Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, and welcome the episode number fifteen and The
Speaker 1: Hunting Collective. I've been O'Brien and today I'm joined by
Speaker 1: none other than Ryan Callahan, the first Light, Honey, and
Speaker 1: this is Ryan's second appearance in the podcast. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch more times, but in this case
Speaker 1: we were in Sonora, Texas. You joined episode number fourteen's
Speaker 1: guests Casey Butler with myself on a hunt down there
Speaker 1: for access to her. And I'll tell you what. We
Speaker 1: had a ball and you heard it an episode fourteen.
Speaker 1: If you listen, this is just a continual of that
Speaker 1: conversation Ryan and myself. Ryan. If you haven't listened to
Speaker 1: his first episode on The Hunting Collective, you don't yet
Speaker 1: know that he is the definition of the salt of
Speaker 1: the earth. He is somebody who cares about the little things,
Speaker 1: somebody who um likes struggle, likes doing things himself. He
Speaker 1: doesn't like anything automated. And it's just a privilege to
Speaker 1: be around the gap. It's a privilege to pick up
Speaker 1: on the way he looks at life, the way he
Speaker 1: simplifies his existence, and the way that he betters everyone
Speaker 1: around him. And I appreciate Ryan for all those reasons,
Speaker 1: and I think this was a great conversation. We talked
Speaker 1: about our hunt, we talked about hunting with a longbow,
Speaker 1: We talked about our feelings around record book animals and
Speaker 1: what that means. And we did it all driving in
Speaker 1: a truck. Just like episode number two, episode number fifteen,
Speaker 1: we were driving in a truck heading back to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas to drop him off. So would that being said,
Speaker 1: enjoy our driving all right, Brian Callahan, can you hear
Speaker 1: me pretty good? Yes? Ben On? Brian, do you think
Speaker 1: this is the first podcast ever recorded where a guy
Speaker 1: was driving down the road. You know, I would like
Speaker 1: to say that we're breaking new ground here, but I
Speaker 1: I know it is not because uh Dan Doty, former
Speaker 1: Meteor producer um actually recorded one. Or I should say
Speaker 1: this in reverse, Joe Rogan recorded Dan Doty on the
Speaker 1: road back from a Nevada mule here hunt. I do
Speaker 1: remember that now that you say that, I remember that
Speaker 1: they recorded that. That Damn Joe Rogan, I know he
Speaker 1: comes up. Somebody said they were doing a drinking game
Speaker 1: for every time I mentioned Ranella, Rebby Warren and Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1: So get the drinking fools. You got you gotta take
Speaker 1: like seven drinks already. We're only a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: into this one. Unfortunately it's Friday when we record this.
Speaker 1: If you play it on a Friday, just a good
Speaker 1: excuse whatever we want now, Wet. We started our last
Speaker 1: podcast talking about our surroundings, so it just so happens.
Speaker 1: That's so funny. Yeah, it just happens. We were in
Speaker 1: a truck then, and we're in a truck now, So
Speaker 1: go ahead and give me a brief description of your surroundings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the greater surroundings were actually we just we left
Speaker 1: a lovely meal in Fredericksburg, Texas, and uh, we're sitting
Speaker 1: in Ben O'Brien's truck and we're heading back to Austin
Speaker 1: for some early am flights. This is post access deer Hunt,
Speaker 1: but it is in the stoplights section of Fredericksburg. I
Speaker 1: am quite interested to see if we get the same
Speaker 1: treatment that we did at the Hunt Expo when we
Speaker 1: were sitting in a truck. Uh, if people look over
Speaker 1: and see and they wonder if we're on nine Overland
Speaker 1: Road Race or something. These headsets on for the pit
Speaker 1: crew for a NASCAR race something like that there, No,
Speaker 1: but hopefully nobody looks at it's dark out. If anybody's
Speaker 1: looking in, they probably have bad intentions. Plus we have
Speaker 1: the back of the truck is a giant nitty cooler,
Speaker 1: a tune or you tend to be exact full of
Speaker 1: would you say two pounds of access to your meat thereabouts?
Speaker 1: I would say it, yeah, every every bit of um.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, are yield is pretty high because we
Speaker 1: did lots of bone in cuts, but each deer has
Speaker 1: to be sixty pounds a yield, thought you would think,
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, with the bones in even more so.
Speaker 1: We had four deer, four deer, so we're we're heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy in the bows, meat, all types of gear. We're
Speaker 1: headed back. But that was I mean four deer. We're
Speaker 1: there what three days? Yes, three days Canyon Ranch, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: oddly and big days, big days. Yeah. Because you know,
Speaker 1: everybody who listened to the previous episode with our buddy
Speaker 1: Casey from Hushing knows all about the hunt. But we'll
Speaker 1: cover all that again here because we are just leaving
Speaker 1: the hunt that we're doing another podcast because why the
Speaker 1: hell not? And God, let's just give it up to Casey.
Speaker 1: What what a lamb. What I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: in the back seat. Yeah, he's back there and just
Speaker 1: doing gosh no what really? Yeah, I can see him
Speaker 1: glaring at me through the brake lights, piercing eyes, piercing eyes.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do a phone in where he can just
Speaker 1: come in and comment later on about what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Like we have a question, he can google it. He
Speaker 1: could be kind of like our a Google guy. Like
Speaker 1: you know, seems like all the famous podcasters have like
Speaker 1: a fella that's their googling those things they need to do. Uh,
Speaker 1: the long days are you know, it's summer. So even
Speaker 1: though like this is not you're not climbing mountains out
Speaker 1: here in the hill country of Texas. Was that technically
Speaker 1: hill country? Yeah, I will give it that. We're outside
Speaker 1: of Sonora, Texas. And you know it is flat ground,
Speaker 1: like very flat ground, and uh, you know it is
Speaker 1: very hot. Got a little muggie out there. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: lots of things that stick you. I am pulling lots
Speaker 1: of cactus out of myself as we speak. Uh, chiggers, ticks, Uh,
Speaker 1: very wildlife was absurd. Um, But yeah, you're not exerting
Speaker 1: yourself crazily as far as like climbing mountains, but the
Speaker 1: days are very very long. So uh, you know, sun
Speaker 1: doesn't set till eight, so you can shoot till eight thirty. Um,
Speaker 1: get picked up at like nine o'clock at night, eat
Speaker 1: some food, go to bed by eleven thirty, get up
Speaker 1: at four. Yeah, it's full long. There isn't a whole
Speaker 1: there isn't a whole lot of break. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: I mean the heat stays on. What were you saying.
Speaker 1: It feels like the blow dry on high heat during
Speaker 1: the day, but then in the evening it goes to
Speaker 1: medium high heat and it feels lovely. It feels lovely.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's that heat takes it out
Speaker 1: of hes. Anybody who's ever spent any time outside when
Speaker 1: a hundred degrees well knows that is it is not pleasant.
Speaker 1: And uh, it rained you, It rained you. I mean
Speaker 1: even today we hunted in the morning and then had
Speaker 1: you know, cut up meat in the afternoon, and even
Speaker 1: you know today at five o'clock was like, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: like I have some energy that I haven't had in
Speaker 1: the last couple of days because you're just fighting the
Speaker 1: heat all day. Yeah, standing in the walk in cooler.
Speaker 1: Cutting meat was uh nice respite. There was a respite. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty funny. You know. I don't like to stand
Speaker 1: around with my mouth hanging open typically, ah, but for
Speaker 1: some reason, I'm like, well, you know, dogs been a
Speaker 1: lot of heat that way. So standing out there, here's
Speaker 1: the man who knows what he's doing the desert of Texas,
Speaker 1: trying to stock down access here occasion. Let me be like,
Speaker 1: open your mouth, do some heavy breathing. Maybe that'll horror temperature,
Speaker 1: that'll he vent. That's hey, man, you're an innovator. You're
Speaker 1: an innovator. There's gonna be a lot of hunters out
Speaker 1: there on the mountain this fall. Just mouth breathing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because of Ryan Galllean. It's like, unzip your fly. You're
Speaker 1: a true influencer. If any what you can, like, you
Speaker 1: may die out here. Did you, um tell people about
Speaker 1: specifically the weapon that you chose for this and like,
Speaker 1: I know, folks who know you will know that you
Speaker 1: enjoy this this weapon, but specifically where you got it
Speaker 1: and why you choose it over others. So I got
Speaker 1: a new bow. I actually have a couple of new
Speaker 1: bows for the first time in like five years. Um,
Speaker 1: but I ran into a fellow, uh last name of
Speaker 1: broad Rick and Alberta, and we got to hunt together
Speaker 1: one morning and over the course of looking over the
Speaker 1: Alberta playing for mule here we're talking and this guy
Speaker 1: has a hand in making bows with Bushman bows in Florida,
Speaker 1: and he you know, I it's like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't want to spend money, you don't look through
Speaker 1: somebody else's binoculars, right, that's right, boy, I wanted and
Speaker 1: gets a little bit ooculars. But we were very much
Speaker 1: on the same page as far as like hunting style,
Speaker 1: what we held in high regard, what was most important,
Speaker 1: what we disdain um. And I was like, I gotta
Speaker 1: ask you about your bow like that. That is a
Speaker 1: beautiful bow and he kind of walked me through his
Speaker 1: and and I up thinking about it. And finally I
Speaker 1: emailed him and asked, hey, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about making me a bow, and he never got back
Speaker 1: to me. And then I asked him again. He never
Speaker 1: got back to man, Ah, maybe it's just not for me.
Speaker 1: And then finally he's like, hey, give me a shout
Speaker 1: if you want me to want to talk about bows.
Speaker 1: And long story short, I got a long bow first
Speaker 1: first first long bow ever, and um, so yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: hunting with a long bow. I obviously you know I've
Speaker 1: shot long bows, recurve bows and even self bows and
Speaker 1: things like that. But in the scenario of access to you,
Speaker 1: I mean we were in a camp with seven or
Speaker 1: eight other rifle hunters and the three of us and
Speaker 1: then one other older bow hunter by the name is Steve.
Speaker 1: Steve was a badass. Yeah, Steve was buds with old
Speaker 1: Fred Bear. They were brows. Yep. Now that's just friend picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just you know how we as his new age generally,
Speaker 1: you know, social media people, we post things everybody that
Speaker 1: is over you know forty can remember the days where
Speaker 1: you'd show up at a trade show or show up
Speaker 1: at somebody's house and you'd have a flip like a
Speaker 1: photo album of all you're like printing out photos. And
Speaker 1: old Steve had photo album of all the stuff he killed.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, it ain't bragging, boys, here's this moose
Speaker 1: I killed. Now, this ain't bragging. But here's these white
Speaker 1: tales I killed everywhere from a hundred forty. But you
Speaker 1: know what it's cool is he prefaced all of this
Speaker 1: before the album ever came out, and you could tell
Speaker 1: there was absolutely no bs in this man's voice. But
Speaker 1: he was like, I just I'm so excited to see
Speaker 1: you boys here. And he pointed a band because band
Speaker 1: killed the buck the first day with his bow, he said,
Speaker 1: And I was so proud of you when you came
Speaker 1: in with that buck the first night. And I mean
Speaker 1: that I you. I was so proud of you because
Speaker 1: you guys are the new generation of bow hunters. Yep.
Speaker 1: And he had been bow hunting for like forty years,
Speaker 1: and the Annals of bow Hunting is all the years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all the years that there are and bow hunting.
Speaker 1: And so here's the guy, your new Fred Baird has
Speaker 1: been on his whole life. And uh, comes in there
Speaker 1: pretty unassumingly. He's not flashy about anything. Just he' said,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, sweet old man, that
Speaker 1: that was climbing up a tree to shoot an access there,
Speaker 1: which I believe he did. And uh, it's cool to
Speaker 1: hear somebody like that, because if you and I are
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be in Steve's position, you know, forty
Speaker 1: years from now and be able to tell people that story, Hey,
Speaker 1: I you know I knew Casey from Hushing is what
Speaker 1: we'll probably show him. Photo was Casey and I at
Speaker 1: the table, Like this is a real conversate. What do
Speaker 1: he says? This is a real conversation with Fred Barre.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you how it went. The very last
Speaker 1: So this guy had Steve has done. You know, if
Speaker 1: if you were somebody who was like, here's a couple
Speaker 1: of pinnacles, like ultimate goals as a bow hunter. Um,
Speaker 1: this guy has done him. And they're in this photo
Speaker 1: album that he keeps in the in the jockey box,
Speaker 1: the glove box of his truck. And the very last
Speaker 1: page of this book is this is a quote his Um,
Speaker 1: I think most prized picture. That's what he said, most
Speaker 1: prized picture. And it's him as a younger man speaking
Speaker 1: with Fred Barre at a table and he says, this
Speaker 1: is not just picture taken. We were friends and um,
Speaker 1: you know he had had a good, good story about
Speaker 1: Fred Bear. But it was it was really neat because
Speaker 1: there's like some gramatas with Steve. He's like this is
Speaker 1: he's you see it passed on? Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: important to him and it was like he felt like
Speaker 1: we were this you know, he could probably see himself
Speaker 1: and us. I'm sure at some level when he was
Speaker 1: that you know, younger guy talking to Fred Barr, think
Speaker 1: he says, he's like, you guys remind me and me.
Speaker 1: It's like, you guys just want to do this with
Speaker 1: your bow, and it was it was neat. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: neat person. And one of the reasons you go and
Speaker 1: things like this, stumble on a guy like that. But
Speaker 1: is there I mean back to the long bow and
Speaker 1: why you do that? I mean, obviously we're all looking
Speaker 1: for a struggle, right, you know, you want to overcome,
Speaker 1: you want the some of us are just trying to
Speaker 1: find that struggle and whatever it is, Is there there's
Speaker 1: anything like in your mind that can actually too long bow?
Speaker 1: Is there some piece of you that wants to HARKing
Speaker 1: back to Steve or HARKing back to you know, Fred
Speaker 1: Bear or or is it just something you enjoy doing
Speaker 1: as a craft? Oh? I think it'd probably be the
Speaker 1: lion if I said there's not some all that, I
Speaker 1: mean really well got my wheels turning on jumping over
Speaker 1: to something other than a compound bow, which I certainly
Speaker 1: don't know the statistics, but I would say is by
Speaker 1: far and away the most popular archrey item out there. Um,
Speaker 1: it is just the fact that I was having a
Speaker 1: lot of difficulty and tuning bows and mentally knowing that
Speaker 1: my bow is in tune and knowing that I was
Speaker 1: making a mistake and not you know, thinking that the
Speaker 1: bow was out of tune or you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: I had the opposite experience. I haven't just a lemon
Speaker 1: of a bow and him and boy, I was damn
Speaker 1: near in tears a couple of times. Um that I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to something simple, eliminate as much as possible.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had a bad experience other than
Speaker 1: the tuning where you know, I wounded the only bull
Speaker 1: elk that I've ever wounded. And um, and the site
Speaker 1: on my bow that I had locked tighted in there, Um,
Speaker 1: I had actually come loose through. You know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: just hard to use. And um and yeah, I whacked
Speaker 1: this boat, this bowl. I saw it several days later.
Speaker 1: It was a non lethal hit. But still, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd try to do everything I can to eliminate that
Speaker 1: possibility at all. Kind of came to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: I'm not doing everything I can with all these moving
Speaker 1: parts that you gotta have some trust in so I
Speaker 1: want to have more of the onus on myself than anything.
Speaker 1: And that's really why I wanted to do it. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was really sick of, to the other
Speaker 1: part of your your question. I was really sick of
Speaker 1: kind of playing the game of like, well, you gotta
Speaker 1: have a new bow every year, and you gotta have
Speaker 1: the site and this rest and this, you know, the
Speaker 1: list goes on and on and on, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I was hearing lots of conversations of well, if
Speaker 1: you're a serious archery hunter, you're going to have a
Speaker 1: new bow every year, and I thought, bullshit. I know
Speaker 1: lots of guys that saying that, thank you, I get
Speaker 1: there a lot of hardships swishing bows every year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean that. I think that is a
Speaker 1: part of the equation. And and you know, I think
Speaker 1: ultimately the biggest part was is when I picked up
Speaker 1: that recurve and was super frustrated trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to be a proficient shooter with the re curve,
Speaker 1: I was having an incredible amount of fun shooting with
Speaker 1: that bow, and so much more fun than I was
Speaker 1: having with compound. And you know, truthfully, I was like
Speaker 1: I am not going to get another bow. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have this bow for the rest of my life and
Speaker 1: call it good. And uh yeah, And then now here
Speaker 1: we are, and I got two new bows, um, a
Speaker 1: new recurve and and this long bow. But you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten a new bow every year, have you? I have not.
Speaker 1: So at least you bucked that trend. I have bucked
Speaker 1: that trend. But this, uh yeah, I felt felt a little, uh,
Speaker 1: a little fruity. But I had to call this student.
Speaker 1: And when I got when the longbow finally showed up,
Speaker 1: I had to call this guy. And uh, it's like,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, there's just something about this thing,
Speaker 1: like I know, I know this bow and I are
Speaker 1: gonna do get things, Like there's just something about it,
Speaker 1: like I just I just love love the the way
Speaker 1: it shoots. And and I still have a lot of
Speaker 1: learning to do. I got thousands of arrows to shoot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm digging it. So what's uh what's
Speaker 1: your arrow broadhead set up? Because I was interested in that.
Speaker 1: How you set that up? Yeah? So and this started
Speaker 1: back in the compound days. But I shoot, you know,
Speaker 1: uh single bevil, So the blade is only angled and
Speaker 1: sharpened on one one side. UM, single blade broadhead, and
Speaker 1: um they're pretty darn stout. I shoot, I've been shooting
Speaker 1: strictling helix forever. Um and uh uh a friend of
Speaker 1: mine that I met through back country hunters and anglers,
Speaker 1: this guy Jared bab and check, he started a company
Speaker 1: called Bone Browed Heads, and he uh gave me a
Speaker 1: set of those broadheads a couple of years ago now.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just don't switch over to things
Speaker 1: for the sake of switching over to things, like especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to the regard I have for these animals,
Speaker 1: Like if I find something that that works, it is
Speaker 1: very very hard for me to switch. So UH got
Speaker 1: this new setup, and and every bow is different, and
Speaker 1: this long bow was a lot faster, so I had
Speaker 1: to shorten my arrows a bunch and and and it
Speaker 1: was on the verge of being on a different spine.
Speaker 1: And these bone browed heads are two hundred grains, whereas Ms. Strickland,
Speaker 1: he looks that I were shooting or a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty grains, and the two grain heads, I think, uh
Speaker 1: to fit this set up a little bit better. So
Speaker 1: long story short, this is uh and these are cut
Speaker 1: on contact heads. But there that ads heads. It's like
Speaker 1: a chisel tip, is what some people call it. Um
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody says like the ideas for like
Speaker 1: punching through bone and is the main point of these
Speaker 1: types of broadheads. But if you break it down to nothing,
Speaker 1: they fly fantastic. They're super tough. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I really love about them is, uh is
Speaker 1: you can sharpen them. And with recurve um you have
Speaker 1: a really good chance I actually find in your arrow.
Speaker 1: With long bowy you get a chance to find your arrow.
Speaker 1: So so you can sharpen those things up and reuse them.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I man, I think it's something
Speaker 1: like I'm getting a little more a verse two as
Speaker 1: I'm getting older. Is I just don't like the throwaway
Speaker 1: nature of so many things these days. And and you know,
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about knives on this trip, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I had this, I still have this
Speaker 1: awesome knife that my dad gave me for this really
Speaker 1: well known knife maker at a Bonder, Montana Ruanna, and
Speaker 1: I've sharpened that thing up a good jillion times, many
Speaker 1: many times in my younger days. The absolute wrong way, uh,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's like a heirloom piece, and and
Speaker 1: I want to have more of that stuff around and
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I enjoy you know, I like being
Speaker 1: able to grab that broadhead. Uh, you know, give it
Speaker 1: a real inspection, make sure it's not bent in any
Speaker 1: way so it will still fly straight straight or sharpen,
Speaker 1: put that edge back on, shaping it up, buff it
Speaker 1: up and uh, and hopefully try to put it through
Speaker 1: another creator. Yeah, do you feel like, you know, we
Speaker 1: go into the camp like we did this this week,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reactions between people that are hunting
Speaker 1: with different styles and different weapons and different age groups. Course,
Speaker 1: in this camp, everybody looks at you with a longbow,
Speaker 1: and I feel like most of them think that it's
Speaker 1: next to impossible for you to kill something, let alone
Speaker 1: kill a buck of any sort of size. In fact,
Speaker 1: our out outfitter was continually making comments like, well, we'll
Speaker 1: never kill a black buck, or I'll get you know,
Speaker 1: I'll buy your next your next hunt if you shoot
Speaker 1: like oh really, or you know, we'll see about this
Speaker 1: with let's see how you do you feel like? That's uh?
Speaker 1: I feel like if if I was in that position,
Speaker 1: I'd be like all right, man, That's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that I do this is because there is people
Speaker 1: out there that can't conceive how hard it is to
Speaker 1: do this and this are are contented and happy cracking
Speaker 1: things with rifles and and and making those comments. I
Speaker 1: gather that's probably the same for you. Yeah, kind of.
Speaker 1: I mean to a degree, I absolutely love a challenge.
Speaker 1: I try to be objective though, also because you know,
Speaker 1: I get I'm single, dude, no kids. I get a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of time to hunt, and I
Speaker 1: get a lot of time to practice and or as
Speaker 1: much time as I want to make for myself really,
Speaker 1: so Um. The other side is there are there's a
Speaker 1: lot of folks out there that I've met, and before
Speaker 1: I jumped in a big hang up, I had uh
Speaker 1: to going over to you know, the traditional archery, you know,
Speaker 1: recurve of longbow, cefo, whatever um side of things was. Man.
Speaker 1: I have guided folks, I've been around folks, have been
Speaker 1: on archery shoots with folks that, um, you don't have
Speaker 1: this way of thinking when they're shooting their traditional equipment
Speaker 1: that I do not agree with at all. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna go hunt a living creature with it, which is like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, some days I got it, some days I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeh Um, It's like nope, well that's you. Then you
Speaker 1: can't hunt with that. That's real, that's real unlucky for
Speaker 1: that creature across. So uh, there there's a lot of
Speaker 1: bad examples out there, and then there's plenty of bad
Speaker 1: examples in in every sport. But um, or every pursuit
Speaker 1: or do you have a threshold when you're doing it? Like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm ready now, well right, not quite ready? Is there
Speaker 1: a thresholder? Are you just oh yeah, absolutely absolutely so. Um.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, I chose to bring this
Speaker 1: long bow with me. Um. I have not had I
Speaker 1: mean not even a fraction of arrows through this thing
Speaker 1: as I have with my recurve at home. Um. You
Speaker 1: know my recurve. Right situation, I'm proficient um out to
Speaker 1: uh you know about forty five yards um, with like
Speaker 1: clear line of sight, I I can you know, tap
Speaker 1: a target all day long, um with this. You know,
Speaker 1: by the end of our hunt, you know, stepping out
Speaker 1: at lunch and stuff, I was whacking the target well,
Speaker 1: um out there at about you know thirty five Um.
Speaker 1: But I was really really not not really willing to
Speaker 1: go beyond twenty yards, you know, and that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a serious setback. Hey, man is huge, So situational ethics weird.
Speaker 1: It's ugly, head like not ugly in this case. Yep.
Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely you have to have limitations. But you know,
Speaker 1: I absolutely hope that everybody listening realizes that every single
Speaker 1: you are the most limiting factor, regardless of your weapon. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you got a thirty hot six and you
Speaker 1: can't hit the broad side of the bar, and you
Speaker 1: better not be cracking off shots any distance in that situation.
Speaker 1: So is that something I mean, obviously when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, that was instilled in me pretty early on.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're upbringing. Was that non negotiable pretty early on?
Speaker 1: Or was it? Yeah? It's kind of interesting. Uh you
Speaker 1: know the Bulko mate, I guess formal shooting training came
Speaker 1: through this outfitter named Larry Pendleton, Stevensville, Montana. And he
Speaker 1: was the hunting mentor of mine and um, ultimately the
Speaker 1: first outfitter that I worked for. And UM, I absolutely
Speaker 1: loved this man to death. And and he could shoot
Speaker 1: a long long way, and um I've shot long distances
Speaker 1: and and uh, but we shot. I was talking about
Speaker 1: this the other day, like I shot so much and
Speaker 1: all Larry did was reload and shoot. And man, we
Speaker 1: we would spend hours when we go out to Ease
Speaker 1: from Montsanah and set up set up camp. We were
Speaker 1: shooting all the time. Like like I said, we'd sit
Speaker 1: there and uh, he'd find a cow patty had dried
Speaker 1: up cow patty out there in the ferry and we'd
Speaker 1: have twenty two. He had these nylon sixty six. You
Speaker 1: were shooting the ship. We were shooting the ship literally ship,
Speaker 1: and he chucked that cow patty out there and we
Speaker 1: shoot it. And you know, the game was just keep
Speaker 1: that cow patty rolling until it disintegrated and then he'd
Speaker 1: find another one and do it again, you know, and
Speaker 1: and it was fun and games, but it was absolutely
Speaker 1: building skill. Yeah. So yeah, um that that was really
Speaker 1: the and honestly so much. Uh. I guess my ethical
Speaker 1: compass comes from comes from that dude and that education. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, so we you know we have On the
Speaker 1: last podcast with Casey, we talked a lot about failure
Speaker 1: and like what it and success, but but moreover, like
Speaker 1: what failure does to you in hunting and what it means,
Speaker 1: and why it's a little more serious than failure and
Speaker 1: golf or failure and you know, a race of any kind,
Speaker 1: and why hunting failure means a lot more than and
Speaker 1: and really many other hobbies or sports or however you
Speaker 1: want to couch, whatever you're doing outside of your daily routine.
Speaker 1: And we talked. You told, uh, we have a story
Speaker 1: of success this week, pretty badass success, if you asked me,
Speaker 1: pretty unique. And then a story of failure that you told.
Speaker 1: I hope you're willing to tell about a different hunt
Speaker 1: in a different place. Can you weave those two stories together,
Speaker 1: just tell them back to back, or just kind of
Speaker 1: give us an idea of like what that success this
Speaker 1: week meant to you, and then you know, juxtaposed to
Speaker 1: that failure we talked about a little bit ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: muh boy, I don't know how to succinctly do this,
Speaker 1: So I guess the worry about succinctly. We've got we'll
Speaker 1: be home. We'll be home my house in about forty minutes.
Speaker 1: So driving through these Texas towns, man, there's some stuff
Speaker 1: that I do not expect. You know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny to me that uh, I gotta remind
Speaker 1: myself of Texas as a hell of a lot older
Speaker 1: in Montana, even though there's some oh yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: similarities here and there. Well we're driving through uh Johnson City,
Speaker 1: a lot of Lyndon B. Johnson activity here, and let's
Speaker 1: not forget Ladybird, Ladybird Street, Ladybird Street. Uh so it
Speaker 1: was this morning. This morning, Um, I jumped in with
Speaker 1: Ben and Casey and they, Um, I kind of started
Speaker 1: brushing a blind to ground blind very poorly last night. Um,
Speaker 1: and we kind of got out the door a little
Speaker 1: bit late this morning and then uh, you know, Ben
Speaker 1: and Caves, We're like, yeah, these deer they really want
Speaker 1: to get to this water hole and ground blind is
Speaker 1: brush blind is next the water hole. And we did
Speaker 1: trump around yesterday, but uh, you know, only water around
Speaker 1: type of deal. And I was foolish because we did
Speaker 1: trump around. This water helped pretty good, spooked a bunch
Speaker 1: of deer off of it invariably, And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I think these deer is
Speaker 1: a bunch of scent everywhere and they's just been pushed around,
Speaker 1: and uh bloy was I wrong? Uh go, the three
Speaker 1: of us going into this brush blind, uh personally built
Speaker 1: brush blind and um where we have two folding chairs
Speaker 1: for the three of us. And as you know, as
Speaker 1: pretty usual, the action starts happening before we're like really dialed.
Speaker 1: And man, it was was wild. Um. So they were
Speaker 1: a deer that came right into the water. Um. Ben,
Speaker 1: you were trying to fill your dough teg with your bow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we were about, you know, from the center of
Speaker 1: this water hole. We were probably about forty yards. Say yes,
Speaker 1: so when a close side thirty yards on the far
Speaker 1: side of fifty yards and that that was like right
Speaker 1: in the center when she just was as these things do,
Speaker 1: they don't hang around too long. They're not too interested
Speaker 1: in and having a long drink as it were. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, to picture it, I guess if let's just say, uh,
Speaker 1: we the chairs are facing two let's let's say the north.
Speaker 1: The water hole would be to the west, and the
Speaker 1: fence line runs east west, and uh, there's a road
Speaker 1: in between us and the fence and the fence is probably, oh,
Speaker 1: fifteen yards and the dead center of the roads twelve yards,
Speaker 1: and um, so it's pretty tight. And these deer coming
Speaker 1: from the opposite side of the fence and they are
Speaker 1: picking different spots in the fence to jump over and
Speaker 1: go to the water. Yeah, we just happened to be
Speaker 1: on the right side of what they need in between
Speaker 1: in between them and uh what they have to get at,
Speaker 1: which is water. And that seemed to be that about
Speaker 1: the only water source anywhere close. Yes, and it as
Speaker 1: a parent that there a ton of deer in the
Speaker 1: area and they wanted to get there. So, um, we're
Speaker 1: like right out of the gate, here's deer coming in
Speaker 1: from the opposite out of the fence. Um. Ben in
Speaker 1: case he had described like, well, yeah, they jump here,
Speaker 1: we want them to walk, uh to the west. When
Speaker 1: they go behind this tree, you can draw and then
Speaker 1: there's your shot. But sometimes what was happening is they
Speaker 1: go to the east when they jump the fence and
Speaker 1: and they you know, basically caught us by surprise. Well,
Speaker 1: of course that's what happens. And there's these two really
Speaker 1: nice bucks that it just yeah, as fate would haven't
Speaker 1: jumped the fence before the rest of the herd, and
Speaker 1: they are just right in her lap, and I have
Speaker 1: the longbow, and they're coming to the east side. Would
Speaker 1: which is my right side, and I'm trying to pivot
Speaker 1: over one butt cheek on the on the folding chair. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, aero knocked and all of a sudden his
Speaker 1: access to here as it was like five yards maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he just turns the wrong These things turned
Speaker 1: the wrong way and then they're in your grill, I
Speaker 1: mean there, and you can't for all, you can't move.
Speaker 1: These are cagy critters and I'm you know, crouching tiger,
Speaker 1: hidden dumbassind a bush. And Casey is trying to film
Speaker 1: and you're trying to maneuver a giant long stick with
Speaker 1: the colorful feathers on it. Yes, and um, and you
Speaker 1: know I would be the absolute first to tell you
Speaker 1: that I just do not spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: in a tree standard and a ground blinder and a
Speaker 1: blind at all. And I was a little unsure of
Speaker 1: exactly how things were set to go. And there was
Speaker 1: a dope staring right into my soul from across the fence,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, you know, it's it's a very
Speaker 1: classic scenario, right, It's like when do you draw? And
Speaker 1: when you draw, you know you're gonna alert this dough
Speaker 1: and but you gotta draw to shoot and as this
Speaker 1: is equations a running three your head that bucks right
Speaker 1: in your lap and and you know we blow that out.
Speaker 1: So like, well, boy, I feel feel inadequate. This is
Speaker 1: our last Yeah, feel inacquate is like where this is
Speaker 1: our last morning. We gotta we have to drive back
Speaker 1: as we're doing now, and the outfitter doesn't think you
Speaker 1: could do it. Everybody in camp is kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at the weird guy with the stick boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, that's that's kind of feelings in the air.
Speaker 1: But also it's a new bow and you don't get
Speaker 1: the Texas to hunt access to your all that often,
Speaker 1: and there's not a whole lot of folks out there
Speaker 1: that do that, I don't believe. Well yeah, and and
Speaker 1: honestly that was certainly on my mind to more than
Speaker 1: anything else. It's kind of like, boy, am I an
Speaker 1: idiot for not just picking up a gun and shooting
Speaker 1: a deer? Because I have the opportunity, this awesome, awesome
Speaker 1: opportunity to you know, hunting shooting access dear, and instead
Speaker 1: I want to put you know, the way I want
Speaker 1: to do it above everything else and and try to
Speaker 1: get it with this long bow. So yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of like, boy, I and here's this deer at five
Speaker 1: yards and um, well you still have to make it work.
Speaker 1: The folks back and catch him, who are just poking you, like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're bringing some You're gonna bring that meat back? Yes,
Speaker 1: some steaks for me when you get back. So you
Speaker 1: got that pressure on you too. You want to you
Speaker 1: don't want to for your own personal challenge. Uh have
Speaker 1: left meat on the table exactly. Yeah, and yeah, so
Speaker 1: I got the first light office is like, hey, access
Speaker 1: to your real tasty better better bring uh because we're
Speaker 1: gonna eat it all. You're not gonna get any of it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and I love sharing meat and cook on
Speaker 1: and stuff, so that that part of that's part of
Speaker 1: part of it is fun also. But yeah, I wanted
Speaker 1: you know, and we talked about at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the hunt. It's like, man, I would above anything. The
Speaker 1: conversation was it wasn't how big of a deer do
Speaker 1: you want to shoot? It was man, I'd love to
Speaker 1: bring some brings Max gearback. So so yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: here's this buck five yards, another bucket like seven yards,
Speaker 1: and still couldn't make it happen. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: oh God, I might just being a jackass, So uh
Speaker 1: take a beat, we uh run around. Ben very correctly
Speaker 1: surmises that we just need to brush the blind in
Speaker 1: a lot more. So we haul in um and he
Speaker 1: sort of loose debris that we can dig up, and
Speaker 1: and we uh start stacking around and we make ourselves
Speaker 1: a much uh much better blind because they weren't. They
Speaker 1: weren't getting us with their most of the time, not
Speaker 1: getting us with their noses. Uh, they were hitting us
Speaker 1: with the eyes, and that's what And it was just
Speaker 1: when they're that close to your grill and they're staring
Speaker 1: to your eyes at five yards away, it's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot you can do other than duck behind something
Speaker 1: in front of you. So yeah, and um sudden we
Speaker 1: set up again. And keep in mind too, like there
Speaker 1: were some serious times, some in tense times, but the
Speaker 1: three of us are buddies, and we're probably whisper in
Speaker 1: a little bit louder than we should be, and and
Speaker 1: shooting the ship the whole time, and making funny scenarios
Speaker 1: about strange hybrid creatures. And yes we were. We had
Speaker 1: our we had basically created our own Texas ranch. Whereas
Speaker 1: we had our own exotic species hippo and a jackalope
Speaker 1: had sex and made a hippolope at some point, a
Speaker 1: tiny bouncing hippo with big ears the Hala hippo because
Speaker 1: we sell hunts for him. So uh, we're having fun.
Speaker 1: And and then you know, another group of deer start
Speaker 1: working in and again and it's certainly not the way
Speaker 1: I have seen it, but a buck leads jumps over
Speaker 1: the fence. This time it does go west. It goes
Speaker 1: behind that tree that Ben and Casey said would be
Speaker 1: the tree to draw behind draw buck steps out, has
Speaker 1: absolutely no clue and you know, am, it's still still walking.
Speaker 1: But um, you know one thing that I am quite
Speaker 1: certain of what, at least with my skills with the
Speaker 1: traditional equipment, is shooting at alert animals is not good.
Speaker 1: It's a slow arrow and this is only ten yards.
Speaker 1: May not have mattered at all, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: very confident in my shot, and take the shot, and uh,
Speaker 1: bizarre things things that I have never seen happen at
Speaker 1: that point. So thanks. I had never seen any of it.
Speaker 1: I had never seen mustachio man from Idaho with a
Speaker 1: longbow shoot anything, let alone an access buck. The deer
Speaker 1: I mean the deer pancakes on it on opposite side
Speaker 1: and proceeds to I mean it was stunned, like deader
Speaker 1: than wedge, just to quiver for a second and then
Speaker 1: started kicking its legs and and I mean in its
Speaker 1: tracks though, like you could see the tracks in the dirt.
Speaker 1: That thing tipped over in place. Uh. I sprinted out
Speaker 1: of the blind. Um. And we'll have to review the
Speaker 1: footage because supposedly there is some footage here and then
Speaker 1: are distinctly remember here Ben saying it's down and Casey
Speaker 1: goes wow. Um, I think was shocking there. And all
Speaker 1: I could think is, you know, I must have spined
Speaker 1: this thing because it's the way of the way it dropped.
Speaker 1: And I have I have seen some weird spinal shots
Speaker 1: where the critter does just this and then it hops up,
Speaker 1: never to be seen again. So I you know, sprinted
Speaker 1: over there. Uh, put another arrow in it, and we
Speaker 1: kind of proceeded to watch watch this buck expire. Um.
Speaker 1: And and there's some more detail we can go in there.
Speaker 1: But to the original question, you know, this is so
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of defeat and there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of uh, and and there is success in this story, Um,
Speaker 1: you know a story that I certainly have talked about before,
Speaker 1: but um, you know my experience in Alberta last year
Speaker 1: that the animal that I had encountered and stalked through
Speaker 1: crazy uh adverse conditions, things that uh exposed try and
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't be able to stock a wise old
Speaker 1: mule deer in and Dan did everything went right for
Speaker 1: once and got in uh super super close and and
Speaker 1: proceeded to be extremely patient and wait and wait for
Speaker 1: that right shot and I missed and and uh this
Speaker 1: deer was you know, the caliber deer that uh no exaggeration,
Speaker 1: I will truly uh never I have never never be
Speaker 1: able to likely hunt again once in a lifetime opportunity. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean just seeing this animal was something that you know,
Speaker 1: very very serious mule deer hunters will uh may never see.
Speaker 1: And you said even when you saw his deer, he's
Speaker 1: like oh it oh and didn't get it, didn't get
Speaker 1: a stock on him. I was likely to have seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: three days prayer, I had seen that deer and I
Speaker 1: was yeah, I was like, wow, I am an incredibly
Speaker 1: fortunate human being for having seen that deer, even though
Speaker 1: I will never see it again, and that I just
Speaker 1: saw it from you know, two miles away, and I
Speaker 1: was planning in my head out of stock it, and
Speaker 1: then some cattle came in and bumped it out, and
Speaker 1: I never saw it again. And then the last day there,
Speaker 1: you know, I caught a glimpse of him and relocated him,
Speaker 1: got in there and and it was an amazing, amazing experience.
Speaker 1: And um, you know for an really just an incredibly
Speaker 1: brief brief a couple of seconds, uh, soul crushing, but
Speaker 1: really like that disappeared very fast and and again just
Speaker 1: like fortunate to be that close and in the presence
Speaker 1: of that type of animal, and and you know, you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta learn from that. And it was a
Speaker 1: series of little teeny tiny victories over the course of
Speaker 1: hours to get interrage on that deer, and a series
Speaker 1: of little teeny tiny victories to get into a shooting
Speaker 1: position from laying flat on your stomach for hours, and
Speaker 1: series of little teeny tiny victories to be patient enough
Speaker 1: to wait for the right shot. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the failure of missing. But um, yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just a good juxtaposition of you know, you're in Texas
Speaker 1: and you have a super jumpie deer that are always
Speaker 1: on point, especially near water holes. This one happens to
Speaker 1: just be so locked in on getting a drink that
Speaker 1: he doesn't even care that we're tenure arts away. And
Speaker 1: then you get an arrow and him not only did
Speaker 1: you get a good arrow in him, but he drops
Speaker 1: in his tracks for what seems to be no real
Speaker 1: good reason other than he got fumped pretty hard with
Speaker 1: a heavy arrow and he got probably hit through the
Speaker 1: shoulder on as far a side. Yeah, and that's what
Speaker 1: you know, it was very anxious. Start the the post
Speaker 1: mortem cropsy, start looking at where that whole wasn't and
Speaker 1: yeah it was you know, it was a higher lung shot.
Speaker 1: And I mean, the only thing I can figure is
Speaker 1: maybe that deer was trying to react to the arrow
Speaker 1: a little bit, even though I couldn't see it with
Speaker 1: my eye, and I and that arrow impacted hard, hard, hard,
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, he was anchored, man, because that's
Speaker 1: what I was you when you got up, I was yelling,
Speaker 1: he's a he's down. He stayed down because I was
Speaker 1: looking at like when he was trying to get up
Speaker 1: kind of how much, because was he getting to his knees?
Speaker 1: Was was his back legs coming up off the ground. No,
Speaker 1: he was, he was. He was lifting his head and
Speaker 1: his haunches up and that's it. And he couldn't move, um,
Speaker 1: which which makes you think, well, he must be spine somehow,
Speaker 1: But he wasn't. Yeah. And the bruising on the opposite shoulder,
Speaker 1: it didn't go through the opposite shoulder. Um, the bruising
Speaker 1: on the option shoulder went all the way to the
Speaker 1: you know, to the outside of that shoulder. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that arrow whacked him hard. Yeah. Well, I just think
Speaker 1: to me, you have this success you have in a
Speaker 1: pretty unique situation on a unique animal, and then you
Speaker 1: have this failure in a pretty situation on a unique animal.
Speaker 1: And um, what I'm hearing a little bit correct me
Speaker 1: off our own, But it's like these experiences are, um,
Speaker 1: the winds and those that the two things, the two
Speaker 1: results are just the two results. Uh. Because you know,
Speaker 1: we certainly did jump up down scream about the axis, dear,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you didn't want to quit bow hunting.
Speaker 1: Maybe you might have a brief moment or twenty um
Speaker 1: after you weren't you know, you weren't in any way suicidal,
Speaker 1: after you you missed one. So it's like these results
Speaker 1: are important, but it's not all about that. No, it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean I'm not fooling myself.
Speaker 1: I'm hunting the way I I choose to hunt, not
Speaker 1: the way I have to hunt to provide meat for myself, um,
Speaker 1: or provide meat at all, you know. Um, And if
Speaker 1: it were, you know, I'm just about the end result,
Speaker 1: I'd be going about things in a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot of different manner. This is, you know, this kind
Speaker 1: of a selfish pursuit. And I you don't believe we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before, but it is about you know,
Speaker 1: honing your game, honing your craft, and and um, you know,
Speaker 1: there there's one pet peeve of mine out there, and
Speaker 1: it's like this whole struggle stick thing like I just
Speaker 1: if this were not a proficient killing tool, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: use it because that, yeah, because it just wouldn't be
Speaker 1: fairly animal. Yeah, And it comes off as vanity. Um,
Speaker 1: it can't come off it's man. It doesn't always, but sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: it seems like some folks are shooting a long bow
Speaker 1: for for their own vanity to say, look at me,
Speaker 1: look how hard this is? Um, because it does magnify
Speaker 1: your success when you shoot something with a long bow,
Speaker 1: because it is so hard to do and it is
Speaker 1: it is a path not a lot of folks choose,
Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of hard work and training
Speaker 1: to do it. So I think that's you know, step
Speaker 1: forward to compound bow versus rifle or muzzle order fire,
Speaker 1: modern fire, and so you can make a lot of
Speaker 1: those comparisons if you want. But and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Kenton Crew said it best. You said, you know the
Speaker 1: best thing about hunting with traditional equipment is you get
Speaker 1: a hunt a lot more, right, him. You're not putting
Speaker 1: that meat in the freezer every time you go out,
Speaker 1: so uh, And there's absolute truth in that to me, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, the hunting stops when you let that arrow
Speaker 1: go and it connects, or the bullet fly and it connects. Um,
Speaker 1: And man, I love the hunting aspect and I love
Speaker 1: the fact that I will never be as good as
Speaker 1: I feel I should be. Yeah, And I mean I
Speaker 1: think also that ends all things. This is something we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier than I was intrigued just to
Speaker 1: talk more about, which was that deer in Alberta was
Speaker 1: not only once in a lifetime, dear, But you know
Speaker 1: it might have made its way into certain books, yes, um,
Speaker 1: and those books being in those books would have given
Speaker 1: you personally, especially because the way that you took that
Speaker 1: deer quite the leap in hunting circles, you know, like
Speaker 1: an esteem or like status because what you did was
Speaker 1: pretty damn awesome. And um yeah, and and I and
Speaker 1: you know, I confided to you guys, I I you know,
Speaker 1: that definitely flashed through my mind then. And but what
Speaker 1: also flashed through my mind is, you know, this was
Speaker 1: a big enough animal to where you know, I would
Speaker 1: have taken a lot of pictures of it, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure my buddies would have taken a lot of pictures
Speaker 1: of it, and and we would have talked about it,
Speaker 1: like crazy, thousands of times more than the mess that
Speaker 1: we're talking about, the mistake that we're talking about. Um,
Speaker 1: And there there would have been, um, there would have
Speaker 1: been you know a lot of talk about like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, look at this is so awesome, such an
Speaker 1: amazing feat and the reality is is kind of undeservedly
Speaker 1: so right. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's the big point for me,
Speaker 1: is like that animal is is I mean you're not
Speaker 1: lucky to come across it. I mean, it's just every
Speaker 1: time you step up and pick the buyers up your performing.
Speaker 1: You know, an activity that has a little bit of
Speaker 1: luck involved, like right place, right time, right but you
Speaker 1: put yourself in that place and you spent the time
Speaker 1: out there to fund to be there when that deal
Speaker 1: was But yeah, there's a little luck involved. And we
Speaker 1: were talking about if somebody goes out tomorrow and shoots
Speaker 1: a world record elk, does that all of a sudden
Speaker 1: make them the best elk hunter, the world's best, world's
Speaker 1: best elk hunter. And I think that the answer is
Speaker 1: flatly no. And I'm sure in in the past in
Speaker 1: the hunting industry, it seemed like that might have been true,
Speaker 1: maybe that we kind of let ourselves get fulled by
Speaker 1: instant success or even even to some level consistent success,
Speaker 1: to the point where we were using that as like
Speaker 1: this community standing, oh man, you kill a lot of elk,
Speaker 1: Well you must be the best elk hunter without looking
Speaker 1: at the conditions in what you're doing it, yes, and
Speaker 1: the dedication you have for the for the craft of
Speaker 1: whatever whatever you're choosing to do. Uh. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great conversation to look at you know, based on
Speaker 1: that scenario that you were in, you know, were you
Speaker 1: are you suddenly the best bow hunter ever if you
Speaker 1: took h a difficult endeavor, made it more difficult, and
Speaker 1: then killed you know, one of the biggest deer ever
Speaker 1: to walk on four legs. That was a blacktail and
Speaker 1: a white tail got together. I mean, yeah, man, that's
Speaker 1: that's an achievement to be to be lauded. But that's
Speaker 1: not a it's not a marker of greatness. It's just
Speaker 1: a marker of greatness in that one situation if it
Speaker 1: if it would have happened. Ye had to put put
Speaker 1: this in in context, is to successfully kill that faking horn,
Speaker 1: you have to do all of the same right things
Speaker 1: that you do to successfully kill that two deer. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: that faking horn may on occasion put itself in spots
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to sneak up on it maybe, Uh,
Speaker 1: but it still doesn't want to die. That's right, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: and he and we were saying to that, you know, say,
Speaker 1: this is a two mule deer. Two mule deer is
Speaker 1: not seven years younger. No, um, you're talking like these
Speaker 1: this these you know, relatively small variances and its genetics
Speaker 1: and it's diet and its stress levels and just big,
Speaker 1: wide open public lands. You're talking about an animal that
Speaker 1: won a genetic lottery, maybe got a little bit better feed,
Speaker 1: had a little bit less stress in its life that year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I mean, is it does that? Does that?
Speaker 1: Does the thirty extra inches handler make it's smarter than
Speaker 1: the one that is? Now? It doesn't. Um, we just
Speaker 1: cove it and value, in my opinion, you know, fetishize
Speaker 1: or overly value these things to to extent that clouds
Speaker 1: are judgment on, Like what what makes us good at
Speaker 1: this thing? You know, what makes us good at hunting? Why?
Speaker 1: Why are we good at it? And what the hell
Speaker 1: does it matter if we are? Like if you're proficient
Speaker 1: and you love what you do and you care like
Speaker 1: you do, but being proficient, no matter what you choose
Speaker 1: to do, what the hell does it matter? Yeah? Man,
Speaker 1: because what matters to me is you take that you
Speaker 1: take the right shot, which is when you let that
Speaker 1: arrow go or squeeze that trigger, you know something is
Speaker 1: gonna die. Now, it doesn't always happen that way, and
Speaker 1: it sure is. Heck, hasn't happened all that way for
Speaker 1: me all the time. But you know you're not let
Speaker 1: I don't let that thing go and be like, boy,
Speaker 1: I hope this works. Yeah, I mean, and so you
Speaker 1: deserve that. You deserve all the credit in the world
Speaker 1: for that, as do every other as every other hunter
Speaker 1: does who works hard at what they do and and
Speaker 1: cares about it even and then of your weekend warrior,
Speaker 1: if you go out to the range and make sure
Speaker 1: your rifles on, you understand where you're going, what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you deserve what you get. You deserve the you know,
Speaker 1: the output from the input. Like, that's what you deserve.
Speaker 1: And uh, what we were talking about a uh you
Speaker 1: can tell me the gentleman's name. But the guy killed
Speaker 1: the world record Alca Montane on public lands. This is
Speaker 1: a guy who was a legit hunter. Yeah, Steve Felix,
Speaker 1: Steve Felix and and Steve Felix kills his world record
Speaker 1: l public land. And you've had conversations with him where
Speaker 1: you can just kind of tell he's he's legit, he
Speaker 1: does the right way. Yeah, yeah, and I'm always super
Speaker 1: it's very revitalizing to have conversations with with guys. There's
Speaker 1: you know, there's so much humors involved and with a
Speaker 1: lot of folks and well I got the world record,
Speaker 1: I got the state record, or you know, I got
Speaker 1: two fuel here, two white Taylor three inch bowl or
Speaker 1: five hundred inch bowl or whatever. So um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy, um has the world record ar Trio public
Speaker 1: Land and he hunts, has put off and he hasn't
Speaker 1: been a dedicated I'm gonna kill the biggest thing all
Speaker 1: the time. That's what I do guy until recently, and um,
Speaker 1: it's it's just neat. He's like, yeah, what you know, Montana,
Speaker 1: you pass a bowl up, you may never get another shot.
Speaker 1: And growing up in Montana, I'll tell you that's the truth.
Speaker 1: And and he's like, but you know, getting towards sixty
Speaker 1: and I'm got a lot more time to hunt these days,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, I should probably probably try to
Speaker 1: try to get something big. Got a lot of small bulls.
Speaker 1: So um, it was yeah, it was great, just great.
Speaker 1: That's a great example. And that's a guy who should
Speaker 1: be celebrated for what he did that day and then
Speaker 1: and for who he is in his dedication to hunting
Speaker 1: and how much he loves it, right, I mean, he
Speaker 1: doesn't need. Boy, he already has a trophy he doesn't need.
Speaker 1: He doesn't need one, doesn't need another one. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know he, uh, My big question to him when
Speaker 1: we spoke this year, said, well, Steve Man, what how
Speaker 1: was it driving into your spot? Did you see any
Speaker 1: other folks? He said, not a not a single person.
Speaker 1: And and he hunted his butt off and he found
Speaker 1: another nice bowl and and you know, he's one. He's
Speaker 1: a guy. He's like, man, see it's it's just a
Speaker 1: great spot. And he did and he didn't get the ball.
Speaker 1: Never never let a narrow fly. So well, you were
Speaker 1: saying that a lot of people his, you know, either
Speaker 1: friends of his or people that kind of knew the
Speaker 1: history of guy's killing world records, were like, Hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta cash in on this, baby. You gotta get somebody
Speaker 1: to pay you for this. You gotta get sponsors, you
Speaker 1: gotta go on tour, you gotta you know, you start
Speaker 1: wearing new Yeah, get new carpet. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff you gotta do and um and you know, hey,
Speaker 1: getting new carpet. Yeah, you gotta get you gotta get
Speaker 1: you just the Seinfeld where he's like, I can't have
Speaker 1: him manage Dwin have to get a new carpet and
Speaker 1: have to start wearing different clothes. Uh, But when you're
Speaker 1: a world record out guy, things are supposed to be different, right,
Speaker 1: but for the for the wrong reasons. They're supposed to
Speaker 1: be different because now you're this exalted like hunter. But like,
Speaker 1: let's say, let's celebrate the animal for what it is,
Speaker 1: because the animal is special. Let's celebrate the hunter for
Speaker 1: who he is and what he did that day. That's
Speaker 1: about as far as it goes. And then does he
Speaker 1: deserve to be on the cover field stream? Sure, not
Speaker 1: saying it was, but does he deserve that kind of coverage? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because I love great stories and so does everybody else.
Speaker 1: Does he deserve to get a bunch of sponsors and
Speaker 1: and be richer along as all streams? I guess that's
Speaker 1: for the market to declare. But but I you know,
Speaker 1: I would question question the motivations there. Yes, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it's just it's nice to see
Speaker 1: those guys that still have that passion for hunting. And
Speaker 1: then just like our buddy Steve coming out of the
Speaker 1: access to your camp. You know that guy, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I could have been around him when he
Speaker 1: was younger. He's so fired up to hunt right now.
Speaker 1: And for him to say I'm proud of you guys,
Speaker 1: was like the weirdest, most awesome thing that you could
Speaker 1: hear from a guy like that. You know, I'm proudly
Speaker 1: like this guy feels a connection because I'm carrying a boat.
Speaker 1: I could be some asshole, I do. I could have,
Speaker 1: you know, shot that deer in the guts and then
Speaker 1: picked up right And he doesn't know, but but he
Speaker 1: just feels like he sees a little bit of himself
Speaker 1: and us, which was which was fantastic. It's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I have been in camps where the first hunter
Speaker 1: to come in with the bowl nobody talked to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first day, first morning, first day, first Bowl, nobody talked
Speaker 1: to because all of a sudden, it was a reflection
Speaker 1: on them. Why did they not get whatever? And this
Speaker 1: guy marsh right up to you, and I was so
Speaker 1: proud of you. I gotta tell you boys something. I
Speaker 1: was so proud of you when you came in with
Speaker 1: that deer. I mean, my job dropped it that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what an adult is right there. And he was there,
Speaker 1: I believe, by himself. Where was he from I can't
Speaker 1: remember where he's from, Illinois, Illinois. Came always from Illinois
Speaker 1: by himself because he loves the bow hunt and he
Speaker 1: had a crossbow. And he was a little uh self
Speaker 1: conscious about his crossbow because you don't want to you know,
Speaker 1: he's a poping young guy, didn't want to get judged.
Speaker 1: But I was saying, and then just like a sweet
Speaker 1: started like, hey, you know, I'm getting older in my arm,
Speaker 1: hard to pull that bow back, but I I just
Speaker 1: take a crossbury once a while, you know. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: that's okay, man, you're passion about hown't you do it
Speaker 1: for forty years. You've you've earned the right to choose
Speaker 1: the way you want to do it. Your your shoulders
Speaker 1: should behold Yeah, your shoulders should be falling off, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be able to lift a fork, let alone
Speaker 1: lift across bow. Yeah. Yeah, And that I mean it's
Speaker 1: guys like that. You meet guys like that, and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: if I could be if I could have Steve's attitude
Speaker 1: in forty years, if I could have Steve's accomplishments and
Speaker 1: and just Steve's general disposition, I think I'd be a winner.
Speaker 1: So absolutely appreciate you, Steve, you're the man. Taren. Right,
Speaker 1: we're pulling up to my house. Now see those deer
Speaker 1: right there, they live in my yard, the Brand Deer Preserve.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, like on they sleep right in the yard.
Speaker 1: This is my yard. But that's that's my yard and
Speaker 1: they just chill out. They have fallns all back in
Speaker 1: these these uh this tall grass because obviously like that protection.
Speaker 1: So I've probably seen I don't know any falls. Lots
Speaker 1: of fauns though, get born right there here in Texas
Speaker 1: hill Country. Gateway to the hill Country. Dripping Springs, Texas, everybody.
Speaker 1: And I want to close this podcast by telling the story.
Speaker 1: And Rag all it is pregnant, she's wear she's going right.
Speaker 1: She will get right back there and have that one. Um.
Speaker 1: And I closed this podcast by telling the story. Almost
Speaker 1: forgot about it, and then I said dripping springs, and
Speaker 1: I remembered what was going down. So here's my front yard,
Speaker 1: and I'll show you the deer that are just eating
Speaker 1: my grass. Shas. There's there's a whole family unit landing
Speaker 1: ends friend yard. Yeah, we'll just keep driving around so's
Speaker 1: to not just sturb my family. So here's a story.
Speaker 1: This is great. Everybody. You're gonna love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm looking. I have to interapt just briefly. You have
Speaker 1: a john do your writing lawn more? And I just
Speaker 1: is that is that too cliche? It's not. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's cliche, but I just for some reason,
Speaker 1: I can perfectly picture you'd writing around and do you
Speaker 1: you don't have a lawn to mow there at the
Speaker 1: d I y condo. Nope. Oh man, when you have
Speaker 1: a kid and you mowing the lawn, it's like meditation,
Speaker 1: very loud, noisy, hottest ship meditation. Ah, that's what it's like.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, get back to your story, please, it's very
Speaker 1: important stories. I don't have talked to somebody out there
Speaker 1: in the world probably listening right now. I know he's listening.
Speaker 1: He told me he does. So. UM. You know, I
Speaker 1: play in this hunt and I probably myself of my
Speaker 1: logistical abilities. It's one of the things, one of my
Speaker 1: few other than talking, one of my few, uh marginal
Speaker 1: talents and uh Mr Callahan. I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: come on down to Texas and after you have some
Speaker 1: convincing massaging. He was like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it,
Speaker 1: and I said, come on down on the Mate Memorial Day.
Speaker 1: He said real really yeah, okay, bought his ticket. Well.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I talked to the outfitter and turned
Speaker 1: out May twenty ninth was a better day to go.
Speaker 1: And then I've just neglected to tell Mr Callahan, and
Speaker 1: then I neglected to remember that he was coming in.
Speaker 1: So I was out in my backyard shoot my bow,
Speaker 1: getting ready. I've just written around on my John Deere
Speaker 1: and I get a text from Ryan I'm at the airport.
Speaker 1: And my first reaction was like, oh, tomorrow, you're at
Speaker 1: the airport right, not at the airport today. But no, no,
Speaker 1: he was there at the airport and I was in
Speaker 1: my and my dad clothes doing yard works, shoot my bow.
Speaker 1: So I jumped in my truck and I sped down
Speaker 1: the current the road, little ship. So I jumped in
Speaker 1: my truck and I sped down the road that we're
Speaker 1: currently on. Uh. Because I didn't want Ryan to have
Speaker 1: to wait too long with the hipsters in the Austin airport,
Speaker 1: afraid he was gonna get cost there would never know
Speaker 1: what they're those hipsters are gonna do. You don't know there,
Speaker 1: unpredictable and then so I'm speeding down this road and
Speaker 1: I'm talking on the phone, trying to get the day organized,
Speaker 1: and uh, what do I see the cop pulling me over?
Speaker 1: This cop pulls me over, comes to the door the
Speaker 1: car says, sir, you were going xmile an hour over
Speaker 1: the speed limit. It takes my license. I'll bear and Briant,
Speaker 1: oh cool, we've met before. I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. I assume like that means like we're cool, man,
Speaker 1: like we're feeling you did something wrong. But I'll let
Speaker 1: it go. And this stern warning and warning, and this
Speaker 1: officer gets back to his car and he comes back
Speaker 1: and he says, I'm gonna give off issue a citation.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you, I I don't know if this
Speaker 1: does really a whole lot for you right now. But
Speaker 1: I love the podcast. He's like, are you going to
Speaker 1: what are you doing to get at the I told
Speaker 1: him I was going to the airport. I was I'm
Speaker 1: going to get Ryan Kelly. He's all, that's awesome. You
Speaker 1: guys are gonna podcast. Oh yeah, of course we are.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure to give you a shout outs. So
Speaker 1: Officer Smallwood from Dripping Springs, Texas appreciate your service. Man,
Speaker 1: I really do not not saying that. Say absolutely, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry about that speeding held. I'll keep it down because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot more important to do
Speaker 1: than speed. Yeah, that's just one failure that's gonna lead
Speaker 1: to a lot of a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: victories down the road. Officer for small Wood. Did you
Speaker 1: tying it together, Ryan Calla putting the bow on the podcast? Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming for the second one. We've been in
Speaker 1: the truck for the entire entirety of our two conversations,
Speaker 1: so you're a huge part of the hunting collective and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being willing to do that. Oh man,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. And yeah, always always fun to
Speaker 1: you know, cheat the fat with you. Well, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to do it by everybody. That's it. That's all. Episode
Speaker 1: number fifteen is in the books. Thank you Mr Gallean
Speaker 1: for joining me one more time on a hunting collective.
Speaker 1: I'd have him back every episode if I could. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this conversation on our drive back to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas from Sonora across the hill country. I really like
Speaker 1: this one. For a bunch of reasons, but you just
Speaker 1: got to sit and cruise and listen to Ryan talk
Speaker 1: about what he liked to do. Um and his humble
Speaker 1: nature probably won't let him brag too much about his skills,
Speaker 1: but I can tell you on this hunt, he delivered
Speaker 1: and impressed me enough to want to pick up a
Speaker 1: longbow myself, so I may just do that, you know,
Speaker 1: in the future hunts. So thanks to Ryan one more time,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody for listening to episode number fifteen.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with the episode number sixteen
Speaker 1: with Adam Jankie. So Adam from the journal Amountain Hunting
Speaker 1: up next week. Good discussion on media and all of
Speaker 1: this entailed there, so check us out on the Hunting
Speaker 1: Collective dot com, articles, videos, podcasts, all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: there for you to take in. Check me out on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Benny obi one. Keep following along. Big updates
Speaker 1: to come, big changes hopefully for the podcast, for the
Speaker 1: positive and hopefully we'll grow well grow with you and
Speaker 1: know those of you have listened. I can't say enough
Speaker 1: about it how much the support means to me and
Speaker 1: my family, my wife Hannah, my son James, everyone that
Speaker 1: has given us positive, positive encouragement. It means a lot
Speaker 1: because of our family,