The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 522: Hammering Hogs with Cam Hanes

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Cam Hanes, Max Barta, Seth Morris, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Getting bested by an armadillo; calling in a pissed off javelina; soft, malleable mettle; how Seth’s antler rattling sequence on the podcast possibly called in a deer; RIP “Floppy”; how you really need professional help to neuter a cat; would you want 43,000 monkeys living next door?; stuff gets out in Texas; is Bigfoot a vector for trichinosis?; getting your ammo thrown in the trash vs. getting arrested; being mostly good at many things or being great at one thing; maintaining awareness of all the arguments against wild pigs, while sticking with your treatment of them as a game animal; how having blood on your hands doesn’t mean you don’t care; the theory that we’re governed by a fear of death; no baby named “Steve”; old folks are mentally tougher than young folks; Cam on ultra marathons and how our bodies are incredible; how the weekly mileage you put in helps you run a single race of that length; being 100% focused on getting that elk; running a marathon per day; how elk are very susceptible to stalking; always looking at the numbers; how hunting teaches that an optimistic mindset is almost better than anything else; lights out; and more.  Outro by Reed's Piano News Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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They'll be like, oh, hey, what's that new camo? And is this going to do that? And this and that. And we just couldn't talk about it. I'm not trying to seem all cryptic. We just couldn't talk about it because we're still you know working on and testing and developing the idea anyways now i can finally explain it because so many people have asked about it it's called serica coming out from first light and it is the ultimate western big game camo pattern for you uh you know dedicated western bing game hunters so if you think back

on the history of camo well not really the deep history the recent history of camo okay you have all these conventional mimicry patterns which attempt to make the wearer look like you're part of the environment think back to the old days when like camo would be like sticks or leaves you know you'd look good to the human eye on the shelf because you're thinking what's more natural than a stick. However, when you view that stuff at any realistic distance, those overly complex patterns, they just solidify into a, into a coherent shape. Okay. Which just makes you more obvious to game because you look at it up close. You think it looks like sticks, but you get any distance away and it looks like a human. You just look like a dark human shaped blob. So you're thinking it's sweet, but it's not how it works.

Like a deer doesn't look, you can be like, oh, a big pile of sticks and leaves over there standing out weirdly from its surrounding environment. Right? Well, Serica uses, it's going to sound fancy, but optic field disruption to maximize concealment. It seems counterintuitive, the idea of it, until you consider it like a tiger or a jaguar, right? And look how they blend into their environment. They're not covered in twigs and leaves. Serica emulates the predator strategy by using that same, like a limited palette, like a tiger, two colors. A limited palette of strongly contrasting tones with these sort of these structures that appear to crack apart in order to break up your outline.

Cerga does not make the wear look like a tree or rock. It makes you look like nothing at all. No discernible pattern. sagebrush country, alpine tundra, everything in between, especially those sparse landscapes with minimal cover where conventional camos are really just going to turn you into that human-shaped blob. So check it out. When a half second of confusion makes a difference

between punching a tag and getting skunked, you will want to reach for a Serica camo. Now here's what you've got to do if you want to find out more. Go to Firstlight.com and sign up for notifications about when Serica Camo. Now, here's what you got to do if you want to find out more. Go to firstlight.com and sign up for notifications about when Serica gear is available this spring. Thanks.

Okay, everybody. We're in our remote field studio in South Texas, maybe 40 minutes from Brownsville, Texas, 15 minutes from Raymondville, Texas, 4 hours and 10 minutes from Austin, Texas. And about 400 yards from our last remote studio. And 400 yards from our last remote studio and 400 yards from our last remote studio and today we're in we're in what i

would call a post-rut environment um deer seasons deer season is generally closed unless you have we're not deer hunting but deer season's closed but i think that some uh there's some kind of deal with depredation permits where depredation permits are still valid but it's generally shut down to the point where we're watching a buck who is packing around one antler and we just saw three bucks one still had two antlers two had zero antlers and we're just basically going to run this podcast until that antler falls off. And then Seth's going to run over and retrieve it. It's windy. Yeah.

Some gusts of wind. There's your one antlered bug. Yeah, he is like very curious about what's happening over there. Yeah, he's probably never been to a live podcast. He's not looking at us, though. Oh, he's looking in the other direction. Yeah. I can see a couple buzzards just to set the scene.

Corinne just tried to catch an armadillo, but it bastard her. Called in a javelina. Yeah. We just called in a javelina that about ran us over. That was the voice of special guest Cameron Haynes, who felt that Corinne, in pursuit of the armadillo, he felt that she hesitated. You never see a lion, mountain lion,

halfway chase something and then be like, oh, no, I'll do it. No, you're right. I did. I hesitated. That's true. When the lion goes, he's going. I mean, there's no hesitation. I didn't want to hurt him.

He's like, the lion's like, that might get hurt. That might go away. Yeah. Lions don't have empathy. So she hesitated. No, you're right. And then we earlier tested the metal of Seth and Max and found out that they lack metal. I think when you test someone's metal,

you're testing their M-E-T-T-L-E, right? Yeah. You're not testing their M-E-T-A-L. I think we need to review the footage because I think Max did a lot more jumping than I did. I definitely did. We're doing an experiment where you play a, we're going to play some more distress calls in a minute here. We did an experiment where you play a distress call to a pack of Javelinas.

And I was telling these guys that in my experience, 25% of the time they'll charge. And I spooked him before I could get where I wanted to get. Played the distress call and we got one, two, he didn't quite charge. He was pissed. And he came in and tested Max's metal and found it to be soft. Found the metal to be malleable. I'm just saying, I was filming, and I was looking at the screen. He looked bigger than you. And then I look up, and he's like right there, and I'm like, oh, okay.

His metal is aluminum foil. His M-E-T-T-L-E is S-O-F-T. Okay, this is probably not going to work because we're making a shitload of noise, but 25% of the time it works every time. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff. First, we're going to hit this.

Let me see how loud this is. We did Squeaky Jack. That was Squeaky Jack on the Javelina that responded. And right now we're going to hit, I'm thinking Shelter Belt, Max? Shelter Belt? Yeah, or TNT.

TNT? That's not a good one. I'm afraid of TNT. Which would be a rabbit in distress? Yeah. So this is a, we're using a Lucky Duck Revolt collar, and we're in just the sounds that come with it. And I'm in the Cottontail folder. And within the Cottontail folder, I have Cottonball,

like ball, like B-A-W-L. Like you're crying. Like you're crying. Not like you're applying makeup. I have Shelterbelt, TNT, Silly Rabbit, High Pitch, on and on, down to Bugs Bunny and Skid Row. We're going to lay out some TNT. We're going to talk over it.

I think I got it far enough away we can talk over it. We're going to do volume 10. Just don't turn it towards us. I'm not going to do the turnaround. We're going to hit TNT and see what we got oh we can easily talk over that that's ridiculous okay we're gonna let that run a while no with that on I mean stay ready with that on stay ready with that long lens oh my goodness

there's no way if a coyote comes ripping in here there's no way what I don't think I can get on with that big lens you might maybe

so like I was saying join today by Max Barta Seth Seth Morris, myself, Corinne Schneider, Hog Slayer Corinne Schneider. From the last time we were in our studio down the row there. And Cameron Haynes. And we're going to do a couple little quick toggle points. Now, Seth, I don't know if you're aware of this.

I've been meaning to tell you this. A listener wrote in, and it's apropos of being in the outdoor studio, because when we were in our other studio down the way there, you were set in the scene similar to how we just set the scene now, and you set

the scene with a rattling sequence. Yeah. So a gentleman was... How's the wind killing us? The wind's not great. It's not great, but maybe we can just be cognizant of where we turn our heads

sometimes. A gentleman rode in. He was listening to that episode, and during your rattling sequence, a deer ran by. Oh yeah, Corinne sent that. And I thought that it was really cool, and realized he was driving which makes me think it was purely coincidental yeah i don't mean to not i don't mean well when i i was reading that corinne forwarded that email on i had thought that i had rattled in a buck i do too i read it twice before i realized

he didn't rattle in a buck. And then, yeah, then realized he was driving. I didn't realize that until after I forwarded it to you. Another piece of listener feedback that's appropriate because we're in hog country is we reported repeat, let me walk you back through some history on the pig called the lipstick pig or floppy. We, a long time ago, did a call out where we're looking for great trail

cam photos crazy trail cam photos and a guy writes in and he sends in a picture of a pig with what i said looked like he had his lipstick out so a pig that was i felt that the pig looked aroused and we then did a clarification that um not that corinne's particularly sensitive but we did a thing that like a great trail cam photo a crazy a crazy trail cam photo is not that a pig has his lipstick out that's just you know and we were trying to define what we meant by a great trail cam photo. He wrote in to say, you got it all wrong. It stuck out. It's always like that. So we had a veterinarian on.

We had a veterinarian on the show, Davina, Dr. Davina Spencer from Virginia Beach. And she told us all about an ailment. What was that ailment called? Is that that buck right there? Paraphimosis. Yes. She told us, if you listened to that episode, you heard it.

She told us about paraphimosis. And paraphimosis is that, and she has dealt with this frequently, as she explained on the show. She's dealt with this frequently. I shouldn't say frequently. She's dealt with this with dogs and talked about how to treat with dogs and and then worst case scenarios they've had to do um like a penis removal on the dog and sort of cut things and tie things in place and it basically makes like a little like a little pee hole at the hide for it. Well, then the guy writes back, once we clarified that,

he then writes back that he has gone and shot Floppy. So the last photo we get of Floppy is it laying on his garage floor. And when they skinned it and butchered it, he found that its bladder was, quote, I don't want to get this right, was, quote, I want to get this right. Like, very, very full. Was, quote, hugely full of urine. Yeah.

Really? Hugely full of urine. And he feels that. It was so full, alarmingly full, that perhaps that he couldn't urinate unless he had a high pressure. Right. You know what they call that? Uh-uh. P-H-O.

What's that mean? Piss hard on. Oh, there you go. You know, like when you wake up in the morning, you're like, God, I gotta piss. Sure. So here, guys, I'm looking at a picture. I'm looking at a picture of him sitting here in the garage. Yeah, for our audience. Jesus. We'll have Phil put this up on video.

But, yeah, they've got a measuring stick. I put the wrong. I would have put that picture up. That would have done. That thing's been dragging. Yeah, bad deal. Yeah, Steve, maybe you put this on IG, too. I put it up, and I put the wrong photo up.

I was going to do further reporting on my phantom groin pain. I'm not going to get into it. We've covered it. No, but somebody wrote in about it. Multiple people wrote in about my phantom groin pain. I don't need to get into it anymore. I'm all better. Now, here's someone wrote in, and this is the interesting thing.

I was telling the story of my father attempting to neuter his cat, fig the cat. He tamed a feral cat with fish heads, and it became the family cat. And one day he wanted to get it neutered, and he took it to a hog farmer buddy of his who's neutered hundreds of hogs and fig and they put it in a gunny sack and cut a hole in the gunny sack and attempted to neuter it and the cat fought him off as you never heard you want to talk about a distress call and it only lasted like a short period of time. And they're like, never mind. And then the cat lived the rest of his life intact.

A guy wrote in saying that a veterinarian wrote in, 27 years as a veterinarian. And he has neutered untold numbers of tomcats. And he also goes on to say, I have spent my entire career listening to men tell me, I've spent my entire career listening to men tell me they'll just stick that tomcat in a boot and do it themselves instead of paying me to do it.

Usually the wife looks at him, then me, then rolls her eyes and schedules the appointment. I have never once known a person from this generation or the prior who could neuter a cat without veterinary help. Cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, horses, no problem. Cats, no way. It was refreshing to hear a more realistic take on the topic. Man, it would be intimidating to do a horse.

I feel like. I wouldn't do a cat. Well, you're an honest man. Also related to Texas, there's a news item. And this news item was reported in the Wall Street Journal. And it was about, I'd be curious to get your opinion about this. Anyone who's got an opinion about this, I'd be happy to hear it. Because I'm undecided.

A county in Texas. Okay. What county is this? Brazonia County, Texas. South of Houston. There is a plan from a biomedical research firm

that owns a 500 acre parcel. Okay. So Brazonia County, south of Houston, Texas. Biomedical research firm. Charles River Laboratories. All right. They own a 500 acre parcel in what sounds like a quiet,

nice little community. Their plan is to build a facility that will house 43,200 monkeys that then can be sold for animal research. Locals, I want you to take a guess. Locals are excited, A, or B, not excited. I'm glad I don't live there.

43,000 primates. Now, so you can guess that PETA is not crazy about it. The chosen site borders land owned and protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge. Locals affected include veterinarians and directors of conservation organizations who are now speaking out to voice their opposition to the facility. Locals in Brazonia County would be a little slice, think they have a little slice of Texas solitude away from the hubbub of Houston. And they want to know, how much racket much racket i'm trying to curious about the sentence how much racket does 43 000 monkeys make wouldn't it be how much racket no right yeah how much

racket is 43 000 monkeys make i'm sure they're not quiet a shrimper had that to say. He owns 1,100 acres nearby. Another neighbor. I thought this would be a place to get away from everything. Now, a monkey farm is my neighbor, says a retired veterinarian who owns 900 acres. People worry about their property values plunging. Now, here's where you get into this whole thing. I would figure, I'm not a Texan, far from it, but when Texans like to think of Texans,

they like to think of people doing what they want on their own land. Yeah, I would agree with that. Don't mess with Texas, Republic of Texas. Keep Texas weird. That's not a thing, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah. with that. Don't mess with taxes. Republic of Texas. Keep Texas weird. That's not a thing. But you know what I'm saying. So this throws you into a bind.

Because on one hand, you might fancy yourself like a property rights person. But then on the other hand, you throw the NIMBY thing into it. That's the acronym for Not in my backyard. So you're like, in theory, I'm a pro-property rights person, but not when it comes to putting monkeys by my house.

This is just a private company doing this? Yeah, it's a private company doing it. It's not a government research facility. But I don't judge NIMBY stuff because everybody has a little bit of NIMBY mentality, but it does, it creates a problem because if you'd have gone previously and asked these individuals, if you'd have gone to this, you know, I don't know the guy, he's probably great. The shrimper that has 1100 acres, the retired vet that has 900 acres. If I'd have gone and said, knocked on door and said, do you feel like people should be able to tell you

what to do on your property? They would have said, hell no. Or no, they would have said, hell no. How would they have said it? Probably a little deeper voice than the first one you just said. I'm not going to do a good deal. They would have said, hell no.

Hell no, man. It wouldn't have been Biden. Hell no, man. He sounded like. Hell no, partner. It would have been Biden. No. No. That's not Biden. Hell no, man. No, it would have been hell no, partner. Yeah.

Hell no. Yeah, yeah. I kept thinking of Parker Hall when he's like, shit, no, man. Yeah, but he's not from Texas. I know, but he's South. Yeah. And they all sound the same. Yeah. but he's south yeah they all sound the same yeah so uh so this is a stumper but i can tell you that

as much as i might be like a little bit of a you know generally simple like generally sympathetic to not generally sympathetic to private property rights up to the point where you're doing environmental damage to like neighbors like meaning if i own a spot and i decide i'm going to dump you know arsenic in the creek because it's my property and then the guy down the creek on the next property is like dude you just threw arsenic in the creek and now it's all over my property yeah right but the monkey thing i don't know what do you think about that, Gail? How would you roll on that? You're the neighbor of the monkey man.

I don't want 43,000 monkeys in my neighborhood. So you'd be no? I'd be a no. Okay. I mean, there's limits to everything. I'd be a hell no partner. I just think it's inevitable that some of those things are going to get out. Yeah, and then what?

Yeah. Well, you know what? You got Planet of the Apes. Yeah. It's not like they get out in Montana and they just freeze to death, you know? Yeah, that's true. That's why they're putting them there because it's a good environment for them. Yeah, they're going to get out down here and establish a population.

This is an especially appropriate conversation to have here because if you sit here for an hour, you're going to see three things that did get out. Yeah, exactly. Which is more than three. Nogai, waterbuck, oryx, kudu, red lechway. Am I saying that right? I'm not sure. Red lechwe. Am I saying that right? These are all animals that run around in this region, not fenced from place to place, free range. So stuff gets out in Texas.

Bigfoot question. Is it real? No, it's a reasonable question. It's based on that bear, Bigfoot. Yeah, we covered on one of the goofiest things ever, and I'll recap it. So listeners who already heard it, bear with me. A researcher was looking at, was trying to find correlations between prevalence of Bigfoot sightings and abundance of black bears, which is fine. Sure, I don't care.

And they pointed out that the higher density of black bears you have, the higher density of Bigfoot reportings you have. But then, as I postulated, their friend or a colleague or something said, eh, I mean, that's kind of pointless, that research. So then they said, it seemed with a straight face, they say this could be helpful for bear conservation because you could look and see a decline in bigfoot reportings and translate that to a decline in black bear numbers so instead of counting black bears why not just count bigfoot sightings

which felt to me like a stretch yeah that felt to me like a stretch. Yeah. That felt to me like a, I'll just say it, that felt to me like a dumb idea. So, no offense to the, you know,

minor offense to the person. Someone wrote in, would you consider Bigfoot to be a potential factor for trichinosis? Oh, yeah. It depends if they're herbivorous.

They gotta be. Then no. No, no, no. Omnivorous. Yeah, they're omnivores, I would think. Like, when you think of a Bigfoot, you think of an omnivore. Yeah, like, he's gonna take a... He's gonna take a bite of a deer

and then, like, have a couple berries. You think so? Yeah. So then that would put him in the yes, but he's not going to get it from a jackrabbit. He would have to be eating. He'd have to eat another omnivorous animal. They don't overlap. Bigfoots.

Do they eat bear? Bigfoots? What if those researchers came across someone who said they saw a Bigfoot eating a bear? What would that do to their research? Skew it. Throw it off. They'd be like, so does this mean there's a lot of bears or not many? Yeah, if they eat bear, sure.

And then, that's a good question. It's just we need to have more research on Bigfoots. And then they're saying, if Bigfoot is a hominid, and it is, would the flavor profile be similar to pork since many cannibals have referred to human meat as long pig? Great question. That was from Rob and Jason. They had to put their heads together.

Rob and Jason. They had to co-work that one up together. Took the two of them. They met over coffee. That's great. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So we've been covering a little bit just just because it's fun sort of like housekeeping uh yeah odd little issues having to do with uh odd issues having to do with tsa taking your guns uh knives and ammo um i just recently had to throw a knife in the trash did you going through tsa yeah you didn't hide it in a bush hide it in a potter well you know where it knife in the trash. Did you? Going through TSA. You didn't hide it in a bush? Hide it in a potter plant? Well, you know where it was? In the Philadelphia airport. You weren't going back?

No. I was deep in line and there was no, yeah, I wasn't going back. There was, it was. You didn't say. It was a bench made bug out. You threw it in the trash. Wow. You could have said to someone like,

hey, can you hold my place in line? I need to go bury my knife in a potted plant. I was running late too at the time. So,

I didn't have too many options. This gentleman has this to say. I'm going to skip ahead to his name. Oh, Tucker. Great interview, Tucker,

with Putin. Fresh off his interview with Putin, he has to say, I was listening to the episode that y'all were doing in the bus talking about TSA stories. Well, get this. I like that. The story where he says, well, get this.

That gets me attention. 2019, I got married. When I got married, we ran out of alcohol. So one of the guys that was a friend of the family went and got more alcohol. Sounds like your wedding. Needless to say, I drank a little too much. Four roses that night. So we got home about 2 a.m.

And we had to get up at about 5 a.m. To get to the airport on international flight to Jamaica. He's like E.E. Cummings. He uses no punctuation. On international flight to Jamaica. Now, I say international because that's very important. Noted. Because 5.30 a.m., I woke up to my 4.45 alarm blaring and phone blowing up, still drunk, and my Uber driver

calling me since 5 a.m. to see if we were still going to the airport. So we jumped out of bed, threw our bags in the car, and raced down on an hour drive to the international terminal in Atlanta for a 7 a.m. flight and realized that we're not flying to Jamaica. We're flying to Charlotte and then we're flying to Jamaica. So we're in the wrong terminal. So we hop a bus to the domestic terminal. By the time we get there, we've missed our flight. Then they got to find us the next flight to Jamaica two hours later. So here I am still drunk in the airport going through security. Getting all this?

Yep, yep, got it. I throw my backpack on the belt. It goes through the x-ray scanner, and I'm watching the guy looking at the screen, and his face turns sour. They move my backpack off the side of the belt. A lady goes and looks at it and brings my bag over so she can search it.

I said, yeah, no problem. She starts unzipping zippers and then pulls out a full clip, 50 rounds, 15 rounds of 45 ACP that was sitting in an inside pouch of the outside zipper of my bag. So at this point, I feel like I'm about to pass out because, you know, obviously i'm going to prison so look at her and i go oh shit you can keep that to which to which she looks at me for a couple agonizing seconds which felt like minutes and says have a nice day throws that mag in the trash and lets me go he said that that dose of serenade as an added point this is something interesting not serenade as an added point, this is something interesting. Not serenade, adrenaline.

Sobered him up. So if you ever, I don't drink anymore, but if you ever feel like you're too drunk, have someone scare you real bad. I mean, he's a lucky son of a gun. I feel like he would at least got pulled in the back and got like a pat down, you know? Maybe that lady

liked him for some reason. Now when that happened to me, I had the cops came, they took me in the back room just for ammo or I got one shotgun shell. And they knew that I was like, dude, I'm so sorry.

I was hunting ptarmigan with my brother. And they're like, yeah, obviously, dude. But now we got to do all this stupid shit. And that was their attitude. It was like, oh, come on, man. They didn't have to. They could have thrown it in the trash. Yeah, no, apparently I know the truth.

They could have just said, never mind, throw it in the trash. So you had your shotgun shell in your backpack. Okay. I was like using my day pack hunting, and then I like unday packed my day pack and used it for carrying my stuff. Because you can check shotgun shells, can't you? I know, but it was in my carry-on. Yeah. Oh, well, I'm just clarifying.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay. Sure. I've flown to a place before and got there, started going through my carry-on looking for something and realized that I had a knife in there that made it through security. Yeah, I've done that with broadheads. Yeah. I had broadheads in my carry-on.

Made it through? Mm-hmm. Another gentleman, part two. I know this has become a topic that has been revisited several times, but after donating a knife to a trash can, I think I found a better solution than has been mentioned so far. Are they coming in?

No, I think that's the call. Sorry. Are you getting ready to run? No. Oh. He's referring to when Max was really trying to get out of the way I have zero experience with the javelinas

solution two after stepping out of the shuttle bus, I realized I still had two knives on my purse. Still. He got rid of some, but still had two. I refused to trash two perfectly good knives. He's like a gunfighter. I refused to trash two perfectly good knives,

so I asked the bus driver if he could take them back to my car and hide them for me. This technique may have been discovered already because he promptly produced an envelope for the knives and said they should be tucked under my windshield wiper when I returned. Nice. Good guy. I gave him a tip. When he returned, my knives were safe and sound. Oh.

Man. So you were giving really helpful hot tips to America. There's lots of options that I didn't know about. Well, that was before he was at TSA, though. He realized he had the knives. Yeah. It's when you're at TSA, you're screwed. It's not a TSA.

It's more of an airport. Yeah. It's more of an airport story. So, Cam, lay off me. What's your previous hog hunt experience? I gather you're not like a passionate, dedicated, lay off me your, what's your previous hog hunt experience? I gather you're not like a passionate, dedicated, lifelong hog hunter? No. I mean, I've killed a number of hogs, but it was, yeah, I just like bow hunting.

So I'll bow hunt pretty much anything. And where have you done your pig hunting? California. Okay. Yeah, Northern California. It's a different scene. It's a much different pig pig hunting? California. Okay. Yeah, Northern California. It's a much different pig hunting scene in California. I mean, they run them more like a game animal. God, now I can't even remember.

You have to get tags. Yeah, you get tags for them. There's some hurdles to jump through. Yeah, that was my first out-of-state hunt because it was— Was it really? Yeah, it was in like 92 maybe, 32 years ago. Me and Roy went down to Wairika. Remind people who Roy is? Roy is my buddy.

He got me started bow hunting, Roy Roth. And yeah, he passed away in 2015, but we did a lot of hunts in between from that time when I started in 1989 to when he died in 2015. And that was our first out-of-state hunt. We could drive there from home in Oregon. And you went there to hunt pigs? To hunt pigs. Yeah. And that was with dogs actually. So we were, they had them bait up in the brush and I was on my knees in the brush, dogs hunt pigs, yeah. And that was with dogs, actually. So we were, they had them bait up in the brush, and I was on my knees in the brush, dogs and pigs running around, and I shot this pig at about, I don't know,

I don't know, eight feet. Yeah. And then I went down before, another, or I mean other times, and then spot and stalk, like kind of in the rolling hills, kind of outside of, one time outside of sacramento and uh then another time more south of there but yeah the first one i got was north of sacramento okay and spot and stalk like green rolling hills kind of yeah well in the right time of year other

times yours drive right like speckled with uh oaks yeah you know and a lot of poison oak so it's kind of a real hassle to hunt there and they had they been dug in where they're bedded and you kind of stuck along i'd get out early and it was hard it was like i don't want to say it was hard not hard not like hunting here it was you had to like think yeah and try and the the trick was to catch them headed to bedding at daybreak or to catch them popping out of bedding in the evening. And it felt more like a glassing spot and stalk deer hunt in this area to the point where a friend of mine from school, her dad ran cattle on a number of places. And she always said, oh oh you can come on pigs but he to the point where he would sometimes wonder if he even had any pigs at on the ranches at the time because of

they were so subject to water um and when when stuff was dry he felt that they were gone when stuff was wet they were there so i never saw anything like what we saw today for some years because for a while that was the pig hunting I did. Yeah. Was, was like, I hope I get one pig hunting in California. Yeah. I went another time with this, he was a pretty well-known bow hunter at one time, Ray Howell. And we were down and they were in like, uh, in the oats, like in, like a wheat or a wheat field.

And, uh, it reminded me of hunting carp when the carp are spawning and they're like kind of in the water and you can see the grass kind of moving around. So you'd see the, you know, the wheat moving around and you're like, oh God. So you sneak up there and you'd get, I mean, sometimes from me to Corinne. Oh, no kidding. That's crazy. They just don't know. They can't see any, they can't see anyway. But they couldn't hear, couldn't whatever. You get the wind right, you get right there, and you just kind of almost shoot them like a carp. And I shot this one one time.

We were filming it. I have the footage somewhere. But it ran right at me and ran between my legs. I went like this, kind of raised one leg between my legs. And we got a big kick out of that. But for a moment, I felt like Max. I was going to say, I definitely would have jumped in. You felt like a soft metal.

Aluminum foil. Yeah, so it was pretty fun. So I don't know how many I've killed, but I haven't done it in a while. This invite came, you and Joe had planned on doing this, or you planned't done it in a while. This, you know, this invite came, you and Joe had planned on doing this, or you planned on doing a deer hunt that fell through than this. And then, you know, you and Joe somehow invited me. And so here I am and didn't plan on it, but I'm very thankful that I'm here. When I asked Joe, I said, do you think Cam would want to go? Because Joe said, well, let's just go back for pigs and i said do you think cam would want to go pig hunting with us and he said i can 100 say he would i've never turned down a bow hunt i mean people could ask you want to bow hunt anything anywhere and i'll be like

yeah don't even have to wonder so okay but let's but let's say, I want to get back into pig hunting. Except turkeys. I want to get back into pig hunting more and say this. Let's say I said, for whatever reason, I said, hey, we're going to go down to this place, but here's the deal. On this ranch, by declaration of God and man, you can't hunt with a bow. You would have said, nah, I'll stay home. Yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, I don't have. You just don't like shooting?

No, I don't have anything against it. I take people out rifle hunting all the time. And I'm, I love seeing people be successful and being immersed in my lifestyle, which is hunting. I don't separate myself, bow hunter. I think we're all together. But me personally, I just, I just can't get excited about it. I can't. I just love that. Like this morning was perfect. I love spawn stocking, getting in there. You know, you got to look at the animal, the position of the animal, you know, these, these boars, they have shields on their shoulders. So you got to think about where that arrow is entering you

got to think about i just love the strategy of bow hunting and then watching that arrow you know find it smart find a smart drop in and it's like i just have it's just i'm just i'm a bow hunter that's just all you know it's all i am man talking to you, hanging out with you makes me feel like I need to, um... I don't know. It makes me feel like I need... I do... I do everything. Which means you don't get good at much.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I like to go trapping. I like to go predator calling. I like to go deep dropping, shallow shallow fishing ice fishing bow hunting gun hunting yeah knife i mean like whatever yeah and that's it keeps you from ever being it keeps you from ever being where you're just an absolute master at something yeah pursuit you're jack of all trades master of none yeah like you've dedicated yourself to waterfowl yeah right i mean it just started

getting into the big game so you know you did ask if i ever i think bird hunt or whatever else and i don't this is all i do big game bow hunt that's all I care about. So I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm missing out on experiencing these other, you know, pursuits, which I'm sure are great. And maybe I would grow in some way because of them and maybe interact with people that I wouldn't otherwise. And that would be rewarding, but I don't care about that. At least you're honest. Yeah. I mentioned knife hunting, half half joking but then I realized on

the subject of pigs I've done the in New Zealand and Hawaii and in Florida I've gone out with guys doing the dog hunting where you just in the end all you're doing is dispatching the pig with a knife. Murdering it. Yeah. With a knife. That's what it feels like to me. Oh, it's.

I mean, it feels like, it's got to be like somebody's stabbing somebody else. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. And the crazy thing about it is, you think, like if you imagine an arrow, a broadhead, it's a knife tip. You think nothing of delivering that knife tip into the heart of that pig. But man, someone sticks that knife in your hand.

And you're up close and personal. You're like, no, get it right in the heart. It feels, you have to talk yourself into it. Yeah, it's the feeling of the pushing it in something you know you don't feel that arrow you're not controlling that arrow by by your hand so feeling that cut in yeah you know those times I did it I like it uh well I mean the fact that went and did it again and again and again. I guess it didn't upset you too much. No, but it really drew that question of, like, what, yeah, with a bullet, you don't think about it.

An arrow, you don't think about it. But then when you got to do it up close, it just makes you view it differently. Yeah. And that's actually the thing I want to talk about a little bit with pigs. Earlier I made the joke that there's sort of no crime that can be committed against pigs that some people would feel has gone too far. The other day, my little boy, my older boy, he's now armed with which we have, my wife and I have very mixed feelings about, but it just felt like an inevitability. He now has a phone.

So my little boy, who's far away from getting a phone, comes to me all upset because the thing that his brother showed him, who likes watching hunting stuff, his brother showed him where they were, some video where it's just they were out sounds like they were out with pistols semi-auto pistols in a truck and from the description my little boy game he's like more or less is a video about running pigs over with a truck running them down running them over and you see all kinds of things like this and And you go, and it's, it's complex. It's, it's a complex thing because there is like state sponsored across wild pig range. There are state sponsored efforts to

eradicate, which is unrealistic, but I say that in some border States, there's a plan to eradicate pigs from the landscape. And in some places, there's just a very concerted effort to control pigs. So you have like state-sponsored pig killing where you're just trying to like reduce numbers. The same way they might go to an island in the Galapagos and try to remove goats by any means necessary. Whatever. It's a thing that happens. What's that?

Cows. Cows. Okay. It's a thing that happens. What's that? Cows. Cows, okay. It's a thing that happens, but. Squirrel. I think kind of like from the fact that when I first started hunting, the first pig hunts I did were like, it was big game hunting for pigs. And so I think that you fall into this thing like not living and growing up

in wild pig country. It's hard for me to jump into. It's hard for me a little bit to move out of like game animal mindset about pigs into like, like, like a, basically a larger version of a rat. Right. Which for many land managers and managers in Texas and other states,

it's like they are an overgrown rat. Yeah, vermin. Yeah. They're destructive disease vectors. Hey, play your javelina call. Is that a heavy or a pig? It's a heavy. Oh, it is?

Yeah. Hold on a minute. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, no, you're fine. You're fine. That's what we're here for. What was I hitting him with earlier? Squeaky something.

But I'm telling you, they don't come from that distance. It won't work. Try. I'll try it, but I'm telling you, no. What I've found calling Javelinas is you've got to be... I didn't discover this, but I found that it's true. And it was the guy that makes J13 calls. I mean,

it's coming closer. How far away is that? What do you say? 250? 300? I can tell you. It is 169. He boogied? No, he's just like obscured behind brush.

Let me get back to what I was saying. I'm going to give all the arguments. As part of what I'm saying, I'm going to give you all the arguments against pigs. Disease vectors. Competition for food with native wildlife. Destroyers of ground nesting birds so while native ground resting birds so destroyers of turkey nests because they eat the eggs destroyers of quail nests because they eat the eggs they are agricultural pests

because they till up agricultural ground they have a negative impact on water quality because they root in the mud and denude banks of vegetation. What else? There's probably more bad things about pigs. Bad hombres. Mm-hmm. But,

I can't get, I can't find my way into the, I can't find my way into the pig eradication mindset. Yeah. You know, I think when I was younger, I could easily, I didn't really care about, I could kill unbridled killing and never think one thing about it now. Like even, like if I'm driving and you know how a possum might run across the road or it's like, I don't want to hit a squirrel, a possum. I don't want to hit, I will feel terrible if I hit something.

Yeah. And that before, when I was a kid. I was almost cool. I couldn't, I don't know. I just, yeah. I mean, I remember we were driving down the logging road. Coyote would come out some, for some reason they stay on the road and just drive in and run them right over. I could never do that now.

Yeah. What do you think made the change for you? Just maturing, I think. I would say just growing up. The more you hunt, the more you kill. The more you care about. It's the one thing. It's how you respect life

because you're taking it, you understand, you know, life and death more and, uh, you know, more evolved mindset. Um, so that's just part of it. And I, that's one reason I think anti-hunters are so misguided. They haven't been involved in the circle of life. You know, they have because they're paying somebody to do their killing for them, but they haven't done the killing themselves. So they don't really respect life. And that's why they threaten people and, you know, threaten people's life for hunting and things like that, just because they don't get it. So it's, that's a big advantage to being a hunter is you, you immerse yourself in this. We have blood on our hands. So it doesn't mean that we don't care. We care deeply. Um, but

it's just part of what we do. So I think that's just, I think it's just part of maturing and, you know, evolving as a hunter. I think one of the parts of it that messes with me a little bit, um, the pig thing is that they are there, they can be a little challenging to deal with, but they are edible. And when you go to the store, they're selling pork. Yeah. And so then if you do,

you know, to do like eradication efforts, you can't help but look and think, oh man, look at all that. Like I remember my buddy that works at a, my buddy works at a place that supplies the grocery stores and now and then they'll have a disaster where something will happen to a truck you know and he'll send

me pictures like holy shit you know send me pictures of some giant dumpster full of like food that whatever got wrong temperature whatever got recalled whatever you look at that and it strikes you like yeah what a waste, man. I remember one time I went to a shark derby. What's that? It was like a fishing competition. Oh, okay. Got it. For sharks and it surprised me because makos are good

but a lot of the guys would bring in blue sharks and blue sharks have a bad reputation as food. They have a lot of urea, so they kind of have a pissy smell and pissy taste to them. But seeing that volume of blue sharks in a dumpster just felt different to me than if I saw a dumpster full of rats, you know? And someone's going to point out, well, you need rats.

Well, it's like, I don't eat rats. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like part of why the hog thing, and even this spot, like this place we're hunting, this guy's, they got right now too many hogs. I've never seen anything like it. It sounds like he's perhaps never seen this many around. He's got too many.

He's like, just try to get rid of them and you still get up there like oh man i don't know if i can like shoot more than one just get a whole bunch like i can't jump out of big game mode on pigs you know probably largely from being from the north yeah there are two of them now yeah that's a i i mean even when i killed that that boar today it's, I feel the same as if I killed a bull. You know, it's just, I still respect that life and it still impacts me. I killed it. That was the goal to kill a pig. I did it, but I still respect that.

And it's like, I don't know. I don't know why. I think that's just, yeah, I don't know. I don't know why. I think that's just, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just know I'm getting softer in my old age. Do you feel that happening to you? Yeah. Probably human. I just wonder why we think of that as soft, you know.

Yeah. For example, as opposed to just more thoughtful about it, you know. I think it's's i think it's you because i'd say the same thing i think it's soft relative to what you were right yeah soft relative to what you were yeah i i feel better about it i mean it doesn't feel good sometimes and i mean i i don't doesn't feel bad but i mean i feel like it's a more honest approach than what i how i looked at things when i was younger i think that when i was younger i was immature and i wasn't seeing the the full scope of what it meant to be a hunter yeah it was just oh we just kill shit yeah i've noticed in my older age i guess only. Only 32, not old.

Soft, but not old. We're going to freaking wrestle after this. If he's soft, what am I? Well, if this is his heart, if this is the apex of hardness, then it'll only get soft in the air. After that scare down there in Javelina, I don't know.

This is not a good future. I've noticed dispatching animals in traps is not as easy as it used to be. I don't know if you ever got that way or feel that way, but don't get me wrong. I'm still going to trap and kill animals and feed away from me in a trap where they can't get away. But it's just like something about it feels different these days. Man, it's interesting that you bring that up because I noticed that. Like I used to, if I used to come up on something, if I, when I was, you know, high school, early college and really trapping hard and I came up on a fox that I caught, I couldn't get that thing dead quick enough yeah not out of like getting it over with it was just jubilation oh yeah zero thought and now there's a little bit of oh man should i let this guy go like that coyote that we caught this year just walking up on it and that thing

like it ain't getting away from you no but with that being said like i'm gonna do it again next year yeah it is like uh yeah you're probably allowing yourself to uh i don't know whether it's projection or accepting reality like you're looking at something that in the moment is helpless and you're just allowing yourself to feel it. Yeah. My wife more and more thinks that this sort of like overriding theory that we're governed by fear of death.

As you get older. You know, she tries to pin a lot of stuff on fear of death. I don't, I don't think about myself at all in those moments. I mean, I don't know if it's subconsciously I am, but to me personally, it doesn't feel like that's what's going on. But yeah, maybe subconsciously. I agree with that. Yeah. I just, when I'm, when I'm about to kill a coyote in a trap, I'm not, I don't, I, it feels

like I'm not thinking about personal death. Another thing my wife just told me has nothing to do with hogs or killing is that she said there is no baby named Steve. That's so true. Yeah. She said, you would never in a million years go to someone's house, and there's a baby, and they're going, you're like, oh, what's the baby's name?

They would never in a million years go, it's Steve. That baby's name is Steve. Turn it into an old man's name yeah oh wait someone found a oh i should have put it in talking points because we have no reception i won't be able to insert it but someone found uh a quote i think it was from a japanese author translated um about the baby face, old man face. Someone wrote in about that. They identified the passage.

The youngest babies have the oldest face. Yeah, but there was something similar, but it was in a book by a Japanese author. I'll show that to you. So that's on my mind that the world's going to run out of Steves. So either you were born with some other name or you were born 30 years old.

Which one was it? When I was a kid, if you said Steve, if the teacher said Steve, six kids are going to raise their hand. And if they said Jenny, six, seven kids are going to raise their hand. Now it could be boys raise their hand for Jenny. Yeah. It's just, or variations on Caden, and then you have to just know Steve anymore. Steve's are gone.

The heir of Steve's is dead. I hated my name when I was a kid. I was like, why can't I just be like a Mike or a John? Oh, you didn't want to be Cam? Really? Nobody's named Cam. Did they run around calling you Cam? Yeah.

Cam or Cameron? Cam. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe some girls would say Cameron. But yeah, Cam. Stupid. I don't think it's a stupid name. It's a good name.

I like it. It's a little more accepted now. It's kind of so fitting, though, because you're such a bow hunter. Cam's on a bow. I don't know. You ever think about that? No. You don't?

No. Could have been named Riser or something. Yeah. Arrow. Arrow. Broadhead. Could have passed through. That's actually a good dog name.

Stabilizer. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a hind titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

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As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX x club y'all so cam what uh what's going on in the world of we kind of uh i'm familiar with what's going on in the world with you with hunting because we just hunted this morning what's going on with your uh your running career your your running passion

uh it's uh you know i'm not getting any younger yeah but you but when do you jump like uh where do you sit within your age bracket because that's kind of thing is that's gotta be a thing you start paying attention to right i don't know i don't really like that that seems like it seems like a cop out it's like you know i still want to beat all the young guys okay yeah like being the fastest old guy would be like being i can't say you used to be there's a saying being the smartest i can't say it now it's like you get canceled if you say it oh don't say that yeah so that's like what being a fast old guy is like uh-huh so i i just you know i in my age group yeah of course i do good because most people my age are dead how do the age brackets work uh it goes i mean masters is 40 and over but then there's age groups

within masters so it'd be like senior masters So it'd be like... Senior masters? No, it'd be like 50 to 54, 55 to 59. Oh, so they caught it thin. Yeah, yeah. And this is for like the, what do you call them? The races you run? Oh, the ultras don't really have... Most good ultra runners are old.

Oh, really? Yeah, when you're young, you're faster and more able but you're not mentally tough so if you're going to run 200 miles a young 20 year old is going to you're going to ship the bed way before the end is that right really yeah so when you're uh when you're older um you're just you know life has been you've been kicked in the balls a lot, you know? So you've been, just a hard race is just like, this is just, this is temporary. I'm going to get through it. So you're just more mentally tough. Young guys just haven't developed that mental toughness yet.

Really? You think so? Oh, I know for a fact. That's why I jumped when the javelina came in. But it's young guys, I guess it's like a different caliber of young guys. But it's young guys that go through the ranger course and stuff like that. Yeah, there is. That's an extreme. Like bugs or something.

Those guys are in the special category. I'm talking in general. Of course, there's tough elite. I'm with you. Yeah. There's, of course there's tough, like elite. Oh, well, special opera or what is that? Special operations. Um, but yeah, I mean, there's, there's always freaks out there and there's, there's young freaks too.

I'm just saying in general, when you're young, you're not mentally as tough as you are when you're older. What is the prime age for the old, what do you call it? I mean, you don't call it ultra marathon. Like what do you call it? Ultra marathon.

Yeah. You do call it. Yeah. Or. And that's how long is an ultra. But there's, what do you call it? I mean, you don't call it ultra marathon. Like what do you call it? Ultra marathon. Yeah. You do call it. Yeah. Or. And that's how long is an ultra. But there's an off road, but it's like off road. Yeah. It's trail.

Yeah. But is there like, is there ultra marathon that's, that's on road or are they always off? Cause the road's too hard. No, I mean. Too hard on your body. No, there's some on the road too. Oh, there are.

But that does beat you up for sure. I mean, the mountains kind of give you, it's, it's hard because you got to climb, but you are using different muscles at different times. When it's like, there's a race called Badwater 135 and it's 135 miles in Death Valley. Most of it is on road, which gets like 130 degrees. You have to run on the white line. Otherwise your shoes are melting. What? Yeah. Jeez. degrees you have to run on the white line otherwise your shoes are melting what yeah geez yeah it's intense it's intense so that on the road very tough and it's the same muscles for 135 miles have you done that one i haven't done that one no no i want to um so general generally ultras are in the mountains but they're it they don't have to be, is my point. And to answer your question, Seth, uh, ultra marathon would be anything over a normal marathon. So an ultra marathon could range from a 50 K, which is about 31 miles. That's the shortest ultra 31 miles to I've done 200. The Moab 240 is 240 miles. Jeez. And how long does that take you?

That took 78 hours. Are you sleeping at all? Two hours. So the clock doesn't stop. The best people, like Courtney, who I run with, she, I'm trying to think how long she slept in that one. She won that race. I got like maybe 11th now i can't remember but

um 11th you count 11th in your age group or just 11th so you're not in that age group do it all wrong with that age group stuff hard man it doesn't it that that doesn't work on ultras because i'm telling you there's old there's old in that in that race there was like a 60 year old woman who beat me okay really this freak pam reed she is so good and women i'll just say this women and for for uh like elite endurance athletes women are i'm not gonna say they're better than they're better than most men. The toughest women are better than the, than a lot of the best men because they're just so much. I think they're built for pain for, because of childbearing. I think they're, they deal with pain better than men do.

That's why Courtney is one races outright over elite men. Wow. And she's, you know, she's not going to be faster. Men will have, you know, she's not going to be faster. Men will have, you know, will be faster, be stronger in general over women, but for endurance, it's women have an advantage. So when you're doing that, at what point, at what point do you have a sense that you're going to do well, you know, in a given race? Like if I go out, if I'm out and I got to hike up a mountain for whatever reason, messing around, hunting, whatever,

I'll pretty quickly in the day know that I'm going to tear it up or I'll be like, man, this should not feel like it feels. Yeah, those races, because you got seven to eight hours to figure it out. So you can start off feeling like shit. I mean, there's a lot of time left to recover so yeah you just keep and in a race like that i've went um the first 200 miler i did the bigfoot 200s in washington which is freaking super tough the trails there don't have many

switchbacks like they do in a lot of the western states for for horse um packers uh a lot of those trails will have switchbacks in washington for whatever reason not many switch back so you'd gain 5 000 feet and it'd be just straight up the hill just ass kicker but in that race i went and in most long races like this, you're up and down, up and down, problem solving, don't have enough salt, need more salt, need more calories, need more, you know, get dehydrated. And that one, I was winning by hours, like I think three hours in the first 40 miles, because I went out too fast, got dehydrated, then freaking died, then came back. And by the end of the race, my brother was pacing pacing me who is an amazing runner

taylor is his name he's a he's won ultras outright um he was pacing me at the very end and i was running so good by the end he's like cam i don't i can't keep up i was running six something minute miles after 200 miles after i could barely walk at some times during the same race yeah so you just learn what your body can do but yeah to answer your question you can start off and like i don't know how this is going to work out but you're gonna it's going to be up and down no matter what you might start off great and then feel like you know know, after a hundred miles, which is, you know, probably going to be 24 to 30 hours, you might feel like I can't take another step. And then you keep going and you do. Your body's incredible.

People don't realize. No. I mean, I like, I look at that stuff and I look at that stuff. Like I can walk good, like good long distances. I look at that stuff, like I can walk good, like good long distances. I look at that stuff with running and I just can't, because even now and then I'll be like, I'll run back to the car and grab the whatever, keys. Yeah.

You know, then you get where you can see the car and all of a sudden you're walking. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just like something in my body is like, what are we running for? Let's just walk fast. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I just, for me, it's given me so much confidence because when I was first hunting the Eagle cap will, or, and this is kind of where I came of age as a mountain hunter, I was by myself. So I was scared, you know, I was scared back there sometimes. And I was like, God damn, this, this fricking, these mounds are kicking my ass just mentally, physically, spiritually. It's like, I'm thinking about my kids at home, you know, little thinking about I should be home.

I'm here. It's like all these. And I just feel when I got mentally stronger, I was like, that wilderness was 30 miles wide by 60 miles long. It's 387,000 acres. They call it the little Alps. It's very rugged. And I was like, I just, what can I do to get tougher? So I started running and I thought if I could run a hundred miles, finish this hundred mile ultra first one I did was, uh, the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming. What year was that? That was 2009. If I could run a hundred miles,

I could get out of the, all the way through the wilderness in one day. Why would I be? So that gave me so much confidence. I could go back there. Wouldn't think anything about being fearful or I just was felt so capable. So then I was like, instead of worrying about, I got to make it back to camp or I, or if I have camp on my back, how much water do I have? I do have enough food. What's this weather doing? You know, there was, I didn't have a satellite phone or anything like that. But once I got that confidence, I didn't worry about any of that shit.

All I worried about was I need to kill a bull. And when, when all your a hundred percent focus is on killing a bull, not everything that can go wrong, all these things you can't control. Yeah, like if I get it now, it's going to be dark. Right. And then how am I going to, I got to cut it up. And then what am I going to do? Because it's going to be warm. Maybe I'll, there they are tonight.

I'll come back in the morning. I'll make a plan. I just would go 100% focused on killing. Every single time I saw something, I didn't care how far it was, I'd go, and I killed. And it was just like, it was that confidence. And then that has carried over to everything now. Yeah, everything. But that ultra mindset, I think, facilitated that growth.

Did it change you socially? Yeah, I mean, I pretty much look at everybody and think, yeah, you're a pussy. No, it, but it does. When you hear people complain about certain things. I mean, I think anybody who does, you know, fighters probably feel like, feel this way. Like my son who is a ranger probably feels this way. You hear normal complaints and ranger probably feels this way you hear normal complaints and you're like is that really worth complaining about you know what i mean because it's really not that it's not that bad so it just gives you perspective over what's hard and what's not not really judging people i mean i don't i know everybody has their own i asked you i asked

you everybody has their own threshold i'm not i don't look down know everybody has their own. I asked you, I asked you. Everybody has their own threshold. I'm not, I don't look down, you know, something that's hard for somebody. It's hard for them. I can't tell them it's not hard. It's hard for them. What do you, when you're in one of those mega long races, what, uh, at what point does it start to feel like it's,'s 100 percent mental um it depends on you know if you put in the miles so the general rule of thumb is the weekly mile mileage you get should match your race so if you've been getting in 100 mile weeks you should be prepared for a 100 miler this is roughly got it so to get i hadn't heard this before to get in 100 mile weeks you have to that's 14 miles a day so you run 14 miles

a day you're getting 100 mile if you can run 14 miles a day because most people are you talking a seven day week seven day week yeah yep every day so you you you have to get your body used to those big back-to-back days because in those long races, you're running for multiple days. Most people, if you go run a half marathon, I mean, you're down for a while, your body can get accustomed to day after day after day. And then like, there's some, you know, so I get a hundred miles a week and then I'll do a even bigger weeks. Like I'll try to do, I go through stretches where I'll do a marathon a day. And that, that would be, you know, 200 mile over 200 miles a week. That's to me, I think that's what it takes to prepare your body to push like

that. Because in a race where you're not sleeping, you're not recovering. You might feel good for 30 miles, which is still a long ass run, but at 30 miles and a 240 mile race, you have 210 miles left. What are you going to, so you're feeling like shit for most of the race. You can't train. And as soon as you start feeling like shit, stop. Cause that's where most of the race. You can't train. And as soon as you start feeling like shit, stop. Because that's where most of the race is taking place. So it's just a matter of building your body up to be able to endure that. That, uh, I mean, just what you're asking of it. It's a lot.

At the end, are you toward the end? Are you still doing that? Oh, you need salt. You need water. You need calories. You're at a point oh you need salt you need water you need calories you're at a point you just you're just gonna finish it and not think can't you still gotta be like you like flying you still gotta be like flying a helicopter paying attention everything the whole time once you stop thinking about food or calories hydration and salt you're pretty much

done okay it has to you can never sometimes you get in a groove and you don't take in that stuff every hour you pay for it got it you have to keep those those three things up yeah uh on a different subject you today were mentioning to me that you know you like uh still hunting and then moving into like stocks right and you're talking about hunting with a friend of yours who's a good caller and when your friend says well let's try to call that bull you'll think to yourself let's try to why don't we just sneak down there and try to get it yeah yeah talk about that a little bit uh i think it's just used to, I was used to growing up on public land in that wilderness and everywhere I hunted, even before the wilderness, it was like 20 minutes from Eugene or Springfield is where I would elk hunt. Very accessible.

There's big bulls there. There'd be articles on the paper. We lived on that road. So opening day of deer season, there'd be 300 trucks going by. So you get used to hunting amongst other people. When you're elk hunting amongst other people, you don't call because those bulls have been called so many times. So I grew up never calling because you blew on, I mean, even if you were good, those bulls are probably not going to react um so i was just so used to and i gained a lot of confidence and i can just because to me getting down on an elk is way easier than stocking a big mule deer mule deer are so much harder to stock just how they they're more aware how they bed because

the bow hunter generally will wait wait for them to bed and then you plan your stock you get the wind right very difficult and elk they're so noisy they're so big they're more of a dominant figure on the landscape so they're not quite as skittish as i i don't think especially like a white tail it just to me i had a lot of success and just got really good at stalking. And so I've never had to, I hardly ever call. I've killed a lot of bulls, and probably 90% of them were spawn stock. When they're better, are you doing them when they're feeding or whatever, anything you can? Anytime, yeah, just whatever they're doing. Uh-huh.

Yeah, so it's just, you know how hunting is, is you're just reading body language. You're reading body language terrain, you know, that pig today you can, pigs are, you know, they're not very aware, especially now that I think they're so focused on feeding because it's been so dry, but you just, you watch the animals, you see what you can get away with. You stay in the shadows, you use whatever covers available. You go very slow. You're not, your arms aren't out kind of in line your your legs aren't taking big steps and that profile is barely moving if you're going right to them and you just all that weighs in and then you get into bow range you wait for the right position and then you kill them and that's just what i do on on everything and and elk are very susceptible

to stalking i think what is what's your attitude or not your attitude what's your approach when you're when you're in a big old like grab ass party with a couple bulls and 10 cows and everybody's running you know moving around tons of eyeballs do you just sit it out to wait or you get in there and mix it up no i mean it depends if the if the bull if there's a dominant bull they're like usually i'm just going to kill the biggest oldest bull so i'll get in and i mean i'm thinking like a good example was two years ago i was uh i had somebody could have called for me this bull. I could hear it was up on this bench. So calling, it's not going to come off the bench. He, I could, I knew he had his herd up there. He's not coming off a bench to come to a call, right? He had

elevation. They're always going to want to keep that elevation. So I'm like, he's not going to come to the call. I need to get back up on that that bench so i got up on the bench and it was really thick up there and i he came around he was going like working the bench and then going on the edge of the bench down towards the drainage he would call there because they want to announce that they're badasses and they want everybody to know so he would would go to that edge of it. I was on the hillside edge where I came up and I saw him come up and he raked this tree about, I don't know, 35 yards away, but facing me and I didn't have a shot. And then he left. And then he went back down to the edge of the bench over the drainage called. And then he started to come back around in the, in amongst, or during this time, there's a couple of cows and they're feeding and they would get there and their cows were like 20 yards.

So in that case, I'm just saying he's coming back. I know what he's doing. I just got to hope this wind holds. Wind was coming up at this time is mid morning. And I got to hope that this wind holds. I'm just going to stay here. And so I stayed there. Brandon Lashaki was there filming me and uh i i just stayed for probably i don't know it was probably 25 or 30 minutes

and eventually those cows fed up to about 10 yards and so i just knew that if this whole held i was gonna you know wait him out he would come up and he came up to about 21 yards and i slipped an arrow through the brush and and killed him so it's uh it just depends that was just a situation where i i was just weighing out what i thought was going on what were the best odds for me to get that bull killed and then that's how it happened um you know if there's satellite bulls around it's he's going to run him off i mean he's going to run he's going to cut he's not, if there's satellite bulls around, it's, he's going to run them off. I mean, he's going to run, he's going to come, he's not going to let a satellite bull get close to his cows without him coming in and letting him know who runs the show. So it's just, but as you,

you know, as well as I do, and most of your listeners, you're just, every situation is unique. And I, I, you know, I kind of laugh sometimes when people, you know, they act like they got this species or this animal figured out. It's like every single time is different. There's tendencies, but you don't have it figured out. You've developed and noticed habits, but every situation because of that because if that bench wasn't there, it would have been something else. It would have been something else going on. Or if I was above him instead of below him, maybe he would have come up that bench to me. But it's like, I mean, it's a chess game every single time. I just love that part of it.

And I don't have it figured out, but I have figured out good decisions to make to put the odds in my favor. Well, that's part of what I think figuring out is if you've exposed yourself to enough situations, you start to put together a kind of probability calculator. It's like your crystal ball. I'm big on numbers. Oh, yeah. I'm always running numbers and i'm always like it's it's probably i was a uh purchasing purchasing agent for 20 years at

the local utility back home and i would look at everything like a calculation so it's just odds and it's numbers and just running and i just so i'm always looking at how much time i've been in this area what the wind's going to do with this you know just like just running in my head like but yeah it's just probability I think is kind of what you're saying yeah just getting in in saying you're not you're not able to you don't you're not going well that one time this happened another time that happened another time that happened it's just i have a feeling yeah based on experience yeah i have a feeling that that thing that thing's gonna come back up here

again yeah you know and then they all run down the hill and you're like i guess i was wrong that time yeah next time i mean it's not like it's you know it's not like it's, you know, it's not like it's a slam dunk, but anytime, you know, people, I do, I do a lot of elk hunting. So I get some bulls on the ground. People say it's too much, this or that. But, but the point, the point is, it's like, uh, oh man, now I don't even know what my point was. I'm sorry. Uh, what, what, what did you just say? I said, well, you, you think i was saying i was joking that you were convinced or thinking it's going to come back this way but i said then they all run down the hill oh yeah um actually now i don't even remember what it's gonna say so sorry about that oh no it's quite it's getting dark out yeah um sorry about the cameras it's just running out of

light now it's oh we're. We're doing audio only. We're just going to have to cut halfway and just throw a logo on. This is one problem we haven't thought of with our studio. We need to be full moon only. Full moon only. Remember the bounce. Bounce off that moon, wherever it is.

But no, it's Oh, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, people make it seem like you know, what I was going to say. Yeah. People make it seem like, uh, you know, I don't want to say people have it figured out and I don't, so I'll never say I have it figured out every time, but it's not like it's impossible.

I mean, how many guys kill bulls every year? Yeah. A lot. We're talking about the other day when it gets to be September and, and you see like pictures, everybody's sending in, you're seeing're like how is everybody yeah getting a bowl yeah well so i gotta go look at the people right around me go did you get a bowl no okay good

somebody did but i mean it's challenging it's hard it's 10 success i get all that but it's not like it's impossible so if 10 10% of guys, some of them aren't prepared, some of them aren't prepared, but if, if you can go out and you get lucky and kill, imagine what you can do if you focus your whole life on it. Sure. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not like we're saying, oh, you're going to try to do this thing no man has ever done. Okay. It's going to be tough we're doing something guys do every year so if if another man can do it i know i can do it yeah so it's just good making good decisions putting yourself in in position for success and you know basing all this experience

you have it can happen it can happen often so that's how i look that used to be the the only pep talk i knew was um it only takes one and then there's like another pep talk of reminding myself how fast things can turn around yep and then the other pep talk is the old like we're not going to kill him in the truck yeah that's which are all very pragmatic pep talks yeah Roy used to say that all the time too my buddy Roy who got me started bow hunting as we mentioned

but sometimes he would say I don't know what to do but I'm just going to be out there all you can control is where you're at if you're out there who knows what's going to happen. There's always a chance. And so, yeah, he would just wouldn't know what to do. You know, everybody likes to think they have it exactly figured out.

Any hunter knows you don't always have it figured out. And you feel like, I feel there's been hunts where I'm like, I don't know how I've ever killed anything. It feels impossible. But when you're out there, yeah, it can turn on a dime. So it's, I think hunting teaches that optimism, that optimistic mindset almost better than anything. Because you have to believe. If you don't believe believe you're at home you're at home you're talking on social media talking shit about guys who killed yeah so if

you're optimistic you're not worried about any of that you're out there and it's like i'm gonna make something happen maybe i should combine those pep talks and it would be it only takes one it happens so fast you can't get them in the truck yeah it happens so fast it can happen oh yeah it turn on a dime yeah yeah i mean just like all of a sudden there it is you know yeah how many times you had that feeling i've had i've been where you're like oh my god i can't believe it i thought we'd never you know i've more often had the feeling of, please, please, can I just have a break, please? I mean, I deserve this. I've worked so hard.

Please, can I have a break? That's what I'm more used to that. I feel like that happens a lot of time, turkey hunting in the springtime. Like walking around, not hearing a single gobble the whole morning, and then you're walking back to the truck and one gobbles back where you just came from you're like well better go chase them yeah i had oh go ahead the one hunt that we do that every time i'm like i just cannot picture this happening is that is that moose yeah yeah that can't picture i Just to close, a few years ago, me and Yanni went to Missouri

for the turkey opener. And it was the coldest, snowiest, windiest morning. And it was like so wintertime. I mean, you couldn't find it. There wasn't a bud on a tree. And we went out and split up.

I went off one direction. Yanni went off in our direction. This big chunk of, I can't remember who administered it. It was public land, but it was like national forest land. It was some other kind of public land, like county land or something.

Either way, I'm out there, and I talk myself into that you just can't hunt in these conditions. Sounds brutal. Well, over on the next, uh, over on the next hillside, also son of a bit. No, not a gobble. Oh, not a shotgun shot.

Okay. I was going to say, I'm over here saying everything, like, it's too windy, snowy, spring, and over on the next ridge, unbeknownst to me, Yanni's working a hot gobbler. Jeez. Kills it. And I'm like, dude, you know, like the mindset, man. Yeah. You know, you're determining that it's like we might as well go home and then he's working a hot gobbler on the next bridge talk about like the two different guys with the different

that uh that reminds me i read i read this old story just on the podcast the other day a solo podcast i like i like hearkening back on uh just good reading or good writers or old books like Life at Full Drop by Chuck Adams, just old stuff that people don't talk about these days. So I read this old article, Roy and Dwight Shue were hunting on Kodiak and they got stuck there for 23 days. They were supposed to be there, I think 12, but the weather had the river froze and a plane is supposed to, where we hunt on Kodiak plane drops us off on this river, they land on, on floats, but it froze. So they were stuck. Um, but anyway, this nasty weather came in and Roy always felt like he was going to be able to, it didn't matter. It did not

matter what the situation was. So Dwight said he was dry. Dwight shoe wrote this article. He was trying to keep up with Roy. Roy's going up the hill and Roy's a big guy. I mean, you would look at him and you would think that this, this guy's supposed to be a stud biggest stud you've ever seen or not ever seen. Cause you wouldn't think that biggest study I've ever hunted with. But anyway, Roy's going up the hill. Dwight, who's very capable, could barely keep up with him. And he said, while Roy was going up the trail and Dwight was struggling to keep up, Roy killed a buck and a red fox with his bow. So then that sets the stage for this other one. The wind was howling so bad that they could barely see.

Roy said, I still got a buck tag. I'm going to go out. So they find this buck on this hillside just covered. The buck was getting covered with snow, but it was blowing off enough where it was bedded down there. These bucks on Kodiak are tough. Roy gets 40 yards away, and Dwight said he couldn't even watch Roy. He was supposed to be filming him,

but he had to look away because the snow was coming and stinging his face so bad. He could not, and he couldn't show his hands. So he's turning, he said, Roy was sitting there, bare hands, because it's hard to shoot with gloves on if you're not used to it. And bare face and sitting there 40 yards. And I think for two hours, finally that buck stood up and Dwight couldn't even face, he had to have his back to Roy. But the buck stood up, Roy killed it.

Who the hell else would be out? You couldn't see anywhere. Snow whipping. You've been stuck there for three weeks, basically. Roy still had that tag and went and filled it. What a guy. That's the kind of attitude it takes sometimes.

That's what a lot of people don't have. No, they don't. I didn't have it when I was running after the Arradillo. No, you did not. Max facing down that javelina. It's faltered.

Man, if you guys could have hunted with Roy, I would give anything for that. He was like, he made everybody better. Everybody, like he was so optimistic. It just changes, it changes people. Sounds like I would have been a bow hunter now. What, you would have? Yeah, if I got a chance to hunt with Roy. Yeah, yeah he uh yeah he

was a stud no you speak of him fondly man yep all right well thanks for joining it's pitch black out we're gonna shut her down this outside studio needs four walls and some light well wait i want to say thank you thanks steve thanks meat eater for allowing me to come here it's an honor to be on the podcast i told you yesterday we did rogan's podcast i think you and joe are like the most powerful voices in hunting and it's just it's an honor to be able to finally hunt with you oh thanks man and uh spend time with with your crew and all the guys you know i mean it's it's just i can't express how thankful i am oh thank you very much appreciate it it. It's been great, Cam. It's been a lot of fun.

Learned a lot from you. All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Cam. Like a map of Europe in 1943, hogs are spreading through our lands like they think they're the king. They get it all like bunniesnies and they eat most everything.

If you need to hunt a body, you know just who to rank. Now they've taken over Texas and they're crossing state lines. I thought Texas was big, but not for these swine. And if you want to do your part to put it into their run, it starts with a G, and it rhymes with fun. You'll get a freezer full of bacon and a necklace full of tusks. Look like Maui from Moana when you take off his shirt. Here's a little-known fact, if you release a pig, he'll turn into a boar that's pretty big.

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