Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. I'll also be your host into
Speaker 1: the world of hunting the icon of the North American
Speaker 1: Wilderness Fair. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. Will also
Speaker 1: bring you into some of the wildest country on the
Speaker 1: planet chasing Fair. This week on the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast,
Speaker 1: we're taking a look back at the last two and
Speaker 1: a half years and we're gonna have some highlights from
Speaker 1: our conversations with the incredible people that we've had as
Speaker 1: guests on this show. This isn't all the highlights. There
Speaker 1: just wasn't a way to include every special moment, every
Speaker 1: special conversation, but this was some of them. I really
Speaker 1: think you're gonna enjoy this podcast and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to these full episodes if
Speaker 1: you want to. It's wintertime and it's time to get
Speaker 1: the dogs out. We've been squirrel hunting and coon hunting
Speaker 1: even this week, and if you need dog stuff, you
Speaker 1: really need to support our guys at w Hunting Supply.
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Speaker 1: for me. Do it for yourself because the selection. They
Speaker 1: have the customer service that they have down there, this
Speaker 1: top notch. These people are Houndsman, the people you're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking to and dealing with her Hounsman, or just
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Speaker 1: masters at the garment products. They've got the new Garment
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Speaker 1: tracking system. Check it out w Hunting Supply, north Woods
Speaker 1: Bear Products. Man, if you're baiting bears, you've gotta be
Speaker 1: using this stuff. Spring is coming. I know nobody's really
Speaker 1: thinking about baiting bears right now, but you can, and
Speaker 1: you should, and when you do. North Woodspear Products. Check
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Speaker 1: line of muzzloaders. They have an incredible guarantee if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be muzzloader honey, check out c v A. I've
Speaker 1: been carrying one this year. Some of you have heard
Speaker 1: a few of my stories about carrying them, and I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot about muzzloaders this year, and I truly
Speaker 1: love carrying, love shooting my c v A Accura Mountain Rifle.
Speaker 1: Check out c v A and all that they have
Speaker 1: to offer. Check them out Western Bear Foundation. These boys
Speaker 1: are doing good stuff out West. Speaking on behalf of
Speaker 1: bear Hunters bear Lovers. That's us, We're bear lovers. Joe
Speaker 1: Condellas and his team at the Western Bear Foundation are
Speaker 1: doing a great job their nonprofit hunting conservation organization. Membership driven.
Speaker 1: Check out their organization, become a member. This first excerpt
Speaker 1: was taken from episode twenty one. The episode was called
Speaker 1: Old Mountain Hunter or a Lee Province. This conversation that
Speaker 1: I had with Ori was one of my favorites of
Speaker 1: all time. Since the recording of this podcast or Lee
Speaker 1: has passed away, but this was a very unique conversation. Well,
Speaker 1: give me, give me just a little like kind of
Speaker 1: a bigger glimpse of your life. So, bord Ninete, dad
Speaker 1: was a logger, and you grew up just you stepped
Speaker 1: right into the family business and just logg right with him.
Speaker 1: And uh and then so you did that until when
Speaker 1: and what other kind of occupations did you have? Well,
Speaker 1: my dad died in forty four, but okay, and forty
Speaker 1: one what the World War two broke out? And uh,
Speaker 1: my brothers, three of them waiting to service. Okay, and uh,
Speaker 1: I was oldest one left at home. Okay. I took
Speaker 1: him my mother and uh my nephew, and uh two
Speaker 1: sisters and a brother brother. Mm hmm. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: were just just a few years too young to be
Speaker 1: drafted into the war. I was. I was my dad
Speaker 1: daughter's sixteen, okay, and uh when I become eighteen to day,
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. A day after I was eighteen, My
Speaker 1: birthday come on Sunday that year. On Monday, I registered
Speaker 1: and I went down in past examination eight David July
Speaker 1: I got my calls for examination, went down passed, and
Speaker 1: then Dave August got my call service, and uh, ministers
Speaker 1: out here, and I had a big tomato crop out
Speaker 1: right and acres formats and uh, I mean the family here,
Speaker 1: we had to have something to live on. And uh
Speaker 1: but anyway, why there's ministra out there? He said, this
Speaker 1: boy they had to take care of his mother and
Speaker 1: these children. And so he wrote, I got deferred until
Speaker 1: two locked over the fifteenth and uh another words of
Speaker 1: the cropper was over then. Uh, I've still got one
Speaker 1: one eight classification, but the war was over that time.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so you just barely missed it. So what
Speaker 1: year would that have been? Nineteen forty four. Well, let's see,
Speaker 1: it been h forty seven. I believe it was something. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: forty that would have been somewhere longhe six, he's over
Speaker 1: and forty six the war was, so you would have
Speaker 1: gone if the war would have Oh yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: lords and I went to school with him. There's in
Speaker 1: there they went Germany. Yeah, I'll be done. Wow. So
Speaker 1: so what it so? You logged up until how old
Speaker 1: were you? Well, you grew to you grew tomatoes, you
Speaker 1: did some farming, you had some cattle. Well I couldn't
Speaker 1: worked in Timor. That was the main line up to
Speaker 1: him years and years later. Yeah. But anyway, I went
Speaker 1: and h man, my brother we uh that he never
Speaker 1: did have to go to war, and so but he
Speaker 1: went him, went and cut timor and logged it. I
Speaker 1: hold it up, I hold it on a wagon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh he skipped it out and I wouldn't hold
Speaker 1: it and dumped it off at the mail mhm. And
Speaker 1: that was I forgotten that one year. That was as
Speaker 1: in the late forties. Anyway, Now, the Great Depression, you
Speaker 1: were just a kid during the Great These hills weren't
Speaker 1: really I mean, they were affected by the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: but people were already poor. Yeah, I mean there wasn't
Speaker 1: much you could do to somebody that was just living
Speaker 1: off the land basically when it comes to economic stress,
Speaker 1: is that right, right? Right? Yeah, we lived off the land. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And nineteen thirty six that was dry here, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: and uh we had a miter crop and we haul
Speaker 1: water and set them out and they got up and
Speaker 1: just the blooming and everything turned off dry. We never
Speaker 1: got a too mater and nineteen thirty six and that
Speaker 1: was hard to take. Yeah, I remember that way all too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we we worked in a tamer and uh, you
Speaker 1: know they paper back then they finally got where they
Speaker 1: brought out food stamps and thanks, but we never got any.
Speaker 1: My dad just wouldn't have nothing to do with that,
Speaker 1: just by principle, he didn't need any help. We we
Speaker 1: made it. We made it without it. We worked and
Speaker 1: they made it. Yeah. What would have been a normal
Speaker 1: meal for your family back then when you were a kid,
Speaker 1: had plenteteet? Yeah, had plenty teet. Yeah, we had anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you raised hogs and can vegetables, had had a garden.
Speaker 1: I know you still have a garden, don't you well
Speaker 1: yeah or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we we made
Speaker 1: it fine, well done, good. Yeah. I had about dirty
Speaker 1: swarms of bees back during the war. While you couldn't
Speaker 1: get sugar. Every food is all right, and you couldn't
Speaker 1: buy nothing. Everybody's out of sugar. And I had bees
Speaker 1: and we got to you could get permitted to feed
Speaker 1: the bees, you know, because it used to the honey
Speaker 1: somewhere another end guns. Yeah. I don't know this what
Speaker 1: but that's what I heard it. So you were selling honey.
Speaker 1: Well I didn't sell it, but we eat it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you just had it. Yeah, we had it, and we
Speaker 1: got penny of sugar to feed the bees, and so
Speaker 1: we didn't have run out of shar A lot of
Speaker 1: people never had no sugar, flour or anything. They couldn't
Speaker 1: give this so much. Huh you come buy you come
Speaker 1: buy a truck, tar or nothing. Not a pair of shoes, hardly. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next excerpt is my conversation with Roy Clark over
Speaker 1: in East Tennessee this episode sixty seven, and it's called
Speaker 1: Appalachian Hound Honey with Roy Clark, Part one. Mr Roy
Speaker 1: is a special guy. He's very dear to me. He's
Speaker 1: a master bear hound breeder and just a relic over
Speaker 1: there in the Appalachian Mountains. It's a pretty incredible, pretty
Speaker 1: incredible thing. And it's a unique you know, there's a
Speaker 1: unique social structure that happens inside of like what I
Speaker 1: see coming from the outside end looking at you guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, just the relationships that that you guys have,
Speaker 1: and I mean if you go bear hunting, whether you
Speaker 1: see what it's all about. I mean, from daylight tell dark,
Speaker 1: how many days a year are you guys together and
Speaker 1: you're working together to accomplish a goal. And then now
Speaker 1: Scott is over here every day helping Roy with the
Speaker 1: dogs and stuff. Now that's a whole Another side of
Speaker 1: the thing is just keeping dogs year round, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of work in and of itself,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, it's a ton of work. It's a
Speaker 1: ton of work. Yeah yeah. And you know that's something
Speaker 1: that that all of us at some point of have
Speaker 1: taken our turn. You know, Scott's taking jobs out on
Speaker 1: the road, and then it'd be me or Matthew or whoever.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that you know, we've always took
Speaker 1: a lot of pride and was the dogs and that's
Speaker 1: you know, we're always talking about catching bears on the
Speaker 1: ground and Matthew and and uh um. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we're always looking out for is protecting those
Speaker 1: dogs because that's our lifeline. You know, there is no
Speaker 1: bear hunting for us without that pack of dogs. So
Speaker 1: one of the most important things us when we go
Speaker 1: into one of those bears is watching out for him
Speaker 1: and doing doing our job to take care of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's our main priorities, the dogs first and whatever games
Speaker 1: there that you know, well we handle it that way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: making sure the dogs are tied up for any bars
Speaker 1: are shot out of the trees and you know all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So yeah, if we ain't got them coldly
Speaker 1: and kissing a little bird, that's right. Well, Mr Roy,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell me about when you well, how
Speaker 1: your dad. We'll just your first memories of bear hunting,
Speaker 1: of going back to Alvin David Rights hunted with us
Speaker 1: or how old you well, fifty four fifty four years
Speaker 1: ever since he's been big enough to go and his
Speaker 1: daddy honey with us, and his daddy like my daddy,
Speaker 1: like Josh, like me. His daddy did and uh and
Speaker 1: he hunted and we went to school together up here,
Speaker 1: and and HiT's in there some more. I've got a
Speaker 1: Mountaintine's card in there that he sent me when we
Speaker 1: was about in the fourth grade. I and on that
Speaker 1: Valentine's card he shent me. He said, we bear hunters,
Speaker 1: ain't we rolling? That was his dad, Alvin David's dad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his dad, he said, we bear hunters. What grade would you?
Speaker 1: How old would you have been? Was in the fourth grade,
Speaker 1: So every every when that was how long ago? That
Speaker 1: will be about nine years old? Yeah, and something like that.
Speaker 1: So you stuck with you went ahead and just stuck
Speaker 1: with that identity, didn't you. Yeah. His dad he short
Speaker 1: of left us coming and went something. He's back now.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll stay. But that board, right, Chanter ain't never
Speaker 1: bird today, buddy, mm hmmm mm hmm yeah, m hmm,
Speaker 1: I love him. M Yeah, I know it, dude, Yep.
Speaker 1: That that just shows you, Clay, what I mean it
Speaker 1: means to us. You know, it's a it's beyond just
Speaker 1: uh going out and having a big tim hunting. It's
Speaker 1: beyond just uh um a group of guys here hanging
Speaker 1: out in in Broy's house. You know, it's our life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a something we've all grown up doing
Speaker 1: all the way back through and it's just, uh, it's
Speaker 1: a bond. Yeah, it really is. It really is. Should
Speaker 1: He won't leave you bad, He won't leave you out
Speaker 1: there and correct one yesterday, Yeah, leave you or the dogs.
Speaker 1: He'd be the last one to come, and he'd be
Speaker 1: the last one they're hoping to get the last dog. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've hunted with you guys for three days
Speaker 1: of the last sixty eight years. This guy's been bear hunting.
Speaker 1: And the one time we had to fetch dogs after dark,
Speaker 1: he he went, I knew that. Yeah, we've spent a
Speaker 1: long nights in the in the truck together and and
Speaker 1: uh stayed all night and freezing cold and whatever we
Speaker 1: stay there with those dogs. Episode seven, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Dear to my heart. I had some of my close
Speaker 1: friends in the room with me and it was called
Speaker 1: Beginner's Guide to Building Your Family On Purpose. We talked
Speaker 1: about building families, the transfer of family values into our children.
Speaker 1: Really stuff that's super important to me. All this testing,
Speaker 1: so what we're talking about, the building family culture, building
Speaker 1: family culture, and all you guys, I respect every all
Speaker 1: of you for the way that you have built your families.
Speaker 1: And I think nobody's doing everything right. I mean that
Speaker 1: that the word right is a tough one, but we're
Speaker 1: doing it intentionally. And I know all you guys well
Speaker 1: enough to know that you're very intentionally building family culture.
Speaker 1: And if if you don't hear anything else on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and you know you're just listen to this and like
Speaker 1: you just want to chew on something, my question to
Speaker 1: you is are you being intentional with the way that
Speaker 1: you're building your family? And that word building could throw
Speaker 1: you off? And let me let me let me say
Speaker 1: this right here? Is that there. I've got a couple
Speaker 1: of written statements here. Um, let's see. Let's see. We
Speaker 1: we research and consult almost everything that we want to
Speaker 1: be proficient at. Do we not, Like if you're gonna
Speaker 1: go on a big hunting trip, you're gonna learn about it.
Speaker 1: If you want to get into cycling, like you go
Speaker 1: to cycling experts and see what they say. Um, but
Speaker 1: with family stuff, a lot of times people are really isolated. Um.
Speaker 1: Why why do you think that is? I think it
Speaker 1: can be perceived as weakness to have to rely on
Speaker 1: some on advice or counsel from someone else to build
Speaker 1: your own family. You know, when you when you see
Speaker 1: you know someone who's proficient at hunting, and and you see,
Speaker 1: you know, I like to fly fish, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I watch other guys, it's like, well, they've had a
Speaker 1: long history of this, and I want to glean from them.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to your own family, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a really a sensitive spot because you don't want
Speaker 1: to be seen as weak or there's there's the other
Speaker 1: side of you. You get isolated because you don't want
Speaker 1: to build like mom and dad, or you don't want
Speaker 1: to follow their pattern and so so I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: it on my own. I'm gonna find my own way.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's almost a comparison of I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that, so I'm gonna do it my
Speaker 1: own way. And that can that can make you isolated, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, and I think we as people a lot
Speaker 1: of times are insecure and and to open ourselves up
Speaker 1: for somebody else's input, it's pretty vulnerable. And it you
Speaker 1: it takes time of doing that a lot that you'll
Speaker 1: learn the value of it. And you're like, man, the
Speaker 1: more I open up my life to input, the better
Speaker 1: my life gets. The more I learned, the more my
Speaker 1: the better my marriage gets. And so I remember even
Speaker 1: early on um in my marriage, and then the same
Speaker 1: with early on when I first had kids, like maybe
Speaker 1: like the first time I kind of like went to something,
Speaker 1: went to maybe one of you guys or you know,
Speaker 1: people older than me, the married longer, had kids longer.
Speaker 1: I remember, it was almost like, you know, what are
Speaker 1: they gonna say? And like, what if I'm doing everything wrong?
Speaker 1: And what if I'd yeah exactly. And then every time
Speaker 1: that I did go to people wiser than me, always
Speaker 1: got two things. I always got. Number one, they related
Speaker 1: to me. I've never had an issue in my family
Speaker 1: or marriage. Somebody was like you struggle with that? My gosh,
Speaker 1: like you're you're a terrible person, Like you have a
Speaker 1: marital struggle, are you? So it's like everything it's almost
Speaker 1: like my friends would like fill in the sense, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I bet you said this after you do that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. And then I bet you felt like this
Speaker 1: and yeah, and uh so that was one and that
Speaker 1: right there is comforting and it shows you that it's safe.
Speaker 1: And then the second looking at somebody that you you
Speaker 1: perceived has made it through that and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: they're okay and they had this problem. And then the
Speaker 1: second thing is I've always had and I've always from
Speaker 1: that received an alternative perspective that I didn't have before.
Speaker 1: And it's like every single time I learned that I
Speaker 1: can't do this on my own, you know. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm jumping right into all this, but like that's
Speaker 1: one thing I learned with building my family is like,
Speaker 1: there ain't no way I can do this on my
Speaker 1: own as exactly exactly. So I think it's it's like
Speaker 1: this double edged sword. It's like we're kind of insecure,
Speaker 1: but we kind of I want to do it on
Speaker 1: our own, but at the same time that's really hard.
Speaker 1: So we ended up just kind of feeling well, I
Speaker 1: think people either just feel like a failure or they
Speaker 1: just kind of build up. They kind of just say, well,
Speaker 1: this is how I am, and this is the way
Speaker 1: my family is gonna be forever, not really getting to
Speaker 1: experience what could be better. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: pretty American cultural thing to be really independent with your family.
Speaker 1: I mean, just you know, cultures, cultures are built based
Speaker 1: upon national history. I mean, and like you think about
Speaker 1: the people that like settled in this region or heck,
Speaker 1: every region of this country unless they're unless they're Native Americans.
Speaker 1: They came here and there was like this pioneer spirit
Speaker 1: that was on people to like bust through the wilderness
Speaker 1: and make it on their own. People had to be
Speaker 1: self sufficient, and like here in the Ozarks, that is
Speaker 1: a right that is honored. Self sufficiency. I mean, like
Speaker 1: at the Newcom Farm, we hat tip to the idea
Speaker 1: of self sufficiency big time. That's okay, but that cannot
Speaker 1: be the definer of every part of your life or
Speaker 1: you're a fool, you know. So like, yeah, we we
Speaker 1: like to hunt some some of our own food, butchering
Speaker 1: our own animals, grow some stuff, train or you know.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to things that I am not
Speaker 1: an expert on that I'm incapable, Well, anybody could can
Speaker 1: have insight into their family and make decisions on their own.
Speaker 1: We're not We're not suggesting that somebody is incapable of
Speaker 1: making decisions on their own. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: best practice inside of life is for people to be
Speaker 1: connected inside of some network of people that they trust.
Speaker 1: You know. Episode nine one is one that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: It was a conversation that I had with Jonathan Wilkins.
Speaker 1: The title of the podcast was the history of Racism
Speaker 1: and African American Hunting. This is a unique conversation, man.
Speaker 1: You know, there's what you just said about African Americans
Speaker 1: being so connected rurally for such a long time, it's
Speaker 1: almost been like erased from the culture in a lot
Speaker 1: of in a lot of ways. I heard a stat
Speaker 1: today that there's three hundred thousand African Americans that hunt
Speaker 1: in the US today. Three thousands of like eleven million hunters,
Speaker 1: so less than less than one and ten. Does that
Speaker 1: start ring with you? I mean, I've heard that from
Speaker 1: a seventeen I believe that if you took that nationally now,
Speaker 1: I'd say the I would almost have I would hazard
Speaker 1: to guess that a bulk of black hunters are in
Speaker 1: the South. Uh, but yeah, I bet if you you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the centers of African American life
Speaker 1: in this country, uh, they're gonna be mostly in coastal
Speaker 1: or northern cities. You know that. And these these are
Speaker 1: population remnants of the Great Migration, you know, people leaving. Uh,
Speaker 1: structural racism and and you know, physical violence in the South,
Speaker 1: which moved to and they moved to the industrial cities
Speaker 1: of the North because you know, you have you also
Speaker 1: had a you had an economic shift out of agriculture
Speaker 1: into production, and those production centers were in the North.
Speaker 1: So you had these waves of people moving to you know,
Speaker 1: uh St. Louis. Like my my dad's fami was originally
Speaker 1: from Kio, Arkansas. That's about thirty miles away from here.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm from St. Louis, uh Indian Indianapolis, Detroit, uh, Minneapolis, Baltimore.
Speaker 1: You know, these are these were big industrial Boston, big
Speaker 1: industrial cities that black people moved up to. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And and it shows you kind of how short our
Speaker 1: collective memory is because you know, just colloquially, you start
Speaker 1: to think that you know that I don't know that
Speaker 1: maybe there's something inherent in blackness that uh that is
Speaker 1: disassociative with the natural world. And if you just look
Speaker 1: back a little bit further, or you just you drive
Speaker 1: around like the state that we live in, like you know,
Speaker 1: you live in a part of the state where there's
Speaker 1: not very many African Americans. If you drove over to
Speaker 1: the opposite side of the state, you would see black
Speaker 1: people everywhere. You would see the whole towns. I mean
Speaker 1: now small you'd see small towns, but like Cotton Plant,
Speaker 1: which is about ten miles from Brinkley, Like it's probably
Speaker 1: almost entirely African American and that's all remnant of Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's agricultural populations where people lived. Um and you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like you probably most people wouldn't think of
Speaker 1: black farmers, but across the delta, across the South, there
Speaker 1: are black farmers. They're you know, multi generational black farmers.
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, I don't know. Man, the rich what
Speaker 1: I was shocked at, Jonathan inside of this book and
Speaker 1: the first chapter, it's like, I mean, just is if
Speaker 1: somebody could just even just read the first chapter of
Speaker 1: this book, the rich history of hunting that was built
Speaker 1: upon kind of this plantation model. If I don't know
Speaker 1: another way to say it, but like, uh, the black
Speaker 1: people were in charge of there was a lot of
Speaker 1: hound hunting, a lot of dog hunting. They were running deer,
Speaker 1: they were running rabbits, they were well and so the
Speaker 1: a lot of the black guys were the hound handlers,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them were master houndsman fast, I
Speaker 1: mean that blows my mind. The next section is from
Speaker 1: episode seventy three titled How Bear Hunters and Hillbilly's Defined
Speaker 1: the State. It was a conversation with Dr Brooks Blevins.
Speaker 1: He's a historian, he's a serial book writer, he's got
Speaker 1: he's written so many books about history and the Ozarks,
Speaker 1: and that conversation. I just loved it to the core.
Speaker 1: You're gonna enjoy this segment just to spend there natural
Speaker 1: historic range. I mean, it's just this incredible animal and
Speaker 1: and with that incredible animal comes all this incredib history.
Speaker 1: So there's been this like resurgence of the idea of
Speaker 1: the Ozarks being a place to hunt bear and a
Speaker 1: lot of that happened, and it's really happened the last
Speaker 1: twenty years as the bear populations have increased in the
Speaker 1: Ozarks and so the hunting regulations have liberalized in order to,
Speaker 1: you know, manage bear populations. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: guys are able to hunt bears in a in a
Speaker 1: in a more in a fashion where they can actually
Speaker 1: harvest them. Kind of liberalize, liberalize this season a little bit,
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, those arcs are on
Speaker 1: the national radar for bears and I think that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and you're right. I'll admit I didn't know that
Speaker 1: they were on the national bear radar until until today.
Speaker 1: But uh, but yeah, you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I've noticed through the years is, uh, you know, regions
Speaker 1: sort of come into vogue and then they slip back
Speaker 1: into the background, they come back, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: a cyclical thing. And you know, if you go back
Speaker 1: to the sixties and seventies, the Ozarks and the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, the Ozarks were really hot. You had
Speaker 1: the Beverly Hillbillies, and you had all these folk festivals
Speaker 1: going on around the region, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, those Arc Mountain Darred Evils, you know, one
Speaker 1: of my my favorite bands from the seventies, and a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And then the regions sort of disappeared
Speaker 1: and then and then, and I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: And uh, just in the last decade, it's it's really
Speaker 1: made a comeback on on TV. And the movie Winner's Bone,
Speaker 1: a terrific novel and movie that came out a few
Speaker 1: years ago set set in the sort of meth cooking
Speaker 1: uh element of the Ozarks, and and uh and so
Speaker 1: I think, uh, you know, this, this resurgence of bear
Speaker 1: hunting and interest in and bear hunting is perfect and
Speaker 1: uh and at least as far as I'm concerned, there's
Speaker 1: no better headquarters than than the Ozarks for that from
Speaker 1: the history, from the history that I know about, that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty perfect place for it. Well. The first book
Speaker 1: that I read of yours, I've got it right here
Speaker 1: in my hand, is uh, it's that. Well, it's titled Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And there's two ways to spell it on the title Arkansas,
Speaker 1: the historical way that ends with an s and then
Speaker 1: Arkansas spelled with the W at the end, the way
Speaker 1: we all say it. That's right, that's right. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't say Arkansas. We say Arkansas. And then the tagline
Speaker 1: and this is what man, you had me at this
Speaker 1: which may have been the may be the only person
Speaker 1: that ever read this book. I don't know, but uh,
Speaker 1: how bear hunters, hillbillies, and good old boys defined the state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see how that. That's subtitle we get you.
Speaker 1: It took me hard, man, that hooked me hard. And
Speaker 1: that's really what I want to talk about. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: is how you know I'm interested in how me specifically,
Speaker 1: how hunting culture influences the region, you know, because I
Speaker 1: think what's happening inside of modern hunting is we're trying
Speaker 1: to redefine our relevance, you know. I mean with a
Speaker 1: lot of things that happen urbanization, people being disconnected from
Speaker 1: the land, disconnected from where they came from, um anti
Speaker 1: hunting sentiment, people just not understanding the culture people are,
Speaker 1: people are disconnected. So as hunters, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: we're we're trying to say, we know we're relevant, we
Speaker 1: know what we're doing is beneficial for wildlife, beneficial for economy,
Speaker 1: is beneficial for non game animals that were not hunting
Speaker 1: because of funding for wildlife that we're trying to protect.
Speaker 1: So all these amazing benefits that come from modern hunting,
Speaker 1: but we're trying to like carve out our relevance in
Speaker 1: a modern time. And so when I look at a
Speaker 1: statement like that, how Barren hunters, hillbillies and good boys
Speaker 1: to find a state like, I think, really, what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do is I'm i'm I'm I'm curious about
Speaker 1: how other parts of my life. And I told you
Speaker 1: right before we started this that I'm a seventh generation
Speaker 1: are Kans and my kids are eighth generation. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: we we've really been hunters all the way through. And
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to figure out where hunting as influenced
Speaker 1: my life in maybe ways that I don't even understand,
Speaker 1: you know, right right, And uh yeah, I think, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot to that. As you were
Speaker 1: talking about, I was thinking about a lot of things
Speaker 1: that have happened just in the twenty one century that
Speaker 1: these sort of revivals, And in a way, I think
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is sort of hunting revival in
Speaker 1: a sense. And I think about these uh you know,
Speaker 1: this this fad for we called acts throwing or whatever,
Speaker 1: where this thing is and and and a lot of
Speaker 1: these uh uh and and I think there's there, well,
Speaker 1: I know there's here in the you know, twenty years
Speaker 1: into the twenty one century, there there's a renewed interest
Speaker 1: in going back to the land amongst uh you know,
Speaker 1: a younger generation again. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that is a reaction to the fact that our society
Speaker 1: is so urbanized and it's modernized, and it's it's gotten
Speaker 1: farther away from uh that you know, that past, that
Speaker 1: many of us probably romanticized a certain degree that that
Speaker 1: sort of that sort of hunting uh and and farming
Speaker 1: close to the land past that people are trying to
Speaker 1: reconnect with. And sometimes it's people who have who have
Speaker 1: been away from the land for a generation or two
Speaker 1: and they feel some sort of I don't I don't
Speaker 1: want some sort of emptiness or some sort of vacuum
Speaker 1: that that needs to be filled by by making contact
Speaker 1: with the land, whether that's you know, growing their own
Speaker 1: food or killing their own food or or or whatever
Speaker 1: that is. So I think I think it's all part
Speaker 1: of what I call it, uh, part of the primitivist spirit.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get, you know, too too
Speaker 1: far into lengthy words here, but but I think I
Speaker 1: think primitive ism is a I think it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very strong uh force in in human society, especially
Speaker 1: in civilized human society, that extends well beyond this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's in religion and politics and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's it's a desire to reconnect with
Speaker 1: your origins in a very real, uh you know. It's
Speaker 1: just a very hands in the dirt sort of sort
Speaker 1: of way. And I and I think this is that
Speaker 1: a Is that a feature of a really modern prosperous society?
Speaker 1: I think I think it is like people back in
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds that were farming and bear hunting, Like
Speaker 1: you said, we romanticize that so much. They as sure
Speaker 1: as they weren't trying to reconnect with their past, They're
Speaker 1: trying to get away from it. Is that's right, That's
Speaker 1: exactly right. I mean, that's that's that's the insight right there.
Speaker 1: It's this next excerpts from a fellow Arkansan by the
Speaker 1: name of Keith Sutton. The episode was nine four and
Speaker 1: it's called a gunfight, a world record ray and mauled
Speaker 1: by a bison. I didn't know Keith real well when
Speaker 1: I sat down to talk with him, but as he spoke,
Speaker 1: I realized what a unique man I was sitting with,
Speaker 1: and he had some incredible stories of adventure, and this
Speaker 1: just stood out to me as a really unique conversation
Speaker 1: when he talked about catching a world record ray in
Speaker 1: the Amazon River. You know people always asked about Brazil,
Speaker 1: weren't you scared being in those remote places? Was never scared.
Speaker 1: It was totally the opposite. Really, I'm scared going downtown
Speaker 1: a little rock at night. But I'm not scared being
Speaker 1: on the Amazon, six hundred miles from nearest town because
Speaker 1: there's nobody there. That's what made it exciting. You're in
Speaker 1: a place a few people visit, a few people are there,
Speaker 1: a few people lived there, and so you have all
Speaker 1: these amazing opportunities, especially fishing wise, uh, that are just incredible,
Speaker 1: and uh I was. I was never I never felt
Speaker 1: in danger. I mean we saw things that could have
Speaker 1: been dangerous. We saw fifteen foot anacondas and things like that,
Speaker 1: but I never felt like we were ever in any
Speaker 1: danger down there. I loved going to Brazil. The people
Speaker 1: down there really wonderful, and there's nowhere in the world
Speaker 1: got better fishing. I mean, it's incredib peacock Mass. At
Speaker 1: the time, nobody was really promoting the catfishing down there,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know my first trip down there that
Speaker 1: there were huge cat fishing. And when I found out,
Speaker 1: it's like, why am I fishing for peacock mass when
Speaker 1: I can catch us exactly. So my second trip, on
Speaker 1: my first trip, something happened that was kind of incredible.
Speaker 1: I was in the boat with a friend from Brazil
Speaker 1: and we saw this massive fish that was probably seven
Speaker 1: or eight feet across, round as a circle, that swam
Speaker 1: under the boat, and I'm like, what the heck was that?
Speaker 1: And he called it a hia and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that meant at the time, but it means ray.
Speaker 1: But it was seven or ft seven or eight feet around,
Speaker 1: and I didn't had those in freshwater, no nowhere closed
Speaker 1: three thousand miles from the ocean, And so when I
Speaker 1: got back, I started trying to find out what could
Speaker 1: that be. Nobody knew. There was no information about a
Speaker 1: fish like that, So I decided, I know where I
Speaker 1: saw it, I'm gonna go back and try to catch it.
Speaker 1: So my second trip, I went an Arkansas boy named
Speaker 1: Catfish down there to do a man's job. I went
Speaker 1: to the same place my second trip, and I caught
Speaker 1: that fish. And it's called a discus ray. It had
Speaker 1: not been seen or described since the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and it turns out there there's more of them than
Speaker 1: people really knew. Uh. Anybody catch well, Uh, I figured
Speaker 1: it's a ray. I'd caught a lot of big rays,
Speaker 1: and I'd caught the southern sting rays that were seven
Speaker 1: or eight feet across and they lay on the bottom
Speaker 1: and eat dead stuff. So I put a dead fish
Speaker 1: on the hook, threw it out on the bottom where
Speaker 1: I had seen this fish before, and within fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: I had it on. Why didn't something else e? I mean,
Speaker 1: like if that well fish so full of fish, I
Speaker 1: mean they are amazing difficult and fishing with those kind
Speaker 1: of baits. But I was just determined, you know, I
Speaker 1: was gonna try to hit the right spot, and just
Speaker 1: fortunately I caught it and it was like the most
Speaker 1: incredible fish I've ever seen. When I got back, I
Speaker 1: just said it, well, it needs to be a world record.
Speaker 1: I wanted to enter it the record book, and you
Speaker 1: have to have the fish identified by an expert. Uh.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find an expert knew what it was. I
Speaker 1: had all these great photos of this fish. None of
Speaker 1: the ray experts had never heard of it. Finally I
Speaker 1: found a guy in Germany who's a ray expert, and
Speaker 1: he said, this fish is painted in a book from
Speaker 1: the very early eighteen hundreds. It's the same fish, I
Speaker 1: have no doubt. In this book it was called a
Speaker 1: spine tailed the leposaurus, and the picture was identical. It
Speaker 1: had a short tail covered with spikes. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: It's Uh, it was an incredible fish and uh it's
Speaker 1: still the world record. That particular fish was about six
Speaker 1: feet across, weighed almost two hundred pounds. Uh, and I
Speaker 1: caught several more while I was down there. I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine reel in a fish like that, like it was.
Speaker 1: Did they fight? Well, it's kind of like dragging a
Speaker 1: barn door, you know. It's it's like most raised you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people who hook a ray here in
Speaker 1: saltwater just want to cut the line because it's so
Speaker 1: difficult to actually land one. You know, they're huge and
Speaker 1: they're flat, and they suck up on the bottom and
Speaker 1: don't want to come up. Uh. This one was the
Speaker 1: bottom and eight feet of water. I had to sit
Speaker 1: there and strum my fishing line to make him mad
Speaker 1: enough to get off the bottom. And what do you
Speaker 1: mean vibrate the fishing. Yeah, you kind of vibrate it
Speaker 1: like a guitar string, and it aggravates them and they
Speaker 1: eventually come up. And that or just that's that's a
Speaker 1: ray trick I learned in Virginia with some anglers out there. Uh.
Speaker 1: But when it came up, then I knew I had him,
Speaker 1: and it was an incredible dish. No, they don't eat
Speaker 1: them at all. I wanted to release his fish a
Speaker 1: live but by the time we could get it weighed.
Speaker 1: I took a certified scale with me. By the time
Speaker 1: we could get to the boat, it had expired, so
Speaker 1: we couldn't release it. And I asked, you know, can
Speaker 1: we can you eat it? And they're like, no, We're
Speaker 1: not gonna eat the piranhas, which was pretty incredible to
Speaker 1: all the anglers on the boat came been watched. Did
Speaker 1: we cut it up and fed it to the piranhas?
Speaker 1: That was pretty incredible, And that's an incredible story. It
Speaker 1: wasn't say the name of that fish again. We discus
Speaker 1: Ray is the same uh. And before there had been
Speaker 1: some small ones in the record book, I think eleven
Speaker 1: pounds something like that prior to you catching Yes, but
Speaker 1: it was they were smalls, Yeah, almost two hundred pounds. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was. The whole story was really incredible because it
Speaker 1: was such a rarity to you know, to be able
Speaker 1: to find something nobody knew anything about. I was just dumbfounded.
Speaker 1: When I got back and I'm talking to all these Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't remember for sure, but I believe it was
Speaker 1: two thousand one. I mean, that's like, is it We're
Speaker 1: not talking about like the nineteen sixties or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: so that's amazing to me that in one that you
Speaker 1: can still go to Brazil. My last trip, I went
Speaker 1: to the Shingoo River in Brazil, which is in a
Speaker 1: different area, and uh, we actually caught some catfish there
Speaker 1: that had never been described by science at all. Well.
Speaker 1: I came back with uh photos of fish that I
Speaker 1: needed to get identified, and I found an expert in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts at Cambridge University who spent his lifetime down their
Speaker 1: studying fish, and he found out I was going down there.
Speaker 1: He learned about this big ray and he said, if
Speaker 1: you go to Brazil and you could photograph fish, send
Speaker 1: send me the pictures. I'd like to see what you're catching.
Speaker 1: And it turned out some of the fish we caught
Speaker 1: had never been described by science. The local people knew
Speaker 1: about them, but science didn't know about it. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a name. A lot of them were unusual armored catfish.
Speaker 1: I mean to imagine you can go out this day
Speaker 1: and age and catch something science doesn't know about me.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, you know, if you think about it, though,
Speaker 1: we live in such a unique time as humans, because
Speaker 1: hundred years ago that would have been kind of normal, maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean so we yeah, we well normal in the
Speaker 1: sense of so much had yet to be discovered. But
Speaker 1: in the last hundred years, it's like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're sitting in your living room in Arkansas, and we've
Speaker 1: got the world at our fingertips, and we feel like
Speaker 1: everything's been discovered. Ye and and it hasn't. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was always one of my things I love doing
Speaker 1: the most, was finding what's out there here in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Even I found things over the years and nobody knew
Speaker 1: was here in Arkansas. Salamanders and birds and and snakes
Speaker 1: even that nobody knew were here. Uh they're kind of
Speaker 1: obscure animals. But Uh, there was a type of worm
Speaker 1: snake I found when I was Nobody knew it was here,
Speaker 1: and back then I would publish those findings in scientific
Speaker 1: journals so people wouldn't know. Uh, there was a salamander
Speaker 1: called a mole salamander. Nobody knew we had those here. Uh.
Speaker 1: Even today, Uh, if you dig and read on the
Speaker 1: internet every year, there's literally hundreds of animals being discovered.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew about it at all. I just did an
Speaker 1: article recently about just new fish that have been discovered
Speaker 1: every year. Yes, and every year there's several hundred new
Speaker 1: species being described, so we're learning more and more. A
Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with DNA and genetics
Speaker 1: or in and out. Fish that we thought were all
Speaker 1: one type of fish are really several species. But sometimes
Speaker 1: it's something brand new we didn't know about. And to me,
Speaker 1: those adventures when I was able to find something nobody
Speaker 1: knew about, that's the coolest thing in the world. It's
Speaker 1: really fun. That really is This next excerpts from episode
Speaker 1: ninety two, when I talked to Steve Rinella and Janie
Speaker 1: Pould tell us there's some guys I look up to,
Speaker 1: and I think you'll enjoy this little snippet of the conversation. Um,
Speaker 1: I just had a few just quick. I'm gonna run
Speaker 1: through these questions and then we'll be done. Um. So
Speaker 1: these are unanswered questions that people have about um, celebrities.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm. I'm a little leary to use the
Speaker 1: word celebrity because we don't we count man. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but no, I asked a few people and they were
Speaker 1: like they were joking, but they were serious. Question number one,
Speaker 1: and you can just give a short answer. Are you
Speaker 1: nice to your wife? We'll start with you honest extremely
Speaker 1: he is. Um, it just depends for me, man. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, my wife's mad at me a lot. I'm
Speaker 1: mad at my wife a lot. We've been together twelve years. Man,
Speaker 1: We've got three little kids in the house. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and tell you that, right. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna paint a super rosy because a bottomless uh, but
Speaker 1: your intentions like yeah, I mean there's a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of love and respect and I would never do anything
Speaker 1: to disrespect my wife. But it's just like anybody knows, man,
Speaker 1: like get a kids. Yeah, you spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time on each other's nerves and yeah, just so people,
Speaker 1: it's just right. I don't I don't like the Actually
Speaker 1: it's not. It's just a reality. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all it's all based on respect and love. But
Speaker 1: God just gets stressful sometimes. What I like to make
Speaker 1: sure that I do. And again I answered that question,
Speaker 1: you know quickly, so you could get through these questions quickly.
Speaker 1: But since we're getting into Um I tried to at
Speaker 1: least when I am to then, uh be humble and
Speaker 1: apologize and you know, okay and know that, Hey, Jana
Speaker 1: speaks very highly of you behind your back about your
Speaker 1: being a father and husband. That's nice. I'll do a
Speaker 1: little checking around. Um you're just a reference checking yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Um let's see, uh number two, what do your wives
Speaker 1: think about all this? Like just you guys, like like traveling, hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, there was just short for me real quick.
Speaker 1: There was never not There was never like it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a thing got introduced. It was just always that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was always that way. So I never had to
Speaker 1: go through a hurdle of being like, hey, I have
Speaker 1: a new life because you didn't. You didn't start it. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, um, it very much was introduced.
Speaker 1: We've been married now seventeen years and uh so halfway
Speaker 1: through this thing kind of started and started traveling a
Speaker 1: whole bunch more. Although we had always been a part
Speaker 1: of some because I was a hunting guide and would
Speaker 1: be gone for most of the fall, and she spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the field all summer, so
Speaker 1: she would be sometimes gone in a different state for
Speaker 1: three months. Um, but uh yeah, she's very supportive of
Speaker 1: whatever I do. And uh it's also you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a source of income, and it's nice to be able
Speaker 1: to do something you love to do, you know, to
Speaker 1: you know, for your income. So yeah, I can't say
Speaker 1: no to that. Okay. So Meteor was built on this
Speaker 1: authenticity inside of a context, and the hunting world that
Speaker 1: was had lost a lot authenticity. And so the question
Speaker 1: is and that's and that's what would characterize you, Steve,
Speaker 1: and you're honest too, and just kind of the brand
Speaker 1: I feel like it's is authenticity. And so how do
Speaker 1: you maintain that authenticity in the midst of massive growth
Speaker 1: when we know, like like everybody knows that consumes honey
Speaker 1: media that it has to be paid for? I mean,
Speaker 1: so what what stole authing that you don't think? So?
Speaker 1: I mean what stole authenticity that really irritates people? Well,
Speaker 1: is that guys' of providing like basically free media? Right? A.
Speaker 1: Podcasts are free? Right? I mean it's an advertising comporment,
Speaker 1: but you're in producing like free media. Um, Netflix, you
Speaker 1: know it's not free, but it's a very low subscriber fee.
Speaker 1: It's an it's a bottomless pit of content, right like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. It's not transactional per episode. How
Speaker 1: are people are very irritated when confronted with the idea
Speaker 1: that you need to finance this operation, the operation that
Speaker 1: you need to finance your ability to make free content.
Speaker 1: I get it, yeah, but people know it's not understood.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's why I understood. Well, so how
Speaker 1: do you how do you maintain because I mean what
Speaker 1: I was saying was that you've you've done a good
Speaker 1: job of maintaining that authenticity and inside of the context.
Speaker 1: So how do you keep doing that? Hey? Let me,
Speaker 1: let me let me. Uh, I've got it. I digressed
Speaker 1: to uh, but go ahead. But but I think the
Speaker 1: questions you kind of the questions like there, but it's
Speaker 1: eluding you. Well that's the question. How do you how
Speaker 1: do you build a business like you like you have
Speaker 1: and maintain the authenticity that got you here? I mean
Speaker 1: I think it's this because because because it'd be like
Speaker 1: let's say you make shoes, okay, and you make good shoes,
Speaker 1: and then pretty soon you have a big company that
Speaker 1: makes shoes. People aren't going to say to you, um,
Speaker 1: how do you continue to make shoes? Like, well, that's
Speaker 1: what we do. Well, so I'm saying, like, what got what? What?
Speaker 1: What got? You know what? What created the situation? Anyways,
Speaker 1: it's just still what's creating. It's just like making a
Speaker 1: thing that was making a thing that felt real and
Speaker 1: you could feel passionate. If you stop doing that, you've
Speaker 1: stopped making shoes. Do you see that? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like people, what you're saying, like, what is it?
Speaker 1: If you're not doing that anymore, then you're not doing
Speaker 1: the thing that that right that people want it anyway?
Speaker 1: But do you not see that? That's what happens to
Speaker 1: companies though, is they They they lose that when they
Speaker 1: get big. And that's certainly not what I'm saying. I'm well,
Speaker 1: they might, but I don't know how you keep Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't really well. I think in
Speaker 1: our context though, in the hunting industry, I think maybe
Speaker 1: what you're getting at is that because of the way
Speaker 1: that you have to pay to make this stuff keep working, right,
Speaker 1: you have partnerships and advertisers and you have to make
Speaker 1: them happy, and so at some point you come up
Speaker 1: to a thing where there's a huge check that's associated
Speaker 1: with baby a product or a brand that you don't
Speaker 1: align with. But if you need that check real bad,
Speaker 1: you have to go that route, right, and then you
Speaker 1: end up endorsing maybe a product or a brand that
Speaker 1: you necessarily don't align with, and people see that you
Speaker 1: are being inauthentic, and then it could cost you your authenticity,
Speaker 1: not like in the material you make, but well in
Speaker 1: a holistic the holistic place and not just that, but yes, that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean speaking to that, I think we've just always
Speaker 1: stood our ground and when that's off comes around and
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's just boxes and boxes of gear
Speaker 1: that comes across through the doors and meteor and across
Speaker 1: our desks where we just look at it and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: it might be good, but it's just not us, you know,
Speaker 1: and we know we just passed on it. And we've
Speaker 1: you know, speaking to Steve's loyalty, I mean First Light
Speaker 1: was the first clothing brand that he got in with
Speaker 1: and been with them for ten years now, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first two people to get behind our show, we're
Speaker 1: first Light and Vortex. Yeah and read to this day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're still there. Yeah, but I think and I don't
Speaker 1: have like and and um to endorse talk about recommend
Speaker 1: Vortex products is not painful. It's authentic because you and
Speaker 1: I have it like a, yeah, there's a product connection,
Speaker 1: but I have an emotional connection there. That's not all,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't want to tell you that that's
Speaker 1: something that's like that that emotional aspect is always present,
Speaker 1: but there's parts of it that I'm I'm like quite
Speaker 1: proud of that fact. I don't view it. I don't
Speaker 1: view that I'm able to have like a long term
Speaker 1: relationship and a you know, a sponsorship arrangement, um, the
Speaker 1: reciprocal relationship with Vortex. I don't look at that as
Speaker 1: being like, oh, it's just a thing I had to do.
Speaker 1: I'm like proud of that. And see what I'm what
Speaker 1: I what I see is that I think there's an
Speaker 1: internal component inside of inside of somebody that's got to
Speaker 1: be pretty strong to maintain that kind of authenticity in
Speaker 1: the midst of success. So, I mean, I guess and
Speaker 1: maybe it's so deep inside of you guys that you
Speaker 1: don't you don't even know. No, that's not true, man,
Speaker 1: you don't think I don't want to like act like
Speaker 1: I don't understand your question. Ah, No, we can. We
Speaker 1: have conversations all time about about what what do you
Speaker 1: mean we have? What we do is deliberate. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not accidental. Okay. We have conversations every day about what not,
Speaker 1: like how to what not? Turning laughter, turning right. But
Speaker 1: it's like conversations every day about like getting it right,
Speaker 1: like getting it right. Detail. We did a hunt last
Speaker 1: year with these guys at this place called Crickets, Guy
Speaker 1: Outfitters and Wyoming great dudes, like great, great dudes. I
Speaker 1: love those guys. Um And I was having a conversation
Speaker 1: with the sun landed Uh Peterson, and he was observing
Speaker 1: one day to me, he was like talking about how
Speaker 1: he tried he like observes, he's I would regard him
Speaker 1: like like a successful person right, like does things intentionally.
Speaker 1: And he was observing. He was telling me how he
Speaker 1: observed successful people and he said, a thing that he's
Speaker 1: noticed is that they pay attention to all the details.
Speaker 1: They pay attention to the details at their home. They
Speaker 1: pay attention to the details of how they raise their children.
Speaker 1: They pay attention to the details of what they do
Speaker 1: at work. They pay attention to the details of their vehicle.
Speaker 1: They like, pay attention to the details always. You can
Speaker 1: make a there can be a you can have a
Speaker 1: facade of carelessness or a facade of shooting from the hip.
Speaker 1: But I think that most people are able to do
Speaker 1: something for a long time, are very cognizant of details.
Speaker 1: And I think that we sit around arguing about the
Speaker 1: people will be like, I cannot believe these people are
Speaker 1: arguing about something that seems so mundane. It seems so silly.
Speaker 1: But we as an organization whever, like, we don't think
Speaker 1: it's silly. Yeah, So when I say it's deliberate, there's
Speaker 1: like there's like I'm like aware of what we do
Speaker 1: and how we do it. Not to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't make all kinds of screw ups, but you know,
Speaker 1: we discuss things. I like it. I like a great
Speaker 1: length things that would be silly. When we're making our show,
Speaker 1: we argue over like like seconds of things, like really
Speaker 1: like seconds considerable back and forth. Last like, how could
Speaker 1: we talk about the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast without including
Speaker 1: Ted Nugent's performance of Fred Bear a highlight for sure.
Speaker 1: We spent that last October together for about a week,
Speaker 1: and then the next spring he died and I went
Speaker 1: out to do my chory one day, and we're all
Speaker 1: shattered at his death. It was just he was just
Speaker 1: unbelievable because he made such an imprint on everybody. He's
Speaker 1: a great, great man. Did you ever meet him? Well,
Speaker 1: you're going to meet him right now. And so I
Speaker 1: went out to do my chores. I had my dog,
Speaker 1: biscuits and my Irish setters now porch. I went and
Speaker 1: I grabbed the guitar and I just I didn't know,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I wasn't thinking of Fred. I
Speaker 1: just sat down, I went. I always played killer licks
Speaker 1: when I picked up the guitar, but I never played
Speaker 1: one like this before. There I was back in a
Speaker 1: while again, and I felt right at home where I belong.
Speaker 1: And I had that feeling coming over me again, just
Speaker 1: like it happened so many times before, so many times.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the woods. He's like an old good friend,
Speaker 1: makes me feel warm and good inside. I know his name.
Speaker 1: It's good to see him again because in the wind
Speaker 1: he's still a live talking about Fred Bear, walk with
Speaker 1: me down the trails again, Take me back, Take me
Speaker 1: back where I belong. Fred Bear. I'm glad to have
Speaker 1: you with my side, my friend, and I will join
Speaker 1: you on the big hunt before too long. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of dark, another misty dusk, and it came
Speaker 1: from a tangle down below. And I tried, I tried
Speaker 1: to remember everything he taught me so well. I had
Speaker 1: to decide which way to go. Was I long or
Speaker 1: in a hunter stream? The moment of truth is here,
Speaker 1: and now I felt his touch, I felt his guide
Speaker 1: in hand, and the buck wars mine for evermore because
Speaker 1: of fred Bear. I still walk down those trails again.
Speaker 1: He takes me back, takes me back. I belong fred
Speaker 1: Fred Bear. I'm glad to have you in my side,
Speaker 1: my friend, and I will join you on the big
Speaker 1: hunt before too long. And we're not alone when we're
Speaker 1: in the great outdoors. We got his spirit, we got
Speaker 1: his soul, and he guards my steps, guid's my arrows home.
Speaker 1: The restless spirit for ever roams and it roams with
Speaker 1: Fred Bear. When I walk down those trails again, he'd
Speaker 1: take makes me back, takes me back. I belong fred Bear.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you went my side, my friend,
Speaker 1: and I will join you on the big hunt before
Speaker 1: too long. Because in the wind, he's still alive in
Speaker 1: the wind. He's still alive in the wind. I can
Speaker 1: hear I hear Fred Bear, I hear you, Fred. Hey Fred.
Speaker 1: Let's go hunt, buddy, Calm, you go up that ridge.
Speaker 1: I'll go down this swamp. Baby, get that book. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed these highlights from the Bear Hunting Magazine
Speaker 1: podcast over the last couple of years. These were all
Speaker 1: special moments that were memorable to me, and they most
Speaker 1: certainly were not all the special moments. Holy cow, every
Speaker 1: single episode, every single guest had extreme value to bring
Speaker 1: to our listeners. Thank you, Thank you for your support
Speaker 1: of Bear Hunting Magazine and our podcast and what we're doing.
Speaker 1: I hope you have a great Christmas. I hope you
Speaker 1: stay safe. I hope you have a great New Year.
Speaker 1: You'll hear from us again, but it might be in
Speaker 1: a condensed version in the next podcast. Merry Christmas, boys
Speaker 1: and girls, have a good one.