The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 749:

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Jimmy Rinella, Katie Finch, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, and Seth Morris.  Topics Discussed: Jimmy's public face reveal; Steve's big butt hole; Jani's race and chap ass; unevenly-hanging testes; how another American recently died being charged by a cape buffalo in Africa; the hats that Steve can and can't pull off; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You'll notice something new. My son, Jimmy, has been on the show before, but he's always had that camera. You were on the show here, and the camera was behind your head. Yeah. Because we had a prohibition on you, seeing your cute little face.

on screen. But then you hit 15 years of age, an arbitrary number. You have a learner's permit. What else happened? You have a learners permit. Well, something changed in the mind of his parents. Yep. Yep. Well, he got to that age. Well, that's not totally what happened. Oh, you tell me what happened. Well, Jimmy was, he went on a hunt with you and you were going to share a picture of his hunt and then all of a sudden and I was cool with that but then all of a sudden he had like

a public Instagram account yeah because I decided that his age remember does that joke the punchline to the joke I said I'll tell you the punchline when you get a learner's permit yeah just because that felt like once you have a learner's permit

so he just got his learner's permit he's 15 and now he can now when he's on the show he can people can see what the kid looks Like, yeah, I mean, I don't think it's, oh, the only thing that happens, he got taller. But it wasn't like a decision. We didn't like discuss like now is the time and this is okay. It's sort of, it caught me unawares a bit too when that happened.

Just before being honest. I mean, the kid can't hide under a rock the whole life. No, he can't. But the other two kids. So you're, do you think the other two kids when they turn 15 will, like that's the age? That's when they can have Instagram accounts. Not Rosie. Not the girl, no.

No. Okay. That's not happening. The other boy. That'll go over now. The other boy, sure. So Jimmy's here. He's been on the show.

How many times he's been on the show, buddy? I had kids trivia once. And then I did one podcast in Wisconsin. And then I did one in the last gun. And this isn't. Oh, he's been on the show all the time. Yeah. A couple times.

Regular. Four. Jimmy just caught. Jimmy just caught a nice fish. This spring, Jimmy and I were out fishing. And I hit a spot. And remember, I said the water talked to me? The, what's that?

The butt hole? Steve's big butthole. Yeah. The water talked to me. And we pulled in, and I said, this is where the water talked to me. You dropped your jig down, and what happened? Caught a 65-pound halibut. What did the water say when it talked?

to you. It said, come fish here. Steve, I'm down here. Fish me, Steve. Fish me, Steve. That doesn't sound like the voice of Steve's big butthole. Well, it's got to travel through a lot of water. After it comes up, it's distorted.

In order, Seth is here. It is as annoying as it is to have Seth as a neighbor. Oh, it's annoying, huh? It just paid off. I'll take my bolts back. It just paid off because it's just for people to see. I had bought that you'd think that would pass through two little pieces of aluminum and a bolthole

but it don't it's too short so i went to my neighbor and said i need stainless steel i produced that whole pile of them you know i got a segue to have good neighbors i'd buy those bolts for going through the chain i was unsure about length so i got two different lengths, because I knew you'd... Well, you could just got one with more thread on it. Well, I got two different lengths. Well, we'll always put them to use. Yeah. Yonis is here. Yonis ran...

We haven't talked to Yonni since this happened. Janus ran recently, ran one of those 100-mile races. This morning, he got circumspect about it. Is that what his call when you kind of get like you start thinking back? Yeah, when you're able to look at it from a distance? He was sitting right over

that chair and he got circumspect and he said you know a thing about it and i thought it was going to be something like the mental gaming he's like the chap ass like like you just can't picture the chap ass i don't know i think that would stick with you like he said crippling chap ass and there's no way you're going to run a hundred miles without chap was there something you put on it oh yeah lots of it I use a product called squirrels nut butter. Oh, yeah. I've heard of that. I think people use a product called body glide, whatever.

Some Vaseline would probably work. Yeah. How often are you applying then? It seems like all the time. But if I had to guess every one to two hours. Oh, wow. Are you carrying it with you or are you getting? Yeah, I had like a little baby one.

and I had started with it full and I used it up to the point where at a later aid station I had to refill from the bigger tub. Where was the bigger tub? Traveling with my crew. First off, you should probably tell people a little bit what we're saying.

You ran 100 miles. Yeah. At a race called the Crazy Mountain 100, which happened in the Crazy Mountains of Montana, which is, I don't know, northeast of Bozeman, maybe 90 minutes or so, depending on what trailhead you go to. Yeah, 100 miles.

had 23,000 feet of elevation gain to all through the entire course. It's like Mount Everest. Yeah, what's Everest? 29. Yeah, somewhere in there. I think it's 29. This is 28 something.

Yeah, close to 29. It's a long way up there. Anyways, it's up there. And yeah, my first one at that distance, I've done a couple 50s working up to that distance. And, yeah, started on July 25th, finished on July 26, 33 hours after I started. 33 hours running.

Running and hiking. At what hour did the chap ass kick in? Not that far into it, mile 30, so I don't know, late in the afternoon, midday of the first day. You know what chap ass is, young Jimmy? I can take a wild guess. Picture your butt chants. Going like that. Does that happen all the time while hunting?

No, what chapass comes from is being hot, sweaty. Some people just suffer. Some people have debilitating chap ass. Okay. Do you? No. I have had chapass. I wouldn't say I have debilitating chapass,

and I only get chapass in hot climates. Got it. Yonis, is it a common enough thing that you would like see someone on the side of the trail applying oh you don't stop to apply you keep you do it's too what do you mean what you just you know you slide your hand down there oh yeah so you're running along you get out your chap ass med yeah go down through or reach you're going both both depending on what's chapped you know yeah yeah might do it down disclosure of, yeah, like, one of my testes, like, hangs a little bit lower.

Like, I think on, like, it does with a lot of men, you know? And that one tends to just get a little bit more friction. You already saw about, Jim? Yeah, dad, I got that. So, yeah, I would hit that from the front. But mine, it's definitely start. I got a couple of theories, because this is something I had not suffered from at all for most of my life, even though I had been a runner and it had done some longer distances.

And you never happened to you all hunting. Or not even kind of. No. Okay. And, um. Hold on, I got hung up on, um, so one of them hangs down a little bit. Yeah.

And that causes chafing? Well, I think it's chafing on the fabric. But one isn't his body's not. Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy, when a man gets all right. So, but. Wait, no, no, no.

I want to hear this. I just want to make sure I'm clear. Okay, here's your nuts. One is like this. Yeah. Rubbing your undies and his body is not. It's sitting high enough that something, something's different. You know.

Wouldn't like sport underwear change that? Yeah. And honestly, sometimes I try to like jack everything up a little bit more to have more support. Yeah. You know, things are just rubbing. You'd have to go to a tailor. micro little rugs turn into a big thing. I need to have a special set.

One side of my underwear, uh, talking. So, so when did you first figure out that that was happening? You know, it's some other race. And, uh, I think it was a 50 mile that I did earlier this summer. And luckily I had this little tub with me at that time. Because had I not had it, I don't know if I would have made it to the next aid station. Definitely not running. I would have like limped in.

And at an age station, they have it because it's so common. Oh, yeah. For sure. What takes people, like, people that are in good enough shape to complete it, what takes them out? Blisters, chapass. Definitely those two things could. Chapass can take you out. Oh, 100%.

You know who gets terrible? You know what is? You're going to talk about who gets terrible chapass? No, no. A thing that where guys going through the Buds program. Oh, yeah. The sand. The sand in your shorts or the sand in your pants will keep people will tap out because of it.

Because of just because picture all those hours and days, wet sand packed up in there. Yeah. And they're like, they go running for hours on end without changing those clothes. So yeah, it's bad. Thinking of that, it always seems miserable. I never pictured what you're. I have a lot of friends that just like summertime and their thighs. Women.

Yeah, women deal with this. It's not chap ass. It's like chapped thigh. Chap thigh. Yeah, and there's lots of different products for it. For when your thighs are rubbing on the inside. Yeah, like just walking. See, mine are like inches apart.

Yeah, I don't have any. Inches apart. Because, well, you don't have like twig legs, but you're not, you don't have a lot of. Well, I just can't picture my thighs. You don't have, like, linebacker thighs. You're just like. No. You don't have that high ass like Pete Alonzo.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I got to, I just, I'm so hung up by the chapass thing because this is just a miserable feeling. No, it's terrible. So blisters take you out, chapass takes you out. And I would say probably the next most common thing, just because I've heard about it a lot, and it definitely almost took me out, is nausea. And I would say that that is connected to what people call it GI distress. And I think GI distress comes in many different forms.

You could be, have diarrhea, you could be. puking you could just feel nauseated but people start to not eat because of these symptoms and then you basically don't have the energy to continue and you just go slowly downhill until you tap so people are getting the shits from the running yeah from exertion and from you know if you haven't trained on what you're eating and again because i don't know the other 200 people that started it with me right like i don't know what they did going into it to train themselves. But I spent time literally eating dinner at home dressed up in my running clothes, have dinner with my family. And as soon as I was done eating, be like, okay, great, I'm

out of here. I would run out the door and go out for two or three hours just to train like running on a full belly. And like, you know, like I knew that I was, my goal was to try to eat somewhere around 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrates every hour, which most of it I took through gels or liquid carbs, like a mixed drink kind of thing. And so I would also train on that. But the problem is with this distance is that it's very hard to train on what you've, it's hard to train how you feel at mile 60, 70, 80, 90 because you just don't have the time and just, just, Getting to that point takes a lot out of a human body, right? And so you just don't know what it's going to be like until you're there.

Was there a mile that you thought, I don't think I'm going to finish? And then was there a mile at which you thought, I will be, I'll do this. I'll get this time. Yes, 100%. I, uh, the miles like 75 to 90 were by far the hardest. Um, it was a bummer too because those came like, like, kind of like the second morning. And a lot of people say that that second morning,

like your brain kind of has like the, oh, it's a new day. Even though we didn't sleep last night, it's still a new day. And we're going to reset and we're going to get going. And I did not experience that. Even though I was like in my head, I'm like,

ah, at any minute. Like some kind of circadian rhythm like. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Because you know, I don't do it anymore, but the old days when you used to drive, you know,

you'd like go drive like a 22-hour drive or whatever and just do it. Yeah. You would feel like morning would come. Yeah, coming all of a sudden, you feel like something clicks in your head and you start it back in it, you know? Yeah, you can make it another eight hours. So you were just, you never got no, no little kick.

I mean, I might have, but it was, it was short. But, yeah, I think had I not had my buddy Stephen Brutger with me, who was pacing me during those miles, pushing me along, continue to be very positive, a lot of just like, hey, we're doing good, like we're moving, you're running, it's great, like you're looking good just like constant just all of that and just like hey have you drank have you eaten lately you should drink some more you should eat some more and just like making me eat you know and just and just keeping me moving along like i never stopped i did stop to actually take a nap purposely but i never stopped out of pure just like exhaustion being like i can't move any far and i can't go any farther

um how long was your nap eight minutes did you say and you fell a sleep immediately. Oh, hard. I remember laying down and being like, he's not going to let you sleep longer than eight, so you better fall asleep quickly. And I was almost starting to stress about not being able to fall asleep. And then all of a sudden he's like, hey, get up, you know. And so who said that? My buddy Stephen that was with me. So he just watched you sleep. Oh, yeah, with a big smile on his face. What was funny is at like a trail at an age station. So you're meeting up with buddies and they're going to do blank mile to blank mile to yeah. So mostly in the United States, can't pick up a pacer until roughly halfway.

So you got to do 50 miles on your own, and then you can start picking up pacer's. In Europe, there's like no pacers. It's like not a part of it. That's the only thing they do harder in Europe than America. Jummy, because they basically like have given up. We still got like, we still just, just Western Europe as a continent is kind of in its retirement. Okay.

No. They're kind of kicking it. You don't think so? No. Four day work. I mean, they're kind of wrapped it up. They kind of wrapped it up. My friend just got back from Spain.

He told me all about it. They say mostly people kick it. He goes, as far as my experience in Spain was like people chill. They chill. They eat stuff. Not a lot goes on. Harrison told me. That is a, I mean, no offense to Harrison, but the observations of a 18-year-old.

Yeah. God. Gospel. And you're going to talk about Western Europe as a whole. What was the farthest you ran prior to this? 55 miles. So this was like you were going to be like double. Pretty much.

That's crazy. Yeah. The interesting thing was is that the body felt fine. It really did. I felt durable. I felt good. But at some point at those miles I was just talking about like, the fuel tank

who just seemed to go empty and even though I was like trying to eat, trying to drink and felt like I was getting stuff in I just couldn't refill it and the nausea was just like kind of constant Did you throw up?

Never threw up, throw up, there was a one time where I stepped off to the side of the trail thinking like, oh, it might be coming and then I was fine and it didn't come. Did it stay fun or did you get lost in this idea that it would never end? No.

you start to get worried of like oh am I going to finish because this race has a pretty strict cutoff of 36 hours which is pretty short for 100 miles like a lot of races have more like a 38 or even a 40 hour cutoff and at one point Steven says to me he's like hey we're like

not in a hurry yet but like we don't want to make it interesting meaning like let's not F around because let's like let's get it'd be such a just a bummer if you were at 90 miles and they're like Oh, just wasted your whole day.

Wasted two days? Well, you can't look at it that way. It's not a waste. I mean, you've still accomplished something by moving that far. You just don't get the belt buckle. But some guy a couple of years ago literally finished like 36 hours and like 15 seconds. And they didn't give him the finishers buckle. Oh, my gosh.

I know. It's a thing. It's been discussed. We don't need to discuss a here. But I'm saying, no, all I was saying is if I was that guy, would and people go like hey i heard you ran that 100 mile race yeah sure i did did you finish i'd be yeah yeah yeah yeah it's kind of like shooting a 199 inch mule deer 200 200 inch mule yeah i just can't believe that you i can't believe that you did that i can't

believe that people do that that is a crazy distance to run it is it is no you uh we trailed yeah Every time I say it's, I have a hard time spitting those two words out of my mouth, but we cleared trail a couple weeks earlier with a fella that had done it twice already and did it a third time when I did it two, three weeks ago. And he's a middle to back of the pack finisher, but he's finished it every year. But comes in like, he was showing me pictures of like his ankles and his feet the first two years. I'm like, oh my God, I hope I don't have to experience that. I mean, just like swollen and like sausage toes. Really? Yeah, like pretty beat up.

How do you know you're not like totally damaging your body? You don't. I don't. I think the most people, their brain won't let them get to that point. There's few people. Like we were talking about this with learning how to hold your breath, right? We weren't we with, and Jake was telling us about how the only people that will actually take themselves to passing out in the pool are the Navy. these seals. Those kind of people that have that mindset that they're like, oh, you're going to tell

me I can't pass out, watch me. And it'll go down there and hold their breath until literally they pass out, right? And I think that there's a small subset of people that will be like, oh, I'm just going to keep running until someone else tells me to stop. But most people's brain is you're going to tap out. But I think that's the most confusing thing for me about a race like that is if all running, I mean, running for me is like misery. So it's all mental effort to say, like, I can do this, mind over matter, whatever. Like, where's the line between mind over matter and like, you need to listen to your body because it's telling you like you're on the edge? It's tricky. Because, you know, as tough as it was for me, the recovery was extremely easy.

And so I feel like, oh, I maybe could have hit it a little harder. Because some people do talk about recovering for months and not thinking about doing something like that again for six months, where right now I feel like I could, I'd want to talk to maybe some professionals, but I feel like I could go tomorrow and knock out another one. Do you think you could ever do that? No. Everybody could.

Well, okay. Yes, I think that if I dedicated to my, to it and did all the training, I think that based on that I can walk long distances, good. I'm sure that I could get there. Like, and I would have the, you know, like, when I set my mind to something, I'm going to do it. Yeah, you would 100% have the mental fortitude. But I would never commit myself, like, I would never deprioritize the stuff I'm already trying to do. in order to make room to properly dedicate myself to doing something like that.

And I would never do it half-assed. You know what I mean? It'd be like, if I was going to do it, I'd have to just do it. And if I was going to, but I'm not going to quit doing all the stuff I think about in order to accommodate that because for a while that's all he had room to think about. Is that true?

Like free time? I mean, you definitely spent a lot of time running and preparating. He'd eat dinner and then go run for two, three hours. Yeah, but did that, was that like... I eat dinner and I go fiddle around in my garage for a minute. Yeah, but was that like a good thing? Were you like stoke to be doing that? Oh, yeah.

I enjoy the process. Yeah, sure. Did you keep track of your training miles? Like how many miles you ran? You know, I have an app that the coach and I, you know, work through together. And it, you know, mostly I run with a watch on. And so, yeah, but I can't tell you off the top of my head how many miles I ran in preparation. Gotcha.

Tell me about the minute you knew you were going to make it. well so i went through miles 7590 and and i haven't unfortunately prior to this recording i haven't had a chance to have a good sit down with stephen to be like okay tell me what you saw from the outside like he in short he's been like i think you did really good i think you pushed it you didn't you weren't like being a little baby out there and whatever but um it was tough and like i said i went through a place of just being like man like i'm like losing time and people start passing you and you're just like, why can't I run? Why can't I run? But we finally

roll into roughly mile 90, 92, I think, where Mark Canyon was going to start pacing me. Why did he get the closer? Huh? He got the closer? Well, there was two short sections. I would come in a 99. I'm like, come on, Yon-Yotty! You could have. They basically, there's kind of a bunch of rules. Like, you can't have more than one pacer prior to that. But that last section, what do they feel what do they feel what's the difference is just trying to police the area and

yeah there's a little bit of that like it's all under force service permits right so they have to watch how many people are kind of using the forest service during the race and all that but um yeah i don't know exactly why but um yeah it's probably a lot of it is just to keep the numbers of people down but anyways we roll in there and it's whatever i've got eight miles to go and it's probably 1, 1.30 in the afternoon. You're saying you roll in, where? Into the last aid station. Okay.

It's called hunting camp. And it is a legit hunting camp than an outfeter uses, but it's set up as an aid station. So you basically come out of the mountains finally, and the last eight miles is on a dirt road that's ever so slightly going downhill. You hit pavement and there's this little micro climb that I'm sure for some people seem like a lot, but it's like 100 yards. and it just barely climbs, and then you pull off the pavement onto another ranch and you've got, I don't know, 300 yards to the finish line. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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dot com. Oh, sorry, we had a little mishap. The generator ran out of gas. So if there's a rough edit, that's what happened. Try to remember where we were. Yanni was... Mark Canyon. You read the last station. You tell Mark Canyon

don't be asking me no questions you gotta explain that like why he got to finish it like whitetail hunting questions or like how you feel in questions any because I don't want to talk you're out of like at that point the human runner

is out of energy to waste any energy so you wanted him to talk at you but you didn't want to entertain my brain and he was actually really surprised how much I retained as later he was like quizzing me about what we had talked about.

What was he telling you about? Well, you know, Mark, he says you're a bookworm. So he gave me like three book reports. And then he told me about the book that he's, you know, pretty much finished writing is at the editor now, the first version. But I can't remember what else. We definitely talked about some deer.

So he was just filling space with good useful information. At that point in time, are you able to like, if he said something funny, are you able to laugh? Yeah, for sure. Well, what was funny is that... Whatever work to put a piece of saran wrap between your butt sheets? I think that makes it still on that.

No, but a slick thing, because this is something that people don't think about, is that if you're not ready, when you're applying it, you know, it's just your fingers. Sure. And then you're not out there exactly with, like, a hand washing station. Well, that's what I wanted to get back to, like, the whole, like, sanitization of your... Oh, yeah. No, so I would come into the aid station and high five everybody. And then like, now that we've done that, you guys all want to sanitize your hands.

Because I've had my finger and my buttocks. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of the funniest things that just, I'll get back to the race. But we're, you know that dental floss called glide? Mm-hmm.

I remember we were talking about that. And my brother, Danny, was giving it a bad review. Yeah, because it doesn't glide. He said it was, he said it's like wiping your ass with saran wrap. Which I always thought was a great visual. That glide stuff.

Like, it doesn't get the gunk out. No. I think it depends on how close your teeth are together. That's true. Because I find it to be just a tight-toothed people. It's a little too thick. So Mark's talking all about these books. Yeah, he's telling me about books.

What's funny is that right there leaving, you've got to climb up this little hill. I forgot. It's a little bit of a bigger hill. And I was just going to walk up it. But Jennifer's like, they're there at the aid station, but they're like, another aid station at the trucks at the top of the hill and i when i when she says that to me i'm

like why did you make a an aid station like on top of another hill you're going to ask me to at this point walk up like a bonus hill because to me it sounded like oh we're going to take you off of the trail up some hill to where the cars are where we have this nice aid station and then you can come back i'm like i'm not going up some hill and she's like looking at me like what are you talking about like right there where you everybody else has to go where we're like right off the side of the road and then i understood anyways we get up there and two things happened one you're out of the mountains so you're off of the crazy mountains the trails are extremely rough like there's a lot of trails that they there are signs that say like do not take equestrian

animals on these trails because they're just so loose and so many just little rocks and when you're 20 miles in or even you know 30 40 you're just like just kind of hopping and skipping through them and it's no big deal but when it gets to mile 80 and your brain is like looking at just this like trail full of rocks and it's just like

your brain is like we don't want to contend with that anymore one like one bad step ends the race right well that could be too but you're just having to work for every step you know and like it got to the point where you could see like people were actually running in the grass because just like running even through those like bunchy grass

which no man everyone wants to hike in bunch grass when you could be on a trail but people were like purposely you could see where they were running in the grass over the rocks and this is something I had heard is that people say yeah once you get down to that road your body your legs your brain is like oh

you can run because you don't have to think about it you can just go and so there's that and then Stephen also gave me a couple Tylenol and I'm like Tylenol, I'm like, I'm not really hurting. He's like, it'll be good. Trust me. And I almost didn't take it because I'm thinking like, oh, I'm going to take these two Tylenol and then the nausea and then these two things in my stomach that I'm not really prepared for and it's not going to be

good. And he's like, no, I think you should take it. So we start walking and I tell, give my mark my speech. I'm like, we're going to just like, we'll run a little bit. Like we might run to that next tree and then we'll walk and then we'll run and we'll just kind of feel it out and see how it goes. Well, we start running, and I'm like, oh, this feels pretty good. And then my buddy Cooper comes by, and he's jamming some Wu-Tang in the truck, like super loud. And I kind of get that and a little head bob going. And I'm like, oh, okay. And we start clipping.

And we have been passed by two groups, but they're like maybe three, four hundred yards out ahead of me. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Mark, we're going to take them down. And when we go by them, we're not stopping and we're just going to keep going. And the next thing I know, we knocked out those eight miles in like, I don't know, It felt like 90 minutes or less. Like, we zoomed. And, like, I felt great. Like, by the time everybody caught up to me that was racing,

basically passing us to get to the finish line to be there, like, they're, like, looking at us like, whoa, yeah, let's go. Because we were, like, actually running. We almost caught another group. We bumped them. It's a funny thing that Steven says, just like how you bump animals sometimes, and then they start to. They see you coming.

Oh, yeah. Well, we bumped these, this pack, three pack of girls. And I was closing in. Like I made it to like 150 yards probably and then also because they were doing the same thing that I had they were like we're going to run and then walk run and then walk and we're to take that all the way to the finish but once I bumped them they went running all the way and so that was like a combo of the Wu tang the Tylenol and the road book reports mark did you feel the Tylenol hit your system or you just felt you just felt you know I sure wish I would have taken it. taking the Tylenol at like mile 80. I guarantee you I will have some with me. Yeah. Next time I'll get to 80 miles.

That is the anti-inflammatory one, right? Acetaminophen is anti-inflammatory. Yeah. So I'm sure it just like maybe calmed your body down a little bit. Huh. Could be a lot of different, a lot of different things. Again, when your body is at that point, you don't know how that stuff's affecting. Right.

So this is something you're going to start doing? Uh, maybe. You know, if there was no kids at home, if it was just Jennifer and I, yeah, I'd probably do a whole bunch. But it takes time. Yeah, because the thing that even like within the, maybe the first day after, probably on Sunday, I didn't do too much time rethinking about the race because you're just kind of in this euphoric state where you're like, yeah, I'm a little beat up and I'm definitely fatigued and tired. And I had what I described as a very lounge lizard day where I was sort of like go from bed into the kitchen.

like eat as much as I could possibly could until I kind of lost energy and then I would sort of like slump down and I would either make it to just the carpet or maybe I would make it to the couch or back to the bed and I just did that rotation all day long you know obviously there was like a bathroom break in there too

but like you're not going anywhere I forced myself to walk to the barn and back one time just to like move my legs but by the next day you're like oh how could I have done it better where did I mess up what were my mistake

was it could I have taken Tylenol at mile 70 could I have done more coke could I have just pushed a little bit harder was I being a little baby there I have done yeah did you just say could I have done more coke I drank more Coca-Cola it's like I'm glad you cleared that though you'll set this a lot like coming off a five six hour halibut jig yeah you know you're out there it's like I've been there you're out there I mean you're just trying to get through yeah six hours jigging. It's tough sometimes. Well, it's amazing how...

Coming at night, you're like, how could we have done better? How, like, 80, 85, I'm like, if Stephen wasn't here, I would just DNF right now, you know?

Like, I had thoughts like that. What's that mean? I did not finish when you just pull yourself out. But like... I don't think you to quit. Well, again, that's... Because you had too much into it.

That's something that I would like to explore. I don't know if it'll be the next one I do. Quit? No, I would definitely... I would definitely... do one solo. Oh, because I think

it's a whole different mindset. What was the, like, what was the inspiration to do it in the first place? Like, when did you first say?

Like, has this been like a long held, like, desire and goal? No. I'm going to run 100 miles one day. No, honestly,

when I moved to Bozeman, I had done a couple of Vail trail half marathons at that point, maybe three. It was like, we had like a race series and where Brody and I lived

in Vail and I would do a couple of trail runs. And then all that stuff started really just, to be in shape for September so I could feel like I could go uphill and, you know, get to the ridge before the elk did. And then when I got to Bose, when I heard about this bridge or ridge run, it's like 19, 20 miles, I'm like, oh, that looks like a sweet place to do a run. So I did that. And then Rick Smith used to always talk about the rut. And I would like look at it online and be like,

that's insane. And then someone's like, oh, no, you could do it. I'm like, oh, maybe I could. So I got a coach. And they're like, oh, yeah, we can get you ready for that, 31 miles in the mountains, no problem. So I did that. And this is like sort of every distance I've done, I'm like, oh, I wonder if I could go a little bit farther. Going from 20 to 30, no big deal, 30 to 50 was really, I wouldn't say that big of a deal, very doable. But 50 to 100 was a, it was a leap. Wow. So now when you look at the rut, are you like, ah, that's that's cupcakes. Yeah. No, because you're going to, no matter what the distance is, what the distance is or the amount of elevation gain the race has, your brain, your body is going to go at a certain effort level

to do that race. Like I did a, I think it was a 25K in Helena in the spring. And it took me, I don't know, three hours, something. And like, I ran way faster, but I still exerted a bunch of energy. And by the time you get done with it, you're like, you know, in your, you're, you're, you know, and you're done right you need a day off and so I think you just you know you sort of just paste yourself to whatever distance it is got you so yeah can I finish it easily sure yeah I could go do the the rut 50k without any kind of problems yeah um but again do I want to like beat my

last time that I did it probably you know yeah Rosie and I are doing the 11k right and that is more Ks than I have ever won ever in my life. A lot of K. I'm really nervous about it. It's going to be a K-hole. Yeah, so that's like probably six and a half, seven miles. Something like that, yeah. Yeah, I've never run that much in one fell swoop ever.

It's going to be great. Is it? I think so. I mean, certainly having people in my life that can run 100 miles and I can talk about it and how cool it is, it's very inspiring for something like that. Oh, yeah. kind of like it's inspiring but also like when I'm out run it kind of makes me angry that Janus is out there running 100 miles but you're running a lot like it does the opposite yeah

it does the opposite of pump you up yeah honest like I'm out running five miles and I'm like five miles is not a short run no I know like and you're doing that multiple times a week like that's yeah awesome but it's like because I'm old and I want to keep hunting when I'm old that's right yeah it's not because I want to well you're not old but I understand what you're saying you're trying to keep in shape and yeah but this this guy that we clear trail with

Jimmy's got a question Jake no I was just saying you guys start running he he said it right and like it stuck with me in a time but at mile 75 or 80 it really rang true where he's like yeah the first 50 he's like it's kind of fun

he's like the second 50 you find out what you're made out of and it's like you can't really say it any better than that because that second 50s, the first 50 is just kind of like the price of admission to get to see what's going to happen in the second 50, you know what I mean? Because you can't, you're not going to know one without the other. Yeah. You're like, I'm just here to see what happens later. Yeah. You're like, scenery's great. Like, we're in the mountains. Like, I know I got this one. I got the first 50. It's a beautiful long day in the mountains. I had this crazy guy

run up to me like, I hadn't been done. I had crossed the finish line, hugged everybody that was there helping me and the other friends that had ran it and this other guy, Stephen Graham, who I kind of know, I run into him a few times on the trails around Bozeman, he runs up to me and he's like, what did you think about that crazy ridge around Honey Trail? When I'm up there, I just feel like I'm following a wounded bull elk. And I'm just like, what, dude? What are you talking about? And then he's like, yeah, you know, you're just on that like kind of slopey rolling hill and there's really no trail and it kind of just keeps going and going and going

and I'm like, oh, yeah, I kind of see what you're saying. Like, he just, like, that's what is in his mind because it's not a great trail. There's just these flags on this like bunch grass hillside and it's just like this kind of like, you're like, why is the trail here? And so it's like a, like a trail, a wounded bull elk would take

where you're just like, there's no rhyme or reason. He's just sort of like traveling here. And, but that guy had way too much. energy. I'll leave it with this. It's amazing how at like 90, you're like, I'm going to die up here. Yeah. You know, I might lay down and the crows will just pick my eyes out. And then you get done and you give a few hugs around and everybody's like, sit down. What can we get for you? And all a sudden you're like, oh, now I feel pretty good. Now that that's behind me, like, I'm cool to hang out and like, let's watch everybody else finish and clap. And like all of a sudden,

your brain is just like, oh, that's behind us, so you can, like, enjoy yourself again. Yeah, man. That's so cool that you did that. I just, I can't even, it's, like, very hard to, um, imagine running that much. Did this giant candy sack come when the generator went down? Yes. Yeah, that's just appeared. Yeah.

Do you, that's nice. Would you like it to go away? No, it's just like a little bit of continuity. You'd be appreciated. I mean, Phil, no amount of magical editing from Phil. If Phil cleaned up. Sorry, Phil. If Phil clean, it feels like, no problem.

I got the whole thing cleaned up. It'd be like all of a sudden, and it would also be like, which I mean, I was trying to address it when we started recording again. And I was saying that we're kind of like some long distance runners that basically at some point you just turn to eating a lot of sugar. So hopefully Phil knows. Well, he'll know. He knows now. There's no point in trying to clean up the edit.

No, don't do it, Phil. Can we combine these bags or do you want to just? Yeah. A little candy management here. It's like Halloween. I should bring us home and give it out. Well, congratulations, man. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I was proud of you. I thought that was cool. Speaking of doing crazy shit. It's a cool, it's a good feat. It's like a, you know, it was a real accomplishment, man. It is. No, no, I, I 100% feel that way.

I'm very, my goal was, first goal was to finish. And I always say finish the smile on my face, which I did. Second goal was to go 30 hours. And I did it in 33. It was a lofty goal. I think I could go back now with experience, probably pull that off. But, yeah, I'm very happy.

It's like, there was at times when I'm like, eh, did I do it? Did I do it well enough? And multiple people have reached out and been like, look, dude, that's like one of the hardest ones in the country. It's a lot of elevation, like those trails I was talking about earlier, where the footing just stinks for mile after mile after mile after mile to mile. And so they're like, look, as your first attempt, your debut 100,

great job, you know, so I'm pumped. I got my belt buckle. Do belt buckles? Oh, yeah, I saw the belt buckle. You go down right now? Do you get a belt buckle for like everyone? Yeah, every 100. It's like a whatever, I don't know where it came from.

I should look that up, but it's like a thing. But they stole like rodeos groove. Yeah. That's not very nice. Why don't they come up with their own thing, like a headband? So you gotta start dressing like a little Western just so you can show off your... Yeah, why not?

Just give you like a headband. You should be giving out like halibet belt buckles up here. That'd be a sweet belt buckle. That would be pretty cool, actually. I don't wear any kind of belt. I wear a belt, my belt has no metal on it. I've never owned a belt. I wear all, it's all fabric.

Velcro belt. I used to rock a belt buckle back in the day. You don't anymore? Do you have that fancy belt doesn't keep your fly closed? No, I never zip that up. You know why? Well, when I'm wearing my bibs, when I'm wearing my bibs,

and I don't wear my bibs all day, I leave that down because I got coverage elsewhere. Totally. Yeah. I was actually running that program today too. No. 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

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have not i've been chatting about it a lot yeah but i wouldn't call it like it's not it's not it's yeah i wouldn't say hard and crazy i mean but you we were just talking when we weren't recording about how another american has been killed two guys this year two guys have kept being killed this year hunting black death i didn't know that till uh that's the name that's the nickname for the cape buffalo black oh yeah i knew that yeah two yeah two americans killed the guy just got killed now right We're just debating, like, how bad do you feel? Like, it's too bad, but part of the allure is that you're hunting a thing that gets you. Yeah.

That's what's so, like, it's so enticing about it. So, you know. Because otherwise, it's kind of like you're hunting a cow. Yeah. And I had friends that pushed it too long and mountaineering. And they knew where that was going. Right. But it's part of that animal is part of the big five.

And all, like, the reason they're called big five is because. They're all dangerous, right? You know what I didn't, you know what I didn't know? You know when people say planes game? Yeah. I was like, well, what's not planes game? The only thing not planes game is dangerous game. Oh, God.

I thought there was like, I don't know, like another category. Yeah. It's dangerous game, plains game. What about like waterfowl? Is that just called? Oh, no, no, in Africa hunting. Well, don't they have? Yeah, that would be just a whole different category.

But people say like, planes game. And you're like, okay, what is not that? And what's not bad is dangerous game. Yeah, it's like being around, like in the end, we had nothing happened. You know what I mean? We killed a bull and watched it. Killed a bull and watched it die. Yeah, but so that's what I want to know about is exactly that particular hunt.

Like when it finally went down, were you scared? No, not at all. Never. I was, I wasn't. there was points where you're like oh i see how this goes you know like you're in eight foot high grass and they're right in front of you you can see the grass move in you can hear and see the birds the oxpeckers that are on them all the time you can hear the oxpeckers and you see them flittering around and they're just 20 yards you know you're like

there's a 2,000 pound thing 20 yards that has a reputation right but all they do is they just want to they don't like you know they smell you gone but you so you're aware and then we're at a spot where they're like oh yeah this is where roger got you know we went to the spot and they're like oh yeah right here this is where roger got this is where roger got plastered and he got plastered is it kind of like a grizzly bear that 99 out of a hundred times it smells you and runs and then but one percent of time it just is like oh i'm pissed and i'm coming after you is there a lot of time it's when they're wounded it's it really is like that's what was unusual that there's a guy from texas just got killed in the article

and the reporting for the article was pointed out it was unwounded so these guys Morgan those got like the trackers it's it's just they're worried about the wounded ones but what was pointed out to me it's interesting

it doesn't mean it was wounded by you this guy Roger got plastered by one that had been wounded by a lion right so it's or they get wounded by someone else or wounded from some other reason and so there's just there's a chance that out there are wounded ones it's so there's also that you hit one and then you got to trail your wounded one yeah and when you hit them they go into the thickest shit they can find right and then

you got to go into it's either on a rot or you're going to go in there and find them and that's nerve racking or there's always the chance that you're on one and he's something else wounded him but the trackers are paying a lot of attention to how it behaved this is just through conversation. When they're tracking, they're watching like, it's something wrong with it. If they're on one that's dragging its foot funny,

not doing the right things in the right places, suggesting that he's got a problem, then they'll be like, heads up. We're following one that something's wrong with. So how did yours go down? Have you already explained this in a different podcast? No. How did you?

No, we talked about a little bit. We got on a group and tracked a group for a few hours, lost them, got back, got in a truck, went down the road a little ways, and saw a bull. Just caught a glimpse of a bull moving along, got out and went down the road paralleling them and kept, well, first we went off, tried to find him, parallel a while, looked for him, look for him, look for him, look for him. him couldn't find them then we stopped and we're doing that little thing like like ah we lost them you know staying in there uh it was very late in the day they they cut where we we ducked in at one point and cut a track and saw that he'd already come through like we're like we're like we know he's going along in a line so we're kind of paralleled along 75 yards off and at one point cut over to intersect his line to see like had he been through or not yet

and realized oh he'd already pass through so now we kind of went and cut thinking we were gonna maybe be in front of them but they hit the track and they're like no he's already been through here so we backed out paralleled more and then just nothing was like see nothing here nothing

and then we're doing that little standaround thing you do like when you kind of regrouping and all of a herd like a twig and everybody also went like like well the twig went snap and everybody did that like shh like I just heard something

and all of a sudden like everybody stared in the same spot and all of a sudden there is just like there's like he's out and also there's his head peering how far down through 75 yards his head peering down and um

and you can see him playing his day and at that point he kind of turned a little bit And Morgan was like, see his chin go eight inches down and four or five inches over from his chin and hit him right there. Because you can't take down. So you shot him quartering too. Well, I didn't do what he said. I was a little off, but it was like, Alls Well, that ends well, because it was high, but just went right into his chest cavity. So it kind of almost went in like, he's looking at it with his head down.

imagine that he's down like this imagine it entered kind of in your where your cheek meets your neck but just you know yeah then i shot then i then i tried to hit him two more times when he ran but missed them for the trackers that or the skinners they never found anything i shot at him two more times as he ran but i don't think i connected on him but the one was fatal the whole time you're following and tracking them the most important thing is wind or yeah but you like we we did too long we did two like long like real active tracks following yeah um one like you get on them and you're hoping to you're tracking and the trackers know the behavior so well but it'd be kind of very similar

like picture you're following the elk in the snow you get up at daybreak and there's out like you know where he's not going to be meaning if you're up on some big high plateau right blown off where he's feeding in the snow it's like now it's nine in the morning I know where he's not going to be he's not going to be here

he's going to be up in that timber hole right so you kind of got that right and they know that it's different because it's more subtle but they know where he wants to be so when you're going along sometimes you're like he doesn't want to be here. And then you get to places where they become intensely interested. So you'll come

into some little thing, like a thick timber patch and like a little depression and what they'll know like what's the sun going to do and how much because they want to be in the dark, dang, they want to lay down in the dark. They want to lay down where they can see out of their hole and they're going to be in like tucked in. So all of a sudden they'll get where they just stopped and they stare and stare and stare and stare and then they move five feet and stare and stare and stare and move over and stare and stare and stare because they're like I think he's in there somewhere he's in that hole yeah and then you look at it from every angle and you look at it from every angle and you just can't find them and eventually someone slips around and like he left he's not in that patch but he's still not running he never ran is it over if you bump them not necessarily we bumped him and went we bumped one twice so when you go he's not there and he didn't run then you keep on him so one we get to the end one the way it ended is all of a sudden i'm from i don't know man not not me to that sink but we're like in one of those patches

and they're just they're like he's here they just know they're like he's here and we're that at all creepy? Yeah, there's two of them. And they're, he's just here. Yeah. And we're in there. And all of a sudden that's like, and all sudden one gets, I gather gets up out of its bed. And I can just see half its face and one of its horns.

And that thing is, that thing is not me to that sink. But it's just like right. All of a sudden, that was the first one I got a good look at. I got half his face in a horn. And he's just there. And it's like, it didn't. He had zero. interest all he wanted to do is slip out but you're like yeah i see now do i mean like they

let you just get on them and sure at some point now and then boom you know but he it was nothing like that there was no all the all the tension any tension that i felt was all because the all the stories do you follow me yep all the stories so it's like you're carrying all those tales right because otherwise you'd be like what is the deal it's some like giant bovid looking thing

and the trackers aren't throwing off any cues like you should be pretty scared right now like you're looking at the trackers and they're just cool as ice right you know what they do when one comes

they're down flat on the ground they disappear they dive out of the way but they're down and they want to be down where they can't get hooked back up and Morgan the professional hunter kept saying to the trackers he's like um don't worry about them like they're that's my job yeah and they're gonna be very quickly they're gonna very quickly

go from being in front of me to be in mind because like he's the deal with the gun like at the end of the day he's the guy that's putting everybody in the situation and so it's his job to draw the attention so like your role as a professional hunter your role is to all of a sudden be the menacing one and he wants all eyes on him like he don't he don't get to dive down do you know i mean he's got to stay in the ground yep like that that's what you signed up for you're like there's it's just not part of the ethos do i mean like if it comes you're there and that's your thing you don't get to flinch you got to go forward into it

and everybody else is expected to like save themselves he's like don't do anything he would even tell you don't do anything that takes the attention for me like I'm the problem I'm the one up in his face not you you know

so no like nothing like that like other stuff you know we had a black we had a running we talked about this bunch of on the podcast but previously we had a we had a not even a run it we had an experience with a black mamba and you're like holy cow like i can so easily see how that goes yeah you're like i see how that happens with that with my experience with cape buffalo i wouldn't have come away hadn't i had the background of reading and the stories i wouldn't have come away and been like i can see how that goes

bad. I have a question, and this is not a, this is not a passive aggressive, nor aggressive question. And it's for all of you guys that hunt, which is everyone here. Given how we started talking about this because of the two unfortunate guys who died hunting Cape Buffalo and you were saying, well, you know, it's kind of, it's a part of hunting Cape Buffalo. That's a risk. So you can't really say, oh, it's, you know, you can say that it's a bad thing that it happened and it's sad that it happened, but you can't really say it was totally unexpected. Yeah, it's like, it's kind of complicated. I don't want to sound. That's not my question, though. Okay. Oh, sorry. That's okay. My question is knowing that, like, if you on this hunt were to have expired

because you got killed by Cape Buffalo. Um, like, Do you ever think some of the things that you're hunting, like is it ever irresponsible to go on a hunt, given your family, given other responsibilities you have in the world? Like, do you ever think about that before you pursue a certain animal or a certain hunt? No, because none of it's like, none of it's, none of it's like that. Also, I don't know that, and I don't want to speak for those guys,

but I don't know that what, in the long run, that what Steve did hunting buffalo is any more dangerous than going fishing or like you name it hunting grizzlies or like anything can get you right hunting big water and small boats

but none of it rises up when I when I dudes that have families and die on K2 that that I'm like man it's kind of a weird call it's an odd call as a dad.

But they'd probably say it was stupid for you to... No. No, because there's a death for every four summits. True. Yeah. Or whatever, right? I think it's a death for every four summits. Like, I'm saying there is a point,

there is a point at which, where there's a point where the risk is so high. And I don't condemn them. But there's a point where the risk is so high when a guy dies on K2 and you don't need to go on K2. Like when a guy dies on K2 and I see that he has a family, you know, I will think to myself, huh, that's like a strange call. Or like, weird call you made. Going base jumping or something like. I don't know enough about the statistics on it.

Yeah, but I mean, I would look at that as like, yeah, that'd be your response. Like an odd call when you have kids. Yeah. You know, one of the first, one of the first times I ever really stopped to think about that thing, like this kind of they were talking about is, Yani and I had the good fortune to spend some time with Rourke, Denver, who. uh was a navy seal was deployed overseas served in combat zones combat veteran and he would always use this he had this like like a euphemism for death um you remember what you would say if i fall if i fall and i remember him saying then he went to his mom to say if i fall and that was the term that's the term you use uh if i fall i don't like don't i don't want you to be sad

like don't be sad if I fall and I don't think that way but I it was funny to hear someone where someone in a certain occupation who had been to such high risk environments that got to the point where that's how you think about it

like that it's so high risk that you're telling your mom how you would like her to how you would like her to feel but I like that's high risk military service I feel like is a totally different no that's I'm saying like that like that is like legitimately high risk climbing K2 like I think like to be like to be like not just not just high risk but like in the service of your country oh yeah I'm not what I was getting at I wasn't there's there's there's I was trying to capture there was I was trying to capture like what is the mindset of someone who does things that are actually. high risk right like not sure

there's you can't even there's there's no you can't equate it at all like me dicking around hunting with doing something like that you can't equate it

but the point I was like the way Rourke had such a and maybe it's over now because he's out and he has kids and all that but he had such a comfortable he just arrived

at a very comfortable place about it because it's actually high risk right like remember there was a single helicopter crash that killed 18 guys including in the

like 13, I don't know what it was 13 or 14 seals all like bam. I mean they couldn't do their job if they No. You know what I mean? If they worried about it. Yeah, super comfortable. A friend of mine, like a kind of a friend, a guy acquaintance I had, a guy knew

died on K2. He'd lost most of his friend group already. Very comfortable like very comfortable with it because it's like there's such a likelihood like he went once and got injured went up in the hospital got better went back and died um and it's like i don't there's no thing is there any there's no thing in hunting there's no thing in hunting uh there's no thing in hunting that that is at that risk level do you know what the like is there

statistic for injuries like Cape Buffalo is that even like a I don't know the statistics would be I feel like it's got to be relatively low couple year yeah but I mean there's not that many people doing it

but a couple year is Brody and Janice Seth is there any hunt you wouldn't do because of the risk I mean if there was like all of a sudden you know like say you know

the coos deer hunt in Mexico say all of a sudden and it's like extremely dangerous and like to go there and a lot of people are getting like killed by the cartel, whatever. Something like mafia stuff. Yeah. I'd be like,

okay, I'm good. I don't need to go. But not the actual. So like the circumstances, the area. No. I can't answer to Seth,

but. Yeah, not, not an animal. It would be the environment, like the, you know, it'd be probably more human.

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That's an interesting Like there's areas Diving into it is interesting Yeah I thought I had that But then I went there And it was not fun You took me there didn't you Well then I went with Greg

Another time Like NorCal stuff Yeah You know And I shouldn't say it was not fun It was like so much going on Like it's so much going on And then there's that

You got that stupid Sharkproof thing hanging off your end ankle shark deterrent that that yeah but you just get used to it he just does it now and he's like you don't think about there's nothing you can do you're not going to know if what if you get hit by a white uh white shark he's like that's relaxing you're there's nothing you're do other sharks there's stuff you can do he's like with that shark you're not going to know and there's nothing you can do and so i just don't think about it that's that's that's Greg's take on it Greg dives that Greg that's cut it that's his whole that's his zone I wish Greg was over here

talking about like how does he assess the risk I mean I understand that all of these things that we're talking like extreme running or hunting in you know really wild environments like these are the things that make you feel alive so you can't be so afraid of death and all the things that you're doing but like where is the where is the line but again the odds like if you're going to start worrying about stuff the odds are that you're going to get smashed by another driver driving around your town and get killed that way before you get killed by

a Gris or a Cape Buffalo or a Great White Shark. That's like that's what the psychology is is um there's these fantastical things that suck up tons of headspace. So when I took Jimmy dive in

the oil rigs in Louisiana like it's just they're just our sharks. It's not like a What will happen if we see a shark? I mean, there's just R. Every rig, there's just, they're there. Like, bigger than you, every rig, they're just around. And so I then, I'm not worried about me, but I'm like worried about something.

Like there's a sort of mental irritation that that'll happen to him. I'm like, why am I not having a bunch of mental irritation that he'll make a really dumb judgment and get himself in the prop? it's probably like far more likely that you're going to screw up and someone's going to throw it in reverse when they're not supposed to when you're going to mishear that it's clear or whatever why am I not all day thinking about the prop

but instead all day I'm thinking about sharks but then you talk to the guys you're with and you're like oh this that's from the boat prop this that's from the boat prop I feel like there's a level of what you're like But you don't think about boat props because they're not exciting to think about. I think it's also what you're, like, necessarily used to because, like, I'm just going to say,

we're around a lot more boat props than we are sharks. Like, that's a, you know, common thing. Yeah, I mean, the things you can't control are scarier, right? Yeah. Especially when they got teeth or horns or whatever, you know. Or you're just like me and you worry about everything all the time, no matter what boat props. And you're a mom. You often aren't worried about.

the right thing. Tell me more about that. Really? Well, no, you probably are. Like, hanging around here. You know what you ought to be worried about? I mean, just let's add it to the list. Getting in being,

yeah, you're worried about the right thing. Being in little skiffs in the big water. Is it all of a sudden you're in the water and the boat ain't? Yeah. That's bad. That's real bad. I think about that every single time I get in the boat.

And the current is just like insurmountable. Like you can't swim it. I watch one of my kids get in the boat. I think about what would happen. Like, do you think about that? Yeah. Today, Mabel. She, someone said something about the boat sinking.

And I said, she said, well, we're dead. And I said, no, we're going to swim that way. She goes, I can't swim that far. I'll get hypothermia. I'm like, that's true. I didn't tell her I was like we're going to stick with the boat

and I don't know like that's the thing to pay attention to no it's on the radar but like when I'm diving around here and what I'm thinking about I'm like boat props I know they don't

but why don't killer whales bite people why don't they bite people that's what I'm thinking about I'm like I know they don't but what if they did and I'm not thinking about what if I come up and the boat's gone

that happened once yeah that happened to me Jimmy I was not well no we were by the shore it would just been a sucky situation well if we were out in the middle of the ocean we've been a

far bigger problem I mean you've almost killed me in these waters before they did you hear about that story yeah over at Greg's place he has

I was married to yet though so yeah that's true it would just been I killed my group people would be like I killed his girlfriend not the mother of his children.

There's GoPro footage of him, like, diving around, like, on the bottom, around that chum bag, and sea lions, like, coming in, at Franks, coming in behind him, and heads going, like, here, and just going straight past him. Yeah, I don't like those sons of bitches. Yeah, those things seem mean. Yeah, they're just like... Well, I mean, like, those do attack people. Just the way they swim through the water.

Yeah. Well, in underwater, they spiral like this. and, like, get all close to you and act all aggressive. You've seen that in the water here? No, but I've, I mean, he just had him and Greg got to have it. I'm trying to stay away from those. They scare me. I've seen seals.

I've gotten pretty close to seals. Seals don't do anything, though. No. I'm not going to get in the water if there's sea. Oh, we had one last target point. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I think that's, when you can picture what people would say when you, if you were to die. Oh, yeah.

And people would be like, I wrote about that. I wrote about that. Yeah. For the free press thing. Yeah. I wrote about that. When you're doing things, you can't live that way,

but you're doing things, you just picture like, you know, oh, that he would bring his children, he would put his children at risk. But there's truth to it. I mean,

there is truth to that. I'm not saying that that truth should, like, supersede the other positive benefits that, or, you know, gleaned by giving your kids the opportunities to do these really wild, adventurous things. And I think as parents, we are in agreement that that outweighs the risk. But it's sad to think, like, if you were to, if you two went diving tomorrow and you were to be killed. By what?

You're like, what an asshole? The problem. Took his kid out. By what? By anything. Lost our boat. Lightning. Yeah, but I guess if.

He can't believe they got this is too close to home really but like if you're if he took his kid driving yeah that's a whole other story in a you know in sketchy winter conditions yeah and then there's an accident yeah I mean there's so I know there's always yeah the judge like the judgment part that that I don't I'm aware of it but the judgment part uh I got enough problems of something bad happens. like the judgment part I wouldn't worry about and when uh what's kind of funny is we'll close this up in a second but when

the submersible the Titan the Ocean Gate submersible when it imploded I was asked about like immediately um

all these people without even knowing any of the story all this condemnation oh so stupid what idiots the hubris they deserved it right and it was like before anyone knew the details there was a ton of condemnation i'm going to be careful with my words here because before the details emerged there was an immediate condemnation and it was kind of like how dare you be risky how dare you go where you go where you're not supposed to be. Yeah. How dare you be risky?

We're going to ridicule you for being risky. And I almost wrote about that. I was asked to write about it. I was asked to write about risk and like, in this sort of thing where just people feeling like they have to just be so safe all the time. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't because when the story emerged

about Stockton Rush, the CEO, right? of the company and his attitude toward his own team, his attitude toward safety records, his attitude toward just basically the science of what he was trying to do

was negligent to the point that he kind of killed those people. Like he, not quite did he put a gun against him, but like he was toying with the hammer. Right? He was playing with a pistol. with those guys downrange

to put it in gun terms so then I was like man I'm glad I didn't do what I did because it was something bad and so there's that there's like people that get into a thing where there's like an inevitability of what's going to come to bring it back to Cape Buffalo

and I respect him you know we talk about Morgan Potter Who's wonderful Yep, great guy Family man But there you're like

Oh so you're gonna track A bunch of those And you're gonna track Three or four wounded ones every year And you're gonna do this for 30 or 40 years Oh I see that's an interesting choice It's like that's an interesting choice Not to condemn it

He was doing that prior to having a family Yeah that's like you know in many ways a lot of the stuff that you do even if I don't like it or if I think it's too risky you did it before we were married and had a family so how could I ask you not to do it now? Yeah. Like it wouldn't be fair. It's not who you are. I don't feel like I do risky shit anymore.

I just don't know. I don't feel like I do risky stuff. Well, you just went. Yeah, a hundred mile run. Yeah. Some people could say Give me a heart attack Maybe I don't know We just had a colleague

That was out for a run And had a tragic Accident Not an accident But a health You know Issue Did I know about this?

Yeah you know about it You're the You're the one It's the one that told me about it Oh One of our cameras guys passed away oh i didn't know the details though so i didn't tell you about it oh sorry you said that to me well yeah but i but at that point we didn't know at this point like

there's a go-fundee for me we had a camera man yeah yeah yeah i'm aware his is we had a camera man he has children his name is mike lindamuth he's he filmed if if you watched the meat eater tv show and you saw an episode where yani and i went a hundred meal deer for instance in wyoming with Crooked Sky Outfitters, like the cameraman that shot that show. He filmed, he filmed here. He sat around this table. He sat at this table. Missouri was Parker Hall.

Yep, yep, okay. Yeah, he sat in this, sat here. He was like out on a run and collapsed. So I don't know tons of details about it. But when he was imagining, I hate to do this. I hate to even talk about this, some of it recently passed. When he was imagining the risk in his life, I don't think he was imagining. No.

That. Right. He wasn't looking in that direction. And this is not, I mean, I don't even want to kind of be like being. I don't even want to kind of get like philosophical about what his family is going through, like, or like, draw lessons from what happened to him. That means totally unexpected, totally tragic. However, there's just, there's like the things you are obsessing over and an end. there's the things that are going to get you.

And they're not the same. Sometimes for the lucky few, they're the same. Stockton Rush, the tight and submersible guy, the thing he obsessed over, the thing he worried about got him. You know, and most people, the thing you obsessed over. And some people would say, you know, well, that's okay. He probably would have. I think he would.

Last thought before we close. You guys were wondering why, how it came to, that I used to tease you guys. I don't think I teased you about stormy. No. Yeah. Yeah, I think it qualifies. Here's what happened.

Why do I, why does I, why do I now have one? What is it with these guys in those stormy cromers? Yeah. Like maybe the term goofy hat. Yeah. Would it be used? I didn't know. I was teasing something I didn't understand.

You want to know what happened? Here's what happened. There's a rancher that lets me hunt his place. And as I do, when I get a, when someone lets me hunt their place. I always like to follow up with a gift. And there's nothing a rancher likes more and a stormy cromer.

Yep. So him and his kid. Cowboy hat maybe, but I see where you're going. So him and his kid. So first light had a stormy cromer, a couple of stormy chromer co-labs. So I wanted to get one for the dad, one for the sun.

I got one of the warm one. And I got one on the wax cotton. but I want them to come to my house so then I could then package them with a couple of little gifts and send it as an annual thank you and I got it and I don't want them to listen to this

and think I put it on but I got it and I was like oh I see because you order it to your size and in a boat there's no way your hat's going to blow off door hunting whatever

it's just the suckers on there and the big bill is the right length and sits just where you want it's not too long it's not too short just right it's a little bit warm it's not a hot weather hat but well the world ones yeah i'm sure ones have their place man but boating around uh your hat is staying where it belongs i think it's pretty interesting that as a thank you gift you ordered something for two people that you thought was goofy looking that's a good point i thought it was a little bit stolen valor for uh like i thought it was like it'd be like if these guys had big old belt buckles

yeah he does now well he does now not it was just like it was like it's like I view it like it's like a it's like a rancher hat right yeah he's trying to be thoughtful people in the egg industry

I think you were jealous of the hat a guy that wasn't in the egg industry I was a little bit like yeah I don't know she was doing that I just want to know how long that thing sat there and Steve's like looking at it oh no I knew immediately

I knew immediately I knew immediately I understood why it just happened to be your size that you had ordered. Well, you know, it's funny, Brody's son last year at the mule deer hunt. He was running one. Yeah, and you said it was the greatest hat ever made. And you told me about the history in Michigan.

And we looked down on the back and everything. Yeah, see, when I was growing up... And then you still trash talk. When I was growing up, it was like... I was conflicted. I was conflicted. Here I am. I got the damn hat on.

When I was growing up, it was the... I never even thought of a rancher or someone in the ag and she wore him. It was always like the Northwoods hunters. Like folks in Maine, folks in northern Minnesota, what's got like no no no north of Maine north of Minnesota

I'd have been like really well it's Michigan isn't it yeah yeah it's a Michigan product

it's mission company but again like ag adjacent I think that Ag adjacent like if you were down

I mean I don't think we don't spend all day let you know some guy I'm happy some guy getting like some guy getting

a cranberry scone in Minneapolis you know I got to be like really I find it interesting how many people I love cranberry's going I feel like the stormy

Kromer to me is a very like technical functional piece of equipment especially when you compare it to a classic half plastic half cotton baseball hat that most hunters are walking around in the woods in

that really I mean it gives you some shade but other than that it's like the fabric that it's made out of is not very technical it's if they get wet they it stinks um they don't keep you warm they don't keep you dry i mean what what greater what greater uh capitulation could there be then here i am i just think like i said i'm happy and i was gifting them i was saying that you were wrong or that you changed your mind so i feel like Everyone wants to hear you grow up a little bit.

I wasn't wrong. I felt that there was like a, just the same with cowboy hats. There's guys and I don't know. I know it when I see it. There's guys that should have them and there's guys that shouldn't have them. So I'm like the stormy Kromer, you're not going to wake up one day and be like, cowboy hat.

Like, get it away. Listen, listen. Listen, me, no business in a cowboy. If you ever catch me in a cowboy, hat. If you ever catch me in a cowboy

hat, I would expect you to punch me. Okay. I will never... I have no business in a cowboy hat.

No business in a cowboy hat. I'm just glad you came around on the stormy cromer. I have no... Yeah. I have business in a stormy cromer.

Oh yeah. You fit the part. I have business in my fur hat. I do not have business in a cowboy hat. But no cranberry scones for you while you're wearing

it is what you're saying. He's not going to he doesn't want... I spend the part of it. what I'm on my way to do. He's talking about some like hipster with a curated look. I know what he's talking about.

Yeah, like it. And then I, you know, listen, these guys I bought a couple for, it was a gift. I was trying to think of what could I get for them that they would like the most. I think it's a great gift.

Very nice gift. All of us really like the hat. We've always liked the hat. You're the one who had that hat problem. Sitting and wearing some bitch right now. Now what I'm not going to do, Yanni puts an elk ivory. up front.

It's not true. I don't even have enough personality. I don't have any with an elk ivory up there. You do? No, I don't. What do you have up front on yours?

Nothing. But I will say, I just have mine tied in the little bow and I like it. I don't have enough personality for the bow. Well, no, but I like what you did because that bow has a hard time

staying tied. What did you do? Squaring out. And you've committed to never turning the ear flaps down. Oh, I thought you cut it and burned it. No, I think I did it. Yeah.

Well, putting the ear flaps down, you just pull them down. Do they go down without untying that thing? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You just pull it down. Yeah. Huh. You don't need to untie that thing.

Do they do that on the wool once? Yeah. Why did I never know that? I can pull off a stormy chrome or no problem. Case and point. Now with a bow up front? No. I think you could, Steve.

Now you got me down my bow up front. selling yourself short. I think you could pull off a bow. A bow. You got it. A bow on my hat. Little bow peep. We did see a guy at the state theater in Kalamazoo, Michigan that I think had a pair of

wild pig tusks tied into his. That's a lot of personality. I don't have that kind of personality. But I liked it when I saw it. Why did Steve think you had? What do you think you have? An elk ivory. You don't have elk ivries tied up.

on top of ears? I love it that in your mind, he does. I don't want to lose my elk ivory. My little orange one is boring for the listeners. Never wear a hat that is more personality than you do. Never wear a hat.

It says hello before you do. That's right. Like father like son. I need an orange one. Mine's faded. Okay, we've gone long enough. Yeah, people are bored by this. What do we have to do now?

We just have to eat dinner and get ready to go fish again, huh? Hopefully clean some salmon. Yeah. The water's laid down. things look good. We got some bad weather coming in. We got some good weather coming up.

Yeah, and our crazy little kids have gone out to the float and are swimming. Yeah, they're always doing that. Oh, my gosh. It's not even cyan. Hypothermia. Yeah, that's something I worry about.

High risk. Yeah, like 80 of Mountain One canoe. I can't believe you let your kids do that. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for listening. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Why is this taking so long?

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I'm Jake Hofer, and this is Back 40, a limited series show on Wire to Hunt, part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network. Each episode, I'll be asking eight white-tail hunting pros, a focused, thought-provoking question about hunting and land management. How do I hunt the best part of the farm with less than ideal access?

Should you? That's what the real question. question is stand without good access is not a good stand search wire to hunt and hit that follow button to listen to back 40 now this is an iHeart podcast