1
00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I

2
00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:18,079
Speaker 1: grew up. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The

3
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,840
Speaker 1: Hunting Collective. I am Ben O'Brien. What is this episode

4
00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:24,880
Speaker 1: one fifty four? Phil? Hey, you got it? Great? Ah,

5
00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,159
Speaker 1: look at me, look at me? Hey, you don't have

6
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:29,560
Speaker 1: their buddy. I'm doing all right. I was just telling

7
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,440
Speaker 1: you I'm going to the chiropractor for the first time today. Um,

8
00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:36,200
Speaker 1: I'm in I've been. I've been in great pain since

9
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:38,159
Speaker 1: I woke up Friday morning. I just I have no

10
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:40,120
Speaker 1: like you know, we've all had those nights where we

11
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:42,199
Speaker 1: sleep funding we wake up the next day a little stiff,

12
00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:45,080
Speaker 1: normally for me, though it eventually works its way out

13
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:47,240
Speaker 1: after a couple of hours of me just taking it easy.

14
00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:50,440
Speaker 1: This has only gotten worse. I haven't. I hadn't been

15
00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:53,960
Speaker 1: able to turn my head in any meaningful way for

16
00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:57,760
Speaker 1: how far can you turn your head? Let me see? Well,

17
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: so swiveling is actually not too ad? Yeah? Sorright? Like tilting.

18
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,920
Speaker 1: I can't tilt at all. Phil is is move tilted

19
00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:13,360
Speaker 1: his head about one degree visible pain. Alright, Well, everybody

20
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 1: send Phil get well soon messages on Instagram. Just just

21
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,040
Speaker 1: just send nice thoughts. Shall we give you give out

22
00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:23,640
Speaker 1: your address? Maybe people send you care packages, white ball

23
00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:26,360
Speaker 1: maybe something like that for the holidays. Yeah, stay, I'll

24
00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:28,200
Speaker 1: check that onto the end of the show. I'll definitely

25
00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:32,160
Speaker 1: do that. Alright, perfect, perfect, alright. Well, um, a lot

26
00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: to get to today. We've got Mark Kenyon, the great

27
00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:38,520
Speaker 1: and powerful Mark Kenyon from Wire to Hunt from back

28
00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,400
Speaker 1: forty and all the different things that you know from

29
00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:44,679
Speaker 1: the mediator whitestyle content that he leads over here. Um,

30
00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:47,080
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a lot of things, specifically hunting

31
00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:51,880
Speaker 1: with your dad and also the psychology of naming deer

32
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 1: and then chasing the deer you named all year long,

33
00:01:56,120 --> 00:02:00,560
Speaker 1: having like some weird relationship with the particular single deer um,

34
00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:02,840
Speaker 1: which Mark tends to do. So we're gonna get to

35
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:04,960
Speaker 1: that a little bit later on the show with Mr Kenyon.

36
00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:07,280
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, we got to talk

37
00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:12,040
Speaker 1: about our Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving was made better by all

38
00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:16,359
Speaker 1: of you because we asked for Thanksgiving holiday traditions and

39
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:20,320
Speaker 1: you all absolutely came through. Made me. I was laughing

40
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,040
Speaker 1: pretty much the entire holiday weekend and and also moved

41
00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,280
Speaker 1: by a lot of the stuff that you guys sent in, Um,

42
00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:29,680
Speaker 1: but I will say this. Let me just say that

43
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,079
Speaker 1: part of why i wanted to have this contest one

44
00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:36,520
Speaker 1: I'm a silly I'm a silly little bit and I

45
00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:40,200
Speaker 1: like to make jokes. And Phil just shook his head like, yeah,

46
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:45,720
Speaker 1: yeah you are. Uh. I like to I like to

47
00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:48,000
Speaker 1: have fun, and I like to do things that are

48
00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 1: sarcastic and ironic. And that's just me. But also, you know,

49
00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:54,680
Speaker 1: has been a tough year for a lot of people.

50
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,640
Speaker 1: It's a year where a lot of the normalcy that

51
00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 1: we're used to, the things that kind of track our

52
00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:03,240
Speaker 1: lives lives and keep us saying, have been been ripped

53
00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,560
Speaker 1: away from us. So it's nice to, especially around these

54
00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 1: holiday seasons when we might not have been able to

55
00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:13,040
Speaker 1: gather like we all wanted to, it's nice to remember

56
00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:15,400
Speaker 1: the things they're gonna keep us going and to look

57
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:20,080
Speaker 1: back in order to look forward. So, Um, that really

58
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,240
Speaker 1: came through in spades with everybody sending their stuff. And now, Phil,

59
00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:28,680
Speaker 1: this was my first I'll be thirty five on Wednesday tomorrow.

60
00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:31,640
Speaker 1: This is the first time in my thirty five years

61
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:36,600
Speaker 1: that I didn't have Thanksgiving with my family. Um, what

62
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:40,640
Speaker 1: about you, what's the what's the Thanksgiving? What's the Thanksgiving

63
00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:46,640
Speaker 1: feel around the Engineer the t Engineer household. Honestly, this

64
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,840
Speaker 1: was exactly. We had the same Thanksgiving that we always do.

65
00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:54,160
Speaker 1: Ever since I, um moved away from home, came out

66
00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:57,360
Speaker 1: to Montana for school, met my wife. We've always just

67
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:01,400
Speaker 1: done Thanksgiving as the two of us and then with

68
00:04:01,480 --> 00:04:04,840
Speaker 1: some some little kid additions along the way, and we

69
00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:09,000
Speaker 1: usually saved the family gathering for for Christmas. Um, just

70
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,640
Speaker 1: because we don't we don't live anywhere near near family. UM,

71
00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:16,279
Speaker 1: we haven't for a while now, so I you know,

72
00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:23,479
Speaker 1: for for budget, budgetary reasons and just like wrangling children reasons,

73
00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:26,800
Speaker 1: we just stick stick the family gathering on Christmas and

74
00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,560
Speaker 1: we usually have a small Thanksgiving. So this Thanksgiving wasn't

75
00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot different for me. Yeah, for me,

76
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,679
Speaker 1: it was I've always you know, my brother and I

77
00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:37,960
Speaker 1: so my family. I have a brother, so it's just

78
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,159
Speaker 1: me and my brother were around the same age. Like

79
00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:43,280
Speaker 1: we've always kind of coalesced around Thanksgiving. I mean we

80
00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:46,599
Speaker 1: both lived around home until college time. He moved to

81
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:51,360
Speaker 1: Georgia for college. I've moved around the country pretty consistently,

82
00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:55,720
Speaker 1: UM for the last twelve years or so, and so

83
00:04:55,800 --> 00:05:00,359
Speaker 1: has he um. But somehow we've always managed get on

84
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:02,200
Speaker 1: the plane, get on the train, get on the bus,

85
00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,119
Speaker 1: getting you know, get in the car and and find

86
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,719
Speaker 1: our way back home for Thanksgiving. It's always a priority.

87
00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:09,880
Speaker 1: And to your point, Vill, I always spend way more

88
00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:11,920
Speaker 1: money than I can afford and spend a lot more

89
00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:15,120
Speaker 1: time now I have kids being miserable during Thanksgiving to

90
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:17,880
Speaker 1: get them to the place. Man, traveling with kids is

91
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:21,880
Speaker 1: no joke. Like, it doesn't matter whether you do plane

92
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,279
Speaker 1: or car or train. There's there's always there's so much

93
00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:29,240
Speaker 1: baggage literal and figurative that comes with with traveling with kids.

94
00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:31,520
Speaker 1: It's a whole whole, whole new ball game. I always

95
00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:35,680
Speaker 1: feel like it's the Oregon Trail. Trail. You're like, yeah, man,

96
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:40,280
Speaker 1: you pack up the pack up the wagon. We're going east. Um.

97
00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:42,479
Speaker 1: But anyway, that that's that's my experience. My dad brought

98
00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:45,520
Speaker 1: this up to me the other day. My brother did

99
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:47,120
Speaker 1: as well, like, hey, man, this is the first time

100
00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:51,720
Speaker 1: that we haven't been together with your mom and you're

101
00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:54,880
Speaker 1: and eventually significant others and eventually kids. This is the

102
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:58,880
Speaker 1: first time we haven't ever done that in our entire lives, um,

103
00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:01,200
Speaker 1: and so that's you know, it was it was, it wasn't.

104
00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 1: The positive was we didn't have to travel, we didn't

105
00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:06,240
Speaker 1: have to go through all the craziness we normally do

106
00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:09,520
Speaker 1: as a family to get home. But you know, at

107
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:10,720
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it was. It was a

108
00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:13,880
Speaker 1: tough It was a tough couple of days just knowing, Um,

109
00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 1: this is the first time that we weren't together. So

110
00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:18,920
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're you know, a lot of you listening

111
00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:21,520
Speaker 1: have similar stories. Maybe you're like Phil. It just it

112
00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:24,560
Speaker 1: just was another Thanksgiving. But I tend to tend to

113
00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:26,920
Speaker 1: think that a lot of people's lives are in some

114
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,760
Speaker 1: form of upheaval, and so it was your holiday. So

115
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:33,000
Speaker 1: it's good to look at traditions and kind of ground

116
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:35,560
Speaker 1: ourselves now. And I didn't I didn't mean for the

117
00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:38,480
Speaker 1: contest that we announced last week to be like a

118
00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:43,360
Speaker 1: real sappy affair, but man, it was. And I think

119
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:47,400
Speaker 1: maybe that would that, you know, tells me where everybody's

120
00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:50,760
Speaker 1: heads are at right now in terms of the holiday season.

121
00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:53,279
Speaker 1: So we're gonna read some emails. We're gonna get to

122
00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:55,320
Speaker 1: some of the entries and some of the stories that

123
00:06:55,320 --> 00:06:58,040
Speaker 1: people sent in for their holiday traditions, but to remind

124
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:02,680
Speaker 1: everyone the long story of how this contest came to be.

125
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:09,320
Speaker 1: Phil and I spent months planning this out. Essentially, what

126
00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:11,280
Speaker 1: what we asked people to do last week on last

127
00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:15,680
Speaker 1: week's show was to send us some sort of video, photo, story,

128
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,720
Speaker 1: anything that would tell their holiday tradition, that would would

129
00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 1: tell us about what they did, and we wanted to

130
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:27,160
Speaker 1: be entertained, and in return, you would get some Element,

131
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 1: some drink element tea of course, always go to drink

132
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 1: element te dot com slash media to support Drink Element

133
00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:37,640
Speaker 1: our title sponsor. UM, we'll get you a bunch of

134
00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:44,640
Speaker 1: Element to get you hydrated, salty hydration. We're gonna get

135
00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 1: you that, and then we're gonna get you a Jetti

136
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 1: tumbler emblazon with the Hunting Collective logo on it, only

137
00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: available here at my house to send to you. And then, um,

138
00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:59,160
Speaker 1: most importantly, especially Phil, Phil was adamant that we include this.

139
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:03,520
Speaker 1: He told me, hey, this is a great idea. UM

140
00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:06,480
Speaker 1: that I only now follow White Claw on my social

141
00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:09,240
Speaker 1: my Instagram on social media. I watched The Social Dilemma,

142
00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:12,880
Speaker 1: the documentary. I got a little bit scared, and then

143
00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 1: next thing, I know, I'm up in the middle of

144
00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:19,160
Speaker 1: night deleting everybody from from my um Instagram. So now,

145
00:08:19,320 --> 00:08:21,200
Speaker 1: but then I got to White Clawed. I just couldn't

146
00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:23,840
Speaker 1: hit that unfollowed button and so now they're the only

147
00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:26,640
Speaker 1: people I follow and they don't have their their social

148
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:28,760
Speaker 1: media kind of sucks. Anyway, it's just pictures of cans

149
00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:31,080
Speaker 1: of white claw. They could they could really use to

150
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 1: step up their game over there. Yeah, I mean, if

151
00:08:33,559 --> 00:08:36,160
Speaker 1: they would bring us on, as if they would sponsor us,

152
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:39,200
Speaker 1: we would do free social content for them, free videos,

153
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,439
Speaker 1: free everything. I mean, but they just want't to return

154
00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:47,360
Speaker 1: our calls unfortunately. So anyway, that's that's what we were doing.

155
00:08:47,679 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 1: A lot of you sent things in UM. A lot

156
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,520
Speaker 1: of them made me laugh, but the bulk of them

157
00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:58,280
Speaker 1: were We're like, we're moving and and something I had.

158
00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:00,959
Speaker 1: I actually read a couple of the Sason got a

159
00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,880
Speaker 1: little emotional myself, Phil, which I was not expecting to do.

160
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,960
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read a few of these. But um,

161
00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:09,640
Speaker 1: first of all, Phil, did you see the t C pie?

162
00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:15,080
Speaker 1: I did. Uh, They're very very impressive, impressively, Yeah, I

163
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:19,559
Speaker 1: I loved it. Uh. This was Katrina. She's at kit

164
00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:22,560
Speaker 1: kat is hungry. I think that's what that says. Kick

165
00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:27,000
Speaker 1: cat is hungry. She said, Happy Turkey Day, Ben. Every

166
00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:30,160
Speaker 1: year I make a pie and this year was no exception,

167
00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:33,920
Speaker 1: except that I tried to write th HC with the crust,

168
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:36,520
Speaker 1: and now my family just thinks I'm some kind of

169
00:09:36,559 --> 00:09:40,760
Speaker 1: pothead parentheses. They aren't wrong, but still not why I

170
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:45,560
Speaker 1: want to discuss via zoom it was it's a nice

171
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:49,199
Speaker 1: looking pie. You can you can clearly see the th

172
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:51,600
Speaker 1: h C on the pie. So I appreciate that that

173
00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:55,280
Speaker 1: that there's now a THC pie. Um, So thank you

174
00:09:56,360 --> 00:09:59,360
Speaker 1: Katrina for for help us out there. I will also

175
00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:03,920
Speaker 1: say that the cult debate rages on, Phil, I mean

176
00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:07,520
Speaker 1: rages on in my life, does it? Though? I feel

177
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:11,800
Speaker 1: like it's about of people telling you it's a horrible idea. No,

178
00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:17,559
Speaker 1: that's not, it's not. It's fifty. I did a tabu

179
00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:21,200
Speaker 1: tabulated this ship. It's fifty fifty. The people that you know,

180
00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:22,920
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where the people that hate

181
00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:24,960
Speaker 1: it think it's the worst thing in the world. The

182
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,280
Speaker 1: people that love it are embracing it with all of

183
00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:30,680
Speaker 1: their being. So, um, you know how I like, you know,

184
00:10:30,720 --> 00:10:34,439
Speaker 1: a good polarizing topic. Um, so you know, we'll keep

185
00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 1: it going. A lot of people are signing their emails

186
00:10:38,679 --> 00:10:44,840
Speaker 1: cult follower, all kinds of things. Um, so here we go. Anyway,

187
00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:46,640
Speaker 1: we got a lot to get to today, but I'm

188
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:48,560
Speaker 1: just gonna what I'm gonna do now is just read

189
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:52,760
Speaker 1: some emails from all of you that share any traditions. Um.

190
00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:57,080
Speaker 1: A couple of them really made me stop and be like, wow, Um,

191
00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:59,520
Speaker 1: this is a cool damn show that we do. So

192
00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to preempt this by saying, like,

193
00:11:02,679 --> 00:11:05,720
Speaker 1: when I was looking at this this morning, I thought

194
00:11:05,760 --> 00:11:08,160
Speaker 1: I'd sent hibout half an hour skimming through some stuff,

195
00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:10,360
Speaker 1: pick out the good ones. I spent about three hours,

196
00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:14,520
Speaker 1: um reading it, all these emails, looking at all these photos, laughing,

197
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:20,480
Speaker 1: but like overall, the feeling was, um, real heartwarming. So

198
00:11:20,559 --> 00:11:24,839
Speaker 1: thank you everybody. First one comes from Austin Smith. I

199
00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:27,600
Speaker 1: really appreciate your name, Austin. It's really easy to pronounce,

200
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:29,840
Speaker 1: he said. Um. He sent a couple of pictures along.

201
00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:31,280
Speaker 1: He said, my name is Austin, and I wanted to

202
00:11:31,280 --> 00:11:34,280
Speaker 1: tell y'all what this holiday weekend has meant to me.

203
00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:37,240
Speaker 1: I snapped this picture. He sent a cool little picture

204
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:39,679
Speaker 1: of a bunch of his family around the table said,

205
00:11:39,679 --> 00:11:43,120
Speaker 1: I snapped this picture over the holiday without telling anyone. Also,

206
00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:46,960
Speaker 1: looking back at it, I'm tearing up because this isn't

207
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:50,720
Speaker 1: my holiday tradition. My family has been splitting apart in

208
00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:53,200
Speaker 1: some ways recently, and to be honest, we didn't have

209
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 1: this type of holiday growing up anyway, because my dad

210
00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:58,800
Speaker 1: was Air Force and we never lived close to family

211
00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:02,680
Speaker 1: and never had any traditions aside from food. This year,

212
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:05,800
Speaker 1: my brothers in laws invited us up to their place

213
00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:10,240
Speaker 1: on the Rocky Mountain Front outside of Augusta, Montana. Most

214
00:12:10,280 --> 00:12:13,200
Speaker 1: of my family went. This is a raw picture of

215
00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:16,360
Speaker 1: their family mixed with my family. A group of people

216
00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:20,200
Speaker 1: wildly different, some hunters, some brainiacs, a nurse, stay at

217
00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:24,400
Speaker 1: home mom, young newly weds, and some older people that

218
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,800
Speaker 1: have lost their spouse, but all of us in a

219
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:31,600
Speaker 1: different stage in life. Coming together to enjoy fellowship, food, hunting, stories, laughs,

220
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:35,400
Speaker 1: and excitement makes the reality of life feel easier and

221
00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:37,880
Speaker 1: more of a blessing when surrounded by those that we love.

222
00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,640
Speaker 1: I've never felt so included by and thankful for people

223
00:12:41,679 --> 00:12:44,000
Speaker 1: that I have known for such a short period of time.

224
00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:46,560
Speaker 1: I hope this doesn't seem long winded or too much

225
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:49,360
Speaker 1: or too sappy, but it's all true, and I was

226
00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:51,360
Speaker 1: when I was trying to figure out how to enter

227
00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:54,120
Speaker 1: this contest last week while listening to the podcast, I

228
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:57,200
Speaker 1: kept coming up empty because the lack of traditions my

229
00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:00,920
Speaker 1: family has. I wish this is how it had always been,

230
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:02,920
Speaker 1: but I can pray this is how it will always

231
00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 1: continue to be. The weekend of love, laughter, and hunting

232
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:10,559
Speaker 1: also the time to brag and show some first, he

233
00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:12,720
Speaker 1: sent a picture of his younger brother with his first

234
00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:16,559
Speaker 1: deer over the weekend, and he got his first earlier

235
00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:21,559
Speaker 1: in the season. Pretty badass. Thank you, Austin Smith. I'm

236
00:13:21,559 --> 00:13:23,160
Speaker 1: glad you have to hang out of your family, dude.

237
00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:25,760
Speaker 1: It looks pretty fun the photo. I don't know if

238
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,160
Speaker 1: you guys are drinking or not, but it looks like

239
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:32,960
Speaker 1: you're having a good time. Nonetheless, anyway, Phil, these are

240
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,960
Speaker 1: all pretty heartwarming. Man. It's did you feel warm by that? Yeah?

241
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:39,440
Speaker 1: I know I can kind of. Uh. I'm kind of

242
00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:42,280
Speaker 1: the same boat as Austin, because whenever I think about traditions,

243
00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:44,120
Speaker 1: I don't like the first thing that runs to my

244
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,320
Speaker 1: head is that I don't really have any, at least

245
00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:48,520
Speaker 1: growing up I was like, there wasn't a specific thing

246
00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:53,040
Speaker 1: we did like surrounding an event, like like hunting or

247
00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:57,240
Speaker 1: going somewhere specific. There are there are these like little

248
00:13:57,280 --> 00:13:59,560
Speaker 1: tiny things that are that are tied to the holidays,

249
00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:03,760
Speaker 1: Like for ample, he would always just visit my dad's

250
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:06,120
Speaker 1: parents on Christmas Eve and my mom's parents on Christmas.

251
00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:08,800
Speaker 1: And that doesn't sound like very there's not really anything

252
00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:11,880
Speaker 1: exciting about that, but I'm still very much tied to

253
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,679
Speaker 1: that ritual and I have really fond and warm memories

254
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,000
Speaker 1: around those two dates. And it doesn't have to be

255
00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:21,520
Speaker 1: anything big, it doesn't have to be something momentous. It's

256
00:14:21,560 --> 00:14:26,160
Speaker 1: those small, those small details that that remind me how

257
00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:28,600
Speaker 1: important family is. Even if at the time it didn't

258
00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:32,040
Speaker 1: seem like it. Looking back, it's definitely it had an

259
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,480
Speaker 1: impact on me. Yeah. I mean for those of us

260
00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:38,920
Speaker 1: that like had a good family unit growing up, whether

261
00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:42,480
Speaker 1: that's just your your extended family or just you know,

262
00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:47,200
Speaker 1: your your parents and siblings. When you move away like

263
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,680
Speaker 1: I did or or Phil, did you certainly get some

264
00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 1: perspective on what was just normal life growing up? You know,

265
00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:58,480
Speaker 1: for me, it was very much when I was a kid,

266
00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:01,360
Speaker 1: it was it was we would wake up, we would

267
00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:04,480
Speaker 1: hang out, we would get ready. We would go to

268
00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:07,960
Speaker 1: my first grandmother's house, who was like the best cook

269
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: in the world. She was just short lady and like

270
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:15,400
Speaker 1: the most homey little house on View Street in Hagerstown, Maryland.

271
00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:16,880
Speaker 1: Like we would go there and it would be the

272
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,880
Speaker 1: warmest place. We would have a wonderful meal with our family,

273
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:24,400
Speaker 1: and it was a very wholesome event. Like I really

274
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,680
Speaker 1: just I think about that time, and I think about

275
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:30,160
Speaker 1: like the warmth of that side of my family. It's

276
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:32,400
Speaker 1: my dad's side of the family. And then we would

277
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: go to my mom's side of the family next for

278
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:39,120
Speaker 1: like a second meal. Now there, the food wasn't as good.

279
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:42,120
Speaker 1: In fact, I told this story at my grandmother's funeral.

280
00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:45,160
Speaker 1: She used to make I think it was sweet potato

281
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:48,000
Speaker 1: castrole or some sort of sweet potatoes. She was not

282
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:50,680
Speaker 1: a good cook, and it would be like black on

283
00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:53,200
Speaker 1: the top, and then you would put a spoon in

284
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:56,400
Speaker 1: that ship and it would be nuclear orange underneath the

285
00:15:56,480 --> 00:16:00,560
Speaker 1: black burnt castle. And she did this fairly off starting

286
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:04,080
Speaker 1: on childhood, as if it was a traditional dish um.

287
00:16:04,160 --> 00:16:06,320
Speaker 1: So the food wasn't as good, but but man, that

288
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:08,040
Speaker 1: side of the family knew how to party, so we

289
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,080
Speaker 1: would go there. You know, we were old enough to

290
00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:13,400
Speaker 1: get a beer too and laugh and run around and

291
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,720
Speaker 1: have a great time, and so we had I always

292
00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:18,280
Speaker 1: kind of felt like we had the best of both

293
00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:20,720
Speaker 1: worlds now Christmas, that side of the family that like

294
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 1: to drink would give better presents than the other side

295
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:24,640
Speaker 1: of the family, but the other side of the family

296
00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: had better food. It's I always felt like we had

297
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:30,000
Speaker 1: a good dichotomy. But anyway, that like our like that

298
00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:33,560
Speaker 1: was our our traditions. Our holiday traditions were very much

299
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 1: around the people that we loved and and the way

300
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 1: that they loved us. And then also, you know, my

301
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:44,680
Speaker 1: dad and I would always go hunting. The the rifle

302
00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:47,920
Speaker 1: opener in Maryland would be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so

303
00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:51,320
Speaker 1: we would spend the Friday oftentimes shooting our rifles getting ready,

304
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,480
Speaker 1: and then we will go out and hunt on Saturday.

305
00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:56,840
Speaker 1: So hunting, as with a lot of you that rode

306
00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:59,840
Speaker 1: in hunting, is a part of the Thanksgiving tradition. It

307
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,960
Speaker 1: that time of the year, it's the perfect time to

308
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,240
Speaker 1: blend the two things which we often do. Um and

309
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:08,320
Speaker 1: as as you'll hear from some of these other stories,

310
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:13,120
Speaker 1: so that's why I think this contest and and some

311
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:15,960
Speaker 1: of your feedback on holiday traditions went the way it did.

312
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,320
Speaker 1: It's really about the people closest to you and spend

313
00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:23,439
Speaker 1: that time with them. So I appreciate that, um, of course.

314
00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:25,199
Speaker 1: And I know that you know, I'm trying to keep

315
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:26,639
Speaker 1: this one brief, but I know that I told a

316
00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:30,560
Speaker 1: lot of you guys earlier in the year about my dad.

317
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:33,480
Speaker 1: He had some hard issues earlier in the year and

318
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,360
Speaker 1: then came out and hunted with me, and a lot

319
00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:37,480
Speaker 1: of you have continuously brought up the fact that I

320
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 1: said earlier in the season, Um, when I was with

321
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,520
Speaker 1: Clay Newcom in the Missouri Breaks that after my dad

322
00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:47,000
Speaker 1: had hunted with me earlier this year in September, that

323
00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 1: I felt, you know, fairly desperate for him to live

324
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:54,560
Speaker 1: long enough to really see my kids get into hunting

325
00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:58,479
Speaker 1: and join us and the thing that we've created, you know,

326
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:02,240
Speaker 1: our value set and our traditions. And I still do

327
00:18:02,359 --> 00:18:05,200
Speaker 1: feel that because throughout my childhood, my dad has had

328
00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:07,920
Speaker 1: a couple of different issues with his heart, and he's

329
00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,840
Speaker 1: had a couple of stints in the hospital. One of

330
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,720
Speaker 1: those was right around Thanksgiving when I don't know how

331
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 1: what I was, maybe seventeen, I want to say seventeen

332
00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:22,480
Speaker 1: or eighteen, and it was one of the first times

333
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:24,640
Speaker 1: I could actually drive and go on on my own,

334
00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 1: which I had never really done because I was always

335
00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 1: with my dad or one of my buddies or something

336
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,960
Speaker 1: like that. And when my dad had a heart attack,

337
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 1: it was in the hospital for getting stints put in

338
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,919
Speaker 1: his heart. I had the decision to make because he

339
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 1: was recovering and couldn't really hike, I had decision to

340
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:44,639
Speaker 1: like go hunt on my own in a place him

341
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: and I had scouted and set up on public Land

342
00:18:47,080 --> 00:18:53,400
Speaker 1: in Maryland, or stay home with him. And I remember

343
00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:57,080
Speaker 1: pretty vividly him telling me, go, man, go you can go.

344
00:18:57,160 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 1: You can do this. You can do this on your own.

345
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,040
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal, going do it um. And

346
00:19:02,119 --> 00:19:08,199
Speaker 1: I went and in a very very predictable fashion, I

347
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:12,080
Speaker 1: shot a small buck on public Land in western Maryland,

348
00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,479
Speaker 1: which is kind of how it goes there. And I

349
00:19:15,520 --> 00:19:17,840
Speaker 1: remember him telling me the story, like he woke up,

350
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:19,760
Speaker 1: he couldn't sleep, he woke up early, and he kind

351
00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:22,160
Speaker 1: of just stood there and stared out the window because

352
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:27,920
Speaker 1: he couldn't imagine not being out hunting with me. Um.

353
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:29,760
Speaker 1: So that was I mean, it was like it was

354
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 1: a formative time for me, a tough time, but also

355
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,359
Speaker 1: it always underlined for that period in my life what

356
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:38,200
Speaker 1: hunting really was, which was following my dad around in

357
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:42,000
Speaker 1: the woods and being with him. Um and so a

358
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,800
Speaker 1: lot of you guys have have shared that here this

359
00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 1: last couple of days. So that that brings me to

360
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,840
Speaker 1: an email from a young lady that would rather not

361
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:55,479
Speaker 1: be named, so we won't name her, but I think

362
00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 1: her one of her. It's a long story, so so

363
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 1: stick with us. But um man, it was a story

364
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,920
Speaker 1: that moved to me, so I'll read it too. She says,

365
00:20:07,359 --> 00:20:09,680
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed the Hunting Collective show for a while now.

366
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: I've been listening to the Meat Eaters for years and

367
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,440
Speaker 1: Cow's Weekend Review since it started. I think your show

368
00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:18,080
Speaker 1: is less serious than Steve and Yanni's. I can always

369
00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 1: count it for a good laugh. I love the notaza

370
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 1: sharp jingle and I sing along every time. Is the

371
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: cat a voice from one of Phil's cats? Uh? Phil,

372
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: you want to answer that for I'm sorry to disappoint,

373
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 1: but it's not. That's a great idea, though. Yeah, I

374
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,120
Speaker 1: think I should replace it right. That makes more live authentic.

375
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:36,920
Speaker 1: I'd like to have Kevin and meat Loaf both in

376
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:38,480
Speaker 1: there mixing it up together. If we don't know, if

377
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 1: you don't have a great idea, uh, she says. I

378
00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:43,919
Speaker 1: took hunter's head when I was twelve. I was one

379
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:46,040
Speaker 1: of the two girls in my class and I tied

380
00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 1: for first on the test. But do you think I

381
00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:52,080
Speaker 1: have ever harvested? No. I just turned twenty six and

382
00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 1: I've yet to be a successful hunter. That is partly

383
00:20:55,080 --> 00:20:57,920
Speaker 1: because I'm a school nerd. It can never justify going

384
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:00,359
Speaker 1: hunting over a weekend when I knew I had hours

385
00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,680
Speaker 1: of homework to do. That mindset never changed throughout college

386
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 1: as well. Now that I am graduated, I have a

387
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 1: job where I move all over the state and why

388
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 1: and I will not hunt without my dad. So it

389
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 1: does my own fault. But I still have tried when

390
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:16,359
Speaker 1: I had the chances to go out, she says, moving

391
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 1: on to my father, I wanted to write in because

392
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:22,160
Speaker 1: of him. I am overwhelmed with joy for his success

393
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,920
Speaker 1: this fall. Hunting for most is a pastime in which

394
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:28,520
Speaker 1: people use to get away from the regular stresses of

395
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:31,199
Speaker 1: the world. This is the same with my dad, except

396
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,159
Speaker 1: with a slight difference. You see. When I was twelve,

397
00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:36,920
Speaker 1: my older brother got into a car accident while driving

398
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: to school. We are from a small town outside of

399
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 1: Great Falls, and my brother went to high school in town.

400
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: He suffered a brain injury, injury that left him in

401
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:51,560
Speaker 1: a coma for eleven years and nine months. Last year nineteen,

402
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,520
Speaker 1: on June four, my brother passed away from complications from

403
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,879
Speaker 1: both his brain and injury, as well as a random

404
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:01,320
Speaker 1: blood infection. It was matic for our whole family to

405
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,159
Speaker 1: lose my brother in that way after years of caring

406
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 1: for him throughout my life since the beginning when my

407
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: brother got in his accident, my family did the best

408
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: we could to be as normal as possible. Eventually, after

409
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 1: my brother's initial accident, he was healthy enough for him

410
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: to leave the hospital despite remaining in a coma. My

411
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: father didn't hunt for a couple of seasons after my

412
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 1: brother's accident, except to take me when I passed hunters in.

413
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 1: Eventually we needed to meet and he got back into it.

414
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 1: For the past several years, my dad has tried many

415
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 1: times to harvest elkin deer. He was successful with a

416
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: couple of cows, a small bull and a few smaller

417
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,879
Speaker 1: deer here and there, just enough to feel the freezer

418
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 1: and be happy about it. But hunting is how he

419
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 1: was able to escape the everyday stresses that came with

420
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: caring for my older brother at home, as well as

421
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,879
Speaker 1: having a regular job, being a husband and a father.

422
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: To me, hunting has always been more to him than

423
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: killing and punching a tag. Eventually, it got to the

424
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 1: point my dad wasn't punching any tags for everall seasons

425
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: in a row. My uncle finally convinced my dad two

426
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: years ago that he would benefit from a bow surifid

427
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: so he could extend his hunting season from just general rifle. However,

428
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 1: my dad was fifty at the time, he has a

429
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: bad shoulder, and my parents weren't sure about taking on

430
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 1: a new hobby because of how expensive bow hunting can be. Well,

431
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 1: a year goes by and a friend of my uncle's

432
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 1: gave him a free, brand new, hardly used Matthew's bow.

433
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,360
Speaker 1: So this spring and early COVID times, my dad took

434
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: to the course and passed with flying colors. So now

435
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: it's archery season and he doesn't see anything. So then

436
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:36,360
Speaker 1: comes opening a rifle weekend he decides to resort back

437
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:40,120
Speaker 1: to the regular hunting rifle Opening Weekend. They were deep

438
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: snow and there was a small herd of four or

439
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: five elk. Dad said the bull saw him before my

440
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: dad saw the bull. He said. The bull started to

441
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: run when he finally spotted it. Then it went down

442
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,199
Speaker 1: a little hill and came up the other side, and

443
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,679
Speaker 1: even with my dad on the opposite hillside, it stopped

444
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:01,919
Speaker 1: and turned broadside. Dad said, he whished to himself, that

445
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: was dumb of you. He shot him dead where he stood.

446
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 1: This bull is my dad's best bull. It was a

447
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: narrow and tall seven by seven, really pretty, but not

448
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 1: that classical wide bull you think of. Still a beautiful animal.

449
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: The bully shot on the last hunt he did before

450
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 1: my brother's accident was a six by five, a beautiful

451
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: wide old bull. This new bull will go on the

452
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 1: wall next to the old one and my brother's only

453
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: bull he shot the year before his own accident. That

454
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: was so happy and grateful, he said. He stopped and

455
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: prayed the second he saw the bull go down. My

456
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: dad has never harvested Opening weekend. This is why I'm

457
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: happy for him. My dad works very hard and determined

458
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: hunter despite not always harvesting. I am extremely proud of

459
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: him and his accomplishments this year. He deserves his rewards

460
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: from both these hunts more than I can ever explain,

461
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: and I will honestly this This email is longer than

462
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 1: what I read to you just now. There's more to it, UM,

463
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to go too long on it.

464
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: But I did want to make sure folks want not

465
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: because I when I first read that man it was

466
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 1: it choked me up, UM really bad. I mean I

467
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 1: to think of a father going not only going through

468
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 1: the moment of of an accident like that, but also

469
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:27,360
Speaker 1: to dealing with caring for a child for almost twelve years. Um,

470
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 1: it's tough. And UM, if you want to if you

471
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: want a shining example the power of hunting, look look

472
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: no further than this story. There's so many things hunting

473
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: can do, and it's it's so much more than just

474
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: killing an animal to the people that that really value it.

475
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: So thank you to this young lady for writing in.

476
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what more I can say than I'm

477
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: glad your dad filled his tag this year, and I'm

478
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: glad you shared that story with us, UM, and we

479
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: got it's actually she sent the photos of his bull

480
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 1: and his buck and um, he had a better er

481
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: than I did. Congratulations to him all the way around.

482
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: Next up is Ben Upton, and I think Ben Upton

483
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: wins the day, and I'll tell you why. He said.

484
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: Um hey Ben, Ben. Here for this week's contest. I

485
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: want to I want to share with you a little

486
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving time tradition that I've established for myself over the

487
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: past few years. I grew up in Vermont with the

488
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 1: privilege of learning to deer hunt for my dad and

489
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: grandfather on a two acre property that we own. It

490
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:31,719
Speaker 1: is a beautiful oak and beech forest that we actually

491
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: manage for wildlife habitat, much like you all do on

492
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: the Metator back forty So, even though that property isn't

493
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: in your name, I'm sure you at least somehow know

494
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 1: how special deer hunting on a family's property is to me.

495
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: When I started college a few years ago on the

496
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: University of Vermont, I met a lot of kids who

497
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: had similar passions for the outdoors as I do, but

498
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: didn't grow up with the privilege of a family of

499
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: hunters and landed hunt on. I decided to make it

500
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 1: a tradition each November to take a friend who hadn't

501
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: been deer hunting before down to deer camp, lend them

502
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: a rifle, lend them close, and take them out with

503
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 1: me to learn how to hunt white tails in the hardwoods.

504
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,120
Speaker 1: This tradition has somehow made me even more in love

505
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: with hunting and strengthened my understanding of what it means

506
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: to hunt and be a hunter for the reasons well

507
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: beyond the scope of killing game. This year, after graduating college,

508
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: I moved to Denver to hunt the Rocky Mountains and

509
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: test my medal in a whole new world of backcountry hunting,

510
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: and thus didn't have the opportunity to take a new

511
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: friend out with me to deer camp. But through th HC,

512
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 1: I found a way to do the next best thing.

513
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: You might remember a fellow who rode in a week

514
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: or two ago named Hayes Hyle. He wrote in about

515
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: becoming an adult onset hunter and about the issue of

516
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: wolves in Colorado. While I didn't know Hayes at all,

517
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: he mentioned that he lived in Denver, and I thought

518
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: it would be a cool way to continue my Thanksgiving tradition.

519
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: In some way, I found haze on Instagram and reach

520
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 1: out to him, and I let him know that I'd

521
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 1: love to talk about hunting with him and even invited

522
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: him to come duck hunting with me for the rest

523
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 1: of the season. Even though this isn't exactly my tradition

524
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: of taking out a brand new hunter, I still feel

525
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: excited about the prospect of a new hunting buddy and

526
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: the ability to share my passion for hunting was someone

527
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: who didn't grow up with it like I did. Well, Phil,

528
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: we're really doing it, buddy. Wait what do you what's

529
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: your reaction to Ben? What Ben's doing and over there

530
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:29,120
Speaker 1: in Colorado. I I just still can't get over how

531
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: how this show goes about connecting people. I'll never understand it. Yeah, man, Um,

532
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: you know, I know we've had some funny stories before

533
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: where you know game wardens, a game warden in Canada

534
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: who who had found the guy that was trashing public

535
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: lands and then found him later and said that he

536
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: heard the story on our podcast and was now cleaning

537
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: up public lands. Um, but this is is a little

538
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: different for me. So there's I am with you. I

539
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: don't understand how how this uh talking into our microphone,

540
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: what it means to people I'd rather not understand it

541
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: because it would be hard to do if I did.

542
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: But I man thank you to Ben Upton. Um, thank

543
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: you too to Hayes and Ben. He's actually sent me

544
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 1: a screen grab of their conversation on Instagram, and UM,

545
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: it sounds like they're gonna go hunt, So hopefully they check.

546
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Hopefully Hayes and Ben check back in with us and

547
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: let us know how the duck hunt was in Denver.

548
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: Um and maybe one of these days we'll get these

549
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: guys out to hunt with me and you once you're

550
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: a veteran hunter, or maybe for your first hunt. We

551
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: got a lot of prospects out share three years from now,

552
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: three years time we actually get it. So all I

553
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: want to say is we're gonna have Mark Kenny and

554
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: Marks the perfect guest because we just ran episode four

555
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: of the Back forty is about him and his dad. Um.

556
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: I worked on that episode closely with Mark and did

557
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: a lot of writing for it, and um, I feel

558
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: like his story, that story really um is a proxy

559
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: for all of our stories in terms of hunting with

560
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: our fathers, but then also all of our stories for

561
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: for how we got into hunting and how we share

562
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: it with other people and so um, I just want

563
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: to sincerely they thank you for writing in, thank you

564
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: for moving me, thank you for being a part of

565
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: the cult, and thank you for being a part of

566
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: our lives here. And we'll keep on keeping on, So

567
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: please enjoy Mark Kenyon, Hello about Kenyon A little bit, O'Brien,

568
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: How you doing, sir? Good good. I'm I don't think

569
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: the flurry of the morning. It's been flying around um virtually.

570
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: So this is my nice coffee break of the day

571
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: where I can sit and chill out a little. Oh dude,

572
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: I could only agree with you so much. I was

573
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: just thinking, we're getting ready to record the opening segment

574
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: to this and do a bunch of things. I was like, man,

575
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: I really want to concentrate on this, but I cannot

576
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: get anything done. It's like five every five seconds something

577
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: is interrupting me or some ridiculous thing happens. Yeah, right, sorry, sort,

578
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: I will say. Now, I was looking at you know

579
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: they have like the there's a thing I have on

580
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: my phone that tells me the people I call the most.

581
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: You're now number four. Oh so well my wife, thank god,

582
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: my wife, my dad and my brother and then you.

583
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: So you're number one outside of the family. Yeah. Man,

584
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: So congratulations, I'm glad you keep it going here. The

585
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: momentum is rolling. Just keep talking to each other daily,

586
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: every day, all the time, no matter what. Now if

587
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: people don't understand what I'm talking about. I work closely

588
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: with Mark on the back four to either show that's

589
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: on the Mediator YouTube channel right now, And so we're

590
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: always talking about some ship that we're trying to pull off. Uh,

591
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: And generally I think we pull it off without you know,

592
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: without anybody knowing how hard it is to accomplish. Yeah,

593
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: we certainly do the best we can. It's uh, it's

594
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: not always easy to get to the end destination. We

595
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 1: have our ups and downs, but we, uh, we get there.

596
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: We get there because I always feel like you and

597
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: you could probably do this with every show, like like

598
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: you could make a show about making the show in

599
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: this in this case, you can make a show about

600
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: what it takes, like have a property, get everything together,

601
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: film it, make it entertaining, try to tell a story.

602
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,959
Speaker 1: You try to kill a deer along the way, Uh,

603
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: that could be its own true. There might be more

604
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: drama behind the scenes than from the camera. I think

605
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: that a few times this year. That was the case.

606
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: That was the case. So you're like, so we're pretty much, well,

607
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: we're we're editing the last couple of episodes, but you're done.

608
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: On the back fording like you're it's it's over for

609
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: you basically, Yeah, they basically, Um, you know, there might

610
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: be a little bit here and there, but the real deal,

611
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: full season, it's it's wrapped. It's a It was a

612
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: weird thing wrapping up on that last day when we're

613
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: closing shop and pulling down the tent and yanking down

614
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: trail cameras and all that stuff. That was it was

615
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: a little emotional, honestly. Yeah, we were just you know,

616
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: in the beginning of this show, we're talking a lot

617
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: about holiday traditions, and it got emotional because I think

618
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: so many people that right in and and tell us

619
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: about why they value hunting and like what it means,

620
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: especially around Thanksgiving, especially in I think a lot of

621
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: people are just straight up emotional, dude. I think a

622
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,479
Speaker 1: lot of people are just feeling pulled in a lot

623
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: of different directions. A lot of things are changing around

624
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: him a little scarier once a while, you know, Yeah,

625
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: it's been a crazy year. Uh, certainly a year that

626
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: gives us all. I think it's given us all a

627
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: good opportunity to kind of take a step back, take

628
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: stock of what matters of of uh, all the good

629
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: things we do have in our lives, and and if

630
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: if there's any tiny silver lining out of all the

631
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: various challenges that have been thrown to people this year,

632
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: I think I think maybe that that forced centering that

633
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:18,879
Speaker 1: we've all had to go through, I think is maybe

634
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: a good thing. And um and we'll see if that

635
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: can lead us to better places. Yeah, we'll see. We

636
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: we intended to. We announced the last year contest that's

637
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 1: with a group people could tell us what their holiday

638
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: traditions were, make us laugh, entertain us on the show,

639
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 1: and then me and Phil would would um allow we

640
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: would give people we we got like a Yetti tumbler

641
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: and some element drink mixed, but also Mark I got

642
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: I have you watched The Social Dilemma? No, It's on

643
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: my two watch list, but I haven't. Dude, I watched

644
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: it when I was in covid UH lockdown. I couldn't

645
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: leave the room, and I got so I got so

646
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: emotionally worked up about it that I on the followed

647
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: everybody on Instagram except for White except for White Clause,

648
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: the only people I couldn't keep them on there. That

649
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: just seems like a that seems on character ben like

650
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: that's an on brand move. I try to keep it consistent, though,

651
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,919
Speaker 1: I just nothing I can do. I can just see

652
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:30,959
Speaker 1: you that that night. If only we had a phone

653
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: call that night, I would have loved the emotion, the concern,

654
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: and that moment is We're in trouble, man, We're in trouble.

655
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: Instagram is trying to trying to kill us and brainwash

656
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: us all. And now I got to COVID, there was

657
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: like I I followed like eight d people. So it

658
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: took me a while to do it, man, it took me, like,

659
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: you know, hours to to get through it. And also

660
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: I found out that Instagram, I think, probably because it

661
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: doesn't want people to unfollow, everyone has a little like

662
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: a governor on how many people you can unfollow at

663
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: one time. So I had to do like a hundred

664
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: and then wait an hour, and then do a hundred

665
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: and then wait an hour. So it was a big ordeal.

666
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just an impulse move, like you got

667
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: past the initial impulse and then it was No, I'm determined. Yeah.

668
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: I was like, I started looking at how much time

669
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: I start on my phone. I'm like, man, this is now.

670
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: Now I know how evil Silicon Valley is. It's full

671
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: of a bunch of evil nerds trying to hook me

672
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: to these You know you used to work at Google.

673
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: Maybe you're just some kind of insider. I was just

674
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 1: gonna say, you're speaking of my crew. How long you

675
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: worked at Google for? Did you work at Google long

676
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: enough to to figure out their secret for world domination?

677
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: Is the question? Oh? Yeah, we learned about that on

678
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: day one. I was there. Yeah, I was there. I

679
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: was there for four years, and so I got to

680
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: put my fingerprint on that. I think you can say

681
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: I dominated you were there for four years. I've never

682
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: really thought about how long you were there? Yeah for

683
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 1: What did you do there? What did you do there?

684
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: If you're willing to tell us, because I know it's

685
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 1: probably something that was unscrupulous. Yeah, basically just diving into

686
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: everyone's private web browsing history and then developing databases that

687
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: I could sell to just kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding. Uh No,

688
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: I helped online retailers or regular retailers develop online marketing

689
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:26,839
Speaker 1: strategies using various advertising and marketing tools that we had

690
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 1: at Google. So helping people figure out how to use

691
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 1: YouTube ads and display ads and search advertising and all

692
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 1: that to develop a branding and marketing plan. What did

693
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 1: you really do? Because that sounded well rehearsed, sounds like

694
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: back to my first answer, that's like you've practiced that. Um,

695
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: all right, well we're way off track, way way off track.

696
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: We got we got sappy earlier in the show because

697
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people wrote in with their highlight traditions,

698
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are super moving and I

699
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: am my my normal uh, satirical jokes just don't work

700
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: right now. And it it in my own head, even

701
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,280
Speaker 1: because I started to get emotional about the holiday season

702
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: about I wasn't able to spend this year with my

703
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 1: family for the first time ever in my thirty five years. Um,

704
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: and so that that got me. But then I was

705
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: reading YouTube comments, which my friend Joe Rogan says never

706
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: to do. But I always feel like there's such a

707
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: MacB sensibility around comments on YouTube that's it just makes

708
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: me laugh, positive or negative. But I was reading the

709
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: comments on episode four to the back for You and

710
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: This is for folks who don't know this is UM

711
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 1: an episode where you could you get to see Mark's dad, David,

712
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: who I've never met but feel like I really have

713
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: an intimate relationship with at this point. UM. I feel

714
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 1: like I was reading the comments and that itself warmed

715
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: my heart because there's hundreds of comments. I don't know

716
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:03,439
Speaker 1: how many, how many there will be when when this hays,

717
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: but hundreds of comments, and almost all of them were

718
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: positive and uplifting and people felt moved by the hunt

719
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: with you and your dad. UM, have you read any

720
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: of those? Yeah, I did break our cardinal rule and

721
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: and looked at those and and I looked because I

722
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,959
Speaker 1: was hoping that it would resonate with people in that way.

723
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: And so it was it was cool to see that.

724
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:31,320
Speaker 1: It was cool to see that it connected with people,

725
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 1: that the relationship that my dad and I had and

726
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: and with my son and the journey that we tried

727
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: to share with people, that that came across and it

728
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: was something that people could relate to and connect with.

729
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: Um of everything that we do here and Mediator with

730
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: our podcasts and our articles and our TV shows and

731
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 1: everything like that, for me, at least, the greatest thing,

732
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 1: the greatest achievement, the greatest goal to work towards, is

733
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: to is to connect with someone and that kind of

734
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,879
Speaker 1: way where they feel something, where you change them, even

735
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: it's for a couple of seconds on a Tuesday in

736
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: some small way. So to see that that you know,

737
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 1: in some way we did that, it makes all those

738
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: late nights and all that work worth it. Then, Yeah,

739
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:19,919
Speaker 1: it's being you and a hole working on the back

740
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: forty um. Not that there's a lot of the people

741
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: that put a lot of effort into it, but it does.

742
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: I you know when I think about that show and

743
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: I think about this time of year, and I'm glad

744
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: you're we can do this today, because it all kind

745
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: of seems like it collides in a in a way

746
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: that is you know, that makes makes sense to me

747
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: because your your relationship with your dad is in a

748
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: way not in a way it is emblematic of my

749
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: own relationship with my father. Um. And to tell your

750
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: story as a proxy for all of our stories, for

751
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: for those of us that are in a situation like

752
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: you and I where we grew up hun with our dads.

753
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: We we built these traditions, we built these connects suns.

754
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: These are things that kind of drive us to this day.

755
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: And it becomes like a cycle of payback, like we

756
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: talked about in that episode, Like you feel like I'm

757
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: the same way my dad comes on with me now

758
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 1: and and I'm the one going like, we gotta go here,

759
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: we gotta do this, we gotta call now we Bob Bob.

760
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: That's the relationship I have my dad, and you throughout

761
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: that episode display that. But it also makes you feel

762
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: like you want like that's a giving back to the

763
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 1: guy that even told you that this could be a

764
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: possibility for your life. Yeah. Yeah, there's so much of that,

765
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: a little bit of a role reversal and a wanting

766
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: to pay it at least to pay it back in

767
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 1: some kind of way. And and you know, my dad

768
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 1: gave me so much over the years, whether it be

769
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:46,959
Speaker 1: take me on the woods or teaching me these things

770
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: about hunting or life. Um, and now that I have

771
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 1: these new opportunities that I've been able to kind of

772
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: take the baton that he passed to me when I

773
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,879
Speaker 1: was young, and I took that forward and I went

774
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: further with it in different directions with it now it's

775
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:07,399
Speaker 1: it's a really exciting and it may be satisfying thing

776
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: to be able to now bring him along on the

777
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,919
Speaker 1: new journeys I took and and and show him where

778
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: I took the patn to and ah. Yeah, I mean

779
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to put words on a lot of

780
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,760
Speaker 1: this stuff without it seeming like over the top sappy,

781
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 1: you know. I know we've talked about this when we're

782
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 1: working on the episode, like how do you say something

783
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: without having to say it over and over again? Um?

784
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 1: But but yes, being able to share something like this

785
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 1: with someone like a father in this case, who was

786
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: there for you when you were young and you can

787
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 1: be there again later in life for them is a

788
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 1: powerful thing. And I'm just really really glad I was

789
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: able to do that and that things came together in

790
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: this circumstance, and excited to continue to trying to do

791
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: more things like that in the future. Yeah. Yeah, I

792
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: mean I feel like you could see it in this

793
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: episode and on One of the things I think people

794
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,439
Speaker 1: would otis in their own lives, you know, in terms

795
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: of the intensity of their own emotion and connection to

796
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: what they're doing. If you if you look at your

797
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,240
Speaker 1: dad and look at you throughout that episode, you see

798
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: like just look at your face, look at your eyes,

799
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: Look at the way that you react with things. Look

800
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,399
Speaker 1: at you know, kind of the intensity with which that

801
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: the joy and the pain and like this, you know,

802
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: all that stuff it comes out because that is because

803
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: there is so much emotion built on decades of hunting

804
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 1: together and wanting to to in this case, get him

805
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: his first archery book. Um. And so those stories are enduring.

806
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: I know it in my own life. I I I

807
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: am happier and more fulfilled when my dad's along no

808
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 1: matter what we're doing, but especially hunting, because we have

809
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,800
Speaker 1: we've build up twenty years of of this story together,

810
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: and every time we go it's another chapter in the story.

811
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: You know. You know something that that was that struck

812
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: me in the comments on that video that that I'm

813
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: reminded of this somewhat often, but it was another important

814
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: reminder was how many people said, man, you're so lucky

815
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: that you got to do that, that your dad's still

816
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: around to have moments like that. You cherish those, and

817
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: it's so easy for us and for a lot of

818
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 1: people I'm sure who are in this part of our lives.

819
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: We have kids, and we have really busy jobs and

820
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: We're trying to do all these things, and it's just go, go, go,

821
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: go go. It's so easy to lose sight of, you know,

822
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: staying connected with your family sometimes, of taking time to

823
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: do something like that, of stepping away from whatever your

824
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: goal or mission or job description is, whatever it is,

825
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: and take some time to call dad to go and

826
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: have dinner with mom, to whatever it is. One of

827
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 1: these days you're not able to do that. And I

828
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: think this was, in a strange way of reminder for

829
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: me that, yeah, you know, you better take advantage of

830
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: while you can. What'd your dad say about all this? Oh? No,

831
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: he hasn't seen it yet. I called him. I called

832
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: him this morning and he was looking for it last

833
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: night and it wasn't up yet. And then this morning

834
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: he's been a meeting. He's been meeting this all day.

835
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 1: So I have not heard from him yet. After watching

836
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I don't know if he's gonna have a

837
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: lunch break or something today. Maybe he did get to

838
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: watch it. If not, he'll watch it tonight, and I'm

839
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:17,879
Speaker 1: I'm very interested to see what he thinks. I think

840
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: he'll I think he'll be really happy with it. I hope.

841
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: So if he's not. I mean, you know, let me know,

842
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: delete it. I get what you're saying too, because I

843
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: do now that we were Phil and I were talking

844
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: about this earlier. When when you look back, you know,

845
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,359
Speaker 1: I moved away from home. You have haven't really moved

846
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:43,919
Speaker 1: away from home, and he's still two hours away. Yeah,

847
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: but not that that far, not that far. I moved

848
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: a long way away. Phil moved along ways away. And

849
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: then when when the traditions you had around, especially around holidays,

850
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: but also around hunting, and then in the cross section

851
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: of those two things, when you start to think about

852
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: when you when when that goes away? Right when I

853
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,399
Speaker 1: can't just drive over and hunt with my dad for

854
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: the opening Saturday after Thanksgiving, then you start to realize

855
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: what that meant to you. And when you're a kid,

856
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: it's just life, you know, go into your grandparents house

857
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:19,879
Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving is just life. That's just what you do.

858
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: It's it's how you function. And then when it's not

859
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: there anymore, you sit back, like, how can I recreate that?

860
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: Because I'd love to have that back, um, And I

861
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 1: think hopefully you know this, that episode can be that

862
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, that's a proxy of stuff saying, listen,

863
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: if you didn't have a dad or a mom who

864
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: took you hunting, or a family it took you hunting,

865
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: you can create that for someone else, Like you have

866
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: the opportunity to create what you didn't have for someone

867
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: else inside of hunting. Um. And so I I do

868
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 1: like that note you hit what we hit with your

869
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: kid there with Everett at the end, because I think

870
00:46:57,760 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: that is important for people to know, like, if you

871
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: didn't have it, you can create it. Yeah. Yeah, And

872
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,720
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I'm I was just super lucky

873
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: to have in spades. I mean, I had a wonderful

874
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: dad and grandpa and uncles who who brought me along

875
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: and made me a part of it, and it changed

876
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: my life. Uh, it completely changed the direction of my

877
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 1: life and maybe who I am in a lot of ways.

878
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: So yeah, I cannot wait to continue bringing my boys along,

879
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: uh that same route and whatever. You know, who knows

880
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: what the end up being interested in. But at least

881
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: for the moment, my oldest son seems to be out

882
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: of control into it, constantly recreating hunting shows and pretending

883
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,240
Speaker 1: to be hunting at all hours of the day. Loves animals,

884
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,839
Speaker 1: loves the outdoors. So um, I'm just thoroughly enjoying this

885
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: new part of life too. Yeah, I'm right there, right

886
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: there alongside. And I always wonder how much are they

887
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: gonna really build up this idea of hunting because they

888
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: see me doing it so much, they hear me talking

889
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: about so much. How much are they going to build

890
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: it up to be more than it was when I

891
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: was a kid, Because when I was a kid, I'm just,

892
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: like we said in this episode, I'm just following my

893
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: dad around. But yeah, I didn't think I have to

894
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 1: have this book, or I have to take this photo,

895
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:17,320
Speaker 1: or I have to have this experience. I just follow

896
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: my dad and whatever he did, I did. And that's

897
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: all I wanted, and that's there was nothing else for me.

898
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: You know. Then I got old enough to change that.

899
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: But you know, I want that for my kids, the

900
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: simplicity of it. You know, I don't want them to

901
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 1: be thrown into the world that I'm in right now.

902
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: I want them to have some some babe in the

903
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,959
Speaker 1: woods years if I guess that makes sense, Yeah, yeah,

904
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: it will be really interesting. I thought about that too,

905
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 1: like how different the circumstances are that that my sons

906
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,959
Speaker 1: are coming into while while we we both we're little

907
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,919
Speaker 1: kids and families that love the outdoors. Um, my son

908
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: is definitely thrown into something cranked up to fifteen compared

909
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 1: to you know, I was at level six maybe, Um so, yeah,

910
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: don't know what that means. I hope it doesn't mean

911
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: that it's going to be eventually too much for him

912
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: and he wants to rebel away from it. Uh So

913
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 1: I want to make sure not to force them into anything.

914
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: I hope it just means that he will find his

915
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 1: own passion within this somewhere somewhere else and he'll chase that. Um.

916
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 1: But I hope we can foster with an Everett and

917
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: my other son Coult a love for these things that

918
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: they can appreciate in their own way. Yeah. You and

919
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:25,320
Speaker 1: I are tracking along the same kind of a child

920
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: having schedule, right, I mean we're mating at the same

921
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 1: times of the year basically. Basically it's because there's only

922
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: one we have, like two nights a year we're not

923
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: working and so hey, you're gonna go to yeah, yeah, yeah,

924
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: me too. All right, well let's talk to nine months.

925
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: That's true, because I feel like it's so. My My

926
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: son James is well we got a little bit of

927
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: a gap there he my son James. But then our

928
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,720
Speaker 1: second once we started working together, immediate or our second sons,

929
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: I sure and cold are are aligned, right up? Man?

930
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: What's it like within days? Within days three or four

931
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,719
Speaker 1: or five something like that. Yeah, then this this may

932
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: now evolve into like a daddy daycare podcast where we

933
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: talk about all the ship, all the ship. Uh. Well,

934
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: it's good. If you haven't watched it, everybody go watch

935
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: episode four. I I think it's one of the better

936
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 1: Capture creative. Shout out to Justin and Taylor and Um

937
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: Jordan and everybody Capture Creative and Charlie Um who put

938
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: this together. I think they did an exceptional job helping

939
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 1: us tell the story. And and I'm I'm happy for

940
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: you man, I'm happy that you have this kind of

941
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: time capsule, Uh, to show your kids and to explain

942
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: those things to them. Yeah, that's that's an interesting point.

943
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: Is is what a special thing just for my own

944
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: little family that we could look back on this and

945
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: and someday relive this moment in a way that does

946
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 1: capture the emotions I think in a in a in

947
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: a real way. So yes, selfishly, this is a pretty

948
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: nice thing to happen. And my son just watched it

949
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:13,439
Speaker 1: this morning and he was really excited about it. He'll

950
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,919
Speaker 1: be watching on replay for a number of days. I'm sure. Yeah.

951
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's thinking about kids too. Um. My

952
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: wife and I were watching the Steve what's that guy's name?

953
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 1: What's the old comedian shit? It's called Parenthood, Steve help

954
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,919
Speaker 1: me out here, Mark st Martin. There it is. We're

955
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: watching on Steve Martin movie Parenthood. And he in this movie,

956
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: he's all stressed out about what his kids are going

957
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: to be and he keeps visualizing like his kids being

958
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 1: the valedictorian or some sort of like shooter on the

959
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: bell tower and like what he did, what he did

960
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 1: to cause that? And I told him, if I'm like that,

961
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: I turned this off. I got this is the most

962
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 1: anxiety inducing movie I've ever watched my entire life. I

963
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: am not I do not want to listen to this

964
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 1: this crap because now I got to think about and

965
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: I was thinking about hunting, Like, am I gonna over

966
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 1: expose my kid to this? And he's gonna be like

967
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: he's going to be a vegan at age you know ten?

968
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: Like what are we? What do I gotta do here?

969
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 1: But in a few years he starts The Vegetable Collective

970
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: as a podcast. Damn it just point counterpoint against dead damn.

971
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: But what do I do anyway? That that stressed me out?

972
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 1: We did turn I just like turn that off, turn

973
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: it off. I can't watch. So we watched. We watched

974
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: National Lampoons Christmas Deal, which out classical. What did you

975
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: told me the other day that you were watching like

976
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 1: a Christmas movie? Was like, what's your movie go to

977
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: for Christmas time? Well? Right now, it wasn't even like

978
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 1: us Christmas movies as a kid Christmas movie. I'm trying

979
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 1: to think that was the I don't I think I

980
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: don't think it was lasting as the night before we

981
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: put on the old like puppet Santa Claus comes to

982
00:52:55,200 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 1: town like the original Christmas movies. Creepy, creepy. Yeah, my

983
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: boys love them. So this is the story of how

984
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: little baby Santa Claus got raised by these elves and

985
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,399
Speaker 1: then he was trying to bring presents to this town

986
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: with Burger Meister Meister Burger, and then he eventually becomes

987
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: Santa etcetera, etcetera. So yeah, that was that was creepy

988
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: man that says this little puppet one's creep me out

989
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,399
Speaker 1: big time, big time, big time. Um, all right, well

990
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: we should we're we're down the rabbit hole pretty far. Um,

991
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: there's nothing we want to talk about. When we were

992
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 1: talking the other day, and I think this is it's

993
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: not unique. I don't know. We'll see if we can

994
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: figure this out, but I feel like it's unique to

995
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: white tail hunters, core white tail hunters, people that do

996
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 1: it and that's all they think about. Uh, there's a

997
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:50,799
Speaker 1: lot of this in the waterfowl space, in the white

998
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: tail space, in the elk space, and people get become

999
00:53:54,480 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 1: one species, you know, addicted or focused. Right. The difference,

1000
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: I think the big difference in the white tail world

1001
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: as I see it is that nobody names a duck

1002
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 1: h and if they do, they got problems. And I

1003
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: don't know a lot of people that name elk. People do,

1004
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: but it's not as commonplace as it is in the

1005
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:19,439
Speaker 1: white tail space. And so I feel like a place

1006
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 1: to start in terms of the white tail community, the people,

1007
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 1: and when I say community, I mean people that a

1008
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: self identifies white th hunts, Like, what do you do?

1009
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: I'm a white TiO hunter. Those are the people I'm

1010
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:33,760
Speaker 1: talking about. I was very much one of those people.

1011
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: Early on in my life and hunting career, all I

1012
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 1: thought about was white tails. So I know the feeling.

1013
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,480
Speaker 1: But I think we have to start at naming deer

1014
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: or or maybe better described, hunting a single deer or

1015
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:52,879
Speaker 1: a couple of deer or target target animals, giving them

1016
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 1: names and having a relationship. Have you thought about the

1017
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: psychology of that, like what it does to you? Oh yeah, yeah,

1018
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: I mean I get from the outside end, from the

1019
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: outside looking in, it seems bizarre. Ah, I understand that,

1020
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 1: and even from the inside looking in, I can see

1021
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:15,280
Speaker 1: it being bizarre. But there is it just makes sense

1022
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: when you have to actually live within the box that

1023
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 1: we as many white tail hunters do, which for a

1024
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: lot of folks, involves hunting relatively small places and hunting

1025
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:28,440
Speaker 1: him over and over and over and over again. And

1026
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: when you do that, you're you're presented a different hunting

1027
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:34,360
Speaker 1: experience than someone who lives out west, who hunts miles

1028
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: and miles and miles of country, who has millions of

1029
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: acres to rome. When you're hunting forty acres, when you're

1030
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 1: hunting sixty acres and that's what you're doing for every

1031
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:46,080
Speaker 1: weekend or weeks on end, You're going to see the

1032
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: same deer over and over. You may only have one

1033
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:51,359
Speaker 1: buck you actually want to hunt if you have, If

1034
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 1: you go into this and you have certain goals, Like

1035
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: for me, I'm at the point where most of the

1036
00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 1: time when I'm hunting some of these small properties that

1037
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on in Michigan, it's it's

1038
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 1: a four year old bucker Holders where I've kind of

1039
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 1: set um the goal for myself that's gonna allow me

1040
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: to have to work really really hard and have to

1041
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 1: do things well and have to get better after year

1042
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 1: um and and have a long, challenging, exciting, interesting hunting season. Um.

1043
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: That is that's like the That is how I tried

1044
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 1: to craft my experience here hunting in Michigan. Because if

1045
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: I just wanted to fill my freezer right away, I

1046
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 1: could do that, and I want to fill a freezer,

1047
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:30,799
Speaker 1: but I also want to have this set of experiences

1048
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,760
Speaker 1: alongside filling the freezer, which is why I have these goals. Um.

1049
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: So when you do that, you see these deer and

1050
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:40,759
Speaker 1: you never really want to talk about them. So if

1051
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: I was just a random person that didn't have a

1052
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 1: podcast and a show and all these things, you still

1053
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 1: might end up referring to these deer by something. Because

1054
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: when you share the experience with friends, which is one

1055
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: of the most fun things about hunting, is telling the stories, right,

1056
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: you want to share what happened. Uh, it just becomes

1057
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: practically in convenient to just try to describe the deer

1058
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: over and over again. Yeah, I saw that same you know,

1059
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:08,359
Speaker 1: ten pointer that's got the dark patch underneath his neck

1060
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: and two spots on his left shoulder and maybe a

1061
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:12,439
Speaker 1: little crabic on the left. If I had to say

1062
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 1: that in a conversation over and over and over again,

1063
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 1: it just wouldn't make sense. So you can, eventually, you know,

1064
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 1: just call it was the one ten point, or maybe

1065
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 1: you describe a little more it's the wide ten, or

1066
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: maybe you want to get creative with it and call

1067
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: them something funky like tim um whatever. I think the

1068
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:33,240
Speaker 1: simple fact of it is that it makes talking about

1069
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,000
Speaker 1: and sharing and then even in your own head thinking

1070
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: about these animals just a little simpler because you're gonna

1071
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,479
Speaker 1: do it over and over and over. Um. So that's

1072
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 1: what it comes down to for a lot of us.

1073
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 1: Um and then for me having you know, all these

1074
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 1: different platforms where I'm sharing this story, it becomes a

1075
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 1: necessity to help, you know, describe these experiences. Um And

1076
00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 1: because I do have in many cases aran is with

1077
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: the same deer for multiple years, where I'm getting to

1078
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: learn about one of these specific deer and kind of

1079
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,760
Speaker 1: by default, because I don't have a bunch of land

1080
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm hunting. My main property hunt a lot is a

1081
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: little over eighty acres, but half of it is which

1082
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: is wide open fields by the road. So really it's

1083
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:19,120
Speaker 1: a little over forty acres of huntable ground that I

1084
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: have permission to hunt. And then I have permission on

1085
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: a couple of little like twenty acre thirty acre sections

1086
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 1: in the same general area around that I'm hunting little

1087
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:29,600
Speaker 1: tiny stuff. I don't have hundreds and hundreds or thousands

1088
00:58:29,640 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 1: of thousands of acres acres to work here. So in

1089
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: any given year, I'm lucky if I've got one buck

1090
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: that is, um you know, that is the kind of

1091
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 1: deer I want to hunt on a given year. So yeah,

1092
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 1: I'm hunting a deer. And when that's the case, you

1093
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 1: give it a name so you can talk about it

1094
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 1: and you can think about it, and then you watch

1095
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: it and you see trail camera pictures of it, and

1096
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:55,800
Speaker 1: it becomes a really interesting, really frustrating at times, kind

1097
00:58:55,800 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: of one on one duel when you go into the

1098
00:58:57,880 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: woods and you're constantly thinking when you walk out there

1099
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: in the dark in the morning and you hear a

1100
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:05,840
Speaker 1: dope or you hear a deer blow and run off,

1101
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 1: and right then and said, well, that could be my hunt.

1102
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 1: That could have been the only one deer. There might

1103
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: be seventy deer in this square mile, but there's only

1104
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,920
Speaker 1: one of them that I'm after, and there's only one

1105
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 1: of them that can make this hunt, you know what.

1106
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:20,560
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it be. So it can be

1107
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: unbelievably frustrated, because you know that you make one tiny

1108
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 1: mistake with that one animal, the one chance you have,

1109
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: it's all shot. On the flip side, um, that challenge

1110
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: is also really fascinating, trying to go deep something I

1111
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 1: like about deer hunting and why I'm so fascinated by

1112
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: deer hunting. Yeah, I love all hunting like I I

1113
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:42,959
Speaker 1: love going out elk counting. I've tried bear hunting. It's awesome.

1114
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: I tried prong hunting, prong horn hunting. It's awesome. I've

1115
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,439
Speaker 1: been carible hunting was great. All these things are really cool.

1116
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: I want to keep doing them. But something about white

1117
00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: tail hunting that has just made it, you know, just

1118
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 1: just has can consume me, is the level of depth

1119
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: you can go with it. I love deep experiences where

1120
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 1: you can really dive into the nitty gritty studying habitat,

1121
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: studying behavior, studying how wildlife reacts to outside factors and

1122
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 1: conditions like the weather and the moon and precipitation, barre

1123
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 1: much or pressure and hunting pressure, and trying to look

1124
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: at all the probabilities of all these different things that

1125
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: might happen in a given day, and then sorting through

1126
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:27,080
Speaker 1: all these puzzle pieces that you've collected, all this data

1127
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 1: you've collected and tried to try to take all these

1128
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: try to take all these dots and connect them in

1129
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: a way that makes sense so that you, on this

1130
01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 1: one time and this one perfect place, with this one

1131
01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:44,160
Speaker 1: perfect set of conditions, can kill that one deer. Uh

1132
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: in this small, tiny area where there's twenty other guys

1133
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: surrounding you try to do the same thing. That's the

1134
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 1: hardest thing I've ever tried to do, and it's also

1135
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 1: the most satisfying um both the process of itself and

1136
01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:57,919
Speaker 1: then when you actually do finally accomplish that goal. Every

1137
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 1: once in a while. Man, that's that's something. So that's

1138
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,680
Speaker 1: a long rambling way of explaining why I name dear.

1139
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 1: So you're saying you've thought this out. I guess there's

1140
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,959
Speaker 1: two things that interest me, and what you just said

1141
01:01:18,040 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: one I think it's the most interesting is the turn

1142
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: from the practicality to the emotionality of the relationship. Because

1143
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: we talked about relationships with animals, right. We talked about

1144
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 1: it from the steff of animal rights activists to vegans

1145
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 1: to us as hunters, and we generally talk about relationships

1146
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 1: in a in a way like I have relationship with

1147
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 1: the idea of the animal right, I have the relationship

1148
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 1: with the wild, a relationship with a habitat or ecosystems

1149
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 1: that is, like the broad relationship means something. But a

1150
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: lot of people don't get to experience a relationship with

1151
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 1: an animal. It's even it seems weird to describe it

1152
01:01:57,320 --> 01:02:00,400
Speaker 1: like like that. But where you have multiple years of

1153
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 1: experience with one animal, you're through that animal, you're learning

1154
01:02:06,200 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 1: so much about the idea of you know, in a

1155
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: case of a buck, you're learning so much through that animal.

1156
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: He's a proxy for your own knowledge of the habitat

1157
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 1: where he lives and his relationship with other deer, and

1158
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: that itself is interesting. And so where like, can you

1159
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 1: describe the turn, the psychological turn from where it's like,

1160
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: I gotta describe this, dear right, It's the wide eight,

1161
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,400
Speaker 1: it's the Big ten, it's you know, tran. It's like,

1162
01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call him something so people know what

1163
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. But then at some point, with a

1164
01:02:37,720 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 1: few of these animals, not all of them, but a

1165
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:41,920
Speaker 1: few of them, you have so many encounters, you think

1166
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: about them so much, you strategize so much that people

1167
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 1: will probably get tired of me saying this, but I

1168
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: do believe that the game like quality of hunting is

1169
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:52,560
Speaker 1: one of the things that draws us to it. And

1170
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: so now you have this like one v one, you know,

1171
01:02:56,920 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: first person game that you're playing with this animal, and

1172
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 1: that it turns things, it turns things psychologically just in

1173
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: a different way, and your value system becomes you know, shifts. Yeah,

1174
01:03:10,240 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: there's like a thousand different aspects of that. Because you're right,

1175
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of different things that pop up

1176
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:21,479
Speaker 1: when you have that shift, um, both good and bad.

1177
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:26,880
Speaker 1: Um from the from the good side, you know, as

1178
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:29,720
Speaker 1: you spoke, you kind of get these animals become the

1179
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:32,160
Speaker 1: the analog for the larger species, so you can learn

1180
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 1: a lot about the general through the specific um. And

1181
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 1: and there's this fascinating aspect that you can actually begin

1182
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 1: to see where there's actually you know, we often try

1183
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:50,360
Speaker 1: to talk about animals from the higher level, like from

1184
01:03:50,360 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 1: the species level we should manage. From the species level,

1185
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:56,400
Speaker 1: from the population level, we should you know, let's not anthropomorphize,

1186
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 1: let's not um go so deep been to the individual.

1187
01:04:01,040 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 1: But animals are individuals, um. And when you start spending

1188
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:08,840
Speaker 1: this much time around them, you see the individual qualities

1189
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 1: and tendencies and you know, for lack of a better term,

1190
01:04:12,840 --> 01:04:17,720
Speaker 1: personalities UM. And that is both fascinating and eye opening.

1191
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 1: And and you do see stuff that something as you're

1192
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: man like, there's there's a lot going on here. Um.

1193
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 1: And I don't know what I don't even know what

1194
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 1: I mean by that. But but let me let me

1195
01:04:31,040 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: stop you for a minute and ask you this question.

1196
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:34,920
Speaker 1: Is it possible my head, I've had a lot. As

1197
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:37,080
Speaker 1: you know, I've had a lot of animal rights folks

1198
01:04:37,160 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 1: on this show, a lot of vegans, a good number

1199
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 1: of them. We talk about things, and one of the

1200
01:04:42,120 --> 01:04:45,240
Speaker 1: things that we always talk about is this idea of

1201
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 1: the individual animal right. Animal rights folks see animals and

1202
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:54,960
Speaker 1: individualistic fashion. Right. I see the animal, I see the mother.

1203
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,200
Speaker 1: I see the wolf as a mother, you know, and

1204
01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: I see the alpha male as a father and their

1205
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,120
Speaker 1: pups as children. I see them. We use this term

1206
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:06,919
Speaker 1: anthemor portanization all the time, but it's just a way

1207
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 1: of saying, like, I see myself in them, right. And

1208
01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: so now we have an example of of you as

1209
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 1: a hunter. And I've done this too, So it's not

1210
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 1: community of hunters that is centering around the same idea.

1211
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:25,080
Speaker 1: But yet you know, obviously with a different end yea.

1212
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:28,280
Speaker 1: And so do you ever think about the dichotomy between

1213
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:31,480
Speaker 1: like how you like Tran is a buck that you've

1214
01:05:31,520 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: hunted for years. You know that buck, you know where

1215
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: he lives, you probably know who, like where his kids

1216
01:05:36,640 --> 01:05:41,920
Speaker 1: are hanging out? Um, yeah, so you like you have

1217
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 1: this relationship and it becomes an individualistic relationship, much like

1218
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,120
Speaker 1: some of these animal rights folks I've talked to, but

1219
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 1: it manifests itself in a completely entirely different way. Yeah,

1220
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 1: and and you're right, it's kind of a wild thing

1221
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:57,520
Speaker 1: to think about in that kind of context, and and

1222
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:04,000
Speaker 1: the bizarre parallels there, um and and I will say that, right,

1223
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 1: I can't deny the individual aspects of these animals, um

1224
01:06:08,200 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 1: But I can also I also realized that the individual

1225
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:15,880
Speaker 1: is still part of the larger population, and I can

1226
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:20,200
Speaker 1: also separate myself from it emotionally and understand the reality

1227
01:06:20,320 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: of what's happening out here, whether I'm a part of

1228
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:27,240
Speaker 1: it or not. Um and and So, because I think

1229
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:29,480
Speaker 1: of the way I engage with these animals, I'm able

1230
01:06:29,520 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 1: to have a certain while still there's certainly relationship, there's

1231
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: also a certain ability to separate myself from from that

1232
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 1: individual lens while also looking at the big picture of

1233
01:06:42,200 --> 01:06:44,520
Speaker 1: what this thing is. This thing is, this is wildlife,

1234
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:48,960
Speaker 1: this is nature, this is this is a system of

1235
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:52,480
Speaker 1: animals and plants and elements that are going to go

1236
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:55,160
Speaker 1: round and round and round and round, regardless of of

1237
01:06:55,200 --> 01:06:57,640
Speaker 1: may being a part of it. And it's it's beautiful

1238
01:06:57,680 --> 01:07:02,840
Speaker 1: and it's ugly, and it's it's bloody and it's it's

1239
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:07,440
Speaker 1: it's life and death and all those things happen. Um,

1240
01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:09,960
Speaker 1: if you have an opportunity like I've had to see

1241
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: glimpses of that up close, or as many of us

1242
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: hunters have in different circumstances, I think you come to

1243
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:19,240
Speaker 1: not only see the beauty in that individuality, but also

1244
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:23,080
Speaker 1: respect for the larger hole too. Um. So I think

1245
01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:26,000
Speaker 1: that's what I've taken from it. And and yeah, there

1246
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:30,080
Speaker 1: are some weird things though where I when you say related,

1247
01:07:30,120 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 1: like you you you address thisss earlier, it sounds weird

1248
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 1: when you say, like, oh, I've got a personal relationship

1249
01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:38,040
Speaker 1: with a here, it's the weird thing to say. Um,

1250
01:07:38,040 --> 01:07:40,200
Speaker 1: it's it's this is, for lack of a better term,

1251
01:07:40,200 --> 01:07:43,720
Speaker 1: I don't know how to competter describe, but um, but yeah,

1252
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 1: you like, there's a deer that I have watched for

1253
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:49,680
Speaker 1: three years, and the first year I was like, man,

1254
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:51,800
Speaker 1: that's a great buck. But you know, I'm gonna target it.

1255
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:54,120
Speaker 1: I'm hunting a different deer this year. I'm gonna pass

1256
01:07:54,160 --> 01:07:56,440
Speaker 1: something this year, but he's gonna be He's gonna be

1257
01:07:56,440 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: the one next year. And so I'm watching and watch

1258
01:07:58,080 --> 01:08:00,640
Speaker 1: him study and taking notes, look for shed antlers in

1259
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:02,720
Speaker 1: the winter. The next year. It's all about him, making plans,

1260
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 1: adjusting things, thinking about what did you do last year,

1261
01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:08,480
Speaker 1: What's he gonna do this year? Get out there scouting

1262
01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 1: all the time, glassing, I mean, spending hours and hours

1263
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: and hours watching for this deer from hilltops and trees

1264
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 1: and getting out there and seeing him and having these

1265
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,720
Speaker 1: incredibly exhilarating experience where you finally see this animal you've

1266
01:08:19,760 --> 01:08:21,639
Speaker 1: been looking for, and you're watching him and you're learning

1267
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:23,559
Speaker 1: more and you have close calls and it comes together.

1268
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:25,879
Speaker 1: It doesn't come together, and it's frustrating and it's exciting.

1269
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:29,720
Speaker 1: And this happens over and over and over. UM. You

1270
01:08:29,760 --> 01:08:33,719
Speaker 1: eventually get to a point where maybe it does come together,

1271
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 1: like it did for me a week ago. I killed

1272
01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:38,759
Speaker 1: this year I've been after for three years. UM. So

1273
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:43,040
Speaker 1: many different experiences with this creature. UM, And you have

1274
01:08:43,240 --> 01:08:48,679
Speaker 1: this very paradoxical set of emotions where I'm so excited

1275
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:51,799
Speaker 1: and relieved and happy that I finally killed this animal

1276
01:08:52,040 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 1: that was my goal. But I'm also once I stepped

1277
01:08:55,000 --> 01:08:57,960
Speaker 1: away from it, like Wow, how much emptier are the

1278
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:01,720
Speaker 1: woods gonna be now that he's not out there? So

1279
01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:04,240
Speaker 1: a certain sense of I don't know if remorse is

1280
01:09:04,280 --> 01:09:09,240
Speaker 1: the right word, um, because you know, my goal is

1281
01:09:09,280 --> 01:09:11,000
Speaker 1: to go out there and kill a deer and I

1282
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,200
Speaker 1: did that, and I mean, I feed my family and

1283
01:09:13,200 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 1: I had this set of experiences, but you can't ignore

1284
01:09:16,160 --> 01:09:19,680
Speaker 1: the fact that something else happened here too, and and

1285
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:23,280
Speaker 1: that's something else is is not there anymore. I'll have

1286
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 1: this story, and I'll have these memories, and I'll have

1287
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:29,280
Speaker 1: this meat and these lessons learned that you know, will

1288
01:09:29,280 --> 01:09:32,320
Speaker 1: sustain me for a long time and I am really

1289
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:38,200
Speaker 1: really appreciate it for but that that thing is gone. Um,

1290
01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:43,639
Speaker 1: So there's a certain sadness that comes about from that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1291
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:45,959
Speaker 1: I would think, like you know, I think the important

1292
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 1: point to make and and the thing that I see

1293
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:51,840
Speaker 1: and what what you go through and I go through

1294
01:09:51,840 --> 01:09:54,360
Speaker 1: a lot of hunters go through in terms of that

1295
01:09:55,080 --> 01:09:56,760
Speaker 1: the game we play, and then the remorse at the

1296
01:09:56,960 --> 01:10:01,280
Speaker 1: at the back end, and definitely, like the individual relationship

1297
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 1: with an animal is that that the knowledge that animals

1298
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 1: are in them and of themselves individuals, right, they do

1299
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:10,880
Speaker 1: have their own personalities, they do things in a certain way,

1300
01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:15,440
Speaker 1: Like is important to understand animals themselves that's an important

1301
01:10:15,479 --> 01:10:19,160
Speaker 1: thing to do. Um. The difference I think between a

1302
01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:22,679
Speaker 1: vegan and somebody like you or me is not only

1303
01:10:22,720 --> 01:10:26,720
Speaker 1: do we understand the individual characteristics of an animal. That

1304
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:28,840
Speaker 1: that's important, and that they have their own kind of

1305
01:10:28,920 --> 01:10:32,320
Speaker 1: way and their own personality, like that's an important thing

1306
01:10:32,320 --> 01:10:33,880
Speaker 1: to understand, but at the same time you have to

1307
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:37,240
Speaker 1: understand the larger picture. And where a lot of the

1308
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:39,320
Speaker 1: folks have had on the show that our Animal Rights

1309
01:10:39,320 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: Act stop is understanding. They understand the emotion, that the

1310
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 1: emotional connection to an individual animal, but they stop at

1311
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:52,439
Speaker 1: the realistic and pragmatic application of conservation and hunting and

1312
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 1: resource management and things of that nature. And so it's

1313
01:10:55,640 --> 01:10:58,400
Speaker 1: it's a while you share and I've always always say this,

1314
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:04,559
Speaker 1: while you share some sensibility with them, they stop at

1315
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:08,479
Speaker 1: a very important point where do you keep going? Right? Yeah?

1316
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 1: Um yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. And and while

1317
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:21,320
Speaker 1: the the diverting paths that that why in the road

1318
01:11:21,360 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 1: is a pretty important one and leads to very different places. Um,

1319
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:27,400
Speaker 1: you know, I think it is important that we can

1320
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:32,040
Speaker 1: remember that we do share that respect and genuine care

1321
01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:37,479
Speaker 1: caring for these animals and fascination with these animals and Um,

1322
01:11:37,520 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 1: I guess if there's if there's anything that can come

1323
01:11:39,840 --> 01:11:43,120
Speaker 1: from those conversations you're having, I hope it's that people

1324
01:11:43,160 --> 01:11:46,080
Speaker 1: can see and and rally around some type of shared

1325
01:11:46,720 --> 01:11:49,960
Speaker 1: shared sensibility there. Um, Because yeah, you know, there's probably

1326
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:51,360
Speaker 1: a lot of things we've got in common with some

1327
01:11:51,400 --> 01:11:54,000
Speaker 1: of these people. I love these animals, I love these places,

1328
01:11:54,040 --> 01:11:56,720
Speaker 1: I love these creatures, I love watching them, learning about them,

1329
01:11:56,760 --> 01:12:00,160
Speaker 1: studying them. Um. And we can probably do some goods

1330
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:03,800
Speaker 1: together if we can somehow learn to live with our

1331
01:12:03,800 --> 01:12:07,559
Speaker 1: difference over the back ends. I have a dream, is

1332
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:12,479
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Yeah, that's that's one thing I want

1333
01:12:12,479 --> 01:12:14,720
Speaker 1: to address. But another thing I think that's important to

1334
01:12:14,720 --> 01:12:19,439
Speaker 1: address is the more internal struggle within hunting. And this

1335
01:12:19,479 --> 01:12:21,760
Speaker 1: is probably also without Like, there are a lot of

1336
01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:25,240
Speaker 1: people want to label what you do as trophy hunting, right,

1337
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:28,720
Speaker 1: this is a term that we'll deal with the semantics

1338
01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 1: of it and the reality of it for as long

1339
01:12:31,840 --> 01:12:35,080
Speaker 1: as we probably do what we do. UM. And so

1340
01:12:35,120 --> 01:12:38,479
Speaker 1: now you've got to deal with this idea that trophy

1341
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:41,240
Speaker 1: hunting is defined in a lot of different ways. But

1342
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:44,759
Speaker 1: a lot of people that we've collected in our company

1343
01:12:44,800 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: a lot of people that come and listen to us

1344
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:51,760
Speaker 1: really like the meat, and they really don't understand why

1345
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:56,719
Speaker 1: you would sacrifice some delicious meat four a bigger set

1346
01:12:56,720 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 1: of antlers or a more mature deer, etcetera, etcetera. So,

1347
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:03,600
Speaker 1: like I said, people, you know, it's it's something I

1348
01:13:03,600 --> 01:13:04,960
Speaker 1: bring up all the time, but I do think I

1349
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:07,479
Speaker 1: do feel like it's real. Everybody plays the game of

1350
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:10,840
Speaker 1: funting differently, and everybody is looking for a different set

1351
01:13:11,120 --> 01:13:15,600
Speaker 1: of experiences that ultimately lead to an endgame. Whether that

1352
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:22,280
Speaker 1: endgames meet or antlers or both often both, um is

1353
01:13:22,360 --> 01:13:24,720
Speaker 1: up to the individual. But like, can you explain from

1354
01:13:24,760 --> 01:13:30,559
Speaker 1: your perspective how you see the entanglements of labeling, you

1355
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:33,160
Speaker 1: know it within and without hunting them, Because we're all

1356
01:13:33,200 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 1: calling it's something trophy hunting, you know, subsistence sunning, It's

1357
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,240
Speaker 1: going to be labeled. Yeah. So my first thought is

1358
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:44,040
Speaker 1: that I just really dislike the term trophy hunting. I

1359
01:13:44,080 --> 01:13:46,160
Speaker 1: think it brings up the wrong set of images and

1360
01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:53,960
Speaker 1: connotations that right away um colors a certain segment of

1361
01:13:54,000 --> 01:13:56,280
Speaker 1: the hunting world in a really negative way that brings

1362
01:13:56,280 --> 01:13:58,880
Speaker 1: all these negative assumptions to to bear that I do

1363
01:13:58,960 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 1: not think are accurate for the lion's share of people

1364
01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:05,240
Speaker 1: that that someone might lump into trophy hunting. But let me,

1365
01:14:05,760 --> 01:14:09,280
Speaker 1: you know, it's hunting. Hunting is hunting. So I think,

1366
01:14:09,720 --> 01:14:13,520
Speaker 1: screw subsistence hunting, screw trophy hunting, screw all these these specifics.

1367
01:14:13,560 --> 01:14:16,000
Speaker 1: Let's just say we're hunting. We're all gonna hunt though,

1368
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:19,439
Speaker 1: with our own set of goals and our own um

1369
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:25,840
Speaker 1: ways and places and experiences and and yeah, instead of

1370
01:14:25,880 --> 01:14:28,360
Speaker 1: experience that we're trying to achieve within that. So for me,

1371
01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:32,920
Speaker 1: the way I look at this this when I started hunting, Um,

1372
01:14:32,960 --> 01:14:35,120
Speaker 1: I just want to kill my first dear, And it

1373
01:14:35,240 --> 01:14:36,599
Speaker 1: was a really hard thing to do, and it took

1374
01:14:36,600 --> 01:14:38,000
Speaker 1: me a long time to figure it out. And then

1375
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:40,160
Speaker 1: I finally did and I got I killed that deer,

1376
01:14:40,160 --> 01:14:41,799
Speaker 1: and I got that meet and I had that experience,

1377
01:14:41,840 --> 01:14:43,960
Speaker 1: and then it was okay, now can I do it again?

1378
01:14:44,080 --> 01:14:45,559
Speaker 1: Can I figure out how to do this? You know?

1379
01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:47,720
Speaker 1: Year after year? And so I kept doing that, but

1380
01:14:47,720 --> 01:14:50,080
Speaker 1: eventually I figured all that stuff out and then it

1381
01:14:50,160 --> 01:14:51,600
Speaker 1: got to the point where I can kill it. I

1382
01:14:51,600 --> 01:14:53,320
Speaker 1: can I can do it. I can get my meet

1383
01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:56,000
Speaker 1: and film my freezer day one, day two. If I

1384
01:14:56,080 --> 01:14:58,600
Speaker 1: wanted I've I've kind of figured a certain group of

1385
01:14:58,640 --> 01:15:02,400
Speaker 1: things out that UM make that a non issue. It's

1386
01:15:02,400 --> 01:15:06,559
Speaker 1: going to happen. Um. But for me at the same time,

1387
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:08,240
Speaker 1: over the course of my lifetime, I was as I

1388
01:15:08,280 --> 01:15:11,880
Speaker 1: was learning the how to, I was also learning the

1389
01:15:12,040 --> 01:15:14,800
Speaker 1: why too. So why am I doing this? And I

1390
01:15:14,840 --> 01:15:17,000
Speaker 1: found that I was doing it not just to put

1391
01:15:17,040 --> 01:15:18,840
Speaker 1: me in the freezer, but also because all of the

1392
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:21,800
Speaker 1: things that revolve around it, because of the people I

1393
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:23,519
Speaker 1: got to spend time with, because of the time I

1394
01:15:23,520 --> 01:15:27,080
Speaker 1: got to spend outside in nature. Because of this. As

1395
01:15:27,120 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: I just described the the work and the time and

1396
01:15:30,400 --> 01:15:35,439
Speaker 1: the study that's required to get UM sufficient at doing this,

1397
01:15:35,720 --> 01:15:38,719
Speaker 1: that process of learning about animals, about studying a landscape,

1398
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:41,720
Speaker 1: studying and learning about habitat, spending time out there just

1399
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:45,120
Speaker 1: watching and waiting. UM, all of that stuff. I love it.

1400
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:49,880
Speaker 1: I love it. UM. It's what it's what like turns turns,

1401
01:15:49,960 --> 01:15:52,200
Speaker 1: like the gears in my body on. It's like what

1402
01:15:52,320 --> 01:15:55,479
Speaker 1: gets me going, um, engaging with wild things and that

1403
01:15:55,560 --> 01:15:59,479
Speaker 1: like that's the thing for me. So why would I

1404
01:15:59,520 --> 01:16:03,040
Speaker 1: personally want to begin and end the thing that gets

1405
01:16:03,040 --> 01:16:05,840
Speaker 1: me going in one day? No, I don't want to

1406
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:08,680
Speaker 1: do that. I want to enjoy this process as much

1407
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:11,160
Speaker 1: as I possibly can, and I want to find ways.

1408
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:13,400
Speaker 1: And maybe this isn't gonna be the case for everybody, right,

1409
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:15,200
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna have a different way they want to do this,

1410
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:18,360
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna want something different out of hunting. But for me,

1411
01:16:18,439 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 1: because it's something that has grown into UM, really what

1412
01:16:22,439 --> 01:16:26,360
Speaker 1: my life revolves around, I want to find ways to

1413
01:16:26,400 --> 01:16:28,479
Speaker 1: extend that and to deepen it. So I want to

1414
01:16:28,479 --> 01:16:31,599
Speaker 1: have a deeper experience. So what that has become for

1415
01:16:31,640 --> 01:16:37,960
Speaker 1: me is steadying, UM, a steady evolution of my goals.

1416
01:16:38,160 --> 01:16:39,840
Speaker 1: So at first, like I described want to get a deer,

1417
01:16:39,840 --> 01:16:42,600
Speaker 1: and then I wanted to, you know, consistently kill a

1418
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:45,240
Speaker 1: buck every year, and then it was eventually, I want

1419
01:16:45,280 --> 01:16:46,639
Speaker 1: to see if I can kill a three year old

1420
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:48,960
Speaker 1: buck because this is an older deer. They're they're rarer,

1421
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:52,000
Speaker 1: they're more rare, they're they're harder to kill, they're a

1422
01:16:52,000 --> 01:16:54,840
Speaker 1: little more savvy. UM. And then it was a four

1423
01:16:54,920 --> 01:16:56,880
Speaker 1: year old, and so steadily it was what can I

1424
01:16:56,920 --> 01:17:03,160
Speaker 1: do to UM to both create a set of circumstances

1425
01:17:03,160 --> 01:17:06,160
Speaker 1: that requires I get better, that requires I spend more time,

1426
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:09,599
Speaker 1: which requires I go deeper into this thing. While also

1427
01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:14,280
Speaker 1: challenging myself in new ways to two to learn and

1428
01:17:14,320 --> 01:17:16,679
Speaker 1: to go further in all of these things that I love.

1429
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:20,200
Speaker 1: That's what having some kind of higher level set of goals,

1430
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:23,599
Speaker 1: what some people would say trophy hunting related goals does

1431
01:17:23,680 --> 01:17:27,320
Speaker 1: for me. Um that's why I hold out for bigger,

1432
01:17:27,320 --> 01:17:29,880
Speaker 1: older dear because I want to take things to a

1433
01:17:29,920 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 1: different level because I love that. It's not because I

1434
01:17:32,880 --> 01:17:35,320
Speaker 1: just need some big set antlers on the wall. It's

1435
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:39,240
Speaker 1: because I need everything that comes along with that, which

1436
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:42,200
Speaker 1: is time, which is study, which is work, which is passion,

1437
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,439
Speaker 1: which is uh persistence, which is dealing with a whole

1438
01:17:45,479 --> 01:17:47,720
Speaker 1: bunch of ship going wrong and somehow pushing through it

1439
01:17:47,720 --> 01:17:50,360
Speaker 1: and getting to the other side. That kind of stuff

1440
01:17:50,400 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 1: that hunting forces me to participate in is why this

1441
01:17:55,479 --> 01:17:59,360
Speaker 1: is such a a deep special thing for me. So

1442
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:02,880
Speaker 1: that's why I do this. I know everyone's a little different.

1443
01:18:03,360 --> 01:18:07,439
Speaker 1: Um So for me, I think trophy hunting makes someone

1444
01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:10,599
Speaker 1: think that, oh, I'm just waiting to kill one. I'm

1445
01:18:10,600 --> 01:18:12,400
Speaker 1: passing on all the other deer because I just want

1446
01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:14,400
Speaker 1: this huge racked buck and all I'm gonna do is

1447
01:18:14,479 --> 01:18:15,960
Speaker 1: cut off his head and sticking on my wall and

1448
01:18:16,240 --> 01:18:17,960
Speaker 1: tell everyone look at me. I'm a big, bad hunter

1449
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:20,599
Speaker 1: and I kill big deer, um, And that's not the case.

1450
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:22,640
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I go through all those

1451
01:18:22,680 --> 01:18:24,760
Speaker 1: things I just described, and when I do kill a

1452
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:27,320
Speaker 1: deer and I you know, I'm gonna bring that meat home,

1453
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:28,960
Speaker 1: and yeah, I am going to bring the antlers home too,

1454
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 1: and maybe I will put those on my wall too,

1455
01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:36,320
Speaker 1: because that signifies and symbolizes all of these other experiences

1456
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:38,920
Speaker 1: I just described, all that work, all that time, all

1457
01:18:39,000 --> 01:18:43,240
Speaker 1: that passion and love and respect and and fascination. Every

1458
01:18:43,280 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: time I'm able to go and look at the antlers

1459
01:18:45,520 --> 01:18:47,599
Speaker 1: in my office or in my in the den next

1460
01:18:47,640 --> 01:18:50,320
Speaker 1: to me, um and tell my son the stories, it

1461
01:18:50,360 --> 01:18:52,639
Speaker 1: brings all those things back to life, and it allows

1462
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:55,920
Speaker 1: me to continue experiencing those things years and years later.

1463
01:18:56,439 --> 01:18:59,479
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't call him trophies, um, but I would

1464
01:18:59,520 --> 01:19:03,040
Speaker 1: call him some really damn important Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

1465
01:19:03,080 --> 01:19:04,840
Speaker 1: I think there's two ways that I've come to think

1466
01:19:04,880 --> 01:19:07,320
Speaker 1: about this, And I think the way that the way

1467
01:19:07,360 --> 01:19:09,320
Speaker 1: that you describe it is the way that I describe it,

1468
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:11,160
Speaker 1: and the way that everybody that I think that has

1469
01:19:11,840 --> 01:19:15,000
Speaker 1: over time here really wanted to dive into the y

1470
01:19:16,360 --> 01:19:19,840
Speaker 1: has passionately expressed like this is a thing that addicts people.

1471
01:19:20,080 --> 01:19:22,160
Speaker 1: It is a thing that draws you in in a

1472
01:19:22,200 --> 01:19:25,120
Speaker 1: way that nothing else in my life, and I know

1473
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:28,639
Speaker 1: your life has. I played lots of things. I played

1474
01:19:28,680 --> 01:19:34,240
Speaker 1: lots of games, um, football, soccer, baseball, UM, I've played chess.

1475
01:19:34,520 --> 01:19:38,600
Speaker 1: I have run. I ran, and never very fast, but

1476
01:19:38,680 --> 01:19:42,320
Speaker 1: I one time I tried to run in a marathon. Whatever.

1477
01:19:42,760 --> 01:19:46,800
Speaker 1: All of those things are akin to this, but this

1478
01:19:47,439 --> 01:19:50,960
Speaker 1: has a different ways of being expressed. And if you

1479
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:53,200
Speaker 1: think of it again, if you think of it, my

1480
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:56,360
Speaker 1: theory of of hunting as as a game. A game

1481
01:19:56,520 --> 01:20:00,879
Speaker 1: is a series of interesting choices, and those interesting choices

1482
01:20:01,640 --> 01:20:04,880
Speaker 1: like navigating those choices, and the course through the course

1483
01:20:04,920 --> 01:20:08,479
Speaker 1: of play reveals and especially in hunting, it reveals who

1484
01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:12,240
Speaker 1: you are, how you think, and what you value. And

1485
01:20:12,360 --> 01:20:17,240
Speaker 1: that's why the duality, the two truths of hunting are

1486
01:20:17,360 --> 01:20:19,080
Speaker 1: that everybody should be able to do it the way

1487
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:21,320
Speaker 1: they want and everybody shouldn't be able to do it

1488
01:20:21,360 --> 01:20:25,519
Speaker 1: the way they want. H This is a duality of

1489
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,840
Speaker 1: hunting that is super interesting for me to look at

1490
01:20:29,040 --> 01:20:32,720
Speaker 1: because there's like shades of gray within that that duality

1491
01:20:32,840 --> 01:20:37,080
Speaker 1: that are important to to understand, um, because you did say,

1492
01:20:37,120 --> 01:20:39,360
Speaker 1: like in the beginning, they're like, don't label me. I

1493
01:20:39,400 --> 01:20:41,840
Speaker 1: want to do what I want to do, and you're right,

1494
01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:46,000
Speaker 1: don't label me. But at the same time, you can't

1495
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:48,680
Speaker 1: do what you want to do. We have to confine things, right,

1496
01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:51,240
Speaker 1: There's gonna be some running boards on either side, but

1497
01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:57,160
Speaker 1: within within that framework, within what's legal, Um, then I think,

1498
01:20:57,439 --> 01:20:59,559
Speaker 1: you know, we can all have our own experience. So yeah,

1499
01:20:59,640 --> 01:21:03,880
Speaker 1: there's an just like government, right, we want to have

1500
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:05,439
Speaker 1: our freedoms. We want to be able to do what

1501
01:21:05,479 --> 01:21:06,880
Speaker 1: we want to do. We don't want the government telling

1502
01:21:07,000 --> 01:21:08,920
Speaker 1: us what to do. But you know what, actually we

1503
01:21:09,400 --> 01:21:11,800
Speaker 1: do want the government to tell us not to murder people,

1504
01:21:11,880 --> 01:21:14,080
Speaker 1: and we do want the government to do certain things.

1505
01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:17,240
Speaker 1: So I think the same thing goes with this too.

1506
01:21:17,320 --> 01:21:20,120
Speaker 1: There's got to be some set of guidelines. There's gotta

1507
01:21:20,160 --> 01:21:23,800
Speaker 1: be some type of legal framework to keep um, to

1508
01:21:23,880 --> 01:21:26,000
Speaker 1: keep us on the straight and narrow. But then within

1509
01:21:26,120 --> 01:21:32,599
Speaker 1: those frameworks, let's have our own experience. Yeah. Yeah, it's

1510
01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:36,439
Speaker 1: interesting to me, especially because I know what you're doing

1511
01:21:36,479 --> 01:21:38,400
Speaker 1: and what I do. If I had a chance to

1512
01:21:38,439 --> 01:21:41,160
Speaker 1: hunt the same giant elk every year until it got

1513
01:21:41,200 --> 01:21:43,599
Speaker 1: as big as possible and then kill it exactly what

1514
01:21:43,640 --> 01:21:47,559
Speaker 1: I would do. Um, I to your point earlier, I

1515
01:21:47,600 --> 01:21:51,000
Speaker 1: just can't find them. There's there's millions of acres, and

1516
01:21:51,040 --> 01:21:52,599
Speaker 1: I'm also not real good at it, but I mean

1517
01:21:52,800 --> 01:21:56,360
Speaker 1: there's millions of acres and it just isn't a reality.

1518
01:21:56,439 --> 01:21:59,160
Speaker 1: I once heard somebody say out west like I would

1519
01:21:59,200 --> 01:22:00,920
Speaker 1: never be able to name an animal because I've never

1520
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:03,719
Speaker 1: seen most animals I kill, I've never seen more than once.

1521
01:22:04,680 --> 01:22:06,840
Speaker 1: And so there is there is the difference within hunting

1522
01:22:06,960 --> 01:22:09,639
Speaker 1: right there. I mean it's it's it's hard to understand

1523
01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:13,960
Speaker 1: each other when you're playing different games. Yeah, yeah, different

1524
01:22:14,120 --> 01:22:17,559
Speaker 1: different places, different types of animals. I mean, white tailed

1525
01:22:17,560 --> 01:22:20,120
Speaker 1: deer have small home ranges typically to hang out in

1526
01:22:20,160 --> 01:22:21,960
Speaker 1: Littlelarios's gonna be a lot different with an elk that

1527
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:26,439
Speaker 1: can roll miles and miles frequently. Um, I'll tell you

1528
01:22:26,439 --> 01:22:30,360
Speaker 1: what you know. It is to go deep like that

1529
01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:32,480
Speaker 1: with one animals that a lot of fun is fascinating,

1530
01:22:32,479 --> 01:22:35,600
Speaker 1: Like I just said, it can also be the incredibly frustrating,

1531
01:22:36,200 --> 01:22:38,880
Speaker 1: incredibly frustrating when when you go from having a very

1532
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:40,840
Speaker 1: target rich environment where there's all sorts of deer that

1533
01:22:40,880 --> 01:22:43,080
Speaker 1: you could kill and hunt and shoot, and and you

1534
01:22:43,120 --> 01:22:45,400
Speaker 1: know you could, you could achieve your goal readily. When

1535
01:22:45,439 --> 01:22:48,679
Speaker 1: it goes down to just one deer, um, it makes

1536
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,880
Speaker 1: it nearly impossible. And so n of the times you

1537
01:22:52,920 --> 01:22:55,840
Speaker 1: go hunt, you are not going to achieve the goal

1538
01:22:55,920 --> 01:22:58,800
Speaker 1: that you set out with, and that that is a

1539
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:01,400
Speaker 1: whole another conversation about the negative aspects of that and

1540
01:23:01,439 --> 01:23:03,200
Speaker 1: the frustration that can come with that and how you

1541
01:23:03,240 --> 01:23:04,720
Speaker 1: can deal with that, because I can tell you what

1542
01:23:05,439 --> 01:23:09,280
Speaker 1: My hunts and like this are huge roller coasters, um

1543
01:23:09,360 --> 01:23:11,519
Speaker 1: where you go from the highest highest to the lowest lows,

1544
01:23:11,560 --> 01:23:14,479
Speaker 1: and and lots of times I'm like, man, is this

1545
01:23:14,520 --> 01:23:17,080
Speaker 1: even fun anymore? And and then the next day I'll

1546
01:23:17,080 --> 01:23:20,200
Speaker 1: be like, yes, but I'll have these moments where it's

1547
01:23:20,240 --> 01:23:25,920
Speaker 1: really challenging. But I guess for me, that's that's I

1548
01:23:25,960 --> 01:23:28,559
Speaker 1: guess I like that. I like things that forced me

1549
01:23:28,640 --> 01:23:35,519
Speaker 1: to to have that wild um, that wild set of

1550
01:23:35,600 --> 01:23:37,920
Speaker 1: ups and towns and challenges and something that you don't

1551
01:23:37,920 --> 01:23:39,080
Speaker 1: think you're gonna be able to pull it off if

1552
01:23:39,080 --> 01:23:40,600
Speaker 1: you want to, and yes, I can do it. I

1553
01:23:40,640 --> 01:23:41,720
Speaker 1: don't know if it will have to come to it.

1554
01:23:41,840 --> 01:23:44,160
Speaker 1: Yes I can do it. This isn't gonna happen. Damn it,

1555
01:23:44,200 --> 01:23:47,479
Speaker 1: Donna keep trying. Um, maybe I'm just I don't know

1556
01:23:47,479 --> 01:23:51,439
Speaker 1: if it was a massive massochistics like that. No, man, here,

1557
01:23:51,479 --> 01:23:54,720
Speaker 1: I've read a lot about some of this stuff and

1558
01:23:54,960 --> 01:23:57,720
Speaker 1: philosophical terms, like with the game. Imagine if you had

1559
01:23:57,720 --> 01:23:59,280
Speaker 1: like an X and Y access right, if you had

1560
01:23:59,320 --> 01:24:02,280
Speaker 1: this and this was challenge of the game, right, and

1561
01:24:02,320 --> 01:24:05,479
Speaker 1: it's an arrow pointing up to forever, and this right

1562
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:08,280
Speaker 1: here was skill level, and it's an arrow pointing to

1563
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:12,160
Speaker 1: forever as the challenge of the game increases so much,

1564
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:15,160
Speaker 1: your skill level, As your skill level increases so much,

1565
01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:18,800
Speaker 1: the challenge of the game to keep you entertained, and

1566
01:24:18,880 --> 01:24:20,519
Speaker 1: so like, as you think about those X and Y

1567
01:24:20,760 --> 01:24:23,000
Speaker 1: X season in an example of hunting, it's what you're

1568
01:24:23,000 --> 01:24:26,240
Speaker 1: doing what you just described as a kid. The challenge

1569
01:24:26,240 --> 01:24:29,839
Speaker 1: of the game is limited, and your skill level is limited,

1570
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:31,880
Speaker 1: and so just killing them the deer for the meat

1571
01:24:32,000 --> 01:24:34,040
Speaker 1: or a spike. I mean, we talked about it in

1572
01:24:34,160 --> 01:24:38,000
Speaker 1: the back forty with your level of where you were

1573
01:24:38,040 --> 01:24:42,040
Speaker 1: at Ken Rovan, that those things like I'll put my

1574
01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:47,360
Speaker 1: fingers down now, but like those play paper football or no.

1575
01:24:48,600 --> 01:24:52,280
Speaker 1: But that's what happened to me as a young kid. Um,

1576
01:24:52,360 --> 01:24:55,000
Speaker 1: now I am at a different level. My dad didn't

1577
01:24:55,040 --> 01:24:57,880
Speaker 1: follow me along the track right of the of the

1578
01:24:57,960 --> 01:24:59,960
Speaker 1: skill level and the challenge of the game. He kind

1579
01:25:00,040 --> 01:25:02,920
Speaker 1: a state where he was, and as did your dad,

1580
01:25:02,960 --> 01:25:05,280
Speaker 1: which will probably if we get lucky, our kids will

1581
01:25:05,439 --> 01:25:08,760
Speaker 1: surpass us and their skill level and the challenge that

1582
01:25:08,840 --> 01:25:11,639
Speaker 1: they need. And so when you start thinking in these terms,

1583
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:13,439
Speaker 1: it makes way more sense. You know, you don't have

1584
01:25:13,479 --> 01:25:15,280
Speaker 1: to say things like well, you know, over time, I

1585
01:25:15,320 --> 01:25:17,120
Speaker 1: just want to kill bigger bucks, Like no, over time,

1586
01:25:17,160 --> 01:25:19,759
Speaker 1: my skill level, I can what you just said earlier

1587
01:25:21,160 --> 01:25:26,040
Speaker 1: fits into a nice little picture where the more the

1588
01:25:26,120 --> 01:25:29,280
Speaker 1: challenge of the game, the more the anxiety, the more

1589
01:25:29,360 --> 01:25:31,920
Speaker 1: the skill level, the less the anxiety, and those things

1590
01:25:32,000 --> 01:25:36,439
Speaker 1: match up together and that that gets you where you are. Yeah,

1591
01:25:36,560 --> 01:25:39,360
Speaker 1: And you know, I talked about this a lot on

1592
01:25:39,439 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 1: my podcast too, and it's I always make I always

1593
01:25:42,400 --> 01:25:45,400
Speaker 1: think it's important to point out the fact that it

1594
01:25:45,479 --> 01:25:47,800
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be this way, right. You don't need

1595
01:25:47,840 --> 01:25:50,120
Speaker 1: to feel like if you're getting into hunting or you're

1596
01:25:50,200 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 1: on this road that you have to keep going further

1597
01:25:52,960 --> 01:25:55,080
Speaker 1: and further down that X access or further and further

1598
01:25:55,160 --> 01:25:56,760
Speaker 1: up that Y access. You don't need to do what

1599
01:25:56,800 --> 01:25:58,559
Speaker 1: I've done or what you've done. Ben. If you want,

1600
01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:01,160
Speaker 1: you know, find where we're on that graph, you are

1601
01:26:01,200 --> 01:26:05,360
Speaker 1: happy wherever it works for you, and be happy there.

1602
01:26:05,360 --> 01:26:06,920
Speaker 1: I don't think there has to be a pressure that

1603
01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:08,559
Speaker 1: you have to keep taking it to the next level

1604
01:26:08,560 --> 01:26:10,720
Speaker 1: of the next level if you want to, awesome. If

1605
01:26:10,760 --> 01:26:13,120
Speaker 1: you don't, that's awesome too. We're all going to have

1606
01:26:13,160 --> 01:26:15,479
Speaker 1: a different place on that graph that feels right for us.

1607
01:26:16,160 --> 01:26:19,920
Speaker 1: Um So it's you know, keep keep exploring, find your plays,

1608
01:26:20,120 --> 01:26:23,080
Speaker 1: enjoy it, make it what you needed to be. Yeah,

1609
01:26:23,160 --> 01:26:26,000
Speaker 1: And if you're looking like go, if you're inside a

1610
01:26:26,040 --> 01:26:27,880
Speaker 1: hunting and you want to label somebody or outside of

1611
01:26:27,920 --> 01:26:30,920
Speaker 1: hunting on a label somebody, think about when you just

1612
01:26:30,960 --> 01:26:35,320
Speaker 1: say trophy hunting, how much of the intricate of the

1613
01:26:35,360 --> 01:26:38,280
Speaker 1: details that you're displacing by saying that. And when you

1614
01:26:38,280 --> 01:26:40,519
Speaker 1: think of somebody who's a trophy hunter, who really wants

1615
01:26:40,520 --> 01:26:42,559
Speaker 1: to kill the biggest and most mature thing out there,

1616
01:26:43,040 --> 01:26:46,559
Speaker 1: think about it in the think about it in what

1617
01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:49,759
Speaker 1: in this discussion and the frame of this discussion. Because

1618
01:26:49,760 --> 01:26:53,960
Speaker 1: it's true a person is not driven to kill the

1619
01:26:53,960 --> 01:26:58,559
Speaker 1: biggest block ten years into their hunting experience because they're

1620
01:26:58,640 --> 01:27:04,120
Speaker 1: now addicted to the antlers and driven by ego. They're

1621
01:27:04,120 --> 01:27:08,280
Speaker 1: doing that because they're following the track of the game

1622
01:27:08,360 --> 01:27:10,240
Speaker 1: like quality of hunting. That's what they're doing. It's all

1623
01:27:10,240 --> 01:27:12,840
Speaker 1: that they're doing, and it's not a change. It's not

1624
01:27:12,920 --> 01:27:17,200
Speaker 1: an evil change in their mentality. It's a natural progression

1625
01:27:17,439 --> 01:27:20,760
Speaker 1: of how anybody plays a game. And at some level,

1626
01:27:20,800 --> 01:27:22,320
Speaker 1: as long as we admit that we're playing a game,

1627
01:27:24,040 --> 01:27:27,360
Speaker 1: you know, we're okay. Have you Have you had the

1628
01:27:27,360 --> 01:27:34,519
Speaker 1: conversation with anyone about the idea of of referencing this

1629
01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:37,000
Speaker 1: as a game though, Do you have any qualms with that?

1630
01:27:37,040 --> 01:27:39,960
Speaker 1: I bring that up because I get what you're saying,

1631
01:27:41,479 --> 01:27:47,360
Speaker 1: but I also worry about language like game being attached

1632
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 1: to hunting, trivializing the serious nature of it and the

1633
01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:55,519
Speaker 1: fact that the end the end game for lack of

1634
01:27:55,560 --> 01:28:01,320
Speaker 1: their term, we're getting good now. Yeah, uh, I'm with you,

1635
01:28:01,400 --> 01:28:05,800
Speaker 1: And that's why I try to always say hunting has

1636
01:28:05,920 --> 01:28:08,840
Speaker 1: game like qualities, and that's one of the things that

1637
01:28:08,880 --> 01:28:14,360
Speaker 1: attracts us psychologically to it. It's not that it's a game.

1638
01:28:14,560 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 1: You're not out there to score points. Now, social media,

1639
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:20,240
Speaker 1: you may you may defer there there is some point

1640
01:28:20,320 --> 01:28:23,400
Speaker 1: scoring that happens there, but that happens for everybody that

1641
01:28:23,439 --> 01:28:26,720
Speaker 1: goes and spend two media, right, And that's why I

1642
01:28:26,720 --> 01:28:32,040
Speaker 1: only follow white Claw. And that's why because white calls

1643
01:28:32,040 --> 01:28:34,519
Speaker 1: are playing any games with anybody, they just wanted to drink,

1644
01:28:34,800 --> 01:28:37,400
Speaker 1: to drink as much alcohol as possible in a very

1645
01:28:37,439 --> 01:28:43,000
Speaker 1: fruity way. Um. But anyway, I do. I think the

1646
01:28:43,080 --> 01:28:47,600
Speaker 1: expression of hunting is a game is wrong. Hunting has qualities,

1647
01:28:47,960 --> 01:28:53,600
Speaker 1: attractive qualities akin or mirrored by a video game or

1648
01:28:53,720 --> 01:28:57,040
Speaker 1: or any other any other game that we play, any

1649
01:28:57,080 --> 01:29:00,719
Speaker 1: other competition that we have. Um. And that's what leads

1650
01:29:00,720 --> 01:29:02,640
Speaker 1: to where you are, I think, and where I am,

1651
01:29:02,720 --> 01:29:04,120
Speaker 1: and where a lot of people that we hang out

1652
01:29:04,120 --> 01:29:08,840
Speaker 1: with our Um. It's more complex, Yeah, And I think

1653
01:29:08,920 --> 01:29:15,599
Speaker 1: that's what makes hunting so singularly powerful, more so than

1654
01:29:15,640 --> 01:29:18,479
Speaker 1: like someone who loves basketball or someone who loves soccer

1655
01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:21,760
Speaker 1: loves poker. Is the fact that you have Hunting has

1656
01:29:21,880 --> 01:29:24,280
Speaker 1: that those game like qualities, but then it also has

1657
01:29:24,360 --> 01:29:29,919
Speaker 1: this incredibly complex deep life or death set of elements

1658
01:29:30,000 --> 01:29:32,679
Speaker 1: that that connects you to something that's that's a wormhole

1659
01:29:32,720 --> 01:29:35,719
Speaker 1: into a whole another world. And and those two things

1660
01:29:35,760 --> 01:29:41,679
Speaker 1: combined set hunting in a different arena than almost anything else, um,

1661
01:29:42,200 --> 01:29:44,920
Speaker 1: which is both why it's controversial in some circles and

1662
01:29:44,960 --> 01:29:50,360
Speaker 1: why it's something so deeply loved by folks within our circles. Yeah. Yeah,

1663
01:29:50,360 --> 01:29:52,519
Speaker 1: I mean there's something isn't when you agree that there's

1664
01:29:52,520 --> 01:29:56,840
Speaker 1: something ironic about playing Like we're playing at hunting, dude,

1665
01:29:56,840 --> 01:29:59,240
Speaker 1: I can go get a steak tomorrow would be delicious.

1666
01:30:00,080 --> 01:30:03,600
Speaker 1: We're playing a very human game, right we are. We

1667
01:30:03,680 --> 01:30:07,639
Speaker 1: are participating in a in a very game like way

1668
01:30:08,040 --> 01:30:11,679
Speaker 1: and something that people used to do for essential human survival. Right,

1669
01:30:11,800 --> 01:30:14,680
Speaker 1: So there's something ironic about that. I get that. You know,

1670
01:30:14,760 --> 01:30:17,880
Speaker 1: I understand that that's probably that can't be hard for

1671
01:30:17,880 --> 01:30:21,040
Speaker 1: people to understand. Um, but that's I mean, I think

1672
01:30:21,040 --> 01:30:24,200
Speaker 1: that's true throughout the modern sense of humanity. Like we

1673
01:30:24,520 --> 01:30:27,240
Speaker 1: you know, throwing a football is like throwing a rock

1674
01:30:27,320 --> 01:30:30,439
Speaker 1: on the savannah, you know, a million years ago, like

1675
01:30:30,560 --> 01:30:34,760
Speaker 1: we are expressed. Yeah, playing the Guard, we're expressing our humanity. Yeah,

1676
01:30:35,479 --> 01:30:38,439
Speaker 1: we want to do things that connect with you know,

1677
01:30:38,520 --> 01:30:40,960
Speaker 1: the essential human nous of of what we are and

1678
01:30:41,000 --> 01:30:43,479
Speaker 1: what we were and where we came from and and yeah,

1679
01:30:43,560 --> 01:30:47,120
Speaker 1: hunting is a way to do that. A real tactile

1680
01:30:47,200 --> 01:30:52,080
Speaker 1: way to do that, and uh, yeah, it's it's interesting. Well,

1681
01:30:52,120 --> 01:30:54,400
Speaker 1: we could talk about it forever, I'm sure, Like I

1682
01:30:54,400 --> 01:30:56,760
Speaker 1: I do. You know when it's cool too when the

1683
01:30:56,840 --> 01:30:59,360
Speaker 1: topic comes up, because I know your show you don't

1684
01:30:59,400 --> 01:31:02,080
Speaker 1: talk about ship this very often. I mean you do

1685
01:31:02,160 --> 01:31:06,120
Speaker 1: and don't, you do and don't. But yeah, I mean, yeah,

1686
01:31:06,200 --> 01:31:09,520
Speaker 1: I listen and I know, like it's cool to see

1687
01:31:10,280 --> 01:31:12,960
Speaker 1: the celebration of that singular focus and the way that

1688
01:31:13,040 --> 01:31:18,880
Speaker 1: you described earlier on that Like it's so it's endless, dude,

1689
01:31:18,960 --> 01:31:21,880
Speaker 1: It's endless. The depth of just hunting white tails in

1690
01:31:22,000 --> 01:31:26,960
Speaker 1: Michigan on a hundred and fifty acres is endless. And

1691
01:31:27,120 --> 01:31:30,040
Speaker 1: that is a nice way to think about the natural world.

1692
01:31:30,120 --> 01:31:34,439
Speaker 1: It is fucking endless, and you pick just pick a

1693
01:31:34,479 --> 01:31:36,400
Speaker 1: small part of it and live the rest of your

1694
01:31:36,400 --> 01:31:39,479
Speaker 1: life trying to learn it. And you're not gonna get there. Yeah,

1695
01:31:39,520 --> 01:31:43,120
Speaker 1: you're not gonna. You will be constantly surprised and you

1696
01:31:43,120 --> 01:31:48,200
Speaker 1: will learn new things about these places of animals yourself. Yeah,

1697
01:31:48,240 --> 01:31:52,960
Speaker 1: that's you can't beat the natural world. I mean, that's

1698
01:31:53,000 --> 01:31:54,760
Speaker 1: where we came from. That's where I keep on going

1699
01:31:54,800 --> 01:31:57,120
Speaker 1: back to because it's just like you said, it's endless.

1700
01:31:57,240 --> 01:32:01,639
Speaker 1: There's everything we need is there had been right there?

1701
01:32:01,920 --> 01:32:03,559
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's go back to work. Let's go

1702
01:32:03,640 --> 01:32:07,840
Speaker 1: make some more hunting TV and keep keep talking about it.

1703
01:32:07,840 --> 01:32:11,040
Speaker 1: We got what episode five, episode six of the Back forty,

1704
01:32:11,280 --> 01:32:13,840
Speaker 1: I got a couple more. We're just frantically cranking out.

1705
01:32:14,360 --> 01:32:16,680
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's gonna be fun. All right, we'll go

1706
01:32:16,720 --> 01:32:21,120
Speaker 1: over there and subscribe and watch Mark toil on sixty

1707
01:32:21,200 --> 01:32:23,400
Speaker 1: four acres in Michigan for a couple more weeks before

1708
01:32:23,400 --> 01:32:26,599
Speaker 1: it's all over, and uh, we'll see what we do next.

1709
01:32:26,880 --> 01:32:29,599
Speaker 1: All right, man, good talk to you brother always. Hey,

1710
01:32:29,640 --> 01:32:40,120
Speaker 1: thanks for having me out. So yeah, that's it. That's all.

1711
01:32:40,120 --> 01:32:42,599
Speaker 1: Another episode in the books. Thank you to Mr Kenyon.

1712
01:32:43,080 --> 01:32:46,320
Speaker 1: Thank you to all the listeners out there for writing

1713
01:32:46,360 --> 01:32:51,040
Speaker 1: in with your holiday traditions. You kind of you guys,

1714
01:32:51,120 --> 01:32:53,360
Speaker 1: Mark Mark as well. But you guys moved to me

1715
01:32:53,560 --> 01:32:55,679
Speaker 1: enough that it's hard for me to make jokes about

1716
01:32:55,680 --> 01:33:00,800
Speaker 1: white Claw and do our normal uh satire, And so

1717
01:33:01,000 --> 01:33:06,400
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna quickly say before we end the show that, um,

1718
01:33:06,439 --> 01:33:09,840
Speaker 1: it's clear to me after reading all your emails and

1719
01:33:10,240 --> 01:33:14,120
Speaker 1: talking through this episode and thinking about the value that

1720
01:33:14,200 --> 01:33:18,000
Speaker 1: hunting brings to my life and always has that. There's

1721
01:33:18,040 --> 01:33:21,639
Speaker 1: so much more at play with what we do outside.

1722
01:33:21,640 --> 01:33:26,680
Speaker 1: There's so much more for us to to find value in.

1723
01:33:27,840 --> 01:33:30,240
Speaker 1: And so that's why podcasts like this one and all

1724
01:33:30,240 --> 01:33:32,519
Speaker 1: the other podcasts are network are endless because there's so

1725
01:33:32,600 --> 01:33:35,240
Speaker 1: much more for us to explore. Um So I'm glad

1726
01:33:35,240 --> 01:33:37,320
Speaker 1: we got to hear a couple of stories from listeners

1727
01:33:37,360 --> 01:33:40,759
Speaker 1: about about how they see holidays and they see hunting,

1728
01:33:40,760 --> 01:33:43,680
Speaker 1: and they see all the things that have to do

1729
01:33:43,880 --> 01:33:48,920
Speaker 1: with their families and the connection. So I'm happy for it.

1730
01:33:48,920 --> 01:33:51,840
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep going. I feel inspired by you guys,

1731
01:33:51,880 --> 01:33:53,880
Speaker 1: hope you feel inspired by us. We will see you

1732
01:33:53,920 --> 01:33:56,880
Speaker 1: next week on the Hunting Collectives Say by Phil goodbye

1733
01:33:58,280 --> 01:34:01,360
Speaker 1: because I can't go a week. God do with role,

1734
01:34:03,600 --> 01:34:14,960
Speaker 1: Oh with Absolute Roll, Drinking out roslu Wrong, Drinking in Heaven,