone i'm a homebody, and there ain't no way that my dad and my brother

are going to be grilling ribeyes at deer camp in the fall, and I'm out here grinding my ass off on a tour bus, you know, 22 hours a day, just enjoying the hour and a half I'm on stage, and I found out that that wasn't for me. What if you enjoy the 22 hours, but you hate the hour and a half you're on stage? You're in a predicament too.

Because that actually might be better for an artist. They don't pay you to play. I feel like Josh Thompson's episode is a great answer to that question because he talks about that. You should go listen to it. Yeah, yeah. Josh was a great example of that. The guy moved to town, got a record deal, did the thing.

Hated it, man. Hated it, but. Hated it. But loved writing songs and loved being at home. Because you still get to scratch that creative itch that you have within those walls of a writing room. But don't have to be away from your family and do the grind that is being a recording artist in Nashville. Speaking of which, I've had a creative itch ever since we ate that deer that the coyotes had. Like right behind me. Yeah. Well, I yeah well i need to talk to our doctor your town and all i'm saying is as you come to the town as a rider essentially what what you go through is

finding your people first off trying to get in however you can get in a lot of the times that's riders rounds where there's this uh confluence of of people who are trying to to all get to the same place and they end up co-writing and make writing maybe a song that gets picked up by a smaller artist or a larger artist or maybe they get an album cut on something and then all of a sudden a publishing company comes snooping and goes hey we see that you're friends with who artist x and it looks like you have four or five on his record and he just got a record deal, which immediately means there's going to be income on those songs.

We would like to take a chance on you even though you don't have enough money to quit your day job as a pizza delivery guy. We'd like to give you a substantial amount of income. A minimal source of income

in order to make your bill so that you can write full-time and when that happens they usually end up giving a large portion of their publishing to that in order to get off the ground which is what happened with both of us which is kind of the play right and so once you get in there and you start writing songs it's like man if i can just keep doing this and get a cut here, a cut there, then make them their money back, then all of a sudden there's longevity in what I'm doing. And over that entire process, it's just been proven. I mean, now look, there are absolutely people who moved to town and have a hit within six months of being here. But the majority of people that come here learn the craft, get their teeth kicked in, have a bite of success.

Stay uncomfortable for a long amount of time. Yeah, and end up crying in a parking lot in their car when they hear their song on the radio is a major percentage of the people. That's the tenure story. There's a lot of similarities between book publishing. Oh my God, yeah. And writers in New York that we know and people that have, like some people, their first book,

like New York Times bestseller, we have friends that have done that. Really? And then friends that have written for 20 years and love it, stay with it, and might find success later on. But it's, yeah, I think that's the thing that I love about this podcast that you guys have so lovingly put together is that I don't know a lot about country music. Like I'm learning about country music

really through this podcast. I don't, I'm not super passionate about hunting myself. I'm very happy that our family is involved in it the way that we are. But I feel like I can relate to the episodes that I've been able to listen to because of the personal journeys, because of the stories. There's similarities to other individuals in their own path that I find a lot of resonance in. And I was listening to one of the early episodes,

one of the edits with our oldest, Jimmy, on the way to school. And I think I texted you guys about this. He was like, this is my favorite meat eater podcast. I was like, you better watch out. You're dang right, Jimmy. You're dang right, Jim. But I get it. I mean, I love it.

Wait, I'm curious as to why he said that like and i'm not trying to get you like funny do my bragging oh yeah yeah just like man you laugh a lot listening to your podcast you guys i think obviously your brothers they won't brag on themselves but i will brag on them dan will brag on himself no but i think something that also makes it really great is these guys lived on a houseboat for four years before. I mean, these 10 years, the 10-year town. For four of those years, they lived on a houseboat together. They caught their dinner off the back deck of the boat.

They washed their clothes in the YMCA gym locker room. Facts. Like all these things. And I think whenever people come, they're human. And they're very relatable to a lot of these people that are coming in here to tell their stories. And everybody that sat down on this couch with them, I think connects with them on a human level.

And the conversations that have happened thus far have been very, pretty much everybody that's come in here has told a story that hasn't been told. And on any other platform, because it's, they're being interviewed by their buddies who share a very similar experience they're not being interviewed on the today show if that makes sense and i think that that's really what has made it such a cool thing and will continue to make it a cool thing because you guys are just dudes and you you're

grinding you're still grinding i mean they're still so far to go. And I don't know. I just feel like people, everyone that's come in here so far, it's been very like human. Even top Hall of Fame songwriters have come in here and been hazelip talking about owning the hat company and grinding out. I don't know. I just think it's been really cool

and it's going to be cool for fans to see that as well. I was extremely nervous about knowing too much about the business you know to come in and talk about it day in and day out like how boring does that get you know but but what's been beautiful is is what you're saying is having a platform to where people can just come in and just tell stories like because that's essentially all songwriter is a really great storyteller you know like yeah and finding a way to put that to music and every journey every journey to Nashville

moving to town or you know the journey from from a songwriter's young life to loving country music to getting here to actually doing it is yeah there are similarities within it but man they're so unique and and those stories that come out of that well of, of, of stories are some of the best that I think you can hear. Because like Dan said, I mean, that's their job.

Our job is to, is to tell a story in such a way and to paint it in such a way that you want to listen to it over and over and over and over. And we're getting those from, from the, from the best of the best, man. So how deep is the well?

Very deep. And the reason the well is deep is because you go through those times. And I can, I mean, people ask me all the time, when did you start writing? And I was like, man, third grade, first, as soon as I could literally write. Like I had to, that was my way of expressing myself. And I remember dealing with like, I mean, I was a big football player, and I remember I couldn't share with anybody my writing because that was too effeminate for who I was.

I was a football player. I was a deer killer, man. We were catching fish. I couldn't be no poet. You know what I mean? Wouldn't let no one haunt your place. Dang right. Didn let no one hunt your place dang right didn't have a place terrible didn't have a place took buddies occasionally uh but the whole point being is that like i always wrote i always expressed myself and until i figured out that if you put those poems to music you can get chicks yeah i was was like, oh, maybe I need to learn how to play guitar

in order to do that. And then this whole – You were writing poems? Yeah. Yeah, and just like my mom even talks about, if I liked a girl or something, I would journal about the thing. It just kind of like – That's great.

It was embarrassing at the time. Now it's something that I'm proud I did. But at the time, it was like, man, I can't let anybody know that I'm 155 pounds. I can't be journaling, dude. I got dudes to knock over in peewee football. I was in fourth grade weighing 155. I couldn't be no little sassy guy, man. I had to go.

You can make a words rhyme, dude. Yeah, man. Got time for that. That's weak. But it was always in us and music was always in read and that's why i didn't have any trouble with going hey dude you gotta come check this out man it's been in you since birth you've been singing like a bird since you were seven yeah i didn't i didn't write much when i was little but i sang constantly in church everywhere which is cool which which church in the kitchen hasn't changed i mean you said it earlier it's like melody is more your thing that's where there

is more money it never really changed it just kind of matured yeah so his strength is that i feel like my strength i can ride a mean lair though i'm not we do this all the time yeah he yeah eventually after 10 years you kind of learn yeah things to take it's like how you like your chili knife man you want it spicy you want it sweet you want it mild i mean there's you know and there's different chilies for different people and sometimes you want it spicy which is why you might go with a barn you know sometimes you want it smooth which you might go sometimes you just want it sweet to feel good so you that has a different feel you know it's like there's there's so many different

feels like i'm at a chili bar right now i'm just saying different writers are different spices and they bring different tastes if you will, to the music. And the business knows that. The business knows, and that's why you have multiple companies pairing different people with different people, because this guy might sound like this, and this guy sounds like this, but together they taste this great, and this guy needs that taste. Yeah, absolutely. That's why you don't have the same song.

The same song will be written a lot, but in a lot of different ways you know and that and that's where you get that is just the the melting pot of of life and lifestyles that you have working in these houses on music row every day yeah so hit me with hit me with a like an episode of god's country is going to cover what it's going to i mean do we have to answer this i feel like jordan or katie should answer this hot topics kind of kick it off with hot topics because we just kind of get on there and talk you know i don't really know that there's actually a format no i mean intro with whatever news depending on who's sitting in the seat kind of going into their upbringing their story to nashville i feel like it's a prettyer, artist, what do you guys call them? Artists.

Artists. But the writers are artists. So writers and artists. Songwriters, yeah. Because they're recording artists. There you go. But some of the artists are writers too. Don't put me in this pot, dude.

We get into a lot of backstory and kind of the way the podcast has gone so far is it almost is like the front half of it is kind of getting, but letting the artist express himself and how he grew up and where his passions come from, where they spawn from, why he loves fishing, why he loves hunting. And then that move to town has kind kind of a been a been a common theme and and and and but it like and that's what i said like there's common similarities with these stories coming out of your journey but they're all so different you know and and then the back half of that podcast usually is about their time in town and and how their 10-year process or their two-year process or the the story about the best story they've got behind a single their first single or what it felt like sitting in a parking lot hearing your song on the radio for the first

time and crying your eyes out and then calling everybody in your phone you know to to congratulate you or whatever you know it's it's it's really like it's a backdrop in a in a in a slide in the the curtain open to see behind the doors of what goes on in nashville on a day-to-day basis and usually the trouble we've been having not trouble but the the thing we've been running into is people get on here and all they want to talk about is hunting and we have to go okay let's move it so you move to town and they're like anyway about this buck man i've been chasing him for three years and he's hidden on you know uh which makes it a lot of my appetite to talk about writing is I'll talk about writing now and then. Same.

Not excited about that subject. Nope. Been doing it a minute. And once you get to that point, and I understand people want to know about it, but I even feel like we talked about it too long on this podcast already. The 10-Year Town.

Wait, you guys, you got to talk about The one that got away That segment Didn't you Who was I think that was Steve Steve You'll have a good idea

That's become That's become a thing You'll probably explain it too much But you have a good idea It's become a thing We do at the end of the podcast We ask two questions We ask the artist

Or songwriter Whoever we're interviewing What their favorite What they think their favorite And we kind of, we kind of phrase it differently, I guess. It's blending.

It's moving. What's your favorite? Sorry, I just burped on microphone. What your favorite country song is or what you think is the best written country song. And so we've gotten all across the, you know,

we've gotten, and it's not even country songs, is it? Or is it country songs? We've kept, so far they've all been country songs. We do that. And then we do, yeah, so far they've all been country songs. We do that and then we do,

yeah, a thing called The One That Got Away and we tell them it could be a girl, it could be, most of them are married or a guy,

you know, if it's a female that we have on but most of them are married so they never touch that subject but it's usually a deer or a fish or,

you know, something like that and that's a really cool part because we kind of go into it in an unexpected way where it kind of catches them off guard and they all tell an interesting story. And sometimes it catches them off guard because we don't tell

them we're going to do it. We're like, oh, by the way. You guys talked about the 10-year town. Where are you at on the 10-year cycle? What happens when 10 years is up? Everything you leave and it's all done? You just bog around and don't let anybody hunt it. Oh, so that's how the 10-year cycle? What happens when 10 years is up? Everything you leave and it's all done? You just bog around and don't let anybody hunt it.

Oh, so that's how the 10 years ends? I mean, for some of us. Where are you at on the 10-year cycle? You got to be through with it now. You're 11 years in your 10-year cycle. I'm still on the bottom side of 10. Yeah, I mean, I moved to town. You're sneaking up on me.

Yeah, I'm getting there because I moved to town. You're only a couple years behind me. Yeah, I actually think I'm at nine because I moved to town. You're sneaking up on it. Yeah, I'm getting there because I moved to town. You're only a couple years behind me. Yeah, I actually think I'm at nine because I moved to town 2000, like got to town trying to, you know, I was moving furniture in the day and then writing songs at night trying to grind. And I guess that was 2015. And then I got my first publishing deal in 2016. But I'm going to tell you something.

That early season grind is what is what deepens that well you're talking about i mean not to talk about how hard we had it or how bad we had it because we we found a way to make it work a diet of deer meat and crappie ain't too bad honestly i mean it is when you're eating it with del monte corn six nights a week but yeah you can also get 12 rolls at cracker barrel i don't know if you can four dollars oh business we used to just eat a lot of biscuit just take four dollars go to the cracker barrel we live an eight mile from 14 biscuits bring them back jelly them jokers and eat it we'd eat deer meat and biscuit like every morning until we ran we got so sick of those things man

and uh but we i mean you have to have the hustle too like it's not just moving here and waiting 10 years and then all of a sudden you can have a little bit of success that you've got to be applying major hustle to this thing yeah my my hustle was i worked at a a moving company and then i i did that for a long time. I had a meeting with a guy up here who was in the publishing business. I saw softball bats leaning in the corner of his office. So on my way out of that office, I said, Hey man, where does he play softball at? The lady at the front told me, I looked into that place. I got a job umpiring at those softball fields. So I would work in the box truck during the day i would

change i would go in the back of the box truck changing my umpiring outfit go work an umpire gig until about 11 and one night i was i had worked there and i ran into him he's like what are you doing out here what are you talking about man i'm hustling dude i'm trying to i'm trying to pay my bills and he was like but don't you work you told me you worked on a box truck i was like yeah i work on a box truck my umpire he yeah, we're going to box truck and I'm umpire. He was like, man, if somebody's hustling that hard, I got time for him. Come see me.

Went saw him, went and saw him cut. He said, I need five demos of these songs. I borrowed $500 from my sister and seven 50 for my granddad. RIP days, bud. You know what I'm saying?

He's listening. Appreciate you. And I went and cut demos with my band. I took him to him. He held them nine months. He held them nine months, and in those nine months, I had my phone on a charger. Every single day, I would look.

I was constantly, the anxiety that was living in my gut knowing he had those five songs and we're about to make a decision on them was like having coals. I mean, that was just my stomach. I was in knots. For nine months, he finally calls back.

He's like, hey, man, we're ready to talk to you about a deal after nine months and that is how every day that that happens that will that well is just going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and now when somebody comes to town and they go hey man i'm just in a rough spot man like i want this music stuff to work but i got i got stuff i want to do at home and i'm missing deer season because i'm i'm out here grinding, playing to 30 people that don't care about my music. I can go, I know exactly what you're talking about. How about this idea?

Does this hit you? Absolutely. Tell me some stuff about what you're doing, and then we find a way to construct something marketable out of their experiences. Sl of slash personal yeah slash personal and and that's what i think people get the misconception about us as commercial writers they think we're just up here faking everything it's not that it's finding a way to make your story relatable to a common listener as well as making it rhyme but you're selling your struggles to other people man which has got to hurt now and then

at the beginning once that comes in a little bit of pride once the check comes in it doesn't hurt that bad there's a little bit of pride when uh just a final thought when you're talking about the going to the cracker breath get the biscuits when when i enrolled at lake superior state university in your little enrollment packet was this 50% off at Taco Bell oh baby so we called uh I was with my brother Danny and we called over there and uh we're like hey is there is like a limit we don't know and I said can you and so we ordered 50 soft tacos and 50 bean burritos we said just don't put any lettuce in there and I said you come by and pick them up tomorrow so we went down there put them in the freezer 100 of them all dude

we would be going hunting in the morning or whatever and we'd always take those out of the freezer and set them up in the turn the heater on oh yeah man on the windshield and lay them in that little crack to bring them back not too bad honestly it's a mean deer stand as long as they're in the aluminum yeah it's not really too bad nice honestly. It's a mean deer stand. As long as they're in the aluminum, yeah, it's not really too bad. Nice. No doubt. Yeah, I'm so far from that now, but you're right. Stuff matters, man.

Yeah. I think it's endless. I don't think it'll ever run dry just based upon the work we put in to get to this place. Yeah, and not saying that we live, but the life we live, man. You know, I think that well continues to grow deeper because we're having kids and we're teaching our kids how to hunt and thinking about the days of getting to,

you know, bring them on our land that we don't take anybody on and letting them shoot deer. Like they'll maybe get a lease or something. If a big buck is on camera and Boone's old enough to hunt of course yes we've already touched absolutely he's gonna I mean

and that's part of the reason I locked it up was for my kids to be able to do that for sure all right ladies and gentlemen I'm really not a bad guy I'm not a bad guy great guys great guys for real great guys Dan and Reed is both join them and continue the exploration of of country music and the outdoors and songwriting and performing at

god's country podcast available now and you guys know that this year we're only using for our outro we used to license outro music did you but we don't anymore we quit it seems like oh it's interesting you say that it's almost like somebody put a song title in an email it's almost like somebody might have planned for this you got an outro since we can't we're not licensing any music anymore. We're not good. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, what did you say in the email that the song should be called? We need a song called, you said. Big Huge Giant Bugs. Hang on, we'll do that.

I took it as like a Is that right? I took it as a challenge actually When you wrote it Because I feel like that was a bit sarcastic You know What was? Big Huge Giant Bucks

No I like the way that feels This is for you Steve You gonna do it? We get up in the morning At the crack of dawn Grab our gun and put our first light on Stumble to the stand

Waiting in the cold Watching that sun rise Like gold Ain't no way we can love it anymore we do it cause we gotta and we do it all for them big huge giant bucks tailgates down on the back of the trucks riding through town like we don't give a what with a big huge giant bugs well them folks out west love to chase big L hitting them mountains and giving them hell but what does it for us ain't antelope is it big corn sheep or moose hell no it's big huge giant bugs Tailgate down on the back of our trucks.

Riding through town like we don't give a what. With a big, huge, giant bus. I said it's big, huge, giant bus. Tailgate's down on the back of our truck. Riding through town like we don't give a what. Improvise. Sorry. With our big, huge, giant boat.

Oh, my God. On the way in. Wrote that on the way in. No big deal. Wrote that on the way in. I knew it needed a song. I've been saying it for so long. There it is, huge giant box there you go man take it learn it sure not just big not just huge giant big huge giant box all right everybody god's country podcast thanks for

listening appreciate y'all see you we've got a new book coming out in the meat eater universe and for the first time it is not one of mine. Instead, it's my colleague, Danielle Pruitt. Yeah, Danielle, the founder of Wild and Whole. It's called Meat Eaters Wild and Whole, seasonal recipes for the conscious cook. And it's an ode to cooking seasonally with wild and foraged ingredients.

Now let's get to what you'll find in this book. This cookbook contains more than 80 recipes inspired by what you can hunt, fish, forage, or grow in your garden each season. Often, Danielle will pair her ingredients to reflect both the hunting season and the growing season. So her turkey cutlet is combined with springtime morels, her Gulf Coast redfish with summertime sweet corn.

She cooks venison with pumpkin for a tasty fall stew. If that all sounds complicated, trust me, it is not complicated. Danielle has a knack for creating recipes worthy of a five-star kitchen, but accessible to two star cooks. And you'll come away armed with techniques that will make you a better cook all around.

This book is also beautiful to look at with gorgeous full-color photographs that inspire you to take a real hard look at your kitchen's output. It's Meat Eaters Wild and Whole, Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook by Danielle Pruitt. It is out now,

and it's available at TheMeatEater.com or wherever books are sold.