Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
Speaker 1: you by go Wild. Now. The Go Wild app has
Speaker 1: added some really cool and exciting functionality to their app,
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Speaker 1: Check him out. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the
Speaker 1: host of the Bear Hunting magazine podcast. I'll also be
Speaker 1: your host into the world of hunting, the icon of
Speaker 1: the North Americans wilderness Prepare. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation.
Speaker 1: We will also bring you into some of the wildest
Speaker 1: country on the planet, chasing fair In the hunting world,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have necessarily been familiar with the term bushcraft.
Speaker 1: It's not something that we use in hunting. But Rick
Speaker 1: Spicer is big into bushcraft, wilderness survival and he teaches
Speaker 1: those things. And he's also a mountaineer, hiker and a
Speaker 1: basically a wilderness adventure and that's a lot of his background.
Speaker 1: He's also a hunter. He's a primitive hunter, primitive archer,
Speaker 1: naps his own flint, and he's deeply vested inside the
Speaker 1: outdoor community. Has traveled all over the world climbing mountains.
Speaker 1: Me and Rich talk about mountaineering, some near death experiences.
Speaker 1: We talk about his primitive archery, and the main thing
Speaker 1: we talked about is how to connect these two different
Speaker 1: groups who both have vested interests in wild places. And
Speaker 1: we talk about how people from the extreme outdoors and
Speaker 1: just generally people who are hikers, canoeers, mountaineers kind of
Speaker 1: how they can transition and how a lot of them
Speaker 1: want to but maybe don't know how to transition into
Speaker 1: hunting and acquiring wild meat from these wild places. Really
Speaker 1: interesting conversation with a super interesting guy, Rick Spice. You
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Speaker 1: wild places out west. All Right, I was trying to
Speaker 1: think of a new way to do a opening here, Kolbe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, I think I'm doing it right now.
Speaker 1: This is a new way to open the podcast, considering
Speaker 1: how to consider Rick, do you have any ideas for
Speaker 1: how we could open this podcast to be just not
Speaker 1: the same because we usually say we're at the Bear
Speaker 1: Hunting Magazine global headquarters, So we're not gonna say that today, Okay, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I'm used to with you, because
Speaker 1: you know, let's to uh several of them, and so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to break away once you've got a something
Speaker 1: that's worked for you has worked for that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, yeah, sometimes changes worth exploring. I think, so, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Al, it's always interested. How about we
Speaker 1: start by saying you're hearing the voice of Rick Spicer,
Speaker 1: the Rick. I've just met you pretty recently. I've known
Speaker 1: of you for a long time. Yeah, And likewise, I've
Speaker 1: known of you for actually years, primarily because of your
Speaker 1: cousin um, but but more more recently because obviously of
Speaker 1: the podcast and the magazine and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: you know, being a local guy. Uh and the you know,
Speaker 1: as you know, you've kind of been making a name
Speaker 1: for yourself and kind of getting out there and all that.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't help, but you know, especially if
Speaker 1: you're in that Instagram world and all that stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: you just started to see these things. Well I thought
Speaker 1: it was cool, coolbe uh. I walked into pack Rat
Speaker 1: and we'll get into pack Rat. What that is is
Speaker 1: a store and fatable and I recognized Rick behind his
Speaker 1: mask a full full like uh buff like you know,
Speaker 1: like ninja, like all the way up to the eyes
Speaker 1: almost and then uh. And I had on some mask
Speaker 1: that was like pulling my ears down where I was like,
Speaker 1: my kids make fun of it. I have a pretty
Speaker 1: big head, so when I wear a mask, like a
Speaker 1: regular mask that was made for somebody else, like it, uh,
Speaker 1: like my ears must be like way back on my
Speaker 1: head because it like stretches him down. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: took my mask off and said, hey, Rick, are you
Speaker 1: Rick or something like that whatever. I recognized you too, though,
Speaker 1: Uh so, Yeah, I kinda kind of knew who it
Speaker 1: wasn't a surprise. Yeah, Well, I think that's a good
Speaker 1: that's a good place to to start introducing who Rick is.
Speaker 1: You're you're Yeah, let me have a like a little
Speaker 1: introduction and then we can go into the different segments
Speaker 1: of it. Uh. You are you are a mountaineer and
Speaker 1: outdoorsman hiker. Uh. Your your history is pretty deep into
Speaker 1: like the the outdoor world and part of that being
Speaker 1: in the non hunting outdoor world of mountaineering and hiking.
Speaker 1: And you are you are you are part owner owner
Speaker 1: of a store in Fatable, Arkansas called Packgraft. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: so this is a short intro. You are a hunter
Speaker 1: and you are into napping, flint, hair heads, traditional archery.
Speaker 1: You're into bushcraft, which I want to talk about that
Speaker 1: because that's a word that that uh I think. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not that familiar with the term bushcraft, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of a rhyme like because hunters, if other hunters
Speaker 1: are like me, that's not a term we use to
Speaker 1: describe it. Even though we're out in wild places probably
Speaker 1: doing some of this, but anyway, you're big into that stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, I think as time goes by, all these
Speaker 1: circles start to overlap more and more, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, which I think ultimately is what we're going
Speaker 1: to arrive at a little later in our conversation today. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and just sort of looking at um, how
Speaker 1: all these different things are related, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess ultimately we've no matter which one of those
Speaker 1: circles you find yourself in, there's I like to think
Speaker 1: there's a lot more that uh overlaps and brings us together,
Speaker 1: and there is that separates us absolutely. So man, what
Speaker 1: got you into like extreme mountaineering and stuff? You know,
Speaker 1: that's a really good question. I've I've been asked that
Speaker 1: a few times in my life, and it's weird. You know.
Speaker 1: I grew up very much a traditional console bringing him
Speaker 1: from me Star Kansas and the Delta, and I grew
Speaker 1: up hunting fishing over there with my dad. You know,
Speaker 1: That's what I knew. But probably when I was I
Speaker 1: don't know, eight or nine years old, I remember my
Speaker 1: grandpa gave me this like, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: a Rambo knife, and it was way too big a
Speaker 1: knife for screw off compass. I did not have that,
Speaker 1: but like it had a sheath with all that stuff
Speaker 1: in it, Like I choose on the sheath, so it
Speaker 1: had the fishing and then you know, and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And and of course my parents were like, well are
Speaker 1: you crazy? What are you giving a knife like that
Speaker 1: to eight year old kid? And uh, because it's right,
Speaker 1: you know, And and I like to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: he trusted me well enough not to cut my foot
Speaker 1: off with it or something like that. But um, I
Speaker 1: just as far back as I can remember, I just
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to be in the most wild places
Speaker 1: I could get to, you know, I just wanted default
Speaker 1: inside of it. And yeah, and it didn't really even
Speaker 1: only met her like what I was doing there, like
Speaker 1: I could I might go to hunt, might go to fish,
Speaker 1: and might go to climb a mountain. I might go
Speaker 1: to just hike or just be there. But I just
Speaker 1: knew that's what I wanted to do. Um. And I
Speaker 1: really don't even you know, know when that's started. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess ultimately I'm grateful for that because
Speaker 1: it's led me to do a lot of different things
Speaker 1: and many many different places in the U. S. And
Speaker 1: all over the world really and uh so, I guess
Speaker 1: it's just was always just that innate curiosity. Did your
Speaker 1: were there influential figures in your life that that helped
Speaker 1: you learn to value wild and when I say wild places,
Speaker 1: because I'm kind of looking back into my life as well.
Speaker 1: And like my my dad, who I talked about like
Speaker 1: every other podcast, like he uh he valued like getting
Speaker 1: as far back as we possibly could, valued wild places.
Speaker 1: And I think probably over a lifetime he built it
Speaker 1: into me before I was even conscious. Did you have that?
Speaker 1: I mean I had a similar experience. So you know,
Speaker 1: my father was never like a backpacker so to speak.
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't ever really hike in in camp places,
Speaker 1: but he was always very influential when it came to
Speaker 1: the outdoors in general. And that was just something we
Speaker 1: did in our family, it was. And my grandfather wasn't
Speaker 1: a hunter, but he was like a crazy fisherman, like
Speaker 1: that was like all he all he thought about was,
Speaker 1: you know, he was a carpenter and a fisherman and
Speaker 1: so um those were the things. And did he finish
Speaker 1: you on the Mississippi River over there a little bit
Speaker 1: but mostly it was it was those river shoots, you know,
Speaker 1: lakes and stuff like that. That's what I grew up
Speaker 1: fishing in when from a very young age, places like that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, So what have you give me an
Speaker 1: overview of some of your mountaineering, Like, I know you've
Speaker 1: been down to South America? Where have you been? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been lucky to go to quite a few places.
Speaker 1: So I've done, oh, probably half a dozen trips or
Speaker 1: so to South America. You know, I've done the biggest
Speaker 1: mountains I've ever climbed in my life, or Peru um
Speaker 1: and there that's the Andes Mountain Range, and there's mountains
Speaker 1: over twenty thousand feet down there, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate. We've got to stop here. Um, how
Speaker 1: how tall is uh uh twenty nine thousand ft tall? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, of course in the himalay Is
Speaker 1: in Asia and those those are the tallest mountain range,
Speaker 1: our tallest mountains, the mountains way up to So in
Speaker 1: Concagua is the tallest mountain in South America and it's
Speaker 1: on the border of Argentina and Chile. And um, I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I haven't climbed it, but um driven by
Speaker 1: it and UM, but you know, I have done a
Speaker 1: lot of climbing, rock climbing, um, from a young age.
Speaker 1: I started rock climbing when I was probably fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: I was in an explorer post as a boy, and
Speaker 1: uh an explorer. Yeah, so that's like a branch of scouting,
Speaker 1: so as as you developed and scouting and I don't
Speaker 1: even honestly know if it's a thing anymore, but um,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a subsidiary, so to speak, of scouting.
Speaker 1: And there was, um, of course, a couple of ads that, um,
Speaker 1: we're involved in volunteers and things, and um, there's some
Speaker 1: kids that I went to school with and so we
Speaker 1: just started camping and repelling and trying to find caves
Speaker 1: to go into. And we were lucky to have a
Speaker 1: couple of folks that adults that looked after us, you know,
Speaker 1: and tried to keep us from getting hurt, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And that's where I found her. I'll climbing,
Speaker 1: and from there it just went a hundred different directions. Really.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, man, I want to do this,
Speaker 1: I want to do that. I kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: try everything, but I didn't. I didn't mean to derail you.
Speaker 1: We were in South America twenty thousand foot mountains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I've been there a couple of times. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been to Columbia, I've been to Argentina, been to Chile.
Speaker 1: So I've spent quite a lot of time. I love
Speaker 1: South America and what so, Okay, on one of those
Speaker 1: trips you go down there, what are your objectives? Like,
Speaker 1: You're not like going on like a twenty mile loop trail,
Speaker 1: like taking photos like a are are you trying to go?
Speaker 1: Actually too? And and that And I actually do that
Speaker 1: type of thing with my wife. You know, my wife
Speaker 1: is not a climber. She's you know, she she doesn't hunt.
Speaker 1: She she likes fishing a little bit, but mainly she
Speaker 1: just likes to be in beautiful places outdoors. And uh,
Speaker 1: that's an experience that we love to share together. So
Speaker 1: about half of the stuff that I've done, especially is
Speaker 1: you know, i've gotten older and we've been together. Um,
Speaker 1: will be trips that are just basically hiking trips or
Speaker 1: backpacking trips, so we're living out of a backpack from
Speaker 1: multiple days and we're just going to enjoy nature and
Speaker 1: take photographs and that sort of thing. But the other
Speaker 1: half the time, um, I uh, you know, it's what
Speaker 1: I like to call type too fun. Uh we're going
Speaker 1: or I'm going or and whoever I'm going with, or
Speaker 1: we're going to be challenged, uh to try to you know,
Speaker 1: attempt something that is it's always a fine line of
Speaker 1: doing something that's dangerous enough to be sort of interesting
Speaker 1: and and learn how to manage that risk, but not
Speaker 1: so dangerous that you know, you're like, man, I may
Speaker 1: not come home if I if I do that, right?
Speaker 1: So would that be like uh like a like a
Speaker 1: particular mountain, like trying to some of that mountain you
Speaker 1: would go down to. So you've been down there six
Speaker 1: times each time you were like, we are going to
Speaker 1: climb to the top of this mountain, to the top
Speaker 1: of this mount I would It's akin to you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go on a big Western whatever elkhon or
Speaker 1: what you know. You you don't just go out there blind, right,
Speaker 1: you do research ahead of time. Well, mountaineering is no different.
Speaker 1: You know. You you do your research, you talk to people,
Speaker 1: you may get a guide book or something like that.
Speaker 1: You learn what equipment you need and client roots on on.
Speaker 1: Routes have rating systems, and so you know, you find
Speaker 1: a route that's rated that you feel like it's appropriate
Speaker 1: for your level of skill, and then at that point
Speaker 1: you say, okay, this is our objective and you go
Speaker 1: there either most of the time as a team. And
Speaker 1: mean a lot of these types of sports it's more
Speaker 1: even it's a lot more dangerous to do it alone,
Speaker 1: even though some people do it um but typically you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're tied into a rope with somebody else, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you're trying to make your way up, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you get to the top, and sometimes you assess
Speaker 1: the situation and so you know what, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1: We gotta turn around and get down, either because of
Speaker 1: weather or objective hazards. I mean, I've seen rockfall and
Speaker 1: avalanches and all kinds of things. You know that that
Speaker 1: world is like, and it's super different than the hunt.
Speaker 1: You know, like people might like somebody that didn't know
Speaker 1: the outdoors might thing, Yeah, rock climbing and hunting, well,
Speaker 1: they're just the adventure aspects. Man, I get zero thrill
Speaker 1: out of being in super dangerous like physical situations with
Speaker 1: rock and earth. I don't mind that much at all
Speaker 1: dangerous situation with wild animals. Yeah, yeah, it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, totally different. Yeah, And I mean and I'm
Speaker 1: not a rock climber and I'm not an adventure mountaineer
Speaker 1: at all. I've never really done it. But the times
Speaker 1: that I have experienced what might just be the touch
Speaker 1: of that, I've been like, get me off of here.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it too, comes down to
Speaker 1: what your experience level is though, right, because you I
Speaker 1: obviously have experience with wild animals, Like you know how
Speaker 1: to handle yourself when you're around bears, and you know
Speaker 1: around mountain lines and things like that. But if you haven't,
Speaker 1: if you don't have that background of like traveling through
Speaker 1: complicated terrain in the mountains or canes or stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you know, you just you don't know what you don't know, right,
Speaker 1: And so learning to manage objective hazards, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just because you know how to handle one situation doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're prepared to handle another, right, and so, um,
Speaker 1: it just comes down to how you spend your time
Speaker 1: and experience level, right, and where you're you've dedicated yourself
Speaker 1: exactly craft what you love to do, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's not none of it's right or wrong. It's just
Speaker 1: how do you love to spend your time? And of
Speaker 1: course that's what you're gonna focus on. Okay, tell me
Speaker 1: give me this answer. How how how good are you?
Speaker 1: Just tell me the truth? Rick, No, like just in
Speaker 1: like mountaineering, like going down and not good, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's in the competition, know it's not, but like
Speaker 1: like how like what level? Like you know, somebody could
Speaker 1: describe probably there their competency and hunting if they were
Speaker 1: being realistic and honest, I could say, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a fairly experienced hunter in this style of stuff, like
Speaker 1: like what's your I mean I would call I would
Speaker 1: I would say that my experience level is quite high,
Speaker 1: but my technical proficiency, um, does not match my level
Speaker 1: of experience. In other words, um, I've been on I mean, god,
Speaker 1: I've probably climbed a hundred mountains in the twenties some years.
Speaker 1: I've been doing it, um, but I have I'm also
Speaker 1: a careful guy, and I look very carefully at what
Speaker 1: the risks are, and so I tend to you know,
Speaker 1: I like to be challenged physically, but when it comes
Speaker 1: to like managing the risk on the route or whatever
Speaker 1: the climb is. I tend to pick things that I
Speaker 1: feel like I can pretty well stink in control of.
Speaker 1: And uh so that what that has done is it's
Speaker 1: It's given me a lot of experience. But I've avoided
Speaker 1: a lot of things that were much more technical because
Speaker 1: I was just like, you know what, I can have
Speaker 1: just as good a time climbing this route that I
Speaker 1: feel like as much safer and I can manage, then
Speaker 1: if I go do this harder one, but there's a
Speaker 1: much higher element of risk involved. Um so um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and I was so for a long time too.
Speaker 1: I was a rock climbing instructor. I had a certification
Speaker 1: with the American Mountain Got Association what's called a sp I.
Speaker 1: So I taught rock climbing through that. And um, I
Speaker 1: didn't take people on big mountaineering expeditions. It was more
Speaker 1: like local old rock climbing, right, teaching them how to
Speaker 1: go to a cliff and safely, you know, set the
Speaker 1: roots up and do all that. But I've I've taught
Speaker 1: hundreds of people over the years, you know, how to
Speaker 1: rock climb, and so, um, I guess that one of
Speaker 1: the other things I've always enjoyed about it is. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I've I've taught and brought a lot of
Speaker 1: friends and acquaintances along on trips like that, and I
Speaker 1: get a great deal of joy um out of you know,
Speaker 1: introducing people to these types of things and teaching them
Speaker 1: how to look after themselves. Uh. For me, that's always
Speaker 1: been Uh, I don't know, I get a sense of
Speaker 1: accomplishment out of that because I love seeing somebody afterwards
Speaker 1: it's like, oh man, that was that was amazing, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't think I could do that. I
Speaker 1: didn't think I'd ever do something like that. Um. And
Speaker 1: it it's always uh, you know, felt really good to
Speaker 1: share that type of experience with people. Have you ever
Speaker 1: almost died on the side of the mountain? Yes, what
Speaker 1: give us an example of a of a so that
Speaker 1: the one that sticks out above all the other ones,
Speaker 1: you know, just to cut to the chase. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: in in Peru it was the first time I went.
Speaker 1: I guess it was two thousand one maybe something like that,
Speaker 1: and I was with one of my good climbing buddies
Speaker 1: guy that I've done you know, a large percentage of
Speaker 1: the climbs that I've done with and we were ascending
Speaker 1: a mountain. It was a big peak in the the
Speaker 1: specific area we were in scared the Courtiera Blanca just
Speaker 1: north the waterraz Peru Um. And we were ascending a
Speaker 1: mountain and that there wasn't a lot of information about it,
Speaker 1: and so we didn't have really good up to date.
Speaker 1: We were going off a route description that was like
Speaker 1: years old. Right, Well, what has happened in that mountain range,
Speaker 1: like many mountain ranges around the world, as these glaciers
Speaker 1: are receding um because the climate change and these types
Speaker 1: of things, right, you know, And so what happens is
Speaker 1: is as the glacier receeds, there's all this exposed rock
Speaker 1: that for thousands of years had snow on top of it.
Speaker 1: That that exposed rock is now sliding off the side
Speaker 1: of the mountain. The snow is not there to hold
Speaker 1: it in place anymore. And so we were unaware of
Speaker 1: how much of this exposed rock was above us. So
Speaker 1: we're ascending the side of this mountain trying to get
Speaker 1: on the glacier above us, which is what we were
Speaker 1: going to try to do is climb the snow to
Speaker 1: get to the summit. And as we were going up
Speaker 1: this kind of really tight trough. We had made it
Speaker 1: up I don't know, several hundred feet, maybe a close
Speaker 1: to a thousand feet or so. Um, we heard some
Speaker 1: rock above us break loose, and uh, the next like
Speaker 1: several seconds was terrifying. It was like like rocks the
Speaker 1: size of beer kegs coming down all around us. I mean,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, literally grace of God kind
Speaker 1: of thing that Um that I'm still here today, that
Speaker 1: kind of tell the story about it. So you know,
Speaker 1: we had big, big backpacks on and it was one
Speaker 1: of those things we're adrenaline kicked in and like we
Speaker 1: literally ran down the side of that mountain. I don't
Speaker 1: know how we did it. And so where did you go?
Speaker 1: How did you? I mean so that if rocks are
Speaker 1: coming from above, you like running downhill? Yeah, So what
Speaker 1: we did? You know, it was like you got to
Speaker 1: come up with a plan and come up with it fast, right.
Speaker 1: So what we did was, Um, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of places to take cover where we were, and we
Speaker 1: knew we couldn't stay in there, and so um, we
Speaker 1: got behind the biggest boulder we could find too. You know,
Speaker 1: when there's like debris and stuff kind of going over
Speaker 1: our heads from this rock fall, and so just real quick,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, um, you know, we gotta get down.
Speaker 1: We cannot stay here. What we're gonna do is we're
Speaker 1: gonna leap frog this thing. So I'm gonna go first,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go as far as I can until
Speaker 1: I get to the next boulder I can hide behind.
Speaker 1: When I get there, you're gonna follow me. And literally
Speaker 1: we leap frog until we got down. Meanwhile, the weather
Speaker 1: moves in and we get in a white out and
Speaker 1: it starts to snow while all this stuff's going down.
Speaker 1: How long did this take? I'm envisioned this being like
Speaker 1: a ten second army The main deal was about that.
Speaker 1: It was probably ten seconds or so. But there was
Speaker 1: a lot of debris and in smaller rocks that continue
Speaker 1: in you to fall. Yeah, exactly. It's like this is
Speaker 1: a shooting gallery and you got rocks the size of baseballs.
Speaker 1: You know, they're still falling down this trough whizzing by
Speaker 1: your head. Only take one of those, you know. And
Speaker 1: of course we had helmets on and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: don't care what kind of Oh yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't you gotta have a helmet on doing that type
Speaker 1: of stuff, and um so, but as the weather moved in, um,
Speaker 1: we we finally got to a place where we felt
Speaker 1: like we were safe with the rocks weren't gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: get us anymore. And we crawled under this very large boulder,
Speaker 1: probably size of a house and got underneath that thing.
Speaker 1: And it had a kind of an alcove underneath it,
Speaker 1: and it was quite wide, but it was only just
Speaker 1: barely big enough where like we couldn't fully sit up
Speaker 1: underneath it, right, so you can think of yourself like
Speaker 1: kind of leaning with your on your elbow on the ground.
Speaker 1: We spent three and a half days under that rock. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it started snowing and kept on snowing and kept on snowing.
Speaker 1: We couldn't see anything because it was it out and
Speaker 1: one guy, Yeah, and one time of year, this was June.
Speaker 1: So were you concerned about not ever getting to be
Speaker 1: able to I mean, so the good thing is is
Speaker 1: it happened like day two of the trip, and we
Speaker 1: were we had provisions for a week, so we had food.
Speaker 1: You know, we were okay other than uh, you know,
Speaker 1: basically just being somewhat Oh at that point, it was
Speaker 1: probably sixteen thousand, Yeah, where we were at. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was pretty high. Wow, what does that do to you
Speaker 1: on inside? Were you scared the moment in the moment,
Speaker 1: but like after you were no, you know at that point,
Speaker 1: because after everything calmed down, I mean even the next day,
Speaker 1: we were still considering, like how can we get back
Speaker 1: up on the mountain. You know, we were obviously we're like, well,
Speaker 1: we're not going that way, right and so um part
Speaker 1: of the reasons, I mean, it's possible could have gotten
Speaker 1: down a little bit early, but you know, we probably
Speaker 1: had a close to a foot of snowfall um by
Speaker 1: the time everything was said and done, and between the conditions,
Speaker 1: not being able to see the snowfall and everything, we
Speaker 1: were like, it's not worth trying to find another safe
Speaker 1: way up this mountain. We just don't feel like it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's plenty of mountains down here. I think
Speaker 1: we're done with this one. And at that point we
Speaker 1: hicked out, and of course they weren't expecting us until later,
Speaker 1: so we didn't have a ride. So we ended up
Speaker 1: having to like hitshike to get a ride town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where those outfitted deals in the sense that like someone
Speaker 1: drives you out there. Yeah, and you'll you'll appreciate this. Um,
Speaker 1: there's so many folks do us included down there's they
Speaker 1: hire these guys called eddie Ros and they're their mule drivers.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so what you do on the way up
Speaker 1: to your base camp is a mule carries your big pack, yes,
Speaker 1: up in the right. So, um, you hired a guy
Speaker 1: and he's usually got two mules, one for one mule,
Speaker 1: wonder one ratio, one meal for each climber, and um,
Speaker 1: your big pack goes in the back of the mule
Speaker 1: with maybe some extra food or whatever else you want
Speaker 1: to carry, and you just hike up with daypack on.
Speaker 1: And that's nice because it allows you to acclimate and
Speaker 1: kind of prepare, but save your legs because you're not
Speaker 1: carrying sixty pound backpack. You know, that is exactly the
Speaker 1: strategy that I used with five eles. They carry all
Speaker 1: the year. So when I get to where I want
Speaker 1: to go, I'm feeling good. Um, so so like how
Speaker 1: much so if you were at sixteen thousand feet, how
Speaker 1: much elevation had you gained? So the town has been
Speaker 1: a while, honestly since and I don't recall the exact
Speaker 1: elevation of water odds, But it's on up there. I
Speaker 1: want to say it's at least twelve thousand feet, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit higher, you know, but you would drive
Speaker 1: up some of that. Okay, yeah, yeah, but we just
Speaker 1: we just got back from Colorado and we did you know,
Speaker 1: I mean a minor minor high and something like that.
Speaker 1: But we started at like ten thousand feet and went
Speaker 1: to almost thirteen thousand in about a four mile stretch. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty intense, I mean, especially with that elevation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're coming from Arkansas, right, I mean, we're there.
Speaker 1: For One thing that people don't realize that haven't spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time at altitude and things like that,
Speaker 1: is I mean, yeah, it helps to have some fitness,
Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter is, you know, there's
Speaker 1: acclamation that has to happen, and the only thing that
Speaker 1: will allow that to happen is time. Your body has
Speaker 1: to make more red blood cells so you can absorb
Speaker 1: that oxygen or the lack of option oxygen when you're
Speaker 1: up there, and I don't care what kind of shape
Speaker 1: you're in, you can still get altitude sickness, you know,
Speaker 1: a m S or hape or something like that from
Speaker 1: being in that situation where you go from a low
Speaker 1: elevation place like that, how many days does it take
Speaker 1: to I mean, I realized it would be great if
Speaker 1: you were there for like a month, but I mean
Speaker 1: like two days, you know, more of the better. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, and it depends on how high you're
Speaker 1: going um and everyone to some degree reacts slightly differently.
Speaker 1: But for the average person, I would say a few
Speaker 1: days UM is ideal. You know, but there's so many
Speaker 1: you know, nowadays, people's time is often so limited and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, I'd love to do that, but
Speaker 1: I don't have time. I want to do this trip
Speaker 1: whatever it is, whether it's a hunting trip, climbate trip,
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so you know, that's why you hear
Speaker 1: about these things is because it's a lack of time.
Speaker 1: People go, they charge up into the mountains and then
Speaker 1: they end up getting a cute mountain sickness or something
Speaker 1: like that. You know, they got a headache, and the
Speaker 1: only thing you can do when that happens is go down.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I can. You can. There's no drug
Speaker 1: you can. I mean, you can medicate ahead of time,
Speaker 1: although I'm not really a fan of that type of thing,
Speaker 1: that the best thing to do is give yourself time.
Speaker 1: If it's a mild case, sometimes you can stay put,
Speaker 1: drink a lot of water, keep yourself hydrated, and you
Speaker 1: can sort of get over it. Does that usually happen
Speaker 1: like above, Like, yeah, that's a pretty good. I've I've
Speaker 1: hunted quite a bit in Montana, for word a seven
Speaker 1: thousand feet and people were like, oh man, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to worry about altitude. And it never has affected
Speaker 1: me that much. But in Colorado last week, we we
Speaker 1: the town we stayed in was over ten thousands exactly,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it wouldn't have crushed me. And I
Speaker 1: try not to take too much personal note of physical ailments.
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to give it too much attention. So
Speaker 1: if I hadn't, I probably would just have been like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't feel great, like but I recognize what was
Speaker 1: happening and I and I actually didn't feel good for
Speaker 1: about a day. Yeah, and then but then the next
Speaker 1: day that's pretty much fine. And it's just because you
Speaker 1: gave yourself that night. You know that the old adage
Speaker 1: with climbers, but this can apply to anyone traveling into
Speaker 1: that terrain is you climb high and you sleep low,
Speaker 1: and so that's what you want to do. Um And
Speaker 1: so even if you're an elk hunter, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're going up into the mountains, if you want to
Speaker 1: scout or hunt or whatever, you're gonna go check out
Speaker 1: ridges to glass, whatever it may be. If you can
Speaker 1: go back down the mountain and sleep at a lower elevation,
Speaker 1: and that's going to do a better job of acclimating
Speaker 1: you and you're gonna feel better. Of course, you've got
Speaker 1: to travel more, and so you gotta put the work
Speaker 1: into it. But if you have a mule, that's right,
Speaker 1: he doesn't work. Yeah, I've had altitude sickness. It's terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got altitude sickness moving to northwest Arkansas from I
Speaker 1: still can't I still can't breathe. No, I went from
Speaker 1: Texas to Colorado and it killed me. Yeah. I didn't
Speaker 1: miss a morning or evening hunt, but I felt terrible
Speaker 1: and just slept every moment that I could pretty much
Speaker 1: guarantee you had cupte mountain sickness. And then I'm chugging
Speaker 1: pepto and drinking as much water as I could, and
Speaker 1: I didn't eat for three or four days. It's just
Speaker 1: I didn't want to. Um, this is not a topic
Speaker 1: switch slightly different area of mountaineering. Uh. My daughter met
Speaker 1: Alex okay the other day she uh, Mr Fred it
Speaker 1: was a dam deal, but she met Alex Handlda. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that guy? I think a lot
Speaker 1: of them. You know, he doesn't uh, he's very aware
Speaker 1: that what he's doing is about a dangerous as you could.
Speaker 1: You know, for someone who didn't know Alex Handld, tell
Speaker 1: him who is. Yeah. So Alex Handld is a sponsored
Speaker 1: North Face athlete and he's widely considered to be the
Speaker 1: best free soloist rock climber that's ever lived. And what
Speaker 1: that means is is he climbs very large rock vertical
Speaker 1: faces without any type of equipment or protection to keep
Speaker 1: himself from falling. So he doesn't use ropes or anything
Speaker 1: like that. So he's uh, you know, there's many films
Speaker 1: out there about him. You can look climb He's you know,
Speaker 1: he's the first big one he did that got him famous.
Speaker 1: Was half done in Yosemite, but he's done El Capitan,
Speaker 1: He's done all over the world. He's done. He's just
Speaker 1: climbing a rock with Yeah, I mean athletically, there's almost
Speaker 1: no comparison in terms of what he has accomplished. You know.
Speaker 1: But but you know if you saw okay here when
Speaker 1: when my daughter showed she had a picture, he was
Speaker 1: at the capital actually in d C. And uh, he's
Speaker 1: like an unimpressive guy. Yeah, he's like five ten. Maybe
Speaker 1: he's a linking guy. I mean very fit obviously, but
Speaker 1: like he's you know, got on a T shirt and
Speaker 1: some shorts walking around. You couldn't pick him out of
Speaker 1: a crowd. He's not you know, he's just as a
Speaker 1: world class So, um, it's I would say the number
Speaker 1: one thing is mentally he is like he his mind
Speaker 1: is um, yeah, he's very different. Um there's actually they
Speaker 1: do some some kind of medical research and one on
Speaker 1: him and that and he's he doesn't still yeah, he
Speaker 1: he doesn't respond to stress and he doesn't get like
Speaker 1: endorphin released like the rest of us do when he
Speaker 1: gets in normal situation aations that would normally cause stress.
Speaker 1: So he can keep himself much under much more under
Speaker 1: control than the average person when he's in like really
Speaker 1: dangerous situations. So does that mean that it's really like
Speaker 1: on the mountain a lot of what you would be
Speaker 1: doing is really not a physical challenge, like your body
Speaker 1: could do it, but your mind. I mean there's some
Speaker 1: of that, but the stuff he's doing, no, it's like
Speaker 1: only I mean, I've been rock climbing over twenty years.
Speaker 1: I couldn't hope to do to even even with ropes,
Speaker 1: even on my best day, I couldn't climb what he's
Speaker 1: climbing with all the equipment in the world, let alone
Speaker 1: free solo it without a rope or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's astonishing. I mean his finger holds are crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's It's unreal. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he doesn't condone what he does. He doesn't recommend that.
Speaker 1: He's very aware that it is dangerous and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a choice that he's made for himself. It's how
Speaker 1: he's decided to live his life. And you know, uh,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of respect for someone that knows
Speaker 1: themselves well enough to say, you know what, this is
Speaker 1: who I am and I'm willing to die for it.
Speaker 1: And as long as he's not prescribing other people to,
Speaker 1: you know, take that up than that he has every
Speaker 1: right to in my opinion. So we've watched many of
Speaker 1: those films with him, and it seems it's it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: It's really incredible. M hm. Well, okay, you've you told us,
Speaker 1: you told us your scary story. That was good. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about let's talk about what is bushcraft. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I would describe bushcraft and it's in its most
Speaker 1: basic form as the knowledge of nature and how to
Speaker 1: interact with it on a personal level. That can mean
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, though some people look at
Speaker 1: it in terms of survival skills. That's what I was
Speaker 1: going to say. I would have thought most people think about,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. Um. Other people have a
Speaker 1: spin on it a little bit different. Um, maybe like
Speaker 1: ancestral knowledge, you know, so early people or first people's
Speaker 1: type knowledge. So some people, um focus on a specific
Speaker 1: skill set. Maybe that was more common to a particular
Speaker 1: Native American group of people or something like that. But
Speaker 1: these days, you know, most people I think just have
Speaker 1: a general interest in like, you know, how to kind
Speaker 1: of no more and need less. I guess you could
Speaker 1: think of it now that's a that's a key part
Speaker 1: of it though, because I'm trying to find the difference
Speaker 1: in like what somebody would call bushcraft and what we
Speaker 1: would call going on a five day backpacking trips, like
Speaker 1: because you're talking about using the less you're talking about
Speaker 1: bushcraft would be like starting to fire without any kind
Speaker 1: of yes, an ignition stores well and it gets That's
Speaker 1: where he gets tricky, right, because some people would be
Speaker 1: would consider carrying like a magnesium fire steel and using
Speaker 1: the spini or knife, like, that's still bushcraft because what
Speaker 1: you did was you went to an eastern red cedar tree,
Speaker 1: you scraped off a bunch of bark, and you created
Speaker 1: tender from that. So there's still an element of knowledge
Speaker 1: and nature and how to harness that and harvest it
Speaker 1: in those types of things. But on it's it's more
Speaker 1: kind of pure level. I guess you could say, um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go out and you're gonna harvest um a
Speaker 1: you know, a mullen stock, and then you're gonna go
Speaker 1: get a piece of cotton wood for a hearth board
Speaker 1: and you're gonna create a hand drill a type of
Speaker 1: tree plant. Yeah, yeah, mullin is a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a plant. It has a large basil rosette at the bottom.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a medicinal plant. As well. It's there's
Speaker 1: a handful more than a handful, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different plants that can provide you with multiple types
Speaker 1: of resources. So Mullen like the lead. Is it real
Speaker 1: soft and fuzzy. A lot of people think it's lambs here,
Speaker 1: but it actually gets much bigger. Arkansas grows all over
Speaker 1: the place here in artists. So we went out, walked around.
Speaker 1: We probably find some um, but the leaves get quite
Speaker 1: large and they're growing around basil rosette um and that
Speaker 1: if you dry, you can make tea with it. It's
Speaker 1: good for respiratory omets and things like that. UM. It
Speaker 1: actually makes great toilet paper if you need it for
Speaker 1: that use. In fact, it's got a nickname Cowboy toilet
Speaker 1: paper because it's so it's real soft um. But the
Speaker 1: stock that it puts up UM can get quite high
Speaker 1: and has a cone of yellow flowers at the top
Speaker 1: of it. And when it dries it becomes very woody.
Speaker 1: You know, it's soften and it bends too easy when
Speaker 1: it's green and it's got too much moisture in it.
Speaker 1: But as it drives, you can cut that down UM.
Speaker 1: And that's your hand drill or your spindle um that
Speaker 1: you would use, and then you need a heart board,
Speaker 1: so you could find uh something like locally. Umbrella magnolia
Speaker 1: would be a good source of cotton wood is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite ones, but there's many things you could
Speaker 1: use and um, So you need uh particular types of
Speaker 1: materials that you know. It's less important that you know
Speaker 1: what species you're looking for and more important that you
Speaker 1: understand the characteristics that are needed to make it work properly.
Speaker 1: So I know you know from doing from having a
Speaker 1: lot of experience doing that type of thing. I need
Speaker 1: woods that are low density because if it's too hard,
Speaker 1: it's going to require too much pressure and speed in
Speaker 1: order to bring the temperature up where I need it
Speaker 1: to get it to right. So that's one thing. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you need very low moisture content. If there's a lot
Speaker 1: of moisture in it, you can it's gonna be fighting
Speaker 1: you the whole time. And you need low resin content
Speaker 1: because if there's a lot of reson in it when
Speaker 1: you're starting to do it, it's gonna kind of gum
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. So you don't want to
Speaker 1: use the real sappy woods for that type of thing.
Speaker 1: So you know, lots of different things can work, but
Speaker 1: it's just having that knowledge and understanding of you know
Speaker 1: what I need to get it done. So that would
Speaker 1: be one example of bushcraft that I think we'll paying
Speaker 1: a picture for. You know what we're talking about? What
Speaker 1: else like like um like navigation absolute out technology? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's going to again that runs the game
Speaker 1: at you know nowadays, you know most of us are
Speaker 1: walking around with some kind of phone in our pocket
Speaker 1: and we got on X on there, right, And that's
Speaker 1: a great tool. I use it myself, I recommend it. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to take your pack rap bushcraft on Instagram,
Speaker 1: you can't have on situation I'm want to use or
Speaker 1: whatever I can. And and it again it comes down
Speaker 1: to like what are you doing out there? Like? Can
Speaker 1: I navigate by the stars? Yeah? I know I can
Speaker 1: do some of it, um, but what am I out
Speaker 1: here to do? Am I out here to spend my
Speaker 1: time learning navigation? Or am I out here trying to
Speaker 1: get after an animal? Right? Well, I want to spend
Speaker 1: my trime trying to track this animal down and harvest it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I could do you know, navigation by hand,
Speaker 1: but I would rather spend my time in other ways.
Speaker 1: And so a good example, you know, kind of happy
Speaker 1: medium and one of the things that pack raft that
Speaker 1: I teach classes on his old school navigation skills with
Speaker 1: a regular compass and a topographical map, and that that
Speaker 1: to me has a very appropriate place, um in a
Speaker 1: sportsman's tool kit, because compass and a map don't require
Speaker 1: any power. You know, iPhone runs out of batteries unless
Speaker 1: you got a battery backup or something like that. At
Speaker 1: that point, it's right, so you know, knowing how to
Speaker 1: use terrain association, read a topographical map, and orient that
Speaker 1: map with a compass so that you can keep yourself
Speaker 1: you know where you need to be. Um, those are
Speaker 1: good examples of what I would definitely classify as bushcraft skills.
Speaker 1: How long would it take you to start a fire
Speaker 1: if we walked outside? You know, I don't know what's
Speaker 1: out there. I haven't looked around yet. I mean, if
Speaker 1: I got real lucky, I might be able to do
Speaker 1: it in a half hour. Yeah, I mean, but that
Speaker 1: that would require something. Could you start a fire? Okay?
Speaker 1: If I if I if you were with me ten
Speaker 1: times and you had a thirty minute window each of
Speaker 1: those ten times in different environments here in Arkansas? How
Speaker 1: many times would you be able to start a fire
Speaker 1: in thirty minute? In thirty minutes, I mean, is it
Speaker 1: like a for sure deal? I mean it's like no,
Speaker 1: there's so many variables. Okay, so timey year? What has
Speaker 1: the real dry? I mean I could probably start a
Speaker 1: fire out there by Clark Rocks and that was my
Speaker 1: next thing. What has the weather been like? I mean, um,
Speaker 1: has it rained? So there there's nothing that is I
Speaker 1: guess what I'm getting at is like how did native
Speaker 1: people's or backwoodsman that had none of our modern technology?
Speaker 1: I mean, did they just go long periods of time
Speaker 1: without fire because they couldn't start a fight? Is there?
Speaker 1: Or is there bushcraft? Way? That's just like almost d
Speaker 1: um there is. But again, even within those primitive skills
Speaker 1: and bushcraft and things like that, they still had tool kits. Right,
Speaker 1: So if I'm gonna spend the time to craft a
Speaker 1: fire kit, and like I mean right now, if you want,
Speaker 1: I got one of my truck and it's a good kit.
Speaker 1: I know, like if if I were to use that,
Speaker 1: I have a fire in ten minutes. He carols around
Speaker 1: in case he wants to start right. Um, but Um,
Speaker 1: if I have to go out into the woods, there's
Speaker 1: just so many variables when it comes to harvesting. And
Speaker 1: you maybe so with your fire kit though you could
Speaker 1: you could start a fire and predictably, yes, so you
Speaker 1: could if we were just out here and it was
Speaker 1: and we were trying to get from here to Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: And but the differences is that that is a tool
Speaker 1: kit that I crafted my hand from my knowledge of
Speaker 1: the environment and how to use it, right, whereas instead
Speaker 1: of you know, carrying a big ladder in my pocket.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not here to knock anyone that does that.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would encourage you to do that, because
Speaker 1: it's smart. You're prepared, right, Um. But you know the
Speaker 1: other the other way to look at it and the
Speaker 1: way that I think about it, because I love sharing
Speaker 1: these skills and teaching these skills, Um, but I do
Speaker 1: it less because I think that you're gonna need as
Speaker 1: a as a survival skill one day. Like I hope
Speaker 1: that never happens to anybody. I hope no one's ever
Speaker 1: on a hunting trip and it goes ouphon. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But what I can guarantee is that if I, if
Speaker 1: we I have a class and you come and you
Speaker 1: learn how to do a bow drill or hand drill fire.
Speaker 1: The first time you're on your own and you make
Speaker 1: a campfire with that method, you will never enjoy a
Speaker 1: camp fire as much as that one you've made that way,
Speaker 1: because it enriched your experience and you are more connected
Speaker 1: to the land around you and your understanding of how
Speaker 1: to look after yourself. And that is why I like
Speaker 1: to do it. And that for me, is why I
Speaker 1: have gone down this path of studying these skills. Is
Speaker 1: because uh, I just enjoy my time out there that
Speaker 1: much more. Yeah, but I really like that, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of ironic in a way, like
Speaker 1: if you were to you know, we have this thing
Speaker 1: and that's I have this thing to me where I
Speaker 1: I love hunting because it connects me to something like
Speaker 1: this primitive human experience in a modern time. If you
Speaker 1: were to, if we could go back and talk to
Speaker 1: some primitive human hunters at some point and say, hey,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some hunters in the future that won't
Speaker 1: know how to start fires the way you do. I mean,
Speaker 1: like they would probably be surprised at that I do
Speaker 1: not know how to start a fire. I mean I
Speaker 1: might bumble around. I mean, I know the concept of
Speaker 1: starting to fire without a big lighter, but in general,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that you're talking about a
Speaker 1: lot of hunters wouldn't be familiar with. And and obviously
Speaker 1: it's a it's a utilitarian issue. It's like we're focusing
Speaker 1: on different aspects of our mission. Like, but I think
Speaker 1: what you're saying is a really valid point that just
Speaker 1: the the knowledge of these things, uh, like how to
Speaker 1: start a fire adds value and adds a depth to
Speaker 1: the experience and fire. You know, I've got a book
Speaker 1: right up there called Catching Fire. Fascinating book some and
Speaker 1: it's uh and the whole premise of it is is
Speaker 1: that fire is actually what um helped humans, you know,
Speaker 1: become what we are because of cooked food. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any doubt about it. Yeah, and and it
Speaker 1: it's pretty fascinating. So like our connection to fire. And
Speaker 1: then the fact that Clay Nukem really doesn't know how
Speaker 1: or isn't it prepared to start a fire without technology,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hypocritical almost, you know. Again, it's it
Speaker 1: just comes down to what you got time for, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, in the first world, problem. I read somewhere
Speaker 1: where U and one of the books was reading. Heck,
Speaker 1: it was in that book Catching Fire. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: talking about how these African tribes would carry around uh
Speaker 1: basically fire embers for days. When they moved, they would
Speaker 1: like carry a stick, a smoldering stick, so they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to start a new fire. You So like in
Speaker 1: North America, that's commonly called it an apache matt okay
Speaker 1: and so um. And there's obviously depends on where you go.
Speaker 1: They got a different name for it. Right with the
Speaker 1: concepts the same where you remove embers from the fire
Speaker 1: and you put some punk wood or something that will
Speaker 1: smolder for long periods of time, and you wrap that
Speaker 1: in a container which will often be barred or grasses
Speaker 1: or something um. And then at that point you can
Speaker 1: basically just like sometimes you can swing it through the air.
Speaker 1: You just want to keep enough oxygen in that thing
Speaker 1: so that those embers continue to smolder. You can walk
Speaker 1: for miles with something like that. And then we start there.
Speaker 1: And it's much more uh or much less uh energy
Speaker 1: required to do so, right, because if I have to
Speaker 1: get my kid out again and expend a bunch of
Speaker 1: energy and effort into creating an ember um and depending
Speaker 1: up on what conditions are, that's gonna be a lot more. Uh.
Speaker 1: You just effort exerted, right, And if I've already got
Speaker 1: these embers, now all I need is tender and I
Speaker 1: put those and I can blow it back into flame again.
Speaker 1: It's just just back to fundamentals in terms of knowledge
Speaker 1: of nature and how to use resources around you. Yeah. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's something that I think you're known for, especially on
Speaker 1: your Instagram page what i'd see all the time. I
Speaker 1: think it's cool and and and I have some knowledge
Speaker 1: of flint napping, but you do a lot of flint
Speaker 1: napping and making stone projectile points that you're hunting with
Speaker 1: I do. Uh. Yeah, it's it's definitely become a passion
Speaker 1: of mine. Where did you learn that? So I first
Speaker 1: got interested in it and probably about nineteen seven and
Speaker 1: I my first year of college, I moved to East
Speaker 1: Tennessee and I went to University of Tennessee. And uh,
Speaker 1: mainly because I was a kid and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to leave home, you know what I mean. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to get out and do something different. And for
Speaker 1: no other reason then be kind of because it sounded interesting.
Speaker 1: I took a class called prehistoric archaeology, and I had
Speaker 1: changed your life. It changed my life. Um, I had
Speaker 1: no idea who my professor was going to be, but
Speaker 1: it turned out it was a guy named Jan Schimmuck,
Speaker 1: and he's like a world class archaeologist. He goes to
Speaker 1: France and excavates Neanderthal uh graves and that that type
Speaker 1: of thing. Fascinating guy. And he was showing these images
Speaker 1: of you know, various levels of early man uh creating
Speaker 1: these stone tools. And of course I knew about their
Speaker 1: heads and stuff at that point, but I never knew
Speaker 1: how they were made until that point. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I got really interested in it, and I started trying
Speaker 1: to learn on my own. But of course, back then,
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't hardly any internet, let alone you know,
Speaker 1: YouTube and stuff where you can go learn how to
Speaker 1: do this stuff. So I fumbled around for a while
Speaker 1: and when wasn't any good at it. And I tried it,
Speaker 1: you know, on and off, for probably a year or two, um,
Speaker 1: and then I kind of put it down for a while.
Speaker 1: And of course I was in college. You get into
Speaker 1: whatever you get into, right, and when I, uh, when
Speaker 1: I decided. So fast forward a little ahead, a little
Speaker 1: bit of time. You know, I well, I guess, first
Speaker 1: go back. I started learning how to shoot bow when
Speaker 1: I was probably about nine years old. My dad gave
Speaker 1: me a compound bow and I was shooting it instinctively
Speaker 1: with no release, no sycs or anything, totally totally um.
Speaker 1: And so I hunted that way, you know, quite a
Speaker 1: bit through high school and stuff with firearms as well,
Speaker 1: but but that way, and then UM put the bow
Speaker 1: down for a while. I was in college. Well from
Speaker 1: near the end of college, I decided I want to
Speaker 1: start bow hunting again. And when I picked a bow
Speaker 1: up again, as when I started having an interesting like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I remember when I was you know, flint
Speaker 1: napping and that sort of thing. And again I kind
Speaker 1: of messed around with it on and off for a while.
Speaker 1: But about four or five years ago, um, partially because
Speaker 1: you know, of life changes and things. I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of kids and family. Well, I couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 1: be gone as much, right, I couldn't be gone on
Speaker 1: these expeditions and these things. I needed to find things it,
Speaker 1: um I was interested in, but that I could do,
Speaker 1: and you know, in proximity. So that's when I really
Speaker 1: started investing a lot more time in these primitive skills.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I asked myself, I was like,
Speaker 1: where are you gonna keep fooling around with us? Or
Speaker 1: are you going to commit and learn how to do it?
Speaker 1: Because that's what it is. It's committing, right, And it's
Speaker 1: like anything in life, what do you want to be
Speaker 1: good at? Until you commit, you're never gonna reach your potential.
Speaker 1: And so, um, that's what I did was I was like, okay, um,
Speaker 1: either need to put this away or I need to
Speaker 1: do it. And so at that point, it was just
Speaker 1: like everyone. I could talk to, everything, I could read, everything,
Speaker 1: I could watch, and you know, and I still not
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to act like I'm an expert
Speaker 1: by any means, because I still have, I mean, so
Speaker 1: much to learn. There's really no end too. Uh. You
Speaker 1: know what you can learn when it comes to creating
Speaker 1: stone tools, and there's all kind of kinds of different
Speaker 1: technologies and ways that you can go about doing it.
Speaker 1: But what I have kind of come to, um kind
Speaker 1: of I guess who you want to say specialize in
Speaker 1: is creating uh, you know, simple stone arrowheads for the
Speaker 1: purpose of bow hunting. You know, some people get into
Speaker 1: make night blades, and I've done a little bit of that,
Speaker 1: but predominantly, um, you know, I'm trying to recreate functional
Speaker 1: points that you know, that I can actually carry out.
Speaker 1: You make some beautiful stuff, Thank you very much, UM
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, it's just an endless uh source of
Speaker 1: fascination for you know what you just said. I like
Speaker 1: what you did there as a as a life strategy.
Speaker 1: You went into a new season of life. So you
Speaker 1: were this like adventure like traveling, traveling all over the
Speaker 1: world in some cases, and then you had a family
Speaker 1: and had the kids, couldn't couldn't do that as much
Speaker 1: of that stuff, and so you started dedicating yourself to
Speaker 1: some of this craft that you can learn at home.
Speaker 1: I identify with that because I feel like inside of
Speaker 1: people there is this like there's this like space that
Speaker 1: we want to fill up with and for us and
Speaker 1: for the people listening to the podcasts probably want to
Speaker 1: fill up with outdoor adventure related just you know, something
Speaker 1: inside of that field. And I find that you don't
Speaker 1: always have to fill it with the most exciting, crazy
Speaker 1: extreme of what you're interested in to fulfill that thing
Speaker 1: inside of you. I mean, like, uh, and I've got
Speaker 1: some examples in my life of similar things when it's
Speaker 1: like I know, I can't go do that, but I
Speaker 1: can't do this and find real satisfaction in doing this thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, for some guys, it's reloading ammunition. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. For for other guys it's it's it's time flies,
Speaker 1: yeah you know. I mean you think for a lot
Speaker 1: of guys, that's shooting bows. You know, in the outdoor industry,
Speaker 1: there's so much emphasis on like you scroll through Instagram,
Speaker 1: Facebook and all these influential hunters and non just hunters,
Speaker 1: like they're shooting their bow, shooting their bow, shooting their bow,
Speaker 1: shooting the ball. It's great to shoot your bow. I
Speaker 1: think people use that as a tool to just fill
Speaker 1: up that space inside of them because because you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't have to. I'm gonna get known as the
Speaker 1: guy that says you don't have to practice with your boat.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that. You don't have to practice that
Speaker 1: much to be able to kill a deer at twenty yards,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But I but I think,
Speaker 1: and and then it kind of becomes like this major, major,
Speaker 1: massive focus, Like hitting a pie played at twenty yards
Speaker 1: of the compound boat is not the limiting factor of hunting.
Speaker 1: It's awesome that we like to shoot, and that becomes
Speaker 1: something that we like dial in. And there are certainly
Speaker 1: Western guys that are shooting animals at longer distance and
Speaker 1: and I are gonna kill more game because they're good
Speaker 1: shooters most of the time. Not though, yeah, irrelevant, But
Speaker 1: I like what you said there because I can identify
Speaker 1: with like dialing into something a little bit different. But
Speaker 1: that's building your repertoire of functionality, you know. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to create the image that I like, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not walking out in the woods nothing building my
Speaker 1: arrows out there and then hunting, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like that's a whole other thing. I mean. I have
Speaker 1: done some extended trips where I have I have walked
Speaker 1: out into the uh you know what I would say,
Speaker 1: very remote wilderness and carried very you know, no modern
Speaker 1: camping gear. I've gone out on trips with stone tools
Speaker 1: and things like that and tried to hunt. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you right now it's incredibly difficult if you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna go out there and do it. Um
Speaker 1: you know, you know what, with the with the backdrop
Speaker 1: of our modern lives, I think it's almost impossible to
Speaker 1: really replicate the drive and the necessity of living that way.
Speaker 1: Like we could we could go out and think that
Speaker 1: we could replicate exactly what it would be like to
Speaker 1: be a Native American and have no choice but to
Speaker 1: survive out there. But it is impossible to replicate that
Speaker 1: because we always have a backdrop. There's always something going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well there's always I mean, allow, yeah, I mean unless
Speaker 1: there was somebody that said, really, I will go in
Speaker 1: the woods and die like I'm not walking back to
Speaker 1: the truck, I mean, and nobody nobody says that. No,
Speaker 1: no one does. And I you know, I've tried to
Speaker 1: push it pretty hard. I mean I've done things where
Speaker 1: I lost over twenty pounds. Yeah, we're on that country
Speaker 1: trips because I was trying to do that exact thing.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, you you walk out a little
Speaker 1: later looking like you were in a prison camp for
Speaker 1: a while, you know, and most people that's not very appealing,
Speaker 1: that's not it's not like a lot of fun. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you you know, you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're capable of unless you pull the trigger. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: can have figured out for yourself. That's cool man, Okay,
Speaker 1: flint nappy and I want to talk a little bit.
Speaker 1: Give it. Give us a just a like a short
Speaker 1: description of like how you would take like what kind
Speaker 1: of mariol how you would So we're working we're working
Speaker 1: with what most people call flint, but that can end
Speaker 1: up being it's some type of rock that fractures predictably
Speaker 1: through something called a hertzy and cone, and so glass
Speaker 1: will do that. You can use modern glass because it's
Speaker 1: an amorphous material. What kind of rock, it's a metamorphic Yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be like so for example, um, you know
Speaker 1: you've got obsidian, right, Like that was a very classic
Speaker 1: one that Native Americans would have mine from volcanic areas. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got stuff like that. But then you also have
Speaker 1: like down in Texas, there's many many different types of
Speaker 1: shirt that occur down there. So you have things like
Speaker 1: Pedernality's shirt and Georgetown and a lot of these. And
Speaker 1: this is this is a smooth rock. It's a very
Speaker 1: The key thing about it is it fractures predictably. That's
Speaker 1: what you have to have. You can't use sandstone. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not using sedimentary rocks really of any kind that
Speaker 1: I'm aware of. So they've got to be heated ahead
Speaker 1: of time because that creates this crystalline structure within the
Speaker 1: stone that is needed in order to predict how the
Speaker 1: stone is going to Like what would they so up here?
Speaker 1: Like like right in this particular area, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's yeah, so there there is some shirt around here
Speaker 1: for sure that you could yeah, that you could nap.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is really coarse grained. The courser,
Speaker 1: the grain it is, the harder the stone is to work.
Speaker 1: So north of here there are some bands of hired
Speaker 1: and within Arkansas and we have we have uh, what
Speaker 1: is it called pikin um over you have Crowley's Ridge.
Speaker 1: There's some shirt over there that's pretty good. And then
Speaker 1: end up in the Missouri there's some actually world class
Speaker 1: types of shirt up there that people really like. Um
Speaker 1: and I again another good classic example is like I
Speaker 1: that's one thing I'm very interested in is personally is
Speaker 1: learning more about our local uh types of shirt and
Speaker 1: flint that we have. But it goes back again, like
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned already, is like how do you
Speaker 1: want to spend your time. Do you want to spend
Speaker 1: your time looking for the stuff or do you want
Speaker 1: to spend your time making airheads? And for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I wish my knowledge was better in terms of what
Speaker 1: is locally available, but I'd rather just learn more about
Speaker 1: making airhoods at least at this point, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: still learning. And that's so. Um, lots of times I
Speaker 1: trade for stone or I'll even there's places online you
Speaker 1: can buy it if you want to. And I have,
Speaker 1: you know, gone around even just around here, and I've
Speaker 1: gotten into a habit. When you pick up piece of stone,
Speaker 1: you take another rock and you can strike it, and
Speaker 1: based upon how it breaks, you can determine pretty quickly
Speaker 1: if it is a good candidate to try to make
Speaker 1: a point out of um, And it just takes some
Speaker 1: time to recognize that. But from there, um, you've got
Speaker 1: to have a toolkit. Right. And so there's different types
Speaker 1: of percussion in the way that you strike the circussion
Speaker 1: that what it's called. Yeah, So there's different kinds of percussion.
Speaker 1: You have hard hammer and soft hammer percussion. So example
Speaker 1: of hard hammer would be pick up a rocket with
Speaker 1: another rock, right, So soft hammer would be using antler
Speaker 1: or corn or something like that and and uh or
Speaker 1: even would in some cases, although that's that's much less
Speaker 1: common and so um, you have direct percussion where I'm
Speaker 1: holding the stone in one hand and I strike it
Speaker 1: with an antler on the other hand. And you have
Speaker 1: indirect percussion. Um, And that's where you have like a
Speaker 1: piece of antler that you know, you're bouncing the stone
Speaker 1: on your leg, you have another piece of antler that
Speaker 1: you're holding in a particular angle, and then you strike
Speaker 1: that antler with another antler. That's indirect percussion. And you
Speaker 1: started to see kind of a resurgence, especially if you
Speaker 1: want to jump in the circles of flint napping on
Speaker 1: on Instagram and all that type of stuff. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of guys doing that stuff because on to
Speaker 1: some degree, it gives you a higher level of control
Speaker 1: in terms of direct Yeah, because of the angle that
Speaker 1: you can control a little bit better. Um, but it
Speaker 1: does require a little bit more tool. So you're you're
Speaker 1: taking ah, if you were trying to make a point
Speaker 1: the size of an era head, which most people would understand,
Speaker 1: you know, something like under two inches long, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: an inch and a half inch wide, Like how big
Speaker 1: of a rock would you have to start with, So
Speaker 1: it depends, but oftentimes what you do is you'll you'll
Speaker 1: you'll start with a large stone if if you have it,
Speaker 1: and you'll knock off what's called a spall or a
Speaker 1: or a large flake. And so at first you remove
Speaker 1: a large flake from that piece, and that large flake,
Speaker 1: you know, ideally, if you're starting out with something's maybe
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, somewhere be four to six inches
Speaker 1: uh and thin ideally, because the thinner you start with,
Speaker 1: the easier it is to get to an arrowhead um.
Speaker 1: If you start with something that with a big hump
Speaker 1: on it, that we often refer to as a turtleback,
Speaker 1: that's a problem you gotta deal with. And so you're
Speaker 1: just setting yourself up to be challenged. So a nice
Speaker 1: thin flake or a spall. Then from there you'll use
Speaker 1: one of these percussion methods to whittle that thing down
Speaker 1: to a point or to the shape of something that
Speaker 1: you feel like is close to what you're after. Then
Speaker 1: the next stage that you'll move onto is pressure flaking,
Speaker 1: and that's what many people are familiar with. Modern people
Speaker 1: are modern flint nappers tend to use copper pressure flakers.
Speaker 1: And there is definitely evidence that Native people is also
Speaker 1: actually smelted copper and used copper tips to flat points.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that you know, we don't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot of research about that, but I have read things
Speaker 1: that that proved, um that even when even when they
Speaker 1: had the abilities to create copper tools, um, their skills
Speaker 1: were so much more fined at making stone tools and
Speaker 1: it was so hard to smelt that copper that they
Speaker 1: realized that if they could just get a little bit
Speaker 1: of copper, they were way more efficient and making stone
Speaker 1: tools with it. And so um. But traditionally what people
Speaker 1: think about is uh tips of antler and that's often
Speaker 1: referred to as abbo or aboriginal napping. And so if
Speaker 1: you want to do it, you know, because and again,
Speaker 1: just like anything, you're into what was the first stage
Speaker 1: when you're just banging out the kind of general shape
Speaker 1: of that, that's percussion, and then then you move to
Speaker 1: pressure flaking. So percussion and then pressure pressure flaking is
Speaker 1: where you're putting that serrated edge on the actual stone
Speaker 1: point itself, you know, and so the stone the way
Speaker 1: the stone flakes, you can you can put pressure, put
Speaker 1: it on your leg, you can, yeah, correct, you need
Speaker 1: something to protect yourself otherwise you're driving these razor sharp
Speaker 1: micro flakes into your hand or or into your leg,
Speaker 1: and so yes, typically use a piece of leather to
Speaker 1: protect yourself. And then you either holding it in your
Speaker 1: hand or pushing it on your thigh or you above
Speaker 1: your knee on your leg, and you're applying pressure at
Speaker 1: a particular angle with the flaking tool, whether really small
Speaker 1: tip like a big copper, could be the tip of
Speaker 1: an antler exactly popping it down and ye, and in
Speaker 1: order to create a nice smooth point, you need to
Speaker 1: be able to run flakes at least halfway a cross,
Speaker 1: because if you can't get halfway a cross on eather side,
Speaker 1: So like let's say we have an arrowhead, right, So
Speaker 1: a narrowhead like this, and I'm driving fleakes on this side,
Speaker 1: and I'm driving flakes on this side. Well, if they
Speaker 1: don't overlap slightly, you're gonna end up with this middle
Speaker 1: park that doesn't get uh flaked away. And so it's
Speaker 1: there you go. The problem is, though, is that part
Speaker 1: is gonna be It's gonna be, it won't be sharp,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna there's resistance there right when it enters exactly,
Speaker 1: it's problematic. So you want to make sure that, um,
Speaker 1: those flakes are are and it's it make it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to understand when you see it, right, they're
Speaker 1: explaining it. Um. But as you whittle these things down
Speaker 1: or chip them down, UM, you end up with something
Speaker 1: hopefully that's generally pretty symmetrical. And I mean, and they're
Speaker 1: razor sharp. I mean, there's no questions. My next question is, Okay,
Speaker 1: when I first started messing around with flint points, um,
Speaker 1: I spent a year or two hunting with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, my question, I never even shot at an
Speaker 1: animal with one, Like just I didn't commit the whole season.
Speaker 1: So it would be like I was picking and choosing
Speaker 1: when I was bringing the flint point, and it just
Speaker 1: seemed like every time I chose not to bring it,
Speaker 1: that's when I'd get a shot at. When I brought it,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. My thing was like how effective of a
Speaker 1: killing tool is this? It's very I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you can look at it a few different ways. One is,
Speaker 1: you know, modern and modern times anyway, we still have
Speaker 1: to look at like how ethical is it to with
Speaker 1: a tool like that? And so you know, it needs
Speaker 1: to be razor sharp, and if it's not, it's it's
Speaker 1: not appropriate. When I say razor sharp, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's contradictory in some ways because modern broadheads are not serrated, right,
Speaker 1: They're like knife blade. But I guess that's not an
Speaker 1: example because knife can be serrated. But there it's like
Speaker 1: a razor edge literally, right. And you know, I for me,
Speaker 1: if I'm hunting with a steel bad head, I need
Speaker 1: to be able to slice paper with that thing, and
Speaker 1: if I can, it's not sharp enough. Well, you can't
Speaker 1: use the same measuring stick for a stone point because
Speaker 1: it doesn't work the same way as a regular broadhead.
Speaker 1: A regular broadhead will slice through flesh very cleanly. In
Speaker 1: contrast to that, a stone point has these micro edges.
Speaker 1: They'll cut literally, it's a serration that comes to a
Speaker 1: tip exactly, and it will will it tears flesh rather
Speaker 1: than kind of cutting through it as it moves through.
Speaker 1: So the two components that a stone point needs in
Speaker 1: order to be functionally appropriate, at least in my mind,
Speaker 1: is the tip needs to be like a needle. It
Speaker 1: needs to be razor point exactly exactly. Yep. So that's
Speaker 1: the first characteristic that it's got to have. The next
Speaker 1: thing is that those serrations, the tips of those serrations.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I take one of mine and I
Speaker 1: just drag it quickly across my hand, it's gonna cut
Speaker 1: my hand open. And if you can't do that, then
Speaker 1: it's not sharp enough to hunt with. And so um,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes time definitely to get them to
Speaker 1: the point where and that doesn't I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: couldn't kill a deer with a one that wasn't that sharp,
Speaker 1: but it's just simply not going to perform as well.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, in if we're talking about
Speaker 1: a Native American thousand years ago, they I'm not here
Speaker 1: to say whether or not I know anything about what
Speaker 1: their ethics were back then, right, Their ethics were they
Speaker 1: needed to eat and they were going to do whatever
Speaker 1: they needed to do. They were motivated from a little
Speaker 1: bit different direction exactly, and they would have taken shots
Speaker 1: that we simply wouldn't take today as ethical hunters, simply
Speaker 1: because you know exactly our life depended on it every
Speaker 1: time we hunted, precisely, you know, so yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna take a gut shot on a on an animal knowingly,
Speaker 1: but I feel almost confident that they would have because
Speaker 1: they were trying to eat and they had to eat.
Speaker 1: And so but having said that, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna do something like that, um, there are still considerations
Speaker 1: you know, that you have to take. But you know,
Speaker 1: properly prepared stone points, there's no doubt in my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's placed. When you think about when
Speaker 1: you think about the breadth of human history, I mean,
Speaker 1: humans have been surviving a shorter amount of time using
Speaker 1: modern technologies for dispatching animals than they had using stone points.
Speaker 1: I mean humanity was built on the back of a
Speaker 1: stone point. And so that's why that's why it's bizarre.
Speaker 1: That's why it's ironic that like we would even be
Speaker 1: having a discussion about whether this is ethical, I mean
Speaker 1: for the conversation, but like the people that would say
Speaker 1: it's unethical, I would just say, man, why don't you
Speaker 1: go back and study a little bit of human history? Well,
Speaker 1: And the other thing that to me to sort of
Speaker 1: flip that on its head in a way that's so
Speaker 1: interesting is there are more people flint napping right now
Speaker 1: than there have been in probably a thousand years. And
Speaker 1: it's crazy as it is. It's because of Instagram, it's
Speaker 1: because of all of YouTube, it's because of all these
Speaker 1: you know resources. So you know, I'm definitely one of
Speaker 1: these guys that just some degree that falls in the
Speaker 1: camp of like you know, our internets, this double edged sword, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's so much junk out there, and there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of negative that comes whether or not it's it's
Speaker 1: something as simple of staring into a screen all day
Speaker 1: for kid or just all this negative is um right,
Speaker 1: that comes from whether in whatever form that takes. But
Speaker 1: there's this other side where you know, you have this
Speaker 1: community that is in and I don't care what your
Speaker 1: thing is, there's a community out there for it, you
Speaker 1: know online that are sharing skills and do doing that
Speaker 1: and that's the cool part. And because of that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of resources that up until very recently,
Speaker 1: the last few years, you know, wouldn't not have been
Speaker 1: available to people. And so you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about the communication. We we bought this book the other day, uh,
Speaker 1: this fox firebook. This would have been the way to
Speaker 1: preserve these like ancient technologies man communication, modern video like
Speaker 1: all this stuff is revolutionized the human experience to something
Speaker 1: that we don't even know what direction it's going. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's bizarre because like, yeah, you can. You didn't have
Speaker 1: to know a Native American. You didn't have to know
Speaker 1: somebody that. I mean, you went on the internet and
Speaker 1: learned how that Yeah, exactly, you know, And of course
Speaker 1: they're that still doesn't take the place of having a
Speaker 1: very experienced person show you. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: know create that UM or have that misconception there because
Speaker 1: there's no exception for a good teacher or someone that
Speaker 1: has hands on stale and and I think that's across
Speaker 1: the board whatever you're into. UM. But unfortunately for me,
Speaker 1: you know, they're kind of wouldn't anybody around me they
Speaker 1: could show me, So I just kind of had to
Speaker 1: figure it out. And of course a lot of it's
Speaker 1: just trial and error. I mean, anyone that wants to
Speaker 1: get into flipping up and I'm like, okay, well, uh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna basically pulverize a couple hundred pounds of rocks
Speaker 1: and turn them into dust, and you're gonna get real frustrated,
Speaker 1: and then at some point you're gonna end up with
Speaker 1: something that's starting to look like an arrowhead and then
Speaker 1: from there, you know, you're it's just gonna be slowly,
Speaker 1: but surely you'll keep on refinding it. Man, right here,
Speaker 1: I'll show you when we're done. I've got a collection
Speaker 1: of stone points, many of which I've found on this property,
Speaker 1: on your proper and you can see the difference and
Speaker 1: skill level. Yeah, and that's so fascinating to pick up
Speaker 1: a stone point, like there's there's one up here that
Speaker 1: I can show you that, like you just wonder, you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I bet a fourteen year old boy. I've had really yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting discussions with people about like, you know, was this
Speaker 1: a beginner or was it a kid? You know? And
Speaker 1: then the other thing is is like I've I've definitely
Speaker 1: um talked with people that are are of the oppression
Speaker 1: that like, Okay, if there's a tribe or a community
Speaker 1: of of early people, you know, I feel like maybe
Speaker 1: there was one guy and he was the napper and
Speaker 1: he's building points and tools for everybody, and all the
Speaker 1: other guys are the hunters, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of fun to think about how the
Speaker 1: four verses like was each hunter did he have his
Speaker 1: own style on his own I think it's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of argument to say that's probably less likely because
Speaker 1: flint napping is very time consuming. So to think that
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna make all your own tools and
Speaker 1: all this stuff and then go hunting, Sure, it's possible,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But I think there's a case
Speaker 1: to be made because there's no doubt that like some
Speaker 1: people just kind of get it, they just gravitate towards it,
Speaker 1: right and there, um, there's um, you know, locally, we
Speaker 1: have that up in Pentonville. We've got that Native American Museum.
Speaker 1: If you haven't met up there in that place is incredible.
Speaker 1: One of the and I don't know if it's still
Speaker 1: up there because I think it was on loan, But
Speaker 1: there's a tool up there that called the sweetwater by
Speaker 1: Face and it was found in Texas, and to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: no modern napper has been able to replicate this tool.
Speaker 1: What's it called. It's called the sweetwater Byface. And there's
Speaker 1: a there's a ratio of width to thickness that very
Speaker 1: skilled nappers will try to emulate. And once you get
Speaker 1: so wide, you can only get so thin right before
Speaker 1: it gets very difficult to do. And that particular phase
Speaker 1: among artifacts is world class. I mean, it's as good
Speaker 1: as almost anything, because though it's crazy why I want
Speaker 1: to say, it's like nineteen or or so millimeters wide
Speaker 1: and it's like crazy thin, and it's just unbelievable that
Speaker 1: you know, whoever made it was said, did you mean centimeters?
Speaker 1: Nineteen cinemas He has his fingers. I understood what you're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, like three inches or something exactly, like but
Speaker 1: like paper thing exactly. Yeah, it's unbelievable when you look
Speaker 1: at it in profile. I mean, if you dropped it
Speaker 1: on this concrete floor with shatter into you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's a remarkable artifact. Fascinating stuff, fascinating stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. I I've got to say this just because
Speaker 1: it's on my mind, all these points found in my
Speaker 1: front yard. You know. I was pretty heavily ridiculed, uh
Speaker 1: the other day online for did you see any of that?
Speaker 1: A little bit? Okay, there's no shortage of opinions out there.
Speaker 1: So I wrote an article for meat Eater that was
Speaker 1: on that was called six tips for finding stone point
Speaker 1: and uh man, I so I just wrote these sick
Speaker 1: tips for fighting stone points. You know, I mean just
Speaker 1: kind of like practical places to look. And we made
Speaker 1: mention early in the article about how you know you
Speaker 1: need to check your regulations because it technically it's illegal
Speaker 1: to take it basically anything off of public. And man,
Speaker 1: I was skewered with with I had people like private
Speaker 1: messaging me like, just people take this stuff very serious.
Speaker 1: And you know, what I was trying to say was,
Speaker 1: you know, on private land where you have permission to
Speaker 1: gather stone points, like, there were people like trying to
Speaker 1: say that it would be have better for me to
Speaker 1: have left all these stone points in my front yard.
Speaker 1: I mean, essentially that's what they were saying. But but
Speaker 1: and I realized it's one of these like mass communication
Speaker 1: kind of misses because what they were what they were
Speaker 1: saying was that I was encouraging people to loot archaeological
Speaker 1: sites like, which was not at all your point zero
Speaker 1: run point. Even one person who I engaged with a
Speaker 1: little bit, he seemed like a normal guy. I was like,
Speaker 1: so you're telling me that you want me to call
Speaker 1: maybe the University of Arkansas to come out to my
Speaker 1: front yard and set up an archaeological dig and uh.
Speaker 1: And I was like, man, there's not enough time, not
Speaker 1: enough money, there's more places that are better, so you
Speaker 1: may just leave my stone points in the front yard.
Speaker 1: And he was kind of like, you know, he was
Speaker 1: kind of like, well no, but and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well then that's what I'm talking about. What I'm talking
Speaker 1: about legal, I'm not even necessarily talking about anyway. That's
Speaker 1: a whole different story about And you know, you have
Speaker 1: to have to recognize that there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to look at that. And you know, I think you
Speaker 1: tried to do your due diligence about you know, doing
Speaker 1: things ethically and being responsible and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But everyone, you know, you asked him people, you get
Speaker 1: ten different opinions, right, And um, I certainly am a
Speaker 1: proponent a of of not doing anything illegal in terms
Speaker 1: of removing points from public land. And the other thing,
Speaker 1: um is being respectful to uh first people's in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, but the fact of the matter is,
Speaker 1: unless you're an archaeologist and you come in, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing at what point said stone point was made. Are
Speaker 1: we talking about a you know, a o sage, you know,
Speaker 1: native American that lived in the Ozarks several hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Are we talking about an at Lattle point that was
Speaker 1: from an early archaic period that no one knows, you know,
Speaker 1: even what current Native Americans might may or may not
Speaker 1: have been related to that individual, Right, And so you
Speaker 1: just open up this can of worms that there's kind
Speaker 1: of no answer to that. That doesn't mean that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, you know, respectful to those first people's you
Speaker 1: know that came and and traveled through this country. Um,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's a tricky subject. Well,
Speaker 1: and I and I and I didn't want to open
Speaker 1: up a cannon or because I'm all for preservation of
Speaker 1: archaeological sites and respect. I mean, to me, those stone
Speaker 1: points setting right there and me showing every person that
Speaker 1: comes in this office, that is like a massive Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're paying to those people who were here. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're showing those to your kids, You're you're showing them
Speaker 1: to people, your guests, you know that come in here,
Speaker 1: and you're like, look at this amazing thing that these
Speaker 1: people and always bring it back to the people like
Speaker 1: I think about I think about the human you know
Speaker 1: that touch this, you know, that's what everybody does. Something
Speaker 1: anyway that's totally off topic. But I had to bring
Speaker 1: that up because I haven't Uh. I haven't publicly addressed that,
Speaker 1: but it's like, yeah, I'm not for looting archaeological sites
Speaker 1: or doing anything illegal, but if I see a stone
Speaker 1: point in my front yard, I'm going to pick it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think and I'm gonna shown to I think
Speaker 1: most people would. I mean again, you know, not to
Speaker 1: sit here and talk about what's right or wrong. But um,
Speaker 1: I mean otherwise, how does anyone ever know about it?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I mean, I guess if
Speaker 1: you couldn't go look at a museum. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's Well what's wild to me is the
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have known this till I started paying attention
Speaker 1: then looking on the ground. Is that, man, the Native
Speaker 1: American occupation was widespread across this continent. They were everywhere,
Speaker 1: and they were here for so long. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: probably a stone point under the foundation of this building
Speaker 1: where in right now that no one I mean, just
Speaker 1: like something happened here, There was a human interaction here
Speaker 1: that left evidence of the stuff. Mean, it was just
Speaker 1: it was the way that they lived in this room,
Speaker 1: you know. But now E one last question on the napping.
Speaker 1: Have you have you taken an animal and part of
Speaker 1: the reason that I haven't is because I was not
Speaker 1: confident that my points were ready and it and for me,
Speaker 1: it very was very much an ethical uh stone point.
Speaker 1: Now I have carried them with me, um, you know,
Speaker 1: just to sort of start getting the field for it
Speaker 1: and everything. But um, but you better believe this ball. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be carrying stone points. Yeah. Well, man, that's
Speaker 1: a great place to talk about. Like, so now we
Speaker 1: have this pretty good picture of of who you are,
Speaker 1: like a mountaineer, well traveled inside of that world, and
Speaker 1: then also a hunter. Um what is the like man, Like,
Speaker 1: we live in a area that's uh for Arkansas is
Speaker 1: a pretty uh pretty wealthy area for Arkansas. I mean
Speaker 1: like uh like, uh what am I trying to get at? Uh? What? What?
Speaker 1: What are the cultural divides between hunters and your and
Speaker 1: your outdoorsman that's a non hunter. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it, you know, quite honestly comes down to a
Speaker 1: lack of knowledge or a miscommunication a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, because there's sometimes an assumption like again, like
Speaker 1: you know the shop that I work at, you know,
Speaker 1: pack Rat in Fayetteville. Um, we self technical equipment for
Speaker 1: hikers climbers, canoeists, those types of things. Um, we do
Speaker 1: now carry longbows, and but it's for purposes recreational archery
Speaker 1: at this time. We're not necessary for money hunting. But
Speaker 1: I guess my point is is that those are the
Speaker 1: types of folks, you know, traditionally they're coming in, you know,
Speaker 1: to the shop. Now if a guy who normally doesn't
Speaker 1: do those things and he's a hunter, but he's getting
Speaker 1: ready to go on a trip and he needs a
Speaker 1: camping stove, and he's like, oh, well, I can't get
Speaker 1: it at x ra Y hunting shop where I got
Speaker 1: my bow or where I bought my camo. But I'm
Speaker 1: want to go down there to that shop because they
Speaker 1: sell that kind of stuff. I've seen it there a
Speaker 1: lot of times. Is automatically like a they expect sometimes
Speaker 1: to be uh, look down upon a little bit or
Speaker 1: just like not understood, and um, you know, certainly sometimes
Speaker 1: there is a lack of information right in terms of
Speaker 1: like what it is that you're actually doing when you're
Speaker 1: out there. Because people that don't have a hunting background, um,
Speaker 1: they're just not educated in it. And sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: they don't realize that some of the very best allies
Speaker 1: for conservations are hunter, right. I mean, we all know that,
Speaker 1: but from all they see is the killing, you know,
Speaker 1: And and I'm sure you guys would probably also agree
Speaker 1: that there are plenty of hunters out there that go
Speaker 1: do things that are not ethical, that they act and
Speaker 1: they do the rest of stereotype. I mean, I've seen
Speaker 1: it time and time again, unfortunately, and ghost in Arkansas
Speaker 1: where I do a lot of my deer hunting, guys
Speaker 1: will road hunt and they shoot a deer and they
Speaker 1: leave it laying there, and they don't even bother to
Speaker 1: get the meat, and they probably didn't have a hunting license.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing for me worse than you know, seeing
Speaker 1: something like that. That's a poacher, that's not a hunter,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, they hunted, but they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're not as far as but the average person that
Speaker 1: is not a hunter doesn't. They don't know the difference, right,
Speaker 1: or they haven't been educated, or maybe some people do, right,
Speaker 1: But but a lot of people they just see that
Speaker 1: and they're disgusted by it, and there's a misconception there.
Speaker 1: So I think that I guess in the end um
Speaker 1: I would say, don't jump to conclusions or whatever you
Speaker 1: wanna call it in terms of like what other other
Speaker 1: people perception is of you and what you're doing, because
Speaker 1: what I have seen, I've got rock climber buddies that
Speaker 1: are crazy passionate turkey hunters. I've got UH people I
Speaker 1: know that UH loved hike, but they're also deer owners.
Speaker 1: And more often than not, especially in someplace like Arkansas,
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a heritage here and and and
Speaker 1: and I think that there's a lot of other towns
Speaker 1: and small towns around the country where there's a heritage here. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously you get into more metropolitan areas that starts to
Speaker 1: fade away. At least that's been by experience, right. You know,
Speaker 1: you maybe you didn't have that uncle or that your
Speaker 1: grandpa or your brother whoever that sort of was doing
Speaker 1: that when you were growing up, and so you don't
Speaker 1: have any sense of their ethics and um, what their
Speaker 1: life experiences were and how they handled themselves when it
Speaker 1: comes to you know, harvesting and game animals. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, there's a whole lot more that connects us
Speaker 1: than separates us. And uh, you know, I guess one
Speaker 1: thing I'd make kind of a shameless plug for is
Speaker 1: the b h A, which I'm involved country Owners and Anglers,
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons that I've gravitated to
Speaker 1: that group is I feel like they're a group that
Speaker 1: recognizes that, and they recognize that, you know, everybody has
Speaker 1: a right to kind of recreate, at least within the
Speaker 1: spectrum of doing it responsibly. Um and as long as
Speaker 1: you're not damaging the environment or you know, harvesting game
Speaker 1: animals either believes exactly whatever that looks like. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we all kind of have a right to be there.
Speaker 1: And I'm often surprised. I mean, sure, you got your
Speaker 1: die hard hunter guys, and all they do is hunting.
Speaker 1: They don't do anything else. Um, And you have your
Speaker 1: die hard but whether it's road bikers or rock climbers
Speaker 1: or whatever, but most of us like to do multiple things.
Speaker 1: And you don't have to get very far into a
Speaker 1: conversation to realize that we all just want to be
Speaker 1: outside doing things we love, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And so um, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it boils down to perceived identity, like what I see inside,
Speaker 1: like the hiking, mountaineering, rock climbing world, like what you
Speaker 1: feel when you go into like a high end outdoor
Speaker 1: store like Packer is, you feel the sense of like
Speaker 1: a strong identity inside of this thing. Okay, when you
Speaker 1: go into a hunting store or when you go into
Speaker 1: you know, you feel this identity. And and that's where
Speaker 1: I think there's a bridge that can be built inside
Speaker 1: the extremes of both of those could be at odds
Speaker 1: with each other and the struggle of identity because like
Speaker 1: a like a like a mountaineer typically would be somebody
Speaker 1: that would be like aware of the environment and wanting
Speaker 1: like no trace left behind, like a bunch of these
Speaker 1: like great things, and he might perceive his worldview of
Speaker 1: a hunter might be that that's not what that hunter is.
Speaker 1: That hunter is taking from this. Well, you know, when
Speaker 1: you when you really get down to the brass tacks
Speaker 1: and you don't view the extremes of the negative side
Speaker 1: of hunting, you realize that, hey, wait a minute, there's
Speaker 1: a a whole bunch of guys that are very conscientious,
Speaker 1: very conscientious about the environment. And and and then when
Speaker 1: you understand the North American Mile and Wildlife Conservation and
Speaker 1: the funding of the Pittman Robertson Act, and how that
Speaker 1: wild places and all this and and wildlife conservation is
Speaker 1: funded by the dollars of hunting. Then then there is
Speaker 1: this like super overlap of people that enjoy wild places.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's, uh, there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: more room for the mountaineer, hunter, hiker, canoe or just
Speaker 1: general outdoor person to step into hunting. I mean, like
Speaker 1: because because and I guess what I want to do
Speaker 1: and what I see you doing is that. And what
Speaker 1: I see b h A doing better than anybody. Say
Speaker 1: what you want about b h A, say that they're
Speaker 1: a liberal, left wing whatever. Man, those guys are bringing
Speaker 1: in new hunters into our space and that is what
Speaker 1: we need. And I just opened up a count warrns
Speaker 1: by saying that maybe we'll directly address that at some point.
Speaker 1: But man, the guys that I know that are in
Speaker 1: b h A are hardcore hunters. They're good hunters, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're the real deal. There me share you there, Colby.
Speaker 1: That's been my experience. And again it's not I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and not you know, I know a
Speaker 1: tiny percentage of them, but you know, I can only
Speaker 1: speak from what you know what I'd like to see
Speaker 1: moving forward in terms of like for the health of hunting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess another component that I've noticed
Speaker 1: is more and more young people are starting to be
Speaker 1: aware of where their food comes from, what that looks like.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people that a hunter
Speaker 1: would very easily call a tree hugger or like a
Speaker 1: granola kind of person, right, And that's kind to that
Speaker 1: social odds yea. And but that person, you know that
Speaker 1: I can think of a handful of acquaintances that I
Speaker 1: have right now that person. They don't hunt, they don't
Speaker 1: want to hunt, but they would rather see a person
Speaker 1: go and ethically harvest a deer or an antelope or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be and feed their family that way,
Speaker 1: then go to you know, X or Y big supermarket
Speaker 1: and buy a piece of beef that was came from
Speaker 1: a stockyard that was pumped full of hormones and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. Because they understand that in the big picture,
Speaker 1: it's better for all of us, it's better for the planet,
Speaker 1: you know. When it when things happen that way, and
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, you can't really argue that that's
Speaker 1: not a more natural course of action, you know, right,
Speaker 1: And um, you know, this is one thing like when
Speaker 1: we dear me to my house, I talked to my
Speaker 1: kids about where this meat came from. And you know why,
Speaker 1: you know, we're choosing to eat it. And yes, an
Speaker 1: animal had to die, but because that animal died, it
Speaker 1: feeding us and it it's just a big circle, right,
Speaker 1: it comes back around into itself again, and so um uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I can only have just so far off
Speaker 1: a reach, and for me, my kids is kind of
Speaker 1: where I start that at. But you know, but even
Speaker 1: with friends and other folks, you know, I've been really
Speaker 1: pleased to see a number of people that have I've
Speaker 1: reached through the archery side of things that have been like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not sure if I want to
Speaker 1: hump at the shooting. The boat looks pretty cool, but
Speaker 1: it's not very far in to shoot that. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: so tell me about this deer hunting, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. That's that's what we've got to do. We've
Speaker 1: got to find a way to build cultural bridges. And
Speaker 1: it's it's it's human to human interaction. It's it's finding
Speaker 1: a way to be who we are but not be
Speaker 1: stiff arm and some group that ought to be on
Speaker 1: our side, and I think we can do that through um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, we We've just we've we've
Speaker 1: got to be we've got to be better at at
Speaker 1: our narrative. It's crazy, and I I feel like I
Speaker 1: say this a lot for two people that are close
Speaker 1: to me, and it sounds oversimplified, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to say it. And literally, it just comes
Speaker 1: down to like a simple definition of respect, and respect
Speaker 1: just means like being aware and and to some degree
Speaker 1: kind of honoring someone else's traditions and you know what
Speaker 1: their life is about and simply not immediately assuming that
Speaker 1: you're not going to agree with that person because they
Speaker 1: don't do the things that you do right, And so oftentimes,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's time consuming to have a conversation, especially
Speaker 1: if you do it on uh, you know, with an individual.
Speaker 1: But that's the negative side to all of this social
Speaker 1: media and internet stuff that we've got, because it's created
Speaker 1: the keyboard warrior, right, it's real easy to take cheap
Speaker 1: shots at people when you're sitting in your of in
Speaker 1: the room behind your computer screen. And it drives me crazy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: folks out there that could probably care less about what
Speaker 1: you're actually talking about, but they just jump in there
Speaker 1: and make a negative comments, stir the pot up, and
Speaker 1: then they get out right and then it starts to
Speaker 1: erode from there. Um, So it's not convenient and it
Speaker 1: isn't easy, but I guess, you know, to the limit
Speaker 1: of my influence as an individual, I would just tell people, like,
Speaker 1: before you make your initial assessment on a person for
Speaker 1: something they said or something they did, or they don't
Speaker 1: look like you or whatever, just like maybe take a
Speaker 1: second to consider, you know, what their angle was and
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. And you know, again, I
Speaker 1: really do think that when people like actually Stole, who
Speaker 1: were all just humans. We all need things stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and your of course you're always gonna have French people
Speaker 1: that are morons. You know, we all know that you're
Speaker 1: always gonna have there. The world is going to calculate
Speaker 1: for the more you. I mean, they're those people are
Speaker 1: out there, and I'm not saying that there aren't because
Speaker 1: some people aren't talk to people just flat wrong. But um,
Speaker 1: at the same time, most of skin fine common ground
Speaker 1: and I think that's a skill that we have gotten
Speaker 1: away from. Here's a phrase that I've been here and
Speaker 1: come up in a couple of often. Uh, And I
Speaker 1: think it's a term that sociologists would use. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: kind of a not slang, but but tribalism, like tribalism
Speaker 1: could be described, I mean, we we would find it
Speaker 1: in modern society. And basically my wife described this to
Speaker 1: me the other day. Tribalism is a mentality that says
Speaker 1: there's us and then there's them. Yeah, it's that simple.
Speaker 1: And and the politically charged environment that we live in
Speaker 1: is pushing people deeper and deeper into tribalism. And tribalism
Speaker 1: is in the phrase tribalism has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: like native cultures like that. When we when we hear
Speaker 1: that word sometimes we like go back in history. That's
Speaker 1: not what we're talking about. We're talking about like sociological
Speaker 1: or like just like default ways that humans segregate themselves,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, I mean it could be in
Speaker 1: a room of ten people and you leave them in
Speaker 1: there for two hours and you'll find that there's groups
Speaker 1: that begin to form and like um, and so generally,
Speaker 1: when it comes to solving problems, tribalism is negative and
Speaker 1: so like I look at it like that, and man,
Speaker 1: I'm guilty. I mean, like thinking about that the outdoor
Speaker 1: like the you know, the kind of like thinking about
Speaker 1: the the outdoor guy. You know, it's like, I think
Speaker 1: he's different than me. He goes to the mountains, but
Speaker 1: he's different than me. He probably doesn't understand me. He
Speaker 1: probably is judging me because I'm a hunter. He probably
Speaker 1: thinks I'm a barbarians, like all these things like reinforce
Speaker 1: my bias. And really, when I met you, and I see,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, I mean even up until a month ago,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that you were involved with Packrad and
Speaker 1: who wouldn't. I mean, Packrad is like the place for mountaineering.
Speaker 1: Client is a beautiful, awesome store, and so like it's
Speaker 1: kind of like I've known that for I've been like
Speaker 1: I would have been like, man, Packard is really not
Speaker 1: my mind. Big people feel that way. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: I meet you and I'm like, oh, man, here's this
Speaker 1: guy who is deep inside of all this adventure sports
Speaker 1: and stuff. And I thought those people, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm just confessing. I would have thought that those people
Speaker 1: would not have tipped their hat to the hunting world.
Speaker 1: And I think it's I think it's uh, it's both
Speaker 1: of us kind of dropping dropping that tribalism in a
Speaker 1: way in finding ways to be inclusive. And that's what
Speaker 1: you know. Uh yeah, I think, and I mean quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't see a way around solving a lot of
Speaker 1: modern problems we have in life unless we look at
Speaker 1: it that way. We have to learn how to have
Speaker 1: conversations we thought with each other and not get worked
Speaker 1: up about it like that's so much. Usually it's not
Speaker 1: the other guy, it's it's you that's the problem. When
Speaker 1: I was like me thinking about like not being and
Speaker 1: when I say not, I mean like like like I
Speaker 1: might have felt uncomfortable, like whearing, like uh if I
Speaker 1: was dec you got a meat eat or shirt on,
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever you know. But the usually the
Speaker 1: problems with you When I say you, I'm pointing to myself,
Speaker 1: Like so when I met you, even the preconceived ideas
Speaker 1: that you know, probably the people of this place aren't
Speaker 1: cool with hunting, that was my problem actually yea, because
Speaker 1: it wasn't true. Well, and I'm I'm as guilty as
Speaker 1: anybody I've been in the exact sames you know, scenario
Speaker 1: and other, you know, aspects of things that I've gotten
Speaker 1: into that I wasn't as familiar with. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: these you know, this is kind of a different group
Speaker 1: of people that I'm used to hanging around. And right
Speaker 1: away it's like you put your fence up right and
Speaker 1: you put your guard up a little bit. Um, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe before you really should. Um. But you know, again,
Speaker 1: we're all a product of our life experiences and we're
Speaker 1: used to being in, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit of a tribe. We're used
Speaker 1: to being around a certain type of a group of
Speaker 1: people that often have a particular set of values that
Speaker 1: you identify with for easily. And as soon as you
Speaker 1: cross over into another you know, tribe or you know
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call that, um, some of those
Speaker 1: things start to come into question. But I would say
Speaker 1: sometimes that happens needlessly um and uh. And and that's
Speaker 1: not to say it isn't gonna happen, because it will.
Speaker 1: You're gonna come to issues with people, UM. But uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we all just kind of take
Speaker 1: step back sometimes and look at thanks for what they are.
Speaker 1: I think we make a lot of bigger deal out
Speaker 1: of things than we should. Well, that truth is is
Speaker 1: that you know, there's a there's a methodology or a
Speaker 1: philosophy for the preservation of something where people would retreat
Speaker 1: to their fortresses. You know, I've heard that phrase, you know,
Speaker 1: into for for modern hunters to retreat to the fortress,
Speaker 1: which to me, I mean that would be like my
Speaker 1: native thing, my like my native like frequency would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta stick even further to the things
Speaker 1: that our fathers did. Actually, the way to save hunting,
Speaker 1: which our biggest threat to our way of life and
Speaker 1: the thing that we love and the wild life that
Speaker 1: we love in the wild places that we love, is
Speaker 1: recruitment of new people and I mean in it and
Speaker 1: and and so we have to find ways to keep
Speaker 1: the gate open. It's funny you say that because I
Speaker 1: think on one of your recent podcasts, I listened to
Speaker 1: you using the term guard to guard the game. But
Speaker 1: I think it's it's interesting that you you just kind
Speaker 1: of flipped that, right. You also maybe guard the gate
Speaker 1: like that's one term, but I think mine to the
Speaker 1: gate is maybe even sometimes a better way to think
Speaker 1: about it, because it's not like when you say guard
Speaker 1: the gate you want to protect it, and I think
Speaker 1: I believe that there's a reason to protect what it
Speaker 1: is that you love. But you don't want to guard
Speaker 1: the gate to the extent that you don't let anyone
Speaker 1: else in, because at that point you kind of doom
Speaker 1: in yourself, right, um, because I know you've you've got
Speaker 1: that picture back here of that hunting scene and I've
Speaker 1: heard that one where you were talking about that and
Speaker 1: that's gone now, right, And if all we do is
Speaker 1: guard the gate, at some point down the road, our
Speaker 1: stuff is gonna be done too. Well. We have to
Speaker 1: you know, we have to have at least enough wherewithal
Speaker 1: and fullward thinking that you know, it's like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be a little bit careful about things, but we
Speaker 1: gotta let some people into. Yeah, yeah, And I gotta
Speaker 1: clarify that guard the gate metaphor you know that to me,
Speaker 1: like what we're talking about to me is guarding the
Speaker 1: gate like that, you know, just the semantics because we
Speaker 1: have to use that so much. Like to me, the
Speaker 1: guard the gate idea is is building a strong narrative,
Speaker 1: building a strong culture, and and and and particularly that
Speaker 1: phrase we use and we're talking about like adamant, intentional
Speaker 1: anti hunting sentiment that is designed to I was looking
Speaker 1: at the Humane Society of America website today actually, and
Speaker 1: you know, one of their like six mission statements is,
Speaker 1: you know, ending hunting, and they use the term trophy hunting,
Speaker 1: which obviously that's a that is a that is an
Speaker 1: inflammatory phrase that they used to try to portray us
Speaker 1: in a certain way, you know whatever. But point being,
Speaker 1: that's to me, to me, this is you know, gardens,
Speaker 1: but not not to get but we we have to
Speaker 1: we have to find ways to be inclusive, inclusive, inclusive,
Speaker 1: include and and and ultimately bring people into you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like we're just wanting to preserve our our
Speaker 1: the stuff we get to do that we like, but man,
Speaker 1: the outdoor space, clean, healthy meat, the things that hunting
Speaker 1: has done for me, it's something that I would like
Speaker 1: to share with people absolutely. And you know there's always
Speaker 1: by products. If just maybe you're not into bird watching,
Speaker 1: but by taking steps towards conservation and whatever it is
Speaker 1: you're into, it makes the area better for those people
Speaker 1: that are into bird watching, right or whatever. So there's
Speaker 1: so many ways the things that these things, you know,
Speaker 1: can cross over. And I just in my gut, I've
Speaker 1: always believed that, you know, we have a whole lot
Speaker 1: more to gain by working together and a whole lot
Speaker 1: to lose if we don't um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons that uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: involved with Artistel b h A because you know, no
Speaker 1: organization is perfect. You know, they're not going to have
Speaker 1: all the answers, and they're gonna do things that you know,
Speaker 1: not everybody agrees with. But I think in they're they're
Speaker 1: trying to put the best foot forward, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to do it to protect first and foremost, protect the
Speaker 1: resources of hunters and anglers. But they're trying to do
Speaker 1: it in such a way, at least from my perspective,
Speaker 1: they're trying to do it in a way that is
Speaker 1: not off putting to other people in the outdoor community,
Speaker 1: you know, in the outdoor industry, and I kind of
Speaker 1: don't see another way forward, you know, man, I was
Speaker 1: at the b h A Rendezvous a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago when Ivan Schevard how you say his name? He
Speaker 1: spoke and Uh at the b h A Rendevo owner
Speaker 1: of and founder of Patagonia, eighty year old man um
Speaker 1: Man I thought that was awesome, incredible that this guy that,
Speaker 1: I mean a billionaire number one uh and out that
Speaker 1: that gives him value. He's he seems to me to
Speaker 1: be a pretty incredible man. Uh, massive proponent of wild places. Um.
Speaker 1: And we'll tip his hat to hunting. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was in a room with Fred bad to the bone
Speaker 1: Western Hunters and he's setting up there telling stories about
Speaker 1: pulling over to throw a road kill deer in the
Speaker 1: back of his truck to take it home and eat it. Um.
Speaker 1: And I had people message me and ridicule me because
Speaker 1: I put something up that had his name on it.
Speaker 1: And this guy, this one guy said, did you know
Speaker 1: that Ivan Schevard is against hunting brown bears and the
Speaker 1: Yellowstone ecosystem or you know, in the Greater Yellowstone area?
Speaker 1: And at the time I actually did, and I said no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. And I was like, I don't know why
Speaker 1: that has any impact on me, saying that what just
Speaker 1: happened with this guy coming and tipping his hat to
Speaker 1: us and like and and there that story right there,
Speaker 1: to me describes kind of again this polarization. Like basically
Speaker 1: this guy was saying, is if you don't agree with
Speaker 1: me and we can't be friends. Well, man, I won't
Speaker 1: have a friend on the planet and in in to
Speaker 1: me for something. Somebody from Patagonia tipping their hat to
Speaker 1: the hunting world, which they're not gaining anything from that.
Speaker 1: They've got a they've got such a massive market, like
Speaker 1: the little market of hunters that they could gain from,
Speaker 1: you know. And we're not going to buy padagon your
Speaker 1: clothing anyway. We're wearing a lot of other stuff. Like
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is he's got a lot more to
Speaker 1: lose than he does to gain. We've got a massive
Speaker 1: amount that we could gain from and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: And what that guy is saying is that we would
Speaker 1: be lower in our standards to let some of these
Speaker 1: people into our space. To me, that's retreating to the fortress.
Speaker 1: Do you see what I'm saying? Like, basically, man, we
Speaker 1: just can't do it. And I I am not happy
Speaker 1: that he is. I mean, I am for the science
Speaker 1: based wildlife management practices in a all, I mean, we
Speaker 1: could get into all the details. It's Clay who can
Speaker 1: four hunting brown bears, grizzly bears and the Greater Yellows
Speaker 1: one ecosystem under a quota and science bace management. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: am I offended and unwilling to work with Ivan Snard
Speaker 1: because he thinks that you're crazy? Well, and then the
Speaker 1: other thing is is like who can possibly be educated
Speaker 1: and informed enough to understand the science behind all these
Speaker 1: different issues? Right? And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we're all humans. I've said plenty of things in my life,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say plenty of things that I look
Speaker 1: back on and be like, you know what, I was wrong?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Um, And I think anybody
Speaker 1: that thinks otherwise just kidding herselves. I mean, we're all
Speaker 1: just humans. We make mistakes, and we can change our mind.
Speaker 1: It's okay, you know. And it's just such a in
Speaker 1: the environment that that I see us in and not
Speaker 1: just our own country but around the world old right now,
Speaker 1: it's just like it just seems like no one's willing
Speaker 1: to go and change their mind. It's okay, It's okay
Speaker 1: to have a change in perspective. Um, you know, It's
Speaker 1: I don't know why that's so scary to some people,
Speaker 1: you know. And I guess maybe I've made a who
Speaker 1: lot more mistakes in my lifetime a lot of other
Speaker 1: people have. I don't know, and maybe you're still alive
Speaker 1: too many mistakes, but you know, I just think that
Speaker 1: sometimes again it's just you know, calm down a little bit,
Speaker 1: take step back, and yeah it's gonna be okay. You know,
Speaker 1: let's let's work together instead of trying to put each
Speaker 1: other down. Yeah. So well, man, I I admire what
Speaker 1: you're doing and the voice that that you have inside,
Speaker 1: even just locally in what you're doing. Uh. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you're a great spokesman for for hunting to
Speaker 1: a bunch of people that probably wouldn't listen to or
Speaker 1: have a reason to listen to somebody like me or
Speaker 1: Kolbe uh, mainly because Kobe is from Texas. But sorry,
Speaker 1: that's now. I man, I love your story. Uh, respect
Speaker 1: what you're doing and um um yeah, well likewise, man, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the I'm just was pleased to be asked
Speaker 1: to do this today. The content you've been putting out
Speaker 1: for a while now has been very high quality, and uh,
Speaker 1: to you know, have an opportunity to come and sort
Speaker 1: of be a part of that message that you've been
Speaker 1: you know, doing your best put out there. It was
Speaker 1: a great opportunity and I appreciate it. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you know, we all have a role to
Speaker 1: play and you can step back and you know, living
Speaker 1: your own bubble and and uh, you know, just do
Speaker 1: you And that's fine if that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: And you know, but UM, I don't know. I look
Speaker 1: at my kids and I see the world we're living in,
Speaker 1: and I sure do you feel like we could do
Speaker 1: better sometimes then we're doing, or at least maybe make
Speaker 1: some changes to put ourselves and maybe a more favorable
Speaker 1: trajectory for the young people that are coming up in
Speaker 1: the world right now. And UM, you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: a guy, but I want to do what I can
Speaker 1: to trying to help make a difference. So right on, um,
Speaker 1: where can people find Yeah? So, um, of course you
Speaker 1: mentioned already, I'm a part owner and officially my title
Speaker 1: at Packard is the the equipment buyers, so all the
Speaker 1: gear and that stuff in the store. That's where of
Speaker 1: my main responsibility. But I teach classes there as well,
Speaker 1: and they're you know, various types of wilderness skills. Of course,
Speaker 1: a lot of that got put on hold due to COVID,
Speaker 1: but you can, um looks hip at packardoc dot com. Um.
Speaker 1: But the place I spend most of my time is
Speaker 1: on Instagram and um, you know, kind of show people
Speaker 1: what I'm into. And uh you can literally just Rick Spicer.
Speaker 1: Uh most of that is um photography for because I
Speaker 1: am amateur photographer. I just love taking photographs on trips. Um.
Speaker 1: So most of that stuff is just like, uh, kind
Speaker 1: of nature photography type of stuff. But pack rat bushcraft
Speaker 1: on Instagram, that's them. That's the main one that most
Speaker 1: people know me from. And um, that's where I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of kind of spend you know, my dirt time
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, whatever it is I'm into, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, building a bow or some arrows or
Speaker 1: doing friction fire, you know what, who knows, hunting, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Um, so putting stuff out there. But Colvid,
Speaker 1: do you have any questions for I'm sure I do.
Speaker 1: I got caught up in the conversation of just listening
Speaker 1: but always heads like on a swivel. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's like and forth, you got you gotta interrupt us, man.
Speaker 1: The only way that you get any word between me
Speaker 1: and I guess that is to interrupt us. We've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of ground there too, so so guess my summary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just deep in thought over here, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about the whole thing between hunting and
Speaker 1: this adventurous lifestyle. And for me growing up, I got
Speaker 1: without knowing it. I was caught up in the utility
Speaker 1: of of hunting more so than the adventure, you know,
Speaker 1: just going out. It's like this is successful if we
Speaker 1: come back with something, or the whole concept of catch
Speaker 1: and release fishing was out of my mind, you know.
Speaker 1: And so since I've been here inside of Arkansas, I've
Speaker 1: begun to appreciate all these things where you don't you
Speaker 1: don't have some utility, you're like going out and bringing
Speaker 1: back something tangible. So like I've gotten into the hiking
Speaker 1: and road biking and fly fishing and so all these
Speaker 1: things have just I've kind of gone the opposite direction
Speaker 1: where I started out with the utility of hunting, and
Speaker 1: I appreciated all the things that I got out of it,
Speaker 1: but I missed out on the whole adventurous side of it.
Speaker 1: So like we went with mules to Montana, you know,
Speaker 1: that was that was a big thing for me to
Speaker 1: where it's like, man, this is actually fun to get
Speaker 1: out and just adventure instead of just going out and
Speaker 1: just seeing I'm just going out for it to fill
Speaker 1: the freezer. I don't care if it's a spike or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh and so I think that's the
Speaker 1: appreciation that that I've come into inside of living inside
Speaker 1: of Arkansas versus Texas, where it's like you go from
Speaker 1: not having these you know, national forests and public lands
Speaker 1: to a place to where I can just go and
Speaker 1: roam without having to knock on some door, get ahold
Speaker 1: of somebody. And uh and so I I think like
Speaker 1: when you're talking about bush craft man, I'd like to
Speaker 1: do that, you know, just understand more about just build
Speaker 1: an adaptability inside of me so that if I find
Speaker 1: myself in some situation or just I mean walking by
Speaker 1: some plant that I wouldn't know what it is. Now
Speaker 1: if I'm walking down a trail and I see it,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh that's cool, you know. And just growing
Speaker 1: this appreciate ation for the environment that I that I
Speaker 1: find myself in and draws me into. But just building
Speaker 1: an ability to it's it's like another a deeper level
Speaker 1: of communing with nature, where before my commune with nature
Speaker 1: would be like I'm gonna go and it's gonna provide
Speaker 1: for me, I'm gonna take something out of it to
Speaker 1: where I can just go and just exist inside of it,
Speaker 1: can get a lot of appreciation inside of that for
Speaker 1: me myself. And you know, what I'm bringing back might
Speaker 1: be something different. It's just bringing back an experience rather
Speaker 1: than oh, I'm gonna go and actually like pull something
Speaker 1: out of it, you know, absolutely here. I think that's
Speaker 1: something that we could learn from the adventure outdoor side
Speaker 1: because that's a great point. I think. I think it's
Speaker 1: a really notable point Colby, because the hunting mind frame
Speaker 1: is to get something to bring back the you know,
Speaker 1: adventure outdoors and mind frame is to is for the experience.
Speaker 1: And obviously there's a there's a in the last some
Speaker 1: time and hunting, Like we have talked about the experience
Speaker 1: a lot and how that's valuable. But still like I
Speaker 1: think combining kind of these two ideologies you probably get
Speaker 1: a really rich experience, if that makes sense. I think so.
Speaker 1: And you know, one thing that I can think back about,
Speaker 1: you know, talk having stories with my dad or my
Speaker 1: grandpa about going out, it is like the older they got,
Speaker 1: the less they cared about actually getting anything. They just
Speaker 1: wanted that time with their family and kind of communing
Speaker 1: with the natural environment. Right and Uh, as much as
Speaker 1: my grandpa loved to fish, he just wanted to be
Speaker 1: out there. And Uh, what I'd like to see maybe
Speaker 1: is a little more of that mentality trickle down into
Speaker 1: younger people and it's not always about getting something. You know,
Speaker 1: and if you do great and in the whole providing
Speaker 1: for your family thing. I mean, that's a critical component
Speaker 1: of hunting, and I think everyone should recognize that for
Speaker 1: what it is. But I think it's it's also okay
Speaker 1: just to look at it from you know, from a
Speaker 1: even uh you know, you look at nowadays with all
Speaker 1: this COVID craziness going on. Uh, we need wilderness and
Speaker 1: wild places right now, maybe more than we have in
Speaker 1: a long time for mental health reasons. Right where all
Speaker 1: you know, people are cooped up and you got a
Speaker 1: whether it's wearing a mask or whatever it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the ability to walk out into a place
Speaker 1: and just kind of not look at there's nature and
Speaker 1: here's me. But more of the I'm part of this.
Speaker 1: I came from this, and one day I'm going to
Speaker 1: go back to this um and so I may as
Speaker 1: well figure out a way to kind of be connected
Speaker 1: to it. And I guess that's ultimately what's let me
Speaker 1: down the path that UM I have is like I
Speaker 1: just like that feeling. I like, I like the feeling
Speaker 1: of feel like I'm more part of the woods than uh,
Speaker 1: separated from it. It's a good way to put it.
Speaker 1: I guess. One last thing I mentioned, uh that unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like every other event I know of, it got canceled
Speaker 1: this year. But another thing that I do is I'm
Speaker 1: the director of a wilderness skills challenge. UM that's called
Speaker 1: the Brewha bush Whack. That's kind of a mouthful, but
Speaker 1: um there's a website for it. You can go to
Speaker 1: Brewhaw bush Whack dot com and uh it's kind of
Speaker 1: a cool thing that me and some friends started about
Speaker 1: five years ago. And um so if if the listeners,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with an adventure race, right, um, you know,
Speaker 1: typically the way those traditionally would work was you'd get
Speaker 1: a topographical map and there'd be points on that map
Speaker 1: and you would, uh you'd go like maybe ride a
Speaker 1: bike or run or hike and paddle a canoe and
Speaker 1: all these kinds of things, and you go find those points. Well,
Speaker 1: what we did was I decided I thought that was interesting, um,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to maybe make it a little more
Speaker 1: in the in the realm of this bushcraft and wilderness
Speaker 1: skills stuff. So, um, first, the first thing we did
Speaker 1: was we took away the whole race component of it
Speaker 1: and we designed it so that you can come in
Speaker 1: last and win. I couldn't have anything to do how
Speaker 1: fast you are, and so that was one of the
Speaker 1: first things that we did. But and so instead of
Speaker 1: time based, it's point based. And so it's all about
Speaker 1: being a well rounded outdoors person. So you still use
Speaker 1: a topographical map, but you go where you want, when
Speaker 1: you want. You plan your own course for the day.
Speaker 1: So it's about your ability to understand and read the
Speaker 1: map and create a a plan basically, and when you
Speaker 1: successfully arrive at a location, there's a password, you write
Speaker 1: it down and you get a point for that at
Speaker 1: the end of the day when you're great or you
Speaker 1: get a certain number of points. Uh. The next thing
Speaker 1: is is there's um some sort of wilderness skill that
Speaker 1: you have to show proficiency in, whether that's making a fire,
Speaker 1: doing for some first s aid or paddling a canoe
Speaker 1: or rope skills whatever it may be, there you go,
Speaker 1: and that brings up one of the things that we're
Speaker 1: gonna go heavy in this year. I've done it in
Speaker 1: the past, but we always have primitive weapons. We do archery,
Speaker 1: we do at laddles, we do sling shots, we do blowguns,
Speaker 1: we do all kinds of stuff. There's always a primitive weapon.
Speaker 1: But this year, um, and I'm then this is probably
Speaker 1: a theme going forward, is that, um, the teams were
Speaker 1: all gonna have to have at least one person that
Speaker 1: was gonna have a bow with him the whole time,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be shooting throughout the whole course. So
Speaker 1: that kind of changed the game a little bit in
Speaker 1: terms of making it a lot more interesting for archers
Speaker 1: and hunters and that type of thing. And then the
Speaker 1: third component of it is pure nature knowledge. So UM,
Speaker 1: they'll be like key words are i D Components to
Speaker 1: things like trees and plants and animal tracks, even stone points,
Speaker 1: and you have to tell me what those things are.
Speaker 1: You take the cumulative of all those different skills, and
Speaker 1: whoever gets the most point wins, and it's a it's
Speaker 1: in April every year, and we have postponed to UM.
Speaker 1: It's actually if you're here in Arkansas, you may be
Speaker 1: familiar with it. But there's a place called Bird's Adventure
Speaker 1: Center on the Mulberry River and that's where we have
Speaker 1: it every year. I'm good friends with those folks and
Speaker 1: they have a huge piece of private land. And in addition,
Speaker 1: I typically get permits from the Forest Service and we
Speaker 1: go out and so UM, teams can expect and you
Speaker 1: have to compete as a team because there's teamwork involved.
Speaker 1: It's not a solo event. UM. But you can expect
Speaker 1: to travel somewhere between six and ten miles over the
Speaker 1: course of the day, so you you cover some ground. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of fun. So if if this
Speaker 1: type of stuff we've been talking about is interesting to
Speaker 1: you and you'd maybe uh, you know, you'd like to
Speaker 1: kind of get uh actually do something more directly related
Speaker 1: to it, Um, you can check out that. Uh you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't think I've ever been asked that before.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say no anywhere we might have to think.
Speaker 1: We might have to think, like in the rule, maybe
Speaker 1: what we need you to do is create a challenge
Speaker 1: based around meal and we can get you out there
Speaker 1: and you're you're kind of that that component because I
Speaker 1: love mixing it up with different And the other thing
Speaker 1: about this is like the teams, I give them hints,
Speaker 1: but they don't know what they're getting into until the
Speaker 1: day of. So you that's why it's so important to
Speaker 1: have like a well round team is because you kind
Speaker 1: of you know you're gonna have to make fire somewhere.
Speaker 1: You're probably gonna have to do some first aid stuff.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a paddle a canoe, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to do primitive weapons, but you don't know exactly what's happening.
Speaker 1: And uh so you've got to be able to like,
Speaker 1: you know, switch gears. So anyway, Uh that's something else
Speaker 1: that a lot of my energy goes into, um these days,
Speaker 1: So keep an eye out for that. I gotta say
Speaker 1: that's one of the coolest shirts. Yeah right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I saw when you came in, I
Speaker 1: was like, I need good. Good buddy Robert I work
Speaker 1: with helped me to zign. Yeah, it's really cool. Better
Speaker 1: at that stuff to be but n rate cool man.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks for trying to Rick. I appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, we'll find a reason to do this again
Speaker 1: at some point. But keep it wild pleased as wild
Speaker 1: because that's where the Bears live. Thanks guys,