The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 809: The 209 - A Backyard Hunt For An Iowa Giant

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Iowa Auditor of State Rob Sand. Topics discussed: Iowa's big-buck-killing Auditor of State and what an Auditor actually does; 406 Boneworks; running for Iowa Governor; public servant vs. politician; catching chickens; the Des Moines Urban Buck Program; the story of The 209*; donating wild game to food banks; and more. *The final official score has been recorded as 206 inches. 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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That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, everybody. by someone that Crin and I have been texting back and forth about having on for, it might be six years. Crazy. Cren was like five. Because I can't do math. I think it's six.

December 19th, that article. No, no. I mean, I was making a joke about it was so long you were five years old. Oh, yes, yes, I was. Since she was a little gal, a little girl, we've been texting back and forth about having on Rob Sand from Iowa. And what brought this up,

people text you, articles all the time. And I didn't know it was that many years ago. We get an article years ago. Headline. New York Times article. Someone sends this article. The headline. The bow hunting influencer of Iowa Democrats.

Rob did not write these headlines. You did not, he didn't write these articles. A line from, so then the, I studied journalism a little teeny bit. What do you call the file? The headline. And then he got the like lead. Lead. Lead. L-E-D-E?

Right? Or is it? It's like the sub. Then there's the nut grap in there somewhere. Yeah. Is it the lead? Delede. Rob Sand figured out how to win statewide office as a Democrat in Iowa, and now the presidential contenders are seeking his counsel. Yep.

It goes on. Mr. Sands' fondness for hunting. See, this is really a story about hunting. Mr. Sands' fondness for hunting cultivated during his childhood years in rural Iowa, but also convene. appealing to the state's more conservative constituents helps explain why he was the only non-incumbent Democrat

to win statewide here in 2018. All thanks to hunting. Then, the Telegraph. Here's another headline Rob didn't write. He's going to blush. Uh-oh. The gun-toting Christian who could help Democrats win over Trump

voters. Rising Star of Party is spooking Republicans in Ruby Red State of Iowa, a sentence from that article goes, Rob Sand is a gun-toting Christian from rural Iowa who goes deer hunting of all things. I'm added, I'm editorial. I'm adding that. Of all things. Who goes deer hunting, drives a White Ford F-150 pickup and opens speeches by quoting the Bible.

Another article. Wall Street Journal. Meet the Democrat who Republicans fear in Red State America. Here's a sentence from the article. Rob San could almost pass. for a Republican. He frequently quotes the Bible, owns two Sig Sauer handguns,

goes deer hunting each fall, and asks audiences to sing a few verses of America the beautiful at the start of each campaign event. So these articles, they build and build and build, and then we're like, man, yeah,

have this guy out and talk to him. But most of we're going to talk about a big old buck he killed. Yeah, that'll be more fun. That's the main thing. My auditing head on all these sentences are like, not quite true.

not quite true i now drive a silver f-150 oh so little minor differences yeah the the white one hit like 170 and the camphazers were going out and with all the body damage that was on it it made more sense to buy a new one got it but there's a quote the only thing worse than being written about it's not being written about that's uh but you could switch in my in my business that's probably true yeah you could switch it you know you can switch it um oh also i forgot to mention he's uh he's uh he's running for governor in Iowa there's that he's running for governor in Iowa so we're going to talk about that but first

we have to have our entrepreneur spotlight back to Brooklyn Stevens right Brooklyn Stevens this is your third time you've been on the show believe so okay because she's trying to build her business I love it I am 406 bone works so we have her on now and to check in with her

harvest was down in Montana this year because it was an exceptionally warm fall it was not much snow No. Hot. Very hot. And she saw it reflected in how many skulls came into 406 boneworks. Yep.

That's her leading theory. Tell us about that. I, yeah, I mean, I, last year I probably did close to 250 skulls from January to end of December. And that was not counting that it would have been this January. like the the trickle-in of that season's schools, which was probably another 20 or so. Got it, got it. This year, I don't even know if I'll get close to 200.

This cannot stand. Yep. And last year. People need to flood 406 boneworks with skulls. Yeah. I don't care if you got to ship it from another country. Yep. Yeah, we bought specifically four to hold all of my heads.

A shipping container. Oh, you did? You own your own shipping container now? Yeah, it's like, it's like a smaller one. Okay. But it's still a shipping container. So you've got capital expenditures into your business. Yeah.

That's deductible. Yeah. Definitely. And you're thinking about, so traditionally the school, you've done a bunch of skulls for me now. You must have probably done a half dozen or more. Yeah. Yeah.

All turned out beautifully. Zero complaints. Thank you. Beautiful work. um but you're branching into your brand you're going to branch into the beetle stuff and some other hide hide stuff so tell tell folks about what your tell folks about your sort of uh i don't know what you call it in business lingo your verticals no you know i'm getting that yeah so the beetles i got specifically for um like the smaller schools because it's it's hard to like boil them i would

just put them in a crock pot and slow cook them, but I just was not a fan. And so I just got the Beatles. And then the way I whiten things now, I can still, it de greases at the same time. So I can still do it with the smaller schools. And it just makes it easier. Okay. That and I'll sell the smaller schools too. Like if I get, my buddies are big trappers. And so if they don't want their schools, like they'll just give them to me to feed them and I'll just sell them. and I'll pay them for the school or whatever they want. And then, yeah, I did just get into tanning.

I was dabbling in it before, but I just opened for public so I can do really anything. So someone got, say, let's say someone was out and they got a coyote and they wanted to have it done as a hanging decoration or they wanted to save it up to get something made out of it. they could bring you you would skin it flesh it stretch it get it to the tannery all that kind of stuff yep and return to them a finished product yep excellent excellent yeah and then i just now starting to get into shoulder mounts i did my first one last last summer still a lot of i had things i need to work on but it turned out great for oh it did yeah i think so and i got lots of good feedback on it oh well next time you come in you should bring in a shoulder mount that's pretty exciting so you You're on the path like John Hayes better watch out.

Yeah, I've talked to him quite a bit, and he's given me pointers. He's going to start having to steer you wrong. He's going to start giving you. Hayes is going to start giving you bad advice. Yeah, yeah. He sees you coming in the rearview mirror, and he's going to start giving you bad advice. Right. Yep.

He might not even be around anymore. I spoke to him this morning. He was driving 30 miles an hour. He was driving 30 miles an hour in a whiteout behind a truck. Oh. We talked about what I would say if he doesn't make it. I was going to say it with John, it was all about the animals. That's all I was going to say at his memorial service.

Now I was going to be like, you know, the dead ones. Yeah. It was all about the dead. Sounds fair. Just remember, the pupil should never outshine the master. That's what they say. He'll stay happy as long as you keep telling him. I'm learning so much from you.

That's, yeah, do that. If he tells you a hot tip, don't be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, don't tell, don't tell him, oh, I already knew that. Anything he says, oh, thank you. The pupil should never outshine the mask. Or if you're a terrible bullshitter, just at least interesting, you know. Keep it in mind. Yeah.

Never call him and give him a tip. Because then, you know what I'm saying? Then he might sabotage, you know what I mean? Because he's got to watch out. Sure. He's the old guard. You're the new guard. Right.

Yep. All right. Well, so tell people how to get a hold of you. They're bringing in the skulls. I have a flyer at the Meat Eater flagship store in downtown Bozeman. My phone number information is all on that. Or my Instagram is just 406. That Boneworks.

Message me on there. My Gmail is on there. Or if you have my number, you can always just shoot me text, whatever. That's the best way. I don't look at my email very much, but you can get a hold of me there. If someone was down on mainstream, Because you work at the, you work at the mediator store on Main Street. Yep.

Someone could just drop one off there, huh? Yeah. Or is that not legal? Yeah, I have a, with Alec. He knows what, he knows what's up. Yep. Okay. Now, tell me the honest answer.

Like, it doesn't, it's not, the honest answer is it going to bother me. This is the last question. Would you rather be home cleaning skulls or rather be working at the store? Just tell me, this flat out honest answer. Be home, cleaning them. Clean in skulls. Yep. Okay.

You're, you're inspired. You're inspired. That's awesome. All right. Well, good luck. Thank you. 406 bone works. Give the phone number.

It's going to be 406, 404, 08, 48. I got a second question. Mm-hmm. Or a second last question. Do you prefer people to bring you skulls that are rotten and full of maggots or fresh and frozen? Neither. Oh, really? Tell us.

Okay. End with this. End with this. The perfect customer brings the skull in what form? killed it that morning, dropped it off that night, not skinned, just leave it to me. Not skinned? Yep. I don't, it's something about the skin I think is sucking in all that moisture.

And so I think if you just leave it on there and then I can do it, I'll get it done either the same day or the day after. Okay. And I don't know what it is, but it's just like the freshness. It really does make skulls come out wider and not. Really? So they're not doing you a favor when they skin it? I mean, sort of. I'm going to, now I charge to skin them, but that's what I really like to just skin them out.

Hey, you tell you about that? But she's also inviting her customers to do less work. Yeah. Just bring it to me. I'll do it. That's smart business. Oh, gosh. All right.

406 bone works. Get the phone number again. 406, 404.08, 48, 48. Okay. Brooke, Brooklyn. Yep. Which one do you like the most? I know on your contact

it says Brooke, but I know he has Brooklyn. Am I wrong when I say Brooklyn? No, it does not matter. Okay, so you can pick, customers pick. Brooke, they can pick Brooklyn, Stevens, 406 bonework, done a bunch of work for everybody around here. You're doing Spencer's biggest buck he ever got. Yep.

Nice. Wow. Yeah. He's probably the biggest buck I've erode so far. Really? Yeah. He's a picky man, too. Is he?

If he's happy, you'll know you did a good job. He's fussy. Yeah, I've done, Fussy little guy. Fussy little guy. Fussy little fellow. Likes everything kind of how he likes it.

Ever been in his house? Nope. Likes everything. It's so clean. If you move something, he knows. Oh, yeah. He likes it just how he likes. It's hard to live that way.

Yeah. All right, bro. You can take off. Go clean some skulls. Yep. All right. Thanks, dude. Appreciate it.

Come by. Yeah, thank you. Gosh, I already broke those rules. which ones skin didn't let it rot still in a box in the garage she skin didn't let it rot I also like to call me anything

you know it's like you can call me anything just call me for your text or me needs that's a good yeah it's the only rule okay Rob San man let's start a little bit let's start a little bit about I want to talk about the buck

I want to talk about what exactly you do for a living what you're fixing to do for a living you bet but let's um let's start out back home and when you were a wee lad

yeah yeah so one of the articles I read about you made a lot gave a lot of ink to the fact that you were that you worked in the poultry I did

as a chicken catcher I did well technically K-pons K-pon catcher so what's that castrated chickens okay this is in northeast Iowa

I grew up in Decora and so there's a factory on the east east side of town east side of town that we actually toured when I was in third grade. Oh, okay. So you get to walk.

That's how you got a foot in the door. That's exactly right. They were like, you look sturdy. I remember the little old ladies splashing some of the jiblet water on us as we were walking past. So that was very, that was thrilling. Definitely made me think I have a career ahead of me in Capons. But, you know, I'm 14. I'm not, like, I, if that was a trivia question, I don't know that I would have gotten it, right?

What a Capon is? Yeah. It's unusual. But how is the consumer's not buying a K-PON? This is a production term. I can't tell you if they're marketed, honestly, as K-pons or not, my job was walk into the bar and pick up the K-pons, hand him to the guy on the truck. And that was the end. And I was 14, so I was paying attention to, yeah, $5 an hour.

Cash, I don't know if I should say that. No, they'll come for you. It was $5 an hour cash. It was good money, and you could do it when you were 14. And, yeah, just huge barns. So they pull these huge trucks in, turn off the lights. Like I said, capes are casterated meal chickens, so they're fattier. Okay, got it.

Bigger than usual. And you're just walking around, you grab them by the legs. Both legs. Both is great. Because if you can get both, then they can't scratch you. Can't spurry or bite you. Exactly. Exactly.

No matter what, their last line of defense is always to piss and shit all over you. Got it. So that's going to happen. Got it. That's what Phil does. Is that right? Sorry. If you grab them by the ankles.

This is the only line of defense. So we, you know, you grab by the ankles, hopefully you get both. Pick up another one. You know, maybe you get strong enough six months later that you can do three at a time or try to get four. Got it. If your technique's improving. Give them to the guy on the truck and you do that until all the trucks are full. So is this one of those young kid jobs that a lot of young kids come in and a lot of them

leave on day one. Oh, that was like throwing hay bales tends to be like that. It's actually funny that you mentioned that my buddy Andy Rasmussen, one of my best friends, uh, he, he came once, did not go back to collect his pay. And he's a hard, and he's a hardworking dude. Yeah. He, he's, uh, but this is just, this was not his, not his bag. Where I grew up, there was two jobs.

Any kid could get and every kid got him. Yeah, yeah. And it was any kid could walk in and start peeling logs. Yeah. For log home. We don't have that. We don't have that in Iowa. 35 cents a foot.

I don't know what it is now. Back to 35 cents a foot. Any kid could walk in and he'd be like, have at it. So you're peeling bark? Yeah, peeling bark off. You know, like a nice log home has that hand peeled look. Yeah. Anybody could come in.

There was no, there was just the application period. There was no interview. Are you swinging a hatchet? No, it's a draw knife. Okay. And it was just simply, sure, go ahead. Yeah. Ready you go.

And most people peeled a couple feet of the log and left. Yeah, there you go. There you go. And the Yarmine was working at the greenhouse filling flats with dirt. That would probably be a little bit. Soil, what they call it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like anybody could get it, but not everybody wanted it.

Detasseling corn was the other one for Iowa. That's in that too. Was your family agriculture? No. You could see corn and cows out my bedroom window, but my dad likes to say he was a farmer for six months. And then when he was six months old, they moved off the farm. got it so yeah so you didn't you you were you were ag ag adjacent but not an egg family yeah that's right well and everything if you're in small town iowa you know kind of everything's ag adjacent to a

certain degree so no but yeah first job was catching chickens uh moved on from there to macdonalds for a couple years and then the the the curveball would be i think my next job after that was working for a local internet service provider strangely enough got it yeah so you went to law school in Iowa. Went to law school at Iowa and then went to the attorney general's office after that seven years as the chief public corruption prosecutor in Iowa. Oh, so I was going to ask, okay. So that's how you became aware of that there's all this. There is a state auditor. Yes, that's like there's like a lead that there's like stuff to do in the government. That's right. Got it. Yeah. So what was that work now? So I prosecuted most of the public corruption in Iowa in that time frame. So like many

states we had a film office uh tax credit a filmmaking tax credit uh like some other states we screwed it up and there was a lot of fraud so i prosecuted those cases also uncovered the largest lottery rigging scheme in american history that's a crazy story actually oh that's a good one to talk about here there were bigfoot hunters involved oh yes yes so you the fact that you think that excites me i was a little insulting no i'm excited i'm excited I'm like, I'm like, I'm anti Bigfoot.

All right. I mean, I'm not anti his existence or anti looking for him. We've had lookers on. We've had a looker on. Well, no, she wasn't.

She covered the lookers. Yeah. Oh, she was a reporter. She covered the lookers. Okay. All right. And then she kind of was a little bit.

She didn't want to condemn them. Yeah. Because that's her sources. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, in the world, you know. Yeah. That would have been the kind of thing she was set out. Yeah, I'm not here to judge him. I'm just here to tell you some of these jackpots were claimed. The guy who was at the mastermind of it, it was his job to write the computer program that's going to pick winning numbers.

He put a little bit extra in there. And so his brother, who was a justice of peace down in Texas, his brother was a big he got back way out. Yeah. State lottery. So interesting. He actually worked for the multi-state Lottery Association.

Okay. So they ran the show for different games across 38 different states and Canadian provinces. Got it. And this is not the kind where the ball blows up in the... It is not. Okay. It's a computer generator winner.

It's funny because they moved into the computer generated systems after the triple six fix in Pennsylvania. Not familiar. The triple six fix was a rigged lottery jackpot with the balls, right? But they injected dye into the sixes. And so the sixes dropped. down, which technically speaking, this is one of those weird things about human nature. They've waded the ping pong ball?

Wow. Yes. Yes. Yes. And this is one of those weird things. Technically speaking, it's the triple six fix. Yeah. We should have a whole different podcasts about this.

They may have done. It's blood trails season two. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Like, you want to talk. We got blood trails, but financial crime if you involve the Bigfoot. That's your angle. The Bigfoot hunters, right? The triple six fix.

Triple six fix in Pennsylvania. But who, okay, I don't want to spend too much. much time on the triple six fix okay sure okay so go on well so somebody somebody who forgot what human nature was was like oh if we do this with computers then no one will ever rig it and of course then Eddie Tipton came along who's the mastermind at the center of this one okay and he rigged a computer program so he he would know he would be able to go out by rigged what was written he he wrote the program but then put a little extra in there what so that on one of three dates of the year if that date fell on a Wednesday or a Saturday, and if the draw was happening after 8 p.m., rather than going to

the actual random number generator for the first seed, it would go to a seven variable algorithm that he knew. And so he could have people go out and buy 100, 200, 300, tickets, and he would know that he was hitting the jackpot in those 300. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy. And his brother is a justice at the peace down in Texas and a big foot hunter. And so he tapped into his big foot hunt. And so he tapped into his Bigfoot hunting network to help claim some of the tickets, which I, I theorize, like, because he had like his associates. Yes. Wow. And this has got to be, don't, don't these folks have to have a high degree of trust in each other? Yeah. Because you are looked at by the outside world as I'm sure you're laughed at. Yeah. Yeah. And so this, you, you, you believe, I believe. Yeah. We know. Yeah.

We deserve this money. That's right. That's right. And so he, his brother, the people that were, the, the, the, the names, did they even know their names are being used? You didn't, they did. So what it was was, I don't think, they're being told what number to play. They're being they, I don't know that they were being told what number to play, but

the brother of the mastermind would go to them and say, hey, I won the lottery. But my wife and I are on the outs or, you know, something about like, I don't want my wife to know I'm gambling, something like that. Will you claim the ticket? I'll let you keep 10%, just do all of it. Cash. Understood.

day, not the annuity thing, I'll give you 10% if you go claim it. And so they'd go claim it. And then 10 years went by, there was a $16 million jackpot in Iowa. Uh-huh. Actually, folks, if you want to, if you got an hour and you want to watch a documentary, lotto doc.com, you can watch the whole story there. Or I wrote a book about it. I am.

I didn't have anything to do with making it. I'd prefer you buy my book personally. Yeah. It's the winning ticket. But crazy story. So, so we got to interview, you know, this bigfoot hunter down in way east Texas down in the bayous ironically last named con c-o-n-n-n some of this stuff you just can't make up

really yeah yeah and you know they were like yeah he's my bigfoot hunting buddy the brother who was kind of at the the the thread that connected from the mastermind actually got interviewed about the very first jackpot one out in Colorado by an FBI agent while he's in the hospital with two broken legs from falling out of a tree while Bigfoot hunting.

Wow. Yeah. These guys are in deep. They're in deep. Crazy story. Well, did this go to a jury? It did when we only had, we only knew of the one Iowa ticket.

So interesting wrinkle here. You know, you got your right to speedy trial, ladies and gentlemen, if you've been charged with the crime, you got your right to speedy trial. In Iowa, you can have a 90-day speedy trial. rule normally the federal rules is a year but you can demand it in 90 days okay and this was a case that it kind of been around for a long time i got handed to me we did a little we pushed a little bit

on the investigation got some good stuff and then suddenly realized about we got to indict this guy once we found him out uh we released the video of him purchasing the tickets and got some good tips actually from a guy in main but we we not a big foot hunter not a big foot hunter no but a guy that knew the mastermind was like that said he tipped in huh so we had to do it indict him real quick. And then he demanded speedy trial under the Iowa rule for 90 days. So we had this sense. At that point, we're like, okay, this guy works at the multi-state lottery association.

It's his job to write the program that picks winning numbers. And here we have him buying a ticket. This thing's obviously rigged. We have no hard evidence. We don't have the computer, right? It's all circumstantial case. And so, of course, we're thinking, multi-state lottery associations running games in 38 states and provinces.

There's got it. This can't be the only one. But he demands speedy trial. And so we go to trial. We have a jury trial. We pick the jury. The day we start evidence, CBS this morning covers this trial, says they got some computer expert on.

This guy's got a pretty, the defendant, he's got a pretty powerful argument for a reasonable doubt because they don't have that hard evidence. We won anyway. And then we're waiting for sentencing. It's like a six week wait. you do this there's a pre-sentence investigation so the department of corrections can make a recommendation to the judge got it while we're waiting i get a phone call from texas and i recognize the area code is his area code just my phone rings in my cubicle answer the phone hey is this rob

sand yeah do you all know the uh edy tipton's brother won the lottery uh no yeah maybe about 10 years ago west somewhere maybe Colorado I did not know that thank you And so the investigation then, now we've got the tip that we kind of needed to go to other state lotteries that we technically don't have any, you know, we can't tell them, give me this. But now we've got some information and we can really go to them and say, you probably need to give us this. And they've got a reason to do it. So investigation went on from there. Did another state wind up Navanum or did you guys get the, who gets to host him? It was, it was interesting.

He served his time in Iowa. We had great cooperation and really important work from the Wisconsin Attorney General's office. David Moss up there in Joanne Joy, credit to them, a prosecutor and a investigating agent. And then out in Colorado, I think his name was Rob Shapiro at the IG's office there. They agreed, they decided to do a prosecution. They didn't have much role in the investigation. But Joanne and David were really helpful. So this is probably, we think this is probably the biggest.

multi-state plea agreement since the founding of federal law enforcement because we couldn't get the feds to take the case is he in the who scow now who the what now is he in jail locked up no now he's out he served like four and a half years that's it yeah

in now he has to he's he's my understanding he has still got his sentence hanging over his head in wisconsin got it so if he doesn't make good on his restitution which he better start doing I think they can haul them in in Wisconsin and throw them back in. But he's down in Texas.

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of four people. Come to Bozeman. They come to meet at her headquarters. I cook you dinner. We all serve you a bunch of courses of dinner at our headquarters kitchen. We give you a $1,000 gift certificate for our flagship meat eater retail store on Main Street and Bozeman. We pay your airfare, we pay your hotel, we pay your car, all covered by us. Here's the rub. You got to go to firstlight.com and sign up with your email and phone number and opt in to all participating brand newsletters.

That gives you one of your first light. first chances to win. Then for every 100 bucks you spend at firstlight.com, you get additional entries, okay? In the end, we're going to pick one winner. They're going to pick their friends, they're going to pick their family, and they're going to come out. This is eligible for U.S. customers only. Canadians, I don't know what to tell you. You're out of luck. It runs from December 9 to December 22. See you in town. Man, I don't want, I want to tell you about something. I don't want this to take up too much time, but do you hear about these dudes in Texas that just did that?

They won the lottery, but they won it fair and square. They, these mathematicians, they kind of, they're, it's a global network. Was this the, the serial number thing? Like they figured out a clue in the serial number? No, no, no. They, they, they, it's a global network of these mathematician guys. And they just watch sweepstakes, raffles, giveaways, lotteries. lotteries they watch them for vulnerabilities oh interesting in texas they realize that you could if you're a

business you can get your own lottery machine for tickets i did see this so they just rent offices all over to state yeah yeah they don't open any businesses because it's not part of the thing you just need an address they rent offices over to state they get their own lotto machines they wait till the jackpot gets to a certain bit and where they know their expected value hits the this is the time friends families they're like they're banking on they have it have to be that they can't be a split jackpot yep if it's a split jackpot they break even if they're the sole winner

they clear tens of millions of dollars yeah and so they would they would wait till it hit that amount there's actually and then they got 72 hours or something like that there's another story that's similar out of michigan matter of fact. Jerry and Marge go large. Oh. Jerry and Marge. Jerry was some Michigan guy who just had a real head for numbers and he noticed some pattern and some game in Michigan and basically did the same thing. There's there was, it started with a newspaper or sorry, a magazine article and then it got turned into a movie. Oh. Great movie. Yeah. I don't know if they ran in Michigan or not.

And they had 72 hours kids, wives, everybody. Yeah. They ran every number combination possibly buy yeah and then had a storage system they do the draw they go into their little thing they're like here's a ticket right they're passing a lot like and i and as of last i knew everyone looked at it every which way looking for why that's illegal yeah as far as i know it's not yeah so now that now the Texas legislature is like it's changing the rules to make it that you can't do that and they're all mad and they're trying to make it look like these people screwed up because there are a bunch of politicians who don't want to admit that they wrote stupid rules for a game that let somebody do that. Yeah. These guys like, we won fair and square. Yeah, they just outsmarted them. They're like, dude, you wrote these rules. We read the rules that you wrote. We played the game according to the rules. Don't be mad of me. Eddie did not do that. That's right. Eddie actually put a little extra code in there that made it predictable. So that's why he, that's the difference. That's why he went to prison and these people got a bunch of money. These people get to hang out. Yeah, yeah. All right. One last thing. Then we're going to, I got an order in my head.

Yeah, yeah. So we talked about when you were doing that Department of, what it's called again? Like, you're not a prosecutor. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So I was assistant attorney general and prosecuted. Attorney General. Some violent crime, but the focus was financial crime.

And then you're now the state auditor. That's right. That's right. That's an elected position? Elected in Iowa. Yeah. So it's a mix in different states. Easiest way to understand it is it's like closest thing to taxpayers watchdog.

So we audit tax spenders. not tax payers. Give me an example of a tax vendor. The state government, highway department, DOT, Department of Education.

If a county or a city or a school districts hires us for their annual audit, we do their audit. And then we do special investigations under certain circumstances. Got it. Is that a competitive field

if you go to try to get elected? Well, sure. I mean, at the end of the day, anytime you got a race, Iowa is still at its heart is a fairly competitive state. That doesn't mean that every race is competitive, but when you're looking statewide, you know, it can go either way. So people will run against you.

The reason I ask, for a period of time, my mother was the treasurer of her township. Oh, no way. 36 square miles. All right. It's a big chunk of ground. I'm betting she didn't have a lot of competition for that. She would sometimes, uh, it would be that no one would run against her. Yep, which makes it very easy to win.

That's, that's much better. Yeah. I would prefer that. That would be great. I could actually spend a lot more time hunting. Yeah, for sure. And hanging out with my kids. So you won that.

Yeah. And that's how long of a job's at. Four years, reelected in 22. And to your point, when I won in 18, that was the first time in Iowa in 36 years, which I think of my life, basically, I was 36 at the time. But basically the first time in my life that a statewide incumbent Republican lost to a Democratic challenger. Hmm. So as auditor.

As, no, for any statewide, any statewide office. Yeah. We tend to reelect our incumbents in Iowa. there's exceptions but yeah and we were talking about running for governor and we're not going to get into this yet because we're talking about deer good running for governor it's it's this is the first time in some long period of time it's it's an open race yeah first time let's see basically since first time in 20 years god yep yep so it was uh you'll going back to people on the inside uh one of the things that kind of made me push to do it was So we uncovered a record amount of misspent money in my first term.

I get reelected. The response to Democrats and Republicans and independence in Iowa, reelecting me, was the legislature and the governor passed a law so that state agencies can hide evidence of misspent tax dollars from our office. Can hide. I don't understand. I know, because why would you ever do that? Right? That's wrong. It's bad.

Yes, that's what they did. But help me understand. Like, what's the argument for hiding evidence? Oh, well, blab, blah, blah, blah. Oh, that's the argument. You got to make, you got to have words come out of your mouth.

It's all BS. The words that would come out of their mouth were, oh, well, we're trying to protect your privacy. Got it. Privacy for waste, and abuse of my tax dollars. I don't want privacy for that.

Got it. Every, every government watchdog in the country that weighed in on this law, Democrats, independence, Republicans, they were all like, don't, don't do this.

This is terrible. You're going to see an increase in waste of tax dollars if he passed this law. They passed it anyway. Because they saw that we were like, you know, doing the job. And they were like, hey, he's making, he's letting people know what's happening. We can't have that.

Got it. But then you won after that? No, I got reelected then they did that. So that made the job less fun. Oh. I mean, we're about to do something important. We're about to tell people a big deal. We're trying to hold people accountable.

And they're like, hmm, we don't want you to look at that. oh well what am i doing here then huh there was a there was i remember one of the quotes from someone who was like on the government oversight committee for the american institute of cpas was like if you pass this law you may as well make it so you don't have a state auditor oh that's what they did and that's what they're like that's what we mean yeah they were like perfect let's pass this sucker that's just the endorsement they wanted huh yeah yeah so yeah job suddenly became less interesting, less fun. I really, I mean, this is a piece of this is rooted in my faith.

My faith, as those stories mentioned, very important to me. One of the stories that always stuck out to me in, as a kid, was Jesus flipping over the tables of the money changers in the temple. People in a position of trust and power, right, who are abusing that trust and power. And I love the work I was doing as a prosecutor going after corrupt public officials, corrupt financial advisors who pray on people's trust, right? who use their position to get more for themselves. I love the work of holding people accountable who are in charge of tax dollars,

making sure that they knew that someone was looking at them and didn't care about the power that they had, but cared about whether or not they were doing the right thing. And then you change that law and you take that away. And it's like, well, I don't want to do this anymore. And it makes it all the more important to say, sounds like we need a new governor, someone who's going to give the auditor their power back and do a bunch of other good stuff at the same time. That's kind of the idea.

Okay. Let's jump into deer. Please. That's what sealed deal. That's what sealed deal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He got a really big buck in the urban hunting program. Yes. Yes. Boom. Done. So explain. So you're in Des Moines.

Yep. Okay. What is the urban hunting program in Des Moines? What I can tell you of it, I've been doing it for, I think, 13 years. And many Iowa municipalities have got an urban hunting program because we got big white tail over the state. Okay. And, you know, they're eating people's hostas and all that. And, you know,

You always get a divide on the people who want you to take them and don't. But most cities have got a program, bow hunting only. You got to shoot from an elevated position so that your arrows going into the ground. You got to be in a stand. You have to take an annual every single year. You got to repass your marksmanship test so that you all, they always know. Is it a serious test? It's not super.

I would call it a proficiency. People call it a proficiency test. Yeah. So it's like 10 arrows from 15 yards and 10 arrows from 20. 20 yards at a 9-inch target. It's not hard. Got it. And they don't want you to take shots beyond about 25 yards.

So. Yeah, like if someone said, hey, is he a good shot? And you said, he's proficient. Proficient. Yeah. That feels right. Yeah. You know what you're doing.

Yeah. And tell me again, so 10 shots? 10, I think it's 10 from 20 yards and 10 from 15 yards at a 9-inch target. Got it. And you got to hit. Do you got to do a background check and all that? I don't think, if you had to do a background check, it would been maybe at the beginning, you do have to take a bow hunter's safety course at one point in

your life. Okay. Which is awesome because I did that when I was like 14. Yeah. And so when I found out about the urban hunting program and it was like already November the first year, I was like, I gotta do what now? And I was like, oh man, I did that. Hey dad, didn't I do that? Isn't that that class you made take? Yeah. Great. Now I just got to go find my certificate. Okay. But once you do that, so then, so then it's an incentive program. But the landowners are participate, they have to participate, obviously. There are parks and stuff. There are parks, and there's a system for doing the park hunting. I've always done private land hunting, uh, either our backyard or somebody I know.

And then for this one, I'd lock, I knocked a lot of doors. Um, but, uh, yeah, there's parks. Uh, what else do I need to add here? It's an incentive system. So every year to, to get a urban buck tag in the city of Des Moines, you got to take three antlerless deer the year before. Man, that's earned a buck on steroids. Yeah. Yeah, there's, and it's different for, because they're trying to lower numbers. That's right.

They don't want a lot of, they don't want a lot of funny business. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And they don't want big buck hunters flocking in. No, they, it's a, it's a very like, you got to, you got to earn that urban tag for an antler buck. Okay. So, so 20, 24. And it resets, I gather.

Yes. And it doesn't get, that gets you into the lottery. Now most years. Oh. If you're in the lottery. A buck tag lottery. Yeah. Most years, if you're in, if you get the three and you make it into the lottery, you will get an urban buck tag.

Got it. But you're not guaranteed. You may not. And so most years, I've gotten one, but there's other years where you don't. And how are you showing that you got the three deer? You have to check them in. So it used to be in person. And then I don't remember if it was COVID or not, but they switched it to an online system.

You got to fill out your tag. You got to do your time. And you got to submit photographs too. Okay. So that they have some certainty that this is a, you know, a, you got to fill out. a fresh, unique deer each time. Got it. Yeah.

So the first year participating in the urban hunt, no chance for bucks, you gotta do your three dose. That's right. That's right. Yep. Oh. Yeah. And, uh, and this year, uh, a guy sent me a picture.

I'd put a post up. I was like, hey, I'm, uh, I'd never done that before, usually just hunted where I hunted. Hey, I'm looking for a big buck in Des Moines. I've got my urban buck tag. If you know anyone, let me know. If you know anyone that has a big, Yeah, if you've seen a big buck in your neighborhood, if you've seen a big buck in your neighborhood, let me know. And this guy had met at a party like 10 or 15 years ago. That's one of those

ones where you're like, it's so stupid it might work. Yeah, exactly. Because like, well, who would want to tell another guy about a big buck? And that's the thing. But it might be just a guy that doesn't care. Yes. Well, and a lot of these people are like, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, because if I did an all company email. Yeah, yeah. And I said, if anyone knows, about a large buck exactly let me know right I wouldn't I'm not going to get replies yeah but this is the city of Des Moines people want you to take a deer right and uh a lot of people are just like yeah here you go now there's not that many there's now most of the hunters that are in the program who knew of this buck were like hey man good for you I did a lot of work so he gave me

one I had one picture okay man I hoofed it but there's no way the buck is only using one property oh no he's he's all over there are other people that knew of them actually the guy that measured him um and he this is a green measure he measured 209 go yeah so and he'd feel that is

very very big oh yeah maybe we can wait should we roll a photo it definitely is photo should we roll well which photo are we looking at here the ones the ones in the in the dock here one of the live live maybe trail In the autumn.

The buck in the autumn of his life. That's actually the picture he sent me. That's literally the one. He's like, hey, this one lives by me. And so when I, when I came to and picked myself up up the floor and looked again at that buck. He's like, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to waste your time. But like this buck's hanging around.

This one seems kind of nice. Describe. I mean, that just looks like a tango. Yeah. If you're listening, main frame 10-pointer, in this picture, you can see a one big drop time and a second smaller brow time, which you can't see this picture is actually a second drop coming off of that same G1. Go.

Yeah. And he and what's the funny thing in the picture is he looks young but it's because his rack is so huge. And he's in velvet. So, you know, there's always a little shrinkage, but not that much. So when he, when the guy reaches out, when the guy reaches out.

Yeah. Well, first off, how far I'm not familiar with Des Moines. Like what he says, it's in this area. This is an area. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm like, where do you live? He gives me his address. Okay. I'm like, thank you.

You know, have you seen him other places? He's like, no, I think he's only seen him once or twice. And from that point, I just go to work. You know, it's just this, this is scouting. It's just more complicated when, when each postage stamp is another landowner. So I'm on on X. I'm looking at where he lives. I'm looking at, you know, topography and figured out if I was a buck over there,

where would I go? And I go, I knocked the doors. Just cold knocked on people's doors. I called people. If I could get their phone numbers, just called them up. Hey, my name's Rob. There's an urban bow hunting program in Des Moines to help population control. This is all your prosecutor training.

That's right. Well, I'm just opening with a story, you know, just letting them know why I'm calling. And I'm wondering if you're interested. I've been in the program for 13 years. It's never any issues for anybody, but I'm looking to hunt in your area and I'm wondered if you'd be interested in letting me hunt on your property happy to answer all your questions some of the average acreage oh these houses i mean less than less than an acre for a lot of them now a handful of them or more oh yeah yeah yeah i'm going out in the evenings and knocking

i'm making phone calls some people are yes some people are no occasionally people know me like one guy actually had my yard sign in his yard so i was like okay i like my odds here yeah But then on the other hand, there were folks who... You're like, I'm actually not here about that, though. Thank you for putting my yard sign up. He's like, Rob Sand, you're knocking my door. I was like, well, yes, I am knocking your door, but you'll be surprised as to why. And I'm setting up cameras, you know, trying to figure out where this guy is, zeroing in.

And I had other people say, man, if I was going to let anybody hunt here, I'd let you, I'm with you, but I'm not going to let you hunt here. You know, so it's just, it totally depends. Totally depends. Some couples, you know, you'd have, the wife would be. the one who's like, no, don't hunt your other couples. The husband be the one who's like, no, we don't, I don't want you to hunt here. And so I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm hitting out, I'm striking out here. I'm hitting singles here, setting up cameras, zeroing in over the course of probably

six weeks in the summertime. Are you ever driving around and see it? One time. Okay. Not driving, but I, well, okay, I'm, I'm on my bike? I'm either on my, because I would take bike rides in the neighborhood to scout. It was, it was bikeable from my house. And so I'd get on my bike and instead of going east like I might normally do, I'd go west and just bike around and be like, ooh.

Because, you know, there's stuff you can't see on on X. You don't know. And you can see the path and all that. So, um, but one time I drove into a property, I was going to go knock the door. And I look over there and there's one of the guys in his bachelor group, one of the other bucks. Um, yeah. And so I was, you know, hair on the back of my neck is like, all right, great. We're in the right spot here. We're making progress. So by the time we get to opening day, I got three properties where I've had a moving in the daylight on camera. What's opening day? September 16th. Okay. Something like that, like middle of September.

And, uh, and I set up, there's, it's been a southerly wind. So I set up on one where I like my chances. I got permission from two adjoining property owners. So that's great because that means I can be sitting in one, but it's a small, property so I can shoot into the other. This is very helpful because they both signed to the document. You got to get a signed document if you're doing private land. I got to interrupt the story just to ask this little clarifying question. Yeah. What are the retrieval rules here? You know, it's, it's, it's just, it's be, it's be so careful. That's the rules. Well, so, so,

technically speaking in the state of Iowa, if you have, uh, an animal that you have taken, you have, you have, you have legal capacity to take the most direct line to that animal across someone else's property. Okay. Now, you ask law enforcement about that and smart law enforcement will tell you, please ask, it's not that you have to ask permission. Yeah. Just tell them. Yeah. We don't want some, we don't want altercations. We don't want someone out there with a gun being like, what do you do to my property? So proper courtesy, best practice, knock on somebody's door. Okay. Now, I've been, I've been lucky. I've never had to, I've never had an issue with that. you do got to let folks know that you're hunting there if you're if you're like next door and so a lot of these folks when I would call them would be like hey I'm going to be hunting in your neighborhood you know I'm interested also in hunting on your property so there's a notification in all these years though I mean when you shoot you have to put the arrow I noticed that buck there's an arrow there's a mark on that buck where that mark is supposed to be yeah but that's got to be a real thing

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you can't be chasing them 300 yards. No, you got to be careful. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so go on. Where were we? You were, you had two properties where you could be on one and shoot onto the other one.

Yeah, yeah, because I got adjoining landowners, they both, so to do private, you got to have them sign a document, you know, it's the city's official document. Yeah. The city's got to come out and inspect the property and say, like, okay, these distances separation requirements, everything's good. What? Yeah, yeah. They're, well, I mean, I was hunting. not far, you know, this is urban hunting, right?

Like the guys that seek one, you know, they talk about all about this. You got all these new variables, dogs, right? I've had dogs chase away a buck before. You got people out there on a walk in a park. You could have a biker out there if you're in a park. And so they're real careful about where people go. Yeah.

So opening day, I go out that first full weekend. I sit Saturday twice. I sit Sunday twice. Sunday morning. two minutes into hunting light. I've been in my stand for 45 minutes. There he is. Is that him?

Is it him? And you know, like, you know how when you're right at hunting light, it's like if you're in a field, great, plenty of light, but if you're in the woods, yeah, it's still not there. And because, remember I mentioned, I had seen his buddy and his bachelor group. Yeah. The buddy and his bachelor group had one of the same drop times, narrower frame. shorter times, but close enough that at two minutes into hunting light under a bunch of oak trees,

I'm like, is it him? Is it him? Got it. And I, and I wait, and I, and I probably wait three minutes, that's probably all it takes for me to be like, it's him. And by the time I'm drawn, he's out of range. So that's that. Oh, it was him. Oh, it was him. Oh, it was him. No, it was him. But I'm waiting because if I, that's it. It was the buddy. It wasn't, you, oh, you You were worried about the look-like buddy. I was worried about the look-like buddy. I got you. Because I noticed, okay, this looks like him.

It's a big matured ear. You wanted to make sure it was not. Yeah. Because there is no, you get your one, you know, and I didn't want to screw this up. And you paused and there goes your opportunity. Yeah, which I'm glad that I did it. Yeah. You know, but there he went.

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from December 9 to December 22 see you in town so what a week later I'm setting up a stand on another property and I turn around and there he is so I freeze

can't move I'm there for 10 minutes finally he just wanders away and so I had two sightings on him and then the next and then so let's see so the first two weekends I'm out literally I'm sitting Saturday till noon lunch break

hang out with my family my family a little bit go out sit for the afternoon into the evening both Saturday and Sunday skipping church Lord forgive me October and then I see him twice

in that time frame and then like this first weekend in October there's this cold front coming in I'm like all right this is it and I'm running for governor by the way at the same time

I'm doing 100 public town halls one in every single county across the state. And as this cold front is coming in, by the way, I'm sitting, I'm getting him on camera, Steve. It's 85 degrees. But why are you already running for governor then? How long do you got to run for governor?

I know, isn't that stupid? 18 months. You run for governor for 18 months? I wasn't even the first person in the race. But yeah, campaigns are that long these days. Yeah. So you're running for governor and hunting. I'm running for governor and hunting and doing my day job

and trying to be a dad and a husband. Some days are better than others. But, you know, I'm doing, all these town halls all across the state, so I'm traveling a lot, and here comes this cold front, finally, because again, this buck, this is a 209 inch buck, he's moving in 85 degree heat. I've got him on camera, you know, and so I'm out there, just sweating, sitting in my stand, praying that I'll be in the shade, because if the sun hits me, it's over. But finally, we get this cold front coming in, and I'm like, okay, this is it, because I got basically a day to hunt this

cold front after that I'm on the road and I'm and what I'm thinking is you know I know there's other people who are looking for this buck I bet I've been this is part of the reason I'm hunting so hard because if I don't get him when this cold front hits he's probably going to be moving more and someone else is going to put their tag on him yeah which good for them if that's what happens good for them but I'm working hard when by the way I've never done much early season hunting before big fan now because you can go out after work and you still got two hours of daylight. Oh,

which one of the cool things about urban hunting. Yeah, it's not like dark at five o'clock. Yeah, and your commute to your stand is five minutes. So you're just like, all right, well, drive over there, climb up. There's one property that I hunt where I'm, I'm, I drive into a parking lot at like a printing shop and there's this chunk of woods over there and I just drive in, back park in the back corner and I walk about 30 yards and I'm in my tree. It's, you can see your car.

Yeah, I can see my car. I can see people come out for their smoke breaks, you know. Like all these different very various very things. variables that just make the urban stuff a little bit more complicated. You got to do an episode, urban hunting, Steve. Oh, it's, it's a trip. Man, yeah, I'd have, yeah, it's a trip. I'd like, dude, I'd be nerve, I'd be, it'd be nerve-wracking. I'd be all, all I'd be sitting there is being like, man, I don't want to trail

a deer all through the neighborhood. All through the neighborhood. I do know a guy, I do know a guy I used to work with. He was at the Attorney General's office who had a bad experience where somebody did not have fantastic arrow placement. Yeah. And the deer, I think with an arrow in it came into his backyard. But that is, I've been doing this urban program, I think for 13 years.

That's actually the only story I know of a bad thing. Yeah, because probably people take it, they're so aware of the problem, they probably self-limit. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone who's in this program, it's a cool thing to be able to do. And so we're careful, you know. So cold front, it's raining.

I go out in the morning. it's raining I soak through my boots I come in for midday break go back out put on my insulated boots instead climb back up it's and then it just opens up it's dump and rain I'm like okay he's not going to move in this kind of weather so I'll climb out 30 yards to my truck in this in this guy's driveway sit in my truck for 45 minutes it it lightens up it's still raining, but it lightens up. I'm like, all right, we got 45 minutes here. Go back out there, climb back up. You know, I'm sitting there for 10 minutes to look up. There he is. And what's you doing? Rubbing. And I'm like, okay, here we go. It's still, it's still coming down, but it's not,

it's not terribly heavy. And the angle he's at, the spot he's at, I have to get, I'm in this really unique tree that like juts out and so I have my climbing sticks up to here and then I can stand here even though the tree keeps going yeah I'm like I need to get lower so I get out to my top climbing stick and I take like I take like two steps down I'm at full draw and I slip now I do saddle hunting and so I'm always trying to keep my weight and my saddle and so instead of falling, I just twist out around the tree. Yeah, I got you. At full draw.

I'm just on, I'm just on a ride. Like a swing. Yes. Yes. I'm just on this really exciting ride. And I quit swinging. I bumped the tree, but it's raining. And I didn't make much noise because again, there's no hook.

My weight is already in the saddle. Yeah. It's kind of swing out. I stop swinging. I let down. I just get myself back onto my climbing. stick, I look over, he's still rubbing. No idea. Draw. That's it. How far you don't? 40 yards. Yeah. Still raining. So, and the best part about this, because you go back to, you know, the

importance of just, you're hunting in an urban area, you really don't want to upset people. Yeah, yeah. I'm hunting at a property where the driveway has a retaining wall. that backs up to it so i can back my pickup up lower the tailgain and without having to field dress the deer in the rain out in the sky's yard just drag him into like a loading bay yes a literal loading bay for 209 inch bucks and then where'd you head uh my dad's place he got me into hunting it was pretty cool to take that take him over and i you know i've been like well i mean Corinne too but like there were people that I was texting about this buck like I was going hard I've never I'm not a this is the first time really that I had like a people say you know target

buck I've never really had like a target buck I'll kind of I might I might set up some cameras kind of see who's around and be like oh I'd shoot that if I saw it but I'm not naming things you know I usually go out in November I'm busy what'd you name him be honest with you do like drop time he didn't have a name no I now it's just like the buck that one bar Yeah, yeah. I mean, his name now is 209. But, like, you know, my dad was one of the people I'm texting with, right? Like, he got me into bow hunting when I was a teenager. And it was really cool to be able to pull up that picture that you've got up there is we are in his driveway, you know? And it was, and so my dad and I are just flipping out. We get to, that's like the biggest buck in the family history.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And my dad. Dad, so he, my dad's a first generation hunter. I'm almost certain. Like, he might, he might have done squirrel. And obviously you go back enough generations and everybody's doing it. But my grandpa, Bob, his dad, uh, wasn't a bow hunter anyways. Wasn't a, wasn't a deer hunter. Uh, but my dad got me into bow hunting and we'd go out and do squirrel.

We do a lot of fishing together too, but it was a pretty cool thing to share that with him. So did you just grab that thing and just drag it over to the retaining wall? Yes. And just out of there quick. Yeah. Yeah. it's raining i'm wet i don't want to be out here any longer than i have to and and i mean you think about this stuff and it's like look you're you're going to leave a gut pile out

and a guy's property no you don't want to might you yeah but when i can just do this then i don't have to worry about it oh yeah i think discreet is the way to go that's especially if you want to get permission again for next year you know yeah i want to jump something uh for listeners Before we started recording, Rob Sand here shared with me that he, well, he could share with you, his, your taxidermy plan, which I think is not good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I want the taxidermist.

And I'm open-minded. But I shot this thing in the rain. And if you look at that picture, it's that, you know, the rack's got a nice shine on it. It's what? And I talked to the taxidermist about making it look like that when it's done, like a, kind of like a lacquer on it to give it a shine. Steve thinks that's a dumb idea I really

You can't You'd be corrupting it You can't paint the antlers Well Like maybe you could rub a little What's that stuff that when your mom When you're like a little kid your mom And spray it on the wood furniture

Old English Oh Pine saw Pinesaw Like whatever My mom would now then spray the wood furniture Yeah With an aerosol can

Yeah yeah yeah I mean maybe now and then a touch but it's you don't want generate your children yeah your children's children are you like what in the world

is all over the antlers in that picture there's a nice shine and they'll think why did dad lacquer paint they're not going to be like oh because it was raining out no they'll know the answer

they'll know the answer they just won't it'll just be you lacquered it and it was dumb I had I had one buck with a big Roman nose and I had them recreate the Roman nose

sure right 100% I just to me that it's not when you when you do a shoulder mount it's not just this is that deer but it's this is that moment okay and i always like to tell people by the way you want to see the rest of them come on into the state auditor's office i like to call it the public sector cabellas you walk in and you're like oh a lot of deer in here and a buffalo um then a turkey but to me that mount is like if you can have it be that moment and bring that moment back that's that's unique You know, an argument you could be laying on me that I would buy is if you were saying

to me, listen, man, it's my buck. That's how I want it. Oh, yeah. Because that's how I remember it. Yeah, yeah. But I'm stuck thinking about posterity. Yeah, yeah. Future generations being wide grampful lacquer the deer.

That's right. That's right. What if you have like a spray bottle and every now and then you just moisten it? Yes. Like a plant. Like a plant. Yes. Now that you say to your friends.

Yeah. say to your friends or future generations, just say, hey, you want to see what it'll look like when I shot it? And then get your sprints. Hey, I'll tell my son, I'll tell my son's, hey, buddy, you got to water the plants and the buck. And the 209. I love that. It's because everyone wants to see what it look like when I got it in the rain.

I love that. I love that idea. Yeah, that's the idea. We'll see, they haven't tried it before. And I don't know, you know, one of the things I was thinking about with Brooklyn sitting here. is like, how much do you practice? You know, I need to find somebody who's willing to just run a dry run on that before I do it on that one.

Well, yeah, if they can just take some other little racks. They should have some sheds, right? They'll take some racks and try to figure out a good luck. Right, right. John Hayes will help you with that. I don't know who that is. Hayes Taxonomy Studio. All right, all right, all right.

If you want to drive it. Is he here in a million miles? He's very far from here. It's a wrong direction. It's at Scoval Taxidermy. Scoval taxidermy in Warren County, Iowa. He's in the same state, but he's real far away here. All right.

All right. if you factor in so factor in uh factor in uh factor in people that would be jealous factor in people that would be just uncomfortable or opposed to hunting yeah and then factor in people that would just love it that you got that buck yeah um just getting a big buck if you had the way out in your head like here i am running for governor yeah is getting the big buck net positive or net negative because a lot of guys are going to be like he don't deserve that big buck. That's right. I should have gotten that big buck. I'm not voting for him. There is a guy that definitely was definitely saying that. One guy definitely saying that. And some people are like, how could he hurt that beautiful thing? Correct. I just literally replied to somebody about that on threads today. Oh, okay. You know, I was like, how could you do this? I mean, it's one thing if you're eating it, but you're just hunting for. I'm like, no, the law in the state of Iowa literally is you have to, you can't waste me. It's just there's an astounding level of lack of curiosity, right? About hunting. You know this. Yeah. um like people who just don't know like you you have to you have to eat the animal it's literally

the law in the state of iowa people don't know that salvage requirements yep that too that too um i don't know how it breaks down to me i love hunting i'm i like to talk about things that i love my social media presence whatever channel you're on it's probably rob's hand ia although i think on ticot it's rob's hand iowa but my social media presence is like i'm a human being i write a I will put up a post about the burrito that I had for lunch. I'll put up a post about going hunting. And then I'm going to put up a post about how dumb it was to make it so that the auditor can't look at misspent tax money. Yeah.

You know, like, it's just like these are basically like me. They're my accounts. And I understand that some people that might make them upset, but like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to not be who I am. Yeah. I'm going to be who I am. And if some people don't like it, that's okay, but other people do. The other thing is, and I kind of like this, I love the idea of surprise. rising people when it comes to partisanship expectations.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. I like that. All that stuff you talked about, right? Was like, oh, look at this guy. He sounds like a Republican, but he's a Democrat. Do you know what I sound?

Those descriptions to me, I'm like, that just sounds like somebody from small town Iowa. Like a lot of people in small town Iowa do that. Those values, those traditions, those don't belong to a political party. And I love the idea of being like out there is like, yeah, I am a Democrat. Yeah, I do like to hunt. Now, I'm also out there as someone who thinks that we should end the special legal privileges of the Democratic and the Republican parties. You have yet to hear a good reason for why we are stuck having the lesser of two evils on every freaking ballot and feeling like, well, you know, you've never done a thing for me. But boy, this one I really don't like.

So I guess I have to vote for you. Right. Yeah. But like I was an independent when I first registered to vote. I realized not long after that that in Iowa to vote. in the primary you have to join a party it's a closed that's called closed probably right you got it closed primary can i swear on this program yeah like don't say anything crazy don't say anything i just i just won't swear i just won't swear then no no you can swear a little bit that's hogwash that's

terrible idea yeah this is america oh you're gonna be it was bs yeah i was gonna say it you could have got away of that it is bs yeah hogwash is good yeah you're telling me horse that's a less common one for Iowa. We got a lot of hogwash. We got less horse bucky. You're telling me in America where we celebrate Independence Day, we're going to tell independent voters that they are less equal and they don't get to participate in our democracy. That's hogwash, right? Yeah. But that's what it is. We have these close primaries. Guys, we have two private clubs that run the United States of America. That's what it is. It is absolutely wrong. And I think we should change it. But I did. I registered as a Democrat because I think Jesus is for the little guy.

And my perception, particularly at the time of the Democratic Party, is that that was the party for the little guy. I'm trying to make it stay that way. And I also remember Clinton when he was president as a Democrat, balancing the budget and using the surplus in part to pay down the debt. And I was like a teenager. And I just remember thinking like, oh, thanks, because I don't want to have to pay for all that someday.

Yeah. You know? And those are the reasons, basically, that are registered as a Democrat for the most part. Also, as a guy that liked to hunt and fish, I was like, well, they want to keep the places I like to hunt and fish clean and pure. and that's good too yeah um but that doesn't change the fact that like why why should i have to join a private club to exercise my sacred right to vote that's messed up yeah that's one of the the thing i talk about very uh when i talk about my own politics often or i talk about sort of

the politics of hunting and fishing i often describe a to put it negatively i'll say you always have to be paranoid yeah yeah to put it positively which i never do it would be the each side helps you out in some ways that's right but yes i when it comes to environmental protections clean air clean water right habitat preservation we find a lot of friends in the democratic party yeah when it comes to uh acceptance support of the culture of hunting yep firearm rights yep um people that kind of like out there and proud of outdoor heritage yes we find a lot of friends in the republican party yes but at the same time uh i just i don't want to use the word hate i do not like i don't like the two-party system yeah and it's not even the system that bugs me the what

bugs me is the way the system enforces itself yes do you know i mean the way you have to it drives people insane if you don't take all your views and fit them into the box yeah get in the box and when you see someone in the political world when you see them it's it's painful to watch yeah when you see someone and they get to the point where they go man i need to start pretending i think a thing i don't think yep because here i am in this complex world and i need to boxify. Yeah. So it's not even the parties I have a problem with. It's not the two-party system. I have a party with. I have a problem with how organized. And so there's a, there's a, there's a reinforcing culture around the two-party system. Yeah. Yeah. And I say that at every

one of my town halls, we go in hard on how broken that system is. Because it tells us there's only two ways to think, to your point. Yeah. We know that's ridiculous. There's literally five people in that room. That's five ways to think right now. And so we start these things out. We do, you know, we say the system is broken. You've all been invited here to help change it. So raise your hand if you're a Republican. We clap for the Republicans who are in attendance. Raise your hand if you're an independent voter. We clap for the independent voters who are in attendance. I then say, I'm all big on fairness. So let's clap for the Democrats too. And then and then let's prove to ourselves, but also to everyone else who wants us to hate each other because then we're

easier to control. Let's prove to everyone that we all, despite our differences, can work together. Let's sing the first verse of America The Beautiful. Oh. Yeah. And so 100 times across the state of Iowa this year, we did that. I don't lead it. The point is we all sing. My microphone is like, you know, down by my knees. And it's a wonderful moment for people to just have this. Hold on a second. That's right. We can just do this differently. Yeah. And usually by the time, time that's over, there's one person in the audience, you can find who's having an experience, like feeling something, right? That's what I want us to push towards. I mean, I look at what we did, what they did in the state of Iowa. And I'm like, they literally are so comfortable thinking

that this is going to be one party control forever, that they passed a law that auditors around the United States of all political persuasions said will increase waste fraud abuse. Because they think they own this thing. Yeah. the two-party system fundamentally is broken and you pick a pick an issue right could be water quality could be second amendment part of the issues around that issue are where they are and they are the magnitude that they are because the incentive in the political system is for people to throw bombs at each other and have a food fight instead of actually sitting down and saying hey let's figure out how we're going to solve this problem and if you break down those special legal privileges that the democrat and the Republican parties have and you give us a real market for political candidates. We'll start to see changes where we are in more control. We, the people, are in more control of the politicians rather than feeling like we're sort of stuck into supporting them.

Yeah. That's my, that's my number one thing. Any other issue gets fixed more easily when you have a system that's actually responsive to the people. What does it look like when you're doing this as you campaign? I'm not even clear on how you guys haven't got to the primary yet. No, next June. How many people are in that?

There's, uh, well, we'll find out because the, the qualifying for the ballot thing, like filing your paperwork to get on the ballot for the primary happens in like February, February March. Okay. So maximum three, uh, one of them is maximum three? Well, who have announced? Oh, there could be any number. Yeah. Three on the Democratic side have announced.

One's a nice guy named Paul that's announced for many. offices and I'm not sure that he's ever collected enough signatures. The other's a lovely lady named Julie that I've known for years and think the world of. And then there's me. Got it. Yeah. And so this all plays out in November. So primary in June.

And then, yeah, same date as the midterms for the election. And then on the Republican side, there's five candidates over there, I think. Yeah. Close to five. If it's not five. Corinne sent me a thing where you draw, you were drawing a distinction between politics and public service. Yes. What's you take on that?

Well, it's kind of the piece of what we're talking about here, right? Is, you know, politics is passing a law that everybody who's an expert in auditing degrees is going to make it harder to find misspent money. Public service is the six Republicans in the Iowa House that voted against that despite the fact their party wanted them to support it. Good for the six of them. They stood up to do the right thing. I'm proud of every one of them. And I look at every one of them and I see, you know, yeah, we can have disagreements, but you showed some courage on that day, good for you.

Public service is John McCain, taking the microphone away from that woman back in the debates when she was like, you know, saying, I don't remember what it was specifically, but like some kind of conspiracy theory about Obama. He takes a microphone, he says, ma'am. And he just sort of says, he says something positive about his opponent that's public service yeah what you're saying is a true class act yeah yeah yeah yeah like that's that to me is that's that's public service so much of the push is around party show me people who want to do it right you know show me people

who are there not to be a democrat or a republican but to try to do the right thing figure out what the truth is and then do the right thing those are the people that i want to work with yeah i don't care if they're Democrats or Republicans or independents or whatever, I want to work with people who just are focused on like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to be right. Here's a good example. I'll, I'll, uh, toot my own horn here. I got elected in 2018. First decision was who am I going to put into two highest positions in the auditor's office. Uh, I picked an independent in a Republican who had made campaign contributions to my opponent. Oh. Yeah. So I put them in those highest positions. because I want to be a state auditor that's serving the whole state. And I want everybody to know

that whether or not you supported me is not the determinant of whether or not I'm going to listen to you. Got it. And I am here to serve everybody. Now, people who like politics, they're like, Rob, that's the wrong way to do this. You're supposed to punish the people

who oppose you. What do you doing? You're crazy. And my attitude to that is like, well, I'm not trying to, you know, accumulate all the power. I'm trying to just do the wrong. right thing. Like the concept of statesmanship, right? Like, okay, the election's over. I won.

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It runs from December 9 to December 22. See you in town. What's your family think about this? Is your wife sweating it if you win? You know, it's a great question. She understands. She's a believer in it. She understands why it's important.

She thinks we need a new direction in the state of Iowa. She doesn't love it. She's got her own. Actually, she runs her family business, which actually is all about improving the efficiency of the food system you appreciate it i like to describe it as using the every part of the pervereal buffalo oh so they uh they take materials from slaughterhouses around the united states and figure out something they could do with it oh really yeah yeah yeah like rendering and whatnot one of one of the things they do is rendering god yeah oh no kid

yeah and she works there mm-hmm running it and so and so you know she did you know politicians always say they're going to ask their wife or whatever they're going to talk to their wife they're going to ask her do you actually go do that do they do do they do they go say like hey can i run for governor the distinction i would make is the people who were like we sat down with our children and had a family discussion i was like really your children we said our kids out for family discussions that's see we're i was like you guys got to go in the other room we're going to have family discussion how old are yours uh my daughter's up i got a i got a 10 my daughter's 13 in a couple days and i got a 15 all right okay so we got two boys they're nine and 11 we have the family

discussion and they come in and we tell them what it was there that's a lot closer that's a lot closer and we'll explain why this decision was made right and my like no we're not going to Disneyland and there's a thousand reasons why but the biggest one is we don't like Disneyland our boys actually thankfully have never asked to go to Disneyland but but no like will she and I talk about this absolutely you know that's it's a big decision sure same with running for state auditor too you know lower lower office but still a big decision I when when politicians are like we sat down and we listened to our kids to i mean like really you let a nine-year-old decide like what you're going to do with your life you're going to run for hire or or any office any

kids like yeah right no right city council i just be like well my kid my kid is a child they don't understand what this means this is a big decision and it's important we will let them know what we've decided yeah similar to you yeah and no they're not in the room because if they're in the room when Christine and I are talking about it then they're going to have input regardless yeah for sure man the part about it that really gets me is

maybe it hasn't happened yet but god you gotta get some thick skin man oh yeah yeah yeah because toward the end dude they get ugly they do they do they do they're gonna be like his buck wasn't that big it measured 207 they're like not net that's right that's right he's telling you it was 209 but that's gross and we don't mean

rob sand we need girls score uh a lot of that stuff you know i spent seven years in in courtrooms okay uh plenty of plenty of criminal defendants and defense attorneys you know telling people wrong about this or did a terrible job on that that's okay i've run two campaigns already i'm accustomed to it to a certain degree uh but then there's all Also, I mean, the ultimate thing to me is just the serenity prayer. I can't control what other people say about me. This is a great rule. Tell me the serenity pair?

Uh, you know, and I'll probably screw it up, but it's something to the effect of God grant me the, the, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The courage to change the things I can, the wisdom, no, the serenity to accept the things I cannot and the wisdom know the different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't control what other people say about me. I know they're going to lie about me. They're lying about me already. Um, all I could do is live my life and make my own decision. and be honest with people about what I believe

and what I think we need to be doing. And if they pick me great, if they don't, that's their right. Yeah, you can be like, screw y'all. I'm going hunting. That's right. There are many days where, uh, let's not even get into it.

So would you be able to be like, would you be the hunting, like a hunting governor? I mean, I just would be. So both of my jobs as both state auditor and as a prosecutor, I can find ways sitting quiet in a, in a tree stand. to be productive. Yeah, yeah. Back in the day when I was prosecuting,

I'd have to like maybe listen to a witnesses interview. Well, I'd go listen with one, one, one earpiece in while I'm in a tree stand reading, I can read audit reports while I'm in a tree stand on a tablet, no, on a, and that works fine. I can read them printed out. So there's a, there's a way to balance things. It's also just a really good place to do some thinking, just you're in the, you're in the woods you're by yourself no maybe you're 30 feet from a parking lot but it's not that

different what are some environmental issues that that i mean i know you got i think so often a policy on at federal level yeah um oh sure sure sure well local like i think about things in my state i think about things in alaska a lot and i think federal so so you're whatever you bring up i'm probably not going to know what it is. But give me an example of a habitat issue, an environmental issue that's going on where you're at, how you look at it, how you talk about it to people. We've got a very much a percolating issue with water quality right now. We've got a water quality problem in Iowa. Record beach closures this summer, very high nitrate levels. Just ag runoff. A lot of it is ag runoff. It's not exclusively ag runoff.

And the important thing I always try to get people to remember is farmers are signing up for conservation programs and getting turned away. Yeah. Because these politicians won't put in the funding. Yeah. And to me, that's a problem. That's been a huge, that's federal in some degree. That's right. That's right.

And that's been a huge headache, man. Yep. So some of it's federal. Not funding it. Yeah. Not opening it up. Farmers, and this is survey after survey of farmers and growers and producers in the state of Iowa. they care about their impact on water quality.

They care about their impact on the environment. They want to do better, survey after survey. But 90% of farm income goes to the biggest 10% of farms. A lot of farmers are just scraping by. And so they're putting together a plan saying, hey, I'll put my money into this plan. Here's what I'm going to do on this acreage, on this parcel. Here's what I'm going to do over there. But I'm applying for the cost share because I can't do this whole thing by

myself and politicians aren't funding the programs enough and that of course then the farmers like well then I can't do that and all the rest of us are saying well then again we don't see the improvements in water quality because it's not moving fast enough yeah so they don't kill the program they just don't move the money to it right it's still there and they can say oh we put this much into this program this year but what they don't tell you is actually that much was applied for people want to do it and instead they run around and try to divide us from each other because we got this, again, broken two-choice system where they just try to say,

oh, if so-and-so is talking about water quality, that means they're anti-this or anti-that. No, actually, a lot of the people who are farming, who are growing, who are producing, they too want to help improve water quality. It's politicians that aren't giving them the money to do it oftentimes. So putting, uh, so acreage into conservation programs.

It could be that. I mean, it could be putting in terraces, um, lots of different practices. It could be improvements. Yeah, it could be improvements that just help water quality. I mean, maybe it's a, we are, we are 49th in public land, uh, Iowa is. So maybe it's having more public land, but maybe it's actually just having more. 49th.

49th. I would have guessed that. I think 85% of Iowa is farmed. Yeah. Or used in some way for agricultural production. Um, so I'd, I'd like us to improve that. Um, you got a lot of folks access issues. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Like, there's a couple. There's a couple of Facebook bowhunter groups that I've been active in for a long time. And you always get a little bit of extra credit, you know, if you're out there on public land to fill that tag. But we still just don't have that much by comparison to every other state. Do you guys have good stream access laws? If you get into a river, can you, can you travel and anchor and wade or? That's actually a great question.

You can travel. I don't know about anchoring. You can, you could wade. I don't know to what degree. Got it. I would imagine, because I'm just thinking mostly about like literally the size of a lot of rivers in Iowa, we got some of the best trout fishing in the Midwest actually up in my hometown in Decora. A lot of these streams are teeny tiny.

I mean, you're talking about like nobody was a fly fisher when I was growing up in Northeast Iowa because your stream is two and a half feet wide. Got it. Yeah. So you're, you're standing there just plinking a spinner in and reeling it up. you're not float tripping no no i'm with you and so waiting is like you know there's not even why would you the the only thing you're going to do by waiting is let trout you try to know that somebody's in that in that in that stream with them that that the stream access thing and the water access thing

is that's not something i discussed when i grew up in michigan but it's a huge issue out here sure sure with the with the larger rivers and whether you get on them yeah and i've been i've been vocal about the corner crossing stuff too yeah i mean that's just that's like like such a no brainer to me no like look no one is doing anything to your property i'm going to go from this public parcel here to that one that they touch each other i i can't imagine the attitude of someone who says like no i i don't want you to do that well i'll tell you the court the courts all agree with you good yeah but it's not it hasn't been is it done it's not done it's done it's done in that um the ninth so it was appealed and appealed and appeal

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Ninth Circuit Court, so the ninth Federal Circuit Court, ruled it as legal. They tried to appeal to the Supreme Court. They wouldn't hear it. The Supreme Court said, feels settled to us. Great. They didn't take the case. Love it.

What has yet to happen is the ninth is Wyoming. It only covers. That's only good law. New Mexico. But you can rely on it still. Yeah, but the 10th, like, I guess what would happen is. right now it'll take a little time to see if people corner cross and what prosecutor's attitude because theoretically a prosecutor could still try to prosecute it you could I don't think there's a

prosecutor in the state of Montana it's going to take that case I would hope not there's no way I would think you'd have more people upset with you about it than you would have happy with you and why would you want to invite what happened down in Wyoming when and then especially what you're going to end up with is like okay look technically speaking the Ninth Circuit decision doesn't apply outside of the Ninth Circuit, but we all know it exists. We all know the Supreme Court denied certification your point. So are you as the prosecutor going to put all these resources into a case that you think at the end of the day, you're probably going to lose? Yeah. And in the case, they relied on this unlawful enclosures act, which is an old grazing

act, unlawful enclosures act. Oh, interesting. That was cited. And that applies here. That applies outside the Ninth Circuit. Yeah. So it's like... Um, there's still some level of confusion. It would have been kind of cool if the Supreme court had taken it. Yeah. On the other hand, it could have been kind of not cool. We'll take the W. Yeah.

Yeah. It could have been kind of cool if they want to just making it like just absolute law of the land. Instead, just the ramifications are going to be slower. Yeah. Yeah. It's still though. I guess I, and that's, you know, and that's the other trick too. Uh, because if you're, if a lot of the folks that are out there hunting public land is because they don't have access to private land.

Yeah. And so they're not the kind of person who's like, sue me. I've got the resources to fight this out. Yeah. Now, I'm betting that there's, you know, uh, hunting advocacy organizations that would cover their legal expenses, but do they know that when they're standing there at that corner and they want to do that cross? That's what happened in Wyoming, but no, they didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we spent, we spent money on it. A lot of people spent money on it. Yeah. Yeah. I listened to the, I like the, uh, nature is nonpartisan guy you guys had on. Yeah, backer, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of stuff that he said. is kind of like in in in the same thinking as the sort of anti two party system

approach just like we need to break it break down the boxes just get people to the point where you are free to think the way you think tell people what you believe the other benefit of it too is I actually think you get the politicians have more and of incentive to be honest mm-hmm about their opponents and to be truthful because if you have Alaska actually is a great example of this they have a reformed system they have a single open primary you know public primary every every candidate is on it every voter including the independence can walk in you just vote for your one favorite and they send the top four or five to the general

election and then and then they do rank choice voting the other thing i think is pretty simple is approval voting here are four candidates vote for as many of them as you approve of oh and so if you and me and koreen are running for office against each other and we have approval of voting. I'm going to inherently understand that each of you have a bunch of people that really want you to win. But some of those people will also support me if I behave in a way that attracts their support. So instead of being like, Corinne is the scum of the earth. You know, I'm going to be like, I like Corinne all but deserves to die. That's right. Yes, right. But I don't want to take it too far. She's out to destroy your way of life. You know, if instead I highlight areas of

agreement, if I tell you, you know, like, I, oh, we've texted for years. It was so fun to actually, you know, if I say positive things about somebody instead of running them into the ground, then more of your supporters will also support me. And maybe it's only 30%, but if I can get 30% of your supporters to also back me instead of 5%, that helps me win. So we could have a system that actually incentivizes civility, honesty, right? Because if I'm, if I'm lying, all your supporters are going to be like, that's a lie. He's terrible. I don't approve of him.

Break down these walls. Make politicians behave like normal people. Do that. And we can start really solving a lot of problems, I think. After, I've been more careful about this. But after Charlie Kirk was killed, I started being like, now if I'm saying something, if I'm talking about a politician, I'll be like, man, he loves his country. he loves his family

I don't agree with him about Buffalo it is I think that's a I don't see eye on that but let's just clarify that's right I think that loves America I think that's a step in the right direction but you don't see people do it very often and this is you know what's funny too is like

if I mentioned those those bo hunting Facebook groups I'm in they're like the two most supportive Facebook groups I've ever seen just people being like good for you you know someone will put a post up right and it'll be someone who's like man i've been hunted for three years i finally got my first deer it'll be a spike buck then like every single every single comment maybe this is an iowa thing they don't they don't feel the need to tear them down no everyone's

like dude way to go way to be persistent good for you like ordinary people we live in a world part of human nature is working together supporting each other And you look at the comments on these posts and these Facebook groups for hunting and everybody is in there. They're not being like, I wouldn't have shot that out of giving them four years. To a T, they're all just like, way to go. Shoot what makes you proud. If you're happy with that buck, we love that buck. Way to go.

Good for you. I was actually, I just saw this article about, they just did, I can't remember if it's like LiDAR, but somebody up in the Andes found funnels. Yeah. Did you see that? I was reading about that. Oh. They found them underlitz. Lake Erie. Yeah. Oh, no way. All right. So we're talking like tens of thousands of years ago, human beings are building funnels to hunt. I think I said Erie. I think I said Erie. You did say I was supposed to say here on, but please continue. All right. One of them ladies. You're a Michigan guy. One of their legs by my house. Yeah, right. I'm like, I'm like, I know which one Michigan is. Uh, but that's human history. That's human nature. People tens of thousands of years ago building walls together to help funnel animals into the right and easy. You know,

place to kill them, right? Before I did my buffalo, I read American Buffalo. I loved reading that book. Oh, thank you. But a piece of that was so fun learning about, because a lot of this I didn't know, you know, pointing them to the, and now, and now, of course, I'm blanking on it. You know, getting them to the hill where there's the drop on the other side. The jump site.

Yeah, but they're working together, right? To make the job easier for everybody later on. But yet here we are with this political system that incentivizes anger and division and hatred and lying. We're so much better than it. it's a mess how um this can be hard for you to answer honestly there's a there's a piece of marital advice uh-oh yanni my buddy yanni introduced me to it let's say you're fighting with your wife yeah yeah and then you realize you're fighting about something you don't really care about

so what they'll do is let's say me and krenner having a big fight about uh where this microphone would be. And I realize at some point, I'm arguing like hell, but I's just like, I honestly don't, it doesn't really, but I'm just here. Why am I arguing? I'm just here arguing. Yeah. And I love my argument. Yes. And I would wind up saying, it's a three out of ten for me. I love that. It's a three out of ten. Right. And Corin's like, well, it's a ten. Yeah. And you're like, I'm at a ten. And I'm at a ten on that microphone. And I'm like, okay. That is a great idea. Right. I'm going to try to put that into practice. Yeah.

But you got to be honest. But that's not the thing you got to be honest about. Shoot. I thought I was getting off easy. No, no. If you set yourself like, you put all this time, 18 months and all that. Yeah. How much do you get in your head?

Um, how much do you get in your head about, like, what if you fail? Not very much. I just worked the hardest I can every day. Again, serenity prayer. Yeah. You know, what if I fail? I don't know. know i'll think about that if i feel i've never been so you don't sit around being all depressed about

that idea i've never been a big anticipator got it you know like there's people who like what's it going to be like when i this when i have that for for big things and for little things yeah i don't know i'll find out when i get there so this the this buck for when two minutes into hunting light when i saw him i typically do not get buck fever um i've taken i want to say eight Popin Young Bucks, it's funny because I capped out. I've got three between in the one fifth, four, four in the 150s, like 153 to 159, four. I've been stuck for years, right? But every one of those bucks, I've never gotten really the shakes.

Yeah. This buck I did. I wasn't thinking like, oh, I wonder if I'll get buck fever finally when this buck shows up. It just happened. And then again, the second time when I'm putting up the tree stand, it just happened. third time rolled around cool as a cucumber got it but i've just never been someone who's like well what if i this or what if i that life life's going to happen by the time i get there i'll figure it

out what i can do right now today is put all of my effort into making sure the outcome that i want is the outcome that happens got it yeah well man i hope that uh you come out of this whatever happens yeah i hope you come out of this with the same spirit that you have now appreciate that. I hope I do, too. I hate to see something bad happen, do you? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to sit there watching now on election night. I'm going to be watching. All right. All right. Well, uh, we're feeling pretty good. The only, the only poll we've seen has us up by two, but those aren't worth a whole lot. A lot's going to happen between now and, uh, a year from now. Tons, man. So we'll see where it goes.

One, up by two in the primary. No, no. In the general, for they tested, this is a poll that tested me versus sort of the Republican frontrunner or perceived frontrunner. Who knows who it is at the end of the day. Yeah. So, but that's, you know, worth a little bit more than the paper it's printed on at this point. We're happy to see it. We're not surprised to see it. We're just going to keep working hard every day. Are your campaign signs going to be your buck photo?

Oh, actually, I should send you. I should send you. Sand for governor. And it's like a grip and grin. I used to do, uh, I used to do parades. And I'd have my, uh, shoulder mounts hanging off the side of my truck. And my, and my, uh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, sign would say

Rob Sand for state auditor Bo Hunter or no it was like Rob Sand Bo Hunter and State Auditor he'll find our bucks That's good It's fun it's fun I love we every every campaign cycle we've always had funny ads

Like making fun of me big target You know you don't need to be proficient For that one big target But if I can make people laugh Whether it's on a parade or it's a TV commercial Like that is public service You asked about public service. Like, that is a public service.

We are living in very strange, oftentimes dark times. Yeah. If I can give you an opportunity to put a smile on your face, like, I have done a good thing. That's good. Take it and run. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll probably do, I don't know if we'll do something. We haven't really talked about it, but we've done it in the past.

The TV ads haven't been hunting oriented, but the parade floats have been. I should probably ask you a couple technical hunting questions. Sure. When you're hunting in those tight confines. And you just can't have one running off. You shoot mechanicals. Oh, boy. Do we have this?

I got a long answer. I don't want to hit you with contentious. No, no. I don't want to hit you with like the gotcha stuff. No, I got a long answer to this one. So I used to shoot fixed blade. You got to take your shirt off of this. It's a little warm in here.

It's a little warm in here. I used to shoot fixed blade. Okay. Then I saw this study from, what is it, quality deer management association. QDMA. Yeah. Good.

And again, like, I'm a numbers guy. My, in, in college, my honors thesis was a statistical analysis on a data set that I built with over 40,000 data points in it. Okay. And so there, this cute, I think it was QDMA, but it was out there on the internet. And they did this study in a permit only hunting environment, I think on a, maybe on a military base. I'm pretty sure it was in Maryland. Okay. And they found that mechanicals gave you, mechanicals gave you a higher recovery rate.

Got it. That was all I needed. Again, like, I'm, I like truth. Yeah. I like numbers. And even though I've been shooting flicks blades, I read that. I'm like, all right, now I'm shooting mechanicals. Yeah.

I switched to mechanicals. I think at the same time, I switched to the deep six, like the microdiameter arrows. Yeah. And so I got these ones. I'm not going to get into brands, but. Yeah, because you lose all the voters, you know. I don't shoot the other brand. I was into that sand guy.

And then he said he shoots rages, and now I think he sucks. I was going to vote for him. I was a boy of myself. There you go. I just don't want to, it's less about that. I was not satisfied with the performance. I switched back to the same fix that I was using. Just, I knew they were reliable.

I liked them. But then when I travel around the state, there's a few hunting archery shops I'll go into. One of them's in El Cater, Iowa, the guy that owns his guy. named Dave got to know him you know I'll pop in might only be once a year but pop in to say hi to Dave see what he's got what he's got and he gave me he's like you got to shoot these because I'll tell him you know like oh I switched to mechanicals because I saw this study that says you get a better recovery rate but it's been really frustrating I switched to a two blade I think the two blade if you hit it if your blades are not vertical and you let's say you shoot quartering away

right let's say your blades are like this you're gonna hit that deer and one is going to flip out other one's not and so all of the trajectory and the energy of your arrow is going to twist probably it's just not going to get you the pass through that you want and maybe that was the issue but regardless of what the issue was Dave was like you got to shoot these and he hands me a pack you want it we can talk brands grim reapers okay it's a four blade mechanical and four blade mechanical four blade mechanical so it's just you know uh there's one that comes out on each no collar on it so it's like nothing to mess around with the ones i had had collars on them and i didn't buy them the first year that he recommended them i'm typically just like

taking information right um but eventually i i decided to buy them man that's all i'm shooting now that's what i shot the 209 that's what i shot the 209 not the 209 that's what you shot 209 i like the 209 so like the 409 beach boys oh yeah the 209 i should rewrite my 409 Giddy up Oh, Thank you There we go We're going to rewrite it

My 209 The problem Name in Bucks Actual names Yeah Is there's a story Where there's two stories Um

Mark Kenyon Had a buck named Frank And he called Someone who said I shot Frank Oh no And people can take that wrong way And Jeff Foxworthy

Has that story Where he had a buck named a person's name And he told his wife I shot It's like I shot Dave Who's Dave?

Why did you do that? Do I need to pack you a bag? Where are you right now? But yeah, I shot the 209. I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a, that's a buck. Yeah. A little split time. That's right.

A drop point. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So yeah, I switch to these Grim Reapers. Every single shot now. Just max 40 yards and drop. Hmm.

Big exit. I'll check it out. They're pretty good. I like to argue about this with Tony. Peterson all right yeah you don't mean no but colleague of ours all right i think it's an interesting conversation it's one of the more interesting ones i think that there is in archery right now yeah for a while i quit i tried to for there's a couple years when i tried to not argue about that's just like not possible i know especially for you i might be able to get away with it you know

those guys that do that um they're like uh they'll say well it works for me Yeah, like no matter, like I could say to you, study after study after study has shown that that's right, well, that's what works for me. Right. And it just shuts, it just shuts it. I'm shooting field points. Yeah, because it works for me. Yeah, and it just shuts everything down. So instead of arguing about gear, because I'll say, you know, of course, my boots are the best. Yeah, yeah.

You know, my headlamp is the best. My buddy recently observed, you always have the best headlamp, but you always have a different headlamp. that's a great point that is such a good point that's frustrating but that's not the one that you had a week ago that was the best i'm picturing that onion headline right now world's worst person just made an amazing point right you're right so i tried to quit i'm back in though now yeah yeah i argue about it but i i seriously i wish you good luck man you appreciate that yeah i like i like thanks for having me i want to um i like talking to people and political space yeah who don't want to burn everything down yeah but you know there's a great

a great line i'm trying to remember who said it and i can't but uh any old meal can kick a barn down it takes a carpenter to build one yeah yeah yeah we got a lot of building to do yeah we do yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i hope you like whatever happens in your campaign yeah you your opponents i hope you do that and and i wish you luck and now on that night i'm gonna be watching all right i appreciate that if we hear about iowa all the time because you guys vote real early and that's right that's right it'll be easy to track good all right rob sand iowa yeah uh iowa's state auditor you got it running for the position of governor and chief white tail bow hunter yeah if you're in des moines and you don't like hunting and you see a very large buck

and you're in town there call rob that's right don't call anybody else please send photo of buck we'll provide venison all right thank you very much yeah yeah thanks Hey, you're looking for a good solid sweepstakes, like the kind of sweepstakes you can sink your teeth into. Well, I got it for you right here, buddy. You can sign up to win a trip to Bozeman for you and three family or friends, so a total of four people.

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