WEBVTT - Ep. 1: Steven Rinella 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.440 Welcome to the Hunting Collected podcast Numero Uno number one, 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.520 coming to you alive from Mexico. I'm sitting on a ridge, 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.400 a nice glass and tit as some would call it, 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.400 in the middle of Sonora, the middle of Cartel Country. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:23.239 I got a little recorder, some binos and pretty cool guests. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.239 First guest is Steve Rinella. We've been here hunting for 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.000 the last six days. Jason Ko's deer or cow's deer 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:37.639 some call them, in the middle of arid desert mountainey 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.760 landscape that can only be described as as beautiful, challenging. 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.920 Steve and I have been hiking around for for six 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:50.560 days and talking about life, talking about hunting, talking about politics, 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.560 just getting to know each other better as we've been 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.560 known each other for years and I've been friend and 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.800 then that way. That makes him the perfect first guest 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:02.960 for a Hunty collective. Steve is of course an author, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.400 a writer, a great example of a modern hunt and 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.400 because he is that, because he's a great example of 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.600 an a bastion for hope for the future of hunting, 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.960 I wanted to talk to him about how he feels 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.119 right now, how he felt in the past about hunting. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.800 It may be ways to fix some of the problems 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.880 that we've have. We feel hopeful about some of the positives. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.120 They're happening right now and I think we were able 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.320 to do that and about an hour and a half, 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.160 So give us a break. This is the first try 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.520 to podcast, but hopefully the Honey Collective will continue to 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.160 have interesting guests that can help us examine our own 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.680 ideas about hunting, our own philosophies why we go outside. So, 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:55.360 without further ado, Mr Steven Ronella Steve describe You're one 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.800 of the best ortors I know. So I like how 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.960 this is going. Yeah, I like to start off with 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.640 a little I can start off with a little compliment 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.120 to the gas, you know, really smoothing old that's the 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:16.680 old trick man. Describe where we're at. We are in Sonora, Mexico, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.880 close enough to the US border that if we look 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:26.960 to the north, we can see a very ominous looking 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:35.000 surveillance blimp um that seems like that hovers over the 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.799 landscape like the spaceship in the movie District nine. You've 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.519 seen that, So who's that there's like? Looking at that 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.800 which one would imagine has the most sophisticated equipment in 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:54.640 the world yet I am sitting literally in rabbit droppings 0:02:54.639 --> 0:03:00.160 and comedy where um on a hillside cover it in 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:08.360 a lot of juniper and ocatillo and oak and mesquite 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:15.280 and very dry yellow grass. Good, Yeah, that's pretty good. 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.200 I like it. A lot of exposed rock, yeah, it 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.240 is expelled. A lot of stuff that looks like it 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.079 does not get a lot of rainfall, that's true. A 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.320 lot of dry river beds, dry creek beds, a lot 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.480 of places for cus here to be hide now today, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.919 But I don't believe we've seen anything we wanted to chase. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.760 But just for those listening, we're both bindos in hands. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:44.000 So if we have to break a bit from the podcast, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.640 you'll know why. Because forever we found in our chasing 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.840 a big but we found in our chasing a big bucket. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:56.520 We can start this over whenever that ends, hopefully pretty soon, 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.480 because this is the last day of a six day hunt. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.240 He in Sonora country, Cartel country. We haven't seen any cartail, 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.360 but we have seen and killed some cous Dear Steve, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.040 you kinda pretty damn good one. Five days good, didn't you? 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.080 The first full day of the hunt, I um, which 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:21.800 never happened. Well, Okay, I've hunted cus dear five times, 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.480 you know, each time for a week or so, and 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:33.600 I've killed cus deer two times, so you know, and 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.400 those in those times I've put in a lot of hours. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.520 It also looked at a lot of deer. But hunting 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.360 cuz deer you tend to like it was a couple 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.919 of things about it. You hunt. I've always hand a 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:51.800 cuz deer late in the year, always, but mostly in January, UM. 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.159 And so at that point I usually have like a 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.240 pretty full freezer, all right, except be hunting off fall, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.920 so I'm not feeling like in a real meat crisis. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.719 And it's a place that really just like to hang 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.200 around and observe and you just spend like today we 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.800 will spend from dawn till dark. We will spend the 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.480 entire day on one knob, on one like Punta Alto 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.120 as they say in Spanish. Um. And so it's just 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:27.320 like really just kind of an intense focus on this observation, 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.880 watching the landscape, observing deer, and you'd like to kind 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.080 of drag it out. And so I think that because 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.160 of how enjoyable it is and the weather, like you 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:44.039 couldn't imagine better weather than Senora in January. And so 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.559 you know, you don't go running off after the first buck, 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.120 you see. So you kind of like like, in my 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.440 mind like hunting couse deer is almost like a it's 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.560 like a vacation, you kind of thing in some way, 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.240 and uh, yeah, you like to wait and try to 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.479 find a big one's having to be a couple of 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:06.200 times in the past though, is I'd let some bucks 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:12.400 slide and then on the last day or two be like, Okay, 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.680 I'm gonna change my attention now to get a meat 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.880 buck and then not be able to find one because 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.160 there's a big difference out here between finding one and 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.760 getting it. Yeah, oh of course we found plenty that 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:23.760 we haven't. You see him. They step behind the bush 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.279 and that's it just vanished, man. And the landscape is 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.400 so it's so corrugated and just full of hell holes. 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.320 Increases that. Yeah, things just pop up and then you 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.280 never say again. And it's often to be looking at 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:42.960 It's often that they're popping up thousand yards away, you know, 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.839 and then it was gone. Sometimes before you can even 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:47.240 tell what they had going on. You just get this 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.480 like basic idea that you're looking at a buck and 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:51.400 then it vanishes and you spend a day trying to 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.960 find it again and never find it again. Yeah, it's 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.880 the literal version of a topographic map when you're looking 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.720 at this place and it's cuts and divide and dry 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.840 creek beds and brush a hillsides and clear grassy hillsides 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.120 and yeah, and it's like the kind of place where 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.160 it's not like readily obviously even what way the rivers 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.160 are flowing like you feel like you get into a 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.040 river channel and somehow walk a circle. Yes, absolutely, And 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.640 and for me, you're right, I mean, this is the 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.680 end of the year. This is we we left the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:26.560 day after New Year's Day, and you know it's quiet here. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.160 It's eerily quiet. Hopefully the sound on this first podcast 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.200 doesn't have a lot of wind, and you can just 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.400 hear how quiet it is here. And even though we're 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.080 sitting together, a lot of times we split up and 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.840 you sit by yourself and you're just focused on nothing 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.600 but what's in the field of view you're buying. And 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.520 that's a pretty healthy reset for the whole next year 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.640 to come. What I've thought of like hunting down here 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.840 before I've kind of thought is that that the the 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:59.559 astancias of the ranches down here really the only place 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.120 in the West that you would that you can kind 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:06.400 of get a sense for it would be some of 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.360 the wilderness areas or some of the more remote corners 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:19.120 of Nevada. You know, it's hard to explain. Um, just 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.600 like how still I mean these guys still you know people, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.960 you see razors. It seems like you see you know, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.880 UTVs more and more, but still work cattle on horseback. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:33.240 It's just quiet out here, man, big huge, huge properties. Yeah, 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:34.679 I mean we can see how many miles can we 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.080 see right now in this vista to this next mountain bip. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.080 To be honest, I don't see I'm not actually looking 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.880 at the blimp right now. But it's it's been it's 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.040 been a constant landscape this entire time. Now, it's it's 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.200 that's what strikes me about about this type of honey. 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.800 And and we're here on a ranch that is a 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.400 private ranch, but we kind of made the decision just 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:01.960 to do it on our own. I mean, we don't 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.040 have any guys, don't have anybody telling score the deer 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.520 are where they aren't where the big deer live where 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.880 they might be, so we're just finding the highest class 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.280 and tip this glasses and uh, there's some purity in that. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.240 I know. I've heard, I don't know if I was 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.840 you or your brother at some level talk about the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:24.760 purity meter. Matt, my brother Matt has a purity score 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.880 talk about which has weighted very heavily to to um, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:32.120 which is this demonstrates a lot of bias. What's your 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.200 purity score? Is this pretty high on the on the list? Yeah, 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:42.040 it's high, man, I mean, like, you know, to steal 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.160 his idea, which I guess is hardly unique of a 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.079 start of purity scoring a hunt. I do rate public 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:56.320 land higher only because just speaking very generally, like in 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:01.400 a very general sense, is much harder to be consistently 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.480 successful on public land then it is private land. I mean, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:11.920 this is a gross generalization, but um, public land has, 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.440 you know, Jenny has open access, you know, and if 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.559 you're talking about hunts that are kind of like over 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.679 the counter taking place on public land, there's open access, 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.880 and there's no coordination or little to no coordination between 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.560 people using the landscape, so you're often instead of working 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.400 in coordination with whoever else might be out there, you're working. 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.960 You know, you're kind of plotting against each other and 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.120 like a very like if you're like I got a 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.720 feeling those guys will go there. I'm gonna get up 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.200 an extra hour early and get there. You know. There's 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.200 that kind of stuff hunting on private land. Yeah, generally speaking, 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:54.920 less people out and sort of coordinating their activities and 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.520 and it's just different. So if parity winds up being 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:04.120 like some kind and a difficulty, then yeah, I rate 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:10.480 that pretty high. Um, I rate Like, here's the way 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:18.800 of putting it, how excited and surprised it's a hunt 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:24.720 has high purity. I guess if you're if you're shocked 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.920 that you were successful, it tends to have a higher purity. 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.840 And you say that right, because it's like those hunts 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.439 for you're like shocked to be successful are great. But 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.760 then why is it also great to go out and 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.679 realize that you're in the middle of a huge duck 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.280 migration and then all you talk about is how great 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.240 it was because ducks were just piling in no matter 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:45.959 what you did. You can be shooting off flares and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.360 they're still laying the depots, and that somehow great too. 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.439 But the so it's you know, it's it's so it's 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.240 so full like personal biases. It's hard to really talk 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.760 about in any kind of real way. But I do 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:03.040 like the ones where you're nervous amount whether you'll be 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.720 able to work it out, and then success comes down 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.839 to you really working hard and putting in your best 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.080 effort and having a payoff and being kind of like 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.439 surprised and pleased that worked out. Is there is there 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.680 a level of predictability there if it's an unpredictable landscape 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.320 like in this In this case, it's it's fairly predictable 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:25.880 where we can it can't go I mean we can 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.840 we can go the borders of this ranch, and we 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.480 kind of can talk to locals and get a bit 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.640 of a prediction on what's good and what's bad. But 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.320 we don't have we can't predict a migration, we can't 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:42.200 predict the rut we're here just trying to catch. It. 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.840 Is predictability like a little bit far out. Yeah, So 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:46.920 if you're gonna like map out like let's say we're 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.000 map out the purity score, let's do it. Well. The 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.280 thing that I would bring into is that so our 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:58.000 body like we we have a friend, Jay Scott, who 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:05.040 facilitates both guided and non guided hunts for Cou's deer 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:10.640 in Sonora. Um, so this is a rancher. He's worked, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.960 but he doesn't like he hasn't hunted it. So that 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.040 in my mind, as I'm like doing this very biased, 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.679 very personal purity score thing, like in my mind, the 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.520 fact that we're sort of on the van guard of 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.719 hunting this place, that adds a little purity to me. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.199 That we've never hunted it before adds a little purity 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:36.360 to me because discovery is important something. So if we 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.480 can't if we learned, because now we know this summitch 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.480 pretty well. Yeah, not all the way, but we've learned 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.280 a lot. Like we've hunted duntled Dusk, a lot of guys, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.199 swapping a lot of notes, so we know a lot 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.160 about it. Coming back next year, yes, absolutely, there will 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.040 be a teensy bit less purity in my mind because 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:59.200 we already knew it, right. So this the fact that 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.160 we're just kind of like figuring it out and don't 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.840 even have like super strong guidance, um makes it kind 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:07.720 of fun. But then I've done this sort of thing 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.440 a lot of times, so I kind of like understand 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.120 how to put it together. There's a lot of hunting 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.960 rodby clueless, but this, even though we're south of the border, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:21.280 this is a type like arid open country spot and 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:25.520 stock hunting is something that I've devoted a great deal of, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.240 you know, time to figuring out and I kind of 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.240 like understand it now you know, and I'm able to 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.960 apply it to a handful of different kinds of animals wells. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.560 As you get going in your life, and I've found this, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.000 I'm sure you're the same. Your purity score, it's harder 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.640 and harder to score high. The more you hunt, the 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.800 more places you go, the more things you see, the 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.760 more experiences you have, it's harder to score high im purity. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:53.040 Give yourself a bigger um, you know, bigger room for error. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.360 Early on, you're like, man, it's cool just to see Mexico. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:57.400 Once you see in Mexico, once you see in this 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.640 country and you understand what it is and hunting kus 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:01.840 do you And maybe you're not so next time. The 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.360 pretty score is just just a little bit further. So 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.600 maybe next time, if you're looking to introduce a difficulty 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.200 you didn't have on this trip, you bring your bow 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.960 if you'd put me out here twenty years ago, No, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.200 I know exactly how I would have hunted it, and 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.960 I think that I would have been shocked and surprised 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.720 where I had to get any buck, Yeah, because we 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.040 would have come out and we'd just walked up and down, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.360 up and down, up and down, thinking you're gonna like 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.160 jump one up or that's just how we would have 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.720 hunted it back then, and so back then it had 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.920 I gotten one, I would have been like stunned, right, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:39.960 and we'd be like if like me and my brothers 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.800 had come down, we all want up getting the buck, 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.040 even just spikes and for keys, right, we'd be all 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.160 worked up. But yeah, just through kind of like learning 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.960 how to do this um over, you know, a long 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.520 period of time, you do kind of come into situations. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.040 You come into a lot of hunting situations feel a 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.040 little bit more cocky. Like I did a hunt this 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:09.120 year with our mutual friend Remy and I. I had 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.000 been applying for years for an elk tag on the 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.640 fog Nack Island. Um finally drew one, and just so 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.640 happens that a body of mine had drawn it and 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.120 been on the hun a couple of times before, so 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.280 he came with now because he went before, he just 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:30.680 knew like how it goes right, and he just knew 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.400 how to work it, and so going with him it 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.520 was an completely different experience what I expected because he knew. 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:37.840 He kind of told me like, here's where I think 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:41.520 will happen when we go, and that woind up happening. 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.680 And he was very much in the driver's seat on 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.160 that hunt because he was coming in with with with 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.160 the knowledge. Um, and that's the kind of stuff you 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.200 seek out, right, So you seek out people who know 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.600 what's going on, and that's like an important part of learning. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:56.840 But it just winds up being a different experience. Not 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:58.440 that I didn't have a great time on that hunt, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.640 but it was very different than if I just went 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.480 in cold rolled into it. I think one of the highest, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.200 like one of the highest purity score hunts I ever 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.760 did was I was probably and I was like my 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.080 I think it was in my first year graduate school 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.240 and my brother had gone down he was going to 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.840 graduate school in Auburn, Alabama, and he started messing around 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:27.600 out onto Skegee National Forest. So he had just moved 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.600 there and me, both my brothers and a buddy bars 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.119 all decided to go do a hunt in Tuskegee National Forest. 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.520 And we don't know anyone. I didn't have any kind 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.800 of network. This is like before stuff was widely available 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.000 on the web, Like you didn't go find information like 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.600 this on the web. And we just went down and 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:50.479 started hunting to Skegee. And we had, you know, a 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.080 week or so, and everybody got a buck. And I 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.520 got a buck on the last day that was so 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.080 small that when I school captin, I could put it 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.199 in my shirt pocket. That buck rack, that little spike 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.000 rack rode home with me in the shirt pocket of 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:12.680 my shirt front, the front shirt pocket. Oh my god, 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.120 that's how our school captain. I just left a little 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.600 narrow sliver of bone and had two like inch and 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.639 a half spikes. Not a button buck, but a small spike. 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.960 But dude, we'd like done it right. Everyone in the 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.119 world that goes I went. Everyone in the world, like 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.040 in the east, everyone once the dreams going the West. 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.040 We went from Montana to go hunt Alabama in the 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.520 National Forest. What Alabama? Because my brother gone down for 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.160 graduate school. I'd go in to Montana for graduate school. 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.720 He went to Alabama for graduate school, And so we 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.480 just went hunted Alabama and like figured it out on 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.120 a national forest. And I still count that as being 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.320 like one of the coolest sons ever went on. I 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.640 think that's true. I mean, the coolest sons ever went 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.040 on when I was growing up where those songs where 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.840 we just we had Green Ridge State Forest in Maryland, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.840 grew up and you just get a couple of buddies 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.679 to get your dad and your neighbor. You go up 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.280 there and you walk around. You shot a spike. That 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.359 was the best if you made it to a spot 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.320 where you could camp and camped out by the creek. 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.399 And when I was old enough, had a few beers. 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.119 That was just as well. But we had no that 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.480 we didn't wrap any kind of trophy measurements other than 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.879 the fact that we were together with people that we 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.720 cared about. That's all we ever did. And um, I 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.239 found that hunting became more complicated once I kind of 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:36.520 developed my own sensibilities and um and heard about everyone 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.639 else's sensibilities and what they wanted to do, and and 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:44.440 got into this business and and learned that I had 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.439 to figure out, you know, what my ideologies were and 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.840 what my ideas were about hunting because I can't just 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.920 walk around the woods of my dad and my neighbor anymore. 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.679 At first, the different perspectives on the outdoor world natural 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.760 world hunting, they come as this like day lose, right, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.760 and it's disorienting, and you might look at it and think, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.719 like you just see all kinds of things that seems 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.680 sort of ugly. But then when you realize that all 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:13.600 of those practices are coming from something that probably developed 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:18.240 very naturally, it was passed on patrilineally, and then lady, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:19.919 you try to dig through it and find out what 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.840 parts of the world at large are worth keeping and 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:25.960 what parts of the world at large you'd like to 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:32.280 see vanish, and uh, you know, it's it's like fun 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.200 to be able to it's fun to be able to 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:40.040 toy with all these ideas. Yeah. Well, with a much 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:46.560 more narrow um, a much more narrow understanding of the world. Yeah. Well, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.960 that that's what I think about when you take new 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.880 new hunters that are, you know, twenty years and older 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:54.920 in their adult stages of their life, I get a 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:56.679 lot of that. I'm sure you get the same a 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:01.239 lot of people. No, I think that new hunters you 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.680 struggle when you're you know, say you're twenty five or 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.399 thirty or thirty five or even older, and you seeing 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.600 hunting and social media or you experienced someplace in your 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.080 life and you want to pick it up. I think 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.920 it's tough. Social media makes it tougher because you see, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.640 you know, people that you either respect or admire doing 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.440 you know, the ultimate maybe it's a private ranch, L 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.439 Cohn or something like that. And you see those things, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.520 the films that we make in that hunting industry, in 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.960 the ways that we portray it, and you see those things, 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.959 you see the pinnacle of hunting represented in our media. 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:37.159 And I don't know that you get a sense that 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.600 you can just be like you were in Dusky, You're 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:41.080 like I might have been in Maryland. You can just 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:45.600 be someone who is exploring the natural world, learned about animals, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.040 and you just haven't to have a bow or a 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.800 rifle in your hand. I mean, I think that's something 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:51.560 you lose if you don't. If you don't pick up 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.320 hunting early on, and you're you you're introduced to it 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.320 through the modern media cycle. I think that's a struggle 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.880 something that we should think about. Means that it creates unrealistic, absolutely, 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.320 but it and it creates this ideologue that that you 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:08.600 have to do with a certain way. You have to 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:10.200 look a certain way and act a certain way, and 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.440 you have to the bigger the animal, the more successful 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.159 you might be. But when you were in Tuskegee and 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.320 when I was in green Rid State Forest, we never 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.720 thought twice. We never had the ability to think twice 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:24.639 or the perspective of the sensibility to think twice about 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:27.680 whether that four point or six point or ten point 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.320 was was success? It was? There was the other thing. 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.640 I'm allays interested in your relationship with your dad wanted 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.080 then your relationship with your brother as well. But brothers 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:41.280 dating Matt, I think that lays a strong base about 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:43.919 who you are as a hunter and what you're what 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:49.679 the rules are and and what your expectations are. Um, 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:52.760 talk about that. Talk about your dad, your first experience 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.320 hunting and just what it what it shaped in you. 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:05.000 Now that that's important. We uh, I was raising Western Michigan. Um, 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.800 my dad had been you know, my dad was born 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.760 in South side of Chicago. He's raised by his grandparents 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:22.320 who spoke Italian in the home. Um, he brought that radio, 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:24.639 so let this go on the podcast. This is I 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.760 believe Yanni be honest to tell us the lobby an eagle. Go, Yanni, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:36.800 you're on the podcast. Wow, Um, these boys got the rangers. 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:39.040 We're sitting here thinking about coming up towards you guys. 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.040 You guys still down with the plan of out in 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:45.760