Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the place as we explore. So,
Speaker 1: what's the nearest town to where we're at? Where would
Speaker 1: you go to buy groceries for your house?
Speaker 2: Mike, Rolling Fork, Rolling Fork, Rolling Fork, Mississippi where the
Speaker 2: tornado hit.
Speaker 1: We are near Rolling Fort, Mississippi.
Speaker 2: Yew about twenty eighty two miles.
Speaker 1: And well, Rolling Fork, Mississippi is where that huge tornado
Speaker 1: came through.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 1: And you guys were you were there on the scene,
Speaker 1: Am I right?
Speaker 4: I hope everybody was. Yeah, I mean the whole town. Yeah,
Speaker 4: when Spring was there helping in the spring. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think March.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in March, that terrible tornado. We're in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: We it's dark outside right now, but we're within sight
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi River. I've got to my right, Lake
Speaker 1: Pickle Houdy, good to see you.
Speaker 3: Lake.
Speaker 1: Likewise, to your right, Jordan bliss It. Hello, you guys
Speaker 1: are old regulars on the Bargeries podcast. Though Oh yeah, second,
Speaker 1: they're sitting here just like, oh man, this is just
Speaker 1: another day in the park, doesn't here.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you this, the last time Jordan and I
Speaker 5: were on the Render, i'd gotten used to unusual guests
Speaker 5: being on the render, and then the OG crew roasting
Speaker 5: them the next week, and they never said anything about us. Yeah,
Speaker 5: they never said nothing about me and Jordan's that.
Speaker 1: Kind of stopped the the OG group kind of chilled
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 3: I think, Well, I was worried about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. To Jordan's right, the guest of honor in my mind,
Speaker 1: Mike Amden pleasure man. Mike, I got some specific questions
Speaker 1: for you about the Mississippi River, I hope, yeah, Man.
Speaker 1: To to Mike's right, Brent Reeves, It's good to have
Speaker 1: you back. Brent prince regular except when he's not, when
Speaker 1: he does whatever he does. And then to Brent's right
Speaker 1: is Drew steckline Man. So Drew is uh your videographer, photographer,
Speaker 1: former professional skier. Right on, would you guess that he
Speaker 1: has two L shaped plates on both cheeks of his face?
Speaker 5: I mean I'd wondered why he looked like that, But no, no.
Speaker 1: I actually thought he was pretty well put together. No,
Speaker 1: his face broke up.
Speaker 6: Did your face hit or tree or something?
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 7: I have my uh knee and a skiing accident and
Speaker 7: then the other one had collided in somebody else's foot.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, no snow involved.
Speaker 2: No snow.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: It's been good to get to meet Drew. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess the the seventh guest of honor is Brent's
Speaker 1: big buck that he killed just today. We've got the
Speaker 1: rack of How about the beautiful zippy delta?
Speaker 3: That rack of horns you're that you're holding right now.
Speaker 3: Slept in the woods last night? Yeah, clean up, that
Speaker 3: looks good.
Speaker 6: Nice sleeping in the house.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, we've got man, do we have a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about? We so the this latest episode of
Speaker 1: the Bargers podcast, the Donnie Baker Story Nightmare. This was
Speaker 1: a super unique podcast for me to put together. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about it in a little bit, but uh,
Speaker 1: but first, man, I'm always torn on whether we should
Speaker 1: talk about what we've been doing. We've been, uh, we've
Speaker 1: been we've been hunting down here in Mississippi. It's January
Speaker 1: the January the ninth. Today we've been deer hunting, duck hunting.
Speaker 1: Brent's been doing a little hog hunting.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And uh, Brent and I rode two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: miles down and Drew and Isaac Neil two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty miles down the Mississippi River to get here. We
Speaker 1: could have just drove here. Would have been a little
Speaker 1: quicker just to drive here. But nah, there's a film
Speaker 1: project that you'll see at some point this year on
Speaker 1: Meat Eater that's gonna be gonna be really cool. But uh, Mike,
Speaker 1: how long have you been living close to the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Twelve years? Twelve years, last twelve years. But man, you're uh,
Speaker 1: you're a river rat, Mike. I knew that when I
Speaker 1: saw you. You can't really help it, can't help it.
Speaker 1: But you loved catfish.
Speaker 4: You and your wife, Oh yeah, yeah all the time.
Speaker 4: She fishes all the time. I fish part of time.
Speaker 4: She she wants fish every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I wish we could have put some lines
Speaker 1: out on me too. We tried to do some fishing,
Speaker 1: which January you wouldn't think would be good for catfishing,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's not a traditional time to do it,
Speaker 1: but you can catch them in January. Oh yeah, they're
Speaker 1: out there doing catfish stuff.
Speaker 4: But we can catch them here in a month or
Speaker 4: so too. Yeah, be better.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, what's the biggest what's the biggest blue cat
Speaker 1: you caught out of the river?
Speaker 4: Eighty two eighty two pounds? Now, that was on a
Speaker 4: that's on a vertical line. Vertical biggest one on My
Speaker 4: wife actually caught the biggest blue we got and it
Speaker 4: was seventy six on a pole. And then she's called
Speaker 4: seven sixty seven flathead, six seven pound flatthead.
Speaker 2: She and boat records. Right now, that's just kind of
Speaker 2: a weird thing.
Speaker 6: You know when you say vertical line, is that like
Speaker 6: a limb line?
Speaker 4: No, like a You just you find your deep hole
Speaker 4: and put your weight on and then you start dropping
Speaker 4: it down and just taking clips and clip your hooks
Speaker 4: on and then have jugs on top. I just started
Speaker 4: this year myself and very productive.
Speaker 1: Huh. So it's a vertical. It's just like I finally
Speaker 1: understood it the second time you described it to me. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just like a trot line, except it goes straight.
Speaker 2: Everything same put a weight.
Speaker 1: On the end and just drop it. And then you
Speaker 1: have some special thing that clips onto.
Speaker 4: The Yeah, it's a little old trout line clip where
Speaker 4: you hook on it. We fish leaders about like that.
Speaker 6: So you so you've got a bunch of different hooks,
Speaker 6: are different depths that way exactly.
Speaker 2: So you know how you tie off the bank.
Speaker 4: You know, you kind of stretch it out there and
Speaker 4: on your first you know, a few catch or whatever
Speaker 4: this is.
Speaker 3: You got every depth.
Speaker 2: Huh works great?
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, Mike, the Achilles heel of the vertical trout line,
Speaker 1: what if it gets hung up down there?
Speaker 4: You really don't not it's sepidary. I mean there's not
Speaker 4: that much structure anyway. And uh you always round by
Speaker 4: them docks and it's pretty clean.
Speaker 1: So does the.
Speaker 4: It's more for you'll catch more blue calf than you
Speaker 4: do flatheads.
Speaker 1: Okay. Second problem, potential problem. You get thirty fish on
Speaker 1: the same line, they all get in cahoots together and
Speaker 1: take that sucker down.
Speaker 2: I hadn't had that happen, but I could see it
Speaker 2: to be an issue.
Speaker 4: But I mean, if we've had some big I mean
Speaker 4: we've had you know, ten or twelve at a time,
Speaker 4: on there and it's.
Speaker 3: Stay hood the catfish yourselfish. They'll never work it out amongst.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're like they're pulling against each other. And you
Speaker 4: can take your live view and get back and look
Speaker 4: at it and your line's gonna have a little bow
Speaker 4: in it and come back up to them jugs and
Speaker 4: you just get there behind them rock docks. They usually
Speaker 4: only next morning. Bait's a big thing. What do you
Speaker 4: what are you using?
Speaker 2: Skip jack?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Is a live wildfish that lives in this river.
Speaker 2: Yes, skip jack.
Speaker 1: It's just like a shiners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, and so oli is right behind these rock dikes.
Speaker 4: It's natural and works great. I love brim. Yeah, this
Speaker 4: according time of year it is, you know, that's a
Speaker 4: big thing.
Speaker 2: Springtime. I want them live.
Speaker 1: I want that live bait hook them right in the tail.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But I mean some of these old timers right here
Speaker 4: is me and they're going to their skip jack all
Speaker 4: the way through and they don't want fool with live bait,
Speaker 4: and they catch a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's several guys in this river. I want to
Speaker 4: fish with it. I just met some of them last year.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, we had on the Bear Grease podcast as a
Speaker 1: as a formal guest, Bill Lancaster, I told you about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, he's a he's a heck of a guy.
Speaker 1: If you go in the Wildlife Museum in Leland, Mississippi. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's he's got a whole section in that Wildlife Museum
Speaker 1: of all his It's just a bunch of pictures and
Speaker 1: much of neat stuff. But he's a cool guy. He's
Speaker 1: a cool guy.
Speaker 2: And we catch.
Speaker 4: We're doing this burk line fishing stuff a little bit,
Speaker 4: but we were ninety percent.
Speaker 1: Pole fish, pole fishing. You want real men.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we fish.
Speaker 4: We fish up down this bank, all up through behind
Speaker 4: these dykes. Sometimes we take the buck, you know, we
Speaker 4: fish out of the boat out there, but still fishing
Speaker 4: the same spots. But it's kind of handy just to
Speaker 4: leave the house and go these sand bars and yeah,
Speaker 4: set them up and go back, eat souper, go back,
Speaker 4: check them.
Speaker 1: Yeah works good. And I gotta get I want to
Speaker 1: come down here sometime and fish with you when it's good.
Speaker 1: And I know. So we were playing this deer hunt,
Speaker 1: duck hunt, and I'm gonna let Jordan talk about the
Speaker 1: duck hunt. But uh we uh, we kind of threw
Speaker 1: on the catfishing deal there at the end. It wasn't
Speaker 1: it wasn't a perfect time at all. But no, Jordan,
Speaker 1: Jordan Lake.
Speaker 2: I was looking.
Speaker 1: I was looking at Lake and said Jordan Dan.
Speaker 6: I thought I was don't get the roasting.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it's be brutal.
Speaker 1: So Lake, you work for on X, do you work
Speaker 1: for open season properties? You sell real estate Mississippi? What
Speaker 1: else do you do with your life?
Speaker 5: I mean that's where we could end it right there.
Speaker 5: I mean those two things. Duck God, if I was duck,
Speaker 5: if I was duck guiding, I would be filing for
Speaker 5: unemployment after this last go round.
Speaker 1: But it's not your fault.
Speaker 4: The same same morning the other morning, and they was there,
Speaker 4: and they might they would thank you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're not supposed to help him.
Speaker 2: Well, so yeah, I mean mine on me too. You know,
Speaker 2: my group didn't kill either.
Speaker 5: Mike's on the north side of this property. I'm on
Speaker 5: the south side. Before I'd even talked to Mike, I
Speaker 5: text y'all and I said, dunk report. I think what
Speaker 5: I said is good, not great, like it wouldn't loaded.
Speaker 5: But I was like, there's definitely enough here, and I
Speaker 5: go talk to Mike and Nick and they're like, oh, yeah, man,
Speaker 5: they're here. And then we go out that next morning and.
Speaker 2: We all kind of looked like fools there.
Speaker 1: I mean, we killed a duck, a duck, Paul shot him, right, No,
Speaker 1: it was it was neat hunting down in this country. Man.
Speaker 1: It feels like, I know, in Arkansas, which is further
Speaker 1: north than here, the guys talk about how the ducks
Speaker 1: aren't coming as far south. It's taking them longer to
Speaker 1: get there, and down here it's it's it's a whole
Speaker 1: nother it's a whole nother deal. I mean, but still
Speaker 1: you're getting some good mallard duck duck hunting.
Speaker 5: Typically it I mean where where we were at obviously,
Speaker 5: the Mississippi River and all that, you know, Floodplain Louvia
Speaker 5: Valley is just historically good duck area. And uh, I mean,
Speaker 5: y'all see it. Y'all are on the river. It's just
Speaker 5: so low and it's such a lack of water and
Speaker 5: warm been dry and it just just not down here.
Speaker 1: It's historic lows on the Mississippi River, is that right?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 1: Historic lows.
Speaker 4: I mean it's it's never been three foot of food
Speaker 4: hunting seasons as I've been here.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've talked about this before. And when you say
Speaker 1: three foot describe to somebody who doesn't know that's going
Speaker 1: on in gauge. So where is zero?
Speaker 6: Like what like?
Speaker 1: What at what reference point is zero? If it's three
Speaker 1: foot above something?
Speaker 3: What's zero?
Speaker 1: Anybody know?
Speaker 4: I can't answer that, but it has to be off
Speaker 4: the marker down there at Vicksburg Breed.
Speaker 6: So it does go in the negatives.
Speaker 1: Well, so so okay, let me let me teach you
Speaker 1: boys something I'm deducing. No, they must just have like
Speaker 1: a normal normalcy that they decided was zero. And they
Speaker 1: just said it like this is normal flow of the river.
Speaker 1: Am I right? That sounds right? Experts. I've come all
Speaker 1: the way to the Mississippi River experts.
Speaker 8: We just it's a little more confidence there. I would
Speaker 8: have said, that's exactly one.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I guess it's gotta be here's because.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, here's what I know.
Speaker 5: It's like you talk to these guys like Mike that's
Speaker 5: on this property and then at cotton Mouth, which is
Speaker 5: north of here. But all these guys that spend time
Speaker 5: on their particular property, they can tell you what river gauge.
Speaker 5: Like if they if they look at the Vicksburg gage,
Speaker 5: for instance, they know if I tell Mike what's the
Speaker 5: river doing at twenty two feet, he can tell you, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, because he knows what happens on
Speaker 5: that property with different levels.
Speaker 1: Well, so I was looking at a map. There's a
Speaker 1: big there's a big map in one of the rooms
Speaker 1: of this property on the wall, and there's a legend
Speaker 1: like this is really cool because you wouldn't have this
Speaker 1: anywhere else. There's a legend. And then the legend that says,
Speaker 1: at twenty two feet this and this floods, and it
Speaker 1: describes places on the property that are named at thirty feet,
Speaker 1: this happens. At fifteen feet, this happens. And you kind of,
Speaker 1: I guess if you get to know a place, you
Speaker 1: understand exactly what that river's going to do. And so
Speaker 1: you've got this property along the river that you're managing,
Speaker 1: and at different flood stages, different sections are gonna flood.
Speaker 2: Well you go to hunting it and stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, you need to know if the road if you're
Speaker 4: close to the road going under and you've got five
Speaker 4: people and you're going north with them, and you get
Speaker 4: there and you know, you don't know that it's fixing
Speaker 4: me over that road. Then the whole morning is messed
Speaker 4: up for everybody. Yeah, so you got to keep up
Speaker 4: with all that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean we experienced that this week when we
Speaker 1: were trying to get to an island. So the property
Speaker 1: that you manage, Mike has A has A has an
Speaker 1: island in a correct island in the Mississippi River, right
Speaker 1: which there are. There are a lot of islands in
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River, even though they're all unique and really dynamic.
Speaker 1: So we were gonna go hunt the island. And for
Speaker 1: the last four months you could drive to the.
Speaker 4: Island, drive until two days before we are one. When
Speaker 4: I was here, we didn't even know that we couldn't
Speaker 4: get to it. We thought we can still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had our bows and we're gonna drive over
Speaker 1: there and go hunting. And the river came up two
Speaker 1: feet just overnight, which two.
Speaker 4: Feet, and he really out there because it spreads out
Speaker 4: because you know, aft on that same bar and it just.
Speaker 1: Spreads out quick and so it it messed up our
Speaker 1: We had to get a boat and we ended up
Speaker 1: boating over to the island. You know, I spent some
Speaker 1: time in Alaska, well just in December, but I was
Speaker 1: also there in May. And the tide swings in southeast
Speaker 1: Alaska are some of the biggest tide swings in the world,
Speaker 1: like massive tides, so everywhere you go, you're constantly calculating
Speaker 1: for the tide and those guys just have to be
Speaker 1: able to read it so that they don't get stranded
Speaker 1: or they don't kill themselves in some way with the
Speaker 1: tides low going through certain places, you know, like when
Speaker 1: the tides low, there's gonna be rocks in that little channel,
Speaker 1: or when.
Speaker 4: The tide's high you could drive a big boat through there.
Speaker 4: I'm this is like that same thing. I'm just different scale,
Speaker 4: but same thing. Yeah, same problems. Yeah, and just just
Speaker 4: like all the day y'all trying to get there, and
Speaker 4: we thought, you know, they just y'all just drive around,
Speaker 4: come up around a certain spot, drop y'all off, and
Speaker 4: uh like that, everything went chaos.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they got your handled, they got you on
Speaker 4: the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah they did.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That was kind of unexpected. That's kind of unexpected. Little
Speaker 4: you know, we wasn't playing on getting boat and the
Speaker 4: water anything is. I mean, just we got it done though.
Speaker 3: The boys did.
Speaker 2: Oh it was.
Speaker 1: It was funner taking that boat over there than oh,
Speaker 1: yeah before, wasn't it? Brent probably better hunting Brent. So
Speaker 1: I've spent uh two hundred and fifty miles with Brent
Speaker 1: as my I was the on our boat, our vessel,
Speaker 1: which I gotta explain this. We've talked about this. Our boat.
Speaker 1: We named it Laura. Do you know why, Jordan, we
Speaker 1: named it Laura.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: The iceberg close close? Okay, Well, the ice sheet, so
Speaker 1: the Lauren Tide ice sheet formed the upper part. Well,
Speaker 1: it formed the Mississippi River valley. So naturally we named
Speaker 1: our boat Laura. So was the captain of Laura. I
Speaker 1: was the cub pilot. Okay, and about fifty miles in
Speaker 1: like like like Samuel Clemens, like you know, Mark Twain,
Speaker 1: fifty miles in, I said Brent. And I'm not an
Speaker 1: experienced river man. The weakness. If you were just to
Speaker 1: pitch me out into the wilderness, I would probably like
Speaker 1: die in a river. But if I had to tame
Speaker 1: a horse or a mule and ride it across the mountains,
Speaker 1: I'm good. If I need to drive an ATV in
Speaker 1: extreme circumstances I'm good. If I need to walk or hike,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Boat is my biggest weakness in wilderness travel
Speaker 1: fifty miles in, I say, Captain, I think it's time
Speaker 1: for Clay to take the wheel. And I mean I
Speaker 1: can drive a boat, but but not a lot of experience.
Speaker 1: And I pretty much drove the last two hundred miles.
Speaker 3: Did it not? You did?
Speaker 2: How to do?
Speaker 3: You did? Very well? You did? You really did.
Speaker 2: It was time to load across that current. I saw that.
Speaker 8: I don't know if if I was going to say that, Mike,
Speaker 8: I appreciate you bringing that.
Speaker 1: Oh, dude, I'm the first one.
Speaker 3: It was. It's different, isn't it.
Speaker 8: Oh, it's tough, a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 8: physics that goes into loading a boat in the current,
Speaker 8: and loading a big boat is our.
Speaker 2: Boat, and then a cross current on top of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I chickened out. I chickened out. So I drove
Speaker 1: that boat two hundred miles down the river, passing barges,
Speaker 1: I mean, doing everything. And when we I told him
Speaker 1: I've loaded a smaller boat in a trailer. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we had the nine mile per hour current going down
Speaker 1: the river. And then I had you and and the
Speaker 1: other two guys on the bank, and it was raining
Speaker 1: and I tried to hit it, and I got right
Speaker 1: up to it and chickened out and threw it.
Speaker 8: He had a good approach, though, didn't he did.
Speaker 1: And Brent was trying to make it like a teaching thing.
Speaker 1: He's like, now, come on, Clay, you're gonna do I
Speaker 1: could tell he was like, this is a learning experience.
Speaker 1: You're going to do this. And I finally just said, Brent,
Speaker 1: get in his seat, put this thing in the in
Speaker 1: the trailer. I'm I'll learn another time when there's not
Speaker 1: ten people standing here watching camera. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Well it's a boat. I mean, good gosh, it ain't
Speaker 8: like we're loading a john boat. This thing is twenty
Speaker 8: seven feet long.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never seen such.
Speaker 3: It's so nice, big sea arc boat man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really really cool. I just wanted to We
Speaker 1: were just talking about the river. I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what I was about to say.
Speaker 8: But if I can tell you this from being the captain,
Speaker 8: I didn't get to marry nobody on the way down.
Speaker 8: As being the captain of the ship, I'm kind of
Speaker 8: disapported about that. But if this trip would have been
Speaker 8: two hundred and fifty one miles. I think we would
Speaker 8: have made a built a plank and somebody who had
Speaker 8: been walking off.
Speaker 3: The cub pilot.
Speaker 1: Mike, they get they get mad at me because we'd
Speaker 1: be coming around a tight corner. So the Mississippi River
Speaker 1: in places it's very wide. In places it's like surprisingly narrow,
Speaker 1: but they have the channels marked and there's green booys
Speaker 1: and red booies. Red booies are on the east side
Speaker 1: of the river. Green boos are on the west side
Speaker 1: of the river, and you got to keep your the
Speaker 1: in between the booies. I'm describing this to people who
Speaker 1: wouldn't know which I would not have inside the booyes
Speaker 1: is maintained by the corp of Engineers and it's dredged out,
Speaker 1: so you're you have a guaranteed channel. Outside those booes,
Speaker 1: you got no guarantee of any.
Speaker 2: Channel at all.
Speaker 1: There could be obstructions, there could be sandbars, anything, but
Speaker 1: in the main channel there could also be logs and
Speaker 1: obstructions that you got to constantly watch for. So this
Speaker 1: I was going to tell you, they would get mad
Speaker 1: at me because we'd be coming in and you know,
Speaker 1: come around a corner and all of a sudden there
Speaker 1: would be a huge barge. I mean, these things are
Speaker 1: like pushing, like eighty eighty barges. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: a massive boat in the water coming around a corner.
Speaker 1: And I would say, I guess you had it right
Speaker 1: to be mad at me. Think about it?
Speaker 2: What should what should I do?
Speaker 3: What you do?
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 7: Tell me, bro I just told you what you should
Speaker 7: do and you did the opposite.
Speaker 1: Why did you ask me what to do?
Speaker 3: He said? Should I pass on?
Speaker 2: Every hour?
Speaker 8: Should I pass on the left to the rights? I
Speaker 8: pass on the left. Well, why wouldn't I pass on
Speaker 8: the right? I said, just pass on the left. You
Speaker 8: got the room, that's the way. Let him have that
Speaker 8: saddle there. Well, I think I should pass on? I said,
Speaker 8: were you driving? Just drive? But you need to make
Speaker 8: a decision, do one or the other, but you need
Speaker 8: to do it right.
Speaker 1: And what Britta and I's relationship is so good because
Speaker 1: he helps me process through decision making.
Speaker 3: And the ulcer I have in my stomach.
Speaker 1: But we made it.
Speaker 3: It was good. You did really well? Man?
Speaker 1: Well it was. It was a lot of fun. It
Speaker 1: really was a lot of fun.
Speaker 5: Were you intimidated at all. Oh yeah, absolutely, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of folks. I mean, because there's stories that come
Speaker 5: up about people putting in boats on that river man,
Speaker 5: And I mean, yeah, I would be intimidated.
Speaker 1: Shoot, just like.
Speaker 2: What I said today, when she's grumpy, don't mess with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was good.
Speaker 8: When you said that today, I thought, man, that's that's
Speaker 8: a great way to do it.
Speaker 6: The first time I ever got out on the main
Speaker 6: Missippi River channel, it scared me to death.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 6: I was twenty one years old, just started guiding at
Speaker 6: a place down south, and are right at Natches and
Speaker 6: we're going to take hunters out. And I had no idea.
Speaker 6: I never experienced Missisi river bottom of my life, but
Speaker 6: I was so excited to be there. And I had
Speaker 6: a deer stand right on the river, and the best
Speaker 6: way to get to it was by the river.
Speaker 1: And the head gud.
Speaker 6: Over sent me and another boy didn't know what he's
Speaker 6: doing out in a sixteen foot John Bow twenty five horsepower,
Speaker 6: little Kawasaki or something on it. So y'all go around
Speaker 6: a point down there. You'll see the flag, and I
Speaker 6: put on river bank. We come out to this point
Speaker 6: and there's barges and currants and whirlpools, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh my gosh, but I mean we made it, but
Speaker 6: I was scared to death.
Speaker 1: Well there's yeah, I mean that. So we had this
Speaker 1: idea to do this trip. We were going to try
Speaker 1: to do it in the warmer weather. We had to delay,
Speaker 1: and so we came back when it was super cold,
Speaker 1: and which ended up not being the limiting factor. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were cold, but that we had a we had
Speaker 1: a semi covered deck that kept us fairly warm, but
Speaker 1: we were just decked out with warm weather clothes. Ended
Speaker 1: up being a nine hour trip two hudred fifty miles
Speaker 1: and we we when I we put in at Memphis
Speaker 1: with inside of the bass Pro pyramid at Memphis at
Speaker 1: the bridge, and uh yeah, those first few miles we
Speaker 1: didn't know how long it would take. We didn't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was just uncountable variables and uh, it
Speaker 1: was absolutely intimidating. Yeah, but that's why we did it,
Speaker 1: I suppose. I mean, it's it's it was just yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, we could have drove here. But when
Speaker 1: we did this series on the Mississippi River back in
Speaker 1: the spring, back in the summer, that's when I had
Speaker 1: the thought that I wanted to go down the river.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go down. I wanted to see it.
Speaker 1: And uh, the truth is is that the way the
Speaker 1: river looks today, it's it's definitely different than when Davy Crockett,
Speaker 1: you know, Davy Crockett wrecked a boat just south of
Speaker 1: Memphis and nearly died. I heard about that one, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all these famous people, I mean, anybody in
Speaker 1: American history that has done anything, has been down the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River. And I wanted to see it. And honestly,
Speaker 1: today it looks about like it did then. I mean
Speaker 1: that you just can't. What I was most struck by
Speaker 1: when I was on the river, and I knew this,
Speaker 1: but then I saw it is that there are no cities.
Speaker 1: Don't come to the edge of the river in that
Speaker 1: span from Memphis to Vicksburg. There are no cities to
Speaker 1: speak of. And by cities, I mean you can if
Speaker 1: there were. I mean, you know, it's woods. What you're
Speaker 1: seeing is woods. We did see the Tunica casino that
Speaker 1: stood up above the tree line, and then you would
Speaker 1: see loading docks, you know, where they were loading barges
Speaker 1: and stuff and you'd see the odd well you'd see
Speaker 1: river camps. Once you got well all down through there,
Speaker 1: you would occasionally see river camps, and there'd be clusters
Speaker 1: of them around cities because the cities are outside the levees,
Speaker 1: so you can't see them. But I mean, I I
Speaker 1: just it was. I wouldn't have thought or I just
Speaker 1: never thought it through that the river looks about like
Speaker 1: it did when Mark Twain was running down it as
Speaker 1: a cub pilot like me.
Speaker 2: How many other boats did y'all say that?
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked that. We saw one pleasure craft
Speaker 1: and two pleasure crafts and two hundred and fifty miles.
Speaker 2: Wow, no joke.
Speaker 1: We kept track. We saw two people. Now we saw
Speaker 1: how many barges did we think we passed? Oh, we
Speaker 1: had a guest. I think we said we figured we
Speaker 1: passed probably between thirty and forty barges in a two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles stretch, nine hours on the water.
Speaker 1: We saw two civilian just like pleasure crafts, just like
Speaker 1: guys on the John boat two fifty miles.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We were there in January, which was you know, not
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people out the off season.
Speaker 1: It's the off season, no skis No, I didn't see
Speaker 1: any skiers.
Speaker 8: But anyway, incredible trip though, spending the night on the
Speaker 8: on the island.
Speaker 3: Then yeah, it was, it was, it was really it
Speaker 3: was fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Uh so Isaac and Ice up in the boat and
Speaker 7: we were way at back up this back channel, how
Speaker 7: far up back up the back quarter mile or a
Speaker 7: quarter mile up of back channel and Isaac and I
Speaker 7: were sleeping in the boat and it's just crazy that
Speaker 7: you could feel the waves from the barges a quarter
Speaker 7: mile up a back channel like rocking.
Speaker 2: Be glad y'all found channel.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah yeah, yeah, makes your water had come over
Speaker 4: the back of your motor and all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then the boat the water table rose in the night.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, the water table rose in the night, and
Speaker 7: then the barges slowed down and didn't come through and
Speaker 7: probably midnight until five, and then at five and the
Speaker 7: morning the barges started coming through, and then the boat
Speaker 7: just kept rocking and rocking. You feel as the barges increased,
Speaker 7: the boat would continued rock.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was pretty cool experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was really glad. You'll slept in the boat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Brent, Me and Brent slept in tents on the
Speaker 1: bank and he said, I'm glad those boys are sleeping
Speaker 1: that boat. And I said why and he said, in.
Speaker 3: Case it floats off, they can drive it back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was like, that's why I brought you.
Speaker 3: Captain.
Speaker 1: Hey, let's uh, let's talk about this podcast. So everybody
Speaker 1: got to listen to it. Mike, you listened to your
Speaker 1: first podcast today.
Speaker 2: First podcast. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I'm very honored that the Barge podcast was a was
Speaker 1: the first one you ever listened to. This was a
Speaker 1: unique one. Usually we've done a lot of We've done
Speaker 1: multiple series on while I Violators and Violations. We did
Speaker 1: the lou Dell and Charlie series, which was one of
Speaker 1: my favorites of all time, about two guys that have
Speaker 1: passed away that were notorious turkey hunting poachers from my
Speaker 1: hometown near Mina, Arkansas, but they were beloved people in
Speaker 1: our community. And I interviewed family members to all kind
Speaker 1: of different people about these guys and told the story
Speaker 1: about their life really interesting, but I didn't talk to them.
Speaker 1: We did a big series called Secret Agent Man, where
Speaker 1: I interviewed an undercover wildlife agent from Ohio that worked
Speaker 1: undercover for years and years, and he just had the
Speaker 1: wildest stories you could ever dream of. Yeah, but we
Speaker 1: didn't talk to We didn't talk to We ended up
Speaker 1: talking to one of the people that he was after.
Speaker 1: But this was unique because I was talking to the guy,
Speaker 1: and I mean I thought it was. I said it
Speaker 1: over and over in the podcast, maybe to a point
Speaker 1: of redundancy, but where I was trying to be like,
Speaker 1: Donnie didn't have to tell us this story. He could
Speaker 1: have said, no, thanks, Clay, I think I'll pass on
Speaker 1: reliving one of the worst period times in his life,
Speaker 1: you know, when he got caught for this. But what well,
Speaker 1: let me back up. I also was very concerned about
Speaker 1: when I did the interview with him, I told him
Speaker 1: I wasn't even sure if I could use it. I
Speaker 1: talked to him for two hours. Y'all heard twenty seven
Speaker 1: minutes of the interview, so by the time it was
Speaker 1: whittled down, you heard twenty seven minutes. I talked to
Speaker 1: him for two hours that we recorded, and I told him,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know if we can use this
Speaker 1: or not. And it was because I didn't want it
Speaker 1: to I didn't want to hurt this guy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wanted I wanted him to tell a story. I
Speaker 1: wanted us to learn something from it. I learned a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff from just hearing people's stories. I mean
Speaker 1: we all do, whether we know it or not. I mean,
Speaker 1: like stories are so powerful to you know, just every
Speaker 1: arena of life.
Speaker 2: But I was.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't want him to be, you know,
Speaker 1: have to go through the ringer again for something he's
Speaker 1: already paid for. But the main reason that I could
Speaker 1: talk to Donnie was that first time I talked to him,
Speaker 1: I said, I smelled a whiff of genuineness, contriteness, and
Speaker 1: just he was humble, And I thought that was I
Speaker 1: thought that was unique. And he did a such a
Speaker 1: good job of telling the story, and uh, I thought
Speaker 1: it was fascinating.
Speaker 2: To it.
Speaker 1: Did you so you? Yeah, what did you feel like
Speaker 1: after you? Did you like the guy?
Speaker 4: Did you liked him? I mean, I'm like I said,
Speaker 4: genuine You can.
Speaker 2: Hear that in his voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he wasn't trying to hide nothing. He just spoke
Speaker 4: it out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'd like to meet him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Brent, what stood out to you in the podcast.
Speaker 3: He talked? When he talked about his dad. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Well, and when you talked to when he went back
Speaker 8: in the house and you talked to his dad, and
Speaker 8: that that was almost kind of made me kind of misty.
Speaker 8: I thinking about a father's love for a son who
Speaker 8: has made a terrible mistake, and that but he's standing
Speaker 8: beside him, and he can see all the pain that
Speaker 8: that kid's going through. There's nothing he can do to
Speaker 8: help him, and he and and it was very prophetic
Speaker 8: when he showed his dad that deer and his dad said, son,
Speaker 8: that's an awful big deer. Not to shoot or not
Speaker 8: to get the right way, Yeah, and he I mean
Speaker 8: it was all almost like, you know, this is this
Speaker 8: thing going to end? Well, yeah, but it's your son,
Speaker 8: you know. And so that's that stood out to me.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: It made me think about my kids, made me think
Speaker 8: about the times that I've disappointed my dad, and I
Speaker 8: would I would say that that was probably that would
Speaker 8: rank near the top of the things that bothered on
Speaker 8: anybody anything, is knowing that he his dad was disappointed
Speaker 8: in him, and I just I couldn't get away from that.
Speaker 8: There were several other things that that really said something
Speaker 8: to me.
Speaker 3: But you you.
Speaker 1: Said something to me when we listened to it together,
Speaker 1: you said you thought so Brent's thirty two years background
Speaker 1: in law enforcement. You said you didn't think they had
Speaker 1: enough evidence on him to really prosecute him.
Speaker 3: I don't think they did.
Speaker 1: That's shocking to me.
Speaker 8: Well, judging from just from how the investigation went about.
Speaker 3: Why if.
Speaker 8: I mean, if I'm going to talk to somebody, it's
Speaker 8: to get to get more information. If I got enough
Speaker 8: to arrest him, I'm going to arrest him. Right then
Speaker 8: I've already got I've taken all the in in, all
Speaker 8: the facts that I need to the prosecuting Attorney's office,
Speaker 8: and they've sworn our judge.
Speaker 1: But okay, so if they if they they had the
Speaker 1: evidence to prosecute him in court and they arrested him,
Speaker 1: what would they have done with him? Put him in
Speaker 1: jail until the court date?
Speaker 3: No? Well, I mean on a game violation. No, I'm
Speaker 3: sure that it's a mistemean.
Speaker 1: So what would they have done?
Speaker 3: Then? Issued him a citation?
Speaker 1: Just just wrote him a citation?
Speaker 8: Yeah, unless you know there's here's another thing in this deal.
Speaker 8: It was on a on a federal it was on
Speaker 8: an army base. Yeah, so there's some federal laws there
Speaker 8: that I'm not familiar with, that that may have been
Speaker 8: the a mitigating factor and all that, but I just
Speaker 8: just from listening to it, it just made me say
Speaker 8: out loud, if they're wanting to talk to him, they're
Speaker 8: wanting to talk to him and say, Hey, this is
Speaker 8: the information we got, we think, this is what's.
Speaker 1: You told me. I've heard you talk before about talking
Speaker 1: to people, like talking to people that are assumed to
Speaker 1: have committed a crime, and what do you say.
Speaker 8: They if you will give them the opportunity, they'll tell
Speaker 8: them themself. Somebody that's not not a sociopath, but some.
Speaker 1: Sociopath being someone who has no remorse for doing something correct.
Speaker 3: They see nothing wrong with what they're doing anything they
Speaker 3: choose to do.
Speaker 1: So if somebody has guilt.
Speaker 8: Somebody has guilt. Somebody who has has knows the difference
Speaker 8: in right and wrong and does something wrong. You, if
Speaker 8: you give them the opportunity, they'll tell on theirselfs because
Speaker 8: they want to unburden. It's a burden, it's something that
Speaker 8: they're they're holding, and that I mean Donnie said it himself.
Speaker 8: He laid his hand on the biggest deer he will
Speaker 8: ever lay his hands on probably, and he said he
Speaker 8: didn't feel good about it. He's like, I'll never get
Speaker 8: away with this. Well, I never get it. He knows
Speaker 8: he did something wrong, and he said later on in
Speaker 8: the story he told you. He said when he finally
Speaker 8: told the agents, he felt better.
Speaker 1: He said it was a burden that lifted off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is not surprising, but it's interesting the way you
Speaker 1: said that. If you're not a sociopaths, if you don't
Speaker 1: have some wild mechanism that makes you not feel remorse
Speaker 1: for something right, you want to get rid of that guilt.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he took he made a choice. I don't agree
Speaker 8: with terminology about somebody made a mistake. Making a mistake
Speaker 8: is putting two cups of flour in a recipe that
Speaker 8: calls for one. That's a mistake. Walk getting out of
Speaker 8: your truck and taking a bow and arrow and purposely
Speaker 8: going and shooting a deer where you know you're not
Speaker 8: supposed to. That's a violation. That's breaking the law. That's
Speaker 8: doing something that you're not supposed to do. That don't
Speaker 8: mean it's that you can't get over it. That don't
Speaker 8: mean that you can't atone for it. I'm not saying
Speaker 8: that at all, But I don't. That's not a mistake.
Speaker 8: He did that on purpose.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But would I sat down and have a couple of
Speaker 8: coffee with him? You bet I would?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, gole that that's all really interesting. What would
Speaker 1: you do to someone to make them talk? How would you?
Speaker 1: How would you handle somebody that you know? Because see
Speaker 1: they knew he did it, they didn't have evidence that
Speaker 1: he That's.
Speaker 3: What I'm and that's what I meant, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean that's what I think.
Speaker 1: There's no way that he could have at one time. Ye,
Speaker 1: my mind is going to one hundred different directions. I know,
Speaker 1: if he'd had a really good lawyer, you think he
Speaker 1: could have got out of it.
Speaker 3: Doubtful because too many people saw the deer.
Speaker 1: One time I was with a guy. This is where
Speaker 1: my mind sidetracked. One time I was with a guy
Speaker 1: in Arkansas and something happened and it was kind of
Speaker 1: his fault, but I would have been entangled in it
Speaker 1: just because I was with him. And I said, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: you sure we should be doing this? And he said,
Speaker 1: he said, Clay, if they come after you, I will
Speaker 1: get the baddest lawyer in Mississippi to defend you. And
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, Mississippi. Why Mississippi. We
Speaker 1: were in Arkansas and I'm from Mississippi. I never forgot
Speaker 1: that there must be some good lawyers in Mississippi because
Speaker 1: he said, I'll get the baddest lawyer in Mississippi. Luckily
Speaker 1: we didn't have to go there. Well, carry on, Brett.
Speaker 1: Could he have got out of it?
Speaker 3: Man? I don't know.
Speaker 8: It goes back the old adage that's attributed to Benjamin
Speaker 8: Franklin that three people can keep a secret if two
Speaker 8: of them are dead. So there's no way he could
Speaker 8: have kept that deer secret. And then he didn't, you know,
Speaker 8: he showed his cousin. He's like, oh, okay, here's this
Speaker 8: is what I did. Then he gets over his cousin's
Speaker 8: house and there's what two hundred people there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, there was just a wat of people there.
Speaker 3: So I mean, that's the jig is up right then.
Speaker 1: What what was interesting too, is that he knew from
Speaker 1: the very beginning. He said, as soon as he shot
Speaker 1: and saw the deer, he said, he said, there's no
Speaker 1: way I'm going to get away with this.
Speaker 2: Wish he wouldn't have done it right then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then but he just kept it just kept
Speaker 1: getting worse, kept getting worse, Like he just.
Speaker 4: How far was his house from where they'd been seeing
Speaker 4: the deer?
Speaker 1: A good ways thirty forty miles worse.
Speaker 2: So that didn't so.
Speaker 1: When he when he killed the deer and the guys
Speaker 1: had trail camera pictures of it on Fort Leonard Wood
Speaker 1: and he said he'd killed it.
Speaker 2: Right, That's why I was one of that.
Speaker 1: It may have only been twenty five miles, yeah, it.
Speaker 4: But steal it, but it was they knew that deer
Speaker 4: just didn't go twenty five miles real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. What what do you think, Jordan?
Speaker 6: And Uh, the biggest part that stood out to me
Speaker 6: that I could relate with for is what today society
Speaker 6: is is the validation part. I don't remember as either
Speaker 6: you or him talking about, you know, a big reason
Speaker 6: why he wanted to shoot the deer or whatever because
Speaker 6: kind of kind of put the puzzle pieces together, like
Speaker 6: you know on the bow shop. You know, if he
Speaker 6: kills big old deer, you know, gives me more validation
Speaker 6: for my what I do for a living. And yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, it's just a cycle that keeps on going
Speaker 6: from there, and I think that was a huge part
Speaker 6: why he probably did it. You know, it was a
Speaker 6: validation of you know, not that you want to beat
Speaker 6: your chest, but I mean we all hunt want to
Speaker 6: kill a big bucket when we do, you know, you
Speaker 6: want to show people. Yeah, you know that's that's that's
Speaker 6: that'll get you in trouble, is what I'm saying. I
Speaker 6: think that's a big part of why he did it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was twenty six years old.
Speaker 6: Prove to these old guys, you know whatever, you know,
Speaker 6: I can kill these big deer too, just like y'all can.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was a unique set of circumstances that I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I said it was a one two three
Speaker 1: judo kick of him having a Botus truck, him having
Speaker 1: uh it being season, which he wasn't willing to kill
Speaker 1: it out of season, but then having that deer right there,
Speaker 1: and it was just like it just broken But Lake,
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 3: What what? Just what longer craving on him?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, which happened to a lot of people if
Speaker 4: they were going to be honest about it.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, I don't know, I mean just think about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know anybody sitting in this room. It's
Speaker 6: all two hundred deer thirty yards off the road. It
Speaker 6: wouldn't at least think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and looking, hey, you, what'd you think about the
Speaker 1: dollar value analogy?
Speaker 4: Do you remember?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's one twenty five versus two hundred incher Yep,
Speaker 5: that makes sense?
Speaker 1: Say what say what was on the podcast?
Speaker 3: You remember?
Speaker 5: Basically you were you know, take that same deer that's
Speaker 5: thirty yards off the road in the ditch, and you
Speaker 5: can be like, that's a killable deer right there, and
Speaker 5: he's a one hundred and twenty five inch eight point,
Speaker 5: good solid eight point, But that might not make somebody
Speaker 5: break their morals, right you turn that deer into two
Speaker 5: hundred inch like it. Truly, it sounds cliche, but it
Speaker 5: truly wants in a lifetime deer that's a little bit
Speaker 5: more of a little bit more waving out, you know, temptation,
Speaker 5: waving in front of your face.
Speaker 1: But then I use the analogy that the one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five inch buck would be like one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: bill laying on the table. That's not yours that you
Speaker 1: could take, but it's not yours. A two hundred inch yeer,
Speaker 1: and I want to hear if y'all think this is
Speaker 1: the right monetary equivalence, A two hundred inch deer would
Speaker 1: be like having one hundred thousand dollars cash on the table.
Speaker 8: When you were when that was coming out of your mouth,
Speaker 8: I thought he's going to say a million dollars. And
Speaker 8: when you said one hundred thousand, I thought that's perfect.
Speaker 1: Because in the white it's it's you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of have got to be in the moment. But in
Speaker 1: the white tail world, you know, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five inch year versus a two hundred inch deeer is
Speaker 1: about like one hundred dollars bill one hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: A life change. And most of us never seen a.
Speaker 2: Two indred inch year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, have you ever seen one? No, not
Speaker 4: just out, No, sir.
Speaker 1: Mister stad have you seen one. We've got a we've
Speaker 1: got a guest here that's not on the mic. You've
Speaker 1: probably seen a two hundred inch deeer.
Speaker 2: Hens lots of places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got one guy here that's seen a two
Speaker 1: hundred inch year. I've seen close to a two hundred
Speaker 1: in year.
Speaker 3: I have not. I can assure you I.
Speaker 1: Have not either had neither by close, I mean like
Speaker 1: inside of you know, twenty I.
Speaker 3: Could.
Speaker 5: I've seen one that I could say, I'd say he
Speaker 5: was one hundred and eighty inches. I'd be comfortable saying that,
Speaker 5: but not not a two hundred.
Speaker 2: That's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've seen two hundreds yeer, yes, sure
Speaker 1: have you actually hunted one for like five years, ended
Speaker 1: up killing him last year, but he was not two
Speaker 1: hundred anymore. Oh for really kill the big one last year?
Speaker 1: What did it score when he killed one sixty five?
Speaker 1: And at one time it was a tutored in.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: We first saw him I think in twenty seventeen and
Speaker 6: he was well over that no way, and uh yeah,
Speaker 6: this is in Kansas and got a hunt with up there.
Speaker 6: Actually shot at him a couple times that your rifle.
Speaker 6: I missed him, and next year he got missed again,
Speaker 6: and then he disappeared for a couple of years, and
Speaker 6: then last year ended up killing him. I didn't put
Speaker 6: all the puzzle pieces together till later on. The neighbor
Speaker 6: had been getting pictured of him for the last three years.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, so you've seen one, Drew, have you
Speaker 1: seen a tutor inch year?
Speaker 2: Not even close?
Speaker 1: Are you a new hunter, Drew?
Speaker 2: Uh No, not a new hunter.
Speaker 7: Okay for a long time, okay, but not definitely not
Speaker 7: a professional hunter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what'd you think about the podcast?
Speaker 2: I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 7: I mean, I yeah, I guess I genuine felt bad
Speaker 7: for him, but like I know, the whole bullets and
Speaker 7: arrows deal, like, once they're released, you can't take them back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, I mean I think it's.
Speaker 7: A major bummer what what happened to him? And I
Speaker 7: could definitely understand, like Jordan, you're saying, getting out of
Speaker 7: the truck and maybe making a foolish walk, but then
Speaker 7: once once it's gone, it's gone, and then how you
Speaker 7: act afterwards. I think the story could be potentially drastically
Speaker 7: changed if f it's like, hey man, that was a
Speaker 7: bad deal and just turned himself in right away.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder how different it would have been
Speaker 1: if he'd have done that, Because that never happens.
Speaker 7: I don't know the outcome, but I mean that's what
Speaker 7: you're I mean, that's technically what you're supposed to people.
Speaker 1: People that make mistakes kind of by accident, will turn
Speaker 1: themselves in. I mean, we all probably in this room
Speaker 1: know someone that's done something on accident and then been like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I made a mistake, call the game word
Speaker 1: and turn themselves in. Nobody that commits an egregious wildlife crime,
Speaker 1: I mean that I know of is gonna poach your
Speaker 1: tw in net deer on a military base and then
Speaker 1: immediately that would be like best case scenario. It's interesting
Speaker 1: why they Yeah, he could have he could have skipped
Speaker 1: a lot if he'd just.
Speaker 7: Just go down the Rabbitman. The more like it, like
Speaker 7: he was saying, all right, started bringing people into this
Speaker 7: that didn't even want to be a part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so his actions hurt a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did uh did anything? Did anything surprise anybody
Speaker 1: about about I don't know what what stood out to
Speaker 1: Did you think he was gonna did you have when
Speaker 1: you knew this guy killed the deer? Did you project
Speaker 1: how he was going to kill it? Did you like,
Speaker 1: were you surprised when you heard how it rolled out?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: I was the Yeah, I mean, because I mean I
Speaker 5: thought he was gonna it just seemed like how he
Speaker 5: ended up killing it. I was like, it sounded like, dude,
Speaker 5: you're lucky you got away with it for as long
Speaker 5: as you did, because it sounded like it was just
Speaker 5: very you know, viewable for other people to see. Yeah,
Speaker 5: when he talks about those other people pulling into the
Speaker 5: parking lot and him hiding in the.
Speaker 3: Woods and all that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that was surprising to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean it's hard to hide two hundred inches horn
Speaker 4: laying out there in the ark.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Mike, what stood out to you just in
Speaker 1: the whole thing? Like, what if you were down at
Speaker 1: the gas station tomorrow telling somebody about this, what would
Speaker 1: you say. That's a tough question because gas stations way,
Speaker 1: there's like no gas stations. That's a bad analogy.
Speaker 2: Like I'd like the party. He was humble. I believe
Speaker 2: he meant every word he said. Yeah. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: he knew he made a mistake from the start. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think he probably got nervous and did you know,
Speaker 4: did the line on you know, where he killed it
Speaker 4: and all that, which that did wasn't good. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: I think he realized it real quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Do I think the guy is a poacher and outlaw? No,
Speaker 4: I think he got caught up in the moment. I
Speaker 4: mean you're looking at that two hundred inch deer and
Speaker 4: you're giving bold lessons and everything else, and you're kind
Speaker 4: of the guy around there, Like Jordan said, yeah, I
Speaker 4: can see to where it would make you want to
Speaker 4: think about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Clay, didn't you kill an like a giant omers
Speaker 6: deer one time?
Speaker 1: I mean, well, Jordan, I'm glad you brought you Well,
Speaker 1: I killed the biggest ever killed, one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: nine inches.
Speaker 6: Well, didn't it like like set your like career? Like yeah,
Speaker 6: articles and stuff like that wrote about you about it,
Speaker 6: so you can kind of understand the validation part of it,
Speaker 6: like it exactly. That's kind of where I was going
Speaker 6: with that, Like it could potentially change his whole business
Speaker 6: or life right whatever, you know, right doing for a living.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it absolutely could have. It absolutely could have.
Speaker 3: If you got away with it.
Speaker 1: Well and then and then in the podcast we talked
Speaker 1: about how, you know, cheating that cheating the system really
Speaker 1: just messes you up in the future, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean I didn't feel like he was really a
Speaker 4: cheater as much as I mean I felt like after
Speaker 4: he'd done it, he felt like that. But on a
Speaker 4: normal day, I felt like that guy was straight up
Speaker 4: Probably he just got caught up in the.
Speaker 1: Moment well, and so that that brings up this whole
Speaker 1: thing that I kind of wanted to explore outside of
Speaker 1: just this guy committing a crime, is how as a
Speaker 1: society do we handle people that mess up? Because I
Speaker 1: think especially with the in the advent of the internet
Speaker 1: in the last fifteen years, I mean, if you read
Speaker 1: that story, if you read the headline on meat Eater
Speaker 1: or outdoor Life said man kills illegally kills two hundred
Speaker 1: inch white tail on Fort Leonard Wood, Like, you're immediately
Speaker 1: gonna think poacher. This is what I'm gonna think. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna think poacher. Throw the book at it, which I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they should have done that with Donnie. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: just because you're a nice guy doesn't mean you can
Speaker 1: get off.
Speaker 3: There's still consequences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: But what what I what's so wild about setting across
Speaker 1: from somebody like Donnie is you see the context that
Speaker 1: that happened in, and the second episode is gonna get
Speaker 1: way into the context of his life, which actually has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the deer. Like he told me
Speaker 1: the deer story, and then I asked him a question.
Speaker 1: I said, Donnie, why why did you tell me this? Story,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of foreshadowing of what's going to happen. And
Speaker 1: he's said, Clay, he said, this dear thing is really
Speaker 1: a pretty small piece of what's happened to me in
Speaker 1: the last ten years. And he started talking about stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't have to do with a government agency penalizing you,
Speaker 1: just in his life. It's just interesting. And so to me,
Speaker 1: it's like everything that you happen when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: a human you're dealing with a context of circumstances that
Speaker 1: you most people don't have access to see. And again,
Speaker 1: that doesn't justify someone breaking the law. But when I
Speaker 1: talk to Donnie, my instinct, especially with someone that's humble,
Speaker 1: that's doing what he's doing, is to have empathy for him,
Speaker 1: you know. But when I read it on the headline
Speaker 1: of Meat Eater, I don't, And it's like, wait a minute, perception,
Speaker 1: how's that? How does this work?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: That's why we toyed around with the words at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, a guy's a poacher, you know, if you
Speaker 1: break the law, If you break the law one time,
Speaker 1: then I'm a poacher. And Lake you're probably a poacher.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've all anybody that's hunted very much or
Speaker 1: done anything very much has broken a law, maybe not
Speaker 1: maybe not on purpose, maybe on purpose, but we throw
Speaker 1: these stigmas around like so hard, Like if somebody does something,
Speaker 1: it's just like poacher, whole life never you know, how
Speaker 1: do you crawl out of it? And that's why I
Speaker 1: was talking about with my wife. We talked about how
Speaker 1: as a society do we do we handle people? Who
Speaker 1: do we forgive? And and who do we who do
Speaker 1: we allow a second chance? Because there's people that we
Speaker 1: don't very much.
Speaker 4: When I kind of figured out he was, I felt
Speaker 4: like he was all right, guys. Is one of the
Speaker 4: part about him being in church and preacher talking about it,
Speaker 4: he said that was the toughest part on him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that kind of that you know.
Speaker 4: That he's real Yeah what church? Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 4: then yeah, you know when preacher announces that from very
Speaker 4: you know, and you didn't do it right, you know,
Speaker 4: it's got to kill you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, facing everybody.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what got me was I've heard, you know, coaching
Speaker 5: wildlife violation stories before, and typically you know, you get
Speaker 5: the sense the guys like me, I really kind of
Speaker 5: was off the you know, doing all this stuff and
Speaker 5: finally got called my life change. It's the best thing
Speaker 5: that ever happened to me. And now I'm this way
Speaker 5: that this guy seemed like he was a good, genuine
Speaker 5: honest guy, did something wrong and he was a good
Speaker 5: genuine honest guy afterwards, like he's the character about it
Speaker 5: didn't change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also Brent, Brent and Drew asked
Speaker 1: me today when we listened to it about two times
Speaker 1: in the podcast, I said, I don't have twenty years
Speaker 1: of experience with this guy, you know. I said, I
Speaker 1: met this guy thirty minutes before I started talking to
Speaker 1: him and he told me his story, and I don't
Speaker 1: have a b experience and kind of from a sense
Speaker 1: of being honest inside of being a journalist essentially, I
Speaker 1: wanted to say, I think this guy's telling me the truth.
Speaker 1: I think this guy has changed. I think this I
Speaker 1: don't think he would do that well, I know he
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it again, And I wanted to say I
Speaker 1: think this is a good guy. He has Clay Newcomb's
Speaker 1: stamp of approval. Donnie Baker does, but I also wanted
Speaker 1: to be responsible with that endorsement and say I don't
Speaker 1: know this guy, only he really knows. Did you who
Speaker 1: was it? It was you that were you the one that
Speaker 1: was saying that you thought that was a little sketchy
Speaker 1: of me to do that? Do you know what you said?
Speaker 3: Drew?
Speaker 1: You said it.
Speaker 7: No, we talked about it, and yeah, I think, I mean,
Speaker 7: he's the only one that's gonna know for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was kind of just trying to
Speaker 1: say I don't know. I was just trying to be
Speaker 1: honest about it, you know. And uh, because if I
Speaker 1: if I knew, if I knew Brent for twenty years,
Speaker 1: it's like I could go, this guy's different. I was
Speaker 1: just saying, Man, I think this guy's different, and I do.
Speaker 1: I absolutely do. But but I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: to the next episode. It's gonna be interesting, man, And
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn what they did to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm interested on.
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna You're not look at these eyes?
Speaker 3: Lake.
Speaker 1: Am I giving away anything?
Speaker 3: You Cliff hung us a little bit? There?
Speaker 1: Am I poker face?
Speaker 3: It's very poker face.
Speaker 1: Are they gonna Are they? Okay, let me ask you this, Brent,
Speaker 1: don't answer, because I think you know, are they gonna
Speaker 1: what are they gonna do to him? Any any ideas.
Speaker 5: If I had probably gonna take his hunting license away,
Speaker 5: take his you know, all those weapons and stuff, I
Speaker 5: didn't probably big fine, and I mean yeah, probably, I
Speaker 5: would guess somewhere in there it'd be hunting privileges taking
Speaker 5: away for a long time.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: That federal being on the air base and all that
Speaker 4: just changes everything. I don't really know what to expect.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to find out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Drew, what do you think they're gonna do to him?
Speaker 7: I mean, I think same as Lake plus plus a
Speaker 7: bit more because the air base.
Speaker 1: M hmm.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's anything outstandingly crazy. I think the
Speaker 6: public mutiliation.
Speaker 1: There you go, is his punishment.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's obviously going to get fines and some
Speaker 6: other little stuff, but I don't think it's ervading in
Speaker 6: jail time or anything like that. I think the public community,
Speaker 6: let's getting the emparised over everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, And that brings up a point A question that
Speaker 1: I asked on the podcast, is that to us that
Speaker 1: are deer hunters killing a tutor, each deer is a
Speaker 1: big deal. What if he had approached a basket rack
Speaker 1: eight point nobody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just wouldn't make near the ripple. We wouldn't be
Speaker 3: doing a podcast.
Speaker 6: About our shot to me?
Speaker 4: Or what if I said, I like that one hundred
Speaker 4: dollars one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: What if I said, Hey, a guy killed a deer
Speaker 1: on Fort Leonard Wood Bassaract eight point. He snuck it
Speaker 1: out of the base and said he killed it at
Speaker 1: his house and got caught.
Speaker 2: That was the story.
Speaker 1: And I said, what do you think they're going to
Speaker 1: do to him?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean, because that's what happened. It's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting because like, what what about you know,
Speaker 1: a couple more inches of bone? I'm touching Brent's deerhead.
Speaker 1: There make no different.
Speaker 6: The law is not based on how what size of
Speaker 6: the deer is.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Well, today it is in a lot of places like inches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to talk about it more on the
Speaker 1: next episode. Oh yeah, there's there's trophy finds now. So
Speaker 1: if you kill a deer, and that's what I was
Speaker 1: kind of exploring. I was like, is that is that? Okay?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, if you kill a two hundred inch
Speaker 1: deer today now in too thousand and nine when this happened,
Speaker 1: I don't think that was as common, But there is
Speaker 1: a difference by the law.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I mean, honestly, it kind of makes sense to me.
Speaker 5: I mean, going off of the compan back to the
Speaker 5: comparison you made, I mean, it it's just.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because the only thing that gives that
Speaker 1: deer value is just the cultural value that we as
Speaker 1: a society, society of deer hunters. I mean, you take
Speaker 1: that rack into some place where nobody knows anything about deer,
Speaker 1: and you set that one next to a great, big
Speaker 1: one and go which one do you do you want?
Speaker 1: Which one do you think is pretty? They might go goy,
Speaker 1: that one's ugly and big, like this little one that
Speaker 1: you know looks symmetrical.
Speaker 6: I can hang a lot of hats on.
Speaker 1: My point is is that it's totally human, human subjectiveness
Speaker 1: and this idea of beauty that we've created around a
Speaker 1: white tail rack that then makes the punishment. It's just
Speaker 1: interesting to think about it. I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting. And you know, the other question asked about
Speaker 1: on the podcast that was just rhetorical question, was intent.
Speaker 1: Does intent matter? Like if he Mike if he had
Speaker 1: two months before been like I'm gonna sneak into that
Speaker 1: contonement area and I'm gonna put up a tree stand
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna kill that deer with a thermal, which
Speaker 1: they didn't have them probably to the public back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. But why is that different than
Speaker 1: him having an impulsive shot. I liked it when he
Speaker 1: said it was like when you're a kid and you
Speaker 1: shoot a bird and you kind of wish you hadn't
Speaker 1: done it. But yeah, so intent, Why does intent matter?
Speaker 7: It's like just getting caught up in the moment a
Speaker 7: lot of times. But why does the matter with the law?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 7: Well, the difference is like I'm thinking about like calling
Speaker 7: you a bunch of bad names or whatever and thinking
Speaker 7: about it for a long time, or you just get
Speaker 7: into argument.
Speaker 3: I just.
Speaker 7: Say, like you know what I mean, Like I just
Speaker 7: if I if I shout out like real quickly, it's
Speaker 7: like it's just impulsive impulsive. The only difference is I
Speaker 7: can say I'm sorry to you the word that arrow
Speaker 7: it's it's gone. There's nothing back.
Speaker 8: If me and you were driving down the Mississippi River
Speaker 8: and you run over a buoy by going left.
Speaker 3: When I tell you to go right and I kill you,
Speaker 3: that's impulse.
Speaker 8: If I think about it two hundred and fifty miles,
Speaker 8: think about killing you and just finally do it at
Speaker 8: the two hundred and forty ninth mile when I was
Speaker 8: actually thinking about it, that is intent.
Speaker 2: That's malice, I know.
Speaker 1: But why does it matter.
Speaker 4: I don't think in both of them, I don't think
Speaker 4: to find probably no different. I mean, it's doing the
Speaker 4: same things just right. You know we thought about a
Speaker 4: little longer.
Speaker 6: Well, okay, something else I just thought about too. On
Speaker 6: the regret of doing that standpoint, if you really really
Speaker 6: regreted doing it once you did it, you still went
Speaker 6: ahead and tried to hide it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: You know that's instead of just saying calling an MP
Speaker 6: and saying, man, I just I made a huge mistake.
Speaker 6: I'm messed up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but how many people would do that though? Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean I'm not I'm not saying you're.
Speaker 2: Wrong, told that you're gonna write it out.
Speaker 5: Because when that guy was telling that story and he
Speaker 5: talked about releasing the arrow and it hit I mean,
Speaker 5: like I could almost feel the weight of it of
Speaker 5: just being like, can you imagine me like, what in
Speaker 5: the world did I just do?
Speaker 3: And he had to have been terrified.
Speaker 1: Go yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Like when he shut up burden.
Speaker 1: This exact nightmare. Going back to the the the intent thing.
Speaker 1: Intent does matter in the law. Think about manslaughter, Uh
Speaker 1: uh what is it? First degree? What am I talking
Speaker 1: thinking about? Involuntary? Involuntary manslaughter? A guy go to prison
Speaker 1: for five or ten years murder one as they call
Speaker 1: it in the pen is it's like I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: going to kill. That would be like thinking in Memphis
Speaker 1: that he was gonna try to bump me out of
Speaker 1: the boat and get like the capital crimes. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean it does matter. So if you if you killed,
Speaker 1: if you killed someone in by accident in a fistfight,
Speaker 1: is different than if you went to their house. You're
Speaker 1: talking about wild stuff here, but intent intent matters.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: But it's just interesting to think about why is intent
Speaker 1: and in tent matters all the time in every single
Speaker 1: area of our life. When I deal with my kids,
Speaker 1: they may knock a cup over and spill stuff all
Speaker 1: over the couch, I am calculating intent intuitively, instinctively and
Speaker 1: immediately of where they messing around and do you know
Speaker 1: wrestling with her brother or sister and knock it over
Speaker 1: or was it just a genuine error, just a just
Speaker 1: a bumble. And I would handle that different. I would
Speaker 1: handle h I mean, we're we're constantly understanding intent because
Speaker 1: people are constantly doing us wrong. I mean, like if
Speaker 1: your friends with some human relationship means that you have
Speaker 1: to I mean with a husband and wife, with a
Speaker 1: boat captain and a cub boat captain.
Speaker 6: Today Lake took me out in the cold, wet mud.
Speaker 6: Was that did he have in tin.
Speaker 1: To make him miserable or is it just happened when
Speaker 1: he went out, when he went out looking for the
Speaker 1: ducks that weren't there.
Speaker 3: It was my intent.
Speaker 1: It worked. H No, all this stuff is interesting and
Speaker 1: uh well, it's been good to have everybody, man. I
Speaker 1: was I really intended to, Like, Okay, you got to
Speaker 1: tell us one story, Drew. You got to tell us
Speaker 1: about your jump that the photo that made the cup.
Speaker 1: We're changing gears here and winder down. Okay, Okay, tell
Speaker 1: me about the ski jump. So the other day, so
Speaker 1: I just met Drew. I met Drew like an hour
Speaker 1: before we got on the Mississippi River. It was pretty good.
Speaker 1: We were like in go mode. So usually there's some
Speaker 1: pleasantries amongst people when you first meet each other. Me
Speaker 1: and Drew were just like the all business.
Speaker 5: And oddly enough, his wife and I worked together at
Speaker 5: own X.
Speaker 1: That's right, your wife works at on X. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Do you get free prime eliteorship?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I know a guy as you look him up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we can do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, okay, tell me about the ski jump. Tell me
Speaker 1: the whole story. Yeah, so the whole story.
Speaker 7: So I grew up ski racing and Sundvalley, Idaho, and
Speaker 7: then got out of ski racing young, probably at like
Speaker 7: fourteen or fifteen, and then I started doing the extreme
Speaker 7: skiing tour and did like a circuit around the West.
Speaker 7: And when we were in college, there's Loveland Pass and
Speaker 7: Colorado which is a big, big mountain pass and my
Speaker 7: buddy and I Griffin Post, who's a world famous skiers,
Speaker 7: still skis for tg R and the stuff all around
Speaker 7: the world.
Speaker 1: We don't know what t GR is.
Speaker 7: It's a teach Gravity Research. It's a ski movie.
Speaker 1: Company, y'all know what that was.
Speaker 2: I down.
Speaker 6: And I was like watching the slalom or whatever they
Speaker 6: call it. In the Olympics.
Speaker 2: This is like this is like this, but would like
Speaker 2: semi drugs.
Speaker 7: So we wanted to build a jump and jump over
Speaker 7: this highway, and.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's a mountains. Just some envision a
Speaker 1: very steep, snow covered mountain side with a with a
Speaker 1: two lane highway like cut into the bank, kind of
Speaker 1: going around that rim of the mountain.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well right over, right over the top of a
Speaker 7: mountain pass, okay, okay, And so we built this jump.
Speaker 1: Right above the build a snow jump. Just pack snow, just.
Speaker 2: Grab the shovels and start.
Speaker 1: How big was the jump?
Speaker 7: Probably about ten feet If you say on the to
Speaker 7: take you to build it weekend, I mean weeken Like,
Speaker 7: what does that mean? Eight hour work day, lunch, yeahright,
Speaker 7: sixteen two hours, sixteen.
Speaker 1: Hours, sixteen hours, okay, I get that, all right.
Speaker 7: Sixty hours. So shovel on and then grooming in the
Speaker 7: in run. And it hadn't really in run like Jordan
Speaker 7: telling them what that is in run stuff where you land.
Speaker 1: I thought, because Jordan like skin, was that right? Is
Speaker 1: that what it is?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: The d run is where you're build up to get
Speaker 1: the jump.
Speaker 3: I was really hoping Jordan was right.
Speaker 6: He said at the end of the run.
Speaker 1: Okay, so ten foot jump on the edge of the highway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we basically.
Speaker 1: He said yeah, like as if that would be normal.
Speaker 7: So we built the jump and deemed that it was
Speaker 7: not safe because there wasn't very good snow that's on
Speaker 7: the land on the landing. So we waited an entire
Speaker 7: month for there to be more snow.
Speaker 1: And you gotta have good you can't have I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for interrupting you, but I'm not that sorry good snow.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're from the South.
Speaker 7: Everybody here in the South, it would be if there's
Speaker 7: bad snow, it would be like jumping into a pool
Speaker 7: with no water. So you want more fresh snow, which
Speaker 7: is more water to jump into to make it softer.
Speaker 1: Some cushion, some cushion. Okay, that's good, analogy, got it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So we deemed it unsafe. So we waited a
Speaker 7: month and came back to Colorado, and it turns out
Speaker 7: that it really hadn't snowed in a month, but we
Speaker 7: decided that since we were there, so you had to
Speaker 7: travel to get there. Yeah, how far from Salt Lake City?
Speaker 7: So I'm not sure how.
Speaker 1: I mean like ten hours, maybe eight hours something like that.
Speaker 1: So you drove eight hours to get to this jump?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Was there not a highway close to you that you
Speaker 1: could have done that at?
Speaker 7: This is a pretty nice highway, that's why you mean
Speaker 7: it's a pretty famous pass we've done.
Speaker 1: Okay, that that answered my quest. Is a famous pass? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you wanted to do it right there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's intent. That's intent.
Speaker 1: Is intent. If me and Brent were just driving down
Speaker 1: the road and we just saw random pass and just
Speaker 1: were impulsively built a jump, that would be that would
Speaker 1: not show intent. Okay, so you get there a month later,
Speaker 1: no new snow, but you decided to go for it.
Speaker 2: Anyways, So we.
Speaker 7: Decided to do rock paper scissors to see who had
Speaker 7: to go first. And so I'm not as good as
Speaker 7: Griffin at rocket paper scissors.
Speaker 1: So do your best of three or just one off
Speaker 1: best three? For sure, it's always.
Speaker 6: You must pick.
Speaker 7: So so I I had to go first with Griffin.
Speaker 7: Had no idea how to operate the camera.
Speaker 1: So you're a professional photographer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is this is in the beginning. So I
Speaker 7: set up the camera on the tripod. He said, all right,
Speaker 7: I'll go to the go to the top and when
Speaker 7: you see a giant tanker or a house coming through,
Speaker 7: coming house, because everything goes over love on past like
Speaker 7: houses on the back of trucks.
Speaker 2: I mean mobile, bubile home like you name it, you can.
Speaker 1: You needed a big truck coming. And now he's working
Speaker 1: the camera.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 7: I just have him to hold hold the button and
Speaker 7: told him as soon as I hit the lip, just hold.
Speaker 1: The but and it just you had it on multi shot.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is back in the film days. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 7: and uh he's like all right. So soon as they
Speaker 7: soon as it rounds the bend, I'll give a whistle
Speaker 7: and one's go, and then two is stop and three
Speaker 7: is cops.
Speaker 1: Because me and Britta have that same thing. One is go,
Speaker 1: two has stop, three as cops.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 8: That's international. It's like Morse code.
Speaker 7: And so yeah, I went went up to the top
Speaker 7: and got the whistle and went and bombed down and
Speaker 7: shot over the top of two semi trucks.
Speaker 1: And they were passing each other like this.
Speaker 7: There's two going going up at the same time. There's
Speaker 7: one that went over and the other one was like
Speaker 7: right in the right in the background of the photograph.
Speaker 5: I wonder what they were thinking if they saw you.
Speaker 7: Oh, but they're freaked out for sure. And then uh
Speaker 7: landed and made it a bit. But there's I mean,
Speaker 7: just giant chunks of ice and the landings that kind
Speaker 7: of exploded and landing relatively soft spot and then made
Speaker 7: Griffin go.
Speaker 1: So you land you stuck it. You stuck the landing
Speaker 1: for a bit and then it got you. Then you crashed.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a rodeo at the end, but
Speaker 1: it was okay. How high were you at the highest
Speaker 1: point from the ground, thirty forty feet something like that.
Speaker 1: How far did you jump?
Speaker 7: However, however far the standard width of a highway, I
Speaker 7: mean plus.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 7: I mean landed sixty probably fifteen twenty feet past the guardrail.
Speaker 7: You don't want to hit the guardrail.
Speaker 6: So like a hundred feet probably or more.
Speaker 7: Maybe I would say less than one hundred feet seventy
Speaker 7: got your feet like.
Speaker 1: That, okay. And then the photograph that your buddy he
Speaker 1: took it because he actually punched the shutter.
Speaker 7: Yes, so the first photography he ever took ended up
Speaker 7: being a double page spread and skiing magazine. My mom's
Speaker 7: saw is she is not not very thrilled.
Speaker 2: How old were you when that happened? Probably twenty three?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good age to make mistakes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that range.
Speaker 1: I had to hear that story again. That's awesome, that's good,
Speaker 1: that's good. Hey, thank you guys, like anything you want
Speaker 1: to say, the Burgers World.
Speaker 5: Glad to be here again. Glad y'all came down here
Speaker 5: and we're able to make it down this low river.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll do it again sometime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, Yeah, next time we made just drive.
Speaker 5: I mean, you could take the boat again if you
Speaker 5: wanted to. I wouldn't suggest it.
Speaker 8: Separate boats next time. I'm hiring a crew that will
Speaker 8: do what I tell them.
Speaker 3: Drew, you're in.
Speaker 4: Uh, Drew kind of worked out, didn't he worked out?
Speaker 2: It worked out.
Speaker 5: I'm also as I think, I mean, I know, I
Speaker 5: can speak for everybody here. I tickled about Brent's buck, absolutely.
Speaker 2: To and I'm very tickle for him.
Speaker 6: I've been paying attention to how well you did not
Speaker 6: talk about your archery shooting. So we'll just.
Speaker 1: I made a couple of good shots, real good ones.
Speaker 5: Jordan did get to cut on me about the duck,
Speaker 5: so we had to cut on somebody.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you gotta climb down to reload.
Speaker 1: Is there a reason all your errors are covered in
Speaker 1: Mississippi Gumbo bud, Mississippi buckshot.
Speaker 5: Someone gonna call in and be like, I was on
Speaker 5: a barge and I swear I saw an arrow floating
Speaker 5: down the river.
Speaker 1: Uh, Jordan's good to have you, man, Mike, good to
Speaker 1: have you been our host. He's been hosting us this
Speaker 1: week quite a bit. Mister Thad has been hosting us
Speaker 1: to who's over here here, But uh, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna come cat fishing with you, man it I
Speaker 1: wanted to.
Speaker 4: Go some squirrel hunt catfish combo.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. I'm in, count me in. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks guys. Mhm