The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 516: Huntin' Ducks and Bussin' With The Boys

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Bussin' With The Boys hosts Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, Ryan Callaghan, Max Barta, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Bussin’ With The Boys podcast hosts, Taylor and Will, go duck huntin’; getting moved into the classic rock category; intro-ing our outro; elk bugles in metal music; opening presents; Clovis tipped hunting spears; mast year impacts on deer harvest; why you should get acquainted with your state anti-hunter harassment laws; the new MeatEater Outdoor Cookbook is now available for pre-order; when you get knocked out and come to all emotional; Will and Taylor’s love story; bad roommates; when the turkey gobble sounds like, “pow!”; how being a pro athlete translates well into being a good hunter; serious workin’ man Steve; the one day you leave your pocket knife in the hotel room; leveling up; the incredible number of hours Cal has put into Snort; point with your eyes, not your hands; who you wanna spend time with in a duck blind; bringing the locker room to life; the bus that doesn’t move; speaking of pubes; and more. Outro music by Jesse Collins of Montana. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com uh when i was is the machine out now phil yeah yeah you can record this yeah it's on we're rolling we are we've been rolling for a couple minutes once you're in classic oh the pod is on no he just started right now he just started it and i want. First, I'm going to say we're joined today by the host of Boston with the Boys on the Barstool Podcast Network, Taylor Curtis Lewin. How do you like to say it?

Taylor Lewin, but I've been called Lewin my whole life. It's all good. This is not new ground. Lewin's been making a comeback recently. It has. Yeah, Lewin is definitely going to come back. That's what Rogan refers to you as Just churching it up dirt Yeah

And Will Earl Oh my god this makes you sound pretentious William Earl Compton The third I was like give me some of that money Oh what else I had two things.

Cause we, just before the show started, we were talking about rock and roll and we were talking about when your song, if you're a rocker, like your Nirvana or Pearl Jam or whatever, like, so you're cool, like a long time ago. And then one day you wake up and you're classic rock and that being disconcerting. And I was going to point out in talking about um how adaptable classic rock is the fm station where i grew up 94.5 klq would do now and then they would do that like thousand greatest rock songs which is uh you know it's like it's like a thing that brings the country together. But KLQ would jump in and do an editorial insert. So you know it's going to end, like for weeks,

you're driving down the road knowing this is going to land at Stairway to Heaven. But they would at number two put in Uncle Ted's Fred Bear. Fred Bear is a jam. They would stick that in just to stick it to the man and say, it's no stairway to heaven, but it's definitely better than Hey Jude. Right.

Hey, Fred bear is a jam though. Yeah. That's like the first hunting song I grew up listening to. Oh yeah. Well, it's funny when it clicks. Right.

You're like, Oh, that it's hunting. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I when it clicks. Popping the VHS. Right? You're like, oh, it's hunting. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to learn more about this Fred Bear guy. We're going to, you got to hang tight a minute. Oh, one thing we got to do right off the top of the bat, and you guys might like this. We're doing, this year, we let our, we used to license music for the end of the show. You guys do that with the show? I don't think so. No. How do you end it?

You just end it? Yeah. Basically. It's got this little riff. I think a guy named Drew Dixon did it for us. Oh, so you do got a little riff. The one we use now is from Ernest.

Yeah. Ernest, Ernest came on the bus and he did a little acoustic jam and put it together. That's the beginning. But that little guitar riff at the end, I'm pretty sure it was like Drew Dixon, who was like, guy's a singer

songwriter in nashville been working in the like a tin roof it's a bar on de mumbrian street got it so you didn't have to license that every year no no no you just got it we didn't know about it at first because quaker city nighthawks was the very first one we would use yeah and then you hear about all the copyright and stuff and then we tried to mess with them but then they didn't want to mess with us but then when we kind of became popular, they wanted to come back and we were kind of like, oh, that's your shot.

That's your pay sale. Oh, really? Got to get in while the getting's good. Yeah. Yeah. Point being, we had licensed a song that no one really liked it,

but it just meant something to me. And then we let the license expire. And we told our audience that from now on, we're only going to outro with music that they write and send in so it's just going to be never-ending runs of of musicians that wrote music for us and sent it in so this one i like so much that i don't want to just outro it i want to intro the outro. You want to do both.

Follow me? You're doing a Quentin Tarantino situation. Yeah. You're starting at the end. It's like watching Pulp Fiction. It's like watching Memento. We're going to intro the outro. You ready, Phil? Yeah.

Got it pulled up. Phil's going to. Let's hear it, Philly. Guy sent this in. Wrote it just for this show. That's like Young Guns. Not anymore. That surprised me.

Wait for the Elk Bugle, though. You gotta wait for the Elk Bugle. There it is. Dude, I'm telling you what. You turn it off now, Phil. There's a lot going on there. Hot tip for any musicians, man. Throw an elk bugle into your metal tunes. It's like with cooks.

Throw a little butter in there. You throw some elk bugle into your metal tunes. It's like with cooks, throw a little butter in there. You throw some elk bugles into your music and you're going to be kicking ass. Who's that? This is by Jesse Collins, who's a local Bozeman, Montana resident. He's from here. And in case you were not able to decipher the lyrics, the lyrics are hunting, fishing, cooking, conservation. And then the next line is live to hunt, hunt to live.

And then the last line, which we cut before anyone could hear it is fresh set of eyes finds more beans. I invented that. I invented that. I invented that. I invented that. We're going to open a Christmas present real quick. Oh.

Yeah, it's behind you. It's not even wrapped. For those of you who forgot to get on the YouTube version of this. Randall, can you open it? Can you work on opening it while I talk? Sure. Listeners of the show remember when we participated.

My little cutlery collection. No, this is great. I love it. So listeners of the show will remember when we had some anthropologists on the show. We participated. Cal was there. Who all was there? Cal, Clay, Spencer.

In this room. I was filming. Oh, Corinne was there. Max was filming. Corinne was there. Who all was there? Cal, Clay, Spencer. In this room. I was filming. Corinne was there. Max was filming. Corinne was there. We participated in butchering a buffalo with stone tools in cooperation with anthropologists and archaeologists and a paleontologist from... Look out.

Oh, there's the rest. There's the wrapping paper. an archaeologist and a paleontologist from look out was it Colorado? Oregon State? It was Texas why am I struggling so much? I thought the Ohio State Southern Methodist SMU and then Kent State University Kent State University

Oregon State University and we participated in a project we butchered we were expert butchers Kent State University. Kent State University. Oregon State University. And we participated in a project of we butchered, we were expert butchers, and butchered a buffalo with stone tools. Replicas of Ice Age tool assemblages. And this present came in the mail.

It's very delicate. It says this end brittle. Okay. Do you have any idea what this is? I really don't. Really? I know that I should. It says this end brittle. Okay. Do you have any idea what this is? I really don't. Really? I know that I should. It's not your present. It's not your present.

No, no, no. Please help. It's going to take time. This end is brittle. Taylor, you can't help. We've already been over this. Taylor's the don't rip the wrapping paper person. He's going to save it.

I like to savor the anticipation. Yeah. Hey, Steve, you want to grab the bread? Which is a great way to think about that because I've never thought about it that way. What you like is the meaty Christmas in a happy new sphere.

You get to spend that extra minute and a half knowing, okay, this might be that thing I really want. So this is from the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Lab. The golden flashes. And many apologies to people who are listening

and not watching this. Yeah, you got to get on the YouTube train for this one. Bill, do you think it sounds good, this loud paper noise to people at home?

I love it. I think it creates intrigue. People will get online to see what's going on. Ooh, bubble wrap. Oh, caram. Green, you should come hang out with my kids.

I'll put you in a big room full of bubble wrap, and you guys can just have a hell of it. See you four hours later. Meton, I don't think anything broke. It's got to be a spear, right? Well, we don't know. Well, it says happy new spear, and now I remember saying I wanted some spears.

Oh, my goodness. There's going to be some blood shed in this room. There are maybe eight different layers of wrapping paper. He did a good job. Sorry, I didn't realize it was going to take this long. I got a free towel out of it. A couple of free towels. I'm going to go shower up.

Alright, Steve. I think you should do the honors when we're on. No, no. I'm going to go shower up. Alright, Steve. I think you should do the honors when we're on. No, no. I'm watching. We're going to get those towels in the Auction House Oddities. Oh, look at that. You guys are doing great work. You know you've made it when you get a Christmas gift and you just watch people open it for you.

Pool noodles? I'm enjoying watching my present be opened. We got new towels. We got new pool noodles. This is really... Shit, I should have at least partially opened it. Yeah, Corinne, man. I'm a bad producer. I'm a bad producer.

Corinne does some good producing and some poor producing and this would be in the... This is not a 4.5. No. Or it is a 4.5. It's all in the explanation. We can move on. No, we're so close. Carefully.

Sorry audience for my terrible producing. Maybe I'll lay over that song again. You can probably still play it and just fast forward the video. These pool noodles, for folks who haven't happened on this trick yet, are super awesome for pre-building any sort of fishing rig with a leader. That's true.

For mooching rigs, just to keep people entertained while we open this. If you've got pre-rigged mooch and rigs, you can stick your banana sinker in the end, right? Stick your banana sinker in the pool noodle and then wrap the mooch leader around that pool noodle and fasten the hooks into it.

Should I think of more stuff to talk about? The pool noodles are also good for floating too. Oh, like in a pool. Yeah, in a pool. I can see that. I can see that. Once the pool present is revealed. A couple of good walking sticks.

Yeah, yeah. You better have a hell of a day fishing. This is you right here. This is packaged. You and Snoot. Snort. Damn it. Damn it. The whole roll is...

Be careful now. It's going to be sharp. I think for the amount of time it took to wrap this stuff... Oh my goodness. Oh, that is badass. Ladies and gentlemen, that was worth the wait. These are

Clovis Point tipped hunting spears by Metton and a former student the points were hafted by a former student of his Michael Wilson holy cats two of them are English

Flint procured by him from the white chalk cliffs of southern England. And then the third one is Georgetown chert from Texas. It's the same kind of chert we used in the Buffalo experiment. I was going to say that. Georgetown, definitely. And the wood is treated pine shafts.

I don't know you guys really well, so you're the ones I'm thinking about when I think about just wanting to just... He's looking at you hard. Big game. That is nuts. Someone's ribs, man. Max, can I see that big hoss there? That's pretty cool. I'm going to keep working down our list.

Everybody admire your spear. Admire your spears. I'm going to have to ask you to move that spear That you leaned right in front of the camera Wow Fellow wrote in This is part of the show Where we do listener comments

Fellow wrote in Says 2023 is This is more bad producing Good producer would have gone in there and wrote was is this is more bad producing. Good producer would have gone in there and wrote was. But this was a quote from the guy who wrote in 2023.

A good producer would have wrote sick. Sick after that. It's got to be tough being with a writer. I'm just going to leave. 2023 is considered this is a listener thing. This is a good question. 2023 is considered this is a listener thing this is a good question 2023 is considered a mast year where acorn production where acorn production and other nut trees have upwards of five times their typical production i've never seen anything

like the amount of acorns produced this year i would love to hear the crew discuss their thoughts on the impact of a mast year on deer harvest. He says, and I'll have to take his word for this, deer harvest across the Midwest this year is way down, and the only consistent common theme I can find is that it's a mast year. I've hunted the same fields in central Wisconsin for 20 years and always

see 20 to 30 deer out every night about an hour before sunset and this is the first year I'm not seeing hardly any coming out to feed in the fields. But, when you go through the woods, you jump all kinds of deer. I'll buy that. If you,

I think Pat Durkin wrote it up. I think Michigan's one of the states that saw a pretty significant hunter decline, hunter participation decline for, for this season. So that's a reason for, you can't have a lot of deer dying by hunters if there's not a lot of hunters out there. Huh.

I didn't know that. Yeah. And then as we talked about, you want some real patience, sit in a tree and watch nothing happen? Uh, get out of your tree, man. What are they attributing the, uh, decline? Well, if it's a really significant number, if you go back to like, I think there was a peak

sometime in the nineties, early nineties. Not the COVID pandemic? No. Uh, like a significant peak. You'll have to read old Pat Durkin's article. I think he wrote it up for TheMeatEater.com. I will read that. A little website you might be familiar with.

One thing I could say about this, what he's talking about is you'll find that people have a tendency because people that are driving to work, driving around, you see deer in a field. So a lot of guys are going to, they just instinctively are going to go sit at the field edge. You know, it's just, well, I'm going to sit at the edge of the field and watch the field

because I see deer out in the field. So yeah, the fact that there's a bunch of food would, uh, I'm trying to say the fact that there's a ton of food in the woods would absolutely affect all that kind of stuff. They don't have to expose themselves because there's plenty of food undercover. Yeah, they don't need to take risk. Talk to Clay. When I was saying acorns and not acorns, I was goofing on Clay. You talked to Clay about when it was a good mast year.

Yeah, I was going to say. Well, he likes to talk about it because it gives him more chances to say acorns. This is a Clay conversation. Yeah. He likes it. And have a lot of fun with that. He likes any chances to say acorns. This is a Clay conversation. Yeah. And have a lot of fun with that. He likes any conversation that involves acorns. Is Clay successful on one of these years?

I don't know. I know that he's always looking for a tree that's raining acorns. Yeah. Is it kind of like nationally across the country or it's a certain area? Listen, man, this is, I don't, I'm just reading this. Yeah, sure.

So, so I'm trying to keep up. So there's an over, there's a surplus of acorns out there and the deer staying in the trees and not out in the field. This is an actual thing here. This is a real thing. No, no. What I'm saying is bumper crops of acorns is a real thing. Have you ever heard with, with, uh, you ever heard of the thing predator swamping?

No. So if you look at wildlife populations that are very synchronized and when they reproduce, um, the thinking is one of the advantages of being very synchronized is that the, the abundance of food overwhelms predators. And some of that stuff is going to like, if it lays a big group of ground nesting birds, they all lay at the same time. Some of them are going to survive predation. But if you were to, if they were going to all

lay over the course of two months and you had a population of predators pursuing those eggs it's like they have a greater chance of just finding them because it's a slowly rolling out food source so they use this term predator swamping meaning um animals that get in a big group and all drop their young at once uh then predators will get some, but they'll, the animals, the babies will quickly be up and running about. And it's a higher, it's more likely to survive. Okay.

Trees. We had a guy sitting in the seat you're sitting in. Will. All right. A forester. And he came on and explained to us, what was that guy's name? He's a good guest. Michael Snyder. He came on and explained to us, what was that guy's name? He's a good guest.

Uh, Michael Snyder. He came on and explained to us that they find something similar occurs in populations, communities of trees where the Oaks will, for whatever reason, now and then just totally kick ass and predator swamp. The acorns and you can go into stands of mature

trees and find that a lot of those trees as old as they are have the same birthday meaning there's years that are just really good they drop so many acorns and then you get a bunch of recruitment you get a bunch of oak recruitment because deer didn't eat all the damn things. Okay. You following? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit. This is not something I've picked up through observation. This was just explained to me. Yeah.

So out here, elk are like the example that I think makes the most sense to people. Elk calves, um, first 48 hours on the ground, most susceptible to predation. Then basically every minute past that 48 hour mark, they're more and more capable of getting up and hauling ass and running away. Um, so if you think about making a tackle, right, every tackle takes. He's perking, he's perking right up.

He's a high school football player. That pursuit angle, impact, recovery, reset, and do it all over again, right? It all takes time. So all the predators are out there trying to make these open field tackles on these calves. And that all takes time. And, you know, they all can't be tackling everyone at the same time. Got you.

Can I ask a question? The angle changes. Yeah. Angles change and there's more of them. There's balls popping up in everybody's hands. I love when you talk ball to me, Cal. This viewer who wrote this, and he's talking about acorns. Acorns.

Acorns. No, he used acorns. Sorry. Is this, is it a big deal? Is this a problem? Well, he, like many good outdoorsmen, he's a curious student of the woods. Respect that. And so he's just, I think he's just curious.

Good. I think that, uh, that I think that it would be a big deal if you found that you had a really low deer harvest. Cause it would be, is it that there's no deer around or is it that something else changed? But worth, worthy of discussion? Um, but I think that he's just throwing it out there, but it brings up this, this issue I'm thinking of is, uh, just backing it up by this idea that, that masting trees will seem to like, you don't imagine two different trees are talking to each other, you know, or I, I don't know, like, I don't know how they, how it becomes decided by a stand of oaks that it becomes decided that this year is the year we're all going to just rain down acorns.

I have no idea. I'd love to understand it. On, on the successful hunter side of things, there are, uh, groups of hunters that will, uh, for whatever reason, be more happy complaining about the fact that there's so many acorns in the woods, the deer won't come out of the woods. And that's why hunting sucks this year. Um, for whatever reason, that is more satisfying to them than changing their stand location to be in the woods. That makes sense. People just love to complain.

Yeah. Yes. It's probably the people that are complaining about this are probably the people that didn't harvest the deer this year. That's what I'm thinking. Normally I go out the first weekend and the first morning, this is what happens and it

didn't happen this year. So something is majorly wrong. Guy wrote in, this is a good one. Now you want to talk about stuff that matters. I'm waiting. While I was asking him. No, when you say that to someone, you're not asking them. No.

I wasn't. You're making a statement. You better make a statement. I was making a statement to him over there. Guy wrote in now we we've covered on and off uh the the the ins and outs of new jersey um experimenting with a bear hunt they had a bear hunt they lost a bear hunt they got the bear hunt back thank goodness um they have the highest density i think of any state bears per unit of space of any state but this guy said there's a professional

harasser there's a woman and she has a little posse of people she lives adjacent to a large block of state land where uh guys will hunt and she'll she and this little anti-hunter posse will go out and harass hunters who are coming out of the woods with a bear this guy says him and his buddy got a bear they they put it on a log indian style he says which is for like tying it feet down to a log when i've done that in the past, I find it, it sways in a very irritating fashion. Um, if you're ever out there doing this, get two logs, put one over each of your shoulder. Cause when you put it on one log, it just starts to get the pendulum.

Yeah. It's like a pendulum. They hike it out four miles and lo and behold, they run into a group of people. And so he says that we do what you do in any hiking trail. And we go, how how you guys doing today and then proceeded to just get harassed and then doxxed you guys know what that means i keep seeing the word pop up i don't know what it means someone

reveals your personal info personal yeah so they the this this this posse of anti-hunters um doxes them because they get their license plate numbers and their images that they can put out on social media uh they reached out to a game warden who said that they would look into it and he's like what can someone do? That is just, that's just cat. That is categorically illegal. I mean, even New Jersey, even New Jersey has a hunter harassment law. You can't, if someone's legally hunting, it's illegal to come up and annoy them or harass them or try to molest their hunt. It's just like, it's just illegal. If this is true, I'm just taking this at at face value if this is true and someone said like blew you off like i'll take

a look into it um it's just it's just it's not it's if it's as presented it's just a it's just a thing where that you you can't do that that's illegal that should not happen to you maybe hunters in each state should get to know and read the codified anti-hunter laws in their respective states. Anti-hunter harassment. Harassment laws. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.

Because it is like a stupid wording thing, right? Like these people didn't interfere with the hunt. They just harassed them when they came out of the woods with a bear, which, you know, may not make it by the eyes of the law illegal the way it's written, right? Yeah. Um, I would, uh, continually be posting pictures of bear ham smoking and bear chili and talking about the amount of people you fed with that bear. I like that, Cal. Yeah.

Dr. Randall, what did you determine about the quail article? I was waiting for the payoff there. Did you scratch it out? Oh, I just removed it because we seem to have skipped it. But I want to say a thing of interest. Yeah. There's this article we're taking a look at. It's about Tennessee's quail comeback and ai and the article tries in very tenuous

fashion in my view to link the use of ai with a quail comeback and i and the the the relationship is not how would you put it there's no correlation However, it's an interesting thing, um, to do surveys, to try to locate quail, um, which have been, which are,

their numbers are doing a little bit better in Tennessee, in certain places in Tennessee. Um, as some people know, and many people in the South have experienced, uh, bobwhite quail numbers or have been at just depressingly low levels across a lot of the traditional range. Too many reasons why to name them all.

Some people point to fire ants. Some people point to fire suppression. What am I missing? Changes in trapping. Oh, too many mid-sized. Yeah. A lot of mid-sized predators because fur prices have been so low. On and on and on.

They're just talking about guys, researchers being able to put AI to use. Every time you read about AI, you feel like, oh my God, it's so scary. They're coming for my job. But here they're using AI to go out and take recordings, just recording ambient sound. Right? So you can place a recording device out in some habitat and it records all the ambient sound you imagine well what are you going to do now you hire some grad student to listen to tens of thousands of hours of ambient sound recordings to

be like oh there's one i heard a quail? And then log where it was and when it was. And these researchers are able to take all of this. They got 40 some listening devices. They're able to take all of that and use AI to scrub out and identify the sounds of quail. Yeah. And so it makes a case that this gives them a better understanding of, or it's a more useful way to. Closer to actual population. Yeah.

But it doesn't actually explain how it causally impacts. It doesn't say how, uh, quail are recovering. Right. Was the. Right. Fun thing. Well, yeah, this brings up one of my favorite things about, uh, media. And I can say this, um, in media, um, the, the, the headline that really over promises.

Yeah. Uh, are you aware of the, the stories? I've done a bunch of work with pheasants forever and quail forever and, and greatly respect the organization. And when you're around, uh, they employ hundreds, literally hundreds of biologists, um, at that conservation organization.

And when you're around a group of these, the story always pops up. In the spring, they do a lot of nesting surveys. They try to get a general population survey, um, and then they can submit those numbers and then the state can change the harvest regulations for those individual species. So like Steve was saying with quail, trying to listen for quail. Well, they also listen, they do visual counts with pheasants and they used to team up with

all the rural. You guys heard a lot of that today. They used to team up with a lot of rural male carriers. Oh. Okay. And so, and they have these very specific. That's sly.

Yeah. Do this very specific. That's sly. Yeah. Do this very specific criteria of at this time in the morning, you drive this stretch of road and you drive it this fast. And then you report either what you see in the case of pheasants or what you hear in. famous kind of study that they talk about or the instance rather is on, um, roughed grouse because they, they, uh, get out and they, and they drum and they display. It sounds like a Honda generator. It sounds like you're trying to start an old lawnmower.

I can do it perfectly. You ready? No, that's not it. It's more like this. Wow, that's pretty good. I think it's more like this. I love how focused he got. In the zone, like a flow state. No, it's like...

Max had it. So I want to say this is northern It's either Michigan or Minnesota I apologize for Mixing the M states up there but It's Michigan or Minnesota And You know 30 year career of a Rural mail route carrier

That's such a Genius thing to do I'm always impressed when I hear. How long you had a job? He's like, I've been driving this road for 20 years. You've been seeing a lot of pheasants?

Yeah. And the counts are always dismal. Dismal, dismal, dismal. First you gotta be like, do you hunt pheasants? Because if you hunt pheasants,

you don't get to participate. You're not the rural carrier. Oh, exactly. You're not the male carrier. Nothing here. Nothing. I haven't seen nothing not a one

it's shocking how few there are and then come around next fall and have a banner pheasant ear this particular

dude just just flat out couldn't hear was just just freaking deaf could not hear that

yeah and so you hear that story often in that in that circle so that's where AI can, can come in handy. Kind of eliminates the, the bias you can call it.

Do a little quality control and. Yeah. I got to tell you a quick story. Nothing to do with any of this, but I keep thinking about it is Clay was talking to a, there's this, down in Arkansas, there's this family, these old guys, and they really had just their long run of killing giant bucks and other people would just get jealous and pissed so what you do when you're jealous of someone you start like rumors

about them and clay says the one of these old guys you know a lot of people say that you killed all those bucks at night and the guy says you know how hard it is to kill one all those bucks at night. And the guy says, you know how hard it is to kill one of those bucks in the daytime? Can you imagine doing it in the dark? That's pretty funny.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery,

24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more.

As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com onxmaps.com onxmaps.com Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Here's some big news. Are we doing this right? We're announcing this now? Mm-hmm.

Listeners of the show will probably know the Meat Eater Fish and Game cookbook, which, big bestseller. Half a million of those suckers are out there in print. Well, the follow-up, it's usually bad. Phil, would you say it's bad when there's a sophomore effort? Is that always negative? No. It's kind of a test. It's like a band will put out a record say it's bad when there's a sophomore effort? Is that always negative? No. It's kind of a test.

It's, you know, like a band will put out a record, it's great. And that's like, oh, let's see how their second one goes. I think that's just the, I mean, you can have a great sophomore record. It's kind of like a benchmark. This is the sophomore cookbook. I think it's just like an order. Got it. So it's not like passing judgment.

Yeah. I feel like I read like the sophomore album didn't do well. Well, that's the sophomore slump is what they Got it. So it's not like passing judgment. I feel like I read like the sophomore album didn't do well. Well, that's the sophomore slump is what they call it. It's tough to follow up on your success. Okay, I'm not going to use that. The much anticipated follow-up. There it is.

The much anticipated follow-up to the Meat Eater Fish and Game Cookbook is publicating. That's not a word. Publishing. It's publishing April 23rd. It's available, available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

It is called the Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook. Wild game recipes for the grill, smoker, camp stove, and campfire. For a long time, we were going to call the book From the Backyard to the Backcountry, but felt that it was too cutesy. But you know what I mean. From the backyard to the backcountry, but it is the Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook,

wild game recipes for the grill smoker camp stove and campfire this book covers everything in shocking detail stunning photography of how to take a marmot this is kind of making a point up front how to take a marmot and uh cook it the way small animals were cooked by plains tribes on the american great plains for one where they would take small animals and just simply roll them around in the ashes and burn all their hair off and then roast them skin in we talk about that as a setup but then it gets into all manner of barbecuing smoking everything, everything. Camp cookery. It's way more

beautiful than our last book. More than 100 recipes for cooking outdoors. Which includes everything down to frying fish, which is best done outdoors. I do mine outdoors. It's cool.

It's got a lot of stuff. It has like a real coffee table book quality to it because some of the stuff you might not ever make, but it's so badass looking that you'll just like to look at it. It's gorgeous. Did the beer guts make it? No, the beer guts aren't in it. That's for the next book, the junior book.

Mm-hmm. Cal invented a recipe this morning, which is guts and beer. Phenomenal. It was good. 4.5. It was really good. 4.5 out of 4.

We will be talking about this cookbook in greater detail later on, but I'm just going to remind everybody now. It's available for pre-order, pubs April 23rd. And it is a, if you love the Meat E fish and game cookbook this is that same great quality highly tested recipes but everything for cooking outdoors again from

having a big old party in your yard to cooking for you and your buddy on top of a mountain with a backpack and stove everything for outdoor cooking cooking. That was the part where you guys come in. Hell yeah. Oh no, I didn't mean that. What'd you say, April 29th? I got to get that for the old man. 23rd. 23rd.

April 23rd? Yeah. Well, we know these guys are fired up on food, so I think it's a beautiful segment. Get to that Barnes & Noble. Get to where you need to go. Get that hardcover. Put it right there. Good gift.

Walk in and go, is that the new sophomore meat eater? Listen, that's a highly anticipated. Is that the sophomore title? The highly anticipated new one. Yes. You'll have to start pushing this even more a month

before Father's Day. Oh, we're going to push it heavy. This is just a prelude to the push because it's so good. We worked on it. I mean, we worked on it for years.

Pre-push. We worked on it for years. That's good. We even had to hire, I'll tell you this, this will titillate the listeners and then we're done talking about it. Titillate. even had to hire i'll tell you this this will titillate the listeners then we're done talking about it titillate we had to hire firefighters to be there for some of our

preparations really like just in case there was a fire or we were doing some of the stuff in the summer and and just because of various issues but i'm saying that's the kind of cookbook this is yeah they also make good models for the photography yeah yeah uh yeah a lot of ways to burn your fingers that should have been the subtitle well let me give you a couple for instances how to take a we we do so everyone knows like burying like luau style pigs right so how to cook venison shoulders venison legsison legs in a half of an oil drum. How to put whole ducks and birds just on spikes, on sticks, and cook them like a ring so you have a fire with a ring of birds roasting on sticks around the fire. But also how to throw a kick-ass catfish fry. So really technical stuff that requires a lot of MacGyvering,

making contraptions, making makeshift grills, making makeshift smokers, using souped up sophisticated smokers. It's all in there. If you like to go outside and cook, this is your book. This is it. What's your favorite? What's the most unique recipe in there it's a good question my favorite one in there isn't even in there but there's

pictures of it in there it is no it's like one of those things you can't really it's not really a recipe but it's the thing you talk about there's two because they both involve contraptions that i like a lot uh when i where i grew up it was you would you would um like if you got married if your kid graduated from high school if you turned 40 you would throw a pig roast you would host a pig roast where you take a whole hog and and you know put the apple in its mouth and cook the pig yeah um so we do we have a great little welded up contraption for doing that and talk about that but it's not so much a recipe. It's like a, it's a procedure for a recipe.

One of my favorite things is if you ever go down when you're in Mexico, particularly down the Yucatan Peninsula, and you see that they're making those tacos El Pastor, where they have that, that vertical spit meat on the meat rock. Yeah. A vertical spit mounted with layers of, mounted with layers down there. It's like layers of pork and a pineapple sits on top of the spit and there's a vertical heat source. And so it spins. And then they cut tacos out of that.

So. That sounds incredible. No, it's really cool. Tacos al pastor. Yeah. And I have, my buddy Ronnie made me my own one when I got married. And that very, it's called a trompo. And that very trompo, I aftermarket rigged own tacos el pastor so you can be like mexico and have a sweet taco party with we use deer meat deer meat on a vertical spit it's incredible looking it's a real sight it's got eye appeal and that didn't make the book just a picture no that

no that's in the book that's very detailed description in the book you had me doing a hog roast is like it it's like, um, it's just a thing you got to talk people through. It's a production. Yeah. It's a process, right? Yeah. Is it 75 pounds?

Is it 200 pounds? Yeah. Phenomenal book. Uh, all right. We're gonna turn to our guests now. Will, Taylor, how do you guys want to talk about your careers? Will you? Your other careers, your pre-careers.

Yeah. Yeah. Ball. We can talk. We can talk ball. You want to talk ball? Yeah. Don't don't then you feel bad the whole time like man we we are pretty worthless in all these hunting yeah no yeah yeah yeah there's a level of like uh because you guys are doers i like to think of us as like animals that live in houses and then our parents got real just like hey we're done with these animals they take us out in the woods and then we met you guys

the outdoor dogs first time we started talking about all this shit and we're done with these animals, and they take us out in the woods. And then we met you guys, the outdoor dogs. First time, we started talking about all this shit, and we're like, oh, my God. We really have no idea what we're doing here. But yeah, yeah, yeah, football. We did that. So I was at the Titans from 2014 until 2022, and that's where Will and I met. But as I told you guys before the show, I grew up in Arizona, went to the University of Michigan, who I don't know when the show's coming out.

But they are playing in the national championship on Monday. Do you still feel an affinity? So when I first left Michigan, I didn't at all. I was kind of anti-Michigan. And then when I was there, it was like 09 to 13, which is when we were just terrible. We're an awful football team. And I get drafted, and I was kind of like, ah, whatever. And I played with these guys that went to Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, like all these teams that are like winning national championships over and over again. And they had like all this

big pride. And, uh, when we got Jim Harbaugh, I started to feel a little bit more pride. And then he started doing bad. And I was like, you know, I get this guy out of here. What do we do? This guy needs to go. And now like, this is actually the first year uh even before the year i chose to be like a fan i want i want to buy into being a fan of football and like watch a sport being like my first year out of football so it's kind of a natural progression you know if you imagine you grow up somewhere all you want to do is get out of there you get out of there and then later you develop a nostalgia and you're like i should just move back there with my kids that's exactly that's you nailed it because when i was in arizona

growing up i was like the desert ugly it's not fun here i want to go somewhere somewhere with four seasons end up going to michigan my first winter i had a pair of vans on probably the same jeans i'm wearing now in a zip-up hoodie and i was like perfect winter yeah literally i like saw snow like two times in my life the first one i was like, perfect winter. I saw snow like two times in my life. The first one I was like, if there was a transfer portal, which is now, I don't know how familiar you guys are with college football, but you can literally leave whenever you want. Essentially. If that was established, I would have sent my ass back to Arizona. Thankfully, thankfully it wasn't established yet. But now as I've gotten older, I'm like, man,

something about an Arizona sunset, the desert, the climate, everything is, it's, it's beautiful. We were talking about cave Creek. It's like the only place in the world where you'll find like an old horse, a truck and a Ferrari in the same parking lot. And you just, it's just such a unique, cool town. And so there is that level of nostalgia for sure. Yeah. And then you had bad, you had some like bad ish injuries. Yeah, I did. Mostly recently, though. Mostly recently.

So I actually was extremely lucky. Like in college, you're like that. You told me today about getting knocked out on the field. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was fun. That was a... Getting your bell rung. Getting your bell rung. Yeah, but I didn't know that that could happen.

He was telling me that... Taylor was telling me he got hit in a way, and this is a thing that happens to people, where you come to and you're emotional. Emotional? They just told him that to make him feel better about crying. They're like, no, this is a thing that happens, buddy. How's everybody?

It's all good. Emotional. You don't look like a baby. Now hurry up and get off. Yeah. Taylor was saying that when he said he's lucky, at one point, and please don't let me give it this wrong, so jump in. You were with the Titans for seven years.

Nine. Nine years. And at one point. Every year counts. Every year counts? Oh, yeah, man. You were like the most tenured person on the entire team. Yeah, my last year, my last two years with the Titans,

I was, I saw a hundred percent turnover. So I was like the oldest guy in the room. They're a guy that played more years in the league than me in the room, but I was at the, at the Titans for the longest amount of time. And it was a cool experience too. Cause our first year we, uh, my first game, we played the Kansas city chiefs in, in Kansas city. And it was loud.

And it was, they have this thing during the national anthem to say, and the home of the, and the whole, all the whole stadium yells chiefs. That's blasphemous. It's call themselves Americans. It's, you know. Call themselves Americans? It startled me. It startled me big time.

And we won two, like two games that year. And so my first, and then the next year we won three games. And it was like, just, we were a horrible franchise. And we were on this big run of going nine and seven a bunch. Finally having like winning records. And then 2019 we go to the AFC championship, played the Chiefs again in Kansas City and lost. We were up by 10 in the first quarter. But it was just like it was cool to be a part of something

that was so abysmal at one point and then help like grow it into something that at one point was an actual contender for a Super Bowl. Not anymore. Tough year for the boys. Tough year for the boys. Tough year. Yeah, but yeah, getting knocked out.

We played the Dolphins in 2018. Longest game in NFL history. In NFL history. It was like multiple. It was like seven or eight hours long. What? Because there's a lot of storms, so we had to go back in the locker room. Were you on the team too?

Yeah, yeah, that was the year I was on the team. That was the year we met. And I just signed this deal, and I came out in a boss hog outfit, like all white suit, white hat. I had a taxidermy beaver with me, and I kind of did this thing like daddy's here type of thing. I'll brag for you. Go ahead.

Biggest contract for an O-lineman in NFL history at the time. Oh, I love it. I appreciate it. I love it. Congratulations. That was nice. That was nice. Yeah.

So I made this big theatrical thing about it. And Mike Vrabel, the head coach, pulls as he goes that was funny it was good but I must let you know there's gonna be guys that don't like that and sure enough do we throw a pair this guys don't like yeah ostentatious getting wild yeah so we play the Dolphins in my right there my goodness and we play the Dolphins we throw a pick and it, yeah. That's it right there. Oh, my goodness. And we play the Dolphins. We throw a pick, and it's like towards our sideline. I take pride. I used to take pride.

After this, I never took pride in it again, but like hawking down, trying to get a couple stats, get a tackle, like we talked about, being patient, trying to get there. And a dude's coming down, and I'm starting to run like this, and I'm looking, and all of a sudden, boom, lights are out. And there's actually, I mean, it's kind of funny, but there's a hilarious video on youtube of me like dead bodied on the floor and uh our teams like start it was a dirty hit so like our team and the dolphins like start getting in a scrum and i pop up because i like go from being unconscious to very conscious and i'm like looking i see everybody fighting and i go to get in it and like people trainers are grabbing me like kevin byer or safety i think there's a picture of you right there too grabbing me like hey no no you got knocked out you got knocked out i was like well you know they just and i just start crying like tears pouring down my face i'm

like talking normal and our center ben jones like takes a towel and like puts it over my head like he's embarrassed for me like listen brother you need to get to the locker room as soon as possible but yeah that was uh that was a bit of a deal. That little knockout situation. You seeing it? I'm watching it right now. There's a dude on the Miami sideline just looking at the camera yelling, body bag! Body bag!

The defensive line coach on the Dolphins is like giving him a fist bump. I was like, Andre Branch is his name. He was a backup. So did you? You got him in there? You know. So was it a clip or it was just so far outside of the play? No, it was a full blindside shot.

Yeah. The next year they actually made that play illegal. That type of hit illegal. One of those ones where, you know, Taylor's like pursuing to go get the ball carrier and whoever's coming to block him, they don't even see him. So you're just like licking your traps like, yeah, I to tee off on this right right right sure enough i don't know how do they define how do they define when they made it illegal how do they define it what's it called it's like a defenseless player so like if you're not aware of the situation if i'm pursuing you

and someone's coming from this side i would be defenseless from your hit right i would have to be aware of your hit coming in god how are you supposed to keep all that straight? There's so many crazy rules. It's been a transition for a lot of guys. Offensive tackle is a big target to tee off on too. Oh, if they're not looking. You got to tee off on them you don't want to because you're thinking you're about to get

swallowed up by this boy. My goodness. Did you get some tackles over your career? Yeah, I think I had like four or five. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow. We would do a good little spell. JP, check that stat. Check that stat. I think I had like four or five throughout my career. All of a sudden you were like, I can run. Watch out. Oh, yeah.

You're a little athletic out there. I was moving. People be like, why are you moving like that? Now, I don't want to continue to hype the boy but you gotta hype the boy when the time is necessary did you do you have the record for 40 time at the combine no top it was top 10 when i did the to the comment some dude been like a four six one time oh gotcha but i hit that four eight five forty and nobody tried to like pull you out to tight end or something like no i was ripping at 310 like when you're of that size. Nice. That's when.

Nice. Yeah, that's when you're. And you don't want to try to move up that end. This gives something for Randall to aspire to. Oh, yeah. Smart position on the line, right? Yeah, it's the blind side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, no, baby, I was talking to this guy the other day that was 310.

Yeah. I feel pretty good right now. He's like all famous. And if you're looking from a career standpoint, like a tackle, a left tackle specifically, is like a highly touted, very high paid position. It's a premium position because it's very low supply and extremely high demand.

Well, you're going to zip out and hit guys like this. Yeah. Really? Yeah, when he goes second level. We actually played each other in college too. You did? Yeah, yeah. We played each other.

What was it? What are we, two and two? Did you know you played each other? Were you aware of each other? No, not at college too. You did? Yeah, yeah. We played each other. What was it? What are we two and two? Did you know you played each other? Were you aware of each other? No, not at the time. No, not until we met. Well, hey, you see a white guy, a white linebacker with a last name Compton, you're going to remember that guy.

You're going to remember that guy. For sure. It was the first time we played against each other. I think it was 2015, maybe 14. In the league, yeah. But the first time we played each other. What was your rookie year? 2014.

Okay, so 14. We played at the Redskins, or at the Commanders. Yeah, yeah, but the first time we played each other. What was your rookie year? 2014. Okay, so 14 where? We played at the Redskins, or at the Commanders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excuse me. At Washington. Yeah. But we played each other in college once, too. Twice in college.

Twice in college. You got one, I got one. One and one, and then you won. One and one in the NFL. In the NFL, yeah. But the first time we saw each other, like Taylor's saying, like you see another white guy on the field, you're kind of like, hey, we're kind of doing it.

We're beating the odds, right? We're beating the odds. Like the first play happened, I remember like tapping him on the helmet the first time we ever, we were just on the field. Pat him on the ass. We're doing it out here, brother.

We're getting it going. Surviving advance. Surviving advance. But it is, especially for linebackers, like offensive line, there's a plethora of white dudes out there. And I don't want to turn this into a white play.

It's not what this show needs to be about. But there is very, like a lot of times, not a wholehora of white dudes out there. And I don't want to turn this into a white. It's not what this show needs to be about, but there is very, like a lot of times, not a whole lot of white guys on the defensive side of the ball. I think there was a bunch of times you were on the field and only white. Solo dolo. Solo. Yeah.

White chocolate out there ripping around. White chocolate. Yeah. Soul patrol. Yeah. It is a, it's an interesting world, man.

But we, we met in 2018 and we're like, talk about your career. I've been going off about mine. Well, he did you a great service of rolling out highlights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When he starts, I'll interject. Trust me,

I'm great at interrupting people. I will definitely. When I find my moment, I'll be here. You'll throw it in there. So, out of Missouri. Out of Missouri, my career. I thought I was going to be... Out of Compton, Missouri. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Small town, Bonterre, Missouri. Shout out, Bonterre. I thought I was going to be the next Walter Payton as I was growing up

and realized fairly quickly. Because you're just way better than everybody. Yeah, as a running back. You're playing both ways. You want to be an offensive guy. You want to score touchdowns. But you learn very quickly that that's not going to be your future. Got recruited.

Went to Nebraska. Played at Nebraska for five years. Went undrafted. Was with Washington for five years. The Titansrafted, was with Washington for five years. The Titans for two and the Raiders for two, but the Titans and Raiders, I was like, 2018, I was on the Titans that year. Then I was a free agent, went out to Oakland. Then I was a free agent, back to the Titans.

Then I was a free agent and then went with the Las Vegas Raiders late that year. And then that's kind of been my journey. More of a road dog, More of a road dog. More of a road dog than a big guy. Can you just explain the mindset of a free agent versus a mindset of a assigned player?

What's the opposite? Contract player. The mindset, like, what do you mean? Like, if the contract is coming up? Oh, yeah, because you're not they're all one one year Yeah, when you're on your rookie deal, you have like a three or four year deal depending on where you got drafted like being undrafted I was on a three-year deal if you're drafted you play four years and if you're in a if you're a first rounder There's a fifth year option. So there's a lot of those business dynamics that go into it

But fortunately I got to play From Washington for five years the first year I was practice squad the whole year. And then the second year, which is where my initial contract basically kicked in. Like they kind of had me hostage from the business standpoint for a couple of years. And I mean, I was kind of like cutting my teeth in Washington in year two to where I

was, I established myself going into year three and four for sure, or year three, years three through five. So that mindset was more of like you felt like you were part of the bigger picture. You were looking on when you were going into the offseason, you were looking to build on the year you just had or which guys are we going to bring in who potentially you might draft. I know for myself, the position I was in, every draft for me every year,

you didn't want a team to draft anybody in your spot because you kind of just, you know, the pecking order that kind of happens in the politics of it all. Like with Tennessee, I became a free agent, signed to Tennessee on kind of a low one year for two deal. And it was kind of one of those situations where it's kind of like a prove it deal.

So you want to play well in that year kind of like a prove it deal so yeah you want to play well in that year to get like a two three four year deal right and that year when i signed with tennessee the draft comes around they draft a linebacker in the first round so you're like oh you got the cross yeah i remember i remember sitting at the bar in germantown in nashville and uh i was just thinking damn like you just kind of know what time it is. Like that guy's going to play. Uh, so it, you know, you gotta kind of be like fluid. It's like a very fluid mentality because, you know, there are times like when I got done with, with Tennessee that first year where, when we started the podcast, my mindset was I've put together six years and I'm basically just going to bet on my resume because I now, I don't,

I've tasted it too much to where I don't want to be a guy on a 90 man roster and try to make the 53. Like in my brain, like I'm a 53 guy. So I'll just bet on guys getting hurt and then getting called up or signed in the middle of the year, right before the season starts and kind of took that approach for the rest of my career, unless I was able to establish myself again to get like a multi-year deal, which didn't happen, but I got to take that same approach. So that's kind of like how it changes. Like if you're, you know, in Taylor's spot and he can, he can speak to this, but when you're in, when you're in those spots where you're part of the future and everything else, you might go back to the table and start renegotiating a year, maybe two in advance

to kind of lock in your future. Like Taylor was a guy who never wanted to go anywhere else, which is you're not telling that to the organization because you're trying to play that game of leverage. But ultimately you try and get yourself locked into that same situation because you hate switching locations. But is there the same level of comfort in your position as a free agent, as opposed to somebody who's got this multi-year contract i can't imagine no not at all no yeah not at all like there's like i feel like only the paranoid survive in

the nfl yeah you have to be paranoid at all times yeah someone else we had another player on recently uh derrick wolf was on oh there oh yeah yeah well he had a couple things he talked about one thing he talked about is just that um that sense of someone's coming for you there's someone coming up that wants your job you're always fighting you know i mean you never like just relaxed into it oh yeah yeah because there's always some kid coming out of college and wants your job because there's different there's different levels that obviously like in in will's position being uh an undrafted cat and working to get on the roster those first couple of years and fighting through the fringe essentially to become an established part of a franchise is one thing. When you're drafted, like I was drafted in the first round, you have to mess up really bad to like get essentially not have those three, four years.

So you, some guys will kind of take a backseat. I'm good. I made some money, all that. But if you don't constantly think to yourself, Hey, someone's going to try to take something from you. There's some kid that's a freshman in college right now. That's going to get drafted and try to take your job. Like there always has to be some sort of like they're coming, they're coming feeling like there's like some sort of paranoia. And it really is in your situation too. Like, you know, when you care about what you're doing and you want to play

at a really high level or perform any job at a high level, like, and you're a first rounder, like, you want to be able to hold the standard of I want to be the guy

that they think I am throughout your career so then when you do have lows, like, I know that just goes on in your mind, like, man, I got to play better

than they thought. They expect me to be a starter this year. I don't feel like I'm playing at starter level. Like, all these different paranoias are constantly in your head.

There's a big world for self-doubt, a massive world for self-doubt. And it's like a very ruthless and cutthroat business. Because when you go to college, if you're lucky enough to get offered to a school, you're there for three to five years. If you can leave early, you do. And sometimes you're redshirt and you do the whole thing. Will and I both redshirt and played the four years after that. But when you go to the NFL, it's like if you're a cat that's, let's say fourth round to undrafted,

you don't have two, three, four years to develop. Even if you signed that three, four-year deal. Right. So there's guys, I remember the first time cuts would happen. And back in 2014, the way cuts were, there's four preseason games. And then the third preseason game, they would go from a 90 man roster to a 75 man roster. And then after the fourth preseason game, you go 75 to your 53, which is your, your team. And then you'd have about 10 guys on practice squad who aren't getting paid salary, like the salary you would get if you're in the NFL, but you're, you're there, you're practicing, you don't have to be at the games, that type of thing. And you'd be around guys that are like kind of excited about the season. How do you think we're going to do? And then two weeks later, they're, you know, weeping, bringing their playbook because they know they're getting cut right then and there. And you just, it just, you have to change your mindset in such a hurry to know that, okay, there's no time to develop like any weak point in your game that will expose

you. You better work on that craft immediately. Otherwise you could be sent out the door at any moment. And, and with obviously all sports, but with football too, like it is, it's such a performance-based business. Like you're, you're going to practice, you're watching every rep of practice with in front in the team meeting and position meetings. Then you got to, you know, refocus for the next day, the highs and lows, like you're just constantly being evaluated every day. So there's never a, there's never a level of like comfort, even if you are good because you still want to play at a very high level. Like every guy who's in a starting lineup ultimately like wants to be a Superbowl champion or they want to attain being a pro bowler. Like they all want to be the best. If you're a guy who's a backup, you're kind of just waiting for opportunity to be a starter. If you're kind of like third or fourth string or kind of on that fringe you're just

you're trying to fight so you can be part of that crew who gets to look at each opponent you know as like something to look forward to versus like your team is all of your opponents because you've got to like make the team so there's always like a different level but it's like performance based every day like with with the path you took do you ever get money, like, sorry, a chance to make real money? Or is it real, like you're sort of living hand-to-mouth all the time? No, yeah, I had opportunities. It was like, so practice squad, you know, if you get, if you're playing on practice squad, like my practice squad salary my very first year was $112,000 was the salary.

Okay, good. Yeah, so you're making solid money, but compared to being active, you're making my rookie salary, say I was playing that very first year, it's like 450, and then it goes up more after that. Your chance to make the big money is in your second contract,

your third contract. I know for me, my biggest one I had was that one year for two with Tennessee and when I was like a restricted free agent. But the year to year after that, I was like a restricted free agent. But the year to year after that, I was like a one-year minimum guy. But the longer you're in the league, the more that floor goes up. But if you're like, you know, Taylor can speak to this, like when you're trying

to get that second contract, when they tell guys like you got a lot of, you know, X, Y, Z, like Taylor's a cat to where, hey, in year four, when did you sign your deal? Year four? Year four going into five. Yeah, going into five. Like Taylor, he took advantage of all those first four years to put himself in a position to make that lucrative deal. And that's where guys, where the guarantees happen, like a five-year deal for X amount of millions of dollars. And then after that, again, in the NFL, you just basically take your salary or your contract and cut it in half. Like if you're a five-year guy, the majority of vets who sign like a five, six-year deal, like think two or three, because once you're guaranteed money's up, they're going to, you're back to having to

earn it at all times. At all times. It's, yeah, it's a bit of a deal, man. It really is. So tell how you, tell how you then met. Yeah. So I kind of, I told you this in the truck a little bit. You want to tell our love story? You want me to do it? We can go back and forth. It's really cute because you guys' friends thought you'd be best friends. Yeah, so Will coming from the Redskins.

I remember I was sitting in the cold tub and just kind of surfing the bird Twitter at that point. And I see this tweet or it's an article. It's like, Will Compton signs with the Tennessee Titans. He will be best friends with Taylor LeWong. Blake Lawrence had the tweet

and then that tweet was used in that article. Like, they just had a feeling you'd get along. It was like getting your marriage arranged. And I was like,

kind of like, hell yeah, dude. When's my best friend going to get here? And so, Willie shows up and they were clearly right immediately.

Like, we established our friendship very quickly. What was it that they were anticipating you were going to bond over? I just think we both, like when you're in the media, when you do media, some guys handle themselves saying as little as possible. Some guys just stick with the game plan. I was much more theatrical. Will is a wordsmith with his thumbs, the way he was putting out.

Yeah. That review of the, of the gut beer. Oh, it was fantastic. Exactly. Very impressed. He reviewed that dish. Yeah. And I thought he had studied up.

Yeah. And made up a thing ahead of time. Yeah, like he'd been sitting there the whole time being like, this is what I'm going to say. It was great. When I get a bite of that stuff, here's what I'm going to say. Yeah, very premeditated. Will Compton is very premeditated the way he handles himself but for whatever reason people are like these guys are gonna be they're gonna be boys and uh i don't with the first time we met was probably in the

lunch hall yeah probably probably breakfast club yeah because campanero like um me being a free agent coming in you're kind of like uh lean to the other free agents who just get signed because you're like the new guys right so. So we would sit at breakfast and, you know, chop it up and have fun and laugh and stuff. And I remember one time, yeah, Taylor came over and like said,

I'm like, Hey boys, what are we talking about? I'm trying to laugh. Like, and then it kind of like just grew from there. I mean, um,

I stayed at this, the Candlewood suites. It was like a hotel right down from the facility. Classiest place. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where they, that's where they put the free agents. And you'd basically just prolong your stay until you felt like you had an idea of if you were going to be with the team for a year because you don't want to sign into a year lease and thinking, I might get cut.

So do you got to live with other dudes who are trying to make it too? No. Well, the minute you're outside of your rookie deal deal you don't get paired up with roommates anymore but when you're a rookie in those first couple years like you they would put you with guys in the hotel like when the team's going to the hotel then it's just all competition all the time yeah all the time it's got to be some real hits and misses on the roommate situation yeah i had not to get too off tangent my very first roommate he had a he did a terrible job at missing the rim at night going to the bathroom and he never cleaned it up and it blew my mind blew my mind he would shave and get stuff all

over the sink and i'm just thinking bro we're sharing this you sound a little squeamish to me yeah you just go in and like you know you're going in the middle of the night you step in some piss and you're just thinking what are we doing brother like turn the light on figure it out um he wasn't a kicker was he no no he's an offensive lineman i mean there's some dirty animals yeah the offensive linemen are traditionally very gross individuals but uh yeah and then we started bonding over you know as we circled to the podcasting world we bonded over a lot of podcasting rogan uh ben greenfield he's big into like a lot of performance stuff biohacking and so with our you know what we were doing we we called each other

accountability buddies to where we'd be doing the sauna the cold tub like we'd be doing all the stuff with each other yeah and then taylor would always you know he's somebody who he when he loves he loves hard so he would always want me to come over to his house like every day he would be he would just open it up for me every day so he was kind of like the he's kind of like the one like hey kind of like a big brother though yeah i forced him to be a friend yeah yeah yeah sure he would call me he'd call me i'd be on speakerphone with him and his wife who i'd yet to meet like i was just telling talent about this tweet you had like remember malcolm butler like he talked about i thought you was a kicker because you seem

like you got a construction worker body and i'm just like yeah but uh yeah and then it was just just ascended from there man we were boys we were boys can you guys do your handshake this little thing right there i don't know where that's a small one we got a big hug involved and stuff like that and that that was what April, May. And then he's invited me to his wedding, which was in June. And I felt very like,

I'm not like the most committal. I'm like, yeah, yeah. You know? And they're like, no, you're going,

you have to go. You have to go. Like we already did. We already got the spot for you. You have to go. The room's taken care of. You have to be there. You're just going to buy your flight.

We ordered, we ordered your chicken breast. Yeah, exactly. Catering is this much per plate. Don't be a dick. Yeah. And then from there, man, we worked out together in the summer at Vanderbilt University.

Yep. That's where we trained together in the off-season. And then we kicked it off once the season hit. And that's the homie. That's awesome. Good story. Well told. Well told.

Well told. that's awesome good story well told hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery,

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I got a question so you guys have both like switched teams and moved what's that like on like your wife's and girlfriends like is that tough yeah i you know the the time when oakland especially if you have kids too i'm sure that's yeah i mean my wife that i have now we weren't we were we were just together when i went from washington to tennessee then i talked her into moving to tennessee and then as we i forget if we were engaged when i went to oakland no i don't think it was because that was the year i engaged i proposed to her but um yeah when you're leaving so the oakland situation happened and that was like the last that was middle of the year i was with the saints for like a cup of coffee like 10 days in uh for the fourth preseason game they

called me up and I was like, oh, man, I'm about to sign with the team right before the season starts. I didn't have to do any training camp. I didn't have to bang. Training camp's the worst time of year. So I didn't have to be out in the heat. I didn't have to do all that stuff. I'm like, man, I'm about to be on the squad like just from the start of the season.

I get hurt in the fourth preseason game, get cut, injury settlement, and then I'm kind of like on the couch until middle of the year and then that's when Oakland called there was a big part of me that didn't want to go at the time and I think it's just because I just didn't want to travel and I was just kind of being a bitch um but my wife you know she you know she basically like hey you got to go you know you have to go it does suck but ultimately you know it's for a short period like two months tops at that time uh and so then you know when the season was short period like two months tops at that time and so then you know when the season was over she'd come out and visit then I come back home and I never

really had to do it like while we were married while we were with a kid I almost did last year when I signed with the Atlanta Falcons which that would have been weird but again I would only been gone for like a month or two so I never had to experience it at the level that other guys have like we we've had teammates to where they have a house or a place in the city, like say Nashville, and then their family stays back because they might have kids who are already going to school and stuff, so they don't want to take them out of school like some of the older heads. And so they would just travel back and forth whenever they could

or just host them out for a game. When we went to the Raiders that one time for those couple of months, the Titans actually played the Raiders that one time for those couple of months, we, the Titans, actually played the Raiders in Oakland. It was like the second to last game in Oakland. Yeah,

yeah, in the Coliseum, yeah. And there was this kid there, he's like now one of the best pass rushers in all of the NFL. His name is Max Crosby.

He went to Eastern Michigan. He's an absolute stud. And he apparently, like Will walked in and he's like, yo, the boy, which is like kind of

like our call thing for Bustin' with the Boys is like he would like watch the show. He was like about it. Well, we go to play the time, play the Raiders. And Will tells Max, he's like every sack you get on Taylor, I'll give you $500. Will was plotting my demise before the game. The NFL is hard enough. And then you're putting like financial incentive under it. Thank God it didn't happen. It didn't happen. That's amazing. I was stressed out about that. What, uh, because we

did throw out some stats there for Taylor. Sacks are the thing when you're a linebacker. The thing. Yeah. Did you ever get anybody? Oh, brother. Get anybody. You wanna... Let me tell you something. If you wanna pull it up, I'm sure you'll find

it. There's a sack out there that's floating around that people like to reflect on once a year. And when I say people, I mean myself. But yeah, I had one sack to my name. One sack. Sam Bradford. Dabbed on him as well. It was one of the highs of my career, for sure. And then, you know, I don't want to get two, three interceptions.

Nice. How many tackles? It's in the 300s. Oh, wow. Got a lot of tackles. Were you playing outside? No, I was inside, off the ball. So I was never like a...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see the short arms, like I'm no pass rush expert. Taylor blocked me a couple times in practice, which really pissed me off because they were walkthroughs but uh it was a job never never i was never out here yeah yeah never gifted in the uh pass rush category yeah because will would be he's an off the ball linebacker inside the box and he's got the green dot green from the neck up yeah we're playing from the neck he's He's instinctive. Here we go. Compliments. Will is an extremely instinctive, able to see formations of offenses and know essentially where the ball is going to go.

If it's going to be a run or a pass, like the man is a student of the game. But when he was with the Titans, there were a few situations where they would, it'd be a call that would send them into a bare front. And a bare front is like end, tackle, nose, tackle, end. And so it's like five down linemen, but you're taking

a mike linebacker and you're putting him at the end spot and they put will on me and it was a run play and he's my boy so i kind of wanted to give him a little bit of the give a little bit of business let him know what daddy was working with a little bit it was a jog through it was a jog through let him know who's boss so i took him to the sideline he's like what the what are we doing get on man yeah but you got to finish through i mean gotta play to the whistle there's a funny they're watching we were all time we were in arizona one time we were like we're you know banged up a little bit and we're what we laid through on the youtube and threw on like the 2012 michigan versus nebraska game it was in

in nebraska and we were watching a whole bunch of like we were just watching the game like reminiscing on all this is what this call is call is. Like, just a couple of guys, a couple of has-beens, really enjoying looking at their old craft. And there was one play, like, Michigan was getting dusted, and I got a hold of Will on one play. I took him to the sideline.

Will threw a punch at me in the game. Yeah, like, we were throwing strong shots. No, it was a close fist. It was a close fist, don't worry about me. And then Taylor was like, he looked at me. Taylor looked at the ref like, hey, who's this?

Yeah, I was crying like a little bitch. We worked him though. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Our quarterback got hurt, but. So we,

we duck hunted today and shot yesterday. Talk about your pre, in the past, what kind of firearms experience do you guys have? I mean, I go on a,

an annual hunting trip with the boys. We have a little Texas group that goes down in South Texas once a year, but I wouldn't consider it. What do you guys have uh i mean i go on a an annual hunting trip with the boys we have a little texas group that goes down in south texas once a year but i wouldn't consider it a whole lot hunting uh white tail and nil guy okay and then some hogs we got in the hog hut a couple times but that's a lot of fun uh but growing up i didn't do a whole lot like my dad unfortunately massacred a white tail in front of me when i was a young pup and i never went back in the woods after that. Really turned you off.

Yeah, it turned me off. And because deer season was always in football season, and I just never had that itch to go hunting. He didn't have it. You wanted to play. Yeah, he didn't have it. Will said that it was like a reload follow-up shot situation. Oh, yeah, five, six shots. My dad was not happy about it. I mean, it wasn you know he he hated it he hated it he hated it for me he hated

it for everybody but my dad my old man we didn't have like a tree standing on so we'd just be sitting against a tree and i'm like falling asleep half the time so i'm thinking like man i don't really care to hunt a whole lot right now uh so i just never really got into hunting um but like i've been you know clay shooting a few times so not a whole lot but i guess enough to to work around the barrel a little bit yeah for me it was i've been clay shooting probably a handful of times my dad used to take me a little bit when i was like 11 or 12 but really never been hunting i've been in two different hunting situations one i was down in baton rouge louisiana with one of my buddies and his grandpa had like a tree stand in the backyard. And we kind of just sat there

for two, three hours. And I just thought, what are we doing out here, man? Is that when you said you saw a butterfly? Yeah. So I saw, I literally, I remember sitting there, I saw a butterfly and a bunny rabbit. And I literally just followed the butterfly for a while. Got bored, went down. I literally thought to myself. With your patience. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I just take out this bunny with his 30-06 real quick. Wow. I went down. I thought to myself, maybe I just take out this bunny with this

30-06 real quick. But I didn't. I didn't. You didn't? No. And then that was it. And then a couple years ago, I had a buddy in Nashville,

Tennessee, Ford Tomlin. He took me and his family to go to a farm and we went turkey hunting. It was like the last week of turkey season. Did not see one turkey.

Did you hear any? Yeah, I heard a couple. That's the best part that sounds like what's that i know what that sounds like go ahead max go ahead what you got for us anyway that tells a turkey story you can tell if he's a turkey hunter when he gets to the gobble part he doesn't do a gobble he goes you got a good turkey you got a good turkey no so it is so i didn't see nothing and so um yeah but so i've shot a gun a couple of times but literally today was the first like organized hunt that was successful for me yeah and it was i i told you while we were sitting in the blind i

will go back i will i will come back here i will go anywhere and do it again that was awesome you guys were a really quick starty shooting i know you've been done some shooting before, so whatever. You didn't come in and be like, I know all about this. Get out of my way. Yeah. But Cal and I were talking about it

and we were talking about how the hunting with you, seeing you shoot, while it was so fun, it was like, you spent your whole lifetime getting coached and absorbing information. And then of trying to apply that information,

right? Mm-hmm. Hand-eye coordination, situational awareness. Yeah. Um, I don't know, like, like you want to be successful. Mm-hmm. Competitiveness.

Yeah. Drive. Yeah. It makes you realize that, I was saying to Cal, like you spend your whole life trying to get good at something and then you see someone get, like be proficient at some aspect of it really quickly and you sort of wishing that they can't figure it out well it just goes to show how constructive all these years of these guys

can't hit a duck to save their lives and you're like oh shit they hit ducks just like all my friends do we've been duck hunting since they were nine. Steve, now you missed a few clays yesterday. I would say that the clay shooting part was more nerve wracking than the first duck coming out. Yes. Because it was all of us really meeting for the first time. And you're like, Jimmy rigging this thing on a tire. We're going to try to get a couple and we'll be in a brave boy. Like I said, I'll go first.

And he misses it. I'm like, fuck, I'm going to miss. I'm going to miss everything. I think part about duck hunting too is like you're so in the moment and like you just kind of black out and your instincts take over. Yes. Like that's what happens to me a lot. And it's just like the minute you start to think about it is when you start to miss.

I feel like I shoot so much better. When it's just like a fast one plus i'll point out that a duck is about six times bigger than a clay pitch yeah but i shoot so much better when i'm not standing there being like okay i'm gonna say ready and then when i say ready this is all i'm gonna do and i'm not gonna do that it's just better when you just do it yeah it's like something just comes in and you're like oh boom we used to put people through something just excruciating and still do it as we did yesterday um which is like in filming filming uh meteor episodes you know oftentimes you'll have someone come in and they flew in with their rifle

so then it's like well we gotta go test your rifle we gotta check your rifle make sure it didn't get this didn't get knocked off of zero so then here's this person you know they just got off a plane there's like 8 people staring at them You put the target out there And you always have some place to be That's the most fun part You're always on a schedule where it's like You know the

It's getting dark We're all 8 going to watch you shoot Oh my god It's going to be really awkward The only person it's going to be more awkward for If you shoot poorly It's going to really awkward it's gonna be the only person is gonna be more awkward for if you shoot poorly is it's gonna feel awkward for me so i'm gonna resent you for that reason it's gonna look very awkward for you yeah we started shooting yesterday just it get real quiet everyone's standing behind you and it's like you guys are kind of pretend you didn't see it

you guys are like look away yeah oh you guys the, uh, the brand in the outdoor game. And, you know, I won't speak for you, but I know coming out here, I didn't necessarily have my arms all the way around that. And then the buzz of us coming out here for my buddies or people that knew we were coming, it almost put a little bit more, it put more pressure on us or more pressure on me. Like when we put out a photo and like, everyone's like, Oh my God, blah, blah,

blah. And you're just thinking, man, these guys, yeah, I knew they were good, but I didn't know it was like the following was like this. So everything we're out there doing,

I'm just thinking like, man, I hope I'm good for the meat eater guy. Like, I hope I can own my own. Like, hope I don't shoot one of these guys. Yeah.

You talking about guys getting, it's between getting shot and getting peppered, and I'm thinking, oh, my God. That is wild. We could have sent you out for a peppering date. I'd be like, keep going. Keep going. Okay, stop there.

We're going to pepper you now. Just put the gun at you. Shoot. So how did you feel about the duck hunting? Give me some of your impressions from duck hunting, the actual act of duck hunting, right? Not just the preparation. I loved it. I thought it was awesome.

Like, again, the annual hunt we do, it kind of like when you're out there before the sun, the sun comes up, you see the critters coming out. You kind of just see like the nature and everything else. You kind of like understand why everybody is so into it. And it's one of those things where I still haven't went from zero to one by buying myself a rifle or anything like that yet. But it's one of those things you leave and you're like, man, I got to like dive. I got to get into the sport because I have buddies that travel all over the country. Like, you know, all the spots, spots in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, everywhere. And it just seems like a lot of fun.

So coming out here, like getting to experience duck hunting, like I've always heard that duck hunting is like all time. And so getting to do it at the level we got to do it on the grounds we got to do it on, it was just like it happening in real time and we were knocking them down. It was just, it was so much fun. And again, like getting to do with you guys, like being like, okay, you know, you want to impress the squad. You want to impress the boys.

You impressed me. I'll tell you that. Yeah, that was fire music. I was very impressed. When one would go down and we'd all be like, yeah. It's like, oh, this is sick, man. It was unique because when we're talking about the hunt and you're saying it's spoiled guy duck hunting because of the blind and how it's set up and the way you guys are explaining it. In my mind, I'm essentially painting the picture of what it's all going to be like.

And then you show up and it's completely different. So really, when I first get there, I like really just trying to just be aware of all the stuff going on you hand me the the decoys and i go set those up over there and i'm thinking oh my god i don't know is this a knot like do i just pull a string here do i put these on my i pulled max this time hey so how do i throw these little things out taylor ruined all the decoys and i do i have a confession i'm the one who singled out and pulled out the duck and i was I pulled Max this time. I'm like, hey, so how do I throw these little decoys out? Taylor ruined all the decoys. And I do, I have a confession.

I'm the one who singled out and pulled out the duck and I was like, hey, do I just throw this out in the water? And you're like, how'd that get off the thing? And I'm just like, I just kind of stepped back

and I was like, I gotta get out of here. So, Will comes over to me and hands me a duck without a weight on it. And I'm like, sometimes this is, sometimes this like falls off

and i look at it in the clips like fully unclipped from the weight taken through the loop out and like the string with the weight on it it's like still on the carabiner and he asked me he goes do i just set this out there and i look at it and i'm like ah shoot there's no weight on it like he goes back and i didn't say a word. I was like, I don't know. It got real quiet. Because Steve's got that light on the water. He's like, we're going to go from here to here.

And I'm like, all right. I found a string with the weight on it. And I was like, okay, I know what happened here. I knew right away. I just didn't want to say anything. The wild thing is, you were so focused on your dog cow the whole time. You were so fired up.

Oh, I loved it. Even when we had to do the beaver trapping after, that was impromptu, you're just a man on a mission. So I go, go do this, and then you're trudging through the water and all that, and I have to assume how to throw it out, pull a maxi side,

throwing it, everything out there. You said to grab the railroad thing? Yeah. You pulled out some weapon? He's like, no, no no that's not it we had to go put a trap out for mark and i literally it was like kids with their dad like me will and jp he's like all right we pulled this through the cemetery and he you're just you're literally run jumps over the faces in front of us like you're just working it goes and jumps the fence

i look back at the boys like what the fuck fuck? We're supposed to jump this fence? I hop at my knee. I'm like, oh my God. He's like down the hill. I'm like, hey, do we need to come with you? He goes, stay there for a second. I'll be right back. So then I like old fat guy body over the fence.

And we're kind of just watching you just move. And he's like hunting, looking around, picking stuff up. That's not it. And he ended up getting there. We get the truck down. Hey, did he do one of these? No, yeah. Oh, dude, he's like looking at it grab i'm thinking to myself i don't remember needing to taste anything like this is a man out here and we get to we end up getting back in the truck and going down the

hill and uh steve's like looking around he's like god where is it i'm an idiot and he starts calling people i need you to bring x y and z the thing we ended up using with the beaver the caster lure yeah the caster lure and he goes uh taylor you know in the back right corner there's uh there's a steel bubble ball railroad tie railroad tie plate i'm like yeah i got you brother and i start looking to him like what the hell is he and i just giggling i pull out uh like there was like a shovel you pulled out a steak puller yeah i'm like, what the fuck? He and I are just giggling. I pull out, like there was like a shovel. You pulled out a steak puller. Yeah, a steak.

I'm like, is this what you did? He's like, no, it's flat. And I'm like, well, get over here. But he's not laughing. That's what makes it so funny.

No, just keep looking. When you were kids, didn't you crush panties on the railroad tracks and notice how they hold them all together? No. There ain't no railroad tracks in Cave Creek.

Then he's down in the water and he's like, hey, when you guys got a pocket knife? was like oh i left it at home no he told you left in the hotel room i was like ah the one day and he's like uh you grab something out of there and cut off like cut off the willows or cut off the willow so you're gonna have to tell me what a willow is he goes reach over cut out. I don't know what he was saying. Because there's this like, there's this like a

protective fence around these trees that Mark is trying to reestablish. Mark's trying to reestablish the gentleman that let us hunt his place. He's trying to get willows, reestablish willows along his riparian areas, which, as I was explaining to you guys, just decades and decades of cattle

grazing and other stuff eliminated all the willows. So he's trying to get the willows going um and he fences them in but every time he puts them in there and puts a fence around them somehow or another the beavers still get them so he's trying to hold the beavers back long enough to get his willows re-established and you're one of these branches and i end up he's like reach over and cut off a couple branches i'm just looking at this fence i'm like i can't get over this fence so i'm thinking maybe he just wants me to press up against the fence and cut i'm cutting some like dead flowers like i start getting the he's got briars yeah yeah i like get poked on my eye damn and he's like hey that's that's that's go over the tree in front of the truck and start like clipping those i go over jp JP. I'm like, man, I don't know what he's talking about.

I just start cutting these branches. He's like, are these alive or dead? And I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. He's like, is there green in them? He's like, oh, no, these are dead. He's like, we got to go get some ones that have some green in them. Go over to that red tree. Go over to those red branches and get me some branches

because he's trying to set this trap. But we were all in. We had the full meat-eater experience. Yeah, that's awesome. eater experience yeah that's awesome that's great but going back to the duck hunt which is where this question originated it was very cool to see like one the way your dog was operating i thought yeah i thought that i get a real kick out of that i don't have a temperament for dogs but the ones that are real good i love man yeah and then the first one coming in you start to feel start to feel like nervous and everything. And Steve's in there, all right, this one's coming in.

All right, when I say go, you guys do it. And that thing takes a hard right turn. He goes, get it. And we both get up and pump, hit it. And he's like, all right, well, that duck is destroyed. We're going to have to go back and forth. And that was like, to me, I was like, oh, that's a good little feeling, knowing that you have to call names.

And then when you unloaded your gun, there was a moment for me, I was like, oh man, we're really shooting well out here right now. That's great. Yeah. You were kind of leveling up throughout the day. But I think the shot of the day was that duck

coming overhead and Will with the swing, swing. Cause yesterday you were talking about the clay. If you can get one of those like that and Will popped that thing up, no problem and took it out it out yeah we're shooting clays and we're you're shooting clays are leaving from your feet yeah flying out and i said be more realistic if the shooter went out there and then try to hit them coming behind them yeah let it fly over you and hit it behind them the uh i'll tell you what the one mess up the biggest mess up today was when that teal hit the water.

You're like, get out there, go get them. And so I like pop out, trying to impress my dad out here. Let's go. I'm going to show him. Get the gun. I get him in my sights. He starts taking off. I'm like, this is going to be awesome.

Safety's on. And I just lean forward. You see Taylor like jolt forward. Ah, damn it. Kind of walk back. Or when that teal was going by. And then I was like, Taylor, get it, get it, get it. He like stood up and Steve was like, hey,al was going by and then i was like taylor get it get it get it you're like sit up and see if it's like hey no no no i was like that one's on me i

got a little excited a little too excited fire hey cal we were talking about this in the blind and i gave an answer but it wasn't one it's like two hours a day for like training training and then 24 hours a day for obedience training you know you're i mean it's like like it's like uh when we were plucking birds and having her place on my jacket, like you are always, always training. And so like when that, when you get that brand new little puppy, you can almost essentially at like seven weeks imprint things that are going to be very beneficial to you for the rest of that dog's life or things that you will absolutely for the rest of your life yeah yeah yeah so it's yeah it's not i mean yeah i mean crate training place training healing i mean it all those good citizen at the end of the day you're like you're training but you're also like keeping that dog safe too.

Cause like, um, say if we were like, um, bunch of trucks driving around the field or whatever, you tell your dog place and that dog doesn't move, like your dog's going to be safe. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like a bunch of. If it's running around trying to bite truck

tires, it's going to get. Oh, it's going to get. Ran over for sure. Think of how many like, uh, public hunting spots that are like, unfortunately like right next to the highway. Yeah. Right. And dog goes and tries to chase a rooster, a

crippled duck or whatever. And yeah, it's just, yeah, there's so many ways for things to go bad. And they're, the hunting bond is, is amazing because they put all of their trust in you. And when you watch them get hurt, sometimes they come back to you and they're like, you said, go, I went, what happened?

You know? And it's like that all, you know, all the time. So, um, yeah, but lots, lots of time in the dog. When we got our dog, um, I got it to where I could say, get over here. And it would do that. And then where I could say, get out of here. It would do that. And then where I could say, get out of here, it would do that. And I'm like, this dog is trained.

That's great. Let's come and go. Largely off intonation. Get out of here. She's like, that ain't good. No, that relationship is awesome. And I said, too, Snort is famous. Like, my buddy texted, like, hey, how'd Cal's dog do?

I was like, hey, Cal, somebody's asking me about your dog. Did you ever tell him about the story? On the what? The ear? Oh, his dog got bit by a rattlesnake. I did see the ear was missing a little bit of fur. Yeah, exactly. The bald ear.

Yeah, it's a super long story. But yeah, she got bit by a snake and almost died. But the result is I got a dog with a bald ear, which is great. Way better than a dead dog. Way better than a dead dog, yeah. I've been talking lately about the way three-legged dogs, there's so many three-legged

dogs around these days and how much attention they get and got me thinking like if you had a one-eared dog, it would get a lot of attention. You know, it- People would want to come up and pet it more. The way it's kind of like a patch missing, you know? So I think that most people are like, oh, something's wrong with that dog.

Like not like, dog's got cancer. Yeah. Dog's got, so nobody says anything about it, which is pretty funny. It takes a while to like warm up and be like, so, uh, what's the deal with that ear? Yeah. Instead of like, I'm so sorry about your loss.

Maybe. Yeah. They're like, I'm so sorry about your loss. Right. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, we got to, uh, dole out compliments to you guys. So like Steven said, situational awareness. I mean, just so just relaxing to be around, uh,

people who are in that first time position, but can, uh, decipher for themselves like, oh, this is what these guys with more knowledge in this situation are picking up on. So you guys are looking where we're looking. You know, we didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about the hands of the clock, right? When we're like birds at 12 o'clock,

birds at two o'clock. We didn't talk about the movement of your hands. Yeah, we did. I was like, hey, there's one over there. Yeah. It was like the first time I was like, don't do that. Look with your eyes. That was so great.

Point with your eyes. That was so funny. Damn. That was so funny. Did he hit giant arms? Hey, boys, there's one right there. He's like, well, why don't you wave at it? He immediately says, oh, put your hand down.

Hey, but you know what's crazy is we were hiding from those ducks the whole time. As soon as we got out of the blind, like 50 of them were just kind of

ripping around us. I know. We should have just hung out and talked. Yeah, sometimes that happens. It makes you think like all that,

like get back, be quiet. But yeah, the camaraderie aspect you guys obviously have down, right? So you know

that things are just better when people are happy. And so you guys joke around, but then the serious things, you immediately click in and turn it on and are like, yeah, gun safety. We're serious about that. Oh, somebody's trying to improve what we're doing a little bit. Oh, okay. Be focused, be serious. And then like we already covered, you immediately apply it or try to apply it. Right.

Um, which there's a lot of teaching of fishing, hunting stuff too, where it's like, I have certain people that have been around a lot, you know, it's like, well, I need to just quit talking because this person does not apply it. Like they need to fall on their face over and over again. And then, then, which is how I, I really learned a lot of things too. Um, but you guys are not, not those folks.

No, no, you're talking about, like I say to my boy, he's like, I'm going to go get that duck. Like, you're not going to get that duck. No, I can go get that duck. You're not going to get that duck. No, I'm going to go, I'm going to go get that duck. Like, you're not going to get that duck. No, I can go get that duck. You're not going to get that duck. No, I'm going to go. Go. Okay.

Go get the duck. And then a while later, like. Didn't get the duck. I didn't get the duck. Yeah. Right. And did you see all the ducks I scared away by walking around and all the things? You're like, yep, I did.

Okay. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, appreciators, the number, like, man, it is such a bummer to have any sort of a day, any sort of an experience. And at the end of the day, you're like, I just don't know if these people took home what they were supposed to take home. Right. But Cal wasted all of his nice emotion on him.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I got to bottle all that shit back up. Because he left it laying in the blind. Yeah. But yeah, being around people who appreciate like, oh, the, the, the place, the instruction, the just, you know, the, the time and effort stuff, the basic stuff. And you guys are appreciators. So thank you very, very much for that because that's a big deal.

I appreciate it. It was great. Yeah, this has been incredible. And I feel like the last thing, you know, I'm sure you felt this way too. Like you don't want to be like standing around too much. Like the last thing you want is to be like a liability or to leave, and people are like, oh, they kind of suck. Didn't put that work in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you noticed our host this morning. Let's not talk about who he said it about, but our host this morning said of a couple individuals, neither of them is someone you'd want to be in a duck blind with. Now it's me, but you see what he's getting at, right? Yeah, absolutely. We'll want to be in a duck blind with them.

That's like a thing. You guys can start saying that now. We'll want to be in a duck blind with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you're like getting your hands around the meat eater thing, right? Well, Corinne does a phenomenal job. And there's all kinds of compliments going around today. Despite the phenomenal job that Corinne does, I don't read all of her emails.

Even when they're sent directly to me. She'll get back. I was like, football guys, I didn't know if you played football. I don't know if you just talk about football. I was like, shit, I played football. And yeah, so I was like the runt of the litter and I played offensive tackle. So I was like, runt of the litter and I played offensive tackle.

So I was like, oh, no shit. That's great. So it's a big soft spot for the O-line, especially tackles. Let's go. And then my family, my dad went to law school in DC. Okay. And so I was there during like the 86 Super Bowl. Yeah.

The Hawks. Right? And we were like lifelong Redskins fans. And so Doug Williams was the QB. And I can sing you the fight song to this day. Like, so do it. Well, I'm not going to do it right now. Fight, fight, fight.

Huh? No. Hail to the Redskins. Hail victory. Oh, I got it. Yeah. Everybody knows that one. You know what I didn't do that was poor. So big surprise, victory. Oh, I got it. Yeah. Everybody knows that one. You know what I didn't do?

It was a big surprise, but I mean, that's great. What I didn't do that was poor hosting. I didn't offer up a good synopsis of Bustin' with the Boys. Do you mind offering up a, you know, if someone says, you know, what's your show about? Yeah, I mean, I guess in a nutshell, it's like we have a platform where everything we do, we want to bring the locker room to life. So if you guys were to come on the bus, which would be awesome one day, it's just how do you have the camaraderie, have the vibes of like getting to know you, your story, like bringing that locker room to life that we kind of grew up in because a locker room is such a melting pot where jokes and like all the stuff that you wish everybody got to experience and kind of you know we had the privilege of playing in the nfl and playing at the level we got to to where you know we're able to

have kind of these raw conversations and have fun with all of our guests uh to where it is like we the goal of bringing the locker room to life yeah is it sweaty and steamy it has been it used to be sometimes it still does just like you know your you know, your back. Are there white towels laying everywhere on your bus? No, no. I told you about before when we first started, we were in the back of an RV park. Yeah. Stealing heat in like 90 degree weather right next to train tracks. Yeah.

Yeah. That first year, we were, it was because the bus doesn't run. It just sat in a gravel, it was just in a gravel parking lot and we would have to tarp it up to where the heat wouldn't get in. And we're, you know, July dying. Uh, no AC. And then we'd have to power it with, uh, you know, if we got the plug into the RV, the RV park or just running it off a generator or two.

And that's how we kind of, you know, started it. Yeah. It's kind of how it got going. Then we got it in a little shed. Now we're in a little bit better warehouse. I know the working conditions can be better for the team. You walk in a place like this, you're like, man, we really are screwing our boys.

We should have left JP in the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's obviously available anywhere people want to go get it. Yeah. Yep, Spotify, Apple, Downcast, YouTube, whatever you want. That's how you can find Bustin' with the Boys want to if people want to have a laugh looking at you guys stuff i do you're real active on social media oh yeah very active on social media you should we posted three times as being on the show yeah i touched my phone once that's how active we are

yeah but yeah at bussing wtb yeah that's so no not individual pages You like to keep it communal At underscore Will Compton TaylorLewan77 Both on Twitter and on Instagram But hit me with the Bussin one At Bussin WTB B-U-S-S-I-N for all the listeners out there WTB

Cal's downloading Instagram right now He's like what's that website you're talking about? Hey, Insta. What's this, Instapot? What's going on here? Well, man, I appreciate you coming on the show, and I appreciate you guys going and doing the duck hunt with us, man. It was so much fun.

So much fun. So if you guys ever want to do it again, we are available. No, we will. Yeah. No, seriously, thank you guys. This was a blast. No, you guys are a lot of fun to do it again, we are available. No, we will. Yeah. No, seriously, thank you guys. This was a blast. No, you guys are a lot of fun to hang out with, and I appreciate your good guys to laugh with.

Yeah, yeah, good vibes. 4.5, take that with you. I will. Take that with you, 4.5. Is this you with the solid attempt at a beard? Yeah. It was an attempt. I wouldn't say it's anything I ever need to go back to.

Yeah, you'd get a mustache. Yeah, yeah, I ever need to go back to yeah you get a mustache yeah yeah by the way you have a very strong mustache I grew it myself I can't grow a beard so this is what I got

yeah same all I have is the mustache going it gets all patchy looks like pubic hair honestly it's terrible

yeah I grew an entire guiding season this was back when I was living in Missoula. Uh, entire fall guiding season. Uh, I decided I was like, I'm going to force this. And I did not shave the entire time.

And I got back to town and went to like my favorite bar, bartenders. Right. And, uh, like Charlie B's situation, like all female bartenders. And every one was like, just what are you doing? Oh, speaking of pubes, I had to go do this thing. I was telling you guys,

I can't remember if I was telling you this or not. Like I had this like sort of weird pain moving around my groinal region. Oh, we've talked about it. It was like over my leg. Swollen testicles. You had the... Well, no, it wasn't though. You had that that rash i don't know what did you get the thing carol it'd be like in the crease of my it's just moving around and i know and i'm real susceptible to stuff too like

if you tell me that if you all of a sudden said you had elbow cancer i swear my elbow would hurt and seth had uh some kind of hernia deal going on and but that wasn't it. And so I had this wandering pain. And then your mind starts running away with you. And I'm always, so I was like, man, maybe I got a hernia. Maybe I got testicular cancer. So I go down, and it's like legit hurts, but they've ruled out all the bad stuff. But when you go to get this done, it's the most, it's not humiliating because everybody down there is cool. But you lay down, okay? And they in and they so you take your pants off

they come in and say like well lay your penis up on your stomach and then you put a little bit yeah don't worry i'll hold it here the entire time they're just telling you and then they you put like a little towel over and then they lay the boys like up on a platter like between and then they're like digging in there it's so compromising oh i had a sport hernia i had surgery surgery. Oh, really? Sports hernia. Did you think the gel was warm? Oh, yeah, the gel. You can tell anything going through your head about how... The woman doesn't care. No.

Doesn't care. Doesn't care at all. Tell me for a second when that gel hit your mind, you're like, all right, calm down here. What's so funny is you can tell, yeah, just the fact that she's like, I do this for a living. I appreciate this is probably strange for you, but I don't care.

There's nothing I could see. There's nothing I could not see that I care about. That's funny. That's also good for you on that. So anyways, I'm fine. I still don't know why I have a little phantom wandering pain, but maybe like, I don't know. Maybe it's just a little strain.

Yeah, a little strain. Maybe it's stress. Maybe a little strain. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Thanks for the diagnosis. So what is the next hunt? You guys going to start scheming and find another one here

after this duck adventure? Part of me wants to hit some big game. I think. What was he saying? He was like... I want to keep talking about it. I want to go camping. I want to sit there and be like, it's been four days. We've been on the trail for four days.

We're hunting. We can make you eat those words. No question. He's saying it. And I'm not what you would call a survivor. You're not going to put me in the wilderness and be like, we'll see you in a week. I will be dead in a week, picked apart. So I will not what you would call a survivor. You're not going to put me in the wilderness and be like, we'll see you in a week. I will be dead in a week, picked apart.

So I will definitely need you if that was ever going to be the case. It would be a mighty score to me for that friend. Yeah, just press a button, right? The table may be made up. I think an elk hunt would be really cool. Everyone wants to hunt them elk. Yeah.

I don't know what it is. There's a lot of them these days, too. See, I see. I think bear would be sweet. Oh. Walking to Chester's office yesterday, he's got that

and he's talking to me about the story of how he got it. I was like, man, that'd be sick. Just an apex predator out there. Me and him.

But I have a gun. Fist to cuff. It's roast beef of the woods, man. That's bears. Yeah. What were you saying about ducks?

The prime rib of the sky? Oh, big time. Roast beef of ducks? The prime rib of the sky? Oh, big time Rose peep in the woods Prime rib of the sky It's all good Everything Well guys, thanks for coming on the show, man Appreciate it

Thank you guys Thank you very much Bustin' with the boys Check it out Subscribe, listen Good shootin' Over and out Alright, let's do the handshake

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