Speaker 1: This is Me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
Speaker 1: can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are
Speaker 1: the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the
Speaker 1: Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor
Speaker 1: where you stand with on X. All right, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Kevin Murphy my favorite guy in the world, one of them.
Speaker 1: Definitely better than Janni because, uh two reasons. I just
Speaker 1: genuinely like him, and too, he makes my job easy.
Speaker 1: I don't need to drag out, I don't need to
Speaker 1: like wrestle out thoughts out of him. He just got thoughts.
Speaker 1: So here he is, Kevin Murphy. I'm so glad to
Speaker 1: see you, like kind of because we got I got.
Speaker 1: I gotta look at you through a computer, man, which
Speaker 1: is not my preferred way of doing this. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm the same way, And uh, good seeing you guys,
Speaker 1: And uh, you know it's kind of strange. Just like
Speaker 1: a week before you called me up and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to do a remote podcast, I had told
Speaker 1: myself I had had some bad experiences over the telephone
Speaker 1: interviews and doing some things that I would never do.
Speaker 1: I remote podcast over the telephone, I had told myself,
Speaker 1: But I am eating the words now because you guys
Speaker 1: are just like family with me, So I have no problem,
Speaker 1: no problem at I all set here and talking to
Speaker 1: you guys. It's just like you were in the room
Speaker 1: with me. So yeah, I agree. Generally I would stick
Speaker 1: with your I would stick with that. But everything's you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of exceptions going on right now, and I
Speaker 1: don't one to ten Kevin, how how bummed out are
Speaker 1: you about how we weren't able to pull off our
Speaker 1: squirrel and rabbit trip in March. Oh, I was bummed out,
Speaker 1: but you know, and he said, hey, we're gonna Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's ten because I was up there pre tuning and
Speaker 1: ready to go, and I bought my day of a
Speaker 1: yearly licensed day, so you for that. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: was I didn't do the regular five day or seven
Speaker 1: day whatever. So I went ahead and I was gonna
Speaker 1: go back up there, but I decided not too. But
Speaker 1: we had a really good time. My seventh trip to
Speaker 1: Bearing Springs over the last eight years. Shot a little footage.
Speaker 1: I saw all my amigoes up there doing I hate
Speaker 1: you to all the people around bearing springs and enjoy
Speaker 1: you very much and look forward to coming back next year.
Speaker 1: So I love going to southern Michigan. I really do
Speaker 1: very nice people up there, just like home folk, uh,
Speaker 1: dog lovers, good stout rabbit population and have a good
Speaker 1: time every year. And you can't hunting in Kentucky and
Speaker 1: Barts So it's uh kind of the tip of the
Speaker 1: spirit as far as the end of the hunting season
Speaker 1: and then you get to start all over again. Good
Speaker 1: have you ever seen it? I gotta I gotta rather
Speaker 1: because we're right now out. We were gonna before we
Speaker 1: plan that trip, we were gonna have Kevin come out
Speaker 1: to Montana and hunt some small game. But the rabbit
Speaker 1: numbers have been so low and this is going this
Speaker 1: is going on probably three or four years. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think they have been really good, like really really
Speaker 1: good since two thousand eight, really good for twelve years
Speaker 1: since they've been like where you feel like something bad
Speaker 1: is gonna happen. There's so many rabbits. Yeah, Now, Kevin,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen like just numbers really low where
Speaker 1: you've hunted your days? You know? Um, I've only been
Speaker 1: a rabbit for a real uh, uh, top notch rabbit
Speaker 1: hunter in the last uh since about twenty eleven when
Speaker 1: I retired, and I see those cycles. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that can't happen. You can have
Speaker 1: a wet summertime, wet spring, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: the offspring dial off. Sometimes some parasites and disease come
Speaker 1: through me and wipe them out. Now with the squirrel
Speaker 1: population crop, it's a food food driving thing there. We
Speaker 1: had some late frost here the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I am a little bit concerned about some of our
Speaker 1: acron trees that kills the caspians on those on the
Speaker 1: tree limbs, so it could cut our food back. But rabbits,
Speaker 1: like I said, usually moisture, I think is more of
Speaker 1: a thing that drives those guys up and low. That
Speaker 1: affects them, you know when they're in the nest, dreadled
Speaker 1: baby rabbits out Um they are what do you'll have
Speaker 1: cotton tails up there? So they're born western Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: born naked with their eyes closed, so you know, they
Speaker 1: don't have much to protect them, uh from other nature
Speaker 1: the elements. So I'd say that's one thing. But habitat
Speaker 1: is the big issue around here, and we had a
Speaker 1: wet spring in a wet summer last year, so it
Speaker 1: knocked our population now quite a bit. I talked to
Speaker 1: quite a few rabbit hunters and they said they were
Speaker 1: having difficulty finding rabbits, and we've killed some really small
Speaker 1: rabbits towards the end of February or our season goes
Speaker 1: out the tents. So the last week we killed some
Speaker 1: rabbits that were really small and they'll cycle all year long,
Speaker 1: you know, try to raise offspring if the winner is
Speaker 1: not too too bad. Hey, Yeahny, what year was that
Speaker 1: that we were down to Wyoming hunting antelope. That was
Speaker 1: ridiculous months of rabbits. Yeah, I was just trying to
Speaker 1: remember what what year that was, um, because that was
Speaker 1: like as good as it gets. Yeah, that was probably
Speaker 1: like twenty ish. We we put in some miles hunting turkeys.
Speaker 1: This weekend saw one cotton tail. Normally in that neck
Speaker 1: of the woods there'll be a lot of them, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been dismal. So then we we were gonna hut
Speaker 1: here with We're gonna hut Montana with Kevin. Then we're
Speaker 1: gonna hunt Michigan and we got we got derailed by
Speaker 1: the pandemic and Kevin Joannie was saying, you had some
Speaker 1: what's your take on this whole pandemic situation? Man? You
Speaker 1: know this is gonna be my thirty six year of
Speaker 1: Germans were fair And UH explain that I'm a water
Speaker 1: wastewater guy. Uh degree environmental geology background work started out
Speaker 1: working the health department, nine five of being environmentalists, going
Speaker 1: around doing different lots of different things, testing water, making
Speaker 1: rat poison a couple of tons one day. Uh tell
Speaker 1: me real quick, real quick. Uh give me the basic
Speaker 1: recipiant making a ton of rat poison. You know, I
Speaker 1: was just throwing whatever they told me to do because
Speaker 1: I was brand new. I didn't know what I was
Speaker 1: handling whatever. But we had a little concrete mixer showing
Speaker 1: throwing stuff in there and bagging it up and stapling,
Speaker 1: giving away for free, no no graby clinic clinics. And
Speaker 1: then uh, I worked at a power plant for a
Speaker 1: while and they put me over the water department and
Speaker 1: uh make sure that we were sucking out river water.
Speaker 1: Make sure that was the chlorine was a residential high
Speaker 1: enough to kill back all the pathogens in it. And
Speaker 1: then I transferred over to the wastewater plant in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, and I spent from eighty nine to two
Speaker 1: thousand and three are now until eleven. Uh, working my
Speaker 1: way up to the top of the Totem pole on
Speaker 1: the wastewater system and being environmental, let's see, and making
Speaker 1: clean water every day. So back in there. So you're
Speaker 1: your credential to your credential to at least have an opinion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, you know, I was permitted
Speaker 1: place for operator. I can operate any plant in the
Speaker 1: United States. I'm qualified to do that. I do yearly
Speaker 1: see us and I've I've passed the exams to do that. UM.
Speaker 1: People can work under me. UM. I knew early only
Speaker 1: in my career as I worked my way up with
Speaker 1: Nashville is only two hours away. Within two hours, anything
Speaker 1: in the world could be I could be face to
Speaker 1: face beating up person, or it could be in the
Speaker 1: sewer system. And the sewer system is very hostile to
Speaker 1: some pathogens and it's very inviting for others. So I
Speaker 1: grew up in the heyday of hepatitis c AIDS not
Speaker 1: knowing a whole lot about it. A BOWLAE outbreaks and
Speaker 1: I started reading books in journals and trying to protect myself.
Speaker 1: I would go and have to pull samples at this
Speaker 1: at the local hospitals to make sure that they weren't
Speaker 1: dropping anything into the sewer system that they weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to be, like, you know, broken mercury thermometers or blood
Speaker 1: pressure machines or acid tones from the lab all at debris.
Speaker 1: So I'd have to go out there, open up a manhole,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm right there in the front line
Speaker 1: of everybody in the whole area six So I knew
Speaker 1: that I could personally be uh engaged in it. Uh
Speaker 1: my guys could be uh face to face with it,
Speaker 1: or I could bring it home to my family. So
Speaker 1: I started reading some some different books about pathogens of
Speaker 1: bowl ee uh mad cow disease. I just sounded intriguing.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a way to let my mind
Speaker 1: drift away from a work, but at the same time
Speaker 1: learn something about work. And I read a book and
Speaker 1: I got out the other day looking at it. It
Speaker 1: was on the Spanish flu of nineteen eighteen, uh called
Speaker 1: the Great Influenza, and um by coincidence, I came by
Speaker 1: Fort Riley, Texas or Kansas back in uh December I
Speaker 1: was with Zack from c Z and his wife, she's
Speaker 1: an environmental engineer for Kansas Light Empire. And as we
Speaker 1: drove by the military basis, says, I am pretty sure
Speaker 1: that is where the Spanish flu started the epidemic, and
Speaker 1: that's where it was first recognizing that it swept the world,
Speaker 1: just killing millions upon millions of people. And um, I said,
Speaker 1: it was, you know, very intriguing. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a small community. When I was a kid, there was
Speaker 1: three sets of orphans, all about the same age forty two.
Speaker 1: There was probably fifty years old somewhere in that time
Speaker 1: from I don't know a single orphan from then or
Speaker 1: from now. But after I read that book in two
Speaker 1: th us and in five I did a timeline and
Speaker 1: their parents evidently died from the Spanish flu. And that's
Speaker 1: what that's what the Spanish flu it uh. It concentrated
Speaker 1: on people of childbearing ages. And you know, probably the
Speaker 1: book said like fifty million people you know, died worldwide,
Speaker 1: but so many people died in India. They don't have
Speaker 1: any any idea what happened. They tried to con That's
Speaker 1: amazing because this is the this is the thing that
Speaker 1: people draw. You know, this current situation is when people
Speaker 1: are looking for a parallel that they reach for that,
Speaker 1: yes they do, and I don't see it based on
Speaker 1: my experience in reading the books. And they want to
Speaker 1: compare St. Louis to Philadelphia, and and I went back
Speaker 1: and read some of the book. You know St. Louis
Speaker 1: has right above the river system from us combined sewer system,
Speaker 1: waste goes out to the river the dispose of uh.
Speaker 1: They had some really sharp dudes in uh. St. Louis
Speaker 1: US and then Philadelphia wartime city people jammed together households
Speaker 1: of maybe you know, fifteen to twenty years and an
Speaker 1: outdoor privy. So they were constantly in contact with each other.
Speaker 1: Uh So I asked some of the engineers that works,
Speaker 1: and I want to see somebody do a comparison between
Speaker 1: Philadelphia sewer system and the St. Louis and the population
Speaker 1: and all that to see how it compares. But you
Speaker 1: know from what I read in the book, and the
Speaker 1: guy's name was Barry. He wrote that book and he
Speaker 1: wrote another one on Rising Tides about the great floods
Speaker 1: along the Mississippi River. So he's a very good historic
Speaker 1: author that that takes his research very seriously. So um,
Speaker 1: I don't see it from from what I see from
Speaker 1: the numbers that I drank out, it is a flu.
Speaker 1: My mom is eighty years old. She needs to be
Speaker 1: careful what she does. I have a friend that had
Speaker 1: a liver transplant. He's fifty seven. He needs to watch
Speaker 1: what what he does. But you know, we're all one
Speaker 1: microby way of being reckon our system. My former boss,
Speaker 1: Don hays Uh, he came down with West Nyle virus
Speaker 1: and it wrecked his system. And I talked to the
Speaker 1: doctor at Vanderbilt University and he says, hey, Kevin says,
Speaker 1: everybody in this mosquito pit, it's West Nile virus. You
Speaker 1: may feel bad for an hour or two or two
Speaker 1: or three days. And he said, on some rare occasions,
Speaker 1: I see it wrecked somebody's system, like your boss, and
Speaker 1: it just totally you know, Anni lees and paralyzed him
Speaker 1: from the waist down and he had to have a
Speaker 1: track and he fought through it for for five or
Speaker 1: six years and then finally passed away. In a very
Speaker 1: good person, a very good person to community, but very
Speaker 1: health vibrant, you know, for an older guy wrote his
Speaker 1: bicycle helped everybody out in the town. But like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, if I was a germophobe or whatever, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do the travels that I do
Speaker 1: and go out and do the things, or be even
Speaker 1: a hunter, you know, knowing that there's viruses out there. Raybies,
Speaker 1: you had trickin noses. I think you know, you just
Speaker 1: take that. As a human being, we're very resilient on
Speaker 1: what we can do. We build up an immunity pretty quick.
Speaker 1: And I'm a firm believer, you know in that. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I went to Mongolia, I did
Speaker 1: take up a I think a dip theory of tests.
Speaker 1: I had my latest technics shots and I do believe
Speaker 1: in vaccines and if there's something available there, I will
Speaker 1: study it there. I might not be the first dude
Speaker 1: that gets a shot, but after after a few people
Speaker 1: take it and look at it, I will. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer in the in the vaccines. And
Speaker 1: I'm a dude too that you know. I had the
Speaker 1: months of the measles chicken pox, uh, and then then
Speaker 1: I got I went through the line one day at
Speaker 1: school and they vaccinated me, and this alien it come
Speaker 1: up here on my my my shoulder and popped out
Speaker 1: there and grew back to your culture for smallpox. So
Speaker 1: I have been vaccinated for smallpox and have the scar
Speaker 1: for that, and a lot of the young people have
Speaker 1: not never went through uh any of that stuff. And
Speaker 1: you know, I can remember my mom, all three of us,
Speaker 1: my sister Kim and my brother Kent. We was running.
Speaker 1: Asked while through the house with with the months, and
Speaker 1: my mom's said it, Kevin, if you don't settle your
Speaker 1: grass down, says, your nuts is gonna shrivel up the
Speaker 1: size of a marble. So you know it doesn't have me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I listened to her or not.
Speaker 1: I do have two kids, so but I do remember
Speaker 1: her saying that. So, but you know I've been exposed
Speaker 1: to that, and we've become sterile America. We won't even
Speaker 1: hardly drink tatwater. You know, you go into the office
Speaker 1: and you see a uh you know, bottle water, a
Speaker 1: water machine and all that, and there's a certain amount
Speaker 1: that you can get immunity. I've got a good friend
Speaker 1: that he his dad's engineer. Uh they had a plant
Speaker 1: in Iraq or Iran. He said, man Burfy, I hate
Speaker 1: going over there when I was a kid, said I would,
Speaker 1: I would get dys interior every time I'd go until
Speaker 1: I built up a community to it. And he had.
Speaker 1: He showed me in college he had a bottle of
Speaker 1: tap water that come out of the municipal system of
Speaker 1: where hell, it didn't look any better than Berkeley Lake.
Speaker 1: And I just saw him back in February and I
Speaker 1: asked him, so, man, remember that that bottle of tapwater
Speaker 1: that you had from Iraq or Iran? And his eyes
Speaker 1: lit up and he said, oh, I bet my mom
Speaker 1: still got that. I said, that just fascinated me. And
Speaker 1: you know, small things like that fascinating that we take
Speaker 1: for granted in this country, that that other places, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't have that, that that mechanism that
Speaker 1: makes sure everything as safe as it can be, that
Speaker 1: we just take for granted and uh don't utilize. You know,
Speaker 1: the research is out there. Yeah, So tell me real
Speaker 1: quick about this hunting station wagon you're working on. Oh,
Speaker 1: I brought back from the dead yesterday. A American Motors
Speaker 1: Corporation nineteen eighty four American Eagle four door, four wheel
Speaker 1: drive station wagon that has not been uh fared up
Speaker 1: since nineteen or two thousand and eight, so twelve years
Speaker 1: it has not been on the road. I got it
Speaker 1: jacked up, put some wheat eater gas, and it got
Speaker 1: a young boy out there showing him the way. He's
Speaker 1: thirty eight, says he's raising on a farm, but he's
Speaker 1: scared to death of a handy man jack. So hey, Stefan,
Speaker 1: you can't pull that wheed eater gas. And there I see,
Speaker 1: yes I can. So the guess date was bad. So
Speaker 1: I just got the fuel line off the uh uh,
Speaker 1: the fuel pump, and got me a water bottle. Now
Speaker 1: I do consume water bottles. It is very convenient a
Speaker 1: lot of times. And I feeled it full of wet
Speaker 1: eater gas, which was some lubricant in there, and stuck
Speaker 1: it down in there, and we fired it up and
Speaker 1: she never missed a lick. Jacked it up, took the
Speaker 1: tars and wheels off of it, and then just let
Speaker 1: her set there and ida and spin and loup all
Speaker 1: the seals and everything up. So I'm gonna bring it
Speaker 1: back to the dead and baby drive up to Montana
Speaker 1: and go hunting, and let about six or eight beetle
Speaker 1: hands rolled out the back end it will be like
Speaker 1: back in nine four. So you're saying where you're from. Uh,
Speaker 1: used to be that you'd have instead of a hunting truck,
Speaker 1: you had a hunting station wagon. Oh. I can remember
Speaker 1: that as a kid. And I've been on a mission
Speaker 1: here the last a couple of weeks. I put the
Speaker 1: feelers out to all my friends and jump people and
Speaker 1: everybody that I know. So, man, I'm looking for some
Speaker 1: kind of vintage station wagon. Everybody says, ma'am, Murphy went jump,
Speaker 1: got up really high. You get two three hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for a body of Everybody started crushing it. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: I found a big Buig State UH wagon over in
Speaker 1: uh Liveston County. So I drove over there and it
Speaker 1: had a Pearl Harbor Survivors license plate on it. And
Speaker 1: I pulled into this trailer there and I kind of
Speaker 1: looked at around. Looked like nobody was living there. And
Speaker 1: I went down the road a couple of miles and
Speaker 1: found two dudes on the side of the road talking
Speaker 1: some farmers, and I talked to him about it. So, well,
Speaker 1: it's someone so lives there. So she comes to the door,
Speaker 1: she'll have a shotgun. I said, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: lady I like to deal with all up front. She
Speaker 1: means business. So I found this American eagle. It was
Speaker 1: only like two miles from the house. So I got
Speaker 1: the local uh car guy. I'm always dragging in scouts
Speaker 1: and wagoneers and vineage for wheel drives. So I got
Speaker 1: him to haul it to the house yesterday and he
Speaker 1: was kind of saying, man, yeah, before he spent a
Speaker 1: bunch of money and needed fired up and all that.
Speaker 1: So I got it fired up yester afternoon and I
Speaker 1: I sent him a picture of it, and he was
Speaker 1: as excited as I was that brought it back from
Speaker 1: the dead. So you know, I'm just like projects and
Speaker 1: doing stuff and get it going and bringing the old
Speaker 1: stuff back. Why why was it a station wagon thing
Speaker 1: back in the day. Is this because availability? Yes, because
Speaker 1: his family cards, you know. And I was talking to
Speaker 1: the to the uh Mark Valley of the record guy.
Speaker 1: He says, you know, when I grew up as a kid,
Speaker 1: says we raised hosting cows and said we would buy
Speaker 1: a bottle casts from a guy over in Callaway County
Speaker 1: and said he had a station wagon instead of a
Speaker 1: pickup truck. He says, you know, a new pickup truck
Speaker 1: was about five thousand dollars and he could buy an
Speaker 1: old used station wagon for five hundred. He could haul
Speaker 1: his feed mineral he'd called calves in it right every
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's just kind of availability, something cheap. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of station wagons out and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't call a hall a bunch of kids in
Speaker 1: a car, so it's multipurpose and it's like a mini
Speaker 1: van of the day. The station wagon was there's three
Speaker 1: three of us kids and then my mom and dad,
Speaker 1: and then we put the dog in the back. And
Speaker 1: hell sometimes we just have a sedan and haul the
Speaker 1: dogs in the in the back of it. We didn't
Speaker 1: have a hunt you know, a designated hunting truck like
Speaker 1: a like a bid now. So yeah, this was availability
Speaker 1: and necessity. And then you got, uh, you got this
Speaker 1: new dog. Yeah, don't even tell me. You name the
Speaker 1: dog wings and things. It sounds a good restaurant. You know.
Speaker 1: The dog was pre named. It took me three months
Speaker 1: on my best Jedi negotiating to get this dog. It
Speaker 1: comes from Patrick Flannagan and it was never about money.
Speaker 1: It was about being worthy enough to own a really good,
Speaker 1: outstanding hunting dog, and I wanted something small, and I
Speaker 1: went with us uh hunting in uh December out of
Speaker 1: Kansas with zach of c Z and I had my
Speaker 1: bird dog center. Uh Dan, Lieutenant Dan out with us.
Speaker 1: And he's a he's a pleasure to hunt. He likes
Speaker 1: to go out and make a circle, come back in
Speaker 1: and get his head rubbed, rubbed. And I've got another
Speaker 1: Why do you call that dog, Lieutenant Dan? Oh, it's
Speaker 1: got a good ring to you know, Lieutenant Dan. He's worthy.
Speaker 1: He wants to serve you and do whatever is necessary.
Speaker 1: How uh And so we hunted with a sage wh
Speaker 1: was the brother two wings and things, and uh we
Speaker 1: hunted on a Saturday on Monday, the monday before he
Speaker 1: was neutered. So they turned him loose and he out
Speaker 1: hunted all of our dogs put together. It was a machine.
Speaker 1: And he went out and he pointed something out the
Speaker 1: middlefield and I walked up there and I saw something
Speaker 1: gray and furry. The first thing that I thought that
Speaker 1: went through my mind was it was a badger. And
Speaker 1: I needed to protect the dog because I didn't want
Speaker 1: the badger to tear his foot off. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: body real, real hard. So I hollered badger and then
Speaker 1: I got to look at it. He had a coon
Speaker 1: pointed out there in the in the field. So I'm
Speaker 1: thinking multipurpose dog. And I asked him, says, man, has
Speaker 1: this boy, Patrick Flanagan is from Border to the Border.
Speaker 1: Has he got any dogs left like that? He said,
Speaker 1: I think he's got three. So my I started negotiating
Speaker 1: in December for the dog and finally ended up getting
Speaker 1: the dog in March, so she's been in a constant companion.
Speaker 1: What did the negotiation look like? It looked like a
Speaker 1: lot of being worthy enough to to own the dog,
Speaker 1: to convince me that I was gonna hunt and take
Speaker 1: care of her. Because the dog was born on his
Speaker 1: girlfriend's Lacy's birthday, and she named the dog Wins and things,
Speaker 1: so I had a whole lot to overcome, and um,
Speaker 1: finally he gave in. We had a couple of trial
Speaker 1: runs where the dog was supposed to be delivered, I
Speaker 1: couldn't show up and finally got the dog. And after
Speaker 1: I had the dog for three or four weeks, I
Speaker 1: sat down one day and wrote Patrick handwritten letter, tell
Speaker 1: him how much I appreciate him letting me have the
Speaker 1: dog and I could tell what kind of dog, that
Speaker 1: she was very highly intelligent, highly motivated and a very
Speaker 1: special dog, and that there's more to life than money,
Speaker 1: and a good hunting dog to a good person is
Speaker 1: a good thing. That I didn't even have a wheel.
Speaker 1: I know, all my stuff is gonna go to my
Speaker 1: two kids, uh seth in Caitlin. But I wrote out
Speaker 1: on my money to go lan uh note uh that
Speaker 1: if anything happens to me, that the dog goes back
Speaker 1: to Patrick Fland again and had his phone number around it.
Speaker 1: So I put where did you put that note? Hell,
Speaker 1: I can't find it. I don't don't where it is.
Speaker 1: But uh, like I said, I told Patrick, anything ever
Speaker 1: happened to me, that dog would go back to him
Speaker 1: and lace What sort of questions was Patrick asking you
Speaker 1: in this like interview and process, Well just kind of
Speaker 1: you know how much you're gonna hunt? What are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? Of course they had seen me, what the
Speaker 1: hell's he dick? What's the hell's he dick? You do?
Speaker 1: Has he didn't he look you up? Yeah? He did
Speaker 1: and he saw and and that probably helped me hunting
Speaker 1: with you two guys and see that I was a
Speaker 1: crude dog guy. So, yeah, y'all, you guys helped me
Speaker 1: convince them that that I was worthy of having a
Speaker 1: really really good, top notch bird dog. He's he's very
Speaker 1: particular about his his dogs and who they go to.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, I think a better question. I
Speaker 1: think a better question would be, is he worthy of
Speaker 1: you having one of his bird dogs? Oh? I think so,
Speaker 1: he's he's a dog man in the clan, So I
Speaker 1: think very much, so very much. Now one's changed the
Speaker 1: name from wings and things. Like I said, it seems
Speaker 1: like a restaurant you finding. You know, she's got she's
Speaker 1: got two spots owner they looked like a pair of wings.
Speaker 1: We can we can see her right here. There's two spots.
Speaker 1: Kind of hard to see, but they look like a
Speaker 1: pair of wings. Look like her kidneys are sitting outside
Speaker 1: of her body. Yeah. Yeah, she's kind of kind of
Speaker 1: Dolpho right now. But I don't know how they come
Speaker 1: up with that name. But you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like changing the ship's name. What you get, get it?
Speaker 1: It's bad luck to change the dog's name. She responds,
Speaker 1: she's a very responsive dog. You know what happened? We
Speaker 1: just got a dog for our kids, And when the
Speaker 1: dog came from the pound, they had named it our
Speaker 1: daughter's name. Okay, so we didn't want to have two
Speaker 1: people named Rosie, so we had to change the dog's name. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's certain circumstances. I can understand that. Well, and
Speaker 1: those dogs at the pound, they've only had those names
Speaker 1: for hours, let alone days. That's what we thought, too,
Speaker 1: is like the dogs that you know that that's what
Speaker 1: they named it. It couldn't been like the horse I
Speaker 1: bought one time that I made a deal on a
Speaker 1: horse and then I asked the guy what his name was,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me, and then he looked at
Speaker 1: the horse and said his name was Star. But she
Speaker 1: had a star on the floor. So I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's where it comes from. It didn't
Speaker 1: have a name till I asked. And you know, over
Speaker 1: in my gully, they don't give a horses a name
Speaker 1: over there because they might have to eat them sometimes. Oh,
Speaker 1: I got you, so, uh yeah, I want I want
Speaker 1: to get to this Mongolia situation. But we got a
Speaker 1: couple of other things. When I talked to you about
Speaker 1: what when you're yelling at that dog, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna call it. You can't say wings and things running
Speaker 1: around on the woods. I just call her wings, you know,
Speaker 1: That's what I do. I just I just I just
Speaker 1: holl her wings. It's kind of like, you know, but
Speaker 1: you bad toe. I just call him, you know. Butchie,
Speaker 1: when me and him's out, there's so uh. I shortened
Speaker 1: it up, and a lot of times you just say
Speaker 1: here and she'll come in, come in here. So, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm out hunting, especially birds and stuff, I try
Speaker 1: to keep the communication down and use a whistle because
Speaker 1: the animals they hear your human sound and they know
Speaker 1: there's there's some ship up that you better be looking out,
Speaker 1: you know, So I try to keep you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: squirrels don't give it down, you know. In the rabbits,
Speaker 1: only time you need to be quiet with them is
Speaker 1: when they're one circling back around. Other. Than that, you know,
Speaker 1: you can talk and carry on. And that's why I
Speaker 1: love small game hunts so much, because you'll be out
Speaker 1: there with your friends and showing new people what's going on,
Speaker 1: and they don't have to be super silent, you know,
Speaker 1: and just just go to the moments where you need
Speaker 1: to tone it down and be quiet, but of the
Speaker 1: time you can talk and bullshit around. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: need's got a question for you. Well, no, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say that I feel like that name is fitting
Speaker 1: because the more I think about wings and things, it's
Speaker 1: sort of to me it means versatile. It means that
Speaker 1: the dog is, you know, mostly on wings winged animals,
Speaker 1: but it also was gonna hunt other things. You're very true,
Speaker 1: that is a very good way to look at it,
Speaker 1: because I can make this Doug pretty sure to do
Speaker 1: anything at all. I was. I was coming home the
Speaker 1: other night and I had baby too many gin drinks
Speaker 1: and I was in the jeep and we were coming
Speaker 1: down the road, you know, the long lane, and there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of deer out there, so road that's right,
Speaker 1: And I was just across the the field there with
Speaker 1: my new I'm corrupting some young youth. He's twenty two
Speaker 1: and his name's Connor, and Abbey's twenty one. And they
Speaker 1: they think I'm a old dude. Like I said, that
Speaker 1: can stay up past ten o'clock. And I've been over
Speaker 1: their house hanging out. Coming home. We were in the
Speaker 1: little c J five, my nineteen sixty five half cab
Speaker 1: and we saw some deer, so I wings was up
Speaker 1: on a dash looking at him. So I started chasing them,
Speaker 1: and she started barking her ass off at him. It's
Speaker 1: probably not a wise thing to do, because the first
Speaker 1: next time I had her out in the field, she
Speaker 1: she went running after some d years. But I had
Speaker 1: to eat collar around her, so there was no big deal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she could be very versable, very vocal. I
Speaker 1: can make a squirrel dog out o her, no problem
Speaker 1: at all. But Patrick would would beat me to death
Speaker 1: if I did that, so I can't do that for
Speaker 1: a while. Maybe raising puppies sundays out of her. But
Speaker 1: she's she needs to be able to You're you're allowed
Speaker 1: to breed her. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. There's
Speaker 1: no conditions other than just to take care of the dog. Okay,
Speaker 1: before we leave the dog, tell us what breed it is,
Speaker 1: because I don't think we know that. She's a half
Speaker 1: crossed between a German short hair porner and an English parner.
Speaker 1: So a little thirty two pound dogs. She was the
Speaker 1: smallest the run of the letter, A little female um so,
Speaker 1: very unique dog. I wanted a small dog, nothing large
Speaker 1: to take you know, have to U up kick. I
Speaker 1: like beagles and small squirrel dogs, so I'm not a
Speaker 1: I'm not a big dog guy forty five pound dogs.
Speaker 1: She probably weighs a little bit less than forty pounds.
Speaker 1: I haven't weighed lately. But I like a small dog
Speaker 1: with lots of finesse, and she's certainly meets that that
Speaker 1: credentials for that. All right, what I thought you wanted
Speaker 1: to ask about, Yanni, was, uh, if you could be
Speaker 1: get out after the turkey's Kevin. You know you can
Speaker 1: make a turkey dog out or two, There's no doubt.
Speaker 1: And I've got a buddy in West Virginia and that's
Speaker 1: all he asked me. Said, many of you had that
Speaker 1: porters after a turkey. He's a turkey dog hunter, and
Speaker 1: that's on my list to do, is go man, my kid,
Speaker 1: My kid has fired up about the prospects of fall
Speaker 1: turkey hunting with a dog. Yes, he thinks that sounds
Speaker 1: like how a person should spend his time. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm right with him. I'm voting with him. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: during ticks attract come to me like I don't know why,
Speaker 1: some kind of firmones or something I generate, but I've
Speaker 1: already picked out probably like thirty or forty off of
Speaker 1: me this year already. I hate being out there in
Speaker 1: the woods this time of year. But turkey hunting with
Speaker 1: a dog, anything with a doll or animal, that's that's
Speaker 1: what gets me fired up. Yeah, any whatever happen does
Speaker 1: applying for like Land between the Lakes turkey tags that
Speaker 1: we of up on that, yeah, we never did it.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, you know what I just drew, Kevin, check
Speaker 1: this out just today. I drew UH for New Mexico.
Speaker 1: I drew an X tag okay, feral or you know
Speaker 1: around New Mexico. I drew an off range X tag
Speaker 1: that's good for June. Mm hmm, hot as hot. And
Speaker 1: then I drew ah, I drew a female ibex tag
Speaker 1: for next February. Right right, that's that's You're very lucky now.
Speaker 1: So no, you haven't done any regular turkey hunt in
Speaker 1: the spring now now, not eating not. I just doesn't
Speaker 1: you know. After I go through hunting season and usually
Speaker 1: kind of wore out and stuff, and it just does
Speaker 1: not intrigue me. Everybody's trying to get me to go
Speaker 1: and do at you know, and I love hearing a
Speaker 1: big gobbler gobble and I might go some I've got
Speaker 1: the sportsman tag, so I've got a turkey tag and
Speaker 1: all that. So when everybody gets it out of the system,
Speaker 1: I might go out there and piddle around and take
Speaker 1: a gun and mess around something. But now I haven't
Speaker 1: been been turkey hunting whatsoever. Yeah, so I may end
Speaker 1: up going to get bored and whatever, do a little
Speaker 1: prospect and see what's going out in up the woods.
Speaker 1: But I'll give to everybody else first and let them
Speaker 1: kind of get burned out that I might go one
Speaker 1: of the tail in and mess around a little bit.
Speaker 1: So I've got no skills a turkey hunter. I can't
Speaker 1: stay still, so I'm still leaving with my bad knee
Speaker 1: moving around too much. So I leave that for the
Speaker 1: for the turkey hunters. So explain the main thing I wanted.
Speaker 1: We wanted to get here, and we've been trying to
Speaker 1: get you on to talk about this quite a while.
Speaker 1: How how you recently got back from a trip to Mongolia?
Speaker 1: How did how'd that come on your radar? Like, I know,
Speaker 1: you've got like a lot of wanderlust, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love you, is you got a
Speaker 1: lot of wanderlust, but your wanderlust is usually more targeted
Speaker 1: towards you know, driving around the country chasing small game
Speaker 1: credits around. How did it come to be that you
Speaker 1: thought that you had to go all held over to Mongolia? Well, um,
Speaker 1: what you said? I retired twenty eleven. Uh, grew up
Speaker 1: always wanted to go, you know, to Canada walleye fishing,
Speaker 1: or go out West Kansas South Dakota pheasant hunting, and
Speaker 1: never had the resources to do that. So they as
Speaker 1: I got established and older, and then it retired. Um,
Speaker 1: I had some friends and went to Canada, been to
Speaker 1: Maine a couple of times, up in the up Drummond
Speaker 1: Island hunting, um so and um drumming and snows your
Speaker 1: hairs snowsho hair grouse. Yes, yeah, yeah in in those dudes. Man,
Speaker 1: that's a special place right there. A snowshoe hare will
Speaker 1: run four to six miles up there on that island
Speaker 1: before you get it. You know, it is something to
Speaker 1: kill a snowshoe on drumming. They run and running. Your
Speaker 1: your ship better be in shape, or those those hairs
Speaker 1: will run your dogs to death if you're not careful.
Speaker 1: I've got some buddies from West Virginia. They've got it
Speaker 1: figured out. I've teamed up there with them and we
Speaker 1: had an absolutely fabulous time running the snow shoes up there,
Speaker 1: um September early October. Oh so yeah, not not in
Speaker 1: the middle of winter now now, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: hunting season. That's kind of a preteen for them to
Speaker 1: head north until their season comes in, and uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a little bit warm. But we had an outstanding hunt.
Speaker 1: Two years ago. The rabbits turned color yether. They're still brown.
Speaker 1: They are just starting to turn just a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, on their bellies on the underside. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never seen a true snowshoe, you know, solid white,
Speaker 1: But for my adventures to a Michigan and and Maine,
Speaker 1: they've always been, um, just kind of starting to turn.
Speaker 1: I did hunt snowshoe one time in Maine. My first
Speaker 1: time I forgot that was probably like twenty sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, uh just hired an outfit ter to go
Speaker 1: and hunt. Hunt snowshoe. Totally different than running swamp rabbits
Speaker 1: or cotton tails. They stay in the shadows all the time.
Speaker 1: They won't get out hardy in the open at all,
Speaker 1: you've got to get right in there and get right
Speaker 1: on the track. Pretty much, they're hard to predict what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do unless you've got a good GPS and
Speaker 1: you see the dog track. So it's a it's a
Speaker 1: little bit different hunting than than our ore dumb cotton
Speaker 1: tails and the sleeks swamp rabbits that we have. We
Speaker 1: used to get them with very limited success late in
Speaker 1: the winter with snow shoes, wearing snowshoes, pushing them, trying
Speaker 1: to drive them. Just break the habitat up into chunks
Speaker 1: and try to drive them out. And if we go
Speaker 1: out and get one or two, we'd be all excited. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, you pretty much look on
Speaker 1: the GPS and we have to run our dogs from
Speaker 1: four to six miles. You can pretty much average that
Speaker 1: per rabbit, and so you know, you might have two
Speaker 1: races in the morning, take a pack of dogs and
Speaker 1: let them rest and then bring another pack out that afternoon,
Speaker 1: or just let them rest. So it's a it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's quite it's quite interesting to see a rabbit go
Speaker 1: that far for that long. You know, have you know,
Speaker 1: five to eight nine beagle hounds, you know, pounding after
Speaker 1: the things. So are truly truly enjoyed. And is that
Speaker 1: a four or six mile loop that they're doing or
Speaker 1: because that multiple loops, multiple loops, and that's how you
Speaker 1: know you can you can usually pin them down. You
Speaker 1: look on your GPS and see that track and try
Speaker 1: to get something more close on that track so you
Speaker 1: can kill them, because you know you're in that that
Speaker 1: conn for forest, so you can't see very far at all,
Speaker 1: Like you know, a ten twelve yard shot is about
Speaker 1: in a lot of times, so you just try to
Speaker 1: get somewhere where you think you can. You can be
Speaker 1: on that rabbits track, blow your GPS up as as
Speaker 1: big as it goes, and try to find, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of loops when the dogs that brought him
Speaker 1: through there and standing right there and then next thing
Speaker 1: you know, he's come twenty five yards or fifty yards
Speaker 1: down the road from me or whatever. So they're pretty crafty,
Speaker 1: very crafty, uh for for a rabbit. So I enjoy
Speaker 1: it truly to have a pack of dogs and try
Speaker 1: to outsmart you know, something with a brain about the
Speaker 1: size of probably a on a walnut. Sometimes they win,
Speaker 1: sometimes I win. All right, let's get back this. Uh,
Speaker 1: I no idea reality there the Mongolia. So you've traveled
Speaker 1: around a bit right, went to South Africa and you
Speaker 1: know everything's high fenced over there. I saw some score earles.
Speaker 1: After about six or seven days, I said, man, it
Speaker 1: would be a shame that I come all the way
Speaker 1: to South Africa and not getting me a squirrel. So
Speaker 1: I asked the people that we were staying with us,
Speaker 1: I want to kill a squirrel, and they thought I
Speaker 1: was kidding, and so, uh, nobody's ever asked to kill
Speaker 1: a squirrel. You know, I think I was the first
Speaker 1: one ever killed any Egyptian geese. I think you posted
Speaker 1: those uh that I was they were eating, and that
Speaker 1: we killed those. Over there. We barrored some decoys from
Speaker 1: some rednecks South Africans and set up at an irrigation pivot.
Speaker 1: Raymond and I, he's my wing man. Um, he's been
Speaker 1: to uh South Africa. Then we went to a nickel
Speaker 1: rodwood to shoot some white winged doves uh and killed
Speaker 1: some Yucatan black throated Uh. Bob White's down there. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go after some tree ducks and never did
Speaker 1: get any of those. The wind was going so bad
Speaker 1: and then I went to Costa Rica caught a hundred
Speaker 1: pounds sailfish, and then I wanted to go on a truly,
Speaker 1: truly adventure. So that's how we ended up with Mongoli.
Speaker 1: Had just started scrolling through the Internet thinking of things
Speaker 1: to do, and I had been fascinated by falconry. I've
Speaker 1: got a young friend up in KANKI keep Illinois Clayton
Speaker 1: that you post a picture of him and I we
Speaker 1: had caught a red tail hawk just for him to
Speaker 1: show me how how how easy it was to catch
Speaker 1: a bird of prey. And uh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a slave to a bird. I want to be
Speaker 1: a consumer like the rest of my buddies when they
Speaker 1: go rabbit hunt and I keep them for three sixty
Speaker 1: five days a year, and then maybe they go rabbit
Speaker 1: hunt with me two or three times a year, you know,
Speaker 1: and have a good time. And that's the way I
Speaker 1: am with a bird of prey. Would not want to
Speaker 1: own one, be like owning a snake that eats every day.
Speaker 1: So uh, I found it very fascinating uh to go
Speaker 1: over there and just you know, got on the internet
Speaker 1: and started scrolling through looking for somebody who uh an
Speaker 1: outfit or something, got some references and UH called some
Speaker 1: people up from the U S had been over there.
Speaker 1: And there's one guy, his name was Mark and he
Speaker 1: had been over there, and Uh, I kind of asked him, said, hey, mr, Uh,
Speaker 1: what kind of adventures have you been on? He said, Well,
Speaker 1: Sunny Boy said, when I was about eighteen, I was
Speaker 1: over in the Micon Delta wait around. I said, thank you,
Speaker 1: sir for your service, and I appreciate it very very greatly.
Speaker 1: And that's all the information that I need. And there
Speaker 1: was a couple of vendorians out in California. They've been
Speaker 1: over there twice, and so I talked to them, I
Speaker 1: think via email or whatever, and just you know, UH
Speaker 1: just decided what was going to go on an adventure
Speaker 1: and that's truly what we did. It was an adventure
Speaker 1: that started on I got off work at a project
Speaker 1: on the Friday the twenty September, got up the next
Speaker 1: morning on the twenty one of September at three thirty,
Speaker 1: went to the Nashville Airport, flew to Atlanta, Atlanta to
Speaker 1: Soul Korea, Soul Korea to Ulan Batar, and then Ulan
Speaker 1: Batar to Cove and then drove to g so at
Speaker 1: about four thirty Tuesday afternoon, we rode into the eagles camp.
Speaker 1: So it was quite the adventure just getting in there.
Speaker 1: Got handed off by probably with nine different people. You know.
Speaker 1: They was out there, uber mass around there was archichects engineers.
Speaker 1: It didn't make any sense to me. I've got a
Speaker 1: like a story that would last for ever on that part,
Speaker 1: but very good people enjoyed it very much. I plan
Speaker 1: on going back and uh probably a year or two
Speaker 1: and go down and Gobi buy me a new motorcycle
Speaker 1: righting around for five to eight days, and then go
Speaker 1: back and see the eagle hunters that I spent ten
Speaker 1: days in the desert with. So explain these the eagle hunters.
Speaker 1: They're not hunting four eagles now. Um. I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to meet like six different eagle hunters out there
Speaker 1: and they're uh, they're from Kazahstan that came into the
Speaker 1: southern tip of Mongolia. Uh. Mongolia is population of about
Speaker 1: three in people and they become a democratic in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, about ninety two. And Mongolia to give you
Speaker 1: an example of how big it is. You started at Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: OHI go to Salt Lake City Utah. That would be
Speaker 1: from you know, left to right, and then the top
Speaker 1: would be Nebraska on the Hall of Nebraska down to Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 1: And only three million people live in that land mass.
Speaker 1: You know. Here in Kentucky, I think we've got to
Speaker 1: four point eight million. I thinks what's in Kentucky. So
Speaker 1: you've got all this land mass and you've got only
Speaker 1: three million people out there. I think Montgolie is the
Speaker 1: uh highest elevation occupied occupied country in the world. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know we were always I think above a
Speaker 1: mile high. And Ulan Batar is you be as people
Speaker 1: call it as I call it. Uh, it's got like
Speaker 1: one point for million people. You know, half the population
Speaker 1: lives in one city over there, and that really the
Speaker 1: other the other half. When to get in there, they've
Speaker 1: got seven coal fire power plants cranking out admissions, uh,
Speaker 1: putting a strain on all the drinking water. I met
Speaker 1: some environmental engineers is over there working on a project
Speaker 1: to take the water from their wastewater plant, use it
Speaker 1: for cooling water at the electrical plants, and then uh
Speaker 1: use their their fresh water for a drinking water system.
Speaker 1: So I'm out, you know, meeting people and looking for
Speaker 1: maybe a future job or whatever. I was like younger,
Speaker 1: I think I would go over there for a while
Speaker 1: and work. I just fell in love with the country
Speaker 1: with the people were so nice. Uh, it's very vast
Speaker 1: um you know. Me, we've been hunted with. Usually I'm
Speaker 1: the first one or so to see some kind of animal.
Speaker 1: And I got over and I got stressed because they
Speaker 1: were seeing all these animals and I was not seeing
Speaker 1: it because it is just so vast out through there.
Speaker 1: Uh so what what what what makes the eagle hunter
Speaker 1: eagle hunter? The fact? Okay, you know they're born into
Speaker 1: the into that family of eagle hunters. Uh. Opposedly, there's
Speaker 1: somewhere less than you know, three hundred some people say,
Speaker 1: like a hundred true eagle hunters left in the world.
Speaker 1: And they'll go out and uh uh. Four of the
Speaker 1: eagle hunters that that I met, they wrote out like
Speaker 1: seventy five miles to the mountains and they robbed a
Speaker 1: young uh pump eagle as they call it, from the nest.
Speaker 1: And they'll get the biggest eagle that's in there, that's
Speaker 1: a female. They use the female to hunt with and
Speaker 1: then they'll bring it back home and then they will
Speaker 1: train it uh to work for them. Um. And I
Speaker 1: didn't get into really a lot of detail how they
Speaker 1: did that, but I ordered a couple of books from
Speaker 1: National Geographic and I saw one picture and read a
Speaker 1: short article that said that after they robbed the bird
Speaker 1: from the nest, they bring it home and put it
Speaker 1: on like a clothesline, and and the bird was set
Speaker 1: there and flop and stay upright. And then when the
Speaker 1: bird lost all of its drive to stay upright and
Speaker 1: turned upside down, then that's when the eagle hunter would
Speaker 1: go in full with it. And then he broke its
Speaker 1: spirit and he would bring it back and and train it,
Speaker 1: feed it, and it become a companion uh with them
Speaker 1: to hunt. You know, there's their natural instinct to hunt
Speaker 1: their raptors. They want to use their talents as far
Speaker 1: as they're beak for a defense weapon. There. You know,
Speaker 1: I saw, you know, I met several different eagles over
Speaker 1: there and mess around with them just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Not once did any of them trying to pick any
Speaker 1: of us or do anything. But their talents are very
Speaker 1: very deadly lots of p s I as far as force,
Speaker 1: you know, they can kill a small a small wolf
Speaker 1: pup you know if need be, But foxes and rabbits,
Speaker 1: you know, no problem at all for them to uh
Speaker 1: to kill a Mongoldian fox or a rabbit over there.
Speaker 1: And these are golden eagles. Golden eagles, yes, yes, female
Speaker 1: female golden eagles. Wingspan about six foot way about you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen pounds and uh when you see pictures of these guys,
Speaker 1: they're always on like they seem to have a giant bird.
Speaker 1: And the dinky horse, yes, very small mountain horse. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's golden in the mountains out across the flat desert.
Speaker 1: Not worth a damn in my opinion. But those dudes, man,
Speaker 1: they've got full wheel drive. They'll go on a wonder
Speaker 1: one slope anywhere you point them. They're like a mountain goat.
Speaker 1: I mean they can really digging and go. Their asks
Speaker 1: is scared to death of a stream. Hell, they want
Speaker 1: even cross something that's like, you know, a foot wide,
Speaker 1: unless they see where another horse or another animal has crossed.
Speaker 1: You gotta get on their ass and get on them
Speaker 1: pretty hard to make them go through water. They do
Speaker 1: not like that. But yeah, they're on. No small Mongolians
Speaker 1: hype forces very stable. I went out there and they
Speaker 1: had three uh staked out, so you know, I feel
Speaker 1: with horses a little bit. So two of them had
Speaker 1: their heads down at the ground, not paying intention, and
Speaker 1: they had one to head his head up. I checked
Speaker 1: him out and I just grabbed him as my horse.
Speaker 1: So I kept him for ten days and I made
Speaker 1: a good choice. There's no doubt in my mind that
Speaker 1: I got the best out of those three horses. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing about people that are into falconry here in
Speaker 1: the US at least is uh, you know, you know
Speaker 1: it's all said and done, you're not really like hunting
Speaker 1: to get meat, you know, I mean you're not getting
Speaker 1: that much stuff. What you do get the birds messing
Speaker 1: with it. And you know you're not like filling the
Speaker 1: freezer with as a as someone who's into falconry. That's fair.
Speaker 1: You think that's a fair statement, Oh very much. So
Speaker 1: you know, I went on this trip and I read
Speaker 1: a book called Eagle Dreams. Uh. I forgot the author.
Speaker 1: He's a hunter, dog guy whatever, But I read that
Speaker 1: book and he made one trip early in the after
Speaker 1: they've become democratic, and they never called anything, so I
Speaker 1: knew you going in there. I did a little research
Speaker 1: that most likely that we might not catch anything, but
Speaker 1: hunting is more than that. Yeah. But but but but
Speaker 1: but but my question is these dudes, these these eagle
Speaker 1: hunters in Mongolia, they're just like practicing falcony. Are they
Speaker 1: Are they using it because they're hunting stuff because they
Speaker 1: want to eat it? Uh, It's in their heritage, in
Speaker 1: their blood, you know. They they don't believe in killing
Speaker 1: a lot of animals. You know, they were satisfied just
Speaker 1: going out and with their eagle on her shoulder and
Speaker 1: getting after some stuff and flying it and they don't
Speaker 1: have to kill anything. I showed up some of the
Speaker 1: pictures of like a some epic rabbit hunts and squirrel
Speaker 1: hunts that that I had been on it. They just
Speaker 1: kind of shook their heads. And then there was one uh,
Speaker 1: like like filling hotel gates up full of rabbits and
Speaker 1: stuff and they speak to them. There was We went
Speaker 1: to the Eagle Festival and we had a private concert
Speaker 1: from some musicians there and they had one song and
Speaker 1: it was about a mother getting on her son for
Speaker 1: killing a lot of animals. He had the kill lust
Speaker 1: as a lot of young people do. Uh, And I
Speaker 1: did at one time in my life. But the song
Speaker 1: was written about that he was going out and killing
Speaker 1: two media animals and uh, they they had their instruments
Speaker 1: tied in with some like some little puppet things. But
Speaker 1: it was pretty It was very very intriguing and to
Speaker 1: hear that song to kind of go in with some
Speaker 1: culture that I had already experienced, so I knew, I
Speaker 1: knew what they thought a true hunter, and then they
Speaker 1: had a song to go along with it. So that
Speaker 1: was that was something very unique from m. Did their ancestors,
Speaker 1: like you use this method to as like a primary
Speaker 1: way to secure protein like ever? Or is it always
Speaker 1: just been sort of more of a you know, not novelty,
Speaker 1: you like, an ornamental type of a hunt. You know,
Speaker 1: they've very got a very close bond with all types
Speaker 1: of animals. Uh. You know, they had dogs that would
Speaker 1: would sleep all day and bark all night. And I
Speaker 1: saw some cats that were just tathered up. But they
Speaker 1: brought that from Khakistan. Uh And I don't really know
Speaker 1: the relationship how far that goes back. You know, there're nomads.
Speaker 1: I think it probably was a way for them secure
Speaker 1: food at one time, you know, back in their heritage,
Speaker 1: and they just kept it going because you know, as
Speaker 1: far as guns and weapons and stuff, they were very
Speaker 1: limited on what they could do, you know, bows and airs,
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan, whatever. But when you've got a bird of
Speaker 1: prey that can come out of the sky after a rabbit,
Speaker 1: I would say that at one time in their lifetime
Speaker 1: that they probably were used very beneficial to help them
Speaker 1: be uh be hunters and gathers and live off the land.
Speaker 1: You know, they have a very harsh environment that they
Speaker 1: live in. Go up in the mountains and live in
Speaker 1: a yurt, a felt tent our gear or whatever we
Speaker 1: want to call it, and then spend the whole summertime
Speaker 1: up there and then come down in the valley because
Speaker 1: the winters are so severe, you know, like a minus
Speaker 1: seventy degrease fahrenheit uh is how they gets So. Yes,
Speaker 1: they are very you know, very hardy type people there.
Speaker 1: And I could see it sometime in the history of
Speaker 1: those guys that that they use that bird of prey
Speaker 1: to help them survive and get through. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know with a squirrel dog. You know,
Speaker 1: at one time in history that was a vital part
Speaker 1: of a person's house to have a squirrel dog. And
Speaker 1: they were multipurpose. They you know, protect the stock, was
Speaker 1: a guard dog at their house whatever, and helped them
Speaker 1: to gather food and maybe herd cattle or or livestock,
Speaker 1: kept varman's away from the chickens. So I look as
Speaker 1: an eagle as being part of their history that they
Speaker 1: just keep going and at one time point in time
Speaker 1: it's it was it paid its way by by catching
Speaker 1: um meat for the table. What are the primary things
Speaker 1: they like to go for? Like what they like to
Speaker 1: use these eagles to hunt for. Uh, there's like two
Speaker 1: or three different kind of foxes over there, and then
Speaker 1: they have the snowshoe hair. Um. Um, there's also they
Speaker 1: got some kind of wolf. Right, they've got some wolves
Speaker 1: over there, and um the homestead that we stayed with
Speaker 1: our dock is the eagle hunter I was with there.
Speaker 1: They told me we've been there three or four or
Speaker 1: five six nights or something there that a pack of
Speaker 1: wolves had came into the valley and killed a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty goats and sheep, and that they thought that
Speaker 1: it was a she wolf teaching the cubs how to kill.
Speaker 1: And then after being there for like fourteen days, I
Speaker 1: found the only are one of the only squirrel hunters
Speaker 1: in all of Mogoli and found some trees and we
Speaker 1: were driving up the valley that morning, Well you had been,
Speaker 1: we had been. Like Tuesday, we come into Eagle Camp
Speaker 1: and we spent that week there, and then the following
Speaker 1: Tuesday we left out on a four day journey across
Speaker 1: the desert on the horseback to go to the eagle
Speaker 1: Festival in Noogi and uh we did that. We came
Speaker 1: into town for two days for the eagle festival. We
Speaker 1: were supposed to go back out and spend some time
Speaker 1: with the eagle festival, but the people that were in
Speaker 1: charge of us. I asked him, said can we do something? Says,
Speaker 1: we have been out ten days with the best eagle
Speaker 1: hunter and all of Mongoli, and to go with another
Speaker 1: eagle hunter would probably most likely be a disappointment. So
Speaker 1: can we do something else? Can we sight sees? What
Speaker 1: I asked him? He says, would you like to go
Speaker 1: see some some red stag? I said yes, I would
Speaker 1: like that very much. So they picked us up at
Speaker 1: seven thirty on Monday morning and on a fore Runner
Speaker 1: and we went to a gas station to get some
Speaker 1: petrol and I watched them as the the fore runner.
Speaker 1: Uh gas tink clicked off. The two dudes got up
Speaker 1: on the back bumper and burped the tank to get
Speaker 1: an extra leader to a gasoline in the tank. I
Speaker 1: knew right then that we were going to go on
Speaker 1: a true adventure that day, just trying to get a
Speaker 1: you know, three point eight leaders to the gallon. And
Speaker 1: they would just get a couple more leaders of gasoline
Speaker 1: in the tank. And we rolled in about midnight that
Speaker 1: night and across the desert and we might come to
Speaker 1: an intersection and they would be like five roads and
Speaker 1: they would stop and they would look at those roads,
Speaker 1: and I got to figure it out. They always kept
Speaker 1: the moon on the rights the right shoulder all the time,
Speaker 1: all the way back through you know who it was
Speaker 1: there abouty have been a black type road right out there,
Speaker 1: you know, five miles away, and they just took us
Speaker 1: across country to give us, you know, our money's worth.
Speaker 1: But and we certainly did. And I highly recommend if
Speaker 1: anybody's an adventure to go to Mongolia and spend some time.
Speaker 1: But we went up the valley and looking for this
Speaker 1: certain eagle hunter that knew about these stags. And as
Speaker 1: we were going up through there I saw a small
Speaker 1: herd of horses, and I saw this little black horse
Speaker 1: with its left rear flank with meat hanging in the wind.
Speaker 1: It was shredded, and it looked to me like a
Speaker 1: wolf had tried to bring that hamstring that horse and
Speaker 1: bring it down and it ran off. I didn't have
Speaker 1: time to take a picture, and we finally we found
Speaker 1: the eagle hunter, and then through the interpreter, I asked
Speaker 1: it was that a wolf that had tried to eat
Speaker 1: that little black horse up the valley there, and he said, yes,
Speaker 1: it was a wolf. So you know, wolfs are constant
Speaker 1: threat for him. You would see, uh, scarecrows out around
Speaker 1: the campsite. They would bring their livestock in around camp
Speaker 1: at night and the dogs would bark all night and
Speaker 1: you would hear them barking and stuff. They would have
Speaker 1: scarecrow set up and up on the ridges they would
Speaker 1: have like little rock men set up to scare away
Speaker 1: the wolves. But that was pretty predominant all through the
Speaker 1: area that we stayed in to see scarecrows, rockman. Everybody
Speaker 1: had a dog that slept all day and barked all night. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it was it was a true true adventure that
Speaker 1: I will, you know, just always think about and want
Speaker 1: to go back and do something again over there. So
Speaker 1: when you struck off to go when you struck off
Speaker 1: to go hunting, like, how did that play out? You
Speaker 1: ride off into a good area, you're looking for what
Speaker 1: you're trying to visually see it. Um, you know we
Speaker 1: started out, you know, not knowing us whatever. So the
Speaker 1: first first day we do we do practice to see
Speaker 1: if we can ride horses, because some people come over
Speaker 1: there shift they can't ride a horse. That the guide
Speaker 1: told us. Man, I'm so glad that you guys can
Speaker 1: can ride a horse. And so we strike off across
Speaker 1: the desert where it's flat and just see if you
Speaker 1: could ride a horse. So I have no problem. Raymond,
Speaker 1: my wing man, is with me, and he sneaks his
Speaker 1: wife and Tammy at the last minute there the month
Speaker 1: or two before we leave, and she's going with us.
Speaker 1: Be course, she's a nurse. I'm thinking, man, that's a
Speaker 1: good idea to have a nurse nurse on board. So
Speaker 1: the three of us take off, you know, out across
Speaker 1: the desert, just riding flat ground, seeing how we do.
Speaker 1: And then we go up into the mountains like the foothills,
Speaker 1: and then we start looking for animals and the foxes
Speaker 1: and stuff. They like to stay around the livestock, you know,
Speaker 1: because the rabbits feel safe around the livestock. And there's
Speaker 1: this uh coal mainland of you know, creatures, their food
Speaker 1: chain type deal. So so we're out looking up on
Speaker 1: the mountaintops there and we spend the first day with
Speaker 1: the eagle hunter, and I stayed with his ask like
Speaker 1: everywhere he goes, I'm bred there on me, you know,
Speaker 1: riding the horse trying to see something, trying to see
Speaker 1: a fox, and he says he sees with some a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but I never see it. But we're
Speaker 1: trying up in the up in the mountains. It's pretty treacherous.
Speaker 1: It's pretty steep ship there with shale and rock and
Speaker 1: all that. You do not want to tumble off the
Speaker 1: horse because it would be bad news. But I think
Speaker 1: that first day he saw the how interesting I was
Speaker 1: to try to catch something, and I can stay with him.
Speaker 1: Then the next day we go hunting. He recruits two
Speaker 1: more eagle hunters out of the valley, and that day
Speaker 1: we do get after a fox and have three eagles
Speaker 1: in the air. After the fox and uh uh. They
Speaker 1: we see the fox run out, and then the three
Speaker 1: eagle hunters, like the foxes is booking away from you.
Speaker 1: Right right, we're coming up the Cyber Mountain and they
Speaker 1: say fox, fox, Fox, and I'm looking and I don't
Speaker 1: see anything because everything's mono tone there. And finally I
Speaker 1: see a little grass at the top of a ridge
Speaker 1: and I see the fox coming over in silhouette across
Speaker 1: the ridge. So I see him then for the first time,
Speaker 1: and then he's over to the right, you know, to
Speaker 1: or three hundred yards, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we circle back around to the left. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a I'm not a mountain to guy at all, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm flat land, swamp, river bottom, rolling hills type dude.
Speaker 1: So we've we've come around the left side of the
Speaker 1: uh the mountain. We're on horseback, and then we post
Speaker 1: up and then the fox he pops out of like
Speaker 1: a ravine at the bottom, and then they take off
Speaker 1: after him on this one to one slope and I'm thinking, ship,
Speaker 1: it's pretty damn steep, but I'm gonna trust my horse
Speaker 1: and I go on. Well, the guide in Raymond and
Speaker 1: Tammy they stay behind. They it's too steep for them.
Speaker 1: So I take off after the eagle hunter's ass, and
Speaker 1: they put the three birds in the air, and then
Speaker 1: I see two birds dive bombing down over the next ridge.
Speaker 1: I think it man, they've got him over there. So
Speaker 1: I right over the ridge and there's two eagles on
Speaker 1: the ground and they look like they're fighting something. Well,
Speaker 1: they're fighting each other. They missed the fox. And then
Speaker 1: the young eagle, the third eagle, he flies off because
Speaker 1: he's not he's being trained. He's kind of like a
Speaker 1: young dog, so he flies off, and then I decide
Speaker 1: I'm gonna gonna ride off with the eagle hunters. So
Speaker 1: he gets mad at me and scolds me. He cannot
Speaker 1: speak any English. So I finally understand that I stayed
Speaker 1: there with the two the two eagle hunters, and they
Speaker 1: get their birds apart and get them back on their horses. Now,
Speaker 1: why are the dog Why are the birds fighting? Um?
Speaker 1: I guess just because they're predatorial. They missed the fox,
Speaker 1: so you know, they die bomb from from hyping the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and and they just barely missed him. I didn't see
Speaker 1: that part of it. So they're just kind of like
Speaker 1: two dogs you know that gets after a critter and
Speaker 1: then hell there's no critter, so they get after each other.
Speaker 1: So you know, so it's just, uh, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those rare things that that happened that you know,
Speaker 1: fox is pretty wildly and then you come from the
Speaker 1: top and then you gotta taken and granted that the
Speaker 1: birds this is the first of hunting season. Uh, they're
Speaker 1: out of shape. They're fat, it's warm, they're not that hungry.
Speaker 1: But the main thing is they're out of shape. They're
Speaker 1: not conditioned for this. And I kind of I read
Speaker 1: about that in the book, saying that if you really
Speaker 1: want to catch something, you did to go over there
Speaker 1: in the cold winter time when everything is in shape
Speaker 1: and you've got snow on the ground and critters stand out,
Speaker 1: you know, they can see, they can pinpoint what's going on.
Speaker 1: Was that the was that the soul encounter you guys
Speaker 1: had with the game animal. Oh now, oh now, now
Speaker 1: that was like the oh I guess it was a
Speaker 1: second or third day that we would been there, and
Speaker 1: then we went out a couple other times and the
Speaker 1: eagle hunter said he saw a fox, but I never
Speaker 1: I never did see it. But I believe you uh. Um.
Speaker 1: But when we started our trek out, we've been there
Speaker 1: seven days. We went fishing, two days, we called some grailing.
Speaker 1: One day that was my first grayling, and we fried
Speaker 1: it up and cooked it, ate the caviar the eggs
Speaker 1: out of it. It was very very good. But when
Speaker 1: we started our trek across country the first day, I
Speaker 1: don't think we caught anything or got after anything. We
Speaker 1: spent the night with a family as we go, in
Speaker 1: a their mud and log hut, just you know, the
Speaker 1: three of us in there with the They had two
Speaker 1: kids and then two uh the couple, so there was
Speaker 1: uh seven of us in just a little room of
Speaker 1: you know, probably fifteen by fifteen. And I slept in
Speaker 1: the bed for the first time and probably uh seven
Speaker 1: days when those old timey spring tight beds with no
Speaker 1: mattress or anything on it, so it felt like a Cadillac,
Speaker 1: like a water bed. I've been sleeping on the ground
Speaker 1: the whole time. Uh. We would burn cal dunk and
Speaker 1: Campbell dunk and maybe a couple of lunks of coal
Speaker 1: at night during the adventure when we were at the
Speaker 1: Eagle Hunter's house, and uh, finally one night the wind
Speaker 1: would get up it got up so bad that it
Speaker 1: blew the top out of our our gear, and the
Speaker 1: stone pipe was flapping in the wind, and they was
Speaker 1: fred he was gonna burn down. So they took the
Speaker 1: stove outside and we moved in the actual eagle hunter's
Speaker 1: house and spent the last two days. But the first
Speaker 1: day on our trick, we didn't get after anything. And
Speaker 1: the second day, uh, we got after a fox or two.
Speaker 1: But the third day we got after. We were coming
Speaker 1: and they said we was gonna ride up was riding
Speaker 1: that through the desert and we wrote up on this
Speaker 1: little mountain. They said we might get after a owl here. Now,
Speaker 1: when I first caught that an owl, yes, and now
Speaker 1: I said, I'm ready to catch a field mouse. I'm
Speaker 1: ready to catch something, it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 1: So when I first got there, I started looking at
Speaker 1: all the vehicles and the motorcycles. Everything had feathers tied
Speaker 1: to it. And I asked the guy that, so, what's
Speaker 1: all these chicken feathers on your handlebars of your motorcycle
Speaker 1: in your rear view mirror. He says, Oh, it's a
Speaker 1: sacred animal, the owl. It protects us, and we kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, we look after the al. I said, well
Speaker 1: where do you where do you get all these feathers
Speaker 1: at He said, well, we get them from dead owl. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you just don't ask some some questions that
Speaker 1: people to go into detail. And I found out just
Speaker 1: because someone can speak English better than me and answer
Speaker 1: my questions, that they know what in the hell uh
Speaker 1: they're talking about, and I know what they were talking about.
Speaker 1: So I just kind of dropped it. And we got
Speaker 1: over there and we had three eagle hunters with us,
Speaker 1: our guide, and then we had we picked up a
Speaker 1: flusher boy and his job was to write. If we
Speaker 1: were on top of the mountain, he would ride at
Speaker 1: the bottom and try to flush a fox or rabbit
Speaker 1: out for us. Or if we were on the bottom
Speaker 1: of the mountain, he would be at the top trying
Speaker 1: to flush something out or roll off a boulder the
Speaker 1: size of a of a worship machine or what a
Speaker 1: recould or throw rocks. So we were we were down
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the mountain and he was rolling
Speaker 1: off boulders and ship coming off there trying to drive
Speaker 1: this this owl out of this crevice. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: kind of it was kind of sketchy, you know, what
Speaker 1: was going on, but I was enjoying it. I was ready.
Speaker 1: And then I saw this the first time I saw
Speaker 1: an animal. The first one I spotted a red fox.
Speaker 1: I castle kazack foxes, and they've got three different kinds
Speaker 1: over there, and I'm not for sure which which one
Speaker 1: this was, but I saw this fox and I started
Speaker 1: pointing to him and telling him fox, fox, fox, But
Speaker 1: they would pay no attention to me. And I got
Speaker 1: mad because I finally saw an animal on my own
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to. They didn't want they wanted
Speaker 1: this out. So finally the flusher boy ran this owl
Speaker 1: out from under this rock crevice. It flew out, but
Speaker 1: it would never get over you know, five or six
Speaker 1: feet off the ground, just you know how owls they
Speaker 1: fly low to the ground. And then we turned the
Speaker 1: eagles loose, and we had three eagles after it, and
Speaker 1: it went around the mountain like three times with us
Speaker 1: trying to flush it out of these crevices, throwing rocks,
Speaker 1: whatever we had to do. And then the last time
Speaker 1: that I saw that owl going around the bend of
Speaker 1: that mountain, it had three golden eagles after it, and
Speaker 1: then two crows or ravens come in. I don't know
Speaker 1: where they flew in from them, but they were on
Speaker 1: the tail of of of the Golden eagles. And then
Speaker 1: it had five Mongolians on horseback and then just Raymond
Speaker 1: and I two Americans, And I don't think there's anybody
Speaker 1: in the world that's ever experienced that that type of
Speaker 1: hunting experience where you've got you've got an owl, three
Speaker 1: Golden Eagles, two ravens, five Mongolians, and two Americans on
Speaker 1: horseback trying to catch a critter. So the owl got away.
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, you know, um, the eagles didn't stand
Speaker 1: a chance because that thing was only like five ft
Speaker 1: off the ground and they couldn't get enough altitude up
Speaker 1: to dive bombed down and get that. But it was
Speaker 1: truly something very unique to witness that to be a
Speaker 1: part of it, experiencing on horseback up on the side
Speaker 1: of a mountain. Everything was kind of sketchy, you know,
Speaker 1: their gear in their tack. If I had that ship
Speaker 1: at my house, I would throw it away. And it's
Speaker 1: like a like a kids, like a kid that's saying
Speaker 1: a lot. You're exactly right. My big toe would go
Speaker 1: on the stirrups. You know, they were afraid that somebody
Speaker 1: was gonna get hung up in the stirrups. Their reins
Speaker 1: were like a shoelace, and and the girt they didn't
Speaker 1: even do tie a girt note there. They would just
Speaker 1: make one rap around And it was like two or
Speaker 1: three days before even noticed that. You know, that was
Speaker 1: kind of sketchy all their equipment there, but it held up,
Speaker 1: and you know, I made it back. But we left
Speaker 1: that mountain and we we people would just come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, I mean out of nowhere, but Mongolians are
Speaker 1: constantly have binoculars and their glass and all the time
Speaker 1: looking for something in the distance. And people would ride
Speaker 1: up on a motorcycle or horseback or whatever and talked
Speaker 1: to us, or they talked to the eagle hunters. And
Speaker 1: some dude come in on a horseback and he told
Speaker 1: us it was a family of foxes on the next mountain.
Speaker 1: So we rolled over there, and uh, we got after,
Speaker 1: We got after two foxes over there, and uh we
Speaker 1: ran around the side of a mountain and one of
Speaker 1: them he froze up at the tip of the mountain,
Speaker 1: and uh, the eagle hunter saw him, and the guide
Speaker 1: saw him. So we came over and we got off
Speaker 1: the horses and we walked over to the edge and
Speaker 1: he was down probably about a hundred yards or so,
Speaker 1: just frozen because he didn't want to move because there
Speaker 1: was an eagle in the air. And finally we were
Speaker 1: all looking at him, and we gave him the stink high.
Speaker 1: You know how animals are, you've been out before, when
Speaker 1: everybody starts staring at something, animals feel that a lot
Speaker 1: of times, I mean they do. And so we all
Speaker 1: started staring at that fox, and he finally bolted and
Speaker 1: he ran down the mountain and there was a herd
Speaker 1: of sheets and goats down there, and he ran through them.
Speaker 1: They turned the other two eagles loose, and that fox
Speaker 1: he headed into a head wind to the next mountain.
Speaker 1: So we got three eagles in the air. A fox
Speaker 1: running wide open across the desert plain headed to the
Speaker 1: next mountain, which is over a mile away. We've got
Speaker 1: three eagles on his ass there. Well, the first eagle,
Speaker 1: he peters out about just a quarter away and turns
Speaker 1: around and comes back. The other one stays with him
Speaker 1: about halfway and comes back, and then the third one
Speaker 1: is on him, but he's in a head wind and
Speaker 1: he cannot he cannot flat hard enough to catch up
Speaker 1: with him, so he just sets his ass down on
Speaker 1: the desert. And then the little eagle hunter that's with us,
Speaker 1: he I don't know why he didn't ride his horse center.
Speaker 1: He just dismounts from his horse and he runs all
Speaker 1: the way down there and picks the and picks the
Speaker 1: eagle up on his arm and brings him back. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw three eagles running after a fox
Speaker 1: and a head wind trying to catch a fox, and
Speaker 1: they were just out of shape and they couldn't they
Speaker 1: couldn't tackle that wind. And that fox. You know, he
Speaker 1: was smart enough that he'd come off that mountain, ran
Speaker 1: through those sheep and goats as a distraction, and then
Speaker 1: turned into the wind because he knew that that eagle
Speaker 1: would have trouble, uh, trying to capture him in the
Speaker 1: wind like that. So do you get the sens these dudes, like,
Speaker 1: do they want to get something or they just want
Speaker 1: to be out messing around there? No, no, man, they
Speaker 1: want to get something. Because we left that mountain and
Speaker 1: one or the other and we got after, we got
Speaker 1: after another fox, and they was always on my ass
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, that damn horse wrote a
Speaker 1: blister in my ass. It was uncomfortable, and his jog trotten.
Speaker 1: I'm a gated type force guy. I like when they
Speaker 1: hit a leg and good to travel across country there,
Speaker 1: but they were always on my ass every time I
Speaker 1: tried to gallop a horse or whatever. And we were
Speaker 1: going to another mountain over there, and we got after
Speaker 1: a fox and the flusher boy there, uh, he was
Speaker 1: trying to cut the fox off, and he had his
Speaker 1: horse at a full gallop going across the desert floor.
Speaker 1: They told us to post up and not to go
Speaker 1: when he were, and he was at a full gallop
Speaker 1: and he hit a liming a leaming uh colony, you know,
Speaker 1: like a the little animal like the gopher that's over there.
Speaker 1: And he hit that colony there and his horse caved
Speaker 1: in on a hole and he went head over heels
Speaker 1: off that horse, and he finally got up brushing all
Speaker 1: the dust and everything off, holding his arm and rubbing
Speaker 1: his leg and finally got up on his horse enough
Speaker 1: and then got back over there. And still like two
Speaker 1: hours later, he was still holding his arm. And he
Speaker 1: was a young dude in his thirties. But we got
Speaker 1: after a fox and they said he ran up into
Speaker 1: the mountain, up into a like a cave, a crevass
Speaker 1: on it, and those dude got up there about fifty
Speaker 1: sixty ft climbing around, and they all wore these boots,
Speaker 1: those Harness boots like the Harley Davids and motorcycle guys.
Speaker 1: You know. Rather they ain't worth a damn for climbing
Speaker 1: around the rocks. But they are up there poking around
Speaker 1: trying to find, you know, where that fox was throwing
Speaker 1: some rocks trying to get him out. But yes, they
Speaker 1: truly were trying to catch some some creditors. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: wanted to catch, you know, catch something, you know, for us.
Speaker 1: But like you said, it was just the circumstances over there.
Speaker 1: And and that's part of being a falconer that you
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier. There, you go out trying to catch
Speaker 1: an animal, you're not gonna get something every time, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of on an even playing field where you've
Speaker 1: got predator and prey out there, and it's just so
Speaker 1: who's the strongest or what conditions you are, who's gonna
Speaker 1: win that day? And if you want to get type
Speaker 1: of guy that wants to stack up a lot of
Speaker 1: game animals, and you do not want to be a falconer.
Speaker 1: You're in for You're in it for, you know, owning
Speaker 1: a bird, taking care and of it, having a relationship
Speaker 1: where you can take an animal that you have tamed
Speaker 1: and go out there and turn it loose into the
Speaker 1: wild and it trust you enough to come back. And
Speaker 1: sometimes their eagles don't come back. One guy lost an
Speaker 1: eagle at the eagle festival. He turned it loose and
Speaker 1: it just decided it was gonna fly off and not
Speaker 1: not come back. So he's gonna go back to being
Speaker 1: the eagle. Yes, and they do that, you know, they
Speaker 1: may keep an eagle for five or six years and
Speaker 1: then turn it loose and and then go get another one.
Speaker 1: The eagle hunter that we were with, he had a
Speaker 1: six year old eagle and a two year old eagle
Speaker 1: that he that he was training, and then when they
Speaker 1: got um uh solo, then they would release them back
Speaker 1: into the to the wild and let him go free.
Speaker 1: You know what you're talking about? How are you saying
Speaker 1: that horse legs to run and you'd like to run
Speaker 1: enough another way? Well, there's like a gallop, you know,
Speaker 1: job trot and gallop like a lot of quarter horse
Speaker 1: and there's a canner that's kind of an easy slow
Speaker 1: you know, uh ride a fox trot, you know, different
Speaker 1: shuffle there. A gaited horse has a smooth ride. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a big horseman, but like I said, you
Speaker 1: know you could if your asses in a saddle, you
Speaker 1: can feel it, you know, get him in a certain
Speaker 1: I thought a horse was a horse until uh I
Speaker 1: got involved with him, a friend of mine, he's a
Speaker 1: big horseman. Paul. You met Paul. We went over in
Speaker 1: eight breaths into his house. So I just thought all
Speaker 1: horses did the same, whether they run to Kentucky Derby
Speaker 1: or pulled the card or whatever. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: riding horses and working horses and roping horses and mountain horses,
Speaker 1: and definitely those mongoling horses are made to billy go
Speaker 1: around on top of the mountain with no fear whatsoever
Speaker 1: beyond a shell slope and ship sliding off whatever, and
Speaker 1: seeing them a nice piece of grass and bend down
Speaker 1: and take a big bite and not worry about following
Speaker 1: their ass off the face of them ountain. So yes,
Speaker 1: what I was taking interest in in Wyoming this year
Speaker 1: when we're hunting down there on horseback is how just
Speaker 1: how bad your scroll gets just beat up man on
Speaker 1: a certain when they get to try. Yes, this gotta
Speaker 1: be like, there's gotta be tricks for that. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you can stand up in the stirrups, but my knees
Speaker 1: are shot. They are completely wore out. So I got
Speaker 1: no cushion in my knees anymore. I cannot do that.
Speaker 1: So you know, basically I spent about ten days on horseback.
Speaker 1: When I was over there was your scroll just getting
Speaker 1: just beat up. Not too bad my ass. The saddle
Speaker 1: was too too small, so the back of my ass
Speaker 1: was cushion and the rest of me so I didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about that too much. But you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of a horseman, so I kind of know
Speaker 1: how to get into saddle and use the back of
Speaker 1: my ass for the padding instead of the front of
Speaker 1: my scroll them to ride out. Yeah, someone was telling
Speaker 1: me that part of the thing is like not to
Speaker 1: and chump when he starts trotting right, you clench your
Speaker 1: legs up and you make less room in there for
Speaker 1: everything to lay out how it needs to lay out.
Speaker 1: But I was wondering about if you went, if you'd
Speaker 1: be smarter to to to go no onies to go
Speaker 1: underwereless like if you were up there, they got they
Speaker 1: can take it to extremes. Let's say you're up there
Speaker 1: and nothing. You're up there in your birthday suit. Are
Speaker 1: you still smashing your scroll? Well, you know you use
Speaker 1: your thighs too, and yeah, because yeah, when that horror
Speaker 1: starts to moving you, you clench up more. And someone said,
Speaker 1: it's it's being learning how to relax your thighs and
Speaker 1: not squeeze in so bad so that everything's getting beat up.
Speaker 1: I like, I'm telling you, I don't remember this being
Speaker 1: such an issue when I was younger, but it seems
Speaker 1: in the harder kind of ride, and it's a real
Speaker 1: thing where I feel as though you had sat one
Speaker 1: might sacrifice his ability to have children. Not that I
Speaker 1: need that ability anymore. Well, it's kind of riding a
Speaker 1: bicycle too. You know, you're on a bicycle seat, so
Speaker 1: you just kind of mash my screw on a bike. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on what kind of saddle, And like I said,
Speaker 1: it just kind of comes natural to me where I
Speaker 1: I've done enough miles in a horse and you've done
Speaker 1: enough miles in a bicycle to know how to maneuver
Speaker 1: yourself where you don't hurt yourself. So I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot into that. Probably the more time that you
Speaker 1: spend in the saddle, the more comfortable you get, because
Speaker 1: I can look some of your photographs and tell you
Speaker 1: your tents on the horse, and you don't you know,
Speaker 1: you're not in control. Basically, I would never come. I
Speaker 1: would never come present myself as a horseman. I'm the
Speaker 1: opposite of a horseman. And I'm putting it out an
Speaker 1: honest thing there. I'm sure we'll get some good feedback
Speaker 1: from listeners on it, but uh, I just need to
Speaker 1: if I was gonna become more of a horseman, Like
Speaker 1: if someone was said to me, hey, do you want
Speaker 1: here's a horse? You can have this horse? And if
Speaker 1: Dyven said, I'll even throw in like you keep the
Speaker 1: horse here and I'll feed the horse. In my mind
Speaker 1: would be man, do I really want to smash my
Speaker 1: scroll that bad all time? That's what would come to
Speaker 1: my mind. And Yanni, you're I know that this is
Speaker 1: something that's on your mind. You do know? I thought
Speaker 1: we talked about this. We did. I mean, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, noticeable, But I feel like we rode all
Speaker 1: week and I don't know you haven't. You just get
Speaker 1: such a hit now and then it just hurts You're
Speaker 1: you're probably leaning too far forward, like I said, we're
Speaker 1: I wore a blister on my ass because I was
Speaker 1: leaning back to not I'm definitely yeah, yeah, you need
Speaker 1: to lean back into the seat of the saddle more.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm all tensed up, scrunched up my
Speaker 1: thighser's my thighs as puckered up leaning forward, and it's
Speaker 1: just like a slug fest down in the air. Man.
Speaker 1: You are you are chance? I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: I've seen a few pictures of you, and you just
Speaker 1: gotta learn to relax and feel confident and trust your horse.
Speaker 1: So you don't trust your horse. And that's one thing
Speaker 1: that you've got to do is trust your horse. You
Speaker 1: gotta have a good horse to trust. And U you know, Paul,
Speaker 1: he taught me a lot about horses. I didn't only
Speaker 1: ridden like five or six times in my life before
Speaker 1: I met him, So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in the saddle from about ninety two to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. Man, we had some some fantastic
Speaker 1: squirrel hunts with you know, we might have eight or
Speaker 1: ten people out there in a half a day with
Speaker 1: Kevin is twelve buyers in a full day is twenty
Speaker 1: four on a squirrel hunt. That's what some of the
Speaker 1: boys would say. But you just gotta you know, it's
Speaker 1: like riding a bicycle. After you get used to it
Speaker 1: and know how to maneuver around whatever, you'll keep from
Speaker 1: hurting yourself. And the same with you. You just need
Speaker 1: some more time in the saddle. Have a good horse,
Speaker 1: have have your your stirrups and everything fits you where
Speaker 1: you can stand up and cushion yourself in a big
Speaker 1: enough seat where you can lean back and feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: and find you that sweet spot where you can ride
Speaker 1: in maneuver and cover grounds. So you just need some
Speaker 1: more time in the saddle. Was a yeah, my only horse. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't spend any time just messing around on horse.
Speaker 1: It's like we get thrown into situations where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna ride these horses up and look for a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear, ride these horses all through the mountains. I
Speaker 1: never just get a chance to just go out, and
Speaker 1: you need to pleasure. Develop my pleasure. I developed my skills.
Speaker 1: Ye oh, go ahead. You just need to go out
Speaker 1: and pleasure ride and have no mission other than you
Speaker 1: spend a good day on the horse with somebody and
Speaker 1: have no mission other than to get comfortable and see
Speaker 1: the outdoors and cover some ground and find out what
Speaker 1: works for you. Yeah. Uh, your assessment of these these
Speaker 1: the Mongolian guys did, uh? Were they hunters? To look?
Speaker 1: Are they like? Are they are they? Oh next weekend
Speaker 1: or this? You know we're fishing, then we're gonna go
Speaker 1: hunt this, and we're gonna go hunt that. Then we're
Speaker 1: gonna go eagle hunting. Are they like well rounded all
Speaker 1: around outdoorsman? Um? Probably as one trick ponies. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know they had high powered goods. They didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of game there. You know it's been I
Speaker 1: guess vanished there wolves. Uh. You know, I had a
Speaker 1: twenty two rifle made in Russia and they had to bruno. Uh.
Speaker 1: I forgot what calibrat was seven point six by thirty
Speaker 1: nine or something. But they didn't talk about hunting a
Speaker 1: whole lot. Uh. But as far as fishing and living
Speaker 1: off the land and all that, Yeah, they just didn't
Speaker 1: have you know, they worked and had to uh to
Speaker 1: take care of themselves. But as far as having organized hunts,
Speaker 1: now some of the one of the guys that was
Speaker 1: driving us around, he had a dragon off Russian sniper
Speaker 1: rifle and he talked about bear hunting. Uh. He was
Speaker 1: at an eagle hunter. You know. The eagle hunters are
Speaker 1: kind of like nomads, so they whatever it takes to
Speaker 1: live off the land is what they do. They hurt
Speaker 1: their sheep herders, gold herders have camels, Uh, have cattle
Speaker 1: cross with the all the mont Goldian cat I'm going
Speaker 1: to blank. Uh. You know they are basically their diet
Speaker 1: is red and white uh, dairy products and meat. Uh.
Speaker 1: As far as vegetables and things of that nature, they
Speaker 1: do not have so like a yogurt, cheese, things of
Speaker 1: that nature, cream, milk, whatever we had over there. But
Speaker 1: as far as a hunter, uh, they knew how all
Speaker 1: the animals act whatever, you know, whatever it took to
Speaker 1: kill a wolf, catch a wolf or whatever. Yes, but
Speaker 1: you know, my experience with them was just around the camp,
Speaker 1: traveling on horseback, uh, fishing. Uh, So we didn't have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to see a whole lot of different game
Speaker 1: over there. We never saw a rabbit when we were
Speaker 1: out eagle hunting now coming back from the little squirrel
Speaker 1: hunting do there we got into we saw a Siberian
Speaker 1: lynx our European links. Yes, yes, it crossed the road
Speaker 1: in front of us. I got out, tried to force
Speaker 1: it around, surpulate back around because cats usually are very
Speaker 1: curious and not really afraid of humans that much. And
Speaker 1: and I got into it, and I noticed that there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of sticker bushes, thorn bushes there, and
Speaker 1: then I put two and two together. That night when
Speaker 1: we were coming in, we saw several rabbits and they
Speaker 1: were around that same type of vegetation. So the rabbits,
Speaker 1: you know, there be like briar patches here. When we
Speaker 1: were out in the desert, we never I never saw
Speaker 1: that vegetation whatsoever anywhere. And they told me that most
Speaker 1: of the rabbits were up in the rocks, so they
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable getting out, you know, being silhouetted or whatever.
Speaker 1: But we saw rabbits. I saw the links with in
Speaker 1: the in the thorn bushes. And then that night saw
Speaker 1: several rabbits coming in by moonlight and they were always
Speaker 1: in the thorn bushes. So uh, you can include this
Speaker 1: trip in there or not. But um, if you had, well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you this first. If it are you
Speaker 1: gonna like if I gotta talk to you in a
Speaker 1: year and you're gonna be a falconer and not a
Speaker 1: not just like a dog man. Uh. Now I could
Speaker 1: give up dogs for bird. Sorry, I wouldn't like that now.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, I think I do not want
Speaker 1: to be a slave for a bird, because you know,
Speaker 1: when I go on a hunting trip, I may take
Speaker 1: a pack of beagles or a bird dog or a
Speaker 1: squirrel dog, and then I still got some troops at home.
Speaker 1: I've got some very good neighbors that come over and
Speaker 1: take care of my critters while I'm gone. I would
Speaker 1: not want to put that on anybody taking care of
Speaker 1: a bird. And and it doesn't I'm fascinated by that.
Speaker 1: I've got some friends. I've got Clayton. I've got a
Speaker 1: young boy and he's a connor. He's getting his paperwork
Speaker 1: together and I put him together with a friend that
Speaker 1: I talked to on the telephone has been a lifelong falconer.
Speaker 1: So you got to go under apprentice program for a year. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you have to take a test and people
Speaker 1: have to sign of phone you and then you get
Speaker 1: a permit to catch you a bird. But now as
Speaker 1: far as me going out and Honey, I hope he
Speaker 1: gets one. I will be a consumer. I'll take my dogs,
Speaker 1: maybe bar some horses. I'm out of the horse business
Speaker 1: right now, and we'll go out and catch us a
Speaker 1: squirrel or swamp rabbit or maybe out west and get
Speaker 1: some some um game birds or whatever. But now I
Speaker 1: don't I don't ever see me. I have no ambitions
Speaker 1: of being a falconer. I appreciate the sport. I want
Speaker 1: to go go back to Mongolia. I want to go
Speaker 1: in the US and and go on some hunts. But
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by it. But as far as being bound
Speaker 1: to a bird, not not made, what was your uh
Speaker 1: out of your season? Your season? What? What were some like?
Speaker 1: What's the biggest lesson you learned if you if you're
Speaker 1: factor in Mongolia? Everything else? What you find out about
Speaker 1: yourself by hunting? Uh? You know, uh hunters worldwide or
Speaker 1: golden And there's a certain bond that you can do
Speaker 1: uh by just small things uh that puts you all
Speaker 1: in a brotherhood. Um, you know, uh, just some things
Speaker 1: that you can do um To give you an example,
Speaker 1: um um our young guys started out with us. He's
Speaker 1: thirty one, uh eyvall and uh when when when our
Speaker 1: game plan changed and we wanted to go sight seeing,
Speaker 1: they put an older guy guide with us uh to
Speaker 1: Tupac and he'd been over there, well, he lives in Mongolia.
Speaker 1: He lives in Mongolia. And I was kind of uh,
Speaker 1: not happy, not pleased that they were swapped guides up us,
Speaker 1: but it worked out for the best and I have
Speaker 1: two friends over there now. But he had been there
Speaker 1: around Socialist time. He had he had led several geological
Speaker 1: expeditions out into the desert and the mountain region looking
Speaker 1: for tungsten, uh rare earth elements, uranium, copper and all this.
Speaker 1: And he knew about mine in and tungsten and all that.
Speaker 1: And of course, with my geology background, I find it
Speaker 1: very interesting and inquisitive. And you could see the landscapes
Speaker 1: over there, no no vegetation, so you can see veins
Speaker 1: where tungsten were, and the copper, the different types of
Speaker 1: rock formations and all that. So we uh we uh
Speaker 1: went up the valley, made friends with the eagle hunter.
Speaker 1: I saw that he had a squirrel, and he told
Speaker 1: me about getting a squirrel and where they were, and
Speaker 1: somewhere or another we got into the tungsten uh part
Speaker 1: of it, and he he had some not supposed to
Speaker 1: all the government owns all the minerals and resources over there,
Speaker 1: but he had some and he showed that to me,
Speaker 1: and I found it very fascinating, and I so much
Speaker 1: wanted to be a tourist and say, I would like
Speaker 1: to purchase a small piece of that tungsten front you,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. Kevin didn't do that. So uh, he
Speaker 1: showed it to me. I handled it, my hands whatever,
Speaker 1: and we went Uh. He said about four o'clock these
Speaker 1: stags would come out and we could start looking at them.
Speaker 1: And they were about two thousand meters away up on
Speaker 1: the mountain side, and we were glassing, and finally a
Speaker 1: dole came out and I saw her, and then I
Speaker 1: looked over to our guide and I said, you tell
Speaker 1: the young eagle. Hunter said, uh, if I was ten
Speaker 1: years younger, we would be having that dole for five
Speaker 1: finger feast tomorrow. And he he he told him that,
Speaker 1: and immediately, for some reason he got up and went
Speaker 1: in the house and got started beating on something and
Speaker 1: come out there and gave me a piece of that tungsten.
Speaker 1: And of all the things that I go back, you
Speaker 1: know that I paid for whatever. That is my most cherished,
Speaker 1: uh momento from the trip was that small piece of
Speaker 1: tungsten that I didn't ask for whatever, But we just
Speaker 1: kind of communicated. He knew that I was gold and
Speaker 1: then that I would most likely supersede laws in values
Speaker 1: to be a true part of the culture over there.
Speaker 1: So that's probably my golden lesson there that there's a
Speaker 1: bond when people do certain things that you can tell.
Speaker 1: They can talk all they want to, but until they
Speaker 1: really do something, do you know that they are a
Speaker 1: part of their brotherhood. So he knew that, Hey, at heart,
Speaker 1: I was a hunter and I didn't have to have
Speaker 1: a permit, but I would go up there and we
Speaker 1: would kill that animal together and have a face and
Speaker 1: it just clicked. I mean, it's just something magical surreal
Speaker 1: about that. So that's probably one of my big lessons
Speaker 1: that that I learned. And then Uh, my buddy Raymond,
Speaker 1: he taught me. He's my wing man. He goes all
Speaker 1: over the place with him, but he will not go
Speaker 1: into any Gentleman's club in any foreign country. He won't
Speaker 1: let me go in there either. So but we were
Speaker 1: out hunting, and he showed me the difference between a
Speaker 1: where a squirrel had been in an acron in a
Speaker 1: in a a blackbird or a bird, blue jay, whatever.
Speaker 1: Do you know the difference? Have you ever seen that? Okay,
Speaker 1: if you'll hold the acron up, you know the woods
Speaker 1: floor was covered with acrons where something had been eating
Speaker 1: on them. But but they pulled the cap off and
Speaker 1: then they like scoop it out with her beak and
Speaker 1: you can see beat marks in the acre were were
Speaker 1: I guess they hold that in there one of their
Speaker 1: claws and pull the cap off of it, and that
Speaker 1: we're able to eat that. But I uh, he taught
Speaker 1: me that, and I did not know that. So that's
Speaker 1: something about nature that I didn't. I just thought they
Speaker 1: were squirrels or whatever. I knew that they come in
Speaker 1: and eat acorns. But right now I can distinguish whether
Speaker 1: it's um being eaten by a bird of some type
Speaker 1: or a squirrel. That's a good trick down. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know something, a little bit bit of information. You're
Speaker 1: never too old to learn something. Listen you know, finish
Speaker 1: that the squirrel hunt in Mongolia story. And then because
Speaker 1: you said you met the only other squirrel hunter in Mongolia,
Speaker 1: so did you bond what that did? That's that's the
Speaker 1: guy that that that broke me off a piece of tungsten.
Speaker 1: That gave it to me, and I got a bottle
Speaker 1: of wine out and we drank and he told me
Speaker 1: about going up in the mountains. It's like a European
Speaker 1: black squirrel. And I've got a picture of holding up
Speaker 1: the pale that was one of his. You know, they'd
Speaker 1: have these like a little shrine in their house where
Speaker 1: if they were eagle hunter, they would have like a
Speaker 1: rabbit pelt, uh hair pelt, snowsho hair, uh fox whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: he had a squirrel pelt hanging on his wall, and
Speaker 1: I instantly bonded with him when I saw that, and
Speaker 1: he told me they lived up in the mountains and
Speaker 1: there was some timber. That was the first part of
Speaker 1: Mongolia that we actually saw any trees. The rest of
Speaker 1: it was just rock and just arid um um, just
Speaker 1: you know, high mountain desert. I call it desert. It's
Speaker 1: really the mountainous, the most mountainous region, most barren region
Speaker 1: least populated in all of Mongolia. You got to Russia
Speaker 1: up on the top. You got Khakistan kind of in
Speaker 1: the middle of the point in the China. We probably
Speaker 1: got within fifteen miles of China or closest, and within
Speaker 1: sindy five miles of Russia in Khakistan, UH during my trip.
Speaker 1: So we're in that far left corner of Mongolia, right
Speaker 1: on the border of China, UH Kakistan in uh Russia.
Speaker 1: You know how to sit with you eat and all
Speaker 1: that eating just meat and in dairy, I feel like
Speaker 1: the tears some people up well, you know, we were
Speaker 1: concerned about that. Everything that we had read said, you know,
Speaker 1: the food was kind of bland. Bring you some hot sauce,
Speaker 1: some salt, whatever. So uh, the first stop that we
Speaker 1: made after we got situated was to go into a
Speaker 1: small grocery store. We bought five pounds of salt, a
Speaker 1: bunch of different hot sauces. All that make a long
Speaker 1: story short. We left it all with them. Our food
Speaker 1: was excellent. We had our own cook We had some
Speaker 1: type of vegetables. Every single day. I eat a banana
Speaker 1: just about every day. I took ester vitamin C and
Speaker 1: a vitamin B one, uh, basically the same formula as airborne.
Speaker 1: You know, we were at a high altitude the whole time.
Speaker 1: I was worried about altitude sicknesses. But you know, we
Speaker 1: ate like kings over there. And finally we had to
Speaker 1: tell them had hate cut our food off. U. But
Speaker 1: we had a cooked soya and I've made some. She
Speaker 1: showed me how to make some Kakastan doughnuts and fried
Speaker 1: them and uh cheap fat one night. But our meal
Speaker 1: they had, you know, special meal for us. We would
Speaker 1: have eggs and cream of wheat and uh peppers, and
Speaker 1: we had a pretty wide variety of food to eat.
Speaker 1: And so we did not have you know, traditional and
Speaker 1: old just a red and white diet. So they were
Speaker 1: very they were very accommodating with us on that and
Speaker 1: the food wise it was very good. Uh. Every little
Speaker 1: homestead that we came into, the Mongolian people very friendly.
Speaker 1: It's like old old country folk when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: You come to their house, they get their best food
Speaker 1: out that they've got and may be left over biscuits,
Speaker 1: country ham, bacon, some old coffee, sweet tea or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they would have us a feast and they wanted
Speaker 1: to hear about what was going on in America, about
Speaker 1: our kids or about our jobs. And it was just wholesome.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I just fell in love. The
Speaker 1: longer that I stayed over there, the stronger that I got,
Speaker 1: and the more that I liked the country and the people.
Speaker 1: Even though there's a key communication barrier there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always some kind of interpreter or whatever saying, and
Speaker 1: some people welcome me into their house. Uh. One of
Speaker 1: our drivers, his family, his his younger sister. She was
Speaker 1: young and she played uh I like a little uh
Speaker 1: uh musical instruments, so she serenade us uh during a
Speaker 1: one visit. Uh. So it was it was a truly adventure,
Speaker 1: just jam packed food, uh entertainment. Um. You know when
Speaker 1: I went to the Eagle Festival, I met little Spi
Speaker 1: girl Jillion. You know, I spent ten days out in
Speaker 1: the desert with the best eagle hunter and all of Mongolia,
Speaker 1: and then we pay money to go to this event
Speaker 1: where all the eagle hunters bring their eagle in that
Speaker 1: they do competition. It would be like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: being out west bird hunting with the very best bird
Speaker 1: hunter like Patrick and his dogs. Uh. For ten days
Speaker 1: and then going to some pay preserve and paying money
Speaker 1: to shoot some quail that's been raised in this cage
Speaker 1: the entire life. So that was that was kind of
Speaker 1: the scenario. So I just couldn't get into it. And
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of tourists, a bunch of tourists there,
Speaker 1: and I looked around and I saw this blondheavy girl
Speaker 1: with its orange toboggan onum so saying, hey, come talk
Speaker 1: to me. So I went over there and started talking
Speaker 1: to her. And she says she was a jump bond
Speaker 1: dealer awful Wall Street, and she wanted to do some
Speaker 1: traveling before she got to a uh in their in
Speaker 1: their early thirties, and so she found me fascinating that
Speaker 1: I squirrel hunted and hunted and did all that, and
Speaker 1: uh we've become friends. And she even came in in
Speaker 1: uh they and twenty ninth of February, and um, I
Speaker 1: took her and we got a swamp rabbit in a
Speaker 1: uh fox squirreld. So we're we're friends today, like like
Speaker 1: Dayton friends or friend France. Just you know, I've recruited
Speaker 1: someone into the uh you know, I have done the recruitment.
Speaker 1: We've got retention and reactivation. So I've got a young
Speaker 1: lady female that never been hunted in her life, had
Speaker 1: never killed an animal, that her first animal was a
Speaker 1: swamp rabbit, and yet he had eason killed a swamp rabbit.
Speaker 1: Yet good. So so you know we're we're friends. And uh,
Speaker 1: she finds hunting very fascinating and uh it's pretty unique story.
Speaker 1: You know, She's traveled around the world, went to Antarctica,
Speaker 1: sent me some pictures about being down there with the
Speaker 1: walrces and the penguins and all that. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to anybody I can get in the honey world.
Speaker 1: Not everyone is is made to be a hunter or
Speaker 1: traveler whatever, but I'm all for recruitment, getting people in
Speaker 1: and to show them that hunting is more than killing
Speaker 1: an animal. It's going out, maybe going to you know,
Speaker 1: may I just go to Baring Springs, Michigan and and
Speaker 1: beat some of the local people, go out and eat
Speaker 1: and and enjoy their friendship, you know once a year,
Speaker 1: or maybe I go to a foreign country and see
Speaker 1: what all they eat and meet a person that maybe
Speaker 1: I just become friends and just talk on the internet
Speaker 1: or you know, telephone call or letter or whatever. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to a hunter than just going
Speaker 1: out and killing an animal. Uh. There's a you know, friendship, camaraderie,
Speaker 1: there's a common bomb, very complex uh you know, uh
Speaker 1: scenario of being being a hunter, and not everyone is
Speaker 1: meant to be a hunter. Um. So you know, I
Speaker 1: can respect people that don't want to hunt. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: after the people that's in the middle, that that would
Speaker 1: that I could recruit into the honey world. You know,
Speaker 1: at one time I had lots of competition, and I
Speaker 1: don't have any competition anymore. It's just seems less and
Speaker 1: less every year that we have people out hunting, hunting
Speaker 1: with dogs and pursuing you know, nature. So I'm all
Speaker 1: for trying to get as many people as we can
Speaker 1: into the into the field and and support you know,
Speaker 1: buying license and protecting our environment. And if you don't
Speaker 1: want to hunt, that's that you're right, you don't have
Speaker 1: to hunt. Hell yeah, Kevin, thank you man. I can't
Speaker 1: wait till Yeah. We gotta get back out. I'm we
Speaker 1: gotta get back out, bad bad, bad bad, And I'm
Speaker 1: talking to kind of getting out where we get something.
Speaker 1: But we gotta, we gotta I gotta we gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta talk about a couple of quick things here, Kevin.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna act like I'm telling you about it, and
Speaker 1: then you act really interested, okay, and then listeners will
Speaker 1: will not realize you're listening to uh us plugging our
Speaker 1: own stuff. So you can ask questions too if you want. Kevin,
Speaker 1: we got a new new new series, new YouTube on
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, a new thing we're putting out called
Speaker 1: Meat Eater Hunts. Different stuff launches. I know already happened.
Speaker 1: It's already out launched. That's what I meant to say.
Speaker 1: April Meeta's YouTube channel. We got two new and we
Speaker 1: put up two new episodes every Wednesday. The ones we
Speaker 1: just put up so far, first week's episodes is a
Speaker 1: spear fishing trip me you know Yanni did in the
Speaker 1: Channel Islands. And then we got uh one of Yanni's
Speaker 1: elk hunting trips jannest Is elk hunt in Colorado. So
Speaker 1: those are the first first week's episodes of Metiator Hunts.
Speaker 1: This is something we'll be rolling with and doing more
Speaker 1: and more of coming up, so check those out. What else, Yanni?
Speaker 1: So yeah, how's that sound, Kevin's are you gonna go
Speaker 1: watch the spear fishing. That's right up my alley. You know,
Speaker 1: to go hunt some fish. You know, do it. It's
Speaker 1: the greatest sing in the world. Man. You know, when
Speaker 1: I go fishing, I like for him to be biden.
Speaker 1: I don't like fish for fish. Now, I can go
Speaker 1: hunting and hunt for something and not get it. But
Speaker 1: on the fish, I want to be out out hunting.
Speaker 1: So that spearfish and that sounds like on my bucket list.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasted. I wasted my life. Man. If
Speaker 1: I'd have found out about it, I would have taken
Speaker 1: a different If I had known about it earlier what
Speaker 1: I know about it now, I would have taken a
Speaker 1: different path in life. I'll take a different path. I
Speaker 1: would be living some cold ass mountains. I can tell
Speaker 1: you that I'd be living in some tropical environment right now. Um,
Speaker 1: So everybody should go check that out. Mediator Hunts. Go
Speaker 1: on YouTube channel. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We got
Speaker 1: we've all kinds of junk up there, good stuff. Good
Speaker 1: jump up on that and uh, Kevin Murphy, Dude, I
Speaker 1: miss you so bad knowing that I can't hang out
Speaker 1: you and I can only look at you. This is
Speaker 1: gonna lift soon that we're gonna start getting back to normal.
Speaker 1: It makes me depressed. I miss you. I miss you bad.
Speaker 1: It's good having me on though. I'm glad to seeing
Speaker 1: you guys. And like I said, you're just like family.
Speaker 1: You're in the brotherhood. You know, we we bond together.
Speaker 1: We get it. You know, you don't don't even have
Speaker 1: to say something. You know, a good hunter can just
Speaker 1: look at somebody and go after game or whatever and
Speaker 1: know what the other guys thinking. And that's part of
Speaker 1: the being a well accomplished hunter there that you don't
Speaker 1: have to you know, talk or what every body language,
Speaker 1: just eye contacts say hey, we need to do this.
Speaker 1: It's kind of you know, like uh telepathic with really
Speaker 1: good hunters. And I'll put you two guys right in
Speaker 1: there with me on that part. So uh yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: we get you any swamp rabbit one of these days.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to Kevin. All right, he might have
Speaker 1: to get rid of that that mohawk. We'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: He might grant he might be to bring that mohawk
Speaker 1: with him. All right, Kevin Murphy, the world's greatest small
Speaker 1: game hunter. Ken, I gotta tell you this. We recently
Speaker 1: had a guy ask he wrote in to ask who's
Speaker 1: the second greatest small game hunter? And we told him, uh,
Speaker 1: we didn't really have any ideas for him. It's not
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. There's like the greatest, then there's
Speaker 1: everybody else. I appreciate it. I'm trying to throw a
Speaker 1: bunch of people into being the second best. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of guys out there. Yes, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of guys out there that can feel my shoes, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do whatever possible I can to help them
Speaker 1: get up there to be number one. That is uh,
Speaker 1: my goal in life from from here on out to
Speaker 1: help either your accomplish or the beginning hunter or whatever.
Speaker 1: If I can hit you in any way, I wanted
Speaker 1: to send a message to say, hey, get out there
Speaker 1: and and everybody's wanted advice, but the best way to
Speaker 1: do it, like you guys know, is just get out
Speaker 1: there and start doing it and do what fits you
Speaker 1: because everybody is different, uh, and how they tackle things.
Speaker 1: So just do see you know, like riding a horse
Speaker 1: or riding a bicycle. Hey, get out there and do
Speaker 1: it and see what fits man. Next time I see you,
Speaker 1: Kevin On gonna see it for real. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be on this screen. I'm gonna reach out and give
Speaker 1: you a pitch on the cheek or a titty twister.
Speaker 1: I don't know what, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: physical contact with you. Kevin. You guys maybe go do
Speaker 1: some pleasure riding together where you Yeah, you come, We
Speaker 1: come on horses. Now we're gonna going, alright, Kevin, thanks again, man,
Speaker 1: Thanks due. I missed you so bad. I missed you
Speaker 1: so bad, I can't stand it. Uh you too, jest Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks alright, guys, Kevin, world's great at small game. Hunter Murphy,
Speaker 1: take care, Thank you all right, sign it out,