The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 831: A Wildlife Officer and Skier Walk Into a Bar | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Hosts Janis Putelis, Randall Williams, and Seth Morris interview Olympic biathlete Paul Schommer and his coach, Matt Emmons, about competing in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, look back 20 years in another edition of Throwback Thursday, and chat with Wildlife Officer Deme Wright about life as a game warden and her work around the Fort Carson poaching investigation. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivians. Meat Eater podcast. Now? Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain time.

Mountain Standard time here in Montana. Who's phones, Reagan? Oh, sorry. You just said you're in airplane mode. It's connected to my computer. Now, I am in airplane mode, but it's still connect. That was Stephen Ronella. We got to clean this thing up here, guys.

I'm bothering. We do not have to have to. You should tell Steve to come down. Stephen's like, call me. I'm going to tell him just to come down here if he's here. Hold on. One second. He is here.

I got to text Steve. Come to studio. Oh, this one's off to a real weird. We're recording. I can't wait to get a text message from Spencer. It says this is the word radio. Spencer can sign. Yeah.

Whenever Spencer's. Not hosting. You guys don't know those listeners at home. Spencer, bruising self, a warm cup of coffee, sits in a recliner and turns on the show and takes notes. He just pulls out a legal pad. And he just is like, ha, ha! Watch those boys burn! There may have been a text at one point that said

that was the worst radio live we've ever done. Who was hosting that one? I was involved somehow. I was involved too. I think it might have been Corey. Me and Corey. Is it 11 a.m. Mountain Time in Bozeman, Montana? Yes. Do you want me to

I'm just trying to get it back on the tracks here. That's 7 p.m. for our fellow Americans in Italy on Thursday, February 5th, and we're live from Meat Eater World Headquarters in Spring Lake Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Giannis Patel, joined today by Seth Morris and Randall Williams. We've got a great show for you today, including an interview from Cortina, Italy, with Olympic biathlete Paul Schomer. Maybe Schomer, I didn't ask him. And as coach Matt Emmons, we're also talking. to Colorado wildlife officer Demi Wright, who recently wrapped up a big poaching case

involving your mule deer. Then we'll look at photos of ourselves from about 20 years ago, and as always, we'll answer questions from the live audience. But first, let's get a few updates from the worlds of Seth, Randall, and yours truly on this fourth to the last episode

of Meat Eater Radio Live. Oh, but don't fret. Mait eater Radio Live is going to be replaced by the Meat Eater News with Cruise Show. Now, that's a working title. That's just, I think, what's on our... I think Steve wants the title to be The News Show. Meat Eater, colon, the news show. That doesn't sound great either.

But, you know, he's the boss and whatever he chooses, that'll be it. It's going to be... So what you can expect out of that show. Updates from the crew, Spencer came up with a good thing that I like. It's like our news, your news, and the news. And what you can expect from that would be like cruise stories, updates from us. And then kind of how we do stories, questions, corrections from you guys. And then the news being like what really matters right now in conservation news.

So that'll be starting, I believe March 9th. ninth and it's it's going to be a great show uh what else butchering bambi hoodies can you see it yeah this is what i was pestering steve about because this is his idea in my opinion it is one of the best t-shirt hoodie designs we've ever come up with i do like it because it takes a anti-hunting idea this thing that was made up bamby the movie and completely flips it upside down and makes it

into a pro hunting thing. Any thoughts on that, boys? It's beautiful. I love it. It's a very subversive concept. It has all the cuts on there. Yeah. It's just like your classic

butchering chart of a deer. Flank ribs, shoulder. But it just uses Bambi. Yeah. As it. Those are going to sell like Hotcakes. Yeah.

Have any lawyers from the Walt Disney company reached out to us about that? Someone asked, this Bambi in the public domain. I don't know. And I don't think he is. Bambi's a boy, right? Yes.

Oh. Yeah. That's a buck. Maybe if we don't talk about that aspect of it, it will just go unnoticed by a giant. That's right. A bunch. I'm over here.

I'm so sorry. Anyways, the hoodies just pop. Just landed on the website. you all should get one and wear it proudly and then make sure you can speak about what's going on here that's what I was bothering Steve about this morning he says call me when he texts me and then I said no just come down in the studio and he replies

I'm on a call yeah how is that going to work okay enough about hoodies uh Randall looks like what you've got going on in your life is uh well first let's hit the international shout out We have our favorite, well, I don't know, I think our favorite international, like, guess is Moor. Moor. One of the most, the, I mean, I think he has a perfect attendance record.

If this were high school, he'd be recognized at the end of your assembly. But someone pointed out to me that he's not the only international listener out there. So we want to give a big shout out to Dan Hernandez, who's currently stationed in the UK. Tuning into Meteor Radio Live. Shout out, Dan. Thanks. For tuning in, Dan. Dan, if you're in the chat, let us know, if not, why did you lie to us?

Yeah. This is the truth test. He seems like a good guy. We traded some messages on the IG. Seems like a real, real good guy. So just want to give a big shout to Dan. And then the big news in my household is when I left this morning, it was my last time saying goodbye for the day to Dolly, our five-year-old dog. She's not dying.

She's turning six tomorrow. You really made it sound like she's dying. I didn't deliberately set that up. No, she's turning six tomorrow. So today's the last day with a five-year-old dog in the house. Tomorrow we have a, we'll have a six-year-old dog and two 10-year-old, soon to be 11-year-old. So I basically feel like I have three loaded guns pointing at my head because when you get into the big breeds, I feel like every year's, every year past, you know, like six, seven is real precious. Oh, I was going to say past 10.

You feel like it's past six-seven. Oh, yeah, I feel like labs. I feel like... Well, with the Labrador, yeah. Labs can take a quick turn downhill. Geez, what do you feel like a blue tick coon hound? I don't know. You run them hot.

I don't know if that's good for the engine or bad for the engine. You know, some engines like to be run hot. I'd guess that a blue tick coon hound would probably... That's probably good for Mingus. Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, these are just fluffy. So yeah, Dolly's turning six, huge.

She's kind of got a weird personality. She was a COVID dog. We thought, what better time to raise? as a third dog than when we were forced to stay at home for a few months. But then she didn't really get socialized. And so she's got a lot going on in her own head with herself. How will you all celebrate her birthday? Typically, we'll take her swimming at the river.

That's what she likes to do. She likes to just be active. She's got like a 110-volt dog plugged into a 220 outlet. And so yeah, whatever we can do to just wear out. But yeah, it's a big day in our household. We usually don't do a cake, but I'll often use, you know, cheese whiz to write their ages on their food. Oh, that's fun. Yeah.

I bet they enjoy that. Yeah. It just depends on how much time we're investing each year in the celebration. Okay. Any, imagine you'll have a couple beers. Do you ever, like, give them half a beer in the water bowl? Our first dog used to drink a lot. He, uh, he was, when he, when he, when we first had him, we would take him to this brewery in

Missoula, uh, called Byron. And, uh, they had, they have all these like old German guys came over for the summer to like, you know, work on the brewery and, and exchange. It's like, they do like exchange stuff with German breweries. And these old guys loved to feed Arlo beer when he was tiny. And he developed. And he developed. a real taste for it. Thankfully, he couldn't drive, so that was never an issue. But he liked whiskey. He liked wine.

He liked beer and died 10 days shy of his 10th birthday. But I don't think the booze had anything to do with it. Sorry, this has gone way darker than I. The booze might help. I thought it was going to be like a, this was going to be a lighthearted celebration of Dolly's 6th birthday. But really, I've taken some. Now we're just talking about dead dogs. turns here.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we all know, that's the worst part about dogs is that they die. Oh, it kills me.

What does Cal say, call it? Prolong suffering or something? I don't know. When you get a dog? Because you just know they're going to die. Oh. Yeah.

See, we had, like, Mingus is really my first dog as an adult. Like, I married my wife and she had a dog. And so,

yeah, of course I adopted her, but I still, you know, didn't feel that attached. Yeah. So, yeah,

This is, I'll be going through it, according to Randall, maybe in just a year or two. I don't know. I just, life is a degenerative process, biologically speaking. Yes, yes, yes. On the, let's talk about life. Seth, I'm sure you're talking about this all the time these days. Oh, God, nonstop. You're going to be a dad soon.

How's that all coming along? Five weeks out. The wife is. That's it? Yeah. Holy mackerel. Kelsey is very uncomfortable and sleeping poorly, but she feels good. Like, you know, she's not, she's not struggling with, like, how she feels.

It's just like a, like, she's not sleeping well thing. That's her only struggle at this point. Yeah. Yeah, she's probably just ready for it to be over. Oh, yeah. Get on out. Our first was two weeks early, so you could be closer than you think. Man, everyone we talked to is like, we had ours at 35 weeks, you know, or within, like, that 35 to,

a 40-week period, like, it seems like it could happen at any moment. Yeah. Hmm. So. We were at one time in a Pier 1 imports. Like, nice. It's a perfect, perfect date night. We just finished up brunch at first watch.

I'm not saying that was a date night. No, no. We were looking for candles for the birth, right? We were going to have my oldest at home. We ended up having both of them at home. Oh, nice. And for whatever reason, Like, a lot of candles is a thing when you have a home birth.

And so we're at Pier 1 getting some candles. And we're still like a solid week out, but, you know, you start having these little baby contractions. And if you're, if you've been around pregnancies or then when those early contractions happen, you're like, oh, yeah, okay. It's like your body's practicing to get ready to give birth. Yeah. And we're chatting with a lady and Jennifer goes like, oh, wow, oh, a little contraction there.

And the girl looks at us and it's like, please don't have that. baby in here. We're like, come on. It's not going to happen in here. It's not that nice of a store. Yeah. Are you cleaning something over there, Phil? No, there's, no, why?

They're using solvents in the new studio. Oh, I think they're like scraping glue. Yeah. Oh, off the concrete. Yeah, it smells like I just, uh, it's, I oftentimes flood our garage with acetone fumes and it lingers for a few days and I'm getting real strong vibes of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. If you guys noticed there while you're watching this, live show that we're all getting a little drowsy, sleepy. Please, let us know in the comments. Call 911. Yeah, there's not a lot of ventilation in this room. Oh, my God. It's getting strong.

It's very strong. It's getting quite strong. It might be, they might just be pumping it directly into this. Is this? Is this how they get rid of this? Yeah, guys, have fun in radio live. Remember, you can't leave. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, just like in one battle after. I was just, I was going to make that reference, but I wasn't sure who had seen the movie. Seth, You've also been doing a little bit of ice fishing. What's the ice fishing report? I mean, ice fishing report's not good. There's not much ice.

There was enough ice on Canyon Ferry, which is the local lake here, for, I don't know. I fished it twice, but it's been fishing for two weeks or so. But it's like, it's just not. The first time I fished it was a little sketchy. had about four inches of ice and it was moving a lot like pressure ridges pressure ridges were building while we were there and you know just not what you want and you couldn't really get to the stuff we wanted to get to out further um but then last weekend we hit it and had a good walleye bite which was fun um kind of like a morning walleye bite and then um yeah i think it's

kind of done now. We've had because it just warmed up too much again. A warm week and what's supposed to be 60 degrees today. Now is it early enough where it could turn around again or is it now you're like, eh, halfway through February, it's pretty much

no matter what happens, it's done. No, it could definitely turn around again and get cold and make ice enough to fish. But at this point in time, I'm like, let's bring on open water and get a boat. Right. just kind of over watching the weather for ice.

But there's still places around where there's guys skating on the pond out back here this morning. There's obviously enough ice there, but I don't know, fishing these little ponds around here kind of gets old after a while. Yeah. I want to get out in some big water. It's for the high school kids. Yeah. The high school kids, the hardcore, they love pounding the local ponds. Oh, I know.

Jimmy Ronella's been tearing it up. Yeah. Yeah, I heard he had, I heard from his little sister, and I haven't got corroborated with Stephen, but I heard that he was like having hypothermic symptoms from being on a recent ice fishing trip. You heard this story? Yeah, he told me about it. He was on a... Does this sound legit? Yeah, he said they were fishing for burbit and night fishing.

And apparently the temperature was over that, that period of time when we got that cold snap. Yeah. And yeah, apparently the temperatures dropped into negatives and you got hypothermia. Yeah, I heard that his partners were getting ready to take him to the emergency room because of his, he was being so symptomatic. Oh, he didn't tell me that part. Yeah. Speaking of a place where it is really cold right now and they're having a heck of a winter, Wisconsin. A little update on my Oak Savannah project.

If you don't know, if you haven't heard this, we're turning a little. about seven acres of our 40 in Wisconsin into an oak savanna, which basically meant we cut out a lot of trees with a logging project, left a few. And then instead of regenerating oaks there, we instead killed all the oaks and everything else that was going to grow there and are now going to try to grow Forbes and native grasses instead underneath the few oaks that are left. And the part of the project where we were at, we had piled all of the slash that was left over from the logging.

And these giant piles had to get burned. I couldn't do it since I'm a thousand miles away, and I needed help. So a friend of mine, Ashley Steinke, from the, he is the Wisconsin Grassland Ecologist for the Audubon Great Lakes and leads the Audubon Conservation Ranching Program in Wisconsin. And so he offered to burn these piles for me, which I had. have roughly 30 of hanging out. And they're giant piles. Like easily the size of the studio that we're in right now. Go ahead and show us some pictures, Phil.

Yeah, do you want to do that first picture? Yeah, there's a picture of Ashley with a big old fire going behind him. You can see the size of the pile. It's legit. So we had to get these things burned so that we have like a clear space to then do our seating, which is going to happen very soon here.

We're going to do a frost seeding, which basically means they just sprinkle the seeds all over while they still have, you know, snow and basically a free-thaw cycle, which will help the seeds get great contact with the ground. Go ahead and show those three mulberry photos in a row. So this is the day that he burned. We have a stand kind of on this wildlife opening. The oak savannah is actually to the north, but you can see this is like, well, 11 a.m. and then a little bit later Ash's got them all burning and then by I think

334 in the next photo you can oh no already by that was only at noon. Well that happened fast. So they continued to burn and the pile's got even a little bit smaller as you'll see in the video coming up here. But I was asking Ashley

I'm like man this is going to take a couple of days and you can't just take time off of work and he's like oh no I will be working while I'm doing this. I'm like, but we don't have like a contract or anything. And he goes, yeah, man, but our sort of attitude at the Audubon society is like, if it's good for the bird, it's good for the bees.

Sort of like meaning like, we don't have a project with you, but what you're doing like helps the whole landscape around here. And it just, it has an impact. And so gladly come up and help you and put some of my work time into your project. Yeah. Can you show that video? fell of the first one here yeah this is a still when they're uh burned pretty good with the exception of ones and the very south facing hillside oh boy all i can think of is large scale landscape

level restoration like this and sitting here in september and listening to elph bugle in this landscape. You have a good day. We can, I mean, we spend enough time on this, we don't need to play that other one, but the next video would just show all those piles basically being a lot smaller. And it's

cool for me. You guys are just looking at like, basically bonfires and you're going like, why is this really that interesting? But for someone that's been involved in this project now for two years and knowing that the end is really, well, there is no end to it. But sort of like, hopefully it looks like the oaks of that it's in my head in about another three years because it's going to take three years for

these seeds to really establish themselves and get going. But just the change from what it looked like when I was there in the fall with all these giant piles and now to see those piles gone and you can really get that sort of just like unobstructed view across those seven acres and just looking through like the few leftover giant oaks, it's sweet. Yeah, that's cool. I had major fomo when Ashley was there the other day. Do you guys have plans? to keep burning that area? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. A big part of my work now is making sure that my fire breaks and my roads act as fire breaks. And I've got that dialed so that when it's time to burn, whether I do it or, you know, someone else. I was talking to Ashley about, like, having someone else do it. And it's a lot cheaper. If they roll in and your shit is tight and your fire brakes are tight and they're just like, oh, great, we're just going to burn and we leave. If they have to start doing, you know, manual labor to make your fire brakes legit, it's going to, you know, the price is going up big time.

This month, IHeart Radio is celebrating the stars of the 2026 Winter Games. Born and raised in Torrance, California, Chloe Kim returns to the half pipe to make history. After dominating the last two Olympics, she drops into the Milano Cortina pipe, aiming for an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal. With her signature massive air and technical double corks, She remains the undisputed queen of the sport. Kim is ready to prove once again that the road to the podium goes through her. For more Winter Games gold, search Olympics on the IHeart Radio app.

I'm Dylan Playfair. And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is Bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years.

And you can find Bromance on the I-Harmine's. And you can find bromance on the Iheart Radio Network or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up, if you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series, we're hunting in Tanzania, well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hertz Safaris. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention.

Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do it. a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. We're going to do two things. From 930 to 1030, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth. Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind

if you come on down. To get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to the convention. once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Mia Morgan.

But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs. Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville Safari Club International Convention. All right. Enough BSing. Let's get on with our first interview of the morning.

We're going to play a little video before we start. Oh, yeah. When I'm skiing into the range, there's a lot going through my head. In 30 seconds, it feels like the race could change. Hands are freezing. Snow covers off and my heart rates high. Magazine in, close the action. Don't fumble.

Slow it down. Focus. Pressure on the trigger. Don't fight it. Smooth. First shot. Clean. Second shot.

In the west. Just third. Fourth. Sometimes. I'm not even really thinking. It all goes silent. And after that last shot, it all comes rushing back.

Breathing, heartbeat, noise. And I'm not even on snow yet. This is biathlon. Sweet. Our first guest today, joining us from Ant Holtz, Italy, are biathletes, Paul Schumer, and Matt Emmons. Now, Matt might not consider himself, I'm guessing he's still skis as a bad athlete in so.

some version, but he is Paul's coach now. Welcome to the show, fellas. Hey, nice to join you guys. Good here. The first time I watched that video, I was like, oh, man, he's just, he's not even on snow. But when I just watched it for whatever reason, man, it kind of got me fired up.

And I was feeling the pressure that you feel when you're out there trying to shoot those little targets. All right, fellas, welcome, like I said, for those that don't know, can you guys just give us a 30 second explanation of what biathlon is? Yeah, so I think just to start, I think it's what's really cool about biathlon is I think it's really connected to a lot of things that make us that we hold deer to us as humans, which I think are one hunting and two protecting and providing for those that we love. because it really came about from people in northern Scandinavia back in the day hunting on snow in the winter on skis. And then eventually got turned into border patrol during World War II. And then basically from that practice, they had some mini competitions.

And that's what turned into biathlon. Biathlon is first and foremost a race. So the clock starts when you leave the start and ends when you cross the finish line. and it's a ski race where you stop and you have shootings, either two or four different shootings, from an equal amount of prone and standing. So if you have a two shooting race, it's one prone, one standing. A four shooting race, it's two prone, two standing. And for every missed target, you have a penalty either by having to ski a penalty loop or a time penalty.

And so it's all about skiing fast, being efficient on the range, and hitting targets. Okay, obviously heart rate must play just like a huge, huge, it's got to be a huge factor in like being able to execute what you're doing. So tell me before we get in like how you do it, but like what's your like resting heart rate and you're like racing when you're on skis and then the heart rate that you're trying to actually when you're shooting what you're trying to get your heart rate to? Yeah. So I mean, resting heart rate, I would say most nights, I'm in the low. 30s. So I'd say like if I'm in like a good spot and I'm looking up, I'll have my heart rate. I have an aura ring, but the aura ring only tracks to 33. And so there'll be sometimes or I'll be under that and there'll be like gaps in it. And then heart rate variability is another

one that you look at for recovery. On the range, I have a pretty low heart rate in this grand scheme of things when it comes like max heart rate. So my max heart rate is probably going to be like 175. throughout the season, whereas like some competitors, they'll be up over 200. Oh. Okay. And then so that's your max when you're skiing and you're going full bore. What's the heart rate that you're trying to be at when you're trying to make these shots? Oh, man.

I mean, honestly, I don't really look at my heart rate too much. I think that the breathing is what I really focus on, mostly because that's kind of like the anchor of focus sometimes. so you like control your breathing because you can control your breathing whereas your heart rate is kind of like kind of like all right heart's going to do what it wants um i would say i'm probably shooting around 150 beats per minute most times that i'm on the range or more for those of you at home like i don't know if you can even get to 150 beats a minute but like go ahead and try shooting a gun accurately with your heart doing 150 beats a minute that's insane.

All right, Paul, because we've interviewed you before on the show, not on this show, but on the media podcast, so I have an idea of like the things that you've been through. I follow you on Instagram. Give us the sort of rundown of the hurdles. I was talking with recently the one of the main folks over at Crosscut, which is Bozeman's bi-athlete sort of center. shooting center. And I mentioned your name. And she's like, yeah, that guy has been through more to get to what he's getting to do now than like anybody else I know. I mean, it's just like,

it's amazing. So give us a short rundown of like the hurdles that you've had to go through to be able to race this next week. Um, I mean, yeah, I think that when I was last sitting in your guys studio in 2022, uh, I was asked the question like, oh, how long, how much long are you going to go? And at that point I was kind of like, I don't really know. Like, um, and I, I didn't really see myself competing for another four years. And I think that decision was almost kind of made for me. Um, in 20, 23, I had a knee injury that I actually had to get a knee surgery. Um, so I had to finish my season early, came home, got surgery, rehabed back from that

surgery. Um, made a full comeback, qualified for the World Cup was at the pre World Cup, uh, camp, in Finland and my knee just totally blew up. Like just I didn't know what was going on. I thought maybe it was just the travel, some other things. It wasn't getting better. So I ended up flying home from Finland. And at that point, not only was I having some knee issues,

I was actually having a lot of other stuff going on in my personal life as well. And I just remember sitting across the table from my coach when I was in Finland and just saying like, I'm going home and I don't know when I'm coming back. back because like it just seemed like everything was pretty chaotic at that point. I ended up going home and I realized that my knee had re-injured itself, so I had to get a second knee surgery. And basically what happened was the first surgery, the injury that they had repaired just had failed and I was right back to where I was.

And it was a knee scope. So they were like, oh, yeah, you should be good to like ski pretty soon. And my knee just was not responding. I would ski for about 30 minutes. My knee would be swollen for two days. And so at that point, I was like, I don't even know if I can compete, much less if I want to compete. And that kind of put me in a really interesting spot because it was kind of like maybe the decision was made for me. I felt like my life at that point was maybe steering me in a different direction.

Priorities that came, that come before sport were things that I think I was prioritizing at that time. Um, but as that year unfolded, uh, again, I think some, some decisions were made for me, maybe decisions that I want to have made for myself. And I ultimately felt like I should train, train back. Um, I went down to Stedman Clinic in Colorado because my knee wasn't responding and they said that I should get another knee surgery. Um, but they were going to put metal on my my knee and I was just not ready to, to put metal on my knee at my age. It would have just kind of started me down another path that, um, I didn't really feel like was, necessary. And I actually kind of started to get back into training and then got to a point where I was

like, man, I finally feel like my knees responding. I can train enough to be able to get back to a high level. And I really don't know what happened other than maybe my body responded in such a way that I was able to get back and slowly made my way back at that time because I didn't compete that year before I was left off the national team. So I didn't have any support from the national team. health insurance. I was just training on my own and thankfully was able to re-qualify for the team this past year. Had to work my way back up through the ranks.

Was at World Championships and qualified for that. Basically, like last minute. I missed a lot of other chaotic things going on. And that makes me being here in Italy right now talking to you guys, something that I'm like really grateful for because I definitely don't take it for granted. There's plenty of things that could have derailed me along the way and makes it really special to be able to compete this winter. Awesome. Okay, so you, I don't know if I'm going to phrase this properly, but like what, you've made it to the Olympics, which I think

is, you know, for most of most people, that would be in of itself. Like, it is an amazing Let's say for everybody. Just generalize. Anybody that. It's an amazing accomplishment. but obviously you've got a little bit more gur in you than most of us so you're here what's like what is your focus set on now what's your goal that you're there now um well i think like for this year i've said the the goal for myself um top 10 at the Olympics um i've gone top 10 at this venue before on the world cup um and so that's something that i've really thought of i think another goal for our entire team that we have and something that we have and something that we've done we hear about all the time at the Olympics is biophon is the only winter sport the U.S.

has yet to meddling at the Winter Olympics and is kind of dubbed the last first medal. And so I think our goal is really to see the U.S. win that medal. I think we have some chances in individual events, especially with my teammate Campbell, who last year won two silver medals at World Championships. But we've been forth a couple of times and relays this year on the World Cup. So I think we really have our sights set on hopefully bringing home that last first metal. Love it. Listen, man, if you're telling me that you're, you're playing on possibly breaking top 10, I immediately think, well, if he can do that, he could also go podium. Like, you're only,

that's only a few, few spots. And I know you guys know way more about this than I do. But, uh, yeah, all right. Awesome. I love to hear it. Let's talk a little bit about how this biathlon business, uh, like relates to hunting. Um, Matt, I was told that you actually have hunted shammy. in the valley that you guys are compete, well, Paul is competing in this week. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I've been here four different times hunting for Shammie.

It's a beautiful valley. I call it like my second home even though it's not. Just love coming here. I love mountain hunting. And I've lived in Europe now for 13 years. And one of the things I missed about living out west in the U.S. was just mountain hunting. And so I got an opportunity to be able to come here and hunt Shammie.

And it's just awesome. So I wasn't able to do it this past year, but hopefully this coming year I'll be able to do it again. What does a sham – is that what you guys call it shammy or do you pronounce it chamois? I say shammy. I don't know if that's right or not. Yeah. So like what's a shammy hunt in that area look like? Just gives a real quick rundown of like a normal morning shammy hunt.

All of my hunts actually have been morning hunts. Pretty much what we do is we get up before sun up. get up in the mountains. Usually we drive up with a car up to a certain point. And then you got a hike. And sometimes it could be, you know, maybe just a 15-minute hike to get to a spot we're going to be spotting. Or it could be a longer hike. One year we actually did go into about midday. So we were moving around trying to spot some animals. This isn't what we're looking for. Let's go over here. And then we found some different ones, not what we're looking for. Let's go over here. So it took a little bit longer. but once you get one down, usually you're up above above 2,000 meters, which is over 6,000 feet, up above tree line.

So once you get it down, then it's a matter of gutting it, put it in a backpack hole. They put it in the backpack hole. They don't cut it up because they only weigh about probably 60, 65 pounds roughly. Put it in the backpack and then you're hiking back down. So it could be, you know, a short hike, depending on where you parked, or it could be a fairly long hike. I mean, nothing like elk hunting in Colorado or something. but you know you get it down and we get to the cooler where where we go and let it hang. Are they pretty spooky critters or like how sneaky do you have to be to get within rifle range?

They see really well. So it depends on where you're at. Last year, well not last year, the year before last, I don't know if that one was just stupid or whatever, but we actually went across this opening where he could see us and I got to about 350 yards and decided, okay, if we go any closer, he's going to bust. So I was able to take the shot and knock him down. Depends on where you're at. There's a lot of times where you're trying to sneak in to get to rifle range or good rifle range, which I would say is, you know, 250 to 300 yards.

The closest shot I've ever taken is probably about 230. You got to kind of sneak behind rocks, try to keep yourself hidden because they see well, and especially if you've got a big group of them, you know, maybe there's 10 animals there. You've got 10 different sets of eyes looking at you. Then you got to be a little bit more careful, especially if there are females in. If there are females with little ones, then you got to be really careful to get in on a buck. I know both of you guys hunt a fair amount. Are there times when you guys are actually in the field, maybe right after a shot or getting ready to preparing for a shot where you have a thought where you're like, oh, my biathlon training

is really paying off? Yeah, I mean, for sure. I think the biggest thing that I've noticed is that, one, I'm fit enough to be able to get places that I need to be, which is like a huge benefit. But, yeah, I think that there's been a few hunts. Like, in Montana, I was hunting the Missouri breaks. And, like, we just, like, found a spot. And it was no problem to hike in six miles or ever.

And, I mean, we were just on elk all day, every day. And then I think a couple years ago, I actually drew a, a moose tag in North Dakota and hunting there. I think one, the persistence, just waking up every single day as an athlete, you just know, like, hey, it's a new opportunity and just

got to be in the game if we're going to be there. But then also like when that target shows up and the heart rate goes up, I'm just like, okay, yeah, we're just like, doesn't mean that my trigger has to be any bit different. Doesn't mean that my anchor points, my sights, everything else. Like, my focus goes immediately to the

things that I want do to take a good shot. And I think a lot of that comes from the fact that, like, I shoot tens of thousands of rounds every single year. Yeah, with a rifle, whereas with my, with my moose, I shot it with my bow. But, like, shooting is shooting. And I think that's the biggest thing as a biathlete, like, I just, I know I'm a better shooter than, than I was when I was younger, and I wasn't shooting nearly as much as I do now. Well, I also think, Paul, the mental part of it, because when you're, we kind of go on autopilot. It's like, we've done this so much, whether it's in biathlon or precision.

shooting, you perform so often under pressure that when we're hunting, you get to that moment and you just do the things that you've been trained to do, the things that you've done, you know, thousands and thousands of times. So that that training comes in very helpful. You just, you don't even think about it. You just do the work that needs to be done. Right. Okay.

So you guys have both shot, I don't even know. Do you guys have a rough number in your head about how many rounds of 22 LR you've put downrange? Well, I want to make a distinction here. Matt is a, he was an Olympic shooter, and how many medals do you have? So he has three shootings in just, or three medals in just shooting. So that's, I mean, he probably shoots more as an athlete than I do. I probably shoot about 15 to 20,000 rounds of 22 a year.

Yeah, it wasn't, I probably shot about maybe 25,000 a year. And how many years? I competed for, gee whiz, over 20 years. so it's a lot. That's fabulous. That's fabulous. I love it. But your fingers still stink like powder.

I think for a real take home for folks watching and listening would be coming from you guys. Like what are like each give me two reasons of why like what makes someone a, I'm going to use air quotes, a bad shot. Go ahead. Matt, you first. All right. practice, practice. Everything comes down to practice. I mean, also, if you practice poor things, if you practice a lot, you're doing it wrong. You're just going to get good at doing it wrong. So I think proper practice is number one. A lot of people don't understand what proper technique is,

and it's as simple as position, breathing, trigger control, follow through. If you can do those things right, you're going to hit a lot of targets or animals or whatever it might be. So I think proper practice, learning what proper technique is, and then just simply doing it, doing it a lot. Ball? Yeah. And I think, I think, like, I see it in, I'm going to say biathlon, and if I'm watching hunting videos sometimes, you see someone, man, they're just, they don't have any good trigger work.

And then they also are just popping their head up to see if they hit the target, even before the shot goes off. So, like, if your head's coming up before the recoil goes, you're more concerned about if you hit the animal, I think that's the big thing. It's just having that patience, to be able to have that trigger squeeze, watch it through the scope or your sights,

and see that bullet hit the target. I think that's it. That's a huge one. So it sounds like being a bad shot is not an innate thing. Everybody just needs to shoot more, shoot more often. It's a skill, and I would say skills are trainable.

Yeah. Love that. Randall, Seth, any questions for these fellas? man real quick i uh i don't i don't need the full breakdown on your rifle but it looks like it's a straight pole a lot of stuff hanging off of it um i'm curious if you could give us like the 30 second rundown of what you compete with in terms of firearms and then also you must travel internationally with with your firearms quite a bit so i'm curious about that as well yeah so pretty much every single biathletes going to shoot the exact same action in barrel. It's in on shoots Fortner.

And it's just a straight pole action. Reason being is because of that action and also a reliable, good barrel. There's ammo testing and barrel testing that's done. So every once in a while, you'll have to get a new barrel. But pretty much everybody's shooting the same thing. Where the differentiating, like, factors are going to be for each athlete is in the stock. unfortunately I don't have my rifle here because they're all in rifle storage up at the venue otherwise I'd be able to show you but my stock I got a new one back in 2019 it was made by a stockmaker in Germany he's kind of renowned as being one of the best stockmakers in the world and it's all about balance and fitting me anatomically my hand size my arms my cheekbones everything and it's all open sites but then it weighs about

about three and a half kilos, just over seven pounds. And yeah, and then you have a harness on so you can put it on your back while your skiing. Now, traveling with a rifle, honestly, as an American, sometimes really sucks because we don't have paperwork. Because all the Europeans, they all have rifle passports. So when they show up to a country, they can show them the rifle passport. They're like, okay, good, you go. We show up here, and they're always asking us. oh, do you have like your firearms license?

Do you have this? And we're like, we're American. Like, my passport is my firearm license. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. And so a lot of times they're sitting there like, wait, you don't have any. I'm like, usually what I show them is just the customs form, like, 4, 457, which is the form that allows you to bring it back into the U.S. And they're just like, oh, okay, cool.

So yeah, it can be real pain. I would say like South Korea was a huge pain. China, they didn't even let us touch it. Like they took the rifles from the airport and they put. put them in an armored vehicle and then drove them to the venue for us. But once you get in, it's pretty simple. It's not anything crazy. Paperwork.

Cool. What's the ammo that you guys are shooting? Is that like all factory stuff or someone, like, loading that for you guys? And is everyone using the same ammo? Yeah, it's all factory ammo. So 22 is, it's not impossible to reload, but nobody does it. Yeah. The way the priming system is done, the powder and all that stuff.

So most everyone on the World Cup is using Lapua ammo, and it's called La Pua Polar Biathlon. This was a 22 long rifle round that was developed for shooting in cold temperature. So it uses a different type of powder that's less sensitive to temperature changes. Because whether it's, you know, I don't know, 35 degrees Fahrenheit or zero, we're using the same stuff. And we need to make sure that the velocity is not going to change drastically as some other powders might. That way we keep the accuracy. It also has a special lube on the bullet, which functions better in cold weather. Most everyone's using the same stuff.

There are some teams that are using RWS now, and they've also developed a similar type of bullet and powder combination, but most everyone uses Lahuah. Nice. Love this. Okay. Lastly, tell us, I guess, what day you're racing, and I'm assuming that NBC Peacock is the best way, but maybe there's another place on the internet to watch your races, Paul? Yeah.

So we, we have, Bifflon has, I think, 10 race days in the, in the Olympics here. We have, that's going to be split between both men's and women's. The first race is going to be this Sunday, the mixed relay. And then the men's individual is on Tuesday. The men's sprint is on Friday. Pursuit is on Sunday, is it? Sunday. Sunday.

And then the relay is the next week on the 17th, which I think is a Tuesday or Wednesday. But yeah, you can find it all on bathalonworld.com or bathornresults.com or on NBCM-Kicot. Love it. Awesome. Thank you. Well, good luck to you guys. We'll be cheering you on from Bozeman, Montana. U.S.A.

U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. I want to share one last thing with you guys, as you say good luck. I think one thing that's really cool here in Europe, or in Italy specifically, if you're wishing someone luck, it's kind of a call and response instead of just saying good luck. What you would say is imboko al-Lupo to the person you're wishing good luck, which means in the wolf's mouth and the person would respond preppy-lupo. So the Mboko-A-Lupo. Mboko-Lupo.

In the wolf's mouth and you respond with the wolf is dead. I love that. That's fantastic. Paul, you're crushing it, dude. I see a top 10 finishing your future, buddy. Thanks again for coming on, and we'll be watching you here shortly. Thanks, guys. Good luck, fellas. That's great. That's cool. That's awesome. I love that conversation. Spencer, if you don't like that, you know what I'm going to say to you. I'm Dylan Playfair. And I'm Tyler Smith.

We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Center, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find Bromance on the IHeart Radio Network or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up, if you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series where we're hunting in Tanzania, well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hurst. safaris. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention. Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th,

Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. We're going to do two things. From 930 to 1030, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth. Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books. or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down. To get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to the convention. Once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI.

It's a nonprofit conservation group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Mia Morgan. But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs. Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville Safari Club International Convention.

Should we turn to our next guest? Yeah, I was going to say, let's move listener feedback. Let's do a supersized listener feedback at the end of the show. So we can just do back-to-back interviews here and then hit throwback and then questions. Yeah, we don't want to keep our next guest waiting too long. So now we are joined by Wildlife Officer extraordinaire Demi Wright from Colorado. Demi, welcome to the show. Hi, guys.

Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Are you a, were you watching that last interview? I was. Yeah, those guys are awesome. Are you going to be watching? Are you a fan of the Olympics? Are you going to be tuning in? Yeah, absolutely. Definitely going to watch the Olympics. I can't, I can't believe how many rounds those guys shoot every year. Oh, my gosh.

Lucky. Yeah. I guess if you have the right sponsor, you get to shoot all that for free, probably. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's amazing. All right, Demi, we came across you. I think most of us, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people watching and listening probably have seen your face or know your name because recently you had a big, I think a big poaching bus and it got a lot of press.

So tell us a little bit about that specific case and sort of, I guess, why did it get so much press? Yeah. So the recent case was a poaching case. with some active duty soldiers on Fort Carson, an Army military installation here in Colorado Springs in Colorado. I cover that installation, and then they allow hunting and recreation opportunities on that installation.

And it's an incredible resource for civilians to hunt on and for members of the military. But that poaching case involved six illegally taken deer. And, you know, it got a lot of... attention, which I wasn't expecting at all. We have a lot of military in Colorado Springs, and so I think people always want to know what's going on. And it was pretty egregious. So I think people were really upset with how many animals were taken.

And, you know, it's just, yeah, it got some more attention than I thought it would. Okay, remind everybody, because I think a lot of times when we hear about a poaching case, you're like, well, it's just one, or maybe even if it's just six deer, right? Or, oh, someone had to eat. And it's sometimes it can be easy to be like, well, it's not that bad until you, until you see like 30, you know, giant racks that were poached. But remind everybody why, why poaching is bad. Yeah, I mean, so hunting and poaching two different things, right? You know, hunters are doing it legally and ethically, responsibly. They've got a license in their pocket. They're out there, you know, to fill their freezers or carry on tradition and heritage, have time with family and

friends, you know, doing all the right things and reaping the rewards of it. And then poaching is just is a crime. It's just straight up taking or pursuing wildlife illegally. And ultimately, you know, legal, ethical, responsible hunting funds wildlife conservation. You know, in Colorado and like many other states, hunting and fishing licenses, fund wildlife conservation and habitat management. So When you're not paying into that pot, you're robbing legitimate sportspersons. And as a legitimate sportsperson, I'm not cool with that. And I just happen to have a patch that enforces those rules. Okay.

We'll get back to the case itself. I want to do like a few questions to just kind of set us up here. What, like, why did you want to become a wildlife officer? Yeah. Or how'd you get into it? I've thought about that a lot recently. Yeah, I mean, I grew up outdoors. I was outside since I was just a little one.

You know, I have Barbie fishing pole in my hand way back when. And, you know, I grew up around being outside, hiking, camping, boating. I grew up around a hunting family. Hunting wasn't passed down to me when I was younger. It just kind of skipped my generation. But, you know, I grew up butchering and processing, you know, all the animals that were brought home. And so I loved it. And then I realized when I got older, I could get paid for this.

And I actually have, you know, family members in the agency that I work for. And so I spent a couple days in the summer being volatile told to do some things. So I realized, yeah, I want to do this. And then, you know, I knew I wanted to work for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. I didn't really know in what, you know, what aspect I did. And then I realized I could be a wildlife officer and serve a community. and so it all kind of worked out. I'm also a people person, so I didn't want to be a biologist

because I need people to talk to. Our biologists do incredible work, but I'm kind of a yapper, so wildlife officer worked for me. Okay. What's a normal day look like for you? When you don't have to like go and, you know, check up on some illegally shot beer,

you're just going, and I know that I'm very aware of the breadth of what you do. So there might not be an easy answer, but what's a normal day for you look like? Yeah. There is definitely no normal day. Every day is different, and that's certainly the feel of the job, right? My truck's my office, so normal day starts in my office in my truck. And, you know, maybe it's hunting season and it's that time, you know, it's fall time. And I'm checking hunters for 12 or 14 hours a day. And maybe that's what my whole day is. Or, you know, maybe, it's summer when, you know, in Colorado Springs is the urban wildlife interface. And so moving bears around and wrangling deer and or maybe I'm teaching Hunter Ed or I'm in a school

doing, you know, a career, career topic. I mean, no two days are the same, which is truly the best part of this job is I've never lived the same day twice. So that's awesome. That is a great reason to have your job. Okay, so that's normal day, which sounds awesome. Tell me about how many years have you been doing this job? Yeah, I would classify myself as a baby officer. So I've been an officer now for three years. I started with agency as an intern and then I did some seasonal positions, which was the most fun jobs ever, all the fun stuff, none of the responsibility. And so, yeah, officer for three years now. In those three years, what's the most exciting day that you've experienced on the job?

What happened? We have some exciting days. I'm not going to lie. I handle bears all the time. I've got a lot of bears in my district that I cover. So I usually have my hands on a bear or two. Those days are exciting, especially when they're being honorary. You know, you can't predict what wild life is going to do, especially when you're trying

to pick up a bear. You know, we do some really cool stuff. You know, we have big horn sheep traps that we do, and that's for some relocating to create different sheep herds, and that is literally just going out and wrestling sheep. So there's a lot of exciting days. Okay, okay. Fellas, any questions right now before I move on here?

No, I'm just like, the hands-on stuff always just grabs my imagination. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to touch a bear. Yeah.

All right. So the article that I read, the many that I read said there was a moment identified where you identified or associated a vehicle with this crime that happened on Fort Carson. But it didn't really say exactly how you did that. Can you explain how you all of a sudden, like, figured out what vehicle was associated? with the crime? And then tell me, like, was that a sort of crux of the investigation? Yeah. So I was, you know, this, this tip came in from, from a legitimate hunter who, who found a buck that had the antler sought off and very minimal meat taken. And he called the Fort Carson conservation officers who are absolutely incredible to work with. And so, you know, they kind of called me in and said, you know, we, I think we have a poacher. So, Went out there, you know, looked at the buck. Obviously, this is not a legitimate harvest.

You know, quarters aren't taken. Tenderloins aren't taken backstraps. I mean, just one small roast and the antlers cut off. And so looking around for a spent cartridge, which is pretty impossible on an active military installation, by the way. There's a lot of spend cartridges and, you know, find another dough with the exact same rump roast taken. it. But near those two carcasses found some boot tracks, followed those boot tracks off of the installation. Sorry to interject, but dirt tracking or snow tracking? A little bit of both. There wasn't a lot of snow on the ground. There was snow in some parts, but it was, yeah, it was mostly dirt. So, yeah, followed the boot tracks off the installation, found some tire tracks. It happened to be near a wildland firefighter housing.

So, you know, we just, me and the conservation officers for Fort Carson popped in there and firefighters saw a vehicle there within the last couple days. And I knew that those carcasses were one, maybe two days old. So they're like, yeah, this vehicle was here. It was weird. We took a picture of it. So that kind of linked up my guy and found the registered owner of that vehicle because they took the picture.

ran him through our systems, never had a license, which of course led me to his social media, myself and the conservation officers to his social media where he certainly had some animals on there, but no license. Wow. Yeah, that brings up the question because we've talked to enough wildlife officers over the years. And more and more, it seems like what's bringing these fools down is social media. And we've heard, like, it's a big part of your job, right? Where you can actually like get a lot of work done just by perusing social media.

Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, everybody takes pictures of what they do, you know, and especially if you think it's something cool. And everybody's got a cell phone in their pocket. And so, yeah, in this case, for this case, 20-something people definitely take pictures of the things that they shoot at. And so we use that to our advantage.

I mean, we're going to use every, I'm going to use every tool I have. So if I've got to get a warrant for your social media, that's fine. I can do that. Unreal. Unreal. What else was I going to ask you? Oh, as a part of the punishment, I read that they're giving some pretty hefty fines. And then they're still sort of waiting to see what kind of revocating.

is that the right word will happen of their hunting and fishing licenses and it might be countrywide because of the interstate compact that we have in place now so that's awesome when I saw the numbers I was like oh good they're going to get hit pretty hard but you're also taking their rifle the rifle though is being destroyed and oftentimes that can like it gets a little like people get upset when guns are destroyed. So why? Because I've heard that oftentimes heads and hides can be auctioned off that are heads and hides that come from poaching cases and then that money can get put back into wildlife.

So why destroy this weapon versus possibly auctioning it off and using that money for wildlife? Yeah, no, that's a great question. And everybody asks it. And the answer is, you know, it's state law. So it's Colorado State statute that this firearm has been deemed the public nuisance. And so that happens judicially. That's not something that Colorado Parks and Wildlife makes the call on. And so, you know, we follow the law and we listen to what the court system tells us.

So it does get destroyed. We do have some hides that go to auction. And those are like roadkill mortality hides that will go to auction. And that money comes back into the general pot. But with the firearm, yeah, it's it's, it's, the court's decision, but I heard everybody loud and clear on that one. Well, I don't want to be a snob, and I didn't get a good look at that thing, but I don't think it's going to bring in a ton of conservation funding.

It's not anything we're right home about. Randall, you're not going to bid on that one. No, no. I don't think that's even worth the gunbroker, you know, bumping it up with the listings, like paying for extra photos and stuff like that. Yeah. All right, Debbie. for folks that, you know, hear this or they've been thinking about it, young folks out there thinking about what they're going to do with their lives thinking they could possibly do the job that you do. Sounds pretty awesome.

Give us some advice and maybe some sort of the baseline education that you need to get involved in doing what you do. Yeah. So in the state of Colorado, you do have to have a four-year degree in a natural resource field. And then you go through a whole onboarding process, you know, that you would for kind of any peace officer position. So your background checks, polygraph, psyche, all the fun stuff. And then when you get the job, you go to Police Academy for six months. And then after that, you go to Colorado Parks and Wildlife's Academy. me, they teach you all kinds of fun things, snowmobile training, horseback riding, training,

wildlife forensics. It's all the cool stuff that you got into the job for. So that's kind of the education and then what you can expect if you're hired. But, you know, if you're looking at this job, just get involved with whatever, you know, state agency that you can, volunteer, spend your time with people, show them that you can work hard. Go on ride-along. with the officers. You know, if you want to be an officer, I'd say, you really, you know, really understand the job before you get into it. It can be a really huge commitment. It's one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. I can't, I can't picture anything else. But just really understand what you're signing up for and get involved as much as you can

and just stick with it. Listen more than you speak. And yeah, just stick with it. It's tough. But once you get in, you're in. So. I like that you said that. I always like the quote about you have two ears and one mouth. You should use them in equal. That's good advice for anyone interested in any career field, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Seth and Randall? I don't have any questions. I just, you know, I always appreciate folks out there putting themselves in uncomfortable situations to protect our shared resources. And there's just like everything that we, we love depends on people committing themselves to protecting that. So hats off and promising start, a young career, but a promising start. You know, let us know when you have your next big bust. We'll get you back on here. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks so much for the

kind where it's really, really happy to be here and share a little bit of what's going on in this world. Thank you, Demi. Good luck in the future. Thank you. Thanks, Tammy. See ya. Two stellar guests today, Yanni. Hey. Good on you. Good on you, buddy. I can't take, I think I can take credit for Demi because I did send the article to Jake,

our producer, and asked him to line that up. And then I don't know exactly who lined up Paul and Matt, but yeah, I've enjoyed that. It's time for some listener feedback, Phil. Yeah, well, we're probably only going to do one listener feedback. Right. So let's go ahead and do throwback and then we can just hit all the last. We can keep going. We can keep this thing going, Phil.

We'll say that for March 5th. Who wants to go first on our throwback session? I'll go first. This is very important. I'm going to milk all these. I'm going to milk these for the next month. Throwback, I can't believe it. Did I mention Stephen Brody are old as shit?

I don't think I had heard that one. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. It's one of my faves. Yeah. Oh, Corey Culkins just texted me. He must be listening and he said, uh, I lined up Paul. Come on, bro.

Sorry. Sorry, Corey. Sorry, Corey. Shout out to the whole team here. Yeah. It's a group effort. It's not just us. Group.

I didn't do shit for this one. Group effort. All right. Who's going first? Doctor. I'll go. first. I don't think Yanni realized when he sent out this, uh, this query for photos from 20 years ago. I don't think he realized that Seth and I were both still in high school. No, I 100% realized this.

Yeah. I was half hoping that we could even have a fourth person in here that was even younger. And all of a sudden, we'd have a picture in diapers. Phil in the corner there. Yeah, you're not going to get me in diapers 20 years ago, but I do, I do have a picture. Yeah, I wanted to share. Oh, good. I wanted to share my, uh, my high school football photo, but... Is that it? No, it's not it. I've seen that photo. It's a good one.

Maybe bring it out for the grand finale of... Yeah, and I realized that was 20, that was 2024. So, you know, it's not quite... But this is 20 years ago. This is me living my best life summer of 2026. Actually, I was probably home from my first... 20... I'm sorry, 2006.

Okay. I think I was probably actually home for my first year college, working for a company called Pro Clean Restoration Incorporated. We had an office on Columbia Parkway there in Cincinnati. I sound like Rain Man when I do that. Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio, 808, Oak Street or whatever. But, yeah, so I bring up where I'm working because, as you can see on this T-shirt, it's covered in paint and deckstead. stain. Okay. And also that hat is a Bass Pro Shop's hat that was, I used as a wiping rag. And so it actually weighed perhaps two and a quarter pounds with all of the cedar tone deck stain, as we called it

C-dub, that I'd absorbed into this hat, fully weatherproof wore it for a real long time. Fishing with night crawlers in the Little Miami River, that is a Bass Pro Shops bait casting combo. I think it's probably got some pretty heavy mono on there, judging by the reflection of the light. It looks real heavy. And just a real simple night crawler on the bottom. Looks like I got an egg sinker there and a really crappy landing net that the foam had ripped off the handle. But, you know, it's always fun to net fish instead of just dragging them up on the bank. Let me guess, like a seven pound channel cat?

Is that what I'm looking at? Yeah. I think that's a good estimate. Did I get the species right? Yes, but what I like about that one, well, what I like about that one in particular is that the, the tail is hanging out of the net, which I think always adds to, uh, always adds to, uh, always adds to it makes it look bigger. Exactly. Yeah, looks like it's gonna slap you in the face. I take some inches. You get a, you get a, a king salmon in the net and you got the big tail flopping over the side. That's a good fish, no matter how big the net is. Oh, I need to go catch one of those one day. Buy small nets. Let's go. Right now. All right, Seth.

Let's go back 20 years ago. See what Seth has. Almost 20. Almost 20. We'll say it's 18. This is 2008. Oh, look at that guy. Doing some fur trapping.

Had a, what looks to be a good day of raccoon trapping. I used to, back when I was in high school, I used to run a line every season, basically, and I would get up and check the line before school and then go into school. but yeah this was just a day of coon trapping got the one on the left there is i'll point out it's quite a large one um back in those days raccoons were going for a decent price i remember i got like 58 bucks for raccoon back then wow and that was uh flashed and stretched yeah yeah sold it through the north american fur auction nafo which is no longer thing um what i like about this picture is that it could be from 20 years ago or it could be from 40 years ago. It's a timeless image. It's 2001,

Dodge, 500. What's the sticker on the left? Is that a monster energy drink sticker? No, no, that's a Hunter's specialty sticker. Oh, good. And on the right, there's Thompson Center and Hunter's safety system there. God, you're just- And if I'm repeating it, if I'm doing what you did, I'll go with, I'm wearing a scent lock hat and an Antler King t-shirt back when I was planning a lot of food plots and stuff. And how old were you? 14. Was your, was your, oh gosh, youngster. Yeah. Could you zoom in on his face? No, I wasn't. I wasn't. No, I must not have to do. I can't quickly. 16. Okay. Don't worry about it, Phil. My math's terrible. Seth, was your, was your father an American flag and your

mother, a issue of fur fishing game magazine? Because you just look like you, if you has AI to make a, To make the American, the young American trapper, this would be it. It was a trapper and predator color magazine. God, it's good. Exactly. This is good. Yeah. Yep.

The first thing they caught my eye is that Seth has been rocking the same eyebrows. Mm-hmm. His entire life, pretty much. Yeah, that runs into family. They've actually just been getting, I notice these days that they just get wilder with every year that passes. I'm getting like the Ryan Cowell-Han. Yeah. Eyebrows lately.

I've started trimming mine every now and then. I'll get a white one. Because I'll get a long one that curls out. Yeah. I'll get a long one that comes down and is I can see it in my vision. Yeah. Next thing, they'll poke you in the eye. That happens to me every now and then if I don't stay on top of it.

All right, Phil. Let's see your photo from approximately 20 years ago. Okay, sure. Yeah, well, so I already showed. We did a throwback Thursday where Spencer asked people to bring in fishing photos. And I actually had one from almost exactly 20 years ago that I already showed. No, but you didn't do that one. No, I didn't.

I'm not doing that one again. So I decided to choose a picture, pictures from my natural habitat in high school, which was the band room. I lettered in band in high school. There's me in the middle there. That's what my hair was for most of high school. I was very cool.

That is amazing. I love it. You should bring that back. I did pretty much any extracurricular band activity I could do. It was my thing. I was very cool, you could say. Did you have a MySpace page? Of course I did

You know I spent way too much time Choosing the music that would play You know I actually I had a Zanga before MySpace Did you ever tell your parents You'll never understand I wasn't that bad

I probably I probably had the thought a few times The hair is pretty intimidating The hair is very good I might bring it back What do you guys think I love it? Oh yeah

I would totally go for it That's good What would your gal say I well my my hair was about that long when I met my wife and it worked back then fill out boy is a good that's a good play on words is that is that a trombone that is a trombone it's it's a large board trombone with a little valve to that helps you play the lower notes a little bit more more easily were you wearing untied skater shoes in this photo probably yes actually with a DC or eddie uh yeah yeah yeah no It would have been like vans or something.

You're probably too young for Jenko jeans to have still been in style. I never owned a pair of Janko's, but my cooler cousins had Janko jeans. Nice. Wow. All right. There's that. I was able to skip those. I'm Dylan Playfair.

And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship. This is Bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find romance on the Iheart Radio Network or wherever you eat your podcast. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast.

Listen up, if you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series where we're hunting in Tanzania, well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hertz Safaris. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention. Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville.

We're going to do two things. From 930 to 1030, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth. Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom, after the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down. So you get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to. the convention. Once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation

group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Mia Morgan. But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs. Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville, Safari Club International Convention. All right. Last but not least. God, it's good, Phil. Thank you.

This photo, I believe, is circa 2000. This is the first bull elk. that I killed and recovered. Unfortunately, the year before, this is my first year that I was guiding, and I was able to take off the first rifle season in Colorado to hunt with my dad

and a couple other of our friends. And unfortunately, the year before, the outfit had taken me out on the last day of our DIY hunt, he realized that we hadn't seen an elk, let alone killed one. And I shot one close range and probably shot him.

in the guts. We looked for a day and a half. Couldn't find him. It was found maybe, I don't know, a week later by another guide, bear on top of the carcass. So lesson learned there when the elk is at 50 yards, you don't have your scope cranked up to nine. Hard to know where the bullet's going to hit, right? Yeah.

But great morning. This is opening morning. And I wanted to hunt the top of this particular, I call it a mountain. It's, it's, uh, mountain makes it sound a little too big. Um, it's, uh, it's a nice, it's got, it's a big ridge, you know, that has an apex to it. And, uh, the elk like to go out there. And a lot of the other folks hunting that area, it's too big of a climb for them. So it's kind of left, left to those that wanted to make the walk up there. And I'd hunted basically my way all the way up to the ridge, to the very tippy top and hadn't seen nothing. And it was pounded in snow, just a full blizzard. A lot of

times, you know, visibility less than 100 yards. And I'm kind of, once I turned around on the top, I kind of gave up and said, ah, you know, I'm just going to have my rifle, like, slung on my shoulder. And I'm more kind of mozy and ding dong and back down the same ridge heading, heading back towards camp, than hunting. And I think because of the snowstorm, limited visibility, I stop at one point and I look, and there's a bull staying in there, close, 50, 60 yards, you know, and he's looking at me. but just couldn't make me out or whatever

and it had enough time to take my Model 700 BDL Randall which I did a little searchin on this this morning and I'd forgotten what ADL BDL CDL stands for. Can you answer that question? Well, the ADL is the blind mag right? Yes.

And then the BDL is a floorplate. Uh-huh. There's a CDL, a box bag? I think the CDL is still hinged floor plate, but there's just some other fancy, you know, more satin on the walnut, and it's just a little bit fancier. But what I found really funny

is that the DL stands for deluxe. Oh, yeah. The A stands for average. And, yeah. So you go from average to luxe to better deluxe? To better deluxe to classic deluxe. So no matter which seven. Which 700 you buy?

You're getting a deluxe rifle. But just average, better, or classic? Yeah, my dad gave me that rifle when I was, I don't know, 15, 16 years old. And it was one of those deals. I wasn't expecting a rifle. I hadn't asked for a rifle, but he just comes up to me. We're actually out of Latvian social function. And he just whispers in my ear, I just got you a rifle.

I was like, oh, that's cool. That's never happened to me in my life where someone just like, Am I a man now, dad? Yeah, well, it's one of those things. Like, you're not expecting a present like that, but like it was secret, right? And it was kind of like, yeah, don't tell anybody because it costs money. We need to just like, we'll just work it into the. He was long-divorced from my mother at that time.

But anyways, yeah, so I shot the bull. Remington Corlocked. You can see where this story is going to go. I shoot him once later to find out in the heart. He jumps. I shoot him again. Another part of this story is when he jumps, he jumps a couple yards, whatever. He's standing in a new spot.

I look back to where he was just standing. Now, this is a nice, if you're not looking at the photos, this is like a very small, probably two-year-old four-point bowl. Where he was standing is probably a three-year-old five-point. I'm like, do! Look at that! You know? So I've got two shots in him, and he's sort of like, in that moment, starts taking off.

And I just take off after him. and I get another shot in him. I don't know where that one hits. He keeps going. I run, I don't know, close to another 100 yards. They kind of end up in the timber and his downfall, and he kind of gets caught up. I'm sure he's going to die at that point, but he's not dead yet. So I put a fourth shot into him.

He ends up having three in the heart and one in the lungs. Whoa. And again, maybe we would have died from the first one, but it's just like I'd already been around long enough to know that, like, with those elk, you just keep shooting until they're not until their tongues tongues hanging out if you want to go through the attire

I want to say that was a Eldora ski resort just like a wool beanie I was wearing I was wearing probably a Patagonia fleece with a probably a Patagonia Capuline underneath it Cabela's shamwa or shammy

remember that it was like a soft brushed cotton we love those pants because they were so quiet And for whatever reason, I thought that suspenders were also hip at the time. But yeah, my first bull elk. Love it. 2000. That's cool.

What was the rifle chambered in? 30 aught 6. Oh, I forgot. I missed mentioning that. Yeah, aught 6. Probably was shooting 180 corlocks, I had to guess. Killed a lot of animals with 180 corlocks. Yep.

Yep. All right. Now, the long-awaited, we're only 17 minutes. behind, but let's do some listener feedback, Bill. Sure, a couple shoutouts here first. This is from Bryson. I'd love to get a shout out to my son who turns two today and was the only three month old when he attended the Boise Meteeter live show two years ago, which made him

the youngest attendee. Hmm. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. And we also had another shout out here, too, that I will find at some point. There's a, McCullough was going on a havelina hunt. Oh, yes. Did you see that one somewhere?

I saw it live. Okay, I'll find it later. Cranky, swerf, when is Randall's haircut? Will there be a raffle to determine how much is cut off? Still don't know when my haircut is. We have a listener who's a barber who's offered to cut my hair on the radio, media to radio live finale,

grand finale, spectacular. but he lives in Maine, so I haven't yet been able to determine whether that will happen. As far as how much is getting cut off, pretty much just the stuff that's getting in my ears. I need to keep it long in the back

because it's sweet, and I need to keep it long on top to hide the bald spot that has grown and grown in recent years. So I'm just hanging on by thread to my youth. Sweet. Sweet would be the word you would use. The haircut, if I cut it all off, it will be surrendering to father time. Mogore asks Yanni,

how are the little, or big, kiddies doing in your area? Mingus and I have not been bothering them if that, hopefully that answers your question. As far as I know, the population is doing great. But yeah, we've just had like sort of

a streak of bad luck. We've had tracks. A lot of tracks have gone on to private, which we haven't been able to follow. We've had tracks that have just filled in with snow. We've had tracks that have we've lost on Bear Hill Sides, which are common around these parts right now. We have caught a bobcat this year, which was quite the accomplishment for Mingus. He caught his first bobcat.

But the big ones, I've not seen one in a tree yet this year. I will be going out, I believe Friday or Saturday, and keep after it. Great. Will there be more Meteor Kids episodes coming? coming soon. This is from Chad. Chad, we are, they're not going to be in the same format that we did the first three seasons in. So we're currently cooking up some new kids content. How's that for alliteration? And, uh, but it's probably still a few, few months down the road. But keep your eyes peeled and, uh, keep him on that, on that podcast feed. Uh, there's a question for Seth. Seth, how much, uh, experience do you have with with drones for photography? Do you have any? None. Okay. Then I will not ask you this guy who was looking for a drone. Love you is just shout out. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's from Leeland. Oh, Leeland. Arizona Youth Havelina opens for my daughter. Could I get a good luck to McCullough on her first havelina hunt? Good luck, McCullough. Good luck, McCullough. That's right. Just remember what we learned earlier, it was, what was it?

Breathing, position, trigger pull and follow through. Mm-hmm. Those four things. Knowing Leeland, I'm sure she's already got plenty of practice. Yeah, I imagine. So. Here's a Seth one, PA and fishing-related. It's just Stephen.

He's looking for some basic gear, some beginner gear to get into ice fishing. If you had sort of like a quick kit, you could. Yeah, I would start with an auger. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can get one of those hand augers. They work pretty good as long as the blades are sharp. Basic ice pole, which is just a short fishing pole. You can honestly just use, if you have a spin reel, you don't have to buy a new reel.

You can just throw that on an ice pole. And then from there, as far as safety-wise, Pennsylvania doesn't always have great ice. They do this year, but I would get a spud bar and those ice picks that you put around your neck. So if you kind of wear them around your neck like a necklace, if you go through the ice, you can grab those things and use them to pull yourself back up on the ice. That's good to have, especially for beginners that don't have a lot of. of experience on ice.

And then from, I mean, that's basically it. To start, you can go super deep on it with electronics and, you know, having a sled to haul all your stuff out there is nice. But Samfella can't do the electronics part. That's kind of where I'm at. I feel like I have all the other gear. But I feel like without electronics, like, how am I ever going to find the fish? So how do you find the fish with no electronics?

um well back when back when i used to fish with without electronics we were just just trying to find like points that go out into the the lake or whatever you're on um to read a map to yeah basically if you have access to a map um that's helpful because you can just you know look at the map but if you don't have access to like underwater mapping or whatever i just try to find like points that are coming out into the water or um you know if if you're if you can see the bank and there's like it's like a sandy bank that transitions to a different type of like rip rap or something like finding transitions like that or you know it's it's totally doable we is it bad form because i was going to say well you'd pull up and then see where all the other shanties are

people are fishing. Yeah. And then go near there or start asking them questions. Like is that bad for him just to roll in and be like, hey, man. Let me take a look at your live scope. Yeah, I'm new to this. Like, would it be okay to drill a hole 10 yards away from here? Is that a good spot?

I think most people would be open to that. Totally. Yeah. And if you're going to go that close, I would definitely talk to someone. But you can definitely find the general area where people, you know, are fishing. Or if you go, like, early in the morning, whatever, you can find yesterday's holes, basically. and try those spots too. So, yeah.

Good luck. What else you got, Phil? Janice, this is from Judah. Do you have any tips on trying to stay injury-free or for trying to stay injury-free over years of running? Hmm. Yeah, I've been lucky. I think I have been able to stay injury-free.

I mean, I've had a bad ankle sprain once. I'm dealing with a little bit of, like, a cartilage issue. And it's just, I think that's, no matter if you're running or just living, you're going to have those issues in your knees. But I don't know, I think doing it. That was, I recently had to go through this knee, kind of a process of figuring out what was going on in there.

My last appointment was with an orthopedic surgeon, and she said, the worst thing you can do is stop doing what you're doing. I said, you even mean like running 100 miles? She goes, yes, do it. It is good for you. Do not stop. It's going to get worse if you stop. So don't stop running.

Bo hunting at full draw asks who all of you guys are going to be at NWTF in Nashville next weekend. Well, I guess you two are not. Nope. I am full draw. I wish. I will be at the wild turkey. I'll be at the Hunt Expo that weekend. Yeah.

And if you're going to be at NWTF, a good place to run into us is going to be the Grand Slam afterpart. The Meat Eater is hosting. You know, it's a big fundraiser. They're going to have a bunch of cool hunts and guns, shotguns, rifles to auction off. And we're going to tell some turkey stories. We're going to try to get all of you to buy as many raffle tickets for these items as possible. We're going to have an owl hooting contest. The clay is going to MC.

So if you're a good owl hooter and you're at NWTF, Now this is voice, voice only. And then we're also going to play some trivia. So, yeah, it's the Grand Slam after party. It would be a great place to bump into us. Or on Saturday, most of us will be at the booth, the first light booth all day. And you can see us there. And if you want to find me at the Hunt Expo, I'll be slumming in the beer line with everybody else.

I'll make mention that the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is kicking off. and the family boot shop will have a booth there, center boot company, look them up. They'll have some first light gear there. And I think some meteor stuff too. Brett Reeves is at that show, I believe. Oh, really? Yeah, I think he's doing something with Case.

Oh, we'll look him up to him. He's a nice guy. Go talk to him. He's all right. He's all right. I'm telling you a bedtime story. Ian asks, do you guys have more episodes of Rost on the way? Yes, Ian.

We do have more episodes of Rosts on the way. they were hounding me yesterday to put my notes in on an episode, which I believe they want to release here in the next week or so. So don't fret. And then behind that one, there are many more coming. We have been hard at it. We have been cooking, roasting our tails off here recently. Phil and I judged an episode together.

We did. I haven't seen a cut of that one yet, but I'm expecting great things. I think it's going to take a lot of work to cut that one. entertaining. Yeah. I think I gave the editor-specific instructions on-camera things to do. So whoever's cutting that, I apologize. Let's see.

What will you guys be doing on Thursdays at 11 a.m. After March 5th. That's from Mogher. Answering emails. Yeah. If I'm in the office, it'll be something. Mogor. Working on a book.

Editing video. Edding photos. But to be honest, when I look at my calendar, after March 5th it's nothing nothing there my world is ending on March 5th hey Spencer Spencer if you're still out there

has he commented Phil Spencer Newhart has not been in the chat oh no well I shamed him for for being too active in the chat one week and I think he he's cold with him well if he is out there listening I would like him to give us a

a rating between zero and 10 on how well we did on this episode. Oh, this is a 9-5 at least. It's up there. This is one of the better ones. Another Mogor one. We've got some good questions this week. This is for Randall.

It's a specific one. You're the weapons expert, Randall. Have you heard of the Walther RS3 straight pole bullpup hunting rifle family? The one with the integrated suppressor? And is that monocococ? I would imagine that's a one-piece receiver. Yes. And then he had more to say, but that was basically it.

Yes, I saw that. It was recently released. I'm really intrigued by bullpup rifles. There was a, there's a company called Defensive Edge out of Idaho that makes something called the long range killing machine. And it has a 30 inch barrel, but because of the bullpup arrangement, the overall length is much shorter. So it's designed basically to ride it up to the top of the mountain on your back on a dirt bike. but bullpups offer the advantage of having a longer barrel length compared to the overall length of the rifle. Walter, I've never owned a Walter. But interestingly enough, I think they made a

like a police sniper rifle, like a marksman rifle that was a semi-auto bullpup. So they have a bullpup legacy. I'm also really intrigued by guys on forums that are making their own bullpups with like homemade trigger links. And weird stocks and it intrigues me and scares me at the same time. You're going to have to explain it because I'm looking at pictures and there's like, looks like a thousand variations of what a bullpup might be.

So like is there a definition of what a bullpup is? A bullpup is essentially the action is further back in the stock than the trigger is ahead of the action. So the action is almost like where your cheek. Yeah, you're almost resting your cheek on the. the action itself. So instead of the action being in front of the grip, uh, or like the wrist of the stock, the action is back further so that, you know, you can have, you can have this much barrel, but it starts back here instead of starting out here. Okay. And obviously, I guess the sort of the I don't know if it's the issue, but you got to figure out how to connect the trigger to the, to the action.

Yeah. And, um, yeah, there's like some, you know, there's a lot of like factory bullpup, options, but you can also find people sort of, there's some companies that make like a bullpup style chassis for Remington 700, and you have basically a trigger linkage. But in the age of suppressors, you know, overall length is a very important consideration. So yeah, when I think about big magnum cartridge, I want to get a big long barrel on there, a bullpup would be mighty nice. That's weird enough. Interesting. That was a weird enough tangent for me.

Anything else? The LRKM, though. If you want to have your hair stand up, look up an LRKM and the prices they fetch on the used market. Leland's asking your opinions on Wild Game Tartar or Tiger Meat or Cannibal meat or whatever all the terms are for it. Do you guys, is that something you guys consume or prep, prepare often? Yes. Oh, really? I think a burger is just better

if you cook it We like eating We like eating like Beef tartar Like if we go to a restaurant that has some sort of raw beef Preparation That's typically what we'll get as a starter And so yeah we

When we get like a fresh animal home And then we have some backstrap We'll do some tartar Yeah I enjoy it I just often don't remember to make it And I should do it more often because it is delicious. But yeah, I just, yeah, for whatever reason,

I don't know, my family's probably only eating it a couple times. Nate, pow-pow, looking for recommendations on a pistol chest pack and chest holder. Hamgen needs a proper safety. You guys have any, uh, any, uh, recommendations? Oh, geez. As far as how to carry it, um, I think so. I go back and forth on the chest. I think he's, he's looking for like specific items, like from FHF or something.

you guys could help them out with. FHF doesn't make, I mean, they use a, it's a RASCO holster that's attached to the, the Bino Pack, right? It was. It was. Yeah. They make a system that attaches to the bottom of a bino harness or chest rig.

Yeah. There's a company called Gunfighters Inc. That makes a chest rig that you would wear under. They also make one that you would mount to your bino pack, but they make one that you wear, you would wear under your bino pack, um, because it's just sort of free, like it's, it's, it's literally just meant to be worn on its own with nothing else rig to it. And I like that quite a bit because you can take your bino's off, like if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, butchering an animal, um, and you can just have that gun on your chest, uh, when your hands are

all bloody and you don't want something hanging off, like the big bino rig hanging off. But I also go back and forth between like a belt holster. Sometimes I'll put a belt holster on my hip belt and my pack. But then you end up carrying two holsters because you also want one that you could wear if you drop your pack. So it all comes down to individual individual preference, I think. But there's a lot of options out there. Well, Paul, I think, trying to solve for some of this now instead of, like, he doesn't really offer a holster anymore. It's basically the holster hanger. It's like the blade. It's a blade tech. Yeah. And there's a quick detail. system so that you could have one holster, but then have this attachment that could be under your vinyl harness. You could have another one on your hip belt of your pack, and then you can just

move it around. I personally find it to be too much when it's all on my chest. And so I like to go to the hip, but yes, every time I drop my pack. Yeah. I also started wearing, I started wearing like a short thigh drop, like a drop panel. Mm-hmm. And I've like seen people sit back and forth say, oh, you don't want to wear that when you're hiking. You don't, like it's, it's too cumbersome. But I don't really notice it. And then I have that gun on my hip at all times, take my pack off, take my bino harness off. It's one less thing when you want to shed a layer to mess with.

Right. And, um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I run this thing that it's, it's just a clip. So like I can open it up, put it on my.

pack and then if I want to drop my pack I just pop it off my pack and put it on clip it on my belt works pretty good Phil anything that has to be answered yet or can we say oh there's this one for me it's okay we'll have this be the last one I mentioned this this like lo-fi pixel art fishing game that came out recently called cast and chill cast and chill um and Cole is asking if I've played it yet I have it downloaded on my switch two and I was been holding off because I thought I might stream it the first time I played it, which I still

might do. But I haven't played it yet. Oh, I didn't realize you got a switch too. Oh, yeah. I just got my first switch. Yes, and that's the thing. Maybe if I stream after we play some cast and chill, I'll play some Breath of the Wild because Randall were getting a switch and playing Zelda had me restart a play-through

of Breath of the Wild. Yeah, Verizon. I got some sort of Verizon deal where I got a free switch, so I'm getting back into video games. Never too late to start something new. Couldn't agree more, Randall. Let's call it. Kids, go outside.

This might have been our longest. I think this is our longest episode. Forget your video games. Go outside. You know, find a healthy balance. An hour and 36 minutes, that's a hell of a warmup for the grand finale spectacular. That's right. I hope you guys all enjoyed it.

I look like most of them stuck around for the entirety of it. Thank you all for. watching and listening. And we'll see you again next week. Same time. Meat Eater Radio Live. Same place. Ducees. Later. Hey, this is Steve from

the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up. If you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series, we were hunting in Tanzania, well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hertz Safaris. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in

Nashville on February 19, at the Safari Club International Convention. Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. We're going to do two things. From 930 to 10.30, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth.

Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down. So you get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to the convention. Once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Mia Morgan. But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs. Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville, Safari Club International Convention.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.