WEBVTT - Ep. 254: Fur Will Never Shine Again 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.599 bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.680 predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are the 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.479 most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.600 app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor where 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:37.240 you stand with on X All. Right, before we even 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.240 get to our guests, we need to do to show 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.680 and tell pizzas Cran, do you want to do show 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:47.160 and tell? First? Sure? Okay, explain what you made, um 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:53.320 so from from a duck that was shot the other week. Um, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.880 I just decided to make a pair of earrings. So 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.000 I it's very simple, very simple, very simple. So just 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:09.240 these bright orange feet off the mallard and quick. Yeah. Sure. 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.360 So it's a bright orange mallard foot hasn't even dried 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.320 out yet. You can sew it back onto your duck 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:23.520 and he'd walk away. And I just put some stainless 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.520 steel steel wire around it to like kind of hold 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:32.600 the ankle and made it like a little earring. Oh dude, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.679 that makes a statement, man, I don't know what statement 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.920 it makes. It's beautiful. Krin was pointing out that people 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.840 get upset did they feel like it's better just to 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.560 throw out the garbage? Apparently? Yeah, right, I mean it's 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.520 better to throw out the trash than to put it 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.440 as earring, right, Like it feels disrespectful that you're you know, 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.800 it's a detached foot. Whoever has that sentiment would have 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.360 had a hell of a time with planes. Indians being 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.120 their whole get up was made out of animals, extremely 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.000 upsetting to them. So it's like, if you're going to 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.400 save the feet for stock and boil them in a pot, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:19.720 you know, like in a pulse apocalyptic scenario, everybody's starving, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.760 death crens Like, right, she takes her earrings off, makes 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.920 a little a bit of stock, and everybody's fine. So 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.160 are you going to go into this? Do you think? Yeah? 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.880 I mean I love I love making stuff, you know, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.760 I love using my hands, and I'm paint a lot. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.240 I haven't done that and while I used to do 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.919 a lot of ceramic, so um yeah, um all, maybe 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.520 we'll come up with a line of ear rings and 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.440 rings and you can get around um you know, like 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.840 you can't barter in trade for wild game meat, but 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.440 you could even probably go on Etsy and sell your 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:04.400 wares or like you for for any future we neither 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:09.200 giveaways or fundraising. You know, there can be a pair 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.800 of something, pair of earrings, or something in that collection 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.200 of the gift items. Me and Seth to thinking about 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.000 set doesn't know about this, but me and never thinking 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.000 about raising a lot of money with beaver pelts, I 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:24.960 got a path to raise a lot of money for 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:29.239 our land Access initiative through beaver pelts. Extremely high priced 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.760 beaver pelts. I was thinking about that too, extremely high 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:40.320 priced bea repels. They come a little certificate signed, and 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.160 a pair of flip flops, and a pair of flip 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:46.280 flops comes with every repelled uh. And then now Seth 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.200 through your show and tell um. This past week, I 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:55.880 was at deer camp in eastern Montana, and Um, I 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:00.280 stumbled upon a chunk of bone sticking out of a bank. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.280 It wasn't a cut bank. It was just like a 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.280 little rolling shoulder that fell down into a little dried 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:11.119 up creek bottom. And um, I don't fully understand that 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.440 when you say that, well, you know most people like well, 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:17.200 I shouldn't say most people. A lot of times people 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.760 find bison skulls in cut banks, like sticking out of 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.760 a cut bank. This was just like in the grass 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.760 you know there it was fully vegetated where where I 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:31.200 found this, and um, it was just so no erosion, 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.839 nothing had fell away, no erosion at all. I just 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.440 happened to see a chunk of bones sticking out of 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.160 like the grass, and I just started started digging and 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.479 uncovered The first one I found was not in a 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:49.480 cut bank. It wasn't anything eroded, which I think, I 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.400 don't know. I think it's cool and you got it's 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.119 a youngster, um I was. I was in a hurry 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.960 when I was digging it out because my girlfriend Kelsey 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.080 had just shot a mule deer and I was, um 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.320 I did. I had to walk like two miles back 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.040 to the vehicle to go get the vehicle to bring it. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.160 There was like a another road that would ended up 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.920 being way closer, So I went got the vehicle and 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.400 brought it around and made the back out like it said, 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.240 up two miles like five yards. So I was going 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.400 to do that, and in in the process of doing 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.680 that is when I found this skull. And I was 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.279 trying to be quick digging it out of the bank 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.880 and ended up breaking some pieces off of it. But 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:35.400 it was very fragile. Um. I don't know what's going on, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.839 but something with the cosmos. Were a lot of you 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:43.240 know right now in in Siberia and in in Arctic Alaska. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.159 There's all this stuff coming out of the perma frost 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.680 right now because the exceedingly warm summers, like mammos and 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.120 dogs and all manner jump. I know, I want to 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.600 go over there and poke around. Um field trip. There's 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:58.960 a lot of I feel like there's something in the cosmos. 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.000 It's not climate related, but there's just a lot of 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:06.760 buffalo skulls right now. Because I had found one in 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.320 I don't know, man late nineties and it didn't find 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:18.599 one for forever. And last year found two. One was 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:24.000 full of crayfish, had been colonized by crayfish. Yeah. Um, 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.200 then found a chunk like this chunk right here, and 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:33.680 then my brother found a couple found one. Everyone's fine. 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.320 Everybody's been fine. I know, multiple dudes have found him 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.120 this year. I got there's so many coming out right now. 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.160 If something isn't the cosmos. I got a friend over 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.520 Missoula that found one and didn't even pick it up. 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.359 He sent me a photo. It was level with it 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.479 was in a gravel bar. It looked like it was 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.679 on display in a gravel bar, Like it was like level, 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.320 like you could have walked across it in a gravel bar, 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.760 but just like there in the gravel bar. Oh, we 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.719 found another one earlier. Um it was later in the 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.640 summer that someone we were floating the river and someone 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.160 had picked it up and said it like, made a 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.240 little Karen. That's what I'm thinking of, made a little 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.920 Karen and set it on top of Karen. What whatever 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.360 you've been stearn Karen cairn cairn. It's hard to say 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.440 that word. C A I r n made a cairn 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.600 and set it on top I don't know if they 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.720 knew what it was or didn't know what it was. Well, 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.040 if they, yeah, I mean they did like a symbolic thing. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:37.880 I don't know. I just I just pictured a bunch 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.239 of kids playing down by the river and they found 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.840 this thing. And you didn't You didn't remember you thought 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.920 that you felt that it had been corrupted and spoiled. Yes, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.600 by the touch of man. Yeah, it wasn't cool. It 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.280 was cool, but it wasn't It wasn't like this one 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.200 where I found it, dug it out of the earth 0:07:54.800 --> 0:08:00.440 that one had already been touched. Okay, now to our guests, Rick, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.960 Mattenee Mattenie Mannie spelled like mattenee. No, not like mattenee, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:14.000 not like a movie mattee Mattenee mattnee e n e. No, mate, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.880 I'm saying, that's a what's the when you go to 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:24.520 a movie that mattee mattee. That's right, that's probably just 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.400 tell us how you spell your name m A d 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.760 n e Y m A t n e y and 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:37.640 his father Mike, Yes, same last name. Yes, um, Rick, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.520 you were asking about my special anchor you made me. Yeah. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.600 Can you describe real quick how you make anchors. Well, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.000 I take a four inch steel pipe and fill it 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.320 full of lead, and well bolts around the outside like 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.520 a Mahler anchlor, except for the all steel ones clank reeloud. 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.920 If you fill them with leadther a lot quieter. So 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.480 I built any one, and I asked you about it 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.079 when we came in here, and there's a story about Okay, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:08.679 so here's what happened. One. I love that anchor. Uh It. 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.320 I had a compartment on one of my boats that 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:17.280 wouldn't fit into so I took uh I took um 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:23.280 bands off and shortened the bolts so that it would 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:28.800 fit in a compartment down the little nubbins. Oh well, well, 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.839 now I don't put in that compartment anymore. I could 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.600 just left it as it was, so now you need 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.679 another anchor. It works great, But like I just messed. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.280 It was just one of those stupid things that happens. Yeah, 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.840 I feel terrible about it. It's okay, I got like 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.960 eight more in the garage right now. When you're um, 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.480 when you're melting all that lead, do you take precautions? No? 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.280 Absolutely not. Just get a buzz and yeah, I just 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:58.559 get the torch, grab that bush lighting uh rick. Tell 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.319 people about the all the ways you kind of make 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.719 ends meet. Um Well, I have an outfitting business here 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.840 in the state of Montana. UM I run a Steelhead 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.959 lodge out of Southeast Alaska, a guide for a private 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.080 ranch down in Hawaii, as well as doing some bone 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.000 fish guiding on Oahu and Hawaii. I do a little 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.280 bit of cooking for you guys here at Meat Eater. UM. 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.040 I also do some in home wild game cooking classes 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.400 as well. On the side, UM I have rental properties 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:30.199 in town. My job list is extreme, very outdoor focused 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.319 irrigation company that I was part partner in and now 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.120 I've actually got out of that finally, hopefully so that 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.000 I can get a little bit more into the rest 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.920 of the stuff. Can you. Uh so fish and bone 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:48.560 fish in Hawaii is it? Oh? What what's the word? Yeah? Oh? 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:55.040 I oh um. While in our neck of the woods, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.520 you know, they're not really regarded as not When I 0:10:58.559 --> 0:10:59.679 say our neck of the wood, I mean like in 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.520 our atmosphere or whatever. Um, like when you go down 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.360 to the Caribbean and stuff Ascension Bay. Yeah, they're not 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:11.079 really regarded as people eat them, but they're not by 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.520 most people of fish from there, not like regarded as 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.280 a food fish. But why it's like they have a 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.280 completely reception of them, right. Yeah. There's yeah, pounded fish cakes, uh, 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.439 fish soup out of them. Yeah, that's uh, the locals 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.160 really like eating them. Um. You know, I think America, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.560 United States is the only place you can left you 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.240 can still kill a bone fish. They're protected everywhere else 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.200 but Florida, Hawaii. You can still kill them there. Um. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.079 I don't advocate for that, you know, but my brother 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.800 caught one in Hawaii one time. I think he said 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.440 he's nine ft of water and caught a far bigger 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.560 bone fish, and he'd ever caught fish and bone fish 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.840 on purpose. Yeah, yeah, and they're we're they're a deep 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.120 water bone fish. They come up onto the flats to feed. 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.680 And there's so many pancake flats around um the islands 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.000 of Hawaii that there's very little flat habitat form, so 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.079 most of them are deep water fish. I mean you'll 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.080 see videos of them schooling, you know, in sixty ft 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.400 of water, and there's just schools, hundreds of them, and 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.000 you know, you go up on the flat and there's four, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.439 but it's the same species, um, I think. So yeah. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.400 I mean there's guys that argue that the Hawaiian bone 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.960 fish are in the Pacific uh Ocean bone fish are 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.280 a little bit different than the Atlantic cousins. You know, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.480 they're kind of a deep water bone fish. There are 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.400 what's called the sharp jaw bone fish, which I think 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.079 they're gonna classify that one is a different species. And 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.720 Hawaii has both the Pacific bone fish and the sharp 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.600 sharp job bone fish, and so I think they do 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:33.800 classify that one is a different one, but you know, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.960 you can noticeably tell the difference when you catch one 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.040 of those versus the regular ones, who, um, what kind 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.559 of people? Like? Who are your clients? Not Hawaiians? No? No, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.160 for the most part there and there's a couple of 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.000 local guys that that I go out with quite a bit, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:48.400 but a lot of them are my clients that I 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.240 roll over from either my Alaska operation or my Montana operation. 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.040 And they're like, hey, you know, what are you doing 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:55.800 in January? And I was like, well, funny you ask 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:57.920 him downe in Hawaii guiding bone fish. It's like, oh, man, 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:59.640 I'd really like to do that. They're really big, they're 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.280 hard to edge. And it's like, yeah, well here you go. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:03.720 You guys go out and site fish form. Yeah, it's 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:05.920 all site fishing form on the flats. Um. We do 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.160 get out of the boat sometimes depending on the tides 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.520 um when the tailing tides are right. We try to 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.720 do it on foot as much as possible because that's 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.520 the hunt, that's the fun one, that's more fun than 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.040 doing it out of the boat. The problem with the 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.240 boat is is most clients and most guys can't spot 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.720 them far enough out to make an effective cast before 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.480 we spook them. So it's it's a hard, so you're 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.680 just stuck saying like eleven o'clock, eleven o'clock fifty feet, 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.880 you know, and if your guy can do it perfectly, yeah, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:33.400 you'll catch a few of them doing it that way 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.360 for sure. But we have a lot better luck doing 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.600 it on foot, you know, low and slow. The slower 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:39.400 you move. If you move your leg fast enough to 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.520 where the water, the water makes a tiny bit of 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.319 a ripple noise, fish will spook from a hundred feet away, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.120 so you have to go. So dudes, are they scared 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.880 of sharks and stuff? They're scared of everything. Everything wants 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.080 to kill them. I've seen fifty pound gt s turned 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.840 sideways on the flats and chase ten pound bone fish 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.000 try to eat them. You know, there's tiger sharks in 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.040 the bay a hundred feet away. You know, it's everything 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:02.960 wants to eat them. You know. On top of that, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:04.839 they get fished to every single day. When I first 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.000 started guiding down there a little over twelve years ago, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.199 you never saw anyone bone fishing, And now every single 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.400 day there's someone on every flat for the most part. 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:14.920 So it took off in the amount of pressure they 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:16.520 see is and their old fish, you know, they're a 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.840 big bone fish will be twenty years old, and so 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.080 you're gonna educate a fish like that that's been around 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.160 the block. He's gonna know the drill. So you need 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:25.880 to be better than the next guy to get them. 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.280 And they're extremely hard to catch. Um, they're they're not 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.680 that hard to get to eat as long as you 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.160 can get to them without spooking. And they're neurotic. Sometimes 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.520 they eat, you know, without no when you're there, they 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.160 don't even care. And other times you can't buy a 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.520 bite no matter what you do. Um, have you ever 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.960 hunted sandhill cranes? Have? Yeah, we're hunting sand hill cranes 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.600 a couple of years ago in the Texas Panhandle and 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:53.720 they're like exceedingly decoy shy down there. They just see 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:58.240 spreads all day every day and Discuyer hunting with skins 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.760 all his sandhills and mates the zombie decoys where he 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.280 makes a frame it actually puts an actual sandhill skin 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.160 over it, and we're kind of like marveling at sort 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.400 of like how wary they are. But then we had 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.040 one that was wearing a band. It had been banded 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.480 as an adult seventeen years earlier. You imagine the amount 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.040 of spreads that things looked AT's in seventeen years. What's 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.360 the average life span those things? Those things get way 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.480 older than I thought older and mallards. I mean, you know, 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:34.280 a lot of birds can live a long time, but 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.680 I think it's common to have sand hills. Uh, you know, 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.960 make it to be over a decade and you imagine. Yeah, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:43.840 so you talked about a twenty year old bone fish, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.080 just like he's up on those flats every day eating. 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:53.960 After a while, he knows your name, you know that dude. 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.240 There there's one fish they called bones Zilla. Um, he's 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.320 been caught three or four times now. She would say, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:02.200 it's probably last thing. I think it's thirteen point seven 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.800 pounds last time I got caught. I think LG caught 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.560 him last time. But it's in the same spot. She 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.400 lives in the same spot during the same tide. You 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.840 can go there like clockwork and find that fish. Really yeah, 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.920 and it's it's unbelievable how how they pattern I mean, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:17.760 there might as well be a white tailed deer. They 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.800 do the same thing every day, you know, unless they 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.040 you don't often think of fish like that. Yeah. Hunting, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.520 especially like an open and like an ocean environment, you 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.520 don't think of a fish as being like, here's what 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.440 his deal is. Yeah, here's what he does or she Yeah, 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.600 it's it's it's funny because and you know you'll have 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.200 new fish come out of the flats and do this 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.640 and that. But I mean there's definitely a pattern, and 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.680 the older fish typically do the same thing. I mean 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.720 they have a thing they want to do, and during 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.080 the right tide and you know, the right conditions, they 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.640 do that thing. You know, repeatedly. You can see him 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.320 do that month in month out. All right, Mike, tell 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.320 us what you do you guys that you guys are like, uh, 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.240 you guys have interesting groove. Well, I've I'm retired at 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.200 this point, and I've spent my entire life trapping in 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.840 my off season of working, and the had an excavation 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.640 business for twenty five years and freed up my winter time, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.480 so my kids didn't see much of me during the summertime. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.640 You know, it was just our winter times are off, 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.640 so our winter times was trapping. What age you start trapping? 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.520 I started about twelve years old, and I think Rick 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.840 was younger than that. So, uh, do the math for 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:32.560 me real quick. And explain what what year you would 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.320 have started. I want to put a relationship to the 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:40.600 big fur boom. You just started during the during boom, yeah, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.840 eight before the before sixty eight when I probably started 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:52.920 trapping six northeastern Washington North spoken about eighty miles and uh, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.240 what like what drew you into it being a fur trapper? Well, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.680 just the outdoor experience. I guess I just love the 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.119 outdo oars and so um. My father had trapped a 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.000 little bit, but very little, and he helped me get 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.680 me around. I mean my mother also drove me from 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.879 place to place. Uh, for when I was trapping. I 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.600 remember when I was a little kid, we used to 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.679 make my mom drive around and like sit in the 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.480 car while you run down into some cattail marsh and 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.879 then drive to the next spot. You know, It's like 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.320 it's like being a soccer mob but being a muskrat. Mom, 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.800 what we make that famous? What did you like? What 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.000 did you start out for back then? Mainly beaver At 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:42.199 that time, beaver was probably the more valuable pelt. And 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.920 were you um lay out the economics of it back 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.520 then in the sixties, like was it good? It's a 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.199 whole lot better than it is now. Um, you know, 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.720 actually you could, you could make a decent UH living 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.399 during the winter months trapping. At that time. You know, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.480 the average worker, just like the saw mill workers there 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.960 were making thirty dollars a day, and so beaver was 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.679 worth an average of thirty dollars I remember, no, probably 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:14.720 about probably sixty nine somewhere in there. Um, I remember 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.320 I caught nineteen beaver on opening day, which was basically 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.480 a month's wage as of a working man. And here 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.880 I'm twelve year thirteen years old, so kid man. So 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.960 I actually when I turned sixteen, I bought a brand 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.680 new I ordered a four wheel drive pickup. Of course 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:34.960 I put my father ordered because I couldn't put it 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.800 in my name at sixteen. But um, but I had 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.760 the money that I made from trapping to buy a 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:47.360 brand new UH for four wheel drive pickup at dead age. Yeah. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.000 So in comparison, and now, I mean, you couldn't trap 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.280 enough beaver to buy a brand new Ford pickup. No, 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.400 you can't trap enough to put gas in that Ford 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.440 pick direct a bicycle. Well, the playing me and Seth 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.560 they're hatched, And well I've explained for what I was 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.520 gonna talk about. The rule. The law is gonna make 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.920 the only a law that says only me and Seth 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:19.080 can trap beavers, but they're worth a thousand dollars apiece 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:29.879 a federal law. I don't know if you're gonna get Um, 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.639 you could probably do that with sea otter. Yeah, I 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.800 think you probably could. There's a limited hall on those. 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.240 So oh yes, I want to talk about you. I 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.720 do follow that, like the sea otter stuff a little bit, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.400 quite a bit, because I want to get to that later. 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:50.040 Let me make a note of that. Um that, so 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:55.840 I know, like Native Alaskans can hunt sea otters. No 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.960 one traps sea otters, do they they hunt sea otters. 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.080 They can sell them only under the condition that they 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.640 make it into a handicraft has to be substantially altered. 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:12.000 Altered is the word. But sea otters, as they come 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.480 back so strong, some argue more than ever had ever been, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:24.240 are destroying the red urchin. They're destroying everything because it's 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.280 all tied together. And so there's a push to make 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.840 it to incentivize people to go after sea otters. There's 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.720 a push correct to reduce the restrictions so that people 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.920 could actually sell nonaltered sea otters correct, that's what the 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:44.080 statement of uh. That's his last attempt that they actually 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.520 failed at, but was to allow the natives to sell 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.840 just sea otter hides. I was attempting to try to 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.760 buy them in the round so I could personally skin 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.720 them in that too. But sea otters their value is, 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.479 you know, somewhere around with thousand dollars apiece. For me 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.520 to make product out of it, that's to make product. 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.520 But but you're not allowed. I can't, I can't physically 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.800 touch it. The rules changed. If the rules changed, and 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.480 the natives I think would harvest a lot more, but 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.000 I still don't think they would harvest enough to make 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.240 a substantial difference. You remember the carrying capacity in Southeast 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:28.000 Alaska during the UM seventy three when they did the 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.960 marine Marine Mamelak determined that twenty thousand was carrying capacity. 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.119 We currently have over fifty thou so over two times 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.840 the carrying capacity. So they've just they're basically eating themselves 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.520 out of house and home. The interesting thing is that 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:44.879 people that are trying to protect the sea otters are 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.320 actually the ones that are killing all of them, you know, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.600 as they start basically destroy the habitat to where they'll 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.359 completely die out. It's funny. This is such like a 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:59.720 recurring theme I just saw. It's such a recurring theme around. 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:03.760 This is a real rabbit hole. I want to get 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.320 back to the sixties. Put all, we're gonna put all 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:07.840 this hold, but I want to open up the rabbit 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.960 hole real quick, or like peer into the rabbit hole. 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.119 Whenever we're dealing with an imperiled species, it enters a 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.440 mind space with Americans. Okay, like wolves in the seventies. 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.919 It enters a mind space with Americans where you're like, 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:27.480 this thing is imperiled. There aren't many left. And we 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.720 get to a point where we're like, we will forever 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:34.840 envisioned it that way. You know. It's like you get 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:36.960 in your head that the rarity of something, and it 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.320 doesn't you know, we don't allow culturally, we don't have 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:44.280 the elasticity in our brains to picture that someday will 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:49.560 reverse the trend. It always feels scarce. So when we 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:51.639 were low on sea otters and we put protections in 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:54.399 place to recover sea otters, it's like sea otters entered 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:59.240 like a permanent status in our brains as being imperiled 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.080 without opening up the idea that we would someday hit recovery. 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:06.320 That's why when you hit these recovery thresholds, it's like 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:09.880 it never happened with wolves too. We hit the recovery 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:12.000 threshold with grizzy bears. In certain areas, we hit the 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:14.840 recovery thresholds, and people are like, yeah, we hit the 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.760 recovery thresholds, but screw that. We don't want anyone to 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:21.199 ever touch them ever again, because they're used to not 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:25.960 be that many. Oddly, it didn't happen with elk or 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:31.040 turkeys or deer. You know, we bought ran out of elk. 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:33.679 No one has a problem switching the mind frame. So 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.399 I guess that's an exception to my own rule. But 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:39.840 some things like sea otters, people are never going to 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:42.480 get comfortable with the fact that there's a bunch of them. Well, 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.560 the native tribes up in Alaska, we're not nomadic so 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:51.000 much so some of the mittens, the dump sites, they 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:54.879 have hundreds and hundreds of years, and my understanding is 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:57.240 that when they've digged through these mittens, that there's a 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.800 hundred years where they have clamshells and hundred years where 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:04.199 they do not have clams So meaning the natural cycle 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:08.560 to the seat. You know, like every other animal goes 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:11.520 in cycles. You know, if they're left alone, they will 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:14.360 populate up and then just eat themselves out of house 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.080 and home and then start all over again. That's what 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:20.040 we're seeing. And what we're seeing now is we've exceeded 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:23.920 the carrying capacity and they will die off and then 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:26.639 they will slowly go back the other direction. But it 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:29.880 appears to be a hundred year cycles from how big 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:32.520 is one of those things to three times the size 0:25:32.520 --> 0:25:37.840 of a river otter um sixty seventy pounds of our 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:40.879 big ones. And when the Russians used to, you know, 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:43.919 like the Russians used to come into Alaskan waters, like 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:46.320 way back in the old days, they were after sea otters, 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:49.320 buying seattters back then, like people didn't trap sea otters, 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:51.560 they always just hunted them. Correct. Well, you gotta remember 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:55.240 a sea otters born in the water and he never 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:59.920 leaves the water, and because of that, their prime year 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:03.480 real because they're in I didn't know that. Yeah, they're 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:06.000 like most fur bearers you consider only harvest in the 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:09.680 winter months. Doesn't make any difference to uh sea outter 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:13.120 because they're in the same same environments very a little 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:16.199 difference between a summer sea out and the winter uh 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:21.600 in the quality of the fur. Yeah, all right, we'll 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:22.959 get back into all that stuff. I want to get 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:26.600 back into the sixties. My understanding of like the fur boom, 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:30.679 Like I started trapping right when the fur boom ended. Okay, 0:26:30.720 --> 0:26:33.560 so we set our first muskrat traps in four It 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:36.720 was so good, but it wasn't as good. Can you 0:26:36.760 --> 0:26:39.960 explain what happened with fur prices? And maybe you probably 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:44.119 have a more detailed understanding of this. Can you explain 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:48.600 what happened to wild fur prices in this this sort 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:51.320 of like magic block And maybe my dates are wrong, 0:26:51.480 --> 0:26:56.240 but like from seventy eight to two, people were quitting 0:26:56.840 --> 0:27:00.440 factory jobs in order to trap in the long winter. 0:27:01.680 --> 0:27:03.840 I know that in the case of the coyotes, there 0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:06.720 were people that have bought airplanes in the high line 0:27:06.800 --> 0:27:09.720 up here in Montana, and they made more money during 0:27:09.760 --> 0:27:14.520 the evenings killing coyotes and they did in their job. Well, 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:17.760 Like what was happening those years? Do you understand from 0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:21.040 a market perspective, like why did wild why did like 0:27:21.200 --> 0:27:24.320 all wild fur all of a sudden gets super valuable. 0:27:24.480 --> 0:27:26.560 I don't know that all wild furre did. I don't 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:29.399 know if i'd agree with that. It's long, long haired 0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:33.960 fur became more popular, and beaver didn't greatly increase. It 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:36.880 was the long furs and seventy three four or five 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:40.399 in that area there when the coyotes really took off you, 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:42.960 And that was just a fashion trend, I think, more 0:27:42.960 --> 0:27:47.119 than anything else. But for perspective, I remember, like around 0:27:47.119 --> 0:27:50.600 the time when I became exposed to it, it was 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:55.359 very common for red fox to sell. Like in the 0:27:55.440 --> 0:27:58.800 late seventies early eighties, it was very common for red 0:27:58.840 --> 0:28:00.680 fox where I grew up to be where seventy five 0:28:01.920 --> 0:28:04.520 it was common for mink to be worth fifty bucks. 0:28:05.000 --> 0:28:08.399 Beavers you'd hear a beaver selling for an excessive a 0:28:08.480 --> 0:28:12.159 hundred dollars, muskrats selling for eight Is that not? Am 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:15.359 I remembering this wrong? I don't ever remember beaver average 0:28:15.359 --> 0:28:19.040 in a hundred. No, no, not at all. Beavers never 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:24.800 really changed a dramatic amount. It's a lot more difficult 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:28.399 process to uh tan and take care of beaver, and 0:28:28.440 --> 0:28:31.159 I think that's held the price down a lot on beaver, 0:28:31.280 --> 0:28:33.359 when a lot of the other fir's a lot easier 0:28:33.400 --> 0:28:36.160 to process, and a lot of it's just fashion trends. 0:28:36.240 --> 0:28:38.840 As I said, when I first started, beaver or thirty 0:28:38.840 --> 0:28:41.440 dollars in a coyote was six dollars. A bobcat was 0:28:41.480 --> 0:28:46.640 probably maybe twenty. Uh But it wasn't too much into 0:28:46.640 --> 0:28:49.040 the early seventies that we were looking at, you know, 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:52.560 two and three hundred dollar bobcats and you know, forty 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:55.800 or fifty dollar coyotes at that time. And then it 0:28:55.840 --> 0:28:58.360 wasn't too much later than we saw a hundred dollar coyotes. 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:01.080 You know, when you hear or the last it's not 0:29:01.160 --> 0:29:03.520 so much right now, but like even within the last 0:29:03.520 --> 0:29:06.680 few years, you'd hear rumors of people saying that they 0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:10.600 were selling a bobcat for you hear rumors that like 0:29:10.760 --> 0:29:14.600 eight hundred dollars a thousand dollars. That's still a case 0:29:14.720 --> 0:29:17.480 right now, but they they've got a lot more specific 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:20.440 with what they're looking for. But those real wide black 0:29:20.520 --> 0:29:23.680 and white bellies which they used for making vests and 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:27.800 things like that, is where those real wide black and 0:29:27.800 --> 0:29:30.000 white spot and what they're after is the spots. It's 0:29:30.040 --> 0:29:35.320 basically the only spotted fur that's available now. It's surprising 0:29:35.360 --> 0:29:38.960 me that they don't just um that they care about that. 0:29:39.200 --> 0:29:43.440 It's that there's a concern about that it's actual, because 0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:45.560 doesn't it seem like you could just like replicate it. 0:29:47.040 --> 0:29:50.520 You ever felt fake for? Yeah, it feels like fake for. 0:29:50.800 --> 0:29:55.640 Can't replicate that? Yeah, nature does it better. So on 0:29:55.760 --> 0:30:00.240 those like like who's buying, um, who's buying bob hats 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.320 right now? Like what country do they go to? Italy? 0:30:03.400 --> 0:30:07.440 I think Italy. They're they're lining in the pockets of 0:30:07.520 --> 0:30:10.880 jeans on they're putting little top ends on girls jeans 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:15.560 and lining it with bobcat fur and inside the pockets too. Yeah, 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:18.120 you'll see a little white you know, bobcat belly for 0:30:18.400 --> 0:30:19.959 just on the top of like a set of levies 0:30:20.000 --> 0:30:22.640 on the top edge of the pocket leading into it. 0:30:23.120 --> 0:30:26.040 And I know that's pretty popular right now. And again 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:30.640 it's it's Europe. It's not much in the United States. Uh, France, Italy, 0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:33.400 those are two of the bigger ones. I remember reading 0:30:33.680 --> 0:30:36.640 a thing on town of something about the sort of 0:30:36.640 --> 0:30:41.320 the weirdness and unpredictability of fur prices. This analyst was 0:30:41.360 --> 0:30:46.040 talking about at times that northern raccoons so like genelly, 0:30:46.160 --> 0:30:49.280 northern furs are heavier, like better furd, heavier leather crack 0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:53.880 Is that a fair Southern furs, a thinner lever, thinner leather, 0:30:54.160 --> 0:30:57.080 thinner fur just because of climate. One thing I'd like 0:30:57.120 --> 0:30:58.760 to bring up right now is the fact that you 0:30:58.880 --> 0:31:03.040 gotta remember whild or is just a reaction. It's basically 0:31:03.040 --> 0:31:06.520 the tail on the dog. Ranch for makes up of 0:31:06.520 --> 0:31:10.640 the fur market only five percent. It's actually wild fur. 0:31:10.840 --> 0:31:15.040 So the fur prices it only follows the ranch market. 0:31:15.480 --> 0:31:19.800 So like like right now they've got a huge surplus 0:31:19.840 --> 0:31:23.640 of ranch raised mink, which in turn drives down the 0:31:23.680 --> 0:31:28.200 price of muskrat and and wild mink. And it's just 0:31:28.920 --> 0:31:33.120 wild fur market just follows wherever the ranch market goes, 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:35.480 is where the wild firm market goes. Yeah. I read 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:38.240 a piece recently a big auction house that used to 0:31:38.320 --> 0:31:40.760 deal in wild for had just stopped wild for all 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:45.040 together and now only deals in ranch for. I don't 0:31:45.040 --> 0:31:49.960 know about that. Like some furrier North American fur No, no, no, 0:31:50.040 --> 0:31:53.200 it's like some furrier head abandon its wild fur practice 0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:58.800 because of the Because the predictability of the predictability and 0:31:58.840 --> 0:32:03.240 consistency of ranch for, it's more consistent in the quality 0:32:03.280 --> 0:32:06.680 of the fur. You know, One first is nearly exactly 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:08.840 the same as the other. So it's really a lot 0:32:08.880 --> 0:32:12.480 easier on a soelding aspect wild furst because wild for 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:18.240 varies real widely on the quality, texture and color. And 0:32:18.920 --> 0:32:21.400 got you So this thing, uh, this thing I was 0:32:21.400 --> 0:32:25.239 reading about just talking about the sort of idiosyncrasies oft 0:32:25.240 --> 0:32:28.320 the fur market. Was explaining that I guess there's been 0:32:28.360 --> 0:32:34.440 times when southern raccoons have been more valuable than northern raccoons, 0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:39.240 and it was pointing to the weight of a finished product, 0:32:40.120 --> 0:32:43.640 meaning it's very hard, and it was saying outside of Italy, 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:48.200 it's very hard to sell a fur coat that weighs 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:52.560 more than nine pounds. Generally in Asia, if you have 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:55.120 a fur coat that weighs more than seven pounds, people 0:32:55.160 --> 0:32:56.959 will think it's too heavy and won't want to buy it. 0:32:57.320 --> 0:32:59.480 But an Italian a where a heavier fur coat than 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:02.640 anybody else. And it was talking about so if you 0:33:02.720 --> 0:33:07.360 had a situation where um Italy was buying a lot 0:33:07.400 --> 0:33:12.120 of furs, that could affect fur markets because they're more 0:33:12.160 --> 0:33:16.480 tolerant of heavier, longer coats, Whereas when furs are popular 0:33:16.480 --> 0:33:19.200 in some other country, like if China is buying a 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:21.840 lot of fur um, it could tend to be that 0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:26.520 that would be maybe driving up muskrat prices more because 0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:31.480 it's a lower bottom end price to buy the thing. 0:33:32.560 --> 0:33:34.959 And it was I think that when you're looking at 0:33:35.000 --> 0:33:36.959 in the US, you're trying to understand like where fur 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:40.040 goes and what drives for prices, you tend to look 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:42.480 around you and it doesn't really make sense because you 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:47.520 just don't see the habits of what's going on in Italy, China, Russia, 0:33:47.800 --> 0:33:51.240 these other places, and all this stuff gets exported. What's 0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:54.120 what are the impacts of covid on for pretty poor 0:33:54.240 --> 0:33:57.440 right now? You know what I've done is I've started 0:33:57.480 --> 0:33:59.720 my own little fur shop and cut out about three 0:33:59.760 --> 0:34:02.000 middle men, and so I make all my own stuff 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:05.320 and sell it in my live in Wrangle, Alaska, and 0:34:05.360 --> 0:34:08.160 we have a little first store there, and so I 0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:12.840 everything I catch, I cut out the auction yard houses, 0:34:12.880 --> 0:34:16.520 I cut out the you know, shipping up. More than 0:34:16.600 --> 0:34:19.040 one time, I basically shipped my fur to the tannery 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:21.880 and it ships back. It isn't shipping to the to 0:34:22.000 --> 0:34:24.439 the auction yard and then shipping from the auction yard 0:34:24.440 --> 0:34:26.520 to the tanner and then from the tanner eat back 0:34:26.560 --> 0:34:28.759 to the furrier, and it just cuts out a whole 0:34:28.760 --> 0:34:31.520 bunch of middlemen. And and I make fur products and 0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:34.760 sell them to the tourists there. What's your shop called, 0:34:35.160 --> 0:34:38.319 It's called the Trading Post and and wrangle. We have 0:34:38.360 --> 0:34:42.040 a website to now, it's furs Alaska dot com. And 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:45.040 so being's COVID come around. We finally decided we better 0:34:45.040 --> 0:34:49.480 start selling stuff online. And so when you if you 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:52.520 if you've achieved a place or like a chief, a 0:34:52.600 --> 0:34:56.000 position where you're now able to be a fur trapper 0:34:56.000 --> 0:34:59.239 and for hunter and make a market for and sell 0:34:59.280 --> 0:35:02.239 all your own stuff off, has all this chit chat 0:35:02.280 --> 0:35:10.399 about fur price has become irrelevant to you completely? Yeah? 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:14.480 You know, I I view trapping as an excuse to 0:35:14.560 --> 0:35:16.440 run around in the woods and being in a place 0:35:16.480 --> 0:35:19.480 that I love to be. And so it really wouldn't 0:35:19.520 --> 0:35:22.160 make any difference if the prices were zero, I'd still 0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:25.440 be there. Uh. And I think I feel like I'm 0:35:25.480 --> 0:35:29.280 doing a steward of the land of maintaining the animals, 0:35:29.719 --> 0:35:31.920 you know, somewhere close to carr and capacity and a 0:35:31.920 --> 0:35:35.000 healthy population so they don't get to that point where 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:38.640 they become overpopulated and it stresses the animals, and then 0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:42.200 the diseases come in, and all animals have controlling diseases, 0:35:42.280 --> 0:35:44.879 so you know, if they're completely left alone, they will 0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:48.239 reach that point. What all species do you go after? Now? 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:53.880 I trapped basically in southeast Alaska. Probably Pine Martin is 0:35:54.120 --> 0:35:57.560 most desirable, but I trapped Pine Martin and otter wolves 0:35:57.840 --> 0:36:02.440 and wolverine beaver. Did you do any Did you do 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:05.680 muskrats anymore? There's no muskrats up there where I'm at, 0:36:05.719 --> 0:36:08.160 but you don't trap muskrats anywhere else? Uh? I have 0:36:08.360 --> 0:36:11.840 before come down uh the state of Washington and trapped 0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:14.239 some areas that I used to trap when I was younger, 0:36:14.280 --> 0:36:16.880 but I haven't price right now is about three dollars 0:36:16.880 --> 0:36:19.160 for muskrats when they're ten. I can make pretty good 0:36:19.160 --> 0:36:21.480 money at it, make a thousand dollars a day when 0:36:21.480 --> 0:36:24.440 they're ten dollars, But making three dollars a day doesn't 0:36:24.480 --> 0:36:39.480 excite me much. Explain his contraption you made, though, this 0:36:39.520 --> 0:36:42.480 is your invention? Yeah, I developed. Well. You gotta remember 0:36:42.520 --> 0:36:44.880 in the state of Washington in the year two thousand, 0:36:45.040 --> 0:36:48.840 they banned trapping as we knew it. They decided that 0:36:48.880 --> 0:36:51.440 it would be best if they didn't have any traps 0:36:51.480 --> 0:36:55.440 that were body gripping devices, so they banned all body 0:36:55.640 --> 0:37:00.680 gripping devices. They they banned the Connterby trap, which undoubted 0:37:00.680 --> 0:37:03.840 at least probably the most humane trap every every developed. 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:08.120 But in the interest of humanity, they decided to ban 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:12.080 the most humane trap made and so they said we 0:37:12.080 --> 0:37:15.960 could no longer use anybody gripping devices. So that kind 0:37:15.960 --> 0:37:19.000 of forced me into a situation where I said, well, 0:37:19.040 --> 0:37:21.479 I still want to trap, So how can I trap 0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:25.560 muskrats without gripping them in any way? So I developed 0:37:25.600 --> 0:37:29.440 a floating colony trap that the animal goes into and 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:32.520 it never grips the animal. He drives down through two 0:37:32.520 --> 0:37:37.120 opposing fingers and drowns, and then the trap resets itself 0:37:37.200 --> 0:37:40.040 when that muskrat goes in. And that was that was 0:37:40.080 --> 0:37:43.560 more palatable to the voters of Washington. Yeah, you know, 0:37:43.640 --> 0:37:47.960 it was more palatable to do that. So so it 0:37:48.080 --> 0:37:51.520 forced me into a situation where instead of averaging sixty 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:55.680 muskrats a day, I have now averaged twenty muskrats a day. 0:37:55.760 --> 0:38:00.239 Uh in the same amount. Oh yeah, what I'm looking at, say, 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:03.880 it's kind of hard to explain. Man's what like twenty 0:38:04.000 --> 0:38:07.160 they're twenty four inches long, and then they'd be six 0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:11.200 twelve twelve inches wide. It looks like a small cage, 0:38:12.280 --> 0:38:14.799 a small cage with one inch or three quarter inch 0:38:14.880 --> 0:38:21.040 square wire twenty four inches long, uh maybe twelve inches deep, 0:38:21.320 --> 0:38:25.160 six inches of brass six inches across, with floats up 0:38:25.160 --> 0:38:28.560 towards the top, so that cage sits underwater and it floats. 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:30.239 And there's a little trap door like kind of like 0:38:30.280 --> 0:38:34.839 a door reminiscent of like I have a heart trap 0:38:34.920 --> 0:38:36.799 door that's just not a swing, so you can just 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:39.000 push your way in there and crawl your way in there, 0:38:39.320 --> 0:38:42.120 right And when they go in, what happens is is 0:38:42.480 --> 0:38:45.879 they bump this bump bar. The door lays down these 0:38:46.840 --> 0:38:49.120 right here adjustable so you can get it to where 0:38:49.160 --> 0:38:52.359 it's almost balanced. But once the mushgrat goes in, as 0:38:52.400 --> 0:38:55.200 you see, he canal can't get out. And this is 0:38:55.239 --> 0:38:58.279 the invert verded door model, which allows the smallest and 0:38:58.320 --> 0:39:02.200 the kits to escape, which is something trappers have never 0:39:02.280 --> 0:39:06.160 had before. So if you can imagine, now we leave 0:39:06.200 --> 0:39:10.080 all the smalls and kits which are not very valuable 0:39:10.360 --> 0:39:13.600 in relation to the adults. This one only catches adult 0:39:13.680 --> 0:39:19.040 sized muskrats. All the others escaped unharmed, and by spring 0:39:19.040 --> 0:39:21.319 the next year then they're mature rats and then you 0:39:21.360 --> 0:39:23.920 can catch them when they're worth two or three times 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:26.839 more than what that kit was. But that's not that's 0:39:26.880 --> 0:39:29.319 for fur trappers. That's not like a guy that wants 0:39:29.320 --> 0:39:32.200 all the muskrats dad because they're destroying his landscaping. Okay, 0:39:32.239 --> 0:39:36.399 that's this one down here. This has got Basically, it's 0:39:36.400 --> 0:39:40.440 a treadle. It's a teeter totter. Uh As the muskrat 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:43.200 goes in, the teeter totter closes the door behind it, 0:39:43.880 --> 0:39:47.120 and once the muskrats in there, he can't physically get out. 0:39:47.400 --> 0:39:51.120 It's uh just one direction in and eventually he decides 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:52.719 he can't get out the way he came in, so 0:39:52.760 --> 0:39:57.200 then he dives down. The bottom compartment holds about eight muskrats. 0:39:57.239 --> 0:39:59.200 Although I've had a lot of customers, I sell them 0:39:59.200 --> 0:40:02.000 all over the United States, mostly to the animal damage 0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:05.279 control people. What do you call this thing? It's a 0:40:05.360 --> 0:40:08.680 voting colony trap. You have, you don't have a fancier name. 0:40:08.680 --> 0:40:12.879 And that the Lisa Watney two thousand. Lisa Wattney got 0:40:12.880 --> 0:40:16.560 to explain that Lisa Watney was the person that drove 0:40:16.680 --> 0:40:20.359 the ban on trapping in the state of Washington. So 0:40:20.400 --> 0:40:23.480 I name one time, I called it the Lisa Watney 0:40:23.520 --> 0:40:28.160 two thousand because she all she, in her attempts to 0:40:28.200 --> 0:40:31.480 make make us not catch the animals, we doubled our 0:40:31.719 --> 0:40:34.560 production and trapping the animals. What do you sell one 0:40:34.600 --> 0:40:36.480 of those things for? Do you still make? Yeah? I 0:40:36.480 --> 0:40:38.480 still make them, just hand make them all. Yeah, and 0:40:38.600 --> 0:40:41.040 make them all. I come down about two weeks every 0:40:41.080 --> 0:40:42.680 year and make a couple of hundred of them. And 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:45.959 then yeah, so it takes me a couple of weeks 0:40:45.960 --> 0:40:48.680 to make a couple of hundred of them, and and uh. 0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:51.640 Then so in your year when I saw about you've 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:56.080 always had an interesting lifestyle. Within your year, you account 0:40:56.160 --> 0:41:00.680 for spending a couple of weeks making muskrat colony traps 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:05.040 and you'll sell all those throughout the year. That pretty 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:11.239 much from one five dollars plus shipping. Wow, But you know, 0:41:11.320 --> 0:41:14.719 how how do you bait it? Okay, if you paid 0:41:14.800 --> 0:41:17.319 the back part with carrots and I usually put a 0:41:17.320 --> 0:41:20.719 couple of appetizers up here in front, they muskrat will 0:41:20.760 --> 0:41:22.839 come by and grab the carrot and you'll take it off, 0:41:22.880 --> 0:41:25.600 and he really likes carrots. It's like candy to a muskrat, 0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:28.120 and so he comes back and looks for more. But 0:41:28.440 --> 0:41:31.399 there seems to be some. I don't know whether they're 0:41:31.400 --> 0:41:34.240 bringing other muskrats back with them, because once they start 0:41:34.320 --> 0:41:38.279 hitting it, you'll just fill it up with muskrats. What's 0:41:38.320 --> 0:41:41.160 the most you've ever caught one? I've only caught eight 0:41:41.400 --> 0:41:43.480 is the most. I've got several times. But I have 0:41:43.560 --> 0:41:45.719 a lot of customers that lay claimed to ten. I 0:41:45.760 --> 0:41:48.160 had one guy that he uh was kind of funny. 0:41:48.200 --> 0:41:50.799 He had he had ordered a couple of traps from me. 0:41:50.840 --> 0:41:54.759 He's an animal damage control guy and he had a 0:41:54.840 --> 0:41:57.560 golf course pawd. He said that he called up and said, 0:41:57.560 --> 0:42:00.640 I'm not catching anything in my traps, and I said, okay, well, 0:42:01.080 --> 0:42:04.000 trice uh seed in the bank with uh. You know. 0:42:04.000 --> 0:42:06.719 I had him describe it to introduce them to carroty. Yeah, 0:42:06.719 --> 0:42:09.400 to introduce him to seed the banks with carrots and 0:42:09.400 --> 0:42:11.759 see what happens. They called me back about three days 0:42:11.840 --> 0:42:13.560 later and he said, yeah, he couldn't have got another 0:42:13.600 --> 0:42:16.400 one in it without vasiline. He had ten of a 0:42:16.440 --> 0:42:19.520 minute he had to educate the muskrats on carrot. Yeah, 0:42:19.560 --> 0:42:21.719 they just didn't even they were. He said that that 0:42:21.800 --> 0:42:24.440 particular pond was grass all the way down to it, 0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:26.440 and the muskrats were just eating grass is all they 0:42:26.440 --> 0:42:29.759 were eating. And so they had no idea what a 0:42:29.840 --> 0:42:32.440 carrot was. But once they figured it out, it was 0:42:32.560 --> 0:42:37.000 phenomenal for him. Do you use any commercial lure? I yeah, 0:42:37.040 --> 0:42:41.040 I'd use uh just a cherry oil and and uh, 0:42:41.080 --> 0:42:43.839 petroleum jelly is what I use in it. You can 0:42:43.960 --> 0:42:46.680 use fancy lures and that wouldn't make any difference. When 0:42:46.719 --> 0:42:49.480 I was a kid, we used to use mint toothpaste. 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:53.360 So homet what's your what's your mix? Just petroleum jelly 0:42:53.400 --> 0:43:00.640 and uh, cherry oil, vasoline and cheerio cheerio like an extract. Extra. 0:43:01.400 --> 0:43:03.960 When a person gets the trap, they get a DVD 0:43:04.200 --> 0:43:06.520 with it and a little bottle of jewry all, which 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:10.759 it's just not a name to it's just an instructional 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:13.359 video for it that that comes with it, so they 0:43:13.360 --> 0:43:15.880 can because most you know, this is entirely different than 0:43:15.920 --> 0:43:18.359 any trap that you ever see. But do you anchor it? 0:43:18.719 --> 0:43:21.080 You just tie it off to where it doesn't float away? 0:43:21.280 --> 0:43:24.640 You know? Can I borrow that thing? Yeah, we have 0:43:24.760 --> 0:43:27.760 lots of them. So but I don't know, man, because 0:43:27.760 --> 0:43:30.560 it's like takes all the romance out of muskrat trapping. Well, 0:43:30.719 --> 0:43:33.239 you know the neat thing about they don't you don't know. 0:43:33.360 --> 0:43:36.640 You don't need to know how to read sign no correct. Yeah, 0:43:36.800 --> 0:43:40.799 that's what you don't have to because that's in a 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:43.000 pond and walk away. Yeah. But when I take my kids, 0:43:43.080 --> 0:43:46.120 we set muskrat traps last night. It was opening day yesterday. 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:48.520 When I take my kids out set muskrat traps, you're 0:43:48.520 --> 0:43:52.400 looking for the runs or about this. This is a 0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:55.359 push up a large bank den. Here's where they've been 0:43:55.360 --> 0:43:57.399 doing this. This. Just go throw that something biting off 0:43:57.400 --> 0:43:59.319 the edge of the pond and start stacking them up. 0:44:00.080 --> 0:44:05.719 But I bet the manager of that property would be 0:44:05.840 --> 0:44:08.520 very happy if we use that. I don't want him 0:44:08.520 --> 0:44:11.360 to even know. I hope he doesn't listen to I 0:44:11.400 --> 0:44:12.759 don't know if he listens to this show or not, 0:44:12.920 --> 0:44:14.880 but it's gonna change his whole life. He thinks I 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:17.480 have some kind of magic. He thinks I got some 0:44:17.560 --> 0:44:21.920 kind of magic capabilities. Maybe I don't know. If I 0:44:21.960 --> 0:44:26.680 said I am going I went to tuck it into 0:44:26.680 --> 0:44:29.160 the cattail. So he doesn't know about it. I went 0:44:29.160 --> 0:44:31.120 into a pond here that a guy had had a 0:44:31.120 --> 0:44:33.600 trapper pay to come in and kill muskrats, and he 0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:38.800 killed seven muskrats, and the landowner was still seeing muskrats everywhere, 0:44:38.800 --> 0:44:40.359 and so he got ahold of me and said, well, 0:44:40.400 --> 0:44:42.319 the trapper before he got seven, do you think you 0:44:42.320 --> 0:44:45.360 can beat that? And I threw my six colony traps 0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:47.480 out and I had fifty three muskrats the next the 0:44:47.520 --> 0:44:52.000 next day. Seriously, yeah, So I came back, I said 0:44:52.040 --> 0:44:53.520 him that night. I came back the next day and 0:44:53.560 --> 0:44:56.439 I had between alright, it had it was two checks 0:44:56.440 --> 0:44:57.960 that I had fifty three, but I ended up getting 0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:00.800 fifty three and two checks. Um would just six traps 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:03.320 and everyone of them was just completely loaded. And then 0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:05.959 I literally couldn't catch another muskrat out of that pond. 0:45:06.080 --> 0:45:08.359 It's just all of a sudden, there's no muskrats in them. 0:45:08.480 --> 0:45:10.279 Let me tell you where it is left. Let me 0:45:10.280 --> 0:45:12.960 tell you this thing's vulnerability. And you probably realized this 0:45:14.360 --> 0:45:16.799 in Michigan. We used you know, I didn't travel out, 0:45:16.840 --> 0:45:18.480 but like I think, like a good year when I 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:21.920 was like probably the most I ever caught muskrats. One 0:45:22.000 --> 0:45:24.719 year when I was not a kid, but like community 0:45:24.719 --> 0:45:29.000 college age um, and you could trap for weeks before 0:45:29.080 --> 0:45:36.920 freeze up. But hereabouts, like in the Northern Rockies, higher elevation, 0:45:37.000 --> 0:45:39.160 by the time the season opens, you're in freeze up. 0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:42.440 So have you made us? Have you made an under ice? 0:45:43.160 --> 0:45:46.919 You know this this is strictly for open water. Why 0:45:46.920 --> 0:45:49.200 have you not done any invented for an under a 0:45:49.360 --> 0:45:52.000 thing that you chop a hole? Because then that son 0:45:52.040 --> 0:45:53.680 of a bit down and they find it when they're 0:45:53.719 --> 0:45:57.400 cruising around under the ice because it's Martin trapping season. 0:45:59.520 --> 0:46:02.840 The next This hasn't This hasn't bothered you know that's 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:06.400 inventored me a bit. You know. I I'm liking to 0:46:06.400 --> 0:46:09.240 do all kinds of things, and muskrat season is muskrat 0:46:09.280 --> 0:46:12.680 Season's time to go and tell might appreciate an under 0:46:12.719 --> 0:46:14.840 ice solution. If I say you ought right now to 0:46:14.880 --> 0:46:16.680 trap a muskrat through the ice, what would be your 0:46:18.080 --> 0:46:19.600 what's your go to? You set? You just look for 0:46:19.640 --> 0:46:22.400 the runs. One tan Connabar in the run, you just 0:46:22.480 --> 0:46:25.799 look for the runs the bubbles probably, but his clientele 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:29.560 mostly is nuisance trappers right there trying to they can trap. 0:46:30.080 --> 0:46:34.600 They're trapping your runevera up and yeah, they're not gonna 0:46:34.600 --> 0:46:36.920 be trapping during the ice up. I don't want to 0:46:36.960 --> 0:46:42.239 infringe on your business. But here's the thing, uh Me 0:46:42.320 --> 0:46:44.719 and Seth here you might not have heard of us, 0:46:44.880 --> 0:46:54.200 but we're small scale free nuisance trappers meaning volunteer. We're volunteering, 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:59.560 but we're volunteer newsance travers. But you gotta our customers 0:46:59.600 --> 0:47:03.279 all work on our schedule. Like I'll have you know, 0:47:03.440 --> 0:47:06.279 people who within a couple of hours driving here, if 0:47:06.280 --> 0:47:11.160 they have beaver problems or muskrat problems, Um, I'll be 0:47:11.320 --> 0:47:13.360 you know, they'll say like, oh my god, we gotta 0:47:13.400 --> 0:47:17.680 blank beaver problem, you know, And I'll say, well, we'll 0:47:17.719 --> 0:47:19.680 come out in the middle of the winter when it 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:24.240 suits our likings. So not doing any kind of damage stuff. 0:47:24.560 --> 0:47:27.640 But it's a free service. But it's hard to really 0:47:27.800 --> 0:47:30.160 um and those at that time of year, it's hard 0:47:30.200 --> 0:47:34.719 to give them what they're after, which is eradication. M hm. 0:47:35.239 --> 0:47:36.960 You know, like I don't know, like through the ice 0:47:37.000 --> 0:47:41.399 I don't know that you can really totally clean them out. 0:47:42.480 --> 0:47:45.319 Probably not unless you just keep going and going and 0:47:45.360 --> 0:47:48.520 going and going and going. You know, the people that 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:51.520 are doing the animal damage control or charging fifty bucks 0:47:51.520 --> 0:47:54.160 of muskrat or you know, a hundred and fifty dollars 0:47:54.160 --> 0:47:56.560 of beaver to remove it, or you know, whatever their 0:47:56.600 --> 0:47:59.360 prices getting that amount of money. You know, it depends 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:05.000 on where what I know, volunteers, we need to make 0:48:05.000 --> 0:48:08.640 a website. You know, these guys are making a living 0:48:08.680 --> 0:48:10.600 doing it. You're not going to make a living trap 0:48:10.640 --> 0:48:14.760 and beaver for their fur. What a website be called 0:48:15.920 --> 0:48:20.440 free nuisance trapping? I don't know. I'd have to think 0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:23.959 about it work on that. I feel like a lot 0:48:24.440 --> 0:48:28.719 of or a fair amount of our audience as hunters 0:48:29.239 --> 0:48:34.160 may also have qualms about trapping. You find that to 0:48:34.239 --> 0:48:38.520 be the case. Yeah, right, So I'm just kind of 0:48:38.520 --> 0:48:42.480 curious to hear from everyone, not like it's necessary to 0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:46.080 make an indefensive but to just kind of go into 0:48:46.120 --> 0:48:50.439 a little bit of you're kind of thinking your thought 0:48:50.520 --> 0:48:54.359 process about it, you know, and why hunters would think 0:48:54.440 --> 0:48:58.440 that trapping is is different. I'll go first, Yeah, are 0:48:58.480 --> 0:49:01.000 you asking me? Yeah, I'm asking all of you. I 0:49:01.000 --> 0:49:05.600 could ask this question fair bit. And uh, I think 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:12.239 that as a harvester of of anything, um like, it 0:49:12.280 --> 0:49:15.560 does a matter if you fish or hunter trap, you 0:49:15.600 --> 0:49:20.400 are beholden to a regulatory structure. Okay, there are rules 0:49:20.440 --> 0:49:25.280 that there are rules of engagement UM, and the rules 0:49:25.280 --> 0:49:27.240 that you live by when you're hunting fish and trap 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:33.719 are generally meant to ensure that they're generally meant to 0:49:33.920 --> 0:49:38.760 limit efficacy UM, so that people don't have the tools 0:49:38.760 --> 0:49:42.879 at their disposal to like annihilate species, so that they're 0:49:42.880 --> 0:49:48.640 meant to make it UM that the means of harvest 0:49:49.360 --> 0:49:52.920 aren't so effective that everybody is putting themselves out of business. 0:49:54.800 --> 0:50:02.920 They also are very informed by historical use and common practice. 0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:08.239 Meaning if we devise some new thing and we realized 0:50:08.280 --> 0:50:12.120 that all of our fishing harvest goals could be met 0:50:12.200 --> 0:50:19.240 with these very precise specific poisons, say, regulators or people 0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:24.319 that set wildlife laws wouldn't necessarily just jump to that 0:50:24.760 --> 0:50:27.640 because that's not a historic use. It's not a common 0:50:27.719 --> 0:50:30.640 use pattern to use poisons. So you kind of prefer 0:50:30.760 --> 0:50:34.600 ways things have always been done in terms of like 0:50:34.640 --> 0:50:40.120 cultural longevity and how we go about our practices UM. 0:50:40.280 --> 0:50:43.719 Due to the regulatory thing, and because beavers have commercial value, say, 0:50:43.840 --> 0:50:49.520 or fur bears have commercial value, oftentimes fur bears are 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:57.840 the only allowable harvest is by trapping. Take Michigan, for instance, 0:50:57.840 --> 0:51:01.760 where I grew up, you could not The only legal 0:51:01.800 --> 0:51:09.560 method of take for muskrat, mink, beaver, otter, the only 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:14.040 legal method of take was by licensed for harvesters using 0:51:14.080 --> 0:51:19.040 trapping technology at a time, and it still will come back. 0:51:19.080 --> 0:51:21.400 It just ebbs and flows. Those things are of commercial 0:51:21.520 --> 0:51:25.120 value and support a commercial industry, and it was protecting 0:51:25.160 --> 0:51:30.239 those fur bears from want and slaughtered by people with 0:51:30.280 --> 0:51:33.560 firearms year round. So they said, like, these things have value, 0:51:33.640 --> 0:51:36.080 We're going to protect the people that participate in this 0:51:36.520 --> 0:51:39.720 protected industry and make it that they are fur bears 0:51:39.719 --> 0:51:45.360 are meant for fur harvesters. Point being is you're operating 0:51:45.480 --> 0:51:54.440 usually within an pre existing regulatory structure. So with beavers, 0:51:54.560 --> 0:52:00.080 for instance here, um, you can't hunt them, right, you 0:52:00.120 --> 0:52:04.040 trapped them. If you think it's okay to use a 0:52:04.080 --> 0:52:09.600 renewable resource beavers as a renewable resource, and you accept 0:52:09.640 --> 0:52:15.200 that people who are in agriculture, irrigation, um, people who 0:52:15.280 --> 0:52:20.720 are trying to protect timber, trying to check landscaping, fruit trees, 0:52:21.080 --> 0:52:25.680 streamside vegetation, aspen groves, what have you, that these people 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:27.799 at times have a legitimate reason to want to get 0:52:27.880 --> 0:52:32.000 rid of some beavers. That's how it's done. So you're 0:52:32.000 --> 0:52:33.759 not making a decision like do I want to hunt 0:52:33.760 --> 0:52:36.680 beavers or trap beavers? It's that's how beavers are caught, 0:52:36.880 --> 0:52:41.440 is through trapping. So I don't view it as it 0:52:41.480 --> 0:52:43.360 would be. I don't. I wouldn't get into a situation 0:52:43.400 --> 0:52:46.120 where I'm like, because I can't shoot it with my gun, 0:52:47.800 --> 0:52:51.680 therefore I think that they should not be harvested. Do 0:52:51.719 --> 0:52:54.400 you feel like that's the argument you get or or 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:59.600 there's a there's some kind of conceptual traps are me 0:52:59.719 --> 0:53:02.960 but and stuff, so okay running an arrow through it? 0:53:05.200 --> 0:53:06.920 And then you get into this weird, weird ship with 0:53:06.960 --> 0:53:11.640 people who think that like, hunting with a bow is 0:53:11.719 --> 0:53:19.040 more ethical than hunting with a rifle. It might be like, 0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:23.239 it's harder. It's definitely harder to be consistent with the 0:53:23.239 --> 0:53:26.520 bow takes a greater skill set. But for the animal, 0:53:29.520 --> 0:53:32.280 you think you're doing the animal of favor by killing 0:53:32.280 --> 0:53:35.040 it one way and not another, Like I don't you either. 0:53:35.080 --> 0:53:37.680 Are you either at a position where you think that 0:53:37.680 --> 0:53:43.680 that it's that we have it's okay to harvest renewable 0:53:43.719 --> 0:53:49.440 resources or not right? That's probably if you get to 0:53:49.440 --> 0:53:52.440 where it's not okay, cool, it's not, but if it is, 0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:59.320 then that's how we do it. It's the most effective, 0:53:59.320 --> 0:54:01.560 most humane way to get it done, and historically that's 0:54:01.560 --> 0:54:04.880 how people going about it. So I just don't like, 0:54:06.120 --> 0:54:08.000 you know, every time I have a converse, like, I 0:54:08.040 --> 0:54:10.680 don't feel like I need to predicate every conversation about 0:54:10.680 --> 0:54:14.520 harvesting beavers or muskrats or whatever with a big thing 0:54:14.600 --> 0:54:16.879 explaining why I think it's okay. The same way every 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:19.320 time you go through the drive through and order chicken nuggets? 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:22.040 Is there someone waiting there to like question your ethics? 0:54:23.120 --> 0:54:25.480 Why do trappers have to face it all the time? 0:54:27.080 --> 0:54:30.520 You know why? Like I'm not, I'm not like why 0:54:30.880 --> 0:54:32.960 why does it do you have to justify it every 0:54:33.000 --> 0:54:35.759 time you turn around? But people that eat chicken never 0:54:35.840 --> 0:54:39.080 have to. So for our listeners, I think we are 0:54:39.800 --> 0:54:42.560 we take out this bit of the podcast and play 0:54:42.560 --> 0:54:45.640 it on repeat, so Steve never has to be again. 0:54:45.960 --> 0:54:48.200 You know what I'm saying. I want to make a 0:54:48.239 --> 0:54:51.640 sign of McDonald's and protest chicken nuggets. Yeah, it's like, well, 0:54:51.680 --> 0:54:53.880 how do you like, how do you feel about how 0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:55.920 they kill those chickens? You know what? The answer you 0:54:55.960 --> 0:54:58.520 to get I have, dude, I have no idea how 0:54:58.560 --> 0:55:03.040 they kill those chickens. Yeah, nor do they care. I 0:55:03.160 --> 0:55:05.520 one time did some work at a place called it 0:55:05.640 --> 0:55:10.920 was called um it was like Bill Mar, but not 0:55:10.960 --> 0:55:13.760 like Bill Mar, but like Bill like a turkey processing plant. 0:55:14.000 --> 0:55:16.680 Turkeys would show up weird. They're working on some equipment. 0:55:19.000 --> 0:55:23.080 They'd bring in all these turkeys in trucks. Okay, the 0:55:23.080 --> 0:55:25.080 turkeys are on these little boxes in the truck. So 0:55:25.160 --> 0:55:27.279 they were raised somewhere. I mean, if you've ever gone 0:55:27.239 --> 0:55:28.919 And I'm not even hacking on him, I'm just saying 0:55:28.960 --> 0:55:31.920 that's how it goes. Like they're raising these like warehouses, 0:55:32.719 --> 0:55:36.640 thousands of turkeys packed into a warehouse. Then they pull 0:55:36.719 --> 0:55:38.800 up a truck and you take all the turkeys and 0:55:38.800 --> 0:55:40.560 load them into a little box on the truck and 0:55:40.640 --> 0:55:45.480 drive that down the highway. Uh. I'm not a turkey. 0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:49.719 But being loaded down after spending my life in a warehouse, 0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:52.320 never seeing the sun, to be loaded down a semi 0:55:52.480 --> 0:55:54.880 in a little box and hauled down an interstate system 0:55:54.920 --> 0:55:56.839 for X number of hours, I don't know what that 0:55:56.880 --> 0:56:01.120 experience is like. And then it gets to the parking 0:56:01.160 --> 0:56:04.239 lot and it waits there in the parking lot, and 0:56:04.280 --> 0:56:08.239 eventually it's that truck's turn, and they go and pull 0:56:08.280 --> 0:56:12.080 it in, and a guy grabs the turkey out and 0:56:12.160 --> 0:56:15.480 hooks its feet into a little hook and suspends it 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:20.680 upside down, and then it goes down the conveyor and 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:25.439 its head gets dragged across an electrified plate, which gives 0:56:25.440 --> 0:56:27.640 it a good zap, and then it gets caught in 0:56:27.640 --> 0:56:30.360 this little v thing and it passes through that and 0:56:30.400 --> 0:56:35.960 a little spinning blade cuts his throat. But trapping, that's 0:56:36.000 --> 0:56:40.520 mean as ship. It's like, I just you know what 0:56:40.560 --> 0:56:46.080 I'm saying, like why is it turkeys? Folks? But like you, 0:56:46.239 --> 0:56:48.360 you find a muskrat den instead of body grip and 0:56:48.400 --> 0:56:52.000 trapping there the musgrat goes into then body grit trap 0:56:52.040 --> 0:56:54.480 grips around the back of the neck or over the lungs. 0:56:54.560 --> 0:57:01.480 He's underwater, can't move, he's dead and seconds and that 0:57:01.680 --> 0:57:05.719 is so upsetting. I'd like to address that because I 0:57:05.719 --> 0:57:09.359 have my little Okay, I have this little first shop here, 0:57:09.400 --> 0:57:11.160 and I get a lot of people coming into the shop, 0:57:11.239 --> 0:57:13.040 you know, and a lot of them are posed to 0:57:13.200 --> 0:57:15.120 trapping in that, you know, and you ask talk to 0:57:15.160 --> 0:57:16.720 him a little bit, and you know, you know, what 0:57:16.760 --> 0:57:19.040 do you dislike about you? I don't they can consider 0:57:19.080 --> 0:57:21.480 it inhumane, And I said, well, you know, we probably 0:57:21.520 --> 0:57:23.880 got some things we could agree on here. You know, 0:57:23.960 --> 0:57:27.160 we can probably all agree that all animals, wild animals 0:57:27.200 --> 0:57:30.240 die and you know, you usually get an agreement out 0:57:30.240 --> 0:57:33.320 of that. And so you know, next question is, well 0:57:33.360 --> 0:57:37.120 do you agree that you know, out of all wild animals, 0:57:38.440 --> 0:57:41.120 almost none of them die of old age, and they 0:57:41.280 --> 0:57:43.320 sometimes you'll get some squawk of that. So you pull 0:57:43.360 --> 0:57:48.400 out your smartphone, you google what percentage of wild animals 0:57:48.480 --> 0:57:51.920 die of old age? And most all researches none or 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:56.000 a non negligible amount. Okay, so you know we're talking 0:57:56.040 --> 0:57:59.920 about the human and treatment of an animal and trapping 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:03.520 is in humane. Well, now we've decided that the animal 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:06.960 basically has four ways that that animal can die. He 0:58:07.000 --> 0:58:10.040 can die from a conno bear that relatively kills him instantly. 0:58:10.600 --> 0:58:13.880 He can die of starvation, he can die of a disease, 0:58:14.120 --> 0:58:17.240 or he can die from consumed by another predator. Out 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:20.440 of those four deaths, which one do you consider the 0:58:20.480 --> 0:58:24.600 most humane? And when in fact, trapping is the most 0:58:24.720 --> 0:58:28.240 humane death that that animal could possibly receive. You know, 0:58:28.280 --> 0:58:30.440 if you think of it in human terms, would you 0:58:30.560 --> 0:58:34.760 rather be hit by a train traveling sixty mile or 0:58:35.360 --> 0:58:39.080 die of a disease over three weeks or a month period, 0:58:39.480 --> 0:58:44.280 or die from being consumed by a bear, or die 0:58:44.400 --> 0:58:49.640 from um starving to death or starve to death or 0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:53.480 starving to death. So of the four possibilities that that 0:58:53.600 --> 0:58:56.840 animal is going to die, the actual most humane death 0:58:57.320 --> 0:59:00.320 is being trapped. We had a wolf freeze to dry 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:02.280 one time. We asked her what kills wolves and she 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:10.000 said wolves, Yeah, smart all the study subjects. And the 0:59:10.080 --> 0:59:13.320 other thing is is, you know most people can they 0:59:13.360 --> 0:59:16.080 figure trappers are out there to catch everything they can, 0:59:16.560 --> 0:59:19.840 and when in fact that's the direct opposite. The trapper 0:59:19.920 --> 0:59:23.920 wants to be able to maintain a healthy population, to 0:59:24.000 --> 0:59:26.360 be able to go out next year. What would be 0:59:26.400 --> 0:59:31.400 the benefit of a for example, a cattle farmer that 0:59:31.480 --> 0:59:34.880 has a pasture that supports a hundred cattle, You know 0:59:35.000 --> 0:59:37.480 he's gonna want a hundred cattle out there producing for 0:59:37.560 --> 0:59:41.360 him so he can harvest the surplus every year. So 0:59:41.520 --> 0:59:43.520 the trappers are no different. We want to go out 0:59:43.560 --> 0:59:45.760 next year, we want to trap as many as we can. 0:59:46.120 --> 0:59:49.640 We want a healthy population. As stewarts of the land. 0:59:50.160 --> 0:59:53.760 We want to maintain that healthy animal. So you know, 0:59:53.800 --> 0:59:55.720 in the case where the people that don't want any 0:59:56.040 --> 0:59:59.600 any animals killed, the animals make natural cycles where they'll 0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:02.760 popular laid up over years, disease out, and they just 1:00:02.800 --> 1:00:05.840 go from peak and crash, peak and crash. As stewards 1:00:05.880 --> 1:00:08.560 of the land. As a trapper, I'm able to maintain 1:00:08.680 --> 1:00:12.960 healthy populations right straight through. Any time you have, for example, 1:00:13.040 --> 1:00:16.960 kyotes getting overpopulated and getting manes or distemper, then you 1:00:17.000 --> 1:00:20.560 have the potential of that spreading into the dogs of 1:00:20.600 --> 1:00:26.840 the pomesticated canine populations, yeah, getting into the the population 1:00:26.920 --> 1:00:30.440 of of domestic animals, where if you maintain a healthy 1:00:30.480 --> 1:00:33.960 population of the kyo, you don't have that problem. I've 1:00:34.000 --> 1:00:41.840 found that people are comfortable with the cycles um like 1:00:41.880 --> 1:00:44.680 it doesn't upset them because people have this idea that like, oh, 1:00:44.680 --> 1:00:48.200 that's natural. So like wolves getting killed by wolves, They're like, oh, yeah, 1:00:48.240 --> 1:00:52.320 that's fine, that's natural. UM disease is fine, that's natural. 1:00:52.920 --> 1:00:58.920 I think a lot of the discord and um acrimony 1:00:59.200 --> 1:01:05.000 the trapping rings about is because people this is a phenomenon. 1:01:05.040 --> 1:01:09.280 I guess at the last two hundred years, people have 1:01:09.360 --> 1:01:13.880 gotten to the point where, um, nothing we do that 1:01:14.560 --> 1:01:17.160 they like us. They like our species to sit entirely 1:01:17.200 --> 1:01:20.840 outside of nature. Are you being a steward of the 1:01:20.920 --> 1:01:24.600 land by doing that? Well, no, but it's comfortable for 1:01:24.640 --> 1:01:30.320 people to imagine that we're we're tainted. Um, we do 1:01:30.400 --> 1:01:32.560 all the things we do, but we're tainted, and like 1:01:32.640 --> 1:01:35.560 any role we play in nature is very upsetting to them, 1:01:35.600 --> 1:01:40.520 Like they want everyone to live divorced from nature, so 1:01:40.600 --> 1:01:43.480 that all the ways the muskrat dies, all the uses 1:01:43.480 --> 1:01:46.440 of the muskrat goes toward to feed things, Like the 1:01:46.480 --> 1:01:49.680 minute it enters into the human sphere, something's wrong, something 1:01:49.840 --> 1:01:53.000 is something has occurred that was bad. You know that, 1:01:53.200 --> 1:01:55.560 like of all the predation that drives things that a 1:01:55.640 --> 1:01:59.640 human predator would get, it feels like naughty to them. Um, 1:01:59.720 --> 1:02:01.600 I think that's kind of hang up. It's hard to address. 1:02:01.800 --> 1:02:05.240 That's really interesting. It's like, I guess we're not animals. 1:02:05.440 --> 1:02:10.120 I guess we're not part of the uh natural world. 1:02:10.400 --> 1:02:13.120 You know, we've brought technology to the place where it 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:15.120 is so we can just be like robots that sit 1:02:15.160 --> 1:02:18.120 in the sidelines, and like we live in apartment buildings, 1:02:18.160 --> 1:02:20.840 we don't live in the woods. I guess so. Yeah. People, 1:02:20.920 --> 1:02:23.160 a lot of people I think regard themselves as kind 1:02:23.160 --> 1:02:27.560 of ikey. They think they're like ikey and evil in 1:02:27.600 --> 1:02:30.479 that context. But I don't, like, I don't feel that way, 1:02:30.520 --> 1:02:34.800 Like I don't like to be an agent out in nature. Um, 1:02:34.880 --> 1:02:37.720 like a person who does things and consumes things and 1:02:37.760 --> 1:02:42.360 supports things and and you know, uh, you know, a 1:02:42.400 --> 1:02:45.840 well intentioned predator like that doesn't make me feel nasty 1:02:46.440 --> 1:02:51.320 and icky. It's interesting, but it's a sentiment that people have. 1:02:53.240 --> 1:02:58.080 My wife had struggles with trapping. What's her She struggles 1:02:58.080 --> 1:03:02.160 with electric reels because because you know what it is 1:03:02.280 --> 1:03:06.040 when I inquire about it, because you're not there. Oh, 1:03:06.120 --> 1:03:08.840 I see, so you're not bearing witness to it. It's 1:03:08.880 --> 1:03:14.360 like a mechanical you're not. Actually, it's not active. It's 1:03:14.360 --> 1:03:18.440 because you set it. You set a trap and you 1:03:18.480 --> 1:03:23.439 don't need to be there. And electric reels because your 1:03:23.480 --> 1:03:28.160 hand doesn't need to like going circles. So she feels 1:03:28.200 --> 1:03:32.440 like it's most of the most of the time, the 1:03:32.480 --> 1:03:36.920 definition of trapping is hunting with mechanical devices. Most places, 1:03:37.000 --> 1:03:40.240 most states. I think that's how they define trapping, is 1:03:41.000 --> 1:03:45.720 hunting with mechanical devices. Maybe that's upsetting to people. But 1:03:45.880 --> 1:03:50.600 what's a firearm mechanical device? Is that far more sophisticated. 1:03:50.680 --> 1:03:52.640 That's why hunting and trapping a lot of times follow 1:03:52.680 --> 1:03:56.760 the same regulatory guidelines too as well. You'll find a 1:03:56.760 --> 1:03:59.280 lot of hunting and trapping laws that coincide with each other. 1:04:00.160 --> 1:04:04.040 But I can see that. It's like you're I can 1:04:04.040 --> 1:04:06.120 see where she's coming from. I don't. I mean, I 1:04:06.120 --> 1:04:09.120 don't know how I feel either way, but like you're 1:04:09.200 --> 1:04:14.640 in the moment confronting an animal, and your action in 1:04:14.680 --> 1:04:18.360 that moment, that engagement with that creature in that moment 1:04:18.680 --> 1:04:24.000 is like an active choice that you're making right, and 1:04:24.440 --> 1:04:28.439 if you're setting something out that's going to do its 1:04:28.520 --> 1:04:34.560 job by yourself in your absence, I can I can 1:04:34.600 --> 1:04:39.240 see where she is sitting waiting out a deer to 1:04:39.400 --> 1:04:43.640 in her mind is like that's great, yeah, waiting it out. 1:04:44.560 --> 1:04:46.160 But you go out in the warm part of the 1:04:46.240 --> 1:04:48.360 day instead of beaver trap, and then you go back 1:04:48.440 --> 1:04:50.840 to bed and some point during the night your ass 1:04:50.840 --> 1:04:53.600 isn't even sitting there freezing, and what you got him? 1:04:53.680 --> 1:04:58.120 It just strikes her as you're cheating. She might have 1:04:58.160 --> 1:05:02.560 an arguable point there to completely disagree. It's also just 1:05:02.600 --> 1:05:06.320 more variables that you have less control over, right, you know, yeah, 1:05:06.520 --> 1:05:09.520 I think that's in my defense of what I always 1:05:09.600 --> 1:05:12.600 when I'm having this argument with her, I tell her, 1:05:13.080 --> 1:05:15.600 like the electrical real for the electric real friends. When 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:18.080 she thinks is like she was offended by electric reels 1:05:18.280 --> 1:05:21.880 deep dropping because you don't see the fish and all 1:05:21.960 --> 1:05:24.240 this stuff, I said to her. And I said the 1:05:24.240 --> 1:05:27.919 same thing to her about beaver trapping, as I said, 1:05:28.000 --> 1:05:31.360 I could lay a gun out for someone and say 1:05:31.400 --> 1:05:33.360 I want you to kill a deer. Okay, So let's 1:05:33.360 --> 1:05:35.560 say I'm one pile, I put a gun, and I say, 1:05:35.600 --> 1:05:38.880 I why it's you to kill it? Here? In one pile, 1:05:38.960 --> 1:05:40.880 I put all the ship that it requires a deep 1:05:40.960 --> 1:05:45.160 drop of black cod in the pile. Or I put 1:05:45.200 --> 1:05:47.160 all the ship that's required to trap a beaver in 1:05:47.200 --> 1:05:53.280 a pile. Which pile are you gonna grab? Figure it out? Yeah? 1:05:53.320 --> 1:05:55.200 And I said, okay, crant, here's the choice. You can 1:05:55.200 --> 1:05:57.520 take this and shoot catch a deer. You can take 1:05:57.560 --> 1:05:59.200 all this ship and catch a black cod, or you 1:05:59.200 --> 1:06:00.880 can take all this ship and catch a beaver. What 1:06:00.920 --> 1:06:04.120 are you gonna go for? What's gonna strike you? As 1:06:04.160 --> 1:06:09.960 the easiest thing the action, of course, because it takes 1:06:11.280 --> 1:06:15.360 the skill set require draped myself in options. Yeah, the 1:06:15.440 --> 1:06:20.480 bits of information, the bits of information required to catch 1:06:20.480 --> 1:06:25.080 a beaver are greater than the bits of information required 1:06:25.120 --> 1:06:29.240 to shoot it here, Okay, they just are. It takes 1:06:29.360 --> 1:06:32.080 more know how to like, it just takes more know 1:06:32.200 --> 1:06:35.680 how to get up and running. Yep, got it, Like 1:06:35.720 --> 1:06:38.320 trying to set that thing up. One of my limbs 1:06:38.400 --> 1:06:41.160 might be in there. Not just that, but to read 1:06:41.160 --> 1:06:45.560 the sign, to understand even where to begin. It's like 1:06:45.640 --> 1:06:51.040 not an easy thing. And so that whole like how 1:06:51.320 --> 1:06:54.640 that whole like challenge aspect, which is different than ethics. 1:06:54.720 --> 1:06:59.120 It's still substantive. There is a huge challenge aspect, but 1:06:59.160 --> 1:07:01.480 people don't see it because they don't experience and they 1:07:01.480 --> 1:07:03.280 don't go out and see what it requires. It is. 1:07:03.600 --> 1:07:06.120 They have this idea of how easy it is, like 1:07:06.160 --> 1:07:08.480 how easy it is to criticize people that run mountain 1:07:08.520 --> 1:07:11.439 lines of dogs until you go and see what goes 1:07:11.480 --> 1:07:13.840 into it hard. Could it be shooting line out of 1:07:13.880 --> 1:07:16.720 a tree that I don't think, I don't know any 1:07:16.760 --> 1:07:19.680 houndsman to think that's hard. Maybe the concept is like 1:07:20.160 --> 1:07:23.960 setting out traps is like setting out like a mouse trap. Well, 1:07:23.960 --> 1:07:28.240 it's like this muskrant thing we're looking at that looks 1:07:28.240 --> 1:07:30.720 a lot more complicated than a mouse In the case 1:07:30.760 --> 1:07:32.720 of a kyote trap, where you've got a two inch 1:07:33.080 --> 1:07:35.960 circle that out of a square mile, you're trying to 1:07:35.960 --> 1:07:38.000 get a coyote to step on a two inch circle. 1:07:38.080 --> 1:07:40.160 I don't know how many two inch circles there are 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:42.440 in a square mile, but you know, that's kind of 1:07:42.440 --> 1:07:47.000 amazing in itself. That's something I've I've heard that express 1:07:47.040 --> 1:07:49.680 and it's a it's a very valid point that you 1:07:49.720 --> 1:07:54.040 are not only that you're trying to get him a 1:07:54.080 --> 1:07:56.920 step on a two inch man made circle. Yeah, it 1:07:57.040 --> 1:08:03.320 smells bad, It's incredible. Yeah, how affective people are figuring 1:08:03.360 --> 1:08:09.200 that stuff out? What else you got, kran No, that's 1:08:09.240 --> 1:08:11.959 that's it. I just wanted to touch on that because 1:08:12.000 --> 1:08:14.360 I think that comes up a lot here and I 1:08:14.440 --> 1:08:18.200 just I mean, I don't know either way. You know, Hey, 1:08:18.680 --> 1:08:20.439 this is this is all new to me, so I 1:08:20.520 --> 1:08:23.960 kind of just appreciate the information in the in the perspective, 1:08:24.960 --> 1:08:27.160 I think that, but in all fairness of the subject, 1:08:27.200 --> 1:08:33.639 I think that, um, when trappers are defending trapping, they 1:08:33.720 --> 1:08:37.639 often want to go to. They often jump to conna bears, 1:08:37.640 --> 1:08:40.519 which are body gripping traps, because it's sort of like 1:08:42.080 --> 1:08:45.920 very they're like demonstrably effective, like they kill things very quickly. 1:08:46.880 --> 1:08:49.840 Very few trappers go to defend trapping and jump to 1:08:51.680 --> 1:08:56.000 footholds that restrain an animal for a day or two alive. 1:08:56.920 --> 1:08:59.880 Oh that so now now I want to show up. 1:09:00.000 --> 1:09:03.439 And then you show up and yeah, like when we 1:09:03.520 --> 1:09:06.960 used to like trapping fox, red fox, you would dispass 1:09:07.080 --> 1:09:10.360 like you'd catch the file. You check every morning. It 1:09:10.400 --> 1:09:12.479 was it just made more sense to check in the morning, 1:09:12.479 --> 1:09:15.479 but you didn't have to um. Some states have check 1:09:15.560 --> 1:09:18.760 laws twenty four hours, forty eight hours, whatever. You go there, 1:09:18.760 --> 1:09:21.000 it is, he's on, he's in the trap, he's been 1:09:21.040 --> 1:09:23.559 there all night. And you go up and take a 1:09:23.560 --> 1:09:25.880 trowel and smack him across the bridge of the nose 1:09:26.760 --> 1:09:29.040 and stun him and then take your heel and and 1:09:29.080 --> 1:09:32.120 crush his rib cage with your heel. Is how trappers 1:09:32.439 --> 1:09:36.679 dispatch red foxes. That's upsetting to people, But trappers always 1:09:36.720 --> 1:09:38.760 want to talk about connor bears. I do too. It's 1:09:38.760 --> 1:09:41.320 a bad habit of mine. Then it gets a little, 1:09:41.360 --> 1:09:43.920 then it gets like then it's different. It's a different conversation. 1:09:44.200 --> 1:09:47.439 Maybe if I was arguing with the trapper, that's what 1:09:47.479 --> 1:09:50.800 I would talk about. I'd be like, no, no no, don't 1:09:50.800 --> 1:09:53.320 want to talk about converse. Well, recognize just a lot 1:09:53.360 --> 1:09:55.800 of snares with the development of a stench or kill 1:09:55.880 --> 1:09:58.040 spring in that well. I don't know how many coyotes 1:09:58.120 --> 1:10:00.320 we have that the cable stretch out where you out 1:10:00.439 --> 1:10:02.720 a skiff of snow and you can see exactly what 1:10:02.840 --> 1:10:05.160 took place. You can see where the kayok goes into 1:10:05.200 --> 1:10:08.040 the snare, he takes a lunge and he's laying dead 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:09.800 at the end of it, and his foot has made 1:10:09.920 --> 1:10:12.920 maybe a couple of swipes of his foot where it's 1:10:12.960 --> 1:10:17.479 killed him extremely quickly. Just so, I don't really use 1:10:17.520 --> 1:10:20.280 traps all that much anymore because of the efficiency of 1:10:20.320 --> 1:10:23.120 the the snares that are available to us now. It 1:10:23.200 --> 1:10:26.240 cuts off that card artery and I mean they're dead 1:10:26.280 --> 1:10:28.040 at the end of the cable. I've got a number 1:10:28.080 --> 1:10:31.000 of wolves that the cable is stretched out and the 1:10:31.040 --> 1:10:34.320 wolf is laying dead at the end of it. Zero 1:10:34.360 --> 1:10:37.120 disruption to the to the you can reset your set 1:10:37.160 --> 1:10:39.360 and needed the grass didn't even get beat down or 1:10:39.400 --> 1:10:41.920 anything like literally it goes to the end of the rope, 1:10:42.080 --> 1:10:45.479 they drop. That's it, you know. Sometimes their leg doesn't 1:10:45.520 --> 1:10:48.240 even move. There's I mean, it's you couldn't stone an 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:51.240 anim all that quickly, couldn't shoot it, You couldn't show 1:10:51.400 --> 1:10:53.880 in the forehead and have it die as quickly as 1:10:53.920 --> 1:10:56.120 they do with it. When they cut off that blood 1:10:56.120 --> 1:11:00.200 to the brain, they basically just die instantly. So when 1:11:00.240 --> 1:11:03.519 you do you not like, do you know guys that 1:11:03.640 --> 1:11:08.240 don't use let me, let me, let me back up 1:11:08.240 --> 1:11:13.200 from it and just explain something listeners. You'll often hear 1:11:13.240 --> 1:11:16.640 like dry dry land dry ground sets being differentiated from 1:11:16.680 --> 1:11:19.040 water sets because water sets theres a hundred ways, not 1:11:19.040 --> 1:11:20.880 a hunter ways. There's a handful of ways with water 1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:23.800 sets to kill stuff real quick, drowner wires and all 1:11:23.880 --> 1:11:27.559 kinds of things like you get stuff underwater and drown 1:11:27.680 --> 1:11:30.479 it or it's just killed by the trap. So dry 1:11:30.560 --> 1:11:36.960 land sets, dry land leg hold or foothold sets um 1:11:37.080 --> 1:11:40.719 oftentimes are just restraining the animals you get there. I'll 1:11:40.720 --> 1:11:46.320 point out that wolf researchers often catch the wolves they're 1:11:46.360 --> 1:11:49.200 doing for coloring projects. They catch the wolves use the 1:11:49.240 --> 1:11:54.760 exact same technology that people are talking about being crueling inhumane. 1:11:57.320 --> 1:11:59.439 Wolf researchers use. I know, there's a lot of wolf 1:11:59.439 --> 1:12:03.679 researchers to use an MB seven fifty, which is what 1:12:03.920 --> 1:12:07.160 a foothold trap. So when they want to put a 1:12:07.200 --> 1:12:12.519 collar on a wolf or do damage work, they're using 1:12:12.560 --> 1:12:15.559 the thing that everyone agrees is so nasty. So it's 1:12:15.560 --> 1:12:18.519 important to keep that in mind. Can we can we 1:12:18.560 --> 1:12:22.800 picture it as like you know, your foot, you know, 1:12:23.000 --> 1:12:27.479 is grabbed hold of by something and and you're just 1:12:27.640 --> 1:12:29.920 maybe you're, you know, trying to struggle and get away, 1:12:29.960 --> 1:12:31.760 but there it is. It's like it's a thing that 1:12:31.800 --> 1:12:35.280 pinches your foot. Predator with canines. It usually gets them 1:12:35.280 --> 1:12:38.160 around the pad. It's usually like held in around the 1:12:38.200 --> 1:12:42.040 pad with a couple of toes, same stuff researchers use. 1:12:42.160 --> 1:12:44.280 You do not want a trap that breaks the bone 1:12:44.280 --> 1:12:48.000 on them. The trap that is just restraining the animal. 1:12:48.360 --> 1:12:51.559 That's the goal, because anything more than that you have 1:12:51.640 --> 1:12:54.719 more of a chance of losing them. So the whole 1:12:54.760 --> 1:12:58.559 idea of a foothold trap is to just restrain the 1:12:58.600 --> 1:13:01.320 animal with doing his men them amount of damage as 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:04.840 you can. Okay, one of the points when I wanted 1:13:04.840 --> 1:13:06.000 to set that up to one of the points I 1:13:06.040 --> 1:13:12.000 wanted to get at was um, there are there, there 1:13:12.040 --> 1:13:15.800 are perfect scenarios in setting traps and like best practices 1:13:15.840 --> 1:13:20.160 and humane practices. But things happen all the time that 1:13:20.320 --> 1:13:23.760 caused the systems to go awry. And I think the 1:13:23.800 --> 1:13:27.000 people that have a hard time with trapping are probably 1:13:27.080 --> 1:13:34.160 deeply informed by the situations where something goes awry for 1:13:34.200 --> 1:13:37.080 whatever reason. The kyot pulls out, pulls a steak out, 1:13:38.160 --> 1:13:41.160 breaks the chain, I don't know, and then it's run 1:13:41.160 --> 1:13:43.840 around neighborhood the tramp on its leg or I have 1:13:44.120 --> 1:13:49.439 even in like beaver sets where the drowner cable I use, 1:13:49.920 --> 1:13:53.679 something gets kinked up, some stuff drifts down, it gets 1:13:53.720 --> 1:13:55.960 the cable gets a curl q in it, a drift 1:13:56.040 --> 1:13:58.680 log comes down and messes it up. Something messes it up, 1:13:59.040 --> 1:14:02.280 and you do like just like, I'll admit it flat out. 1:14:02.520 --> 1:14:05.200 You'll come down and have a beaver's front foot in 1:14:05.240 --> 1:14:08.760 a trap. It can happen. They twist out that your 1:14:08.800 --> 1:14:12.760 equipment fails and there you have, you've like tore the 1:14:12.800 --> 1:14:19.840 foot off of beaver. So somehow trappers like need to 1:14:19.880 --> 1:14:23.200 account for that more than other people who might have 1:14:23.280 --> 1:14:27.120 something go wrong now and then well, what about how 1:14:27.120 --> 1:14:31.880 many deer get killed by combines harvesting wheat? Sure, or 1:14:31.920 --> 1:14:36.400 how many how many deer and elk um are wounded 1:14:36.439 --> 1:14:40.920 and survived from bullet and arrow strikes. But I think 1:14:40.920 --> 1:14:46.639 that trappers are held more to the mistakes, yeah, than 1:14:46.800 --> 1:14:50.479 hunters and farmers and everyone else has held to They're 1:14:50.520 --> 1:14:53.440 held more to the mistakes. I think it's a smaller community. 1:14:53.479 --> 1:14:55.479 It's easier to target them. I mean, you're not gonna 1:14:55.520 --> 1:14:57.920 go fight all the farmers in the United States of 1:14:57.960 --> 1:15:02.160 America for killing rabbits, you know, the trappers, they're so 1:15:02.960 --> 1:15:06.120 small and rare now that it makes a very easy 1:15:06.200 --> 1:15:09.840 target to hone in on one group. You know, if 1:15:09.840 --> 1:15:13.000 you look at the total number of named animals by 1:15:13.000 --> 1:15:15.439 any user group out there, you're gonna have a hard 1:15:15.479 --> 1:15:19.320 time convincing me anyways, that trappers many more animals than 1:15:19.320 --> 1:15:21.760 any other user group, you know, or in general them, 1:15:21.840 --> 1:15:24.280 you know, to the point where they aren't dispatched. So 1:15:24.400 --> 1:15:27.120 I think it's because of the population. And this, I mean, 1:15:27.120 --> 1:15:29.479 how many trappers do you know? You know, ask that 1:15:29.560 --> 1:15:32.920 to someone on the street. Yeah, it's not going to 1:15:33.000 --> 1:15:37.880 be a big number, you know, And so it's a 1:15:37.920 --> 1:15:41.000 small number, and I don't think it's I think trappers 1:15:41.040 --> 1:15:44.559 got an unfair targeting because of that, because of their 1:15:45.640 --> 1:15:49.120 eliteness isn't the word, but because of their fraternity and 1:15:49.120 --> 1:15:50.920 how tight they are with each other and how small 1:15:50.960 --> 1:15:52.960 of a group it is. Um, they do get picked 1:15:52.960 --> 1:15:54.839 on more. It's a minority, you know, it's a minority. 1:15:55.320 --> 1:16:00.520 It's of um people who are opposed the animal harvests. 1:16:02.120 --> 1:16:05.719 It's in the playbook to go after and the death 1:16:05.760 --> 1:16:11.679 by thousand cuts routine. The smaller user groups are always 1:16:11.680 --> 1:16:18.320 where you're going to go after. Yeah, early houndsman, trappers, whatever, 1:16:18.800 --> 1:16:22.599 It's just like an easier victory. It seems very other 1:16:24.520 --> 1:16:28.479 two people. Yeah, for sure, it's more acceptable to go 1:16:28.520 --> 1:16:30.960 after them because not a lot is known about them. 1:16:31.080 --> 1:16:34.360 You know, there are a group that most people don't 1:16:34.400 --> 1:16:37.680 have any firsthand contact with. You know, I'd say a 1:16:37.720 --> 1:16:39.960 lot of hunters probably have never talked to a trapper. 1:16:41.520 --> 1:16:47.800 I used to point out that fishermen fishermen fish, and 1:16:47.800 --> 1:16:52.320 they might not do anything else. Correct, hunters, most hunters fish, 1:16:53.600 --> 1:16:58.599 trappers hunting fish. You got it. There's a hierarchy there. 1:17:09.600 --> 1:17:11.960 Walk through height even like let's let's say you're explained 1:17:11.960 --> 1:17:17.080 to someone, Um, you run your trap line basically gotta wrangle. Yes, 1:17:17.840 --> 1:17:20.479 I've got to have a cabin and permit that's forty 1:17:20.479 --> 1:17:24.120 two miles from town. Uh. That's the same type of 1:17:24.120 --> 1:17:27.760 permit as a is uh the interior of Alaska where 1:17:27.760 --> 1:17:32.960 you're allowed to build a cabin on state ground. Permit 1:17:33.040 --> 1:17:35.760 cost a hundred dollars and it is a ten year 1:17:35.800 --> 1:17:38.800 permit and you can put yourself up a cabin and 1:17:38.840 --> 1:17:41.479 then at the end of the ten years it's either 1:17:41.560 --> 1:17:44.639 renewable or any time during that period you can tear 1:17:44.680 --> 1:17:47.320 it down and it's better does have to be removed. 1:17:47.320 --> 1:17:49.519 You have to put up a bond that for removal. 1:17:51.000 --> 1:17:54.360 Explain to someone how they would like. Let's say you 1:17:54.400 --> 1:17:56.920 were trying to explain to someone you gotta go catch 1:17:56.920 --> 1:18:00.439 a wolverine. Here's what I would tell you if I 1:18:00.479 --> 1:18:02.439 had a couple of seconds, a couple minutes to explain 1:18:02.520 --> 1:18:05.120 to you that you need to go catch one, Like, 1:18:05.160 --> 1:18:07.160 how do you even begin to think about how it's 1:18:07.479 --> 1:18:10.160 even begin to think about what would go into catching 1:18:10.160 --> 1:18:12.400 a wolverine. Okay, first of all, you're gonna have to 1:18:12.439 --> 1:18:16.960 go to some place that wolverianes live. So at that point, 1:18:17.040 --> 1:18:22.120 then you know, try to find bottlenecks or funnels. For example, 1:18:22.120 --> 1:18:24.880 as I go up the rivers, where a river comes 1:18:24.920 --> 1:18:29.360 in against a high steep embankment or something like that, 1:18:29.360 --> 1:18:32.880 that's going to crowd the crowd the wolverine into that spot. 1:18:33.080 --> 1:18:36.000 So you're trapping when the rivers are clean. Yeah, well 1:18:36.040 --> 1:18:38.000 they're they're still open most of the time. When I'm 1:18:38.040 --> 1:18:40.400 going up the rivers, they're still staying open up there. 1:18:40.920 --> 1:18:42.680 I think you need to elaborate how you get up 1:18:42.720 --> 1:18:46.560 the river. Oh, I have an airboat with a O 1:18:47.080 --> 1:18:49.120 forty like combing on it that I get up the 1:18:49.200 --> 1:18:52.040 rivers with. That's what you trap out of. Yeah, what 1:18:52.080 --> 1:18:55.519 do you like to bat them with? Um? Beavers will 1:18:55.680 --> 1:18:58.920 go to bait for almost everything. I found. The duck 1:18:58.960 --> 1:19:02.759 works really well for pine martin and duck. Yeah, duck works, 1:19:02.800 --> 1:19:05.960 and carcasses work really well for pine martin better than 1:19:06.200 --> 1:19:09.639 beaver meat. You mean, it's like that when you clean 1:19:09.640 --> 1:19:12.920 a duck, like whatever is left over, Cassy says, bones 1:19:12.960 --> 1:19:16.880 basically bones and feathers. Yeah, after once the duck has 1:19:16.920 --> 1:19:20.240 been breasted, Um, you can use it for bait at 1:19:20.280 --> 1:19:23.040 that point. In the case of geese, you also have 1:19:23.120 --> 1:19:26.000 to take the legs, but then whatever is left over 1:19:26.040 --> 1:19:28.040 after you've breasted and taking the legs, and you can 1:19:28.120 --> 1:19:29.640 use that for bait. Yeah, it's like how you can 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:32.120 bait a crab trap with a salmon head, but you 1:19:32.160 --> 1:19:34.400 can't say a crab trap with I mean most sport 1:19:34.439 --> 1:19:36.000 caught sam and you can't stick the whole damn for 1:19:36.040 --> 1:19:39.479 the edible parts have been removed. Yeah. What time of 1:19:39.560 --> 1:19:42.400 year do you like to start? The season starts December 1:19:42.439 --> 1:19:48.240 one and runs through February short. Yeah, so you can 1:19:48.280 --> 1:19:50.120 still in the middle of the winter and that country 1:19:50.640 --> 1:19:53.320 have enough open water to run your whole to run 1:19:53.400 --> 1:19:55.880 the sea. The thing about the airboat is because it's 1:19:56.439 --> 1:19:59.679 in that particular environment. It's not like the interior where 1:19:59.680 --> 1:20:02.360 everything is completely froze over. You can run snowmobiles up 1:20:02.400 --> 1:20:05.040 the river. I wouldn't think it would take very long, 1:20:05.080 --> 1:20:08.240 and you'd break a snowmobile through someplace on these rivers 1:20:08.240 --> 1:20:12.200 because it's fluctuating between freezing and not freezing all the time. 1:20:13.080 --> 1:20:16.360 And so with the airboat, which it'll go on snow 1:20:16.520 --> 1:20:20.920 ice water that just basically goes over almost a gravel bars. 1:20:21.040 --> 1:20:25.280 Gravel bars does not like mud. Mud is basically airboat 1:20:25.280 --> 1:20:28.519 epoxy is there right, Yeah? Yeah, you stick it in 1:20:28.520 --> 1:20:31.960 the mud and it's stuck. Got you just too much friction. Yeah. 1:20:32.680 --> 1:20:34.760 A pretty major travel barrier for a lot of the 1:20:34.840 --> 1:20:37.920 rivers in southeast is that the bays will ice up. 1:20:37.920 --> 1:20:40.320 There's enough fresh water in them that's not moving very much. 1:20:40.760 --> 1:20:42.560 You'll end up with these ice barriers. We used to 1:20:42.560 --> 1:20:44.679 trap out a little john boats, and you can only 1:20:44.680 --> 1:20:47.240 go so far up into them before you basically the 1:20:47.320 --> 1:20:49.120 rivers at ice up, and once you get above the 1:20:49.120 --> 1:20:51.120 ice dams in the bottom, then the river is moving 1:20:51.240 --> 1:20:54.000 enough to where it opens back up again. So the 1:20:54.120 --> 1:20:56.599 logistics of trying to figure out how to get up 1:20:56.640 --> 1:20:59.920 one of these rivers very far was was one that 1:21:00.080 --> 1:21:03.240 was fairly challenging. So, I mean, my dad took it 1:21:03.280 --> 1:21:05.040 upon himself to figure out one way to get up 1:21:05.040 --> 1:21:07.080 above there. He knew the wolverines were further up the river. 1:21:07.120 --> 1:21:08.960 They weren't coming all the way down as far. There's 1:21:09.000 --> 1:21:10.880 a lot of the natural funnels where the points come 1:21:10.920 --> 1:21:13.679 out where these these wolverines would have to travel were 1:21:13.720 --> 1:21:16.240 further up than we could get with a little illuminum boat. 1:21:16.400 --> 1:21:20.320 How many miles up river are you trapping about? Eight 1:21:20.360 --> 1:21:24.040 miles up, each one up, So you got multiple rivers, 1:21:26.000 --> 1:21:29.639 all right, and wolverines roam all around, and you try 1:21:29.680 --> 1:21:34.320 to find someplace where they'll their movements will be constricted, 1:21:34.479 --> 1:21:38.080 like down to a bottleneck of sorts, and that might 1:21:38.160 --> 1:21:43.720 be bank configurations, river bank of steepness, so that you 1:21:43.720 --> 1:21:47.400 know if they're saddles. Yeah, just any place that's a funnel. 1:21:47.400 --> 1:21:50.160 The same way as you trap anything, you go to 1:21:50.200 --> 1:21:54.640 where they're gonna be traveling. How many, just like just 1:21:54.680 --> 1:21:56.760 like a human being, I mean, how many times have 1:21:56.880 --> 1:21:59.080 you went to a hunting in a certain spot, You 1:21:59.120 --> 1:22:01.800 go back three year years later, you find yourself walking 1:22:01.840 --> 1:22:05.080 in the exact same space place that you walked three 1:22:05.160 --> 1:22:09.679 years earlier. Yeah, how many do you take? Each year? 1:22:10.320 --> 1:22:12.800 I have I have caught, not caught that many wolverine. 1:22:12.840 --> 1:22:16.000 I caught one year last year and and that, and 1:22:16.080 --> 1:22:19.000 so this is something new for me. I've never been 1:22:19.040 --> 1:22:22.400 able to trap wolverine before until, like Rick said, I 1:22:22.439 --> 1:22:25.400 spent about thirty thou dollars to catch my first wolverine. 1:22:25.439 --> 1:22:28.320 So I could have I think that I could. I 1:22:28.320 --> 1:22:33.000 could have bought built an air or built a cabin, 1:22:33.200 --> 1:22:35.800 got an air about but lots of years of trial 1:22:35.840 --> 1:22:37.960 and error. I mean, how much how many trials and 1:22:38.080 --> 1:22:41.120 errors do we do before finally figuring out, No, I'm 1:22:41.160 --> 1:22:44.280 not a big wolverine trapper. However, it's like I said, 1:22:44.280 --> 1:22:46.559 it's an excuse to run around the woods. So the 1:22:46.560 --> 1:22:49.719 great white buffalo, how do you catch Pine Martin? Pine 1:22:49.720 --> 1:22:52.519 Martin is generally in a box as well too. Although 1:22:53.200 --> 1:22:56.000 one thing that I did take from my trapping experience 1:22:56.040 --> 1:23:00.559 in Washington when they banned all body gripping devices, we 1:23:00.600 --> 1:23:03.720 went to box trapping Pine Martin and I found up 1:23:03.720 --> 1:23:06.800 in the live trapping them. Yeah, live trapping, Okay, And 1:23:06.840 --> 1:23:08.880 then you know, I mean that type of trap, Yeah, 1:23:08.920 --> 1:23:11.400 that type of trap, just a cage trap. And so 1:23:11.520 --> 1:23:14.120 I started doing up that up there as well, in 1:23:14.160 --> 1:23:18.680 the fact that I could turn loose the females and 1:23:18.720 --> 1:23:23.760 maintain a higher population, uh for the closer to the 1:23:23.760 --> 1:23:28.040 carrying capacity, and have more producing females. Uh not no 1:23:28.120 --> 1:23:31.880 different than a cattle. Female pine Martin worth more than 1:23:31.920 --> 1:23:35.120 male Pine Martin. No, male worth much more. So that's 1:23:35.120 --> 1:23:37.800 just that's always that way. Yeah, I got males are 1:23:37.880 --> 1:23:43.759 much bigger, and they're they're much more desirable price wise females. 1:23:43.840 --> 1:23:47.080 Females are just smaller. So much of furs is based 1:23:47.080 --> 1:23:50.559 on square inches. Yeah, I got you. Like if it's 1:23:50.640 --> 1:23:54.160 twice as big as probably twice as m exactly with you. 1:23:54.680 --> 1:23:58.680 So how do you catch them? Well, with either one 1:23:58.720 --> 1:24:01.240 of two ways, either con of trap, which is far 1:24:01.320 --> 1:24:04.240 more humane than a cage trap. But the cage trap 1:24:04.320 --> 1:24:07.040 does allow you the ability to be able to be 1:24:07.160 --> 1:24:11.200 more selective in your harvest where I'm just harvesting just males, retort, 1:24:12.080 --> 1:24:16.000 letting the females go, and uh being able to maintain 1:24:16.040 --> 1:24:20.559 a higher number of productivity out of the area. Pine 1:24:20.560 --> 1:24:23.800 Martin are extremely easy to overtrap. Yeah, I hear that 1:24:23.840 --> 1:24:26.240 all the time. Why is that, Well, they're slow, they're 1:24:26.280 --> 1:24:30.600 delayed implantation, meaning that they're they're basically pregnant when you 1:24:30.880 --> 1:24:33.600 when you catch them. And so when I turn a 1:24:33.640 --> 1:24:36.639 female loose, I'm probably turning loose two or three Martin 1:24:36.680 --> 1:24:39.679 in reality, because they normally only have one or two 1:24:39.960 --> 1:24:42.800 kit or pups whatever you want to call them. But 1:24:43.400 --> 1:24:45.360 so they don't have you know, like the main cap 1:24:45.439 --> 1:24:48.240 five or six in a litter or pine Martin only 1:24:48.240 --> 1:24:50.680 has one or two. Yeah, it's funny that make like 1:24:50.800 --> 1:24:53.200 make have a reputation is being hard to catch. But 1:24:53.240 --> 1:24:56.320 pine Martin's have a reputation is being easy, extremely easy 1:24:56.360 --> 1:24:59.200 to catch. Like what makes it that way? Mank are 1:24:59.240 --> 1:25:01.120 afraid of their own shadow. I've done a lot of 1:25:01.200 --> 1:25:04.320 videotaping on my sets and stuff like that, trying to 1:25:04.400 --> 1:25:07.599 find out, you know, some difference. Pine Martin will just 1:25:07.600 --> 1:25:11.599 plow right into a trap, but he's not smelling. He's 1:25:11.600 --> 1:25:16.320 not worried about the smell of steel, the smell of humans. Well, yeah, 1:25:16.439 --> 1:25:20.439 they just plow right into things. They don't really care 1:25:20.479 --> 1:25:24.120 if it's food there after it. And the mink they're 1:25:24.160 --> 1:25:27.960 they're pretty skittish. I wonder if it's um that the 1:25:28.120 --> 1:25:31.439 mink just lives in a he lives in a more 1:25:31.520 --> 1:25:34.280 food rich environment and can afford to be a little particular. 1:25:34.479 --> 1:25:36.400 But a Pine Martin in the winter has just got 1:25:36.400 --> 1:25:39.479 to be balls out all the time. I think Martin 1:25:39.600 --> 1:25:41.920 most of his life is on the verge of starvation. 1:25:43.080 --> 1:25:45.559 I think they just they work hard to make a 1:25:45.600 --> 1:25:48.439 living where a mink has got a pretty easy life, 1:25:49.320 --> 1:25:51.800 and then you make a little box like a cubby, 1:25:52.080 --> 1:25:54.160 put bait in the back guard the front of the trap. 1:25:54.320 --> 1:25:56.200 Connor Bear, what do you how do you deal with 1:25:56.240 --> 1:25:59.280 all the snow, like all the snow, bearing all yourself 1:25:59.280 --> 1:26:01.400 all time. Well, you can put it on the side 1:26:01.439 --> 1:26:04.200 of a tree, just nail boxes side of a tree. Well, 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:07.439 wolverine run up a tree though, Yeah, yeah, so you 1:26:07.439 --> 1:26:10.040 can get this that up out of the snow. Yeah. Actually, 1:26:10.080 --> 1:26:12.559 I've got a set I'm working with this year. That's 1:26:12.680 --> 1:26:16.000 uh what I I've actually got this from another individual 1:26:16.080 --> 1:26:19.639 up and uh, I believe it's Northwest Territories where he's at. 1:26:19.720 --> 1:26:22.200 But he used a tip up, which is basically a 1:26:22.200 --> 1:26:25.280 long pole attached to your trap. So when the trap 1:26:25.400 --> 1:26:29.559 is sprung, it falls away and the tip up brings 1:26:29.600 --> 1:26:32.000 the animal up in the air and suspends him. He's 1:26:32.040 --> 1:26:34.479 already caught and killed in the trap. But one in 1:26:34.640 --> 1:26:37.400 real big advantage of that is in the case of 1:26:37.880 --> 1:26:41.759 Pine Martin, he's suspended so the voles and shrews don't 1:26:42.040 --> 1:26:44.599 chew up the first start eating them. Yeah, And so 1:26:44.680 --> 1:26:47.360 he's suspended up out of the way. And so I'm 1:26:47.400 --> 1:26:51.080 experimenting with that and making a set that's designed to 1:26:51.160 --> 1:26:56.160 catch links wolverine, fisher, Pine Martin. We have very few 1:26:56.200 --> 1:26:58.800 of all of those items, and there's a fair number 1:26:58.800 --> 1:27:02.559 of wolverine, but uh, mainly just pine martin is what 1:27:02.640 --> 1:27:06.640 I'm after, but it eliminates the problem. Last year I 1:27:06.720 --> 1:27:10.360 had about six pine martin eating by wolverine. Had a 1:27:10.400 --> 1:27:12.200 wolf that I had caught that got eaten by a 1:27:12.200 --> 1:27:16.000 wolverine as well. So the wolverine ate the wolf. Yeah, 1:27:16.439 --> 1:27:18.040 so he found a wolf that I had caughten a 1:27:18.080 --> 1:27:23.760 snare and he ate it. So. Uh, Wolverines used to 1:27:23.800 --> 1:27:25.960 have like a real bad rip. Not used to in 1:27:26.000 --> 1:27:28.040 the North, Like I don't have any experience trapping like 1:27:28.040 --> 1:27:30.720 in the far North, you know, but wolverines, you know, 1:27:30.760 --> 1:27:32.800 they got the name like whatever, like the devil and 1:27:32.840 --> 1:27:34.599 all this kind of stuff. For how much trouble they 1:27:34.640 --> 1:27:37.840 gave the trappers. They just kind of get your number. 1:27:37.960 --> 1:27:41.200 Uh yeah, Well they basically figure out that wherever you're going, 1:27:41.280 --> 1:27:44.280 there's food. So I mean that's just like any other predator. 1:27:44.439 --> 1:27:46.640 They eat and they sleep, and they don't sleep very 1:27:46.720 --> 1:27:49.479 damn much. So I mean they just go to what's 1:27:49.520 --> 1:27:52.679 available for him for food, and that's just a turns 1:27:52.720 --> 1:27:55.360 out to be a food source for him. A friend 1:27:55.360 --> 1:27:57.840 of mine in Alaska who used to trap wolverines, I 1:27:57.920 --> 1:28:00.280 was asking about how he found the wolverine and how 1:28:00.280 --> 1:28:01.960 he looked for him, and he just said, they just 1:28:02.000 --> 1:28:06.679 found me. They just follow my snowshoe trail. He would 1:28:06.680 --> 1:28:10.760 make his sets in his snowshoe tracks. She's like, as 1:28:10.760 --> 1:28:12.679 soon as they hit my snowshy tracks, A're gonna follow. 1:28:12.960 --> 1:28:14.920 It's an easy way to travel to once they hit that, 1:28:14.920 --> 1:28:17.759 and they can run. It's like gravy running and somehow 1:28:17.760 --> 1:28:20.000 there's always food. Oh yeah, it's like always follow the 1:28:20.040 --> 1:28:25.040 snowshoe trail around. Oh look, Pine Martin delicious links, love links. 1:28:25.720 --> 1:28:28.639 What time of year do you trap beavers? I try 1:28:28.680 --> 1:28:31.719 to trap beaver up there. I'll start off by trapping 1:28:31.760 --> 1:28:33.760 beaver in order to get some bait for my Pine 1:28:33.800 --> 1:28:36.479 Martin or wolverine and other sets. So I'll start with 1:28:36.560 --> 1:28:38.599 beaver right off the get go, so I've got bait 1:28:38.640 --> 1:28:41.240 as much as anything. And then most of the beaver 1:28:41.320 --> 1:28:44.320 I'll catch for my store is gonna be beaver. In 1:28:44.320 --> 1:28:46.960 the springtime, the fur qualities a lot better in the spring. 1:28:48.080 --> 1:28:51.080 When does the fur get primed? Like, do they do 1:28:51.080 --> 1:28:54.040 do the do the regulators you know who set the seasons, 1:28:54.600 --> 1:28:56.479 do they good job? Do they do a good job 1:28:56.479 --> 1:29:01.760 of matching the opening and closing day with for quality? Yeah, 1:29:01.760 --> 1:29:04.200 I think most states do. Yeah, I think they do 1:29:04.280 --> 1:29:05.680 a real good job of that. But you like, the 1:29:05.720 --> 1:29:08.280 beaver is better in the spring, Yeah, better quality for 1:29:08.400 --> 1:29:11.880 in the spring, particularly if you're plucking and cheering the beaver. 1:29:12.640 --> 1:29:15.880 Really it's not good in the fall, not as good. 1:29:16.560 --> 1:29:19.240 But you know, they what they call silkies are normally 1:29:19.280 --> 1:29:22.800 a fall beaver. They're a lot they're a little bit 1:29:22.840 --> 1:29:25.240 thinner furred, but they're a lot silkier or if they've 1:29:25.280 --> 1:29:30.360 been all all through the winter and yeah, yeah, they're thicker, 1:29:30.479 --> 1:29:32.880 you know, under fur, thicker in that which makes the 1:29:32.920 --> 1:29:36.400 better plucking and cheering. Got you? How do you catch 1:29:36.439 --> 1:29:40.160 those the beaver? I use a lot of floats, a 1:29:40.280 --> 1:29:45.160 frame type floats and I'm follow um can show you 1:29:45.360 --> 1:29:47.360 pictures on my phone, right, you might be new to this, 1:29:48.880 --> 1:29:52.760 so he might be new to this. Yeah, I can 1:29:52.920 --> 1:29:56.200 used to take Like when I was growing up, they 1:29:56.240 --> 1:29:57.960 never worked that well. We just take two pieces of 1:29:57.960 --> 1:30:01.479 firewood and make a loss piece and nail two pieces 1:30:01.520 --> 1:30:05.599 of firewood together and then notch it out with a hatchet. 1:30:05.800 --> 1:30:09.240 So you can set a couple set a couple of 1:30:09.280 --> 1:30:11.920 stop loss on it and stable to stop lost trap 1:30:12.200 --> 1:30:14.760 chain down to the bottom of the float and stick 1:30:14.800 --> 1:30:16.760 a couple of dollars, drill some holes so you had 1:30:16.760 --> 1:30:18.599 a couple of dollars and put apples on the top 1:30:19.000 --> 1:30:22.000 for muscratch never work where the ship not as good 1:30:22.040 --> 1:30:24.640 as feed beds and bank dens. Yeah. Correct, But in 1:30:24.680 --> 1:30:27.479 the springtime that set will be a lot more effective 1:30:27.520 --> 1:30:29.240 than it will be in the fall when they're hungry. 1:30:29.840 --> 1:30:32.000 Not when they're hungry, they're actually breeding and they're just 1:30:32.080 --> 1:30:35.599 traveling a lot more, and then they're just running hilter 1:30:35.720 --> 1:30:37.880 skelter and running all over the place. They just travel 1:30:37.920 --> 1:30:41.160 a lot more and that makes them more a lot 1:30:41.200 --> 1:30:43.599 easier to catch. And that's one of the things like 1:30:43.640 --> 1:30:46.559 the mink up there, you know, most mink trappers, you know, 1:30:46.600 --> 1:30:49.320 they consider a time frame for mink to come by. 1:30:49.439 --> 1:30:51.600 Might be a week before they come back through in 1:30:51.640 --> 1:30:53.800 the lower forty eight. But up where I'm out in 1:30:53.840 --> 1:30:56.960 southeast Alaska, those mink can only travel a hundred yards 1:30:57.000 --> 1:30:59.320 from their din. I mean, the tide goes out and 1:30:59.360 --> 1:31:02.360 their breck for stair, the supper tables set and they 1:31:02.400 --> 1:31:05.120 go down in fift twenty minutes or a half an hour. 1:31:05.240 --> 1:31:07.360 They get a full belly and go back up and 1:31:07.400 --> 1:31:11.519 go back to sleep. So yeah, I uh, it's funny 1:31:11.520 --> 1:31:14.439 you mentioned that, because growing up catching mank is like 1:31:14.520 --> 1:31:16.880 very difficult to catch mink, and people do always be 1:31:16.920 --> 1:31:19.880 surprised to hear that there's mink living around. At our 1:31:19.920 --> 1:31:22.479 shock in southeast Alaska, we had a mink a few 1:31:22.520 --> 1:31:26.240 years ago. Something got hold of it and tore its 1:31:26.240 --> 1:31:29.519 tail off, most of its tail off, and gave it 1:31:29.560 --> 1:31:33.519 a big wound right at the base of his tail. 1:31:34.200 --> 1:31:37.280 And this wound was about like the size of like 1:31:37.320 --> 1:31:39.160 two of your fingers put together your middle finger and 1:31:39.240 --> 1:31:42.559 pointer finger. Um, like a wound like that up it's 1:31:42.600 --> 1:31:44.679 back on the back of its tail, at the base 1:31:44.720 --> 1:31:48.160 of its tail. And this moon festered and for a 1:31:48.160 --> 1:31:51.880 while this mink got lost all fear of people, and 1:31:51.920 --> 1:31:55.160 it would run across your shoes and it just looks sickly, 1:31:56.520 --> 1:31:58.280 and a bunch of times I thought, man, I should 1:31:58.280 --> 1:32:02.080 shoot that poor mink. UM just put it off. It's 1:32:02.120 --> 1:32:04.360 misery or it was acting so weird. I was worried 1:32:04.360 --> 1:32:10.720 about it biting my kids. That The next year, the 1:32:10.800 --> 1:32:14.040 mink is totally back to normal, except has a large 1:32:14.120 --> 1:32:19.559 scar in discoloration where it had healed up. And we 1:32:19.640 --> 1:32:24.400 have since and that mank is now, um I now 1:32:24.479 --> 1:32:27.280 know like lives there. We know a hole it lives in. 1:32:27.360 --> 1:32:31.439 And we've seen that mak now for four years hanging 1:32:31.479 --> 1:32:35.440 out in one little spot and you'll see it every day. 1:32:35.760 --> 1:32:38.639 And meanwhile, where I grew up and we caught mank 1:32:38.720 --> 1:32:40.320 and people trapped making there's a lot of we had 1:32:40.360 --> 1:32:44.120 mink longliners. You would go your most people will go 1:32:44.240 --> 1:32:47.400 their entire lives and be unaware that they lived there. 1:32:48.680 --> 1:32:52.800 But these like Southeast Alaska, mank are like squirrels. Yeah, 1:32:53.320 --> 1:32:58.160 middle of the day on the porch in the house. 1:32:59.000 --> 1:33:02.120 Just a way different man yeah, way different mank. I've 1:33:02.400 --> 1:33:05.680 I've had a different time to kill. Yeah, I've had 1:33:05.760 --> 1:33:08.519 difficult time catching them because of that, I think, And 1:33:08.640 --> 1:33:11.519 just I I'm used to that mink that makes week 1:33:11.600 --> 1:33:15.559 long cycles in that and it Uh, it's been a 1:33:15.640 --> 1:33:18.160 learning learning curve for me. They say that if you 1:33:18.200 --> 1:33:20.120 move a hundred miles, you gotta learn how to trap 1:33:20.160 --> 1:33:24.840 all over again. And with truly the case, what do 1:33:24.920 --> 1:33:28.080 you um, what's the main thing Like like you're saying 1:33:28.080 --> 1:33:30.400 you catch a lot of pine martins, what's the main 1:33:30.439 --> 1:33:34.000 thing you use pine martins for? Oh, I'm making hats 1:33:34.000 --> 1:33:37.200 out of him. I make different things. Uh, I don't 1:33:37.240 --> 1:33:39.200 think I've made any cuzies with them. One of one 1:33:39.240 --> 1:33:42.599 of my big sellers is beer cuzies, and I really 1:33:42.680 --> 1:33:45.559 enjoy making those, and I enjoy the Californians that come 1:33:45.640 --> 1:33:47.640 up to Alaska, and I explained to them that, you know, 1:33:47.680 --> 1:33:52.000 these are the perfect bear cuzie for a Californian, for 1:33:52.600 --> 1:33:55.320 you know, a an environmentalist, if you want to call 1:33:55.360 --> 1:34:00.439 him an environmentalist. Yeah, it's biodegradable, it's ourgan think, it's 1:34:00.439 --> 1:34:04.600 a renewable resource. It's everything a Californian should like. What 1:34:04.680 --> 1:34:08.599 do you get for a beer couzy? Bucks? Twenty bucks, 1:34:08.640 --> 1:34:12.400 twenty five for a bottled, twenty for a beer cam 1:34:12.479 --> 1:34:17.200 So pine Martin beer coozies are a good seller. Well, 1:34:17.320 --> 1:34:18.960 actually I make most of them out of beaver and 1:34:19.040 --> 1:34:23.280 otter pine Martin headbands and hats. Probably mostly the pine 1:34:23.280 --> 1:34:25.920 Martin get made into the earwarmer's head bands hats. Yeah, 1:34:26.640 --> 1:34:29.600 it's the thing about well, basically, a pine Martin is 1:34:29.600 --> 1:34:31.679 the same thing as a sable. It's type of sable. 1:34:32.160 --> 1:34:34.759 And when you think of pine martin, once it becomes 1:34:34.800 --> 1:34:38.320 into a fur product, it's a sable and how that. 1:34:38.400 --> 1:34:41.760 I just thought they called him sable in Eurasia, that's 1:34:41.760 --> 1:34:44.320 where you know the Russian sable is for that. But 1:34:44.360 --> 1:34:46.760 it's the same animal. It's the same animal. We just 1:34:46.800 --> 1:34:48.680 called a pine martin. We called a pine martin when 1:34:48.680 --> 1:34:51.599 it's made into sable. So if you caught a bunch 1:34:51.640 --> 1:34:53.800 of pine martins in America and made a coat, it's 1:34:53.800 --> 1:34:58.760 still a stable cable ship. No, I didn't know that, 1:34:59.400 --> 1:35:01.439 Seth wants. I've had a top lot Manke. He used 1:35:01.439 --> 1:35:03.680 to put up for for a living. They had a 1:35:03.720 --> 1:35:08.400 top lot maker went for eighteen dollars. That's not bad. 1:35:09.479 --> 1:35:14.880 I've had lots of top lot Morris. Uh, Mike, you've 1:35:14.920 --> 1:35:17.479 brought up I noticed you brought up like the idea 1:35:17.479 --> 1:35:25.360 of plastics and things um that fors biodegradable, organic renewable 1:35:26.000 --> 1:35:28.519 Are you just being cynical, like are you anti plastic? 1:35:29.080 --> 1:35:32.000 Not particularly just rubbing in their nose. Yeah, Well, it's 1:35:32.040 --> 1:35:34.640 just that they may trying to make a point that 1:35:34.880 --> 1:35:37.840 you know that for is a bad thing, and when 1:35:37.840 --> 1:35:43.200 in reality it's exactly what those people desire, renewable, organic 1:35:43.200 --> 1:35:46.600 renewable resource. That's why would they not want that? But 1:35:46.720 --> 1:35:50.000 yet they're completely opposed to fur. You know, so I'm thinking, 1:35:50.400 --> 1:35:53.320 you know, this doesn't make sense. Do you understand why 1:35:53.439 --> 1:35:57.000 people aren't offended by leather? Like why once you pep 1:35:57.240 --> 1:36:00.280 fur away from something, is it so easy? Why is not? 1:36:00.400 --> 1:36:04.400 If that's acceptable, but you leave the fur on it 1:36:04.479 --> 1:36:09.040 pisces people off. It's all leather head hair on it, 1:36:09.680 --> 1:36:13.200 all leather head fur on it. It should come with 1:36:13.200 --> 1:36:16.920 a reminder it just used to be haired. I think 1:36:16.960 --> 1:36:20.680 he scraped it away. It speaks to the detachment that 1:36:21.040 --> 1:36:23.519 we as a society have from nature, and I think 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:27.639 that's the biggest problem. It's why people have problems and 1:36:27.680 --> 1:36:31.160 want to put humans in a separate category from animals. 1:36:31.240 --> 1:36:33.160 I think it also comes back to what you were 1:36:33.160 --> 1:36:35.280 talking about with Crin's earrings. How you said no one 1:36:35.280 --> 1:36:37.240 would have an issue if it were a feather, But 1:36:37.400 --> 1:36:40.800 something about that foot, it's it's a more tangible reminder 1:36:40.920 --> 1:36:43.400 of this living, this thing that once was living. Like 1:36:43.520 --> 1:36:46.639 fur is to leather, Like leather doesn't really remind you 1:36:47.080 --> 1:36:49.280 just looking at it on the coat or whatever. But 1:36:49.320 --> 1:36:52.240 if you see something covered in fur, I don't know, 1:36:52.280 --> 1:36:54.759 it kind of just triggers that like, oh that was 1:36:54.920 --> 1:36:57.320 that was an animal? You know that law. I wanted 1:36:57.320 --> 1:36:59.320 to make the only me and Seth could catch beavers, 1:36:59.320 --> 1:37:01.120 but they had to be with a thousand dollars apiece. 1:37:02.520 --> 1:37:05.200 I think there should be another law that one day 1:37:05.240 --> 1:37:08.760 out of the year, everything that's leather has to still 1:37:08.800 --> 1:37:13.840 have its fur on. Yeah, that would be a hell 1:37:13.880 --> 1:37:19.040 of a day. People would be like, my god, my god, 1:37:20.320 --> 1:37:25.360 the amount of fur running around is out of control. 1:37:25.920 --> 1:37:32.360 Those ostrich boots would look real weird. Yeah, feathered boots 1:37:32.400 --> 1:37:35.880 be like Liberaci's boots. That's the text time I mentioned Liberaci. 1:37:36.280 --> 1:37:38.800 Do you know what? You know? Who? That is? It? 1:37:39.720 --> 1:37:42.200 You don't know who I mentioned it. I should probably 1:37:42.200 --> 1:37:45.000 get rid of that reference because I think right piano 1:37:45.000 --> 1:37:50.200 player type in Liberaci is a musician, American pianist. Go 1:37:50.280 --> 1:37:56.400 to images. Oh, very fla boyant, very flat. I'm gonna 1:37:56.400 --> 1:37:58.320 stop using that reference. So except he's got to be 1:37:58.360 --> 1:38:02.800 dead or dead? Uh? So, have you quit using footholds 1:38:02.800 --> 1:38:06.599 because the hemane like pretty much? Really because of personal 1:38:06.680 --> 1:38:10.120 feeling about humane Yeah, I think I'm being a better 1:38:10.160 --> 1:38:14.160 steward and better respect to the animal by killing him instant. 1:38:14.240 --> 1:38:17.360 I don't hardly use footholds at all. I can't think 1:38:17.400 --> 1:38:19.559 of any place. I actually use foot holds occasionally on 1:38:19.560 --> 1:38:23.639 a mink set, but predominantly all conivers. Did you look 1:38:23.680 --> 1:38:25.720 down on people to use foolds? No, not at all. 1:38:26.439 --> 1:38:30.000 Just put you personally, me personally. I just I prefer 1:38:30.040 --> 1:38:33.000 to use connivers myself. I feel I'm being a better, 1:38:34.120 --> 1:38:36.120 better stewart to the You know when you look at 1:38:36.120 --> 1:38:39.320 the Canadians where they have the best management practices. You know, 1:38:39.360 --> 1:38:42.080 they require their economers to kill an animal as a 1:38:42.160 --> 1:38:45.600 certain time frame and if it doesn't meet that requirement, 1:38:45.640 --> 1:38:55.080 it's not a legal trap. Ye speaking of the word Canada. Uh, 1:38:55.439 --> 1:39:00.639 what's the parker company can a Goose? Yeah? So they 1:39:00.680 --> 1:39:03.760 had a hit park of everybody else on wanted one. 1:39:05.040 --> 1:39:07.960 I'm guessing they started out being cool with like sled doggers, 1:39:08.000 --> 1:39:10.880 and then they just got cool city people New York. 1:39:10.920 --> 1:39:12.960 I mean everyone in New York, cana want to just 1:39:13.000 --> 1:39:16.400 go to Soho and it's like everyone's got the same coat, 1:39:16.479 --> 1:39:19.400 looks the same. And this company is in Canada, not 1:39:19.479 --> 1:39:24.000 in Canada, Canada. So Canada Goose is a parker company 1:39:24.439 --> 1:39:28.720 and they were trimming all their parks with kyote. Right. 1:39:29.040 --> 1:39:32.200 My understanding is one of the board members is anti 1:39:32.280 --> 1:39:37.280 fur and he was the one that kind of spearheaded 1:39:37.439 --> 1:39:43.080 to the elimination of the coyotes, but their kyote trimm parting. Historically, 1:39:43.320 --> 1:39:47.840 parkers were trimmed with wolverine and kyote. Um the high 1:39:47.920 --> 1:39:50.000 or super high end park is with wolverine because it 1:39:50.040 --> 1:39:54.519 doesn't freeze up and frost up. But they were buying 1:39:54.600 --> 1:39:57.880 this Canada Goose company was buying enough kyotes to actually 1:39:57.920 --> 1:40:03.760 impact the kyote market. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'd like to 1:40:03.760 --> 1:40:07.040 thank them, Thank you, Canada Goose. And then they came 1:40:07.080 --> 1:40:09.760 out and said we're gonna stop using for do a 1:40:09.800 --> 1:40:12.840 book report on this stuff, sort of sort of sort 1:40:12.880 --> 1:40:17.599 of New York Times article says Canna Goose will stop 1:40:17.640 --> 1:40:24.320 buying for sort of um, Cana Goose announced that's starting 1:40:24.439 --> 1:40:29.600 in the company will no longer buy new fur from trappers. 1:40:30.960 --> 1:40:34.439 By then, can in a couple of years, By then, 1:40:34.520 --> 1:40:41.439 can the Goose will start using reclaim for Oh that's 1:40:41.439 --> 1:40:45.080 what for fur that already exists in supply chain. So 1:40:45.160 --> 1:40:46.800 just between now and then, they're gonna buy up every 1:40:46.800 --> 1:40:50.080 okayot coat they can find. Yeah, but it's not fake 1:40:50.160 --> 1:40:53.120 for that they're replacing it with. And does it talk 1:40:53.160 --> 1:40:57.160 about why public pressure uh no, no, um it says 1:40:57.400 --> 1:41:01.160 the shift is an eco friendly measure. Year. This is 1:41:01.200 --> 1:41:06.400 this the CEO. This is his uh his comment the 1:41:06.400 --> 1:41:09.760 shift is an eco friendly measure and not related to 1:41:09.800 --> 1:41:18.120 public pressure from activists. I would also like to point 1:41:18.160 --> 1:41:22.120 out that what fills their jacket is not like some 1:41:22.280 --> 1:41:28.600 shaved fuzz off a bird birds feathers, and in a 1:41:28.680 --> 1:41:31.920 quick note to people at home, you can shear a 1:41:32.040 --> 1:41:35.680 sheep and then turn that sheep back out and get 1:41:35.680 --> 1:41:37.600 another harvest the wool off it. You can do that 1:41:37.640 --> 1:41:40.880 a few times. In fact, when you fill a coat 1:41:41.120 --> 1:41:46.800 with a goose's feathers, that's some bitch, and goose is 1:41:46.880 --> 1:41:52.800 not alive anymore unless it's ethically harvested down, which you 1:41:52.960 --> 1:41:57.760 kill the goose as opposed to the practice of life plucking. Yes, 1:42:00.080 --> 1:42:01.920 a lot of companies I was reading this, like Eddie 1:42:01.920 --> 1:42:04.960 Bau or a bunch of other companies. They find live 1:42:05.080 --> 1:42:09.919 plucking to be so abhorrent that they're trying to remove 1:42:10.479 --> 1:42:14.000 live plucked down where you just grab the burden rip 1:42:14.040 --> 1:42:18.639 its feathers out. They're trying to remove live plucked down 1:42:18.760 --> 1:42:21.479 from their supply chain, or arguing about whether they have 1:42:21.600 --> 1:42:24.040 live plucked down in their supply chain, because it's better 1:42:24.040 --> 1:42:26.200 to kill the damn goose and get its feathers than 1:42:26.280 --> 1:42:31.760 to rip them off alive. Hile for now, that's mean. 1:42:32.720 --> 1:42:36.519 It's just it's one of those things that just makes 1:42:36.520 --> 1:42:38.360 you sound like an old man complaining about it. So 1:42:38.400 --> 1:42:43.720 it's hard to complain about. But come on, man, yea, 1:42:44.560 --> 1:42:46.360 if people don't see it, they don't care about it. 1:42:47.880 --> 1:42:53.439 So you'll buy a coat filled with down from I 1:42:53.479 --> 1:42:56.840 don't know how many damn geese. But then you trim 1:42:56.880 --> 1:43:01.320 it it just it's trimmed with Kyle like that's bad. 1:43:01.800 --> 1:43:07.200 It's because like people can't handle like reality laid out 1:43:07.240 --> 1:43:12.880 in front of them. It's learned later. Because my kid's 1:43:12.920 --> 1:43:18.479 best friend, his daddy raises uh turkeys, and they had 1:43:18.479 --> 1:43:20.559 an extra one for us to have for Thanksgiving turkey. 1:43:20.600 --> 1:43:22.240 So I took my kid over there stay the twenty 1:43:22.280 --> 1:43:28.360 two to get the turkey. Uh. They'd cut the feet 1:43:28.400 --> 1:43:30.800 off the day before, so it wasn't fed, so it's 1:43:30.800 --> 1:43:33.280 crop was empty, his digestive track was emptied out. Just 1:43:33.320 --> 1:43:37.599 gave it water. It's in a little barn. My kid 1:43:37.680 --> 1:43:40.600 walked out in there and shot that turkey. Didn't even 1:43:40.600 --> 1:43:42.920 occur to him. To think that there was something wrong 1:43:42.960 --> 1:43:50.360 with it. He is very, very aware of the processes 1:43:50.400 --> 1:43:52.160 of life. But the fact that some people have to 1:43:52.200 --> 1:43:56.360 have all this ship shielded from them and any little 1:43:56.439 --> 1:44:00.200 visual reminder of this pisces him off. It's like, just 1:44:00.240 --> 1:44:04.120 like people are just becoming too like weak brained. Sure, 1:44:04.280 --> 1:44:06.320 it's very easy, I think not to think a little 1:44:06.360 --> 1:44:10.639 step further of you know, how the meats in front 1:44:10.640 --> 1:44:14.880 of them, or if they have a nice plush uh 1:44:15.400 --> 1:44:19.840 pillow on their on their sofa, how it got there 1:44:20.280 --> 1:44:24.720 is full of dead stuff? But the trim, now that 1:44:25.560 --> 1:44:29.479 that's the that's what tops it off. I'm not like 1:44:29.520 --> 1:44:31.240 a book burner, but if I have one of those coats, 1:44:31.280 --> 1:44:32.800 I'd go burn that some of a bitch and coat. 1:44:36.360 --> 1:44:38.800 I'm still really shocked about the live plucking there you go. 1:44:38.960 --> 1:44:41.160 I didn't know that. I assumed that the animal would 1:44:41.160 --> 1:44:45.000 be dead. So if they line it with or they 1:44:45.320 --> 1:44:47.760 put the caller on with fake for, then that would 1:44:47.800 --> 1:44:51.439 be acceptable. But yet it's a non renewable resource. No, 1:44:51.560 --> 1:44:55.479 it's recycled for. Yeah, they're using recycled for just go 1:44:55.640 --> 1:44:57.840 buy old for coats, I guess, yeah, But I don't 1:44:57.880 --> 1:44:59.639 see where they're going to be able to find enough 1:44:59.680 --> 1:45:02.559 of that to even come close to their market. So 1:45:02.680 --> 1:45:05.240 they'll have to turn to fake fur at some point 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:08.080 or back to real fur or back to real fur 1:45:08.320 --> 1:45:09.960 is the only two directions because they're not going to 1:45:10.040 --> 1:45:13.320 find enough. And besides that, when you is your leathers 1:45:13.360 --> 1:45:16.960 get older, they get less and less. They know, the 1:45:17.040 --> 1:45:21.760 leather itself does deteriorate because you know, leather is biodegradable, 1:45:21.760 --> 1:45:26.120 where fake fur is not really biodegradable. So what they 1:45:26.160 --> 1:45:28.839 were into New York prior to this was I remember 1:45:28.840 --> 1:45:31.400 when like north Face puffies. Then they got into the 1:45:31.439 --> 1:45:36.639 Canada goose down. Everyone had a north Face black north 1:45:36.680 --> 1:45:43.519 Face puffy all gave away to Kyo hide. So you 1:45:43.600 --> 1:45:45.000 got a month and you gotta go up and start 1:45:45.000 --> 1:45:49.200 trapping in Alaska? What do you do the month before that? 1:45:49.720 --> 1:45:51.800 I'm going up to hunt coyotes for a month. You're 1:45:51.840 --> 1:45:56.439 going to Kyo hunting now snaring too? How many? How 1:45:56.439 --> 1:45:58.720 many when you go out? Like how many hours you 1:45:58.800 --> 1:46:03.080 putting in a day? Whatever? Whatever I can, most I can. 1:46:03.720 --> 1:46:06.960 And then you use all these coyotes for your Yeah, 1:46:07.000 --> 1:46:09.560 I'll be using them in the store. Most of the 1:46:09.600 --> 1:46:12.640 coyotes I want to make blankets out of okay so 1:46:12.840 --> 1:46:16.920 or quilts or throws you ever sell them into the 1:46:16.960 --> 1:46:21.000 fur markets. In the past, I always have uh is 1:46:21.240 --> 1:46:23.880 predominantly where all the fur went. But here just four 1:46:23.960 --> 1:46:27.519 years ago I started started cutting out all the middlemen 1:46:27.560 --> 1:46:33.360 and just making products myself. And then Rick, are you participating? Yeah, 1:46:33.400 --> 1:46:34.960 I'll be up there for a little bit. Um. We 1:46:35.080 --> 1:46:37.639 used to do it yearly and snare a whole pile 1:46:37.680 --> 1:46:41.280 of coyotes. Um and Uh, I've been so busy with 1:46:41.320 --> 1:46:44.639 other projects too. We haven't been making a living, making 1:46:44.680 --> 1:46:47.559 a living instead of losing money trapping. UM, So I've 1:46:47.600 --> 1:46:48.920 kind of had to back off a little bit on 1:46:48.960 --> 1:46:51.160 how much I used to trap. For a lot of years. 1:46:51.160 --> 1:46:54.519 We ran around and trapped almost all winter for several years, 1:46:55.160 --> 1:46:57.600 and we have quite the quite the pile at the 1:46:57.680 --> 1:46:59.479 end of the year. And that was when fur prices 1:46:59.479 --> 1:47:01.160 were a little bit better, and we did make a 1:47:01.160 --> 1:47:04.240 little money doing that. Um. Dad was getting his muskrat trap. 1:47:04.720 --> 1:47:06.920 UM kind of dialed in and we went and trapped 1:47:06.920 --> 1:47:08.240 for two weeks and I think we ended up with 1:47:08.439 --> 1:47:11.639 seven nine muskrats. We were just shy of a thousand. 1:47:11.960 --> 1:47:13.559 Oh that's right. But then in two weeks. I think 1:47:13.560 --> 1:47:17.720 we got seven dollars in two weeks, so when we 1:47:17.800 --> 1:47:21.080 sold the fur it was it was actually lucrative then 1:47:21.400 --> 1:47:23.680 UM and then since the fur prices have gone down, 1:47:23.720 --> 1:47:25.759 I've kind of backed off a little and switched gears 1:47:25.760 --> 1:47:28.920 into a UM guiding down Hawaiian doing some mother stuff 1:47:28.960 --> 1:47:31.839 with ten dollar muskrats. This trap will pay for itself 1:47:31.840 --> 1:47:34.680 in about four to five days, you know, on a 1:47:34.760 --> 1:47:36.920 hundred and eighty five dollars, and then after that it's 1:47:36.920 --> 1:47:40.320 all all profit. Do you think you're in? That movie 1:47:40.320 --> 1:47:43.160 The Mountain Men with Charlton Heston is my favorite movie 1:47:43.560 --> 1:47:46.240 all time. Great, it's not nearly as good as Jeremiah Johnson, 1:47:46.240 --> 1:47:50.000 it's better. It's actually got a lot of real problems. 1:47:50.360 --> 1:47:57.080 Listen that movie. What in the world, Like they didn't 1:47:57.080 --> 1:48:02.880 bring in a trapper to give him any insight? Like 1:48:02.920 --> 1:48:04.920 what those guys are doing when they're supposed trap and 1:48:04.960 --> 1:48:09.320 beaver makes zero sense? Absolutely correct. He's standing out in 1:48:09.320 --> 1:48:12.559 the middle of a pond up to his chest and 1:48:12.600 --> 1:48:16.200 like pulls up an empty trap and it's it's like 1:48:16.640 --> 1:48:18.439 they had no idea, like how and then the beaver 1:48:18.560 --> 1:48:23.880 they have looks like a stuffed animal. Oh yeah, horrible. Yeah, 1:48:23.880 --> 1:48:26.000 it's a romanticism of it though it's really it's a 1:48:26.000 --> 1:48:28.479 real slap. I guess like they had zero They had 1:48:28.520 --> 1:48:31.080 no idea what they were showing. They could have done 1:48:31.120 --> 1:48:33.240 a hell of a lot better and demonstrated something there. 1:48:33.280 --> 1:48:34.800 Parts of it they were good, but it's bad. I 1:48:34.840 --> 1:48:40.280 gotta tell you why the Indians are all idiots? Um 1:48:40.479 --> 1:48:43.680 like the Traps. It's just I used to love that 1:48:43.720 --> 1:48:45.160 movie and I was a kid, but I can't watch 1:48:45.200 --> 1:48:48.240 it now. Well, here's why I love that movie. When 1:48:48.240 --> 1:48:50.880 I was growing up, my dad had the winners off 1:48:50.960 --> 1:48:53.519 and we had a cabin in the Selkirk Mountains that 1:48:53.560 --> 1:48:55.679 would go in backcountry skiing, and we had a full 1:48:55.720 --> 1:48:58.360 trap line from where we do unload the snowball bills 1:48:58.400 --> 1:48:59.800 all the way up to the cabin and all around 1:48:59.800 --> 1:49:03.840 the cabin, and it ran off of twelve batteries that 1:49:03.920 --> 1:49:06.040 we had an alternator from a truck that powered the 1:49:06.040 --> 1:49:07.559 thing and charged the batteries, and then we had a 1:49:07.560 --> 1:49:10.320 haunted generator, and we had a TV with a VCR. 1:49:11.080 --> 1:49:15.200 And the only movie we had the cabin was The 1:49:15.240 --> 1:49:19.719 Mountain Man. And so I couldn't even estimate the number 1:49:19.760 --> 1:49:22.040 of times I've seen it. I could. I probably know 1:49:22.120 --> 1:49:24.240 every word in it, but it was a major part 1:49:24.240 --> 1:49:26.400 of my life growing up. I'd be trapping on the 1:49:26.479 --> 1:49:28.519 way up to the cabin. The only movie I had 1:49:28.560 --> 1:49:31.080 to watch was The Mountain Men up there. And so, 1:49:31.280 --> 1:49:33.519 you know, from when I was when we built the cabin, 1:49:33.600 --> 1:49:36.280 I must have been seven or eight years I suppose 1:49:36.320 --> 1:49:39.000 something like eight years old, maybe ish. You know, I 1:49:39.080 --> 1:49:40.720 had my own trap line all the way to the 1:49:40.760 --> 1:49:43.040 cabin to wash the mountain Men in the middle of 1:49:43.080 --> 1:49:47.920 nowhere in northeastern Washington. I washed again a week or 1:49:47.920 --> 1:49:50.679 two ago. Oh yeah, that and Jeremiah Johnson. I've seen 1:49:50.800 --> 1:49:54.760 far more in another movie. But Jeremiah Johnson gets better 1:49:54.760 --> 1:49:57.040 and better, and I think Mountain, in my mind gets 1:49:57.040 --> 1:50:01.280 worse worse. And I'm offended by the lack of Uh. 1:50:01.320 --> 1:50:04.040 I'm offended by the lack of detail. Yeah, I mean 1:50:04.320 --> 1:50:07.120 the accuracy is definitely not there. But I mean, have 1:50:07.200 --> 1:50:10.120 you ever been lost before? I fear some confused for 1:50:10.200 --> 1:50:12.360 a month or two, but never lost. I mean, there's 1:50:12.439 --> 1:50:17.040 enough one liners in it are more classic than I 1:50:17.080 --> 1:50:19.439 think than Jeremiah Johnson that stick with you longer. I'm 1:50:19.479 --> 1:50:21.559 trying to get at one of those one liners, Yeah 1:50:22.120 --> 1:50:25.800 fur is going to shine again. So here was the 1:50:25.960 --> 1:50:30.120 end of the rendezvous era eighteen forties. The fur market 1:50:30.280 --> 1:50:37.960 completely collapses. In the fur market collapse and they are despondent. 1:50:39.240 --> 1:50:44.360 It's done forever, okay. And as we know, it has 1:50:44.400 --> 1:50:48.360 been up and down a lot since then. During the 1:50:48.439 --> 1:50:54.920 Roaring twenties, prior to the Great Depression, for prices shot 1:50:54.960 --> 1:51:02.280 up and we're great. Um they got good. Thirty forty 1:51:02.360 --> 1:51:07.240 years later they got really good again. Um, they've had 1:51:07.320 --> 1:51:09.880 various spikes and things like some things that go up 1:51:09.880 --> 1:51:14.440 and down. Right now, it's just like fur prices commercial 1:51:14.479 --> 1:51:20.559 for son again. Yeah, yeah, will fur shine again? Like, 1:51:20.680 --> 1:51:22.439 is is there a way in which all of a 1:51:22.479 --> 1:51:26.439 sudden someday kids will be starting out, going out making 1:51:26.479 --> 1:51:31.120 a bunch of money trapping? I'm not seeing it. You 1:51:31.120 --> 1:51:34.320 don't need it. All happen are trapping? Are the numbers 1:51:34.320 --> 1:51:39.439 of trappers? I heard a great statistic in Michigan. This 1:51:39.520 --> 1:51:42.160 is years ago. At a point in Michigan, I heard 1:51:42.200 --> 1:51:46.759 that the average age of a fur trapper went up 1:51:46.840 --> 1:51:53.599 exactly one year every year pointing to zero. Makes sense 1:51:54.960 --> 1:51:58.439 new folk coming in. But that was during a period 1:51:58.439 --> 1:52:01.880 of very low fur prices. I got into it and 1:52:01.920 --> 1:52:05.760 still dabble with the discipline today because of the influence 1:52:05.840 --> 1:52:10.519 of the fur boom of the late seventies and early eighties. 1:52:11.520 --> 1:52:15.200 That grabbed me that you could make more money. You 1:52:15.240 --> 1:52:17.479 can catch two muskrats and sell them for more money 1:52:17.479 --> 1:52:22.360 than you'd get from mowing a big gass lawn, And 1:52:22.439 --> 1:52:24.960 it created a mystique in my head that still sits 1:52:24.960 --> 1:52:30.280 there today. That's an early memory, yeah, because people were 1:52:30.760 --> 1:52:35.280 people were selling five, six, seven dollar muskrats then, and 1:52:35.360 --> 1:52:37.240 it's still is stuck in my head, like I can't 1:52:37.360 --> 1:52:40.760 shake the idea when I see it. I can't when 1:52:40.800 --> 1:52:44.160 I see a muskrat. It still appears to me as 1:52:44.200 --> 1:52:49.040 a thing of value and ali out of scenario that 1:52:49.080 --> 1:52:55.639 it could be again is China's economy and fashion right, 1:52:56.360 --> 1:53:01.200 things could switch Korea, China um and all of a sudden, 1:53:01.240 --> 1:53:05.639 they don't care, They're onto it and they want it. Well, 1:53:05.640 --> 1:53:09.439 there's some studies right now about the fibers from the 1:53:09.439 --> 1:53:11.960 the polyesters and different things are end and up in 1:53:12.000 --> 1:53:14.400 the ocean and that and I can see at some 1:53:14.520 --> 1:53:18.760 point people are going to realize that fur is biodegreable 1:53:18.800 --> 1:53:21.719 and organic and some of the things we're currently using 1:53:22.040 --> 1:53:26.080 are not as desirable. So potentially there could be you know, 1:53:26.120 --> 1:53:28.080 at least some group of people that are going to 1:53:28.200 --> 1:53:31.519 see fur as a better alternative to what we're using now. 1:53:31.840 --> 1:53:34.720 That might be where it's at, like you know, the 1:53:36.320 --> 1:53:41.720 farm to table hunt to table to table. I think 1:53:42.640 --> 1:53:44.400 than we think. I mean, I don't think we're far 1:53:44.439 --> 1:53:47.680 away from that. Well, we're there right now. Because you 1:53:47.720 --> 1:53:50.200 know what I'm saving up muskrats for. It makes yourself 1:53:50.200 --> 1:53:53.640 a fur blanket. I need, no, I need sixty for. 1:53:53.960 --> 1:53:58.240 My wife wants a fur bomber jacket. Perfect. Now her 1:53:58.360 --> 1:54:04.320 friend this wants a fur bomber jacket. And then me 1:54:04.360 --> 1:54:08.000 and Seth are getting two giant blankets. Do you guys 1:54:08.000 --> 1:54:10.759 needed trap some muskrats? Well, we're doing our giant blankets 1:54:10.760 --> 1:54:14.519 out of our beavers, and we're gonna raise a ton 1:54:14.560 --> 1:54:17.200 of money for our land access initiative through a plan 1:54:17.280 --> 1:54:20.200 that the Seth doesn't know about yet. I like it. 1:54:20.400 --> 1:54:23.120 I like the sounds of it, and we made it. 1:54:23.160 --> 1:54:26.799 How many pounds of beaver sauceage you make last year? Forty? 1:54:26.880 --> 1:54:30.920 I think, yeah, I still have a couple best for 1:54:31.120 --> 1:54:33.280 ever made. I know we're gonna make more so, how 1:54:33.280 --> 1:54:36.760 do people go find your special traps? Uh? Non grip 1:54:36.800 --> 1:54:40.840 traps dot com? What's it called non grip traps? So 1:54:40.880 --> 1:54:46.240 you just sell them directly yourself? Two year? About that? 1:54:46.400 --> 1:54:48.560 Not quite that many? But and how do people find 1:54:48.560 --> 1:54:51.280 your fur products? You make beaver wallets, what to tell 1:54:51.320 --> 1:54:54.440 people for for Alaska dot com? And you make all 1:54:54.560 --> 1:54:58.520 manner of where you make all kinds of things. I 1:54:58.560 --> 1:55:01.360 make coasters out of the beaver ales, and that was 1:55:01.400 --> 1:55:03.760 all kinds of things that pretty much use the entire beaver. 1:55:03.880 --> 1:55:07.600 I sell the beaver teeth, sell the meat. Sled doggers. No, 1:55:07.640 --> 1:55:13.440 we don't have any sled doggers where I'm at. Yeah. 1:55:14.360 --> 1:55:17.280 And then Rick, how do people find all your how 1:55:17.280 --> 1:55:19.360 did how do they go hunting and fishing with you? Oh? Man, 1:55:19.400 --> 1:55:25.200 that's UM chrome Chasers dot com. Chrome Chasers dot that's 1:55:25.200 --> 1:55:28.360 for Steelhead. And then we actually just started a fall 1:55:28.440 --> 1:55:32.040 foraging week long trip to where we go and basically 1:55:32.080 --> 1:55:35.640 immerse ourselves in southeast Alaska. UM. We do some fishing, 1:55:35.800 --> 1:55:40.560 We do clamming, shrimp, crab, catch some salmon, and then 1:55:40.560 --> 1:55:44.160 we go back and do almost preparation preservation cooking type 1:55:44.160 --> 1:55:47.320 classes and we pick a lot of wild mushrooms. Um. 1:55:47.360 --> 1:55:49.880 And you basically go out and get everything you make 1:55:49.920 --> 1:55:52.320 for a meal that night, and then we go over 1:55:52.360 --> 1:55:55.320 some can canning technique, smoking techniques for fish, all of that. 1:55:55.520 --> 1:55:58.160 So that's something new, we're we're we've just adapted last year. 1:55:58.600 --> 1:56:00.440 That's not a wrangle and it's not a goo. Yeah, 1:56:00.440 --> 1:56:02.760 And that'll be late summer fall, So the foraging trips 1:56:02.760 --> 1:56:05.720 are late summer fall and then spring steel head fishing 1:56:05.880 --> 1:56:07.520 is in the springtime. And what if they want to 1:56:07.520 --> 1:56:09.320 go catch bone fish in Hawaii. If they want to 1:56:09.320 --> 1:56:11.200 go catch a bone fish in Hawaii, it's Hawaii on 1:56:11.240 --> 1:56:14.480 the Fly. Um. I work for a getting Mike Kennessey, Um. 1:56:14.760 --> 1:56:17.080 Captain Kenny Carrs is the other guy down there. Um, 1:56:17.160 --> 1:56:19.760 he can get you set up if I'm not there. Um. 1:56:19.800 --> 1:56:21.800 And that's a bone fish down there. Um. The ranch 1:56:21.840 --> 1:56:23.560 I work for is a private ranch which is a 1:56:23.640 --> 1:56:27.480 whole private deal on Molakai. Um. So unfortunately you can't 1:56:27.480 --> 1:56:30.720 go do that. That's an invite only. But the Oahu 1:56:30.880 --> 1:56:33.120 bone fish program is Hawaii on the Fly. And then 1:56:33.240 --> 1:56:36.760 Rick Mattney Outdoors is uh is my outfitting business here 1:56:36.880 --> 1:56:39.800 and I've been doing it long enough now to where 1:56:40.600 --> 1:56:43.680 my clientele list um is the same guys every year. 1:56:43.800 --> 1:56:47.600 And I don't even have a website even Yeah, you 1:56:47.640 --> 1:56:49.440 have to know one of my clients before you get 1:56:49.440 --> 1:56:53.280 in kind of deal from yeah and for better for worse. 1:56:53.360 --> 1:56:55.520 That's the position I am. I haven't put any energy 1:56:55.560 --> 1:56:59.320 into even a website or advertising. Um. I I feel 1:56:59.320 --> 1:57:02.160 like it's almost a disservice to my current clients to 1:57:02.360 --> 1:57:04.120 do that. UM. I don't want to grow and be 1:57:04.240 --> 1:57:07.000 huge in Montana and have do a ton of trips. 1:57:07.040 --> 1:57:09.520 I don't think the resource in Montana and the fishing 1:57:09.560 --> 1:57:13.160 outfitting business is sustainable at the growth rate that it 1:57:13.280 --> 1:57:15.400 is now. So I'm not going to try to grow 1:57:15.480 --> 1:57:17.560 my business to become part of you don't see you 1:57:17.600 --> 1:57:19.040 don't want to add. I don't want to add to 1:57:19.040 --> 1:57:24.200 the insanity. Yeah, I see it being a problem. So 1:57:24.240 --> 1:57:26.680 I'm gonna just personally limit the number of days I do. 1:57:26.720 --> 1:57:29.200 I'm gonna take the guys that I like, UM and 1:57:29.240 --> 1:57:32.560 just limit my impact about loving It's death. Man Hooly 1:57:32.800 --> 1:57:36.520 smokes that that's bad. Some of the some of the 1:57:36.560 --> 1:57:41.800 summertime fly fishing rivers here, it's just on believable. It's changed, 1:57:41.840 --> 1:57:43.440 it's different. You know, but the fish it's like the 1:57:43.480 --> 1:57:46.320 Maze's Day parade. Oh yeah, but the fish are fine, 1:57:46.360 --> 1:57:50.560 you know, the biologists the fish aren't even native most part. Yeah, 1:57:50.800 --> 1:57:52.840 a lot of them are. Yeah. And and so are 1:57:52.880 --> 1:57:55.320 we hurting the resource by doing it? Probably not. Are 1:57:55.360 --> 1:57:58.840 we hurting the quality of the experience probably Yes. That'll 1:57:58.880 --> 1:58:01.160 catch up to itself, for it will and people will 1:58:01.160 --> 1:58:03.680 start to look for other things. So um but yeah. 1:58:03.680 --> 1:58:05.480 So anyways, I don't have a website for my Montana 1:58:05.480 --> 1:58:09.080 alf any business. Um Rick Mattney Outdoors is what I 1:58:09.120 --> 1:58:12.360 call my business. Um So yeah. Other than that, you know, 1:58:12.360 --> 1:58:14.360 I kind of run around. I do the cooking stuff 1:58:14.400 --> 1:58:17.920 for you guys obviously here and there. Um And wild 1:58:17.920 --> 1:58:21.760 game chef dot Com is my wild cooking business, and 1:58:22.040 --> 1:58:24.440 I'm starting to do in home wild game cooking classes 1:58:24.480 --> 1:58:27.240 as well as some cooking classes out at Ross Creek Cabins, 1:58:27.600 --> 1:58:29.960 which is locally here in town. And so I'm going 1:58:30.000 --> 1:58:32.760 to start working on some stuff there too as well. Man. 1:58:33.000 --> 1:58:36.160 Any uh, you have a fair bit of time and 1:58:36.240 --> 1:58:41.120 website management. Yeah, I don't have any time into it. 1:58:41.240 --> 1:58:43.200 I don't know what even what a web website is. 1:58:43.240 --> 1:58:45.280 I'm I got guys that helped me out. You know, 1:58:45.320 --> 1:58:47.760 I help people. You know, I'm a big fan of 1:58:47.760 --> 1:58:49.960 the barter system. You know, it's it costs a lot 1:58:49.960 --> 1:58:52.280 of money to hire someone to do a website. But 1:58:52.360 --> 1:58:54.560 you know, some guys like to want to have a 1:58:54.600 --> 1:58:57.720 hunting experience in Montana, and it's like, okay, well you 1:58:57.760 --> 1:58:59.400 come out to Montana, you and I will go tromp 1:58:59.400 --> 1:59:01.080 around the woods and you help me with a website. 1:59:01.120 --> 1:59:02.600 There's there's a lot of trading to be done in 1:59:02.640 --> 1:59:06.200 the outdoor world. For sure. It doesn't include monetary stuff, 1:59:06.240 --> 1:59:09.240 and especially since you know the way the government and 1:59:09.280 --> 1:59:11.480 taxes and everything else are going these days, I like 1:59:11.520 --> 1:59:14.000 to keep as much of that out of their uh, 1:59:14.360 --> 1:59:17.680 their site as possible, reduced the amount of cash flowing around. 1:59:19.000 --> 1:59:21.600 Big fan of the barter system. Alright, guys, well thanks 1:59:21.600 --> 1:59:24.320 for coming on. Um. There's a couple of things I like. 1:59:24.720 --> 1:59:29.760 Is that method of not playing by the rules. I 1:59:29.760 --> 1:59:31.640 don't mean with hunting fishing rules, but I mean like 1:59:31.680 --> 1:59:37.800 assembling lives out of just the stuff that interests you. Yeah, 1:59:38.000 --> 1:59:40.160 and not being like beholden to the man, but it's 1:59:40.200 --> 1:59:43.440 going out and like crafting a way to live where 1:59:43.440 --> 1:59:47.400 you're like like working with what's there and like building 1:59:47.440 --> 1:59:50.240 an outdoor life. Yeah, sometimes you have to figure out 1:59:50.240 --> 1:59:53.080 how to make money on your way to making money. Yeah. 1:59:53.240 --> 1:59:54.480 So you know, if you got to go over here 1:59:54.520 --> 1:59:56.000 to do something, it's not a lot of work to 1:59:56.000 --> 1:59:57.720 stop and check a trap. If you're doing that same 1:59:57.760 --> 2:00:00.240 path every day, there's an extra twenty buck. So you know, 2:00:00.280 --> 2:00:02.360 if you catch a beaver nextra hundred dollars, you catch 2:00:02.360 --> 2:00:05.640 a guy out on the way. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it, man, 2:00:05.680 --> 2:00:10.480 like assembling, assembling livelihoods at all these outdoor interests and 2:00:10.560 --> 2:00:12.360 being a living life where you're out and doing your 2:00:12.360 --> 2:00:15.600 own thing and working for yourself. It's cool. Thank you 2:00:15.680 --> 2:00:18.360 very much for coming on. Thank you, thank you,