Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is Cutting the Distance. This podcast is presented by
Speaker 1: Yetti Built for the Wild. Well, Hello and welcome back
Speaker 1: to another exciting episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. First off,
Speaker 1: I just have to say wow, thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for all the support as well as so many
Speaker 1: awesome messages of tips and tactics that you've taken from
Speaker 1: this podcast and been successful this past season. I've just
Speaker 1: been flooded with success photos as well as stories. Some
Speaker 1: of the ones that stick out are a few stories
Speaker 1: of guys hunting and burns. Uh we had calling mule dear.
Speaker 1: Some people been trying that tactic with some success, getting
Speaker 1: some doubles this season. I've seen some of those photos
Speaker 1: roll in. I think some of the I would say
Speaker 1: the most successful podcast that people have mentioned over and
Speaker 1: over as being paramount to their success this season the
Speaker 1: glass ng Finding Something Before Your Friend Effective Glassing podcast,
Speaker 1: and then surprising to me, the e Scouting one went
Speaker 1: over Big. If you have not had a chance to
Speaker 1: listen to those after this one, go back and check
Speaker 1: those out. I am really excited about today's podcast because
Speaker 1: today is our Christmas special. Now. I really love Christmas,
Speaker 1: and I want to make this episode of the podcast
Speaker 1: almost like a Christmas variety show of sorts. So there
Speaker 1: is gonna be some exciting, fun things that we're gonna
Speaker 1: do today. One thing that I love to do is
Speaker 1: throw a great Christmas party. That Christmas party involves the
Speaker 1: wild game that I've got throughout the season. So what
Speaker 1: I want to do is I want to give you
Speaker 1: guys some tips on how to just pull off that
Speaker 1: awesome Christmas wild game dish with something you got this year,
Speaker 1: as well as a few little tips here and there
Speaker 1: on just how to throw a great Christmas party. One
Speaker 1: thing that I've been asked a ton about, I would
Speaker 1: say the number one request because I've asked, Hey, shoot
Speaker 1: me some ideas. People want to talk about gears. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, this is a good time to maybe
Speaker 1: throw out a few of my favorite things that I've
Speaker 1: tried this year. Maybe a couple of little things that
Speaker 1: you might not have thought of as far as gear
Speaker 1: goes give you a little bit of some gear stuff.
Speaker 1: And what I really want to do this week is
Speaker 1: I want to give back to you guys who have
Speaker 1: listened in. So I'm gonna be doing during this podcast
Speaker 1: some pretty cool giveaways. I've got a few different items.
Speaker 1: Now I only have a couple of items. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to vy for those items. There will be a
Speaker 1: little bit of competition of sorts, but somebody will go home.
Speaker 1: This Christmas was some pretty sweet here. But before we
Speaker 1: do all that, I want to tell you one of
Speaker 1: my favorite Christmas stories. Now, this Christmas story could probably
Speaker 1: be one of those Hallmark movies. Now, if you don't
Speaker 1: like those Hallmark movies, you will still like this Christmas
Speaker 1: story because it involves a great hunter who is near
Speaker 1: and dear to me, my Grandpa. Today, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: back in time. We're gonna go back to the Christmas
Speaker 1: of nineteen Now, before I get into the story, I
Speaker 1: kind of have to lay some groundwork. I want to
Speaker 1: get you to understand my grandpa a little bit. Now,
Speaker 1: his name was Smut. He actually got his name growing
Speaker 1: up on reservation. He would work in the wheat fields
Speaker 1: as a kid, and he would always come back covered
Speaker 1: in this white top wheat. It's called smut. So they
Speaker 1: would always call him Smutty because he was always covered
Speaker 1: in this white wheat from working in the fields. So
Speaker 1: the name kind of stuck. He liked that name more
Speaker 1: than his given name, and he became known as smut Now.
Speaker 1: He led an extremely wildlife. He was a professional fighter
Speaker 1: boxer as well as at one point Marilyn Monroe's bodyguard
Speaker 1: when you're serving in the army, and then he also
Speaker 1: was a guide and outfitter in some of the same
Speaker 1: areas that I guide an outfit today. His name is smut,
Speaker 1: but he always used to say that the acronym was
Speaker 1: for small, mean, ugly, and tough. He was just a
Speaker 1: wild guy, but he also had a soft spot for
Speaker 1: people in need. There's countless stories of him just helping
Speaker 1: people out. And I think that one of the coolest
Speaker 1: stories about him comes around Christmas time, because I can't
Speaker 1: think about Christmas without thinking about my grandpa. So it's
Speaker 1: the winter of now. I haven't even been born yet,
Speaker 1: but I know that this winter goes down in infamy.
Speaker 1: Is one of the coldest on record. Lots of blizzards
Speaker 1: in lots of places. My grandpa had guided in the
Speaker 1: Sellway and in the Bitterot Valley for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and that year he decided to move up to Montana
Speaker 1: and start his own outfitting business there. So this was
Speaker 1: really his first winter in the valley. It was Christmas
Speaker 1: Day and a big storm and moved in snow and blizzards.
Speaker 1: While he was hunting up there, he realized that a
Speaker 1: lot of the places he went, he would drive past
Speaker 1: these houses off of dirt roads, very far removed, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them were in pretty poor condition. One day,
Speaker 1: when he was out coming back from a hunt, he
Speaker 1: had noticed some kids playing out front, just kind of
Speaker 1: one you know, what Christmas was like for them. They
Speaker 1: lived in a pretty poor rural area and probably didn't
Speaker 1: have much. So he decided he was going to go
Speaker 1: visit some of these houses and drop off some gifts
Speaker 1: on Christmas Day. The trouble was the remote area and
Speaker 1: all the snow, the roads were nearly undrivable, so he
Speaker 1: decided he's still gonna bring some food and gifts to
Speaker 1: these places, whether he could get in there by vehicle
Speaker 1: or not. He's trying to think of ways to get
Speaker 1: in there, and he just thought, ah, I might as
Speaker 1: well just load up my mule and and pack the
Speaker 1: stuff in. So he went and started filling his saddle
Speaker 1: bags with a bunch of gifts. He'd bought some turkeys,
Speaker 1: some elk meat, a little bit of everything, a full
Speaker 1: Christmas dinner, lots of toys and some other things, and
Speaker 1: he was just gonna go drop him off to the
Speaker 1: people that he'd met since he'd been up there guiding. Well,
Speaker 1: then he got the wild idea. He's like, if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna drop off presence, I might as well just dress
Speaker 1: like Santa Claus. So he has a Santa suit that
Speaker 1: he pulls out and he's got the whole garb going,
Speaker 1: the red pants, the red coat, the beard. Is this
Speaker 1: is perfect, but he thought that he was kind of
Speaker 1: missing something. Santa needs a reindeer. So he took this
Speaker 1: set of four by four mule deer antlers that he
Speaker 1: got earlier that season into your ship and he just
Speaker 1: started working on it, attaching it to the halter for
Speaker 1: his mule. So he actually had this small burrow and
Speaker 1: he thought, oh, that'll be perfect. I'll take the burrow
Speaker 1: with me. It was a wild burrow that he'd adopted
Speaker 1: in Nevada. When they do their roundups, we'll go and
Speaker 1: get these wild horses or wild mustangs, and then burrows
Speaker 1: as well, and then they'll sell him off or you
Speaker 1: can adopt them. So he had this little burrow and
Speaker 1: he decides to put these antlers on the halter. He
Speaker 1: puts it on the borough, and now the burros got
Speaker 1: a set of antlers. He got some Christmas balls that
Speaker 1: he put on and stitched some bells up to the
Speaker 1: halter into the saddle bags, and then he grabbed some
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was, probably makeup or paint,
Speaker 1: and painted the nose of his burrow red. It was
Speaker 1: burrow happened to be called Rudy. So now he has
Speaker 1: a rain mule. So he's got his Santa outfit, he's
Speaker 1: got his saddle bags packed with food and presents, his
Speaker 1: Santa suit, and he heads off into the blizzard to
Speaker 1: go deliver Christmas gifts. Because he couldn't get his truck
Speaker 1: into the area. He had to walk in, leading his
Speaker 1: mule up through the snow and blizzard to these houses
Speaker 1: pretty much in the middle of nowhere, knocking on the door.
Speaker 1: Christmas Day, he delivered gifts and dinner as Santa Claus
Speaker 1: with his rain mule in tow Now, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: the people that experienced that had never seen anything like it,
Speaker 1: but it was a pretty magical moment for him, because
Speaker 1: every Christmas after that, he dressed up his rain meal
Speaker 1: and he acted as Santa Claus, delivering gifts and food
Speaker 1: to people all throughout the area. Later on in his life,
Speaker 1: he actually you probably see him walking down the highway
Speaker 1: with his rain meal from Thanksgiving till Christmas Day, waving
Speaker 1: at people, handing out candy canes, doing everything that is
Speaker 1: in Santa Claus's job description. He ended up also getting
Speaker 1: a cabin donated to him where they built a Santa
Speaker 1: Shop where kids from rural communities could come in, pick
Speaker 1: out a toy, tell Santa what they wanted, and get
Speaker 1: their picture taken with the famous rain meal. He also
Speaker 1: started a foundation where they would take care of the
Speaker 1: needs of kids in the school system. They needed jacketson
Speaker 1: shoes throughout the year. Now, my grandpa took that rain
Speaker 1: meal everywhere, including into the hospital, into buildings that probably
Speaker 1: mules weren't allowed to go into buildings or burrows. And
Speaker 1: I remember a lot of Christmas is me and my
Speaker 1: brothers would dress up like elves, follow him around passing
Speaker 1: out gifts to people, especially people in need. Now, for me,
Speaker 1: it's hard to think about Christmas without thinking about that
Speaker 1: story of him loading up, dressing up his burrow, and
Speaker 1: heading in to deliver gifts to people who needed them
Speaker 1: the most. Now, if you ask me why do I
Speaker 1: love Christmas, well, it's because technically I'm related to Sam Claus.
Speaker 1: The Holidays is just a time for sharing, especially because
Speaker 1: it's the time that we gather with our friends and family,
Speaker 1: and it's generally right after we've just filled our freezer.
Speaker 1: Have we been successful this season? So what I want
Speaker 1: to do is, I'm just gonna go over a few
Speaker 1: of my favorite ways that I butcher and some of
Speaker 1: my favorite cuts. Go over, maybe save three of my
Speaker 1: favorite cuts, and then some things you can do with them,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get into a little bit of the
Speaker 1: gear stuff and do a sweet giveaway if that sounds
Speaker 1: good with everyone. So the first part, some of my
Speaker 1: favorite ways to butcher. My style of cooking kind of
Speaker 1: really translates into the way that I like to butcher,
Speaker 1: and the way that I like to butcher is easy.
Speaker 1: I like to make it easy on myself, and I
Speaker 1: generally cut up into larger pieces. I prefer to cook
Speaker 1: larger cuts one because it's easier to cut that way.
Speaker 1: I don't have to cut out individual steaks. I can
Speaker 1: just package it and it's a lot faster, a lot
Speaker 1: faster process. So I would say, let's go with my
Speaker 1: first favorite cut, especially during the holiday season when you
Speaker 1: think about the holidays or whatever, or sharing wild game
Speaker 1: game with people. A lot of people it's weird, but
Speaker 1: are kind of on the fence of oh is wild
Speaker 1: game good? As soon as they've had a good wild
Speaker 1: game meal, then they're on the side of hunting, and
Speaker 1: they're on the side of you going hunting. So if
Speaker 1: you're cooking a great meal for say your wife or family,
Speaker 1: if you constantly cook game meat terrible, when you take
Speaker 1: that time away to go hunting, they're kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: let's do something else now. If you can come home
Speaker 1: and you can cook an amazing meal that everybody in
Speaker 1: the house loves, they're gonna encourage you to go hunting
Speaker 1: more often. So these are really tips to get you
Speaker 1: out in the field the more. And it boils down
Speaker 1: to not over cooking what you bring back and preparing
Speaker 1: it in a way that is familiar and tasty to
Speaker 1: everybody in the house that goes when you share it,
Speaker 1: say you bring a dish to a holiday party. If
Speaker 1: you bring something that's terrible to a group of people
Speaker 1: that don't hunt, they're gonna be like, why do you
Speaker 1: do this? This is not this is not cool. But
Speaker 1: if you bring something that everybody loves and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get hunting, I would I would hunt myself. This
Speaker 1: is awesome. So we'll go with a couple of go
Speaker 1: two's that are really easy to do that you really
Speaker 1: can't mess up. One way that I like to butcher
Speaker 1: the front shoulders is I leave the blade in the
Speaker 1: front shoulder and cut the shoulder off at the I
Speaker 1: would say, if you're going from the foot up, the
Speaker 1: second joint up, so it actually cuts across smooth, so
Speaker 1: it's just below the blade. So the blade has all
Speaker 1: the shoulder meat and everything on it. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do a lot of burger, you cut
Speaker 1: this off and make a burger. But I like to
Speaker 1: slow cook this because it has a lot of connective
Speaker 1: tissue which holds the moisture in during the slow cooking process.
Speaker 1: So This is a really good cut for easy things,
Speaker 1: and say a croc pod or a slow cooker, even
Speaker 1: an insta pot, you can do stuff like braise it
Speaker 1: or brown it and then make shredded taco meat, burrito meat,
Speaker 1: gray on nachos. You can also do things like a
Speaker 1: pulled pork style with that front shoulder. Game meat tends
Speaker 1: to dry out when you slow cook a lot of cuts,
Speaker 1: but that cut with the bone in tends to stay moist.
Speaker 1: It's never gamey, and it's pretty much full proof. You
Speaker 1: can look up a thousand different recipes on slow cooked
Speaker 1: any kind of meat you know. You could do a
Speaker 1: barbecue beef style, you could do I like to do
Speaker 1: a lot of Mexican food style, and then that meat
Speaker 1: can go into anything you want. A lot of times
Speaker 1: I'll season it with taco meat, brown it, and then
Speaker 1: I'll put it in empanadas. I'll put it in Taketo's.
Speaker 1: That's who doesn't love a taketo um put it in
Speaker 1: Ta Malli's. You can put it in just tacos. You
Speaker 1: can bring it with nachos like it's a It's a
Speaker 1: really versatile, super easy to do. The next cut. I
Speaker 1: love larger steaks or like whole steak cuts, so the backstraps.
Speaker 1: When I butcher my dear elk anything, I always leave
Speaker 1: the back straps let's say six to eight inches long
Speaker 1: as one, almost like a roast, So I cut the
Speaker 1: back straps into thirds instead of staking it out. Then
Speaker 1: I cook those steaks whole and slice them after cooking.
Speaker 1: It's an easy way to do it. It cuts down
Speaker 1: on the butcher time and you tend to overcook them less.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it just comes out really well. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of other things you can do. What me
Speaker 1: and my wife have been doing a lot is just
Speaker 1: cutting four inch steaks out of the back strap for
Speaker 1: three inch steaks out of the backstrap and making like
Speaker 1: bacon wrapped flame mignon style steaks, throwing those on the grill.
Speaker 1: It's just very familiar that people see, oh yeah, bacon
Speaker 1: wrap flame mignon, yet it's made with wild game meat.
Speaker 1: The key is just don't overcook it. I use a
Speaker 1: meat thermometer all the time. It's the best way to
Speaker 1: just make sure I go to a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five degrees, pull it off the grill, saw it. It's perfect.
Speaker 1: It's done just right now. My third favorite cut is
Speaker 1: what I like to call the oddities. It's just the
Speaker 1: weird stuff that people kind of disregard, because you can
Speaker 1: generally make it into something that's really good and it
Speaker 1: surprises a lot of people. That includes the tongue, the shanks,
Speaker 1: the heart. If you can find people brave enough, those
Speaker 1: are sometimes the most surprising cuts of game meat that
Speaker 1: I've found. Shanks especially because they once again you can
Speaker 1: slow cook them and they retain a lot of moisture.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of collagen in them. They're really
Speaker 1: good for things like osabuco or any lamb shank recipe
Speaker 1: works great tongue. In Nevada, where I grew up, Basque
Speaker 1: restaurants are really big now. The Baskara type of people
Speaker 1: from the Pyrenees. They came over to this region as
Speaker 1: shepherd's and they have very rich culture here. But they
Speaker 1: cook a lot of things like ox tails, tongues, stuff
Speaker 1: like that. They make a great tongue stew and that's
Speaker 1: something that I've kind of translated into wild game meat.
Speaker 1: I make that every year around Christmas time. And then
Speaker 1: you know, saving the heart or something else, finding some
Speaker 1: kind of recipe like I'll do a Philly cheese steak
Speaker 1: with the heart. Something that looks familiar. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's dear heart. It's a little bit different, so it's interesting,
Speaker 1: but it's still very familiar. This was just a crowd
Speaker 1: pleaser last year doing wild game corn dogs. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I never thought of that before. Last year.
Speaker 1: I had some Polish sausages that I've made up and
Speaker 1: then just decided last minute to just make them into
Speaker 1: corn dogs. It was such a hit last year that
Speaker 1: I'm did jalapeno cheese corn dogs this year is going
Speaker 1: to be on there. And then just some random stuff
Speaker 1: like white tail ribs. I do like a tie chili
Speaker 1: white tail rib Those are pretty cool. Those are pretty good.
Speaker 1: And then just kind of experiment with some of the
Speaker 1: different stuff. We do elk tongue poutine, which is like
Speaker 1: elk tongue and gravy with cheese curds over fries. Super Canadian,
Speaker 1: but it's phenomenal and for all those Canadian listeners, they're
Speaker 1: just fist pumping right now because now that just spurred
Speaker 1: some holiday cheer across Canada. Because once you try that, man,
Speaker 1: that's one of the best ways you can have wild
Speaker 1: game I'll tell you right right now, that's probably one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things. But yeah, just try something new,
Speaker 1: try something fun, and make sure it's good before you
Speaker 1: serve it to a lot of people. You might have
Speaker 1: to do a little taste as it was bad, put
Speaker 1: it in the freezer, and even after your guests leave.
Speaker 1: But it's cool to be able to share that, to
Speaker 1: share those experiences. You know, we get to go out
Speaker 1: and go on these hunts, but it's also fun to
Speaker 1: bring it home to share it with our friends and
Speaker 1: family because that's all part of the hunting experience. It's
Speaker 1: a shared experience in a lot of ways that they
Speaker 1: might not be on the hunt with you, but to
Speaker 1: bring it back to something like a holiday party or
Speaker 1: to cook for your friends and family, that's what it
Speaker 1: means to me to be a hunter. Now, we definitely
Speaker 1: have to save some time to talk about gear, especially
Speaker 1: because I mean it's like holidays. People are getting new stuff,
Speaker 1: asking for gifts, buying each other gifts, buying themselves gifts.
Speaker 1: So I figured, you know what, I've got so many
Speaker 1: questions about gear, different pieces of gear items, I might
Speaker 1: as well just throw in a little bit of gear
Speaker 1: stuff to this Mishmash holiday episode of Cutting the Distance,
Speaker 1: Let's do it. So before I get going down the
Speaker 1: rabbit trail of just gear, because I can talk gear
Speaker 1: for hours, and I think a lot of hunters, especially
Speaker 1: Western hunters, we love to talk gear because there's so
Speaker 1: much gear out there and it's so integral to what
Speaker 1: we do. I'm gonna talk optics, packs, boots, clothing, even
Speaker 1: just down to water bottle, choice, bladder, bottle, like, there's
Speaker 1: so many different options. So before I even get into
Speaker 1: the gear, you know, I think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: I am sponsored by a lot of different outdoor companies. Now,
Speaker 1: nobody's paying me to put any of this, like talk
Speaker 1: about any of this stuff. I'm only talking about gear
Speaker 1: because you guys have asked for it. So what I
Speaker 1: want to do is I just I just want to
Speaker 1: lay that out and say, yes, I am sponsored by
Speaker 1: a lot of companies. However, what that does give me
Speaker 1: is I might not have experienced with every piece of
Speaker 1: gear out there, although I do have a lot of
Speaker 1: experience with other gear as well. But within the companies
Speaker 1: that I do work with, I've tried almost everything within
Speaker 1: their product lines, or at least sampled it or something
Speaker 1: like that. So I have had a lot of gear
Speaker 1: in my hands and been able to test a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So the stuff that I recommend or talk
Speaker 1: about is only because I truly like it. There's no
Speaker 1: other reason. I'm not just trying to sell some stuff,
Speaker 1: because like I hate that myself when somebody's clearly like
Speaker 1: he's sponsored by it and he's just talking about it.
Speaker 1: So there will be none of that in this And
Speaker 1: a lot of these things are not from any kind
Speaker 1: of sponsor either, But I just wanted to throw that
Speaker 1: out there and being full disclosure. So we'll call it
Speaker 1: favorite pieces of gear in two thousand nineteen, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these were new. First at the top of
Speaker 1: my list, One of my favorite pieces of gear would
Speaker 1: be the Vortex ten by fifty U h D razor binoculars.
Speaker 1: Now first piece of gear probably at the top of
Speaker 1: my list. I would say house between a couple of
Speaker 1: different things, but the ten by fifty U h D
Speaker 1: Vortex binoculars I really liked. They're a little bit heavier
Speaker 1: than the other razors, but I definitely could tell a
Speaker 1: difference in clarity on them. I was really impressed the
Speaker 1: first time I used them, and I pretty much used
Speaker 1: them all season through. I actually got to test a
Speaker 1: pair of them early on and then use them pretty
Speaker 1: much on every hunt this year. I really love that
Speaker 1: pair of binoculars. You know, if we go to bows,
Speaker 1: I think you know, if you follow some of my
Speaker 1: social media stuff, you probably noticed that I shoot a
Speaker 1: prime bow. Now. I decided this year I really loved
Speaker 1: my Synergy bow, so that bows like a couple of
Speaker 1: years old. But for me, if I get a bow
Speaker 1: that I'm comfortable with and just absolutely love it, Like
Speaker 1: there's been two bows in my life that have stood
Speaker 1: out like that, that Synergy bow is that bow for me,
Speaker 1: just like for some reason, I'm very confident with it.
Speaker 1: I shoot it well. Everything that I shoot at is
Speaker 1: shot good, Like I've just had a lot of good
Speaker 1: luck with it, from a doll sheep in Alaska to
Speaker 1: just just so many good hunts. For the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. I will keep that bow on my wall. Now.
Speaker 1: I did just get uh prime black five. I have
Speaker 1: yet to hunt, like, I haven't actually hunted with it much. However,
Speaker 1: just from preliminary shooting it, I'm super excited about it.
Speaker 1: It shoots really well. I'm telling you that because I
Speaker 1: am really excited about it. So I think that that
Speaker 1: bow will replace my Synergy for this year, just based
Speaker 1: on how comfortable I am with it already. The Stone
Speaker 1: Glacier Skyscraper two person tent. A lot of people asking
Speaker 1: about tents. That tent is the best tent I've ever owned.
Speaker 1: My top two favorite tents would be that's my top
Speaker 1: favorite tent, and then I like the Hillenburg tents as well.
Speaker 1: But I like the skyscraper because it's got the head room.
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's just something about it. It's got
Speaker 1: a lot of room in it. It feels really roomy,
Speaker 1: but it's so light. And I've taken it to Alaska,
Speaker 1: to New Zealand's southern Alps, some tar hunt man that thing.
Speaker 1: It was just really bad weather on our tar hunt
Speaker 1: really wet. Everybody else was kind of wet and cramped
Speaker 1: in their tents. I was pretty much the king of
Speaker 1: the mountain that week. That's just what sold me on
Speaker 1: that tent. It snowed, it rained, I was dry. I
Speaker 1: had a room that tent. I can never say enough
Speaker 1: good things about that tent. Took it on a mountain
Speaker 1: goat hunt. I took it to Kyrgyzstan recently. It's just
Speaker 1: a great mountain tent. It's four season style, but weighs
Speaker 1: way less than any other four season tent I had.
Speaker 1: The one I had previously was like a Cabela's four
Speaker 1: season tents. The backpack one that's okay, But the skyscraper
Speaker 1: has the two vegetubles. So even with two people like
Speaker 1: me and my brother were in it fine. We had
Speaker 1: our packs inside on our goat hunt. That tense awesome
Speaker 1: another just like a little piece of gear that I
Speaker 1: switched up to this year. It might seems simple. I
Speaker 1: I always carry Analogene bottle. I don't use the bladder
Speaker 1: because I think that I've had problems with the bladder,
Speaker 1: the water bladders in the past, popping I've had, you know,
Speaker 1: the hose freezes. They just they just aren't reliable. They're
Speaker 1: harder to fill up with water, especially if it's like
Speaker 1: a small seep. So I always use Analogene bottle. I
Speaker 1: decided to go with like the one and a half
Speaker 1: lead bottle this year. My brother carries that bigger water
Speaker 1: bottle carrying a little bit more water. It's a little
Speaker 1: more weight, but I like having that larger bottle now,
Speaker 1: So that's just kind of a piece of year that
Speaker 1: I switched up. You know, when you have a certain
Speaker 1: kit for so long, like you just get used to it,
Speaker 1: and just switching something like from a one liter water
Speaker 1: bottle to a leader and a half, like it makes
Speaker 1: a difference for me. Another thing that I started carrying
Speaker 1: this year sterry pen. You know, it depends where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I don't really filter my water a lot, but there
Speaker 1: are places where I do need to filter water way
Speaker 1: better than the pump. Actually, the meat eater crew turned
Speaker 1: me onto him on that a fog knack elkhunt. Everybody
Speaker 1: had the sterry pens, and I was just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me borrow that, And then I immediately went home
Speaker 1: and bought one because they were pretty awesome. So that's
Speaker 1: a cool piece of gear if you're looking for water filtration.
Speaker 1: I recommend that the one I got does the larger
Speaker 1: bottles too. So there's a couple of different ones. And
Speaker 1: then boots, oh man, people ask about boots all the time.
Speaker 1: I've worned a lot of different boots, you know. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of different boots for different applications.
Speaker 1: Like you've got your mountain boot. You know your can
Speaker 1: of trucks or whatever. You're just like stiff mountain boots.
Speaker 1: Um Scarpa's stuff like that. You got lighter boots for
Speaker 1: earlier season hunts. I like to wear a light pair
Speaker 1: of boots if I can. This year, I just tried
Speaker 1: the Snays baretooth twoes. Honestly love that boot. I was
Speaker 1: breaking in a different pair of boots and they just
Speaker 1: were tearing my feet up. And I know I had
Speaker 1: that podcast about foot care and breaking in your feet,
Speaker 1: Like the boots I tried before, these ones were just
Speaker 1: breaking my feet in and uh wore those bear twoths.
Speaker 1: I actually just was like, Okay, I gotta wear something different.
Speaker 1: Put those on on an elk hunt. I think the
Speaker 1: first day I went like eight miles and just no problems.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, these are pretty much already broken
Speaker 1: and they've got a little bit more flexible soul than
Speaker 1: a lot of other solid mountain boots. But I took
Speaker 1: those boots on goat hunting. I took them to Kyrgyzstan.
Speaker 1: I've taken them a lot of places, like I guided
Speaker 1: all year in them, and they've just held up. Like
Speaker 1: that's probably one of my favorite boots I've ever worn,
Speaker 1: and this is the first year I've warned him, so
Speaker 1: they're gonna last into next season, which for me, even
Speaker 1: a really good pair of boots doesn't last a year,
Speaker 1: so I was really impressed with those. They get major
Speaker 1: props on that this year. The spot Hoog site, the
Speaker 1: Fast Dady XL That's what I've been shooting on my bow.
Speaker 1: I've never been a single pin guy until I got
Speaker 1: that site. I've got the one with the two pointers
Speaker 1: on it, so it's really a double pin site, but
Speaker 1: it's a slider site. The Xcel version has like a
Speaker 1: rail where you and kick it out a little bit further.
Speaker 1: But I also like it because when I travel like
Speaker 1: an unscrew it pull the site off and then it's
Speaker 1: not getting smashed in my case, and then I can
Speaker 1: just slide it back on and it's always been on.
Speaker 1: I haven't had any problems with it. I've used it
Speaker 1: for about two years now, but I was kind of thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: should I try a different site, and I just like
Speaker 1: it too much, so I'm gonna just keep using that
Speaker 1: next year as well, and then maybe some like gift ideas,
Speaker 1: just some random stuff that I kind of come across
Speaker 1: this year and thought, now, that's pretty cool recently so
Speaker 1: I'm just like plasma lighter. I haven't really used them
Speaker 1: a lot, and the field like that one that's like rechargeable.
Speaker 1: Don't even know the brand. You could probably buy them
Speaker 1: like most gas stations, but like that's that's actually a
Speaker 1: pretty cool piece of kit because it seems pretty durable, windproof,
Speaker 1: starts fires really well. I think that's a pretty cool invention.
Speaker 1: Those plasma lighters. Those are pretty neat and you can
Speaker 1: like recharge them if you need to. Also, every hunter
Speaker 1: needs parachord at least once a year. I like that
Speaker 1: para cord. I hope the company is still around. Somebody
Speaker 1: gave me for Christmas last year this stuff called rapid
Speaker 1: rope and it's almost like mule tape, like pound mule
Speaker 1: tape in this little jar with a self cutter thing.
Speaker 1: I just burnt through it. That's pretty cool. I'm actually
Speaker 1: gonna buy some people that this year because I found
Speaker 1: that super handy. I hope that company is still around.
Speaker 1: No clue, but that was pretty cool. It was rapid
Speaker 1: rapid ropes what it was called. Some other good gift
Speaker 1: ideas if you're an elk hunter elk ivories, you know,
Speaker 1: make them into something for someone. It's probably what my
Speaker 1: wife's getting for Christmas. And then I'm big on homemade stuff.
Speaker 1: One cool homemade gift that I like to make shed
Speaker 1: antler cribbage boards. I make a lot of them. I
Speaker 1: need to make myself one. If you don't know how
Speaker 1: to play cribbage, you owe it to yourself to learn.
Speaker 1: It's fun game. It's a great game in the wintertime,
Speaker 1: hanging out and you can It's a game that you
Speaker 1: can play on a shed Antler, so that's good in itself.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I would definitely recommend for the guide
Speaker 1: the Solo Hunter rifle cover. I make no money off
Speaker 1: of those things, that's all tim but I definitely promote
Speaker 1: it because I use it constantly. I think it's probably
Speaker 1: one of the best things out there as far as
Speaker 1: just a great idea, and I feel like it's something
Speaker 1: everybody should have. You know. That's a good gift idea too,
Speaker 1: because it's not super expensive and it's life changing once
Speaker 1: you have one. You know. I really like down sleeping bags.
Speaker 1: That's just my personal preference because there's so much lighter.
Speaker 1: I understand the idea like if they got wet, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be warm anymore. But I've never had that happen,
Speaker 1: and I kind of have like a waterproof stuff sack.
Speaker 1: I take really good care of my sleeping bag and
Speaker 1: just make sure that in the off season it's not
Speaker 1: stuffed into a stuff sack. It's led out to air
Speaker 1: and that keeps the loft and the warmth of the
Speaker 1: down bag. But it's just so much lighter than a
Speaker 1: synthetic bag. So down sleeping bags are my choice. And
Speaker 1: I think that that kind of concludes what I would
Speaker 1: consider my gift guide and a little bit of just
Speaker 1: tackling gear. I'm sure after this people will be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what about this, what about that? What about that? You
Speaker 1: can email those questions in or hit me up on
Speaker 1: social media now before we go. I think this podcast
Speaker 1: might have even been a little bit longer than some
Speaker 1: of the others, But we talked about a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff just throughout some of my ideas on meat and cooking,
Speaker 1: butchering touched a little bit about gear, and I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to get a ton more questions on that
Speaker 1: and then hopefully an inspiring holiday story that will kind
Speaker 1: of get you to think about others this time of year.
Speaker 1: On that same note, I did round up a couple
Speaker 1: of items that I want to give away. However, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to give them away through a podcast,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be in conjunction with my at remy
Speaker 1: warrant Instagram. Now at my Christmas parties, a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's fun for me to give gifts. It's way
Speaker 1: more fun to have people win gifts. We do a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy things like here's a gift and then
Speaker 1: two people compete rock paper scissors for it. So under
Speaker 1: that same vein is how I want to do this giveaway.
Speaker 1: So here's what I'm thinking. So Yetti is a title
Speaker 1: sponsor of this podcast, and they've agreed to give away
Speaker 1: one of their new v series Cooler. It's the Vacuum
Speaker 1: Chambers stainless cooler, and we're gonna give one of those away.
Speaker 1: They're really awesome. I have only talk to people that
Speaker 1: have them. I have not had one yet. You will
Speaker 1: get one before I even get one. So I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to be able to give one of those away.
Speaker 1: And here's what we're gonna do. If it has to
Speaker 1: be in conjunction with Instagram. I really want to reward
Speaker 1: the people that are listening to this podcast, So we
Speaker 1: kind of got to do it sneaky, like. I don't
Speaker 1: want to just be like something where people can see
Speaker 1: it and then copy what people are doing and then
Speaker 1: win it without listening to the podcast. So here's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. To win the Yettie cooler. You got
Speaker 1: to go onto my Instagram and then just find any
Speaker 1: picture that has a Yeti product in it, so a mug,
Speaker 1: a cooler, a hat, whatever, something Yetie in it. That's
Speaker 1: gonna weed some people out because what I want is
Speaker 1: I want it to be just kind of a pain
Speaker 1: in the acid enough where it's not ten thousand people
Speaker 1: trying to buy for one product. It's just gonna be
Speaker 1: the people that are listening. They want to take the
Speaker 1: time to do it. I think those people should be rewarded.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of work, so it'll be more
Speaker 1: fun and more chance of winning for the people that
Speaker 1: actually do it. So you can go to my Instagram
Speaker 1: at Remy Warren, scroll through any old photos that have
Speaker 1: a Yeti product, and then leave a comment. It would
Speaker 1: be easier for me if you leave a comment about
Speaker 1: the podcasts. You don't have to say anything about winning anything,
Speaker 1: just leave a comment. Could be about the podcast, could
Speaker 1: be kind of incognito, doesn't really matter because I'll look
Speaker 1: at the date on it as well. And then what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go through I'm gonna
Speaker 1: choose two posts, and then I'm gonna choose one person
Speaker 1: from each of those posts, and then those two people
Speaker 1: I will message them. They will have to send in
Speaker 1: either rock, paper or scissors, and the winner of that
Speaker 1: will get the cooler. The runner up will probably get
Speaker 1: something cool as well, but not as cool as the cooler,
Speaker 1: like probably a mug or something like that. So that's
Speaker 1: how we're gonna do that. The second thing is I've
Speaker 1: got a pair of Vortex Viper binoculars and I think
Speaker 1: we'll just do like a photo contest of sorts. The
Speaker 1: theme will be looking ahead. How does that sound. I'm
Speaker 1: making this up on the fly, but it's gonna be
Speaker 1: looking ahead. So here's what you gotta do for that.
Speaker 1: Post a picture on your Instagram with the hashtag cutting
Speaker 1: the Distance, and then tag me in the picture. So
Speaker 1: on the photo, click on it. Tag at remy warrant
Speaker 1: because that way I can find it two ways. I
Speaker 1: can search hashtag Cutting the Distance, and then I can
Speaker 1: also see that you've tagged it, so I know that
Speaker 1: it's not somebody that just was tagging Cutting the Distance
Speaker 1: for some random reason. Because I wanted to be somebody
Speaker 1: that's listening to the podcast and jumping through these hoops
Speaker 1: that wins it. So that's what we've got going on.
Speaker 1: If you want to do those things, awesome, If it
Speaker 1: sounds like a pain in the butt, it's better for
Speaker 1: the people to do it because I want to keep
Speaker 1: the odds a little bit better. So until next week,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. I appreciate you guys for listening, and in closing,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you cannot shoot flying reindeer under a
Speaker 1: migratory bird stamp. That is not legal. Merry Christmas. You
Speaker 1: fill the animals