Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome episode number six of the Honey Collective.
Speaker 1: I'm been O'Brien. I'm joined today by none other than
Speaker 1: Remy Lauren. I'm sure you know Remy from his appearances
Speaker 1: on Solo Hunter. He's been featured on Meat Eater, he
Speaker 1: once had a show by the name Apex Predator, and
Speaker 1: he is most generally a badass. This podcast I believe
Speaker 1: you'll enjoy, mostly just because we were sitting on a porch,
Speaker 1: drinking beer late in the night and talking about hunting,
Speaker 1: talking about values, and generally just shooting the ship, as
Speaker 1: as two people who enjoy spending time together, had a
Speaker 1: great meal, had a few after after dinner beers, and
Speaker 1: recorded a conversation that we both enjoyed having. So I
Speaker 1: won't say much more about Remy, or about the podcast
Speaker 1: or about the conversation other than to say I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy. We sure did Episode number six. Putting my
Speaker 1: line in my corona, my line is also in my corona. Now,
Speaker 1: let me tell everybody out there a little story me
Speaker 1: and Banner sipping coronas in his backyard at this time.
Speaker 1: But the corona part flashes me back to I don't
Speaker 1: know a few weeks ago when we did this very
Speaker 1: same podcast, Yet Ben decided to use a memory card
Speaker 1: that was probably less storage space than a U what
Speaker 1: is it, no, Kia Razor. It came out of my
Speaker 1: game boy, Remember when you we're playing Snake on your
Speaker 1: phone and you thought that point zero five cell phone
Speaker 1: pick was epic. He decided to take the memory card
Speaker 1: out of that and record a very high quality podcast
Speaker 1: on it. So we talked for an hour and a
Speaker 1: half and nothing came up again, and except we enjoyed Corona,
Speaker 1: just Crestfallen, we were just no. Actually, you know, we
Speaker 1: got most of it recorded and then I went to
Speaker 1: put it on my computer and it it was one
Speaker 1: of the best podcasts ever I will say it is.
Speaker 1: It was a very avant garde podcast. It's like one
Speaker 1: of those podcasts where it's it was an expression, it
Speaker 1: was an art form. We just we talked about We
Speaker 1: did the podcast without recording it, and then we go
Speaker 1: and tell people on the podcast, and those people tell
Speaker 1: those people and it spreads like wildfire through the community
Speaker 1: of people will say, do you remember the time that
Speaker 1: you heard about the time that you heard about the podcast?
Speaker 1: Now did you hear that podcast? No? I didn't hear
Speaker 1: that podcast either, but here's what I heard about that podcast. So,
Speaker 1: like a Jackson Pollock paying for the rest of the
Speaker 1: night to annoy Ben and everyone else, I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep referring to the other podcast. Um It, it'll be
Speaker 1: you know, we'll remember this years from now when we're
Speaker 1: old and gray. We'll remember that podcast as as just
Speaker 1: time lost in an age where everything was recorded. There
Speaker 1: was a moment where we had a discussion we thought
Speaker 1: was serious. It turned out to be nothing. Yet that
Speaker 1: duck face picture you took still remains. All those gripping
Speaker 1: grins I've been posting for the last ten years remained,
Speaker 1: still remained. Well, it remains that we've seen. If this
Speaker 1: one will ever make it anywhere, we don't know which.
Speaker 1: I'm even weirder talking to the abyss and actually as
Speaker 1: a fellow tech savy type of human, um, I'm checking myself.
Speaker 1: You're out about eighteen right, Yeah, we're getting a little
Speaker 1: record action. So let's see. I don't remember what we
Speaker 1: talked about, and I don't really care. It doesn't matter what.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Tell me, tell me
Speaker 1: if someone else was like, let's do a podcast, and
Speaker 1: I did a podcast and it got deleted, and they're like,
Speaker 1: let's redo the podcast. I would say, good luck, you
Speaker 1: just tell the story. But because Ben O'Brien is a
Speaker 1: very dear friend to me and I appreciate what he does,
Speaker 1: I was like, of course, Ben, I don't think you
Speaker 1: were like of course. I was like, like I forgot
Speaker 1: my wallet, Like I think you do a fancy dinner.
Speaker 1: And I was like, would you like to return to
Speaker 1: my house I have I have some coronas and we
Speaker 1: can sit on the back porch. Oh, there's some headphones
Speaker 1: back here. Hey listen. I I it was very sad
Speaker 1: like that, and it I was very It was a
Speaker 1: very somber night. My wife and I didn't even look
Speaker 1: at each other. I knew what I had done and
Speaker 1: I knew what we can never get back. It was
Speaker 1: like a death in the podcast family that that lost.
Speaker 1: Maybe one day I'll find it on some old techmo
Speaker 1: bowl card that I never knew I had. That's why
Speaker 1: I record all my podcasts on vhs, just it's so
Speaker 1: hard to erase, just in case one day, well you
Speaker 1: have to erase it. I'm gonna look at you, turn
Speaker 1: you down a little bit. We're letting everybody behind the
Speaker 1: curtain here, behind the podcast curtain. So I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about hunting. That's probably one of the things
Speaker 1: that we'll touch on here in this podcast. But I
Speaker 1: think the first thing I want to talk about is
Speaker 1: your upcoming nuptials. If you're comfortable with with going over
Speaker 1: what they what that looks like, you know, for Ben O'Brien,
Speaker 1: I'll do any kind of I will really divulge into
Speaker 1: my life. I think people I like to be a
Speaker 1: little secretive. I don't like people knowing my business. Actually nobody.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody really knows about your your wife,
Speaker 1: your fiance. You got to close the deal, but I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a lot of people that that definitely
Speaker 1: not Here's the thing. People are always saying to me, Oh,
Speaker 1: someone finally tied you down, wrangled gin What makes them
Speaker 1: think that I'm the one age? No, not in that way.
Speaker 1: But you know, I might not be the catch in
Speaker 1: this this relationship. I mean, I would say it's likely
Speaker 1: from what you've described your lovely fiance, she's the catch.
Speaker 1: She is the catch, you told me. She gets up
Speaker 1: at four in the morning, she does I think it's
Speaker 1: just oould do me. That's a bad pressure. She accomplishes
Speaker 1: more by seven am than most people will in a week.
Speaker 1: And I and you know that's what Are you intimidated
Speaker 1: by that? A little bit? Not gonna lie, I feel it.
Speaker 1: I feel in fact that she's like, yeah, I was,
Speaker 1: what do you What do you do from five to
Speaker 1: seven am? When the answers punching kickboxing bags to stay
Speaker 1: in shape? I get scared. Do you think she's just
Speaker 1: doing that to assliminate you? She's just doing that just
Speaker 1: to keep you in line. Like, listen, Remy, I will
Speaker 1: say this, as far as as hunting goes, and this
Speaker 1: is actually an interesting topic that many many people might
Speaker 1: shy away from. I'm just gonna go all for it.
Speaker 1: I like, that's kind of what we're after that interesting topics.
Speaker 1: Think about this. I grew up and a lot of
Speaker 1: times you try to you either do one of two things.
Speaker 1: You mimic the family that you grew up in, or
Speaker 1: you do the exact opposite. I was very fortunate enough
Speaker 1: that I grew up in a great family. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: probably rare in today society than it was twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Parents stayed together, brother, or your friends were very I
Speaker 1: grew up in a very tight knit family. My dad
Speaker 1: likes to hunt. My mom not a hunter. She actually
Speaker 1: grew up in a family of what I would probably
Speaker 1: consider for most people out the hippie vegans, because they
Speaker 1: were vegans and fairly hippie esque. However, I've kind of
Speaker 1: converted most of them into eating wild gaming, which they
Speaker 1: love now. But my mom enjoys going out hunting with us.
Speaker 1: The lady is one of the best spotters I have
Speaker 1: ever met. I probably got my spotting abilities from my mother. Sorry, Dad,
Speaker 1: I mean he knows it's true. In my outfitting business,
Speaker 1: she'll be home, she'll be She does a lot of
Speaker 1: the cooking for us, and she is. She could be
Speaker 1: on top chef like. She is a phenomenal cook. She
Speaker 1: does an amazing job. You would It's not like home cooking.
Speaker 1: It's like but one day she'll look up on the hill,
Speaker 1: Oh there's a deer, and she doesn't get excited like
Speaker 1: somebody that hunts does. She's seen enough deer on the
Speaker 1: wall and whatever that she'll look at a deer. She's
Speaker 1: a better judge of mule deer than probably of the
Speaker 1: self proclaimed trophy hunters out there. She does not bullshit,
Speaker 1: and for some reason, she has an eye for rack
Speaker 1: bracketing deer. She could look at a deer and be like,
Speaker 1: knows whether it's the quality we're looking for or not.
Speaker 1: One week, we had a client with a special meal
Speaker 1: their tag. This is a long story, I'm getting around
Speaker 1: and going back. So we had a client with a
Speaker 1: meal dear tag, special meal dere tag. This he actually,
Speaker 1: I think if I remember correctly, he might have even
Speaker 1: won the super tag for the state of Montana, which
Speaker 1: means he can hunt anywhere in the state. And I
Speaker 1: happened to guide in one of the better units, so
Speaker 1: he decided to come up with us. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: just druetic camera. So the guy is hunting his ass
Speaker 1: off all week. My mom's cooking up the last meal.
Speaker 1: The guy has not killed a meal here. She calls
Speaker 1: me and it's like, hey, Remy, there is a big
Speaker 1: buck behind the lodge. You should probably get you over here.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, Well, the hunter was with another
Speaker 1: guy that day. I was, oh, kind we killed their
Speaker 1: elk taking it into the butcher and I was just
Speaker 1: coming back. So I'm like, oh, ship, Well, these guys
Speaker 1: don't even have phones with them because like, this never
Speaker 1: happens there in a good spot. So I drive a
Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour to this. I go to the
Speaker 1: lodge first because I'm thinking, my mom, does she really
Speaker 1: know what to think? She points up there. I looked
Speaker 1: through the binocularcy oh ship, Yeah, yep, you know what
Speaker 1: a big love your mom big non to points going everywhere,
Speaker 1: and then I drive down go. I drive to where
Speaker 1: their truck is parked because I saw it earlier in
Speaker 1: the day. I literally am sprinting up trying to find
Speaker 1: these guys, find them, get them. They jump in the truck.
Speaker 1: We drive back a hundred miles an hour, and the
Speaker 1: last night of the hunt, he shoots this deer that
Speaker 1: my mom had spotted. I was like, awesome. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of years later, my mom's spots a buck
Speaker 1: and she sees she'll see she looks at deer all day.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh yeah, dear, dear, dear, spots another buck.
Speaker 1: Tells my buddy about it and he ends up shooting
Speaker 1: the buck and it was buck. It's just she has
Speaker 1: a knack for finding big deer. She now here. Here's
Speaker 1: where the story relates to her and what I was
Speaker 1: going into. She tells us about this deer behind the lunch.
Speaker 1: We shoot the deer. She then proceeds to cry and
Speaker 1: cry and cry. They killed my buck killed the deer.
Speaker 1: My mother is not a hunter, but she enjoys going out.
Speaker 1: She enjoys the process of hunting. When she generally spots
Speaker 1: the things that get shot. On my Nevada elk hunt,
Speaker 1: which was took me ten years to draw, she spotted.
Speaker 1: She's sitting right next to a professional hunter and she
Speaker 1: spot appen to spot yell that I ended up shooting.
Speaker 1: Every time she cries for that animal. Then she wipes
Speaker 1: her tears away and she will put on probably what's
Speaker 1: close to her body weight and meat on her back
Speaker 1: and pack it out. But she loves the process of hunting.
Speaker 1: But she has told me she could never kill something herself. So,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people their families. My family
Speaker 1: dynamic was my dad hunted, my mom did not, but
Speaker 1: she enjoyed going out. I never had a desire to
Speaker 1: look for a spouse or partner that hunted. It was
Speaker 1: not in my radar. It wasn't something that I wanted.
Speaker 1: It was actually something that I seeked to find. Somebody
Speaker 1: that didn't hunt, not some weird Freudian whatever thing. And
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm just gonna be honest with myself. But
Speaker 1: to be honest, I thought, Yeah, I've got a buddy
Speaker 1: whose wives hunts. And what does he do. He guides
Speaker 1: his wife hunting all the time. Not that that's typical
Speaker 1: every time and not that. And if you're my buddy
Speaker 1: and you're listening to this and you think it's you,
Speaker 1: it's probably not you. It could be my other buddy,
Speaker 1: A lot of buddy. Everybody just calmed down, But it's
Speaker 1: not you. But I got I got it all the time.
Speaker 1: That's my job. So when I go out, do I
Speaker 1: want to be taking somebody else hunting? No. I like
Speaker 1: to hunt alone. I like to do my own thing.
Speaker 1: That's how that's my escape, that's how I reset, is
Speaker 1: to be out alone. Well, hm, my fiance, current fiance,
Speaker 1: my only fiace, let's walk that back, my lovely by current,
Speaker 1: I meant she's my fiance now, but she will be
Speaker 1: my wife. Got it, got it, we got saved it saved.
Speaker 1: Um Well, actually, you know I was gonna say my
Speaker 1: current fiance is a hunter, but she was not a hunter.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm digging myself all that whatever, does that make sense?
Speaker 1: When I met her, she had said to me she
Speaker 1: would enjoy going out, but she did not hunt. She
Speaker 1: never could see herself killing an animal. And I thought
Speaker 1: that's fine. And I was like, dude, like wild game meat, yes, score,
Speaker 1: because that's that right, there is a deal breaker for me.
Speaker 1: Well if she met my wife, right, my my wife.
Speaker 1: I took her squirrel hunting one time, uh in the Ozarks.
Speaker 1: I shot two squirrels. It was hot that day, shot
Speaker 1: two squirrels. She said, this sucks, let's go back. And
Speaker 1: that's the only time. That's the only time we went
Speaker 1: out hunting together. But she can cook the hell out
Speaker 1: of that squirrel. She can cook the hell out of
Speaker 1: an elk. She happily does it. But I had to
Speaker 1: get her to that point. Like when I first met her,
Speaker 1: she had that tried that stuff. But now if I
Speaker 1: go out and I'm like call her on day three,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm having a tough elk hunt, She's like,
Speaker 1: are you see an elk? Like yeah, she said, just
Speaker 1: shoot one. We need to meet Like that's come home,
Speaker 1: come home, come home. We need that. And so I
Speaker 1: have that separation church and state where she is very
Speaker 1: much in support of those efforts, almost to her own benefit,
Speaker 1: like she understands. And then when I bring the meat
Speaker 1: home and we start I start processing, and she's got
Speaker 1: a lot of like, oh, I'll take some steaks out
Speaker 1: of that, let's go butterfly with those, will go three
Speaker 1: inch with those, those will just take this, make some hamburger,
Speaker 1: And she has these exactly what she wants. What have
Speaker 1: we try making lunch? Me? Do we need to get
Speaker 1: a slicer? I was thinking this is I don't think
Speaker 1: I would want in any other way. Not that if
Speaker 1: she tomorrow turned up like your fiance did and said like,
Speaker 1: let's let's give it a shot. I'd love to see
Speaker 1: what it's like. Not that I wouldn't jump for a
Speaker 1: joy to spend that time with her. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I appreciate what we have right now. I
Speaker 1: don't know want to change it. Yeah, but you probably
Speaker 1: feel the same way I do. Is, whether she hunts
Speaker 1: or not, if she turned her nose up to wild game,
Speaker 1: it would be a very hard household to live in. Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's that to me is more different
Speaker 1: than having a difference of political opinion. Well, I was.
Speaker 1: I had the first experience where I liked so Hannah,
Speaker 1: my wife, it goes to a lot of mom groups
Speaker 1: and stuff. If she stayed at home mom and she
Speaker 1: met this this um husband and wife team and they
Speaker 1: both um or very nice people. We went to their
Speaker 1: house for a little dinner party and I just they
Speaker 1: asked if I would bring some alchemy, so they've never
Speaker 1: had it before. So I brought some elk less nice
Speaker 1: chunk of backstrap, which to me is like this. You know,
Speaker 1: if I didn't like him, I would have brought him
Speaker 1: some sausage. I thought, maybe we could be friends with
Speaker 1: these people. I'll bring them some backstrap. Will we go
Speaker 1: over there? And I cooked it up on the grille,
Speaker 1: which I you know, I didn't have any tools in
Speaker 1: my own. I just figured we'll just cooking in their environment.
Speaker 1: It's it's not gonna be bad. It's elk cooked it
Speaker 1: up pretty ill in a grill. When Webber grill cooked
Speaker 1: it up, it was good. Slice it up and uh,
Speaker 1: the husband ate it up, was loving life. And the
Speaker 1: wife slices a piece of it off and eats it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like kind of watching her like weird reactions
Speaker 1: and church kind of hide her like what seemed like
Speaker 1: discussed And my wife said, like, how did you like it?
Speaker 1: She said, m m, it tastes a lot like liver.
Speaker 1: And I just thought, that's the worst reaction. I've never
Speaker 1: heard that reaction to a medium rare backstrap in my
Speaker 1: entire life. And I could see the guy think. The
Speaker 1: embarrassment on the guy's face was was clear to me,
Speaker 1: and I just thought it made a thounce my wife,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would do. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what I would do that I understand. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: where was it? Oh, yeah, I was. I was just
Speaker 1: talking about how my fiance before she started, before she
Speaker 1: actually went hunting, she would go with me in New
Speaker 1: Zealand and we would hike up the mountains and I
Speaker 1: would shoot the animals. But every step of the way
Speaker 1: she was one like walking my footsteps. I've hunted with
Speaker 1: a lot of people in a lot of places. She
Speaker 1: was the only person I've ever met that could keep
Speaker 1: up with me. Therefore, she is a badass, whether she
Speaker 1: will She's very humble, she is a school teacher. She
Speaker 1: likes to keep to her own. She has zero social media.
Speaker 1: She will not go on social media. She is very
Speaker 1: very reserved. Doesn't I have a Google home in my house?
Speaker 1: She doesn't like them. It's listening to us, right, let
Speaker 1: me may work for the CIA. I'm not sure. Lets
Speaker 1: this question. Did she know anything when you guys got
Speaker 1: together and started getting serious. Did she know about your
Speaker 1: you know, like who you were in the hunting industry
Speaker 1: or or now you're standing there, or did she just
Speaker 1: think you're some hunting fellow that play at a profession? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like, this is interesting. What do you do? I
Speaker 1: don't care what do you do? No, but she she
Speaker 1: actually came to Montana and did some cooking and kind
Speaker 1: of like learned what I did just to get a
Speaker 1: better sense of everything that I do, which is cool,
Speaker 1: and go to New Zealand and all that. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's a school teacher, which is awesome, just very caring
Speaker 1: and but she can keep up like nobody else I've
Speaker 1: ever met. That's pretty awesome. Okay, it doesn't matter, however,
Speaker 1: Uh we read she recently shot her first dear, which
Speaker 1: who was she was extremely excited and watching her go
Speaker 1: through the emotion of it. Yeah, I mean, she she
Speaker 1: shot the deer and she made a perfect shot. I'm
Speaker 1: talking like, she's a very good shot. Her dad's a
Speaker 1: good shot too, so her dad taught her to shoot.
Speaker 1: But she never wanted to hunt. But she's a very
Speaker 1: good shot, so she shoots, makes a great shot. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna lock the guns and the guns safe
Speaker 1: and never give you the combinations. Just kidding. Um, where
Speaker 1: was he going with that? I think that was all
Speaker 1: because of the punching bag thing, and then fear of
Speaker 1: the lady, and then well, just wasn't feeling what it
Speaker 1: feels like that somebody who now it wasn't a hunter.
Speaker 1: You felt comfortable with that idea, you grew up with that.
Speaker 1: But now she understands what hunting is, and she's gone
Speaker 1: through the steps that I went through when I first
Speaker 1: started hunting. Now she went through maybe a little more
Speaker 1: range of emotion, but she understands what it means to
Speaker 1: kill what you eat. She understands what it means when
Speaker 1: I put the biggest thing that I saw was originally
Speaker 1: she thought, oh you can have you can do whatever
Speaker 1: you want in the other parts of the house, antlers whatever,
Speaker 1: not too many, but no antlers in the better I
Speaker 1: agreed to that. I'm a sensible man. You know you can.
Speaker 1: There's some things you can, right. I agreed to that.
Speaker 1: People out there thinking Remy is a hard core motherfucker
Speaker 1: he would never agree to that. I agreed to that.
Speaker 1: But when she shot her first dear and it happened
Speaker 1: to be a buck, we weren't actually trying for a bucker.
Speaker 1: We were just whatever dear we could. It was access
Speaker 1: to dear and most of them have lost their antlers.
Speaker 1: But it's cool that she got a buck I actually
Speaker 1: really wanted to get. She didn't care. She just wants
Speaker 1: to meet. But when she shot her first buck, the
Speaker 1: range of emotion and then she was like, wow, these
Speaker 1: antlers are mine. Now I want to put them up
Speaker 1: on the wall. I have a perfect place for it,
Speaker 1: right above the bed, in the bed, in our bedroom.
Speaker 1: And I was like, now you get it. Now you
Speaker 1: get the value that I put on it. It's not
Speaker 1: it wasn't a giant buck. It was no quote unquote
Speaker 1: air quote trophy. But she went through a range of emotions.
Speaker 1: She cried. It was she had taken the life of
Speaker 1: something that was beautiful. What was beautiful then became meat
Speaker 1: that we ate and nourished our bodies and was good
Speaker 1: and healthy for us, and then those antlers became a
Speaker 1: symbol of the experience in the way she describes it
Speaker 1: as one of the most vivid experiences of her life,
Speaker 1: like a very clear defining moment from someone that didn't
Speaker 1: hunt and thought could never hunt to now wanting to
Speaker 1: put those antlers up on the wall, and to me,
Speaker 1: that validates the process of hunting, the process of antlers.
Speaker 1: I have mounts in my house and what those mean
Speaker 1: to me. It doesn't mean some trophy, some chest pounding trophy.
Speaker 1: To me, it's a memory that when the meat in
Speaker 1: the freezer is long gone, I will forever remember the
Speaker 1: animal that sacrificed its life. And it's it's funny to
Speaker 1: me that we we as hunters have so not we
Speaker 1: not maybe not me and you, um, but maybe like
Speaker 1: our upbringing brought this on a little bit. It was
Speaker 1: funny we as hunters have so poorly represented the idea
Speaker 1: that you're talking about. I was watching I was watching
Speaker 1: the other day, like the trophy documentary on CNN. That's
Speaker 1: why I watched that. And then I was watching some
Speaker 1: NR a t V just as I wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of catch what was what was stirring up controversy. And
Speaker 1: then there was in both cases there was people who
Speaker 1: had trophy rooms that were literally one giant room with
Speaker 1: upwards of a hundred and seventy five heads full body
Speaker 1: mounts around that room. And and to me, that denotes
Speaker 1: a collection rather than a collection of experiences like you're
Speaker 1: talking about, or a collection of really important moments in
Speaker 1: your life and very vivid memories and things that are
Speaker 1: you know, really just an experiential for you. You You have
Speaker 1: a giant vaulted ceiling with seventy five heads on it.
Speaker 1: What's that look like? It looks like you're collecting those animals?
Speaker 1: Not that? Not that somehow you have a hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five experiences you want to commemorate. It looks like
Speaker 1: you're you have a hundred and seventy chess pieces on
Speaker 1: a board or something something of that nature. Probably something
Speaker 1: smarter than that, but that's what it seems to me.
Speaker 1: And I wondered, historically we've done a poor job of
Speaker 1: representing what amount should should be and what it and
Speaker 1: probably moreover, what the funk it could be? What you
Speaker 1: what could it be? To you? It could be anything
Speaker 1: you want it to be, right, I mean there's people
Speaker 1: that do not hunt and have a cabin and Jackson
Speaker 1: hold Wyoming with antlers and mounts all over it. They
Speaker 1: mean nothing their decorations. I don't see any set of
Speaker 1: antlers in my house as decoration. When you look at
Speaker 1: the white tail on your wall in your living room,
Speaker 1: is that decoration to you? Absolutely? It might be a
Speaker 1: decoration to your wife or someone that walks into your house,
Speaker 1: but to you, it's not decoration, right, And she understands
Speaker 1: even though she put that all together like a decorative
Speaker 1: like piece, it looks, she understands what I what I
Speaker 1: When you see it, you see a memory, and she
Speaker 1: understands that. She's like me, I wanted to look nice.
Speaker 1: I understand for you, this is what it's going to be.
Speaker 1: And we talked about that when we uh moved into
Speaker 1: this current place, like once we we had a kid
Speaker 1: to come at the decorating one out the window destroyed everything,
Speaker 1: But well said, I said, I would like each room
Speaker 1: to have have some totems in them, Like when I
Speaker 1: walk into the room, I can think, like immediately I
Speaker 1: just I look and our LA night trip last year,
Speaker 1: my guest bedroom in there. I've got the access there.
Speaker 1: I killed shot that thing at eight yard. It's not
Speaker 1: ashamed to say I was at some point a shame
Speaker 1: to say that, not after I thought through and then
Speaker 1: I have a move fline in there that I shot
Speaker 1: with a rifle basically off a truck, like at the
Speaker 1: same at the same level, both from the same hunt. However,
Speaker 1: we got a picture of Messian Well, I'll do I'll
Speaker 1: talk about we gotta tell I think part of part
Speaker 1: of this podcast. I hope we could just tell some
Speaker 1: fucking hunting stores and get that get to that. Um.
Speaker 1: But to me, that room even more over to representing
Speaker 1: our hunt together, it represents that place, like how it
Speaker 1: feels and what it means to me, and like how
Speaker 1: it changed my perspective in the world, Like what the
Speaker 1: islands of Hawaii are to be. They're a simpler place,
Speaker 1: They're they're more pristine. Um, they're more cultural, they're more reverence.
Speaker 1: So when I look at those heads, I think about
Speaker 1: that culture, and I think about what from that culture
Speaker 1: can I bring to my own home to better my
Speaker 1: child or to better my wife, my relationship, my wife
Speaker 1: and traditions that we could codify that make more sense. Um,
Speaker 1: And so it's yeah, it's freaking way deeper than even
Speaker 1: just an experience for me, Like it's well, the other
Speaker 1: the other thing that I noticed is when I come
Speaker 1: over to your house as a hunter, in your garage
Speaker 1: there's sets mantlers. I get excited about them. Where did
Speaker 1: this deer come from? Telling you about this, dear, it's
Speaker 1: not some it's it's sharing an experience. It's remembering that animal,
Speaker 1: that hunt, that struggle, the ones that didn't have a
Speaker 1: struggle or story or a meaning. Oh that one, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's every single one in there.
Speaker 1: You go, Okay, this was this, this was Every animal
Speaker 1: has a story. Now you go, antlers are on the wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well the story is all the meats gone. We ate
Speaker 1: that animal. You don't have to tell me about that.
Speaker 1: I know that as a hunter, but we spend forty
Speaker 1: five minutes every time I come to your house, I'm
Speaker 1: looking through going, oh, yeah, what what was this one?
Speaker 1: Where was that one from? Where did you get this?
Speaker 1: Tell me about this? That's a cool bull. Look at
Speaker 1: this bull out. Wow, that's a really neat bull. It's
Speaker 1: not a giant bull, but it's a nice six point bull. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was my first bull in Colorado and we were
Speaker 1: just talking about it. It's like, how about that moose.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the moose I shot with Joe roguean
Speaker 1: like five years ago. When I first met Joe. I
Speaker 1: didn't say, like, hey man, that's my right. I said,
Speaker 1: that's the first moves I've ever killed. I killed it
Speaker 1: with Joe Rogue is the first time him and I
Speaker 1: ever got together. It's the start of our friendship. It
Speaker 1: was awesome, And I'm like, is it a Canadian moose? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Canadian moves. I've ne your hunting Canadians. That would be
Speaker 1: a dream of mine to go hunt Canada because of
Speaker 1: the venture, the place, the memories to everything. The meat
Speaker 1: is a part of it is a big part of
Speaker 1: it for me. But yet you have these antlers or
Speaker 1: some people do mounts or whatever. I like having that memory,
Speaker 1: so I don't forget. Okay, photo is the same, yes,
Speaker 1: but you can't hold a photo in the same way
Speaker 1: that you can hold well. Right, You're looking at that
Speaker 1: bull I killed in the Colorado a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and you're like looking, oh man, look at this, you know,
Speaker 1: look at this little piece of metal jammed into his base,
Speaker 1: or like there's just a the tangible feeling. That's why
Speaker 1: I always and we've done this in our in our
Speaker 1: professional career. Like you you contrive this picture of you
Speaker 1: in the animal right, like you set the right lighting,
Speaker 1: and you sometimes move the animal's body over to a
Speaker 1: different area that looks more beautiful than where he actually died,
Speaker 1: which is is almost taking away from that experiential piece
Speaker 1: a little because you're now taking like he died in
Speaker 1: the place he died, like and you pull him over
Speaker 1: to I do. I've done that before. You take shoot
Speaker 1: an animal in a brush pile and pull him over
Speaker 1: to the night the nicest peak and take this photo
Speaker 1: that's that is epic. Now that represents the landscape in
Speaker 1: some way, but it also doesn't represent where the animal
Speaker 1: died and what that experience was like. So that's one
Speaker 1: thing that I found going forward I'd like to change
Speaker 1: for me, is I want a photo of me and
Speaker 1: the animal in the place that I died, where that
Speaker 1: experience happened. You know, in the case of your wife,
Speaker 1: maybe where she cried, like maybe in that place a
Speaker 1: photo that kind of represents that moment. You'll never capture
Speaker 1: that moment, and it's entirety. But at least you can
Speaker 1: represent what where you were and what it felt like
Speaker 1: for you know, think about thirty four years from now,
Speaker 1: what that what that will be for you? You know
Speaker 1: what that moment, tear felt moment over the deer would be.
Speaker 1: Um And why would I not want that to be
Speaker 1: well represented in a photo? Why does it have to
Speaker 1: be fucking you know, cut the tongue off and wipe
Speaker 1: the blood off and do that, you know, like, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the value in that, you know, other than
Speaker 1: a trading card? Well, and and and here's where we
Speaker 1: may agree or we may disagree. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: hope we disagree because that we can and then we
Speaker 1: can talk about what we talk about. They agree, it
Speaker 1: will be bored when I okay, yeah, I actually didn't
Speaker 1: know where this podcast was going because our last one
Speaker 1: just win a completely different direction. I had to refer
Speaker 1: to the last one so I can release that. It's
Speaker 1: like podcast number one, I'll be surprise. And you talked
Speaker 1: like you're not your wife will here back? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: why did you say that? Fast? Okay? I like, if
Speaker 1: I take here's here's the way I see it. If
Speaker 1: I take what we would call a gripping grin because
Speaker 1: I I actually getting the corona burp pop there inside.
Speaker 1: We're gonna call you out on it too, don't you.
Speaker 1: We're drinking beer here now we're moving our little microphones
Speaker 1: to to burp and mac noise. You don't want um?
Speaker 1: Okay if you? Oh yeah, I'm talking about the gripping grin.
Speaker 1: When I take I take what I consider really good
Speaker 1: gripping grins because I do it for clients and I
Speaker 1: do it for myself, and I set the animal in
Speaker 1: a way. When I look at a hunting photo, I
Speaker 1: don't give ship hoo's in the background. I don't even
Speaker 1: see the person in the background. I'm looking at the animal.
Speaker 1: And for me, when I set a picture, I want
Speaker 1: it to be an acceptable representation to showcase that animal.
Speaker 1: And that's the way that I give respect to that animal,
Speaker 1: because I know that I might be in the background.
Speaker 1: But it's not about who's in the background. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could show me a picture of a mule here
Speaker 1: and I couldn't tell you whose faces in it because
Speaker 1: I'm staring at the rap right. Priorities, priorities. But if
Speaker 1: the animal looks like in a disgusting manner or whatever
Speaker 1: that does not show it in the best light. I
Speaker 1: don't like that because I like the animal to be
Speaker 1: represented in a way that gives value to the animal.
Speaker 1: So if I'm sitting behind an elk and I set
Speaker 1: it up in the elk looks, You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: look at that elk and I'm in the background. That's perfect.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted as a photographer and as a
Speaker 1: hunter and as a guide. That's what I wanted. That's
Speaker 1: what I was going and I would make it clear
Speaker 1: that on my side of things. And I feel like
Speaker 1: this is going to be some kind of underlying theme
Speaker 1: of this podcast. But have you talked about this before.
Speaker 1: We've talked about listening podcast. I've talked about it. But
Speaker 1: I like the different Like there's a lot of these
Speaker 1: subjects that come up, probably because I kind of lean
Speaker 1: towards them, but they come up, and then there's always
Speaker 1: different angles on on the subject, even if you talk
Speaker 1: about it six times. But in this case, I'd like
Speaker 1: to say I don't have a problem with the idea
Speaker 1: of what you're talking about. The grip and grid. I don't.
Speaker 1: I do it all the time. But what I've come
Speaker 1: to to understand about in my own mind about it
Speaker 1: is that where it shows up is the importance because
Speaker 1: when you and I trade back grip and grins, we
Speaker 1: know what that means. Like you and I know, like
Speaker 1: the in the first role of journalism is know your audience.
Speaker 1: So you know, if I take a grip and grin
Speaker 1: and I just sent it to you, and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: check this ship out, and that's awesome, Dude, what a dear,
Speaker 1: and that's our conversation. Great. There's nothing in that that
Speaker 1: could be There's no preconceived notions or no lack of
Speaker 1: knowledge around that. Deer. If I put that online for
Speaker 1: how many hundreds or thousands of people keep we're gonna
Speaker 1: We're gonna do that every every te um. If I
Speaker 1: if I take that grip and grid and then put
Speaker 1: it online, I don't know who might see it. I
Speaker 1: don't know who my audience is. I I think I
Speaker 1: might know, but I don't. I don't know. And so
Speaker 1: my idea is to take the grip and grand if
Speaker 1: you feel strongly about that personally, it's a personal thing
Speaker 1: that you really feel like you have to do, but
Speaker 1: just be be cognizant of where it goes like this,
Speaker 1: if it goes out to social media, be you know,
Speaker 1: be cognizant. I mean there was to be quite honest. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a guy out there who posted this really heartfelt
Speaker 1: written piece about hunting mountain lions a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: a real famous fella in the hunting industry, and the
Speaker 1: image did not go with the text. The image to
Speaker 1: somebody who's never hunting before, it was like this mountain
Speaker 1: lion over his shoulders and just him run to the snow,
Speaker 1: and it's all dramatic and seemingly contrived, and you're just thinking,
Speaker 1: if you would have just got that, if you would
Speaker 1: have just got that different the words would have matched
Speaker 1: the image, because the words don't match the image for
Speaker 1: people that don't know. But for me as a hunter,
Speaker 1: I know what that image means. I know what you're
Speaker 1: trying to pick there, So I'm cool with it. But
Speaker 1: the idea of someone else missing out on that awesome
Speaker 1: experience because they see they preconceive the notion that that
Speaker 1: thing is might be negative. Did it tells me that
Speaker 1: there's there's something we can change in that, and there's
Speaker 1: something we've maybe should change. That's a lot about that's
Speaker 1: a lot that goes into a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that we're talking about in our last podcast. Okay, now
Speaker 1: here's where I will agree and I will respectfully disagree
Speaker 1: because I know which mountain lion photo and thing you're
Speaker 1: talking about, and I actually thought that that was really
Speaker 1: well done my opinion. You thought the mountain lion was
Speaker 1: all done? Yeah, I thought I liked the photo. That
Speaker 1: my personal opinion. I thought the photo was very tasteful.
Speaker 1: And it was also a friend of ours that took
Speaker 1: the photo, and I thought he did a really good job.
Speaker 1: If we're thinking about the same one, I hope we are. Okay.
Speaker 1: It was very recent. It was in British Columbia. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: I I thought I the image captivated me personally, and
Speaker 1: I thought it captivated me enough. Because here's the thing
Speaker 1: I have. I had another friend and he wouldn't care
Speaker 1: if I talked about it, But I had another friend
Speaker 1: post a picture of him with a mountain lion. He's
Speaker 1: a Canadian, and that picture got blown out of proportion,
Speaker 1: disseminated to europe okay, grabbed ahold of by European mainstream
Speaker 1: media in the UK. He then got on blast hate
Speaker 1: mail death threats, the British Prime minister calling his penis
Speaker 1: small or not not even know the Canadian Prime minister,
Speaker 1: the lady Canadian prime Minister saying that he had a
Speaker 1: small penis. I mean it was. He became infamous in Canada,
Speaker 1: one of a thousand people holding a mountain lion. He
Speaker 1: ate the mountain lion. I know him, you know, I
Speaker 1: know what he stands for. I do not think he's
Speaker 1: a disrespectful hunter. They made a television episode which I
Speaker 1: saw at just before they I don't think. I don't
Speaker 1: even know if it's gone to tair or whatever. I
Speaker 1: saw this and everything in that episode. If you saw
Speaker 1: the whole story, you would understand the story. But the
Speaker 1: picture and the caption and the understanding didn't. And because
Speaker 1: mountain lions are a sensitive subject, people do not know
Speaker 1: about them, they don't understand them, and people that don't
Speaker 1: are the most vocal. He got blown way out of
Speaker 1: proportion and it was a bad deal for him and
Speaker 1: hunting in general, for him, other Canadians people who hunt
Speaker 1: mountain lions, which there's nothing wrong with now, especially there's
Speaker 1: really nothing wrong with in our current management system. Now
Speaker 1: let me talk. Now I'm going to take a little
Speaker 1: rabbit trail just for ten secs. We've got ours. We've
Speaker 1: got ours listening to this rabbit trail by you existing.
Speaker 1: M Okay, Let's let's pretend there's a person that doesn't hunt.
Speaker 1: It's listening. That's not going to happen. But there's a
Speaker 1: person listening that doesn't hunt. By that person existing means
Speaker 1: that we need to hunt the mountainline. What what why
Speaker 1: is that? Well, let me explain. Let's take my home
Speaker 1: state in Nevada. For instance, native species in Nevada would
Speaker 1: be a mule deer. Okay, a mule deer is a browser.
Speaker 1: The browser requires certain habitat to exist. Through thousands of
Speaker 1: years of evolution, that mule deer has grown to fill
Speaker 1: a niche in an ecosystem over a very long period
Speaker 1: of time. Now, Native Americans even further back than that
Speaker 1: hunted these animals. They were apex predator in this ecosystem
Speaker 1: where this animal lift. Over time, this animal's habitat has changed,
Speaker 1: it's adapted, but it is still primarily a browser. It
Speaker 1: lives in the mountains. It finds refuge and safety in
Speaker 1: the habitat that it's involved to live in. During the
Speaker 1: winter time, it migrates into other areas. But it's a
Speaker 1: high desert area. It needs tall sage, it needs mahoganies,
Speaker 1: it needs buckbrush, and it needs some form of high
Speaker 1: protein grasses. Now, by you existing, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means that you as a human have negatively I
Speaker 1: acted those dear whether you know it or not. How
Speaker 1: first off, there are many animals in that landscape that
Speaker 1: should not exist there. Maybe you're the person that doesn't hunt,
Speaker 1: and you're the person champion championing, championing, third times a
Speaker 1: charm for a wild horse or feral horse which is
Speaker 1: a larger, more aggressive species that has no natural predators
Speaker 1: yet in a high desert competes and outcompetes for the
Speaker 1: same water source. Okay, so it outcompetes for the same
Speaker 1: water source. So now the mule deer, which now you
Speaker 1: will the horse. Now, no, the horse has no predators.
Speaker 1: So the horse can go into the flats into where
Speaker 1: there's no cover and live on water. Once it's destroyed
Speaker 1: the water sources in the mountain, mule your habitat which
Speaker 1: the horse would prefer. Once those are gone, it can
Speaker 1: now move into flast the meal you cannot and there's
Speaker 1: a reason because they are a lot easier to kill
Speaker 1: in certain places by predator the mountain line. So the
Speaker 1: mule here is now competing against the horse, which was
Speaker 1: introduced by man. Also, a guy's driving down the highway
Speaker 1: and he throws a cigarette out the window and starts
Speaker 1: a forest fire. Okay, that forest fire rages through an area,
Speaker 1: which fires naturally create new growth. But there's thousands of
Speaker 1: invasive plant species that now take over this new growth,
Speaker 1: one of them in this particular area that I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Just this isn't a hypothetical, this is real life. Cheat grass.
Speaker 1: Cheat grass outcompetes native grasses for the soil content, grows faster,
Speaker 1: has nothing then the mules you can eat, but now
Speaker 1: you know these invasive animals and other things can eat it.
Speaker 1: We just sitting back in our homes don't realize the
Speaker 1: devastation is humans we've placed on the environment. Now you're
Speaker 1: sitting in your house in a valley outside of a city,
Speaker 1: in a suburb which was prime winter range for mule there.
Speaker 1: So now they are at a loss because their water
Speaker 1: sources are damaged. They're areas are burned and replaced with
Speaker 1: non native species of grass. That they need or cannot
Speaker 1: live in on suitable habitat. And we also have things
Speaker 1: like a fire starts from lightning and then we go
Speaker 1: suppress the fire so it can't get new growth, but
Speaker 1: that new growth either way would be infested with non
Speaker 1: native species of grass. So now we have a deer
Speaker 1: population the needs managed because the environment can't be cannot
Speaker 1: balance itself. And you also have to remember that human
Speaker 1: hunters have always been a part of the equation. So
Speaker 1: now we have this number because of human interference, needs
Speaker 1: to be managed. Now we have a population of mountain
Speaker 1: lions that feed on the deer that need to be managed.
Speaker 1: The deer need to be managed for a reason. The
Speaker 1: mountain lions now need to be managed to in turn
Speaker 1: manage the herd of deer that we need to manage
Speaker 1: because of our shittiness. Long story is, we now need
Speaker 1: to manage mountain lions, so that that's the justification for now.
Speaker 1: I felt that that photo was captivating enough for me
Speaker 1: to read a thoughtful caption which I thought made a
Speaker 1: good point about the hunting and what goes into mountain lines.
Speaker 1: So someone that had no clue reads it and goes
Speaker 1: m hm, and that's all you need. Yes, So that's
Speaker 1: why I disagree with you on that one. However, in
Speaker 1: our last Invisible podcast, I had said that I think
Speaker 1: there is is a disconnect between hunters and what you're
Speaker 1: putting out to the general public and what is good
Speaker 1: for hunting and what is good for the individual. I
Speaker 1: had said that me personally, I hunt bears. Oh you
Speaker 1: want bears now? I sometimes I don't necessarily like bear meat,
Speaker 1: like a like alchemy. I stopped hunting bears for a
Speaker 1: very long time for no other reason than I just
Speaker 1: over it. Then I hadn't hunted bears for a while,
Speaker 1: so I thought, yeah, well, good hunt bears and it
Speaker 1: was exciting and fun. And I still eat bears, generally
Speaker 1: make sausage out of them. Some people love bear meat
Speaker 1: not meat. It's okay, It's not bad. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't dislike it. There's just other things. I appreciate what
Speaker 1: you're saying that because I feel like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of over compensation when it comes to bear me because
Speaker 1: people attack bear hunters so much. I love the meeting.
Speaker 1: Do you do you really love the meat? It's it's different.
Speaker 1: But I also I'm not gonna lie. I have some
Speaker 1: kind of emotional connection to certain large predators, the same
Speaker 1: emotional connection that many non hunters have. And that's not
Speaker 1: a lie, that's just me personally. Yeah, I I see
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with wolf funding. I've guided many hunters wolves.
Speaker 1: I've never shot one. Now I've tried. In the early years,
Speaker 1: I thought okay, because I had so many experiences with
Speaker 1: wolves around me before it was legal to hunt them,
Speaker 1: many experiences, probably more. I think I had sixty wolf
Speaker 1: encounters in one in one like in one year, I
Speaker 1: don't know, before the seasons were open, I mean documented,
Speaker 1: just I practiced calling to them. I could call them, man.
Speaker 1: I knew these animals in a way that very few
Speaker 1: people would. I did it because I thought these animals
Speaker 1: need manage them when the open a season. I want
Speaker 1: to be the one person that can effectively hunt these animals.
Speaker 1: When they finally opened a season, I thought I didn't
Speaker 1: really care anymore because I maybe because I had some
Speaker 1: kind of emotional connection. I grew up with a pet
Speaker 1: wolf like. I really liked the animals, so I had
Speaker 1: some kind of emotionalation. But that does not say that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't shoot one because they need to be managed.
Speaker 1: That also doesn't say that we should let emotion manage
Speaker 1: wild I believe if I'm going to stick to the
Speaker 1: theory of sound wildlife management through certain principles, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stick to it no matter what. Yeah, Well, the
Speaker 1: question I just we had a good conversation with Shane
Speaker 1: Mahoney little podcast number five, and it was very much
Speaker 1: about like the answer answer the question what is best
Speaker 1: for wildlife? What is best for the wildlife in Montana
Speaker 1: where you got in Nevada where you live, and you
Speaker 1: very clearly are always thinking what's best for the what
Speaker 1: not what's best for me, remy the hunter who wants
Speaker 1: to go and shoot a wolf and hanging on my wall.
Speaker 1: But what's best for the elk? The wolf? Me as
Speaker 1: a human, my own consumptive habits, what's best for all
Speaker 1: those things? Like what is best not what's best for
Speaker 1: the one wolf, what's best for everything? And it's totality,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the idea. Exactly a lot of these areas,
Speaker 1: wolves and elk have been so far removed from each
Speaker 1: other that it negatively affected the environment. Now, it affected
Speaker 1: the behaviors, it affected a reproduction. There's a plenty of
Speaker 1: studies out there they say, oh, this and that, and
Speaker 1: now in my particular area, wolves were not killing as
Speaker 1: many animals. They found out as many elk as mountain lines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody blames the wolves. Wow, there's a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of facts. I'm gonna I'm gonna just preface it
Speaker 1: with this. I'm not a biologist, but I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time of observing animals in their natural environment.
Speaker 1: I see things many biologists who have to go into
Speaker 1: a desk and make reports don't see. Now, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of biologists that biologists do amazing job. I've
Speaker 1: met with a lot of them. But biology is a
Speaker 1: lot about observation, and I get the privilege to observe
Speaker 1: a lot. I pay attention to a lot of things
Speaker 1: because if I don't notice the small things, I will
Speaker 1: not become the most efficient predator that it can be.
Speaker 1: So I noticed a lot of things. Where I'm going
Speaker 1: with this, no clue. That's not even talking about We
Speaker 1: just wanted to do a humble brag. Well I am
Speaker 1: not a biologist. I just remember you saying that you're
Speaker 1: not a biologist. That's all. No, we started out and
Speaker 1: some we went down a rabbit hole that was gonna
Speaker 1: be ten seconds and now we're talking about wolves. That's
Speaker 1: how this stuff works. Bullshit, really, but that's weird, the
Speaker 1: emotionality of wolves. What I don't even know. I was
Speaker 1: talking about people that don't hunt bastards and then seeing
Speaker 1: may we were talking about antlers and either way, I
Speaker 1: don't know, and be like, damn, that's where I was.
Speaker 1: That's where there was nine coronas ago. Dang it, dang it. Well, listen, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're well into the evening. What it's late in the
Speaker 1: late of the nighttime, things like this to bed. No,
Speaker 1: hell no, hell no, no, we're gonna shift. We'll just
Speaker 1: shift to something fucking else that we well talking about. Oh,
Speaker 1: social media? Yes, okay, so that was such a long
Speaker 1: social media gripping grip and grins. Yeah, listen, So last year,
Speaker 1: hunting to me, this is this is the key this
Speaker 1: I said all that to say this to me, hunting
Speaker 1: is extremely important to see hunting go on is extremely
Speaker 1: important it to me, And this is my personal opinion.
Speaker 1: So and I'm not singling anyone out. This is my
Speaker 1: personal opinion. Hunting to me, is more important than anything
Speaker 1: else I do. I understand that I have made a
Speaker 1: living hunting. I've also made that living in some in
Speaker 1: some ways being in the limelight of showcasing hunting to
Speaker 1: other people. Okay, now, in my mind, I only do
Speaker 1: that for the benefit of hunting for hunters, But I
Speaker 1: am also very cognizant of those that are in the
Speaker 1: middle because in America and many hunters do not understand this.
Speaker 1: But this is the absolute truth of it. Hunting is
Speaker 1: not a right. No hunting is a privilege. Hunting is
Speaker 1: a privilege granted to us by many people in the
Speaker 1: middle that are neither hunters nor no hunters. There's probably
Speaker 1: a like people now the second Amendment, that's the right. Yep.
Speaker 1: If you're into a R fifteen, you can scream rights
Speaker 1: all you want, right because it's written into our constitute.
Speaker 1: Hunting there is no constitutional amendment for hunting. No hunting
Speaker 1: is Hunting, especially in the modern sense, is an idea
Speaker 1: that was codified in the nineteen thirties, really, and that
Speaker 1: has evolved into this thing we know today through so
Speaker 1: many twists and turns. You could you wouldn't believe it
Speaker 1: if I if you told you the true story of
Speaker 1: hunting is the conservation and management tool that is a
Speaker 1: privilege granted to us by what I would I'm going
Speaker 1: to call the decision makers. Now, the decision makers are
Speaker 1: the people in the middle, the people it's your house
Speaker 1: to left into the right. Okay, so we have decision makers.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that make the decisions. These decision makers
Speaker 1: when they see something. Because now, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: be influenced by hunting, you had to go into a
Speaker 1: sporting goods store. You can see the pictures on the wall.
Speaker 1: You have to make a conscious effort. With social media
Speaker 1: being so public, anybody can see the what I would
Speaker 1: call the bragboard of the local sportsman's warehouse. I forgot
Speaker 1: about that. That is a thing. Uh. Now, when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I loved going into my local is
Speaker 1: called Mark forns Trick. If you're ever in Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and go into a sporting goods
Speaker 1: store called Mark forn Strike. There's a big elk sign.
Speaker 1: It's on kids skiway. I loved going to that place. No,
Speaker 1: because the mom and pop like badass sporting a story
Speaker 1: that p will actually know what the hell they're talking about. Disappearing,
Speaker 1: do you remember, I'm sure I don't know if it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, was that West? I mean, we're the
Speaker 1: same age basically when I was a kid, will you
Speaker 1: too the deer? And once you were done skin in
Speaker 1: it and it was in the truck, or once you
Speaker 1: were done gutting and then it was in the truck.
Speaker 1: The next most exciting thing to do was to drive
Speaker 1: up to the check in station your truck, go in,
Speaker 1: check your deer in, get a cold cut sandwich, and
Speaker 1: then stand by that truck and eat that sandwich and
Speaker 1: and and happily wait for everyone to run up and
Speaker 1: ask about the deer. Like that was That was the moment.
Speaker 1: That was social media, but it was social media where
Speaker 1: we knew the auditor. Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't
Speaker 1: somebody from San Francisco going, what the hell's in the
Speaker 1: back of your truck? Right? I would walk to the
Speaker 1: back of mark for a strike in the back you
Speaker 1: had to walk through. You had to walk past thirty
Speaker 1: five mounts that I stared at and dreamed about hunting
Speaker 1: those animals or finding something like that constantly. You had
Speaker 1: to go to the back. You had to take a pin.
Speaker 1: You had to get a pin from the line counter,
Speaker 1: which was next to a giant mounted polar bear in
Speaker 1: a case from the nineties. You had to pin that
Speaker 1: on the board and you could write something whatever, and
Speaker 1: I would first place I would go as I would
Speaker 1: go back to that board and I would look at
Speaker 1: what people had got and and then if I got
Speaker 1: something I was fortunate enough to be successful, I would
Speaker 1: put my picture up there and other hunters could see
Speaker 1: what I got. But it was just hunters. It was it.
Speaker 1: There was no it wasn't It was open to the public, sure,
Speaker 1: but it was very specific audiences. Was gonna be like
Speaker 1: I was going to Sea World, walked past the polar
Speaker 1: bear amountain to go to the bagboard. I was trying
Speaker 1: to get any problems. I was trying to get pepper.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is we are all ambassadors for
Speaker 1: the sport of hunting when it becomes public, to the
Speaker 1: to the decision makers. Now, if you do something that
Speaker 1: can potentially hurt hunting in general, I am very much
Speaker 1: against that. For me. There's certain things that just are
Speaker 1: to for for me. I shot a great bear last
Speaker 1: year in Montana. There was a big bear. It was
Speaker 1: a mature bore above average size. I know for a
Speaker 1: fact if I posted that picture, it would have increased
Speaker 1: my awareness or popularity in the hunting community because hunters
Speaker 1: would have seen it, they would have liked it. Also,
Speaker 1: I know that non hunters would have hated it and
Speaker 1: they would have jumped in against me. And then hunters
Speaker 1: would have joined the bandway again and defended me tooth
Speaker 1: and nail. And what would the overall outcome be of that.
Speaker 1: My personal following would grow because of some crazy algorithms
Speaker 1: and social media, yet hunting in general would suffer. So
Speaker 1: I chose to protect hunting because just because it's legal,
Speaker 1: just because it's ethical, just because hunters understand the meaning
Speaker 1: behind it, does not mean that it needs to be
Speaker 1: shared with Because when you throw a big net out
Speaker 1: there to the decision makers, certain things will stick in.
Speaker 1: Certain things won't. Well, we know, we know that carnivores specifically,
Speaker 1: there's an issue we understand. Like you could go inside
Speaker 1: right now to my house and you could find that
Speaker 1: my son has I counted one time, I always put
Speaker 1: it all. I was almost gonna do instants or just
Speaker 1: all the bear related pair finalia that my son parapdise
Speaker 1: probably not a good word. Bear finalia that my son
Speaker 1: has in his room throughout our home. He has bear pajamas.
Speaker 1: He has a bare doll, he has a bare wind
Speaker 1: up toy that flops around the fucking room. He has
Speaker 1: bears to him at this point in his life and
Speaker 1: going into his formative years, will be cartoon animals that
Speaker 1: he sleeps with at night that he I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you have that burp without I won't call you out. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those bears are are personifying in his life before he
Speaker 1: has a chance to be understanding of what a bear is. Right,
Speaker 1: is that the the general reason why everybody has this
Speaker 1: feeling about bears of love and kind of personification. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's all the story. That certainly is
Speaker 1: part of the story. The other part of the story
Speaker 1: is over the last eight ten decades, there's been a
Speaker 1: similar idea about carnivores, bears in particular, like they somehow
Speaker 1: have elevated themselves in the random order of how we
Speaker 1: see animals. Like I'm for sure, no, it's okay to
Speaker 1: show a film shooting forty ducks and not showing the
Speaker 1: breasting or eating of one of those ducks. That will
Speaker 1: be very little complaining by the general. Nobody's gonna, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, you shot that duck and you didn't and
Speaker 1: you don't need it. But if you shoot a bear
Speaker 1: and you just drag it off to the a TV
Speaker 1: and drive away into the distance and that's the end
Speaker 1: of the film, people will rip you a new one.
Speaker 1: And so what makes that duck more important than that bear? Not?
Speaker 1: What makes it more important than that bear. My son
Speaker 1: may have a couple of duck types of toys or
Speaker 1: any but he does not have the whole suite of
Speaker 1: duck related paraphernale inside of there. But he does have duck.
Speaker 1: He does have bear pajamas, and he does have a
Speaker 1: bear dollar he hugs when he goes to sleep like
Speaker 1: he has that. And I didn't. I didn't pick any
Speaker 1: of that out. That's just kind of what he would
Speaker 1: grab off the shelf, or what my wife would pick out,
Speaker 1: or or how it got there. But there's an element
Speaker 1: just of indoctrination and how we treat bears. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that is. I'm not I'm not smart enough
Speaker 1: to know that. Here's the here's the thing amongst hunters.
Speaker 1: I could text Ben O'Brien a picture of the bear
Speaker 1: that I shot in Montana, and it does not negatively
Speaker 1: affect hunting, right, So I can do that. Now, there
Speaker 1: might be people out there, Oh, you're just pussy, you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't stand up for hunting. Well, somebody compared when
Speaker 1: I said gripping grin's right. We were talking on the
Speaker 1: Gritty Bowman podcast about like and I. At the time,
Speaker 1: I will admit it was I was halfway through a
Speaker 1: t A, I was sick, I had It was trade
Speaker 1: Show's season, and I was a little bit and fed
Speaker 1: up with a few things, and I said, I just
Speaker 1: don't think anybody should do gripping grins. That's not the
Speaker 1: right thing to say. The right thing to say is
Speaker 1: in some instance as grip and grin should not be
Speaker 1: massively shared, as yours saying. But but in that instance,
Speaker 1: you just understand that the audience is the audience, right,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Okay, if you can, Oh you well, you've
Speaker 1: you've posted bare pictures in the past, you've YEA, I have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I have. Because I do I see anything
Speaker 1: wrong with a hunter behind a bear? No, I do not,
Speaker 1: But I'm a hunter, I understand, do I see? And
Speaker 1: and obviously these things evolved, right, So do I see
Speaker 1: something wrong now? I do now. Why do I now?
Speaker 1: Because for me, I see something that hurts hunting now,
Speaker 1: and this is a caveat if I especially no if
Speaker 1: I intent is is huge. You can't get charged with
Speaker 1: murder intent. If if I know that this is gonna
Speaker 1: be good for me personally but bad for hunting, I
Speaker 1: absolutely not do it ever. Ever, if I think that
Speaker 1: it will harm hunting in general as a whole, I
Speaker 1: will not do it. That to me is not being
Speaker 1: a pussy when you put something that you love over
Speaker 1: something that you do for yourself, because selfishness is what
Speaker 1: screws us all. Yeah, well, just think about this way.
Speaker 1: I've said, oh this, Do I have to have that photo?
Speaker 1: Do I have to have everybody see it? No? I
Speaker 1: don't have to have that. Um. I've come to just
Speaker 1: over the years, it's does that benefit wild life? Does
Speaker 1: that photo benefit wild life? And if I feel like
Speaker 1: hunting is beneficial wildlife and that photo doesn't benefit hunting,
Speaker 1: I can't in all good conscience share the damn thing
Speaker 1: because it becomes about me and not about what's what's
Speaker 1: good for that wildlife. And there's a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and I said that a couple of people would compare
Speaker 1: that to snowflake is um or or this. You know
Speaker 1: the movements, the social justice movements that are happening right now,
Speaker 1: And I said, that's not what it is, because it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not. There's two two things that I think people
Speaker 1: are always trying to get to the extremes. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to eliminate all my hunting photos for everyone. And
Speaker 1: I'm also not trying to just post everything I absolutely
Speaker 1: want to and not care about what anyone thinks. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do either one of those two things. But
Speaker 1: I will take each instance of each photo and look
Speaker 1: at the landscape of which it's going to be presented
Speaker 1: and try to figure out the best way to present it.
Speaker 1: And if I feel like there's no good way to
Speaker 1: present it in a social media landscape like you did
Speaker 1: with the bear, you say, I don't need to do that.
Speaker 1: It would be selfish for me to put it up there,
Speaker 1: So I won't put it up there. I'll take it back.
Speaker 1: I'll show it to my friends, will celebrate it that way.
Speaker 1: The people that were with me and near me will know.
Speaker 1: And I'll put that rug in my house and I'll
Speaker 1: eat that bear. And then I won't have my motivation
Speaker 1: will have been in tren zick, and I will feel
Speaker 1: funn about that. Um All that seems okay to me.
Speaker 1: That seems like a pretty rational way to look at it.
Speaker 1: The bear that I shot last spring, the pictures I
Speaker 1: posted were of bear polish sausages on the grill, delicious.
Speaker 1: They were of bear meat, but no dead bear, And
Speaker 1: that to me told the story of what people who
Speaker 1: don't the general Pope. Did I share that bear picture
Speaker 1: with friends that hunt, Yes, of course I did. Do
Speaker 1: I see anything wrong with bear hunting? No, I don't.
Speaker 1: But I have to be cognizant of the fact that
Speaker 1: if I put something out to the public now, I
Speaker 1: might have in my particular instance, I've been fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to have been doing this a long time and have
Speaker 1: a lot of people that follow on social media, or
Speaker 1: what I think is a lot of people, because and
Speaker 1: I value every single person on there, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different opinion. But that platform to me is
Speaker 1: to benefit hunting. Let me ask you this, not just
Speaker 1: pander to hunters, because now you might go, okay, we
Speaker 1: only tell one part of the story, or you don't like,
Speaker 1: should I show an animal like that? A client shot
Speaker 1: bad and I have to finish off with a knife.
Speaker 1: I don't need to put that out there to the
Speaker 1: public because as a hunter, we understand that that is
Speaker 1: showing respect to the animal by giving it the most
Speaker 1: ethical death in a bad situation. But somebody that just
Speaker 1: grabs that video, it's going to be really bad for hunting.
Speaker 1: Well that's what like hunting is. You know, you know
Speaker 1: this better than anybody. Hunting is has a lot of
Speaker 1: nuances and a lot of like little weird ideo secrecies
Speaker 1: and a lot of complexities that you can't really put
Speaker 1: into a fucking social media post like you can't. And
Speaker 1: I would say, if you buy a license, you you
Speaker 1: are not at the time of buying a license, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, a PR agent for hunting. You're not.
Speaker 1: You're a hunter. If you buy a hunting license and
Speaker 1: you and deporty go hunting, buy your hunting license and
Speaker 1: go do your thing, I'm all with you. But as
Speaker 1: soon as you take that hunting license in your active
Speaker 1: hunting and connect it with social media, if you put
Speaker 1: those two things together and you put them in a
Speaker 1: in a jar, shaken around and get your outcome, then
Speaker 1: you are a PR agent for hunting. At that point,
Speaker 1: if you if you said, I just buy I like
Speaker 1: to buy my hunting license. I have to go sit
Speaker 1: in a tree, like to shoot my dear. Don't care
Speaker 1: who knows about it. You are more than welcome as
Speaker 1: long as you're doing it legally and ethically to do
Speaker 1: whatever you would like. Right now, social media could be
Speaker 1: used for good, used for evil. John Dudley what said
Speaker 1: something like it's the ring of power, the ring of power.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you could use it for good or bad.
Speaker 1: But if you make something public, you are now an
Speaker 1: ambassador for hunting. You are whether you like it or
Speaker 1: if you like to hunt, you are an ambassador to
Speaker 1: the decision makers of a privilege. BC bears a good example.
Speaker 1: He got shut down. Many things got shut down because
Speaker 1: of the stupidity of people who said it's legal. But
Speaker 1: I'm going to share it with the world and defend
Speaker 1: myself like it's a right. It's not a right, it's
Speaker 1: a privilege. Well, your friend in in uh in the
Speaker 1: Mountain Lion is a great example, and I I just
Speaker 1: think that as much as you can talk around the issue,
Speaker 1: it's it's your friend had very little control as to
Speaker 1: the reaction to that image like he had control of
Speaker 1: what it. You know, he probably didn't take the image,
Speaker 1: so he had little control of even what the image
Speaker 1: looked like at the time. In the moment, it may
Speaker 1: have felt really good to him. Looking back on it,
Speaker 1: he may regret that image. So there is that element
Speaker 1: of it too. In the moment it feels good. But
Speaker 1: when it feels okay, but when you you have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to hit that submit button so it goes up
Speaker 1: online or goes on Instagram. You can then make it
Speaker 1: a secondary choice to say, like, it felt good at
Speaker 1: the time, it's a real photo, there's nothing wrong with it,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it might be misinterpreted. And I
Speaker 1: love hunting and it enriches my life and any misinterpretation
Speaker 1: of that enrichment would be disastrous. So I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: hold this back because maybe maybe it just doesn't say
Speaker 1: what I wanted to say. Here's here's a funny example
Speaker 1: is if somebody were to say to me, you're letting
Speaker 1: Peter win. Okay, bastards, really, who's letting Peter win? Peter's
Speaker 1: biggest growth spurt came after their Facebook shoot selfiees not animals.
Speaker 1: They trolled the ship out of hunter's on that one.
Speaker 1: Didn't they Here's what happened. Every hunter that used that
Speaker 1: hurt hunting they created. They let Peter win by thinking
Speaker 1: that they were forming against them, because what they did
Speaker 1: was they decided to post the most disgusting hunting photos
Speaker 1: that they could find. Right and those hunting photos became
Speaker 1: public to the decision makers, and the decision makers saw
Speaker 1: those and said, if this is what hunters are, I'm
Speaker 1: not okay with it. We'll break it down. That looks
Speaker 1: like somebody who is mocking another person who cares about
Speaker 1: an animal's rights, Like, I'm a hunter, I have all
Speaker 1: the rights. This thing's dead. I don't care about you.
Speaker 1: Like that's what that is. It's like, fuck you. I
Speaker 1: have the right to hunt and you don't. And I
Speaker 1: have the privileged hunt and I tower over this animal.
Speaker 1: I killed it and it has no rights. So by that,
Speaker 1: Peter now gained ammunition, and you became the anti hunter.
Speaker 1: Anybody that negatively affects hunting is an anti hunter, whether
Speaker 1: you hunt or not. So if you're a hunter and
Speaker 1: you have inadvertently harmed hunting, you're an anti hunter. You
Speaker 1: are the cause of hunting. Now if you went on
Speaker 1: a legal hunt and you'r And let's say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: this is a hypothetical, but this happened, actually, hypothetical, spear bear. Hypothetically, Hypothetically,
Speaker 1: you do something and you posted on social media and
Speaker 1: the reaction is so negative that it gets banned. You
Speaker 1: you still call yourself a hunter. I don't know, no,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, let's say I went on a bow hunt, right,
Speaker 1: and I legally had a mule deer tag. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is just a hypothetical, and I legally had a meal
Speaker 1: deer take and I accidentally, like I shot. Everything wasn't right.
Speaker 1: The wind blew, the deer jumped ship happened, okay. And
Speaker 1: then the deer runs down the hill into a subdivision
Speaker 1: and I continue filming and like everything I do is legal,
Speaker 1: but I end up laughing and slitting the deer's throat
Speaker 1: with a paper clip that I sharpened and and I
Speaker 1: some and it just looked horrible, and I go, ha ha,
Speaker 1: fuck you, Peter. This is what I did this weekend,
Speaker 1: killing animals right in the video to the person that
Speaker 1: doesn't hunt. Looked horrific. Okay, I'm not I'm this is
Speaker 1: high pathetic. I'm just posing a question to people. The
Speaker 1: video looked horrific, and the general public lashed onto that
Speaker 1: video much like and and some of these instances are uncontrollable, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't know the outcome of it, but if something
Speaker 1: is you go, yeah, my auntie who doesn't hunt, might
Speaker 1: not like this, right. The general public jumped on that video,
Speaker 1: and now in every state across the West, bow hunting
Speaker 1: was banned. Is Pete the asshole? You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Or is the person who negatively affected hunting to the
Speaker 1: point where now no one in the Western United States
Speaker 1: can bow hunt? Who who ruined it? Who is the
Speaker 1: anti hunter there? Well, that's just a good question too. Well,
Speaker 1: and there's there there's a First Amendment aspect to that,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you can't you can't yell fire in
Speaker 1: a crowd of theater. You can hunt like you There's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things in hunting that I think,
Speaker 1: when I examine them at their that at their core
Speaker 1: are a little bit uh allowing us to shirk responsibility.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, you know, the term hunting is conservation.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit like, yeah, shirk responsibility of being
Speaker 1: a conservationist. If I'm hunting, I'm a conservationist. I don't
Speaker 1: have to do any actual conservation work. I just have
Speaker 1: to go hunting, and I'm all good. I don't have
Speaker 1: to go to help and translocation or get to a
Speaker 1: banquet and give any money. Not just buy a hunting license.
Speaker 1: I'm a conservationist. Now, I feel like that's shirking a
Speaker 1: bit of the responsibility um of the duality of hunting
Speaker 1: and conservation. The same way in this there's a responsibility
Speaker 1: of the duality of buying a hunting license and having
Speaker 1: an outlet to share your experiences. There's a responsibility in
Speaker 1: both those aspects. You can't say I'm responsible because I
Speaker 1: have a license. I'm responsible based on the ethics and
Speaker 1: the legality of the structure built around hunting. But I
Speaker 1: go online and I'm a I'm a cowboy, do whatever
Speaker 1: I want. You can post whatever you want on Instagram.
Speaker 1: They may blur it out and call it sensitive, or
Speaker 1: they may kick you off if you take it too far.
Speaker 1: But in general, compared to the actual act of hunting,
Speaker 1: social media has no rails, and you it relies on
Speaker 1: your own sensibilities, and at some level you have to
Speaker 1: get I would compare. I always try to compare my
Speaker 1: hunting pursuits to my social media pursuits, Like there's even
Speaker 1: though there isn't the same ethics that I find a
Speaker 1: way to connect them. You know, I try to transfer
Speaker 1: my ethics in the field to what what shows up
Speaker 1: on the screen. And if you can do that, then
Speaker 1: you're almost never lose because it's the parallel experience is
Speaker 1: going to show through you don't You don't need to
Speaker 1: have that video. If you're being an asshole out in
Speaker 1: the field and you shot a deer in the in
Speaker 1: the hindquarters four times and you walked up and split
Speaker 1: start with a paper clip in somebody's backyard, then you
Speaker 1: know your ethics in the field probably weren't worth showing
Speaker 1: on social media. Um. Yeah, because there's there's what's legal,
Speaker 1: what's ethical, and now there's a new category what's socially
Speaker 1: acceptable in the public eye. And Okay, but I feel
Speaker 1: like this is important to say, is you could probably
Speaker 1: go through my social media or whatever and find things
Speaker 1: you go, Now, that's questionable. This guy. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I'm perfect. I'm saying that as a community, as a
Speaker 1: community of hunters, we should self police ourselves in a
Speaker 1: way that is not putting someone down. So so I
Speaker 1: would say if you ben saw something that I did
Speaker 1: and you just said, hey man, I love what you do,
Speaker 1: but I'm not so sure that this helps hunting, because
Speaker 1: there there needs to be the line is super Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know. Like you you just said, I thought
Speaker 1: this mountain lion picture is bad, And I said, I
Speaker 1: thought that mountain lion picture is good. Okay, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: put that in the gray area. But now there's some
Speaker 1: stuff that you go, yeah, I think the general public
Speaker 1: isn't gonna like that. Well, there there's a great example
Speaker 1: at Western Hunting ex but this year, and I'm not
Speaker 1: I won't bring anybody specifically into it, but there was
Speaker 1: a piece of content that was shown to a group
Speaker 1: of people, and in that group of people there was
Speaker 1: another you know, by a very important person and influencers,
Speaker 1: you know, put themselves out there and showed this content,
Speaker 1: and another very important influencer in the crowd was not
Speaker 1: happy about what was shown. Basically, the ethics of the
Speaker 1: hunt or or just the way that the hunt was
Speaker 1: shown wasn't in the light that that the person in
Speaker 1: the audience who I feel has is a great opinion
Speaker 1: and it's very important. UM felt to be right. And
Speaker 1: that person came to me and said, hey, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to that content creator and just tell him
Speaker 1: how I feel. What do you think? And I said,
Speaker 1: you better go do that. And if it was me,
Speaker 1: if that happened to me, if I showed a piece
Speaker 1: of content and somebody came to me that I respected
Speaker 1: and said I don't agree with that, I damn well,
Speaker 1: hope I would sit down and take that to heart
Speaker 1: and watch it over again through their eyes and try
Speaker 1: to figure it out. UM. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. We not only need to self police,
Speaker 1: but we need to respectfully police each other and just
Speaker 1: exchange ideas in such a way that would just give
Speaker 1: some perspective that maybe you can't get from just your
Speaker 1: own bubble that you live. Yeah, because I I did
Speaker 1: something this year and I thought, Okay, I mean I
Speaker 1: I spend too much time. I don't post a lot
Speaker 1: on social media. If people follow me, they probably go
Speaker 1: he passed three things this month. Because it takes me
Speaker 1: because I just I start to do something and I
Speaker 1: got forget it. It's it's a pain in the like
Speaker 1: it just it stresses me out because I have to
Speaker 1: think about now in my position, because I care so
Speaker 1: much about hunting in general, and I know that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that will see it that
Speaker 1: do not hunt. I particularly need to be more careful
Speaker 1: than someone else. Okay, So for me, it's very hard
Speaker 1: because it may I would prefer to just go pin
Speaker 1: it up on the board in my local sporting good
Speaker 1: shop and just have that audience look at right. But
Speaker 1: but also I've been given an opportunity to help influence
Speaker 1: decision makers, the ones that grant us the privilege to
Speaker 1: influence them on our side, so that my kids can
Speaker 1: have a hunting tag and go out hunt mildier with
Speaker 1: their bows, not because someone I don't want to be
Speaker 1: the one that posted the video the bands off bow
Speaker 1: hunting in the Western United States him a bit. This
Speaker 1: is a hypothetically. Yeah, I'm gonna make a Netflix show
Speaker 1: about like a futuristic Netflix like a Well, I think
Speaker 1: we've covered this. We got this covered. Um, people know
Speaker 1: how we feel. I want to before this is over,
Speaker 1: We're pretty were like an hour and a half deep.
Speaker 1: That's not bad. We've done three hours each and many
Speaker 1: other podcasts before. Yeah, but this is now combined three
Speaker 1: hours because we did an hour and a half to
Speaker 1: get a race. This may get a race too, you
Speaker 1: don't know. This may be zero. That's it. No more, no,
Speaker 1: no more podcasts with our brien. Um. I want to
Speaker 1: tell some hunting stories, man, um. So we've hund it
Speaker 1: together a few times, probably not enough times, um, but
Speaker 1: a few, and I just want to tell some of
Speaker 1: those stories, and particularly I think I last year would
Speaker 1: be a good place to start mouflon hunting, because that
Speaker 1: was an afternoon, right, I mean, it wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 1: a whole, It was not a fold. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: seven day pack. That was like a three for me.
Speaker 1: That was like a two day trip that felt like
Speaker 1: six months, didn't it like? And that trip me and
Speaker 1: you took a what essentially was about a five or
Speaker 1: six or our trip around to the western part of
Speaker 1: Lanai to an area where that helps the mouflon and
Speaker 1: chase muflan. I just like you felt like we were
Speaker 1: there for days, but we were only there for half
Speaker 1: a day, yeah at most, and got to mouflon. Um.
Speaker 1: I'll let you start just basically where we were and
Speaker 1: what it looked like. But the story just just from
Speaker 1: the time we got out of the truck to the
Speaker 1: time we got back in and went back to town.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty good one. Yeah. Well, we went
Speaker 1: up the canyon and I feel like we were told
Speaker 1: we were not going to get any start there. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta start there about what the place to look
Speaker 1: like and what they took very steep. They're like, you
Speaker 1: can't walk up the hills and York sheep, it was
Speaker 1: basically hard to kill. It's very loud, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of lava. Rocket's very steep. Sheep live up high. You
Speaker 1: will not be able to kill something with a boat, right.
Speaker 1: So we're like, man, I don't really care. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to walk around. And we're walking around and then
Speaker 1: I spot something, a glimpse in the trees. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the glimpse explodes and starts running up the
Speaker 1: hill and I make the pat what I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: the patent remy Warren, and they stopped. But there's a
Speaker 1: mess of poetry in between us and the ram. I
Speaker 1: think to myself, this smile, this might be my one chance,
Speaker 1: so I draw back. Okay, I dropped to a knee
Speaker 1: I think I had. Where did you range it? For?
Speaker 1: Someone yelled up the yard eache I ranged. Now. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of practicing that is very unconventional when
Speaker 1: I practice. I thought about this the other day. I
Speaker 1: thought about like a little meme that says, oh, you
Speaker 1: shooting your backyard and flat ground when it's sunny and
Speaker 1: hot out. That's cute because it's like, thanks for sharing
Speaker 1: that picture. That has absolutely nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: you're gonna experience in the field. For at least for
Speaker 1: eye hunt, it's always steep, raining, shitt either stuff in
Speaker 1: the way I generally shoot through. Like when I if
Speaker 1: I'm practicing in the backyard, I'm gonna set stuff in
Speaker 1: front of the target and practice shooting through stuff. Often
Speaker 1: practice shooting around stuff, and practice shooting in the cold
Speaker 1: and the hills and the all that. When I'm sighting in, yeah,
Speaker 1: I when it flat and nice out. Now, Yeah, repetition
Speaker 1: is one thing, But for me, it's all about hunting.
Speaker 1: I'm not a target shooter. I actually probably do worse
Speaker 1: in targets than I do while hunting. So for me,
Speaker 1: I've practice shooting through a lot of stuff. I know
Speaker 1: how to gauge whearing arrows flying. Yeah, you a little
Speaker 1: humble brag. I'm good at trajectories with rifles, with bows.
Speaker 1: I've shot a lot. If you, if you if that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. My practice is about mastering trajectory, not
Speaker 1: hitting it. Not be the arrows. You have to know.
Speaker 1: I know where that arrow is. I when I looked
Speaker 1: down a site, I see the path of the arrow,
Speaker 1: not just the animal. I see a trajectory. The same
Speaker 1: with a rifle, like I could, I could. You could
Speaker 1: shoot a gun. You could tell me about the weight
Speaker 1: and the grain, and I could see where that gun shoots.
Speaker 1: Then you can hand me that gun and I can
Speaker 1: shoot that gun out to six hundred yards no problem,
Speaker 1: because I know trajectories. That's just like I've done it.
Speaker 1: That's where my practice comes in. That's just over years.
Speaker 1: That's what I pray. I practice different than other people.
Speaker 1: I like to visualize those kind of things. So when
Speaker 1: I'm shooting through stuff, I know whether my arrow is
Speaker 1: gonna make it and you can take it from So
Speaker 1: I draw back. Let me take it from draw back,
Speaker 1: and then's like looking like hmm. And then I said
Speaker 1: range it from my perspective. You drew back and I
Speaker 1: giggled a bit inside. I'm like, ha ha ha he
Speaker 1: what is he doing? I thought you were just like
Speaker 1: testing it out, see what it looked like through look
Speaker 1: like on a fifty seven yard impossible show. No, I
Speaker 1: got this, so you said range him and I said
Speaker 1: fifty seven yards. He said I got this, And I'm
Speaker 1: like what and then flack and And in my mind,
Speaker 1: your arrow would have had to do some sort of
Speaker 1: serpentine pattern to even get near the sheep because those
Speaker 1: coet trees. It wasn't just one or two Coet trees.
Speaker 1: I mean there are little ships of trees like there
Speaker 1: was probably twenty of them between me and you and
Speaker 1: the and the sheep. And I thought, in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well this is I mean, he stopped showing
Speaker 1: off from me, and I'm looking through the binos, and
Speaker 1: you shoot and I see this. I see the mule
Speaker 1: kick and then it disappears in the trees, and I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he clearly just shot in the guts or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no way because from my angle, the vitals were
Speaker 1: completely covered with the coal. So from my angle I
Speaker 1: intentionally covered the vitals because your line of sight is
Speaker 1: not your trajectory because the tree in front of us
Speaker 1: was twenty yards, so I intentionally put the branch and
Speaker 1: I knew that all I could see because it's to
Speaker 1: the right. It's all I had was the vitals from
Speaker 1: left to right from behind the tree. And then I
Speaker 1: put the branch on its vitals. But I went up,
Speaker 1: you know, so you saw me. I drew back, I
Speaker 1: put it on it, and then I went down and
Speaker 1: I could see the leg and I knew exactly where
Speaker 1: my pin was, but my pin was on a limb.
Speaker 1: But I knew that my arrow was gonna be where
Speaker 1: my upper pin was, which was completely clear at the
Speaker 1: twenty yards and later shooting by like a I don't know,
Speaker 1: eight inch by eight inch hole, maybe at fifty seven yards,
Speaker 1: and that kind of trajectory over that arrow, the trick
Speaker 1: over that arrow, if that's seven yards. So anyway, I am.
Speaker 1: I am watching this all go down and just thinking
Speaker 1: this is an interesting this. I think he might have
Speaker 1: hit that sheet. So we go up there, We walk
Speaker 1: up and it's in this is like boulder field lava rocks,
Speaker 1: where you gotta kind of traverse this boulder field and
Speaker 1: get up on this flat where we saw this sheep
Speaker 1: go and at the point where we get up to
Speaker 1: the first set of boulder fields, I think we all
Speaker 1: kind of knew this as a dead sheep. Like you
Speaker 1: were like I hit him, like I heard it, and
Speaker 1: Sam so hold our photographer like I heard it too,
Speaker 1: and we're all, I mean, you're talking about a candle
Speaker 1: up size set of vitals. Yeah, if there the move
Speaker 1: on her. And this was a you know, two or
Speaker 1: three year old ram, so smaller still um And so
Speaker 1: we go up tracking after this thing. We get about
Speaker 1: halfway up to it, and you could see it. At
Speaker 1: that point we're like, oh, it's it's down. And had
Speaker 1: only gone maybe seventy five yards, and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty yards in front of us jumps up even
Speaker 1: bigger ram. I'm much bigger. I would have mounted that
Speaker 1: dream now at this point, not in the weird time
Speaker 1: you might have mounted it. In either way, this ram
Speaker 1: jumps up and runs through the coue of trees in
Speaker 1: the boulder field. I immediately draw my bow. I got
Speaker 1: knocking a row and draw my bow. It runs out
Speaker 1: to about what like thirty forty yards maybe, I mean
Speaker 1: it's probably forty yards. It stops in the trees, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking the same as you. The trajectory of the arrow.
Speaker 1: There's probably four or five trees between me and the ram.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I've got to I've got to
Speaker 1: aim to the right so i can hit this thing
Speaker 1: in the shoulder because if I if I aim much
Speaker 1: further to the left, I'm gonna hit this tree. So
Speaker 1: I got aims to the right. And all the while
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure this out, You're gonna you're over there,
Speaker 1: going I'm gonna shoot it. I had nothing in the way.
Speaker 1: I'm not joking. I was. I was ten yards in
Speaker 1: front of you. It's I could have here sheer shot
Speaker 1: of thirty yards and I'm going, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait wait. So I'm like, okay, okay, o' brien, alright, fine,
Speaker 1: uh saving the sheep's life. And I'm I'm thinking much
Speaker 1: like ever, and I saw your shot. I got a
Speaker 1: forty couple of yards shot here, and all I gotta
Speaker 1: do is not hit this tree. You're like, how far
Speaker 1: is it? I was like, I don't know, close enough?
Speaker 1: Do you really need me to frail this? It's pretty close?
Speaker 1: Kill it, kill it. I don't know, put any pin
Speaker 1: on it. Kill it now. So I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 1: put the pin on it, pull slowly, pull back, let
Speaker 1: that air release, and it wacks a tree most definitely
Speaker 1: not in the center of the tree, but not in
Speaker 1: the center of the animal either. That thing goes running off.
Speaker 1: I put another air on. I'm trying to find it again.
Speaker 1: It stops at like eight yards. Rammy's over there trying
Speaker 1: to find it, and it just scampers off into the
Speaker 1: into the nothing, to the abyss that could have been
Speaker 1: your dree. Ram I was shot a tree. He's like.
Speaker 1: I was like, He's like, I don't have a shot.
Speaker 1: I was like, I got this, Like, no, no, you greedy, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's all right. It was funny. It was funny the
Speaker 1: fact that I would have been just as excited if
Speaker 1: you would have shot it, absolutely but in thement like
Speaker 1: it would have been in the moment you would have
Speaker 1: we know both though you would have killed anything. I
Speaker 1: wish that I could have flashed you into my vision
Speaker 1: of what I saw and I was. We should also
Speaker 1: mention while we're talking about this, I'm at full draw
Speaker 1: two yard. I mean, this thing is very close to
Speaker 1: me because I was quite a bit further because you
Speaker 1: were at the ram, and he jumped up and ran
Speaker 1: pretty much right to me, well, that's like, so you
Speaker 1: walked past the ram, you wouldn't say, I'm walked past
Speaker 1: the right And I was staying back taking pictures a
Speaker 1: little you guys walking up to it, and then I
Speaker 1: took a little bit of a different round to get
Speaker 1: to to where you guys were and jump this thing.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I think the characterization is it
Speaker 1: ran past you and I didn't have to. We're probably
Speaker 1: five six or you know, we're a good ways away
Speaker 1: from each other, but enough that we can talk to
Speaker 1: each other. But how about don't shoot it? And so
Speaker 1: and this is to me in my mind, right, like
Speaker 1: I have a pretty clear um knowledge of your ability, right,
Speaker 1: and then I see you make this shot that in
Speaker 1: my mind is seemingly impossible. And now I'm in a
Speaker 1: situation where all I have to do is dodge a
Speaker 1: couple of trees. You know, yours is a ten out
Speaker 1: of ten minds of six out of ten, difficulties, seven
Speaker 1: out of ten. Maybe if I've give myself some credit,
Speaker 1: and I just whacked that tree like it was my job,
Speaker 1: and it was a nice rund. But anyway, we get
Speaker 1: up to your ram to care that pretty quickly, take
Speaker 1: some pictures, skin him up, get him down to the trail.
Speaker 1: Our guide comes in the truck picks us up. Now
Speaker 1: we're driving out, and I've hunted enough of the boat
Speaker 1: to know that, like, if you don't wound the animal
Speaker 1: and you miss it with somebody with with my skill level,
Speaker 1: I know like if I don't wound the animal and
Speaker 1: it's a miss, it's it's it's just as positive as
Speaker 1: if then I got a shot, as if I killed it,
Speaker 1: Like I don't. I just in my mind, that's just
Speaker 1: how I treat it. We're driving out and I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have got a move along, and
Speaker 1: we know we're probably not coming back to that area
Speaker 1: they were they were talking about just one one day
Speaker 1: out there, and uh, we roll it in the truck.
Speaker 1: We're rolling down and we see some sheep, We pop
Speaker 1: some sheets. They run up over the hill into these
Speaker 1: lava rocks like three or four yards away, all right,
Speaker 1: And then with the rifles in the truck right next
Speaker 1: to me, next to my bow, I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: getting out of here without one of these. We're gonna
Speaker 1: eat this tomorrow on a on a Hawaiian beach, which
Speaker 1: we in delicious, delicious, the best meat ever, which is
Speaker 1: what is kind of why we wanted to get some mouflin.
Speaker 1: So I get out of the truck, roll over, rest, boom,
Speaker 1: shoot this thing and it falls over dead. Um, And
Speaker 1: I wanted I wanted us to talk about this hunting story,
Speaker 1: mostly just because the truth of the matter is, Um,
Speaker 1: I was just to kind of in kill mode at
Speaker 1: that point, Like I wanted to kill a mouf and
Speaker 1: the one I killed was an old ram, nice ram whatever.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty long shot with a rifle, but nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing all that amazing. But I didn't at
Speaker 1: the time we were there. I I knew that I
Speaker 1: wanted to kill this animal. I knew that I wanted
Speaker 1: to meet and I knew I wanted the experience of
Speaker 1: killing it and seeing and having that. And I wonder
Speaker 1: what your examination of that is, Like your hunt was
Speaker 1: pretty pure, and the way that we came upon across
Speaker 1: the animal, you shot it. You didn't get to like
Speaker 1: stand like muzzle or rifle. Boh, I'm in a truck.
Speaker 1: I'm not in a truck. Look, we didn't have any
Speaker 1: prior prejudice against Muflan. We just knew we wanted to
Speaker 1: hunt and succeed, and by the time we got to
Speaker 1: mind that, the whole tenor of the day had changed.
Speaker 1: Like we already had one. I wanted to get one,
Speaker 1: and that's what happened. So I don't know that. Like
Speaker 1: so I feel bad about this, which I don't know
Speaker 1: if I do or not, but I definitely know what
Speaker 1: my goals were going into it and and what it
Speaker 1: ended up being, and that thanks hanging on my wall
Speaker 1: in there. I don't feel bad about it. But we
Speaker 1: actually here's my assessment, and we talked about this earlier.
Speaker 1: I maybe I had a client one time and maybe
Speaker 1: even put it better than I could put it. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I am a hunter. Ben O'Brien is
Speaker 1: a hunter. Now. If you if I was in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: which I am, and someone tonight and text me he said, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to go quail hunting at six am tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I would be there, like that is illegal with with
Speaker 1: within the legality of the law. If there, whether it's
Speaker 1: a shotgun, oh no, it's muzzleloading quail season, I would say,
Speaker 1: hand me over the muzzleloading shotgun, I will be there.
Speaker 1: But I'll be there because at my purest form, I
Speaker 1: am a hunter. If the only thing that if you
Speaker 1: were was legal was a rock, the legal weapon was
Speaker 1: throwing rocks and you I don't squirrels, I would be there, right.
Speaker 1: I I of going out and hunting. So for me,
Speaker 1: if I'm in one moment bow hunting which is one
Speaker 1: of my major passions, and hunting is bow hunting. But
Speaker 1: I look at all forms of hunting equal. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: whether you I I love spotting, stock backcountry bow hunting,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to put it in a category, but
Speaker 1: if you like to hunt on a private ranch and
Speaker 1: you generally drive around and you spott a deer and
Speaker 1: you shoot it with a rifle, I have nothing against you,
Speaker 1: as long as you don't post that video. I think
Speaker 1: it's good. Rifle hunting band were good. Here's the thing
Speaker 1: that goes back to Ranella and his brother. I can't
Speaker 1: remember it's Matt or Dainty, but one of his brothers.
Speaker 1: I believe Matt. It's about the purity score, right. You
Speaker 1: look at each hunt, you look back at each hunt,
Speaker 1: and you look at all the elements, and then you
Speaker 1: look at its purity based on not only like just
Speaker 1: your ideals, because you can't look at the same hunt
Speaker 1: every hunt in the same way, like that destination hunt
Speaker 1: and I who knows for you and I whether we'll
Speaker 1: ever go back there again. I mean we are, but
Speaker 1: at the time you don't know. So you have to
Speaker 1: kind of treat those experiences like they're one offs. Now
Speaker 1: if you live there and you could go shoot Mufflan
Speaker 1: every other day if you wanted to, you would treat
Speaker 1: that experience differently, hopefully, And and so for me, like
Speaker 1: each hunt has a purity score, like what's my goal?
Speaker 1: What feels right? And then what I always say, like
Speaker 1: when you sit down with that dead animal and think
Speaker 1: about it, does it what does it feel like? What
Speaker 1: does it feel like? And that will tell you your
Speaker 1: purity score. It feels like the most amazing feeling in
Speaker 1: the world. Much like like you if you go out
Speaker 1: solo hunting for seven or eight days in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: you shoot a tar with your bow, I bet the
Speaker 1: purity score feels pretty damn high for that. And when
Speaker 1: you're sitting over that dead tar, you feel like you're
Speaker 1: on top of the world. Now. In the same wave,
Speaker 1: if you roll in the truck and jump out and
Speaker 1: run up a hill and shoot a mouflan sitting over it,
Speaker 1: you feel like you've achieved something, but the purity score
Speaker 1: doesn't feel quite as high. And all I would ever
Speaker 1: say to anybody is like, you gotta learn from each
Speaker 1: one of those feelings that I learned from that feeling
Speaker 1: a little bit. This is me personally. I've never in
Speaker 1: my life, and whether you look at videos and other
Speaker 1: things that I've done or what I've never, I like
Speaker 1: to share my experiences, but only because I feel fortunate
Speaker 1: to have so many of them. I've never in my
Speaker 1: life hunting for someone else and you're like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: a guide. Yeah, but I'm doing that because I love
Speaker 1: it to do it. I'm I'm helping that person hunt.
Speaker 1: But it's something that I love to do. When I
Speaker 1: did a video for under Armor, actually it was one
Speaker 1: of their Ridge re p episodes, it's titled Alone. Now
Speaker 1: that's a I don't like the title of it because
Speaker 1: obviously I'm not alone. It was a weird title for it.
Speaker 1: They were trying to capture something. Sorry, I don't like
Speaker 1: the title. All three people were alone. Yeah, um, because
Speaker 1: most of the time I'm hunting I am alone and
Speaker 1: they were trying to tell a story, and I get that,
Speaker 1: but it's part of the voice over in there was
Speaker 1: very true to the way I hunt. Since I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I would go out and I would maybe
Speaker 1: hunt and pass up larger animals just because I love
Speaker 1: the experience of being out hunting so much that I
Speaker 1: wanted to extend it till the last day. But that's me.
Speaker 1: So then I started giving myself different challenges, make ways
Speaker 1: to make it harder, because the more difficult it was,
Speaker 1: the longer I got to hunt. And I still do
Speaker 1: that today because for me, the enjoyment is in the
Speaker 1: labor of it. I want to struggle. I want to
Speaker 1: go through the paces. I want to feel like I
Speaker 1: earned the animal, and in that I gain more respect
Speaker 1: for it, I learned more, I become a better hunter.
Speaker 1: So that's just my way. There's other people that go
Speaker 1: out and they want to shoot the first year they
Speaker 1: see on the first day, and that to them is
Speaker 1: is their purity. Well that score, That's how I would
Speaker 1: ask you, like inside of that level, because after you
Speaker 1: know to fully fully. But we're talking about with that
Speaker 1: um lan I hunt. I shot a nice buck at
Speaker 1: a long distance with a bow A couple of days
Speaker 1: before I shot that move float with a rifle, you know,
Speaker 1: so that you all measure this back to how you
Speaker 1: are as a hunter or whatever. In the purity score
Speaker 1: of that was like ten out of ten. When I
Speaker 1: sat over the top of that deer, um, just sorry,
Speaker 1: just chicking a minute, that third red light there. I mean,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean just recording to any card or anything.
Speaker 1: Just let's just recording. But when I sat over the
Speaker 1: access here I shot, which now I was hanging to
Speaker 1: my house here, Um, the purity was ten out of ten.
Speaker 1: And when I sat over that move fline, the purity
Speaker 1: was a little bit less. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: number was, but I would ask like I think I
Speaker 1: would ask you the question though, Like, so, say you
Speaker 1: have a ten days plan for a back country hunt,
Speaker 1: because I've talked to you before, you're like, I'm three
Speaker 1: days in. I have to hike up to the phone
Speaker 1: booth here just to get some service and call people
Speaker 1: in texts or whatever. And so obviously, like you know
Speaker 1: you're gonna be out there longer, and you're looking for
Speaker 1: a certain deer, well, you have a certain deer you're
Speaker 1: looking forward. You run into that deer one day two
Speaker 1: and you have he happens to be laying in a
Speaker 1: place taking a nap where you can get to pretty
Speaker 1: easy with your bo It's a tony yard shot. He
Speaker 1: stands up, you smoke, and he goes, runs the house
Speaker 1: and dies. Do you feel like your purity score is
Speaker 1: lower just because the happenstance of it? Or um? Are
Speaker 1: you just looking up at the deer gods and thinking
Speaker 1: thank you for that opportunity, Because that's knowing that it
Speaker 1: doesn't come all the time. It just depends on all
Speaker 1: the time in the day and when it feels right.
Speaker 1: But if it doesn't feel right to me, I pass
Speaker 1: up the opportunity. And that's just me personally. But for me,
Speaker 1: more than anything, I enjoy being out there. I mean
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I had a muli tagging
Speaker 1: a great area. I legitimately passed up a giant buck
Speaker 1: on the first day one that other guides in the
Speaker 1: area were clamoring over because it wasn't the time yet.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get time to know the area and
Speaker 1: find deer and have my hunting experience. Now my hunting
Speaker 1: experience get tarnished and the end up being the worst
Speaker 1: time of my life. But eighteen days later I was
Speaker 1: really piste off and wanted to hurt myself, myself and
Speaker 1: everyone else. Now that's that's a joke. But no, I
Speaker 1: was very frustrated by the end of it and things
Speaker 1: went bad. But you know it was it was an experience.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot and had I shot that deer
Speaker 1: on the first morning. The first five minutes, I wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: I wasn't ready to go home. I should have been home.
Speaker 1: That's like I looked back at my upbringing. You may
Speaker 1: look back in the same way. But every year I
Speaker 1: I I have done this for the last three years,
Speaker 1: probably since I really known you. Um, every year I'll
Speaker 1: sit down at some point early in the year and
Speaker 1: think about the past year and the experiences I've had
Speaker 1: and try to like formulate a bit of a It's
Speaker 1: like a series of bullet points. So what's changed in me? Like?
Speaker 1: What has what different? What would I do now that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't you before? What have I decided not to
Speaker 1: do anymore that I've done in the past, Like what
Speaker 1: what do you know? What are the changes? And me
Speaker 1: as a hunter, because I feel like it's important to
Speaker 1: always to mark those and you can do that. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know how it isn't You can do that
Speaker 1: every year and sometimes you decide, nah, bear hunting is
Speaker 1: not for me, and then two years like you're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, bear hunting, let's get back at that. Because
Speaker 1: it's a cyclical. But I feel like that's important for
Speaker 1: every Hunter's just you have so many experiences. I mean,
Speaker 1: what you want three hundred days a year sometimes in
Speaker 1: the field and on a good year or beast year,
Speaker 1: depending on most like, that's that's in the field. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean I was a full time, full time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a hundred obviously. Well it's so you know, you
Speaker 1: you have these like as you say, you you become
Speaker 1: closer to animals, you understand them, you understand certain particular animals,
Speaker 1: and and it mean it has to change the way
Speaker 1: you feel about hunting. Has I mean, there's no way
Speaker 1: that days in the field doesn't affect you in a
Speaker 1: freaking massive way. Yeah, it does in some ways, but
Speaker 1: in other ways it just affirms to me that I
Speaker 1: just love being out there. Yeah, that's all I care about.
Speaker 1: I'll do anything to you just be out there. And
Speaker 1: when that feeling dies then, I don't know. That's a
Speaker 1: sad day. Yeah, when you're like, well, am I sat
Speaker 1: here for the paycheck, sad day, that's a sad day.
Speaker 1: It's a good place to end it. Robbie Warren on
Speaker 1: a sad day, Pass me another Corona. We are out
Speaker 1: of almost out of corona? Is my wife cut more
Speaker 1: lines than we had coronas sorry, which is unfortunate. She's
Speaker 1: way well, Ben, If you don't lose this one, that's
Speaker 1: uh podcast, gold podcast. I can't help you any more
Speaker 1: than is this the last time? The last? If this
Speaker 1: makes the air, does that the first aired, second time?
Speaker 1: Last time? I don't know. Is this If this makes
Speaker 1: it to air, does that erase the prior transgression and
Speaker 1: inspire you to come on later? Or is this it? Regardless,
Speaker 1: Ah remains to be seen into boil until next time,
Speaker 1: until maybe next time. Just kidding, Thank you, buddy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Ben, bro all right, that's it. Episode
Speaker 1: number six is in the books. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. There might have been some rambling,
Speaker 1: there might have been some mistakes. We're gonna leave that
Speaker 1: all in unedited conversation. Just two guys that love hunting.
Speaker 1: And I can't tell you how privileged I am to
Speaker 1: have known Remy for the time that I've known him
Speaker 1: and to hopefully, you know, go on this hunting journey
Speaker 1: with him for for the next uh number of decades,
Speaker 1: since we're both around the same age, and I feel
Speaker 1: like we've got a lot of hunting story left to
Speaker 1: tell and I can't wait to tell with Remy. And
Speaker 1: I would thank him again for joining me on the
Speaker 1: Hunting Collective for a second time, and we'll apologize for
Speaker 1: deleting the first podcast that we did a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Anyway, if you want to find any of
Speaker 1: the other five podcasts we've done previous to this one,
Speaker 1: you can go to the Hunting Collective dot com. You
Speaker 1: can check out Steve Ornella, Ryan Callahan, Aubrey Marcus, Shane Mahoney,
Speaker 1: John Dudley, and of course this one. There's videos there,
Speaker 1: there's articles there. There's an article there that I enjoy
Speaker 1: called the meat Eater Revolution that I penned some years
Speaker 1: ago that is basically about how intellectual foodies and people
Speaker 1: that are are angling hunting in a different way can
Speaker 1: help us. Let's see our pursuits in through different prisons.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you enjoy that, you'll enjoy everything at Hunting Collective
Speaker 1: dot com. All these episodes are down load a ble
Speaker 1: is that a work? Downe a little more on Stitcher
Speaker 1: and iTunes. If you so happen to go to iTunes,
Speaker 1: please give me a review. Hopefully it's a good one.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to tell all your friends to do the same,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we will see you here next week for
Speaker 1: episode number seven. Bye.